Emissions From The Monolith CD:
It's not really necessary to introduce the Emissions From The Monolith Festival to the interested Cosmic Lava reader. Since a few years, mostly over one weekend in Ohio, this US underground festival gives a very good introduction into diverse heavy genres like Doom/70's Rock/Sludge/Fuzzrock and I always wonder, why no label hadn't taken the chance to document this gathering of the different styles. But Maduro Records had taken the chance to put together this compilation, that features eleven of the bands of this year's Emissions 2003. Some of the included tracks are ureleased or you find different versions here, what makes this compilation more interesting.
First band are ACID APE, with their heavy noisy psychotic rock assault, followed by Ohio's REBREATHER, maybe the heaviest band on this disc. Heavy doomy downtuned riffs are mixed up with a sort of aggressive, sometimes clean vocal style. "Earthmover" is one of the most intense tracks here and I need to check out more of them. STINKING LIZAVETA are featured with a song from their upcoming fourth album "Chaostrophy", which incorporates all the strength of this outstanding instrumental trio. It's jazzy, dynamic and full of changes. BURNOUT offers with the Antiseen-influenced "Yankee Bitch" the perfect song for drinking as much booze as possible. Southern-drenched low-end blues, that's what it's about. And I think, they did get heavier since the last album "Thundertits". Next one are NY's KUNG PAO with a ripping live-version of "D is for Denim", recorded live at the legendary CBGB's.PLAYERS CLUB, who were formerly known under the name JJ Paradise Players Club, are the right outfit for all fans of noisy sludgy heavy rock, and "God Dollar" is a powerful unfriendly psycho anthem. Not far away from the noisy home of PLAYERS CLUB are MEATJACK with a cover-version of the Killdozer track "New Pants And Shirt", but I prefer the Teeth Of Lions Rule The Divine interpration.
MEATJACK have turned it into a really sick tune, but it's nothing special. The next positive surprise are FISTULA with "Live Sloth Like",a live recording of two covers of US avantgarde sicko-doomsters Sloth. After this, it's time to come down with THE RUBES and "The Ballad of Sisyphus MacDuff", a track that has been taken from the great "Hokum" album. This song is one of my faves from the album, due to the virtous heaviness of this band. Try to imagine a sound somewhere between King's X, Trouble and Gov't Mule and you got it. VOLUME are a nice retro heavy rock band, and "Colossal Freak" sounds like early Blue Cheer, mashed up with the MC 5 and Hawkwind. Nothing spectacular, but definitely a solid fuzzy rock-out. The album closes with a re-mastered version of "Big Muff" from Canadas SONS OF OTIS. Deep low frequency drones, mighty and weighty riffs and a total spaced-out atmosphere are a good fade-out for this interesting compilation.Maduro Records has done an excellent job and so "Emissions" isn't just one of these boring and senseless compilation.
(KK)