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Quarterly Review: Carlton Melton, Crown, Noêta, Polymerase, Lucid Sins, Hekate, Abel Blood, Suffer Yourself, Green Dragon, Age Total

Posted in Reviews on July 5th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

the-obelisk-fall-2016-quarterly-review

This will be a two-week Quarterly Review. That means this Monday to Friday and next Monday to Friday, 10 releases per day, totaling 100 by the time it’s done.

Me? I’m taking it one week, one day, one album at a time. It’s the only way to go and not have it seem completely insurmountable. But we’ll get through it all. I started out with the usual five days, and then I went to seven, then eight, and at that point I felt like I had a pretty good idea where things were headed. The last two days I filled up just at the end of last week. Some of it is I think a result of quarantine productivity, but there’s a glut of relevant stuff out now and some of it I’m catching up on, true, but some of it isn’t out yet either, so it’s a balance as ever. I keep telling myself I’m done with 2020 releases, but there’s one in here today. You know how it goes.

And since you do, I won’t delay further. Thanks in advance for reading if you do.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

Carlton Melton, Night Pillers

carlton melton night pillers

Rangey mellow psych collected together with the natural shimmer of a Phil Manley (Trans Am) recording and a John McBain master, the new mini-LP from Mendocino medicine makers Carlton Melton is a 31-minute, five-song meditative joy. To wit, “Safe Place?” Is. “Morning Warmth?” Is, even with the foreboding march of drums behind it. And “Striatum,” which closes with interplay of keys and fuzzy leads and effects, giving a culminating seven-minute wash that doesn’t feel like it’s pushing far out so much as already gone upon arrival, indeed seems like a reward for any head or brain that’s managed to make it so far. Opener “Resemblance” brings four minutes of gentle drone to set the mood ahead of “Morning Warmth” — it might be sunrise, if we’re thinking of it that way — and centerpiece “High Noon Thirty” bridges krauty electronic beats and organic ceremony that feels both familiar and like the band’s own. They may pill at night, but Carlton Melton have a hell of a day here.

Carlton Melton on Facebook

Agitated Records website

 

Crown, The End of All Things

Crown The End of All Things

Weaving in and around genres with fluidity that’s tied together through dark industrial foundations, Crown are as much black metal as they are post-heavy, cinematic or danceable. “Gallow” or the earlier “Neverland” call to mind mid-period, electronica-fascinated Katatonia, but “Extinction” pairs this with a more experimental feel, opening in its midsection to more unsettling spaces ahead of the dance-ready finish. There’s nothing cartoonish or vamp about The End of All Things, which is the French outfit’s fourth album in 10 years, and it’s as likely to embrace pop (closer “Utopia”) as extremity (“Firebearer” just before), grim atmospherics (“Nails”) or textured acoustics (“Fleuve”), feeling remarkably unconcerned with genre across its 45 entrancing minutes, and remarkably even in its approach for a sound that’s still so varied. It’s not an easy listen front to back, but the challenge feels intentional and is emotional as much as cerebral in the craft and performance.

Crown on Facebook

Pelagic Records on Bandcamp

 

Noêta, Elm

Noêta elm

Swedish duo Noêta offer their second record for Prophecy Productions in Elm, comprising a deceptively efficient eight songs and 38 minutes that work in atmospheres of darker but not grim or cultish folk. Vocalist Êlea is very much a focal point in terms of performance, with Andris‘ instrumentals forming a backdrop that’s mournful on “Above and Below” while shimmering enough to bring affirmation to “As We Are Gone” a short while later ahead of the electrified layering in “Elm” and the particularly haunted-feeling closer “Elm II.” “As I Fall Silent” is a singularly spacious moment, but not the only one, as “Fade” complements with strings and outward-sounding guitar, and some of Elm‘s most affecting moments are its quietest stretches, as “Dawn Falls” proves at the outset and the whispers of “Elm” reaffirm on side B. Subdued but not lacking complexity, Noêta‘s songs make an instrument of mood itself and are pointedly graceful in doing so.

Noêta on Facebook

Prophecy Productions website

 

Polymerase, Unostentatious

Polymerase Unostentatious

Unostentatious, which is presumably not to say “humble,” may or may not be Polymerase‘s debut release, but it follows on from several years of inactivity on the part of the Philippines-based mostly-instrumentalist heavy psych trio. The band present four duly engaging and somewhat raw feeling jams, with a jump in volume as “Lightbringer//Lightgiver” picks up from “A Night with a Succubus” and opener “The Traveler” and a final touch of thickened, fuzzy sludge in the rolling “Green is the Color of Evil,” which closes at a lurch that comes across at significant remove from the title-hinted brightness of the song just before it. Uneven? Maybe, but not egregiously so, and if Polymerase are looking to give listeners an impression of their having a multifaceted sound, they most assuredly do. My question is over what span of time these tracks were recorded and what the group will do in moving forward from them, but I take the fact that I’m curious to find out at all as a positive sign of having interest piqued. Will hope for more.

Polymerase on Facebook

Polymerase on Bandcamp

 

Lucid Sins, Cursed!

lucid sins cursed

Lucid indeed. The band’s self-applied genre tag of “adult AOR” is more efficient a descriptor of their sound than anything I might come up with. Glasgow’s Lucid Sins released their acclaimed debut, Occultation, in 2014, and Cursed! is the exclamatory seven-years-later follow-up, bringing together classic progressive rock and modern cult heavy sensibilities with a focus on songwriting that’s the undercurrent from “Joker’s Dance” onward and which, as deep as “The Serpentine Path” or the title-track or “The Forest” might go, is never forgotten. To wit, the penultimate “By Your Hand” is a proto-everything highlight, stomping compared to the organ-prog “Sun and the Moon” earlier, but ultimately just as melodic and of enviable tonal warmth. Seven years is a long time between records, and maybe this material just took that long to put together, I don’t know, but I had no idea “cult xylophone” was a possibility until “The Devil’s Sign” came along, and now I’m not sure how I ever lived without it.

Lucid Sins on Facebook

Totem Cat Records store

 

Hekate, Sermons to the Black Owl

Hekate Sermons to the Black Owl

Australia’s history in heavy rock and roll is as long as that of heavy rock and roll itself and need not be recounted here, except to say that Hekate, from Canberra and Sydney, draw from multiple eras of it with their debut long-player, Sermons to the Black Owl, pushing ’70s boogie over the top with solos on “Carpathian Eagle” only after “Winter Void” and “Child of Black Magick” have seen the double-guitar-and-let’s-use-both four-piece update nascent doom vibes and “Burning Mask” has brought a more severe chug to the increasingly intense procession. A full production sound refuses to let the quick eight-tracker be anything other than modern, and though it’s only 28 minutes long, the aptly-titled “Acoustic Outro” feels earned atmospherically, even down to the early-feeling cold finish of “Cassowary Dreaming.” The balance may be then, then, then, and now, but the sense of shove that Hekate foster in their songs gives fresh urgency to the tenets of genre they seem to have adopted at will.

Hekate on Facebook

Black Farm Records store

 

Abel Blood, Keeping Pace with the Elephants

Abel Blood Keeping Pace with the Elephants

One does not evoke elephantine images on a heavy record, even on a debut release, if aural largesse isn’t a factor. New Hampshire trio Abel Blood — guitarist/vocalist Adam Joslyn, bassist Ben Cook, drummer Jim DeLuca — are raw in sound on their first EP, Keeping Pace with the Elephants, but the impact with which they land “The Day that Moby Died” at the outset is only encouraging, and to be sure, it’s not the thickest of their wares either. “Enemies” already pushes further, and as centerpiece “UnKnown Variant” would seem to date the effort in advance, it also serves the vital function of moving the EP in a different, more jangly, grungier direction, which is a valuable move with the title cut following behind, its massive cymbals and distorted wash building to a head in time for the nine-minute finale “Fire on the Hillside” to draw together both sides of the approach shown throughout into a parabolically structured jam the middle-placed surge of which passes quickly enough to leave the listener unsure whether it ever happened. They’re messing with you. Dig that.

Abel Blood on Facebook

Abel Blood on Bandcamp

 

Suffer Yourself, Rip Tide

Suffer Yourself Rip Tide

Begun in 2011 by guitarist/vocalist Stanislav Govorukha and based in Sweden by way of Poland and the Ukraine, death-doom lurchbringers Suffer Yourself are not strangers to longer-form material, but to my knowledge, “Spit in the Chasm” — the opening and longest track (immediate points) on their third record, Rip Tide — is the first time they’ve crossed the 20-minute mark. Time well spent, and by that I mean “brutally spent,” whether its the speedier chug that emerges from the willful slog of the extended piece’s first half or the viciously progressive lead work that tops the precise, cold end of the song that brings final ambience. Side B offers two shorter pieces in “Désir de Trépas Maritime (Au Bord de la Mer Je Veux Mourir),” laced with suitably mournful strings and a fair enough maritime sense of gothic drama emphasized by later spoken word and piano, and the brief, mostly-drone “Submerging,” which one assumes is the end of that plotline playing out. The main consumption though is in “Spit in the Chasm,” and the dimensions of that fissure are significant, figuratively and literally.

Suffer Yourself on Facebook

Aesthetic Death website

 

Green Dragon, Dead of the Night

Green Dragon Dead of the Night

High order Sabbathian doom rock from my own beloved Garden State, there’s very little chance I’m not going to dig Green Dragon‘s Dead of the Night, and true to type, I do. Presented by the band on limited vinyl after digital release late in 2020, the four-song, 24-minute outing brings guitarist/vocalists Zach Kurland and Ryan Lipynsky (the latter also adding keys and known for his work in Unearthly Trance, etc.), bassist Jennifer Klein and drummer Herbert Wiley to a place so dug into its groove it almost feels inappropriate to think of it as a peak in terms of their work to-date. They go high by going low, then. Fair enough. “Altered States” opens with a rollout of fuzz that miraculously avoids the trap sounding like Electric Wizard, while “Burning Bridges” murks out, “The Sad King” pushes speed a bit will still holding firm to nod and echo alike, and “Book of Shadows” plunges into effects-drenched noise like it was one of the two waterslides at the Maplewood community pool in summertime.

Green Dragon on Facebook

Green Dragon on Bandcamp

 

ÂGE TOTAL, ÂGE TOTAL

ÂGE ? TOTAL

The kind of record that probably won’t be heard by enough people but will inspire visceral loyalty in many of those who encounter it, the self-titled debut from French collaborative outfit Age Total — bringing together members from Endless Floods out of Bordeaux and Rouen’s Greyfell — is a grand and engrossing work that pushes the outer limits of doom and post-metal. Bookending opener “Amure” (14:28) and closer “The Songbird” (16:45) around the experimentalist “Carré” (4:06) and rumbling melodic death-doom of “Metal,” the album harnesses grandiosity and nuance to spare, with each piece feeling independently conceived and enlightening to musician and audience alike. It sounds like the kind of material they didn’t know they were going to come up with until they actually got together — whatever the circumstances of “together” might’ve looked like at the time — and the bridges they build between progressive metal and sheer weight of intention are staggering. However much hype it does or doesn’t have behind it, Age Total‘s Age Total is one of 2021’s best debut albums.

Endless Floods on Facebook

Greyfell on Facebook

Soza Label on Bandcamp

 

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The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal Playlist: Episode 57

Posted in Radio on April 16th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

the obelisk show banner

Here’s the deal — last week or somewhere thereabouts, someone on Twitter was bitching about rock music being dead and blah blah the usual good music doesn’t come to me in the ways it did when I was 12 and therefore I think it’s irrelevant. The usual. Gimme Metal was mentioned as an outlet delivering good heavy to those who care enough to invest the minimal effort of clicking ‘listen.’ Dude was all “well if they played Trouble I’d listen” and Gimme rightly responded with a list of DJs who might be on board for such a thing. I was one of them.

Brought into the conversation I said hell yes I’d play Trouble. And as it happens I’ve gone ahead to play them twice, at the start of the show, and then follow it up with a bunch of other killer doom, old, newer and newer still, before circling back on the mother of them all, Black Fucking Sabbath, because when my name is brought into a random Twitter conversation and a challenge is issued, you bet your ass I’m going overboard. So pretty much the first hour of the show is doomed as all get-out. Trouble even through The Quill, who I thought were a good match for Dehumanizer-era Sabbath with that track from their new record.

Sometimes you gotta step up. Or something. I don’t know. I was just happen to have something to talk about in the voice breaks other than my kid or “thanks for listening.”

By the way, thanks for listening and/or reading. As always, I hope you enjoy.

The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at http://gimmemetal.com

Full playlist:

The Obelisk Show – 04.16.21

Trouble The Tempter Psalm 9
Trouble R.I.P. Trouble
Saint Vitus Burial at Sea Saint Vitus
Place of Skulls Last Hit With Vision
VT
The Gates of Slumber The Awakening (Interpolating the Wrath of the Undead) …The Awakening
Apostle of Solitude Grey Farewell From Gold to Ash
The Obsessed Neatz Brigade The Church Within
Black Sabbath After All (The Dead) Dehumanizer
The Quill Evil Omen Earthrise
VT
Boss Keloid Gentle Clovis Family the Smiling Thrush
Hippie Death Cult Hornet Party Circle of Days
NOÊTA Elm Elm
Kosmodemonic Morai Liminal Light
Hellish Form Shadows with Teeth Remains
VT
Darsombra Call the Doctor (Sun Side) Call the Doctor / Nightgarden

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is April 30 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.

Gimme Metal website

The Obelisk on Thee Facebooks

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The Obelisk Questionnaire: Êlea of NOÊTA

Posted in Questionnaire on April 12th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

Êlea of NOÊTA

The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Êlea of NOÊTA

How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

I’m a singer, musician and a visual artist. Musically, I define NOÊTA as a dynamic mixture between folk, black metal, and dark ambient, with my singing as a contrasting element. I never really chose to do music, but it’s been something I’ve needed to do to feel complete.

Describe your first musical memory.

Probably singing in the Church choir as a three-year old.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

Very tough question, I’ve had so many great musical memories. I think it would be either times of writing my own music, in especially creative times, or one of the many great live concerts I’ve been to.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

Constantly, I feel. I live a life of constant exploration and I think we should never stop challenging our beliefs.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

The obvious answer is to new creative expressions. But I think the neat thing about being an artist is that, at least for me, so much of the value of life is interconnected with music and creativity. So exploring and progressing in your artistic expression is in a way what gives some bigger purpose to life.

How do you define success?

Success is dangerous to define by any external values or opinions, or by things like financial gain or popularity. I believe that in the end, success is the constant work towards your goals. It’s not a place that you reach, and then you’re finished. Success to me is more a “state” and a mindset.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

The slow destruction of our natural surroundings at the hands of humanity.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

Music in so many shapes and forms. I like and appreciate a lot of different expressions of music, and I hope to create something of another genre than that of my current project, NOÊTA. I’d like to sing a lot more during my everyday life. So, more so than what I want to create, my goals are about focusing more time and energy towards singing and music.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

There is no one answer to that question, as art affects people in very different ways, and in a multitude of ways at that. For me art is about experiencing, expressing or exploring different emotions, feelings, concepts or settings. Art that doesn’t prompt any emotional response whatsoever is quite useless, or serves the same purpose as a wall paper or a nice pair of pants.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

Seeing how life unfolds.

www.facebook.com/noetaofficial
www.instagram.com/noetaofficial
http://lnk.spkr.media/noeta-elm
https://www.facebook.com/prophecyproductions/
https://prophecy-de.bandcamp.com/
http://en.prophecy.de/

NOÊTA, Elm (2021)

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Prophecy Fest 2017 Lineup Finalized: Sólstafir, Arcturus, Dool, Hypnopazuzu and More to Play

Posted in Whathaveyou on April 13th, 2017 by JJ Koczan

Haven’t you ever wanted to go to a festival in a German cave? Fucking of course you have. Don’t even pretend otherwise. And somehow, given the vast sonic swath it covers, from the post-everything metal of Arcturus to the Eastern European folk of The Moon and the Nightspirit to the goth-infused heavy rock of Dool — all of which operates under the banner of Prophecy Productions, it has to be noted — the lineup for Prophecy Fest 2017 couldn’t be more appropriate. The fest is set for July 28 and 29 at Balver Höhle in Balve, Germany.

Yes. It’s really a cave. Yes, you can go there and see cave stuff. There will also be a lineup of bands that emphasizes the unique (not a word I use often) breadth of Prophecy Productions, and that only makes it more special as an event. I don’t know how many fests you go to in the average year — 10? 15? — but I try and hit a few. I’ve never been to one in a cave. I’m ashamed to admit it.

Lineup rules, location rules. Concept rules. I can feel the vibe from here already.

From the PR wire:

prophecy fest 2017

Prophecy Fest 2017 – 28th & 29th July 2017 – Balver Höhle/Germany

Prophecy Fest takes place in a natural cave from Old Stone Age – Balver Höhle. According to Germanic Saga, the blacksmith Wieland had his workshop in the cave. Balve, Germany, is situated between Dortmund, Cologne, Frankfurt and Hannover.

After the amazing work Austrian graphic designer Irrwisch did made for Lotus Thief’s “Gramarye”, he was our choice for the art director function at Prophcy Fest 2017. We are delighted to have him on board and can’t wait for his exhibition in the cave of Balve!

Sun Of The Sleepless, the black metal/experimental side project of Schwadorf (Empyrium, The Vision Bleak), will play its second show ever at Prophecy Fest 2017! As a side note, the first concert was at the first small Prophecy label festival in 1999. Dornenreich will grace us with a special history acoustic concert at Prophecy Fest 2017! The set list will contain songs from all their albums as well as the “Mein Flügelschlag” demo tape. The Vision Bleak will perform with the Shadow Philharmonics for the first time since 2006 again.

We are proud to have Schwadorf and Konstanz back at Prophecy Fest 2017 for a special performance with a classical ensemble of strings, percussion and vocals! We are proud to add DOOL, one of our most exciting signings in recent years, to the billing of Prophecy Fest 2017. Ryanne van Dorst and her pack will prepare a special set with five additional musicians and singers exclusively for this event! The Moon and the Nightspirit will play a one-time show at Prophecy Fest! Their line-up will be extended by a pianist/harpist and a flutist and their set will include songs never played before.

Hypnopazuzu, the new band of David Tibet (Current 93) and Youth (Killing Joke), give their very first concert in Germany! Lotus Thief will be in Europe for the first time and we let them set ancient words to song in the cave of Balve. Hexvessel will prepare an extended performance for us with implemented acoustic set. Arcturus, the epitome of avant-garde metal, will perform at Prophecy Fest. Soror Dolorosa will perform “Severance” in its entirety for the first time. Additionally, they will present their new album “Apollo”.

Glerakur surprised us and blew us away with their performance at Prophecy Fest 2016. It was an easy decision for us to invite them again. Sólstafir will illuminate the cave of Balve! NOÊTA will play their first concert outside Scandinavia at this year’s Prophecy Fest! Spiritual Front will play a special “Armageddon Gigolo” set for Prophecy Fest 2017! Nhor world premiere performance at this year’s Prophecy Fest!

Unlike other festivals, we will not start with the most “unknown” artist and end with the “headliners”.

To us, they are all headliners and were chosen because we expect an amazing performance from them.

Therefore, all artists will receive the playing time they need for their performance, and the running order will reflect what we consider the optimum in terms of dramaturgy and suspension.

http://en.prophecy.de/prophecy-fest/
http://live.weltnetz.lu/en/titel/prophecy-fest-28-07-29-07-2017-balve/

Les Discrets, Live at Prophecy Fest 2016

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