Released earlier this year on Night Tripper Records, White Season is the debut from French (since relocated to London) psych rock foursome Soul Manifest. Led by guitarist/vocalist Romain Daut, the band work their way through a smattering of semi-retro influences, and though I wouldn’t be the first to relate their sound to the already-influential Swedes in Graveyard, there’s more happening on White Season than copycatting the moves of others. Soul Manifest – thanks in large part to the organ contributions of Harry Backhouse – carve out an identity that’s at once familiar and still nuanced. The interplay between Daut, drummer Karen Jones and bassist Sammy Deveille, both of whom also share vocal duties, introduces an engaging songwriting process that’s bound to win (or have won, since as I noted, the album’s been out for a while already) Soul Manifest some friends. Classic heavy prog is a decent place from which to start an understanding, but a more modern take à la the new school of European psych (My Sleeping Karma particularly) is woven in as well, so that White Season works as a blend of styles within the genre. There are parts of eight tracks/39 minutes that are more easily read than others, but by and large, the record is accessible, cohesive and diverse without being overly indulgent or showy in terms of performance.

Again, a big part of Soul Manifest’s personality as presented here comes in Backhouse’s organ. From the launch of opener “Dead Man” to the genuine organ solos on “White Season (Part I),” “Devil’s Meeting” and the for-all-intents-and-purposes closer “The Light” – where they’re set against Daut’s guitar for the album’s best duel – it’s Backhouse that separates Soul Manifest most from the horde of retro clone acts. That’s not to say Daut’s guitars or the grooves put to tape by Jones and Deveille don’t have their role to play, just that it’s the keys that wind up the most distinctive element. White Season opens strong with “Dead Man” and “White Season (Part I)” as a duo, but it’s not until later that the full breadth of their personality becomes clear. The acoustic-led “Do We Have the Same View” finds Daut no less confident on vocals for the change in approach on guitar and the lack of platform for the swagger he brings in elsewhere, and the darker beginning of “Devil’s Meeting,” which rounds out side A of the vinyl, adds a surprising turn that brings to mind the likes of Black Widow, Coven or any of the other ritualistic prog acts lurking around the early part of the ‘70s. True to the form of those bands, the actual sound Soul Manifest work with on “Devil’s Meeting” doesn’t conform to what we’d now expect from a track with that name, keeping instead to a bluesy progression that lets Daut’s solo shine around the song’s halfway point, maybe also touching on some of the same country/western feel that Astrosoniq play with from time to time. He and Backhouse trade leads and it works well, showing also that neither is so wrapped in ego as to try and dominate the other.

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After a few initial listens, the core contrast of Mortui Vivos Docent – the Night Tripper Records debut album from Swedish heavy/doom rockers Obrero – begins to sink in. It’s the vocals. Even before doing any research at all on the band or its personnel, there was something about them that seemed pulled right out of classic metal, right out of the thrash era. It wasn’t until I went so far as to (gasp!) read the liner notes that I discovered the man behind the mic in Obrero is Martin Missy of the once-and-apparently-again German thrash unit Protector. In Obrero, he partners with guitarists Fredrik Pihlström and Mathias Öjermark (the latter also the occasional keys), bassist Magnus Karkea and drummer Calle Sjöström — who would all seem to be the Stockholm contingent in the band, if names are anything to go by – to nestle the sound of Mortui Vivos Docent somewhere between Euro-style stoner metal and doom. If the band represents a side-project for Missy from the reactivated Protector, he’s not the only one; everyone in the band either was or is active in the thrash or speed metal genres. Karkea and Sjöström are both members of Talion, as are Missy and Pihlström, who’s also been in Melting Flesh and Bloodbanner, among others. The only member of Obrero not also found in Talion’s lineup is Öjermark, who was both in Melting Flesh with Pihlström and an outfit called Ruins of Time with Missy, so everyone’s connected here multiple times over, all seem to be familiar with each other’s playing – Obrero’s relative ease of execution backs that theory – and all are stepping outside of the styles in which they’ve made a home to explore new ground.

They’re not the first from thrash to do so (at times Obrero reminds of a less directly blues-derived version of The Cursed, which featured vocalist Bobby Blitz of OverKill and Hades’ Dan Lorenzo), but one of the factors that most stands Mortui Vivos Docent out among the throng of heavy rock and doom out there is how seamlessly it blends the two. Where “Svantovit” – particularly in Sjöström’s drums, but also in the guitar – reminds at first of something Kyuss might have done in their middle period, it soon moves into Trouble-styled classic guitar-led doom, the synth from Öjermark adding class and melody behind Missy’s mostly-rhythmic verse, which follows the guitar line well in metallic tradition. That song is among the high points of Mortui Vivos Docent (which translates from the Latin to “The Dead Teach the Living”), but it has plenty of company in its quality level. The center portion of the album’s total eight tracks finds one of its smoothest transitions in that between the riffy “The Fourth Earl” and the darker, more doom-derived “Octaman.” Both songs are led by Pihlström and Öjermark with Karkea and Sjöström underscoring the groove in the rhythm section, but they take different approaches, showing more stylistic diversity between them than, say, the earlier “Son of Tutankhamun,” which seemed to take the time to meld the two styles into one song. Both approaches are valid on their own – either combining doom and stoner rock or keeping them separate – but by utilizing both methods, Obrero show they are not only well versed in their genre, but in songwriting too, which ultimately is going to help them more than any amount of fandom or intricacy of influence could.

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Releases like The Satanik Magiik always serve to underscore the differences in my mind between the American and European heavy rock markets. Where in the current American scene, the thing is heavy hipster swagger or post-rock-influenced psychedelia, the Night Tripper Records debut full-length from Swedish rockers El Camino reminds just how metal Europe can get and still be commercially relevant. El Camino don’t have much going for them in terms of originality; the double-guitar/stand-alone vocal five-piece hinge back and forth between straightforward stoner metal and screamy sludge, but what’s important to remember is that’s enough. That’s all they need to be doing. Cuts like “We are the Dark” and “Hail the Horns” are familiar in both theme and methodology almost to the point of cliché, but you can do that in Sweden and still offer a viable product. It must be amazing to witness, but that doesn’t help my American ears adjust to the record, the crux of which feels lost in translation (not literally, the songs are in English). To me, The Satanik Magiik – aside from reveling in its metallic imagery of snakes, horns, the devil, etc. – sits somewhere between its overly clean production and stoner rock influences. The songs follow a classic pop structure and vary the pacing enough, and will be easy for anyone who’s had even limited experience in the genre to grasp, but apart perhaps from the innuendo-riffic “Rise of the Snake” and the near-Weedeatery of “Family Values” which follows, they come in a wash of elemental riffing and rhythms.

The important distinction to make, though, is that they’re metal, which most (no rule is absolute) American heavy rock is not. El Camino – who keep their personal info limited to initials only; JS and NH on guitar, T on bass, M on drums and D on vocals – are a metal band, and The Satanik Magiik follows a metallic course immediately from the instrumental opener “Prelude to the Horns.” Perhaps to the album’s credit, it doesn’t get locked musically in the doomly tropes of modern occult metal, instead presenting Satan more as the dark overlord you want to have a beer with than who you want to overtake humanity in some grainy ‘70s horror film. That stylistic choice also speaks to the central issue with the album though, because although El Camino don’t worship Electric Wizard or Pagan Altar (at least not outwardly in their music), the clear-cut musical path they follow is one well if not overly trodden by other bands before them. Even the band’s name, which evokes images of Californian sands, Fu Manchu and party rock, runs in conflict with what the band is actually doing. Along with the burl of songs like “Mountain Man,” it’s an example of how El Camino are trying almost to do too much at the same time they’re trying to keep everything simple, which makes The Satanik Magiik even more confusing. Even as I groove out to that song, I can’t help but wonder what the hell is going on. Couple that with the fact that even at their most rocking – on that song, on “Rise of the Snake,” and on “Family Values” – the songs aren’t really about anything discernible (the chorus to “Rise of the Snake” is “Hellbound/Rise up” repeated), and it seems almost like El Camino have all the rock and none of the aesthetic.

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