Greek sludgeoners Sadhus, The Smoking Community are set to present their third full-length, Illegal Sludge, tomorrow, Nov. 17, through Ouga Booga and the Mighty Oug Recordings. And while I’ll admit I’m not as up on Greek customs and politics as some might otherwise be, I’m pretty sure sludge isn’t really illegal. Think of the multitudes of Greek heavy bands who’d take to the streets, angrily, righteously demanding to steamroll and be steamrolled by riffs. A general strike (at last, everyone just stops going to work), boycotts, calls for regime change — no doubt shit would get severe — and the gnashing dogs on the cover of Illegal Sludge, well, I’m glad that guy’s in his car, and I feel like the terror portrayed in his bent fingers would be like what happened if you played the eight-song/39-minute wreckfest for your grandmother. Those look like German shepherds, despite the yellow eyes, so maybe that’s the cops siccing the dogs on our unsuspecting homeboy just trying to get a little spiritual catharsis on his way to the Costco. Ain’t nobody actually getting hurt, though you might not know that from the sound of the record.
Sadhus, The Smoking Community — whose moniker I always manage to read in the same voice as, “Spaceballs: The Flamethrower!” — shouldn’t be outlawed, but they should probably come with a warning. Whatever they put on room-sized miter saws should be fine. They commence the beatings with the seven-minute opener/longest track (immediate points) “Mel O.D.,” and within 45 seconds, a few key elements have solidified. One, the tones are muck-thick and set to malevolent chug. Guitarist Thomas G., bassist Mak and drummer Greg are at home dug into the marching “Mel O.D.,” and when the harsh screams of vocalist Stavros start, a big part of the personality of Illegal Sludge is unveiled. This is not nearly my first experience with the band. I recall checking them out when they were taking part in the unfortunately shortlived Desertfest Athens in 2016, and their 2018 LP, Big Fish (review here), had similar feelings on subtlety, but in putting Illegal Sludge on, it’s still a surprise just how much aural force is put into this music. Caution: contents are very, very nasty. Do not shake. Do not expose to the well-adjusted.
Shenanigans abound, from a freakout at the end of “Mel O.D.” with guest trumpet by Bassment Rats, to “Eye on Man” finally breaking out the “Iron Man” riff at the very end to the stomp-mosh of “Woodman,” with its sub-two-minute tempo burst and punkish-and-still-omnidirectional fuckall leading into the closing pair of “Filthy Trust” and “Hold Out.” As once did the mighty Darkthrone, with whom Sadhus have little ultimately in common aside, I expect, from an affection for old metal and raw recordings, the four-piece offer “Fuck Off and Die” with a sense of even stripping down the stripped down. Lyrics are minimal, really some repeated verse lines and the chorus, but as is the case throughout Illegal Sludge, the fucking point gets across coming out of the fast-then-slow “Fuckin’ Apes” prior, itself reversing the structure of the opener. “Fuck Off and Die,” like at least part of “Mel O.D.,” is a march, and it’s not the last one to show up with the title-track still ahead, but they open it some in the second half and release a bit of the tension they’ve amassed. Naturally, they’re nowhere near done yet, and through “Eye on Man” and the dug-in caustic plunder of “Illegal Sludge” itself, they remain intentionally vicious.
If you’d seek some relent after “Illegal Sludge,” you’re on the wrong record. Sadhus, The Smoking Community back the title-cut with “Woodsman” and double-down right at the moment when most acts might pull back on the severity, if just for an interlude or somesuch. That comes in the quiet guitar and for-a-walk drums at the outset of “Filthy Trust,” but it doesn’t last, and by about 90 seconds in, the penultimate cut has burst into its full grimy glory, a roll like Monolord eventually giving way to d-beat hardcore thrust as they find an opportunity to fuse dynamic without giving up the central disaffection at their core, punishing right to the end and carrying that momentum into “Hold Out,” which is a duly consuming finish and presented as a moment of arrival — the slaughterhouse toward which all prior assault was leading. They take that nod through the feedback-drenched conclusion and leave residual noise and bad feelings to linger. Everyone else seems to have already said “fuck it” and gone home.
Legit. After just under 40 minutes of crusty pummeling, I’m not sure how much mental capacity is left over for conversationalism anyhow. But as you make your way through, keep in mind that while Sadhus, The Smoking Community seem to be pushing themselves and common aural decency to their respective limits, this is exactly the functioning goal of the work to start with. As harsh as Illegal Sludge is, it is precisely what the band wanted it to be, and that intention resonates through even its most violent stretches. It’s how their community does it. Also stoned. May it and they ever be thus.
Have at you:
Exactly five years following the release of their second full-length “Big Fish”, Greek doom metal crew Sadhus the Smoking Community are gearing up to release their third album “Illegal Sludge” via Ouga Booga and the Mighty Oug! on November 17th. Recorded and mixed by Iraklis Vlachakis and mastered by Brad Boatright, “Illegal Sludge” is like a dangerous and highly intoxicating whiskey made at an illegal distillery.
A five-piece (four musicians plus a ‘rolling engineer’) band from Athens, Sadhus, The Smoking Community have released two full-length albums and two split releases to date where they deliver both hooky riffs and punchy rhythms via a caustic and heavy mix of a bluesy-driven sludge sound with extreme crust-style vocals.
Written & Performed by Sadhus, The Smoking Community Produced by Sadhus & Iraklis Vlachakis Recorded & Engineered by Iraklis Vlachakis at Crème Chalet Studio in Kallithea, Athens, GR, Nov – Dec 2022 Mixed by Iraklis Vlachakis Mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege in Portland, Oregon, USA Illustration & Layout by Fotini Kaklidi
TRACKLIST 1. Mel O.D. 2. Fuckin’ Apes 3. Fuck Off & Die 4. Eye On Man 5. Illegal Sludge 6. Woodman 7. Filthy Trust 8. Hold Out
Trumpet on MEL O.D. by Bassment Rats
Released by Ouga Booga & The Mighty Oug, November 2023
Sadhus, The Smoking Community are: Stavros – Vocals Thomas G. – Guitars Mak – Bass Greg – Drums Steve – Rolling Engineer
Sadhus, The Smoking Community, “Woodman” official video
Posted in Whathaveyou on October 6th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Hey, that’s what it’s all about, right? Getting out there, seeing new things, playing fuzz rock as loud as you can for as many people as there are in whatever place. That’s the dream, right? And then you stay somewhere for the night and get breakfast in the morning, take a few pics for the socials maybe if it isn’t too awkward the next day, and roll out to the next one. Good on yas, Stonus.
Weekenders, man. I wholly support that model of touring. There is precious little that says ‘I do this because I love it’ as much as someone taking an entire weekend of their life — which invariably has any number of other facets to it besides a given band — and going to play shows. Think about it for a minute. What are you willing to do for an entire weekend?
Because you go on tour for like four weeks, well, that’s not a tour anymore, it’s a lifestyle. Probably a smelly one. But to do shows like Stonus are next month, hitting new ground in France and Belgium for the first time, and then just turning around and going home, that takes heart. Commitment. Thanatos. I could go on here. Better perhaps I don’t.
They’re calling it a mini-tour of the EU, which I also love. It’s been a minute, but if you recall their 2021 LP, Séance (review here), they certainly weren’t short on charm then. Some things do not change:
STONUS – Mini EU tour Announcement️
“We are super excited to share with you our upcoming European tour dates for this fall and we can’t wait to make some new awesome experiences with you all!!!
Lets get fuzzed up!!!(#127988#)☠️(#127988#)☠️(#127988#)☠️”
15.11 Open Slot 16.11 Kinky Star – Ghent (BE)* 17.11 L’International – Paris (FR)** 19.11 Westill – Nantes (FR)
with: *High Trail (FREE ENTRANCE) **Last Quarter, Oda
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 3rd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
The play-whatever-the-hell-they-want Athenian heavy troupe Godsleep released their latest album, Lies to Survive (review here) earlier in 2023 through Ouga Booga and the Mighty Oug and Threechords Records, and when they did so in Spring, they undertook a pretty significant tour to support it. That makes the upcoming ‘Permanent Vacation’ run — which takes its name from one of the songs on the record; I doubt they’re huge Aerosmith fans, but you never know — their second such stint of the year, and I think it’s even bigger. Starting in September, it carries them into December with a steady amount of live activity, and the band assures below that there’s more to come. It says it right there on the poster.
And about the poster. Usually it’s my modus to transcribe tour dates from a poster so that I can have the shows searchable by text. You never know when, eight years from now, you might need to know what date Godsleep hit Mixtape 5 in Sofia, Bulgaria, for whatever reason. I would do that here, but the wretched truth is I’m pressed for time and I wanted to post about the tour, so in the balance of writing out this entire covers-three-months list or posting about it at all, I went with the latter. I do hope that you’ll forgive me for skipping this usual step that I have absolutely no doubt you wouldn’t have noticed was missing at all if I didn’t mention it because, and here’s another wretched truth, I remain the only one who gives a crap about that kind of thing. So be it.
If you click the poster, the image gets big enough to read. If you click it again — or just give it a nudge with your finger if you’re on your fancyphone — it’ll go away. I promise I’m doing my best.
Their announcement on socials was short and appears below:
GODSLEEP – Permanent Vacation European Tour 2023
We are really happy to be back on the road this Fall to visit old friends but also excited to meet some of you for the first time!
These are the first dates of our “Permanent Vacation” tour and we will announce more dates shortly!
Let us know if we missed anything !
Powdered by: Ouga Booga and the Mighty Oug / Tuned Tools Guitar Lab
Well here we are, at last. A couple weeks ago I looked at my calendar and ended up pushing this Quarterly Review to mid-July instead of the end of June, and it’s been hanging over my head in the interim to such a degree that I added two days to it to cover another 20 records. I’m sure it could be more. The amount of music is infinite. It just keeps going.
I’ll assume you know the deal, but here it is anyhow: 10 records per day, for seven days — Monday through Friday, plus Monday and Tuesday in this case — for a total of 70 reviews. Links and audio provided to the extent possible, and hopefully we all find some killer new music we didn’t know about before, or if we did know about it, just to enjoy. That doesn’t seem so crazy, right?
Quarterly Review #1-10:
Bongzilla, Dab City
None higher. Following extensive touring before and (to the extent possible) after the release of their 2021 album, Weedsconsin (review here), Madison, WI, canna-worship crust sludge-launchers Bongzilla return with Dab City, proffering the harsh and the mellow as only they seem to be able to do, even among their ’90s-born original-era sludge brethren. As second track “King of Weed” demonstrates, Bongzilla are aurally dank unto themselves, both in the scathing vocals of bassist Mike “Muleboy” Makela and the layered guitar of Jeff “Spanky” Schultz and the slow-swinging groove shoving all that weighted tone forward in Mike “Magma” Henry‘s drums. Through the seven tracks and 56 minutes of dense jams like those in the opening title-cut or the 13-minute “Cannonbong (The Ballad of Burnt Reynolds as Lamented by Dixie Dave Collins” (yes, from Weedeater) or the gloriously languid finale “American Pot,” the shorter instrumental “C.A.R.T.S.,” or in the relatively uptempo nodders “Hippie Stick” and “Diamonds and Flower,” Bongzilla underscore the if-you-get-it-then-you-get-it nature of their work, at once extreme in its bite and soothing in atmosphere, uncompromising in purpose. I’m not going to tell you to get bombed out of your gourd and listen, but they almost certainly did while making it, and Dab City is nothing if not an invitation to that party.
Adventures await as Redhill, UK, three-piece Trevor’s Head — guitarist/vocalist Roger Atkins, bassist/vocalist/synthesist Aaron Strachan (also kalimba), drummer/flutist/vocalist/synthesist Matt Ainsworth (also Mellotron) — signal a willfully open and progressive creativity through the heavy psych and grunge melodies of lead track “Call of the Deep” before the Primus-gone-fuzz-prog chug of “Under My Skin” and the somehow-English-pastoral “Grape Fang” balances on its multi-part harmonies and loose-feeling movement, side A trading between shorter and longer songs to end with the seven-minute, violin-inclusive folk-then-fuzz-folk highlight “Elio” before “Rumspringa” brings the proceedings to ground as only cowbell might. As relatively straight-ahead as the trio get there or in the more pointedly aggressive shover “A True Gentleman” on the other side of the Tool-ish noodling and eat-this-riff of “What Got Stuck” (answer: the thrashy gallop before the final widdly-widdly solo, in my head), they never want for complexity, and as much as it encapsulates in its depth of arrangement and linear course, closer “Don’t Make Me Ask” represents the band perhaps even more in looking forward rather than back on what was just accomplished, building on what 2018’s Soma Holiday (review here) hinted at stylistically and mindfully evolving their sound.
Born in the ’90s as Amend, turned more extreme as V and now perhaps beginning a new era as Vorder — pronounced “vee-order” — the Dalarna, Sweden, unit return with a new rhythm section behind founding guitarists Jonas Gryth (also Unhealer) and Andreas Baier (also Besvärjelsen, Afgrund, and so on) featuring bassist Marcus Mackä Lindqvist (Blodskam, Lýsis) and drummer Daniel Liljekvist (ex-Katatonia, In Mourning, Grand Cadaver, etc.) on drums, the invigorated four-piece greet a dark dawn with due presence on False Haven, bringing Baier‘s Besvärjelsen bandmate Lea Amling Alazam for guest vocals on “The Few Remaining Lights,” which seems to be consumed after its melodic opening into a lurching and organ-laced midsection like Entombed after the Isis-esque ambience of post-apocalyptic mourning in “Introspective” and “Beyond the Horizon of Life.” Beauty and darkness are not new themes for Vorder, even if False Haven is their first release under the name, and even in the bleak ‘n’ roll of the title-track there’s still room for hope if you define hope as tambourine. Which you probably should. The penultimate “Judgement Awaits” interrupts floating post-doom with vital shove and 10:32 finale “Come Undone” provides a resonant melodic answer to “The Few Remaining Lights” while paying off the album as a whole in patience, heft and fullness. Vorder use microgenres like a polyglot might switch languages, but what’s expressed from the entirety of the work is utterly their own, whatever name they use.
Multi-instrumentalist Beth Gladding (also of Forlesen, Botanist, Lotus Thief, etc.) shares vocal duties in New York’s Inherus with bassist Anthony DiBlasi (ex-Witchkiss) and fellow guitarist/synthesist Brian Harrigan (Grid, Swallow the Ocean), and the harsh/clean dynamic puts emphasis on the various textures presented throughout the band’s debut album. Completed by drummer Andrew Vogt (Lotus Thief, Swallow the Ocean), Inherus reach toward SubRosan melancholy on “Forgotten Kingdom,” which begins the hour-flat/six-track 2LP, and they follow with harmonies and grandeur to spare on “One More Fire” (something in that melody reminds me of Indigo Girls and I’m noting it because I can’t get my head away from it; not complaining) and “The Dagger,” which resolves in Amenra-style squibble and lurch without giving up its emotional depth. “Oh Brother” crushes enough to make one wonder where the line truly is between metal and post-metal, and the setup for closer “Lie to the Angels” in the drone-plus piece “Obliterated in the Face of the Gods” telegraphs the intensity to follow if not the progginess of that particular chug or the scope of what follows. Vogt signals the arrival at the album’s crescendo with stately but fast double-kick, and if you’re wondering who gets the last word, it’s feedback. Beholden may prove formative as Inherus move forward, but what their first full-length lays out as their stylistic range is at least as impressive as it is ambitious. Hope for more to come.
Even in the second half of “Tying Up the Noose” as it leads into “Give it Time” — which is about as speedy as Sonic Moon get on their Olde Magick Records-delivered first LP, Return Without Any Memory — they’re in no particular hurry. The overarching languid pace across the Aarhus five-piece’s 41-minute/seven-tracker — which reuses only the title-track from 2019’s Usually I Don’t Care for Flowers EP — makes it hypnotic even in its most active moments, but whether it’s the Denmarkana acoustic moodiness of centerpiece “Through the Snow,” the steady nod of “Head Under the River” later or the post-All Them Witches psych-blues conveyed in opener “The Waters,” Sonic Moon are able to conjure landscapes from fuzzed tonality that could just as easily have been put to use for traditional doom as psych-leaning heavy rock, uniting the songs through that same fuzz and the melody of the vocals as “Head Under the River” spaces out ahead of its slowdown or “Hear Me Now” eschews the huge finish in favor of a more unassuming, gentler letting go, indicative of the thoughtfulness behind their craft and their presentation of the material. Familiar enough on paper and admirably, unpretentiously itself, the self-recorded Return Without Any Memory discovers its niche and comes across as being right at home in it. A welcome debut.
With cosmic doom via YOB meeting with progressive heavy rock à la Elder or Louisiana rollers Forming the Void and an undercurrent of metal besides in the chug and double-kick of “Controlled Burn,” Cleveland’s Slow Wake make their full-length debut culling together songs their 2022 Falling Fathoms EP and adding the prior-standalone “Black Stars” for 12 minutes’ worth of good measure at the end. The dense and jangly tones at the start of the title-track (where it’s specifically “Marrow”-y) or “In Waves” earlier on seem to draw more directly from Mike Scheidt‘s style of play, but “Relief” builds from its post-rocking outset to grow furious over its first few minutes headed toward a payoff that’s melody as much as crunch. “Black Stars” indulges a bit more psychedelic repetition, which could be a sign of things to come or just how it worked out on that longer track, but Slow Wake lay claim to significant breadth regardless, and have the structural complexity to work in longer forms without losing themselves either in jams or filler. With a strong sense of its goals, Falling Fathoms puts Slow Wake on a self-aware trajectory of growth in modern prog-heavy style. That is, they know what they’re doing and they know why. To show that alone on a first record makes it a win. Their going further lets you know to keep an eye out for next time as well.
The Fierce and the Dead, News From the Invisible World
Unearthing a bit of earlier-Queens of the Stone Age compression fuzz in the start-stop riff of “Shake the Jar” is not even scratching the surface as regards textures put to use by British progressive heavies The Fierce and the Dead on their fourth album, News From the Invisible World. Comprised of eight songs varied in mood and textures around a central ethic clearly intent on not sounding any more like anyone else than it has to, the collection is the first release from the band to feature vocals. Those are handled ably by bassist Kev Feazey, but it’s telling as to the all-in nature of the band that, in using singing for the first time, they employ no fewer than six guest vocalists, mostly but not exclusively on opener/intro “The Start.” From there, it’s a wild course through keyboard/synth-fed atmospheres on pieces like the Phil Collins-gone-heavy “Photogenic Love” and its side-B-capping counterpart “Nostalgia Now,” which ends like friendlier Godflesh, astrojazz experimentalism on “Non-Player,” and plenty of fuzz in “Golden Thread,” “Wonderful,” “What a Time to Be Alive,” and so on, though where a song starts is not necessarily where it’s going to end up. Given Feazey‘s apparent comfort with the task before him, it’s a wonder they didn’t make this shift earlier, but they do well in making up for lost time.
Kliwon is the second offering from Indonesia-based meditative psych exploration unit Mud Spencer to be released through Argonauta Records after 2022’s Fuzz Soup (review here), and its four component songs find France-born multi-instrumentalist Rodolphe Bellugue (also Proots, Bedhunter, etc.) constructing material of marked presence and fluidity. Opener “Suzzanna” is halfway through its nine minutes before the drums start. “Ratu Kidul” is 16 minutes of mindful breathing (musically speaking) as shimmering guitar melody pokes out from underneath the surrounding ethereal wash, darker in tone but more than just bleak. Of course “Dead on the Heavy Funk” reminds of Mr. Bungle as it metal-chugs and energetically weirds out. And the just under 16-minute “Jasmin Eater” closes out with organ and righteous fuzz bass peppered with flourish details on guitar and languid drumming, becoming heavier and consuming as it moves toward the tempo kick that’s the apex of the album. Through these diverse tracks, an intimate psychedelic persona emerges, even without vocals, and Mud Spencer continues to look inward for expanses to be conveyed before doing precisely that.
It would seem that in the interim between 2021’s Ocean of Acid EP and this five-song/41-minute debut full-length, Tyhjiö, Finnish psychedelic death-doomers Kita traded English lyrics for those in their native Finnish. No, I don’t speak it, but that hardly matters in the chant-like chorus of the title-track or the swirling pummel that surrounds as the band invent their own microgenre, metal-rooted and metal in affect, but laced with synth and able to veer into lysergic guitar atmospherics in the 10-minute opener “Kivi Puhuu” or the acoustic-led (actually it’s bass-led, but still) midsection leading to the triumphant chorus of bookending closer “Ataraksia,” uniting disparate ideas through strength of craft, tonal and structural coherence, and, apparently, sheer will. The title-track, “Torajyvä” and “Kärpässilmät,” with the centerpiece cut as the shortest, make for a pyramid-style presentation (broader around its base), but Kita are defined by what they do, drawing extremity from countrymen like Swallow the Sun or Amorphis, among others, and turning it into something of their own. Striking in the true sense of: it feels like being punched. But punched while you hang out on the astral plane.
Greek fuzz alert! Heavy rocking three-piece Embargo hail from Thessaloniki with their first long-player, High Seas, using winding aspects of progressive metal to create tension in the starts and stops of “Billow,” “EAT” and “Candy” as spoken verses in the latter and “Alanna Finch” draw a line between the moody noise rock of Helmet, the grunge it informed, and the heavy rock that emerged (in part) from that. Running 10 tracks and 44 minutes, High Seas is quick in marking out the smoothness of its low tonality, and it veers into and out of what one might consider aggression in terms of style, “with 22 22” thoughtfully composed and sharply pointed in kind, one of several instrumentals to offset some of the gruffer stretches or a more patient melodic highlight like “Draupner,” which does little to hide its affinity for Soundgarden and is only correct to showcase it. They also finish sans-vocals in the title-track, and there’s almost a letting-loose sense to “High Seas” itself, shaking out some shuffle in the first half before peaking in the second. Greece is among Europe’s most packed and vibrant undergrounds, and with High Seas, Embargo begin to carve their place within it.
Following on from last week’s reissue of their first two albums and the first installment of this retrospective, 1000mods this Friday will re-present 2016’s Repeated Exposure To… and 2020’s Youth of Dissent, specifically for US distribution through Heavy Psych Sounds. In between the one batch of reissues and another, the Chiliomodi-based generational forerunners of Greek heavy rock also announced a full round of American tour dates with their prior-confirmed appearance at Desertfest NYC as its centerpiece. It’s been, as the saying goes, quite a week.
The September trip will not be the first time 1000mods have come to the US. They visited in Feb. 2018, playing shows coast-to-coast and making stops in Mexico and Canada. The following Spring, they’d make their first voyage to Australia, and if the story of this era of the band is one of their reach expanding beyond Europe — which they covered first in this cycle as one would expect; Fall 2016 and again in early 2017 — that came very much with a mirroring expansion in scope with Repeated Exposure To…, which was released Sept. 26, 2016.
1000mods were beginning to show the band they would become, in sound and presence. Their first record, 2011’s Super Van Vacation (discussed here; review here), had portrayed them as a bunch of upstart groovers with an affection for Kyuss, perfect (yes, perfect) pacing and an ability to convey largesse in their songs through more than just tone. Vultures (review here) had followed in 2014 and charted the course for this growth. Already by then, 1000mods were a working band, touring vigorously, making videos, engaging in the kind of social networking that, at the time, was much newer and not always done. They’d even gone so far as to wrap the Vultures touring cycle with a video for “Claws” filmed at various shows. Everything they had went into pushing themselves forward.
These records are the manifestations of that. Let’s go:
Maybe a case of a band having their collective cake while also eating it? The full title as it appears on the cover: Repeated Exposure to High Sound Levels (More Than 80 Decibels) May Cause Permanent Impairing of Hearing. This warning was well issued as 1000mods returned to engineer George Leodis to co-produce their third album, drawing together aspects of the first two into a cohesive and obviously maturing 51-minute outing. Seven songs, massive hooks. The sound of 1000mods growing could be heard in the finer details — the right-channel guitar mutes after and before the Monster Magnet garage jangle of “A.W.,” or even the way the siren call of feedback at the start of opener “Above179” howls into a fade as the first rolling nod kicks in loud — as well as in the overarching atmosphere of the recording. As much as Vultures had attempted to capture their live sound, Repeated Exposure To… answered back by doing the same, but in a bigger venue.
If Vultures was the club show, the tracks on Repeated Exposure To… like the energetic shover “Loose,” the short and explosive “Electric Carve,” which follows, and the later build into the sing-along-with-us chorus of “On a Stone” seemed to emanate from a festival stage. From the gang-shout hook of “Above179” and the sweep and chug and precision of its finish onward, 1000mods made it clear they were reaching out to a broader audience. It wasn’t about changing their core style — they were still very much a heavy rock and roll band, and the fuzz of “Loose” reinforced the notion well — but as their take came into its own after two previous LPs and more shows than some do in a band’s lifetime, the sense of professionalization was audible in it. Repeated Exposure To… was higher stakes.
The band played back and forth between shorter and longer cuts on side A and dug in shortest-to-longest in side B, with the closing pair of “Groundhog Day” (7:18) and “Into the Spell” (7:50) contrasting the earlier trades between the eight-plus-minute “Loose” and “Above179” before it or the three-minute “Electric Carve” ahead of rhythmic first-half capper “The Son,” which its layered highlight soloing, uptempo-but-not-too-uptempo swing and, absolutely, another ultra-engaging chorus. That’s the heart of the whole record. It feels written with the live audience in mind, all the way through to the build happening in “Into the Spell,” with its early meandering and guitar creep under the watery verse, turning to massive stoner nod and more urgent thrust as it moves to the big finish of its final third, wrapping the album as much as itself with a long fade.
This was the sound of 1000mods going all-in. They stepped up to the challenge of being a pro-shop act and wrote an accordingly pro-shop bunch of songs to mark the occasion. Still touring constantly — and in new territories, as noted above — 1000mods began to reap the fruits of their significant labors and became one of Europe’s most crucial heavy rock bands. It wouldn’t have worked if these songs weren’t there to carry them.
The story of Youth of Dissent — album number four and the latest 1000mods full-length — should have been that the band traveled to Seattle, Washington, to record and mix with producer Matt Bayles (Mastodon, Sandrider, Isis, etc.), outdoing their own professionalism, directly waving at the American market, and offering an even tighter collection comprised of 11 songs that, in cuts like “Warped” and “Blister” leaned into a grunge influence, while in “Dear Herculine,” “Less is More” (some grunge in there too, for sure) and the interlude “21st Space Century,” the band were also atmospheric in a way they’d never yet been and their doing most melodically complex work on record. If you missed the word ‘should’ in that far-too-long sentence, it’s there because Youth of Dissent came out on April 24, 2020.
Greece’s first case of covid-19 was discovered that fateful February, and by the time Youth of Dissent was released, the entire country had been locked down for a month, and after another few weeks of in-place sheltering would gradually begin to reopen later in a terrifying, traumatic Spring when live music and so much else evaporated. Youth of Dissent was defined in part by the resistance mindset inherent in its title and album cover, and while tracks like “So Many Days,” “Blister,” “Less is More” and the concluding “Mirrors” were resonant in speaking to the experience of depression and “Young” and “Dissent” — split between sides C and D of the 55-minute 2LP — seemed to use the platform of 1000mods‘ audience-building to speak directly to that audience and encourage them to stand up, be involved in making their world, to dissent from the various systems holding them back, the moment in which the album arrived completely undercut that statement.
Certainly the covid pandemic did not just happen to 1000mods. It happened to everybody’s everything and the heavy underground is only a teeny-tiny sliver of a microculture. Acknowledged. But to see an act who’d put in by-then eight years of road work while also building a catalog of landmarks, earning Greece a respect it maybe didn’t have before them as a hotbed of heavy in Europe, changing the geopolitics of the underground, and begun to expand their reach even beyond that have that momentum obliterated by circumstances genuinely out of their control was painful. Covid happened to every band, but not every band was 1000mods in late 2019/early 2020 making and releasing their fourth record. Of course the European tour that was to start in May 2020 didn’t happen, and it wouldn’t be until Spring 2022 that they could hit the road in earnest to support it.
Which they did and are continuing to do. Removed from the moment of its release, at three years’ distance, Youth of Dissent answers the greater reach of the record before it with even more refined and cognizant approach, and a bevvy of new ideas and directions taken. Mature as songwriters, 1000mods proved able to conjure epics regardless of a track’s runtime, communicating ideas in new ways that signaled ongoing development and a refusal to stagnate, greeting an unknowable future with hope and progressivism even as it offered some of the band’s darkest lyrical themes.
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As they’ve gotten back to live performance, that the material on Youth of Dissent has held up to the years-long split between its arrival should convey its urgency. This Fall, 1000mods return to the States all the more as a veteran act. That they’ll have these reissues along with them lends this tour — especially as a Winter 2023 Australia/New Zealand tour was canceled — an edge of celebrating the entire catalog as well as giving Youth of Dissent its overdue due, but 1000mods have only looked in one direction over the 15-plus years of their tenure, and whatever else one might expect from them, expect them to keep their eye on the future.
Thanks for reading. Again, if you missed the first part of this retrospective, it’s right here.
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 22nd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
There’s an 11-day gap in the list of tour dates, but 1000mods say there are more shows to be added, so I’ll stop wondering where they were otherwise going to be recording while in the States. Even as-is, their run covers both coasts and gives Canada more of a look than most tours claiming to be North American, and they’ve got an extra day to make the trip from Portland to Queens, so hell yeah, 1000mods coming back to the US. Desertfest NYC is the occasion but not the start, and it was pretty clear the Chiliomodi, Greece-based four-piece were going to tour around it — otherwise, catalogue reissues are a long way to go to not ship yourself a box of LPs — so confirmation of that is certainly welcome.
You might recall the post yesterday streaming their first two albums which are part of the above-mentioned reissue cycle — there’s another post coming next week — and this hit a couple hours after, but I don’t mind posting about a band twice in a span of about 24 hours. Sometimes someone has a lot going on, as 1000mods do right now. I’ll be interested to see where they go in the off-dates around Desertfest, and cool as hell they’re heading out with The Well. That’s a pair you wouldn’t necessarily think of together but who’ll work well one into the next on stage.
From social media:
1000MODS ***North America Tour 2023***
As promised, we are really happy to return to North America for a massive tour around our performance at Desertfest NYC .
At the moment we can announce only the dates below, but be sure a lot more dates are coming really soon!
Days splits for Desertfest NYC are on, and we couldn’t be happier to share the stage with such legends!
Dates: 9/6 – Philadelphia PA – Kung Fu Necktie 9/7 – Brattleboro VT – The Stone Church 9/8 – Ottawa ON – Dominion Tavern 9/9 – Toronto ON – Lee’s Palace 9/10 – Montreal QC – Piranha Bar 9/12 – Québec QC – La Source De La Martiniere 9/13 – Portland ME – Geno’s Rock Club 9/15 – Queens NY – Desertfest 9/26 – Kansas City MO – recordBar 9/27 – Denver CO – HQ* 9/28 – Salt Lake City – Aces High Saloon* 9/29 – Boise ID – Neurolux* 9/30 – Seattle WA – Funhouse* 10/1 – Vancouver BC – The Wise Hall*
*w/The Well
Tour is powered by Atomic Music Group and Ouga Booga and the Mighty Oug
1000mods is: Dani G. Giannis S. Giorgos T. Labros G.
This Friday, Greek heavy rock forerunners 1000mods will reissue their first and second albums on Heavy Psych Sounds in the US as preface to the band returning to American shores in September to play among the featured international acts at Desertfest New York.
For more than the last decade, 1000mods have been at the head of a generational wave of underground heavy rock acts from Greece. The Chiliomodi outfit have four full-lengths to their credit, and starting with 2011’s Super Van Vacation — preceded by 2007’s Blank Reality and 2009’s Liquid Sleep (review here) EPs — 1000mods very soon became the international face of Greek heavy. Supported by a vehement local scene that showed up on European radar as ‘the party you’ve all been missing, already in progress,’ 1000mods photos and videos from Athens and in other spots throughout Greece showed packed venues, passionate fans, and largely in the wake of 1000mods, an entire league of bands has come up in the years since, varied in sound but only benefitting from the trailblazing work the four-piece of Dani G., Giannis S., Giorgos T. and Labros G. have already put in. Greek heavy, European heavy, would not be what it is without them.
2011’s Super Van Vacation and 2014’s Vultures — also 2016’s Repeated Exposure To… and 2020’s Youth of Dissent, which we’ll get to next week — are landmarks in the development of one of the most essential rock bands ever from Greece. 1000mods not only put out these albums, but specifically set themselves to the task of hand-delivering them throughout Europe on persistent, lengthy tours. As the band looks ahead to coming back to the US, these catalog reissues — out this and next week — we’ll be revisiting their discography to take a look at the evolution of 1000mods‘ sound as well as some of the influence they’ve had and continue to have on others in and outside of Greece.
Best place to start is the start, so let’s get started:
Let’s not mince words, the only thing stopping these songs from being classics is not enough time has passed. Comprised of 10 tracks and running 65 minutes of Billy Anderson-produced — also George Leodis, who would become the band’s go-to engineer — and deeply enviable, casually sauntering desert rock tonality, Super Van Vacation is a love letter to its own riffs, to groove and the particular spirit of freedom that comes with losing oneself in a heavy song.
Tracks like “El Rollito,” the lumbering “Track Me,” opener/longest cut (immediate points) “Road to Burn,” the lead-guitar-peppered open space of “Vidage,” and the propulsive fuzz shuffle of the closing “Super Van Vacation” show breadth between them, but 1000mods aren’t coy in terms of style. They’re playing desert rock down to its very roots, a warm-toned riff at the foundation of gutted-out, grown-up punk and metal together, able to be mellow or a party or a purposeful comedown into the next build-up all in the span of a few measures, but holding to an ethic of superficial simplicity, of primeval riff communion, their grooves speaking to some buried part of genetic memory that once danced around fires in an open savannah, the galaxy a blazing bar across the sky overhead.
Like Dozer‘s In the Tail of a Comet in Sweden and (Los) Natas‘ Delmar in Argentina, Super Van Vacation is an album that firmly declared to the world outside Greece that not only could desert rock exist there, but that work could be produced that would add to the genre and move it forward. They were the vanguard for what has flourished as one of Europe’s most vital hotbeds, with Athens as an epicenter. And not only that, putting aside all the ‘it’s an important album’ blah blah blah — all of which is true, mind you; crucial album and if you don’t own it, you should, regardless of where you live — but it’s also a great listen.
Not too many bands come out of the gate with a double-LP and manage to pull it off, but the deeper you go into “Johny’s” or the wah swagger of “Abell 1835,” the more 1000mods have to offer. Yes, the Kyuss influence is all over the record from guitar and bass tones to the clenched-gut behind the vocals of accompanying the wall-push of “Set You Free” or the wonderfully hooky “7 Flies,” but already in the material, 1000mods were beginning to sculpt their own take that their subsequent years of touring would refine and expand. So not only is Super Van Vacation one of the most fundamental European heavy rock releases of the 2010s, but it’s one that holds up, and if you haven’t heard it before, it still stands ready to be the soundtrack of the best summer of your life.
First released through Kozmik Artifactz and CTS Productions in 2011, reissues and new pressings would follow through CTS and the band’s own Ouga Booga and the Mighty Oug Recordings around 2016 and 2021. The Heavy Psych Sounds version is the first specifically pressed for North American distribution. And yes, I’m aware both albums are already streaming in their entirety. These are new versions, and if there’s a chance they might catch the ears of someone who hasn’t heard them before and make their day better or easier somehow, it’s worth it to me to host them. Whatever your experience, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
The sophomore full-length from 1000mods did not have an easy task before it, but Vultures learned valuable lessons from its predecessor. In terms of confidence in their approach, the eight-song/38-minute long-player took the appropriated aspects of Super Van Vacation and further internalized their influences, making their sound that much more their own. Co-produced by the band with George Leodis, who also mixed (Tolis Economou mastered), Vultures is comfortable engaging the heavy blues of “Horses’ Green,” and almost immediately on “Claws,” it is specifically an album about movement, and very much the work of a touring band.
From the shouts driving the chorus of leadoff “Claws” through the build into its side B counterpart “Low” and even the outbound cosmic thrust and spoken repetitions of the title in the jamming back half of closer “Reverb of the New World” — which, god damn I hope they play at Desertfest — the songs on <emVultures feel written for the stage, for a live audience. They are a little shorter, accordingly, perhaps more structurally direct, and tighter in their rhythm. While Super Van Vacation had the element of surprise on its side and a ‘check out what these crazy kids are up to’ energy, Vultures codified that and made it sustainable for 1000mods, giving them a model of their sound to reshape as they took the songs out on the road.
And they did most certainly do that. A listen through and you could snag any number of examples, but I’m not sure any single track is as much a summary of the argument as “Big Beatiful” (sic) with its Queen lyrical reference and the kind of groove that, an album earlier, 1000mods might have dwelt in longer, but that on Vultures trades that hypnotic chill effect for a live-style urgency. Sure, these things are relative and one could just as easily look at the patient start of “Reverb of the New World” for counterargument — and I wish someone would, frankly; I’m getting tired of talking to myself about this stuff — but even that last song is shorter than it might’ve been two or three years before, and the energy it hones carries into the aforementioned blues of “She” and the build-up of “Horses’ Green,” which doesn’t even have time for its own payoff.
Instead, it cleverly lets the vibe-heavy fade-in of “Low” reset, go back to ground, and start all over. And it works, because 1000mods are songwriters at heart, and Vultures not only confirms that, but finds them already pushing themselves to progress, to do the thing they do in the way they want to do it. The record has plenty of space, plenty of atmosphere — I’m not telling you otherwise — but in its ebbs and flows, in the vitality of the performances contained on it, it’s always been the band-on-tour record to my ears, and it’s just fortunate they stopped doing shows long enough to make it. Either way, it was clear the beast they were becoming was alive, with eyes open. Hungry.
The LP of Vultures was released through The Lab Records, with the CD through Ouga Booga and the Mighty Oug, which also handled reissues in 2015 and 2022 in Greece. Once again, the Heavy Psych Sounds version is the first not to be an ‘import,’ which if you’ve bought a record from Europe and paid shipping — or if you’re in Europe and you’ve paid shipping from the US — you already know matters again after not really mattering for a while there while the world was flatter and less fascist.
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And we could go on about social issues in Greece, greater Europe, the US, etc., but that’s part of the story for next time. Stay tuned next week for the second part of this retrospective, featuring the albums Repeated Exposure To… and Youth of Dissent. Thanks for reading.
Greek sludge rockers Last Rizla release their new album, Noise Without Decay, on May 12 through Venerate Industries. And, well, I’ve heard it, and there’s lots of noise and not much decay, at least in terms of force-of-delivery, as the four-piece of G., C., K. and S. — it’s okay dudes, my name is initials too — craft the follow-up to their 2018 EP Mount Machine (review here), their sound is cast like a cruel shadow over the 40 minutes and nine cuts. Depending on what and when you count, Noise Without Decay is the band’s first long-player since 2009’s self-titled debut, but for a band who’ve shown such a penchant for doling out short offerings and splits, etc., over the intervening 14-plus years, they in no way seem uncomfortable in the form. You’d think they wouldn’t be used to it or something, but no.
The actual level of punishment meted out in a given song might vary, but Last Rizla are almost uniformly aggressive. Even the later “Mushy Peas,” which starts out at a sort of bopping-along-casual groove, shifts into more pointed, angular starts and stops and is topped by the blown-out shouts that populate each piece and give the entirety of Noise Without Decay such a post-hardcore vibe. But true to Freek Greek heavy, the story isn’t so simple as band-plays-style, and even truer to the Hellenic underground, Last Rizla know which rules they want to follow and which they want to break. Bookending opener “B52” and closer “B53” fuse punkish bite with tonal heft, and especially in the instrumental finale, they seem to be going for some nod to the ‘bomb-tone’ ethic of Floor, but even there, they keep a rock production, and the rounded edges of their tone and the methodical execution of “Bloody, Hairy” speak to a root in doom/sludge, no matter the actual tempo at which a song is delivered, be it the rager “No Way Out” answering the near-immediate burst of “B52” or the strident “Hades,” which is the longest track at 6:24 and reminds in its howling guitar offsetting dense tonal chug of Swarm of the Lotus, albeit not as harshly produced.
Which is what I’m trying to get at here. Even as compared to Mount Machine — and granted that was five years ago at this point, or four if you want to go by the fact that these songs were recorded nearly a year ago — the recording here by Iraklis Vlachakisallows for some breadth and the creation of an atmosphere of more than aggression or bludgeoning. As consistent as the shouting, hard-riffing and nodding grooves are throughout, Last Rizla circa this maybe-second full-length aren’t just one thing, even when they’re trying to convince you otherwise, and the movement behind their sludge is palpable. They make it rock, sprint, or stand up and bring itself down directly on the listener’s head with little thought to mercy or the manner in which that kind of violence tends to ripple. While even the title speaks to a kind of urgency, the material offers that and grit alike, mining individualism from the swaying build-up of centerpiece “The Debt” ahead of the more sprawling “Hades” and the caustic noise rocker “Classic Marathon,” which is duly stripped-down feeling at 3:47 and answers the earlier insistence of “Rebound” in its midtempo post-’90s nastiness.
Still, for as much as Last Rizla gnash and rip and tear and claw throughout the nine-song stretch, there’s depth to the proceedings — “Bloody, Hairy” drops a lyrical reference to misfortune, reminding that Last Rizla once upon a 2011 were involved in the Miss Fortune was a Henhouse Manager (review here) comp of then-up-and-coming Greek acts like 1000mods, Sadhus, the Smoking Community, Bad Trip, Yassa and others — and as their scene comes to maturity within some of those other groups and without, Last Rizla provide a balance (a mix by Kowloon Walled City‘s Scott Evans doesn’t hurt there either) between bombast and purpose, and the places they go throughout Noise Without Decay are engaging almost in spite of themselves. If you can hang with pissed off sludge rock, that’s still very much at the foundation, but they show that such designations can be as much a beginning as an end all through the record, and while “B53” ends in done-blown-up noise — think Neurosis consumed by the distortion at the end of “Stones From the Sky”; you can hear it in the video below — even in that last moment, there’s no letup, no decay, no flinching from the purpose they’ve established as their own. The word for that kind of thing is “righteous,” and so they are.
Life is full of surprises and if you had ‘Last Rizla roaring back with a more mature and still-plenty-brash second full-length’ on your 2023 Heavy Underground Bingo card, I salute you, but either way, the pit they dig out in this new batch of songs isn’t to be underestimated, and one might find that the more one listens to Noise Without Decay, the more likely skin is to crawl. Don’t worry though, that’s the whole idea. It’s supposed to make that happen. So let it.
The clip below is the premiere of “Rebound,” and should give you some idea of what the band are going for in terms of general construction/destruction throughout. By all means, please dig in and enjoy:
Last Rizla, “Rebound” video premiere
We recorded Noise Without Decay during May and June 2022 in our studio, Créme Chalet, in Kallithea, Athens, Greece.
This city is ruthless, constant and grey. The weather was and has been swinging between dark and stormy but at times sunny and mostly warm.
Noise Without Decay was recorded by Iraklis Vlachakis, mixed by Scott Evans (Antisleep Audio – also guitarist for Kowloon Walled City) and mastered by Saff Mastering.
Like good sauerkraut, it’s now fermenting and will be released by Venerate Industries this May.
Last Rizla, Noise Without Decay behind-the-scenes video
