
Bone Throwers – Alluvium Altar
Similar artists: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, The Murlocs, DOPE LEMON, Dead Meadow, Wand
Genre: Psychedelic Rock, Garage Rock, Alternative Rock
Most musical genres have a relatively short lifespan. You’re heralded as a genius for inventing dubstep one moment and for having a weird haircut. Then, two years from then, nobody dares admit that they ever liked your music. As in most forms of entertainment, trends come into play when making something popular, and trends are easily forgotten.
There are some genres that have integrated themselves into the extended family of pop music; however, they are unlikely ever to disappear. They’ve sprung out of something ancestral. They scratch a stronger itch than that of dancing to the latest moves. Psychedelic music echoing mysterious, spiritual practices will remain intact mainly because that’s what most music was once used for.
Bone Throwers’s “Alluvium Altar” could well be the welcoming song when stepping foot inside a building that houses a cult. Like old and modern prog-rockers, the band is interested in developing music that encompasses several movements. And like most modern spiritual seekers, they’re going back to nature in hopes of an answer.
Helen Kelter Skelter – Sceptre
Similar artists: Rainbows Are Free, Black Sabbath, Dead Meadow, Primus, Frankie and the Witch Fingers
Genre: Stoner Rock
The four young men who comprised Black Sabbath in the late 1960s look like the kinds of people who have just got back from their daily demonic cult session or like the kinds of folks who’d steal your car tyres and sell them for dope. Either way, it’s a great, menacing look.
The many, many bands that copied them in the years immediately after do their best to take that image and build upon it. They look more demented, less civilised and just as unable to pay their ever-increasing dope-dealer bill.
But somewhere around that and the present, the people who love this kind of music have gained a sense of humour. Horror movies, drug-induced hallucinations, and even being a cult member are all kind of funny if you really stop to think about it.
The brilliantly christened Helen Kelter Skelter bring Sabbath-levels of intensity and stoner logic to their single, “Sceptre.” This is not music to get murdered to. It’s music to soundtrack low-budget, modern horror flicks. It’s a doom-rock sound delivered with a knowing wink and smile. This could only be an anthem for a cult, provided the cult members engage in communal viewings of Jim Carrey movies on the weekend.