RecaPitulation: Pelican, Black Heart Procession, Blitzen Trapper

Moms, please don't put your kids on leashes. And if you do, don't drag them around on leashes. And if you do, don't drag them around on leashes in a Verizon store.

We’ve been inundated lately with new and upcoming instru-metal, from the Russian Circles’ Geneva (10/20, Suicide Squeeze) to Caspian’s Tertia (9/15, the Mylene Sheath) to Isis’ Wavering Radiant (already out) to Sunn 0)))’s Monoliths & Dimensions (also out). Hey, you won’t hear any complaints from us. Now comes news that we’ll soon have another dose of sticky-sweet sludge, in the form of a new Pelican record, What We All Come to Need. The album has already gotten a stamp of approval from Isis’ Aaron Turner and Sunn 0)))’s Greg Anderson. How do we know this? Well, because those cats - plus Ben Verellen from Harkonen and Allen Epley from Shiner - are featured on the record, which will be dropping this fall on Anderson’s Southern Lord. The Chicago band only has two dates - with Sunn 0))), Eagle Twin and Earth on Thursday in Seattle and September 22 in Brooklyn - but will surely be beefing up its itinerary as the beastly release nears. …

Another one we’re itching for: the Black Heart Procession’s latest cavalcade, Six, which arrives October 6 via Temporary Residence Ltd. And look out, the band has just coughed up a bunch of tour dates, which will keep them on the road from October 17 in their San Diego hometown through November 15 in San Francisco - touching on the South, Canada, the Midwest and the Pacific Northwest along the way. Don’t worry, L.A.: You get your own special show Friday at Spaceland. Sidling up to morbid crooner/guitarist Pall Jenkins and guitarist/pianist Tobias Nathaniel will be the Album Leaf’s Matt Resovich (violin), Goodbye Blue Monday drummer Jason Hooper and Jovi Butts of Mr. Tube and the Flying Objects (bass). …

The song of the day belongs to Blitzen Trapper, whose “Black River Killer” sounds like Tom Petty covering Nirvana covering the Meat Puppets’ “Lake of Fire”:

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A tune couldn’t better suit the gray summer mornings that have been surprising us the past couple of weeks here in Santa Monica. The band’s EP of the same name descends August 25 on Sub Pop. …

He’s baaack. Just when you thought you had heard the last from Har Mar Superstar, the pudgy, Ron Jeremy-looking, pole-straddling, back-hair-sprouting disco-demon spawn of Beck has returned. Five years since he last made women everywhere question their heterosexuality, Har Mar will squirt out Dark Touches on October 13 via L.A. indie upstart Dilettante Recordings. Members of the Faint, the Bird and the Bee, Neon Neon - plus Adam Green and P.O.S. - are all guilty as charged for having abetted Har Mar with the song craft and production. 

Get the farty started with this track, “Tall Boy,” which was supposed to be recorded by Britney Spears:

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Well, it took until day 36 in the life of this blog for a BS mention to appear. Not too shabby, right? …

Shonen Knife surprised us with the title track to their new album, Super Group - grab the MP3 here - proving that even bands that were invented before the toaster oven can still pack a wallop. They’ll be spreading the power-punk goodness that is their August 25 Good Charamel release with a monthlong U.S. trek lasting from October 16 in New York until November 18 in … New York. But don’t worry, places that aren’t New York, the band will be hitting elsewhere: the Northwest, Southwest and Southeast, we’re looking at you in particular. Lending support will be a rotating cast of bands: Ty Segall, Jeff the Brotherhood and Golden Triangle - none of which we can attest to having heard of before (man, there are so many bands these days).  …

There are few people in the history of music we have more respect for than Alan Lomax, the Vespucci-esque ethnomusicologist we tangentially tipped our hats to in one of our first editions of “The Rising.” We were pleased to discover today that the fall will mark the release of a gargantuan 10-disc box set, all based around a single trip the late Lomax - who was a “cultural icon” in the truest sense of the term - made to Haiti from late 1936 through early ‘37. Persuaded by author Zora Neale Hurston to document the country’s cultural tapestry of music, he recorded more than 50 hours of soon-to-be-not-unreleased music in collaboration with the Library of Congress. Also tucked into the set - which is being issued by the Lomax estate, LoC and the Association for Cultural Equity - are drawings, diagrams, other assorted documentation and videos. …

Creepy metal album cover of the day, courtesy Immortal:

Depending on the level of affinity you have for metal, your nightmares will either end or begin on September 25, when Nuclear Blast America gives birth to All Shall Fall. …

If we actually enjoyed country crooner Billy Currington’s music, we’d do a Road Warriors installment based around the hard-to-believe account in this Mercury/MCA Nashville press release we just got:

“Due to severe storms and tornadic weather activity on Saturday night, the stage at the Big Valley Jamboree music festival in Camrose, Alberta, Canada’s largest country music festival, collapsed where singer Billy Currington was performing.  Currington was on the last song of his set when the wind blew the staging down on top of him and his band.

“Currington was taken to the hospital and suffered a minor concussion but is expected to make a full recovery. He has been released from the hospital and has returned to his home in Nashville.  Currington’s bass player Alex Stevens was pinned under the wreckage of the stage for half an hour while rescue personnel removed debris to free him.  Stevens underwent immediate surgery to repair a severed artery and nerves in his left arm and is currently receiving treatment in Nashville.  Currington sent a message to his fans today via Twitter, ‘The boys and I are very grateful to be home and for life itself.  We thank you for your prayers and concern and will see you on the road again soon.’ ”

Alternative Press, what hath thou become? The mag’s fall tour will feature the likes of the Academy Is …, Mayday Parade and some other bands we’d only see if we were the ones getting paid. AP, phone home.