BONGRIPPER

..
CONTACT:
Bongripper Email
IN PRINT AND AVAILABLE:
- Hate Ashbury CD
- Hippie Killer CD
Paypal, Money Order or Concealed Cash Accepted.
Paypal email: [email protected]
Don't have a payapl account
You can now get "Hate Ashbury" & "Hippie Killer" at ...
RELAPSE RECORDS
CD BABY
iTunes
DISCOGRAPHY:
2006 - BONGRIPPER - The Great Barrier Reefer - SOLD OUT!
50 Wrapped Jewel Cased CDs - OOP - 2006
2008 Reissues:
50 White CDs -OOP Click here to see cover
50 Silver CDs - OOP Click here to see cover
All versions are OOP. No more CDs. If you really want it, get some label to put out the vinyl.
2007 - BONGRIPPER - Hippie Killer - CDs STILL AVAILABLE -
$7 US $10 International
2007 - BONGRIPPER - Heroin -Noise / Drone album
Heroin Kit - 25 Limited - OOP - SOLD OUT!!!! (very quickly. never coming back!!)
Click here to see the Heroin Kit -
2008 - Reissued CD only Version - limited to 100 - OOP
2008 - BONGRIPPER - Hate Ashbury
Extended CD Version - AVAILABLE
Cassette Version - Out on Scab On my Brain - limited to 100 - http://www.myspace.com/scabonmybrain
2008 - BONGRIPPER & WINTERS IN OSAKA - Meat Ditch 3" CD - limited to 100 - OOP
REVIEWS
HATE ASHBURY
It's easy for people to dismiss a band like Bongripper. Instrumental doom metal isn't the most glamorous business out there, and the band's name just screams "gimmick." Every time I mention Bongripper to someone, I get scoffed at. "PFFFFFFFFFFFFFT oh real cool kid BONG you think that's funny? Grow up."I don't know if the band was trying to be funny or simply thought the name was an accurate summary of their sonic nature, but there's definitely nothing gimmicky about their music. In fact, I'll go ahead and say they are easily the best active doom metal band besides Electric Wizard (for the record, I'm not including High on Fire or Boris in my definition of doom metal). The band's 2006 debut, The Great Barrier Reefer, was the best doom release since Dopethrone, and before that, Dopesmoker. I guess weed consumption really is a pre-requisite for doom greatness.Despite having much in common with the titans of traditional doom, Bongripper puts a new twist in the genre. By utilizing drone and ambient tricks with whirly psychedelics en route to spaced-out jams amid or in between the ultra-heavy sound defining the genre the band roots in, Bongripper has pretty much gone post-heavy. Their latest full-length (and fourth since 2006), Hate Ashbury, is their most varied release yet.Oh, and as far as I know, Bongripper is not against countercultural behavior (their influences are listed as Black Sabbath and Satan). They just hate hippies.Anyway, Hate Ashbury is a truly impressive brew of just about all experimental heavy sounds you can imagine. There are a couple straight up post-doom tracks, which generally feature separate parts of either extreme heaviness or spacey rock sessions similar to 35007. That type of song has been Bongripper's forte to this point, but with other Hate Ashbury tracks either being straight up noise or drone, or making a mixture of all of these types of music, it seems that Bongripper may have outgrown their original style.The first track on Hate Ashbury (all the songs of which are nameless) gives the listener fair warning of this. For the first couple minutes the only detectable noise is a couple resonating twangs and vague whirs and scrapes. After about three minutes, a textureless low-end noise sets in, giving the brooding sound preceding it a backbone that lifts it to an ominous stature. Over the course of the next seven minutes, the song consistently builds in loudness and adds a bundle of feedback, distortion and noise wrinkles that seem to announce the album's full awakening. At this peak in the song, it seamlessly gives way to the next.An initial blast of feedback crashes into a series of sludgy drones, and much like the first track, additional noise exercises are added as the track progresses. After a few minutes, the heaviness devolves into one of the previously mentioned spacey post-rock interludes.Like how the first track moved into the second, the second track moves into the third as if these were all one long song. Given that, it isn't surprising that the third track mostly just sounds like a variation of the second. Again, this track latches onto the fourth for a transition as smooth as the previous three. This fourth chapter of Hate Ashbury might be the band's heaviest moment yet. The intro riffs are mountainous and pave the way for another four minutes of totally solid traditional doom riffing.My favorite track on Hate Ashbury is song number eight. A buzzing drone and a menacing guitar hiss open the track, quickly followed by a winding bass line and eerie, unusually restrained guitar arrangement, giving the track an apprehensive atmosphere. This all builds up to one of the band's more epic moments, creating a sort of post-doom sonic vortex which births a six minute stretch that summarizes the band's potential with their most cohesive blend of noise, psychedelic post-rocking and doom heaviness of the album.The one thing Bongripper can stand to improve is the general variety of their guitars, especially the pace. The riffs change, but the speed doesn't. Throwing a little juke here and there and going crazy once in a while won't compromise your doom-legitimacy, dudes. Besides, Iommi would do it.On the whole, though, these guys are onto something awesome. Their ambition (four full-lengths all nearly clocking in at 80 minutes) and general impressiveness to this point gives me a reason to think they'll only get better. The willingness to utilize techniques normally seen strictly in noise and drone genres along with their post-doom formula could yield great, innovative results for them (if it hasn't already).Oh, and one more thing. Bongripper is currently an unsigned band, which is totally ridiculous. You underground/metal labels out there screwed up. Relapse, Southern Lord, Hydra Head, and all of you other respectable labels (and there are many, you ought to be able to know who you are). Get to work.
8.6/10
SCENEPOINTBLANK.COM
The album starts gently and builds gaining intensity and heaviness as it goes. The tracks blend into one another seamlessly and each builds on what has gone before. They form an album in the truest sense of the word rather than a collection of tracks.May I use an analogy? It’s a bit like an 18 wheeler parked on a long, long hill, one that would take 40 minutes to travel. You take the handbrake off, and off you roll. It’s not a steep hill, it does have its deeper and shallower moments, and as the road levels during these passages, it’s as if you have would the windows down and all you can hear is the wind and the sound of the tyres rolling on the gravel road.The volume builds and beats a rhythm, repetitive, rhythmic, Industrial, like the sound of pile drivers at work behind a distant steel plant. The road would appear to go on forever as sense of time is lost. And deep within that softness, is hardness, a heaviness that is so genuine it burdens the soul. It’s not the sort of heaviness you get through impact. There are no grinding guitars at work here, it’s achieved by steadily increasing the pressure of the air around you.Distant screaming, drones, solitary notes fading in and out again, humming, like a mantra, singing OM to pay homage to the industrialised nation. Downer, Stoner, Sludge Doom, Ambient, Rock.Getting back to that truck analogy, it’s been rolling a good 15 minutes now and you are not aware of the speed it has picked up (speed be analogous to intensity), Sludge guitars have been hitting single chords for minutes now and you’ve just noticed them. This is the art of ambience, to hear without listening. Riffs that shimmer in the desert heat haze (did I mention this road is in the desert?).Blistering hot metal to touch, so you turn you imaginary fan on, only to find it’s broken and it really is damn hot and claustrophobic in here. But around track 7 the air conditioning suddenly starts working again, but it’s making some weird noises. The temperature drops and keeps ..ping despite your efforts to turn the damn thing off. Ice starts to form on the windows. Images of the road ahead go berserk, the sky turns orange, the road turns upside down. The steering wheel turns into a giant python and tries to swallow. And as you grapple with this monster with you hands around its neck and the truck thunders down that hill, you say to yourself “Yep, that damn guy with the long hair, Afghan coat, bandana and beads at that transport cafe, has slipped a tab of LSD in my coffee, and all because I told him my last album was called ‘Hippie Killer’.After what seems like two days, things calm down again and panic is replaced by paranoia. New will never be so relieved to hear the familiar and comforting sounds of the heavy metal sludge that breaks through this veil of terror. Praise the Bong!This album is a journey and it may take a while for you to get that. It’s no good expecting the quick gratification of a chorus and verse, or putting this on without experiencing the whole thing. It is quite simply a wonderful album. I think it’s a masterpiece.
10/10
-Born In Blood - http://www.borninblood.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=55&t= 6042
Next up we have Chicago’s own Bongripper. I have to out myself here. In the interest of full disclosure it should probably be pointed out that I’m biased. We’re friends with Bongripper and have played a bunch of shows with them. That doesn’t change the fact, however, that they’re a kick ass sludge band.Really. This isn’t one of those cases where some asshole is talking up his friend’s shitty band to be nice to them. Bongripper really do deliver the fucking goods.If you have the good fortune of seeing them live you’ll be treated to some of the heaviest shit you’ll ever hear. For four little guys who probably still get carded when they try to buy beer (he’s heating up…), they can bring the stoner-sludge like nobody’s business.Last night, Bongripper leveled me. They’re just that fucking loud and heavy.As for the new album, it’s called “Hate Ashbury,” continuing their trend of hippie bashing album titles, following up their last proper full length, “Hippie Killer.” For a band called Bongripper they sure like to trash talk hippies. Hey guys… how about you call your next album “Patchuzi” and have a picture of a patchouli stinking hippie being mowed down by Uzi fire?Where was I? Oh yeah. Hate Ashbury.So I couldn’t find a picture of the artwork anywhere online so for tonight’s performance the part of Bonripper’s album cover will be played by Dave Mustaine eating pancakes. Apparently, when your band is called “Bongripper,” you’ve got better things to do than put a fucking jpeg of your artwork online (he’s heating up…).So this record is a fucking kick in the babymaker. For real. Bongripper’s heaviness knows no end. It’s like in the Salem Witch Trials when they used to drop a door on you and put a bunch of weights on it and if you were a witch you wouldn’t die from the rib crushing asphyxiation. Listening to Bongripper is like that, but sweet lady death never comes. You just keep getting the weight dropped on you over and over again.I think the best band to compare Bongripper to would be Tides on their first record, but really, if you’ve ever heard a sweet stoner riff in your entire life you can pretty much imagine what they sound like. Think of that sweet riff. Got it? Now make it heavier. Still with me? Now play it for ten minutes until it dissolves into wall of shimmering, blistering, sludgey noise. You’re now imagining a Bongripper song. Enjoy.This album is technically one giant song, but it’s broken up into 8 chunks, each which kind of have their own feel. Some are more straightforward sludge, some are a bit more noisy, and some are, well… just noise.That’s probably the one problem I have with this album. There’s about 30 minutes of just straight up noise on it. I love noise, but 30 minutes in 10 minute or so chunks is a lot to ask me to listen to when what I really want to hear is the bong-rattling bass. It took me about 9 minutes to figure out that the first track wasn’t really going to do anything. I mean, come on Bongripper. If I wanted to listen to a bunch of noise that went nowhere I would just go put on your LAST record (HE’S ON FIRE!!!).Overall, though, I promise you that this is one of the heaviest, rockingest, and most satisfying records you’ll hear all year. Do yourself a favor and check it out.And if you happen to see Bongripper, bring some fucking earplugs. You'll need them.
- i'm the most important fucking person in the world blog. - http://itmifpitw.com/node/38
Referencing the notorious San Francisco district Haight Ashbury, Bongripper relishes another opportunity to smash the hippie mold. Hate Ashbury re-affirms the Chicago quartet's slogan, "The only good hippie is a dead hippie." A hostile illustration plasters Hate Ashbury with anti-beatnik animosity. All peace, love, and happiness vanish as the fingers of the peace sign are torn from the joints.Pt. III (excerpt) Pt. IV (excerpt)Yet Bongripper conjures a sweet high, injecting dense doom with kisses of ambient mist. After two minutes, "Pt. III" lingers like smoke escaping weed-infested lungs. The delay pedal, bass hum, and drum batter caress like soft hands. The atmospheric delicacy is nice for a change, but it evaporates as guitars plow into the vapor on "Pt. IV." Despite its lack of vocals, the transition is an awakening. When asked why Bongripper despises hippies, guitarist Nick Dellacroce replies, "The real question is, 'What is there to like about hippies?' Fuck peace. Hail Satan. Worship doom." If there’s food for thought in those statements, I suggest the latter for mass consumption.
- invisibleoranges.com
HIPPIE KILLER
Hippie Killer is so good, you'll want to develop a massive marijuana habit right away and spend your days lurking through the ten part expedition of doom laden valleys and psychedelic post rock peaks, bong in hand. After the first intro piece, Bongripper literally rips your head off and dumps all sort of riff heavy hallucinogens right down your neck. I am not kidding. Demon hands actually rip out of your speakers, threatening your very well being and replace your life with the chunkiest riffs known to man. And just when you think, "Damn! I needs me some oxygen!! Bongripper is stealing all the atmosphere!", just then, they lay on the breeziest post-rock bliss, sending you soaring through stratospheres of lost planets, skating on rings of Saturn, fluffy white clouds belying the utter sonic death you just experienced. These parts are equally as powerful as the face-melting doom they just ended your measly life with. Imagine if Godspeed You! Black Emperor just took a left turn into Absolutego territory. Not only would all those violin players be scared shitless, you'd have Bongripper standing right in front of you, blowing smoke right in your face, laughing Legions laugh.
The guys from Bongripper seem really cool. They have personally stated that they do this only for the love of music. One of the members even leaked the albums in an effort to pollute our minds with weed smoked doom. They are from Chicago and they are selling Hippie Killer on CD for 7 bucks... a steal. Go to their myspace and check em out. They all play in various other bands, all in the metal / post-rock variety and they have two more releases coming out this year - Heroine and Satan Worshiping Doom.
- Zen and the Art of Face Punching ..http://zen-face-punch.blogspot.com/2007/07/bongripper.html ..
We are looking for labels and distros that would like to distribute our releases. We are also looking for any labels that would like to put out future and/or past releases. ESPECIALLY VINYL! Please contact us if you are interested.