I give you, Mr Pike
An pleasant cudgelling. A righteously refreshing bludgeon to the head. A welcome assault by an angry bear wielding a sackful of half-bricks.
You know what you’re signing up for when you lay down your notes for tickets to a High on Fire show.
Look at these crazy bastards! Someone’s gonna get killed!
So I was pretty stoked to see The Sword, live in London’s Camden Underworld. Despite initially being a little lukewarm about Apocryphon, I cranked it hard in the dark days before Christmas. Familiarity bred a comfortable enjoyment of The Sword’s well-worn yet still thunderous riffage.
Oops, my beaver is aflame. Please call the fire brigade.
I’ve squirted a fair dollop of love on the upturned faces of stoner doomsters The Sword over the life of this blog.
Warp Riders was in my Top 10 of 2010 with sharp-edged thrash riffage lacing their stoner/doom and a sweet space opera theme.
I’ll always be fond of their debut Age of Winters (2006) for helping lead me back to the path of metal even if they couldn’t get more on Ozzy and Tony’s dicks if they set up their amps in the Sabs’ pants .
We’ll gloss over the shit in the sandwich that is their dreary middle record Gods of the Earth.
BUT I think I might be getting a bit bored of their shtick. New song Veil of Isis – streaming over at that steaming turd of a mag Rolling Stone (!) – is just a bit by-the-numbers.
It’s by no means bad but the riffs feel recycled from The Sword rather than just from Sabbath while the vocal melody also seems mighty familiar.
It’s reasonably catchy and shit, I prefer it to fucking Lamb of God or some other drivel, but it feels a bit safe, yaknowworrimean?
Now it’s time for medication, stallions on the eiderdown
Some of us love metal for the darkness and mystery: cloaks, pseudonyms, smoke and ritualistic paraphernalia.
Baroness offered none of that. Just four guys and their instruments squeezed together on a low stage in a tiny upstairs room at a London bar that was packed out with adoring fans.
This was no-frills rock and roll. Band and audience giving it their all.
Monkey Defies Gravity 