Down

Q&A: Down, NOLA’s reigning metal super-group, goes four for IV

Down: Down IV Part 1: The Purple EPDown: Down IV: Part 1, The Purple EP (WMG, 9/18/12)

“Witchtripper”

Down: “Witchtripper”

Last year, long-running metal super-group Down released the first of a sprawling four-part EP series. Aptly titled IV, the releases — the rest of which come in 2013 or later — are meant to comprise a massive new album, and the first takes the band’s Black Sabbath influences to a rawer and darker place.

Singer, songwriting contributor, and former Pantera vocalist Phil Anselmo — who teams with members of Corrosion of Conformity, Eyehategod, and Crowbar in Down — joined us to talk about soaring vocals, his home studio, and that unapologetic Sabbath influence.

Weedeater

The Metal Examiner: Weedeater’s Jason…The Dragon

Weedeater: Jason...The DragonWeedeater: Jason…The Dragon (Southern Lord, 3/1/11)

Weedeater: “Mancoon”
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North Carolina-based Weedeater has always balanced its stoner- and sludge-metal aspirations with a wide-open embrace of not just Southern rock but Southern culture as well. Songs about Dale Earnhardt sit alongside Lynyrd Skynyrd covers; odes to mystical demons were right at home alongside ballads praising the band’s titular indulgence.

But despite some commendable efforts (especially the group’s previous disc, God Luck And Good Speed in 2007), these two directions never fully reconciled, and the band’s masterpiece always seemed just out of its reach. Jason…The Dragon, the group’s fourth full-length (and second for Southern Lord), doesn’t quite put the group over the top of the mountain, but it’s never for lack of trying.