FUZZ - II

"Fuzz, the aptly named 'side project' Segall formed in 2011 with high school friends Charlie Moothart and Chad Ubovich, is not the product of a short attention span. The band's self-titled 2013 debut found them playing the role of music historians as much as musicians, calling forth the ghosts of metal past and trying their flowing robes on for size. Sabbath is the most glaring reference point, but the boys also did their homework on Hendrix, King Crimson, and deeper cuts like The Groundhogs. Basically, if it was British and heavy as hell, it found its way into Fuzz's collective conscious.

The fact that Segall plays drums instead of a beat-up Fender is already enough to distinguish Fuzz from his other work, but zeroing in on proto-metal has led to some of the most thoughtful (though still undeniably visceral) music of his prolific career. The second album from the California-bred group is meatier than its predecessor in every conceivable way, starting with the guitars, which have been pushed forward to the front of the mix in such a way that nearly relegates Segall's shrieking vocals to the role of wallpaper. Riffs are ultimately the fuel that powers the record's engine, a six-cylinder relic from the 1960s, and guitarist Moothart reigns as the MVP in spite of his drummer's more considerable star power." - Consequence of Sound

VA - Warfaring Strangers: Darkscorch Canticles

Practice your binder-scrawl penmanship, work on that twelve-sided dice roll, and grab a seat at the roundtable, because Numero Group has reanimated sixteen tracks of '70s occult American hard rock one-hitters for heathen ears only.

"The sixteen bands featured on Warfaring Strangers are a varied lot, the only thing really tying them together being their penchant for Satanism and the fantastical mysticism found in a Frank Frazetta poster. Some of these bands probably deserve to remain in the shadowed obscurity of Hades, but it's still a lot of fun to listen to. North Carolina's Arrogance offer up a slab of heavy blues with 'Black Death,' but the title is the only thing to fear here...Perhaps one of the more interesting tracks comes from Canton, Ohio's Wrath, although it's less for the music as it is the directness of the lyrics and the fact that guitarist Ralph Minocchi’s wife had to deliver them due to drummer-vocalist Rick Page suffering from laryngitis. It's the stories behind the songs—which are illustrated in the album's liner notes—that make this batch of misfits all the more likable. Most of the bands on Warfaring Strangers lasted barely a year. Hell, the noteworthy black hard-rock band Hellstorm lasted only one show. At the core of it all is the youthful unrest of small-town life and the liberating power—even if it's fleeting—of rock and roll. That's as timeless as it gets." - Paste

DARK - Dark Round The Edges

Proto-metal, psych-prog, private-press: if any of these plosive descriptors lead your pleasure center to light up in anticipation, then pay attention to upstart label Machu Piccu's second reissue, an English group whose lone album was originally issued in 1972 in a run of only 50-odd copies (but could have just as easily come out via the esteemed likes of Vertigo)!

"Axeman Martin Weaver from Wicked Lady joined up with the Dark right before this was recorded, so that’s his fuzz you’re hearing, which should give you some indication of what this sounds like. A more sophisticated, proggier Wicked Lady perhaps, a Wicked Lady with more in the way of 'songs' rather than freakout jams, though this gets bluesy/jammy at times too." - Roadburn

"To be sure, other groups may have taken the formulas further or assembled a heavier, freer slab of psychedelic boogie, but concision and melody count for a lot in the lysergic world that Dark inhabited. Although Dark disbanded soon after the LP was published, cultish interest inspired a brief and well-received reunion in 1996. More than four decades after their lone LP was waxed, Dark Round the Edges deserves to be visited anew." - Tiny Mix Tapes

CONVERGE - All We Love We Leave Behind

As I began writing this review of Converge's typically phenomenal new LP (their eighth in a very consistent 20-plus-year career), I suddenly realized that I was starting it off with the exact same quote I used when discussing 2009's Axe To Fall on this site (you can read that here). Aside from being a little embarrassing and funny, it made me wonder what it was about the Boston group's abilities that made age so much more than a number.

For sure, hardcore has always been more a young person's game. There's a certain kinship one feels in their teens with screaming and playing as fast as possible. It's as natural as seeing nothing wrong with a bag of Doritos as supper. But as you gets older, even if you still feel the desire to continue raking your vocal chords over the hot coals of angst and to fly through measures of music like a cheetah, you've gotta get serious. You need to treat your throat right and learn to scream properly night after night. You need to be in shape, or at least athletic enough to pound through 168 bpm for one hour without passing out. But even more than the physical toll, let's just call a spade a spade: you've gotta find a way to own with dignity what can essentially amount to carrying on like a petulant kid as your career.

Because hardcore doesn't really check itself or take a breath. That's why it works—it's self-righteous, brash, and unyielding. To match the fresh, inspired, but naive 20-year-olds of the genre with nothing to lose, you need to get savvy and build variety, reflection, and poignancy into your music. So that it's not only feasible to step up on yet another stage twenty years later and freak the hell out; it's easy because you know you've done something with those decades to make your music the best of its kind.

That's exactly what Converge do, and All We Love We Leave Behind is just further proof of it. In terms of breathtaking displays of pure speed and dexterity, it's all there—the opening salvo flies by and songs like "Sparrow's Fall" show the incredible force they can cram into a minute and a half. And thanks to both their physical abilities and the engineering cunning of guitarist Kurt Ballou (who as the band's resident producer has rightly made a name for himself as one of the best brains behind a soundboard in hardcore and metal), there are few bands who punch harder on record.

But above all, Converge write music with an intelligence and lyrical vulnerability that means their songs retain immense value even after the initial concussion wears off. Bannon may yell his face off, but when he shifts his voice down into his more natural register (more a call than a scream), he remains one of hardcore's most compelling voices. In this way, he really delivers on hardcore's initial promise—as much as this music is about scaring the hell out of people, it's also about camaraderie.

There will certainly come a day when these four guys can't play like this anymore. But even when it comes, be sure they could still make some phenomenal music. Through tracks like this record's "Coral Blue" (as well as past slow burners "Black Heart Grim Rose," "Cruel Bloom" or "In Her Shadow"), Converge already take the time to shine a way forward for themselves. But when you're this capable of blowing away bands half your age, why would anyone be in a hurry to throw in the towel? Still a nearly unmatched band in their field...or any other, really.

BLACK MOUNTAIN - Wilderness Heart

I still remember first hearing about Stephen McBean's early project, the oddball indie outfit Jerk With A Bomb, from a friend. It's some decent stuff, but in no way did it hint on the grand scope of music this man had the potential to unleash on the world in the coming decade. Since then, between Black Mountain and his always evolving "solo" project, Pink Mountaintops, McBean has taken on Spector pop ballads, minimal electro bedroom excursions and hairy psych freakouts, and mastered them all. But there's no question that it's the Sabbath-meets-"Low Rider" stoner cool of Black Mountain breakthroughs like "Druganaut" and "Don't Run Our Hearts Around" that are his greatest claim to fame. 

Black Mountain's second LP, In The Future, sought to push this style to the edge of its possible envelope—the result being an eight-minute single, "Tyrants", and the seventeen-minute "Bright Lights" (notable if only for the endless repetition of "Light Bright/Light Bright..." that no doubt had scores of high thirty-year-olds scouring their mom's closet in the vain hope of finding the namesake toy left over from their youth). It was a solid effort, but as an album it kind of lost itself in places.

Well, the band has definitely found itself again on Wilderness Heart, a pure distillation of all the things that make McBean's projects great—it swoons, it spaces out, and it rocks like a hurricane—and all within the confines of a far more succinct LP. "Old Fangs" and "Let Spirits Ride" (the latter containing a riff that actually sounds a lot like a sped-up take on Van Halen's "House of Pain"—just saying...) are head-banging bursts of hirsute fun. In other places, tracks like "Radiant Hearts" and "Rollercoaster" offer beautiful pedestals for the perfect pairing of McBean and Amber Webber's vocals. And all across the album, the band sounds capital 'A' amazing: locked and loaded with even more room than before for Jeremy Schmidt's killer synth and organ lines.

As with any album that seeks to truncate a band's sound, what it gains in brevity, it loses a little in blissed-out patience. And so Wilderness Heart has no slow-building stunner on par with their debut's "No Hits" or "Set Us Free". But it's a welcome shift all the same that the band wears well. Besides, with a career as varied as McBean's, there little doubt he'll find himself back in that trippy, kraut-y territory again soon enough.

QUEST FOR FIRE - Lights From Paradise

Everything sounds better when you're stoned. It's a fact upon which far too many so-called stoner rock bands have lazily rested, whether they actually partook of the magic weed or not. Hey, when the central tenets of your style are lead-limbed repetition, fuzzed-out tones, and blurry vocalization, how much impetus would you have to break bold new ground?

So what makes Toronto's Quest For Fire more than just another pack of rockers slouching their way onto an already crowded wave? While it may not have been virgin territory, QFF's debut smartly balanced stoner rock’s need for bluesy lethargy with a sound that made the most of the band members' pedigree (one that covered everything from bar rockers The Deadly Snakes to the hardcore blitzkrieg of Cursed)—in other words, underneath the haze were well-written songs full of wounded heart, human tales and well-nuanced aggression. It was heavy for sure, but it was a lot more than that: it had real soul.

Lights From Paradise builds wisely on this formula with a similarly strong record that increases in meaning with each listen. Chad Ross’ half-awake croon in particular nails the group’s appeal, managing to sound casual, desperate, wise, and menacing, all in equal measure. And his subject matter benefits greatly from being rooted in the personal, rather than in realms of fantasy. Sure, sometimes smoking with dragons while bedding mysterious demon women is cool, but it’s nice to know that this kind of stuff can be used to explore themes not already covered by Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. So while fans of all manner of stoner rock—from Boris and Dead Meadow to even heavier fare like High On Fire—will find lots to like here, so will those who crave a little more meaning from their music. Stoned or not, this record sounds amazing.

THE SWORD - Warp Riders

As someone who enjoyed a fair bit of metal as a teenager, the current so-called "hipster metal" trend has been both vindicating and a little strange. While it's amazing to have so many embrace the pleasures of bands like Mastodon, Baroness and High On Fire, it's not as though these bands are really doing anything all that different from the bands that preceded them. But if you can get beyond the "cart before the horse"-ness of having these bands on one's iPod and no Judas Priest or Iron Maiden, then it still adds up to metal being taken seriously—respect a whole host of these bands deserve.

Austin, Texas' The Sword are just such a current band, combining the modern evolution of stoner rock with a sound that pulls from all the best mid-tempo moments of Ozzy and Metallica. There's witches and weed and a loose concept about a man on a temporal dimension journey of some kind, but you don't really need to worry yourself about that. It's all just fantastical set-dressing for what The Sword do best: rock the hell out. This band is tight, fierce, and nicely melodic when it needs to be. But maybe its best attribute is the one thing that seems a little plain at first—its singer. J.D. Cronise's voice isn't much to look at until you realize what a nice change it is to hear a modern metal band with a guy who doesn't scream his way through every second line.

Mastodon's last album, the super-sick Crack The Skye, picked up on this virtue to great effect, and it's nice to say that The Sword have been way ahead of the curve on this one. The dude just sings in a laidback Texan drawl, suggesting that ZZ Top have as much of a role to play in their sound as Sabbath, Slayer, or Pantera. Aside from that small touch, The Sword play it straight and classic, and why not? It's metal, it's got an awesome van-worthy album cover, and it rocks. Public tastes may change, but this type of music has always worked for the same simple reasons.

VA - Local Customs: Lone Star Lowlands

Venerated excavating reissue label the Numero Group rarely do rock (their power-pop sets notwithstanding), so it comes as an even bigger surprise that they would devote a 'numero' (034, to be precise) to demos from an obscure recording studio in Beaumont, Texas, two hours from Houston. 

Known for producing the Winter brothers, Barbara Lynn, and a lot of oil, Beaumont, from the sounds of this collection, had quite a lively and diverse scene. Local bands with their eyes on the big-time demoed material at the Lowland studios during the classic-rock era. Numero, in typical fashion, listened to every single tape in the studio’s archive, and after two years they assembled this impressive set of could-have-beens.

Of course, there's some southern blues-rock here, thanks to bands like Circus and their fitting-to-form cowbell. Most interestingly, though, the best material here avoids clichés. Insight Out are unmistakably country-tinged rock, and “It Makes You Feel So Bad” is a paean to friendship à la The Band’s “The Weight”, while Morning Sun do good takes on CSN (“Where’s Love Gone Today” features hilariously out-of-time cowbell) and Emitt Rhodes bubblegum (“Let’s Take A Walk In The Woods”). Meanwhile, “Dream Away” by Hope could have been in Neil Young’s ear just before penning his “Harvest Moon”. 

And who knew that Texas had a pub rock scene? The Next Exit go all Dr. Feelgood and proto-Television on “Take A Look At Your Friends.” Linda Crowe gives an unexpectedly fast piano-led waltz, channeling Dionne Warwick more than Janis Joplin, on “I Still Remember”, and the delightfully-named Sassy will break your heart with his Bobby Charles-esque “She’s My Daughter.”

On it goes over twenty-two tracks (twenty-eight if you fetch the double vinyl!); Lone Star Lowlands will easily sit among the top rock comps released this year.  

BARONESS - Blue Record

While they're not quite The Doors, the many purveyors of vintage-era Southern rock (i.e. Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Allmans) have not exactly slid easily into the enduring annals of 'what's cool.' Numbing decades of shouted concert requests for "Freebird" (both ironic and non-) and a permanent station on that most unchanging of radio formats known as 'classic rock' will do that for you. Which is all a shame, because those are some great records. This is what makes a band like Baroness so exciting. Like fellow Georgians Mastodon, these are gentlemen who instantly understand the significance of the General Lee. More importantly, they know how to take the legendary multi- guitar attack of Southern rock and transform it to their own needs in a way that is equal parts reverent and progressive.

Their first full-length, the much-praised Red Album, established Baroness as a keen amalgamation of many other influences—the new wave of British Heavy Metal, hardcore, ambient drone, post-rock—but Blue Record's mood is a little different. While hardly uniform in tone or style, this album is just a little more, well, Southern. It's in the ways that the guitars harmonize, the way that the record grooves more than pummels. For all of its testosterone power, though, the Blue Record is quite relaxed, an ease that's at certain times more obviously displayed than at others. "Sleep That Steels The Eye" is like The Moody Blues meeting Alice In Chains' Sap EP, and several instrumental interludes provide tender sinews with which to stitch together the album's more muscular moments. But when they do hit with their maximum wallop, there's just enough attention to arrangement and dynamics to keep the record a warm one overall, rather than one that just blows hot and then cold. It's a small detail to be sure, but it makes all the difference.

CONVERGE - Axe To Fall

Back in 2006, when art-metal combo Isis had just released their fourth full-length, In The Absence Of Truth, Magnet columnist Andrew Earles chastised vocalist Aaron Turner, asking: "And what’s up with men in their 30s bellowing like 18-year-old hardcore kids? Screaming is one thing; barking like you’re in a ’90s power-violence band is everything this side of silly." The four men in Boston hardcore/metal band Converge are most certainly over 30—nearly 20 years into their career—and vocalist Jacob Bannon is a screamer, no doubt. And lets face it, for a lot of listeners, that's still a turn-off—I know, because I used to be one of them. So, why scream? Is it merely a trapping of a hardcore youth that some bands can't shake? Or can a group of guys in their mid-30s find a legit artistic reason to put their throat through the meat-grinder for another round?

Whether or not it's because 30 is the new 20, Axe To Fall answers this query with an unwaveringly confident "Yes." Like much of Converge's output, this record is quick out of the gate and Bannon wastes no time in unleashing his howl. Even compared to other screamers, Bannon possesses an unholy voice, but what really makes him successful is an uncanny sense of rhythmic placement and timing. That's no small asset here, because the other 3/4 of Converge are tighter than a marine's bootlaces, whilst as unpredictable as chaos itself. Openers "Dark Horse" and "Reap What You Sow" shred at times like vintage Kill 'Em All thrash, while "Damages" hulks and lumbers like an unchained sauropod. In short, this band is truly a force. And ultimately, what excuses the indulgences of torn vocal cords and journal-worthy angst is the fact that Converge are not tethered unwillingly to either. After unleashing a sustained half-hour of the adrenaline rush that hoodie-wearing teens so desperately crave, Axe To Fall closes with a pair of tracks that have more in common with Tom Waits and Fugazi respectively than any hardcore act out there. It would be a bold move if it wasn't one that they've already pulled off in various forms many times before—age and experience have given Converge the guts to be both exactly what their fans love and what they don't yet know that they need.

THEM CROOKED VULTURES - S/T

Two questions: 1. Why do so many rock supergroups suck?

Honestly. After all, from short-lived moments in time like The Quintet at Massey Hall to modern-age combos like John Zorn's Masada, nearly every second great jazz band is a "supergroup" of some kind—a union of highly respected and talented stars thrown together into a band because, well, it seems like a good idea. But jazz is a style of music wherein its best players uniformly require the ability to truly listen to each other and collaborate to be successful. You could argue that in rock n' roll, some of the biggest stars succeed because of an entirely opposite trait—that being a rampaging ego that trumps all others in the room. Take three or four of those personalities and shove them in a room, and the end result is sadly inevitable.

2. Why do Them Crooked Vultures not suck?

The short answer? As much as all the parties involved would balk at the suggestion, this is really just another Queens Of The Stone Age album. It's guitarist/singer Josh Homme's ship to sail or wreck, but that's okay, because the man has made his name on collaboration. And as usual, he has chosen well. Nearly every QOTSA album relies on a heavily rotating lineup of guest musicians orbiting around Homme, and that's not even getting into his highly eclectic Desert Sessions albums. In this case, the unit is tight and perfectly well-balanced. Grohl is hardly a new face, of course, being the man behind the skins on QOTSA's most punishing and satisfying album to date, 2002's Songs For The Deaf—in short, Homme and Grohl have already proved that they click.

That makes some dude named John Paul Jones the only real wild card, and it does take some time to pick up how he fits in here. At first listen, TCV is all Homme and Grohl's show, and they are absolutely locked; it's a visceral thrill to hear these two in a studio again. But Jones was always the least conspicuous member of Led Zeppelin—surrounded by three of rock's most outsized personalities of all time, he understood his role perfectly. And so it is here. Jones' playing is not only the ideal foil to Homme's fiery axework, it's also an understanding companion to his often gentle singing voice.

Them Crooked Vultures have caught a little flak for being unoriginal/sounding too much like QOTSA/underusing Jones, etc. Forget that. These are simply three extremely talented men who enjoy playing hard rock together. And they definitely don't suck at doing it.

LULLABYE ARKESTRA - Threats/Worship

With their signing to VICE guaranteeing increased exposure of this awesomely married bass and drums duo, a certain Death From Above has been mentioned more than a few times in press relating to the Lullabyes. But if these two remind me of anyone wielding four strings and some cylinders in the name of rock, it's now-defunct, deliciously ridiculous Fargo, ND BMX-noise freaks godheadSilo. While DFA1979 were basically locked-in heavy dance rock (effectively foreshadowing Jesse Keller's future in MSTRKRFT), GHS played rock as though they were in the midst of a grand mal seizure. Lullabye Arkestra share this kind of reckless nature, and much of it starts with the drumming of Justin Small—although much improved, Justin is still a loose drummer, inspired to follow tempo in the most primal of ways, resulting in music that stalks with seasick determination, like the Terminator if he was drunk.

Over top of this shifty structure is then laid slab after slab of molten bass riffage. Kat Taylor-Small is viciously skilled on her instrument, and the combined effect is relentlessly fun and thrilling—kind of like godheadSilo. But the ace up Lullabye's sleeve is the fact that these two are married, which, rather than being some coy novelty, is maybe the most compelling thing about them. That's because Justin and Kat play music and sing like they're falling in love, over and over again, in the most carnal, violent, and honest ways possible. They're the coolest rock couple since Jon Spencer and Christina Martinez, and us Torontonians are damn lucky to call them our own.

SUNN 0))) - Monoliths & Dimensions

Bringing the black into the white, the heavy into the light, the masculine into the feminine and their sludgy doom-drone into the airy environs of brass, choral and string arrangements, Monoliths' four sidelong pieces (the perfect length for a forthcoming 2LP edition, release date TBA) offer the most balanced perspectives yet on Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley's ever-expanding soundworld. Also, since it's an increasingly important factor these days when deciding what to physically own and what to simply download, it must be noted that Sunn 0))) have really outdone themselves with this disc's vellum-veiled packaging and cyanotype-and-Serra art direction; besides, without the lyric sheet, how can you expect to follow along with the front-and-center guttural philosophizing of frequent guest vocalist Attila Csihar?

ISIS - Wavering Radiant

With 2006's In The Absence Of Truth, this onetime Boston, now L.A. quintet beautifully blurred the lines that separate the genres they pulled from--metal, post-rock, doom, grindcore, you name it--but it came at a cost. As high as that album's peaks were, there were definite lows as well, moments where the band's increasingly glossy sound, gentler tendencies and meandering writing deadened the visceral thrills that made 2002's Oceanic such an achievement. Wavering Radiant, however, finds the band solidifying the case for their new direction with an effort that bests ITAOT in every way: think Disintegration-era Cure making an art-metal album and you get the picture. This album trades in their initial approach of repeated riffs and quiet-LOUD dynamics for what is easily the most nuanced and varied writing of their career--in other words, they're taking a similar path to that of Mogwai, except that where the Scots' last two albums have sadly revealed the weaknesses in their writing, Isis have truly found another gear to shift to here. Early fans and metal diehards who contend that the band is just going soft won't have their minds changed, but the brilliant performances and well-honed communication on Wavering Radiant will make the group plenty of new friends, even without their narrow-minded endorsement.

MASTODON - Crack The Skye

Much has been made of this disc's two 10-minute-plus tunes, mid-paced tempos, and abundant singing. But for those paying attention to Mastodon's career, Crack The Skye isn't nearly the departure it might seem on paper. 2004's breakout Leviathan featured the 13-minute "Hearts Alive", a tune that would fit here like a glove, while 2006's Blood Mountain's big single was the chugging "Colony Of Birchman", a nearly-classic-rock jam with Queens Of The Stone Age singer Josh Homme. And as for Skye's grandiose wanderings, even at their most punishing the band has always distinguished themselves by their inability to play it straight, most notably with Brann Dailor's relentlessly evolving drumming. Bottom line: this is still most definitely a Mastodon album, and a really good one at that--it just takes a few more listens to understand how they're phrasing things this time around.

CURSED - III: Architects Of Troubled Sleep

Intro-ed with ominous soundbites that take the listener twenty years back to the days of Ministry and Public Enemy albums that actually struck fear and excitement in many a youth using similiar strategies, Cursed forces backs up against the wall like few others in metal-aligned hardcore. Any fans of Converge's crisply redlined recording style (accomplished in its own right on III by a team of engineers, mixers and masterers including Paul Aucoin, Donny Cooper, Dave Mackinnon and Alan Douches) and ability to switch gears from punk to sludge tempos with ease who haven't yet heard Cursed, get familiar.

EARTH - The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull

Finally fully morphed into a lumbering psych-twang beast, Earth step further sideways from their disciples (and label boss) in Sunn O))), continuing in the direction initiated on their previous Hex full-length. With an even bigger sound than before that bluesily lopes along like an instrumental Rex or Brightblack Morning Light without the Rhodes and woozy vox, your head is less likely to bang as much as bob along to the widescreen organ-and-pedal punctuations that slowly slam into Dylan Carlson's Telecaster in Bees' best moments. Featuring a cameo from Bill Frisell, even (not that odd a coupling, actually).

THE MARS VOLTA - Bedlam In Goliath

Basking in the glow of absolutely rapt devotion, The Mars Volta are as divisive a band as you can find. Brandishing an ambition that lunges for all it can cram into its rampaging maw, the title Bedlam In Goliath could easily refer to the band itself. So, is it enjoyable to listen to? The band's Santana on steroids manifesto ain't for everyone, but The Mars Volta still make an adrenalized noise unlike anyone on the planet. Unfortunately, Cedric Bixler Zavala's already sky-scraping vocals are seemingly never without a pitch-shifting effect, making too much of the record sound like a duet with the Chipmunks. AL-VIN!

OM - Pilgrimage

While their ex-bandmate Matt Pike chose a road toward destruction and mayhem, the rhythm section of stoner rock trio Sleep--bassist Al Cisneros and drummer Chris Haikus--sought a path of enlightenment. Or least a place to smoke more dope in peace. Whatever the case, their duo Om has taken a concept that felt a little thin on paper--the bass-and-drum duo--and actually found ways to grow within its limited palette. Pilgrimage finds the band playing with more comfort and fluidity than ever. A 'metal' band that gets 'heavy' by forsaking volume for presence and patience is a beautiful thing indeed.

HIGH ON FIRE - Death Is This Communion

Matt Pike is pretty much a latter-day stoner rock legend; his seminal band Sleep's Jerusalem is a hallowed, single 52-minute monolith of sludgy riffage. But his work in High On Fire has consistently been more and more aggressive with each new release, trading the molasses haze of dope for an athletic adrenaline. Death Is This Communion is yet another example of his exceptional skill at wrenching primal ferocity from the guitar, and his vicious bandmates never miss a chance to help him pummel a point home. Er, and by that I mean, it tears the flesh clean off your bones. You dig Mastodon? You'll love this.