Always a Six, Never a Nine (2008)
AVAILABLE NOW FROM www.crucialblast.net
Always A Six, Never A Nine is the second album and the follow up to the 2006 self-titled debut from Portland, OR aggro wreckers Black Elk, whose psychotic brand of crushing, noise-rock influenced heaviosity is a return to the unhinged underground rock force of bands like Jesus Lizard, Melvins, Black Flag and Hammerhead. This new album features ten songs of seething weirdness, with the dissonant, crushing riffage, lunging rhythmic push and awesome freaked out, Yow-esque vocals of singer Tom Glose that made their debut a fave among anyone who remembered the days when Amphetamine Reptile ruled the underground rock scene, but with some interesting new elements (bleak, blackened guitar ambience, a smattering of piano, skyreaching guitar harmonies, etc.) that add new shadows to Black Elk's ferocious sound.
Always A Six, Never A Nine is packaged in a heavy four-panel gatefold jacket with an eight page lyric booklet.
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Self-Titled (2006)
AVAILABLE NOW FROM www.crucialblast.net
The eponymous debut from Portland, Oregon's BLACK ELK is a raging destructo rock eruption, heavy, catchy, and flattening. This ten song album contains a creeped out conglom of carnivorous charred hardcore punk, the sludgy power of primo Pacific Northwest tarpit rawk (think KARP, MELVINS, and early SOUNDGARDEN as reference points), twitchy Midwestern noise rage somewhere between Am Rep Records (circa-1991) and a more rabid DIE KREUZEN, and a goatheaded psychedelic backwoods black mass/dance party risen to a freakin' fever pitch. Total crush. Produced by Mike Lastra at Smegma Studios (EARTH, THRONES, JACKIE O MOTHERFUCKER).
"Take the power of Hammerhead, the angst of Guzzard, the chops of Dazzling Killmen, the hand-in-the-underwear debauchery of the Jesus Lizard and the punk spirit of Black Flag, put it all in a dank basement full of angry bees and you'll come close to the sound and fury that is Black Elk." - 43rocket.com
