Today we hit the halfway mark on the Fall 2016 Quarterly Review. Always an occasion worthy of song — or, you know, another batch of 10 records — which happens to be precisely the plan. We pick up much where we left off yesterday in working across a broad spectrum of heavy, and though there are some major releases in here as seems to be the case increasingly, please make sure to note some of the deeper underground stuff as well, whether it’s Hands I Annul Yours or Astral Cult, as nothing here is included by mistake. Some of this I’m late on, some of it isn’t out yet, but all of it is pretty current, so if there’s something here you’ve missed, bigger name or smaller, I hope you get some use out of the lot of it. Here goes.

Quarterly Review #21-30:

Blues Pills, Lady in Gold

Blues Pills – like their Nuclear Blast labelmates in Witchcraft, Graveyard and Kadavar before them – have modernized. Their second album behind what became a landmark self-titled debut (review here) in 2014, Lady in Gold arrives with a slick production casting off the vintage vibes while holding onto classic sensibility and rightfully continuing to feature the soulfulness of vocalist Elin Larsson, joined in the band by guitarist Dorian Sorriaux, bassist Zack Anderson (ex-Radio Moscow) and drummer André Kvarnström (ex-Truckfighters). Its 10 tracks/40 minutes are unmistakably pop in their construction, and deftly, complexly arranged, and play to an alternative vision of commercial accessibility in rock that I’m not sure exists anymore even in Europe. Or needs to for an album like Lady in Gold to be successful. As they weave into and out of gospel and R&B conventions, Blues Pills take a bold step away from what one might have expected coming off their debut and ultimately define themselves precisely through that boldness. Whether that works for them in the longer term will have to remain to be seen. For now, Lady in Gold can be jarring at first, but one would be hard pressed to come up with something else out there that sounds quite like it.

Blues Pills on Thee Facebooks

Nuclear Blast website

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Arctic, Arctic

Los Angeles three-piece Arctic make their entry into Southern California’s crowded sphere of heavy/psychedelic rock with their self-titled debut on Outer Battery Records. To call them skate rock seems fair enough, since guitarist Justin “Figgy” Figueroa (also Harsh Toke), bassist Don “The Nuge” Nguyen and drummer Frex are all professional skateboarders, but the core of Arctic’s five-track/half-hour-flat runtime is in mixing classic stoner impulses with heavy psych jamming. Most of the record is instrumental, including 8:51 opener and longest track (immediate points) “Over Smoked,” but vocals pop up to surprise on centerpiece “Burnt Ice” and return again in form drawled enough to justify their having called the nodding closer “High” as they do. At very least they make it believable. Between the dankness throughout, the guitar-led fuzz boogie of “Cryptic Black Sun,” the natural vibes, the Arik Roper cover art and the utter lack of pretense, Arctic summarize much of the appeal of the West Coast’s current heavy movement, and so, should have no trouble continuing to make their name as part of it.

Arctic on Thee Facebooks

Outer Battery Records

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Major Kong, Brave New Kong

Three new tracks from Poland’s Major Kong is nothing to complain about. The Lublin trio have been not-at-all-quietly stomping out quality riffs for more than half a decade now, and with “Energy Whip,” “Escape from the Holodeck” and “Pollution Halo,” the instrumentalists are in and out of Brave New Kong in under 14 minutes, working quickly and efficiently with a crisp but still thick production that pulls away from some of the focus on crush from late last year’s Galactic Cannibalism EP (review here). That may well be the Brave New Kong to which the title refers, or it’s entirely possible they’re just having fun with their own moniker – subsequent offerings will tell the tale – but Major Kong continue to be a well-kept secret for Poland’s fertile heavy underground, and if nothing else, they sound like a group due for a third full-length album, which will hopefully arrive sooner than later.

Major Kong on Thee Facebooks

Major Kong BigCartel store

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Hands I Annul Yours, Year of Death

One could make the argument that given the swath of cultural icons passed away, 2016 is the Year of Death to which Hands I Annul Yours are alluding to in the title of their latest Major Destroyer Records three-song tape, but aside from the fact that they specify it was 2013, one seriously doubts they give a shit about famous people dying. Beginning with the drone and feedback noise of “Year of Death Part I,” the cassette moves into a 19-minute stomp and crush that’s as misanthropic as it is weighted, and much as there is one, the prevailing sentiment is less reflecting on loss than it is rolling out claustrophobic heft. Fair enough. Following the tape-only “Verloren,” “Year of Death Part II” boasts more sample manipulation and a discernible lead from the guitar, but finds its way toward abrasion as well, rounding out Year of Death with a dissolution into feedback that would seem to bring it full circle.

Hands I Annul Yours on Bandcamp

Major Destroyer Records website

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Storm Ross, Welcome, Sunshine

Fortunately, the fact that Storm Ross named the opening track of Welcome, Sunshine “We Need to be Fugazi Now, More than Ever” is only the start of the 37-minute/10-track LP’s experimentalist charms. The follow-up to the Michigan-based guitarist’s 2014 return full-length, The Green Realm (review here), this new collection finds Ross himself once again making his way through soundscapes manic and pastoral with like ease, and as one piece feeds into the next on “Please Don’t Kill My Family” and “Benzie County Farm Fire, 1973” or the synth-infused, tech-shredding “Atheon” fading into the penultimate post-rock drift of “The Smiler” later (think Dylan Carlson solo gone sentimental for the West, plus a late uptick of noise), the sense of Welcome, Sunshine as a whole work is even more palpable than was the last outing, even as Ross jumps from one style to another or incorporates keys, percussion, etc., following various whims toward a universally progressive payoff. Limited to 300 copies on yellow vinyl or on cassette through Already Dead Tapes and Records.

Storm Ross on Thee Facebooks

Storm Ross on Bandcamp

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Sinister Haze, Laid Low in the Dust of Death

Virginian doomers Sinister Haze follow-up their 2015 debut EP, Betrayed by Time (review here), with the raw and scummed up Laid Low in the Dust of Death LP on STB Records. Recorded by Chad Davis (Hour of 13), it’s their first outing to feature Naam’s Eli Pizzuto on drums, and they do trip out a bit on guitar, but if you’re thinking slow space rock here you’ve got the wrong picture. Guitarist/vocalist Brandon Marcey (ex-Cough) and bassist/vocalist Sam Marsh lead the charge – the low-end is particularly satisfying in its roll throughout – and fellow newcomer JK (Lost Tribe) adds to the mix as well, so the spirit of Laid Low in the Dust of Death is bare-bones and classic, but positively covered in its titular dust. And maybe one or two other kinds. Six tracks split easily onto two sides, Sinister Haze’s first full-length outing comes across as a reaction against cleanliness in doom – call it gutter doom – flowing in its 12-minute closer “A Buried Dream,” but still clearly from the gut.

Sinister Haze on Thee Facebooks

STB Records BigCartel store

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Love Gang, Love Gang

The flute-laden heavy rock with which Denver’s Love Gang open their debut EP might stand among the best outcomes of Colorado’s marijuana legalization. A four-piece with a full sound only enhanced by the organ/woodwind work of Leo Muñoz, Love Gang self-release their first outing as four tracks that sap classic prog of its pretense and offer ‘70s heavy chemistry without leaning on vintage production. Guitarist/vocalist Kam Wentwork, bassist Grady O’Donnell and drummer Shaun Goodwin, together with Muñoz, get down to business on “Can’t Seem to Win” and the instrumental “Lonely Man,” go bluesy on “Highway” and boogie to a finish in “Sands of Time,” all the while sounding ready in their songcraft and execution for whatever label might come calling to stand behind their work. It’ll be somebody. Some bands take time to develop into their own sound, and some break the doors down out of the gate. Love Gang are the latter. Whenever they get around to a first full-length, I hope they remember to weird out a little bit.

Love Gang on Thee Facebooks

Love Gang on Bandcamp

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Nap, Villa

Though five of the eight tracks on Nap’s debut, Villa, have words at one point or another, it’s probably still fair to note the psych-inflected German trio as a mostly-instrumental outfit. The lyrics, when they’re there, arrive in short verses, lines included it seems more to create the impression of a human presence rather than affirm a structure. They are vague in theme for the most part, but there, though there isn’t a song in the bunch that goes as far as a chorus. No complaints. Nap, as a project, feel much more given toward the spacious and atmospheric exploration one finds in the midsection of second cut “Sabacia” than the four or five lines in the driving riff subsequent. As the record plays out, they incorporate elements of surf – surprisingly more on “Duna” and closer “Autobahn” than “Xurf,” but it could also be a Yawning Man influence surfacing – resulting in an overarching progressive feel that serves their fluidity on this first album.

Nap on Thee Facebooks

Nap on Bandcamp

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Manthrass, Blues del Destino

Heavy rocking Buenos Aires three-piece Manthrass issued their debut, Blues del Destino, last year and were subsequently snagged for release through South American Sludge Records, no doubt for the record’s cohesive, hard-driving bluesy push, natural tones and easy-grooving feel. The shuffle of “Una Flor” is a highlight, but neither will you find me arguing with the Pappo’s Blues cover “El Brujo y el Tiempo,” with a burlier vocal and a rolling progression that seems to sum up a lot of where Manthrass are coming from to start with, though closer “Navegar” gets down with more raucous fare. A quality first full-length with a crisp production balanced by a fervent live feel in the energy from the trio of guitarist/vocalist Mariano Castiiglioni, bassist/vocalist Ángel Rizzo and drummer/backing vocalist Fede Martínez, who are clearly versed in modern heavy as well as the classics, and are able to control their own destiny here accordingly.

Manthrass on Thee Facebooks

South American Sludge on Bandcamp

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Astral Cult, The Sacred Flame

Commencement comes on Astral Cult’s second album, The Sacred Flame, via the ritualized psychedelic incantations of “Prayer,” and from there, the Californian four-piece unfold a molten vision of heavy space rock that stands apart from a lot of what bands further sound in San Diego or even San Francisco are doing, vocalist Alexandre Lapuh, guitarist Ryan Musser, bassist Stefan Henskens and drummer Brazdon Goodwin (since replaced by Cristian Gonzalez) finding their footing in a lumbering and deceptively doomed “Quetzalcotl” after so much lysergic preaching on “Call of the Wild” and “Beacon of Darkness.” The range is surprising, but more so is the fluidity Astral Cult conjure between what are often disparate styles, the four-piece nearly hitting the 13-minute mark on the closing title-tack as they lay the two sides together, one into the next. It’s a rarer blend, but The Sacred Flame, at nearly an hour long, gears itself for maximum immersion.

Astral Cult on Thee Facebooks

Astral Cult on Bandcamp

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I’ll admit, it’s been a while since I last saw a cassingle sleeve. That which brings the self-titled EP from Minneapolis duo Brownangus is simple enough. It says “brown” on one face and “angus” on the other, and on the sides, the band’s name and the website for Major Destroyer Records, who release the tape in an edition of 100 copies. The cassette itself is raw-meat pink with brown letting and offers about 16 minutes of varied punishment, from blistering noise rock to caustic droning to assorted moments of sludgy grooving, the two-piece of bassist Craig Lee and drummer Blake Jette (both of whom take credit for vocals, though I don’t hear any on the tape) coming across with no shortage of blown-out fuckall. At times, Lee‘s tone and the wash of cymbals with which it arrives reminds of fellow Midwesterners Beast in the Field, and if the Twin Cities-dwellers were to take influence from the Detroit twosome, I don’t think anyone could blame them, but ultimately, Brownangus — whose name appears as two words on the tape itself and one just about everywhere else — are more rooted in punk, however much an affinity for chaos the two acts may share.

A beehive bass buzz starts side one of Brownangus‘ Brownangus. The tape presents two nameless tracks, the first longer than the second, each of which accounts for its side. Side one is immediate but finds room in its circa-10-minute screed for a droning break after an initial buildup and groove. Noise and bigger riffing emerges in a sudden kick on the other end, but Lee and Jette have never completely let go of the tension, so it’s not as if they’re coming completely out of nowhere. They retain an experimental feel as Jette keeps slower time and Lee delves into various effects for a deconstructing march that ends side one with a sample of an emergency broadcast. Side two begins with some abrasive feedback that leads into a rolling low-end groove, but soon enough downshifts into more downtempo terrain, gradually fading out altogether until a rumble signals a return to full-blast bludgeoning. Jette taps his sticks on the rims of his drums during an upbeat break, but Lee soon joins back in and the forward drive continues in punkish form with intermittent starts and stops for the remainder of the side, Brownangus never quite settling into one method or another, but showcasing an unabashed glee for playing with noise on their way. Another fadeout marks the end of the quick release, and Brownangus make their way out of their self-titled with relatively little fanfare considering the havoc wrought over these two sides.

While they keep it nasty for just about the entire duration and the tape’s all-at-once-per-side presentation lends itself more to listening altogether than parsing out each individual piece that comprises it, Brownangus does make a few deft turns, between its fury and drone and roll, and what comes across clearest of all is that Lee and Jette have an open creative process and are ready and willing to manipulate their own sound in order to make the noise they want, rather than sculpting their material to fit some genre ideal. Near as I can tell, the Major Destroyer cassette is their first physical release, and as such it showcases a duo of blistering potential. They don’t seem to here, but should they decide they want to, it’s easy to imagine them adding vocals to their approach down the line from whichever of them can scream the most viscerally, or better yet, both.

Brownangus, Brownangus (2014)

Brownangus on Thee Facebooks

Major Destroyer Records on Bandcamp

Major Destroyer Records webstore

It’s a bleak psychedelic dronefest and nobody’s invited when you press play on Blut‘s Drop Out and Kill tape. The UK duo of N.B. and S.M. have released pretty much everything they’ve done on cassette, and listening to the Major Destroyer Records release of this album, which was originally reviewed  on CD, I can hear why. The band’s unremittingly extreme tin-can gnarl comes across even nastier through the analog compression, finding the Dorset-based outfit even more straddling the line between blackened lo-fi and stone-drone sludge, like Electric Wizard‘s misanthropy played at half speed somewhere down the block. Sometimes all you get it low-end rumble and malevolent echoing.

On headphones, with the volume up, the effect is even more grating. Blut‘s underlying drum groove is there — straightforward and slow — somehow managing to cut through a mountain of tonal lurch on opener “Aeon Long Death/Alcoholic on Cloven Hoof,” their anti-you-and-everything-else stance apparent from the very first second of the song. I said when I reviewed the CD that the band were probably unfit for just about any human ears, and I stand by that, since they push extreme sludge to what I consider new heights of fuckall. Whether or not one puts on Blut as the soundtrack to their sunny-day barbecue is irrelevant — they’re genuinely pushing the boundaries of what’s come before them and I consider Drop Out and Kill laudable just for that. That Blut have developed a clear sense of purpose over the last couple of years and releases like Grief and Incurable Pain (review here) and Ritual and Ceremony (review here) and turned spite into aesthetic is where I think they have most succeeded. The farther out they go, the less listenable they get, the better they become. They’re getting closer to (at least what I see as) their goals for the band.

If I’m overthinking it, well, I’m supposed to overthink it. Still, the foreboding drone of “Murder Hallucination” and “Skulls.Coffins.Nails” isn’t happening in a vacuum, and as much as Blut are casting off elements of traditional songwriting — verses, choruses, etc. — they are working in an established sonic sphere of extreme drone doom. Noise aficionados would probably hear Drop Out and Kill and call it straightforward because it has guitar and bass, but when I put on this tape, I hear the roots laid down by SunnO))) and Sleep’s Dopesmoker taken to vicious, dark, new places. That Blut include a side-two cover of Boston outfit Nightstick‘s “Ultimatum” — they call it “Ultimatum (Yog-Sothoth)” — only demonstrates their awareness of their own lineage. It also evens up the sides and gives Drop Out and Kill even more horrifying audio, but yeah, the other thing too.

Fact is, whatever level you want to approach them at, Blut aren’t about to make it easy for you. What they’re going to do — on tape or any other format — is crash and drone and scream and emit some of the most fucked up noise I’ve ever heard. That’s their thing, and whether you hear it on CD or on cassette, if you consider yourself a fan of the sonically abrasive, you should probably hear it. Tapes have the advantage of being cheaper and sounding fucked up. That suits Blut well.

Blut’s Blogspot

Major Destroyer Records

Proffering thicker-than-thou tones and churning filth-laden plod, the debut cassingle from Hands I Annul Yours — despite being instrumental but for a couple samples — makes no attempt to soften its perspective. With just the two tracks, “Asking for Death” and “Grind Humanity,” the limited-to-100-copies red-tape release on Major Destroyer Records nests itself in the bowels of misanthropic sludge riffing, raging in a way that would seem to contradict its lumbering pace but winds up fitting right in with it.

The two-piece outfit of Kyle Anderson and Blake Jette (Mike Mulen seems also to have been involved in production and art) recorded Asking for Death/Grind Humanity. Beginning with a sample of cult leader Michael Travesser from the documentary Inside a Cult, “Asking for Death” lunges for the eardrums with tonal largesse and formidable crash, gradually unfolding to what actually winds up being the more accessible of the two central instrumental progressions on the tape before devolving into noise and more sampling. “Grind Humanity” is slower and begins more straightforwardly, but winds up mired in noisy, droning fuckall that even more than Travesser‘s disparaging the empty frivolities of modern living speak to Hands I Annul Yours‘ feelings on the subject.

Notes are held and droned out and crashes are well-timed. Before the halfway point, an echoing sample provides transition into the faster second half of the track, a build that climbs to a righteously heavy peak before cutting back to washes of feedback noise that last over the course of a long minute-plus fade. The whole thing is over in just about 10 minutes (unless you’ve got your tape player set on continuous), but Hands I Annul Yours leave a lasting impression nonetheless. Info on the band is sparse — they recorded in Minnesota and this is a one-time-only pressing — and no real bio pops up on Major Destroyer‘s page or Bandcamp site, so their overall presence is minimal, and likely on purpose. It would almost be out of character with the music if Hands I Annul Yours wanted to be found.

But if you’re telling me you’ve got a red, 100-copies-only one-time pressing of a killer obscure sludge band’s demo, and it gives me an excuse to type the word “cassingle,” I’m telling you sign me up. So yeah, sign me up. Tape also comes with a download. This shit rules:

This will be the third time I’ve reviewed a full-length from Dorset duo Blut. Their prior outings, 2010’s Ritual and Ceremony and last year’s Grief and Incurable Pain, were hour-plus excursions into droning sonic torment, the two-piece’s amplified misanthropy brought to bear over the course of extended tracks like “Throne Ritual” and “Death.Mourning.Famine (2).” Their third album carries the band’s motto for its title, Drop Out and Kill, and arrives courtesy of Bubonic Productions (tape release on Major Destroyer). Like Grief and Incurable Pain (review here) and Ritual and Ceremony (review here), the latest outing finds the initials-only duo of S.M. (guitar, noise, drums, vocals) and N.B. (bass, noise, vocals) sonically caustic and abrasive to the point of stomach-turning physicality. To listen to Drop Out and Kill the whole way through is to affirm your ability to sustain punishment – Blut’s feedback-soaked lysergic darkness is encompassing and stabbing at the same time, like being closed into an iron maiden – but the album also takes some steps toward humanity. There is a picture of the band on the back of the CD, for example, to go along with the list of the album’s three songs, and Drop Out and Kill is the shortest of Blut’s full-lengths yet at 59 minutes. That doesn’t mean it’s not a work of ultimately perverted nastiness, just that there’s less of it than last time out. The drums in opener “Aeon Long Death/Alcoholic on Cloven Hoof” also might feel like some capitulation not toward accessibility – the notion is laughable – but at least to some idea of songcraft in a traditional sense. Of course, it doesn’t last, and everything past about 12:20 into the 28-minute track is given to the scathing feedback drone that’s become Blut’s calling card over the last several years. Still, the music prior to at least qualifies as such, and that’s saying something. The subsequent “Skulls.Coffins.Nails” (23:59) is even less friendly, but they close out with “Murder Hallucination (4 Track),” and at 7:27, its low-rumbling psychedelia is even nearer to discernible. Seven minutes? Hell, for Blut, that’s practically a radio hit.

In those moments, a comparison to Electric Wizard’s most unhinged moments is inevitable, but again, if Blut are veering in that direction, it’s only a part of their overall assault and soon enough swallowed whole by their deconstructed cruelties. The brief liner notes – in addition to cursing the Metal Archives, informing that N.B. and S.M. played through Selmer and Sound City amps and featuring a photo of a nude, sneering ‘70s blonde with a snake around her neck – urge the listener to, “play loud and kill yourself.” Not sure a departure from the “drop out and kill” sloganeering they’ve done all along, but worth noting in that volume does have a definite effect on the listening experience for these songs. Even the noisy drone at its most vicious sounds more textured played louder, and in the later moments of “Murder Hallucination (4 Track),” the samples from American Movie highlight the disturbing disaffection of the film within that film while also coming clearly through the murk and creeping horror of Blut’s psychedelia. The guitar at the end of that track, winding leads of laced smoke, are as close as Blut has ever come to melody, and clips from Fahrenheit 9/11 and others lead the way out from the chaos preceding, a kind of minimalism that answers back the samples that begin “Aeon Long Death/Alcoholic on Cloven Hoof” and “Skulls.Coffins.Nails.” Samples play a pretty large part in Blut’s approach overall, but “Aeon Long Death/Alcoholic on Cloven Hoof” is pretty quick to move into a verse of black metal screams offset by cleaner Ramesses-esque incantations. By then the swirl is established over the drums and bass, and though most of the remaining 26 minutes of the song are instrumental – the verse returns after six minutes for a brief appearance – first marching on that riff and then pulling it apart and examining the noisy guts inside, the effect and sense of structure remains throughout, even long after that structure is actually gone to fucked up solos, crashes and, of course, noise. It might be a last scream at after the 11-minute mark, or it might be a sampled screech, but either way, Blut are shortly to go full force into feedback and sustained distortion, so whatever it is, it’s very soon torn to shit.

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