Sleep : "Hempispheres"

Al is back as the sole member of Sleep, with Dale from the Melvinss taking up the duties behind the drum kit and Bubba from Void playing guitar. Despite the supposed punk influence you might assume, Bubba will unpack things and flow in a more psychedelic direction. The second song finds them settling even further into the sinking couch-bound stoner hypnosis. The vocals pick up where they left off on the previous song, and truth be told, it feels like they are jamming out the first song.

They do return to more of the lumbering chug on the title track, but trippy synths color the periphery andd the mix does not lend this album to being their msot metallic mix; in fact, it reminds me more of the Melvins on this song, which is not surprising given the drummer on this album. His drummer does occupy a great deal of space here. There are some what darker sonic moments, mood-wise, here that I appreciate. They continue to jam off the main riff for the duration of the song and circle around it rather than take a dynamic shift. They get away with it here, but an entire album of it might get tedious. 

"Arrival of the Industry Ships" is a less focused wandering jam where the overdriven bass drives it to nowhere. At over eleven minutes, they take up a great deal of time with not clearr destination. Many songs work off the idea of a riff, but I am not even hearing the idea that sent them off in this direction. Even with the typical Stoner lethargy taking over the place groove would occupy, I am hearing more Jimi Hendrix here than Sabbath. 'Whole Wheat Mountain Well Baked" closes the album. It is more focused than the previous song, but not the band's best songwriting either. Crover is at least steering the ship here so they do not get as lost as the previous song. Fans of the band who are not dismayed by the lack of Matt Pike might be divided on this one, as it is closer to the Melvins and less of the doom feel they are into or they might be so high that this seems like a revelation. They are talented musicians, but this does not grab me; I won't deny the talent, so I will give this one an 8.6, unlikely to make the top 10 stoner albums of the year on my end.Drops September 3rd.

pst361

Destruction Unit : "Void"

This is far from the Arizona band's first rodeo as they have been around for ten years now and banging out synth punk before the kids with mustaches got ahold of it and to be honest those same where sporting angular bangs and intending to a bunch of MySpace emo at the time Ryan Rousseau was banging around with Jay Retard, and now the synths are buried amid the rest of the feedback as the band is now less what is being call Krautrock and more punk than not, though they fire out swinging with noisy out burst holding more in common with the Mc5 than what kids at the Warp Tour consider punk rock. the sprawling swirl of unitedly distortion comes straight at you from the opener "Evil Man" that falls some where in the feedback like if Thurston Moore had laced the bong with pcp in the early days of Sonic Youth...think pre-Day Dream Nation.

the cavernous croon on "Blame" keeps this from falling into the cut and paste garage affair and puts the band in a zip code close to A Place To Bury Strangers, though their restraint gives way to the predictable caterwauling. The tone still remains fairly dark so goths who like the explosive elements of songs like "The Passion of Lovers" would still be able to bat away cowbells in the club to this.

Of the albums six songs one of them "Drug Lore " is less of a somg and more of an interlude of feed back and noise , scratching at strings and other almost ritualistic sounds as if the drug gods of punk are being invoked. So when it get to my little scoring calculations I'm not factoring it in to the formula.

On the driving "Great Wall" I like the punch where it kicks back in from the vocals and admire the guitarist ability to fill the space with noise and allow the bass some breathing room to the song down the dark winding highway. By the time it gets to the raunchy stomp of "Exterminate" I've decided these guys are sardonic enough for me, this one has a lot of punch to it, more aggressive than death rock but darker than punk they remind me of when the two genres where more merged and bands like T.S.O.l and the Dammned held the middle ground appealing to both genres. The difference here is the Halloween elements in the feel of goth are not present instead it's more of a murky dark created by the labyrinth of feedback.

For all the scruffy edges there is still a dark depth to "Smoke Dreams" it rolls through a subterranean wasteland in a rambling jam, where the feedback takes the spotlight, it's an odd premise for an instrumental almost like surf rock For the lower level of Mordor. I think more open minded metal kids cold get into the drive this has though it never touches on metal itself. As a whole I think this album serves as a fine advertisement for the bands live show which I can imagine from hearing this is an excercise in ringing ears and fevered clamouring. They happen to currently be touring with one of my favorite new bands Merchandise, who I have yet to review on here unless they happen to pop up in a weekly shuffle, so I'm looking forward to ruining some more of my hearing and wished Iceage was filling the throu slot rather than Milk Money but those are the breaks. While the instrumental is good for the back ground an dim sure lends itself to an interesting jam live on album it's not my thing as when it comes to instrumental you either have to be Mogwai or King Crimson to keep me listening but the other songs are solid and I was pleasantly surprised at how dark they were so I'll give this one an 8 and see how it grows on me.