Caligari heavy blues rockers King Howl will release their third album, Homecoming, on June 9 through Electric Valley Records. With a liberal dose of harmonica at the outset and an uptempo kick to match, hints of Grinderman in its second half, the 11-track/40-minute LP begins at a burn with “The Rooster,” the slide-guitar-inclusive “From the Cradle” and the fuzzier shove and Hendrixian lead flourish of “The Train,” a salvo of three songs none of which hits three minutes in length, and only really the last of which speaks to the band’s foundation in heavy rock. In this way, the Sardinian four-piece of vocalist Diego Pani (also harmonica), guitarist Marco Antagonista, and the dual-Alessandro rhythm section of bassist Alessandro Cau and drummer Alessandro Sedda hone momentum and seem immediately to bring their listener along with them as they move through, not recklessly or haphazard, but with vitality enough to match their bluesy aesthetic.
“John Henry Days” is longer at 4:25, broader, more patient and fuzzier, like Five Horse Johnson in the old days and a raucous rollout in its back half, though it ends with the acoustic guitar peppered throughout. “Motorsound” and “Slowly Coming Down” put further emphasis on the variety in King Howl‘s sound, swapping out the high-energy swing of the former — like a retro take on ’10s retroism — for a mellower unfolding, languid in its melody and semi-psych echoing solo and filled out by fuzz-coated bass notes, closing side A with a hint toward further expansion to come even as “Tempted” (2:50) arrives to revitalize the thrust that began the album on “The Rooster,” slide guitar and all, before “Jupiter” plays back and forth in loud/quiet trades and build-and-runs, fuzzed enough to evoke both very large planets and ancient deities, if somewhat understated in its finish.
The organ that sweeps in on “The Great Blue Heron” and the buzzsaw lead that cuts through its back half likewise speak to classic heavy rock influences, but it’s all tied to blues rock either way and King Howl offer an example of that root in the mid-tempo piece before giving over to “Gimme Shelter,” a cover of the Rolling Stones‘ iconic single. I’ll admit that personally I’m not a fan of the song — I saw the band once in the ’90s, so I’ve got that going for me — but it makes sense in light of the purported on-the-road-in-the-1960s-narrative the album follows even if it’s somewhat sonically superfluous, and I’ve been arguing back and forth with myself whether or not it makes the album stronger. I’m not sure it does, though King Howl deserve credit for taking something that just about everyone on the planet has likely heard whether they know/like it or not and making it their own. That’s not a minor achievement. If you’re the type to skip, maybe you skip it. If not, maybe you have that song stuck in your head for the rest of the day. As with all things: Choose Your Adventure.
But if the record is going to be called Homecoming, then the place to end it is “Home,” and that’s exactly what King Howl do. The closer (premiering below) is the longest inclusion at 5:43 and pulls together a lot of what works best throughout Homecoming in terms of groove, melody and the balance of elements in the mix; the vocals are in focus but not overbearing, the jabs of rhythm guitar are bright but not blinding, the rhythm is fluid and steady but not boring, the organ adds to each build into the hook, and so on. There’s a break after the midpoint with quiet standalone vocals, but to King Howl‘s credit, they finish by bringing it all the way back to an apex and then fading it out long, whether that’s the heavy blues train departing the station, seeming not so much like the song or story is ending but that we’re the ones leaving it behind. Fair enoough.
King Howl revel in their rougher-edged moments — “Tempted,” “The Train,” etc. — and offer diversity in their approach enough to hold fickle modern attentions, but the highlight of Homecoming, the finale aside, is the fact that they have a heavy blues sound, harmonica, organ and all, that comes across as organic when so much heavy blues is an absolute put-on on the part of those making it. Yes, they’re engaging with a folk tradition outside of their own — i.e., the African-American folk roots out from which blues music grew over a century ago — but they don’t sound like they’re pretending to be something they’re not in terms of style, and a big credit for that goes to Pani‘s vocals, which feel natural and developed over the course of the band’s three full-lengths to-date.
There’s a lot to dig into and a lot to dig, but King Howl are engaging throughout Homecoming and sound comfortable in their skin and like they didn’t have to sacrifice their edge to get there, setting stage-ready vibrancy to the cause of good-time classic heavy blues, and then some. Six years after their second long-player, Rougarou (they covered Canned Heat there, having already done Skip James and Blind Willie Johnson on 2014’s debut King Howl Quartet), this return speaks of the living done in the interim and benefits from the care put into its crafting.
“Home” premieres below, followed by more info from the PR wire.
Please enjoy:
King Howl, “Home” track premiere
King Howl on “Home”:
“Home” is the last track of our new album, ‘Homecoming.’ An angry but hopeful homecoming that concludes an epic in music, a round trip of growth and change, of damnation, redemption, and rebirth. A classic rock song with a blues feeling and the guts of stoner rock, empowered by the Hammond organ.
KING HOWL from Cagliari, Sardinia, play HEAVY BLUES: the raw sounds of the blues are filtered by a multitude of different musical influences coming from stoner rock, 70’s classic rock, funk, and punk in a crossover labored with spontaneity and naturalness, a flow of sounds that never stops.
King Howl attracted conspicuous attention with their first full-length “King Howl Quartet” (2012, Talk About Records/Go Down Records), which imposed a personal sound, pushed by singles like “Morning” and “Drunk.”
In 2014, the 4-track “Truck Stop Ep” (Talk About Records) brought new nuances to King Howl’s trademark, developing a more mature songwriting exposed in songs like “Kerouac” or “Time to say Goodbye.” In July 2017, King Howl released their last full length called “Rougarou.” 10 tracks of blues fueled – booze-soaked Rock’n’Roll, another proof of the band’s peculiar sound defined through years on the road, represented by bangers such as “Gone,” “Screaming” and “Demons.” The band toured all of Italy and central Europe several times, often included in the bills of international festivals such as Pietrasonica Festival, Time in Jazz, Duna Jam, Maximum Festival, Crumble Fight Fest, Freiburg Fuzz Fest, Swanflight Festival, Narcao Blues, Aglientu Summer Blues and opening (among others) for Mud Morganfield, Fatso Jetson, Yawning Man, Greenleaf, My Sleeping Karma, Siena Root, Bob Margolin.
King Howl’s new album, titled “Homecoming” will be released by Electric Valley Records on June 16, 2023. The work represents a new chapter in the band’s stylistic universe, spurring King Howl’s trademark sound while mixing it with new compositional and sound influences. A mix of blues, stoner, psychedelia, and classic rock that paints the soundscape of an on-the-road story set in 1960s America. The album was recorded in Sardinia by Roberto Macis and Willy Cuccu and mixed by Nene Baratto and Richard Behrens at Big Snuff Studio in Berlin, a key production hub for international heavy Psych (Kadavar, Samsara Blues Experiment, Elder, Wucan). Artwork by Elena Cabitza.
Tracklisting: 1. The Rooster 2. From the Cradle 3. The Train 4. John Henry Days 5. Motorsound 6. Slowly Coming Down 7. Tempted 8. Jupiter 9. The Great Blue Heron 10. Gimme Shelter (Rolling Stones cover) 11. Home
King Howl: Diego Pani – Voce, Armonica Marco Antagonista – Chitarra Alessandro Cau – Basso Alessandro Sedda – Batteria
Hey there and welcome back to the Spring 2023 Quarterly Review. Today I’ve got another 10-record batch for your perusal, and if you’ve never been to this particular party before, it’s part of an ongoing series this site does every couple months (you might say quarterly), and this week picks up from yesterday as well as a couple weeks ago, when another 70 records of various types were covered. If there’s a lesson to be learned from all of it, it’s that we live in a golden age of heavy music, be it metal, rock, doom, sludge, psych, prog, noise or whathaveyou. Especially for whathaveyou.
So here we are, you and I, exploring the explorations in these many works and across a range of styles. As always, I hope you find something that feels like it’s speaking directly to you. For what it’s worth, I didn’t even make it through the first 10 of the 50 releases to be covered this week yesterday without ordering a CD from Bandcamp, so I’m here in a spirit of learning too. We’ll go together and dive back in.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
Smokey Mirror, Smokey Mirror
Those in the know will tell you that the vintage-sound thing is over, everybody’s a goth now, blah blah heavygaze. That sounds just fine with Dallas, Texas, boogie rockers Smokey Mirror, who on their self-titled Rise Above Records first LP make their shuffle a party in “Invisible Hand” and the class-conscious “Pathless Forest” even before they dig into the broader jam of the eight-minute “Magick Circle,” panning the solos in call and response, drum solo, softshoe groove, full on whatnot. Meanwhile, “Alpha-State Dissociative Trance” would be glitch if it had a keyboard on it, a kind of math rock from 1972, and its sub-three-minute stretch is followed by the acoustic guitar/harmonica folk blues of “Fried Vanilla Super Trapeze” and the heavy fuzz resurgence of “Sacrificial Altar,” which is long like “Magick Circle” but with more jazz in its winding jam and more of a departure into it (four minutes into the total 7:30 if you’re wondering), while the Radio Moscow-style smooth bop and rip of “A Thousand Days in the Desert” and shred-your-politics of “Who’s to Say” act as touch-ground preface for the acoustic noodle and final hard strums of “Recurring Nightmare,” as side B ends in mirror to side A. An absolute scorcher of a debut and all the more admirable for wearing its politics on its sleeve where much heavy rock hides safe behind its “I’m not political” whiteness, Smokey Mirror‘s Smokey Mirror reminds that, every now and again, those in the know don’t know shit. Barnburner heavy rock and roll forever.
Jack Harlon & The Dead Crows, Hail to the Underground
The moral of the story is that the members of Melbourne’s Jack Harlon and the Dead Crows — may they someday be famous enough that I won’t feel compelled to point out that none of them is Jack; the lineup is comprised of vocalist/guitarist Tim Coutts-Smith, guitarist Jordan Richardson, bassist Liam Barry and drummer Josh McCombe — came up in the ’90s, or at least in the shadow thereof. Hail to the Underground collects eight covers in 35 minutes and is the Aussie rockers’ first outing for Blues Funeral, following two successful albums in 2018’s Hymns and 2021’s The Magnetic Ridge (review here), and while on paper it seems like maybe it’s the result of just-signed-gotta-get-something-out motivation, the takes on tunes by Aussie rockers God, the Melvins, Butthole Surfers, My Bloody Valentine and Joy Division (their “Day of Lords” is a nodding highlight) rest organically alongside the boogie blues of “Roll & Tumble” (originally by Hambone Willie Newbern), the electrified surge of Bauhaus‘ “Dark Entries” and the manic peaks of “Eye Shaking King” by Amon Düül II. It’s not the triumphant, moment-of-arrival third full-length one awaits — and it would be soon for it to be, but it’s how the timing worked with the signing — but Hail to the Underground adds complexity to the narrative of the band’s sound in communing with Texan acid noise, country blues from 1929 to emo and goth rock icons in a long-player’s span, and it’ll certainly keep the fire burning until the next record gets here.
Minimalist in social media presence (though on YouTube and Bandcamp, streaming services, etc.), Sardinian one-man outfit Noorag — also stylized all-lowercase: noorag — operates at the behest of multi-instrumentalist/producer Federico “WalkingFred” Paretta, and with drums by Daneiele Marcia, the project’s debut EP, Fossils, collects seven short pieces across 15 minutes that’s punk in urgency, sans-vocal in the execution, sludged in tone, metallic in production, and adventurous in some of its time changes. Pieces like the ambient opener “Hhon” and “Amanita Shot,” which follows headed on the quick into the suitably stomping “Brachiopod” move easily between each other since the songs themselves are tied together through their instrumental approach and relatively straightforward arrangements. “Cochlea Stone” is a centerpiece under two minutes long with emphasis rightfully on the bass, while “Ritual Electric” teases the stonershuggah nuance in the groove of “Acid Apricot”‘s second half, and the added “Digital Cave” roughs up the recording while maybe or maybe not actually being the demo it claims to be. Are those drums programmed? We may never know, but at a quarter of an hour long, it’s not like Noorag are about to overstay their welcome. Fitting for the EP format as a way to highlight its admirable intricacy, Fossils feels almost ironically fresh and sounds like the beginning point of a broader progression. Here’s hoping.
With the notable exceptions of six-minute opener “Era” and the 8:36 “Uhtceare” with the gradual build to its explosion into the “Stones From the Sky” moment that’s a requisite for seemingly all post-metal acts to utilize at least once (they turn it into a lead later, which is satisfying), Sweden’s KOLLAPS\E — oh your pesky backslash — pair their ambient stretches with stately, shout-topped declarations of riff that sound like early Isis with the clarity of production and intent of later Isis, which is a bigger difference than it reads. The layers of guttural vocals at the forefront of “Anaemia” add an edge of extremity offset by the post-rock float of the guitar, and “Bränt Barn Skyr Elden” (‘burnt child dreads the fire,’ presumably a Swedish aphorism) answers by building tension subtly in its first two minutes before going full-barrage atmosludge for the next as it, “Anaemia,” and the closing pair of “Radiant Static” and “Murrain” harness short-song momentum on either side of four minutes long — something the earlier “Beautiful Desolate” hinted at between “Era” and “Uhtceare” — to capture a distinct flow for side B and giving the ending of “Murrain” its due as a culmination for the entire release. Crushing or spacious or both when it wants to be, Phantom Centre is a strong, pandemic-born debut that looks forward while showing both that it’s schooled in its own genre and has begun to decide which rules it wants to break.
Healthyliving, Songs of Abundance, Psalms of Grief
A multinational conglomerate that would seem to be at least partially assembled in Edinburg, Scotland, Healthyliving — also all-lowercase: healthyliving — offer folkish melodicism atop heavy atmospheric rock for a kind of more-present-than-‘gaze-implies feel that is equal parts meditative, expansive and emotive on their debut full-length, Songs of Abundance, Psalms of Grief. With the vocals of Amaya López-Carromero (aka Maud the Moth) given a showcase they more than earn via performance, multi-instrumentalist Scott McLean (guitar, bass, synth) and drummer Stefan Pötzsch are able to conjure the scene-setting heft of “Until,” tap into grunge strum with a gentle feel on “Bloom” or meander into outright crush with ambient patience on “Galleries” (a highlight) or move through the intensity of “To the Gallows,” the unexpected surge in the bridge of “Back to Back” or the similarly structured but distinguished through the vocal layering and melancholic spirit of the penultimate “Ghost Limbs” with a long quiet stretch before closer “Obey” wraps like it’s raking leaves in rhythm early and soars on a strident groove that caps with impact and sprawl. They are not the only band operating in this sphere of folk-informed heavy post-rock by any means, but as their debut, this nine-song collection pays off the promise of their 2021 two-songer Until/Below (review here) and heralds things to come both beautiful and sad.
Even before Vermont freak-psych two-piece MV & EE — Matt Valentine and Erika Elder, both credited with a whole bunch of stuff including, respectively, ‘the real deal’ and ‘was’ — are nestled into the organic techno jam of 19-minute album opener “Free Range,” their Green Ark full-length has offered lush lysergic hypnosis via an extended introductory drone. Far more records claim to go anywhere than actually do, but the funky piano of “No Money” and percussion and wah dream-disco of “Dancin’,” with an extra-fun keyboard line late, set up the 20-minute “Livin’ it Up,” in a way that feels like surefooted experimentalism; Elder and Valentine exploring these aural spaces with the confidence of those who’ve been out wandering across more than two decades’ worth of prior occasions. That is to say, “Livin’ it Up” is comfortable as it engages with its own unknown self, built up around a bass line and noodly solo over a drum machine with hand percussion accompanying, willfully repetitive like the opener in a way that seems to dig in and then dig in again. The 10-minute “Love From Outer Space” and nine-minute mellow-psych-but-for-the-keyboard-beat-hitting-you-in-the-face-and-maybe-a-bit-of-play-around-that-near-the-end “Rebirth” underscore the message that the ‘out there’ is the starting point rather than the destination for MV & EE, but that those brave enough to go will be gladly taken along.
Israeli trio The Great Machine — brothers Aviran Haviv (bass/vocals) and Omer Haviv (guitar/vocals) as well as drummer/vocalist Michael Izaky — find a home on Noisolution for their fifth full-length in nine years, Funrider, trading vocal duties back and forth atop songs that pare down some of the jammier ideology of 2019’s less-than-ideally-titled Greatestits, still getting spacious in side-A ender “Pocketknife” and the penultimate “Some Things Are Bound to Fail,” which is also the longest inclusion at 6:05. But the core of Funrider is in the quirk and impact of rapid-fire cuts like “Zarathustra” and “Hell & Back” at the outset, the Havivs seeming to trade vocal duties throughout to add to the variety as the rumble before the garage-rock payoff of “Day of the Living Dead” gives over to the title-track or that fuzzier take moves into “Pocketknife.” Acoustic guitar starts “Fornication Under the Consent of the King” but it becomes sprinter Europunk bombast before its two minutes are done, and with the rolling “Notorious” and grungeminded “Mountain She” ripping behind, the most unifying factor throughout Funrider is its lack of predictability. That’s no minor achievement for a band on their fifth record making a shift in their approach after a decade together, but the desert rocking “The Die” that closes with a rager snuck in amid the chug is a fitting summary of the trio’s impressive creative reach.
Following-up their 2017 debut, Stoner Circus, Austrian trio Swanmay offer seven songs and 35 minutes of new material with the self-issued Frantic Feel, finding their foundation in the bass work of Chris Kaderle and Niklas Lueger‘s drumming such that Patrick Àlvaro‘s ultra-fuzzed guitar has as strong a platform to dance all over as possible. Vocals in “The Art of Death” are suitably drunk-sounding (which doesn’t actually hurt it), but “Mashara” and “Cats and Snails” make a rousing opening salvo of marked tonal depth and keep-it-casual stoner saunter, soon also to be highlighted in centerpiece “Blooze.” On side B, “Stone Cold” feels decidedly more like it has its life together, and “Old Trails” tightens the reins from there in terms of structure, but while closer “Dead End” stays fuzzy and driving like the two songs before, the noise quotient is upped significantly by the time it’s done, and that brings back some of the looser swing of “Mashara” or “The Art of Death.” But when Swanmay want to be — and that’s not all the time, to their credit — they are massively heavy, and they put that to raucous use with a production that is accordingly loud and vibrant. Seems simple reading a paragraph, maybe, but the balance they strike in these songs is a difficult one, and even if it’s just for the guitar and bass tones, Frantic Feel demands an audience.
“Death will come swiftly to those who are weak,” goes the crooning verse lyric from Garden of Ash‘s “Death Valley” at the outset of the young Edmonton, Alberta, trio’s self-titled, self-released debut full-length. Bassist Kristina Hunszinger delivers the line with due severity, but the Witch Mountain-esque slow nod and everybody-dies lyrics of “A Cautionary Tale” show more of the tongue-in-cheek point of view of the lyrics. The plot thickens — or at very least hits harder — when the self-recorded outing’s metallic production style is considered. In the drums of Levon Vokins — who also provides backing vocals as heard on “Roses” and elsewhere — the (re-amped) guitar of Zach Houle and even in the mostly-sans-effects presentation of Hunszinger‘s vocals as well as their placement at the forefront of the mix, it’s heavy metal more than heavy rock, but as Vokins takes lead vocals in “World on Fire” with Hunszinger joining for the chorus, the riff is pure boogie and the earlier “Amnesia” fosters doomly swing, so what may in the longer term be a question of perspective is yet unanswered in terms of are they making the sounds they want to and pushing into trad metal genre tenets, or is it just a matter of getting their feet under them as a new band? I don’t know, but songs and performance are both there, so this first full-length does its job in giving Garden of Ash something from which to move forward while serving notice to those with ears to hear them. Either way, the bonus track “Into the Void” is especially notable for not being a Black Sabbath cover, and by the time they get there, that’s not at all the first surprise to be had.
Checking in at one second less and 15 minutes flat, “The Bends” is the first release from Milwaukee-based three-piece Tidal, and it’s almost immediately expansive. With shades of El Paraiso-style jazz psych, manipulated samples and hypnotic drone at its outset, the first two minutes build into a wash with mellow keys/guitar effects (whatever, it sounds more like sax and they’re all credited with ‘noise,’ so I’m doing my best here) and it’s not until Sam Wallman‘s guitar steps forward out of the ambience surrounding at nearly four minutes deep that Alvin Vega‘s drums make their presence known. Completed by Max Muenchow‘s bass, which righteously holds the core while Wallman airs out, the roll is languid and more patient than one would expect for a first-release jam, but there’s a pickup and Tidal do get raucous as “The Bends” moves into its midsection, scorching for a bit until they quiet down again, only to reemerge at 11:10 from the ether of their own making with a clearheaded procession to carry them through the crescendo and to the letting-go-now drift of echo that caps. I hear tell they’ve got like an hour and a half of this stuff recorded and they’re going to release them one by one. They picked an intriguing one to start with as the layers of drone and noise help fill out the otherwise empty space in the instrumental jam without being overwrought or sacrificing the spontaneous nature of the track. Encouraging start. Will be ready when the next jam hits.
Posted in Reviews on April 18th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
So here we are. A fascinating and varied trip this has been, and while I’m tempted to find some greater meaning in it as regards the ongoing evolution of genre(s) in heavy underground music, the truth is that the overarching message is really that it’s impossible to keep up with that complexity as it unfolds. Hitting 70 releases on this last day with another 50 to come in a couple weeks, I feel like there’s just so much out there right now, and that that is the primary signifier of the current era.
Whether it’s pandemic-born projects or redirects, or long-established artists making welcome returns, or who knows what from who knows where, the world is brimming with creativity and is pushing the bounds of heavy with like-proportioned force and intent. This hasn’t always been easy to write, but as I look at the lineup below of the final-for-now installment of the QR, I’m just happy to be alive. Thanks for reading. I hope you have also found something that resonates.
Quarterly Review #61-70:
Dommengang, Wished Eye
A fourth full-length from Dommengang — are they in L.A. now? Portland, Oregon? does it matter? — neatly encapsulates the heavy psychedelic scope and the organic-vibing reach that stands them out from the pack, as somehow throughout the nine songs of Wished Eye, the Thrill Jockey denizen trio are able to inhabit a style that’s the Americana pastoral wakeup of “Runaway,” the hill-howling “Society Blues,” the drift-fuzz of over solid drums of “Last Card,” the dense tube-burning Hendrixism of “Myth Time,” and the minimalist guitar of “Little Beirut.” And oh, it keeps going; each track contributing something to the lush-but-natural spirit of the whole work. “Blue & Peaceful” brings acoustics to its midsection jam, while “Petrichor” is the West Coast freedom rock you’ve been waiting for, the title-track goes inland for nighttime desertscaping that finishes in hypnotic loops on a likewise hypnotic fade, and “Flower” proves to be more vine, winding its way around the lead guitar line as the vocals leave off with a highlight performance prior a fire-blues solo that finishes the record as the amps continue to scream. Undervalued? Why yes, Dommengang are, and Wished Eye makes the argument in plain language. With a sonic persona able to draw from country, blues, psych, indie, doom, fuzz, on and on, they’ve never sounded so untethered to genre, and it wasn’t exactly holding them back in the first place.
Formerly the frontman of Richmond, Virginia, sludgers Gritter, Ryan Kent — who already has several books of poetry on his CV — casts himself through Dying Comes With Age as a kind of spoken word ringmaster, and he’s brought plenty of friends along to help the cause. The readings in the title-track, “Son of a Bitch” and the title-track and “Couch Time” are semi-spoken, semi-sung, and the likes of Laura Pleasants (The Discussion, ex-Kylesa) lends backing vocals to the former while Jimmy Bower (Down, EyeHateGod) complements with a low-key fuzzy bounce. I’ll admit to hoping the version of “My Blue Heaven” featuring Windhand‘s Dorthia Cottrell was a take on the standard, but it’s plenty sad regardless and her voice stands alone as though Kent realized it was best to just give her the space and let it be its own thing on the record. Mike IX Williams of EyeHateGod is also on his own (without music behind) to close out with the brief “Cigarettes Roll Away the Time,” and Eugene S. Robinson of Oxbow/Buñuel recounting an homage apparently to Kent‘s grandfather highlights the numb feeling of so many during the pandemic era. Some light misogyny there and in “Message From Someone Going Somewhere With Someone Else Who is Going Somewhere” feels almost performative, pursuing some literary concept of edge, but the aural collage and per-song atmosphere assure Dying Comes With Age never lingers anywhere too long, and you can smell the cigarettes just by listening, so be ready with the Febreze.
The first hook on Clamor Luciferi, in post-intro leadoff “Succubus,” informs that “Your god is poison” amid a gravitationally significant wall of low-end buzzfuzz, so one would call it business as usual for Sardinian lurch-doomers 1782, who answer 2021’s From the Graveyard (review here) with another potent collection of horror-infused live resin audibles. Running eight songs and 39-minutes, one would still say the trio are in the post-Monolord camp in terms of riffs and grooves, but they’ve grown more obscure in sound over time, and the murk in so much of Clamor Luciferi is all the more palpable for the way in which the guitar solo late in “Devil’s Blood” cuts through it with such clarity. Immediacy suits them on “River of Sins” just before, but one would hardly fault “Black Rites” or the buried-the-vocals-even-deeper closer “Death Ceremony” for taking their time considering that’s kind of the point. Well, that and the tones and grit of “Demons,” anyhow. Three records in, 1782 continue and odd-year release pattern and showcase the individual take on familiar cultism and lumber that’s made their work to-date a joy to follow despite its sundry outward miseries. Clamor Luciferi keeps the thread going, which is a compliment in their case.
What Seum might be seen to lack in guitar, they more than make up in disgust. The Montreal trio — vocalist Gaspard, bassist Piotr, drummer Fred — offer a mostly-hateful 32-minute low-end mudslide on their second album, Double Double, the disaffection leaking like an oily discharge from the speakers in “Torpedo” and “Snow Bird” even before “Dog Days” lyrically takes on the heavy underground and “Dollarama” sees the emptiness in being surrounded by bullshit. For as caustic as it largely is, “Torpedo” dares a bit of dirt-caked melody in the vocals — also a backing layer in the somehow-catchy “Razorblade Rainbow” and the closing title-track has a cleaner shout — and the bass veers into funkier grooves at will, as on “Dog Days,” the winding second half of “Snow Bird,” where the bassline bookending the six-minute “Seum Noir” reminds a bit of Suplecs‘ “White Devil” in its fuzz and feels appropriate in that. Shades of Bongzilla persist, as they will with a scream like that, but like their impressive 2021 debut, Winterized (review here), Seum are able to make the big tones move when they need to, to the point that “Dollarama” brings to memory the glory days of Dopefight‘s over-the-top assault. Righteous and filthy.
Clearheaded desert-style heavy rock is the thread running through Old Mine Universe‘s debut album, This Vast Array, but with a bit of blues in “No Man’s Mesa” after the proggy flourish of guitar in “Gates of the Red Planet” and the grander, keyboardy unfolding of “My Shadow Devours” and the eight-minute, multi-movement, ends-with-cello finale “Cold Stream Guards,” it becomes clear the Canadian/Brazilian/Chilean five-piece aren’t necessarily looking to limit themselves on their first release. Marked by a strong performance from vocalist Chris Pew — whom others have likened to Ian Astbury and Glenn Danzig; I might add a likeness to some of Jim Healey‘s belting-it-out there as well, if not necessarily an influence — the songs are traditionally structured but move into a jammier feel on the loose “The Duster” and add studio details like the piano line in the second half of “Sixes and Sirens” that showcase depth as well as a solid foundation. At 10 songs/47 minutes, it’s not a minor undertaking for a band’s first record, but if you’re willing to be led the tracks are willing to lead, and with Pew‘s voice to the guitar and bass of David E. and Todd McDaniel in Toronto, the solos from Erickson Silva in Brazil and Sol Batera‘s drums in Chile, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the tracks take you different places.
Although Olso-based riffers Saint Karloff have tasked Nico Munkvold (also Jointhugger) for gigs, the band’s third album, Paleolithic War Crimes, was recorded with just the duo of guitarist/vocalist Mads Melvold (also keys and bass here) and drummer Adam Suleiman, and made in homage to original bassist Ole Sletner, who passed away in 2021. It is duly dug-in, from the lumbering Sabbath-worship repetitions of “Psychedelic Man” through the deeper purple organ boogieprog of “Blood Meridian” and quiet guitar/percussion interlude “Among Stone Columns” into “Bone Cave Escape” tilting the balance from doom to rock with a steady snare giving way to an Iommi-circa-’75 acoustic-and-keys finish to side A, leaving side B to split the longer “Nothing to Come” (7:01), which ties together elements of “Bone Cave Escape” and “Blood Meridian,” and closer “Supralux Voyager” (8:26) with the brash, uptempo “Death Don’t Have No Mercy,” which — I almost hate to say it — is a highlight, though the finale in “Supralux Voyager” isn’t to be ignored for what it adds to the band’s aesthetic in its patience and more progressive style, the steadiness of the build and a payoff that could’ve been a blowout but doesn’t need to be and so isn’t all the more resonant for that restraint. If Munkvold actually joins the band or they find someone else to complete the trio, whatever comes after this will inherently be different, but Saint Karloff go beyond 2019’s Interstellar Voodoo (review here) in ambition and realization with these seven tracks — yes, the interlude too; that’s important — and one hopes they continue to bring these lessons forward.
Astral Sleep, We Are Already Living in the End of Times
Feels like a gimme to say that a record called We Are Already Living in the End of Times is bleak, but if I note the despair laced into the extremity of songs like “The Legacies” or “Torment in Existence,” it’s in no small part to convey the fluidity with which Finland’s Astral Sleep offset their guttural death-doom, be it with melancholic folk-doom melody as on the opening title-track, or the sweetly weaving guitar lines leading into the bright-hued finish of “Invisible Flesh.” Across its 46 minutes, Astral Sleep‘s fourth LP picks up from 2020’s Astral Doom Musick (review here) and makes otherwise disparate sounds transition organically, soaring and crashing down with emotive and tonal impact on the penultimate “Time Is” before “Status of the Soul” answers back to the leadoff with nine-plus minutes of breadth and churn. These aren’t contradictions coming from Astral Sleep, and while yes, the abiding spirit of the release is doomed, that isn’t a constraint on Astral Sleep in needing to be overly performative or ‘dark’ for its own sake. There’s a dynamic at work here as the band seem to make each song an altar and the delivery itself an act of reverence.
The second single in two months from New Jersey sludge slayers Devoidov, “Amputation” backs the also-knife-themed “Stab” and brings four minutes of heavy cacophonous intensity that’s as much death metal as post-hardcore early on, and refuses to give up its doomed procession despite all the harshness surrounding. It’s not chaotic. It’s not without purpose. That mute right around 2:40, the way the bass picks up from there and the guitar comes back in, the hi-hat, that build-up into the tremolo sprint and kick-drum jabs that back the crescendo stretch stand as analogue for the structure underlying, and then like out of nowhere they toss in a ripper thrash solo at the end, in the last 15 seconds, as if to emphasize the ‘fuck everything’ they’ve layered over top. There’s punk at its root, but “Amputation” derives atmosphere from its rage as well as the spaciousness of its sound, and the violence of losing a part of oneself is not ignored. They’re making no secret of turning burn-it-all-down into a stylistic statement, and that’s part of the statement too, leaving one to wonder whether the sludge or grind will win in their songwriting over the longer term and if it needs to be a choice between one or the other at all.
Norwegian fuzz rollers Wolfnaut claim a lineage that goes back to 1997 (their debut was released in 2013 under their old moniker Wolfgang; it happens), so seems reasonable that their fourth full-length, Return of the Asteroid, should be so imbued with the characteristics of turn-of-the-century Scandinavian heavy. They might be at their most Dozerian on “Crash Yer Asteroid” or “Something More Than Night” as they meet careening riffs with vital, energetic groove, but the mellower opening with “Brother of the Badlands” gives a modern edge and as they unfurl the longer closing pair “Crates of Doom” (7:14) and “Wolfnaut’s Lament” (10:13) — the latter a full linear build that completes the record with reach and crunch alike, they are strident in their execution so as to bring individual presence amid all that thick tone crashing around early and the takeoff-and-run that happens around six minutes in. Hooky in “My Orbit is Mine” and willfully subdued in “Arrows” with the raucous “G.T.R.” following directly, Wolfnaut know what they’re doing and Return of the Asteroid benefits from that expertise in its craft, confidence, and the variety they work into the material. Not life-changing, but quality songwriting is always welcome.
If you’re gonna go, take a compass. And if your compass can be made of primo fuzz riffing, isn’t it that much more useful? If not as an actual compass? Each of the four cuts on Washington D.C. instrumentalists Fuzz Voyage‘s Heavy Compass Demo coincides with a cardinal direction, so you get “South Side Moss,” “North Star,” “East Wind” and “West Ice Mountain.” These same four tracks featured across two separate ‘sessions’-type demos in 2020, so they’ve been fairly worked on, but one can’t discount the presentation here that lets “East Wind” breathe a bit in its early going after the crunching stop of “North Star,” just an edge of heavy psychedelia having featured in the northerly piece getting fleshed out as it heads east. I might extend the perception of self-awareness on the part of the band to speculating “South Side Moss” was named for its hairy guitar and bass tone — if not, it could’ve been — and after “East Wind” stretches near seven minutes, “West Ice Mountain” closes out with a rush and instrumental hook that’s a more uptempo look than they’ve given to that point in the proceedings. Nothing to argue with unless you’re morally opposed to bands who don’t have singers — in which case, your loss — but one doesn’t get a lot of outright fuzz from the Doom Capitol, and Fuzz Voyage offer some of the densest distortion I’ve heard out of the Potomac since Borracho got their start. Even before you get to the concept or the art or whatever else, that makes them worth keeping an eye out for what they do next.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 1st, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Every day it’s something else from Heavy Psych Sounds. Actually, most days at least in the early unfolding of 2023 so far, it’s two something elses. Tours, festivals, releases upcoming. The Italian imprint has been arguably the world’s foremost purveyor of underground heavy, new and old, for a few years now, and while it might sound like I’m complaining about not being able to keep up — to be sure, a nuisance, but one that only makes me annoyed at myself, which is a familiar enough feeling — I’m actually amazed at the level of output. It’s a thing worth appreciating while it’s happening, and as 1782 and Acid Mammoth join forces for a 2023 sequel to their April 2022 joint tour, the pairing of two of the label’s up and comers emphasizes just how broad the imprint’s reach has become.
I don’t know about new Acid Mammoth, but 1782 recently announced their new record, Clamor Luciferi (info here), which will see release concurrent to this run, and that’s for sure something to look forward to. Note as well a few open dates if you’ve got a spot to host.
They’re calling it ‘Doom Tour Vol. 2,’ so, you know, points for accuracy. If they keep this up they’ll have to do a split eventually. Oh wait.
Dates follow:
Heavy Psych Sounds Records & Booking to announce 1782 + ACID MAMMOTH Doom tour vol. 2 !!!
Heavy Psych Sounds Records & Booking is proud to announce *** 1782 + ACID MAMMOTH *** – DOOM TOUR VOL. 2 –
We are stoked to announce a very special DOOM combo: 1782 + ACID MAMMOTH !!!
*** 1782 + ACID MAMMOTH *** Doom tour vol. 2 TH 06/04/2023 IT OPEN SLOT** FR 07/04/2023 IT BOLZANO – PIPPO STAGE SA 08/04/2023 DE SAARBRUCKEN – HORST SU 09/04/2023 FR LILLE – LA BRAT CAVE MO 10/04/2023 FR PARIS – BLACK DOG TU 11/04/2023 FR NANTES – THE BLACK SHELTER WE 12/04/2023 FR OPEN SLOT** TH 13/04/2023 ES OPEN SLOT** FR 14/04/2023 ES BARCELONA – SALA TEXTIL SA 15/04/2023 FR OPEN SLOT** SU 16/04/2023 FR MARSEILLE – LE MOLOTOV MO 17/04/2023 FR OPEN SLOT** TU 18/04/2023 FR CHAMBERY – BRIN DE ZINC WE 19/04/2023 IT BOLOGNA – FREAKOUT TH 20/04/2023 HR ZAGREB – DVA OSAM FR 21/04/2023 SL OPEN SLOT** SA 22/04/2023 IT PORDENONE – ASTRO CLUB
ACID MAMMOTH is: Chris Babalis Jr. – Vocals, Guitars Chris Babalis Sr. – Guitars Dimosthenis Varikos – Bass Marios Louvaris – Drums
1782 is: Marco Nieddu – vocals/guitar Gabriele Fancellu – drums/back. vocals Francesco Pintore – bass
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 20th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Lurching groove, cavernous echoes, a cultish sense of drudgery to mystify the mundane corners of one’s existence, yeah, 1782 sound like they’re on the right track with their new single “Succubus.” That it’s the second song on the Sardinian trio’s upcoming album, Clamor Luciferi, makes me think the preceding opener “A Merciful Suffering” either is or contains an intro to the whole record, otherwise it’d probably be the leadoff cut streaming first — that’s how it usually goes with Heavy Psych Sounds releases — but I haven’t heard the rest of the tracks yet, so I don’t know anything. In any case, this one is a nodder and I’m glad to nod accordingly.
We’ve got some time before the April 14 release of Clamor Luciferi, and no doubt there will be other material streaming publicly before then, but 1782‘s two full-lengths to-date have been gems of dug-deep dirty doom fuzz, and I expect no less for album three based on what I’m hearing here. The third LP is a special moment in the life of any band, and while 1782 have never lacked awareness of who they are as a band and what they want their sound to be, it does seem fair to expect a particularly virulent manifestation based on their growth to this point. One to look forward to, in other words.
The PR wire has details:
Italian occult doom metal specialists 1782 share first track off new album “Clamor Luciferi”; to be issued April 14th on Heavy Psych Sounds
Sardinia-based occult doom specialists 1782 announce the release of their third full-length “Clamor Luciferi” on April 14th through Heavy Psych Sounds, alongside the vinyl reissue of their first two albums. Listen to the thunderous first track “Succubus”!
On this new single, 1782 explore the ancient tale of the Succubus: “Attractive and seductive, she enters your nightmares, takes possession of your body and with ancient echoes drags you towards the deepest darkness. Follow the riff and watch out for evil echoes!”
“Clamor Luciferi” means the scream of Lucifer, a hostile scream but also noise and uproar! 1782 have created the heaviest and most evil songs they ever made. The album opens with an organ piece that conveys anxiety, suffering and melancholy. As always with the Sardinian trio, the themes revolve around the occult and local legends, dragging you into the deepest and most deafening darkness. It album was recorded, mixed and mastered by Alfredo Carboni at “RKS Studios” in Ossi, Sardinia (Italy) in November 2022.
Heavy Psych Sounds just announced the vinyl reissue of 1782’s previous albums “1782” and “From the Graveyard”, with preorders also available at this location:https://www.heavypsychsounds.com/shop.htm#HPS106v2
New album “Clamor Luciferi” Out April 14th on Heavy Psych Sounds –PREORDER
TRACKLIST: 1. A Merciful Suffering 2. Succubus 3. Demons 4. Black Rites 5. Tumultus XIII 6. River Of Sins 7. Devil’s Blood 8. Death Ceremony
In 1782, Anna Göldi was condemned, she was tortured and killed, this was the last witchcraft trial in Europe. In 2018, Marco Nieddu and Gabriele Fancellu formed a doom band called 1782 in honor of all the “witches” murdered by bigoted minds of many generations. Soon after, the band entered the studio to record the single “She She Was A Witch”, which was released through Electric Valley Records. Within a few days, the single turned out to arouse interest on social networks and among fans of the genre. In February 2019, 1782, they entered the studio to record their self-titled debut album, released through Roma-based label Heavy Psych Sounds Records.
After Francesco Pintore joined the band on bass, they recorded three new songs, which were released on the split album with Acid Mammoth “Doom Sessions Vol.2”. In 2021, the band released their sophomore album “From The Graveyard” through Heavy Psych Sounds. After playing at Heavy Psych Sounds Fest Berlin & Dresden and Desertfest Belgium 2021, the band went on an extensive European tour with Acid Mammoth in April 2022, including an appearance at Desertfest London.
1782 is: Marco Nieddu – Vocals, Guitar Gabriele Fancellu – Drums Francesco Pintore – Bass
Posted in Reviews on September 29th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Welcome to the penultimate day of the Fall 2022 Quarterly Review, and yes, I will make just about any excuse to use the word “penultimate.” Sometimes you have a favorite thing, okay? The journey continues today, down, out, up and around, through and across 10 records from various styles and backgrounds. I hope you dig it and check back tomorrow for the last day. Here we go.
Quarterly Review #81-90:
Motorpsycho, Ancient Astronauts
There is no denying Motorpsycho. I’ve tried. Can’t be done. I don’t know how many records the Norwegian progressive rockers have put out by now, and honestly I wonder if even the band members themselves could give an accurate count. And who would be able to fact check? Ancient Astronauts continues the strong streak that the Trondheim trio of Tomas Järmyr, Bent Sæther, and Hans “Snah” Ryan have had going for at least the last six years — 2021’s Kingdom of Oblivion (review here) was also part of it — comprising four songs across a single 43-minute LP, with side B consumed entirely by the 22-minute finale “Chariot of the Sun/To Phaeton on the Occasion of Sunrise (Theme From an Imaginary Movie).” After the 12-minute King Crimsony build from silence to sustained freakout in “Mona Lisa Azazel” — preceded by the soundscape “The Flower of Awareness” (2:14) and the relatively straightforward, welcome-bidding “The Ladder” (6:41) — the closer indeed unfurls in two discernible sections, the first a linear stretch increasing in volume and tension as it moves forward, loosely experimental in the background but for sure a prog jam by its 11th minute that ends groovy at about its 15th, and the second a synthesizer-led arrangement that, to no surprise, is duly cinematic. Motorpsycho have been a band for more than 30 years established their place in the fabric of the universe, and are there to dwell hopefully for a long(er) time to come. Not all of the hundred-plus releases they’ve done have been genius, but they are so reliably themselves in sound it feels silly to write about them. Just listen and be happy they’re there.
Did you think Abrams would somehow not deliver quality-crafted heavy rock, straightforward in structure, ’00s punk undercurrent, plus metal, plus melody? Their first offering through Small Stone is In the Dark, the follow-up to 2020’s Modern Ways (review here), and it finds guitarist/vocalist Zachary Amster joined by on guitar by Patrick Alberts (Call of the Void), making the band a four-piece for the first time with bassist/vocalist Taylor Iversen and drummer Ryan DeWitt completing the lineup. One can hear new textures and depth in songs like “Better Living” after the raucous opening salvo of “Like Hell” and “Death Tripper,” and longer pieces like “Body Pillow,” the title-track and the what-if-Blizzard–of–Ozz-was-really-space-rock “Black Tar Mountain,” which reach for new spaces atmospherically and in terms of progressive melody — looking at you, “Fever Dreams” — while maintaining the level of songwriting one anticipates from Abrams four records in. They’ve been undervalued for a while now. Can their metal-heavy-rock-punk-prog-that’s-also-kind-of-pop gain some of the recognition it deserves? It only depends on getting ears to hear it.
Australia-based electronic prog outfit All India Radio — the solo ambient/atmospheric endeavor of composer and Martin Kennedy — has been releasing music for over 20 years, and is the kind of thing you may have heard without realizing it, soundtracking television and whatnot. The Generator of All Infinity is reportedly the final release in a trilogy cycle, completely instrumental and based largely on short ambient movements that move between each other like, well, a soundtrack, with some more band-minded ideas expressed in “The New Age” — never underestimate the value of live bass in electronic music — and an array of samples, differing organs, drones, psychedelic soundscapes, and a decent bit of ’80s sci-fi intensity on “Beginning Part 2,” which succeeds in making the wait for its underlying beat excruciating even though the whole piece is just four minutes long. There are live and sampled drums throughout, shades of New Wave, krautrock and a genuine feeling of culmination in the title-track’s organ-laced crescendo wash, but it’s a deep current of drone that ends on “Doomsday Machine” that makes me think whatever narrative Kennedy has been telling is somewhat grim in theme. Fair enough. The Generator of All Infinity will be too heady for some (most), but if you can go with it, it’s evocative enough to maybe be your own soundtrack.
Mississippi-based heavygaze rockers Nighdrator released the single “The Mariner” as a standalone late in 2020 as just the duo of vocalist/producer Emma Fruit and multi-instrumentalist JS Curley. They’ve built out more of a band on their self-titled debut EP, put to tape through Sailing Stone Records and bringing back “Mariner” (dropped the ‘The’) between “Scarlet Tendons” and the more synth-heavy wash of “The Poet.” The last two minutes of the latter are given to noise, drone and silence, but what unfurls before that is an experimentalist-leaning take on heavier post-rock, taking the comparatively grounded exploratory jangle of “Scarlet Tendons” — which picks up from the brief intro “Crest/Trough” depending on which format you’re hearing — and turning its effects-laced atmosphere into a foundation in itself. Given the urgency that remains in the strum of “Mariner,” I wouldn’t expect Nighdrator to go completely in one direction or another after this, but the point is they set up multiple opportunities for creative growth while signaling an immediate intention toward individuality and doing more than the My-Bloody-Valentine-but-heavy that has become the standard for the style. There’s some of that here, but Nighdrator seem not to want to limit themselves, and that is admirable even in results that might turn out to be formative in the longer term.
William Graham Randles, who is the lone figure behind all the plucked acoustic guitar strings throughout Seven Rivers of Fire‘s three-song full-length, Sanctuary, makes it easy to believe the birdsong that occurs throughout “Union” (16:30 opener and longest track; immediate points), “Al Tirah” (9:00) and “Bloom” (7:30) was happening while the recording was taking place and that the footsteps at the end are actually going somewhere. This is not Randles‘ first full-length release of 2022 and not his last — he releases the new Way of the Pilgrim tomorrow, as it happens — but it does bring a graceful 33 minutes of guitar-based contemplation, conversing with the natural world via the aforementioned birdsong as well as its own strums and runs, swells and recessions of activity giving the feeling of his playing in the sunshine, if not under a tree then certainly near one or, at worst, someplace with an open window and decent ventilation; the air feels fresh. “Al Tirah” offers a long commencement drone and running water, while “Bloom” — which begins with footsteps out — is more playfully folkish, but the heart throughout Sanctuary is palpable and in celebration of the organic, perhaps of the surroundings but also in its own making. A moment of serenity, far-away escapism, and realization.
Half a decade on from The Electric Dunes of Titan (review here), Melbourne sludge rock bruisers Motherslug return with Blood Moon Blues, a willfully unmanageable 58-minute, let’s-make-up-for-lost-time collection that’s got room enough for “Hordes” to put its harsh vocals way forward in the mix over a psychedelic doom sprawl while also coexisting with the druggy desert punkers “Crank” and “Push the Venom” and the crawling death in the culmination of “You (A Love Song)” — which it may well be — later on. With acoustic stretches bookending in “Misery” and the more fully a song “Misery (Slight Return),” there’s no want for cohesion, but from naked Kyussism of “Breathe” and the hard Southern-heavy-informed riffs of “Evil” — yes I’m hearing early Alabama Thunderpussy there — to the way in which “Deep in the Hole” uses similar ground as a launchpad for its spacious solo section, there’s an abiding brashness to their approach that feels consistent with their past work. Not every bands sees the ways in which microgenres intersect, let alone manages to set their course along the lines between, drawing from different sides in varied quantities as they go, but Motherslug do so while sounding almost casual about it for their lack of pretense. Accordingly, the lengthy runtime of Blood Moon Blues feels earned in a way that’s not always the case with records that pass the single-LP limit of circa 45 minutes, there’s blues a-plenty and Motherslug brought enough riffs for the whole class, so dig in, everybody.
Keep an ear out because you’re going to be hearing more of this kind of thing in the next few years. On their third album, Planetarium Module, Cheater Pipe blend Oliveri-style punk with early-aughts sludge tones and sampling, and as we move to about 20 years beyond acts like Rebreather and -(16)- and a slew of others including a bunch from Cheater Pipe‘s home state of Louisiana, yeah, there will be more acts adapting this particular stoner sludge space. Much to their credit, Cheater Pipe not only execute that style ably — Emissions sludge — on “Fog Line Shuffle,” “Cookie Jar” or “White Freight Liner Blues” and the metal-as-punk “Hollow Leg Hobnobber,” they bring Floor-style melody to “Yaw” and expand the palette even further in the second half of the tracklist, with “Mansfield Bar” pushing the melody further, “Flight of the Buckmoth” and closer “Rare Sunday” turning to acoustic guitar and “The Sad Saga of Hans Cholo” between them lending atmospheric breadth to the whole. They succeed at this while packing 11 songs into 34 minutes and coming across generally like they long ago ran out of fucks to give about things like what style they’re playing to or what’s ‘their sound.’ Invariably they think of these things — nobody writes a song and then never thinks about it again, even when they tell you otherwise — but the spirit here is middle-fingers-up, and that suits their sound best anyway.
The largely solo endeavor of Brian Lucas of Dire Wolves and a merry slew of others, Old Million Eye‘s latest full-length work arrives via Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube with mellow psychedelic experimentalism and folk at its core. The Air’s Chrysalis Chime boasts seven pieces in 43 minutes and each one establishes its own world to some degree based around an underlying drone; the fluidity in “Louthian Wood” reminiscent of windchimes and accordion without actually being either of those things — think George Harrison at the end of “Long Long Long,” but it keeps going — and “Tanglier Mirror” casts out a wash of synthesizer melody that would threaten to swallow the vocals entirely would they not floating up so high. It’s a vibe based around patience in craft, but not at all staid, and “White Toads” throws some distorted volume the listener’s way not so much as a lifeline for rockers as another tool to be used when called for. The last cosmic synthesizer on “Ruby River,” the album’s nine-minute finale, holds as residual at the end, which feels fair as Lucas‘ voice — the human element of its presence is not to be understated as songs resonate like an even-farther-out, keyboard-leaning mid-period Ben Chasny — has disappeared into the ether of his own making. We should all be so lucky.
“Bury” is the newest single from Swedish heavy rockers Zoltar, who, yes, take their moniker from the genie machine in the movie Big (they’re not the only ones either). It follows behind two songs released last year in “Asphalt Alpha” and “Dirt Vortex.” Those tracks were rawer in overall production sound, but there’s still plenty of edge in “Bury,” up to and including in the vocals, which are throatier here than on either of the two prior singles, though still melodic enough so that when the electric piano-style keys start up at about two and a half minutes into the song, the goth-punk nod isn’t out of place. It’s a relatively straight-ahead hook with riffing made that much meatier through the tones on the recording, and a subtle wink in the direction of Slayer‘s “Dead Skin Mask” in its chorus. Nothing to complain about there or more generally about the track, as the three-piece seem to be working toward some kind of proper release — they did press up a CD of Bury as a standalone, so kudos to them on the physicality — be it an EP or album. Wherever they end up, if these songs make the trip or are dropped on the way, it’s a look at a band’s earliest moves as a group and how quickly that collaboration can change and find its footing. Zoltar — who did not have feet in the movie — may just be doing that here.
Sardinia’s Fabrizio Monni (also of Black Capricorn) has unleashed a beast in Ascia, and with III, he knows it more than ever. The follow-up to Volume II (review here) and Volume I (review here) — both released late last year — is more realized in terms of songcraft, and it would seem Monni‘s resigned himself to being a frontman of his own solo-project, which is probably the way to go since he’s obviously the most qualified, and in songs like “The Last Ride,” he expands on the post-High on Fire crash-and-bash with more of a nodding central groove, while “Samothrace” finds a place for itself between marauder shove and more direct heavy rock riffery. Each time out, Monni seems to have more of an idea of what he wants Ascia to be, and whether there’s a IV to come after this or he’s ready to move onto something else in terms of release structure — i.e., a debut album — the progression he’s undertaken over the last year-plus is plain to hear in these songs and how far they’ve come in so short a time.
Last day. Maybe I’m supposed to have some grand reflection as we hit 100 of 100 records for the Quarterly Review, but I’ll spare you. I’ve put a few records from the bunch on year-end lists, enjoyed a lot of music, wondered why a few people got in touch with me in the first place, and generally plotzed through to the best of my ability. Thanks as always to The Patient Mrs., through whom all things are possible, for facilitation.
And thank you for reading. I hope you’ve managed to find something killer in all this, but if not, there’s still today to go, so you’ve got time.
Next QR is probably early October, and you know what? I’ve already got records lined up for it. How insane is that?
Quarterly Review #91-100:
Jo Quail, The Cartographer
To list the personnel involved in Jo Quail‘s Roadburn-commissioned five-movement work The Cartographer would consume the rest of this review, so I won’t, but the London electric cellist is at the center of an orchestral experiment the stated purpose of which is to find the place where classical and heavy musics meet. Percussion thuds, there’s piano and electric violin and a whole bunch of trombones, and whatever that is making the depth-charge thud underneath “Movement 2,” some voices and narration at the start by Alice Krige, who once played the Borg Queen among many other roles. Though Quail composed The Cartographer for Roadburn — originally in 2020 — the recording isn’t captured on that stage, but is a studio LP, which lets each headphone-worthy nuance and tiny flash of this or that shine through. So is it heavy? Not really in any traditional sense, but of course that’s the point. Is SunnO))) heavy? Sure. It’s less about conforming to given notions of genre characteristics than bringing new ideas to them and saying this-can-be-that in the way that innovative art does, but heavy? Why the hell not? Think of it as mind-expansion, only classy.
An aptly named second full-length from Buenos Aires trio Experiencia Tibetana greatly solidifies the band’s approach, which of course itself is utterly fluid. Having brought in Gaston Saccoia on drums, vocals and other percussion alongside guitarist/vocalist Walter Fernandez and bassist Leandro Moreno Vila since their recorded-in-2014-released-in-2020 debut, Vol. I (review here), the band take the methodology of meditative exploration from that album and pare it down to four wholly expansive processions, resonant in their patience and earthy psychedelic ritualizing. Each side of the 48-minute LP is comprised of a shorter track and a longer, and they’re arranged for maximum immersion as one climbs a presumably Tibetan mountain, going up and coming back down with the longest material in the middle, the 16-minute pair “Ciudad de latahes” and “(Desde el) Limbo” running in hypnotic succession with minimalism, noise wash, chanting, percussive cacophony, dead space, bass fuzz, spoken word and nearly anything else they want at their disposal. With “El delito espiritual I” (8:18) and the maybe-eBow(?) ghost howls of “El delito espiritual II” (7:19) on either side, Vol. II charts a way forward for the trio as they move into unknown aural reaches.
People of the Black Circle, People of the Black Circle
Not quite like anything else, Athenian conjurors People of the Black Circle plunge deep into horror/fantasy atmospheres, referencing H.P. Lovecraft and Robert Howard within the five tracks of their nonetheless concise 34-minute/five-track self-titled debut. Weighted in tone and mood, almost garage-doom in its production, the synth-backing of “Cimmeria” unfolds after the outward crunch of leadoff “Alchemy of Sorrow” — like Euro doom dramaturge transposed onto a bed of ’80s synths with Om-style bass — and from centerpiece “The Ghoul and the Seraph (Ghoul’s Song II)” through the bookending choral figures and either sampled or synthesized horns over the resolute chug of “Nyarlathotep” and more straight-ahead slow-motion push of closer “Ghosts in Agartha,” which swirls out a highlight solo after a wailing verse lets go and seems to drift away after its payoff for the album as an entirety. While in concept, People of the Black Circle‘s aesthetic isn’t necessarily anything new, there’s no denying the boundaries of dungeon synth and horror/garage doom are being transcended here, and that mixture feels like it’s being given a fresh perspective in these songs, even if the thematic is familiar. A mix of new and old, then? Maybe, but the new wins out decisively. In the parlance of our times, “following.”
It always seems to be a full moon when Black Capricorn are playing, regardless of actual cloud cover or phase. The Sardinian trio of guitarist/vocalist Fabrizio Monni (also production; also in Ascia), bassist Virginia Pras and drummer Rachela Piras offer an awaited follow-up to their 2019 Solstice EP (discussed here). Though it’s their fifth full-length overall, it’s the second with this lineup of the band (first through Majestic Mountain), and it comes packed with references like the doomly “Worshipping the Bizarre Reverend” and “Snake of the Wizard” as distorted, cultish and willfully strange vibes persist across its 44-minute span. Doom. Even the out-there centerpiece kinda-interlude “Godsnake Djamballah” and the feedback-laced lurch-march of the nine-minute “Witch of Endor” have a cauldron-psych vibe coinciding with the largely riff-driven material, though, and it’s the differences between the songs that ultimately bring them together, closer “Uddadhaddar” going full-on ritualist with percussion and drone and chanting vocals as if to underscore the point. It’s been five years since they released Omega (review here), their most recent LP, and Cult of Blood wholly justifies the wait.
The Danish title Skyggekæmper translates to English as “shadow fighter,” and if punk-informed heavy rocking Aarhus three-piece SABOTØR mean it in a political context, then fair enough. I speak no Danish, but their past work and titles here like “2040-Planen” — seemingly a reference to Denmark’s clean energy initiative — the stomping, funky “Ro På, Danmark!” (‘calm down, Denmark’) and even the suitably over-the-top “King Diamond” seem to have speaking about Danishness (Danedom?) as an active element. Speaking of “active,” the energy throughout the nine-song/49-minute span of the record is palpable, and while they’re thoroughly in the post-Truckfighters fuzz rock dominion tonally, the slowdowns of “Edderkoppemor” and the closing title-track hit the brakes at least here and there in their longer runtimes and expand on the thrust of the earlier “Oprør!” and “Arbejde Gør Fri,” the start-stop riffing of which seems as much call to dance as a call to action — though, again, I say that as someone without any actual idea if it’s the latter — making the entire listening experience richer on the whole while remaining accessible despite linguistic or any other barriers to entry that might be perceived. To put it another way, you don’t have to be up on current issues facing Denmark to enjoy the songs, and if they make you want to be afterward, so much the better.
Vocalist/rhythm guitarist Van Bassman, lead guitarist/backing vocalist Benjamin J. Davidow and bassist/backing vocalist/percussionist Charles Wiles are The Buzzards of Fuzz. I’m not sure who that leaves as drummer on the Atlanta outfit’s self-titled Sept. 2021 debut LP — could be producer/engineer Kristofer Sampson, Paul Stephens and/or Nick Ogawa, who are all credited with “additional instrumentation” — and it could be nobody if they’re programmed, but one way or the other, The Buzzards of Fuzz sure sound like a complete band, from the trippin’-on-QOTSA vibe of “Tarantulove” and “Desert Drivin’ (No Radio)” (though actually it’s Kyuss alluded to in the lyrics of the latter) to the more languid psych pastoralia of “All in Your Head” and the spacious two minutes of “Burned My Tongue on the Sun,” the purposeful-feeling twist into Nirvana of “Mostly Harmless” and the nod to prior single “Lonely in Space” that is finale “Lonely in Space (Slight Return).” Sleek grooves, tight, hooky songwriting and at times a languid spirit that comes through no matter how fast they’re playing give The Buzzards of Fuzz, the album, a consistent mood across the 11 songs and 32 minutes that allows the delivery to play that much more of a role in making short pieces feel expansive.
Crawl into Temple of Void‘s deathly depths and you may find yourself duly consumed. Their style is less outright doom than it used to be, but the Detroit extremist five-piece nonetheless temper their bludgeoning with a resilient amount of groove, and even at their fastest in songs like “Hex, Curse & Conjuration” and some of the more plundering moments in “A Sequence of Rot” just prior, the weight behind their aural violence remains a major factor. The keys in “Deathtouch,” which follows down-you-go opener “Behind the Eye” and leads into “Engulfed” branches out the band’s sound with keyboards (or guitar-as-keyboards, anyway) and a wider breadth of atmosphere than they’ve enjoyed previously — “Engulfed” seems to touch on Type O Negative-style tonality as it chugs into its midsection — and the concluding “Dissolution” introduces a quieter, entirely-clean approach for just under three key-string-laced minutes that Temple of Void have legitimately never shown before. Seems doubtful they’ll take that as far as Opeth in putting out Damnation — though that’s just crazy enough to work — but it shows that as Temple of Void move toward the 10-year mark, their progression has not abated whatsoever. And they still kill, so no worries there.
Psych jazz, instrumental save for some found voice samples which, if you were listening on headphones out in the wild, say, might have you wondering if you’re missing the announcement for your train at the station. Based in Thessaloniki, Greece, Anomalos Kosmos brim with experimentalist urgency on the half-hour of Mornin Loopaz, the seven tracks of which are titled playing off the days of the week — “Meinday,” “Chooseday,” “Whensday,” etc. — but which embark each on their own explorations of the outer reaches of far out. The longest of the bunch is “Thirstday” at just over five minutes, and at 30 minutes one could hardly accuse them of overstaying their welcome. Instead, the shimmering tone, fluid tempos and unpredictable nature of their style make for a thrilling listen, “Thirstday” remaining vital even as it spaces out and “Friedday” picking up directly from there with a ready sense of relief. They spend the weekend krautrocking in “Shatterday” and managing to squeeze a drum solo in before the rushing Mediterranean-proggy end of “Sinday,” the crowd noise that follows leaving one wondering if there aren’t more subversive messages being delivered beneath the heady exterior. In any case, this is a band from a place where the sun shines brightly, and the music stands as proof. Get weird and enjoy.
This third full-length from Quebec-based doom outfit Cauchemar brings the band past their 15th anniversary and makes a bed for itself in traditionalist metallurgy, running currents of NWOBHM running through opener “Jour de colère” and “Rouge sang” while “Danger de nuit” takes a more hard rock approach and the penultimate roller “Volcan” feels more thoroughly Sabbathian. With eight songs presumably arranged four per vinyl side, there’s a feeling of symmetry as “Le tombeau de l’aube” tempts Motörhead demons and answers back with wilful contradiction the late-’70s/early-’80s groove that comes late in “Notre-Dame-sous-Terre.” Closer “La sorcière” tolls its bells presumably for thee as the lead guitar looks toward Pentagram and vocalist Annick Giroux smoothly layers in harmony lines before the church organ carries the way out. Classic in its overarching intentions, the songs nonetheless belong to Cauchemar exclusively, and speak to the dead with a vibrancy that avoids the trappings of cultism while working to some of its strengths in atmosphere, sounding oldschool without being tired, retro or any more derivative than it wants to be. No argument here, it’s metal for rockers, doom for doomers, riffs for the converted or those willing to be. I haven’t looked to see if they have patches yet, but I’d buy one if they do.
If you ever wanted to hear Weedeater or Dopethrone hand you your ass with Sons of Otis-worthy tones, Seum‘s Blueberry Cash has your back. The no-guitar-all-bass-and-drums-and-screams Montreal three-piece are just as crusty and weedian as you like, and in “Blueberry Cash,” “John Flag” and the seven-minute “Hairy Muff,” they reinforce sludge extremity with all that extra low end as if to remind the universe where the idea of music being heavy in the first place comes from. Grooves are vital and deathly, produced with just enough clarity to come through laced with what feels like extra nastiness, and “John Flag”‘s blues verse opens into a chasm of a chorus, waiting with sharpened teeth. Rounding out, “Hairy Muff” is a take on a song by vocalist Gaspar‘s prior band, Lord Humungus, and it’s drawn out into a plodding homage to liberation, pubes and the ability of sludge to feel like it’s got its hands on either side of your face and is pressing them together as hard as it can. These guys are a treasure, I mean that, and I don’t care what genre you want to tag it as being or how brutal and skinpeeling they want to make it, something with this much fuckall will always be punk rock in my mind.
Sardinian heavy rockers Mano de Mono release their debut album, Chameleon Tongue, April 15 on Electric Valley Records. They seem to take multiple ecosystems under their wing in their presentation, from the sands of the beaches at Capo Comino Dunes Bay to a leafy rainforest where one might find the lizard on the righteous Jo Riou cover art standing out from its surroundings, to the falling timber sample that begins opener “Old Tired Tree,” to a heavy chug that, like their moniker, traces its source back to the ’90s Southern-style heavy of Corrosion of Conformity, touching on Pepper Keenan‘s earlier work in Down by the time they get to the more aggro approach in the penultimate “Easy to Fall” and the subsequent closer “Space Comanche,” with guitarist Athos Cherchi roughing up his vocals. But it’s the groove and the songwriting that’s paramount, and with a total lack of pretense and a seeming call to embrace what’s being posited as a kind of return-to-roots in terms of style, Cherchi, fellow guitarist Kiko De Santis, bassist Marco “Buzz” Murru and drummer Keko Magrini waste precious little time and effectively convey the intentions of their craft, which I’ll conjecture is to kick ass, chew bubblegum, with a need to get more bubblegum later on. Fair enough.
It would be underselling the interplay between the guitar and bass on “Old Tired Tree” or the hooky title-track to say Chameleon Tongue isn’t focused on nuance — in fact, the tones and the mix both come across as having been paid due attention, and the according presentation of the album is no more easy to pin down in terms of landscape than it’s apparently intended to be — but set in balance with their songs’ straightforward structures, Mano de Mono nonetheless engage more than directly challenge the listener, whatever brashness might come through in Cherchi‘s burly vocal style. “Lying Bones” is the most specifically C.O.C.-derived of the inclusions, tapping Deliverance-era riffing (it might be “Shake Like You” I’m hearing?), and that continues a bit into the airy start of “Strength Flow,” the guitar-led opening building on a Southern feel even before the rolling central riff of the side A finisher takes hold. They smoothly execute volume changes from subdued and bluesy to bigger nodding while foreshadowing the turn in “Easy to Fall,” but the key ultimately is the momentum they’re able to readily establish in the first half of the album, and that continues fluidly onto the second.
“Sons of Barabba” has a swing and swag that turns into push, but still isn’t as mean as it seemingly could be. By this time and into “Ruins,” which follows, the basic tenets of Mano de Mono‘s sound have been laid out, but there is some expansion to be had. Consider the punkish shove of “Ruins” and the crunch with which it’s paired. In under three and a half minutes, Mano de Mono are efficient here and in a song like “Chameleon Tongue” itself in a way that owes its foundation to a time in which tracks like these might’ve been radio singles. Now I suppose they’ll take their chances with the algorithm, but that kind of get-in-show-’em-what-you-got-get-out mindset, especially as they work their way toward the ending of side B in “Easy to Fall” and “Space Comanche” — one assumes the politics of appropriating indigenous groups is different when it’s an indigenous group for somewhere else — is essential to understanding the ’90s era from which they’re drawing influence, shades of grunge and harder-hitting fare finding themselves included in the meld of impulses on display here. And it is a meld, but nothing they’re doing feels beyond their reach, and just because something has straightforward ambitions doesn’t mean it’s simply done.
Mano de Mono nestle into a beginning point for a broader exploration of style, offering catchy choruses and thrown elbows all the while. In what direction they might go over the longer term remains to be seen, and of course part of the excitement of Chameleon Tongue is not knowing what will follow, but the underlying sureness of their songwriting speaks (loud) volumes about what it is that will allow them to go wherever they’re headed. Safe travels and thanks for the riffs.
It’s my pleasure to host the full stream of Chameleon Tongue below ahead of the release on Friday. PR wire whatnot follows beneath.
Please enjoy:
Mano de Mono, Chameleon Tongue album premiere
Mano de Mono on Chameleon Tongue:
The sound that characterizes the album refers mainly to the sounds of the 90s ranging between OctaFuzz, percussion from abysmal gravity and fat basslines similar to tar paste — a sound mixture that creates harmony and compactness to the final work. In the end, the band deals with themes focused mainly on the sociological discomfort that has been created by staying in a place that has little or nothing to offer, so they feel the urgency to fight to stay at their home and not give in to the desire to leave.
Available in: – 4x Test Press – 250x Solid Blue Vinyl – 220x Transparent Yellow Splatter Green Vinyl – 30x Ultra LTD “Chameleon Edition” – Digital
Chameleon Tongue is the first LP of Sardinian band Mano De Mono, recorded during the hottest week of July 2021, mixed and mastered in the followin’ fall at Officina13 Studio. Eight tracks, four on each side respectively called “Inside” / “Outside”, are experiences through the new shapes of social constructs. The contradiction of a double life divided in anxiety to achieve social approval while being frustrated of its cold mechanisms. The cover artworks reflects the sides dichotomy in/out of the cage as a relatives points of view of who thinks itself free by the blind acceptance his own condition.
Totally refusing to face with the contemporary codes of aesthetics, careerism and latest trends that made the worst individualism became a strength, this record is a pure moan directly distilled from a misfit mental loop that hate the human behavior of submission and surrender but somehow have to deal with.
Mano De Mono refers to their style as “punk of the dunes” mostly because his social thematic , the sandy influenced sound and of course the place where they live. They won’t offer you any solution except leaving in you a stoned feeling of wanderlust.
Formed in 2018 in Capo Comino Dunes Bay, from an early project by Athos and Marco “Buzz” Murru, the duo recruited in 2019 drummer Keko Magrini and guitarist Kiko De Santis to complete the lineup and proceed working on original songs and its arrangements. Their sound is freely inspired by ‘90s Palm Desert Scene, NOLA, Seattle’s first wave in its heavy expressions and a punk spirit.
Recorded, mixed, and mastered Andrea Pica at “Studio Officina 13,” Olbia (Sardinia).
LINEUP: Athos Cherchi: Voice, Guitars Marco “Buzz” Murru: Bass Kiko De Santis: Guitars Keko Magrini: Drums
But if the record is going to be called Homecoming, then the place to end it is “Home,” and that’s exactly what King Howl do. The closer (premiering below) is the longest inclusion at 5:43 and pulls together a lot of what works best throughout Homecoming in terms of groove, melody and the balance of elements in the mix; the vocals are in focus but not overbearing, the jabs of rhythm guitar are bright but not blinding, the rhythm is fluid and steady but not boring, the organ adds to each build into the hook, and so on. There’s a break after the midpoint with quiet standalone vocals, but to King Howl‘s credit, they finish by bringing it all the way back to an apex and then fading it out long, whether that’s the heavy blues train departing the station, seeming not so much like the song or story is ending but that we’re the ones leaving it behind. Fair enoough.
