Outlaws of Zen - Don't Bother Getting Up, We'll Let Ourselves In

Do you like your music with a sludgy heavy rock groove with a stoner vibe? If you answered yes then the Outlaws of Zen will be for you. The band are from, Auburn, Michigan which is the nation leading murder per capita rate, Bay City’s old boy’s network, heavy drinking, and fear of the future, and Mayberry er' Midland the land of unicorns, rainbow Kool Aid, and nothing bad can happen there. If you've seen the movie Cabin in The Woods then you'll know exactly how safe unicorns can be. For those that haven't seen that movie, just think about how an impalement would be possible.

All you really need to know about these guys is that they have a song called "Pornstache(The Ballad of Thunderlips of Johnson" which in terms of misnomer (almost) rivals the Ballad of Jerry Curlan. Need to know more? Then dear reader, read on.

"Boiling Point" enters the frame with the sound Jane's Addiction favoured in the nineties but the after three minutes the angry and more heaviness buttons are switched on to maximum.
"With The Swine" proves these guys aren't afraid to get down and dirty rolling around in Mud, Mud, Gorious Mud. At times the vocalist's gravelly tones even stretch to similarly depraved pigfuck depths as Michael Gerald of Killdozer. In comparison, "Standard Double Standard" is a little more ordinary heavy rock with a boogie blues heartbeat ticking healthily. The heavy blues swagger is maintained in "Elephant Bells" could be an out-take from Danzig's "When The Gods Kill" recorded while Glen had a congested nose from the dirty black summer. Still, it's clear that Outlaws of Zen are true followers of the mantra that heaviness is next to godliness.

3/5

Outlaws of Zen bandcamp




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Mojo Waves -

I don't usually bother checking my spam folder but last night I had the strange urge to see how many squillion pounds I could collect if I stepped on the long haul flight to London to meet a Nigerian prince who possesses a free email account coupled with poor spelling and grammar. To my surprise there actually was a submission to the blog from Finland.

Here's what the band say about themselves: "
Mojo Waves is a power-trio rock group based in Helsinki, Finland. The band was formed in late 2011 but the musicians have been playing together for some years.

Mojo Waves' sound is something that you wouldn't expect to come from Finland. These days most of the Finnish rock bands play over-produced, safe and highly predictable music that lacks the attitude and the spirit of what rock music used to be in the past. Mojo Waves is the opposite of the common rock band. It's unpredictable, personal and energetic. Although influenced by vast amount of bands, its sound is unique, and its music doesn't fit in any one category.

Although the band feels some sort of spiritual connection with the rock music of the past, it doesn't try to copy its influences. The main goal of the band is to make their own personal songs that they can be proud of and play as many gigs as possible. Live music is what music has always been about, and that's what the band loves most, too. It isn't easy to describe the music of Mojo Waves, so you should listen to our demos "Introducing Mojo Waves" and "Enjoy, Don't Destroy". The demo was recorded by ourselves in the spirit of garage rock, and it gives some perspective to our music.

The members of Mojo Waves have their ambitions and goals set high, so we are always looking for something new."

The band definitely have a garage rock approach and some of the weirdest yet accessible vocals I've heard in a while. The vocal style has a smilar Donald Duck breathing out helium characteristic to Ween's "Push th' Little Daisies. This material has the energy of a toddler that has digested a box of energy drinks and is just as noisy and into the cupboards due to expirimenting. Though this is a youthful band, Mojo Waves have a mature sound. The vocals may be a weakness when it comes to releasing an albums worth of material but they work well enough on the 3-song format.

3/5

You can check the band's two demo recordings out here.




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