And here’s a great way to continue continuing your morning: fan-filmed footage of Shrinebuilder performing two new songs — “Let the Hell Come” at Scion Rock Fest back in March, and “Nagas 1&2,” at the recent Roadburn festival. As was the case with that Neurosis footage we posted a little earlier, one of these clips ain’t new, but for some reason I’ve never seen it posted elsewhere, so, y’know, it’s new to us.

Here’s “Nagas 1 & 2″…

…and check out “Let the Hell Come” after the jump!

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Matt Pike in one of his most awesomest t-shirts, with some dude I don’t know.

So last week Vince and I hit up the Sleep reunion show (read our friend Justina Villanueva’s review at Noisecreep), and as we were watching the mighty Matt Pike, we turned to one another and were all, “Wow, that dude has a lot of awesome t-shirts!” I mean, Vince and I have some pretty extensive t-shirt collections full of all kinds of cool shit, but that Matt Pike… man. I’ve never seen that dude NOT wearing an awesome shirt.

And so, to that end, I now present to you, oh loyal readers, our list of Matt Pike’s top ten t-shirts.

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Legendary stonebags Sleep are resurrecting their monolithic Holy Mountain this weekend here in the NYC metro area. That record is pretty amazing – less a collection of songs and more a riff delivery program. As is the trend these days, those who didn’t hear them tour on the record in the mid-90s will get a second chance to drink it all in. It will be a moment: everyone in the room will know the songs, the band isn’t going to be too stoned to play and even the opening bands will be watching from the side of the stage, happy to finally hear these songs the way they’ve always hoped to hear them – live, loud and in front of them.

This reunion stuff… I’ve got mixed feelings about it, like lots of folks. I guess it’s better to happen than not to happen. I guess. But bands performing dated works has a sense of nostalgia to it that doesn’t give the charge it did when it was all first going on. This itself may be a fiction – appreciation for a band may grow after they’ve decided to call it quits, and maybe they just weren’t that good a live band when they came up with their classic material. Sleep, for example, was opening for Cathedral at the goddam Limelight (a Mid-town cocaine dance club for those who aren’t familiar) when they were touring Holy Mountain. Still, the thrill of hearing Al Cisneros roll through the opening lines “Dragonaut” just can’t be the same as when it was all happening the first time.

Which is funny for us here in NYC. Because that exact thrill of a totally amazing, mindblowing show happening in a cramped basement by sweaty bands surely at their peak will also be happening Monday night. As 1,000 joints of light are ignited uptown, those lucky enough to cram into the basement of the Lower East Side’s Cake Shop to see Young Widows and Helms Alee are going to be there as it’s all happening for the first time. Each band has put out an underappreciated classic records in the past few years, reports on the new stuff for both say they’re even better and they can each fully fucking bring it live.

Young Widows is a blistering three piece. I guess you could describe them as a rock band, the same way you can describe cheese grater as a kind of loofa. Maybe someone has a complaint with their twin fridge-amp/light show presentation, but not me. It all gives them the visual appearance and sonic presentation of the business end of a Peterbilt truck on a midnight Interstate. I haven’t heard the new shit they will be playing so I’ll hold off on raving about that, but if they’re still ending their set with the transcendently awesome “Swamped and Agitated” from their last record, we will all be leaving that room changed for the better.

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Jon Fine’s best known band was Bitch Magnet, a (usually) three piece active from the late 80s to the early 90s. Though hardly a metal outfit, Fine was a vocal apostle of heavy music in the independent circles the band traveled in, deeply knowledgeable and conversant in obscure, loud shit going back to the early 70s (and earlier). I met Jon at a number of shows in NYC and read a bunch of his enthusiastic and thoughtful posts on the now-dead Chugchanga mailing list and figured he’d have an opinion or twelve on this. Jon also played in Vineland, Coptic Light and even did some time in Don Caballero.
These days Jon pays rent as a media analyst. You can find him on Mediabistro, CNBC and Twitter (where he has about eleven times as many followers as Gary Suarez).

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Following months of speculation, reunited doom metal gods Sleep have announced a string of dates following their appearance at the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in upstate New York. I guess someone’s puttin’ up a big stack of bills for Sleep to do this, because all of those dates fall in a row without any days off: in other words, they’ll be flying from show to show and backlining gear. That costs mucho moolah. Between this Sleep reunion and the recent success of High on Fire, it sure is a good year to be Matt Pike (or one of his fans). Neurosis drummer Jason Roeder will be replacing original drummer Chris Hakius on these shows; no exact reason is given for Hakius’ absence. Check out Metal Insider for details about the additional six dates in Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, Austin, Portland and San Francisco.

Meanwhile, following a stellar return to form in their early 2009 release Ox, Lambgoat is reporting that recently reunited post-metallers Coalesce will return to hibernation after a fun-filled two years of recording, releasing not one but two records, and a ton of touring. In a public statement, bassist Nathan Ellis was very careful in his choice of words — “This is a good time for a break,” as in a break, not a break-up — so all you Coalesce freaks out there shouldn’t get your panties up in a bunch. I’m sure they’ll be back at some point. In the meantime the members will be working on their new homes and businesses, finishing their PhDs and lying supine on the couch.

The lord giveth and the lord taketh away. You win some, you lose some. Yin and yang. Sleep and Coalesce.

-VN

“In times of trouble, go with what you know.”
- Red Tank, Scorched Earth

A few weeks back, I spent some time sketching out an idea about discovering the greatest Taco Riff in the world. My friend Lao Tzo is wont to say that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a step right over to your music collection, so that seems a prudent place to start. I’ve been spending time with some favorite records and, as with most metal types, I keep coming back to the Big Four. So let’s just get into it – the Big Four Taco Riff records.

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In a recent editorial on Invisible Oranges, Cosmo Lee (and yes, it was actually Cosmo who wrote this one… I triple-checked!) used the recent success of High on Fire as a case study to discuss why metal fans hate it when their favorite bands become successful. Cosmo posits three theories and they’re all on point (as usual), but I’ll let you check out Invisible Oranges for that because that’s not really what I’d like to discuss today. I’d like to explore when the fuck High on Fire suddenly became such a big deal.

I’ve never been a huge High on Fire fan, but I haven’t got anything against the band. To me they’ve always been a sweet bonus, that band that’s opening on tour with a bigger, cooler band — “Ah, nice, High on Fire’s on that tour… cool, we get to see Matt Pike rock the fuck out with his shirt off!” — but they didn’t really warrant much attention individually. No doubt, the band has a rich history (hi Sleep) and had a core of die-hard fans, but by and large they lived in the underground. They were always that band that were either a) supporting a bigger band, or b) playing in small, cramped sweaty bars.

There’s a ton of hype around their new album Snakes for the Divine which had a HUGE first week with almost 9k copies sold but, by and large, isn’t all that different from their past work. All of a sudden they’re on the cover of Decibel right out of the gate, with a snake-adorned Matt Pike wearing more makeup than a 50 year-old stripper. And they’re on their own headlining tour of decent-sized legit venues, selling them out across the country. Make no mistake about it; like Cosmo points out, High on Fire are a big band now. They’re in the mainstream metal consciousness.

So when did this sudden transformation happen?

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I don’t know what the weather is like where you are, but here in New York, it’s “Time to build an ark”-type rain. I don’t think I’ll be venturing outside much. Which means lots and lots of time to smoke.

So what song better to smoke to than “Dopesmoker,” which a) has the activity right there in the title, b) is the greatest middle finger ever held up by an artist to a major record label,  and c) is over an hour long and will therefore still be playing by the time I need a refresher? Sure, it’s a little cliché, but some things are clichés for a reason, y’know?

Here’s part one. Parts two through seven are after the jump.

-AR

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According to a tip sent in by Suckalo Leanne Fischler, legendary dope smokers Sleep appear to be looking to do a U.S. tour in 2010. The tip comes from a blog announcement on Sleep’s MySpace’s page titled “Booking info,” in which the text simply reads”

“Sleep booking inquiries can be sent to: john@groundcontroltouring.com”

Which would seem to indicate that the band is looking to tour… right? The text sits on top of the above flyer for the band’s appearance at All Tomorrow’s Parties New York, a 3-day festival to be held in upstate New York this coming September. So while it’d be a stretch to say a Sleep tour is definitely happening, it’s certainly not a stretch at all to say it’s quite likely.

I’m not sure whether the ATP appearance was already announced before this blog, but it’d definitely make sense for Sleep to do a bigger tour surrounding their ATP date. It’s worth noting, though, that with a new High on Fire album on the way Matt Pike might have touring commitments to take care of with his main squeeze.

-VN

While there are more obvious statements than “supergroups more often than not fail to meet our expectations” – “fire will ruin your house” and “Guns N’ Roses have gone through numerous line-up changes” are tied with it – there aren’t many. And yet, with the announcement of a formation of one, excitement is usually the first emotion called upon. And while saying that supergroup prospects should immediately be met with caution is like saying a new car should be approached with the attitude that you will most likely wrap it around a tree, the failure/success ratio is sadly stacked toward the former. However, this usually isn’t the fault of the uber-collective, but our own gargantuan expectations assuming that this new band featuring members of other bands we like will be as good as all the involved bandmembers main projects COMBINED. And while there have been some out and out failures as of late (cough Greymachine cough), the other two most notable supergroups that reared their heads this year – scraggly doom metal gathering of titans Shrinebuilder and semi-unkempt gathering of some dudes from your uncle’s favorite bands Them Crooked Vultures – have gotten an unfair rap in the wake of their respective debuts’ releases. While to say the bands’ detractors dislike their albums because they don’t rival Neurosis, Sleep, the Melvins, Nirvana, Queens of the Stone Age, or Led fucking Zeppelin is unfairly ignoring their actual grievances, to write off either Shrinebuilder or Them Crooked Vultures would be a damn shame, in that, while not reinventing any sort of wheel, in a year where the biggest supergroup commercially was Chickenfoot, a solid doom metal album and a solid stoner rock album are two pretty significant things to dismiss.

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Los Angeles psychedelic-doom drivers Ancestors are already back with another new album after last year’s acclaimed two track debut Neptune With Fire, and this time around they’re  arguably even more ambitious. On the eight track Of Sound Mind, the band expands their scope and continues their doom-laden trip down nostalgia lane, with plenty of prog rock inspirations. And lots of guitars.

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First of all, for our non-Chosen readers: groyse metsie is Yiddish for a bargain. Don’t say I never taught ya nuthin’.

So. For the month of October (or “Rocktober,” as some clever marketing types are dubbing it), Earache is offering a whole bunch of truly righteous albums from their catalog for download on iTunes at a retardedly low price: $5.99 in the U.S., £4.49 in the U.K., and 4,99EUR in Europe. (The press release tells me that “prices may vary in other regions.” Ha-ha.) Now, I know that most of us music snobs don’t like iTunes because the audio quality isn’t as high as it could be, and there’s a better-than-average chance that a lot of you own most of these albums anyway. But if you can get past the whole “IT’S NOT AS GOOD AS FLAC! Snort snort” thing and/or for some reason DO NOT already own most of these albums, it’s a really, really killer deal.

A complete list of available albums after the jump. At least six or seven of these are classics, and nine or so are still awesome and could be classics, so they’re totally worth the six bucks or whatever.

And then one of them is by Oceano.

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I’ve had some family shit distracting me this week, but there’s really no excuse for the fact that I somehow completely missed the debut of a new song by uber-supergroup Shrinebuilder. Entitled “Pyramid of the Moon” and streaming right here, it is just seven-plus minutes of sheer excellence.

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It should come as no surprise that we’re all pretty excited about Shrinebuilder here. And how could we not? It’s a fucking indie metal supergroup featuring Scott “Wino” Weinrich (Saint Vitus, The Obssessed), Scott Kelly (Neurosis, Tribes of Neurot), Al Cisneros (Sleep, Om, Asbestosdeath), and Dale Crover (Melvins, Altamont, Nirvana). Without hearing a single note–since the band has yet to release a single song–it is pretty much understood that its forthcoming self-titled debut shall destroy us all. I firmly belief that these men are the long promised Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Hopefully the particularly nasty bits in the Book of Revelation will take place after I get a chance to see the band play live. As of now, three Shrinebuilder shows have been announced, two on November 14 at The Empty Bottle in Chicago (one early, one late) and a third on November 15 at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City.

-GS

[Gary Suarez watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. He usually manages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. Say, why don't you follow him on Twitter?]

“Highly anticipated” does not even begin to describe the hype surrounding Shrinebuilder’s debut album. The doom supergroup features Saint Vitus / Obsessed / Spirit Caravan / Hidden Hand guitar hero Scott “Wino” Weinrich, Neurosis / Tribes of Neurot leader Scott Kelly, former Sleep and current Om bassist Al Cisneros, and Melvins drummer Dale Crover… basically THE definitive who’s who of doomo all-stars. Roadburn.com is now reporting that the album is finally coming this autumn via Neurot Recordings, and they’ve posted the breathtaking artwork by A Storm of Light’s Josh Graham (a small portion of which I’ve posted above). They also report that the band will play several gigs in the U.S. later this year with European dates to possibly follow.

Speaking of A Storm of Light, they’ve got a crushing new track called “Midnight” streaming on their own website (take that, MySpace!). The track comes from the new double-disc record Forgive Us Our Trespasses, due in September via Neurot as well.

Thanks to MS Maniac Charlie F. for the tips.

-VN

As one of the founding members of arguably one of the most important metal bands, Scott Kelly helped navigate Neurosis from a crust punk genesis to the lords of abstract doom they’ve become. Despite going on to semi-normal adult lives not built around touring, they’ve still managed to put out some of the most challenging and, ultimately, best music of the decade. Kelly himself splits his non-Neurosis time among Tribes of Neurot (the band’s ambient side project), an acoustic solo career, the post-apocalyptic folk of Blood & Time, and, most recently, stoner metal wet dream Shrinebuilder, featuring Melvins drummer Dale Crover, Sleep/Om bassist Al Cisneros, and doom icon Wino. In an interview Scott was kind enough to grant MetalSucks – conducted during his trip to the airport on his way to some European Neurosis shows, stopping once to get through airport security and ending when the plane was ready to take off – he discussed his collaboration with the gentlemen in Shrinebuilder, his history with Neurosis and long-time collaborator Steve von Till, and punk’s limiting ethos vs. metal’s acceptance.

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The United States has a brilliant new President in Mr. Barack Obama, and here we are debating whether or not Christians can make tr00 black metal. What can I say? Here are some other things that happened this week:

• We debuted new music from The Giraffes.
• Marilyn Manson splits with young, ghostly-looking female, contemplates future life (hint: it probably involved another ghostly-looking female 20 years his junior).
• Mastodon divulge some details about their new album (hint: lots of drugs had to have been involved).
• Sammy O’Hagar interviewed Enslaved’s Grutle Kjellson and Vince went Jew on Jew with Daath’s Eyal Levi.
• Deftones bassist Chi Cheng was in a tragic car accident and remains in a coma. Godspeed.
• Stoner legends Sleep announce reunion shows; as Led Zep contemplates life without Robert Plant, we pray to God that decision doesn’t spawn a Creed reunion.

Til Monday…

Here’s an e-mail we received from MetalSucks Maniac Bill Kendrick over the weekend:

“HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS SLEEP ARE REUNITING FOR TWO SHOWS!!!!! WHY HAVEN’T YOU WRITTEN YOU ABOUT THIS YET? THEY’RE THE BEST FUCKING BAND EVER! SLEEP! SLEEP! SLEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!”

So, Billy Boy, this one’s for you: Sleep are reuniting for two shows at Minehead in the UK this coming May. Hopefully these shows are just the beginning of a proper reunion tour.

Here’s Sleep’s video for “Dragonaut.”

-AR