The Downcast Music reviews, news, free downloads and video

Venomous Maximus – The Mission – Album Review

– 03/20/2012Posted in: 4 Stars, Album Reviews, Featured, Metal

[Here we go again!] Here is The Mission: Rape and Destroy. Fuck their permission. You’re all just my toy…Houston four-piece Venomous Maximus make good use of sludgy riffs and galloping assaults on their latest, The Mission. And yeah, you’ve heard all that before. But what sets these guys apart from your standard Black Sabbath, Pentagram or Blue Cheer reboot is singer Gregg Higgins’ approach.

Rather than attempt to sing, Higgins presides over The Missions‘ hustling collection of proto metal with vocals recalling a stadium announcer at some satanic rodeo. An experience you’re surely familiar with. So you should find The Mission both comforting and bad ass.

Stream it…

4 / 5

Stream The Mission…

Tags: Venomous Maximus

High on Fire prep ‘De Vermis Mysteriis’

down.caster

– 02/29/2012Posted in: Metal, News

Bay Area metal heads High on Fire ar set to release their sixth LP, De Vermis Mysteriis, on April 3rd. The title, which reads “Mysteries of the Worm”, is taken from a book by Psycho author Robert Block, which sounds cheerful enough. But H. P. Lovecraft once said the book “repeats the most hellish secrets learnt by early man.” Dude. Among the subjects covered: Jesus had a twin that died at birth and now travels through time. Plus, there’s reference to a serum made from black lotus, called “liao”, that’s somehow involved. We’re not sure how, but we’re sure it does something wicked.

With (Converge guitarist) Kurt Ballou behind the boards (he’s also recorded Black Breath, Black Cobra and Trap Them), High on Fire sounds grittier and more jagged than they did on their last LP, the excellent Snakes for the Divine (2010). Check it out…

(Action PR)

Tags: High on Fire

Radar Blip: Windhand

down.caster

– 02/26/2012Posted in: Metal, News, Radar Blip

Richmond, VA’s Windhand are set to release their slow burning, hard dragging self-titled debut this month via Forcefield Records. The riffs here are stretched and stoned, the vocals are haunted with black melody and the guitar solos unwind with pagan psychedelia. We’re impressed with the opening shot from this stoner-doom five-piece, and we’re hoping they hit the road soon so we can witness this savagery first-hand…

(via The Soda Shop)

Tags: Windhand

Melvins prep “The Bulls and the Bees” [free] EP

down.caster

– 02/26/2012Posted in: Featured, Metal, News

Avant metal trio The Melvins are set to release a free EP via Scion’s A/V club. You know, for an advertising thing, Scion A/V ain’t half bad. Honestly? I’d rather have bands earn money through partnerships like this than sell their songs to Volkswagen or Ikea or whatever. Anyway, Aberdeen, WA-born metal heads Melvins sound as heavy and odd as ever on “The War on Wisdom”. Look for the rest of The Bulls and the Bees on March 13th.

Tags: Melvins

Ufommamut release ‘Oro’ album teaser

down.caster

– 02/26/2012Posted in: Metal, News

As reported early last year, and confirmed in the fall, Italian stoner rockers Ufomammut are set to release their sixth LP, Oro: Opus Primum in April. We expect it to be a slow-burning, hard-hitting affair with haunting howls and epic riffs flying all over the place, and the below teaser (er, choppy documentary on how the band put together Oro) seems to confirm that…

Tags: Ufomammut

Orange Goblin – Red Tide Rising – free mp3

down.caster

– 02/07/2012Posted in: Metal, Video

English stoner rock crew Orange Goblin have been carving heavy-as-shit riffs since the mid-nineties, but they still sound pretty bad ass in their latest video, “Red Tide Rising”. This song is sick. And the video, featuring very cool animation, lots of banging heads and a ouija board is totally rad. Needless to say, but we’ll say it, we’re pretty stoked to hear the rest of their forthcoming LP, A Eulogy for the Damned (due February 14th).

Tags: Orange Goblin

Red Fang – Hank Is Dead – Video

down.caster

– 02/02/2012Posted in: Metal, Video

If we gave out lifetime achievement awards for killer videos, Portland stoner rock clan Red Fang would win one. On the band’s latest clip, for the exceptionally rad “Hank is Dead” (from their latest LP, Murder the Mountains), the plot line revolves around air guitar and gets high marks for excellent use of an awkward shower moment, outstanding deployment of a paper plane and we’re happy to see the band’s station wagon survived the last video shoot…

Speaking of the last video shoot, do check out the video for “Wires” (also from Murder) and the amazing (yeah, amazing) video for “Prehistoric Dog”, from the bands’ 2009, self-titled debut, here.

Tags: Red Fang

Dead Icons – Folding Aces – free mp3

down.caster

– 01/15/2012Posted in: Downloads, Metal, Songs

Upstart Kentucky hardcore rockers, Dead Icons, are set to release their debut LP, Condemned on January 24th. To get you in the mood, grab the savage, full-frontal assault of lead single, “Folding Aces”, right here…

Dead Icons – Folding Aces by INgroovesmarketing

Tags: Dead Icons

Ice Dragon release limited ‘Sorrowful Sun’ cassette

down.caster

– 01/04/2012Posted in: Metal, News

Dude. Dude. Boston proto metal clan Ice Dragon just released a limited run of their killer debut LP, The Sorrowful Sun on cassette. How rad is this album? It made our list of 2012′s best hard rock LPs. But wait, there’s more. [Infomercial voice] If you act now, you’ll get a pin and lyrics rolled up in a parchment and a velvety blue sack. What do you do with the sack? You put your weed in it.

Below, we’ve teed up “Mistress Death” for you. It’ll trigger fireworks in the Black Sabbath section of your head, which is cool. But what makes Sorrowful Sun a next-level LP are the melancholy acoustic interludes like “Dust”, also below…

“Mistress Death” by Ice Dragon

“Dust” by Ice Dragon

Tags: Ice Dragon

The Downcast’s 2011 hard rock album of the year

Elks: Destined for the Sun

We would write a more comprehensive review of this dense, shuttering heavy metal masterwork, how it’s a brilliant patchwork of riffs and cosmic savagery, but it’s best to let Elks do the talking. According to Elks bassist “This EP is about the peaceful inhabitants of a planet colonized by an expanding empire [of nomadic space vikings] who are imprisoned in a golden space hulk, then sent hurtling towards the nearest sun.” Next comes cannibalism, an encounter with a supercomputer at the edge of the universe called “The Wizard” and ultimately, vengeance. Heavy metal album of the year, folks.

Download “White Fang Learns to Hate”

More of the year’s best hard rock albums…

	Thorr-Axe: Wall of Spears Indiana stoner-doom rockers Thorr-Axe debut with Wall of Spears, a punishing blast of furious nordic riff work reminiscent of early High on Fire or Gods of the Earth-era Sword. (God damn we’ve been waiting a long time to write something like that.) Wall of Spears rolls like a tortured wave of ominous, golden distortion complete with thundering drums and lurching bass. Excellent range in rhythm, good song dynamics and several unexpected twists push Wall of Spears into epic territory. The best part? Thorr-Axe are barely out of high school, so this should be the first in a long string of killer metal from these Bloomfield, Indiana natives. Get stuck on “The Island”.
	Elder: Dead Roots Stirring Boston stoner rock trio Elder return with an epic psychedelic rock opus, Dead Roots Stirring. Jammed with cascading riffs, cosmic melody and spiraling sonic architecture, Roots is a wandering, mostly instrumental LP of stoned, mythical exploration. Calling heavily on deities like Tony Iommi and Dickie Peterson, Elder’s second LP ranges from tumbling riffs and dizzying solos to atmospheric meditations and desert-wrought acoustic exploration. With its range in texture and melody, the five-song, 51-minute Dead Roots Stirring passes with surprising ease. Here’s lead track “Gemini”.
	Ice Dragon : The Sorrowful Sun The Ice Dragon covers a lot of territory on its journey under The Sorrowful Sun. From swampy, crushing laments (“Mistress Death”) and slow-grinding glacial riffs (“Interspecies Communication”) to murky, deep-water mythology (“Poseidon’s Grasp”) and acoustic breakdownds born of the misty, lush highlands (“Dusk”), The Sorrowful Sun is an ambitious undertaking. The album’s gritty, lo-fi recording gives you a sense you’re listening to the recovered log of an explorer lost years ago in search of some mythic folly. This is throwback doom that that has us anxious to hear what’s next from these Boston metal heads.
	Red Fang: Murder the Mountains Portland sludge metal champs Red Fang return with more canned-beer, trucker caps and bearded rock on Murder the Mountains. It’s sludgy metal with roots curling back to Orange Goblin (“Hank is Dead”, “Dirt Wizard”) and The Melvins (“Malverde”, “Thrown Up”), so there’s plenty in the way of brownish-red guitar tones, stoned arena-rock riffs, brutish percussion, and howling vocals. This band’s secret weapon seems to be their chemistry (I could be wrong, they could totally hate each other). But they come across as a band less concerned with outdoing each other, and more concerned with making each song something heavier (“Wires”) and more dynamic (see the late-song shifts in “Painted Parade” and “Into the Eye”) than the last.
	Sigiriya – Return to Earth Ten years after disbanding, British stoner rock pioneers Acrimony return (minus guitarist Matt Davies) as Sigiriya. On their debut (er, comeback album), Return to Earth, the band has left much of their deep-space, doom-leaning stoner psychedelia in favor of tighter song structure and pounding, swaggering riff-work. Across Return to Earth, gnarled guitars, hammering drums and gravely vocals meld into a galloping, stomping herd of cloven-hoofed, hell-bent creatures (perhaps “Mountain Goats”) stampeding towards the glow of a dying sun.
	This is Hell: Black Mass New York hardcore team This Is Hell unleash a crashing, relentless collection of anxious riffs, smoldering solos and manic, punishing drums on Black Mass. Although vocalist Travis Reilly’s tortured howl fulfills hardcore standard, the riff work on Black Mass is a little more spacious and deliberate than what we’re used to from the genre. The end result is something more along the lines of 80s Metallica, which is something totally bad ass. Check out “Salt the Earth”.
	Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats: Blood Lust With an obsession for dark mysticism and grainy proto-metal, Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats’ second album, Blood Lust plays like a droning, heavily stoned version of early Black Sabbath. It’s a totally bad ass trip to the edge of an ancient religion with a coven of faceless, hovering witches. Song structures across Blood Lust are direct, riffs are pulled from a mythic black war chest and drums are applied with strategic simplicity as psychedelic solos and ultraviolet vocals brood overhead. Dig album opener “I’ll Cut You Down”.