If you love The Black Keys like I do, then this is a great addition to your collection. The picture disc will be released on 19 January 2010. The album’s namesake was a General Tire & Rubber Co. building which has since been torn down. A few sites have the album available for pre-order.
In October 2009 the band issued a picture disc of Thickfreakness as well.
Hot Snakes 2nd album Suicide Invoice, sold out first press, will be repressed and shipped in Jan 2010. These won’t last very long.
Get yours here.
So I heard on the internets. You know how they talk, well they are saying that Shrinebuilder is the crowning achievement of all Stoner Rock. Shrinebuilder is a Stoner Rock supergroup, made up of Wino (Obsessed, Saint Vitus, Hidden Hand, Spirit Caravan), Al Cisneros (Om and Sleep), Dale Crover (Melvins and Altamont), and Scott Kelly (Neurosis).
This album lives up to the hype. I love all the bands each member is/was in, but Shrinebuilder transcends each of the individuals. Dare I say it’s the best Stoner album all year? It tries hard, you can tell it’s trying, but it also achieves much. Scott Kelly’s vocals are the perfect contrast to Wino’s howling and the ear does not tire of either voice.
The opening track, Solar Benediction takes us on a journey through all the Stoner Rock cliche’s, Doom, Psychedelic, Classic riff rock, and brings us to the other side, complete with acoustic guitars, feedback, reminding slightly of Black Sabbath’s best (I must say) album Sabotage. Solar Benediction is an 8:00 lesson in the history of Stoner Rock.
Track 2, Pyramid of the Moon reminds me of Isis, comes on strong and heavy, then lightens up with only mildly distorted guitars, and quickly picks back up with the fuzzy doomy guitars. Shrinebuilder lets the music breathe on this track. The guitars are recorded beautifully and the band focuses on the music without crowding the song with vocals. Part way through the track, among the chorus of guitars, layered on top of each other, a group of voices in harmony enters as if monks of the Stoner cathedral were called in the studio. The song could be a soundtrack to a movie about the crusades, full of hooded Christian monks on the bloody warpath for god.
Track 3, Blind for All to See, starts with drum/bass, and then a guitar sneaks in sounding almost exactly like the Diablo video game guitar. I played that game too many times not to recognize that one. Immediately after, guitars begin laying the groundwork in single note right/left, just slightly different notes times, in a feedback call/response. This song reminds me of The Doors, Riders on the Storm, a grooving bass line with an abstract guitar telling the story riding on top of the song. Don’t misread this, the song is not commercial, most likely would not get airplay, but is amazing, original, and seriously artistic.
Track 4, The Architect, comes out of the gate a bit riffy, not that its a bad thing, and features Wino on vocals. Wino’s voice is so distinctive and unusual, sometimes it takes away from the music underneath. I really like it when the band sings with Wino, to almost dilute his voice in the mix. Great song, but not quite achieving the greatness of the first 3 tracks.
Track 5, Science of Anger, comes on a bit complicated with the winding single note guitars with Wino on verse vocals, and switches to heavy chords and Scott Kelly’s voice for the chorus. The song builds with the guitars building tension while the bass/drums just continues to drive along moving the tension underneath to release in the chorus with a Zepplin-esque explosion. Halfway through the song, they release altogether, with one single guitar ushering in the rest of the band piece by piece for another slow build.
This is the rock I love. I just cant get enough art-rock-stoner-psych-riff, dark, explosive, evil, driving metal. How will anyone top this album? This album is like the first time you watched The Matrix and wondered, well, thats the end of how movies are made. I suppose music will now be known as pre-Shrinebuilder and post-Shrinebuilder.
Stonerrock.com had some color vinyl of this album and has already sold out. Those lucky bastards have a piece of history.
On November 3rd, Sub Pop released an anniversary edition of Nirvana’s first album Bleach. As a bonus they’ve included “an unreleased live recording of a complete February 9th, 1990 show at the Pine Street Theatre in Portland, Oregon”, according to Sub Pop’s website. The website goes on to say that the vinyl is a “weighty collection of records and images and nice packaging”.
I love it when labels go out of their way to make a nice reissue, and this is sure to be a good one.
Slayer World Painted Blood on 180g Vinyl LP
Not really my favorite album. Ok I suppose I’m a fly-by-night Slayer fan. I really only like South of Heaven and Reign in Blood. All the other albums after South of Heaven sound annoying to me. I saw a clip video of World Painted Blood a few days ago on XBox Live and thought, wow that sounds cool. Maybe Slayer found a new sound, more like the old sound! Unfortunately after a few listens I found it to be annoying and just bad.
I wish I could post a good review of this album, but I only got two songs into it before I turned it off in disgust. I’d still love to see Slayer live, and there’s nothing more brutal than South of Heaven and Reign in Blood. Just not digging the new Blood album at all.
