Some joints I’ve been spinning lately:
Cathedral - Soul Sacrifice (1992) - Absolutely flawless massive ’70s metal guitar crank on this thing that occasionaly slows wayyyyy down for the crushing doom metal vibe. If everything this band recorded was as good as this, they’d easily be my favorite current band playing this style. Perfection.
Cactus - One Way… Or Another (1971) - Decided to randomly take a chance on this one ($3), and ended up being very pleasantly surprised. I’ve totally been in the mood for heavy ’70s blues rock that borders on metal lately, and this definitely hit the spot. Shame the LP I bought is kinda beat up and has constant crackling surface noise throughout the entire thing. Ah well, can’t say I blame whoever bought this originally for playing it to death. I’m pretty sure I remember reading that there’s a CD reissue that has the first 2 Cactus LPs, so I’ll look into that.
Ten Years After - Rock & Roll Music To The World (1972) - A very generic blues rock band doing very generic blues rock things. This definitely lacks the creativity that made A Space In Time a huge favorite of mine, but it’s still damn solid for the style, and as usual has some killer soloing by Alvin Lee, who has become one of my favorite “blues jammer” guitarists. I probably won’t be playing this much, but it was worth my $4 for sure.
October Faction - Second Factionalization (1986) - First listen in years for an LP I bought back in my “buy everything I can find on SST Records as long as it’s cheap and hopefully it’ll be good” phase (absolutely NOT a good idea, btw) that I distinctly remember HATING at the time. Anyway, it’s grown on me a bit, partially ’cause I have more of an appreciation for abrasive improvised noise rock now than I did 5 years ago. Anyway, this is dudes from Saccharine Trust, Black Flag, Tom Troccoli’s Dog, etc getting reallllllllly wasted/stoned and jamming. At its worst, this stuff is REALLY aimless and painful to listen to (not the good kind of “painful” either…), but when it does get going, it’s some pretty raging stuff indeed. Greg Ginn and Joe Baiza are two of the most creative rock guitarists I can think of, and it’s definitely awesome to hear them play on the same record, but eh, this really isn’t going to be remembered as one of their finest moments. Still glad I own this.
Slovenly - We Shoot For The Moon (1989) - GREAT combination of post-punk and psychedelic influences here with truly bizarre vocals that sound like a really, really drunk Ian Curtis yelling blatantly LSD-influenced lyrics. I own this band’s entire discography, but this one and “Thinking Of Empire” are the only ones I return to regularly. One of the very few truly great records SST released in the late ’80s.