A little west of Birmingham – often said to be the birthplace of metal – their lies an entire country with an almost equally rich musical heritage in terms of rock music. In the 70s, Wales birthed the often overlooked Man, the underrated Budgie, and the should’ve been huge Lone Star. Lone Star’s second album ‘Firing On All Six’, whilst perhaps not as big as monolithic works by Deep Purple, is an easy match for any of the great material released by UFO or Uriah Heep. It’s been even less documented that the country has actually spawned a healthy stoner and doom metal scene. Spearheaded by the former Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard (later MWWB) and Dope Smoker, there are a truckload of good, heavy riff-makers filling an opulent Welsh underground in the twenty first century.
Tag Archives: stoner
THE REAL GONE SINGLES BAR #33
Welcome back to the Real Gone Singles Bar! For our first SB feature of ’24, we’ve dug deeply into our inbox of mp3s and assorted goodies to bring you another round of quick fire entertainment in our usual style. You’ll find the usual variety, with a dose of melodic punk, some alt country, huge rock and even some progressive black metal to tempt you. With January traditionally being a little quieter for submissions, we’ve taken the opportunity to include a couple of older tunes here that didn’t get covered during the last weeks of 2023, but that doesn’t mean a dip in quality. After all, you can’t put a sell by date on great music! As always, if you feel you have something of interest that you feel would suit a future Singles Bar – or a full review – at Real Gone, please don’t hesitate to get in touch…
THE REAL GONE SINGLES BAR: A NEW YEAR’S EVE LOCK IN 2023
After launching the Real Gone Singles Bar in June 2023, we found ourselves covering an even broader range of music than before. It became a natural home for anything that mightn’t see a follow up album, or music that, perhaps, might not lead to a full review. The popular feature also became an easy way to introduce people to new music, and our inbox became very busy. Naturally, by limiting the feature to eight tracks per week, not everything made the cut. In fairness, not everything deserved to, but we heard a lot of stuff that was too good to not share.
VARIOUS ARTISTS – Burn On The Bayou: A Heavy Underground Tribute To Creedence Clearwater Revival
Unless you happen to be Robert Pollard/Guided By Voices or Buckethead and have a blatant disregard for quality control, recording and releasing eight studio albums over a five year period is probably really difficult, if not impossible. Creedence Clearwater Revival not only managed that task between 1968-1972, but in ‘Green River’, ‘Willy & The Poorboys’, and ‘Cosmo’s Factory’, they managed to deliver a trio of cast iron classics. The latter is an album still beloved by millions; a soundtrack to a generation.
AAWKS – Luna EP
When it comes to riffs, power trio Aawks really don’t mess about. A cut above your average stoner rock band, their debut album ‘(Heavy On The Cosmic)’ did exactly what it said on the tin. Its eight tracks fused Sabbath, Kyuss and classic Monster Magnet riffs with a whole world of phased effects – applied to both the guitars and vocals – to leave the listener with the ultimate in fuzzy, buzzy, mind-bending wonderment. On tunes like ‘The Woods’ which combined driving stoner riffs with slower breakdowns and heavily treated lead guitars, and ‘All Is Fine’ which latched onto a rhythm that sounded like a distant cousin of ‘Silver Machine’, it was even possible to hear a huge influence from early Hawkwind bleeding through the slightly echoey vocals and head nodding riffs. With a touch of doom fleshing out ‘Peeling Away’, it was clear that these guys could do incredible heaviness too. Since almost every moment brought something exciting to Aawks’ chosen style, ‘(Heavy On The Cosmic)’ was potentially one of the finest heavy psych discs since Monster Magnet foisted ‘Dopes To Infinity’ upon an unsuspecting world in the mid 90s.