Weedeater

With a sound and presence like no other band in the world, Weedeater stand apart from all others, both live and on their recordings. Their unfiltered and unrefined energy surges uncontrollably through the band and anyone who bears witness to their live show. Spite and deep resentment somehow fuse with comedy and maximum volume to produce an indignant, vomitous (both figuratively and sometimes literally) performance that is forced upon the willing yet hapless crowd.

You are instantly swallowed whole by both Dixie and Shep's nearly indistinguishable monster bass and guitar tones, and you are absolutely beaten to a bloody pulp and scared for your life by Keko's crazed, yet amazingly potent bashing of his kit; with sticks that look like tree trunks turning into a splintered mess by the end of every song. If you had any sense you might actually take a step back and contemplate your safety for a moment, but then you come to your senses (sort of, anyway) and realize you're at a f*cking Weedeater show, and this is why you came here, and there is no way to deny what you are witnessing. Pure, unabashed, musical violence in every form. It's real, and it's dangerous, and it feels so damn good.

After 2007's critically acclaimed and now classic release, "God Luck and Good Speed" had been toured to death around the world, the boys finally took some time between the mishaps and mayhem of 2010 to write and record their 2nd album for Southern Lord Recordings and 4th full-length CD/LP, "Jason...The Dragon", which will be released March 15th on both CD and LP. Recorded and mixed once again by the legendary Steve Albini at Electrical Audio Studios in Chicago, and mastered once again by the equally as legendary John Golden at Golden Studios in southern California, "Jason..." continues the legacy that has culminated over nearly 15 years of the band's existence into something truly unique and masterful. Once again, we are dragged through the mire by three of the finest dirge merchants in the world, and the songwriting is just as ingenious as ever and seems to start just where "God Luck..." left off, with "Hammerhandle" kicking things off in an oscillating groove that builds and falls and then eventually melts into "Mancoon", a ripping tune that spans themes from homemade dynamite to true tales of human bite wounds and other guttural warnings that are surely not meant to be taken lightly. The band returns to their swampy roots via acoustic bass and banjo with the album's closer "Whiskey Creek", and they venture into totally new territory with the hook-laden, driving force that is "Homecoming". Dixie's solo performance on "Palms and Opium" sounds like a narcotic jam that he and Dean Ween had at a private nitrous party on a deserted island; the track was inspired by and written during the blissed-out visions Dixie had while laid up on pain pills for a month after blowing off his big toe with a shotgun in early 2010. We don't need to go back there again, do we? Seems like we just did. The masterpiece is of course the album's namesake, "Jason...the Dragon" which takes the listening doomernaut on a slithering journey though a sludgy world of viscous, black molasses riffs that are punctuated by cannon drums and some of the album's most memorable lyrics.

With a full headlining tour of the US planned for February and March and a European tour shortly thereafter with a stop at Roadburn and more dates to be announced soon, the band is rearing to take 2011 by storm and there is a horde of rabid fans ready to hear their newest offerings.