Xibalba - Hasta La Muerte (2012)

 

Xibalba is the name of the ancient Mayan underworld that loosely translate to "place of fear." This is some heavy shit right here. In a nutshell, to me, a sludgy, doomy version of Pantera.

ROCKERS TAKE NOTE!

Scorpions - Fly To The Rainbow (1974)

 

Ok, forget "Winds of Change." Forget "Rock You Like A Hurricane." This is before all that bubblegum nonsense. This is when they were just young fearless European kinder. Long-winded prog rock suites into rock riffdom.

GUT

Circle - Katapult (2007)

 

Circle is usually hard to pin down. Every album these fine Fins produce finds the lads exploring some new, exciting sounds that pre-existed only in their heads at one time. What gets me is that when I first heard this record I thought it was some long lost proto-metal soundtrack-esque gem. 

CHECK 

Loincloth - Demo (2003)

This is what's blowing my mind these days. Loincloth is a uber-heavy mathy prog instrumental monolithic sludgefest. I know alot of those adjectives can scare and/or bore people instantly but what sets these dudes apart from the grade is they've somehow taken all the best elements of these genres and made something amazing. So, in honor of their recent signing and LP release with Southern Lord, here's their first recorded demo from 2003. 

METAL LIVES AND IT'S LOOKING PRETTY DAMN HEALTHY TO ME!

Sandrider (2011)

I'm not in the business of breaking new bands but here's a modern group I just heard about on my most recent trip to Seattle. It had some of the dudes from Akimbo in it and it is some rocking shit. Fans of Big Business take note.

RIDE!

Yob - Atma (2011)

I normally don't heed to any metal recommendations by Pitchfork and I normally don't  post new albums but this is badasssssss!

CHECK!

Dwarr - Animals (1986)

Duane Warr really lets it all hang out on this one. This one man band from South Carolina brings the doom and gloom like Black Sabbath coming down off a bad acid trip. Really weird, really rocking and a really rare gem that needs to be placed firmly in the glorious crown of heavy metal history. Animals, his second LP, is currently being reissued by our good friends over at Drag City and YES! they are keeping that original artwork entact.

LINK REMOVED

nomeansno - Wrong (1989)

Talk about nostalgia. 1991, I was a freshman in high school. Some wayward skater kid who liked playing guitar and The Misfits. Learning how to smoke shitty cigarettes my friend would steal from his old man. Then I met this dude, lets call him......Clarence. Clarence was one of the cool kids who played drums in a local punk band. One of those kids who had a badass leather jacket, doc martins, odd hair, piercings and happened to live in my neighborhood. We could go over to Clarences house and smoke weed and cigarettes and what not in peace because his parents were "cool." One day Clarence puts this record on and, I still remember this moment, this beast of a bass guitar sound just slaps my face. Clarence is air-guitaring and drumming away, banging his head around. I'm there probably making a ugly face melting face and grinding my teeth in rock-inspired awe. The first song ends. I ask "Who is this?" He says nothing and throws the record cover at me while the second song starts.

This is definitely one of those records that made me want to seriously play music. Even to this day this album is amazing. Many consider this to be nomeansno's best. I am one of them.


Let us rock!