The Orange Noise

BAND:    Batwizard GENRE:  Metal  SOUNDS LIKE:  A cassette recording of a 1x10 Peavey Studio Pro mic'd hot, and stuffed with live kitchen appliances and overdrive pedals. FEELS LIKE: cold, galvanized trashcan lids covered in hot motor oil.  LOOKS LIKE:  Pop-punk falls thru trans-dimensional worm hole, exits with legitimate issues and a sensible, darker wardrobe.  SMELLS LIKE: green curry, lemon oil, unleaded TASTES LIKE:  Southern Comfort, 9V battery, LaBamba $1 beef taco LAST RELEASE:   Medustrich (2018) NEXT GIG:   Metal Monday @ Tap Room w/ The Wilful Boys Medustrich by Batwizard

The Hell You Say is rowdy as fuck.  There it is.  I'm not sure how else to put it.  Rowdy. As. Fuck. Both their stage performance and recorded material are pure canned chaos.  At a The Hell You Say show, the current state of affairs doesn't mean a thing.  It's the spectacle that matters.  It's the sounds and the sights. It's the anger and the insistence and the movement.  Make no mistake, you ARE in danger.  But "danger" is relative, and subjective, and you're in danger just putting your fat foot on a wet bathroom floor in the morning, but you do it all the time. The Hell You Say have things to scream about, and reasons to take rock'n'roll to ballistic levels of volume and intensity. They obviously have some existential shit they need to work out, and I think we should all feel lucky that music is their creative outlet. A The Hell You Say experience is one to give yourself up to completely.  Resistance is basically futile. Whether ...

Cover art by Audrey Nelson As we reluctantly surrender precious minutes of daylight to the winter lords, as we pinch back blooms and swap bulbs in our sensory chambers, as we force-feed our skin-suit with balms and salves all in the name of forgetting that the inevitable hemispherical darkness will eventually consume us all, some can be found reveling in this eventuality.  Their place is the darkness.  The darkness is their source of power, as they were conceived and gestated in the darkness.  They are Prayer Line and this is their season! In celebration of the dark-duration, high-static days of a bloody crack-and-chafe Kentucky fall, Prayer Line have unleashed a track to further distract you from the impending pain. A quick stab of a song, coming in at 2m40s on the death clock, Flesh Eaters serves as a fine sampling of what this ghoulish group has to offer. With a tense intro featuring sounds of lapping water and panicked film dialogue over a low pulsing synth...

Prayer Line has a thing.  Let's not call it a schtik. I guess we could, but please don't.  Let's call it a theme.... or maybe more of a disposition.  A disposition towards all things dark, and shadowy, and creep-like.  Prayer Line walks, if not defines, the disturbingly foggy line between dark culture and camp.  Are they cannibalistic satanists back from the underworld to low-key indoctrinate Louisville's counter culture? Or are they friendly zombie rockers giving tongue-in-cheek homage to horror and gore icons of the past?  I think Prayer Line is likely all of that. Like a blood-red smoothie made of equal portions Misfits, Ramones, Duran Duran, Bela Lagosi, and John Carpenter, Prayer Line rock faces with dark hooks and macabre verse that leave you sucking meaty chunks through the straw.  They caught my attention with their dark disposition on my first spin of their 2019 release, Drink the Blood .  Sure, it was heavy hitting, with not-so-sub...

Shi - 死 Shi - 死 are metal-monks who have served at the Temple of Weed and Riffs and returned home to teach by example the ways of Doom.  Their live shows are metal meditations with dark fuzz, rolling bass lines and growling vocal emissions. Reportedly, their drummer utilizes drums and cymbals. Bob from Shi - 死  was recently agreeable to filling out a 13 Questions interview for me. Knowing they're a personal favorite of many local metalheads, I was looking forward to his feedback and getting some more insight into what this group of headbangers is all about. You can catch Bob and the boys in Shi - 死 at Highlands Tap Room for Terrifying Tap-O-Ween on Thursday Oct 31st, sharing a stacked bill with Bazookatooth (Nashville), Louisiana Lot Lizards  (IN) and The Hell You Say (Louisville). You can also often catch these guys out enthusiastically supporting other local acts around town.  If you spot'em, giv'em a "Hell, yeah!", a fist pump, and some horn...

BAND:  Isolation Tank Ensemble GENRE:  Trash Prog SOUNDS LIKE:  Marching band eats acid, enters video game... in hell. FEELS LIKE:  Swedish-plastic exoskeleton.  LOOKS LIKE:  Chamber orchestra for a nerd cult key party. SMELLS LIKE:  wet denim, Barbasol, fries TASTES LIKE:  PBR, Worcestershire, strawberries LAST RELEASE:   Collapsers + more (2017) NEXT GIG:   w/ Shi - 死 + Swamp Hawk + Stormtoker @ The Green Lantern Bar (LEX) 10.4.19

Louisville Horror-rock heroes  Prayer Line , dropped a new track on their Bandcamp page today.  Rocking PJ Harvey's Meet Ze Monsta , and guest-fronted by dark songstress  Sheri Streeter , the super-undead pounded this one out at Deadbird Studios . The track was expertly recorded, mixed and mastered by Deadbird's own Dave Chale.  Come for the song, stay for the banter.  Fantastic cackles from a live studio audience will put you in a spooky mood. Meet Ze Monsta feat. Sheri Streeter by Prayer Line    

BAND:   The Hell You Say GENRE:  hardcore, metalcore, noisecore SOUNDS LIKE:  agony screams of a Great White shark FEELS LIKE:  Running through a cornfield wearing plywood underwear  LOOKS LIKE:  import mechanics with a black-market body part side-hustle.  SMELLS LIKE: wet enamel paint, empty beer can, grapes TASTES LIKE: RedBull, rye bread, lip sweat LAST RELEASE:   A Dream and The Monsters in It  (2017)  NEXT GIG:   w/ Temple of the Fuzz Witch + Witch Kiss /// Tap Room 9.24.19 A Dream and the Monsters at the End of it... by The Hell You Say

Plains of Despair BAND: Volcandra GENRE:  black metal, death metal, thrash SOUNDS LIKE:  a bucket of gravel dumped over an inclined harp FEELS LIKE:  lava flow road rash LOOKS LIKE:  if a mortuary had an embalming-while-you-wait crew  SMELLS LIKE: burnt cedar, pocket change, reptile breath TASTES LIKE:  tequila, robitussin, rib meat LAST RELEASE:   Plains of Despair (2019)  NEXT GIG:  w/ Ohlm + Blind Scryer - Babes of Metal III - An Evening of Macabre Music and Brutal Burlesque /// 21st Amendment Tavern (L'ville) Plains of Despair by Volcandra *The cover art for "Plains of Despair" is the sickest metal imagery I've come across recently! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Corrupting Sea I used to have a reoccurring dream of clutching the top of a flagpole that had the elasticity of a glow stick.  A strong wind would build and the flagpole would bow tremendously, lowering me to within feet of the ground but never allowing me time to dismount before rebounding and repeatedly rushing me back to the top of the arc. The sway of the pole had a predictable and terrifying tempo. My parents live in the country. The road to their house intersects a large electrical utility right-of-way that spans a miles-wide valley. When passing under it, above the noise of the wind and wheels, cicadas and mowers, is a crackling hum. It's static tide, suspended hundreds of feet in the air, slices through the landscape like roughly sheared sheet metal through a Bob Ross canvas. Jason Lamoreaux, recording and performing as The Corrupting Sea , provides eerily appropriate soundtracks for these scenarios. His compositions leave one questioning whether the signals be...

BAND: Blind Scryer GENRE:  stoner rock, doom metal, metal SOUNDS LIKE:  what everyone would hope they sound like singing in the shower while running an alcohol fueled weedeater. FEELS LIKE:  surfing while wearing a static-charged wool suit. LOOKS LIKE:  back of the class desk carvers SMELLS LIKE:  bong water, asphalt, beef ramen TASTES LIKE:  atomic fireballs, black coffee, pork'n'beans, weed LAST RELEASE:   Blind Scryer (eponymous, 2019)  NEXT GIG:  8.29 @ Blind Bob's (Dayton, OH) Blind Scryer by Blind Scryer Blind Scryer on tour NOW! 8.29 w/ Dirtbag + Marijuana Johnson /// Blind Bob's Bar (Dayton, OH) 8.30 w/ Ghost:Hello + Dirtbag + Paper Thin /// Jupiter Studios (Alliance, OH) 8.31 w/ Dirtbag + Bava Choco /// Dirty Dungarees Laundromat (Columbus, OH) BACK HOME!  *** 9.1 w/ Dirtbag /// Metal Monday @ Highlands Taproom (L'ville, KY) ***

BAND: Belushi Speed Ball GENRE: crossover thrash, metal, hardcore, nintendo core SOUNDS LIKE: Your older brother yelling at you for smoking his weed, while Saturday-morning cereal and action figure commercials blast on a cathode-ray tv with a broken volume knob.   FEELS LIKE: a ball pit full of half-empty PBR cans and beach balls LOOKS LIKE: A pop culture fever dream SMELLS LIKE: comic book pages, shoe rubber, pizza, weed TASTES LIKE: Sour Patch Kids, Jagermeister, cigarette butts LAST RELEASE: Prepare For Trouble (2019)  NEXT GIG:  8.31 w/ Guerrilla Warfare + Godawfuls + Isolator @  Mag Bar Prepare for Trouble by Belushi Speed Ball

NOISE OF THE NIGHT! Found this murky, static-filled arrangement of Neil Young's Southern Man while cruising the Orange List for upcoming shows.  This 2017 release by Louisville fuzzsters, Los Dolores was recorded by Josh Hawkins and Spencer Gardiner, and mastered by Jamie Innis at Deadbird Studios in Louisville.  I think it's a great re-imagining of a rock classic, with enough grit to be a genuine nod to it's writer, and enough originality to keep me engaged. Check it out. You can catch them on 8.23 @ Mag Bar with Droneroom , Fauvely, and Woods at Night. Southern Man by Los Dolores

Ocifer Ocifer has been in my top 5 of Louisville bands for years now, originally catching them at late night, open house style sets at Migo .  Their quirky Zappa-meets-Misfits sound is unique in the Louisville music community, and shows are as much performance art and poetry as they are rock'n'roll.  Lines are crossed, genres are bent, and you can only hope for the kazoo to keep you grounded.  Their outings are rare, as are their "official" music releases.  If you got your hands on one of the slap bracelet albums.... well, congrats. All this being said, I know you can definitely catch them at 5 pm 9.6.19  @  PeteFest 2019 .  This multi-day lineup raises money and spreads awareness for mental health.  That's pretty fucking important, and PeteFest is doing a great job as an advocate for a cause that helps us all.

Clip of  Shi - 死 doomin' out at Louisville Is Dead 2019 .  Catch them at Mag Bar's FULL SPEED FRIDAY  8.30.19!   I've caught these sludgy riff wizards a few times and they've made my short list of acts to look out for.  They always seem to have a hell of a good time on stage.... in a low, slow, understated way of course.  Check 'em out!