The Blurbs
“Drop out of life with bong in hand.”
Has the opening lyric to a song and album ever been a more perfect union between music and mission statement than the preceding one which opens Sleep’s classic opus Dopesmoker?
I can’t say for sure, but I know you’d be hard pressed to top it.
Dopesmoker holds a hallowed place in metal history. Originally recorded in 1996 (and then plagued by label problems), this 2012 reissue brings it back to the forefront and allows a new generation of headbangers to get lost in its enormity and heaviness. If the stoner or doom metal subgenres ever tickled your fancy in the slightest, then you undoubtedly owe some level of respect and recognition to Sleep and Dopesmoker. Every metal band has consumed this album and most current stoner metal bands can directly attribute aspects of their sound back to it.
That Dopesmoker is one of the most influential classic metal records is inarguable. However, not every influential record stands the test of time when compared with those who have followed in its wake.
-Sam
Everyone wants to get in on the ground floor for hot young bands. Well, here’s your opportunity.
Brooklyn by way of New England band The World War I’s have released their debut full length album, The Bite and The Boogie, with help from a successful Kickstarter campaign – and infectious tunes.
A two man unit of sound – guitarist/singer Will Brown and drummer Sam Trioli – The World War I’s pound out the type of dirty, retro, and playfully rambunctious music that has been championed on the charts recently by the likes of another two man band – The Black Keys.
You’re gonna love your time spent listening to this cover. See what I did there? Just watch the video – you will.
-Sam
In the long term, is all this sudden attention that Gotye is getting over one song going to help or hinder his career? Nothing else I’ve heard from him impresses me all that much, but I’m loving all these great “Somebody That I Used to Know” cover songs. This one comes courtesy of Coheed and Cambria:
-Sam
If all the recent disheartening news about Black Sabbath has got you down, I’ve got just the album for you to check out. Released in the UK back in 2010, Electric Wizard’s Black Masses hit stateside last year, and it immediately joined the cast of bands like Black Pyramid that are making a name for themselves by taking the handoff and running with Sabbath’s baton. I won’t claim to be a lifelong Electric Wizard fan or even pretend to be familiar with the rest of their back catalog (I was surprised to learn that they’ve been around since 1993), but I can speak for Black Masses. (And besides, this is a band that has more former members than it does current ones. Only one of the current members is an original, and two of them just joined within the last year.)
In any case, Black Masses is a throwback to early heavy metal, particularly of the stoner/doom variety. I mean, one look at the album artwork should have made this abundantly clear to everyone. Is there any way a band that calls itself Electric Wizard (might as well be an amalgamation of “The Wizard” and “Electric Funeral”) and uses that stereotypical 1970s smoky, wavy font could sound like anything but retro-Sabbath? The answer is no, my friends.
I’ve featured Meg Myers in a Free Stuff You’ll Love segment before. But this time it’s even better, because this talented young singer is giving away her new EP, Daughter in the Choir, for free. You can download it at her site or stream it here below:
And after the jump, check out a short segment she did with Carson Daly:
Tons of good cameos in here. Though this retrospective could turn out to be bittersweet, if the recent rumors that Andy Samberg (along with Kristen Wiig and Jason Sudeikis) may leave the show after this season turn out to be true. That could mean an end for the digital shorts which have reliably been some of the funniest content on SNL in recent years.
-Sam
Last night was my third time going to see my favorite band, Mastodon, in concert. They’re currently “co-headlining” the Heritage Hunter Tour along with Swedish melo-deathers Opeth. That term “co-headlining” is a bit misleading though. While the bands flip-flip closing the show out on a nightly basis, it’s clear that Mastodon dominates the bill. I don’t have anything against Opeth, but I’m not intrigued by their music enough to stick around just for them, and judging by the other approximately 25% of the crowd that streamed out of The Fillmore in Silver Spring, MD along with me after Mastodon wrapped up, I’m not the only one who feels that way. It probably sucks for Opeth to see that mass exodus right before they come on on the nights they close the show, but hey, whaddaya gonna do? At first, I was upset that Mastodon wasn’t closing this show, but it turns out they still got to play a full-length set (for the most part, more on that in a minute), and it was actually kind of nice to be on the road heading home from a concert before 10 PM – I guess I’m getting lame in my old age.
Maurice Sendak, author of Where the Wild Things Are, (a personal childhood favorite of mine) died today. I think that book held deeper truths than my young brain could fully comprehend at the time I read it (or my parents read it to me), but having more closely reexamined that story through Dave Eggers 2009 adaptation The Wild Things and the Spike Jonze film on which that book was based, I’ve come to see just how true to life that story was and is.
I loved how the trailers for the film used Arcade Fire’s track “Wake Up” as its driving force. That song is so powerful and speaks to the challenge we all face when trying to hold on to some of our youthful innocence and indiscretions as we grow older and inevitably become more calloused. It’s the perfect song to listen to as you take a couple of minutes to remember Mr. Sendak.
-Sam
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