Throwback Thursday can now be every day if you believe hard enough. With Crobot’s latest release Feel This (Mascot Label Group), you can headbang and air guitar like it was the 1990s, early aught’s all over again.
Tag Archives: Retro Rock
ALBUM REVIEW: Book Of Wyrms – Occult New Age
While the core sound behind Book Of Wyrms has always been a balance between Doom Metal and Space Rock, their third album sees the band committing much more to the latter. Occult New Age (Desert Records) retains the methodical tempos and some of the beefy riffs of 2019’s Remythologizer but ultimately devotes its atmospheric ends to lighter textures and looser structures. The heavier sequences have more in common than Kyuss than Cathedral and their underlying Hawkwind influence had previously never been highlighted to this extent.
ALBUM REVIEW: Dirty Honey – Dirty Honey
In 2019 things were on the up for the independent LA quartet Dirty Honey; their debut single ‘When I’m Gone’ topped the Billboard Mainstream Rock charts, they toured with Alter Bridge, Guns n Roses, and The Who and sold out their first headline tour in the first two months of 2020 but then covid reared its ugly head put life on hold. Finally things are opening up again and their debut album Dirty Honey is out, and its sound is firmly rooted in 1970s rock.
ALBUM REVIEW: White Magician – Dealers In Divinity
Consisting entirely of musicians from the eccentric Demon Bitch with equally esoteric pseudonyms, Detroit’s White Magician settles firmly into the world of heavy Occult Rock on their first full-length album. “The Agents Of Fortune”-esque cover art is enough to indicate that any comparisons to Blue Öyster Cult are likely intentional; the band exercises a similarly freerolling attitude with an ominous undercurrent. But while Dealers Of Divinity (Cruz Del Sur Music) gambles on a well-trod formula, the group seems to have a couple of aces up their sleeves.
EXCLUSIVE STREAM: Starcrazy – “Long Way Home”
Rising Australian rock stars Starcrazy have teamed up with Ghost Cult to stream the first single from their debut EP, due in early 2021. “Long Way Home” calls it back to a simpler time of spazzed out licks, breezy hooks, catchy verses, great vocals, and real rock n roll swagger. A song like this is the polar opposite of today’s fake everything and too clean substitute for pop pulp. The band already counts legends such as Alice Cooper and Fishbone frontman Angelo Moore, and chances are you are next!
VIDEO PREMIERE: Children of the Sün – Emmy
“Summer of Love” inspired band Children of the Sun are releasing their new album Flowers via The Sign label on July 26th, 2019 in digital, CD, and vinyl formats. The eight-piece band hailing from Arvika, Sweden deals not just the hippie aesthetic of that time, but a musical homage to the emotive vocals, Hammond B-3 organ and spacey guitars of their forebearers. Ghost Cult is presenting the retro video for their song ‘Emmy’. Get ready to jump in your Delorian and gun it to 88 miles per hour, taking you back to a simpler time of free love, good drugs, and all-around kindness to others, which we need more of today. Watch the clip now!Continue reading
Feel The Heat: Hard Rock Albums Roundup
While winter climes may be more suited to the face-painted and sombre-faced ones, there’s something to be said about warming yourself up with some Hard Rocking. Ghost Cult rounds up some of this year’s early Melodic and Hard Rock releases to see if there’s not something that can’t bring the heat…Continue reading
REVIEWS ROUND UP: Black Mirrors, Lowlives, Wildways, Bruise, Arabrot, Lord
Nearly twenty years into this twenty first century of ours, and retro is once again the chicest tone in town. Fuzzed, bluesy guitars, seventies licks and threads, and an aching earnestness for a sound of yesteryear is where the coolest of cats are chilling. And down such alleyways we find Belgian quartet Black Mirrors and their impressive full length debut Look Into The Black Mirror (Napalm).Continue reading
The Vintage Caravan – Gateways
Like Earache, Nuclear Blast was initially known for their roster of heavier metal, but have widened their net in recent years to include vintage rock acts like Black Star Riders, Tax The Heat, The Night Flight Orchestra, Blues Pills and the focus of this review, The Vintage Caravan. From Iceland, they formed in 2006 and have their fourth album Gateways, which is forty-eight minutes of bluesy Hard Rock straight from the annals of the late sixties and seventies.Continue reading
BlackLab – Under the Strawberry Moon 2.0
What is it about Japan that means they can produce such good doom bands? Hailing from Osaka, BlackLab is made up of duo Yuko Morino (guitars, vocals) and Chia Shiraishi (drums). Though technically the pair’s debut, the ‘2.0’ is to highlight the fact this is the band’s original demo give a polish and a re-release on a proper label. The core sound is still intact though; rough around the edges doom with plenty of creepy atmospherics.Continue reading