From the 1990s onward, there seems to
be this particular scenario, which plays itself out all across
America time and again, that goes something like this: there is a
group of people at a party, either in their 30s or their 40s,
lamenting what they feel is the sad state of current music. After
discussing the situation for a time, they resign themselves to the
fact that the modern iterations of Rock that they hear will never
rival what they enjoyed from the days of yore, and, as a result,
their attempts at making merry at this party go as flat as a stale
beer.
Sadly, these fans are unduly
crestfallen for just a cursory search on the internet would reveal an
amazing slough of bands of recent vintage more than able to supply
new anthems for those, who yearn for the Rock of the AOR Era. One
such band is the Dutch group Candybar Planet.
Though only a mere five-song EP, the
quality of Candybar Planet's music does not disappoint, especially if
one needs a soundtrack for one's partying. This is evident on the
first track Five, which has
all the heaviness but none of the gloominess of its “Stoner Rock”
peers. This would be a perfect song to have in the background during
pagan frenzies of beer-guzzling and rabid twerking.
Then there is the
neurotic energy of Billy (I'm Gonna Get That Woman). Like
Kyuss before it, Candybar Planet knows how to write a propulsive riff
without resorting to a flurry of palm-muted sixty-fourth notes. This
would be a good song to play in the background at a party, where they
are trying to combine the limbo with moshing.
The third track WFO
gives one what sounds like an Areosmith riff supercharged on
Walter White's meth. A real barn-burner, this would definitely
enliven any lifeless party, prompting twerking so violent, it may
cause one's body to fly apart in several different directions.
Exposed starts
off with shimmering psychedelic chords and then launches into a
massively heavy shuffle. Obviously influenced by Desert Rock, the
band's riffs, though massive, are sugary enough to give one diabetes,
and it is precisely this merger of heaviness and melody that should
have made this band huge.
The final track Sun
Screamer has the honor of being the heaviest song on the EP, its
cyclopean riff making one's ears feel like they were just
pimp-slapped by the fluke of Moby Dick.
In sum, the EP by
Candybar Planet is more damning evidence that Rock is neither dear
nor in need of saving. It DOES,
however, need support, and supporting Candybar Planet is as good a
place to start as any.
In the early 90s, as the Seattle
“Grunge” scene was ascendant, there was another band emerging out
of Bakersfield California, which was going in parallel lines. Like
its peers 1,500 miles to the North, its sound combined heaviness with
melody. The band in question was named Kyuss, and the melodic yet
heavy sound it crafted came to be known as “Desert Rock.”
Though Kyuss never achieved more than
cult status in the United States, the seeds of its influence found
fertile soil in Scandinavia, where many a band was spawned in its
wake, one of which was the mighty Blind Dog.
On its record, Blind Dog Rides
Again, the band lets loose with
a tour de force of melodic yet heavy riffs, which can be heard on the
initial track Don't Ask Me Where I Stand.
A song about being caught in the No Man's Land of the Culture Wars,
it features a behemoth, single-note riff, which would put the riffing
of most Nu-Metal bands to shame.
Like a
truck-driver, jacked-up on Walter White's meth, barreling down the
highway at 100 MPH in an eighteen-wheeler, the song Iron
Cage kicks it up a notch and
goes into manic overdrive. Fans of Queens Of The Stone Age should
find this tune quite the delightful ride.
Slightly
more smoky and atmospheric than the first two songs, Let It
Go features great bass-work on
the part of Tobias Nilsson. Nilsson, who also sings lead vocals, does
a masterful job on the track of showing the softer side of his voice.
This would have been a great song to play on an episode of The
X-Files during one of Mulder's
pensive moments.
Picking
up where the first two tracks left off, Would I Make You
Believe continues the onslaught
of heaviness. Like a monster smashing its way out of a building,
pummeling riffs set to a relentless groove careen this way and that.
This track, like so many on this album, is damning evidence that the
assertion “Rock is dead” is 100% wrong.
The
next track (and this reviewer's favorite) is the song Follow
The Fools. Reverting to his
sprightlier, mellower vocal style, the tune Nilsson sings to is a
Jethro Tull-like gem. This is one thing that amazes me about Blind
Dog and many of its Post Commercial peers (Animalcule, The Want,
Witchcraft etc.): how they all are able to play songs influenced by
the AOR Era with such an authentic feel.
The
sixth track Back Off
has a swinging triplet-feel reminiscent of songs like Hole
In The Sky by Black Sabbath.
Especially impressive is the band's use of electric-piano, drenched
in tremolo, to create a dreamy atmosphere for the second part of the
song.
The
next track Fading Memories
shows what bands like Blind Dog do best: laying down incisive,
infectious grooves and riffs. One would think, after sixty years of
Rock, all the great riffs would have been played already; yet Blind
Dog, like so many of its peers in the Post Commercial Era, prove that
notion wrong time and again. Especially delightful is the second part
of the song with its Sabbath-like, double-time riff.
The
eight track is the savage boogie Unsellable.
Those, who like the Groove Metal of Pantera would be well to check
this song out.
Next
comes There Must Be Better Ways Of Losing Your Mind.
Something of a climax to the album, the riffs are just as dramatic as
the existential pain the lyrics deal with.
Lastly,
as a sort of epilogue, comes the track Be The Same.
A song about how we are all eventually ground down by conformity, its
subdued better-sweet feel makes it the perfect soundtrack for Blind
Dog to ride off in the sunset.
I started this blog
to rescue great records like this from being consumed by the fires of
obscurity. The Rock public can go one step further by putting out
those fires altogether.
As a guitarist myself, I know that one
of the questions a guitarist spends a great deal of time pondering is
how to effect the alchemy of fusing together everything one likes
into one seamless style. Obviously, the more disparate one's
influences are, the more challenging it can be. The fact is, being
eclectic in one's tastes and being open to “experimentation” does
not automatically vouchsafe that a great artist one will be. After
all, experiments can fail, and the lab blows up!
Like Zebulon Pike, I have always had an
equally abiding interest in both heavy bands like Black Sabbath as
well as “Art Rock” bands like King Crimson, and so, naturally,
when I heard the band's first release, the elegant way it fused these
two styles tickled my fancy.
In addition to this lovely synthesis,
which I mentioned, Zebulon Pike is also the undisputed master of the
lyrically heavy riff, which I am so enamored of, and, on its first
release, the band gets down to business doing both. Thus on the
initial track, The White Light Of Black Star,
one has one of the best lyrically heavy riffs I have ever heard
during the first part of the song and an equally adroit execution of
King Crimsonesque ideas on the second.
The
next track, humorously entitled Umlaut Overload,
is a spiraling staircase of riffs in odd meters. A lovely
interlarding of textures with heaviness, it is the kind of track fans
of classic Rush have been yearning to hear for years.
Then,
there is my favorite track (Behold) The Wizard's Fountain.
Like the first track, it contains one of the best lyrically heavy
riffs I have ever heard. It is the kind of thing that makes one
imagine the climax to an epic fantasy novel. Especially noteworthy is
the second part of the song, when it kicks into high gear; the riff
still manages
to be lyrical while being propulsive at the same time. This is no
mean feat to accomplish.
The
exhibition of both the band's deft arranging skills and its knowledge
of music continues with the track Under
Capricorn.
Here one has another beautiful, arpeggiated guitar-figure with
blue-notes thrown in, reminiscent of You
Know, You Know
by Mahavishnu Orchestra, except, in this instance, heavy riffs come
crashing in from time to time.
As
if Tony Levin and Adrian Belew sat in with Black Sabbath, Pillars
Of Hercules
continues the same mishmash of the heavy with the textural. However,
unlike many bands, who seek to merge heaviness with intricacy,
Zebulon Pike plays a piece that maintains cohesion throughout rather
than sounding like it was playing a bunch of riffs randomly thrown
together.
At the end of the day, people, who appreciate this kind of music,
need to stop doing the intelectually dishonest thing of saying great
music like this is not being made anymore. Rather, they need to get
out and support bands like Zebulon Pike.
One of the themes, which I shall be
visiting from time to time on this blog, is the erroneous notion,
held amongst many Rock aficionados, that 1994 was some kind of a
moratorium on Rock music. These misguided people believe that the
bands that came out of Seattle represented the last of their kind and
that stirring Rock music would never be made again. It is precisely
to combat this kind of thinking that I created this blog; so that I
could disabuse people of this idea by showing
them all the amazing newer bands,
which have been out and about.
The
fact is, out of the ashes of the Seattle scene sprouted the seeds of
many a
great group: one of which was The Golden Pig Electric Blues Band.
Sadly, this and sundry other groups were never able to come to
full-flower not because the talent was not there, but because the
Rock music community failed to be the sage gardener it needed to be
in order for them to develop.
Yes,
as brutal a truth as it is to accept, a seed cannot flourish very
well in the wrong soil, no matter how healthy the seed may be, and so
The Golden Pig Electric Blues Band were only able to put forth a mere
two albums in a climate bereft of support. The good news, however, is
that they were great albums!
Concerning myself with its self-titled release in this review, it is
an album that packs just as massive a punch as its Seattle peers from
earlier times. One can hear this straightway in the song Born
Again, which is like a massive pendulum of sound, swinging back
and forth and smashing everything in its wake. Also, like its
Canadian peer Sea Of Green, The Golden Pig Electric Blues Band
combines heavy-riffs with a Bohemian, hippie-like vibe, which, for me
at least, is a felicitous change from the forlorn qualities of
straight Grunge.
Next comes the song Vol. IV. An allusion to the Black Sabbath
album of the same name, it is a song about giving oneself over to
inner-wisdom and enlightenment. At first blush, the crushingly
heavy-riffs of this track would seem to clash with such a theme, but,
considering that Black Sabbath explored many of the same themes in
its own lyrics, one sees that they compliment each other quite
nicely.
The tasty riffs in Some Violet showcase something that is a
forte amongst many a “Stoner Rock” guitarist: that being what I
call the “lyrically heavy riff.” In my mind there are two kinds
of heavy-riffs.
The lyrically heavy kind is one that is expressive and paints a
picture just as vivid as what the song's lyrics are deputed to do.
The second kind of riff, what I call “the propulsively heavy riff,”
is much more rhythmic and groove-oriented. Over the years, as tempos
have increased, the propulsively heavy riff has gained dominance,
making the crafting of lyrically heavy riffs something of a lost art.
Fortunately, the guitarist of The Golden Pig Electric Blues Band is
able to do such riffs with great aplomb.
The lyrically heavy riffage continues in the song Old Man Of The
Woods (this reviewer's favorite). Hearing the riff's lumbering
gait, one can see clearly in the Mind's Eye a gnarled, troll-like man
wending his way through the weald. The song is even replete with a
ghostly harmonica solo! Using its Black Sabbath influence to its best
advantage, the bands sees fit to give the second part of the song a
bouncier, more upbeat feel: a technique Sabbath would use enliven its
own songs with from time to time.
Too smoldering and intense in the subdued parts to be considered a
power-ballad, Lightyears is a song about seeking escape
through oblivion. Featuring organ-figures, which float through the
air like musical smoke, this would be an excellent song to listen to
in a room festooned with psychedelic posters while on one's favorite
entheogen.
Channeling the happier side of the Black Sabbath aesthetic comes the
joyous Freedog. Ironically, though by trade a heavy band, this
track and many others by this group have a far more celebratory,
flower-power vibe than most of the pseudo-hippies did on the
H.O.R.D.E. Tour back in the 90s.
Like fellow Northwest band Y.O.B., The Golden Pig Electric Blues Band
can use heavy music to send one out into the vastness of the cosmos,
as the band does in the song Mizz Marvel. About a woman
blessed (or cursed) with super-powers, who saves mankind, the song
weaves a web of lyrically heavy riffs to help convey the story,
conjuring images of colliding planets and comic-book heroines
vaulting off into space to battle the forces of evil.
Not to be outdone by Our Lady Peace, The Golden Pig Electric Blues
Band released its own cover of Tomorrow Never Knows by The
Beatles. Not surprisingly, the band does a good job of recasting it
as a heavy song.
Lastly, is a live version of the song Prophecy Of Doom.
Starting out with a sultry, Jazz feel, it quickly assumes a heavier
posture. Especially noteworthy is Joe's meditative guitar-solo, which
does what a guitar-solo does at its best: to cause the listener to
lose oneself in the atmosphere.
So, for those Classic-Rock fans ever complaining there are no modern
iterations of the epic jams of yore, you have no reason to complain
because albums like this and many others exist.
Nostalgia. Even though it is not a
craving for a physical thing, the hankering for the felicitous
moments of the past is as powerful as the drives to survive, eat, and
procreate. Just about everyone experiences
nostalgia for something at some point, and this is understandable.
After all, life is transitory, and everyone will eventually lose
something of value they can never have again. Ultimately, though
nostalgia is understandable, it is debilitating because, if one
focuses only on the great moments of the past, the great moments that
can be had in the present
completely escape one's attention.
When
it comes to engaging in nostalgia as a music fan, I am, hands downs,
the world's worst offender. As an adolescent, I worshiped at
nostalgia's feet. For me the AOR Era was the greatest era in Rock. I
believed that there must have been something magical in the air back
then; something that does not exist today. Furthermore, I believed
not only were the Rock musicians of the AOR Era the greatest
musicians, but that they were the ONLY musicians
that could ever play epic Rock with the correct feel.
Fortunately,
as I grew older, I grew out of such quaint beliefs. The problem is
many Rock fans, who listen to the same kind of music I do, have
not.
For them, good music no longer exists until one of these classic
bands reunites for a tour. This is nostalgia at its most pathological
and toxic for this kind of thinking has meant Rock fans have ignored
many amazing bands, who are new,
thus robbing themselves as well as these bands of realizing equally
sublime musical moments in the present.
The sad fact is, so many bands of the Post Commercial Era have
suffered because of nostalgia, which is why I started my blog; so
that I, in my own small way, can help change that.
Thus, when I think of the mania, on the part of Rock fans, for a
reunion of the classic Guns 'N Roses lineup, I cannot help but to
think of the group Hell 'N Diesel, a Post Commercial group that could
easily have been more than a satisfying analog to Guns 'N Roses for
many of these fans. Sadly, because of the cloying nostalgia in Rock,
a band such as Hell 'N Diesel was doomed to tormented obscurity. Now,
mind you, I love Guns 'N Roses just as much as the next Rock fan, and
I am, in no way, putting the band down. All I am saying is: why
cannot Rock fans have both? Why not rock out to Hell 'N Diesel, while
waiting for the next Guns 'N Roses tour?
Obviously, since I seek to bring to light bands, who deserve
more recognition, a review of Hell N' Diesel's EP Tears For The
Wicked is in order. Though consisting of only three songs, this
release packs a massive wallop. Straightway, one is plowed over by
the title track. Making one feel like the Red Sea after being parted
by Moses, hard-charging riffs come barreling through like a herd of
rhinoceri. What is especially impressive about Hell 'N Diesel, like
many bands of the Post Commercial Era, is its use of economy.
Tears For The Wicked is not only a great track because it has
great riffs, but also because of the band's pacing for, even though
its members were very young, the group showed very deft arranging
skills on this track, making the music on the verses slightly more
subdued, so that, when the chorus kicks in, the song is even more
powerful.
Continuing the sonic stampede is the next track Rebel,
whose frenzied riff comes clawing toward one like Orcs trying to
scale the walls of Helm's Deep. Imagine a Guns 'N Roses with twice
the intensity, where Slash, Izzy, and Duff tune down five half-steps
to B for extra heaviness; that is what Hell 'N Diesel
is.
Rounding out the EP is the track Speed Devil. With its
simple yet massive Frankenstein-monster of a riff lurching forward,
the band shows yet again how judicious it is in its note selection,
choosing only the choicest notes for only the most devastating
tracks. Naturally, most music critics, being the dolts that they are,
have completely ignored a band like Hell 'N Diesel in favor of the
so-called “Rock revivalists.” What a shame another great band is
flippantly overlooked in favor of sub-par groups, who are little more
than also-rans.
And so, in closing, if you like Rock; I mean, if you really
like Rock, you owe it to what is left of your hearing to
check out this amazing band.
In hindsight, it was to prove
sadly fitting that Greenleaf entitled its album Secret Alphabets
because, even though the musical language it used to write the record
was a beautiful one, it was a language few seemed to understand, as
it was yet another great Post Commercial album that was, by and
large, ignored.
The
fusion of two stalwarts of the “Stoner Rock” scene: Dozer and
Demon Cleaner, the band is considered by some to be a mere “side
project,” but to think so would be remiss for the music, which
Greenleaf has tendered the public over the years, is every bit as
powerful, as the bands whence its members came. This can be heard in
abundance on the album's second track 10,000 Years Of
Revolution. The main
guitar-figure, with its slashing barre-chords punctuated by a
massively heavy end-tag, lays to waste all the so-called “Rock
revivalists.” Here too ones sees that, like many guitarists in the
“Stoner Rock” genre, Tommi Holappa and Daniel Jansson know how to
do guitar-tones right,
as their tones are warm and thick, a far cry from the brittle,
shrill, scooped mid-range sound, which is so in vogue amongst so many
modern, Heavy-Rock guitarists.
Like
the sonic equivalent of riding with Rob Zombie in his Dragula on a
mountain road with hairpin turns, Witchcraft
Tonight
is a twisting, turning, rollicking rave-up, making dark fun for the
whole family. Of special note is Bengt
Bäckes' bass-tapestries, which he weaves towards the end of the
song.
Starting
off with a very catchy Bengt Bäcke bass-line, which is doubled on
guitar, Never
Right
showcases Fredrik Nordin's versatility on vocals, as his voice takes
on a Paul Stanley quality. Always able to sing in a high and clear
manner in Dozer, it is even more impressive he is able to make
himself sound like another singer entirely.
Showing
its haunting, psychedelic side, the band's track The
Combination
features spectral guitar-figures drenched in eerie reverb and heavy
phasing. Together with an equally haunting vocal-melody on the part
of Nordin, this would be a perfect fit to a disturbing, atmospheric
horror-film.
The
album's sixth track The
Spectre,
is a lively poltergeist of an instrumental that seems to bounce off
the walls. Like Black Sabbath did in Rat
Salad,
Greenleaf deftly melds Jazz and Heavy-Rock as Holappa and Jansson
throw complex Jazz-chord underneath their tasty phase-drenched
soloing.
The
seventh track (and this reviewer's favorite) is the funereal
Viking-dirge One
More Year.
Drawing on their Nordic roots no doubt, the band abetts a slow,
solemn Sabbathy riff with Norse chanting, making for a devastating
combination of the atmospheric with the heavy.
Combining
Heavy-Rock with the feel of a military march, is Black
Black Magic.
A triumphal song of self-determination, the track finds Nordin
reverting to his Paul Stanley vocal-style once more.
With
its eerie, droning guitar-riff, which falls somewhere between an
Indian raga and Iommi's more meditative, heavy riffs, Masterplan
features
an achingly wistful vocal-hook from Nordin. The members of Greenleaf
make it seem so easy despite the fact that merging a great
guitar-riff with a great vocal-hook is no
mean
feat.
Lastly,
is the song No
Time Like Right Now!
A song about being resigned to the fact that one must press on, this
is a track, which features something that is virtually non-existent
in Rock: a lyrically heavy riff played at a slow tempo. So many heavy
guitarists have become so dependent on palm-muting open-strings and
playing them as fast as they can that they have forgotten the
riff-making approach, which Greenleaf clearly remebers.
All
in all, Secret
Alphabets
is another superbly crafted album, which has been carelessly tossed
into the Memory Hole by the cluelessness of most Rock fans. Let us
try to reverse that in our own small way.
There is an old maxim, which goes,
“The darkest hour is just before the dawn.” Apparently, when the
first rays of Northern Lights
began to poke their heads above the horizon, most Rock fans must have
been running west looking for a sunrise.
The
six-song EP from the Canadian band Sea Of Green, Northern
Lights was one of those early
landmark albums of the Post Commercial Era. Unfortunately, as with
the recordings of many of its peers (Animalcule, The Darkness, The
Want, Witchcraft etc.), it was a criminally underrated work that
escaped the attention of the oblivious Rock-world at large.
One cannot
stress enough what a shame it was that Sea Of Green's music was not
embraced by the Rock-community en masse because, like those
aforementioned peers, its music was like a superfood containing all
the nutrients in excelsis, which the music scene was (and still is)
gravely wanting in.
Pulling
no punches, Northern Lights
begins straightway with the track Move The Mountains.
Like a bulldozer festooned with flowers, it is massive, hulking slab
of Heavy Rock melded with a laid-back hippie sensibility. As with
many of its Canadian brethren (Rush, Triumph, Puddy, Tricky Woo,
Sheavy),
Sea Of Green
understands that pensiveness and heaviness can be fused seamlessly
without one detracting from the other.
Next
comes the song Look To The Sky.
With its gargantuan, wah-drenched riff, it is a song about either the
aftermath of an alien encounter or spiritual enlightenment, depending
on one's interpretation. Especially with its spacey middle-section,
this would have been a great song to be featured in an episode of The
X-Files. One can just see Mulder
running through the forest, while this track is playing in the
background.
Continuing
on with spiritual themes, If You Want My Soul
is another pensive yet heavy number, which shows the band's mastery
of the call-and-response blues structure. Like the scenery one passes
to and from work everyday, Rock has so much commerce with the Blues,
that is has often lost sight of the stylistic conventions the Blues
is composed of. The fact that this tune has an antiphonal form shows
that Sea Of Green, like many Post Commercial bands (Ryan Kickland's
Animalcule comes to mind), has deeper roots and a greater sense of
music history that have bands of earlier eras.
I suppose I
should digress at this point and specifically discuss the talents of
Travis Cardinal, the band's guitarist/singer. Like a strong cup of
coffee, Cardinal's guitar-tone is warm, fat, and rich. In addition,
his signing is high and clear with absolutely no yarlling, rapping,
or guttural Death-Metal stylings, making his voice a sound for sore
ears indeed.
Ever
relentless in its musical assault, the record next gives one Time
And Space. Here gain, Travis
uses the wah-pedal to devastating effect on the main riff, which
mercilessly creeps toward one like a sonic serpent of sound.
If
its heavy songs have a pensive, spiritual bent, one can be assured
the band's ballad will be absolutely ethereal. Called Change
With Me, the song features
soaring guitar melodies atop Cardinal's lissome arpeggios. Listening
to it makes one imagine sitting in a sylvan setting, such as what is
on the album's cover, staring at the Aurora Borealis and beyond.
Lastly,
one has the song In The Sun.
A heavy track, this time with a swinging, eight-note feel, it is a
celebratory song about the exhilaration of spiritual freedom. This
would be a great soundtrack to a bunch of blissed-out guys walking
around Oak Island on a warm summer day, soaking up both the scenery
and lore of buried treasure.
And so, in
closing, I would urge everyone to buy this record wherever one can
find it. Listen to it at home, in the car, at work, at your wedding,
or on vacation. Slip it to the DJ playing at your daughter's
homecoming or prom. The world will be a better place as a result.
