Gimme Metal Program Director Brian Turner delivers the week's top 5 office buzz-worthy tracks.
HEAVY TEMPLE – The Maiden
Ominous intro giving way into galloping riffage and cosmic soloing, Philadelphia's Heavy Temple (a project of High Priestess member Nighthawk) crush like the desert sun. Excellent stoner doom, allegedly influenced by a song by the master of doom SLIM WHITMAN. Yes!
VAXED HEAD – My Pfizer Nurse
If the pandemic shroud is clearing, one certain gain in the world is a brand new track (first in 20 years!) from the Coalinga, California Taco Bell dwellers known as Faxed Head, rechristened Vaxed Head here. Neck Head, McPatrick Head, Jigsaw Puzzle Head and LaBrea Tar Pits Head are fabled to have met in rehab after a deformity-inducing metal suicide pact gone wrong. They steadily issued singles and an LP in the 90s proudly recorded in aforementioned Taco Bell restroom, and the Bandcamp cost of this new song is $1.29 aka the price of a Taco Bell burrito. I am happy to report these malformed metal maniacs have taken a new lease on life with their jabs of recent, as recounted in such touching lyrics as "Pfizer Nurse gave me hope/when she shot me up with Pfizer dope", though other speculations like "they lined me up like they do a cow!" may hint at perhaps a continued cynical lease on life. Welcome back either way, Faxed Head.
VEXILLUM – Sons of a Wolf
Triumphant Tuscan power metal, boozy and bawdy elements injected into some pretty stellar Blind Guardian moves.
KËKHT ARÄKH – Amid the Stars
A one-man dismal project out of the Ukraine under the spell of Crying Orc, Këkht Aräkh present a template of sandpaper production, unmitigated wild distorto-thrashing/growling/general miasma all punctuated with an undercurrent of severe melancholy. The dichotomy of piano vs. putrification is indeed a powerful formula, check into the 'Pale Swordsman' LP, out now.
KATAAN – Abyss
This New Hampshire duo featuring Nicholas Thornbury on gtr/vox (of Vattnet Viskar fame) roll out their death metal carpet with an elevated aura of spiritual uplift, sounding out like the forces of nature themselves going to battle. As Homer would say: "mmmm, frosty, rapturous death".
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