Posted in Whathaveyou on September 5th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Alive IV is a new live EP from New York heavy hardcore punks End of Hope, and it follows behind the March release of their second studio full-length, Pushback is Strong (review here), capturing a gig in Connecticut around the album release. And hey, I’ve been there. I was in one of those bands, which, like everybody who ever plays music at some point or another, does so in front of a largely vacant room. That kind of build up and disappointment is an essential human experience, and if you’re not already humble when you get there that night, you will be by the time you leave. Call it character building on a band level.
Thus seems to be the point of view for the first single from Alive IV, “Nobody Cares About Your Band,” which is streaming now. Band armed with a new record, headed north to celebrate, big open space in front of the stage. That’s life. The point is you fucking do the thing anyhow, because people not knowing you’re right doesn’t make you wrong, and external validation is a luxury in underground anything anyhow. Hell yeah you record that set and put it out.
Helps that the thing sounds good too, of course. You can hear the single and see a photo of the show from whence it comes at the bottom of this post. With that, I’ll let the band tell their own story, which they do in the text below that was sent down the PR wire.
Dig:
END OF HOPE – “NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR BAND”
End of Hope — featuring members of Kraut, Netherlands, Clothesline, and Eternal Black — release the first single from their forthcoming live EP, Alive IV, on all streaming services
End of Hope — comprised of members from several well-known New York City acts including Kraut, Netherlands, Clothesline, and Eternal Black — have released “Nobody Cares About Your Band” as the first single from their forthcoming live EP, Alive IV. “Nobody Cares About Your Band” is now available for streaming on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Bandcamp and other streaming services. Alive IV is currently available for pre-order via their Bandcamp page (endofhope.bandcamp.com) and other digital outlets. The EP releases on Friday, September 15, 2023 on all streaming services.
THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH (STRAIGHT FROM END OF HOPE)
Alive IV was recorded live at Strange Brew in Norwich, CT on Saturday, March 25th, 2023 while supporting our latest full length album, Pushback is Strong.
The show was captured on audio by the mighty Andy Stackpole who has done live sound for everyone from the Bad Brains to Snoop Dogg & Whiz Khalifa. Tony Reed of Mos Generator did a stellar job of mixing and mastering the recordings. The end result captures the rawness and attack of our live shows. The intended effect is that you feel as if you are there, getting pummeled by the amps and drums. Andy and Tony helped us hit that mark.
The tracks are a mix of old and new. A few band favorites from Pushback is Strong, as well as some of the songs from Cease & Destroy that have become live staples.
The title and cover art for Alive IV is our tribute to one of the greatest live albums of all time, Alive II by KISS.
We chose “Nobody Cares About Your Band” as the first single because everyone who has ever played in a band knows the deal. “Stage lights are low, do what you can, Ten punks in the club, including the sound man… .” No matter the circumstances, you gotta get up there, and give it your all.
The cover art of the “Nobody Cares About Your Band” single shows us playing in front of a capacity crowd of zero.
~~
End of Hope consists of Davey Gunner of New York Hardcore legends Kraut on vocals, Dave Richman of Netherlands, Witch Taint, and St. Bastard on drums, Davis Schlachter of Brooklyn’s heavy blues purveyors Clothesline and Reign of Zaius on bass, and Ken Wohlrob of Brooklyn doom heavyweights Eternal Black on guitar.
Alive IV track listing: 1. Pushback is Strong 2. Nobody Cares About Your Band 3. Fill the Void 4. Curtain Call 5. Last Night 6. Guilt Trip 7. Arc of Movement
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 25th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Ahead of their appearance at Desertfest NYC this September, Brooklyn-native trad metal/doom rock five-piece Castle Rat will play a string of five West Coast shows leading up to their support slot for Cirith Ungol in Denver, which is certainly a fitting line for their CV at this point in their career. Surely adding to the hype and momentum the fantasy-themed outfit has amassed since holding forth their debut single “Feed the Dream” (review here) last Fall is the fact that the band are now signed to King Volume Records to release their first full-length next year. Onto the ‘most anticipated’ list it goes.
King Volume is a solid fit. It was pretty assured that Castle Rat would end up on some imprint or other. I had them pegged for Cruz Del Sur or Shadow Kingdom, but with King Volume, their willful flippancy of genre rules will be given the respect it deserves, and they’re now labelmates to Lord Mountain, with whom they should tour more or less immediately. Or at very least after Desertfest. You get the idea. Potential out the proverbial wazoo. Their second single “Dagger Dragger” streams at the bottom of this post.
The announcement came down the PR wire as follows:
CASTLE RAT – King Volume Records
The KING VOLUME KULT grows with the addition of the mighty CASTLE RAT! The Brooklyn-based fantasy doom rockers dwell in a REALM of their own. Wielding the sonic axe, CASTLE RAT explores new depths of the dungeons first unlocked by their rock-god predecessors! Sabbath, Cirith Ungol, Manilla Road all contributed ingredients to their audio alchemy. Having crafted a uniquely heavy and accessible sound, the band elevates the experience with an immersive stage performance. Prepare for the mystery, the power, and the plague as CASTLE RAT rips a heart shaped hole into your music love life!
This year CASTLE RAT will be making a few high profile appearances including opening for Cirith Ungol Aug. 18th at The Gothic Theater and performing at Desertfest NYC, Sept. 15th. CASTLE RAT will be releasing their debut album with King Volume in 2024. Research medieval disease and witchcraft NOW so you will be prepared when CASTLE RAT is unleashed upon the world!
8/14 Los Angeles, CA Resident LA @residentdtla: @nutt.porfa @ughhband
8/15 Tempe, AZ Yucca Tap Room @yuccataproom: @uvcband + special guests
8/16 Albuquerque, NM Long Hair Records @longhairrecords: Grifter @spectral_decay_666 @nomestomper
8/17 Santa Fe, NM Tumbleroot Distillery @tumblerootsf: @savagewizdomofficial @iwatchyousleepband
8/18 Denver, CO Gothic Theater @gothictheatre: @cirithungolband @nightdemonmetal @chambermage
Photos by @bmillz_nyc
Short Bio: Castle Rat is a fantasy doom metal band hailing from Brooklyn, NY, led by The Rat Queen (guitar/vocals). On her mission to expand and defend ‘The Realm’ from those who seek to destroy it, The Rat Queen is joined by The Count (lead guitar), The Plague Doctor (bass), and The Druid (drums). Together they face the relentless wrath of their arch nemesis: Death Herself —The Rat Reaperess. The Realm of Castle Rat exists for those who crave swords & sorcery; stoner & doom; Frazetta & Sabbath; battle-babes & beasts.
That’s it. End of the Summer 2023 Quarterly Review and the last round of this kind of thing until, I don’t know, sometime here or there in late September or early October. I feel like I say this every time out — and I readily acknowledge the possibility that I do; I’ve been doing this for a while, and there’s only so much shit to say — but it is my sincere hope you found something in this round of 70 records that hits with you. I did, a couple times over at least. One of the reasons I look forward to the Quarterly Review, apart from clearing off album-promo folders from my desktop, is that my end-of-year lists always look different coming out of one than they did going in. This time is no different.
But, you know, if you didn’t get there this time, that’s okay too. There’s always the next one and one of the fortunate things about living in a time with such an onslaught of recorded music is that there’s always something new to check out. The Quarterly Review is over for a couple months, yeah, but new music happens every day. Every day is another chance to find your new favorite album, band, video, whatever. Enjoy that.
Quarterly Review #61-70:
Monolord, It’s All the Same
After nearly a decade of hard, album-cycle-driven international touring and standing at the forefront in helping to steer a generational wave of lumbering riffage, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to think Gothenburg, Sweden’s Monolord might feel stuck, and “Glaive (It’s All the Same)” seems to acknowledge that. Stylistically, though the lead and partial title-track on the roller trio’s new EP, It’s All the Same, is itself a way forward. It is more spacious than crushing, and they fill the single out with guitarist Thomas V. Jäger‘s sorrowful vocal delivery and memorable early lead lines, a steady, organic rhythm from drummer/engineer Esben Willems and bassist Mika Häkki — worth noting that all three have either released solo albums or otherwise explored solo work in the last two years — and Mellotron that adds a classically progressive flair and lets the guitar focus on mood rather than stomp, though there’s still plenty of that in “Glaive (It’s All the Same)” and is more the focus of “The Only Road,” so Monolord aren’t necessarily making radical changes from where they were on 2021’s Your Time to Shine (review here), but as there has been all along, there’s steady growth in balance with the physicality of tone one has come to anticipate from them. After scaling back on road time, It’s All the Same feels reassuring even as it pushes successfully the boundaries of their signature sound.
Raging not at all unthoughtfully for most of its concise-feeling but satisfying 38 minutes, Somnuri‘s third album and MNRK Heavy label debut, the nine-song Desiderium, is a tour de force through metallic strengths. Informed by the likes of Death, (their now-labelmates) High on Fire, Killswitch Engage, Gojira (at whose studio they recorded), thick-toned and swapping between harsh shouts, screams and clean-sung choruses — and yes, that’s just in the first three minutes of opener “Death is the Beginning” — the Brooklynite trio of guitarist/vocalist Justin Sherrell, bassist Mike G. and drummer Phil SanGiacomo brazenly careen and crash through styles, be it the lumbering and impatiently angular doom “Paramnesia,” the rousing sprint “What a Way to Go,” the raw, vocals-rightly-forward and relatively free of effects “Remnants” near the end, or the pairing of the fervent, thrashy shove in “Flesh and Blood” with the release-your-inner-Cave–In “Desiderium,” the overwhelming extremity of “Pale Eyes” or the post-hardcore balladeering that turns to djent sludge largesse in closer “The Way Out” — note the album begins at “…the Beginning” and ends at an exit; happy accident or purposeful choice; it works either way — Somnuri are in the hurricane rather than commanding from the calm center, and that shows in the emotionalism of prior single “Hollow Visions,” but at no point does Desiderium collapse under the weight of its ambitions. After years of touring and the triumph that was 2021’s Nefarious Wave (review here) hinting at what seems in full bloom here, Somnuri sound ready for the next level they’ve reached. Time to spend like the next five years straight on tour, guys. Sorry, but that’s what happens when you’re the kick in the ass heavy metal doesn’t yet know it needs.
Densely distorted Indianapolis heavybringers Void King have stated that their third full-length, the burly but not unatmospheric 36-minute The Hidden Hymnal, is the first of a two-part outing, though it’s unclear whether both parts are a concept record or these six tracks are meant to start a storyline, with opener “Egg of the Sun” (that would happen if it spun really fast) and closer “Drink in the Light” feeling complementary in their increased runtime relative to the four songs between. Maybe it’s an unfinished narrative at this point, or no narrative at all. Fine. Approaching it as a standalone outing, the four-piece follow 2019’s Barren Dominion (review here) with more choice riffing and metal-threatening, weighted doom, “The Grackle” breaking out some rawer-throat gutturalism over its big, big, big tone. The bassline of “Engulfed in Absence” (tell people you love them) caps side A with a highlight, and “When the Pinecones Close Up” (that means it’s going to rain) echoes the volatility of “The Grackle” before “Brother Tried” languidly swings until it’s time for a 100 meter dash at the end, and the aforementioned “Drink in the Light” rounds out mournful and determined. If there’s more to come, so be it, but Void King give their listeners plenty to chew on in the interim.
At the core of ostensibly Switzerland-based Inezona is multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Ines Brodbeck, and on Heartbeat — the fourth LP from her band and the follow-up to 2019’s Now, released as INEZ, and last year’s sans-vocals A Self Portrait — the sound is malleable around its folkish melodicism, with Brodbeck, guitarist/vocalist Gabriel Sullivan, bassist/synthesist Fabian Gisler and drummer Eric Gut comfortably fleshing out atmospheric heavy psychedelia more about mood than effects but too active and almost too expressive to be post-rock, though it kind of is anyhow. Mellow throughout, “Sea Soul” caps side A and meanders into/through a jam building on the smoky vibe in “Stardust” before the title-track strolls across a field of more ’60s-derived folk rock. “Veil” charms with fuzz, while “In My Heart” seems intent on finding the place where Scandinavian folk meets kosmiche synthesizer, and “Midnight Circle” brings Zatokrev‘s Fredryk Rotter for a guest duet and guitar spot that is a whole-album crescendo, with the acoustic-based “Leave Me Alone” and the brief “Sunday Mornings” at the end to manage the comedown. The sound spans decades and styles and functions with purpose as its own presence, and the soothing delivery of Brodbeck throughout much of the proceedings draws Heartbeat together as an interpretation of classic pop ideals with deep roots underground. Proof again that ‘heavy’ is about more than which pedals you have on your board.
It’s odd that it’s odd that Hauch‘s songs are in German. The pandemic-born Waltrop, Germany, four-piece present their first release in the recorded-in-2021, five-song Lehmasche, and I guess so much of the material coming out of the German heavy underground — and there’s a lot of it, always — is in English. A distinguishing factor for the 31-minute outing, then, which is further marked by an attitudinal edge in hard-fuzz riffers like “Es Ist” and the closer “Tür,” the aesthetic of the band at this (or that, depending on how present-tense we want to be) moment drawing strongly from ’90s rock — and no, that doesn’t necessarily mean stoner — in structure and affect, but presenting the almost-eight-minute leadoff “Wind” with due fullness of sound and ending up not too far in terms of style from Switzerland’s Carson, who last year likewise proffered a style that was straightforward on its face but, like Hauch, stood out for its level of songwriting and the just-right nature of its grooves. Lehmasche, the title translating to ‘clay ash,’ evokes something that can change shape, and the thrust in “Komm Nach Hause” and the hard-landing kick thud of centerpiece “Quelle” bear that out well enough. Keeping in mind it’s their debut, it seems likely Hauch will continue to grow, but they already sound ready to be picked up by some label or other.
Setting its nod in a manner that seems to have little time to waste on opener “The Mountain and the Feather” before breaking out with the dense, chugging swing of “The Corenne and the Prophecy Fulfilled,” Kentucky heavybringers El Astronauta bring a nuanced sound to what might be familiar progressions, but the mix is set up in three dimensions and the band dwells in all of them, bringing character to the languid reach of the mini-album Snakes and Foxes, bolstered by the everybody-might-sing approach from guitarist/keyboardist Seth Wilson, bassist Dean Collier and pushed-back drummer Cory Link, who debuted in 2021 with High Strangeness and who dude-march through “The Gambler and the General” as if the tempo was impeded by the thickness of the song itself. Through a mere 17 Earth minutes, El Astronauta carve out this indent for themselves in the side of a very large, very heavy style of rock and roll, but “The Axe or the Hammer,” which bookends topping five minutes in answer to “The Mountain and the Feather,” has a more subdued verse to go along with the damn near martial shouts of its impact-minded chorus, and fades out with surprising fluidity to leave off. The one-thing-and-another-thing titles give Snakes and Foxes a thematic feel, but the real theme here is the barebones greed-for-volume El Astronauta display, their material feeling built for beery singalongs.
With their third full-length behind 2021’s Chosen One (review here) and their 2018 self-titled debut (review here), Texan riff rollers Thunder Horse grow accordingly more atmospheric in their presentation and are that much more sure of themselves in leaning into founding guitarist/vocalist Stephen Bishop‘s industrial metal past in Pitbull Daycare. The keys give “Requiem” an epic feel at the finish, and even if the opening title-track is like what Filter might’ve been if they’d been awesome and “New Normal” and “Monolith” push further with semi-aggro metallurgical force, the wall-of-tone remains thusly informed until the two-minute acoustic “The Other Side” tells listeners where to go when it’s over (you flip the record, duh). “Monolith” hinted at a severity that manifests in the doomed “Apocalypse,” a preface in its noise and breadth for the finale “Requiem,” finding a momentum that the layered-vocal hook of “Inner Demon” capitalizes upon with its tense toms and that the howls of the penultimate “Aberdeen” expand on with Thunder Horse‘s version of classic boogie rock. They don’t come across like they’re done exploring the balances of influence in what they do — and I hope they’re not — but Thunder Horse have never sounded more certain as regards the rightness of their path.
The title “Vīrya” is Sanskrit and based on the Hindu concept of vitality or energy, often in a specifically male context. Fair enough ground for Kansas instrumentalists After Nations to explore on their single following last year’s impressive, Buddhism-based concept LP, The Endless Mountain (review here). In the four-minute standalone check-in, the four-piece remind just how granite-slab heavy that offering was as they find a linear path from the warning-siren-esque guitar at the start through the slower groove and into the space where a post-metallic verse could reside but doesn’t and that’s just fine, turning back to the big-bigger-biggest riff before shifting toward controlled-cacophony progressive metal, hints of djent soon to flower as they build tension through the higher guitar frequencies and the intensity of the whole. After three minutes in, they’re charging forward, but it’s a flash and they’re dug into the whatever-time-signature finishing movement, a quick departure to guitar soon consumed by that feeling you get when you listen to Meshuggah that there’s a very large thing rising up very slowly in front of you and surely you’ll never get out alive. Precise in their attack, After Nations reinforce the point The Endless Mountain made that technique is only one part of their overarching brutality.
There’s some incongruity between the intro “Introspection” (I see what you did there) leading into “Weightless Again” as it takes the mood from a quiet buildup to full-bore tonality and only then gives over to the eight-minute second track, but Ockra‘s Argonauta-delivered debut long-player thrives in that contradiction. Melodic vocals float over energetic riffing in “Weightless Again,” but even that is just a hint of the seven-songer’s scope. To wit, the initially acoustic-based “Tree I Planted” is recognizably parental in its point of view with a guest vocal from Stefanie Spielhaupter, and while centerpiece “Acceptance” is more doomed in its introductory lead guitar, the open strum of its early verses and the harmonies in its second half assure an impression is made. The Gothenburg-based trio grow yet more adventurous in the drone-and-voice outset of “We Who Didn’t Know,” which unfolds its own notions of what ‘heavy prog’ means, with guitarist Erik Björnlinger howling at the finish ahead of the start of the more folk-minded strum of “Imorgon Här,” on which drummer Jonas Nyström (who also played that acoustic on “We Who Didn’t Know” and adds Mellotron where applicable) takes over lead vocal duties from bassist Alex Spielhaupter (also more Mellotron). The German-language closer “Tage Wie Dieser” (‘days like these’) boasts a return from Stefanie Spielhaupter and is both quiet grunge and ambient post-rock before the proggy intensity of its final wash takes hold, needing neither a barrage of effects or long stretches of jamming to conjure a sense of the far out.
What’s another 20 minutes of music to Erik Larson, I wonder. The Richmond-based songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist has a career and a discography that goes back to the first Avail record three decades ago, and at no point in those decades has he ever really stopped, moving through outfits like (the now-reunited) Alabama Thunderpussy, Axehandle, The Mighty Nimbus, Hail!Hornet, Birds of Prey, Kilara, Backwoods Payback, Thunderchief, on and on, while building his solo catalog as well. Fortsett, the 20-minute EP in question, follows 2022’s Red Lines and Everything Breaks (both reviewed here), and features Druglord‘s Tommy Hamilton (also Larson‘s bandmate in Omen Stones) on drums and engineer Mark Miley on a variety of instruments and backing vocals. And you know what? It’s a pretty crucial-sounding 20 minutes. Larson leads the charge through his take that helped define Southern heavy in “Cry in the Wind,” the nodder “My Own,” and the sub-two-minute “Electric Burning,” pulls back on the throttle for “Hounder Sistra” and closes backed by drum machine and keys on “Life Shedding,” just in case you dared to think you know what you were getting. So what’s that 20 minutes of music to Erik Larson? Going by the sound of Fortsett, it’s the most important part of the day.
Ah, a Quarterly Review Wednesday. Always a special occasion. Monday starts out with a daunting look at the task ahead. Tuesday is all digging in and just not trying to repeat myself too much. Wednesday, traditionally, is where we hit the halfway point. The top of the hill.
Not the case this time since I’ll have 10 records each written up next Monday and Tuesday, but crossing the midpoint of this week alone feels like an accomplishment and you’ll pardon me if I mark it as such. If you’re wondering how the rest of the week will go, tomorrow is all-business and Friday’s usually a party one way or the other. My head gets so in it by the middle of next week I’ll be surprised not to be doing this anymore. So it goes.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
Khanate, To Be Cruel
Who among mortals could hope to capture the horrors of Khanate in simple words? The once-New York-based avant sludge ultragroup end a 14-year hiatus with To Be Cruel, a fourth album, comprising three songs running between 19-21 minutes each that breed superlative hatefulness. At once overwhelming and minimalist, with opener “Like a Poisoned Dog” placing the listener in a homemade basement dungeon with the sharp, disaffection-incarnate bark of Alan Dubin (also Gnaw) cutting through the weighted slog in the guitar of Stephen O’Malley (also SunnO))), et al), the bass of James Plotkin (more than one can count, and he probably also mastered your band’s record) and the noise free-jazz drumming of Tim Wyskida (Blind Idiot God, etc.), they retain the disturbing brilliance last heard from in 2009’s Clean Hands Go Foul (discussed here) and are no less caustic for the intervening years. “It Wants to Fly” is expansive and wretched death poetry set to drone doom, a ritual made of its own misery, and the concluding title-track goes quiet in its midsection as though to let every wrenching anguish have its own space in the song. There is no one like them, though many have tried to convey some of what apparently only Khanate can. As our plague-infested, world-burning, war-making, fear-driven species plunges further into this terrible century, Khanate is the soundtrack we earn. We are all complicit. All guilty.
Though plenty atmospheric besides, Vancouver heavy fuzz rockers Space Queen add atmosphere to their nine-song/26-minute Nebula EP through a series of four interludes: the a capella three-part harmonies of “Deluge,” the acoustic-strummed “Veil” and “Sun Interlude,” and the finishing manipulated space-command sample in “End Transmission” after the richly melodic doom rock of “Transmission/Lost Causemonaut.” That penultimate inclusion is the longest at 6:14 and tells a story in a way that feels informed by the three-piece of drummer/vocalist Karli MacIntosh, guitarist/vocalist Jenna Earle and bassist/keyboardist/vocalist Seah Maister‘s past in the folk outfit Sound of the Sun, but transposes its melodic sensibility into a heavier context. It and the prior garage-psych highlight “When it Gets Light” — a lighter initial electric strum that arrives in willful-seeming contrast to “Darkest Part” immediately preceding — depart from the more straight-ahead push of opener “Battle Cry” and the guitar-screamer “Demon Queen” separated from it by the first interlude. Where those two come across as working with Alice in Chains as a defining influence — something the folk elements don’t necessarily argue against — the Nebula EP grows broader as it moves through its brief course, and flows throughout with its veering into and out of songs and short pieces. This is Space Queen‘s second EP, and if they’re interested in making a full-length next, they sound ready.
Fasano, Italy’s King Potenaz debut on Argonauta Records with Goat Rider, which conjures raw fuzz, garage-doom atmospherics, and vocals that edge toward aggression and classic cave metal, early Venom or Celtic Frost having a role to play even alongside the transposition of Kyuss riffing taking place in the title-track, which follows “Among Ruins” and “Pyramids Planet,” both of which featured on the trio’s 2022 Demo 6:66, and which set a tone of riff-led revelry here with a sound that reminds of turn-of-the-century era stoner explorations, but grows richer as it moves into “Pazuzu (3:33)” — it’s actually 5:18 — with guest vocals from Sabilla and the quiet three-minute instrumental “Cosmic Voyager” planet-caravanning into the 51-minute album’s second half, where “Moriendoom (La Ballata di Ippolita Oderisi)” and the even doomier “Monolithic” dig into cultish vibes and set up the bleak shuffle of nine-minute closer “Dancing Plague,” departing from its central ’90s-heavy riff into a mellow-psych movement and then returning from that outward stretch to end. Even at its most familiar, Goat Rider finds some way to harness an individual edge, cleverly using the mix itself as an instrument to create the space in which the songs dwell. It may take a few listens to sink in, but there’s real potential in what they’re doing.
With the release of their third album, New World Hoarder, German art-sludgers Treedeon celebrate their first decade as a band. The combined vinyl-with-CD follows 2018’s Under the Manchineel (review here) and proffers raw cosmic doom in “Omega Time Bomb,” crossing the 10-minute line for the first time after the particularly-agonized opener “Nutcrème Superspreader” and before the title-track’s nodding riff brings bassist Yvonne Ducksworth to the fore vocally, trading off with guitarist Arne Heesch as drummer Andy Schünemann crashes cyclically behind. “New World Hoarder” gives over to side B opener “Viking Meditation Song,” which rolls like an evil-er version of Goatsnake, and “RHV1,” on which Heesch and Ducksworth share vocal duties, as they also do in 12-minute closer “Läderlappen” — a shouting duet in the first half feels long in arriving, but that’s how you know the album works — as the band cap with more massive chug following an interplay of melody and throatier fare. They’re right to ride that groove, as they’re right about so much else on the record. Like much of what Exile on Mainstream puts out, Treedeon are stylistically intricate and underrated in kind.
There are a couple different angles of approach one might take in hearing Orsak:Oslo‘s In Irons full-length. The Norway/Sweden-based instrumental troupe have been heretofore lumped in with heavy post-rock and ambient soundscaping, which is fair enough, but what they actually unveil in “068 The Swell” (premiered here), is a calming interpretation of space rock. With experimentalism on display in its late atmospheric drone comedown, “068 The Swell” moves directly into the more physical “079 Dutchman’s Wake (Part I),” the languid boogie feeling modern in presentation and classic in construction and the chemistry between the members of the band. The drums sit out much of the first half of “069 In What Way Are You Different,” giving a sense of stillness to the drone there, but the song embraces a bigger feel toward its finish, and that sets up the feedback intro to “078 The Mute (Part II),” which veers dreamily between amplifier drone and complementary melodic guitar flourish. Taking 17 minutes to do it, they close with “074 Hadal Blue,” which more broadly applies the space-chill of “068 The Swell” and emphasizes flow and organic changes from one part to the next. Immersive, it would be one to get lost in if it weren’t so satisfying to pay attention.
Fuck. Yes. As much grind as sludge as electronics-infused hardcore as it is furious, unadulterated noise, the 12-song/50-minute onslaught that is Boss Blades arrives via Modern Grievance at the behest of Jon Weisnewski, also of Sandrider, formerly of Akimbo. If Weisnewski‘s name alone and the fact that Matt Bayles mixed the self-recorded debut LP aren’t enough to pull you into the tornado of violence and maddening brood that opener “Boss Blades” uses to open — extra force provided by one of two guest vocal spots from Dave Verellen of Botch; the other is on “Lasers in the Jungle” later on — then perhaps the seven-minute semi-industrial march of “Obsolete Food” or the bruising intensity of “Poorly Made Pots” or the minute and a half of sample-topped drone psych in “Guitart,” the extreme prog metal of “Eat Meth” or “Manifest Piss Tape” will do the trick, or the nine-minute near-centerpiece “Many Knives” (which, if there’s a Genghis Tron influence here generally — and there might be — is more the last record than the older stuff) with its slow keyboard unfolding as a backdrop for Dust Moth‘s Irene Barber to make her own guest appearance, plenty of post-everything cacophony mounting by the end, grandiose and consuming. I could go on — every track is a new way to die — but suffice it to say that this is what my brain sounds like when my kid and my wife are talking to me about different things at the same time and it feels like my skull is on fire and I have an aneurysm and keel over. Good wins.
Sometimes harsh but always free, 2022’s Chapter 4 from Croatian instrumentalist double-guitar five-piece Mycena — guitarists Marin Mitić and Pavle Bojanić, bassist Karlo Cmrk, drummer Igor Vidaković and synthesist/noisemaker Aleksandar Vrhovec — brings three tracks that are distinct unto themselves but listed as part of the same entirety, dubbed “Dissolution” and divided into “Dissolution Part 1” (17:49), “Dissolution Part 2” (3:03), and “Dissolution Part 3” (18:11), and it may well be that what’s being dissolved is the notion that rock and roll must be confined to verse/chorus structuring. Invariably, Earthless are a comparison point for longform instrumental heavy anything, and given the shred in “Dissolution Part 1” around five minutes deep and the torrent rockblast in the first half of “Dissolution Part 3” before it melts to near-silence and quietly noodles its way through its somehow-dub-informed last 11 or so minutes, building in presence but not actually blowing up to full volume as it caps. While totaling a manageable 39 minutes, Chapter 4 is a journey nonetheless, with a scope that comes through even in “Dissolution Part 2,” which may just be an interlude but still carries a steady rhythm that seems to reorient the band ahead of their diving into the extended final part, the band sounding natural in making changes that would undo acts with less chemistry.
Filthy tone. Just absolutely nasty. Atlanta’s Bog Monkey tracked Hollow, their self-released debut LP, with Jay Matheson at The Jam Room in South Carolina, and if they ever go anywhere else to try to capture their sound I’d have to ask why. With seven cuts totaling 33 minutes play-time and fuzz-sludge blowouts a-plenty in “Facemint,” the blastbeaten “Blister” and the heads-down largesse-minded shove-off-the-cliff that is “Slither” at a whopping 2:48, Hollow transposes Conan-style shouted vocals on brash, thickened heavy, the bass in “Tunnel” and forward-charging leadoff “Crow” with its thrash-riffing hook is the source of the heft, but it’s not alone. Spacious thanks to echoes on the vocals, Hollow crushes just the same, and as the trio plunder toward the eight-minute “Soma” at the end, growing intense quickly out of a calmer intro jam and slamming their message home circa 3:40 with crashes that break to bass and guitar noise to establish the nod around which the ending will be based, all you can really do is look forward to the bludgeoning to come and be glad when it arrives. Don’t be fooled by their generic name, or the silly stoner rock art (which I’m not knocking; it being silly is part of the point). Bog Monkey bring together different styles in a way that’s thoughtful and make songs that sound like they just rose out of the water to fucking obliterate you. So go on. Be obliterated.
Punkish in its choruses like the title-track or opener “Sports,” the four-song Dead Nature EP from South Africa’s The Man Motels is the latest in a string of short releases and singles going back to their 2018 full-length, Quit Looking at Me!, and they temper the urgency of their speediest parts with grunge-style melody and instrumental twists. Bass and drums at the base of “Young Father” set up the sub-three-minute closer as purely punk, but sure enough the guitar kicks in coming out of the verse and one can hear the Nirvana effect before it drops out again. Whether it’s a common older-school hardcore influence, I don’t know, but “Sports” and “Young Father” remind of a rawer Fu Manchu with their focus on structure, but “The Fever” is heavier indie rock and culminates in a tonally satisfying apex before cutting back to the main riff that’s led the way for… oh, about three minutes or so. All told, The Man Motels are done in 15 minutes, but they pack a fair amount into that time and they named the release after its catchiest installment, so there. Maybe not the kind of thing I’d always reach for in my own listening habits, but I’m not about to rag on a band for being good at what they do or showcasing their material with the kind of energy The Man Motels put into Dead Nature.
With a couple short(er) outings to their credit, Bayonne, New Jersey, three-piece Pyre Fyre present seven songs in the 18 minutes of their self-titled, which just might be enough to make it a full-length. Hear me out. They start raw with “Hypnotize,” more of a song than an intro, punkish and the shortest piece at 1:22. From there, the Melvins meet Earthride on “Flood Zone” and the range of shenanigans is unveiled. Produced by drummer/noisemaker Mike Montemarano, with Dylan Wheeler on guitar, Dan Kirwan on bass and vocals from all three in its hithers and yons, it is a barebones sound across the board, but Pyre Fyre give a sense of digging in despite that, with the echo-laced “Wyld Ryde” doled out like garage thrash, while “Dungeon Duster/Ice Storm” sounds like it was recorded in two different sessions and maybe it was and screw you if that matters, “Don’t Drink the Water” hits the brakes and dooms out with stoner-drawl vocals later, “Arachnophobia” dips into a darker, somehow more metal, mood, and the fuzzy “Cordyceps” ends with swagger and noise alike in just under two and a half minutes. All of this is done without pretense, without the band pausing to celebrate themselves or what they just accomplished. They get in, kick ass, get out again. You don’t want to call it an album? Fine. I respectfully disagree, but we can still be friends. What, you thought because it was the internet I was going to tell you to screw off? Come on now.
On Oct. 16, 2001, barely a month after the planes flew into the Twin Towers, New York City’s The Brought Low made their self-titled debut through Tee Pee Records. A classic heavy rock power trio, they came together in 1999 with guitarist/vocalist Ben Smith and drummer Nick Heller, who’d both spent most of the ’90s in the hard-punk outfit Sweet Diesel, bassist Dean Rispler, who’d produced that band and a swath of the rest of NYC’s punk and hardcore scene by the time Sweet Diesel were done, and who has been in Tiger Mountain, The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, The Dictators NYC, on and on. Dude even produced my Gimme Radio show when that was a thing. The point is he’s gotten around in 30 years of playing and performing. One could go on.
But the story here is the band itself. Recorded with Jesse Cannon and produced by Rispler, The Brought Low‘s The Brought Low runs nine songs and 41 minutes, and bringing Smith to the forefront feels in hindsight like a bigger stepping-out than perhaps one might’ve understood at the time. The genre shift from NY punk rock to a brand of Southern-tinged heavy rock looking to be both of its place and moment and wistful for something else — a past, an alternate present, something — is emblematic of what was happening in NY as bands like The Brought Low, Bad Wizard, Rye Coalition and others came up in a turn-of-the-century-era blossoming of a ‘scene.’ Hell, get RPG up from Virginia, take the other three, and you’ve got yourself a probably-modestly-attended show at The Continental circa 2003. Right on.
Mirroring that shift, Smith‘s sliding into a frontman role, lead singing and only-guitaring — he’d done backing vocals in Sweet Diesel and played guitar alongside vocalist/guitarist Nat Murray (also The Monumentals, more recently The High Stride), Heller on drums, and bassist Zack Kurland (Green Dragon, Altered States); these guys are lifers, let’s just assume everyone’s been in a dozen bands — feels all the more significant for the coinciding stylistic purpose shown throughout The Brought Low‘s debut. Yeah, they had a couple burners in the opening salvo, with the organ-inclusive “What I Found” leading off before the live-show staple “God Damn, God Bless” put emphasis on blues with its harmonica and steady, ’70s-with-an-update flow, and “Motherless Sons” demonstrating in its early chorus riff the punk still at root in their rock. “Hot and Cold” would add some gallop to launch side B as well, after the Southern rock ode to New York “Kings and Queens” revels in its own defiance of expectation to finish side A.
“Kings and Queens” and “City Boy” — “Some people love the country air/Not me I’m a city boy, oh yeah” — are in some ways telling of the group The Brought Low would become, and the same applies to the linear build that happens across the seven minutes of “Outer Borough Dust Run,” which starts with a moment of quiet before the guitar kicks in alone to begin the procession. Hindsight makes them sound impatient — because 2006’s Right on Time (discussed here) and 2010’s Third Record (review here) would show growth in that as well — but whatever tension there is early is smoothed out in the midsection with its backing vocals and stay-and-rest-a-minute hook, offered again before the guitar solo takes off shortly before five minutes in, and after for a pre-comedown crescendo. A structural standout, “Outer Borough Dust Run” also prefaced the ability that would surface on subsequent outings to sound genuinely out of place in the world when the song calls for it.
The BroughtLow, as an album, remains a statement of intention on the part of the band that is only underscored by the rampant Skynyrd-ism of the lead guitar at the start of closer “Deathbed.” Heller taps the ride and hits sharp pops of snare as he as throughout, but the quieter verse build benefits from the preface it got in “Outer Borough Dust Run” and brings back the organ from “What I Found” in its sweeping finish, which ends with a few crashes and relatively subdued ceremony.
A final instrumental jam is buried as a hidden track, under two minutes long, but the point has gotten across. The Brought Low revel in the contrast. Some other players might have come together in NYC to play Southern rock and made it showier, more of a caricature. With The Brought Low, that’s not really what it’s about. It’s more the songs than the format or presentation of them. Yeah, they’re playing to a classic vinyl ideal in the makeup of the record, but that’s part of it too, because that speaks to the direct influence of heavy ’70s rock under which they are working. Or were, 22 years ago. Authenticity is a myth, and authenticity in New York doubly so — then and now unless you really dig investment properties — but The Brought Low have never sounded anything other than honest, sincere in their blues, and strident in their contradiction with the output of their own musical history (I doubt they see it as one, actually) and the expectation of Southern rock as being from the Southeastern US. The Brought Low did it early, often, and without chestbeating or sounding like a joke. That is not an accomplishment to be understated.
When I think of records from this era desperately in need of a reissue, The Brought Low‘s The Brought Low is pretty high on that list. I’ll admit that years of watching them play live — as they continue to do every now and then — has made me biased in that assessment. Their other two records being likewise rad doesn’t hurt either. But what I take away from these tracks now is the willingness to do something else, the chance-taking that happened in this material when probably, if they’d wanted, Smith and Heller and Rispler — who’d been replaced by Bob Russell by when Right on Time came out on Small Stone — probably could’ve just started another punk band and done pretty well for themselves. They didn’t. You see what I mean about honesty.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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This one’s for Johnny Arzgarth, whose attention might be caught out of what I know is a relatable and enduring affection for the band. He and his family were in Ireland and Northern Ireland this week, reminding me of my own trip there a few years back.
As I write this, we’re about to hit the road, not so far as Dublin, but to Connecticut at least, which given that it’s Friday and we’ll be doing the driving in the afternoon is going to be a fucking unpleasant disaster on I-95. I will not take the Merritt Parkway. I would rather sit for two hours on 95 than spend an hour on that. I’d rather drive Rt. 1 from Stamford to Madison.
Anyway, that’s happening. Tomorrow is the memorial service for The Patient Mrs.’ grandmother. I’ll be saying a few words, sort of MC’ing it, but not doing a full eulogy, which is probably for the best because put me in the right situation to talk about a person, place or thing, and I’ll just blah blah blah until everyone’s dead and they all need eulogies. What are we doing with the kid while we stand in the family cemetery in one place for upwards of 20 minutes? Let her run, I guess. “Don’t knock over any headstones,” and so forth.
We’ll be staying up there until Monday, which stresses me out but I seem to be the only one, so there you go. Next week? Of course it’s a Quarterly Review. I haven’t even been brave enough to broach the subject with The Patient Mrs. but had a moment of panic yesterday morning in talking about the plan for the week and nearly got chewed out for it, likely deservedly so. This morning I told The Pecan we could either brush her hair or cut it short so it didn’t need to be brushed and I got punched once in the arm and then had a fist pushed in my face. Just another breakfast with a five-year-old.
She’s at fairy camp right now, actually. That’s just this week, and is the first of a slew of camps The Patient Mrs. has lined up throughout the summer. It was a success. If you’ll recall, last summer, camp didn’t work and we ended up hiring the babysitter — which very much did work — and doing a lot of winging it. At least this time, we’re starting off with a success. Next week? Winging it.
I might bump the QR. It’d double me up on one day the following week but make life much, much easier otherwise and give me time to catch up on other reviews for stuff like Khantate and Lucid Vision. And if I put it off two weeks, I can add extra days… Oh okay. Things to consider.
However that plan shakes out, I wish you a great and safe weekend in the meantime. Thank you for reading, watch your head, be safe, tell someone you love them. All that stuff. I think The Patient Mrs. and I are going to post that podcast soon. Will keep you in the loop.
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 21st, 2023 by JJ Koczan
One would not accuse the Desertfest New York team of packing the lineup with fluff. Now complete, the Big Apple extension of the Desertfest brand is doubling down on its intention, bringing Colour Haze to the main stage for a second set after their headlining spot at the pre-show at Saint Vitus Bar — already the thing I’m most looking forward to seeing for the rest of the year; I want to show up now to make sure I get a spot in front — and adding Conan, Mondo Generator and Djunah to complete a bill that already includes Godflesh, Monster Magnet, the Melvins, Boris, Truckfighters, 1000mods, Ecstatic Vision, on and on. Clearly Desertfest New York has done its part to make its 2023 lineup something special for those who’ll show up to see it.
Now you gotta show up. It’s on my calendar, and I’m nervous about the family/festival crossover that might happen in my life that weekend, but I’ll figure my shit out, I’m not gonna miss it. I hope it’s worth the trip for Colour Haze. I hope Monster Magnet make it out. I hope Heavy Temple and Castle Rat become best friends and put out a split. On and on. This will be a good time. You should be there to see it.
From the PR wire:
Desertfest New York completes line-up with Conan, Mondo Generator and Djunah, plus Day Tickets now on sale
Leading independent heavy music promoter Desertfest is returning to New York’s Knockdown Center and Saint Vitus Bar this September. Having already announced the likes of MELVINS, MONSTER MAGNET, BORIS, GODFLESH, COLOUR HAZE, TRUCKFIGHTERS, 1000MODS, plus many more, the globally renowned festival rounds off its line-up by welcoming UK doom heroes CONAN, Nick Oliveri’s stoner outfit MONDO GENERATOR and multi-instrumentalist’s DJUNAH.
Stage splits and day tickets for the festival are now on sale, where the eager-eyed will notice that an additional third stage ‘The Ruins’ will be added to the Knockdown Center on Saturday 16th September, for the very first time.
Due to phenomenal demand with pre-party selling out instantly, Desertfest also announces that Germany’s COLOUR HAZE will play two sets over the weekend pulling from the bands expansive catalogue and promising no repeats. Desertfest NYC will be the band’s only U.S. performance and frontman Stefan Koglek shared the following “We even intend to rework the 22-minute epic “Peace, Brothers & Sisters!” which we haven’t been playing since 2018 for the show at Saint Vitus…’ so for those who managed to snag a three-day pass, you’re surely in for something special.
With just three months to go, Desertfest is poised to be the East Coast’s biggest celebration of underground heavy music. Promising an unforgettable weekend of exceptional live performances, electric energy and unrivalled rock ‘n’ roll spirit. The festival will also play host to an array of specially curated vendors, food trucks and killer after-parties, all still to be announced. Day tickets and 2-day passes for Desertfest NYC are on sale now via – https://link.dice.fm/Desertfest_NewYork || www.desertfestnewyork.com
Full line-up Saint Vitus Bar – September 14th 2023 Colour Haze | Lo-Pan | Duel | Dunes
Knockdown Center – September 15th 2023 Monster Magnet | Colour Haze | Truckfighters | 1000Mods | Valley of The Sun | R.I.P. | Heavy Temple | Castle Rat | Grave Bathers | Spellbook
Knockdown Center – September 16th 2023 Melvins | Boris | Godflesh | Conan | Mantar | Brant Bjork | Mondo Generator | White Hills | Ecstatic Vision | Djunah | Clouds Taste Satanic | Huntsmen | Mick’s Jaguar | Upper Wilds
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 19th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
I’m not sure there was ever a band who could make silence so agonizing. An unexpected return from Khanate, whose legacy among the most caustic of drone-doom acts does little to capture the misanthropic, curdled-blood poetry of their actual sound, brings three new tracks and an hour of distraught hermit gruel in the form of To Be Cruel, on Sacred Bones Records.
The songs sound like Khanate, which is both a general warning to humanity and the highest compliment I can think of to give them. Funny how it’s been since 2009 and their original configuration is only more a supergroup, with drummer Tim Wyskida having served in Blind Idiot God, in addition to vocalist Alan Dubin having formed Gnaw since Khanate’s dissolution after 2009’s Clean Hands Go Foul, guitarist Stephen O’Malley in Sunn O))), bassist James Plotkin mastering everybody’s everything, and so on. But as you take it on — and good luck with that — you should know this is not some haphazard assemblage or ‘comeback’ event, it’s Khanate, with all the scathe and skin-peeling that designation implies.
Streaming in full now and available on CD from Sacred Bones. Vinyl to follow. Here’s Bandcamp info and player, plus the announcement from the label:
We have been biting our tongue for months in anticipation of today’s mammoth announce: Khanate, the experimental doom outfit featuring members of Sunn O))), OLD, and Blind Idiot God, have returned after a self-imposed, fourteen year hiatus. The band surprise released their fifth album, To Be Cruel, overnight, with the 3-track, 60 minute album available to stream now! You can also pre-order the album on various physical formats including the Sacred Bones mail-order exclusive metallic bronze vinyl, while supplies last. The album comes out physically on June 30th, pre-order here!
The highly influential KHANATE (Alan Dubin, Stephen O’Malley, James Plotkin & Tim Wyskida) dimmed the lights fifteen years ago. Now it turns out those muted years were but a foreboding prelude to an abrupt awakening – the era of TO BE CRUEL. Three songs newly shining light on distinct, destitute, clinging terrors. Khanate’s slow dimensions have been amplified horrifically. Personal grievances have become generational vendettas.
Music composed & produced by Khanate
Lyrics by Alan Dubin
Tracklisting: 1. Like a Poisoned Dog 19:20 2. It Wants to Fly 21:43 3. To Be Cruel 20:09
Guitar & drums recorded at Orgone Studios, Woburn, UK by Jaime Gomez Arellano assisted by Christian Jameson.
Bass, vocals & percussion recorded at Thousand Caves Studio, Queens, NY by Colin Marston.
Synthesis recorded at Plotkinworks by James Plotkin.
Mixed at Circular Ruin Studio, Brooklyn, NY by Randall Dunn, James Plotkin & Stephen O’Malley.
Mastered at West Side Music, Cornwall on Hudson, NY by Alan Douches & James Plotkin.
Art direction by Stephen O’Malley
Painted film stills by Karl Lemieux
Portrait photography by Ebru Yildiz
Khanate: Alan Dubin (Vocals) Stephen O’Malley (Guitar, feedback) James Plotkin (Bass guitar, synthesis) Tim Wyskida (Drums, percussion)
Today is the last Quarterly Review day until July. I don’t know yet what shape that QR will take, whether 50 records, 100 records, 700 records or somewhere between. Depends on how the ongoing deluge of releases ebbs and flows as we head into summer. But if you count this and the other part of this Spring’s Quarterly Review, you get a total as of today of 120 releases covered, and considering the prior QR was just in January, and that one was another 100 records that’s a pretty insane amount of stuff for it being May 12.
And that’s basically the moral of the story, again. It’s a ton of stuff to encounter, hear, maybe live with if you’re lucky. I won’t make it a grand thing (I still have too much writing to do), but I hope you’ve found something cool in all this, and if not yet among the 210 albums thus far QR’ed in 2023, then maybe today’s your day as we hit the end of this round.
Quarterly Review #41-50:
Spotlights, Alchemy for the Dead
There are not many boxes that Spotlights‘ fourth album and third for Ipecac, Alchemy for the Dead, leaves unticked. Thematic, musically expansive, finely crafted in its melody and with particular attention to mood as when the bassline joins then leaves behind the acoustic guitar as a preface to the big finish in the closing title-track, it is a consuming, ultra-modern take on heavy rock from the trio of bassist/guitarist/vocalist Sarah Quintero, guitarist/synthesist/vocalist Mario Quintero and drummer Chris Enriquez, substantial even before you get to the fact that its 47 minutes push LP format limits, it speaks emotionally in rhythm as much as the thoughtful vocal interplay on “Sunset Burial,” growing intense around a central chug of guitar for one of the album’s more brazenly metal stretches. Elsewhere, standout moments abound, whether it’s the channel-panned snare buried in the second verse of “Algorithmic,” the proggy moodshifting in “Repeat the Silence,” Spotlights becoming what Deftones wanted to be in the heavygaze of “The Alchemist,” drift meeting head-on crash in “Ballad in the Mirror,” which also rolls out a fuzz-tone riff of statistically significant proportion then finds room for a swell of airy guitar before dissipating into the next mellow verse circa 2:30, more crashes to come. With the synth/sax/big-riff-and-shout interplay at the center in “False Gods,” Alchemy for the Dead would seem to mark the arrival at where Spotlights have been heading all along: their own version of a heavy of everything.
The mellotron in the title-track, surrounded by dense bass, fleet runs of scorch-prone guitar and resoundingly jazzy drumming, emphasizes the point: Kanaan are a band elevating heavy rock to their level. The Norwegian trio aren’t shy when it comes to riffing out, as they demonstrate in the Hedwig Mollestad collaboration on “Amazon” and intermittently throughout Downpour‘s closing pair of “Solaris Pt. 1” and “Solaris Pt. 2,” each topping seven minutes. But neither are they limited to a singular nodding expression. While still sounding young and energetic in a way that just can’t be imitated, Downpour boogies almost immediately on opener “Black Time Fuzz,” and is often heavy and grooving like a straightforward heavy rock record, but as that tambourine in “Orbit” shows, Kanaan are ready at a moment’s notice with a flourish of guitar, some key or synth element, or something else to distinguish their pieces and in the soundscaping of “Psunspot” (sic) and the scope they claim throughout side B, they remain one of Europe’s brightest hopes for a future in progressive heavy, sounding freer in their atmospheres and in the build of “Solaris Pt. 1” than they did even on 2021’s Earthbound (review here). There’s a reason just about every festival in Europe wants them to play. The proverbial band-on-fire.
Zen and the Art of Tone, perhaps unsurprisingly, sets itself to the task in its title as Anchorage, Alaska-based Doom Lab mastermind Leo Scheben guides the listener through mostly short-ish instrumental pieces based around guitar, sometimes ultra-fuzzed with a programmed beat behind as on “Whole-Tones on Tail” or the extra-raw 1:24 of “Motörvamp” or the subsequent “Sabotaging the Sabocracy,” a bit clearer at the outset with “X’d Out,” but the drive toward meditation is clear and allows for both the slower, more doomed reaches of closer “Traveling Through the Cosmos at Beyond the Speed of Light” and the playful elder-funk of “The Plot-Twist” or the bounce of “Lydia Ann.” All told, the 12 songs and 36 minutes of experimentation on offer will resonate with some more than others, but Scheben sounds like he’s starting a conversation here with “Mondays Suck it Big-Time” and “Psychic Vampires” and the real question is whether anyone will answer. Sometimes a project comes along that’s just on its own wavelength, finding its own place in the pastiche, and that’s where Doom Lab have been at since the outset, prolific as well as dedicated to exploration. I don’t know toward what it’s all leading, but not knowing is part of enjoying hearing it, and maybe that’s the zen of the whole thing to start with.
Barely a year after making their full-length debut on Apollon with Beyond the Strange Horizon (review here), Bergen, Norway, traditionalists dig deeper into the proto-style roots of doom on their four-song second LP, Skur 14. Named after a rehearsal space complex (presumably where they rehearse) in their hometown, the album runs shortest-to-longest in bringing together Scandi-folk-rooted classic prog and heavy styles, but by the time they get to “Tusser Og Troll,” the 14:47 finale, one is less thinking about the past than the future in terms of sound. Acoustic guitar begins “The Road” ahead of the straight-ahead riff and post-punk vocals, while “Cursed and Cast Out” is both speedier in the verse and more open in the hook before shifting into rolls on the snare and more theatrical shove that, much to the band’s credit, they handle fluidly without sounding either ironically over the top or like goobers in any way other than how they want. With the seven-minute “Candles,” the procession is slower and more vintage in form, reminding a bit of Demon Head but following its own anthemic chorus into an extended solo section before side B is dedicated solely to the spread of “Tusser Og Troll,” which ends with an organic-feeling jam laced with effects. A strong second outing on a quick turnaround that shows clear progression — there’s nothing more to be asked of Skur 14.
Sure, the third album from Stuttgart drone-psych-jammers Shem — titled III, lest there be any doubt — starts off with its 16-minute opener/longest track (immediate points) “Paragate,” but given the context, it’s the second cut on side A, “Lamentum” (2:50), that most piqued my interest. It’s a fading in snippet of a progression, the drums steady, volume swells behind a strumming guitar, some vocal chanting as it moves through. Given the entrancing spaciousness of “Restlicht” (7:34) and “Refugium (Beyond the Gravitational Field of Time and Space)” (11:55), I didn’t expect much more than an interlude, and maybe it’s not intended to be, but that shorter piece does a lot in separating the long cut on III‘s first half from the two on the second, so serves a vital purpose. And in that, it represents III well, since even in “Restlicht,” there seems to be a plan unfolding, even if improvisation is a part of that. Bookending, “Paragate” is mellow when it isn’t congealing nebular gasses to make new stars, and “Refugium (Beyond the Gravitational Field of Time and Space)” finds itself in a wormhole wash of guitar while the ride cymbal tries to hold structural integrity together, the whole engine ending up kissing itself goodbye as it shifts from this dimension to one that, let’s be honest, is probably more exciting.
You ever hear a band’s album and think maybe it worked out better than the band thought it would when they started making it? Like maybe they surprised even themselves? That was Melt Motif‘s 2022 debut, A White Horse Will Take You Home (review here). The heavy industrial outfit founded by Kenneth Rasmus Greve and legit-doesn’t-need-a-last-name vocalist Rakel are joined by Brazilian producer Joe Irente for the curiously punctuated 10-track follow-up, Particles. Death Objective, and though they don’t have the element of surprise on their side this time out (for themselves or listeners), Melt Motif as a trio do expand on what the first album accomplished, bringing ideas from electronic dance music, sultry post-rock and hard-landing beats — plus some particularly striking moments of weighted guitar — to bear such that “Warrior” and “I’m Gone” are assured in not needing to explode with aggression and even with all its ticks and pops, the penultimate “Abyss” is more about atmosphere than impact. “Fever” creates a wash and lurches slow and heavy following on from “Broken Floor” at the beginning, but in “Full Moon” it’s a techno party and “Never_Again” feels like experimentalist hip-hop, so if you thought the book was closed aesthetically on the project, the sophomore outing assures it very much is not. So much the better.
As it begins with the telltale strut and maddening catchiness of “Diabolical Influence,” one might be tempted to think Birmingham’s Margarita Witch Cult are playing in Uncle Acid‘s sinister sandbox, but the two-minute fuzz-chug-punker burst of “Death Lurks at Every Turn” corrects this notion, and the rest of the UK trio’s nine-song/31-minute self-titled Heavy Psych Sounds affirms there’s more going on. “The Witchfinder Comes” is a classic Sabbath-worship roller with multi-tracked vocals — guitarist Scott Vincent is the only one listed on vocals, so might just be layering; Jim Thing is on bass and George Casual on drums — and “Be My Witch” is a lesson in how to make thickened fuzz move, but it’s the pointedly Motörheaded “Annihilation” (1:42) that most stands out, even with the likewise speedy shuffle of “Theme From Cyclops” (1:34) right behind it, the faster takeoff welcome to offset the midtempo home-base of the trio’s grooves. As to that, “Lord of the Flies” nestles itself into a comfortable tempo and resolves in a nod that it seems to have spent much of its five minutes building toward, a last run through the main riff more celebration than repetition ahead of the instrumental “Aradia,” which like “The Witchfinder Comes” featured on the band’s 2022 Witchfinder EP (review here), and the previously-issued single “Sacrifice,” which closes. Bottom line is they’ve got a righteous sound and their first album shows they know how to wield it. The smoke-filled sky is the limit from here. Hail next-gen stoner rock.
Trading between charred rasps and cleaner declarative singing, Indianapolis-based multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Chris Latta (The Skyspeakers, Lavaborne, ex-Spirit Division) guides the mostly-solo-project — Tucker Thomasson drums and plays lead guitar; not minimizing anyone’s contributions — Cloud of Souls through a tumultuous journey along the line between ancient-of-days doom and black metal, strident at times like Bathory, sometimes all-out ripping as on the earlier-Enslaved-style “Hiding from Human Eyes,” and growing deathlier on “Where Failure Dies” ahead of the closing title-track, which threatens to break out the razors at any moment but stays civilized in its doomly roll for the duration. Whatever else Latta accomplishes in this or any of his other outfits from here on out, he’ll always be able to say he put out a record with a centerpiece called “Time for Slaughter,” which isn’t nothing as regards artist achievements — the song taps pre-NWOBHM doom until it turns infernal in the middle — and while there’s clearly an aspect of self-awareness in what he’s doing, the exploration and the songwriting are put first such that A Fate Decided resounds with a love for the metal that birthed it while finding its own path to hopefully keep walking across future releases.
When I tell you Hibernaut has three former members of Salt Lake City psych-blues rockers Dwellers in the lineup, just go ahead and put that expectation to the side for a minute. With guitarist Dave Jones stepping to the front as vocalist, Joey Toscano (also ex-Iota) moving from guitar/vocals to lead guitar, Zach Hatsis (also ex-SubRosa) on drums and Josh Dupree on bass, their full-length debut/first release of any sort, Ingress — recorded of course by Andy Patterson — has more in common with High on Fire and dirt-coated raw thrash than anything so lush, and at 11 songs and 74 minutes long, that will toward the unrestrained is multifaceted as well. There’s rock swagger to be had in “Magog” or the spinning riff of “Summoner,” but “Mines” has more Celtic Frost than Kyuss to it, and that isn’t a complaint. The material varies — at over an hour long, it fucking better — but whether it’s the double-kick rampage of “Kaleidoscope” or the furious takedown of “Lantern Eyed,” Hibernaut revel in an overarching nastiness of riff such that you might just end up scrunching your face without thinking about it. There’s room for a couple nods, in “Projection,” or “Aeons Entombed,” but the prevailing impression is meaner while remaining atmospheric. I like that I have no guess what they’ll do after this. I don’t like having to check autocorrect every time it replaces their name with ‘Hibernate.’ If only I had some gnasher heavy metal to help me vent that frustration. Oh wait.
For their Black Nothingness EP, Berlin-based DIY aficionados Grin — bassist Sabine Oberg and drummer/vocalist Jan Oberg — stripped their sound back to its most essential parts. Unlike 2022’s Phantom Knocks (review here) long-player, there’s no soundscaping, no guitar, no Hammond. There is low end. There are drums. There are growls and shouts and there are six tracks and none of them reaches three minutes in length. This ferocious display of efficiency counterintuitively underscores the breadth of Grin‘s approach, since as one band they feel unrestricted in terms of arrangements, and Black Nothingness — on their own The Lasting Dose Records imprint and recorded by Jan — benefits from the barebones construction in terms of sheer impact as heard on the rolling “Gatekeeper” before each ending measure of “Midnight Blue Sorrow” seems to leave a bruise, or even the opening semi-title-track “Nothingness” staking a claim on hardcore gangshout backing vocals for use pretty much anytime. “Talons” is less in-your-face with its violence, but the threat remains fervent and subsequent closer “Deathbringer” perfectly conveys that sense of exhaustion you have from when you’ve been so angry for so long that actually you’re just kind of sad about it. All this and more in about 12 minutes out of your busy and intensely frustrating life makes Black Nothingness one of 2023’s best short releases. Now rage, damnit.
