Posted in Whathaveyou on June 28th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Based in Strasbourg, France — which is a hometown they share with Los Disidentes del Sucio Motel — the rolling four-piece Yojimbo made their debut last year with their self-titled five-song EP. Fuzz and echoing vocal command, light progressive metal flourish, and atmosphere were the order of the day, with each song offering something different, be it “Kingdom” moving from its sample and acoustic to a brooding build and sprawling solo payoff, “Battlefield” layering its verse melody amid fervent, boogie-tinged push, longer centerpiece “The Far Still Grows” with its atmospheric focus and later-Truckfighters breadth, “Devil’s Dance” resolving the question of whether to slow down or push itself over by doing both in succession, or closer “Last Mile” with vital tension released in a particularly massive stomp. Being their initial public offering, all it did was bode well.
The track “Doomsday Clock” takes some of the tonal scope hinted at in the short release and expands on it with two guitars intertwining. The band has undergone some lineup change since that came out, though I’ll confess I’m short on details there. But as it stands, Yojimbo bring palpable growth to bear in the standalone single, the video clip for which was filmed as an ‘M33 Session’ — named for the triangulum galaxy; it’s in the local group — as part of a residency at Strasbourg’s M33 artist workshop. No word on a follow-up to the EP just yet, but you can stream the clip at the bottom of this post, and if you’re looking for big crash, big melody and vast vibes, they’ve got that ready to roll. All you gotta do is click play. When/if I hear more, I’ll post accordingly.
Info from the PR wire and YouTube page:
Self-proclaimed Intergalactic Stoner Rock, the French quartet YOJIMBO has given its first cries in the spring of 2019. Carried by vocal flights nourished by fuzz tones with progressive floydian accents, the ship Yojimbo sails through massive, catchy stoner grooves, to abyssal invocations of doom and the spatiality of post-rock.
A first self-produced eponymous EP is released in 2022, hailed enthusiastically by the specialized press. YOJIMBO pursues his journey with a promotional tour where it shares the stage with bands such as IAH, Geezer or Baron Crâne.
2023 marks a new milestone: new line-up, new identity; YOJIMBO continues his interstellar journey, ready to conquer new worlds.
Video recorded @ Atelier M33, Strasbourg April 2023 – as part of our creative residency
Mixed by Florent Herrbach
Direction: Marc Linnhoff
Oh my breaking heart as we move into day seven of the Summer 2021 Quarterly Review and I am reminded that the wages of hubris are feeling like a dumbass later. I was loading up my laptop on Saturday — so pleased with how ahead-of-the-game I was able to stay all last week — when the thing decided it was gonna give itself some time off one way or the other.
I dropped it for repair about 20 minutes before the guy I’ve come to trust was closing shop. He said he’d be in touch on Monday. Needless to say, I’m on my backup cheapie Chromebook, reviewing off Bandcamp streams, eagerly awaiting that call which I can only hope has come in by the time this is posted. I’ll keep you in the loop, of course, but putting together the reviews for yesterday? That was not pretty.
I expressly thank The Patient Mrs., through whom all things are possible.
Onward.
Quarterly Review #61-70:
Geezer, Solstice
Geezer‘s ambition could hardly be clearer in their 17-minute “Solstice” jam. It was the Solstice — Winter 2020, to be specific — and the Kingston, New York, trio jammed. Guitarist/vocalist Pat Harrington (who doesn’t sing on the track) added some dreamy synth after the fact, and the affect is all the more hypnotic for it. Harrington, bassist Richie Touseull and drummer Steve Markota are no strangers to exploratory fare, as they showed on 2020’s righteous Groovy (review here), and as a Bandcamp Friday-era stopgap offering, “Solstice” brings a sampling of who they are in the rehearsal space, willing to be heavy, willing to not, ready to go where the music leads them. If Geezer wanted to do a whole full-length like this, I wouldn’t fight them, so you most definitely will not find me arguing against a digital single either. With jams this tasty, you take what you can get.
Issued less as a stopgap, which a digital-only single might normally be, than as a response to the band having lost gear in a practice space flood, the 8:52 single-song outing The Event Horizon was recorded at the same time as Spaceslug‘s late 2020 EP The Leftovers (review here) and in a way acts to bridge the melancholy beyond-genre push of that release with the more weighted, spacious roll that has typified the Polish outfit’s work to-date — their latest full-length was 2019’s Reign of the Orion (review here), and they recently finished a new one. So perhaps “The Event Horizon,” with its hypnotically languid rhythm and concluding drift, is a stopgap after all, but between helping the band recoup their losses and thinking of what might be coming next, it’s an exciting if not-unalloyed listening experience, and the three-piece move deeper into a signature sound even as they continue to bring the definition of what that means to new places.
Creating sometimes-scorching, droning psychedelic soundtracks to all your favorite classic sci-fi films that never existed, Kansas City’s Expo Seventy offer a call to worship for freaks and converted heads on their new album, Evolution. Still headed by guitarist James Wright as on late-2016’s America Here and Now Sessions (review here), the band offer new glories celestial and terrestrial instrumental chemistry throughout the six tracks (seven on the CD) of Evolution, lumbering away on “Echoes of Ether” only after floating in brass-section antigrav conditions on “The Slow Death of Tomorrow.” Can you hang? You’ll know one way or the other as the culminating duo “Second Vision, First Sight” and “First Vision, Second Sight” are done with you, having altered dimensions so thoroughly that the ethereal will either come to feel like home or you will simply have melted. In any case, lash yourself to it. Own that shit.
Peak-era Faith No More reborn in progressive heavy fuzz? What stoner rock might’ve been if it went to college instead of spending all that time hanging around talking about old cars? I don’t know where UK four-piece Boss Keloid ultimately stand on their admirable fifth LP, Family the Smiling Thrush — the follow-up to 2018’s also-well-received Melted on the Inch (review here) — but they most certainly stand on their own. Across seven tracks, the band careen, crash, lumber, rush and ponder — lyrics no less worth a close read than any other component — and from opener/longest track (immediate points) “Orang of Noyn” on, they make it abundantly clear that their style’s unpredictability is an asset, and that just because you might not know where they’re going next doesn’t mean they don’t. Melodic, complex and cerebral, there’s still a human presence here, a sense of a plan unfolding, that makes the album seem all the more masterful.
Though it’s ultimately less electric-kool-aid than endless-churning-abyss-with-psychdelic-saxophone-screaming-up-at-you-like-free-jazz-trapped-in-the-downward-tonal-spiral, Bong-Ra‘s four-tracker Antediluvian is duly experimentalist in being born out of the mind of Jason Köhnen, whose work on this project not only extends more than 20 years, but who has been a part of landmark Dutch outfits like Celestial Season, The Kilmanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble and The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation, among scores of others. The procession on this full-length, originally released in 2018 through Svart Lava, is wild times indeed, but immersive despite feeling at times like a litmus for how much you can take, with Köhnen‘s bass/keys/etc. and Balazs Pandi‘s drums meeting with Colin Webster‘s saxophone and Chloe Herrington‘s bassoon, willfully plodding through long-ish form improv-seeming movements of atmospheric heft creation.
A coherent and forceful debut full-length, Reek of the Parvenu quickly shows the metallic undercurrent from Athens-based four-piece Zebu on opener “The Setting Dust,” and pushes from there in groove metal fashion, taking some impulses from heavy rock but holding largely to a central aggressive stance and tension in the rhythm that is a backdrop even as the later “Nature of Failure” breaks from its chugging shove for a quieter stretch. That is to say, the next punch is always coming, and Zebu‘s blows are effectively delivered — looking at you, “Burden” — though some of the slower, sludgier cuts like “Our Shame” or the doomier finale “The City” bring a welcome atmosphere to go with the coinciding burl. I’m not sure if “People Under the Stairs” wants to kick my ass or crack a beer, but the songwriting is air tight and the thrashy threat only contributes to the immediacy of the release on the whole. They’re not screwing around.
It’s been 11 years since France’s Los Disidentes del Sucio Motel debuted with Soundtrack From the Motion Picture (review here), an engaging, kind of silly play on stoner rock and B-movie tropes. Beneath that, however, it was also a concept album, and the band — who now seem to prefer LDDSM for a moniker — still work from that foundation on their fourth full-length, Polaris. The difference scope and sonic maturity. Rife with vocal harmonies and progressive flourish, the 10-track answer to 2016’s Human Collapse (review here) smoothly shifts between the patient and the urgent, the intimate and the grand — and that’s in the first two minutes of “Blue Giant” alone — finding their way into a proggy post-heavy rock that’s too clearheaded to be psychedelic, but that balances the crunch of “Horizon” with a sense of the otherworldly just the same.
With their fourth long-player, guitarist/vocalist Anthony Gaglia and drummer Brady Maurer of Portland, Oregon’s LáGoon welcome bassist Kenny Combs to the fold and dive as a trio — their first three-piece outing was last year’s Father of Death EP — headfirst into murky riffing and heady heavy rock, made all the more spacious through cavern echo and the garage doom vocals Gaglia brings on the title-track, as well as the synth that surfaces on the subsequent interlude “Buried” and elsewhere throughout. The earlier “Beyond the Trees” is particularly bleak and otherworldly, but I won’t take away from the further-down procession of “Hill Bomb” and “The Slow Down” into “Final Ride,” the last of which closes out with scummer doom that’s familiar but distinct enough to be their own. There are moments on Skullactic Visions where, for as much as they could sound like Electric Wizard given the ingredients, I’m all the gladder they don’t.
Maha Sohona‘s second album comes some seven years after their self-titled debut, but who cares about time when you’ve got your headphones on and you’re surrounded by the richness of tone on offer throughout Endless Searcher‘s five rolling tracks? Heavy and laid back, the trio of guitarist/vocalist Johan Bernhardtson, bassist Thomas Hedlund and drummer David Lundsten finding some kinship with Polish three-piece Spaceslug in their post-Sungrazer blend of weight and flow, a jam like “Luftslot” nodding and conjuring depth even as it soars. Can’t argue with the quicker push of “A Black Star” or the purposefully straightforward “Scavengers” (where the title-line is delivered) but some of the mellow moments in opener “Leaves” and especially the building instrumental finisher “Orbit X” are even more satisfying for how effectively they move you place to place almost without your realizing it. I’ve got nothing for you if you can’t dig this vibe.
Keen observers will recognize The Bad Sugar Rush vocalist René Hofmann from his work with Wight, but the work here alongside guitarist Josko Joke-Tovic, bassist Minyeong Fischer and drummer Peter Zettl is distinct from that other unit here, even as the Humble Pie-esque “Push Me” and semi-sleeze “Liar” both have some shade of funk to their procession. Both cuts circa four minutes makes for a suitable debut 7″ with respected purveyor H42 Records doing the honors, and the results are an encouragingly catchy display of what a first full-length might accomplish when and however such a thing emerges. There’s classic heavy rock as the foundation, but more than outright ’70s worship — though some of that too — it’s the organic feel of the songs that leaves an impression on the listener, though the background singers on “Push Me” don’t hurt in that regard, certainly. An auspicious and intriguind first showing.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 10th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Are we really going on five years since Los Disidentes del Sucio Motel released Human Collapse (review here)? The Strasbourg-based increasingly-progressive heavy rock five-piece couldn’t possibly have known how prescient that title would prove at the time, but either way, good call. It makes me wish their forthcoming fourth long-player was called JJ Finds 10 Bucks instead of Polaris, but fine. I’m sure Polaris will make more sense to most people.
To herald the album’s arrival through Klonosphere Records on April 2, the band have newly revealed a video for the track “Blood-Planet Child,” which skirts the line between progressive heavy rock and post-metallic riffing — there’s an aggressive undercurrent, but Los Disidentes del Sucio Motel are too mature to have only that to offer at this point. Come to think of it, they always had more than just that going for them. One recalls their 2010 debut album, Soundtrack From the Motion Picture (review here), was, indeed, a soundtrack to an imaginary film the title of which was the band’s name. I wonder if they ever did a screenplay. Could probably get Amazon to pick it up as a series at this point. Content is king.
Speaking of, here’s some content, as sent down the PR wire for your perusal/infotainment. Dig in:
Los Disidentes Del Sucio Motel – French Heavy Rockers Announce New Album “Polaris”
Reveal Music Video For “Blood-Planet Child”
Nearly five years after the release of “Human Collapse”, French heavy rockers Los Disidentes Del Sucio Motel are back with their fourth album “Polaris”, which is now set for release on April 2nd via Klonosphere.
Produced, engineered, recorded, mixed and mastered at White Bat Recorders by Rémi Gettliffe, “Polaris” is yet again the band’s most daring, dynamic and mature release to date and sees them further delving into progressive terrains. Pre-orders are now available at this location:https://orcd.co/lddsm-polaris
[Click play above to stream the premiere of Los Disidentes del Sucio Motel’s ‘Departure’ from the new album, Human Collapse, out Sept 9 on Ripple Music.]
French heavy rockers Los Disidentes del Sucio Motel have been conceptually-focused since their outset, so it’s little surprise that their third full-length and Ripple Music debut, Human Collapse, would follow a similar course. What is surprising about the album is just how tight that focus has gotten when taken in consideration with the band’s songwriting. The Strasbourg-based five-piece of guitarist/vocalist Nico, bassist/vocalist Julien, guitarist Romain, keyboardist/vocalist Dany and drummer Greg began their tenure with 2011’s Soundtrack from the Motion Picture (review here), a charm-laced and uptempo run through the tropes of desert rock that stood itself out from an increasingly-crowded post-Truckfighters sphere of heavy rock by following a genuine plotline.
The inevitable follow-up, 2013’s Arcane, brought this to ideas and themes less directly related to desert rock itself, and the music followed suit, taking on a sharper edge — something that Human Collapse continues to push forward. To go with its ominous title, the band offers a lyrical journey of seemingly just one particular human — as opposed to it being the whole species collapsing; though I suppose one could stand in for the whole — from beginning to end, following a logical course of loss and redemption in song titles as the narrative seems to dictate the mood of the songs; “Community,” for instance, is a more melodic, welcoming post-rock sway after the semi-metallic tumult of “Border.” In light of Europe’s ongoing refugee crisis, it’s impossible to ignore a social context in which Human Collapse arrives, but even apart from that, the level of dynamic that has developed in Los Disidentes del Sucio Motel‘s sound would be enough on its own to carry a weightier sense of impact than either of their prior LPs.
For anyone who has followed Ripple Music over the last several years, the West Coast imprint has emerged as one of the most reliable American purveyors of heavy. Already in 2016, they’ve issued new records from heavyweights Wo Fat, Foghound and Gozu and continued their ambitious The Second Coming of Heavy split series, so to say that Human Collapse is arguably the most forward-thinking album they’ve put out to-date should not be taken as rank hyperbole or a statement disregarding of the context in which Los Disidentes del Sucio Motel‘s latest arrives.
Rather, it’s an acknowledgement of the breadth that the band covers in these 10 tracks/56 minutes, which begin with “7PM Choice” and end with “5PM Arrival,” taking us as listeners through 22 hours of travelogue musical and lyrical, a journey that starts with grand crashes and progressive melodies and moves through driving moments early in “Decision” and “Departure” presented with a commercial-production-style crispness — which, in the tradition of European heavy rock, doesn’t necessarily draw away from the impact of the songs — and only growing broader as it moves past “Border” into later stretches like “Rebirth,” “Determination,” and at last, the eight-minute “5PM Arrival.” Moods vary across the span but the prevailing impression is somewhat brooding, and the band works well with that, finding room in their multifaceted songs for vocal harmonies and resounding hooks, clever arrangements of guitar and keys, and in an earlier cut like “Trip,” clear evidence of how far their craft has come in the last half-decade delivered via efficient, progressive, still-straightforward heavy rock and roll, the screams in the second half setting up fluidity into the more lumbering “Border” that typifies the flow enacted across the entire album.
Perhaps most impressive of all is how easily Los Disidentes del Sucio Motel make it sound to blend songs that are individually catchy and that stand on their own — “Departure,” “Border,” “Community,” the thick-chugging “Determination” — with an overarching linear concept. One wouldn’t want to speculate as to which came first, the music or the concept, but either way, it’s no small feat for a group to compile material that would work so smoothly on both levels. As Los Disidentes del Sucio Motel wind up pushing through “5PM Arrival” into the melodic apex of the album, it’s no small arrival whatsoever, and it would also seem to mark their own arrival as a band working under their own impulses rather than feeding off the influence of others — at least to such a degree as to make the material distinguished in its sound.
This blend of progressive storytelling and heavy-riffed roots may continue to define them, it may not, I don’t know, but with Human Collapse, Los Disidentes del Sucio Motel would seem to realize the vision that they set out with more than five years ago, while also refining their songwriting to its most potent, resonant degree. It plays smartly to its strengths in multi-layer vocal arrangements and interweaving of guitar/key textures with big, nodding rhythms, but what it accomplishes with these elements is not to be overlooked.
Posted in Reviews on September 30th, 2011 by JJ Koczan
So they’re a French band with a Spanish name that sings in English – got it? Really, that’s just the start of the semi-confused/confusing elements at play with Strasbourg five-piece Los Disidentes del Sucio Motel. Their debut album, Soundtrack From the Motion Picture (released via Deadlight Entertainment), is to a movie that doesn’t exist, follows a context-less narrative structure and boasts numerous guest appearances throughout, culminating in a hidden bonus track cover of a remade “We are the World” – they turned it into “We Rock the World” (yes, really) – that has no fewer than 15 singers on it. The record is 12 tracks, 13 with the bonus, and 64 minutes of desert rock primarily derived from Queens of the Stone Age and Kyuss, and moves into and out of stoner ‘70s biker movie clichés with all the grace of an antelope.
It’s also a lot of fun.
Ultimately, that’s what saves Soundtrack From the Motion Picture. There are a few flubs as regards the tracks, but even those are upbeat, and when Los Disidentes del Sucio Motel hook into a catchy desert rock chorus, they do it right. Of course, they’re also pretty much doing it exactly how Josh Homme would – in addition to being one of the best songs on the album, “Chapter II: Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Cold” is also so much out of the Songs for the Deaf playbook that it could almost count as a cover – but I don’t think they’re trying to pass any of this material off as being completely original. Rather, the cumbersomely-nicknamed band – Francky “The Ice Screamer” Maverick on guitar/vocals, Bobby “The Big Bear” Maverick on bass/vocals, Johnny “The Devil” Maverick on guitar, Billy “The Mad Guy” Maverick on drums and Sonny “The Magic Finger” McCormick on keys/vocals – lightheartedly groove their way through opener “Sir Dany Jack,” the accented-English chorus of “You’ve gotta rock/You’ve gotta ride/You’ve gotta roll and do it all the time” being completely heartfelt and endearingly free of irony. The band members may be playing characters, but it’s pretty clear they put some time into the songwriting, silly though the results might be. “All Alone”’s second half is right off Welcome to Sky Valley, and “Not Folk” follows a quirky Homme-y start-stop pattern that’ll be familiar right from the guitar intro.
“Chapter II: Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Cold” is like-minded, but with a fuller sound and more interesting vocal interplay, that come out especially in some post-hardcore screams that show up again on “Oogie Boogie Drive in Burger” later on, and of course on “We Rock the World” as well. “Brotherhood” is the shortest of the bunch at 3:26 – nine of the 12 are between four and five minutes long – but one of the most effective riffy grooves – the guitars really dialed into the compressed Dave Catching production-style crunch – and it’s a catchy, unpretentious chorus that Los Disidentes del Sucio Motel do well with, taking a step back from some of the purported craziness on the other tracks to just ride the riff. “Beauty Among the Crowd” ends the first half of the album with guest lead vocals from Chrys Caridy, back-ups from Mary Schoenbock and another Queens of the Stone Age guitar line underscored by organ sounds from “The Magic Finger,” whose nom de guerre, if you didn’t notice before, is the best of them all.
