Eerie

The debut album from the self-described "bi-coastal black metal/hard rock" quartet, Eerie delivers a defcon 4 level blast of beefy, unabashedly Black Sabbath-adoring psych-doom rock. Boasting a seasoned crew of death peddlers consisting of revered tattoo artist and former Twilight guitar player Tim Lehi, bass player Dave Sweetapple (Witch), drummer Moses Saarni (Futur Skullz), and vocalist Shane Baker (Alaric, Pins of Light), the seaboard-be-damned four-piece's eponymous long-player clocks in at just under 40 minutes. Relative brevity aside -- there are only five tracks -- Eerie make the most of their limited time in your head, offering up a storm of bluesy, wah-wah-pedal-driven gutter riffs, cavernous vocals, and thundering, tom-heavy percussion that feels both epic and darkly intimate. The band's influences are obvious, but they take great joy in delivering yesterday's news, with highlights arriving via the elastic, Lovecraft-ian "Yeti" and the Mastodon-meets-Butler/Iommi swamp-romp "Immortal Rot." ~ James Christopher Monger