Acid Bath – Paegan Terrorism Tactics
Nola Stoner Rock is the genre that pops up on my iTunes when Acid Bath comes up and I ain’t gonna argue. Mean, nasty, throaty, fuzzy, and heavy. “Paegan Love Song” runs through its riff with the intensity of a felon dashing from the law. Drums blitz me like bullets from the outlaw’s guns. Bass thunders like the getaway car’s motor. It’s impossible not to wrapped up in this song, slash the sleeves from my tee-shirt, go out and get tattooed and join the gang in nefarious pursuits. “Bleed Me an Ocean” is even heavier with a riff so covered in fuzz it sounds like it was gargled from the bowels of Hell. Vocalist Riggs screams with the torment of a thousand souls wailing in the shady abyss. Pain, torment, suffering, and massively distorted, sludgeified Sabbath riffs. Not new, but recently re-mastered and re-released. Well worth tracking down.
buy here: Paegan Terrorism Tactics
buy here mp3: Paegan Terrorism Tactics
Autistic Youth – Idle Minds
Coming from Dirtnap records, one of the best purveyors of punk out there today, we got this raging platter of pure hardcore aggression mixed with enough smoothness to make Leatherface proud. Think Adolescents here, then keep thinking of them as the bass blasts out in galloping runs, the guitars slice like cutting buzzsaws, and the singer manages to find melodies where no melodies should rightfully be. Pure, unadulterated punk and viciously cool because of it. The lead-off 2:26 of “Soldiers” just may be my favorite punk anthem of the year. Powering three-chord blitzkrieg with scattershot drums and hyperkinetic bass should keep the pit moshing with years to come. Flying elbows and fists, dislocating limbs and loosening teeth. Beautiful.
Buy here mp3: Idle Minds
Buy here vinyl: Autistic Youth - Idle Minds - LP
Black Spiders – Sons of the North
Tearing up the stage and magazines currently. Hailed by the high and mighty like Ozzy and Duff McKagan. Featured on a recently cover-mounted CD with Classic Rock. It’s all enough for The Ripple not to write about these guys. After all, we are the best music that you “haven’t “ heard. But truth be told, Black Spiders are too good not to appear in these pages. A while back, my brethren the Pope predicted that real rock and roll was destined to make a comeback blowing the over-produced schmaltz off the charts and heralding the return of gut-check rock and roll. Black Spiders are proof. With raw, BTO- Blue Oyster Cult riff mongering like “Stay Down” and “Just Like a Woman,” this is pure-retro 70’s mashed with hair metal ‘80’s rock madness. Special mention has to go to “Kiss Tried to Kill Me,” an unadulterated riff-fest about being chased cross the country and hunted down and murdered by Gene Simmons. With the chorus “Kiss tried to kill me/It was Gene not Paul/Kiss tried to kill me/It wasn’t Ace’s fault” this song is a can’t miss stab at the most memorable rock song of the year. Jump on the bandwagon now.
Buy here: Sons Of The North
Brutus – Demo 2008
Inseminated by Blue Cheer. Raised in the womb of Sabbath. Suckling at the teet of Grand Funk. That’s a pedigree that we can get behind here at the Ripple, and it’s a pedigree that sums up Scandinavian’s Brutus to a tee. To me, these retro-stoned rocks sound like a perfect incarnation of the bluesy 70’s approach of Stone Axe and the dreamier, fully-stoned psychedelia of Dead Man. Somehow, their original 2008 5-track demo found it’s way onto my hard drive and I could be happier than a pyromaniac in a candle factory. Huge retro riffs spun with fuzzed out perfection and bottom heavy grooviness. Apparently, the cats had gone on from here to release their first full-length CD and vinyl with Finnish Svart records and have a split 10” coming on Transbutans with Graviators. If this demo assortment is any indication, both are a must by for the retro-stoner minded.
Get demo for free here
--Racer