Pale Wizard Records – Sparks: Kimono My House 50 Years Later (Pale Wizard Records)
Having already confirmed that 2025’s 50 Years Later album will be Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here, the Pale Wizard Records guys have again collected the best and brightest stoner/doom/riff worship bands to cover another 70’s classic. So far we’ve had Alice Cooper, David Bowie and Budgie but things get a bit more avant garde with the breakthrough of Ron and Russell Mael aka Sparks.
The glam/synth/pop/rock band scored their breakthrough with third album Kimono My House and the lead single This Town Ain’t Big Enough Both Of Us became an instant classic, used in plenty of films, TV and even covered by Justin Hawkins. Kimono My House became a glam classic, from one of the most unconventional bands at the time. It’s a real testament how well these songs are converted into the heavier stoner/doom sound.
As with all the albums Pale Wizard have chosen, it highlights the original song writing abilities of those involved, this time the Mael brothers but also the talent of the bands to be able to put their own spin on the songs. Emulating the Mael brothers and the band consisting of Adrian Fisher (guitar) and rhythm section of Dinky Diamond (drums) and Martin Gordon (bass), as with all the Pale Wizard albums, you get the entire original release plus additional Sparks tracks on the deluxe CD and digital editions.
So to the album itself and that perennial favourite gets us going, the always impressive and eclectic Phoxjaw doing the honours on the most known song by Sparks. They inject it with their own alt rock noise, though they don’t get rid of those dual harmonic vocals, just tune everything down so it’s sludgy rather than glammy. So far so good and things get better when the legend that is Tony Reed tells the tale of adolescent sex education with Amateur Hour, adapting the four minute pop into 70’s rock.
Scots riffers Earl Of Hell bring a sway, swagger and grit to the vaudeville Falling In Love With Myself Again, it's up to Josiah to ramp up the glam again with the stripped back Here In Heaven. Sergeant Thunderhoof get the festive Thank God It's Not Christmas, which they can work their doomy prog magic over. This is the mid point of the record, dark and brooding as it leads into Hasta Mañana, Monsieur, keenly delivered through the shimmering alt rock of Krooked Tongue, a Bristol trio I've never heard before but I will checking out more from them.
That's the major take away from all of these compilations, it's about discovering bands that perhaps you don't know or have not heard before. Yes they're playing covers here but within their own audio remit. Silvery put 60's indie acid psych on Talent Is An Asset as Chaosmonaut go back to their experimental roots with their jangling fuzzy Complaints into a twitchy doom boogie, making you appreciate acerbic lyrics of Ron Mael.
The main album ends with a double shot of psych rock as In My Family and Equator are brought to life by Black Helium and Besvärjelsen, these Swedish stoners adding some dreamy desert rocking. The two non album tracks are Barbecutie from Dis & Co turning the This Town... B-Side into a glistening synthwave Bowie-like number as Lost And Found which was an Amateur Hour B-Side ends the album very strongly with The Slightest Bits clearly heavily influenced by Sparks as it's the closest to the original.
It can be seen as a risk for a load of 'heavy' bands to cover an act like Sparks but Pale Wizard Records continue to surprise and entertain with their yearly time machine compilations. Bring on 1975. 9/10
Having already confirmed that 2025’s 50 Years Later album will be Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here, the Pale Wizard Records guys have again collected the best and brightest stoner/doom/riff worship bands to cover another 70’s classic. So far we’ve had Alice Cooper, David Bowie and Budgie but things get a bit more avant garde with the breakthrough of Ron and Russell Mael aka Sparks.
The glam/synth/pop/rock band scored their breakthrough with third album Kimono My House and the lead single This Town Ain’t Big Enough Both Of Us became an instant classic, used in plenty of films, TV and even covered by Justin Hawkins. Kimono My House became a glam classic, from one of the most unconventional bands at the time. It’s a real testament how well these songs are converted into the heavier stoner/doom sound.
As with all the albums Pale Wizard have chosen, it highlights the original song writing abilities of those involved, this time the Mael brothers but also the talent of the bands to be able to put their own spin on the songs. Emulating the Mael brothers and the band consisting of Adrian Fisher (guitar) and rhythm section of Dinky Diamond (drums) and Martin Gordon (bass), as with all the Pale Wizard albums, you get the entire original release plus additional Sparks tracks on the deluxe CD and digital editions.
So to the album itself and that perennial favourite gets us going, the always impressive and eclectic Phoxjaw doing the honours on the most known song by Sparks. They inject it with their own alt rock noise, though they don’t get rid of those dual harmonic vocals, just tune everything down so it’s sludgy rather than glammy. So far so good and things get better when the legend that is Tony Reed tells the tale of adolescent sex education with Amateur Hour, adapting the four minute pop into 70’s rock.
Scots riffers Earl Of Hell bring a sway, swagger and grit to the vaudeville Falling In Love With Myself Again, it's up to Josiah to ramp up the glam again with the stripped back Here In Heaven. Sergeant Thunderhoof get the festive Thank God It's Not Christmas, which they can work their doomy prog magic over. This is the mid point of the record, dark and brooding as it leads into Hasta Mañana, Monsieur, keenly delivered through the shimmering alt rock of Krooked Tongue, a Bristol trio I've never heard before but I will checking out more from them.
That's the major take away from all of these compilations, it's about discovering bands that perhaps you don't know or have not heard before. Yes they're playing covers here but within their own audio remit. Silvery put 60's indie acid psych on Talent Is An Asset as Chaosmonaut go back to their experimental roots with their jangling fuzzy Complaints into a twitchy doom boogie, making you appreciate acerbic lyrics of Ron Mael.
The main album ends with a double shot of psych rock as In My Family and Equator are brought to life by Black Helium and Besvärjelsen, these Swedish stoners adding some dreamy desert rocking. The two non album tracks are Barbecutie from Dis & Co turning the This Town... B-Side into a glistening synthwave Bowie-like number as Lost And Found which was an Amateur Hour B-Side ends the album very strongly with The Slightest Bits clearly heavily influenced by Sparks as it's the closest to the original.
It can be seen as a risk for a load of 'heavy' bands to cover an act like Sparks but Pale Wizard Records continue to surprise and entertain with their yearly time machine compilations. Bring on 1975. 9/10
Urzah - The Scorching Gaze (APF Records)
Yes!! Bristol sludge merchants have signed to the UK's loudest record label. The home of big riffs APF is the home of some the loudest and some of my favourite bands so adding Urzah is a natural fit. I've loved Urzah's two previous EP's, catchily titled I and II, their live show too is fierce and fiery, so I was wondering what their full length would hold.
In the information accompanying this album they are described as a "gargantuan storm of savage riffs" it's a decent description of the noise Urzah bring into your earholes. With the djent meets Faith No More jerkiness of Immateria Noir, the drumming of James Brown, insistent and booming here as it bubbles and boils putting weirdness with chunky thick riffs. A Storm Is Ever Approaching dashes all of the grooves with brutality, glacial savagery. Urzah differ from a lot of the bands on APF by moving away from stoner/doom etc towards the antagonist post metal and sludge of bands such as Converge or Cave In.
Of Decay and the final duo of Thera I & Thera II epitomise this abrasive mix of hardcore and deafening doom, the second part of Thera. Ed Fairman's vocals are muscular, roared, growled and screamed and on the tender The Aesthetic, conflicting with the heavenly tones of Eleanor Tinlin. Fairman is also one of the two guitarists in the band alongside Tom McElveen, the duo displaying cohesion in aggression with I, Empyrean while the melodic interplay could sometimes take you by suprise when it sits in the middle or at the end of a glut of bone snapping heaviness.
The production of Phoxjaw's Josh Gallop lets the influence of Cosmic Horror ring true with some mpnsterous vastness to the production, the lyrics inspired by Lovecraft and Cormac McCarthy adding to the feeling human inadequacy in the face of existential/extraterrestrial terror. Luke Clemenger of Froglord provides some sombre cello, boosting the bottom end dwelling of bassist Les Grodek, ensuring that there's a duality in the low end between melody and heaviness just like their is in the guitars.
The Scorching Gaze focuses the noise they created on their EP's and points it skyward towards new horizons. Sculpted on stage and perfected in the studio, Urzah is a byword for rage and refinement. 9/10
Phantom Droid - Purgatorium (Self Released)
Bristol/Swindon noisenicks Phantom Droid drop their sophomore EP Purgatorium in 2024 just as the tour/festival season is kicking off, arming themselves with some new noises for people to hear. Of course if you've seen them at any of the South Wales/South West shows they've played recently you'll have heard them but it's great to hear these finally recorded so fans, such as myself can get their fix at home.
Purgatorium is four tracks, well two, an outro and an intro, the intro is a slow build, deft drums from Robbie Dee, undercutting Jack Martin's single chord stabs, choral vocals and a cello building the drama and the atmosphere as Mars Awaits properly gets going with a doomy chug, driven by Luke Clemenger's fuzzy bass. James Karrion Hammerlock's vocals shifting between black metal squarks and baritone cleans, the former used much more on the sludgy rager Anima Sola.
Last song Free Bugs is just that, the sound of bugs, an outro that hints to the psychedelic weirdness of Phantom Droid. Purgatorium is another piece of psych sludge that you will hear on stages across the country very soon. 8/10
Slump - Dust EP (Self Released)
Dust is the debut EP from Birmingham based band Slump. They're a band that plays fuzzed out stoner metal, taking in elements of sludge too but mostly driving forward with good ol' fashioned groove. It features two previously released songs that appeared on a split EP alongside two new ones.
Produced in their own studio it's a very rough and ready, even in the mix and mastering there's a lot of focus on the bass. Ben Myles joining the other two members of the band after the departure of original bassist Olly Lawrence, but it's Olly that plays here and his tracks a very high in the mix but very low in the caverns.
The other two prongs of this triple attack are tub thumber Dave Kabbouri Lara and vocalist/guitarist Matt Noble who plays in Alunah, but plays slower and sludgier here than with the retro infused day job. They channel the influences of Sabbath and Corrosion Of Conformity, both coming on Kneel, as Vultures leans more on psych, woozy and breathy, it closes out this crushing stoner foursome which introduces Slump to the world. 8/10
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