New Loud Rock Adds: Weedpecker, Hemelbestormer, Dream Theater
Weedpecker - II: I may have missed the chance to present it as brand new, but I absolutely had to get this 2015 release into the station. Some say finding and listening to new music is about the constant search for the perfect band. The artist that fits your music tastes seamlessly and at some point produced a record that you consider flawless. I know that search will never end for me, but I came FRIGHTENINGLY CLOSE when I discovered Weedpecker. Hailing from Warsaw, Poland, these guys represent the purest and heaviest intersection of psychedelic rock and stoner metal. II is a follow-up to their also nearly flawless debut self-titled album. I didn’t think the debut could possibly be topped, but sure enough, they outdid themselves. Guitarists Wyro and Bartek cranked the distortion on their guitars EVEN HEAVIER and somehow absolutely perfectly combined that insanely heavy riffing capability with some of the most beautiful, chill, and reverby melodies I’ve heard on guitar. Of course, the very sparse clean vocals totally lock this shit down. It’s slow, it’s heavy, and it could make you cry. Definitely listen to it from the top down. Awwwwwww yissss. Full album link. CHRISTIAN
RIYL: Sleep + Tame Impala combined
Recommended Tracks: Reality Fades (1), Flowering Dimensions (2), Fat Karma (3)
Hemelbestormer - Aether: Some new post-metal to switch it up. Something about Aether’s album art drew me in, and I ended up being very pleasantly surprised by apocalyptic crescendos and intriguing celestial soundscapes. Despite my love of slow guitar music, sometimes post-rock/metal pushes even my limits for attention span. However, Hemelbestormer keeps my interest piqued through most of the record’s four songs, each averaging roughly 15 minutes a pop.The atmospheric progression through each song leaves you feeling like you have just taken an extremely long journey through a nuclear wasteland, encountering many strange phenomena along the way. It’s hard for me to critique this genre that I am kind of unfamiliar with. All I can tell you is that as a dude who likes metal, Aether is a really cool album. CHRISTIAN
RIYL: Isis, impending darkness
Recommended Tracks: Starless (2)
Dream Theater - The Astonishing: This “album,” if you can call a 34-song symphonic epic an album, is absolutely so gnarly as a musical composition. But I wouldn’t ask you guys to play something for the sake of appreciating artistic genius. The Astonishing combines some of the dopest parts of metal, like chugging breakdowns and squealing harmonics, with beautiful orchestral arrangements. Although the whole two+ hour concept album is genuinely impressive, I like this album because despite going for that obnoxious goal, Dream Theater really stayed true to theirsound on the whole record and pulled it together cleanly, if at times the grandiosity got a little cheesy. CHRISTIAN
RIYL: Opeth, Coheed and Cambria, Iron Maiden
Recommended Tracks: Hard to say. Try “Moment of Betrayal”