Revenge of the Quick Ripple Bursts - Featuring Harvester, Juggernaught, Doomdogs and Curse of Disobedience
When I hear the word harvester, images come to mind of some monstrous mechanical demon scouring across the fields, tearing apart all that lie before it, leaving the earth barren in it's wake. Overly dramatic, I know, but there it is. Now the band Harvester do nothing to dispel that images, raging across the world of stoner/bluesy rock riffiness, tearing apart the pretenders and leaving their scattered remains in their wake.
"Cosmonautical Mile" is about as fierce an assault of unadulterated rock as I've heard in a while. Think a band like Roadsaw at their best, violent and aggressive and determined to bloody their knuckles on something. The sound is full and the guitars come at me as if they'd just been released on parole and had some serious damage to catch up on. "Circle Eater" follows suits, as does the rest of the six songs that make up this album. Vocals are raw and roughened without being too dirty and drums and bass combine to beat my mid-section as if I'd stepped into the UFC ring unprepared.
"Bad Idea" rumbles at me like the bastard child of Corrosion of Conformity and the Red Hot Chili Peppers after an uncensored night of moonshine whiskey-fueled debauchery and still on the run from the law. Guitars roll and trounce across a deep-from-the-swamp funky bass. The vocals leak out like a droplet of bile dripping from the corners of a vagrants mouth. "Train" confirms that the first track was no aberration. What we have here is an unholy version of funkified hobo stoner blues that motors with the full-power of their name-sake Juggernaught. Think a metallic-veined Credence Clearwater or the Masters of Reality facedown in the Mississippi Delta and you won't be too far off. It's a train that has nowhere in particular to go but will get then with damn full force.
I'm hooked.
Big Jay told me about these guys a while back, but I just never had the time to listen to the few songs he tossed my way. My loss. Stampeding stoner blitz is what we got here. Far more rocking and passionate than the "doom" in Doomdogs would suggest. The opening guitar tone of "Eye for an Eye" is simply one for the ages, and it's accompanied by a full-body blow of bass and drums. The vocals bark out from a larynx that's been torn to shreds. The whole thing hits me like a Howitzer shell.
One thing that's for certain- these dogs got bite.
Gotta be honest. On my iPhone the Curse of Disobedience songs come up as separate files, rather than as one album or such, so I don't really recall if these songs are one whole, or their order or what not. I seem to recall that I loaded up two albums from this Southern Metal ensemble, but don't hold me to that. In the end it doesn't matter, cause what we got here is some serious D.I.Y. doom-laced metal. "Dead Seas of Life" brings in some serious shred across it's thrashing riffs. Like Paul Anthony Hill's other project, Arise Within, the raw production speaks to the passion of the band, fighting to get their sound out there. "Full Throttle Suicide," ups the ferocity into a hell-bent thrashing assault. Mos Generator's Tony Reed lends his sizeable chops to the second lead guitar solo in "Kill or Be Killed," a downtuned metal dirge.
My favorite though is a toss-up between the metallic crunch of "Reborn" -probably the tastiest slice of lo-fi metal I've feasted upon- of the female vocal inflected slab of goth-tinged heaviness that is "Resurrection." I wish I knew the name of the woman who provided the ethereal melodies accompanying that song, because her tone really lifts that songs to an angelic place.
http://www.reverbnation.com/curseofdisobedience/songs
--Racer
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