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The Soda Shop reviews “Crowe Valley Blues”
This review is a long time in the coming. After sitting on this for a few months, and enjoying the hell out of it, here is the long awaited review for Venomin James’ Crowe Valley Blues. Crowe Valley Blues is the second album from the Cleveland doom metal band.
Doom metal is sort of a generic label for this album. While it does have many doom elements, there’s a few (minor) rock moments. One constant that this album does have is it’s heavy as all fuck!
It opens with the track “Desert Rider” which is about as perfect an opening track that you’ll find anywhere. “Cosmonaut” is next. This track you should be familiar with as it was on The Soda Shop Comp vol 1. This was the first song that the band released from the album and even made a video of it. It’s fast, heavy and ready to hurt you. The chorus about 2:50 in is worth it alone. “Death’s Wings” is next with a mellow paced verse and melodic chorus. “Dire Days” is a bit slower and certainly a doomier track. Singer Jim Meador’s voice is haunting. The song speeds up about 4 1/2 minutes into it and before you know it, it’s back to the doomy sound that started the track. This track is going to be a classic. “Make No Mistake” is a bit more of a punk metal number. It’s faster paced throughout and less doomier then other tracks. “Under The Gun” and “Tierra Muerta” are both more melodic numbers. “Penitentiary Glen” is the last song on the album. It’s slow and doomy. Read more…
Lucid Culture reviews The Soda Shop Comp 1
If you’re wondering what the cool kids across the USA are listening to, chances are that some of it is right here. Last month our colleagues over at the Soda Shop put out a massive free compilation - the first in a series – that you should get your hands on if you like metal or the louder fringes of stoner music. The corporate media are trying as hard as they can to make you believe that anyone over age eight actually listens to Kesha, or that anyone actually enjoys Arcade Fire instead of merely pretending to because they don’t want to seem uncool in front of their trendoid friends. The reality is that metal is bigger than ever, and maybe better than ever, because the new wave of bands who play it have gone back to the source, the motherlode of it all, Black Sabbath. Tony Iommi should be proud of what he spawned here, yet while most of the bands here have the sludgy slow stoner groove, double and tripletracked solos and chromatic riffage, they aren’t ripoffs either. This is a LONG album, sixteen songs, most of them well over five minutes a clip and most of them various shades of excellent. A couple of them are spoofs, but most of them are straight up pure adrenaline.
“Crowe Valley Blues” reviewed in Metal Hammer, Mar. 2011 issue
Hailing from Cleveland’s Crowe Valley, which its creators describe as ‘the home of murder, Mormon, and mayhem’, this is the second album from an outfit that specialises in swampy, doom-laden and moonshine-infused metallic blues.
Modelled upon Black Sabbath, Down, C.O.C., Kyuss and Trouble, the quintet’s sound is rooted firmly in the last millenium, and here that’s no bad thing. As well as delivering lumbering elephant-sized riffs, the two guitarists keep the lead solos sizzling throughout. Meanwhile, Jim Meador’s Southern-tinged voice enhances the album’s air of menace via such standout cuts as Desert Rider and Downer - the latter included as part of a bonus four-song EP called Death’s Wings. [7] Dave Ling“
Pretty good, eh? Thanks to Mr. Dave Ling.
Jeff Niesel, former CLE Scene editor, interviews Joe
Awhile back in October 2010, Jeff Niesel, former music editor of Cleveland Scene Magazine interviewed Joe for a piece in the magazine to promote the release party for “Crowe Valley Blues”. What was actually printed was a small excerpt of a larger piece. Here is the full interview, which was conducted via email.
Jeff: Tell me about the band’s origins. When did you first form and how did you all meet?
Joe: Tomasz (guitar), Erin(bass), and I met in 2003 while playing in a band with Matt Shack of Pale Creation. The genesis of Venomin James happened when Tomasz brought in some demo songs he wrote that were more in the vein of Black Sabbath, Karma To Burn, or Kyuss than what we were playing with Matt.
During this time, we were auditioning drummers and vocalists, until we finally found Jim Meador, who became the vocalist and lyric writer. We recorded demos of the songs we had, and started handing CDRs out & posting them online, to recruit a permanent drummer. We started playing shows in 2006 with Brandon on the drums, until Jared Koston answered one of our ads and became drummer. With Jared, we worked up all the songs we had, recorded them ourselves at Supernatural Sound (our studio), and released “Left Hand Man” ourselves in Sept. 2007.
Venomin James appearing at Wacken 2011!
Direct from the Auburn Records website:
VENOMIN JAMES have been confirmed for this year’s edition of the Wacken Open Air festival, set to take place August 4-6, 2011 in the small town of Wacken in Schleswig-Holsteing, northern Germany.
“We’ve dreamed about taking this band overseas since the beginning and now that our very first trip will take us to Wacken Open Air – the absolute largest and most prestigious metal festival in the world – it’s starting to sink in that we are about to take our music to a whole new level”, says VENOMIN JAMES guitarist Joe Fortunato.
“We’ve all heard that Germany lives and breathes metal. We look forward to celebrating with our German brothers and sisters. We’re proud to carry the metal banner for Cleveland, and for Auburn Records, in the summer of 2011. We are both humbled and totally energized to be a part of something as prestigious as Wacken. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us, and we’re going to prove that we’ve earned it!”
Read more…
![Venomin James "Make No Mistake" [Official Music Video]](http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/snCgTSPAZKI/0.jpg)
