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Last Rizla Premiere “Rebound” Video; New Album Noise Without Decay Out May 12

Posted in Bootleg Theater, Reviews on April 25th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

Last Rizla

Greek sludge rockers Last Rizla release their new album, Noise Without Decay, on May 12 through Venerate Industries. And, well, I’ve heard it, and there’s lots of noise and not much decay, at least in terms of force-of-delivery, as the four-piece of G., C., K. and S. — it’s okay dudes, my name is initials too — craft the follow-up to their 2018 EP Mount Machine (review here), their sound is cast like a cruel shadow over the 40 minutes and nine cuts. Depending on what and when you count, Noise Without Decay is the band’s first long-player since 2009’s self-titled debut, but for a band who’ve shown such a penchant for doling out short offerings and splits, etc., over the intervening 14-plus years, they in no way seem uncomfortable in the form. You’d think they wouldn’t be used to it or something, but no.

The actual level of punishment meted out in a given song might vary, but Last Rizla are almost uniformly aggressive. Even the later “Mushy Peas,” which starts out at a sort of bopping-along-casual groove, shifts into more pointed, angular starts and stops and is topped by the blown-out shouts that populate each piece and give the entirety of Noise Without Decay such a post-hardcore vibe. But true to Freek Greek heavy, the story isn’t so simple as band-plays-style, and even truer to the Hellenic underground, Last Rizla know which rules they want to follow and which they want to break. Bookending opener “B52” and closer “B53” fuse punkish bite with tonal heft, and especially in the instrumental finale, they seem to be going for some nod to the ‘bomb-tone’ ethic of Floor, but even there, they keep a rock production, and the rounded edges of their tone and the methodical execution of “Bloody, Hairy” speak to a root in doom/sludge, no matter the actual tempo at which a song is delivered, be it the rager “No Way Out” answering the near-immediate burst of “B52” or the strident “Hades,” which is the longest track at 6:24 and reminds in its howling guitar offsetting dense tonal chug of Swarm of the Lotus, albeit not as harshly produced.

Which is what I’m trying to get at here. Even as compared to Mount Machine — and granted that was five years ago at this point, or four if you want to go by the fact that these songs were recorded nearly a year ago — the recording here by Iraklis Vlachakis Last Rizla Noise Without Decayallows for some breadth and the creation of an atmosphere of more than aggression or bludgeoning. As consistent as the shouting, hard-riffing and nodding grooves are throughout, Last Rizla circa this maybe-second full-length aren’t just one thing, even when they’re trying to convince you otherwise, and the movement behind their sludge is palpable. They make it rock, sprint, or stand up and bring itself down directly on the listener’s head with little thought to mercy or the manner in which that kind of violence tends to ripple. While even the title speaks to a kind of urgency, the material offers that and grit alike, mining individualism from the swaying build-up of centerpiece “The Debt” ahead of the more sprawling “Hades” and the caustic noise rocker “Classic Marathon,” which is duly stripped-down feeling at 3:47 and answers the earlier insistence of “Rebound” in its midtempo post-’90s nastiness.

Still, for as much as Last Rizla gnash and rip and tear and claw throughout the nine-song stretch, there’s depth to the proceedings — “Bloody, Hairy” drops a lyrical reference to misfortune, reminding that Last Rizla once upon a 2011 were involved in the Miss Fortune was a Henhouse Manager (review here) comp of then-up-and-coming Greek acts like 1000modsSadhus, the Smoking CommunityBad TripYassa and others — and as their scene comes to maturity within some of those other groups and without, Last Rizla provide a balance (a mix by Kowloon Walled City‘s Scott Evans doesn’t hurt there either) between bombast and purpose, and the places they go throughout Noise Without Decay are engaging almost in spite of themselves. If you can hang with pissed off sludge rock, that’s still very much at the foundation, but they show that such designations can be as much a beginning as an end all through the record, and while “B53” ends in done-blown-up noise — think Neurosis consumed by the distortion at the end of “Stones From the Sky”; you can hear it in the video below — even in that last moment, there’s no letup, no decay, no flinching from the purpose they’ve established as their own. The word for that kind of thing is “righteous,” and so they are.

Life is full of surprises and if you had ‘Last Rizla roaring back with a more mature and still-plenty-brash second full-length’ on your 2023 Heavy Underground Bingo card, I salute you, but either way, the pit they dig out in this new batch of songs isn’t to be underestimated, and one might find that the more one listens to Noise Without Decay, the more likely skin is to crawl. Don’t worry though, that’s the whole idea. It’s supposed to make that happen. So let it.

The clip below is the premiere of “Rebound,” and should give you some idea of what the band are going for in terms of general construction/destruction throughout. By all means, please dig in and enjoy:

Last Rizla, “Rebound” video premiere

We recorded Noise Without Decay during May and June 2022 in our studio, Créme Chalet, in Kallithea, Athens, Greece.

This city is ruthless, constant and grey. The weather was and has been swinging between dark and stormy but at times sunny and mostly warm.

Noise Without Decay was recorded by Iraklis Vlachakis, mixed by Scott Evans (Antisleep Audio – also guitarist for Kowloon Walled City) and mastered by Saff Mastering.

Like good sauerkraut, it’s now fermenting and will be released by Venerate Industries this May.

Last Rizla, Noise Without Decay behind-the-scenes video

Last Rizla on Facebook

Last Rizla on Bandcamp

Last Rizla website

Venerate Industries on Facebook

Venerate Industries on Instagram

Venerate Industries on Bandcamp

Venerate Industries store

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The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal Playlist: Episode 97

Posted in Radio on November 11th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

the obelisk show banner

Doing an all-Greek episode was so blindingly obvious that I actually had to check to make sure I hadn’t already done one somewhere in the last four years or so that I’ve been doing The Obelisk Show for Gimme Metal. Like, duh. And the playlist? One of the easiest times I’ve ever had putting one together. So many bands, so many vibes, so much to choose from.

Lotus Emperor’s new record, which was reviewed yesterday, was the impetus for the entire thing, so it seemed only fair to start with that, but I wanted to make sure to include a fair bit of landmark acts — 1000mods, Villagers of Ioannina City, Planet of Zeus, Naxatras, Nightstalker, Puta Volcano — alongside up and comers like Bus, Supermoon, Lotus Emperor, Acid Mammoth, Honeybadger, Half Gramme of Soma, and so on, in order to give some sense of the scope of the Greek underground, which for my money is one of the strongest in the world and an ecosystem of bands and fans unlike any other happening right now in Europe (if you want to expand to the rest of the world, Australia would rival).

Before I turn you over to the playlist, I’ll give the inevitable disclaimer that this represents but a fraction of Greece’s vibrant heavy creative community, and that there’s basically a planet’s worth of bands in Athens alone, never mind anywhere else in the country. I say in one or another of the breaks that I consider Greece at least as strong a scene as Sweden and Germany in terms of everything but broader recognition, and I stand by that. If you hear this show and want to dig further into any of these acts or find others, that’s the ideal.

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 – 11.11.22 (VT = voice track)

Lotus Emperor Petra Syneidesis (2022)
Villagers of Ioannina City Dance of Night Age of Aquarius (2019)
Acid Mammoth Black Dust Caravan (2021)
VT
1000mods Navy in Alice Super Van Vacation (2011)
Half Gramme of Soma Muck & Cheese Slip Through the Cracks (2022)
People of the Black Circle Alchemy of Sorrow People of the Black Circle (2022)
Seer of the Void Lysergus Mons Revenant (2020)
The Same River Weight of the World Weight of the World (2022)
Church of the Sea No One Deserves Odalisque (2022)
Supermoon Mantra Supermoon (2020)
VT
Planet of Zeus All These Happy People Faith in Physics (2019)
Burn the Sun A Fist for Crows Le Roi Soleil (2022)
Naxatras The Battle of Crystal Fields IV (2022)
Honeybadger Laura Palmer Pleasure Delayer (2020)
Nightstalker Sad Side of the City Great Hallucinations (2019)
Bus Moonchild Never Decide (2020)
VT
Puta Volcano Black Box AMMA (2020)
Last Rizla Dive Mount Machine (2018)

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Nov. 25 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.

Gimme Metal website

The Obelisk on Facebook

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Last Rizla Premiere “Dive” Video from Mount Machine EP

Posted in Bootleg Theater on March 19th, 2020 by JJ Koczan

last rizla

It’s only three tracks long, but I still feel like Last Rizla‘s 2018 EP, Mount Machine — still available on 12″ vinyl through Fuzz Ink Records — has enough aggro riffing for a full-length album. Like if you were to take angry riffs per capita, they’d be well over the line. Whatever the line is. I don’t know. Shit is fucked, is what I’m trying to say.

Denizens of the well populated Athenian heavy underground and associates of the likes of Sadhus, The Smoking Community, the initials-only four-piece have been at it in one form or another for well over a decade. Their self-titled debut came out in 2009 and in 2011 they took part in the Miss Fortune was a Henhouse Manager compilation (review here) that I’ve come over time to look at as something of a demarcation of the next generation of Greek heavy as noting its own arrival. A succession of shorter offerings have followed, with Mount Machine as the latest of the bunch, and its three cuts follow a not dissimilar pattern to that of “Dive,” the video for which you can see premiering below. In that they’re riffed, and fucked.

Alright, to be fair, “Battles: Rambo” spaces out a bit in its middle and is a little less decisively noise rock than “Dive,” which opens the release, but whether you’re bludgeoned with a shovel or a hammer, you’re still getting your skull caved in. “Dive” makes an even better choice to feature as a video because its central riff is particularly memorable, though the slower initial rollout of the final slammer the in-Greek title “Chályvas” of which translates to “Steel” carries a bit more atmosphere to go with its building cacophony and suitably maddening screams. Those screams by the way? They’re awesome. I know not everyone gets into harsh vocals, but there’s just something about a killer rasp that I continue to find admirable. Not everyone can do it, and not everyone who can do it can manage to sustain it over a longer term, but it just brings Last Rizla‘s entire approach to a new level of raw punishment.

Glad to premiere the clip for “Dive,” which you can see right here. EP stream is down toward the bottom of the post for your streaming discomfort:

Last Rizla, “Dive” official video premiere

Official video of the happy song Dive from the fantastic album Mount Machine.

Dark tour on Saturday January 18, 2020 on the meat market of Piraeus and Piraeus Academy. A laid back look at the daily struggles of older adults participating in music groups. No volcano or glass building was damaged during filming.

Directed and edited by Nöl.

Everything is Love.
Last Rizla.

Produced by Last Rizla and George Leodis.
Recorded, engineered and mixed by George Leodis at Wreck-It Sound Studios, Corinth, Greece, January 2018.
Assistant engineer Ramon aka Rambo.

Mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege, Portland, USA.

Artwork and layout by Last Rizla.
Handprinted by Fuzz Ink.
fuzzink.com

Last Rizla are G., C., K., S.

Last Rizla, Mount Machine (2018)

Last Rizla on Thee Facebooks

Last Rizla on Bandcamp

Last Rizla website

Fuzz Ink Records on Instagram

Fuzz Ink Records website

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Keep it Low 2020 Adds Samsara Blues Experiment, Yawning Man, Last Rizla, Chang & Mindcrawler

Posted in Whathaveyou on February 20th, 2020 by JJ Koczan

keep it low 2020 banner

Calling it right now: there’s gonna be a new Samsara Blues Experiment album out by the time they get to Munich for the 2020 edition of Keep it Low Festival. Do I know that? Hell no. Not at all. I have no such knowledge, and even if I did — mind you I don’t, at all, really; that’s not me being coy, I actually don’t fucking know — but they’re not a band who just get out and do fests on a whim. Now, I don’t necessarily know if they’ll be on tour for four weeks and hit all the Euro fests happening at that time, whereas I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Yawning Man pop up on other lineups in addition to this one — I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a new record out too, while I’m thinking about it — but it was late-2018 when they said they were getting to work on a follow-up to 2017’s One with the Universe (review here), so it doesn’t at all seem unreasonable to think that record will come to fruition by this Fall.

I don’t know that. But I’m calling it now. If it doesn’t happen, I probably won’t remind you that I said it would. Ha.

Greece’s Last Rizla and Germany’s Chang and Mindcrawler have also signed on to play, and you’ll find the full announcement from the fest below. You’ll note there’s no mention of a new Samsara Blues Experiment album. Nothing: that’s exactly what they would say if it was going to happen.

From thee social medias:

Keepers,

We know that October is quite far away, but we just can’t help it! It’s our pleasure to welcome 5 more killer acts to Keep It Low Festival 2020!

Samsara Blues Experiment (GER)
Yawning Man (US)
Last Rizla (GRE)
Chang (GER)
Mindcrawler (GER)

We hope you like this announcement as much as we do!

2-day tickets are selling fast and there aren’t many left, so don’t sleep on that and get yours here:

Tickets available here:

https://www.sol-tickets.com/produkte/51-tickets-keep-it-low-festival-2020-feierwerk-area-muenchen-am-09-10-2020

https://woolheads.com/product/keep-it-low-festivalticket-weekend-2020

https://www.eventim.de/artist/keep-it-low-festival/

https://www.facebook.com/events/975025036197960/
https://www.facebook.com/keepitlowfestival/
https://www.keepitlow.de/
https://www.soundofliberation.com/

Samsara Blues Experiment, One with the Universe (2017)

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