Posted in Whathaveyou on March 18th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Italian cosmic doom progenitors Ufomammut have always believed presentation matters and they’ve got the closely-associated Malleus visual arts studio to prove it, but I can’t remember them ever quite going so deep into that notion as to manifest an album’s concept in the actual piece of plastic to which it’s pressed. Yeah, they’ve done special editions and on-theme colors, but Hidden takes that another step as you can read in the just-got-here PR wire info below. See also the sense of crushing weight and consuming atmosphere that’s defined most of their output over the course of the last two-and-a-half-plus decades. That seems to be well intact too, as demonstrated in their new animated video for “Leeched,” the first single from what will be their 10th full-length, out May 17 through Neurot Recordings and their own Supernatural Cat imprint.
Newfomammut is always good news as far as I’m concerned. Last Fall, they offered a sneak peak at Hidden‘s direction in the Crookhead EP (review here), the title-track from which features as the new record’s opener. “Leeched” finds the three-piece digging into the heart of their approach with clarity and efficiency across its five minutes, but if the other nine Ufomammut albums — the last of which was Fenice (review here), released just in 2022 — have taught us anything, it’s that you never know all the places the band will explore until you’re actually in the whole record itself. Even then sometimes you might lose track of where you’re at. Don’t worry, that’s part of the thing too.
Something to look forward to:
UFOMAMMUT: Italian Psychedelic Doom Trio To Release Tenth Album, Hidden, On Neurot Recordings/Supernatural Cat Records On May 17th; Animated Video For “Leeched” + Album Details And Preorders Posted
Italian psychedelic doom metal trio UFOMAMMUT celebrates their 25th Anniversary in 2024 including the release of their massive tenth studio full-length, Hidden. Today, the band confirms the album for May release on Neurot Recordings/Supernatural Cat Records, unveiling the cover art, track listing, preorders, and an animated video for the song “Leeched.”
Rising from the ashes of their prior band Judy Corda, UFOMAMMUT formed in the late 1990s by Poia (guitars, effects) and Urlo (bass, vocals, effects, synths), together with Vita (drums). With Levre taking over on drums in 2021, the band has undergone a rebirth, culminating in the release of the 2022-released Fenice LP, and on Halloween 2023, the Crookhead EP.
Over the course of two-and-a-half decades, UFOMAMMUT has developed a unique sound that combines heavy, dynamic riff worship with a deep understanding of psychedelic tradition in music, which has resulted in a cosmic, futuristic, and technicolor sound that fully immerses listeners. They’ve produced a wide spectrum of albums, EPs, live albums, a box set, compilation tracks, and covers – including a track on the Superunknown Redux Soundgarden tribute album.
Now, in 2024, as they celebrate their quarter-century milestone, UFOMAMMUT is set to release their tenth LP, Hidden. This album marks a shift in the band’s musical composition, aiming for a more intense and heavy sound, as they have displayed over the prior two releases. The title, Hidden, reflects the concept of the presence of everything in our existence and the ability to bring to light what lies within us. With Hidden, the band delves into a sonic journey that traverses vast expanses of space and time. From the crushing heaviness to the hauntingly melodies, from the textured compositions to the otherworldly atmospheres, Hidden testifies to the never-ending evolution of UFOMAMMUT and their mastery of creating immersive sonic experiences: a fitting celebration of their 25 years of sonic exploration and experimentation.
Like any good psychedelic trip, the music of UFOMAMMUT has always been inextricably intertwined with visual art. Poia describes longer compositions, “like a painting,” as if to reinforce the relevance and importance of visual art in their music. And as always, the artwork, videos, and all visuals/graphics for Hidden were created by Malleus Rock Art Lab, the rock/music graphic design collective of which Poia and Urlo are part of with Lu.
Hidden was recorded at Flat Scenario Studio in Piemonte, Italy, with Lorenzo Stecconi handling the mixing and mastering, and Luca Grossi overseeing vocal tracking.
With the lead single, Poia writes, “‘Leeched,’ the first song from the new full-length album Hidden, perfectly represents the new direction of UFOMAMMUT, which began with the album Fenice and continued with the EP Crookhead and reiterates once again that there are no failures or hesitations in our sonic research.
The fusion between heaviness and psychedelia, an obsession of the band since the beginning, takes on a new, changing form in ‘Leeched.’”
Hidden will be released on CD, LP, and digital on May 17th, in North America through Neurosis’ Neurot Recordings, the vinyl pressed on a Silver Nugget variant in a gatefold jacket. In Europe, the band’s Supernatural Cat Records will release it, a standard version on 180-gram Marbled Purple And Black variant, and a limited version of 500 copies on 180-gram Crystal Clear variant crafted by hand using photosensitive colors that are activated by sunlight, bringing the concept of the album to life, with multiple bundles and options.
UFOMAMMUT will be touring regularly in support of Hidden, with a long list of tour dates already announced across Europe and the UK through all of May and into June, with much more being plotted. See the current 25 Years Anniversary Tour listings at the band’s website HERE:https://www.ufomammut.com/site/
This Friday, March 8, marks the arrival of Hijss‘ debut album, Stuck on Common Ground, which is many things throughout its varied 10 tracks but pointedly not stuck and well removed from common ground in terms of style. Issued through Heavy Psych Sounds, the first offering from the Northern Italian three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Alexander “Lois Lane” Ebner, bassist/synthesist Heinrich Pan and drummer Maurice Bellotti (also Deadsmoke), is both strikingly ambitious and admirably low-key about it.
It’s an aural meld they call “cosmic grunge,” which is a tag I’ve used here as descriptor for acts like Hijss‘ labelmates Oreyeon, as well as Sun Voyager, Terry Gross, and a couple others over the years, but that doesn’t necessarily encapsulate the totality of what they do. Following the loose-swing-into-emergent-push of opener “Ingraved” — and mind you I’ve seen the band’s name, album and track titles in both all-caps and all-lowercase, so I’m writing it normal because perhaps the situation is fluid, which actually fits the record’s character well — the modern heavy space boogie of “1234me” solidifies around its bassline and dug-in drumming, guitar and vocals in their own place until the harder tone kicks in and is consuming. Like side B leadoff, “1234me” was a prior single, posted by the trio in 2021 — the tracks have been taken down, but I was assuming they’d re-recorded them for the LP, which was engineered, mixed and mastered by Toni Quiroga and co-produced by the band — and its rhythmic urgency serves as preface to the quirky, krauty bounce in “Train Tracks” supplemented with synth, as well as the motorik vibing in “Narcolepsy” or even the lighter post-punk resonance around the three-minute mark in “Black Disease.”
Drawing the material together is an organic-but-not-necessarily-low-fi production that sits Ebner‘s throaty vocals over Pan‘s blunt-object-impact low end, and that allows for “Headless Blues” to chug in its sneaky linear build like a ’90s downer before its payoff offers a brief moment of shimmering expanse. Hijss broaden the album’s atmospherics further with the drifting “Interlude #1” on side A, with a melancholy contemplation of standalone guitar, and “Interlude #2” on side B, on which Pan joins and some backing drone lingers behind before sweeping into the penultimate “Blow Out,” but they’re hardly so compartmentalized or otherwise rigid that the swaying “Ingraved” doesn’t also serve as a whole-album intro while establishing the punker undercurrent noted in the PR wire info below — consider the vocal delivery and some of the shove in the riffier sections, even coated in effects as they may be — and six-minute capper “Tilt Mode” doesn’t feel like a corresponding summary of the record’s scope at the finish. It doesn’t always sound like it, which is part of the appeal, but there’s a plan at work in each of these pieces and in the flow of their arrangement on the LP itself.
Modern in their point of view lyrically as well as in the transmogrification of space rock and terrestrial tonal heft — I don’t know if they’d get lumped in the post-KingGizzard, post-Slift spheres, but maybe; they strike me as mellower on the whole — Hijss offer the assessment, “Everyone is socializing but human contact is very rare,” in semi-spoken fashion on “Black Disease.” It’s a standout line cleverly marking one of the ironies of our age in the loneliness that can take hold when interpersonal communication becomes a mass broadcast instead of a conversation, the effect of social media on discourse, culture and mental health. “Black Disease” doesn’t linger or grow indulgently philosophical, instead hitting its mark and then drifting out, and is just one of the places Hijss go sonically, but gives timely relevance to correspond to a style drawing from decades’ worth of influences, including those from punk rock.
As “Blow Out” offers the tightest instance of songcraft and “Tilt Mode” the most spacious back-to-back at the record’s finish, I’m not ready to call Hijss settled really on any level, and in the context of the songs I mean it as a compliment. They’re exploring here, and accordingly Stuck on Common Ground is an adventure to undertake, manageable at 36 minutes, and I’m sure when they follow it up either in five years or five months from now (it really could go either way; time is fun pretend) one will be able to hear the foundations of their progression in hindsight with these songs, but I’m not about to hazard a guess as to where they’re headed or how the intention here will shake out subsequently. Which is exciting. It’s the beginning point of an excursion into the unknown, and Hijss bring immediate, stark individuality in a complex aesthetic that feels most traditional in its spirit of defying tradition. Maybe that doesn’t make sense now, but it might if you listen. Be ready to contradict your expectations.
And if you made it through reading the above, thanks. Looking back at it, I interrupted myself a lot there and kind of jumped around, but Hijss have that restless energy too, within and between its songs. Makes its own kind of sense. I’ll take the lesson and try to do the same.
If you’re up for it, Stuck on Common Ground premieres in full below, followed by more from the aforementioned PR wire.
Stuck on common ground is the debut album of the Italian Power Trio hijss.
With a mixture of heavy blues influenced riffs and synthesized Krautrock parts hijss tries to create a high dynamic range that will keep your attention at all time. On top of gritty basslines and ferocious drums lie cosmic guitars, tantalizing vocals and arpeggiated electronic drones. All three band members come from a vast musical background. Their common denominator is without a doubt a punkish attitude.
The album was produced by Toni Quiroga and hijss, drums were recorded at Nologo Recording Studio, Laives by “holy barbarian” Fabio Sforza. Engineered, mixed and mastered at accept productions by Toni Quiroga, album cover by Luca Guarino.
TRACKLIST
SIDE A INGRAVED – 02:48 1234 ME – 04:37 HEADLESS BLUES – 03:12 INTERLUDE #1 – 02:30 TRAIN TRACKS – 04:08
SIDE B NARCOLEPSY – 04:19 BLACK DISEASE – 04:14 INTERLUDE #2 – 00:56 BLOW OUT – 03:43 TILT MODE – 06:12
CREDITS Composer Name: Alexander Ebner, Heinrich Pan, Maurice Bellotti Songwriter: Alexander Ebner Producer: accept productions, Toni Quiroga & hijss Label: Heavy Psych Sounds Records Recorded: drums at Nologo Recording Studio, Laives (BZ) by “holy barbarian” Fabio Sforza Engineer: accept productions, Toni Quiroga Mixed: accept productions, Toni Quiroga Mastered: accept productions, Toni Quiroga Cover Artwork: Luca Guarino
HIJSS is Lois Lane – guitar/vocals Maurice – drums Pan – bass/synth
So this is it, but before we — you and I, not at the same time but together nonetheless — dive into the final 10 records of this well-still-basically-winter-but-almost-spring-and-god-damn-I-wish-winter-was-over Quarterly Review, how about a big, deep breath, huh? There. In occupational therapy and other teach-you-how-to-keep-your-shit-together circles, deep breathing is spoken of like it’s a magic secret invented in 1999, and you know what, I think it was. That shit definitely didn’t exist when I was a kid. Can be helpful though, sometimes, if you need just to pause for a second, literally a second, and stop that rush in your brain.
Or my brain. Because I’m definitely talking about me and I’ve come to understand in time not everyone’s operates like mine, even aside from whatever I’ve got going on neurologically, sensorially, emotionally or in terms of mental health. Ups and downs to that, as regards human experience. There are a great many things that I’m useless at. This is what I can do, so I’m doing it. Put your head down, keep working. I can do that. 10 records left? Easy. You might say I did the same thing yesterday, and that was already my busiest day, so this is gravy. And gravy, in its various contexts, textures, tastes, and delivery modes, is delicious. I hope you heard something new this week that you enjoyed. If not yet, there’s still hope.
Quarterly Review #41-50:
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Megaton Leviathan, Silver Tears
I’ll confess that when I held this spot for groundfloor now-Asoria, Oregon, dronegazers Megaton Leviathan, I was thinking of their Dec. 2023 instrumental album, Magick Helmet, with its expansive and noisy odes to outsider experimentalism of yore, but then founding principal Andrew James Costa Reuscher (vocals, guitars, synth, bass, etc.) announced a new lineup with the rhythm section of Alex Wynn (bass) and Tory Chappell (drums) and unveiled “Silver Tears” as the first offering from this new incarnation of the band, and its patient, swirling march and meditative overtones wouldn’t be ignored, however otherwise behind I might be. Next to Magick Helmet, “Silver Tears” is downright straightforward in its four-plus minutes, strong in its conveyance of an atmosphere that’s molten and maybe trying to get lost in its own trance a bit, which is fair enough for the hypnotic cast of the song’s ending. The lesson, as ever with Megaton Leviathan, is that you can’t predict what they’ll do next, and that’s been the case since their start over 15 years ago. One assumes the new lineup will play live and that Reuscher will keep pushing into the ether. Beyond that, they could head anywhere and not find a wrong direction.
They put their own spin on it, of course, but there’s love at heart in Merlin‘s take on the classic “Let’s All Go to the Lobby” jingle that serves as the centerpiece of Grind House, and indeed, the seven-song late-2023 long-player unfolds as an intentional cinematic tribute, with “Feature Presentation” bringing the lights down with some funkier elevator vibes before “The Revenger” invents an ’80s movie with its hook alone, “Master Thief ’77” offers precisely the action-packed bassline and wah you would hope, “Endless Calamity” horror-soundtracks with keyboard, “Blood Money” goes west with due Dollars Trilogy flourish, and the 12-minute “Grindhouse,” which culls together pieces of all of the above — “Let’s All Go to the Lobby” included — and adds a voiceover, which even though it doesn’t start with “In a world…” sets its narrative forth with the verve of coming attractions, semi-over-the-top and thus right on for where Merlin have always resided. Interpreting movie music, soundtracks and the incidental sounds of the theater experience, isn’t by any means the least intuitive leap the Kansas City four-piece could make, and the ease with which they swap one style for another underscores how multifaceted their sound can be while remaining their own. If you get it, you’ll get it.
After what seem to have been a couple more group-oriented full-lengths and an initial solo EP, Minsk-based heavy rockers Stonerhenge seem to have settled around the songwriting of multi-instrumentalist Serge “Skrypa” Skrypničenka. The self-released Gemini Twins is the third long-player from the mostly-instrumental Belarusian project, though the early 10-minute cut “The Story of Captain Glosster” proves crucial for the spoken word telling its titular tale, which ties into the narrative derived Gemini myth and the notion of love as bringing two halves of one whole person together, and there are other vocalizations in “Time Loop” and “Hypersleep,” the second half of “Starship Troopers,” and so on, so the songs aren’t without a human presence tying them together as they range in open space. This is doubly fortunate, as Skrypničenka embarks on movements of clear-eyed, guitar-led progressive heavy exploration, touching on psychedelia without getting too caught up in effects, too tricky in production, or too far removed from the rhythm of the flowing “Solstice” or the turns “Over the Mountain” makes en route its ah-here-we-are apex. Not without its proggy indulgences, the eight-song/46-minute collection rounds out with “Fugit Irreparable Tempus,” which in drawing a complete linear build across its five minutes from clean tone to a distorted finish, highlights the notion of a plot unfolding.
Guiltless make their debut with the four songs of Thorns on Neurot Recordings, following on in some ways from where guitarist, vocalist, noisemaker and apparent-spearhead Josh Graham (also ex-Battle of Mice, Red Sparowes, Neurosis visuals, etc.) and guitarist/more-noisemaker Dan Hawkins left off in A Storm of Light, in this case recording remotely and reincorporating drummer Billy Graves (also Generation of Vipers) and bringing in bassist Sacha Dunable, best known for his work in Intronaut and for founding Dunable Guitars. Gruff in the delivery vocally and otherwise, and suitably post-apocalyptic in its point of view, “All We Destroy” rumbles its assessment after “Devour-Collide” lays out the crunching tonal foundation and begins to expand outward therefrom, with “Dead Eye” seeming to hit that much harder as it rolls its wall o’ low end over a detritus-strewn landscape no more peaceful in its end than its beginning, with subsequent closer “In Radiant Glow” more malleable in tempo before seeming to pull itself apart lurching to the finish. I’d say I hope our species ultimately fares a bit better than Thorns portrays, but I have to acknowledge that there’s not much empirical evidence to base that on. Guiltless play these songs like an indictment.
The latest check-in from the dimension of Italian four-piece MR.BISON, Echoes From the Universe is the band’s most realized work to-date. It’s either their third LP or their fifth, depending on what counts as what, but where it sits in the discography is second to how much the effort stands out generally. Fostering a bright, lush sound distinguished through vocal harmonies and arrangement depth, the seven-song collection showcases the swath of elements that, at this point, has transcended its influence and genuinely found a place of its own. Space rock, Elderian prog, classic harmonized melody, and immediate charge in “The Child of the Night Sky” unfold to acoustics kept going amid dramatic crashes and the melodic roll of “Collision,” with sepia nostalgia creeping into the later lines of “Dead in the Eye” as the guitar becomes more expansive, only to be grounded by the purposeful repetitions of “Fragments” with the last-minute surge ending side A to let “The Promise” fade in with bells like a morning shimmer before exploring a cosmic breadth; it and the also-seven-minute “The Veil” serving as complement and contrast with the latter’s more terrestrial swing early resolving in a an ethereal wash to which “Staring at the Sun,” the finale, could just as easily be referring as to its own path of tension and release. I’ve written about the album a couple times already, but I wanted to put it here too, pretty much just to say don’t be surprised when you see it on my year-end list.
You’d figure with the slash in its title, the split release pairing UK sludge upstarts At War With the Sun and Slump, who are punk-prone on “Dust” and follow the riff on “Kneel” to a place much more metal, would break down into two sides between ‘SP’ and ‘LIT,’ but I’m not sure either At War With the Sun‘s “The Garden” (9:54) or the two Slump inclusions, which are three and seven minutes, respectively, could fit on a 7″ side. Need a bigger platter, and fair enough for holding the post-Eyehategod disillusioned barks of “The Garden” and the slogging downer groove they ride, or the way Slump‘s two songs unite around more open verses, the guitar dropping out in the strut of “Dust” and giving space to vocals in “Kneel,” even as each cut works toward its own ends stylistically. The mix on Slump‘s material is more in-your-face where At War With the Sun cast an introverted feel, but you want to take the central message as ‘Don’t worry, England’s still miserable,’ and keep an eye to see where both bands go from here as they continue to develop their approaches, I don’t think anyone’ll tell you you’re doing it wrong.
They know it’s gonna get brutal, the listener knows it’s gonna get brutal, and Massachusetts riff rollers Leather Lung don’t waste time in getting down to business on Graveside Grin, their awaited, middle-fingers-raised debut full-length on Magnetic Eye Records. An established live act in the Northeastern US with a sound culled from the seemingly disparate ends of sludge and party rock — could they be the next-gen inheritors of Weedeater‘s ‘ I don’t know how this is a good time but it is’ character? time will tell — the 40-minute 11-songer doesn’t dwell long in any one track, instead building momentum over a succession of pummelers on either side of the also-pummeling “Macrodose Interlude” until “Raised Me Rowdy,” which just might be an anthem, if a twisted one, fades to its finish. I’ve never been and will never be cool enough for this kind of party, but Leather Lung‘s innovation in bringing fun to extreme sounds and their ability to be catchy and caustic at the same time isn’t something to ignore. The time they’ve put in on EPs and touring shows in the purpose and intensity with which they execute “Empty Bottle Boogie” or the modern-metal guitar contortions of “Guilty Pleasure,” but they are firm in their purpose of engaging their audience on their own level, and accessible in that regard. And as raucous as they get, they’re never actually out of control. That’s what makes them truly dangerous.
A new(-ish) band releasing their first album through Sulatron Records would be notable enough, but Italy’s Citrus Citrus answer that significant endorsement with scope on Dec. 2023’s Albedo Massima, veering into and out of acid-laced traditions in what feels like a pursuit, like each song has a goal it’s chasing whether or not the band knew that when they started jamming. Drift and percussive intrigue mark the outset with “Sunday Morning in the Sun,” which lets “Lost It” surprise as it shifts momentarily into fuzzier, Colour Haze-y heavy psych as part of a series of tradeoffs that emerge, a chorus finish emphasizing structure. The Mediterranean twists of “Fantachimera” become explosively heavy, and that theme continues in the end of “Red Stone Seeds” after that centerpiece’s blown out experimental verses, keyboard drift building to heft that would surprise if not for “Lost It” earlier, while “Sleeping Giant” eschews that kind of tonal largesse for a synthier wash before “Frozen\Sun” creates and fills its own mellow and melancholy reaches. All the while, a pointedly organic production gives the band pockets to weave through dynamically, and melody abides. Not at all inactive, or actually that mellow, Albedo Massima resonates with the feel of an adventure just beginning. Here’s looking forward.
Troubled Sleep, A Trip Around the Sun & Solitary Man
Two initial tracks from Swedish newcomers Troubled Sleep, released as separate standalone singles and coupled together here because I can, “A Trip Around the Sun” and “Solitary Man” show a penchant for songwriting in a desert-style sphere, the former coming across as speaking to Kyuss-esque traditionalism while “Solitary Man” pushes a little further into classic heavy and more complex melodies while keeping a bounce that aligns to genre. Both are strikingly cohesive in their course and professional in their production, and while the band has yet to let much be known about their overarching intentions, whether they’re working toward an album or what, they sound like they most definitely could be, and I’ll just be honest and say that’s a record I’ll probably want to hear considering the surety with which “A Trip Around the Sun” and “Solitary Man” are brought to life. I’m not about to tell you they’re revolutionizing desert rock or heavy rock more broadly, but songs this solid don’t usually happen by accident, and Troubled Sleep sound like they know where they’re headed, even if the listener doesn’t yet. The word is potential and the tracks are positively littered with it.
I’m not sure how the double-kick intensity and progressive metal drive translates to the stately-paced, long-shots-of-things-floating-in-space of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, but Observers‘ debut, The Age of the Machine Entities, is sweeping enough to bridge cynical headscratching. And of course there were the whole lightspeed freakout and we-invented-murder parts of Arthur C. Clarke’s narrative as well, so there’s room for All India Radio‘s Martin Kennedy, joined by bassist Rich Gray, drummer Chris Bohm and their included host of guests to conjure the melodic wash of “Strange and Beautiful” after the blasting declarations of “Into the Eye” at the start, with “Pod Bay Doors” interpreting that crucial scene in the film through manipulated sampling (not exclusive to it), and the 11-minute “Metaphor” unfurls a subtly-moving, flute-featuring ambience ahead of the pair “The Star Child” and “The Narrow Way Part II” wrap by realigning around the project’s metallic foundation, which brings fresh perspective to a familiar subject in the realm of science fiction.
Posted in Reviews on February 28th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Welcome to Wednesday of the Quarterly Review. If you’ve been here before — and I do this at least four times a year, so maybe you have and maybe you haven’t — I’m glad you’re back, and if not, I’m glad you’re here at all. These things are always an undertaking, and in a vacuum, I’m pretty sure busting out 10 shorter reviews per day would be a reasonably efficient process. I don’t live in a vacuum. I live vacuuming.
Metaphorically, at least. Looking around the room, it’s pretty obvious ‘vacuum life’ is intermittent.
Today we hit the halfway mark of this standard-operating-procedure QR, and we’ll get to 30 of the 50 releases to be covered by the time Friday is done or die trying, as that’s also the general policy. As always, I hope you find something in this batch of 10 that you dig. Doesn’t have to be any more of a thing than that. Doesn’t need to change your life, just maybe take the moment you’re in and make it a little better.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
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Deadpeach, The Cosmic Haze and the Human Race
A new full-length from Italian cosmic fuzz rockers Deadpeach doesn’t come along every day. Though the four-piece here comprised of guitarist/vocalist Giovanni Giovannini, guitarist Daniele Bartoli, bassist Mrsteveman and drummer Federico Tebaldi trace their beginnings back to 1993, the seven-song/37-minute exploration The Cosmic Haze and the Human Race is just their fourth full-length in that span of 31 years, following behind 2013’s Aurum (review here), though they haven’t been completely absent in that time, with the 2019 unplugged offering Waiting for Federico session (review here), 2022’s Live at Sidro Club, etc. But whether it’s the howling-into-the-void guitar over the methodical toms in the experimental-vibing closer “Loop (Set the Control to Mother Earth),” the mellower intro of “Madras” that leads both to chunky-style chug and the parade of classic-heavy buzz that is “Motor Peach,” what most comes through is the freedom of the band to do what they want in the psychedelic sphere. “Man on the Hill (The Fisherman and the Farmer)” tells its tale with blues rock swing while the subsequent “Cerchio” resolves Beatlesian with bouncy string and horn sounds and is its own realization at the center of the procession before the languid roll of “Monday” (so it goes) picks up its tempo later on. A mostly lo-fi recording still creates an atmosphere, and Deadpeach represent who they are in the weirdo space grunge of “Rust,” toying with influences from a desert that’s surely somewhere on another planet before “Loop (Set the Controls for Mother Earth)” turns repetition into mantra. They might be underrated forever, but Deadpeach only phase into our dimension intermittently and it’s worth appreciating them while they’re here.
In or out of post-metal and the aggressive end of atmospheric sludge, there are few bands currently active who deliver with the visceral force of Oslo’s SÂVER. From Ember and Rust is the second LP from the three-piece of Ole Ulvik Rokseth (guitar), Markus Støle (drums) and Ole Christian Helstad (bass/vocals), and while it signals growth in the synthy meditation worked into “I, Evaporate” after the lead-with-nod opener “Formless,” and the intentionally overwhelming djent chug that pays off the penultimate “The Object,” it is the consuming nature of the 43-minute entirety that is most striking, dynamic in its sprawl and thoughtful in arrangement both within and between its songs — the way the drone starts “Eliminate Distance” and returns to lull the listener momentarily out of consciousness before the bassy start of centerpiece “Ember and Rust” prompts a return ahead of its daring and successful clean vocal foray. That’s a departure, contextually speaking, but noteworthy even as “Primal One” lumbersmashes anything resembling hope to teeny tiny bits, leaving room in its seven minutes to catchy its breath amid grooving proggy chug and bringing back the melodic singing. As much as they revel in the caustic, there’s serenity in the catharsis of “All in Disarray” at the album’s conclusion, and as much as SÂVER are destructive, they’re cognizant of the world they’re building as part of that.
Ruben Romano, The Imaginary Soundtrack to the Imaginary Western Twenty Graves Per Mile
Departing from the heavy psychedelic blues rock proffered by his main outfit The Freeks, multi-instrumentalist and elsewhere-vocalist Ruben Romano — who also drummed for Fu Manchu and Nebula in their initial incarnations — digs into Western aural themes on his cumbersomely-titled solo debut, The Imaginary Soundtrack to the Imaginary Western Twenty Graves Per Mile. To be clear, there is no movie called Twenty Graves Per Mile (yet), and the twice-over-imaginary nature of the concept lets Romano meander a bit in pieces like “Sweet Dream Cowboy” and “Ode to Fallen Oxen,” the latter of which tops its rambling groove with a line of delay twang, while “Chuck Wagon Sorrow” shimmers with outward simplicity with a sneaky depth to its mix (to wit, the space in “Not Any More”). At 10 songs and 27 minutes, the collection isn’t exactly what you’d call ‘feature length,’ but as it hearkens back to the outset with “Load the Wagon (Reprise)” bookending the opener, it is likewise cohesive in style and creative in arrangement, with Romano bringing in various shakers, mouth harp, effects and so on to create his ‘soundtrack’ with a classic Western feel and the inevitable lysergic current. Not as indie or desert chic as Spindrift, who work from a similar idea, but organic and just-came-in-covered-with-dust folkish just the same. If the movie existed, I’d be interested to know which of these tracks would play in the saloon.
With the seven-minute “Earth Blues” left off the vinyl for want of room, German heavy psychedelic instrumentalists Kosmodrom put a color filter on existence with Welcome to Reality as much as on the cover, shimmering in “Dazed in Space” with a King Buffalo‘ed resonance such that the later, crunchier fuzz roll of “Evil Knievel” feels like a departure. While the three-piece are no doubt rooted in jams, Welcome to Reality presents finished works, following a clear plot in the 10-minute “Quintfrequenz” and the gradual build across the first couple minutes of “Landstreicher” — an intent that comes more into focus a short while later on “Novembersong” — before “Earth Blues” brings a big, pointed slowdown. They cap with “OM,” which probably isn’t named after the band but can be said to give hints in their direction if you want to count its use of ride cymbal at the core of its own build, and which in its last 40 seconds still manages to find another level of heft apparently kept in reserve all along. Well played. As their first LP since 2018, Welcome to Reality feels a bit like it’s reintroducing the band, and in listening, seems most of all to encourage the listener to look at the world around them in a different, maybe more hopeful way.
Heads experienced in post-metal will be able to pick out elements like the Russian Circles gallop in The Endless‘ “Riven” or the Isis-style break the Edmonton-based instrumental unit veers into on “Shadows/Wolves” at the center of their self-titled debut, but as “The Hadeon Eon” — the title of which references the planet’s earliest and most volatile geological era — subtly invites the listener to consider, this is the band’s first recorded output. Formed in 2019, derailed and reconstructed post-pandemic, the four-piece of guitarists Teddy Palmer and Eddy Keyes, bassist James Palmer and drummer Jarred Muir are coherent in their stylistic intent, but not so committed to genre tenets as to forego the sweeter pleasure of the standalone guitar at the start of the nine-minute “Reflection,” soon enough subsumed though it is by the spacious lurch that follows. There and throughout, the band follow a course somewhere between post-metal and atmospheric sludge, and the punch of low end in “Future Archives,” the volume trades between loud and quiet stretches bring a sense of the ephemeral as well as the ethereal, adding character without sacrificing impact in the contrast. Their lack of pretense will be an asset as they continue to develop.
Kudos if you can keep up with the shifts wrought from track to track on Our Maddest Edges‘ apparent first long-player, Peculiar Spells, as the Baltimorean solo-project spearheaded by Jeff Conner sets out on a journey of genuine eclecticism, bringing The Beatles and Queens of the Stone Age stylistically together and also featuring one of the several included duets on “Swirl Cone,” some grunge strum in “Hella Fucky” after the remake-your-life spoken/ambient intro “Thoughts Can Change,” a choral burst at the beginning of the spoken-word-over-jazz “Slugs,” which of course seems to be about screwing, as well as the string-laced acoustic-led sentimentality on “Red Giant,” the Casio beat behind the bright guitar plucks of “Frozen Season,” the full-tone riffs around which “I Ain’t Done” and “St. Lascivious” are built, and the sax included with the boogie of “The Totalitarian Tiptoe,” just for a few examples of the places its 12 component tracks go in their readily-consumable 37-minute runtime. Along with Conner are a reported 17 guests appearing throughout, among them Stefanie Zaenker (ex-Caustic Casanova). Info is sparse on the band and Conner‘s work more broadly, but his history in the punkish Eat Your Neighbors accounts for some of the post-hardcore at root here, and his own vocals (as opposed to those of the seven other singers appearing) seem to come from somewhere similar. Relatively quick listen, but not a minor undertaking.
Rolling out with the ambient intro before beginning its semi-Electric Wizardly slog in “Taken by the Black,” Death Unto My Enemy is the 2023 debut from New York City’s Saint Omen. Issued by Forbidden Place Records, its gritty nod holds together even as “Evolution of the Demon” threatens to fall apart, samples filling out the spaces not occupied by vocals, communicating themes dark, violent, and occult in pieces like the catchy-despite-its-harsher-vocal “Destroyer” or the dark swirl of “Sinners Crawl.” Feeling darker as it moves through its 10 songs, it saves a particular grim experimentalism for closer “Descent,” but by the time Death Unto My Enemy gets there, surely your mind and soul have already been poisoned and reaped, respectively, by “The Seventh Gate,” “The Black Mass” and the penultimate title-track, that deeper down is the only place left to go. So that’s where you go; a humming abyss of anti-noise. Manhattan has never been a epicenter of cultish doom, but Saint Omen‘s abiding death worship and bleakness — looking at you, “Sleepness” — shift between dramaturge and dug-in lumber, and the balance is only intriguing for the rawness with which it is delivered, harsher in its purpose than sound, but still plenty harsh in sound.
The psychedelic aspects of Samsara Joyride‘s The Subtle and the Dense feel somewhat compartmentalized, but that’s not necessarily a detriment to the songs, as the solo that tops the drearily moderated tempo of “Too Many Preachers” or the pastoral tones that accompany the bluesier spirit of “Who Tells the Story” emphasize. The Austrian outfit’s second full-length, The Subtle and the Dense seems aware of its varied persona, but whether it’s the swaggering stops of “No One is Free” calling to mind Child or the sax and guest vocals that mark such a turn with “Safe and Sound” at the end, Samsara Joyride are firm in their belief that because something is bluesy or classic doesn’t necessarily mean it needs to be simple. From the layer of acoustic guitar worked into opener “I Won’t Sign Pt. 1” — their first album also had a two-parter, the second one follows directly here as track two — to the gang chorus worked in amid the atmospheric reach of “Sliver,” Samsara Joyride communicate a progressive take on traditionalist aesthetics, managing as few in this end of the heavy music realm ever do to avoid burly masculine caricature in the process. For that alone, easily worth the time to listen.
Like a check-in from some alternate-universe version of Fu Manchu who stuck closer to their beginnings in punk and hardcore, Californian heavy noise rockers That Ship Has Sailed tap volatility and riffy groove alike through the five songs of their Kingdom of Nothing EP, with an admirable lack of bullshit included within that net-zero assessment amid the physical push of riffs like “One-Legged Dog” or “Iron Eagle II” when the drums go to half-time behind the guitar and bass. It’s not all turn-of-the-century disaffection and ‘members of’ taglines though as “Iron Eagle II” sludges through its finish and “I Am, Yeah” becomes an inadvertent anthem for those who’ve never quite been able to keep their shit together, “Sweet Journey” becomes a melodic highlight while fostering the heaviest crash, and “Ready to Go” hits like a prequel to Nebula‘s trip down the stoner rock highway. Catchy in spite of its outward fuckall (or at least fuckmost), Kingdom of Nothing is more relatable than friendly or accessible, which feels about right. It’s cool guys. I never got my shit together either.
The fourth EP in the 10-year history of Brazi’s Spiral Guru, who also released their Void long-player in 2019 and the “The Fantastic Hollow Man” single in 2021, Silenced Voices is distinguished immediately by the vocal command and range of Andrea Ruocco, and I’d suspect that if you’re already familiar with the band, you probably know that. Ruocco‘s voice, in its almost operatic use of breath to reach higher notes, carries some element of melodic metal’s grandeur, but Samuel Pedrosa‘s fuzz riffing and the fluid roll of bassist José Ribeiro and drummer Alexandre H.G. Garcia on the title-track avoid that trap readily, ending up somewhere between blues, psych, and ’70s swing on “Caves and Graves” but kept modern in the atmosphere fostered by Pedrosa‘s lead guitar. Another high-quality South American band ignored by the gringo-dude-dominant underground of Europe and the US? Probably, but I’m guilty too a decade after Spiral Guru‘s start, so all I can say is I’m doing my best out here. This band should probably be on Nuclear Blast by now. Stick around for “The Cabin Man” and you’d best be ready to dance.
Posted in Reviews on February 26th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Admittedly, there’s some ambition in my mind calling this the ‘Spring 2024 Quarterly Review.’ I’m done with winter and March starts on Friday, so yeah, it’s kind of a reach as regards the traditional seasonal patterns of Northern New Jersey where I live, but hell, these things actually get decided here by pissing off a rodent. Maybe it doesn’t need to be so rigidly defined after all.
After doing QRs for I guess about nine years now, I finally made myself a template for the back-end layout. It’s not a huge leap, but will mean about five more minutes I can dedicate to listening, and when you’re trying to touch on 50 records in the span of a work week and attempt some semblance of representing what they’re about, five minutes can help. Still, it’s a new thing, and if you see ‘ARTIST’ listed where a band’s name should be or LINK where ‘So and So on Facebook’ goes, a friendly comment letting me know would be helpful.
Thanks in advance and I hope you find something in all of this to come that speaks to you. I’ll try to come up for air at some point.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
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Slift, Ilion
One of the few non-billionaire groups of people who might be able to say they had a good year in 2020, Toulouse, France, spaceblasters Slift signed to Sub Pop on the strength of that wretched year’s Ummon (review here) and the spectacle-laced live shows with which they present their material. Their ideology is cosmic, their delivery markedly epic, and Ilion pushes the blinding light and the rhythmic force directly at you, creating a sweeping momentum contrasted by ambient stretches like that tucked at the end of 12-minute hypnotic planetmaker “The Words That Have Never Been Heard,” the drone finale “Enter the Loop” or any number of spots between along the record’s repetition-churning, willfully-overblown 79-minute course of builds and surging payoffs. A cynic might tell you it’s not anything Hawkwind didn’t do in 1974 offered with modern effects and beefier tones, but, uh, is that really something to complain about? The hype around Ilion hasn’t been as fervent as was for Ummon — it’s a different moment — but Slift have set themselves on a progressive course and in the years to come, this may indeed become their most influential work. For that alone it’s among 2024’s most essential heavy albums, never mind the actual journey of listening. Bands like this don’t happen every day.
The only thing keeping Grin from being punk rock is the fact that they don’t play punk. Otherwise, the self-recording, self-releasing (on The Lasting Dose Records) Berlin metal-sludge slingers tick no shortage of boxes as regards ethic, commitment to an uncompromised vision of their sound, and on Hush, their fourth long-player which features tracks from 2023’s Black Nothingness (review here), they sharpen their attack to a point that reminds of dug-in Swedish death metal on “Pyramid” with a winding lead line threaded across, find post-metallic ambience in “Neon Skies,” steamroll with the groove of the penultimate “The Tempest of Time,” and manage to make even the crushing “Midnight Blue Sorrow” — which arrives after the powerful opening statement of “Hush” “Calice” and “Gatekeeper” — have a sense of creative reach. With Sabine Oberg on bass and Jan Oberg handling drums, guitar, vocals, noise and production, they’ve become flexible enough in their craft to harness raw charge or atmospheric sprawl at will, and through 16 songs and 40 minutes (“Portal” is the longest track at 3:45), their intensity is multifaceted, multi-angular, and downright ripping. Aggression suits this project, but that’s never all that’s happening in Grin, and they’re stronger for that.
A debut solo-band outing from guitarist, bassist, vocalist and songwriter Dave Cotton, also of Seven Nines and Tens, Pontiac‘s Hard Knox lands on strictly limited tape through Coup Sur Coup Records and is only 16 minutes long, but that’s time enough for its six songs to find connections in harmony to Beach Boys and The Beatles while sometimes dropping to a singular, semi-spoken verse in opener/longest track (immediate points, even though four minutes isn’t that long) “Glory Ragged,” which moves in one direction, stops, reorients, and shifts between genres with pastoralism and purpose. Cotton handles six-string and 12-string, but isn’t alone in Pontiac, as his Seven Nines and Tens bandmate Drew Thomas Christie handles drums, Adam Vee adds guitar, drums, a Coke bottle and a Brita filter, and CJ Wallis contributes piano to the drifty textures of “Road High” before “Exotic Tattoos of the Millennias” answers the pre-christofascism country influence shown on “Counterculture Millionaire” with an oldies swing ramble-rolling to a catchy finish. For fun I’ll dare a wild guess that Cotton‘s dad played that stuff when he was a kid, as it feels learned through osmosis, but I have no confirmation of that. It is its own kind of interpretation of progressive music, and as the beginning of a new exploration, Cotton opens doors to a swath of styles that cross genres in ways few are able to do and remain so coherent. Quick listen, and it dares you to keep up with its changes and patterns, but among its principal accomplishments is to make itself organic in scope, with Cotton cast as the weirdo mastermind in the center. They’ll reportedly play live, so heads up.
Already fluid as they open with the rocker “Into the Space,” exclamatory Chilean five-piece The Polvos! delve into more psychedelic reaches in “Fire Dance” and the jammy and (appropriately) floaty midsection of “Going Down,” the centerpiece of their 35-minute sophomore LP, Floating. That song bursts to life a short time later and isn’t quite as immediate as the charge of “Into the Space,” but serves as a landmark just the same as “Acid Waterfall” and “The Anubis Death” hold their tension in the drums and let the guitars go adventuring as they will. There’s maybe some aspect of Earthless influence happening, but The Polvos! meld that make-it-bigger mentality with traditional verse/chorus structures and are more grounded for it even as the spaces created in the songs give listeners an opportunity for immersion. It may not be a revolution in terms of style, but there is a conversation happening here with modern heavy psych from Europe as well that adds intrigue, and the band never go so far into their own ether so as to actually disappear. Even after the shreddy finish of “The Anubis Death,” it kind of feels like they might come back out for an encore, and you know, that’d be just fine.
The Cosmic Gospel, Cosmic Songs for Reptiles in Love
With a current of buzz-fuzz drawn across its eight component tracks that allow seemingly disparate moves like the Blondie disco keys in “Hot Car Song” to emerge from the acoustic “Core Memory Unlocked” before giving over to the weirdo Casio-beat bounce of “Psychrolutes Marcidus Man,” a kind of ’60s character reimagined as heavy bedroom indie, The Cosmic Gospel‘s Cosmic Songs for Reptiles in Love isn’t without its resentments, but the almost-entirely-solo-project of Mercata, Italy-based multi-instrumentalist Gabriel Medina is more defined by its sweetness of melody and gentle delivery on the whole. An experiment like the penultimate “Wrath and Gods” carries some “Revolution 9” feel, but Medina does well earlier to set a broad context amid the hook of opener “It’s Forever Midnight” and the subsequent, lightly dub beat and keyboard focus on “The Richest Guy on the Planet is My Best Friend,” such that when closer “I Sew Your Eyes So You Don’t See How I Eat Your Heart” pairs the malevolent intent of its title with light fuzzy soloing atop an easy flowing, summery flow, the album has come to make its own kind of sense and define its path. This is exactly what one would most hope for it, and as reptiles are cold-blooded, they should be used to shifts in temperature like those presented throughout. Most humans won’t get it, but you’ve never been ‘most humans,’ have you?
Massachusetts garage doomers Grave Speaker‘s self-titled debut was issued digitally by the band this past Fall and was snagged by Electric Valley Records for a vinyl release. The Mellotron melancholia that pervades the midsection of the eponymous “Grave Speaker” justifies the wax, but the cult-leaning-in-sound-if-not-theme outfit that marks a new beginning for ex-High n’ Heavy guitarist John Steele unfurl a righteously dirty fuzz over the march of “Blood of Old” at the outset and then immediately up themselves in the riffy stoner delve of “Earth and Mud.” The blown-out vocals on the latter, as well as the far-off-mic rawness of “The Bard’s Theme” that surrounds its Hendrixian solo, remind of a time when Ice Dragon roamed New England’s troubled woods, and if Grave Speaker will look to take on a similar trajectory of scope, they do more than drop hints of psychedelia here, in “Grave Speaker” and elsewhere, but they’re no more beholden to that than the Sabbathism of capper “Make Me Crawl” or the cavernous echo of “Earthbound.” It’s an initial collection, so one expects they’ll range some either way with time, but the way the production becomes part of the character of the songs speaks to a strong idea of aesthetic coming through, and the songwriting holds up to that.
While at the same time proffering his most expansive vision yet of a progressive psychedelia weighted in tone, emotionally expressive and able to move its focus fluidly between its layers of keyboard, synth and guitar such that the mix feels all the more dynamic and the material all the more alive (there’s an entire sub-plot here about the growth in self-production; a discussion for another time), Surya Kris Peters‘ 10-song/46-minute There’s Light in the Distance also brings the former Samsara Blues Experiment guitarist/vocalist closer to uniting his current projects than he’s yet been, the distant light here blurring the line where Surya Kris Peters ends and the emergently-rocking Fuzz Sagrado begins. This process has been going on for the last few years following the end of his former outfit and a relocation from Germany to Brazil, but in its spacious second half as well as the push of its first, a song like “Mode Azul” feels like there’s nothing stopping it from being played on stage beyond personnel. Coinciding with that are arrangement details like the piano at the start of “Life is Just a Dream” or the synth that gives so much movement under the echoing lead in “Let’s Wait Out the Storm,” as Peters seems to find new avenues even as he works his way home to his own vision of what heavy rock can be.
Unilateralis is the four-song follow-up EP to Polish heavydelvers Gozd‘s late-2023 debut album, This is Not the End, and its 20-plus minutes find a place for themselves in a doom that feels both traditional and forward thinking across eight-minute opener and longest track (immediate points, even for an EP) “Somewhere in Between” before the charge of “Rotten Humanity” answers with brasher thrust and aggressive-undercurrent stoner rock with an airy post-metallic break in the middle and rolling ending. From there, “Thanatophobia” picks up the energy from its ambient intro and explodes into its for-the-converted nod, setting up a linear build after its initial verses and seeing it through with due diligence in noise, and closer “Tentative Minds” purposefully hypnotizes with its vague-speech in the intro and casual bassline and drum swing before the riff kicks in for the finale. The largesse of its loudest moments bolster the overarching atmosphere no less than the softest standalone guitar parts, and Gozd seem wholly comfortable in the spaces between microgenres. A niche among niches, but that’s also how individuality happens, and it’s happening here.
You wouldn’t accuse Austria’s Sativa Root of thematic subtlety on their third album, Kings of the Weed Age, which broadcasts a stoner worship in offerings like “Megalobong” and “Weedotaur” and probably whatever “F.A.T.” stands for, but that’s not what they’re going for anyway. With its titular intro starting off, spoken voices vague in the ambience, “Weedotaur”‘s 11 minutes lumber with all due bong-metallian slog, and the crush becomes central to the proceedings if not necessarily unipolar in terms of the band’s approach. That is to say, amid the onslaught of volume and tonal density in “Green Smegma” and the spin-your-head soloing in “Assassins Weed” (think Assassins Creed), the instrumentalist course undertaken may be willfully monolithic, but they’re not playing the same song five times on six tracks and calling it new. “F.A.T.” begins on a quiet stretch of guitar that recalls some of YOB‘s epics, complementing both the intro and “Weedotaur,” before bringing its full weight down on the listener again as if to underscore the message of its stoned instrumental catharsis on its way out the door. They sound like they could do this all day. It can be overwhelming at times, but that’s not really a complaint.
Comprised of guitarist/vocalist Mateusz, bassist Michał and drummer Tomek, Polish riffcrafters Volt Ritual are appealingly light on pretense as they offer Return to Jupiter‘s four tracks, and though as a Star Trek fan I can’t get behind their lyrical impugning of Starfleet as they imagine what Earth colonialism would look like to a somehow-populated Jupiter, they’re not short on reasons to be cynical, if in fact that’s what’s happening in the song. “Ghostpolis” follows the sample-laced instrumental opener “Heavy Metal is Good for You” and rolls loose but accessible even in its later shouts before the more uptempo “Gwiazdolot” swaps English lyrics for Polish (casting off another cultural colonialization, arguably) and providing a break ahead of the closing title-track, which is longer at 7:37 and a clear focal point for more than just bearing the name of the EP, summarizing as it does the course of the cuts before it and even bringing a last scream as if to say “Ghostpolis” wasn’t a fluke. Their 2022 debut album began with “Approaching Jupiter,” and this Return feels organically built off that while trying some new ideas in its effects and general structure. One hopes the plot continues in some way next time along this course.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 22nd, 2024 by JJ Koczan
A Geezer and Isaak split LP is an easy win for the universe. It’s out May 17, and I feel like that’s probably all I need to say, except to point out that I’m glad Geezer‘s “Little Voices” is coming out. That song was recorded when the Kingston, New York, trio were in Woodstock to track their 2022 album, Stoned Blues Machine (review here). On side B, Genoa, Italy’s Isaak — who were all-caps on their 2023 album, Hey (review here), which was their first full-length in eight years — have three tracks featuring collaborations with members of Liquido di Morte, Nerve and Ufomammut and they specifically promise an experimentalist ethic that is sure to expand their own sonic palette. Given the righteously cumbersome title Interstellar Cosmic Blues and the Riffalicious Stoner Dudes, the split already carries a lighthearted and unpretentious vibe that should fit nicely in the respective catalogs of both outfits.
First word came down the PR wire a bit ago, and you can stream “Little Voices” down at the bottom. Preorders and whatnot included:
Heavy Psych Sounds to announce split album GEEZER // ISAAK – Interstellar Cosmic Blues & The Riffalicious Stoner Dudes – presale starts TODAY !!!
Today we are stoked to start the presale of a brand new split album featuring the US blues rockers GEEZER and the Italian heavy stoners ISAAK.
The release is called INTERSTELLAR COSMIC BLUES & THE RIFFALICIOUS STONER DUDES !!!
RELEASED IN 10 ULTRA LTD TEST PRESS VINYL 100 ULTRA LTD COLOR IN COLOR TRANSP. BACK. RED/SPLATTER BLUE VINYL 350 LTD BLUE VINYL BLACK VINYL DIGIPAK DIGITAL
TRACKLIST SIDE A Acid Veins (Geezer) Little Voices (Geezer) Mercury Rising (Geezer) Oneirophrenia (Geezer)
SIDE B The Whale (Isaak) Crisis (Isaak) Flat Earth (Isaak)
ALBUM DESCRIPTION
GEEZER
As the “Interstellar Cosmic Blues” half of this EP, we consider these songs to be some of the best that we’ve produced. Songs that could all be “singles” all on their own. And they better be because “The Riffalicious Stoner Dudes” brought some savage riffage of their own! Put it all together with amazing artwork by Mirkow Gastow and release it on Heavy Psych Sounds, the BEST record label on the planet… and you’ve got all the makings of a great record! A modern classic right out of the box. Dig it!
Songs 1 & 4 Recorded and Mixed by David Andersen at the Artfarm (Accord, New York) Songs 2 & 3 Recorded and Mixed by Chris Bittner at the Applehead Recording (Woodstock, New York) All Songs Mastered by Scott Craggs
GEEZER are: Pat Harrington – vocals/guitar Richie Touseull – bass Steve Markota – drums
ISAAK
Art comes from change and experimentation. These three songs are exactly that. Three songs, three different souls.
This recording session is born from the collaboration of some friends invited by the band, and these are:
Fabio Cuomo from Gotho & Liquido di Morte – THE WHALE Fabio Palombi from Nerve & Burn the Ocean – CRISIS And last but not the least, Levre from Ufomammut – FLAT EARTH
ISAAK is Giacomo Boeddu – vocals Francesco Raimondi – guitars Gabriele Carta – bass Davide Foccis – drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 16th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
All-caps Italian psychthrusters MR.BISON have announced a European tour supporting their new album, Echoes of the Universe. And I’ve got a slot saved for that record — which was announced here with a track premiere, as sometimes happens — in the next Quarterly Review, which kicks off in about a week, but it’s out today on Heavy Psych Sounds, and considering the spaces the four-piece traverse within its component songs, the richness of the flow they conjure and the classic-rooted-but-forward-looking mindset under which they seem to operate, basking in bright melodies and swinging groove set to evocative purpose and willing to dive into ethereal headspinning, as later cut “The Promise” demonstrates, without losing track of the audience’s place in the song, its ringing bells and softer accompanying guitar a sanctuary before the sweep of the next chorus.
If I keep going I’m just gonna review the thing — sometimes I need to stop myself, especially if I’m listening to an album as I am this one now; it’s just how my brain is trained to work at this point — so I’ll stop myself and say that it’s great MR.BISON are getting out to herald Echoes of the Universe because I think it’s a worthy cause. Note the open slot March 18 in Germany if you can help out, and that the actual tour picks up in March and spreads across April and May and into June — obviously there are breaks in there — with appearances set for Heavy Psych Sounds Fest in Italy and Switzerland, as well as Maximum Festival and Space Goat Fest in Italy along with copious club shows.
June’s a ways out, so don’t be surprised if more shows are added around that trip to Switzerland as well. Especially after more people hear the record, which, again, is out today. If you’ve got ears to dig it, it’s at the bottom of this post.
From the PR wire:
Heavy Psych Sounds Records & Booking to announce MR.BISON – Echoes From The Universe EUROPEAN TOUR !!!
Our beloved psychedelic prog rockerz MR.BISON will tour Europe presenting their latest album Echoes From The Universe !!!
*** MR.BISON – Echoes From The Universe EUROPEAN TOUR *** 16th February / EXWide Pisa (IT) – Release Party 17th February / Bloom Mezzago -MB (IT) – Release Party 14th March / Channel Zero – Lubjana (SLO) 15th March / Mocvara – Zagreb (HR) 16th March / Music House – Graz (A) 17th March / Schokofabrik – Bayreuth (DE) 18th March / *** OPEN SLOT *** GERMANY 19th March / Black Label – Leipzig (DE) 20th March / Stereowonderland – Cologne (DE) 21th March / Extrablues Bar – Belefield (DE) 22th March / Waldmeister – Solingen (DE) 23th March / Ruefetto – Freibourg (DE) 21th April / Space Goat Fest – CPA – Firenze (IT) 26th April / Maximum Fest – ZeroBranco -TV (IT) 27th April / Verona – TBA (IT) 03th May / Bocciodromo – Vicenza (IT) 04th May / HPS Fest – Bologna Trieste (IT) 05th May / HPS Fest – Bologna Trieste (IT) 11th May / Blah Blah – Torino (IT) 17th May / Le Bout du Monde – Vevey (CH) 18th May / Durrorsdorf – TBA (DE) 07th June / HPS Fest – Martigny Winthertur (CH) 08th June / HPS Fest – Martigny Winterthur (CH)
The second Kariti full-length, Dheghom, releases tomorrow, Feb. 2, through Lay Bare Recordings. The 11-song LP is the Russian-born-Italy-residing polylingual dark atmospheric folk singer-songwriter’s first for the Dutch imprint, and it brings 43 minutes of new material that greatly expand the context wrought for Kariti — née Katerina, also stylized all-lowercase: kariti — by her 2020 debut, Covered Mirrors (review here). While still able to offer the voice-on-tape minimalism of some of the first album’s loneliest fare, Dheghom broadens the reach of Kariti‘s arrangements, such that the quiet electric guitar on the harmonized highlight “Vilomah” that brings a duet with Dorthia Cottrell of Windhand (and her own solo work) and the keyboard-driven “A Mare Called Night” that gets its instrumental answer at the end of the proceedings in closer “So Without, ” the title of which bookends with in-Russian spoken intro “As Within,” as Kariti translates that spoken poem to English, switching languages throughout no less fluidly than she leads “Reckoning” with piano and the subsequent “Metastasis” with electric guitar.
“Emerald Death” touches on Irish folk traditions and pairs its melody with harsh distorted strums of guitar in true doom-folk style, which picks up from the surprisingly-full-band-sounding “River of Red,” with drums and a darkly progressive exploration that feels consistent with the rest of Dheghom, even if its sad metallurgy is coming from somewhere else than the initially-largely-empty “Son,” which Katerina‘s voice easily carries in layers before it shifts into its more distorted second half drone. Goth plays a big role as “Reckoning” follows “Vilomah,” with flourish of strings to coincide with its steady piano line, less foreboding than “Metastasis” still to come, but consistent in its downerist melodic spirit. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony gets referenced at the outset of “Sanctuary,” but the song itself is moved elsewhere by its vocals, harmonized in a kind of American folkishness far removed from any sense of twang. The point is underscored with a plains-rumble of piano near the finish, from which “River of Red” picks up and transitions smoothly to its fuller arrangement before giving over to “Toll,” which is 41 seconds of bells — because what else — before the keyboard of “So Without” brings Dheghom full circle with ethereal operatics backing the lead vocal line and a sense of warning that’s almost cultish as presented.
Certainly Covered Mirrors had its sense of adventurousness, but it was also the launch point for Kariti as a project and the fact that it existed was part of the adventure. Dheghom is a genuine branching out of intent and composition, a different way of constructing songs around ideas for what they need and/or want to express. And because the backdrop she’s working with is still largely minimal — to wit, only “River of Red” has drums — each tweak in arrangement throughout has an impact on the material and the scope of the whole outing, even as they cast her voice in the role of unifying the songs, which it does without trouble. Affecting emotionally and striking in its reach, it’s Kariti‘s vocals and sometimes bleak melodicism that give Dheghom such a sense of personality amid its complexities, and whether it’s a flourish of keys, the strings on “Reckoning” or Cottrell showing up on “Vilomah,” there’s never a pivot made that removes the album from what feels like its intended course. That that would coincide with such a significant uptick in attention to detail makes Dheghom all the more of a triumph, even if it’s too morose to outwardly enjoy its own accomplishments.
The expansion of the collaboration with guitarist Marco Matta (also Grime) and engineer Lorenzo Della Rovere likewise feels organic and purposeful, helping to build Dheghom up as a showcase of Wovenhand-style go-anywhereism that nonetheless retains its crafted feel. And while it seems safe to imagine Katerina would keep that collaborative thread going on a third Kariti LP when and if she gets there — note she put out an EP with the experimentalist Néant last year; some of that attitude seems to have bled into Kariti — I find I’m less comfortable predicting where she might go sound-wise than I was coming off of Covered Mirrors. This, despite a style that’s almost entirely balanced toward the subdued, is one of the most exciting reasons to be a fan of an artist, and Dheghom is sure to pull more of those into Kariti‘s sphere as well. I think I might be one too.
Dheghom, accompanied by PR wire info, streams in full below.
Please enjoy:
kariti (карити) – ‘to mourn the dead’ in church Slavonic – is a Russian-born artist based in Italy. Her debut ‘Covered Mirrors’ was released in September 2020 by the cult Italian label Aural Music (Negură Bunget, Imperial Triumphant, Messa) and represents a ‘cathartic peregrination through bereavement’. Marco, the leader of the heavy sludge outfit Grime contributes to some of the songs and often joins kariti for live performances.
In September 2023, an industrial/trip-hop/shoegaze s/t EP was released under the moniker Néant – a collaboration between kariti and Void of the anonymous Parisian industrial sludge collective Non Serviam.
kariti’s next record will see the light on February 2, 2024 courtesy of the independent forward-thinking Dutch label Lay Bare Recordings (Frayle, Thief (ex-Botanist), Yawning Man), focussed on high-quality vinyl releases, and sees a notable development in sound, songwriting and instrumentation used: apart from electric guitars it features various synthesizers, analogue piano, strings by Jon K (live Cough, Dorthia Cottrell), a song with drums and bass, multiple contributions of Marco (Grime, Simian Steel) on guitar/noise, and a haunting duet with Dorthia Cottrell (Windhand, solo).
kariti’s atmosferic mournful ‘ambient folk’ is recommended to those who enjoy ‘dark explorations accompanied by the smell of burning wood and the moonlight reflecting off snow’ delivered through profound lyrical content. kariti toured Europe several times, shared the stage with Messa, Grift, Conny Ochs, Plum Green among others, and recently was invited by Brutus to open the Italian leg of their tour. her intense live shows have been described as liturgy-like and cathartic and the touring schedule for 2024 is in the works upon the release of Dheghom.