Heavy Metal Textbooks

KILLER SPLITS

Last weekend, after reviewing Ripple Music's Turned To Stone Chapter 1 split album, I found myself reminiscing about some of the other great split stoner rock albums I have enjoyed over the years, and would like to share some of my favorites with you.  If you are already familiar with them, I hope this post will bring back fond memories, and if these are new to you, even better.  

Let's start with some serious fuzz:

(2004)

Sweden's Astroqueen:

Argentina's Buffalo:

More fuzz, you say???

"Fuzzsplit of the Century" is the name of this album:

Sweden's Truckfighters:

Firestone, also Swedish:

Are you hip to the fact that while the California desert may have birthed the modern fuzz sound, Sweden ran with it, and is still producing great fuzz today.  This one's an oldie but one of the greatest fuzz splits ever.  

More Swedish Fuzz.  There are 12 great tracks on this one. 
Don't just take my word for it.  This is the greatest album in this post, due to its 62½ minutes of unrelenting heavy, fuzzy, heartfelt stoner rock.

This is Asteroid:

And Blowback, with the coolest tune in this post so far::

Now a California/Sweden split:

 Here's the legendary Nebula:

Teamed up with the great Lowrider, who is dropping a new album in three weeks.
(same album)

Let's go California/Netherlands now:

Josh invented this genre with Kyuss, and has since continued to reinvent it since.  This is Queens Of The Stone Age from the "nineteen hundreds"

(1998)

and now Beaver with "Morocco":

More Dutch fuzz:  Here's a split by The Machine and Sungrazer:

Now, getting less fuzzy and a little heavier...
Here's a great split from a few years ago, by Gorilla and Grifter, both from the United Kingdom.

Here's Gorilla, clearly influenced by Motorhead:

And now Grifter:

Now an American classic, Acid King and The Mystick Krewe Of Clearlight

First, California's Acid King with the split's opening track, "Blaze In":

And Louisiana's Mystick Krewe Of Clearlight, a primarily instrumental band that made the occasional exception, to accommodate guest appearances such as the great Scott Weinrich:

Now some East Coast heavy.  This is a 2004 split by New York's Greatdayforup and the great Solace from New Jersey.  

Here is Greatdayforup with "August, 1979".  Unbelievably great tune.

Regular readers know that Solace is one of my favorite bands of all time.  

Check out the guitar interplay as this song develops.  

As distinctive as Thin Lizzy or Iron Maiden or [name any band here]'s guitar duos.

Here's an epic cover of Link Wray's classic song "Rumble":

There are some more great splits, but this is it for now.  

I'm expecting one of the most exciting Superbowls ever today.  

Part of me wants to see Andy Reid get the respect he deserves, but I will enjoy this one no matter what happens.  It's kind of liberating not to "have a dog in this fight".  I expect Garoppolo and Mahomes to both be great, and will be big-time surprised if this game is a blowout.

Hashtag "pablo..are you washing your ass?"

-ULTRA