Tuesday, July 26, 2011

PREMONITION 13 - 13 CD review


PREMONITION 13 - 13 CD
Volcom Entertainment
Genre: Hard Rock/Doom
Rating: 3/5

For those of you who don't know, this is Wino's (aka Scott Wino Weinrich) latest band project. I reviewed their two song 7"er last Spring, which also came out on Volcom. This here is the anticipated full length which those in the new doom blogosphere have been waiting for. Well I'm not going to revisit Wino's band history for ya because if you're reading Scumfeast Metal 666 then you know it already. I will stick with some of the most recent history though. As far as Wino's solo acoustic release Adrift, which came out a little while back, I didn't care for it. I certainly wasn't going to write about it either. Now as for that super group thing SHRINEBUILDER he was involved with well that was a joke. So with that said Wino's newest excursion is PREMONITION 13 a project that he started up with his friend guitarist Jim “Sparky” Karow who he has known for some 20 years. Basically Wino and Jim have also jammed plenty of times over those twenty years as well. It's from those jam sessions that this band became a reality. Wino handles guitar, bass and vocals, Jim plays guitar plus adds some vocals and on drums they enlisted some guy named Matthew Clark who's also in a band called OSTINATO. I never heard of em but now after he's played with Wino he'll probably be able to have some sycophant in the new doom blogosphere write about his band. Basically he doesn't do anything on here out of the realm of mediocre.

Musically 13 is 70's blues rock with a lot of psych damage thrown in. It's as if Wino is exercising that 1970's Hard Rock element he lived through. He's stepping out of his past career role which shines for him. For those of you who didn't have the luxury as I of growing up with the music of the 70s in the 70s (I'm two years younger than Wino) then listen up babycakes. This release was done back in 73/74 by a slew of other bands. It wasn't called doom back then so let's cut it with the historical revisionism. It's called Hard Rock and what this band does on here with it is standard fair from that era. That's not to say it isn't good because well it is exceptional at least on most of the tracks. This is the type of music which should be played in biker bars and not in pretentious hipster retard hangouts. Songs like the opener "B.E.A.U.T.Y." and "Senses" sounds a little like BAD COMPANY but with the added use of the e-bow it adds the psychedelic drone violin sound effect. "Hard To Say" is another winner with some decent chugging distorted rhythm and choice soloing weaved in and out of Wino's vocals. "Clay Pigeon" is a page out of 70's rock with a simple groove riff repeated over. It's not far from what Tommy Bolin era JAMES GANG was into back in the day especially with that solo. It's not until the middle of the release with "La Hechicera de la Jeringa" were we finally here Wino back into his Doom icon role but still only slightly. "Deranged Rock N' Roller" is pure 70's Southern Rock boogie while "Modern Man", with Karow on lead vocals, is the weakest track simply because of the repeated song title chorus. The final track "Peyote Road" is nothing to write home about either.

Years ago I use to tend bar at a joint that had a lot of aging 70's rock fans in there as regulars. They hated Punk, Metal and basically anything relatively new sounding. Those people would probably find this to their liking because PREMONITION 13 recaptures much of the 70's FM Rock music aesthetic that those fucks couldn't shake. This is not Doom by a long shot but it is the best thing Wino's done since SPIRIT CARAVAN. I doubt the new doom blogosphere hipsters will accept it but if you've been a long time fan of Wino's career then you will enjoy this. The first half is exceptional and the second part is less attention grabbing. I believe if this was just Karow's band with a bass player and a second guitarist who had a similar voice as Wino I'd still give it a decent review.

Label: http://www.volcoment.com/


Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/premonition_13


Official: http://www.premonition13.com/#


No comments:

Post a Comment