Ancient Warlocks

Written by Graham Beck

Putting together a decent stoner rock album is like getting ready to willingly go grocery shopping on a Saturday afternoon, the week before Christmas.  If you don’t plan for it and execute it to a ‘t’, you will get trampled out there.  Whether people agree with it or not, there are those staples, like Doritos and Funyuns, that doper disciples will always have on-hand.

An assortment of fuzz boxes, wah pedals, and chorus effects; check.  Astral, 70’s- inspired, tripped-out album cover art; check.  Working knowledge of every riff played on Paranoid, Action Is Go, and Blues For The Red Sun; check.  More weed than a Cheech and Chong reunion tour in Compton...perhaps.

But for the four piece out of Seattle known as Ancient Warlocks these steps seem to be just the beginning.  AW have only been together for a couple of years but have boasted of successful shows and upcoming releases on Digital Warfare Records, not to mention sharing the stage with label-mates and punk heavyweights, Zeke.  Although they only have a 7” available for purchase, I was able to check out the six songs they have posted on their website www.ancientwarlocks.com.

Right off the rip, ‘Into The Night’ sets the tone of the album with an unassuming, Fu Manchu/Sabbath riff and let’s face it, if you’re in a rock band of the stoner persuasion and you’re not “borrowing” riffs from Black Sabbath, then you are doing something wrong.  ‘Into The Night’ was, by far, my favorite track.  The pulse of the song is constant, simple, heavy, and the tones are as thick as bong resin.  Not to play spoiler here, but there are tempo drops and then there are tempo cliffs.  This felt like the scene in an old police movie where the chase ends when the first car goes flying off the mountain, sails out into he sky, lands hundreds of feet below, and promptly blows up.  They’ve put that scene into a song. 

‘Lion Storm’ is a punchy, 7-layered burrito of pure rock goodness while ‘Killer’s Moon’ force-feeds the listener thick, Marshall-induced guitar riffs while pounding your bullocks with the bass-heavy rhythm section, so much so that you can almost see Phil Lynott looking down from above, nodding with approval.  

“That’s right, pound those things,” says Lynott.

While they got it right in some areas, songs like ‘Superwizard’, and ‘White Dwarf’ seem to be lacking in the originality department.  The sound is killer but the tunes themselves really don’t seem to go anywhere.  With stoner rock/metal, there’s a proverbial “hump” that bands have to get over to reach their place within the genre.  They have to trudge up their own personal mountain; past the Sabbath comparisons and all the typecasting that can take place while desperately trying  to get to their mecca. I think AW is on the right path.

Perhaps I’m just expecting too much out of the genre as a whole.  Anyways...

Two major, key ingredients that Ancient Warlocks has going very right for them is their production value and the vocals.  I’ve always felt that when going the route of the Monster Magnets of the world, you must have solid production.  It doesn’t have to be Bob Rock or anything, but it has to be meaty and AW deserves to be on the butcher block.  

Guitarists Darren Chase and Aaron Krause (who also handles the vocal duties) along with bassist Anthony Timm, show excessive, yet necessary force through the montage of riffage.  Carefully drawn out notes and somewhat spacey leads let the listener ride off into head banging heaven on the back of drummer Steve Jones’ hefty, straight-forward playing.  Between the production and Krause’s natural voice, his words are thrusted effortlessly through the music which is good because nothing ruins a recording more than shitty vocals.  

It appears that Ancient Warlocks have grabbed the attention of many in the short period of time that they have been in existence with a solid piece of work and a handful of shows, one can only hope they find their feet and begin building their addition onto the house that Iommi built.  For a city with an already rich assortment of musical history books much like the one Seattle touts, the books better make room for one more because Ancient Warlocks are clearing continents to get to their place upon that mountain top.  I would suggest moving.

You can find their soon-to-be released album and all that is Ancient Warlocks (except pictures) at www.ancientwarlocks.com or get all that and pics at http://www.reverbnation.com/ancientwarlocks.

Want to tell Graham how it REALLY is in the world of Stoner rock and metal?  Email him at reanimatedcerebralannotations@yahoo.com 

Sidenote: In case you’ve been in a hole the last 24 hours, it’s come out that rock guitar god and legend Tony Iommi has been diagnosed with Lymphoma.  Reanimated Cerebral Annotations wishes to express our support in a fast and full recovery.  Our thoughts are with the Iommi family.