With funky, soulful riffs, rampant melodies, hooky songcraft and markedly smooth production, Holy Roller Baby sound like a band with some measure of experience behind them on their upcoming debut album, Frenzy. As well they should since the Texas-based band (Austin and Dallas) features three-fourths of the defunct Heavy Glow. Jared Mullins, Nick Snyder and Patrick Smith from that band join up with drummer Luke Callaway — also in Snyder‘s bluesy solo-ish project, Nick Snyder & The Real Deal, which released a debut EP in March — and while there remains a strong current of Josh Homme-style melody in Mullins‘ voice, Holy Roller Baby feel immediately less restrained by heavy rock convention than the prior outfit. Eschewing psychedelic elements for an earthier feel, a cut like “Blue Devin Inn” finds its way into the ethereal nonetheless, likewise the closer “Mantra,” and the starts and stops of “Id Vicious” and the strut of “Ravings at Your Window” expand on the core desert-hued familiarity one might hear in the opener “Leper Blues/Spread Your Love Around” and a song like “Eve.” It is an encouraging debut, built with a clear intention toward reaching out to an audience beyond the heavy rock underground and offering everyone a glimpse at what they’ve been missing.

Holy Roller Baby issued “Leper Blues” a few months back as a kind of sneak preview single and there’s a video below that’s ready for digging in. To guide you on your way, here’s the album announcement from the PR wire:

Louder than the sounds of rowdy groups and leaders in authority are the ever-so-honest thoughts of those who view life from the corner. Described as “rock that rolls with primitive swagger,” Holy Roller Baby’s upcoming album release offers rock lovers the intensity of a rock album with the heart of a soul record. Seeking to illuminate the human experience without being preachy or judgemental, this record is not about taking sides. By rallying listeners to simply figure out complex things together, all are invited to the “Frenzy” on October 9, 2020.

“A lot of cool kids make music, and I don’t really fit into that world,” says singer/songwriter Jared Mullins, candidly. “I don’t know what it’s like to be the cool kid.”

Written at a time where division may seem prevalent, Holy Roller Baby’s unfiltered lyrics throughout “Frenzy” offer listeners a fresh look at what it means to be human. All tracks were written by Jared Mullins using simple “rudimentary drum loops and very basic guitar parts” before they were presented to the band. Notably, Ian Davenport (Demob Happy, Band of Skulls, Radiohead) responded to their demos with great enthusiasm, inviting the band to record the full-length record at Courtyard Studios in Oxfordshire, England, owned by Radiohead’s management company; doors opened for Holy Roller Baby to open for Band of Skulls and Demob Happy during their US tour (September 9th). The band partnered with Chalupa Production in Dallas, TX to create music videos for this album, one of which (“Ravings At Your Window, released June 14th, 2019) hit 100K+ views within about three months of its debut.

Complex in its simplicity, “Frenzy” signifies a turning point for Holy Roller Baby, once subject to descriptions that didn’t match who they know they are, deep down. By fusing the extremes of songs that are heavy (“Leper Blues” and “Eve”) with a soulful-Motown feel (“Your Body Will Sing”), the result is an unboxed sound that beams with confidence. With pure intentionality, the band’s ability to articulate what they’re about has come to inform everything they do. From recklessly-fun rhythms to their edgy lyrics, listeners will find it nearly impossible not to relate.

As Jared put it plainly, “I don’t f***ing get life yet. I feel like I should, but I don’t.”

In many ways, Holy Roller Baby’s music marks an era where it’s okay not to have it all figured out. To view life from the corner alongside them, join the “Frenzy.”

Holy Roller Baby are:
Jared Mullins – Lead Guitars, Vocals, Rhodes
Nick Snyder – Lead Guitars, Slide Guitar
Patrick Smith – Bass, GoPros
Luke Callaway – Drums

https://www.facebook.com/holyrollerbaby
https://www.instagram.com/holyrollerbaby
https://holyrollerbaby.bandcamp.com/
https://www.holyrollerbaby.com
https://linktr.ee/holyrollerbaby

Holy Roller Baby, “Leper Blues” official video

Swiss post-metallers Echolot are getting ready to release their third album, Destrudo, on Oct. 2 through Sixteentimes Music, and they give a substantial glimpse at its sprawling atmospheric base in the new single “Frozen Dead Star.” At nearly 10 minutes long, the track unfolds with a slow, doomly rollout and harsh, biting screams à la Thou before adding melodic singing to the mix and at about three minutes in turning to a guitar part that feels built off of what Neurosis were doing in the midsection of “Reach,” which closed their most recent LP, Fires Within Fires. Echolot manipulate this figure and join it soon enough to post-Amenra barely-there vocal fragility, passing the song’s halfway point with echoing melody and an underlying tension of drums that eases the transition back to heft when the time comes for it to inevitably be made.

Effective and airy lead guitar takes hold in squibbly fashion over the resurgent roll, marked by a fluid-sounding wash of crash cymbal — the bassline beneath it all is a treasure all too buried on my speakers; I suspect a different system would feature it more prominently — and the guitar line that has made itself central returns in heavier fashion before “Frozen Dead Star,” approaching its final minute, unleashes a deathly growl and more intense and insistent progression. Echoing, black metal-style screaming caps the proceedings with final lumbering, and the song fades out feeling something like an album on its own with the linear but cohesive course it follows. I don’t know what the rest of Destrudo might have on offer, but with “Frozen Dead Star” the Basel three-piece successfully execute the precise control and cerebral crush for which Euro post-metal is known. It is the work of a band who know what the fuck they’re doing.

The accompanying video has some band shots interspersed as part of its duly ambient presentation, and you can find it premiering below.

Please enjoy:

Echolot, “Frozen Dead Star” official video premiere

ECHOLOT new Album ‘DESTRUDO’ is out on October 2!

New single FROZEN DEAD STAR by ECHOLOT

Echolot – Frozen Dead Star (Official Video)
Recording by Jeroen Van Vulpen
Mix by Simon Jameson
Music by Echolot
Camera: Roberto Machulio
Designe: Renata Matellini
Effects: Raul Mate
Cut: Rafaela Matteo
Coloring: Renault Mattisimo

Echolot are:
Lukas Fürer – Guitar
Renato Matteucci – Bass
Jonathan Schmidli – Drums

Echolot on Thee Facebooks

Echolot on Instagram

Echolot on Bandcamp

Sixteentimes Music on Thee Facebooks

Sixteentimes Music on Bandcamp

Sixteentimes Music website

Everyone comes to it at their own speed, and there’s nothing wrong with that at all, but when you’re really ready to let it all go, Carlton Melton will be waiting. It’s no easy feat to discard all your hangups, all those things in you that don’t feel right or like they help push you forward rather than hold you back, that don’t — in the parlance of our times — “bring you joy” from within yourself, but maybe you’ll be one of the lucky few who get to that plane. I imagine it’s a bit like the pointillist pastoralia of the cover art to Carlton Melton‘s upcoming album, Where This Leads. I wouldn’t know myself, but maybe that’s how some people see the world.

In my mind everyone out in Northern California (at least what’s left of it after years of unprecedented wildfires) is a pot farmer, and if Carlton Melton aren’t, the made-for-TV-but-for-his-horrifying-ex-girlfriend governor Gavin Newsom should do everything in his power to subsidize them in that regard, but of course their meditations are more than weedian worship, and the sweet psychedelia they bring to bear across Where This Leads — beginning with the side A-consuming exploration “The Stars are Dying” and running from there into varied progressions of hold-your-breath-and-dive-in fluid immersion across a 70-minute entirety, offering spacious complement in side C’s “Smoke Drip Revisited,” brash cascade in “Three Zero Two” and alt-jazz expectation-defiance on “Dezebelle” along the way — is the stuff of afternoon daydreams.

They call it “dome rock.” Okay. Put it in your dome.

Along with the album announcement below, I have the distinct pleasure to host the premiere of “Waylay” from Where This Leads, which you’ll find at the bottom of this post. No single song on the record speaks for the whole of it (not even that opener), but I’m not kidding when I tell you it’s an honor to host this track, and I’d appreciate it if you could take the time to listen and (and you know I rarely ask this so directly) please share accordingly.

Breathe deep. Here goes:

CARLTON MELTON – Where This Leads
Agitated Records 2LP / CD / DL
Released 30th October 2020

Preorder: https://meltoncarlton.bandcamp.com/album/where-this-leads

DOME ROCK.

Nestled deep in the forests of Mendocino County in Northern California, huddled under the protective shade of towering redwoods and within earshot of frothy waves crashing against the Pacific coastline, squats a geodesic dome that has served as crucible for the experimental genius of Carlton Melton. Nature and Man operate under different logics. But here, Carlton Melton wholly entrusts this idyllic environment with the task of inspiring and guiding their musical improvisations.

The Dome has been the ideal setting to facilitate their creativity. Without forcing a specific dynamic or theme, the band inhabits its womb-like confines to improvise, explore, dream. Their music draws on psychedelia, stoner metal, krautrock, and ambient atmospherics to convey, above all else, a mood.

A prickly guitar melody will float lazily, a wall of dissonant feedback will resolve into a hypnotic drone, or a colossal riff will exhume the soul of Jimi Hendrix. One hears Hawkwind or Spacemen 3 jamming with Pink Floyd at Pompeii.

Indeed, Carlton Melton have one foot in the ancient world and one tentacle in deep space. They are both the pack of proto-humans drumming with femurs in Kubrick’s 2001 and the film’s inscrutable monolith hinting at the universe’s mysteries. The “Stoned Ape” theory holds that early hominids ingested psychedelic mushrooms that provided an evolutionary boost to their brains, helping them blossom into Homo Sapiens. Imagine such cavemen trippin’ balls, their nightmarish visions sending them into feverish bouts of rage and then gentle moments of introspection. They very well could have heard the music of Carlton Melton rattling inside their skulls, first driving our ancestors mad then upward into a higher realm.

Andy Duvall (drums, guitar), Clint Golden (bass), and Rich Millman (guitar, synths) have yet to play Pompeii, but they have already wowed crowds at European festivals such as the Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia, Roadburn, and Desertfest Antwerp. Live, they are jaw-dropping. On record, mind-altering.

In fact, with each album, Carlton Melton adds a subtle new element, synapses firing new neural connections. In 2020, they release new full-length Where This Leads, marking ten years of the band’s working relationship with their UK label Agitated Records and five years of recording with Phil Manley in his El Studio in San Francisco. With Where This Leads, the band rewires the listener’s mind. “Smoke Drip Revisited” is a ticklish acid flashback, “Porch Dreams” a dabbling in country psych, and “Closer” a driving, freak-out of guitar heroics.

One senses that the group is conveying a message that cannot be expressed verbally but only suggested through synth sighs, walloping rhythms, and soaring solos. Would Carlton Melton therefore be a group of stoned apes dizzily grasping for meaning or telepathic futurists communicating to us through crude man-made instrumentation?

Well, lower the stylus to find out. – Eric Bensel, Paris July 2020

Tracklist
1. The Stars Are Dying
2. Butchery
3. Waylay
4. Dezebelle
5. Smoke Drip Revisited
6. Crown Shyness
7. Three Zero Two
8. Porch Dreams
9. Closer

https://www.facebook.com/Carlton-Melton-band-page-142609689122268/
https://meltoncarlton.bandcamp.com/
http://www.carltonmeltonmusic.com/
https://www.facebook.com/AGITATEDRECORDS/
http://agitatedrecords.com/

Carlton Melton, “Waylay” official track premiere

There comes a time in everyone’s life, I think, when you have to sit back, look at the big picture and understand that you’re 38 years old writing about a band called Dungeon Weed and a record they’ve put out called Mind Palace of the Mushroom God. What do any of those words even mean?

Well, I guess Dungeon Weed is self-explanatory. It’s weed in or from a dungeon. Fine.

Actually, the whole thing is less about specific descriptors than how it willfully positions itself in line with other records of the style. That style, as they put it, is “wizard doom,” which is a phrase I myself have used here to describe bands who play off an Electric Wizard influence. There’s some of that happening in Mind Palace of the Mushroom God, so fair enough. And they sound like they were making the most of the pandemic, and it’s Dmitri Mavra from Skunk and Slow Phase telling the story, so one way or the other you’re in good hands. Shit man, life is short. Find your fucking joy. If it’s in mind palace of a mushroom god, well, at least you didn’t have to shoot a Black person seven times in the back to get there.

Sorry.

The recording is rough, but not so much so that Forbidden Place Records hasn’t signed on to put the album out on vinyl — for which the artwork seems well suited — so take that as you will. Stream and video are at the bottom of the post if you want to dive in. Don’t mind if I do:

DUNGEON WEED – Mind Palace of the Mushroom God

MIND PALACE OF THE MUSHROOM GOD is available now on cd/download, coming this winter on vinyl from Forbidden Place Records.

DUNGEON WEED is a collaboration between Dmitri Mavra (SKUNK, SLOW PHASE) and Chris McGrew, session drummer/studio engineer at San Francisco’s Wally’s Hyde Out (formerly Hyde Street Studio C).

Born from the darkness of pandemic isolation, the album features 6 lengthy tracks of “wizard doom” that reflect these dark times.

Hyper fuzzed riffs, droning synths, and massive, sludgy drumming lay the foundation for solos that range from esoteric weirdness to soaring majesty as the album obliquely tells a dream fantasy in which a wizard seeking eternal life travels through the “Mind Palace of the Mushroom God” to strike a deal with Orcus, Lord of the Underworld. Terrible creatures are encountered on his quest before his wish for eternal life is finally granted, but was it worth the price? (Spoiler: of course not!)

While Mavra is known for the retro-drenched riffs of SKUNK and SLOW PHASE, DUNGEON WEED explores a slower, heavier, feedback-tinged sludge vibe. McGrew played and recorded the drums. Mavra played and recorded everything else, and illustrated the album. Guest vocals by Thia Moonbrook.

Available now on cd and digital:
https://dungeonweeddoomsludge.bandcamp.com/album/mind-palace-of-the-mushroom-god

Vinyl Edition pre-order:
https://forbiddenplacerecords.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/dungeonweed/
https://dungeonweeddoomsludge.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/forbiddenplacerecords/
https://forbiddenplacerecords.bandcamp.com/

Dungeon Weed, Mind Palace of the Mushroom God (2020)

Dungeon Weed, “Sorcerer with the Skull Face” official video

[Click play above to stream The Atomic Bitchwax’s Scorpio in its entirety. It’s out Friday on Tee Pee Records.]

Some 21 years ago in 1999, New Jersey’s The Atomic Bitchwax made one of the most striking impressions on their self-titled debut album (discussed here) with “Hope You Die,” a song that takes its wishing-ill title and turns it into a call and response vocal hook and makes it mischievously fun. “I hope you hate this shit/I hope your clothes don’t fit,” etc. In 2020, “Hope You Die” leads off. It has been pushed to the forward position on Scorpio, which is the trio’s eighth album, issued like their debut through Tee Pee Records. Scorpio is a landmark by default for the band from Neptune, in that it finds them on the other side of their first record’s 20th year — no small feat for an underground act — and it marks the introduction of their third guitarist, Garrett Sweeny. Sweeny took up the position in early 2019 following the departure of Finn Ryan (also ex-Core) late in 2018, and the band — completed by drummer Bob Pantella and founding bassist/vocalist Chris Kosnik — proceeded onward with another following in a series of years with a busy touring schedule, then in support of 2017’s Force Field (review here).

Not to discount Ryan‘s work in The Atomic Bitchwax, as he brought shred worthy of filling founding guitarist Ed Mundell‘s rather sizable shoes and a melodic vocal that worked well in offsetting Kosnik‘s more shouted approach, could carry a song when asked to do so or follow the rhythm section on any number of whirlwind progressions, but his departure (somewhat surprisingly) hardly caused the group to lose a step. Kosnik, who joined Monster Magnet in 2013, and Pantella, who joined Monster Magnet in 2004, snagged Sweeny from that band’s lineup and The Atomic Bitchwax continued on. Scorpio, recorded this past January at Sound Spa in Edison, NJ, with Stephen DeAcutis, benefits markedly from the relative smoothness of that lineup transition and the chemistry the semi-revamped three-piece were able to build on the road last year, touring with Conan and Black Label Society, among others, and couples this with the well established penchant for speedy heavy rock songcraft that has been largely consistent in their work over the last two decades-plus. Momentum, then, is a key element to both the style and the substance of the band. Like their songs, they move forward.

“Hope You Die” serves as the blastoff and the longest track (immediate points) on Scorpio at 4:36, but it’s just one of the bunch when it comes to hooks. Sweeny and Kosnik share vocals, their styles similar in a manner that’s complementary, and throughout the 10-song/37-minute offering, the guitarist acquits himself well in terms of ripping into a barrage of solos and setting the course through Kosnik‘s winding style of riffs, tapping classic rock heroics and translating it into a methodology that’s long since become identifiable as The Atomic Bitchwax‘s own. They follow “Hope You Die” with the aptly-titled “Energy,” a cut that earlier incarnations of the tracklist had swapped with the here-penultimate “Betting Man” as a late surge, but that works no less well in answering the opener with another fervent shove — “Betting Man,” meanwhile, serves basically the same function where it is — and soon enough turns over to the first of three included instrumentals, “Ninja.”

As one might expect, it is a blurry whirlwind of punches and kicks, drawing on another time-tested aspect of the band’s overarching modus. They kill. In dizzying fashion. 2008’s TAB4 (review here) departed for more mid-paced fare on the whole, but since 2011’s instrumental, single-song LP, The Local Fuzz (review here) and through 2015’s Gravitron (review here) and Force Field, the band has been on a tear in terms of energy. The title-track of Scorpio, also one of its shortest pieces at 3:22, epitomizes this, and is all the more a fitting example for how memorable it is despite being shot from a cannon. The possibly self-referential stomper “Easy Action,” which presumably closes side A and brings a more restrained pace with Pantella marking time on the snare, seems to nod to “So Come On” from 2006’s Jack Endino-produced Boxriff EP (discussed here), and asks the question, “Do you want to live forever?” as if already knowing the answer is no. Tambourine behind the chorus and timed to the snare cleverly keeps the motion of Scorpio going while likewise speaking to the band’s periodic pop flirtations. Unsurprisingly, it works well.

A quick count-in and “Crash” is off; an instrumental lead-in for the second half of Scorpio that hearkens to the riff of the title-track and runs elsewhere with it, taking its own path to its careening stop ahead of “Super Sonic,” which stands just 3:14 but features some highlight bass work from Kosnik and a stripped-down feel compared to the three tracks prior. Perhaps that’s The Atomic Bitchwax introducing the album’s final movement in some way, or just throwing something different in on side B. Either way, it serves its purpose and shifts to “You Got It” with little fanfare, the latter with not only a return of tambourine, but handclaps as well. “You Got It” is quintessential Bitchwax and fits alongside “Scorpio” and “Easy Action” and the subsequent “Betting Man” as some of the strongest material they bring to the outing, but it’s a high standard across the board: the fuzzy riffing, the subtle vocal shifts, the sheer push of the thing.

This is what The Atomic Bitchwax make sound simple and no one else seems to be able to do in quite the same way. See also “Betting Man” and “Instant Death,” the closing duo that sums up Scorpio in suitably concise and direct fashion with one more hook and one last instrumental thrust. It would be hard for a band like The Atomic Bitchwax to be a completely unknown quantity eight records into their career, but part of what makes Scorpio so much their own is its reflection on what they’ve done before. In light of the advent of Sweeny on guitar and the inevitable change to the band’s personality as a result — swapping members in a power trio is never a simple matter — the band’s claim on who they are feels nothing if not purposeful, and at the core of Scorpio is Kosnik‘s songwriting, which is seemingly unshakable. All the better. They’re of course underserved by not being able to tour immediately to support the release, like so many others, but The Atomic Bitchwax nonetheless remain vital and kinetic.

The Atomic Bitchwax on Facebook

The Atomic Bitchwax website

Tee Pee Records on Thee Facebooks

Tee Pee Records website

I happen to know what kind of spacial distortions and temporal displacement await those who travel to Korb II, having, you know, heard it, and it is with due dimensionality that the UK duo present their second offering through Weird Beard Records as the follow-up to their self-titled, self-released 2018 debut. Expect weirdo psych, krautrock inflections, and signs of alien intelligence to persist, but with an underlying core of human exploration that speaks to the best possible futures while representing our pitiful species well in the present. Putting us in a good light, as it were, despite the grimness of our times.

While you’re digging into the debut below, also check out Korb‘s even more krautified alter-ego, Arboria. The other project released its self-titled third full-length last year and it’s another planet in the system that’s ready for habitation. I’ve included that stream too, just for the extra curious among those venturing into the unknown.

Have at it:

KORB – II – Release Date: 30th September 2020

Following on from their self released debut album in 2018, Weird Beard are proud to bring you the next instalment of KORB’s sonic journey. II builds upon the solid kosmiche foundation laid in their first album and expands on it exponentially. Using vintage instruments and effects, KORB provide a soundtrack that harks back to classic sci fi films, drawing you in and placing you firmly in a futuristic landscape.

KORB – II will be released in a limited edition of 250 copies on splattered vinyl that perfectly compliments the sleeve and will come with a gatefold insert featuring more of Rob Gower’s sublime artwork. The first 50 copies will be hand numbered and contain a bonus signed CD.

Weird Beard is the perfect home for Korb II, with both label and band continuing to forge their own unique and uncompromising paths outside of the constraints of the mainstream.

Bio:

After playing in a jazz quartet together Jonathan Parkes and Alec Wood took their shared love of Krautrock and spent years experimenting with a wide range of instruments, including vintage analogue synths, creating a huge body of diverse music which eventually distilled into Korb.
The first album was released in 2018 on their own label Dreamlord Recordings – which is also home to their other projects, Mutante (synth/electronic) and Arboria (electro/acoustic).

Korb create their instrumental music using vintage drums, percussion, bass, guitar, analogue synths, organ, and a range of fx pedals. While Korb has its roots in 70s Krautrock and Kosmische music they have spent long enough creating their own sound to ensure that they tread their own path.

https://www.facebook.com/korbdreamlordrecordings/
https://korbmusic.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/WeirdBeardRecs/
https://theweirdbeard.bigcartel.com/

Korb, Korb (2018)

Arboria, Arboria (2019)

Look. It’s not that I go around thinking a band like Sons of Otis are about to write a song that’s actually about me in any way, shape or form. That’s not the case. But it’s not like “JJ” is a common name, so yeah, when I see a song with that as the title, of course I’m curious to now what’s up. If your name is something goofy and specific, maybe you’ve experienced the same thing. So yes, I asked Sons of Otis about where the song comes from, and indeed, not in any way, shape or form about me. Probably for the best. Different “JJ” entirely.

“Blood Moon,” however, totally about me. It’s the oddest thing.

No, of course not.

Anyway, for those of you playing at home, it’s been eight friggin’ years since Sons of Otis offered 2012’s Seismic (review here) for public consumption through Small Stone. Isolation finds them well at home on Totem Cat Records with an Oct. 16 release date, and mark your calendar for it, because I’m not saying I’ve heard the record or anything, but yes I have and it’s R-I-F-F-S like your mama used to bake.

Announcement from the PR wire:

Doom blues stalwarts SONS OF OTIS return with new full-length ‘Isolation’ on Totem Cat Records; first track streaming now!

Toronto’s doom blues legends SONS OF OTIS return from their smoke-filled lands with their first studio album since 2012. ‘Isolation’ will be released on October 16th via Totem Cat Records, and you can stream its crushing first single “Ghost” right now!

From the vast Northern land known as Canada comes an enormous sound: the sound of SONS OF OTIS. Gargantuan, rumbling like the innards of Earth, the trio has been pushing aside entire star systems in its unstoppable path since 1993. Their last studio offering ‘Seismic’ was released in 2012 on Small Stone Records, followed by an extra limited ‘Live In Den Bosch’ album in 2018. Standing strong as ever on their veterans feet, their new album ‘Isolation’ delivers the heaviest stoner doom ever known to man, reminding fans and heavy lovers across the globe of the potency of the trio’s signature fuzz and über-stoned grooves.

‘Isolation’ will be issued on October 16th, 2020 on vinyl, CD and digital through Totem Cat Records, and available to preorder from September 14th, 2020 at this location: https://totemcatrecords.bandcamp.com/album/isolation

SONS OF OTIS New album ‘Isolation’
Out October 16th on Totem Cat Records
on vinyl, CD and digital

TRACK LISTING:
1. Hopeless
2. JJ
3. Trust
4. Blood Moon
5. Ghost
6. Theme II

SONS OF OTIS IS
Ken Baluke – Guitars, Vocals
Frank Sargeant – Bass
Ryan Aubin – Drums

https://www.facebook.com/sonsofotis/
https://sonsofotis.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/totemcatrecords/
https://www.instagram.com/totemcatrecords/
http://totemcatrecords.bigcartel.com/

Sons of Otis, Isolation (2020)

[Click play above to stream Slomosa’s self-titled debut in full. It’s out Friday, Aug. 28 on Apollon Records.]

Slomosa may be newcomers, but their sound draws on decades of established heavy rock traditions that are nothing if not stalwart. Based in Bergen, Norway, and releasing their self-titled debut full-length through Apollon Records, the four-piece formed in 2017, recorded in 2018 and traded out half their lineup in 2019, bringing in guitarist Tor Erik Bye and bassist Marie Moe alongside drummer Severin Sandvik and vocalist/guitarist Benjamin Berdous. Starting last Fall, Slomosa began issuing singles from the eight-song/37-minute recorded-live-with-overdubs offering, beginning with the rolling riff that starts the album in “Horses” before following-up with “There is Nothing New Under the Sun” (posted here) and, most recently, “In My Mind’s Desert” (posted here) giving a different look at the breadth of their more than capably conveyed melody. Helmed and mixed by Eirik Sandvik (Amped Out, Howlin’ Sun) and mastered by Enslaved‘s own Iver Sandøy, the album benefits from the experienced hands of its production (the band is listed as a co-producer), bringing due tonal presence to a style that is well aware of genre tenets and speaking alike to the formative days of Californian desert rock in the 1990s and the Scandinavian interpretations that followed soon behind.

Kyuss and Queens of the Stone Age are two anchor influences, the former coming into play throughout, in songs like “Kevin” and “Estonia” and even “Scavengers,” which hints at more progressive nuance in the guitar twists of its second half, but remains grounded ultimately in its structure and staves off digging too far into such indulgences. The latter manifests perhaps even more palpably in the vocal patterning and riffing style of Berdous and then-guitarist Anders Rørlien — Kristian Tvedt played bass — and comes to the fore in “In My Mind’s Desert” and “Just to Be,” both of which specifically key in on the Josh Homme-fronted outfit’s 1998 self-titled debut.

Along with this, the driving thrust of “There is Nothing New Under the Sun” seems to harness the intensity that Dozer once brought to the desert sound, and the march of “Horses” at the launch of the record feels derived more from the earliest work of The Sword — who, it should be noted, are from neither California nor Sweden — so there’s more to dig into throughout Slomosa‘s Slomosa than it might at first appear. And while still definitively a desert rock aesthetic — they call it “tundra rock” in honor of Norway’s lack of deserts; you work with what you’ve got — one of the most encouraging aspects of the collection, especially taken in its manageable entirety, is how much Slomosa are able to bring these influences along to suit the purposes of their own songwriting. Ultimately, it is that songwriting that rules the day.

It might take a given listener a turn or two through Slomosa to get past the novelty of picking out riffs and saying, “Oh, that’s this Kyuss track,” be it “Estonia” drawing from “Supa Scoopa and Mighty Scoop” or whatever else, but the rewards are ample for that minimal investment of effort, and they come in form of hooks like those of “Horses” or “There is Nothing New Under the Sun” or “Just to Be,” as well as the more willfully sprawling showcase that is closer “On and Beyond.” The last of those is a singular worthy showcase of the band’s potential, but the truth of the matter is that same potential is writ large across the entirety of the release.

Their songs work well together and are placed smoothly for an overarching full-length flow, but it is no coincidence that they spaced out three singles ahead of the full album’s arrival, since that is very much the modus in which the record operates: as a presentation of the individual tracks that comprise it. Each song is crisp and smoothly executed — not so smooth as to detract from the weight or edge, but enough to highlight the melody in Berdous‘ vocals for sure. As “In My Mind’s Desert” taps those nascent Queens of the Stone Age vibes (or is it a less melancholy “I Never Came?”), even the word-playfulness of the lyrics seems to be on board in the line, “No man’s an island in no man’s land.” But even here, there’s more happening than simply deriving new material from something built before.

Certainly there’s plenty of that, and you won’t hear me say otherwise — I don’t imagine even Slomosa themselves would come out and say they’ve completely invented a new sound; beware of anyone who does — but the energy and the vitality behind what they’re doing stylistically is an asset that comes into play all along the album’s varied path. Recording at least the basic tracks live would seem to have been a correct choice in that regard, since that natural foundation resonates even through whatever overdubbing and the added-later vocals. It becomes an essential aspect of each track, as heard in the fuzz-forward “Scavengers,” which hits into a bounce and push that would seem to be positioning itself as an heir to Truckfighters‘ unmitigated sense of fun, or in “There is Nothing New Under the Sun,” which in addition to Dozer directly and perhaps with tongue-in-cheek recalls “My God is the Sun” from QOTSA‘s …Like Clockwork, as well as anywhere else one might have ears to hear it. Slomosa sound like a young band. A young band who know what they want stylistically and are able to craft their material in such a way as to manifest that.

Such things don’t come along every day, and if you’re looking for theses in Slomosa, they’re readily apparent in “There is Nothing New Under the Sun” and “In My Mind’s Desert” — two cuts that seem to find the band directly acknowledging where they’re coming from in terms of overall perspective. An act of that kind of boldness isn’t to be taken lightly, especially from a new group releasing their first album. What remains to be seen is how Slomosa‘s lineup change will affect their sound, and what lessons they’ll take with them from having successfully executed this offering at the high level they have. Will they push outward as “On and Beyond” seems to want to do, or dive deeper into the thrust of “Kevin,” or head somewhere else entirely? Part of what makes Slomosa so exciting as an album is not knowing the answer, but only part, because the work they’ve done in these songs is more than enough to stand on its own, regardless of what might come after.

Slomosa on Facebook

Slomosa on Instagram

Slomosa on Bandcamp

Slomosa on Soundcloud

Slomosa on Spotify

Apollon Records website

Apollon Records on Bandcamp

Apollon Records on Facebook