Label Of The week
Southern Lord
Southern Lord is an interesting label. Since its first release in 1998 Thorr’s Hammer Dommedagsnatt ithas been inflicting powerful noise on peoples ears, including many re-issues from punk / trash bands like the offenders, Poison Idea or Battallion Of Saints.
It doesn’t stop there, pretty much the whole roster has some beginning in noise, like Pelican’s instrumental power or Sunn O))) heavy heavy beats.
The label was formed in 1997 by Greg Anderson in Los Angeles, CA. Initially it was founded to release albums by Andersons’ personal projects (Thorrs’ Hammer, Burning Witch, Goatsnake, sunn O))) ) but developed into a force far mightier than originally envisioned! Over the last 17 years Southern Lord has worked with artists such as: Dave Grohl (PROBOT project) Wino (St. Vitus, The Obsessed, The Hidden Hand), Sleep, Earth, Wolves In the Throne Room, Today Is The Day and Pelican.
The label continues to release albums by artists/family close to Anderson (sunn O))), Goatsnake, Brotherhood). As Andersen himself said “I’m extremely grateful that people have connected with what Southern Lord puts out. The main reason I do this label is to turn people onto music… it’s like tape trading, from back in the day, magnified one hundred times and turned into a career. I know it sounds cliché, but everyday I wake up and I can’t believe my job is turning people onto music. I think what the label does works because it’s about going with our gut and not putting out records to be rich and famous. If we wanted to do that we’d have to put out a lot of albums we don’t care about.”
The latest addition to the label are Like Rats
Several members of Like Rats also hold rank in Chicago-based powerviolence/grindcore faction, Weekend Nachos, yet with this alter-ego, the focus of the beatdown is much more heavily influenced by death metal, with generous helpings of caveman swing, and with a catastrophic end result one may imagine by crossing the old-school slaughter of Incantation, Celtic Frost and Obituary over with the modern devastation of the likes of Nails, Black Breath and Dead In The Dirt.
Like Rats upcoming full-length, II, delivers eight new tunes, with thirty-three minutes of pure savagery. Recorded by Andy Nelson (Dead In the Dirt, Harms Way), the Weekend Nachos crew has spawned an entirely different beast with Like Rats, and the damaging proof lies in the band’s Southern Lord debut. II will see release on LP, all digital platforms, and marks the band’s compact disc debut. The CD version will also compile every filthy note the band has ever recorded, including their previously vinyl-only releases and the new II album, with twenty-two tracks in total.
niallhope
