Samavayo Announce Dakota Reissue; Premiere Bonus Track “Justify”
Posted in audiObelisk, Whathaveyou on September 21st, 2017 by JJ Koczan
Germany-based heavy rockers Samavayo are getting ready to move forward from their 2016 album, Dakota (review here). That record, their fifth overall, has served as a high-water mark for the Berlin trio as they’ve continued to refine their approach within driving riffage and Middle Eastern-inflected stylistic flourish. They have a handful of dates left for this year and then they’ll settle in and begin the writing process anew. At the risk of giving you my actual opinion on the matter, I think Samavayo are underrated as songwriters and so the idea of another record and another step forward from them is exciting. They’ve only grown more progressive over time.
Before they get down to the nitty-gritty of constructing new material — which they’ll do with an eye toward a 
Fall 2018 release according to guitarist/vocalist Behrang Alavi, who’s joined in the band by bassist/vocalist/Moog-ist Andreas Voland and drummer/percussionist/vocalist Stephan Voland — Samavayo will oversee a second pressing of Dakota, and it’s to mark this occasion today that you’ll find the premiere of the previously-unreleased cut “Justify” below. Recorded at Big Snuff Studio by Richard Behrens, its central riff a little bit speaks to the upbeat shove one finds from the likes of Red Fang, but even to this Samavayo can’t help but lend their own personality.
Full in tone and righteous in hook, “Justify” is one more example of the edge Samavayo bring to classic-style structures and the kind of rhythmic drive that will hopefully find its way into their new stuff as well. Alavi offered some background on the song which you can read under the track itself below, followed of course by the tour dates.
Please enjoy:
Behrang Alavi on “Justify”:
“Justify” was recorded in the same 11-day session as Dakota at Richard Behrens’ studio in Feb. 2016. We didn’t put the song on the album like our previously-released “To The Ground” because we wanted to have that as a clear, homogeneous heavy psych stoner album. We planned to release them later, but by then we didn’t have a plan how. Now we release the track with the second edition (500 pieces) of the Dakota CD after the first edition has sold out (only few few copies left).
As we did with the second edition of our first album death.march.melodies, we again changed a detail on the second edition to make it something special. In the case of d.m.m., we changed the artwork of the CD print. On Dakota, the artwork is unchanged but we added a bonus track at the end of the CD.
This month we also started writing songs for the next album planned for autumn 2018. We have a few shows left this year in Germany and Switzerland. If progress remains positive, we will record the album in spring 2018 while we play few shows. Next year we will be playing festivals where we are going to put some of the new songs into set list and then have the main tour with the new album in autumn. We are considering looking for a new label after many years releasing on our “home”-label, Setalight.
Samavayo live:
Oct 03 Forum, Bielefeld, Germany supporting Brant Bjork
Oct 12 Hirscheneck Basel, Switzerland
Oct 13 Böröm Pöm Pöm Oberentfelden, Switzerland
Oct 14 Jazzkeller Hofheim Am Taunus, Germany
Nov 18 Lindenpark Potsdam, Germany
Dec 01 Finsterwalde, Germany
