Solo singer-songwriter Dee Calhoun, who also fronts Spiral Grave and counts Maryland doom legends Iron Man among a slew of others in his pedigree, will release his fourth album, Old Scratch Comes to Appalachia, through Argonauta Records on June 23. The record arrives concurrent to a short-story/novella collection — also available as an audiobook read by the author — that’s Calhoun‘s fifth published work, and as he also produced and engineered the album, performed as multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, it’s a complete narrative work overseen by a distinct vision of what Calhoun wants the tale to be and how he might want it told.

In continued allegiance with bassist “Iron Louis” Strachan and percussionist/sometimes vocalist/progeny Rob Calhoun, the singer who for years has had “Screaming Mad” appear before his name in Spiral Grave, Iron Man — for whom he also flirted with recording on 2012’s Att hålla dig över EP — and other outfits has it seems grown more methodical than the title would imply. “Old Scratch Comes to Appalachia,” the title-track of the record the video for which you can see premiering below, follows the storyline of the devil arriving in a small rural town at some point in the overall-wearing past and sets about making deals to trick people out of their souls and other devilish fun-pretend whatnot. You know, Satan stuff. The uzh, or however you spell it.

Animated by Chaos Cartoons, who also recently realized High Noon Kahuna‘s video for “Danger Noodle” (premiered here) — their Maryland bona fides well in check — the clip calls to mind some of the spooky brooding and grim landscapes that fellow ’90s products of a nerdy persuasion might liken to Vampire Hunter D, but the setting is part of the story here. As Mormonism asks what might’ve been had Jesus come to America — try the fish, but not too much of it or you’ll get poisoned — the clip for “Old Scratch Comes to Appalachia” resonates blues-of-eld vibes throughout its acoustimetal procession, Calhoun‘s singularly powerful vocals at the forefront as if by their very nature they could ever be anywhere else.

As regards solo work, this has been Calhoun‘s niche all along, but his fourth LP in seven years and the follow-up to 2020’s Godless (review here) sees Calhoun step into the storyteller role with increased surety and an instrumental confidence that’s grown bolder since 2016’s Rotgut (review here) and 2018’s Go to the Devil (review here), and the detailing in the background of “Old Scratch Comes to Appalachia” brings that into clear relief. It’s there in the richness of the acoustic strum, underscored and bolstered by the bassline with hand-drums backing as Calhoun goes into fire-and-brimstone mode before the song’s halfway point, Dee Calhoun coming to the precipice of being a band rather than a project, holding firm to unplugged dark-country and Baptist balladeering with the righteousness of the unreligious.

Calhoun notes below the banjo, shovel guitar and cigar box guitar used to flesh out the arrangement for “Old Scratch Comes to Appalachia.” That he’d be hearing those kinds of sonic details in writing and recording a song — that drive to put something there just because it feels right and the song wants it — speaks to the progression of his craftsmanship as a solo artist. A narrative concept LP based on a short story collection and accompanied by that and the audiobook, everything all tied together in that way, isn’t the kind of thing a frontman does their first time out. Calhoun has been building toward this all the while, and Old Scratch Comes to Appalachia is his most three-dimensional, textured work yet.

Video premiere below, followed by more from the PR wire.

Please enjoy:

Dee Calhoun, “Old Scratch Comes to Appalachia” video premiere

Dee Calhoun on “Old Scratch Comes to Appalachia”:

“Old Scratch Comes to Appalachia” is a story of the dark one riding the rails to collect souls from the small corners of the world. It illustrates how the line between what’s good and what’s evil can be blurred once corruption has taken hold. The instrumentation of the song features a lot of elements to really give the song a dark, backwoods kind of feel; shovel guitar, cigar box guitars, and even a banjo make an appearance.

The animation was done by Troy Darr with Chaos Cartoons, and I am thrilled with the job he did. It’s my first time seeing one of my stories in visual form, and it was great to watch it all come together in that form.

Coming on June 23rd, the album will coincide with the release of Dee’s fifth book, “Old Scratch Comes to Appalachia (four devilish novelettes).” CD1 of the two-disc set will feature ten songs, while CD2 will feature the audiobook of the title novelette, read by the author.

Written during COVID lockdowns, the songs on OSCtA include a number of non-traditional stringed instruments such as cigar box guitars, shovel guitars, and diddley bows. Again joining Dee are bassist Louis Strachan and percussionist Rob Calhoun (who sings lead vocals on two tracks).

“Old Scratch Comes to Appalachia” will be released by Argonauta Records on CD and DIGITAL, and “Old Scratch Comes to Appalachia (four devilish novelettes)” will be available from Kindle Direct Publishing, each on June 23rd.

TRACKLIST:
1. The Day the Rats Came to Town
2. Verachte Diese Hure
3. A Wish in the Darkness
4. New Modern World
5. Conjured
6. Pulse
7. Self-Inflicted
8. Stand With Me
9. All I Need is One
10. Old Scratch Comes to Appalachia

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Dee Calhoun website

Argonauta Records website

Argonauta Records on Facebook

Argonauta Records on Instagram

Argonauta Records on Bandcamp

Tracked by Dave Catching in the Cali desert, the new single from mostly-Australia’s Full Tone Generator, titled “Juan Carlos,” is the first audio to come from the formerly-Brant Bjork-inclusive trio’s next album, Refuge for Sinners, which is set to release later this year. Heads up, in other words. And actually, since the song isn’t out yet — June 9, which feels like forever at this point but all that ‘pre-save’ stuff is available now if you’re on Spotify, Apple Music, whathaveyou — this is a heads up of the heads up. Track is full-desert in tone, shades of classic ’90s style, like Kyuss riffs meeting with modern nod, and catchy to boot.

Full Tone Generator‘s debut LP, Valley of the Universe (review here), arrived in 2018 through Hurricane Music. “Juan Carlos” and Refuge for Sinners are set to issue through Iron Head Records (see also: Motherslug, Beastwood, Mezzoa, Stone Deaf, Near Dusk, and so on) under the umbrella of Golden Robot Records. Info came down the PR wire:

FULL TONE GENERATOR ANNOUNCE NEW SINGLE “JUAN CARLOS” – AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER/ADD/SAVE NOW!

OUT JUNE 9

Pre-save: https://orcd.co/full-tone-generator-juan-carlos

Melbourne stoner/desert rockers Full Tone Generator have announced their latest single “Juan Carlos”, which is dropping on June 9 via Iron Head Records. It’s the lead single of their upcoming album ‘Refuge for Sinners’, which is expected later this year.

Recorded at the renowned Rancho de la Luna, in Joshua Tree, California by Dave Catching (Earthlings?, Queens of the Stone Age, Eagles of Death Metal) – “Juan Carlos” is a groovy desert rock banger that delves into sacrifice, heartbreak, and resilience set upon the backdrop of Anaheim, California.

Full Tone Generator are an Australian-Californian stoner rock band, emerged from an idea conceived by Andy Fernando on the beaches of Australia and brought to life in the Californian Desert with the help of Brant Bjork and Brad Young.

After connecting with Brant Bjork, Full Tone Generator embarked on recording their new songs in the desert, with Brant playing drums and co-producing alongside Bubba Dupree. The debut album, “Valley Of The Universe” garnered global acclaim upon its release in late 2018, prompting the band to expand by adding Ben Hall and Mat Evans for live performances.

‘Juan Carlos’ is hitting the digital airwaves on the June 9th via Iron Head Records.

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Full Tone Generator, Without a Sound / If You Want Me (feat. Nick Oliveri) (2020)

Based on a whole lot of supposition and the little bit of timeline details available, I’m going to piece together a narrative scenario around the release of Plainride‘s self-titled third album, and you tell me if it’s plausible or not. Cool? Here we go.

So, Cologne-based heavy rockers Plainride recorded their third long-player — a pivotal moment for any act — early in 2022 with guitarist/some-bassist Bob Vogston at the helm. Not much going on at the time in terms of touring, plus the pressing delays that were prevalent throughout 2021-2022 meant that their label, Ripple Music was probably backed up in terms of schedule as well even beyond the six months that the process of making, pressing and advance-promoting an album can take when operations are what passes for generally efficient.

In the meantime, Plainride end up booked for a Spring run through Europe as support for Corrosion of Conformity. Legends. Legitimately the biggest thing that’s ever happened to Plainride and a tour that, if they’re ever going to tour, is the tour they want to do. Of course they do it. It wrapped up like a week or two ago. Everybody looked thrilled in the end-of-tour photo, if tired.

But before they went, Plainride offered up Plainride, the new album, on their own, releasing it at the end of April through Bandcamp and offering it on CD at the merch table on the tour so that, you know, they’d have something to sell to the new friends they were winning on stage. Sometimes a band in this situation might do a surprise EP or even a single, but I guess if you’ve got the full-length in the can and the occasion is right as this tour clearly was, you go all-in and let the rest shake out later.

The upcoming summer release for Plainride‘s Plainride, then, is that shaking out. Pressing delays are (largely, by my understanding) over, but getting the album out through Ripple now gives broader distribution and an LP-format release to the 10-song collection, and still let the band have a new record to tour on. A little odd as regards timing — to wit, I was waiting for a press release announcement of the album after it was out — but in the long run, it won’t matter in the slightest and everybody comes out a winner.

Make sense? That’s my read on it, anyhow. If I’m wrong, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time.

To the PR wire:

German heavy rock revelation PLAINRIDE to release new album “Plainride” this summer on Ripple Music; preorder available now!

Cologne’s fast-rising heavy blues rock’n’rollers PLAINRIDE are set to issue their third studio album “Plainride” worldwide this summer via Ripple Music. The album is available now through all major streaming platforms.

Hot on the heels of their extensive European and UK tour with Corrosion Of Conformity, Cologne’s own heavy blues revelers Plainride team up with Ripple Music for the official vinyl and CD release of their freshly issued third album “Plainride” this summer!

Listen to new album “Plainride” in full at this location: https://lnk.to/plainride

One thing is for certain: what the Cologne trio has concocted here is the exact opposite of background music: “Plainride” challenges its listeners to grapple with its complexity and demands their undivided attention. Those who pick up the gauntlet will be rewarded. With an eclectic hell ride, a “Strange Brew” full of twists and turns, danceable hooks and shoutable choruses, peppered in equal parts with fury, humor, and intellect.

An almost anarchic album by rock standards that cares as little about convention as it does about authority. Singer Max Rebel has little to do with authority either, and his lyrics, at times cryptically, at times by means of the sledgehammer, deal with structural power relations, mythological ruler figures, and neoliberal hustle culture. If you listen closely, you will discover a rich fund of allusions, quotations, and references in the ten songs, from Allen Ginsberg to Adorno and Marx, to the Bible, the Phoenician Pantheon, and the Chicago Riots of 1968 after the assassination of Martin Luther King.

“Plainride” was recorded, mixed and mastered by guitarist and producer Bob Vogston at Lipaka Studios in January 2022. It features a wide range of guest musicians across its 10 tracks with instrumentation including brass, organ, theremin, harmonica, piano, and percussion.

New album “Plainride”
Vinyl and CD preorder available via Ripple Music: https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/album/plainride
Available digitally via Bandcamp and all streaming services: https://plainride.bandcamp.com/album/plainride

PLAINRIDE is:
Max Rebel – Vocals & Guitar
Florian “F.J.“ Schlenker – Drums
Bob Vogston – Guitar & Bass guitar

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Plainride, Plainride (2023)

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: Yvonne Ducksworth of Treedeon

—

How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

I’m a working class musician who uses music as a form of self therapy, in order to get to… one day, to the next. It’s a passion and a meditation. Also; my job finances my music habit. I write lyrics, sing and play Bass.

Everyone in my immediate family had an artistic specialty.. & lyrics have always been there for me. I read a lot, and wrote a lot to let off steam…

However, the first time in a band, I was on drums; because everyone else had a guitar So I did that for awhile… Eventually I got the Mic though lol.

Describe your first musical memory.

Performance wise? My mother teaching me to sing an Elvis song for the family Xmas gathering …

Describe your best musical memory to date.

My Grandfather on Violin and my Grandmother on Piano; playing classical songs together, but also Pop & Rock classics. Both slightly drunk and totally happy. Each convinced that the other had just played a wrong note…

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

I try not to hold firm beliefs, because life is a complicated clusterfuck of perspectives … I’m flexible. Or jaded. I also don’t like being disappointed.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

For me personally… Hopefully to a better understanding of myself.

Music has allowed me to step out of the shadow of pain, has strengthened me, accompanied me, held me, tolerated me, and screamed at me to get my shit together.

How do you define success?

A Woman once thanked me for the words in a song that I used to play. She said she had not been able to describe a certain feeling, but the song gave her the words for it.

Absolutely the best compliment I’ve ever gotten as a musician…

That was my moment of success.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

The downward spiral and eventual unraveling of a friend…

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

A song that is, ‘just right’, ‘perfect’ and ‘finished’.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

To give a voice to the people, to question authority, to challenge norms, to give meaning to a feeling, and a time, to soothe us all emotionally…

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

A Motorcycle ride in the summer rain. :)

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One doesn’t even have to click play to hear the original hook of Demon Head‘s “Demon Head” on the ol’, increasingly dusty mental jukebox. The song first appeared on a Danish doom rock traditionalists’ Caligari-issued Demo 2014 tape (review here), and would show up again on the two-songer Winterland (review here) later that year and on side B of their debut album, Ride the Wilderness (review here), in 2015.

It is their quintessential, in some ways defining, work, and in light of that, their revisiting the track to mark their 10th anniversary as a group could hardly be more appropriate. The ‘new’ single comes with the bonus of being made in collaboration with cult legends Coven, whose founding vocalist Jinx Dawson is positioned alongside the band’s own Marcus Ferreira Larsen in the verses and rolling hook. It was killer nine years ago, so it’s not really a surprise “Demon Head” holds up — hasn’t been that long — but the arrangement is creative here and it’s a reminder of how malleable a well-written song can be.

You can see the video at the bottom of this post, and yeah, it’s a little over-the-top with the skull and all that, but there are photos and memories from the band’s decade together, so a sweet undercurrent to the whole thing. Dig it:

Demon Head featuring Jinx Dawson & Coven

Today marks the release of a song that celebrates ten years of life, blood and demon adventures. A completely reimagined version of the very first one we ever wrote, a decade ago this month.

On this recording we are joined by our dear friends Jinx and Coven, Anders M Jørgensen and Brandon.

Thank you all for the support through the years, which has made this whole voyage worthwhile! The second decade looks to begin with a fiery spirit and there is much more to come …

Find the song and David Thelen’s music video by following this link: https://bit.ly/demonhead

The song is also available at our bandcamp as a name-your-price download: https://demonhead.bandcamp.com

Pre-save the single: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/demonhead1/demon-head-feat-jinx-dawson–coven

See you soon at this summer’s festivals!

We remain humbly,
Your Demons

Recorded at No Master’s Voice
Mixed by Flemming Rasmussen at Sweet Silence Studios
Mastered by Magnus Lindberg at VRTKL
Video footage by Kristian Blond Møller, Alex Kercheval and Jess

Guests on this recording:
Jinx Dawson – Vocals
Chris Wild – Guitar solo and vocals
Chris Vaughn Bird – Guitar solo
Alex Kercehval – Zither harp
Brandon Monohaus – Tape echo manipulation
Anders M Jørgensen – Guitar solo

Demon Head line up:
Mikkel Sander Fuglsang – bass
Birk Gjerlufsen Nielsen – guitars
Marcus Ferreira Larsen – vocals
Thor Gjerlufsen Nielsen – guitars
Jeppe Wittus – drums

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Demon Head, “Demon Head” (feat. Jinx Dawson & Coven) official video

There is a brash grace to The Population‘s debut album, It’s Time To…, which plays out over a sharp, crisp 31 minutes and 11 songs, delving into proto-metal and punk born out of a foundation in rawer garage rock. The Swedish outfit made their debut in 2020’s Anthropocene/Anthropocide b/w Sacrifice two-songer 7″, with the notable duo lineup of guitarist/vocalist John Hoyles (Spiders, Troubled Horse, ex-Witchcraft, etc.) and drummer Axel Sjöberg (ex-Graveyard) seeming to branch off from the four-piece Big Kizz, which may or may not still be a band, but in which they featured together.

For It’s Time To… — the title hinting at the urgency of songs like “Watch You Go Wild” or “Dark Eyes” and some of the directionless anxiety of it being time for something and you don’t know what — they’ve brought in Niklas Gunnarson (also Dirty Burger and the exclamatory Oberheim!) to round out a power trio on bass, and together they give a resounding showcase of songwriting and close-to-no-frills performance,. Moments like the acoustic/electric blend of side-A-capping interlude “Änkasjön” and the layering of guitar parts in “Sacrifice” and various other flourishes keep it from being completely barebones in terms of presentation, but true to their pedigree in outfits that helped define vintage heavy rock as an aesthetic, Sjöberg and Hoyles aren’t trying to harness a massive, hyper-produced take.

Given the garage shove and shuffle of so much of the material throughout It’s Time To…, that makes sense. Starting off with “Anthropocene/Anthropocide,” the lyrics of which are a socially conscious socioeconomic assessment/analysis that results in the seemingly inevitable conclusion, “You know the rich/Will have to die,” citing climate change, proxy wars, and disparity of wealth on the way in making its argument in maddeningly hooky fashion in just over three minutes. This kind of efficiency of purpose and this level of songwriting are the crux of It’s Time To…, though they leave politics behind as “Dark Eyes” picks up with an initial sweep of the lead guitar that has proved to be the difference afterward in several of Hoyles‘ past bands, be it Troubled Horse or Witchcraft; a distinctive scream of bluesy lead notes that feels like the Rolling Stones at points here without actually going there.

One might hear hints of Pentagram‘s “Be Forewarned” in “Dark Eyes,” but the two-and-a-half-minute “Watch You Go Wild” is more dug into early Britpunk — Hoyles was born in the UK, though that’s by no means a requisite for the influence — prefacing some of the tense boogie in the verse of the later “Invisible Man,” which lets loose in its chorus as one would hope. With Sjöberg ready on snare rolls from the outset, there’s a lot of back and forth between build-ups and straight-ahead runs, but The Population could hardly be accused of overdoing it in that regard when “Walking to Our Grave” works so decisively in an earliest-doom context, a melancholy behind the lines, “What happened to the sky?/It once was so blue/The sun shined bright/And we didn’t have a clue,” calling to mind a young David Bowie fronting Witchcraft ahead of a tempo kick after the second chorus.

Hoyles and Sjöberg, between the two of them, have been through enough in other groups that those lyrics could be about any number of their former bandmates, or it could be a relationship completely unrelated to music for all I know, but Hoyles sounds sincere in the telling, which is what matters. “Änkasjön,” which translates to English as ‘Widow Lake,’ follows, with gentler toms and the aforementioned acoustic strum backing an electric lead, evocative but brief in setting up the turn to “Sacrifice” as it ends with waves gently lapping a shoreline, perhaps of the lake in question. The latter is a strong open to side B as “Anthropocene/Anthropocide” was to the album as a whole, with its sonic fullness, loose-feeling swing and fuzz overload backing the guitar singing out during the chorus.

The subsequent trilogy of songs, “Treat Me Like a Dog,” “Invisible Man” and “Drive My Blues Away,” pull back some from proto-doom but feel related in their dejected-in-relationship theme, “Treat Me Like a Dog” arriving in Beatlesy stops complemented by snare march and warm bass groove before its rousing finishing section, not so dissimilar structurally from “Walking to Our Grave,” and setting up the brazen punker shine of “Invisible Man,” the song’s outsider position staked in the lyrics. Among the most particularly MC5 of the jams being kicked out, “Invisible Man” puts emphasis on the momentum The Population have built to this point, the bang-bang-bang nature of the procession through the album, which comes close twice to the four-minute mark — “Walking to Our Grave” and the closing Stooges-style take on Hawkwind‘s “Urban Guerrilla,” delivered with a strut that makes me think Hoyles and Mathew Bethancourt of Josiah could probably have a long conversation about the music they dig — but doesn’t touch it, and movement through the songs is no less a factor in the listening experience than the movement in the songs as “Drive My Blues Away” pushes back on some of the melancholy of the two songs prior and is a thematic if less first-daze-here companion to “Dark Eyes.”

Something of a closer in itself, “Downtown” seems to find the release that much of It’s Time To… has been searching for. Filled out by an additional layer of backing vocals, it’s a satisfying breakout of a conclusion that keeps the push from “Drive My Blues Away” going while reveling in the naked appeal of its hook. It caps with an engine revving, and if that’s them driving off to some next adventure or other, fair enough since The Population have basically been going since the test-strums and vocal wail that began “Anthropocene/Anthropocide,” and have wanted nothing for a motoring sensibility even in their down or slower stretches. The inclusion of “Urban Guerrilla” is what puts the album over half an hour in terms of length, and I’d believe that filling out a 12″ LP runtime is part of why it’s there to begin with, but it’s in no way out of place, Sjöberg punctuating the stomp as Hoyles borders on frenetic in the shift from verse to chorus, taking off from there to a noisy solo section to finish out with consistency despite not having penned the piece originally.

When that band made their debut, Tee Pee Records got behind Big Kizz, and Hoyles‘ solo work has been through Bad Omen and Crusher Records, and given their pedigree, it’s easy to think The Population‘s first full-length could end up issued through any of them, but the self-release suits the purposefully-kept rougher edges of their approach, and while there are any number of avenues they might flesh out and continue to explore in terms of songwriting — aspects of garage, punk, doom, blues rock, and so on that might be fleshed out across future outings — what makes It’s Time To… work so well is the organic execution, the live energy, that comes through across the span. So long as they hold onto that, they can probably go wherever they want from here and not stumble in this past-born sound of now.

The Population, It’s Time To… (2023)

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Maybe Polar Veil will be the moment where Hexvessel and principal songwriter Mat McNerney tie it all (or at least mostly) together. 2019’s All Tree (review here) and 2020’s Kindred stepped back into forest folk atmospheres after 2016’s When We Are Death (review here) blew the doors off what had been their established modus, McNerney by then having already begun a journey through side-projects like Beastmilk and Grave Pleasures, all three bands (and a swath of other influences) seeming to intermingle over the longer term as regards style. I get post-black metal vibes off Polar Veil‘s first single “Older Than the Gods,” with the wash of pretty but stark electric guitar at the forefront and the melodic vocals that accompany, but that’s a pretty superficial classification on my part and most of all it sounds like Hexvessel.

And at least for myself, I seem to enjoy this band most when they’re screwing with their own norms a bit. I wouldn’t expect one track ever to speak for the entirety of a Hexvessel LP, but if it’s representative even on a basic tonal level of the sphere they’re working in this time out, well, maybe the norms are getting what for.

From the PR wire:

Forest Folk Rockers HEXVESSEL Announce New Album, ‘POLAR VEIL’, Out September 22nd

Share New Single “Older Than the Gods” + Music Video

Preorder link: https://www.svartrecords.com/en/bestsearch/hexvessel?q=hexvessel

Finland’s HEXVESSEL return with their sixth album, ‘Polar Veil’, a cold, metallic hymn to the Sub Arctic North. Haunted by primal forest spirits, Mat “Kvohst” McNerney summons the ghosts of his past in a jaw-dropping, unheard-of rebirth of style and sound. At once unmistakably HEXVESSEL, ‘Polar Veil’ is also steeped in the nocturnal atmosphere of McNerney’s past, churned in the cauldron of black metal, ritual folk psychedelia and doom rock, and echoing with shivering gothic undertones.

From their inception in 2009, HEXVESSEL, created by Mat McNerney as what he described as “a free spiritual journey and a musical odyssey with no boundaries”, have captivated audiences and listeners with their evolution.

Holed up in a home-made studio in his log cabin during the winter of 2022, McNerney drew on all the fundamental elements of his music career as a shamanic shapeshifter, with only the isolation of nature’s solitude as inspiration. Painting an aura with ‘Polar Veil’ which resonates with solitary reflection and themes of personal spiritual transcendence, HEXVESSEL’s new album is a bold statement from an artist who continues to reinvent and explore nature mysticism through music.

When the components of the medicine are familiar but brewed in a completely novel concoction, the resulting side effects can be deliriously intoxicating. Peer behind this ‘Polar Veil’ for a breath of fresh tundra air with HEXVESSEL’s new single “Older Than The Gods” now.

“Nature represents freedom, darkness and the call of the wild. Black metal has always been at the borders of my sound and playing, at the heart of everything I do. Tradition, nature, ritual, mythology, mysticism and philosophy, along with clashing and jarring chords have always been synonymous with HEXVESSEL. It was natural with ‘Polar Veil’, finally now as we reach the zenith of the journey, that these influences surface to the human ear, and with the freezing cold guitar sound that the climate here demands.”

A track such as “Crepuscular Creatures”, with unhinged, discordant guitar chords, as bassist Ville Hakonen’s hand snakes up and down the frets, is at the more avant-garde end of the album. Long term drummer Jukka Rämänen thundering the toms like never before, as McNerney croons Scott Walker-esque lyrics, somewhere between Edith Södergran and Ted Hughes.

Whereas “Listen To The River” with its ominous M.R James/Folk Horror lyrics of perilous environmental warning, featuring Ben Chisholm main collaborator and multi-instrumentalist with Chelsea Wolfe on lush, haunting keys and strings, could have appeared on HEXVESSEL’s sophomore album ‘No Holier Temple’, albeit with a sound of that era, progressing out of folk.

‘Polar Veil’ features Nameless Void from Negative Plane, performing the guitar solo on the song “Ring” and on “Older Than The Gods”, Okoi from Bølzer provides guest vocals. At first an unlikely partnership but one that makes total sense as the album deepens, and threads can be drawn that reveal the place ‘Polar Veil’ is coming from.

On the process of recording ‘Polar Veil’, McNerney explains:

“I built a studio at home in the log hut on our field, surrounded by large trees, called Pine Hill, to escape from everything and everyone. ‘Polar Veil’ is what a spiritual home sounds like.”

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Hexvessel, “Older Than the Gods” official video

One of the questions I regularly ask the AI search engine is whether or not Les Claypool and/or Sean Lennon have mentioned anywhere that there will be another The Claypool Lennon Delirium record. The answer, paraphrased, is both are down, it just needs to happen. Claypool has been doing interviews because his Fearless Flying Frog Brigade project is doing their first tour in two decades now and in June, and Lennon is playing guitar in his band — Claypool calls him Shiner, which is both lovely and on-brand — so Monolith of Phobos, which was the pair’s first collaboration in June 2016, feels ripe for a revisit.

First of all, 2016, right? If you live in the States, it was a year defined by weird. Kind of astonishing that it was seven years ago, but I hear that years happen when you pile up enough days, so whatever. It felt like the entire year was the election, and certainly The Claypool Lennon Delirium weren’t in a vacuum in that regard, as they showed on “Ohmerica” with voice-of-reason satire in the second half of their debut. But it was a weird time to be alive, like I imagine was 1980, and maybe one of those moments where at least for some, it felt like the timeline split and they woke up someplace they thought they knew was one thing and turned out to be another, while perhaps for others the times were nothing but consistent. Multiple worlds in a world.

The Gen-X-ribbing-Millennials in the lyrics of “Boomerang Baby” is a bit gauche by the standards of the 2020s — please direct all grievances at the Boomers, who weren’t necessarily the ones to destroy the planet but certainly did little to help our species’ cause beyond liking a few decent bands — but that song still has that keyboard solo that, if it’s not a harpsichord, it’s close enough, and in both Claypool‘s bass and Lennon‘s vocals, it’s hypnotic, so maybe its first half and some of the other tracks here feel formative in comparison to 2019’s South of Reality (discussed here), which capped the ’10s with one of the decade’s best psychedelic rock records, the tradeoff for that is a closer look at the jammy roots of the project at its inception.

Starting off atmospheric with “The Monolith of Phobos,” the album moves into the two-parter “Cricket and the Genie (Movement I, The Delirium)” and “Cricket and the Genie (Movement II, Oratorio di Cricket),” which emphasize the could-go-anywhere style of Lennon‘s guitar playing, malleable in affect, tone and purpose, able to chug along with Claypool‘s trademark slap-bass on “Breath of a Salesman” or strum acoustic in a backing layer of “Captain Lariat” a song later, whatever a moment, a single part, calls for. Neither is overly long — “Captain Lariat” hits six minutes as the longest cut — but they give hints there and certainly elsewhere of the jams that would probably branch out live, ending, of course, with a sample of a chirping cricket as the song fades out underneath. Might be some frogs in there too, actually.

And the pair’s predilection for the bizarre, anticipating or at least being present in the oddness of the universe in which their work was arriving, and experimentalist heart shows up as well, maybe most of all on “There’s No Underwear in Space” — what George Lucas famously told a teenage Carrie Fisher when she asked for some on the set of Star Wars — with its creeping-but-not-creeping-like-“Mr. Wright” progression on guitar and various other sounds, vague blown-out speech at the end that might be Claypool, and so on. But that’s not the only showcase for it either, and it’s a context set by the wakeup noise of the intro to “The Monolith of Phobos” and throughout the “Cricket” duology as well in the vocal arrangement at the end of the second part, but it neither was nor should be a surprise that some of the material would be so identifiably Claypool‘s own since his is one of the most identifiable sounds rock of any stripe has ever produced in the 70-plus years it has existed.

Storytelling is always an essential component. As “Mr. Wright” plays out, the title character’s perverse transgressions escalate. “Cricket” has a plot. “Captain Lariat.” But Lennon takes lead vocals on “Bubbles Burst” and “Ohmerica,” with its acoustic and fuzz and keys, so the line of who wrote what and where isn’t necessarily stark, and The Claypool Lennon Delirium, as a band, are more dynamic for that. The pairing of “Ohmerica” and “Oxycontin Girl,” introduced with standalone bass and moving into a tale of addiction that feels like an update of Primus‘ “Harold on the Rocks” while going elsewhere in sound with splashes of fuzz buried in the mix, filling out the space behind the central bassline before and after the solo opens up in the middle in such a way as to feel like they were recorded in the same overdub, the same stem, whether or not they actually were.

In any case, the point stands that Monolith of Phobos has that level of attention to detail that you can get lost in if you choose, but there’s an overarching ride happening here, and the advantage of having two collaborators who are both master players, master songwriters and master performers, is that provided the egos don’t clash — and by all accounts everybody gets along well enough that Claypool and Lennon are touring together again — you’re probably going to get a work that on some level represents that mastery. Whether it’s the maddening catchiness of “Mr. Wright,” the entrancing repetitions in “Cricket and the Genie (Movement II, Oratorio di Cricket),” or the melancholy, rainy-day psychedelic flourish of “Bubbles Burst,” The Claypool Lennon Delirium remain on solid ground rhythmically and structurally regardless of how either of those things are being used at a given time.

Accordingly, and with true nerdly diligence, I will probably keep asking that robot when and if a third album might show up. Not this week, I suppose, but Claypool cycling through projects between Primus, Frog Brigade, offshoots like Duo de Twang and this and various others, plus the ever-present possibility of a new band or thing, whatever it might be, is nothing new, and hopefully the next The Claypool Lennon Delirium arrives before the machine grows intelligent enough to tell me to talk about something else.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

—

It was Tuesday and The Patient Mrs.’ mother had just arrived, down for an overnight from Connecticut. This week was the week in New Jersey, weather-wise. I doubt very much we’ll see its equal this year. Yesterday had a little chill, and by Tuesday afternoon the air had gotten a little hot, but taking the average between those two is where it was for most of the week and the blue sky felt like a lifeline. So when The Patient Mrs.’ mom showed up about an hour before the bus was due to come get The Pecan, I canceled school and we all went for a nice long walk in the arboretum in Morristown. I regret nothing about getting that idea or following the impulse. It was a great day.

Yesterday, The Patient Mrs. and I went to the school where The Pecan will attend kindergarten next year. We’re steamrolling toward an ADHD diagnosis probably next year for kiddo, so there have been all kinds of meetings and tests to see where/what/when the needs are and how they can best be met as real-school begins after pre-K. The resounding impression was that The Pecan is really, really, really intelligent, needs help with things like sharing and not being in charge, and will have a shared para in class next year, which is very much what we wanted. We talked a bit about gender as well, since as I’ve said here, I’m pretty sure kindergarten will be happening as a girl and until and unless we hear otherwise from The Pecan we’re proceeding from this assumption, but that will also get its own meeting. Logistics to work out, etc.

But the kid’s smart, no doubt about it. Like his mother. That has ups and downs, frankly, as smart people are more likely to be miserable and I might honestly trade a little intelligence for some happiness as regards disposition, but along with the intense guilt I feel for being a bad parent every single day — because, rest assured, I am one every single day; consistent, constant failure — I am pretty regularly astounded by some of the shit the kid comes up with, and she is at a super-fun age for stories, reading and starting to want to write her own. Maybe it’s not such a surprise I’d be into that.

There’s a bunch of stuff slated for next week, and at some point I’m going to post the podcast The Patient Mrs. and I made, but the kid’s up and we’re watching ‘The Cat in the Hat’ and it’s time for me to go swim, so I’m going to leave it there. Have a great and safe weekend. Don’t forget to hydrate, watch your head — I totally cried in that meeting recounting The Pecan’s March 2021 skull-cracking, by the way, so I really mean watch your head this week — and I’ll be back on Monday with a whole bunch of stuff I’m already behind on, which is how it goes. Thanks for reading.

FRM.

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