Starting last May, Swedish jam-prone classic heavy rockers Void Commander began to trickle out singles ahead of their fourth full-length and first for Majestic Mountain Records. Marking their 10th anniversary in 2024, the three-piece will issue their yet-untitled next LP in the months to come through Majestic Mountain and Interstellar Smoke Records, and “The Night Took My Name” follows behind “Dyke Blues” and “Bloodred Knight Alright” in representing the band’s covers-all-bases sound, bringing a doomier roll to the beginning and an open-feeling swing later, broad but still rhythmically centered, and with plenty of room for a jam as it pushes toward six minutes.
The record is like that. The harmonica-laced blues of “Sweet Depression” and “Alien Queen,” the latter of which brings together Sabbath‘s “War Pigs” and “The Wizard” and complements with a massive slowdown at the finish, and the ultra-flowing “Jam in C,” which hypnotizes in such a way as to make “The Night Took My Name” feel all the more like an outward launch. They lean into grittier rock at what I’ll neither confirm nor deny is the outset with “To the Grave” — one is reminded of the bombast of a song like “Fucked Up” from 2021’s River Lord (discussed here) — but run a gamut across heavy subgenres, tipping into hugely fuzzed lumber from the Sleepy intro to “Bloodred Knight Alright” in such a way as to tie together the improv-minded with the structures of the pieces that (more often than not, at least going by the tracklisting) are evolved from the root jams, shifting as it does into a bassy boogie strut near the finish that just kind of works because it does and the context allows for it; riffs pieced together creatively enough that as “Jam in C” meanders into a lyrical pattern, it feels like it’s happening if not in realtime then close enough to it that it doesn’t matter if it isn’t.
In terms of vibe, Void Commander make striking a difficult balance sound easy, and their sound on the whole reminds of some of the older-school Northern European troupes of the turn of the century, and no, I’m not just talking about Dozer, but bands like older Mustasch or Abramis Brama, maybe even Dead Man at least in terms of range, who brought together sounds from the ’70s and ’90s and helped shape heavy rock as we know it. That work has already been done, of course, but Void Commander are playing in that sandbox of decades of heavy rock influences, and whether it’s “The Night Took My Name” with a push that would be more straightforward from a lot of bands than it is here — and that’s a compliment — to the catchy stops of “Alien Wizard” (who presumably serves at the behest of the “Alien Queen”), Void Commander present a cohesive and individualized take on heavy tenets with a punker’s lack of pretense and an underlying groove that is welcoming even at its most dug-in.
I don’t have a release date for the album, and I don’t know if this will be the last advance track released as a standalone single from it, but it exists somewhere and between “Bloodred Knight Alright,” “Dyke Blues” and now “The Night Took My Name,” you’ve got three of the seven or eight tracks that will end up on the finished product, and that’s pretty good to go on. The other two, as well as the aforementioned River Lord, stream below, because MAXIMALISM.
Have fun, because you just might:
Void Commander, “The Night Took My Name” visualizer premiere
Vinyl will be a co-release with Majestic Mountain Records & Interstellar Smoke Records.
“- Another handful of stoner metal from the southern forests of the cold north arrives in the form of “The night took my name ”. A story of endless wake and sleep, a thin line between sleeping and being dead, The night took my name.” – Lee Noose, Void Commander
Void Commander was formed in 2014 by Bobbie (Vocals, Guitar) and Jimmy (Drums). After a long search and using many bass players, Linus (Bass) joined the band in 2016.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on December 22nd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Ukrainian heavy rockers Risin Sabotage swung through Odessa earlier this year on tour and recorded the below video as part of what’s called ‘Carpet Sessions’ for reasons that will become apparent enough in the area ruggery of the clip when you see it. Included in the video that the trio was kind enough to let me premiere below are two songs from their 2023 Interstellar Smoke Records album, Macabre (discussed here), first is “Macabre” itself, followed by “Silence Queen,” which the band — guitarist/vocalist Vitya Panchishko, bassist Valerii Skorzhenko and drummer/vocalist Igor Nedyuzhiy — performed in tight quarters as captured by someone known to me only as sAn, who offered some comment on the process below.
All told, the clip is eight minutes long and it’s a ride that’s easy to take from the first hard guitar strum forward. In “Macabre,” Nedyuzhiy and Panchishko trade vocals during the verses as the camera twists and turns around them and Skorzhenko, the former in a kind of semi-spoken but clean delivery, the guitarist a bit grittier, in the vein of Mastodon‘s Brent Hinds. The pair took over lead vocals after Risin Sabotage parted ways with frontman KirillChepilko, who appeared on 2017’s Nasoni Records-issued Planet Dies LP (discussed here) and it’s encouraging to see them working purposefully to make the vocal arrangement, the patterning, etc., a big part of the song as presented here. No doubt whatever they do next to follow Macabre will take progressive steps forward in that regard.
But the point here isn’t progression, it’s a band in a box rocking out a couple tunes live being taped by a friend who apparently has it in for Skorzhenko‘s work on bass. Fair enough. The break between the two songs is short and right around four and a half minutes into the video, and some of their punker undertones come across in “Silence Queen” as transmuted onto heavier boogie, but you should know going into this that it’s the band in the raw and that’s the intention behind it. It’s not a fancy studio thing, or some multi-camera shoot. Dudes in a room, hitting it. It’s about as organic as you could possibly ask it to be and still be powered by electricity.
Of course, the war in Ukraine drags on. For over 650 days as my country waffles on support because we’re only set to spend 880-something billion dollars on the military next year and apparently we need all of it. I don’t have anything positive to say about it. It’s a fucking tragedy and humans don’t deserve to live on a planet so beautiful, but at least there’s rock and roll, and at least as their home is battered in ways from which it will take generations to recover, these guys can still get out and play shows domestically and do something like this, which looks like it was a great time. You find your solace where and when you can.
Please enjoy:
Risin Sabotage, Carpet Sessions premiere
sAn on Risin Sabotage, ‘Carpet Sessions:
I’ve known the Risin Sabotage crew for a long time, but I really got to know the guys in the winter of 22-23, and during their summer visit to Odessa we recorded a large-scale live on the picturesque expanses of the Kuyalnitsky estuary. You can easily find it on our channel. So the next stage of rapprochement was the mixing of this live, during which I was penetrated by every song of their new album, listening to it again and again, time after time. Now, God forbid I hear their song – then I go and hum it for a few days, and at their concerts I’m blown to pieces and yell in my voice some kind of their lyrics, some gibberish, but on time and in the notes. What does it matter, because nobody can hear me (but they can see me, and let them!).
Our friendship grows stronger with each visit, in direct proportion to my desire to steal their bassist Valera. Because I fell in love with his playing style and the whole range of grimaces during his playing. Valera, sooner or later I will steal you!
Let’s move on. Before their last visit by invitation to a special concert on the occasion of Generic Doom Band Name’s return in a new line-up, it was suggested to shoot a special acoustic live, but gods decided differently and having arranged all the equipment beautifully in my small but homey and cozy studio we recorded four songs. Please rate two of them in this video! Enjoy!
Finishing 2023 with a tour in Ukraine, after a gig in Odessa we made a live video for sAn live channel. We play some tracks from or new album Macabre during this Carpet Session. If you like it don’t forget to like and comment this vid.
A little bit about the channel: sAn live prod is a production studio, they make live videos for UA underground scene bands such as GDBN, White Ward, Heavenphetamine
UK heavy psych fuzz rockers Josiah will release a new EP, titled rehctaW, on Dec. 1 through Interstellar Smoke Records. The band returned last year through Blues Funeral with the full-length We Lay on Cold Stone (review here), following a dearth of activity in the 2010s as founding guitarist/vocalist Mathew Bethancourt explored new spaces in Cherry Choke and began to feel out the experimentalist foundations of the solo-project Mathew’s Hidden Museum, which made its own self-titled debut (review here) earlier this year, also on Interstellar Smoke. With rehctaW — and yes, that’s ‘watcher’ backwards; sit tight, we’ll get there — Bethancourt, newcomer bassist Andy Shardlow and drummer Dan Lockton offer four songs that each have their own basis, style and function in the linear, 21-minute whole but that flow together with a kind of bruised grace in addition to the fuzz and vibe veering into the psychedelic at even its most straightforward moments, like the intro of second cut “By My Left Hand,” which peppers its repeating riff with right-channel wisps of lead guitar from Jack Dickinson (also Stubb), for whom Shardlow took over on bass.
Or the blowout buzz in the guitar of titular opener “rehctaW,” which takes peak-era Queens of the Stone Age bounce and sets it against garage boogie vibes for a swing that’s heavy and fluid in kind, lyrics tossing out references to mind control and machine-induced hypnosis around the kind of hook that, once written, was likely the impetus for the release in the first place. Since his early days roaming the pre-social-media English underground proffering riffs to a then-receding ’90s-generation audience around the turn of the century, and even through his contributions to other outfits, on We Lay on Cold Stone, etc., etc., as a defining feature of his work, Bethancourt has had an ability to lend accessible songs an element of danger through the looseness of their groove. It’s not that Josiah are pushing themselves so hard physically that “rehctaW” or anything else on the EP might come apart — much as “Become” is ‘together’ in any traditional sense to start with — like their hands would fall off or something, but in the internalized classic-heavy influence the band so ably wields, in the way they take a willfully simple idea like garage rock and use it as a vehicle for more complex craft, they’re less predictable than it seems.
Both “rehctaW” and the seven-minute “By My Left Hand” reinforce this, the latter starting gradually before it gets to the chic wub of its verse with Dickinson‘s second guitar distinct from Bethancourt‘s holding down the riff, building up and rolling forward an instrumental procession further bolstered by the piano guest spot from Morgan Sol, who complements the rise in rhythmic tension moving higher on the keyboard until a sudden cut to a lower thud ends a subtly fervent push. “By My Left Hand” further highlights the chemistry of the band as a whole as they sleek into and through a short and dreamy break at the start of that last build, and certainly their willingness to mess with form and the flexibility of their approach are on display in “Become,” which as alluded above departs from structure toward ambient ends. Echoing fills of drums at the start feel loosely ritualized, and when Bethancourt begins singing, his voice is in full incantation mode. The line, “scratch out your eyes and see no more,” arrives early in the piece, and becomes a defining point for the EP as right around 1:20 into the song, Bethancourt repeats the “no more” portion of that lyric in a delivery precisely drawn from a track written during his time in Leicester’s The Kings of Frog Island.
Can you guess the song? Well it’s “The Watcher,” of course, from 2008’s II (discussed here), and that meta-reference — just a tiny easter egg of a thing — brims with purpose no less in light of the context in which rehctaW places it. It is the juncture at which rehctaW reveals its full intention in engaging the scope of Josiah‘s work at this point, supplying on-theme introduction and even a last-second horror-style jump-cut while opening the door to the dark dimension for their reworking of “Black Annis (The Evocation Of),” originally by Cherry Choke. And what’s funny about that is when Bethancourt and Cherry Choke released the song on 2015’s Raising the Waters (review here), sure it was fleshed out with organ and had a similar sneak to its groove, but it was shorter and the character in the evocation’s jam is perfect for being tucked into the closer position on the EP, maintaining the ultra-weird of “Become” in a context of the band’s signature, swirl-prone class-ic heavy rock. Like each of the three songs before it, “Black Annis (The Evocation Of)” represents a different side of who Josiah are — the power trio, in the jam space, maybe freaking out — and after its done, the fading-in vocal echoes come forward just long enough for Bethancourt to once more advise, “Scratch out your eyes and see no more,” tying the closer to “Become” right before and bringing to light the expanses Josiah are able to reach in terms of atmosphere while remaining at their essence a rock and roll band.
Be it in the strange and eerie vocal layering, backward this-and-that, various whispers, shakers, and so on that finish “Become” or the catchy midtempo swing of its title-track, rehctaW draws together elements from the past of Josiah and other Bethancourt-inclusive or -led outfits — and that’s not to minimize the contributions of Lockton, Shardlow, or even Dickinson or Sol, but Josiah begins and ends at the say-so of its founding principal — and in so doing moves the band forward from where they were even a year ago. And they were plenty weird a year ago too, but the message being sent to the listener on rehctaW is that they’ll continue to push creatively in this state, reignited after nearly a decade’s absence and transitioning from ‘reunion band’ to ‘active band’ as many others have done before them. And where they likely could rest on the laurels of their first three records and do shows in London forever pumping out the same riffs to the same heads each year, that they’re choosing a more challenging (and ideally more fulfilling) creative path is the most essential display of character Josiah could make as a statement of who they are. They’ll do something after this. I have no idea what it’ll be in terms of sound, and that mystery is whole lot of fun.
Bethancourt was kind enough to offer a track-by-track breakdown of the EP to go with the premiere, discussing the folkloric background of “Black Annis” and “Become” — tying into the release’s definitely-NSFW cover art by Sara Koncilja; gorgeously detailed if perhaps wanting subtlety in concept — and the impetus behind “rehctaW” and “By My Left Hand.” You’ll find it after the player below, followed by release particulars for the EP.
Please enjoy:
Josiah, “rehctaW” track premiere
Josiah, Rehctaw EP track-by-track with Mathew Bethancourt:
1. rehctaW
Written and demo’d early January 2023. This track dropped like a fully formed ear worm. rehctaW was the driver for the EP, as it couldn’t wait for an album and almost felt at odds with everything else I’ve been writing lately. Lyrically based on the ideas of the inspiration that is Austin Osman Spare. Among many things AOS believed rehctaW was the symbol of reaching backwards in time to infinite remoteness by the mechanism of intense nostalgia. He also felt otherworld energies flowed through him when he reached this state of bliss. A creative force using the flesh to manifest its intent. Whilst not directly leaning on any AOS texts, rehctaW embodies the idea of a force within and without. The watcher within and without. Who’s really in control of your mind. Are you the one that’s always driving. Why did the Kozmik soup present me this fully formed track, did I write it – or…
2. By My Left Hand
This was originally written and recorded for Mark Lannegan. I wrote 6 tracks during the winter/spring of 20/21 for inclusion on what would have been his latest album, if it wasn’t for his sad and untimely death. I decided to keep it instrumental for the EP as I couldn’t get past the notion of Mark singing over the music. It was written for Mark with love and respect for a great artist. Another track that dropped into my mind fully heard. Like an old familiar friend. By My Left Hand speaks to those who take the other way.
3. Become
The rebirth of an idea under the spell of local Leicester folk legend Black Annis. Designed as the prefix to Black Annis. Become lets her spirit back into the band, back into our lives. Both Dan and I grew up with her legend and now we both live metres away from her bower. We live the folk lore that impregnates all our traditions and rituals. Annis is a bittersweet character that we have once again chosen to evoke. Obviously a woman of great power, hence her subsequent horrific action.
4. Black Annis (the evocation of)
There’s a few Cherry Choke tracks that could quite easily have been Josiah works. I felt we never quite did this song justice on Raising The Waters and the revisiting and ultimate reworking of the track felt right for this EP. It’s something I like the idea of. Revisiting your own work over and over. We will do it again in the future. Something common in jazz and blues but so well utilised in rock. We love the outcome though. There’s a ghost in the machine for sure and it’s thick with the scent of folklore. Sounds can be heard that none of us made. It’s a strange one to listen to.
You may pre-order the exclusive band edition of 75 black/gold hand numbered vinyl & gold CD via Josiah bandcamp store and limited label edition of 225 red/gold vinyl & gold CD via Interstellar Smoke Records from October 31st.
EP Release date: December 1st 2023 via Interstellar Smoke Records Single streaming date: October 31st 2023
1. rehctaW (4:47) 2. By My Left Hand (7:02) 3. Become (3:31) 4. Black Annis (The Evocation Of) (6:00)
The Makers:: Dan Lockton – Drums Andy Shardlow – Bass Mathew Bethancourt – Voice, Guitar & Keys
By My Left Hand features additional musicians Morgan Sol on piano & Jack Dickinson on acid guitar. Recorded & mixed by Mathew Bethancourt with the assistance of Kev ‘The Druid’ Lloyd at Ivy Road June 2023. Mastered by Satanic Audio.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on September 19th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
NSFW, obviously.
It’s not dismemberment, it’s memberment! Newburgh, New York, sans-guitar atmospheric doom rockers Mama Doom will release their new album, Blood Salt Sacrifice, through Interstellar Smoke Records in the coming months. You might recall their 2021 debut, Ash Bone Skin & Stone (discussed here), was released through Majestic Mountain Records, and the band has been around in various incarnations, haunting the two-lane-highway woods of Orange County for well over a decade. I don’t have a release date yet on the new album, but they sure have a single ready to go.
The video premiering below for “Man Parts” is sub-two-and-a-half-minutes of pure horror kitsch. A gory short film in which the three-piece — vocalist D.Lolli, bassist Chuckie Rumbles and drummer Anne Terror — piece together Rumbles à la Mary Shelly. It’s a fun twist on the classic, and the song is a quick sample from Blood Salt Sacrifice that bodes well in its melody, atmosphere and hook. It looks like it was probably a good time to put together, and I’m not sure if James Cromwell (Star Trek‘s own Zefram Cochrane) actually saw it, but according to the below it did feature at a film fest that he hosted. Also fun.
As regards the record, it’s not the most substantial sampling; a short video and shorter song. But it’s an early glimpse, a guts-on-the-table teaser. More info on Blood Salt Sacrifice when I get it, for now, enjoy the clip responsibly and expect more heavy, languid groove to come.
Dig:
Mama Doom, “Man Parts” video premiere
Interstellar Smoke Label will be putting out our third album “Blood Salt Sacrifice”, preorder information coming soon.
Gratuitous Productions created a fun-filled bloody Frankenstein-esque video, Man Parts serving as our first single. Gratuitous Productions is a production company run by Anne Terror and Grave Dave. The video for Man Parts was showcased at the Hudson Valley Film Festival hosted by James Cromwell.
It started with a little light and was burning and burning. Mama Doom was summoned from the fire like a phoenix resurrecting itself yet keeping its old bones. Mutating into three because there is power and strength in the number 3. We’ve kept things simple yet complex with only the booming presence of bass guitar, haunting keyboards, and complex drumming. Vocally we take you on a journey of dark humor with an undertone of satanic references. Hailing from Newburgh NY, Mama Doom has been together since 2016 and finally discovered the perfect combination of sounds.
Track listing: 1. Love ‘n Dead 2. Ring the Bell 3. Devil in the Sky 4. Lovely Home 5. Bleeding Garden 6. Bury Your Bones 7. Man Parts 8. Nosferatu (Witches Worm) 9. Burned into Nothing
Band Members: D.Lolli – Vocals Chuckie Rumbles – Bass Anne Terror – Drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 28th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Well, now I know that Bydgoszcz is the eighth largest city in Poland. Never stop learning, kids.
Gdańsk-based jammy psych mischief makers The Howling Eye are going on tour in their native Poland and making stops as well in Germany and the Czech Republic. The band offered their third album earlier this year in the loose-grooving List Do Borykan (review here), and I’d have to imagine their live show doesn’t go too far from the album at least in terms of general approach. That is, I don’t think The Howling Eye are releasing a record of exploratory psych and then getting on stage and reciting the material note for note. Too adventurous a band, and for a bonus, they don’t take themselves too seriously. Warning: Actual fun may occur.
I didn’t need the excuse to post the dates, but you’ll note The Howling Eye sharing the stage with the likes of Tet, Mythic Sunship, Abanamat, The Device, Taxi Caveman, Mares of Thrace and TarLung, among others. I don’t see anything listed outright as a festival — and most of the Fall tours in Europe I’ve posted about have been fest runs — but I’m not 100 percent on that since, as noted, I’m still just learning about different cities in The Howling Eye‘s home country, which I know for sure I wouldn’t mind visiting one of these years.
From social media:
THE HOWLING EYE – TOUR ANNOUNCEMENT
We’re going on tour! Space Dwellers Tour will bring our riff-transmitted mystic visions to 15 cities in 3 countries. Many thanks to Interstellar Smoke Records and Galactic SmokeHouse for helping us pull this off, and to Maciek Szukała for the artwork. Facebook events coming soon…
Meanwhile: 6.10 – Toruń – KoŃcÓwa + Tet, Lovecraft 7.10 – Bydgoszcz – Estrada stagebar + Lovecraft, The Device 8.10 – Gdańsk – Wydział Remontowy + Mythic Sunship, Tet 10.10 – Hamburg – Bar 227 + Verstärker 12.10 – Kiel – Siebeneck & Triangel + TBA 13.10 – Szczecin – Krzywy Gryf + aleph א, Power Plant 14.10 – Elbląg – Mjazzga + ELBONG 15.10 – Warszawa – Hydrozagadka + Atom Juice 19.10 – Berlin – RESET + Abanamat 20.10 – Poznań – PAN GAR + Abanamat, Szacunek 22.10 – Wrocław – Liverpool + Abanamat, Noise River 26.10 – Kraków – Warsztat + Taxi Caveman, Niewyspani 27.10 – Tarnowskie Góry – Beczka + Taxi Caveman, Astral Nomad 28.10 – Ostrava – Rock Hill + TBA 29.10 – Praha – Modrá Vopice + MARES OF THRACE, TarLung
Posted in Reviews on August 2nd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Of all the projects Buenos Aires-based auteur Sergio Chotsourian might visit in a given year, between the heavy rocking Soldati, his solo work as Sergio Ch., the gothy Brno, releases through South American Sludge Records, archival whatnot from his time fronting Los Natas, various collaborations — hell, he even has two books out — Ararat is probably the most open in terms of scope. It can be just about anything. He takes advantage of this on the band’s fifth long-player, La Rendición Del Hombre, which arrives on a quick turnaround from 2022’s Volumen 4 (review here) and is issued through Interstellar Smoke and South American Sludge.
Already, when the project began with 2009’s Musica de la Resistencia (review here) on MeteorCity, Ararat were a departure. Those used to seeing Chotsourian on guitar might’ve been surprised to find bass as his main instrument, and the weighted lurching atmospheres were fleshed out with experimentalist fervor, arrangements of piano and so on for a folkish sensibility drawn from his own Armenian roots and meshed with influences picked up along the way.
In the almost 14 years since that first offering, Ararat have never been the same thing twice, and sure enough, the five songs and 34 minutes of La Rendición Del Hombre lives up to that standard of unpredictability. Chotsourian — who produced, mixed and mastered at Death Studios and handles guitar, bass, keys and vocals where applicable — pairs with violinist Federico Terranova as the only other contributor to the record. With no drums behind them and minimal percussion otherwise, the two dive into acoustic folk instrumentalism on opener “Ramen de Cordero” (2:56) and the centerpiece “Zulma Fadjat” (3:13) and work in a similar vein on the concluding title-track (4:02), but with a particularly emotive vocal from Chotsourian accompanying.
These pieces are offset by two extended cuts, dubbed “Eleven” (11:03) and “Twelve” (13:06), so that the procession alternates from short to long, each adding to the depth of what came before it. The hard-strummed style of guitar and raw sound that begins “Ramen de Cordero” will likely ring familiar with those who know Chotsourian‘s solo output — his latest LP is 2022’s The Red Rooster (discussed here) — and when it enters early, Terranova‘s violin is not at all out of place in winding itself around that guitar progression. I would believe the violin was improvised, if not the guitar, but the immediately, the feel is exploratory. As with all of La Rendición Del Hombre, the lack of drums makes it somewhat anchorless, but that’s very clearly part of the intention, for both the three shorter songs and the two epics sandwiched between them.
Immersion is the goal, as much perhaps for Chotsourian and Terranova as for their audience. “Ramen de Cordero” is rhythmic thanks to the noted hard strum of guitar, but comes across as a meditative path one is supposed to follow, something lost waiting to be found that turns out not to be tangible at all. The magic was in you, or at least in the strings of the instruments. A decidedly plugged rumble of low end starts “Eleven,” quiet and with flourish of guitar alongside, leading to a thicker distortion and an organ drone after the first two minutes. The impression is spacious even as the music itself is an intimate, individualized drone folk; something Chotsourian has done before in bringing together styles traditional and adventurous, but never quite in this way. “Eleven” cycles through again, this time with the organ under the quiet bass — continuity! — and a return of the vocals only in the last minute as the track slow-marches itself out.
Organ is the last element to fade out of “Eleven,” and the strike of guitar at the beginning of “Zulma Fadjat” feels like a purposeful reorientation. This time, Terranova follows the guitar closer, following its angular weaving pattern before taking off into soloist revelry. The sound is folk instrumental — celebratory music, but with a darker undertone — with the violin creating a sense of nostalgia as only it could, and no real room for vocals anyway in its memorable course, less improv-feeling than was “Ramen de Cordero” and showing that in a cold finish from Terranova and Chotsourian together.
Both “Eleven” and “Twelve” remind of 2012’s II (review here) in form and structure, the bass and vocal melody, though there are noteworthy differences of arrangement and execution. Still, with the low tone of Chotsourian‘s bass returning, it is a mode-switch easily made, and where 11 years ago, songs like “Caballos” or “La Ira del Dragon (Uno)” would have kicked in with full-on weight and doomly nod, “Twelve” follows suit from its predecessor in meeting the denser tone with organ, seeming to pick up the march from the end of “Eleven” where it left off and moving it forward into patient resonance, vocal drawl and a stop that brings acoustic (I think) guitar not to solo as one might imagine, but to reside deep in the mix and feel its way through a Caucasus-esque, East-leaning movement before the march resumes.
Another pointed strum and maybe that same guitar part — only backward — returns as the less-distorted bass makes its way through the quieter last of “Twelve” five or so parts, taking the place of organ and becoming a rhythmic focal point. There’s a spoken vocal or a sample that might be Chotsourian, Terranova, or someone else entirely, that gives over to the noted backwards guitar near its transition into “La Rendición Del Hombre,” which comes across like a moment of arrival for the record in putting Chotsourian‘s voice and Terranova‘s violin together where neither “Ramen de Cordero” nor “Zulma Fadjat” did so, and that turns out to be the place to which La Rendición Del Hombre has been leading all along: an atmospheric, melancholy contemplation of melody, layered vocals starting at 2:32, consistent with what came before it but organically extrapolated further and skillfully placed as the final destination of the shifting approach, letting the emotion of Chotsourian‘s voice and the inherently wistful violin serve as the ‘heavy’ where “Eleven” and “Twelve” might have conjured a wall of tone.
I suppose La Rendición Del Hombre is an experimental release, or at least it would be for the relative few artists who’d be brave enough to compose and issue it, but Chotsourian is at home in either volume context, and while it’s easy to imagine “Eleven” or “Twelve” revisited in a full-band arrangement at some time in the future, their interpretation here draws a line between Ararat and Chotsourian‘s solo fare in a way that hasn’t been done before and that should be appreciated by those who’ve followed his output for however long. Newcomers who don’t mind getting a little weird (and sad) should have no trouble though, but those seeking a more heavy rock-based sound might consider Volumen 4 or 2014’s Cabalgata Hacia la Luz (review here), but however one approaches it, La Rendición Del Hombre reinforces the project’s capacity for breadth and is a standout example among many of Chotsourian‘s forward-thinking craft.
Been a trip so far, has this Quarterly Review. It’s been fun to bounce from one thing to the next, drawing imaginary lines between releases that have nothing more to do with each other than being written up on the same day, and seeing the way the mind reels in adjusting from talking about one thing to the next. It’s a different kind of challenge to write 150-200 words (and often more than that; these reviews are getting too long) about a record than 1,000 words.
Less room to make your argument means you need to say what you want to say how you want to say it and punch out. If you’ve read this site with any regularity over the last however many years, or perhaps if you’re reading this very sentence right now, right here, you might guess that such efficiency isn’t a strong suit. This assessment would be correct. Fact is I suck at any number of things. A growing list.
But we’ve made it to Thursday anyhow and today this 70-record Quarterly Review passes its halfway point, and that’s always a fun thing to mark. If you’ve been digging it, I hope you continue to do so. If nothing’s hit, maybe today. If this is the first you’re seeing of any of it, well, that’s fine too. We’re all friends here. You can go back and dig in or not, as you prefer. I’ll keep going either way. Speaking of…
Quarterly Review #31-40:
The Howling Eye, List Do Borykan
I don’t often say things like this, but List Do Borykan is worth it for the opening jam of “Space Dwellers, Episode 1.” That does not mean that song’s languid flow, silly stoned space-adventure spoken word narrative, and flashes of dub and psych and so on, are all that Poland’s The Howling Eye have to offer on their third full-length. It’s not. The prior single “Medival” (sic) has a thoughtful arrangement led by post-Claypool funky bass and surf-style guitar, which are swapped out for hard-riff cacophony metal in the second half of the song’s 3:35 run. That pairing sets up a back and forth between longer jams and more structured material, but it’s all pretty out there when you hear the seven song/44 minutes of the entire record, as the 10-minute “Brothers” builds from silence to organ-laced classic rock testimony and then draws itself down to let the funkier/rolling (depending on which part you’re talking about) “Space Dwellers, Episode 2” provide a swaying melodic highlight, and “Caverns” drones into jazz minimalism for nine minutes before “Space Dwellers, Episode 3” goes full-on over-the-top 92-second dance party. Finally. That leaves the closer, “Johnny,” as the landing spot where the back and forth jams/songs trades end, and they’re due a jam and provide one, but “Johnny” also follows on theme from “Space Dwellers, Episode 3” and the start of “Medival” and other funk-psych stretches, so summarizes List Do Borykan well. Again, worth it for the first song, but is much more than just that as a listening experience.
Toronto-based folk experimentalist, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Avi C. Engel starts off the 10-song Sanguinaria with the first of its headphone-ready arrangements “Sing in Our Chains” assessing modernity and realizing, “We were better off in the trees.” In addition to Engel‘s actual voice, which is well capable of carrying records on its own, with a distinctive character, part soft and breathy in delivery but resilient with a kind of bruised grace and, as time goes on, grown more adventurous. In “Poisonous Fruit” and “The Snake in the Mirror,” folk, soul and organically-cast sprawl unfold, and where “A Silver Thread” brings in electric guitar and lap steel, “Deathless” — the longest cut at 6:33, arriving paired with the subsequent, textural “I Died Again” — is sparse at first but builds around whatever stringed instrument Engel (slow talharpa?) is playing and Paul Kolinski‘s banjo, standout vocal harmonies and a subdued keeping of rhythm. Along with Kolinski, Brad Deschamps adds lap steel to the opener and the more-forward-in-percussion “Extasis Boogie,” which is listed as an interlude but nearly five minutes long, and Lys Guillorn contributes lap steel to “A Silver Thread,” with all due landscape manifestation. Sad, complex, and beautiful, the 52-minute long-player isn’t a minor undertaking on any level, and “Personne” and the penultimate “Bridge Behind the Sun” emphasize the point of intricacy before the looping “Larvae” masterfully crafts its resonance across the last six minutes of the album.
Begun in 1993 as Peach, London heavy prog rockers Suns of the Tundra celebrate 30 years with the encompassing hour-long The Only Equation, their fifth album, which brings back past members of the band, has a few songs with two drummers, and is wildly sprawling across 10 still-accessible tracks that shimmer with purpose and melody. The title-track seems to harken to a ’90s push, but the twisting and volume-surging back half stave redundancy ahead of the patient drama in the 10-minute “The Rot,” which follows. On the other side of the metal-leaning “Run Boy Run,” with its big, open, floating, thudding finish representing something Suns of the Tundra do very well throughout, the three-part cycle of “Reach for the Inbetween” could probably just as easily have been one 15-minute cut, but is more palatable as three, and loses nothing of its fluidity for it, the build in the third piece giving due payoff before “The Window is Wide” caps in deceptively hooky style. Whether one approaches it with the context of their decades or not, The Only Equation is deeply welcoming. And no, its proggy prog progness won’t resonate universally, but nothing does, and that doesn’t matter anyhow. Without giving up who they are creatively, Suns of the Tundra have made it as easy as they can for one to get on board. The rest is on the listener.
Natskygge sneak a little “Paranoid” into “Delir,” the instrumental opener/longest track (immediate points) of their second album, Eskapisme, and that’s just fine as dogwhistles go. The Danish classic psych rockers made a well-received self-titled debut in 2020 and look to expand on that outing’s classic vibe with this 34-minute eight-tracker, which is rife with creative ambition in the slower “Lys på vej” and the piano-laced “Fjern planet,” which follows, as well as in a mover/shaker like “Titusind år,” the compact three-minute strutter “Frit fald” or what might be the side B leadoff “Feberdrøm” with its circa-1999 Brant Bjork casual groove and warm fuzz, purposefully veering into psychedelia in a way that feels like a preface for the closing duo “Livet brænder,” an organ/keyboard flourish, grounded verse and airy swirls over top leading smoothly into the likewise-peppered but acoustically-based “Den der sidst gik ud,” which conveys patience without giving up the momentum the band has amassed up to that point. I’ll note that my ignorance of the Danish language doesn’t feel like it’s holding me back as “Fjern planet” holds forth its lush melancholy or “Titusind år” signals the band’s affinity for krautrock. Not quite vintage in production, but not too far off, Eskapisme feels like it was made to be lived with, the songs engaged over a period of years, and I look forward to revisiting accordingly.
Portland’s Last Giant reportedly had a bit of a time recording their fourth long-player, Monuments, in a months-long process involving multiple studios and a handful of producers, among them Adam Pike (Holy Grove, Young Hunter, Red Fang, Mammoth Salmon, etc.) recording basic tracks, Paul Malinowski (Shiner, Open Hand) mixing and three different rounds of mastering. Complicated. Working as the three-piece of founder, principal songwriter, guitarist and vocalist RFK Heise (ex-System and Station), bassist Palmer Cloud and drummer Matt Wiles — it was just Heise and Wiles on 2020’s Let the End Begin (review here) — the band effectively fill in whatever cracks may have been apparent to them in the finished product, and the 10-track/39-minute offering is pop-informed as all their output to-date has been and loaded with heart. Also a bit of trumpet on “Saviors.” There’s swagger in “Blue” and “Hell on Burnside,” and “Feels Like Water” is about as weighted and brash as I’ve heard Last Giant get — a fun contrast to the acoustic “Lost and Losing,” which closes — but wherever a given track ends up, it is deftly guided there by Heise‘s sure hand. Sounds like it was much easier to make than apparently it was.
Growth is either the second or third full-length from Polish heavy psych doomers Moonstone depending on what you count, but by the time you’re about three minutes into the 7:47 of second cut “Bloom” after the gets-loud-at-the-end-anyway atmospheric intro “Harvest” — which establishes an undercurrent of metal that the rest of the six-song/36-minute LP holds even in its quietest parts — ordinal numbering won’t matter anyway. “Bloom” and “Sun” (8:02), which follows, are the longest pieces on Growth, and that in itself speaks to the band stripping back some of their jammier impulses as compared to, say, late 2021’s two-song 12″ 1904 (discussed here), but while the individual tracks may be shorter, they give up nothing as regards largesse of tone or the spaces the band inhabit in the material. Flowing and doomed, “Sun” ends side A and gives over to the extra-bass-punch meditativeness of “Night,” the guitar building in the second half to solo for the payoff, while the six-minutes-each “Lust” and “Emerald” filter Electric Wizard haze and the proggy volume trades of countrymen like Spaceslug, respectively, close with due affirmation of purpose in big tone, big groove, and a noteworthy dark streak that may yet come to the fore of their approach.
It’s not quite the centerpiece, but in terms of the general perspective on the world of the record from which it comes, there’s little arguing with Sonic Demon‘s “F.O.A.D.” as the declarative statement on Veterans of the Psychic War. As with Norway’s Darkthrone, who released an LP titled F.O.A.D. in 2007, Sonic Demon‘s “F.O.A.D.” stands for ‘fuck off and die,’ and that seems to be the central ethic they’re working from. Like most of what surrounds on the Italian duo’s follow-up to 2021’s Vendetta (review here), “F.O.A.D.” is coated in tonal dirt, a nastiness of buzz in line with the stated mentality making songs like swinging opener “Electric Demon” and “Lucifer’s the Light,” which follows, raw even by post-Uncle Acid garage doom standards. There are moments of letup, as in the wah-swirling second half of “The Black Pill,” a bit of psych bookending in “Wolfblood,” or the penultimate (probably thankfully) instrumental “Sexmagick Nights,” but the forward drive in “The Gates” highlights the point of Sonic Demon hand-drilling their riffs into the listener’s skull, and the actually-stoned-sounding groove of closer “To Hell and Back” seems pleased to bask in the filth the album has wrought.
If you’re taking on From the Ages‘ deceptively-titled first full-length, II — the trio of guitarist Paul Dudziak, bassist Sean Fredrich and drummer David Tucker issued their I EP in 2021, so this is their second release overall — it is perhaps useful to know that the only inclusion with vocals is opener/longest track (immediate points) “Harbinger.” An automatic focal point for that, for its transposed Sleep influence, and for being about four minutes longer than anything else on the album, it draws well together with the five sans-vox cuts that follow, with an exploratory sensibility in its jam that feels like it may be from whence a clearly-plotted song like “Maelstrom” or the lumbering volume trades of “Tenebrous” originate. Full in tone and present in the noisy slog and pre-midpoint drift of “Epoch” as well as Dudziak‘s verses in “Harbinger,” From the Ages seem willful in their intention to try out different ideas, whether that’s the winding woe of “Obsolescence” or the acoustilectric standalone guitar of closer “Providence,” and while that can make the listener less sure of where their development might take them in stylistic terms, that only results in their being more exciting to hear in the now.
Not only is Astral Magic‘s Cosmic Energy Flow — released in May of this year — not the first outing from the Finnish space rock outfit led by project founder and spearhead Santtu Laakso in 2023, it’s the eighth. And that doesn’t include the demo short release with a live band. It’s also not the latest Astral Magic about two months after the fact, as Laakso and company have put out two full-lengths since. Unrealistic as this level of productivity is — surely the work of dimensional timeporting — and already-out-of-date as the eight-song/42-minute LP might be, it also brings Laakso into collaboration with the late Nik Turner of Hawkwind, who plays sax on the opening title-track, as well as guitarists Ilya Lipkin of Russia’s The Re-Stoned and Stefan Olesinski (Nuns on Napalm), and vocalists Christina Poupoutsi (The Higher Craft, The Meads of Asphodel, etc.) and Kev Ellis (Dubbal, Heliotrope, etc.), and where one might think so many personnel shifts around Laakso‘s synth-forward basic tracks would result in a disjointed offering, well, anything can happen in space and when you throw open doors in such a way, expectations broaden accordingly. Maybe it’s just one thing on the way to the next, maybe it’s the record with Nik Turner. Either way, Astral Magic move inextricably deeper into the known and unknown cosmos.
Until the solo hits in the second half of “The Barrens,” you almost don’t realize how much space there is in the mix on Green Inferno‘s Trace the Veins. The New Jersey trio like it dank and deathly as they answer the rawness of their 2019 demo with the six Esben Willems-mastered tracks of their first album, porting over “Spellcaster” and “Unearth the Tombs” to rest in the same mud as malevolent plodders like “Carried to the Pit” and the penultimate “Vultures,” which adds higher-register screaming to the already-established low growls — I doubt it’s actually an influence, but I’m reminded of Amorphis circa Elegy — that give the whole outing such an extreme persona if the guitar and bass tones weren’t already taking care of it. The tortured feel there carries into closer “Crown the Virgin” as the three-piece attempt to stomp their own riffs into oblivion along with everything else, and one can only hope they get there. New songs or the two older tracks, doesn’t matter. At any angle you might choose, Green Inferno are slow-churned extreme sludge, death-sludge if you want, fully stoned, drenched in murk, disillusioned, misanthropic. It’s the sound of looking at the world around you and deciding it’s not worth saving. Did I mention stoned? Good.
Welcome to day two of the Summer 2023 Quarterly Review. Yesterday was a genuine hoot — I didn’t realize I had packed it so full of bands’ debut albums, and not repeating myself in noting that in the reviews was a challenge — but blah blah words words later we’re back at it today for round two of seven total.
As I write this, my house is newly emerged from an early morning tornado warning and sundry severe weather alerts, flooding, wind, etc., with that. In my weather head-canon, tornados don’t happen here — because they never used to — but one hit like two towns over a week or so ago, so I guess anything’s possible. My greater concern would be flooding or downed trees or branches damaging the house. I laughed with The Patient Mrs. that of course a tornado would come right after we did the kitchen floor and put the sink back.
We got The Pecan up to experience and be normalized into this brave new world of climate horror. We didn’t go to the basement, but it probably won’t be the last time we talk about whether or not we need to do so. Yes, planet Earth will take care of itself. It will do this by removing the problematic infection over a sustained period of time. Only trouble is humans are the infection.
So anyway, happy Tuesday. Let’s talk about some records.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
Bell Witch, Future’s Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate
Cumbersome in its title and duly stately as it unfurls 83 minutes of Billy Anderson-recorded slow-motion death-doom soul destroy/rebuild, Future’s Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate is not the first longform single-song work from Seattle’s Bell Witch, but the core duo of drummer/vocalist Jesse Shreibman and bassist/vocalist Dylan Desmond found their path on 2017’s landmark Mirror Reaper (review here) and have set themselves to the work of expanding on that already encompassing scope. Moving from its organ intro through willfully lurching, chant-topped initial verses, the piece breaks circa 24 minutes to minimalist near-silence, building itself back up until it seems to blossom fully at around 45 minutes in, but it breaks to organ, rises again, and ultimately seems to not so much to collapse as to be let go into its last eight minutes of melancholy standalone bass. Knowing this is only the first part of a trilogy makes Future’s Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate feel even huger and more opaque, but while its unrelenting atmospheric bleakness will be listenable for a small percentage of the general populace, there’s no question Bell Witch are continuing to push the limits of what they do. Loud or quiet, they are consuming. One should expect no less in the next installment.
Some records are self-titled because the band can’t think of a name. Plainride‘s Plainride is more declarative. Self-released ahead of a Ripple Music issue to accord with timing as the German trio did a Spring support stint with Corrosion of Conformity, the 10-song outing engages with funk, blues rock, metal, prog and on and on and on, and feels specifically geared toward waking up any and all who hear it. The horns blasting in “Fire in the Sky” are a clear signal of that, though one should also allow for the mellowing of “Wanderer,” the interlude “You Wanna…” the acoustic noodler “Siebengebirge,” or the ballady closer “The Lilies” as a corresponding display of dynamic. But the energy is there in “Hello, Operator,” “Ritual” — which reminds of Gozu in its soulful vocals — and through the longer “Shepherd” and the subsequent regrounding in the penultimate “Hour of the Mûmakil,” and it is that kick-in-the-pants sensibility that most defines Plainride as a realization on the part of the band. They sound driven, hungry, expansive and professional, and they greet their audience with a full-on “welcome to the show” mindset, then proceed to try to shake loose the rules of genre from within. Not a minor ambition, but Plainride succeed in letting craft lead the charge in their battle against mediocrity. They don’t universally hit their marks — not that rock and roll ever did or necessarily should — but they take actual chances here and are all the more invigorating for that.
Massachusetts doomers Benthic Realm offer their awaited first full-length with Vessel, and the hour-long 2LP is broad and crushing enough to justify the wait. It’s been five years since 2018’s We Will Not Bow (review here), and the three-piece of bassist Maureen Murphy (ex-Second Grave, ex-Curse the Son, etc.), guitarist/vocalist Krista Van Guilder (ex-Second Grave, ex-Warhorse) and drummer Dan Blomquist (also Conclave) conjure worthy expanse with a metallic foundation, Van Guilder likewise effective in a deathly scream and melodic delivery as “Traitors Among Us” quickly affirms, and the band shifting smoothly between the lurch of “Summon the Tide” and speedier processions like “Course Correct,” the title-track or the penultimate “What Lies Beneath,” the album ultimately more defined by mood and the epic nature of Benthic Realm‘s craft than a showcase of tempo on either side. That is, regardless of pace, they deliver with force throughout the album, and while it might be a couple years delayed, it stands readily among the best debuts of 2023.
Cervus follow 2022’s impressive single “Cycles” (posted here) with the three-song EP Shifting Sands, and the Amsterdam heavy psych unit use the occasion to continue to build a range around their mellow-grooving foundation. Beginning quiet and languid and exploratory on “Nirvana Dunes,” which bursts to voluminous life after its midpoint but retains its fluidity, the five-piece of guitarists Jan Woudenberg and Dennis de Bruin, bassist Tom Mourik, keyboardist/guitarist Ton van Rijswijk and drummer Rogier Henkelman saving extra push for middle cut “Tempest,” reminding some of how The Machine are able to turn from heavy jams to more structured riffy shove. That track, shorter at 3:43, is a delightful bit of raucousness that answers the more straightforward fare on 2021’s Ignis EP while setting up a direct transition into “Eternal Shadow,” which builds walls of organ-laced fuzz roll that go out and don’t come back, ending the 16-minute outing in such a way as to make it feel more like a mini-album. They touch no ground here that feels uncertain for them, but that’s only a positive sign as they perhaps work toward making their debut LP. Whether that’s coming or not, Shifting Sands is no less engaging a mini-trip for its brevity.
On their third album, Where’s the Ground?, Portuguese experimentalists Unsafe Space Garden tackle heavy existentialist questions as only those truly willing to embrace the absurd could hope to do. From the almost-Jackson 5 casual saunter of “Grown-Ups!” — and by the way, all titles are punctuated and stylized all-caps — to the willfully overwhelming prog-metal play of “Pum Pum Pum Pum Ta Ta” later on, Unsafe Space Garden find and frame emotional and psychological breakthroughs through the ridiculous misery of human existence while also managing to remind of what a band can truly accomplish when they’re willing to throw genre expectations out the window. With shades throughout of punk, prog, indie, sludge, pop new and old, post-rock, jazz, and on and on, they are admirably individual, and unwilling to be anything other than who they are stylistically at the risk of derailing their own work, which — again, admirably — they don’t. Switching between English and Portuguese lyrics, they challenge the audience to approach with an open mind and sympathy for one another since once we were all just kids picking our noses on the same ground. Where’s the ground now? I’m not 100 percent, but I think it might be everywhere if we’re ready to see it, to be on it. Supreme weirdo manifestation; a little manic in vibe, but not without hope.
Guitarist/vocalist Henning Schmerer reportedly self-recorded and mixed and played all instruments himself for Neon Burton‘s third full-length, Take a Ride. The band was a trio circa 2021’s Mighty Mondeo, and might still be one, but with programmed drums behind him, Schmerer digs in alone across these space-themed six songs/46 minutes. The material keeps the central duality of Neon Burton‘s work to-date in pairing airy heavy psychedelia with bouts of denser riffing, rougher-edged verses and choruses offsetting the entrancing jams, resulting in a sound that draws a line between the two but is able to move between them freely. “Mother Ship” starts the record quiet but grows across its seven minutes to Truckfighters-esque fuzzy swing, and “I Run,” which follows, unveils the harder-landing aspect of the band’s character. The transitions are unforced and feel like a natural dynamic in the material, but even the jammiest parts would have to be thought out beforehand to be recorded with just one person, so perhaps Take a Ride‘s most standout achievement — see also: tone, melody, groove — is in overcoming the solo nature of its making to sound as much like a full band as it does in the 10-minute “Orbit” or the crescendo of “Disconnect” that rumbles into the sample-topped ambient-plus-funky meander at the start of instrumental closer “Wormhole,” which dares a bit of proggier-leaning chug on the way to its thickened, nodding culmination.
Though pedigreed in a Maryland doom scene that deeply prides itself on traditionalism, Laurel, MD, trio Thousand Vision Mist mark out a progressive path forward with their second full-length, Depths of Oblivion, the eight songs/35 minutes of which seem to owe as much to avant metal as to doom and/or heavy rock. Opener “Sands of Time” imagines what might’ve been if Virus had been raised in the Chesapeake Watershed, while “Citadel of Green” relishes its organically ’70s-style groove with an intricacy of interpretation so as to let Thousand Vision Mist come across as respectful of the past but not hindered by it creatively. Comprised of guitarist/vocalist Danny Kenyon (ex-Life Beyond, Indestroy, etc.), bassist/backing vocalist Tony Comulada (War Injun, Outside Truth, etc.) and drummer Chris Sebastian (ex-Retribution), the band delves into the pastoral on “Love, the Destroyer” and the sunshine-till-the-fuzz-hits-then-still-awesome “Thunderbird Blue,” while “Battle for Yesterday” filters grunge nostalgia through their own complexity and capper “Reversal of Misfortune” moves from its initial riffiness — perhaps in conversation with “We Flew Too High” at the start of what would be side B — into sharper shred with an unshakable rhythmic foundation beneath. I didn’t know what to expect so long after 2018’s Journey to Ascension and the Loss of Tomorrow (review here), which was impressive, but there’s no level on which Thousand Vision Mist haven’t outdone themselves with Depths of Oblivion.
Founded and fronted by vocalist George Chamberlin (Ritual Earth), the named-for-a-Joy–Division-tune New Dawn Fades make their initial public offering with the three-songer Forever, which at 15 minutes long doesn’t come close to the title but makes its point well before it’s through all the same. In “True Till Death,” they update a vibe somewhere between C.O.C.‘s Blind and a less-Southern version of Nola-era Down, while “This Night Has Closed My Eyes” adds some Kyuss flair in Chamberlin‘s vocal and the concluding “New Moon” reinforces the argument with a four-minute parade of swing and chug, Sabbath-bred if not Sabbath-worshiping. If the band — whose lineup seems to have changed since this was recorded at least in the drums — are going to take on a full-length next, they’ll want to shake things up, maybe an interlude, etc., but as a short outing and even more as their first, they don’t necessarily need to shock with off-the-wall style. Instead, Forever portrays New Dawn Fades as having a clear grasp on what they want to do and the songwriting command to make it happen. Wherever they go from here, it’ll be worth keeping eyes and ears open.
According to the band, Aton Five‘s mostly-instrumental self-titled sophomore full-length was recorded between 2019 and 2022, and that three-year span would seem to have allowed for the Moscow-based four-piece to deep-dive into the five pieces that comprise it, so that the guitar and organ answering each other on “Danse Macabre” and the mathy angularity that underscores much of the second half of “Naked Void” exist as fully envisioned versions of themselves, even before you get to the 22-minute “Lethe,” which closes. With the soothing “Clepsydra” in its middle as the only track under eight minutes long, Aton Five have plenty of time to develop and build outward from the headspinning proffered by “Alienation” at the album’s start and in the bassy jabs and departure into and through clearheaded drift-metal (didn’t know it existed, but there it is), the work they’ve put into the material is obvious and no less multifaceted than are the songs, “Alienation” resolving in a combination of sweeps and sprints, each of which resonates with purpose. That one might say the same of each of the three parts that make up “Lethe” should signal the depth of consideration in the entirety of the release. I know there was a plague on, but maybe Aton Five benefitted as well from having the time to focus as they so plainly did. Whether you try to keep up with the turns or sit back and let the band go where they will, Aton Five, the album, feels like the kind of record that might’ve ended up somewhere other than where the band first thought it would, but is stronger for having made the journey to the finished product.
Giants Dwarfs and Black Holes, In a Sandbox Full of Suns
Their second LP behind 2020’s Everwill, the five-song In a Sandbox Full of Suns finds German four-piece Giants Dwarfs and Black Holes fully switched on in heavy jam fashion, cuts like “Love Story” and “In a Sandbox Full of Suns” — both of which top 11 minutes — fleshed out with improv-sounding guitar and vocals over ultra-fluid rhythms, blending classic heavy blues rock and prog with hints and only hints of vintage-ism and letting the variety in their approach show itself in the four-minute centerpiece “Dead Urban Desert” and the suitably cosmic atmosphere to which they depart in closer “Time and Space.” Leadoff “Coffee Style” is rife with attitude, but wahs itself into an Eastern-inflected lead progression after the midpoint and before turning back to the verse, holding its relaxed but not lazy feel all the while. It is a natural brand of psychedelia that results throughout — an enticing sound between sounds; the proverbial ‘not-lost wandering’ in musical form — as Giants Dwarfs and Black Holes don’t try to hypnotize with effects or synth, etc., but prove willing to take a walk into the unknown when the mood hits. It doesn’t always, but they make the most of their opportunities regardless, and if “Dead Urban Desert” is the exception, its placement as the centerpiece tells you it’s not there by accident.
pieces that (more often than not, at least going by the tracklisting) are evolved from the root jams, shifting as it does into a bassy boogie strut near the finish that just kind of works because it does and the context allows for it; riffs pieced together creatively enough that as “Jam in C” meanders into a lyrical pattern, it feels like it’s happening if not in realtime then close enough to it that it doesn’t matter if it isn’t.
