IN ROTATION: Our most played albums in August 2019

TOM’S AUGUST IN ROTATION LIST

I’ve fairly fallen down a rabbit hole of upcoming sludge/ doom releases this past month, with all kinds of great new releases just round the corner. So there’s been a fair deal of Torpor, Opium Lord, Cranial and Wallowing pounding my eardrums, but it’s important to have music to fit the mood and it can’t be doom 24/7. So as the summer officially comes to a close what have been the ever presents getting my synapses firing? The answers lie below…

Opium Lord – Vore
Sludgelord Records – October 11th, 2019

Even though we’re still a month away from the official release date, I’ve been spinning my promo copy of this album almost every day since I got my grubby paws on it back near the start of August. Great, savage, sludge-metal with a real nasty streak running through it. Cuts like a knife-wielding maniac; crushes like a ten-ton hammer.

Torpor – Rhetoric of the Image
Sludgelord Records – September 20th, 2019

If Opium Lord started my recent descent into doom-sludge mania, Torpor really dragged me to the bottom. I can’t get enough of this band and this their soon to be released new album is a delight from start to finish. Heavy, ominous, eerie, frightening, mysterious and damned fine. Snap yourself up a copy of the limited edition vinyl on Bandcamp before they’re all gone. You won’t be sorry.

Mr. Bungle – My Bungle
Warner Brothers – August 13th, 1991

I hate to be repetitive (this was on my Jan-July 2019 In Rotation list) but here’s the thing, in case you hadn’t noticed… MR. BUNGLE HAVE REFORMED! Now if you aren’t soiling yourself in anticipation that the handful of shows they’ve got lined up in the US might expand into a full-blown tour and maybe some new music, then… well… look, I’m salivating just typing this. You have to know this record already. If not, where have you been?? Metal, funk, jazz, carnival-horror, comedy, poop, dead dogs, John Zorn at the mixing desk and a whole lot of Blue Velvet samples. You can’t fuck with this.

The Gregg Allman Band – Playing up a Storm
Capricorn – May 1977

Ever since I decided to learn some songs on guitar in non-standard tunings and stumbled on Gregg Allman performing ‘Come and Go Blues’, I’ve been hooked. First thing I did when I got a turntable for my birthday? I went out and got the album: ‘Playing up a Storm’. Such a soulful singer, such a great band behind him. If my record player could talk it… well I guess I wouldn’t be able to understand it, but I’ll just imagine it would say “thank you” whenever I put this on.

ZZ Top – Rio Grande Mud
London Records – April 4th 1972

And finally another excellent vinyl purchase from the second-hand record stores of Prague. ZZ Top have released a few gems in their time, this one is right up there with the best of them. Blues-rock played by masters of their craft; only their second album and already on the top of their game. Three men on bass, drums and guitar, killing it with great music from start to finish. Some of their best songs, ‘Francine’, ‘Sure Felt Cold After the Rain’, ‘Just Got Paid’, a classic in the truest sense of the word.

Tom