Diagnosed with a terminal case of “the weird,” adventurous Russian heavy rockers The Grand Astoria are shortly to loose their latest full-length, Punkadelica Supreme. The St. Petersburg outfit have become stewards over the last couple years of the Russian riffy scene, touring around their native land and across Europe while keeping up a fairly prolific clip of singles, EPs and even a split with U.S. Christmas.

I’m not sure on the release date for Punkadelica Supreme, but The Grand Astoria posted a new video for the track “Feels Like Home,” directed by guitarist Igor Suvorov, and if you’re prone to seizures as a result of flashing lights, I can’t really advise checking it out, but for everyone else, it’s pretty rocking even if you put it on and just listen to the audio. Fuzz-toned and punk-shouting, given break in its stomp by organ, it sounds like The Grand Astoria are really shooting for the mark their title sets up.

Dig it:

The Grand Astoria, “Feels Like Home” Official Video

Something tells me that even if they didn’t live all the way in Russia, I’d probably have a hard time keeping up with The Grand Astoria. Maybe it’s the fact that every time I turn around, the St. Petersburg-based outfit have a new release coming, if not more than one. Their split with venerated North Carolinian psych merchants U.S. Christmas still fresh off the press, The Grand Astoria have announced three new works on the way — a single and a live album due in April and a new studio album due later in the year. As much music and info as I could get follow here, grabbed from The Grand Astoria Bandcamp and Thee Facebooks pages:

The Grand Astoria, Then You Win (April 18)

Music and lyrics by K. Sharapodinov

Kamille Sharapodinov – vocals, guitars
Igor Suvorov – guitars
Eugene Korolkov – bass
Danila Danilov – backing vocals, keyboards
Alexander Chebotarev – drums
Sergey Ryltsev – sound

The Grand Astoria, Good Food – Good Show! (April 17)

A selection of live performances from different countries

1.Mania Grandiosa (Yellowstock,BE 2012)
2.Rat Race In Moscow (Yellowstock,BE 2012)
3.Evolution Of The Planet Groove (Yellowstock,BE 2012)
4.All The Same (St.Petersburg,RU 2013)
5.Omniabsence (Potsdam,DE 2011)
6.Something Wicked This Way Comes (Potsdam,DE 2011)
7.The Man.The Sun.The Desert (Seville,ES 2010)
8.Wikipedia Surfer (Preili,LV 2010)
9.Lenin Was A Mushroom (St.Petersburg,RU 2010)
10.Map Of The Starry Night (St.Petersburg,RU 2010)
11.Shoreline Melody (St.Petersburg,RU 2010)

The Grand Astoria, Punkadelica Supreme (Later 2013)

1.Welcome To The Club
2.Slave Of Two Masters
3.I Know
4.Punkadelia Supreme
5.Street Credit
6.Space Orchid vs Massive Drumkit
7.Dropping Aitches
8.Feels Like Home
9.To Cross The Rubicon
10.King Has Left The Building
11.Visualize
12.Score
13.Intermission

Bit of a media blitz on this one, so bear with me. The Grand Astoria released the track “To Whom it May Concern” on a split with U.S. Christmas at the beginning of last month. The St. Petersburg, Russia, outfit went all out on it. The song is a 19-minute sprawl of psychedelic experimentation, rife with samples, winding riffs and ethereal flourishes and swirls. Don’t just take my word for it, though. They’ve put it up on their Bandcamp, so you can check it out here:

Pretty wild stuff. Over the course of their three albums — last year’s Omnipresence (review here), 2010′s II (review here) and 2009′s self-titled (On the Radar’ed here) — the band have quickly grown to cast a wide stylistic berth, but I think “To Whom it May Concern” is the farthest out The Grand Astoria have gone yet. Should be interesting to see what they do with it on tour, whether they strip it down or jam out on its space rocking elements. They hit the road on Friday, dates below (click to enlarge):

Ever ones for multi-media, they’ve also put together a video flyer for the run of shows, which they posted on the ol’ TubesofYou:

Now, they don’t really highlight it in there — presumably out of humility — but on this tour, The Grand Astoria will be taking part in Mudfest, which is happening Nov. 9-10 in Venlo, in the Netherlands, at Peron55. They’ll be playing with the likes of Sungrazer, Wheelfall, Kadavar, Black Bombaim, Glowsun and Belzebong on a stacked two-day bill. Here’s the poster for that one:

They’ve also announced they’ll play Roskilde Festival next year in Denmark. One would think this flurry of activity and the recently-issued split would be enough to keep The Grand Astoria busy, but according to a pic they recently posted on their Thee Facebooks, they’re also looking to have a new album out next spring. It may or may not be titled Punkadelica Supreme (though I certainly hope it is), and if you squint, you can check out the maybe-tracklisting below:

The really crazy part is, there’s probably more. I’m sure as we get closer to 2013 and the new album release, there’ll be further updates on The Grand Astoria and their manifold adventures, but that’s all my limited research skills could muster for the moment. In any case, plenty to look forward to, and if you want to check out more of their records, they’re all up on Bandcamp. Right on.

Berlin heavy rockers Samavayo have a pretty good streak going at this point. They’ve issued an album a year for each of the last three years. One Million Things dropped through Sector B Records in 2010, and last year, Cosmic Knockout followed on Setalight. On Oct. 12, the four-piece issued their latest full-length, Soul Invictus, once again through Setalight, in a limited 500 vinyl run — 100 white copies, 400 black. Their fourth album overall — their debut was 2005′s Deathmarchmelodies! on Nasoni — it’s rife with traditional stonerisms, and in the case of the track “Nightmare,” for which the band recently posted the video that follows here, a strange sense of aggression.

Say whatever you want to about lyrical ambiguity, there’s no mistaking the message when the band starts beating each other in the woods with their guitars. Actually, yeah, there kind of is some mistaking the message. I’m not sure what it’s all about, but a catchy chorus is a catchy chorus, and “Nightmare” certainly has that, as you can both see and hear for yourself:

More info on Samavayo at their website.