Vorpal Queen

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Band Bio

Taking a page from the songbooks of such giants as Orange Goblin and Electric Wizard, Vorpal Queen exploded onto the stoner/doom scene with a bag full of monster riffs and an even greater appetite for the sticky icky.

Duane Chaisty, vocalist, is the shamanic leader of the group, even if the path he follows is a wandering, twisting, occasionally-forgotten-but-eventually-dimly-remembered one. His lyrical themes can usually be divided into three general categories-- drugs, sex, and the occult/supernatural-- though they tend to all melt together on a very regular basis. Duane once disappeared for a month, only to be spotted in various random locales by fans and other bands before finding his way back home. He claims that this journey was a "vision quest." When asked what he learned from it, he responds, "I have no idea."

James "Jimmy" Meath is the wellspring from which a seemingly endless succession of dark, heavy chords flow forth. One of Duane's closest friends since their school days, his guitar tones are as much a signature of the band's sound as Duane's voice. His vintage guitar and amp collection is second only to his bong and hookah collection.

Charles "Chuck" Wadd is the rock of the group, anchoring their hazy jams to a boulder of solid bass. Vorpal Queen's resident expert on psychedelics, he has been known to have eaten more than a few harmless everyday sheets of stamps "just to make sure." Chuck and Sven are the founding members of a certain world-jam band that is discussed in further detail below...

Sven "The Mighty Svenge" Enckell is Vorpal Queen's drummer. American born but of Scandinavian ancestry, Sven is known to don a viking helmet and shout quasi-Swedish gibberish when heavily inebriated. Which is often. Think Alan Tudyk with long hair and a beard. He and Chuck share a special bond over homemade ayahuasca concoctions and new age/world music. To this end, the pair formed a secret side-project called Estevanico that was inadvertently outed when they started selling their merch alongside Vorpal Queen's swag at VQ shows. When asked about the identity snafu, Sven always mumbles, "it seemt like a good idea at the times."

From sci-fi sexcapades to pagan vision quests, Vorpal Queen manages to cover a lot of thematic and sonic territory in between smoke breaks. Light up and rock on!

The Wizard of Ounce LP - 3/2/2012
Necrochronicon EP - 11/2/2011
Rollin' Down a River of Blood [bootleg] - 9/27/2011
Penetrate the Corridor of Shadows LP - 8/15/2011
Artifice of the Orifice EP - 7/8/2011
Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em [bootleg] - 4/27/2011
Return of the Vorpal Queen LP - 3/10/2011
Psychedelicatessen LP - 1/23/2011
Unholy Bong Militia EP - 1/13/2011
Cannabis Corpse LP - 11/11/2010
The Long Drag EP - 11/2/2010
In the Chamber of the Vorpal Queen LP - 10/6/2010

Band Gear

Albums / EPs

The Wizard of Ounce Date Released: 3/2/2012   Tracks: 13 Sales: 12   Listens: 20 Doubts about the future of Vorpal Queen can be laid to rest with the arrival of their long-awaited new album, "The Wizard of Ounce". The band is in top form, and you can practically smell the copious amounts of reefer involved in making this record (actually, you can-- the cover is Scratch 'n' Sniff!), from the raspy background coughs to the fuzzed-out guitars. Duane's voice is rougher this time around, not yet fully recovered from his "lost month" abroad, but it only adds extra texture and weight to the songs. As for the content, it's a stranger, deeper trip into the cosmic unknown than the band's previous sonic journeys. The group calls upon their acolytes in the opening drone/chant, then plunges through thick walls of wah-echo-flange-feedback that make up the Garden. Within this lush labyrinth, the green Wizard offers up his wisdom along with the dankest fruits of his mystical horticulture. Distant voices begin to call. Entire universes are born and die between heartbeats. Evil reigns. Good triumphs. Another toke brings another set of visions. Shadows form at the edges of perception. Darkness gathers, thorned vines creep along the forest floor. From the blackest pits of the woods, the Vorpal Queen emerges. The band plays harder to escape her grasp. Is the Wizard an ally, or an accomplice? The last track ends in chaos and cacophony, then is suddenly cut short... Produced by Remy Brecht. Released on Formerwageslave Records.

Necrochronicon EP Date Released: 11/2/2011   Tracks: 6 Sales: 13   Listens: 25 Another tour later with another lesson learned: sea sickness pills + weed + acid do not a great mix make. The Queen eventually found their land legs again, however, and shambled straight into the studio to record as bleak a slab of doom as you're likely to find on this side of Armageddon. The ritual unfolds as follows: NECROCHRONIC MANTRA lulls you into a tense hypnotic state. As the foul black smoke of the intro breathes into your lungs to the point of bursting, it then belches back out in the form of RIDE IN THE SKY, a churning seething *rocking* cover as hard & driving as anything in the Queen's oeuvre. OGRES ON PCP then does exactly what you'd expect from the title: gives all seriousness the finger and gallops heedlessly down the road of high fantasy, classic Tolkien style, with epic galloping riffs a-plenty. Things get dark on PARANOIA / BONG FULL OF BLOOD, with gurgling and choking fx giving way to a wall of absolutely satanic chord progressions and demonic rhythms. The green goddess then manifests to provide illumination in the dark, as DURGA MATA, OUR PROTECTRESS lights up. Finally, the fourth installment in the BIORHYTHM series of jams offers an exit from this netherworldly realm, like Charon's raft navigating the waters of Hades, and you're safe once again... but for how long?

Rollin' Down a River of Blood [bootleg] Date Released: 9/27/2011   Tracks: 13 Sales: 9   Listens: 11 With the overwhelmingly positive response to the Queen's last live bootleg, which quickly shot to the #1 spot on the Hot Albums list, it's no wonder that the unknown person(s) behind "DankNugz Recordz" would want to capitalize on a sequel... and capitalize they did, smuggling recorders and/or phones onto the Up the Creek steamboat to document VQ's live-wire performances from this summer's unique tour. Though Vorpal Queen's setlist varied from night to night, the band consciously favored more bluesy & hard rock material this time out on the road (er, water) over their heavier stuff. That's not to say that there isn't a pervasive cloud of oldschool doom & gloom hanging over the proceedings, however! The three classic cover versions lend themselves especially well to the band's heavy, hazy style. This bootleg's tracklist was selected mainly by recording quality, with different performances hand-picked from different nights, though the overall sound is not as crisp as on "Smoke 'Em...". The first 30-60 seconds of the opening track in particular are drowned out by the ship's engine noise before the bootlegger moved to a better location, but this take was chosen over cleaner ones because the resulting effect "sounded pretty damn cool." Most listeners will agree. There are some typos in the liner which have been noted below, as well as several untitled tracks that have since been identified as pre-release performances of songs from "Penetrate the Corridor of Shadows." All in all, a very different document of a different side of this ever-evolving band.

Penetrate the Corridor of Shadows Date Released: 8/15/2011   Tracks: 13 Sales: 12   Listens: 20 Quite possibly Vorpal Queen's darkest trip to date, PTCOS takes the overt psychotic frenzy of Psychedelicatessen and replaces it with a suffocating paranoia and sense of creeping dread. The songs are slower, more foreboding, shambling like the footsteps of the undead. The relaxed mind-expansion grooves of Return of the Vorpal Queen have morphed into fears of mental breakdown and insanity. If Cannabis Corpse was a gateway drug, this is VQ getting into the hard stuff-- total doom.

Artifice of the Orifice EP Date Released: 7/8/2011   Tracks: 5 Sales: 16   Listens: 24 A collection of new material, live favorites, and unreleased tracks, the Artifice of the Orifice EP was sketched out during Vorpal Queen's sudden break from touring due to the disaster in Japan. Once VQ returned to the states, they entered the studio for mixing and final overdubs. "Orgy of the Damned" is an outtake from the Return of the Vorpal Queen sessions. It basically details how the band gave in to the call of the resurrected Vorpal Queen, got high, and got it on, all to the tune of loose, crunchy riffs. "Ero Guro Go-Go Girl" was a track first sketched out during early pre-Psychedelicatessen sessions. With copious amounts of Leslie rotating speakers, oil can reverb, and fuzz wah, its light 60's psych vibe put it at odds with the harder stuff that ultimately appeared on the album, and so it was shelved for later release. "Slow Dance with a Steak Knife" was a track from the Psychedelicatessen sessions that was cut at the very last minute. The band felt that the album was already disturbing enough without this particularly dark, menacing piece. Pretty damn evil. If you don't get the references in "D'yrban Pois'on," you're probably not a big classic rock fan. Or marijuana fan, for that matter. A long-time live favorite captured on tape during a particularly hazy studio session. "Biorhythm III" is the latest in a series of live and studio improv jams. It is said that an entire collection of existing and unreleased Biorhythm pieces is planned for release at some unknown future point. "When we're low on weed money," says Duane.

Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em [bootleg] Date Released: 4/27/2011   Tracks: 12 Sales: 14   Listens: 17 Though not an official release--when pressed, VQ's Duane "sort of" recalls telling someone they could record the set...he was rather baked at the time--this bootleg of the band's electrifying performance @ this year's Up in Smoke Festival in Vancouver may as well be one. The audio quality is stellar thanks to it being a direct soundboard recording, and the setlist reads like a greatest hits CD...or at the very least, the ultimate toking companion. Released by "DankNugz Recordz"(?)

Return of the Vorpal Queen Date Released: 3/10/2011   Tracks: 13 Sales: 19   Listens: 42 After Psychedelicatessen, the band sought respite from the psychic damage inflicted by the dense, omnipresent bad-trip mind-rape of that heavy record. Sleep would not come--they tossed & turned in their beds. A familiar whisper, a voice, a moan of desire echoed in their minds' eyes. The Vorpal Queen had finally tracked them down, along with a way into this world from her own. Will the band resist her siren's call, or cave to her sexy demands & get it on w/ the help of the Unholy Bong Militia??

Psychedelicatessen Date Released: 1/23/2011   Tracks: 13 Sales: 18   Listens: 37 The Queen is back, charting an ever-stranger path through time & space. Their new album, Psychedelicatessen, is a brain-melting journey down a river of guitar fuzz & feedback as thick as a bucket of congealed blood. When asked about their inspiration this time around, the band had only this to say: "The last thing the victim of the Pit notices is the beauty of the Pendulum's blade." Open your mind's eye to this surreal & sinister landscape with caution...

Unholy Bong Militia Date Released: 1/13/2011   Tracks: 5 Sales: 14   Listens: 23 Realizing there was more dark bile to be dredged up from the black lagoon that was Cannabis Corpse, Vorpal Queen completed this EP before the real work on their 3rd LP, Psychedelicatessen, began. Unholy Bong Militia [some say it's the nickname for their fanbase] is actually one long track w/ 5 different movements in the style of the "Sweet Seduction" suite on their debut. Light up & lay back as the twists & turns of this extended occult jam work their way into your psyche... it's one wild trip.

Cannabis Corpse Date Released: 11/11/2010   Tracks: 13 Sales: 17   Listens: 30 The Queen is back! With an overflowing dime bag of ideas after their Long Drag sessions, VQ offers up a darker, murkier trip this time around with Cannabis Corpse. Take their hands as they venture deep into an audio swamp full of strange, sentient plants that whisper dark secrets and darker prophecies of things still to come. Sink down into the quicksand of their musical sludge. Drown in a green-black whirlpool of psychedelic doom. Embrace the Queen.

The Long Drag EP Date Released: 11/2/2010   Tracks: 5 Sales: 14   Listens: 24 Vorpal Queen puts the fuzz pedal to the stoner metal on this high-octane EP of road songs & long jams. All of these tracks were written on the tour bus, and you can practically feel the long hours & booze-soaked bunks bleeding through on songs like "Big-Block Blues". That old familiar haziness sets in on the supercharged "Roll Up, Roll Out," and VQ keep manage to things doomy with "666hp" and "Road Head...". Keep an eye out for the next VQ album, Cannabis Corpse, to come out later this year!

In the Chamber of the Vorpal Queen Date Released: 10/6/2010   Tracks: 13 Sales: 14   Listens: 38 For their debut record, Vorpal Queen stocked up on vintage amps and tape delays, wah-pedals and fuzz boxes to churn out spaced-out stoner doom thicker than the resin in your mom & dad's bong from Woodstock. Lyrically, "In the Chamber..." hazily recounts the sexy misadventures of some slacker supernauts who get high, bump into an alien world, get their rocks off with the local royalty, get high again, and make their way back home for some good old fashioned Earth lovin' (accept no substitutes).