Posted in Whathaveyou on January 17th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
This past Fall, UK consciousness-smashers Conan took to the streets of Continental Europe in the company of futureprog-thrashers Lord Dying. Neat bill. For their upcoming US run, they’ll be out with Psychic Trash, the duo who until last year were known as Wizard Rifle, which is a similar kind of set up if you think about it as follows: A band gets on stage and does a lot. Conan get on next and crush everything.
It’s an interesting play with dynamic there, right? Lord Dying are more severe and far more metal, but both they and Psychic Trash are a counterpoint to Conan‘s own style, which while it has grown, refined, tried new things, etc., still readily bills itself as ‘Caveman Battle Doom.’ This tour will touch both coasts and points between, hitting not quite the four corners of the US, but pretty close. I wonder where Conan actually haven’t been yet, aside from Mars or some such. Limited to this planet.
If you missed word from the band early last month, they announced that Fudge Tunnel‘s David Riley has taken over on bass for Chris Fielding, who will continue in his role as producer, to both the betterment and devastation of all mankind. Pretty sure that’s the latest. At least until this tour, that is. Conan will be out in the UK before this one happens as well.
From socials:
***US TOUR 2024 ANNOUNCEMENT*** We are beyond excited to return to the USA with @psychictrash in March. Ticket links are over on our Linktree (www.linktr.ee/hailconan) dates are below. See you in the pit. Art by @apesofdoom
3/29 Boise, ID – Neurolux 3/30 Salt Lake City, UT – Aces High 3/31 Denver, CO – Skylark Lounge 4/1 Lincoln, NE – Cosmic Eye 4/2 Chicago, IL – Reggies 4/3 Youngstown, OH – West Side Bowl 4/4 Philadelphia, PA – Kung Fu Necktie 4/5 Brooklyn, NY – Saint Vitus Bar 4/6 Washington DC – Atlas Brew Works 4/7 Raleigh, NC – Pour House 4/8 Atlanta, GA – The Earl 4/9 New Orleans, LA – Santos 4/10 Austin, TX – Lost Well 4/12 Albuquerque, NM – Sister Bar 4/13 Phoenix, AZ – Rebel Lounge 4/14 Los Angeles, CA – The Echo 4/15 Oakland, CA – Stork Club 4/16 Sacramento, CA – Café Colonial 4/17 Eugene, OR – John Henry’s 4/18 Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios 4/19 Seattle, WA – Clock-Out Lounge
CONAN is: Jon Davis – Guitar, Vocals David Riley – Bass Johnny King – Drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 6th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Founding Conan guitarist and vocalist Jon Davis has made absolutely zero secret of his love for Fudge Tunnel. Over the years, on social media and in interviews he’s heralded the undervalued noise metallers who called it quits in 1995 and whose 1991 debut, Hate Songs in E Minor, remains a landmark. In August, when Conan announced they’d be undertaking a series of 7″ singles, one of the songs included in the first was a Fudge Tunnel cover, and David Riley — Conan‘s new permanent bassist as per an announcement today — has played alongside Davis in his Ungraven project as well, so his joining Conan seems like a natural extension.
Nonetheless, it’s a significant change in the band, whose low end has been on utter lockdown since 2014 thanks to Chris Fielding. Also one of the UK underground’s foremost producer/engineers, Fielding wasn’t Conan‘s first bassist, but he brought a presence and aggression to the stage that set well alongside Davis‘ own, his low growls and Davis‘ higher shouting style developing a dynamic between them that I doubt anyone could’ve guessed Conan would’ve featured when they started out and that made them a richer band. Conan has said that Fielding will continue to act as their producer, as he recorded them before he joined as well, and while they’re not far removed from 2022’s Evidence of Immortality (review here), an even partially new lineup inevitably leads to questions of new studio work. I’ll be interested to hear that, of course, as well as to see what Riley brings to the three-piece on stage with Davis and drummer Johnny King.
Those questions can I guess just kind of hang out for a bit, since Conan kept the announcement short and sweet in welcoming Riley to the band. Here’s what they had to say and a video they put on Instagram to mark the occasion:
*NEW BASSIST ANNOUNCED* Those of you who know how much of an influence Fudge Tunnel have been on us, will no doubt know how exciting it is to be able to be able to announce our new bass player. David has played and toured with us several times since 2018, it gives us great pleasure to have him join us formally. @fudge_tunnel @ryley.barr #heavymetal #cavemanbattledoom #riffs #fudgetunnel thanks to @alterystudios for the graphics
CONAN is: Jon Davis – Guitar, Vocals David Riley – Bass Johnny King – Drums
Posted in Bootleg Theater on November 3rd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
First of all, you bill anything in rock and roll as ‘the last’ and you’re setting yourself up for jokes later. “Now and Then,” the new four-minute single by The Beatles, was announced a while ago and much-ballyhooed with stories about how it used artificial intelligence, which quickly became the narrative of a digital John Lennon harmonizing with Paul McCartney and a robot writing the next version of “Love Me Do” or whatnot. What the AI did was pull Lennon‘s vocals off the original piano line from the demo of the song he recorded in 1979/1980 — the famous “For Paul” tape that Yoko Ono gave McCartney when they were doing The Beatles Anthology in the ’90s; what a time to be alive that was — but you can hear parts where gaps have been filled in in the early verse line “…And if I make it through, it’s all because of you,” in that quiet beginning of piano, acoustic guitar, drums that recall the gentler love songs on A Hard Day’s Night — thinking “If I Fell” — but that suits the melancholy, contemplative, very modern-pop ‘moment’ happening in that verse.
Is it The Beatles — John Lennon (R.I.P. 1980), Paul McCartney, George Harrison (R.I.P. 2001) and Ringo Starr — getting a gritty reboot from producer Giles Martin, who is of course the son of George Martin, who helmed so much of the band’s studio work during their unparalleled legendary run from 1962-1970? If so, it wouldn’t be the first one. In addition to the oft-memed volume raising on sundry new remasters of their work, and the aforementioned The Beatles Anthology digging out alternate studio versions of their material and presenting the first new Beatles songs since Let it Be in “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love,” the removal of static alone from the Live at the BBC releases, then you get to the surround sound, the new mixes, the alternate mixes, the instrumental versions, the isolated bass tracks, on and on and on. The Beatles‘ music has been pulled, pushed, screwed and unscrewed and manipulated every which way for at least the last 40 years. They don’t seem to mind.
The Lennon-on-piano-in-his-living-room demos on which “Now and Then,” as well as “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love,” were based have been officially released, but they too, as well as the session material that produced what was then also called “the last Beatles songs” has been bootlegged. Lennon takes the lead vocal in the verse, but that’s grace on the part of McCartney. If you ever compared the Anthology versions of those songs with the original bootlegs, there’s an awful lot of the Beatles story that became the Paul story in the 1990s and that narrative has persisted as decades have passed since Lennon‘s murder and Harrison‘s passing from cancer in 2001. I cried when he died. I cried the first time I listened to “Now and Then” last night. I cry at the drop of a hat these days. But the point is McCartney is the CEO of The Beatles, and whatever’s happening under their banner is happening under his watch. It’s pretty clear at least he’s thinking of this as his last go.
You can hear it in how crammed the arrangement of “Now and Then” becomes. Everybody sings. Never mind how on earth it’s remotely possible, it’s happened and it exists. Four-plus decades of recording processes and likely millions of actual dollars went into making it happen. It was done with cutting edge science. It is very likely the final time new Beatles music will be issued to the public during Paul McCartney‘s lifetime, and he knows it. Death as the fifth Beatle. So it’s all-out. Big chorus, layers of voices (some watery effect there) and strings coming in to tick the “Eleanor Rigby” box — they’ll be back — and an unmistakable Beatlesness to its underlying bounce that’s been audible in the work of others for the last 60 years. A flash of sitar in the next verse — subtle, because they’ve gone to that well a lot and it feels a bit obligatory at this point — and some tambourine as they move to the next hook, classy with Ringo on the ride and the rising background vocals giving over to the solo, very George Harrison.
And right about at 2:48 is where it feels like it should start to wind down, but it doesn’t because this is “Now and Then” and they’re gonna cover all eras. They had the early days in the song’s start, moving through Revolver and the mid-’60s in the chorus, and so the big ending is, of course, constructed in the spirit of The Beatles‘ later work. Another solo starts at 2:49, plotted, melodic, classy, soon joined by the background vocals and a shift back to the verse; little flourishes of strings feel current but fit just fine — one has to acknowledge the now, I get it — and then an instrumental comedown finish of the sort that might’ve wrapped a tune on Help! in 1964, which is cute and feels kind of like a Beatles reference.
There are a lot of Beatles references being made here — the song also feels like it’s The Beatles talking about The Beatles, which is maybe inevitable — and that’s fine if you’re one of those people who think the band wrote their songs specifically so that you could apply them to your own life (in other words, even the most casual of Beatles fans), and thinking of the generation who was there when the band first happened, I’d imagine it’s pretty special for someone who remembers watching Ed Sullivan. It’s pretty special for me, who chased down silver-back-disc CD bootlegs in the early 1990s as a pubescent goober and remembers watching the “Free as a Bird” video like 700 times on MTV — you know what? I’m gonna go watch it now; I’ll be right back — but the song feels inflated going back to the verse and with that extra four measures of soloing in a way that, if it was then and not now, it probably wouldn’t be by the time it came out.
Oh no there’s new Beatles and it’s too long for the guy into doom metal? Do you think the band will be able to survive the hit? Yes, but I’ll be curious to see if they’ll knock Taylor Swift off the charts. I do like the song, for whatever that’s worth. And in time I’ll love it. It’s sweet in a way not much dares to be in broader popular culture, and while I think the cover art could possibly be more elaborate, at least it’s not cartoon boobs. This band’s music changed my life, and last night I got to sit with my daughter on my lap and listen to it with her for the first time and if I’d had an aneurism and keeled over five minutes later I’d have died a satisfied human being for that.
Do I really think it’s the last? Never say never. Some lost tape, some creative great-grandchildren 70 years from now. Holograms and better programming. Maybe cynical, but it doesn’t seem impossible or even entirely unlikely to me that new Beatles music would be made or released after all the members of the band have died. AI can already write you Beatles songs. And even if it wasn’t arranged by robots, “Now and Then”‘s self-referential penchant recalls other new-generation relaunches from various media properties with similarly-positioned standout recognizable elements. “It’s not just a tambourine, it’s a Beatles tambourine,” and so on. But no question “Now and Then” is a landmark by the simple fact of its existence, and I’m glad to have been on the planet when it happened along.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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Much of this week would turn out to be defined by the moment on Tuesday when, coming back from the Littleton School Halloween parade — The Pecan was a purple octopus; I had nothing to do with it, but her grandmother made her costume and it was spectacular — the dog got out. I was carrying two armloads of crap in from the car, as ever, and wife and child were already in the house. I called to The Patient Mrs. to call Tilly to get her in as she stood on the porch, looking at me and realizing the freedom she now had because I was stuck standing there with two armloads of crap and no leash, but the bathroom door closed and that was my answer. She didn’t hear. The Pecan, off somewhere else doing her thing.
What a mess. The dog, of course, sprints off the porch and onto the lawn. We live one house away from a four-lane road; this is not a place you want a young dog to be off-leash. I give chase and she darts for the street. I look, a silver SUV coming around the corner, timing just right. I damn near had a heart attack thinking about having to go inside and tell my daughter her dog just got run over. Yelling with my arms up I stop the car as Tilly jukes to the right, cuts the corner on the neighbor’s driveway and goes diagonal across their yard. For a quick second she’s actually heading toward our house but from behind her running I have no way to direct her there. And she won’t stop. Tilly come. Tilly stop. Tilly wait. All of these things we need to work on, apparently. Lesson learned.
She straightened out her path, then looped around to the neighbor’s back yard. They have two young kids and two dachshunds, so I expect they’re probably used to weird shit at least on some level, but I do hope someone happened to be looking out a window at just the right time to see me sprint onto their property and tackle my now-seven-pound shih-tzu/bichon frisee mix, because I can only think it would’ve bean a wonder to behold. In a humbling reminder that I’m in my 40s, I was out of breath for like an hour afterward, and I’d say it was the better part of three before my nerves had really settled. I didn’t hit the dog. She definitely got a stern-ass talking to, though. And I grabbed her muzzle, which is kind of our go-to correction, to let her know she messed up. We’re also working on “stay back” when the door is open. She’s amenable to these things, which helps.
And she sits with me on the couch in the mornings when I’m up, like today, now. She’s a good little dog, she’s just still very much a puppy. So I got her, but that’s not the end of the story, because the next morning I realized my car key was missing. And I didn’t find it all day in the house, and with the pants I was wearing when I chased the dog, I knew, just knew, that my key had fallen out of my pocket in the yard somewhere and that it was gone, gone, gone. We looked the entire day, just about everywhere I’ve ever put a key and in places like the bathroom where I very much do not put my key, which is just the clicker on a keychain and a key to the storage unit where my CD collection mostly lives. No car was going to make yesterday difficult.
Wednesday night, The Patient Mrs. reserved a metal detector from our local library. I was like, “You gotta be fucking kidding me.” I didn’t know this, but apparently I carry a strong bias against metal detectors. I don’t know if I had some negative experience with one as a child but in my head they’re absolute bullshit universally. Nonetheless, I love and trust my wife and so I went to the library yesterday morning, got this metal detector and with The Pecan after a half-day of school yesterday searched the neighbor’s yard for my car key, beep, beep, beep, boop all the while. Nothing. I looked on the route I took and in back where I finally rolled her over on the ground, and no dice. We went back in the house.
The Patient Mrs. came home from work about 15 minutes later, put the thing back together, went outside, started a grid search pattern with the admirable confidence of an Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher, and found the key within 15 minutes of beginning. The moral of the story, obviously, is that I am married to a goddess, and if I spend the rest of however many days I’ll walk this wretched decaying earth worshiping at her altar I’ll be lucky to do it.
Pretty god damn astonishing, and it turned the entire week around after a current of stress had settled over about 40 hours of it or so. Today we’re taking The Pecan out of school to go see the Statue of Liberty, which she wanted to do for her birthday and we were like ‘uh okay sure.’ Tickets to go up and all that. So I look forward to I believe 167 stairs in my near future. Will be wearing light pants. Whatever you’re up to, I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Next week is packed, so sit tight. Have fun, hydrate, watch your head. If you need me over the weekend, I’ll be writing at least for part of it.
Posted in Reviews on October 2nd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
It’s been quite a morning. Got up at five, went back to sleep until six, took the dog out, lazily poured myself a coffee — the smell is like wood bark and bitter mud, so yes, the dark roast — and got down to set up this Quarterly Review. Not rushed, not at all overwhelmed by press releases about new albums or the fact that I’ve got 50 records I’m writing about this week, or any of it. Didn’t last, that stress-free sit-down — one of the hazards of being perfectly willing to be distracted at a moment’s notice is that that might happen — but it was nice while it did. And hey, the Quarterly Review is set up and ready to roll with 50 records between now and Friday. Let’s do that.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
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Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, Slaughter on First Avenue
Recorded over two nights at First Avenue in Minneapolis sandwiching the pandemic in 2019 and 2022, Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats‘ 14-song/85-minute live album, Slaughter on First Avenue, is about as clean as you’re ever likely to hear the band sound. And the Rise Above-issued 2LP spans the garage doom innovators’ career, from “Dead Eyes of London” from 2010’s Vol. 1 (reissue review here) to “I See Through You” from 2018’s Wasteland (review here), with all the “Death’s Door” and “Thirteen Candles” and “Desert Ceremony” and “I’ll Cut You Down” you can handle, the addled and murderous bringers of melody and fuzz clear-eyed and methodical, professional, in their delivery. It sounds worked on, like, in the studio, the way oldschool live albums might’ve been. I don’t know that it was, don’t have a problem with that if it was, just noting that the sheer sound here is fantastic, whether it’s the separation between the two guitars and keys and each other, the distinction of the vocals, or the way even the snare drum seems to hit in kind with the vintage aspects of Uncle Acid‘s general production style. They clearly enjoy the crowd response to the older tunes like “I’ll Cut You Down” and “Death’s Door,” and well they should. Slaughter on First Avenue isn’t a new full-length, though they say one will eventually happen, but it’s a representation of their material in a new way for listeners, cleaner than their last two studio records, and a ceremony (or two) worth preserving.
Swedish retro soul rock forerunners Graveyard are on their way to being legends if they aren’t legends yet. Headliners at the absolute least, and the influence they had in the heavy ’10s on classic heavy as a style and boogie rock in particular can’t be discounted. Comprised of nine cuts, 6 is Graveyard‘s first offering of this decade, following behind 2018’s Peace (review here), and it continues their dual-trajectory in pairing together the slow, troubled-love woes emotionality of “Breathe In, Breathe Out,” “Sad Song” on which guitarist Joakim Nilsson relinquishes lead vocals, the early going of “Bright Lights,” and opener “Godnatt” — Swedish for “good night,” which the band tried to say in 2016 but it didn’t stick — setting up turns to shove in “Twice” and “Just a Drop” while “I Follow You,” closer “Rampant Fields” or the highlight “Just a Drop” finding some territory between the two ends. The bottom line here is it’s not the record I was hoping Graveyard would make, leaning slow and morose whereas when you could break out a groove like “Just a Drop” seemingly at will, why wouldn’t you? But that I even had those hopes tells you the caliber band they are, and whatever the tracks actually do, there’s no questioning them as songwriters. But the world could use some good times swagger, if only a half-hour of escapism, and Graveyard are perhaps too sincere to deliver. Fair enough.
The thing about Hexvessel that has been revealed over time is that each record is its own context. Grown out from the black metal history of UK-born/Helsinki-residing songwriter Mat “Kvohst” McNerney, the band returns to that fertile ground somewhat on the eight-song Polar Veil, applying veteran confidence to post-blackened genre transgressions. Songs like “A Cabin in Montana” and “Older Than the Gods” have some less-warlike Primordial vibes between the epic melodies and tremolo echoes, but in both the speedy intensity of “Eternal Meadow” and the later ethereally-doomed gruel of “Ring,” Hexvessel are distinctly themselves doing this thing. That is, they’re not changing who they are to suit the style they want to play — even the per-song stylistic shifts of 2016’s When We Are Death (review here) were their own, so that’s not necessarily new — but a departure from the dark progressive folk of 2020’s Kindred as McNerney, bassist Ville Hakonen, drummer Jukka Rämänen and pianist/keyboardist Kimmo Helén (also strings) welcome a curated-seeming selection of a few guest appearances spread across the release, always keeping mindful of ambience and mood however raging the tempest around them might be.
Bookended by its two longest songs in “Drink Some More” (8:44) and closer “Letter Full of Wine” (9:17), Munich-based troupe Godsground offer seven songs with their 47-minute third long-player, working quickly to bask in post-Alice in Chains melodies surrounded by a warmth of tone that could just as easily be derived from hometown heroes in Colour Haze as the likes of Sungrazer or anyone else, but there’s more happening in the sound than just that. The melodies reach out and the songs develop on paths so that “Balance” is a straight-up desert rocker where seven-minute centerpiece “Into the Butter” sounds readier to get weird. They are well at home in longer forms, flashing a bit of metal in teh later solo of the penultimate “Non Reflecting Mirror,” but the overarching focus on vocal melody grounds the material in its lyrics, and that helps stabilize some of the more out-there aspects. With the roller fuzz of “A Game of Light” and side B’s flow-into-push “Flood” finding space between all-out go and the longer songs’ willingness to dwell in parts, Godsground emerge from the collection with a varied style around a genre center that’s maybe delighted not to pick a side when it comes to playing toward this or that niche. There’s some undercurrent of doom — though I’ll admit the artwork had me looking for it — but Godsground are more coherent than bewildered, and their material unfolds with intent to immerse rather than commiserate.
Ambition abounds on Sleep Maps‘ Reclaim Chaos, as the once-NYC-based duo of multi-instrumentalist Ben Kaplan and vocalist David Kegg — finds somebody that writes you riffs like “Second Generation” and scream your ass off for them — bring textures of progressive metal, death metal, metal metal to the proceedings with their established post-whathaveyou modus. Would it be a surprise if I said it made them a less predictable band? I hope not. With attention to detail bolstered my a mix from Matt Bayles (Isis, Sandrider, etc.), the open spaces of “The Good Engineer” resonate in their layered vocals and drone, while “You Want What I Cannot Give” pummels, “In the Sun, In the Moon” brings the wash forward and capper “Kill the World” is duly still in conveying an apparent aftermath rather than the actual slaughter of the planet, which of course happened over a longer timeframe. All of this, and a good deal more, make Reclaim Chaos a heady feast — and that’s before you get to the ’00-era electronica of “Double Blind” — but in their reclamation, Sleep Maps execute with care and make a point about the malleability of style as much as about their own progression, though it seems to be the latter fueling them. Self-motivated, willful artistic progression is not often so starkly recognizable.
A reminder of the glories amid the horrors of our age: Dread Spire‘s Endless Empire — am I the only one who finds it a little awkward when band and release names rhyme? — probably wouldn’t exist without the democratization of recording processes that’s happened over the last 15-20 years. It’s a demo, essentially, from the bass/drum — that’s Richie Rehal and Erol Kavvas — Cali-set instrumentalist two-piece, and with about 13 minutes of sans BS riffing, they make a case via a linear procession of crunch riffing and uptempo, semi-metal precision. The narrative — blessings and peace upon it — holds that they got together during the pandemic, and the raw form and clearly-manifest catharsis in the material is all the backing they need. More barebones than complex, this first offering wants nothing for audio fidelity and gives Rehal and Kavvas a beginning from which to build in any and all directions they might choose. The joy of collaboration and the need to find an expressive outlet are the best motivations one could ask, and that’s very obviously what’s at work here.
A roiling post-metallic churn abides the slow tempos of “Torch Bearer” at the outset of Mairu‘s debut full-length, Sol Cultus, and it is but one ingredient of the Liverpool-based outfit’s atmospheric plunge. Across eight tracks and 49 minutes, the double-guitar four-piece of Alan Caulton and Ant Hurlock (both guitar/vocals), Dan Hunt (bass/vocals) and Ben Davis (drums/synth) — working apparently pretty closely over a period of apparently four years with Tom Dring, who produced, engineered, mixed, mastered and contributed saxophone, ebow, piano and additional synth — remind in their spaciousness of that time Red Sparowes taught the world, instrumentally, to sing. But with harsh and melodic vocals mixed, bouts of thrashier riffing dealt with prejudice, and the barely-there ambience of “Inter Alia” and “Per Alia” to persuade the listener toward headphones, the very-sludged finish of “Wild Darkened Eyes” and the 10-minute sprawl of “Rite of Embers” lumbering to its distorted gut-clench of a crescendo chug ahead of the album’s comedown finish, there’s depth and personality to the material even as Mairu look outside of verse/chorus confines to make their statement. Their second outing behind a 2019 EP, and again, apparently in the works on some level since then, it’s explorational, but less in the sense of the band figuring out who they want to be than as a stylistic tenet they’ve internalized as their own.
At first in “Hope Shines in the Autumn Light,” Brazilian instrumentalist heavy post-rockers Throe remind of nothing so much as the robots-with-feelings mechanized-but-resonant plod of Justin K. Broadrick‘s Jesu, but as the 14-minute leadoff from the apparently-mostly-solo-project’s three-song EP, O Enterro das Marés (one assumes the title is some derivation of being ‘buried at sea’), plays through, it shifts into a more massive galaxial nod and then shortly before the nine-minute mark to a stretch of hypnotic beat-less melody before resolving itself somewhere in the middle. This three-part structure gives over to the Godfleshier “Bleed Alike” (6:33), which nods accordingly until unveiling its caustic end about 30 seconds before the song is done, and “Renascente” (7:59), in which keys/synth and wistful guitar lead a single linear build together as the band gradually and with admirable patience move from their initial drone to the introduction of the ‘drums’ and through the layers of melody that emerge and are more the point of the thing itself than the actual swell of volume taking place at the same time. When it opens at about five minutes in, “Renascente” is legitimately beautiful, an echoing waterfall of tonality that seems to dance to the gravity pulling it down. The guitar is last to go, which tells you something about how the songs are written, but with three songs and three different intentions, Throe make a varied statement uniform most of all in how complete each piece of it feels.
Well guess what? They called the first track “Punkstarter,” and so it is. Starts off the album with a bit of punk. Blind River‘s third LP, Bones for the Skeleton Thief corrals 10 tracks from the UK traditionalist heavy rock outfit, who even on the likewise insistent “Primal Urges” maintain some sense of control. Vocalist Harry Armstrong (ex-Hangnail, now also bassist of Orange Goblin) belts out “Second Hand Soul” like he’s giving John Garcia a run for his pounds sterling, and is still able to rein it in enough to not seem out of place on the more subdued verses of “Skeleton Thief,” while the boogie of “Unwind” is its own party. Wherever they go, be it the barroom punkabilly of “Snake Oil” or the Southern-tinged twang of closer “Bad God,” the five-piece — Armstrong, guitarist Chris Charles and Dan Edwards, bassist William Hughes and drummer Mark Sharpless — hold to a central ethic of straight-ahead drive, and where clearly the intended message is that Blind River know what the fuck they’re doing and that if you end up at a show you might get your ass handed to you, turns out that’s exactly the message received. Showed up, kicked ass, done in under 40 minutes. If that’s not a high enough standard for you in a band recording live, that’s not Blind River‘s fault.
Rifftree of life. Rifftree‘s fuzz is so righteously dense, I want to get seeds from it — because let’s face it, riffs are deciduous and hibernate in winter — and plant a forest in my backyard. The band formed half a decade ago and Noise Worship is the bass-and-drums duo’s second EP, but whatever. In six songs and 26 minutes, they work hard on living up to the title they gave the release, and their schooling in the genre is obvious in Sleepery of “Amplifier Pyramid” or the low-rumbling sludge of “Brown Flower,” the subsequent “Farewell” growing like fungus out of its quieter start and “Brakeless” not needing them because it was slow enough anyhow. “Fuzzed” — another standard met — ups the pace and complements with spacey grunge mumbles and harshes out later, and that gives the three-minute titular closer “Noise Worship” all the lead-in it needs for its showcase of feedback and amplifier noise. Look. If you’re thinking it’s gonna be some stylistic revolution in the making, look at the friggin’ cover. Listen to the songs. This isn’t innovation, it’s celebration, and Rifftree‘s complete lack of pretense is what makes Noise Worship the utter fucking joy that it is. Stoner. Rock. Stick that in your microgenre rolodex.
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 28th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Conan have made known their intention to issue a series of an untold number of limited 7″ singles over the next however many months. Yeah, details are pretty light, but it caught my eye because, well, in part because the Algorithm puts every social media post the band makes in front of my face because I usually respond to them (Jon Davis‘s got covid; get well soon, mate), but also because the included DIY hashtags would seem to indicate they’re not coming out through Napalm Records.
The UK-based obliterators put out five releases through Napalm, including one live album and last year’s Evidence of Immortality (review here), with its foray into atmospheric complexity complementing all their signature plunder. Now. I don’t know that theirs was or wasn’t a five-album deal. I don’t know that Conan‘s next album won’t come with a Napalm logo on the back. I don’t know anything. I don’t even know whether these singles will be out through Davis‘ Black Bow Records, or just punk-style, no label at all.
But I know they’re covering undervalued crunch rockers Fudge Tunnel on the first one — because it says it, right down there — and I know that Conan are slated to appear at Desertfest New York next month ahead of starting a previously announced European tour in October with Lord Dying, so that’s not nothing. As to the timing on these tracks, I’ve no idea, but with bassist Chris Fielding handling the recording as ever, the process feels pretty streamlined.
Here’s their post:
7” COLLECTOR SERIES…… We are launching a series of 7” singles. Our first, featuring both new & original material and also a cover of Hate Song by @fudge_tunnel is currently being mixed and mastered by @chrisfielding_musicproduction – and will be made available for pre order soon. These will be available through our bandcamp, so keep an eye open for news in the coming days. #cavemanbattledoom #diyrelease #diyordie #fudgetunnel
CONAN European tour w/ LORD DYING 11/10/2023 CZ Brno Fleda 12/10/2023 AT Linz Kapu 13/10/2023 CH Düdingen Bad Bonn 14/10/2023 CH Martigny Les Caves du Manoir 15/10/2023 IT Bologna Freakout Club 16/10/2023 SL Ljubljana Orto Bar 17/10/2023 HU Budapest Dürer Kert 18/10/2023 AT Vienna Arena 19/10/2023 PL Poznan Pod Minoga 20/10/2023 DE Dresden Chemiefabrik 21/10/2023 DK Copenhagen Råhuset (Only Lord Dying) 22/10/2023 NO Oslo Revolver 23/10/2023 SW Gothenburg The Abyss 25/10/2023 DE Hamburg Bahnhof Pauli 26/10/2023 DE Berlin Reset 27/10/2023 DE Hannover Cafe Glocksee 28/10/2023 NL Maastricht Samhain Festival 29/10/2023 BE Ghent Chinastraat 30/10/2023 DE Leipzig UT Connewitz 31/10/2023 DE Wiesbaden Schlachthof 01/11/2023 FR Dijon Les Tanneries 02/11/2023 SP Barcelona Salamandra 03/11/2023 SP Vitoria Jimmy Jazz 04/11/2023 FR Toulouse Connexion Live 05/11/2023 FR Colmar Le Grillen 06/11/2023 DE Munich Feierwerk
CONAN is: Jon Davis – Guitar, Vocals Chris Fielding – Bass Johnny King – Drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 7th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Conan have signed with Swamp Booking for Euro representation, and how better to consummate the beginning of such a relationship than to announce a full round of European touring? Very good then. The UK allcrushers will head out starting Oct. 11 in the company of Portland, Oregon’s Lord Dying, who return to Europe for the first time since 2019 (of course). Their live lineup at the time was as listed below. I hope that if that’s no longer accurate, someone will fill me in. I did my best to find an updated one and couldn’t. I’m trying, you know.
They’ll be a fitting complement to Conan, whose 2022 LP, Evidence of Immortality (review here), found them growing more atmospheric with the inclusion of synth much as Lord Dying‘s 2019 outing, Mysterium Tremendum (review here), saw them building a bridge between their monstrous sludge and more progressive, angular metallurgy. Gonna be some killer shows here, I guess is the point. I hear that’s a thing people like.
Also can’t help but notice Lord Dying heading out for nearly a month on the road four years after their last record. If they’re giving Mysterium Tremendum its due, well, fair enough. The other possibility is they’ve got another release on the way that hasn’t been announced yet. If that’s so, I’d expect word sooner than later, since we’re already starting to see releases unveiled for October and after that things start to slow down toward the end of the year. Of course, records can happen anytime — right… now! — and my usual disclaimer that I know absolutely nothing definitely applies. Just saying it’s possible.
From Swamp Booking‘s socials:
Conan and Lord Dying will team up for 4 weeks around Europe to present their new albums.
CONAN have toured Worldwide to deliver heavy riffs . After returning to the USA in spring 23, they will finally tour Europe this fall to present their 6 th album EVIDENCE OF IMMORTALITY.
LORD DYING from the USA to grim and to crush your venues with heaviness and relentless, fuzz filled riffage.
11/10/2023 CZ Brno Fleda 12/10/2023 AT Linz Kapu 13/10/2023 CH Düdingen Bad Bonn 14/10/2023 CH Martigny Les Caves du Manoir 15/10/2023 IT Bologna Freakout Club 16/10/2023 SL Ljubljana Orto Bar 17/10/2023 HU Budapest Dürer Kert 18/10/2023 AT Vienna Arena 19/10/2023 PL Poznan Pod Minoga 20/10/2023 DE Dresden Chemiefabrik 21/10/2023 DK Copenhagen Råhuset (Only Lord Dying) 22/10/2023 NO Oslo Revolver 23/10/2023 SW Gothenburg The Abyss 25/10/2023 DE Hamburg Bahnhof Pauli 26/10/2023 DE Berlin Reset 27/10/2023 DE Hannover Cafe Glocksee 28/10/2023 NL Maastricht Samhain Festival 29/10/2023 BE Ghent Chinastraat 30/10/2023 DE Leipzig UT Connewitz 31/10/2023 DE Wiesbaden Schlachthof 01/11/2023 FR Dijon Les Tanneries 02/11/2023 SP Barcelona Salamandra 03/11/2023 SP Vitoria Jimmy Jazz 04/11/2023 FR Toulouse Connexion Live 05/11/2023 FR Colmar Le Grillen 06/11/2023 DE Munich Feierwerk
CONAN is: Jon Davis – Guitar, Vocals Chris Fielding – Bass Johnny King – Drums
LORD DYING: Chris Evans – Guitar Erik Olson – Guitar, Vocals Alyssa Maucere – Bass Kevin Swartz – Drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 1st, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Not an insignificant bit of touring here as Conan go coast to coast and (just about) top to bottom in the US in support of their latest full-length, 2022’s Evidence of Immortality (review here), in 20 days. They start in Chicago, start out the East Coast in Boston then head south before turning west to go through New Orleans and Austin, Texas — those drives alone — and back up the West Coast until, on May 25, they hit Northwest Terror Fest in Seattle and the tour ends. Shit, I’m exhausted just looking at it.
Before they reach American shores, the e’er-devastating trio will at least be in London for Masters of the Riff II (info here) in March and in April they’ll be at Heavy Psych Sounds Fest in Italy (info here), so it’s possible more tour dates are impending for Europe. One way or the other, dudes keep busy, and that’s about the end of my insight on the topic.
Dates follow. Tickets are on sale at the link below:
CONAN – ***ANNOUNCEMENT*** US TOUR – MAY 2023
We are super excited to revisit the USA, this time the fucking insanely cool THRA!!! @thra_phx in just a few months. We are touring to support the release of our new album EVIDENCE OF IMMORTALITY. See you there!! Go check tickets atwww.linktr.ee/hailconan
Fri 5/5 – Chicago, IL – Reggies Sat 5/6 – Detroit, MI – Sanctuary Sun 5/7 – Youngstown, OH – West Side Bowl Tue 5/9 – Boston, MA – Middle East (Upstairs) Wed 5/10 – Brooklyn, NY – Saint Vitus Thu 5/11 – Philadelphia, PA – Warehouse on Watts Fri 5/12 – Baltimore, MD – Metro Sat 5/13 – Raleigh, NC – Pour House Sun 5/14 – Piedmont, SC – Tribble’s Mon 5/15 – Atlanta, GA – The Earl Tue 5/16 – New Orleans, LA – Siberia Wed 5/17 – Austin, TX – Lost Well Fri 5/19 – Albuquerque, NM – Sister Sat 5/20 – Mesa, AZ – Nile Underground Sun 5/21 – Los Angeles, CA – Resident Mon 5/22 – Oakland, CA – Golden Bull Tue 5/23 – Sacramento, CA – Café Colonial Wed 5/24 – Portland, OR – Polaris Hall Thu 5/25 – Seattle, WA – Northwest Terror Fest
CONAN is: Jon Davis – Guitar, Vocals Chris Fielding – Bass Johnny King – Drums
Posted in Reviews on January 3rd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
We roll on in this new-year-smelling 2023 with day two of the Quarterly Review. Yesterday was pretty easy, but the first day almost always is. Usually by Thursday I’m feeling it. Or the second Tuesday. It varies. In any case, as you know, this QR is a double, which means it’s going to include 100 albums total, written about between yesterday and next Friday. Ton of stuff, and most of it is 2022, but generally later in the year, so at least I’m only a couple months behind your no doubt on-the-ball listening schedule.
Look. I can’t pretend to keep up with a Spotify algorithm, I’m sorry. I do my best, but that’s essentially a program to throw bands in your face (while selling your data and not paying artists). My hope is that being able to offer a bit of context when I throw 100 bands in your face is enough of a difference to help you find something you dig. Some semblance of curation. Maybe I’m flattering myself. I’m pretty sure Spotify can inflate its own ego now too.
Winter 2023 Quarterly Review #11-20:
Antimatter, A Profusion of Thought
Project founder, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Mick Moss isn’t through opener “No Contact” — one of the 10 inclusions on Antimatter‘s 54-minute eighth LP, A Profusion of Thought — before he readily demonstrates he can carry the entire album himself if need be. Irish Cuyos offers vocals on the subsequent “Paranoid Carbon” and Liam Edwards plays live drums where applicable, but with a realigned focus on programmed elements, his own voice the constant that surrounds various changes in mood and purpose, and stretches of insularity even on the full-band-sounding “Fools Gold” later on, the self-released outing comes across as more inward than the bulk of 2018’s Black Market Enlightenment, though elements like the acoustic-led approach of “Breaking the Machine,” well-produced flourishes of layering and an almost progressive-goth (proggoth?) atmosphere carry over. “Redshift” balances these sides well, as does fold before it, and “Templates” before that, and “Fools Gold” after, as Antimatter thankfully continues to exist in a place of its own between melancholic heavy, synthesized singer-songwriterism and darker, doom-born-but-not-doom metal, all of which seem to be summarized in the closing salvo of “Entheogen,” “Breaking the Machine” and “Kick the Dog.” Moss is a master of his craft long-established, and a period of isolation has perhaps led to some of the shifting balance here, but neither the album nor its songs are done a disservice by that.
There was a point, maybe 15 years ago now give or take, when at least Manhattan and Brooklyn in New York City were awash in semi-retro, jangly-but-rough-edged-to-varying-degrees rock and roll bands. Some sounded like Joan Jett, some sounded like the Ramones, or The Strokes or whoever. On Salvation, their second LP, Mick’s Jaguar bring some chunky Judas Priest riffing, no shortage of attitude, and as the five-piece — they were six on 2018’s Fame and Fortune (review here) — rip into a proto-shredder like “Speed Dealer,” worship Thin Lizzy open string riffing on “Nothing to Lose” or bask in what would be sleaze were it not for the pandemic making any “Skin Contact” at all a serotonin spike, they effectively hop onto either side of the line where rock meets heavy. Also the longest track at 4:54, “Molotov Children” is a ’70s-burly highlight, and “Handshake Deals” is an early-arriving hook that seems to make everything after it all the more welcome. “Man Down” and “Free on the Street” likewise push their choruses toward anthemic barroom sing-alongs, and while I’m not sure those bars haven’t been priced out of the market and turned into unoccupied investment luxury condos by now, rock and roll’s been declared dead in New York at least 100,000 times and it obviously isn’t, so there.
Long live Finnish weird. More vintage in their mindset than overall presentation, Sammal return via the ever-reliable Svart Records with Aika Laulaa, the follow-up to 2018’s Suuliekki (review here) and their fourth album total, with eight songs and 43 minutes that swap languages lyrically between Finnish, Swedish and English as fluidly as they take progressive retroism and proto-metal to a place of their own that is neither, both, and more. From the languid lead guitar in “Returning Rivers” to the extended side-enders “On Aika Laulaa” with its pastoralized textures and “Katse Vuotaa” with its heavy blues foundation, willfully brash surge, and long fade, the band gracefully skip rocks across aesthetic waters, opening playful and Scandi-folk-derived on “På knivan” before going full fuzz in “Sehr Kryptisch,” turning the three-minute meander of “Jos ei pelaa” into a tonal highlight and resolving the instrumental “(Lamda)” (sorry, the character won’t show up) with a jammy soundscape that at least sounds like it’s filled out by organ if it isn’t. A band who can go wherever they want and just might actually dare to do so, Sammal reinforce the notion of their perpetual growth and Aika laulaa is a win on paper for that almost as much as for the piano notes cutting through the distortion on “Grym maskin.” Almost.
Former Hades guitarist Dan Lorenzo continues a personal riffy renaissance with Cassius King‘s Dread the Dawn, one of several current outlets among Vessel of Light and Patriarchs in Black. On Dread the Dawn, the New Jersey-based Lorenzo, bassist Jimmy Schulman (ex-Attacker) and drummer Ron Lipnicki (ex-Overkill) — the rhythm section also carried over from Vessel of Light — and vocalist Jason McMaster offer 11 songs and 49 minutes of resoundingly oldschool heavy, Dio Sabbath-doomed rock. Individual tracks vary in intent, but some of the faster moments on “Royal Blooded” or even the galloping opener “Abandon Paradise” remind of Candlemass tonally and even rockers like “How the West Was Won,” “Bad Man Down” and “Back From the Dead” hold an undercurrent of classic metal, never mind the creeper riff of the title-track or its eight-minute companion-piece, the suitably swinging “Doomsday.” Capping with a bonus take on Judas Priest‘s “Troubleshooter,” Dread the Dawn has long since by then gotten its point across but never failed to deliver in either songwriting or performance. They strut, and earn it.
Issued on tape through UK imprint Dub Cthonic, the four-extended-tracker Way of the Pilgrim is the second 2022 full-length from South African solo folk experimentalist Seven Rivers of Fire — aka William Randles — behind September’s Sanctuary (review here) and March’s Star Rise, and its mostly acoustic-based explorations are as immersive and hypnotic as ever as the journey from movement to movement in “They are Calling // Exodus” (11:16) sets up processions through the drone-minded “Awaken // The Passenger” (11:58), “From the Depths // Into the Woods” (12:00) and “Ascend // The Fall” (11:56), Randles continuing to dig into his own particular wavelength and daring to include some chanting and other vocalizations in the opener and “From the Depths // Into the Woods” and the piano-laced finale. Each piece has an aural theme of its own and sets out from there, feeling its way forward with what feels like a genuinely unplanned course. Way of the Pilgrim isn’t going to be for everybody, as with all of Seven Rivers of Fire‘s output, but those who can tune to its frequencies are going to find its resonance continual.
Leeds-based psychedelic doomers Amon Acid channel the grimmer reaches of the cosmic — and a bit of Cathedral in “Hyperion” — on their fifth full-length in four years, second of 2022, Cosmogony. The core duo of guitarist/vocalist/synthesist Sarantis Charvas and bassist/cellist Briony Charvas — joined on this nine-tracker by the singly-named Smith on drums — harness stately space presence and meditative vibes on “Death on the Altar,” the guitar ringing out vague Easternisms while the salvo that started with “Parallel Realm” seems only to plunge further and further into the lysergic unknown. Following the consuming culmination of “Demolition Wave” and the dissipation of the residual swirl there, the band embark on a series of shorter cuts with “Nag Hammandi,” the riff-roller “Mandragoras,” the gloriously-weird-but-still-somehow-accessible “Demon Rider” and the this-is-our-religion “Ethereal Mother” before the massive buildup of “The Purifier” begins, running 11 minutes, which isn’t that much longer than the likes of “Parallel Realm” or “Death on the Altar,” but rounds out the 63-minute procession with due galaxial churn just the same. Plodding and spacious, I can’t help but feel like if Amon Acid had a purposefully-dumber name they’d be more popular, but in the far, far out where they reside, these things matter less when there are dimensions to be warped.
The original plan from Germany’s Iron & Stone was that the four-song Mountains and Waters was going to be the first in a sequence of three EP releases. As it was recorded in Fall 2020 — a time, if you’ll recall, when any number of plans were shot to hell — and only released this past June, I don’t know if the band are still planning to follow it with another two short offerings or not, but for the bass in “Loose the Day” alone, never mind the well-crafted heavy fuzz rock that surrounds on all sides, I’m glad they finally got this one out. Opener “Cosmic Eye” is catchy and comfortable in its tempo, and “Loose the Day” answers with fuzz a-plenty while “Vultures” metes out swing and chug en route to an airy final wash that immediately bleeds into “Unbroken,” which is somewhat more raucous and urgent of riff, but still has room for a break before its and the EP’s final push. Iron & Stone are proven in my mind when it comes to heavy rock songwriting, and they seem to prefer short releases to full-lengths — arguments to be made on either side, as ever — but whether or not it’s the beginning of a series, Mountains and Waters reaffirms the band’s strengths, pushes their craft to the forefront, and celebrates genre even as it inhabits it. There’s nothing more one might ask.
To be sure, there shades of are discernible influences in DRÖÖG‘s self-titled Majestic Mountain Records first long-player, from fellow Swedes Graveyard, Greenleaf, maybe even some of earlier Abramis Brama‘s ’70s vibes, but these are only shades. Thus it is immediately refreshing how unwilling the self-recording core duo of Magnus Vestling and Daniel Engberg are to follow the rules of style, pushing the drums far back into the mix and giving the entire recording a kind of far-off feel, their classic and almost hypnotic, quintessentially Swedish (and in Swedish, lyrically-speaking) heavy blues offered with hints of psychedelic flourish and ready emergence. The way “Stormhatt” seems to rise in the space of its own making. The fuller fuzz of “Blodörn.” The subtle tension of the riff in the second half of “Nattfjärilar.” In songs mostly between six and about eight minutes long, DRÖÖG distinguish themselves in tone — bass and hard-strummed guitar out front in “Hamnskiftaren” along with the vocals — and melody, creating an earthy atmosphere that has elements of svensk folkmusik without sounding like a caricature of that or anything else. They’ve got me rewriting my list of 2022’s best debut albums, and already looking forward to how they grow this sound going on from here.
Rare is a record so thoroughly screamed that is also so enhanced by its lyrics. Hello, Remember the Earth but Never Come Back. Based in Montreal — home to any number of disaffected sludgy noisemakers — Grales turn apocalyptic dystopian visions into poetry on the likes of “All Things are Temporary,” and anti-capitalist screed on “From Sea to Empty Sea” and “Wretched and Low,” tying together anthropocene planet death with the drive of human greed in concise, sharp, and duly harsh fashion. Laced with noise, sludged to the gills it’s fortunate enough to have so it can breathe in the rising ocean waters, and pointed in its lurch, the five-song/43-minute outing takes the directionless fuckall of so many practitioners of its genre and sets itself apart by knowing and naming exactly what it’s mad about. It’s mad about wage theft, climate change, the hopelessness that surrounds most while a miserly few continue to rape and pillage what should belong to everybody. The question asked in “Agony” answers itself: “What is the world without our misery? We’ll never know.” With this perspective in mind and a hint of melody in the finale “Sic Transit Mundus,” Grales offer a two-sided tape through From the Urn Records that is gripping in its onslaught and stirring despite its outward misanthropy. It’s not that they don’t care; it’s that they want you to pick up a molotov cocktail and toss it at your nearest corporate headquarters. Call it relatable.
Energetic in its delivery and semi-progressive in its intentions, Half Gramme of Soma‘s second album, Slip Through the Cracks, arrives with the backing of Sound of Liberation Records, the label wing of one of Europe’s lead booking agencies for heavy rock. Not a minor endorsement, but it’s plain to hear in the eight-song/42-minute course the individualism and solidified craft that prompted the pickup: Half Gramme of Soma know what they’re doing, period. Working with producer George Leodis (1000mods, Godsleep, Last Rizla, etc.) in their native Athens, they’ve honed a sound that reaches deeper than the deceptively short runtimes of tracks like “Voyager” and “Sirens” or “Wounds” might lead you to believe, and the blend of patience and intensity on finale-and-longest-song “22:22” (actually 7:36) highlights their potential in both its languid overarching groove and the later guitar solos that cut through it en route to that long fade, without sacrificing the present for the sake of the future. That is, whatever Half Gramme of Soma might do on their third record, Slip Through the Cracks shouldn’t. Even in fest-ready riffers “High Heels” and “Mind Game,” they bleed personality and purpose.
