Athens-based five-piece Under the Sun are set to issue their debut LP, The Bell of Doom, on April 5 through the e’er-reliable Sound Effect Records. And man, some albums just manage to sound loud no matter at what volume you’re actually playing them. Starting with a hearty “Oh yeah!” and diving almost immediately into a celebration of riff and drive with “Smoking Angels,” the shove is inviting through the slowdown and into the dual guitars assuring no dip in the heavy as they shred the solo into the fade. The initial impression is a party and they back that for sure in the burly swagger of “Cry Out,” the more rolling “One Reason” and side B’s pairing of “The Shot” (video premiering below) and “Pony Ride,” with classic-style hooks and careening riffs offered with no pretense in their impulse toward audience engagement. Sounds like a good time? Hell yes it does.
But if you’re looking at the cover art with its graveyard and kraken-church, red sky and vertigo-style swirl, dark hues and creeper logo treatments wondering if I’ve posted the wrong image or some such based on the above description, there’s another side to Under the Sun that manifests throughout the eight-song/38-minute LP. In the video for “The Shot,” they’re getting ready for the show, getting to the show, playing the show, and that focus on on-stage energy is an obvious priority. If they showed up at your front door and started rocking out (after knocking politely, of course), they could hardly make it easier to get on board with the groove. What’s not accounted for in that are cuts like the title-track, which trades “Oh yeah!” for a tolling bell ahead of its crashes and redirects the momentum built across “Smoking Angels” and “Cry Out” toward a post-Cathedral lurch that even when they seem to break out of their own trance later on with a last-minute tempo kick, continues to define “The Bell of Doom” as a marked turn from whence they set forth minutes earlier.
Side B leadoff “Going Down” subs in Sabbathian swing for its own second-half pickup, and they find some middle ground in brash closer “My Name” — which is the longest inclusion at 6:34 but departs to a residual drone around the 4:45 mark — but in that finale the vibe likewise feels grimmer. The vocals are throatier, and the on-beat forwardness that brought the double-time hi-hat, strutting riff and Southern-style soloing of “Pony Ride” has shifted its urgency to act as a setup for the quick drop to bass that precedes a markedly sludged-out nod, which serves as their mostly-instrumental outro before the aforementioned drone takes hold, pausing again to get even slower before it’s through and thereby hammering its teardown all the more into your brain. This dual-faceted ethic isn’t always so stark in presentation, which “One Reason” also demonstrates in sticking to its bigger-feeling lumber, and one has to acknowledge that the lines being drawn are between microniches under the umbrella of ‘heavy.’
It’s the sense of purpose with which Under the Sun toll their bell — aesthetically and literally speaking — when they do that is striking, ultimately, and it may be that as they press forward from The Bell of Doom, they’ll draw the various sides of their persona closer together and end up somewhere in the middle. The opposite feels no less likely; that the lines between their rocker and doomer sides will become more prevalent. As their first record, The Bell of Doom sets out on a path that’s unknowable as yet — though it’s almost always fun to guess, even when I say it isn’t — but what allows it to do so is a strength of performance and songwriting that communes with genre and audience even as the band begin to search for their place, their sound. Or maybe I should take a cue from “The Shot” below, let tomorrow worry about tomorrow, and bask in the revelry of the moment captured and offered, whatever form it might take.
Yeah, let’s roll with it.
Enjoy the video. PR wire info and links of course follow after:
Under the Sun, “The Shot” video premiere
Under the Sun, one of Athens, Greece’s best-kept secrets, announce their debut album “The Bell of Doom”, due out on vinyl and CD on April 5, 2024 on Sound Effect Records. A thunderous stoner-sludge album shaking the foundations of all-things-heavy with its combination of amp-splitting power and red-eyed psychedelics.
Under The Sun is a sludgerotic stoner band that emerged from the depths of heavy riffing and jamming, back in 2015. Inspired by historic ’70s bands like Black Sabbath and embracing the sound of newer bands, like Orange Goblin, Kyuss, and C.O.C., Under the Sun forge their own sound that appeals to both fans of 70s heavy rock and stoner / doom music lovers.
Passionate about creating music driven by fuzz-drenched guitars and groovy bass lines, Under the Sun operate on the event horizon between heavy-doom and sunbaked stoner-rock. Armed with tough riffing, powerful vocals and traveling drums, Under the Sun merge a punk-attitude (the album was recorded live and required a maximum of two takes for each song) with the “sweet surrender” of their more laid-back, psych-blues escapism, resulting in a classic r’n’r record!
From the pure r’n’r of “Smoking Angels” to the seemingly-occult aura of “The Bell of Doom” (in essence an allegorical song about the distortion of human relationships), Under the Sun revisit their childhood dreams (“Shot”), or embark on some… psychedelic ones (“Pony Ride”), pay tribute to choices turned sour and wrong paths (“One Reason”, “Going Down”), though, after all, they do not forget to praise Friday night in the city (“Looking for some dirt, 20 euros in my pocket, welcome to my world”, from “Know My Name”), or make a tender gesture to all those who have a hard time and need to take life in their own hands (“Cry Out”)…cause, as the band insists on, we are all equal under the sun.
Video credits: Artist: Under The Sun Song Title: The Shot Album: The Bell Of Doom Label: Sound Effect Records (www.soundeffect-records.gr) Director: Spyros Kourkoulas
Tracklisting: 1. Smoking Angels 2. Cry Out 3. The Bell of Doom 4. One Reason 5. Going Down 6. The Shot 7. Pony Ride 8. My Name
Album credits: Recorded at Unreal Studios Engineered by Nick Dimitrakakos Mixed and mastered by Alex Ketenjian Artwork by CLLK
[Please note: If you’ve been keeping up with this as a series, Technical Ecstasy would be next, but it closed out a week already and I stand by what I wrote there as it relates to the catalog. In any case, thanks for reading. -JJ]
Never Say Die! was of course the death knell of Black Sabbath‘s original run. It is to wonder what might’ve been had they been able to hold together the founding incarnation of the band into perpetuity instead of splitting with vocalist Ozzy Osbourne after wrapping the Fall tour alongside openers Van Halen supporting this release. But maybe there’s a glimpse of that in how the mixed-bag nine songs of Never Say Die! strode forth with swagger and renewed vigor after the band seemed confused in their ambitions on 1976’s Technical Ecstasy (discussed here), which was perhaps pulled between impulses toward commercial success, being taken seriously as artists, guitarist Tony Iommi‘s pull toward broader-scope songwriting that had been flourishing just a few years earlier on 1975’s Sabotage (discussed here) and 1973’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (discussed here) and his increasing role as producer and emergent bandleader. A flash of what an Ozzy-fronted Sabbath might’ve been as the shift to the 1980s loomed, just closer than the horizon.
To wit, a new generation of hard rock bands and also — a few acts like Trouble, The Obsessed and Saint Vitus working directly in younger-Sabbath‘s wake — were coming up and would continue to in the next few years. The ’70s were winding down. Vietnam was history. Even disco was passé by 1978, or at least on its way to becoming New Wave. Joy Division‘s first album would come out in 1979. Things had changed. Black Sabbath met those changes with what probably sounded at the time like a sustainable version of their approach. As pieces like “Junior’s Eyes” signaled their maturity in the parental voice of the lyrics and “Over to You” somewhat tamely renewed a penchant for societal critique that had brought about “Children of the Grave” and “War Pigs,” Never Say Die! would nonetheless be defined by the shove of its opening title-track.
Uptempo in its shove but inevitably swill swinging with Bill Ward on drums, “Never Say Die” is sub-four minutes of heavy rock righteousness with an earworm hook and a sweeping riff that gives both Osbourne and bassist Geezer Butler room to shine. Never Say Die! isn’t without its Sab-experimental aspects. Whether it’s Don Airey‘s keys starting off second track “Johnny Blade” and piano adding atmospheric light touches in “Air Dance” or the sax-laced strut of the penultimate interlude “Breakout” before Ward takes lead vocals for the finale “Swinging the Chain,” there’s plenty of showcase for the sonic progression that would in some ways end with this record. But while “Johnny Blade” has a Sabbath-does-Bowie vibe to its storytelling and does well in creating an atmosphere corresponding to that, at its heart is the bluesy stomp of its riff, and that holds true for “Junior’s Eyes” and side A capper “A Hard Road,” with its everybody-on-board gang vocals in the chorus and unabashed-feeling groove. All three of those run over six minutes long, and they’re not without their indulgences in solos and arrangement, but in terms of the underlying approach, the band’s vision of who they are seems clearer than it did two years prior.
I won’t claim to know why that is, and it doesn’t really line up with the circumstances of Never Say Die!‘s making, which involved Osbourne (whose father’s death is the basis for the aforementioned “Junior’s Eyes” lyric) quitting the band and being replaced by Dave Walker (Savoy Brown, Fleetwood Mac) before rejoining, finishing the record, touring, and being fired, various other disagreements over direction, more business trouble and working at a studio in Toronto that reportedly no one had looked at beforehand, drugs drugs drugs — also booze — and so on. But as side B launches with the standout “Shock Wave,” fostering a tonal grit reminiscent of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath topped off by a layered melody from Osbourne, if Never Say Die! is sloppy or haphazard, it’s organic to the material in a captured-live sense. “Air Dance” pushes against this idea with its midsection departure into piano, keys and wistful jazz guitar, and so does “Breakout” with its cocaine-era saxophone wankery, but Sabbath had done acoustic and/or piano pieces before, and “Air Dance” establishes its verse and atmosphere before embarking on what’s still a plotted linear build, and under the brass in the two and a half minutes of “Breakout” is a rolling movement that feels like it maybe taught Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats (among others) how guitars should sound.
“Over to You,” which appears between “Air Dance” and “Breakout” in the tracklisting, keeps the piano from the preceding song, and feels sure-footed enough in its verse and chorus that “Breakout” doesn’t come across as so substantially different in intent from “Orchid” on Master of Reality (discussed here) or “Laguna Sunrise” from Vol. 4 (discussed here), even if its actual execution leads it elsewhere. All of these feed into an overarching vibe for Never Say Die! that positions it as tangibly above Technical Ecstasy in craft and performance — each member of this band hit their stride as a player at some point in this eight-year stretch in ways that would define their respective career arcs, but that didn’t necessarily happen all at the same time or according to the order of LP releases — while having traded some of its soul for that self-awareness and direction.
As “Swinging the Chain” wraps, Ward holds out his notes and even hits a falsetto that speaks to his emergence as a singer. In another reality, would he have taken over lead vocals after Osbourne‘s departure? Or could Black Sabbath have pulled it together and kept the Osbourne/Iommi/Butler/Ward configuration somehow, and if they had, would they still push forward with something as outright majestic as 1980’s Heaven and Hell (discussed here), which introduced then ex-Rainbow singer Ronnie James Dio as their new frontman and felt like all the more a radical turn for it, or continue to backslide into a kind of comfortable mediocrity even before they hit middle-age? Flashes of their former greatness amid an endless string of identifiable but watered-down riffs, with neither the force nor passion behind them of their earliest work?
Of course these things could’ve happened, and if they had, maybe Black Sabbath would still be as revered as they’ve been since reforming their lineup in the later-1990s. But in this universe, Never Say Die is impossible to divorce from its context as the ‘last’ Black Sabbath original-lineup LP, and if you reorient to a position of looking forward from it rather than looking back at it, maybe that’s for the best. Nonetheless, at its center, it’s still these players captured at this time, and as the capstone of their run, there remains positive forward potential in its songs as well as the exeunt omnes spirit so easily read into “A Hard Road,” making it an ending worthy of the beginning from whence it came.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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I gotta answer some emails. If you’ve reached out to me, oh, let’s say in the last four or five months, and not heard back, I’m sorry. My time is pretty tight these days — genuinely more so than I expected it to be when I sent my daughter off to full-day kindergarten this past Fall — and I’ve found my capacity for getting back has taken the brunt of that. I was never especially good at email, to be honest. I find now I’m about ready to move on from it, though no, that doesn’t mean I’m shutting off the contact form on this site. Just that I’m ready for whatever technological advance in communications might eventually follow to render it obsolete. Branded mini-emails like social media DMs aren’t really cutting it either. Same anxiety on approach, less easy to sort through and find what you need when you need it.
First, I’m lucky anyone thinks enough of what I do here to send their music in the first place, whether it fits or not. Second, I’m doing my best and I acknowledge that things will not always be as they are today.
But yeah, email.
If you dug the string of Black Sabbath week-closeouts, I’m glad. It was a fun project. I was thinking I might dig into Kyuss in a similar fashion, but we’ll see. There are a couple other not-multiple-week odds and ends I’d like to do as well, but I’m content not to decide anything about even next Friday this week, as much as I do enjoy getting an answer for that kind of question ahead of time. For example, I currently have two full albums slated to stream in May, and not necessarily at the start of the month. Working ahead is how I stay sane in this to the extent that I do. In my head, I’m feeling like it’s time to put together the back end for Monday’s review.
And about next week. Monday’s a Skraeckoedlan full stream, Tuesday I’m going to try to follow that with a Colour Haze studio log-ish-type feature. Wednesday is Cancervo’s new LP, Thursday is the Esben Willems solo record with a track-by-track, and Friday I’m leaving open either for Craneium or some other review that strikes my fancy. Or maybe I’ll post that Brume video interview where I, well, just sucked. Their record doesn’t, and that helps. We’ll see.
I got some pretty thoughtful comments last week, more than just internet-style platitudes and/or empty optimism, and thank you for that. You might not find this surprising, but sometimes writing a thing out helps me organize my thoughts. Wild, I know.
This week was my wife’s Spring Break, and it was wonderful to have her home. Tuesday we went to the Job Lot, today we went to the library to look at alternative Zelda books for The Pecan, who at this point continues to want to read nothing else, and even just having her in the house, whether she’s working upstairs or down, whatever it is, makes life better on every level. I’ll miss her next week when she goes back to work.
I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Have fun, watch your head, hydrate. I’ve got my water jug and my bluetooth speaker and some clothes laid out for after I shower, which is my stank-ass-self’s next stop. Beyond that, primo hours of fuck-off time ahead. I hope you also get a bit of a chance to relax, however that looks for you. Thanks again for reading and checking in. Back Monday.
Dug-in Athenian riffchuckers Acid Mammoth are set to issue their fourth LP, Supersonic Megafauna Collision, on April 5 through Heavy Psych Sounds. It arrives three years after their duly rolling 2021 offering, Caravan (review here), and feels no less self-aware in highlighting its elephantine nature, a largesse of sound that begins in the opening title-track — catchy, doomed but not necessarily miserable, more reveling in the worship of volume and tone, a nodding testimony — and follows where the smoke goes throughout its six-track/41-minute entirety.
And if you’re expecting me to drop a reference here to that smoke leading to the Riff-Filled Land, well, I guess that’s reasonable enough. But don’t let that take away from the fact that Acid Mammoth have been declaring their brand of stoner-doom dogma since their 2017 self-titled debut caught the attention of Heavy Psych Sounds in the first place. And along with the over-the-top, heavy-speaking-to-heavy title underscoring the latest outing’s aural heft in language the genre-converted should have no trouble understanding — that is, it feels like one is supposed to look at Supersonic Megafauna Collision and/or the Branca Studio cover that adorns it and rightly anticipate being flattened by the proceedings — the overarching crush that gets a bit more down and dirty in “Fuzzorgasm (Keep on Screaming)” (video premiering below) becomes not a downer slog, but instead a vital celebration of its own motion.
This is an aspect of the work the band themselves acknowledge in the PR wire info below — thinking specifically of “all that enthusiasm and excitement,” etc. — and part of it might just be down to that the record, with the exceptions of 11:53 closer “Tusko’s Last Trip” and the trade-volume-for-hypnosis “One with the Void” (4:35) before it, keeps its songs to about six minutes in length, keeps its energy high, and feels in its bulk specifically composed to be played live. Through the title cut, “Fuzzorgasm (Keep on Screaming),” the Electric Wizardly slough of “Garden of Bones” on which Marios Louvaris seems to keep the momentum going in part by peppering in double-kick amid the tempo comedown riffery, and “Atomic Shaman,” which leads off side B in what feels like direct complement to the catchiness that began in “Supersonic Megafauna Collision,” Acid Mammoth dare to bring vibrancy to a style of doom that in the hands of many outfits in Europe and elsewhere has a hard time getting out of the way of its own misery. Among the many other things Acid Mammoth accomplish on Supersonic Megafauna Collision, they make it fun to play in the mud.
The vocals of Chris Babalis, Jr., which are Sabbath-rooted but have never wanted for their own character in that — Babalis on guitar/vocals and Louvis on drums make up half the returning lineup with guitarist Chris Babalis, Sr. and bassist Dimosthenis Varikos are another piece of what carries that fervor through to the listener. This is true even as one waits for the volume burst in “One With the Void” that doesn’t actually arrive until after the riff of “Tusko’s Last Trip” enacts its own build, and as infectious as the earlier pieces are in their choruses and brighter mood, it’s the vocals that provide consistency as the second half of the record departs from “Atomic Shaman” into the last two songs, fostering tension in “One With the Void” that “Tusko’s Last Trip” pays off in its outbound march and the gritty low end that leaves space for lead guitar to cut through before and after they set up and execute the concluding, jammier procession, an especially scorching solo over brash plod that could probably have just kept going all day like that providing the album’s final statement before the quick fade brings it down.
While consistent in tone, “Tusko’s Last Trip” is purposeful in delivering on the trope of a harder-hitting, broader-in-scope capstone, and it ends up hitting its mark — not unexpectedly, considering it’s Acid Mammoth‘s fourth full-length — in a way that also calls out the clarity of big-riff-party intent throughout Supersonic Megafauna Collision‘s early going. And yet, if they wrote it for Caravan, it would’ve been a completely different song three years ago. The band have never sounded tighter than they do in these songs, and while that’s part of the appeal, they neglect neither the atmospheric scope nor the raw impact crucial to engaging the audience whose passion for the form they so readily share. All of these elements, plus melody, chemistry, aesthetic and craft, align just right to let Supersonic Megafauna Collision present a fresh take to those with ears willing to hear it. Whatever else they do or don’t do from here, they’ve captured a moment.
Enjoy the clip for “Fuzzorgasm (Keep on Screaming)” — which is mostly safe for work, if that helps? — below, followed by some words from the band on it and more from the PR wire:
Acid Mammoth, “Fuzzorgasm (Keep on Screaming)” video premiere
Acid Mammoth on “Fuzzorgasm (Keep on Screaming)”:
“Fuzzorgasm (Keep on Screaming)” is the third track of our upcoming new album ‘Supersonic Megafauna Collision’. It is a witchy track, filled with fuzzy riffs and an unholy atmosphere. Debauchery is taking place in the wickedest of covens, with smoke and blood transcending your soul. Join the coven and relish its serpentine bliss!”
About their upcoming fourth studio album “Supersonic Megafauna Collision”, vocalist and guitarist Chris Babalis Jr. says: “While the previous album was composed and recorded during a state of total COVID lockdown in 2020, our new album was composed and recorded after the world had gotten back to a new state of normalcy after we had toured and played shows all over Europe, and all that enthusiasm and excitement we gathered while touring was put into this new album. We wanted to record a heavy and explosive album with lots of fuzz, that retains what made our sound great in our previous releases but take it a few steps further, and that’s exactly what we did. The album starts as a celebration of all things fuzzy with the title track, and it just gets darker and darker as the album progresses, until it concludes in complete and utter heartbreak with the song “Tusko’s Last Trip”, telling the heart-wrenching real story of Tusko, an elephant who was murdered as a result of cruel human experimentation.”
“Supersonic Megafauna Collision” was recorded, mixed, and mastered at Descent Studio, with drums recorded at Ritual Studios. The artwork was created by Branca Studio.
*** ACID MAMMOTH *** EUROPEAN TOUR 2024 SA 27/04/2024 IT TORINO – Blah Blah SU 28/04/2024 *** OPEN SLOT *** MO 29/04/2024 ES BARCELONA – Razzmatazz 3 TU 30/04/2024 ES MADRID – Wurlitzer Ballroom WE 01/05/2024 ES PORTUGALETE – Sala Groove TH 02/05/2024 FR MARSEILLE – Le Molotov FR 03/05/2024 FR CHAMBERY – Brin de Zinc SA 04/05/2024 CH ALTDORF – Vogelsang SU 05/05/2024 IT BOLOGNA – TBA MO 06/05/2024 IT *** OPEN SLOT *** TU 07/05/2024 IT *** OPEN SLOT ***
TRACKLISTING: 1. Supersonic Megafauna Collision (6:38) 2. Fuzzorgasm (Keep on Screaming) (6:12) 3. Garden of Bones (6:28) 4. Atomic Shaman (6:12) 5. One With the Void (4:35) 6. Tusko’s Last Trip (11:53)
ACID MAMMOTH is Chris Babalis Jr. – Vocals, Guitars Chris Babalis Sr. – Guitars Dimosthenis Varikos – Bass Marios Louvaris – Drums
Italian murk-doomers Haunted are set to make their label debut on Ripple Music April 19 with their third album overall, Stare at Nothing. Below, they premiere the third single, “Garden of Evil.” Based in Catania, which rests at the foot of the volcano Mt. Etna in Sicily, the four-piece made their self-titled debut (review here) in 2016 through Twin Earth Records — see also Kabbalah, Valkyrie, Stars That Move; any association with the label helmed by Richard Bennett of Stars That Move and Starchild is an automatic endorsement of quality of tone in my mind — and followed with the dug-in 2LP Dayburner (review here) in 2018, also on Twin Earth Records as well as DHU Records and Graven Earth Records. The jump to Ripple for the nine-song/46-minute lurch, churn and brood of Stare at Nothing comes across as something the band have been building toward, and they meet that moment with due command of their approach, no less doomed for dwelling as it does in ethereal mists.
If you’re wondering why it was two years between their first two albums and it’s been six between the second and third, first of all, time is all pretend. Second, duh, pandemic. Third, it could be that swapping out more than half their lineup had something to do with it. Since Dayburner, Haunted have moved from two guitars to one and brought in a new drummer, leaving vocalist Cristina Chimirri and bassist Frank Tudisco as the remaining members from the debut as new guitarist Kim Crowley takes the mantle of riff-conjuration and Luca Strano sets forth a roll in “Catamorph” after Stare at Nothing‘s intro that becomes a thread through the volume changes of “Garden of Evil” and into the bleakly psych-leaning “Back to the Nest,” drawing together the flow of side A as it heads toward its 7:25 capper “Malevolent” and the bombast it brings to the creeper-vibe melodic doom and surrounding tonal density. Immersion is key to the intent, as the whispers and cultish aural obscurities of “Intro” convey at the outset, and Haunted feel purposeful in that without losing themselves in the consumption of their own making as they stride toward oblivion.
Those who caught wind either of Haunted or Dayburner likely already know that Virginia’s Windhand have been a touchstone comparison point up to now in the band’s output. I won’t tell you that’s not still a factor, but with a greater depth of layering and harmony from Chimirri, the guitar howls that offset the low distortion in “Potsherds” as the song rears back for its next sneakily uptempo verse, the exploration of minimal spaces in “Catamorph,” “Garden of Evil” and the even-more-mournful voice-and-guitar piece “Fall of the Seven Veils,” and the way the title-track seems to stomp that much harder before giving over to eight-minute nod-revelry closer “Waratah Blossom,” Haunted commit themselves to the craft of identity through their material, and the effort pays off in a more individualized sound within the sphere of modern cult doom. While resonating a lost kind of despondency, they nonetheless come across as wholly engaged in what they’re doing. It feels daring to suggest, but they might even be enjoying themselves?
Too far? Okay, fair enough.
In all seriousness, that a passion for the dark arts is so prevalent throughout the atmosphere of Stare at Nothing isn’t really anything new for Haunted or the corners of microgenre in which they lurk, but throughout these songs, they communicate malaise without giving up the immersive tonality that’s been on their side all along, despite the lineup changes. The band recorded last year, but I wouldn’t be surprised if pieces like “Garden of Evil” and “Stare at Nothing” date back longer, as they at least feel like they’ve been stewing and worked on for a while, whether or not that’s actually the case. Alongside the general development Haunted have taken on in terms of their sound throughout the last half-decade-plus, the potential for further growth as a four-piece if in fact they want to keep the current configuration, the consciousness emergent in Stare at Nothing goes beyond actually thinking about where a given part of a song is going to end up, extrapolating across the entirety of the record as a whole, varied landscape no less notable for its melodic reach in the end than for its monolithic riffing.
PR wire info follows the “Garden of Evil” premiere below. Please enjoy:
Haunted, “Garden of Evil” video premiere
From the upcoming full-length album by Italian Occult Doomers HAUNTED – this is the third single, “Garden of Evil.”
The full album, “Stare at Nothing”, will be available thru Ripple Music on Vinyl/CD/Digital on April 19, 2024! Pre-order your copy at one of the links below!
Dark and twisted, the follow-up to 2018’s critically-lauded “Dayburner” dives even deeper into traditional doom territory with Kim Crowley’s ominous Vitus-esque riffs rolling over the listener upon each chord on top of the now-foursome’s sharp and harrowing rhythm section. Vocalist Cristina Chimirri’s mystical siren-like incantations slowly drag you thousands feet deep into the abyss, making “Stare At Nothing” a vibrant pitch-black doom release.
Recorded & Mixed by Carlo Longo at NuevArte Studio, Catania, IT – June 2023 Mastered by Esben Willems at Studio Berserk, Gothenburg, SE – Aug 2023 Album Cover Photo by Kristina Lerner Visualizer Video by Matt Wood of Ripple Music
Haunted is: Cristina Chimirri: Keening Kim Crowley: Guitars Luca Strano: Battery Frank Tudisco: Low
The number jump between 1973’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and 1975’s Sabotage feels big in comparison to the pace with which Black Sabbath released their first three records between Feb. 1970 and July 1971, but as their sixth album and first signed to NEMS Records, Sabotage followed copious road time in 1974 after canceling their Spring ’73 US run, and landed on July 28, 1975. That was about three months after the end of the Vietnam War. David Bowie had just put out “Fame.” Styx‘s “Lady” took off two years after its own release. Disco was coming up, punk was about to happen, Judas Priest would take the lessons Sabbath were teaching and utilize them in the personality shift between Rocka Rolla (1974) and Sad Wings of Destiny (1976), in no small part setting the stage for the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.
And while Black Sabbath were obviously essential in setting the stage for that setting the stage for the NWOBHM — perhaps the most proto of proto-metals — which arguably was the first time ‘metal’ stepped out as its own genre under the umbrella of rock and roll, by virtue of that, they couldn’t be part of the next generation’s movement. Their major creative innovation had already been made. But Sabbath had evolved as well, and in some ways, Sabotage is a pinnacle of what the original lineup of guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler, drummer Bill Ward and vocalist Ozzy Osbourne would accomplish before splitting with the latter after 1978’s Never Say Die!.
In the trajectory of the eight full-lengths released between 1970-1978, Sabotage resides at the tail end of the second group of three, continuing to build on the production style and driving heavy rock that began to surface in 1972 with Vol. 4 (discussed here) and the expanded arrangements brought to the aforementioned Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (discussed here). Some of the severity and harsh cast of their earliest work was gone, but Sabotage filled that space in the mix with more adventurous craft, the corresponding side-enders “Megalomania” and “The Writ” — the two longest tracks on the LP, which would become a trope of heavy rock — taking flight with a dark psychedelic cast in the former that gives over to a stark, effects-tainted procession and boogie jam, while “The Writ” recounts the legal trouble the band was in at the time lyrically during its roll, stops dead to weirdo ambient noise, and moves to incorporate acoustic guitar, chimes and pleading vocals in answer to its own crunch before finally deciding the latter is where it wants to end.
It’s arguable — here’s me, arguing — that Sabotage and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath are the two original-lineup Black Sabbath LPs in closest conversation with each other, despite the longer break between outings. It also features two of the best and hardest-hitting songs they’d release in opener “Hole in the Sky” and “Symptom of the Universe,” which follows after the bit-of-finger interlude “Don’t Start (Too Late)” and retains its aggressive shove 49 years after the fact. Ward is furious on the crash as he rides Iommi‘s verse riff, Butler is the weight in ‘heavy’ as ever, and Osbourne snarls the verse lines and holds out a “Yeah…” afterward in a way that none of the hundreds of cover versions have managed to capture. Then comes the willfully meandering acoustic guitar and percussion jam. Between it and “Hole in the Sky” prior, buzzing to life with an immediate roller groove and a riff that in the decades since has become a founding principal across two generations of heavy/stoner rock, Sabotage wouldn’t need much more to stand as a worthy entry in the Sabbath catalog, but in the instrumental-but-for-the-chorus grandiosity of “Supertzar,” the keyboard of Gerald “Jezz” Woodruffe interwoven into “Am I Going Insane (Radio)” and even the purpose with which they manifest the final build in “Megalomania,” the band are still presenting new ideas and pushing themselves forward.
That said, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath had “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” and “Sabbra Cadabra” as its straight-ahead-heavy party rockers, “Who Are You” as precursor to “Am I Going Insane (Radio),” and the branched-out arrangements of “A National Acrobat” and “Spiral Architect” to lend a high-concept, progressive feel that “The Writ” and “Supertzar” complement on Sabotage. Even on the most superficial level — their titles — they feel like companion pieces. Is that Black Sabbath, on a deadline, distracted by legal trouble, infamously cocaine-addled as I understand the entire music industry was circa 1975, and maybe getting a little tired of hanging out with each other all the time working more directly from one record to the next than they otherwise might? Leaning on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath more than Master of Reality (discussed here) or Paranoid (discussed here) drew from the self-titled (dicsussed here) in the primary of their two essential trilogies between 1970-’71?
Maybe. If they were developing a formula and measuring quotas for what each Black Sabbath record should include, fair enough, though part of the consistency of sound from Vol. 4 through Sabotage also has to be attributed to the band having taken on more responsibility for their own production in addition to defining their approach on an aesthetic level. The double-edge of their maturity meant that, while more mindful of what they were exploring around the core, riff-driven style that side B leadoff “The Thrill of it All” so readily highlights in its start-stop verse and handclaps as well as in the plus-keyboard second-half triumph before the fadeout, that also meant they had distinct ideas about who they were and what they did as a group that are inherently a limit as much as a blueprint. They weren’t shy about trying things they hadn’t done before, but they also had a career to protect — which would’ve been all the more in-mind given the court battles with management at the time — and Sabotage seems to be preserving what Sabbath had become as well as adding to that already prevalent sense of persona.
What does that mean? Late in 1975, NEMS issued the 2LP compilation We Sold Our Souls for Rock ‘n’ Roll, an encapsulating best-of drawn from their first six albums, and the sense of Black Sabbath as a band with ‘greatest hits’ stands in opposition to Black Sabbath as the clueless kids from Birmingham — Ozzy in “The Writ”: “I wish I’d walked before I started to run to you”– who blues-rocked their way into inventing doom. By knowing more about who they were and their goals, by maturing as artists and performers, they’d moved past the rawer side of their early outings. They were still heavy in tone, still forceful rhythmically with enough melody around that to be accessible and commercially viable when they wanted to be, but there’s still something about Sabotage as a whole that comes across as settling into the course of their career, and even at its most vibrant moments, Sabotage hints in hindsight at the unevenness to follow in 1976’s Technical Ecstasy no less than it frames the idolization of their younger days. It had only been five years, but it was the five years in which Black Sabbath grew up, for better and for worse.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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I was on a telehealth appointment Monday afternoon with my neurologist. A probably-overdue check-in after some months on a new combination of mood-stabilizers and ADHD meth-but-it’s-okay-because-we-say-it-is meds. As much as I frame my life experience — probably not all of it, but enough that I can’t really think of anything to which this doesn’t apply off the top of my head — around things like depression and anxiety, I’m starting to also feel like maybe I need to add OCD to that mix given how overwhelming I find small sudden changes and how heavily minute housekeeping shit weighs on my mind. I have another appointment in a month. I think it’s the day before I leave for Roadburn. Seems like a good time to bring that up.
‘At’ this Monday’s appointment — and I put ‘at’ in quotes because really I was on the same couch where I’m sitting now — I was talking about my tendency to fall down holes of negative self-talk. Not just I can’t do a thing — which rest assured I can’t, whatever it is, pretty much ever — but I’m a fucking idiot for trying and should just fucking die to ease the burdens of those who have to live with me, on and on in a thematic loop in my brain throughout every day. In parenting, in my relationship with my wife, which I don’t think is any less strained for my feeling like garbage all the time and telling myself I’m right to do so, and just in my own day to day, it gets brutal. Mean voice. Bad voice. And it’s my own voice. I’m that person calling me worthless. Hoo. Ray.
She told me to take a step back and, while assuring me it wasn’t pop-psych nonsense just in case that mattered to me (I’m not sure it does), to go into that conversation with myself and look at who I’m talking to. She specifically asked me how old is the me I’m speaking to. Am I speaking to me as a child like that? How old is the me in my head being chastised for whatever mistake he’s made, major, minor or not-actually-there? These things come up so often throughout the day — rest assured, I fuck up all the time and rarely let an opportunity slip to make myself feel bad about it — that I usually think I’m talking to myself now, in the present. Like I’m outside of the moment in so many ways, stuck in my narcissistic navelgazing viewpoint so much of the time, but that’s the moment where I really shine. Where I’m most myself. Tearing me down.
But I’ve been thinking about it all week. I might be 13. Pubescent, hapless, feeling and being made to feel shitty in my fat-kid body every day in a way that wasn’t even new by the time I’d started to listen to music and think about growing my hair out. A weird kid doing the class-clown thing in some attempt to find a place. I’ve been thinking about that kid a lot. It’s hard for me not to fucking hate him.
The questions she told me to ask myself: Why am I so brutal to him? Because he’s not worth it? Because he ruined my life, messing things up? What’s his true age? At that age, does he have everything he needs to make good judgements and take good actions? If he was my son, how would I help him? She encouraged me to realize that the power of my own adulthood is to not let it keep happening, to take care of that child and not reject him over and over. To help him recover and repair himself.
I had a paragraph here that I just deleted that totally derailed and redirected the conversation, so maybe it’s fair for me to say I find it difficult to process these ideas. I have a good life. It’s never been better to be me than it is now. Right now. I have a wife, a kid, a car, a house. My mother is still alive. My sister and her husband and my wife’s family and everybody’s kids are great. I’m well supported in the creative work I do, and I don’t have a job that I have to either go to or take away from my writing time/brainpower in order to perform. I am lucky to be me. I am also the thing most keeping me from realizing this and internalizing it on a level from which I might then live as though I really believed it to be true. Tidal waves of self-loathing. I drown.
I’m not over being that kid, whether or not he’s who I’m yelling at all the time (and he might be, I just don’t think it’s so easily settled). I’m not over finding out I couldn’t make a baby eight years ago after three years of trying. I’m not over eating disorders or feeling wrong in my body. I’m just older.
How much older? And what does it mean to be older? I don’t know. These are the kinds of things you explore in talk-therapy, which I’ve certainly cycled through any number of times in the last 25-30 years. One way or the other, I know enough to know I want to keep the life I have. I don’t want to alienate my wife. I don’t want to pass on my feeling-shitty-about-yourself character to my daughter, who has her own hills to climb as regards neurology. I want to help her. She’s the kid I want to embrace, to be there for, to help and love and serve more than some imaginary version of me. The way I am now, I get pissed when she talks back, I get sad when she throws a punch. Last night, I shut off the Switch because she was telling me no and I couldn’t tell her what to do after I asked her to go to the bathroom before bedtime, she turned and just started to wail on me. Then, when I left to take the dog out basically just to get out of the room before I lost it and wound up yelling at her, she followed me out of the house and it kept going.
This was five minutes out of an otherwise passable, not unpleasant evening, and afterward, we took the time to work it out, watched a Bluey and went upstairs to read the Zelda Encyclopedia— though we used to cover a range of topics, it’s been Zelda-only information processing since well before Xmas — and by the time I left her room, we were in a calmer, more peaceful place. It felt okay again. But that five minutes counts too, and I don’t want to live like that, standing in the yard in the dark trying to get the dog to pee while yelling at the kid to go in the house, sit and think about why she’s not playing Nintendo anymore. That’s not who I want to be at any age. I don’t want to be own my piece-of-shit father, or hers.
I’ve gone on here longer than I wanted to, and if you read all that, thanks. I’m not going to undercut how I feel by calling it a brain-dump, but clearly I’m trying to work things out in my head and sort through these issues, and if you put eyes to any of it, can relate or not, I appreciate your time. This site is basically the only outlet I have for this kind of exploration, and I value your… indulgence?… acceptance?… I don’t know. Maybe just feeling like I can say these things with less fear of being judged as the terrible person I’ve believed I am all along in some horrifying validation.
I wish you a great and safe weekend. Have fun if you like fun, be safe either way, and don’t forget to hydrate. Next week is slammed with a Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol review, full-album streams for the new Carpet (banger!) and Iota (ultra-banger!) LPs, another premiere for Maragda that I don’t think I’m supposed to talk about yet, and videos from Ripple Music doomers Haunted and Heavy Psych Sounds denizens Acid Mammoth. Yes, some days are doubled-up. Stick around and we’ll see if I make it through without collapsing.
Hollow Leg hit me up a couple months back and asked if I could write them an intro to the press kit going out to media for their new EP, Dust. That release is coming up May 3 and where I’ve struggled in the task is getting over the initial question of why the hell do I need to introduce Hollow Leg in the first place? Rooted in Jacksonville and based in Orlando, Florida, they’ve been at it for 16 years and have produced four full-lengths in that time, the latest of them being Civilizations (review here) in 2019, each of which has brought a new stage of an ongoing progression around a defined sound of hard-landing tonal weight, undulating sludge grooves led by Brent Lynch‘s riffs backed by Tom Crowther‘s bass and John Stewart‘s drums, and more than an edge of metal in the vocals of Scott Angelacos that cut through the distortion and establish their own aggressive stance.
Do I have to tell you any of this? I don’t think so. If you’ve ever heard them, their consistency of volume hardly seems to be trying to keep their sound a secret. They’ve never been overly hyped, and while they’ve toured their share in the last decade-and-a-half-plus, including along the Eastern Seaboard in 2023 around a third appearance at Maryland Doom Fest, their sound isn’t friendly and I think they’ve been both taken for granted and underappreciated. Civilizations marked a noted progression in their sound — every one of their releases has been a step forward from the one before it — and Dust continues the thread in an emergent lean toward melodic vocals, reminding on the advance single “Poison Bite” that Angelacos was among the small number of singers enlisted to pay homage to Earthride‘s Dave Sherman at that same Maryland Doom Fest last year, and a tunnel-bore nod stately enough to conjure High on Fire‘s slowdown moments, bolstered by a production that allows it all to coexist fluidly for its 3:34.
That’s right. Frickin’ three and a half minutes. Not a major ask. And for a band who’ve plugged away in the heavy underground long enough to be called legit veterans of it and perhaps afforded some semblance of the respect they’ve earned, it feels like even less of a favor. Hollow Leg do more to represent themselves with the feedback, thuds, crash and burst into the verse of “Poison Bite” than I could ever hope to by telling you you should already know them like some jerkwad gatekeeper. So maybe that’s been my problem all along. This shit speaks for itself, and it’s not about some social-media-FOMO urgency of ‘get the new thing while it’s new and move on a week later.’ It’s about the heart so clearly driving the band and the creative pursuit that’ll go as long as it’s gonna go regardless of scene or trend, fire, flood, plague or hyperbole. That’s who Hollow Leg are, if you needed the introduction.
Dust arrives May 3. It’s on the calendar to stream here in full on May 1, so keep an eye out. It’s a two-parter and as of last week, the band was back in the studio to work on the follow-up installment. More on that when we get there.
Here’s the video for “Poison Bite” to tide you over until then, followed by info from the PR wire.
Please enjoy:
Hollow Leg, “Poison Bite” video premiere
Hollow Leg are here for the long haul. The sludge and doom veterans have been crushing skulls and blowing eardrums since 2010, and continue their scorched-earth quest to evolve and eviscerate in 2024.
Legends of the scene, the quartet are four LPs and an EP strong, with their latest album “Civilizations” released in 2019 on Argonauta Records to critical acclaim. Criss-crossing the US to spread their heavy gospel of groove, they brutalized the stage of Psycho Las Vegas in 2017, and are three-time champions of the revered Maryland Doom Fest.
This year, Hollow Leg take another earth-shaking step in their sonic journey with new EP “Dust” out May 3, part one of a two-part EP series.
Coalescing their wide range of musical influences while still maintaining the unmistakable Hollow Leg sound, the band invite you to raise hell and headbang along to the EP’s battering ram of a single “Poison Bite” and its accompanying music video.
Relentless is the name of the game. From the opening sledgehammer of the kickdrum, “Poison Bite” takes no prisoners. The mid-tempo groove is locked-in and rock steady, inevitable in its forward momentum and ceaseless, grinding pummel. True to form, Scott Angelacos’ growling vocals roar over the noise, spitting fire and brimstone. Hollow Leg is back, and it hurts so good.
In the band’s own words: “We’re always writing and playing and working on new music is just what we do, always trying to build on our sound and make the next piece a more clearly defined vision than the last. We have such a wide range of musical and artistic influences that it’s challenging to wrangle them, but we try our best to work within the ‘Hollow Leg’ mainframe and pump out something different than what we’ve done before, but also something that’s still obviously Hollow Leg. Hollow Leg is about freedom though. That’s been the mantra since the first record and we’ve always stuck to that! It’s about pushing ourselves and finding ways to simultaneously party with Metallica, Steely Dan, EyeHateGod, Wu Tang Clan, Stevie Wonder, and Pink Floyd and it somehow makes sense to us!”
Hollow Leg is: Scott Angelacos – vocals Brent Lynch – guitar/backing vocals Tom Crowther – bass John Stewart – drums
As they’ve now established their own label in Bonebag Records and overseen the release of last year’s sophomore LP, Part II – Breach (review here), as well as an outing from Troy the Band and one impending from Terra Black — the news of which I haven’t even had a second to post here yet — it likely won’t be super-duper long before Swedish conceptualist epic doomers Cavern Deep start the gears grinding to issue their next album. Since their 2021 self-titled debut (review here), they have shown a creative urgency well-suited to the increasingly DIY ethos with which they operate.
Nonetheless, whatever shape their next record takes — and the reason I’m even talking about such a thing is because they finished recording it a month ago — in continuing the creepy, dark and engrossing narrative, there’s a decent chance it could be out before the end of 2024. You wouldn’t hear me complain. Likely recorded during those same recent album-three sessions, “The Peeler” arrives as a standalone single with an accompanying stop-motion animated video by Bob in Dope — might be like a stoner-doom Flat Stanley, if you have any idea what that is? — and is duly unsettling in its vibe. Stately in the manner of traditional doom, Cavern Deep‘s sound resonates an exploratory feel all the more as the band introduces Johannes Behndig (Sarcophagus Now) as their now-full-time synthesist.
You can certainly hear Behndig adding to the drama as “The Peeler” culminates, finding new breadth in the grim surroundings of the atmosphere cast around it, pushing deeper into the subsurface-horror narrative that has threaded through Cavern Deep‘s work to-date (a couple of covers notwithstanding). Behndig played on Part II – Breach as well, but it seems reasonable to expect him to become more of a presence in the songs by virtue of, you know, he’s actually in the band now rather than doing a guest spot. Being in the room when the song is written makes a difference.
I wouldn’t call myself early on posting it by any stretch, but if you haven’t seen it out there yet on the big wide internet, enjoy the “The Peeler” clip below. PR wire info follows after:
Cavern Deep, “The Peeler” official video
Swedish Doomsters CAVERN DEEP Hunt Monsters on Gripping New Single ‘THE PEELER’
Hailing from Umeå in Northern Sweden, the trio have carved out a name for themselves in recent years with hulking doom that has got the underground listening… ‘The Peeler’, the brand-new single from Cavern Deep is out now via Bonebag Records
Founded in 2019 by Max Malmer and former members of Swedish death metallers, Zonaria, and retro rockers, Gudars Skymning; Sweden’s Cavern Deep has established itself as one of the Scandinavia’s finest new doom metal bands.
Having released their first album in 2021 on the Polish label Interstellar Smoke Records, the band has since formed and issued music under their own Bonebag Records imprint, most recently releasing their latest record, Part II – Breach, to critical acclaim across Europe.
Returning this month for a one-off release, new single ‘The Peeler’ was originally intended to be a bonus track on the band’s forthcoming album. But while all good things come to those who wait, some things are too awesome to not share immediately. For those impatient souls itching for new material from the Umeå trio, this sleeping giant of a track focuses its attention on a lost mythical monster who resides in the deep cavernous realms of a long-lost civilisation. A hideous beast that hypnotises and oozes slime from its jaws, peeling skin from its still-stirring victims, and feeding off them piece by piece.
Towering guitars and drums soundtrack the ensuing chaos and seek to capture the creature using stark riffs and crushing strokes of colossal doom metal. Coupled with fantastic stop motion footage – assembled, and animated by artist, “Bob” – for the single’s visualiser video, ‘The Peeler’ is out now via Bonebag Records –bonebagrecords.com
Cavern Deep is: Kenny-Oswald Duvfenberg – Guitars and Vocals Max Malmer – Bass and Vocals Dennis Sjödin – Drums, Backup Vocals and Keys Johannes Behndig – Synth
Cork, Ireland-based atmospheric sludge/post-metal four-piece Coroza will release their second album, As Within, through Cursed Monk Records on May 20. Today they’re premiering their video for the title-track, which takes the familiar notion of a band-in-a-place-type clip and uses it as a means of emphasizing the mood and character of the music. As the 10-minute finale of the LP that bears its name unfolds, its quiet intro pulls back from the colorful stained glass of the initial shot and shifts into black and white as the pullback from the window reveals Coroza set up on the floor of what looks to be a fancy university library or some such. At about a minute in, both the song and the clip burst to life around a heavier part change, the color returns with vivid clarity and the band play through the closing cut that gives the album its name.
That visual change is thoughtful, not haphazard, and like the various mirror effects and swirls throughout, it coincides with where the song is going and highlights the considered aspects of Coroza‘s craft. In following their 2019 debut, Chaliceburner (review here), guitarist/vocalists Jack O’Neill and Ciarán Coghlan, bassist Tomás O’Brien (who makes his first recorded appearance on the album) and drummer Oliver Cunningham depart from some of the ultra-extended fare on offer such that, where only one song on Chaliceburner was under 10 minutes long, on As Within, the only track that crosses the same line is “As Within” itself, however close others might come.
It’s not a huge upheaval in aesthetic terms, but at five songs and 42 minutes, As Within gives a more efficient impression even in the take-a-moment-to-commune-with-the-deity-or-deities-of-your-choice-before-the-riff-hits break in the penultimate “Scorched Earth.” Whether that’s a purposeful change of approach, mindful creative progression or simply the shape the songs took as the bludgeoning nods were compiled, I don’t know, but like when the color pops back on in the “As Within” video, the methodical manner in which the bordering-on-extreme heft of “Immersed” is delivered, and the way the instrumental “The Shifting Sands” follows its quiet-loud-quiet pattern as something of an interlude-plus for the centerpiece of the digital and CD versions of the album, it feels like they meant for it to happen.
But to be sure, the crux of As Within is in its crush, conveyed immediately upon the start of opener “Myrrh,” which has well-I’m-sure-this-is-about-as-heavy-as-it’ll-get written all over it until “Immersed” comes on some nine minutes later and is even more trenchantly apocalyptic. Given space in the reverb on that low distortion as well as in the vocal tradeoffs between Coghlan and O’Neill — a guttural rasp reminiscent of Celestial-era Isis meeting with chant-like meditative melodies in the cleaner parts — As Within opens further in “The Shifting Sands” en route to the renewed intensity of “Scorched Earth” and the title-track’s subdued intro and ensuing productive destruction resolved in mood and thoughtful in execution. If it’s never occurred to you to say the phrase, “Hail Irish heavy” out loud, the monolithic lumber and roiling tension of “As Within” might get you there.
They provide a bit of relief around six minutes in, and the leads in the second half carry an airier reach not entirely removed from the plod-and-tremolo finish of “Myrrh,” the opener and closer giving a symmetrical feel to As Within while further emphasizing the sense of purpose brought to the album as a whole work. They know of what they obliterate — which is to say they’re schooled in genre and I don’t think anyone here would try to get away with saying they’d never heard Neurosis — but Coroza‘s second full-length takes significant strides in establishing the band’s place in the harder-hitting depths of the post-metallic sphere, doing so with distinct, affecting and cathartic force.
Coroza will play at Cursed Monk Records‘ 2024 edition of Monk Fest on July 6, performing As Within in its entirety. I hope someone gets video with soundboard audio.
More on that (including the ticket link) and about the record (including the preorder link) follows the video premiere below, courtesy of the PR wire.
Please enjoy:
Coroza, “As Within” video premiere
Cursed Monk Records are thrilled to announce that we will be releasing Coroza’s sophomore album “As Within.”
Not only will Coroza be joining us for this year’s Monk Fest, but they will also be playing their new album “As Within” in full! Monk Fest 2024 will take place on July 6th. Monk Fest is in aid of Temple St. Children’s Hospital. Tickets are available here:https://www.eventbrite.com/e/monk-fest-2024-tickets-765729105367
Coroza was formed in Cork, Ireland in mid-2015 and over the course of two years honed their sound into a devastatingly heavy form, which encompasses heavy blues, metal, sludge, doom and stoner elements, leading to the release of their well-received self-titled demo in 2017.
Extensive gigging cemented them into the local scene and soon Coroza began appearing on bills around Ireland, landing support slots to international touring bands such as Conan, Bolzer and Tusker. 2019 saw the release of their debut album Chaliceburner which was met with positive reviews.
Coroza’s second album titled “As Within”, was recorded and mixed by renowned producer Aidan Cunningham and mastered by Magnus Lindberg (Cult of Luna).
Says the band: “We would like to thank Aidan Cunningham – Mixing for recording and mixing this album. All tracks were recorded live in the room with some overdubs added afterward. Aidan’s work ethic, knowledge and insight was invaluable and we cannot thank him enough for how this album turned out. He captured the exact sound we were hoping for. Also, a huge thanks to Magnus Lindberg Productions for mastering the album and ensuring it gets heard perfectly in all formats.”
‘As Within’ releases May 20th on LP, CD, Cassette, and Digital!
whence they set forth minutes earlier.
