Release Date: April 11th 2025. Record Label: Self Released. Formats: CD/DD
Mean Bone - Tracklisting
1.Darkness Wins 03:35
2.Crushing Burden of Despair 03:03
3.Murder in the White Barn 04:57
4.Primitive 03:54
5.Changeling 04:52
6.Ghost of Orphan James 04:26
7.Twisted Love 03:24
8.Gadarene Swine 05:11
9.Dunwich Farm 03:34
10.Flies, Mosquitoes, Rats, and Sparrows 05:33
11.Conclusions 03:57
12.Plight of the Planet 04:11
13.Ancient Ruins of the 21st Century 04:17
Members
Christopher Thomas Elliott - Everything
Review
Mean Bone is the latest sonic excursion of Doom Folk and Stoner Rock heavy grooves from one-man virtuoso Buzzard aka Christopher Thomas Elliott. The record feels like a protest and an essential call to arms to the crazed times happening within the United States Of America. Buzzard uses the creative weapons of Doom Metal and Stoner Metal at his disposal to get his essential message across which fuses Americana, Psych, Folk, Blues Rock, Grunge, Fuzz and Sludge for a record that feels more important than ever.
Imagine Neil Young fronting the likes of Saint Vitus, Trouble and Black Sabbath where you feel the creative intent that Buzzard ultimately strives for with Mean Bone. The lyrics take aim at the far right side of the political spectrum with real insight and highly articulate intelligence bringing themes such as AI, Religion, Political Ideology and the real evil of this GREED.
Christopher feels like he’s written a political thesis or downbeat political mission statement told through the power of Doom, Stoner and Folk Music. The music is semi-acoustic for the majority of the tracks and it’s quite sombre though Buzzard can be beautifully heavy that reminds me of Across Tundras at times.
The album has a loner attitude rebelling against the system on tracks such as Darkness Wins, Murder In The White Barn, Changeling and Ghost Of Orphan Jones that allows the first half of the album to quite therapeutic with the sudden transformation of AMERICANA to full on Doom/Stoner Rock rebellion.
The instrumental works are nothing short of technical brilliance with Christopher’s vocals giving a highly important political voice for a lost political generation. Buzzard even delves into Occult Rock imagery and Post-Punk attitude on the later stages of the record with the SHAMANIC attitude of Buzzard being very hard to describe. You can even hear moments of Space Rock and OTT fantasy themes which allows Mean Bone to be quite trippy and psychedelic as you can imagine.
Other standout tracks to check out are: Twisted Love, Dunwich Farm, “Flies, Mosquitoes, Rats and Sparrows” and Ancient Ruins Of The 21st Century where Buzzard adds a downbeat Apocalyptic attitude to end the album on quite a depressing ending. The music itself is quite revolutionary and forward thinking with Buzzard creating a whole original sound of his own making which could hopefully inspire or influence a whole generation of future musicians for years to come.
This is mind-blowing stuff and deserves to be heard by the biggest audience possible within the entire HARD ROCK and HEAVY METAL scene.
Words by Steve Howe
