Cervus Post Video for New Single “Cycles”
This past Friday, Amsterdam-based heavy psychedelic rockers Cervus released their new single Cycles, a standalone nine-minute track to follow-up on late-2021’s debut Ignis EP. The track is mellow and prog-leaning, exploratory but ultimately plotted in its direction, and while one might expect an instrumental approach for such a thing based on countrymen outfits like Monomyth or even Temple Fang — who aren’t instrumental, but at least mostly so — Cervus bring structure to what might otherwise seem to willfully meander in the verses here. A human presence in the ethereal, if you want to think about it. Voice in the mist.
I’ll readily cop to “Cycles” — birth, death, repeat on cosmic scale — being my first exposure to Cervus, and it’s something of a step aside from most of what the band had on offer on last December’s EP, where a song like “Run Baby Run” was aggressive enough in its push to ask in the hook, “You want a piece of me?,” and the sphere was much more in line with straightforward heavy fuzz, organ adding to melody and lending a classic feel in the jammier shuffle of the seven-minute finale “The Witch’s Wail” and elsewhere. Six dudes in the band, safe to say there’s room for such things.
And for the shift in approach that “Cycles” represents, it’s not so out of step ultimately with the prior EP as to be unrecognizable, despite the marked uptick in patience. Could well be that Cervus are working strictly in response to what they did last year, and if so, that’s an impulse they will hopefully continue to pursue, since whatever it leads to won’t be stagnation, or maybe they’ve adopted a more lysergic mindset on the whole and have the video to showcase that. The fact that I can’t say for sure either way makes me like them better.
If you also missed the EP — which I know you didn’t because you’re cooler than me — it’s streaming at the bottom of this post, and you’ll find the “Cycles” video immediately below, followed by more on the song and the band.
Enjoy:
Cervus, “Cycles” official video
‘Cycles’ is a journey through time and space, about the unending cycle of life and death as it occurs throughout the universe. From the genesis of the tiniest microbe to complete solar systems being swallowed by black holes.
Music video made by Ton van Rijswijk with editing assistance by Dennis de Bruin.
Mixed by Rogier Henkelman and mastered by Wessel Oltheten of Spoor 14.
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Cervus’ music is a combination of heavy Stoner Rock, Doom and 70’s Hardrock with a psychedelic edge. The many influences of the band create a potent and moving mix of massive, pounding riffs and driving grooves, interspersed with soaring melancholic passages. This six-headed beast fires off a wall of sound, all engrossing and intoxicating.
Cervus is:
Tom van der Linden – Vocals
Tom Mourik – Bass Guitar
Rogier Henkelman – Drums
Jan Woudenberg – Guitar
Ton van Rijswijk – Keyboard/Guitar
Dennis de Bruin – Guitar
