Even before the song kicks into its heavier and more massive-feeling riffage, there’s an undercurrent of tension that underscores its early going and lets you, the wary listener, know what’s about to happen. That tension is put to good use in “Confesso,” which is the first single to be taken from Bleeding Eyes‘ new record, Golgotha. The album has been given a July 31 release on Go Down Records, and when that heavier buzz tone kicks in, the feeling of doom is pervasive and I can’t help but think of Entombed with some of the shouts that top the distorted grit. That’s a fun association to make, but I don’t necessarily think it’s a death metal influence on the part of Bleeding Eyes, though their sound is nothing if not a working pastiche of various points of inspiration.

I’m curious to hear more, I guess is what it comes down to. The atmosphere in “Confesso,” which tops eight minutes, pulls together post-metal, sludge, heavy psych and probably three or four other styles, and it’s their sixth record, so yeah, there’s much to dig into for those feeling adventurous.

Check it out via the PR wire below:

Psychedelic Sludge heavyweights BLEEDING EYES announce album details and share first single from upcoming record!

“Golgotha” to be released July 31st on Go Down Records

Psychedelic sludge heavyweights BLEEDING EYES have announced the release of “Golgotha”, the band’s sixth studio album, coming out on July 31st via Go Down Records. Starting from long and substantial jams, the five-piece band extrapolated and deepened seven relentless sludge anthems, full of raw energy and bleak atmospheric soundscapes. A first glimpse of what to expect can now be heard in form of “Confesso”, the apocalyptic first single from the upcoming record, streaming now here:

“Golgotha” to be released July 31st on Go Down Records and now available for pre-order at THIS LOCATION.

Tracklist as follows:
1. In Principio
2. Le Chiavi Del Pozzo
3. 1418
4. Del Pozzo Dell’Abisso
5. Confesso
6. La Verità
7. Inferno

BLEEDING EYES are:
Lorenzo Conte | drums, backing vocals
Marco Dussin | bass
Jason Nealy | guitars, backing vocals
Nicola Anselmi | guitars
Simone Tesser | vocals

www.facebook.com/BleedingEyes777/
www.instagram.com/bleeding_eyes
https://bleedingeyes.bandcamp.com/
www.godownrecords.com/bleeding-eyes

Bleeding Eyes, “Confesso”

That headline isn’t a question, by they way. Italian heavy rock trio Ivy Garden of the Desert are definitely making a monster in the video, and then they seem to be headbanging with that monster in their underwear? Not really sure how it gets to that point, but it does, and even given that, my favorite part of the entire clip is when it says at the very beginning that it’s based on a true story. It’s true, Frankenstein was a story.

Still, the three-piece from Treviso get down with heavy grooves no less disturbing in the new song “Life?” which comes from their forthcoming Limen EP, their first offering following earlier 2013’s I Ate of the Plant and it was Good, which concluded a series of three extended play releases that also resulted in 2012’s Blood is Love (review here) and the preceding 2011 outing, Docile (review here). Some of the riffing speaks to a kind of dark metal feel like a slightly more psychedelic Cultura Tres, brooding with an underlying aggression that you’re never quite sure when or if it’s going to take off.

And yes, the story of the scientist named “I Doesn’t Care” does end (spoiler alert) with a hilarious headbang session, so kudos to Ivy Garden — guitarist/vocalist Diego Bizzaro, bassist Paolo Martini and drummer Alexander Puntel — for not taking themselves too seriously even when making a video that’s pretty grim up to that point, playing out like a silent horror movie tinted green. They’ve never shied away when it’s been time to get weird, and “Life?” is no exception.

Enjoy:

Ivy Garden of the Desert, “Life?” official video

At six tracks/33 minutes, Blood is Love has all the flow between its songs that one could ask of a full-length, but it is nonetheless the darker second in a trilogy of EPs from Italian stoner rockers Ivy Garden of the Desert. That they’re heavily indebted to the Kyuss/Queens of the Stone Age/Desert Sessions sphere of heavy shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise – they had much the same influence on the prior Docile EP (review here), also released by Nasoni, and they do have “desert” in their name – but the Montebelluna three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Diego, bassist Paolo and drummer Andrea set their own mood within that scope, not really veering too far from what one might expect, but keeping a humble kind of individuality in the tracks. That proves increasingly true the closer they get to the finale, “Glicine,” but even with the more active beginning that “Viscera” – would it be too much to call it “gutsy?” – provides, they remain melodically aware. In that, Blood is Love is consistent with Docile, though the latest is perhaps even more cohesive in terms of style. There’s an element of the brooding in Diego’s singing, his accent adding to it as the lyrics are in English, and that fits the laid-back grooving in the riffs as well, though the separation in the mix between guitar, bass and drums is prevalent, and though the EP ends with a sample of a tape spinning out, it sounds much more like a digital recording. Whether it is or not, I don’t know – information is sparse – but that’s how it sounds to my ears, anyway, with a decent amount of compression on Andrea’s kit and the guitars and bass alike. The mix was my chief issue last time around, with Diego’s vocals high and cutting through, and to an extent that remains true with Blood is Love, but the instruments stand up to the singing, whether it’s the Songs for the Deaf-style speed riffing of the opener or the punchy bass of “A Golden Rod for This Virgin,” the second track which seems to have long ago passed the “Welcome to Sky Valley” highway sign.

Without lyrics or some general statement of intent beyond the basic knowledge that Ivy Garden of the Desert are working on a trilogy of which Blood is Love is the middle, more aggressive piece, it’s hard to say what exactly it is tying the releases together beyond the basic aesthetic and desert atmosphere, but if that’s it, at least there’s plenty to work with. They’re obviously aware of the genre they’re working in, and where much of the European heavy psych and stoner scene seems to be pushing toward tonally warm jamming, Ivy Garden of the Desert never feel out of control in these tracks, even as the cyclical tom work and start-stop riffing of “A Golden Rod for this Virgin” gives way to its building second half. There’s an open feeling in the tonality, but the songs remain structured, even if it’s just one part into the next. It flows. The songs within themselves flow and the tracks each into the other, though again, if they were written to purposefully serve some overarching whole, I don’t know. It does make the EP an easier listen that it otherwise might be, though. The instrumental “Weasel in Poultry Skin” continues the desert-minded push of the first two cuts, working in some vague Helmet influence both in its intro and later start-stop moments while also avoiding any vocal mix issues, but even here, Blood is Love offers little clue as to what it’s about. They remain aligned to genre, but push the line somewhat with “Ghost Station,” furthering the start-stop guitar that’s been present all along to the absolute fore, both Andrea and Paolo joining Diego in mutes and thuds. The song introduces itself with a jangly guitar, and that comes in again at the end with a more active bassline, but the crux of it is a series of single hits that don’t seem to develop a dynamic build, staying on a kind of repetitive plateau that, coupled with Diego’s moody, bottom-of-the-mouth vocals, begins quickly to smack of nü-metal. One might also point to that as a post-Helmet facet of the band’s sound, but it’s the melody that makes the difference. It sounded like nü-metal when Page Hamilton started singing too.

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Released first by the band in a limited CD pressing of 99 copies and subsequently picked up by prestigious Europsych purveyors Nasoni Records for wider issue on CD and vinyl, the Docile EP by North Italian trio Ivy Garden of the Desert relies just as much on drifting sonic spaciousness as it does on riffy crunch. The four-song release (at 38 minutes, it could either be an EP or full-length, so take your pick – I call it EP because they do) doesn’t break any real stylistic ground, but it does show an ambient patience and reverence for American-style desert stillness that a lot of the European contingent misses out on in either their riff-led or psychedelic swirling. The vocals of guitarist Diego will sound curious to American ears, perhaps owing to a combination of the six-stringer’s accented English and a bottom-of-the-mouth delivery that comes off at times sounding like something more out of commercial rock. Vocals are relatively sparse, however, and though 10-minute closer “I” begins with a throaty growl that swells in the speakers, there’s next to nothing abrasive about Docile and Ivy Garden of the Desert are far more concerned with melodic sprawl, which suits them well.

The band formed in 2008 and Docile sounds like a product of discovery on their part, but listening to Paolo’s echoing bass that begins opener “Ivy,” soon accompanied by Diego’s wavy guitar lines and the subtle tom work of Andrea, it’s easy to imagine the players seated in a jam room figuring out their parts on the fly. They soon settle into the groove that will carry them through the intro of “Ivy”’s nine minutes, gradually developing the track for the first three and a half minutes before everything drops out and Diego introduces a fuzzy, Fu Manchu-style riff that carries through the rest of the song. The guitar is in the lead role, not surprisingly, but Diego offers some clever layering and drawn-out solos that effectively give a sense of improvisation. Paolo peaks early in that the final minutes of “Ivy” feature Docile’s best bass lines, but still has plenty to contribute as the EP wears on, including the large role he plays in setting the darker tone of “Enchanting Odyssey,” following Andrea’s stick-clicks and foundational bass drum while Diego echoes a lead across the wide aural berth. The second cut of the four is also the longest at 11:14, and the first with vocals (they come on about two minutes in and appropriate room is made for them, but one never gets the sense in listening to Docile that they’re the priority), Diego’s voice sounding more derived from the influences noted above than on the later, more progressive “I.”

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