Bag Of Hammers is the first full length Linus Pauling Quartet album since 2007’s All Things Are Light and picks up where that album left off, being a 41 minute ultra-heavy blast of stoned psychedelic metal and rock ‘n roll. In fact, this is one of the most STONED albums I’ve heard all year, and while I’ll bet most reviewers will call it Stoner Rock, I hesitate to tag the music as such. I love psychedelically inclined Stoner Rock but have been frustrated by how generic it’s become. I mean, all the bands seem to sound the same for chrissakes. Not LP4. Despite the Quartet of their name, there are five members, three of which are guitarists, and the entire set is a rocking guitar assault with mega-riffage, lots of jam bits and solos. Bag Of Hammers is a heavy ROCK album that brings together 70s styled hard rock, Metal and good old rock ‘n roll, and gives it all a solid Psychedelic infusion. No need to do my usual analysis of individual tracks, except I’ll say that the nearly 9 minute stoned, spaced out, Hendrix-like Stonebringer is my favorite of the set, and Victory Gin has a psychy 60s rock ‘n roll vibe while still sticking to the heavy stoned theme of the album.
All the tracks, though including lots of jamming, are structured songs, and the band have really got it together throughout. That said, I do miss the more freeform improvisational side of LP4. But that’s a just a wishlist for the future. Bag Of Hammers will easily make my best of 2012 list.
In summary, note the cover art… a Red Sonja figure with a hammer twice her size standing on a skull strewn hill. Listen to this album and YOU will be one of those skulls.
For more information you can visit the The Linus Pauling Quartet web site at: http://www.worshipguitars.org/LP4/
Reviewed by Jerry Kranitz
Released in 2010 but recorded in the years prior to 2007’s All Things Are Light, Horns Of Ammon is a 7 track, 36 minute set that highlights the somewhat lighter side of LP4. Now when I say “lighter”, I should emphasize that I’m writing about this CD immediately after having been immersed in the decidedly NOT-light new Bag Of Hammers (see review above), so this is pure brain massage compared to that album.
Vali Ohm is the work of super-Hawkfan Danny Jackson, who has written the bulk of 3000 Light Years, supplied most of the vocals and played most of the instruments. Amongst the guest musicians is one Nik Turner, who even gets his own “featuring …” name check on the cover, perhaps rather cheekily, as he only appears on one track. The opportunity to record with the legendary former Hawk must have been like a dream come true for Jackson, who goes on to list his other inspirations as Ozric Tentacles and Frank Zappa, as well as ’70’s rock titans Bowie, The Who, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. The album artwork looks pretty good, and the names of the tracks – Space Machine, Interstellar City and the title track – tick all the right boxes, but unfortunately the music itself never really manages to deliver. Opener Jazz Up the Spacerock fails to ignite and Club Outer Stratosphere is unlikely to get many people on the floor with tinny sound and thin vocals exhorting everybody to move and get in the groove at the titular nightclub. Having said that, 3000 Light Years does have its bright moments, most significantly on the title track, which features the much-anticipated spoken word vocal of Nik, and sounds a little like the stuff he was doing on the Space Ritual Otherworld album, as well as some nice acoustic guitar playing in the introduction, and a competent guitar solo. Jackson’s guitar playing also gets a chance to shine on album closer Home, and to a lesser extent on Space Machine. Perhaps one of the biggest hurdles for Vali Ohm is the lack of any kind of driving rhythm – there is very little bass in evidence, and the drum machines sound tired and thin. Jackson’s main strength appears to be at the keyboard, and early 1970’s Hawkwind synthesizer swoops abound throughout the album, particularly on Interstellar City. The brief, ambient track The Encounter works better than most, and Life Force 1 opens in similar style, before breaking into a jammy section that conjures up images of Secret Saucer playing a cover of Tim Blake’s Lighthouse. As a homemade labour of love, 3000 Light Years is indeed light years ahead of anything I could manage to put together, but suffers from a lack of substance and perhaps collaboration. Were Danny Jackson to lend his guitar and keyboard skills to a live rhythm section and more powerful vocalist, he would likely come up with something to match his spacerock aspirations.
In 2008, Argentinian progressive metal/fusion band Poseidotica delivered their second album, La Distancia (reviewed for Aural Innovations #40), which proved to be one of the most musically thrilling releases of that year. Epic album closer Las Magnitudes in particular featured passages of such beauty and power that would melt the heart of even the most jaded listener Now they are back with Cronicas Del Futuro, released on the tenth anniversary of the band’s formation in Buenos Aires. The big question is, can it live up to the awesome legacy of their previous album?
Fretboard Jungle is the new album by founding Guru Guru guitarist/vocalist Ax Genrich and his current band, which consists of Steff Bollack on drums and Mario Fadani on bass.
In 2011 Cleopatra Records corralled the to-die-for triple bill of Nektar, Brainticket and Huw Lloyd-Langton for a 13 date tour of the US that started in New York City on August 17th and ended in West Hollywood on September 3rd. I caught the August 28th Cleveland show which I detailed in AI #43.
When I started Aural Innovations in 1998 the bands on the heavier end of the space rock scene that I was enamored with were Spacehead in the UK and Born to Go in the US. The latter, sadly, never gained the attention they deserved due to having played lots of gigs and festivals (I saw them several times) and making miscellaneous sound files available on the internet but never released an album. And then the really good heavy bands got few and far between for a while. While listening to the new Litmus album, their fourth – Slaughterbahn – I took a peak at my 2002 review of one of their earlier cassette releases which begins – “Now here’s something I hear surprisingly little of anymore. Genuine 100% unfiltered non-pasteurized SPACE ROCK!”
Sound Of Ground are a guitar/bass/drums/vocals trio from Moscow, Russia who have released their debut album on the R.A.I.G. label (Russian Association of Independent Genres). The music on this 11 song, 50 minute album consists of fuzzed out stoner rock with metal, grunge and a variety of other influences, with the fuzz being the constant throughout. I gave this album a few casual listens and wasn’t overly impressed but appreciated the music more when I sat down for the dedicated headphones review listen.
With each new release the Russian band Vespero further reinforce my feeling that they are one of the best instrumental bands on the contemporary Space Rock/Psychedelic scene. Their latest album – Subkraut: U-Boats Willkommen Hier – is described on the R.A.I.G. site as “a conceptual framework for six instrumental kraut-rock songs which are inspired by Russian Futurism of the early 20th century, German musical underground of the 70’s, modern American fiction writers, as well as mysteries of the Great Ocean still not completely explained by mankind.”
Lee Jackson was a writer who reviewed for the Broken Face zine, Foxy Digitalis and other publications. Lee passed away in late March 2012 after a battle with ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and this incredible 94 track compilation was put together by Mats Gustafsson, Travis Johnson and Ned Raggett as a tribute to Lee.