Celestial Effects’ Aries Beast Distortion is a pedal worthy of its astrological namesake. It’s intense, forceful, and hot-blooded. And while countless pedals have attempted to crack the heavy-amp-in-a-box code with mixed results, the Aries gets very close, thanks to a unique EQ section with two flexible gain stages.
God of War
The Aries’ two gain stages are op-amp driven. One has no clipping stage, and it cascades into the second op-amp stage, which uses MOSFET clipping diodes. The very different voices of the two gain stages—and the fact they can be adjusted individually—is critical to the variety of distorted tones. The first stage, which is controlled by a single knob—gain—sounds open and wide. The clipping-diode stage has a tighter, more compressed sound and is controlled by the drive knob.
The Beast’s 3-band EQ is key to the pedal’s sonic possibilities. Treble blends the signal coming from the treble capacitor with the signal going to the bass and mids controls. Turning it up reduces overall volume a bit, while turning it down adds bass and midrange. Reps from Celestial say they could have defeated the loss in volume with a larger treble cap, but found that the smaller cap gave the pedal the voice they were after. Celestial also designed the circuit with as little noise filtering as possible in order to maximize signal pass. The unit can be powered with a 9V battery, a center-negative 9V adapter, or an 18V center-negative adapter, the latter of which yields higher headroom.
Ratings
Pros:
Muscular, touch-responsive distortion. Wide-ranging, interactive controls. Built like a rock.
Cons:
Can be difficult to balance dirty tones with an amp’s clean channel.
Tones:
Ease of Use:
Build/Design:
Value:
Street:
$179
Company
celestialeffects.com
Zodiac Killer
With a Gibson Les Paul, a Soldano Lucky 13, and the Aries’ controls at noon, the pedal unleashed a brutal, meaty distortion. The midrange was cutting, with a trace of cocked-wah honk—but with a very muscular body underneath. It reminded me a lot of Alice in Chains and early Undertow-era Tool, and was perfect for heavy dropped-D riffing and sustained leads on low notes. Not too many high-gain distortion pedals highlight mids this prominently, and according to Celestial that was a design goal. The mid sweep is very wide, and the pedal’s more dimensional midrange has presence akin to a cranked Marshall. The Aries’ EQ section, too, has a very Marshall-like response and feel. The mids and lows react interestingly to changes from the treble knob—rising and receding in prominence along a nice, even curve as I increased or reduced high end.
The gain section is interactive and varied, too. Lowering the gain to 10 o’clock and increasing the drive to 3 o’clock yielded fierce, Dual Rectifier-like growl with searing highs and tight lows—perfect for palm-muted riffing. The midrange control, meanwhile, is both sensitive and rangy at these drive levels—making it a cinch to achieve heavy, scooped Dimebag Darrell tones. Raising gain to 2 o’clock and dropping drive to 11 o’clock expanded the harmonic content of the low end and opened up the high end, yielding a crunchy, British-style overdrive that was smooth and extraordinarily touch responsive. And when I lowered the volume controls on my Les Paul, the roaring distortion morphed into a sweet, purring, plexi-like overdrive.
The VerdictFor all-out aggressive distortion with amp-like responsiveness, it’s hard to go wrong with the Celestial Effects Aries Beast Distortion. It has more than enough gain to satisfy the can’t-get-enough-dirt set. Its onboard EQ and dual distortion circuits offer a lot of versatility, and it’s a sturdy mother of a pedal. All the range in the EQ and drive section means it demands a little practice and get-acquainted time. But the investment will, for many, reveal a thrilling and uncommonly versatile distortion tool.
Duane Denison of the Jesus Lizard, EGC Chessie in hands, coaxing some nasty tones from his Hiwatt.
The Jesus Lizard’s sixth album, Blue, served as the band’s final statement from the frontlines of noisy rock for the next 26 years. By the time of their dissolution in 1999, they’d earned a reputation for extreme performances chock full of hard-hitting, machine-like grooves delivered by bassist David Wm. Sims and, at their conclusion, drummer Mac McNeilly, at times aided and at other times punctured by the frontline of guitarist Duane Denison’s incisive, dissonant riffing, and presided over by the cantankerous howl of vocalist David Yow. In the years since, performative, thrilling bands such as Pissed Jeans, METZ, and Idles have built upon the Lizard’s musical foundation.
Denison has kept himself plenty busy over the last couple decades, forming the avant-rock supergroup Tomahawk—with vocalist Mike Patton, bassist Trevor Dunn (both from Mr. Bungle), and drummer John Stanier of Helmet—and alongside various other projects including Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers and Hank Williams III. The Jesus Lizard eventually reunited, but until now have only celebrated their catalog, never releasing new jams.
The Jesus Lizard, from left: bassist David Wm. Sims, singer David Yow, drummer Mac McNeilly, and guitarist Duane Denison.
Photo by Joshua Black Wilkins
Back in 2018, Denison, hanging in a hotel room with Yow, played a riff on his unplugged electric guitar that caught the singer’s ear. That song, called “West Side,” will remain unreleased for now, but Denison explains: “He said, ‘Wow, that’s really good. What is that?’ And I said, ‘It’s just some new thing. Why don’t we do an album?’” From those unassuming beginnings, the Jesus Lizard’s creative juices started flowing.
So, how does a band—especially one who so indelibly captured the ineffable energy of live rock performance—prepare to get a new record together 26 years after their last? Back in their earlier days, the members all lived together in a band house, collectively tending to the creative fire when inspiration struck. All these years later, they reside in different cities, so their process requires sending files back and forth and only meeting up for occasional demo sessions over the course of “three or four years.”
“When the time comes to get more in performance mode, I have a practice space. I go there by myself and crank it up. I turn that amp up and turn the metronome up and play loud.” —Duane Denison
the Jesus Lizard "Alexis Feels Sick"
Distance creates an obstacle to striking while the proverbial iron is hot, but Denison has a method to keep things energized: “Practice loud.” The guitarist professes the importance of practice, in general, and especially with a metronome. “We keep very detailed records of what the beats per minute of these songs are,” he explains. “To me, the way to do it is to run it to a Bluetooth speaker and crank it, and then crank your amp. I play a little at home, but when the time comes to get more in performance mode, I have a practice space. I go there by myself and crank it up. I turn that amp up and turn the metronome up and play loud.”
It’s a proven solution. On Rack—recorded at Patrick Carney’s Audio Eagle studio with producer Paul Allen—the band sound as vigorous as ever, proving they’ve not only remained in step with their younger selves, but they may have surpassed it with faders cranked. “Duane’s approach, both as a guitarist and writer, has an angular and menacing fingerprint that is his own unique style,” explains Allen. “The conviction in his playing that he is known for from his recordings in the ’80s and ’90s is still 100-percent intact and still driving full throttle today.”
“I try to be really, really precise,” he says. “I think we all do when it comes to the basic tracks, especially the rhythm parts. The band has always been this machine-like thing.” Together, they build a tension with Yow’s careening voice. “The vocals tend to be all over the place—in and out of tune, in and out of time,” he points out. “You’ve got this very free thing moving around in the foreground, and then you’ve got this very precise, detailed band playing behind it. That’s why it works.”
Before Rack, the Jesus Lizard hadn’t released a new record since 1998’s Blue.
Denison’s guitar also serves as the foreground foil to Yow’s unhinged raving, as on “Alexis Feels Sick,” where they form a demented harmony, or on the midnight creep of “What If,” where his vibrato-laden melodies bolster the singer’s unsettled, maniacal display. As precise as his riffs might be, his playing doesn’t stay strictly on the grid. On the slow, skulking “Armistice Day,” his percussive chording goes off the rails, giving way to a solo that slices that groove like a chef’s knife through warm butter as he reorganizes rock ’n’ roll histrionics into his own cut-up vocabulary.
“During recording sessions, his first solo takes are usually what we decide to keep,” explains Allen. “Listen to Duane’s guitar solos on Jack White’s ‘Morning, Noon, and Night,’ Tomahawk’s ‘Fatback,’ and ‘Grind’ off Rack. There’s a common ‘contained chaos’ thread among them that sounds like a harmonic Rubik’s cube that could only be solved by Duane.”
“Duane’s approach, both as a guitarist and writer, has an angular and menacing fingerprint that is his own unique style.” —Rack producer Paul Allen
To encapsulate just the right amount of intensity, “I don’t over practice everything,” the guitarist says. Instead, once he’s created a part, “I set it aside and don’t wear it out.” On Rack, it’s obvious not a single kilowatt of musical energy was lost in the rehearsal process.
Denison issues his noisy masterclass with assertive, overdriven tones supporting his dissonant voicings like barbed wire on top of an electric fence. The occasional application of slapback delay adds a threatening aura to his exacting riffage. His tones were just as carefully crafted as the parts he plays, and he relied mostly on his signature Electrical Guitar Company Chessie for the sessions, though a Fender Uptown Strat also appears, as well as a Taylor T5Z, which he chose for its “cleaner, hyper-articulated sound” on “Swan the Dog.” Though he’s been spotted at recent Jesus Lizard shows with a brand-new Powers Electric—he points out he played a demo model and says, “I just couldn’t let go of it,” so he ordered his own—that wasn’t until tracking was complete.
Duane Denison's Gear
Denison wields his Powers Electric at the Blue Room in Nashville last June.
Photo by Doug Coombe
Guitars
- Electrical Guitar Company Chessie
- Fender Uptown Strat
- Taylor T5Z
- Gibson ES-135
- Powers Electric
Amps
- Hiwatt Little J
- Hiwatt 2x12 cab with Fane F75 speakers
- Fender Super-Sonic combo
- Early ’60s Fender Bassman
- Marshall 1987X Plexi Reissue
- Victory Super Sheriff head
- Blackstar HT Stage 60—2 combos in stereo with Celestion Neo Creamback speakers and Mullard tubes
Effects
- Line 6 Helix
- Mantic Flex Pro
- TC Electronic G-Force
- Menatone Red Snapper
Strings and Picks
- Stringjoy Orbiters .0105 and .011 sets
- Dunlop celluloid white medium
- Sun Studios yellow picks
He ran through various amps—Marshalls, a Fender Bassman, two Fender Super-Sonic combos, and a Hiwatt Little J—at Audio Eagle. Live, if he’s not on backline gear, you’ll catch him mostly using 60-watt Blackstar HT Stage 60s loaded with Celestion Neo Creambacks. And while some boxes were stomped, he got most of his effects from a Line 6 Helix. “All of those sounds [in the Helix] are modeled on analog sounds, and you can tweak them endlessly,” he explains. “It’s just so practical and easy.”
The tools have only changed slightly since the band’s earlier days, when he favored Travis Beans and Hiwatts. Though he’s started to prefer higher gain sounds, Allen points out that “his guitar sound has always had teeth with a slightly bright sheen, and still does.”
“Honestly, I don’t think my tone has changed much over the past 30-something years,” Denison says. “I tend to favor a brighter, sharper sound with articulation. Someone sent me a video I had never seen of myself playing in the ’80s. I had a band called Cargo Cult in Austin, Texas. What struck me about it is it didn’t sound terribly different than what I sound like right now as far as the guitar sound and the approach. I don’t know what that tells you—I’m consistent?”
YouTube It
The Jesus Lizard take off at Nashville’s Blue Room this past June with “Hide & Seek” from Rack.
Phat Machine
The Phat Machine
The Phat Machine is designed to deliver the tone and responsiveness of a vintage germanium fuzz with improved temperature stability with no weird powering issues. Loaded with both a germanium and a silicon transistor, the Phat Machine offers the warmth and cleanup of a germanium fuzz but with the bite of a silicon pedal. It utilizes classic Volume and Fuzz control knobs, as well as a four-position Thickness control to dial-in any guitar and amp combo. Also included is a Bias trim pot and a Kill switch that allows battery lovers to shut off the battery without pulling the input cord.
Silk Worm Deluxe Overdrive
The Silk Worm Deluxe -- along with its standard Volume/Gain/Tone controls -- has a Bottom trim pot to dial in "just the right amount of thud with no mud at all: it’s felt more than heard." It also offers a Studio/Stage diode switch that allows you to select three levels of compression.
Both pedals offer the following features:
- 9-volt operation via standard DC external supply or internal battery compartment
- True bypass switching with LED indicator
- Pedalboard-friendly top mount jacks
- Rugged, tour-ready construction and super durable powder coated finish
- Made in the USA
Static Effectors’ Street Series pedals carry a street price of $149 each. They are available at select retailers and can also be purchased directly from the Static Effectors online store at www.staticeffectors.com.
This outing of Dipped In Tone kicks off with an exciting update from Zach Broyles’ camp: He’s opening a brick-and-mortar guitar shop in Nashville, called High Voltage Guitars. Opening on October 8, the store will carry gear from Two-Rock, Divided By 13, Dr. Z, Castedosa, Fano, Novo, and of course Mythos Pedals. Zach hints that there might be some handwired JHS pedals from Josh Scott himself, too, and Rhett reveals that he plans to consign some of his guitars at the shop.
The business side of Zach’s new venture brings them to a key piece of today’s episode: Rhett and Zach aren’t running charities. They do what they do to make money; guitars, gear, podcasting, and content creation are their literal jobs. And they’re not as glamorous and breezy as most armchair commentators might guess.
Want to do what Rhett and Zach do? Welcome to the club. The guitar-influencer field is what one might call “oversaturated” at the moment, and it’s difficult to break out—but not impossible. As our hosts explain, it requires putting in 60-hour work weeks, a diverse skillset, a knack for catching people’s attention, and a certain level of genuineness. Rhett knows this path well, and he has hard-earned advice for staying true to oneself while building a following in the gear world.
Tune in to learn why Rhett thinks Fretboard Summit, a three-day guitar festival organized by Fretboard Journal, blows NAMM out of the water and builds legitimate connections between guitarists, and catch the duo dipping a Dick Dale-inspired, all-Fender rig.
