BEASTWOOD ~ The Long Road To Ho "Music that should be played during every every Patrick Swayze bar fight" ~ Beastwood After a six year gap since 'Alabama Space Witch' Beastwood are back, kicking in the saloon bar doors, chest beating and looking for a fight. 'The Long Road To Ho' the bands third release is loud, brash and not just soaked in whiskey, but drowning in the stuff. Barrel chested, drunk riffs, throw bruising hooks that'll get your ears ringing with every slap to the head.
'The Long Road To Ho' is a slight departure from the NOLA style sludge of 'Alabama Space Witch, leaning more toward a 'Clutch' sound, but this allows this EP to become looser and more belligerent, leaning right in your face spraying it in sour mash and tobacco tainted spittle. 'The Long Road To Ho' is actually the first instalment of two EP's, the second to be released in October called 'No Way Home' and the band promises that it will be darker and heavier still, a point I can concur with after listening to a track from it. So until the second EP is released, you'll have to contend with this drunken hooligan of an ep. For those interested and who feel an odd tingling in the loins, the cover model is Miss Wyoming, Blake, the guitarist.
Jail ~ At The Crossroads This has to be one of the most obscure albums by an equally obscure band I've ever come across. You can't find it anywhere...period, believe me I've looked. Fortunately I picked up the album from a blog now defunct for many years and it's one of my prized finds. The band was a three piece from Philadelphia and, although I didn't realise it at the time featured members of Pissgrave and Otesanek among others. 'At The Crossroads' is their only release, although there were a couple of cool new tracks that emerged on their Myspace Page, but I can't even find that anymore.
So why do I love 'At The Crossroads' so much? Well, believe me when I tell you that this is some of the greasiest, gnarliest sludge you're ever likely to hear. Its raw and spits right in your face, you can even hear the amps crackling goddamit! The five tracks are all of decent length, particularly 'Might Not wake Up Today' clocking in at just over nine minutes long. Each song is lazy, sweaty and conjures up images of sitting on the porch in baking heat, plagued by mosquitoes and with a two thirds empty bottle of bourbon lying among countless cigarette butts. What makes this album truly great though is that despite the humidity of the riffs, they still sound as tight as hell and accompany the graveled vocals perfectly. I could bring out that tired old phrase 'whiskey soaked' to describe much of 'At The Crossroads' but that doesn't go anywhere near doing this fantastic album justice because its pretty much drowning in it.
