Forty Years Ago - Part Two - STONEHOUSE - Stonehouse Creek

This five part series of reviews were originally written as part of a much bigger article on a different website covering a number of albums that came out during 1971.

STONEHOUSE “Stonehouse Creek”, 1971 It’s often difficult to judge an album by its cover. However STONEHOUSE chose to throw their red herring in their first song which begins with a melodic pop song. The band then on “Hobo” show their hand at hard rock with piano playing in the background and high vocals that would be the envy of many a female jazz or blues singer in the foreground. “Cheater” is very much heavy rock due to the guitar tone and equals other heavy bands of the year. “Nightmare” has a huge guitar boogie feel despite the piano playing in parts of the song. The drums and bass compliment the huge guitar tone on tracks like “Down, Down”and leads that command attention. Often the production, which sounds tinny due to the sound of feedback left on the first few songs, means that unlike BLACK SABBATH’s “Master of Reality” it sounds somewhat dated and doesn’t demand the volume to be turned up all the way through.

Forty years ago - Faust S/T 1971

FAUST – S/T, 1971

Yearning for originality within music has always meant either exploring or inventing unfamiliar genres. German band FAUST are these days considered to be firmly part of the Krautrock gesture. The music is much more experimental than balls to the wall four on the floor rock music. In fact, it is difficult to consider the tracks on this album as songs. There are catchy moments such as the hypnotising vocals on “Meadow Meal that command “to stand in line, keep in line” but these are far and few between. On “Why don’t you eat carrots?”, there is singing over synthesiser flatulence and often it sounds like an instrument that was lying around the studio was noticed, picked up, played and then put back down only to picked up again later. There’s no denying that the tracks with all their variations in sounds and the risks taken are musically interesting but it’s not an album that is easy to go back to and have further listens whatever your mood unlike ALICE COOPER’s “Love It To Death”.

Sandrider - Sandrider

In Frank Herbert's Dune books, a sandrider is a person who has managed to capture and ride one of the gigantic sandworms that live on the planet Arrakis. The band Sandrider are closer to the worms themselves as they're much much heavier than any mythological beast jockey.

The Seattle band feature three of the city’s most unstoppable forces: drummer Nat Damm and guitarist John Weisnewski of Akimbo, and bassist Jesse Roberts of The Ruby Doe.

There's a slugdy sluggish Sabbath-esque heaviness to "Children" accompanied with husky yet buried vocals that bring High on Fire to mind. The band mine the musical vein of their homecity as there's a Mudhoneyish grunge feel to The Corpse with a Tad sized underbelly. A dirty filthy metallic spinetingling riff stabs through and cuts the grunge overlay in "Crysknife". "Voices" is a godzilla disgustingly heavy gingantic-sized guitar-oriented howler of a song. "Paper" just convinces that these guys love their grunge as much as their metal and is a fine sifting blending of both. "Scatter" should excite most alternative 90's music fans as the opening sounds familiar even if it's difficult to pinpoint exactly whether it's liberal borrowing from Jane's Addiction or the likes of grungesters Mudhoney.

There's a couple of songs like "The Judge" that are a little too long on this album However anyone longing for grunge with a slab of metal or a slab of grunge with a dosage of metal should check out Sandrider.



Listen to some of the album here.

Lucky

You may remember The Goops posts sometime ago if you're one of the few and proud who follow this blog. A reader asked for Lucky to uploaded and another reader recently informed me that a guy from Warrior Soul wrote the songs on this album which may or maynot explain why the songs remind me of Blondie.


Lucky you.

Beneath Wind and Waves - Non-etre

I'll admit it first up, I thought Non-être was the band name due to a personal disdain for band names that are far longer than album titles. Turns out that I was wrong on not one but two counts as not only is "Non-être" the album title but Beneath Wind and Waves is a one-man mellow melancholy dealing project by Portland-based singer-songwriter Shawn Lawson Freeman.

With a janglish guitar sound over sombre lyrics like "America loves a trainwreck", it's hard not to think of the likes of Red House Painters. That America is a huge continent and often filled of nothingness comes though ihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifn the barrenness of Transference" It's not only melancholy as there's a theme of self-absorbtion, which is something most of us are guilty of at sometime or another.

"Persephone" features the vocals of Stephanie Schneiderman and due to its subject matter, music and alternating vocals brings to mind Prefab Sprout's "The Ice Maiden" and the song is definitely one of the highlights on the album.
"98" is one of those weird songs where a male voice takes on a female narrator. I found this baffling due to a female voice being used in other songs and it's tough to tell whether the song is taking on the euthanasia debate.

Lyrics like "You're the sugar in my tea" definitely won't win everyone over and confuses the hell out of me. There's a number of songs that would have been better served with brevity as listening to a number of songs on Non-etre is the aural equivalent of running a marathon due to their length.

2/5








Band Website

Poor Boy's Soul - Burn Down

Blues has always been the music from those that have seen hard times first time and got their hands dirty by working hard. Poor Boy's Soul also known Trever Jones was once an organic farmer so likely got his hands dirty playing with farm machinery, weeding and picking spray-free vegetabes.

The title track to "Burn Down This House" has a lived-in feel not unlike the music of Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf. If Bob Log played the blues under a full moon and drank much more whiskey then Bob'd be able to emulate a song like "Movin' To The City". More drinking and bluegrass sums up the hoedown of "Nails and Pines". Gospel is touched upon in "Throwing Stones" although your local church pastor is unlikely approve with a smiling face unless he chainsmokes Malboro cigarettes and chases each smoke with a drink of whiskey to get rid of the tobacco tang. Since I've already mentioned Bob Log, I'd be surprised if anyone familiar with the Voodoo Rhythm doesn't enjoy most of this one man band's album. The folky soppiness of Annalisa seems somewhat out of place amongst the rawness of the other songs. The album drops in November but you can listen to the title track here as it's been given away as a free single.

3.5/5

Feorm

Feorm is a word taken from Germanic roots. British band Feorm formed in 2010 and recorded their album in dimly lit barn. The band take a semi-improvisational approach to music. Their original idea was to turn up live without having rehearsed or played together before.

It's difficult not to think of 80's funk song "Ride The White Horse" and the likes of the band, Faust whilst listening to the album's first track "Clatterhoof". As a kid I enjoyed trips to the ocean and "Acceptance" evokes images of wide blue sky covering an equal blue sea. The band are clearly nature lovers as another song is titled "The Sea" another "Sund Dogs" and yet another "Man is an island". If I were on a tropical desert island, the clicks and beats combined with guitar in "Cyclick" would be the ideal soundtrack to take it all in. There's a jazz fusion feel to the forgiving "It is the Mercy" Many years ago I lived in a flat where in the middle of winter you had to walk outside to go to the toilet. I thought I was hard done by until I heard of those that had to walk to the back of yard to go in a dug out toilet. I'm not certain if that's the theme of "The Long Drop". Let's hope not although the band are definitely capable of getting out the feelings of the song titles in their instrumental music. There's a definite warmth to "Sun Dogs".

Some instrumental music is made as mere background music but Feorm offer the listener the chance to come up with their own images. The band's CD is limited to 1,000 copies and can be listened to and ordered through their bandcamp site.

Feorm's bandcamp

3/5