Well, I have just about a full week’s worth of news to catch up on, so we must be coming down to the end of the Quarterly Review. “Planets align. A king is born. Dodge Swinger.” Etc.

It’s been real, though. Again, I didn’t go one day without putting something in my notes for end-of-year list time, and that includes today as well. If you’ve come along for the ride on these 50 release, thank you. I hope you’ve found something new to listen to, or at least had your opinions of what you’ve already heard confirmed, which always feels good on some level. I will say it’s been a pleasure to dig into this stuff, and I don’t know who slates these things — that’s a joke, I do; there’s nobody else here; sometimes I feel like I need to say that even after 17 years because I’m both insecure and irrelevant — but they did alright on this one because at no point in this process was I like, “omg what is mah life,” and it’s always a relief to not get there.

Bottom line, as always, thanks for reading. I’ll be back with another of these in October, probably.

Quarterly Review #41-50:

Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol, The Disappearing Man

Word on the street — by that I mean their Linktree — is that Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol release their new single “Ca$h Grab” Aug. 18. That’s also the title-track of their next full-length, reportedly, but the low-string charmer Austin trio have been eeking out singles since Spring, and the resultant three-songer, The Disappearing Man, is a welcome keep-momentum interim outing for those who’ve been chasing the dragon of 2024’s Big Dumb Riffs (review here) and need something new for their reels-addled attention spans. All three tracks — “The Disappearing Man,” “Bough Down” and “Peaches” — are two minutes long but each gives a different look between the sneer of “Peaches,” the post-grunge heavy rock of “Bough Down” and the harder-hitting pummeling fuckery of the title cut. Is it a holdover? Yeah, probably. Will it even exist when the album comes out and likely features the same tracks? I don’t know. But it’s here now and the songs rule, so maybe get it while it’s there to get got and worry about the rest later, hmm?

Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol website

Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol Linktr.ee

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Tidal Wave, Volume Tree

The rock is by no means gone from Tidal Wave‘s sound on Volume Tree, but a shift has taken place as well since 2023’s The Lord Knows (review here) such that the first half of the new record seems to draw more from classic heavy metal than desert rock. On “The Orb,” “Hangman,” “Earth” and “Temple of Humanity,” that finds the Swedish foursome more in league with Dio-era Sabbath or Johan Langquist-fronted Candlemass, which is a compliment to vocalist Alexander “Sunkan” Sundqvist. The back half of the album, with “Sideburns,” “Shapeshifter,” “Manuscript 512” and “Skitliv,” complicates the narrative in the yachty experiment of the closer and the penultimate cut drawing the two sides together, but “Sideburns” and “Shapeshifter” have desert-style push, and the latter reminds particularly of late-1900s outfits like The Awesome Machine in its crunch and buzz. Either way they go, the songs hit their marks, so mark it a win for the complexity.

Tidal Wave on Bandcamp

Ripple Music website

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Thunderchief, With Hatchet, Pike or Morning Star…

With six songs likewise furious and welcome, Richmond, Virginia’s Thunderchief are only right to name their latest EP after ways they might possibly kill you. The charred heavy thrash-doom of from the two-piece of guitarist/screamer Rik Surly and drum-pummeler Erik Larson does not shy away from the caustic, and whether it’s a roll like “Entrance of the Devil” or the gallop-over-your-head “Chintzy,” or the concluding noisefest in “Slurpee,” to which nine of the EP’s 23 minutes are dedicated, their penchant for aural slaughter shows itself in Surly‘s unflinching rasp, in Larson‘s corresponding pounding — looking at you, “Malaise” — and in the disaffected shove of “Lie Nation,” the band packing a full album’s worth of aggression into the abbreviated runtime. This is Thunderchief‘s wheelhouse, and hardly their first excursion into listener-abuse, but as impressive as the raw sustained ferocity is — not that the world doesn’t provide constant reasons to stay angry — it’s the fact that the material holds together and bears the weight they put to it that makes their approach so lethal. That’s on full and punishing display here.

Thunderchief website

Thunderchief on Instagram

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Umma, Kosmovisionen

A multinational collaboration between Peruvian psychheads Chino Burga and Pepe Abad (both veterans of La Ira de Dios) and Scott “Dr. Space” Heller (Øresund Space Collective and adjacent projects), Umma resonate psychedelic meditation across their four-song debut, Kosmovisionen, with layers of intersecting guitar drones, percussion, and synth. “Monts” sets the stage for the unfolding free/freak jazz of “Procesio,” and while “Aeparatio” feels grounded by comparison, its float of guitar remains transcendant ahead of the finale “Ogon,” which is a dream of experimentalist tone and cymbal wash. I don’t know how much of a band Umma are going to be, sending files back and forth between Peru and Portugal, but they tap into something spiritual here in just 35 minutes, and Kosmovisionen sounds more like the beginning of a broader exploration rather than a one-off collab. They create so much space, it’d be a shame if they didn’t grow and flesh out their arrangements accordingly.

Umma on Bandcamp

Echodelick Records website

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Rifle, Bound to a Psychotic Cycle

Intended as a 7″ complement to the DHU Records vinyl pressing of Rifle‘s 2025 album, Beyond Paranoia, this two-songer plays out for 11 minutes across “Incarnation” and “Twisted Death,” vibing like rote jams with mellow vocals overtop like Endless Boogie or something like that, with an unpredictable edge and underlying tension. Apparently there were lineup issues? I’m not sure on the story, but the resultant vibe is off-kilter in a fascinating way — it’s not necessarily holding back the songs, I mean — and the low-key chaos they capture in the recordings, with mad swirls of guitar behind the mostly-whisper vocals, builds on what the album was doing in pieces like “Beyond Paranoia” and “Gipsy Spell” while feeling less tethered to a classic-heavy/vintage songwriting methodology. That may be indicative of a future direction, or these may just be leftovers from the album sessions, I don’t know, but it’s weird and dug in and sounds like it doesn’t care in the slightest how you classify it.

Rifle on Bandcamp

DHU Records store

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Brass Hearse, Can’t Get No

This year has brought new productivity from Boston experimentalists Brass Hearse, who’ve released three singles in 2026 in addition to this 17-track/51-minute ambient film soundtrack; their first new offerings in six years. The penultimate “Destroyer of the Breach” runs nearly nine minutes, but most of Can’t Get No — titled after the movie — is made up of shorter pieces one to three minutes long, with drones and guitar, keys and various washes of tone, some cogent progressions, some purposefully not, evoking a feeling of loneliness and foreboding. Presumably the title is a Rolling Stones reference — “Drifting Through the Void” might build on the song in question as well, though I might be imagining it — and I haven’t seen the movie, but from what I read it’s shorter than the soundtrack, so yes, that would be emblematic of the new creative delve on the part of the Boston band. On its own, the album makes for a meditative, atmospheric listen but don’t take that to mean Brass Hearse lack dynamic or are doing the same thing all the time. They just happen to be really effective in conjuring a world.

Brass Hearse on Bandcamp

Brass Hearse on Instagram

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Svindel, Drömfeber

Tucked away in the northeast of Sweden, the Umeå-based three-piece Svindel strike an immediately classic impression on their Ripple-issued debut album, Drömfeber, channeling boogie rock’s sense of motion and, in the title-track and elsewhere, calling to mind psychedelic reach without actually veering too far from the underlying structures of their material. Somebody’s playing organ on opener “Jupiterbarn,” and I’d swear I hear keyboards elsewhere too, but none among guitarist/vocalist Jan Lindblad, bassist Daniel Forsberg and drummer/backing vocalist Johannes Braf is credited with the contribution, so maybe I’m the one in a fever dream. In any case, as “Tunga Ögon” hints toward blues and “Ta Mig Tillbaka Till Världen Nu” embarks in the direction of pastoralia, the stylistic book hardly seems closed in terms of how Svindel might progress, but the fact that they are able to cover this swath without sacrificing cohesive songwriting makes their debut impressive even for someone like me who speaks not a lick of Swedish.

Svindel on Instagram

Ripple Music website

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Dirtmother, Dirtmother Live

The abrasive sludge excoriation of Dirtmother Live makes a fitting companion-piece for the Fayetteville, Arkansas, local-legend/cryptid outfit’s 19-years-later 2025 self-titled debut (review here), presenting five songs across a rasping, willfully confrontational half-hour set captured from the board at the American Legion Hall in their hometown in true punker fashion, and let’s say probably mixed thereafter. In this material — most of which comes from the record; “Reversal” seems to be “Reverse Cowgirl” under a different name and “Cult of Suzie Everett” does not appear on the studio LP — the nodding fuzz and the impact-density of their low end comes though in full-punch glory, stage banter is preserved, and “Trucker” is even nastier in its bite than it already was, which should be read as a high compliment to the achievement. If you don’t come out of this wanting to start a sludge band, consult a physician.

Dirtmother on Bandcamp

Dirtmother on Instagram

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Hijss, Hijss

Italy’s Hijss return after 2024’s Stuck on Common Ground (review here) with a self-titled eight-song/39-minute LP that’s an even deeper dive into krautisms and cosmic heavy rock, volatile in “Vicious Cycle” and “Parasite,” daring to soothe before they walk into the wash of “S.W.A.N.” and getting full-on electro-dance-mode in the penultimate “Fatal Attraction” before the moody distortion swell of “Outro” rounds out. Opener and longest track (immediate points) “Drain of Thoughts” establishes precedent in the motorik-roll-turned-heavy-shove progression, but the ultimate product of the album is that Hijss have gotten weirder and more individualized in the last two years, they’re ready to tour with labelmates Giöbia like yesterday, and the experimentalism in bringing together acoustics and synthesized textures of “Underwater” and the throb/fuzz banger “Dopamine” present a fresher take than I’ve yet seen the band credited for honing.

Hijss on Linktr.ee

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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Deley Sound System, Unsync 001

Deley Sound System is the techno alter-ego of Budapesti psychedelic improvisationalist Deley, and if you’re feeling particularly adventurous, their earlier-2026 live recording Unsync 001 captures them bringing their spontaneity-fueled creative process to a style of music that, considering it’s programmed, is often classified as more staid. Psychedelia persists across genre here as the band weave together samples and different layers to carve an affect that’s all the more immersive and hypnotic not in spite of the steady beat that might underpin a track like “Sun 001” or the 18-minute “BBM 001” but rather because of it. The dub techno and synthesizer aspects, playing off influences from jams and generally more guitar-led (or -inclusive at all, for that matter) fare, are fascinating academically, but it’s satisfying as well to hear a band so willing to step beyond their comfort zone and a crucial reminder that the boundaries of creativity are far more imaginary than the sitar sounds on “Sun 002” and that the most dangerous thing to any status quo is a mind brave enough to look beyond it as these minds do here.

Deley on Bandcamp

Deley Linktr.ee

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Some off-laptop bumps and unpleasantness yesterday, but nothing to actually derail this process, just to make it both less efficient and less pleasant. I’m grateful for that. Life happens, and what I’ve learned is that there are two ways to be a “lifer” in music or any kind of anything, and the easier and often more celebrated one is to not have a life. “Oh so and so is such a lifer they’ve toured for 30 years and never got famous.” Cool bro. Go coregulate an hour-long throw-furniture tantrum, still manage to handle your business on your own terms, and then call me. The harder-core lifer has a life beyond the work they’re doing, whatever that may be and whatever Gen-X ‘punk legends’ might tell you otherwise.

Today is the penultimate day of the Quarterly Review, bringing us — you, cool, serene, the picture of grace, and me, a sweaty cavetroll of middle age — closer to the stated goal of 50 releases covered by tomorrow. At this point, I like our chances, but you never know what’s coming until you get there. So let’s get there before declaring victory.

Quarterly Review #31-40:

Child, Rebirth

I’m not sure there’s anybody out there right now who does heavy blues as bluesy as Melbourne, Australia’s Child, and even as their fourth full-length, Rebirth, shifts the balance the ‘rock’ end of blues rock, the emphasis on soul remains strong and central in their work. The album runs 35 minutes and six songs, and with no small task in following up 2023’s Soul Murder (review here), the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Mathias Northway, bassist Rhys Kelly and drummer Michael Lowe bring clarity of purpose to material like “Forgot How to Love,” which takes a desert rock riff to the mud, or the catchy four-minute “Heavy Load.” Working in slow tempos isn’t new for Child — they cook, and good cooking takes time — but they’re still able to make “I Tried (Newy)” move under its fuzzy-as-hell solo, while opener/longest track (immediate points) “Woman Like You” sets the stage for tales of heartbreak, boozehounding and other vaguely self-destructive whathaveyou. Northway is an ace on guitar and carries the vocals well, but I’ll put this rhythm section up against just about anybody out there when it comes to sleek, gradual groove. Not a ton of surprises, but still satisfying.

Child website

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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Dr. Space, Dr. Space’s Wicked Sonic Bulls

Regular collaborator Martin Weaver (Wicked Lady, etc.) handles bass while Tom Ashurst (ex-Hawklords) steps in on guitar and Darren Butler takes up drum duties — all of a sudden, opening track “Shouldn’t You Do It?” (18:24) makes it seem like synthmaster and Øresund Space Collective bandleader/producer Scott “Dr. Space” Heller has a whole band together for Dr. Space’s Wicked Sonic Bulls, the four-song/70-miinute outing that isn’t even his latest at this point but is an immersive joy just the same. The drums bring flow to the float, and Heller‘s e’er-molten synthery is sit-and-take-it-all-in hypnotic, weaving drones behind the dream-tone of Ashurst‘s guitar as the band dynamic takes shape. Of course, the fades-in, goes-everywhere, comes-apart-at-the-end closer “The Underside of Your Tongue” (29:56) is a focal point, and feels daring in terms of tempo even with “Splasing, Lashing, Flashing” (10:43) as preface, but the mood across the almost-certainly-entirely-improvisational outing is, duh, exploratory, and nothing in the resultant material takes away from that. Comforting and rad in kind. Put headphones on and get yourself lost.

Dr. Space on Bandcamp

Space Rock Productions website

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Shadow of Jupiter, Bones

The largesse in “Bones” and the dudely swagger of “Rumblestrip” puts Bones squarely in the realm of modern capital-‘h’ Heavy, and Chicagoan four-piece Shadow of Jupiter revel in it accordingly. “Riot Dogs” is cavernous and crushing, while “Whatever God You Fear” moves faster like a beefed-up High Desert Queen but holds to the thickness overarching the seven-song entirety here as the band play to multiple sides here, and while I’m not sure what role faith actually plays in their craft, closer “For Heaven Above” feels duly downtrodden and tired of humanity and is Sabbath-rooted beneath all its tonal hugeness, through which the melodic vocals cut smoothly as they have all along. Burl is a factor, but the songwriting is there beneath the well-produced bluster, and though the prevailing impression is in its sheer heft, Shadow of Jupiter hone a sense of dynamic as they plunge into their own distortion and gravitational nod. Bones is their first album for Ripple Music and second overall, and it sure feels like they nailed it in terms of stepping up to the moment.

Shadow of Jupiter website

Ripple Music website

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Psychedelic Source Records, Pseudopredestinated

Three jams, each hovering on either side of 20 minutes, contemplative and following the stated narrative of casting off mundane woes — busted cars, jobs, etc. — to escape for a bit into the ether. Pseudopredestinated is day-in-the-life psychedelic improvisation, featuring familiar players from the Psychedelic Source Records stable in Bence Ambrus on guitar, Gergely Szabó and David Strausz splitting bass duties and Máte Varga on drums, coming together to headfirst-dive into the aural unknown and see where they end up. In “Protoplanetarian,” that’s a noisier and more active space to answer the graceful build of opener “Precambriality,” and closer “Postpurposes” builds on the low-key shred and pushes further into the far-out. It’s emblematic fare for the Psychedelic Source Records collective, thematically and musically — yes, that is a compliment — and if you find yourself looking also to indulge a bit of escapism from your own mind, immersion awaits. Part of the joy here is never knowing quite where you’ll end up but going, going, going.

Psychedelic Source Records on Bandcamp

Psychedelic Source Records on Spotify

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Fangus, Emerald Dream

Well, you’re a ’70s-sounding heavy rock band with a strong emphasis on Hammond organ, so yes, people are going to say you sound like Deep Purple. The good news is that swinging Montreal five-piece Fangus are too busy dug into their own might-pivot-to-the-next-boogie-at-any-moment, vibe-dense sound to show they care much at all, and a ripper like “Pyre of Love” stands as evidence of this. Keys are a big part of what they do — that Mellotron on the title-track, the organ taking the fore on “Psychoid Telepath,” and so on — but the crunching tone of the guitar and the gutted-out vocals are no less vintage in their mindset, and while I don’t know that it was all recorded live, the band-in-the-room feel is palpable, ditto the chemistry, and that suits them both in the shove of “Time Gambler” and the burgeoning progressivism of “Quest for Fire,” the album as a whole rarely diverting from its sense of movement. Once “Howling Hammer” picks up from establishing its riff, they’re on their way and show little interest in looking back, refusing to be beholden even to the reverence in their sound as they convey freedom and breakout.

Fangus on Bandcamp

Fangus on Instagram

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Hollow Drifter, Colours in Time

With two full-lengths and numerous singles/two-songers to their credit since 2019, Amsterdam psychedelic progressive rockers Hollow Drifter sound duly comfortable dwelling somewhere between the two on Colours in Time, on which the first and last tracks — “Morning Fog” (2:27) and “Cradlesong” (1:48) — complement and enhance the atmosphere of the 14-minute centerpiece, “Seasons, Ages, Legends…,” which tinges toward alt rock momentarily but feels warm and organic in its acoustic-guitar foundations even as it grows more lush with the introduction of electrics. The extended piece ebbs and flows but remains purposeful for the duration, and after the first, willfully gorgeous build ends after six minutes, they remain in control in terms of the direction they’re headed, subtly building again toward repetitions of the EP’s title-lyric over nuanced noodling and steady, tense drums that give hints of the unfolding about to take place as they move into the solo. The harmonized folk of “Morning Fog” and acoustic strum/keys of “Cradlesong” fit and flesh out the atmosphere, and as this is my first experience with the band, the message of homework to do is almost as clear as the evocations of the music itself. Get pastoral.

Hollow Drifter website

Hollow Drifter on Instagram

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Veilcaste, Hellward

Keyed for onslaught, Hellward is the fourth full-length from Indianapolis veteran heavymakers Veilcaste, who bring together doom, sludge and post-metallic atmospheres to create a style that’s almost universally oppressive, even in its moments of foreboding quiet, and able to harness an intensity that extends to the “You don’t belong here” lyrical reptitions of the title-track. How they transposed my inner monologue to fit the song, I don’t know, but kudos. The bellowing “Chains” and worldcrumbling “Worn in Stone” show some influence from ’90s metal, whether that’s Sepultura‘s slowdowns or Godflesh, but at this point Veilcaste have found their niche in consuming aggression, and from the outset-descent of “Embedded” to the oblivion-march into the subdued acoustic finish of “I Am the Guillotine,” they punish aurally and conjure depths of mix in which there’s still intricacy and humanity to be found. I’ve had days that sound exactly like “Anchored.” Maybe you have too, if you’re reading this.

Veilcaste on Bandcamp

Third House Communications on Bandcamp

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Robot God, Onto the Afterlife

Onto the Afterlife makes itself a journey, and maybe that’s not such a deep insight since the title itself does more than hint at it, but the way Sydney heavy rockers Robot God take their fifth album from its relatively straight-ahead beginnings to a gradually broader-reaching mindset across the longer final three tracks — the penultimate “I Am the Night” becoming both a celebration of Sabbathianism and an expansive psychedelic jaunt in its 11 minutes — feels purposeful on the part of the prolific trio, and the procession is all the more a joy to follow after the wakeup crashes of “Soldier of Love” and the semiprog chug of the title-track at the outset, atmosphere being the key to tying it all together. Centerpiece “Cerebral Annihilation” marks the turn, instrumental save for its sample, and the builds of “Long Goodbye” are suited to round out, but it’s the fluidity of the changes within and between the songs and the obvious care put into their craft that lets Onto the Afterlife carry the listener across its 41-minute duration. Without sounding morbid, it’s a trip very much worth taking.

Robot God on Bandcamp

Kozmik Artifactz website

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Mothertomb, Dying to Live

The debut full-length from North Michigan atmospheric doom four-piece Mothertomb, Dying to Live, brims with purpose from the three-minute mood-setting intro “The Summoning” onward. And indeed, mood becomes integral throughout the five-track/39-minute stretch as “Cythraul” picks up from the intro with a 10-minute croon-doom build, unshy in its metal but not anymore beholden to the double-kick than it needs to be to get the point across. The four-piece of vocalist/cover artist Alice Gawlinski, guitarist Chance Gawlinski, bassist Alton Minor and drummer Mike Benitez remind atmospherically of dark-arts practicioners like Second Grave in their ambient take on doom metal — emphasis on both the doom and the metal — in “Beware,” but “Mountain Hag” is more stoned in its first-half roll before the operatics and screams and crush, so I’m not prepared to say the book is closed on what they’re going for sound-wise. Nonetheless, as they end with the also-hard-hitting title-track’s apex screams, the potential for forward growth is easy to hear. Won’t be for everyone, but will land hard with those who can get to its level.

Mothertomb website

Mothertomb on TikTok

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Producer, Three

With two members of Alabama Thunderpussy in the lineup — guitarist Ryan Lake and drummer Bryan Cox — and Fire Faithful‘s Jon Bone on bass, it shouldn’t really come as a surprise that Richmond, Virginia’s Producer have more than a tinge of Southern heavy to their sound, but the band completed by guitarist Mike Jarvis and vocalist Kenny Ball run that through a thread of classic heavy metal and find clarity in the slowdown of “The Climb” and the harder push of “The Upper East Side Sadists,” with the two-minute “A Natural Death” fostering swing to follow the AC/DC-ism of opening cut “Nailed to the Cross” before closer/still-under-five-minute longest track “Vengeful God Complex” seems to pull the various sides together. Three takes its title from the fact that it’s the band’s third EP, which I chalk up to a conscious choice because there’s no way they’re not ready for an album if they don’t want to be. I’ll take 18 minutes in the swamp though, to be sure.

Producer on Bandcamp

Producer on Instagram

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Kiel, Germany, bong metal ritualists Earthbong will release their fourth album, Salutations to the Cultivators, on Oct. 23 through The Lasting Dose Records and Evil Noise Recordings. The day after that, they’ll be at the Church of Riffs to celebrate among the throng at this year’s Høstsabbat before undertaking more crush-you-in-person live activity in Germany in November, with more dates TBA for 2027. It is the band’s first studio outing since 2023’s Church of Bong (review here), and to mark this make-it-official announcement of the release, they’re premiering the track “Third Eye” — you know I love an eight-minute single — on the YouTube embed below. You’ll find it just above the righteous human-made cover art for the album.

Last year, the band sent forth the live-in-studio three-songer, Bring Your Lungs (review here), and “Third Eye” certainly stands in line with that effort in terms of the raw heft delivered and the unkind nature of the sound generally, but it’s also got a sense of space. This is not your friendly-fuzz, warm and inviting stonerism. This is flattened-by-the-edible-too-stoned couchlock and crush brought to bear in a world made mostly so it can be filled with the goo that was your sense of rational thinking. Sounds like hyperbole? Good. Extreme music should garner an extreme response, even if that’s staring straight ahead and loosing a “whoa” from the depths of your belly that comes up like the drums of Moria.

And maybe that’s fitting, since amid all that omegasludge and harsh rasp, there indeed lurks something ancient and monstrous in the reaches of “Third Eye,” which if it’s fostering enlightenment, it’s not without a price extracted. Death-doom pervades, extrapolating a vicious intensity from that most morose of metallic microgenres, and on that level, I am curious what Salutations to the Cultivators will bring. But October is so far away. Oh, however will we pass the time…

Enjoy:

Earthbong, “Third Eye” track premiere

Salutations to the Cultivators is Earthbong’s fourth album and their first for Berlin’s independent imprint The Lasting Dose Records. Unsurprisingly for a band whose past releases are entitled Church of Bong and Bring Your Lungs, this new record revolves around altered states and the craft of growing weed. “Bug” reimagines Kafka’s Metamorphosis as a stoner doom cautionary tale, the debut single “Third Eye” chases another state of perception while high, and “Harvester” and “Herbal Saints” honor the holy plant itself. Earth-shattering riffs collide with devastatingly heavy bass lines, mind-altering solos and the trio’s trademark caveman growls.

“‘Salutation to the Cultivators’ is a line taken from Sleep’s ‘Giza Butler’ track, as the album is meant as a homage, not only to the cultivators of weed but also to the cultivators of the stoner doom genre. As we have started with long-form songs and a more unconventional approach to songwriting and structures, we feel that this is our most accessible album yet,” says the band.

Tracked live over a weekend at Kassel’s Kulturzentrum Karnak, the album was recorded, mixed and mastered by Felix Margraf. It features guest contributions from Timo Fritz (Purple Dawn) and Feli (Frost, Pisse & Elend).

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Earthbong is a three-piece doom band from Kiel/Germany. The band was formed in 2018 and released three studio records, a live album and one EP so far. Earthbong are heading towards the riff-filled land with their unique blend of doom, metal and sludge: “They’re like a Bongzilla-Sleep-Milkshake. But they get it. They are their own thing.” (Mike Scheidt, YOB).

Earthbong has toured Australia in spring 2025, including headlining performances at Sun Burn Festival and Stoned To Death Fest Sydney and shared the stage with the ancestors of the bong metal genre like Bongzilla, Bongripper and Belzebong. They also supported bands such as The Obsessed, Unida and Firebreather. With more than 90 shows over the past years, including festivals like ReykjaDoom Festival (Iceland), Stoned From The Underground (DE), Rock in Bourlon (FR) and Hoflärm Open Air (DE), Earthbong earned a reputation as one of the heaviest and best live acts within the underground doom scene.

Their 4th studio album SALUTATIONS TO THE CULTIVATORS will be released on October 23rd 2026 via The Lasting Dose Records (Vinyl, CD, digital) and Evil Noise Recordings (Cassette), followed by a show at the legendary Høstsabbat Festival in Oslo/Norway. More shows and festivals for 2026/2027 are planned.

Earthbong live:
24.10. – NO – Høstsabbat Festival Oslo
19.11. – DE – Hamburg, MS Stubnitz
20.11. – DE – Berlin, Neue Zukunft
21.11. – DE – München, Black Mantra Festival

Tickets: https://linktr.ee/earthbong

Earthbong on Bandcamp

Earthbong on Instagram

Earthbong on Facebook

The Lasting Dose Records on Bandcamp

The Lasting Dose Records on Instagram

The Lasting Dose Records on Facebook

Evil Noise Recordings store

Evil Noise Recordings on Instagram

Evil Noise Recordings on Facebook

Today is the traditional passing-the-midpoint of the Quarterly Review — hump day, if you need it on humping terms — and indeed, this 50-release QR keeps with that tradition. It’s been almost absurdly easy so far to get through, as the best of them are, and not one day — including this one — has passed without me adding at least two releases from each batch of 10 to my notes for year-end list time. That’s a pretty impressive rate, even for an old softy like me, but the bottom line always is that I hope you find something you enjoy even as I do the same. I think maybe I needed this kind of dig-in more than I realized when I started slating what I was going to be writing about. I guess that happens sometimes.

Let’s keep the thing going.

Quarterly Review #21-30:

Warning, Rituals of Shame

Some 20 years after releasing their landmark second album, Watching From a Distance, Patrick Walker-led emotive doom metal pioneers Warning return with a potentially landmark third, Rituals of Shame. The band’s first outing in that long — though Walker has divided his time with 40 Watt Sun and issued solo material as well — is no less grueling of tempo or willfully emotionally laborious for that, and Walker‘s voice remains singularly wrenching such that the 12-minute opening title-track (also the longest; immediate points) feels like it’s pulling you down into the melancholic world that the rest of the 45-minute LP goes on to make, from the plodding “Stations” to, well, the also-plodding “Teacher,” never veering from its purpose or lifting the tonal or melodically-depressive weight once applied. Rituals of Shame is an odd fit for being tagged as ‘brutal,’ but it is its own kind of extremity-of-form nonetheless, and a challenge that sets its terms early and (quietly) dares you to follow the path its songs lay out.

Warning on Instagram

Relapse Records website

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Mike Bee & The Acid Fuzz Trio, White Noise Sound

Cambodia-via-UK outfit Mike Bee & The Acid Fuzz Trio follows the psychedelic leaning adventures of its namesake songwriter/guitarist/vocalist Mike Bee (also Last Bee on Earth, Deep Sky Revival, etc.) across White Noise Sound from the blinding garage tone-bite of its leadoff title-cut through mellowstoner and dub of “Goodbye Mary Jane” and “Beyond the Wheel,” riffing bluesier on “Hey Bong!” and getting fuzzy and Bowie-gone-desert-contemplative in “Johnny The Living Star” to set up the fierce groove of “Rise Like a Phoenix” at the end, the seven-song/26-minute album — it’s short, but feels like an LP more than an EP, so I’m making the call myself — has hooks a-plenty and gets playful on “Lion, Sword and Sun” without sounding like a ’60s put-on or something like that, each inclusion establishing its own atmosphere while adding to the admittedly understated breadth of the whole. It’s a weird one, to be sure, but for those who can make their way to its wavelength, the songs will stick to whatever membranes you got.

Mike Bee & The Acid Fuzz Trio website

Mike Bee & The Acid Fuzz Trio on Instagram

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Teké Collective, Remember and Hope

Teké Collective would seem to be one of several projects under the operating umbrella of Milan, Italy, producer Marino-Angelo Scordilis, and on the new single “Remember and Hope” (7:18), the Collective features no fewer than seven other contributors, including True Canyon‘s spoken word in the second half and a variety of synth and percussion. It is exploratory but aware of the influences from which it draws, and winds up as a kind of world-prog rock. There are psychedelic aspects but it’s too clearheaded to be lysergic, and with all the tight funk in the first half of the song, reminds a bit of earlier P-Funk‘s ability to go anywhere it wants, though the stylistic context here is different. Texture in the two guitars and synth take hold early, but it’s the bass that carries it through the midsection into the slowdown, and the story — a narrative about the power of memory to overcome oppression — is fluidly told with a sense of joy rather than mourning something lost, even though it is that too. There’s a lot packed into one seven-minute single, but it works.

Marino-Angelo Scordilis on Bandcamp

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Carson, When Gods Know Why

This record came out almost a year ago, so what am I doing reviewing it now? Well, here’s a friendly reminder that music doesn’t have an expiration date, and that I’m only one person and I’m a human being, some stuff is gonna slip by. But with Carson bringing enough hooks and fuzz for the whole class, it seemed like engaging with the eight songs of their confident, strident third full-length, When Gods Know Why, was its own excuse for doing, so there you go. Following 2022’s The Willful Pursuit of Ignorance (review here) with memorable burners like “Engine Down” and the melody-forward grungier twist of “Snow White,” the careening desert rocker “Marion Morrison,” the post-Truckfighters shove of “Drip,” and so on, the Lucerne, Switzerland, three-piece are a reminder of the moving power of heavy rock and roll, and I mean that both physically and in the energetic atmosphere wrought throughout the album all the way up to the blowout at the end of “Only for the Scorned.” Increasingly, they’re a name you can trust. Sorry to have missed this last September. Not sorry to be caught up now.

Carson on Bandcamp

Sixteentimes Music website

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Buzzard, Hillbilly Fuckery b/w Appalachian Blood Bourbon

Polling social media to effect a vox populi, Massachusetts doom folker Buzzard asks the query of our times — “what the fuck?” — over and over again in “Hillbilly Fuckery,” presented in the original and extra-crispy extended versions on this three-songer two-songer, joined with the narrative “Appalachian Blood Bourbon” as the heavy fuzz flows with Christopher Elliott in call and response verses carrying the energy of the song prior (and after), more than filler as complements go, but shorter and somewhat overtaken by all the voices surrounding. The banjo — a regular feature in Buzzard‘s work as the project has taken shape over the last couple years — carries the rhythm along with slide guitar and lumbering, weighted tone, and “Appalachian Blood Bourbon” pairs well for that, its lyrics calling out Hungarian vampires moving to Kentucky and founding an LLC. Buzzard has already announced a Fall LP release, Hush Now, and this as well as other recent singles will feature as CD bonus tracks, which is reasonable considering how much obviously went into their making, answering as well as asking that central question.

Buzzard on Bandcamp

Buzzard on Instagram

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Illwind, The Unfolding at the End of Light

Beginning with the 10-minute atmospheric doom clarion “Crimson Skies,” The Unfolding at the End of Light is the debut album from Peruvian four-piece Illwind, which features current and former members of Reino Ermitaño, Arcada, Argul and Death Invoker, and it arrives with a sense of self accordant to the storied pedigree of its component players. Heavy as buildings and modernly grim of mood, the six-song/47-minute paean finds a balance with (relatively) uptempo fare like the shorter, daring-toward-swing “Portal” before digging back in for “God of Sleep” — note the dreamy part in the second half — and 13-minute finale “Lucifer’s Mule,” which shifts from its acoustic guitar/sample intro to a lumbering procession that’s as spacious as it is consuming. But the inclusion of a bonus cover of The Stooges ultra-classic “Now I Wanna Be Your Dog” — inarguably one of the greatest riffs of all riffy time — bringing it into their established-by-then stylistic context, blowing it out, and capping with an assault of feedback and noise. Lifesblood, this is.

Illwind on Instagram

Personal Records website

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Spiral Galaxy, II

Forgive me speaking personally for a bit, but there are some records that I just feel lucky to have heard. I don’t think you get to be a blogger for 17-plus years without making some seriously questionable life decisions, but I feel validated in the slacker-stoner/domestic-boheme lifepath I’ve apparently chosen hearing II from Chicago terracosmos explorers Spiral Galaxy, whose bridge between effects drone and organic elements reminds of pocket highlights like Montibus Communitas while singing praise to nature with otherworldly sounds. Wholly immersive, welcoming and warm, even with the building thud of “Wir Fur Sea,” II comes across as ceremonial for more than just the rampant flute, and unflinching in the beauty it captures, with “Future Fauna” taking place across its own bed of psych drone and the brief conclusion “Umbra” as a goodbye that feels all too soon. I missed this band’s 2020 debut. Clearly I need to go back and rectify that, but first I’ll just go ahead and put II on my list of this year’s best albums, with the acknowledgement that any kind of temporal placement is selling short its reaches.

Spiral Galaxy on Instagram

Cardinal Fuzz store

Feeding Tube Records website

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Gurt, Survival of the Shittest

If you’ve ever wondered what Gurt‘s pummeling party sludge might sound like adopting grooves from Powerman 5000 and collaborating with a rapper — and if you have, kudos on your hyperspecific curiosity — the three-and-a-half-minute “No Limit” on the London outfit’s three-song Survival of the Shittest has your answer. The purposeful-in-their-yuck troupe have been at this at least 15 years now and they know with what they’re fucking. EP opener “Live Nation, Dead Scene” (2:49) feels rooted in extreme metal but still finishes with a massive, rolling riff, and the centerpiece title-track — you know they’re English because “shit” is a relative noun, as in “a bit shit”; in US English that’s “Shittiest,” which is clearer but doesn’t sound as fun — takes the violence-of-impact up another notch ahead of the playful-if-you-know-they’re-goofballs nu-metal delve. Gurt don’t owe anyone anything at this point musically — no doubt they’re racked with actual-debt like everyone else — but they’re pretty obviously still having fun crushing and gnashing as they are. Does that make them survivors? Are they the shittest? I don’t know, but they go upside your head hard enough to make you forget to ask.

Gurt on Bandcamp

Gurt on Instagram

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Crumbling Ghost, Four

As to what’s stopping Four — the first release in a decade from UK five-piece Crumbling Ghost — from being neofolk, the answer I think is mostly down to the lack of pretense and the heavier tones surrounding the rootsy vocal melodies. The seven-track offering finds itself embracing shades, hues, spirits, whatever-you-want-to-call-them from post-heavy and the ambience is crucial as “Bows of London” and “Bill Norrie” set the 36-minute LP forth, the latter bringing in the max-heft end of their dynamic range that the later “The Unquiet Grave” will use as a whole-album crescendo, but while “Wassail” is noisier and “Lovely Joan” is like a medieval heavy strut, the key is in their ability to change their approach from one piece to the next without letting go of the folkish vocals overarching. Thus they can get as heavy as they want — and do — and “Last of All Sleep” doesn’t have to feel discordant in its move from acoustics to a grunge wash and “Valtz Efter Tor Lohne” resonates as cohesive even as an instrumental. I don’t know their history or where they’ve been for 10 years, but the combination of atmospheric heavy and folk they harness here is markedly their own.

Crumbling Ghost on Bandcamp

New Heavy Sounds on Bandcamp

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Purest Form, Resistance

Danceable and violent in kind, Los Angeles industrial metal trio Purest Form present the six-song/15-minute Resistance EP ahead of appearing at Chicago’s Cold Waves Festival next month. “Beyond Terror” hints in its “Reptile”-y procession toward some underlying Nine Inch Nails influence, but there’s some aspect of retroism about the band’s aggressive take, vocalist Story providing the bite corresponding to the chug of “Animal” and the otherwise drum’n’bass-ish shove of “Bass Resistance” a short time later. This ’90s-informed take finds its ultimate fruition in the concluding cover of The Prodigy‘s “Breathe,” which from what I read is a staple of live sets. Fair enough, but its in the frenetic charge of “Move” that Purest Form demonstrate more what they’re bringing of themselves to push beyond their influences, and as brash as their sound is, one hopes that continues to evolve as they move forward. Intensity and immediacy are assets working in their favor, though, here and on their past EPs.

Purest Form on Instagram

Dais Records on Bandcamp

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I don’t know how many Quarterly Reviews I’ve done at this point, but aside making my wife avoid me for a week, they’re always their own, probably-doesn’t-make-sense-to-anyone-else kind of fun, and it’s an engagement with music that I don’t get in any other way, even doing this site. Some of it feels like the old days in print, with the pile of CDs on my desk waiting to be reviewed for that week’s column, maybe 100 words per (I try to keep it to 150-200 here), with half the challenge going from one thing to the next and not repeating myself. But I don’t really expect anyone to get that. It’s work, but I enjoy it.

Yesterday was killer like Phyllis Diller. If nothing hit you, I hope today’s more your speed. If not, check back tomorrow. I’ll still be here, doing the thing.

Quarterly Review #11-20:

Edena Gardens, Quintessence

The fifth album from the instrumentalist amalgam of Causa Sui and Papir, Edena Gardens‘ Quintessence not only references the ordinal relevance but embodies the title’s implication of getting to the very root purpose of the project. Spread across four sides of a 2LP, the 80-minute six-songer is the band’s most open and rawest-feeling outing to-date, and for a project that was ‘supposed’ to produce a trilogy and then everybody goes home, they continue to bring a sense of vibrancy and exploration to their jams. The difference is that here, the songs are longer, there’s less editing involved, and the production, while clear enough to convey the spirit of what they’re doing, feels pointedly straightforward in doing so. And from the willfully, surprisingly Sabbathian “Nigredo” onward, the titles give hints toward their evocations of ground and color, be it “Earth Blemish” or the 22-minute finale “The Vermillion Quintessence.” Maybe not the best place to start with the band, but on the other hand, maybe it absolutely is.

Edena Gardens on Instagram

El Paraiso Records website

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Stone Clones, You Already Know

“You Already Know” is the fourth studio single from New Zealand four-piece Stone Clones, founded in 2021 by the brotherly pair of guitarists Seager and Calum Ray, the former of whom also serves as lead vocalist in harmony with bassist Juan Los B while Dylan Byrne holds the alt-rock-informed-desert push through the chorus toward the particularly post-Homme solo that follows. The lyrics are something of an assessment of modernity and the “you” in question becomes a stand-in for the greed that exploits and ruins the polis of our day. The song runs 6:20 and captures a mood without giving entirely over to it even in that final verse where some of the purported Radiohead influence comes out, and as they continue to grow and work toward a somewhat inevitable debut album, the place they’re making for themselves between styles will continue to hone its own identity through the songcraft they demonstrate here, making heavy sounds and ideas feel light and able to sway the balance in whatever direction they want.

Stone Clones Linktr.ee

Stone Clones on Bandcamp

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Os Solair, Lever/Capra

Comprised of just the two songs “Lever” (7:49) and “Capra” (5:42), this second EP offering from psychedelic depthmakers Os Solair doesn’t shy away from heft just because it’s also creating a sense of space or wash of effects. “Lever” grows more fervent as it goes and “Capra” picks up where it left off, but the Darmstadt, Germany, four-piece are mindful of dynamic and melodicism as well, and apparently recording live in their rehearsal space with vocal overdubs after, they come across as atmospheric and bit noisy but not really chaotic in the sense of not knowing where they’re headed. That is to say there’s a plan at work on Lever/Capra, and that can be heard as the latter cut moves into its more subdued, psych-adventuring midsection, tense enough in the drums to convey the explosion that’s coming but nonetheless a turn from the lower-end weight of the song’s beginning. Molten in its use of effects on guitar and vocals, it’s almost subversively grounded in the rhythm section, but the two sides work together with a fluidity that’s where the band’s real potential lies. I will look forward to what they do next.

Os Solair on Bandcamp

Os Solair on Instagram

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Darren Ironside, The Nothing

The Nothing is the first solo album from former Midnight Whiskey Massacre guitarist Darren Ironside, and perhaps unsurprisingly the guitar leads the way for most of the nine-song offering. Based in the UK, Ironside blends throaty vocals that at times cross over to the metallic over a succession of riffs informed by doom rock, thrash, classic heavy, etc., over what I’m fairly sure are programmed drum progression, and though the mix is raw and pushes the vocals forward, songs like “To the Gallows” carry across a sense of brooding as the shred pervades, complementing the lyrical disaffection of “Forgotten Dream” — a familiar Charlie Chaplin sample there as well — and, on the other side of the noisy interlude “Nebula Rising,” “Overwatch and Control.” The bottom line is Ironside, who also self-produced, is figuring out where he wants his songs to go — or where they want to go, if you’d rather personify — and beginning to shape his own sound separate from his prior outfit and has something to say about the world around him. It’s raw and will come off abrasive at first to the unacclimated, but there’s groove to be had.

Darren Ironside on Bandcamp

Darren Ironside on Instagram

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Sun Voyager, Coming Down

The ad astra per aspera narrative of New York’s Sun Voyager continues with their latest standalone single, “Coming Down,” which arrives scorching as if they knew the summer would be too damn hot and required something duly humid to coincide. No surprise though it’s a burner, and in the ascendance of guitarist Christian “Shaman Smoke” Lopez as a lead vocalist joined by bassist Stefan Mersch — the band is completed by drummer Kyle Beach, reliable and not to be discounted in holding their songs together — here manifests a sense of breakout that is wrought in the reptitions of the title line, sneering with attitude and righteously cosmic. It’s been nearly four years since Lopez joined Sun Voyager after they lost their prior guitarist/vocalist, and the time the band spent woodshedding and nailing down their chemistry is audible on “Coming Down” as well as the prior serve-notice single “Running Hot” (premiered here). I don’t know what it’s leading toward beyond probably an LP sooner or later, but Sun Voyager sound increasingly ready for whatever’s coming. East Coast psych gnarl. Get it.

Sun Voyager website

Sun Voyager Linktr.ee

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Oath, Unteach

Cultish and telegraphing their Iommi worship in their presentation — they’re certainly not hiding it in the music either — Athenian trio Oath reportedly recorded their first full-length Unteach live, and while I don’t know how that accounts for the doubled solos, with one foot in the Hammer Horror of “Alucarda ’77,” and the other in the pastoral “Orchid”ness of “Through the Evergreen Fields,” the band carve a place for themselves in “My Second Life” with a sound that’s as much proto-doom as it is punk as it is metal, and the place it winds up is crushingly heavy in “Soviet Invasion” and the penultimate “Dies Capri” and still plenty heavy but more playful in “Fur, Claws and Leather,” taking influence maybe from earliest Electric Wizard, is satisfyingly individual. That is to say, while you can pinpoint the roots of where they’re coming from, the actual material of the album, raw as it is, is not at all without stylistic nuance. They let the slower tempos manifest foreboding rather than occult theatrics, and that suits the buzz-tone riffs as well. It’s a weird one, but full of purpose in that, and so appreciable.

Oath on Bandcamp

Oath on Instagram

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Automaton, Labyrinth

Somewhere in the gray ether that exists between post- and black metals, Greek unit Automaton harness a grim spaciousness as their Sound Effect Records-delivered third album Labyrinth, retelling the titular mythology in impressionist lyrics throughout as the six-song/46-minute sprawl varies from ripping to crushing and back again. “Ariadne” and the prior “Minotaur” hone a thickened viciousness, while the 12-minute “Black Sails” is a more ambient delve, building in its second half to a march ahead of the cavernous interlude “Your Bull Nature Clouds Your Human Self” — perhaps a thesis for the record — before the blastbeats resume in closer “Battle in the Labyrinth.” The story is allegorical (duh) and the telling is relevant in theme as well as aesthetic, but the gnash stands on its own as well in its fury and satisfies in terms of the plot as well as in execution. Much to its credit, even as it follows a linear narrative, at no point does Labyrinth feel like it’s subsumed songwriting to that, and each piece fleshes out with a patience correspondant to mastery.

Automaton website

Sound Effect Records website

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Witch Ripper, Through the Hourglass

Ultimately, it’s the poise here that makes Witch Ripper‘s third album so lethal, and if you’ve seen the band likened to Mastodon somewhere along the way, the Matt Bayles production probably has something to do with that, but the Seattle progressive riff metallers conjure their own feeling of space across the seven included songs. I’ve said on multiple occasions that part of what’s kept me from being a fan of this band is the kind of unthinking misogynist implication of their moniker, but there’s no denying either the growth they’ve undertake between albums or the sense of accomplishment overarching Through the Hourglass as a manifestation of their approach that they’ve been working toward all the while. Alternating between shorter and longer songs highlights the structural variety on display, and the shifts between clean-sung and harsher vocal styles gives purpose and drama to the procession from one piece to the next, with closer “The Spiral Eye” seeming to take cues from the likes of Blood Incantation in its leads while providing due culmination to the encompassing entirety prior. They’ve always meant business and they still do.

Witch Ripper on Bandcamp

Magnetic Eye Records store

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Hostile Tides, Dead Man Talking

Self-releasing UK apparent-newcomers Hostile Tides offer their first EP in the five-song/17-minute Dead Man Talking, taking a double-guitar approach to heavy instrumentalism that’s pretty clearly in the process of shaking out where they’re headed in terms of style but that just the same conveys their setting forth on that progression. Chunky-style riffing in the centerpiece “Adrift” feels like it’s got some ’90s crunch, but it’s kind of hard to tell if that’s the rougher edges of the recording showing through an initial outing or something purposeful on the part of the band, or both, considering the way the song turns to a dreamier midsection with the bass holding to ground while the guitars branch out into atmospherics. Tonally more Karma to Burn than Russian Circles, they make the divergences a strength and a distinguishing factor, and the five-minute capper (the EP works shortest to longest) “Peaks” hints toward a burgeoning patience of craft. They could go just about anywhere from here.

Hostile Tides on Bandcamp

Hostile Tides on Instagram

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Johnny Tirade and The Circle of Futures Past, What is at the Beginning of Eternity, the End of Time, the Beginning of Every End, and the End of Every Place

When Dublin’s Johnny Tirade and The Circle of Futures Past labels themselves as “stoner industrial-tinged,” I think they’re talking about the Ministry-esque push of opener “Hey Man” and the overarching tonal crunch (maybe also the drum machine) more than the acoustic guitar in near-17-minute centerpiece “Memory Hole” (also sax) and the concluding “Improv,” but one way or the other, that self-applied tag hardly encapsulates the weirdo gamut of the band’s cumbersomely-named 31-minute debut album, What is at the Beginning of Eternity, the End of Time, the Beginning of Every End, and the End of Every Place. But it’s part of it. There’s an earnest experimentalism at play in the songs as each of the five tracks wants to and does head to its own destination, but the more you hear “Lizard Johnny” or the samples and spoken verses of “American Dream” (prececed by “Fuck the…” in the chorus; fair enough), the more they make their own kind of linear sense, and as a showcase for what the band/project might become, the plunge undertaken in these tracks is an encouragingly odd fit for any number of square-hole genres in which one might try to shove them.

Johnny Tirade and the Circle of Futures Past on Bandcamp

Johnny Tirade and the Circle of Futures Past on Instagram

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Hi and welcome to the Summer 2026 Quarterly Review. Every day this week I’ll be posting a round of 10 reviews to total 50 by Friday, rounding up recent releases, stuff I’ve missed, etc. There are a few things in the mix that aren’t out yet that I’m going to sneak in (shh…), but it’s entirely possible I’ll be doing this again next month or in October, so, you know, sit tight. My hope is that you find something to hear you haven’t heard before, or at very least have your opinions validated on whatever it might be.

Without further ado, we roll.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

Goddess, Ritual of the Cloven Hoof

Based in Sweden and signed to Majestic Mountain Records, Goddess are an offshoot of 2010s-era doomers Goatess and feature guitarist/vocalist Karl-Martin Buhre and drummer Kenta Karlbom from that band alongside guitarist Anders Martinsgård (Black Solstice) and bassist John Jansson in the revamped, renamed four-piece on their six-track/37-minute doom-chugging debut album, Ritual of the Cloven Hoof. Sort-of-debut album? I don’t know how you want to classify it, but either way the point is doom, and Goddess inherit a penchant for massive riffs and forlorn spaces as songs like “To Be King” and the eight-and-a-half-minute “Born Again Heathen” begin to define a character that is their own within the genre, the latter leaning a bit into doomedelic jamming ahead of the closer “Devil’s Reef,” which returns to ground in reliable fashion with deceptive vitality in its push. It’s no coincidence they sound like they know what they’re doing, because they do, but their Ritual is also the beginning of a new exploration, and holds all the more potential for that.

Goddess on Instagram

Majestic Mountain Records store

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Irata, Human

A new Irata album isn’t something that happens all the time, and fair enough. Some bands need to live before they write songs about it, and that’s not sarcasm or criticism for how much heart the North Carolinian trio put into their music. Human, while only their fourth LP since 2007, comes seven years after 2019’s Tower (review here) and starts out duly moody to suit the times in “Altar” and the bassy “Confessions,” but the swaying highlight “Seeds” finds a way to inject more energy into the delivery without sacrificing atmosphere, and though they hit into speedier fare in “Mirrors” or the penultimate “Goodside,” they do so while maintaining a patient progressivism, which leads to the masterful unfolding of capper “Daystar” across two linear builds, the latter of which ends the Human on a fading rumble. While maintaining a current of raw expression, Irata are able to conjure expanses in their sound. A J. Robbins mix doesn’t hurt in that effort, but it wouldn’t work if the songs didn’t run as deep as they do.

Irata website

Small Stone Records website

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Gutward, I

Oh hell yes. Indonesian stoner doomers Gutward bring about a lumber that’s a sure reminder of what dragged me onto this wretched lifepath to start with. Huge, immersive grooves, airy but discernible vocals — that actually have something to say about the world around them; bonus — and a sense of space and outreach that is at once free and encompassing. I is their first release following the 2024 single “Mauna Vedanā,” and its five-track/35-minute course is less about innovation than celebration, reveling in the largesse of march at the end of “What’s With the Rush?” or the addled vastness in “Mass Delusion” and hopefully-foretelling-of-things-to-come melodic showcase “Rot Alone” ahead of 12-minute capper “The Messages,” which is heavy enough for whatever you need flattened but holds firm to its tempo gruel and the melody established by the song prior. My only problem with the record is I can’t figure out which label I want them to sign to most, but either way, I is easily among the best debut albums I’ve heard this year. I look forward to hearing where they go from here.

Gutward Linktr.ee

Gutward on Instagram

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Smokemaster, In the Temple

A six-years-later follow-up for the potential wrought in their 2020 self-titled debut (review here), Smokemaster‘s In the Temple is in coversation with the breadth of modern psychedelia and the friendly melodies of ’60s pop-psych alike, and the Cologne outfit manage to make even a mover like “Do it Again” feel like a quiet, intimate moment, while pieces like the title-track and “Electromagnetic” feel less concerned with heft than float, and “Down in the Salt Mines” hones a wash that turns the extended solo in its back half to an utter triumph brought to heel in favor of a quiet last verse. Acoustic guitar, organ, effects, breathy vocals, clever layering — all of these elements serve the needs of the songs, and the songs have more range for them, but the underlying structures are a strength as the harmonies in “Citrus Leaves” demonstrate before they bring the album to an effectively stirring resolution. It’s the kind of record that might make your day better.

Smokemaster website

Tonzonen website

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Bantoriak, Vol. II

At the core of Bantoriak is Izio Orsini from Rancho Bizzarro, who in 2015 debuted the project with Weedoism (review here) and all its attendant weirdness. Vol. II follows suit 11 years later — what is time? — but finds Orsini working with a range of guests, from Sergio Chotsourian (ex-Los Natas, etc.) on the lumbering post-intro plunge “Blu Bus,” to members of Vesta, Supernaughty and Zen Circus, resulting in a could-go-anywhere vision of meditative heavy psychedelia. There’s throat singing on “La Muerte del Sitar,” while “Ritualism” finds the sitar very much alive and droning, “Kairot” lets the guitar scorch a bit, and “Liquid Brain” feels like a lost jam from The Heads. The last four minutes are dedicated to the ethereal noise of “Karpura,” with the later reaches lost to distant shouts and a consuming sound that might be running water. A lesson in how to be in-genre and still totally on your own wavelength.

Bantoriak on Instagram

Argonauta Records store

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Troy the Band, (Des)

While I don’t envy any band the task of distinguishing themselves in London’s underground scene, which is arguably the most packed-with-riffs of anywhere the world over and has been at this point for some time, the manner in which Troy the Band meet the challenge head on with their second album (Des), following on from 2024’s debut, Cataclysm (review here), with a collection that finds the trio of guitarist Sean Burn, bassist Sean Durbin and drummer Jack Revans answering the departure of vocalist Craig Newman by including a breadth of guest appearances. The penultimate “Adoration of Ill Luck” features Ana-Maria Terr Bordei, whom they’ve since welcomed as their new permanent singer, and her command over the massive groove there honed is enough reason why, but only one among a slew of highlights that include the immediately preceding “Memory Glowing,” with Peter Holland (Elephant Tree, etc.) and Kay Elizabeth (Black Orchids), and the screaming volatility of “Nothing” or “Choke.” There’s a lot happening in any individual cut, but the root instrumentals tie it all together and make (Des) an engrossing journey of a listen.

Troy the Band website

Troy the Band Linktr.ee

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Burning Sister, Plunge b/w Fadeout (Live)

I know the focus on the new Burning Sister two-songer, Plunge b/w Fadeout (Live), is supposed to be the A-side, the new studio track and the ‘gaze vibes therefrom, the steady roll brought to bear for just under six minutes, hypnotic and full in its unrolling, hinting toward psych but staying true to the band’s stated intention of being ‘Mile High Downer Rock,’ bassist/vocalist Steve Miller and drummer Alison Salutz exploring and finding a plane between atmosphere and impact, but don’t sleep on the B-side either. This live interpretation of “Fadeout,” which opened the band’s 2023 Get Your Head Right EP (review here) when they were a trio but here becomes a showcase of fuzz density, nod and ’90s druggery. I suppose there’s no wrong answer between the two cuts, but “Fadeout (Live)” makes an easy comparison point for the Denver two-piece’s continuing excursion into the outer bounds of heavy weirdness, and even better, I suspect that’s why it’s included in the first place. For more, see their 2025 LP Ghosts (review here), and yeah, I really mean that you should.

Burning Sister on Bandcamp

Burning Sister on Instagram

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The Heavy Eyes, Focus

Focus is an aptly-titled six-years-later return and fifth album overall from Memphis heavy rockers The Heavy Eyes. Issued through Magnetic Eye and Kozmik Artifactz — the latter of long association — the 11-song collection swings and reaches out and puts its focus on the songs themselves, which are taut, well composed, and able to make a four-minute slab like “It’s All Simone” feel like an epic reach even as it takes its place in the overarching flow of the material. That might be experience or maturity coming through — they hit 15 years since their debut in 2026 — but with shades of All Them Witches in the vocals, a gleeful tonal swamp in “Corporal Upham” ahead of the fuzz-bluesy “That Cold Goliath (Might Return),” and hooks to spare throughout, The Heavy Eyes remind that so much of the appeal in the first place was their ability to cohesively take on a range of elements and fuse them into a single stylistic statement. The self-awareness with which Focus would seem to have been made hinders this not in the slightest. Heads up, rockers.

The Heavy Eyes on Bandcamp

Magnetic Eye Records store

Kozmik Artifactz website

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For Eons, Collide

Atmospheric heavy psychedelia presented across five duly broad tracks comprises this impressive debut full-length from Vienna-based trio For Eons, and Collide both has intricacy in the now and speaks promises of things to come in its sprawling sound, patient in centerpiece “Depths of Time,” excitingly prog-fuzzed in opener “Old Friend,” and righteous in the payoff of the eight-and-half-minute “Echoes of the Past,” the vocal melody in the latter putting the band in league with the likes of The Machine or the still-missed Sungrazer while the clearheaded tones in the start-stops of “Million Voices” and the will to drift in closer “From the Jungles to the Cities” (which has its own start-stops toward the finish) harness a sense of progressivism without feeling overly indulgent so much as engaging the listener on more than one level. The title speaks of smashing things together, and maybe that’s how the band experiences their music, I don’t know, but from the listener’s standpoint their songs are more fluid than they might at first seem.

For Eons on Instagram

StoneFree Records store

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Rödtjut, Framtiden var bättre förr

Classic Swedish hard/heavy rock from the second Rödtjut full-length, Framtiden var bättre förr, with a songwriting that pushes toward the proto-metallic in “Rödögd blåtira” (and elsewhere) but balances that out with, say, the flute in “Vår tid” or the organ-inclusive mellowprog fluidity of eight-minute instrumental closer “Efter stormen.” It’s in Swedish, obviously, and I’m ignorant of the language, but the chug of “VMA” transcends gerunds, and as they demonstrate with the leadoff title-track, a hook is a hook regardless of what the syllables actually mean. The lead guitar in “En plats som vi inte förstår” has a bit of fuzzy stank on it, but by and large the intention is toward straight-up hard rock of the later-’70s variety, though somebody in this band likes Judas Priest, and that’s reasonable. This is my first exposure to Rödtjut, who have apparently been through some lineup changes since their debut in 2023, but the straightforward approach suits them and the songs hit a stylistic sweetspot, so you won’t hear me complain.

Rödtjut on Bandcamp

Sound Effect Records website

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Released in 2012, this album turns 15 next year, and I’d imagine there will be some fanfare around that with a rerelease or whathaveyou, at least potentially. I thought about waiting until 2027 for it, putting it on the list and filing it away for the time being, and that made sense until I actually put Nomads (review here) on and the issue was quickly settled.

As a heavy rock fan, it’s often a privilege to see and/or hear a band figure out who they are, to discover new peaks in their approach, and to grow generally as players and songwriters. Mos Generator, the Port Ochard, Washington, three-piece founded and fronted by guitarist/vocalist Tony Reed (also keys, recording, and so on), had already been a band for 12 years at this point, and had spent time on Nasoni Records and Small Stone in addition to self-releasing their first couple outings on Music Abuse. Their signing to Ripple Music ahead of releasing the nine-song/39-minute Nomads, however, would be a pivotal moment for the band, and in these songs, Reed, bassist Scooter Haslip and drummer Shawn Johnson would find a new level of realization.

That’s not to take away from 2008’s The Late Great Planet Earth, 2007’s Songs for Future Gods or anything else they did going back to 2000’s self-titled debut (reissue review here). It’s hard to know what counts as what in a discography like Mos Generator‘s, with copious unearthed studio one-offs, splits, EPs, and between-album albums, but when Nomads hit, it was a landmark. The A-side alone is a masterclass in heavy rock songwriting, varied in tempo and structure but united in hooks, setting forth with opener “Cosmic Ark” and a swaying groove that remains heavy and friendly in kind.

Tight in delivery and flow while making it sound easy and casual, “Cosmic Ark” begins the succession through “Lonely One Kenobi” — which uses its Star Wars reference to deflect from the emotional impact of the song, catchy as it is — “Torches” and “Step Up,” the latter two which manifest the ’70s-via-’90s ethic the band always seemed to search out, sounding classic and new at the same time. The energy in Johnson‘s drumming as “Torches” shifts into its start-stop chorus and the way “Step Up” echoes this with its imploring, “You’d better find a way into the light,” before dropping the riff in the second verse only to pick it up again for the next round through are emblematic of the detail work, the craft that was put into the making of Nomads, and they demonstrate that it’s less about form or how heavy your tone can get than the varied ways you can make a song move. Like great pop, the structure is applicable across a range of interpretations, but they’re going to come at you one way or the other.

This is good news. Mos Generator never really took part in the riff-worship mentality that came about around this time in the 2010s; stylistically cohesive as a single sound — you’d call it ‘heavy rock and roll,’ then and now — the band nonetheless always had more going on than just whatever Reed came up with on guitar to build a song around. The A-side of Nomads is a monument to the chemistry in the band, and though the chug and Judas Priest-style tension at the outset of side B leadoff “Solar Angels” speaks to a shift in mentality for the second half of the album, the tracklisting’s centerpiece is a preface for some of the progressivism that Mos Generator would develop in their approach over the next decade-plus. I’d say the same in the depth of post-grunge melody in the subsequent “For Your Blood,” though neither song is indirect in its presentation or self-indulgent.

Crashes introduce “Can’t Get Where I Belong” as the third in this decades-flattening process, and cycles through a jabb of a riff with layered vocal harmonies from Reed in the chorus — speaking of portents; recall this is before he took part in Big Scenic Nowhere — and feels like a ramble with the complementing atmospheric flourish of guitar, but is no less on point or grounded than anything that surrounds as it moves with dexterity into the solo and the subsequent re-slowing back into the verse before the chorus finishes out. This leaves the minute-long acoustic interlude “Nomads” and seven-and-half-minute closer/longest song “This is the Gift of Nature” in something of a place of their own at the end of the record, but this works in the song’s favor as it remains as catchy as the rest of the album before it while taking more time to flesh out the other parts around that, adjusting the balance that’s been maintained so carefully across the tracks without giving it up entirely.

It’s a celebration of a riff at the start for the 90-plus seconds of the intro, the message coming through clearly of the band taking their time in a different way, but when the doubled-vocals hit to deliver the song’s title-line, there’s no question that you as the listener hearing it are coming to the finish. Another cycle through sees the chorus slow down the second time and open up as the song hits its halfway point into a slower bridge and a stop with Reed‘s vocals falling down a hole circa 4:40, taking a second or two before the bluesy noodling of the guitar begins to build back up for the bigger ending. The pace picks up back to the verse, vocals ringing out clearly, and they cap with one last go for the hook and a crash and some residual amp noise, then that’s it.

I’ll float this as a classic heavy rock record in the making, which is to say that 20 years from now it’ll probably still sound as good as it does 14 years after it first came out. The version of the record above is a reissue from 2017, so you’ll find bonus demos after the album-proper; I figured the more the merrier, but if that offends you, Ripple‘s original edition is here. There’s a lot to say about growth in Mos Generator‘s sound, the trading out of lineups, the years of touring that followed Nomads, and so on, but for today I think it’s enough just to dive back and enjoy giving this one another go, and I hope you do precisely that. Thanks for reading.

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School-choice-hell update: If the district can get all the supports in place, we’re going to go with the first new school we talked to — credit always to The Patient Mrs.’ internet research — and start with half-days for the first however long so she can get acclimated. Indeed so we all can, as I’ll be the one driving her. Good thing gas is cheap. Ha.

On Monday, The Pecan visited the other, much closer place we looked at last week or the week before for a trial day, and she liked it, but not as much as the other spot. Yes, we give a shit about her opinion in this. That will affect buy-in on her part, for sure, but also part of what we want to do is put her someplace she feels safe and comfortable, and she didn’t eat at the place Monday, where at FlexSchool — that’s what the first new place is called — she did, which is a huge sign of how it would go. I think there were too many kids, too many people in the room at the other spot, and despite it being much closer to the house — like two minutes; it’s right there — we had questions about academic rigor and ideology alike, and I’m not signing her up for a place that I’m not certain she’s 100 percent welcome in.

There’s more to do, but that there’s been any movement at all on the issue is a relief. I guess we’ll just spend the next three weeks before school starts ironing out details and getting everything squared with the district, which surely means more meetings with our caseworker and whoever else needs a meeting before the plan is put in action. We’ll see how it goes.

In the meantime, both The Patient Mrs. and my Hungarian teacher are pushing me to send my email to the Consulate for a citizenship appointment, and despite the fact that I don’t feel ready, I’m told I am. I wanted to do it before the end of the year. That was my goal. I need to practice answering questions and writing out my bio, etc., to meet the language requirement. I suck at listening (in English too), though, and I’m worried they’re going to say something to me in the interview and I’m not going to catch whatever pivotal word would let me know what they’re talking about and what I should be talking about and I’ll screw it up and blow the whole thing. That’s the vision I have. Yes, I recognize that as anxiety; I’m not stupid. My assertion is that it’s a rational fear, and neither The Patient Mrs. nor my Hungarian teacher know as well where I am in my study of the language as I do. I have more to work on.

I woke up at four this morning thinking about that, about this post, about the Quarterly Review that starts on Monday, about the uncomfortable-ass mattress we moved into our bedroom a couple weeks ago from the guest bed and how I haven’t slept well since. It’s too low, it’s too hard, this this this. It was pretty clear I wasn’t going to get back to sleep and I’d been tossing all night anyway, so I just got up and decided to get to work. I’ll probably be nodding off by 1PM and a total bitch by six, but it’s not my night for bedtime, so at least I have that.

Been a minute since the last Zelda update, but The Pecan beat Ocarina of Time yesterday on a playthrough we did together, and it was her first time doing so, so that was fun. I told her “gg” and she gave me a high-five; a nice little moment. We bought the final battle Lego this week as well, kind of coincidentally, and she’s been putting that together and at bedtime has been reading the Twilight Princess manga, which has some violence/blood, but is still a safe way for her to experience those things through media. But anyway, I had her claw in my face a couple times this week for various perceived infractions upon her autonomy, so I’ll take those moments when I can get them.

It’s Bandcamp Friday, as the 100-plus emails I received this morning all took the time to remind me, so if you’re out shopping, enjoy. Otherwise, I hope you have a great and safe weekend and that when the Quarterly Review starts on Monday you find a bunch more awesome new music. Unless you’re a bootlicker, in which case, fuck you and fuck fascism forever. That little voice in the back of your head that knows you’re worthless is right.

FRM.

The Obelisk Collective on Facebook

The Obelisk Radio

The Obelisk merch

Seeing Deathchant live is always a pleasure, and I’m sure the Los Angeles four-piece will be out again in celebration of their upcoming fourth full-length, Kova. The newly-announced album is titled in honor of a friend of the band who passed away, and is heralded by the single/opening track “Enemy,” which is out today, while the album has a Sept. 25 release through RidingEasy Records.

Below, the PR wire tells a tale of purpose and sonic expansion that’s intriguing around a band who’ve always been more about impact in my mind, bridging thrashing aggression and heavy rock groove and tonal presence, but they’ve been at it for at least the better part of a decade by now, so branching out in sound makes sense as well. I haven’t heard the record yet or I’d probably have some opinion or other, but presumably I’ll get there.

Here’s hoping I remember to embed the single before this post goes live. Anyone wanna take a bet on that? I sure don’t:

DEATHCHANT – Kova – Sept. 25

Stream/pre-save: https://ridingeasy.ffm.to/kova

We are all at the unforgiving whim of life’s extremes. For every moment of overwhelming sorrow, there’s another of indescribable bliss. For every death, there’s a birth. For all of the darkness, there’s just as much light.

Deathchant have never shied away from extremes. Their sound seamlessly oscillates from high-octane rubber-burning riffs and gravelly chants to purring feedback and melodies as expansive as the desert at night. After gathering millions of streams, earning enthusiastic acclaim, and an endless string of packed shows, the Los Angeles, CA quartet—Thomas J Lemieux a.k.a. TJ [guitar, vocals, keys, bass], Doug Stuckey [guitar, vocals], Quinn-George Camacho [bass], and Nick “Joose” Mcdonnell [drums]—explore life’s highs, lows, and everything in between on their fourth full-length LP, KOVA [RidingEasy Records].

Named after their late friend Davey Kova, it’s simultaneously a raucous send-off worthy of a Viking, an introspective look at manhood, and a dyed-in-the-wool badass barnstorming hard rock record.

“To me, Deathchant means very intense brotherhood and friendship,” observes TJ. “I have a truly safe place to express every facet of myself. Even though we’re really heavy, this is also a vehicle for me to explore softer sides of music and wear my heart on my sleeve. For the last nine years, it’s allowed me to be a raw nerve. It was often brutal, because we lived our lives in the world of motorcycle culture, drugs, and partying. At the same time, I always had space for reflection. We implicitly trust one another. It’s rare for a friendship—let alone a four-way working relationship. I recently became a new dad, went through a divorce, and experienced serious loss. All of these massive shifts fed into the music, making it angrier, but more revealing and intimate.”

Back in 2018, Deathchant began to make noise on the West Coast. The group captivated a cult-like audience with the self-titled Deathchant [2019], Waste [2021], and Thrones [2023]. They canvased the globe on tour, playing at festivals such as Psycho Las Vegas, Desertfest Belgium, Keep It Low Festival, and SonicBlast Festival.

While writing KOVA, they said goodbye to its namesake. “My best friend Davey Kova was a dude who white-knuckled life, treated each day like it was his last, took chances, rode fast, and partied hard, but he was the sweetest guy you could ever meet,” sighs TJ. “It’s a weird way to live, yet it’s beautiful. He passed away during the writing process. The record seemed to finish itself after that. The album is a eulogy to not just Davey, but countless friends we’ve lost in the last couple of years.”

TJ helmed the album as producer and sent it off to Kurt Ballou’s legendary God City Studio in Salem, MA where Zach Weeks mixed it. Sonically, it maintained the edge that fans have come to know and expect with some slight tweaks.

“KOVA is different,” affirms the frontman. “I expounded on the lyrics more than I usually would’ve, because the subject matter is so personal. The vocals are also bit dryer and more intentional. You really feel it.”

The opener and first single “Enemy” definitely sets the tone. Feedback groans until a melodic lick pushes the song into overdrive. It culminates on an ominous refrain, “You’re the enemy…Keep the enemy close.” Fret-burning leads entwine at a breakneck pace, bleeding into a screeching solo drenched in wah and echo.

“It’s lyrically related to ‘Mirror’ from Thrones,” he reveals. “You’re ultimately realizing that you are your own worst enemy. So, you’re drowning the ego and being real with yourself about who you are. It’s aligned with the overall concept.”

Then, there’s the two-part title track “Kova (Crawl) Intro” and “Kova (Crawl).” On “Crawl,” acoustic strumming creaks beneath a soulful tear-soaked verse as he laments, “I heard that little boy go quiet, with heavy hearts we said goodbye.” Its heavier companion stomps forward on a swinging rhythm and chugging groove. Offering up a coronation over power chords, the hook booms with bravado, “Call him the king of wild hearts.”

“I was initially writing the song with a vague character in mind,” TJ goes on. “Davey died, and it became clear that the song was fully about him. That’s really when the chorus came to fruition. You’re watching someone slowly kill themselves in a tragic way. The acoustic and heavy versions are equally important. The two parts resemble the ripple effect Davey’s two sides had on people—the dark and the light sides.”

Then, there’s “Worshipper.” A fiery riff smolders in the foreground, giving way to a sample of Shannon Lay above distant gothic strings. “It’s dark as fuck,” he sighs. “I was dwelling in a really pessimistic place with a negative world view. I was depressed and drinking a lot. I had a few people around me who were leaning into Narcotics Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous, religion, and therapy. All of those things may be wonderful. However, they can also give a narcissist an artillery of weapons to use against others. ‘Worshipper’ embodies the weaponization of spirituality by a fake person on a soapbox. You’re worshipping a false prophet.”

“Forgiveness” hinges on bluesy guitar transmissions and a dusty vocal. TJ muses, “Truth is a chamber of bullets and echoes of friends.” Flanked by wailing six-string cries, he accepts, “The curtain keeps closing, but it’s too late to leave now. Goddamn.”

“The lyrics lined up with everything else,” he says. “It’s the human existence of battling addiction and living life to the fullest.”

Ultimately, this is the soundtrack for waking up and going full throttle in pursuit of whatever drives you.

“We’re lucky to be able to tell stories of a legend who’s not with us anymore,” TJ leaves off. “When you have good friends and bandmates around you though, the phoenix rises, and something beautiful comes out of that loss. Life is tough, incredible, and gnarly. Go ahead, embrace who you are, and keep going.”

KOVA is out WorldWide September 25, 2026 on RidingEasy Records

01-Enemy
02-Red Sun
03-Funeral Pyre
04-Reverie
05-Worshipper
06-Ruin
07-Kova
08-Forgiveness
09-Requiem

https://deathchantnoise.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/deathchantnoise/

http://www.ridingeasyrecords.com/
https://www.instagram.com/easyriderrecord/
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Deathchant, “Enemy” official video