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The Sleeping Shaman News

31st December 2008

Interview: Saros

Saros were spawned in 2004 in San Francisco. They might be a new one on some of you but seeing as they have an album pending on Canadas Profound Lore Records they might make their way to your ears...

30th December 2008

Review: A Storm of Light 'And We Wept the Black Ocean Within' CD 08

And here we have a band formed by Josh Graham (also Neurosis's Visual Director and ex-Red Sparowes member) that explores the vast ocean floor of Doom and his former bands respective aural vective...

29th December 2008

Review: Capricorns 'River, Bear Your Bones' CD 08

Hands up who thought 'Ruder Forms Survive' was one of the better releases of 2005? Well, I got my arm up and I assume a fair few of you lot have yours up too, so arms down now as it's time to focus on the 2008 release by said band...

28th December 2008

Interview: Coffins

"Fuck your hyper blast machine aided triggered drums, fuck your pro-tools guitar Malmsteen-wank-off and fuck your meaningless multi-word band name because Coffins represent what Death Metal is and always was. A dirty, messy, noisy expression of negativity, a true outsider's art form."

These words, echoed on this here website pretty much sum up the no-frills death metal by Japans Coffins...

27th December 2008

Review: Space Probe Tarus S/T 08

Way back in the mists of time before Dave Wyndorf discovered biker chic, arena rock and, more recently, the key to the pie cupboard, Monster Magnet released "Spine of God". This was a proto stoner classic that blended the avant punk fury of MC5 and the Stooges...

26th December 2008

Review: Deadbird 'Twilight Ritual' CD 08

The power-up of the slow warming amp valves and an immediate wail of feedback, then, the sudden drop as the guitars strike an open chord, total fucking bottom-end. This is the very first thing you'll hear when you put on the new Deadbird record...

24th December 2008

Photos: Rise Above 20th Anniversary Gig

Finally there's been a break in my work load so I've managed to get the photos from the Rise Above 20th Anniversary Gig from the ULU, London the other weekend online! You'll find new & updated galleries for Serpent Cult, Litmus, Moss, Diagonal, Gentlemans Pistols, Taint, Grand Magus & Electric Wizard,the latter 2 being an absolute bitch to photograph as it was that rammed at the front, anyway, hope you like!

20th December 2008

Review: Cortez 'Thunder In A Forgotten Town' CD 07

Ever since "Blues For the Red Sun" came riding out of the Californian desert in a dusty Cadillac in 1992 it seems a million bands have dusted off their fuzz boxes, fired up a big assed bowl of weed and jumped on the stoner bandwagon...

18th December 2008

Review: Chicken Hawk S/T CD 08

Shit, some bands really don't have any respect for reviewers!!! They don't make it easy for us at all. We want something we can categorise, some easy reference points to pick up on so we don't have to use or brains too much and can trot out any number of journalistic clichés...

17th December 2008

Review: Outlaw Order 'Dragging Down the Enforcer' CD 08

This is a hard punch in the face that drops you like a sack of shit and makes you wise up to the ugliness of being poor in a big stinking American city. Outlaw Order kick out bristling fugitive punk from the lawless and decaying slums of beautiful doomed New Orleans...

16th December 2008

Review: Salome S/T CD 08

AAAArrrrghhh. This is ace. Salome are a thrilling three piece from Virginia, USA that sound like a super evil psychotic cataclysm amplified by black magic and blasted out the yawning anus of Hastur the Unspeakable...

15th December 2008

Review: Total Fucking Destruction 'Peace, Love & Total Fucking Destruction' CD 08

A mad smear of visionary post-grindcore conceptualised and executed by Brutal Truth drummer Richard Hoak. Robot rhythm machine Hoak (drums and vocals) is joined by the surname less Joe...

9th December 2008

Review: Municipal Waste / Iron Lung - Music Box, Manchester 04/12/08

As Iron Lung appeared onstage the crowd surged and swelled forward, eager to get a glimpse of the two-headed beast. The duo wasted no time launching into a set of pulverising, Ringworm-like heaviness...

4th December 2008

Interview: Berserkowitz

Arising from the hazy, dope filled smoke rings of errr Rotherham come Berserkowitz, a gruelling 4 piece who embrace the now legendary sludge sound that was forged by the likes of Eyehategod & Bongzilla and encapsulate it into a world of disused coal mines...

3rd December 2008

Photos: Grief & Volition

New photos for Grief & Volition from last Wednesday at The Star & Garter, Manchester.

2nd December 2008

Photos & Review: Ufomammut, Lento & Rise To Thunder

New photos and live review for Ufomammut, Lento & Rise To Thunder from last week at The Star & Garter, Manchester.

30th November 2008

Photos: Ramesses

Photos now online for Ramesses from last Sunday at the Korova in Liverpool.

29th November 2008

Review: Rise To Thunder 'Slagnoramus' CD 08

Psychedelic Warlords Rise To Thunder ride across a deep purple sky the colour of an inflamed bell end, on great winged lizard steeds, with rasping tongues and eyes of jade flame, high above the blackened ruin of the Potteries...

28th November 2008

Photos: Carcass, Cathedral, My Dying Bride, Napalm Death & Ramesses

Photos now online for Carcass, Cathedral, My Dying Bride, Napalm Death & Ramesses from last weeks Damnation Festival in Leeds.

25th November 2008

Review: Guinea Pig - Demo 2008

And here we are friends of the Shaman, having watched the metal genre known as Sludge expand beyond the Dirty South, beyond the British Midlands and out onto the dirty seething globe...

19th November 2008

Review: Sourvein 'Imperial Bastard' CDEP 08

'Splice the main brace!' I believe that's a nautical reference. Maybe that should be 'splice the membrane'. These hirsute Southern bad boys have been kicking around since the early nineties...

18th November 2008

News: Bad Acid Tab #7 Out Now!

The latest issue of Bad Acid (Tab#7) is out now and features a 1 3/4 hour DVD, 17 hour 117 band audio sampler, 2 hour Alampo Records label sampler & a 90 screen full colour PDF magazine, for further info and to order your copy, follow the link below...

13th November 2008

Review: Celebrity Love Crisis - Demo 2008

I'm a big fan of album packaging. Growing up in the 80's before the CD boom vinyl packaging was part of the thrill of buying an album. I'm so chuffed to see a band turning the CD format on its head...

12th November 2008

Interview: Sonic Lord

Sonic Lord are a 4 piece hailing from Birmingham, England and deli ever a lethal dose of Stoner induced Doom and its hard to believe that although still relatively unknown in the greater scheme of things...

1st NOVEMBER 2008

Review: Moloch S/T CD 08

Moloch sound like an industrial accident. A very slow one...and a very painful one. Probably involving a lathe. And a pair of testicles. Genre: pessimist sludge (pessimisludge?) with a shit stain of Hardcore...

31st October 2008

Photos: Doomriders, SSS & The Freezing Fog

New photos for Doomriders, SSS & The Freezing Fog from last night at The Star & Garter, Manchester.

27th OCTOBER 2008

Review: The Endless Blockade 'Primitive' CD 08

Ah, the cleansing purity of noise. Like standing in the shower and feeling the shit wash away – itself a common ritual of symbolic purification. As you may already know, this furious outfit are from Toronto...

26th OCTOBER 2008

Interview: NottsNoise

Nottingham based collective known simply as NottsNoise are very busy people indeed with their fingers in quite a few pies ranging from organising gigs under the NottsNoise banner, the Rottingham & Cuntstock Festivals to running Cheyne Stocking Records...

23rd OCTOBER 2008

Review: Buried At Sea 'Ghost' CD 07

A distant drum beat, like a faint pulse locked deep inside my aching pineal gland...gradually rising in volume, then sharp and crackling shards of treble soaked guitar creep out...

21st OCTOBER 2008

Review: The Sontaran Experiment S/T CD 08

The thing is, Sontarans do love technology, almost as much as they enjoy incessant warfare. Field Marshall Styre would undoubtedly dig the abrasive electronics of TSE, although how he would receive the rest of this magnificent sonic stew...

20th OCTOBER 2008

Review: Fistula 'Burdened By Your Existence' CD 08

Oh my fucking ears, this is a nuclear migraine. Just when I thought sludge had reached its artistic zenith (or should that be nadir) I hear this. This is about as down tuned and nasty as this slothful and hateful genre can get...

17th OCTOBER 2008

Review: Harvey Milk 'Life...The Best Game in Town' CD 08

Where most bands like to play it safe in today's climate, occasionally a band will come along that confounds expectations, buggers preconceptions and sticks a gnarled shit stained finger up in a gesture of "fuck you" defiance...

16th October 2008

Interview: Guinea Pig

So who's familiar with a Greek sludge band? Thought as much, so here I introduce Guinea Pig, one such Greek sludge band. A band that meld a very riff heavy groove with some tasty throat lacerations of a very Johnny Morrow variety...

15th OCTOBER 2008

Review: Dystopia 'Final' CD 08

Punk's not dead, it merely crawled into a disused orifice of the dark underbelly of the capitalist economic system and started to multiply in the warm moist conditions there...

14th October 2008

Interview: Intronaut

I happened upon Intronaut by chance, a friend of mine gave me the Null CD (thanks Warren!) and I was pretty taken aback with the technicality of it, also how listenable it was for it is not the usual soul-less technical bollocks...

13th OCTOBER 2008

Review: Hotel Wrecking City Traders 'Black Yolk' CD 08

The name Hotel Wrecking City Traders (or HWCT to make life a lot easier) has been bandied around for a while now but as they come from way down under in Australia their music may be less familiar to most of you...

12th October 2008

Photos: Nebula & Pilgrim Fathers

New photos for Nebula & Pilgrim Fathers from last night at The Roadhouse, Manchester.

11th OCTOBER 2008

Review: Morkobot 'Morto' CD 08

Lin, Lan and Len have been at the mushrooms again. This is a sonically stout and viciously noxious offering from the experimental Italian three piece that throbs and buzzes like a huge malevolent alien brain trapped in a fluid filled tank...

10th OCTOBER 2008

Review: Space Witch - Promo 2008

Oozing out of the foul Potteries like molten cheese out of Satan's terrible blackened arse...it's the lords of lysergic leakage, the diplomats of dope, the high priests of the order of the interstellar daemon bitch...SPACE WITCH...

7th OCTOBER 2008

Review: Blood Ceremony S/T CD 08

Coming out of Toronto, Canada, like a screaming naked witch on a flying hickory stick, Blood Ceremony are one of a bunch of talented performers like Jex Thoth that look back to the murky miasma of the dope drenched seventies...

5th October 2008

Photos & Review: Melvins, Big Business & Porn

New photos and live review for the Melvins, Big Business & Porn from Thursday night at The Academy 3, Manchester.

1st October 2008

Interview: Gonga

After a turbulent few years, Bristol based Gonga are back with their first release 'Transmigration' in over 4 years, and after the shock announcement that long standing vocalist...

27th Sepetmber 2008

Interview: The Endless Blockade

The term "power violence" is bandied about so much these days that it would seem to some that it has lost it's significance...

26th Sepetmber 2008

Review: Iron Hearse S/T CD 07

Swindon based power three piece Iron Hearse have achieved a fair amount over the last few years whilst maintaining a pretty low profile and keeping their heads under the radar...

25th Sepetmber 2008

Photos: The Freezing Fog & Crawe

New photographs online from last night at The Retro Bar for The Freezing Fog & Crawe.

23rd Sepetmber 2008

Interview: Slomatics

Belfast heavyweights Slomatics have been around since 2004 and its quite surprising to hear that this 3 piece of 2 guitars & drums deliver such a ferocious & potent mix of crushing heaviness...

22nd Sepetmber 2008

Website Update: Homepage Forum Feed

Another little tweak to The Sleeping Shaman in the form of a feed to the homepage of the last 5 post on the forum, another massive thanks goes to Daz for helping to set this up!

20th Sepetmber 2008

Website Update: Gig Guide Goes Live!

The Sleeping Shaman Gig Guide is now live! The idea is to make this the definitive guide to gigs that are happening up and down the country, we've made a start by adding dates we know about, but to help us keep this as up to date as possible, we've set up a Submit Your Gig form which you just fill out with all the info and we'll do the rest.

We hope you think this is a valuable addition to the website and I'd also like to say a massive thanks to Daz for all his help in setting this up, thanks man!

19th Sepetmber 2008

Review: Slomatics 'Kalceanna' CD 07

This is a year late review: as you all know we like it slow at TSS. Slomatics are a canny trio of Belfast based Melvinites: David (guitar), Chris (guitar) and Joe (drums and vocals) who, according to the sleeve, are "middle-aged professionals by day, agro-sludge losers by night"...

18th Sepetmber 2008

Interview: Analysis of Bison Kills

Analysis of Bison Kills originally started out life as Tear Gas and Plate Glass back in 2001 but with pressure from Waxploitation Records...

17th Sepetmber 2008

Review: Berserkowitz 'Gritfarm' Demo 08

Let's face it sludge fans, if these lot were from the States there'd be far more of a buzz about them. It just so happens that they're from Rotherham, South Yorkshire, NOT New Orleans, Louisiana...

16th Sepetmber 2008

Photos & Review: Grind To Groove III

Quite a big update today with a total of 8 new galleries from Sunday's Grind To Groove III with photos of Esoteric, Gonga, The Sontaran Experiment, Stuntcock, Charger, Volition, They Are Cowards & last, but by no means least Jonathan Ross, plus a monster of a review of said day which was once again penned together by the literary wizard that is Adam, thanks man!

15th Sepetmber 2008

Review: Ehnahre 'The Man Closing Up' CD 08

Here we have a new collective from Boston's musical underbelly (formed from ex-members of Kayo Dot and Forefedglass amongst others) pursuing a path of improvised, experimental Death/Doom...

13th Sepetmber 2008

Review: Coffins 'Buried Death' CD 08

Oh sweet jesus this is the fucking shit! I have here in my rotting puds the new Coffins CD, a band that embody that long lost genre Death Metal as I know and remember it...

12th Sepetmber 2008

Review: Torche 'Meanderthal' CD 08

It would be fair to say that Torche are confusing buggers. As a reviewer it's always nice when a band hands you some convenient reference points on a plate...

11th Sepetmber 2008

Interview: Aluna

Psych Blues Doomsters Aluna hail from deep within the West Midlands in the UK and although initially, opinions on the band were divided, the release of their latest EP 'Fall To Earth'...

10th Sepetmber 2008

Interview: SardoniS

Belgium's SardoniS may be a new name to some people, but trust me on this, for a 2 piece of guitar and drums only, they deliver some of the most intense skull crushing heaviness...

9th Sepetmber 2008

Interview: Sofa King Killer

Back in 2004 the small UK indie label Retribute Records released an album made by four Ohio drunks with a feel for the blues so filthy it was righteous, so darkly fuzzy in it's moonless groove it was irreproachable...

7th Sepetmber 2008

Review: Queen Elephantine 'Surya' CD 08

It is dusk upon the river Ganges. Your gap year has prematurely come to an end because you are sooooooo stoned on some killer grass you bought earlier from an entirely naked man covered in cattle shit, that you are utterly convinced that you will never ever move again...

6th Sepetmber 2008

Review: Black Sun 'Paralyser' LP 08

I press the play button: a second of silence and then...a red faced and demented man is screaming "restless, my being screams love" (I think) and then a bloody big discordant chord rings out...

5th Sepetmber 2008

Review: Lento 'Earthen' CD 08

It's so easy to have preconceptions about Italy. As I sit here in a decidedly damp and grey Britain I can turn my thoughts to a country full of beautiful scenery such as the Amalfi coast and Tuscany...

2nd Sepetmber 2008

Review: Samsara Blues Experiment Demo 2008

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion copulating with the Sontaran Experiment? Nah mate. And if you're wondering what 'Samsara' is, then I can tell you, oh sweet child of the forest...

1st Sepetmber 2008

Review: Clutch/Taint - Barfly, Birmingham 29/08/08

Thanks to some truly retarded motorists on the M5 I didn’t arrive in the Barfly until half way through Taint’s set. To be honest, that suited me fine as the jury is still definitely out on this band...