Somehow it feels longer than it’s actually been. Yeah, a year’s changed over, but it’s really only been about a month since the last Quarterly Review installment, which I said at the time was only half of the full proceedings. I’ve started the count over at 1-50, but in my head, this is really a continuation of that five-day stretch more than something separate. It’s been booked out I think since before the last round of 50 was done, if that tells you anything. Should tell you 2021 was a busy year and 2022 looks like it’ll be more of the same in that regard. Also a few other regards, but let’s keep it optimistic, hmm?

We start today fresh with a wide swath of stuff for digging and, well, I hope you dig it. Let’s go.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

Zack Oakley, Badlands

Apparently I’ve been spelling Zack Oakley‘s name wrong for the better part of a decade. Zack with a ‘k’ instead of an ‘h’ at the end. I feel like a jerk. By any spelling, dude both shreds and can write a song. Known for his work in Joy, Pharlee, Volcano, etc., he brings vibrant classic heavy to the fore on his solo debut, Badlands, sounding like a one-man San Diego scene on “I’m the One” only after declaring his own genre in opener “Freedom Rock.” “Mexico” vibes on harmonica-laced heavy blues and the acoustic-led “Looking High Searching Low” follows suit with slide, but there’s tinge of psych on the catchy “Desert Shack,” and “Fever” stomps out in pure Hendrix style without sounding ridiculous, which is not an achievement to be understated. Closing duo “Acid Rain” and “Badlands” meet at the place where the ’60s ended and the ’70s started, swaggering through time with more hooks and a sound that might be garage if your garage had a really nice studio in it. I’ll take more of this anytime Mr. Oakley wants to belt it out.

Zack Oakley website

Kommune Records on Bandcamp

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Vøuhl, Vøuhl

Issued by Shawn Pelata — also known as Pælãtä Shåvvn, with an apparent thing for accent marks — the self-titled debut from Vøuhl mixes industrial-style experimentalism, dark ambience and a strong cinematic current across a still-relatively-unassuming five-songs and 23 minutes, hitting a resonant minimalism at the ending of “Evvûl” while building to a fuller-sounding progression on the subsequent “Välle.” Drones, echoing, looped beats and thoughtfully executed synth let Pelata construct each atmosphere as an individual piece, but with the attention obviously paid to the presentation of the whole, there’s nothing that keeps one piece from tying into the next either, so whether one approaches Vøuhl‘s Vøuhl as an EP or a short album, the impression of a deep-running soundscape is made one way or the other. What seems to be speech samples in “Aurô” and noise-laced closer “ßlasste” — thoroughly manipulated — may hint at things to come, but I hope not entirely at the expense of the percussive urgency of opener “Dùste” here.

Vøuhl on Facebook

Stone Groove Records website

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White Manna, First Welcome

At first you’re all like, “yeah this is right on I can handle it” and then all of a sudden White Manna are about four minutes into the freakery of “Light Cones” opening up their latest opus First Welcome and you’re starting to panic because you took too much and you’re couchlocked. The heretofore undervalued Calipsych weirdos are out-out-out on their new eight-songer, done in an LP-ready 39 minutes but drippy droppy through an interdimensional swap-meet of renegade noises and melted-down aesthetics. Maybe you heard 2020’s ARC (review here) and thereby got on board, or maybe you don’t know them at all. Doesn’t matter. The thing is they’re already in your brain and by the time you’re done with the triumph-boogie of “Lions of Fire” you realize you’re one with the vibrating universe and only then are you ready to meet the “Monogamous Cassanova” in krautrock purgatory before the swirling “Milk Symposium” spreads itself out like a blanket over the sun. Too trippy for everything, and so just. fucking. right. If you can hang with this, I wanna be friends.

White Manna on Facebook

Cardinal Fuzz webstore

Centripetal Force Records website

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Daily Thompson, God of Spinoza

In 2022, German heavy rockers Daily Thompson mark a decade since their founding. God of Spinoza is their fifth full-length, and in songs like “Cantaloupe Melon,” “Golden Desert Child,” and “Muaratic Acid,” the reliability one has come to expect from them is only reinforced. Their sound hinges on psychedelia, but complements that with an abiding sense of grunge and a patience in songwriting. They’ve done heavy blues and straight-up rock in the past, so neither is out of the trio’s wheelhouse — the penultimate “Midnight Soldier” is a breakout here — but the title-track’s drawn-out “yeah”s and slacker-nod rhythm seem to draw more directly from the Alice in Chains school of making material sound slow without actually having it crawl or sacrifice accessibility. I’d give them points regardless for calling a song “I Saw Jesus in a Taco Bell,” but the closer is a genuine highlight on God of Spinoza turning a long stretch of disaffection to immersive fuzz with a deftness befitting a band on their fifth record who know precisely who they are. Like I said, reliable.

Daily Thompson on Facebook

Noisolution website

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Headless Monarch, Titan Slug

Founded by guitarist/bassist Collin Green, Headless Monarch released their first demo in 2013 and their most recent EP, Nothing on the Horizon, in 2016. Five years later, Green and drummer Brandon Zackey offer the late-2021 debut full-length, Titan Slug, working in collaboration for the first time with vocalist and producer Otu Suurmunne of Moonic Productions — who mostly goes by Otu — across a richly executed collection of six tracks, three new, three from prior outings. Not sure if Otu is a hired gun as a singer working alongside the other two, but there’s little arguing with the results they glean as a trio across a song like “Fever Dream” or “Sleeper Now Rise,” the latter taken from Headless Monarch‘s 2015 two-songer and positioned in a more aggressive stance overall. The newer songs come across as more fleshed out, but even “Eight Minutes of Light” from the first demo has atmospheric reach to go with its clarity of focus and noteworthy heft. One only hopes the collaboration continues and inspires further work along these lines.

Headless Monarch on Instagram

Headless Monarch on Bandcamp

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Some Pills for Ayala, Space Octopus

Technically speaking, you had me at Space Octopus. After releasing a self-titled EP under the somewhat-troubling moniker (one hopes it’s not too many) Some Pills for Ayala, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and producer Néstor Ayala Cortés of At Devil Dirt returns with this two-songer, comprised of its 11-minute title-cut and the shorter “It’s Been a Long Trip.” The lead track is duly dream-drifty in its procession, a subtle build underway across its span but pushing more for hypnosis than impact and getting there to be sure, even as the second half grows thicker in tone. At 3:48, “It’s Been a Long Trip” comes across more as an experiment in technique captured and used as the foundation for Cortés‘ soft, wide echoing vocals. Lysergic and adventurous in kind, the 15-minute EP is nonetheless serene in its presence and soothing overall. Could be that Cortés might push deeper into folk as he goes forward, but the acidy foundation he’s working from will only add to that.

Some Pills for Ayala on Instagram

Some Pills for Ayala on Bandcamp

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Il Mostro, Occult Practices

It’s a quick in-out from Boston heavy punkers Il Mostro on the Occult Practices EP. Four songs, the last of which is a cover of T.S.O.L.‘s “Black Magic,” nothing over three minutes long, all fits neatly on a 7″. For what they’re doing, that makes sense, taking the high-velocity ethic of Motörhead or Peter Pan Speedrock (if you need a second plays-fast-punk-derived-and-rocks band) and delivering with an appropriately straightforward thrust. Opener “Firewitch” ends with giggling, and that’s fair enough to convey the overarching lack of pretense throughout, but they do well with the cover and have a righteous balance between control and chaos in the relatively-mid-paced “Trial” and the sprinter “Faith in Ghosts,” which follows. Is cult punk a thing? I guess you could ask the Misfits that question, but Il Mostro mostly avoid sounding like that Jersey band, and it’s easy enough to imagine them bashing walls at any number of Beantown havens or bathed under the telltale red lights of O’Brien’s as they tear into a set. So be it, punkers.

Il Mostro on Facebook

Il Mostro on Bandcamp

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Carmen Sea, Hiss

Should it come as a surprise that an EP of violin-laced/led instrumentalist progressive post-rock, willfully working against genre convention in order to cross between metal, rock and more atmospheric fare includes an element of self-indulgence? Nope. How could it be otherwise? The five-track Hiss from Parisian four-piece Carmen Sea is a heady outing indeed, but at just 29 minutes, the band doesn’t actually lose themselves in what they’re doing, and the surprises they offer along the way like the electronic turns in “Black Echoes” or the quiet drone stretch in the first half of 11-minute closer “Glow in Space” — which gets plenty tense soon enough — provide welcome defiance of expectation. That is to say, whatever else they are, Carmen Sea are not predictable, and that serves them well here and will continue to. “Frames” begins jarring and strutting, but finds its strength in its more floating movement, though the later bridge of classical and weighted musics feels like the realization that might’ve led to creating the band in the first place. There’s potential in toying with that balance.

Carmen Sea on Facebook

Carmen Sea Distrokid

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Trip Hill, Ain’t Trip Ceremony

Florence’s Fabrizio Cecchi has vibe to spare with his solo-project Trip Hill, and Denmark’s Bad Afro Records has stepped forward to issue the 2020 offering, Ain’t Trip Ceremony, toward broader consciousness. The eight-song/39-minute long-player is duly dug-in, and its psychedelic reach comes with a humility of craft that makes the songs likewise peaceful and exploratory and entrancing. Repetition is key for the latter, but Cecchi also manages to keep things moving across the album, with a fuzzy cut like “Spam Mind” seeming to build on top of loops and shifting into a not-overblown space rock, hardly mellow, but more acknowledging the vastness of the cosmos than one might expect. The more densely-fuzzed “Ralph’s Heart Attack” leads into the guitar-focused “Pan” ahead of the finale “What Happened to Will,” but that’s after “Tame Ùkhan” has gone a-wandering and decided to stay that way and the seven-minute “Trái tim Thán Yêu” has singlehandedly justified the vinyl release in its blend of percussive urgency and psychedelic shimmer. Go in with an open mind and you won’t go wrong.

Trip Hill on Facebook

Bad Afro Records on Bandcamp

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Yanomamo & Slomatics, Split 7″

Yanomamo begin their Iommium Records two-song split 7″ with Slomatics by harshly delivering a deceptively positive message: “If you’re going to seek revenge/Might as well dig two graves/He who holds resentment is already digging his own.” Fair enough. The Sydney, Australia, and Belfast, Northern Ireland, outfits offer about 10 and a half minutes of material between them, but complement each other well, with the thickness of the latter building off the raw presentation of the former, Yanomamo‘s guttural portrayal of bitterness offered in scream-topped sludge crash on “Dig Two Graves” that builds in momentum toward the end while Slomatics‘ “Griefhound” offers the futurist tonal density and expanse of vocal echo typifying their latter-day work and turns a quiet, chugging bridge into a consciousness-slamming payoff. Neither act is really out of their comfort zone, but established listeners will revel in the chance to hear them alongside each other, and if you hear complaints about either of these cuts, they won’t be from me.

Yanomamo on Facebook

Slomatics on Facebook

Iommium Records on Bandcamp

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Doing things a little differently this time. Yes, it’s still 10 records per day for a total of 50 between today and Friday, but with the utter glut — glutter! — of releases coming out and recently released, I’m doubling up on the Winter Quarterly Review and will be putting together another week of 50 records for January, after the holidays and all the year-end hullabaloo. So it’s 50 now and 50 later. I’ve never done it that way before, and I reserve the right to completely change my mind after this week, but as of right this second, that’s where I’m at. Talk to me again on Friday.

I guess we’d better get started, either way.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

Enslaved, Caravans to the Outer Worlds

With a relatively brief 18-minute excursion that pushes yet-deeper into their particular brand of progressive extreme metal, Norway’s Enslaved continue to walk the increasingly melodic and decreasingly genre-dependent path in following-up 2020’s Utgard (review here). Their affinity for krautrock experimentalism is well established but has never been so forwardly presented as on “Intermezzo I – Lönnlig. Gudlig.,” and the thrust of the opening title-track sets Caravan to the Outer Worlds off with a due sense of motion later complemented by the keyboard-heavy “Ruun II – The Epitaph,” an apparent 15-years-later sequel to the title-cut from 2006’s Ruun (discussed here). Rounding out with “Intermezzo II – The Navigator,” with its almost-motorik space-but-still-somehow-Norwegian-space rock vibe, Enslaved‘s short offering for 2021 demonstrates plainly that they can be whatever and do whatever the hell they want. 30 years from their beginning, they keep growing. Such bands are likewise rare and precious.

Enslaved on Facebook

Nuclear Blast website

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Bisonte & Milana, Mallorca Stoner Vol. 1 Split

It’s not quite what-you-see-is-what-you-get, but the Discos Macarras split Mallorca Stoner Vol. 1 that brings together two tracks each from Spanish outfits Bisonte — also written Bis·nte — and Milana certainly lays out its mission in representing the Mediterranean island’s heavy underground, and Bisonte aren’t through the nine-minute doomer “Unbalanced” before I’m curious just how many volumes the label might be able to put together from Mallorcan acts. Nonetheless, Bisonte‘s wizardly march on “Involuntary Act” flows organically around its downtrodden vibe, and in the more psychedelic “White Buffalo” and burl-lumbering “Forest Tale,” Milana work even quicker to acquit themselves well with an underlying current of noise. However much of a scene there may or may not be in Mallorca, Mallorca Stoner Vol. 1 is a welcome means through which to begin exploring both these acts more and others with whom they might share local stages. One will await Vol. 2 with interest.

Bisonte on Facebook

Milana on Instagram

Discos Macarras website

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Leeds Point, Mother of Eternity

New York’s Leeds Point seem on a doomed course with their Mother of Eternity EP on the opener “High Strangeness,” but they shake it up late with some cowbell boogie, and “The Summoning” further deepens the plot with layered in acoustics and a more lush melody as the trio builds out from their basic guitar-bass-drums configuration. Likewise, the shorter “Long Way Down” is a more straight-ahead ’70s rocker, and the closing title-track meets its initial prog rock melody first with driving riffs and later with more angularity and harsher barking vocals… before bringing it all back around at the end. With Eternal Black out of commission, NYC needs someone to champion traditional doom, but that’s not who these Long Islanders are. Their sound — set forth on their debut full-length some seven years ago; their most recent prior outing was 2019’s Equinox Blues (review here) — is more purposefully diverse. If they’re championing anything here, it’s their individuality. And that suits them.

Leeds Point on Facebook

Leeds Point on Bandcamp

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Ocultum, Residue

The second full-length from Santiago, Chile’s Ocultum, Residue, was first issued by the band independently in 2019. Picked up for a vinyl release through Interstellar Smoke Records, the four-song/49-minute long-player (bong)rips into filthy-fuzz doom and scabbed-over sludge, the lumbering coming in one longform nod after another in “The Acid Road” and “Residue” itself — which might be the most densely-toned inclusion of the bunch, but it hardly matters when the 16-minute “Ascending With the Fumes of the Dead” and the 12-minute “Reflections on Repulsiveness” and you’re either on board with Ocultum‘s periodically-deathly-always-fucked style by then or you’ve probably been so grossed out that you’ve gone and gotten yourself a job, decided you were never really so misanthropic to start with, and that what you thought was the inner scum of your existential makeup was just you needing to have lunch or take a shower or some shit. Meanwhile, Ocultum are over here shrooming up and worshiping decay. Different league entirely. Even the quietest moments of Residue are heavy. There’s just no escape from it.

Ocultum on Facebook

Interstellar Smoke Records store

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Cruel Curses, Fables, Folklore & Other Assorted Fever Dreams

If Tampa, Florida, heavy progressive rockers Cruel Curses decided to approach their third full-length, Fables, Folklore & Other Assorted Fever Dreams, with the goal of writing the entire album as a single-song, well, they did that. Though cumbersome in its title, “Fables, Folklore & Other Assorted Fever Dreams” is 36 minutes of linear-charted fare, twisting through parts both hard-hitting and airy, acoustic and electric and probably what could’ve been different songs if otherwise broken up in some places. Does it really matter? Nah. The finished piece, which is a departure from the four-piece and an impressive achievement in itself, makes its point with prog’s affection for funk propelling as many of its parts as metal’s more aggressive shred. Yet, Fables, Folklore & Other Assorted Fever Dreams does not merely trade between quiet and loud parts so much as fluidly bring the listener along its ebbs and flows, and though not without its element of self-indulgence, the album earns its swagger.

Cruel Curses on Facebook

Cruel Curses on Bandcamp

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Green Hog Band, Devil’s Luck

Give me the raw swing, echoing gurgles and unabashed fuzz of Green Hog‘s “Luck of the Devil” any day of the week. The Brooklynite trio released their Dogs From Hell full-length last year and follow it with the also-sung-entirely-in-Russian sophomore outing, not without its sense of ambience in “Dark Territory” and “Desert King,” the biker-in-space instrumental capper “Ric Moto,” but perhaps even more about the impact of its crashes than the spaces being created. Whatever definition of the word you might want to apply, Devil’s Luck is fucking heavy. And grim, to boot. Still, one could only call “Long Smoke” some kind of stoner rock, even if it is an especially crusty take thereupon, and the novelty of gurgled-out vocals sung in another language, complemented by samples in classic sludgy fashion, isn’t to be understated. If my man’s voice can hold out for a whole set, these guys must put on a killer show.

Green Hog on Facebook

The Swamp Records on Bandcamp

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Adliga, Vobrazy

There are a few different plot threads one might follow along as Vobrazy weaves through its six component tracks, but the debut full-length from Belarusian five-piece bring their varied fare together around a central idea of progressive, metallic doom. Sometimes that manifests as a post-metallic chug as one hears in “Apošni raz,” which leads off, or it can be the growls and black-metal-squibblies-gone-airy of the early going in “Žyvy.” Such shifting arrangements in vocals (in Belarusian) between guitarist Uladzimir Burylau and singer Kate Sidelova add to the unpredictable nature of the band, but there’s no question that melody wins the day, and given how Vobrazy plays out across its 41 minutes, one gets the feeling that the extremity of “Naščadkam” and the more-patient-before-they-hit-the-payoff closer “Bol na sercy” do not coexist by happenstance. The band — completed by guitarist Ignat Pomazkov, bassist Roman Petrashkevich and drummer Artem Voronko — are not light on ambition, aesthetically-speaking, but I like the fact that I have zero guess what their next record will sound like.

Adliga on Facebook

Adliga on Bandcamp

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Buffalo Tombs, Two

While not barebones by any means, with solos aplenty and variety in their tempos readily established between the first two cuts “Slow Wisdom Coming” and “Hot Girl Summer,” there’s still something about Buffalo Tombs‘ aptly-titled second long-player, Two, that comes across as wholly unpretentious, not trying to overstate its own argument or draw the audience away from the riffs and grooves central to its purpose. Wholesome, if not always humble. The six-songer is done in under half an hour, so if you wanted to call it an EP, you could, but even as Eric Stuart brings in a bit of synth for “Dream Breather” and “The Beheading of John the Baptist” in its later percussion-meet-drift-out finish, the Denver instrumentalists maintain a straightforward underpinning, with Stuart‘s guitar/keys/bass met with Joshua Lafferty‘s basslines and Patrick Haga‘s drumming in easily-digested-but-not-earth-shattering fashion, the low end hitting a particular note of righteousness in rolling out “Al Khidr” without being too showy in doing so. I’d be interested to hear them explore their psychedelic side further, but there’s plenty of vibe here in the meantime.

Buffalo Tombs on Facebook

Buffalo Tombs on Bandcamp

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BroodMother, The Third Eye

Though understated in the fullness of its production, BroodMother‘s The Third Eye EP leaves little doubt as to where the Worcester, UK, five-piece are coming from after having issued their first album, Sin, Myth, Power, in 2019. Jay Clark, who produced that outing, drums on and mixed this one, and its four songs readily serve as a sampler for an audience to be introduced to the band’s take on heavy rock and roll. “Spiritual Shakedown” and “Killing for Company” are midtempo riffers, with the latter touching slightly on Acrimony-style hookmaking and chug, while “(The Ballad of) Anti-Matter Man” gets trippy in its intro and shuffles into an apex in its second half before finishing mellow, and closer “The Trick of the Journey” hints toward ’90s crunch but marries it to a bluesier stretch of lead solo guitar. Still, it’s rock and roll, however you want to cut it — straight-up but not lifeless — and BroodMother proudly carry its banner.

BroodMother on Facebook

BroodMother on Bandcamp

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King Bastard, It Came From the Void

From the almost-if-not-entirely-instrumental unfolding of “From Hell to Horizon” and “Kelper-452B” to the black metal vocals on “Psychosis (In a Vacuum),” the harsh sax of “Black Hole Viscera” and the drone-laden 10-minute finisher “Succumb to the Void,” the debut full-length from Stony Brook, New York’s King Bastard, It Came From the Void, seems wilfully bent toward disorienting those who’d dare to take it on. The breadth and spaciousness of its “From Hell to Horizon” isn’t to be understated — neither the percussion chill in its midsection — but the weight that corresponds there and in “Kelper-452B” and through “Bury the Survivors/Ashes to Ashes,” with its Aliens samples and dug-in-its-own-head proggy chaos is no less a factor in making the album as striking a first impression as it is. Jammy, heavy psych, black metal, doom, sludge — you could call King Bastard any of these and not be wrong, but it’s in how fluidly they unite them that their potential shines through.

King Bastard on Facebook

King Bastard links

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The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Sebastián Bruna of Ocultum

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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

What we do is the sound of the edification of a crumble… we play a hard mix between sludge, doom and stoner, resulting in a very own way to play this music. We’re Ocultum, you wouldn’t find something like this easily out there.

Describe your first musical memory.

My father’s vinyls: Pink Floyd, Chicago, ELP, etc.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

There’s more than one: to know that Residue (our last album) will be released on vinyl, have been play live with Belzebong and see Black Sabbath live twice.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

I think that everyday is a test to what we thought, the world is very fucked up and changing every day, fortunately I don’t have a lot of beliefs, so I don’t have a lot to lose.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

I think time can mold what we do and find the very soul of our music. Just time and perseverance can sculpt this into his flawless form (or de-form).

How do you define success?

Nothing that have to do with money or people. Just being you as thou wilt, and achieve some heaviness that no one can deny.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

All I have seen has its own meaning and it have forged a sick mentality and understanding. We are all sick. We have to see more. Puke and then drink again, the trip never ends.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

I’m creating an horror tale album that will be released some day… is very sick and creepy, have a hallucinating atmosphere and dismal passages. Is in process of creation.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

To keep you sane into insanity, to endure life inside an asshole society and to help to turn off your brain.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

Yeah, I‘ll like to kill the president of Chile, plant a tree and write a book.

https://ocultumdrugcult.bigcartel.com/
https://ocultum.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/ocultum_drugcult/
https://facebook.com/ocultumdrugcult
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2xIbGHJNqDVs3lwD68VO51?si=4ogBEcNqS7iYPLyUN0_rVw&utm_source=copy-link&dl_branch=1
https://interstellarsmokerecords1.bandcamp.com/
https://interstellarsmokerecords.bigcartel.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Interstellar-Smoke-Records-101687381255396/
https://instagram.com/interstellar.smoke.label

Ocultum, Residue (2019)

According to my notes, today is Day Three of the Fall 2021 Quarterly Review. Are you impressed to have made it this far? I kind of am, but, you know, I would be. I hope you’ve managed to find something you dig over the course of the first 20 records, and if not, why not? I’ve certainly added to a few year-end lists between debut albums, regular-old albums and short releases. Today’s no different. Without giving away any secrets ahead of time, this is a pretty wacky stylistic spread from the start and that’s how I like it. Maybe by next Tuesday it’ll all make a kind of sense, and maybe it won’t. In any case, this is apparently my idea of fun, so let’s have fun.

Quarterly Review #21-30:

Thief, The 16 Deaths of My Master

Someone used the phrase “techno for metalheads” in an email to me the other day (about something else) and I can’t get it out of my head concerning Thief‘s The 16 Deaths of My Master. From the swelling distortion of opener “Underking” to the odd bit of harpsicord that shows up in “Scorpion Mother” to the bassy rumble underscoring “Fire in the Land of Endless Rain,” the post-everything “Lover Boy,” droning “Life Clipper,” lazyman’s hip-hop on “Gorelord” and “Crestfaller” and Beck-on-acid finale in “Seance for Eight Oscillators,” there’s certainly plenty of variety to go around, but in the dance-dream “Apple Eaters” and goth-with-’90s-beatmaking “Bootleg Blood” and pretend-your-car-ride-is-a-movie-soundtrack “Wing Clipper,” the metallic underpinning of Dylan Neal (also Botanist) is still there, and the lyrical highlight “Teenage Satanist” rings true. Still, songs like the consuming washer “Night Spikes and subsequent drum’n’bass-vibing “Victim Exit Stage Left” are inventive, fascinating, short and almost poppy in themselves but part of a 16-track entirety that is head-spinning. If that’s techno for metalheads, so be it. Horns up for dat bass.

Thief on Facebook

Prophecy Productions website

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Rise to the Sky, Per Aspera Ad Astra

The album’s title is kind of another interpretation of the band’s name, the idea behind the Latin phrase Per Aspera Ad Astra being moving through challenges to the stars and the Santiago, Chile, one-man death-doom outfit being Rise to the Sky. Multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Sergio González Catalán reportedly wrote and arranged the title-track in the days following his father’s funeral, and the grand, flowing string sounds and engrossing heft that ensues feel genuinely mournful, capping with a progression of solo piano before “End My Night” seems to pick up where “The Loss of Hope” left off. The lyrics to closer “Only Our Past Remains” derive from a poem by Catalán‘s father, and the sense of tribute is palpable across the album’s 46 minutes. I’m not sure how the Russian folk melody bonus instrumental “Horse” might tie in, but neither is it out of place among “Deep Lament” and “Bleeding Heart,” the latter of which dares some clean vocals alongside the gutturalism, and in context, the rest of the album seems to answer with loss what opener “Life in Suspense” is waiting for.

Rise to the Sky on Facebook

GS Productions website

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Birth, Demo

Those familiar with Brian Ellis and Conor Riley‘s work in Astra should not be surprised to find them exploring ’70s-style progressive rock in Birth, and anybody who heard Psicomagia already knows that bassist Trevor Mast and drummer Paul Marrone (also Radio Moscow) are a rhythm section well up to whatever task you might want to set before them. Thus Birth‘s Demo arrives some four years after its recording, with “Descending Us” (posted here) leading off in dramatic Deep Purple-y fashion backed by the jammier but gloriously mellotroned and Rhodes’ed “Cosmic Wind” and “Long Way Down,” which digs itself into a righteous King Crimson payoff with due class even as it revels in its rough edges. Marrone‘s since left the band and whoever replaces him has big shoes to fill, but god damn, just put out a record already, would you?

Birth on Facebook

Bad Omen Records website

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Old Horn Tooth, True Death

Wielding mighty tonality and meeting Monolordian lurch with an aural space wide enough to contain it, Old Horn Tooth follow their 2019 debut LP, From the Ghost Grey Depths, with the single-song EP True Death, proffering a largesse rarely heard even from London’s ultra-populated heavy underground and working their way into, out of, back into, out of and through a nod that the converted among riff-heads likely find irresistible and hypnotic in kind. To say the trio of guitarist/vocalist Chris, bassist/keyboardist Ollie and drummer Mark ride out the groove is perhaps underselling it, but as my first exposure to the band, I’m only sorry to have missed out on both the orange tapes and the limited flash drives they were selling. So it goes. Slow riffs, fast sales. I’ll catch them next time and drown my sorrows in the interim in this immersive, probably-gonna-get-picked-up-by-some-label-for-a-vinyl-release offering. And hey, maybe if you and I both email them, they’ll press a few more cassettes.

Old Horn Tooth on Facebook

Old Horn Tooth on Bandcamp

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Solemn Lament, Solemn Lament

Pro-shop-level doom from an initial public offering by Solemn Lament, bringing together the significant likes of vocalist Phil Swanson (ex-Hour of 13, Vestal Claret, countless others), drummer Justin DeTore (Magic Circle and more recently Dream Unending) as well as Blind Dead‘s Drew Wardlaw on bass and Adam Jacino on lead guitar, and Eric Wenstrom on rhythm guitar. These personages cross coastlines to three tracks and intro of grand and immersive doom metal, willfully diving into the Peaceville-three legacy on “Stricken” to find the beauty in darkness after the lumber and chug of the nine-minute “Celeste” resolves with patient grace and “Old Crow” furthers the Paradise Lost spirit in its central riff. Geography is an obvious challenge, but if Solemn Lament can build on the potential they show in this debut EP, they could be onto something really special.

Solemn Lament on Facebook

Solemn Lament on Bandcamp

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Terminus, The Silent Bell Toll

A stunning third full-length from Fayetteville, Arkansas, trio Terminus, The Silent Bell Toll bridges doomed heft and roll, progressive melodicism and thoughtful heavy rock construction into a potent combination of hooks and sheer impact. It’s worth noting that the 10-minute closer of the nine-song/40-minute outing, “Oh Madrigal,” soars vocally, but hell, so does the 3:18 “Black Swan” earlier. Guitarist Sebastian Thomas (also cover art) and bassist Julian Thomas share vocal duties gorgeously throughout while drummer Scott Wood rolls songs like “The Lion’s Den” and “The Silent Bell Toll” — that nod under the solo; goodness gracious — in such a way as to highlight the epic feel even as the structure beneath is reinforced. With three instrumentals peppered throughout to break up the chapters as intro, centerpiece and penultimate, there’s all the more evidence that Terminus are considered in their approach and that the level of realization across The Silent Bell Toll is not happenstance.

Terminus on Facebook

Terminus on Bandcamp

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Lunar Ark, Recurring Nightmare

Clearly named in honor of its defining intent, Recurring Nightmare is the three-song/48-minute debut full-length from Boston-based charred sludge outfit, who take the noisy heft of ultra-disaffected purveyors like Indian or Primitive Man and push it into a blackened metallic sphere further distinguished by harshly ambient drones. One can dig Neurosis-style riffing out of the 19:30 closer “Guillotine” or opener “Torch and Spear,” but the question is how much one’s hand is going to be sliced open in that process. And the answer is plenty. Their tones don’t so much rumble as crumble, vocals are willfully indecipherable throat-clenching screams, and the drums duly glacial. There is little kindness to be had in 16:43 centerpiece “Freedom Fever Dream” — originally broken into two parts as a demo in 2019 — which resolves itself lyrically in mourning a lost ideal over a dense lurch that’s met with still-atmospheric churning. Their established goal, if that’s what it is, has been met with all appropriate viciousness and extremity.

Lunar Ark on Facebook

Trepanation Recordings on Bandcamp

Lunar Seas Records on Bandcamp

Realm and Ritual on Bandcamp

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Taxi Caveman, Taxi Caveman

An ethic toward straight-ahead riff rock is writ large throughout Taxi Caveman‘s self-titled debut full-length, the Warsaw trio offering a face-first dive into fuzz of varying sizes and shaping their material around the sleek groove of “Prisoner” or the more aggressively bent vinyl-side-launchers “Building With Fire” and “Asteroid.” There’s a highlight hook in “I, the Witch” and the instrumental “426” leads into the Dozer-esque initial verse of 10-minute closer “Empire of the Sun,” but the three-piece find their own way through ultimately, loosening some of the verse/chorus reins in order to affect more of a jammed feel. It’s a departure from the crunch of “Asteroid” or “Prisoner” and the big, big, big sound that starts “Building With Fire,” but I’m certainly not about to hold some nascent sonic diversity against them. They’re playing to genre across these 33 minutes, but they do so without pretense and with a mind toward kicking as much ass as possible. Not changing the world, but it’s not trying to and it’s fun enough in listening that it doesn’t need to.

Taxi Caveman on Facebook

Piranha Music on Bandcamp

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Droneroom, Negative Libra

“Negative Libra” runs 36:36 and is the lone track on the album that bears its name from Las Vegas-based solo-project Droneroom. The flowing work of Blake Conley develops in slow, meditative form and gradually introduces lap steel to shimmer along with its post-landscape etherealities, evocative of cinema as they are without exactly playing to one or the other film-genre tropes. That is to say, Conley isn’t strictly horror soundtracking or Western soundtracking, and so on. Perhaps in part because of that, “Negative Libra” is allowed to discover its path and flourish as it goes — I’m not sure as to the layering process of making it vis-à-vis what was tracked live and put on top after — but the sense of exploration-of-moment that comes through is palpable and serene even as the guitar comes forward just before hitting the 27-minute mark to begin the transition into the song’s noisier payoff and final, concluding hum.

Droneroom on Facebook

Somewherecold Records website

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Aiwass, Wayward Gods

Blown-out vocals add an otherworldly tinge to Arizona-based one-man-band Aiwass‘ debut full-length, Wayward Gods, giving the already gargantuan tones a sense of space to match. Opener “Titan” and closer “Mythos” seem to push even further in this regard than, say, the centerpiece “Man as God” — the last track feeling particularly Monolordly in its lumbering — but by the time “Titan” and the subsequent, 10-minute inclusion “From Chains,” which ends cold with a guest solo by Vinny Tauber of Ohio’s Taubnernaut and shifts into the cawing blackbird at the outset of “Man as God” with a purposefully jarring intent. Despite the cringe-ready cartoon-boobs cover art, the newcomer project finds a heavy niche that subverts expectation as much as it meets it and sets broad ground to explore on future outings. As an idea, “gonna start a heavy, huge-sounding band during the pandemic,” is pretty straightforward. What results from that in Aiwass runs deeper.

Aiwass on Facebook

Aiwass on Bandcamp

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So let’s assume that when Dixie Goat are thinking of the deep South, they mean South America. Based in Santiago, Chile, the doom rocking trio released their debut album, the burly eight-tracker There’s No Light Without Darkness, in Nov. 2020, drawing inspiration of course from Sabbath as well as the likes of Acid Bath — looking at you, “Two Faces” — and a slew of others in their suitably performative doomly rites. The band has been picked up by Electric Valley Records, the label announced, though I’m not sure whether that means There’s No Light Without Darkness will get a physical pressing or if the label will just put out whatever the three-piece do next. For what it’s worth, I think these grooves earn a platter.

If you haven’t yet — and I know you have, because you’re way cooler than I am, but bear with me anyway — you can stream Dixie Goat‘s full-length at the bottom of the post here.

Dig:

Dixie Goat – Electric Valley Records

Electric Valley Records is proud to announce the signing of the Stoner/Doom band… Dixie Goat

DIXIE GOAT was born in Santiago, Chile in 2012, founded by guitarist/singer Nikk Beer & drummer Seb Martinez. The power trio describes their music as a doomy hard rock with Stoner vibes. Since July 2013, the band has shared the stage with Mondo Generator (USA), Ancestro (Perú), Montaña Eléctrica (Argentina) and including some greats from the local scene, such as Yajaira, Hielo Negro, Tabernarios, Icarus Gasoline and Devil Presley, as well as others on the rise such as El Gran Temor, Arteaga, De Piedra, Demonauta, Wild Parade, Nueve Círculos, Diessel , Der Golem, Abisal, Artilleria, to name but a few.

Aside from being constantly playing live shows DIXIE GOAT released one LP, an EP and a Split plus a single: “Black Sun Child” (2015), “Even Demons Have Demons“(2016), “huérfanos Salvajes Split”(2017), What’s Goin’ On (2019). Their new record “There’s No Light Without Darkness” was released on November 6th, 2020.

Stay Tuned.

Dixie Goat are:
Nikk Beer: Vocals, Guitars
KF: Bass
Seb Martinez: Drums

https://www.facebook.com/DixieGoat
https://www.instagram.com/dixie_goat666/
https://twitter.com/GoatDixie
https://dixiegoat.bandcamp.com/
http://dixiegoat.com/
http://electricvalleyrecords.com
https://www.facebook.com/electricvalleyrecords
https://www.instagram.com/electricvalleyrecord

Dixie Goat, There’s No Light Without Darkness (2020)

Chilean one-man death-room unit Rise to the Sky will release Let Me Drown With You on March 12 through Russia’s GS Productions. It has not been that long since the project spearheaded by
vocalist/multi-instrumentalist/engineer Sergio Gonzalez Catalan — aka Sergio G. — got its start; the debut album, Moonlight, came out in 2019. Along with a slew of periodically collected singles and two EPs, a second album, Death Will Not Keep Us Apart (discussed here), arrived later in 2020 — it was a good year for self-recording — and Let Me Drown With You will serve as the third full-length now in three years. Obviously there’s plenty of misery to go around, but that’s still an impressive rate for a project with such a lush sound, weeping guitar setting an atmosphere throughout topped by likewise morose growls recalling Paradise Lost of old, but not without a dynamic of their own, as the song “Let Me Drown With You,” premiering below, demonstrates.

Compared to some of what surrounds on the nine-track/54-minute outing, “Let Me Drown With You” might be considered uptempo, but it’s kind of a moot designation. As the album’s two segments play through, there are certainly moments of distinction like the string sounds on “Liebestod,” the is-that-keys-or-guitar amid the ferocious death growls on opener “See Me Fall Down” or the weight that even the acoustic-led interlude “Passion” still seems to bear as the record makes ready to answer the central progression there with the full-brunt complement in “Turn Us into Stone.” Themes of love, life and death pervade in self-aware fashion as Sergio G. uses a graceful hand to guide listeners through the flowing intro to “Leaving This World” and the weighted lumber that takes hold thereafter, while pre-epilogue finale “Bury Me in Your Heart” calls to mind mid-period Amorphis, if slower, in its skillful winding of guitar melody around a central, forward but still contemplative-feeling melody. To be fair, even some of these nuances are emblematic of the genre to which Rise to the Sky is working, but in the combination of elements and particular movements throughout the work, Let Me Drown With you is stirring and consuming without being entirely hopeless.

That last notion might best be represented in the fact that “Transformation (Postlude)” caps the album with a shimmering melody in the vein of later Anathema and not only brings symmetry to the proceedings with “Passion (Interlude)” in ending the first half of the album, but makes a purposefully optimistic turn following so much expression of sorrow. Prolific as Rise to the Sky is, the quantity of material Sergio G. puts out seems to do little to dull the emotional impact of a record like this one — passion to spare, perhaps. All the better, since the sincerity of purpose that seems to drive Let Me Drown With You meets head on with the performative aspects of style, adding heft and impact to each moment of delivery, whether that particular moment is tonally ‘heavy’ or not. Likewise, though as a band Rise to the Sky has come together with some measure of speed — three albums in three years and then some, etc. — the flow constructed across this third full-length’s span is every bit as patient and thoughtfully realized as one would hope for an outfit with two records already under its belt.

With the album out in March, “Let Me Drown With You” follows “Liebestod” as the second single, and can be heard on the player below, followed by preorder links and PR wire info.

Please enjoy:

Rise to the Sky new album “Let Me Drown With You” releases March 12, 2021 through Russian Doom Metal label GS Productions
Preorder CD at https://gsproduction.bandcamp.com/
Preorder Digital at https://risetothesky.bandcamp.com/

“Romance only comes into existence where love is fatal, frowned upon and doomed by life itself” (Denis de Rougemont, 1983).

Conceived in a time of fear and isolation, this album conveys deep reflections about life and death.

This album is released in loving memory of my father, who passed away suddenly on Jan 6, 2021. He was passionate about the people he loved and about everything he did, this music is a clear reflection of our way of life.

Track list:
Chapter I: Life, Dreams, and Passion
1. See Me Fall Down
2. Dream the Pain is Gone
3. Let Me Drown with You
4. Liebestod
5. Passion (Interlude)

Chapter II: Death, Grief, and Transformation
6. Turn Us into Stone
7. Leaving This World
8. Bury Me in Your Heart
9. Transformation (Postlude)

Music and Lyrics by Rise to the Sky
Production, drum composition, mixing and mastering by Filippos Koliopanos
Artwork by Gogo Melone
Special participation by Andreia Alves in: “Let Me Drown with You”
Recorded in Sergio´s Castle. Santiago, Chile

Rise to the Sky on Thee Facebooks

Rise to the Sky on Instagram

Rise to the Sky on Bandcamp

GS Productions on Bandacmp

GS Productions on Thee Facebooks

GS Productions website

A couple crucial learnings from the new At Devil Dirt track as it relates to the promise of an upcoming album. First, the Santiago, Chile, two-piece continue to rule and be righteously heavy. Not unexpected — especially after they unveiled the 12-mintue demo “We are Mapuches” (posted here) earlier this year — but good to know. Second, they found the internet archive of historical anatomy drawings and made the only-ever-correct decision to use it for some cover art. Been there. Third, they’re still making progress as they head toward a new album, which when it surfaces will be their first full-length since 2013’s Plan B: Sin Revolución no hay Evolución (review here).

That’s not an insignificant stretch of time between outings, but between the nearly 13 minutes of the prior single and and nearly nine of the new one below, they’ve got about a vinyl side’s worth of material out there, even if it is in unfinished form. “We are Mapuches” was listed as a demo, and “Now Swim in the Soul” is being tagged as a rough mix, so if they’ve moved from that pre-production stage to mixing, that at least means some portion of the proper recording process is done. Enough to have a rough mix of this track, anyhow. What else may or may not be done remains to be seen, but the band say the record will hit Bandcamp sometime in the near future. The fittingly Sleepy central riff and the languid vocal melody in “Now Sleep in the Soul” only bode well for what might follow.

“Now Sleep in the Soul” and “We are Mapuches” can both be streamed below:

A quick mix of the new ADD, listen, comment, support, soon uploads the full album in bandcamp, whoever is interested in this record, we will be delivering download codes only to our compatriots…. those outside who are interested in this record pay for it

https://soundcloud.com/at-devil-dirt/1now-swim-in-the-soul

https://www.facebook.com/atdevildirt/
https://www.instagram.com/atdevildirt/
https://atdevildirt.bandcamp.com/

At Devil Dirt, “We are Mapuches”

Aphonic Threnody will release their third full-length, The Great Hatred, on Oct. 16 through Transcending Obscurity Records. It is a substantial offering of willful wretchedness, running six tracks and 56 minutes of death-doom malevolence, shifting between passages of beauty-in-darkness brooding and all-out pummeling assault. Recognizable ground for the style, to be sure, but the raw edge with which the UK/Chilean collaboration between multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Juan Esteban Escobar Campillay and guitarist Riccardo Veronese execute the material brings the songs to life in a way that death-doom is often too concerned with poise to encapsulate.

That’s not to say the album is haphazard. Far from it; from opener “Locura” through “Interrogation” and into “The Great Hatred” itself, the album flows on its downward path like blood down a drain, but the human core beneath those growls remains present in a particular way that offsets the angular noise or chug or even just the dirge-plod of the guitars, and in those moments where The Great Hatred pushes into a faster progression, as in the second half of the title-track, setting up a stretch of Katatonia-esque melody, they don’t lose sight of their expressive purpose. With “Locura” setting the stage for an airing of miseries, “Interrogation” follows and centers itself around the question “Does it even matter at all?” — the universe sucks so I’m going to say probably no — and is one of three tracks on the album to top 10 minutes. Make no mistake, however, it’s all a slog and that’s precisely how it’s intended.

For being aphonic — i.e., unable to make noise or be heard — the agonizing elements across The Great Hatred come through palpably, and that’s all the more true as the album plays out. The second half of the release, which is comprised of “Drowning,” “The Rise of the Phoenix” and “The Fall,” would seem to derive a narrative arc from its motive succession, and it’s telling that Aphonic Threnody end on “The Fall,” since that’s pretty emblematic of the level of hope on display across the record generally. “Drowning” plays up My Dying Bride/Paradise Lost-style ambience and “The Rise of the Phoenix” pushes even further (deeper?) into atmospheric murk while solidifying late around an emergent chug and dispersing gradually on a slow outward march.

As for “The Fall,” it’s made lush through both keys and a winding line of lead guitar, but if there’s a sense of hope to the thing, it’s well buried by the consuming weight of Aphonic Threnody‘s unmitigated downerism. Again, this is the point. It’s not like they set out to write pop tunes and wound up asking “What is kindness?/What is happiness?” like they’re encountering the ideas for the first time. The extremity throughout The Great Hatred isn’t just about the parts that are “more death metal.” It’s also the emotional crux on which the record is built, the sense of alienation even from oneself that comes through the material so expertly crafted, and the control with which Campillay and Veronese bring the songs to bear.

I still say death-doom is the perfect sound for 2020. If you disagree, I humbly submit the premiere of a lyric video for “Interrogation” below. Preorders for The Great Hatred are up now.

Enjoy:

Aphonic Threnody, “Interrogation” lyric video premiere

Members of Towards Atlantis Lights, Dea Marica, Arrant Saudade and more collaborate to conjure up the finest kind of death/doom metal that encompasses the best qualities this style has to offer – stirring melodies, heaving riffs, immersive atmosphere, and some of the lowest, most anguished vocals possible alternating with lucid, spoken passages. None of it is overbearing or lingers on for too long as the songs waft through the doom vacuum, making their presence felt and imperceptibly changing something inside the unsuspecting listener. Much happens during the course of the hour and Aphonic Threnody don’t follow a strict formula, leaving things open-ended and unpredictable as they keep changing things around without disrupting the emotional temperament. The Great Hatred makes for an engaging listen and will make you come back to unravel its richly layered and elegantly intertwined compositions. It’s akin to living life all over again. And again.

Line up –
Riccardo Veronese (Towards Atlantis Lights, Dea Marica) – Guitars
Juan Escobar C. (Arrant Saudade) – Vocals, Bass, Guitar & Keys

Artwork by Misanthropic Art (Xpus, Death Courier)

Track listing –
1. Locura
2. Interrogation
3. The Great Hatred
4. Drowning
5. The Rise of the Phoenix
6. The Fall

Aphonic Threnody on Thee Facebooks

Aphonic Threnody on Bandcamp

Transcending Obscurity Records on Thee Facebooks

Transcending Obscurity Records website