My plan last night was to drive down to New Brunswick to catch a house show of up-and-coming Jersey sludge bands topped off with the final gig of Massachusetts duo Olde Growth‘s most recent tour. Also on the bill were Pharaoh (not to be confused with the trad metal band from Chicago), the previously On the Radar-ized Eternal Fuzz, and Dutchguts, whom I’ve seen kicking around Jersey a couple times and who run the multi-stage basement venue The Meatlocker in Montclair — where Olde Growth played last time they came through.

Being forever in the shadow of NYC as regards actual venues — that is, the second anyone’s big enough to fill a bar, they’re not doing it here anymore — New Jersey has a long tradition of house shows. In the mid to late ’90s, it was how frantic tech metallers The Dillinger Escape Plan and numerous others first cut their teeth, and it’s been the foundation of the state’s obnoxiously/admirably persistent punk rock scene ever since. I wasn’t a part of that scene. Too young. The place where this show was held was just an old house on a wide street full of old houses. They called it The Alamo, and I walked through the side yard and around the back and knew almost immediately I was too old to be there.

I’d left work at six, dropped the dog off at home and driven, hurriedly, an hour south to go to the show. I genuinely wanted to see it. But you gotta understand, these were kids. I played a New Brunswick house show a few years back, but it’s different when you’re not actually in a band, and it was weird. I had my camera bag with me, but as the first band was getting ready to go on — the dude I asked didn’t know their name but said they had the guitar player from Sonofabitch, which didn’t help much — my choice very quickly became clear. I could stand around and be the old guy no one knows at the house show, or I could split. There wasn’t going to be any middle ground.

The year I was born, 1981, is listed as the dividing point between Generation X and the Millennials, but the reality of the situation is, I’ve never felt like I’ve belonged to one generation or another. I turn 31 later this year, and by the time I was a senior in high school, I knew the freshmen were coming from someplace completely different. Most of my youth I spent trying to hang around with people older than me. I sucked at being young. But I never really hit a point where I could relate to the perspective of those older than me either. It’s an awkward middle-ground that feels half a decade on the wrong side of either place. Born too late, born too early.

I don’t have a problem with being too old for the house show. Like I said, I sucked at being young, and so youth — inasmuch as it’s something I’ve “lost” — isn’t something I really miss. Youth had a lot of dire-seeming bullshit that I hated, and everyone treated each other like a motherfucker. But being where I was when I was, I never had a scene like the one growing now in Jersey, and the lesson I learned last night was that at least in the capacity of going to the shows and digging on these bands as they come up and get their footing creatively and in terms of performance, it’s just not going to work. I can support bands the way I do (i.e. writing), but being a part of it, being actually in it and of it, is something I’ve missed out on.

And in another three or four years, assuming they can keep it together, these bands are going to slay. Dutchguts, Pharaoh. I haven’t seen Eternal Fuzz yet, but I can only assume from what I’ve heard on the recording that the same applies. They’re young and arrogant enough to have their discovery of bands like Eyehategod be a natural outcrop of post-hardcore, and not so self-aware yet that they’ve lost their edge. I heard a report on the BBC yesterday that adolescence, that brain development, continues until the age of about 25. If they can make the most of the freedom they have — and especially doing it in an environment where they support and encourage each other, as they seem to be — then New Jersey’s heavy future is bright. I’ll look forward to hearing those records.

But there are things you can do that come with age and things you can’t, and at 30, my needs and my desires aren’t what they were even three years ago, let alone five or 10. I made my way through the house and down the small entranceway to the old basement, a pipe coming down from the already-low ceiling that I had to duck under, and watched that first band for a couple songs. Two guitars, drums, vocals, coming through Sunn heads and a shitty P.A., grooving out slow riffs like they just invented them, and just knew I was in the wrong place. I didn’t even want to take the camera out of my bag to take pictures. I didn’t want to move except to leave. So I left.

Maybe it didn’t matter. I don’t live under the delusion that wherever I go people are automatically paying attention to me, but I stood out and it made me uncomfortable. I was older, I was bigger, and if I wasn’t going to enjoy being there, what’s the point? Everything else sucks, music doesn’t. If going to shows is going to be a pain in my ass, then pretty much I’ve got nothing going for me. I didn’t see the Olde Growth dudes, and I didn’t get to catch Dutchguts, Pharaoh or Eternal Fuzz, as I wish I had, but in that place at that time, it just wasn’t going to work. Whether or not I actually was, I felt like I was intruding.

On my way out, I spoke to Rich Bukowski from Pharaoh for a bit. He was a couple years behind me (of course) at Seton Hall, and I’ve seen him around at shows ever since, so we’re friendly enough to say hey when we run into each other. I told him I envy what’s happening with these bands right now, that I wished it had been going on six years ago, and that I was going home. And then I did. The band inside was just launching into a cover of “Sister Fucker Pt. 1.” I got back in my car, turned on the Yankees, and the dulcet tones of John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman provided theatre of the mind for what turned out to be a shitty game as I made my way the hour back north to my humble river valley, where upon arrival I made myself a bowl of cereal, checked my email, and went to bed, kept awake yet for hours by the caffeine I’d ingested prior to heading out in the first place.

Yeah, I know it was just last week that I did a clip from Roadburn for a Wino Wednesday pick. Cut me some slack, man. It’s not every weekend in your life you get to see Scott “Wino” Weinrich kill it in two different sets with two different projects, and I guess until Shrinebuilder decides to go on tour with The Obsessed and Spirit Caravan reunions (which probably won’t be happening any time soon or, you know, ever), it’s about the most we can reasonably ask for. I guess you could get Saint Vitus and Shrinebuilder on the same bill somewhat feasibly for a Wino double-dose, but it’s moot, however much fun dream lineups are to put together.

And anyway, the song “Dust,” which Wino and German singer-songwriter Conny Ochs included earlier this year on their collaborative album, Heavy Kingdom (review here) has been stuck in my head on and off since I watched them play it. I thought it was a cool track when I heard it on the album, but it’s a whole different experience hearing it live, especially since, as they both noted throughout the set, they’d been on tour throughout Europe for weeks, and were extremely tight both vocally and musically. Ochs, who takes the lead vocal on “Dust” with Wino backing, kicks a bass drum to keep a beat and soulfully belts out the song with melodic embellishments. It was one of the high points of the festival.

So, on this springtime late afternoon, I hope you enjoy this clip from Wino & Conny Ochs‘ set, making the most of the old church acoustics as they open day two of Roadburn at Het Patronaat. Maybe posting it will finally get the song out of my head and I’ll be able to move on with my life, but somehow I doubt it.

In any case, happy Wino Wednesday:

Though one usually tends to think of sludge as emanating or at least imitating the climate of the Southeastern part of the US – the unbearable summer heat and lung-collapsing humidity are an arguable impetus for the sound in themselves – its influence is far more widespread than its geography, and one of the more interesting upshots of that is hearing what players from different regions bring to the already established style. The single-guitar five-piece Godhunter, whose name is about as metal as it gets, make their home in Tucson, Arizona, and to follow suit, the sound of their self-released Wolves EP is bone dry. Sure, David Rodgers’ guitars are outfitted with stonerly distortion, but there’s something in the tone that comes off like it gets less than 10 inches of annual rainfall. As the five tracks progress, and particularly as a Down influence makes itself known on riffy closer “(Dead Hooker by the Side of) The Road,” that dryness becomes more consuming, and though Godhunter have done well to change the pace throughout – showing sludge’s punk/crossover roots on “Red State/Black Crusade” before dooming it up on “Powerbelly” – Wolves becomes more typified by its excursions into hardcore-style gang vocals, with Rodgers and guest vocalist Sean Raines joining in standalone-singer Charlie Touseull’s shouts on the 7:40 “Powerbelly” for a rousing, memorable chorus about black magic, black whiskey, evil women and bags of weed. The same tactic shows up on “The Road,” as well, and as that and “Powerbelly” are both near eight-minutes long, they seem written at a different time than the first three tracks, or at least working on a different line of inspiration, whether it’s the output of multiple songwriters or what. Neither song is out of place on Wolves, and the material is all the more cohesive because of the consistency of its production – which thins Ryan “Dick” Williamson’s bass some and less than ideally captures drummer Ryan Clark’s toms on opener “(Stop Being) Sheep,” but is steady in setting an overall context nonetheless – so maybe it’s just a case of burgeoning sonic diversity beginning to show itself.

Either way, the Wolves EP makes for a solid 32 minutes of sludge-based aggression, and whatever forms it’s working with, they generally arrive still well able to qualify as such. The vocals are mixed high from the start, though one gets the sense that Touseull wouldn’t have had any trouble cutting through the music surrounding anyway, but it’s a couple minutes into “(Stop Being) Sheep” before he comes on, and in that time, Godhunter set a steady build and enforce and underlying groove that shows some schooling in doom. The guitar runs a creepy line complemented by Williamson’s bass, and it’s not until more than halfway through that the verse begins with angry, metallic-sounding throaty shouts – not quite growls or screams, but not clean either for still being mostly decipherable. Musically, the momentum seems to really play itself out over the course of the last minute, but the anticipation for a payoff to that 5:49 build remains as Godhunter moves into “Wolves of the North.” Fortunately, the track wastes no time in providing a higher stake of energy, Touseull and Rodgers foreshadowing the gang chants to come with some back and forth in the verse and chorus. Both Williamson and Clark are given better treatment here, with the former filling out beneath a guitar lead with style and apparent ease as the drums make ready to renew the crashes and kick-thuds of the chorus. Matthew Davis is credited with keyboards in the liner, but if there are any on “Wolves of the North,” I must be missing them, and in the time since the EP’s late-2011 release, Davis seems to have been replaced by a guitarist named Jake, which is probably fair since there are multiple layers of guitar throughout Wolves and more distortion rarely hurts.

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In his third “Drinking with the Devil (Dick)” column, Tommy Southard puts his palate and his liver on the line against a range of craft brews in various locales and lives to tell the tale of a night spent with Schaefer and Thin Lizzy, which is about as close to an ideal evening as I can think of. Please enjoy:

Drinking with the Devil (Dick)
by Tommy Southard

Well greetings, Obeliskers…

It’s been a while but it seems like only yesterday I was trying to get the last installment of “Drinkin’ w/ the Devil” together. Man, where does the time go?

I’ve been way busy with lots of things, but still had time to sample plenty of beers. But let me say that beer in Pennsylvania is expensive! With that in mind, I’ve been tending to stick with some of the things I’ve liked, so I’m not spending money I don’t have on things I’m not sure about. A couple of the brews I’ve been frequenting has been stuff by Dark Horse, Southern Tier, Duck Rabbit (the dark beer specialists) and Dogfish Head. I’ve also been out and about drinking at some local joints. One around the corner from my house is Mickey’s Tavern.

Mickey’s is a bit of a dive bar and my kind of place. Full of locals and working class types who come to have a few beers after work and before they go home to the wife and kids. Recently we found out that they were trying to improve their beer selection. And when we drove by and saw a sign that said “Now Serving Over 100 Beers,” we had to go in and check it out. I’ve been there many times before, but always just for a cold bottle of PBR on the cheap. Well, the selection wasn’t all that I was hoping for so I went with a Revel Red, which was okay but nothing great, and then a Fuller’s London Pride and we hit the bricks. I give them an A for effort but when I go to Mickey’s it will be for the cheap PBR in bottles. I snapped a few pics with their plastic doggie tip jar…

Dark Horse is easily one of my fave breweries out there now and all of their stuff has been to my liking lately. We (that’s me and the wifey) always pick up some when we are on the beer hunt. Looks like they changed the label on their Perkulator Coffee Dopplebock, which is pretty fantastic, by the way. If you like coffee and beer this is a nice one if you have not had it before. Hell, even if you don’t drink coffee, you should try this. Nice and malty and the coffee doesn’t overpower the brew.

We also had some Dark Horse Too Cream Stout, which a milk-style stout (made with milk sugars). This was dark and smooth and sweet. Just like I like my ladies… Heh. And at 8.0 percent ABV, it packs a bit more wallop than one might expect. Another fine brew by this fine brewery.

Another brewery that I have not had a bad beer from is Southern Tier. The Imperial Choklat Stout is no exception. Brewed with chocolate, this is pretty awesome. Totally dark chocolate sweetness and drinks so smooth for an 11 percent beer. I could drink one thousand of these! If you have not had anything by this brewery I STRONGLY suggest you do so, post haste.

That brings me to Duck Rabbit, “The Dark Beer Specialists,” or so they say. But I won’t argue.

Duck Rabbit Brown Ale was a pretty typical American brown. This is an average brew, methinks. Nothing really stands out, but then again nothing screams, “This sucks!” Kinda weak in flavor compared to all the other Duck Rabbits. If I see this next to the porter or stouts, I’m going with the others…

Holy crap, their Milk Stout actually tasted a bit like milk. It was kinda off putting at first sip, but it got better and better with each. I guess it was a bit of a shock when it actually tasted like milk. A very smooth and drinkable milk stout that got better as it went down.

The Duck Rabbit Porter was exceptional. I love porters and this one was/is a fine example. If you are down with porters get your hands on it ASAP. A way above-average porter, in my humble opinion.

That said, the Baltic Porter was a bit of a bummer for me. I have heard people rave about it, but each and every bottle tasted of metal. Not sure if it was from the cap of the bottle but something went wrong in the bottling of this batch. A real shame because I know this is not how this should taste. I will revisit, hope for better results, and for now give it an incomplete until I’ve tried another batch.

Oh la la… Duck Rabbit Barley Wine. At 11 percent, this one packs a punch and has a bit of a booze smell and burn but the fruit and malty flavors balance this one out nicely! A+

One of my all time faves has been Dogfish Head Chicory Stout. I was lucky enough to find a few remaining six-packs of this luscious brew. It’s seasonal, and it disappears as soon as it hits the shelves, so I was lucky to find it. I’ve talked about it before, but this beer it is just awesome. This is the official description: “Chicory Stout is a rich, dark beer made with a touch of roasted chicory, organic Mexican coffee, St. John’s Wort, and licorice root. It is brewed with roast barley, crystal malt and oats and hopped just right with Glacier hops. We use fair trade Organic Mexican Coatepec beans roasted to our specifications by Notting Hill Coffee Roastery in Lewes, DE.”

I also spent a little time in my old stomping grounds of Jersey a little while back and hit an old spot that I wasn’t even sure was still there as it had been years and years since I last was there, but lo and behold another dive bar that still exists! “The Not Yet Famous” Sudsy Mug. Here is a pic of my good buddy and oldest friend on earth, Timmy Schoenliber, out front of the bar where we went in and had mug after mug after mug of Yuengling on tap. We then went back to his house and drank a shit-ton of Schaefer beers, Sailor Jerry Rum and root beer, built a fire and jammed Thin Lizzy, Black Sabbath, The Kinks, Neil Young and Lynyrd Skynyrd till the wee hours of the morn… That’s what friends are all about! Till the next time!

Prost!
Tommy Southard

The gamut run by German rockers Black Space Riders is vast indeed. On their second album, the self-released Light is the New Black, the double-guitar foursome spend a solid hour rooting their way into, around and through any number of heavy subgenres, from gothic rock to space noise, stoner metal, punk and even a bit of thrash. Almost on a song-by-song basis, Light is the New Black endeavors to expand its sonic palette, and as it rarely steps back to repeat a move once it’s been made, the real miracle of the 13 tracks is that they don’t fall apart at the seams. Not only that, but the record is as dense conceptually as it is diverse musically. Black Space Riders have broken up the tracklisting into four rhyming sides – Light, Bright, White and Night – and given cuts cumbersome, highly parenthetical titles that bleed into each other like “Digging Down (The Hole Part One… From Deep Below)” and the much later “The New Black (The Hole Part Two… From Above).” That’s not to mention “Someone Has Turned the Knob to Switch on the Light, but Instead Something Strange Happened to the Warp Engine,” which at 1:51 isn’t nearly as long as its title. Sci-fi themes persist here, which isn’t strange considering Black Space Riders’ 2010 self-titled debut (review here) worked along similar lines, albeit in a more lighthearted overall approach. There isn’t a narrative plot that I can discern, but with so much ground covered musically, it’s hard not to feel like the band is embarking on a journey anyway, and as Light is the New Black is given the subtitle “Songs about Luminaries, Black Holes, Hope and Loss in Outer Space,” it’s clear they’re working with some pre-thought schema in mind.

That’s fortunate, because JE (vocals/guitar), SLI (guitar), SAQ (bass/backing vocals) and CRIP (drums) task themselves to covering an unreal amount of the space they’re describing. JE’s vocals alone are varied enough to catch one off guard, clean and imbued with a Euro-doom drama on opener “Creature of No Light (Exodus Part One),” they’re soon growlingly reminiscent of the last Amebix on “Sun vs. Moon (Total Eclipse)” and the more upbeat, straightforward “Digging Down (The Hole Part One… From Deep Below),” which offers the first of Light is the New Black’s several landmark choruses. With so much material and so many stylistic shifts, those choruses do a lot to ground the album as a whole, but the flow between songs isn’t entirely reliant on them either. The transition between “Digging Down (The Hole Part One… From Deep Below)” and “I am Fire” is natural, as the latter builds on the punk leanings and straight-ahead structure of the former with a like-minded if a bit less effective hook to wrap the Light side and make way for the longest and perhaps most atmospheric cut, “We Used to Live in Light (Exodus Part Two).” CRIP’s rimshot drumming seems to announce the change in approach before even JE’s softer, semi-spoken vocals start in over a deftly progressive groove. Nearly the whole band provides backing for JE at one point or another in the song, CHIP credited in the CD liner with “haaaaaaarmonics” and SAQ and frequent contributor SEB with a kind of spoken chant during the chorus. An instrumental build pays off with the satisfying delivery of the title line, and it becomes clear that although the production doesn’t necessarily match the level of dynamics at work, Black Space Riders have grown remarkably as songwriters since the charming but not nearly as challenging biker psych of the self-titled.

A direct transition between tracks brings the “Lost (Return into the Void),” which is softer and not quite psychedelic. The first several minutes are made by SAQ’s bass tone, but the guitar line is more forward in the mix and hypnotically repetitive, so it’s easy to miss with JE’s vocals, spoken and again repeating the line “Everything is lost” amid a quickly mounting swirl that the song has been deceptively moving toward. Amp noise and effects fade over the last minute and “Night Over Qo’Nos (Masrammey)” lifts the pace similar to how “Digging Down (The Hole Part One… From Deep Below)” did, but in an entirely darker and more heavy rocking manner. The song, which takes its name from the Klingon homeword in the Star Trek mythos, is the next of the landmark choruses, and well positioned as the centerpiece. A slight Eastern influence comes up toward the final third, but opens to a grand, openly-riffed break, topped with dramatic shouting that leads back one more time into the chorus before White side takes hold from Bright side and offers the catchiest of Light is the New Black’s hooks in “Startrooper.” The vocal arrangement is the difference here, with shouts “startrooper!” behind JE like some kind of alternate-dimension crossover punk, and “Walls of Plasma” continues the momentum with a classically metal riff and another strong chorus. The progression of the album would make this seem like the focal point, but the experience might be completely different when it comes to flipping vinyl sides rather than listening all in a row on a CD. In any case, “Walls of Plasma” is also the first cut on Light is the New Black to remind of Entombed’s latter era, and that comes up again on the subsequent “Louder than Light.”

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It’s not lacking atmospherically, but there’s something sparse at the core of Ides of Gemini‘s approach on their forthcoming Neurot debut, Constantinople. The guitar particularly affects a sonic spaciousness that gives vocalist/bassist Sera Timms (also of Black Math Horseman) room to soar and croon as she will, her voice like that of a reverb-soaked mystic chanting foreboding prophecies. Timms doesn’t carry the whole of Constantinople all on her own, but it’s clear from the first note she sings that she could if she had to.

Driving the music behind her powerful, striking performance is guitarist/backing vocalist J. Bennett, also a noted music journalist for Decibel and several other print outlets, who brings a sub-black metal tonality to bear in mostly doomed pacing that finds like-minded and subdued accompaniment in the simple drumming of Kelly Johnston. The latter’s work across Constantinople skillfully walks a fine line between enhancing the post-rock ambience and propelling the songs forward, also periodically adding backing vocals to Timms‘ own, while Bennett offers emphasis on each single note he plays, enriching the melody that’s only more gorgeous and lush for the relative minimalism that surrounds.

Today I’m lucky enough to be able to stream the track “Slain in Spirit” from Constantinople, the third of the total nine. With a dirge riff from Bennett and snare march from Johnston, it’s among the most active songs on the album, but Timms‘ vocals resting atop the music as they do is pretty indicative of how the rest of the record is constructed. In any case, I hope you enjoy “Slain in Spirit” on the player below:

[mp3player width=460 height=120 config=fmp_jw_widget_config.xml playlist=ides-of-gemini.xml]

Ides of Gemini‘s Constantinople is due out May 29 with CD and digital release through Neurot Recordings and vinyl/tape on Sige Records. For more info, check out Neurot‘s artist page or find Ides of Gemini on Thee Facebooks.

Okay, so maybe these two bands are stand-ins for bigger ideas, but think about it this way: The central question in looking at defunct Dutch psych proggers 35007 (on my mind following their inclusion in this month’s podcast) and reborn West Virginian riff bashers Karma to Burn is what do you want from an instrumental band? Do you want extensive musical exploration born out of freeform or structurally open jamming, or do you want head-down, driving rock, just without some singer guy blathering on about motorcycles and hey whoa baby yeah?

By way of examples, let’s take 35007‘s 2005 swansong, Phase V, and what was then Karma to Burn‘s second album, 1999’s Wild Wonderful Purgatory, which was the record that established them as an instrumental act following their 1997 self-titled debut. The 35007 made a bed of odd time signatures and underlying experiments in synth, resulting in a varied, eclectic presentation, where Karma to Burn‘s sophomore outing is among the most straightforward stoner rock albums, period. If it was any more stripped down, they wouldn’t be playing.

I’m not necessarily championing either as the best in the band’s catalog (though I’ll argue for Phase V in that regard), but looking to get a discussion going on what you want when you listen to instrumental heavy rock. Karma to Burn and 35007 — both pivotal and highly influential bands who got started around the same time in the early/mid ’90s — stand for very different things musically while still roughly residing in the same genre. So let’s do this:

Is it the expanded creative realm of 35007?

Or the balls-out, bullshit-free classicism of Karma to Burn?

You know the drill by now. These posts are always about having some fun, so wherever you stand, make sure you leave a comment below. I’m looking forward to seeing how this one turns out.

With critics and listeners seemingly already in their corner, San Diego classic space/prog five-piece Astra make a Moog-heavy sophomore outing in the form of The Black Chord. Astra won many ears to their side with 2009’s Rise Above debut, The Weirding (review here), on which they offset retro King Crimson-style melodies with a sense of modern urgency that indeed also shows up throughout the six tracks of the second album. It’s Astra’s balance of old and new that makes their recorded output so fascinating, and as the US has become even more enamored of all things taggable as progressive and/or psychedelic in the last three years – at least in an underground sense – The Black Chord arrives at just the right time and in just the right place for the band to be able to make the most of their songwriting. A returning lineup of Richard Vaughan (vocals/guitar/Moog/mellotron), Conor Riley (mellotron/Moog/organ/piano/vocals), David Hurley (drums/percussion/flute), Brian Ellis (Moog/lead guitar) and Stuart Sclater (bass) is tighter and shows significant growth from the first album, which is appropriate given that in progressive rock one expects a certain amount of progress. That comes in part in the confidence and clarity with which they now handle the melodies, and where The Weirding felt at times like it was trying to throw everything at you all at once, The Black Chord is more patient in its execution and all the more majestic-sounding for that.

In addition, The Black Chord clocks in at a vinyl-ready 47 minutes, where The Weirding topped more than a full hour, so that also lets the songs establish more of their own character without overwhelming a listener’s attention, however fickle it may or may not be. With heavy emphasis on their keys – the Moogs, mellotrons, organs and piano are as much if not more essential to Astra’s sound here as the two guitars – and a solid rhythm section in Sclater and Hurley, The Black Chord is overall striking in its cohesion and flow between songs. Side A is comprised of instrumental opener “Cocoon” (8:43) and the title-track (14:58), which between the two of them account for half the album’s runtime and much of its breadth. One expects from the grandeur with which “Cocoon” gradually unfolds that Astra’s self-indulgence is perhaps going to take over and rule the material, but though both the guitars and the keys enjoy movements of prominence, those come largely in service to the songs themselves rather than any show of technicality. The opener’s groove gradually speeds up, carried forward by the guitar and a synth line of building intensity, but Sclater’s bass maintains a casual feel even as a chase ensues. That’s the first of Astra’s several visits to the Court of the Crimson King on The Black Chord, but they’re likewise enamored of Floyd and that comes through in some of the quieter stretches of the title cut.

Relatively speaking, it’s not long before the vocals kick in on “The Black Chord,” topping piano and bass and establishing a verse progression that’s among the album’s best. At just under 15 minutes, “The Black Chord” is the record’s longest song by more than five, and has a scope to match, showing some eclecticism in its rhythmic bounce – the sounds and jazzy pops of Hurley’s drums account for a decent amount of King Crimson comparisons in themselves – but it’s still the melodies, sudden stops and semi-blown-out “21st Century Schizoid Man”-style vocals that drive the point home. As much as they’ve clearly taken influence from those first couple Crimson records, though, it’s important to note that Astra have worked those elements into something their own even more so on The Black Chord than on The Weirding, a guitar-led passage giving way to an organ solo backed by mellotron washes and a tradeoff between players that’s smooth and natural-sounding. A large instrumental “break” accounts for much of “The Black Chord”’s sprawl, but perhaps in a mode more conscious of their audience, Astra return to the verse and sweet key bounce before developing a kind of routed jam that carries through the last four minutes with a build and payoff worthy of closing out the first half that continues its momentum in the opening “Quake Meat,” which begins to set the tone of side B’s methodology of shorter tracks and a crisper approach of conveying musical ideas. At 6:40, it’s extended compared to some other bands, but in relation to what’s preceded on The Black Chord, it’s practically a radio single.

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