I guess on a basic stylistic level, Dutch post-metallers Ortega aren’t really hitting on anything groundbreaking, but aside from its title being the best euphemism I’ve heard yet this week for getting a boner, I chose to feature their 18-minute single-song EP, The Serpent Stirs, for the basic reason that it was just what I needed today, just when I needed it. This afternoon, in a swirl of office chaos and lacking indoor voices, I plugged in my headphones and it was like I had just boarded a plane. Off I went.

The Groningen outfit delve pretty deeply into Panopticon-era Isisisms, but are tonally thicker and their requisite ambient break in “The Serpent Stirs” — the sole track for which the EP is named — features a surprisingly effective bluesy solo and some righteously grooving bass work. Again, it ain’t saving the world, but the build in The Serpent Stirs was enough to remind me of what was so appealing about this kind of stuff when it first started appearing, and enough to make me want to check out Ortega‘s other releases, the 2012 A Flame Never Rises on its Own EP and 2010’s 1634 debut full-length.

And when it comes to The Obelisk Radio, a big part of the reason I got it going in the first place was for just those moments, when you feel like your brain is going to fucking collapse and you need to punch out immediately and head somewhere else, mentally if not physically, so as The Serpent Stirs filled that role for me today, it seems only appropriate to make it the Add of the Week.

The band is Richard Postma (vocals, guitar), Alex Loots (guitar), Frank de Boer (bass) and Sven Jurgens (drums), and they’ve got vinyl and CDs and such for sale on the Ortega Bandcamp, from whence the following player also comes: