Posted in Whathaveyou on March 31st, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Proto-metal with tendencies toward Bowie up front and Bonham in back, Space Amazon by Pandora is another in the long line of lost private pressings of elder days being given due with a proper vinyl release. With a bonus 7″ and 16-page booklet with pics and the story of the band, if you’re wondering who Pandora are now, chances are you won’t be by the time you’re through the thing. Supreme Echo Records is the party responsible for… well, the party… and they have preorders up now and a couple tracks streaming through Bandcamp. You’ll note the production by Joe Battaglia of Granicus, and while I’m not even going to try to register these dudes on the scale of the politics in their lyrics — songs like “King Queen” and “Only Seventeen,” etc. — they are, to say the very least, of their era.
You can hear the Who and Zeppelin comparisons alike in the tracks below, and further, I think you can hear that New York has been a coke town forever.
Enjoy:
PANDORA – “Space Amazon” LP + 7” EP (1974) ORDER NOW — IT IS HERE!!
“majestic Who-like power chords, Zeppelinesque panache, plaster-cracking castrato vocals and poetic Spiders from Mars lyrics” – Doug Sheppard / Ugly Things.
New York City’s mysterious lost & found hard rock / protopunk-metal masterpiece from 1974 — Pandora echoed of stardom with dynamic rhythms, fuzz-drenched guitar dexterity, and flamboyant, vigorous rockstar vocals. A world class group with members of Plum Nelly, Black Widow, David Johansen, Twisted Sister, and The Demons. 10 songs engineered by Joe Battaglia (Granicus) meticulously remastered by Audu Obaje. Detailed 16pg booklet with bio / photos.
“solid, spangled raunch far truer to the spirit of the era than the Kiss reunion tour was, with a garage spunk that’s more white-punks-on-hope than 8-track flashback” – David Fricke / Rolling Stone Magazine. Fully authorized and on vinyl for the first time. LP + EP. 700 copies.
Posted in Questionnaire on March 31st, 2021 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Conny Ochs
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
Even with various works in composition through various projects, I feel myself being, at first, a songwriter. The filtering of my own reactions, emotions, as well as the stories of people I meet and the picturing of situations I encounter is the base of a song. In a song try to distill these elements into an emphatic moment of sharing, both to inspire and reflect, and hopefully transmit my understanding, that through sharing life it can become something more than a single but a universal experience. To me, this has become a strong medicine in the face of, sometimes, struggling with it. I hope it can do the same to others. Finally, I believe the transformation of consciousness, much as shamans once did, keeps us all sane, emphatic, curious, and very much alive.
Describe your first musical memory.
I remember my father playing me children songs by my bed, when I was very young. At that moment, through the music he played, he become something more than the father figure I knew, but a medium. Like a window that led beyond the world I knew.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
That would be writing my first own song with my best friend, around the age of 15. Before that, we had only played the songs of bands we liked. At that moment I felt all the possibilities that were given through means of communicating, and how it changed what I had thought I knew about myself. I never stopped following that road after that.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
When we started to work with a label for the first time, there were many suggestions made by third parties regarding sound, songwriting, also outfits and so on. We had to defend ourselves in front of people who had been in the music business early on, especially regarding our stage shows, which have been quite intense I guess. That was not always appreciated. Yet we did what we thought was right and true to us, with the consequences that it brought which did not exactly make is easier for us to release our music. But we stuck to our thing all the way though.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
I hope it leads to having the chance to meet and work with a whole bunch of awesome people, keeping an open mind, continuing to be curious about the ways of the world and understanding how to be a free person.
How do you define success?
Transforming what you think and feel into a medium that can be grasped by others.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
Can´t really think of something here, need to pass that one.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I would very much like to become a good cook. Actually just become a cook at all, to my shame I rarely take up on cooking. Then the things i´d like to create would be anything apart from pasta and eggs, that would be something.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
I believe art is the universal language that can connect human beings across cultural, intellectual and political borders. It can bring us back to our own truth, unveil what we hide from ourselves and what is hidden from us. It keeps us young and curious. Right now, I feel a lot of art has become just a means of making money and gaining fame. Which I feel actually does not make it art anymore, but maybe some sort of craftsmanship because the spirit is missing. Yet finally the function of art is what you allow it to be to you.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Right now in these blurred, confined times, I am looking forward very much to see my family and friends again. Also spring, that is just arriving, and a summer that hopefully can give us all some room to breathe. I am looking forward to simple things that we can all share again. Like throwing a good old party finally.
Posted in Reviews on March 31st, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Third day, and you know what that means. Today we hit and pass the halfway mark of this Quarterly Review. I won’t say it hasn’t been work, but it seems like every time I do one of these lately I continue to be astounded by how much easier writing about good stuff makes it. I must’ve done a real clunker like two years ago or something. Can’t think of one, but wow, it’s way more fun when the tunes are killer.
To that end we start with Dopelord today, haha. Have fun digging through if you do.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
Dopelord, Reality Dagger
They put it in a 12″, and that’s cool, but in addition to the fact that it’s about 22 minutes long, something about Reality Dagger, the latest EP from Poland’s Dopelord, strikes me as being really 10″ worthy. I know 10″ is the bastard son of vinyl pressings — doesn’t fit with your LPs and doesn’t fit with your 7″s. They’re a nuisance. Do they get their own shelf? Mixed in throughout? Well, however you organize them, I think a limited 10″ of Reality Dagger would be perfect, because from the melodies strewn throughout “Dark Coils” and the wildly catchy “Your Blood” — maybe the most complex vocal arrangement I’ve yet heard from the band — to the ultra-sludge interplay with screams on the 10-minute closing title-track, it sounds to me like standing out from the crowd is exactly what Dopelord want to do. They want to be that band that doesn’t fit your preconceptions of stoner-doom, or sludge, or modern heavy largesse in the post-Monolord vein. Why not match that admirable drive in format? Oh hell, you know what? I’ll just by the CD and have done with it. One of the best EPs I’ve heard this year.
Don’t be surprised when you see Kozmik Artifactz, Nasoni Records, or some other respected probably-European purveyor of heavy coming through with an announcement they’ve picked up Scorched Oak. The Dortmund, Germany, trio seem to have taken the last few years to figure out where they were headed — they pared down from a five-piece, for example — and their rolling tides of fuzz on late-2020’s debut LP Withering Earth bears the fruit of those efforts. Aesthetically and structurally sound, it’s able to touch on heavy blues, metal and drifting psychedelia all within the span of a seven-minute track like “Swamp,” and in its five-songs running shortest to longest, it effectively draws the listener deeper into the world the band are creating through dual vocals, patient craft and spacious production. If I was a label, I’d sign them for the bass tone on 14-minute closer “Desert” alone, never mind any of the other natural phenomena they portray throughout the record, which is perhaps grim in theme but nonetheless brimming with potential. Some cool riffs on this dying planet.
A scorching set culled from two nights of performances in their native Nashville, what’s essentially serving as Kings of the Fucking Sea‘s debut long-player, In Concert, is a paean to raw psychedelic power trio worship. High order ripper groove pervades “Witch Mountain” and the wasn’t-yet-named “Hiding No More” — which was introduced tentatively as “Death Dealer,” which the following track is actually titled. Disorienting? Shit yeah it is. And shove all the poignancy of making a live album in Feb. 2020 ahead of the pandemic blah blah. That’s not what’s happening here. This is all about blow-the-door-so-we-can-escape psychedelic pull and thrust. One gets the sense that Kings of the Fucking Sea are more in control than they let on, but they play it fast and loose and slow and loose throughout In Concert and by the time the mellower jam in “I Walk Alone” opens up to the garage-style wash of crash cymbal ahead of closer “The Nile Song,” the swirling fuckall that ensues is rampant with noise-coated fire. A show that might make you look up from your phone. So cool it might be jazz. I gotta think about it.
They bill themselves as ‘Mantarraya – power trío,’ and guitarist/vocalist Herman Robles Montero, drummer/maybe-harmonica-ist Kelvin Sifuentes Pérez and bassist/vocalist Enzo Silva Agurto certainly live up to that standard on their late-2020 self-titled debut full-length. The vibe is classic heavy ’70s through and through, and the Peruvian three-piece roll and boogie through the 11 assembled tracks with fervent bluesy swing on “En el Fondo” and no shortage of shuffle throughout the nine-minute “120 Años (Color),” which comes paired with the trippier “Almendrados” in what seems like a purposeful nod to the more out-there among the out there, bringing things back around to finish swinging and bouncing on the eponymous closer. I’ll take the classic boogie as it comes, and Mantarraya do it well, basking in a natural but not too purposefully so sense of underproduction while getting their point across in encouraging-first-record fashion. At over an hour long, it’s too much for a single LP, but plenty of time for them to get their bearings as they begin their creative journey.
At the risk of repeating myself, someone’s gonna sign Häxmästaren. You can just tell. The Swedish five-piece’s second album, Sol i Exil (“sun in exile,” in English), is a mélange of heavy rock and classic doom influences, blurring the lines between microgenres en route to an individual approach that’s still accessible enough in a riffer like “Millennium Phenomenon” or “Dödskult Ritual” to be immediately familiar and telegraph to the converted where the band are coming from. Vocalist Niklas Ekwall — any relation to Magnus from The Quill? — mixes in some screams and growls to his melodic style, further broadening the palette and adding an edge of extremity to “Children of the Mountain,” while “Growing Horns” and the capper title-track vibe out with with a more classic feel, whatever gutturalisms happen along the way, the latter feeling like a bonus for being in Swedish. In the ever-fertile creative ground that is Gothenburg, it should be no surprise to find a band like this flourishing, but fortunately Sol i Exil doesn’t have to be a surprise to kick ass.
Launching with the nine-minute instrumental “Benares” is a telling way for Kyiv’s Shiva the Destructor to begin their debut LP, since it immediately sets listener immersion as their priority. The five-track/44-minute album isn’t short on it, either, and with the band’s progressive, meditative psychedelic style, each song unfolds in its own way and in its own time, drawn together through warmth of tone and periods of heft and spaciousness on “Hydronaut” and a bit of playful bounce on “Summer of Love” (someone in this band likes reggae) and a Middle Eastern turn on “Ishtar” before “Nirvana Beach” seems to use the lyrics to describe what’s happening in the music itself before cutting off suddenly at the end. Vocals stand alone or in harmony and the double-guitar four-piece bask in a sunshine-coated sound that’s inviting and hypnotic in kind, offering turns enough to keep their audience following along and undulations that are duly a clarion to the ‘others’ referenced in the title. It’s like a call to prayer for weirdo psych heads. I’ll take that and hope for more to come.
The first and only lyric in “Heal” — the opening track of Sydney, Australia, trio Amammoth‘s debut album, The Fire Above — is the word “marijuana.” It doesn’t get any less stoned from there. Riffs come in massive waves, and even as “The Sun” digs into a bit of sludge, the largesse and crash remains thoroughly weedian, with the lumbering “Shadows” closing out the first half of the LP with particularly Sleep-y nod. Rawer shouted vocals also recall earlier Sleep, but something in Amammoth‘s sound hints toward a more metallic background than just pure Sabbath worship, and “Rise” brings that forward even as it pushes into slow-wah psychedelics, letting “Blade Runner” mirror “The Sun” in its sludgy push before closer “Walk Towards What Blinds You (Blood Bong)” introduces some backing vocals that fit surprisingly well even they kind of feel like a goof on the part of the band. Amammoth, as a word, would seem to be something not-mammoth. In sound, Amammoth are the opposite.
With emotional stakes sufficiently high throughout, MCMXIII is urgent enough to be post-hardcore, but there’s an underpinning of progressive heavy rock even in the mellower stretch of the eight-minute “Dogfight” that complements the noisier and more angular aspects on display elsewhere. Opener “Post Blue Collar Blues” sets the plotline for the newcomer Dayton, Ohio, four-piece, with thoughtful lyrics and a cerebral-but-not-dead-of-spirit instrumental style made full and spacious through the production. Melodies flesh out in “Cripple John” and “Old Face on the Wall,” brooding and surging in children-of-the-’90s fashion, but I hear a bit of Wovenhand in that finale as well — though maybe the one doesn’t exclude the other — so clearly Nineteen Thirteen are just beginning this obviously-passion-fueled exploration of sound aesthetic with these songs, but the debut EP they comprise cuts a wide swath with marked confidence and deceptive memorability. A new turn on Rust Belt heavy.
Hey, you process trauma from living through the last year your way and Genova, Italy’s Ikitan will process it theirs. In their case, that means the writing, recording and self-release of their 20-minute single-song EP, Twenty-Twenty, a sprawling work of instrumentalist heavy post-rock rife with spacious, airy lead guitar and a solid rhythmic foundation. Movements occur in waves and layers, but there is a definite thread being woven throughout the outing from one part to the next, held together alternately by the bass or drums or even guitar, though it’s the latter that seems to be leading those changes as well. The shifts are fluid in any case, and Ikitan grow Twenty-Twenty‘s lone, titular piece to a satisfyingly heft as they move through, harnessing atmosphere as well as weight even before they lower volume for stretches in the second half. There’s a quick surge at the end, but “Twenty-Twenty” is more about journey than destination, and Ikitan make the voyage enticing.
Loops, far-out spaces and a generally experimentalist feel ooze outward like Icelandic lava from Bodkin, the five-song debut LP from UK-based solo-outfit Smote. The gentleman behind the flow is Newcastle upon Tyne’s Daniel Foggin, and this is one of three releases he has out so far in 2021, along with a prior drone collaboration tape with Forest Mourning and a subsequent EP made of two tracks at around 15 minutes each. Clearly a project that can be done indoors during pandemic lockdown, Smote‘s material is wide-ranging just the same, bringing Eastern multi-instrumentalism and traditionalist UK psych together on “Fohrt” and “Moninna,” which would border on folk but for all that buzz in the background. The 11-minute “Motte” is a highlight of acid ritualizing, but the droning title-track that rounds out makes each crash count all the more for the spaces that separate them. I dig this a lot, between you and me. I get vibes like Lamp of the Universe here in terms of sonic ambition and resultant presence. That’s not a comparison I make lightly, and this is a project I will be following.
Posted in Questionnaire on March 30th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: James Cl of Monte Luna
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I play to live, music is life to me and a true universal language. Playing music is the closest thing to a higher power I’ve ever felt. It is a connection with everyone involved. I started getting serious into music when my ex-wife killed herself in 2015. It was either drink myself to death or play more music, and I’m thankful for the decision I made.
Describe your first musical memory.
My first musical memory was listening to Dark Side of the Moon with my Father when I was a child. It was such an awakening. My first memory of actually playing music was when I was 16. My friend Joe Pacelli and I would sing Alice in Chains songs. He would play guitar and sing doing the Jerry leads and I would do Layne’s. It was amazing, it wasn’t too long after that that I got into guitar, but didn’t get serious about it until after I got out of the Navy when I was 22 (I’m 33 now).
Describe your best musical memory to date.
I would say our 2018 tour across the East Coast. We met so many wonderful people and had such a blast, I was hooked. Second to that would be our Free Week performance at Mohawk Austin. Packed house, stellar lineup and all the homies.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
When Phil left Monte Luna after our EU tour fell through I was devastated. But I’m thankful for the music community here in Austin and for such great friends, now bandmates, and about to be roommates (Yes, Monte Luna band house is coming in April!!). I really thought it was over, but new energy and the ability to get more live layers of sound really has us pushing. We already have the album written and are working on recording. I believe the bass and drums are done! So that leaves my rhythm, vocals and leads/keys and samples! I love two-piece Monte Luna, but it was mostly for proof of concept, and I got big dreams JJ!
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
I think there is no one direction artistic progression leads. Sometimes you do art for so long you change course and become better at another form of art. Hell, my first art was doing scripts and goofy movies with my friend Eric Oneil. Now, I play doom, before that I was doing more of a punk rock thing. You just need to be in touch with yourself and keep from limitations of people, genres and anything. Art comes from the soul, and you grow with it.
How do you define success?
Success is based solely on person to person. I used to work for the courts, had a great job and a good life… and I hated it… now, I bartend, play music and live much more modest and I love it. What is success? Well, when they asked me what I wanted to be in college, I said, Happy. That’s what I have been working toward ever since.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
There are some things I wish I could forget about my time in the Navy for sure. But I don’t wish to talk about or glorify war. So I’m gonna say, Velvet Revolver. They trash.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
Oh it’s coming… but… an Adventure module for DND 5e based on a Monte Luna album world. Pretty stoked about it, working on characters and adventure hook as we speak! (Multitasking for the win.) It will, for the sake of size, be directly compatible with all 5e books. We are trying to build something very similar to the Lost Mines of Phandelver adventure found in the DND 5e beginners set. We are aiming to include this as a very limited special edition of our next vinyl.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
To make you feel something.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
My girlfriend Jenny and I are going to play DND together for the first time right before her birthday! I’m the Dungeon Master too (haha kinda kinky).
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 30th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Rochester, New York, heavy psych trio King Buffalo take on the darker side of quarantine with The Burden of Restlessness, their third LP, set to release on June 4. Their most progressive album rhythmically is also their more aggressive thematically, and the album’s tracks do a damn fine job of living up to the album’s name. If you happened to be alive last Spring, you probably felt some of that burden yourself. Or you actually got sick, which as I understand it was worse.
Not that the pandemic is over, mind you.
As discussed in the recent interview with drummer Scott Donaldson, The Burden of Restlessness will serve as one of three full-lengths King Buffalo will issue in 2021/early 2022, with the next one to be recorded next month. I’ll have more on that to come. In the meantime, preorders are up for The Burden of Restlessness, which will be released through the band in the US and through Stickman Records in Europe. And hey, they’ve got tour dates! Will they happen? Maybe!
As per the PR wire:
KING BUFFALO RELEASE THIRD RECORD, THE BURDEN OF RESTLESSNESS, ON JUNE 4TH & ANNOUNCE TOUR DATES
King Buffalo’s third full-length record, The Burden of Restlessness, will be released on June 4, 2021. The widely-hailed progressive heavy rock trio will have vinyl & CD preorders available on April 2, via kingbuffalo.bigcartel.com.
This the first of three full-lengths they will release throughout 2021.
REPEAT: THREE
Their most focused progressive offering to-date, The Burden of Restlessness will self-release throughout North America and see European issue via Stickman Records.
Self-recorded in late 2020 and early 2021 by guitarist/vocalist Sean McVay, bassist Dan Reynolds and drummer Scott Donaldson, The Burden of Restlessness continues to push King Buffalo’s progressive aspects forward into new avenues of melody and exploration.
At the same time, it is not mistitled. There are deep undercurrents of frustration and even an aggressive pulse that coincide with the spaciousness for which the band has been so widely lauded since their 2016 debut, Orion. Guitarist/vocalist Sean McVay drops what’s bound to become one of the record’s signature lyrics in opener “Burning” when he declares, “Another year lost in the wasteland,” and more succinct summaries of canceled plans and rescheduled, lost or damaged lives are hard to come by.
“The Burden of Restlessness was written over the course of what most would consider a pretty stark and stressful time period. The end result is our darkest, most aggressive, and most intimate work to date. We are extremely proud of what this record became.” – Sean McVay
Followers of King Buffalo will find the band’s time was not at all wasted. While some of the synthesizer-driven elements of early-2020’s Dead Star EP have been stripped back, the rhythmic complexity in The Burden of Restlessness is yet more new ground the band are claiming as their own. They do so with confidence and a creative depth of atmosphere that comes through in more than just the effects being used, and the urgency in their material is unmistakable.
“Since Covid stopped all touring, we’ve been hard at work and made the commitment to not waste the opportunity. We’re excited to share the first of three records of 2021, which has expanded our sound in a lot of different ways. We hope you enjoy it and we look forward to eventually playing these songs live.” – Scott Donaldson
The Burden of Restlessness was written and recorded by King Buffalo in Rochester, NY at the Main Street Armory in December of 2020 & January 2021. Produced, engineered & mixed by Sean McVay, and mastered by Bernie Matthews. The artwork was created by Zdzis?aw Beksi?ski with cover fonts by Mike Turzanski and album layout by Scott Donaldson.
The Burden of Restlessness Tracklist: 1. Burning 2. Hebetation 3. Locusts 4. Silverfish 5. Grifter 6. The Knocks 7. Loam
2021 Tour Dates (Tickets on sale NOW atkingbuffalo.com) 9/10 Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge 9/11 Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge 9/14 Los Angeles, CA @ Moroccan Lounge 9/15 San Francisco, CA @ Bottom of the Hill 9/17 Seattle, WA @ Barboza 9/18 Vancouver, BC @ Fox Cabaret 9/19 Portland, OR @ Lola’s Room 11/5 Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s 11/6 New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge 11/11 Pittsburgh, PA @ Club Café 11/12 Detroit, MI @ Loving Touch 11/13 Indianapolis, IN @ HI-FI 11/14 St. Louis, MO @ Off Broadway 11/16 Madison, WI @ The Bur Oak 11/17 Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St. Entry 11/18 Milwaukee, WI @ Colectivo 11/19 Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall 11/20 Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom
King Buffalo is: Sean McVay – Guitar, Vocals, & Synth Dan Reynolds – Bass & Synth Scott Donaldson – Drums & Percussion
Posted in Reviews on March 30th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Hello Day Two of the Quarterly Review. It started by oversleeping by about an hour, but so it goes. Yesterday went about as smoothly as I can ask a QR day to go, so I’m hoping that today follows suit despite the rough start. There’s nothing like building some momentum once you get going with these writeups. It’s about as close to ‘in the zone’ as I get. Trance of productivity.
As always, I hope you find something here you dig. Today’s round is good and all over the place, so maybe everyone’ll get lucky. Here goes.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
Jess and the Ancient Ones, Vertigo
More than a decade on from their founding, Finland’s Jess and the Ancient Ones are an established brand when it comes to cult psych rock, and their fourth full-length, issued through Svart, is gleeful to the point of witch-cackling on “Talking Board” (think Ouija) and offers rousing classically-stylized hooks on fellow early cuts like opener “Burning of the Velvet Fires” and “World Paranormal” as well as side B’s “Born to Kill,” the Dr. Strangelove-sampling “Summer Tripping Man” and the organ-washed “What’s on Your Mind” ahead of an 11-minute prog rock grand finale in “Strange Earth Illusion” that feels very much like the impetus toward which the album has been driving all along. Relax, you’re in the hands of professional mystics, and their acid rock vibes are made all the more grand by Jess‘ soulful delivery atop the ever-clever arrangements of guitar, organ, bass, drums, samples, and so on. This kind of cultish lysergic fare has never been and never will be for everyone. Listening to Vertigo, you can only really wonder why that is.
Metallic overload! Irish assault supreme! All sentences end with exclamation points! A new Dread Sovereign record doesn’t come along every day, or year, but the Dublin trio certainly make it count when one does. Alchemical Warfare is the third LP from the Alan Averill-fronted outfit, and with Johnny “Con Ri” King (also Conan) on drums and guitarist Bones Huse (also Wizards of Firetop Mountain), the band tear through nine tracks and 51 minutes of doom-colored metallurgy, throwing unrepentant fists in the air under darkened, irony-free skies. By the time 10-minute post-intro opener “She Wolves of the Savage Season” is over, if you’re not ready to quit your job and join the legion about to set march to “The Great Beast We Serve,” it’s no fault of the band’s. “Nature is the Devil’s Church” was the lead single and is a standout hook, but the grandiosity of “Ruin Upon the Temple Mount”‘s Candlemassy riffing is too good to be ignored, and they finish with a Bathory cover, because fucking a, that’s why.
The debut EP from Brazilian instrumentalist trio Space Smoke runs all of 12 minutes, but that’s long enough for Aurora Dourada to give an impression of where the band are coming from. Three distinct tracks — “Magia Cerimonial,” “Interludio” and “Corpo Solar” — comprise the outing, and the middle one is indeed an interlude, so it’s really the opener and closer doing the heavy lifting. “Magia Cerimonia” starts off with a sense of foreboding but makes its way instead into hypnotic repetition, bordering on a meditative lumber that doesn’t stick around long enough to be redundant, and with the interlude as a breath between, the eight-minute “Corpo Solar” rounds out as the most substantial piece of the outing, drifting guitar over languid drums and bass, dreamy and sopping wet with reverb. They push it heavier than its quiet beginning, of course, but even the howling lead work near the finish maintains the inviting and immersive vibe with which they set out. Might be a blip of things to come, but it’s a blip worth checking out. Mini-trip.
Infinite Hum is the striking debut LP from Bakersfield, California, post-hardcore heavy three/four-piece If it Kills You, who along with the periodic charred guest vocals on half the six tracks, bring together a quick assemblage for a 12″ that readily alternates between melodic sway and shoutier roll. They groove despite unpredictable turns, and their blend of hefted tones and punker-grown-up melodies makes a welcome impression on opener “We Don’t Belong Here” or “Moving Target.” Starts and stops and a bit of winding lead work give “Repeat Resolve” an edge of noise rock — more than an edge, actually; kind of like the flat side of a brick — but If it Kills You never push to one side or the other entirely, and as the screams return for later in “Repeat Resolve” and closer “Projections,” charged every time with and succeeding at pushing a crescendo over the top, the band manage to bring sincerity and structure together with what sounds like experienced hands. Don’t be fooled by “first album”; they know what they’re doing.
I’m not sure if anyone still calls this kind of thing “neo-folk,” but I am sure I don’t care. The sense of atmosphere Clara Engel puts into her latest album, A New Skin, beginning with the shift between minimal guitar and keyboard on “Starry Eyed Goat,” uses negative space no less effectively than does the mostly-black cover art, and the eight-song/46-minute outing that ensues alternates between emotive and wondrously ambient, suited to the home recording done during (presumed) isolation in Fall 2020. Engel handles all instrumentation herself and remains indelibly human in her sometimes-layered vocal delivery all the while, speaking to a building-out process of the material, but one does not get the sense in listening to “Night Tide” and the sparse “Thieves” back-to-back that the foundation of all the songs is the same, which is all the more representative of an exploratory songwriting process. A New Skin as a whole feels likewise exploratory, a reflection inward as much as out.
Long-running Italian trio Maya Mountains issued Era through Go Down Records in 2020 as their first album in some six years, readily engaging with desert rock on cuts like “San Saguaro” and closer “El Toro,” working in a bit of post-Queens of the Stone Age riffy quirk to go along with less bouncing and chunkier fare on “Vibromatic” and “Baumgartner,” or “Extremely High,” which makes its speedier tempo feel organic ahead of the finish. All told, it’s 44 minutes of solid heavy rock, with variation between songs of what each is working toward doing that does nothing to pull away from the vibe as a whole, whether that’s in a more aggressive moment like “Vibromatic” or the spacier playfulness at the start of “Raul,” the band clearly unafraid of letting a little funk hold sway for a minute or two. Engaging without being revolutionary, Era knows its craft and audience alike, and offers one to the other without pretense or presumption. It’s rock for rockers, but what’s wrong with that?
An awaited first long-player from Miami duo Cave of Swimmers — vocalist/guitarist/synthesist Guillermo Gonzalez and drummer/percussionist/vocalist Arturo Garcia — packages epic metal in tight-knit bursts of heavy rock tonality. Choruses in “The Sun” and “Double Rainbow” are grand affairs not because their tones are so huge, but because of the melodies that top them, and at the same time, with riffs at the forefront of the verses, the duo make progressive shifts sound classic in the vein of Iron Maiden or Dio with a still-prevailing fuzzy topcoat. Centerpiece “My Human” is a love song that slams, while “Looking Glass” leans deeper into prog metal but brings the listener along with a another sweeping hook, a pattern of tension and release that carries over to “Dirt” as well, which leaves “C.S” to close out with its “Sign of the Southern Cross” keyboard-and-harmonies intro en route to a poised but still thrashing finish. There’s life in heavy metal, and here it is.
Straight out of Sheffield, UK, Blind Monarch first released their What is Imposed Must Be Endured four-song/56-minute full-length on Black Bow Records in 2020 and it’s been picked up for a 2LP vinyl pressing by Dry Cough Records. There’s something to be said for splitting up these tracks each onto its own side, making the whole release more manageable despite getting up to do a side or platter flip, but any way you go, “Suffering Breathes My Name” (13:45), “My Mother, My Cradle, My Tomb” (10:47), “Blind Monarch” (14:10) and closer “Living Altar” (17:54) are geared toward sharp-toothed death-sludge consumption, extreme in thought and deed. Feedback is strewn about the place like so much flayed skin, and even in the quiet moments at the start and laced into “Living Altar,” the atmosphere remains oppressive. Yet, endure one must. Blind Monarch, even among the UK’s ultra-packed underground, are a standout in how maddeningly heavy they manage to be, and on their debut outing, no less. If you missed it last year, be ready to pay extra for shipping.
Each track on Italian instrumentalist trio Cancervo‘s debut album, titled simply 1, is intended to represent an area near their home in the mountainous region of Lombardy, Italy. Their tones are duly thick, their presentation patient and their cast is broad in terms of its landscape. From “Averara,” one might see kilometers, in other words. Whether or not you’re familiar with Cancervo‘s locale, their tonal warmth and heavy psychedelic expanse resonates immersively, letting each of the two sides develop on its own from the beginnings in “Cancervo” and “Darco,” both the longest cuts on their respective halves. The fuller fuzz of “SWLABR” and the punch of bass that accompanies the tom hits on closer “1987” are subtle shifts emblematic of Cancervo‘s creative progression getting underway, and the task to which they set themselves — portraying place in sound — is no less admirable than their accomplishment of same would see to be. I’ve never been there, so can’t confirm 100 percent if that’s what it sounds like, but in repeat listens, I’m happy to take the band’s word (or riffs) for it.
Its four cuts run 17 minutes with the last of them an instrumental title-track that’s under three, but I don’t care — the entire thing is so righteously raw and garage nasty that I’m on board with however much Argentina’s Sahara want to bring to The Curse. “Gallows Noose” sounds like it was taped, and then re-taped, and then re-taped again before finally being pressed (to tape), and there’s no mistaking that’s an aesthetic choice on the part of the band, who probably have phones that could make something with clearer audio, but the in-room demo feel of “Hell on Earth” and “Altar of Sacrifice,” the rootsy metal-of-doom feel of it hits on its own level. Sometimes you just want something that comes across barebones and mean, and that’s what The Curse does. Call it retro, call it unproduced, call it whatever you want, it doesn’t matter. Sahara (bring looks that) kill it on that Sabbath-worshiping altar and sound dirt-coated all the while, making everything everything else in the universe seem more complicated than it needs to be.
Posted in Questionnaire on March 29th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Freddy Allen of Sun of Grey & Gypsybyrd
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I’ve always loved music and felt the strength and warmth it can bring to one’s soul. No matter the different paths I’ve followed through the years, music has always found me and been a big part of my life. I started guitar at the age of 13 and worked hard every day since then. It’s been tough but I can’t see myself doing anything else that makes me this happy. Sure the nights on the road can be long and lonely, and the equipment seems to get heavier every gig but I am a rockstar and this is what we do!
Describe your first musical memory.
I had been taking guitar lessons from the local music shop and was learning all kinds of stuff I didn’t care for much. One day I was walking to the corner store and heard someone playing all kinds of Metallica/ Megadeth bass riffs from an open window. I yelled in to introduce myself and met my now longtime friend Shag. He told me about his awesome guitar teacher, Al. From that moment on, Al changed everything for me and became a huge influence in all aspects of my life. I babysat his children, I guitar tech’ed/roadied for his band and eventually I got to open for him with my own band!
Describe your best musical memory to date.
I have been playing music for over 30 years and have had some great opportunities with many great players; but my best musical memory is happening right now with the release of my first album Outerworld. My whole career has consisted of helping other singer/songwriters reach their goals and dreams but this is the first time I’ve ever gone after mine and it was scary at first to say the least. It is a big learning curve and I am blessed to have people around me that believe in my vision.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
I think everyone’s faith is tested daily with the invention of social media. I always try to look at any situation with the “walk a mile in their shoes” mentality. I might not be aware of someone else’s beliefs, customs, traditions or any challenges or tragedies they might have suffered so I shouldn’t jump to accusations or conclusions when dealing with a difficult or awkward situation. We’re all human and life can be hard most times so a little bit of reflection and kindness goes a long way.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Depends on the artist in question I guess. Bands for instance might be able to do great things over time and keep refining their craft bringing delight to our ears with each new album. Or they could burn out where most people will argue their first four albums was where it’s at. While still some bands might only have their first album as a crowning achievement with nothing more to show over a span of time. I think this can be said of any artistic endeavor whether they be a painter, director, writer, etc. I guess unless you try, you’ll never know.
How do you define success?
Man, has that answer changed so much for me over time. As a kid, one year we didn’t have much money for Christmas so I had to sell my bike to buy my first guitar. Something I’ve never regretted but a personal sacrifice nonetheless. So money and material items seemed like the way to prove yourself to others and be happy, right? After achieving a lot of what I set out to do as a young man I’ve found that real happiness/success comes from within us and not from the things we own. My wife and I recently started to minimize our lives and belongings and couldn’t be happier letting go with the stress and chaos that accompanied those items. Be a good person and do good things, that’s the true key to success.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
My father’s funeral. He was taken from me when I was 16 and not a day goes by that I wish I could just call him and tell him about his grandkids and all the wonderful things that have happened to me over the years. Losing someone you love is never easy but a boy losing his father is all together something different. His passing is what fueled my fire to leave town and pursue my dreams so I’ve always looked at that as my silver lining. He didn’t always understand it, but he always supported me and my music.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
My passions have always been Film/TV and music so I would love to work on more film projects as well as compilation albums with the artists that I love. I particularly like ’80s metal and ’90s grunge to sing too so I’d love to be involved with a project like that in the near future.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
To move an individual in a way that no other person or thing can. The beautiful thing is, it can happen at anytime of the day, anywhere in the world at anytime in our lives. That’s powerful stuff!
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
I have two younger children, a boy and girl that I look forward to spending every day with. I never thought I’d have children but now can’t imagine my life without them in it. Watching them grow and pick up hobbies and likes/dislikes is a real joy for my wife and I. They really have made me a better man and I can’t wait to see where their lives and dreams lead them.
Posted in Reviews on March 29th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
The Spring 2021 Quarterly Review begins here, and as our long winter of plague-addled discontent is made glorious spring by this son of York Beach, I can hardly wait to dig in. You know the drill. 50 records between now and Friday, 10 per day. It’s a lot. It’s always a lot. That’s the point.
Words on the page. If I have a writing philosophy, that’s it. Head down, keep working. And that’s the challenge here. Can you get over your own crap and say what you need to say about 10 records every day for five days straight out? I’ll be exhausted by the end of the week for sure. I’ll let you know when we get there if it feels any different. Till then, let’s roll.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
Wolvennest, Temple
The second full-length offering — and I mean that: ‘offering’ — from Belgium’s Wolvennest is an expansive and immersive follow-up to their 2018 debut, Void, as the Brussels six-piece offers next-stage extreme cult rock. Across 77 willfully-unmanageable and mind-altering minutes, the troupe caroms between (actual) psychedelic black metal and sheer sonic ritualism, and the intent is made plain from 12:26 opener/longest track (immediate points) “Mantra” onward. Wolvennest are enacting a ceremony and it’s up to the listener to be willing to engage with the material on that level. Their command is unwavering as the the heft and wash of “Alecto” and the ethereal swirl and dual vocal arrangement of “All that Black” show, but while King Dude himself shows up on “Succubus,” and that’s fun, especially followed by the penultimate downward march of “Disappear,” the greatest consumption is saved for “Souffle de Mort” (“breath of death,” in English; it’s not about eggs). In that 10-minute finale, marked out by the French-language declarations of Shazzula Vultura, Wolvennest not only make it plain just how far they’ve brought you, but that they intend to leave you there as well.
A 15-minute playful jaunt into the funk-grooving max-fuzzed whatever-works garage headtrip if Toronto’s Lammping is right on the money. The four-piece start channel-spanning and mellow with “Jaws of Life” — which is a righteous preach, even though I don’t know the lyrics — and follow with the complementary vibe of “The Funkiest,” which would seem to be titled in honor of its bassline and conjures out-there’est Masters of Reality in its face-painted BlueBoy lysergics over roughly traditional songwriting. Is “Neverbeen” weirder? You know it. Dreamily so, and it’s followed by the genuinely-experimental 40 seconds of “Big Time the Big Boss” and the closer “Other Shoe,” which if it doesn’t make you look forward to the next Lammping album, I’m sorry to say it, but you might be dead. Sorry for your loss. Of you. This shit is killer and deserves all the ears it can get with its early ’90s weirdness that’s somehow also from the late ’60s and still the future too because what is time anyway and screw it we’re all lost let’s ride.
Tales to Be Told is the late-2020 third long-player from Swedish classicists Lykantropi, following 2019’s Spirituosa (review here) with a warmth of tone that’s derived from ’70s folk rock and vaguely retro in its tones and drum sounds, but remains modern in its hookmaking and it’s not exactly like they’re trying to hide where they’re coming from when they break out the flute sounds. Harmonies in “Mother of Envy” make that song a passionate highlight, while the respective side-endings in “Kom Ta Mig Ut” and “Världen Går Vidare” add to the exploratory and roots-proggy listening experience, the album’s finale dropping its drums before the three-minute mark to allow for a drifting midsection en route to a class finish that answers the choruses of “Spell of Me” and “Axis of Margaret” earlier with due spaciousness. Clean and clear and wanting nothing aesthetically or emotionally, Tales to Be Told is very much a third album in how realized it feels.
Japanese trio Mainliner — comprised of guitarist Kawabata Makoto (Acid Mothers Temple), bassist/vocalist Kawabe Taigen (Bo Ningen) and drummer Koji Shimura (Acid Mothers Temple) — are gentle at the outset of Dual Myths but don’t wait all that long before unveiling their true freak-psych intention in the obliterating 20 minutes of “Blasphemy Hunter,” the opener/longest track (immediate points) that’s followed by the likewise side-consuming left-the-air-lock-behind-and-found-antimatter-was-made-of-feedback “Hibernator’s Dream” (18:38), the noisier, harsher fuckall spread of “Silver Guck” (19:28) and the gut-riffed/duly scorched jazz shredder “Dunamist Zero” (20:08), which culminates the 2LP beast about as well as anything could, earning the gatefold with sheer force of intent to be and to harness the far-out into some loosely tangible thing. Stare into the face of the void and the void doesn’t so much stare back as turn your lungs into party balloons.
On a certain level, what you see is what you get with the Orion slavegirl warriors, alien mushrooms and caithan beast that adorn DayGlo Mourning‘s debut album, the six-song/35-minute Dead Star, in that they’re suitably nestled into the sonic paraphernalia of stoner-doom as well as the visual. With bassist Jerimy McNeil and guitarist Joseph Mills sharing vocal duties over Ray Miner‘s drums, variety of melody and throatier shouts are added to the deep-toned largesse of riff, and the Atlanta trio most assuredly have their heads on when it comes to knowing what they want to do sound-wise. The hard-hit hi-hat of “Faithful Demise” comes with some open spaces after the fuzzy lumber that caps “Bloodghast,” and as “Ashwhore” and “Witch’s Ladder” remind a bit of the misogyny inherent in witchy folklore — at the end of the day it was all about killing pretty girls — the grooves remain fervent and the forward potential on the part of the band likewise. It’s a sound big enough that there isn’t really any room left for bullshit.
Issued in the waning hours of Dec. 2020, Chamán‘s 70-minute, six-song debut album, Maleza, is a psicodelico cornucopia of organic-toned delights, from the more forward-fuzz of “Poliforme” — which is a mere six and a half minutes long but squeezes in a drum solo — to the 13-plus-minute out-there salvo that is “Malezo,” “Concreto” and “Temazcal,” gorgeously trippy and drifting and building on what the Mendozza, Argentina, three-piece conjure early in the proceedings with “Despierta” and “Ganesh,” each over 10 minutes as well. Even in Maleza‘s most lucid moments, the spirit of improv and live recording remains vibrant, and however these songs were built out to their current form, I’m just glad they were. Whether you put it on headphones and bliss out for 70 minutes or you end up using it as a backdrop for whatever your day might bring, Chamán‘s sprawling and melted soundscapes are ready to embrace and enfold you.
Italian duo Sonic Demon bring a lethal dose of post-Electric Wizard grit fuzz and druggy echoed snarl to their debut full-length, Vendetta, hitting a particularly nasty low end vibe early on “Black Smoke” and proving willing to ride that out for the duration with bouts of spacier fare in “Fire Meteorite” and side A capper “Cosmic Eyes” before the second half of the 40-minute outing renews the buzz with “FreakTrip.” Deep-mixed drums make the guitar and bass sound even bigger, and such is the morass Sonic Demon make that even their faster material seems slow; that means “Hxxxn” must be extra crawling to feel as nodded-out as it does. Closing duo “Blood and Fire” and “Serpent Witch” don’t have much to say that hasn’t already been said, style-wise, but they feel no less purposeful in sealing the hypnosis cast by the songs before them. If you can’t hang with repetition, you can’t hang, and the filth in the speedier-ish last section of “Serpent Witch” isn’t enough to stop it from being catchy.
Sow Discord is the solo industrial doom/experimentalist project of David Coen, also known for his work in Whitehorse, and the bleak feel that pervades his debut full-length under the moniker, Quiet Earth, is resonant and affecting. Channeling blowout beats and speaker-throbbing crush on “Ruler,” Coen elsewhere welcomes Many Blessings (aka Ethan Lee McCarthy, also of Primitive Man) and The Body as guests for purposefully disturbing conjurations. Cuts like “Desalination” and “Functionally Extinct” churn with an atmosphere that feels born of a modern real-world apocalypse, and it’s hard to tell ultimately whether closer “The World Looks on with Pity and Scorn” is offering condolence or condemnation, but either way you go, the bitter harshness that carries over is the thread that weaves all this punishment together, and as industrial music pushes toward new extremes, even “Everything Has Been Exhausted” manages to feel fresh in its pummel.
Formed by members of Lord Humungus, Frank Sabbath and Carpet Burns, Cerbère offer three tracks of buried-alive extreme sludge on their self-titled debut EP, recorded live in the band’s native Paris during a pandemic summer when it was illegal to leave the house. Someone left the house, anyhow, and the resultant three cuts are absolutely unabashed in their grating approach, enough so to warrant in-league status with masters of misanthropy like Grief or Khanate, even if Cerbère move more throughout the 15-minute closing title-track, and dare to add some trippy guitar later on. The two prior cuts, “Julia” — the sample at the beginning feels especially relevant in light of the ongoing Notre Dame rebuild — and “Aliéné” are no less brutal if perhaps more compact. I can’t be sure, because I just can’t, but it’s entirely possible “Aliéné” is the only word in the song that bears its name. That wouldn’t work in every context. Here it feels earned, along with the doomier lead that follows.
They’ve cooled down a bit from the tear they were on for a few years there, but Dali’s Llama‘s new Dune Lung EP is no less welcome for that. The desert-dwelling four-piece founded by guitarist/vocalist Zach and bassist Erica Huskey bring a laid back roll to the nonetheless palpably heavy “Nothing Special,” backing the opener with the fuzzy sneer of “Complete Animal,” the broader-soundscape soloing of “Merricat Blackwood,” and the more severe groove of “STD (Suits),” all of which hit with a fullness of sound that feels natural while giving the band their due as a studio unit. Dali’s Llama have been and continue to be significantly undervalued when it comes to desert rock, and Dune Lung is another example of why that is and how characteristic they are in sound and execution. Good band, and they’re edging ever closer to the 30-year mark. Seems like as good a time as any to be appreciated for the work they’ve done and do.
