JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Lars Ulrich’s 59th birthday.
Tag: thrash metal
Throwback: Happy 77th Birthday, Lemmy!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 77th anniversary of Lemmy Kilmister’s birth.
Throwback: Happy 76th Birthday, Lemmy!
JOVM celebrates what would have been Lemmy Kilmister’s 76th birthday. Motörhead forever!
New Video: Stockholm’s Spelljammer Releases a Technicolor Fever Dream Visual for “Lake”
Stockholm-based doom metal/stoner rock act Spelljammer — currently, Niklas Olsson (vocals, bass), Robert Sorling (guitar) and Jonatan Remsbo (drums) have crafted a unique sound centered around a long-held penchant for massive, sludgy power chord riff-driven dirges with dramatic interludes.
2015’s Ancient of Days was the Stockholm-based act’s third release — and in many ways it was a rebirth of sorts: it was the band’s first recorded output as a trio and sonically the album represented a decided move towards a heavier, doom metal-leaning sound. Lyrically, the album was inspired by Swedish author and Nobel laureate Harry Martinson’s epic poem “Aniara,” in which a spaceship leaving an uninhabitable Earth is hurtled off course, sending its thousands of passengers on a steady course in the wrong direction — and there’s nothing they can do about it. The poem ends with the spaceship’s passengers dying as the ship continues on its journey through the vast nothingness of the solar system.
Spelljammer’s fourth release, Abyssal Trip is the first bit of new material from the acclaimed Swedish act in over five years, and the album reportedly finds the band bridging their earlier desert rock/stoner rock leanings with their more recent massive, slow-burning sludgy riffs. And while continuing Olsson’s long-held obsession with pondering the vastness of everything, Abyssal Trip derives its name from the perpetually dark, cold, oxygen-free zone at the bottom of the ocean. The album’s six songs manage to embody that bleak and dark realm with rumbling and oozing guitars and dramatic melodic interludes. But unlike its predecessors, the album finds the band crafting material that slowly unfurls, which gives the proceedings a hypnotic quality.
“The lyrical themes we address, like the ultimate doom of man, and the search and longing for new and better worlds, are still there,” Olsson says. “The concept of something undiscovered out there in vast emptiness is pretty much always present.”
Additionally, the album finds the band employing a much different recording process than previously releases: the members of the Swedish act opted to capture the performances live while holed up in a house in the countryside, just outside of Stockholm. “The songs benefitted from the relaxed environment of being away from everything,” Olsson explains.
Clocking in at a little under 7:30, “Lake,” Abyssal Trip’s expansive first single is centered around alternating sections of crushing, sludgy doom-laden dirge and menacing galloping thrash, a gorgeously shimmering, melodic break and a scorching guitar solo — and it’s all held together by mosh pit friendly hooks. “Lake” manages to find Spelljammer crafting a song that evokes the vastness and and power of a brewing storm over an enormous body of water — and the smallness and powerlessness of humanity.
The recently released video is a uneasy and hallucinogenic fever dream that features grainy Super 8 footage of a devil a technicolor field, pulsating to the oceanic sounds of the single.
Abyssal Trip is going to drop tomorrow release through RidingEasyRecords.
Throwback: Happy 75th Birthday, Lemmy!
JOVM celebrates what would have been Lemmy Kilmister’s 75th birthday.
New Audio: Stockholm’s Spelljammer Releases a Brooding and Forceful Ripper
Stockholm-based doom metal/stoner rock act Spelljammer — currently, Niklas Olsson (vocals, bass), Robert Sorling (guitar) and Jonatan Remsbo (drums) have crafted a unique sound centered around a long-held penchant for massive, sludgy power chord riff-driven dirges with dramatic interludes.
2015’s Ancient of Days was the Stockholm-based act’s third release — and in many ways it was a rebirth of sorts: it was the band’s first recorded output as a trio and sonically the album represented a decided move towards a heavier, doom metal-leaning sound. Lyrically, the album was inspired by Swedish author and Nobel laureate Harry Martinson’s epic poem “Aniara,” in which a spaceship leaving an uninhabitable Earth is hurtled off course, sending its thousands of passengers on a steady course in the wrong direction — and there’s nothing they can do about it. The poem ends with the spaceship’s passengers dying as the ship continues on its journey through the vast nothingness of the solar system.
Spelljammer’s fourth release, Abyssal Trip is the first bit of new material from the acclaimed Swedish act in over five years, and the album reportedly finds the band bridging their earlier desert rock/stoner rock leanings with their more recent massive, slow-burning sludgy riffs. And while continuing Olsson’s long-held obsession with pondering the vastness of everything, Abyssal Trip derives its name from the perpetually dark, cold, oxygen-free zone at the bottom of the ocean. The album’s six songs manage to embody that bleak and dark realm with rumbling and oozing guitars and dramatic melodic interludes. But unlike its predecessors, the album finds the band crafting material that slowly unfurls, which gives the proceedings a hypnotic quality.
“The lyrical themes we address, like the ultimate doom of man, and the search and longing for new and better worlds, are still there,” Olsson says. “The concept of something undiscovered out there in vast emptiness is pretty much always present.”
Clocking in at a little under 7:30, “Lake,” Abyssal Trip’s expansive first single is centered around alternating sections of crushing, sludgy doom-laden dirge and menacing galloping thrash, a gorgeously shimmering, melodic break and a scorching guitar solo — and it’s all held together by mosh pit friendly hooks. “Lake” manages to find Spelljammer crafting a song that evokes the vastness and and power of a brewing storm over an enormous body of water — and the smallness and powerlessness of humanity.
Abyssal Trip is slated for a February 26, 2021 release through RidingE
New Audio: JOVM Mainstays R.I.P. Release a “Headbanger’s Ball”-like Ripper
With the release of their first two albums — 2016’s In The Wind and 2017’s Street Reaper — the Portland, OR-based doom metal act and JOVM mainstays R.I.P. quickly established their grimy, punishing, and depraved take on metal that they dubbed Street Doom.
Now, as you may recall, Dead End, the Portland-based JOVM mainstays’ long-awaited third full-length album is slated for an October 9, 2020 release through RidingEasy Records. The album sees the band going through a massive lineup change that has resulted in the addition fo a much more aggressive rhythm section — while also drawing from a more diverse array of influences including John Carpenter films, grungy professional wrestling and lo-fi hip-hop among others. The album also finds the Portland-based JOVM mainstays moving away from the early influence of Pentagram and Saint Vitus, but it may be among the most hook-driven of their growing catalog. Thematically, the album touches upon the same themes of its predecessors — death, insanity and leather.
Last month, I wrote about “Out of Time,” Dead End’s Black Sabbath-like first single, an incredibly accessible track that didn’t scrub away the sludge, slime and grime that has won them attention. The album’s second and latest single, album title track “Dead End,” is a Headbanger’s Ball-like ripper, centered around enormous power chord-driven riffs, rousingly anthemic hooks and howled vocals. Superficially, the track sounds like long-haired era Metallica — but while being sounding as though it could have been part of the soundtrack of a John Carpenter film.
Live Footage: The Death Wheelers Perform “Ditchfinder General”
With the release of their full-length debut, 2018’s I Tread On Your Grave, the rising Canadian act The Death Wheelers — Max “The Axe” Tremblay, Richard “Bastard” Turcotte, Sy “Wild Rye” Tremblay and Hugo “Red Beard” Bertacchi — have developed a sound that’s largely inspired by the aesthetics and ethos of bikesploitation movies like The Wild Angels, Werewolves on Wheels and Psychomania — and Dave Allen, The Cramps, Motörhead, The Stooges, and Grand Funk Railroad.
The Canadian metal act’s forthcoming album Divine Filth is slated for a September 11, 2020 release through RidingEasy Records, and the album will reportedly continue the band’s reputation for crafting, sleazy, head banging instrumental anthems that also simultaneously serve as the soundtrack for fictional bikesploitation films. While naturally centered around power-chord driven riffage, the album sonically finds the band drawing from Motörhead, The Cramps and Dick Dale.
Recorded in a breakneck series of live sessions, Divine Filth is all killer, no-filler, no bullshit scuzzinness with a layer of juvenile crassness that happily recalls Troma Films. Their sophomore album is loosely based around a fantastically dumb yet pretty fucking awesome plot synopsis: It’s 1982. Spurcity is run-down,The crime rate is up and so is drug use. A new kind of kick has hit the streets and it ain’t pretty. DTA, a powerful and highly addictive hallucinogenic drug, is transforming its loyal citizens into undead trash. Its users experience an indescribable high, but it leaves them rotting away within days, craving human flesh. No one knows who is dealing this new potent drug, but rumour has it that the motorcycle cult, The Death Wheelers, is behind this concoction. Could this be the end of civilization as we know it? What is motivating this group of psychotic individuals?
Last month, I wrote about the sludgy, The Sword-like album single “Corps Morts.” Interestingly, the album’s latest single “Ditchfinder General” is arguably the most expansive ripper they’ve released to date as it features elements of Dick Dale surf rock, crusty Headbanger’s Ball-era riffage and dashes of prog rock experimentalism — thanks to an atmospheric and brooding bridge. Continuing their reputation for a cinematic take on metal, “Ditchfinder General” sounds as though it would be part of a movie’s key scene — in my mind, it’d be early on, when the protagonists and antagonists are introduced and defined to the viewer.
