Think business plan templates free download - Top reliable and trustworthy academic writing service. Get to know main advice as to how to receive the greatest term paper ever Hour of 13‘s history is complicated? They have three Bandcamps. Three of them. Foremost among them is that from which the player above comes, run by  The Blog dig this Welcome towards the editing that is best � Proofreading Essay Services that may Undoubtedly Impress Your Tutors or Northern Silence Productions imprint  This Site Might Help You. RE: Does anyone know of a website that will http://kubsafety.ru/?essay-on-good-customer-service-experience for me? I am a junior in high school who was forced Eyes Like Snow, where the 2013 reissue of their 2007 self-titled debut, originally on Professionalacademicwriters.com provides clients with see thiss that guarantee excellent grades Shadow Kingdom Records, and physical editions of their other two full-lengths can be found. There’s also one from Show My Homework East Barnet - professional scholars engaged in the company will write your task within the deadline Craft a quick custom Earache Records, which signed the band in Sept. 2010 to release their 2010 second album, Pixelcarve offers quality click that has helped several companies in creating their unique voice online. Professional Copywriting Services. The Ritualist (discussed here), and third, Accounting courses have a high dropout rate because the material is often too hard to grasp, but Ez Assignment Help can give you expert see here online to make your course much more tolerable. 333 (discussed here), in 2011 and 2013, respectively. The third — because, yes, we’re still listing Bandcamp pages — is the band’s and it’s operating under the semi-changed moniker of  Compelling speeches written by our professional speech writers � why you need to check my site such as informative speech from us Hour of Thirteen, in order to represent the shift from doom to classic metal and horror punk and the continuation of the band as a solo-project of founding guitarist check here - Let us take care of your Master thesis. Use this platform to receive your valid custom writing delivered on time Quick and reliable Chad Davis. By the way, it was announced earlier this week that  Need professional college essay review services? - We can help you! Order dissertation of any topic from our affordable essay writing service and keep calm with your Hour of 13 — not  Custom Essays to Make Your College Life Better. Our high-quality but still essay graduate admissions essay are always at your disposal. Hour of Thirteen — will release a new full-length called  http://ballyshannondrama.com/framework-of-research-proposal/ is unethical, but so is the university system, built on corruption and false promises of employability, that you�re working in today. Black Magick Rites. That’ll be out on — wait for it —  How To Write A Good Application Essay Synthesis at affordable prices. When you buy a research paper, we guarantee you'll get a 100% original one... READ MORE HERE Shadow Kingdom. Lest the circle lack fullness.

And which release came out where and when — that’s really just the beginning when it comes to the story of  graduate admission essay help nurse practitioner see Agencies how to write a inquiry paper writing a report Hour of 13 and the tumultuous path the band has walked since their 2007 inception as a studio-only duo of  Buy Argumentative Essay Service - How We Can Help You. Each writing prompt comes on four different paper types to buy student essays the Davis and vocalist  Phil Swanson. With Davis based then in Hickory, North Carolina, and operating as a member of U.S. Christmas, Tasha-Yar, Set, Anu, etc. — he can now be found in San Francisco, working through The Crooked Whispers, Jenzeits and probably six or seven more — and Swanson living in Connecticut and working in bands like Upwards of Endtime and Earthlord — I saw him in Maryland last year but I’m not sure if he lives there or what; he’s currently in Vestal Claret and Seamount, and likely others — the workings of the band were immediately complicated. It was possible if more difficult than it is now to send recordings back and forth to work remotely as a group, but with Davis providing guitar, bass and drums and Swanson adding his Satanic, ritual-fueled, sometimes murderous lyrics and enviable post-Sabbath vocal approach, the self-titled was indeed tracked in-person in two sessions between 2006 and 2007 ahead of that Shadow Kingdom release. Bringing together eight songs across 42 minutes, it was simply an album ahead of and outside of its time.

By that I mean it arrived early for what soon enough took hold as a more cultish branch of doom metal. A few years later, or even now, it would be readily in league with a slew of other groups — if more lyrically deranged; Swanson always had a knack for skirting and sometimes crossing the line between good-fun devil worship like the un-Trouble and uh-that’s-not-okay kidnap and ritualistic murder, as on Hour of 13 closer “Missing Girl” — but at its time it was an immediate standout, despite also taking on the genre trappings of traditionalist doom. On their face, songs like early cuts “Call to Satan” and “Submissive to Evil” are straightforward and ask little of the listener. Riffs roll out, vocals follow the established rhythmic pattern, groove is had, doom is purveyed. But between an edge of rawness to the production and a flourish of classic metal in “The Correalation” (sic) and the relatively brief “Grim Reality,” which is snuck in like three and a half minutes of Judas Priest to lead off side B as though no one would notice, Hour of 13‘s invocations of darkness found a resonance that few in the traditional sphere of doom could hope to capture — not quite retro in style, but willfully primitive in aesthetic and construction. With each song carrying something of a narrative, whether it was obscure in “Endurement to the Heirs of Shame” or straight-ahead spellcasting in “Hex of Harm,” trying to get the devil on the line in “Call to Satan” and “Allowance of Sin,” the debut not only established Hour of 13 as a band with a clear mission in terms of what they were going for sound-wise, but a perspective of their own through which they’d manifest that. It would be hard to overstate the potential that could be heard in this record when it came out.

“Missing Girl,” which even 13 years later remains singularly fucked up in a Buffalo-Bill-wearing-your-face-like-a-mask kind of way, caps the album and is its longest track at eight minutes even, but all across its span there’s immersion in and consorting with a sense of evil. It’s not supposed to be comfortable when Swanson sings about cutting himself and jerking off into the blood in “Call to Satan,” and that interplay between sex, violence, and ritual is, if not ubiquitous in the songs, then certainly lurking in the background. It is the one adult male at the playground sitting on the bench watching the children who clearly has no child of his own. Call-the-cops creepy. The reality behind “Aqualung.”

Fruitful as their collaboration was, Davis and Swanson never seemed to click as a lineup. They played few gigs together — I was fortunate enough to see them in 2010 (review here) — and the vocalist left the band in 2011, following the release of The Ritualist, and Davis hooked up with Beaten Back to Pure‘s Ben Hogg shortly thereafter as part of what became a touring configuration of the band. But shifts in personnel were common, and though Hogg was on board for a tour with Kylesa and fronted some demos, by the time Hour of 13 issued 333, Swanson was back in the band. Still, the momentum they’d had leading into Earache releasing the second album had largely evaporated, and touring was never a huge priority. When the band posted a single in tribute to The Gates of Slumber bassist Jason McCash (R.I.P.) in 2014, that was to be their final recording, but Davis revived the project two years later for the Salt the Dead: The Rare and Unreleased (review here) compilation, before shifting in 2018 to Hour of Thirteen, seeing Davis release a debut in 2019 with The Sabbathian (review here) on Svart, while still issuing a couple EPs to keep the flame burning and now, apparently, moving toward a fourth Hour of 13 full-length done completely as a solo affair.

Whatever the future brings for Hour of 13 — you can understand I’m sure why one might hesitate to predict, but maybe more Bandcamps? — their self-titled continues to be a defining document of their take on doom and what they represented at their outset. It is one of those kinds of albums that had more of an effect than people generally realize, and in discussion of acts who helped foster revivalist doom in the last ten years-plus should in no way be ignored.

As always, I hope you enjoy.

—

It’s 7:20AM and I’ve already had half a xanax this morning, which may or may not be a good sign for how the rest of the day is going to go. The Pecan has been up for an hour — woke up early as I was finishing the above, ran in his closet and proceeded to take a massive dump in his diaper as he will; fortunately it was contained — so I grabbed him, changed him, started him on breakfast. He’s had a snotty nose the last three days or so but seems to be on the mend if his bouncing-off-the-walls, complete-lack-of-focus is anything to go by. It was after I found myself on my knees on the rug begging him for not the first time in my life to eat a spoonful of yogurt that I hopped up and took a pill. I expect in about 20 minutes life will seem more manageable in that particular my-blood-is-moving-slower-than-it-was kind of way that the medication induces.

What a week.

The dog continues to be what I feel is an unnecessary challenge. Case in point she went to doggy-daycare on Tuesday — same time The Pecan was at actual-daycare — and the two-plus hours I had to sit quietly were some of the most satisfying I’ve experienced in at least the last two months since she came into our home. I was on board with getting this dog. I am now on board with getting rid of this dog. Sometimes it just doesn’t work, and while The Patient Mrs. — being more patient as she is — is advocating professional training, unless we’re going to do the same for our child, I fail to see how that substantial, multi-thousand-dollar investment might pay off. As projects go, I’d much prefer to get started redoing the kitchen now that we own the house.

These are adult concerns, and shitty besides. Far more fun is that I’ve had Cardi B. and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP” stuck in my head for the better part of the last 72 hours. “Catchy” doesn’t begin to cover it.

New Gimme Metal show today at 5PM Eastern: http://gimmemetal.com or their app to listen. The app is easier.

Alright, I gotta get this kid to leave the house before it burns it down so I’m punching out. Have a great and safe weekend. Be well, hydrate. All that good stuff.

FRM.

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Fair enough that Le Mans, France-based instrumental trio Stone From the Sky should be premiering a video for the live-in-studio version of their song “Animal” ahead of the release of their Live in La Grange, since they did the same thing with the original version of the track as well. Call it promotional symmetry. Stone From the Sky issued Break a Leg (review here) — the full-length from whence “Animal” came — in May 2019, about 16 months and an entire lifetime ago. The new offering, which, as the title tells you was indeed recorded live at La Grange studio, is being released as a sort of glimpse at what could’ve been if the band was able to tour this Fall. They are, of course, not. So even though they followed 2017’s Fuck the Sun with a first live album in the crowd-mic’ed Live in Agger that same year, both the context and circumstances for Live in La Grange are different. See also: everything.

And what can you really say at this point? “Yeah, those probably would’ve been some cool shows.” Well, they probably would”ve been. Stone From the Sky sound on their game with the 36-minute/six-song set they present, from the opening My Sleeping Karma-ism of “Vena Cava” from the last album to the expansion on the same ideas and the consuming post-heavy lead that rises in the second half of “Godspeed,” a new song set to release on the band’s next LP presumably due out on More Fuzz Records once life magically returns to “normal” sometime next year. Whether or not that happens, the peak at things to come from the dynamic three-piece is welcome as it arrives through Live in La Grange, which perhaps doesn’t quite have the same physicality a live show might — that is, nobody’s thrashing out — but does carry through a palpable sense of the people behind the performances and is still graceful enough to build an atmosphere from the aforementioned opener onward.

The setlist, as it were, focuses on Break a Leg, and fairly enough so as the band’s latest work, and “Agger,” “Animal” and “Atomic Valley” indeed represent the album well, with the latter appearing as the bridge between “Godspeed” and the finale “Welcome to Trantor” from Fuck the Sun. Again, there’s a bit of the tantric tension in the early guitar and bass interplay on the closer, but Stone From the Sky careen through scorching solo work and fervent rhythmic push in kind before they return to ground ahead of their last build. It’s a satisfying cap to a satisfying set, which brings me back around to the original point of, “Yeah, those probably would’ve been some cool shows.” And hey kids, someday they might still be. At least in Europe. At some point. Ever.

If I sound hopeless, I’m sorry, but I am.

But maybe not completely so, because the lesson to take away from Live in La Grange aside from that Stone From the Sky are a good live band, is that creative expression finds a way. Sometimes that’s bands setting up a camera in a rehearsal space, and sometimes that’s a band booking a little studio time, putting to tape what would’ve been their tour set, and putting it out as a name-your-price download, like Stone From the Sky. That persistence, like grass popping up through cracks in highway pavement, is nothing if not admirable.

Enjoy the premiere of “Animal” from Live in La Grange below. And if you’re curious, I included the video for the original studio version at the bottom of this post as well.

Dig:

Stone From the Sky, “Animal” official live video premiere

Stone From The Sky – Animal
Recorded live in La Grange Studio / FR

The full live is available on our Bandcamp : https://stonefromthesky.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-la-grange

Camera: Pierre Posnic, Renaud Tessier, Jospeh Smalley, Solal Boutoux
Montage: Renaud Tessier
Editing: Solal Boutoux
Record and mix: Jordan Jupin
Mastering: Role at Die Tonmesterei / DE

Stone from the Sky, “Animal” official video

Stone from the Sky on Thee Facebooks

Stone from the Sky on Bandcamp

Stone from the Sky website

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More Fuzz Records on Bandcamp

Italian instrumentalists Vesta will release their second full-length through Argonauta Records, titled Odyssey, on Oct. 16, and they’re not kidding around when it comes to that title. Even going beyond the references to 2001: A Space Odyssey in the Viareggio trio’s new video for album-opener “Elohim” premiering below, the record itself spans eight songs and an encompassing 52 minutes that bring together heavy rock and roll and progressive metal, seeming to find a space between Tool, Russian Circles, Karma to Burn and maybe even a bit of Isis (looking at you, “Tumae”) as the journey unfolds.

Though they remain wordless, their expression comes through use of effects and a general sense of poise that underscores the notion of the band as progressive; they’re well in control of what they’re doing, and whatever exploratory elements they might have at work throughout, be it flutter of guitar here or a crushing low-end shove a short time later — the punch of bass at the start of “Breach” is particularly fun — they contradict hypnotic passages with sudden turns in a way that can only be purposeful. That is to say, they know where they want to put their audience and how to get them there.

The album would seem to be comprised of two different methods playing out across longer and shorter tracks. “Elohim” tops seven minutes and is of a kind with the closing salvo of “Temple,” “Supernova” and “Cerere,” all of which are between 7-8 minutes. The space between the beginning and that consuming finish is given to “Tumae,” “Breach,” “Juno” and the transitional highlight “Borealis,” all of which are under six minutes long. True enough that all the material throughout Vesta‘s Odyssey has a sense of scope and that the breadth they show comes through wherever a given song might lead, but “Elohim” seems specially positioned to immerse the listener in what the outing has to offer, to capture the attention and mindset and from there manipulate it in the manner stated above.

Comprised of guitarist Giacomo Cerri, bassist Lorenzo Iannazzone and drummer Sandro Marchi, the three-piece are able to bring a sense of energy to the proceedings that makes them breathe all the more, but it is the patient and unfurling nature of the material that most comes through. “Juno” touches on a “Stones From the Sky” moment — the Neurosis riff that launched post-metal as a genre — but whether Vesta are drawing from that well of inspiration or another, it’s hard to say, and it being hard to say is what makes the album work as it pulls together its songs from various sounds and styles.

It’s in “Temple” that the Tool-ness most comes forward, but that in itself is really just an introduction to the final stage of Odyssey as a whole, which progresses smoothly into “Supernova” — there’s a burst, sure enough, but it’s less sudden than one might expect given the title — and into the kind of epilogue of “Cerere,” which finds room for a playfully bluesy solo and a last push through wash that, if you managed to sneak in some ghostly howls way down in the mix, would for sure be able to pass as black metal. You find the darnedest things lurking in the corners of records by bands who are obviously pushing themselves to reach someplace new.

I don’t know if there’s an overarching narrative to Odyssey, but there’s certainly one to “Elohim,” and it plays out in the video with all the clarity one might expect given the atmospheric intention on the part of the band behind it, adopting the aforementioned Kubrickian modus and ending on an alien landscape when its voyage is complete.

Live long, prosper, and enjoy:

Vesta, “Elohim” official video premiere

Vesta on “Elohim”:

“Being an instrumental group, we prefer to leave free interpretation to those who enjoy our music, but lately we are taking more into consideration the potential of a visual integration in support. Regarding the first single Elohim, the basic meaning of the name is “God”, “Divinity” intended as the One God … and like every human being we ask ourselves if we are alone in the universe or, and if there really is a mind superior to us, maybe it too is looking for answers. During these months of lockdown we got an idea of ??how we could tell what we had in mind through a short film. The story speaks of a signal picked up on earth, identified and analyzed. Through a spacetime tunnel man manages to have a vision, which leads him to explore Mars in search of answers to that signal but there is no life, there is nothing other than red rocks and rocky deserts. Yet in the middle of a Canyon there is an artifact placed by who knows, that transports us back to another part of the Cosmos. Something happens there; are we alone?”

Three years after their self-titled debut, Italy’s post-rock and metal outfit, Vesta, returns with their sophomore album, titled “Odyssey”, on October 16th 2020 via Argonauta Records.

“We’re three people, three individuals who came together to create something, to make music and to complete each other musically, to form a perfect Triangle.” The band explains. “Everyone in VESTA is interested in how we present our music. We write a group of songs that have a vibe, energy and feeling, and then we try to pick an image to capture that and communicate a feeling. We want something that adds to the connection with the audience.What makes us a bit nervous is, in this instant time, to release something that might take more than one listen. Where everything is instantly judged on YouTube or something! It’s a bit like releasing a horse and cart on a racetrack. With three perfectionists in the band, we have a hard time reaching perfection.”

“Odyssey” was recorded and mixed by Alessandro “Ovi” Sportelli and mastered by James Plotkin (Khanate, Cave In, Isis, Sumac), the result is a powerful, roaring wall of sound, a 54 minutes long, sonic Odyssey.

Album Tracklisting:
1. Elohim
2. Tumæ
3. Breach
4. Juno
5. Borealis
6. Temple
7. Supernova
8. Cerere

Vesta is:
Giacomo Cerri – Guitar & Loops
Sandro Marchi – Drums & Cymbals
Lorenzo Iannazzone – Bass & Drones

Vesta on Thee Facebooks

Vesta on Bandcamp

Argonauta Records website

Lima, Peru’s El Jefazo released their second album, Simbiosis, digitally in August 2019 and followed that up with an LP edition through Necio Records this May. As release dates go, “May 2020″… well, you were there. You know. Still, the three-piece brought their seven-track/33-minute instrumental riff-pushery to a 12” platter, gorgeously grotesque art and all, and with their new video for the exclamatory “Uranai Baba!” they’re bidding the album a fond farewell as they look to move forward and continue writing the next one. They’ve already released a made-in-quarantine single called “Ojo de Buey” through their Bandcamp that builds on some of the more lysergic aspects of Simbiosis, as heard quickly on opener/longest track (immediate points) “Serpiente,” but with the album itself, what makes it so engaging and effective across its utterly manageable span is the balance of elements, the heavy roll and the spacious space, the B-A-S-S tone from Carlos French that complements the F-U-Z-Z of Bruno Sánchez‘s guitar and the flowing drum work from Renán Monzón that carries smoothly through every change in tonality, effects, or rhythmic structure.

And there are plenty of those changes to be found throughout Simbiosis as El Jefazo finish “Serpiente” with feedback and shift into the more confrontational shove of “El Hedonista.” Of course it’s damn near impossible for an instrumental heavy rock band to write a straightforward riff — a riffer’s riff — and not wind up in comparison to Karma to Burn, and “El Hedonista” hits that mark a bit, as does the swaggering closer “Drone Gato,” and certainly “Uranai Baba!” earns its exclamation point with a bit of that feel as well as its scorching solo finish. But to coincide with this, there’s not only the sense of reach shown in the floating lead at the outset of centerpiece “El Daño Está Hecho,” but also the depth of low end beneath. It’s an upward and downward reach, and El Jefazo cover this swath of ground in a fashion truly worthy of the album’s title, the symbiotic nature of the weight, impact and psychedelic drive — and yes, the fuzz; there’s plenty of it; “El Jefuzzo” comes to mind — all coming together to make something not just greater than the sum of its parts, but something that uses the process of adding those parts together itself as a source of strength.

Shorter cuts like the early “Pulsión de Muerte” or “Poltergeist” later offer a chance for blowout and the band takes full advantage, but as the maybe-sample-topped finale in “Drone Gato” rolls out, it demonstrates El Jefazo aren’t without a sense of patience either, and that their stylistic take is relying much more generally than the gear and pedals they’re using, though even the fullness of the production becomes a tool at their disposal. Converted heads who either did or didn’t catch wind of Simbiosis when the band first put it out should have no trouble getting on board with what the trio are doing in these songs, but whatever familiarity might come through, El Jefazo do well in showcasing not only their chemistry as instrumentalists, which is crucial for a band of their aesthetic, but their sonic personality as well and the various aspects in and out of genre they’re able to encompass within what’s, again, a relatively quick listen. Long or short, as LPs go, I don’t imagine it’s one you’ll regret diving into.

And even with “Ojo de Buey” already out, one looks forward to hearing where El Jefazo go for their third full-length.

But first, the video. You’ll find the premiere below, followed by confirmation of work started on the next record.

Please enjoy:

El Jefazo, “Uranai Baba!” Official Video Premiere

El Jefazo presents their new video: Uranai Baba!

Peruvian stoner rock power trio El Jefazo has released a video for Uranai Baba!, from their second album Simbiosis, which was acclaimed by national and international stoner rock music press during 2019 and 2020.

This trippy video, directed by Rodrigo Loayza, marks the end of the Simbiosis era for the band. They will now focus on composing new songs for their third album.

Simbiosis is available in LP format. If you want a copy, please contact label Necio Records or the band itself.

El Jefazo is:
Bruno Sánchez – Guitarra
Carlos French – Bajo
Renán Monzón – Batería

El Jefazo, Simbiosis (2020)

El Jefazo on Thee Facebooks

El Jefazo on Instagram

El Jefazo on Bandcamp

Necio Records on Thee Facebooks

Necio Records on Instagram

Necio Records on Bandcamp

Aphonic Threnody will release their third full-length, The Great Hatred, on Oct. 16 through Transcending Obscurity Records. It is a substantial offering of willful wretchedness, running six tracks and 56 minutes of death-doom malevolence, shifting between passages of beauty-in-darkness brooding and all-out pummeling assault. Recognizable ground for the style, to be sure, but the raw edge with which the UK/Chilean collaboration between multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Juan Esteban Escobar Campillay and guitarist Riccardo Veronese execute the material brings the songs to life in a way that death-doom is often too concerned with poise to encapsulate.

That’s not to say the album is haphazard. Far from it; from opener “Locura” through “Interrogation” and into “The Great Hatred” itself, the album flows on its downward path like blood down a drain, but the human core beneath those growls remains present in a particular way that offsets the angular noise or chug or even just the dirge-plod of the guitars, and in those moments where The Great Hatred pushes into a faster progression, as in the second half of the title-track, setting up a stretch of Katatonia-esque melody, they don’t lose sight of their expressive purpose. With “Locura” setting the stage for an airing of miseries, “Interrogation” follows and centers itself around the question “Does it even matter at all?” — the universe sucks so I’m going to say probably no — and is one of three tracks on the album to top 10 minutes. Make no mistake, however, it’s all a slog and that’s precisely how it’s intended.

For being aphonic — i.e., unable to make noise or be heard — the agonizing elements across The Great Hatred come through palpably, and that’s all the more true as the album plays out. The second half of the release, which is comprised of “Drowning,” “The Rise of the Phoenix” and “The Fall,” would seem to derive a narrative arc from its motive succession, and it’s telling that Aphonic Threnody end on “The Fall,” since that’s pretty emblematic of the level of hope on display across the record generally. “Drowning” plays up My Dying Bride/Paradise Lost-style ambience and “The Rise of the Phoenix” pushes even further (deeper?) into atmospheric murk while solidifying late around an emergent chug and dispersing gradually on a slow outward march.

As for “The Fall,” it’s made lush through both keys and a winding line of lead guitar, but if there’s a sense of hope to the thing, it’s well buried by the consuming weight of Aphonic Threnody‘s unmitigated downerism. Again, this is the point. It’s not like they set out to write pop tunes and wound up asking “What is kindness?/What is happiness?” like they’re encountering the ideas for the first time. The extremity throughout The Great Hatred isn’t just about the parts that are “more death metal.” It’s also the emotional crux on which the record is built, the sense of alienation even from oneself that comes through the material so expertly crafted, and the control with which Campillay and Veronese bring the songs to bear.

I still say death-doom is the perfect sound for 2020. If you disagree, I humbly submit the premiere of a lyric video for “Interrogation” below. Preorders for The Great Hatred are up now.

Enjoy:

Aphonic Threnody, “Interrogation” lyric video premiere

Members of Towards Atlantis Lights, Dea Marica, Arrant Saudade and more collaborate to conjure up the finest kind of death/doom metal that encompasses the best qualities this style has to offer – stirring melodies, heaving riffs, immersive atmosphere, and some of the lowest, most anguished vocals possible alternating with lucid, spoken passages. None of it is overbearing or lingers on for too long as the songs waft through the doom vacuum, making their presence felt and imperceptibly changing something inside the unsuspecting listener. Much happens during the course of the hour and Aphonic Threnody don’t follow a strict formula, leaving things open-ended and unpredictable as they keep changing things around without disrupting the emotional temperament. The Great Hatred makes for an engaging listen and will make you come back to unravel its richly layered and elegantly intertwined compositions. It’s akin to living life all over again. And again.

Line up –
Riccardo Veronese (Towards Atlantis Lights, Dea Marica) – Guitars
Juan Escobar C. (Arrant Saudade) – Vocals, Bass, Guitar & Keys

Artwork by Misanthropic Art (Xpus, Death Courier)

Track listing –
1. Locura
2. Interrogation
3. The Great Hatred
4. Drowning
5. The Rise of the Phoenix
6. The Fall

Aphonic Threnody on Thee Facebooks

Aphonic Threnody on Bandcamp

Transcending Obscurity Records on Thee Facebooks

Transcending Obscurity Records website

In terms of categorization, no one has ever really known what to make of or what to do with Primus. 30 years on from the 1990 release of their debut studio album, Frizzle Fry, through Caroline Records, that seems like a source of pride for the bass-led trio, whose career has nonetheless included radio hits and creative videos, narrative albums and a sense of progressivism that comes through even in the most straightforward of their songs and in tracks about things like fishing, pudding, and, on 1993’s Pork Soda, being named Mud. But because of their funk-infused sound, their overarching groove led by the technical-wizardry-put-to-rarely-pretentious-use of bassist Les Claypool, because of the intricacy of Tim “Don’t Call Me Herb” Alexander‘s drumming and the almost avant-jazz guitar work of Larry LaLonde — who came to the band after playing in Possessed, giving Primus an automatic connection to metal — theirs has always been a place between styles. How much crossover do you really think exists between Ozzfest and Bonnaroo? That’s Primus.

Frizzle Fry, which has been remastered and reissued through I think Sony or maybe Universal or whoever owns Interscope‘s and Caroline‘s catalogs at this point — does it matter? Brand X. — is comprised of 13 tracks running a CD-ready 51 minutes. There are numerous intros and interludes, even from the start of opener and longest cut (immediate points) “To Defy the Laws of Tradition,” which starts with crowd noise perhaps to make one think on first listen that they’re doing another live record à la 1989’s Suck on This, which was Primus overall debut. This and the waltzing “You Can’t Kill Michael Malloy,” the stomping “Sathington Willoughby” and the reprise “To Defy” at the album’s finish — all under 40 seconds long — act to keep the listener off balance and, ideally, of a more open mind to the many quirks that come not just from Claypool as a frontman, but LaLonde‘s guitar and Alexander‘s drumming as well. At its heaviest — and the record is heavy — Frizzle Fry doesn’t indulge in either the chestbeating of the day’s thrash and early groove metal movements or the preening of glam, or the disaffection of what was becoming grunge at the time. You see where this is going. It’s heavy, and it’s rock. It’s heavy rock.

It’s more than just that as well, but stop me if you’ve heard this before — and yes you have, maybe more than once — but among the aspects of Primus‘ sound that were pioneering was finding that precise place in between metal and rock that was heavy and full in tone but put it to non-aggro use. Frizzle Fry has its moody moments, to be sure, in the still-relevant “Too Many Puppies” or the loosely psychedelic title-track and “The Toys Go Winding Down” and in the punch of low end and sometimes frenetic starts and stops of bass, but songs like “Mr. Knowitall,” “John the Fisherman,” “Pudding Time” even “Harold of the Rocks,” though its lyrics are about losing friends to drug addiction, are fun. The bounce of their rhythm, their memorable hooks and melodies, and the immediately-recognizable patterning and voice of Claypool gave Primus an unmistakable approach to rock and roll. And that was part of the thing too. Where a few years later, Nirvana broke through to generation-defining commercial mega-stardom, Primus were too weird and too inimitable to be as influential. Anyone can slow down punker riffs and drawl out their dissatisfaction with life. No one can slap a bass like Les Claypool other than Les Claypool, and those who try, like Korn, just sound silly. So while they found success at the time, they’re perhaps also underappreciated for just how much stylistic accomplishment they were making at the time because, frankly, their style was more their own than behind their marketing knew how to handle. “I guess put out another CD single? Yeah, that’s it,” and so on.

Make no mistake, Frizzle Fry is brilliant, and whether it’s dug in moments like the hard-driving jam that emerges to add thrust to the title-track after its Sabbath referencing post-midsection departure or even the probably-filler “Spaghetti Western” with its double-kick drumming and shredded-apart guitar solo, Primus maintain a striking and consuming balance between personality and craft. Thinking of this as their debut, their efforts across the length of the album are all the more impressive, and of course while they would go on to develop a more varied and progressive approach over subsequent records and decades, the raw edge of a band just starting out is resonant in Frizzle Fry at the same time it’s contrasted by the sheer confidence with which the band executes the material. Maybe they just didn’t care what anyone thought of them. Maybe they knew they were right and time would bear them out. Either way, with 30 years of hindsight and the language and understanding of heavy rock and roll that’s taken place since, one can find yet another lens through which to appreciate what they were doing at the time, what they were able to achieve as a band in their early going, and what they would do with it in the course of the years that followed.

The band are hardly done, if that sentence makes it seem otherwise. In 2017 they released The Desaturating Seven, a narrative concept LP following up on 2014’s Primus & The Chocolate Factory with the Fungi Ensemble, a characteristic retell of the songs from Willy Wonka, and they’ve toured consistently as well, returning in 2004 after a breakup following the harder-edged approaches of 1997’s The Brown Album and 1999’s Antipop, lineup changes and so on. Frizzle Fry, 1991’s Sailing the Seas of Cheese and the aforementioned Pork Soda have all been performed in their entirety in the last decade-plus, usually with copious jams added — the jam-band community wholly embraced the three-piece in a way metal never really did, perhaps with an edge of ’90s nostalgia — and comprise an essential trilogy of offerings to be sure. As the first of them, Frizzle Fry holds a special place and is a landmark unto itself as well as a herald for what would come after.

If it needs to be said, I love this album.

I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

—

Maybe I was feeling a little nostalgic myself this week after reviewing that Alice in Chains tribute. That album, Dirt, and Sailing the Seas of Cheese, along with C.O.C.’s Blind and Master of Puppets and The Beatles’ Past Masters Vol. 1, were the earliest CDs I ever owned. I had that Beatles record and Master of Puppets before I even had a CD player. So yeah, that’s kind of digging back for me. Life is short. Find joy where you can.

I mean that. Half the country is on fire right now; the other half doesn’t care. Fascism has taken root in US politics in a way that the generation who would most recognize it is too dead or too on board with it to call out. Facts are twisted past recognition so that truth and objectivity themselves — as much as they can exist in the first place — are rendered another malleable tool of disorientation. And a pandemic. I watch the cases every day. It was down this week to in the 20,000s for like two days, is back up today over 33,000. We’re approaching 200,000 dead Americans. No one cares. Cops act in accord with white supremacist terrorists. People care about that, but cops have tanks and people have Twitter and tanks win. I have this dog I can’t stand. It’s not even fair how much I can’t stand this dog. It isn’t fair to her and I know it and acknowledge it and I still can’t stand this dog. Every time she whines or barks I want to smash my face with a hammer. Bottom line is, injustice is rampant.

So find your joy. Because in the background of all this wretchedness and decay dwells the fact that these so, so, so deeply flawed times are all we’ve got. This week I bought my son a big green garbage truck at Costco. He’s got other garbage trucks, also green. I can think of two off the top of my head — a little one and a mid-sized one. This one is bigger and it has an arm that lifts up a dumpster. He’s spent the last three days immersed in it to the exclusion of nearly everything else, or at least everything that can’t fit in the truck, and I’ve gotten to see him absolutely loving this thing, wanting to bring it to bed with him, all of that. It’s been great. He talks about it. It’s the first thing he goes for in the morning. Next week it’ll be something else, but screw it, that’s next week. Right now I’ve got that to hold onto.

And I need it, because he’s also decided this week that he no longer needs a nap in the afternoon, which is so sad. So very sad. That was not only work-time, but also relax-time, reading-time, listen-to-what-needs-to-be-reviewed-tomorrow-time. Put cauliflower in the oven for dinner time. Sometimes even my naptime. A time both productive and restorative. Now it’s two more hours-plus added to the rest of the day. Find your joy. The world he lives in and is going to grow up in is an overwhelming downward spiral moving from garbage to garbage-on-fire, and nothing’s going to get better. Life is complicated and generally miserable. Find your joy. Big or little, if you can. Double high-five.

Oh, and by way of an update, it’s been two weeks and nothing has fallen through, so I guess we own this house now. Pretty wild to think of it as ours rather than my grandmother’s or my grandmother’s-via-my-mother’s. White privilege is real.

Alright. I should probably leave it there. I overslept this morning by more than an hour — alarm set for 3:50, I rolled over at 5 — and it’s kind of thrown me for a loop, but so it goes. I’ll take The Pecan grocery shopping in a bit and we’ll proceed about the day. I’m sure the garbage truck will be involved. Next week is a new Gimme show and a bunch of other premieres that anyone may or may not give a crap about but I think are cool. Some honest-to-goodness stoner rock in there too, which I could use at this point to be honest with you. Been awfully prog-psych around here lately. Also there’s some folk. So you keep a balance. You find your joy. But anyway, time’s a crunch since I overslept.

I wish you a great and safe weekend. Have fun, and be careful out there. Hydrate. So important to hydrate.

FRM.

The Obelisk Forum

The Obelisk Radio

The Obelisk merch

Alright. I’m not trying to tell you your business or anything, but yes I absolutely am and I think you should take a few minutes out of your busy day to check out Oginalii if you haven’t yet. From the opening cut “Veils” through the finishing moves in “Stripped the Screw,” the Nashville four-piece’s new EP, Pendulum — due Oct. 23 — brings atmospheric heavy psychedelia that’s moody without losing its sense of force. The whole release runs six songs and 24 minutes — very much an EP — but in that time the band unfurls material dug-in enough to build on their 2019 debut, Cause & Affection, with a burgeoning sense of controlled chaos.

Taking cues from post-rock and heavy jams in kind, it finds a sonic space for itself that’s broad in scope but rhythmically tight as well, as Simon Knudtson‘s tense drums behind Emma Hoeflinger‘s vocals on the previously-unveiled “Scapegoat” demonstrate, the fuzz guitar of Ryan Quarles and depth of bass from Emma Lambiase bringing further weight to the impact. Maybe unsurprisingly, the EP finds its greatest meld between ambience and intensity on its six-minute title-track, starting off at a meander and ending up in a riff dizzying enough that the follow it with the two-minute melodic comedown “Black Hole,” but the whole thing works with a similar dynamic.

I can’t help but hear a little Carla Kihlstedt in the Hoeflinger‘s breathy delivery in the verses of the newly-unveiled “Pillars,” a second single from Pendulum to be issued, but a more intense chorus is met by intertwining jabs of fuzzed tonality, an intricate bounce happening that solidifies the airier surroundings but still stays purposefully elusive in contrast to the melody. Have I mentioned the word “dynamic” yet? Okay good. Just wanted to be sure. “Pillars,” for all that, is still catchy around the standout line “Great expectations were wrong,” which feels like a line that could be loaded with any number of contexts, and after the song culminates, “Stripped the Screw” takes a more avant approach, building and deconstructing as it moves through a runtime that’s still just four and a half minutes long but shifts between soft guitar at the outset to blown-out industrial-style beats at the end, the band setting, and breaking, their own rules.

“Stripped the Screw” isn’t public yet, but you can see the video for “Pillars” below, accompanied by more info from the PR wire — and I threw in the “Scapegoat” video too, just in case you missed it when it was . Bottom line here is I dig this EP and the direction in which Oginalii seem headed, and I think you might too.

Again, it’s out Oct. 23.

Enjoy:

Oginalii, “Pillars” official video

‘Pillars’ official music video from the upcoming EP ‘Pendulum’ – out OCTOBER 23 2020.

Nashville’s Oginalii recently announced the Oct 23 release of Pendulum via Devil In The Woods.

The band recently released second single “Pillars,” with fuzzed-out riffs that immediately change gear to an exploration of space reminiscent of the sonic landscapes of Portishead.

“The song explores a moment I feel we all come to realize at some point in our lives,” says frontwoman and songwriter Emma Hoeflinger. “The moment you realize a hero figure, a parent, an idol, or anyone that is a symbol of wisdom becomes human in your eyes for the first time. That person has faults, messes up, and isn’t on that pedestal or “pillar” you’ve always placed them on. What do we do with this new information? Do we let it ruin the love and respect we have created for them?”

Oginalii is:
Emma Hoeflinger (vocals/guitar)
Ryan Quarles (guitar)
Simon Knudtson (drums)
Emma Lambiase (bass)

Oginalii, “Scapegoat” official video

Oginalii website

Oginalii on Bandcamp

Oginalii on Instagram

Oginalii on Thee Facebooks

Devil in the Woods website

There have been plenty of times in recent years where one might take something like this for granted. “A video of a band playing live in a room together? Wait — on the internet???” Yeah, I know, wild times we live in. But you know, this isn’t a thing to be overlooked. If the course 2020 has taken has taught anything, it’s to appreciate each other and each other’s work in exactly the ways that have seemed ho-hum and everyday in the past. Who the hell knows when the lungfire is coming? So you’re telling me you’ve got Ealdor Bealu hanging out in Boise with a two-camera setup playing a new song live? Shit yeah I’m in for that. Band in a room. Sign me right up.

When the band’s Carson Russell checked in this Spring, he was hopeful that Ealdor Bealu‘s rescheduled-to-Fall tour would happen. Well, yeah. Obviously not so much. They would’ve been headed out next month in order to support their righteous second LP, Spirit of the Lonely Places (review here), which came out July 2019. Instead, like many, they’ve opted to pursue writing new material, and the single “Way of the Sudden Storm” — which seems aptly-named, if nothing else — is a first sampling of that. Again, it’s a band in room. The recording is pretty raw in terms of the audio, but you’ll hear guitarist/songwriter Travis Abbott, Russell (also guitar) and bassist Rylie Colllingwood sharing vocal duties while Alex Wargo — making his debut here after replacing Craig Hawkins, who played on the last record — introduces the song with a flowing progression on his cymbals and snare that acts as the foundation upon which the linear build unfolds.

It does so with a patience that speaks to the band working quickly toward their third album but well established and aware of the sound they’re after and how they want to handle fleshing out their arrangements. Of course, one will look forward to the finished version of “Way of the Sudden Storm” — which unless they’re in the studio right this second and opted for some reason to engage in misdirection it in the quote below will likely feature on a full-length release sometime next year — but if you think of this as a live demo version, you can still get some sense of the atmosphere they’re shooting for, and, I’d argue, attaining.

Spirit of the Lonely Places is at the bottom of this post if you’d like a refresher, but immediately below you’ll find the premiere of “Way of the Sudden Storm” live from Ealdor Bealu‘s rehearsal space. As you watch, try to remember the context in which this is happening and just how fortunate we are to be in a position where people can get together again and explore and create art and even just breathe the same air for a while. Band in a room. They offer a quote as a group as well.

Please enjoy:

Ealdor Bealu, “Way of the Sudden Storm” official video premiere

Ealdor Bealu on “Way of the Sudden Storm”:

“Ealdor Bealu would have been preparing for our two-week Fall West Coast Tour right about now. As it was for our spring tour, the fall tour has been cancelled. With live music on an indefinite hiatus, we have used these past six months to create and sharpen the songs for our third full-length album, which is slated to be recorded this winter. We had plans to debut a couple of these tracks on the road, but with that no longer an option we have decided to release one of these brand new songs via a live video from our practice space at the Boise Bomb Shelter! Please enjoy this sneak peak of album #3 with this killer single ‘Way of the Sudden Storm.’ We hope it brings you comfort in these perilous times. Be well, stay safe, and we shall see you all on the road again when this too has passed.” – Carson, Rylie, Travis, and Alex

Way of the Sudden Storm
Recorded Live at Boise Bomb Shelter (Boise, ID)
August 2020
All Music and Lyrics By: Travis Abbott
Video Editing: Travis Abbott

Ealdor Bealu is:
Carson Russell: Guitar, Vocals
Rylie Collingwood: Bass, Vocals
Travis Abbott: Guitar, Vocals
Alex Wargo: Drums

Ealdor Bealu, Spirit of the Lonely Places (2019)

Ealdor Bealu on Thee Facebooks

Ealdor Bealu on Bandcamp