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EARTHRIDE   Vampire Circus   CD   (Southern Lord)    14.98

Vampire Circus IS CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE FOR ORDER

Hell yeah! OK, EARTHRIDE are local guys (hailing from Frederick, Maryland, which is just a few minutes down the road from Crucial Blast HQ), we've seen 'em numerous times, we had them on our Doom Capital compilation we did back in 2004....needless to say, we're big EARTHRIDE fans, and Vampire Circus just delivers more of the crushing biker doom these guys are such fucking masters of. This album does sound a lot heavier than past stuff though, probably in large part due to the presence of Mike Dean from CORROSION OF CONFORMITY as producer. Featuring members of SPIRIT CARAVAN and INTERNAL VOID, EARTHRIDE is Maryland Doom at its most grungy, dropping dank Black Sabbath meets Lynyrd Skynyrd riffs and fronted by our buddy Dave Sherman, whose gnarly blown-throat growl still resembles Lemmy from MOTORHEAD after smoking a carton of cigs in 20 minutes. Total battering-ram rock. Hell yeah. And dig that killer Hammond organ on "Dirtnap" and "Swamp Witch", courtesy of Mick Schauer from CLUTCH, blasting those tunes with some rich Deep Purple/Edgar Winter vibes. The whole thing reeks of primo 70's dirtbag metal caked in sludge.