Been a trip so far, has this Quarterly Review. It’s been fun to bounce from one thing to the next, drawing imaginary lines between releases that have nothing more to do with each other than being written up on the same day, and seeing the way the mind reels in adjusting from talking about one thing to the next. It’s a different kind of challenge to write 150-200 words (and often more than that; these reviews are getting too long) about a record than 1,000 words.

Less room to make your argument means you need to say what you want to say how you want to say it and punch out. If you’ve read this site with any regularity over the last however many years, or perhaps if you’re reading this very sentence right now, right here, you might guess that such efficiency isn’t a strong suit. This assessment would be correct. Fact is I suck at any number of things. A growing list.

But we’ve made it to Thursday anyhow and today this 70-record Quarterly Review passes its halfway point, and that’s always a fun thing to mark. If you’ve been digging it, I hope you continue to do so. If nothing’s hit, maybe today. If this is the first you’re seeing of any of it, well, that’s fine too. We’re all friends here. You can go back and dig in or not, as you prefer. I’ll keep going either way. Speaking of…

Quarterly Review #31-40:

The Howling Eye, List Do Borykan

I don’t often say things like this, but List Do Borykan is worth it for the opening jam of “Space Dwellers, Episode 1.” That does not mean that song’s languid flow, silly stoned space-adventure spoken word narrative, and flashes of dub and psych and so on, are all that Poland’s The Howling Eye have to offer on their third full-length. It’s not. The prior single “Medival” (sic) has a thoughtful arrangement led by post-Claypool funky bass and surf-style guitar, which are swapped out for hard-riff cacophony metal in the second half of the song’s 3:35 run. That pairing sets up a back and forth between longer jams and more structured material, but it’s all pretty out there when you hear the seven song/44 minutes of the entire record, as the 10-minute “Brothers” builds from silence to organ-laced classic rock testimony and then draws itself down to let the funkier/rolling (depending on which part you’re talking about) “Space Dwellers, Episode 2” provide a swaying melodic highlight, and “Caverns” drones into jazz minimalism for nine minutes before “Space Dwellers, Episode 3” goes full-on over-the-top 92-second dance party. Finally. That leaves the closer, “Johnny,” as the landing spot where the back and forth jams/songs trades end, and they’re due a jam and provide one, but “Johnny” also follows on theme from “Space Dwellers, Episode 3” and the start of “Medival” and other funk-psych stretches, so summarizes List Do Borykan well. Again, worth it for the first song, but is much more than just that as a listening experience.

The Howling Eye on Facebook

Interstellar Smoke Records store

Galactic Smokehouse store

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Avi C. Engel, Sanguinaria

Toronto-based folk experimentalist, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Avi C. Engel starts off the 10-song Sanguinaria with the first of its headphone-ready arrangements “Sing in Our Chains” assessing modernity and realizing, “We were better off in the trees.” In addition to Engel‘s actual voice, which is well capable of carrying records on its own, with a distinctive character, part soft and breathy in delivery but resilient with a kind of bruised grace and, as time goes on, grown more adventurous. In “Poisonous Fruit” and “The Snake in the Mirror,” folk, soul and organically-cast sprawl unfold, and where “A Silver Thread” brings in electric guitar and lap steel, “Deathless” — the longest cut at 6:33, arriving paired with the subsequent, textural “I Died Again” — is sparse at first but builds around whatever stringed instrument Engel (slow talharpa?) is playing and Paul Kolinski‘s banjo, standout vocal harmonies and a subdued keeping of rhythm. Along with Kolinski, Brad Deschamps adds lap steel to the opener and the more-forward-in-percussion “Extasis Boogie,” which is listed as an interlude but nearly five minutes long, and Lys Guillorn contributes lap steel to “A Silver Thread,” with all due landscape manifestation. Sad, complex, and beautiful, the 52-minute long-player isn’t a minor undertaking on any level, and “Personne” and the penultimate “Bridge Behind the Sun” emphasize the point of intricacy before the looping “Larvae” masterfully crafts its resonance across the last six minutes of the album.

Avi C. Engel on Facebook

Avi C. Engel on Bandcamp

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Suns of the Tundra, The Only Equation

Begun in 1993 as Peach, London heavy prog rockers Suns of the Tundra celebrate 30 years with the encompassing hour-long The Only Equation, their fifth album, which brings back past members of the band, has a few songs with two drummers, and is wildly sprawling across 10 still-accessible tracks that shimmer with purpose and melody. The title-track seems to harken to a ’90s push, but the twisting and volume-surging back half stave redundancy ahead of the patient drama in the 10-minute “The Rot,” which follows. On the other side of the metal-leaning “Run Boy Run,” with its big, open, floating, thudding finish representing something Suns of the Tundra do very well throughout, the three-part cycle of “Reach for the Inbetween” could probably just as easily have been one 15-minute cut, but is more palatable as three, and loses nothing of its fluidity for it, the build in the third piece giving due payoff before “The Window is Wide” caps in deceptively hooky style. Whether one approaches it with the context of their decades or not, The Only Equation is deeply welcoming. And no, its proggy prog progness won’t resonate universally, but nothing does, and that doesn’t matter anyhow. Without giving up who they are creatively, Suns of the Tundra have made it as easy as they can for one to get on board. The rest is on the listener.

Suns of the Tundra on Facebook

Bad Elephant Music on Bandcamp

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Natskygge, Eskapisme

Natskygge sneak a little “Paranoid” into “Delir,” the instrumental opener/longest track (immediate points) of their second album, Eskapisme, and that’s just fine as dogwhistles go. The Danish classic psych rockers made a well-received self-titled debut in 2020 and look to expand on that outing’s classic vibe with this 34-minute eight-tracker, which is rife with creative ambition in the slower “Lys på vej” and the piano-laced “Fjern planet,” which follows, as well as in a mover/shaker like “Titusind år,” the compact three-minute strutter “Frit fald” or what might be the side B leadoff “Feberdrøm” with its circa-1999 Brant Bjork casual groove and warm fuzz, purposefully veering into psychedelia in a way that feels like a preface for the closing duo “Livet brænder,” an organ/keyboard flourish, grounded verse and airy swirls over top leading smoothly into the likewise-peppered but acoustically-based “Den der sidst gik ud,” which conveys patience without giving up the momentum the band has amassed up to that point. I’ll note that my ignorance of the Danish language doesn’t feel like it’s holding me back as “Fjern planet” holds forth its lush melancholy or “Titusind år” signals the band’s affinity for krautrock. Not quite vintage in production, but not too far off, Eskapisme feels like it was made to be lived with, the songs engaged over a period of years, and I look forward to revisiting accordingly.

Natskygge on Facebook

Kozmik Artifactz store

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Last Giant, Monuments

Portland’s Last Giant reportedly had a bit of a time recording their fourth long-player, Monuments, in a months-long process involving multiple studios and a handful of producers, among them Adam Pike (Holy Grove, Young Hunter, Red Fang, Mammoth Salmon, etc.) recording basic tracks, Paul Malinowski (Shiner, Open Hand) mixing and three different rounds of mastering. Complicated. Working as the three-piece of founder, principal songwriter, guitarist and vocalist RFK Heise (ex-System and Station), bassist Palmer Cloud and drummer Matt Wiles — it was just Heise and Wiles on 2020’s Let the End Begin (review here) — the band effectively fill in whatever cracks may have been apparent to them in the finished product, and the 10-track/39-minute offering is pop-informed as all their output to-date has been and loaded with heart. Also a bit of trumpet on “Saviors.” There’s swagger in “Blue” and “Hell on Burnside,” and “Feels Like Water” is about as weighted and brash as I’ve heard Last Giant get — a fun contrast to the acoustic “Lost and Losing,” which closes — but wherever a given track ends up, it is deftly guided there by Heise‘s sure hand. Sounds like it was much easier to make than apparently it was.

Last Giant on Facebook

Last Giant on Bandcamp

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Moonstone, Growth

Growth is either the second or third full-length from Polish heavy psych doomers Moonstone depending on what you count, but by the time you’re about three minutes into the 7:47 of second cut “Bloom” after the gets-loud-at-the-end-anyway atmospheric intro “Harvest” — which establishes an undercurrent of metal that the rest of the six-song/36-minute LP holds even in its quietest parts — ordinal numbering won’t matter anyway. “Bloom” and “Sun” (8:02), which follows, are the longest pieces on Growth, and that in itself speaks to the band stripping back some of their jammier impulses as compared to, say, late 2021’s two-song 12″ 1904 (discussed here), but while the individual tracks may be shorter, they give up nothing as regards largesse of tone or the spaces the band inhabit in the material. Flowing and doomed, “Sun” ends side A and gives over to the extra-bass-punch meditativeness of “Night,” the guitar building in the second half to solo for the payoff, while the six-minutes-each “Lust” and “Emerald” filter Electric Wizard haze and the proggy volume trades of countrymen like Spaceslug, respectively, close with due affirmation of purpose in big tone, big groove, and a noteworthy dark streak that may yet come to the fore of their approach.

Moonstone on Facebook

Interstellar Smoke Records store

Galactic Smokehouse store

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Sonic Demon, Veterans of the Psychic War

It’s not quite the centerpiece, but in terms of the general perspective on the world of the record from which it comes, there’s little arguing with Sonic Demon‘s “F.O.A.D.” as the declarative statement on Veterans of the Psychic War. As with Norway’s Darkthrone, who released an LP titled F.O.A.D. in 2007, Sonic Demon‘s “F.O.A.D.” stands for ‘fuck off and die,’ and that seems to be the central ethic they’re working from. Like most of what surrounds on the Italian duo’s follow-up to 2021’s Vendetta (review here), “F.O.A.D.” is coated in tonal dirt, a nastiness of buzz in line with the stated mentality making songs like swinging opener “Electric Demon” and “Lucifer’s the Light,” which follows, raw even by post-Uncle Acid garage doom standards. There are moments of letup, as in the wah-swirling second half of “The Black Pill,” a bit of psych bookending in “Wolfblood,” or the penultimate (probably thankfully) instrumental “Sexmagick Nights,” but the forward drive in “The Gates” highlights the point of Sonic Demon hand-drilling their riffs into the listener’s skull, and the actually-stoned-sounding groove of closer “To Hell and Back” seems pleased to bask in the filth the album has wrought.

Sonic Demon on Facebook

Sonic Demon on Bandcamp

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From the Ages, II

If you’re taking on From the Ages‘ deceptively-titled first full-length, II — the trio of guitarist Paul Dudziak, bassist Sean Fredrich and drummer David Tucker issued their I EP in 2021, so this is their second release overall — it is perhaps useful to know that the only inclusion with vocals is opener/longest track (immediate points) “Harbinger.” An automatic focal point for that, for its transposed Sleep influence, and for being about four minutes longer than anything else on the album, it draws well together with the five sans-vox cuts that follow, with an exploratory sensibility in its jam that feels like it may be from whence a clearly-plotted song like “Maelstrom” or the lumbering volume trades of “Tenebrous” originate. Full in tone and present in the noisy slog and pre-midpoint drift of “Epoch” as well as Dudziak‘s verses in “Harbinger,” From the Ages seem willful in their intention to try out different ideas, whether that’s the winding woe of “Obsolescence” or the acoustilectric standalone guitar of closer “Providence,” and while that can make the listener less sure of where their development might take them in stylistic terms, that only results in their being more exciting to hear in the now.

From the Ages on Facebook

From the Ages on Bandcamp

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Astral Magic, Cosmic Energy Flow

Not only is Astral Magic‘s Cosmic Energy Flow — released in May of this year — not the first outing from the Finnish space rock outfit led by project founder and spearhead Santtu Laakso in 2023, it’s the eighth. And that doesn’t include the demo short release with a live band. It’s also not the latest Astral Magic about two months after the fact, as Laakso and company have put out two full-lengths since. Unrealistic as this level of productivity is — surely the work of dimensional timeporting — and already-out-of-date as the eight-song/42-minute LP might be, it also brings Laakso into collaboration with the late Nik Turner of Hawkwind, who plays sax on the opening title-track, as well as guitarists Ilya Lipkin of Russia’s The Re-Stoned and Stefan Olesinski (Nuns on Napalm), and vocalists Christina Poupoutsi (The Higher Craft, The Meads of Asphodel, etc.) and Kev Ellis (Dubbal, Heliotrope, etc.), and where one might think so many personnel shifts around Laakso‘s synth-forward basic tracks would result in a disjointed offering, well, anything can happen in space and when you throw open doors in such a way, expectations broaden accordingly. Maybe it’s just one thing on the way to the next, maybe it’s the record with Nik Turner. Either way, Astral Magic move inextricably deeper into the known and unknown cosmos.

Astral Magic on Facebook

Astral Magic on Bandcamp

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Green Inferno, Trace the Veins

Until the solo hits in the second half of “The Barrens,” you almost don’t realize how much space there is in the mix on Green Inferno‘s Trace the Veins. The New Jersey trio like it dank and deathly as they answer the rawness of their 2019 demo with the six Esben Willems-mastered tracks of their first album, porting over “Spellcaster” and “Unearth the Tombs” to rest in the same mud as malevolent plodders like “Carried to the Pit” and the penultimate “Vultures,” which adds higher-register screaming to the already-established low growls — I doubt it’s actually an influence, but I’m reminded of Amorphis circa Elegy — that give the whole outing such an extreme persona if the guitar and bass tones weren’t already taking care of it. The tortured feel there carries into closer “Crown the Virgin” as the three-piece attempt to stomp their own riffs into oblivion along with everything else, and one can only hope they get there. New songs or the two older tracks, doesn’t matter. At any angle you might choose, Green Inferno are slow-churned extreme sludge, death-sludge if you want, fully stoned, drenched in murk, disillusioned, misanthropic. It’s the sound of looking at the world around you and deciding it’s not worth saving. Did I mention stoned? Good.

Green Inferno on Facebook

Green Inferno on Bandcamp

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Last Giant will release their third album, Let the End Begin, on Oct. 2. The band, now a guitar/drum duo with RFK Heise on the former and Matt Wiles the latter, have been talked about sporadically here over the course of their two prior outings, 2015’s Heavy Habitat (discussed here and here) and 2017’s Memory of the World (discussed here), and the new collection continues several threads of style and substance from its predecessors. Comprised of a tidy 10 tracks running 39 minutes, Let the End Begin furthers the punker-grown-up vibe of the earlier records, and songs like “Edge of Town” and the uptempo boogie “Sunset Queen” and “Dead Shore” remind of the songwriting prowess that is the source of so much of their power as a group, but even unto the (gorgeous) artwork which sees a collision between the animal and human worlds and the lyrical themes that don’t shy away from the amorphous-glob-of-fucked-ness that is the current sociopolitical climate, Let the End Begin is a push ahead for Last Giant‘s established processes. Ain’t broken, and so on.

Heise is at the center of the songs in post-Josh Homme fashion. A telltale “oh…” in “Edge of Town” says a lot, though cuts like opener “Kill Your Memory” and “Radio Swell” marry that radio-friendly sensibility to an undertone of pop-punk, and the melodic bursts in the cleverly-titled “Idiology,” the almost-title-track “The End Will Begin” and the starts-quiet-but-don’t-be-fooled closer “Followers” stake a claim to a more individual approach, whatever familiar elements might persist. “Burn the Wall” would seem to have its origins in obvious real-world lunacy, but is nonetheless clean and in control as Heise and Wiles remain throughout.

That in itself is something of an accomplishment — I certainly know every time I try to engage with the “current moment” as they call it, I feel either unspeakable sadness or skin-peeling rage — so hey, way to keep it together, guys. I suppose, then, this is the part of the post where I tell you that politics as they’re presented throughout Let the End Begin don’t come at the expense of songwriting. We’ve done this dance before, and it’s true, but seriously, if you can’t handle a band writing tunes in an honest way about the world around them and the time in which they’re creating, what the fuck are you doing listening to music in the first place?

The only really sad thing about Let the End Begin is that it’s too late. All that “the end is near” shit? Tell it to the wildfires. Tell it to the hurricanes. Tell it to 130 degrees in Death Valley. Tell it to the nazis next door. Tell it to the plague. Tell it to the election about to be stolen. Tell it to Roe. I tend to count World War I as the end of what was up to that point civilization, but a century-plus later, it sure feels like the end of something. I’ve comforted myself in the past with the notion that my generation isn’t so important to live through that kind of history; that does precious little when the word “unprecedented” seems to have become so much a part of the daily lexicon.

Screw it and rock out? Yeah, that’s a way to go. What I take comfort in these days is less abstract. It’s music. I don’t think songs like those brought to bear by Last Giant are looking to change minds, like someone’s gonna go from watching Tucker Carlson to hearing “Dead Shore” and see the errors of their ways, but in an era that makes one feel all the more screwed minute-by-minute, yes, there is something reassuring to be derived from material as crafted as that on Let the End Begin. The album isn’t staid by any means, or monochrome, but you know from the outset that the band are capable of steering their course and they don’t do anything to betray that trust along the way.

Alright. Enough of my blah blah. “Radio Swell” is premiering below. Go listen to it. Find your joy. Maybe it’s there.

PR wire info and preorder link follow.

Enjoy:

The album can be pre-ordered at: https://lastgiantband.com/

Comprised of RFK Heise (System & Station) on vocals/guitar and Matt Wiles on drums, the two deliver a 70s rock sound with progressive embellishments along the way, +obliterating the pretty confines of everyday rock, preferring to not treat rock as a sedentary form. Let the End Begin finds the band bolder, evolving from their 2015 debut Heavy Habitat (a record in which Heise played every instrument) and 2017’s Memory of the World.

Written and recorded in isolation, RFK Heise and Matt Wiles spent months honing and capturing the essence of now as seen through their eyes. Lyrically the album touches on politics, sex, isolation, love, and loss, all a reflection of the times we collectively find ourselves in.

Last Giant on Thee Facebooks

Last Giant on Spotify

Last Giant on Bandcamp

Last Giant website

There was an abiding crispness to Heavy Habitat (review here), the 2015 debut full-length from Portland, Oregon’s Last Giant, who feature in their ranks RFK Heise, formerly of System and Station, and on an initial sampling, the follow-up, Memory of the World, seems to operate in a similar vein. Not gonna complain there. They’ll head out on tour supporting the second long-player shortly after it arrives in April, so they’re continuing to keep busy on that level as well, after running through several West Coast stints for the debut.

Like the first record, Memory of the World will see release through Little One Ate the Big One Records. I’ll hope to have more on it as we get closer to the release, including those tour dates, but for now here’s some background on the album from the PR wire:

New LAST GIANT album out 4/4/17

The new album by Portland, OR’s LAST GIANT titled “Memory of the World” out April 4th, 2017 on Little One Ate the Big One Records.

On the heels of Last Giant’s 2015 debut record Heavy Habitat, a hard-hitting opus chalked full of bone rumbling rock, comes Memory Of The World, an inwardly drawn collection of 11 tracks. The album transcends the nuanced 70’s rock sound with its progressive rock embellishments and Last Giant continues to obliterate the pretty confines of everyday rock in this sophomore release.

Last Giant features former members of System and Station (1998-2013) and moves forward where S&S left off with their bigger then life indie rock sound. “Memory of the World” was co produced and recorded by Larry Crane (Tape Op) in Portland at Jackpot! studios and mixed by Paul Malinowski (The Life and Times, Shiner) at Massive Studios in Kansas City, MO.

Last Giant has an album release on April 8th at the World Famous Kenton Club in Portland, OR followed by a west coast tour April 12th-24th.

www.lastgiantband.com
www.lastgiant.bandcamp.com
www.facebook.com/lastgiant
https://soundcloud.com/last-giant
https://www.youtube.com/c/Lastgiantband1

Last Giant, “Captain My Captain” official video

What are Portland heavy rockers Last Giant doing in their new video for “Harmony?” They’re having a good time, as one might expect from listening to their Feb. 2015 full-length debut, Heavy Habitat (review here). Miniature American flags for drumsticks, flourescent lightbulb for a microphone (also phallus, also sort of guitar), and what looks like a tripod for a bass — it’s all business as usual for Last Giant, who play under a flickering light being visibly switched on and off in front of red white and blues streamers, the clip for “Harmony” having been filmed — on a phone, or so it looks — sometime during their Winter 2015 tour of the West Coast. They’re having fun with it, and so should we. If you take it too seriously, you’ve missed the whole point.

That said, “Harmony” is also a fitting example of Last Giant‘s songwriting, upbeat with an underlying current of punk, but still weighted tonally. Live, they’re the trio of guitarist/vocalist RFK Heise (ex-System and Station), bassist Adam Shultz and drummer Matt Wiles, but on the record — and it’s the studio version of the song you hear in the video, despite some other noise bled in — it was all Heise, recording guitar, bass, drums and vocals on his own with Red Fang producer Adam Pike at Toadhouse Recordings, and while the results are still a party, it’s easy to imagine that next time around, the dynamic in the band will be considerably different since, you know, there’s a band now and everything. Fancy that.

“Harmony” is the third Last Giant premiere (see here and here) I’ve hosted on this site, which might seem like overkill until you take a couple minutes to check out the song itself. Again, not sure where the video was shot — other than to say “America,” which isn’t all that specific but a pretty safe bet given the color scheme — but hope you enjoy anyway:

Last Giant, “Harmony” official video

Last Giant on Thee Facebooks

Last Giant on Bandcamp

Last Giant’s website

Portland, Oregon’s Last Giant released their debut album, Heavy Habitat, on Feb. 24 through Little One Ate the Big One Records. You might recall the song “Captain My Captain” was premiered here in December. Well, as a lousy American once said, “Fuck it — we’ll do it live.” That guy was a dick, and wrong about everything else, but he had it right in terms of the value of raw performance, and Last Giant are heeding that bit of inadvertent and once-viral wisdom, currently embroiled in a 12-date run around the West/Northwest that had them snowed out in Colorado last night, finds them driving to Idaho for tonight and tomorrow, and wrapping with two shows in Oregon this Friday and Saturday.

A not-insubstantial stint, and no doubt effective in getting the three-piece’s point across. That point? That you can kick ass and enjoy doing it. Tracked by Adam Pike at Toadhouse Recordings, Heavy Habitat was a solo-project in the studio for multi-instrumentalist/vocalist RFK Heise, formerly of System and Station, but live, Heise is joined by bassist Adam Shultz and drummer Matt Wiles, and naturally, the dynamic is different. One can see it in the video below of Last Giant on stage at The Trunk Space in Phoenix, Arizona. As they run through “Captain My Captain” live, Wiles‘ swing can’t help but drive the boogie in Heise‘s guitar and Wiles‘ bass, and the track departs from the intricate layering of its studio incarnation to something more basic that speaks to punkier roots than one might’ve initially heard in its crisp studio presentation.

But I guess that’s the whole point of doing it live. Last Giant will be looking to tour more this summer — including a makeup date for Denver that, since it won’t be March, is probably about 30 percent less likely to see snow — so keep an eye out. In the meantime, this clip comes from last Friday, Feb. 27, which I think counts as “fairly recent” by modern standards. Video is followed by the specifics on the remaining dates of the tour:

Last Giant, “Captain My Captain” Live at The Trunk Space, Phoenix, AZ, 02.27.15

Last Giant remaining current tour dates:
3/4 Flipside Lounge- Pocatello, Id
3/5 Crazy Horse- Boise, Id w/ My New Mistress
3/6 Lone Pine Cafe- Baker City, OR w/ guests
3/7 Foggy Notion- Portland, OR w/ Fortune Club + Human

Last Giant on Thee Facebooks

Heavy Habitat on iTunes

There’s a definite good-time vibe running throughout Last Giant‘s Heavy Habitat in songs like “Captain My Captain,” “Jef Leppard” and the swing-happy “Ginger Baker,” and of course there’s bound to be some comparison since the band — a solo-project of RFK Heise (ex-System and Station) in the studio, a trio live — worked with engineer Adam Pike, who also helmed the last Red Fang album, but the truth is there’s much more lurking under the surface of Heavy Habitat than skate-rock grooves and cheap-beer worship. Opener “2’s & 3’s” starts the 10-track release on a melancholy and progressive note closer to Porcupine Tree, and cuts like “Mountain Size” and “Emperor in Reverse” delve into mature-sounding melodies more contemplative than brash.

Ditto that the vocal exploration “Harmony” near the album’s midpoint and the airy, drumless finale “Swim Till We’re Sober… Then We Start Over,” with its pervasive sense of wistfulness and Beatlesian multi-track backing vocals (think “Because”). There are punk roots, and a loyalty to the form and structures of classic rock, but Last Giant doesn’t seem content to settle for one or the other. All the better for Heise, who’s joined in the band on stage by bassist Adam Shultz and drummer Matt Wiles, and who played every instrument on Heavy Habitat. In “Big Dumb Words,” he recalls a ’90s-style openness somewhere between Jane’s Addiction and Blind Melon, and “Night Swimming” (not an R.E.M. cover) swells in its middle third from a quiet beginning into one of the album’s most memorable thrusts, but Heise is no more allied ultimately to one side or another. For an actual band to construct a varied debut full-length is impressive enough. For a solo outing to do the same while sounding like a full band is even more so, and Heise fluidly arranges the songs so that just as “Night Swimming” finishes out all thoughtful and quiet, the more raucous “Ginger Baker” steps in to pick up the momentum.

Pike‘s production gives Heavy Habitat an overarching smoothness that serves to unite the material further, and Heise seems to relish the chance to center the proceedings around songwriting. All told, Last Giant‘s debut is a vinyl-ready 38 minutes that will see release in Feb. 2015 through Little One Ate the Big One Records, and as early notice, I’m fortunate enough to be able to host “Captain My Captain” for streaming. I don’t think any one track could completely sum up everything the record has to offer, but as one of its most upbeat movers and strongest hooks, it makes a fitting introduction anyhow, and the layers of vocals in the chorus and the stylized bass fills give some hint as to the progressive sensibilities underlying what Heise has put together.

Please find “Captain My Captain” — I keep feeling like there’s an “O” missing in that title — on the player below, followed by some background on Last Giant courtesy of the PR wire, and enjoy:

Last Giant (ex-System and Station) Announce Debut Album “Heavy Habitat” Out February 2015 on Little One Ate The Big One Records

Blood, sweat and tears used to mean something, more than just clichéd words. They represented the core attributes of what makes rock special. RFK Heise, a rock veteran, has been crafting music by that standard since long before reality television became a dominant star-making machine. As front man for Portland, Ore. stalwarts SYSTEM AND STATION, he’s built a devoted audience through strong songwriting and an honest attention to craft. In 2014 though, Heise decided to make a daring move: to take on the recording process alone. What resulted was a hard rocking opus titled Heavy Habitat under the moniker LAST GIANT. The album is slated for an early 2015 release with live support from Adam Shultz (bass) and Matt Wiles (drums).

Heise worked on Heavy Habitat while touring in support of the latest SYSTEM AND STATION record, and spent more than seven months honing and demoing the new material. “It’s easy for me to wear two hats,” he says. Although the process of going it alone was scary at times, the upshot was a measure of creative control he felt he needed for his artistic expression. “This record was more personal,” Heise says. “I could just hear every song in full.” Heise’s decision to record solo came from a desire for artistic clarity. Collaborating with SYSTEM AND STATION allowed the members to develop material together, to the overall improvement of the original concept. Not these songs though, he is quick to say. While some of the LAST GIANT songs came from dreams and others were spawned from real life experiences, each is, as Heise describes, “my own soundtrack. A statement of my life at the moment.”

Heise characterizes the recording of Heavy Habitat, in which he played every instrument, as an emotional and energizing process. Even though there was pressure to realize his ambitious vision, he relished his opportunity to bring this record to life. While in the studio, Adam Pike of Toadhouse Recordings (who also worked on Red Fang’s critically acclaimed “Whales & Leeches”) served as engineer, tasked with helping craft its hard rocking sound. The impetus of Heavy Habitat was to craft something hard, straightforward and ultimately satisfying, the germ of which came under the influence of a great deal of ‘70s heavy metal. As Heise puts it, “it’s a serious party record. A hard hitting party record.” The constant in Heise’s projects is the need to create real, honest albums, filled with songs that you like and are willing to stand behind. “The record,” he says, “That sets the standard.”

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