KROKODIL - 'SWEAT & SWIM'

Formats

• BACILLU9861015 - 2xLPs

  4003099861015

Details

2x140g, Gatefold, Downloadcode Krokodil was founded in Switzerland 1968. With their unique sound they quickly played their way into the hearts of many fans of Krautrock and Prog-Rock. 'Sweat and Swim' is their second album on bacillus records and features a cover version of Kris Kristofferson's 'Billy Dee'. The album was produced by bacillus main man Peter Hauke and features Rainer Marz (Atlantis, Jeronimo, Marz, Supermax etc.) on guitar. 

Tracks

01. TALKING WORLD WAR III BLUES 02. ALL I EVER WANTED 03. DAYBREAK 04. SKYLAB 05. TWO TO TWELVE 06. THAT'S ALL RIGHT, MAMA DISC #2: 01. LINGER 02. LITTLE GIRL 03. BILLY DEE 04. THERE YOU STAND ENTANGLED

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RICKED WICKY - 'KING HEAVY METAL'

Formats

• GBVI60 - LP

  655035086019

• GBVI60CD - CD

  655035086026

Details

King Heavy Metal, the second release from Robert Pollard’s self-described “supergroup” (tongue practically piercing his cheek with self-deprecating irony), is a hitherto undiscovered species of rainforest songbird capable of changing colors in the ultraviolet and infrared spectrums. At once prog-struck, collagist, technically impressive and melodically complex, King Heavy Metal lives up to and subverts its title over the course of its twelve songs. There’s stuff on here that wouldn’t be out of place on any post-Isolation Drills Guided By Voices album, stuff that wouldn’t be out of place on an alternate-universe mid-’70s Who album, and stuff that’s as lo-fi, booze-addled and sloppy as anything from “classic”-era GBV. Pollard’s determined to establish Ricked Wicky as more than just another solo or side project: it’s a proper, self-contained group with significant contributions, both instrumental and songwriting, from guitarist Nick Mitchell (long time GBV / Pollard stalwart Kevin March supplies drums). Mitchell sings lead on two songs here, both presumably written by him as well: “Imminent Fall From Grace” and “Weekend Worriers.” The latter is a kind of “A Salty Salute” update, with Pollard taking the anthemic first chorus, but Mitchell handling the rest of the vocals. Stranger, but in some ways more interesting, is Mitchell’s other contribution. “Imminent Fall From Grace” contains probably the most straightforward, earnest lyrics ever associated with a Pollard record—and yet, bizarrely, the song fits, and fits well, with the sort of no-fucks-given experimentation on display throughout King Heavy Metal. From the skewed-time-signature stomp (with periodic King Crimson-esque breakdowns) of “Come Into My Wigshop” to the voice-over montage intro to “Tomfoole Terrific” to the Sabbath-y riff fest (with added insane babbling chorus) of “Ogling Blarest,” the record hops from genre to genre (sometimes within the same song) with the giddy glee of a kid in a record shop. What makes King Heavy Metal different from pastiche-laden past efforts (like, say, I don’t know, Bee Thousand) is the level of technical mastery (high) and recording fidelity (high) and altered consciousness (very high) on display. Though Pollard contributes his own often-underrated guitar heroics, when Mitchell cuts loose with a solo—as he does on, for instance “Map and Key”—it’s like, “Who let Ritchie Blackmore into the studio?” The answer is probably Ritchie Blackmore let himself in the studio, because he’s Ritchie Blackmore, and has his own studio, but on “Map and Key” Mitchell’s blistering, melodic runs coil and twist around Pollard’s epically melancholic constructions with impressive brio. King Heavy Metal is not devoid of signature Pollard moments, like the power pop chug of the album’s opener “Jargon of Clones,” or the lo-fi balladry of “Too Strong for No One to See You,” but the emphasis here is on pushing limits. While not the weirdest record in Pollard’s discography, King Heavy Metal is a very rare bird indeed. Just listen. 

Tracks

#1 Jargon Of Clones
#2 Come Into My Wig Shop
#3 Imminent Fall From Grace
#4 Too Strong For No One To See You
#5 This Has Been My Picture
#6 Ogling Blarest
#7 Tomfoole Terrific
#8 Earth Among Men
#9 Weekend Worriers
#10 Walk Through Glass
#11 I'll Let You In
#12 Map And Key

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DANAVA - 'UnounoU'

Formats

• EZRDR050 - 2xLPs

  603111998916

Details

Deluxe reissue of the second album by Danava (original vinyl pressings go for silly money also), beautiful gatefold sleeve, double vinyl… this is heavy rock at its finest, in its purest format!! Riffs aplenty, and classic rock overflowing from the grooves here, These guys channel a special '70's sound and vibe. For fans of Hawkwind, Blue Oyster Cult, Never say Die Era Black Sabbath!! early-prog and kraut-rock.Travel back to the future with Danava 

Tracks

1 UnonoU
2 Where Beauty & Terror Dance
3 The Emerald Snow Of Sleep
4 A High Or A Low
5 Spinning Temple Shifting
6 Down From A Cloud, Up From The Ground
7 One Mind Gone Separate Ways

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Audio & Video

OLD MAN'S WILL - 'HARD TIMES - TROUBLED MAN'

Formats

• EZRDR048 - LP

  603111998817

• EZRDR048CD - CD

  603111998824

Details

Real rock ‘n’ roll requires a little bit of mystique, a little bit of swagger, and a little bit of trouble for good measure. Sweden’s Old Man’s Will possesses all three of those ingredients in spades, and they comingle into a wonderfully inebriating aural concoction on the band’s second full-length album, Hard Times – Troubled Man [RidingEasy Records]. The quartet— Benny Åberg [vocals], Klas Holmgren [guitar], Tommy Nilsson [bass], and Gustav Kejving [drums]—delivers a brash, bluesy, and brilliant opus that’s the perfect soundtrack for all kinds of trouble. In between drunken late night jam sessions, parties in apartments with instrument-covered walls, a healthy diet of Deep Purple, Free, and Stray Dog, and other assorted mayhem, the boys emerged from Umeå’s underground with their self-titled debut in tow. They embarked on a successful European tour before RidingEasy Records came upon their Soundcloud and offered them a deal to reissue their first offering. In the midst of it all, Old Man’s Will began compiling ideas for what would eventually materialize as Hard Times – Troubled Man, sharing a collective vision. “It was a step towards a more classic rock sound,” says Klas. “On the first album, we were heavily influenced by a lot of contemporary sounds and bands—something we are moving away from. For Hard Times – Troubled Man, we used old hard rock and blues as a foundation, creating something that’s meant to become the sound of Old Man’s Will.” The first single “Troubled Man” shucks and jives between a hummable riff and a swinging stomp. “Basically, it’s about being a creative musician today and the life around it,” explains Klas. “Musicians and creative people are unique, and they’re troubled. Sometimes, the more troubled you are, the closer you are to writing that magic An ordinary life just can’t compete. Playing rock music today means big sacrifices and insane amounts of work with barely no return, but we love what we do and we don’t trim our sails to the wind.” “Ratking” subsides from a barrage of guitar acrobatics and howling vocals into an entrancing saxophone solo, while “Another Seven Days” morphs into a seven minute-plus epic. Klas continues, “It’s about a certain type of angst. When using your inner fire as a blowtorch to get shit done, things can get out of hand. You can’t balance enjoying your accomplishments because you can’t sleep and you’re all stressed out. It’s something musicians go through.” Ultimately, Old Man’s Will do what their idols did. They take the foundation of rock ‘n’ roll and leave an indelible stamp of their own. “We never had the intention of inventing a new genre,” concludes Klas. “We’re not about social media, posing, being ‘hip,’ or playing a certain fuzz or guitar pedal. For us, it’s just about great songs.” Fans of Sabbath, St Vitus, Blues Pills, Kadavar, Elder and the likes are going to lap this up…

Tracks

1 Fools
2 Troubled Man
3 Easy Rider
4 Ratking
5 Got It
6 Another Seven Days
7 How Could You Know
8 Hazel Eyes

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HERBCRAFT - 'WOT OZ'

Formats

• WOODSIST080 - LP

Details

Across four LPs, Herbcraft’s trajectory has taken the form of an open-ended and perpetual trip, covering ground from the pining bedroom odes of Agartha to the psychedelic living room services of Ashram, to the full-band barn hoots of 2013’s The Astral Body Electric. On its fourth album, Wot Oz, the band undergoes another bold reinvention, shifting its locale to the Traummaschine A/B warehouse, where Matt Lajoie met with drummer Aaron Neveu and bassist / organist Joe Lindsey for the trio’s first-ever rehearsal in July 2013. The practice was intended simply as a warm-up for a live gig, but surveillance tape began rolling almost immediately, as the group’s chemistry imbued both abstract sound experiments and primitive rock- and blues-based numbers with the same heady waft of freewheeling possibility. The needle touches down on a slice of this initial meeting: “Fit Ür-Head” lands at the feral, pummeling nexus of proto- and post-punk; a live-to-tape two-chord gob of lung-tar spat inches from a flea market snakeskin, while voices howl and wah guitar razes every inch of green. From this auspicious birth the album moves through the afterhours narco-haze of “Au’s Nation” to the Zamrock-inspired groove of “Push Thru the Veil,” with Neveu rolling off an endless stream of future-classic break-beats throughout. On the flip, “No More Doors” finds a sunbaked cassette of tabla-and-bass loops melting as the band abandons Earth for hallucinogenic oblivion, and the album’s closing 12-bar blues deconsecration “Bread Don’t Rise” spins a circular framework into a sweaty Fillmore dancefloor-filler strictly for the heads. Fittingly, this trip ends only when the tape falls off the reel. Wot Oz was recorded and mixed on 1/4-inch tape and four-track cassette, mastered by Timothy Stollenwerk, and is presented in mono for optimal blare. Turn it up. “A major acceleration in terms of the Herb sound, this one sees them phasing in and out of reality over a killer drum break that makes the whole thing travel and shake ass like never before. Mile-wide F/X dazzled vocals haunt the background like your favourite psychedelic Xian choir while the primitive dub production is just too much, melting elegiac wah-wah solos into so much cotton candy.” —David Keenan “Herbcraft writhes and flows through umpteen Amon Düül-ian soundscapes with all the raging Mithraic fire of Flower Travellin’ Band, a permafrost of sonic ice suffused by its own incandescent glow. That good? That compelling, kiddies. That the U.S. Underground continues to throw up such out-ofnowhere essentials is more than heartening; it’s a lifeline and that’s a fact.” —Julian Cope

Tracks

1. ?We?re Gonna Make It
2. Fit ?r-Head
3. Au?s Nation
4. Push Thru the Veil
5. No More Doors
6. Bread Don?t Rise

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Audio & Video

REATARDS - 'GROWN UP FUCKED UP'

Formats

• 118GONE - LP

  60038525213

• 118GONECD - CD

  60038525220

Details

Shortly after the release of Teenage Hate, the debut album from the Reatards, an 18-year-old Jay Reatard started working on a new album. He was spitting out punk rock anthems a mile a minute at this point, so a new record made sense. And what else was there to do? He’d quit school a couple years back so a normal day for Jay meant he was bumming around midtown Memphis winding people up. At this point, Eric Friedl had introduced Jay to Meghan Smith, via mail or phone or something. And they became fast friends. Smith and Blake Wright ran Empty Records out of Seattle, and the label made plans to release Grown Up Fucked Up. After a complete mess of a European tour with the Persuaders, Jay came back and recorded the album with some help from his girlfriend at the time (and future Lost Sounds bandmate) Alicja Trout. It soon became clear that there was a harder edge to everything. While Teenage Hate had been nasty, it was rooted in the Crypt / Oblivians scene of scuzzy rock, with covers of Fear, but also Buddy Holly. Grown Up Fucked Up was a power pogo into Killed By Death-style punk rock. The songs jumped off the record and grabbed you by the throat. They were passionate, ridiculous and utterly authentic. It wasn’t too long afterwards that he put out the equally amazing “Your So Lewd” single (now included on the album as well). Like everything Jay did, he did it his way. His recordings hold up because they are completely unique. He created a scene full of imitations, but no one duplicated him. Goner wanted to make sure they stayed true to Jay’s aesthetic with the repress, so they didn’t mess with it much. Smith sent over the original DAT recordings and the record was sourced directly from them. Kyle Johnson at Rocket Science Audio handled the transfer, and Jason Ward mastered to vinyl. Doug Easley took care of the digital mastering. The record was pressed at Memphis Record Pressing. Man, Jay would have loved that so much of this happened in Memphis. Goner is proud to put it out there again: Grown Up Fucked Up by the Reatards

Tracks

1. Blew My Mind
2. Alls I Got Is R-N-R
3. Sick When I See
4. Lick on My Leather
5. You?ll See Me
6. Sat. Night Suicide
7. Heart of Chrome
8. No One Stands Me
9. Tonight It?ll Come
10. Get Outta Our Way
11. Who Are You
12. All the Walls Are Closing In
13. Miss You
14. Eat Your Heart Out
15. I Want Sex
16. I?m Gonna Break Down
17. Your So Lewd
18. She Will Always Be With Me
19. Busy Signal

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DAN MELCHIOR'S BROKE REVIEW - 'LORDS OF THE MANOR'

Formats

• ITR279 - LP

  759718527919

• ITR279CD - CD

  759718527926

Details

It’s been a long time since the world heard from Dan Melchior’s Broke Revue. Their last album, O Clouds Unfold!, was recorded in 2004 and was posthumously released in 2009. During their five year existence, the band’s sound evolved from raw, blues-based rock ’n’ roll to a more experimental / post-punk style. Since the band disbanded, Melchior has carried on with a solo career that has been prolific, to say the very least. The volume of singles, albums and cassettes that he’s churned out over the past decade has been staggering. Now, after a ten-year hiatus, Melchior has reassembled the Broke Revue and (in record time) recorded a new album. Lords of the Manor takes a very different turn from the band’s last album. O Clouds Unfold! was an voluminous showcase of Melchior’s infectious and melodic songwriting, with layers of extra instrumentation spanning 23 songs. Lords of the Manor is an entirely different beast; song structure and instrumentation are stripped to the bare bones, melody is ditched in favor of repetition, Dan’s usual lyrical style is jettisoned for a far more minimal approach and the band’s previous penchant for tightly-crafted two-to-three-minute rock songs has given way to long, sprawling improvisations. The result is dark, relentless and incredible.

Tracks

1. Outskirts
2. I Don?t Know
3. The Defeat of JC
4. Monkey
5. Jaki
6. Lord of the Manor
7. Rain

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