Stone Titan

Courtesy of the good people at Safety Meeting Records, here is some fresh sludge in the form of the title track of Stone Titan‘s forthcoming debut LP, Scratch N’ Sniff.
Okay, so those of you who are familiar with the underground scene in South Windsor, Connecticut, may well know all about the trio’s trippy sludge. But, for the rest of us who are not quite as clued up on The Nutmeg State’s repertory of dive-bar metal, Stone Titan’s sound is all about low-end and off-kilter guitars fighting it out in the mix with the bass, psych-grooves, and the sort of localized nihilism and anxiety associated with the morning after the beer and the drugs.
Stone Titan are a mess, fucked up in all the right places, and “Scratch N’ Sniff” is one fat pile of gelatinous groove, hollered spite, squawking feedback, with a nasty like HxCx feel-change halfway in. But while it’s a great track, it’s probably not even close to being the best jam on the album (for our dollar, that’s got to be the E.H.G. grade misery ‘n’ riffs of “I Wish I Was Fucking Dead”, or the morbid waddle of “A Brief History of Overweight Men”).
- See more at: http://www.decibelmagazine.com/featured/streaming-stone-titan-premiere-title-track-from-scratch-n-sniff/#sthash.ewntpPLv.dpuf - Decibel Magazine

On their new LP, South Windsor, CT’s Stone Titan connects with all the subtlety of a brick to the cranium. And that’s by design, since their brand of mayhem mixes the metallic heaviness of Sludge/Doom with the abrasion of noise rock and even solid touches of punk-derived oomph. And in the process the band occasionally attains a psychedelic edge, though it’s a feeling much closer to the teeth-gnashing qualities of low-grade LSD than the agreeable transformations brought on by natural psychotropic substances. Scratch n’ Sniff ain’t a pretty ride, but it’s a succinct and very effective one.

According to the resources of the ol’ internets, Stone Titan was formed in 2008 by guitarist/vocalist Scott Martin, drummer Brad Nowell, and bassist Matt Elder. In 2010 Elder was replaced by current member Kyle Tremblay, and during that same year they commenced issuing a handful of releases. Most were self-produced, and they appeared in a variety of formats including cassette, CDR, digital download via Bandcamp, and even a 7-inch from last year.

These documents provide some enlightening background into the development of this metallic trio, movements that lean toward unsurprising sonic precedent like Sabbath and the Melvins and Eyehategod on one hand, and to less predictable stuff like Spacemen 3 and even the heavier side of Hawkwind on the other. For example, on the Supergiant CDR from 2010 (currently a free download on their Bandcamp page), the nearly thirteen minute long opening title track combines the doom-laden thrust of prime Sab with early-‘70s heavy-psych gestures and tosses in the appropriate vocal croak for good measure.


While the song did nothing to reshape the parameters of a very prolific (if to a large extent quite underground) genre, that didn’t seem to be the intention, for as a CDR release, Supergiant’s function seemed comparable to a demo. And as a signifier of early growth, it does its job pretty well. In 2011 Stone Titan surfaced on a pair of cassettes, one a tour tape titled Drink Beer, Fold Space, the other a split with fellow CT band Gowl that was fittingly called Stone Titan vs. Gowl.

As of this writing, neither of those items has made an acquaintance with my ear canals, but a few of the songs listed on the tour cassette also materialize on the group’s two 2012 releases, a 5-song digital thingy (also free via Bandcamp) endearingly titled Fuck Y’all and a self-titled vinyl single. The highlights on the former include a solid cover of Eyehategod’s “$30 Bag” and a pair of suitably sludgy originals, but most interesting was two impressively psych-loaded excursions, “Rapture Jam (Our Souls Didn’t Make It)” and the plainly but suitably named “Psychedelic Jam.”

Both of these tracks, the former again tipping close to thirteen minutes, explored a dark expansive zone where the heaviness of the riffs is combined with a fluid expansionist motion, and the latter even conjured the blissful edge that Spacemen 3 copped (and greatly enhanced) from late ‘60s Texas and Detroit. And up to this point, Stone Titan’s sound was largely slow (though not necessarily dirge-like), but on their 7-inch, the band shifted into a more uptempo (if not all that speedy) mode that while still metallic (and psych-informed), also displayed a relationship with the parameters of hardcore punk.

To elaborate, that record’s two songs, “Planet Melter” and “I Fucking Hate You,” (what a bunch of sweethearts) still possessed enough Sabbath-esque undercurrents to satisfy fans of the groups aligned with the Southern Lord roster, but Stone Titan also emitted a vibe that was in accord with some of the more outré material associated with the ’80 punk scene, above all in the blunt negativity that’s manifest in their work. And the crossroads of this whole scenario is the Melvins and St. Vitus, both killer post-Sabbath bands with ‘80s audiences that were largely made up of (often frustrated) punks.

So, if still not blindingly original, the 7-inch did display some real sonic evolution, and with the Safety Meeting Record’s issued Scratch N’ Sniff, they’ve made an even greater progression. Along with an album cover that could easily send snooping parents into severe conniptions of fright and worry over the mental health of their offspring (which is very apropos for this sort of metal/punk racket), the pessimism hasn’t decreased a bit, as opener “I Wish I Was Fucking Dead” makes plain.

That song finds them stomping out of the gate in a manner appropriate to their name, for the riffs are gigantic and tough as concrete, with their formidable nature made even more so by the band’s instrumental dexterity. And while the production here is tangibly bigger than before (previously they’d indulged in a somewhat muffled atmosphere), they also score immediate points for keeping the vocals from overtaking the band’s impressive musicality.

For Martin’s guitar is more than just a riff-machine. It also wails out some thick pedal scree as N - The Vinyl District

Here’s a question for you. What do you get when you mix a doom metal power trio with the dirty, sludgy musical aesthetics of the smelliest swampland around? You get the foundation of a recipe for Connecticut’s Stone Titan.
Let it be stated for the record that Stone Titan, collectively as a band, don’t give a shit. When you write songs with titles like “I Wish I Was Fucking Dead”, or count down a track with “1..2..whatever..” that should become pretty obvious. They don’t care if you like their music. They don’t care if their tongue-in-cheek lyrics (or the ridiculously awesome artwork on their new album) offends you. They certainly don’t care enough about your safety, dear listener, as they get into the proverbial 18-wheeler that is their new album, Scratch ‘N Sniff, and mow you down with it. This album is a hundred tons of crushing steel bearing down at about 100 miles per hour. (There’s probably a math problem in there somewhere that could help you calculate the heaviness of it all. The short answer is “heavy”. Period.) It’s an assault to the senses at every turn. Whether it’s the sheer abrasiveness of the material or the way they are able to make it feel like you are being crushed under its weight, Stone Titan have crafted an album that simply slays. Throw in the occasional lyrical content with a silliness/self-loathing factor reminiscent of acts like Old Lady Drivers, Dead Horse, or Lawnmower Deth and this album is unlike any other doom/sludge record you’ll hear this year.
But with all of that said, it’s important to reiterate that Stone Titan are not some parody act. These guys are not some doom metal version of GWAR. So don’t go into this thinking you’re going to leave amused. Stone Titan make music with purpose (albeit a demented one) and this album is the equivalent to your drunk uncle. They might be fun to hang out with at first but there’s a combination of danger and depression there that makes you not want to get in the car with them at the end of the night.
Scratch ‘N Sniff is out now via Safety Meeting Records. You can preview the entire album over at the Stone Titan Bandcamp page. - metalinsider.net

"it's absolutely filthy. It's about as guttural as a rat carcass floating in a puddle of piss" - theneedledrop.com