[Click play above to stream ‘Key and Bone’ from Heavy Temple’s debut album, Chassit, out on tape Nov. 19 via Tridroid Records with preorders starting Oct. 3.]

Checking in at four tracks/28 minutes, I felt compelled to ask Heavy Temple whether their new release, Chassit, which is out in November on tape through Tridroid Records with other formats to follow, is a second EP or, in fact, their debut album. 28 minutes is short for a full-length — lest we forget that 30 years ago, Slayer pulled off Reign in Blood in that time — but part of the reason I thought I should ask was because of the flow the Philadelphia three-piece set up between their included tracks: “Key and Bone,” “Ursa Machina,” “Pink Glass” and “In the Court of the Bastard King.” The answer? An album, and I think that’s fair enough.

Since the release of their Ván Records self-titled EP (review here) in 2014 — the same year they formed — bassist/vocalist High Priestess Nighthawk has changed the band’s configuration entirely, and while bringing aboard drummer Siren Tempestas and guitarist Archbishop Barghest no doubt has affected the overall sound, lineup alone simply can’t account for the cohesion of aesthetic that has emerged in what they do. There’s legitimate growth here, and as Heavy Temple cast off some of the trappings of cult rock over time — others hold firm — what they’re finding is an individual presence and style between harder-edged fuzz, classic stoner swing, and more ethereal impulses. Principally though, their material hits with a firm sense of purpose on Chassit in a way that Heavy Temple had not yet found.

That’s not to trivialize the contributions of Tempestas — who rolls out a monster groove on “Ursa Machina” and is the foundation of the aforementioned swing, played with admirable vitality — or the tone of Barghest, which becomes a defining element here from the start of “Key and Bone” onward, rather to say that in the context of the first release, Chassit shows growth from Heavy Temple as a whole and not just because it’s different players making up the band.

It’s well worth noting that over the last couple years I’ve become a fan of their work, so that’s the perspective from which I’m writing — I invited them to play The Obelisk All-Dayer this past August because of that — but as much as the first EP turned heads in their direction, Chassit seems primed to take that a step further, and considering it as their debut full-length, the progression it establishes as already being in progress is both exciting for its future prospects and in its current execution, the shorter, catchier, punchier “Key and Bone” with its riotous thrust setting up the longer cuts that follow in “Ursa Machina,” a more patient push with stops culled from classic blues but hammered in feedback and spacious, leading to a fuzzed-out, you-are-here moment of arrival in the last two minutes, fluid and righteously heavy and full in its sound without any sense of being tentative about where it’s headed.

Confident. Assured. Powerful. These aren’t things one would necessarily expect from a band making their debut, or even one putting together a second EP to demonstrate their wares — and depending on what Heavy Temple does next, Chassit might indeed wind up being their second EP — but by the time they’re two verses into “Key and Bone,” it’s clear they’ve thrown the subgenre rulebook out the window and worked to become their own band.

This shift in approach only continues to suit them as “Ursa Machina” bleeds into the start of “Pink Glass.” As both tracks top eight minutes, they make up a significant portion of Chassit‘s total runtime, and it’s probably fair to call them the “meat” of the record, which is all the better for the blend of hooks and atmosphere they convey. Similar to the cut before, “Pink Glass” saves its largesse for the second half, but its beginning is perfectly paced in not rushing but still upbeat, with a catchy bounce in its chorus that sets up the latter portion, to which the transition begins at around the 3:30 mark as they work their way out of the last chorus.

Bass takes over complemented by sparse guitar, and for the next three and a half minutes, Heavy Temple show a quiet, patient side they haven’t yet displayed as they subtly build their way toward “Pink Glass”‘ explosive finish, an apex groove that builds its tempo smoothly as it arises and pays off the album as a whole as much as the song itself. Vocals return and soar in an ending chorus further marked out by an added layer of lead guitar — just a second or two of flash, but skillfully arranged — before the whole thing collapses into feedback and the start-stop beginning of “In the Court of the Bastard King.” Somewhat shorter at 6:03, the closer also pushes pretty far out, but in a different way, playing between an overarching thrust and hard-funk shuffle as it moves through its verses and layered chorus before departing the stomp in which it winds up via transitional tom work toward an ending wash of psychedelic noise.

There’s no coming all the way back this time, and having done so to such satisfying effect only one song prior, that makes the structure of “In the Court of the Bastard King” that much more engaging in how it ends the record. The underlying rhythm holds as the guitar freaks itself out and they do turn around to the central progression of the track in the last second or two, but by then the context has changed considerably, which is a further testament to their craft.

Part of the excitement of any impressive debut — or any impressive album at all, really — is imagining where the band’s creative growth might lead them in the years to come. To say as a fan already of their work that Heavy Temple exhibit significant potential to become something special on Chassit feels like underselling it, because to my ears, that moment is already happening here. Nonetheless, while they’ve set a high standard with these songs, I hear nothing in them to make me think Heavy Temple won’t keep growing and pushing forward from the elements presented here, and that their multifaceted but sonically consistent style will do anything other than continue to flourish. Here’s hoping.

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Grimoire Records has set an Oct. 21 release date for a new split titled Vortex 6 from instrumental outfits Thought Eater and Iron Jawed Guru. Each band will present four tracks recorded, as all of Grimoire‘s releases are, by label honcho Noel Mueller, and each band has tied their tracks to a theme born out of classic cult sci-fi. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to say what movies in particular, so I won’t give anything away.

In the case of Baltimore trio Thought Eater, this split marks their first outing and finds them somewhere between more aggressive chug and engaging depth of tone. They lead off on the first half and provide a tight but still grooving approach, their “Crushing Metaphysical Crisis” shifting easily from semi-blastbeats into more open fluidity and demonstrating a clear lack of respect for the boundaries of genre.

You might recall West Virginia’s Iron Jawed Guru offered up their debut EP, Mata Hari (review here) through Grimoire in the early hours of 2016. Relatively quick though it was, their straightforward approach to Appalachian-style riffy instrumentalism left an impression for sure, and here the duo tease a bit of melody in in their sound, showcasing early growth as they move forward.

Right now, if you play your cards right — and by that I mean click the player below — you can stream premieres of “Crystal Maze” from Thought Eater and “Emerald Seer” from Iron Jawed Guru.

Preorders for Vortex 6 are up as of today from Grimoire, who also had the following:

Thought Eater / Iron Jawed Guru split “Vortex 6” – 10/21/16 Grimoire Records

Side A:

Thought Eater is a brand new 3-piece instrumental band from Baltimore, MD, featuring a 12-string bass through a big muff. This monstrosity is a standard bass with 3 of everything, producing a bizarre double-vision effect on every note. Uniquely hypnotic High on Fire riffs are woven into angular odd-time compositions reminiscent of Intronaut and Zebulon Pike.

Douglas Griffith – guitar
Darin Tambascio – bass guitar
Bobby Murray – drums

Side B:

Iron Jawed Guru, an instrumental power duo from West Virginia, is back with their second Grimoire release of 2016. True to Mata Hari form, epic compositions reminiscent of Kyuss and Russian Circles. They too employ a novel technique to thicken up their sound, running their guitar through an array of different amps and octavers to create a mammoth wall of sound with a paradoxically clean edge.

Roy Brewer – Drums
Mike Lorenzen – Other Noises

The release date for “Vortex 6” is 10/21/16 on CD and digital download through Grimoire Records. Pre-orders are available here:
https://grimoirerecords.bandcamp.com/album/vortex-6

https://www.facebook.com/IJGrock/
https://www.facebook.com/thoughteaterband
https://www.facebook.com/GrimoireRecords/

Thermic Boogie will release their debut album, Vastness and Matter, through HeadSpin Records on Sept. 15. The Barcelona-based two-piece introduced the record with a review/track premiere here back in the early hours of 2016, and signed with HeadSpin for the CD/LP physical pressings thereafter. A few months’ manufacturing time later, here we are again, streaming the record in full. Nice to give these things some symmetry sometimes.

However, as I’ve already reviewed the four/five-track work — it started out as four, but the latter part of “No Pienses en Volver” has been broken off into a separate, untitled closer for the real-world editions — it hardly seems useful to rehash my own meager insights about the instrumental work of guitarist Albert Martínez-López and drummer Baptiste Gautier-Lorenzo (also of Brain Pyramid), so I thought I’d go to the band itself to get some background. What started as a track-by-track kind of became a general overview about how Thermic Boogie came about and how the record came together following the writing for its longest piece, the 21-minute “Quadratonic Magnitude.”

That that track would be the foundation for Thermic Boogie as a whole makes sense once you hear it. Gautier-Lorenzo and Martínez-López have immediate chemistry together as players, and it comes across there in a way that serves the shorter cuts around it, whether that’s opener “A Black Powdery” or the following “Space Void of Matter.” “Quadratonic Magnitude,” as the centerpiece of the tracklist, embodies Thermic Boogie‘s ethic, and the exploration it sets out upon continues in the subsequent “No Pienses en Volver” and the percussive experimenting of the already-noted unnamed finale.

Gautier-Lorenzo was kind enough to go into detail on Vastness and Matter from start to finish, concept to execution, so I won’t delay any further. Dig into the stream of the full album using the Soundcloud player below, then find his comments after, and please, enjoy:

Baptiste Gautier-Lorenzo on Vastness and Matter:

Thermic Boogie was born in 2015, after the meeting of me and Albert, who is my step-brother. He already had two beautiful amplifiers and I was looking for a heavy rock project. We directly made a lot of jam sessions, which we recorded on my little cassette 4-track recorder.

Then, we made a surgical work to grab and mix all the heaviest and groovy things we had on the recordings. First came the longest song on the debut album: it’s called “Quadratonic Magnitude.” It actually last 21 minutes or something around. This is the song on which we spent a pretty big lot of time… We wanted to create an intense and dynamic piece, to stick to the dimension-related album. I think it give a good idea of the monolithic way of playing we are aiming to reach.

After this, we crafted the following song, which is the outro of the album. It consists in a sweet and deep part; followed by a percussion part. We really loved the idea of a huge finish, to bring even more density to the disc. It is also a way to show another side of heaviness. This acid-drum part is the only part that has been recorded with the 4-track recorder!

The other songs were quicker to compose. They have more common shape, and straightness. And it’s hard to say if we were “inspired” by a certain band or song to compose them. It think it just popped out of us, without thinking. I like to do spontaneous things, and these songs were almost created instantaneously. Albert brought a lot of ideas and freshness in the way of playing these songs.

The recording took place in a wood factory, in an industrial zone, near Barcelona. It was just a weekend, as we recorded all the playbacks “live”. We just made some overdubs after it, and we were done. It was a real isolation from the noise and agitation of city. We both love to be on the outsides and to have a relief from the stressed environment where we’re living. It think this is the main influence for the whole songs and also for the design and the way of building the album.

It was also very important for us to make that album sound natural and as close as possible of the reality. The mixing and master were made to respect the dynamics and textures of the versatile sound of the guitar, despite of the awful mics and recording gear we used, heheheh.

We made everything by ourselves from the beginning, without help from any third part person! So the people will taste an entire and “monolithic” part of the band
and we would also say a huge thank to our friends and family, to Clio and Headspin/Clear Spot Records.

We’re really excited to see how the people will react to it, as every beginning project. We hope this will like to all the heavy diggers, and night trippers. May the real heavy rock live on!

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Thermic Boogie at HeadSpin Records

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[Stream Suma’s ‘Bait for Maggots’ by clicking play above. The Order of Things is out Oct. 11.]

A new Suma record doesn’t happen every day. Now in their 15th year, the Malmö, Sweden-based outfit have always stayed active through a variety of splits, compilations and EPs, and they even had a live tape out last year for a fortunate few who were able to grab one, but it’s been six years since their last proper studio full-length, Ashes, and that certainly feels like long enough. The four-piece of drummer Erik, bassist/vocalist Johan, guitarist Peter and noisemaker Rick traveled to Portland, Oregon, to track The Order of Things with Billy Anderson, who also helmed Ashes and the prior 2006 outing, Let the Churches Burn, and if that’s not enough to make the album an event — and it is, make no mistake — the fact that it arrives through no fewer than four different labels should say something about the level of support for Suma‘s churning, deeply atmospheric sludge.

Argonauta and Init Records have CDs, Throne Records the LP and Tartarus Records the cassette, so The Order of Things is nothing if not well represented, and Suma pay back the faith shown in them with 57 minutes of destructive post-metal spread across seven tracks. I’ve talked before about how something oppressively heavy can feel like it’s filling your lungs, and Suma do a better job of that than most. Their fourth album doesn’t necessarily reinvent their methods from what they conjured on Ashes, which Argonauta also reissued last year, but in the interim, they also parted ways with vocalist Jovan, moved Johan into that role and brought in Rick for samples, drones and other assorted ambient contributions, so some measure of sonic shift is inevitable.

Mostly it sounds like progression. To wit, the 13-minute “Education for Death” late in the record. I’m not sure “highlight” is the word for something that seems to plunge so deep, but either way the thudding tension Suma create is gloriously excruciating, cave-echo vocals swirling in the background behind apocalyptic tone and stomp. Much of the album plays back and forth between longer-form material and three shorter atmospheric pieces, the first of which, “The Sick Present,” opens. I’d call it an intro but for the fact that it’s still over the four-minute mark, but it does the work of immersing the listener in the darkened space Suma will continue to build and tear down across the subsequent pair “Bait for Maggots” and “RPA.” The sense of discomfort is almost immediate, and as “Bait for Maggots” begins its chugging pulsation, Suma seem right at home in the midst of that tempest. Johan‘s shouts are commanding throughout but far back enough in the mix to be obscured by the paramount groove that emerges, led by Peter‘s guitar.

Mercifully, “Bait for Maggots” gives due payoff to its onslaught, and in so doing sets up the key dynamic for the rest of The Order of Things, which is the play between foreboding, tension, and release. “RPA,” which follows directly, isn’t quite as linear as “Bait for Maggots” or the later, aforementioned “Education for Death,” but it too offers a thrust built on making the listener’s blood boil before finally letting go. Because it’s so inhuman(e)-sounding and because of the samples and effects wash, etc., there’s an almost industrial element to “RPA,” but the crux of Suma‘s effect on their audience still comes from the madness that seems to be at the root of their delivery and the weight and density with which their material lands.

While, again, that’s probably not new for anyone who’s dug into Ashes, Let the Churches Burn, their 2003 self-titled debut or any of their sundry shorter outings, it does still feel like the band has pushed forward, and the direct contrast of heft with atmospherics moving from “RPA” into the dream-haunting samples of “Being and/or Nothingness” shows that well leading into “Education for Death” itself, which is the longest inclusion at 13:36 and doesn’t even begin to think about releasing its grip around the listener’s throat until nine minutes in, and even then, it’s another minute-plus before they get there. Beautifully crafted, challenging in the hearing, but when they do finally roll out the apex, building to an all-grey swirl of noise, the result is fitting. The penultimate “Disorder of Things” continues to push forward at a faster clip from where “Education for Death” tore itself to shreds, the wash and crash becoming overwhelming. There might be vocals, and that’s the most honest assessment I can give you. Its ferocity is just about unmatched by anything else on The Order of Things, but “Disorder of Things” is also a lead-in for the quiet post-rocking guitar squibblies that give a spacious start to 12:37 closer “The Greater Dying.” Not a minor title and not a minor way to finish their record either.

That righteous space will continue to open up as Erik enters on drums, and Suma roll out a patient, masterful and consuming groove as they thrust ahead toward the crash-heavy peak of the song, bringing about something of a change in structure as they hit that crescendo closer to the middle third and dedicate about the last three minutes to a long fade of guitar, cymbals and other ambient noise. I wouldn’t speculate on how long they could actually keep that line going past the fade, but the impression is perpetual all the same, and the sheer fact that after all that bludgeoning, Suma would let their listeners go so gently, drifting, into the album’s finish can really only lead one to conclude that the overriding message of The Order of Things is death. I don’t know if that’s what they were going for, but it’s certainly the takeaway from the work itself, and Suma‘s contemplation thereof resonates in its intensity and breadth alike. They are a rare band, and woefully underappreciated.

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Argonauta Records website

Init Records website

Tartarus Records website

Throne Records website

[Click play above to stream ‘Afraid of the Dark’ from Second Grave’s Blacken the Sky. Album is available now from the band.]

It is a dark and metallic churn that dominates Blacken the Sky, the ominously titled and awaited debut full-length from Massachusetts four-piece Second Grave. In its tone and structural cohesion, it is for all intents and purposes a metal record, but its pacing and atmosphere find their roots in classic doom as well — rarely does a “doom metal” tag serve to actually be so descriptive, but Second Grave cover both sides of that equation well across the formidable 55-minute/nine-track span of Blacken the Sky. Having been lucky enough to see Second Grave play on several occasions, it’s not really a surprise either that their first album would be so assured of its purpose or that it would display such poise in its execution.

If nothing else, it’s been three years since their second EP, Antithesis (review here), followed their 2012 self-titled initial offering (review here), so it’s not like the lineup of guitarist/vocalist Krista Van Guilder (ex-Warhorse), guitarist Chris Drzal, bassist Maureen Murphy and drummer Chuck Ferreira haven’t had time to compose the material and sculpt their aesthetic into what they want it to be, and as songs like opener “No Roam” and “Afraid of the Dark” and the 11-minute “Death March” demonstrate, they’ve clearly gotten there. Where Blacken the Sky meets its truest success is in melding moody ambience and oppressively heavy riffing — the way the band veers into extremity with Van Guilder‘s searing screams on “Bloodletting” or the loosely doomedelic initial two minutes of “Death March,” before the actual march begins and provides Second Grave‘s debut with a worthy crescendo.

No doubt Blacken the Sky will be the introduction for many listeners to Second Grave, but because it’s so put together it’s almost difficult to think of it as the band’s debut. Recorded by Benny Grotto at Mad Oak over the course of just four days — an immediately impressive feat given the amount and depth of the material — the sound is full but not at all unnatural, and some late variety in the interlude “Processional of Lies” and the quiet, layered harmonies of the closing title-track reinforce the brooding sentiment while also building outward from it and expanding the overall context from what the earlier onslaught of “No Roam,” “17 Days” and “Below the Seas” established at the start.

Whether or not Second Grave are planning a vinyl release, I don’t know — they’d either have to shorten the record or go 2LP, which seems prohibitively expensive; a limited run of 100 CDs is being pressed — but there is a notable change of intent signaled with “Bloodletting” at the album’s midpoint, following the melodically rich “Afraid of the Dark” and chugging “Below the Seas” with some mindful scorch and viciously dark energy, and the progression only continues to grow from there. That shift is welcome after the initial trio, which seem to put up a wall of forceful doom and dare listeners to scale it in order to reach the rest of what Second Grave have to offer. Atop the steady roll of Ferreira‘s drums and Murphy‘s bass, Drzal and Van Guider offer fluid riffs and intricate solos, and Van Guilder is steadfast in her vocal command, but the intent is clearly that those three songs should start Blacken the Sky with plodding miseries, and they do. One might say they’re living up to the title in setting the tone.

From their first EP and through the 18-minute two-songer that followed, Second Grave have always shown an affinity for form and structure, and Blacken the Sky does likewise, using the screams in “Bloodletting” and “Death March” to send a clear signal of apex in much the same way that instrumentals introduced each half of their self-titled. The central difference here is the context in which that symmetry arrives. If “Bloodletting” is the peak of the album’s first half — it’s the centerpiece in the tracklisting — and “Death March” the peak of the second — it arrives with two cuts still to go — then those two peaks would seem to serve remarkably different purposes overall. Of course, “Death March” is paying off the album as a whole, but one might say the same thing of “Blacken the Sky” itself, though the means there takes a significant shift.

I wouldn’t call the ending a departure necessarily, since it keeps to Second Grave‘s structural tenets pretty firmly, but in its sheer sound it offers something different from even the droning interlude “Into Oblivion” before it, and while doubtless some will compare it to the subdued side of Windhand — because, you know, ladies — the truth is that Second Grave are coming from someplace else entirely in terms of influence. It’s especially telling that after so much tumult and rage, they would finish quietly, underscoring the patience that’s been present in the songs all along beneath that tempestuousness. One doubts they built the album structure with the intent of giving a glimpse at their progression under way, but after three years, it doesn’t seem impossible to think they have some plan in motion for their future development. Certainly the consciousness at root in these tracks is the work of a band aware of who and what they want to be. As a debut, there’s nothing more one could ask of Blacken the Sky, but by no means is that the sum total of what is delivered.

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Hong Kong-based extreme atmospheric metallers Hyponic release their third album, Qián Xíngzhe, on Aug. 10 via Weird Truth Productions. Its title translating roughly to “The Former Monk,” it’s the first Hyponic record in 11 years and finds the long-running outfit pared down to just two members, guitarist/vocalist Wah and guitarist/vocalist/drummer Roy, but as one can hear in “Zhu Miè Líng Ba,” the time between outings hardly seems to have dulled the band’s drive toward deeply weighted doom, taking influence from death and black metal but crafting something spacious and consuming from it in an emotionally-charged ambient melancholy.

That’s about par for the course for Hyponic, whoever might be in the band. Their last record was 2005’s deathly The Noise of Time, and it followed a somewhat similar direction, but the time between seems to have led Hyponic toward an even more atmospheric focus, at least if “Zhu Miè Líng Ba” and the Qian Xingzhe title-track (which is also out on YouTube) are anything to go by. I haven’t heard the full album yet, so won’t comment on it as a whole, but 2016 marks their 20th year of existence — Roy is a founding member — they’ve toured mainland China and become known for the viciousness of their approach, so I’m not going to argue with what I’m hearing, particularly because it sounds like it’s about to eat me anyway.

Preorders are up now, so think of this as a teaser if you want, or at very least a heads up on Hyponic‘s wrenching bleakness in case you haven’t heard them before. Also, please note that the titles listed below are approximations. I was unable to get the original Chinese characters to show up in WordPress and even when translated, there were accent marks that weren’t going through. Refer to the preorder page to see it all as it’s meant to be, and please enjoy the track:

Hyponic (Hong Kong) – Qián xíngzhe (August 10th, 2016, Weird Truth Productions)

On their 20th anniversary, Hyponic from Hong Kong release their new album after a gap of over a decade. Titled ‘Qián xíngzhe’, the mysterious band venture into newer realms – exploring dark ambient sounds, atmospheric black metal bits and all out melancholy. The music here is like the darker form of Funeral Moth – the atmospheric bits sink deeper into the consciousness, causing an emotive purge of all the repressed negativities in life.

It’s a slow, ongoing process, like a soul-transferring ritual of sorts, taking place mentally using the medium of sound. Upon listening to the entire weird and unpredictable album, I can say with confidence that Hyponic are without parallels. It’s a unique expression in the genre of atmospheric/funeral/’extreme’ death/doom – if it can even be called any of that. Weird Truth Productions, the master in deciphering obscure doom, has unleashed another gem in the genre.

1. Qián xíngzhe
2. Zhu miè líng ba
3. Zuìhòu chénshu
4. Níng pi bù huí
5. Piaoliú
6. Intro

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Hyponic website

Hypnonic preorder at Weird Truth Productions

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