KARMA TO BURN
Appalachian
Incantation
(Napalm)
ATMAN
L'Assassi de Venus
(Sun & Moon)
RAISE THE RED
LANTERN
S/T
(At a Loss)
DROIDS
ATTACK
Must Destroy
(Crustacean)
SOAC /
TREASURE CAT
Last Day of
Summer
(Underdogma)
FUNEROT
And Then You
Fucking Die, Man
(Inimical)
MOHORAM ATTA /
THOU
Degradation of Human Life
(Halo of Flies)
RITES OF THY
DEGRINGOLADE
An Ode to Sin
(Nuclear War Now)
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I
don’t know why but the first time I listened to Farewell
My Concubine I thought that were we to strip the music
of its chunkiness, live tonality and organic perfection
(courtesy of Sanford parker and his Volume Studios) and
had given it the polished shine that everyone can afford
in these times of perfected but cheap technology this
would have sounded off like a Swedish melodic death
metal band. This time around I don’t hear that. I wasn’t
on crack that day, but I had just been to the dentist
and I had been served plenty of anesthesia, which
probably dumbed my senses way down and blurred all the
guitar notes of this prog friendly, but straight forward
stoner Mastodon-like band. ‘Cause really, there is zero
death metal here.
There are
plenty of guitar notes here. Maybe the Mastodon citation is
unfair, but House of Flying Daggers totally belong to this new
school of Southern beardos who stoned as they may be, still have
the long term memory to keep all those notes in their heads. The
guitar lines are melodic alright, perhaps that’s where all the
Swedish death metal idea came from, but more than basking in a
fantasy NWOBHM influence, they twist and turn with the ease of
boiled fetuccini but carry on with the determination and stomp
of a terrified stampede.
Elsewhere,
which is the same thing as saying everywhere, the curiously
named Raise the Red Lantern fit somewhere between a roughed up
version of current Mastodon licks, a more bestial version of
Struck By Lightning and a far more sophisticated unit than the Black
Cobras and Deadbird’s of this world. All in all and taking into
consideration how the Southern scene has expanded in the last
handful of years, this is nothing new. Powerful and well done.
But somewhere, between so much facial hair, I’ve heard this
before.
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