Posted in Questionnaire on December 27th, 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: Jussi Hänninen of The Bleak Picture & Fall of the Leafe
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I make music and I have done that since I got my first guitar when I was 14 years old. The electric guitar started to fascinate me and I just had to get one. When I learned to play that thing I never liked that much of playing other bands songs so basically I always play what comes to my mind and sometimes there can be found something that needs to be memorized for later use. It is such a blessing that we live in a world where it can be recorded and saved in an instant. To create something own and new is what keeps me doing it.
Describe your first musical memory.
When I was little my parents often listened some Carmen parody made by Spike Jones. That is probably something that can be described as first musical memory. I didn’t understand anything of it but there were all kinds of funny noises.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
When I was a teenager I was a huge New Model Army fan (actually that hasn’t changed) and the first time I heard the album No Rest for the Wicked it totally blew me away. The bass sound and the playing was something that I haven’t heard before and it made such an impact on me. I had listened a lot of their later albums but when I bought that album it was something different for me. Sadly the bass player on that album left the band after that.
If it seems weird that I tell you about some bass sound and all that, it’s just that as a guitarist I value the bass as much as the guitar. It is equally important part of the music for me.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
If I look back at my musical career one thing comes to my mind. With Fall of the Leafe we made two extreme metal albums and then quite suddenly decided to change our music to more acceptable form… or so we thought. I always was in a belief that if there are clean vocals and music is more or less mid tempo, it would be so much easier to achieve wider audience and great things would happen. How wrong was I. Of course there were other issues as well that made us to change our sound but it would have been so much better to continue with the path we were on.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
For myself it pretty much goes in cycles. I have never fully got the chance to create freely without having to worry about other things in life so my progression isn’t going much forward. The more I can create my music interruptedly the more I start to experiment. And sometimes the creative energy just drains out. The well is empty. I have to take a break and a whole new cycle begins some time later.
How do you define success?
If I have achieved something that I was hoping to achieve, that is success for me. Nothing to do with fame and fortune.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
A few years back my cat was hit by a car and she managed to get back home even though she was badly injured. The instant moment I saw her I realized nothing can’t be done for her and she’s beyond repair so to speak. She had been with me over a decade and was a survivor and such a bad ass cat but it was heartbreaking to see her like that and knowing it’s time to let go. The only thing left was to put her down.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
If I could some day create a musical piece that is absolutely perfect, that would be brilliant. There wouldn’t be a single thing that I’d want to change later. I think that’s impossible though but never knows.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
The function of art is to give something uplifting or comforting to the listener. Or whatever the art form is in question. To give different feelings, experiences.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
For now I just wait for the spring to come. It’s now the darkest and coldest season of the year and for me it’s somewhat a survival battle every year. So sick of that. People tend to romanticize the winter but if you live in a middle of nowhere without street lights or anything – like me – you know it’s hard. Nothing fancy about it.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 1st, 2022 by JJ Koczan
This kind of misery just feels like home. Taking elements of classic death-doom and goth, I’m not sure I’d call Finnish two-piece The Bleak Picture innovative on their debut EP, Songs of Longing, but as an initial demonstration of intent, the atmosphere and emotive sense of drudge are unmistakable. Though a newcomer outfit in the post-pandemic vein of prior-established artists exploring new creative avenues, the duo of multi-instrumentalist Jussi Hänninen and vocalist Tero Ruohonen are obviously schooled in the vibe they’re creating, and even the coffins on the cover of the four-song outing has just an edge of dry-tongue-in-cheek to it that feels like an appropriately over the top bit of humor, whether it was intended as one or not. In any case, it is a suitably bleak picture.
Songs of Longing is out Dec. 2 on Alone Records, and the leadoff track is streaming at the bottom of this post. Preorders are a thing that exist.
The PR wire reminds of that and has more info on the project and release:
THE BLEAK PICTURE: Finnish Duo Formed By Fall Of The Leafe And Autumnfall Members To Release Songs Of Longing EP Through Alone Records + Preorders Posted
Alone Records presents a deluxe vinyl version of Songs Of Longing, the debut EP by Finnish duo THE BLEAK PICTURE.
A place where Finnish death/doom meets with England gothic rock formed following the no wave movement is the point of departure of the jaw dropping debut EP from THE BLEAK PICTURE, Songs Of Longing.
Jussi Hänninen of missed cult act Fall Of The Leafe joins with Tero Ruohonen of Autumnfall in this absolutely must-hear act for fans of the genre that looks for something distinct without losing the essence. Even as this music is rooted in the old-school it’s not simply a rehashing of the past, but a new beginning. Looking towards the future without forgetting the past, THE BLEAK PICTURE is a coin with two equal sides that point your destiny underground.
A perfect mix of early Katatonia constructed by the lightning feeling of superb melodies of the keyboards and guitars sharp enough to cut permafrost. Mid-paced tempos with groovy keyboards in the same vein of Joy Division, Bauhaus, or Fields Of The Nephilim. It’s all met with a mix of vocal styles, with growls in the vein of Officium Triste mixed with clear passages drenched in anguish.
Self-recorded by Hänninen and Ruohonen, with session drummer Anssi Ikonen’s material recorded at Lucifuge Studio by Danil Venho, Songs Of Longing was mixed at DTT Äänitys by Danil Venha, mastered by Dan Swanö (Edge Of Sanity, Bloodbath) at Unisound AB, and completed with cover artwork photography by Tero Ruohonen.
Alone Records presents the album in physical incarnations, with 300 copies on Clear 12” vinyl as well as on CD, set for release on December 2nd.
Songs Of Longing Track Listing: 1. The Dead Beginners 2. Absence of Light 3. Tragedy’s Own 4. Broken Statues
THE BLEAK PICTURE: Jussi Hänninen – guitars, bass, synths Tero Ruohonen – vocals
Posted in Reviews on September 19th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Oh hello. I didn’t see you there. What, this? Oh, this is just me hanging out about to review 100 records in 10 days’ time. Yup, it’s another double-wide Quarterly Review, and I’m telling myself that no, this isn’t just how life is now, that two full weeks of 10 reviews per day isn’t business as usual, but there’s an exceptional amount of music out there right now, and no, this isn’t even close to all of it. But I’m doing my best to keep up and this is what that looks like.
The bottom line is the same as always and I’ll give it to you up front and waste no more time: I hope you enjoy the music here and find something to love.
So let’s go.
Quarterly Review #01-10:
Yatra, Born into Chaos
The partnership between Chesapeake extremists Yatra and producer Noel Mueller continues to bear fruit on the band’s fourth album and first for Prosthetic Records. Their descent from thick, nasty sludge into death metal is complete, and songs like “Terminate by the Sword” and “Terrorizer” have enough force behind them to become signature pieces. The trio of Dana Helmuth (guitar/vocals), Maria Geisbert (bass) and Sean Lafferty (drums, also Grave Bathers) have yet to sound so utterly ferocious, and as each of their offerings has pushed further into the tearing-flesh-like-paper and rot-stenched realms of metal, Born into Chaos brings the maddening intensity of “Wrath of the Warmaster” and the Incantation-worthy chug of closer “Tormentation,” with massive chug, twisting angularity and brain-melting blasts amid the unipolar throatripper screams from Helmuth (reminds at times of Grutle Kjellson from Enslaved), by now a familiar rasp that underscores the various violences taking place within the eight included tracks. I bet they get even meaner next time,. That’s just how Yatra do. But it’ll be a challenge.
Part of the fun of a new Sula Bassana release is not knowing what you’re going to get, and Nostalgia, which is built from material recorded between 2013-’18 and finished between 2019-’21, is full of surprises. The heavy space grunge of lead cut “Real Life,” which along with its side A companion “We Will Make It” actually features vocals from Dave “Sula Bassana” Schmidt himself (!), is the first here but not the last. That song beefs up early Radiohead drudgery, and “We Will Make It” is like what happens when space rock actually gets to space, dark in a way but expansive and gorgeous. Side B is instrumental, but the mellotron in “Nostalgia” — how could a track called “Nostalgia” not have mellotron? — goes a long way in terms of atmosphere, and the 10-minute “Wurmloch” puts its well-schooled krautrockism to use amid melodic drone before the one-man-jam turns into a freakout rager (again: !), and the outright beautiful finisher “Mellotraum” turns modern heavy post-rock on its head, stays cohesive despite all the noise and haze and underscores the mastery Schmidt has developed in his last two decades of aural exploration. One wonders to what this sonic turn might lead timed so close to his departure from Electric Moon and building a Sula live band, but either way, more of this, please. Please.
Continuing a streak of working with highly-respected imprints, Finland’s Garden of Worm release their third album, the eight-song/43-minute Endless Garden, through Nasoni Records after two prior LPs through Shadow Kingdom and Svart, respectively. There have been lineup changes since 2015’s Idle Stones (review here), but the band’s classically progressive aspects have never shone through more. The patient unfolding of “White Ship” alone is evidence for this, never mind everything else that surrounds, and though the earlier “Name of Lost Love” and the closer “In the Absence of Memory” nod to vintage doom and the nine-minute penultimate “Sleepy Trees” basks in a raw, mellow Floydian melody, the core of the Tampere outfit remains their unpredictability and the fact that you never quite know where you’re going until you’re there. Looking at you, “Autumn Song,” with that extended flute-or-what-ever-it-is intro before the multi-layered folk-doom vocal kicks in. For over a decade now, Garden of Worm have been a well kept secret, and honestly, that kind of works for the vibe they cast here; like you were walking through the forest and stumbled into another world. Good luck getting back.
Untethered by genre and as unorthodox as ever, Sevilla, Spain, weirdo doom heroes Orthodox return with Proceed after four years in the ether, and the output is duly dug into its own reality of ritualism born more of creation than horror-worship across the six included songs. “Arendrot” carries some shade from past dronings, and certainly the opener before it is oddball enough, with its angular riffing and later, Iberian-folk-derived solo, but there’s a straigter-forward aspect to Proceed as well, the vocals lending a character of noise rock and less outwardly experimentalist fare. “Rabid God” brings that forward with due intensity before the hi-hat-shimmy-meets-cave-lumber-doom “Starve” and the lurching/ambient doomjazz “The Son, the Sword, the Bread” set up the 10-minute closer “The Long Defeat,” which assures the discomforted that at least at some point when they were kids Orthodox listened to metal. Righteously individual, their work isn’t for everyone, and it’s by no means free of indulgence, but in 42 minutes, Orthodox once again stretch the limits of what doom means in a way that most bands wouldn’t dare even if they wanted to, and if you can’t respect that, then I’ve got nothing for you.
Fifty years from now, some brave archivalist soul is going to reissue the entire catalog of Lima, Peru’s Matus and blow minds far and wide. A follow-up to 2013’s Espejismos (review here), Espejismos II brings theremin-laced vintage Sabbath rock vibes across its early movements, going so far as to present “Umbral / Niebla de Neón” in mono, while the minute-and-a-half-long “Los Ojos de Vermargar (Early Version)” is pure fuzz and the organ-laced “Hada Morgana (Early Instrumental Mix)” — that and “Umbra; / Niebla de Neón” appeared in ‘finished versions on 2015’s Claroscuro (review here); “Summerland” dates back to 2010’s Más Allá Del Sol Poniente (review here), so yes, time has lost all meaning — moves into the handclap-and-maybe-farfisa-organ “Canción para Nuada,” one of several remixes with rerecorded drums. “Rocky Black” is an experiment in sound collage, and “Misquamacus” blends acoustic intricacy and distorted threat, while capper “Adiós Afallenau (Version)” returns the theremin for a two-minute walk before letting go to a long stretch of silence and some secret-track-style closing cymbals. The best thing you can do with Matus is just listen. It’s its own thing, it always has been, and the experimental edge brought to classic heavy rock is best taken on with as open a mind as possible. Let it go where it wants to go and the rewards will be plenty. And maybe in another five decades everyone will get it.
Offset by interludes like the classical-minded “Aversion” or the bass-led “Reprobation,” or even the build-up intro “S.Z.,” the ritual doom nod of Swiss five-piece Shrooms Circle‘s The Constant Descent is made all the more vital through the various keys at work across its span, whether it’s organ or mellotron amid the lumbering weight of the riffs. “Perpetual Decay” and its companion interlude “Amorphous” dare a bit of beauty, and that goes far in adding context and scope to the already massive sounding “The Unreachable Spiral” and the subtle vocal layering in “The Constant Descent.” Someone in this band likes early Type O Negative, and that’s just fine. Perhaps most of all, the 11-song/48-minute The Constant Descent is dynamic enough so that no matter where a given song starts, the listener doesn’t immediately know where it’s going to end up, and taking that in combination with the command shown throughout “Demotion,” “Perpetual Decay,” the eight-minute “Core Breakdown” and the another-step-huger finale “Stagnant Tide,” Shrooms Circle‘s second album offers atmosphere and craft not geared toward hooking the audience with catchy songwriting so much as immersing them in the mood and murk in which the band seem to reside. If Coven happened for the first time today, they might sound like this.
I’m gonna tell you straight out: Don’t write this shit off because Goatriders is a goofy band name or because the cover art for their second album, Traveler, is #vanlife carrot gnomes listening to a tape player on a hillside (which is awesome, by the way). There’s more going on with the Linköping four-piece than the superficialities make it seem. “Unscathed” imagines what might have happened if Stubb and Hexvssel crossed paths on that same hill, and the album careens back and forth smoothly between longer and shorter pieces across 50 engrossing minutes; nature-worshiping, low-key dooming and subtly genre-melding all the while. Then they go garage on “The Garden,” the album seeming to get rawer in tone as it proceeds toward “Witches Walk” and the a capella finish in “Coven,” which even that they can’t resist blowing out at the end. With the hypnotic tom work and repeat riffing of the instrumental “Elephant Bird” at its center and the shouted culminations of “Goat Head Nebula” and “Unscathed,” the urgent ritualizing of “Snakemother” and the deceptive poise at the outset with “Atomic Sunlight,” Traveler finds truth in its off-kilter presentation. You don’t get Ozium, Majestic Mountain and Evil Noise on board by accident. Familiar as it is and drawing from multiple sides, I’m hard-pressed to think of someone doing exactly what Goatriders do, and that should be taken as a compliment.
At the tender age of 80, bizarrist legend Arthur Brown — the god of hellfire, as the cover art immediately reminds — presents Long Long Road to a new generation of listeners. His first album under his own name in a decade — The Crazy World of Arthur Brown released Gypsy Voodoo (can you still say that?) in 2019 — and written and performed in collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Rik Patten, songs like “Going Down” revisit classic pageantry in organ and horns and the righteous lyrical proclamations of the man himself, while “I Like Games” toys with blues vibes in slide acoustic, kick drum thud and harmonica sleazenanigans, while the organ-and-electric “The Blues and Messing Round” studs with class and “Long Long Road” reminds that “The future’s open/The past is due/In this moment/Where everything that comes is new,” a hopeful message before “Once I Had Illusions (Part 2)” picks up where its earlier companion-piece left off in a manner that’s both lush and contemplative, more than a showpiece for Brown‘s storytelling and still somehow that. His legacy will forever be tied to The Crazy World of Arthur Brown‘s late-1960s freakery, but Long Long Road is the work of an undimmed creative spirit and still bolder than 90 percent of rock bands will ever dare to be.
Ultimately, whether one ends up calling Green Sky Accident‘s Daytime TV progressive psychedelia, heavier post-rock or some other carved-out microgenre, the reality of the 10-song/50-minute Apollon Records release is intricate enough to justify the designation. Richly melodic and unafraid to shimmer brightly, cuts like “Point of No Return” and the later dancer “Finding Failure” are sweet in mood and free largely of the pretense of indie rock, though “Insert Coin” and the penultimate piano interlude “Lid” are certainly well dug-in, but “Sensible Scenes,” opener “Faded Memories,” closer “While We Lasted” and the ending of “Screams at Night” aren’t lacking either for movement or tonal presence, and that results in an impression more about range underscored by songwriting and melody than any kind of tonal or stylistic showcase. The Bergen, Norway, four-piece are, in other words, on their own trip. And as much float as they bring forth, “In Vain” reimagines heavy metal as a brightly expressive terrestrial entity, a thing to be made and remade according to the band’s own purpose for it, and the title-track similarly balances intensity with a soothing affect. I guess this is what alt rock sounds like in 2022. Could be far worse, and indeed, it presents an ‘other’ vision from the bulk of what surrounds it even in an underground milieu. On a personal level, I can’t decide if I like it, and I kind of like that about it.
Pure Land Stars, Trembling Under the Spectral Bodies
With members of Cali psych-of-all explorers White Manna at their core, Pure Land Stars begin a series called ‘Altered States’ that’s a collaboration between Centripetal Force and Cardinal Fuzz Records, and if you’re thinking that that’s going to mean it’s way far out there, you’re probably not thinking far enough. Kosmiche drones and ambient foreboding in “Flotsam” and “3rd Grace” make the acoustic strum of “Mountains are Mountains” seem like a terrestrial touch-down, while “Chime the Kettle” portrays a semi-industrial nature-worship jazz, and “Jetsam” unfolds like a sunrise but if the sun suddenly came up one day and was blue. “Lavendar Crowd” (sic) turns the experimentalism percussive, but it’s that experimentalism at the project’s core, whether that’s manifest in the nigh-on-cinematic “Dr. Hillarious” (sic) or the engulf-you-now eight-minute closer “Eyes Like a Green Ceiling,” which is about as far from the keyboardy kratrock of “Flotsam” as the guitar effects and improvised sounding soloing of “Jetsam” a few tracks earlier. Cohesive? Sure. But in its own dimension. I don’t know if Pure Land Stars is a ‘band’ or a one-off, but they give ‘Altered States’ a rousing start that more than lives up to the name. Take a breath first. Maybe a drink of water. Then dive in.
Here we are in the Spring 2022 Quarterly Review. I have to hope and believe you know what this means by now. It’s been like eight years. To reiterate, 10 reviews a day for this week. I’ve also added next Monday to the mix because there’s just so, so, so much out there right now, so this Quarterly Review will total 60 albums covered. It could easily be more. And more. And more. You get the point.
So while we’re on the edge of this particular volcano, looking down into the molten center of the Quarterly Review itself, I’ll say thanks for reading if you do at any point, and I hope you find something to make doing so worth the effort.
Here we go.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
Spidergawd, VI
Like clockwork, Spidergawd released V (review here), in 2019, and amid the chaos of 2020, they announced they’d have a new record out in 2021 — already the longest pause between LPs of their career — for which they’d be touring. The Norwegian outfit — who aren’t so much saviors of rock as a reminder of why it doesn’t need saving in the first place — at last offer the nine songs and 41 minute straight-ahead drive of VI with their usual aplomb, energizing a classic heavy rock sound and reveling in the glorious hooks of “Prototype Design” and “Running Man” at the outset, throwing shoulders with the sheer swag of “Black Moon Rising,” and keeping the rush going all the way until “Morning Star” hints toward some of their prior psych-prog impulses. They’ve stripped those back here, and on the strength of their songwriting and the shining lights that seem to accompany their performance even on a studio recording, they remain incomparable in working to the high standard of their own setting.
The first Eight Bells full-length for Prophecy Productions, Legacy of Ruin comes six years after their second LP, Landless (review here), and finds founding guitarist/vocalist Melynda Marie Jackson, bassist/guitarist/vocalist Matt Solis, drummer Brian Burke, a host of guests and producer Billy Anderson complicating perceptions of Pacific Northwestern US black metal. Across the six songs and in extended cuts like “The Well” and closer “Premonition,” Eight Bells remind of their readiness to put melodies where others fear tread, and to execute individualized cross-genre breadth that even in the shorter “Torpid Dreamer” remains extreme, whatever else one might call it in terms of style. “The Crone” and other moments remind of Enslaved, but seem to be writing a folklore all their own in that.
Swiss four-piece Blue Rumble bring organically-produced, not-quite-vintage-but-retro-informed heavy psych blues boogie on their self-titled debut full-length, impressing with the sharp edges around which the grooves curve, the channel-spanning, shred-ready solo of the guitars, and the organ that add so much to where vocals might otherwise be. The five-minute stretch alone of second cut “Cosmopolitan Landscape,” which follows the garage urgency of opener “God Knows I Shoulda Been Gone,” runs from a mellow-blues exploration into a psych hypnosis and at last into a classic-prog freakout before, miraculously, returning, and that is by no means the total scope of the album, whether it’s the winding progressions in “Cup o’ Rosie (Just Another Groovy Thing),” the laid back midsection of “Sunset Fire Opal” or the hey-is-that-flute on the shorter pastoral interlude “Linda,” as if naming the song before that “Think for Yourself” wasn’t enough of a Beatles invocation. The strut continues unabated in “The Snake” and the grittier “Hangman,” and closer “Occhio e Croce” (‘eye and cross,” in Italian) shimmers with Mellotron fluidity atop its central build, leaving the raw vitality of the drums to lead into a big rock finish well earned. Heads up, heavy rock and rollers. This is hot shit.
It’s palindrome time on Mainz, Germany’s The Mountain King‘s WolloW. Once the solo-project of guitarist/vocalist/programmer Eric McQueen, the experimentalist band here includes guitarist Frank Grimbarth and guest bassist Jack Cradock — you can really hear that bass on “II In Grium Imus Noctem Aram et Consumimur Igni” (hope you practiced your conjugations) and through five songs, they cross genres from the atmospheric heavygaze-meets-Warning of “I Bongnob” through the blackened crunch of the above-noted second cut to a gloriously dreamy and still morose title-track, and the driving expanse of “V DNA Sand.” Then they do it backwards, as “V DNA Sand” seems to flip halfway through. But they’re also doing it backwards at the same time as forward, so as The Mountain King work back toward album finale “bongnoB I,” what was reversed and what wasn’t has switched and the listener isn’t really sure what’s up or down, where they are or why. This, of course, is exactly the point. Take that, form and structure! Open your mind and let doom in!
Berlin trio Sheev prove adept at skirting the line of outright aggression, and in fact crossing it, while maintaining control over their direction and execution. Mind Conductor is their debut album, and it works well to send signals of its complexity, samples and obscure sounds on “The Workshop” giving over the riffs of immediate impact on “Well Whined.” The channel-spanning guitar pulls on “Saltshifter,” the harmonies in the midsection of “All I Can,” the going-for-it-Danny–Carey-style drums on the penultimate “Baby Huey” (and bonus points for that reference) — all of these and so much more in the nine-song/53-minute span come together fluidly to create a portrait of the band’s depth of approach and the obvious consideration they put into what they do. Closer “Snakegosh” may offer assurance they don’t take themselves too seriously, but even that song’s initial rolling progression can’t help but wind its way through later angularities. It will be interesting to hear the direction they ultimately take over the course of multiple albums, but don’t let that draw focus from what they accomplish on this first one.
Dudes got riffs. From Medford, Oregon, Elk Witch draw more from the sphere of modern heavy rockers like earlier The Sword or Freedom Hawk than the uptempo post-Red Fang party jams for which much of the Pacific Northwest is known, but the groove is a good time just the same. The six tracks of Beyond the Mountain are born out of the trio’s 2021 debut EP — wait for it — The Mountain, but the four songs shared between the two offerings have been re-recorded here, repositioned and sandwiched between opener “Cape Foulweather” and closer “The Plight of Valus,” so the reworking feels consistent from front to back. And anyway, it’s only been a year, so ease up. Some light burl throughout, but the vocals on “Coyote and the Wind’s Daughters” remind me of Chritus in Goatess, so there’s some outright doom at work too, though “Greybeard Arsenal” might take the prize for its shimmering back-half slowdown either way, and “The Plight of Valus” starts out with a seeming wink at Kyuss‘ “El Rodeo,” so nothing is quite so simply traced. Raw, but they’ll continue to figure out where they’re headed, and the converted will nod knowingly. For what it’s worth, I dig it.
If “evocative” is what New Hampshire post-metallic mostly-instrumentalists KYOTY were going for with their third full-length, could they possibly have picked something better to call it than Isolation? It’d be a challenge. And with opener “Quarantine,” songs like “Ventilate,” “Languish,” “Faith,” and “Rift,” “Respite” and closer “A Fog, A Future Like a Place Imagined,” the richly progressive unit working as the two-piece of Nick Filth and Nathaniel Parker Raymond weave poetic aural tapestries crushing and spacious in kind with the existential dread and vague flashes of hope in pandemic reality of the 2020s thus far. Still, they work in impressionist fashion, so that the rumbling crackle of “Onus” and the near-industrial slog of “Respite” represent place and idea while also standing apart as a not-quite-objective observer, the lighter float of the guitar in “Faith” becoming a wash before its resonant drone draws it to a close. At 70 minutes, there’s a lot to say for a band who doesn’t have lyrics, but spoken lines further the sense of verse, and remind of the humanity behind the programming of “Holter” or the especially pummeling “Rift.” An album deep enough you could listen to it for years and hear something new.
Andalusian storytellers Red Eye make it plain from the outset that their ambitions are significant, and the seven songs of their third full-length play out those ambitions across ultra-flowing shifts between serenity and heft, working as more than just volume trades and bringing an atmospheric sprawl that is intended to convey time as well as place. In 46 minutes, they do for doom and various other microgenres — post-metal, some more extreme moments in “Beorg” and the morse-code-inclusive closer “Æsce” — what earlier Opeth did for death metal, adding shifts into unbridled folk melody and sometimes minimalist reach. Clearly meant to be taken in its entirety, The Cycle functions beautifully across its stretch, and the four-piece of guitarist/vocalist Antonio Campos (also lyrics), guitarist/vocalist Pablo Terol, bassist Antonio Muriel and drummer Ángel Arcas, bear weight of tone and history in kind, self-aware that the chants in “Tempel” brim with purpose, but expressive in the before and after such that they wherever they will and make it a joy to follow.
Originally recorded to come out in 2013, what would’ve been/is the Stoned Horses‘ self-titled debut full-length runs 12 tracks and swaps methodologies between instrumentalism and more verse/chorus-minded sludge rock. Riffs lead, in either case, and there’s a sense of worship that goes beyond Black Sabbath as the later “Scorpions Vitus” handily confirms. The semi-eponymous “A Stoned Horse” is memorable for its readiness to shout the hook at you repeatedly, and lest a band called Stoned Horses ever be accused of taking themselves too seriously, “My Horse is Faster Than Your Bike” is a sub-two-minute riffer that recalls late-’90s/early-’00s stoner rock fuckery, before everyone started getting progressive. Not short on charm, there’s plenty of substance behind it in “Le Calumet” like a northern Alabama Thunderpussy or the last cut, “The Legend of the Blue Pig,” which dares a bit more metal. Not groundbreaking, not trying to be, it’s a celebration of the tropes of genre given its own personality. I have nothing more to ask of it except what happened that it sat for nearly a decade without being released.
Antwerpen’s Gnome make it a hell of a lot of fun to trace their path across King, their second full-length, bringing in The Vintage Caravan‘s Óskar Logi early for “Your Empire” and finding a line between energetic, on-the-beat delivery and outright aggression, letting “Ambrosius” set the tone for what follows as they careen though cuts like the instrumental “Antibeast,” the swinging and catchy “Wencelas” and the crunching “Bulls of Bravik.” How do they do it? With the magic of shenanigans! As King (which “Wencelas” was) plays out, the suitably hatted trio get up to high grade nonsense on “Kraken Wanker” before “Stinth Thy Clep” and the 11-minute we-can-do-whatever-we-want-so-let’s-do-that-yes closer “Platypus Platoon” buries its later march amid a stream of ideas that, frankly, kind of sounds like it could just keep going. They are adventurous throughout the eight songs and 42 minutes, but have a solid foundation nonetheless of tone and consciousness, which are what save King from being a mess. It’s a hard balance to strike that they make sound easy.
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 31st, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Imagine taking nearly 20 years to put out your debut album and still being ahead of your time. As Yawning Man have steadily grown into a touring and recording act over the last 15 years, the trio-sometimes-more have gradually come to be recognized for their work among the progenitors of desert rock. At the time they first released Rock Formations (discussed here) in 2005 through Alone Records, that was hardly the case. The album was a soundscaping curio, marked out by the guitar tone of Gary Arce and defining pieces like “Perpetual Oyster” and its title-track, but still not really received with the due respect it deserved. One expects a forthcoming LP reissue through Ripple Music will work to change that.
Yawning Man working with Ripple is notable. The band had been and may still be for all I know signed to Heavy Psych Sounds, but it was Ripple that put out the Arce-inclusive Yawning Sons album this year, so following up with a Yawning Man reissue may be a precursor to working a next studio full-length or it may not. Either way, as I said, notable.
And as far as the record goes, at this point it’s inarguable. Reissue it every week until the entire planet has a copy. It’s the ‘Bright Side of the Sun’ of desert rock.
From the PR wire:
Ripple Music to reissue YAWNING MAN’s cornerstone debut ‘Rock Formations’ on vinyl this August 6th; preorder available now!
Ripple Music teams up desert rock godfathers YAWNING MAN to reissue their long sold-out cornerstone debut album ‘Rock Formations’ on vinyl this summer. It will be available on black vinyl and limited colored vinyl on August 6th, 2021, with preorder up now!
Ripple Music presents the much-demanded re-release of the first album from the legendary Palm Desert band YAWNING MAN, once known as the favorite band of Brant Bjork and among the biggest influences on Kyuss. Although formed in 1986 by Mario Lalli on bass, Gary Arce on guitar, Alfredo Hernandez on drums, the band only released their debut full-length in 2005 on Alone Records. ‘Rock Formations’ has been called “a melancholic mix of acoustic space rock with elements of surf music as well as middle eastern guitar style,” and it represents the primordial statement from one of the most important bands ever to emerge from the California desert.
YAWNING MAN bassist Mario Lalli declares: “This album truly reflects a point in our evolution as musicians where we touched on a sound that resonated with us to this day, while the band has been together since 1986 this album was essential to our growth and is very dear to us, we are very excited to be working with Ripple Music on this reissue.”
‘Rock Formations’ will be reissued on August 6th via Ripple Music, and available to preorder on: – Limited Edition Gatefold LP (200 copies pressed on pure white and royal blue color-in-color vinyl with gold splatter + 8-page art book included) – Worldwide Edition Gatefold LP (black vinyl + 8-page art book included)
[Click play above to stream Red Eye’s Tales from the Days of Yore in its entirety. Album is out Feb. 22 on Alone Records.]
Spanish four-piece Red Eye give some credit to the history and natural environs of their home in Antequera, Spain, in helping them conjure their sound, and that may well be true. What the consideration of the karsts — limestone formations jutting from the earth; you would see one and say, “oh so that’s what those things are called!” — and centuries of culture don’t necessarily account for is the skillful hand with which the double-guitar outfit blend influences from modern and classic doom together to create the amalgam of their Alone Records debut album, Tales from the Days of Yore. It is a substantial work even when not considering its 51-minute runtime across just six tracks, but with largesse of tone tying it together and a songwriting modus that draws at any moment from Pallbearer on “Azathoth” or Pentagram on “BHC” or Sleep on opener “Encounter,” Red Eye — the lineup of guitarist/vocalists Pablo Terol and Antonio Campos, bassist Antonio Muriel and drummer Ángel Arcas — dig into epic vibes on “Hall of the Slain,” engage a psychedelic sludge on “Yagé” and plod out in mammoth style on closer “Waves” before the semi-hidden track “Halcyon Rhythms” closes out with folkish acoustics and flute.
The question there, of course, is where were the folkish acoustics and flute hiding for the rest of the album, but there it’s important to remember Tales from the Days of Yore is Red Eye‘s first album, and while their accomplishments throughout are significant, this may just be the beginning of a larger progression. Maybe next time, more flutes and acoustics. In the interim, it’s not like the preceding stretches of Tales from the Days of Yore are lacking anything for fullness of sound. “Encounter” serves notice early as the opener and longest track (immediate points) by beginning with a fading-in swell of distortion-drenched guitar, and it’s a full minute before the drums join. Soon enough, the drudge is underway, and Red Eye cast their lot in a nodding rhythm and focus around that central riff, one guitar dropping to feedback before the throaty first verse begins. The immediate touchstone is earlier Sleep, but in its second half, the rumble fades from “Encounter” and quiet guitars intertwine for a stretch to build back up to a full-blown solo and last riff-out, so immediately, Red Eye refuse to be beholden to one single impulse in songwriting. That only continues to serve them well throughout the rest of what follows.
Both Terol and Campos would seem to contribute vocals to the verses of “BHC” — the acronym standing for “Black Horse Carriage” — and the shift in approach from the opener is palpable even as the tempo remains on the slower end and a lumbering groove continues to hold sway. Some of the underlying swing in the chorus seems to tip a hat to Elephant Tree‘s sense of melody, but just before the midpoint again, “BHC” drops to atmospherics. Backward guitar, other noise and general drift take the fore until the bass — or very low guitar — picks back up to introduce the solo-topped section that closes out. One might expect them to return to the hook, which is arguably the strongest on the album, but instead they crash into a fadeout ahead of “Azathoth,” a more active stomp and (single) melodic vocal echoing out over the likewise mournful riffing until, indeed, a midpoint break brings them down to a subdued stretch of mood-setting. This time, subtle tom hits hold the tension and when they return, it’s not to a solo, but huge riffing and compressed-sounding semi-spoken vocal declarations — the righteousness palpable — but sweeping guitar leads the way out nonetheless, the three first tracks diverse in their approach but united in structure.
Time for a change, and “Hall of the Slain” is it. A faster tempo, a more prevalent Sabbathian swing and a catchy chorus make the early going of “Hall of the Slain” a jolt of energy well placed to continue to expand the band’s horizons, and they change the structure as well, going quiet in the first half quickly to tease a longer break to come. It’s a minute difference, but a difference all the same, and the contrast it sets up with the impressive tonal plunder on the other end isn’t to be understated. Vocals become chanting incantations in the midsection and the quiet stint — could use some flute, maybe? — heralds the return to the song’s central instrumental figure. There are no more vocals, but the repetition in the second half of “Hall of the Slain” works well to set up “Yagé” which starts off with airy psychedelic guitar and gradually makes its way forward for the first three minutes-plus, the patient linear build ably making the turn to full-tonality sound organic. While they’ve incorporated different influences all along, “Yagé” is as far into alternate structuring as Red Eye have thus far gone on Tales from the Days of Yore, and the shift suits them, a last verse ending with a shout and faster riffing taking hold momentarily as a solo seems to call back to the song’s beginning in an effective bookend.
That leaves “Waves” as the finale, and there’s no way it’s anything but. At about five and a half minutes, it’s a somewhat scaled-down summary of what Red Eye have done throughout, bringing together various ideas and loud/quiet tradeoffs, but the level of plod is upped in such a way that it couldn’t be anything but the conclusion, and very likely the band knew that even as they were writing it. It crashes to a somewhat unceremonious end, but “Halcyon Days” takes hold shortly thereafter, carrying the next several minutes with classic prog flair in a flute-led jam met with percussion and strummed guitar, ending with some conversation and laughing. For a band who already has room in their songs for such things, it would seem only natural to combine this apparent underlying influence with the heft they otherwise bring forth — hard to pull off live in the studio, but not impossible — but again, Tales from the Days of Yore is a debut album, and among its crucial functions is to set up avenues for future growth on the part of the band. It does that and more, providing a deep-running listening experience that shows Red Eye as thoughtful in their use of structure and pace as well as schooled in the style in which they’re establishing their roots for future development.
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 22nd, 2019 by JJ Koczan
Preorders are up now from Alone Records for the debut album from Spanish doom rockers Red Eye, Tales from the Days of Yore. The album has been given a Feb. 22 release through the long-running imprint, and the eight-minute “Hall of the Slain” is streaming now to give an initial impression of the patient blend of progressive doom and heavy rock they’re working with, a kind of semi-epic feel pervading the material that I’m interested to hear how it might play out across the full release. Cavernous drum echo does well to add a sense of space to the track, and that they don’t come across as rushed or unsure in the span of the piece bodes well, though, as does the underlying downer melody of the guitar.
In the place where I live, a “red eye” is made when an espresso shot — or two, or three if you’re absolutely insane/desperate — is poured into a regular cup of coffee. I take mine black and avail myself regularly, even at home with the Nespresso. So while I have an immediate association with the phrase beyond, you know, flying overnight, somehow I don’t think either is what Red Eye are going for. Call me crazy.
Album details from the PR wire, song stream at the bottom:
RED EYE debut album “Tales From The Days Of Yore”
Surrounded by the glorious and eerie karst formations of El Torcal and hosting one of the oldest and largest megalithic dolmens in Europe (Menga), the Southern Spanish city of Antequera (Malaga) is a magical region where our ancestors built up the basis of next cultures to come. No doubt the four young and talented piece outfit Red Eye got inspired by this land ?s mystique and the clear connection between man and Earth when starting their activities in 2016, reinterpreting the concept of proto and modern rock into something creative and genuine.
at Green Cross Studio. Tracks develop as something you can actually feel and maybe touch. From the nine-minutes opening statement “Encounter”, the psych doom passages of “BHC” or “Yagé”, to the final closing act “Waves”, a collection of crushing riffs and memorable solos will prove a delight to any diehard fan.
The band would say: “There is definitely something magic and primitive in our natural environment that influences our daily lives and we turn into the music we play. It would be foolish to deny it!”. A first advance track entitled “Hall Of The Slain” is available on Alone Records Bandcamp.
1. Encounter 2. BHC 3. Azathoth 4. Hall Of The Slain 5. Yagé 6. Waves
Tales From The Ways Of Yore will be issued on CD digisleeve and limited black vinyl next February 22nd. Official album teaser to be found on this Youtube link.
Posted in Reviews on December 5th, 2018 by JJ Koczan
Good morning from the kitchen table. It’s a couple minutes before 4AM as I get this post started. I’ve got my coffee, my iced tea in the same cup I’ve been using for the last three days, and I’m ready to roll through the next 10 records in this massive, frankly silly, Quarterly Review. Yesterday went well enough and I’m three days into the total 10 and I don’t feel like my head is going to explode, so I’ll just say so far so good.
As ever, there’s a lot to get through, so I won’t delay. I hope you find something here you dig. I certainly have.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
Sandrider, Armada
Armada is the third full-length from Seattle noiseblasters Sandrider, and at this point I’m starting to wonder what it’s going to take for this band to get their due. Produced by Matt Bayles and released through Good to Die Records, the album is an absolute monster front to back. Scathing. Beastly. And yet the songs have character. It’s the trio’s first outing since 2015’s split with Kinski (review here) and follows 2013’s Godhead (review here) and 2011’s self-titled debut (review here) in melding the band’s West Coast noise superiority with a sense of melody and depth as the trio of guitarist/vocalist Jon Weisnewski, bassist/vocalist Jesse Roberts, and omegadrummer Nat Damm course and wind their way through intense but varied material. “Banger” has been tapped for its grunge influence. Eh. Maybe in the riff, but who cares when there’s so much more going on with it? “Brambles” is out and out brutal but still has a hook, and cuts like “Industry” and the closing “Dogwater” remind of just how skilled Sandrider are at making that brutality fun. If the record was six minutes long and just had “Hollowed” on it, you’d still call it a win.
Goodness gracious. Cavernous echo accompanies the roars of guitarist Scott Prater that are offset by the more subdued melodies of drummer Amber Burns, but even in the most spacious reaches of 11-minute second cut “Blind Faith,” Witchkiss are fucking massive-sounding. Their debut album, The Austere Curtains of Our Eyes, presents an especially crushing take on ritualistic volume, sounding its catharsis in a song like “Spirits of the Dirt” and sounding natural as it trades between a rolling assault and the atmospheres of its quieter moments. With the departure since the recording of bassist Anthony DiBlasi, the New York-based outfit will invariably shift in dynamic somewhat coming out of this record, but with such an obvious clarity of mission, I honestly doubt their core approach will change all that much. A band doesn’t make a record like this without direct intention. They may evolve, and one hopes they do just because one always hopes for that, but this isn’t a band feeling their way through their first record. This is a band who know exactly the kind of ferocity they want to conjure, and who conjure it without regret.
Argentinian instrumentalist trio Satta Caveira make a point of saying they recorded MMI, their second or third album depending on what you count, live in their home studio without edits or overdubs, click tracks or anything else. Clearly the intention then is to capture the raw spirit of the material as it’s happening. The eight songs that make up the unmanageable 62-minute listen of MMI — to be fair, 14 of those minutes are opener “Kundalini” and 23 are the sludge-into-jam-into-sludge riffer “T.H.C.” — are accordingly raw, but that in itself becomes a component of their aesthetic. Whether it’s the volume swell that seems to consume “Don Santos” in its second half, the funk of closer “Afrovoid” or the drift in “Kalifornia,” Satta Caveira manage to hone a sense of range amid all the naturalism, and with the gritty and more aggressive riffing of the title-track and the rush of the penultimate “Router,” their sound might actually work with a more elaborate production, but they’ve got a thing, it works well, and I’m not inclined to argue.
Vocalized only by spoken samples of astronauts, the thrice-exclamatory Lizard! Lizard! Lizard! is the debut EP from Perth, Australia, three-piece Apollo80, who are given mostly to exploring an outpouring of heavy molten vibes but still able to hone a bit of cacophony following the “godspeed, John Glenn” sample in second cut “FFH.” There are four songs on the 26-minute offering, and its spaciousness is brought to earth somewhat by the dirt in which the guitar and bass tones are caked, but it’s more the red dust of Mars than anything one might find kicking around a Terran desert. Unsurprisingly, the high point of the outing is the 10:46 title-track, where guitarist Luke, bassist Brano and drummer Shane push farthest into the cosmos — though that’s debatable with the interstellar drone of closer “Good Night” — but even in the impact of “Apollo” at the outset, there’s a feeling of low-oxygen in the atmosphere, and if you get lightheaded, that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be.
The prevailing influence throughout the untitled debut EP from Minnesota’s The Great Unwilling is Queens of the Stone Age, but listening to the layer of wah intertwine with the solo on “Sanguine,” there’s more to their approach than just that, however dreamy the vocal melodies from guitarist Jesse Hoheisel might be. Hoheisel, bassist Joe Ulvi and Mark Messina present a clean four tracks and 20 minutes on their first outing, and for having been together for about 18 months, their songwriting seems to have a firm grasp on what they want to do. “If 3 was 7” rolls along at a heavy clip into an effectively drifting midsection and second half jam before returning to the initial riff, while “Current” leads off with a particularly Hommeian construction, and soon gives way to the flowing pace and apparent lyrical references of the aforementioned “Sanguine.” They finish with the dirtier tonality of “Apostasy” and cap with no more pretense than they started, bringing the short release to a close with a chorus that seems to finish with more to say. No doubt they’ll get there.
A prominent current of organ alongside the guitars gives Grusom‘s aptly-titled second album on Kozmik Artifactz, II, a willfully classic feel, and even the lyrics of “Peace of Mind” play into that with the opening lines, “I always said I was born too late/This future is not for me,” but the presentation from the Svendborg six-piece isn’t actually all that retro-fied. Rather, the two guitars and organ work in tandem to showcase a modern take on those classic ideas, as the back and forth conversation between them in the extended jam of “Skeletons” demonstrates, and with a steady rhythmic foundation and soulful vocals overtop, Grusom‘s craft doesn’t need the superficial trappings of a ’70s influence to convey those roots in their sound. Songs like “Dead End Valley” and “Embers” have a bloozy swing as they head toward the melancholy closer “Cursed from Birth,” but even there, the proceedings are light on pretense and the atmosphere is more concerned with a natural vibe rather than pretending it’s half a century ago.
Having originated as Träd Gräs och Stenar, the group now known as Träden is the product of a psychedelic legacy spanning generations. Founder Jakob Sjöholm has joined forces with Hanna Östergren of Hills, Reine Fiske of Dungen and Sigge Krantz of Archimedes Badkar to create a kind of supergroup of serenity, and their self-titled is blissful enough not only to life up to Träd Gräs och Stenar‘s cult status, but to capture one of its own. It’s gorgeous. Presumably the painting used on the cover is the cabin where it was recorded, and its eight tracks — sometimes mellow, sometimes more weighted, always hypnotic — are a naturalist blueprint that only make the world a better place. That sounds ridiculous, I know. But the truth is that for all the terrible, horrifying shit humanity does on a daily basis, to know that there are people on the planet making music like this with such a genuine spirit behind it is enough to instill a bit of hope for the species. This is what it’s all about. I couldn’t even make it through the Bandcamp stream without buying the CD. That never happens.
Last year, Spanish experimentalists Orthodox released Supreme and turned their free-jazz meets low-doom into a 36-minute fracas of happening-right-now creativity. Krèas, a lone, 27-minute track with the core duo of bassist Marco Serrato and drummer Borja Díaz joined by saxophonist Achilleas Polychronidis, was recorded in the same session but somehow seems even more freaked-out. I mean, it’s gone. Gone to a degree that even the hepcats who claim to appreciate free-jazz on anything more than a theoretical level (that is, those who actually listen to it) will have their hair blown back. The rest of the universe? Well, they’ll probably continue on, blissfully unaware that Orthodox are out there smashing comets together like they are, but wow. Challenging the listener is one thing. Krèas is the stuff of dissertations. One only hopes Orthodox aren’t holding their breath waiting for humanity to catch up to what they’re doing, because, yeah, it’s gonna be a while.
Danish bruisers Disrule run a brash gamut with their second album, Sleep in Your Honour (on Seeing Red). Leading off with the earworm hook of the title-track (premiered here), the album puts a charge into C.O.C.-style riffing and classic heavy rock, but shades of Clutch-y funk in “Going Wrong” and a lumbering bottom end in “Occult Razor” assure there’s no single angle from which they strike. “(Gotta Get Me Some) Control” elicits a blues-via-Sabbath vibe, but the drums seem to make sure Disrule are never really at rest, and so there’s a strong sense of momentum throughout the eight-song/29-minute EP, perhaps best emphasized by two-minute second cut “Death on My Mind,” which seems to throw elbows as it sprints past, though even shouted-chorus closer “Enter the Void” has an infectious energy about it. If you think something can’t be heavy and move, Disrule have a shove with your name on it.
First clue that all is not what it seems? The artwork. Definitely not a picture of cake on the cover of Ozymandias‘ debut album, Cake!, and accordingly, things don’t take long before they get too weird. “Jelly Beans” hits on harshest Nirvana — before it goes into blastbeats. “Mason Jar” scathes out organ-laced doom and vicious screaming, before “Hangman” gets all danceable like “All Pigs Must Die” earlier in the record. The wacky quotient is high, and the keyboards do a lot to add to that, but one can’t really call “Doom I – The Daisies” or the later “Doom II – The Lilies” anything but progressive in the Devin Townsend-shenanigans-metal sense of the word, and as wild as some stretches of Cake! are, the trio from Linz, Austria, are never out of control, and they never give a sense that what they’re doing is an accident. They’re just working on their own stylistic level, and to a degree that’s almost scary considering it’s their first record. I won’t claim to know where they might be headed, but it seems likely they have a plan.
