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Sail the (dangerous) Valley of The Snake...

(Picture : Blues Pills)

So I decided this week will be dedicated to every band having a woman as their lead singer 🙂

The majority of bands we are used to listen to have a man leading, but sometimes I stumble upon awesome female-fronted ones, and I wish it’d happen more often !

I really love when a woman is singing, it gives to the vocals that sexy, high-pitched tone, sometimes with a very rocky approach, sometimes with a very sweet one… I like it so much that it must even biased my own judgement to decide of a band is really a good one 😉

So I hope you’ll enjoy this week, and I especially hope more and more women will continue to delight our ears by leading in bands like the ones you’ll discover this week !

How is the sound ?

Let’s start this week with maybe my favorite band leaded by a woman in the Heavy Rock scene : Ruby The Hatchet !

I discovered them in 2012 with their first LP, Ouroboros, that was the beginning of my long journey into the discovery of Stoner Rock bands (and it’s still going…), and I instantly fell in love with Jillian vocals ! Of course, the 4 dudes behind also stroke me in the face with their awesome catchy and groovy tunes !

Now we are in 2015, 3 years have passed, and I was impatiently waiting for the follow-up to their 2012’s release… And here they come again, for the joy of our ears, Ruby The Hatchet just released this new LP on Tee Pee Records, Valley of The Snake.

And I must say I’m not disappointed ! You can clearly see Valley of The Snake is a more accomplished work than Ouroboros. Even if I loved the groove and the rawness of their 2012 effort, Valley of The Snake has its own atmosphere attached to every 6 of its tracks. It’s darker, way more mystical, and has an overall doomier sound signature.

I think they made the right choice because this retro/occult side is a rising trend in our scene. Of course it’s better to be the first to lead the way (hello Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats) to get all the fame. But when you have the chance to have that beautiful, bewitching female voice, you can’t go wrong taking that same path !

So yeah Ruby The Hatchet put out a great release with Valley of The Snake, the overall atmosphere this record delivers is top-notch, but this may also be where you can criticize it… Indeed, I think we lost the groove of Ouroboros, and I’d have loved them to incorporate this rockier side between the gloomier parts of this new LP.

Why is this album worth listening ?

A very talented female vocalist worth your attention !

An occult atmosphere that will delight all Psychedelic Doom fans

The last track of the album “Valley of The Snake” is beautiful, almost like a Zeppelin song, slowly escalating until its paroxysm with a nice fuzzy guitar solo !

Just because the cover is gorgeous 😉

In what situation you should listen to this album ?

Sailing the Valley of The Snake on your miserable bark, your only guide is the moon light reflecting on the water… Suddenly you hear some weird distant moans ! Is that little animals ? Or maybe could it be something else ?? Don’t worry, you’ll discover it soon enough ..!

Something particular to note ?

Also listen to Ouroboros to understand what I wanted to say in the review 😉