I got a note from the contact form a bit ago in my email, which happens enough that it’s not really news, except that it wasn’t addressed to me. That happens sometimes too. A band has a form letter they send out with info — it’s not the most personal touch, but has a purpose and doesn’t preclude following-up individually — or just wants to say the same thing to however many outlets. Fair game. This was specifically addressed to somebody else. And it kind of ends with the band saying to send a donation link, like, “Wink wink we donate and you post our stuff.”

Well shit. You mean I coulda been making fat stacks off these stoner bands all the while? Living in my dream house with C.O.C. on the outdoor speakers just by exploiting a couple acts trying to get their riffs heard? Well I’ll be damned. Yeah man, here’s my donation link. Daddy needs a new pair of orthopedic flip-flops. I’ma never pay taxes again.

Life, sometimes.

Quarterly Review #41-50:

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Alunah, Fever Dream

The seventh full-length from UK outfit Alunah, Fever Dream, will be immediately noteworthy for being the band’s last (though one never knows) with vocalist Siân Greenaway fronting the band, presiding over an era of transition when they had to find a new identity for themselves. Fever Dream is the third Alunah LP with Greenaway, and its nine songs show plainly how far the band has come in the six-plus years of her tenure. “Never Too Late” kicks off with both feet at the intersection of heavy rock and classic metal, with a hook besides, and “Trickster of Time” follows up with boogie and flute, because you’re special and deserve nice things. The four-piece as they are here — Greenaway on vocals (and flute), guitarist Matt Noble, bassist Dan Burchmore and founding drummer Jake Mason — are able to bring some drama in “Fever Dream,” to imagine lone-guitar metal Thin Lizzy in the solo of the swaggering “Hazy Jane,” go from pastoral to crushing in “Celestial” and touch on prog in “The Odyssey.” The finale “I’ve Paid the Price” tips into piano grandiosity, but by the time they get there, it feels earned. A worthy culmination for this version of this band.

Alunah on Facebook

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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Coilguns, Odd Love

Swiss heavy post-hardcore unit Coilguns‘ fourth LP and the first in five years, though they’ve had EPs and splits in that time, Odd Love offers 11 songs across an adventurous 48 minutes, alternately raw or lush, hitting hard with a slamming impact or careening or twisting around, mathy and angular. In “Generic Skincare,” it’s both and a jet-engine riff to boot. Atmosphere comes to the fore on “Caravel,” the early going of “Featherweight” and the later “The Wind to Wash the Pain,” but even the most straight-ahead moments of charge have some richer context around them, whether that’s the monstrous tension and release of capper “Bunker Vaults” or, well, the monstrous tension and release of “Black Chyme” earlier on. It’s not the kind of thing I always reach for, but Coilguns make post-hardcore disaffection sound like a good time, with intensity and spaciousness interwoven in their style and a vicious streak that comes out on the regular. Four records deep, the band know what they’re about but are still exploring.

Coilguns on Facebook

Hummus Records website

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Robot God, Subconscious Awakening

Subconscious Awakening is Robot God‘s second album of 2024 and works in a similar two-sides/four-songs structure as the preceding Portal Within, released this past Spring, where each half of the record is subdivided into one longer and shorter song. It feels even more purposeful on Subconscious Awakening since both “Mandatory Remedy” and “Sonic Crucifixion” both hover around eight and a half minutes while side A opens with the 13-minute “Blind Serpent” and side B with the 11-minute title-track. Rife with textured effects, some samples, and thoughtful melodic vocals, Subconscious Awakening of course shares some similarity of purpose with Portal Within, which was also recorded at the same time, but a song like “Sonic Crucifixion” creates its own sprawl, and the outward movement between that closer and the title-track before it underscores the progressivism at work in the band’s sound amid tonal heft and complex, sometimes linear structures. Takes some concentration to wield that kind of groove.

Robot God on Facebook

Kozmik Artifactz website

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Fuzznaut, Wind Doula

Especially for an experimentalist, drone-based act who relies on audience theater-of-the-mind as a necessary component of appreciating its output, Pittsburgh solo outfit Fuzznaut — aka guitarist Emilio Rizzo — makes narrative a part of what the band does. Earlier this year, Fuzznaut‘s “Space Rock” single reaped wide praise for its cosmic aspects. “Wind Doula” specifically cites Neil Young‘s soundtrack for the film Dead Man as an influence, and thus brings four minutes more closely tied to empty spread of prairie, perhaps with some filtering being done through Earth‘s own take on the style as heard in 2005’s seminal Hex: Or Printing in the Infernal Method. One has to wonder if, had Rizzo issued “Wind Doula” with a picture of an astronaut floating free on its cover, it would be the cosmic microwave background present in the track instead of stark wind across the Great Plains, but there’s much more to Fuzznaut than self-awareness and the power of suggestion. Chalk up another aesthetic tryout that works.

Fuzznaut on Facebook

Fuzznaut on Bandcamp

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Void Moon, Dreams Inside the Sun

Trad metal enthusiasts will delight at the specificity of the moment in the history of the style Void Moon interpret on their fourth album, Dreams Inside the Sun. It’s not that they’re pretending outright that it’s 1986, like the Swedish two-piece of guitarist/bassist Peter Svensson and drummer/vocalist Marcus Rosenqvist are wearing hightops and trying to convince you they’re Candlemass, but that era is present in the songwriting and production throughout Dreams Inside the Sun, even if the sound of the record is less directly anachronistic and their metallurgical underpinnings aren’t limited to doom between slowed down thrash riffs, power-metal-style vocalizing and the consuming Iommic nod of “East of the Sun” meeting with a Solitude Aeturnus-style chug, all the more righteous for being brought in to serve the song rather than to simply demonstrate craft. That is to say, the relative barn-burner “Broken Skies” and the all-in eight-minute closer “The Wolf (At the End of the World,” which has some folk in its verse as well, use a purposefully familiar foundation as a starting point for the band to carve their own niche, and it very much works.

Void Moon on Facebook

Personal Records website

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Kelley Juett, Wandering West

Best known for slinging his six-string alongside brother Kyle Juett in Texas rockers Mothership, Kelley Juett‘s debut solo offering, Wandering West pulls far away from that classic power trio in intention while still keeping Juett‘s primary instrument as the focus. Some loops and layering don’t quite bring Wandering West the same kind of experimental feel as, say, Blackwolfgoat or a similar guitarist-gonna-guitar exploratory project, but they sit well nonetheless alongside the fluid noodling of Juett‘s drumless self-jams. He backs his own solo in centerpiece “Breezin’,” and the subsequent “Electric Dreamland” seems to use the empty space as much as the notes being cast out into it to create its sense of ambience, so if part of what Juett is doing on Wandering West is beginning the process of figuring out who he is as a solo artist, he’s someone who can turn a seven-minute meander like “Lonely One” (playing off Mos Generator?) into a bluesy contemplation of evolving reach, the guitar perfectly content to talk to itself if there’s nobody else around. Time may show it to be formative, but let the future worry about the future. There’s a lot to dig into, here and now.

Mothership on Facebook

Glory or Death Records website

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Whispering Void, At the Sound of the Heart

With vocalists Kristian Eivind Espedal (Gaahls Wyrd, Trelldom, ex-Gorgoroth, etc.) and Lindy-Fay Hella (Wardruna, solo, etc.), guitarist Ronny “Valgard” Stavestrand (Trelldom) and drummer/bassist/keyboardist/producer Iver Sandøy (Enslaved, Relentless Agression, etc.), who also helmed (most of) the recording and mixed and mastered, Whispering Void easily could have fallen into the trap of being no more than the sum of its pedigree. Instead, the seven songs on debut album At the Sound of the Heart harness aspects of Norwegian folk for a rock sound that’s dark enough for the lower semi-growls in the eponymous “Whispering Void” to feel like they’re playing toward a gothic sentiment that’s not out of character when there’s so much melancholy around generally. Mid-period Anathema feel like a reference point for “Lauvvind” and the surging “We Are Here” later on, and by that I mean the album is intricately textured and absolutely gorgeous and you’ll be lucky if you take this as your cue to hear it.

Whispering Void on Facebook

Prophecy Productions on Bandcamp

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Orme, No Serpents, No Saviours

You know how sometimes in a workplace where there’s a Boss With Personality™, there might be a novelty sign or a desk tchotchke that says, “The beatings will continue until morale improves?” Like, haha, in addition to wage theft you might get smacked if you get uppity about, say, wage theft? Fine. Orme sound like what happens when morale doesn’t improve. The 24-minute single-song No Serpents, No Saviours EP comes a little more than a year after the band’s two-song/double-vinyl self-titled debut (review here) and finds them likewise at home in longform songwriting. There are elements of death-doom, but Orme are sludgier in their presentation, and so wind up able to be morose and filthy in kind, moving from the opening crush through a quiet stretch after six minutes in that builds into persistent thuds before dropping out again, a sample helping mark the transitions between movements, and a succession of massive lumbering parts trading off leading into a final march that feels as tall as it is wide. I like that, in a time where the trend is so geared toward lush melody, Orme are unrepentantly nasty.

Orme on Facebook

Orme on Bandcamp

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Azutmaga, Offering

Budapest instrumentalist duo Azutmaga make their full-length debut with the aptly-titled Offering, compiling nine single-word-title pieces that reside stylistically somewhere between sludge metal and doom. Self-recorded by guitarist Patrik Veréb (who also mixed and mastered at Terem Studio) and self-released by Veréb and drummer Martin Várszegi, it’s a relatively stripped-down procession, but not lacking breadth as the longer “Aura” builds up to its full roll or the minute-long “Orca” provides an acoustic break ahead of the languid big-swing semi-psychedelia of “Mirror,” informed by Eastern European folk melodies but ready to depart into less terrestrial spheres. It should come as no surprise that “Portal” follows. Offering might at first give something of a monolithic impression as “Purge” calls to mind Earth‘s steady drone rock, but Azutmaga have a whole other level of volume to unfurl. Just so happens their dynamic goes from loud to louder.

Azutmaga on Facebook

Azutmaga on Bandcamp

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Poste 942, #chaleurhumaine

After trickling out singles for over a year, including the title-track of the album and, in 2022, an early version of the instrumental “The Freaks Come Out at Night” that may or may not have been from before vocalist Virginie D. joined the band, the hashtag-named #chaleurhumaine delights in shirking heavy rock conventions, whether it’s the French-language lyrics or divergences into punk and harder fare, but nothing here — regardless of one’s linguistic background — is so challenging as to be inaccessible. Catchy songs are catchy, whether that’s “Fada Fighters” or “La Diable au Corps,” which dares a bit of harmonica along with its full-toned blues rock riffing. Likewise, nowhere the album goes feels beyond the band’s reach, and while “La Ligne” doesn’t sound especially daring as it plays up the brighter pop in its verse and shove of a chorus, well made songs never have any trouble finding welcome. I’m not sure why it’s a hashtag, but #chaleurhumaine feels complete and engaging, at once familiar and nothing so much as itself.

Poste 942 on Facebook

Poste 942 on Bandcamp

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Some of this stuff is newer, some of it has been out for a while. You know how it goes with these things. If I had a staff of 30, I’d still always be behind and trying to keep up. It rarely works, but when a given Quarterly Review is done and I’m on the other side of 50, 70, 100 records, whatever it might be, I can fool myself for a few minutes into thinking this site is remotely comprehensive. At least until I next check my email.

Ups and downs to that, I suppose. I wouldn’t swear to it all not being AI, but I wouldn’t swear to reality being ‘real’ by any human definition either, and I’m not sure a machine making you feel something invalidates the artistic statement. Seems to me all the more an achievement. I guess what I’m trying to say in my best Kent Brockman is, “I for one, welcome our new robotic overlords.” I hope the machines take into account that I liked their paintings when they’re crushing skulls like in Terminator 2 or handing out especially cushy seats in the Matrix.

What were we talking about? Oh yeah, albums and such. Back to it:

Quarterly Review #31-40:

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Conan, DIY 10″ Series, Issue 1

In some ways, DIY 10″ Series, Issue 1 is the release Conan have been building toward. A DIY recording for Conan at this point meant recording with bassist Chris Fielding (who’s since left the band as a player but will continue to produce) and releasing through Jon Davis‘ Black Bow Records. That’s a DIY deal a lot of bands would take, and sure enough, the three songs on DIY 10″ Series, Issue 1 — the characteristically crush-galloping “Invinciblade,” “Time Becomes Master” and a cover of “Hate Song” by Fudge Tunnel — don’t sound like some half-assed thing made in the band’s rehearsal space or the living room when everyone else is out. They sound like Conan. So yes, they destroy. “Time Becomes Master” does so more slowly than “Invinciblade” and not before its intro turns feedback into cinematic artistry over the course of its first two-plus minutes, distortion eating the howl twice before Johnny King‘s drums kick in to answer what were those footprints that knocked over all the trees. Vocals don’t even kick in until four of the five minutes are gone; truly mastering time. And that drone is there the whole time. I’ll take more experimental Conan anytime.

Conan on Facebook

Black Bow Records website

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Patriarchs in Black, Visioning

Guitarist Dan Lorenzo (Hades) and drummer Johnny Kelly (Type O Negative) return with 12 new cuts across 43 minutes on Visioning. As with last year’s My Veneration (review here), the album features an assortment of guest singers, from Mark Sunshine (Unida) and Karl Agell (Legions of Doom, Lie Heavy), to Jason McMaster (Dangerous Toys, Watchtower) and Kyle Thomas (Exhorder, Trouble, Alabama Thunderpussy), and more besides. Bassists Dave Neabore (Dog Eat Dog) and Eric Morgan (A Pale Horse Named Death) hold down the low end as Lorenzo demonstrates the principles of applying quality riffing to an assortment of situations. It veers into nü metal more than once, but at least it’s taking a risk, and it’s just as likely to be a classic Sabbathian delve like “Empty Cup,” so you wouldn’t accuse the band of lacking scope, and Sunshine — who’s on the West Coast and plenty busy besides — might be the frontman Patriarchs in Black have been looking for all along.

Patriarchs in Black on Facebook

Metalville Records website

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Lurcher, Breathe

Welsh melody heavy post-rockers Lurcher will have to find a new label home as Trepanation Recordings, which released Breathe, earlier this year and stood behind the band’s 2021 debut EP, Coma (review here), has ceased operations, but it’s hard to imagine Lurcher having much trouble finding a home for a sound as defined as it seems to be on “Breathe Out” and the more driving “Blister” here, which take the lush melodies one might hear from a band like Elephant Tree from an angle rooted more in post-hardcore, and a little more about shove than nod, but still able to get hazy and dreamy on opener “Never Over” or likewise mammoth and poppy on “Blink of an Eye,” though I’ll note that by “poppy” I mean accessible, melodic and professional. It wants neither for bombast nor impact, and the Mellotron before they turn “Blink of an Eye” back to the verse is just one among the many examples of why Lurcher are ready for a full-length. Or why I’m ready for one from them, at the very least.

Lurcher on Instagram

Trepanation Recordings on Bandcamp

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Alreckque, 6PM

A new configuration for some familiar players, as Alreckque‘s debut EP, 6PM, presents an initial four songs from guitarist/vocalist Jim Healey (We’re All Gonna Die, Blood Lightning, Set Fire, etc.), bassist/vocalist Aaron Gray (Hepatagua) and drummer Rob Davol (Cocked ‘n’ Loaded, Set Fire, etc.), each of whom would carry their union card for the Boston heavy underground if the city hadn’t busted the union to build condos. Healey‘s voice will be immediately recognizable to, well, anyone who’s ever heard it — it’s a pretty recognizable voice — and though “Sunsets” touches on some more metallic riffing in the vein of Blood Lightning, Alreckque is distinguished by what Gray brings to it in vocals, not only keeping up with Healey melodically (which is no small feat), but serving as an essential part of some of the EP’s most affecting moments. Yeah, the moniker is kind of a gag, but “Achilles’ Last Taco Stand (End of Man)” sets high stakes and has the reach to hit the mark in its apex. Projects like this come and go as everybody involved is usually doing more than one thing, but Alreckque sounds like the start of something worth pursuing.

Alreckque on Facebook

Alreckque on Bandcamp

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Black Capricorn, Sacrifice Darkness… and Fire

Black Capricorn‘s second LP for Majestic Mountain behind 2022’s Cult of Blood (review here), the nine-song/43-minute Sacrifice Darkness… and Fire lets you know it means business immediately because not one, not two, but three songs have the word “night” in the title. To wit, “The Night They Came to Take You Away,” “Another Night Another Bite” two songs later, and “Electric Night” two songs after that. That doesn’t even count “The Moon Rises as the Immortals Gather” or “A New Day Rising,” both of which would presumably take place at least in part at night. Clearly the Sardinian cult doomers have upped their game. Your move, entire genre of heavy metal! Perhaps the highest compliment I could pay the record would be to say it earns its instances of “night,” which it does, but don’t let that keep you from “Blood of Evil” or the opener “Sacrifice,” which pairs drifting vocal incantations with an earthy groove and laying out the atmosphere for what follows. As expected and as one would hope, they dig into the songs like grainy VHS zombies into foam-rubber skulls.

Black Capricorn on Facebook

Majestic Mountain Records store

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Dios Serpiente, Duelo de Gigantes

The sophomore full-length from Argentina’s Dios Serpiente, founded by bassist, programmer and vocalist Leandro Buceta, brings a collaboration with Sergio Chotsourian (Los Natas, Ararat, Soldati, etc.), who contributes guitar and keyboard, Duelo de Gigantes might be an appropriate title for such a thing, as surely the swell at the finish of “Ruinas Ancestrales” is of duly mammoth proportion, but there’s more happening than largesse as “La Espera” explores textures that feel born of ambient Reznorism en route to the slamming industrial doom of “Dinastia del Morir,” an aggressive centerpiece before “El Oraculo” shows brighter flashes and “El Ultimo Ritual” turns caustic, low sludge into inhuman megaplod before “Monolitos de Lava” drops the drums and thereby transcends that much more completely into atmospheric avant garde-ness. Those used to hearing Chotsourian‘s voice alongside his guitar will be surprised at Buceta‘s growls, but the harsher vocals suit the range of dark and aggressive moods being conveyed in the electronic/organic blend of the arrangements.

Dios Serpiente on Instagram

South American Sludge Records on Bandcamp

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Norna, Norna

If you, like me, remember a time when a band called Swarm of the Lotus stalked the earth with an especially vicious blend of sludge metal, harsh hardcore bite, and doomly proselytizing, Swiss/Swedish trio Norna wield a lurch no less punishing on “Samsara” at the outset of their self-titled sophomore LP. Huge and encompassing, it and “For Fear of Coming,” which follows, feel methodical in the European post-metallic tradition (see Amenra), but Norna are rawer than most and more direct in their assault, so that “Ghost” comes across as punk rooted in its intensity more than metal, which is also what stops “Shine by its Own Light” from being Conan, despite the similar penchant for crush. The effect of the backing atmospherics in “Shadow Works” shouldn’t be understated, even if what tops is so all-out furious, and “The Sleep” slows down a bit for one last tonal offloading, harsh shouts cutting through every punishing stage. Norna don’t mess around. Call it sludge if you want. The truth is it’s more in style and dimension.

Norna on Facebook

Pelagic Records on Bandcamp

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Dead Fellows, Luto Sessions

Having a couple seconds on either side of the start and finish of a song emphasizes the live-in-studio feel of Luto Sessions, but as it’s the first offering from Argentine psychedelic doom rockers Dead Fellows, it’s not like there’s a ton to compare it to. “Pile of Flesh” or its side-B-opening counterpart “Imminent” have some Uncle Acid to their swing, but even in the boogie of “The Ritual” and the last twists of “Hell Awaits,” Dead Fellows are chasing no sonic ideal so much as their own. Echoing vocals top riffs made more sinister by the lyrics applied to them, and as “Pile of Flesh” is both opener and the longest song (immediate points), everything after seems to build momentum despite mostly languid tempos, and the movement keeps hold right through the dark swirl of “Satan is Waiting for Us” and into the finale, which at last highlights the heavy blues that’s been underscoring the material all along. You already knew if you were listening to the basslines. I don’t know if it’s actually their debut album, but it’s engaging and quickly finds its niche.

Dead Fellows on Instagram

Dead Fellows on Bandcamp

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Rabid Children, Does the Heartbeat

You might call Troy, New York, four-piece experimental for all the noise and keys and drones and weirdo vibes they throw at you on their debut, Does the Heartbeat, but go deeper and it’s even weirder. Because it’s pop. Like 1960s Beatles-type pop. Check out “Real Life.” The organ line of “Does the Heart Beat.” The vocal pattern in “I’ve Been Hypnotized” is more Thin Lizzy, so a couple years later, but a lot of what Rabid Children are playing off of is notions of safe, suburban interpretations of rock, and some of it is about turning that on its head, like the Ramones did, but by putting their own spin on these ideas — and songs that are mostly one to two minutes long suits that frenetic approach — Rabid Children both undercut the notions of pop as something that can’t be ‘deep’ or ‘intelligent’ (that’s called “doing Devo‘s work”) and that “Messin Round” can’t coincide with a sprawler jam like “Other Dreams” or that the over-the-top wistfulness of “Teenage Summertime Dream” and the quirkier “FCOJ” (is that a Trading Places reference?) aren’t working toward similar ends.

Lorchestral Recording Company website

Lorchestral Recording Company on Facebook

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Ord Cannon, Foreshots

Just two songs on this initial offering from German noise-doomers Ord Cannon, but that’s enough for the band — which traces its pedigree back through Bellrope into Black Shape of Nexus, thereby ticking any box you might have for off-kilter heavy-as-hell cred — to leave a crater behind. The Foreshots EP brings “Letting My Insides Out Into the Air” (10:35) and “I Need a Hammer” (9:41), and with them, Ord Cannon mark out what one suspects won’t at all be the limits of their ultimate breadth. A harsh experimentlism seems to put the studio on a similar plane to the instruments, and the mix, whether that’s pushing the vocals further back toward the end of “I Need a Hammer” or making “Letting My Insides Out Into the Air” sound like the end of the world more generally, further bolsters the true-horrors-in-three-dee vibe. I don’t know what the advent of Ord Cannon signals for Bellrope, who put out their debut EP in 2019, but this kind of malevolent worldmaking is welcome in any form.

Ord Cannon on Instagram

Ord Cannon on Bandcamp

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Norwegian heavy progressive rockers Kosmodome are set to release their second album and first for Stickman Records, Ad Undas, tomorrow, Oct. 11. With it, they expand on the proggier side of their 2021 self-titled debut, as opener “Neophobia” — also the longest track (immediate points) at 8:41 — finds the band led by brotherly duo Sturle Sandvik (guitar and vocals) and Severin Sandvik (drums and vocals) prioritizing scope with an expanded reach in psychedelia and krautrock, guitar and vocals matching melodically in “Hyperion” in a way that leaves the listener less sure which is following which, and Ole Andreas Jensen‘s bass and Erlend Nord‘s guitar add to the sense of motion as “Hyperion” embarks on its purposefully-understated chorus for the second time.

“Obsternasig” ultimately works in a similar style of folk-informed classic heavy prog, but as Kosmodome subvert the longest-song-last genre norm (among others; that’s part of the idea here) and put “Neophobia” and “Hyperion” at the start, “Obsternasig” and the space-rock shoving “Dystopia,” which follows, can breathe as a result of “Neophobia” having already provided a summary of Ad Undas‘ scope. It doesn’t necessarily account for the sci-fi drama of “Dystopia” — which of course is about now — or the taut twists and jabs of “Turmoil” that writhe around subdued, sad verses, but focusing on immersion early lets Kosmodome have the flexibility later to bring disco-era funk into the bass and keys of “Turmoil” and to harness and subsequently blow up a slog in “Fatigue.”

It is in the patterning of the vocals on the intricate rhythms of the guitar (or vice versa) and in the patience of their execution that Ad Undas most displays the growth in Kosmodome‘s sound. I suppose in a word that would be “songwriting.” Fine. Kosmodome was hardly rushed, mind you, but the guitar is a little more willing to leave space around it, a little less busy at least on the outward impression, and when they launch into the jam on “Neophobia,” they sound like they’re there for a reason. And it’s true that you don’t get that in the same way on “Obsternasig” or “Fatigue,” but that’s because Kosmodome are making their songs with more than one purpose. On Ad Undas, each track feeds into the overarching flow and adds something new to the proceedings without taking away from what came before.

In this way, Kosmodome are able to foster a sound drawing from prog, psych, classic heavy, boogie rock and other various microgenres well served by the unhurried nod with which “Fatigue” is resolved, but not tethered to that nod as a crutch for songwriting that lacks variety or diversity among its influences. Kosmodome might dig on some heavy grooves, but there’s more happening in the songs than a riff parade, though parades are fun and if there was one, the ending of “Fatigue” would probably let you go. It wouldn’t be fair to call what they’re doing revolutionary, since homage is a part of the aesthetic, but Kosmodome‘s prog has character and charm beyond being well composed and executed, and one hopes the band continue to dive into their work with such individualism as their goal.

Ad Undas streams in its entirety on the player below, followed by more info from the PR wire.

Please enjoy:

The brainchild of the two Sandvik brothers, Sturle on guitars and vocals, and Severin on drums, Kosmodome’s music is riff-based rock with stoner elements all of which are placed within a progressive universe to great effect. Together, the duo bridges the gap between the explosive drive of bands such as Mastodon with melodic magic and retrospective, clever songwriting.

Hailing from Bergen, Kosmodome’s astonishing debut album from 2021 heralded the arrival of a melodic progressive powerhouse of a different stripe. While endlessly groovy, the band sidesteps the stoner genre by virtue of their sheer creativity, crafting extremely catchy but still unpredictable tracks topped by excellent vocals. With an explosive drive in which the melodious contrasts the hard and heavy music, Kosmodome came to blow minds with their psychedelic sounding, 60s atmosphere-coloured rock!

In recent years, the band has reached out beyond the Norwegian west coast and is now ready with their second full length album “Ad Undas”. On this album, they are less confined by genre expectations, but still sound like Kosmodome. Growing up with all types of music genres in a musical home from world music to metal is something the songwriting reflects.

Musically the record shows what else lives inside the progressive universe Kosmodome are building, where one/the goal is to avoid being stuck in genre expectations. Seeking a more dynamic and melodious sound than earlier, the songwriters – brothers Sandvik, but appearing as a stellar four piece live band – still deliver an album with heavy riffs, aggressiveness and many surprises.

Lyrically it delves into personal struggles with self-doubt, the pressures of societal expectations, and the existential battles of modern life. The songs touch on different aspects of the human condition, from the fear of failure and the need for growth to the turmoil of modern living and relentless self-exertion in a chaotic world. Ad undas is a Greek term meaning “to the waves”, but in Norway it is used as an expression when everything goes “to hell” or fails (everything goes south).

Kosmodome have played concerts on different stages in Norway and abroad, and are ready for more live performances after a studio hiatus in 2023 working on their much-awaited, second album, “Ad Undas” , set to be released on Stickman Records on October 11, 2024!

“Ad Undas” Tracklist:
01. Neophobia
02. Hyperion
03. Obsternasig
04. Dystopia
05. Turmoil
06. Fatigue

Kosmodome is:
Sturle Sandvik – guitar/vocals
Severin Sandvik – drums/vocals
Ole Andreas Jensen – bass
Erlend Nord – guitar

Kosmodome on Facebook

Kosmodome on Instagram

Kosmodome on Bandcamp

Stickman Records on Facebook

Stickman Records on Instagram

Stickman Records website

I have to stop and think about what day it is, so we must be at least ankle-deep in the Quarterly Review. After a couple days, it all starts to bleed together. Wednesday and Thursday just become Tenrecordsperday and every day is Tenrecordsperday. I got to relax for about an hour yesterday though, and that doesn’t always happen during a Quarterly Review week. I barely knew where to put myself. I took a shower, which was the right call.

As to whether I’ll have capacity for basic grooming and/or other food/water-type needs-meeting while busting out these reviews, it’s time to find out.

Quarterly Review #21-30:

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Vibravoid, We Cannot Awake

Of course, the 20-minute title-track head rock epic “We Cannot Awake” is going to be a focal point, but even as it veers into the far-out reaches of candy-colored space rock, Vibravoid‘s extended B-side still doesn’t encompass everything offered by the album that shares its name. Early cuts “Get to You” and “On Empty Streets” and “The End of the Game” seem to regard the world with cynicism that’s well enough earned on the world’s part, but if Vibravoid are a band out of time and should’ve been going in the 1960s, they’ve made a pretty decent run of it despite their somewhat anachronistic existence. “We Cannot Awake” is for sure an epic, and the five shorter tracks on side A are a reminder of the distinguished songwriting of Vibravoid more than 30 years on from their start, and as it’s a little less explicitly garage-rooted than their turn-of-the-century work, it further demonstrates just how much the band have brought to the form over time, with ‘form’ being relative there for a style that’s so molten. Some day this band will get their due. They were there ahead of the stoners, the vintage rockers, the neopsych freaks, and they’ll probably still be there after, acid-coating dystopia as, oh wait, they already are.

Vibravoid on Facebook

Tonzonen website

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Horseburner, Voice of Storms

Taking influence from the earlier-Mastodon style of twist-and-gallop riffing, adding in vocal harmonies and their own progressive twists, West Virginia’s Horseburner declare themselves with their third album, Voice of Storms, establishing a sound based on immediacy and impact alike, but that gives the listener respite in the series of interludes begun by the building intro “Summer’s Bride” — there’s also the initially-acoustic-based “The Fawn,” which delivers the album’s title-line before basking in Alice in Chains-circa Jar of Flies vibes, and the dream-into-crunch of the penultimate “Silver Arrow,” which is how you kill Ganon — that have the effect of spacing out some of the more dizzying fare like “Hidden Bridges” and “Heaven’s Eye” or letting “Diana” and closer “Widow” each have some breathing room to as to not overwhelm the audience in the record’s later plunge. Because once they get going, as “The Gift” picks up from “Summer’s Bride” and sets them at speed, the trio dare you to keep pace if you can.

Horseburner on Facebook

Blues Funeral Recordings website

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Sons of Arrakis, Volume II

Some pressure on Dune-themed Montreal heavy rockers Sons of Arrakis as they follow-up their well-received 20222 debut, Volume I (review here) with the 10-track/33-minute Volume II. The metal-rooted riff rockers have tightened the songwriting and expanded the progressive reach and variety of the material, a song like “High Handed Enemy” drawing from an Elder-style shimmer and setting it to a pop-minded structure. Smooth in production and rife with melody, Volume II isn’t without its edge as shown early on by “Beyond the Screen of Illusion,” and after the thoughtful melodicism of “Metamorphosis,” the burst of energy in “Blood for Blood” prefaces the blowout in “Burn Into Blaze” before the outro “Caladan” closes on an atmospheric note. No want of dynamic or purpose whatsoever. I’ve seen less hype on the interwebs about Volume II than I did its predecessor, and that’s just one of the very many things to enjoy about it.

Sons of Arrakis on Facebook

Black Throne Productions website

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Crypt Sermon, The Stygian Rose

Classic heavy metal is fortunate to have the likes of Crypt Sermon flying its flag. The Philadelphia-based outfit continue on The Stygian Rose to stake their claim somewhere between NWOBHM and doom in terms of style — there are parts of the album that feel specifically Hellhound Records, the likes of “Down in the Hollow” is more modern, at least in its ending — but five years on from their second LP, 2019’s The Ruins of Fading Light (review here), the band come across with all the more of a grasp of their sound, so that when “Heavy is the Crown of Bone” lays out its riff, everybody knows what they’re going for is Candlemass circa ’86, but that becomes the basis from which they build out, and from thrash to ’80s-style keyboard dramaturge in “Scrying Orb” ahead of the sweeping 11-minute closing title-track, which is so endearingly full-on in its later roll that it’s hard to keep from headbanging as I type. Alas.

Crypt Sermon on Facebook

Dark Descent Records website

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Eyes of the Oak, Neolithic Flint Dagger

The kind of undulating riffy largesse Eyes of the Oak proffer on their second full-length, Neolithic Flint Dagger, puts them in line with Swedish countrymen like Domkraft and Cities of Mars, but the former are more noise rock and the latter aren’t a band anymore, so actually it’s a pretty decent niche to be in. The Sörmland four-piece use the room in their mix to veer between more straight-ahead vocal command and layered chants like those in the nine-minute “Offering to the Gods,” the chorus of which is quietly reprised in the 35-second closing title-track. Not to be understated is the work the immediate chug of “Cold Alchemy” and the marching nodder “Way Home” do in setting the tone for a nuanced sound, so that the pockets of sound that will come to be filled by another layer of vocals, or a guitar lead, or an effect or whatever it is are laid out and then the band proceeds to dance around that central point and find more and more room for flourish as they go. Bonus points for the soul in “The Burning of Rome,” but they honestly don’t need bonus points.

Eyes of the Oak on Facebook

Eyes of the Oak on Bandcamp

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Mast Year, Point of View

A kind of artful post-hardcore that’s outright combustible in “Concrete,” Mast Year‘s sound still has room to grow as they offer their first long-player in the 25-minute Point of View on respected Marylander imprint Grimoire Records, but part of that impression comes from how open the songs feel generally. That’s not to say the nine-minute “Figure of Speech” doesn’t have its crushing side to account for or that “Teignmouth Electron” before it isn’t gnashing in its later moments, but it’s the band’s willingness to go where the material is leading that seems to get them to places like the foreboding drone of “Love Note” and deconstructing intensity of “Erocide,” just as they’re able to lean between math metal and sludge, which is like the opposite of math, Mast Year cover a lot of ground in their extremes. The minor in creeper noisemaking — “Love Note,” closer “Timelessness” — shouldn’t be neglected for adding to the mood. Mast Year have plenty of ways to pummel, though, and an apparent interest in pushing their own limits.

Mast Year on Facebook

Grimoire Records website

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Wizard Tattoo, Living Just for Dying

In the span of about 20 minutes, Wizard Tattoo‘s Living Just for Dying EP, which finds project-founder Bram the Bard once again working mostly solo, save for guest vocals by Djinnifer on “The Wizard Who Loved Me” and Fausto Aurelias, who complements the extreme metal surge and charred-rock verse of “Tomorrow Dies” with a suitably guttural take; think Satyricon more than Mayhem, maybe some Darkthrone. Considering the four-tracker opens with the acoustic “Living Just for Dying” and caps with similar balladeering in “Sanity’s Eclipse,” the EP pretty efficiently conveys Wizard Tattoo‘s go-anywhereism and genre-line transgression at least in terms of the ethic of playing to different sounds and seeing how they rest alongside each other. To that end, detailed transitions between “The Wizard Who Loved Me” and “Tomorrow Dies,” between “Tomorrow Dies” and “Sanity’s Ecilpse,” etc., make for a carefully guided listening process, which feels short and complete and like a form that suits Bram the Bard well.

Wizard Tattoo on Instagram

Wizard Tattoo on Bandcamp

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Üga Büga, Year of the Hog

Virginian trio Üga Büga — guitarist/vocalist Calloway Jones, bassist/backing vocalist Niko Cvetanovich and drummer/backing vocalist Jimmy Czywczynski — don’t have to go far to find despondent sludgy grooves, but they range nonetheless as their debut full-length, Year of the Hog unfolds, “Skingrafter” marrying a crooning vocal in contrast to some of the surrounding rasp and burl to a build of crunching heavy riff. The album is bombastic as a defining feature — songs like “Change My Name” and “Rape of the Poor” come to mind — but there’s a perspective being cast in the material as well, a point of view to the lyrics, that comes through as clearly as the thrashy plunder of “Supreme Truth” later on, and I’m not sure what’s being said, but I am pretty sure “Mockingbird” knows it’s doing Phantom of the Opera, and that’s not nothing. They round out Year of the Hog with its eight-minute title-track, and finish with a duly metallic push, leaning into the aggressive aspects that have been malleably balanced all along.

Üga Büga on Facebook

Üga Büga on Bandcamp

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The Moon is Flat, A Distant Point of Light

Ultimately, The Moon is Flat‘s methodology on their third album, A Distant Point of Light, isn’t so radically different from how their second LP, All the Pretty Colors, worked in 2021, with longer-form jamming interspliced with structured craft, songs that may or may not open up to broader reaches, but that are definitively songs rather than open-ended or whittled-down jams (nothing against that approach either, mind you). The difference between the two is that A Distant Point of Light‘s six tracks and 52 minutes feel like they’ve learned much from the prior outing, so “Sound the Alarm” starts off bringing the two sides together before “Awestruck” departs into dream-QOTSA and progadelic vibery, and “I Saw Something” and its five-minute counterpart, closer “Where All Ends Meet” sandwich the 11-minutes each “Meanwhile” and “A Distant Point of Light,” The Moon is Flat digging in dynamically through mostly languid tempos and fluid, progressive builds of volume. But when they go, they go. Watch out for that title-track.

The Moon is Flat on Facebook

The Moon is Flat on Bandcamp

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Mountain Caller, Chronicle II: Hypergenesis

Chronicle II: Hypergenesis continues the thread that London instrumentalists began with their debut 2020’s Chronicle I: The Truthseseker and continued on the prequel EP, 2021’s Chronicle: Prologue, exploring heavy progressive conceptualism in evocative post-heavy pieces like opener “Daybreak,” which resolves in a riotous breakdown, or “The Archivist,” which is more angular when it wants to be but feels like a next-generation’s celebration of riffy chicanery in a way that I can only think of as encouraging for how seriously it seems not to take itself. The post-rocking side of what they do is well reinforced throughout — so is the crush — whether it’s “Dead Language” or “Into the Hazel Woods,” but there’s nothing on Chronicle II: Hypergenesis more consuming than the crescendo of the closing “Hypergenesis,” and the band very clearly know it; it’s a part so good even the band with no singer has to put some voice to it. That last groove is defining, but much of Chronicle II: Hypergenesis actively works against that sort of genre rigidity, and much to the album’s greater benefit.

Mountain Caller on Facebook

Mountain Caller on Bandcamp

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Welcome back to the Fall 2024 Quarterly Review, which started yesterday and will continue through next Friday. This week and next week, my life is pretty much cutting up pizza for the kid, Hungarian homework, and this. I could do worse.

There’s good stuff in this one though, and a lot of it, today and really throughout. I hope you find something you think is cool, tomorrow or the next day if not today.

Quarterly Review #11-20:

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Pia Isa, Dissolve

Pia Isaksen, also of Superlynx, offers a follow-up to 2022’s solo debut as Pia Isa, Distorted Chants (review here), and with songs like “Into the Fire” and “Dissolve,” a heavy-meditative take on grunge is imagined, with Isaksen‘s lumbering bass leading the way with a low rumble behind often quietly delivered vocals, and Ole Teigen‘s drums placed deep in a three-dimensional mix, and spaciousness added to the bulk of the proceedings through Gary Arce‘s signature floating guitar tone; the Yawning Man founder guests on guitar for six of the eight tracks, and is a not insignificant presence in complement and contrast to some of the more morose elements and rhythmic churning, as in “New Light.” But Isaksen is no stranger to crafting material heavy in ambience and mood as much as tone, and Dissolve feels like a deep-dive into experimentalism that pays off in the songs themselves. As Isaksen and Arce get ready to unveil their new collaborative project SoftSun, nothing here makes me look forward to that less.

Pia Isa on Facebook

Argonauta Records website

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Sun and Sail Club, Shipwrecked

I don’t know where the lines between genres are supposed to be anymore and I’m done pretending to care. If Sun and Sail Club had Barney from Napalm Death singing lead, you’d call them grindcore. It’s Tony Adolescents, making his second appearance with Sun and Sail Club after 2015’s The Great White Dope (review here), alongside founding guitarist Bob Balch (also Fu Manchu, Big Scenic Nowhere, etc.), bassist Scott Reeder (ex-Kyuss, Goatsnake, The Obsessed, etc.) and drummer Scott Reeder (Fu Manchu) for another mostly-blistering round of heavy punk, full in its charge and crossover punk-metal defiance, in “The Color of War” and the early-C.O.C.-esque “Drag the River,” which follows. Oh, and Balch gets a little surf in there too in “Tastes Like Blood” and the wistful bookending intro and outro. Borders on goth for a moment there, but it works. In the Balchian oeuvre — somewhere on the opposite side of the spectrum from where Slower now reside — Sun and Sail Club found itself as a project with The Great White Dope. Shipwrecked is correspondingly more aware of what the band wants their music to do as a result, and so able to hit more directly.

Sun and Sail Club on Facebook

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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Vitskär Süden, Vessel

The third album from Los Angeles-based heavy progressive rockers Vitskär Süden, Vessel is quick to establish ambition as a central element. That is to say, in the depth of their arrangements vocally and instrumentally, in their ability to set and vary a mood, and in being able to convey a sense of experimentalism in a four-minute track with a hook like “R’lyeh,” Vitskär Süden come across as cognizant of trying new ideas in their material and bringing these to fruition in the finished products of the songs. The material feels built around specific parts, some rhythmic, some melodic, in “Through Tunnels They Move” it might be Inxs, maybe the piano and strings in “Hidden by the Day,” and so on, and that it isn’t always the same thing adds to the character brought by guitarist/synthesist Julian Goldberger, bassist/vocalist Martin Garner, guitarist TJ Webber and drummer Christopher Martin as the songs coalesce and challenge the band’s own conceptions of their work as much as the listener’s. It is cinematic in both its sprawl and dramatic intent, and I won’t spoil the ending but yes of course it goes gospel.

Vitskär Süden on Facebook

Ripple Music website

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Daevar, Amber Eyes

German murk-doomers Daevar keep affairs dark on their second long-player, Amber Eyes, as the trio of bassist/vocalist Pardis Latifi, guitarist Caspar Orfgren and drummer Moritz Ermen Bausch explore nodding patience and grim atmospherics across the six included cuts, and Windhand are still an influence, but “Pay to Pray” has a rolling, Acid King-style fluidity and the guitar takes to someplace more decisively evil, and Electric Wizardly, so you figure it out, because what it sounds like to me is Daevar beginning to step out from any single influence and to more comfortably find their own, often hypnotic niche, meeting the post-metallic feel of “Caliban and the Witch” with layered vocal harmonies before the megaplod finish. The title-track is faster and represents the grungier intentions, and if that’s the start of side B, then “Lizards” and “Grey in Grey” could only be called a plunge from there. The finale in particular is consuming in a way that reminds of Undersmile, which isn’t a complement I would lightly give.

Daevar on Facebook

The Lasting Dose Records on Bandcamp

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Endless Floods, Rites Futurs

Have you ever heard Endless Floods and not wanted more? Me neither. The French art-doom four-piece made a single out of the eight-minute “Décennie” from their fourth full-length, Rites Futurs, and as that song works its way into a minimalist drone progression worthy of Earth before offering stark reassurance in intertwining human voices before exploding, gloriously, into a guitar solo the size of any number of partially undersea volcanoes, there is little that feels beyond the band’s creative reach. Volume is a part of what makes the material so affecting, with a progressive metal-style fullness of tone and voices treated to become part of what’s creating the sense of space. In its quiet reaches and surges of worshipful sounds — the choir on “Forge,” for example — Rites Futurs is somehow dystopian, but it’s not an empty world “after” humans. There’s life in these songs, in the way the title-track builds into its post-punk shove and then just into this undulation of noise is twice as universe-devouring for the acoustic guitar that emerges by itself on the other side. Underrated band.

Endless Floods on Facebook

Breathe Plastic store

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Black on High, Echoes Through Time

Dark heavy rock with a metallic underpinning that seems to come forward in “She Was a Witch” more than, say, opener “Alleyway Ecstasy,” from Black on High‘s debut, Echoes Through Time, notably brings elements from the likes of Mastodon and Alice in Chains together with songs that don’t just retain their immediacy but build upward from the leadoff, so that “Take These Pills” in the penultimate spot of the tracklisting becomes a punk rock apex for a trajectory the Dallas-based four-piece with members of Gypsy Sun Revival and Turbid North set forth on “I Feel Lethal,” and the drop into lower gears for the closing title-track seems to hit that much harder as a return. It’s like the meme where the riff comes back but heavier and Vince McMahon or whoever is laser-eye stoked, except it’s set up across the whole album and not actually so simple as that, and Echoes Through Time ends up being more about the journey than the destination. Fine. It’s a high level of craft for being a first record, and it feels like the beginning of an evolution for a longer term.

Black on High on Facebook

Black on High on Bandcamp

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Anomalos Kosmos, Live at 102 FM

Greek experimentalist two-piece Anomalos Kosmos may or may not evoke a Grails-y impression with their ’70s-prog-informed soundtrack-style instrumentals, but the thing is, with Live at 102 FM, they seem at least to be making it up as they go along. Sure, looping this or that layer to fill out the sound helps, as “Flow + Improv 1” proves readily in its first half, then again in its second, but what makes it jazz is that the exploration is happening for the creator and the consumer at the same time. It gets weird, and weirder, and “The + Improv 2” throws down a swinging groove for a bit after that vocal sample in the last couple minutes, but even if part of “Me Orizeis” is plotted as opposed to being 100 percent made up like they just walked into the room and that noise happened, it represents a vibrant and encompassing process that can’t help but feel organic as it’s recorded live. The band’s 2022 debut, Mornin Loopaz (review here) was both more restless and more concept-based. I like that I have no idea how Anomalos Kosmos might follow this.

Anomalos Kosmos on Facebook

Anomalos Kosmos on Bandcamp

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Mountainwolf, Dust on a New Moon

Maybe it won’t come as a shocker that a live record with takes on the band’s songs that are upwards of 14, 17, 19, 23 minutes long is expansive? Maryland’s Mountainwolf offer seven tracks across Dust on a New Moon, which were recorded live at some point, somewhere, ever, maybe at New Year’s? I don’t want to speculate. In any case, what happens over the course of the ‘evening with’ is Mountainwolf plunge into an Appalachian vision of Earthless-style instrumental epicness. East Coast groove set to a more Pacific ideology; I guess at a certain point jams is jams. Mountainwolf have plenty of those, and while it’s not at all their first live release, Dust on a New Moon unfolds the sludgy crash of “Edging” and the bassy jabs of “Heroin x 1991” with purpose in each twist of turn captured. I assume the show is a little different every night as a given song might go here or there, but it sounds like a show worth seeing, to say the very least of it.

Mountainwolf on Facebook

Mountainwolf on Bandcamp

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The Giraffes, Cigarette

The Giraffes don’t have to be out there burnin’ barns, but Cigarette is indeed incendiary in “Pipes” and “Limping Horse,” and that’s barely a fraction of the business the long-running New York outfit get done in short order across their eighth album’s 34 minutes. NYC has had its share of underheralded heavy rock bands and so fair enough for The Giraffes being part of a longstanding tradition, but the moody vibe in “Lazarus,” the eerie modernity cast in “Baby Pictures,” and the citified twang in “Dead Bird” — which is fair enough to consider Americana since it’s about drug addiction — or the way “The Shot” has a kind of punctuated strut that is so much the band’s own, it’s worth reiterating that The Giraffes have earned far more plaudits than they’ve ever received for their recorded work, and as “Pipes” and “Million Year Old Song” bring a bluesy tinge to the madcap groove, I don’t know Cigarette will change that or if the band would even want it to if it did, but they’re an institution in New York’s underground and LPs like this are why.

The Giraffes on Facebook

The Giraffes on Bandcamp

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Filthy Hippies, Share the Pill

While the drift of psychedelia ranges further back, there’s something about even the most shimmering of moments on Filthy Hippies‘ Share the Pill that’s much more ’97 than ’67, more Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine adding a current of noise to the mellow-heavy groove, maybe. That’s all well and good but doesn’t account for the universe-tearing “Good Time” or the spacey post-punk of “Catatonic” (though maybe it does, in the case of the latter) or the dub-psych roll “Stolen From Heaven” that bridges the two halves of the record, so take it for what it is. The stylistic truth of Filthy Hippies is more complex than the superficial trappings of drug rock might lead one to believe, and it’s not without its challenging aspects, even though the material in pieces like “Candy Floss” or the tambourine-insistent “Dreaming of Water” veers readily into poppish frequencies. There doesn’t seem to be a ton that’s off limits, but it feels rooted in heavy groove just the same and that sits well next to the flashes of the brighter contrast.

Filthy Hippies on Facebook

Mongrel Records website

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If you were expecting the ‘Last Call’ fourth day being added to the Jan. 2025 edition of Planet Desert Rock Weekend V to be an afterthought to the first three days, the first two announcements for the lineup — Michigan’s Bonehawk last time around and Salt Lake City’s Iota today — should do much to dissuade. Iota in particular are a choice that could only be made with purpose.

Earlier this year, the trio released Pentasomnia (review here) through Small Stone. It was the band’s first album in 16 years, and it’s not like they’ve been out for the last six months touring to deliver it to listeners door to door, so it’s less about the draw apart from some if-you-know-you-know diehards than the festival using its built-in outreach to put Iota in front of a crowd that might or might not be familiar with their work but who will unquestionably benefit from engaging with it.

This is the fest ideal; to be able to take something someone is passionate about and give it a platform to reach more ears. Iota aren’t the only reason I’m looking at flights to Vegas for this one — there’s also the rest of the bill — but they’re definitely part of it.

Festival curator John Gist sent the following down the PR wire:

At Vegas Rock Revolution we love to champion really good music that deserves more attention and ears upon them. Earlier this year Salt Lake City’s Iota released a comeback album “Pentasomnia” after an 18 year hiatus and it caputured me immediately. The crispness in it’s sound and production truly captured the vibrancy of the album led by former frontman of Dwellers, Joey Toscano.

As I was contemplating the “Last Call’ show (Night 4) of Planet Desert Rock Weekend V, I made a short list of bands to exam and re-exam over and over. Iota was on the list. As a curator but also the promoter I had to think through the balance between art and marketing. Iota is a VERY under the radar band that very likely most that are considering coming to PDRW would not know.

As I was whittling down bands on the list almost right on cue I got a message from Joey Toscano introducing himself and inquiring about potentially playing. After some time and floating their music out to a few ears, I decided to make this happen. The visualization of their music being done live in the right setting with an amazing sound engineer gave me clarity.

This power trio also features Andy Patterson who is the former drummer of Subrosa and current one for The Otolith who recently played Ripplefest Texas and Oz Yosri from Bird Eater. We know our well versed PDRW crowd will embrace this cool band and become new fans.
Next band to be announced with be in the next week as well and features another band from west of the Mississippi…..

Tickets for PDRW Last Call: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1022254108557

Tickets for PDRW V: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/873750791137

FB event: https://facebook.com/events/s/planet-desert-rock-weekend-v-j/1399556780734695/

https://www.facebook.com/VRRProductions/
https://www.facebook.com/vegasrockrevolution/

Planet Desert Rock Weekend V preview playlist

Oh hi, I didn’t see you there. Me? Oh, you know. Nothing much. Staring off a cliffside about to jump headfirst into a pool of 100 records. The usual.

I’m pretty sure this is the second time this year that a single Quarterly Review has needed to be two weeks long. It’s been a busy year, granted, but still. I keep waiting for the tide to ebb, but it hasn’t really at all. Older bands keep going, or a lot of them do, anyhow — or they come back — and new bands come up. But for all the war, famine, plague and strife and crisis and such, it’s a golden age.

But hey, don’t let me keep you. I’ve apparently been doing QRs since 2013, and I remember trying to find a way to squeeze together similar roundups before it. I have no insight to add about that, it’s just something I dug back to find out the other day and was surprised because 11 years of this kind of thing is a really long gosh darn time.

On that note, let’s go.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

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Agusa, Noir

The included bits of Swedish dialogue from the short film for which Agusa‘s Noir was written to serve as a soundtrack would probably ground the proceedings some if I spoke Swedish, admittedly. As it is, those voices become part of the dream world the Malmö-based otherwise-instrumentalist adventurers conjure across 15 at times wildly divergent pieces. In arrangement and resultant mood, from the ’70s piano sentimentality of “Ljusglimtar” to the darker church organ and flute workings of “Stad i mörker,” which is reprised as a dirge at the end, the tracks are evocative across a swath of atmospheres, and it’s not all drones or background noise. They get their rock in, and if you stick around for “Kalkbrottets hemlighet,” you get to have the extra pleasure of hearing the guitar eat the rest of the song. You could say that’s not a thing you care about hearing but I know it’d be a lie, so don’t bother. If you’ve hesitated to take on Agusa in the past because sometimes generally-longform instrumental progressive psychedelic heavy rock can be a lot when you’re trying to get to know it, consider Noir‘s shorter inclusions a decent entry point to the band. Each one is like a brief snippet serving as another demonstration of the kind of immersion they can bring to what they play.

Agusa on Facebook

Kommun 2 website

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Octoploid, Beyond the Aeons

With an assembled cast of singers that includes Mikko Kotamäki (Swallow the Sun), his Amorphis bandmates Tomi Koivusaari and Tomi Joutsen, Petri Eskelinen of Rapture, and Barren Earth bandmate Jón Aldará, and guests on lead guitar and a drummer from the underappreciated Mannhai, and Barren Earth‘s keyboardist sitting in for good measure, bassist Olli Pekka-Laine harnesses a spectacularly Finnish take on proggy death-psych metal for Octoploid‘s first long-player, Beyond the Aeons. The songs feel extrapolated from Amorphis circa Elegy, putting guttural vocals to folk inspired guitar twists and prog-rock grooves, but aren’t trying to be that at all, and as ferocious as it gets, there’s always some brighter element happening, something cosmic or folkish or on the title-track both, and Octoploid feels like an expression of creative freedom based on a vision of a kind of music Pekka-Laine wanted to hear. I want to hear it too.

Octoploid on Facebook

Reigning Phoenix Music website

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The Obscure River Experiment, The Ore

The Obscure River Experiment, as a group collected together for the live performance from which The Ore has been culled, may or may not be a band. It is comprised of players from the sphere of Psychedelic Source Records, and so as members of River Flows Reverse, Obscure Supersession Collective, Los Tayos and others collaborate here in these four periodically scorching jams — looking at you, middle of “Soul’s Shiver Pt. 2” — it could be something that’ll happen again next week or next never. Not knowing is part of the fun, because as far out as something like The Obscure River Experiment might and in fact does go, there’s chemistry enough between all of these players to hold it together. “Soul Shiver Pt. 1” wakes up and introduces the band, “Pt. 2” blows it out for a while, “I See Horses” gets funky and then blows it out, and “The Moon in Flesh and Bone” feels immediately ceremonial with its sustained organ notes, but becomes a cosmic boogie ripper, complete with a welcome return of vocals. Was it all made up on the spot? Was it all a dream? Maybe both?

Psychedelic Source Records on Spotify

Psychedelic Source Records on Bandcamp

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Shun, Dismantle

Way underhyped South Carolinian progressive heavy rockers Shun arrive at the sound of their second LP, Dismantle, able to conjure elements of The Cure and Katatonia alongside Cave In-style punk-born groove, but in Shun‘s case, the underlying foundation is noise rock, so when “Aviator” opens up to its hook or “NRNS” is suddenly careening pummel or “Drawing Names” half-times the drums to get bigger behind the forward/obvious-focal-point vocal melodies of Matt Whitehead (ex-Throttlerod), there’s reach and impact working in conjunction with a thoughtful songwriting process pushed forward from where on their 2021 self-titled debut (review here) but that still seems to be actively working to engage the listener. That’s not a complaint, mind you, especially since Dismantle succeeds to vividly in doing so, and continues to offer nuance and twists on the plot right up to the willful slog ending with (most of) “Interstellar.”

Shun on Facebook

Small Stone Records website

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No Man’s Valley, Chrononaut Cocktail Bar/Flight of the Sloths

Whether it’s the brooding Nick Cave-style cabaret minimalism of “Creepoid Blues,” the ’60s psych of “Love” or the lush progressivism that emerges in “Seeing Things,” the hook of “Shapeshifter” or “Orange Juice” coming in with shaker at the end to keep things from finishing too melancholy, the first half of No Man’s Valley‘s Chrononaut Cocktail Bar/Flight of the Sloths still can only account for part of the scope as they set forth the pastoralist launch of the 18-minute “Flight of the Sloths” on side B, moving from acoustic strum and a repeating title line into a gradual build effective enough so that when Jasper Hesselink returns on vocals 13 minutes later in the spaced-out payoff — because yes, the sloths are flying between planets; was there any doubt? — it makes you want to believe the sloths are out there working hard to stay in the air. The real kicker? No Man’s Valley are no less considered in how they bring “Flight of the Sloths” up and down across its span than they are “Love” or “Shapeshifter” early on, both under three minutes long. And that’s what maturing as songwriters can do for you, though No Man’s Valley have always had a leg up in that regard.

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Land Mammal, Emergence

Dallas’ Land Mammal defy expectation a few times over on their second full-length, with the songwriting of Will Weise and Kinsley August turning toward greater depth of arrangement and more meditative atmospheres across the nine songs/34 minutes of Emergence, which even in a rolling groove like “Divide” has room for flute and strings. Elsewhere, sitar and tanpura meet with lap steel and keyboard as Land Mammal search for an individual approach to modern progressive heavy. There’s some shades of Elder in August‘s approach on “I Am” or the earlier “Tear You Down,” but the instrumental contexts surrounding are wildly different, and Land Mammal thrive in the details, be it the hand-percussion and far-back fuzz colliding on “The Circle,” or the tabla and sitar, drums and keys as “Transcendence (Part I)” and “Transcendence (Part II)” finish, the latter with the sounds of getting out of the car and walking in the house for epilogue. Yeah, I guess after shifting the entire stylistic scope of your band you’d probably want to go inside and rest for a bit. Well earned.

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Forgotten King, The Seeker

Released through Majestic Mountain Records, the debut full-length from Forgotten King, The Seeker, would seem to have been composed and recorded entirely by Azul Josh Bisama, also guitarist in Kal-El, though a full lineup has since formed. That happens. Just means the second album will have a different dynamic than the first, and there are some parts as in the early cut “Lost” where that will be a benefit as Azul Josh refines the work laying out a largesse-minded, emotively-evocative approach on these six cuts, likewise weighted and soaring. The album is nothing if not aptly-named, though, as Forgotten King lumber through “Drag” and march across 10 minutes of stately atmospheric doom, eventually seeing the melodic vocals give way to harsher fare in the second half, what’s being sought seems to have been found at least on a conceptual level, and one might say the same of “Around the Corner” or “The Sun” taking familiar-leaning desert rock progressions and doing something decisively ‘else’ with them. Very much feels like the encouraging beginning of a longer exploration.

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Majestic Mountain Records store

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Church of Hed, The Fifth Hour

Branched off from drummer/synthesist Paul Williams‘ intermittent work over the decades with Quarkspace, the mostly-solo-project Church of Hed explores progressive, kraut and space rock in a way one expects far more from Denmark than Columbus, Ohio — to wit, Jonathan Segel (Øresund Space Collective, Camper Van Beethoven) guests on violin, bass and guitar at various points throughout the nine-tracker, which indeed is about an hour long at 57 minutes. Church of Hed‘s last outing, 2022’s The Father Road, was an audio travelogue crossing the United States from one coast to the other. The Fifth Hour is rarely so concerned with terrestrial impressionism, and especially in its longer-form pieces “Pleiades Waypoint” (13:50), “Son of a Silicon Rogue” (14:59) or “The Fifth Hour” (8:43), it digs into sci-fi prog impulses that even in the weird blips and robot twists of the interlude “Aniluminescence 2” or the misshapen techno in the closing semi-reprise “Bastard Son of The Fifth Hour” never quite feels as dystopian as some other futures in the multiverse, and that becomes a strength.

Church of Hed on Facebook

Church of Hed website

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Zolle, Rosa

Like the Melvins on an AC/DC kick or what you might get if you took ’70s arena rock, put it in a can and shook it really, really hard, Italian duo Zolle are a burst of weirdo sensation on their fifth full-length, Rosa. The songs are ready for whatever football match stadium P.A. you might want to put them on — hugely, straight-ahead, uptempo, catchy, fun in pieces like “Pepe” and “Lana” at the outset, “Merda,” “Pompon,” “Confetto” and “Fiocco” later on, likewise huge and silly in “Pois” or closer “Maialini e Maialine,” and almost grounded on “Toffolette e Zuccherini” at the start but off and running again soon enough — if you can keep up with guitarist/vocalist Marcello and drummer Stefano, for sure they make it worth the effort, and capture some of the intensity of purpose they bring to the stage in the studio and at the same time highlighting the shenanigans writ large throughout in their riffs and the cheeky bit of pop grandiosity that’s such a toy in their hands. You would not call it light on persona.

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Subsound Records website

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Shadow and Claw, Whereabouts Unknown

Thicker in tone than much of modern black metal, and willing toward the organic in a way that feels born of Cascadia a little more to the northwest as they blast away in “Era of Ash,” Boise, Idaho’s Shadow and Claw nonetheless execute moody rippers across the five songs/41 minute of their debut, Whereabouts Unknown. Known for his work in Ealdor Bealu and the solo-project Sawtooth Monk, guitarist/vocalist Travis Abbott showcases a rasp worthy of Enslaved‘s Grutle Kjellson on the 10-minute “Wrath of Thunder,” so while there are wolves amid the trio’s better chairs, to be sure, Shadow and Claw aren’t necessarily working from any single influence in or out of char-prone extreme metals, and as the centerpiece gives over to the eponymous “Shadow and Claw,” those progressive aspirations are reaffirmed as Abbott, drummer/backing vocalist Aaron Bossart (also samples) and bassist/backing vocalist Geno Lopez find room for a running-water-backed acoustic epilogue to “Scouring the Plane of Existence” and the album as a whole. Easy to imagine them casting these songs into the sunset on the side of some pointy Rocky Mountain or other, shadows cast and claws raised.

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Shadow and Claw on Bandcamp

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Legend has it that among the peoples of the Weedia there is a technique known as the ‘earthbong’ whereby a young one coming of age ascends to the top of Trichome Mountain, presents the sacred terpene relics to the goddess, and learns how to get high off the very air itself. Science calls it a ‘breathing technique,’ but you, me and the Weedia know it’s fucking magic, no question.

Kiel, Germany’s Earthbong made their full-length debut in 2018 with the hour-long One Earth One Bong — the title perhaps suggesting that all bongs are a part of the greater Earthbong, connected somehow by cannabinoid quantum entanglement — comprising four songs that have become among the defining releases for a niche known as bong metal. Repetitive, usually longform riffing, a doomed, sludgy cast, roaring vocals and more tonal heft than a Trichome Mountain avalanche; these are some of the characteristics on offer born out of the sludge wrought by the likes of Weedeater or Bongzilla, Bongripper, of course Sleep‘s Dopesmoker LP, Sabbath, Electric Wizard, and so forth. But through the work of Earthbong and acolytes of their ilk — arguable forerunners Belzebong, as well as Bongfoot, Bonginator, BongBongBeerWizards, among others — a microgenre has grown where once there was only hyperweedism and a lot of volume. Magic again, I know.

The consuming, duly musty-smelling 62 minutes of One Earth One Bong are a masterclass in aural dankness presented over four obviously extended pieces: “Drop Dead” (17:47), “Maze Crawler” (13:39), “Stash” (14:58) and “Gathering” (16:29), and in true punk rock fashion, the music invites the listener to take it more seriously than it seems to take itself. Even the fast parts are slow, and as the opener and longest track (immediate points) looks to make its first statement, the band six years ago following up on their Demo 2018 (review here) that offered proof-of-concept and included a shorter version of “Drop Dead,” indeed it’s a bong hit. They leave little doubt this sample was recorded organically in the as-yet-mellow lumber takes hold to establish the riff for a few minutes before they hit it full-volume. First the trance, then the tonal roundhouse kick to the head. Classic stuff.

Outwardly, the impression is raw. Even after “Drop Dead” clicks on its fuck-you pedal and begins the churn in earnest, Earthbong maintain the march as the first vocal bellows arrive, circa eight minutes in. “Maze Crawler” is a few minutes shorter and more active in the early going, topped with a harsher scream in alongside the lower gutturalism, but part of what “Drop Dead” is doing at the start of the record — aside from taking rips — is setting the mood, and the patience with which it does so is an essential element of the proceedings that follow. The arrangements are straightforward — guitar, bass, drums, nasty vocals, some samples — and while not without dynamic, the manner in which the songs hammer home their parts and ride the slow grooves they conjure is essential to what works so well throughout One Earth One Bong. It wouldn’t work if each song had 15 parts and jumped from one to the next in proggy style. Even as “Maze Crawler” layers its solo as it nods past the midsection and deeper into the second half, the vibe stays thick, plodding and mellow.

This of course builds to a roaring payoff, righteously punctuated by crash and pummeling noisily before the droning comedown that leads into the single note of guitar and declarative drumming that open “Stash.” Like most of what surrounds, it’s mostly instrumental — if they were yelling for all 15 minutes of the song, it would be a lot, mind you — but throaty shouts appear early before being subsumed into the undulating riff. There are ebbs and flows as the penultimate plodder oozes along, a quiet stretch in the middle before a resurgence no less satisfyingly awesome for being completely expected uses first a solo and then extra-biting vocals to convey a crescendo, bringing to light — such as it is light at all — the dynamic happening throughout One Earth One Bong.

It’s a strength that, given the extremity on display throughout and the general beat-you-over-the-head-with-this-riff nature of the work as a whole, I’m not sure it would be appropriate to call subtle, but at very least it’s not something they’re consciously playing toward — dynamics, that is — but the trio manage to convey the album as a singular construction without actually being the same thing for an hour. Consistency of tone and general atmospheric disposition around the brutalist impulse are of course part of what draws the material together — and the songs to a degree are supposed to be alike — but Earthbong‘s triumph is reaped through sounding monolithic without monotony, and there’s more flexibility in One Earth One Bong than one might at first realize as the band buries the listener’s head in dirt-coated distortion.

Closer “Gathering” bookends with “Drop Dead” and unfolds over two central movements, the first built to a head across the first seven minutes that comes through like High on Fire played at half-speed. This devolves by the time they reach the eight-minute mark into feedback that’s the better part of caustic, and there are a few seconds there where it seems like they’re just going to let it go for the entire second half of the song, but, somewhat mercifully, the guitar turns around to introduce another procession, creeping at the beginning of One Earth One Bong‘s last build and rising, gradually, into a Sabbathian celebration of roll that is massive, cavernous, and basking in stoner metal glory. More feedback ends it, but by then it might as well be church organs singing the praises of addled bliss.

The warriors of Weedia would be proud.

I suppose there’s room to quibble about genre at this point, where the divide between stoner metal and bong metal is, if one exists at all, but somehow that feels like missing the point. If it’s solely about generational turnover — and I’m not convinced it is, but one could argue that; my counterpoint is that two generations of stoner-everything tried to get away from being tagged as ‘stoner’; this revels in it while drawing influence from multiple sides of stoner rock, stoner metal, doom and sludge — then fine, but One Earth One Bong casts its depths as a line in the sand between those who can get on board and everyone else, with the latter probably a much higher percentage than the former. Not for everyone? Yeah, that’s the idea, chief.

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

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It wasn’t my intention when I mapped out today’s posts that all the subjects covered would be German — that’s Deaf Lizard, Mount Hush, Earthbong and Desertfest Berlin — but I got there either way. Sometimes it happens that a day is all-American bands or all-European. I’m sure this isn’t the first time that all-German has happened, and I’m pretty sure I’ve done all-Swedish and all-UK at some point in the last decade and a half, even if I can’t recall the specific instance. I post a lot of stuff. Sometimes these things just happen.

Speaking of posting a lot of stuff, as I reminded the always-a-little-sad-about-it The Patient Mrs. just a while ago, the next two weeks — and maybe the Monday after; I have to see how it goes — will be the Fall Quarterly Review. 100 releases covered, at least. I thought about breaking it up over a month or so, doing a week here, a week there — that happened in Spring and it wasn’t the worst thing ever, but I’ve got more going on in October than that can accommodate, my original plan had been to do the QR in early September — the start of school made that significantly less realistic — and I’m doubled up for a couple days in there as it is. It needs to be done, so it will, and the next two weeks is how it’s being done.

The Pecan had off from school yesterday for Rosh Hashanah — happy new year if you were celebrating — and The Patient Mrs. didn’t, so she and I had pretty much the whole day together while her mom worked. We hit the playground in the morning and the library after, then came home and she continued with a knockoff-Lego my mother brought her the other night that she’s been working on the last few days — the instructions aren’t as good on the cheap ones, so it turns out to be a little more of a challenge; we got her the $300 Lego Deku Tree set, because Zelda, which has like 2,500 pieces and is recommended for 18+ and she finished it in two days — and I got the Sonolith review done in time to post the premiere before the album actually came out today and she got a bath before going back to school today, which was very much needed, so I’ll call the day an unmitigated win. We had a nice time.

Zelda is a big one in the house right now. We did Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom all together, family-style, and now she’s watching Zelda-theory videos on YouTube and has played A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, The Minish Cap (which I finished last week and is fun), the Link’s Awakening Switch remake and The Wind Waker (which I just put on my phone; it lags a bit but not too badly) to one level or another, and in addition to all that, we’ve read through the Hyrule Historia, the Zelda Encyclopedia and the strategy guides for Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom more times than I can count. One of those you’re-a-fan-of-this-thing-so-here’s-content-about-it specialty magazines came out around the release last week of Echoes of Wisdom — where you get to be Zelda herself for the first time (on a console; there was a PC game in the ’90s which I know about from… wait for it… reading a shit-ton about the series) — and we’ve read through that and we’re playing through the new game as well, though admittedly, that’s mostly her holding the controller until a boss fight, when she gives it to me, or a puzzle, when she gives it to her mother and then yells at her to do it right the first time. Turns out Zelda is some high-stakes shit when you’re six going on seven. Did I mention we’re putting together a giant birthday party for the 19th? Should make that second week of the Quarterly Review even more fun.

This weekend is a different birthday party (not hers) and then Sunday work on the QR and recovery from the day before. These things take a lot out of everybody, her not the least of all, so might try to get some movement in early in the day and then chill out. She’s best if you can get her out in the AM, but her sensory needs and her movement needs are so high — you should’ve seen her in the fastest spinny thing at the playground yesterday; I would have vomited and then died, even at her age — as she embodies the ADHD diagnosis questionnaire’s line about “Driven, as if by a motor” so much that some day I tell her to get it tattooed on her person, that she can’t really even out if she doesn’t get over that hurdle. School knows it too; it’s why she has the wobble-chair written into her 504 education plan. Between this and meds, she is thriving in Hyrule as well as actual reality. Some days it’s harder to see that in the big picture, but it’s true nonetheless. She’ll be a weirdo forever though, and she comes by it honestly enough.

I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Have fun out there, whatever you’re up to, and don’t forget to hydrate as we move into Fall. This month the leaves in New Jersey start change, and I’m looking forward to that, not the least because it will probably start right around the time the QR is done. Ha. In any case, thanks again for reading.

FRM.

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