ACID KING
Acid King is one of my favorite Doom/Metal ROCK bands and Busse Woods is just a great CD. I’ve had it for years and still like to listen to it occasionally. It’s a HEAVY, minimalist deconstruction that never gets old and, as with all three of these bands, the hypnotic, repetitive nature of the riffs and parts bring to mind a type of modern-day Shamanism. Also, there is nothing cooler than the tone of Lori’s detuned guitar blasting through a Marshall stack. In addition to great writing and guitar-playing I’ve always dug how her vocals compliment the music. There aren’t a whole lot of female doomers out there and while she can certainly growl with the best of ’em, she can also sing and that isn’t a bad thing even for this kind of music. I was lucky enough to have seen the band twice over the past (whoa) decade and they didn’t disappoint. Glad to see that they are still kickin’ it. I especially love Electric Machine, Carve the 5 and the title track. Busse Woods has been reissued since I got it and now includes Motorhead by Hawkwind and Not Fragile by BTO! Yay! Electric Machine below.
Men of Porn
This was a Man’s Ruin release from the beginning of the 2000s. I still dig this disc. Inspired by heavy music of bands like The Melvins and the lunacy of noisy punk rock and experimental music, Men of Porn deliver on their debut, American Style. I saw them on the following tour and they were loud, noisy and disgusting (and I mean “disgusting” in the best possible sense). Tim Moss, guitar and founder, bangs out heavy riffs with a very gooey Orange Amp tone and coaxes all manner of noise out of his rig on this groovy disc. I especially like the brilliant 17+ minute long Coming Home (Smoking Pot On A Sunday Afternoon While UFO’s Drone Overhead), Fat Trout, and Porch Song. Melvins drummer, music legend Dale Crover and producer, engineer, musician extraordinaire Billy Anderson are now members of the MOP and have done a couple of fairly recent tours. Fans of The Melvins, Eyehategod or any of the other alt-metal acts out there will dig this because the musicianship and humor is top notch!
Kyuss
Kyuss was THE band(along with Monster Magnet) that helped usher in the resurgence in psychedelic, heavy music in the early-mid 1990s. This disc is probably their best and released in 1992 (same year as Monster Magnet’s Spine of God) it not only received a whole lot of critical acclaim, but also influenced an untold number of bands who went on to make their own brand of heavy alt-metal. Kyuss set a new standard of CRUSH because the guitars were tuned down to “C” and plugged into a Marshall head and Ampeg bass cabinet to create a heaviness not heard before, even on Black Sabbath records. Josh Homme, the band’s guitarist was barely out of his teens when this disc was made but he certainly knew how to riff and rock. The rest of the band: drummer Brant Bjork, vocalist John Garcia and bassist Nick Oliveri brought lots of heavy playing and conceptual ideas to the project, and, like Homme, have all been a part of many a great musical experience over the last almost 20 years. Kyuss is touring again right now without Homme as Kyuss Lives! and I’m sure it’s a REAL good time.
As far as the album goes, I don’t think there is a bad jam on here. It flows really nicely from the first track, Thumb through the rest of the 14 song, 50+ minutes, alternating between tight vocal-oriented songs and instrumental jams. Obviously a whole lot of thought went into the writing, playing and recording, which is probably why it is regarded by many as a really great LOUD album most people have never heard. I especially like Thumb, Green Machine, Apothecaries’ Weight (beautiful jam), Thong Song, Freedom Run…and ALL of them. Blues for the Red Sun is a real statement and an album that sounds better with each subsequent listen. There are always new things to discover and it’s definitely one to listen to in the headphones. While I do like some of the later stuff in the Kyuss catalog, they never got any better than this.
The Guitar Cave 