I’ve just moved to Wellington and it rules. I don’t really want to go anywhere just now, but if I did end up stuck on another dank, rainy little island with a handful of albums, these would be them:
Beastwars: Blood Becomes Fire
Their self-titled first album is awesome, but Blood Becomes Fire has one of the best sludgy stoner doom tunes ever written: Tower of Skulls. The mosh pits at their shows are like smashing into a surprise rock garden way too fast and riding it out. Hold on and hope.
More heavy, this time from the heaviest band in the universe: Electric Wizard‘s 1999 doom metal masterpeice Come My Fanatics.
This is a fan vid mashup of Return Trip and Once Upon a Time in the West by Sergio Leone, which stars the truly badass Charles Bronson, after whom the Santa Cruz frame was named. The heaviest 11 minutes and 5 seconds you’ll spend today.
I like heavy music, but running around in the forest headbanging all day would have me looking like something out of this compilation of the 10 Most Ridiculous Black Metal Videos of All Time. So here’s to the quieter moments.
Kuedo’s Severant would calm things down and get things back onto island time. This album’s got a nice Vangelis/Bladerunner vibe with more than a dash of 80s extreme sports montage. It also kind of sounds like Raiden might on ketamine.
Conan Mockasin‘s an enigma wrapped in a blonde mop-top. His album Forever Dolphin Love is both cute and creepy, weird and catchy, sunshiny and dark. His songs never fail to make me smile. What could be sweeter than the love between a man and a dolphin?
Finally, one of the best albums ever written, with one of the stupidest names ever, by one of the best bands ever, Lola vs The Powerman and the Moneygoround Part 1 by The Kinks. Every song’s a gem, but I imagine I’d go a bit feral after a while, so Apeman in particular would remind me that feral’s the only way to be.
