Posted in Whathaveyou on February 24th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
If the notion of Magnetic Eye Records signing an Australian band hasn’t already raised your eyebrows, go check out the sadly-defunct Horsehunter. Following in those significant footsteps is the Melbourne trio Oceanlord, who released their two-songer demo (review here) in 2020 and thereby began to carve a place for themselves in their crowded native scene, making an impression in the broader international underground as well via strong social media word of mouth. It was a hard release to argue with, and on the e’er slight chance you didn’t click that review link, I’ll tell you flat out that I saw no reason to try.
Oceanlord add further depth to the Magnetic Eye lineup, which in recent years has emerged as both diverse in aesthetic and unflinching in quality, with standout offerings last year from Ruby the Hatchet and Caustic Casanova — look out for that new Witch Ripper as well — to underscore the point. From Arthur Brown to Greenleaf to Heavy Temple, the label has amassed a roster of forward-thinking talent that’s less about adhering to genre norms than supporting stylistic individualism. I look forward to hearing how that ethic manifests when Oceanlord make their full-length debut presumably sometime later this year.
The PR wire has it like this:
OCEANLORD sign with Magnetic Eye Records
OCEANLORD have sealed their fate by singing a forbidding deal with Magnetic Eye Records. The tentacled Australian doom triumvirate will soon release their debut full-length via the eldritch label.
OCEANLORD comment: “From the shadows, we herald the release of our debut album through Magnetic Eye Records”, writes guitarist and singer Peter Willmott on behalf of his fellow cultists. “Get ready for a voyage into the abyss of cosmic terror. The release is imminent, we ready ourselves for a journey beyond the veil of reality.”
Jadd Shickler welcomes OCEANLORD: “By the great old ones, doom is often brutal and annihilating, yet some is also dark and bleak as well as wistful, melancholic, crushing and somehow also strangely uplifting”, the Magnetic Eye director writes. “Oceanlord are of that second type with their epic, haunting yarns that feel as old and inexorable as the sea. This label stakes its existence on pushing outward at the boundaries of our favorite sonic styles, and we’re extremely eager for our endlessly dedicated and enthusiastic supporters to embark on this exciting voyage into the unfathomable depths that Oceanlord explore.”
Line-up Peter Willmott – guitar, vocals Jason Ker – bass Jon May – drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 24th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
I still need to dig into the new Ruff Majik album, Elektrik Ram — I’ve had the record for a bit but I’m backlogged and there’s time — but their new single “Cement Brain” emphasizes so much of what I appreciate about the band’s work to this point. There’s a solid underpinning of heavy rock, desert-ish but less fuzz-soaked than they’ve been at other times (not a complaint), and the swagger with which they commune outside genre is wonderfully brazen. Instrumentally, “Cement Brain” has a current almost of hip-hop to it, and the vocal arrangement they put over top manages to sound like an absolute toss-off, casual Friday show up and see what happens, but reveals the depth and consideration that is truly such an asset to their approach.
With tongue-in-cheek all the while and songwriting and production sharp enough to cut glass, Ruff Majik are an act with a genuinely individual point of view, in South Africa or otherwise. Yeah, you’ll hear some Queens of the Stone Age sometimes and those vocals remind me every now and again of Guns ‘n’ Roses if Axl hadn’t tragically bought into his own purported genius, but what Ruff Majik bring in terms of craft and persona is their own, and I’ll gladly put them against any of the best bands Europe has on offer in heavy rock. I very, very much hope someday to see them live.
I’ve got a lineup listed below that I’m pretty sure corresponds to the four dudes pictured above — cheers to Johni Holiday on the 1991 mullet, and I mean that unironically — but before I review the album, which I certainly will, I need to get my hands on a lyric sheet and complete list of personnel involved, who, what, where and when (the why is generally answered with “because the song wants it”). That’s a note to myself, but I’ll tell you that the more I hear of Elektrik Ram, the more I feel like I need to hear. Singles working as singles should. Fair enough.
The PR wire takes it from here:
Ruff Majik releases new single Cement Brain from upcoming album Elektrik Ram
Ruff Majik returns with the low-slung boogie of Cement Brain taken from the band’s forthcoming long-player Elektrik Ram out 28th April 2023 on Mongrel Records.
As with previous single Elektrik Ram (and album title track), Cement Brain was once again inspired by and written in a mental health facility. Vocalist Johni Holiday had gone in for treatment of severe agoraphobia and a crippling panic disorder, which he self-medicated with alcohol and many other substances. In the window of time that he became well and had a clear head, he penned this number as a plea to his friends and family to never let him slip back into his old ways again.
“On the surface, it’s about escaping an abusive relationship. But deep down, the relationship in question is my relationship with substances such as alcohol The song pleads with the listener to not let me go back.” Explains Johni on the message behind the track.
Current lineup: Johni Holiday Jimmy Glass Cowboy Bez Steven Bosman
Posted in Questionnaire on February 23rd, 2023 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: John Harrison of Afghan Haze
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I am a guitarist for my band Afghan Haze which is a heavy,loud stoner/doom band out of Connecticut. As far as how I started playing guitar I have to thank my uncle for getting me into playing guitar. As far as how Afghan Haze started. I and we in the band have to thank our brother Randall Colbourne who we unfortunately lost almost a year ago. He was talking to me about starting a band for a while but me being a typical stoner I kept putting it off. One day me and our singer saw his old band playing a show with the Cro-Mags. Randy and Erik (our bassist) were in that band together.
So we all were talking after that show and Randy introduced me to Erik and said this is the guy I want to start a stoner band with. So I said hell yeah let’s try this out and see what happens. That was probably about four years ago and we are still pushing on. So short answer on how I define what I do is I play heavy music with my brothers that I love and we write music that we just feel and dig and hopefully people also enjoy it.
Describe your first musical memory.
When I was younger I wasn’t really into music and I didn’t really understand people being into it. Especially to the extreme that I am with it now. My childhood friend Miki got me into my first love of music with Pyromania by Def Leppard and it was off to the races. That record right there got me into music and just blew me away. I mean I heard music when I was a kid but Def Leppard “Pyromania” is what made me fall in love with music.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Well I guess I could say being introduced to Def Leppard at a young age and learning what enjoying music was all about. But I guess cuz I already mentioned that I’ll go with going to my show ever. Which I went to with my friend Miki that originally got me into music in the first place. We went to see the Gorilla Biscuits at the legendary Anthrax in Norwalk. I was just blown away at how incredible of a show that was and how awesome the whole hardcore community is. Then what followed was years and years of incredible hardcore shows.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
Hmm well I’m definitely not a religious person but I do like to read about different religions and philosophies. I have gotten into a few discussions on religion with my in-laws which are all born again Christians or with my own family. I can and I enjoy talking about religion but not when it’s one sided and the party is just saying “you’re wrong and here’s why…” Not sure if that really answers that question though haha.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
It leads to making great music or great art in whatever your art is. It leads to making people happy, giving them an experience and a memory.
How do you define success?
Just being happy with what you do in life. Whether it’s your job or your hobbies or just your interests. Also being around good positive people. I am not really interested in material bullshit.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
Uh well this isn’t a music answer but seeing one of my uncle’s getting his fingers chopped off in a work accident. That shit definitely fucked me up.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
As far as for music I always wanted to do my own solo grindcore project. Maybe one day I’ll sit down and get on that.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Expressing the artists feelings and mood at the time of writing or creating. Giving the listener or viewer an experience and a memory.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
I’m a simple person. So the one thing I look forward to and it’s the same thing I always look forward to. It’s just spending time with my wife and my dogs and relaxing watching a good horror movie and most likely doing some cooking.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 23rd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Take a listen to the two streaming tracks from Mean Green‘s upcoming self-titled debut full-length, due out March 24, and it seems likely you’ll understand where the PR wire is coming from when it compares the Boone, North Carolina-based three-piece to the likes of Weedeater and Sleep. To those weighty comparisons, I might throw in a band like Beaten Back to Pure or even Johnny Weils era Alabama Thunderpussy, has Mean Green guitarist Jake Helms as a rough-throated sneer in the verses of album-opener “Law” before they break out the Sleepier lumbering density of “The Deal” and the Dixie Dave-ish phrasing of the lyrics there, about the open road, selling your soul — one assumes to Riff Satan, who is like Regular Satan, only better — and not coming back, etc.
Southern sludge kind of went out with the rebel flag. I wouldn’t at all mind it coming back if this is the gritty fashion in which it does so (still a pass on the stars and bars, though to be honest I’m not much for flags in general), and Mean Green feel like they’re dug right into the sludgy mud with no regrets except that you didn’t bring more gummies to the show. What’s that about, anyway?
You can stream the tracks at the bottom of this post. What follows was yoinked from the PR wire:
Doom metal trio Mean Green to release Self Titled Debut Album!
From the highest peaks of Boone, North Carolina, Sludge and Doom metal band Mean Green will release their debut self titled album on March 24th, 2023.
Mean Green is a 3-piece stoner doom band formed in early 2022 by Jacob Helms, Alex Wierback, and James Matthews who enjoy playing metal music as loud as possible and at a slower pace than most people are used to. Armed with much larger guitar and bass rigs than necessary for smaller venues, their tone and energy are a force to be reckoned with in the western North Carolina music community. From the start they knew they did not want to be just another cover band in their small college town of Boone North Carolina, they began writing their own music.
The highly motivated band are preparing regional shows in Charlotte, Raleigh, Winston-Salem, Athens, Greensboro and an Album release show on March 24th in Asheville with Doomsday Profit and All Hell.
Mean Green’s self-titled first release is a full length album consisting of songs written in their first year of the band’s forming. Inspired by the likes of early Black Sabbath, Sleep, and Weedeater. Mean Green wrote this album to convey a stripped down and bare bones look at sludge, stoner, and doom metal. Relying heavily on tone and a slow moving freight train like tempo for most of their songs, they bring their own twist on common themes and ideas of the genre. With crushing guitar tone, wall shaking low end, bludgeoning percussion, and growling vocals this album is a first look into the roots and inspiration of Mean Green.
1. Law 2. Crow 3. Mean Green 4. Fiend 5. Last Bullet 6. Grease Monkey 7. The Deal
Mean Green is: Jake Helms (Guitar, Vocals) Alex Wierback (Bass) James Matthews (Drums)
If you’ve got 66 minutes and a desire to be bludgeoned and flayed at the same time — as really everyone does whether they know it or not — Massachusetts extreme sludgers Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean hereby announce their debut full-length, Obsession Destruction, will be released through Connecticut’s Redscroll Records on May 12. They’re not through 10-minute opener “The Altar” before they’ve built one to weighted-slog duggery, atmosphere not neglected but willfully imbued with a sense of decay that spreads across the 2LP as a defining feature, the record a willful challenge to audience endurance whether doomed in tempo like the penultimate churner “Every Day a Weeping Curse” or, as on the earlier “The Chalice,” able to set their caustic feedback, biting screams and harsh intentions to move at more than a plod.
Those looking for letup should seek elsewhere. Even the three-minute “Hole in My Head” — hit single, anyone? — is driven to churn and pummel. Where there are quiet stretches, as on “The Gates Have Closed and They Will Never Open,” they are both momentary and seething. And as they move deeper into the procession, each of the final two sides has a cut over 12 minutes in “Ten Thousand Years of Unending Failure” and album-closer “In the Feral Grace of Night, May the Last Breath Never Come,” so respite is damned along with just about everything else. In an attempt to bottom line it, there is more depth in tone and craft to Obsession Destruction than the raw misanthropic aggression on its impossibly contorted face might make it appear, but the litmus of consuming, angry misery is stench and sound in kind, cold on the skin like a New England winter night, imbued with a preternatural and abiding threat of dying by exposure.
It was a delight to have been ground into tiny bits last year by Come to Grief‘s When the World Dies, and Obsession Destruction makes a worthy successor; the apocalyptic malevolence that’s overarching throughout the eight component tracks here uniting them fluidly in purpose and intensity. Oh, and it’s really, really heavy too, just in case that point hadn’t gotten across.
Preorders are up as of now ahead of the May 12 arrival, and Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean will advance the album with a string of East Coast and Midwestern tour dates starting April 12 that are also being announced today. All info, links, etc., follows under the player below with the first audio to premiere from Obsession Destruction, courtesy of the band.
Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean is a doom metal band based out of Western Massachusetts. Obsession Destruction is the band’s first full-length coming on the heels of 5 sold out releases spotted over the last 5 years. Chained has found a fan-base winning over crowds with unprecedented volume and uncompromising live sound.
Obsession Destruction is an eight song double LP clocking in at over an hour in length, housed in a stunning gatefold LP with artwork created by the late Mariusz Lewandowski (Bell Witch, Obituary, Fuming Mouth). This full length finds the band honing the songwriting and experimentation within their fundamental doom sound and elevating it to the highest caliber possible.
‘Obsession Destruction’ tracklisting: 1. The Altar 2. Summer Comes to Multiply 3. Hole in my Head 4. The Gates Have Closed and they Will Never Open 5. The Chalice 6. Ten Thousand Years of Unending Failure 7. Every Day a Weeping Curse 8. In the Feral Grace of Night, May the Last Breath Never Come
Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean live: 4/12 – New Haven CT @ The State House 4/13 – Sherbrooke QC @ Le Murdoch 4/14 – Toronto ON @ Bar Orwell 4/15 – Grand Rapids MI @ Pux Cider Taphouse 4/16 – South Bend IN @ The Krishna Den 4/17 – St.Louis MO @ The Sinkhole 4/18 – Memphis TN @ Hi Tone 4/19 – Atlanta GA @ The Earl 4/20 – Savannah GA @ Lodge of Sorrows 4/21 – Charlotte NC @ Milestone 4/22 – Richmond VA @ Ipanema Cafe 4/23 – Philadelphia @ Kung Fu Necktie
Recorded by Christ Teti at Silver Bullet Studios Mastered by Magnus Lindberg Artwork by Mariusz Lewandowski
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 23rd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
So, the debut album from Cleveland, Ohio, atmospheric heavymakers Slow Wake, apparently titled Falling Fathoms, isn’t mentioned by name in the press release below, though the new video from it for the 10-minute simmerer “Controlled Burn” is. Meantime, if you pop over to the band’s Bandcamp, you’ll find the five-tracker streaming in its sprawling entirety with the release date of Feb. 21, 2023. If you’re keeping up, that was three days ago.
I don’t know if that was intentional, if it will still be true by the time this goes live, or if it’s just a matter of some miscommunication between promotional concerns around the band, but the record sounds cool — for some reason, their doom-adjacent, metal-rooted, progressive-leaning take on heavy reminds on first impression of Boss Keloid and Sergeant Thunderhoof, both UK acts and nowhere near the US Midwest at all; go figure — but I’ve barely started to dig in and with breadth as a focus I’m not prepared to define their aesthetic even just for my own purposes, so don’t quote me on that or anything. Maybe it’s just that there’s a lot going on, which is a common trait for all three acts. Slow Wake don’t seem to be shy about letting the guitars do a bit of dreaming either, which rests organically alongside the corresponding heft.
Maybe they decided to just put it all out there at once, and maybe they’ll pull the record off Bandcamp to allow the whole promo cycle to play out as it will. I have no idea and it’s not up to me. I take what I can get when I can get it. Later than you think, and all that.
Here’s what the PR wire had to say about the band signing to Argonauta:
US Psych Post-Doomsters SLOW WAKE sign with ARGONAUTA Records and share debut single and video
Says the band: “We are incredibly excited to partner with Argonauta Records to release our debut album! Being part of such a strong and passionate label with an incredibly rich and diverse roster – many of whom we’re big fans of – is simply thrilling. We’re stoked to work with Gero to bring you all our signature brand of beautiful heaviness!”
Slow Wake was conceived in Cleveland, Ohio amidst the chaos and turmoil of the Covid pandemic by guitarists Dan Simone (Black Spirit Crown) and Matt Merchant. As the world seemed to collapse around them, the two long-time friends convened to process what they were experiencing by finally starting that band they’d been talking about for years. What emerged from those first few jam sessions was an intriguing blend of styles, Matt’s post-rock/americana and Dan’s stoner doom offering compelling counterpoint to each other in passages that were simultaneously ethereal and psychedelic, yet powerful and cathartic.
The duo were soon joined by bassist Joe Fortunato (Sparrowmilk, Venomin James) and drummer Jeff Larch (Black Spirit Crown, Reginleif) and the riffs did flow. What emerged was a blend of post-rock, doom, heavy psych and outer space that’s been described as “Like staring out into the abyss of Lake Erie at sunset on a few hits of acid as the sun burns the water.”
The band hit the ground running with their first show in June of 2021 and proceeded to play relentlessly throughout the region with heavy hitters such as Lo-Pan, Frayle, Telekinetic Yeti, Heavy Temple, Caustic Casanova and Argonauta Records alumni The Lucid Furs, as well as an appearance at the Ohio Doomed and Stoned Fest. Independent label and co-organizers of the “Post.Festival” and “dunk!USA”, A Thousand Arms Music, included the song “In Waves” on their “Open Language: Volume VII” compilation to a wide audience of post fans.
Stay tuned for more news to be revealed soon!
Slow Wake is: Jeff Larch – Drums, Backing Vocals Matthew Merchant – Guitar, Guitar Synth Dan Simone – Vocals, Guitar, Guitar Synth Joe Fortunato – Bass, Bass Synth
[Click play above to stream Dead Shrine’s “Enshrined.” The Eightfold Path is out this Friday, Feb. 24, on Kozmik Artifactz and Astral Projection.]
Dead Shrine‘s The Eightfold Path is a debut album with deep roots. The band — complete with backing vocals on “Through the Constellations,” liberal doses of organ on side A’s “Kingdom Come,” the megafuzzed “The Blackest Sun,” maybe even a bit of Echoplex on its two longer tracks, “Enshrined” and “Incantations Call,” and no shortage of depth, reach and swirl throughout — is Craig Williamson, whose more-than-two-decade pedigree in Datura, Lamp of the Universe and Arc of Ascent has made him the most crucial figure in New Zealand heavy rock and psychedelia since the days of Human Instinct and The Underdogs half a century ago.
He’s the only person involved — writing, performing all the instruments and vocals, recording, mixing, mastering; a genuine auteur — but Dead Shrine is very much a band that, if he wanted to assemble a lineup, could play live, and seems to draw from similar impulses that led to the formation of the trio Arc of Ascent circa 2010. By that time, Williamson had already established himself as a solo artist through the experimentalist acid folk of Lamp of the Universe, a go-everywhere project with a foundation in traditions psychedelic and earthbound that in recent years, and particularly on 2022’s The Akashic Field (review here), has pushed in a direction hinting toward a heavier rock sound. The dissolution of Arc of Ascent after their 2018 split with Germany’s Zone Six (review here) left Williamson without a ‘band,’ and Dead Shrine emerges as the answer to that problem, combining the solo-act construction of Lamp of the Universe with a heavier sound not unlike that fostered by Arc of Ascent but even more kin in style to Datura, who formed in 1992 and released two LPs in their time, 1998’s Allisone and 1999’s Visions for the Celestial (discussed here).
Perhaps a bit of nostalgia on Williamson‘s part? Could be, but one hesitates to assign motive. If you said he started Dead Shrine as an excuse to wail on drums and try to find the heaviest bass sound he could harness, it would be impossible to listen to The Eightfold Path opener “The Formless Soul” or the lumbering “Kingdom Come,” which follows, and not find that statement believable. Still, songs like “As Pharaohs Rise,” with its backward cymbals at the outset, open-air soloing and casual riding groove, or “Through the Constellations” on side B, executed with a languid swing and classic acid rock flourish on top of a firmly-held verse-chorus structure, resonate with a vibe that seems in conversation with both Lamp of the Universe‘s lyrical mysticism and turn-of-the-century era heavy/stoner rock more generally, playing to strengths hardly dormant in Williamson‘s output over the last 10 years but given new focus as this outfit — which is named after Lamp of the Universe‘s 2020 album (review here) — branches off to follow its own, well, path.
But whatever birthed it, and however far out it ranges in terms of heavy psych atmospheres, The Eightfold Path is a rock record and arranged accordingly. A bit of sampling at the launch of side B with “Rainbow Child” provides the only use of sitar (also some chanting), and the songs are drawn together through elements like the weight of the low end, Williamson‘s vocal patterning and melodies, the consuming levels of fuzz that drench these riffs and the blowout that ends each half of the LP in “Enshrined” and “Incantations Call” — which, as noted, are the two longest inclusions; placed penultimate “The Blackest Sun” tops six minutes, while none of the remaining cuts hits five — the former which rolls gradually into cosmic oblivion and the latter inclusive either of Mellotron or some synth adjacent to it in sound as oscillations of guitar circle across channels even after the self-jam march has hit its last crash.
As a songwriter, Williamson has little to prove, and “The Formless Soul” sets out on The Eightfold Path with a definite in-wheelhouse vibe that those who know his work will recognize, but it’s worth noting that in the long history behind him, Williamson has never made an album like this on his own. That in itself stands Dead Shrine apart, be it for newcomers or longtime followers, and is maybe some of what led to it being a new project rather than a redirection for Arc of Ascent, but these administrative concerns are tertiary at best when set alongside the realization that after about 30 years of making heavy music, Williamson is still finding yet-untrod avenues and modes of expression for his craft. That the record sounds so full — so very, very full; so very, very, very fuzzed — is a testament to his growth as a producer/engineer as well, as with even just the kick drum at the start of “Kingdom Come,” he makes clarions to the converted out of what to most groups would be passed-over afterthoughts and missed opportunities.
And the more one listens, the more is revealed throughout The Eightfold Path‘s 44 minutes (note there are eight tracks, and four plus four in 44 minutes makes eight; the concept also comes from the Shaolin branch of Buddhism). Groove is paramount across the leadoff salvo and it’s that much easier to get on board for it, but the expansion in “Enshrined” that continues to flesh out on “Rainbow Child” and “Through the Constellations” — which are exploratory and structured in kind — ahead of the all-in wah and thick bottom end wallop of “The Blackest Sun” and the not-coming-back fourth dimensional alignment in “Incantations Call,” with the vocals drawing closer to Lamp of the Universe even as the surrounding heft pushes farther into its own sphere, isn’t to be ignored. One hesitates to make predictions when it comes to an artist whose work has already proven so distinctive and multifaceted, but if this is the launch of a new progression for Williamson either aside from or more likely coinciding with Lamp of the Universe, then the scope of Dead Shrine even at this potentially nascent stage is all the more welcome.
I’ve said on multiple occasions that I’m a fan of Williamson‘s various outfits and incarnations, and the excitement of doing something new on The Eightfold Path is palpable, whether one has the context of prior bands and albums or not. Contrary to the moniker, Dead Shrine sounds very much alive, vital, and ready to move forward from here. Fans new and old, myself included, should be so lucky.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 22nd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
In the ever-present question of “crunch or crush,” Boston’s Morne realize that it in no way needs to be one or the other. The doom-tinged aggressors have signed to Metal Blade Records — congrats on that, by the way; pretty much the dream — and are currently dig into the recording process for their next full-length, to be released hopefully sometime before the end of the year. Honestly, if it’s November or even early December, I think that makes sense for Morne‘s sound, which to me speaks of cold Massachusetts winters where the sky is just grey from late Fall until, oh, May or so, and you never see the sun and everybody gets even angrier at each other and the only thing stopping the masses from rioting at any given moment is the continued success of the local sports franchises. It’s an intense season, the northern winter. I’m surprised everybody doesn’t play black metal up there, but I suppose that’s a different conversation. In any case, in 2015, Morne put out The Coming of Winter, so they would seem to know it as well.
I was fortunate enough to catch Morne at the 2019 Roadburn Festival (review here) as they supported their 2018 LP, To the Night Unknown, which was released by the band in collaboration with Armageddon Shop. Their next outing is being recorded with the esteemed Kurt Ballou, a parenthetical snippet of whose pedigree you can see below, which is no doubt a promise of continued bludgeonry. So much the better. The four-piece will also travel to Germany for Hell Over Hammaburg, where they’ll play with the likes of Sanhedrin, The Ruins of Beverast, High Spirits and others. Good fun.
The PR wire tells the tale:
Metal Blade Records Announce the Signing of Morne
Metal Blade Records is proud to announce the signing of Boston, Massachusetts’ MORNE who are adding their brand of crusty and ethereal doom to the label’s celebrated roster. The band is currently recording a new album with Kurt Ballou (Converge, Cave In, High On Fire) for release in late 2023.
“We are wrapping up the recording session at GodCity Studio with Kurt Ballou in Salem, Massachusetts. This will be our fifth studio album and we are very excited that a legendary label like Metal Blade is releasing it to the universe.” comments MORNE vocalist Milosz adding that “music and words for this album were written during stressful and challenging times and life changing moments and I hope people will find something for themselves in this album and enjoy it. I’m very grateful that Metal Blade helped us put it all together.”
Metal Blade GmbH Label Manager, Markus Grasseck, had this to say about the signing: “We’re very excited to welcome MORNE to our Metal Blade family. Being a fan of the band since their Demo 2008, it’s a great honor to finally work together for the years to come. The band’s unique blend of atmospheric Doom with Crust attitude is unparalleled and we can’t wait to get this out to as many people as possible. Brace yourself for their new album due out this fall!”
In other news, MORNE will be heading over to Hamburg, Germany to perform at this year’s Hell Over Hammaburg Festival in March. More festival details can be found here: helloverhammaburg.blogspot.com
MORNE is: Miłosz Gassan – vocals, guitars Paul Rajpal – guitars Morgan Coe – bass Billy Knockenhauer – drums
About the band: Formed in 2005, MORNE blends doom metal and classic British crust but stretches beyond those boundaries, combining a bleak lyrical style with driving riffs. Four studio albums have been released to date with the band currently recording material for their 5th studio album. Their first, Untold Wait, was on Feral Ward Records in 2009 then in 2011, the band signed with Profound Lore Records and released Asylum that same year, followed by Shadows, in 2013. Their latest, To the Night Unknown, was released in September of 2018 on Armageddon Label and the band’s own Morne Records. The band has toured the US, Canada and Europe, where they have been part of large festivals such as Roadburn, Hellfest, Quebec Deathfest, Psycho Las Vegas, Into the Void and Blow Up the Gramaphone.
