Posted in Whathaveyou on December 6th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Don’t leave Finland out of the glut of festival announcements that have come down the wire over the course of the last week or so. Desert Hel — short for Helsinki — has announced its 2023 lineup and put early-bird tickets on sale. Set for April 28 and 29 at On the Rocks, the fest will be headlined by Greenleaf and Skraeckoedlan — respect to Sweden — and will boast the significant support of Finnish acts Kaleidobolt, Jess and the Ancient Ones, Polymoon, Green King, Šamane and Zombie Eater.
The new record from Polymoon will be out by then, and I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if there are others on the bill who’ll have new offerings for the denizens on the other side of the merch table. I’m pretty sure this is the complete lineup for this second Desert Hel, and it’s certainly enough for two right-on evenings, so if you happen to be in the neighborhood next April, or if, you know, you like a bit of travel to go with your rock and roll, it’s something to consider as you put together your own 2023 itinerary.
Which, if you have such a thing, I’d imagine it has gotten significantly more complicated over the aforementioned last week or so. Here’s to complication:
We are proud to announce our 2023 lineup – limited Early Bird tickets are now on sale at Tiketti.fi!
Desert Hel festival returns to On the Rocks Helsinki 28.-29.04.2023! Lineup of the second edition of the festival doesn’t leave friends of stoner rock and doom metal cold: Swedish Greenleaf and SKRAECKOEDLAN will be headlining the festival.
The audience is in for a treat when it comes to the Finnish names as well – during the two-day festival they will get to witness a fine selection of both already established and up-and-coming bands, as Jess and the Ancient Ones, KALEIDOBOLT, POLYMOON, Green King, Šamane and Zombie Eater will take the stage!
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 7th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
No trouble whatsoever believing Kaleidobolt when they say ‘this one’s a real barnburner’ below. How could it not be? The Helsinki-based trio are nothing if not prone to scorch, and the head-spinning complexity of their latest work, earlier 2022’s This One Simple Trick (review here), was indeed a reminder that such tricks don’t exist. The trick, it turns out, is to be really talented and play your ass off. Oh, is that all?
The Sonic Whip Festival was held this past May in the Netherlands — you might recall UK heavy rockers Elephant Tree also released material recorded there this year; I have no idea how much of the event was captured on tape — and boasted luminaries like Elder, Motorpsycho, Earthless, Rotor, Sacri Monti and Stöner alongside newer acts like Slomosa, Polymoon and Kryptograf, among many others. It was an eyebrow-raiser of a bill, and Kaleidobolt seemed to be right at home among various rippers of likewise various stripes. One is not surprised to find they thought enough of it to make Live at Sonic Whip ’22. Seems like maybe that’ll be a name you’ll see on more releases in the years to come.
Here’s hoping, anyhow. From the band:
This one’s a real barnburner. 44 minutes of 3 friends trying to hold on to an adrenaline missile ricocheting off the Doornroosje’s walls. Sonic Whip was the first show of our Euro tour where we felt like we were flying, so it’s a real treat that the whole show was professionally recorded. A proper live album ay? What’s next, greatest hits? I guess we’ll see.
Kaleidobolt Live at Sonic Whip ’22 will be available from all major streaming platforms on November 18th 2022.
All songs written and performed live by Kaleidobolt at Sonic Whip Festival in Nijmegen, NL on May 6th 2022.
Sampo Kääriäinen: vocals, electric guitars. Marco Menestrina: electric bass, vocals, synth. Mårten Gustafsson: drums.
Recorded on location by Gonny Maas (Doornroosje). Audio recording coordination: Jurgen van den Brand. Mixed and mastered by Marco Menestrina.
Cover photo: Cody Jay Melton. Covert art: Marco Menestrina.
Photography by The Buried Herald, Maaike Ronhaar, Niels Vinck and Jusu Lahti. Video editing by Marco Menestrina.
Sonic Whip bookings: Freek Koster (Doornroosje). Big luv to Swamp Booking, Jusu Lahti, Sacri Monti, Robin Rigaux, Orange and Hiwatt amps.
Well, in the aftermath of reviewing 100 albums over the span of 10 days, there was just about no way I wouldn’t have enough to fill out a Gimme Metal playlist, and hey guess what? I was only like six days late turning it in! At least the playlist. Voice tracks I think I cut on Tuesday. I honestly have no idea.
But in any case, it didn’t feel as late as last time because it wasn’t, and I’m glad to be featuring a smattering of some of what stood out to me from the finished-today QR, plus a new Dreadnought track that I got excited about because the album announcement came in while I was putting the playlist together and I couldn’t not include it. Probably won’t be the last time.
But if you see/hear/want to dig more on any of this stuff, you can either look for the review or just tap and Google that shit. I think there were maybe two (maybe) bands who weren’t on Bandcamp easily accessible, so everyone else, it’s all right there for you. Plus here, all newly written up in my typical turnt-brain-to-goo Quarterly Review style.
Thanks if you listen and thanks for reading.
The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.
Full playlist:
The Obelisk Show – 07.08.22 (VT = voice track)
Witchfinder
The Maze
Endless Garden
0N0
Clay Weight
Unwavering Resonance
Church of the Sea
Odalisque
Odalisque
Dreadnought
Midnight Moon
The Endless
VT
Faeries
Fresh Laces
Faeries
My Diligence
Celestial Kingdom
The Matter, Form and Power
Supplemental Pills
Freedom March
Volume 1
Kaleidobolt
Ultraviolent Chimpanzee
This One Simple Trick
Black Lung
Hollow Dreams
Dark Waves
The Cimmerian
Silver and Gold
Thrice Majestic
Astral Pigs
Our Golden Twilight
Our Golden Twilight
Carson
Dirty Dream Maker
The Wilful Pursuit of Ignorance
Kadavermarch
1,000 Yard Stare
Into Oblivion
Electric Mountain
A Fistful of Grass
Valley Giant
VT
Øresund Space Collective
Deep Breath for the EARTH
Oily Echoes of the Soul
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is July 22 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.
Oh we’re in the thick of it now, make no mistake. Day one? A novelty. Day two? I don’t know, slightly less of a novelty? But by the time you get to day three in a Quarterly Review, you know how far you’ve come and how far you still have to go. In this particular case, building toward 100 records total covered, today passes the line of the first quarter done, and that’s not nothing, even if there’s a hell of a lot more on the way.
That said, let’s not waste time we don’t have. I hope you find something killer in here, because I already have.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
My Diligence, The Matter, Form and Power
The Matter, Form and Power is the third long-player from Brussels’ My Diligence, whose expansive take on melodic noise rock has never sounded grander. The largesse of songs like the Floor-esque “Multiversal Tree” or the choruses in “On the Wire” and the layered post-hardcore screams in “Sail to the Red Light” — to say nothing of the massive nod with which the title-track opens, or the progressively-minded lumbering with which the 10-minute “Elasmotherium” closes — brims with purpose in laying the atmospheric foundation from which the material soars outward. With “Celestial Kingdom” as its centerpiece, the heavy starting far, far away and shifting into an earliest-Mastodon chug as drift and heft collide, there are hints of Cave In in form if not all through the execution — that is, My Diligence cross similar boundaries but don’t necessarily sound the same — such that the growling that populates that song’s second half isn’t so much a surprise as it is a slamming, consuming, welcome advent. Music as a force. As much volume as you can give it, give it.
Their moniker derived from the initials of the three members — bassist/vocalist/synthesist Pietro Brunetti, guitarist/vocalist Claudio Banelli and drummer Carlo Forgiarini — Italian troupe BBF aren’t through I Will Be Found‘s five minute opener “Freedom” before they’ve transposed grunge vibes onto a go-where-it-wants psychedelia from out of an acoustic, bluesy beginning. Garage rock in “Cosmic Surgery,” meditative jamming in “Rise,” and a vast expanse in “T-Rex” that delivers the album’s title line while furthering with even-the-drums-have-echo breadth the psych vibe such that the synthy take of the penultimate “Wake Up” becomes just another part of the procession, its floating guitar met with percussion real and imagined ahead of the bookending acoustic-based closer “Supernova,” which dedicates its last 90 seconds or so to a hidden track comprised entirely of sweet acoustic notes that might’ve otherwise ended up as an interlude but work just as well tucked away as they are. Here’s a band who know the rules and seem to take a special joy in bending if not outright breaking them, drawing from various styles in order to make their songs their own. To say they acquit themselves well in doing so is an understatement.
Progressive and melodic, the fourth album from Iowan trio Druids is nonetheless at times crushingly heavy, and in a longer piece like “Ide’s Koan,” the band demonstrate how to execute a patient, dynamic build, beginning slow and spaced out and gradually growing in intensity until they reach a multi-layered shouting apex. Drew Rauch (bass), Luke Rauch (guitar) and Keith Rich (drums) all contribute vocals at one point or another, and whether it’s in the plodding rock of “Dance of Skulls” or the not-the-longest-track-but-the-farthest-reaching closer “Cloak/Nior Bloom,” their modern prog metal works off influences like Baroness, Mastodon, Gojira, etc., while retaining character of its own through both rhythmic intricacy and its abiding use of melody, both well on display in “Othenian Blood” and the subsequent, drum-intensive “Traveller” alike. “Path to R” starts Shadow Work mellow after the ceremonial build-up of “Aether,” but the tension is almost immediate and Druids‘ telegraphing that the heavy is coming makes it no less satisfying when it lands.
Though it’s spread across two LPs, don’t think of Kandodo4‘s Burning the (Kandl) as an album. Or even a live album, though technically it’s that. You might not know, you might not care, but it’s a historical preservation. ‘The time that thing happened,’ where the thing is Simon Price of The Heads leading a jam under the banner of his Kandodo side-project featuring Robert Hampson of Loop, and bassist Hugo Morgan and drummer Wayne Maskell — who play in both The Heads and Loop — as part of The Heads‘ residency at Roadburn Festival 2015 (review here). I tell you, I was there, and I’ve seen few psychedelic rituals that could compare in flow or letting the music find its own shape(lessness) as it will. Burning the (Kandl) not only has the live set, but the lone rehearsal that the one-off-four-piece did prior to taking stage at Het Patronaat in Tilburg, the Netherlands, that evening. Thus, history. Certainly for the fest, for the players and those who were there, but I like to think in listening to these side-long stretches of expanse upon expanse that all of our great-grandchildren will worship at the altar of this stuff in a better world. Maybe, maybe not, but better to have Burning the (Kandl) ready to go just in case.
The second EP in about nine months from Los Angeles’ Spencer Robinson — operating under the moniker of Into the Valley of Death — the seven-song Ruthless feels very much like a debut album despite a runtime circa 25 minutes. The songs are cohesive in bringing together doom and grunge as they do, and as with the prior Space Age, the lo-fi aspects of the recording become part of the overarching character of the material. Guitars are up, bass is up, drums are likely programmed, vocals are throaty and obscure at least until they declare you dead on “Ghost,” and the pieces running in the three-to-four-minute range have a kind of languid drawl about them that sound purely stoned even as they seem to reach out into the desert after which the project is seemingly named. Robinson, who also played bass in The Lords of Altamont and has another outfit wherein he fronts a full backing band, is up to some curious shit here, and whether or not it was, it definitely sounds like it was recorded at night. I’m not sure where it’s going, and I’m not sure where it’s been, but I know I’ll look forward to finding out.
Enköping, Sweden’s Stuck in Motion issued their 2018 self-titled debut (review here) to due fanfare, and Still Stuck (changed from the working title ‘Ut på Tur,’ which translates, “on tour”) arrives with a brisk reminder why. Jammy in spirit, early singles “Höjdpunkternas Land,” “Lucy” and “På Väg” brim with vitality and a refreshing take on classic heavy rock, not strictly retro, not strictly not, and all the more able to jam and offer breadth around traditional structures as in “I de Blå” for that, weaving their way into and out of instrumental sections with a jazzy conversation between guitars and keys, bass and drums, percussion, and so on. Combined with the melodies of “Tupida,” the heavier tone underlying “Fisken” and the organ-and-synth-laced shuffle of the penultimate “Tung Sol,” there’s a balance between psych and prog — and, on the closing title-track, horns — which are emblematic of an organic style that couldn’t be faked even if the band wanted to try. I don’t know the exact release date for Still Stuck — I thought it was already out when I slated this review — but its eight songs and 40 minutes are like the kind of afternoon you don’t want to end. Sunshine and impossible blue sky.
A blurb posted by Spanish instrumentalists Sageness — also written SageNESS — with the release of Tr3s reads as follows: “The future seen from the past, where another current reality is possible, follow us and we will transfer to a new dimension. (Tr3s),” and fair enough. One could hardly begrudge the trio a bit of escapism in their work, and listening to the 36 minutes across four songs that comprises Tr3s, they do seem to be finding their way into the ‘way out.’ Though if where they’re ending up is 12-minute finale “Event Horizon,” in which the very jam itself seems to be taffy-pulled on a molecular level until the solid bassline and drums dissipate and what takes hold is a freakout of propulsive, drift-toned guitar, I’m not sure if they do or don’t ultimately make it to another dimension. Maybe that’s on the other side? Either way, after the scope of “Greenhouse” and the more plotted-seeming stops of “Spirit Machine,” that end is somewhat inevitable, and we may be stuck in reality for real life, but Sageness‘ fuzzy and warm-toned heavy psychedelic rock makes a reasoned argument for daydreaming the opposite.
You think you’re up for Kaleidobolt, and that’s adorable, but let’s be honest. The Finnish trio — whose head-spinning, too-odd-not-to-be-prog heavy rock makes This One Simple Trick laughable as a title — are on another level. You and me? They’re running circles around us in “Fantastic Corps” and letting the truth about humans be known amid the fuzz of “Ultraviolent Chimpanzee” after the alternately frenetic and spaced “Borded Control,” momentarily stopping their helicopter twirl to “Walk on Grapes” at the album’s finish, but even then they’re walking on grapes on another planet yet to be catalogued by known science. 2019’s Bitter (review here) boasted likewise self-awareness, but This One Simple Trick is a bolder step into their individuality of purpose, and rest assured, they found it. I don’t know if they’re a “best kept secret” or just underrated. However you say it, more people should be aware. Onto the list of 2022’s best albums it goes, and if there are any simple tricks involved here, I’d love to know what they are.
It probably wouldn’t fit on a 7″, but The Tazers‘ Outer Space EP isn’t much over that limit at four songs and 13 minutes. The Johannesburg trio’s melodicism is striking nearly at the outset of the opening title-track, and the fuzz guitar that coincides is no less right on as they touch on psychedelia without ever ranging so much as to lose sight of the structures at work. “Glass Ceiling” boasts a garage-rocking urgency but is nonetheless not an all-out sprint in its delivery, and “Ready to Die” hits into Queens of the Stone Age-esque rush after an acoustic opening and before its fuzzy rampage of a chorus, while “Up in the Air” is a little more psych-funk until solidifying around the repeated lines, “Give me a reason/Show me a sign,” which culminate as the EP’s final plea, like Witch played at 45RPM or your favorite stoner band’s cooler cousin. Four songs, it probably took more effort to put together than they’d like you to think, but the casual cool they ooze is as infectious as the songs themselves.
Bong-worship sludge from London. It’s hard to know the extent to which Obelos — which for some reason my fingers have trouble typing correctly — are just fucking around, but their dank, lurching riffs, throaty screams and slow-motion crashes certainly paint a picture anyhow. Paint it green, with maybe some little orange or purple flecks in there. Interludes “Paranoise” and “Holy Smokes” bring harsh noise and a kind of improvised-feeling, also-quite-noisy chicanery, but the primary impression in Green Giant‘s six tracks/27 time-bending minutes is of nodding, couchlocked stoner crush, and I wouldn’t dare ask anything more of it than that. Neither should you. I’d argue this is an album rather than the EP it’s categorized as being, since it flows and definitely gets its point across in a full-length manner, but I’m not even gonna fight the band on that because they might break out a 50-minute record or some shit and, well, I’m just not sure I’m ready to get that high this early in the morning. Might have to reserve an entire day for that. Which might be fun, too.
About five minutes after I sent in this playlist, a mass email went out from Gimme Metal to reinforce the guidelines for how to make shows in terms of length and allowing room for promos, voice tracks, and so on. If in fact that’s more than coincidence, I won’t say I didn’t earn it, considering. Some of this stuff I’ve played before — Apostle of Solitude, Uncle Woe, Scott Kelly probably — but a lot of it is new too. If you’ve been on the site at all this week, you’ve probably already seen premieres for Soldat Hans, Uncle Woe and Ealdor Bealu (the latter today), and Moura and that new Geezer were recently featured here as well. You see? It’s all about cross-promotional synergy between varying sides of the massive corporate machine that is The Obelisk. We own Coca-Cola now, if you didn’t know. A recent pickup.
Keep an ear out for the shift from MWWB to Tau and the Drones of Praise. There’s some weirdo back and forth in the playlist here that I love, especially in that middle block of music. I tried to talk less and cram in as much music as I could. You know how it is. Next time, I’ll try to keep it to the established timeframe. I try to be good. And no, The Obelisk didn’t really buy Coca-Cola. Not that I would if I could, but I can’t even afford a can thereof, let alone the company itself.
Thanks if you listen, thanks if you’re reading. Thanks in general.
The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.
Full playlist:
The Obelisk Show – 03.18.22
Apostle of Solitude
Apathy in Isolation
Until the Darkness Goes
Crowbar
Zero and Below
Zero and Below
Geezer
Broken Glass
Stoned Blues Machine
VT1
Deathwhite
Earthtomb
Grey Everlasting
Daisychain
How Can I Love You
Different Shades
Moura
Baile do dentón
Axexan, Espreitan
Ealdor Bealu
Mirror Reflecting Mirror
Psychic Forms
MWWB
The Harvest
The Harvest
Tau and the Drones of Praise
Already Written
Dream Awake: Live at Roadburn Redux
Atlas789
El Despertar – Luz Y Sombra
El Despertar – Luz Y Sombra
Dark Worship
Culling Song
Death of a Saint
Scott Kelly & the Road Home
The Field That Surrounds Me
The Forgiven Ghost in Me
Famyne
Once More
II
Kaleidobolt
I Should Be Running
This One Simple Trick
VT2
Uncle Woe
We Plant the Seeds for Things We Know Will Never Grow
Pennyfold Haberdashery & Abbatoir Deluxe
Soldat Hans
Anthaupt
Anthaupt
E-L-R
Opiate the Sun
Vexier
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is April 1 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 25th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Poland’s Red Smoke Festival 2022 makes its first lineup announcements, with Mars Red Sky and Kaleidobolt joining the bill. The event is of course part of greater Europe’s summer festival season, but like many of its heavier-minded ilk, seems to have developed a culture of its own, and in addition to bringing in some heavy hitters each year, looks like a good time also, you know, on a human level of existing with other people who aren’t dicks. At least for a couple days.
In 2022, four days, in fact. July 7-10 at the Amphitheatre in Pleszew in Central Poland. Mars Red Sky will be among the headliners, and fair enough for that — dying for new album news from them — and Kaleidobolt will play supporting their 2019 album, Bitter (review here), which was both awesome and released by Svart Records. Amazing how often those two things come together.
There’s about zero chance I’d be able to get to this thing, but as someone who makes a habit out of daydreaming about attending European heavy rock festivals on concurrent weekends oh, say, forever, a couple days of long summer heavy in Poland sounds pretty righteous to me. It’s nice to be able to think something like this will actually happen.
More announcements forthcoming, obviously, but here’s the first two:
Red Smoke Festival 2022
SAVE THE DATE! Red Smoke Festival returns with a 4-day edition! July 7-10th. Amphitheatre in Pleszew.
Do we all know them? Sure! Are they great? Of course! Is this one of the most interesting bands in the genre? You bet! It will be one of the headliners of RSF2022.
KALEIDOBOLT at RSF2022!
Speed, power & sweat. Endless dance! It might be one of the biggest highlights of the festival.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 16th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Sonic Whip are making it easy for you. Sitting around your house thinking about whether to travel to Nijmegen next May? Well, they’ve got Motorpsycho and Earthless atop a two-day bill of righteous heavy that kills all the way down the poster. Rotor? Stöner? Mythic Sunship and Slomosa? Who’s going to argue with any of that? I mean, the answer was yes on going to Nijmegen anyway, but if Polymoon and Sacri Monti are showing up, that’s all the more reason.
I’ve got a yelling four year old upstairs to go tend to — it’s about six in the morning my time, he’s up and banging around as he will — but there’s some urgency here as Saturday tickets are already sold out. There’s still Friday, for now, or two-day passes, if you want to do the full Sonic Whip 2022 experience, and apparently if you had bought in for the long-long ago in 2020, you get in automatically. That’s nice.
Here’s info and links:
Sonic Whip 2022 – May 6-7
We are back! It is time to let the guitars roar again on 6 & 7 May in Doornroosje Nijmegen.
Living legends Motorpsycho will headline Sonic Whip 2022 – Official.
Next to them we have invited Earthless, Stöner, Rotor, Sacri Monti, Maidavale, A/lpaca, Polymoon, Mythic Sunship, Slomosa and Kaleidobolt to this killer psychedelic party. And there is more to follow…
The beautiful artwork created by the talented Maarten Donders.
TICKET SALES UPDATE
We are grateful so many of you held on to the Sonic Whip 2020 tickets which remain valid for the 2022 edition. As a result of this and the recent sales the day tickets for the Saturday are sold out now!
Only weekend tickets and Friday day tickets remaining. We can promise you both days will be worth it!
Posted in Whathaveyou on October 11th, 2019 by JJ Koczan
Desert Hel is a new heavy fest marking its debut in Finland next April. It’s ‘Hel’ as in -sinki, and the two-dayer is set to take place April 24-25 at On the Rocks in the Finnish capitol. It’s not affiliated with Desertfest in any way so far as I know, but they’ve pulled together a solid lineup nonetheless, with multinational acts Lucifer (UK/Sweden) and Lonely Kamel (Norway) headlining and the likes of natives Craneium and Kaleidobolt and Russia’s The Re-Stoned offering their support of the endeavor. Also noteworthy is the cleverly named One Inch Band, who’ll play not just a set of Kyuss covers, but specifically the setlist that the desert rock legends played at the much-bootlegged Bizarre Festival in 1995. If that doesn’t sound like fun to you, I don’t know what might.
The info below has been run through a major tech company’s translation matrix, but should still be enough for you to get the idea. Spring in Europe is always a busy time, but Desert Hel 2020 promises to bring something to the northern part of the continent that seems well due.
Word follows:
Desert Hel is a new stoner & doom music festival in Helsinki. The first event will take place at On the Rocks on 24th-25th of April, 2020! Ticket sale starts on Thursday 10.10.2019
The new Desert Hel Festival, focused on stoner and doom music, will take place 24-25 April 2020 at the Helsinki On the Rocks Club. In addition to foreign and domestic bands, it is also possible to enjoy craft beers and food served during the festival. Tickets for the event will go on sale at Tiketti on Thursday, October 10, 2009 at 9:00 am.
On Friday, the festival’s main performer will be the Swedish heavy rock band Lucifer, who is preparing for the new album. Nicke Andersson, a multifunctional artist known for Hellacopters and Emtombed. Friday’s program will be complemented by Re-Stoned, the Moscow-based messenger of psychedelic Instrumental stoner, Craneium playing heavy-duty riffs, and Jupiter, a psych-rock band.
On Saturday, the show features Norwegian heavy blues and stoner Lonely Kamel, Helsinki-based power trio Kaleidobolt, Thermate from the 70’s heavy and 90’s stoner rock, and Kaiser playing the majestic cruel desert fuzz. In addition, Desert Hel’s backing party picks up a tribute band, One Inch Band plays Kyuss, for Saturday night, which plays Kyuss’s 1995 Bizarre Festival set list.
LINE UP FRIDAY: LUCIFER (SWE) The Re-Stoned (RUS) Craneium Jupiter
SATURDAY: Lonely Kamel (NOR) KALEIDOBOLT Thermate Kaiser One Inch Band plays Kyuss
