6x2x12 comp on Volar Records

Today you lucky jerks, I'm going to talk about this 12" comp from Volar Records, and it's been while since I had a 12" compilation in my hands. I remember old label cassette comps, but this is like the World Lousy With Ideas volumes. Why not have the modern comp be a label curated single mixtape...but on vinyl?

The Defektors kick this whole thing off with, "Not the one" a jangly stuttered guitar rock from the annals of post punk, except for that solo. Jittery rhythms that explode into a chorus looking forward inline with Hot Snakes.
Next up is a track from the O Voids: A minimal, lumbering away instrumental like some kind of ancient war song the third day into the ceremony. It's a great effort just to continue on, the drugs are wearing off and the villagers are leaving, but this transition is necessary to get to that transcendental place. This circle of melody repeats a few times and "Crawling Machine" is picking up their limbs and placing them a few inches forward.

Sharp Ends round out this Canadian side and I just caught their latest from Mammoth Cave. Terribly long stick count in...waaay past 8? Is that because they're on some weird alternate clock...well no, call this one straight ahead 4/4. Hit the kit on every beat all the way to the finish. The guitar isn't even really an instrument as much as another hitting device via strings. I love this far off heavy Bauhaus echo on the vocal, it turns an otherwise garage track into something much creepier.

I feel weirdly lazy not having to flip this thing over every song.
Maybe this is sort of a Volar faceoff? USA Vs Canada? No...wait Volar says competition through cruelty? Hmmmm, maybe the opposite, I forget.
Anyway I'm happy to see this kind of a comp that's like a split single times 10, you hear some new bands that undoubtedly are related and that's a good thing.

The (USA) Side features, Ale mania who are fresh in my mind from that previous Volar release but this one feels like it has almost nothing in common with that single. Pure chameleons of a nightmare Cramps style rocker with some yelling spoken word in the middle. The guitar section living alongside the machine gun sampled riffs of ancient Ministry.
The Beaters track, "They don't really care about us"...do what else? Beat on the tom and kick into this equally creepy buried track. If Blessure Grave approached their output from a more punk place it might have ended up in this place. It's no wonder BG had such a brief run, they were creating this ominously heavy, dark rock that inevitably has to explode, the same way Justin Beiber (I don't care how to spell it either - ed) is going to on the other end of the spectrum.
The Beaters here are dark and fast. Nice under-usage of a synth sound. Just enough to question who's side their on.
Spirit Photography make their ghostly appearance last. What's been going on with them since that single on Sacred Bones? A track like "Where is the Light"'s layered muddy drum machine, paced, slow vocal haze. Where's the light?... Where's the full length?
Just as creepy but pretty frantically hypnotic with a lot of distorted guitar work that honestly could have gone on a lot longer in my book.

A comp from Volar that says, what year are you living in anyway?

Have a listen to the streaming tracks from Volar or pick up a copy, still available on white vinyl.

Sharp Ends + Krang - 2 new singles from The Mammoth Cave Recording Co.

2 new singles today from the Mammoth Cave Recording Co, both of which I'm told are in short supply so this is your final Friday warning! If you like what you hear, head over to the Mammoth Store and pick these up.

First up is Krang and this Sabbath meets Wooden Shjips description is perfect..I would even throw a little Dead Meadow in there for the crushing low end coming out of my speakers right now.
"Speed of Tent" on the A-Side kicks off with overblown drums and a rumbling bassline. Super heavy slow warbly vocals and low end riffage complete this heavy heavy psyche metal. It's great they really captured the hugeness of this sound, you might as well have just walked into that dark, smoke filled room you could hear from the street. I hope these guys have some earplugs or those gun range headsets, or they'll have a Mission of Burma situation on their hands if they don't already.
Then on the B-Side, they start out with a muddy acoustic and tambourine, far off ghostly howls accompany a heavy delay vocal, but never fear the wall is coming...you can hear the storm clouds forming and they hold off for just long enough to keep that tension rising. When it breaks, the solid melody they've been steadily burning gets one plateau higher and they wah-wah through epic solos. I can't get enough of this completely live, bleeding into each other sound.

This one is over here.

We think that this is the best 7" we've released so far. Two heavy-psych brain-warpers, think Wooden Shjips if all they ever listened to was Black Sabbath and smoked way more dank. Krang embody the pure spectacle of their psychedelic stoner-rock - crushing rhythms, screaming guitar solos and a dude blaring away on a clarinet making the most ungodly sounds. They destroy. You've been warned.

Next up is the Sharp Ends, and this single is actually a reissue of a self released 7inch they put out in 2009 that just 100 people had the luck of picking up...well not anymore! This 4 song EP is back out having been unearthed in the lower reaches of the Cave, and it's another great production, getting that live room sound just right, sound waves reverberating around, for that unhinged garage psyche feel, keeping their dark character and what I'm sure is exactly what you'd get on stage.
The A-Side's title track, "Broadview Pressure Test" is made up of a massive rhythm section, huge room sound drums and the low end bass and gritty guitar. The vocals are captured just above this wall, with just the right amount of distortion that comes from yelling your face off. They keep this quieter dark section playing off the all out chorus...damn, like Warsaw...there's that raw rock feel that's focused on a driving melody.
"Panic Button" quickly establishes a rising scale riff, and the vocals here just barely layered with echo, this guy is great, here it comes off as that nervous blown out post punk Bauhaus. A great burst of
"Vacant City" goes south with a little bluesy bent, definitely getting garage, with just an overwhelming amount of low end driving this train.
"Can't Say No", these recordings are dense, still frantic and dark, but energetic..and it's a great combination. Instead of brooding on this style, they sound like they're exorcising it.

Get this one here.

Reissue of Sharp Ends self-released 4-song 7" EP that came out in an edition of 100 and sold out in 24 hours back in December 2009, and in my humble opinion, the best Sharp Ends best songs from when they were fresh and hungry. Deadly serious here, we've been itching to reissue this since it was released.

The Ostrich - Mt Fuji in Red on Mammoth Cave

How is it such a tiny world? I barely start looking into this last one, The Ostrich from Mammoth Cave and it's Chris from the Sharp Ends. Turns out he and the drummer, Mike went from Ostrich to the Sharp Ends.
This sleeve is classic punk, printed + cut out at home. It's a war photograph. I think Pearl Harbor...a bunch of ships from the air circling around on the back. It's massive destruction, a turning point in civilization...world war...so I was guessing this might be a tad bit heavier than the Sharp Ends direction...not really, there's a pretty clear line from this to the sharp ends.
So what's the difference? Well, The O is cleaner sounding, not the sort of direct blues garage direction let's say, more sinister then party garage. It's definitely dark vocally, the instrumentation maybe puts this into slightly laid back psyche/rock at times, thanks to the organ but it's more frontman heavy with Chris' delivery here, it's a little funhouse clown menacing this time. Kind of tough and a touch goth and mixed way out front.

Mt Fuji in Red has this great opening percussion part and the chorus is harmonic feedback alternating with chords...it's a great sound. If anything this sounds a little too together, something about the mix puts everything on the same level. This one ends with lots of spooky screaming theremin, and it's going rockabilly here for some reason. Leave it to the Cramps to have completely co-opted that 'instrument'.
The B-Side track 'Rabies' steps things up a bit, and it gets pretty raw....this is a precursor to the Ends definitely. It shows how much the way it's recorded is effecting the sound...this could be on a Sharp Ends single, if it had more life and texture to the recording...the performance is there.

Dig it from the Cave that is Mammoth:

After the demise of The Ostrich, enigmatic front-man Chris Zaijko and drummer Mike Bressanutti went on to form Sharp Ends to great success (selling out their debut show at Broken City in Calgary with people eager to find out if Sharp Ends could live up to The Ostrich's legacy). Needless to say, the rest is history.

We were lucky enough to find two boxes of Mt. Fuji in Red (the 2nd 7", and my favourite of the two - "Rabies" alone is worth the price of admission!), and have about 30 left, so act quickly.

Sharp Ends on Mammoth Cave Recording Co.

In the same batch of releases from Mammoth Cave was this Sharp Ends (why do I keep thinking of split endz....jesus) single. The sleeve reminded me of a teepee release a while back...black and white line drawing of something tribal, but then it's a head eating another head. Get that tattoo around your bicep jerk-off!
Then I'd respect you.
Crack Trap the first track on the A-Side...A tom-centric beat and bassline supports this Fugazi sounding plucked harmonic melody with dark deep vocals that's taking me back to listening to Peter Murphy on cassette, but PM never rocked like this. There's no pretentiousness cutting you up. It's dense intelligent post punk, there's no repetition, the vocals found their place back in the mix, but somehow has a dialogue with itself, back and forth, layered and then single line. Damn it's really bringing back Fugazi like crazy, the more I hear this, the chorus call and response, the energy...and I mean that in the way that there isn't a specific sound Fugazi ever really had, you could just hear the distinction between them and everyone else...in the details.

'Loaded Hearts' on the B-Side is more frantic, I'm even recalling the Replacements here, it's brief, full of more power-ish chords, a little more raw. Rocking with the layered vocals just out of reach and attempting to get the party started this time instead of encourage the dread so much. Just completely solid, they've got something. Mammoth Cave dug out a pretty amazing gem. I'm looking for the Hozac single now as well, I get the feeling every single thing is going to be just as interesting.

A: Crack Trap
B: Loaded Hearts

Fresh off their debut on Chicago's Hozac Records, Sharp Ends deliver their 2nd of three 7"s coming out in Fall 2009 (with each single decreasing in availability). For this single, Sharp Ends combine their post-punk/early Joy Division vibe with decidedly more of a pop sensibility, even displaying elements of power-pop on the b-side, Loaded Hearts. The killer here is the a-side Crack Trap, which has one of the catchiest guitar hooks we've heard in some time. Essential.