In the woods? Have keys? 14 years old?

Remember us?

Greetings, oh lowly reader. A mere 5 months ago, we in Black Sabbath brown-nosers Groan wrote the first of what we thought would be a regular column for Leave the Hall. Then, 4 months ago a combination of numerous factors, not limited to the fact that we all had a long distance relationship with each other, were all smoking a lot more weed than our doctors had prescribed us, and the fact that we were in Burnley, ended up with us endearing ourselves to the locals of that town by starting fights with them and having some sort of great rock and roll implosion less than a year after the release of our first album.

The reasons and the stories will, I’m sure, be different in all four of our autobiographies (though expect us to have more imaginative titles than Iommi’s recent release – “Iron Man: My journey through Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath”. Has he just finished an SEO course or something?).

Ironic t-shirt? Yes, Dan (the artist formerly known as The Riff Wizard) is a student.

Since that time we’ve settled an almost entirely new lineup with some faces that will be familiar to you, the UK doom/stoner rock fan, and completed writing our second album, “The Divine Right of Kings”. We’re recording it ourselves and will hopefully have it out in Spring 2012. It’s basically the best bits of your favourite classic rock albums changed enough to stop us from being sued. There are enough mindless choruses to get you shouting along and pumping your fist on your morning’s commute. I’d go out on a limb and say that after thirty seconds of doing this, if you’re not covered in naked ladies, then everyone on your train will at least be shouting with you: “GODS OF FIRE! GODS OF FIRE! FILL ME WITH DESIRE! GODS OF FIRE!”. The next day, society will crumble as everybody will go to work wearing double denim.

Writing this is quite fun. It’s like our own little propaganda machine, but through the filter of a third party. Despite that third party being Leave the Hall, it still means that this sloppily put together, weed inspired column is slightly more credible and subtle than a “GET GORAN 2 PLY BLOODSTOCK 2012″ Facebook campaign that we set up ourselves.

With our next album already pretty much done, we’re thinking about making album 3 a double album about outer space. Is this allowed – or have we been listening to too much Hawkwind?

Until next time, WITHER ME DOOMS!

http://facebook.com/groanuk
http://twitter.com/groanuk
http://groan.bigcartel.com

Edit: We also just released a one off song that we’d never be able to put on an album called “The Gypsy and the Hag”. Check it out here… http://groan.bandcamp.com/

Groan - Wizards, Sleepy Ones

With the end of the year rapidly approaching, we thought we’d catch up with some of our favourite bands & find out what they’d been listening to. First up are old school riff addicts, Groan – http://www.myspace.com/groanuk. We let them fight it out over who they wanted in their top 10. Appearing from a cloud of smoke, they returned with this list of doom, doom & a bit more doom. So here it is, in no specific order:

Cathedral – The Guessing Game

The Riff Wizard – I know this album hasn’t gone down so well but I love it. Cathedral have done something new and I think they did it very well. Loving the use of the mellotron.
Forest-Dwelling Fuzz Creature – Witness Funeral of Dreams played live and it will all become clear.

The Jim Jones Revue – Burning Your House Down

Mazzereth – Full on maxed out Rock and Roll. It stinks of Little Richard’s stinky best rock and roll moments.

Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats – Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats

Mazz – The sounds of something that is not of this world. Almost like some evil twisted fucker just decided to get into his time machine and ruin some hot chicks from the 1960′s.
FDFC - I love everything about this band.

Dopefight – Buds

Mazz – Sweet lady riff has just entered the room, please light one up and lap up the thunder.

Chrome Hoof – Crush Depth

FDFC – I’ve loved Mr. Bungle for years. This is like Mr. Bungle but from outer space. Something a bit different. Lasers, basslines and dancing.

Witchsorrow - Witchsorrow

Mazz – Wither before this doom of doom. If thee do not wither before this doom then thee are dead already.

Ghost – Opus Eponymous

FDFC – Believe the hype, embrace the pseudo-Satanism. This is clearly the bassist’s band – listen to how he guides each song from hook to catchy hook.

Heaven & Hell – Neon Nights : 30 Years of Heaven & Hell

TRW – Amazing live album. Perfect set, the band are on form. And of course, who doesn’t love Dio?

Place Of Skulls – As A Dog Returns

Thor’s Hammer – Mix The Obsessed with Led Zeps lighter moments and you have this monumental album. Victor Griffin is a beast.

Cough – Ritual Abuse

TH – Such utter filth! You can almost smell the blood of a tortured virgin.

So there you have it. Groan’s top 10. Now we’ll leave you with the video for The Martyr King, taken from the very sexy Sleeping Wizard album.

Satan's Little Helpers

Imagine if King Diamond & Ray Davies set out to create the most fun doom album since My Dying Bride‘s much acclaimed covers album, Doom Goes Pop. That didn’t actually happen but it fucking should have. Anyway, Ghost‘s debut is a meaty slab of power-pop cum doom metal with tones warmer than my nutsack after a furious session with the latest issue of Reader’s Grans. Male readers should take note, this is the closest one can get to a multiple orgasm without very expensive, experimental surgery & remembering to sit down to piss as it’s the first album ever to feature simultaneous doom-gasms & moog-gasms.

Things begin predictably enough with a funereal church organ intro but any notion that this is a doom-by-numbers exercise are blown away by the bass-driven genius of Con Clavi Con Dio. Hypnotically catchy choruses on Elizabeth & Ritual will be ingrained in your mind long after senile dementia robs you of your name & the correct method to wipe your anus. The former’s chugging guitars are reminiscent of the early Judas Priest colliding with the rhythm section of Witchfinder General. Stand By Him has a chorus Cauldron will be kicking themselves for missing & lyrics about a Witchhammer so it’s probably my new favourite song ever. Outro, Genesis borders on Pink Floyd-ian space rock leaving you with a nice gentle comedown.

Musically, everything is so gloriously understated. The production has a sheen indicative of a painstaking labour of love rather than today’s usual approach of computer calculated levels. Ghost pull off schlocky, tounge-in-cheek satanism with aplomb whilst never stepping over the line into parody. At just over 30 minutes, Opus Eponymous is as short as it is sweet, completely bereft of the filler most bands are content to shove down our throats.

For the full effect, you should probably buy this on vinyl, head back to your brown wallpapered living room, slip into your most comfy bell-bottoms, turn on your favourite lava lamp & get lost in Ghost‘s righteous grooves. For once you can safely believe the hype without worrying that Public Enemy will come fuck up your shit.

The Blood of Christ

Edinburgh is in for a fucking treat this Sunday (24th October). Bannermans & Eilean Dubh have put together an outrageously good gig featuring:

• Lazarus Blackstar – www.myspace.com/lazarusblackstar
• Ghast – www.myspace.com/souldustgrave
• Volition – www.myspace.com/volition666
• Burial – www.myspace.com/burialtheband
• Battalions
• Haar – www.myspace.com/haarsounds
• Jackal-Headed Guard of the Dead – www.myspace.com/headofthejackal
• Of Spire & Throne – www.myspace.com/ofspireandthrone
• Parole – www.myspace.com/parolecov

Tickets are only £8 & it kicks off at 3:30. See you there!

Tickets will be on sale from the bar, Tickets Scotland, or from any of the local bands.

Nautical Montage is Montacular

5. Mastodon – Leviathan

After the absolutely brilliant debut, Remission, Mastodon invested in a book & dropped this whale-shaped bomb on the heavy metal scene. It’s probably a good thing that they picked Herman Melville’s epic Moby Dick. Whilst we are all still waiting for that elusive prog metal concept album based on Dr Seuss One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, Melville’s imagery allows the lumbering doom & sludge structures developed on their previous releases to take on a whole new level of mental.

4. Ahab – Call of the Wretched Sea

In a serious attempt to come up with the most obscure genre name ever, Ahab are currently the world’s only purveyor of nautical funeral doom metal. Whilst Mastodon may have done it first, Ahab’s interpretation of Moby Dick takes things to outrageously heavy places. Their low tempo, distorted, downtuned sound induces a trance-like state. Combine that with bass levels that tread dangerously close to the brown chord & you are on course for a messy listening session. Bring a change of pants or, better still, get the whole experience by listening to it in the bath.

3. Savatage – The Wake of Magellan

Savatage have (almost all) survived some terrible challenges in their long career & their 10th studio album is definitely their magnum opus. A soaring rock opera which mixes 2 real life events with the fictional account of a sailor who, tired of the word, decides to sail out to sea & die alone. The lyrics combined with the liner notes tell a complex & epic tale which is narrated for the most part by Zak Stevens’ voice, more suited to musical theatre that progressive metal. Chris Caffery & Al Pitrelli’s guitar work is excellent but it’s Jon Oliva’s keyboard arrangements that make this album stand out as a career high-point for one of the most creative & painfully underrated metal bands ever.

2. While Heaven Wept – Vast Oceans Lachrymose

Classifying this album might be more challenging than drowning a fully grown spaniel in a toilet bowl but While Heaven Wept’s unique brand of progressive doom power rock is something special. What they attempt on Vast Oceans Lachrymose would cripple lesser musicians but the symphonic multi-tracked genius on their 3rd album blows away all the competition. Introduction of the new vocalist, Rain Irving, appears to have been the missing shot of steroids that finally allowed them to create this melodic masterpiece of superhuman quality. Epic 16 minute monstrosities & 0utrageous operatic vocals are the order of the day. Dive headfirst into this album, it will swallow you whole.

1. Alestorm – Captain Morgan’s Revenge

Scotland’s finest purveyors of nautical nonsense

Nope. I can’t do it. I was going to write a cheeky wee sentence about them, then we could all have a laugh at their expense but I can’t do it. I got halfway through my first sentence:  “Scotland’s finest purveyors of nautical nonsense” & I had to stop. A proper review of this album reads as follows: Hahahaha Failstorm.

They are shit, end of story. On to the real number one.

1. Running Wild – Port Royal

Rock ‘n’ Rolf’s band made the transition to pirate overlords with their 87 album Under Jolly Roger but their follow-up, Port Royal cemented their crown as king of the seas. The title track, Raging Fire & Blown to Kingdom Come are all speed metal anthems in their own right but it is with Conquistadores that the ‘Wild boys peak. Galloping bass lines Steve Harris would be proud of & a chorus as infectious as ebola make for a tasty combo of Germanic genius. Overcoming an extremely weak production, you’ll definitely need to turn this one all the way up to 11 but other than a single mis-step with Final Gates, a rather pointless instrumental track, you are faced with a classic. Next time someone tells you Swashbuckle are the best pirate metal band, remind them that Running Wild are the true lions of the sea, then run them through with your rusty dagger.

Grand Magus

Heirs To The Throne

A nightmare scenario: Joey DeMaio makes some modifications to his bass prior to a gig. He plays the first note & the resulting vibrations crack the earth open swallowing the band, stage & crowd. We now live in a world without Manowar. Who is going to fill their sizeable boots of steel? The answer can be found in Stockholm.

Grand Magus’s metamorphosis from average doom band to heirs to metal crown has taken little over a decade. As a serious contender for the title of Most Metal Man Alive, leather lunged frontman & guitarist JB demonstrates his impressive vocal range & delivers riffs the size of continents, all whilst oozing pure iron from every pore. There are no technical solos, no progressive tendencies, just a masterclass in fist-pumping metal.

Opening with I, The Jury, JB channels Dissident Aggressor-era Halford to embed the brilliant chorus deep in your brain stem. The title track is a perfect example of what happens when you take your big book of doom metal & apply every single lesson to a heavy metal song. By the end of the song,  you will most likely find yourself topless on a snow swept mountain peak swinging a warhammer.

Black Sails takes us firmly into Running Wild territory whilst Mountains Be My Throne harks back to their early days as the doomiest track on the album. It’s probably my second favourite mountain-based song about mountains after Manowar’s classic mountain homage, Mountains. Everything builds to a climax on At Midnight They’ll Get Wise, which bears all the hallmarks of a future classic.

Without resorting to hyperbole, I can safely say that there’s not a weak track, just 50 minutes of perfect, old-school heavy metal thunder. Now, with the backing of a major label, Grand Magus are set to take the world by storm, make sure not to stand in their way. All hail the Hammer of the North.