Various Artists- New Heavy Sounds
There are going to be many occasions where New Heavy Sounds may be the last thing you want to hear. Waking up with a stinking hangover. When you're put on hold on the customer complaints line when you've found your flat pack table from Ikea is missing two table legs and it wasn't just that you read the instructions incorrectly. Walking down the aisle. Actually, that last one would be pretty cool. But generally speaking, this is an album for when you want to hear the roughest, filthiest, chunkiest sounds that present 'heavy' in it's most unadulterated form. Bad day at work, open road to drive down, spuds that need mashing... it's perfect for that.
This album really does explore every interpretation of the h-word, pelting heavy metal, post-hardcore, retro sounds and psychedelia in your face like wonderful rotten vegetables at some medieval stocks. Opening this presentation of obscene riffology is a Room Thirteen favourite, Chickenhawk. Brilliantly manic 'Son of Cern' really sets the tone of this million-mile-an-hour escapade through the rocky terrain of all things heavy. Fellow Leeds residents Pulled Apart By Horses with track 'E=MC Hammer' are the equivalent of the ghost of Christmases yet to come in terms of metal and it's music. But rather than weeping over a gravestone we don't want to see, we can ecstatically jig for joy. The music this band has produced this year has been refreshing and terrifying simultaneously. On the other hand, there's. Rolo Tomassi's 'Unromance' which goes down the more widely accepted approach to metal lyrically, a barrage of screaming attacking the inside of your head like a cheese grater. .
Castrovalva feature with 'Tricerotops' and it's sort of impossible to ignore a Death From Above 1979 comparison here, but is this not a brilliant thing? The world of music misses those guys and their signature teeth-shudderingly beefy bass lines.
For those with a hankering for some retro-flavoured takes on 'heavy', there is plenty to appeal. Bad for Lazarus, the Skunkanansie-reminiscent band Invasion, These Monsters and Holy State make for good old fashioned retro-ck, driven by an overwhelming sense of muck, catchy choruses and more melodic vocals make for a nice breather. Turbowolf's 'The Big Cut' takes this step into the past so far, that had it been a few decades ago that we were reporting from, undoubtedly this sound would be borne from a pack of wolf-like long haired, bandana wearing fans of the devil. Similarly with Xm-3a's 'Wolves'; standing at an epic seven minutes in length, it's no surprise that this is a track heavily steeped in the Seventies heavy metal of old.
Fancy a taste of the mildly bizarre? Mugstar's 'Technical Knowledge As A Weapon' should suffice. It's an instrumental track sandwiching old-school psychedelic rock sounds all coated in artsy post-rock between the smoothness of ska-influenced trumpets with a chunky riff topping. A confusing but pleasant flavour. A bizarre mix of Misty's Big Adventure meets Hawkwind at a 65daysofstatic gig perhaps? But heavier.
Godzilla Black also add a bit of the wonderfully weird with 'The Drought'. Opening with a bizarre jazzy saxophone solo which brings to mind when you release a balloon and it goes shooting wildly and haphazardly through the air, this track takes an unexpected turn into ferociously heavy growling guitar and hefty drumbeats, complete with wailing. Musically, it's one of the best on the album. Lyrically it's...peculiar. There were secret hopes it might be another instrumental track.
This album really is intensely packed with the stuff that will make your most warped dreams come true. Bo Ningen's shrieking, Buffalo's touches of melody and Strange News From Another Star hipster twist on the durge heaviness all make something special. Winners of the heaviest? Kong. The deconstructors of punk rock have set down a neat little parcel of pleasantries and proceeded to smash the shit out of it til the smithereens have become smithereens. 'Sport' is a flailing onslaught of smoking drum spills and frenetic guitar would make for a good soundtrack to the bit when Eli Roth pulverises Hitler's face in 'Inglourious Basterds'. That may help give you an idea of this take on 'heavy'.
Blacklisters were surely an intentional choice for closing track to end the album in the fashion Chickenhawk decided to open it, punching out with a tidal wave of sound and running around you screaming like a kid that ate too many of the forbidden Smarties. 'Belt Party' is 3.48 of the most untempered mayhem and unflinching loudness. And there's something so very irresistible about it.
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This is music stretched and warped to extremes. You will definitely enjoy it. You utter sadist.