Carlton Melton release their new album, Turn to Earth, on Oct. 6 through Agitated Records, ahead of beginning a European tour on Oct. 11. And if they’re carrying boxes of records over to sell, they’ll have their work cut out for them with the 80-minute double-LP, which offers 11 tracks intermittently but not desperately space rocking while feeling their way into other heavy psychedelic elements while they go, whether that’s drones, jams, the bits of Earthless-esque rippery in “Cloudstorming” or “”Vanquished,” the Sleep riff in the former and the hints of Easternism in the latter, those two acting as respective departures from each other, themselves, the droning launch of the album in its eight-minute title-track just prior and the New Age texturing in “Cosmicity” immediately following the side flip.

“Cosmicity,” which eventually brings guitar into its 12-minute synthy drone-out, is the second of four landmarks on Turn to Earth but the first to really reveal the way the album is built. “Turn to Earth” itself, at eight minutes, is the longest of the three songs on side A, and its ambient, sometimes minimal approach is well suited to being an intro, even with its extended runtime. “Cosmicity” and the 10-minute “Unlock the Land” open sides B and C, while the repetitive space rocker “Mutiny” caps side D and is over 16 minutes long. These extended pieces — Carlton Melton, a band who digs in, digging in — give Turn to Earth all the more opportunity to immerse the listener, and especially with aural variety on a per-song basis that might be emphasized by “Cosmicity” giving over to the two-minute manipulated percussion jam “Canned Head,” those longer-form works are a chance to get lost in the songs and see where you end up.

There’s a build in the drums on “Turn to Earth” as well, and so the forward motion of “Cosmicity,” patient as it is, doesn’t arrive without preface. The centerpiece of the album as a whole, “Sundering” is a highlight for its bright fuzz tonality and the ’60s psych chic lent to it by virtue of the organ, its Californian nature affirmed by the wah and noisy freakout that ends it, cutting suddenly to “Unlock the Land,” which is immediately quieter and stays that way for about seven of its 10 minutes. A complement perhaps for the title-track, it functions similarly on a gradual forward build and is a trap for the mind without leaning on a hook, or, say, vocals at all. “Roboflow” follows with its krautrock beeps and bloops like it’s 1978 and we’re all living on Mars (which we would be if Nixon hadn’t won earlier that decade) and “Last Times” unfurls itself with a majesty, not so much doing something radically different in laying out a procession and building around it, but bringing the drone, drums and bluesy guitar together in a way that’s more jam than experiment and feels warmer for that.

Slow swirl grows louder through “Last Times,” but Carlton Melton — guitarist/synthesist Rich Millman, synthesist/guitarist Anthony Taibi, bassist Clint Golden, drummer Andy Duvall, here working with Phil Becker as producer — are setting up the pairing of “Migration” and “Mutiny” on side D, and the keyboard-driven “Roboflow” into the warm water of “Last Times” is what lets them do it. In “Migration” — another shorter, three-minute inclusion, almost there lest anyone feel like maybe they’ve got the band figured out, and that’s part of the fun — they synth has a kind of warning sound buried in the mix of the second half, and that’s fair enough for the launch happening in “Mutiny,” which burns its way upward on guitar for the first two minutes before the drums hit into the backbeat.

And does that backbeat stay even as the song progresses along an increasingly-noised outbound wavelength, scorching all the while. It starts to come apart after about nine minutes in, but it’s freakery long before then, and the remainder is Carlton Melton finding their way around some breakout drumming and heavier riffing, a consistent backing drone (might be organ), and generally apocalyptic vibing, the latter two of which hold for the duration. This last of Turn to Earth‘s anchor tracks isn’t really trying to summarize the record prior — though its building structure does represent a fair portion of it, especially but not exclusively among the longer songs — but is pushing deeper into a kosmiche reality, a total head trip for total heads, round peg in the square hole of planet Earth. This is not necessarily a new place for Carlton Melton to reside; one imagines them quite comfortable in a NorCal wyrdo palace with the protection of a rainforest of spiky pot leaves to keep what most people regard as reality at bay. Not likely to reflect their actual circumstance, but it should give you some idea of the level of ‘dug in’ they’re working at.

To wit, all the way. Carlton Melton are an exploratory band, and their work maintains that aspect no matter what a given song is actually doing in terms of structure, tone, or arrangement. This is the band’s own interpretation of psychedelic music, rather than a style they’re playing toward, and the difference of their bending it to fit them instead of bending themselves to fit it is palpable here. ‘Bent’ might be an operative word for Turn to Earth as well, since the album seems to find its own particular angle in terms of point of view. If a listener is familiar with their past work, this aspect is recognizably Carlton Melton, and if you don’t know the band, you will by the time the 80-minute existential milling machine is done turning the big rocks in your brain into little pebbles of lysergic joy. They are now and have been for some time a good case in the argument that psilocybin cures depression.

You can stream Turn to Earth in its entirety on the player below, and I suggest that you do. Give the album some time to wake up and flesh itself out at its own speed. If your head is in mania-mode, go for a couple deep breaths as you dive into the title-track. Euro/UK tour dates and order link follow.

And please, enjoy:

Bandcamp link: https://meltoncarlton.bandcamp.com/album/turn-to-earth

CARLTON MELTON UK/EU TOUR OCTOBER 2023 –
Oct 11 – GHENT, BE – @ Kinky Bar
Oct 12 – LONDON, UK – @ Strongroom Bar w/ Black Helium and Psychic Lemon
Oct 13 – GLASTONBURY, UK – @ King Arthur w/ Dead Otter and Thee Crow
Oct 14 – HEBDEN BRIDGE, UK @ The Trades Club w/ Dead Sea Apes , Dead Otter and Waka(dj set)
Oct 15 – GLASGOW, UK @ Ivory Blacks w/ Nebula, The Cosmic Dead, and Lucid Sins
Oct 17 – SALISBURY, UK @ The Winchester Gate
Oct 18 – BRISTOL, UK @ Crofter Rights w/ Sonic Jesus and Stereocilia
Oct 19 – MARGATE, UK @ Bar Nothing
Oct 20 – ANTWERP, BE @ Trix Desert Fest
Oct 21 – AMIENS, FR @ Secret Show
Oct 23 – ANNAY LE CHATEAU, FR @ Bristrot Culture
Oct 24 – ROUEN , FR @ Le 3 Pieces
Oct 26 – ZWOLLE, NL @ Hedon w/ The Warlocks
Oct 27 – AMSTERDAM, NL @ OCCII w/ Sex Swing
Oct 29 – PARIS, FR @ La Maroquinerie e w/ The Warlocks

Phil Becker (Terry Gross, Pins Of Light) contributed drums and percussion to a few tracks on Turn To Earth, recording the album at El Studio in San Francisco. With Becker at the helm, the synths have become more prominent (“Cosmicity,” “Roboflow,” “Migration”) and the tone heavier on the doom (“Cloudstorming,” “Unlock The Land,” title track): several moments could even serve as background music for epic dark fantasy films like Conan the Barbarian, Fire and Ice, or Heavy Metal.

Tracklisting:
A1. Turn to Earth (8:12)
A2. Cloudstorming (5:07)
A3. Vanquished (7:03)

B1. Cosmicity (12:39)
B2. Canned Head (2:09)
B3. Sundering (5:01)

C1. Unlock the Land (10:31)
C2. Roboflow (3:38)
C3. Last Times (6:19)

D1. Migration (3:01)
D2. Mutiny (16:34)

Carlton Melton is: andy duvall – drums/gtr; clint golden – bass; rich millman – gtr/synth; and anthony taibi – synth/gtr.

Carlton Melton on Facebook

Carlton Melton on Bandcamp

Carlton Melton website

Agitated Records on Facebook

Agitated Records on Instagram

Agitated Records website

Just being a little safe here in that when Carlton Melton announced Turn to Earth, their new album, would be out Oct. 6, there were European and UK tour dates announced with that. Now, what I don’t know is whether this announcement is in addition to that, or instead of it, or what. Ultimately, it’s a big whatever. It’s not like I was gonna see Carlton Melton in friggin’ Belgium anyway, so whether those shows are happening is a little moot except in my generally wanting things to go well for good bands — shitty bands can fall off a cliff — but I’d imagine they are and this is just a press release centered on the UK because there are a bunch of shows there and it’s the UK.

But, more generally about Carlton Melton: They rule. Very much their own kind of weird. I know you don’t need me to tell you that, but it’s true just the same. I haven’t heard the new record yet, and I know the last one isn’t necessarily a tell because they’re unpredictable like that, but the last three records at least have been gems and I think these guys know a streak when they’re on it. If they cruise on momentum alone, it’ll at least be interesting. And the UK announcement? Maybe it was just the Brett Savage poster art was too good not to send out.

Either way, here’s that, along with dates and other whatnot from the PR wire:

CARLTON MELTON UK TOUR 2023

New album Turn To Earth out October via Agitated Records

Phil Becker (Terry Gross, Pins Of Light) contributed drums and percussion to a few tracks on Turn To Earth, recording the album at El Studio in San Francisco. With Becker at the helm, the synths have become more prominent (“Cosmicity,” “Roboflow,” “Migration”) and the tone heavier on the doom (“Cloudstorming,” “Unlock The Land,” title track): several moments could even serve as background music for epic dark fantasy films like Conan the Barbarian, Fire and Ice, or Heavy Metal.

As exquisite as Turn To Earth is, Melton are best appreciated as a live act: their recordings as well as their gigs are largely improvised – not so much composed as birthed. And yet their most recent tour ended abruptly and perilously. The group had to cancel its final three shows once members were admitted to Arnhem hospital in the Netherlands. Five years later, reinforcements have strengthened the band and restocked its arsenal of great tracks.

After the rockus interruptus of that 2018 tour and the tantric tease of the intervening Covid lockdown, Melton have some unfinished business. An October 2023 tour is poised to set the freshly minted quartet back onto the stages of Europe and within the cerebral folds of its fans.

Turn To Earth, sure … but keep your head in outer space.

CARLTON MELTON 2023 UK SHOWS
Oct 12 – LONDON – STRONGROOM BAR w/ Black Helium and Psychic Lemon
Oct 13 – GLASTONBURY – KING ARTHUR w/ Dead Otter and Thee Crow
Oct 14 – HEBDEN BRIDGE – THE TRADES CLUB w/ Dead Sea Apes, Dead Otter and Waka (DJ Set)
Oct 15 – GLASGOW – IVORY BLACKS w/ Nebula, The Cosmic Dead and Lucid Sins
Oct 17 – SALISBURY – THE WINCHESTER GATE
Oct 18 – BRISTOL – CROFTER RIGHTS w/ Sonic Jesus and Stereocilia
Oct 19 – MARGATE – BAR NOTHING

Poster credit: Brett Savage

Carlton Melton is: andy duvall – drums/gtr; clint golden – bass; rich millman – gtr/synth; and anthony taibi – synth/gtr.

https://www.facebook.com/Carlton-Melton-band-page-142609689122268/
https://meltoncarlton.bandcamp.com/
http://www.carltonmeltonmusic.com/

https://www.facebook.com/AGITATEDRECORDS/
https://instagram.com/agitated_records
http://agitatedrecords.com/

Carlton Melton, “Turn to Earth/Cloudstorming” official video

Is the world ready for Carlton Melton‘s second full-length of 2023? Almost certainly not. I feel like humanity has barely scratched the surface of this February’s Resemble Ensemble (review here), and even with about two months to prepare for Turn to Earth, who knows what might be in store from the out-there-out-there NorCal psych rockers? Could be jams for sure.

They’ve got two songs posted with a bit of a visualizer/video that works in stages and gets a little headachy with some vibrating imagery later on, but if you emerge from the other side of “Cloudstorming” — which is track two on Turn to Earth, after the droney titular intro — without the word “burner” on your lips, I’d be interested to know what distracted you during the 13 minutes while the song was playing. For me? Laundry. But after I threw the wash in the dryer and came back up from the basement, the four-piece — whose Rich Millman also plays in Desslok, who premiered a video today by fun coincidence — proceeded to melt down that throb in my head that tells me I need to be somewhere and couchlock my ass for the duration. Perhaps, your own laundry almost certainly done already, you might otherwise have a similar experience.

These guys have a reputation at least in my mind for delivering, and I expect no less when Turn to Earth shows up, ready or not. If you’re in the UK or EU, you’ll want to peruse the tour dates below as well to see if they’re coming nearby. For sure a band I wouldn’t mind seeing.

From the PR wire:

Announcing new CARLTON MELTON album Turn To Earth on Agitated Records

Share album’s first two tracks ‘Turn To Earth/Cloudstorming’ with accompanying video

Northern California psychedelic sorcerers Carlton Melton are brain surfers, mind trippers, …”psychlists,” if you prefer. The band will take your head for a ride, occasionally rushing at superluminal speeds through a wormhole or gliding softly on a gentle breeze in a leafy glade. Sometimes your brain needs to rage, and sometimes it needs to repose.

For a decade and a half, the band has yo-yo’ed, almost schizophrenically, between these two modes: walloping space jams with furious guitar solos in one hemisphere of the brain and ethereal, feather-light splashdowns in the other. Not to mention a track here and there that builds from the latter into the former.

But with two new releases in 2023, the band has evolved. Whether psych rock or ambient trance, their sound remains driving, organic, and flowing. With the addition of Anthony Taibi (White Manna, DDT), however, the group’s metal freak-outs are Hawkwindier and their droning kraut trances are Spacemen 3-er. In January, the quartet released the playfully spacey Resemble Ensemble, recorded in Taibi’s home studio 3D Light. October now sees the band Turn To Earth, a work with scents of Autumn, a season of death and transition. The cover art evokes a vine-covered, electric crucifix. The sound is, well, earthy but also gritty and striving towards change. The album was recorded in Fall 2022 and now harvested in Fall 2023.

CARLTON MELTON
TURN TO EARTH
AGITATED RECORDS
Release date: 6th October 2023 (2LP/CD/DL)

Tracklist
01. Turn To Earth
02. Cloudstorming
03. Vanquished
04. Cosmicity
05. Canned Head
06. Sundering
07. Unlock The Land
08. Roboflow
09. Last Times
10. Migration
11. Mutiny

Phil Becker (Terry Gross, Pins Of Light) contributed drums and percussion to a few tracks on Turn To Earth, recording the album at El Studio in San Francisco. With Becker at the helm, the synths have become more prominent (“Cosmicity,” “Roboflow,” “Migration”) and the tone heavier on the doom (“Cloudstorming,” “Unlock The Land,” title track): several moments could even serve as background music for epic dark fantasy films like Conan the Barbarian, Fire and Ice, or Heavy Metal.

As exquisite as Turn To Earth is, Melton are best appreciated as a live act: their recordings as well as their gigs are largely improvised – not so much composed as birthed. And yet their most recent tour ended abruptly and perilously. The group had to cancel its final three shows once members were admitted to Arnhem hospital in the Netherlands. Five years later, reinforcements have strengthened the band and restocked its arsenal of great tracks.

After the rockus interruptus of that 2018 tour and the tantric tease of the intervening Covid lockdown, Melton have some unfinished business. An October 2023 tour is poised to set the freshly minted quartet back onto the stages of Europe and within the cerebral folds of its fans.

Turn To Earth, sure … but keep your head in outer space.

CARLTON MELTON UK/EU 2023 TOUR
Oct 11 – GHENT, BE – @ Kinky Bar
Oct 12 – LONDON, UK – @ Strongroom Bar w/ Black Helium and Psychic Lemon
Oct 13 – GLASTONBURY, UK – @ King Arthur
Oct 14 – HEBDEN BRIDGE, UK @ The Trades Club w/ Dead Sea Apes
Oct 15 – GLASGOW, UK @ Ivory Blacks TBA
Oct 17 – SALISBURY, UK @ The Winchester Gate
Oct 18 – BRISTOL, UK @ Crofter Rights
Oct 19 – MARGATE, UK @ Bar Nothing
Oct 20 – ANTWERP, BE @ Trix Desert Fest
Oct 21 – AMIENS, FR @ TBA
Oct 23 – ANNAY LE CHATEAU, FR @ Bristrot Culture
Oct 24 – ROUEN , FR @ Le 3 Pieces
Oct 26 – ZWOLLE, NL @ Hedon w/ The Warlocks
Oct 27 – AMSTERDAM, NL @ OCCII w/ Sex Swing
Oct 29 – PARIS, FR @ La Maroquinerie e w/ The Warlocks

Carlton Melton is: andy duvall – drums/gtr; clint golden – bass; rich millman – gtr/synth; and anthony taibi – synth/gtr.

https://www.facebook.com/Carlton-Melton-band-page-142609689122268/
https://meltoncarlton.bandcamp.com/
http://www.carltonmeltonmusic.com/

https://www.facebook.com/AGITATEDRECORDS/
https://instagram.com/agitated_records
http://agitatedrecords.com/

Carlton Melton, “Turn to Earth/Cloudstorming” official video

Some expected names in this first announcement from Desertfest Belgium 2023 in Antwerp — Yawning Man, King Buffalo, Truckfighters who seem to be making the rounds all year, etc. — but plenty of unexpected too, with aCarlton Melton returning to Europe, Philadelphia’s Heavy Temple apparently traveling abroad for the first time (new album?), Sourvein returning to road work, REZN heading over to support their killer new record, BlackWater HolyLight, Howling Giant — maybe also their first time in Europe? — Duel getting back over and so on.

As ever, I’m curious to see which of these acts will be on tour, and which with each other, but for now Desertfest Antwerp 2023 looks like a banger in the making. Early-bird tickets sold out in like hours when they were put on sale in February — two months before this first unveiling of band names, mind you — and one expects the sale on weekend tickets to follow suit. I’m not much for the big name on the poster personally, but I recognize I’m in a minority pretty much of myself in that, and from there on I don’t see a clunker in the bunch. Call it a win.

Of course, Desertfest Belgium also helms the Ghent edition. I’m not sure if that will be earlier or later — my guess would be earlier, but maybe the Fall fests spill over to November this year; could happen, wouldn’t be terrible if it did — but for today there’s plenty to dig here as posted by the festival:

The moment we’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived! We’re beyond stoked to announce the first round of names for Desertfest Antwerp!

Confirmed for Desertfest Antwerp 2023 are Cult of Luna, Truckfighters, MANTAR, King Buffalo, The Vintage Caravan, Year of no light, Nebula, Yawning Man, Dopelord, The Atomic Bitchwax, DUEL, Siena Root, Blackwater Holylight, Howling Giant, SOURVEIN, Carlton Melton, Heavy Temple, REZN, Margarita Witch Cult.

No doubt, it is going to be another epic version of Desertfest Anywerp!

Reduced Combi formulas are now available here! (as long as they last) : https://www.desertfest.be/antwerp/information/ticketing/

We’ll be back with more names to add, very soon…

Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1634817843606240/

http://www.desertfest.be/
https://www.facebook.com/desertfestbelgium/
https://www.instagram.com/desertfest_belgium/

Heavy Temple, Lupi Amoris (2021)

Cali psychedelic space traders Carlton Melton hereby announce their new long-player, Resemble Ensemble, will arrive on earthly terrain Feb. 17, 2023, in cosmic alliance with Agitated Records. “Prescribed Skies” is both the opener and longest track (immediate points) from the offering, which finds the krautrock-informed, drone-prone instrumentalist trio working as a foursome after welcoming aboard guitarist/producer Anthony Taibi of the likewise undervalued White Manna, and to put it plainly, that’s a match that works. Pushed outside atmospheric confines by Andy Duvall‘s drums, “Prescribed Skies” is nonetheless meditative in a way that feels exploratory while sure of its own heading even if the listener ends up who the hell knows where and, indeed, who the hell knows when, how or why.

But some things you just don’t need to know, or maybe shouldn’t, and the jams throughout Resemble Ensemble are nigh philosophical in their acceptance of their own mystery. “Elsewhere (Need to Be)” defies its titular urgency with drumless guitar explorations and “So the Story Grows” builds atop a central drone with far-back percussion like the ground below, while “High Alert” strips it all down for a keyboard-infused getdown, hard funk and a crafted solo feeling like a snippet of a larger adventure that just so happened to work as an outlier among outliers, while “Route Thirteen,” definitive in place and a terrestrial return, plays off classic rock influences in its ramble, swelling in volume behind its second half burner of a guitar solo before capping with a fittingly organic comedown. A moment in the room with the band, offered with a purity of purpose manifest in its own creation.

What more would you ask? Spoiled, perhaps. There’s razzle and there’s dazzle, but the mood-altering effects of Resemble Ensemble are to chill, so do that as you dig into the substantial leadoff premiering below, a herald of what’s to come that doesn’t necessarily speak for the entirety even if it does in not doing so. Be confused. That’s part of the fun.

Album announcement follows. Go on. Make friends:

Carlton Melton, “Prescribed Skies” track premiere

Carlton Melton, from Northern California, are now a practising fourpiece in the arts of melted-minds psychedelia.

With the added kraut-oomph and sike-flutter of fellow Californian Anthony Taibi (whom you may know as being a member of White Manna, and DDT with Andy), Rich Millman, Andy Duvall, and Clint Golden have now embellished the Carlton Melton sound.

Pushing forward as a fourpiece, the band recorded Resemble Ensemble in July 2021 (just before Andy moved back over East!) at Anthony’s home studio, 3D Light in Freshwater, CA. Anthony did all the recording and mixing. The Melton Magick Karpet settled, and our favourite contemporary sikedelic warlords plugged in, amped up and let it flow…and flow it does. From the krautrock fuelled pszych-raga of Prescribed Skies, to the fluid dronescape of Elsewhere that welcomes you into its arms with a warming tone, almost a missing Spacemen 3 demo at the feast here… So The Story Grows has the drone scraping through a murk of dazzling feedback and pummel, with the fuller sounding Melton giving the genre a proper wobble, hold on to your brains people…

High Alert… whas this? Synth and guitar interplay jambusting, this is the Melton wigging out and almost interweaving 70s high table rock with some odd and downright perverse synthfunkpunk rhythms… get weird… or get wired… or both… easily done here. Closing out the album with Route Thirteen is the road trip home…they’ve been, they’ve massaged and mangled your synapses, plug in the satnav and take the higher-route home…if you get our drift.

Carlton Melton, starting 2023 in a better place than most, soaring high on their synaptic-dazzling magick karpet.

Once again mastered by John McBain (legend).

300 on White Splatter vinyl, called “corneal exposure mix”.
300 on Black vinyl, also available with a nice poster of the front cover.
500 Compact Disc, in sturdy card sleeve.

Single: https://meltoncarlton.bandcamp.com/track/prescribed-skies
Album: https://meltoncarlton.bandcamp.com/album/resemble-ensemble

TRACKLISTING
1. Prescribed Skies
2. Elsewhere (Need To Be)
3. So The Story Grows
4. High Alert
5. Route Thirteen

Carlton Melton is:
Andy Duvall (drums, guitar)
Clint Golden (bass)
Rich Millman (guitar, synths)
Anthony Taibi (guitar)

https://www.facebook.com/Carlton-Melton-band-page-142609689122268/
https://meltoncarlton.bandcamp.com/
http://www.carltonmeltonmusic.com/

https://www.facebook.com/AGITATEDRECORDS/
http://agitatedrecords.com/

In case 2008 doesn’t seem like all that long ago, the image below is one I found on Carlton Melton‘s MySpace page. Many of the pictures are gone, but this one with the album info written in what looks like a MS-Paint-with-mouse handwriting was still there, and, since all the images of the album art are teeny-tiny, I figured that would be fun to include instead.

The Mendocino drift-heads released Live in Point Arena as their first CD-R in suitably casual fashion, winding up with about 100 copies made, one of which indeed is listed currently for $100 cash monies on Discogs. Below, guitarist Rich Millman gives some background remembering the get-together where the set was recorded, as well as how it was recorded, and you’ll also find the preorder link for the first official vinyl edition of Live in Point Arena, which will be a 2LP out through Lay Bare Recordings in a they-should-probably-make-more edition of 300, though mind you I have no idea if they’ll actually make any more of them.

Among the admirable traits of the new version is that it doesn’t cost a hundred bucks. Plus availability. Plus headpsych.

Have at it:

CARLTON MELTON – PRE ORDER DEC 3RD 10:00 cet DOME ROCK AT ITS FINEST!

Carlton Melton’s CD-r version of ‘Live in Point Arena’ finally on heavy weight vinyl (2LP).

Honoured to announce that the ‘Live in Point Arena’ CD-r version from Carlton Melton finally will be released on heavy weight coloured vinyl as 2LP.

Limited to 300 x 2LP worldwide. Pre-order the vinyl majick via Lay Bare Recordings: https://laybarerecordings.com/release/live-in-point-arena-by-carlton-melton-lbr036

‘Live In Point Arena’ was recorded during a full moon on the evening of July 18th, 2008. It wasn’t a live show but more a gathering of friends and folks to play some ‘head music’ at Brian’s home which happened to be a geodesic dome and ideal for those types of sounds. I recorded the evening on a M-Audio handheld recorder duct taped to the wall/ceiling of the North side of the Dome. When I got back to San Francisco a few days later I immediately crushed the audio to 4-track cassette tape on a Tascam 424. Upon listening back I thought this stuff sounded cool and shared it with Andy. We then burned some cd-r’s to give to friends and likeminded folks. Andy dropped off a copy to Scott Hewicker at aQuarius records in San Francisco and they liked it enough to request a few cd-r’s to sell at the shop and also posted a kind review by Scott. Then there were more requests for the cd-r’s and we burned some more ( like 70 or so ) and that was that…

Until now 13 years later and our friend Désirée kindly asking if she can release the cd-r recording on vinyl on her label with some added bonus bits recorded that same evening. We thank you Désirée and Lay Bare Recordings.

Andy had brought up his guitar and amp and used it on ‘happy song’, ‘against the wall’, ‘full moon ridge’, and the bonus tracks ‘thirst cycle’ and ‘purer’ (extended). Andy also got on the drums for ‘fucking funky shit’ and bonus tracks ‘another log on the fire’, ‘speeditup’, and ‘rubbery room’. Brian got on the drums for ‘happy song’, ‘against the wall’ and the bonus track ‘purer’ (extended). Andreas stopped by and played drums on ‘full moon ridge’. I played guitar and synth throughout the evening. Some other folks stopped by throughout the night offering shout outs and guidance. It was a special night and eventually forged the beginnings of the musical group Carlton Melton. We hope you can find some joy and amusement with this blast from the past. Long Live Dome Rock.

– Rich April 2021

Tracklisting:
Happy Song
Against The Wall
Fucking Funky Shit
Inter Mission
Root Ball
Full Moon Ridge
Legion of Doom
Thirst Cycle
Another Log On The Fire
Speeditup
Rubbery Room
Purer ( extended )

Lineup:
Andy Duvall / guitar, drums
Brian McDougall / drums
Rich Millman / guitar, synthesizers
John Steuernagel / bass

https://www.facebook.com/Carlton-Melton-band-page-142609689122268/
https://meltoncarlton.bandcamp.com/
http://www.carltonmeltonmusic.com/
https://laybarerecordings.com/
https://www.facebook.com/laybarerecordings/
https://www.instagram.com/laybarerecordings/

Carlton Melton, “Happy Song”

This will be a two-week Quarterly Review. That means this Monday to Friday and next Monday to Friday, 10 releases per day, totaling 100 by the time it’s done.

Me? I’m taking it one week, one day, one album at a time. It’s the only way to go and not have it seem completely insurmountable. But we’ll get through it all. I started out with the usual five days, and then I went to seven, then eight, and at that point I felt like I had a pretty good idea where things were headed. The last two days I filled up just at the end of last week. Some of it is I think a result of quarantine productivity, but there’s a glut of relevant stuff out now and some of it I’m catching up on, true, but some of it isn’t out yet either, so it’s a balance as ever. I keep telling myself I’m done with 2020 releases, but there’s one in here today. You know how it goes.

And since you do, I won’t delay further. Thanks in advance for reading if you do.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

Carlton Melton, Night Pillers

Rangey mellow psych collected together with the natural shimmer of a Phil Manley (Trans Am) recording and a John McBain master, the new mini-LP from Mendocino medicine makers Carlton Melton is a 31-minute, five-song meditative joy. To wit, “Safe Place?” Is. “Morning Warmth?” Is, even with the foreboding march of drums behind it. And “Striatum,” which closes with interplay of keys and fuzzy leads and effects, giving a culminating seven-minute wash that doesn’t feel like it’s pushing far out so much as already gone upon arrival, indeed seems like a reward for any head or brain that’s managed to make it so far. Opener “Resemblance” brings four minutes of gentle drone to set the mood ahead of “Morning Warmth” — it might be sunrise, if we’re thinking of it that way — and centerpiece “High Noon Thirty” bridges krauty electronic beats and organic ceremony that feels both familiar and like the band’s own. They may pill at night, but Carlton Melton have a hell of a day here.

Carlton Melton on Facebook

Agitated Records website

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Crown, The End of All Things

Weaving in and around genres with fluidity that’s tied together through dark industrial foundations, Crown are as much black metal as they are post-heavy, cinematic or danceable. “Gallow” or the earlier “Neverland” call to mind mid-period, electronica-fascinated Katatonia, but “Extinction” pairs this with a more experimental feel, opening in its midsection to more unsettling spaces ahead of the dance-ready finish. There’s nothing cartoonish or vamp about The End of All Things, which is the French outfit’s fourth album in 10 years, and it’s as likely to embrace pop (closer “Utopia”) as extremity (“Firebearer” just before), grim atmospherics (“Nails”) or textured acoustics (“Fleuve”), feeling remarkably unconcerned with genre across its 45 entrancing minutes, and remarkably even in its approach for a sound that’s still so varied. It’s not an easy listen front to back, but the challenge feels intentional and is emotional as much as cerebral in the craft and performance.

Crown on Facebook

Pelagic Records on Bandcamp

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Noêta, Elm

Swedish duo Noêta offer their second record for Prophecy Productions in Elm, comprising a deceptively efficient eight songs and 38 minutes that work in atmospheres of darker but not grim or cultish folk. Vocalist Êlea is very much a focal point in terms of performance, with Andris‘ instrumentals forming a backdrop that’s mournful on “Above and Below” while shimmering enough to bring affirmation to “As We Are Gone” a short while later ahead of the electrified layering in “Elm” and the particularly haunted-feeling closer “Elm II.” “As I Fall Silent” is a singularly spacious moment, but not the only one, as “Fade” complements with strings and outward-sounding guitar, and some of Elm‘s most affecting moments are its quietest stretches, as “Dawn Falls” proves at the outset and the whispers of “Elm” reaffirm on side B. Subdued but not lacking complexity, Noêta‘s songs make an instrument of mood itself and are pointedly graceful in doing so.

Noêta on Facebook

Prophecy Productions website

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Polymerase, Unostentatious

Unostentatious, which is presumably not to say “humble,” may or may not be Polymerase‘s debut release, but it follows on from several years of inactivity on the part of the Philippines-based mostly-instrumentalist heavy psych trio. The band present four duly engaging and somewhat raw feeling jams, with a jump in volume as “Lightbringer//Lightgiver” picks up from “A Night with a Succubus” and opener “The Traveler” and a final touch of thickened, fuzzy sludge in the rolling “Green is the Color of Evil,” which closes at a lurch that comes across at significant remove from the title-hinted brightness of the song just before it. Uneven? Maybe, but not egregiously so, and if Polymerase are looking to give listeners an impression of their having a multifaceted sound, they most assuredly do. My question is over what span of time these tracks were recorded and what the group will do in moving forward from them, but I take the fact that I’m curious to find out at all as a positive sign of having interest piqued. Will hope for more.

Polymerase on Facebook

Polymerase on Bandcamp

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Lucid Sins, Cursed!

Lucid indeed. The band’s self-applied genre tag of “adult AOR” is more efficient a descriptor of their sound than anything I might come up with. Glasgow’s Lucid Sins released their acclaimed debut, Occultation, in 2014, and Cursed! is the exclamatory seven-years-later follow-up, bringing together classic progressive rock and modern cult heavy sensibilities with a focus on songwriting that’s the undercurrent from “Joker’s Dance” onward and which, as deep as “The Serpentine Path” or the title-track or “The Forest” might go, is never forgotten. To wit, the penultimate “By Your Hand” is a proto-everything highlight, stomping compared to the organ-prog “Sun and the Moon” earlier, but ultimately just as melodic and of enviable tonal warmth. Seven years is a long time between records, and maybe this material just took that long to put together, I don’t know, but I had no idea “cult xylophone” was a possibility until “The Devil’s Sign” came along, and now I’m not sure how I ever lived without it.

Lucid Sins on Facebook

Totem Cat Records store

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Hekate, Sermons to the Black Owl

Australia’s history in heavy rock and roll is as long as that of heavy rock and roll itself and need not be recounted here, except to say that Hekate, from Canberra and Sydney, draw from multiple eras of it with their debut long-player, Sermons to the Black Owl, pushing ’70s boogie over the top with solos on “Carpathian Eagle” only after “Winter Void” and “Child of Black Magick” have seen the double-guitar-and-let’s-use-both four-piece update nascent doom vibes and “Burning Mask” has brought a more severe chug to the increasingly intense procession. A full production sound refuses to let the quick eight-tracker be anything other than modern, and though it’s only 28 minutes long, the aptly-titled “Acoustic Outro” feels earned atmospherically, even down to the early-feeling cold finish of “Cassowary Dreaming.” The balance may be then, then, then, and now, but the sense of shove that Hekate foster in their songs gives fresh urgency to the tenets of genre they seem to have adopted at will.

Hekate on Facebook

Black Farm Records store

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Abel Blood, Keeping Pace with the Elephants

One does not evoke elephantine images on a heavy record, even on a debut release, if aural largesse isn’t a factor. New Hampshire trio Abel Blood — guitarist/vocalist Adam Joslyn, bassist Ben Cook, drummer Jim DeLuca — are raw in sound on their first EP, Keeping Pace with the Elephants, but the impact with which they land “The Day that Moby Died” at the outset is only encouraging, and to be sure, it’s not the thickest of their wares either. “Enemies” already pushes further, and as centerpiece “UnKnown Variant” would seem to date the effort in advance, it also serves the vital function of moving the EP in a different, more jangly, grungier direction, which is a valuable move with the title cut following behind, its massive cymbals and distorted wash building to a head in time for the nine-minute finale “Fire on the Hillside” to draw together both sides of the approach shown throughout into a parabolically structured jam the middle-placed surge of which passes quickly enough to leave the listener unsure whether it ever happened. They’re messing with you. Dig that.

Abel Blood on Facebook

Abel Blood on Bandcamp

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Suffer Yourself, Rip Tide

Begun in 2011 by guitarist/vocalist Stanislav Govorukha and based in Sweden by way of Poland and the Ukraine, death-doom lurchbringers Suffer Yourself are not strangers to longer-form material, but to my knowledge, “Spit in the Chasm” — the opening and longest track (immediate points) on their third record, Rip Tide — is the first time they’ve crossed the 20-minute mark. Time well spent, and by that I mean “brutally spent,” whether its the speedier chug that emerges from the willful slog of the extended piece’s first half or the viciously progressive lead work that tops the precise, cold end of the song that brings final ambience. Side B offers two shorter pieces in “Désir de Trépas Maritime (Au Bord de la Mer Je Veux Mourir),” laced with suitably mournful strings and a fair enough maritime sense of gothic drama emphasized by later spoken word and piano, and the brief, mostly-drone “Submerging,” which one assumes is the end of that plotline playing out. The main consumption though is in “Spit in the Chasm,” and the dimensions of that fissure are significant, figuratively and literally.

Suffer Yourself on Facebook

Aesthetic Death website

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Green Dragon, Dead of the Night

High order Sabbathian doom rock from my own beloved Garden State, there’s very little chance I’m not going to dig Green Dragon‘s Dead of the Night, and true to type, I do. Presented by the band on limited vinyl after digital release late in 2020, the four-song, 24-minute outing brings guitarist/vocalists Zach Kurland and Ryan Lipynsky (the latter also adding keys and known for his work in Unearthly Trance, etc.), bassist Jennifer Klein and drummer Herbert Wiley to a place so dug into its groove it almost feels inappropriate to think of it as a peak in terms of their work to-date. They go high by going low, then. Fair enough. “Altered States” opens with a rollout of fuzz that miraculously avoids the trap sounding like Electric Wizard, while “Burning Bridges” murks out, “The Sad King” pushes speed a bit will still holding firm to nod and echo alike, and “Book of Shadows” plunges into effects-drenched noise like it was one of the two waterslides at the Maplewood community pool in summertime.

Green Dragon on Facebook

Green Dragon on Bandcamp

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ÂGE TOTAL, ÂGE TOTAL

The kind of record that probably won’t be heard by enough people but will inspire visceral loyalty in many of those who encounter it, the self-titled debut from French collaborative outfit Age Total — bringing together members from Endless Floods out of Bordeaux and Rouen’s Greyfell — is a grand and engrossing work that pushes the outer limits of doom and post-metal. Bookending opener “Amure” (14:28) and closer “The Songbird” (16:45) around the experimentalist “Carré” (4:06) and rumbling melodic death-doom of “Metal,” the album harnesses grandiosity and nuance to spare, with each piece feeling independently conceived and enlightening to musician and audience alike. It sounds like the kind of material they didn’t know they were going to come up with until they actually got together — whatever the circumstances of “together” might’ve looked like at the time — and the bridges they build between progressive metal and sheer weight of intention are staggering. However much hype it does or doesn’t have behind it, Age Total‘s Age Total is one of 2021’s best debut albums.

Endless Floods on Facebook

Greyfell on Facebook

Soza Label on Bandcamp

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Don’t tell anyone — or better yet, do! — but this show turned out pretty solid. I kind of put it together following a couple whims, things I’ve wanted to put in my own head, plus some of the recent Bandcamp Friday stuff — hello Spaceslug and Geezer — and things I’ve covered here recently in Tuna de Tierra and Worshipper and Carlton Melton, etc. Then I just wanted to hear the Shogun and LáGoon tracks for myself, and I’ve been meaning to cover that White Powder record more for weeks, and then I started thinking about songs that have “mountain” in the title and decided to do a whole block of those just for the hell of it, so that’s where we wound up. Mountain climbing.

But in addition to starting off with the maddeningly catchy “It’s Already Written” by Tau and the Drones of Praise — whose Roadburn Redux stream was posted here first thing this week — this one makes a few cool turns and flows and kind of breaks up nicely from one thing to the next, even as “Mountain” gets into “Mountain” into “Longing to Be the Mountain” and “Holy Mountain” and “I’m the Mountain.” This is the sort of thing I think is fun. That’s me. That’s who I am.

Anyway, thanks for listening and/or reading. As always, I hope you enjoy.

The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at http://gimmemetal.com

Full playlist:

The Obelisk Show – 05.14.21

Tau and the Drones of Praise	It’s Already Written	Tau and the Drones of Praise
Carlton Melton	Waylay	Where This Leads
Spaceslug	The Event Horizon	The Event Horizon
VT
Worshipper	Pictures of Home	VA – Bow to Your Masters Vol. 2: Deep Purple
LáGoon	Hill Bomb	Skullactic Visions
White Powder	Rula Jabreal	Blue Dream
Shogun	Delta	Tetra
VT
Tuna de Tierra	Mountain	Tuna de Tierra
Colour Haze	Mountain	Colour Haze
King Buffalo	Longing to Be the Mountain	Longing to Be the Mountain
Sleep	Holy Mountain	Sleep’s Holy Mountain
Stoned Jesus	I’m the Mountain	Seven Thunders Roar
VT
Geezer	Solstice	Solstice

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is May 28 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.

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