Bibilic Blood Snakeweed (Goat Skull Records)
By Jay Snyder
November 18, 2013
If you live for the foul, the filth, and the fucked up
get ready to rejoice! Bibilic Blood, the duo of Scott Stearns (guitar/percussion) and Suzy Psycho (bass/vocals) has returned with their 4th full-length outing, and 5th overall release to date,
Snakeweed. Times done nothing to diminish the corrosive, caustic power of the units low tuned, drug-doom riffs and heathen preaching; their sickening, economic, psychedelic volume raptures are as evil and intact as they were 4 years ago when the band debuted on the scene with
Zha Doom. This is doom/sludge beamed in from an alternate dimension ruled by brain damaged beings that eat tinnitus for breakfast!
This is pretty much music without any sort of accessibility or compromise to be found; its offsetting and pungent enough to scare away traditional sludge fans who stop at Eyehategod and Grief, exclusively. Opener, Alien Autopsy drones in on a cryptic sample and ghastly, echoing drones which rip out the guts of a thrash-y, grinding Slayer riff and halt it to a minimalistic Sabbath slog with just the right amount of swing to it. Stearns Hellish guitar noise plunges the depths of the almighty dope chord while touching up the atmosphere with spacious FX. The drums arent so much played as they are beaten into a pile of bloody feces with Psychos swooping low notes and lost in a K-hole screams making the mess completely unapproachable to those not already in the know. This is the sound of all your hopes and dreams greeted by a hot, steamy spray of piss on the way to receiving the big flush down lifes pipeline
thats not an insult, its a compliment! I cant think of anyone that occupies a similar position in the doom pantheon as Bibilic Blood (Nightstick is a maybe), theirs is a malice thats singular and individualistic. Night Clown toys with a semi-clean, cosmic wail draped in Eastern notation for its deceiving introduction. At first youre bathed in light, only to be drenched in a waterfall of grimy, beautifully impure sludge the next minute. The riffs chip away at huge boulders of dirty Ohio sludge, Vitus like in the way it creeps but much nastier and demented with Stearns mainframe overload of squealing, wraparound noise/psych soloing both a nod to and an extension of Chandlers anti-matter teachings. Suzys vocals narrate the proceedings with a level of dissociation so frightening you just have to wonder where it comes from. It doesnt sound like any sort of human singing thats for sure. The bowel evacuating bass grooves from the songs finale spill directly over into the equally manic churns of Disruptor, a piece thats nothing more than a series of looping, lucid doom riffs backed by acidic electronic howls.
Stinking, fetid sludge is the order of the day on Freak Show, a thick, soupy slimebucket dirge that sounds like the first Sabbath album lost one of its riffs and the little guy just couldnt make it back home. Instead of continuing the search for its daddy, the lost baby bastard writhes and contorts in an unholy sacrilege of ritualistic, repeating riff manifestations that are mimicked by Psychos bass lines and mutated by the arcane pedal surges and Xanax doped screaming. Lets say I died and went to Hell at the end of my days, Id be awfully disappointed if this song wasnt playing on the overheads. Severed begins with another red herring
a luminescent, almost kraut-y melodic drone before the obliterating crunch of the percussion and a heart attack causing, high cholesterol riff completely overtakes the senses with dread. Making a real haphazard shift in vibes, Bloodnomicon dips the ladle into a heavy, syrupy 70s hard-rock vibe with groovy leads playing out in the background underneath a landfill of sludgy power chords, hazy wah/phasing in the key of Church of Misery, and a low-end groove heavier than gravity itself. Its not totally out of the bands character to ply this trade, but its certainly rare (and more upbeat than their normal attack), and this beast cooks up a real head-bobbing, toe-tapper of a track in Beelzebubs meth lab.
The title track carries over the loose psych and 70s bong resin from the previous tune, feedback and jammy, sky bound chords resonating in a peculiar, mind massaging orgy of Ash Ra Tempel-ian brushstrokes. Swirling, sun eating collages emanate from every riff and note; Stearns balancing a tuneful, hippie hypnosis with blunt trauma doom percussion and hulking Sabbath muscle. Suzys screeching voice is the bad side of LSD all the way, and whenever her buzzing bass tones intertwine with Scotts freakishly good 60s/70s scuzz blasts, its a sight to behold. You quickly forget what youre doing as the music takes you straight down the rapidly vibrating hallucinogenic ladder of sonic dementia. War Wolf is cut from a similar cloth, although its overall riff tonnage is greater and more immediate in impact. To spice things up, Stearns throws in several slimy psych leads that often dissolve into a vat of bubbling white noise. The remaining tracks are all excellent, the bands brutish nightmare riffing tactics paired with extensive psychedelic intros on certain cuts (Iridium and closer Bloody Rabbit), or the gruesome twosome reversing that same formula entirely for the opposite effect on the instantaneous sludge rape of Bird of Prey which decides to unveil a Technicolor sunset of leadwork long after the mushroom cloud fades away.
Fans of previous Bibilic Blood releases should be ecstatic over
Snakeweed. I dare say this record is falling down a deeper psychedelic chasm than its predecessors without losing one ounce of the disgusting doom that has been the bands calling card since day one. Sickos who worship at the altars of the Shifty Records roster, Nightstick, The Butthole Surfers, St. Vitus, Black Sabbath, Church of Misery, and the early Ash Ra Tempel releases should ante up and own this right away! This is highly recommended sludge dressed up by the usual and welcome trimmings of Stearns one of a kind, deliciously depraved artwork. What are you waiting for?
Visit the Goat Skull Records website at www.goatskull.com