Posted in Whathaveyou on January 20th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Issued digitally less than a month ago, on New Year’s Eve overlooking the precipice of doom that is 2021 thus far, Kuala Lumpur-based stoner doomers Ibliss‘ debut album, Demonic, Her, is set to release through DHU Records (vinyl) and Forbidden Place Records (CD, tape) sometime in the coming months. Its place in the physical realm is earned with a dirt-raw approach that, I don’t care what quality download you get, still sounds rough and lo-fi as hell — and hell is the point. The band recorded live and don’t seem at least on social media to go back much further than Sept. 2020 and they formed in June, so if you’re looking for fresh doom, this would seem to be it. The motto “raw, dirty and evil” sums it up pretty well.
DHU sent the following down the PR wire:
New signing to DHU Records: IBLISS
DHU Records is excited to announce the signing of Malaysian Demonic Stoner Doom Cult IBLISS!
“IBLISS is a three piece Demonic Stoner Doom band hailing from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Formed in June 2020, 3 friends; Wan, Fo & Dan, who share the same interest in Stoner Rock & Doom music started to jam together to write their own Raw, Dirty & Evil hymns. On December 31st 2020 they released their debut album Demonic, Her.”
DHU Records will release Demonic, Her in the second quarter of 2021 on Limited Edition Vinyl. DHU Exclusive, Band Edition & Test Press will be available.
Cassette & CD will be released by Forbidden Place Records
Side A: A1. Iblis Bloody Iblis! A2. Acid Day A3. Blood Party
Side B: B1. Dark Room Charm B2. Sweetheart, I Need Blood B3. Demonic, Her
This album was recorded live at iseekmusic studio from September to December 2020. Mixing and mastering by Mokhtar. Music by IBLISS. Lyrics by IBLISS/Yoshi. Made in Malaysia.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 4th, 2019 by JJ Koczan
For those looking to add a bit of aural and conceptual complexity to their day, I humbly submit The Womb of Omeyocan by Malaysian outfit Ksyatriya. The album, already plenty complicated, is out as one of three new interrelated offerings. The other two are a split with Mind Reader and a new Mind Reader standalone LP. I haven’t even had the chance to dig into the split or the Mind Reader album yet, but The Womb of Omeyocan is wild and all over the place and progressive as hell and executed with energy and atmosphere alike. Its production is up front and vital and its tones vary from spacious to raw and driving. Even its most ambient moments seem heavy in more than just a moody way, and when they get down to the big rolling droneout in the 17-minute finale, you’ll also feel like you’ve passed through the gates of some mythical palace.
Cool stuff? Yeah, it is. Glad you asked.
It’s streaming now. I humbly suggest you partake:
We are pleased to share the official release of our latest album ‘The Womb of Omeyocan’. This is part of a 3-way album release simultaneously with our dear friends MIND READER.
Furthermore, we have officially launched our brand new DIY label & production house called StoneDulu Productions. This is a collaborative effort between members of MIND READER and Ksyatriya for the distribution of both band’s artistic pursuits and offerings to the community.
Kindly follow the links to the respective albums you desire to explore.
‘The Womb of Omeyocan’ is the 2nd full-length album from experimental doom metal act Ksyatriya and marks the band’s 4th overall release since their conception in 2013.
Their latest album encompasses an exploration into the principle of duality or dualism that exists within the individual and the collective in relationship to the external world and the cosmos. The album is inspired and thematically produced around ancient Aztec & Sumerian philosophy. This is with particular reference to Omeyocan – known as “the place of duality”, highest of the 13 heavens and dwelling place of the dualistic deity Ometeotl according to Aztec mythology. ‘The Womb of Omeyocan’ aims to penetrate the division, conflict and contradictory nature of the human being that sees itself as a separate entity from the totality that it is inherently a part of. It seeks to explore the structure of dualistic thought by bridging the gap between subject and object.
1. And Thought was Born…and Duality Ensued…And the Universe was Lost 09:08 2. The Flame That Illuminates our Hearts Burns for Eternity 11:21 3. To the Gates of Omeyocan (Prelude I) 04:53 4. Hypocrisy of 2 13:08 5. At the Gates of Omeyocan (Prelude II) 01:44 6. Peta Babkama Luruba Anaku (Open the Gate for Me so I can enter Here) 17:13
Thank you for your support and we sincerely hope you are able to forge a connection with our latest album as you have in the past with our former releases. We shall endeavor to continue giving our best in terms of heart, honesty and primal energy with every new release to come.
None of this would mean anything without your presence to perceive and engage with our work. And for this, we are eternally grateful to you.
Stay true and free, always.
Ksyatriya is: Gerard Edward: Rhythm & Lead Guitars Rahul J. Trada: Rhythm & Lead Guitars Trishay J. Trada: Drums, Bass
Posted in Reviews on September 25th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
The season is changing here in the Northeastern part of the US. Leaves have just barely started to change, and the summertime haze that settles over the region for for the better parts of June, July and August has largely dissipated. It’s getting to be hoodie weather after the sun goes down. This past weekend was the equinox. All of this can only mean it’s time for another Quarterly Review — this one spanning a full Monday-to-Monday week’s worth of writeups. That’s right. 60 albums between now and a week from today. It’s going to be a genuine challenge to get through it all, but I’m (reasonably) confident we’ll get there and that when we’re on the other side, it will have been completely worth the lengthy trip to get there. Hell, you know the drill by now. Let’s not waste any time and get to it, shall we?
Quarterly Review #1-10:
The Necromancers, Servants of the Salem Girl
A noteworthy debut from the Poitier, France-based four-piece The Necromancers, whose coming has been much heralded owing in no small part to a release through Ripple Music, the six-track/41-minute Servants of the Salem Girl lumbers through doom and cultish heavy rock with likewise ease, shifting itself fluidly between the two sides on extended early cuts like opener “Salem Girl Part I” and the nine-minute “Lucifer’s Kin,” which gets especially Sabbathian in its roll later on. The album’s midsection, with the shorter cuts “Black Marble House” (video premiere here) and “Necromancers,” continues the flow with a general uptick of pace and ties together with the opening salvo via the burly vocals of guitarist Tom, the solo work of Rob on lead guitar, and the adaptable groove from bassist Simon and drummer Ben, and as the penultimate “Grand Orbiter” engages moody spaciousness, it does so with a refusal to commit to one side or the other that makes it a highlight of the album as a whole. The Necromancers finish contrasting rhythmic tension and payoff nod on “Salem Girl Part II,” having long since thoroughly earned their hype through songwriting and immediately distinct sonic persona. There’s growth to do in melodicism, but for being “servants,” The Necromancers show an awful lot of command in structure and style.
Noise is the order of things on the Tsuguri Records split 7” between New Haven, Connecticut’s good-luck-Googling aggressives Intercourse and North Carolinian sludge rockers The Asound. Each band offers a two-song showcase of their wares, with Intercourse blasting short jabs of post-hardcore/noise rock angularity on “Too Fucked to Yiff” and “Corricidin is a Helluva Drug” and The Asound bringing a more melodic heavy rock swing to “Slave to the Saints” while saving a more galloping charge for “Human for Human.” It’s a quick sampling, of course, and “Slave to the Saints” is the relative epic inclusion as the only one over three minutes long – it goes to 4:20, naturally – but boasts a surprisingly professional production from The Asound and an unhinged vibe from Intercourse that meets them head on in a way both competitive and complementary to the aggression of “Human for Human.” Fodder for the bands’ merch tables in its limited-to-300, one-time-only pressing, but there’s hardly anything wrong with that. All the more worth grabbing it if you can, while you can.
Officially called Self-Title, this two-song outing released by Tandang Records and BTNKcllctv serves as the first release from Malaysia’s Bohr, and with shouts and growls duking it out over massive plodding tones on opener “Voyager,” they seem to take position right away in the post-Conan verve of megadoom. Peppered-in lead work showcases some welcome nuance of personality, but it’s the second track “Suria” that trips into more surprising terrain, with a faster tempo and something of a letup in thickness, allowing for a more rocking feel, still met with shouted vocals but hinting at more of a melodic reach nonetheless. The shift might be awkward in the context of a full-length, but on a debut single/EP, it works just fine to demonstrate what may or may not be a nascent breadth in Bohr’s approach. They finish “Suria” with hints of more to come in a plotted guitar lead and are done in about 10 minutes, having piqued interest with two disparate tracks that leave one to wonder what other tricks might be up their collective sleeve.
It’s worth noting outright that Strobe’s Bunker Sessions was recorded in 1994. Not because it sounds dated, but just the opposite. The Sulatron Records release from the under-exposed UK psychedelic rockers finds them jamming out in live-in-studio fashion, and if you’d told me with no other context that the resultant six-track/40-minute long-player was put to tape two months ago, I’d absolutely have believed it. This would’ve been the era of their 1994 third album, The Circle Never Ends, and while some can hear some relation between that and Bunker Sessions in the shimmering lead and warm underscoring basslines of 10-minute opener and longest track (immediate points) “Sun Birth,” the drift in “Chameleon Earth,” synth-laden space rock meandering of “Opium Dreams” and cymbal-wash-into-distortion-wash of closer “Sun Death” are on a wavelength of their own. It’s something of a curio release – a “lost album” – but it’s also bound to turn some heads onto how ahead of their time Stobe were in the ‘90s, and maybe we’ll get lucky and Sulatron will use it to kick off a full series of convenient LP reissues.
While their moniker brings to mind pure stoner idolatry, Oslo instrumentalists Astrosaur acquit themselves toward more progressive fare with Fade In // Space Out, their Bad Vibes Records debut album, finding open spaces in bookending extended opener “Necronauts” and the dramatic shift between droning experimentalism and weighted lumber of the closing title-track even as middle cuts “Space Mountain,” “Yugen” and “Fishing for Kraken” balance with fits of driving progressive metallurgy. Comprised of Eirik Kråkenes, Steinar Glas and Jonatan Eikum, Astrosaur do get fuzzy for a bit on “Yugen,” but by the time they’re there, they’ve already space-doom-jazzed their way through such a vast aesthetic swath that it becomes one more stylistic element in fair-enough play. Open in its structure and building to an affecting cacophony in its ending, Fade In // Space Out is defined in no small part by its stylistic ambition, but whether it’s in the head-spinning initial turns of “Fishing for Kraken” or the stretch of peaceful, wistful guitar after the seven-minute mark in “Necronauts,” that ambition is admirable multifaceted and wide-reaching.
There’s an encouraging and decidedly pro-shop fullness of sound being proffered on Sun Q’s debut full-length, Charms, to match an immediate sense of songcraft and stylization that puts them somewhere between heavy psych and more driving fuzz rock. Vocalist Elena Tiron takes a forward position in opener “Petals and Thorns” over the briskly-captured tones from guitarist Ivan Shalimov and bassist Denis Baranov while drummer Pavel Poseluev pushes the proceedings along, and whether they’re bringing in Seva Timofeev’s Hammond for the subsequent bluesy vibing of “After This,” toying with pop playfulness on “Plankton,” giving Andrey Tanzu percussive room on “Dancing Souls” or going full-expanse on keyboard-laden centerpiece and aptly-titled longest cut “Space,” there’s purpose behind the variety on offer and Sun Q never seem to lose their sense of poise throughout. There are moments where the bite of the production hits a little deep – looking at you, “Plankton” – but especially as their debut, Charms lives up to the name it’s been given and establishes these Moscow natives as a presence with which to be reckoned as they move forward.
White Dwarf Records picked up what by my count is Holy Mount’s fourth full-length, The Drought, for a vinyl issue following the Toronto foursome’s self-release last year, and with the immersive, dense heavy psych nod of “Division,” it’s little wonder why. The seven-cut LP is the second to feature the lineup of Danijel Losic, Brandon McKenzie, Troy Legree and Clayton Churcher behind 2014’s VOL, and its moments of nuance like the synth at the outset of “Blackened Log” or the blend of tense riffing and post-The Heads shoegaze-style vocal chants on the markedly insistent highlight cut “Basalt” only further the reasoning. The penultimate “Blood Cove” returns some to of the ritual sense of “Division,” and The Drought’s titular finale pierces its own wash with a lead that makes its apex all the more resonant and dynamic. Not nearly as frenetic as its cover art would have you believe, the already-sold-out vinyl brims with a vibe of creative expansiveness, and Holy Mount feel right at home in its depths.
Over the course of its near-hour runtime, Orga, the Czar of Crickets-issued third full-length from Bern, Switzerland, ambient outfit Sum of R deep-dives into droning atmospheric wash while effectively producing headphone-worthy depths and avoiding the trap of redundant minimalism. Chimes in a song like “Desmonema Annasethe” and ringing bells in “We Have to Mark this Entrance” give a feeling of lushness instead that serves the release well overall, and these details, nuances, take the place of what otherwise might be human voices coursing through the bleak mire of Orga’s progression. One might look to closing duo “Let us Begin with What We Do Not Want to Be” and “One After the Other” for some sense of hopefulness, and whether or not it’s actually there, it’s possible to read it into the overarching drone of the former and the percussive movement of the latter, but by then Sum of R have well set the mood in an abiding darkness, and that remains the prevailing vibe. Not quite dramatic or brooding in a human/emotional sense, Orga casts its drear in soundscapes of distant nighttime horizon.
Noted graphic artist and post-metal songwriter Josh Graham – formerly visuals for Neurosis, but also art for Soundgarden and many others, as well as being known for his work with A Storm of Light and the woefully, vastly underrated Battle of Mice – makes his second ambient solo release in the form of IIVII’s Invasion on Belgian imprint Consouling Sounds. A soundtrack-ready feel pervades the nine tracks/44 minutes almost instantly and holds sway with opener “We Came Here from a Dying World (I)” finding complement in the centerpiece “Tomorrow You’ll be One of Us (II)” and a thematic capstone in closer “Sanctuary,” only furthering the sense of a narrative unfolding throughout. There are elements drawn in “Unclouded by Conscience” from the atmospheric and score work of Trent Reznor and/or Junkie XL, but Graham doesn’t necessarily part with the post-metallic sense of brooding that has defined much of his work even as the pairing of “We Live” and “You Die” late in the record loops its way to and through its dramatic apex. Obviously not going to be for everyone, but it does make a solid argument for Graham as a composer whose breadth is still revealing itself even after a career filled with landmarks across multiple media.
In some of their shifts between atmospheric patience and churning intensity – not to mention in the production of Sanford Parker – Faces of the Bog remind a bit of fellow Windy City residents Minsk on their DHU Records debut album, Ego Death, but prove ultimately more aggressive in the thrust of “Drifter in the Abyss” and the later stretch of “The Serpent and the Dagger,” on which the guitars of Mark Stephen Gizewski and Trey Wedgeworth (both also vocals) delve into Mastodonic leads near the finish to set up the transition into the 10:33 title-track, which begins with a wash of static noise before Paul Bradfield’s bass sets up the slow nod that holds sway and only grows bigger as it presses forward. That cut is one of two over the 10-minute mark, and the other, closer “Blue Lotus,” unfolds even more gradually and ventures into cleaner vocals presaged on “The Weaver” and elsewhere as it makes its way toward an album-payoff crescendo marked by drummer Danny Garcia’s thudding toms and a low end rumble that’s as much a presence unto itself as a harbinger of progression to come.
