US / THEM: Big Black Cloud stream entire album via SPIN, launch tour with label mates Drunk Dad tomorrow

Portland, OR noise rock trio Big Black Cloud stream their forthcoming new album in its entirety via SPIN.com today. Listen to the album, Black Friday HERE. Big Black Cloud take to the road this week with Eolian Empire label mates Drunk Dad following a tour kickoff/album release show in both bands' hometown. Please see complete dates below.

Brooklyn Vegan recently shared the song "Cities of the Red Night", available to stream/share HERE. The album, Black Friday will be available July 2nd via purveyors of "heavy vibrations" Eolian Empire.

Since fleeing the swampy south for the dank Pacific Northwest almost a decade ago, the furious avant punks have been honing their peerless amalgam of garage, noise rock, psych and genuine weirdness into an ever-sharper set of sticky shivs to get under your skin and turn your brains all inside out. Black Friday is a slithery sci-fi nightmare, all twists and turns and bunsen burns, fuzzed-out unhinged fun.

Big Black Cloud began in 2005 as a four-piece (with the longer moniker Here Comes a Big Black Cloud) that over time grew larger and freakier, but in 2010 turned power trio, their experimentation and extravangances distilled into a crack-shot, whip-smart combo. Their full-length debut, Dark Age, was "an absolutely thrilling listen" (Built On A Weak Spot), "a fantastically frenetic, dark, psychedelic garage rock record" (Permanent Records), "a huge, swirling mess of garage, punk, noise, psych, howls, and yelps" (Maximum Rocknroll), followed in 2011 by the Sh*tty Vibrations cassette EP, "a real game changer" (Terminal Boredom).

But it seems Big Black Cloud moved out of the garage and into a secret cavern laboratory for Black Friday, their two-year labor of loathe. Clearly not content to let everyone catch up, they've pushed further out into the uncharted wild: more primal, more visceral, and a whole lot more menacing. Guitars clang, buzz, and slide, gooey bass relentlessly lopes and bombs, with drums all over the place yet somehow right where they need to be. Everything taken together gives the distinct sense that these three may go completely off the rails at any time, a feeling reinforced by the traded howls and wails of a man and woman who are quite fed up with all the bullsh*t but just can't seem to let it go, even as it drags them over the edge. Ah, but don't think that lets you off the hook... because they will get their hooks in you and drag you with them.

Big Black Cloud is from Portland, Oregon, and comprises guitarist/vocalist Nick Capello, bassist/vocalist Soo Koelbli, and drummer Travis Wainwright. Big Black Cloud has released two 7-inches, a 10-inch, a 12-inch LP (Dark Age), and the Sh*tty Vibrations cassette prior to Black Friday, their first release for Portland outsider label Eolian Empire. We think Big Black Cloud sounds a bit like Circus Lupus and Pere Ubu, or maybe a Royal Trux more speed-freaked than junked-out, sprinkled with some Brainiac-ish moments and a big ol' dose of Cows-like abandon, but it seems they've never heard-or even heard of-those bands. Go figure.

Black Friday kicks off with what sounds like a flying saucer landing and shouts of "No future!" and ends in a cacophony of scrambled surf leads, portents of the insanity to follow. The whacked-out ditty "Bomb My Brain" will bomb yours with its discordant hooks and "Won't you bomb my brain?" call to arms. Then there's the bouncing, insistent, noise-rocker "Wastoids" ("Tell me why?!"), the high-speed joyride gone scary sour "Pile of Sh*t", and the creature-feature operetta "Human Host" (and many more!). It all adds up to one hell of a fucked-up journey through a fantastic land filled with scrum, scree, squawks, and very strange things that go bump in the night. But you'll be happy you got dragged along-even if you're a bit worse for wear-because you'll have made it through and lived to tell about it.

BIG BLACK CLOUD LIVE:

07/02 Portland, OR @ The Know *
07/03 Seattle, WA @ The Comet *
07/05 Missoula, MT @ The Ole Beck *
07/06 Boise, ID @ Sammie's *
07/07 Salt Lake City, UT @ Burt's Tiki Lounge *
07/08 Denver, CO @ Lost Lake *
07/11 San Diego, CA @ Til Two Club *
07/12 Los Angeles, CA @ The Smell *
07/13 San Francisco, CA @ The Knockout *
07/14 Oakland, CA @ The Night Light *
07/15 Davis, CA @ Davis Bike Collective *

* w/ Drunk Dad