90's-present Metal bands - Black Sabbath style

Comets on Fire sound a bit more like Blue Cheer and a bit less like Sabbath, but I think you guys would enjoy 'em.

skullflower:

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0424/eddy1.php

oneida, kreisor:

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0415/eddy.php

beaver, dozer, carnival in coal:

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0113/eddy.php

and yeah, many of the bands mentioned above (though nebula and fu manchu and the melvins have never really cut it for me -- well, nebula have their moments, i guess). goatsnake and unida and natas (the south american band) and sea of green are pretty good, too.

here's one pretty consitent compilation of this stuff:

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=UIDSUB020405181212270411&sql=Ar98uak1kkm3v

and here's another one:

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=UIDSUB020405181212270411&sql=Akv6htr3rklmx

Actually, Mammoth Volume (who George Smith also reviewed in the Voice once) are better than lots of the bands I just mentioned (better than Mastodon too, heh heh), despite blatant prog tendencies. I mean, this is like any other shtick, in that it tends to wear out its welcome as time goes by. The peak stoner-rock-revival stuff mostly seemed to happen half-a-decade ago or more, and even then, most of the decent stuff on Man's Ruin was fairly generic, which is more excusable in a good genre than a bad one, obviously. And yeah, as George Smith said, it might be best to look to look OUTSIDE stoner-rock for stuff that might still be pulling this off, especially now that the '70s Show bongs and bellbottoms routine is years past being an intriguing idea.

I suggest Milligram. If you want short blasts of Sabbath, without cliched metal vocals, that's your band.

Count Raven did always listenable and unintentionally hilarious Black Sabbath shtick. I imagine it would be hard to find their CDs or LPs now.

The labels that support these bands collapse like a house of cards when they get to the point where all the bands they're publishing constitute the entirety of fans for the genre.

Man's Ruin collapsed because it bet that you could throw everything at the wall and the audience would grow to absorb it. Eventually, I'd predict the same fate for Southern Lord. That label quickly went from publishing occasionally fine metal and art to indulging in fetishism with the occasional big project of worthless trash, like Probot.

The label put out a record by The Want that was excellent in its imitation of Led Zep/Terry Reid/Brit thud. It must've flopped. Now most of what I see is uninteresting and horrid -- a ridiculous competition to see who can play the longest, most-downtuned, slowest scraping noise. Some of the offerings work as jokes: Grief is just terrible trash but it's amusing that someone would write so effusively of it in the blurbs on the shrinkwrap. Sourvein I gave away to Scott because he knew someone in the band,
but -- really -- it's just a homeless man's Sleep. Now they're apparently the backing band for the lead guy from Electric Wizard which would be disappointing because that band once had a great drummer.

There's a Pennsylvania band -- Penance -- who claim to do the Sabbath thing. They're awful but I can stand listening to them occasionally when I want to reminisce on the beauty of the coal mines and slag heaps where I spent my childhood. That may not work for you if you didn't grow up near stripping holes and piles of burning mine tailings.

Ideally, since most of even the obscurest 70's hard rock is coming back into print in fine form, you're equally served by looking at reissues as well as combing the diminishing returns in the active genre. For example, Nektar's "A Tab in the Ocean" and "Remember the Future" are way better than any stoner or doom album in recent memory.

There's also an Aussie band called Wolf Mother.

Yeah, the Nectar reissues really blew me away, especially *Remember the Future*, which just arrived in the mail this week. And here's George, then me, on Monster Records' recent sludge reissue output:

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0412/smith.php

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0412/eddy.php

xpost

Nektar got weird treatment in the US. They were on Passport,
which glued Larry Fast to them and let him remix the records. So the American copies sound considerably less heavy -- with the exception of "Remember the Future" -- and over synth full than the Euro originals. This is corrected on the remasters.

"Recycled" is a lot better if you listen to the original mix -- although the band still is purposely trudging toward being a clone of Genesis -- before it got tricked up for the US market. But they were apparently convinced they were going to get a single, which happened the next album with "Magic is a Child." And that stuff is no good, but it did get played on FM progressive radio a bit.

The Sheavy that I heard, the singer sounded remarkably like Ozzy.

Wait, Chuck, you're not a Melvins fan much? Not saying you have to be, I'm just interested why they don't connect. Massive fan myself, they've put on some great shows.

Trouble

Noboby talks about THE Band with the most Sabbath influences ever. The band doesnt exist anymore, but there are rumours about a reunion. And indeed, there was a showcase at a german metal festival in 2003. This band lives from an awesome two guitar sound. Rick Wartell and Bruce Franklin, both fans of Gibson Flying V guitars, created a sound even Kirk Hammett and James Hetfield tried to copy back in the early 80'ies when Metallica was opening act for Trouble! The voice of vocalist Eric Wagner is near by Ozzy's voice, but has a more painful and deeper character. Rick Rubin signed the band for his Def American label and produced two albums, a selftitled in 1990 and Manic Frustration in 1992.

This is was AMG writes: No band deserves as much credit for keeping the gospel of classic Black Sabbath-derived heavy metal (no to mention bell-bottoms) alive during the '80s as Chicago's Trouble. And while the group's legend never exceeded cult status, their work would serve as inspiration for an entire generation of '90s bands in the thriving underground doom/stoner metal scene. ....

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=UIDCASS80311111402062276&sql=Bygge4j170wav

A self produced minialbum is missing in AMG list, the 1994 'One For The Road' EP.

Check out Trouble!

Important note i've forget: even Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters, Nirvana) payed tribute to Trouble. He asked Eric Wagner to contribute on his PROBOT album. The result is track 10 'My Tortured Soul'.