Conjuring The Black Code

When placed my first order from All That Is Heavy, at the beginning of 2013, I was put on their mailing list, and would receive occasional email with updates to their webstore. I would scour this list, looking for new Doom bands to check out. It seemed that with each email I received, I kept seeing this band named Wo Fat listed. I ignored them for months, but all the hype I had read was too much, and one hot and humid August day last summer, I finally caved in and grabbed a download to check them out.

I'd been consumed with my discovery of Fu Manchu all summer, and Wo Fat were like a darker, more doomy version of them. While Fu Manchu has a California sun and surf vibe going on, Wo Fat instead choose to lurk in the dark swamps of the south, and flirt with more sinister sounds. With that fuzzed out guitar tone and riffs, I was sold immediately.

When I finally started looking around for a copy of The Black Code this year, I found that it was a bit difficult to find a copy. As soon as All That Is Heavy came back from their long hiatus, I saw that they still had a few copies left in stock, so I quickly grabbed one.

Limited to 250 on gold vinyl.

After my trouble tracking down a copy of The Black Code, I didn't want to end up in the same position with their new album, The Conjuring, and I ordered a copy as soon as I saw that Small Stone was taking pre-orders. After waiting a month or so, I checked in with the label, and it seems as though the pressing plant broke the b-side stamper, and then when they went to make a new one, they ended up welding the plates together...therefore they had to completely re-cut the plates. If that wasn't bad enough, a month later, the Small Stone offices were flooded. With this streak of bad luck, it was no surprise that things were delayed...and when the record landed in my mailbox this month, I let out a sigh of relief.

The art for this may possibly be the best looking album cover released this year. Damn, this shit is so good, and with the song Dreamwalker clocking in over 17 minutes, complete with a stoner jam, I'm pretty sure that I walked away from this record with a contact high after my first listen. This doesn't count as an edge break, does it?

250 on transparent red vinyl.