At 10 minutes long, opening track ‘Waves’ plays an important role on Pavallion‘s second album, Stratospheria, out Oct. 26 on Tonzonen Records. From the spacious post-rock guitar line that opens the song with a drift worthy of its title to the subtle vocal harmonies in its verse lines as it moves toward its midsection, it’s the first impression Stratospheria makes, building to a louder instrumental wash as it approaches minute five and pushing decidedly outward from there in its second half with a fluid blend of ambience and weight made whole through steady but creative drumming. By the time it gets to its final push, it’s traversed a not-inconsiderable distance, and its last 30 seconds or so are just a ringout of the massive wall of sound that’s built, but the initial feel of the soothing intro is still maintained. As much as “Waves” seems to bring the tide of volume in as it plays through, it still doesn’t carry much of a sense of threat in the listening experience, and that’s important, because with the other two tracks that comprise the full-length, “Monolith” (5:11) and “Stratospheria” (24:37) itself, they bring a somewhat darker tonality to bear.

Especially in the shorter “Monolith,” the Krefeld, Germany, four-piece of vocalist/guitarist Sebastian Dückers, guitarist/vocalist Steven Hein, bassist Andreas Zanders and drummer Piet Fischer touch on a doomed atmosphere, with low spoken vocals and sparse, thudding drums and plodding guitar with a consuming distortion unfolding amid eerie whispers and a tense line of horror-style notes that comes to the fore in its apex. That departure — still on side A of the vinyl, so in any format it immediately follows “Waves” — is key to establishing the personality of the release as a whole. Pavallion‘s 2017 debut, 2048, certainly had its progressive elements, and was a longer outing overall with five tracks/48 minutes as opposed to Stratospheria‘s three and 40 minutes, but while it had heavier moments along with its Floyd-loyalist conscioupsychedelia, there wasn’t anything so grim as the near-goth affect of “Monolith,” the mood of which seems to carry into the title-cut that follows, though with a runtime comprising more than half of the entire album, that song of course has no trouble setting a mood of its own. “Stratospheria” is, obviously, central to the record that shares its name, and perhaps unsurprisingly it seems to bridge the gap between “Waves” and “Monolith,” bringing the disparate sides together into a cohesive entirety of marked flow and a naturalist movement. Its ebbs are open-sounding and hypnotic, and the heft it conjures comes on smoothly and gradually, so that its arrival isn’t awkward or out of place, but an organic growth of the forward motion in the track.

Like “Waves,” “Stratospheria” gets significantly heavy, but retains its sense of atmosphere and carries the foreboding vibe of “Monolith” into its own context, as can be heard in the low-end distortion beneath the repeated guitar line about 16 minutes in. As the last push unfolds, Pavallion craft a fervent wash of noise, and the weighted riff that arrives shortly before the 19-minute mark is emblematic of the grim undertone that seems to be lurking all along, coexisting with the heavy psychedelic and progressive shimmer that “Waves” first set forth. That these two sides are able to come together into a coherent, single statement isn’t an achievement to be overlooked, but in the actual listening, that’s less of an outward impression than the level of engagement the band elicits from the beginning onward. That is, one isn’t likely to be sitting listening to Stratospheria saying, “Hmm, quite nice how they’ve married together diverse ambiences,” while utterly hypnotized by the effect of their doing so.

Appropriately enough, the visual accompaniment for “Waves” in the YouTube embed below is, well, waves. It’s waves. The camera is on a boat and it’s waves. Fair enough to give a sense of the album’s total entrancing aspects, and the crucial work “Waves” does as its opening salvo.

More info follows beneath. I hope you enjoy:

Pavallion, “Waves” visualizer premiere

Does music bend space and time? When a five minute song seems like a huge black hole while a 24-minute-epic rushes past in the blink of an eye, one can get the impression that it’s possible. Concerning PAVALLION, time is relative anyway, as already shown on their debut album „2048“. Following the minimalistic catchiness of their 2017 five track LP, these four guys from Krefeld, Germany, now present their second album STRATOSPHERIA.

It contains 3 atmospheric longtracks that slowly unfold into great epics – from the lone, soft echo in a vast openness to the dense, impenetrable wall of sound. Warm, hypnotic post-rock meets modern psychedelic, reminding some of us of the good old Pink Floyd sound. „Close your eyes and be carried away“ seems to be the motto – both live and in front of the record player.

STRATOSPHERIA is already preoderable and will be released on October 26th via the audiophile indie label TONZONEN RECORDS. It will be available as a limited gatefold LP in the vinyl colours marbled yellow (150 copies) and marbled greenblue (350 copies), as Digipak CD as well as for download.

Pavallion is:
Sebastian Dückers – Lead Vocals / Guitar
Steven Hein – Lead Guitar / Vocals
Andreas Zanders – Bass
Piet Fischer – Drums

Pavallion website

Pavallion on Thee Facebooks

Pavallion on Bandcamp

Pavallion on Instagram

Tonzonen Records website

German heavy post-rockers Pavallion will issue their second album, Stratpspheria through Tonzonen on Oct. 26. The LP is comprised of three tracks, the last of which, the title-cut, is 24 minutes long. So, you know, awesome. Surrounding and within that massive cut is a work of thoughtful exploration, mellow melodicism and open-ended structures that flow easily but can go just about anywhere they please as they make their way outward to some higher knowledge, individualized plane, off in the great go-go-go, whatever it is — the stratosphere? Maybe. The vibe is certainly altitudinous enough to be lacking oxygen. You can float away on it.

Normally for this kind of thing you’d have to wait, but Tonzonen has all three tracks streaming on the preorder page for the limited CD and vinyl, and you’ll find hem at the bottom of this post. Have at it and enjoy.

Info from the PR wire:

PAVALLION: German Psyched-out Rock Quartet Announce New Album Stratospheria for a late October Release. First massive single released!

German psyched-out rock quartet Pavallion just announced a new album titled Stratospheria due out on Tonzonen Records in late October.

Does music bend space and time? When a five minute song seems like a huge black hole while a 24-minute-epic rushes past in the blink of an eye, one can get the impression that it’s possible. Concerning Pavallion, time is relative anyway, as already shown on their debut album 2048. Following the minimalistic catchiness of their 2017 five track LP, these four guys from Krefeld, Germany, now present their second album Stratospheria.

It contains 3 atmospheric longtracks that slowly unfold into great epics – from the lone, soft echo in a vast openness to the dense, impenetrable wall of sound. Warm, hypnotic post-rock meets modern psychedelic, reminding some of us of the good old Pink Floyd sound. Close your eyes and be carried away seems to be the motto – both live and in front of the record player.

Stratospheria is already on pre-order and will be released on October 26th via the audiophile indie label Tonzonen Records. It will be available as a limited gatefold LP in the vinyl colours marbled yellow (150 copies) and marbled green- blue (350 copies), as Digipak CD as well as for download.

Tracklist
1. A Waves
2. Monolith
3. Stratospheria

www.pavallion.de
www.facebook.com/pavallion
www.pavallion.bandcamp.com
www.instagram.com/pavallion_music
www.tonzonen.de

Blind Guardian, Nightfall in Middle-Earth (1998)

I think Germany’s Blind Guardian are probably still a little too current to fall into the realm of “classic metal,” but if they were going to enter the discussion, I think 1998’s Nightfall in Middle-Earth would be grounds on its own for consideration. The album followed 1995’s Imaginations from the Other Side, which wasn’t exactly where they made the turn from thrash to power metal, but was just about where they perfected their approach to the latter. What makes Nightfall in Middle-Earth stand out from its predecessor is the complexity and execution of its theme, based around narratives culled from J.R.R. Tolkien‘s The Silmarillion.

If you’ve never read it — I’ll confess that I didn’t get the whole way through — The Silmarillion tells tales of the first age of Middle-Earth, before the coming of men and the decline of the immortal elves. It is essentially a Bible with many gods for the world in which the Lord of the Rings trilogy takes place, and as ever for Tolkien, it’s a world no less winding than it is complete. For Blind Guardian to tackle such a thing wasn’t necessarily new for them even then — as early as 1992’s Somewhere Far Beyond they were referencing Tolkien‘s The Hobbit — but for them to do so with such a narrative thread while still writing songs so stellar as to be highlights of their discography now 16 years later like “Mirror Mirror,” “Nightfall” (“…quietly it crept in and changed us all,” goes the chorus), “Blood Tears” and “Time Stands Still (At the Iron Hill)” feels like twice the achievement. Imaginations from the Other Side is a damn good record, but when it comes to Blind Guardian and everything they’ve embodied as a band ever since, Nightfall in Middle-Earth is a genuine masterpiece.

And though those tracks and others will mark themselves out on any listen, first or 50th, it remains an album best heard front to back, its many interludes and narrative components — some just spoken word over foreboding ambience — feeding into the overall listening experience. This version has a couple bonus tracks tacked onto the end, but even in its bare form, Nightfall in Middle-Earth tops 65 minutes and is no meager undertaking. Like The Silmarillion itself, it is a world to enter and be changed by, and one no less magical. The lineup of the band at that point was vocalist Hansi Kürsch, who as far as I’m concerned deserves mention among the greatest voices in metal regardless of genre, guitarist André Olbrich, rhythm guitarist Marcus Siepen, drummer Thomas Stauch, guest bassist Oliver Holzwarth, and a host of others including keyboardist, choir vocalists, flautist and pianist, and what they created was a sound larger than life that Blind Guardian — with Kürsch, Olbrich and Siepen still at the heart of the band — continues to refine to this day. It was announced today that in 2015, they’ll release a new album on Nuclear Blast called Beyond the Red Mirror, weaving an original fantasy tale set in the same universe as some of the tracks from Imaginations from the Other Side and employing no less than three full choirs and two 90-piece orchestras. They remain unafraid to go big.

Hope you enjoy.

—

Kind of a departure, right? That’s what I was hoping for. Something a little different, but it’s a record I’ve lived with and enjoyed since around the time it came out, so it seemed fair. If you feel like it’s not stoner rock enough, there’s always the radio stream. Plenty of that stuff in there, which I should know because (1:) I put it there and (2:) I listen to that friggin’ thing all the time because it’s badass.

Not my best week. I could elaborate. I’d rather not. Suffice it to say I’m still basically recovering from being on tour — though that ebola seems to have for the most part passed, and for that I’m thankful — and that my poor feeble brain hasn’t really managed to settle back down without feeling like it should be racing off somewhere else. I still have Bang and Pentagram and Radio Moscow and Kings Destroy songs stuck in my head, and it was a little disconcerting today when I scrolled down and realized all those posts were off the frontpage. Things go pretty quick around here, I guess.

Next week, I think I’ll have a stream of the new album by Rhode Island’s Balam at some point. I have a thing Monday — it’s like a job recruitment thing, I don’t really know — in the afternoon that will probably eat up a decent chunk of the day, but I’ll be reviewing the Ufomammut DVD sooner or later and the new Brant Bjork as well. Some vinyl to catch up on too, and a tape from The Heavy Company. I’m also still waiting to get that Lowrider interview back, but one of these days.

In the meantime, it’s down to Connecticut and subsequently New Jersey for family stuff and then back up on Sunday. We actually drove down to Connecticut tonight on I-95, the same route I had the van headed back from Rhode Island the other day. I kept thinking about how dazed I was on that trip, my head just completely somewhere else. It’s an adjustment being home, especially when — and I’ll just be honest here — I don’t have jack shit going on. Not like I went back to work, or went back to doing something with my day. Full speed to dead stop. Me and the dog on the couch, listening to records and reviewing them for nobody to read. Oh, and it’s nighttime at like 4PM now too. Awesome. Things are going really well. Definitely none of that broke-as-shit, 33-years-old-total-failure, what-the-fuck-am-I-doing-this-for stuff going on. Whatever.

Blech, as Woody might say.

I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Enjoy the Blind Guardian, have a good time, don’t break anything you don’t want broken and we’ll see you back here Monday for more of whatever you call this.

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