Spider Goat Canyon - Always Heavy

I'm travelling up through the midlands of England after a massive weekend in Oxford. I am suitably broken. My head wrapped in headphones, my hand shakily clasping a huge bottle of tepid water - and I am subjecting myself to brutality, because it's good and I deserve it.

Bro Fidelity Records is a Melbourne label that fossicks from a particular earthen vein of heavy rock. Most of the bands involved – Hotel Wrecking City Traders, Daggers Mid Flight, River Of Snakes, Fire Witch – all feature members from the same cloistered coven, all intent on creating dark yet rhythmic metallic rock that pummels in submission that seduces onto the rocks of despair – or just plain kills. Another band in this ilk is Spider Goat Canyon, and their album Always The Heavy fits this modus operandi from the album title down. 6 years in the making, and marking the last recordings with guitarist Steve Brick, this gargantuan release is a release of tension, a steeling of resolve, a Pyrrhic victory to those (un)lucky enough to hear it. A broiling concoction of drone, doom, 70s to 90s metal and elongated space rock, the album starts with a weird yet ominous instrumental track, ‘Rat Tooth’, with what sounds between a strangled sax and a strangled voice hovering in the middle distance, a muddied doom riff slowly coming into start focus by song’s end. ‘Needle Drivers’ brings the dronal vocals, while ‘Crunk’ takes metal with a glass-ripped vocal assault. ‘Vertigo’ is a faster, feverish trip – and all three major deviances has been laid out and flayed. Some of the music reminded me of my childhood (the aforementioned, early Metallica-aping ‘Needle Drivers’, the sinuous bass giving a Tool resonance to ‘Chadrick’) and some more recent predilections reared their heads (the droned feedback of ‘Heart Attack’; the cataclysmic instrumental breakdown the brilliantly deranged ‘Men’). By the time the mammoth punches of ‘Secret Valley’ and ‘Embryonic Gillslits’ hit (both approaching 20 minutes), the noise journey this trio take you on is tantamount to undertaking the Twelve Tasks of Hercules, a penance being paid, seemingly, just for being alive. But in many ways that is exactly what Always The Heavy is – a black mass, repenting for the sins of the past, present and future, yet with a twinkle in the eye that is upturned towards the stratosphere and beyond. All plains are crossed and conquered, all voices have been heard and silenced. A colossal album from start to finish.

IT'S LIVE!!! - Hotel Wrecking City Traders @ 'Pojama People', PBS

Here is one of the coolest instrumental bands in Australia, live on the Pojama People show on Melbourne's PBS radio station. One song - a 46 minute version of 'Ode To Chunn.' Stalwarts of the Bro Fidelity clan (home to the likes of Fire Witch and River Of Snakes), Hotel Wrecking City Traders are relentless harbingers of demonic doom, yet with a melodic lilt that draws you inexorably to the knife's edge. It's electrifying stuff, executed with cutthroat precision and cataclysm. In short, it's awesome. I think I might try and bring them back to Brisbane...



This is a new segment of awesome live recordings - if you have any that you think fits the bill, by all means send em out way on sonic.masala@gmail.com or through our Twitter or Facebook pages. Nathan and I are off the day job for two weeks, which means you will hear more from us over the next fortnight. That said, I don't intend to be that lucid, so you might wanna strap yourselves in. Night folks.

Purest Evil Instilled In The TTTDC

Here are a couple of take-no-prisoners releases from balltearing Melbourne labels We Empty Rooms (DEAD/Fire Witch) and Bro Fidelity (Hotel Wrecking City Traders/Fire Witch) that have been slaying eardrums by the thousands...

Melbourne's TTTDC (what does it all mean? I have no idea. Best guesses in the comments section!) is a voodoo doll spiked incessantly with downtuned guitars, stream-of-consciousness drumming and surprisingly melodic vocals that don't sound like fucking Birds of Tokyo or some other such toe scum. They are so big they already have a Greatest Hits record. Well that's what this LP is called anyway. Greatest Hits is both indulgent (wailing metal guitar solos!) and degraded (deafening feedback!), all recorded at the Tote one rainy Monday. No better way to start the week, recording your soon-to-be Best Of. A manifesto of festering ideas, these doom trippers are as happy scorching your soul as they are crooning your hole. Brutally sexy. (Seriously, tell me what TTTDC is, mindfuckers!)

Then there is the speed-fuelled bile vat from the aptly titled acidic giants Pure Evil Trio. Cognitive Dissonance is also an apt title for this EP, a screeching maelstrom of intellectual gnashing of teeth, all done with the kind of gum-bleeding ferocity that thrashes all competitors into an early grave.  All so abrasively unlovable, right? And yet there are moments of enjoyment here too - mutated punk anthems lurk under the blood-drenched howls of mindless discontent. Hold it up to the light and watch this opaque disease glow. Wollongong's answer to The Locust?  Listen and forever wonder where your mind went.

Hits From The Box #66 - 8 Pack FTW

I've just come back to the "day job" a couple of weeks - of which I also had a bit of a break from Planet Masala. Thing is, I can never quit this. I saw four great shows (including one of my own, which was actually one of the best shows I've put together), and had quite a bit of vinyl come through the mail. Therefore I'm focusing the first Hits From The Box back into the fold (and it's an 8-pack, no less) on those releases (plus one that actually came last year, but I was overseas then, and then lost it in the move, then found it last week, so it still counts). Trust me - these bands are built to last (and probably have bigger neck muscles than you too).

Let's kick off in Russia. Motorama is a five piece whose Calendar LP is a heady mixture of 80s synth throughlines, complemented by a baritone vocal that could be Matt Berninger from The National if he sang in a New Wave band from 1986, rambunctious post-punk guitar that segues from beach pop to glistening indie melodrama, and a drumbeat that is relentless in keeping the momentum at breakneck speed. It's quite possible this indie fusion has benefited from a discovery of old music and new, all at the same time - like being subjected to a cell for fifteen years, then when released heading to the nearest record store where your first three purchases are Phoenix, Bauhaus and Roxy Music (seriously makes me want to spin these back to back now...). Not that far from The National, if they were more musically upbeat - and I love the National, for better or worse, so there you go. Calendar is Motorama's second album, out now on Talitres (grab it here).

Scottish trio Poor Things are pretty great. Their EP Hurricane Poor Things (out through Vinyl Ritchie Records - a seriously great label pun) offers five slices of guitar pop delivered with verve, sunny tempo and reckless abandon - just three boys loving their guitar rock by way of Pavement, The Kinks and Male Bonding. Then is now. Fun intensity, a hurricane of candy cane? These boys won't be poor for long.

Poor Things - Ice Cream

Father Figures as an idea has existed for seven-odd years, yet the band members' other endeavours (which include other avant-pop amalgams such as Man Man and Matthew Dear) has kept these zombie jazz merchants from storming the world like a go-go virus. Like jazz, Father Figures offers instrumental passages that are often whims, an improvisational melange of like minds melding as one; unlike jazz, most of the tracks on their Bad Bad Birds EP are rhythmic, the saxophones speaking to the listener, a viral disease of the ears. It's cracked, it's decayed, it's deformed - it's delectable

Canadian wonk-rock heathens Zuzu's Petals took me by surprise, as I only listened to their The Fire Breathing Dragon record as an example for a friend as to how many emails we get at Sonic Masala HQ ("Look how much comes in a day! And most of it sounds like this...Actually this is pretty good, scratch that..."). It's classic off-kilter, semi-abrasive, wholly immersive rock that the likes of early Modest Mouse, Pedro The Lion and a goddamn plethora of other bands are familiar dealers of, and they do it well. Really well. It has that hazardous yet infectious as fuck vibe that Spook House and Pile have, two releases that blindsided me last year and continue to reap rewards. Don't be surprised if Zuzu's Petals doesn't crawl under your skin and keep you warm at night.

A subtle play on one of modern history's true wordsmiths, Bristol's Oliver Wilde has been scratching at the surface of reality for a little while now, finding a somewhat incongruous home on Howling Owl Records. This band is not post punk or no wave - yet there is something chaotic in the miasmic haze that the act casts over their soundscapes, an electronic unease that curdles the mind. There are moments, like on the AM fried harmonics of 'Flutter', that you feel like Oliver Wilde is a familiar, that they have always accompanied your greatest achievements; but before long another wave of warbled noise drifts across and hides the band's true intentions, an unnatural, perturbing pop with so many layers it's difficult to know where to start. Lysergic soundtracks to a cartoon crawl. Too many and too few colours to take in. I'm exhausted - but I just want another taste - just one more... A Brief Introduction To Unnatural Light Years comes out on white vinyl on Monday - pre-order it here (you really must).

Another label to come onto my radar is one closer to home, with Bro Fidelity providing a home for some of Melbourne's greatest heavy instrumental acts. One such band is Fire Witch, whose Liars record from 2010 was sent to me recently. It's incredible - a heady noise fest, sure, but one that requires patience and due diligence. The impressive thing about this trio is their insistence on the slow burn - sludge rhythms that roll forward, an insidious ebb and flow, that become a flatline for the Underworld, baiting silence before bursting forth in a wanton release of brutal force. 

San Diego gutter punks CHAMP, other than they made this EP. I like it that way. This feels like something I would find scratched on a cassette hidden under the passenger seat of the car, all covered in dust and lint, and not know whether I was listening to a mixtape or an album. The mood swings wildly - 'Nothing' is nascent, noisy, nasal garage punk; 'Burnt Alive' swings and sways in a heady malaise before sparking to life in an angsty rage; 'Bummer' squalls, offering a listless uncertainty before the afterburners kick in; 'Terror Of God' is maudlin misery in all its resplendent glory; 'Loser' disappears down the well, an acoustic plea never to be heard. It's all pretty ace. More please.

And we finish with the hypnotic guitar crawl of Glass Gang, a Brooklyn group that link a crunchy yet simplistic guitar line with wispy, tired vocals and elegant synths, a basic drum machine offering a quirky counterpoint that somehow ties it all together. I didn't think I would be a fan of this, but it immediately sunk its hooks in and some two weeks later has refused to let go. An intriguing prospect that I will watch closely from here on out...



HAPPY THURSDAY EVERYONE!