Valley of the Snake: Live to Tape at Retro City by Ruby The Hatchet
Release date: October 3, 2025Label: Self-Released
I like my metal cooked, medium rare. When I say medium rare, it needs to be warm, red centered, and have this juicy, tender texture when I have NY strips with a delicious number of roasted veggies thrown in the middle. That and this incredible sound from Ruby The Hatchet is like a cannon blast waiting to happen. For 16 years, this New Jersey-based band really caught my ears last year on my reviewing 32GB iPod Touch. Why did I miss out on them? I may never know.
This live recording of the band’s performance at Retro City Studios, showcases the band’s energy, and the band’s power as they delve into the 10th anniversary of Valley of the Snake. Now, some of you may ask, “What is Retro City Studios?” Retro City Studios is located in the heart of Philadelphia. It is a full-service audio recording studio launching back in 2008 in the Germantown/Mt. Airy area.
The studio specialises between analog, digital tracking, mixing, and production. It also has vintage microphones, instruments, and access 24/7. For Ruby the Hatchet to be a part of the Studio, it is like you’re at the studio, rooting for the band as they get down to business when it comes psychedelic, occult, and dooming stoner metal at its best.
There’s no AI, (thank God!), no computers were used, this is an analog project right to the lathe cutting with no edits and overdubs. You get to witness the band performing their hearts out and blaring out the speakers with maximum volume!
For Jillian Taylor, Johnny Scarps Jr, Sean Hur, Owen Stewart, and Lake Muir, featuring special guests ranging from Alexander Rosen and Jeff White, the Rubies really know their metal down to the bone. You have the combination between the psychedelic ‘60s sound of the Doors with its Farfisa sound Hur channels with its country-orientated acid textures that speaks of Black Mountain’s In the Future-era with its spacey atmosphere on ‘Heavy Blanket’.
When I think of the acoustic version of ‘Tomorrow Never Comes’, I think straight away that Jillian wrote this song as the ending theme to Alan Moore’s controversial graphic novel of Batman: The Killing Joke released in 1987. You feel the pin drop, the tension cut with a knife between the dark knight and the joker at the end of the story, and its spooky elements in which leaves its listener in a cliffhanging balance.
The credentials of them tipping their hat to Jess and the Ancient Ones, sparks into the night for the head banging turned tripped out killer ‘Vast Acid’. Metallic riffs, revved-up Hammond, and driven drum beats, gives Jillian the keys to the engine and drivel like a madwoman, searching for the next kill on her hit list. This isn’t Kill Bill folks; this is Jillian becoming the next Taarna from the Heavy Metal movie.
The tidal-waving surf metal with more organs coming out of the salt water for the live version of ‘Demons’ becomes a cross-over between the ‘Paranoid’ and ‘Future City’-era of Black Sabbath and Eloy. How proggy can you get? You get it down to the bone and vision a stampede with Scarp laying down some blood-thirsty improvisation with its action-packed gorefest.
Then, on the title-track, they really get down to the psychedelia structure with Jeff White’s electric sitar, visioning its kaleidoscopic screening and seeing the snake taking us on this spiritual journey with ascending arrangements, top of the mountain landscapes, and joyful celebrations to go all around by bringing it all back home at the Studio.
Powerful, in your face, and incredible live takes celebrating the anniversary of their 2015 album, there’s no denying that Ruby the Hatchet have kept the metallic genre alive with their own flavour of psychedelic doom. You can’t go wrong with that. If you’re very new to the band’s music, then this one is a complete start to see what you’ve been missing.
