Posted in Whathaveyou on April 24th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Brazilian trio Mordor Truckers last hailed with the 2020 single “Red Sands” (review here) from what at the time was a herald of a debut studio EP to come. Up to that point and still to-date, the band’s most substantial offering was/is 2019’s Ao Vivo – Pequeno Anfiteatro, and indeed both cuts on the new two-songer Nowhere featured there as well: “Ammit” and “Mindless.”
That release — which even has the photo above for its cover, making that also at least four years old; a different version was used in the post linked above, so they’ve definitely gotten some mileage out of it — was much rawer in sound, but had a personality of its own in bootleg fashion. I doubt Mordor Truckers intended at the time that it would become the epicenter of everything else they’d do for nearly the next half-decade, but at least it doesn’t suck. It’s got that going for it.
Nowhere picks up more or less where “Red Sands” left off, with a north-of-six-and-a-half-minute run of psychedelia-informed heavy rock, loose-feeling in its construction as “Mindless” works into and through its jammy midsection, but never in any real danger of losing its footing with the wall o’ fuzz looming just ahead. As with “Ammit,” guitarist/vocalist Manuel Ceballos, bassist Patrick Jordy and drummer/backing vocalist Brendan Bazzi keep a mind toward atmosphere, and as well as sheer nod, though “Ammit” grows more active and noisier from its quiet, meditative beginning.
Either way you go, you don’t lose. It’s a short release, obviously, but its two songs are still more than you’d likely cram on a 7″ and they want three bucks for them. Doesn’t seem like too huge an ask, though one hopes that at some point soon they dig into making a debut full-length as well, even if that’s just a compilation of the various tracks they’ve put out thus far with another song or two included. We’ll see I guess. Vibe is right on in the meantime, though, and I enjoy specifically how cult or purposefully-vague sounding this isn’t.
From the PR wire:
Mordor Truckers – Nowhere EP
After a certain time without new releases, the stoner rock/stoner doom trio “Mordor Truckers” appears now with a new and also well-known material in the newest and most recent EP titled as “Nowhere”.
The release is the result of a totally independent production by the band and contains two songs previously released only in a live version, now recorded and mixed by Júlio Cesar at “Wecando Music” studio in Joinville – Brazil.
The songs are “Mindless” and “Ammit” and are available on several major music streaming platforms, youtube and bandcamp.
Tracklisting: 1. Ammit 07:05 2. Mindless 06:46
Mordor Truckers is: Patrick Jordy: Bass Manuel Ceballos: Guitar/Vocals Brendan Bazzi: Drums/Backing Vocals
[Click play above to stream ‘There’s No Escape’ from Fuzz Sagrado’s Luz e Sombra, out May 19 through World in Sound and available to preorder here from the label and here from the band.]
At very least, a reconciliation. Luz e Sombra is the second full-length from Fuzz Sagrado, the as-yet solo-project of multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Christian Peters. Having moved from Berlin, Germany, to more rural Brazil at the dawn of the decade, Peters‘ former outfit Samsara Blues Experiment made their farewell with End of Forever (review here) in 2021, and that July brought the first, self-titled EP (review here) from the new outfit, taking lessons Peters learned after more than a decade in Samsara Blues Experiment and through his own solo work under the moniker Surya Kris Peters — less directly relevant in sound, he also had a solo-outfit called Soulitude circa 2008, which would’ve made it concurrent to the drawdown of prior band Terraplane — and bringing them together for a new, partially synth-driven exploration of style and melody. Fuzz Sagrado would follow its self-titled with another EP, Vida Pura, in 2021 and in 2022 released A New Dimension (review here) via World in Sound in an ongoing collaboration, and Luz e Sombra‘s nine songs and 43 minutes continue this new exploration of solo work.
But where Surya Kris Peters was more of a vehicle for key and electronic experimentation, a put-down-the-guitar kind of project, Fuzz Sagrado to-date has been a willful step back toward rock music, and Luz e Sombra — ‘light and dark’ in Portuguese, and a title emblematic of the record’s duly chiaroscuro dynamic — is cast in that spirit as well. Those expecting the longform heavy psychedelic jamming for which Samsara Blues Experiment were somewhat reluctantly known will mostly not find them in Fuzz Sagrado. It is very pointedly a different band, but it is a band, even if there’s just one person behind it.
The first sounds one hears on Luz e Sombra opener “There’s No Escape” (premiering above) are keyboard and insects; the natural world meeting purposeful creation, and that tells you a goodly portion of what you need to know about what follows. Peters sweeps in an echoing guitar solo spacious over programmed beats — they’re more drum-sounding soon enough, but at least initially it’s more electronica — and a subdued verse solidifies around a progressive and atmospherically foreboding chorus: the second time through, “We are/Human/Obsessed with useless things/Deluded.”
Critique, philosophy, confession and storytelling are nothing new lyrically for Peters, who in Luz e Sombra offers particular vocal command in his distinctive approach — dropping hints of working out harmonies on side B’s “Love in Progress” after the more familiar layering of “Leaving Samsara” — and while side A songs like “There’s No Escape,” the subsequent “Wake Them Up” and the lush-enough-to-justify-the-Mellotron title-track take a conversational perspective in directly addressing the listener as “you,” much of what features throughout comes through as personal on Peters‘ part.
Leading off the second half of the record and the centerpiece of the tracklisting, “Leaving Samsara” tells the story in lines like about living in “a strange new world,” “Was looking for some peace/Or finally some freedom/Same as you,” and recounts highs and lows of that band, bringing it around to the conclusion, “I’m still here/Alone/Staring at the face of the world/In all its beauty and disgust…” before shifting into a moodier kind of fuzz and unfolding from it a resonant and spacious bridge back to the chorus. Ahead of the instrumental finish “Broken Earth,” “Learning to Live, and Live Again” feels of its time and place, a moment in transition personal and global, looming chaos met with clearheaded psychedelic rock, keyboard, bass and drum-sounds as the foundation for the layers of guitar and vocals, perpetually seeking.
Each of the three longer songs — that’s “There’s No Escape” (6:02), “Luz e Sombra” (7:55) and “Leaving Samsara” (7:08); nothing else is longer than the 4:12 “Wake Them Up” — feeds the reconciliation narrative posited at the outset in some way. There aren’t jams necessarily, as the nature of solo recording, programming drums, etc., inherently makes band-in-room improv impossible since parts have to be layered on each other one at a time, but in instrumental stretches, one can hear Peters working toward acceptance of the more psychedelic aspect of his aural persona. He is not begrudging, and if he was, Luz e Sombra would fall flat in its expression.
“There’s No Escape” and the title cut are both on side A, and side B, which again, starts with “Leaving Samsara,” flows smoothly with its two instrumental pieces, “Memories of a Future Past” and the aforementioned “Broken Earth” that ends the record, momentum built through compositional fluidity more than the intensity of execution throughout. “Memories of a Future Past” would sound nostalgic even if Peters had called it “Eating a Peanut Butter Sandwich,” but some shaker sounds reinforce the burgeoning percussive complexity in the second half of “Wake Them Up” and still to come in “Broken Earth” with its hand-drums, while maintaining a mellow drift to a final gong hit that gives over to the proggrunge of “Love in Progress.”
Kin to side A closer “One Endless Summer” in its brevity, “Love in Progress” is more active until it cuts to a drone at three minutes to transition into the acoustic/electric blend of “Learning to Live, and Live Again,” the breadth of which makes one wonder if Luz e Sombra, for all its various organ, keyboard and synth sounds, for all its accomplished vocals and for the catchy hooks of “Wake Them Up” and “One Endless Summer,” hasn’t been a sneaky love letter to the guitar all along, though it’s the totality of the experience — never staid even when close to still — that defines it. Light or dark, loud or quiet, acoustic or electric or electronic, Fuzz Sagrado makes a point to lay claim to all of these aesthetic elements with mindfulness and purpose, and if some moments are rougher edged and some are lush and smooth, well, that’s life, isn’t it?
And to be sure, some of the frustrations and disillusion that’s been in Peters‘ lyrics all along is certainly present here — see “Leaving Samsara” for sure, as well as “There’s No Escape,” “Learning to Live, and Live Again,” etc. — but part of what’s being reconciled here is the grand-picture ‘everything’ of living. You get the light and the dark, the positive and negative, sometimes side-by-side, sometimes mashed together into a single part or concept, and part of Luz e Sombra‘s depth comes from that as well as from however many layers of guitar and keyboard are on “Memories of a Future Past.”
It is worth reiterating that Fuzz Sagrado is not trying to remake Samsara Blues Experiment as a one-man-band on a new continent, but part of what Peters crucially acknowledges in this material is that for better or worse, what he achieved in that outfit’s decade-plus run is a part of his experience that carries over into at least some aspects of these songs, even when not actually the subject at hand (that is, not just on “Leaving Samsara” or the other longer inclusions). That the stated reconciliation would be no less multifaceted than the resultant music across Luz e Sombra itself underscores Peters‘ maturity of craft and performance, but more over, it highlights the sincerity with which each of these songs is wrought. At this point it’s hard to say where it might all end up, but isn’t that life too?
Posted in Reviews on April 18th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
So here we are. A fascinating and varied trip this has been, and while I’m tempted to find some greater meaning in it as regards the ongoing evolution of genre(s) in heavy underground music, the truth is that the overarching message is really that it’s impossible to keep up with that complexity as it unfolds. Hitting 70 releases on this last day with another 50 to come in a couple weeks, I feel like there’s just so much out there right now, and that that is the primary signifier of the current era.
Whether it’s pandemic-born projects or redirects, or long-established artists making welcome returns, or who knows what from who knows where, the world is brimming with creativity and is pushing the bounds of heavy with like-proportioned force and intent. This hasn’t always been easy to write, but as I look at the lineup below of the final-for-now installment of the QR, I’m just happy to be alive. Thanks for reading. I hope you have also found something that resonates.
Quarterly Review #61-70:
Dommengang, Wished Eye
A fourth full-length from Dommengang — are they in L.A. now? Portland, Oregon? does it matter? — neatly encapsulates the heavy psychedelic scope and the organic-vibing reach that stands them out from the pack, as somehow throughout the nine songs of Wished Eye, the Thrill Jockey denizen trio are able to inhabit a style that’s the Americana pastoral wakeup of “Runaway,” the hill-howling “Society Blues,” the drift-fuzz of over solid drums of “Last Card,” the dense tube-burning Hendrixism of “Myth Time,” and the minimalist guitar of “Little Beirut.” And oh, it keeps going; each track contributing something to the lush-but-natural spirit of the whole work. “Blue & Peaceful” brings acoustics to its midsection jam, while “Petrichor” is the West Coast freedom rock you’ve been waiting for, the title-track goes inland for nighttime desertscaping that finishes in hypnotic loops on a likewise hypnotic fade, and “Flower” proves to be more vine, winding its way around the lead guitar line as the vocals leave off with a highlight performance prior a fire-blues solo that finishes the record as the amps continue to scream. Undervalued? Why yes, Dommengang are, and Wished Eye makes the argument in plain language. With a sonic persona able to draw from country, blues, psych, indie, doom, fuzz, on and on, they’ve never sounded so untethered to genre, and it wasn’t exactly holding them back in the first place.
Formerly the frontman of Richmond, Virginia, sludgers Gritter, Ryan Kent — who already has several books of poetry on his CV — casts himself through Dying Comes With Age as a kind of spoken word ringmaster, and he’s brought plenty of friends along to help the cause. The readings in the title-track, “Son of a Bitch” and the title-track and “Couch Time” are semi-spoken, semi-sung, and the likes of Laura Pleasants (The Discussion, ex-Kylesa) lends backing vocals to the former while Jimmy Bower (Down, EyeHateGod) complements with a low-key fuzzy bounce. I’ll admit to hoping the version of “My Blue Heaven” featuring Windhand‘s Dorthia Cottrell was a take on the standard, but it’s plenty sad regardless and her voice stands alone as though Kent realized it was best to just give her the space and let it be its own thing on the record. Mike IX Williams of EyeHateGod is also on his own (without music behind) to close out with the brief “Cigarettes Roll Away the Time,” and Eugene S. Robinson of Oxbow/Buñuel recounting an homage apparently to Kent‘s grandfather highlights the numb feeling of so many during the pandemic era. Some light misogyny there and in “Message From Someone Going Somewhere With Someone Else Who is Going Somewhere” feels almost performative, pursuing some literary concept of edge, but the aural collage and per-song atmosphere assure Dying Comes With Age never lingers anywhere too long, and you can smell the cigarettes just by listening, so be ready with the Febreze.
The first hook on Clamor Luciferi, in post-intro leadoff “Succubus,” informs that “Your god is poison” amid a gravitationally significant wall of low-end buzzfuzz, so one would call it business as usual for Sardinian lurch-doomers 1782, who answer 2021’s From the Graveyard (review here) with another potent collection of horror-infused live resin audibles. Running eight songs and 39-minutes, one would still say the trio are in the post-Monolord camp in terms of riffs and grooves, but they’ve grown more obscure in sound over time, and the murk in so much of Clamor Luciferi is all the more palpable for the way in which the guitar solo late in “Devil’s Blood” cuts through it with such clarity. Immediacy suits them on “River of Sins” just before, but one would hardly fault “Black Rites” or the buried-the-vocals-even-deeper closer “Death Ceremony” for taking their time considering that’s kind of the point. Well, that and the tones and grit of “Demons,” anyhow. Three records in, 1782 continue and odd-year release pattern and showcase the individual take on familiar cultism and lumber that’s made their work to-date a joy to follow despite its sundry outward miseries. Clamor Luciferi keeps the thread going, which is a compliment in their case.
What Seum might be seen to lack in guitar, they more than make up in disgust. The Montreal trio — vocalist Gaspard, bassist Piotr, drummer Fred — offer a mostly-hateful 32-minute low-end mudslide on their second album, Double Double, the disaffection leaking like an oily discharge from the speakers in “Torpedo” and “Snow Bird” even before “Dog Days” lyrically takes on the heavy underground and “Dollarama” sees the emptiness in being surrounded by bullshit. For as caustic as it largely is, “Torpedo” dares a bit of dirt-caked melody in the vocals — also a backing layer in the somehow-catchy “Razorblade Rainbow” and the closing title-track has a cleaner shout — and the bass veers into funkier grooves at will, as on “Dog Days,” the winding second half of “Snow Bird,” where the bassline bookending the six-minute “Seum Noir” reminds a bit of Suplecs‘ “White Devil” in its fuzz and feels appropriate in that. Shades of Bongzilla persist, as they will with a scream like that, but like their impressive 2021 debut, Winterized (review here), Seum are able to make the big tones move when they need to, to the point that “Dollarama” brings to memory the glory days of Dopefight‘s over-the-top assault. Righteous and filthy.
Clearheaded desert-style heavy rock is the thread running through Old Mine Universe‘s debut album, This Vast Array, but with a bit of blues in “No Man’s Mesa” after the proggy flourish of guitar in “Gates of the Red Planet” and the grander, keyboardy unfolding of “My Shadow Devours” and the eight-minute, multi-movement, ends-with-cello finale “Cold Stream Guards,” it becomes clear the Canadian/Brazilian/Chilean five-piece aren’t necessarily looking to limit themselves on their first release. Marked by a strong performance from vocalist Chris Pew — whom others have likened to Ian Astbury and Glenn Danzig; I might add a likeness to some of Jim Healey‘s belting-it-out there as well, if not necessarily an influence — the songs are traditionally structured but move into a jammier feel on the loose “The Duster” and add studio details like the piano line in the second half of “Sixes and Sirens” that showcase depth as well as a solid foundation. At 10 songs/47 minutes, it’s not a minor undertaking for a band’s first record, but if you’re willing to be led the tracks are willing to lead, and with Pew‘s voice to the guitar and bass of David E. and Todd McDaniel in Toronto, the solos from Erickson Silva in Brazil and Sol Batera‘s drums in Chile, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the tracks take you different places.
Although Olso-based riffers Saint Karloff have tasked Nico Munkvold (also Jointhugger) for gigs, the band’s third album, Paleolithic War Crimes, was recorded with just the duo of guitarist/vocalist Mads Melvold (also keys and bass here) and drummer Adam Suleiman, and made in homage to original bassist Ole Sletner, who passed away in 2021. It is duly dug-in, from the lumbering Sabbath-worship repetitions of “Psychedelic Man” through the deeper purple organ boogieprog of “Blood Meridian” and quiet guitar/percussion interlude “Among Stone Columns” into “Bone Cave Escape” tilting the balance from doom to rock with a steady snare giving way to an Iommi-circa-’75 acoustic-and-keys finish to side A, leaving side B to split the longer “Nothing to Come” (7:01), which ties together elements of “Bone Cave Escape” and “Blood Meridian,” and closer “Supralux Voyager” (8:26) with the brash, uptempo “Death Don’t Have No Mercy,” which — I almost hate to say it — is a highlight, though the finale in “Supralux Voyager” isn’t to be ignored for what it adds to the band’s aesthetic in its patience and more progressive style, the steadiness of the build and a payoff that could’ve been a blowout but doesn’t need to be and so isn’t all the more resonant for that restraint. If Munkvold actually joins the band or they find someone else to complete the trio, whatever comes after this will inherently be different, but Saint Karloff go beyond 2019’s Interstellar Voodoo (review here) in ambition and realization with these seven tracks — yes, the interlude too; that’s important — and one hopes they continue to bring these lessons forward.
Astral Sleep, We Are Already Living in the End of Times
Feels like a gimme to say that a record called We Are Already Living in the End of Times is bleak, but if I note the despair laced into the extremity of songs like “The Legacies” or “Torment in Existence,” it’s in no small part to convey the fluidity with which Finland’s Astral Sleep offset their guttural death-doom, be it with melancholic folk-doom melody as on the opening title-track, or the sweetly weaving guitar lines leading into the bright-hued finish of “Invisible Flesh.” Across its 46 minutes, Astral Sleep‘s fourth LP picks up from 2020’s Astral Doom Musick (review here) and makes otherwise disparate sounds transition organically, soaring and crashing down with emotive and tonal impact on the penultimate “Time Is” before “Status of the Soul” answers back to the leadoff with nine-plus minutes of breadth and churn. These aren’t contradictions coming from Astral Sleep, and while yes, the abiding spirit of the release is doomed, that isn’t a constraint on Astral Sleep in needing to be overly performative or ‘dark’ for its own sake. There’s a dynamic at work here as the band seem to make each song an altar and the delivery itself an act of reverence.
The second single in two months from New Jersey sludge slayers Devoidov, “Amputation” backs the also-knife-themed “Stab” and brings four minutes of heavy cacophonous intensity that’s as much death metal as post-hardcore early on, and refuses to give up its doomed procession despite all the harshness surrounding. It’s not chaotic. It’s not without purpose. That mute right around 2:40, the way the bass picks up from there and the guitar comes back in, the hi-hat, that build-up into the tremolo sprint and kick-drum jabs that back the crescendo stretch stand as analogue for the structure underlying, and then like out of nowhere they toss in a ripper thrash solo at the end, in the last 15 seconds, as if to emphasize the ‘fuck everything’ they’ve layered over top. There’s punk at its root, but “Amputation” derives atmosphere from its rage as well as the spaciousness of its sound, and the violence of losing a part of oneself is not ignored. They’re making no secret of turning burn-it-all-down into a stylistic statement, and that’s part of the statement too, leaving one to wonder whether the sludge or grind will win in their songwriting over the longer term and if it needs to be a choice between one or the other at all.
Norwegian fuzz rollers Wolfnaut claim a lineage that goes back to 1997 (their debut was released in 2013 under their old moniker Wolfgang; it happens), so seems reasonable that their fourth full-length, Return of the Asteroid, should be so imbued with the characteristics of turn-of-the-century Scandinavian heavy. They might be at their most Dozerian on “Crash Yer Asteroid” or “Something More Than Night” as they meet careening riffs with vital, energetic groove, but the mellower opening with “Brother of the Badlands” gives a modern edge and as they unfurl the longer closing pair “Crates of Doom” (7:14) and “Wolfnaut’s Lament” (10:13) — the latter a full linear build that completes the record with reach and crunch alike, they are strident in their execution so as to bring individual presence amid all that thick tone crashing around early and the takeoff-and-run that happens around six minutes in. Hooky in “My Orbit is Mine” and willfully subdued in “Arrows” with the raucous “G.T.R.” following directly, Wolfnaut know what they’re doing and Return of the Asteroid benefits from that expertise in its craft, confidence, and the variety they work into the material. Not life-changing, but quality songwriting is always welcome.
If you’re gonna go, take a compass. And if your compass can be made of primo fuzz riffing, isn’t it that much more useful? If not as an actual compass? Each of the four cuts on Washington D.C. instrumentalists Fuzz Voyage‘s Heavy Compass Demo coincides with a cardinal direction, so you get “South Side Moss,” “North Star,” “East Wind” and “West Ice Mountain.” These same four tracks featured across two separate ‘sessions’-type demos in 2020, so they’ve been fairly worked on, but one can’t discount the presentation here that lets “East Wind” breathe a bit in its early going after the crunching stop of “North Star,” just an edge of heavy psychedelia having featured in the northerly piece getting fleshed out as it heads east. I might extend the perception of self-awareness on the part of the band to speculating “South Side Moss” was named for its hairy guitar and bass tone — if not, it could’ve been — and after “East Wind” stretches near seven minutes, “West Ice Mountain” closes out with a rush and instrumental hook that’s a more uptempo look than they’ve given to that point in the proceedings. Nothing to argue with unless you’re morally opposed to bands who don’t have singers — in which case, your loss — but one doesn’t get a lot of outright fuzz from the Doom Capitol, and Fuzz Voyage offer some of the densest distortion I’ve heard out of the Potomac since Borracho got their start. Even before you get to the concept or the art or whatever else, that makes them worth keeping an eye out for what they do next.
Posted in Reviews on April 14th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
If you work in an office, or you ever have, or you’ve ever spoken to someone who has or does or whatever — which is everybody, is what I’m saying — then you’ll probably have a good idea of why I cringe at saying “happy Friday” as though the end of a workweek’s slog is a holiday even with the next week peering just over the horizon beyond the next 48 hours of not-your-boss time. Nonetheless, we’re at the end of this week, hitting 50 records covered in this Quarterly Review, and while I’ll spend a decent portion of the upcoming weekend working on wrapping it up on Monday and Tuesday, I’m grateful for the ability to breathe a bit in doing that more than I have throughout this week.
I’ll say as much in closing out the week as well, but thanks for reading. As always, I hope you enjoy.
Quarterly Review #41-50:
Black Helium, UM
It’s just too cool for the planet. Earth needs to step up its game if it wants to be able handle what London’s Black Helium are dishing out across their five-song third record, UM, from the sprawl and heavy hippie rock of “Another Heaven” to the utter doom that rises to prominence in that 12-minute-ish cut and the oblivion-bound boogie, blowout, and bonfire that is 15:47 closer “The Keys to Red Skeleton’s House (Open the Door)” on the other end, never mind the u-shaped kosmiche march of “I Saw God,” the shorter, stranger, organ-led centerpiece “Dungeon Head” or the motorik “Summer of Hair” that’s so teeth-grindingly tense by the time it’s done you can feel it in your toes. These are but glimpses of the substance that comprises the 45-minute out-there-out-there-out-there stretch of UM, which by the way is also a party? And you’re invited? I think? Yeah, you can go, but the rest of these fools gotta get right if they want to hang with the likes of “I Saw God,” because Black Helium do it weird for the weirdos and the planet might be round but that duddn’t mean it’s not also square. Good thing Black Helium remembered to bring the launch codes. Fire it up. We’re outta here and off to better, trippier, meltier places. Fortunately they’re able to steer the ship as well as set its controls to the heart of the sun.
A demo recording of a single, 29-minute track that’s slated to appear on Seismic‘s debut full-length based around the works of H.G. Wells sometime later this year — yeah, it’s safe to say there’s a bit of context that goes along with understanding where the Philadelphia instrumentalist trio/live-foursome are coming from on “The Time Machine.” Nonetheless, the reach of the song itself — which moves from its hypnotic beginning at about five minutes in to a solo-topped stretch that then gives over to thud-thud-thud pounding heft before embarking on an adventure 30,000 leagues under the drone, only to rise and riff again, doom. the. fuck. on., and recede to minimalist meditation before resolving in mystique-bent distortion and lumber — is significant, and more than enough to stand on its own considering that in this apparently-demo version, its sound is grippingly full. As to what else might be in store for the above-mentioned LP or when it might land, I have no idea and won’t speculate — I’m just going by what they say about it — but I know enough at this point in my life to understand that when a band comes along and hits you with a half-hour sledgehammering to the frontal cortex as a sign of things to come, it’s going to be worth keeping track of what they do next. If you haven’t heard “The Time Machine” yet, consider this a heads up to their heads up.
Something of an awaited first long-player from Chicago’s These Beasts, who crush the Sanford Parker-produced Cares, Wills, Wants with modern edge and fluidity moving between heavier rock and sludge metal, the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Chris Roo, bassist/vocalist Todd Fabian and drummer Keith Anderson scratching a similar itch in intensity and aggression as did L.A. sludgecore pummelers -(16)- late last year, but with their own shimmer in the guitar on “Nervous Fingers,” post-Baroness melody in “Cocaine Footprints,” and tonal heft worthy of Floor on the likes of “Blind Eyes” and the more purely caustic noise rock of “Ten Dollars and Zero Effort.” “Code Name” dizzies at the outset, while “Trap Door” closes and tops out at over seven minutes, perhaps taking its title from the moment when, as it enters its final minute, the bottom drops out and the listener is eaten alive. Beautifully destructive, it’s also somehow what I wish post-hardcore had been in the 2000s, ripping and gnarling on “Southpaw” while still having space among the righteously maddening, Neurot-tribal percussion work to welcome former Pelican guitarist Dallas Thomas for a guest spot. Next wave of artsy Chicago heavy noise? Sign me up. And I don’t know if that’s Roo or Fabian with the harsh scream, but it’s a good one. You can hear the mucus trying to save the throat from itself. Vocal cords, right down the trap door.
Comprised of Cucho Segura on guitar and vocals, Sara Gdm on bass and drummer Rafa Pacheco, Ajeeb are the first band from the Canary Islands to be written about here, and their second album — issued through no fewer than 10 record labels, some of which are linked below — is the 11-song/42-minute Refractions, reminding in heavy fashion that the roots of grunge were in noisy punk all along. There’s some kick behind songs like “Far Enough” and “Mold,” and the later “Stuck for Decades” reminds of grainy festival videos where moshing was just people running into each other — whereas on “Mustard Surfing” someone might get punched in the head — but the listening experience goes deeper the further in you get, with side B offering a more dug-in take with the even-more-grunge “Slow-Vakia” building on “Oh Well” two songs earlier and leading into the low-end shovefest “Stuck for Decades,” which you think is going to let you breathe and then doesn’t, the noisier “Double Somersault” and closer/longest song “Tail Chasing” (5:13) taking the blink-and-it’s-over quiet part in “Amnesia” and building it out over a dynamic finish. The more you listen, the more you’re gonna hear, of course, but on the most basic level, the adaptable nature of their sound results in a markedly individual take. It’s the kind of thing 10 labels might want to release.
One might be tempted to think of Porto-based funeral doomers OAK as a side-project for guitarist/vocalist Guilherme Henriques, bassist Lucas Ferrand and drummer Pedro Soares, the first two of whom play currently and the latter formerly of also-on-Season–of–Mist extreme metallers Gaerea, but that does nothing to take away from the substance of the single-song full-length Disintegrate, which plies its heft in emotionality, ambience and tone alike. Throughout 44 minutes, the three-piece run an album’s worth of a gamut in terms of tempo, volume, ebbs and flows, staying grim all the while but allowing for the existence of beauty in that darkness, no less at some of the most willfully grueling moments. The rise and fall around 20 minutes in, going from double-kick-infused metallurgy to minimal standalone guitar and rebuilding toward death-growl-topped nod some six minutes later, is worth the price of admission alone, but the tortured ending, with flourish either of lead guitar or keys behind the shouted layers before moving into tremolo payoff and the quieter contemplation that post-scripts, shouldn’t be missed either. Like any offering of such extremity, Disintegrate won’t be for everyone, but it makes even the air you breathe feel heavier as it draws you into the melancholic shade it casts.
“Are we cursed?” “Is this living?” “Are we dying?” These are the questions asked after the on-rhythm sampled orgasmic moaning abates on the slow-undulating title-track of Ultra Void‘s Mother of Doom. Billed as an EP, the five-songer skirts the line of full-length consideration at 31 minutes — all the more for its molten flow as punctuated by the programmed drums — and finds the Brooklynite outfit revamped as a solo-project for Jihef Garnero, who moves from that leadoff to let the big riff do most of the talking in the stoned-metal “Sic Mundus Creatus Est” and the raw self-jam of the nine-minute “Måntår,” which holds back its vocals for later and is duly hypnotic for it. Shorter and more rocking, “Squares & Circles” maintains the weirdo vibe just the same, and at just three and a half minutes, “Special K” closes out in similar fashion with perhaps more swing in the rhythm. With those last two songs offsetting the down-the-life-drain spirit of the first three, Mother of Doom seems experimental in its construction — Garnero feeling his way into this new incarnation of the band and perhaps also recording and mixing himself in this context — but the disillusion comes through as organic, and whether we’re living or dying (spoiler: dying), that gives these songs the decisive “ugh” with which they seem to view the world around them.
Italian trio Aktopasa — also stylized as Akṭōpasa, if you’re in a fancy mood — seem to revel in the breakout moments on their second long-player and Argonauta label debut, Journey to the Pink Planet, as heard in the crescendo nod and boogie, respectively, of post-intro opener “Calima” (10:27) and closer “Foreign Lane” (10:45), the album’s two longest tracks and purposefully-placed bookends around the other songs. Elsewhere, the Venice-based almost-entirely-instrumentalists drift early in “It’s Not the Reason” — which actually features the record’s only vocals near its own end, contributed by Mattia Filippetto — and tick boxes around the tenets of heavy psychedelic microgenre, from the post-Colour Haze floating intimacy at the start of “Agarthi” to the fuzzy and fluid jam that branches out from it and the subsequent “Sirdarja” with its tabla and either sitar or guitar-as-sitar outset and warm-toned, semi-improv-sounding jazzier conclusion. From “Alif” (the intro) into “Calima” and “Lunar Eclipse,” the intent is to hypnotize and carry the listener through, and Aktopasa do so effectively, giving the chemistry between guitarist Lorenzo Barutta, bassist Silvio Tozzato and drummer Marco Sebastiano Alessi a suitably natural showcase and finding peace in the process, at least sonically-speaking, that’s then fleshed out over the remainder. A record to breathe with.
There’s heavy metal somewhere factored into the sound of Philadelphia’s Troll Teeth, but where it resides changes. The band — who here work as a four-piece for the first time — unveil their Underground Vol. 1 EP with four songs, and each one has a different take. In “Cher Ami,” the question is what would’ve happened if Queens of the Stone Age were in the NWOBHM. In “Expired,” it’s whether or not the howling of the two guitars will actually melt the chug that offsets it. It doesn’t, but it comes close to overwhelming in the process. On “Broken Toy” it’s can something be desert rock because of the drums alone, and in the six-minute closer “Garden of Pillars” it’s Alice in Chains with a (more) doomly reimagining and greater melodic reach in vocals as compared to the other three songs, but filled out with a metallic shred that I guess is a luxury of having two guitars on a record when you haven’t done so before. Blink and you’ll miss its 17-minute runtime, but Troll Teeth have four LPs out through Electric Talon, including 2022’s Hanged, Drawn, & Quartered, so there’s plenty more to dig into should you be so inclined. Still, if the idea behind Underground Vol. 1 was to scope out whether the band works as constructed here, the concept is proven. Yes, it works. Now go write more songs.
Lead track “Jukai” hasn’t exploded yet before Finis Hominis‘ Sordidum Est EP has unveiled the caustic nature of its bite in scathing feedback, and what ensues from there gives little letup in the oppressive, extreme sludge brutality, which makes even the minute-long “Cavum Nigrum” sample-topped drone interlude claustrophobic, never mind the assault that takes place — fast first, then slow, then crying, then slow, then dead — on nine-minute capper “Lorem Ipsum.” The bass hum that begins centerpiece “Improportionatus” is a thread throughout that 7:58 piece, the foundation on which the rest of the song resides, the indecipherable-even-if-they-were-in-English growls and throat-tearing shouts perfectly suited to the heft of the nastiness surrounding. “Jukai” has some swing in the middle but hearing it is still like trying to inhale concrete, and “Sinne Floribus” is even meaner and rawer, the Brazilian trio resolving in a devastating and noise-caked, visceral regardless of pace or crash, united in its alienated feel and aural punishment. And it’s their first EP! Jesus. Unless they’re actually as unhinged as they at times sound — possible, but difficult — I wouldn’t at all expect it to be their last. A band like this doesn’t happen unless the people behind it feel like it needs to, and most likely it does.
With its title maybe referring to the communion among players and the music they’re making in the moment of its own heavy psych jams, Losing Time Finding Space is the second studio full-length from Belfast instrumentalist unit Space Shepherds. The improvised-sounding troupe seem to have a lineup no less fluid than the material they unfurl, but the keyboard in “Ending the Beginning (Pt. 1)” gives a cinematic ambience to the midsection, and the fact that they even included an intro and interlude — both under two minutes long — next to tracks the shortest of which is 12:57 shows a sense of humor and personality to go along with all that out-there cosmic exploratory seeking. Together comprising a title-track, “Losing Time…” (17:34) and “…Finding Space” (13:27) are unsurprisingly an album unto themselves, and being split like “Ending the Beginning” speaks perhaps of a 2LP edition to come, or at very least is emblematic of the mindset with which they’re approaching their work. That is to say, as they move forward with these kinds of mellow-lysergic jams, they’re not unmindful either of the listener’s involvement in the experience or the prospect of realizing them in the physical as well as digital realms. For now, an hour’s worth of longform psychedelic immersion will do nicely, thank you very much.
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 23rd, 2022 by JJ Koczan
I appreciate and believe the part where Christian Peters makes it plain below that his ‘new band’ Fuzz Sagrado — in fact a solo-project up to this point — is not the same as his old one, Samsara Blues Experiment. Not only does that kind of thing serve well to adjust audience expectations and open minds that might otherwise wonder when “Double Freedom” is gonna start, but it reinforces the notion that even as he makes his way back to playing band-style rock music after a few years of synthier solo explorations, he knows he’s going for something different and new.
If letting it be what it is is part of the mission statement of Fuzz Sagrado on the whole, that’s only going to make the project stronger as Peters brings it past this year’s full-length debut, A New Dimension (review here), and toward the impending Luz e Sombra, so much the better. One has come to expect the unexpected from Peters — a statement intended as a compliment — and with Fuzz Sagrado continuing to develop, that’s truer in some ways than it’s ever been.
From the socials:
FUZZ SAGRADO- New Album announcement
Dear friends and fans, I would like to announce the release of my second full-length album with Fuzz Sagrado for January 16 next year! The album will be named “Luz e Sombra” (Light and Shadow), with nine new tracks in a total length of about 42 minutes. I will start as usual with digital releases on all platforms, remember: Your support via bandcamp is always most appreciated! But later, hopefully, there’ll also be physical versions.
Although again I am bit in a mix of being excited and “terrified” ;) I can say that I am quite confident that with this new album I have improved in many ways. Again I took care of songwriting, recording, mixing and mastering – all by myself. This time I am pretty sure that the sound is pretty good ;) and most probably in one league with what I have released with former bands, if not better – or at least: I am happier with this than ever before, which may be quite a bold statement.
I can also already say that the songs in general will be a bit heavier, with more distorted guitars than on the previous album – and where I am almost certain too is that my vocals again have improved! I have put quite a big emphasis on songwriting here, and vocals are often up front. A good third of the songs will be longer, in about 6-8 minutes, the others are shorter, sort of grungy songs (verse-chorus-verse) and then there are also two instrumentals which may or may not surprise with elements from classical music!
The album in general has influences from 60s and 70s symphonic psychedelic prog in the vein of Pink Floyd or The Moody Blues, not so much classical Hard Rock as more a kind of 90s vibe, influenced from the grunge era or British bands like The Verve, with the rather obvious Stoner-touch, and like the last album also suave 80s vibes that may remind of The Sisters Of Mercy or The Comsat Angels – although no one has to be afraid, the synthesizers actually went a bit further into the background.
What you won’t find though is a lot of guitar noodling, sorry but this is just not what I am up to these days. For those who are in doubt, I have to add one thing: Fuzz Sagrado is not Samsara Blues Experiment, and I am not trying to recreate anything from the past.
Here’s the playlist of the album:
01. There’s No Escape (6:05) 02. Wake Them Up (4:12) 03. Luz e Sombra (7:56) 04. One Endless Summer (3:19) 05. Leaving Samsara (7:10) 06. Memories Of A Future Passed (3:47) 07. Love In Progress (3:22) 08. Learning To Live, And Live Again (3:56) 09. Broken Earth (3:44)
Thank you to all my supporters, fans and friends. And to those who think all my life here is sunshine, this is just half the truth. Actually most of the material on this album could have been completed by May or June already but it took quite a while for me to get adjusted with some things, and I may have had a little problem to stay focused. Gladly things in general have come back to a bit of “normality” – for most of us (?) – and I had to tell myself that there’s no rush for things, and even if some people may see it like that, there is no competition in music and art.
2022 has been quite a good year for rock music, and I have experienced quite a comeback myself, checking out lots of new and older rock releases with a lot of curiosity. So, in case you’re still reading at this point, happy holidays to you and your families and yeah, talk soon … Thank you, and muito obrigado!
Pic by my lovely Lorrayne, thank you for yesterday and every day that we are “learning to live, … and live again” – te amo ta!
Posted in Reviews on September 26th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Welcome back to the Fall 2022 Quarterly Review. It’s not quite the same as the Mountain of Madness, but there are definitely days where it feels like they’re pretty closely related. Just the same, we, you and I, persist through like digging a tunnel sans dynamite, and I hope you had a great and safe weekend (also sans dynamite) and that you find something in this batch of releases that you truly enjoy. Not really much point to the thing otherwise, I guess, though it does tend to clear some folders off the desktop. Like, 100 of them in this case. That in itself isn’t nothing.
Time’s a wastin’. Let’s roll.
Quarterly Review #51-60:
Boris, Heavy Rocks
One can’t help but wonder if Boris aren’t making some kind of comment on the franchise-ification of what sometimes feels like every damn thing by releasing a third Heavy Rocks album, as though perhaps it’s become their brand label for this particular kind of raucousness, much as their logo in capital letters or lowercase used to let you know what kind of noise you were getting. Either way, in 10 tracks and 41 minutes that mostly leave scorch marks when they’re done — they space out a bit on “Question 1” but elsewhere in the song pull from black metal and layer in lead guitar triumph — and along the way give plenty more thick toned, sometimes-sax-inclusive on-brand chicanery to dive into. “She is Burning,” “Cramper” and “My Name is Blank” are rippers before the willfully noisy relative slowdown “Blah Blah Blah,” and Japanese heavy institution are at their most Melvinsian with the experiment “Nosferatou,” ahead of the party metal “Ruins” and semi-industrial blowout “Ghostly Imagination,” the would-be-airy-were-it-not-crushing “Chained” and the concluding “(Not) Last Song,” which feeds the central query above in asking if there’s another sequel coming, piano, feedback, and finally, vocals ending what’s been colloquially dubbed Heavy Rocks (2022) with an end-credits scene like something truly Marvelized. Could be worse if that’s the way it’s going. People tend to treat each Boris album as a landmark. I’m not sure this one is, but sometimes that’s part of what happens with sequels too.
Along with the depth of tone and general breadth of the mix, one of the aspects most enjoyable about Mother Bear‘s debut album, Zamonian Occultism, is how it seems to refuse to commit to one side or the other. They call themselves doom and maybe they are in movements here like the title-track, but the mostly-instrumental six-track/41-minute long-player — which opens and closes with lyrics and has “Sultan Abu” in the middle for a kind of human-voice trailmarker along the way — draws more from heavy psychedelia and languid groove on “Anagrom Ataf,” and if “Blue Bears and Silver Spliffs” isn’t stoner riffed, nothing ever has been. At the same time, the penultimate title-track slows way down, pulls the curtains closed, and offers a more massive nod, and the 10-minute closer “The Wizaaard” (just when you thought there were no more ways to spell it) answers that sense of foreboding in its own declining groove and echo-laced verses, but puts the fuzz at the forefront of the mix, letting the listener decide ultimately where they’re at. Tell you where I am at least: On board. Guitarist/vocalist Jonas Wenz, bassist Kevin Krenczer and drummer Florian Grass lock in hypnotic groove early and use it to tie together almost everything they do here, and while they’re obviously schooled in the styles they’re touching on, they present with an individual intent and leave room to grow. Will look forward to more.
After being kicked out of black metallers Absu for coming out as trans, Melissa Moore founded Sonja in Philadelphia with Grzesiek Czapla on drums and Ben Brand on bass, digging into a ‘true metal’ aesthetic with ferocity enough that Loud Arriver is probably the best thing they could’ve called their first record. Issued through Cruz Del Sur — so you know their ’80s-ism is class — the 37-minute eight-tracker vibes nighttime and draws on Moore‘s experience thematically, or so the narrative has it (I haven’t seen a lyric sheet), with energetic shove in “Nylon Nights” and “Daughter of the Morning Star,” growing duly melancholy in “Wanting Me Dead” before finding its victorious moment in the closing title-track. Cuts like “Pink Fog,” “Fuck, Then Die” and opener “When the Candle Burns Low…” feel specifically born of a blend of 1979-ish NWOBHM, but there’s a current of rock and roll here as well in the penultimate “Moans From the Chapel,” a sub-three-minute shove that’s classic in theme as much as riff and the most concise but by no means the only epic here. Hard not to read in catharsis on the part of Moore given how the band reportedly came about, but Loud Arriver serves notice one way or the other of a significant presence in the underground’s new heavy metal surge. Sonja have no time to waste. There are asses to kick.
Seven-minute opener ends in a War of the Worlds-style radio announcement of an alien invasion underway after the initial fuzzed rollout of the song fades, and between that and the subsequent interlude “Funeral March,” Reverend Mother‘s intent on Damned Blessing seems to be to throw off expectation. The Brooklynite outfit led by guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Jackie Green (also violin) find even footing on rockers like “Locomotive” or the driving-until-it-hits-that-slowdown-wall-and-hey-cool-layering “Reverend Mother,” and the strings on the instrumental “L.V.B.,” which boasts a cello guest spot by High Priestess Nighthawk of Heavy Temple, who also returns on the closing Britney Spears cover “Toxic,” a riffed-up bent that demonstrates once again the universal applicability of pop as Reverend Mother tuck it away after the eight-minute “The Masochist Tie,” a sneering roll and chugger that finds the trio of Green, bassist Matt Cincotta and drummer Gabe Katz wholly dug into heavy rock tropes while nonetheless sounding refreshing in their craft. That song and “Shame” before it encapsulate the veer-into-doom-ness of Reverend Mother‘s hard-deliver’d fuzz, but Damned Blessing comes across like the beginning of a new exploration of style as only a next-generation-up take can and heralds change to come. I would not expect their second record to sound the same, but it will be one to watch for. So is this.
The pedigree here is notable as Umbilicus features founding Cannibal Corpse drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz and guitarist/engineer Taylor Nordberg (also visuals), who’s played with Deicide, The Absence and a host of others, but with the soar-prone vocals of Brian Stephenson out front and the warm tonality of bassist Vernon Blake, Umbilicus‘ 10-song/45-minute first full-length, Path of 1000 Suns is a willful deep-dive into modernly-produced-and-presented ’70s-style heavy rock. Largely straightforward in structure, there’s room for proto-metallurgy on “Gates of Neptune” after the swinging “Umbilicus,” and the later melodic highlight “My Own Tide” throws a pure stoner riff into its second half, while the concluding “Gathering at the Kuiper Belt” hints at more progressive underpinnings, it still struts and the swing there is no less defining than in the solo section of “Stump Sponge” back on side A. Hooks abound, and I suppose in some of the drum fills, if you know what you’re listening for, you can hear shades of more extreme aural ideologies, but the prevailing spirit is born of an obvious love of classic heavy rock and roll, and Umbilicus play it with due heart and swagger. Not revolutionary, and actively not trying to be, but definitely the good time it promises.
Not as frenetic as some out there of a similar technically-proficient ilk, Lawrence, Kansas, double-guitar instrumental four-piece After Nations feel as much jazz on “Féin” or “Cae” as they do progressive metal, djent, experimental, or any other tag with which one might want to saddle the resoundingly complex Buddhism-based concept album, The Endless Mountain — the Bandcamp page for which features something of a recommended reading list as well as background on the themes reportedly being explored in the material — which is fluid in composition and finds each of its seven more substantial inclusions accompanied by a transitional interlude that might be a drone, near-silence, a foreboding line of keys, whathaveyou. The later “Širdis” — penultimate to the suitably enlightened “Jūra,” if one doesn’t count the interlude between (not saying you shouldn’t) — is more of a direct linear build, but the 40-minute entirety of The Endless Mountain feels like a steep cerebral climb. Not everyone is going to be up for making it, frankly, but in “}}}” and its punctuationally-named companions there’s some respite from the head-spinning turns that surround, and that furthers both the dynamic at play overall and the accessibility of the songs. Whatever else it might be, it’s immaculately produced and every single second, from “Mons” and “Aon” to “))” and “(),” feels purposeful.
With the over-the-top Danzig-ian vocals coming through high in the mix, the drums sounding intentionally blown out and the fuzz of bass and guitar arriving in tidal riffs, Denmark’s Holy Dragon for sure seem to be shooting for memorability on their second album, Mordjylland. “Hell and Gold” pulls back somewhat from the in-your-face immediacy of opener “Bong” — and yet it’s faster; go figure — and the especially brash “War” is likewise timely and dug in. Centerpiece “Nightwatch” feels especially yarling with its more open riff and far-back echoing drums — those drums are heavy in tone in a way most are not, and it is appreciated — and gives over to the Judas Priestly riff of “Dunder,” which sounds like it’s being swallowed by the bass even as the concluding solo slices through. They cap with “Egypt” in classic-metal, minor-key-sounds-Middle-Eastern fashion, but they’re never far from the burly heft with which they started, and even the mellower finish of “Travel to Kill” feels drawn from it. The album’s title is a play on ‘Nordjylland’ — the region of Denmark where they’re from — and if they’re saying it’s dead, then their efforts to shake it back to life are palpable in these seven songs, even if the end front-to-back result of the album is going to be hit or miss with most listeners. Still, they are markedly individual, and the fact that you could pick them out of the crowd of Europe’s e’er-packed heavy underground is admirable in itself.
Lincoln, Nebraska, trio Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships are right there. Right on the edge. You can hear it in the way “Beg Your Pardon” unfolds its lumbering tonality, riff-riding vocals and fervency of groove at the outset of their second album, Consensus Trance. They’re figuring it out. And they’re working quickly. Their first record, 2021’s TTBS, and the subsequent Rosalee EP (review here) were strong signals of intention on the part of guitarist/vocalist Jeremy Warner, bassist Karlin Warner and drummer Justin Kamal, and there is realization to be had throughout Consensus Trance in the noisy lead of “Mystical Consumer,” the quiet instrumental “Distalgia for Infinity” and the mostly-huge-chugged 11-minute highlight “Weeping Beast” to which it leads. But they’re also still developing their craft, as opener “Beg Your Pardon” demonstrates amid one of the record’s most vibrant hooks, and exploring spaciousness like that in the back half of the penultimate “Silo,” and the sense that emerges from that kind of reach and the YOB-ish ending of capper “I.H.” is that there’s more story to be told as to what Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships have to offer in style and substance. So much the better since Consensus Trance has such superlative heft at its foundation.
Kind of funny to think of Menticide as a debut LP from Deer Creek, who’ve been around for 20 years — one fondly recalls their mid-aughts splits with Church of Misery and Raw Radar War — but one might consider that emblematic of the punk underpinning the sludgy heavy roll of “(It Had Neither Fins Nor Wings) Nor Did it Writhe,” along with the attitude of fuckall that joins hands with resoundingly dense tonality to create the atmosphere of the five originals and the cover medley closer “The Working Man is a Dead Pig,” which draws on Rush, Bauhaus and Black Sabbath classics as a sort of partially explanatory appendix to the tracks preceding. Of those, the impression left is duly craterous, and Deer Creek, with Paul Vismara‘s mostly-clean vocals riding a succession of his own monolithic riffs, a bit of march thrown into “The Utter Absence of Hope” amid the breath of tone from his and Conan Hultgren‘s guitars and Stephanie Hopper‘s bass atop the drumming of Marc Brooks. One is somewhat curious as to what drives a band after two full-length-less decades to make a definitive first album — at least beyond “hey a lot of things have changed in the last couple years” anyhow — but the results here are inarguable in their weight and the spaces they create and fill, with disaffection and onward and outward-looking angst as much as volume. That is to say, as much as Menticide nods, it’s more unsettling the more attention you actually pay to what’s going on. But if you wanted to space out instead, I doubt they’d hold it any more against you than was going to happen anyway. Band who owes nothing to anyone overdelivers. There.
Following the mid-’90s C.O.C. tone and semi-Electric Wizard shouts of “Black Lotus Trance,” “Detroit Demons” calls out Stooges references while burl-riffing around Pantera‘s “I’m Broken,” and “Loose” manifests sleaze to coincide with the exploitation of the Never Sleep at Night EP’s cover art. All of this results in zero-doubt assurance that the Brazilian trio have their bona fides in place when it comes to dudely riffs and an at least partially metal approach; stylistically-speaking, it’s like metal dudes got too drunk to remember what they were angry at and decided to have a party instead. I don’t have much encouraging to say at this juncture about the use of vintage porn as a likely cheap cover option, but no one seems to give a shit about moving past that kind of misogyny, and I guess as regards gender-based discrimination and playing to the male gaze and so on, it’s small stakes. I bet they get signed off the EP anyway, so what’s the point? The point I guess is that the broad universe of those who’d build altars to riffs, Riffcoven are at very least up front with what they’re about and who their target audience is.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on September 16th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
It’s not an easy record. And you should know that the version above isn’t the whole thing. We Here Now‘s The Chikipunk Years (discussed here), issued in 2019 through Elektrohasch Schallplatten and Homemade Gifts Music runs 10 tracks on its physical editions; LP, CD, tape. The digital version, which I bought from Bandcamp ahead of writing this with Obelisk merch money — thank you for your support — has seven tracks, leaving out “Angelus Novus,” “Parambulation” and “Clearings.” The stream from the same page is only four songs, and I’m pretty sure that’s the version on YouTube you’ll find that only runs 10 minutes as opposed to the complete album’s 32 minutes. It’s a problem I solved by going upstairs and getting the CD, but if you listen above, know you’re getting a sampler rather than the entirety. ‘Friday Full-Length’ indeed.
The Chikipunk Years came up this week as Elektrohasch — the long-running imprint helmed by Colour Haze guitarist/vocalist Stefan Koglek — announced it was basically shutting down for everything other than that band’s own releases and reissues of past work. A genuine bummer, but well within Koglek‘s rights. What was We Here Now‘s debut and seems like it probably won’t get a follow-up anytime soon (I wouldn’t mind being wrong) was mentioned specifically as an example of an outing the label thought was great that didn’t meet with customers’ desires: “With my last new artists – We Here Now, Public Animal, Carpet, Saturnia… – my taste apparently didn‘t meet yours. That especially such a great, stylistically independent album like We Here Now, The Chikipunk Years — a group apart from the usual European/North American origin — was sold just 60 times made me think.”
That number 60 made me think too, honestly, and it seemed like a fitting occasion to revisit The Chikipunk Years and find out what happened. In terms of sales, well, the band operated under the group moniker of Un Chiquitino, which is another word for ‘Chikipunk,’ which itself is slang for Latin and South American kids trying to sell gum to rich gringo tourists. A pretty obscure reference, maybe, and the gap-toothed smiling kid on the front cover is adorable, but god damn teeth are gross. There’s that little flap of the top gums sticking out there and even looking at it makes my skin crawl. Nothing against the kid, of course, just my own hangup, but still. I feel like I’m about to fall into that space and be lost forever.
Even if that’s not a barrier to entry, the music itself across the 10 tracks is wildly dense. Also just wild. And it’s easy to get the appeal that hooked Koglek on it to start with, since the songs take fuzz and psychedelic rocks and blends it with West African and South American rhythms, dub sampling and cumbia-style psych, classic rock — “Planes of Inmanence” near the record’s middle sounds like if The Beatles made Revolver in the Andes; not a complaint — and more besides. You could sit and pick apart the snare shuffle alone in post-intro leadoff “Gathering and Separation” for a month, let alone the intended-to-move percussion that surrounds, and one song later, “Angelus Novus” arrives a completely drumless stretch of mellow guitar and keys.
We Here Now was an almost maddeningly inventive outfit. Comprised of Pedro “Sozinho” Salvador from Brazil’s Necro, Queen Elephantine‘s Indrayudh Shome who I believe was operating out of the Northeast US at the time (don’t quote me on that; dude gets around), and Peruvian drummer Panchito Fr. Sofista, whose mere association with Montibus Communitas makes him the stuff of legend in my mind, they were perhaps ahead of their time in functioning remotely, but in the reality of bands promoting their own work on social media, ‘It’s been two weeks since we released this album what’s your favorite song?’ etc.-style engagement, there was none of that. Not every act does that, and not every act needs to or wants to pander, which I can understand, but some definitely do, and I doubt it would happen if it didn’t at least push some sales.
The record is also a lot of fun, mind you. That sample about perfection in “Gathering and Separation” right before the solo is humorous and perfectly timed. The insistent fuzz shuffle of “Frontiers and Determinations” on side B, the dizzying for-a-walkness of the penultimate “Parambulation” and the subsequent, also-instrumental closer “Clearings” are both impressive in the doing on the part of the band and engaging in their intricacy. The Chikipunk Years challenges the listener to keep up with it, but makes that process a joy from the 95-second “Sojourns” onward. It is entirely cohesive within itself and yet a song like “Dukkha” knows no real microgenre boundaries, drawing from across a multifaceted sonic experientialism and creating something new from it.
Isn’t that the ideal? So, 60 copies? Maybe some records are destined to be cult favorites, and for being clean in its tone and delivery, clear in its exploratory purpose and progressive and thoughtful in its construction, The Chikipunk Years is nonetheless a head-spinner, and that doesn’t necessarily make it more accessible to a mass listenership. It’s also worth noting that in 2019, the similarly-named Los Angeles-based troupe Here Lies Man had released two albums, and worked in a more grounded aesthetic pursuing Afrobeat and heavy vibes in a way that some of We Here Now‘s material also seemed to do, with more promotion and touring behind them. So maybe We Here Now just kind of got lost in the shuffle.
The makings of a future classic? The kind of album that’ll be reissued in another 20 years and leave its audience scratching its collective head as to why it wasn’t huge at the time? Maybe. Who knows? It may go down as the last non-Colour Haze record on Elektrohasch — I don’t know that either, mind you — and that alone is a legacy worthy of the kind of trivia contest that happens basically nowhere, but given that The Chikipunk Years is so much in its own sphere aesthetically and so dug into its intent, it’s a process of meeting the band where they are rather than the kind of situation where they come to you. That’s the challenge. The thing that apparently remains undiscovered about We Here Now‘s lone offering to-date is how much it’s completely worth that effort.
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It’s 5:23AM. I just put up the first post of the day, which this will follow in a few hours, and the kid’s been down here since 4:55AM. The Patient Mrs. has been away since Wednesday at a conference and will be back I think tomorrow night after he goes to bed. He misses her and was expressing it yesterday after school by being a complete asshole. Can’t imagine where he possibly ever learned to do that.
Ups and downs, then. Big fucking change.
I found out this week that Creem Magazine is cutting out digital columns as part of a ‘restructuring’ happening apparently across the board. That’s a bit of money I’ll miss. Since the piece I turned in about King Buffalo didn’t make it into the print issue either, I’m kind of assuming that means my association with whatever Creem becomes is over. Nice while it lasted, but I’ve been a part of magazine rollouts and refreshes before and that’s how it goes. Everybody’s very excited at the start and then the reality becomes something different. I’m sure the t-shirts are selling well though. Anyway, I’ve got one more Creem column and that’s it. Back to my corner of the internet I go, grateful for the opportunity I had and probably blew.
I guess that sucks. I could go on but frankly see no point in it. All the best to Creem and sincere thanks to Fred Pessaro for bringing me on board.
Still got the Gimme show though. That’s 5PM Eastern today: http://gimmemetal.com. Thanks if you listen.
Burnt out, tired of bullshit. So perfect time for a Quarterly Review, right? That starts next week. 100 records again. Could easily be 150, but won’t be.
Alright, that’s my last plug. I’ll actually get started on that QR today and over the weekend in the maybe-an-hour-if-I’m-lucky that wakong up at 4AM buys me before the kid is awake, so will be around. I hope you have a great and safe weekend.
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 12th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Having just seen this email come in about 10 minutes ago as a Bandcamp notification, I can’t help but smile as Brazil-based solo artist Christian Peters — the lone party responsible for the fullness of sound that’s wrought in Fuzz Sagrado, also formerly guitarist/vocalist in Samsara Blues Experiment when he lived in Berlin — requests forgiveness for a “slightly chaotic release policy.” It is easy to appreciate such a thing in the spirit of, “hey, sometimes music just happens, so here’s some.” I like that.
The first two songs are remasters from Fuzz Sagrado‘s 2022 album, A New Dimension (review here), which both sound pretty fantastic, actually. You might say they have new dimension. Wonder if Peters is kicking around updating the master for the whole record for a subsequent pressing. The following three tracks filling out the name-your-price five-songer were included on the CD edition of A New Dimension, recorded over a period of two years, the last of them rawer in its fuzz and construction, though it’s notable that it features vocals, which Fuzz Sagrado‘s first public outing, 2021’s self-titled (review here), pointedly pulled away from.
It was also recorded in Berlin, which distinguishes it from the rest of the project’s output to-date, but The Mushroom Park / In Her Garden is something of a hodge-podge and you haven’t checked out A New Dimension yet, maybe hit that up first. But because you’re cooler than I am and I assume you’ve already got that, I thought this would be one to share. Again, it’s name-your-price, so the barrier to entry is what you make it.
From Bandcamp:
Fuzz Sagrado – The Mushroom Park / In Her Garden
Includes the three bonus titles from the “A New Dimension” CD-version, as well as two slightly remastered versions of “The Mushroom Park” and “In Her Garden”. Your support will be appreciated. Please forgive my slightly chaotic release policy.
Tracklisting: 1. The Mushroom Park* 03:42 2. In Her Garden* 04:30 3. Arapongas 05:21 4. Celestial Harbour 03:52 5. A New Dimension (early demo) 03:10
Tracks 1,2,4 at Studio Centro, Passos MG, Brasil 2021. Track 3 at Studio Arapongas, Passos MG, Brasil 2020. Track 5 recorded in Berlin Weissensee, 2019.
All music created, played and recorded by Christian Peters.
