Unsigned bands; all the potential, all the delusion. I got a pile of demos, and self-released 'official' recordings sitting here in my desk. The ones I picked for this piece are not the best of the bunch. They just happen to be on top of the growing pile. After a few spins their obvious shortcomings rise to the surface; most bands lack a good vocalist. Those wiser, just growl like motherfuckers. But let’s not look down on these cats just because they are unsigned. Let’s not forget that once upon a time even the Beatles and the Stones were in search of a label.

For a first pick Misericorde kick my night into gear with much downtrodden ease.  I ain’t bothered by this Brit trio. Especially by the music. This recording is very organic and basic. It has a true live feel to it. Gotta love those guitars and how vocalist/guitarist M. Geddes (himself a veteran of Year Zero, of whom I know nada) bends those notes. There is the groove and Sabbath-like spirit and then there are the riffs that seem to lean much more towards a quick on its feet funeral doom style. If that’s even possible. Somehow, in the end, Soundscapes for the Disenchanted doesn’t come together. Some of the songs seem fragmented. They sound like ideas still taking shape. It is the same to say that I am sure Misericorde have a lot of potential and most is not in display here.  Weak link? Yeah, Geddes himself is a sucky vocalist. He puts no emotion. He sounds half –assed and he barely speaks his lines. Is he just temporary? I fucking hope so.

London’s, Ahymsa already know that a package is bound to get some eyes on their product. So Synaesthesia, their fourth recording, comes in a nice psychedelic digipack.   Yeah man. Bands that invest in their art do it because they believe in what they are doing. And they usually believe in what they are doing because people have responded to their music. If people have responded to their music it must be because they are good, right? Sometimes. So what’s the problem with Ahymsa? The songs are not that good. These foursome can play. The leads for instance, are professional and by that I mean, they could be placed in a Trouble song and that would be fucking righteous. And some of the bass playing is fucking sick. But once again, there is some funk to Synaesthesia that really bothers me and that makes me think of badly dated mid 90’s alt-rock. And then there is the vocal problem. Ahymsa’s vocalist does not match the power of the music. Not even by mid 90’s alt rock standards.

Ethereal Dirge is the doom project of J. Christopher Springer.  I admire his low fi/tacit production values.  Clearly, Springer has taken his time. He has crafted his songs like a dedicated carpenter and has come up with some sort of hybrid between funeral doom and gothic metal. Not gothic in a cheesy I wear fishnet stockings way.   Springer must be a Paradise Lost, Anathema, and My Dying Bride fan. And I mean that as a compliment. The dude should be proud that this very neat five song EP (Warm the Globe) immediately takes you back to the early Peaceville doom days. The first two recordings I checked for this piece got me thinking about how difficult it must be to find a suitable vocalist. Well, Ethereal Dirge suffer no problem. Springer has filtered and distorted his vocals until they sound superhuman. There is a second female voice going along which aides in the gothic front. And then there are the vocals that seem like samples (“New Funeral Idea”) and those that are just plain strange (“Expedite the End”). Tagged at the end Springer covers Pink Floyd’s “Goodbye Cruel World”. Nice way to end. Nice touch with the bells and the rain. No doubt Springer is ready to be signed and exposed to a bigger audience.

Moloch Horridas has to be one of the strangest monikers ever bestowed onto a stoner rock band. Here is the funny thing about this Finnish band. Upon checking out the first verse of the first song “Star Trucker” I was truly irked by the vocals of Patrick Ellison. I thought this dude had no business getting near a mike. A few minutes later that impression was gone. Ellison’s terse voice blends in and you even realize that he is quite the adept vocalist. In “Witches’ Sabbat” he sounds actually like a more manly and senseful Ozzy Osbourne. Certainly, he is better than most stoner rock frontmen. Moloch Horridas is another band ready to be signed. They won’t break the charts, but their tunes are solid and manage to groove and rock with their cocks in their hands. The guitars have some salacious feel and drop plenty of hooks. Molloch Horridas remind me of bands like Acrimony, whose rock has a lot of crunch, a lot of rock and roll, a lot of hair and even some classic rock. Solid songs. Definitely watch for these guys as their stoner rock is easily digestable. 

Unless technical death metal bands find a way to incorporate hooks amongst their million notes per song I prefer listening to bands like Nameless Grave, who craft thoroughly enjoyable, downright dirty groove oriented melodic death metal. Every time I hear the phrase ‘melodic death metal’ I think of In Flames and that’s not what I am trying to say here. Definitely a band like Six Feet Under is muck more akin to what these Canadians are doing. Albeit, I absolutely hated the last Six feet Under album and this EP (5 Songs From the Grave) is much more solid and consistent.  Now, I gotta be frank, if these guys were to get signed and go too professional I think they would lose some of their deathly charm. I favor hiss-heavy recordings like this one, where the vocals are neck-deep in mud, the guitars sound like they are being electrocuted and the drummer is so addicted to his sitcks he is about to overdose on blast beats.

French metallurgists End. (this Toulouse band just signed to Metal Blade and extended its name to Eryn Nin Dae. – still with the period.) are a tight hermetic unit. Theirs is the kind of metal that does not sound generic but somehow comes off so mechanical it’s hard not to think it was manufactured in an assembly line. Jagged rhythms, radical shifts, angular structures. So intricate, it’s hard not to bring the jazz genre as an allusion to their forward thinking prog-laden technique. The vocalist sounds powerful. Like a man willing to rest his tonsils in the line of fire. Like a shaved headed dude venting his anger into your nostrils. Sounds familiar? That’s because End. sounds 99% Messhuggah-like. That’s good news to some, bad news to others and cause for indifference to others. I classified myself among the latter. Messhuggah sure can pummel but I could care less. When I listen to a band like End. I am convinced that there is enough talent in the world to beat Messhuggah at their own game.  End.’s four track EP The Never Ending Whirl of Confusion is not interesting because it sounds too familiar but it’s just as good anything those Swedes ever wrote. Blasphemy? Perhaps but who gives a shit? 

Spain may just be the most overlooked land as far as stoner / sludge / doom is concerned. The last few years have seen impressive releases from the likes of Moho, Adrift and Unorthodox. And judging by the quality displayed by Cuerno (pictured above) in their 2008 demo, they may just have enough chutzpah to position themselves alongside their countrymen.  The first four tracks (none of them under eight minutes) show a band with an instinctive gut for angry anti melodies, downtuned mayhem and all around grim ugliness. The  vocals are appropriate. By that I mean nothing spectacular. And  by that I mean underwhelming. At times the vocalist falls short and gets buried in the mix. It’s pretty monochromatic and bleak music. My only complaint is about the last track. It’s filler. About eight minutes of pointless jamming, where the band drops the heavy and plays the guitar effects as a silly way to verge into the psychedelic. But there is no structure, just fucking around. Keep it focused and Cuerno may be getting somewhere very soon.

I think I may know why Salt Lake City’s Old Timer adopted that moniker. Vocalist Maxx sounds either like an old creep at the end of his rope, or like a dirty elder that's about to do the nasty. His voice is rough. Not soulful but spent and blown. To a degree, tired. As if the young lad had seven decades and about four million cigarettes on his back. The dude’s voice is almost shattering. It’s impressive for several reasons, but doesn’t leave the same mark that his band does. What I like about Old Timer the most is what I liked about the stoner rock genre in the first place. Their tunes are distorted blues. The rough stuff. Loud, and yes soulful. With feeling and passion and a sense for the melodic. Live at the Tombstonery is the obvious result of jamming. Beyond that, this recording shows a band that’s gelled together, a unit where the musicians understand each other without talking much. The density of smoke is more than enough.

Heading down to carioca land comes Undefined, an impressively professional Brazilian three piece that has way too many targets to hit the bull’s eye. This four track recording comes in a very nicely designed slipcase and the songs in this recordings are just as glossy as the package.  They don’t call themselves Undefined for no reason. The brief intro into “The End of History” hints at bossa nova only to be followed by some melodic technical death thrash metal. That’s fine and all but then, I guess they undefined themselves by offering a pretty turd-like pop punkish tune. I guess they weren’t being ironic when they mentioned Blink 182 in their Thank You list.  That left turn reminded me of that horrible German band Pyogenesis. But then Undefined follows through with more brutality, some nu metallisms come through and some futuristic metal that reminds me of Fear Factory. If Undefined only defined themselves they could do something. Until then, they’ll struggle to form a respectable identity.  Maybe, it just comes down to their influences. Blink 182 for fuck's sakes!