Hawkwind

Slomatics – Future Echo Returns Review

Slomatics – Future Echo Returns Review

“A blanket of smoke and incense billows from an attic-bedroom conversion as Electric Wizard makes a rare appearance from his occult abode to make a sandwich or to record an episode of Most Haunted. Conan sits in the garage and uses his sharp fingernails to shape mythical creatures out of wood, sporadically bellowing songs of war into the night, begrudgingly quieting down when his mother threatens to take away his copy of The Silmarillion. Slomatics is the younger brother of the two aforementioned doomsters. He spends his time gazing into the stars, reading Frank Herbert, Philip. K. Dick and H.G. Wells, and exploring the Moog that his father found for cheap at the car boot sale.” At home with the Slows.

Tombstoned – II Review

Tombstoned – II Review

“With a name like Tombstoned, you can probably gather that these boys love the sweet leaf and the doomy, sludgy sweet life of the ’70s. Warping back to a time once ruled by Black Sabbath and shared by Hawkwind, Tombstoned lather up in the buzzy, dynamic, heaviness of the former, while incorporating the psychedelics of the latter.” The rolling stoned gather no moss.

Voivod – Post Society EP Review

Voivod – Post Society EP Review

“Being old means you keep a lot of crap and not just what’s clogging your colon. I still have the issue of Unchain the Underground (as referenced in my last review) where I lambasted Voivod’s Angel Rat, an album that was like a poison-tipped arrow to my heart of steel at the tender age of 16.” The man has been lambasting since before some of you were eating.

The Meads of Asphodel/Tjolgtjar – Taste the Divine Wrath Review

The Meads of Asphodel/Tjolgtjar – Taste the Divine Wrath Review

“Split albums are hard to do well. It’s rare that the contributing bands are equally matched, and even rarer that the musical styles are complementary. The Meads of Asphodel are no stranger to the dodgy split.” Begs the question, is Tjolgtjar the yin to the Meads raging yang?

Plain Ride – Skeleton Kites Review

Plain Ride – Skeleton Kites Review

Plain Ride,’s latest album, Skeleton Kites, is billed as “a blues album created with a mindset of a West African proto-doom band, made in Finland.” If you’re wondering what the fuck that means, that makes two of us. More importantly, who is Plain Ride? Well, they’re a 5-piece band from Finland who have been around for about a decade. They’re led by vocalist/guitarist Janne Westerlund, who is apparently a big deal as a solo artist (never heard of him). Their website describes their style as “Folk, Country, Blues, hypno-psychedelic Krautrock.” In layman’s terms, that means that Plain Ride is either pretentious as fuck, or they have a very imaginative PR person.” I’m putting money on the latter.