As the title hints, IV: Ronkonkoma is the fourth short release from Tucson, Arizona, duo Methra. After bustling their lineup over the course of the last few years and putting out material on 7″ and 10″, a split with Godhunter, and digital, they’ve arrived at the duo of guitarist/vocalist Nick Genitals and drummer Andy Kratzenburg and the latest five-track outing, which clocks in at just over 21 minutes, finds them exploring the line between deathly sludge and more traditionally riffed doom, Nick switching his vocals between low-register guttural growling, raw-throated screams and Sabbathian cleaner singing following opener “Breatharian (Supreme Master Ascending),” which unfolds the start of side one with a thickened lumber stood out all the more by the use of a sample talking about breatharianism, which has its roots in Hindu philosophy but is essentially the practice of staring at the sun for nourishment.

The subsequent “Blessings” showcases more of the variety in Nick‘s vocals, with a chorus that’s made almost sneaky in how catchy it is by the viscous tones surrounding. Particularly for a duo, the sound throughout IV: Ronkonkoma is full and demented more in the manner of Midwestern sludge — think Fistula and the many deeply troubled branches on their family tree, though I acknowledge the “meth” part of the duo’s moniker might be a factor there — than Methra‘s more metallized Tucson countrymen and drummer-sharers Godhunter, but particularly on tape a sense of rawness is maintained in “Honest Men” and perhaps most of all on side one finisher “Slumscraper,” which builds to a punkish noisy fuckall sudden stop leading to another sample, this one talking about slicing heads off with a cutlass. It’s a long way from charmingly dopey New Age spiritualism, but by then, Methra have indeed made it a journey.

Most curious about the tape is that “SBS” occupies side two all by itself. Listening first to the digital version, I wondered if maybe the one on the tape was extended somehow, if Nick and Kratzenburg just rode that chugging riff for 20 minutes to even it up, or if there was a long sample to make up for that time, or something to draw side two out to match side one, but nope, the cassette of IV: Ronkonkoma is the same as the mp3, and though “SBS” fakes its ending on both before crashing back in for a few more measures, the tape has a long silence following. If it was Methra‘s intent to single the song out — it’s not like you actually have to sit there and listen to all that nothing, what with this modern age of fast-forwarding and whatnot — they did it, and “SBS,” with its anti-having-a-job lyrics and air-pushing groove, earns its place well with a modus consistent with “Blessings” and “Honest Men,” only pushed further with a longer runtime and a sense of build added to by Kratzenburg‘s frantic snare work and Nick‘s vocal tradeoffs.

If the way they want to go is to keep belting out shorter offerings, then IV: Ronkonkoma seems to set them up well. Methra weren’t far off from putting the pieces together on 2012’s self-titled digital release, but the latest installment builds on that in a way that makes them sound even more solidified, and if Nick and Kratzenburg choose to continue as a duo, they’ve given themselves ground on which to progress while also establishing a style that smoothly bridges subgenre gaps and comes across as inherently their own. The edges are rough, but that’s the idea. Don’t be fooled. Methra know what they’re doing. And if they want to take on the task of a debut full-length, they’re ready for that too.

Methra, IV: Ronkonkoma EP (2014)

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Acid Reflux Records

Manitoba instrumental bass/drum duo Sphagnum take their name from a slow-growing underwater moss, so despite their pornogrind logo, one doesn’t necessarily come into their debut Lodge 318 tape expecting blastbeats. The four-track self-release toes the line between an EP and a demo by being the first outing from the band — bassist Doreen Girard and drummer Cameron Johnson — and keeping to an under-25-minute runtime, but the fact they believe in their material enough to do a professional physical pressing at all (imagine such a thing!) makes me inclined to lean more toward EP, and ultimately it matters little either way. Girard and Johnson keep a minimal, vibe through parts alternately sparse or overwhelmed by distortion, depending which pedal is kicked on, and Lodge 318 has a live, in-the-room feel while still coming across clearer than a simple rehearsal recording.

There are a lot of bands out there calling themselves “doom jazz,” and to their credit, Sphagnum don’t take it that far — they call it the more charming “dad rock,” among other things — but their open, feel-it-out-along-the-way approach winds up with a jazzy feel anyway during parts of “Winter Clover” as the time signatures seem to go out the window in favor of lurching spasms of low end and crash. Johnson brings some order via a steady kick later in the track, but both he and Girard seem to revel in the freakout side of things. The shorter “How Can the Wind with its Arms,” which opens side one, gets on a bit more of a steady roll, though with just the bass and drums for the duration, a strange or absurdist sensibility remains in the near distance, the two players managing well a rare feat in being a heavy bass/drum two-piece in this day and age without immediately sounding like Om.

Part of that has to be tone. You can hear a bit of Cisneros on side two’s “Summerfallow” if you force your ears to do it, but Girard‘s tone seems less bent toward peaceful aims, and if Sphagnum are looking for enlightenment, they’ve got a funny way of showing it. Johnson winds his way along the toms and “Summerfallow” kicks into full-tone assault before dipping back down to the open atmospheres and slow crawl from whence it came, and a silence precedes the foreboding cymbal hits and rumble of 7:49 “Remain in Light.” If there’s anywhere on Lodge 318 where one can imagine vocals topping the proceedings, it’s on the relatively straightforward first couple minutes of the closer, though by the time they’re halfway through, Johnson and Girard are bounding along angular tom runs and bass punctuation which in turn lands them in a quiet couple seconds before the final distorted explosion — a tone dripping in mud met by steady cymbal work to create a tension that’s nigh on excruciating.

And that’s how they leave it. Even Lodge 318‘s payoff retains its course feel, and rather than bring the song to quiet, as on the preceding “Summerfallow,” they end “Remain in Light” cold on the march. Flipping the tape back over, it’s easy to get the feeling that, in the longer run, Sphagnum will branch their sound out more, experiment with different instrumentation, arrangements, and that various elements and influences will show up alongside what they present here. In that sense, Lodge 318 comes across like the beginning point of a progression about to be undertaken and all the more warrants the physical presence. If these songs are any indication, Girard and Johnson have the potential to get plenty weird, and that suits me just fine.

Sphagnum, Lodge 318 (2014)

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It is deceptively hard to get a handle on where Luleå, Sweden, rockers Lightsabres are coming from. Their debut tape, pressed and then re-pressed in limited edition by 808 New York (mine is #50 of 80), is called Demons, and while it’s quick at about 17 minutes long, and blown out in the lo-fi sense, it’s not to be mistaken for a demo. Eight tracks are presented four on each side, both sides start with an intro piece — “Fangs” and “Teeth,” respectively — and there’s cohesion and flow enough in what Lightsabres do that even if they weren’t working with a label to release it (there’s also vinyl out on Hink Inc.), to call it a demo would be selling it short. From the psychedelic ambience they pull off in the intros and side two’s closing “Demons,” the distorted stonery of side one opener “Black Hash,” and the stripped down punkish sneer of its side two counterpart “Born to Die,” Lightsabres tie together disparate elements with natural-sounding ease and come out of the release with a highly individualized garage-grunge that makes the memorable songwriting of “Fly Like a Bird” seem like fortunate happenstance.

Maybe it is, I don’t know. Maybe the members of Lightsabres — evidently content to remain nameless — showed up, pressed record, and that’s what came out. Either way, the heavy-pop bounce of that track is something most bands would have to work at. It’s as accessible as they go and well placed at the end of side one, following the rawer push of “Eyez,” on which the vocals come across even rougher than “Black Hash.” An unexpected turn, but one they pull off with apparent ease, and side two’s more psychedelic vibing affirms that Lightsabres have a broad creative range to go along with the effectiveness of their presentation. Post-rock guitar wisps begin “Teeth” only to be joined by air-moving bass fuzz, and while “Born to Die” strips away some of the prettier, melodic aspects, its half-time drums and noisy lead wash later on can’t cover up a basic heavy rock feel. Perhaps the most punkish moment of Demons is the first half of the Ty Segall cover “Caesar,” which breaks just before the first of its two minutes into manipulated, floating notes moving backwards and forwards in hypnotic motion toward the closing title-track, which takes a more minimal, spacious approach and finds dual vocal layers coming together for a moment of crooning before flipping the whole thing backwards to maximize an experimental, anything’s-possible sense of uncertainty.

The edit on the tape of “Demons” is different than that on the digital version, and the download also has an extra track, “Red Light,” that serves as a centerpiece between the two sides, so if cassettes aren’t your thing, Lightsabres still have something to offer for your pay-what-you-will. There’s also reportedly a follow-up to Demons called Spitting Blood due out shortly, and the band seems to have some shared membership with psych rockers Tunga Moln, so expect to hear more from this promising outfit one way or another.

Lightsabres, Demons 

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Some combinations in life, you just can’t go wrong. Ed Mundell and a wah pedal, for example. This proved to be the case last year when Mundell‘s jammy trio with bassist Collyn McCoy (Trash Titan) and Rick Ferrante (Sasquatch), the cumbersomely-named The Ultra Electric Mega Galactic, made their self-titled debut (review here), as it proved to be the case so many times over the guitarist’s years holding down leads in Monster Magnet and The Atomic Bitchwax. Well, further affirmation is welcome by me, and Mundell, McCoy and Ferrante seem only too pleased to provide it on the new tape EP, Through the Dark Matter.

A front-and-back j-card with blacklight-sensitive art from Brad Moore meant to invoke Miles Davis is included with the bright-orange cassette, which is pressed through Orbit Unlimited Records in a numbered (the numbers are also blacklight sensitive) edition of 200 copies. CDs were made available for the power trio’s recent European tour alongside Sasquatch, but 500 of those were made, so the tapes are somewhat harder to come by. Understandably, since the recording job by Snail‘s Matt Lynch at Mysterious Mammal Studios does so well in capturing the live dynamic between The UEMG‘s members, whether it’s Ferrante and McCoy stomping out on side 2’s “Day of the Comet” or Mundell setting an initial mood with minimal effects ambience on the introductory “Small Magellanic Cloud.”

Like the self-titled, Through the Dark Matter is clearly instrumental in its focus, but The UEMG do introduce some vocals for the first time to their studio work, McCoy stepping in for a suitably bluesy delivery on the Willie Dixon cover “Spoonful,” which is the centerpiece of the CD/digital version but closes side 1 of the tape following the intro and the jammed-out title-track. The effect its placement has is to ground the tape somewhat — these cats can jam, and when they do, they go pretty far out — a hook and start-stop funk-wah lead line reminding me no less of Clutch now than when I first streamed “Spoonful” and “Through the Dark Matter” here in April, and the relatively straightforward, traditional structure sits well between “Through the Dark Matter”‘s cosmic pulsations, the bass-heavy push of “Day of the Comet” and the space-jazz blissout of “Large Magellanic Cloud,” which closes out side 2, guitars, bass and drums all seeming to intertwine even as they stretch out in their own directions.

While it’s a relatively short 26 minutes — you wouldn’t call Through the Dark Matter a full-length, though it flows well — The Ultra Electric Mega Galactic‘s EP is all the more worth digging into for how natural it sounds coming from the band. Lynch is an experienced engineer and gets a clear, professional sound here that plays well with the Rhodes McCoy adds or the layers in Mundell‘s guitar, but the overall vibe is that The UEMG could more or less show up somewhere, plug in and make this happen. Maybe that’s a testament to the experience of the players involved or the several years they’ve already been jamming together, but whatever it is, a short release that plays out with such substance is an accomplishment that makes Through the Dark Matter a worthy follow-up to the debut. Wherever their voyage next takes them, I doubt it’s going to be much of a challenge to follow.

The Ultra Electric Mega Galactic, Through the Dark Matter EP (2014)

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Easy to imagine the artwork meetings between the bands and Clayton Jarvis of Abom Designs involved the phrase, “Make it like in my nightmares” somewhere along the line. The four-eyed cat’s stare on the cover the new Failure Records and Tapes split cassette between Indiana-based acts Bo Jackson 5 and The Mound Builders makes sure the release is going to stay with you one way or another. There are only three songs on the thing, split up with The Mound Builders on side one and Bo Jackson 5 on side two (the included download reverses the order), and it’s done in a little over 17 minutes, but the liner is glossy, the art gorgeous if also horrendous, and both bands have enough time to make an impression.

In the case of Lafayette’s The Mound Builders, the double-guitar five-piece return with the same lineup from 2011’s Strangers in a Strange Land (review here) and show steady development of their Southern heavy rock sound. I still hear a good deal of Alabama Thunderpussy in their two inclusions, “Sport of Crows” and “Barroom Queen” — not a complaint — but the recording this time, particularly in Jason Brookhart‘s drums, is a little more metal, and that blends well with the thrashier gallop and the Down II-style turns of “Barroom Queen,” guitarists Nate Malher and Brian Boszor touching on “Stained Glass Cross” in the chorus while bassist Ryan Strawsma thickens the groove and vocalist Jim Voelz straddles the line between burly soul and a gruffer delivery. “Sport of Crows,” which appears first, has Strawsma more at the fore of the mix with a clean but resonant tone. It’s a little more aggressive than one might think of for riff rock, but that influence is there as it was on the full-length. Particularly in comparison to Bo Jackson 5, The Mound Builders come across as aiming for a steady, professional crispness in their sound, and that suits the material well.

There’s a few seconds’ delay for the side change, since Bo Jackson 5‘s “Bo Blacktop” is longer than “Sport of Crows ” and “Barroom Queen” together. The song, which follows their late-2013 full-length debut, checks in at just under nine minutes and has a much more homemade vibe almost immediately than did The Mound Builders. The Logansport duo of guitarist/vocalist Adam Gundrum and drummer Jason Perdue recorded live in what they’ve dubbed The Spacement, and “Bo Blacktop” sure enough sounds like a rehearsal. I like that, especially on a tape, so their noise rock riffing and jagged, semi-progressive punker edge works captured naturally, incongruous as it may be with what The Mound Builders are doing at the outset. Some memorable vocal lines from Gundrum hit before the riffs turn meaner, and “Bo Blacktop” drives hard toward what seems like an inevitable noisy finish. When it gets there, the cymbal wash from Perdue is almost abrasive, but the recording cuts off as if to underscore Bo Jackson 5‘s garage-punk fuckall, and as averse as I generally am to bands playing off celebrity names for their monikers — it’s a brand of irono-cynicism that will be a laughable mark of this decade in years to come; or maybe I should just lighten the fuck up — Gundrum and Perdue made me a fan by the time they were finished.

It was my first time hearing Bo Jackson 5, and they don’t have a lot in common with The Mound Builders, but sometimes it’s better to be surprised with something like this, and when I popped in the tape, part of the fun was not knowing what was coming. The split was a Record Store Day special, and limited to 100 copies, so I’m not sure how many are left or will be left to pick up from the label. The Mound Builders are already at work on their next outing, which will reportedly combine a new recording with a comic book, and Bo Jackson 5 recently opened for Supersuckers and will no doubt make a cowbell-laden return soon. I’ll keep an eye out.

The Mound Builders/Bo Jackson 5, Split Tape (2014)

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Failure Records and Tapes

I haven’t walked away from seeing Clamfight play in the last four years without thinking to myself how devastating a live act they’ve become, so their new live tape, Thank You Delaware, is a welcome arrival as documentation of that phenomenon. Released by Contaminated Tones Productions with the first 20 copies in a limited blue liner, the six-song set seems to have been recorded late in 2013 in a North Jersey club called Dingbatz. At very least, that’s where the pics in the j-card insert come from, and at the start of side two — actually the sides are divided into “Side Clam” and “Side Strips” — drummer/vocalist Andy Martin makes some mention of being in Jersey playing with Tarpit Boogie, so it seems like a safe assumption. The title is a gag as it winds up, since at the end of the set, Martin says, “It’s been real, Delaware,” when they’re most definitely in NJ. They can thank whatever state they want, I’m still going to be on board.

That bias level for the Maple Forum alums and my personal affection for these dudes — Martin, lead guitarist Sean McKee, guitarist Joel Harris, bassist Louis Koble — no doubt colors my opinion of Thank You Delaware, but I’ve found since the “tape revival” began that some of the stuff I enjoy most of all are releases just like this one; live, raw recordings that you can’t get anywhere else. It’s not a bootleg, because it’s on a legit label — Contaminated Tones specialize in varying forms of extremity — and endorsed by the band, but it’s of that ilk. The label on the tape is pasted on, there aren’t a lot of them around, and while it’s not a DAT-in-the-pocket audience recording from 1974, neither is it overly clean in such a way as to detract from the impact of the live feel. A solid balance, in other words. You get the brutality from “The Eagle” and you get a taste of McKee‘s soaring lead work in the jam around the title-track from 2013’s sophomore full-length, I vs. the Glacier, from which the bulk of the material on the tape comes.

“The Eagle” and “Sand Riders” as a one-two are more or less staples of Clamfight gigs, and they sit well together in that role. I’m glad to have a live recording of “Block Ship,” and “Ghosts I Have Known” was a favorite from their 2010 debut, Vol. 1, that doesn’t always get played, so cool to hear that put to tape as well. If you’ve ever gone to see a band and then heard one of their live albums, you know that sometimes they can come off completely different recorded. Vocals are off, there’s too much separation. You lose the feeling of watching them. With Thank You Delaware, the four-piece’s wall of noise and vicious stage domination is preserved. It’s a big, heavy-slamming sound, and it rounds out at its most raucous with “Stealing the Ghost Horse,” though the intro jam has since developed even further than how it sounds here to boast some of McKee‘s best lead work. The tape finishes with excerpts from an interview conducted by Contaminated Tones in 2010 that recounts, among other things, some vomit-related band shenanigans. Very Clamfight, to say the least.

If you’re not into tapes, fair enough. I’m not likely to change your mind about that. For those not immediately biased along format lines, Thank You Delaware successfully captures the thrashing heft that Clamfight bring to their live performance. Maybe it’s a fan-piece and I’m a fanboy, but that’s not about to diminish my enjoyment at all, and if you’ve dug into I vs. the Glacier, this makes a more than satisfying companion.

Clamfight, “Ghosts I Have Known” from Thank You Delaware (2014)

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Contaminated Tones Productions

Seems odd to say it, but Crows isn’t the first 18-minute single that Netherlands-based post-metal four-piece Ortega have released in their time together. The last one was late-2012’s The Serpent Stirs (review here), and as the follow-up to that and reportedly the precursor to a new full-length album, Crows winds up making a lot of sense with its limited tape release through Tartarus Records, a black-ink-on-grey-box unfolding with a handmade feel to match the Groningen group’s intricate heavy/ambient tradeoffs throughout the song’s 18 minutes. The program repeats on both sides of the tape, which has crows and branches printed on it, and for what’s purported to be a demo track, the sound is awfully full and the band is awfully tight, leaving me to wonder what they might look to change going into the album — that is, how much more there is to build on from what they have here. It’s almost unfair to use the word “cassingle” for a song that’s en EP unto itself, but technically I suppose that’s what Crows is.

And taken on the level of a single, it’s a strikingly cohesive one, with guitarists Alex Loots and Richard Postma trading between thick waves of riffing and sparse atmospherics, ambient squigglies floating into the sonic space of a mix that, again, is done little justice by being designated as a demo. Bassist Frank de Boer distinguishes himself in the song’s midsection with a surprisingly warm tone, while drummer Sven Jurgens manages to keep the proceedings fluid for the most part without falling into the trap of the Isis drumbeat (you know the one!), which is one of the core challenges at this point of post-metal percussion styles — how to make it not sound like Panopticon. Postma handles vocals as well when they arise, his assured growl topping the later payoff of a fervent instrumental build playing out in a rising tide of start-stop chugging; a measured, restrained groove finally letting loose just in time for the growls to reemerge. For those familiar with the style, Ortega‘s take won’t be wholly strange, but Crows remains a solid execution of the progressive aspects of post-metal and even over its extended course doesn’t dull the attention more than it intends to do with hypnotic repetition of parts.

It’s easy to imagine “Crows” paired with another piece of similar length as opposing vinyl sides as Ortega‘s next long-player, but I guess we have some time yet before we get there. Fair enough. Maybe by then I’ll have it figured out what exactly makes Crows a demo.

Ortega, “Crows” from Crows (2014)

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Many of the influences Copenhagen five-piece Demon Head are working with will seem familiar. Of course there’s Sabbath, Pentagram, etc., and one can identify points of Witchcraft in the production of their Demo 2014, now available as a limited-to-100 purple cassette through Caligari Records, and some of Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats‘ garage-style shuffle, but what the four-track release really showcases from the Danish newcomers is swing. Fast or slow, their riffs wind their way around the listener’s consciousness, and with the bass of Fuglsang and drums of Wittus — middle and last names or initials only, depending on where you look — Demon Head never stray too far from the soul-corrupted boogie that serves them well here as they follow-up 2013’s Chaos Island Rehearsal 2013 with more developed but still raw and doomed rock.

The blown-out croon of Ferreira Larsen recalls ’80s metal conjurations on opener “Undertaker,” but is malleable ultimately to what’s called for by a given song, and his style helps distinguish Demon Head from the Uncle Acid jangle that’s clearly influenced “Undertaker” and shows up on the eponymous closer as well in its oozing, dirt-packed groove. A rough recording plays well on tape — the four-song program repeats on both sides — and Demo 2014 is most definitely a demo, but the songwriting is there and Larsen, Wittus, Fuglsang and the guitarists, both named Nielsen (presumably they’re related), don’t come off as so loose as to be self-indulgent or unaware of where they’re headed. “Ride the Wilderness” seems to be a band mantra, and as the second cut after “Undertaker,” it’s a faster push to set up the Witchcrafty turn to doom of the shorter “333” (alternately listed as “III” and “Three”), which leaves a mark lyrically and in the crashing lurch that gives way to a satisfying but not grandiose build before a deft slowdown returns to the chorus.

On the European edition, issued by Smokedd Productions with a different cover, “333” and “Ride the Wilderness” appear to be switched, but the Caligari version serves the overall flow well, the four songs moving smoothly between each other, getting progressively more doomed until “Demon Head” finishes with nod enough to tie everything else together, a bluesy lead in the first half perhaps foreshadowing developing guitar antics that will show up in increased volume next time out. They’ve got more than an ample amount of groove to justify the physical release — the j-card liner folds out to eight panels with art and recording info on one side and lyrics on the other — and as Demo 2014 fades out from its noisy ending, the tape bodes well both for what Demon Head might do and how they might do it. In terms of their overall approach, there’s room to grow into a more individualized take, but as noted, they’ve got the swing down, and that’s already more than an awful lot of bands.

Demon Head, Demo 2014

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