Small Stone Unturned A round-up of recent rock releases In reviews passing we’ve been unstinting in our praise for Detroit’s Small Stone label, and their recent absence from these pages is certainly no reflection on the quality of their current output. In point of fact their 2008 releases have not only maintained previous high standards of rock and metal but have also taken significant steps towards broadening the artistic and creative scope of their roster. If any of the current crop can be labelled “traditional” Small Stone it’s likely to be Shame Club, indebted as they are to some familiar seventies sounds. On their new album “Come In”, the third track, “How Far”, tears out of the traps like a second cousin to “Fireball”, while “Don’t Feel like Making Love” echoes a darker, denser Deep Purple with some roughly chopped Zeppelin riffs thrown in. Like many of their stable mates, however, they spice things up with more contemporary influences including the likes of QOTSA and the less radio-friendly efforts of the Foo Fighters, particularly in the heavily disguised but nonetheless evident melody that characterises songs such as “Jonestown” and “Ten” and the surprising acoustic instrumental “Alicia Circles”. Ironweed, formed in 2007, comprises a five-piece twin-guitar line-up from Albany New York made up of veterans drawn from a number of prominent local bands such as GDFU and Held Under. Debut album “Indian Ladder” is sludgy and insistent, recalling Sasquatch in the way they follow one such well-crafted punch with another. “A World Away” and “Lifeless Coil” show them at their heaviest and best as full-on contemporary metal, while “Thorn” and “Death of Me” are roaring demonic and redolent of any number of well established Roadrunner acts. “Penny for Your Thoughts” ups the ante further, illustrating that in spite of their relentless sonic onslaught their songwriting has a healthy degree of ambition on a number that even Machine Head might have been proud to call their own. If there was a prize for the least expected introduction to a Small Stone album it should go to Roadsaw for the short cheery blast of fairground organ that opens up “See You in Hell”. Such levity is swiftly blown away however by the more typical heavy blues riffology of “Who Do You Think You Are”, a veritable stoner rock beast to get the party up and lumbering. Having been around since the mid 90’s, and with numerous tours, festival appearances and albums under their collective belt, their dense and dangerous take on melodic metal has been pretty much honed to perfection. Standout tracks “Look Pretty Lonely”, “Go It Alone” and “It’s Your Move” are the best examples of this, in contrast to “Dead Horse” which deserves credit for trying to change the mood but ultimately doesn’t really convince. With only five tracks weighing in at a full fifty minutes, Iota’s “Tales” finds its fullest expression on the 22 minute, 55 second “Dimensional Orbiter”, an unadulterated cosmic wig-out that offers rebirth of a sort to those space cadets who complained that “Careful With That Axe Eugene” was too commercial and too short. It’s an ambitious piece that builds to an apocalyptic climax, and forms the backbone on which the rest of this seriously heavy and shamelessly cosmic collection hangs. Earlier, opener “New Mantis” leads us in Mastodon-esque style, its thunderous riffs eventually giving way to some vintage psychedelic guitar, while “We Are the Yithians” and “The Sleeping Heathen” are slow-moving atmospheric jams behind distant threatening vocals. Following the aforementioned centrepiece, “Opiate Blues” offers a comparatively sedate comedown, with harmonica supplements instantly invoking Hawkwind’s “Hurry On Sundown”. In 2004 Iota’s debut EP topped Salt Lake City Weekly’s Top Fifty Albums of the year. Stranger things will have happened at sea. “The Last Train to Scornsville”, debut release from A Thousand Knives of Fire is an album of two parts and many surprises. Back in the days of vinyl this would have had a song side and an instrumental side, and it is the five tracks that make up the latter that could well challenge Small Stone’s natural listenership. As you’d expect from a project led by Halfway to Gone frontman Lee Stuart and Raging Slab / Monster Magnet drummer Bob Pantella there’s some tasty rock and roll, at least to begin with. “Hey Buddy” and “She’s Yours” are economical, driven and high energy, “Nothing in Your Life’s for Free” is underwritten by southern muscle, and the title track offers up a slab of pounding sludgecore. If you listen carefully to “Leeds County Devil” you could find yourself present at the birth of “metalabilly”, where hidden behind the fuzzed up guitars and twin drum pounding beats you should hear something distinctly way out west. With track seven and the opening of a four-section instrumental suite, however, all that changes, as we move from doomy paranoid opener “Yeah Part 2” through the avant-garde “Thanks for Your Negeven” and the claustrophobic “Hold Your Nose” to “Yeah Part 1”, a cosmic “Stone(r) Fox Chase” for our time. When you think it’s all over, and after a calculated two minute wait, “The Day After” puts us gently to bed with a short sequence of acoustic noodling which if nothing else teaches us to expect the unexpected. If “Last Train to Scornsville” is something of a curate’s egg, then “South Side of the Moon” is a Magpie’s nest. One of the most eclectic and eccentric releases from the label this latest from former Antiseen roadie Gideon Smith and the Dixie Damned is also one of its most accomplished and enjoyable. It’s a well-known characteristic of most Small Stone bands that they wear their influences with pride, but few of them wear quite as many as this outfit from North Carolina. Try sticking a pin into any of the thirteen tracks assembled here and another reference will trickle out: “Indian Larry” is the Steppenwolf you always wished for; “Blacklight Wizard Foster” is a Sabbath / Doors collision; “Black Cat Road” walks the same ground as the Mississippi Allstars; “Feather’s Shadow” summons up a feral southern gothic Elvis; “Shimmering Rain” straddles acoustic Allmans and The Cult alike; while “Lay Me Down in Ecstasy” could be a variation on any number of 80’s/90’s heavy rockers in ballad mode. That the band has graced soundtracks from horror movies to the Sopranos is no surprise, given that the one thing that unites these diverse styles (as well as first rate playing and performance) is the ability to create an atmosphere of tension and impending menace, drawing the required level of danger from their chosen range of primal rock forms. It seems a bit of a cop out to quote from a band’s own My Space page, but for these I’ll make an exception, simply because I can’t sum them up better. Their influences, they say, are drawn from the following: “Bayou Swampy & Delta Blues, Trippy Psychedelia, old school 50's-70's rock, 70's outlaw country, Traditional southern rock, Creepy Doom, gothic rock and UFO bred alien influenced Space Rock. Once described as "picture the Allman Brothers on acid, lost in the grand canyon". Described as 'cowboy death rock', 'psychedelic biker rock' and 'southern gothic rock'.” What’s not to like? Neil B. www.smallstone.com Next