Bud Spencer Blues Explosion – Do It

Bud Spencer Blues Explosion – Do It
Self released – 2011
Rock, Blues, Garage, Stoner
Rated: *****

The third installment of the Italian magic duo Bud Spencer Blues Explosion is like a golden stick of dynamite. This blast will ring on forever and ever into legend. The title Do It is the shortened version of the song Dio Odia I Tristi; which means that God Hates Sadness. And one can definitely not be sad when listening to this heavy rocking beauty of an album. This one incorporates the desert virtuosity of Homme; the search for bluesroots of White and merges it with that seventies sound they do so well, the garage that started it all and their exceptionally bright and cheerful breezy songs for the longest days of the year. This album is the perfect example of what a duo may accomplish if they are like one. And they are a miraculous one at that; two that know what the exact amount of nostalgia is, which is needed to get the emotional juices flowing without becoming retro or old. A platinum kaboom with a rain shower of precious gems!

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Bud Spencer Blues Explosion – BSBE

Bud Spencer Blues Explosion – BSBE
Yorpikus – 2009
Rock, Blues, Garage, Stoner
Rated: ****

The sophomore self-titled album of the Italian duo Bud Spencer Blues Explosion is a righteous continuation of their first album. Signed to the Yorpikus label the two got to work in taking their sound from the debut to their logical extremes. It’s is hard rocking seventies Zeppelin and Hendrix; old down and dirty delta blues and an incredible Chemical Brothers cover of Hey Boy, Hey Girl. But ofcourse we also get those little springtime easygoing and juicy ditties; the ones that will make your head bop while drinking a beer on some city terrazzo or lying in the grass somewhere surrounded by half naked women playing Frisbee. Errr.. And all done in an extremely matter of fact natural way that drugs you and leaves you helpless to their virtuosity. It moves you and makes your limbs twist in ways you never thought possible. Explosive stuff!

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Bud Spencer Blues Explosion – Happy

Bud Spencer Blues Explosion – Happy
Self released – 2008
Rock, Blues, Garage
Rated: ****

Founded in the capital of Italy in 2007, the Bud Spencer Blues Explosion is a duo that knows where to seek out the best blues mustard and incorporate that into their own garage soul. Ofcourse there is something reminiscent of the White Stripes here; for they two were a duo celebrating the roots of all music. But Bud is less sophisticated, much more raw and visceral and above all has an incredibly funky punk spirit. It has that open vibe similar to everything Cato Salsa does and vibrates like some long lost seventies diamond. It’s a buckshot full of adrenaline and highly energetic. And then there are those little flirts with electronics and samples; weird and extremely sunny. Like a laid-back late spring afternoon filled with wine-coolers and lazy lovemaking… One can only imagine what their live shows must be like…

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Polarbeers – Tetris

Polarbeers – Tetris
Self released – 2011
Rock, Stoner, Psychedelics, Blues
Rated: *****

It is never easy to pick a bandname. Sometimes they just come to you and all members like it. Sometimes you settle for something. And at other times you just make up some crap and it sticks. But the Polarbeers went through a lengthy look at a refrigerator full of foreign beers. In a downtown bar, restaurant and local hangout they just stood there, with a beer in hand, looking at all the beers with their weird and ridiculous names. It took almost an hour before they noticed the Venezuelan Polarbeer. And then ofcourse; it was immediately decided. Influenced by a punk soul and a melodic groove reminiscent of Foo Fighters they started to carve out their own little sound in the suburbs of Milano. Plagued by many, many, many line-up changes. It took them four years to reach maturity and only after they recorded Tetris and the bassplayer featured on it again decided to leave and new one joined; did they find their final line-up. Which is now in the process of writing new songs and recording their first full-sized album as a trio. But let’s not forget about Tetris just yet, for the four songs on this EP are full of stoner and psychedelic blues splendor. But it does not really do justice to their awesome live sound. So let’s hope they will be able to capture that on their new record…

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Polarbeers – Everywhere But Home

Polarbeers – Everywhere But Home
Self released – 2010
Rock, Stoner, Psychedelics, Blues
Rated: ****

As 2010 progressed the Polarbeers found new blood and Everywhere But Home was recorded as a foursome. Before the female guitar player had to leave the band again for personal reasons that might have something to do with bordering on the verge of insanity; or so the rumors go. Everywhere But Home is once again a gritty and dusty rock EP featuring four songs that excel in a massive wall of sound. Due to the production the wave of beautiful noise sometimes looses the focus and the melody that is hidden underneath gets lost in the avalanche. And with a song influenced by Dave Grohl on it and his manic love for coffee we can be sure that these guys got tons of humor too. Unfortunately after this little ditty Fox, the singer, guitar player had to undergo surgery due to a polyp on his vocal chords and the band again had to take it easy…

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Polarbeers – Jingle Single

Polarbeers – Jingle Single
Self released – 2010
Rock, Stoner, Punk, Blues, Psychedelics
Rated: ***

Italian threesome Polarbeers was formed in the spring of 2007 and was aiming at becoming the best punk hardcore band to ever emerge from the suburbs of Milano. Soon however the line-up problems started and a drift towards a more psychedelic approach began. And for a moment there they thought about continuing on as a duo. But come September 2009 the drummer from Back At The Garage and Trust No One decided to join the band. And just after new year the first recording session was done, resulting in this one take Jingle Single. It is a short and sweet gravelly instrumental rock out. Only vaguely alluding to the magic that was still to come…

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Pig – Rise

Pig – Rise
Self released – 2012
Rock, Kraut, Doom, Psychedelics
Rated: ***

Pig are a three-piece formation from somewhere on the British Isle and from the outskirts of New Mexico. Formed on the foundations of long lost tracks of the enigmatic Ego Death Squad the music dives head first into a beatnik and sixties counter culture atmosphere with an extra layer of occult and tribal meandering, a mantra driven bass and krautrock structuring. It is the weirdness and mystery surrounding the trio that makes the sound even more lucious. Rise is apparently already their third album and their first two should become available soon as well. Instrumental tracks laden with samples that invoke an ancestral life old fire in the soul. It only makes the blood stir even more and put a level of extreme anxiety in ones veins for the apparent movie it is all meant for; with an even more seductive and magnetic title: Kubricks.

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Back from Milano...

Back from Milano…

It was a weird and tiresome weekend in Milano. Filled with incredibly beautiful women and very grotesque old bats that never understood that those wrinkles are sagging skin. Plastering and botoxing them will only make your face wider and look like a caricature version of The Joker. Luckily there was enough beer and wine to flush that scary angst sweat away. But it was not until the sun went down that the city truly came to life. The old drunken bums on the street where no long annoying vagrants but fellow seekers of wild times. And when a not so foul smelling one asked me for a light, I promised him a drink if he would show me to the ugliest and most violent underground bar he knew. “Sure,” he said, “maybe you could also buy me a woman there?” And with that we moved forward into the night, joined once again by a mutual interest…

Off to Milano...

Off to Milano...

“A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority.” I believe some dingbat called Samuel Johnson once said that. But he said loads of things, mostly rubbish due to the fact he had an appetite for the strange tea coming from the Brazilian jungle and his well-known habit of shouting obscene and wild utterings at complete strangers. Still, he might have had a point there and it is only just we explore it to a maddening extent. So we whisk ourselves off to one of the fashion capitols of the world to test the rock’n roll waters there and see what kind of savage adventures we can get ourselves into…

Dope Flood – A Planet on Four Legs

Dope Flood – A Planet on Four Legs
Self released – 2011
Rock, Stoner, Grunge
Rated: ***

Almost exactly a year ago the Greece quartet Dope Flood released their debut EP A Planet On Four Legs. Formed only a year before they bring a tasty mixture of heavy nineties grunge, alternative rock, atavistic stoner and languid desert riffs. And they translate it on their first release into three tracks filled with gritty aggression but also into dawdling rhythms and intense drooping structures. They’re at their most convincing during the sunny and lazy notes and turn highly American when they punch the gas. Like a fast gunning muscle car that weaves through heavy traffic but really loves the wide open sun blistered empty and deserted highway the most. So filler’up, speed out of town and get ready to surf the flood…

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Serious Beak – Huxwhukw

Serious Beak – Huxwhukw
Self released – 2011
Metal, Psychedelic, Post, Stoner, Progressive, Grind
Rated: ***

We ofcourse all know that Huxwhukw is the supernatural long-beaked cannibal bird and long time servant to non other than Baxwbakwalnuksiwe; the Cannibal-at-the-North-end-of-the-world in Kwakwaka'wakw mythology. Huxwhukw uses his long, snapping beak to crack open the skulls of men to eat their brains and pluck out their eyeballs. Well, he sure knows how to get to the tasty bits. And then there is ofcourse that poetic beauty in naming the album after that damned little birdie if and when your band is called Serious Beak. And it is justified to name the album after the legendary bird for it is a record filled with instrumental mayhem and madness; some twisted version of terror and insanity which the birdie loves to spread. Serious Freak, Serious Break, it would all apply here for the four amigos have an knack for discordant riffs, out of left field breaks and freaky heaviness that will liquefy your brain. It is highly intensive metal aimed to provoke seizures and confuse. But because their gnarly and snarly noise sometimes subdues and evolves to a dreamlike soar through the clouds you know these guys are able to do more then just overwhelm. I sure as hell know what my next pet will be…

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Tuber – Smoked Up Notes

Tuber – Smoked Up Notes
Self released – 2012
Rock, Post, Stoner
Rated: ****

Instrumental greatness hailing from the lovely Greece. Tuber is a trio that excells in combining stoner with postrock and in creating excellent smoky and swirling atmospheres that never dull and always entertain. Smoked Up Notes is there perfect example of their catalogue. It creates an entire space for itself while still keeping it all grounded enough to rock. The three amigos hive off to different dimensions, float here, rock there and color the music with an intense palet of sounds. This is one song that should be played over and over untill it slowly dissolves along with the rest of the universe…

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No Anchor – Rope / Pussyfootin’

No Anchor – Rope / Pussyfootin’
Self released – 2012
Metal, Doom, Sludge, Scream, Noise, Punk
Rated: ***

Somewhere on the outskirts of Brisbane City three guys started a commercial seafaring endeavor that would put the East Indies Company to shame. Trading spices and slaves just as easily as notes and tones. Forever sailing the oceans since they had No Anchor. Yikes; those were an eerily wrong kind of first few lines. But with the Australian threesome No Anchor you can never go wrong. Since they master in creating seemingly unending chaos in a concise structure with just the right amount of madness to make it stick. The horrible thing about these three brilliant gentlemen is that they decided to give us only 4 minutes and 43 seconds to enjoy. (Not counting the cover, which is only available on vinyl.) It therefor leaves a bit of a salty taste in your mouth; a longing for more and a wavering doubt that all might not end well and that we won’t reach port…

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