A cluster-bomb of 18 titanic guitar-based instrumental tracks crisscrossing the realms of darkly melodic and mysterious 60's Surf Music, to 1970's-style crusty, skull crushing Fuzzed-Out Riff-Rock, and into the echoed outer rims of vacuum-tubed Space Rock

18 MP3 Songs in this album (58:43) !
Related styles: Rock: Surf Rock, Rock: Instrumental Rock, Featuring Guitar

People who are interested in 60’s exploitation films, Dick Dale, Black Sabbath, Fu Manchu, Mötorhead, should consider this download.


Details:
Residents of Sonoma C.A... Be glad that Joe Koch, the one man mastermind behind the solo recording project called, "Hella Vader", chose the route of musician. Judging by the sounds that he has forged together if he had chosen say, bomb-making, he would've found a way of combining the cow manure that pervades the Sonoma soil with some unlikely Radio Shack AM crystal radio kit, weed-killer, and a box of matches to create a neighborhood disturbance of more serious consequences. That buzz-saw sound and pounding noise coming from his garage are not the sounds of a madman building some weapon of mass destruction. That's the tortured sound of fuzz boxes, and of floor toms. Of Mosrite, reverb and Hammond being revealed one layer at a time. He says his guitars have wires instead of strings, and I believe him. What the hell is he doing in there? Well here, people. Now you know.

The Hella Vader disc XVIII, contains 18 songs which secretly I believe to be the soundtrack for his soul. I wouldn't tell him I said that, but that's what I believe. He's not one to sit still for very long so I haven't gotten a chance to know him that well and when he asked me to review and write a little blurb about his collection of recordings I thought maybe I get to spend a little time with him, but that didn't happen. So let's see how he is revealed thorough his music...

First song on the disc is entitled, "Slew Gin Fuzz". It's a cool, fast and aggressive fuzzed out riff rocker that reviewer Phil Dirt described as, "hazardous to your health". I think that musically, this is how Joe wants to be perceived and how he tests the listener, daring them to make it past this first track and when they do, there's nothing but more obstacles and tests. Deeper into the disc is where his gooey center is perhaps revealed, but there are more dark and dangerous waters to tread first. Tracks 2 and 3, "Mammothopolis" and "The Red Triangle", continue on the path of big and assaultive guitar work. The latter a dead-ringer for an authentic early 60's surf instrumental and the former a spacey, stop and go number with a very trippy breakdown buried about 3 1/2 minutes into it that will make your head spin . Track 4, "Galumph", (a Lewis Carroll reference?) is a huge sludge/fuzz tune that plods along with a Sabbath style opening riff which then morphs into a minor-keyed, Danny Elfman sounding melody, and spliced with a very metal sounding guitar solo.

Tracks 5 and 6 turn the adrenaline juices back on. "Star Crunch" moves from cool distorted, echo-y effected guitar riff/sound unlike anything I've heard before, then transitions into a street punk, mosh worthy chorus with a final nod to Dick Dale. "Pursuit in Progress" sounds like a fuzz guitar/70's movie chase scene soundtrack made complete with a wailing siren. Track 7, the eerily titled, "Luci-Fuzz Theme", was a big surprise in this collection of guitar instrumentals. With a creepy, hair-raising Hammond organ playing the lead melody over a chorus of fuzz guitars, and what I thought was a flute, (but was told later that was the sound of a heavily reverbed guitar), playing a second melody back and forth through a dense layered, ominous soundscape.

Tracks 8 and 9 are straight up surf rockers. "Under The Shield" is a modern sounding aggressive, Dick Dale style number while "Creep! Stomp! Twist!" comes off as a Lo-Fi song that seemed to have dropped right out of the 60's Surf music era beach party.

In another bold move, track 10 entitled, "Gummi Robots Theme", features a cartoonish echo lead guitar with some fuzz/wah-wah guitar and an Anime/J-Pop sounding melody to boot. Suddenly we are starting to see a more whimsical and playful side to the guy that hides behind the Hella Vader moniker and with track 11, we get yet another authentic sounding, high energy surf music homage with "Ghost of 1964". But, just to show how tough he really is, the fast and evil, "Eviscerated", is placed before us.

Track 13, another novelty, lo-fi rocker, "She-Fuzz a Go-Go", sounds just like the incidental music that blares out of some transistor radio at a biker party in any Roger Corman/A.I.P. Biker-themed movie, but the next track, "Meatyard", is much more than incidental. When I look at the album cover, "Meatyard" is the theme song for that photo. It's slow, low and heavy like fog. Swirling layers of dark fuzz guitar and organ are split apart by the diffuse sunlight, which in this case is that clear ringing surf guitar sound.

As we make our way towards the end of the disc, it's here, buried at the 15th and 16th tracks that we get to see yet another side of our man Hella Vader. These again are surf style songs that feature that chimey guitar sound, but whereas some of the other songs were maybe silly and fun, the mid-tempoed "La Bruja Blanca" (that's the White Witch, people) and the even slower, "Thoughts of Theda", have an unresolved bitter-sweet sadness about them that is far removed from the bulk of the recordings.

After he gets this out of the way it's back to business as usual with the song "Hella", which is another hyper-surf guitar raga with an exotic melody. Lastly, rounding out the almost one hour disc is one last fun, nonsensical fuzz romp, "Fuzz Munch". A groovy fuzz/wah-wah number that doesn't seem to want to end.