New albums for July

So, KBGA, our lovely college radio station, lets me add heavy music to the playlist rotation because they're absolutely insane. Here's what I've put on there over the last month. Want your band to get on here? Hit me up. Be warned, you might suck.

Enabler,* Eden Sank to Grief*:
Milwaukee's Enabler is a crust-grind-powerviolence-death-punk-metal powerhouse of F*$#$*%G awesome. Heavy, fast, dark, urgent,desperate. Feels like trying to climb out of a hole filled with hungry rats with only a chainsaw. Not for the faint of heart. Fans of Discharge, Macgrudergrind and KEN Mode, this is for you. These dudes played at the VFW a while back, during Total Combined Weight's residency. It blew my fucking face off.

 The Melvins, *The Bulls and the Bees EP:* 

What can be said? It's Melvins
and it's awesome. They took the best part of their sound from about five
years ago and made some more epically awesome tunes accompanied by
additional oddities that we love them for. Precursor the Freak Puke, which
has just been released. This video rules, and they'll be at the Top Hat on 9/9.

 Black Pyramid, *II*: Second release from MA's stoner/doom group, these nine
tracks clock in just over an hour. What a sublime hour. At times a little
death influenced, other times a little black influenced, the classic
Sabbath style of stoner metal meets the modern standards for doom. This
album speeds up a bit at times in comparison to their self titled, but
"Dreams for the Dead" (#4) and "Into the Dawn" (#9) are long, wandering
epics (used in the literary sense) that won't disappoint the little music
nerd that lives in all of us. My favorite release this year so far.

 Buildings, *Melt/Cry/Sleep*: What? This isn't a 90's band? No, they're not,
and they're coming to TFXI. It's not a new sound, but it's a damn well good
and trusted one. I could have sworn this was something recorded by the band
that didn't exist between Scratch Acid and The Jesus Lizard. Like trying to
run away from your stoned haze at 3am and being too confused to find your
running shoes and having a brain aneurysm. For fans of Dazzling Killmen,
The Jesus Lizard, Scratch Acid, Rapeman and Big'n

 *Baroness, *Yellow:   *Baroness will build a new fan base by making me say
"RIYL: Radiohead, Thrice, Explosions in the Sky".  It will alienate fans
who wanted something heavier, like me.  Heavily textured (almost
overly-textured), this rambling, soft dual album has the Relapse heavy
hitters trading in their heavy shoes for radio -friendly vocal harmonies
throughout.  Good, but doesn't live up to the hype. There are some gems 

in here if you have the patience to wade through it all, I suppose. here's

the heaviest song they could come up with.

 *Mares of Thrace, *The Pilgramage: *Hard to believe the instrumentation is
produced by a duo!  These Canadian ladies shred hard, angular riffs,
occasional odd timing, and brutality make it an odd blend of noise rock and
metal but strongly the latter. The lady rockin' the strings for this band also

plays bass part time in KEN Mode. Awesome or AWESOME?? 

 Melvins Lite, *Freak Puke: *"Melvins Lite" seems to be a tongue in cheek
moniker.  The instrumentation is lighter, seeing Trevor Dunn (Tomahawk, Mr
Bungle) step in on stand up bass.  This seems to accent an already dark,
haunting sound.  The average DJ will love track 8, but Melvins fans can
hear what they hoped for with Melvins fans can hear what they hoped for
with 5 and 6.  They cover Paul McCartney (WTF?) on #9.  A lovely addition
to the Melvins catalog.

Catch-up: Bridgebuilder says goodbye, Throne of Lies, Shramana has a record and Total Combined Weight

Ok. I have a lot of material but I don't really need all of the fluff. Let's get down to business, shall we?

1) Bridgebuilder
Bridgebuilder was a band. That's a weird thing to say, given that David Johnson, sole proprietor, has called every incarnation of his personal writing by that name. It's had a different line-up quite a few times, being a lovely blend of many genres. The most persistent sound that was made by the group was a post-hardcore/artsy noise rock that often bordered on metal. At times it was heavier, at times it involved taping keys down on a keyboard, modulating feedback and banging on sheet metal with a hammer. David Johnson now plays bass with Shramana, Bjorn plays with Memo to Maury and Matt plays D&D with me on Wednesdays. Here's the title track to the last BB EP being played as their last song at the VFW.

2) Throne of Lies
Holy black metal, Batman! It's been since. . .forever that a town like Missoula gets lucky enough to have a band like Throne of Lies. . .exist. Yes, it's black metal, but one could go so far as to call it blackened death metal, but I think of it as deathened-black metal. That makes sense, right? These dudes listen to Amon Amarth. Like, a lot. It's pretty apparent. I can't get enough of it. In my ear holes. They'll be around awhile. Go see them the first chance you get. Here they are performing at Zombie Tools without their singer as he was in fuckin' AFRICA.















3) Shramana
Shramana is my band, so I'm not comfortable talking about the quality of our music, etc. I'm proud of a lot of the music I write and our execution of it. We released two full length albums on June 16th and are available on our website. This is a new track, the first time we played it live. See if you can spot the multiple errors! We're playing August 4th at Zoo City Apparel with Same Sex Dictator, August 15th with JERCS at the VFW, August 18th at the Lab with TIGON and Bone Dance, September 4th at the Lab for TOTALEVICTIONFEST and more to come. Stay tuned.

4) Total Combined Weight

Some 30somethings in Missoula who liked heavy music said, "Fuck it, let's start a band." It's chronicled by their bassist quite well here . Actually, you should just read that article, it explains the band much better than I could. However, I'll say that there's something to be said for a band that combines pop sensibilities into punk without becoming a pop-punk band. I enjoy their music and apparently so do a lot of other people, that's why they had a residency at the VFW several months back. The night with the best turnout saw a night of covers, with every band playing a cover set tailored to their tastes. TCW weighed in the heaviest and played Minor Threat's discography, start to finish (the finish seemed a little hazy), including Out of Step twice. They are currently on hiatus while members enjoy the beginnings of fatherhood.

There's plenty more good music to see, what with TotalFest XI just around the corner, the Melvins are coming to town and Korpiklaani coming to Billings, I'll get as much as I can up here. In the meanwhile, I'll try to get my album reviews for my playlist adds for KBGA up here ASAP as well as the Dirty Flannel playlist. I'll be on air from 6-8pm tonight playing Melvins Lite's Freak Puke, Mares of Thrace and the New Baroness.