In “A Barn in Barrington”, let’s imagine winter 2012, frost heavy on boughs and nobody around, Doug Tuttle of Mmmoss recorded 8 jams for Portsmouth, NH duo BLACK NORSE which they deemed worthy to release eponymously as a digital album. The production is typical of Doug, tight and tweaked just right. Kevin Lareau of THE MIGS joins in on the mic for the first two: ‘Jesus Christ-Interlude’ and ‘Kill The King-Reign Of Fire’. Both these tunes highlight strong pacing-control, with slow build-ups leading to a controlled release of chaos. Also there is progressive section-evolution which stems (probably) from jam-origin tunecrafting, not just A>B>A constructions, but more concatenated A>B>C>D etc.

Ostensibly a stoner-metal 2-piece, Ryan Harrison and Ben Troy have a lot of room to spill sound, which they do here in heavy gobs of scuzzy, stoned delirium; but tight, so tight. There is something sexual in the prowess of these songs. They tease, then get busy as fuck. You will find a lot of the snickering dark imagery from Heavy Metal canon here, with song titles like ‘Aye Muertes-Don’t Stray,’ ‘Son Of An Elder God’ and ‘Supermassive Black Hole.’ Voice takes a back-seat to distorted guitar and drum, but all three swagger on these tracks. ‘Five Grand’ gets a new treatment in this setting, but the original from their 2009 REAL MUD, FAKE BLOOD rocks as well with rawness. Heaviest track award goes to closer ‘Walk’ which could be playing in your mind en route to destroy Tokyo again. These fellas been playing the circuit recently so keep your eyes peeled for a live show near you. Reportedly that is not to be missed.