At Long Last

XII Boar ~ Pitworthy (2015)

 

After a couple EPs and last year's "Truck Stop Baby 7"", the UK's XII Boar are back with their first full length album.  "Pitworthy" is everything you'd expect from the rowdy dudes in XII Boar, loud and crass stoner metal with a heavy dose of southern rock thrown in for good measure.  But it's also a lot of things you wouldn't necessarily expect, and some tracks are a departure from anything you've heard by them in the past.  Leanings toward stoner rock, thrash, and doom metal make themselves more evident in some of those tracks, but always thick with that signature XII Boar flavor.  While all ten tracks and just over forty-eight minutes of stoner metal goodness is the biggest fix we've had of XII Boar yet, like all good drugs, you end up wanting more.  While I can listen to the album on repeat for an entire day and never think of changing it, the last track "Quint" really blew me away the first time I listened to it.  After the first nine tracks of stoner metal, the closing track really delivers some heavier doom metal influenced goodness over its eleven minute duration.  Kicking off a crunchy guitar lead-in, it only takes a few moments before the drums and bass roll in like storm clouds.  Around the one minute mark things take off to a galloping beat with the front man's dirt road styled vocals leading the way.  By the time you get to the halfway point, things take a turn for the slow, with a plodding tempo and even more snarled vocals.  Things pick back up after a bit, but only for a short time before things take another left turn and drops off into a lone guitar piece.  Around the nine minute mark things slow down again, with a howling guitar to break the silence, with the band rejoining not long after.  Ending the whole album on such a heavy jam further shows that these guys are far from showing their whole hand, and have more tricks up their collective sleeves.  With the official release being today, the guys threw a release party this past weekend, and it look like a damn good time.  So do yourself a favor, pick up a copy of this and throw your own party, you deserve it.

~Skip

For Fans Of;  Down, Artimus Pyledriver, Orange Goblin, Weedeater, Crowbar

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Pronounced "Twelve Boar"

XII Boar ~ "Truck Stop Baby" (2014)

English three piece, XII Boar (see title) should need no introduction. But for the new kids on the block, they play an extra sleazy mix of Southern and Stoner Metal, and for a southern stoner through and through it's one of the best things going right now. With fat, sludgey riffs, a punching bass line, and ferocious drumming they lay down a thick groove, and then blast it loud and proud, the way it should be. 

The title track for the vinyl only release of "Truckstop Baby" is a Stoner Metal work of art, with seriously heavy southern styled riffs, and a chorus about those lovely lot lizards. It opens with a solitary Blues guitar piece, but is quickly joined by that heavy bass riff and those swinging drums, and the whole thing gives way to the gritty, dirt road vocals that pack a punch, reminding me of Artimus Pyledriver. On the flip side, you have a mellow, almost Blues revision of the lead off track on their debut offering "XII". This version of "Train Wreck (Slight Return)" is a good bit slower but they still managed to retain a nice, head bobbin' groove without the aggressiveness of the the original version. The song has a Down like quality to it in places, mostly in the chorus, but the overall tone is still uniquely XII Boar.

As I stated earlier, this is a vinyl only release, so you need to head over to their store and pick up a copy of the slick purple 7" that the songs come on, complete with a CD and trucker girl sticker.

For Fans Of; Down, Artimus Pyledriver, Orange Goblin, Weedeater, Crowbar

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Back Behind The Barrels...

XII Boar - Split Tongue, Cloven Hoof EP (2012)

Oh we love these guys and their very own style of classic heavy metal and crunching stoner groove. They tread that fine line of being ultimately unique yet able to adequately convey who their influences are through their sound without stepping on any toes. Thats pretty hard to do without planting yourself firmly within that cliché metal niche that usually results in bands trying too hard to be the next Pantera or such like. Very little really grates on me more to be honest. But XII Boar have nicely dodged that bullet from day one. Their 2011 full length album 'XII' was storming behemoth of a debut by anyones standards and thankfully they've returned with another contribution in the form of this 4 track EP Split Tongue, Cloven Hoof. 

So have they kept that edge and ferocity of the previous offering? Well... No. Truth be told, they've only gone one better and stepped it up a gear. I swear, press play and this EP bolts straight out the gates and just hoof's you square in the balls. The opening drum beat and riff combination of track 1, Smokin' Bones has got to be one of the best set openers I've heard since Dopefight's Nob.Nod.Noi and nothing lets up from then on. It maybe less than 20 minutes long but what the EP lacks for in length it more than makes up for in enthusiasm and shear dirty grooves. The whole thing is bathed in an such an eclectic range of tones - quintessential elements of metal, southern, heavy, classic and stoner rock, hardcore and even blues. But amazingly it does all this without becoming even in the slightest bit disjointed and muddled. I'd love to think if Clutch came from New Orleans and turned their hand to metal this is what they'd sound like. 

With twice as much energy as a toddler jacked up on Red Bull and with more blistering fret work than Kirk Windstein on pcp this one hell of a follow up release. If these boys can drop a full length studio album with the same formula I think the Great British stoner metal scene is gonna received one hell of a kick up the arse. Orange Goblin are going to be have to keep looking over the shoulder from now on...

~ Jay

For Fans Of;  Orange Goblin, Weedeater, The Sword, Red Fang, Thunder Horse

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Split Tongue, Cloven Hoof (320kbps)

Givin' It Both Barrels...

XII Boar - Demo (2011)

Apologies are in order. I wrote this entry a while back but I set the date wrong and I never went live when it should have. Bloody technology! Anyway, this is XII Boar, a stoner rock trio from Hampshire, England. They make dirty music for dirty people, and we bloody love it!
Sounding like the bastard child of Spiritual Beggars and Superjoint Ritual this sweet little EP/Demo just bursts with fuzzy grooves and head bobbing riffs one after another. It's like a smörgåsbord of stoner rock goodness, taking a little something from the genre and all its sub genres alike.

If this demo is a good foundation to what we can expect in the future from these guys then good god we're in for a treat...

~ Jay

For Fans Of; Crowbar, Orange Goblin, Red Fang, Winnebago Deal, Gurt

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Demo (320kbps)