German heavy instrumentalists Schubmodul are set to issue their sophomore LP, Lost in Kelp Forest, on Feb. 23 through Tonzonen Records. As the title alluding to submerged plantlife hints, the album follows a submerged conceptual narrative such that the sun-reflecting lead guitar in “Emerald Maze” around six minutes into the total 9:57 genuinely seems to discover something as it shifts from its exploratory outset into a more linear pattern ahead of a thicker riff’s return. Samples bolster the affair and fill in some of the places vocals might otherwise have gone — according to the PR wire below King Gizzard did that at one point?; fair enough — as across the six-song/42-minute rolling horizon, the three-piece of Christoph Kellner, Fabian Franke and Nils Stecker bring purpose to a weighted and progressive-leaning, clear-headed psychedelia. This could easily have been an LP of jams that afterward the band decided was about the ocean. That’s not what’s happening here.

Schubmodul‘s material is composed and brings a sense of intention even to the nodder chug in “Silent Echoes” that feels like it could be anything. It’s not that you feel like you’re underwater or that, thankfully, the music itself sounds like it, but the power of suggestion, the commonality of the metaphor within the genre, and your own willingness to go should be enough to get you there. The trio open with “Voyage” and offer the first of the six individualized progressions within the songs, each carving out its own space of the entirety both in terms of story — I’m just cut and pasting the credits so I don’t spell anyone’s name wrong: the spoken narrations are France’s Alma Chomel and Shane Wilson in the US — and the alignment around and movement through structured parts. A band with a marker-board in the rehearsal space? They might be. Somebody, somewhere along the line, has arranged the parts of Lost in Kelp Forest, if not as a cinematic experience, then certainly with a mind toward evoking an emotive or associative response in the listener. As the swinging ‘verse’ of the penultimate “Ascension” (visualizer premiering below), with its proggy bass punches and strutting groove emerges from the spaces cast in the largesse of “Silent Echoes” just before, Schubmodul offer dynamic of intention as well as volume, reaching into varying niches of microgenre while thoughtfully distinguishing their songs in conceptual approach and the finer details of their layering.

An example of that lies in the acoustic beginning of “Renegade One,” the five-minute finale of side A. They open into a groove bordering on huge, as one will, and are both methodical in terms of pace and mindful of when the changes should be. A switch to lead guitar here, some flourish on drums to mark the transition. A stop before you jump in again. Complemented by a captured tonality that is sharper at its corners than one might at first expect, Schubmodul can gear a given part or track toward impact or atmosphere seemingly as they choose, and more often than not on Lost in Kelp Forest, they choose both. The record is stronger for it while still remaining cognizant enough of their basic underlying riffage to be likened to later Karma to Burn, though certainly Schubmodul have layered an entire aesthetic atop that most straight-ahead of instrumental structural foundations. “Ascension” ends sharp and gives over to the Wilson voiceover, naming a deep sea wreck of a ship named Renegade One and revealing the mission to harvest kelp forests that, well, don’t let me spoil it. Ambient guitar behind, the heart of the story ends in closer “Revelations” with an urging to “protect our planet and all living things” before its meditative roll takes hold in earnest. And of course they build around the finale as they’ve been building all along to their various purposes either in storytelling or kicking ass more generally.

It’s not quite a blowout, but it’s the end credits as the pace picks up in the second half of “Revelations” and the band push into the last fadeout. I’m not quite ready to call Schubmodul heavy prog, though there’s some distillation of an Elder influence audible in the shimmering of the guitar and some of the sway in their larger grooves. I can’t get away from feeling like someone in the band — be it Stecker, Kellner or Franke — has some noisier background, but across Lost in Kelp Forest, everything the band put into the record is funneled into the central purpose of the narrative and the songs themselves, and the story being told is that much clearer and expressive for that. Giant kelp can grow up to 250 feet tall, two feet per day if it’s the right kind. An underwater forest is an entire ecosystem, with predators and prey, eggs laid behind leaves and fish living off the plants that are their entire world. Humans I think mostly use it as a place to keep discarded plastic wrap.

But our pitiful species’ disregard for the (actual) treasures that surround us nothing new, and if part of Schubmodul‘s intent is to remind of that or at least pull the thought out of the listener’s brain, then they have succeeded in affecting the mood and mindset of their audience — I was thinking about genocide, now I’m thinking about climate crisis; welcome to the 2020s! everyone’s sad and everything is why — and that’s not an accomplishment to discount. Their debut, 2022’s Modul I, functioned similarly in terms of impact and atmosphere, but what’s found in terms of method and purpose throughout Lost in Kelp Forest is a marked forward step that comes with a greater breadth of production to match that of its basic sound. I don’t know that their next effort — the e’er crucial ‘third record’ — will tell the same kind of tale or not, but I would expect the refinement of approach that Schubmodul have undertaken in the last couple years to continue, and that means that’s an album I’ll want to hear.

Please enjoy the visualizer for “Ascension” premiering below, followed by more from the PR wire:

Schubmodul, “Ascension” visualizer premiere

Lost In Kelp Forest is a concept album that doesn’t take place in the vastness of space like its predecessor, but rather in an underwater world. The six mainly instrumental pieces are accompanied by narrator voices, which reveal a coherent fictional story on a dense atmospheric carpet of sound. The voices were professionally recorded by Alma Chomel from France and Shane Wilson from the USA.

As a foundation, the triumvirate, formed by a classic line-up of guitar, bass and drums, thunders a mix of space, stoner and progressive rock onto the stage, which is occasionally supplemented by synthesizers, sound and voice samples. Dreamy, atmospheric passages combined with colossal riffs will often lead to an epic melodic zenith of voluminous, warm sounds, over which gentle to fast guitar solos are released.

The compositions use a large modal palette and versatile harmonies that are intended to continually surprise the listener and at the same time follow a driving, natural and catchy rhythm. Lost In Kelp Forest has a very high level of attention to detail and should remain exciting even after repeated listening.

The band’s inspiration for this album was genre-typical greats like Elder, King Buffalo, more progressive bands like Dream Theater and elements from Hans Zimmer’s film music. The idea using a spoken word on top of the music was inspired by the albums Eyes Like The Sky and Murderer Of The Universe by King Gizzard & Lizard Wizard. Lost In Kelp Forest was recorded in August 2023 in the legendary Tonmeisterei in Oldenburg, Germany. The entire album was recorded in just six long days. The band was housed in the studio for the entire recording process, which created a unique atmosphere. The first tracks (Emerald Maze and Silent Echoes) were written shortly after the release of the first album in spring 2022 and set the basic mood of the album. The remaining pieces were completed by summer 2023.

Tracklist
1. Voyage
2. Emerald Maze
3. Renegade One
4. Silent Echoes
5. Ascension
6. Revelations

Schubmodul are Christoph Kellner, Fabian Franke and Nils Stecker.

Schubmodul on Instagram

Schubmodul on Facebook

Schubmodul on Bandcamp

Schubmodul on Spotify

Tonzonen Records website

Tonzonen Records on Facebook

Tonzonen Records on Bandcamp

German mostly-instrumentalists Schubmodul will release their second record, Lost in Kelp Forest, next month through Tonzonen. As discussed by the PR wire below, the album blends spoken word narrative on a couple tracks with the band’s prior-established sans-vocal ethic. There’s no music yet, but 2022’s Modul I, operated similarly, with opening track “Andromeda” bringing call-radio speech with a steady chug amid Colour Hazey warmth meeting with Elderian melodic shimmer in the later laying of lead guitar. Spoken word over instrumentals is the kind of thing that can very quickly make or break a record, and while I’d prefer to hear the new LP in its entirety before I go anywhere near “make or break” — or at all — it’s not hard to dig where the band are coming from.

Preorders aren’t up yet, but they will be on the 14th, so it’s not such a wait. And the album’s out in like six weeks, so if late Feb. feels far off, welcome to the future.

The PR wire has it like this:

Psychedelic/ Stoner Rockers SCHUBMODUL Announce New Album Lost In Kelp Forest on Tonzonen Records

After the self-released debut album Modul I (2022) album nr. 2 will be released almost exactly after two years on February 23rd, 2024 on Tonzonen Records.

Lost In Kelp Forest is a concept album that doesn’t take place in the vastness of space like its predecessor, but rather in an underwater world. The six mainly instrumental pieces are accompanied by narrator voices, which reveal a coherent fictional story on a dense atmospheric carpet of sound. The voices were professionally recorded by Alma Chomel from France and Shane Wilson from the USA.

As a foundation, the triumvirate, formed by a classic line-up of guitar, bass and drums, thunders a mix of space, stoner and progressive rock onto the stage, which is occasionally supplemented by synthesizers, sound and voice samples. Dreamy, atmospheric passages combined with colossal riffs will often lead to an epic melodic zenith of voluminous, warm sounds, over which gentle to fast guitar solos are released.

The compositions use a large modal palette and versatile harmonies that are intended to continually surprise the listener and at the same time follow a driving, natural and catchy rhythm. Lost In Kelp Forest has a very high level of attention to detail and should remain exciting even after repeated listening.

The band’s inspiration for this album was genre-typical greats like Elder, King Buffalo, more progressive bands like Dream Theaterand elements from Hans Zimmer’s film music. The idea using a spoken word on top of the music was inspired by the albums Eyes Like The Sky and Murderer Of The Universe by King Gizzard & Lizard Wizard. Lost In Kelp Forest was recorded in August 2023 in the legendary Tonmeisterei in Oldenburg, Germany. The entire album was recorded in just six long days. The band was housed in the studio for the entire recording process, which created a unique atmosphere during the recording process. The first tracks (Emerald Maze and Silent Echoes) were written shortly after the release of the first album in spring 2022 and set the basic mood of the album. The remaining pieces were completed by summer 2023.

Pre-Sale starts on January 14th. Stay tuned.

Tracklist
1. Voyage
2. Emerald Maze
3. Renegade One
4. Silent Echoes
5. Ascension
6. Revelations

https://instagram.com/schubmodul
https://facebook.com/Schubmodul
https://schubmodul.bandcamp.com
https://open.spotify.com/intl-de/artist/1u62KEB6O6vjuxKaNgYHoX?si=WGDmYz8hRO-uYSF5eBvfYw&nd=1&dlsi=f6fcc2854fd64e2b

Schubmodul, Modul I (2022)

This Friday, Oct. 20, German heavy psychedelic rockers The Spacelords return with their sixth full-length, the four-song Nectar of the Gods, through Tonzonen Records. Instrumental in its 44-minute entirety, the album runs a kosmiche web between classic prog, heavy and psychedelic rocks, looking outward from the foundation of its own jams but already more developed than the raw improv. To wit, the penultimate “Mindscapes” (9:42) plays around with and evolves a groove that feels culled in part from Black Sabbath‘s “War Pigs,” changing it over time in the nine-plus-minute course but both retaining the central character and presenting the influence from an internalized place, and they’re no less at home there than in the ultra-drift that begins the subsequent closer “Lost Sounds of Lemuria” (14:15).

Yet would you call the album comfortable? I don’t know. Space is always moving, it just looks still because it’s impossibly huge, and there are some moments through Nectar of the Gods where they seem to be resting in a part when in fact they’re evolving it subtly toward a linear end. Their 2021 album, Unknown Species (review here) had three songs and no less character, but Nectar of the Gods brings further into relief just where The Spacelords — the returning trio of guitarist Matthias “Hazi” Wettstein, bassist Erhard “Akee” Kazmaier and drummer Marcus Schnitzler, plus Jens Eberhard on keys for “Lost Sounds of Lemuria” — lie on the border between structured songwriting and jamming. Because as the sitar drone, tabla percussion and mantra chanting start “Nectar of the Gods,” it’s pretty clear they’re not making it up on the spot, but neither are they belting out verses and choruses in three-minute singles. There’s a plan at work, but it is looser, and it can be because of their instrumental approach.

Most vocals (because nothing is absolute) would diminish the forward march of “Nectar of the Gods,” which transcends its opening to find itself by its midpoint at the crescendo of a stoner rock nod. Lead guitar builds around it, weaving through in heavy psychedelic fashion, but as they will with that aforementioned “War Pigs” riff in “Mindscapes,” they ride the progression and seem to let it change its shape as it will. They work their way to a stop and renew the movement with satisfying crash of the drums for punctuation, and preface some of the titular payoff that “Endorphine High” (10:24) saunters through in a way that should please fans of latter-day Earthless, riding through what might’ve been an open jam before the fade brings the percussive start of “Mindscapes” and some of the funk in the bounce of the bass its first half, however many decades of all-in guitar-led powertrioism filtering through Wettstein, Kazmaier and Schnitzler‘s unflinching chemistry. There’s just the barest hint of heavy metal as they transition to the back-half stretch, but “Mindscapes” finishes quiet and gives “Lost Sounds of Lemuria” room to flourish as it will.

Eberhard‘s keys on “Lost Sounds of Lemuria” make Nectar of the Gods‘ closing track an event more than its 14-minute runtime, though that also isn’t to be discounted when considering the sense of arriving one has at the fourth inclusion. It begins as a dream of Rhodes and guitar drift, bass and drums keeping it casual beneath, and moves into a more resolute psychedelic triumph as the keys continue to add complementary melody around the guitar lines, harmonizing maybe but in their own place through repetitive cycles of a riff and then taking a solo before seven minutes in, welcoming back the guitar over the next minute to resume the conversation. Wettstein steps forward circa 9:40 to lead into a more angular movement, but it’s clearly a transition taking place, and where they end up is with Hammond holding notes over the swirling builds of guitar and the forward motion of the rhythm section, a kind of ringing, multi-hued resonance that’s born of classic psychedelic and maybe even blues jamming with those keys, but that is a glory reserved specifically for this record much like the actual soma of mythology.

After starting Nectar of the Gods with the chanting, the hints toward Subcontinental Asian arrangement elements don’t return as one might expect, but if you start “Nectar of the Gods” right after the end of Unknown Species‘ 20-minute closer “Time Tunnel,” the new track picks up well out of the older, and that’s not nothing, whether or not it was on purpose. Conceptually, The Spacelords aren’t looking to trick anyone into thinking they’re something they’re not, and they’re not pretending these songs are off-the-cuff jams either. They’ve been worked on and completed in their own way and even when they seem at their loosest, they’re still following a plan that’s put them there. The material is dynamic, spacious, absolutely encompassing on headphones, and it rocks. They hit a groove and takeoff like they know you’re at the festival and it’s hot and you’ve been waiting for it so here it is, and that’s an energy specific enough that it can’t be faked.

Not everybody will be able to vibe with it, and that’s a little sad, but if you can put yourself in the right headspace to follow the places The Spacelords are leading, Nectar of the Gods is both a satisfying and a jovial trip to take. Whatever the state of the world, the songs are in good spirits and the invitation in them is palpable. Go with it and you might just make your day better.

Please enjoy:

The Spacelords, Nectar of the Gods full album premiere

Pre-order it here: https://www.tonzonen.de/shop/p/the-spacelords-coming-soon-

The Spacelords – the galactic grooving space rockers in the stoner space-time continuum – honor our sun sound system with their latest album Nectar Of The Gods. Its entry into the Earth’s atmosphere was calculated for the end of October!

Nectar Of The Gods is the 6th studio album on the Tonzonen Records label. The exceptional formation was founded in 2008 and is since May 2014 in their classic, perfect line-up, which inspires an ever-growing fan base worldwide.

After effusive reactions to the first five studio albums, The Spacelords open with Nectar Of The Gods another, so far unheard-of chapter in their original, magical space-atlas.

The trio’s constantly reinventing, deeply interwoven interplay is increasingly captivating the stoner, space and kraut rock community with its devotional joy of playing, as only true friends can muster.

On one of the four epic new tracks on Nectar Of The Gods the gigantic attraction of the massive Spacelords star has once again attracted a sympathetic emissary from the neighboring keyboard universe: Lost Sound Of Lemuria is enhanced by friend Guest Lord, namely Jens Eberhard of Jewelled Moon, with brilliant Fender Rhodes and organ sounds.

Four impressive new songs were created in the home studio, which have both a high recognition value, and know how to convince atmospherically.

Nectar Of The Gods is released on Digipack CD, limited label edition LP (yellow vinyl) and regular LP (black vinyl), as well as a digital release.

Tracklist
1. Nectar Of The Gods
2. Endorphine High
3. Mindscapes
4. Lost Sounds Of Lemuria

The Spacelords on Facebook

The Spacelords on Bandcamp

The Spacelords on Spotify

The Spacelords website

Tonzonen Records website

Tonzonen Records on Facebook

You might recall last year when German psychedelic instrumentalists Acid Rooster released their Ad Astra (review here) LP, the hype around it was thick enough to swim in. The music itself was prone more to drift, as it happened, but with the narrative behind it of being recorded live in an outdoor space during the pandemic, a small gathering put to tape at a singularly desperate moment, the gorgeousness of its two extended tracks took on a depth not often granted to improv-based psych. Three labels have lined up to release Flowers and Dead Souls, the new full-length from Acid Rooster, on Aug. 25.

They’re listed below along with the territories being covered between the UK, Europe and the US — that’s Cardinal Fuzz, Tonzonen and Little Cloud, respectively — while there’s no audio yet, I wouldn’t necessarily be surprised if when the album arrives, it isn’t also a two-songer with “Flowers” on one side and “Dead Souls” on the other. Not saying I know that — because I don’t — but given the context of Ad Astra it’s certainly possible, and the thought of more explorations from this particular outfit is enticing given the patience and breadth they demonstrated last time out.

I assume what happens next is the album details, maybe one of the songs — or more, if there are more — streamed ahead of time through an outlet likely much cooler than this one, and preorders, etc., but Acid Rooster also have a couple gigs coming up including a stop at Krach am Bach, a swing through the Other Side Festival in London, and a slot supporting Dopelord in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

Album cover and particulars, as per socials:

NEWS FROM ACID ROOSTER

‘Hey fellows, we are over the moon to finally share the news and announce that our second studio album will be released on august 25th via Tonzonen (EU), Cardinal Fuzz (UK) and Little Cloud Records (US) !!

Check out the artwork for „Flowers and Dead Souls” by our friend and genius Marco Heinzmann aka @superquiet.

We have some more exciting things coming up, so stay tuned and save the date !

Pre Order starts soon !’

Acid Rooster live:
Aug 04 Krach am Bach Beelen, Germany
Oct 14 The Victoria, Dalston London, UK (Other Side Festival)
Oct 21 Doornroosje Nijmegen, Netherlands (w/ Dopelord, Bismut)

https://www.facebook.com/acidrooster/
https://www.instagram.com/acidrooster_band/
https://acidrooster.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/CardinalFuzz/
cardinalfuzz.bigcartel.com/

https://www.instagram.com/littlecloudrecords/
https://www.facebook.com/littlecloudrecords/
http://littlecloudrec.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Tonzonen/
https://www.instagram.com/tonzonenrecords/
https://www.tonzonen.de

Acid Rooster, Ad Astra (2022)

We press on, until the end, though tired and long since out of adjectival alternatives to ‘heavy.’ The only way out is through, or so I’m told. Therefore, we go through.

Morale? Low. Brain, exhausted. The shit? Hit the fan like three days ago. The walls, existentially speaking, are a mess. Still, we go through.

Two more days to go. Thanks for reading.

Winter 2023 Quarterly Review #81-90:

Farflung, Like Drones in Honey

No question Farflung are space rock. It’s not up for debate. They are who they are and on their 10th full-length, Like Drones in Honey (on Sulatron, which suits both them and label), they remain Farflung. But whether it’s the sweet ending of the “Baile an Doire” or the fuzz riffing beneath the sneer of “King Fright” and the careening garage strum of “Earthmen Look Alike to Me,” the album offers a slew of reminders that as far out as Farflung get — and oh my goodness, they go — the long-running Los Angeles outfit were also there in the mid and late ’90s as heavy rock and, in California particularly, desert rock took shape. Of course, opener “Acid Drain” weaves itself into the fabric of the universe via effects blowout and impulse-engine chug, and after that finish in “Baile an Doire,” they keep the experimentalism going on the backwards/forwards piano/violin of “Touch of the Lemmings Kiss” and the whispers and underwater rhythm of closer “A Year in Japan,” but even in the middle of the pastoral “Tiny Cities Made of Broken Teeth” or in the second half of the drifting “Dludgemasterpoede,” they’re space and rock, and it’s worth not forgetting about the latter even as you blast off with weirdo rocket fuel. Like their genre overall, like Sulatron, Farflung are underrated. It is lucky that doesn’t slow their outbound trip in the slightest.

Farflung on Facebook

Sulatron Records webstore

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Neptunian Maximalism, Finis Gloriae Mundi

Whether you want to namedrop one or another Coltrane or the likes of Amon Düül or Magma or whoever else, the point is the same: Neptunian Maximalism are not making conventional music. Yeah, there’s rhythm, meter, even some melody, but the 66-minute run of the recorded-on-stage Finis Gloriae Mundi isn’t defined by songs so much as the pieces that make up its consuming entirety. As a group, the Belgians’ project isn’t to write songs to much as to manifest an expression of an idea; in this case, apparently, the end of the world. A given stretch might drone or shred, meditate in avant-jazz or move-move-move-baby in heavy kosmiche push, but as they make their way to the two-part culmination “The Conference of the Stars,” the sense of bringing-it-all-down is palpable, and so fair enough for their staying on theme and offering “Neptunian’s Raga Marwa” as a hint toward the cycle of ending and new beginnings, bright sitar rising out of low, droning, presented-as-empty space. For most, their extreme take on prog and psych will simply be too dug in, too far from the norm, and that’s okay. Neptunian Maximalism aren’t so much trying to be universal as to try to commune with the universe itself, wherever that might exist if it does at all. End of the world? Fine. Let it go. Another one will come along eventually.

Neptunian Maximalism on Facebook

I, Voidhanger Records on Bandcamp

Utech Records store

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Near Dusk, Through the Cosmic Fog

Four years after their 2018 self-titled debut (review here), Denver heavy rock and rollers Near Dusk gather eight songs across and smooth-rolling, vinyl-minded 37 minutes for Through the Cosmic Fog, which takes its title from the seven-and-a-half-minute penultimate instrumental “Cosmic Fog,” a languid but not inactive jam that feels especially vital for the character it adds among the more straightforward songs earlier in the record — the rockers, as it were — that comprise side A: “The Way it Goes,” “Spliff ’em All,” and so on. “Cosmic Fog” isn’t side B’s only moment of departure, as the drumless guitar-exploration-into-acoustic “Roses of Durban” and the slower rolling finisher “Slab City” fill out the expansion set forth with the bluesy solo in the back end of “EMFD,” but the strength of craft they show on the first four songs isn’t to be discounted either for the fullness or the competence of their approach. The three-piece of Matthew Orloff, Jon Orloff and Kellen McInerney know where they’re coming from in West Coast-style heavy, not-quite-party, rock, and it’s the strength of the foundation they build early in the opening duo and “The Damned” and “Blood for Money,” that lets them reach outward late, allowing Through the Cosmic Fog to claim its space as a classically structured, immediately welcome heavy rock LP.

Near Dusk on Facebook

Near Dusk on Bandcamp

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Simple Forms, Simple Forms EP

The 2023 self-titled debut EP from Portland, Oregon’s Simple Forms collects four prior singles issued over the course of 2021 and 2022 into one convenient package, and even if you’ve been keeping up with the trickle of material from the band that boasts members of YOB, (now) Hot Victory, Dark Castle and Norska, hearing the tracks right next to each other does change the context somewhat, as with the darker turn of “From Weathered Hand” after “Reaching for the Shadow” or the way that leadoff and “Together We Will Rest” seem to complement each other in the brightness of the forward guitar, a kind of Euro-style proggy noodling that reminds of The Devil’s Blood or something more goth, transposed onto a forward-pushing Pacific Northwestern crunch. The hints of black metal in the riffing of “The Void Beneath” highlight the point that this is just the start for guitarists Rob Shaffer and Dustin Rieseberg, bassist Aaron Rieseberg and grunge-informed frontman Jason Oswald (who also played drums and synth here), but already their sprawl is nuanced and directed toward individualism. I don’t know what their plans might be moving forward, but if the single releases didn’t highlight their potential, certainly the four songs all together does. A 19-minute sampler of what might be, if it will be.

Simple Forms on Facebook

Simple Forms on Bandcamp

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Lybica, Lybica

Probably safe to call Lybica a side-project for Justin Foley, since it seems unlikely to start taking priority over his position as drummer in metalcore mainstays Killswitch Engage anytime soon, but the band’s self-titled debut offers a glimpse of some other influences at work. Instrumental in its entirety, it comes together with Foley leading on guitar joined by bassist Doug French and guitarist Joey Johnson (both of Gravel Kings) and drummer Chris Lane (A Brilliant Lie), and sure, there’s some pretty flourish of guitar, and some heavier, more direct chugging crunch — “Palatial” in another context might have a breakdown riff, and the subsequent “Oktavist” is more directly instru-metal — but even in the weighted stretch at the culmination of “Ferment,” and in the tense impression at the beginning of seven-minute closer “Charyou,” the vibe is more in line with Russian Circles than Foley‘s main outfit, and clearly that’s the point. “Ascend” and “Resonance” open the album with pointedly non-metallic atmospheres, and they, along with the harder-hitting cuts and “Manifest,” “Voltaic” and “Charyou,” which bring the two sides together, set up a dynamic that, while familiar in this initial stage, is both satisfying in impact and more aggressive moments while immersive in scope.

Lybica on Facebook

Lybica on Bandcamp

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Bird, Walpurgis

Just as their moniker might belong to some lost-classic heavy band from 1972 one happens upon in a record store, buys for the cover, and subsequently loves, so too does Naples four-piece Bird tap into proto-metal vibes on their latest single Walpurgis. And that’s not happenstance. While their production isn’t quite tipped over into pure vintage-ism, it’s definitely organic, and they’ve covered the likes of Rainbow, Uriah Heep and Deep Purple, so while “Walpurgis” itself leans toward doom in its catchy and utterly reasonable three-plus minutes, there’s no doubt Bird know where their nest is, stylistically speaking. Given a boost through release by Olde Magick Records, the single-songer follows 2021’s The Great Beast From the Sea EP, which proffered a bit more burl and modern style in its overarching sound, so it could be that as they continue to grow they’re learning a bit more patience in their approach, as “Walpurgis” is nestled right into a tempo that, while active enough to still swing, is languid just the same in its flow, with maybe a bit more rawness in the separation of the guitar, bass, drums and organ. Most importantly, it suits the song, and piques curiosity as to where Bird go next, as any decent single should.

Bird on Facebook

Olde Magick Records on Bandcamp

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Pseudo Mind Hive, Eclectica

Without getting into which of them does what where — because they switch, and it’s complicated, and there’s only so much room — the core of the sound for Melbourne-based four-piece Pseudo Mind Hive is in has-chops boogie rock, but that’s a beginning descriptor, not an end. It doesn’t account for the psych-surf-fuzz in two-minute instrumental opener “Hot Tooth” on their Eclectica EP, for example, or the what-if-Queens–of–the–Stone–Age-kept-going-like-the-self-titled “Moon Boots” that follows on the five-song offering. “You Can Run” has a fuzzy shuffle and up-strummed chug that earns the accompanying handclaps like Joan Jett, while “This Old Tree” dares past the four-minute mark with its scorching jive, born out of a smoother start-stop fuzz verse with its own sort of guitar antics, and “Coming Down,” well, doesn’t at first, but does give way soon enough to a dreamier psychedelic cast and some highlight vocal melody before it finds itself awake again and already running, tense in its builds and overlaid high-register noises, which stand out even in the long fade. Blink and you’ll miss it as it dashes by, all momentum and high-grade songcraft, but that’s alright. It does fine on repeat listens as well, which obviously is no coincidence.

Pseudo Mind Hive on Facebook

Copper Feast Records website

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Oktas, The Finite and the Infinite

On. Slaught. Call it atmospheric sludge, call it post-metal; I sincerely doubt Philadelphia’s Oktas give a shit. Across the four songs and 36 minutes of the two-bass-no-guitar band’s utterly bludgeoning debut album, The Finite and the Infinite, the band — bassist/vocalist Bob Stokes, cellist Agnes Kline, bassist Carl Whitlock and drummer Ron Macauley — capture a severity of tone and a range that goes beyond loud/quiet tradeoffs into the making of songs that are memorable while not necessarily delivering hooks in the traditional verse/chorus manner. It’s the cello that stands out as opener “Collateral Damage” plods to its finish — though Macauley‘s drum fills deserve special mention — and even as “Epicyon” introduces the first of the record’s softer breaks, it is contrasted in doing so by a section of outright death metal onslaught so that the two play back and forth before eventually joining forces in another dynamic and crushing finish. Tempo kick is what’s missing thus far and “Light in the Suffering” hits that mark immediately, finding blackened tremolo on the other side of its own extended cello-led subdued stretch, coming to a head just before the ending so that finale “A Long, Dreamless Sleep” can start with its Carl Sagan sample about how horrible humans are (correct), and build gracefully over the next few minutes before saying screw it and diving headfirst into cyclical chug and sprinting extremity. Somebody sign this band and press this shit up already.

Oktas on Facebook

Oktas on Bandcamp

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Scream of the Butterfly, The Grand Stadium

This is a rock and roll band, make no mistake. Berlin’s Scream of the Butterfly draw across decades of influence, from ’60s pop and ’70s heavy to ’90s grunge, ’00s garage and whatever the hell’s been going on the last 10-plus years to craft an amalgamated sound that is cohesive thanks largely to the tightness of their performances — energetic, sure, but they make it sound easy — the overarching gotta-get-up urgency of their push and groove, and the current of craft that draws it all together. They’ve got 10 songs on The Grand Stadium, which is their third album, and they all seem to be trying to outdo each other in terms of hooks, electricity, vibe, and so on. Even the acoustic-led atmosphere-piece “Now, Then and Nowhere” leaves a mark, to say nothing of the much, much heavier “Sweet Adeleine” or the sunshine in “Dead End Land” or the bluesy shove of “Ain’t No Living.” Imagine time as a malleable thing and some understanding of how the two-minute “Say Your Name to Me” can exist in different styles simultaneously, be classic and forward thinking, spare and spacious. And I don’t know what’s going on with all the people talking in “Hallway of a Thousand Eyes,” but Scream of the Butterfly make it easy to dig anyway and remind throughout of the power that can be realized when a band is both genuinely multifaceted and talented songwriters. Scary stuff, that.

Scream of the Butterfly on Facebook

Scream of the Butterfly on Bandcamp

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Holz, Holz

Based in Kassel with lyrics in their native German, Holz are vocalist/guitarist Leonard Riegel, bassist Maik Blümke and drummer Martin Nickel, and on their self-titled debut (released by Tonzonen), they tear with vigor into a style that’s somewhere between noise rock, stoner heavy and rawer punk, finding a niche for themselves that feels barebones with the dry — that is, little to no effects — vocal treatment and a drum sound that cuts through the fuzz that surrounds on early highlight “Bitte” and the later, more noisily swaying “Nichts.” The eight-minute “Garten” is a departure from its surroundings with a lengthy fuzz jam in its midsection — not as mellow as you’re thinking; the drums remain restless and hint toward the resurgence to come — while “Zerstören” reignites desert rock riffing to its own in-the-rehearsal-room-feeling purposes. Intensity is an asset there and at various other points throughout, but there’s more to Holz than ‘go’ as the rolling “50 Meilen Geradeaus” and the swing-happy, bit-o’-melody-and-all “Dämon” showcase, but when they want to, they’re ready and willing to stomp into heavier tones, impatient thrust, or as in the penultimate “Warten,” a little bit of both. Not everybody goes on a rampage their first time out, but it definitely suits Holz to wreck shit in such a fashion.

Holz on Facebook

Tonzonen Records store

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It was the association with Swedish jammers Kungens Män that led to Solitär catching my eye, but the vibe cast by Mikael Tuominen on his second solo offering holds its own as well, wrought with patient craft and a songwriting style that shares a mellowness of mood with the aforementioned psych explorers but is on a decidedly different track in terms of structure and composition. A video, filmed in Morocco, for the opener “Electric Sea” is streaming now.

There’s an edge of feeling things out here, and maybe that could serve to link Solitär and the crabby kingsmen from whence Tuominen hails, but the differences in purpose after stark enough that, yeah, it’s something else entirely despite any holdover lysergic impulse. The songs throughout Bus Driver Immigrant Mechanic are quietly hypnotic and experimental in their underpinnings, but hold up to whatever level of engagement the listener might want to bring. You’ll hear what I mean when you watch the video.

A little bit of something outside the norm around here feels refreshing every now and again. Have at it:

Shoegaze/ Dreamrock Entity SOLITÄR Announces Debut Album Bus Driver Immigrant Mechanic Through Tonzonen Records

First Video Single Electric Sea Online!

Solitär from Stockholm, Sweden is the solo project by Mikael Tuominen, a multi-instrumentalist known from bands like Kungens Män and Automatism, who was born in Sweden in 1973 by Finnish parents.

Mikael Tuominen been working within a large spectrum of music over the years, ranging from doom metal to avant garde free improvisation to music for film to indie rock.

The first single, out today, from the album is called Electric Sea, one of the most psychedelic tracks on the album, echoing from The Beatles to Slowdive with a touch of Morricone.

Mikael tells us: “The lyric theme on this song is a positive one, basically about creating new neurons in the brain to be able to change and keep on developing as a human being. Also, both my daughters are singing background vocals, which is very emotional and makes me so proud. I will definitely use their services again in the future if they let me! This was also the first song I wrote for the album and the one that made me realize where I wanted to take this thing called Solitär.”

Solitär has a unique take on mellow indie rock. The first release on Tonzonen Records titled Bus Driver Immigrant Mechanic is often laid back and fragile, but there’s a bass driven heaviness cooking underneath with a clear impact of psych and shoegaze. The music travels freely through the centuries, hinting at soundscapes from the late sixties up until today without losing its focus – there is a story to be told. The lyrics deal with death, time travel, family and old ghosts, but also touch upon issues like class and the struggle of belonging in the world.

Mikael Tuominen on the new album: “These are definitely the most personal or even private songs I have ever written. It’s a bit scary to release them for anyone to hear, but I think the topics are quite universal seen through my lens. We all have to cope with the loss of loved ones, time passing, aging and all of that heavy stuff. I do want to stress though, that this is a very positive album for me. I used music and the creation of these songs to really dive deep into some issues I needed to process, and it felt so great to come out with this result on the other side.”

Bus Driver Immigrant Mechanic will be out November 18, 2022 on Tonzonen Records, pre-order it here: https://www.tonzonen.de/shop/

Tracklist
1. Electric Sea
2. Ship of Excitement
3. Concrete Spaceship
4. The Price
5. Bus Driver
6. Spegel Spegel
7. It Rains
8. A Flash in a Glass Jar
9. Brus

https://solitar.bandcamp.com
https://facebook.com/solitarmusik
https://instagram.com/solitarmusik

https://www.facebook.com/Tonzonen/
https://www.instagram.com/tonzonenrecords/
https://www.tonzonen.de

Solitär, “Electric Sea” official video

See you back here Monday, huh? Yeah. If onslaughts of new music are your thing and you’ve been following along throughout this week — first, thank you — and second, we’ll pick up after the weekend with another 50 albums in this double-wide Fall 2022 Quarterly Review. This was a good week though. Yesterday had some genuine killers, and I’ve added a few to my best-of lists for the end-of-year stuff to come. There’ll be another Quarterly Review then too. Never any trouble filling slots with new releases. I’ve already started, in fact.

Madness. Didn’t I say something yesterday about one thing at a time? Ha.

Quarterly Review #41-50:

Crippled Black Phoenix, Banefyre

There are times where I wonder if Crippled Black Phoenix aren’t just making fun of other bands, their audience, themselves, and everything, and then there are times when I’m pretty sure they are. To wit, their latest outing for Season of Mist, Banefyre, is nearly an hour into its 90-plus-minute runtime before they offer up the 10-minute “Down the Rabbit Hole,” and, well, if we’re not down it by then, where the hell are we? See also “Wyches and Basterdz” near the outset. Whatever else they may be, the long-running, dynamic, progressive, dark heavy rock troupe surrounding founding songwriter and guitarist Justin Greaves are like nothing else. They offer shades of influences, discernable elements from this or that style, this or that band — “The Reckoning” has a bit of The Cure, “Blackout77” filters that through Katatonia, etc. — but are never working to be anyone but themselves. Accordingly, the thoroughly British depressive triumphs throughout Banefyre — looking at you, “I’m OK, Just Not Alright” — are part of an ongoing narrative of creative development that will hit its 20th year in 2024 and has offered listeners an arc of emotive and stylistic depth that, in whatever genre you want to try to confine it, is only ever going to escape. The only real tragedy of Banefyre is that they’ll probably have another record out before this one can be properly digested. That’ll take a few years at least.

Crippled Black Phoenix on Facebook

Season of Mist website

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Chat Pile, God’s Country

An Oklahoma hardcore-born circus of sludge-toned tragedies personal, cultural and socioeconomic played out across nine songs/42 minutes held together at times seemingly most of all by their disenchantment, Chat Pile‘s debut album, God’s Country is arthouse angularity, raw aggression and omnidirectional intensity. As the UK’s post-industrial waste once birth’d Godflesh, so now come vocalist Raygun Busch, guitarist Luther Manhole, bassist Stin and electronic-drummer Cap’n Ron with brilliantly constructed tales of drugs, murder, suicide, loss, violence, misery, and general wretchedness of spirit, presented instrumentally with quick turns that draw from hardcore as noted, but also death metal, sludge, industrial doom, and so on. The lyrics are masterful drug poetry and delivered as such, semi-spoken, shouted, some singing, some acting out, such that you never know from what direction the next punch is coming. “Why” tackles homelessness, “Pamela” demonstrates the impossibility of coping with loss, “Slaughterhouse” is what it says, and closer “Grimace_Smoking_Weed.jpeg” resolves its nine minutes in long-held feedback and crashes as Busch frantically screams with decreasing intelligibility until it’s even words anymore. A perfect finish to a stunning, terrifying, moving first album. Don’t go into it expecting listenability. Even as “I Don’t Care if I Burn” offers some respite, it does so while describing a murder fantasy. It’s not the only one.

Chat Pile on Instagram

The Flenser store

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Early Moods, Early Moods

Fuck yes Gen-Z doom. Yes. Yes. Yes. Show the old men how it’s done. Please. Not a gray hair in the bunch, or a bullshit riff, or a lazy groove. Early Moods got their influences in line with their 2020 debut EP, Spellbound (review here), and you can still hear some Candlemass in “Broken,” but their self-titled debut LP stamps its foot to mark their arrival as something new and a fresh take on classic ideas. Vocalist Alberto Alcaraz is a distinct presence atop the hard-distorted guitars of Eddie Andrade and Oscar Hernandez, while Elix Feliciano‘s bass fuzz-rumbles through the interlude “Memento Mori” and Chris Flores‘ big-room-ready kick counts in the Trouble‘d early highlight “Live to Suffer.” Later on, “Curse of the Light” leans into the metal end of classic doom metal ahead of the chugging roll of “Damnation” and the finisher “Funeral Macabre,” but Early Moods have already put these things in play by then, as demonstrated with the eponymous title-track. Songs are tight, crisply produced, and executed to style with a promise of more growth to come. It’s an easy record to get excited about, and one of 2022’s best albums. I might just buy the tape and the CD.

Early Moods on Facebook

RidingEasy Records store

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Larman Clamor, With a Deadly Hiss

Less than a year after a return born of celebrating the project’s 10th anniversary with the Ink fo’ Blood (review here) full-length, prolific visual artist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and singer Alexander von Wieding returns with Larman Clamor‘s latest, With a Deadly Hiss. As ever, formalities are dispensed with in favor of deceptively intricate arrangements of slide acoustic and electric guitar, whatever’s-around-style percussion and von Wieding‘s telltale throaty vocals, which on “Swamp Jive” and even a bit of the six-minute finale “Eleventh Spell to Cast” draw back the throaty grit in favor of a more melodic, somewhat less performative delivery that suits the material well. Songs are mostly short — there are 11 of them and the aforementioned closer is the longest by about three minutes — but each is a blinking glimpse into the humid, climbing-vine world of von Wieding‘s creation, and in instrumentals like the manic percussion of “Monkey and the Trash Goblins” and the distortion-backed algae-delica of “Iguana at the Fountain,” the brashness of “Tortuga” and the playful falsetto of the leadoff title-track are expanded in such a way as to hint of future paths to be explored. One way or the other, Larman Clamor remains an entity unto itself in concept, craft and delivery, and if With a Deadly Hiss is just another forward step en route to the next stop on down the road, even better.

Larman Clamor on Facebook

Larman Clamor on Bandcamp

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The Necromancers, When the Void Rose

Recorded in 2021, The Necromancers‘ third album would seem to have a mind toward picking up where the Poitiers, France-based four-piece left off pre-pandemic with 2018’s Of Blood and Wine (review here). Can hardly blame them, frankly. Now self-releasing (their first two albums were on Ripple), the semi-cult heavy rockers bring an air of classic metal to the proceedings but are remarkably cohesive in their craft, with guitarist/vocalist Basile Chevalier-Coudrain fronting the band even in the studio as demonstrated on the ’80s metal roller “The Needle,” which follows the eight-minute doom-adjacent unfolding of “Crimson Hour” — and that “adjacent” is a compliment, by the way; The Necromancers are less concerned with playing to genre than with it — wherein guitarist Robin Genais adds a short but classy solo to underscore the willful grandiosity. Bassist Simon Evariste and drummer Benjamin Rousseau underscore the grooves, prominent in the verse of the title-track, and while it’s guitars up front in traditionalist fashion, the truth is all four players are critical here, and it’s the overarching affect of the whole that makes When the Void Rose such an engaging listen, rather than the individual parts. That is to say, listen front to back for best results.

The Necromancers on Facebook

The Necromancers on Bandcamp

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Les Lekin, Limbus

Though instrumental across its vast stretches, Les Lekin‘s Limbus — their first full-length since 2017’s Died with Fear, also on Tonzonen, and third overall — begins with a verbal message of hope, lyrics in German, in the beginning intro “Licht.” That gives a specifically covid-era context to the proceedings, but as the subsequent three massive sans-vocal pieces “Ascent” (14:14), “Unknown” (8:18) and closer “Return” (22:00), unfold, they do so with a decidedly otherworldly, deeply-weighted psychedelic verve. The narrative writes itself in the titles, so I’ll spare you the pretense of insight (on my part there), but note that if it was escapism through music being sought on the part of the meditative Salzburg three-piece, the richness of what’s on offer throughout Limbus is generous enough to share that experience with the audience as well. “Ascent” swells and builds as it moves duly upward, and in “Unknown,” the trio explores post-metallic atmospherics in a crunching midsection without ever losing sight of the ambience so central to what they’re doing, while it would be hard for “Return” not to be the highlight, drums and initial bass rumble giving way to a huge sounding, engrossing procession of atmospheric density. Les Lekin have been a critical favorite for a while now, and it’s easy to hear why, but their work here holds far more than academic appeal or to-genre conformity. They embody the release they would seem to have sought and still carry an exploratory spirit despite the clearly charted course of their songs.

Les Lekin on Facebook

Tonzonen Records store

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Highbay, LightShower

LightShower is the fourth session from Hungarian jammers Highbay to see release in the last year-plus, and it arrives with the immediately noteworthy backing of Psychedelic Source Records. In the vein of many of that collective’s offerings, it is live recorded, probably improvised, and wholly instrumental, the trio vibing their way into a groove early on “Walking on Bubbles” and holding gently to that locked-in, entranced feel across the following five jams. The shimmering guitar tone, particuly as “Miracle Under Water” moves into the more extended “Spaceship” and the pleasantly funky “FunKing Dragons Above Fissure Mountains,” is a highlight, but the intention here is a full set, and I won’t take away from the fuzzier, riffier emergence later on in “FunKing Dragons” either, or, for that matter, the ready-to-wander post-rock float of closer “3D(ays) Trippin’.” It’s a big universe, and Highbay have their work cut out for them if they want to feel their way through all of it, but “Spaceship” mellows its way off into a greater beyond, and even “Hungover Sadness (’90s Romance)” manages to not be a drag as filtered through the trio’s chemistry. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t be the last time Highbay are heard from this year, but they’re yet another name to add to the list of Psychedelic Source-associated acts whose jammy sensibilities are helping manifest a new generation of Eastern European lysergic rock and roll.

Psychedelic Source Records on Facebook

Psychedelic Source Records on Bandcamp

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Sound Animal, Yes, Yes, You

Think of this as less of a review and more of a general reminder to throw a follow in the direction of Berkeley, California’s dug-in-as-hell Sound Animal, or at very least let your ears pay a visit every now and again to soak up some of the weirdo drone, dance, psych electronics and whatever else might be had on any given afternoon from the prolific solo-project. “Yes, Yes, You” is the latest single, but likely not for long, and it plays out across 3:33 of keyboardian ambience and recitations of the titular reassurance that would be soul-pop were they not so definitively experimental and part of such an ongoing creative splurge. Tucked away in a corner of the Bandcamp dimension, Sound Animal comes across as an outlet for ideas as much as sonics, and with the persistent thud of a beat beneath, one, two, three, four, the melodic serenity of the wash feels like direct conversation, with the listener, the self, or, more likely, both. It is beautiful and brief, as I’m told life also is, and it may just be the thing that came after one thing and before the next, but if you stop for a minute or three and let it sink in, you just might find a more substantial place to reside. Not gonna be for everyone, but the fact that “Yes, Yes, You” is so vague and yet so clearly encouraging rather than accusatory speaks to the artistic purpose writ large throughout Sound Animal‘s e’er expanding catalog. Wouldn’t be surprised or sad to find a subsequent single going somewhere else entirely, but again, just a reminder that it’s worth finding that out.

Sound Animal on Facebook

Sound Animal website

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Warcoe, The Giant’s Dream

Somewhere between classic metal and doom, heavy rock’s riff-led impulses and cultish atmospheres there resides the Pesaro, Italy, trio Warcoe and their debut album, The Giant’s Dream. Led by guitarist/vocalist Stefano — who also plays bass on some of the later tracks — with bassist Carlo and drummer Francesco proffering thickened roll and punctuating rhythm all the while save for the early acoustic interlude “Omega Sunrise,” the band nestle smoothly into a modern-via-not-at-all-modern sphere, yet neither are they retro or aping ’70s methodologies. Maybe that moment has passed and it’s the ascent of the ’80s metal and doom we’re seeing here — or maybe I just slated Warcoe and Early Moods the same day and both bands dig Trouble and Death Row/Pentagram, I won’t pretend to know — but the bass in “Fire and Snow” is more of a presence than bass was pretty much ever 40 years ago, so to call The Giant’s Dream anything but ‘now’ is inaccurate. They lean into rock on “Thieves, Heretics and Whores” and manifest grim but stately lurch before the fade of the penultimate “Scars Will Remain,” but wherever each piece might end up, the impression is abidingly dark and offers a reminder that Italy’s history of cult doom goes farther back than most. Paul Chain, Steve Sylvester, your legacy is in good hands.

Warcoe on Facebook

Forbidden Place Records on Bandcamp

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DONE, Aged and Untreated

Hard to find info on the Boston or Boston-adjacent extreme-metal-inflected, sludge-toned dark hardcore outfit DONE — and that may just as well be anti-social-media mystique creation as the fact that their name is ungooglable — but the tape slays. Aged and Untreated hammers 15 scathing tracks into its 28 minutes, and dies on a hill of wintry black metal and barking hardcore mostly but not completely summarized in the turns of “Soulsplitter.” The fun part is when they bounce back and forth, throw in some grind on “To Curt on Waverly,” scratch your eyes out with “Dance for Them” — the second cut behind says-it-all-in-a-minute opener “Nah” — and willfully crash into a wall on the comparatively sprawling 2:35 “I Fucking Hate Thinking About You.” Haven’t seen a lyric sheet and probably won’t if my success rate in tracking down relevant factoids is anything to go by, but shit, I lived on the South Shore for seven years, including the record-breaking winter of 2014, and it sure felt a lot like this. Maybe they’re from Arizona, and if they are, I’m sure some hack would say the same thing, but hell’s bells Aged and Untreated is an intense listen, and its wreck-your-shit violence is meted out such that even the slightly-slower punch in the first half of “Hope Trickle” makes the song feel sarcastic. I wouldn’t put it on every day, but yeah. Righteously pissed.

Tor Johnson Records on Bandcamp

Tor Johnson Records store

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Somewhat unbelievably, we’ve reached the penultimate day of the Summer 2022 Quarterly Review. I believe it because every time I blink my eyes, I can feel my body trying to fall asleep. Doesn’t matter. There’s rock and roll to be had — 10 records’ worth — so I’mma get on it. If you haven’t found anything yet that speaks to you this QR — first of all, really??? — maybe today will be the day. If you’re feeling any of it, I’d love to know in the comments. Otherwise, off into the ether it goes.

In any case, thanks for reading.

Quarterly Review #81-90:

Hemlock Branch, Hemlock Branch

[Note: art above (photo by Nikita Gross) is not final. Album is out in September. Give it time.] Those familiar with Ohio sludge metallers Beneath Oblivion might recognize Scotty T. Simpson (here also guitar, lap-steel and vocals) or keyboardist/synthesist Keith Messerle from that band, but Hemlock Branch‘s project is decisively different on their self-titled debut, however slow a song like “The Introvert” might be. With the echo-laden vocals of Amy Jo Combs floating and soaring above likewise big-sky riffs, the far-back crash of drummer David Howell (White Walls) and the it’s-in-there-somewhere bass of Derda Karakaya, atmosphere takes a central focus throughout the 10 tracks and 22 minutes of the release. Hints of black metal, post-metal, doom, heavy psychedelia, and noise-wash dirgemaking experimentalism pervade in minute-long cuts like “Incompatible,” the sample-topped “Temporal Vultures” and “Küfür,” which gives over to the closing duo “Lifelong Struggle” and “High Crimes & Misdemeanors.” As even the longest track, “Persona Non Grata,” runs just 4:24, the songs feel geared for modern attention spans and depart from commonplace structures in favor of their own ambient linearity. Not going to be for everyone, but Hemlock Branch‘s first offering shows an immediate drive toward individualism and is genuinely unpredictable, both of which already pay dividends.

Hemlock Branch on Facebook

Hemlock Branch on Bandcamp

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Știu Nu Știu, New Sun

In “Siren” and at the grand, swelling progression of “Zero Trust,” one is drawn back to The Devil’s Blood‘s off-kilter psychedelic occultism by Swedish five-piece Știu Nu Știu — also stylized all-caps: ŞTIU NU ŞTIU — and their fourth album, New Sun, but if there’s any such direct Luciferianism in the sprawling eight-song/47-minute long-player, I’ve yet to find it. Instead, the band’s first outing through respected purveyors Heavy Psych Sounds takes the stylistic trappings of psychedelic post-punk and what’s typically tagged as some kind of ‘gaze or other and toss them directly into the heart of the recently born star named in the title, their sound subtle in rhythmic push but lush, lush, lush in instrumental and vocal melody. “New Sun” itself is the longest piece at 8:17 and it closes side A, but the expanses crafted are hardly more tamed on side B’s “Nyx” or the get-your-goth-dance-shoes-on “Zero Trust,” which follows. Opening with the jangly “Styx” and capping with the also-relatively-extended “Dragon’s Lair” (7:57) — a noisy final solo takes them out — Știu Nu Știu bask in the vague and feel entirely at home in the aural mists they so readily conjure.

Știu Nu Știu on Facebook

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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Veljet, Emerger de la mentira llamada dios

The title of Veljet‘s debut LP, Emerger de la mentira llamada dios, translates from Spanish as, ‘Emerge from the lie called god.’ So yes, the point gets across. And Veljet hint toward metallism and an overarching darkness of purpose in “Estar vivo es nada,” “La construcción de los sentimientos negativos,” and the buzzing, bounce-bass-until-it-falls-apart “Arder al crecer,” despite being instrumental for the album’s half-hour duration save perhaps for some crowd noise filling out the acoustic “Mentir con tristeza” at the finish, people talking over acoustic guitar notes, as they almost invariably, infuriatingly will. That three-minute piece rounds out and is in form a far cry from the push of “Inundata” or the buzz-tone-click-into-airiness “Lucifer luz del mundo,” but there’s room for all of these things in what feels like Satanic escapism more than any occult trappings — that is to say, while it’s pretty safe to say Veljet aren’t religious types, I don’t think they’re rolling around holding devil-worship masses either — and the album as a whole is drawn together by this immersive, mood-altering slog, a sense of the day’s weight conveyed effectively in that of the guitars, bass and drums, making the acoustic finish, and the human shittiness of speaking over it, all the more of a poignant conclusion. If god’s a lie, people aren’t much better.

Veljet on Facebook

LSDR Records on Bandcamp

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Swamp Lantern, The Lord is With Us

Longform avant metal that draws on atmospheres from Pacific Northwestern blackened tropes without bowing completely to them or any other wholly rigid style, doom or otherwise. Some of the vocals in the more open moments of “Still Life” bring to mind Ealdor Bealu‘s latest in their declarative purpose, but Swamp Lantern‘s The Lord is With Us takes its own presumably-left-hand path toward aural identity, finding a sound in the process that is both ambient and obscure but still capable of deep heft when it’s called for — see “Still Life” again. That song is one of two to cross the 10-minute mark, along with closer “The Halo of Eternal Night,” though wholly immersive opener “Blood Oath (on Pebble Beach)” and “Graven Tide” aren’t far off, the latter nestling into a combination of groove-riding guitar and flourish lead notes intertwining on their way toward and through a well charred second half of the song, the way eventually given to the exploratory title-track, shorter but working off a similarly building structure. They cap vampiric with “The Halo of Eternal Night,” perhaps nodding subtly back to “Blood Oath (On Pebble Beach)” — at least the blood part — while likewise bookending with a guest vocal from Aimee Wright, who also contributed to the opener. Complex, beautiful and punishing, sometimes all at once, The Lord is With Us is a debut of immediate note and range. Who knows what it may herald, but definitely something.

Swamp Lantern on Instagram

Swamp Lantern on Bandcamp

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Terror Cósmico, Miasma

The hellscape in the Jason Barnett cover art for Mexico City duo Terror Cósmico‘s fourth full-length, Miasma, is a fair update for Hieronymus Bosch, and it’s way more Hell than The Garden of Earthly Delights, as suits the anxiety of the years since the band’s last album, 2018’s III (review here). The eight instrumental selections from guitarist Javier Alejandre and drummer Nicolás Detta is accordingly tense and brooding, with “En un Lugar Frio y Desolado” surging to life in weighted push after seeming to pick at its fingernails with nervousness. A decade on from their first EP, Terror Cósmico sound fiercer than they ever have on “Tonalpohualli” and the opener “Necromorfo” sets the album in motion with an intensity that reminds both of latter day High on Fire and the still-missed US sans-vocal duo Beast in the Field. That last is not a comparison I’ll make lightly, and it’s not that Miasma lacks atmosphere, just that the atmospherics in question are downtrodden, hard-hitting and frustrated. So yes, perfectly suited to the right-now in which they arrive.

Terror Cósmico on Instagram

LSDR Records on Bandcamp

Stolen Body Records store

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Urna, Urna

Somewhere between aggressive post-metal, post-hardcore, sludge and ambient heavy rock, Stockholm’s Urna find a niche for themselves thoroughly Swedish enough to make me wonder why their self-titled debut LP isn’t out through Suicide Records. In any case, they lead with “You Hide Behind,” a resonant sense of anger in the accusation that is held to somewhat even as clean vocals are introduced later in the track and pushed further on the subsequent “Shine,” guitarist Axel Ehrencrona (also synth) handling those duties while bassist William Riever (also also synth) and also-in-Ocean–Chief drummer Björn Andersson (somebody get him some synth!) offer a roll that feels no less noise-derived than Cities of Mars‘ latest and is no more noise rock than it either. “Revelations” fucking crushes, period. Song is almost seven minutes. If it was 20, that’d be fine. Centerpiece indeed. “Werewolf Tantrum” follows as the longest piece at 8:06, and is perhaps more ambitious in structure, but that force is still there, and though “Sleep Forever” (plenty of synth) has a different vibe, it comes across as something of a portrayed aftermath for the bludgeoning that just took place. They sound like they’re just getting started on a longer progression, but the teeth gnashing throughout pulls back to the very birthing of post-metal, and from there Urna can go just about wherever they want.

Urna on Facebook

Urna on Bandcamp

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Astral Magic, Magical Kingdom

Finnish songwriter, synthesist, vocalist, guitarist, bassist, etc. Santtu Laakso started Astral Magic as a solo-project, and he’s already got a follow-up out to Magical Kingdom called Alien Visitations that’s almost if not entirely synth-based and mostly instrumental, so he’s clearly not at all afraid to explore different vibes. On Magical Kingdom, he somewhat magically transports the listener back to a time when prog was for nerds. The leadoff title-track is filled with fantasy genre elements amid an instrumental spirit somewhere between Magma and Hawkwind, and it’s only the first of the eight explorations on the 42-minute offering. Keyboards are a strong presence throughout, whether a given song is vocalized or not, and as different international guest guitarists come and go, arrangements in “Dimension Link” and “Rainbow Butterfly” are further fleshed out with psychedelic sax. Side B opener “Lost Innocense” (sic) is a weirdo highlight among weirdo highlights, and after the spacious grandiosity of “The Hidden City” and the sitar-drone-reminiscent backing waveforms on “The Pale-Skinned Man,” closer “Seven Planes” finds resolution in classic krautrock shenanigans. If you’re the right kind of geek, this one’s gonna hit you hard.

Astral Magic on Facebook

Tonzonen Records website

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Grey Giant, Turn to Stone

The story of Turn to Stone seems to take place in opener “The Man, the Devil and the Grey Giant” in which a man sells his soul to the devil and is cursed and turned into a mountain for his apparent comeuppance. For a setting to that tale, Santander, Spain’s Grey Giant present a decidedly oldschool take on heavy rock, reminiscent there of European trailblazers like Lowrider and Dozer, but creeping on chunkier riffing in “Unwritten Letter,” which follows, bassist/vocalist Mario “Pitu” Hospital raw of throat but not by any means amelodic over the riffs of Ravi and Hugo Echeverria and the drums of Pablo Salmón and ready to meet the speedier turn when it comes. An EP running four songs and 26 minutes, Turn to Stone Sabbath start-stops in “Reverb Signals in Key F,” but brings about some of the thickest roll as well as a particularly righteous solo from one if not both of the Echeverrias and the Kyussy riff of closer “Last Bullet” is filled out with a grim outlook of Europe’s future in warfare; obviously not the most uplifting of endings, but the trippier instrumental build in the song’s final movement seems to hold onto some hope or at very least wishful thinking.

Grey Giant on Facebook

Grey Giant on Bandcamp

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Great Rift, Utopia

Symmetrically placed for vinyl listening, “The Return” and “Golden Skies” open sides A and B of Great Rift‘s second long-player, Utopia, with steady grooves, passionate vocals and a blend between psychedelic range and earthier tonal textures. I feel crazy even saying it since I doubt it’s what he’s going for, but Thomas Gulyas reminds a bit in his delivery of Messiah Marcolin (once of Candlemass) and his voice is strong enough to carry that across. He, fellow guitarist Andreas Lechner, bassist Peter Leitner and drummer Klaus Gulyas explore further reaches in subsequent cuts like “Space” and the soaringly out-there “Voyagers” as each half of the LP works shortest-to-longest so that the arrival of the warm heavy psych fuzz of “Beteigeuze” and minor-key otherworldly build-up of the closing title-track both feel plenty earned, and demonstrate plainly that Great Rift know the style they’re playing toward and what they’re doing with the personal spin they’re bringing to it. Four years after their debut, Vesta, Utopia presents its idealistic vision in what might just be a story about fleeing the Earth. Not gonna say I don’t get that.

Great Rift on Facebook

StoneFree Records website

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Torpedo Torpedo, The Kuiper Belt Mantras

Most prevalent complaint in my mind with Torpedo Torpedo‘s The Kuiper Belt Mantras is it’s an EP and not a full-length album, and thus has to go on the Best Short Releases of 2022 list instead of the Best Debut LPs list. One way or the other, the four-song first-outing from the Vienna psychedelonauts is patient and jammy, sounding open, lush and bright while retaining a heaviness that is neither directly shoegaze-based nor aping those who came before. The trio affect spacious vibes in the winding threads of lead guitar and half-hints at All Them Witches in “Cycling Lines,” and cast themselves in a nod for “Verge” at least until they pass that titular mark at around five and a half minutes in and pick up the pace. With “Black Horizon” the groove is stonerized, righteous and familiar, but the cosmic and heavy psych spirit brought forth has a nascent sense of character that the fuller fuzz in “Caspian Dust” answers without making its largesse the entire point of the song. Loaded with potential, dead-on right now, they make themselves the proverbial ‘band to watch’ in performance, underlying craft, production value and atmosphere. Takes off when it takes off, is languid without lulling you to sleep, and manages to bring in a hook just when it needs one. I don’t think it’s a listen you’ll regret, whatever list I end up putting it on.

Torpedo Torpedo on Facebook

Electric Fire Records website

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