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Friday Full-Length: Wo Fat / Egypt, Cyclopean Riffs

Posted in Bootleg Theater on August 20th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

wo fat egypt cyclopean riffs

The secret ingredient is groove. Only it’s not a secret. It’s pretty much right there, the whole time, from the second you press play on Wo Fat‘s near-13-minute opus “Nameless Cults,” and it remains unrelinquished until the entirety of Cyclopean Riffs (review here) is over with the fading jammy strains of Egypt‘s “Ancient Enemy” on side B. Totem Cat Records issued this split in 2013 between the Texan and North Dakotan outfits, and some eight years later it remains a standout in both discographies. And eight years later, I still have no idea what specifically about these riffs makes them cyclopean — Legend of the One-Eyed Riff? — but sometimes a thing sounds cool enough that it doesn’t matter. However many eyes these riffs have — could just as easily be dozens, I’d think — there’s no mistaking two locked-in bands sharing space on a record, hitting it hard with thick tones, big jams and what’s-that-word-again-oh-yeah groove. All the groove.

Even in this age of various split series and releases from Ripple Music‘s The Second Coming of Heavy and Turned to Stone to Heavy Psych SoundsDoom Sessions, and so on, the split is usually an overlooked form when it comes to longer term listening. That is, if two bands are on tour and they put out a seven-inch together to mark the occasion, hey, great. I still have a Pelican/Scissorfight single that I picked up when they played Knitting Factory in Manhattan and it’s a great memory every time I see it. But, series aside, a lot of times bands putting out splits is just about sharing costs for pressing, and there’s always a chance that the two productions will be uneven, or the quality of the material will, or whatever. There’s a lot that can result in a split that gets put on the shelf and left there, either figuratively or literally speaking.

Cyclopean Riffs is the other kind of split. “Nameless Cults” and “Electric Hellhound” finds Wo Fat — guitarist/vocalist Kent Stump (who also recorded), drummer/backing vocalist Michael Walter, bassist Tim Wilson — at a high point. In 2012, the Dallas three-piece offered The Black Code (review here; also discussed here) through Small Stone and it remains a highlight of their catalog as well as of the heavy rock of the last decade more generally. Having perfected their early approach across their first three albums, the fourth was a showcase point from which they’d continue to expand their sound, and the two tracks they brought to the split with Egypt every bit stood up to the LP that preceded them, the former speaking to the more jam-intentioned side of the band while the latter reminded that they’re still songwriters at heart, with a classic energy and an arsenal of hooks. In under 20 minutes, they reaffirm what worked so well on The Black Code, reverse it by putting the longer-form work as the first song on the 12″ (immediate points), and give their listenership another chance to dive in and indulge. The material doesn’t sound like leftovers, mostly I think because it isn’t.

Similarly, Egypt fucking bring it. Based in Fargo, the trio of bassist/vocalist Aaron Esterby, guitarist Neal Stein (who also also recorded), and drummer Chad Heille had issued their debut album, Become the Sun (review here) through Totem Cat and Doomentia Records in January, and thereby offered nearly an hour of call-it-a-slab-worthy heft and nod, offset by an underlying predilection for boogie that came through even the sludgiest of moments. With Esterby‘s rough-edged vocals surrounded by this wash of bobbing-head groove, their two nine-minute inclusions on Cyclopean Riffs — “Blood Temple Hymn” (9:06) and “Ancient Enemy” (9:02) — still ring to me like a bonus round for the record prior, though they’re up to something of their own as well and stand apart in their purpose. With Nolan Brett at Wo Fat‘s Crystal Clear Sound mastering, there’s no dip in production value — Stein engineered and mixed at the Opium Den in Moorhead, Minnesota — and “Blood Temple Hymn” is a dirt-riffer’s daydream, an act of volume worship that’s as much call to prayer as expression of ingrained Sabbathian faith. Fuzz in excelsis. The structure of “Ancient Enemy” is different with its later repeated lines, but neither song is worried about getting mellow when it wants to and riding back to more weighted fare.

The bouncing movement under the solo of “Blood Temple Hymn” is a special moment unto itself, never mind where the release as a whole stands. But the lightning-in-a-bottle truth of Cyclopean Riffs is that it brought two acts together who were hitting their stride and had found their sound at the same time. Their journey there was different, and their sounds were different, but I’m sorry, anyone who wants to debate the quality of what’s on offer here simply hasn’t listened to it. I wouldn’t be surprised if Cyclopean Riffs was in part responsible for the barrage of split series that started a couple years later. Either way, the work speaks for itself, grooves for itself, and needs no prattling from me to do so.

Egypt would go on to put out two full-lengths after Cyclopean Riffs in 2015’s Endless Flight (review here) and 2017’s Cracks and Lines (review here) before calling it quits for what was actually the second time, the band having broken up before their first album (it’s a long story, but that’s pretty much it). Both bands from here expanded their territory to include Europe. Wo Fat had already been in Spring 2013 for the first of several incursions, playing Roadburn (review here) in the Netherlands, Desertfest, etc., but Egypt would make their way abroad in 2015 to herald Endless Flight, touring with Tombstones en route to Freak Valley Festival, and be back the following Spring after the release, for Desertfest 2016 in London and Berlin. Wo Fat‘s two studio LPs since Cyclopean Riffs, 2014’s The Conjuring (review here) and 2016’s Midnight Cometh (review here), found them continuing to refine their approach. I hear a new one’s in the works and has been for a while now. Half a decade since they were last heard from, I’m ready to find out where they might go.

In any case, sometimes you want groove. Cyclopean Riffs continues to provide. Little bit of a different structure to this post, with the artwork on top instead of the side and the two embedded players. All four tracks weren’t on Bandcamp and I didn’t feel like wading into YouTube. Think of clicking play twice like flipping the sides of a record. I’m sure you can handle it.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

It’s 6:28AM. The Pecan is upstairs, banging away on his walls. He put a hole in the wall of his closet. His bedroom is pretty barren compared to the living room, which doubles as his main play space, but he’s got toys and stuff up there. I guess banging on the wall is more satisfying. He and The Patient Mrs. patched the one hole he made, and he’s made another since. He’s very much that kind of kid.

His last week of camp is this coming week. He has a week and a half between camp ending and school starting — stop me if I’ve told you this already, which I think I might’ve, but it continues to be on my mind — and I’ve been getting up at 4:30 to accommodate that in terms of my own writing schedule. It’s worked to a fair degree, but I find that by the middle of the day, I’m dead on my feet. Or more likely, dead on the couch. He goes upstairs to take a rest in the afternoon and more often than not I nod off wherever I am at least for 15 or 20 minutes, longer if I can. I’d much rather spend the time reading, or writing for that matter, or doing anything vaguely productive, but yeah.

I took this past Monday off from doing a review in order to finish PostWax liner notes for Mammoth Volume. That may just have to be how those get done this Fall, though frankly I hate the thought. But the internet didn’t end without me, as I’ve always told myself it won’t, so an uncommitted day like that can still be put to decent use. The liner notes turned out okay. Lot of personality in that band. Hopefully my writing wasn’t so dry as to sap all of it. Shrug. I do what I do.

This weekend, that’s get questions out for The Otolith to answer. Plenty to talk about there, since the band is “formed from the ashes of” — a phrase I definitely won’t use in the final draft — SubRosa. Plus the record’s awesome, so I could do worse than listening.

Green Lung video interview is gonna go up on Monday. They talk about playing Bloodstock and their new record, which is killer and out in October. Early bird for a chat, I know, but whatever. There’s nothing like advanced notice.

New Gimme Show today at 5PM. Please listen and thanks if you do: http://gimmeradio.com

It’s a good show. Next one will be good too. Already started the playlist, in my head if not actually Google Sheets.

Hey you. Have a great and safe weekend. Thanks for reading. Please hydrate, watch your head, hold your loved ones close and everybody else at a respectable distance, wear your mask when you’re out and about, get your shot if you haven’t, but otherwise, have the fun you can and feel what good you can.

FRM.

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Wo Fat / Egypt, Cyclopean Riffs Split LP: Hellhound in the Temple

Posted in Reviews on July 10th, 2013 by JJ Koczan

Texas fuzz mavens Wo Fat and resurgent North Dakota riff rockers Egypt join forces on a new limited-to-500 split LP released via Totem Cat Records. Dubbed Cyclopean Riffs perhaps because the two bands see through one eye or as a play on the fact that the parts work in cycles, the 12″ smoke-colored splatter vinyl features two cuts from each trio. So, to go by the numbers it’s one eye, one release, two bands, two songs each, three members in each band. If you want to keep it going, there’s four songs total and each band has five letters in its name. To draw further correlation, each three-piece also recorded and mixed their own material, with Wo Fat guitarist/vocalist Kent Stump playing the role of engineer for the extended “Nameless Cults,” which starts off their side, and “Electric Hellhound,” while Egypt‘s own six-stringer, Neal Stein, helmed “Blood Temple Hymn” and “Ancient Enemy.” Both have done their own recordings before — Stump has grown into his own as a producer over the course of Wo Fat‘s four albums and Stein proved himself up to the task earlier this year on Egypt‘s comeback LP, Become the Sun (review here) — and with a little over 18 minutes apiece, both bands give a firm sense of where they’re coming from sonically while making a surprisingly good pairing for each other. It’s not necessarily a shock that two fuzzy, heavy rock bands would go together well — that happens all the time — but front to back, Cyclopean Riffs makes the most of a palpable stylistic kinship between Wo Fat and Egypt, its songs based around top quality riffing and classic jamming swagger.

There aren’t sides, per se, but Wo Fat are given top billing, and they launch Cyclopean Riffs with “Nameless Cults,” a song that plays into a similar kind of swamp-mystic thematic that has presented itself across their last two full-lengths, 2012’s The Black Code (review here) and 2011’s Noche del Chupacabra (review here), while remaining consistent on a musical level as well. One thinks of 10-minute-plus jamming excursions like “The Shard of Leng” from last year’s outing or the title-track of the record before it and it seems Wo Fat‘s penchant for improv-style fuzz wandering has remained strong in the time since they put The Black Code to tape. They continue to hone a blend between that side of their approach and a knack for memorable choruses, as both “Nameless Cults” and the considerably less open-structured “Electric Hellhound” offer a hook worthy of their reputation, the former using a straightforward verse/chorus beginning as a springboard for an instrumental jam that holds sway for the entirety of the second half of the track — Stump taking leads here and there while bassist Tim Wilson and drummer Michael Walter (also backing vocals) keep a sense of motion and build rolling along — while the latter works largely the same, only without the departure from its initial base structure. An increase in stomp from Walter and build throughout the song itself would make an extended jam almost redundant, not to mention the fact that they just did one and would run out of room on the side of an LP.

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