Archive Review: Saint Vitus's V (1989/2004)

Every rock band of any importance over the past forty years has influenced those who have followed. Just as the ‘British Invasion’ era of the Beatles, the Stones, and the Who encouraged hundreds...if not thousands...of American teens to pick up guitars and form garage rock bands, so too does heavy metal have its touchstone artists. None, it would seem, have enjoyed the longevity or cast as long a shadow as Black Sabbath. Sure, Led Zeppelin has its legion of followers and Metallica fans swap live recordings with the fervor of the most diehard Deadhead. Ozzy-era Sabbath, however, seemingly wrote the playbook from which damn near every heavy metal band since has nicked a page or two.

No metal sub-genre has absorbed more Sabbath influence than has “doom metal.” Ostensibly evolving out of the marshes of Mordor sometime in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, “doom metal” and its kissing cousins – “stoner metal” and “death metal” – represent both the most creative and the most dark-natured extremes of the metal genre. Doom metal is comprised of slow, plodding power chords sharply punctuated by razor-sharp riffs, supported by explosive drumbeats, and smothering rhythms. It is brutish, blistering, lead-pipe-to-the-skull music with an unrelenting sense of purpose and those who listen to it (this scribe included) have no time for the gossip-column antics and on-stage mincing of many of today’s radio-friendly hard rock bands.

Saint Vitus’s V

Of the many doom metal outfits born in the aftermath of Black Sabbath’s heavy metal thunder, none were as misunderstood as Saint Vitus. The Los Angeles band was formed in 1979, a longhaired, heavy metal anachronism among the city’s hardcore punk scene. It didn’t help the band’s marketing efforts any that they were signed to a punk label – SST Records, home of Black Flag – even if label head Greg Ginn did recognize the band’s talents. Early albums failed to earn the band much more than a cult following. With the addition of former Obsessed frontman Scott “Wino” Weinrich in 1986 it looked, for a moment, as if Saint Vitus might break out of the underground and achieve a modicum of mainstream success.

Unfortunately, the release of 1989’s excellent V proved to be both the band’s high mark and its swansong. Disillusioned, Weinrich left the band shortly after the album’s release to reform the Obsessed, a band that would subsequently forge its own obscure legacy and cult status. Saint Vitus carried on for another few years and a couple of albums, but never equaled the achievement of V or expanded its audience beyond a loyal following and a few celebrity fans like Dave Grohl.

Southern Lord – a label seemingly dedicated to resurrecting doom metal – has reissued V complete with bonus video you can watch on your computer. A classic of doom metal, brought back, as it were, from the grave, V belongs on the stereo of every man, woman, and child that yearns for a truly HEAVY rock ‘n’ roll experience. Think Vanilla Fudge on ‘ludes and you’ll approximate the sound of Saint Vitus.

I Bleed Black

While many bands these days seem to think that they have to fill up all 80 minutes available on a CD, Saint Vitus got the job done with a mere eight songs and 35 minutes of tape. The songs are so powerful, so omnipotent that only the heartiest of listeners can withstand the full-force musical hurricane that is V. The album opens with “Living Backwards,” a charming ode to alienation that rolls out with a Sabbath-styled monster riff, Wino’s piercing vocals strangling the lyrics while guitarist Dave Chandler hits bone with his chainsaw lead.

After a mere two-and-a-half minutes of bludgeoning the listener with its warm-up song, Saint Vitus kicks in with the real shit. “I Bleed Black” sounds much like, I’d wager, the aural equivalent of a heart attack. Mark Adam’s bass throbs erratically like adrenaline ripping through your veins while Chandler’s supersonic riffs sound like some sort of interstellar voyage. The band changes pace with “When Emotion Dies,” which means that they slow down things even more with an atmosphere-heavy funeral dirge for the loss of humanity or the birth of a nation of zombies or some other such disturbing lyrical fare.

At 7 minutes plus, “Patra (Petra)” is a monster unleashed, deliberate vocals paired with painful subsonic rhythms and shot through with white hot guitar shrapnel. “Ice Monkey” lightens things up a bit, a relatively faster-paced rocker with superb guitarwork while “Jack Frost” is a loving, bass-heavy ode to the annual death of nature. V closes with “Angry Man” and “Mind-Food.’ The former is a musical cross between Dio-era Sabbath and Dio-era Rainbow with pissed-off, punk rock lyrics and scattershot six-string madness while the latter pairs psychedelic-era poetry with Ozzy-styled vocals and riff-heavy sludge-rock.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

As I mentioned before, the Southern Lord reissue of V includes a nifty little perk, a 28-minute video of Wino’s first show with Saint Vitus. Shot on amateur video with all the jerky transitions and obligatory zoom shots that the medium implies, the performance – in some crappy Palm Springs community center – is nevertheless electrifying. The video does a fine job of capturing the band’s energy and power, the lens closing in on every guitar and bass solo and framing Wino’s every move with loving caresses.

There can’t have been that many people at this May 1986 show, there is no stage to speak of, no drum riser, no clean sound or light rig and yet Saint Vitus play with all the sweat and ferocity of a band headlining a stadium gig. It’s this dedication and energy that Weinrich, Chandler, Adams, and drummer Armando Acosta brought to their music that earned Saint Vitus a rabid if small fan following. V is a good example of what Saint Vitus was all about and one of the few true enduring classics of doom metal, a genre that refuses to die and continues to win over new fans each year... (Southern Lord Records, released July 27, 2004)

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Saint Vitus’s V

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™, 2004

The Numero Group’s Hüsker Dü box set

Archival experts The Numero Group have announced the label’s long-rumored and much anticipated Hüsker Dü box set. Scheduled for early November release, Savage Young Dü is a three-CD or four-LP set packaged in either tip-on jackets or die-cut sleeves and boxed in a linen-finished slipcase and including a 108pp or 144pp hardcover book with 40 previously unpublished photographs, a flyerography, a sessionography by Paul Hilcoff, and a 12,000 word essay by writer Erin Osmon.

Savage Young Dü features 69 songs, 47 of them previously unreleased, all of them remastered from the original analog tapes and including Everything Falls Apart, the band’s first studio album, and an alternative version of their live debut, Land Speed Record. Savage Young Dü is priced at $40 plus shipping for the three-CD version and $50 plus shipping for the CD box including a limited-edition 7” EP titled Extra Circus that is only available for mail order customers. Featuring five previously-unreleased songs from the January 1983 Metal Circus sessions, Extra Circus is packaged in a full-color sleeve designed by band member Grant Hart. The four-LP vinyl version of the box set has already sold out but, as of this writing, the four-LP box with the 7” EP is still available and priced at $95 plus shipping from the label.

Hüsker Dü was formed in 1979 in St. Paul, Minnesota by singer/guitarist Bob Mould, bassist Greg Norton, and drummer/singer Grant Hart. Initially known as a hardcore punk band, Hüsker Dü’s music eventually evolved into a more melodic yet aggressive sound that was fast and loud but offered intelligent, erudite lyrics courtesy of Mould and Hart. The band signed with Black Flag guitarist Greg Ginn’s SST Records, releasing three groundbreaking albums for the label, including the classic 1984 double-LP set Zen Arcade. Subsequently signing with Warner Brothers Records, the band released a pair of critically-acclaimed studio albums in 1985 and 1986 before the band’s break-up; a live album featuring 1987 band performances was later released in 1994.

Hüsker Dü would become one of the most influential bands to emerge from the punk underground of the ‘80s, inspiring bands like Metallica, the Pixies, Smashing Pumpkins, and Nirvana, among many others. Savage Young Dü offers an in-depth look into the band’s early, formative years, collecting original soundboard tapes, demos, and session masters recorded by Hüsker Dü between 1979 and 1983. Reasonably-priced even by the exaggerated standards of archive box sets, and a must-have for any Hüsker Dü fan’s collection, Savage Young Dü is available from The Numero Group website – get ‘em before they go!

CD Review: Das Damen's Triskaidekaphobe (1988)

Lost among an ‘80s-era SST label catalog that included Black Flag, Husker Du, the Minutemen, the Meat Puppets, and Sonic Youth, among other notables, New York rockers Das Damen continue to be tragically overlooked by the indie, punk-metal, and alt-rock crowd. Even St. Vitus receives more love these days for their ground-breaking stoner rock albums from back in the day...Das Damen has been reduced to a mere musical footnote on an otherwise legendary record label.

Formed in 1984 by guitarists Jim Walters and Alex Totino, bassist Phil Von Trapp, and drummer Lyle Hyser, Das Damen was originally signed by Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore to his Ecstatic Peace label. The band released a self-titled EP in 1986 that was later reissued by SST, releasing its full-length SST debut, Jupiter Eye, a year later. The album featured improvisational acid-rock jams not dissimilar to the Bevis Frond with a touch of Sonic Youth-inspired guitar squonk thrown in for good measure. Although the band toured heavily in support of the album, the disc’s poor production and Das Damen’s free-wheeling sound – which was easily a decade ahead of its time – did little to attract an audience.

Triskaidekaphobe was the band’s second album for SST, a solid collection of guitar-driven rockers that incorporated elements of ‘60s psychedelica, ‘70s hard rock and proto-metal and ’80s punk. Named after the technical term for the “fear of the number 13,” Triskaidekaphobe, released in 1988, is in many minds the high point of the Das Damen’s career. First of all, the band received a few more dollars to throw at production this time around, so the sound is better than the muddy mix provided Jupiter Eye.

Constant touring had sharpened the band’s sound to a blistering, surgically-precise aural onslaught. The guitars of Walters and Totino dominate the songs, providing cascading riffs and squalls of feedback. The rhythm section is equally impressive; aside from their explosive drumbeats and heavy bass lines, Von Trapp and Hyser create some interesting textures and patterns behind the guitarist’s flying notes. To top it off, the MC5’s Wayne Kramer stops by to contribute what the liner notes call “riff rock,” showing the young pups how an old dog plays the game. In many ways, the music of Das Damen carries a vibe similar to the MC5. Both bands delivered loud, dense, guitar-driven riff-rock; substitute Das Damen’s metallic tendencies for the MC5’s blues-and-jazz influences and you can see the comparison.

The songs themselves were much sharper on Triskaidekaphobe than previously, the acid-drenched instrumental jams shorter and delivered with laser-like focus. “Reverse Into Tomorrow” kicks off like an R.E.M. tune and shares a similar melodic construction, with washes of guitar and a consistent rhythmic barrage building a wall-of-sound behind Walters’ hidden vocals. Sounding like an imploding high-rise before settling into a martial beat not unlike Killing Joke, Walters and Totino’s guitars provide a storm of spiraling leads amidst a rhythmic fury on “firejoke.”

The chaotic “Ruby Woodpecker” is soaked in gasoline and lit up with syncopated, dissonant fretwork while the raucous instrumental “Seven” benefits from its improvisational nature and undeniably tight band chemistry. As good as the instrumental performances are, if there is one drawback to Triskaidekaphobe, it would be Walters’ vocals. Often lost in the mix, the vox are passable, if not particularly strong. The band would have benefited from finding a ballsy frontman a la Plant to shout above Walters and Totino’s amazing six-string work.

Das Damen wasn’t particular influential, and the band’s audience was small, if loyal. Where Das Damen is remembered, it is for their notorious bit of social protest, better known as The Marshmallow Conspiracy EP. Released a few months after Triskaidekaphobe and including two songs from the album, the EP also featured a non-LP track called “Sky Yen” and the controversial “Song For Michael Jackson To $ell.” Michael Jackson had just purchased the rights to the Beatles’ song catalog for around $100 million, so Das Damen recorded its own warped version of “Magical Mystery Tour,” complete with Beatles samples, calling it “Song For Michael Jackson To $ell” and giving themselves credit. The gloved one’s lawyers got involved, the record was recalled, and the band was promptly given the boot by SST.

Although they would break up a couple of years later, thus missing out on the alt-rock explosion of the early ‘90s where they might have found their audience, Das Damen is fondly remembered by those of us who bought their records and saw this talented band perform live. It is somehow fitting that we remember Triskaidekaphobe on Friday the 13th, because if not for bad luck, Das Damen might not have had any luck at all! (SST Records)

Originally published by Trademark of Quality blog