Posted in Whathaveyou on February 7th, 2018 by JJ Koczan
About a week ago, the news came through that Washington D.C. heavy rockers Borracho had a reissue in the works through Cursed Tongue Records but that the label wasn’t going to reveal which one until it got a certain amount of showoff vinyl pics via the social medias with a hashtag “CTRBorrachoChallenge.” Guess they hit the mark, because today the label has unveiled that it’s the band’s 2011 debut, Splitting Sky (review here), that will see new life on LP this Spring. A May release is expected.
Hard to believe it’s been seven years since Splitting Sky actually came out, even in light of all that Borracho have accomplished in the time since. The album has actually been on vinyl before — No Balls Records out of Germany did a limited run — but I’d be curious to hear if the new remaster from Tony Reed does anything to the balance of the mix, which always seemed to favor the vocals of Noah Greenberg, who left the band before their next reord came out, at the forefront over the riffs.
Either way, Borracho have obviously made an awful lot of new friends since the days of the original Splitting Sky release, so for them and for collectors alike, this seems like another solid pickup from Cursed Tongue, who sent the following announcement along the PR wire:
CTR-008: Borracho – ‘Splitting Sky’ 2018 reissue, newly remastered and with original artwork, the way it has always been intended to look.
Splitting Sky was initially released on CD/digital back in 2011. A limited run vinyl pressing was also made, but copies have long sold out since and second hand prices have fetched stupid prices. Borracho are full of good momentum and with last years critically acclaimed 3rd full length ‘Atacama’ (Kozmik Artifactz) and the recent released compilation album of singles entitled ‘Riffography’ the band has a lot going on. The winds are blowing in the band’s favor and there’s no better time than now to reissue this great desert stoner rock album that by some critics and fans alike already has been heralded as a new-classic.
Cursed Tongue Records is inclined to give ‘Splitting Sky’ a well deserved makeover, brushing of all the cobwebs and breed new life into the furrows of this hard-hitting rock. The vinyl re-issue is entirely newly remastered for optimal vinyl playback by no other than Tony Reed and it’s also featuring the original artwork with new layout and design. Splitting Sky will thus yet again be available for the vinyl fans, but this time around the way it was initially intended to look and sound while bearing all the hallmarks of high quality and attention to detail that a Cursed Tongue Records release has come to offer.
BIO: Borracho is a three piece heavy rock band from Washington, DC. In the five years since releasing their 2011 debut Splitting Sky, they have become a staple of the Mid-Atlantic — and US — stoner rock scene. 2013’s follow up Oculus highlighted a band in metamorphosis, moving the band forward sonically with a leaner lineup, but continuing their emphasis on song construction and memorable melodies. With a substantial offering in Ripple Music’s 2015 inaugural Second Coming of Heavy, Chapter One, the band showed their continued commitment to the almighty riff, and plenty of variety in their approach, even within only 22 minutes of scathing rock.
Along with their two LPs, Borracho has dropped a half-dozen limited edition vinyl singles and split 7”s to satisfy fans and collectors around the globe. The band has worked with labels from the US, Spain, Germany, and Japan to get their music to the masses, and has teamed up with similar acts Cortez, Geezer, and Eggnogg — even their own former band Adam West — on split releases. The past two years has pushed Borracho to both Europe and the west coast of the United States to preach their gospel of low and heavy grooves.
With the 2016 release of their third LP Atacama, the band is primed for a larger audience, with a totally organic and diverse collection of heavy anthems to get people up onto their feet and raising their fists in a glorious Hallelujah.
2018 sees the Borracho’s 2011 debut album reissued on vinyl via Cursed Tongue Records and furthermore the band has also started working on their 4th full length album. So the band might be seasoned but the three gringos behind the stearing wheel are far from done, quite opposite they seem to age in style and class, remaining everso evident and vibrant. Only a few things in life are for certain; one of them is that Borracho came to play heavy-AF riffs, rock-out and have a good time – and they never left!
CTR-008, Borracho – ‘Splitting Sky’, official release date: May 2018 Pre-orders start in April.
Borracho is: Steve Fisher – Lead Guitar & Vocals Tim Martin – Bass Mario Trubiano – Drums
(Noah Greenberg handled vocal duties on Splitting Sky, but afterwards he left the band and moved abroad.)
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 30th, 2018 by JJ Koczan
Here’s a fun one: We know that D.C. heavy groovers Borracho recently issued their Riffography (review here) collection spanning their 10 years together front to back with assorted unreleased or at very least rarer-than-not tracks. That came out through Ripple Music. Their preceding 2016 full-length, Atacama (review here), came out via Kozmik Artifactz, where 2013’s Oculus (review here) and their 2011 debut, Splitting Sky (review here), landed through Strange Magic Records and No Balls Records, respectively.
Now. One of these LP offerings has been picked up for a vinyl release by Cursed Tongue Records, but the label isn’t quite ready to say which one. What they’re doing instead is hosting an Instagram challenge where you put your favorite Borracho platter on your turntable, snap a picture of it on your fancy phone, and post it up on Instagram with the hashtag “CTRBorrachoChallenge.”
As soon as they get to 30 posts, Cursed Tongue will reveal which album it’s releasing. See? I told you it was a fun one.
Details follow:
-|- CTR-BORRACHO CHALLENGE -|-
CTR has just announced the signing of mighty Borracho out of DC, US for impending vinyl release. However, before we reveal what album we are talking about you will have to accept a little challenge!
The idea is to get many release pictures posted all around Instagram in order to draw attention toward the Borracho. They have released many things on vinyl along the years; so many people have them in their collection; they just need to dust them off and blast them on their turntable!!!
Dust off one of your Borracho vinyl copies and post a picture of it with the following hashtag #CTRBorrachoChallenge
Once we get 30 posts, we will unveil the album details \,,/
Meanwhile, you can take all the guesses you want
#CursedTongueRecords #CTR #Borracho #BorrachoBand
Borracho is: Steve Fisher – Guitar, Vocals Tim Martin – Bass Mario Trubiano – Drums
Posted in Reviews on December 15th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
Full disclosure, this past summer I was asked by Borracho to write the liner notes for this release. If you think that means there’s a conflict of interest in my covering Riffography on an editorial level, two things: First, I took no payment. Second, it’s more of an alignment of interest than a conflict, since if I wasn’t interested in them in the first place, I probably wouldn’t have done the liner notes and I wouldn’t be writing about Riffography again now. Still, if you think that means I can’t be impartial, well, impartiality is a myth and I write about the records I feel like writing about. Get over it.
I’ll admit I didn’t think much of Borracho around the time of the Washington, D.C.-based heavy rockers’ 2011 debut, Splitting Sky (review here). I’d heard significant hype about the then-four-piece (always a turnoff) and I found the album in need of a deeper-sounding mix and an editorial impulse. Promising “Repetitive Heavy Grooves” as a slogan, it delivered, but didn’t seem to have the dynamic behind it to stave off redundancy while riding its formidable grooves. Part of my issue as well was the gruff vocal approach of guitarist Noah Greenberg, who was too far forward ahead of his and Steve Fisher‘s guitars. I mention this only to emphasize the most underappreciated and undermentioned aspect of everything Borracho have done since Splitting Sky: their growth.
Now the trio of Fisher, bassist/backing vocalist Tim Martin and drummer Mario Trubiano, they’ve never put out a release that did not showcase marked progression from the one before it, and it’s precisely that story that Riffography (on Ripple Music) is telling as it marks a decade since their first outing, a split 7″ with Adam West the featured track from which, “Rectify,” opens here in suitably raw and rudimentary fashion. Cuts from Borracho‘s three to-date LPs — Splitting Sky, 2013’s Oculus (review here) and 2016’s Atacama(review here) — aren’t featured (one exception), but the narrative arc of Borracho‘s ongoing creative development is clearly represented nonetheless across a packed-in 13 tracks and 75 minutes of weighted riffs, nodding rollout and periodically driving thrust.
Key moments of transition — most notably the departure of Greenberg from the band following Splitting Sky and Fisher taking hold of the frontman role — are depicted, and between “Rectify” and early off-album pieces like “Mob Gathering,” “Circulos Concentricos,” and “Short Ride (When it’s Over),” the collection effectively sets up a timeline that ends with the three songs from Borracho‘s portion of the first installment of Ripple‘s The Second Coming of Heavy (review here) split series — a pivotal moment of arrival in 2015 — and their latest single, “Border Crossing” (premiered here).
The very nature of a release like Riffography is such that, in order to work, it needs to be honest on the level of “warts and all.” It’s true that in the years since Splitting Sky, Borracho have built and worked hard to maintain significant momentum when it comes to their stylistic maturation, the chemistry between Fisher, Martin and Trubiano and amassing an audience. As far as narratives go, theirs is cleaner than most.
But still, Riffography tells the story from all sides, and while largely consistent on the basic level of their sound — the band has worked over the years on multiple occasions with producer Frank “The Punisher” Marchand — these songs aren’t without their bumps and/or bruises. Of particular note is a version of “Stockpile” with Greenberg still in the lineup. That track would appear on Oculus with Fisher on vocals, but it speaks directly to that essential transition in the group and to their trying to make it work as a foursome despite their original singer moving away.
And for what it’s worth, they seem to have learned lessons from their first LP in terms of finding a balanced approach. By the time they get into “Know My Name” from their 2014 split with Boston’s Cortez (review here), however, it’s Fisher up front, getting his footing as a singer and setting in motion a process still happening in building his confidence at the mic while also holding down the fuzz riffing that has helped earn the band such wide distinction throughout their time together.
“King’s Disease” from the 2015 split with Brooklyn’s Eggnogg (review here) follows and seems to return to an earlier rawness of approach with dry-sounding vocals, drums and guitar and bass tones, but works well to emphasize the classic-style swing Borracho honed as a three-piece and the way in which their “Repetitive Heavy Grooves” learned at that point to add engaging subtleties to go along with the forward march at their core.
And while I won’t take away from Oculus at all or the role that album played in establishing Borracho as the band they are today, it was their appearance on The Second Coming of Heavy that really solidified their presence and let listeners know who they were going to be. “Fight the Prophets,” “Superego” and “Shark Tank” remain a thick, rolling and satisfying listen — an EP unto themselves — and in light of the band’s to-date high-water mark in Atacama, one can hear the jammy aspects of that record taking shape in the solo sections of “Superego” and in the first half of “Shark Tank” as a precursor to the thrust that follows later.
It would be fair enough to leave the story there, but “Border Crossing,” which is shorter at 4:10, and a cover of Scorpions‘ “Animal Magnetism” originally intended for use on an unmaterialized tribute CD cap Riffography with perhaps a look forward at how Borracho will keep combining the various personality aspects that have emerged in their sound over time. No question Atacamawas their greatest triumph to this point — and well it should be — but Riffographymakes its point unarguably that Borracho are not now and have never been a band to hold still in their sonic take and not push themselves forward each time out. Accordingly, I’d no more expect their next long-player to rest on Atacama‘s laurels than I expected Atacama to stay in the realm of Oculus.
Further, if one wants to examine Riffography on a meta-level, in addition to summarizing Borracho‘s first decade together, it also serves to hold the momentum until that proverbial “next album” arrives, which again, is something they’ve always done so well. It might seem like a curio or a piece for fans more than casual listeners, but in both its exclusives and its gathered inclusions, Riffography puts due emphasis on how special a band Borracho have become over the last 10 years and reminds that their evolution is ongoing. For that, it is ultimately about their future nearly as much as their past.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 20th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
By way of a confession, I wrote the liner notes over the summer for the forthcoming Riffography compilation from D.C.-based heavy riffers Borracho. I’ll hope to post them here sooner or later — the writing process involved a great, hour-long conversation with the guys from the band that went all the way back to their start and wound up looking ahead to their plans beyond their most recent long-player, last year’s excellent Atacama (review here), and it was a real thrill to get their perspective on their growth and the core relationship they share as friends and players and how the two interact to make them who they’ve become musically over time. I was honored to be asked to be a part of the project.
Point is, that while I’ve known about Riffography for a while, I’m still really glad to see it’s coming out. The release — through Ripple, out Dec. 8 — follows a timeline narrative of studio outtakes, 7″ off-album tracks and things like that to add to and flesh out the story of Borracho‘s growth as told by their proper LPs, and though it’s different recordings from different times throughout their years together, you get a sense of what’s been at their root all along and, of course, how they’ve grown around that.
Of course, some of the material on Riffography has been out there already for public consumption, but today, I’m thrilled to host the premiere of the previously unreleased “Border Crossing,” which was originally recorded to be part of Borracho‘s portion in Ripple‘s The Second Coming of Heavy – Chapter One split release with Geezer but wound up not being included. Worth noting that H42 Records will also have a 7″ of “Border Crossing” out on Dec. 8, about which you can read more here.
You’ll find the song itself at the bottom of this post, after the following info on Riffography from the PR wire. Enjoy:
BORRACHO: DC Heavyweights to Release New Album Next Month on Ripple Music
Riffography is released worldwide on 8th December 2017 on Ripple Music
Ripple Music is thrilled to announce the worldwide release of Riffography, a brand-new compendium which pulls together an entire decade’s worth of blood, sweat and rare riffs from one of Washington, DC’s heaviest rock bands, Borracho.
Ten years on from when the trio first got together (and six from the release of the band’s debut album Splitting Sky in 2011), the story of Borracho is one of change, graft, survival, and ultimately, a groove-laden style that has secured them a place at the centre of the US underground stoner rock scene. Drawing on influences that span decades, they combine soaring musicality with subterranean propulsion, encompassing the hard-driven classic rock/metal of Black Sabbath and Mountain, stoner jams of Clutch and Fu Manchu and epic progressive sensibilities of Mastodon and High on Fire.
With Riffography however, what we have in essence is a retrospective companion piece that enriches both their history and discography; with rare cuts from 2013’s follow-up, Oculus, via their inclusion on Ripple Music’s The Second Coming of Heavy series, right the way up to the release of their third album, last year’s brilliant Atacama.
While you can listen to just about any of band’s albums one into the next, those albums alone rarely tell the whole story. In between these key releases, Borracho dropped half-dozen or so limited-edition vinyl singles and split sevens, amassed an enviable collection of unreleased tracks and recorded alternate takes of their own material, with a mind to satisfy fans and collectors around the globe.
Riffography was mastered for digital release by Tony Reed at Heavy Head Recording Company in Port Orchard, WA, and is officially released worldwide on 8th December via Ripple Music. The previously unreleased track ‘Border Crossing’ was recorded and mixed by Frank Marchand in 2014 as part of the Second Coming of Heavy sessions.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 10th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
Look carefully into the PR wire info below and you’ll see that on Nov. 20, I’ll be hosting a premiere of the title cut from Borracho‘s new seven-incher, Border Crossing. Pretty nifty if you ask me. The D.C.-based trio have a well-established track record of delivering choice riffs and heavy grooves at no point, and you’d be silly to expect anything less from this new track, which comes accompanied by the Scorpions cover “Animal Magnetism” and will be out Dec. 8 through the esteemed imprints H42 Records and Ripple Music.
Yeah, it’s good news. I don’t know about you, but I’m taking it as an excuse to put on last year’s third full-length, Atacama (review here), and give that another visit just for the hell of it. Man, I dig this record. A lot. I thought Oculus (review here) did some really important work in establishing the group as a three-piece, but there’s so much character in Atacama‘s songs — it seems to really be the point when Borracho became the band they’ve wanted to be all along. I hope their next one pushes even further toward those ends, though I happen to know there’s some other stuff in the works before they get there.
For example, this:
BORRACHO’S BORDER CROSSING NEW 7″-Vinyl COMING THIS DECEMBER
A SPECIAL LOW, HEAVY ANNOUNCEMENT
In Summer 2015 Mario came over to us with the idea releasing their both songs ‚Border Crossing‘ and ‚Animal Magnetism‘, a really astonishing Scorpions cover version, on a 7“-vinyl! Now 2 years later we teamed up with the magic Ripple Music and the project comes to an end, and we are happy to announce the baby is born early december 2017. Look Out the presale will start later this month!
Release Date: December 8th Presale Start on: November 21th. 9 p.m German time Exclusive Stream of ‘Crossing Border’ on The Obelisk: November 20th The neon-yellow and the clear-blue and a special limited testpress edition (lim. 20) you can preorder from Nov. 21th (9 p.m German time) in our Shop. The clear-orange edition you can only get from Ripple Music.
Borracho is a three piece heavy rock band from Washington, DC. In the five years since releasing their 2011 debut Splitting Sky, they have become a staple of the Mid-Atlantic — and US — stoner rock scene. 2013’s follow up Oculus highlighted a band in metamorphosis, moving the band forward sonically with a leaner lineup, but continuing their emphasis on song construction and memorable melodies. With a substantial offering in Ripple Music’s 2015 inaugural Second Coming of Heavy, Chapter One, the band showed their continued commitment to the almighty riff, and plenty of variety in their approach, even within only 22 minutes of scathing rock. In 2016 they released their third LP Atacama with our friends in Kozmik Artifactz.
Consider this your usual disclaimer that, like any of this site’s coverage of year-end whatnottery, this podcast is by no means attempting to capture all of 2016’s best tracks. It is, however, over four hours long, and frankly that seems like enough to ask. If you decide to take it on and sample what I found to be some of the best material to come down the line over the last 12 months, please know you have my thanks in advance. For what it’s worth, it was a lot of fun to put together, and that’s not always the case with these.
But about the length. I’ve done double-sized year-end specials for a while now. It’s always just seemed a fair way to go. And the last few at least have been posted the week of the Xmas holiday as well, which for me is of dual significance since it just so happens four hours is right about what it takes to drive from where I live to where my family lives, so when I look at this massive slew of 34 acts, from the riff-led righteousness of Wo Fat and Curse the Son to the crush of Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard and SubRosa to the psychedelic reaches of Zun and Øresund Space Collective (who probably show up in podcasts more than anyone, oddly enough), I also think of going to see my family, which has become my favorite part of the holidays.
Whatever associations you might draw with it, I very much hope you enjoy listening. Thanks for taking the time.
Track details follow:
First Hour:
0:00:00 Wo Fat, “There’s Something Sinister in the Wind” from Midnight Cometh
0:09:35 Greenleaf, “Howl” from Rise Above the Meadow
0:14:57 Elephant Tree, “Aphotic Blues” from Elephant Tree
0:20:49 Brant Bjork, “The Gree Heen” from Tao of the Devil
0:26:27 Sergio Ch., “El Herrero” from Aurora
0:29:44 Child, “Blue Side of the Collar” from Blueside
0:35:31 Geezer, “Bi-Polar Vortex” from Geezer
0:43:59 Zun, “Come Through the Water” from Burial Sunrise
0:49:27 Baby Woodrose, “Mind Control Machine” from Freedom
0:54:11 Curse the Son, “Hull Crush Depth” from Isolator
0:59:31 Borracho, “Shot down, Banged up, Fade Away” from Atacama
Second Hour:
1:05:50 Scissorfight, “Nature’s Cruelest Mistake” from Chaos County
1:09:19 Truckfighters, “The Contract” from V
1:16:30 Spidergawd, “El Corazon del Sol” from III
1:21:24 Fatso Jetson, “Royal Family” from Idle Hands
1:26:13 Worshipper, “Step Behind” from Shadow Hymns
1:30:57 Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard, “Y Proffwyd Dwyll” from Y Proffwyd Dwyll
1:39:42 Druglord, “Regret to Dismember” from Deepest Regrets
1:46:34 Moon Coven, “New Season” from Moon Coven
1:52:03 Gozu, “Tin Chicken” from Revival
1:59:49 Year of the Cobra, “Vision of Three” from …In the Shadows Below
Third Hour:
2:06:53 The Munsens, “Abbey Rose” from Abbey Rose
2:14:56 Lamp of the Universe, “Mu” from Hidden Knowledge
2:21:26 1000mods, “On a Stone” from Repeated Exposure To…
2:26:45 Church of the Cosmic Skull, “Watch it Grow” from Is Satan Real?
2:30:43 Vokonis, “Acid Pilgrim” from Olde One Ascending
2:37:35 Slomatics, “Electric Breath” from Future Echo Returns
2:43:02 Droids Attack, “Sci-Fi or Die” from Sci-Fi or Die
2:47:20 King Buffalo, “Drinking from the River Rising” from Orion
2:56:51 Comet Control, “Artificial Light” from Center of the Maze
Fourth Hour:
3:06:37 Øresund Space Collective, “Above the Corner” from Visions Of…
3:22:51 Naxatras, “Garden of the Senses” from II
3:33:14 SubRosa, “Black Majesty” from For this We Fought the Battle of Ages
3:48:23 Seedy Jeezus with Isaiah Mitchell, “Escape Through the Rift” from Tranquonauts
Posted in Features on December 20th, 2016 by JJ Koczan
Please note: This post is not culled in any way from the Year-End Poll, which is ongoing. If you haven’t yet contributed your favorites of 2016 to that, please do.
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I say this every year: These are my picks. If you’re unfamiliar with this site, or you don’t come here that often, or if you do and just normally don’t give a crap — all of which is cool — you should know it’s all run by one person. One human being. Me. My name is JJ, and this is a list of what I think are the best albums that were released in 2016.
Since before 2016 began, I’ve kept a running list of releases. My criteria for what gets included in this list is largely unchanged — it’s a balance between what I feel are important records on the level of what they achieve, what I listened to most, what held some other personal appeal, and what I think did the best job of meeting the goals it set for itself. Pretty vague, right? That’s the idea.
The nature of worldwide heavy has become so broad that to encompass it all under some universal standard is laughable. Judging psychedelia, garage rock, heavy psych, doom, sludge and so on by the same measure makes no sense, and as genres continue to splinter and remake themselves as we’ve seen them doing all year and over the last several years, one must be malleable in one’s own taste. We’ve seen a new generation of heavy rock bands emerge in the last three-plus years. It’s been amazing, and there are a few pivotal second and third records that came out in 2016 to affirm that movement underway. Look for it to continue into 2017 and beyond.
This year more than any other seemed to want to bring the different sides together. A laudable goal. Thick riffing marked with flourish of psychedelia. Spacious doom bred against folk impulses. There’s been experimentation around melds that have led to considerable triumphs, and it just doesn’t seem to me that rigid standards can apply. It’s why I don’t grade reviews and never did.
Sound is evolving now as it always has been and as it will keep doing, but like any year, 2016 had a full share of landmarks to offer as a part of that process. As universal development hopefully remains ongoing, it’s only right that we celebrate the accomplishments helping to push it along its winding and sometimes divergent-seeming paths.
I have no doubt you know what I mean. Let’s get to the list:
Seems only fair to start with a record I couldn’t put down. Finnish trio Talmud Beach‘s second album and Svart debut, Chief, hit on just the right blend of laid back, semi-acoustic groove-blues, psychedelia and classic progressive folk rock, but with the exception of its sprawling dreamscape title-track (a welcome arrival at the finale), it also kept the songwriting simple, resulting in a natural, pastoral feel that only highlighted their melodic range in songs like “Mountain Man” and “Snow Snow Snow.” I think it flew under a lot of people’s radar, but I’ve kept going back to it over the course of the year and I see no reason to stop.
Space is still the place. I’ve already highlighted closer “Artificial Light” from Comet Control‘s sophomore LP, Center of the Maze as my favorite song of 2016, so I’ll spare you the longwinded treatise on its languid cosmic glories — this time — but consider this a reminder that that song was by no means the limit of what the eight-track release had to offer in terms of breadth. From the opening push of “Dig out Your Head” to the dream-drift of “Sick in Space,” it unfolded tonal presence and a melodic depth that engaged a gorgeous, multifaceted sonic wash as it moved onward toward that landmark conclusion.
There was not a level on which Madison, Wisconsin’s Droids Attack didn’t make it clear they were going all-out, all-in on Sci-Fi or Die. Even the title speaks to the stakes involved. And sure enough, the trio executed their fourth album with a sense of urgency and professionalism in songcraft, production, artwork (discussed here) and nuance of presentation that managed to make even a song called “Clawhammer Suicide” a classy affair. As guitarist/vocalist Brad Van said on the hidden title-track, “Death to false stoner thrash.” Droids Attack brought that ethic and more to life across the entire record.
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27. Beelzefuzz, The Righteous Bloom
Released by Restricted Release and The Church Within. Reviewed Aug. 2.
A winding road brought Beelzefuzz around to following up their 2013 self-titled debut (review here), and as The Righteous Bloom brought guitarist/vocalist Dana Ortt and drummer Darin McCloskey together with bassist Bert Hall and lead guitarist Greg Diener, it found their songwriting more expansive, more progressive and dug further into their own particular oddball sense of grandeur. I’ve said on multiple occasions that no one out there is doing what Beelzefuzz are doing and that continues to be true. Even as a first offering from a new lineup of the band, The Righteous Bloom took bold and exciting forward steps.
Down to business. Immediately. Not a moment to spare. Taking part in what can only be considered a landmark year for Ripple Music, Baltimore’s Foghound issued The World Unseen as an answer to their 2013 debut, Quick, Dirty and High (review here), and upped their game across the board. From the intensity in the hooks of “Message in the Sky” and Rockin’ and Rollin'” to the quiet interlude of “Bridge of Stonebows” and the mid-paced heavy rock nod of “Never Return,” they made a strong case for themselves among their label’s foremost acts and found individualism in the growth of their songwriting. It was a kick in the ass you weren’t going to forget.
Put out by the band digitally in Dec. 2015 and issued on vinyl in 2016, Egypt‘s second LP, Endless Flight may be somewhat debatable in terms of when it actually landed (hence “25a.,” above), but the quality of the six-tracker more than warrants inclusion anyway. Rolling dense, massively-fuzzed groove, its nine-minute opening title-track set the course for the Fargo, North Dakota, three-piece, and they only grew the heavy revelry from there, as heard on the penultimate “Black Words,” which seemed to be chewing on rocks even as it played back and forth in tempo, build and push. The converted never had it so good.
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25. 1000mods, Repeated Exposure To…
Released by Ouga Booga and the Mighty Oug Recordings. Reviewed Sept. 20.
There seems to be no stopping the Chiliomodi-based 1000mods, who with their third album have stepped to the forefront of Greece’s populous and vibrant heavy rock underground. Progressed well beyond where even 2014’s impressive Vultures (review here) found them, they seemed to hit a stride with Repeated Exposure To… thanks in part to road time and the ability to bring that energy directly into songs like the eight-minute roller “Loose” and the sizable crashes of “Groundhog Day.” Momentum working in their favor could be heard front-to-back from “Above 179” to “Into the Spell,” moving them toward something ever-more crucial and marking a considerable achievement along that path. 2017 might be a good time for them to test the waters with initial US shows.
Quick turnaround from Roman heavy psych magnate Gabriele Fiori (guitar/vocals) and company, but though it hit just about 13 months after their fourth full-length, Hawkdope (review here), Black Rainbows, Stellar Prophecy wholly succeeded in making an impact of its own, cuts like the oozing, organ-laced “Woman” and 11-minute jam-out triumph “Golden Widow” showcasing an approach in a continuous state of refinement that seems to get rawer as it goes, shifting like a rogue planetoid toward some maddening cosmic realization. How something can seem both so frenetic and so blissful is still a mystery, and perhaps that’s part of what makes Stellar Prophecy resonate as it does, but either way, Black Rainbows brought together some of the year’s most efficient psychedelic immersion.
Borracho don’t seem to release an album until they have something to say. That was to their credit on Atacama, their third LP and label debut for Kozmik Artifactz debut. Also their second collection issued as a trio behind 2013’s Oculus (review here), it distinguished itself from its predecessor in its sense of overarching flow, shifting between the ahead-thrust of “Gold from Sand” into the 10-minute sample-laden jam “Overload” to start out with such ease that the listener had little choice but to follow along. With an expanded scope on “Drifted away from the Sun” and the lightly-strummed memento mori “Flower,” Borracho found new avenues of expression to complement their well established dense, heavy riffing, and took obvious care in crafting their most realized LP yet.
Nothing Brooklyn’s The Golden Grass does feels like happenstance, and though their classic-styled boogie is imbued with a vibrant, friendly positive energy, there’s an underlying meticulousness in their arrangements and in their songwriting that came further into focus on Coming Back Again, their sophomore release 2014’s self-titled debut (review here). A more progressive take showed itself in “Reflections” and “Down the Line,” and taken in combination with the bookends “Get it Together” and “See it Through,” the three-piece stood on ground that was even more their own than on the first record, striking a careful balance between the willful exploration of new elements and the outright need for tracks to directly engage their listeners with catchy hooks and upbeat vibes. They did it. Expect continued growth.
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21. Curse the Son, Isolator
Released by Snake Charmer Coalition and The Company Records. Reviewed March 1.
For something so awash in fuzz, so nodding in its rhythms, so let’s-push-the-vocals-back-under-this-huge-awesome-fucking-riff, Curse the Son‘s Isolator was also remarkably clearheaded in its purposes. With the added vocal harmonies of “Callous Unemotional Traits,” the far-off spaces of “Hull Crush Depth” and the stoner metal despair of “Aislamiento,” the Connecticut three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Ron Vanacore, capital-‘d’ Drummer Michael Petrucci and newcomer bassist Brendan Keefe drew a direct, intentional line to sometimes-grueling (hello, “Sleepwalker Wakes”) weighted tonality and found justification for their largesse in its own being. Like 2012’s Psychache (review here), I expect to be returning to Isolator over a longer term than this single year of release.
I feel like I need to explain myself here. Make no mistake, Neurosis‘ Fires Within Fires is among the year’s most accomplished offerings. There’s just about no way it wouldn’t be. So why not top 10? Top five? It’s a question of timing. With the long-running post-metal progenitors, it’s always a longer digestion period. It was about two years before 2012’s Honor Found in Decay (review here) really sunk in, and I expect Fires Within Fires will work similarly over the greater term. Maybe a little guilt on my part for the disparity between its quality and its placement, but rest assured, Neurosis remain among the most imperative bands walking the earth, and as they took on the full brunt of 30 years of unmitigated progression through Fires Within Fires, they were no less brazen in pushing themselves creatively than they’ve ever been.
Though the narrative of Conan has remained largely unchanged since their inception — hack, slash, kill, riff — and they still bask in nigh-on-unmatched tonal slaughter, their third full-length brings a few key developments. Perhaps most notable from opener “Throne of Fire” onward is the vocal interplay between guitarist/founder Jon Davis and bassist/longtime-engineer Chris Fielding, who joined after 2014’s Blood Eagle (review here). Adding Fielding‘s deeper growls allowed Davis to subtly move into a cleaner shout, and the emergent dynamic between them made Revengeance a decidedly expanded affair compared to Conan‘s past work. Adding drummer Rich Lewis to the mix was no minor shift either, and as much as Conan had already established their sheer dominance, they also sounded refreshed and set themselves up to keep growing.
Some records just feel like gifts, and though many of its lyrical positions were cynical — “Reality,” “21st Century Slave,” “Mind Control Machine,” “Red the Sign Post,” etc. — Freedom marked the 15th anniversary of Danish garage-psych rockers Baby Woodrose with dripping lysergic aplomb, reminding some four years after their last LP, 2012’s Third Eye Surgery (review here), that bandleader Lorenzo Woodrose is unparalleled when it comes to manifesting his take on the psychedelic victories of 13th Floor Elevators and classic-era Hawkwind — firmly at home levitating on the edge of time. Its swirl and underlying foundation of songwriting, its Richie Havens cover title-track, and its sprawling interstellar “Termination” were like a welcome check-in from another dimension, and I only hope it’s not four years before Woodrose sends the next signal. Earth needs this band.
I’m not going to discount the shuffle of “Sunday Speed Demon” or sleeze of “Sunday Speed Demon,” but where Geezer‘s self-titled third full-length really showed how far the New York heavy blues-psych trio have come was in its extended midsection jams, “Sun Gods,” “Bi-Polar Vortex” and “Dust,” each of which showed a distinct approach while feeding into an engaging flow between them, offering a blend of trailmarker hooks as they drifted into realms of organic chemistry previously uncharted by the band. The slow-motion swing of “Hangnail Crisis,” raucous push of “Superjam Maximus” and concluding bounce of “Stoney Pony” brought them back down to earth to finish out with a symmetry to the album’s opening, but Geezer kept a collective hand on the controls the whole voyage and when they landed, it was an arrival indeed, and very much what their two previous records were building toward.
Beautifully experimental with its 27-minute finisher “As Sure as the Sun,” EYE‘s Vision and the Ageless Light seemed throughout its whole 46-minute run to be executing a cohesive vision in its synth-soaked progressive textures. Between the intro “Book of the Dead” and the subsequent “Kill the Slavemaster,” “Searching,” “Dweller of the Twilight Void” and the already-noted closer, each piece had something different to offer that added to the full impact of the whole, and with guitarist Jon Finely and bassist Michael Sliclen joining founding drummer/vocalist Brandon Smith and synth/Mellotron/Moog-ist Lisa Bella Donna (also vocals and acoustic guitar), EYE added to the scope of 2013’s Second Sight (review here) and found a place for themselves where prog complexity didn’t need to come at the expense of memorable songwriting and spaced-out vibes. An absolute joy, front to back.
Even Fatso Jetson themselves would probably have to admit that six years — even a six years that saw several splits, singles, etc. — was too long between albums. Fortunately, Idle Hands saw the desert rock forebears in top form as regards their quirk-fueled songwriting, angular approach to punk and inimitable groove. Following 2010’s Archaic Volumes (review here) was no easy task, but with additional depth to the material from the contributions of guitarist Dino von Lalli — son of founding guitarist/vocalist Mario Lalli and nephew of founding bassist Larry Lalli — guest spots from his sister Olive Lalli as well as Sean Wheeler (the latter moves second cut “Portuguese Dream” into high-echelon strangeness) and the ever-propulsive drumming of Tony Tornay, Fatso Jetson were both all over the place and right at the core of where they most ought to be sonically. At 56 minutes, it hardly seemed long enough.
Each song was like a different persona the band adopted momentarily, whether it was the Bowie-goes-proto-goth-prog of organ-ic opener “Transparent Eyeball” or the grim pastoralia of “Mirror Boy” and the condemnations/proclamations of “Drugged up on the Universe,” but wherever Hexvessel went on their third full-length and Century Media debut, When We are Death, that unifying theme went with them. Death. It was everywhere in the Finland-based genre-benders’ deeply varied approach, though its presence made their material in no way off-putting, and in the case of cuts like “Cosmic Truth” or the later “Mushroom Spirit Doors,” not even dark, and as it drew the tracks together despite working in different sounds and style, it became apparent that When We are Death worked because of a universal quality in songwriting and presentation allowing for such drastic shifts without any risk of losing the audience.
Yawning Man guitarist Gary Arce — a key figure in the development of desert rock and a player of unmatched tone, period — had quite a year, between Zun‘s Burial Sunrise, his main outfit and his collaboration with Fatso Jetson vs. HifiKlub, but it was the dreamscape drift of songs like “Come Through the Water” and “All that You Say I Am” as well as the subtle hooks of “Into the Wasteland” and “All for Nothing” that, for me, made this the highlight. Sure, bringing in vocalists Sera Timms (Ides of Gemini, Black Mare) and John Garcia (ex-Kyuss, Slo Burn, Vista Chino, etc.) and having them swap back and forth between the tracks didn’t hurt either, but the wash of ethereal presence in Arce‘s guitar was an excellent showcase for his patience and improvisational sensibilities, and the spaces Burial Sunrise covered seemed to have an infinite horizon all their own. Will hope for a follow-up, will hope Garcia and Timms return, and will hope for a duet.
One had reasonably high expectations for the debut full-length from London’s Elephant Tree after their 2014 EP Theia (review here) so deftly blended spacious, sitar-laced heavy psychedelic rock with more visceral sludge impulses — a difficult mix to pull off — but I think it would’ve been impossible to see the quality of this self-titled outing coming in any substantive way. Gone were the screams, in was a depth of tone and nigh-on-perfect tempo — see “Dawn” and “Aphotic Blues,” as well as the acoustic “Circles” between them — and where some first albums have a kind of tentative, feeling-it-out vibe, guitarist/vocalist Jack Townley (interview here), bassist/vocalist Peter Holland, drummer Sam Hart and sitarist/vocalist/engineer Riley MacIntyre took utter command of the proceedings. They won’t have the element of surprise working for them next time, but as Elephant Tree made perfectly clear in its biggest surprise of all, neither do they need it.
If you were to ask me to summarize in one word the last four-plus years of Mos Generator‘s tenure, since their reactivation with 2012’s Nomads (review here) and the subsequent lineup changes and hard-touring that followed 2014’s Electric Mountain Majesty (review here), I’d say “go.” I might say it three times: Go-go-go. One of three LP-ish offerings out this year, the studio album Abyssinia embodied this ethic as it started with immediate momentum on “Strangest Times” and “You’ve Got a Right” and seemed to push itself into new ground as it went. Guitarist/vocalist/founder Tony Reed brought heavy boogie to bear at a frenetic clip, but Abyssinia offset its early mania with later progressive stylization on “There’s No Return from Nowhere,” “Time and Other Thieves” and harmonized closer “Outlander,” so that in addition to representing their furious creativity, it also brought them to places they’ve never been before in sound.
In some ways, Future Echo Returns was simply picking up where Belfast’s Slomatics left off with 2014’s Estron (review here), as heard on the riff of lead-in track “Estronomicon,” but as the third in a purported trilogy following that record and 2012’s A Hocht, it also brought the tonecrushing three-piece to Skyhammer Studio to work with producer Chris Fielding (Conan) and presented a linear storyline that, while rife with standout moments in cuts like “Electric Breath,” the ambient “Ritual Beginnings” and ultra-catchy “Supernothing,” found a genuine sense of resolution in the finale “Into the Eternal” that spoke to the scope the entire work was meant to represent — not just itself, but an entirety spanning three albums. Not a minor feat, but what also made Future Echo Returns so resonant was how well the material stood on its own, so that even without the narrative context, it was immersive, hypnotic and unbridled in its heft.
After two landmarks issued by Small Stone in 2014’s The Conjuring (review here) and 2012’s The Black Code (reviews here and here), Texas forerunners of riff Wo Fat gave a concise rundown of their appeal in the six-track Ripple debut and sixth LP overall, Midnight Cometh. Their ongoing development as found them bringing together a two-sided personality of memorable songs and open, fluid jams, and cuts like “There’s Something Sinister in the Wind,” “Of Smoke and Fog,” “Three Minutes to Midnight” and “Nightcomer” emphasized the next stage of this process, while the shuffling “Riffborn” and swaggering blues rock of “La Dilleme de Detenu” gave listeners a chance to touch ground every now and again. Over the last two-plus years, Wo Fat have become a point of influence for other, particularly American, acts — see labelmates Geezer — and Midnight Cometh assured that will be the case going forward too; a status well-earned.
Offered up this summer as a limited self-release and picked up by no less than Stickman Records (Motorpsycho, Elder), Orion might be the most molten inclusion on this list. It’s also my pick for 2016 Debut of the Year, and to hear cuts like “She Sleeps on a Vine,” “Kerosene,” the sprawling closer “Drinking from the River Rising,” or even just to take the whole record front-to-back, which was clearly how the band intended it be experienced, there’s just about no competition in that regard that stands up. The Rochester, NY, three-piece showed marked promise on their 2013 demo (review here) and 2015 split with Lé Betre (review here), but the listenability of Orion — which earned every single one of its repeat visits — made it a triumph on a different level entirely, and distinguished King Buffalo as a formidable presence in the sphere of US heavy psychedelia, fostering a sound no less soulful for its outward cosmic reach and to-be-measured-in-lightyears scale of potential.
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7. Wight, Love is Not Only What You Know
Released by Fat and Holy Records, Kozmik Artifactz, Import Export Music and SPV. Reviewed Sept. 7.
German outfit Wight answered significant anticipation on their third album, Love is Not Only What You Know, some four years after 2012’s Through the Woods into Deep Water (review here) and undertook a significant evolution in sound. A transition from a trio to a four-piece and adding a strong current of funk to their heavy psych groove and boogie resulted in cuts like “The Muse and the Mule,” the jammed-out “Kelele” and “The Love for Life Leads to Reincarnation,” which were as danceable as they were nod-ready, and when complemented by shorter classic rockers like “Helicopter Mama” and “I Wanna Know What You Feel” (still plenty funky) and the Eastern-tinged interlude “Three Quarters,” gave Love is Not Only What You Know scope to match its ass-shaking encouragement. It was a spirit unto itself among 2016 releases, but ultimately, the key to understanding the record was right there in the title: It was all about love, and wherever Wight went in a given track, they never lost sight of that.
A decade and a half after 2001’s Revolution Rock (discussed here), Sweden’s Greenleaf most embodied that ethic with Rise Above the Meadow, their sixth long-player and Napalm Records debut. 2014’s Trails and Passes (review here) represented the key step of founding guitarist Tommi Holappa (interview here) bringing vocalist Arvid Johnsson into the lineup, but Rise Above the Meadow built exponentially on what that album achieved, bolstered by work as a touring band and a revitalized songwriting process heard in “Howl,” “A Million Fireflies,” “You’re Gonna be My Ruin,” the stomping “Golden Throne” and “Tyrants Tongue,” among others. I refuse to discount the quality of Trails and Passes, 2012’s Nest of Vipers (review here) or 2007’s landmark Agents of Ahriman (review here), but as Greenleaf shifted toward a style more reminiscent of Holappa‘s later output with Dozer, they also seemed to stake their claim on the forefront of European heavy rock and roll, which was just waiting for them to do so.
Perhaps the most believable lyric of 2016 was the opening line of leadoff cut “The Gree Heen” from Brant Bjork‘s Tao of the Devil: “I got all that I need. I got the gree-heen.” From the prominent pot leaf on the cover to that single clause — which set the tone for that song’s mega-nod as much as everything that followed in the boogie of “Humble Pie” and “Stackt,” the so-laid-back-it’s-almost-unconscious title-track and the longer-form explorations of “Dave’s War” and the wah’ed-out “Evening Jam” — the inimitable Bjork seems to have embraced the role of stoner guru and the Godfather of Desert Rock. Tao of the Devil was his second release through Napalm behind 2014’s Black Power Flower (review here), which introduced the Low Desert Punk Band, and far from hanging its hat on the man’s historical accomplishments from his days in Kyuss, Fu Manchu, Che, Vista Chino, etc., the 50-minute eight-tracker came fueled by the soul most typified in Bjork‘s solo catalog, which it’s increasingly easy to argue is his greatest contribution to the desert aesthetic. Definitely in his wheelhouse, but what a wheelhouse.
What a relief it was to have Asteroid back, and what a relief it was to have III arrive some six years after II (review here) and find the Örebro, Sweden, trio’s certified-organic chemistry undulled by that long stretch. The songs — “Pale Moon,” “Last Days,” “Til Dawn,” “Wolf and Snake,” “Silver and Gold,” “Them Calling,” “Mr. Strange” — there wasn’t a miss in the bunch, and in addition to the reignited craftsmanship, III made clear a progression as players and the intent to move forward from guitarist/vocalist Robin Hirse, bassist/vocalist Johannes Nilsson and drummer Elvis Campbell (since replaced by Jimmi Kolscheen), so that the material didn’t just let listeners know Asteroid was a band again after having unceremoniously faded out for a half-decade, but gave a signal that perhaps they were just getting started. One can only hope that turns out to be the case, but either way, III felt like a reward dolled out to their fanbase after a long absent stretch, and one that, like II and their 2007 self-titled debut (discussed here) before it, will reverberate its echoes for years to come. Hands down 2016’s most welcome return.
Though it would carry the context of its scorching opener “Nature Boy” with it for the duration and, accordingly, hit with a more intense feel than its 2013 predecessor, The Fury of a Patient Man (review here), Gozu‘s fourth album overall and Ripple label debut was a kick in the ass on more than just that one level. It found the Boston foursome with the finally-solidified lineup of vocalist/guitarist Marc Gaffney, guitarist Doug Sherman, bassist Joe Grotto and drummer Mike Hubbard, and while one could argue they still wound up under the banner of a heavy rock band, that became happenstance to the songs themselves. That is, even more than The Fury of a Patient Man or 2010’s Locust Season (review here), Gozu came across as writing not to style, but to their own impulses, as demonstrated in “Big Casino,” the echoing soul of “Tin Chicken” and shuffle-thrust of “Oldie,” and as they moved beyond their initial swath of influence into this individualized sonic persona, they reaped the benefits of the locked-in lineup and a process of craft that never sounded so purposeful. Revival was indeed typified by its vitality, but it was also the sound of a band maturing as a unit, becoming who they were meant to be, and there is almost nothing more exciting than that for a single album to represent. Plus, it had a song called “By Mennen,” and, you know, references.
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2. Mars Red Sky, Apex III (Praise for the Burning Soul)
It was unreasonable to expect the third full-length from Bordeaux, France, trio Mars Red Sky to surpass 2014’s Stranded in Arcadia (review here) and the progressive crux that album brought to the warm tones and sweet melodicism of their 2011 self-titled debut (review here), but Apex III (Praise for the Burning Soul) reinforced the elements that worked so well on previous outings while pushing inarguably onto what the band seemed to know was “Alien Ground” if the title of their intro was anything to go by. More over, it did so with a natural fluidity and poise that were as striking as they were encompassing in sound. Tying to earlier 2016’s Providence EP (review here) in concept and execution through that intro and the title-track following it, Apex III presented the to-date pinnacle of Mars Red Sky‘s growth in songs like “The Whinery,” “Mindreader,” the tear-inducing “Under the Hood,” the swing-happy “Friendly Fire,” the willful atmospheric crash of closer “Prodigal Sun” — each one a crucial advancing step from the trio of guitarist/vocalist Julien Pras, bassist/vocalist Jimmy Kinast and drummer Mathieu “Matgaz” Gazeau — and brilliantly fed them one into the other, so that in addition to the standout impressions of each, there developed a personality to the whole span of the album; a world of Mars Red Sky‘s own creation, where they dwelt for what seemed too short a time before returning to earth and on from here to who knows where next.
Most of all, For this We Fought the Battle of Ages was fearless. For their fourth album, Salt Lake City’s SubRosa adapted themes from 1924’s We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, which laid out a futuristic dystopia wherein all identity is subsumed to the state and even love is outlawed when not properly sanctioned. This framework, obscure if influential, gave guitarist/vocalist Rebecca Vernon, violinist/vocalist Sarah Pendleton, violinist/backing vocalist Kim Pack, bassist/vocalist Levi Hanna, drummer/engineer Andy Patterson (formerly of Iota, among others), and a range of other contributors, a space in which to explore gender and LGBT issues across the six included tracks, and from the opening build and crush of the chorus to “Despair is a Siren” through the depiction of privilege in “Wound of the Warden,” the 97-second Italian-language ballad “Il Cappio” (translated: “the noose”) and into the gut-wrenching finale of “Troubled Cells,” their musical accomplishment was no less stunning than lyrics like, “Isn’t it good to be acquainted with darkness?/To caress it gently/To slit its throat,” from “Black Majesty.” Tense in its quiet stretches, harmonized vocally, given orchestral presence through its use of strings, flute, French horn, and so on, For this We Fought the Battle of Ages worked fluidly in what for most acts would be a contradictory modus of careful, meticulous arrangements and raw, emotional realism. No matter how deep it dove — and by the time identity was being erased and the state was taking control of the body on “Killing Rapture,” it was diving pretty deep — SubRosa never lost their sense of poise, so that the defiance in the last movement of “Troubled Cells” in which Heaven itself is rejected with the clearest of justifications, “Paradise is a lie if you’re not by my side,” the band seemed to stand as straight and tall as their multi-tiered righteousness would warrant. But even if one took For this We Fought the Battle of Ages with politics aside, its achievement in marrying post-metallic structures, gothic texture and progressive atmospherics was on a plane of its own making, operating under its own rules and in its own definitive space. Albums like it do not happen every year, and forward motion for genre as a whole is rarely so visible as it was in this special offering, which seems only fair to regard as a landmark for the band and anyone whose ears and hearts it touched.
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The Next 20
Like any good Top 30, mine goes to 50. Here is the next batch:
31. Blaak Heat, Shifting Mirrors
32. Truckfighters, V
33. West, Space & Love, Vol. II
34. Seedy Jeezus with Isaiah Mitchell, Tranquonauts
35. Yawning Man, Historical Graffiti
36. Causa Sui, Return to Sky
37. Vokonis, Olde One Ascending
38. Hotel Wrecking City Traders, Phantomonium
39. The Wounded Kings, Visions in Bone
40. It’s Not Night: It’s Space, Our Birth is but a Sleep and a Forgetting
41. Beastwars, The Death of all Things
42. Naxatras, II
43. Holy Grove, Holy Grove
44. Worshipper, Shadow Hymns
45. Wretch, Wretch
46. Colour Haze, Live Vol. I: Europa Tournee 2015
47. Zaum, Eidolon
48. Bellringer, Jettison
49. Young Hunter, Young Hunter
50. Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard, Y Proffwyd Dwyll
From the kinetic desert artistry of Blaak Heat to Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard’s ethereal synth-laden doom, there are more than a few essentials here. I’ve never before done a year-end list that had so many releases on it, but my motivation in doing so this time around couldn’t have been simpler: They were simply too good and had too much to offer to leave out. It would’ve been an oversight to do so.
Honorable Mentions
Even a Top 50 fails to grasp the full scope of what 2016 brought about musically, so here are even more, alphabetically:
Ancient Warlocks, II
Black Moon Circle, Sea of Clouds
Sergio Ch., Aurora
Lamp of the Universe, Hidden Knowledge
Mondo Drag, The Occultation of Light
Øresund Space Collective, Visions Of…
-(16)-, Lifespan of a Moth
Spidergawd, III
The Well, Pagan Science
Wovenhand, Star Treatment
And if that’s still not enough, here are 60-plus more names who shouldn’t be left out of the discussion, also alphabetically:
Akris, Atala, Atomikylä, Backwoods Payback, Beastmaker, BigPig, Black Cobra, Black Lung, Blood Ceremony, Blues Pills, Bright Curse, Bus, Dee Calhoun, Captain Crimson, Child, La Chinga, Church of Misery, Conclave, Cough, Devil to Pay, Domkraft, Dot Legacy, Electric Citizen, Estoner, Eternal Elysium, Fatso Jetson & Gary Arce vs. Hifiklub, Fox 45, Goatess, Goblin Cock, Graves at Sea, Heavy Temple (they’ll be back on next year’s list), High Fighter, Holy Serpent, Hotel Wrecking City Traders, Inter Arma, Joy, Kaleidobolt, Khemmis, King Dead, Lord, Lord Vicar, Merchant, Mirrors for Psychic Warfare, Helen Money, Monkey3, Moon Coven, Mother Mooch, Necro, New Keepers of the Water Towers, T.G. Olson, Oranssi Pazuzu, Pooty Owldom, Russian Circles, Salem’s Pot, Samavayo, Seremonia, Skuggsjá, Sourvein, Spirit Adrift, Stone Machine Electric, Suma, Surya Kris Peters, Swans, Throttlerod, Virus, Wasted Theory, Wretch, and Zaum.
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Thank You
In case none of the above has made it clear, I’ll just say flat out that 2016 has been an amazing year for music, and that every time I feel like maybe underground heavy has hit a wall and there’s nowhere left for it to go, sure enough about three minutes later another record shows up that slaps me in the face with a reminder of just how wrong that notion is.
If you’re still reading — how could you be? — thank you so much for your incredible support throughout 2016 and all the years The Obelisk has been in progress. I already know that 2017 is going to bring some incredible music as well, but that’s another list for another time, so I’ll just say again how much I appreciate your being a part of this ongoing project, how much it means to me to have you here. Thank you, thank you, and thank you.
And please, if there’s anything I forgot, got wrong, misspelled, or if you just think I used the word “breadth” too many times, please let me know about it in the comments.
[Click play above to stream Borracho’s Atacama in its entirety. Album is out Dec. 2 on Kozmik Artifactz.]
When Washington D.C.’s Borracho released their second album, Oculus (review here), in 2013, it was also the first time they’d put together a record as a three-piece. After their 2011 debut, Splitting Sky (review here), guitarist Steve Fisher also took over vocal duties — they did a few shows as an instrumental act first — to fill the vacated role, and with the sophomore LP, he, drummer Mario Trubiano and bassist Tim Martin established themselves as hard-hitting riff-rollers not only capable of recreating the heft of Splitting Sky, but of moving forward with it in a progression that was still only at its starting point. In 2014 and 2015, a series of split releases alongside Boston’s Cortez (review here), Brooklyn’s Eggnogg (review here) and New York’s Geezer (review here) provided encouraging glimpses of where Borracho were headed with their signature “repetitive heavy grooves” — a sort of band slogan — but it’s with their third full-length and Kozmik Artifactz debut, Atacama, that the vision of what they can accomplish as a trio is realized.
Across eight songs and an at-times sprawling 51 minutes engineered and mixed by none other than Frank “The Punisher” Marchand (The Obsessed, many more), Borracho arrive at full thrust on “Gold from Sand,” go out with a whisper (actually the sound of dripping water) on “Last Song” and in between ignite a stylistic swath that Oculus and Splitting Sky and their various short releases could only have guessed at. Be it the sample-laden 10-minute jam “Overload,” which careens and swings and swells and recedes in a successful effort to convey a state of media/cultural/existential saturation or side B’s “Flower,” which brings in Erin Snedecor on guest cello to accompany gentle guitar in sandwiching a section of heavier riffing before rounding out with a memorial prayer, Atacama displays range and command that only prove more unflinching the further out they go.
They’ve also, in Marchand, found an understanding partner in production and mixing. On the faster stretches of “Gold from Sand” — the shortest cut on Atacama at 3:38 and an opener clearly geared toward establishing early momentum before the band digs into “Overload,” which follows immediately and is the longest at 10:44 — or third track “Lost in Time,” or the penultimate bombast of “Shot down, Banged up, Fade Away,” which seems to settle into a nod just in time to, indeed, fade out, only after a near-frenetic lesson in how to use riffs as catharsis, Borracho never lose their sense of atmosphere.
Fisher‘s vocal style — to hear him on studio material is to imagine him on stage, his head craned up at an overhead microphone à la Lemmy, his voice clean but guttural in a post-Hetfield belted-out shout — is largely unipolar, but by pushing it back and coating it in echo and bringing it forward again on “Last Song,” just as by playing it front and center on “Gold from Sand,” it becomes no less a factor in Atacama‘s overarching ambience than Snedecor‘s cello on “Flower.” That’s key evidence of Borracho‘s growth even since Oculus, and a welcome expansion of their take since it makes them a richer band, but one doesn’t even need to go that far to hear the evolution in sound the band has clearly, admirably, undertaken in these tracks.
By the time the all-out fuzz thrust of “Lost in Time” is underway, Fisher‘s guitar scorching out a multi-layer lead over the East-Coast-does-Fu–Manchu rush from Martin and Trubiano before the first verse, they’ve already toyed with structure — “Gold from Sand” is straightforward, where after its long intro, “Overload” has a couple verse/chorus switchoffs early before departing into a more extended jam after six minutes, daring to indulge some psychedelic six-string wash perhaps in an ethic picked up from their splitmates in Geezer — and they only continue to show stylistic and sonic depth as Atacama continues to play out. “Overload” dives back into vocal-topped nod in its final movement and swirls into the buildup start of “Lost in Time,” but even the change in tempo between “Lost in Time” and the subsequent instrumental “Descent,” pulled off via a stretch of feedback and amp noise at the end of the earlier track, is more fluid than it possibly could’ve been three years ago, and it’s still only one sliver of the total flow conjured throughout.
And that’s to say nothing of elements like the flourish bell sounds that come with “Descent”‘s slower roll, the samples in “Overload” and “Flower” — clearly a remembrance — the cello or the tripped-out vibe they hone in the 8:37 “Drifted away from the Sun,” which feeds immediately from “Descent” but might also be where the vinyl side B starts. No less than “Flower” or “Last Song,” though it’s outwardly heavier, “Drifted away from the Sun” presents a bolder, broader Borracho. They’ve never lacked for patience or a willingness to ride a riff, but it’s how they execute that across “Drifted away from the Sun,” with Fisher trading between spoken verses and shouted hooks en route from the initial languid feel toward later, throttled payoff that underscores the point once again, let alone the sudden turn to birdsong that signals the shift into “Flower.” It would be short-selling it to say the range suits them or that they wield it ably. Rather, Atacama — soaking wet despite being named for the driest of deserts — becomes the manifestation of the potential Borracho have shown for the last five years.
The back and forth in “Drifted away from the Sun,” “Flower,” “Shot down, Banged up, Fade Away” and “Last Song” — and indeed within those songs as well at times — brings vibrancy and dynamic to their sound, and they never lose control of it, whether they’re digging into the return-to-earth groove of “Shot down, Banged up, Fade Away” or tossing in Alice in Chains, Sap-style percussion and acoustics on “Last Song.” There isn’t a moment on Atacama on which Borracho haven’t moved forward from where they were three years ago, and the sense of completion that comes with “Last Song” — their evident mindfulness of the album’s construction and execution — is as fitting an end as one could ask. It was fair to expect Borracho‘s third to land with an impact, especially after the formidable achievements of Oculus, but the varied form of that impact on Atacama is more than it would’ve been reasonable to see coming.
They may be beginning to move past the “repetitive heavy grooves” ethic, but in that, they’re also placing themselves in an entirely different league of bands, and while I’d feel even less comfortable predicting where they might go next, I know damn well that it’s worth looking forward to finding out. Their best yet, and one of 2016’s finest in heavy rock and roll.
