Bison B.C. “Quiet Earth” CD

"Quiet Earth" is the sophomore full-length from Canada's Bison B.C. (released by Metal Blade Records), who I had never heard of before, but will certainly be looking forward to hearing more from. I sat on this one for a few weeks because for some reason I feared it might be rather generic "stoner rock" (Maybe it was their logo? I don't know.)—a genre that I've always been fairly picky about—but something about the aesthetic of the cover art intrigued me, so I gave it a shot. And hot damn am I glad I did, because this shit is fucking great. There is a certain degree of that whole "stoner rock" influence happening (mainly due to some fiery leads and the occasional foray into straightforward dual guitar harmonies), but for the most part we're talkin' eight tracks of doomy, sludgy, hardcore/punk-infused rock in a little under 45 minutes, and this shit's way more diverse and high-energy than the vast majority of bands operating in and around this particular realm. It's heavy as hell but super crisp, with an absolutely stellar bass presence, and the quality of the riffs is top fucking notch—not only faster and more aggressive than most such acts, but weaving in sparse discordant textures and even some old school sounding metal rhythms that's all just a hell of a lot more creative than what you'd expect, which pays off big time. Very cool. I'm quite surprised I'm not seeing more mentions of these guys out there as of late, 'cause this is a killer set of tunes.

Bison B.C. "Dark Towers"

In the belly of the beast, bastards bloated from the feast. Walking through this land of death, are we wasting our last breath? We hear the prophets call, when the profits fall. All will soon be gone.

Metal Blade Records (CD/mp3)
The End Records (CD)
Relapse Records (CD)
Amazon.com (mp3)
iTunes (mp3)