Royal Thunder Rebuilding the Mountain’ – Back with a vengeance

I love that Royal Thunder – who can raise hell if they want to – start their new album “Rebuilding the Mountain” with a slow beast of a song that sluggishly wanders into a stagger and finishes off in a run. It gives you a glimpse into why this band is one of the best metal bands out there: you never know what will happen, you’re being brought along a dark, slightly witchy ride that can veer into hallucinatory landscapes but never really lets go of you.

After the apparent end of the band a few years ago, Royal Thunder are back as a trio. There have been hard times and some things take longer to heal than others.  But “Rebuilding the Mountain” seems to be less about a clear-cut change but rather the process, the push and pull that goes with a going forward, going through and the many ugly things that show up and go away and show up again.

The magic that Parsons brings to her singing and almost like a gift, her vocals are much more front and center in this album than they have been previously, is the rawness, the authenticity and willingness to go places that can hurt and can be a little too vulnerable (on that note, I recommend this great interview that Parsons did with Big Takeover).

It’s why I always felt like Royal Thunder had a nearly spiritual edge to it that was able to swallow me whole and leave me swirling until the last note. Combined with the incredibly percussions and melodic familiarity to psychedelic/prog bands, “Rebuilding the Mountain” is as modern as it gets by showing its roots.

Songs from the Inbox: Nuns of the Tundra – Heavy stuff, mates

In Germany, we have the wonderful description of music that throws a punch: “was’n brett” (what a plank – yeah, it translates poorly). Nuns of the Tundra throw punches, planks and riffs right at you. Nuns of Tundra are from Bristol and describe their philosophy as “loosen hips and blow off faces” – how rude.

The band consists of Tom (bass), Daniel (guitar), Finn (drums) and Troy (vocals and guitar). Their older tunes are heavy stoner rock probably inspired just a tiny bit both by Masters of Reality and the Desert Sessions. In fact, “Signs of Blood” is a fantastic little song that sounds like Josh Homme tried to write a Sparks-song – and it works. I am kind of obsessed with it.

From the three songs of the upcoming album “The World’s Gone Crazy and So Have I” the band let me pre-listen, I particularly enjoyed “Gods and Wine” even though I am an atheist and don’t drink alcohol, so the song has to be good, right? It’s leaning a lot more towards metal and dips less into the sandy desert but it works, especially when they lean into the “heavy” part of metal. I love myself a good wall of noise to drown out the news, am I right.

Their new album will be released on March 19th and since no one can go on concerts currently, I recommend buying the album instead to support them.

(C’est la vie? More like c’est la heavy – *drum roll)

Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou ‘May Our Chambers Be Full’ – A match made in witches’ circles

You know, it is time for some sludge metal, it’s been a long while that any metal band graced this obscure blog. I blame my love for 80s pop which is probably the anti-thesis to metal from the deepest, darkest depths of the world. The album is a collaboration of Emma Ruth Rundle, singer songwriter with a certain goth affiliation, you know, the horse girl that only lives for the horses of the apocalypse, and Thou, a sludge metal that is – quite honestly – too scary for me. I am not superstitious, but I am also not just willy-nilly going to listen to music that surely will conjure up a demon to taunt me.

However, “May Our Chambers Be Full” is a fantastic beast, a dangerous, powerful and dark beast that sounds like the kind of music you hear in an 80s vampire movie, just about when our red-cheeked protagonist descends the stairs to that illegal party where everyone is kinda dressed up like old-fashioned aristocracy or kinky bikers. You know, the kind of music that plays shortly before the pure gets corrupted, muahaha! And I am not just going by the music, here. With songs like “Killing Floor” and Magical Cost this collaboration is not trying to bury ironic layers between lyrics and music. This is an album that’s going to draw your tender soul into a dark forrest, dress it in animal hides and swirls it around blue fires at night. Enjoy it.

Favorite Song: Black Mountain ‘Future Shade’ -Space metal

Look, I don’t plan to love whatever Black Mountain throws my way, even if it’s some weird metal space opera. I am just here, enjoying a nice evening on my couch and suddenly, I am transported on to a spaceship, wear a neon spandex spacesuit, way too much make-up and have to save the earth from disgusting space slugs. That’s just how it is, that’s what Black Mountain did to me and who am I to turn it down? Now, you might argue here that there are no space slugs in that song but we all know that’s in the subtext, obviously.

Baroness Interview with Peter Adams: Daydreams, Spinal Tap and Bluegrass

Baroness have a rooster of supporting acts that actually turned me to Baroness. In the last few years, I’ve picked one metal album each year to fall in love with. It started 2010 with Mastodon, 2011 with True Widow and 2012 with Royal Thunder. Now, True Widow and Royal Thunder both were supporting acts for Baroness and because Royal Thunder would be the supporting act for a Berlin Gig in October and because I missed them the last time they were in Berlin and because I got a mail from one of my label-contacts informing me about the Baroness show with Royal Thunder as support, I thought, ‘Hey, why not going for a Baroness-interview whilst enjoying Mlny Parsonz live?

So, that’s how it happened and that’s how I got introduced to Baroness (whom I already had heard occasionally on blogger-friend-circles).

Royal Thunder: Acoustic EP for grabs!

We all know that Royal Thunder is one of my favourite metal bands on and beyond this world because they are mixing Blues, psychedelica and metal in the most beautiful way and they have a secret weapon: The amazeballs Mlny Parsonz who offers one of the strongest voices in current metal (or, rock music in general) and some pretty cool, otherworldly lyrics tinged in the spiritual.

So, because they are the best, they released an acoustic EP for free on bandcamp just in case anyone doubted Mlny’s power over all living things.

Royal Thunder: Epic Debut record ‘CVI’

I am still chuckling over spinner.com. Hey, I love that site like anyone else, it introduced me to some smashing bands (people still say “smashing”, right?) and because they mix the famous with the undergrounds, a lot of actually independent indie bands get a platform that opens their music for a wider audience.

But since they decided to give a „sounds like“ next to every album, I really question who the hell thinks those up. Surely not someone who actually listens to the albums…

Or why – on God’s earth – would anyone ever compare Royal Thunder with the Cold War Kids?

I like the Cold War Kids but unless I missed something and they decided to turn from their quirky indiepop and converted to the church of metal, this surely can’t be.

Ok, on to Royal Thunder.

This outfit is from Atlanta, has an incredible female singer with Mlny Parsonz (is it just me or are female singers in tasteful (!!!) metal bands still like a Where is Waldo special?) and they come down on you like a great mixture of Mastodon, Hardrock infused bar-rags, deep mythological beasts and a bucket full of desert-sand.

The way that CVI dwindles from good Hardrock to a wild ride through experimental metal is so satisfying that I listened to this album more than any other this week, even if Regina Spektor and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros released some real beauties.

There is an almost hypnotizing beauty to their blend of prog, stoner, classic and bluesmetal, that I feel the heat of the desert through Parsonz growling siren’s call and it’s just one of the many reasons why this will be one of the few but carefully selected metal albums in my collection.

Everyone who loves Clutch, Mastodon or Kyuss will kneel in front of these priests of awesome and headbang their dedication to them.

Especially the way that their songs spin into those dizzy cascades of sounds as in the opener „Parsonz Curse“. Parsonz lyrics have a somewhat mystical/spiritual approach and deal with very personal issues which adds an honesty and probably the intense feel of her vocals to the music that makes it run deep, she admitted even to crying during the recordings on „Minus“.

I might not be as spiritual as Parsonz (in fact, I am probably not spiritual at all) but I think it gives the album and the feel of their music a haunting quality that I wouldn’t want to miss.

Their last song was recorded with a new drummer and a new guitar player, kudos to the two badasses that actually dared to come into an album this late in the game. „Black Water Vision“ also is the song where I usually got lost deep in the music and whenever it ended, I would feel a little like waking up. I had the same with Mastodon and True Widow, so apparently, the harder it gets, the more zen-like it makes me.

Wumms – Mastodon

Eigentlich wollte ich heute was anderes posten, aber dann habe ich auf Arbeit – angestachelt durch die VISIONS – mal in die Musik von Mastodon rein geluschert und danach ging nichts mehr, die dicke Progmetal-Suppe musste erstmal die nächsten Stunden durch meine Ohren gepumpt werden.
Ärgerlich ist es allemal, dass es bis heute gedauert hat, weil ich diese Band in der VISIONS schon so oft gesehen habe und mir immer dachte, dass die so Rock’n Roll aussehen (Bärte und Tattoos haben diese Wirkung), dass sie gute Musik machen müssen (auch das eine Eigenschaft von Bärten und Tattoos), aber irgendwie hab ich es immer aufgeschoben. Vielleicht war es aber auch gut so, da ich mir gar nicht so sicher bin, ob diese dunkle Metalwand vor zwei, drei Jahren überhaupt etwas für meine zarten Indieohren gewesen wäre. Zum Glück sind die ja mittlerweile durch etliche Nu-, Post-, Grind- Metal/Core Phasen hindurch so stabil geworden, wie die angeblich von Platin verzierten Nasenwände von Steven Tyler.

Übrigens ist der Bandname fantastisch, da man genau das bekommt, was man erwartet, nämlich prähistorische, gigantische Elefanten, die einen zerstampfen – oder aber eine saftige Metalband, je nachdem.

(ob es ein böses Omen ist, dass ich derzeit Endzeitstimmungs-Musik so grandios finde?)

Off the high Horse: Danzig rules!

Mein erster Danzig Song (natürlich “Mother”) verwirrte mich. Erstens war ich zu der Zeit nicht an Metal interessiert, fand mich aber hingezogen zu diesem Fest an Metalklischees (in Retrospektive ist das wohl nur halbwahr, wenn man mit Hardrock Eltern aufgewachsen ist, ist man wohl immer an Metal interessiert) und zweitens sollte ein Mann in Netzhemd nicht so cool sein dürfen, wie der von der Visions als Schinkengott betitelte Punkrockmetalheld es irgendwie für mich war (und immer noch ist, selbst wenn er mittlerweile auf die Netzhemden verzichtet…).

(in blickdichtem Shirt und vor allem viel blickdichteren Pixeln, trotzdem groß, kleine Anekdote: der Sänger von Adam West meinte, dass Danzig einer der besten Sänger ever sei, aber er nähme sich selbst viel zu ernst…ich bin mir da mittlerweile nicht mehr so sicher, ob er nicht doch einen kleinen Schalk im Nacken hat? Hm, hm.)

Vielleicht will ich mehr in jemandem sehen, der seit gefühlten 200 Jahren sein Ding durchzieht, seinen Stil bei behält, seine Musik macht, seine Konzerte spielt, irgendwie Punk geblieben ist und dabei immer wieder Sachen der Brillanz blicken lässt, wie Songs für Roy Orbison (“Life fades away”) und Johnny Cash (“Thirteen”, unten in Danzigs Version zu hören…uh, großartig) oder ein grandioses Duett mit Melissa auf der Maur, aber für mich hat der Mann mehr Humor, als man ihm zugestehen will und mehr Köpfchen, als sich die Lästerschwestern so wünschen.

Wahrscheinlich ärgert mich vor allem diese gewisse Arroganz, die viele Leute gegenüber den großen Metalhelden hegen. Ach, ich selbst gehörte ja dazu, jung und naiv wie ich früher mit meinen 21 Jahren war und über sie lachte, aber mittlerweile muss man doch einfach mal sagen, dass es ein Unding ist, dass alte Indieköppe selbst mit ihrem zigsten identisch klingenden Album groß gefeiert werden, während die alten Punkrocker nur müde belächelt werden, selbst wenn sie teilweise an mehreren Genres mitgebastelt haben. Etwas Respekt, bitteschön!

Fakt ist, ohne Metal und auch ohne Glenn Danzig wäre die Welt doch ein großes Stück trauriger, ohne diese großen Hymnen, diese weit ausufernden Gitarrensoli und diese langen Haare, breiten Schultern, sabber, sabber…wo war ich?

Coogans Bluff “The Information” – Musikvideo und Roggenroll

Meine Rostocker Lieblingsrocker haben ein neues, schickes Musikvideo heraus gebracht, das an Ferien auf dem Bauernhof erinnert (die wurden ja schon vom kleinen Vampir und Bibi Blocksberg gemacht, das muss also cool sein) und außerdem ein unglaublich, ja fast schon verbotenes Sommer Feeling weckt.
Der Song kommt aus dem aktuellen Album Magic Bubbles und darf ab jetzt (3,2,1 – JETZT) geliebt werden. Ach so, nach dem Gay for Johnny Depp Pixel-Penis Eklat möchte ich darauf hinweisen, dass man ausgefüllte männliche Unterwäsche in der Nahaufnahme zu sehen bekommt.