Bigelf 'Cheat The Gallows' album

Psychedelic progressive rock band Bigelf has completed work on its long-awaited new album, entitled Cheat the Gallows. The follow up to the band’s acclaimed full-length Hex; Cheat the Gallows will see an August 12 release via the Custard label.

Cheat the Gallows was recorded at Kung Fu Gardens studios in North Hollywood and produced by Bigelf frontman Damon Fox. The album features 10 diverse tracks of hallucinatory hard rock, showcasing the band’s multi-layered arrangements, rich, sophisticated vocal harmonies and Fox’s spectacular dual-Mellotron / Hammond organ / Moog synthesizer saturations. With Cheat the Gallows, Bigelf blends strong post-Hendrix ferocity with a potent post-Beatles tunefulness, resulting in diabolically-heavy pop rife with epic guitars, infectious hooks and unforgettably refined melody patterns that will undoubtedly find appeal with classic hard rock fans, vintage prog-heads and heavy metal enthusiasts alike. An in-studio montage featuring images of the band recording Cheat the Gallows can be viewed online at this location.

The first single released from Cheat the Gallows is the sensational cut “Money, It’s Pure Evil”. Lyrically, “Money...” is a philosophical look at how the almighty dollar “changes people” while musically, the track rides on a Lennon-McCartney-infused tidal wave of expression. When asked about the new album, Bigelf frontman / keyboardist Damon Fox comments, "Every decade needs a defining rock opera / concept album to stir the pot and get people inspired about music again. I believe "Cheat the Gallows" is one of those albums."

In support of Cheat the Gallows, Bigelf has announced a string of live performances including a special Los Angeles record release show, set to take place on Wednesday, August 13 at The Roxy. A full listing of upcoming Bigelf live dates follows this message.

Bigelf’s mesmerizing live performances -- boasting theatrics reminiscent of rock shows from the 70's -- have seen praise from such music luminaries as Alicia Keys, former Nirvana / current Foo Fighters front man Dave Grohl, Black Crowes head-honcho Chris Robinson and Serj Tankian of System of A Down (who released Bigelf's second record Money Machine through his own Serjical Strike Records). In 2007, Bigelf teamed with pop superstar Christina Aguilera to record a cover of the John Lennon classic "Mother" for the major benefit-album project "Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur".

In addition to Fox, Bigelf features Ace Mark (guitars), Duffy Snowhill (bass) and Froth (drums).

press quotes
“(a) seamless tapestry of Floydian space rock, Beatles melodies and stonernaut muscle...Thank Pazuzu or Quetzalcoatl or whatever winged demon you hold in high esteem that Bigelf is following up Hex so soon with Cheat the Gallows. This album--their fourth, btw--shows they aim to claim their rightful place in America's rock consciousness.” - BLURT

“Speaking of bold statements, here's one: if Bigelf did exist in the heyday of ELO, QUEEN, or "Ziggy Stardust"-era DAVID BOWIE, not only would Bigelf be mentioned in the same breath as those acts... they'd give ‘em a fucking run for their money. Bigelf perform like their lives depend on it” (10/10) – BLABBERMOUTH

"Psychedelic cult-metal" - MTV NEWS

“Bigelf are pretty hot. Then again, they kind of have to be when you consider the band’s sound is a startlingly precise hybrid of Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd. Psychedelic sorcery harmonics and outer space orgy metal courtesy of four guys from Los Angeles? Yeah, that’ll do.” – DECIBEL

“If you like your stoner metal to tip the hat blatantly to the greats, or if you like your classic rock with a hint of metal and a dash of prog, then you’ll appreciate Bigelf’s broad sense of tradition…major-league” – HARTFORD ADVOCATE

“(A) mixture of Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, The Beatles and other progressive late-60’s / early-70’s innovators…bombastic” – REVOLVER

“Satisfyingly heavy, psychedelically disorienting and gorgeously melodic, L.A.'s Bigelf mines the best of '70s hard rock — even the keyboards and vocal harmonies — to produce a record destined for Valhalla.” – DENVER WESTWORD

“the sound of a good old-fashioned rock band letting it rip…Bigelf should appeal equally to doom metallists and Wolfmother admirers.” – ALL MUSIC

“Los Angeles rockers Bigelf are one of the most notoriously over-the-top bands going right now. These guys do rock the right way, the same way their forefathers created that distinctively large 1970s sound before them. Think arena-rock. Think loud, heavy and fukin’ awesome. Think you can handle it?” – TRANSWORLD SURF

“like a turducken with everything that made the late sixties and early seventies great: Hammond organ wails that sound like the disintegration of a continent, gloriously meaty pentatonic riffs, and the kind of psychedelic auditory theatrics that could possibly lure even David Gilmour away from his Island. You need it like you need oxygen.” – METRO SPIRIT

"Bigelf is the best-kept rock’n’roll secret in LA. They’re sorta like an evil Beatles, really. Or a biker Queen." - CLASSIC ROCK

tour dates
July 27 Long Beach, CA Alex’s Bar
July 29 San Diego, CA The Casbah
August 13 Los Angeles, CA The Roxy (Cheat the Gallows album release show!)

biography
There’s nothing ordinary about the fabled Los Angeles quartet Bigelf. In fact, even the extraordinary are crushed in the wake of a heroic bombast so brilliant, you can’t help but be swept adrift by the doomed mist of infectious melodies and chilling harmonies that collide with an otherworldly embrace of the psychedelic on “Cheat the Gallows,” the band’s debut release for Linda Perry’s Custard Records.

The epic album is the soundtrack for new world disorder. We’re talking about a pop-cultural phenomenon shaped by the muse of Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Queen and The Beatles. Bigelf are massive in stature, muscular in tone and beautifully diabolic, oozing with the credibility of artistic savant and ironclad integrity.

“Our genetic codes are from the great ones, the great acts and rock groups of the past,” says frontman Damon Fox. “We’ve been exploring taboo grounds for a long time, and the oxygen is really thin up here. It’s a very high mentality, and there’s very little room for error. When you get into those psychedelic and progressive rock categories, you’re battling some of the greatest shit that ever existed, so you’re either going to be great, or you’re going to suck.”

Bigelf are great.

Fox loves sprinkling conversations about his band’s music with the word “progressive,” but let’s make something perfectly clear: Bigelf don’t create music, they craft orchestrations. And Bigelf aren’t progressive like a bunch of guitar school students trying to outplay each other and see who can set their strings on fire first, they’re progressive in the sense that they truly take hard rock into the future, embracing the genre’s rich cultural past and reinterpreting it with a slant and skew that gives the new millennium a sound it’s been waiting far too long for: “Strawberry Fields” tossed with the acid-wash of mushroom caps, “The Wizard” taken to whole new heights of paranoia, “Dream Police” with souped-up squad cars, and a more divine “Karn Evil No. 9.”

“The creativity of psychedelic rock and the limitless horizons of prog rock are totally gone today. There are too many formulas, too many rules, and everybody is just too bogged down with singles, sales, and their MySpace pages… We still care about pressing boundaries,” says the frontman.

From the hyperkinetic zeitgeist and manic sideshow glee of opening colossus “Gravest Show on Earth,” to the cinematic sound explosion of closing track “Counting Sheep,” the run-of-the-mill gets run through the mill on “Cheat the Gallows,” as Fox, guitarist Ace Mark, bassist Duffy Snowhill and drummer Froth dare modern rock and roll to try and keep pace. They pillage the tired and thought-to-be-true with a brazenly aggressive approach to guitar driven histrionics, haughty Hammond organ and majestic Mellotron tapestries, and a bottom end that spins, swirls and a surrounds the senses with penetrating bass lines and an upright backbone of drums that pave the defiant pace.

At the forefront of the musical melee is lead single “Money It’s Pure Evil,” a master class in marrying blues-based, classic rock tendencies with today’s more mainstream fancies for minimalist rock and roll missives. “I wrote that song when I was 21 years-old, and it’s straight from the John Lennon playbook,” says Fox, who admits that the song has fragmented over the course of the past decade-plus, but still rings truer than ever. “The video is fantastic and inspiring, about Hollywood and the darkness of fame and what happens to people caught in its web. The train’s off the track, but people are too busy looking at it to do anything about it...”

Not Bigelf, who do plenty of eye (and ear) opening throughout the course of their defining 60-minute opus. “If you think back, Guns N’ Roses were the last dangerous band truly living the lifestyle, destroying hotel rooms and pushing the envelope,” Fox recalls. “That era may be over, but music should still be dangerous. We’re more into the heady, intellectual side of danger, and the envelopes we’re pushing are in your mind. We’re pushing thoughts and emotions, not news clippings of someone getting arrested.”

“Gravest Show on Earth” is the quintessential opening track, a twisted joyride of marching drums, sinister vocals that will make Robin Zander squirm with pride, and a sonic smorgasbord of Sgt. Pepper-worthy salutations that beckon you in with a long, twisted finger and set the tone for the album’s ensuing cuts. “Blackball” is a heavy, down-tuned swash of melodic rapture saturated in a lyrical escape from the corporate stranglehold, while “The Evils of Rock and Roll” features the band’s signature maniacal vocals atop a Tony Iommi-inspired guitar assault. Throughout, Bigelf embrace their unwavering affinity for not only honing a pop aesthetic, but honoring it throughout the song. “No Parachute” and “Race with Time” shift into demented shades of Pink Floyd-fashioned hypnotic psychosis, “Superstar” submits to the saucy seduction of a rock and roll sellout, and “Hydra” is a frenzied rush of steel-toed swagger that drips with chaotic power and is drenched in hallucinatory Bigelf dynamics.

One of Fox’s favorite reviews of his band hailed that Bigelf are “30 years behind and five years ahead of what’s happening.” It’s a line the frontman is proud of, and loves to repeat. “The concept behind Bigelf has been to take strong, classic melodies and dark, neurotic songwriting, and synthesize them with demonic guitar riffs and analog keyboard wizardry. There were few bands that did both, so there wasn’t a template or blueprint to follow... The Beatles and Black Sabbath, at the same time, is what has always come natural to us, and that has always been the genesis of it all.”

With the release of their “Closer to Doom” EP in 1995, Bigelf established themselves as founding fathers of the psychedelic doom movement that spawned the Los Angeles stoner-rock scene. In the 13 years since, they’ve released two full-length albums and attained cult phenomenon status overseas, most notably in Europe and the Scandinavian homeland of Ace Mark and Duffy Snowhill. Both those albums were met by major-label recording contracts that promised worldwide success, but instead resulted in the corporate backwash that has defined the modern music industry.

But that is the past, and the future is here. Bigelf have cheated the gallows and come out stronger for the wear. Now it’s time for the world to pay the piper at the gates of dawn...

The reign of Bigelf is upon us.

Written by Paul Gargano, 07/08

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