For all past installments in the series, click here.

This fifth and final episode of Andrew Baxter and Cole Jenkins‘ documentary of Blaak Heat Shujaa‘s California recording session and tour wraps up the roadtime and covers the band returning to Scott Reeder‘s The Sanctuary studio, where they worked with guest vocalists Ron Whitehead and Mario Lalli. After the EP was finished, the band shot a new video for one of the songs — because if you’re in the desert, you gotta make the most of it while you can.

Thanks to Blaak Heat Shujaa, Tee Pee Records and Baxter and Jenkins for allowing me to host these clips as they’ve come along. Can’t wait to hear how the album actually came out!

For past installments in the series, click here.

This time around in Andrew Baxter and Cole Jenkins‘ serial documentary on the recording of Blaak Heat Shujaa‘s Tee Pee Records debut, the band break from working on the album with Scott Reeder to head into the desert for a couple gigs with poet Ron Whitehead before hitting up Los Angeles and a show with Fatso Jetson and Mondo Generator. Enjoy:

The Californian new album and tour adventures of Blaak Heat Shujaa continue, and so does filmmakers Cole Jenkins and Andrew Baxter‘s documentary series covering them. In this episode, the three-piece continue work on their Tee Pee Records debut and meet up with awesomely-bearded poet Ron Whitehead, who’ll be their tourmate for their short run of shows through the Golden State, running through this weekend.

Enjoy:

Today, heavy desert rockers Blaak Heat Shujaa continue the up-to-the-minute coverage of the recording of their new album. In the second episode of their docu-series, the three-piece continue their recording process with Scott Reeder at the helm and prepare for a California tour with Ron Whitehead.

If you missed the first episode, check it out here. Here’s part two, and more to come:

It begins!

Can’t say you weren’t warned. In this beginning of Blaak Heat Shujaa‘s documentary series covering the recording of their Tee Pee Records debut and their California mini-tour, the band arrive and make preparations at Scott Reeder‘s Sanctuary Studio. For more info about the project, check out the announcement here.

Filmmakers Cole Jenkins and Andrew Baxter sent over the below to get us started. Dig it:

In the three and a half years I’ve been working on this site, I’ve never quite been a part of a project like this. The idea is that French heavy psych rockers Blaak Heat Shujaa — hot on the hells of their signing to Tee Pee — are making a documentary series of videos that will cover their mini-tour of California and the recording of their new album with Scott Reeder. They’ve brought in filmmakers Cole Jenkins and Andrew Baxter to put it together one day at a time, and as each day passes, they’re going to send me the segments to post.

The episodes will be relatively short, but get ready, because as you can see in the explanation from guitarist/vocalist Thomas Bellier below, the band has a lot going on. Really looking forward to seeing how this comes out. I think it’s going to be an absolute blast over the next couple of weeks. Here’s the info, and for Blaak Heat Shujaa‘s tour dates, just click the poster image (courtesy of Skillit Art) below to enlarge it.

In early August, the Blaak Heat Shujaa trio reunited in Los Angeles straight from London, New York and Boulder. Since then, we’ve been hard at work crafting the new tunes for our second album in our Echo Park studio. It’s 100°F outside, about 95°F inside, Mike drums in his underwear, and the new jams rule.

On Friday, we’re hitting Scott Reeder’s studio, at the edge of the Mojave desert. We’ll be joined by our friends Mario Lalli and Ron Whitehead, who’ll record vocals on some tracks. On the 22nd, we kick off a California tour in Palm Springs, with Ron doing spoken word on stage with us. After that, we go back to Reeder’s on the 28^th, where I’ll be polishing off my vocals and solos while my Blaak Heat acolytes will be shooting a free-form psychotomimetic proto-post-avant-garde music video.

Our buddies Cole Jenkins and Andrew Baxter, two LA-based musician/filmmakers, will follow us for two weeks, documenting the making of the new album, life on the road, and our encounters with friends, guest musicians, desert characters, other bands, dangerous animals and hazardous substances. Starting on August 19^th and until the 31^st, their footage will be featured on The Obelisk on a daily basis in the form of short video clips. Make sure you catch that rare footage of a newly signed band, where the musical sublime and human decadence will coexist in the most inextricable chaos (French subtitles not included).

http://colejenkins.com/
http://soundcloud.com/andrewbaxta

Kudos to L.A. by way of New York by way of Paris by way of the desert by way of reverb rockers Blaak Heat Shujaa on the announcement of their signing to Tee Pee Records. The band is hard at work on the follow-up to their impressive self-titled debut (review here), and the news of their assignation just came down the PR wire.

To wit:

BLAAK HEAT SHUJAA Sign to Tee Pee Records

In honor of the album’s release tomorrow, July 10, on Tee Pee Records, I’ve been allowed to host a giveaway of 5 CD and 3 LP copies of the self-titled debut from German classic doomers Kadavar. Enter now by leaving a comment to this post. Please make sure your email address is filled in on the comment form, so I can contact you for your address if your name is selected. Winners will be picked one week from today. Good luck and thanks to all who enter.

[Please note: This giveaway is now closed. Thanks to all who entered. Winners will be notified by email.]

To make the deal even sweeter (though, frankly, it didn’t really need sweetening), you can stream the opening track “All Our Thoughts” on the player below. Like the rest of Kadavar‘s Kadavar, the leadoff cut is a gorgeous exercise in analog tonality, rife with classic grooving and vinyl-ready mystique. Wolf Lindemann‘s guitars creep through with such buzzsaw fuzz they make any speaker that plays them sound like it’s covered in fabric, and the bluesy pulse in the bass and Tiger‘s drums hints at the time before heavy rock turned prog, right there in ’71-’72, before everyone realized what geniuses they were.

Obviously fans of vintage heavy and its modern incarnation will want to take note, but there’s something malevolent that the album hints at as well, and one of the aspects that makes Kadavar such an exciting listen is that you don’t necessarily know where the band is going to head from here. If, like Witchcraft, they want to move past these doomly beginnings and stretch out into extended indulgences of progressive classicism, they’re set up for that, but also, if they want to go darker into folk-hued cultishness, there would be precedent for that as well. In any case, bass heads will revel in Mammut‘s Rivoli, and the memorable chorus of “All Our Thoughts” is a great entry point for anyone who hasn’t heard Kadavar yet.

As always, I hope you enjoy:

Kadavar‘s Kadavar will be released in North America tomorrow, July 10, on Tee Pee Records and will be out on This Charming Man Records in Europe. Winners for the CD and vinyl will be chosen at random from the comments left on this post and prizes will be mailed out from the label. For more on Kadavar, check them out on Thee Facebooks or hit up Tee Pee‘s website. Special thanks to the label and to Action PR for coordinating this giveaway and stream.

Venice, California, trio The Shrine aren’t Tee Pee Records’ only excursion into more punkish ground over the last several years (Annihilation Time comes to mind as another, and the label is well rooted in the genre), but they might be the sturdiest bridge the long-running imprint has found yet between the varying sides of its aesthetic. The young, brash and retro-minded skater punk of The Shrine’s label debut, Primitive Blast, has been labeled “psychedelic violence” by the band itself, and while I struggle with that designation because, frankly, I don’t hear anything on the record all that psychedelic, there are definitely influences at work from riffier rock. Primitive Blast makes a show of its sneering arrogance in an early punk/modern hipster fashion (would be foolish to argue the other isn’t built largely on the one), but the difference of the roughly 30 years that separates guitarist/vocalist Josh Landau, bassist Courtland Murphy and drummer Jeff Murray from the bulk of their influences means they’re making a conscious decision to don the aesthetic like so many high-top sneakers – “Let’s do that,” instead of, “This is what I do.” Nonetheless, the nine tracks of Primitive Blast are a faithful, analog-recorded recreation of that specifically SoCal coolness, all flat skateboards and puffy hair from under ball caps and big sunglasses and calling people “bro” before you meant it ironically. I’ll say too that while they may be approaching what was essentially a natural outcrop of the post-psychedelic era in their region as one might approach a museum piece, the commitment The Shrine have to the style they’ve embarked on goes a long way toward building a sense of sincerity in the material on Primitive Blast. Heavily indebted to Black Flag – obviously – cuts like “Freak Fighter” also toy with the primordial form of glam rock that grew out of The Stooges and the MC5, and as the album is short at just over half an hour, there’s no sacrifice of immediacy or intensity to revel in those or any other tropes. They obviously knew what they were doing when they named the album.

And while that kind of self-awareness on the part of a band can often lead to critical cynicism about how contrived a work might be, Landau, Murphy and Murray have the songs on their side, and that goes a long way. They’re probably too young to remember when Damaged or My War came out, but there’s nothing to say they couldn’t have grown up with those records, seen the insufferable genre mutate from out of their inspiration, and decided to go back to the source. You don’t automatically know what someone’s experience is by listening to their music, is what I’m saying, and it doesn’t seem fair to hold someone’s age against them as a means for judging their appreciation of crossover punk. If the hip kids like punk, well, at least it’s good punk, and they’re putting it to good use on Primitive Blast, barking up guitar tonality that black metal bands dream of without realizing it with opener “Zipper Tripper,” the first of several beer-chugging dudely grooves. Black Sabbath comparisons have been tossed around, and they slow down the tempo some – the opening riff cycle is slower as well – so maybe that’s the source, but I hear it more in Landau’s scathing guitar leads than anywhere else. There’s definitely a metal side to the sound, though, and that comes across in “Zipper Tripper” and in “Whistlings of Death,” which follows and is the shortest song on the album at 2:17. Built around a chugging riff and lyrics about revolution topped by some cheeky falsetto, the song’s bridge is nonetheless metallic in its construction and the riff under the second solo – Murphy is given a brief moment to shine on bass – comes from someplace heavier. A sense of looseness and spontaneity comes through clear in Murray’s drums, which are nonetheless tight, and “Freak Fighter” continues the momentum with one of Primitive Blast’s catchiest choruses and an effective call and response in the vocals.

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I’m a fan of Los Angeles progressive heavy rockers Ancestors, and that’s something for which I make absolutely no apologies. By their own admission, the band is not without their self-indulgences — latest album In Dreams and Time (review here) has plenty — but wherever they go musically, I seem to be willing to follow them. And so far, that’s been an exciting trip. From their 2008 debut, Neptune with Fire, to the beginning shifts heard on the next year’s Of Sound Mind, to the more drastic changes of last year’s Invisible White EP, Ancestors have never failed to, as guitarist/vocalist Justin Maranga succinctly puts it no fewer than 10 times in the interview that follows, “move forward.”

If there’s one thing that I took away from my conversation with Maranga, which was nearly an hour long and among the most cordial interviews I’ve done in some time, it’s that he’s also incredibly passionate about what the band does. Whether he’s speaking about the basslines of Nick Long, the prospect of writing to Daniel Pouliot‘s drums, Jason Watkins‘ vocal melodies, organ and piano, or the loss of Matt Barks‘ Moog/synth to their live incarnation, Maranga discusses Ancestors as one might convey one’s own central passion, because when he speaks about the band, about their progression over the course of the last half-decade and where they might be going, that’s exactly what he’s going.

It was an honest discussion, and not all of it is included here, but the vast, vast majority remained on-record. Maranga opines on their constant battle against the perceptions of others regarding what the band is. He comes right out and says it: People expect Ancestors to be a stoner rock band, and that’s something they’ve never really been since before Neptune with Fire was released, and certainly not something they’ve ever worked toward being. Perhaps more than ever with In Dreams and Time, Ancestors are without if not in open defiance of genre — wearing their influences on their sleeve, perhaps, but nonetheless making that sleeve no more than a part of their total stylistic ensemble. Frankly, I think they’re one of the best bands in America right now, and on a personal level, if you can’t get down, I think it’s your loss.

Maranga talks about dealing with that expectation put on the band, and how Neptune with Fire pigeonholed them into the stoner rock scene almost in spite of what the band had actually moved on to creating by the time it was released, and the melodic focus that led them to create epic In Dreams and Time closer “First Light,” which seems to reconcile every side and sound they’ve presented to the public to date while also pushing ahead into bold, rich, beautiful territory they’ve not yet covered. But always present in the discussion — I hope this is something that comes through in the basic Q&A transcript — is that passion, driving Maranga and informing his approach to everything Ancestors does and has become. The dude means it. No question.

They were among the highlights of my Roadburn experience in 2012 and the album remains one of my favorites of the year so far. I’m sure I’ll have more on it as the next few months and beyond play out, but for now, please find the complete interview with Maranga after the jump, and please enjoy.

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A 26-minute journey into the recesses of psychedelic groove and mystifying ambience, The Ballad of the Starchild is Naam‘s first release since their 2009 self-titled laid bare their mind-expanding course and began what shows itself here to be an ongoing process of growth and exploration. The five individual cuts that comprise the EP flow together remarkably, and with the apparently full-time inclusion of organist John Weingarten, the trio-turned-four-piece are hitting what sounds like a creative stride, proffering patient, engaging psych rock that’s neither ever fully still nor rushing where and when it doesn’t want to be.

With the 10-minute “Starchild” as the focal point, Naam remind of their past extended works while also moving beyond them in the songwriting. Each track on The Ballad of the Starchild serves a purpose to the overall whole and stands on its own, guitarist/vocalist Ryan Lee Lugar hypnotizing both in tone and his oozing lyrical delivery, bassist/vocalist John Preston Bundy beginning to make his presence more known in the latter regard, and drummer Eli Pizzuto going from complete absence to blastbeats in a staggering show of range that never feels unnatural or forced, providing the foundation from which the melodies of Bundy, Lugar and Weingarten embark on their space-bound launch.

The interplay of keys and guitar is especially central to the track “Lands Unknown,” which also boasts The Ballad of the Starchild‘s most insistent groove, and while it’s unclear whether Naam will follow this release with another full-length or perhaps use it as a starting point for a series of EPs all based around the characters of KISS (which could be, you know, awesome), the variety and balance they bring to their execution here is an excellent show of the growth they’ve undertaken since the full-length. I think it might be Bundy‘s lead vocal during the verse as well, unless Lugar is just shifting his approach some. Either way, you’ll find “Lands Unknown” on the player below, followed by some PR wire-type release info. Please enjoy:

Celebrated Brooklyn psychedelic rock band Naam will release an EP of brand new material titled The Ballad of the Starchild on May 8 via Tee Pee Records. Recorded in BKLYN’s Galuminum Foil Studios and mastered at NYC’s world famous Masterdisk (Miles Davis, Nirvana, etc.), The Ballad of the Starchild showcases Naam’s most forward-thinking material to date and is the follow up to the group’s 2009 full-length, Naam.

More on Naam at their Thee Facebooks page or on Tee Pee‘s website.

As massive as the riffs were on Ancestors’ 2008 Tee Pee Records debut, Neptune with Fire (originally also the band’s demo), their largesse pales in comparison to the distance of stylistic ground the band has covered since. The progression away from that album’s two-song Sleep-derived sprawl was almost immediate on 2009’s Of Sound Mind (review here) – titled as if to indicate the L.A.-based act’s own consciousness of what they were doing – and last year’s Invisible White EP (review here) was even more of a departure from what seemed like a stated course of gleefully mining and putting stoner rock riffing to epic, extended use. You could almost hear the one-song album on its way. Ancestors might still get there, but if they do, it’ll be in a much different form. The full-length follow-up to the pattern of influence Invisible White established is In Dreams and Time (also Tee Pee), which confirms over its far-ranging 66 minutes emotional weight as the center of the band’s songwriting construction even as much as it utilizes thickened tones to blend in elements from earlier offerings. The really amazing thing about Ancestors is that we’re talking about a four-year span of time that all these shifts have taken place. Of course the first record was put to tape well before it came out, but even so, if not for the breadth it covers, In Dreams and Time would feel like a debut in itself for how much of a beginning it seems to be for the band.

The inclusions of Moog and modular synth by Matt Barks, and the piano and organ of Jason Watkins (who also contributes vocals), are pivotal to the sound of In Dreams and Time almost immediately, rivaling if not surpassing Justin Maranga’s guitars at times. Opener “Whispers” begins with heavy crashes, but ultimately its nine minutes are more defined by the interplay of melody and the “extras” than the meat of the riffs themselves. King Crimson-esque oohs and aahs run through the middle, and it’s not until its final movement that heaviness in the traditional sense enters into it, the drums of Jamie Miller (also of Night Horse and since replaced by Daniel Pouliot) signaling a faster finish to which Nick Long adds the first in a series of engaging bass runs while Maranga’s lead vocals take on a Steve Von Till-esque gruffness. The Neurosis influence isn’t a central focus – that is, Ancestors aren’t making post-metal – but it’s there all the same. The song slows at its end and leads into In Dreams and Time’s shortest cut, “The Last Return,” which still surpasses six minutes and shows more of the melancholic side of Ancestors’ approach that really came to the fore on Invisible White. This is progression without pretense, and I’d say “The Last Return” is indulgent for the wash of guitar that seems to consume its dramatic male/female vocal interplay, but it also works really well. Miller comes in after two verse/chorus tradeoffs and a landmark piano solo from Watkins that’s well-suited to the mood of the track, adding a bit of pulse to the last two minutes alongside distorted guitars and the still-prevalent piano.

With a cut like “The Last Return,” already I’m thinking In Dreams and Time must have been a nightmare to mix. Not only is there a wide variety of elements at play, but they’re balanced just so to allow for the album to be engrossing and almost overwhelming, but still accessible and appreciable. Amplifier hum fades out even as synth winds begin to blow and underscore the guitar-driven beginning of  side –A ender “Corryvreckan” and one of In Dreams and Time’s two tracks over 10 minutes. At 12:08, it’s not as grand, or as long, as the album closer “First Light” — which clocks a fully-used 19:19 – but it’s nonetheless a landmark for Ancestors thus far. Long offers a standout performance on bass and seems to loom above and separate from Miller’s tom fills during the verse, and a chorus of well-arranged semi-melodic and harsher shouts adds doomed sensibility to what is still markedly atmospheric. Organ features heavily throughout the “Corryvreckan”’s build – the song named either for a whirlpool in Scotland or for the whiskey that takes its moniker from same – but the guitar leads in the second half classily offer additional melody to what the keys contribute. A subdued break nine minutes in reminds of a fuller-sounding Crippled Black Phoenix, but the tension pays off with about a minute and a half to go, the riff changing up to a more adrenaline-inducing progression and the rest of Ancestors getting in line behind, except perhaps Long, the separation of whose bass seems to sit it in a class entirely its own. The tone there is punchier than anything else, so it stands out even more, but if he’s left the task of carrying the song to its conclusion, he seems up to it.

Side B, such as it is (if they were to put the album out on vinyl, they’d have to either cut tracks or make it a double, as I’m fairly certain a 12” LP won’t hold a 66 minute album – nonetheless, that’s how the songs are structured), is longer. “On the Wind” and “Running in Circles” both top nine and a half minutes, and “First Light” nearly reaches 20, whereas on the first three tracks, “The Last Return” was shorter and that set up even more of a contrast with the lush patience of “Corryvreckan.” Ancestors offset the extra length by honing in on sonic diversity and continuing to expand the sonic palette they’ve already established. “On the Wind” gets underway with Watkins’ piano while guitar swells and fades behind, and the ambience becomes the point of build that acts as the center of the song as Miller thuds his way in on the toms and guitars fade in to introduce the verse after about two and a half minutes. Like with “Corryvreckan,” “On the Wind” lets its vocals become a point of focus – something I don’t think Ancestors had the confidence to do before Invisible White – but on the later track, they’re more melodic and more memorable, still giving way to the sub-Neurosis shouts, but nailed in the mix so that neither the guitar nor piano lines feel sacrificed. In terms of sheer craft, “On the Wind” might be the most developed song on In Dreams and Time, with a guitar solo near the halfway point setting up bold competition to come from Hammond organ even as Long’s bass once more holds down the initial groove that started it all. It’s warm, it’s professional and it’s progressive, and they bring back the chorus at the end of an extended jam – just instrumentally – and it serves as a firm reminder of just how far they’ve come and how far they’re brought listeners along with them.

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It’s a big world out there, and no one in it rocks quite like Truckfighters rock. Their fuzz is just a little warmer, their deserts a little sandier, and where so much of capital ‘h’ Heavy the underground comes up with arrives sluggishly at the sacrifice of energy, the trio from Örebro carry across their material — especially on stage — with apparent ease and an upbeat pulse that only subsides when they direct it elsewhere.

Now embroiled in their second-ever US tour and also their second in less than a year’s time, Truckfighters have seen a boost in profile since their last album, 2009′s Mania, thanks in part to a feature-length documentary from filmmakers Joerg Steineck and Christian Maciejewski (review here), that has led to Tee Pee Records picking up the band for a digipak reissue of Mania that’s due out May 8.

Although their 2005 debut, Gravity X, saw North American release in conjunction with MeteorCity, this new issue of Mania (original review here) will be the first time Truckfighters are really entrusting a label with the distribution and promotion of one of their records, and it’s a bolder step considering the record in question has already been out for going on three years. Still, with the run of US shows they did last summer and the current follow-up, the timing couldn’t be better to bring Mania back into listeners’ consciousness, and considering they’re in the States and I didn’t even have to dial international to get guitarist Niklas ”Dango” Källgren on the phone for the following interview, the timing couldn’t have been better for that either.

They were in Chicago when we spoke, having played what he characterized as a good set the night before in Dayton, Ohio, alongside tour and travelmates The Midnight Ghost Train, who came aboard last minute as a replacement for Karma to Burn. In our relatively brief conversation, Källgren discussed how that switch was made as well as the tumultuous booking of these shows, how he and bassist/vocalist Oskar “Ozo” Cedarmalm feel about the end result of the documentary, the revolving door tenure of drummer Oscar “Pezo” Johansson (which is chronicled in one of the most entertaining sections of Steineck and Maciejewski‘s movie and who now also plays in Witchcraft), signing with Tee Pee, progress on their next album, and — as the headline above hints — much more.

Please find the complete Q&A after the jump, and enjoy.

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It’s still Friday, right? Well, if it is or isn’t, I’m still stoked to be the first to bring you the above foreboding trailer for the new Ancestors album, titled In Dreams and Time and due out on Tee Pee April 10. Just dig that growing menace. To support the record, the L.A. troupe are headed across the Atlantic like a fired-up Neptune to perform at this year’s Desertfests in London and Berlin and Roadburn in Tilburg, the Netherlands, as well as Fuzzfest and numerous other shows.

To aid in this process, the band has set up a Kickstarter page to take donations from those who’d prefer to see them not, you know, starve or run out of gas. Check it out here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ancestors/help-ancestors-tour-europe-in-april-2012

Now, I could probably give you some big spiel about how helping independent bands is the right thing to do and how Ancestors are killer and blah blah blah. Forget all that. Fact is, for your “donation,” Ancestors are actually giving away some pretty cool stuff. Depending on how much you choose to put in, they’ll even buy you dinner. Literally. I gave $10, and for that I get to download In Dreams and Time two weeks before it’s released. Pretty good deal considering it also comes with that self-satisfaction of patronizing the riffly arts.

Not to sound like an NPR pledge drive or anything, but you could spend 10 bucks on much worse.

Stick around next week (please), because it’s gonna be nuts. Monday I’m thrilled to say I’ll be hosting an exclusive stream of the recently gushed-over Greenleaf record. Yes, the whole thing. I’ll also be posting either a new interview with Truckfighters (set to happen Monday evening; fingers crossed) or my conversation with Fursy Teyssier of Les Discrets, and I’ve no doubt either will be worth the read.

We’ll debut Ben Hogg‘s aforementioned “Fire on the Mountain” column as well, and still find room for reviews of Black Rainbows, Caltrop, Melvins Lite and others. It’ll be good times, I assure you.

Also, I don’t know if you checked out the news forum today, but I’ve posted no fewer than 12 news stories in there in the last 24 hours, so you might want to hit it up for news about stuff like Weedeater and Church of Misery tour dates and much more. Just saying it’s worth a look if you’ve got a minute or seven.

In the meantime, that should do it for me. I’ll be in Somerville, Massachusetts, tomorrow night to catch Gozu, Black Pyramid and Infernal Overdrive, so if you’re headed that way, I hope to get to say hi. I’ll be the fat beardo with the brown messenger-type photo bag, probably drinking in a corner looking awkward. That’s usually how it goes. Ha.

Have a great and safe weekend, whatever part of the world you’re in. See you on the forum and back here Monday for that Greenleaf stream and other assorted silliness.

What a coincidence that Ancestors‘ new album, In Dreams and Time will be out just around when the band heads to Europe for appearances at Desertfest and Roadburn. Man, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear these things were planned out ahead of time. In any case, I’m very much looking forward to hearing how Ancestors follow-up last year’s excellent Invisible White EP (review here), the stylistic divergence of which was both unexpected and gloriously accomplished, particularly on the title-track.

The following PR wire info doesn’t exactly give the answer to that question, but it does add further intrigue in a quote from guitarist Justin Maranga. Check it out:

Los Angeles psychedelic prog-rock band Ancestors will release its new album In Dreams and Time on April 10 via Tee Pee Records. Recorded in east L.A.’s Infrasonic Sound (Queens of the Stone Age, Best Coast, Xasthur), the record showcases the band’s most accomplished music to date and a creative sound that morphs from thunderous cacophony to soul-searching peaks and valleys as towering riffs collide with bleak beauty and deep wells of light and dark.

“In Dreams and Time feels like the culmination of everything we’ve done so far,” says Ancestors guitarist Justin Maranga. “The record incorporates elements of everything that we’ve come to feel that Ancestors is, as well as new things that we’ve never tried. We’re hoping that it will tie together fans of our previous albums Neptune with Fire, Of Sound Mind and Invisible White who may or may not have connected one release or the other, while hopefully helping us reach a new audience. We’re excited about it.”

The track listing for Ancestors’ In Dreams and Time is as follows:
1. Whispers
2. The Last Return
3. Corryvreckan
4. On the Wind
5. Running in Circles
6. First Light

Ancestors have also announced the addition of new drummer Daniel Pouliot (Horse the Band, ex-Bleeding Kansas) to its ranks and have been confirmed for both the 2012 Desertfest and the 2012 Roadburn Festival, where the band will share the stage with Killing Joke, Michael Gira, Chelsea Wolfe and more.