Ruby The Hatchet
Valley of the Snake
Tee Pee Records
2015
Bands like The Jefferson Airplane or Babe Ruth, did make quite a name for them in the 60s and 70s, with their hippy psychedelic but somewhat rocking style, being at times adapted by various bands, through the years, that happened to have a female vocalist.
Ruby The Hatchet, come from Philly and they seem to lend a page from the music book of such bands, but they step up on the heavy, coming up with a heavy psych, doom sound... in their effort to appeal to the fans of nerdcore bands like Mastodon, Uncle Acid And The Deadbeats, Royal Thunder and Baroness but also Graveyard and Pentagram as well.
With only six songs spread over almost forty minutes, their songs tend to be jam based and long... they are not necessarily good or bad, as stylewise, they manage to sound, original enough and their singer’s voice, seems to also fit the songs rather well, pleased to meet you, the name’s Jillian Taylor.
If I have an issue with them, is that the vocals of the aforementioned Taylor, are ‘verbed to death and mixed rather low... with the entire production being intentionally lo-fi and lacking in resolution.
At any rate, songs like “Vast Acid”, “The Unholy Behemoth”, “Demons” and the extremely loose “Valley of the Snake” are by no means bad… but since they weren’t recorded in the 60s, they could also sound a bit more up to date… you can do other things to gain, in terms of “retro-illusion” and not record your album poorly. Should this album had a better production; I am guessing it might have been a lot more enjoyable to my ears...
Ruby The Hatchet, come from Philly and they seem to lend a page from the music book of such bands, but they step up on the heavy, coming up with a heavy psych, doom sound... in their effort to appeal to the fans of nerdcore bands like Mastodon, Uncle Acid And The Deadbeats, Royal Thunder and Baroness but also Graveyard and Pentagram as well.
With only six songs spread over almost forty minutes, their songs tend to be jam based and long... they are not necessarily good or bad, as stylewise, they manage to sound, original enough and their singer’s voice, seems to also fit the songs rather well, pleased to meet you, the name’s Jillian Taylor.
If I have an issue with them, is that the vocals of the aforementioned Taylor, are ‘verbed to death and mixed rather low... with the entire production being intentionally lo-fi and lacking in resolution.
At any rate, songs like “Vast Acid”, “The Unholy Behemoth”, “Demons” and the extremely loose “Valley of the Snake” are by no means bad… but since they weren’t recorded in the 60s, they could also sound a bit more up to date… you can do other things to gain, in terms of “retro-illusion” and not record your album poorly. Should this album had a better production; I am guessing it might have been a lot more enjoyable to my ears...