The Bailey Hounds - Along the Gallows

I have a soft side, too. Catch me at the right time and I might even have a tear building up in one eye. I'm not just about those huge fuzzy riffs or deafening bass and drums. Sometimes I just wanna relax and forget about all my troubles - to drift away quietly and comfortably while acoustic guitars and a soothing voice tell me everything's gonna be okay. Don't you?

Lately when I want that part of my brain tickled, I've been reaching for Along the Gallows, the debut full-length album by The Bailey Hounds. Uh-huh. I like this one a lot. Ironically, I discovered this band via Pantera's Phil Anselmo, who shared a video of them playing an extremely unique cover of "The Great Southern Trendkill". Now I have another reason to thank Anselmo and I'm including the video here, along with an acoustic version of the title track from the album.

Philly's The Bailey Hounds have been called indie-folk or even alt-country, but I prefer 'cemetery blues', like the band members say. I think that describes them, and Along the Gallows, much better.

From their press kit: "The Bailey Hounds are an open grave in autumn or a dilapidated cabin in the dead of winter. Old sounds of Americana peak through their often melancholy & sometimes raucous collection of tunes stirring up images of withered cemeteries, lost love, and the devil Himself. The Bailey Hounds fall somewhere in the musical realm of Gothic Americana, playing folk & blues-inspired songs with lyrics of a melancholy and often macabre nature."

Ryan Pedrillo (vocals, guitar) is an accomplished songwriter/lyricist and has one of the most calming and reassuring voices I've ever heard. I say that even though I don't usually put a huge focus on vocals. Every once in a great while, though, a voice will touch me like no other and I'll be sure to let you know, just like I'm doing now. Ladies, you might even start to cream your jeans when you first hear this guy, so prepare yourselves.

"Along the Gallows is an album we've been waiting to make and release for a while," Pedrillo told me. "We worked on these songs and reworked them and explored opportunities in the studio and ended up with what we feel is a cohesive work, representative of the styles of music we enjoy writing and listening to. Americana is woven throughout, and there's some dirt and grit rubbed in there, too. Circus freaks and gravediggers. Ghosts of the Civil War and Satan. A few headstones pokin' through the grass here and there. Yeah, we're pleased it's finally out, and we've started working on our next batch of songs."

I'm happy it's out, too, and I can't wait for more. Honestly, I could tell I was gonna love their music when I first heard The Bailey Hounds play that Pantera cover. Along the Gallows might the only Americana-infused album on my portable music player, but that's okay with me. It's fulfilling enough.

Harmonica and a delicate drum beat greet me instantly on "Those Devils Don't Scare Me", a wonderful opening track, but like a lot of albums, one of my favorites ends up being the last song. "Devil Tree" is touching and sweet-sounding musically and gets kinda psychedelic near the end, but I think the lyrics are definitely some of the darkest on the album. I wanna climb that tree.

"Devil Tree was originally going to be a straightforward acoustic track, contrasting the Satanic imagery of the lyrics with a soft, melodious tone," Pedrillo said. "I think I had Lars von Trier's Antichrist in my head while writing this...along with 15 years of listening to Pantera, White Zombie, and Danzig, I suppose. Anyway, we started playing it as a band in the basement and it just progressed and developed into its own beast. Lyrically, there's a lot of personal stuff going on, but on the surface, you know, there's some Alighieri in there...with some Anton LaVey too, of course."

There isn't one song out of the 11 on Along the Gallows that I even think about skipping over, but a couple other standouts to me are "Malleus Maleficarum" and "Gold & Bones". I don't know exactly why, but these two touch me so deeply on an emotional level that I do end up wiping away a few tears, and I'm not bashful about admitting it. I 'm too lazy to look it up for myself, so I have to ask what the first one means.

"Malleus Maleficarum literally translates into "The Witches' Hammer", The Bailey Hounds frontman said. "The 'Malleus Maleficarum' was essentially a witch hunter's manual created by two inquisitors in the 15th century and was used for prosecution, persecution, and determining whether or not someone was, in fact, meddling in the dark arts. This is one of the earlier songs written for the album, but I recall giving it that title almost immediately after writing the first verse. I wrote this a few days before leaving for Scotland for a year. Anyway, witches & wolves...aye."

Aye, indeed. Now, I'll admit that I don't listen to a lot of music that's labeled 'Americana', and maybe you don't either. Maybe you've never listened to it. Well here's your chance, people, but once you let The Bailey Hounds sink their teeth into your emotions, you might not want them to ever let go. Don't say I didn't warn you.

You can stream and buy Along the Gallows at The Bailey Hounds site . They're also offering their Bob Dylan cover, "Don't Think Twice, It's All right", for free download. I highly recommend you get both the album and the single, and if they would've recorded that Pantera cover, I'd say get it, too.

Excuse me, but I have the sniffles now and I need to go blow my nose.

--Heddbuzz

http://thebaileyhounds.com/

http://facebook.com/thebaileyhounds

http://thebaileyhounds.com/album/dont-think-twice-its-all-right-single

Backwoods Payback – Momantha

For many years I thought I was the only one who remembered Kinghorse, the obnoxious band from Louisville who blended Black Flag/Misfits hardcore with Black Sabbath and The Damned during the early 1990’s. When my band had the pleasure of sharing the stage with Backwoods Payback it turned out that singer/guitarist Mike Cummings was a fan, too. The shadow of Kinghorse looms large over the new Backwoods album for me since it combines several styles of heavy music I love into one hot n nasty rip ride. There’s a strong Misfits/Samhain/Danzig influence for sure and Mike’s howling vocals bring to mind Glenn (Anzalone) Danzig as well as Sean Garrison’s powerful screaming with Kinghorse. There’s also a lot of post-My War Black Flag mixed with Sabbath spawns Trouble and Kyuss. Diversity is always a good thing as long as it’s heavy. And loud.

Momantha is a helluva album. So was their 2007 self titled debut but this new one is a major leap forward. The songwriting shows off many more layers, the musicianship is tighter and the production is much improved. The guitars of Mike Cummings and Rylan Caspar are heavy and crunchy but never get mushy sounding. Jessica Baker’s probably got the 10-and-a-half in this band based on her ballsy bass tone and W.S. Curtiss murders his drums to form a very tight and in the pocket rhythm section.

Opening song “You Know How This Works” begins with the sound of a guitar throwing up, then the drums come in and an almost happy sounding riff starts up. The mood changes once the vocals start “I’ve got no one on my side, what the fuck else is new?” The negative vibes continue with “Flight Pony” an excellent “Hole In The Sky” style stomper. “Knock Wood” and “Mr. Snowflake” are mid-tempo ragers with tortured vocals and some nice melodic lead guitar fills.

The middle of the album has a bunch of mid-tempo heavy rockers like “Parting Words,” “Lord Chesterfield” and “Velcro” that maintain their groove from start to finish but will keep you amped up behind the steering wheel without getting a speeding ticket. “Velcro” is the longest cut on the album (just under 6 minutes) and contains positive thoughts like “if I had a gun I’d clean it everyday to keep it in its finest working shape.” Things speed up and get really pissed off on “Timegrinder.” This one really reminds me of Kinghorse at their most furious with an early C.O.C. intervention. Album closer “Ballad Of A Broken Horse” is kind of a summary of the entire album. Parts are fast, parts are slow, there’s some Sabbath (maybe even from Born Again!) and the thing flat out rocks.

Backwoods Payback has come up with a real winner with Momantha, one of the better heavy music releases so far this year. As good as the album is I’m sure all of the songs will be even better live. If you’ve never seen Backwoods Payback before you’re in for a real treat. They will play at just about any dump that will have them and they always go insane even if there’s only one person in the crowd. As a matter of fact, I think they go even more insane when there are fewer people. They’re also some of the coolest people you’ll ever meet. Whether you’re a new friend or old they will always offer to take you out to their van and share their Wild Turkey with you. I’ve had the hangovers to prove it. The album is currently available on itunes and physical CD’s will be available shortly. Don’t snooze on this one, mutha!

--Woody

Buy here: http://www.smallstone.com/albuminfo.php?album=115

www.myspace.com/backwoodspayback666

 

Death Wolf - S/T

Big, black, heavy, furry, and ugly. Loud, massive, beastly, foreboding. Devastating, gruesome, grizzly, and ominous. Words. All descriptors of a band called Death Wolf. All words that sum up in no small part the sonic brutality that makes up the band’s self titled album. Is it a debut? I don’t know. I don’t care. The album is easily one of the most intense metal listens I’ve had in awhile. That doesn’t mean that it’s the most musically interesting or compositionally exceptional records out there . . . simply fucking intense. Pure, unabashed and uncompromising heavy metal . . . arguably encompassing all of the characteristics a heavy metal record should have. Music that’s so heavy and discordant, so filled with testosterone, tension, and gusto that one must respect it in fear that it will overwhelm their souls.

Death Wolf were apparently once know as Devils Whorehouse (I know . . . cool name, huh?) and are manned by one of the dudes from Swedish Black Metallers Marduk . . . ultimately, none of that means much to me. Well . . . except the Devils Whorehouse thing. I’ve never listened to Marduk and only know them by reputation, but this much can be said for one not in the know . . . Death Wolf sounds nothing like Marduk. They incorporate these great elements of doom, and stoner, and sludge, and thrash, and speed , and balls-out, fuck-you metal. Combine the demonic crooning of Danzig and mix it with sheer heart attack of Motorhead and then the tonal weight of Neurosis and you get something sorta’ like Death Wolf. At times, Death Wolf remind me of fellow Swedish uncategorizable metallic rockers, Transport League. More rock than metal, but more metal than anything else. Y’know? Yeah. Me either.

Opening volley, “Circle of Abomination” is heaven wrapped up in a three minute metallic chestnut. Firing off with a high speed, up tempo tirade accompanied by a wall of distorted instrumental chaos and a vocal performance that has me thinking of Glenn Danzig hopped up on something darker and heavier than even the darkest moments of Samhain. Listen close enough to the rolling pattern of the drums and you’ll practically visualize a runaway locomotive barreling down the tracks. The utterly brilliant moment of this song is at the 1:40 mark when the bottom drops out this beast and the song chugs along at a dastardly and drastically reduced tempo. The little wah effect on the guitars, the chiming of the bell, the ominous vocal and instrumental tone . . . all weaved around each other to create that perfect amount of tension before fading into the crimson fog from whence this whole creature came from in the first place.

“The Other Hell”, heavy as hell and just as sinister, has me clutching my bedspread close to my throat with eyes wide open in terror. This track wavers back and forth between huge walls of dissonance to moments of sparseness, and once we get to these quieter passages, the vocal performance, like the icy fingers of death brushing softly across the skin, sends chills up the spine. Then is dissolves into waves of feedback and the howl of wolves, becoming the haunting and ominous “Morning Czar Shineth”. What a captivating nugget of sound! Again, sparse when it needs to be and creepy as all fuck when it is, then filled with more notes so heavy and oppressive . . . it’s a classic track that will, like the chorus suggests, will have you beg and beg for more. The bass tone is unreal. The vocal performance is otherworldly. The overall power of this song is the creaking of the gates of hell as the passage slowly opens and the smell of brimstone assails the nostrils. A sudden blast of heat and fire, and we’re reduced to a pile of ash.

“Sword and Flame” picks up the tempo once again. We’re not talking about blackened blastbeats in terms of speed, but a nice and steady, upbeat tempo with instruments chugging away to keep pace. I like that Death Wolf mix up the tempos throughout the album . . . I never get too stuck in one groove. One minute, droning at a slow groove, the next exploding within a fast paced fury. We get to go back to that slower groove on “Wolf’s Pallid Sister”, and we get to experience the closest thing to one of those massive thrash riffs that seem to move a mosh pit from one wall to the opposite. Heavy and throbbing, the groove on this track is dense, but executed with some deftness. Listen to some of the intricate licks these guys slip into the midst of this riff . . . that, my friends, is some tasty stuff! I also love the vocal performance, specifically at the chorus. Great dynamic shift at the midpoint, as well. Again . . . well executed to capture the most tension and intensity possible.

Death Wolf’s self-titled disc is one of those albums that on first listen I thought, ‘This rocks,’ but I wasn’t sure just how much. That first listen was definitely compelling, hell . . . compelling enough for me to want to listen again. And then, by listen number six hundred and sixty-six, it was all I could do to peel the headphones from my head (I’m sure some skin was removed along with the ‘phones)and stop listening to this thing. I mean . . . for as much as I’ve listened to this album and think it rocks, I know deep down in the darkest darkness of my now darkened soul that this thing rocks infinitely more than I think it does. I started this review off with a boatload of adjectives and descriptors of this album, and while they all suffice, you might want to quantify just how big, black, heavy, furry, and ugly . . . Loud, massive, beastly, foreboding . . . Devastating, gruesome, grizzly, and ominous this thing really is. I’d go as far as to say that if you apply a number to any of these words, you’ll need to multiply it . . . by a hundred . . . and then that still may not be enough. One cannot truly describe Death Wolf, one must experience that album, and then no amount of words will accurately depict what that experience was.

--Pope

Buy here: Death Wolf

http://www.deathwolf.net/