Dunbarrow — "Lucifer's Child" (2016)

Hello Friends,

Enjoy some 70's style Doom straight outta Haugesund, Norway.

Lucifer's Child!

Friends, does it get any doomier than Scandanavia?  

Answer: No.

Enjoy!

Ghost - "Square Hammer" (2016)

Hello Friends,

Spooky October evening!  The wind is blowing, leaves are rustling, clowns are hiding beneath the street lamps... We're conjuring up some demons tonight!

Enjoy!

Black Sabbath - "Black Sabbath" (1970)

Hello Friends,

It really doesn't get much better than this friends!

Enjoy!

What is this that stands before me? Figure in black which points at me, turn 'round quick and start to run...

Black Sabbath - "Black Sabbath" (1970) - Warner Bros.

Hello Friends,

Its a great night for drinking cocktails and conjuring demons by the light of the full Hunter's moon.

And there's no better soundtrack to a stoned and spooky October evening than the original doom rockers, Black Sabbath.  Tonight we're cranking their self-titled debut record on the ol' turntable.  An album that remains one of rock & roll's most influential featuring a sound that was unlike anything else being done at the time!  Its the sound of a demonic jam session outside the gates to Hell where partygoers are clamoring to get invited in. Hippies, Jesus freaks and holy rollers step aside, tonight we're getting our faces melted with the deliquents, the long hairs, the other assorted ne'er do wells and outcasts. 

Couldn't agree more!

Things start off, like most good things, with some menacing thunderclaps and foreboding rain.  "Black Sabbath" would remain one of the band's most evil and sludgiest-sounding songs. Featuring a doom-filled guitar playing the devil's chord over and over again until the dam finally breaks open and Hell is unleashed in the form of one Tony Iommi's imitable guitar solos.  Fucking great!  If the dark lord Satan himself isn't sitting at the barstool next to you after playing this song (on vinyl) then you really should pick the needle up and play it again!

Next up, "The Wizard" is conjured.  Like Sabbath's contemporaries, Led Zeppelin, a lot of the imagery being used seems pretty influenced by J.R.R. Tolkien.  "The Wizard" is no exception; a heavy rocker featuring some bluesy harmonica, stomping Bill Ward drums, misty mountains and some more great guitar & bass work.

From Tolkien the band shifts gears to the much darker worlds of H.P. Lovecraft.  "Behind the Wall of Sleep" is based on the Lovecraft short story, "Beyond the Wall of Sleep", about a spirit who tries to communicate with the living through a prisoner in a mental hospital. Its another sludgy masterpiece featuring Ozzy's mournful vocals repeating the line "Take your body to a corpse..."

Closing out the side is a fantastic, heavily wah-wah'd bass solo by Geezer Butler ("Bassically") that blends right into the epic, "N.I.B."  "N.I.B."-- a song about Lucifer falling in love for the first time and begging this woman to spend eternity with him-- sounds like what Cream might have sounded like if Anton Lavey had produced Disraeli Gears.  

The fun continues on Side Two.  "Wicked World" picks up with a boogie beat and a guitar riff that sounds a little like something Robbie Kreiger was doing on The Doors' song "Wild Child".  The band switches focus from the supernatural to the political here and instead of singing about Wizards, figures cloaked in black and the dating troubles of Satan, "Wicked World" seems to focus its attention on the Viet Nam war and the ineptitude of elected leaders.  (I guess in this way, it would be kind of a precursor to "War Pigs".)

To wrap things up is the 15 minute suite, "A Bit Of Finger / Sleeping Village / Warning". 

"A Bit of Finger" starts off pastorally enough featuring some minstrel-like finger-picking by Iommi while Osbourne sings about crying cockerels and soft blowing breezes accented by the occasional spooky twang of a Jews Harp. (Actually, the guitar work here sounds like it might have influenced the finger-picking at the beginning of Radiohead's "Street Spirit".)

This gives way to the ripping instrumental "Sleeping Village" which would not sound out of place as a jam on Led Zeppelin I.

Things get bass-y and heavy again on "Warning", a cover of a song by The Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation.  Its bluesy and Zeppelin-y, but its also weird-sounding, psychedelic and even a little sloppy (in a GOOD way!).

An essential record to any rock & roll collection (especially for fans of early hard rock/heavy metal!)  Black Sabbath must've freaked a lot of people out in 1970, but still holds up very, very well today.  

RATING: 5 my name is Lucifer, please take me by the hand out of 5

Pink Floyd - "Childhood's End" (1972)

Happy Friday Friends!

Great Pink Floyd track from their overlooked pre-Dark Side LP, Obscured By Clouds.

The title of the song was inspired by the Arthur C. Clarke novel in which alien Overlords come down to Earth to broker peace and prosperity to humans (but at what cost?) They don't reveal themselves to us for 50 years after arriving and when they do they kind of resemble Baphomet complete with devil horns, bat wings and cloven hoofs.  Cool!

  

Bloody Hammers - "Bloodletting On The Kiss" (2016)

Hello Friends,

These weirdos are at it again.  

This song is from the band's 2016 record, "Lovely Sorts of Death".

P.S. In case you were wondering, the sexy topless succubus in this video is the fetish model, Jordan Sin. Here's a link to her modeling website: https://modeljordansin.com/.

Enjoy!

Sin After Sin

Judas Priest - "Sin After Sin" (1977) - Columbia Records

Hello Friends,

We're kicking it to Judas Priest's third LP tonight.  Sin After Sin would be the band's major label debut as well as the record that helped solidify their place as one of the best hard rock bands of their era.  From the dueling, ripping guitars of Glenn Tipton & K.K. Downing to the vocal gymnastics of frontman, Rob Halford, the album is a prime example of late 70's British heavy metal.  Its rocking and bad-ass, but also complex, dark and thoughtful.

Simply put, Sin After Sin sounds like an important album.  

Look no further than their inspired cover of the Joan Baez song, "Diamonds & Rust" to see a band at the height of their prowess.

The album kicks off with one of genre's greatest lead off songs, the galloping and epic "Sinner" with lyrics like "Sinner rider, rides in with the storm / The Devil rides beside him / The Devil is his god, God help you mourn..." RIght on!

"Sinner" is followed by the aforementioned, "Diamonds & Rust" for a killer one-two punch.

Side One is rounded out the Science Fiction-y "Starbreaker" and the heartbreaking ballad, "Last Rose of Summer".

Call for the Priest, I'm Dying...

Side Two kicks off with the heavy & very Queen-influenced "Let Us Prey/Call for the Priest" followed by the sleazy & riff-filled "Raw Deal" (also Tiki T.'s pick for best song on the record!  She loves the sleaze!)  

"Here Comes the Tears" is the album's second ballad which is good, but a little weird considering that some of the tracks on this record would have been some of the heaviest, hardest and most aggressive music to 1977 audiences and to casually throw in two sincere-sounding & ornate ballads (one on each side) seems like a bit of a mind-fuck. "Tears" is almost operatic in its approach and build-up; it sounds like something that could have been found a couple of years later on Pink Floyd's The Wall.  Also, some great guitar work.

Judas Priest was one of the first bands to utilize the double-bass drum and the 16th note bass/guitar rhythms which would become a huge influence on heavy metal music as a whole.  Nowhere is this more apparent on the album's closer, "Dissident Aggressor", a fast-tempo and aggressive closer.  On this song, as well as the record as a whole, you can hear their far-reaching influence to not only fellow New Wave of British Heavy Metal rockers, Motorhead, but even to later bands as diverse and different as Slayer and Jane's Addiction (In our opinion, Perry Farrell owes his career to Rob Halford!)

Great album from start to finish.  Its not only the sound of band trying to figure out and harness their sound, but of a new movement in music trying to figure out its place and approach!

\m/

RATING: 4.5 smiles out the window of the crummy hotel over Washington Square out of 5

The Evil One

Roky Erickson and the Aliens - "The Evil One" (1981) -  Light in the Attic Records

Hello Friends,

Tonight we're sipping some cocktails and listening to a three-sided record featuring Two Headed Dogs and Fire Demons courtesy of one of rock's most legendary troubled souls, Roky Erickson.

The Evil One, released in 1981, contains 15 songs over 3 record sides and the 4th side is left blank, but with an etching of Two Headed Dog in place of grooves(!).  Every single song is fucking great!  Straightforward, economical rock & roll with Roky's growling, bluesy vocals and paranoid, horror-inspired lyrics.  

Its like if Little Richard was possessed by Baphomet and had the original Alice Cooper Band playing back up.

This record marks the great Roky Erickson's return to the fold since The 13th Floor Elevators disbanded and he spent much of the 70's in and out of mental institutions.

The result is an undersung and undisputed classic.  

The song title alone are worth the price of admission.  They read like a catalog of Classic B Horror flicks!

Two Headed Dog
I Walked With A Zombie
Night Of The Vampire
It's A Cold Night For Alligators
Mine Mine Mind
Sputnik
White Faces
I Think Of Demons
Creature With The Atom Brain
The Wind And More
Don't Shake Me Lucifer
Bloody Hammer
Stand For The Fire Demon
Click Your Fingers
If You Have Ghosts

Again, every single song is good.  Every single song rocks.  Great, disturbing lyrics with passionate, disturbed vocals and good ol' fashioned raucous rock roll to back it all up!

Fun Fact: Hey kids, this record was produced by Stu Cook, former bassist of Creedence Clearwater Revival.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

RATING: 5 demons up in the attic to the left out of 5

Summer Twins - "Demons" (2015)

Hello Friends,

We know what you're thinking...

Why would post this video by these adorable twin sisters singing airy indie pop amongst all these other demonic, degenerate and downright sleazy bands?  

What the heck do the Summer Twins have to do with Halloween anyways?

Well, first off, this fuzz-laden pop nugget is called "Demons".

And secondly, what's scarier than twins?

  

Advanced Demonology

Swilson - "Demonology" (2011) - Hi-Science Records

Hello Friends,

Are you in the mood for some Satan-inspired, lo-fi heavy-metal loner rock?  

Yes please!

Its like a Dio-era Black Sabbath channeling early 90's Guided by Voices!

Or a lo-fi Alice Cooper being backed up by Daniel Johnston!

It's all good!  12 songs about demons!  An album that rocks from start to finish!

Here's a link to Swilson's bandcamp page:  https://swilson13.bandcamp.com/album/demonology-2

RATING: 4.5 Polyester Shirts, Polyester Pants out of 5

\m/

Prog Rock Saturday: Procol Harum

Procol Harum - Procol Harum (1967) - Deram Records

Hello Friends,

We're skipping the light fandango tonight on Vinyl in the Valley!

Our first album to kick off another Summer of Prog Rock Saturdays is Procol Harum's self-titled, debut LP.

Now this is definitely more of a proto-prog record than the more traditional progressive rock of the likes of Yes, King Crimson or Genesis.  The songs here are relatively short and digestible, and the musical arrangements are interesting, but not overly complex.  

Most of the songs here follow a traditional blues structure, but with heavy Classical influences and lots of big, almost otherworldly, organ sounds playing throughout.  The lyrics, too, seem to be coming from another world with loads of psychedelic, mythological (demonic?) and death-inspired imagery.

One can even make a solid argument that Procol Harum's first single and most well-known song, "A Whiter Shade of Pale", is one of the earliest examples of what would eventually become progressive rock.

"Her face at first just ghostly, turned a whiter shade of pale..."

A great song, that may or may be about a girl dying from a drug overdose or the band playing a closing number at a slow dance in some haunted netherworld, "A Whiter Shade of Pale" is to the late sixties what Glenn Miller's "Moonlight Serenade" was to the late 30's & early 40's.  Its instantly recognizable and familiar.  There's no doubting from what era the music comes from when you hear those first few notes.  If we were making a movie and wanted to flashback to a hippie party in 1967, we'd probably use "Whiter Shade"; just like if we wanted to film a slow dance scene between a WWII GI and his girl the night before he ships out, we no doubt would use a few bars of "Moonlight Serenade".

Good thing we're better at slinging back drinks than we are at making movies, kids!    

"She Wandered Through The Garden Fence" is a whimsical blues that sounds a little like Steve Winwood recording a song on Piper at the Gates of Dawn (which, incidentally was released just a month before this LP!)  Actually, there's a lot points on the record where the singer and pianist, Gary Brooker, sounds A LOT like Traffic-era Stevie Winwood!

Death makes another appearance on "Something Following Me", a slow, soulful blues tune about a guy wandering around 42nd Street as he keeps seeing his own "engraved marble" tombstone following him around.

The borderline-annoying "Mabel" actually sounds like something Ray Davies might have perfected a few years later on Muswell Hillbillys.  "More slide-whistle!" said no one, ever.

Side One concludes with the five-minute psychedelic death trip "Cerdes (Outside the Gates Of)" which features unicorns, mermaids & some downright dirty Hammond organ playing and guitar soloing (courtesy of Matt Fisher & Robin Trower, respectively.)  "Cerdes" is the Goofus to "White Shade of Pale"'s Gallant.  Its dark & trippy, loose & foreboding and features non-sensical lyrics like:

Phallus Phil tries peddling his pewter painted pot
But Sousa Sam can only hear the screams of Peep the Sot
Who only sips his creme de menthe from terra cotta cups
And exhales menthol scented breath whilst spewing verbiage up

Yowsa!  We'll have what he's having!

On Side Two the weirdness continues, kicking off with the sludgy, "A Christmas Camel", a song about amazon brides, Santa Claus, Arabian sheikhs and "madmen in top hats and tails impal[ing] themselves on six inch nails." Hey kids, DO NOT put this on your next Christmas Cocktail Party playlist!

The great, "Conquistador" is next.  Here they are performing it on German TV in 1976.

The psychedelic "Kaleidoscope" and blue-eyed soulful "Salad Days (are here again)" follow and the record concludes with the satanic sounding instrumental, "Repent Walpurgis". A great, organ-heavy instrumental featuring some more bleeding Hammond organ and note-shredding guitar soloing.  

This leads us to a couple of questions, were Procol Harum the first rock & roll band to employ both piano parts and organ parts into their songs?  Seems like a simple enough idea now, but at the time that lineup (guitar, bass, drums, piano & organ) had to be a pretty far out concept!

Also kids, there's got to be something Satanic with this band, right?  From the weird, ghostly cover art to the fucked up lyrics throughout, these guys have definitely conjured a demon or two at some point, no?  Even their name, Procol Harum, loosely translates to "Beyond these things" in Latin aka the devil's language!  On 1969's A Salty Dog LP, they would even record a song called, "The Devil Came From Kansas".

Well, we're convinced!

Hail Satan!

RATING: 4 Vestal Virgins Who Were Leaving For the Coast out of 5 

If You Have Ghost

Ghost - "If You Have Ghost" (2013) - Republic Records

Hello Friends,

Great vinyl EP here courtesy of Swedish doom metal band, Ghost (or Ghost B.C. as they are known here in the States!)  

Five songs here including a tremendous cover of Roky Erickson's garage classic, "If You Have Ghosts" as well ABBA's "I'm a Marionette", Army of Lovers' "Crucified", Depeche Mode's "Waiting For the Night", as well as a live version of the bands original, "Secular Haze."

Kurt Cobain famously praised the song "Crucified" by Swedish Dance band, Army of Lovers, in his posthumously published journals.  Back in the day, Beavis & Butthead also liked the video but that was mainly because of boobs (video here and here's Ghost's version.)

In related Nirvana news, Dave Grohl produced this EP!  

Basically, here on Vinyl in the Valley, any band who's lead singer dresses like a Papal ghoul and goes by the name Papa Emeritus II is alright by us!

Hail Satan!

RATING: 4.5 Nameless Ghouls out of 5

Dreams of Love, Hungarian Rhapsodies and Dancing with the Devil!

Franz Liszt - "Liebestraum: Favorite Melodies of Liszt" - 1965 - Columbia Records

Hello Friends,

We're classing things up tonight at the tiki bar!  This record features the magic fingers of French classical pianist, Philippe Entremont, and features some selected works of Hungarian composer Franz Liszt.  So break out the Bulls Blood, because we've got bad case of Lisztomania tonight!

Excellent record for a stormy November evening.  Just a man and his piano playing the 'greatest hits' of the world's first rock star.

Side One
1. Liebestraum (Notturno no. 3)
2. Concert Etude No. 3 in F minor
3. Consolation No. 3
4. Mephisto Waltz

Side Two
1. Concert Etude No. 3 in D-Flat Major
2. Valse Oubliee
3. Hungarian Rhapsody No. 15 ("Rakoczy March")
4. Canzonetta Del Salvator Rosa 
5. Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2

Mephisto Waltz is the album's highlight.  Ten minutes of frantic piano playing that's supposed to be about Faust & Mephisto, the devil himself, passing by a village tavern during a wedding.  Mephisto grabs a fiddle from one of the local musicians and starts playing this intoxicating melody that causes the Faust to grab and dance wildly with some local tramp.  They dance seductively into the night and eventually disappear out of the tavern and into the woods where sinful acts will no doubt follow!   (Editor's Note: Coincidentally, this is how Tiki T. and I met!)   

Plus, speaking of hotties, who doesn't love a sexy brunette looking over her shoulder while in a fainting chair? Too bad she's dressed like a Mennonite!

RATING: 4.5 servings of chicken paprikash out of 5

Making Bets On Kentucky Derby Day

The Rolling Stones - "Sticky Fingers" (1971) - Rolling Stones Records

Hello Friends,

Its Kentucky Derby day, our bets are placed and we're on our 4th round of Mint Juleps while we wait for the singing of "My Old Kentucky Home".  Meanwhile on the turntable, ladies and gentlemen, its the Rolling Stones.

Sticky Fingers.  From the album's title to Andy Warhol's cover art to Bobby Keys's sax solo on "Can't You Hear Me Knocking?" this record oozes dick-swinging sleaze!  

Their ninth full-length (and first of the Seventies) every song is an absolute classic.  Produced by Jimmy Miller and recorded at the legendary Muscle Shoals Studios in backwater Alabama there's a swampiness to the sound of the entire record.  Drugs and death are pretty much present on every song!  The ghost of Brian Jones looms large and in its place is some serious Mick Taylor shredding!

Take the opening song, for instance, the hit single "Brown Sugar", a solid rocker with a killer riff that's either about interracial sex or heroin use or, most likely, both!  The stage is set friends!

"Sugar" is followed by the slow, demon-swaying blues of "Sway" which is followed by the classic break-up ballad, "Wild Horses".  Funny enough, as the story goes, Gram Parsons convinced the Stones to let his band, The Flying Burrito Brothers, record this song.  When Mick Jagger & Keith Richards heard his version, they decided that they too should release it.  The Burrito Brothers version came out a year ahead of the Stones version.  

Next up is the aforementioned, "Can't You Hear Me Knocking?" in all its frenzied, coke-fueled glory!  Side One closes out with a cover of the Fred McDowell gospel-blues tune, "You Gotta Move".

And if you thought Side One couldn't be topped, wait until you get to Side Two kids!

The hard-rocking "Bitch" kicks things off followed by the much slower, more intense & bluesy tune, "I Got the Blues"-- which sounds like a classic Otis Redding soul ballad.

Co-written by Marianne Faithfull, the excellent and nightmarish "Sister Morphine" is next.  Again, this song it oozes paranoia!  Why do we hear sirens? Why does the doctor have no face?  Who's Cousin Cocaine?  Lock the fucking doors Tiki, I'm scared!   

Things come back down to Earth (a little) on "Dead Flowers"--  a junkie love letter with a country-twang, killer chorus and some great F you lines like:  

I'll be in my basement room

With a needle and a spoon

And another girl to take my pain away...

Take that bitch!

The last song, "Moonlight Mile", is the perfect conclusion to this drug-fueled sleazefest!  A slow, lamenting ballad about alienation and life on the road. It ain't all fun and games kids!  Once the drugs run out and the groupies are gone, you're left with a used and abused sticky version of yourself.  Sometimes these moments of clarity, no matter how brief, can be devastating! 

As the song goes, "Its just that demon life has got you in its sway!"

And they're off...

RATING: 5 Headfuls of Snow out of 5 

The Devil in Hi-Fi

The Devil in Hi-Fi - Westminster Hi-Fi

Hello friends,

Its that time of year again: there's a chill in the air; dark comes early; the shadows are long; and a queer breeze blows the dry leaves in the backyard.

Meanwhile we're comfortably holed up inside, lighting some candles, drinking some wine and classing the tiki bar up with this LP of macabre-inspired classical works.  Its frightfully enjoyable! Beelzebub himself would be proud!

There are four pieces represented here: Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain", Saint-Saens's "Danse Macabre", Liszt's "Mephisto Waltz" and Hector Berlioz's "The Dream of the Witch's Sabbath."

The Mussorgsky and Berlioz pieces have themes that have to do with witches-- and their covens-- celebrating their Sabbath.   In fact, last April we celebrated Walpurgis Night with Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique.  Franz Liszt's "Mephisto Waltz" has to do with the devil crashing a village wedding and working all the guests into an orgiastic frenzy with his fiddle-playing!     

Speaking of fiddling... Saint-Saen's "Danse Macabre" is about Death appearing at midnight on Halloween and playing his fiddle until the dead arise from their graves for one last killer romp!  

Here's a short cartoon that played on PBS around Halloween back in the 80's...



Holy Lucifer!

RATING: 4.5 Temples of Set out of 5