Black Tusk - Set the Dial

This one gave me some difficulties.

I hated it at first.

And I like Black Tusk a lot, don't get me wrong.

I liked the previous LP, Taste the Sin, I saw them live and thoroughly enjoyed their show, particularly their energy-- I don't even care how much they sound like Kylesa.

I went so far as to write most of a review of my hating it, which I discarded. Here are the high (low) points:

"Brewing the Storm" starts with a cool, low-gain sludgy-disco riff, and then proceeds to play it too long.... "Bring Me Darkness" starts with a "six-six-six" chant over a riff that starts great but by 1:32 has overstayed its welcome.

vaguely malevolent, apocalyptic sorcery lyrics comically contrast with lightweight, almost whimsical southern metal.

no great power here; sound like kids

Then I think I had that click experience. I was listening to Set the Dial wrong.

Black Tusk--

are a comic book band!

Now, this is said not with disdain but with love-- as someone who loves and still reads comics.

Like most characters in comic books and graphic novels-- they're larger than life and not really meant, generally, to take seriously, but, in an odd way, are just as serious about their art as anyone. E.g., "Yeah, I'm writing about things we both know don't exist, but I'm using them as serious props."

Maybe this will sum up my paradigm shift: Set the Dial is like the experience of going into a Haunted House commercial attraction for Halloween-- and not an actually haunted house (like, say, listening to Reign in Blood might be).

It's not gonna found any religions, but it will scare [rock] the shit out of you while you're listening.

"Carved in Stone" great, as is "Set the Dial to Your Doom" and "Crossroads and Thunder" [in retrospect, the song titles should really have tipped me off as to the tongue-in-cheek-ness on display here]; the sound overall of Set the Dial is much more stripped-down, production-wise, than previous LPs-- it's almost live-sounding, and it really suites their music:  the energy and enthusiasm I saw them display live actually comes through the speakers.

 

--Horn

Hail! Hornet - Disperse the Curse

 

If swamp metal (like, say, Black Tusk) is punk, thrash, southern rock, sludge and grunge in a musical stew, then Hail! Hornet are swamp n' roll.

Fitting too, as while I write this it's 96.8 degrees outside, the A/C is half-broken, and on this second floor it's probably 115 degrees. It's hot (and humid) enough that I can actually feel my hair and beard grow out; shit, I can feel them WANT to grow out. I'm shirtless, sweating, unshaved (intoxicated?), and am really enjoying universes align here, really enjoying this synchronicity: my mental and physical worlds have almost perfectly coalesced into this record's sounds.

This record, this Disperse the Curse, perfectly encapsulates where I'm "at" now. Feel me?

No? Then dig this:

Current and former members of Buzzov*en, Weedeater, Sourvein, Bongzilla, Morne and others make up Hail! Hornet-- and if you're reading this site, you can probably guess exactly what this sounds like.
What you might not guess, however, is how much fun they seem to have been having recording this. This is 2011's version of 1955's good blowing sessions. Everyone got together, vibed off each other, and made that alchemy obvious enough to place on wax: dig us having a blast rockin out with our cock[in?] out. This is the dixie sludge metal equivalent of Monk, Parker, Stanley Turrentine and Coleman Hawkins jamming after hours at Minton's.

And Goddamn is it fun stuff.

Disperse the Curse is Motorhead if they smoked more than they drank, it's Entombed or the Cro-Mags if they were from the Deep South, it's...

...you feel me.

It's fun, uptempo sludge: a rickety old beast, bored of lurching town to town destroying all, laying waste, et yawn cetera-- who went and got stoned on an argot fungus in wheat and St. Vitus Danced his  goddamned way to a primrose path of carnage and mayhem that smelled like diesel oil, weed, cicadas and hot amp cable.

Still in? Yeah you are. Don't act like that doesn't sound like mad fun, son-- the album version of mudding, cow-tippin, going shoeless for a season, or nailing your hot cousin.

Specifics:

"Gifted Horse," track 2, is a particular ripper, as is "Glass Roses." "Unholy Foe" slows down a bit --just long enough to crush, you understand-- then "Scars" punishes you with a pear of agony for daring to think Hail! Hornet  had slowed down for even a second.

That last simile got a bit more grotesque than I'd intended.

ANYhoo... go listen.

--Horn

http://www.myspace.com/2hailhornet