Tomorrow marks the release of ‘Agonia,’ the new single from Brazilian grime-sludge two-piece Projeto Trator, who are using the track to say goodbye to founding drummer Thiago Padilha, making a reportedly final appearance here as Igor Oliveira joins guitarist/vocalist Paulo Ueno in the project moving forward. They begin, then, by living up to the title. “Agonia” runs five minutes and while one might recognize some Godflesh churn in Ueno‘s riffing, that could just as easily be the omnidirectional discontent the two outfits share. Sound-wise, Projeto Trator have a roll and lurch of their own, with Padilha seeming to revel in his last march as Ueno snarls and shouts the song’s Portuguese lyrics.
And while of course the band — who’ve been around since 2006 and put out their first EP, the stonerlier-fuzzed A Bombástica Barafunda do Batizado; time would seem to have made them angrier, which is relatable — have tonal density to spare even in a guitar/drum configuration, that rawness becomes part of the persona of “Agonia” as its five minutes unfold, feedback and inhumane rumble plodding into motion at the outset and Projeto Trator holding it there until about three minutes in when they ever-so-slightly up the tempo and introduce the next section. The roll remains flattening, and is steady in its procession but leant a chaotic aspect by the rippling low distortion of its chug as Ueno and Padilha uphill-shove toward the eventual deconstruction and noisy ending.
“Agonia” makes no secret of its harsh purposes and I won’t delay your engagement with it much further — you could always start the song; it’s right down there — except to point out the curiosity that is Projeto Trator outsourcing lyrics, in this case to Luciano Penelu of Erasy. That’s not a letting-go that every artist who has contributed lyrics to a band can handle, and in addition to the awkwardness of putting someone else’s phrasing over your own material when you’ve never done that before, it’s a pointed change in methodology, and I suspect part of the idea’s appeal is the challenge it presents. I don’t know if Projeto Trator will keep up the ethic as they move on from “Agonia,” but at very least they offer a brutal proof of concept in the single ahead of whatever may come next.
Also, I ran those lyrics through a major internet company’s translation matrix and while I won’t print them here for fear of misrepresenting the art — if they wanted it to be in English, they’d make it that way — and, yup, that’s depression.
The PR wire has narrative — blessings and peace upon it — and the song has punishment below.
Please enjoy:
Projeto Trator, “Agonia” track premiere
Formed at the end of 2006 in São Paulo/SP by Paulo Ueno (guitar and vocals) and Thiago Padilha (drums), Projeto Trator has thirteen releases, including two on vinyl: “CORIFEU” (2020), released by 1954 Records from Argentina, and the split with the trans artist UMBILICHAOS, entitled “Projeto Trator & Umbilichaos” (2019) (Crocodilo/Zoom Discos). They toured almost all of Brazil, South America and Europe totaling more than 600 shows in 14 countries to date.
Anchored in the do-it-yourself punk playbook the duo created their own label Crocodilo Discos, focused on physical and digital releases, in addition to organizing their own events and festivals such as Crocodilo Fest, with bands from other states. They are also responsible for audiovisual production, producing music videos, graphic arts, capturing and mixing most of their releases. The band bases its sound on elements of sludge, stoner and doom, being one of the pioneers and main representatives of these aspects in Brazil.
Psychedelic melodies, trances, repetitions, noises, echoes, choruses, apocalyptic choirs, low tunings, dissonances, muddy fuzzes, slowness, chaos and lo-fi aesthetics are natural elements of the duo, which is not concerned with patterns, trends and places- common on shelves. Acidic lyrics and corrosive humor, based on human behavior and its paradoxes, combined with decolonial criticism in Portuguese, are part of the duo’s atmosphere.
Recently, the drummer and founder, Thiago Padilha, left the band, but the idea continued with the effective entry of friend, enthusiast and former drummer of Os Brutus, Harpago and Vingança Suprema, Igor Oliveira (drums and vocals).
The band’s newest release, the track “Agonia”, was recorded at the Plug’n Play studio in the city of Curitiba, and is the band’s last record with drummer Thiago Padilha in the band, and will be the first released with new lineup, produced by frontman Paulo Ueno himself and Ivan Terrorscreen. The track marks, at the same time, a new phase in the band and a continuity in their already traditional work, maintaining the elements inherent to the band. The single precedes a new album and a series of episodic releases, presenting yet another theme that is already traditional to the band: “Agonia” portrays nonconformity, suffering, pessimism, even while searching for a meaning to existence.
The song presents a new concept, in which the band Projeto Trator (represented by its frontman) invites vocalists from other bands to write song lyrics. In this one, the guest is Luciano Penelu, lead singer of the Brazilian sludge/doom band Erasy.
Posted in Reviews on October 2nd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
It’s been quite a morning. Got up at five, went back to sleep until six, took the dog out, lazily poured myself a coffee — the smell is like wood bark and bitter mud, so yes, the dark roast — and got down to set up this Quarterly Review. Not rushed, not at all overwhelmed by press releases about new albums or the fact that I’ve got 50 records I’m writing about this week, or any of it. Didn’t last, that stress-free sit-down — one of the hazards of being perfectly willing to be distracted at a moment’s notice is that that might happen — but it was nice while it did. And hey, the Quarterly Review is set up and ready to roll with 50 records between now and Friday. Let’s do that.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
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Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, Slaughter on First Avenue
Recorded over two nights at First Avenue in Minneapolis sandwiching the pandemic in 2019 and 2022, Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats‘ 14-song/85-minute live album, Slaughter on First Avenue, is about as clean as you’re ever likely to hear the band sound. And the Rise Above-issued 2LP spans the garage doom innovators’ career, from “Dead Eyes of London” from 2010’s Vol. 1 (reissue review here) to “I See Through You” from 2018’s Wasteland (review here), with all the “Death’s Door” and “Thirteen Candles” and “Desert Ceremony” and “I’ll Cut You Down” you can handle, the addled and murderous bringers of melody and fuzz clear-eyed and methodical, professional, in their delivery. It sounds worked on, like, in the studio, the way oldschool live albums might’ve been. I don’t know that it was, don’t have a problem with that if it was, just noting that the sheer sound here is fantastic, whether it’s the separation between the two guitars and keys and each other, the distinction of the vocals, or the way even the snare drum seems to hit in kind with the vintage aspects of Uncle Acid‘s general production style. They clearly enjoy the crowd response to the older tunes like “I’ll Cut You Down” and “Death’s Door,” and well they should. Slaughter on First Avenue isn’t a new full-length, though they say one will eventually happen, but it’s a representation of their material in a new way for listeners, cleaner than their last two studio records, and a ceremony (or two) worth preserving.
Swedish retro soul rock forerunners Graveyard are on their way to being legends if they aren’t legends yet. Headliners at the absolute least, and the influence they had in the heavy ’10s on classic heavy as a style and boogie rock in particular can’t be discounted. Comprised of nine cuts, 6 is Graveyard‘s first offering of this decade, following behind 2018’s Peace (review here), and it continues their dual-trajectory in pairing together the slow, troubled-love woes emotionality of “Breathe In, Breathe Out,” “Sad Song” on which guitarist Joakim Nilsson relinquishes lead vocals, the early going of “Bright Lights,” and opener “Godnatt” — Swedish for “good night,” which the band tried to say in 2016 but it didn’t stick — setting up turns to shove in “Twice” and “Just a Drop” while “I Follow You,” closer “Rampant Fields” or the highlight “Just a Drop” finding some territory between the two ends. The bottom line here is it’s not the record I was hoping Graveyard would make, leaning slow and morose whereas when you could break out a groove like “Just a Drop” seemingly at will, why wouldn’t you? But that I even had those hopes tells you the caliber band they are, and whatever the tracks actually do, there’s no questioning them as songwriters. But the world could use some good times swagger, if only a half-hour of escapism, and Graveyard are perhaps too sincere to deliver. Fair enough.
The thing about Hexvessel that has been revealed over time is that each record is its own context. Grown out from the black metal history of UK-born/Helsinki-residing songwriter Mat “Kvohst” McNerney, the band returns to that fertile ground somewhat on the eight-song Polar Veil, applying veteran confidence to post-blackened genre transgressions. Songs like “A Cabin in Montana” and “Older Than the Gods” have some less-warlike Primordial vibes between the epic melodies and tremolo echoes, but in both the speedy intensity of “Eternal Meadow” and the later ethereally-doomed gruel of “Ring,” Hexvessel are distinctly themselves doing this thing. That is, they’re not changing who they are to suit the style they want to play — even the per-song stylistic shifts of 2016’s When We Are Death (review here) were their own, so that’s not necessarily new — but a departure from the dark progressive folk of 2020’s Kindred as McNerney, bassist Ville Hakonen, drummer Jukka Rämänen and pianist/keyboardist Kimmo Helén (also strings) welcome a curated-seeming selection of a few guest appearances spread across the release, always keeping mindful of ambience and mood however raging the tempest around them might be.
Bookended by its two longest songs in “Drink Some More” (8:44) and closer “Letter Full of Wine” (9:17), Munich-based troupe Godsground offer seven songs with their 47-minute third long-player, working quickly to bask in post-Alice in Chains melodies surrounded by a warmth of tone that could just as easily be derived from hometown heroes in Colour Haze as the likes of Sungrazer or anyone else, but there’s more happening in the sound than just that. The melodies reach out and the songs develop on paths so that “Balance” is a straight-up desert rocker where seven-minute centerpiece “Into the Butter” sounds readier to get weird. They are well at home in longer forms, flashing a bit of metal in teh later solo of the penultimate “Non Reflecting Mirror,” but the overarching focus on vocal melody grounds the material in its lyrics, and that helps stabilize some of the more out-there aspects. With the roller fuzz of “A Game of Light” and side B’s flow-into-push “Flood” finding space between all-out go and the longer songs’ willingness to dwell in parts, Godsground emerge from the collection with a varied style around a genre center that’s maybe delighted not to pick a side when it comes to playing toward this or that niche. There’s some undercurrent of doom — though I’ll admit the artwork had me looking for it — but Godsground are more coherent than bewildered, and their material unfolds with intent to immerse rather than commiserate.
Ambition abounds on Sleep Maps‘ Reclaim Chaos, as the once-NYC-based duo of multi-instrumentalist Ben Kaplan and vocalist David Kegg — finds somebody that writes you riffs like “Second Generation” and scream your ass off for them — bring textures of progressive metal, death metal, metal metal to the proceedings with their established post-whathaveyou modus. Would it be a surprise if I said it made them a less predictable band? I hope not. With attention to detail bolstered my a mix from Matt Bayles (Isis, Sandrider, etc.), the open spaces of “The Good Engineer” resonate in their layered vocals and drone, while “You Want What I Cannot Give” pummels, “In the Sun, In the Moon” brings the wash forward and capper “Kill the World” is duly still in conveying an apparent aftermath rather than the actual slaughter of the planet, which of course happened over a longer timeframe. All of this, and a good deal more, make Reclaim Chaos a heady feast — and that’s before you get to the ’00-era electronica of “Double Blind” — but in their reclamation, Sleep Maps execute with care and make a point about the malleability of style as much as about their own progression, though it seems to be the latter fueling them. Self-motivated, willful artistic progression is not often so starkly recognizable.
A reminder of the glories amid the horrors of our age: Dread Spire‘s Endless Empire — am I the only one who finds it a little awkward when band and release names rhyme? — probably wouldn’t exist without the democratization of recording processes that’s happened over the last 15-20 years. It’s a demo, essentially, from the bass/drum — that’s Richie Rehal and Erol Kavvas — Cali-set instrumentalist two-piece, and with about 13 minutes of sans BS riffing, they make a case via a linear procession of crunch riffing and uptempo, semi-metal precision. The narrative — blessings and peace upon it — holds that they got together during the pandemic, and the raw form and clearly-manifest catharsis in the material is all the backing they need. More barebones than complex, this first offering wants nothing for audio fidelity and gives Rehal and Kavvas a beginning from which to build in any and all directions they might choose. The joy of collaboration and the need to find an expressive outlet are the best motivations one could ask, and that’s very obviously what’s at work here.
A roiling post-metallic churn abides the slow tempos of “Torch Bearer” at the outset of Mairu‘s debut full-length, Sol Cultus, and it is but one ingredient of the Liverpool-based outfit’s atmospheric plunge. Across eight tracks and 49 minutes, the double-guitar four-piece of Alan Caulton and Ant Hurlock (both guitar/vocals), Dan Hunt (bass/vocals) and Ben Davis (drums/synth) — working apparently pretty closely over a period of apparently four years with Tom Dring, who produced, engineered, mixed, mastered and contributed saxophone, ebow, piano and additional synth — remind in their spaciousness of that time Red Sparowes taught the world, instrumentally, to sing. But with harsh and melodic vocals mixed, bouts of thrashier riffing dealt with prejudice, and the barely-there ambience of “Inter Alia” and “Per Alia” to persuade the listener toward headphones, the very-sludged finish of “Wild Darkened Eyes” and the 10-minute sprawl of “Rite of Embers” lumbering to its distorted gut-clench of a crescendo chug ahead of the album’s comedown finish, there’s depth and personality to the material even as Mairu look outside of verse/chorus confines to make their statement. Their second outing behind a 2019 EP, and again, apparently in the works on some level since then, it’s explorational, but less in the sense of the band figuring out who they want to be than as a stylistic tenet they’ve internalized as their own.
At first in “Hope Shines in the Autumn Light,” Brazilian instrumentalist heavy post-rockers Throe remind of nothing so much as the robots-with-feelings mechanized-but-resonant plod of Justin K. Broadrick‘s Jesu, but as the 14-minute leadoff from the apparently-mostly-solo-project’s three-song EP, O Enterro das Marés (one assumes the title is some derivation of being ‘buried at sea’), plays through, it shifts into a more massive galaxial nod and then shortly before the nine-minute mark to a stretch of hypnotic beat-less melody before resolving itself somewhere in the middle. This three-part structure gives over to the Godfleshier “Bleed Alike” (6:33), which nods accordingly until unveiling its caustic end about 30 seconds before the song is done, and “Renascente” (7:59), in which keys/synth and wistful guitar lead a single linear build together as the band gradually and with admirable patience move from their initial drone to the introduction of the ‘drums’ and through the layers of melody that emerge and are more the point of the thing itself than the actual swell of volume taking place at the same time. When it opens at about five minutes in, “Renascente” is legitimately beautiful, an echoing waterfall of tonality that seems to dance to the gravity pulling it down. The guitar is last to go, which tells you something about how the songs are written, but with three songs and three different intentions, Throe make a varied statement uniform most of all in how complete each piece of it feels.
Well guess what? They called the first track “Punkstarter,” and so it is. Starts off the album with a bit of punk. Blind River‘s third LP, Bones for the Skeleton Thief corrals 10 tracks from the UK traditionalist heavy rock outfit, who even on the likewise insistent “Primal Urges” maintain some sense of control. Vocalist Harry Armstrong (ex-Hangnail, now also bassist of Orange Goblin) belts out “Second Hand Soul” like he’s giving John Garcia a run for his pounds sterling, and is still able to rein it in enough to not seem out of place on the more subdued verses of “Skeleton Thief,” while the boogie of “Unwind” is its own party. Wherever they go, be it the barroom punkabilly of “Snake Oil” or the Southern-tinged twang of closer “Bad God,” the five-piece — Armstrong, guitarist Chris Charles and Dan Edwards, bassist William Hughes and drummer Mark Sharpless — hold to a central ethic of straight-ahead drive, and where clearly the intended message is that Blind River know what the fuck they’re doing and that if you end up at a show you might get your ass handed to you, turns out that’s exactly the message received. Showed up, kicked ass, done in under 40 minutes. If that’s not a high enough standard for you in a band recording live, that’s not Blind River‘s fault.
Rifftree of life. Rifftree‘s fuzz is so righteously dense, I want to get seeds from it — because let’s face it, riffs are deciduous and hibernate in winter — and plant a forest in my backyard. The band formed half a decade ago and Noise Worship is the bass-and-drums duo’s second EP, but whatever. In six songs and 26 minutes, they work hard on living up to the title they gave the release, and their schooling in the genre is obvious in Sleepery of “Amplifier Pyramid” or the low-rumbling sludge of “Brown Flower,” the subsequent “Farewell” growing like fungus out of its quieter start and “Brakeless” not needing them because it was slow enough anyhow. “Fuzzed” — another standard met — ups the pace and complements with spacey grunge mumbles and harshes out later, and that gives the three-minute titular closer “Noise Worship” all the lead-in it needs for its showcase of feedback and amplifier noise. Look. If you’re thinking it’s gonna be some stylistic revolution in the making, look at the friggin’ cover. Listen to the songs. This isn’t innovation, it’s celebration, and Rifftree‘s complete lack of pretense is what makes Noise Worship the utter fucking joy that it is. Stoner. Rock. Stick that in your microgenre rolodex.
Welcome back to the Summer 2023 Quarterly Review. I hope you enjoyed the weekend. Today we dig in on the penultimate — somehow my using the word “penultimate” became a running gag for me in Quarterly Reviews; I don’t know how or why, but I think it’s funny — round of 10 albums and tomorrow we’ll close out as we hit the total of 70. Could easily have kept it going through the week, but so it goes. I’ll have more QR in September or October, I’m not sure yet which. It’s a pretty busy Fall.
Today’s a wild mix and that’s what I was hoping for. Let’s go.
Quarterly Review #51-60:
Weite, Assemblage
Founded by bassist Ingwer Boysen (also High Fighter) as an offshoot of the live incarnation of Delving, of which he’s part, Weite release the instrumental Assemblage as a semi-improv-sounding collection of marked progressive fluidity. With Delving and Elder‘s Nick DiSalvo and Mike Risberg in the lineup along with Ben Lubin (Lawns), the story goes that the four-piece got to the studio with nothing/very little, spent a few days writing and recording with the venerable Richard Behrens helming, and Assemblage‘s four component pieces are what came out of it. The album begins with the nine-minutes-each pair of the zazzy-jazzy mover “Neuland,” while “Entzündet” grows somewhat more open, a lead guitar refrain like built around drum-backed drone and keys, swelling in piano-inclusive volume like Crippled Black Phoenix, darker prog shifting into a wash and more freaked-out psych rock. I’m not sure those are real drums on “Rope,” or if they are I’d love to know how the snare was treated, but the song’s a groover just the same, and the 14-minute “Murmuration” is where the styles unite under an umbrella of warm tonality and low key but somehow cordial atmosphere. If these guys want to get together every couple years into perpetuity and bang out a record like this, that’d be fine.
The fourth album from Portland, Oregon’s Mizmor — the solo-project of multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer, vocalist, etc.-ist A.L.N. — arrives riding a tsunami of hype and delivers on the band’s long-stated promise of ‘wholly doomed black metal.’ With consuming distortion at its heart from opener/longest track (immediate points) “Only an Expanse” onward, the record recalls the promise of American black metal as looser in its to-tenet conformity than the bulk of Europe’s adherents — of course these are generalizations and I’m no expert — by contrasting it rhythmically with doom, which instead of fully releasing the tension amassed by the scream-topped tremolo riffing just makes it sound more miserable. Doom! “No Place to Arrive” is admirably thick, like noisy YOB on charred ambience, and “Anything But” draws those two sides together in more concise and driving style, vicious and brutal until it cuts in the last minute to quiet minimalism that makes the slam-in crush of 13-minute closer “Acceptance” all the more punishing, with plenty of time left for trades between all-out thrust and grueling plod. Hard to call which side wins the day — and that’s to Mizmor‘s credit, ultimately — but by the end of “Acceptance,” the raging gnash has collapsed into a caldera of harsh sludge, and it no longer matters. In context, that’s a success.
With a couple quick drum taps and a clearheaded strum that invokes the impossible nostalgia of Bruce Springsteen via ’90s alt rock, Netherlands-based The Whims of the Great Magnet strolls casually into “Same New,” the project’s first outing since 2021’s Share My Sun EP. Working in a post-grunge style seems to suit Sander Haagmans, formerly the bassist of Sungrazer and, for a bit, The Machine, as he single-track/double-tracks through the song’s initial verse and blossoms melodically in the chorus, dwelling in an atmosphere sun-coated enough that Haagmans‘ calls it “your new summer soundtrack.” Not arguing, if a one-track soundtrack is a little short. After a second verse/chorus trade, some acoustic weaves in at the end to underscore the laid back feel, and as it moves into the last minute, “Same New” brings back the hook not to drive it into your head — it’s catchy enough that such things aren’t necessary — but to speak to a traditional structure born out of classic rock. It does this organically, with moderate tempo and a warm, engaging spirit that, indeed, evokes the ideal images of the stated season and will no doubt prove comforting even removed from such long, hot and sunny days.
German instrumentalists Sarkh follow their 2020 full-length, Kaskade, with the four-song/31-minute Helios EP, issued through Worst Bassist Records. As with that album, the short-ish offering has a current of progressive metal to coincide with its heavier post-rock affect; “Zyklon” leading off with due charge before the title-track finds stretches of Yawning Man-esque drift, particularly as it builds toward a hard-hitting crescendo in its second half. Chiaroscuro, then. Working shortest to longest in runtime, the procession continues with “Kanagawa” making stark volume trades, growing ferocious but not uncontrolled in its louder moments, the late low end particularly satisfying as it plays off the guitar in the final push, a sudden stop giving 11-minute closer “Cape Wrath” due space to flesh out its middle-ground hypothesis after some initial intensity, the trio of guitarist Ralph Brachtendorf, bassist Falko Schneider and drummer Johannes Dose rearing back to let the EP end with a wash but dropping the payoff with about a minute left to let the guitar finish on its own. Germany, the world, and the universe: none of it is short on instrumental heavy bands, but the purposeful aesthetic mash of Sarkh‘s sound is distinguishing and Helios showcases it well to make the argument.
A 2LP second long-player from mostly-traditionalist doom metallers Spiritual Void, Wayfare seems immediately geared toward surpassing their 2017 debut, White Mountain, in opening with “Beyond the White Mountain.” With a stretch of harsher vocals to go along with the cleaner-sung verses through its 8:48 and the metal-of-eld wail that meets the crescendo before the nodding final verse, they might’ve done it. The subsequent “Die Alone” (11:48) recalls Candlemass and Death without losing the nod of its rhythm, and “Old” (12:33) reaffirms the position, taking Hellhound Records-style methodologies of European trad doom and pulling them across longer-form structures. Following “Dungeon of Nerthus” (10:24) the shorter “Wandering Doom” (5:31) chugs with a swing that feels schooled by Reverend Bizarre, while “Wandersmann” (13:11) tolls a mournful bell at its outset as though to let you know that the warm-up is over and now it’s time to really doom out. So be it. At a little over an hour long, Wayfare is no minor undertaking, but for what they’re doing stylistically, it shouldn’t be. Morose without melodrama, Wayfare sees Spiritual Void continuing to find their niche in doom, and rest assured, it’s on the doomier end. Of doom.
Even when The River make the trade of tossing out the aural weight of doom — the heavy guitar and bass, the expansive largesse, and so on — they keep the underlying structure. The nod. At least mostly. To explain: the long-running UK four-piece — vocalist Jenny Newton, guitarist Christian Leitch (formerly of 40 Watt Sun), bassist Stephen Morrissey and drummer Jason Ludwig — offer a folkish interpretation of doom and a doomed folk on their fourth long-player, the five-song/40-minute A Hollow Full of Hope taking the acoustic prioritizing of a song like “Open” from 2019’s Vessels into White Tides (review here) and bringing it to the stylistic fore on songs like the graceful opener “Fading,” the lightly electric “Tiny Ticking Clocks” rife with strings and gorgeous self-harmonizing from Newton set to an utterly doomed march, or the four-minute instrumental closer “Hollowful,” which is more than an outro if not a completely built song in relation to the preceding pieces. Melodic, flowing, intentional in arrangement, meter, melody. Sad. Beautiful. “Exits” (9:56) and “A Vignette” (10:26) — also the two longest cuts, though not by a ton — are where one finds that heft and the other side of the doom-folk/folk-doom divide, though it is admirable how thin they make that line. Marked progression. This album will take them past their 25th anniversary, and they greet it hitting a stride. That’s an occasion worth celebrating.
Sons of Froglord is the fourth full-length in three years from UK amphibian conceptualist storytellers Froglord, and there’s just about no way they’re not making fun of space rock on “Road Raisin.” “Collapse” grows burly in its hook in the vein of a more rumbling Clutch — and oh, the shenanigans abound! — and there’s a kind of ever-present undercurrent sludgy threat in the more forward push of the glorious anthem to the inanity of career life in “Wednesday” (it doesn’t materialize, but there is a tambourine on “A Swamp of My Own,” so that’s something), but the bulk of the latest chapter in the Froglord tale delivers ’70s-by-way-of-’10s classic heavy blues rock, distinct in its willingness to go elsewhere from and around the boogie swing of “Wizard Gonk” and the fuzzy shuffling foundation of “Garden” at the outset and pull from different eras and subsets of heavy to serve their purposes. “Froglady” is on that beat. On it. And the way “A Swamp of My Own” opens to its chorus is a stirring reminder of the difference drumming can make in elevating a band. After a quick “Closing Ceremony,” they tack on a presumably-not-narrative-related-but-fitting-anyway cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival‘s “Born on the Bayou,” which complements a crash-laced highlight like “The Sage” well and seems to say a bit about where Froglord are coming from as well, i.e., the swamp.
Released digitally with the backing of Abraxas and on CD through Smolder Brains Records, the Cult of Devil Sounds split EP offers two new tracks each from São Paulo, Brazil’s Weedevil and Veraruz, Mexico’s Electric Cult. The former take the A side and fade in on the guitar line “Darkness Inside” with due drama, gradually unfurling the seven-minute doom roller that’s ostensibly working around Electric Wizard-style riffing, but has its own persona in tone, atmosphere and the vocals of Maureen McGee, who makes her first appearance here with the band. The swagger of “Burn It” follows, somewhat speedier and sharper in delivery, with a scorcher solo in its back half, witchy proclamations and satisfying slowdown at the end. Weedevil. All boxes ticked, no question. Check. Electric Cult are rawer in production and revel in that, bringing “Rising From Hell” and “Esoteric Madness” with a more uptempo, rock-ish swing, but moving through sludge and doom by the time the seven minutes of the first of those is done. “Rising From Hell” finishes with ambient guitar, then feedback, which “Esoteric Madness” cuts off to begin with bass; a clever turn. Quickly “Esoteric Madness” grows dark from its outset, pushing into harsh vocals over a slogging march that turns harder-driving with ’70s-via-Church–of–Misery hard-boogie rounding out. That faster finish is a contrast to Weedevil‘s ending slow, and complements it accordingly. An enticing sampler from both.
When I read some article about how the James Webb Space Telescope has looked billions of years into the past chasing down ancient light and seen further toward the creation of the universe than humankind ever before has, I look at some video or other, I should be hearing Dr. Space. I don’t know if the Portugal-based solo artist, synthesist, bandleader, Renaissance man Scott “Dr. Space” Heller (also Øresund Space Collective, Black Moon Circle, etc.) has been in touch with the European Space Agency (ESA) or what their response has been, but even with its organ solo and stated watery purpose, amid sundry pulsations it’s safe to assume the 20-minute title-track “Suite for Orchestra of Marine Mammals” is happening with an orchestra of semi-robot aliens on, indeed, some impossibly distant exoplanet. Heller has long dwelt at the heart of psychedelic improv and the three pieces across the 39 minutes of Suite for Orchestra of Marine Mammals recall classic krautrock ambience while remaining purposefully exploratory. “Going for the Nun” pairs church organ with keyboard before shimmering into proto-techno blips and bloops recalling the Space Age that should’ve had humans on Mars by now, while the relatively brief capper “No Space for Time” — perhaps titled to note the limitations of the vinyl format — still finds room in its six minutes to work in two stages, with introductory chimes shifting toward more kosmiche synth travels yet farther out.
The debut from Santa Fe-based solo drone project Ruiner — aka Zac Hogan, also of Dysphotic, ex-Drought — is admirable in its commitment to itself. Hogan unveils the outfit with The Book of Patience (on Desert Records), an 80-minute, mostly-single-note piece called “Liber Patientiae,” which if you’re up on your Latin, you know is the title of the album as well. With a willfully glacial pace that could just as easily be a parody of the style — there is definitely an element of ‘is this for real?’ in the listening process, but yeah, it seems to be — “Liber Patientiae” evolves over its time, growing noisier as it approaches 55 or so minutes, the distortion growing more fervent over the better part of the final 25, the linear trajectory underscoring the idea that there’s a plan at work all along coinciding with the experimental nature of the work. What that plan might manifest from here is secondary to the “Liber Patientiae” as a meditative experience. On headphones, alone, it becomes an inward journey. In a crowded room, at least at the outset it’s almost a melodic white noise, maybe a little tense, but stretched out and changing but somehow still solid and singular, making the adage that ‘what you put into it is what you get out’ especially true in this case. And as it’s a giant wall of noise, it goes without saying that not everybody will be up for getting on board, but it’s difficult to imagine the opaque nature of the work is news to Hogan, who clearly is searching for resonance on his own wavelength.
Posted in Reviews on April 14th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
If you work in an office, or you ever have, or you’ve ever spoken to someone who has or does or whatever — which is everybody, is what I’m saying — then you’ll probably have a good idea of why I cringe at saying “happy Friday” as though the end of a workweek’s slog is a holiday even with the next week peering just over the horizon beyond the next 48 hours of not-your-boss time. Nonetheless, we’re at the end of this week, hitting 50 records covered in this Quarterly Review, and while I’ll spend a decent portion of the upcoming weekend working on wrapping it up on Monday and Tuesday, I’m grateful for the ability to breathe a bit in doing that more than I have throughout this week.
I’ll say as much in closing out the week as well, but thanks for reading. As always, I hope you enjoy.
Quarterly Review #41-50:
Black Helium, UM
It’s just too cool for the planet. Earth needs to step up its game if it wants to be able handle what London’s Black Helium are dishing out across their five-song third record, UM, from the sprawl and heavy hippie rock of “Another Heaven” to the utter doom that rises to prominence in that 12-minute-ish cut and the oblivion-bound boogie, blowout, and bonfire that is 15:47 closer “The Keys to Red Skeleton’s House (Open the Door)” on the other end, never mind the u-shaped kosmiche march of “I Saw God,” the shorter, stranger, organ-led centerpiece “Dungeon Head” or the motorik “Summer of Hair” that’s so teeth-grindingly tense by the time it’s done you can feel it in your toes. These are but glimpses of the substance that comprises the 45-minute out-there-out-there-out-there stretch of UM, which by the way is also a party? And you’re invited? I think? Yeah, you can go, but the rest of these fools gotta get right if they want to hang with the likes of “I Saw God,” because Black Helium do it weird for the weirdos and the planet might be round but that duddn’t mean it’s not also square. Good thing Black Helium remembered to bring the launch codes. Fire it up. We’re outta here and off to better, trippier, meltier places. Fortunately they’re able to steer the ship as well as set its controls to the heart of the sun.
A demo recording of a single, 29-minute track that’s slated to appear on Seismic‘s debut full-length based around the works of H.G. Wells sometime later this year — yeah, it’s safe to say there’s a bit of context that goes along with understanding where the Philadelphia instrumentalist trio/live-foursome are coming from on “The Time Machine.” Nonetheless, the reach of the song itself — which moves from its hypnotic beginning at about five minutes in to a solo-topped stretch that then gives over to thud-thud-thud pounding heft before embarking on an adventure 30,000 leagues under the drone, only to rise and riff again, doom. the. fuck. on., and recede to minimalist meditation before resolving in mystique-bent distortion and lumber — is significant, and more than enough to stand on its own considering that in this apparently-demo version, its sound is grippingly full. As to what else might be in store for the above-mentioned LP or when it might land, I have no idea and won’t speculate — I’m just going by what they say about it — but I know enough at this point in my life to understand that when a band comes along and hits you with a half-hour sledgehammering to the frontal cortex as a sign of things to come, it’s going to be worth keeping track of what they do next. If you haven’t heard “The Time Machine” yet, consider this a heads up to their heads up.
Something of an awaited first long-player from Chicago’s These Beasts, who crush the Sanford Parker-produced Cares, Wills, Wants with modern edge and fluidity moving between heavier rock and sludge metal, the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Chris Roo, bassist/vocalist Todd Fabian and drummer Keith Anderson scratching a similar itch in intensity and aggression as did L.A. sludgecore pummelers -(16)- late last year, but with their own shimmer in the guitar on “Nervous Fingers,” post-Baroness melody in “Cocaine Footprints,” and tonal heft worthy of Floor on the likes of “Blind Eyes” and the more purely caustic noise rock of “Ten Dollars and Zero Effort.” “Code Name” dizzies at the outset, while “Trap Door” closes and tops out at over seven minutes, perhaps taking its title from the moment when, as it enters its final minute, the bottom drops out and the listener is eaten alive. Beautifully destructive, it’s also somehow what I wish post-hardcore had been in the 2000s, ripping and gnarling on “Southpaw” while still having space among the righteously maddening, Neurot-tribal percussion work to welcome former Pelican guitarist Dallas Thomas for a guest spot. Next wave of artsy Chicago heavy noise? Sign me up. And I don’t know if that’s Roo or Fabian with the harsh scream, but it’s a good one. You can hear the mucus trying to save the throat from itself. Vocal cords, right down the trap door.
Comprised of Cucho Segura on guitar and vocals, Sara Gdm on bass and drummer Rafa Pacheco, Ajeeb are the first band from the Canary Islands to be written about here, and their second album — issued through no fewer than 10 record labels, some of which are linked below — is the 11-song/42-minute Refractions, reminding in heavy fashion that the roots of grunge were in noisy punk all along. There’s some kick behind songs like “Far Enough” and “Mold,” and the later “Stuck for Decades” reminds of grainy festival videos where moshing was just people running into each other — whereas on “Mustard Surfing” someone might get punched in the head — but the listening experience goes deeper the further in you get, with side B offering a more dug-in take with the even-more-grunge “Slow-Vakia” building on “Oh Well” two songs earlier and leading into the low-end shovefest “Stuck for Decades,” which you think is going to let you breathe and then doesn’t, the noisier “Double Somersault” and closer/longest song “Tail Chasing” (5:13) taking the blink-and-it’s-over quiet part in “Amnesia” and building it out over a dynamic finish. The more you listen, the more you’re gonna hear, of course, but on the most basic level, the adaptable nature of their sound results in a markedly individual take. It’s the kind of thing 10 labels might want to release.
One might be tempted to think of Porto-based funeral doomers OAK as a side-project for guitarist/vocalist Guilherme Henriques, bassist Lucas Ferrand and drummer Pedro Soares, the first two of whom play currently and the latter formerly of also-on-Season–of–Mist extreme metallers Gaerea, but that does nothing to take away from the substance of the single-song full-length Disintegrate, which plies its heft in emotionality, ambience and tone alike. Throughout 44 minutes, the three-piece run an album’s worth of a gamut in terms of tempo, volume, ebbs and flows, staying grim all the while but allowing for the existence of beauty in that darkness, no less at some of the most willfully grueling moments. The rise and fall around 20 minutes in, going from double-kick-infused metallurgy to minimal standalone guitar and rebuilding toward death-growl-topped nod some six minutes later, is worth the price of admission alone, but the tortured ending, with flourish either of lead guitar or keys behind the shouted layers before moving into tremolo payoff and the quieter contemplation that post-scripts, shouldn’t be missed either. Like any offering of such extremity, Disintegrate won’t be for everyone, but it makes even the air you breathe feel heavier as it draws you into the melancholic shade it casts.
“Are we cursed?” “Is this living?” “Are we dying?” These are the questions asked after the on-rhythm sampled orgasmic moaning abates on the slow-undulating title-track of Ultra Void‘s Mother of Doom. Billed as an EP, the five-songer skirts the line of full-length consideration at 31 minutes — all the more for its molten flow as punctuated by the programmed drums — and finds the Brooklynite outfit revamped as a solo-project for Jihef Garnero, who moves from that leadoff to let the big riff do most of the talking in the stoned-metal “Sic Mundus Creatus Est” and the raw self-jam of the nine-minute “Måntår,” which holds back its vocals for later and is duly hypnotic for it. Shorter and more rocking, “Squares & Circles” maintains the weirdo vibe just the same, and at just three and a half minutes, “Special K” closes out in similar fashion with perhaps more swing in the rhythm. With those last two songs offsetting the down-the-life-drain spirit of the first three, Mother of Doom seems experimental in its construction — Garnero feeling his way into this new incarnation of the band and perhaps also recording and mixing himself in this context — but the disillusion comes through as organic, and whether we’re living or dying (spoiler: dying), that gives these songs the decisive “ugh” with which they seem to view the world around them.
Italian trio Aktopasa — also stylized as Akṭōpasa, if you’re in a fancy mood — seem to revel in the breakout moments on their second long-player and Argonauta label debut, Journey to the Pink Planet, as heard in the crescendo nod and boogie, respectively, of post-intro opener “Calima” (10:27) and closer “Foreign Lane” (10:45), the album’s two longest tracks and purposefully-placed bookends around the other songs. Elsewhere, the Venice-based almost-entirely-instrumentalists drift early in “It’s Not the Reason” — which actually features the record’s only vocals near its own end, contributed by Mattia Filippetto — and tick boxes around the tenets of heavy psychedelic microgenre, from the post-Colour Haze floating intimacy at the start of “Agarthi” to the fuzzy and fluid jam that branches out from it and the subsequent “Sirdarja” with its tabla and either sitar or guitar-as-sitar outset and warm-toned, semi-improv-sounding jazzier conclusion. From “Alif” (the intro) into “Calima” and “Lunar Eclipse,” the intent is to hypnotize and carry the listener through, and Aktopasa do so effectively, giving the chemistry between guitarist Lorenzo Barutta, bassist Silvio Tozzato and drummer Marco Sebastiano Alessi a suitably natural showcase and finding peace in the process, at least sonically-speaking, that’s then fleshed out over the remainder. A record to breathe with.
There’s heavy metal somewhere factored into the sound of Philadelphia’s Troll Teeth, but where it resides changes. The band — who here work as a four-piece for the first time — unveil their Underground Vol. 1 EP with four songs, and each one has a different take. In “Cher Ami,” the question is what would’ve happened if Queens of the Stone Age were in the NWOBHM. In “Expired,” it’s whether or not the howling of the two guitars will actually melt the chug that offsets it. It doesn’t, but it comes close to overwhelming in the process. On “Broken Toy” it’s can something be desert rock because of the drums alone, and in the six-minute closer “Garden of Pillars” it’s Alice in Chains with a (more) doomly reimagining and greater melodic reach in vocals as compared to the other three songs, but filled out with a metallic shred that I guess is a luxury of having two guitars on a record when you haven’t done so before. Blink and you’ll miss its 17-minute runtime, but Troll Teeth have four LPs out through Electric Talon, including 2022’s Hanged, Drawn, & Quartered, so there’s plenty more to dig into should you be so inclined. Still, if the idea behind Underground Vol. 1 was to scope out whether the band works as constructed here, the concept is proven. Yes, it works. Now go write more songs.
Lead track “Jukai” hasn’t exploded yet before Finis Hominis‘ Sordidum Est EP has unveiled the caustic nature of its bite in scathing feedback, and what ensues from there gives little letup in the oppressive, extreme sludge brutality, which makes even the minute-long “Cavum Nigrum” sample-topped drone interlude claustrophobic, never mind the assault that takes place — fast first, then slow, then crying, then slow, then dead — on nine-minute capper “Lorem Ipsum.” The bass hum that begins centerpiece “Improportionatus” is a thread throughout that 7:58 piece, the foundation on which the rest of the song resides, the indecipherable-even-if-they-were-in-English growls and throat-tearing shouts perfectly suited to the heft of the nastiness surrounding. “Jukai” has some swing in the middle but hearing it is still like trying to inhale concrete, and “Sinne Floribus” is even meaner and rawer, the Brazilian trio resolving in a devastating and noise-caked, visceral regardless of pace or crash, united in its alienated feel and aural punishment. And it’s their first EP! Jesus. Unless they’re actually as unhinged as they at times sound — possible, but difficult — I wouldn’t at all expect it to be their last. A band like this doesn’t happen unless the people behind it feel like it needs to, and most likely it does.
With its title maybe referring to the communion among players and the music they’re making in the moment of its own heavy psych jams, Losing Time Finding Space is the second studio full-length from Belfast instrumentalist unit Space Shepherds. The improvised-sounding troupe seem to have a lineup no less fluid than the material they unfurl, but the keyboard in “Ending the Beginning (Pt. 1)” gives a cinematic ambience to the midsection, and the fact that they even included an intro and interlude — both under two minutes long — next to tracks the shortest of which is 12:57 shows a sense of humor and personality to go along with all that out-there cosmic exploratory seeking. Together comprising a title-track, “Losing Time…” (17:34) and “…Finding Space” (13:27) are unsurprisingly an album unto themselves, and being split like “Ending the Beginning” speaks perhaps of a 2LP edition to come, or at very least is emblematic of the mindset with which they’re approaching their work. That is to say, as they move forward with these kinds of mellow-lysergic jams, they’re not unmindful either of the listener’s involvement in the experience or the prospect of realizing them in the physical as well as digital realms. For now, an hour’s worth of longform psychedelic immersion will do nicely, thank you very much.
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 21st, 2022 by JJ Koczan
To go with the unveiling of preorders for their upcoming debut album, The Return, Brazilian double-guitar five-piece Weedevil are streaming the opening song “Underwater,” which you’ll find at the bottom of this post. For the band, this first full-length answers the 2021 two-song EP, The Death is Coming (review here), and it marks the arrival in the band of vocalist Lo Scar and guitarist/backing vocalists Bodão, Paulo Ueno, the band having been essentially remade around drummer/backing vocalist Flávio Cavichioli and bassist/keyboardist Dani Plothow.
Abraxas and DHU Records have the release, and you’ll find the PR wire background below. It’s an April 8 release, so coming up:
WEEDEVIL – The Return
We are pleased to announce the opening of the digital pre-sale and the release of the cover of the first full of the stoner/doom band Weedevil.
Revamped, re-energized and denser than ever. The new formation of the Brazilian stoner/doom metal band Weedevil presents us in 2022 their most solid and powerful version, a five piece that bases their immersive and captivating sonority in lacerating riffs, hypnotic vocals and a refined and vibrant rhythm section. And it’s just the beginning.
“The Return” will bring out on April 8 a Weedevil never seen before, reaching the prime shape and taking a significant flight in the national scene of the segment. The quintet formed by Lo Scar (vocals), Paulo Ueno (guitar), Bodão (guitar), Dani Plothow (bass) and Flávio Cavichioli (drums) arrives in their first full album with a select tracklist, built by five exuberant tracks that keeps winding between the melancholic, dark and electrifying, packed by deep and existential themes narrating a kind of “opera” that promises to draw the listeners into a private, unique universe. “The Return” is the band’s masterpiece so far, a masterful work resulting from dedicated work.
With a digital release scheduled for April 8th and a physical LP version already confirmed by the Dutch label DHU Records the album “The Return” promises to reintroduce in the most impressive form a band that was already standing out on the scene, now ready to take the most demanding listeners in a unavoidable way.
Pre order em: https://weedevil.bandcamp.com/album/the-return
Tracklisting: 1. Underwater 2. The Void 3. The Return 4. Isn’t a Love Song 5. Genocidal
Posted in Questionnaire on March 10th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Marcos Resende of Pesta
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I see myself as a person who, in addition to being a musician, likes to be involved in the whole chain that involves my music, this has a bit of Underground culture that makes you have to create other skills to bring your music to your audience. This involves playing guitar, producing shows, making music videos, anyway… I realized that I just wanted to insert myself more and more in all issues related to my music.
Describe your first musical memory.
I don’t know exactly what was the first thing I heard that caught my attention, I grew up in a house with a lot of music, since my parents listened to“Samba, which is a very popular Brazilian music (now a little less) like “Cartola” and “Jorge Ben Jor” and my sister listening to a lot of ’80s pop music… and all that music always caught my attention somehow… Rock and Metal came after that… I discovered Queen’s A Night at the Opera at the beginning of my teenage years, and at that time I didn’t know much about it! But I was sure at that time that I needed an electric guitar, there was no other way! and at the same year I got one by trading an old acoustic guitar I had and a few more things, at that time I was consuming everything I could find, from punk to death metal.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Among many memorable moments it’s hard to choose one as the apex, but I think when I bought my first “real” guitar, it was something so great to me that I couldn’t believe I had done it! Well, this has a context, as you may have already noticed I’m from Brazil, and things here are not easy, but I don’t want this to sound like a complaint because I have a good structure, it’s just a fact, going back to context… when I finally thought I could buy a real guitar the prices were pretty absurd in here, and the Chinese forgeries took over, and that made everything more complicated to get any guitar of those consolidated brands like Gibson, Fender, Gretsch, Epiphone…
So an opportunity came to do a job in Europe, and I decided to extend this trip a little and pass a few weeks in London, at the end of that trip I found a used Gibson Les Paul in a window at Macari’s Guitar Shop at Camden Town, all my money ran out at that moment but I was already at the end of the trip and couldn’t be happier to have no money. I came back with this guitar on my back and all Pesta’s records were recorded with this guitar, this memory remains incredible in my memory.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
I think we are all being tested all the time, with conflicts between professional and artistic life… Family conflicts, political conflicts… But I think in my teenage years, I saw my family becoming a very religious family, and at the time I didn’t exactly understand why, but in that time that seemed to be my way too, I wanted to understand what was happening with them, after all they are my family, but a while went by and I saw that it was not for me, and this rupture/separation was a little disturbed, but very important to move forward, today I see that my belief is outside of any religious or institutional role, I do not believe in that and intend to continue that way.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
For most artists one thing is certain, it will not lead to success and media fame as we grew up seeing, this is a fact. But for all people who are firmly in the art somehow, they have a possible aspiration to get recognition, most of the time it will come from a niche or a community, some will break this barrier and reach people outside this niche, and to me what matters most in artistic growth is not the size that the artist will be at some point from now, but if his art is growing and being recognized, and this recognition is not the cover of Rolling Stone, it can come from any corner, from any site, blog, from friends or fans, even if they are a few, but this crescent role gives you a consistency to continue and target new things, audiences, etc.
How do you define success?
Well, while my art is growing I understand this as a success, while people are sending us messages saying that our music is marking his moment in life, so I understand it as success, we have to keep putting our goals, some of them is more reachable, others more challenging… But for every goal, where do we succeed, like get our album released in a vinyl version, doing a big show or a tour, I understand it as success.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
I wish I didn’t need to see the stupid president we have in Brazil today… Well, the list of “disgusts” is huge, but this is the top of the moment.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
Right now, I want to keep recording albums with Pesta, it’s been a good journey with these guys and we are finally releasing the version we made of Nightmare song by Sarcófago’s on streaming platforms, after some agreements with Cogumelo Records which is the rights holder, we will release a music video of this song as well and we are excited! But I still want to explore some psychedelic things with Brazilian rhythms because it’s something that is culturally important to me, and it’s part of my experience here somehow… And finish a personal project called Necropolis Ascends, which is a project of mine with a great friend from Greece, we’re in the final stages of recording our first EP and we’re pretty excited about the Trip Gothic Doom madness we’re creating.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
For me to take people away from the tyranny of everyday life, from this reality that is at the same time chaotic and trapped, plastered with rules and duties… The Freedom that art brings is liberating for those who are aware of it, and this liberation is a fuel incredible powerful for a less ordinary life.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Absolutely everything I think as aspiration that I want to do involves music somehow, but maybe the “less” musical of my projects is slowing down from Technology (which is my main occupation) and opening a Pub, this project has already been about to happen a few times but I’ve always bumped into time, but at some point I want to put this dream into practice, it won’t be exactly a place to play just what I like, because in this case I would go broke (lol), but a small place that allow pocket shows and be intimate enough to go with your friends, get drunk and listen to good music! I know we already have this type of option around here, but there’s still room for more!
Posted in Bootleg Theater on February 25th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Whatever else Isolation Dawn‘s debut single has — and it has plenty — it has a killer “Ough!” Listen and watch for it about 4:54 into the seven total minutes of the Brazilian collective’s eponymous first track. “Isolation Dawn,” which, yes, is a pandemic project, brings together members of Pesta, Dirty Grave, Riffcoven, Erasy, Weedevil, and others, and the idea is of course collaborative expression made possible through technology at a time when getting together in a rehearsal room and hammering out riffs wasn’t possible.
If you’re unfamiliar with Brazilian heavy, I don’t think you’d be wrong to consider Isolation Dawn a primer for some — definitely not all — of what’s going on in the country and the kind of groove being wrought. The vocals of Thiago Satyr bring a classic doom mindset (as well as the aforementioned “ough!”) as the guitars of André Bode and Leandro Carvalho hold down the central riff. There’s organ from Luan that gives a sense of grandiosity to the nod brought to bear by drummer Flavio Cavichioli and bassist Anderson Vaca as Melissa Rainbow shows up later on backing vocals. New stuff from any of these players would be noteworthy. The fact that they’ve all come together is all the more so.
What happens now with Isolation Dawn? I don’t know where all these people live — they’re not exactly going for minimalism with six people and maybe more involved — but is an album possible? If it’s been two years since they started working on this, is it something they can feasibly pursue, or maybe they already have? There could be a whole full-length in the can and it’s like a big secret that no one knows and then blamo, one day there it is. It’s a known unknown. And one for another time, perhaps, though I’ll note that in calling this the “debut” single, the PR wire below does seem to hint toward the possibility of more. Maybe they’ll be able to get in a room after all.
Been a minute since we had a socially-distant video. They will be a hallmark of this era in music.
Enjoy:
Isolation Dawn, “Isolation Dawn” video premiere
The Isolation Dawn project appears in mid-2020 amid the social isolation resulting from the pandemic, with both positive and negative developments in several aspects. Hyper coexistence, apprehension about the future and greater access to instruments, all converged in an attempt to put into practice a somewhat bold idea: a “collab Doom” formed by members of different bands of the genre.
Thus, guitarist Leandro Carvalho (ERASY) initially calls bassist Anderson Vaca (PESTA) and drummer Flávio Cavichioli (WEEDEVIL), consulting them about the idea. Without hesitation, approval happens. So, Leandro calls guitarist André Bode (RIFFCOVEN) and vocalist Thiago Satyr (WITCHING ALTAR), who also approve the idea and join the project. There is a suggestion by Flávio for the addition of one more voice in the band, and so Melissa Rainbow is added and closes the lineup. Additionally, Satyr calls Luan to contribute with Keyboards, and Pedro Vitus is invited to co-produce and mix and master the debut material, which resulted in a solid audiovisual for the track “Isolation Dawn,” edited by Berns, made by masterfully with clippings and videos of different formats.
Musically, the group’s debut track is a powerful and pulsating sound panel dedicated to Doom Metal, with explicit references, and more implicit ones, from several traditional names of the genre, in addition to presenting some of the musical DNA of each member and of their respective other projects. “Isolation Dawn” is scheduled for release in February, on streaming and YouTube.
Isolation Dawn : Thiago Satyr – Vocals Melissa Rainbow – Vocals Anderson Vaca – Bass André Bode – Guitars Leandro Carvalho – Guitars Flavio Cavichioli – Drums
Bruxa Verde Produções
Available on all digital platforms March 10th via Abraxas.
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 31st, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Now a five-piece, Brazilian riffers Weedevil will debut their new lineup on their first full-length, The Return. Set to release later this year on vinyl through DHU Records, the release will be the follow-up to last year’s two-songer The Death is Coming (review here) and will be preceded by a first single “Underwater” — which also happens to be the opening track of the LP — to see release this Friday. If you do the Spotify/DSP thing, then you can pre-save the track now. I will not pretend to know how that works. The digital release of the album is in April through Abraxas, and the DHU LP follows when it follows. Because it’s 2022 and that’s the world we live in. If I could change any number of things about it, I’d line up release dates across formats, but I don’t think that’s what I’d change first.
First I’d make a three-day work week, universal basic income, and $35 an hour minimum wage. Then healthcare. Then maybe the release date thing. It’s on the list.
Info came down the PR wire:
Weedevil new single “Underwater” out in February, 4; pre-save available!
Marking a new and even more promising moment of the band ( in course of release their first full album titled “The Return”, debuting the new lineup) the single Underwater will be released on digital platforms on February 4th through Abraxas Records. Dense, dark and with a touch of tragedy the track got in its essence a charge of twist, guided by the Stoner and Doom Metal strands.
Underwater sing about the turbulent story of a woman through mysterious and dangerous waters surrounded by menacing sea creatures that want to drag her to the bottom of the sea. The song inspires agony and danger, but also presents in its climax a positive twist with the woman finally revealing her power and becoming an entity that vanquishes her abusers before finding the void.
According to vocalist Lo Scar, author of the lyrics, the song helps to compose a panel that developed in a time physically and emotionally troubled with the first rehearsal of the new lineup having taken place while she was injured, as well as what has developed since so until your recovery.
Underwater is the first chapter of The Return, highly emotionally charged conceptual material based on Stoner/Doom Metal sonority and scheduled for release on streaming in April and with a Vinyl version already confirmed together with the Dutch label DHU RECORDS.
Weedevil lo scar – vocal Paulo Ueno – guitar, theremin, fx Bodão – guitar Dani Plothow – bass Flavio Cavichioli – drums
