BRUCE LAMONT

Yakuza vocalist/saxophonist Bruce Lamont released his first solo album, Feral Songs for the Epic Decline, on the At A Loss label in January. That's the cover art above. He did some killer performances to promote it at South by Southwest this past week, and Mike Williams of Eyehategod showed up to help out:





I wrote the liner notes to the CD. Here they are:

Those of you who’ve picked this album up because it’s the solo debut by the frontman for Chicago avant-rock band Yakuza should be aware that you are not holding a metal record in your hands. Of course, if you think Yakuza, Bruce Lamont’s primary creative outlet, is just a metal band, well, I don’t know what to tell you about that. Yakuza makes some of the most absorbing ultra-heavy psychedelic post-rock around, but calling it “metal” would be awfully reductive. You’ve got the Tibetan-style chants, the drone interludes, the saxophone…Yakuza’s got more in common with Hawkwind than High On Fire, is the point here. And apparently, Bruce Lamont is the kind of guy who finds even Yakuza’s expansive musical vision just a little bit constricting.

Most folks who know his work know Lamont has one foot in out-jazz (he’s performed and recorded with saxophonist Ken Vandermark, and stood up to the full hurricane force of upstate New York sax-sax-guitar trio Borbetomagus) and another in out-rock (in addition to Yakuza, he’s been an in-studio guest with fellow Chicago bands Nachtmystium and Minsk). But now they’re gonna get to know Bruce Lamont, singer-songwriter. He wrote all the songs on this disc, and played every instrument: guitar, saxophone, keyboards, percussion, all of it. And as recorded by Sanford Parker in Chicago’s Semaphore Studio, it’s got all the warmth and humanity of the best music to come from that city in recent years.

The first track, “One Who Stands On The Earth,” is also the longest by a good five minutes, and it’s like a buffet, laying out every sound you’re gonna hear for the rest of the album’s 43-minute running time. Acoustic guitar, saxophone, hypnotic tribal percussion, rhythm loops, bursts of static, and Lamont’s own trance-like vocal chants…imagine if Peter Gabriel had invited Michael Gira to collaborate on Passion, his soundtrack album for The Last Temptation Of Christ, and you’re getting there. There’s a strong desert vibe to tracks like “The Epic Decline” and “Disgruntled Employer.” Other pieces, like “The Book Of The Law” and “Deconstructing Self-Destruction,” blast from the speakers full of industrial/black metal fury, while the detuned guitar of “Year Without Summer” could be a nod to the Texas-based outsider-folk recluse Jandek. Feral Songs For The Epic Decline is multifaceted, is what I’m saying. Like its creator. Come in with open ears, and they will be filled in a very pleasing manner.

Buy Feral Songs for the Epic Decline from Amazon

BURNING AMBULANCE 2

I haven't made a big deal about it here, other than posting a link in the right-hand column, but I'm the editor of an intermittent journal of the arts called Burning Ambulance. We call it a "quarterly," but the first one came out in late February and #2 is out, well, now.

The idea's a pretty simple one: I gather a bunch of smart, funny, talented writers and talk them into long-form pieces about subjects that interest them. I write one or two myself. That's it. No consideration for what "everyone" is talking about this month; no worries about timeliness; nothing but love.

This issue features a cover story, by me, on alto saxophonist Darius Jones; a profile of the New Orleans metal band Eyehategod by "Grim" Kim Kelly (plus a half dozen poems by their vocalist, Mike IX Williams); an exploration of the music of Cris Aflalo and Heloisa Fernandes, two neotraditionalist composer/performers from Brazil whose work is much more interesting than a lot of what comes out of that country these days; a fantastic essay on Hollywood's attempts to come to grips with (and exploit) punk rock in the late '70s and early '80s by Phil Nugent, whose blog should be a daily stop for you and everyone you know; a beginner's guide to J-pop; and a tribute to Bill Dixon by musicians who worked with him, including William Parker, Alan Silva, Barry Guy, Rob Mazurek, Warren Smith, Joe McPhee and others. You get all that for just $10 (plus shipping), or $5 if you want a digital download instead of a handsome, perfect-bound hard copy. Interested? Click here.

METAL MAYHEM

Mom, nachos, and $1,000 box sets: On the road with Lamb of God

When and how did Lamb of God become a metal institution? They still seem like a new band, even though they've been around for more than 15 years. Their first album, a self-titled disc from when they were still called Burn the Priest, came out in 1999. New American Gospel, their debut under their current name, arrived a year later.

Since then, it's been a ten-year rocket ride: multiple Ozzfest slots, support for Megadeth and Slayer, and a Grammy nomination for the song "Redneck" in 2007. They spent most of 2009 opening for Metallica, which singer Randy Blythe says was a bid for "prestige...[and] maybe we'll pick up some fans, because a 50-year-old guy isn't gonna be aware of the Lamb of God show at House of Blues. But he'll check out a Metallica show."

One Metallica gig was particularly special for Blythe: When the band played New York, he brought his mom. "She was right in between the barricade [and the stage], standing by our techs," he recalls. "She'd never been to New York City, so I flew her and my wife up early, and she got to cruise around the city for a day or two. I'm probably never gonna play Madison Square Garden again, so I had to have Mom there."

But bigger stages haven't changed the band. "We do what we're gonna do," says Blythe. "Whether we're playing with Eyehategod or Brutal Truth or playing with Metallica." That relentless individualism has been a major factor in Lamb of God's popularity. The group's breakthrough albums, 2003's As the Palaces Burn and 2004's Ashes of the Wake, were stridently political. This earned them a diehard following and praise from critics, who always fall all over themselves to point out any sign of unexpected intelligence in metal.

But Lamb of God made a sharp left turn on 2006's Sacrament. "I had been writing politically oriented stuff since the Burn the Priest days, because I come from a punk-rock background," says Blythe. "Palaces and Ashes were fairly highly politicized records during the Bush regime, [but] there's only so many ways you can say 'fuck Bush.' It's beating a dead horse after a certain time. We tried to step away on Ashes, but it didn't work. We were still too pissed off. But after we did that, we were like, All right, we need to try something different. We're trying to write each record to be different. Why write the same record over and over?"

The band's most recent album, 2008's Wrath, lives up to its title. Musically, they plow the same crushing groove they've spent a decade and a half perfecting, driven by Chris Adler's astonishing drumming. Lyrically, they mix politics with introspection and general pissed-offness. It's the perfect formula for starting furious mosh pits, but Lamb of God haven't been able to do that for quite a while. The Metallica shows were in arenas, and they're now occupying a main-stage slot on this year's Rockstar Mayhem Festival alongside co-headliners Korn and Rob Zombie.

"When we were main support for Ozzy, there were a lot of 55-year-old dudes eating hot dogs and nachos, looking at us like we were space aliens and going, 'Where's Ozzy?'" recalls Blythe. "If you look up past the seats onto the lawn, which is where our fans are, they're up there destroying shit. That's what our fans do. They're like the bad kids in the back of the school bus."

With arena shows and platinum albums on their résumé, Lamb of God have crossed the divide that separates newbies from legacy acts. They even got a box set: Hourglass, a three-disc compilation of album tracks, demos, and a few rarities, came out in June. The most deluxe version of the set—one that retails for $1,000—includes a banner, a custom guitar, and the band's entire catalog on vinyl, all packed in a coffin-shaped guitar case.

"We were on tour when it came out," says Blythe. "We were doing an in-store and they had it, so we were like, Oh, so that's what it looks like. We all kinda pored over it. Then in Luxembourg, a girl who works for Sony bought us five of them. The band is always the last to get anything."

[From the Cleveland Scene.]

LIKE A HURRICANE

After a decade, New Orleans metal icons Eyehategod return

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote that there are no second acts in American lives. The members of the New Orleans metal band Eyehategod would likely disagree. Even though their last album—Confederacy of Ruined Lives—was released a decade ago, they're on a hot streak in 2010.

The group recently completed a three-week European tour and played a triumphant set in Baltimore over Memorial Day weekend at the annual Maryland Deathfest. Now they're heading out on a headlining U.S. tour with Nachtmystium and Brutal Truth.

The band made its name with a trilogy of albums—1992's In the Name of Suffering, 1993's Take As Needed for Pain, and 1996's Dopesick—which combined the murky rage of Black Flag's My War with Paranoid–era Black Sabbath's heaviness, dragging thick layers of noise and feedback over it all like the Spanish moss of their native Louisiana. Singer Mike Williams' incomprehensible howling added a jittery, disturbing edge to the mix, and evocative song titles like "Kill Your Boss," "My Name Is God (I Hate You)," and "Hit a Girl" created impressions of unremitting hostility, poverty, and degradation, both physical and spiritual.

The band's reputation for offstage debauchery added to its mystique and affected performance. At one 1997 show in New York, Williams looked like he might topple over at any second, as his bandmates glared at him. These days, Williams smiles, jokes, and interacts with the audience. He's a surprisingly upbeat frontman.

"When we first started back in the late '80s, nobody moved onstage—we would just stand there," says Williams. "It was so slow, you couldn't move to it. But I've learned how to be more of a person that's gonna be out in front. You have to talk to the crowd and be, not like David Lee Roth or anything, but you're there for the people to watch."

But has the music become more disciplined over the years as a result of all that touring? Eyehategod's lurching, nihilistic roar, with each song introduced and closed out by shrieking feedback, was always the point, after all. When they cleaned up their sound (relatively speaking) on 2000's Confederacy of Ruined Lives, some fans bristled.

Williams says they have nothing to worry about. "Definitely playing shows tightens you up, but with Eyehategod there's still always that sloppy, drunken way to it," he laughs. "We might get tighter musically, hitting notes at the same time, but we're still gonna be sloppy in that sense—the chaotic sense we've had."

The singer (who's also published a poetry book, Cancer As a Social Activity) says about a half-dozen new songs have been written, in instrumental form anyway. Now it's up to him to come up with lyrics. "It's just about having the time to sit down and put together a new album," he says.

Williams and the other members of Eyehategod have also been pretty busy with side projects. Everyone but guitarist Jimmy Bower is in Outlaw Order, whose debut CD, Dragging Down the Enforcer, was released in 2008, the same year Williams joined Down singer Phil Anselmo and Hank Williams III in the hardcore punk band Arson Anthem.

Part of this flurry of activity can be attributed to changes in the band's legal status. Both Williams and bassist Gary Mader are able to leave their home state, which wasn't the case for several years. Williams also quit heroin during a 90-day jail stint a few years ago. Fortunately, the lifestyle change hasn't affected him creatively.

"When I was strung out before, I used to think, What would happen?" recalls Williams. "Would I lack in the writing, would I have fewer ideas? But being clean, I still think the same way. I still have the same attitude. I still write the same style. It's all the same. I've found out that I am who I am—it wasn't the drugs talking."

Eyehategod's second act is, in a way, a return to their strengths. They recently hopped on the nostalgia train and performed In the Name of Suffering and Take As Needed for Pain in their entirety live. Williams says it's much more important to stay loyal to the fans who've stuck with them through the lean years than it is to try to win over potential new ones.

"If that happens, it happens, but we're not gonna write an album directed at those people," he says. "We're gonna write an album that is reflective of our old stuff and the way that we were thinking back when we did Take As Needed for Pain. "

That and maybe some hometown recognition. New Orleans' metal scene has never received the critical love its jazz and hip-hop stars have earned. It's extremely unlikely that a character based on Williams or his Eyehategod bandmates or the members of Crowbar, Soilent Green, or Down will show up in an episode of HBO's New Orleans-set Treme.

But there's been some recent thawing, says Williams. "They have these Big Easy music awards, and this year Eyehategod got nominated along with Down," he says with some surprise and quite a bit of pride. "It was in the metal category, but it was cool that they're kinda starting to notice it, [even if] it's taken twentysomething years to get recognized in your own city."

[From the Cleveland Scene.]

BANDS ARE NOT JUKEBOXES

Today at my MSN metal blog, I condemn the practice of bands (e.g. Slayer, Megadeth, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Nine Inch Nails, Eyehategod, Unsane) playing entire albums live. It's fucking boring, and it's demeaning to the bands (who are reduced to being living jukeboxes) and the audience (who are rewarded for mindless nostalgia). Putting together a great set is an art form unto itself—balancing old and new, setting a pace that starts strong, offers a slight slowdown in the middle so the audience can relax/catch its breath, then bringing the energy level back up for a thunderous conclusion and a kick-ass, explosive encore. It might seem similar, but that's really a totally different thing from sequencing an album (or a CD), especially an album from 20 years ago, when albums actually had sides that demanded mini-sequencing of their own. Frankly, I'd be more impressed by seeing The Rock-afire Explosion playing a whole album by a band. Anyway, there's more if you want more.