Hey friends!  Thank you for making 2009 the most Abysmal year yet for The Sonic Abyss.   Megathanks to Jared Champion (Cage the Elephant), Bill Champion (Jared’s dad), Mike Tobias (Stick), Sean Kirkpatrick and David Freel (both from Swell) for stopping by, sharing some kind words, and spreading the word of the Abyss.

To finish out the year, here’s something for you that I hope you dig as much as I do.   It’s “Elephants” from Them Crooked Vultures’ fun and brilliant debut disc.   This is just a brilliant song and as an added bonus guitarist Josh Homme does some too-cool elephant trumpets on his guitar as a hook throughout the song. Check it out…they start at 1:04.

And yes…I realize this isn’t actually a video. lol

Cheers to you and your families and have an Abysmal New Year!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWGWm22b5jc&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Don’t you just hate supergroups?   There’s always a lot of hype…way too much hype for the music to ever live up to, which leads to the inevitable letdown.   I’ve always had a tendency to avoid “supergroups” for this reason.  I mean, I did like Audioslave but each one of their CD’s left me thinking “This is good, but man it could have been soooooo much better!”

And then there’s Dave Grohl.  And Josh Homme.   And John Paul Jones (yes, THAT John Paul Jones).

No joke…if not for the mighty Cage the Elephant’s instant classic debut, Them Crooked Vultures would be my favorite release of  2009.   Just brimming with personality, cool sounds, cool riffs, cool melodies…and Grohl reminding us what an unstoppable force he is on the drum kit.

Here’s a video of them performing “Mind Eraser – No Chaser” on the Jonathan Ross Show.  Just a great song and a great, tight performance.   For added cool factor, that’s the highly talented and very underrated Alain Johannes (Eleven) on guitar.

Not overhyped or overplayed, Them Crooked Vultures is a CD that sounds like these guys are having the time of their lives.  Enjoy Abysmally…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTZupSgQCXY&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

CLICK HERE TO BUY THEM CROOKED VULTURES THROUGH AMAZON.COM