TOP 16 ALBUMS: The Sour 16 (August 2017)

With English winter ending in July and commencing again in August, the summer as we know it, is over!  Now as we enter September, the sunshine may waver, but one constant source of light, is the inspiring music we embrace and celebrate. 

Mike Patton once said “what a day, when you can look it in the face and hold your vomit,” So to make things a little more bearable, allow yourself to indulge in a hefty dose of medicine, because it is time to present 16 of the best albums from August, it is time for your SOUR 16.

You know the drill by now, each month you the reader are unwittingly compiling a list of the top 16 records of the month, covering all genres of metal.  Is it not a chart, in which reviewers or contributors extol their opinion about their favourite music.  To put it simply, THE SOUR 16 are the records that have been trending the most at SLUDGELORD HQ.

The results are compiled based upon the amount of page views the reviews have received and are then calibrated into the list below. 

16). Cult of Erinyes - ‘Tiberivs’ (387)

In short, ‘Tiberivs’ is fully realized and wonderfully executed. Any black metal fans sleeping on this album are doing themselves a real disservice.

15). Mudbath - "Brine Pool" (397)

While firmly a doom metal group, Mudbath is not afraid to introduce different elements. With a shrieking vocal approach reminiscent of black metal and flourishes you might otherwise associate with drone, Mudbath manages to make it work.

14). Dead Cross - "Dead Cross" (405)

While Dead Cross don’t quite deliver the all-out face-melting insanity you may expect from their constituent parts, this debut is still an exhilarating burst of queasy punk rock mayhem that reminds most young pretenders who’s in charge.

13). Timeworn - "Venomous High" (408)

Some of the most engaging moments on “Venomous High” come when Timeworn move slightly away from their core sound.  “All Chiefs” finds the band at their most unhinged as they unleash an arsenal of spidery math-metal riffs with breakneck rock’n’roll abandon. Anyone missing Swiss behemoths Kruger will find a lot to enjoy in this killer track. “Venomous High” is a fine offering from Timeworn that takes an array of well-worn modern metal influences and blows them up on a grand scale.

 12). Nidingr - "The High Heat Licks Against Heaven" (414)

Given the amount of average extreme music that is available, Nidingr’s release is outstanding for such depth alone.

11). Geezer - “Psychoriffadelia” (424)

Guttural guitars and raunchy drums at the ready. Geezer delivers the intensity of the Melvins, one of the group's inspirations, while giving its own unique spin to stoner rock. While many others try, this is one band that is confident enough to step out and truly make this sound their own.

10). Sunrot - "Sunnata" (480)

Those who take the plunge into “Sunnata” will still be blown away by the fierce musical skill, emotional honesty, and undeniable potential of Sunrot.  Their truly exceptional full-length debut has set a high benchmark that, one hopes, is only the opening chapter of a lengthy, groundbreaking career.

9). Below The Sun - "Alien World" (533)

What you get is nothing short of spectacular. The soundscape intersects multiple metal subgenres, including funeral doom, black metal, drone and post metal. Moods throughout are bleak, as if the rumbling seas of Solaris are flicking gently at your mind and bouncing your hopes and fears to and fro.

8). Blues Funeral - "Awakening" (624)

Close your eyes and you can hear hints of Mountain and Blue Oyster Cult throughout "Awakening." The rolling title track is a true showcase for how these inspirations have shaped the Texas band. Such attention to the details most people probably never notice further ensures a level of quality that may surprise you. Not only is the music masterfully played, but nothing overpowers the composition

7). Red Mountains - "Slow Wander" (658)

...it is so refreshing to find a release that is all at once heavy, accessible and frankly beautiful in its construction.

6). Ledge - "Cold Hard Concrete" (700)

“Cold Hard Concrete" is that uneasy masterpiece you will value even more by year's end.

5). Pyrrhon - "What Passes for Survival" (796)

"What Passes for Survival" is an uncompromising album and you will learn that fast, right out of the gate.  It is impossible to listen to Pyrrhon's magnificent new release, without admiring the band's fearlessness and technical prowess.  This album is exactly what extreme metal doubters need to hear.

4). Weed Demon - "Astrological Passages" (1040)

Weed Demon is quite willing to show they can do a diverse attack that goes beyond a Melvins-ish crunch. It can definitely throttle you with heavy, sludged out guitars and drums. Yet, as you find on "Primordial Genocide" and elsewhere, Weed Demon can go from blasting to burrowing with its arrangements, zipping from fast to slow, metal to a variation on math rock, smoothly.

3). Devil Electric - "Devil Electric" (1097)

Although you'll not find a swerve or anything wildly disparate, Devil Electric is nonetheless entrancing. In particular, the group is guaranteed to energize any fan of heavy blues reminiscent of Black Sabbath, The Allman Brothers and similar bands.

2). Venom Inc. - “Avé” (1128)

This record, is a triumph. Venom Inc. have produced a record more than worthy of the Venom name and it contains some of the best and most “Venom” moments since the early 80's. I cannot praise or recommend this record enough to fans of Venom or just metal in general. The songs, performances and production all deliver.

1). Accept - "The Rise Of Chaos" (1407)

“The Rise of Chaos” is precise, prescient, presented superbly in terms of artwork and production and, more importantly, rocks as hard as anything I have heard this year. A tour de force.

A big thank you as always to our amazing writers, your dedication knows no boundaries and for that I am truly grateful.  August 2017’s SOUR 16 features reviews by:  Richard Maw, Daniel Jackson, Charlie Butler, Mark Ambrose, Mark Tremblay & Ernesto Aguilar

ALBUM REVIEW & TRACK PREMIERE: Blues Funeral - "Awakening"

By: Ernesto Aguilar

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 25/08/2017

Label: Independent

Close your eyes and you can hear hints of Mountain and Blue Oyster Cult throughout "Awakening." The rolling title track is a true showcase for how these inspirations have shaped the Texas band. Such attention to the details most people probably never notice further ensures a level of quality that may surprise you. Not only is the music masterfully played, but nothing overpowers the composition

“Awakening” CD//DD track listing:

               

1. Shadow of the Snake

2. Awakening

3. Illusions of Reality

4. Firedrake

5. Casimir

6. The Gathering Dust

The Review:

Progressive metal is arguably one of heavy music’s most gutsy disciplines. In this subgenre, you have a crop of originators as well as emerging acts devoted to creating an atmosphere as they are to writing compelling lyrics. Consider the performers included in the progressive metal tent and you’re guaranteed to stir up conversation among people. From Meshuggah to Kings X, the acts are memorable. Subsequent crews thus have some big expectations to live up to.

What makes Blues Funeral of Houston, Texas an important and challenging addition to progressive metal is the fact that “Awakening” is the combo’s follow-up to its 2016 debut, "The Search." Sophomore releases can be incredibly rocky experiences. That’s because, chances are, one of your favorite musicians probably had its own problematic second release.

Fortunately for Blues Funeral and fans, the team’s new release "Awakening" is not that package.

If you heard "The Search" – and kudos to the guys for regularly delivering new music – you may recall one of its most distinguished facets was Blues Funeral’s magnetism. A discerning music aficionado can almost pinpoint to the note where there’s tension in a group. If Blues Funeral members have that, they hide it well, as their music together is just outstanding. Listeners may have gotten a sense of that unity in its initial offering, but the latest confirms this accord. As a result, Blues Funeral serves up a seamless return.

The song construction on cuts like opener "Shadow of the Snake" play exquisitely to the strengths of guitar and rhythm sections. Close your eyes and you can hear hints of Mountain and Blue Oyster Cult throughout "Awakening." The rolling title track is a true showcase for how these inspirations have shaped the Texas band. Such attention to the details most people probably never notice further ensures a level of quality that may surprise you. Not only is the music masterfully played, but nothing overpowers the composition. You notice issues like this when a guitar is overplayed or the vocals wash out other crucial ingredients. Insofar as overall production, Blues Funeral feels faithful to the listening experience first. Such makes "Awakening" a real pleasure to hear.

At various points of the full-length, bassist Gabriel Katz deserves a nod for anchoring the festivities. Katz’s lines are pronounced without being overwhelming. A true prog-metal believer has to further give it up for drummer Cory Cousins, whose contributions are technical without being mechanical. His drumming draws out some of the best elements throughout, such as on "Illusions of Reality."

In no other metal style is the range of a singer as important as it is in progressive metal. Beyond the note she or he can hit, moreover, a performance is as much about the emotion a vocalist can stir up for an audience, as well as the picture a song can paint. Jan Kimmel and Maurice Eggenschwiler represent Blues Funeral marvelously. They together and separately strike the right mood on songs like "Casimir." "Feeling so heavy/With demons on his shoulders/Yet so enlightened and/Never getting older" gets the intonation such realizations deserve. The duo handle much of the quartet’s songwriting, so such vocal presence is understandable. Twinned with their exceptional guitar work, Kimmel and Eggenschwiler deliver something special to this second recording for the band. 

"Awakening" will be available here from the 25/08/2017 and you can check out an exclusive stream of the track “The Gathering Dust” below

Band info: facebook || bandcamp

INTERVIEW: "From the cradle to the grave": In Conversation with Maurice Eggenschwiler of Blues Funeral

By: Aaron Pickford

Blues Funeral, a proto doom band from Houston, formed in late 2014 and play a unique brand of 60’s and 70’s infused music with a metal twist. The band name, inspired by the 1969 Groundhogs cut, “Blues Obituary”, is an ode to many of the group's influences including classic bands like: Deep Purple, Blue Oyster Cult, Mountain, Black Sabbath, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, 

Through many email exchanges over many weeks between myself and guitarist Maurice Eggenschwiler, his enthusiasm and passion for his band shown through, moreover his dedication to his craft and his unabashed determination to get his band heard is a measure of the DIY scene that has produced so many great bands over the years.  Maurice's commitment to encourage the scene to take notice certainly won me over and after recently being voted "album of the day" over at Roadburn.com, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the band scored a record deal before the end of the year, not to mention a bunch of new followers in the process.

So, today it is my pleasure to present a short interview with Maurice, not to mention a full stream of their superb debut album “The Search”.  Welcome to the procession.... Blues Funeral 

SL:  Can you give us a brief history of your playing career to date leading up to the formation of Blues Funeral and release of your current record?

Maurice Eggenschwiler: Absolutely.  3 quarters of Blues Funeral (Jan, Cory, and I) have played together for several years in another band called Sanctus Bellum.  In November of 2014, Sanctus Bellum went on hiatus for a period of time which allowed us to shift our attention and focus to Blues Funeral.  Cory knew Gabe from way back as they both went to Carnegie Mellon, and luckily was able to recruit him into the fold.  The idea was to form a band that would allow us to incorporate some musical influences that wouldn’t have been at home in Sanctus… but that are very much a part of the fabric of our musical being.  The prominent inclusion of the Hammond organ sound (which we achieve through the use of a Nord Electro 3) is probably the most important aspect of that thought process.  Blues Funeral is essentially the apex at which our metal influences and our deep love of the 60’s and 70’s converge. 

With Blues Funeral we’ve had the chance to share the stage with bands like: Venomous Maximus, Night Demon, Royal Thunder, Black Tusk, The Obsessed, Sierra, Karma To Burn, Helstar, Deadhorse, and Marty Friedman.  The year and a half that we’ve spent playing live shows has given us the opportunity to write and refine the 6 tracks that ended up on the record (as well as a few others that are already in the works). 

SL: What can you tell us about your debut record and where do you feel it sits within the context of the current doom scene?

Maurice Eggenschwiler: Having played together for more than 5 years, Jan, Cory, and I have developed a natural rhythm when it comes to song writing.  We’ve always been huge fans of harmony (both instrumental and vocal) and that plays a vital role in these songs.  The sound we were able to achieve on this record is the product of using more complex chord extensions with the instrumentation and then layering that over a rock solid rhythm section.  Gabe’s bass tone, which is nice and punchy in the mix adds another dimension to that.  Lyrically, the album deals with a range of topics that are both introspective as well as reflections on aspects of the human condition that we observe in the current state of our world.

In the context of the current doom scene, I think we bring something to the table that certainly sits well alongside many of the stalwarts in the scene because we share common influences.  Simply put… we all owe Black Sabbath (and several bands that came before them) a debt of gratitude for laying the foundation for this kind of music.  And if we’re being honest… the most direct line you could draw between Blues Funeral and the doom scene would use Candlemass as the connector haha.  Where Blues Funeral separates themselves from the pack, however, is with the aspects of our sound that owe more to jazz and prog.  This goes back to the comment about chord extensions.  To my knowledge there aren’t a lot of bands in the doom scene that play major 7 chords or minor 13 chords.  The organ sound is something else that I think creates a dynamic that connects us to bands like Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Atomic Rooster, and Procol Harum that I’m sure resonate with fans of doom, but that aren’t inherently a part of the sound that’s most common to the scene.  The net effect is that I think we are able to give fans something that they’re used to sitting squarely next to something that’s maybe a little more of a surprise.

SL: How was the mood in the camp going into the recording of the record?

Maurice Eggenschwiler: Pure unbridled excitement!  For the last year and a half, we have been incredibly humbled by the positive response we’ve gotten to our music in our own local scene.  The biggest point of feedback that we’ve gotten at every show we’ve played is that people were clamoring for recorded music that they could take home and digest.  Some people might have rushed to get in the studio just to get something out, but we really wanted to take our time refining the songs so that what ended up on the record was pure meat, no filler.  We really think we got that.  It had a lot to do with focus and preparation.  We spent a lot of time before going into the studio on pre-production (this was a process that I think was a bit newer for us) to make a lot of decisions on the front end about tempo, layering, effects, and harmonies.  Before we even set foot in the studio, we had pages of notes for our sound engineer and we had strong ideas about the direction of every song.  With all of that front-end prep, the studio process was actually fairly relaxed and allowed us to spontaneously give rise to some new ideas in studio without pressure over time constraints. 

SL: Finally then, what can fans look forward to from you over the next 12 months? How is your schedule shaping up?

Maurice Eggenschwiler: Well our next show is slated for 9/3 at Rudyard’s British Pub in Houston alongside Destroyer of Light and Witchcryer.  We have some other events planned locally through the end of this year and beginning of next year.  We’re also working on arranging some newer songs that we’ll be unveiling at these shows over the course of the next few months.  From there, we’re really setting our sights towards some sort of a European festival.  It would be amazing to share the stage with some of the great bands that frequent the annual renditions of Desertfest, Roadburn, and Freak Valley.        

Band info: Facebook | Bandcamp