https://www.high-endrolex.com/18

Quarterly Review: Boris, DVNE, Hydra, Jason Simon, Cherry Choke, Pariiah, Saavik, Mountain Tamer, Centre El Muusa, Population II

Posted in Reviews on December 21st, 2020 by JJ Koczan

THE-OBELISK-FALL-2020-QUARTERLY-REVIEW

Kind of a spur of the moment thing, this Quarterly Review. I’ve been adding releases all the while, of course, but my thought was to do this after my year-end list went up, and I realized, hey, if I’ve got like 70 records I haven’t reviewed yet, maybe there’s some of that stuff worth considering. So here we are. I’ve pushed back my best-of-2020 stuff and basically swapped it with the Quarterly Review. Does it matter to you? I seriously, seriously doubt it, but I believe in transparency and that’s what’s up. Thought I’d let you know. And yeah, this is going to go into next week, take us through the X-mas holiday this Friday, so whatever. You celebrate your way and I’ll celebrate mine. Let’s roll.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

Boris, No

boris no

As a general project, reviewing Boris is damn near pointless. One might as well review the moon: “uh, it’s big and out there most of the time?” The only reason to do it is either to exercise one’s own need to hyperbolize or help the band sell records. Well, Boris doesn’t need my push and I don’t need to tell them how great they are. No is 40 minutes of the widely and wildly lauded Japanese heavy rock(s) experimentalists trying to riff away existing in 2020, delving high speed into hardcore here and there and playing off that with grueling sludge, punk, garage-metal and the penultimate “Loveless,” which is kind of Boris being their own genre. Much respect to the band, and I suppose one might critique Boris for, what?, being so Boris-y?, but there really isn’t a ton that hasn’t been said about them because such a ton has. I’m not trying to disparage their work at all — No is just what you’d expect as regards defying expectation — but after 20-plus years, there’s only so many ways one wants to call a band genius.

Boris on Thee Facebooks

Boris on Bandcamp

 

DVNE, Omega Severer

DVNE Omega Severer

Kind of a soft-opening for Edinburgh’s DVNE as an act on Metal Blade Records, unless of course one counts the two songs on the Omega Severer EP itself, which are post-metallic beasts of the sort that would and should make The Ocean blush. Progressive, heavy, and remarkably ‘next-wave’ feeling, DVNE‘s awaited follow-up to 2017’s Asheran may only be about 17 and a half minutes long, but it bodes remarkably well as the band master a torrent of intensity on the 10-minute opening title-cut and answer that with the immediately galloping “Of Blade and Carapace,” smashing battle-axe riffing and progressive shimmer against each other and finding it to be an alchemy of their own. Album? One suspects not until they can tour for it, but if Omega Severer is DVNE serving notice, consider the message received loud, clear, dynamic, crushing, spacious, and so on. Already veterans of Psycho Las Vegas, they sound like a band bent on capturing a broader audience in the metallic sphere.

DVNE on Thee Facebooks

Metal Blade Records website

 

Hydra, From Light to the Abyss

hydra from light to the abyss

There’s no questioning where Hydra‘s heart is at on their debut full-length, From Light to the Abyss. It belongs to the devil and it belongs to Black Sabbath. The Polish four-piece riff hard and straightforward throughout most of the five-track offering (released by Piranha Music), and samples set the kind of atmosphere that should be familiar enough to the converted — “No One Loves Like Satan” reminds of Uncle Acid in its initial channel-changing and swaggering riff alike — but doomly centerpiece “Creatures of the Woods” and the layered vocal melodies late in closer “Magical Mind” perhaps offer a glimpse at the direction the band could take from here. What matters though is where Hydra are at today, and that’s bringing riffs and nod to the converted among the masses, and From Light to the Abyss offers no pretense otherwise. It is doom rock for doom rockers, grooves to be grooved to. They’re not void of ambition by any means — their songwriting makes that clear — but their traditionalism is sleeve-worn, which if you’re going to have it, is right where it should be.

Hydra on Thee Facebooks

Piranha Music on Bandcamp

 

Jason Simon, A Venerable Wreck

jason simon a venerable wreck

Dead Meadow guitarist/vocalist Jason Simon follows 2016’s Familiar Haunts (review here) with the genre-spanning A Venerable Wreck, finding folk roots in obscure beats and backwards this-and-that, country in fuzz, ramble in space, and no shortage of experimentalism besides. A Venerable Wreck consists of 12 songs and though there are times where it can feel disjointed, that becomes part of the ride. It’s not all supposed to make sense. Yet what happens by the time you get around to “No Entrance No Exit” is that Simon (and a host of cohorts) has set his own context broad enough so that the drone reach of “Hollow Lands” and sleek, organ-laced indie of closer “Without Reason or Right” can coexist without any real interruption of flow between them. The question with A Venerable Wreck isn’t so much whether the substance is there, it’s whether the listener is open to it. Welcome to psychedelic America. Please inject this snake venom and turn in your keys when you leave.

Jason Simon on Bandcamp

BYM Records website

 

Cherry Choke, Raising Salzburg Rockhouse

Cherry Choke-Raising Salzburg Rockhouse-Cover

You won’t hear me take away from the opening psych-scorch hook of “Mindbreaker” or the fuzzed-on, boogie-down, -up, and -sideways of “Black Annis” which follows, but there’s something extra fun about hearing Frog Island’s Cherry Choke jam out a 13-minute, drum-solo-inclusive version of “6ix and 7even” that makes Raising Salzburg Rockhouse even more of a reminder of how underrated both they are as a band and Mat Bethancourt is as a player. Look no further than “Domino” if you want absolute proof. The whole band rips it up at the Austrian gig, which was recorded in 2015 as they supported their third and still-most-recent full-length, Raising the Waters (review here), but Bethancourt puts on a Hendrixian clinic in the nine-minute cut from 2011’s A Night in the Arms of Venus (review here), which is actually less of a clinic than it is pure distorted swagger followed by a mellow “cheers, thanks” before diving into “Used to Call You Friend.” A 38-minute set would be perfect for an vinyl release, and anytime Cherry Choke want to get around to putting together a fourth studio album, well, that’ll be just fine too.

Cherry Choke on Thee Facebooks

Cherry Choke on Bandcamp

 

Pariiah, Swallowed by Fog

Pariiah swallowed by fog

It’s a special breed of aggro that emerges as a result of living in the most densely populated state in the union, and New Jersey’s Pariiah have it to spare. Bringing together sludge tonality with elder-style New York hardcore lumbering riffs on their Trip Machine Laboratories tape, Swallowed by Fog, they exude a thickened brand of pissed off that’s outright going to be too confrontation for many who take it on. But if you want a middle finger to the face, this is what it sounds like, and the six songs (compiled into four on the digital version of the release) come and go entirely without pretense and leave little behind except bruises and the promise of more to come. They’re a new band, started in this most wretched of years, but there’s no learning curve whatsoever among the members of Devoid of Faith, The Nolan Gate, Kill Your Idols, Changeörder and others. I’d go to Maplewood to see these cats. I’m just saying. Maybe even Elizabeth.

Pariiah on Bandcamp

Trip Machine Laboratories website

 

Saavik, Saavik

saavik saavik

So you’ve got both members of Holly Hunt in a four-piece sludging out with spacey synth and the band is named after a Star Trek character? Not to get too personal, but that’s going to pique my interest one way or the other. Saavik — and they clearly prefer the Kirstie Alley version, rather than Robin Curtis, going by drummer Beatriz Monteavaro‘s artwork — are damn near playing space rock by the end of “He’s Dead Jim,” the opener of their self-titled debut EP, but even that’s affected by a significant tonal weight in Didi Aragon‘s bass and the guitar of Gavin Perry, however much Ryan Rivas‘ synth and effects-laced vocals might seem to float overhead, but “Meld” rolls along at a steadier nod, and “Horizon” puts the synth more in the lead without becoming any less heavy for doing so. Likewise, “Red Sun” calls to mind Godflesh in its proto-machine metal stomp, but there’s more concern in Saavik‘s sound with expanse than just pure crush, and that shows up in fascinating ways in these songs.

Saavik on Thee Facebooks

Other Electricities on Bandcamp

 

Mountain Tamer, Psychosis Ritual

mountain tamer psychosis ritual

There’s been a dark vibe all along nestled into Mountain Tamer‘s sound, and that’s certainly the case on Psychosis Ritual, with which the Los Angeles-based trio make their debut on Heavy Psych Sounds. It’s their third full-length overall behind 2018’s Godfortune // Dark Matters (review here) and 2016’s self-titled debut (review here), and it finds their untamed-feeling psychedelia rife with that same threat of violence, not necessarily thematically as much as sonically, like the songs themselves are the weapon about to be turned on the listener. Maybe the buzz of “Warlock” or the fuckall echo of the prior-issued single “Death in the Woods” (posted here) aren’t out there trying to be “Hammer Smashed Face” or anything, but neither is this the hey-bruh-good-times heavy jams for which Southern California is known these days. Consider the severity of “Turoc Maximus Antonis” or the finally-released screams in closer “Black Noise,” which bookends Psychosis Ritual with the title-track and seems at last to be the point where whatever grim vibe these guys are riding finally consumes them. Mountain Tamer continue to be unexpected and righteous in kind.

Mountain Tamer on Thee Facebooks

Heavy Psych Sounds on Bandcamp

 

Centre El Muusa, Centre El Muusa

centre el muusa centre el muusa

Hypnotic Estonian psychedelic krautrock instrumentals not your thing? Well that sounds like a personal problem Centre El Muusa are ready to solve. The evolved-from-duo four-piece get spaced out amid the semi-motorik repetitions of their self-titled debut (on Sulatron), and that seems to suit them quite well, thanksabunch. Drone trips and essential swirl brim with solar-powered pulsations and you can set your deflectors on maximum and route all the secondaries to reinforce if you want, there’s still a decent chance 9:53 opener an longest track “Turkeyfish” (immediate points, double for the appropriately absurd title) is going to sweep you off what you used to call your feet when that organ line hits at about six minutes in. That’s to say nothing of the cosmic collision later in “Burning Lawa” or the just-waiting-for-a-Carl-Sagan-voiceover “Mia” that follows. Even the 3:46 “Ain’t Got Enough Mojo” lives long enough to prove itself wrong. Interstellar tape transmissions fostered by obvious weirdos in the great out-there in “Szolnok,” named for a city in Hungary that, among other things, hosts the goulash festival. Right fucking on.

Centre El Muusa on Thee Facebooks

Sulatron Records webstore

 

Population II, À La Ô Terre

Population II a La o Terre

The first Population II album, a 2017 self-titled, was comprised of two tracks, each long enough to consume a 12″ side. Somehow it’s fitting with the Montreal-based singing-drummer trio’s aesthetic that their second long-player, À la Ô Terre, would take a completely different tack, employing shorter freakouts like “L’Offrande” and “La Nuit” and the garage-rocking “La Danse” and what-if-JeffersonAirplane-but-on-Canadian-mushrooms “À la Porte de Demain” and still-more-drifting finisher “Je Laisse le Soleil Briller” amid the more stretched out “Attaction,” the space-buzzer “Ce n’est Réve” while cutting a middle ground in the greaked-out (I was gonna type “freaked out” and hit a typo and I’m keeping it) “Il eut un Silence dans le Ciel,” which also betrays the jazzy underpinnings that somehow make all of À la Ô Terre come across as progressive instead of haphazard. From the start to the close, you don’t know what’s coming next, and just because that’s by design doesn’t make it less effective. If anything, it makes Population II all the more impressive.

Population II on Thee Facebooks

Castle Face Records website

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Boris Post “Zerkalo” Video; No Out Now on Bandcamp

Posted in Bootleg Theater on July 17th, 2020 by JJ Koczan

boris

Boris‘ new album, No, is out now through Bandcamp, direct from the trio themselves. Before the release actually arrived, the long-running Japanese avant/experimental heavy rockers issued a lengthy statement about how the record was made as a resistance against what amounts to modernist conformity, the unquestioning of one’s surroundings and the apathy that might lead someone not to seek a deeper truth. They called it “extreme healing music.”

Getting from there to the sludgy scathe of the nine-minute “Zerkalo” is fair enough if one considers the fact that a forest has to burn down before it can grow again. The video arrives in various CGI landscapes, morphing and shifting from one to the other, depicting futuristic-looking cities and oceanic expanses alike. At the end we see the cityscape is devastated and in burnt out ruins — the metaphor is clear enough. What’s more interesting is the harshness of the song itself, how it seems to speak not only to the hardcore roots the band explores elsewhere on No, but the massive doom that they’re sometimes able/willing to conjure when it suits their purposes. Their purposes here are meditative but not still, and if perhaps the harsh nature of the noise they’re making is intended to be jarring, especially as it precedes their reworking of “Perforation Line,” it’s only fair to call it successful in that regard.

To be perfectly honest, I may or may not get to review No. I got a promo download for it, but really, in the pantheon of unceasing plaudits the band get, does anything I have to say about them really matter? Is there some insight I can bring to Boris that someone hasn’t already offered? I guess I have my doubts. Maybe in place of a review I’ll just say it’s Boris being Boris, which means doing whatever they want at pretty much any time and pulling it off because that’s just what they do.

There.

Enjoy the video:

Boris, “Zerkalo” official video

Just two weeks after Boris delivered their triumphant new album NO, the group has surfaced once again with a music video for the album’s crushing single “-? -Zerkalo-.” The dystopian and panoramic visuals were assembled by producer Yoshiki Shimahara— who was also responsible for CG works in the movie Shin Godzilla, etc.— and the footage aptly captures the tone and feeling of the song itself. Boris comments of the video, “The song as a mirror that reflects this world.”

Boris New Album “NO”
Only available on Bandcamp now.

https://boris.bandcamp.com/album/no

01.Genesis
02.Anti-Gone
03.Non Blood Lore
04.Temple of Hatred
05.? -Zerkalo-
06.HxCxHxC -Perforation Line-
07.????? -Kiki no Ue-
08.Lust
09.Fundamental Error
10.Loveless
11.Interlude

Takeshi: Vocals, Guitar & Bass
Wata: Vocals, Guitar & Echo
Atsuo: Vocals, Percussion & Electronics

Recording: Fangsanalsatan at Sound Square 2020
Mix & Mastering: Koichi Hara (koichihara-mix.com)

Logo Type: Kazumichi Maruoka

CG works: Yoshiki Shimahara
http://shimahara-yoshiki.com/
Directed & Edited by fangsanalsatan & Ryuta Murayama (foodunited.)

https://borisheavyrocks.com/

Boris, No (2020)

Boris on Thee Facebooks

Boris on Bandcamp

Boris website

Tags: , , , ,

Boris Announce New Album No Coming to Bandcamp; Stream “Loveless”

Posted in Whathaveyou on June 25th, 2020 by JJ Koczan

Boris aren’t wrong. About anything. Basically ever. Their new album is called No. It’s out July 3 through their Bandcamp. They’re using it as a means of questioning implicit bias. If anyone can do that with a record, I have to believe it’s Boris. Because they’re fucking Boris.

That’s all I have to say about it. They say plenty. Here’s info:

boris no

A message from BORIS:

“International borders are ‘closed’ now.

All kinds of anxieties, fear, sadness, anger, and hatred have arisen to drive the world apart.
Everyone is in a process of trial and error, doing what they can to live.
The critical state of the world has placed culture, art, and other means of expressing ourselves into a dilemma as well.
We decided to start managing our band ourselves again a few years ago, so we even more keenly aware of the current situation.

It was our actions up to this point and our methodology, various cultural influences, as well the connections and support we received from people around the world that led us to create this latest album.

Culture is lore that is not bound by blood, in other words ‘Non Blood Lore.’

We have put all of our influences and connections into this album so that they may be passed on circulated.
That is our current stance now as Boris, our role and mode of action.

The title of this album is NO.
People have a system whereby they unconsciously grow accustomed to things and adapt to them.
But, this same system is also cursed in the way it allows inconvenient or troubling things to be disregarded as if they were never there to begin with and goes by other names such as ‘resignation,’ ‘subordination,’ and ‘forgetfulness.’
We renounce this system.
‘Is this something I felt on my own? Is this idea something I came up with on my own? Is this something I chose to act upon myself?’
Everything begins with questioning and denying oneself.
That is the proper stance for people to adopt.

Music and culture possess incredible power.
The anger and discontent we had no outlet for in our youth shone through in our music, helping us to channel negative energy channeled towards creative ends and leading us to new means of expression and artistry.
We hope this latest album can be a mirror that gathers and reflects people’s negative energy at a different angle, one that is positive.
That is the power and potential of the dark, extreme, and brutal noise music that we have experienced up to this point.
Today’s society is littered with words that may or may not be true, making it easy to want to just not listen to what anyone has to say.
But, that’s all the more reason why we hope that you will at least open your ears to these songs sung in the language of another land.
These shouts that have no proper meaning as words will help release the raw, unshaped emotions within you.
This is ‘extreme healing music.’

International borders are ‘closed’ now.
When we’re able to travel again, it will be proof that the world has moved forward.
We pray for the day when we can share the same time and place again.

Boris

PS.
NO includes a cover of the song ‘Fundamental Error’ by Japanese hardcore punk legends GUDON, who were active during the 90’s in Hiroshima.
The same track also features guest guitars by Katsumi, the former of guitarist of similarly legendary Japanese hardcore punk bands OUTO and CITY INDIAN and now a member of SOLMANIA.
This album is also being released completely D.I.Y. and without the help of any label.

‘The answer we have been given doesn’t change anything, and this album is not an answer either.’”

Look for Boris NO to be released July 3rd on Bandcamp and pre-orders are available now. More news + music coming soon.

Boris, NO track listing:
1. Genesis
2. Anti-Gone
3. Non Blood Lore
4. Temple of Hatred
5. ? -Zerkalo-
6. HxCxHxC -Parforation Line-
7. ????? -Kiki no Ue-
8. Lust
9. Fundamental Error
10. Loveless
11. Interlude

Boris is:
Takeshi: Vocals, Guitar & Bass
Wata: Vocals, Guitar & Echo
Atsuo: Vocals, Percussion & Electronics
Guest Guitar: Katsumi on Track 09
Recording: Fangsanalsatan at Sound Square 2020
Mix & Mastering: Koichi Hara (koichihara-mix.com)
“Fundamental Error” Originally Perfomed by GUDON
Logo Type: Kazumichi Maruoka
Design: Fangsanalsatan

http://www.facebook.com/borisheavyrocks/
https://boris.bandcamp.com/
http://borisheavyrocks.com/

Boris, “Loveless”

Tags: , , , ,