WEEDEATER Jason… The Dragon – Vinyl LP (grey)

Pressing info : 2023 repress on grey vinyl LP. Gatefold sleeve.

After 2007’s now classic release, “God Luck and Good Speed” had been toured to death around the world, the boys finally took some time between the mishaps and mayhem of 2010 to write and record their 2nd album for Southern Lord Recordings and 4th full-length CD/LP, “Jason…The Dragon”. Recorded and mixed once again by the legendary Steve Albini at Electrical Audio Studios in Chicago, and mastered once again by the equally as legendary John Golden. “Jason…” continues the legacy that has culminated over nearly 15 years of the band’s existence into something truly unique and masterful.

Once again, we are dragged through the mire by three of the finest dirge merchants in the world, and the songwriting is just as ingenious as ever and seems to start just where “God Luck…” left off, with “Hammerhandle” kicking things off in an oscillating groove that builds and falls and then eventually melts into “Mancoon”, a ripping tune that spans themes from homemade dynamite to true tales of human bite wounds and other guttural warnings that are surely not meant to be taken lightly. The band returns to their swampy roots via acoustic bass and banjo with the album’s closer “Whiskey Creek”, and they venture into totally new territory with the hook-laden, driving force that is “Homecoming”. Dixie’s solo performance on “Palms and Opium” sounds like a narcotic jam that he and Dean Ween had at a private nitrous party on a deserted island; the track was inspired by and written during the blissed-out visions Dixie had while laid up on pain pills for a month after blowing off his big toe with a shotgun in early 2010. We don’t need to go back there again, do we? Seems like we just did. The masterpiece is of course the album’s namesake, « Jason…the Dragon » which takes the listening doomernaut on a slithering journey though a sludgy world of viscous, black molasses riffs that are punctuated by cannon drums and some of the album’s most memorable lyrics. Essential southern sludge.

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