Short cuts: Corrosion of Conformity, Eyehategod, Wo Fat reviewed

CD Review: Wo Fat – The Conjuring

Small Stone

All Access Rating: A-

Wo Fat - The Conjuring 2014

If The Sword, Kyuss and the Meat Puppets all gathered together at some lonely desert crossroads to ingest peyote and summon the spirit of Robert Johnson, the resulting jam session might sound a little something like Wo Fat's The Conjuring. A crusty morass of monstrously heavy, churning riffage and fuzzy, swampy grooves lost in a howling storm of constantly mutating psychedelia, the fifth album from these Dallas, Texas, voodoo priests finds the band expanding and lengthening their stoner-metal instrumental forays into the deep backwoods of the soul on such tales of the strange and weird as the propulsive "Read the Omens," the hazy, menacing "Pale Rider from the Ice" and the dark, 17-minute opus "Dreamwalker."https://www.facebook.com/smallstonerecords

CD Review: Eyehategod – Eyehategod

Housecore Records

All Access Rating: A-

Eyehategod - S/T 2014

"Sometimes I'm stuck together/sometimes I'm so unglued," rages Eyehategod vocalist Mike IX Williams in "Parish Motel Sickness," a trudging, Sabbath-like dirge off the legendary NOLA meat grinders' latest epistle of vitriolic sludge metal. And sometimes life gets almost unbearably tough, as it has for the infamous Eyehategod in recent years – culminating with the death of drummer Joey LaCaze. Eyehategod ends its long silence with this visceral, tortured self-titled release, surging so forcefully ahead with brutal, writhing riffs and bulldozing rhythms driving "Quitter's Offensive" and "Trying to Crack the Hard Dollar" and blasting through the hardcore intensity of "Agitation! Propaganda!" Though monolithic and lugubrious, Eyehategod never settles into predictable tempos, and when it downshifts or speeds up, the path they're on, however rocky and twisting it is, takes them exactly where they want to go. Every note is played with careful deliberation and delivered with a sledgehammer. http://www.thehousecorerecords.com/

CD Review: Corrosion of Conformity – IX

Candlelight Records

All Access Rating: B+

Corrosion of Conformity - IX 2014

Simply titled IX, Corrosion of Conformity's newest offering from Candlelight Records is a brilliant hot mess of heavy electric blues, doom-loaded sludge metal and trashy hardcore. Raw and utterly organic, the bludgeoning IX takes its cues from Blue Cheer, Black Flag, Black Sabbath and rebellious, anthemic Southern rock, throwing it all in a blender and pouring out this tasty gravy over a bed of grits and razor blades. With the power trio of bassist/vocalist Mike Dean, drummer/vocalist Reed Mullin and guitarist Woody Weatherman stretching out jams a little further than before, IX on rare occasions lacks focus, but they still know how to manufacture brawny, meaty riffs. Between the stomping blues of "Elphyn," the blustery punk of "Denmark Vesey," the catastrophic breakdowns and chugging insistence of "The Nectar" and the renegade tempos of "On Your Way," IX flies Corrosion of Conformity's freak flag with pride. http://candlelightrecordsusa.com/site/

CD Review: Conan – Blood Eagle

CD Review: Conan – Blood Eagle
Napalm Records
All Access Rating: B

Conan - Blood Eagle 2014

Patience is a virtue, and Conan will reward those who don't jump ship five minutes into the engrossing "Crown of Talons," the 10:06 behemoth of monstrous, primeval doom metal that opens Blood Eagle.

Emerging from earth's deepest, darkest bowels to take stock of humanity in all its ugliness, the Napalm Records release Blood Eagle is a ponderous beast of a record, its enormous riffs – corroded by distortion and tuned down to dredge the bottom of some polluted lake – towering high above apocalyptic scenes of death and destruction. Flooding into the similarly cast "Total Conquest," "Crown of Talons" is spellbinding, an arduous, trudging death march into a blackened pit of despair.

And it is a long, long hike, the terrain growing more and more treacherous with every step. Change comes slowly, as midway through "Total Conquest," Conan starts to churn and writhe, before returning to its well-worn path of devastation. The heaviest sludge to navigate is found in "Horns for Teeth," its malevolent growl that of a massive, feral animal that wants nothing more than to crush the bones of its prey into powder and feast on its flesh. There is great torque in the riffs of "Altar of Grief," and it is an incredible seismic event.

Blood Eagle makes SUNN O))) seem like easy listening, and it doesn't quake in fear of Eyehategod, as the vocals, sounding so distant, seem to come from a place of unbearable pain and the guitars dwarf mountains. Rarely, however, do these English dregs stray from that monotonous tempo and sound that they live in, and Blood Eagle becomes the ultimate test of endurance, causing many to flee in fear or out of sheer boredom.
– Peter Lindblad