The 11 tracks of earthings? 1998 self-titled debut are a stirring reminder that sometimes the best thing one can be is weird. Among the core lineup of Dave Catching (who’s contributed one way or the other to Queens of the Stone Age, Mojave Lords, Eagles of Death Metal, Goon Moon, Masters of Reality, and many others), Fred Drake (Mark Lanegan, Queens of the Stone Age, and a host of others in various roles), and Pete Stahl (Goatsnake, Scream, Wool, Orquesta del Desierto), is the name of the Rancho de la Luna studio itself where earthlings? was recorded for eventual release through Crippled Dick Hot Wax and Man’s Ruin Records. The studio itself plays a massive role in the ultimate personality of the record, as songs become willfully bizarre explanations of drones or keys like the otherwise straightforward “Reaper (Don’t Fear This Child)” or seem built of Wonka-esque psychotronic experimentation like “Conversing Among Misfits,” which, by the way, is the centerpiece of the album, because of course it is.

In these pieces as well as in opener “Nothing” and the desert-Velvet Underground take of “Saving up for My Spaceship/Illuminate,” and even the QOTSA-adjacent riff-style of “Stungun” — with Scott Reeder on bass, no less — the feel becomes not unlike another hidden edition of Desert Sessions, with Stahl‘s malleable vocals, Drake‘s keys/vocals/sometimes-drums and Catching‘s guitar/keys/bass/whatever emerging as having been born of a similar sonic adventurism. No doubt tales of, “let’s get everyone in the studio for a few days, do drugs and make records,” have been exaggerated, but it’s worth noting that all three members of earthlings? were indeed involved in Desert Sessions at one point or another, and the vibe of the self-titled bears that out in “The Dreaded Lovelies” and the same goes for the subsequent ambience of “The Icy Halls of Sobriety (I Dare Not Tread)” and the chill finish in closer “Triumphant March of the Buffoons,” which rounds out a farewell salvo like the band blew out its songwriting apparatus on “Stungun” and decided to just roll with the anti-consciousness impulse. Sometimes the best thing one can be is weird.

Drake and Stahl share vocal duties on the punkish “Cavalry” while Adam Maples (Legal Weapon, Boneclub, Orquesta del Desierto) steps in on drums, and the pattern of offsetting more straight-ahead moments with bizarre fare continues as the impressionist “Happiest Day of My Life” arrives based around a piano line and interweaving vocals and keyboard, carrying forth a wistfulness that continues into an ending of traffic sounds and the arrival of the bouncing anythingism of “Conversing Among Misfits,” each song a departure from the one before it much as “Nothing” at the outset stands as a departure from reality. What ties them all together, such as they’re intended to be tied together at all, is the sense of freedom behind their making. The tracks on earthlings?‘s self-titled by and large are not smoothed-over, structured pieces intended to land a hook. Their sense of expression is on a different trip.

In hindsight, the post-rocking drift in the guitar of “Nothing” feels somewhat prescient, even with the launch-countdown over top, but what it conveys most of all is that earthlings? were not formed as a band with limits placed on their sound. They were not going to be “this” kind of band or “that” kind of band. They were going to see what happened. True, they inevitably are lumped into the sphere of Californian desert rock in no small part because of their many associations therewith, but that’s not a limit on what they do. With a first album that appeared shortly after Kyuss disbanded, they showed a different side of the desert, less aggressive and more embodying a kind of we-moved-to-the-middle-of-nowhere-for-a-reason aesthetic libertarianism, unwilling to follow dictates other than those of their own creativity. That would turn out to be plenty, of course, as “Saving up for My Spaceship/Illuminate” tops seven minutes of percussion-addled sand psych before giving way to the return of the drum kit on “Reaper (Don’t Fear This Child),” on which Drake‘s sneering vocal approach should recall for anyone who’s heard it that of Zach Huskey of Dali’s Llama, also long underappreciated.

And maybe that middle finger to convention is part of the desert ideal as well, though it’s hard to assess such things from (1:) across the country and (2:) two decades after the fact without indulging the peculiar gonzo romanticism of American counterculture. I’ll save my breath, if that’s cool, and just note that whatever accidents it might produce, the kind of stylistic individuality one hears on earthlings? is never itself anything but willful, and whatever the album might share in common with other outfits to which Stahl or Drake or Catching played in the years since seems much more born of the fact that it’s the same personality being taken along with them on the way. Those personae, in combination with each other and with Rancho de la Luna itself, produced something in this first earthlings? record that inherently could not be reproduced — the capture of a singular moment in time.

Of course, the self-titled isn’t the only thing earthlings? ever put out. They followed it with Human Beans, which featured an even broader range of guests, including Mark Lanegan, Barrett Martin, Josh Homme and Petra Hayden, as well as a drum spot from Dave Grohl, in 2000, members continuing to contribute to Desert Sessions in between. The death of Drake from cancer in 2002 came shortly after the band released their Disco Marching Craft EP, on which he did not appear, and over the years that followed, earthlings? would release sporadic short offerings like 2005’s Individual Sky Cruiser Theory or 2008’s Humalien EPs, bringing Mathias Schneeberger and a swath of other players into the lineup along the way. It wasn’t until 2016’s Mudda Fudda limited vinyl on Last Hurrah Records that earthlings? issued a third full-length, and I wouldn’t profess to know anything about future plans or anything like that. Still, their work remains delightfully strange and rife with the kind of indulgence one wants to indulge because it’s so much fun to follow along, and 21 years after the fact, earthlings? continues to stand resoundingly alone.

As always, I hope you enjoy.

—

New episode of The Obelisk Show on Gimme Radio today at 1PM Eastern. I’m doing a special on the Kyuss family tree, the research for which I’ll admit also had me digging into this earthlings? record earlier this week. If you get to check that out, it would surely be appreciated.

Listen at: http://gimmeradio.com

And thanks.

It’s very nearly 4AM now. The Patient Mrs. and I had friends over last night. I turned in around 10 and fell asleep immediately, so don’t even know when she came to bed, but I woke up at 1:30 and never got back to sleep. That’s not going to make my day any easier, I think, but “making my day easier” has never been among my specialties.

This week was a fucking mess. The Esogenesi track that went up earlier I actually reviewed back on like Tuesday because I wanted to review the Orange Goblin show Wednesday morning and still be ahead, so wound up doing Esogenesi on Tuesday to go up today so that yesterday I could just do PH and have that go up immediately. Why does it make a difference? I’m not sure. Would it matter if the Orange Goblin review had gone up the next day? To me, maybe. Which I guess is how that dumb crap happens in the first place.

Ah, now it’s 4AM. The alarm on my phone just went off.

If you saw that Orange Goblin review, thanks. I was pretty thrilled with it. I bought a new lens last week as a moving-house present to myself and took it to that show and C.O.C. in Jersey in order to break it in. It’s fun. I’m pleased with it. It’s not a magic bullet to make me a better photographer or anything, but it’s pro-level even if I’m not. There are a few other shows coming up in the next several weeks, so I’m looking forward to getting to know it more.

This weekend? Yeah, I don’t know. The Patient Mrs. is gone at a conference in Washington, D.C., that will mark the longest time she’s been away from The Pecan. I think she’s nervous about that, but fortunately there’s plenty of distraction. The kid yesterday, man. Oof. What a day. Hitting and yelling and whining and pouting and smacking himself in the face and just crying for nothing. Made me want to check him for new teeth. “Bro, what the hell?” and so on. He can have some pretty intense moments, in the true spirit of a toddler. Splatter my brains on the fucking wall. He’ll be two in October. Not there yet.

It’s okay though. I hear it gets much easier from here and all the concerns go away and you just all of a sudden have a person you love a bunch and can talk to about baseballs and various kinds of gouda cheese and heavy metal and it’s all good and then they take care of you until you die. Pretty sure I read that somewhere.

I signed on to do a bio for WarHorse. It was an honor to be asked. I don’t know when they need it or anything, but I’ll probably post it here when the time comes. In the meantime, I’m interviewing Lori from Acid King next week for a streaming chat — those are getting me back on the phone/Skype with people and I like that; transcription had been keeping me away, and I hate setting up email interviews, which is why Six Dumb Questions only has six questions — and I’m supposed to email questions to the guys from a certain bud-loving British band for liner notes for a reissue they’re doing of a landmark album that I haven’t done yet, and I’m supposed to talk to Peder from Lowrider this weekend about their upcoming PostWax release for liner notes for that. I am, in a word, over-fucking-whelmed. But I do these things to myself. I like being asked to do things. I like being a part of things. I appreciate the fact that someone might give enough of a shit about what I say to print it with their record or to send it out as their statement of who they are as a band. Is the weekend when I’m on my own with the kid the time to be thinking about getting anything at all done? Yeah, no. Am I doing so anyway? Clearly.

What a dope.

I guess I’ll leave on that happy note. A few good premieres next week, and the audio of my interview with Jesse Bartz from L0-Pan that I recorded at their show in Jersey, so keep an eye out for those. It’ll be fun.

Alright. Have a great and safe weekend. Please check out the forum and radio stream and merch at Dropout.

The Obelisk Forum

The Obelisk Radio

The Obelisk shirts & hoodies

As of this writing, I just finished cutting the voice tracks for this episode of The Obelisk Show on Gimme Radio, which is centered around the Kyuss family tree. No, it’s not the entire thing — how could it possibly be the entire thing? — but it’s definitely a decent portion of it. You’ve got your John Garcia bands in Unida, Slo Burn and Hermano. You’ve got Nick Oliveri‘s acoustic stuff and Scott Reeder sitting in on the Yawning Sons record. You’ve got Ché and two solo tracks from Brant Bjork, along with Desert Sessions and Queens of the Stone Age and even Them Crooked Vultures just because I thought it was ridiculous coming out of The Obsessed. I was right about that, incidentally.

I guess if there’s an overarching lesson to taking a look at the Kyuss family tree, it’s the sheer insane amount of music these people have produced in the last 25-plus years. From Brant Bjork joining Fu Manchu to Josh Homme hosting the Desert Sessions and Alfredo Hernandez playing drums for Yawning Man, it’s unreal how far the branches go, and once you get into the fact that Scott Reeder was in The Obsessed with Wino, there’s an entire other tree right there. Forest of Riffs. I’m not complaining — the more the merrier — but if you sit and think about it for too long, it’s little short of overwhelming.

If you get to listen to the show, I hope you dig it. If not, thanks for reading anyhow.

Here’s the full playlist:

The Obelisk Show – 08.30.19

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Radio airs every other Friday at 1PM Eastern, with replays every Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next show is Sept. 13. Thanks for listening if you do.

Gimme Radio website

The Obelisk on Thee Facebooks

Did you know it’s Labor Day weekend? I had no idea, but yeah, I guess we’re there. Look, I don’t know. I’m just trying to get through the days over here one at a time. All of a sudden it’s coming on autumn and the nights are getting colder and Black Cobra and Eyehategod are about to headline Scorched Tundra XI over the next two nights and I guess that means summer’s winding down. Chicago’s got two righteously curated bills to go with those headliners for the two-night event, as well as a badass poster to go with it, so if you happen to be in the area or, you know, live there, you might consider heading out to the show as an alternative to whatever else your plans were as you start your three-day weekend. Or four-day weekend. Or maybe you’re just unemployed and have some cash to go out. Either way, good shows deserve attendance, so attend.

Go with a friend. You strike me as the popular type. Go Whatsapp somebody and see if they’re free. I bet they are.

Dig it:

SCORCHED TUNDRA XI LINEUP: EYEHATEGOD, BLACK COBRA, CLOUD RAT, ASEETHE & MORE OVER LABOR DAY WEEKEND 2019

Scorched Tundra is proud to announce the entire lineup for its eleventh edition. Taking place on Friday/Saturday, August 30th and 31st at The Empty Bottle in Chicago, ST XI features newcomers and veterans of the festival from across the country.

Friday August 30th
Black Cobra
Cloud Rat
Varaha

Saturday August 31st
Eyehategod
Aseethe
Luggage
Hitter

Tickets can be purchased at these links:

Friday 8/30: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/scorched-tundra-xii-black-cobra-cloud-rat-varaha-the-empty-bottle-tickets-63083915690

Saturday: 8/31: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/scorched-tundra-xi-featuring-eyehategod-aseethe-luggage-hitter-the-empty-bottle-tickets-62997685774

Scorched Tundra’s mission is to give a new generation of up and coming – as well as established – artists a unique live platform in Gothenburg and Chicago. “The eleventh edition of Scorched Tundra focuses once again on talent from near and far. While headliners have historical connections with this festival, much of the lineup will be new to the festival and provide a wide musical variety, all at the convergence of dark, heavy and progressive. Balancing the dynamics of this lineup was an interesting and enjoyable challenge for this edition: I look forward to taking it in with you on Labor Day Weekend,” states organizer Alexi D. Front.

Tickets for August 31st and September 1st will be $20 per night.

https://www.facebook.com/events/2188327617956216/
https://www.facebook.com/ScorchedTundra/
https://www.instagram.com/scorchedtundra/
http://scorchedtundra.com

Black Cobra, Imperium Simulacra (2016)

Sunn O)))‘s second LP of 2019 has been announced as Pyroclasts, due out Oct. 25 through Southern Lord. It’ll be the follow-up to Life Metal (review here), and fulfills the promise the band made at the start of the year that they’d produce not one, but a pair of full-lengths. The concept behind this one, based around improv drone exercises done during the Life Metal sessions at Electrical Audio in Chicago, seems pretty fascinating — heady, but one would expect that from Sunn O))) at this point — and the two-minute sample they’ve posted is indeed drone as fuckall. That teaser also gives a good look at the cover art, which is beautiful.

Incidentally, I’d like to start my day with improvisational drone exercises. I’m lucky if I can remember to turn the coffee pot on before I go brush my teeth though, so I’m not counting on it happening anytime soon.

We all have our rituals.

From the PR wire:

SUNN O))) Announces The Release Of Pyroclasts, Confirmed For Release Through Southern Lord On October 25th; Trailer Posted

SUNN O))) will release Pyroclasts through Southern Lord on October 25th. The album’s cover art, track listing, and a trailer have been issued.

The Pyroclasts album is the result of a daily practice which was regularly performed each morning, or evening during the two week Life Metal sessions at Electrical Audio during July 2018, when all of the days musical participants would gather and work through a twelve-minute improvised modal drone at the start and or end of the day’s work. The piece performed was timed with a stopwatch and tracked to two-inch tape, it was an exercise and a chance to dig into a deep opening or closing of the day’s session in a deep musical way with all of the participants. To connect/reconnect, liberate the creative mind a bit and greet each other and the space through the practice of sound immersion. The players across the four pieces of Pyroclasts are Tim Midyett, Tos Nieuwenhuizen, Hildur Guðnadóttir, and as always, SUNN O)) founders Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson.

The music on Pyroclasts is inextricably woven to Life Metal. It exists on the very same tape reels, was explicitly recorded by Steve Albini. The brightness and vividness of that glorious session glares through these four tracks, the precision and radiance, prismatic lustrousness of the saturation, the elemental sculptural shapes, the abstract renderings. It is a sister, or perhaps a shadow album. Or perhaps the now apparent miasma or aether. But it also exists in a form of a pause, a time space which exist in between and around the compositional structures of SUNN O)))’s titanic works.

For the listener or recipient/participant there are deep rewards within the patience of pulling down the walls and letting the music feel and feel the music. To be immersed will reveal great detail and color, clarify image, encourage a depth of focus and stillness which may lead to a quite profound experience. Sitting inside the space of time. A deep form of elementalism, even atomism, and connection with presence moment, time and reality.

SUNN O))) would invite our audience to consider these points of perception when experiencing and listening to Pyroclasts. SUNN O))) would also invite and encourage their audience to use Pyroclasts as a lens to review and re-experience the complexity of the Life Metal album, and even to interrupt its sequence with Pyroclasts. This elaboration can bring the astute listener both abyssal, hallowed rewards.

Pyroclasts was recorded and mixed by Steve Albini at Electrical Audio on two-inch tape July 2018 and mastered by Matt Colton through all analogue AAA process at Metropolis July 2019. Four of Samantha Keely Smith’s incredible consciousness memory landscapes grace the album sleeve artwork.

Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson would like to dedicate this album to the memories of Ron Guardipee, Kerstin Daley, and Scott Walker.

Pyroclasts Track Listing:
SIDE A:
Frost (C)
Kingdoms (G)
SIDE B:
Ampliphædies (E)
Ascension (A)

SUNN O))) Tour Dates:
September 2019 – Western U.S.
9/01/2019 Granada – Dallas, TX w/ Papa M, Big|Brave
9/02/2019 Emo’s – Austin, TX w/ Papa M, Big|Brave
9/04/2019 The Gothic – Denver, CO w/ Papa M, Big|Brave
9/06/2019 Metro Music Hall – Salt Lake City, UTw/ Papa M, Big|Brave, Eagle Twin
9/07/2019 Arcosanti – Phoenix AZ w/ Papa M, Big|Brave
9/08/2019 Mayan – Los Angeles, CA w/ Papa M, Big|Brave
9/09/2019 The Fillmore – San Francisco, CA w/ Papa M, Big|Brave
9/11/2019 The Showbox – Seattle, WA w/ Papa M
9/12/2019 Revolution Hall – Portland, OR w/ Papa M
9/15/2019 Hollywood Forever – Los Angeles, CA [Shoshin (??) Duo]

Let There Be Drone (Multiple Gains Stages) October 2019
10/07/2019 Backstage – Munich, DE w/ Caspar Brötzmann Bass Totem
10/08/2019 HfG / ZKM – Karlsruhe, DE w/ Caspar Brötzmann Bass Totem
10/09/2019 Kaserne Basel – Basel, CH w/ Caspar Brötzmann Bass Totem
10/10/2019 Felsenkeller – Leipzig, DE w/ Caspar Brötzmann Bass Totem
10/11/2019 Unsound Festival – Krakow, PL
10/13/2019 Kablys – Vilnius, LT w/ Caspar Brötzmann Bass Totem
10/14/2019 Vene Teater – Tallinn, EE w/ Caspar Brötzmann Bass Totem
10/15/2019 Kulttuuritalo – Helsinki, FI w/ Caspar Brötzmann Bass Totem
10/17/2019 Kraken Sthlm – Stockholm, SE w/ Carl Michael Von Hausswolff
10/18/2018 Kulturkirchen Jakob – Oslo, NO w/ Runhild Gammelsæter & Lass Marhaug Duo
10/19/2019 BLA – Oslo, NO [Shoshin (??) Duo] w/ Runhild Gammelsæter & Lass Marhaug Duo DJ set
10/21/2019 Koncerthuset – Copenhagen, DK w/ Puce Mary
10/22/2019 Doornroosje – Nijmegen, NL
10/24/2019 SWX – Bristol, UK w/ Anna Von Hausswolff
10/25/2019 QMU – Glasgow, UK w/ Anna Von Hausswolff
10/26/2019 The Crossing – Birmingham, UK w/ Anna Von Hausswolff
10/27/2019 Albert Hall – Manchester, UK w/ Anna Von Hausswolff
10/28/2019 Roundhouse – London, UK w/ Anna Von Hausswolff

INCOMING IN 2020…
La Gaîté Lyrique presents:
SUNN O))) – Let There Be Drone / One Residence, Two Concepts, Three Concerts
1/30/2020 / Life Metal
2/01/2019 / Life Metal
2/02/2020 / Shoshin

https://www.instagram.com/sunnofficial
https://www.facebook.com/SUNNthebandOfficial
https://sunn.bandcamp.com
https://sunn-live.bandcamp.com
http://www.southernlord.com
http://southernlord.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/SLadmin
https://www.instagram.com/southernlordrecords

Sunn O))), Pyroclasts preview

Milano death-doomers Esogenesi will release their self-titled debut album on Oct. 4 through Transcending Obscurity Records. The four-piece are a relatively new band, having formed in 2016, but as the five-track/39-minute full-length plays out, it becomes increasingly clear they’re doing more with the collection than just getting their feet wet in the style. They’re doing that too, to be sure, but if we’re sticking with the liquid idiom, they’re much more “up to neck” than “wet feet” when it comes to the particular grueling atmosphere that typifies the death-doom aesthetic — that ultra-dark churn marked out by a severe emotional conveyance, a mournfulness that gives the death metal aspects of the sound a that-much-truer resonance. Esogenesi‘s background as players varies, between black metal, hardcore, classical and, presumably, some doom as well, but even as album-closer “Incarnazione Della Conoscenza” hits its crescendo with blastbeating insistence, the commitment to the whole-album ambience remains firm. In other words, though they haven’t done it before, they know what they’re doing.

There’s comfort in that for the present and promise for the future, of course. Esogenesi show quickly what the crux of their first offering will be in the brooding guitar and bass intro of opener “Abominio,” one of three cuts to top nine minutes on the vinyl-ready outing. Soon double-kick enters, but the tone of patience is already set, and that will prove crucial to both band and listener as “Abominio” unfolds into its morose riff and speedier chug en route to the subsequent “Decadimento Astrale,” which essentially flips the structure to fast-slow instead of slow-fast in terms of its buildup, establishing a fluidity that carries into the standalone guitar of “…Oltregenesi…” — which in another context I’d directly liken to Dylan Carlson — which is joined in its second half by understated drums before it kind of disintegrates into the start of “Esilio Nell’Extramondo,” the penultimate and longest inclusion on Esogenesi at 9:51 and perhaps also the darkest of processions the band here unfurls. A quiet beginning is mirrored in the ambient midsection, but on either side of that is a dirge procession that finds the band — guitarist Davide Roccato bassist Carlo Campanelli, vocalist Jacopo Marinelli and drummer Michele Adami — pushing toward a new level of extremity in aural gruel that, yes, will pick up some speed by the end, but still remains pummeling in its finish in a manner consistent with how they started out. It’s a gorgeous execution of style.

And taken in kind with “Incarnazione Della Conoscenza” as it would be on side B of a vinyl release, it further demonstrates where Esogenesi are coming from in their initial approach to death-doom, which is straightforward at least in the microgenre’s own terms. I wouldn’t be surprised to find them adding keyboard, or strings, or even just more guitar effects to flesh out arrangements as they move forward, but as a flag-planting endeavor, Esogenesi‘s self-titled lays claim to a chunk of space in death-doom and proceeds to make that space its own. The band’s trades between loud and quiet stretches, fast and slow stretches, the interlude vibe in “…Oltregenesi…” and the sharper-edged riffing that caps the pre-apex burst of “Incarnazione Della Conoscenza” — they end on their most extreme push, as noted — all feed together to make an overarching impression of bleakness that is consuming, but still not overwhelming or redundant simply because at under 40 minutes, it doesn’t stick around long enough to be. A certain amount of repetition is fair game, one might argue essential, to what they’re doing, but one of the things Esogenesi get right on their first LP is realizing that it doesn’t need to be 65 minutes long to get its point across, and whether that’s a conscious decision on their part or an instinct and how it worked out with the timing of recording or whatever else, it’s another impulse that will only serve the band well as they seek to follow-up this impressive debut.

Happy today to host the premiere of “Decadimento Astrale” below, which you’ll find followed by more info from the PR wire.

Please enjoy:

Esogenesi, “Decadimento Astrale” official track premiere

Death/doom metal band Esogenesi have concocted a sublime blend that harnesses the power of death metal with the poignancy of doom metal, backed with an able, organic yet powerful sound that the band can call it their own. Even though this is only their debut, the quartet have outdone themselves in creating music with unfathomable depth and emotional poise. The five songs plod along with subtle but effective changes in mood, tempo and groove, and it often becomes imperative to revisit them to catch the brilliant nuances ensconced in the rumbling death metal-spiked parts. This is as good a debut as any to come out in the genre and it only solidifies the band’s place in the increasing death/doom roster of Transcending Obscurity.

Tracklisting –
1. Abominio
2. Decadimento Astrale
3. …Oltregenesi…
4. Esilio Nell’Extramondo
5. Incarnazione Della Conoscenza

Lineup –
Jacopo Marinelli – Vocals
Davide Roccato – Guitars
Carlo Campanelli – Bass
Michele Adami – Drums

Cover art by Korvo
Internal layout and graphics by Luca Brusa

Esogenesi on Thee Facebooks

Esogenesi on Bandcamp

Transcending Obscurity Records on Thee Facebooks

Transcending Obscurity Records website

Boston heavy rockers Worshipper will head out in November to the West Coast for a tour alongside West Virginia’s Horseburner. The bands go as ambassadors for some of the more progressive lineage of East Coast heavy, and they’ll meet up with the formidable likes of Zed and Holy Grove while making their way south more or less along the Pacific Coast, so all the better. Worshipper issued their second album, Light in the Wire (review here), this Spring via Tee Pee Records and toured in Europe already to herald its arrival, going over with Tee Pee Records labelmates The Skull and making a stop at Desertfest Berlin. They also played the inaugural Desertfest New York at the end of April, so yeah, pretty big year for these cats, who earn every bit of acclaim they get, even when it’s my own hyperbole-laden praise.

They’re sneaking in two East Coast dates with Horseburner as well before the two groups point their wagons west, and one’s at Ralph’s in Worcester, MA, and one’s at The Well in Brooklyn, where they played for Desertfest. See them wherever and whenever you can.

Here you go:

WORSHIPPER – TOUR ALERT

We will be hitting the West coast again soon with our good buddies Horseburner and (sometimes) ZED. (Plus a couple bonus East coast dates!) STOKED.
————-
WORSHIPPER / HORSEBURNER
DESCEND ON THE WEST 2019

Sat, Nov 9 – Substation, Seattle, WA
Sun, Nov 10 – High Water Mark, Portland, OR (w/ Holy Grove)
Mon, Nov 11 – Luckey’s Club, Eugene, OR
Wed, Nov 13 – Elbo Room Jack London, Oakland, CA (w/ ZED)
Thurs, Nov 14 – Count’s Vamp’d, Las Vegas, NV (w/ Zed)
Fri, Nov 15 – The Lexington, Los Angeles, CA (w/ Zed & Goliathan)
Sat, November 16 – Pour House, Oceanside, CA (w/ Zed)

ADDITIONAL EAST COAST SHOWS w/ HORSEBURNER & Godmaker:
Thu, Oct 10 – Ralph’s Diner, Worcester, MA (w/ the Turbos)
Fri, Oct 11 – The Well, Brooklyn, NY

Worshipper features Alejandro Necochea (lead guitar / synth), John Brookhouse (vocals / guitar), Dave Jarvis (drums) and Bob Maloney (vocals, bass).

https://www.facebook.com/worshipperband/
https://www.instagram/worshipperband
https://worshipper.bandcamp.com/
http://teepeerecords.com

Worshipper, Light in the Wire (2019)

Before this entire post devolves into dick jokes — which, let’s just say, could happen — an eight-inch EP is just like a seven-inch EP, only, guess what?, one inch bigger. I can only think of one other heavy band in recent years who’ve put one out, so good for Pittsburgh’s Horehound and DHU Records teaming up to do something special together. As the band follows up late-2018’s full-length, Holocene (review here), they will release Weight, as a two-songer on eight-inch vinyl through the Netherlands-based imprint. That’s cool. Good fit, all that. The thing is, they’re only pressing 66 of them. That’s like nothing. Less than. That’s gone-on-preorders edition. The official release date is Sept. 27, and yeah, unless preorders open on Sept. 26, I can’t imagine there could possibly be any left by the time the official arrival gets here.

Horehound announced earlier this month that bassist Nick Kopco was leaving the band on amicable terms and that Louis Snyder (also Riparian) would fill in on for the time being until they get somebody to take the role permanently. I would assume it’s still Kopco on the EP, so Weight would also serve as, again presumably, his final recorded output with the band.

The following showed up on social medias:

!! LISTEN UP !!!

DHU Records is damn excited to sign Pittsburgh Heavies Horehound to join the DHU Family and release their upcoming 2 song EP Weight on an Exclusive and Limited 8″ Clear Lathe Cut Vinyl!

That’s right, you read that correct, an 8″ vinyl record!

Pressed once again by our vinyl brothers at Royal Mint Records and mastered for vinyl by the one and only James Plotkin

DHU is honored to be releasing new music by one of my favorite Doom bands!

!!! LIMITED TO 66 COPIES WORLDWIDE !!!

Released September 27th
Order info coming soon

STAY DOOMED STAY HEAVY

HOREHOUND is:
JD Dauer – drums
Brendan Parrish – guitar
Shy Kennedy – vocals

https://www.facebook.com/horehoundband/
https://www.instagram.com/horehound420/
http://horehound.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/DHURecords/
https://www.instagram.com/dhu_records/
https://darkhedonisticunionrecords.bandcamp.com/
darkhedonisticunionrecords.bigcartel.com/

Horehound, Holocene (2018)

Today is Thursday. This past Monday, I posted a streaming interview with Mars Red Sky wherein among the subjects covered was the castle in the south of their native France in which the band wrote and recorded for their new album, The Task Eternal, set to release Sept. 27 through Listenable Records. Their new video for “The Proving Grounds,” the expansive opening track of that record, was filmed in presumably around that same space, as we can see the band in the kind of parlor room from whence prior album updates were made, lit by spotlights intended to evoke almost a fireplace kind of feel, playing up a sense of organic surroundings, rock walls, open fields, and so on. There is a character who makes his way to the roof of the structure and sends up a flare, attracting the attention of an awesome disco-ball of a spaceship, which would seem to beam him aboard as the song reaches its melodic wash of a culmination. To call it apropos of how the track itself leads into the rest of The Task Eternal would be underselling it.

One thing I didn’t realize about “The Proving Grounds” until seeing the lyrics printed on the YouTube page with the video itself was the defiant stance of the hook. To wit, “We’ll prove you wrong/And carry on/We’ll carry on/You’re going down now/We’ll prove you wrong/And carry on/On proving grounds/You’re going down.” Those are hardcore lyrics! Mars Red Sky sound like they’re looking for a fight. It’s a somewhat unexpected perspective of confrontationalism from the Bordeaux trio, but still carried across in their trademark melodic heavy psychedelic and progressive fashion. I guess once you’re dug into that vibe, you can do with it as you will, but the edge is still something new from them. I have to wonder what the song is actually about specifically, if there’s one thing to which it’s responding or more of a general statement of purpose pitched in this manner. Too bad the interview already happened.

Still about a month away from the release of this one, but I’m comfortable just the same calling The Task Eternal one of the year’s best records, so if you do the preorder thing, I can only advise it, though that’s pretty much been my stance on these guys all along. Points for consistency.

Enjoy the clip:

Mars Red Sky, “The Proving Grounds” official video

Tidal waves of wounded egos
Crashed in unison
Spreading coast to coast
Now the season has begun

‘The Proving Grounds’ video was shot in the castle of Monteton (FR) and directed by Seb Antoine. The track is taken off our new album “The Task Eternal”, due out September 27 on Listenable Records.

Directed By Seb Antoine
Starring Grégory Dreyfus
Lights: Geoffrey Torres
Visual Effects : Original Cosmic – Romain Marchetti
Filmed In Monteton Castle – Thanks to the local crew
Special Thanks to Manu Feramus, Mathieu Disson, Jean Godet & Pierre-Gérard David.

Recorded and mixed by Benjamin Mandeau at Cryogene Studio, mastered by Pierre Etchandy.

‘The Proving Grounds’ is where Michael Connelly’s character Mickey Haller makes his case before “The Gods Of Guilt”. In this song we are alternately the jury and the accused. Hence the temptation of reaching out to the skies, board a spacecraft and take off, or travel in time to fix what can be fixed.

Mars Red Sky on Thee Facebooks

Mars Red Sky website

Listenable Records website

Listenable Records on Thee Facebooks