Black Antler

In mid-2009 a duo of musical veterans from Columbus, Ohio, teamed up to form The Black Antler, a return to their metal and hardcore roots.  And considerable roots they had, guitarist/vocalist Adam Lowe, and drummer Alex Weinhardt cut their teeth in a buttload of celebrated indie and underground bands including Six Gallery, The Phantods, Inept, To Dream of Autumn to name a few.  Earlier this year, they added Ryan Moya on bass and began recording their debut, which will see release in early 2013.

Ghettoblaster caught up with Alex Weinhardt to find out what 2012 releases he was listening to while The Black Antler prepared for world domination in 2013.  This is what he was stoked on…

You Won’t – Skeptic Goodbye
If Simon, Garfunkel and Jeff Mangum decide to get married, have 3 kids and move to the part of town where hip parents go instead of the suburbs to raise their children, you’d have Skeptic Goodbye. This album also kind of sounds like a Wes Anderson Film.

Struck By Lightning – True Predition
The pummeling follow up to SBL’s 2009 freshman release Serpents takes the band in a crustier, thrashier direction. Three words come to mind when listening to this album: heavy as fuck.

Dolfish – I’d Rather Disappear than Stay the Same
Cleveland based singer/songwriter Dolfish (Max Sollisch) is probably the nicest human being on the planet. His album is pretty cool too. For fans of Neil Young or Mountain Goats.

Alcest – Les Voyages de L’Âme
If Sigur Ros was a French metal band they would go by the name Alcest.

Joshua P James and the Paper Planes — Please, Please
I’m not a country music fan at all, or at least wasn’t much of one before hearing Please, Please. It doesn’t’ hurt that these guys had a residency at the bar I work at for 6 months or so, but when I got my hands on their record, it didn’t leave my car CD player for about the same amount of time.

Sinkane – Mars
Afro-beat, spacey, psychedelic, electronic….oh, and funky. Really, really funky.

Japandroids — Celebration Rock
The album title pretty much sums up the content.

Converge — All We Love We Leave Behind
These guys have been a band for like 20+ years, and still know how to crush a killer hardcore album. Well done dudes.

Fiona Apple — The Idler Wheel…
This one is kind of the curve ball of the list. I didn’t even know Fiona Apple was still a person let alone releasing new music until my roommate informed me that not only had she put out a new album this year, but that it was really good.

Revere the Curse — Hither & Yon
Ok, so this came out in 2011. I didn’t discover these guys until 2012, so that has to sort of count, right? For fans of Hot Water Music, Small Brown Bike and the Casket Lottery.

The Black Antler’s first release is currently in the mixing/mastering stages. It will be released sometime in early 2013. You can check out our bandcamp page for album updates and preview tracks. http://theblackantler.bandcamp.com/

A

The Slowdown, a 6-piece band of brothers and friends from Kansas City, create a jaw dropping combination of alternative rock and post hardcore that is riff-based, roots-inflected, electronic-infused, and deftly experimental.  Their debut full-length, A, was recorded at Earth Analog studios near Champaign, IL by Matt Talbott of Hum, mastered at the Blasting Room in Ft. Collins by Jason Livermore, mixed and engineered by Jeremy Wilson, and produced by The Slowdown.

Not only are the band experts in the studio, but they’ve honed a tight live show, with notable performances at SXSW in the Midcoast Takeover showcase and at Middle Of The Map Fest. In December, the album dropped and captured the attention of local, regional and national press, who anointed them “one of the region’s best acts of the past decade.” 

Ghettoblaster recently caught up with Sam Hoskin’s to discuss the band’s debut.  This is what he told us about it…

When did you begin writing the material for your most recent album?

Some of these songs stretch back to about five years ago.       

What was the most difficult song to take from the initial writing stage through recording and mixing?  Why was it so troublesome?

I would have to say “Unable To.” It was written as a much heavier, brooding song and it wouldn’t of really fit the vibe of the new album. By not bashing its way to the end, this song required so much feel on every level. All the way down to the mixing stages.       

Which of the songs on the record is most different from your original concept for the song?

The track “All Gone.”  Being written five years ago, this song has truly taken on several different forms. And now has reached what I would think is the best rendition of the tune we’ve done to date.     

Did you have any guest musicians play or sing on the record? |

Yes, on the final track of the album “Whispering Lights” first chorus features our good companion, Will Garside on lead guitar. He also plays the Shaman in our video for the song, “A Mirror, A Torch.”     

Who produced the record?  What input did that person have that changed the face of the record?

We produced this album ourselves in pretty much every sense. Our preproduction was done at my house over the course of the past five years.  We had a very clear vision on our own of what we wanted this album to be.  A producer wasn’t really necessary at this point.  We like to think of ourselves as producers and engineers as well. 

Our good friend Matt Talbott from Hum fame agrees.  He was more than supportive of us producing this album ourselves, and allowed us to have free reign over his studio without him even being there most days to turn the gear on in the morning.    

Is there an overarching concept behind your new album that ties the record together?

Kind of – a main theme is definitely recognizing that there is, as Peter Gabriel puts it, “More Than This.”   

Have you begun playing these songs live and which songs have elicited the strongest reaction from your fans?

Yes, our current single “To Wonder” has been in our set list for about eight months solid. It is always the one song most people will ask about after a show.  The album opener, “Acting Strange of Late,” has been a fan favorite for a few years.

Om will take to the road in February for a two-week tour. Dates include:

2/8 Seattle, WA @ Highline
2/9 Portland, OR @ Doug Fir
2/10 Vancouver, BC @ Media Club
2/12 Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge
2/13 Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge
2/14 Albuquerque, NM @ Sister
2/15 Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom
2/16 San Diego, CA @ Casbah
2/17 Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room
2/18 Los Angeles, CA @ Center for the Arts Eagle Rock
2/19 Santa Cruz, CA @ Don Quixote’s Music Hall
2/20 San Francisco, CA @ The Independent

Snapcase have announced a second show at Mohawk Place in Buffalo, NY. In addition to their now sold-out January 4 show, the group will be performing at the aforementioned venue on January 6.

Warner Bros. will release a vinyl repressing on The Walkmen’s Bows + Arrows on January 22. Insound will have an exclusive, limited-edition version of the reissue on 125-gram red wax. At this point, though, it’s unclear if other retailers will have a standard black version.

Soundgarden are offering free downloads of two live tracks from their recent “Live On Letterman” set. You can snag “Thousand Days Before” and “Rowing” from that set at this location by redeeming the code: SQXMJF.

The Black Crowes will close out a short hiatus in 2013 with a world tour, dubbed the “Lay Down with Number 13″ trek, as well as a new live release, Wiser For the Time.  The album will be released on vinyl and digitally the week prior to the tour kickoff, on Mar. 19 through Silver Arrow/Megaforce Records. The 26-song collection comes from the five-night residency the Crowes performed at New York’s Best Buy Theatre in late 2010, and the digital version will include three unreleased versions of songs.

        Mar. 24: Manchester, U.K. - Manchester Academy
        Mar. 25: Birmingham, U.K. - O2 Academy
        Mar. 27: Glasgow, U.K. - O2 Academy
        Mar. 29: London - The HMV Forum
        Mar. 30: London - The HMV Forum
        Apr. 2: Port Chester, N.Y. – The Capitol Theater
        Apr. 3: Port Chester, N.Y. - The Capitol Theater
        Apr. 5: New York - Terminal 5
        Apr. 6: New York – Terminal 5
        Apr. 8: Washington, D.C. - 9:30 Club
        Apr. 9: Washington, D.C. - 9:30 Club
        Apr. 11: Boston - House of Blues
        Apr. 12: Philadelphia - Electric Factory
        Apr. 14: Detroit - The Fillmore Detroit
        Apr. 16: Chicago - The Vic
        Apr. 17: Chicago – The Vic
        Apr. 19: St. Louis - The Pageant
        Apr. 20: Nashville, Tenn. - Ryman Auditorium
        Apr. 21: Nashville, Tenn. - Ryman Auditorium
        Apr. 23: Atlanta - The Tabernacle
        Apr. 25: Dallas - House of Blues
        Apr. 27: Austin, Texas - Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater
        Apr. 28: Houston - House of Blues
        Apr. 30: St. Petersburg, Fla. - The Mahaffey
        May 1: Lake Buena Vista, Fla. - House of Blues

Dates have been announced for the forthcoming Marduk and Moonspell trek, dubbed the “Voices From The Dark Tour.” Support will be provided by Inquisition, The Foreshadowing, and Death Wolf, and dates are as follows:

2/20 Springfield, VA @ Empire
2/21 Poughkeepsie, NY @ The Chance
2/22 Worcester, MA @ The Palladium
2/23 New York, NY @ Gramercy Theatre
2/24 Montreal, QC @ Club Soda
2/25 Toronto, ON @ Wreck Room
2/26 Millvale, PA @ Mr. Small’s Theatre
2/27 Chicago, IL @ Reggie’s
2/28 Saint Paul, MN @ Station 4
3/1 Winnipeg, MB @ Osborne Village Inn
3/2 Regina, SK @ The Exchange
3/3 Edmonton, AB @ Pawn Shop
3/4 Calgary, AB @ Dickens
3/5 Vancouver, BC @ Rickshaw Theatre
3/6 Seattle, WA @ Studio Seven
3/7 Portland, OR @ Hawthorne Theatre
3/8 Oakland, CA @ Oakland Opera House
3/9 Los Angeles, CA @ The Vex
3/10 Tempe, AZ @ 910 Live
3/11 Albuquerque, NM @ TBC
3/12 Dallas, TX @ Tomcats West
3/13 San Antonio, TX @ Korova
3/15 Fort Lauderdale, FL @ Culture Room
3/16 Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade

Rilo Kiley announced their breakup in 2011. Well, it looks as if the group may make a comeback after all, since a mysterious Facebook post hints that a new album is in the works. On December 27, the band wrote, “Record is almost finished, and artwork is nearly done. Going to need your help! More to come.”

Stay tuned for more updates.

Subsequent to the demise of reunited NYC hardcore/speed metal legends Stormtroopers Of Death, two of the four members of have set out to forge a new path of punishment in 2013.  United Forces unites S.O.D.’s bassist Danny Lilker (Brutal Truth, Nuclear Assault, Nunfuckritual, Lock-Up,ex-Anthrax) and notorious frontman Billy Milano (Method Of Destruction).  Milano and Lilker recruited two additional henchmen to help carry out their plans, with Nick Barker (Lock-Up, Ancient, ex-Cradle of Filth, ex-Dimmu Borgir) on percussive duties, and Anton Reisenegger (Criminal, Pentagram Chile, Extreme Noise Terror, Lock Up) handling guitars. With Lilker located in upstate New York, Milano in central Texas, Barker in England and Reisenegger in Spain, details on the outfit’s plans concerning touring or recording remain unknown.  Future plans will be revealed in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.