Tumbleweed Dealer - Death Rides Southwards

Setting in the styles of; Pentagram, Black Sabbath, King Crimson, and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Tumbleweed Dealer have a lot of different combination of the genres between Doom Metal and Dark Prog-Rock and show how the true sound of the ‘70s genre is with a huge volt of electricity and fire to go along with it. The trio’s first EP released on the Mosh Pit Tragedy website in which you could buy for any price you want. Just like what Radiohead did with In Rainbows back in 2007, has set the tone for the Stoner Metal genre and the band’s music makes it feel like they could have recorded the three compositions for a Grindhouse Double Feature film in 1972.

The 6-minute piece, Crawling Through Cacti, sets the psychedelic groove in this tempo, there is some heavy fuzz tone structured balanced on the guitar doing both rhythm and lead while the drums stay on the beat. It has a mellowing and laid-back sound that makes it feel that you are in the hottest desert in the outskirts of Egypt looking for land and thirsty for water.

Meanwhile, the opening title track, features some more of the fuzz tone sound, this time on the bass which adds in some of the Nuggets Garage Rock territory and the styles of Geezer Butler as well as the guitar makes it a challenging effect of a Bluesy work of Robert Fripp meets John McLaughlin stylization on the frets to make it a perfect scenario and a perfect score of the Wild West set in the Steampunk universe. There’s also some very pounding effects on the snare drum as it follows the bass and the solo both go into this stop and go movement as they collide like a tight fist that is ready for a boxing match in the last few minutes of the piece.

And then there’s the closer, Resurrected Yet Again. This is where everything comes in at the right place at the right time. It gives it a full structured balance with some minor and major tones that swirls beautifully as it feels that the person who was once insane and locked up for good, is back to seek revenge as Seb Panichaud just nails the guitar and bass parts as if there was two people both recording the guitar parts in the studio to come up with the perfect take to put it on the album and would hopefully become a live favorite one day in the future.

This is perhaps one of the best debuts to come out. And even though its an EP, the result of Death Rides Southwards is perhaps one of the most up-and-coming bands to really understand the basics of Metal and Prog like no other. Hopefully, they might do a soundtrack or a score for a Quentin Tarantino film one day and we can hope they will alter the controls of the universe.