Posted on: August 24, 2008 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Metal Mind Productions presents re-issue of the second full-length album by Karma To Burn – “Wild Wonderful Purgatory” (1999). Karma to Burn was a desert rock/psychedelic rock band from Morgantown, West Virginia (US) comprised of guitarist William Mecum, bassist Rich Mullins and drummer Nathan Limbaugh (later to be replaced by Rob Oswald for Wild, Wonderful Purgatory). Some early reports on Karma To Burn stated that the band had “vocalist problems”. The truth of the matter is the band is at heart an instrumental band. The band had experimented with vocalists before (ex-Kyuss frontman John Garcia briefly worked with them), but a vocalist (Jason Jarosz) was recruited for their debut only to satisfy their record label. Their second album features traditional rock songs in an nontraditional form! All riff-oriented songs are covering all ends of the rock spectrum ranging from AC/DC blue-rhythms to chugging Helmet riffs to more Joy Division-ish flavor (#32) that was displayed on the debut.

This classic material from Roadrunner Records archives will be released in a new digipak edition limited to 2000 copies. New edition of “Wild Wonderful Purgatory” includes 6 bonus tracks taken from EP 30.33.32.20 and the bootleg recorded in Utrecht (07.03.2000). Digitally remastered using 24-Bit process on golden disc. The album will be released on 21st July 2008 in Europe and 2nd September 2008 in USA (via MVD).

Karma To Burn
“Wild Wonderful Purgatory” (remastered + bonus tracks)

Label: Metal Mind Records
Cat. No.: MASS CD 1029 DG
Barcode: 5907785029934
Format: CD Digipak (limited edition of 2000 numerated copies)
Genre: desert rock/psychedelic rock
Release date: 21.07.2008 Europe / 02.09.2008 USA

Tracklist:

1. Twenty
2. Twenty Eight
3. Thirty
4. Thirty One
5. Twenty Nine
6. Thirty Two
7. Twenty Five
8. Twenty Six
9. One
10. Three
11. Seven
12. Eight

Bonus tracks:

13. Thirty *
14. Thirty Tree *
15. Thirty Two *
16. Twenty *
17. Twenty Nine (live)**
18. Thirty One (live)**

* tracks taken from EP 30.33.32.20
** bootleg recordings from Utrecht (07.03.2000)

Bio
Karma to Burn was a desert rock/psychedelic rock band from Morgantown, West Virginia (US) comprised of guitarist William Mecum, bassist Rich Mullins and drummer Nathan Limbaugh (later to be replaced by Rob Oswald for Wild, Wonderful Purgatory). Some early reports on Karma To Burn stated that the band had “vocalist problems”. The truth of the matter is the band is at heart an instrumental band. The band had experimented with vocalists before (ex-Kyuss frontman John Garcia briefly worked with them), but a vocalist (Jason Jarosz) was recruited for their debut only to satisfy their record label. The vocalist departed soon afterwards, and the band reverted to its preferred status as an instrumental trio, as well as to their convention of naming every song simply as a number, which they did on their last two albums. With all the consternation around the singer, hardly anybody noticed the drummer change. Some time before the release of the album Nathan was replaced by Chuck Nicholas. In April and May of 1997 Karma To Burn toured Europe. Among other events, they played at the illustrious metal festival Dynamo Open Air, where they met John Garcia and his new band SLO-BURN again. In an unannounced special set, Karma To Burn jammed with John Garcia, who did some vocal parts for them. A very special event with a surprised crowd. In August and September of 1997, Karma To Burn toured the USA. They opened nine shows on the Corrosion Of Confirmity/Drain S.T.H. tour and, later, ten shows for Clutch. During that tour Clutch’s Neil Fallon and COC’s Pepper Keenan jumped on the stage to perform with Karma To Burn a cover version of ZZ-Top’s “La Grange”. Thus they both joined the exclusive group of people that have sung with Karma To Burn… In the Fall of 1997, K2B were kicked out by their label. Or K2B disconnected themselves from the label. Whatever it was, they were no longer together. Roadrunner didn’t want instrumental records and K2B was an instrumental band. In June 1998 Karma To Burn’s drummer Chuck Nicholas left the band and was replaced by Rob Oswald. Musically, the band is tough to describe – they are closest to stoner rock, but their instrumental nature and tendency to experiment place them a bit beyond the standards of that genre. With their uncompromising instrumental sound, echoing that of such desert rock bands as Kyuss and The Obsessed, it was not an easy band to fully understand, but surely an intriguing one. The band unofficially disbanded in mid 2002.

In 2007 Metal Mind Productions released a box entitled “Mountain Mama’s – a collection of the works of Karma To Burn” containing 3 albums deleted for almost 10 years. All albums included bonus tracks plus lyrics to all songs. The box also included 24 page booklet with a story about the band. Special 3 CD digipack edition was limited to 1500 numerated copies.

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