Band : Josiah
Album title : Procession
Label : Elektrohasch Schallplatten
Distributor : Sonic Rendezvous
Release date : 21/05/2010
Review : CD

Josiah entered the game early in 2000, formed by Mathew Bethancourt, Sie Beasley (and then drummer) Chris Jones (later replaced by Keith Beacom) quickly establishing themselves on the world’s underground scene as an powerful riff machine. Early shows with (amongst others) Lost Prophets, Nebula, Zen Guerilla and Modey Lemon, Josiah gained respect from crouds, press and peers alike, showcasing a fresh, soulful and high octane live rock experience (from their bio).

Procession only includes previously unreleased material recorded between 2007 and 2009 by UK’s Josiah, and can be taken as their post mortem release. “Broken doll” and “Time to kill” sounds as if it was a draft taken off the Motorhead Ace Of Spades songbook; "I can’t seem to find it” and “Silas Brainchild” is more Sabbath influenced and "Thirteen scene” and “Looking at the mountain” presents the Queens/ Karma To Burn influence in full exposure. Yep, highly-amped, crashing guitars playing rather simple chords, pounding rhythms, scream-ish vocals and 70s licks and tricks are found here in heavy doses.

Having already pointed out the most obvious influences, I can only add that the rest of the tracks balance between them, by tuning the vocals and guitar-work to lean towards one or the other, with not much originality but with a lot of eager brutal force.

Cosmicmasseur.