BLOODY HAIRY!!

The Midlands in the late 60s could claim to be the birthplace of heavy rock. But while Zep and Sabbath went on to global success, what became of their heftty, and hirsute, peers? With the release of a new compilation – a Nuggets for proto-stoner rock and doom fans – Stevie Chick mans the excavator.

- Stevie Chick

Lee Dorrian (right) is pondering that brief period in the late 60s and early 70s when rock bands - especially in the UK, and particularly in the Midlands - got darker, louder, hairier and, above all, heavier. Few are better qualified to ruminate on the heavy era than Dorrian, former frontman of grindcore pioneers Napalm Death and founder of Cathedral, the UK’s premier exponents of doom metal - the subgenre that cured the Thrash-era’s obsession with velocity and returned Metal to its fundaments of riff, volume and heaviness. He’s also the proprietor of Rise Above Records And Relics - a second-hand record shop on London’s Archway Road that specialises in jazz, reggae, punk and, yes, heaviosity - approaching this role with admirable seriousness (“I don’t like to use words like ‘stock’ when referring to records - it cheapens them, it’s vulgar”). And, since 1988, he’s been the founding mogul of Rise Above Records, an independent imprint that’s released key heavy artists such as Electric Wizard, Sunn 0))), Sleep and Grammy-winning Swedish anti-Papists Ghost.

The label's latest release is the reason Dorrian’s calling today. Dedicated to the “sons and daughters of the mighty Sabbath”, Yeah Man, It's Bloody Heavy!! compiles “brain-mincing, hard’n’heavy sounds from the golden-era (late 60s/early 70s) of sub-underground British rock”. Consider it a Nuggets for the heavy years - though, as Dorrian is quick to point out, when Lenny Kaye compiled those “Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era” back in 1972, each track had already seen official release, and some of them had even been hits. These Bloody Heavy nugs, by contrast, were culled from previously unreleased acetates and demo-tapes by groups - and let’s take a second to savour such period-perfect monikers as Agatha’s Moment, Macbeth Periscope and Band Of Mental Breakdown (AKA B.O.M.B.) - who are mostly enjoying their first-ever outings on vinyl here.