Site Updates

Well the time has come to move The Soda Shop blog from a WordPress hosted blog to a self host server. The move is complete. This blog will cease to update after Memorial Day 2012. Old links and posts will still work but new content from here on out will be on the new site. If you have any bookmarks containing the WordPress address, update them to the new address. That address is:

www.thesodashop.us

Mini-Review: Ides of Gemini – ‘Constantinople’

‘Constantinople’
Ides of Gemini

[Neurot Recordings]

The way the two Sera Timms-fronted bands are set up, it’s hard not to compare the dormant (currently writing) Black Math Horseman and this new release from cerebral trio Ides of Gemini. Each share her soothsayer’s vocals that are tempered and resonant and they are most importantly, instantly, recognisably unique.

The similarities don‘t stop there; stripped down compositions with little embellishment, cymbal adverse heavily rhythmic percussion and a plough-like pacing, letting the music dig in thoroughly. Yet where Black Math Horseman are the doomsayers and deerslayers with their more prominent Om-isms and Tool riffs, Ides of Gemini are more perilous, there’s a leaner edge to their stargazing in comparison to the former’s earthenware.

They retain the weight-baring percussive strengths, this time provided by Kelly Johnston, but they don’t vent as regularly, the pacing is still a walk. It is when J. Bennet’s jangling riffs sear with a more blackened tone Constantinople steps up in to a rare gallop that they sound at their most ominous and threatening. ‘Reaping Golden’ heaves a great magnitude of heavy and Sera Timms’ gloomy divinations complement handsomely. It is without doubt that Timms is the centrepiece of this trio. Her bass works well in tandem with the sparse percussion forming a strong rhythm section of which everything relies, BMH and IoG are more rhythm than anything else. Her vocals are achingly beautiful and makes Constantinople stand out as a contender for a few year end lists. The end of the world never sounded so exquisite.

They only have their first EP up on Bandcamp, but it’s a good taster of what makes this record so good.

The Songs of Townes Van Zandt

Steve Von Till, Scott Kelly, and Wino

Written By Ian Gerber for The Soda Shop

From the beginning of my foray into writing for The Soda Shop I have had a compulsion to try and point out the kinship of various artists and singer-songwriters with our modern “doom” and “stoner” scenes.  Conveniently, three monolithic figures of the scene have made a record that brings this idea directly to the table with the new tribute to Townes Van Zandt to be released on Neurot Records.

DAily Bandcamp Album – Rokeville by The Columbines

This one is a bit different but fucking cool. The band The Columbines is from Chicago. they play some wicked blues rock mixed with a bit of old school outlaw country and even some rock-a-billy. Think of it as Chicago’s version of Five Horse Johnson.

“The Columbines arrived with a splash, riding a flaming wicker bunny that fell from the sky into the icy waters of Lake Michigan. They play songs about love, songs about anger, songs about angry love and lovely anger, songs with birds, bees, cars, trains, and planes, songs about the devil you know and the devil you don’t.”

Review-Satellite Beaver-The Last Bow EP

Satellite Beaver. Great fucking name. Great fucking EP.

Formed in Warsaw in 2008, Satellite Beaver is a hard rocking stoner band that needs to make an LP after hearing this 4 song EP.

All the way from Poland, never knew of em, so I checked out their facebook page. Instant connection because the band used the Oregon State Beaver mascot for a “Worship Satan” jpeg. Love it because I

First new music from Melvins Lite release “Freak Puke” (June 5, Ipecac) available now

Melvins Lite is an additional incarnation of the Melvins.  The line-up is Buzz Osborne, Dale Crover and Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle, Fantomas & Tomahawk).  Melvins Lite’s debut release is “Freak Puke,” available June 5 via Ipecac Recordings.  “The Melvins have a long history of mixing up our line-ups and I think that’s what has kept us relevant for so long,” explains Osborne.  “Consider the Freak Puke record the fifth side of the four-sided Melvins triangle.”

“Leon vs The Revolution” mp3 via Spin.com:

http://www.spin.com/articles/hear-first-taste-melvins-lites-freak-puke-leon-vs-revolution

Melvins Lite pre-order link:

RED FANG Announce North American Tour Dates

Portland Oregon’s RED FANG are in the midst of wrapping up their European tour with a show tonight in Moscow, Russia and their final gig tomorrow in St. Petersburg, Russia. Before they had back state-side the band is pleased to announce that they have just confirmed a new batch of North American tour dates. Included in this run are headlining shows as well as shows serving as direct support to The Sword. All tour dates can be found below.

RED FANG will be headlining “A Benefit For Grant High Art Department” scheduled to take place Friday May 25^th at the Hawthorne Theater in Portland, OR. Support will come from Lopez, Nether Regions and Grant High’s own Hell’s Parrish. Doors for the show at are 7:00 pm with the first band hitting the stage at 7:30 pm. Tickets can be purchased for the show HERE.

The Soda Shop Records Presents – The Soda Shop Comp Vol. 3

The Soda Shop Records Proudly Presents it’s next free comp album. The album is officially due out for FREE at the end of May. Artists featured will be Fellwoods, The Grand Astoria, The Dead Exs, The Heavy Eyes and a few more surprises. More details to come soon.

Also on the comp album will be a track from Mothership’s self titled debut album which is due out in June. You’ll be able to stream the song exclusively now.

Daily Bandcamp Album – Blue Venus by Venus Blue

Rock n’ roll.

“You can hear everyone from Blue Cheer to the Stooges, early Pentagram, and smatterings of hardcore punk. Venus Blue describe themselves as a band with a “unique sound” that “boggles the mind”. They’re not wrong.”
-Chybucca Sounds

Review: Weathers – Heavy Truck

Greece might not be the first place that comes to mind when you think of sludgy stoner metal… or the second, fifth, or tenth. But Weathers is out to change your mind about that. They might come from the windswept isles of the Mediterranean, but listening to their debut EP, you’d swear the trio were raised inside the hollow of a petrified sequoia tree by a pack of ancient dire wolves.

The sheer heaviness of Heavy Truck is truly something to behold. It manages to be completely thundering at its low end, while not sacrificing the searing buzz saw guitar lines that so often are thrown out the door for such bottom-heavy production. Nothing comes out muddy–just fuzzy, and deliciously so. Reminiscent of the sound of their European brethren, Sweden’s Truckfighters, the Greek three-piece wear their influences on their sleeves (I mean CD sleeves–that’s not a maple leaf there) and make it easy to forget that they’re exactly that: a Greek three-piece.