Ohio classic heavy rockers Electric Citizen release their new album, EC4, June 27 through Heavy Psych Sounds. It’s very subtly been seven years since the Cincinnati now-five-piece put out 2018’s Sateen (review here), their third and final offering for RidingEasy Records, and although I’m not sure why, EC4 feels like something of a comeback.
It’s in the energy as “Mire” crashes into its chorus, maybe, or the insistent jab of the riff to “Static Vision” and the organ-laced proto-metal charge of “Smokey” topped with Laura Dolan‘s signature croon, and the way “Traveler’s Moon” taps into a psychedelia of mood before the layer-topped payoff of its build. It’s in the confident, not overly showy way the band go about their business. Being a good band and not sounding like jerks about it — whether through overplaying or competing with each other, neither of which Electric Citizen have ever really done — are not new for them, but there’s a corresponding stylistic realignment on EC4 that puts the band back in touch with its garage-heavy roots, and that does feel different.
Granted it was a while ago now, but Sateen pulled away from the push of a song like “Static Vision” or the later “Lizard Brain,” and it’s not so much that EC4 ignores that in favor of sounding like the band’s earlier work, but that they’ve found ways to incorporate that growth in craft into their thankfully-unpretentious songwriting. But EC4 isn’t just shoving ’70s-via-’10s boogie either. The longest song at 6:22, “Traveler’s Moon” sets up the shift into the acoustic-led centerpiece “Tuning Tree,” departing the rockers-up-front initial impression of the record for the more psychedelic-flavored “Moss,” and reorient with the hooky-riffy ground-touch of “Lizard Brain” before “Other Planets” drifts into solo-topped doom rock majesty and “Flower of Salt” finishes with a blend of acoustic and organ that reminds of Lamp of the Universe. So yes, there’s more than one thing going on.
A varied sound isn’t new for Electric Citizen either, but it’s a question of refinement here. EC4 collects different moods and offers a sense of range, but whether it’s “Smokey” or “Traveler’s Moon” or “Other Planets,” the band aren’t just evoking divergence for its own sake, but adding with each piece to the scope of the whole album. Accordingly, in nine songs and 39 minutes, Electric Citizen hone a deceptively sharp approach, keyed in on what they want their sound to be and unwilling not to explore around those ideas in order to find new places to go. It is perhaps the most Electric Citizen that Electric Citizen have ever sounded.
“Smokey” premieres on the player below, followed by more from the PR wire including just-announced East Coast tour dates (including at Autodidact in my hometown!). Please enjoy:
Electric Citizen, “Smokey”
SAYS THE BAND: “As we slip through time’s grip and chase the meaning in chaos we give this offering from the haze. Light it up, Smokey.”
SMOKEY is the second single taken from ELECTRIC CITIZEN upcoming new album.
The release will see the light June 27th via Heavy Psych Sounds.
Seven years after their last release “Helltown”, Electric Citizen returns with their fourth album “EC4” — a powerful statement of renewal and raw energy. Written by Ross Dolan with contributions from the full band, the album was meticulously crafted over several years and recorded with Mike Montgomery and John Hoffman at Candyland Studio in Dayton, KY. It was mixed by Collin Dupuis (Lana Del Rey, The Black Keys) in Detroit and mastered by JJ Golden (Ty Segall, Calexico) at Golden Mastering in California. The album art was created by Neil Krug (Lana Del Rey, Tame Impala, Weyes Blood), who the band worked with for their first album “Sateen”.
Tracklisting: 1. Mire 2. Static Vision 3. Smokey 4. Traveler’s Moon 5. Tuning Tree 6. Moss 7. Lizard Brain 8. Other Planets 9. Flower Of Salt
ELECTRIC CITIZEN live: July 10 Detroit, MI @ Sanctuary July 11 Columbus, OH @ Ace of Cups July 12 Cincinnati, OH @ Northside Tavern July 13 Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop July 15 Philadelphia, PA @ Milkboy July 16 Hamden, CT @ Space Ballroom July 17 Morris Plains, NJ @ Autodidact July 18 Brooklyn, NY @ TV Eye July 19 Easthampton, MA @ Marigold Theater July 20 Baltimore, MD @ Metro July 21 Raleigh, NC @ Pour House July 22 Charleston, SC @ Lo-Fi Brewing July 23 Atlanta, GA @ 529 July 24 Knoxville, TN @ Open Chord July 25 Nashville, TN @ The ’58 July 26 Louisville, KY @ Portal
ELECTRIC CITIZEN is Ross Dolan – Guitar Laura Dolan – Vocals Nick Vogelpohl – Bass Nate Wagner – Drums Owen Lee – Keyboards
San Fran psych rockers The Spiral Electric pull back the veil on their new single “In Too Deep” tomorrow, May 16. The six-minute piece feels like ’60s psych-rock pulled through a filter of ’90s revivalist edge as something slightly sinister drips from the molten tone of the initial guitar quickly topped by Clay Andrews‘ layered vocals. The vibe is mellow, intentionally oversweet to set up a fuller-toned chorus that now we call shoegazey but six decades ago would’ve just been rock and roll.
My touchstone for drifty, lose-yourself-in-it psychedelia of such fluid order is defunct Canadian nodders Quest for Fire, and I know that the place The Spiral Electric reside for “In Too Deep” isn’t where they always dwell, but they pull off the single with especially hypnotic aplomb as Andrews (guitar and synth in addition to vocals), lead guitarist Nicolas Percey, bassist Ryan McKnight and drummer Marias Drago flow through a heady depth of mix resolving in a transposed “Sweet Dreams” riff as they make their way out.
Both the 1960s and the 1990s were a long-ass time ago, and it’s not my intention to oversimplify or generalize what’s going on in The Spiral Electric‘s sound in the face of the more complex aural truths therein. That is to say, don’t just go by the numbers. Their previous single “Shadow in the Dark” (premiered here) and their 2019 self-titled double-LP (review here) likewise had their more soothing moments, but “In Too Deep” goes further such that even when it ‘gets loud’ as the wash takes hold a bit before the three-minute mark going into the hook, the serenity of the vocal melody is maintained, and so the direction of the song abides correspondingly, even as the tambourine literally and figuratively brings shake to the procession.
So is it? ‘In too deep,’ I mean. Have the band meandered too far into the ethereal? Hard no, from where I sit. Instead, The Spiral Electric make striking a difficult balance sound easy as “In Too Deep” ebbs and flows, and the chorus here is delivered gently and memorably both times it cycles through. My honest hope at this point is that eventually “In Too Deep” and “Shadow in the Dark,” which came out in 2023, make their way onto a follow-up to the self-titled, and that seems to be the plan. The album, titled The Overview Effect, was being recorded with Dead Meadow bassist Steve Kille prior to his passing last year. I do not know if it’s done or what the status is, but if you notice this and “Shadow in the Dark” are both tagged as the ‘single version.’ This implies ‘album versions,’ and yes, those apparently exist, if not yet in the public sphere.
Instead, for now, maybe take a breath and let the rest worry about itself later. There’s plenty to keep busy with worrying, for sure, but it’ll still be there in six minutes. See if you can get yourself to this one and meet the melody on its own level. If not, it’ll still be there later. Contrary to what the streaming services and content-driven social media tell you, this stuff doesn’t expire.
Enjoy:
The Spiral Electric, “In Too Deep” track premiere
“This is one of the last tracks fully engineered and mixed by Steve Kille before his illness overtook him,” says Clay Andrews. “I edited a couple of minutes out for the ‘single version’ with the help of Daniel Dietrick (Ozean), the full version will be on the album.”
Produced by Clay Andrews & Steve Kille Engineered & Mixed by Steve Kille at Wiggle Room Studio Additional engineering by Daniel Dietrick Mastering by Tim Green / Louder Studios Cover artwork by Matias Drago / Logo by Alan Forbes / Layout by Clay Andrews Music : Clay Andrews & Nicolas Percey Lyrics : Clay Andrews
The Spiral Electric: Clay Andrews : Vocals / Guitar / Piano / Percussion Nicolas Percey : Guitars Ryan McKnight : Bass Matias Drago : Drums
Austrian heavy rockers Grey Czar released their third album, Euarthropodia, last month through Octopus Rising/Argonauta Records. Running nine tightly-composed songs and 38-minutes, it’s a versatile collection themed around the well-earned fall of homo sapiens and the ascent of a new insectoid primacy. Then you get into “Ballad of Propellerheads” and “Queens of the New World” and there’s more going on than that, but suffice it to say: people out, bugs in. It’s like exactly what happened with the bees in my dining room when I went on vacation last summer. They had an entire civilization going.
But whatever it’s about, the record moves. Each track is somewhere between a little under four and a little under five minutes long — this is roughly consistent with their prior two LPs, though their second, 2018’s Boondoggle, ranged a bit around that — and the Salzburg four-piece revel in the ability to execute different moods and ideas around structural shifts. “Eschaton” starts off with reminding of earlier Kadavar in its roll and proto-metallic urging, while introducing the pointedly garage-y guitar tone, a thinner fuzz than one is used to — that sounds like a criticism; it isn’t; it sounds cool, just different than the heavy rock norm — that the band will build around. In a welcoming hook, they purposefully lay out what they want to do and how they’ll do it, and you’ll never guess what happens next but yes then they go ahead and do the thing.
“Withered World” is an immediate shift in atmosphere after the finish of the sweeping opener, but still resolves in a heavy-enough push to carry momentum into the piano-inclusive start of “Insects Took Over” (video premiere below). Like “Withered World,” “Insects Took Over” takes a minute or so to get going, but it boogies once it’s there, with a modern-sounding take on Heavy ’10s nod that gives over to “Trooping for Euarthropodia,” where things continue to get weirder. At 4:51, “Trooping for Euarthropodia” is one of the longest songs, and it’s inarguably progressive in how it’s built up around the central chug and flow into the chorus, Spidergawd-esque or maybe that’s a Motorpsycho influence, but it’s catchy either way and moves through its big finish into the quieter start of “Ballad of Propellerheads,” a harmony-over-strum centerpiece that becomes a fuller-buzz-toned push and winding proggy twists.
Wolfgang Brunauer‘s bass holds it together, but Grey Czar — with drummer Wolfgang Ruppitsch (also other percussion), vocalist/guitarist Roland Hickmann and keyboardist/vocalist Florian Primavesi — have already proven by the time the album’s halfway over that there’s no real danger of derailing. Like the guitar tone, the songwriting is sharp throughout Euarthropodia, and that aids the transition in vibe as “Queens of the New World” injects ’80s keyboard-inclusive metal vibes — think Ozzy circa ’83, plus buzz and some more of that Kadavarian roll — breaking into oddball nuance in the solo, suitably circus-like and otherworldly, nigh on theatrical.
The acoustic beginning of “Nutritional Protocol” brings Sweden’s Asteroid to mind, which is an impression bolstered by the vocal melody, but the sense of something strange remains, held over from “Queens of the New World,” so while the plucked strings tap almost wistful emotionality, the fluid riffing that ensues, breaks for the verse, and resumes, there’s still the story being told and a suitable instrumental backdrop for it. The grounded chorus finishes out before “Arthrobotic Liberty” brings electric organ forward to complement the shuffle in the guitar, bass and drums, threatening to rest in the midsection ultimately not giving up the energetic charge as it comes out of its solo into the last crashout ahead of the closing cut “Aeon.”
For the scope of the plot they’re conveying, Grey Czar don’t do much throughout Euarthropodia that one would really call self-indulgent on a musical level. Their parts aren’t held down by needless flourish, and though they can give a feeling of expanse when they want to, they’re always doing so in service to the song itself and its place in the succession of the whole. That applies to “Aeon” as well, but I’d be surprised if the last cut on the record wasn’t put together specifically to be the closer. It brings keyboards to the forefront to add more drama and once again finds movement and noteworthy melody in the proceedings. They finish with a bit of shove but never ‘break character’ in terms of the character of the album itself and the methods employed, and that cohesion makes Euarthropodia‘s world all the more vivid.
And after all that? The video premiere. You’ll find the clip, which was directed by Brunauer, in the embed below, followed by some words from the band about it, some PR wire background, the audio for the album (again, it’s out, so have at it), and the lyric video for “Withered World,” in case you’d like to search out the easter egg noted in the band quote.
As always, I hope you enjoy.
Grey Czar, “Insects Took Over” video premiere
Grey Czar on “Insects Took Over”:
“Insects Took Over” is the third track on our new album Euarthropodia. It describes the uprising new species, soundscapes of myriads of creatures forming shifting landscapes and floating clouds, leaving the fallen world in fear and faint. On the album we tried to sketch this horror scenario in a concrete way but open it up to give space for interpretation and a critical view on us human beings and our ruthlessness in relation to our base of needs and environment.
The video takes on this main idea and shows the transformed beings got stuck in the same patterns. The idea for the screenplay is leaned to David Lynches “The Rabbits” and sets a counterpart to the serious and heavy approach of the music, in a slightly humoristic way. We all are existing, each and everyone of us in his surrounding, doing things. Like cutting a cucumber, hoovering, caressing the tablet, watching TV … essential things.
Our bassist Wolfgang shot the film, and he build the “Living room scene” in his garage, got all the props, like the couch, the carpet floor, the lamps and self-designed wallpaper and we shot the scene in a one take. After that we transferred the whole setting to our rehearsal room for the performance video part and Wolfi assembled the video. We also placed an easter egg, for those who watched our lyrics video for “Withered World”.
Hailing from Salzburg, Austria, GREY CZAR is a four-piece heavy rock outfit featuring two guitars, keys, bass, drums and up to three vocals. Their music is melodic and riff-driven, oscillating between heavier and mellow sounds, while having a flair for progressive elements.
The band was founded in 2010 when its four members came together to share their mutual passion for music. Taken by the idea to play stoner rock the band quickly discovered new grounds and as the group’s personalities evolved so did the music, which continues its natural development.
Since their self-titled debut LP in 2012, GREY CZAR has released an EP „The Men Who Harvest the Sea” in 2014, and their session-recorded sophomore long player „Boondoggle“ in 2018, which was well received in the scene.
Grey Czar are: Roland Hickmann – vocals/guitar/percussion Florian Primavesi – vocals/guitar/keys Wolfgang Brunauer – vocals/bass Wolfgang Ruppitsch – drums/percussion
I don’t know what it was that Agriculture were soundchecking when I walked into John Dee from upstairs at Rockefeller, but it sure sounded a lot like CKY’s “96 Quite Bitter Beings,” which was cool because I just got that song out of my head last week for the first time since like 2003. So I was due.
Sleep did happen — the state, not the band — and I woke up two hours after my alarm to discover I hadn’t actually finished setting it. Didn’t matter; plenty of time to sit around and be anxious for the start of the day. I video called home — the house is a mess, which very much is how it goes when I’m gone — and all is well. Ate a couple bites and tried to sleep a bit more, but the three double espressos tearing ass through my bloodstream weren’t having it. Sometimes living in the moment means calling yourself dumb later.
Agriculture’s lights were going to be too much for my brain. I knew that going into the set, because soundcheck, but when it happened, it was still punishing. The overwhelm is part of it, purposeful. Part of what you sign up for. But the sandblasting and the immersion, coinciding, is why you stay. Watching them, I couldn’t get the parallel out of my head between the traditions of Norwegian black metal and their subversion in terms of weather. That is, if the ‘trvest’ of black metals was born in this place — and they have it scrawled on that basement wall for people to take pictures with, so it’s arguable — in the dark and cold of winter here, then the aural brightness of Agriculture, the natural-light-reflecting-on-water of their post-rock-style guitar floating above all the pummel and screech, feels correspondingly climate-born to Los Angeles, where the band are from. To paraphrase George Carlin, the sun probably sets 10 minutes from their rehearsal space. Of course they’d make black metal beautiful.
That’s a generalization, obviously. Broad strokes to cover lack of insight. The truth of their presentation is more emotionally complex and less niche-declarative, but transgressing just the same, though maybe black metal is used to it by now; a punching bag catchall genre to push against the borders of. The tie with Agriculture is in tonal heft and the honesty of their scathe and the atmospheres they build around it, and they’d be a sore thumb in the lineup if Desertfest was stoner-only, but neither day was. It’s all one big heavy melting pot, and genres evolve. Always cool to see it happen on the stage right in front of you, though.
But the lights got me, so I headed upstairs to the Rockefeller balcony ahead of Slift. I know. Not like Slift were going to take it easy on visuals. Still. The French heavyspace trio are riding the course of 2024’s Ilion (review here), and the fact that they’ve spent the better part of the last three years touring was not lost on their stage presence.
The story of their set was kind of that I blew it there as well. Got my photos and moved on. I was dragging, had basic human needs to attend to in food, water, bathroom, so broke out of Rockefeller a bit into the set in an effort to get my head right. I was saving the second half of Friday’s weedy muffin for later in the day, but there’s nothing like when the check-into-your-flight notification comes in while you’re trying to enjoy a busy afternoon of writing, taking photos, and general sonic obliteration.
Hippie Death Cult ruled last year at Desertfest New York (review here) and with their new live album, Live at Star Theater (review here), it felt like half the point of the damn thing was to argue in favor of showing up when the band inevitably comes through where you live — Parsippany, New Jersey, if you’re tour planning — when the opportunity presents itself. So there I was. I’d already bumped into guitarist Eddie Brnabic and drummer Harry Silvers at the hotel, and they and bassist/vocalist Lauren Phillips would soon take the stage to unroll a blanket of riffs onto the crowd, roll that same blanket back up again with the crowd in it, and then send it careening down the side of a mountain. I’m really, really looking forward to their next album.
Nothing against 2023’s Helichrysum (review here), mind you, but — and I think this is something the live LP posited as well — they sound like they’re just getting started. The lineup change that resulted in Phillips taking the lead vocal role, plus bringing Silvers in on drums, made them a different band. On the record and live, they’ve explored harsher, more direct and classic feeling ideas, but at the same time, begun to develop a character for themselves separate from what it was just a few years ago. This is a strength. Some bands would just fall apart. Hippie Death Cult have figured, are figuring out, how to make it work and progress from their new starting position.
And since much of this work has happened on tours, yes, I am very much convinced their best work is ahead of them. They can be warm and bluesy — Brnabic’s shred suits all sides — or sludge-nasty and it doesn’t matter. Songs like “Arise,” “Red Giant,” “Toxic Annihilator,” as they’re playing them now, are paving the way for a band who can crush or boogie or gallop at a measure’s whim.
Phillips let out a couple Tom Araya-esque screams while Silvers was on the double-kick, and they’re getting more comfortable bringing that kind of metal into their foundation in capital ‘h’ Heavier groove. They’re a monster band. They should get monstrous, and I think they just might continue to do that. This was their first time in Norway. Someone in the crowd shouted, “What took you so long?” Near-total reset takes some time, I guess, but it’s done Hippie Death Cult well in terms of the intensity level. They finished big and noisy — at some near-final point, I looked up and Phillips’ mic stand had disappeared — and I watched the whole set and wouldn’t have wanted it another way.
Back upstairs to Rockefeller for Finland’s Oranssi Pazuzu. True, I saw them a couple weeks ago, playing their latest album, Muuntautuja, in full, no less, but whatever. I dug it then and wanted to investigate the band further. Seeing them again felt like a half-decent way to do that. The balcony was full before the floor, which the lightshow would soon justify, but the room was full by the start of the set.
The thing was, they’re a name I’ve seen around for well over a decade, and a band I’ve listened to before and appreciated for what it was but soon enough moved on. But after that Muuntautuja set at Roadburn, they kind of took up residence in the back of my head. I was glad to recognize a few songs from one show to the next, including the opener, and while they’re not usually the kind of band I’d go all-in on, and I’m positive I don’t know enough of their music to call myself a fan, after seeing them these two times, I do feel compelled to dig further.
There’s enough going on at any given moment in their songs to trace threads of influence and constantly end up in a different place. That’s black metal, straight up, but then there comes a synthier part, or a drone stretch, or some Ministry-style keyboard thrash. Krautrock guitars might meet up with some soul-grinding ferocity, and the band seem to delight in precisely that manner of fucking with norms; picking apart ideas about style and what the rules are, cherrypicking which ones they want to uphold and which they want to break and then breaking most of them anyway. Like Agriculture, they’re in-genre outsider art, but whatever the stylistic cast, Oranssi Pazuzu refuse and refute pigeonholing.
My scheduled break was next. I went back to the room, had that half a weedy muffin — I could not tell you the last time I ate an actual muffin; nine years at least; I don’t normally do breadstuffs — drank a bunch of water and took some ibuprofen, tried and failed to check in for my flight because my town has both a different mailing address and a hyphen in it (not joking) and confirmed an earlier decision about the course of my night.
Chat Pile were sub-headlining the Rockefeller, and Whores. would be on at 22.00 in John Dee. I skipped both in favor of Villjuvet at St. Edmund’s Church right around the corner from Revolver. I had gotten to see the inside of the church earlier in the day — it was active-catholic enough to give yer boy eucharistic flashbacks — and been told a bit about the project, the visual component and the work of Ruben Willem, who in addition to operating as Villjuvet is a producer and has either mixed or mastered releases for an entire slew of bands from Lonely Kamel to Håndgemang who were in Friday’s lineup, to Gluecifer, Suncraft and Kal-El. I could go on.
I’ve seen Chat Pile, again recently. It was cool. I’ve never seen Whores., and frankly part of the reason why is the danger of liking them and then having to admit to myself I like a band with that name, but I know people who swear by them, and I actually did end up watching them for a few minutes and they were killing to a packed room. But I was told ahead of time, “Villjuvet might be just your speed,” and was happy to take the recommendation to a path less traveled before finishing the night off back at Rockefeller for Elder. Slow and weird, you say? That sure does sound like my speed.
At 9PM, it was still pretty broad daylight, but the church was dark, the door ominously left open. I took a seat in the second pew — was not at all the first one there — and waited as more people came in. There was some white noise drone, but I’ll be honest and say a big part of me wanted to hear “Holy Diver,” though that went away when the actual show started.
You could follow the projections — branches and the like, nighttime ambience, loosely creepy but mostly for the soundtrack — up the white wall with the stained glass windows onto the wood ceiling as Villjuvet turned out to be very much indeed my speed. Willem played facing the projections before a sprawling pedal board, often kneeling as if to a true god being revealed. His drones came through in looped layers and hit high and low through guitar and bass amps. It was not a tune to take out earplugs, despite the lack of percussion. A couple popes later, church has really changed since I was last forced to go, probably around three decades ago. I recall a good time this January sharing religious traumas over a breakfast in Las Vegas. Life takes you weird places when… you expressly make it do that because you enjoy it.
Rockefeller was filling up quickly for Elder and I knew the second Whores. finished downstairs that crowd would flood out, which was exactly what happened. I was at the bar at John Dee at the time, chatting amiably as one does, and then it was time to head upstairs to cap the evening. A 6AM wakeup loomed large over the 11PM start-time — hazards of the trade at the end of a fest; it’s part of the thing — but with the band celebrating the anniversary of 2015’s Lore (review here), and having missed them when they came through Brooklyn with Sacri Monti, there was imperative.
I could go — and have gone! — on about Lore as both a creative statement and a breath of daring fresh air operating in an underground genre that can at times pride itself on traditionalism. I’ll gladly argue its influence is still felt and spreading, even as the band have continued to move forward. But there’s no denying it was a special moment for them, a progressive breakout in craft to which their work before had been leading. So, 10th anniversary it is. Not unreasonable.
Guitarist/vocalist Nick DiSalvo got on mic before they started and thanked the crowd, thanked the fest, said it was an honor to close it out, and explained what they were going to do, and soon enough they were off into “Compendium” and on from there. I always loved “Deadweight” but I knew I wouldn’t make it that far into the set and I didn’t. I was glad to see them though, even briefly as I felt the pull of getting back to finish work and crash out ahead of the early start. The responsible thing. The me that knows I can’t sleep on planes would thank me in the morning, but it was a hard sell to the me looking down the ramp to walk out of Rockefeller and be done with the night and Desertfest Oslo more broadly.
But I did. If I’m fortunate enough to come back next year, I’ll try not to make it so tight, but that’s kind of how it has to be for me to be here in the first place, and a couple Elder songs is better than no Elder songs, so I guess my old-ass punk-rock guilt can fuck off. Time to crawl out of my own head a little bit.
Thank you to Desertfest Oslo for having me. Thank you Ole and Preben for the invitation and thank you to everyone who has worked here to make this happen. The sound, the lights, everything has been spot on, and for this being the second year this festival has taken place, they’d be entitled to a few screwups. I saw none. I did, however, see a bunch killer bands, a bunch of old friends, and some things I wouldn’t have been able to see anywhere else. I am incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity.
It is not lost on me that in the US this weekend, today, is Mother’s Day. Thank you to The Patient Mrs. for the work she does as a mother always, and for the sheer indulgence that allows me to exist as I do both at and away from home. She is so much more than the love of my life that is humbling she would deign to be it. I know I’ve said this before, but I am the luckiest boy you know.
Thank you to my mother, Pamela Koczan. Thank you to my sister, Susan Wright. Thank you to Cate Wright and Samantha Wright.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for saying hi, for giving a shit after so many years and so many typos and run-on sentences. Dumbassed blocks of text, just endless. Thank you for being here for it in some way at some point, maybe now. The support this site gets is what sustains me doing it. One more time, thank you.
More pics after the jump. No posts tomorrow (Monday) while I get caught up writing/living. Thanks again.
Got to the hotel and slept. Slept on the plane as much as I could, but I was pretty much collapsing by the time I made it to my room. No problem checking in, and the flight was fine; a week’s worth of anxieties dissipating like water vapor only to condense again soon. The nervous cycle. Evaporation, condensation.
I watched a bit of Graveyard’s soundcheck from the balcony of the Rockefeller, which along with John Dee, Revolver Bar and the back garden outside the latter are the locales of the four stages. They’re kind of around the block from each other, but they have it set so you can walk through, all kind of in a Desertfest nook, not entirely dissimilar from how The Black Heart and The Underworld become a pocket for the Desertfest in London. At least that seemed to be the idea to me. Oslo, of course, is its own kind of party.
Restlessness takes hold. No photo pits means get there early. You start to get the lay of the land. You meet Ole Helsted, also in SÂVER and who also is part of running Høstsabbat, in the lounge after Graveyard are done. He’s apparently been living your secret dream of being a goat farmer. You say a quick hi to Elephant Tree and get a Bear Bones tape off Pete before they clear out and DVNE soundcheck on the John Dee stage, club-size, and come to think of it the smallest stage you’ve seen them on. Cool. There’s a bit to go before that, though.
I was reading a review earlier, on the train from the airport. Mistake. The dude who wrote it was talking about how this scene is old, uncool, like a bunch of weird uncles trying to break away from their dayjobs or somesuch. Seems pretty needless to pick on grayhairs who’ve probably been going to shows for decades, or even if not, just unnecessary. The gatekeeping of the insecure. Fact is, I wouldn’t trade the community spirit of the heavy underground for all the arthouse cred in the world, and I’m somebody who very much enjoys being well thought of on the occasion I might come to anyone’s mind other than my own.
There’s a longer discussion to have there about genre, audience aging and the need for fresh generational blood, and the heavy underground for sure has its issues — diversity most glaring — but I was more interested in checking out the merch and getting a sense of the vibe taking shape here, now. It was nice out. Yeah, maybe nobody’s getting any younger. Still here though. That seems worth seeing in a more positive light, is all I’m saying. In a world actively putting itself to shit on multiple fronts, some of them existential, I’m gonna take the next two days and check in with the deep value this music and the community around it has in my life. It’s not just restorative, because the fact is I’ll go home Sunday more tired than I am now — believe it — but it’s more like an equilibrium unto itself.
I popped up the alley to see Håndgemeng at the Revolver Backyard, but no dice — ‘too many humans,’ as Buzzard might say — so I scooted back to John Dee well in time for the start of DVNE. I met the guys from King Potenaz, who seemed very nice and came here from Italy, and ran into a couple other familiar faces, but by the time DVNE actually went on, I was good and ready.
The UK-based five-piece are out celebrating their 2024 LP, Voidkind (review here), and they recently underscored the point with the follow-up Live at Biscuit Factory. I knew what was coming but that didn’t stop it from being rad, and DVNE continue to impress in bringing the fullness of their studio sound to the stage. Of course there’s more direct attack and energy as one would expect, but they still build textures well around those big, strides-the-behemoth grooves, and as hard as they hit, the melody is right there.
Extra glad to have seen their soundcheck since I didn’t get to stay all that long before I was pulled away to Revolver — a smaller, basement-type club you enter from out by the backyard stage; I tried going in the front door, and there may be a way downstairs, but I didn’t know it. I’d never seen Gjenferd before and knew I wanted to, so I made my way down and in front of the stage. It was humid and packed and there was a technical problem with the camera that I needed to work out, so I was kind of in and out of there too, and not wanting to do basically the same thing for Pallbearer, the ol’ in-out, I decided to socialize a bit and say hi to folks en route to disappointing them. A bit of stress about the camera — if it breaks for real, I’m basically stuck — but I figured out the issue and to no surprise it was human error.
Gjenferd, however, do rock, and it was nice to confirm that for myself in-person. Their self-titled debut (review here) came out last year and in my mind they’re very much a part of the generational turnover happening in Norway right now. Slomosa are the elephant in the room there, I suppose, but there are new and new-ish bands all over this country and it seems like more all the time. I don’t know if it’s a movement, but it’s definitely a fresh perspective, and even for just a few minutes until the crowd press got to be too much, I appreciated the chance to see them for the first and hopefully not last time.
Back at John Dee, DVNE were loading out as Lowrider were setting up for their set, plenty of time. This would be my first time seeing them live since they put out both 2020’s Refractions (review here) and last year’s split LP with Elephant Tree, The Long Forever (review here), so I was excited to see what would be in the set, even though I could probably look that up on the internet by now. Still, I’d only seen the band once before, at Desertfest London 2013 (review here), and I can only speak from my own limited experience, but a Lowrider set is a thing to catch while you can because you don’t know when or if the chance will come again. For example, given my druthers, it wouldn’t have been 12 years between Lowrider sets for me.
So how were they? You’d have to tell me, because I kind of lost time there, to be honest. All of a sudden they were into “Ode to Ganymede,” and the set was like half over which I think means it wasn’t long enough. But was it really going to be? Lowrider were not at all the only reason I came to Desertfest Oslo — but for sure they’re high on the list. They did their three tracks from The Long Forever, opening with “Caldera” and pushing into “And the Horse You Rode in On,” which was a blast, and “Into the Grey” later on. That would have been the likely point of onstage collaboration if it was going to happen with Jack or Pete from Elephant Tree, who’d close the room later, but no dice.
“Lameneshma” is Lowrider’s “Gardenia” and even though they played “Caravan” that’s a hill I’m willing to die on. But how were they? Look. They’re one of the bands who made it okay for desert rock not to be from the desert — do you understand how good you have to be to do that shit? And they were like 20 at the time. That’s insane. I was looking forward to the newer material — nothing against the classic 2000 debut/then-swansong Ode to Io (reissue review here), mind you — and between “Through the Rift,” “Ode to Ganymede,” “Pipe Rider,” which could only close, and the songs from the split, they 100 percent delivered the set I was hoping for. And they did it as one of the best bands ever to do the thing.
True, there were sets going on when they finished — did I mention they were a five-piece? the organ was splendid throughout — but also true, about 10 hours before, I was stepping off an overnight flight. I needed a break and took one, if only to go back to the room, sort photos, have a bite of the peanut butter I brought (homemade, dry roasted, no salt, medium grind) and drink three bottles of water. I did that and then all of a sudden I was sitting up with the pillows behind me against the wall. Then I was kind of leaning over. Then my eyes started to close and I realized I needed to get the hell out of there because there was still more show to see. After an undeniable peak in Lowrider’s set, my night would wind through Truckfighters, Elephant Tree and Graveyard to close out. Tired I might’ve been, but I had places to be.
Swedish fuzzlords Truckfighters had a new song, but as guitarist Niklas Källgren said from the stage, it’s been around a while. I’d take a record happily and a couple more new songs to throw in the mix, but that new one was mellow early and picked up with a roller of a riff — my point is I firmly believe Truckfighters have more to say as a band and I hope at some point they say it. In the meantime, I very much appreciated the run (mostly, but entirely) through their albums to-date. Källgren and bassist/vocalist Oskar Cedermalm have a drummer with them who absolutely pounds when they need him to, but they have a varied enough catalog and they’re mature enough at this point that they come across as a more dynamic band than they used to be, while still making it the blast on stage that it’s always been.
Granted, Truckfighters have been pro-shop since before they actually were, but they’ve become among the most reliable heavy rock bands on the planet. They’re gonna show up and give people a good time. They did exactly that. It wasn’t a surprise — though I don’t think I’ve seen them play the same show twice, except maybe 15 years ago on successive nights — but it was satisfying. Reassuring, even. They’ll get to a record whenever. I’d rather have them take their time.
I heard Magmakammer were good — can’t see everything, but I’m looking forward to hearing their new single when I get a minute — and went downstairs to catch the start of Elephant Tree, sitting on the floor, forgetting to refresh my water bottle, not really caring. It’s been since before the pandemic that I saw them last, and that was long enough ago for people to have forgotten a vaccine fixed it. The London four-piece announced a few weeks ago that John Slattery, who had been playing keys and second guitar, was out of the band and had been replaced by Charlie, with no last name given. Thanks to the deep investigative reporting you’ve come to rely on The Obelisk for, you can now know it’s Charlie Davis on guitar and synth with Elephant Tree. He’s also in Beggar and Wasted Death. Don’t you feel better now?
The UK contingent in my otherwise too played material from the split, with Peder Bergstrand watching from the side of the stage, but they reveled in older songs as well. Bassist Peter Holland, who I’ve said on multiple occasions is one of the most charming human beings I’ve ever met — charm as a defining feature; we get to hang out sometimes at Freak Valley — got genuinely excited when they were about to play “Dawn” from their 2016 self-titled (review here, discussed here), and even “Wasted” from Habits (review here) had an older-school kick to it. I’ve written a bunch about Elephant Tree the last few years and guitarist/vocalist Jack Townley’s life-threatening accident a couple years ago, coming back from that, and I think part of what they’re most enjoying about being in a band right now is being able to hit it. There’s a lot of fun, some catharsis, and there’s a new dynamic taking shape with the new lineup.
Charlie was a groover on stage, and it seemed like Holland and Townley — that’s not to exclude drummer Sam Hart, but it was kind of hard to see back there where I was standing by the side of the stage out front — fed off that energy a bit, and they were clearly having fun as they let loose a bit through “Bird” from Habits and realized they were running out of time still with plenty left for “Aphotic Blues” to close. The build into the big riff finish brought Townley down from the stage and into the crowd, which lifted him up and surfed him back up to finish the set. Got up there, adjusted the monitor in his pocket, and hit it on the next measure. It was emotional to see them after so long. I hope I get to do it more often.
Graveyard were the close to my night, just as the first non-jet-engine volume push I’d heard in the afternoon had been their soundcheck. They were ripping it up, as they will, but I grabbed my photos and got out, in no small part to wipe off the beer that someone had spilled on my camera bag when I was taking pictures. Glad it’s hard plastic on the front, but the smell of the sides made me want to bury it. Plus I was more than willing to both admit and give in to exhaustion by then. Made some vague and tentative breakfast plans and hoofed it back up to the room to finish sorting the photos and try to catch whatever minimal quotient of typos I could by reading through what I’d written all day. I’ll reserve comment on how that went.
Tomorrow picks up in the afternoon with day two of Desertfest Oslo. It’s awesome here. I might need a new backpack though.
Swedish conceptualist atmospheric doomers Cavern Deep push deeper with their third full-length, Part III – The Bodiless, out this week through Majestic Mountain Records and their own Bonebag Records. The plot thread is somewhat obscure, which will happen when you get into cave-goth ambience and start weaving storylines and themes across successive releases. To wit, 2023’s Part II – Breach (review here) took the listener to depths only hinted at by the band’s 2021 self-titled debut (review here), so of course they begin by soaring with “The Bodiless” to draw the audience into the procession of these six tracks of slow-churning, consuming, claustrophobic darkness.
Marty Harvey, drummer/vocalist of Northern Irish crushers Slomatics, cuts through the low tonality of Cavern Deep‘s slog to guest on lead voice early in “The Bodiless,” thereby introducing the central character of the album, who seems to undergo a sort of transformative obliteration that, well, sounds pretty lovely if fraught in the making. Monsters of Lovecraftian proportion and purpose are met and overcome — “Queen Womb,” “Putrid Sentry” — but rebirth means death first. Intended as the final installment of what at some point in the last four years became a trilogy, Part III – The Bodiless feels every bit like the culmination it’s supposed to be, while at the same time demonstrating just how much Cavern Deep have carved an identity for themselves in its 38-minute span, whether that’s guitarist Kenny-Oswald Duvfenberg and bassist Max Malmer (I think he’s a bass vocally as well) — I think maybe drummer Dennis Sjödin gets in on the action too — creating character and drama through the vocal arrangement of “Queen Womb,” or the solo topping the plodding culmination of the penultimate “Galaxies Collide.”
The keyboard of Johannes Behndig (Sarcophagus Now), who was a guest player on Part II and is now a member of the band, plays an accordingly larger role in setting the scope, as the backdrop for the Martin Ludl saxophone solo in “Mosktraumen” showcases, but if all the plunge and bleakness and slow-big-metal-gears-grinding of Part III – The Bodiless is leading to something — and, good news, it is — it’s to closer “Full Circle.” This not only represents the moment of rebirth for the record’s sans-body protagonist, but is a densely-weighted outbound march that underscores the grim psychedelic cast of Cavern Deep‘s brand of doom; ethereal like swirling smoke but poisonous to breathe. Granted they’ve been writing songs about monsters hiding in dark underground spaces for circa half a decade at this point, but Part III – The Bodiless does not overplay its hand in horror. It doesn’t need to.
Being able to tell a story in impressions is something else Cavern Deep have been working toward all along, but it’s been a strength from the first album on, and the then-trio-now-four-piece have always had a willful-seeming push toward individualism. They’re not just heavy, they’re their kind of heavy, and the difference is one of playing to genre or using elements thereof to shape something more your own. Cavern Deep continue to refine their songwriting processes in the latter methodology, and they’ve grown accordingly more spacious and broader in their reach for that. And no, I don’t just mean in terms of adding keys. The vocal arrangements are bolder and more confident here than they’ve ever been, and with two prior LP’s (plus other short releases, videos, etc.), Cavern Deep sound more sure of the plan they’re following than they ever have, and aspects of their sound that felt exploratory before feel internalized in this material. They’ve learned from what they’ve done up to now, in other words.
All of this ideal in terms of Cavern Deep realizing their project — the stated trilogy — even if it leaves one curious as to what whims they might follow next. Suitably enough, “Full Circle” ends the tale back where it started, with one archeologist and 49 miners headed below the surface to begin the whole cycle, as at the start of the self-titled. Literally and figuratively, Cavern Deep are a different band than they were when they made that first album, and if they are in fact leaving this storyline behind — plans can and do change — they do so with purpose and a sense of continued growth and artistic progression. This is why, whatever horrors might unfold from here, their trilogy as manifest is such a triumph.
Part III – The Bodiless streams in full below. Please enjoy:
Swedish doom/psych explorers Cavern Deep return with the final chapter of their epic concept album trilogy. Titled “Part III – The Bodiless”, the album is set for release on May 9, 2025 via Bonebag Records and Majestic Mountain Records, marking the conclusion of a story that has taken listeners on a dark and otherworldly journey since the band’s self-titled debut in 2021.
Formed in 2019 by members of Zonaria and Gudars Skymning, Cavern Deep has built a reputation for crafting captivating, atmospheric doom soundscapes, blending crushing heaviness with eerie psychedelia. Their debut album, released via Interstellar Smoke Records, introduced a unique storytelling approach that continued with “Part II – Breach”, a critically acclaimed release on their own Bonebag Records.
Now, with “Part III – The Bodiless”, Cavern Deep brings the saga to a dramatic and haunting close, pushing their sonic boundaries further into the abyss. The album is expected to deliver the band’s signature slow, hypnotic riffs and cavernous atmospheres, while weaving a final chapter that explores themes of transcendence, transformation, and the unknown. It features Marty Harvey from Slomatics as the vocalist of the title-track “The Bodiless”, and Martin Ludl on saxophone playing on the track “Moskstraumen.”
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The concept synopsis is as follows:
1. The Bodiless
The transformation is complete. It enters the ungodly realm through the pulse, now without physical form. A shimmering image of nerves, energy, and vibrant rage moves through starless space. The bodiless is greeted by the never-ending hordes of shapeless beings, awoken for the sole purpose of ending its journey. They will all perish.
2. Queen Womb
Traveling between nodes of passage, covering the vast distances of void, the queen rises. Its children disintegrated, now itself decaying. Facing the bodiless with the desperation of a grieving mother, it unleashes a spewing tidal wave of pure hatred. It is futile. The struggle is short. All that remains is an empty husk. A floating dead mass.
3. Putrid Sentry
Enter the looming watcher of the outer rims, the putrid one. Bestower of unfathomable grief. The commander of a million shapeless minions now gone. It spreads its dark, suffocating energy across the vastness, like a mighty bellow. It wants to consume all. The bodiless seeps into its veins like a lethal promise, soon rendering its deadly cloak pierced and useless, shattered throughout dead space.
4. Moskstraumen
The bodiless slowly drifts into the maw of the maelstrom. Almost depleted. Nearly spent. Soon its purpose is fulfilled. This is the cradle of prime evil. As the ancient swirling mass begins to gnaw away at every ethereal nerve ending of the bodiless, its final offering is released in its full glory: the last light. Burning. Consuming. The grip on the entire realm withers away as the great whirlpool bellows in dying agony.
5. Galaxies Collide
As oozing wounds of ungodly matter bleed out and fade, space itself starts to crumble. Violently colliding with itself, tearing rifts in the very fabric of existence. The bodiless is pulled towards the dead black center of it all. The eye of the storm. Drifting to sleep. In peace. Flickering like a dying lantern.
6. Full Circle
The fail-safe. The curse. The testament. The bodiless is sucked into the deep at the center of the chaotic collapsing reality surrounding it. It is trying to draw breath. It is becoming. Images are rushing back like an unstoppable flood. There is flesh… One archaeologist and 49 brave men stand at the gates, staring down into the bowels of the mountain. It is time to begin the descent.
Line-up: Kenny-Oswald Duvfenberg – Guitars & Vocals Max Malmer – Bass & Vocals Dennis Sjödin – Drums & Backup Vocals Johannes Behndig – Keys
Heavy psych rockers Madmess release their new LP, The Third Coming, on May 9, through an international consortium of independent labels including gig.Rocks! in their native Portugal, Kozmik Artifactz throughout Germany and the rest of Europe, and Glory or Death Records, based in the US. Their bases thusly covered, the Porto three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Ricardo Sampaio, bassist Vasco Vasconcelos and drummer Pedro Cruz are free to explore and refine their partially-instrumental crux, taking and adapting what came together on 2021’s Rebirth (review here) and their prior 2019 self-titled debut to retain its spaciousness and partially-improvised spirit while at the same time taking on a more direct delivery.
What on earth does that mean? For one thing, the longest song on The Third Coming, “Widowmaker” (7:17), is roughly equal in runtime to the two shortest cuts on Rebirth, which was filled out otherwise by three nine-minute jaunts. But fear not. The Third Coming retains its jammy sensibility, and if it’s expanse you seek, “Widowmaker” picks up from the wah-fuzz burner opening given through “Death by Astonishment,” and begins a stretch through “Velvet Nebula” — second best song title I’ve seen in the last 12 months — and the album’s most hypnotic, immersive unfolding, “Endless Cycles,” that should tick any quota you’ve got for ‘getweird.’ And if not, the motorik pulse behind closer “Sauerkraut” still manages to speak to classic space rock trance-induction while not actually taking up any more than three and a half minutes of Earth time. This kind of efficiency is usually a showcase in itself. For Madmess, the focus is so much more on the impression the music makes than the intent behind it. That is, they’re not showing off or simply indulging in craft. They made the record for you, the listener.
Actually, “Death by Astonishment” reinforces that idea well, while “Endless Cycles” contrasts those grounded aspects at the start of the vinyl’s side B. This comes ahead of the exclamatory “Burnt!,” the second half which precedes the proto-metallic shove of “Hazy Morning” with a particularly resonant shimmer in Sampaio‘s guitar and the roll and pull and tonal wobble that hits a serene moment in the heavy psych tradition. Earthless are a factor in that, and in some of the grit of “Hazy Morning,” one can hear aspects of the ’70s-minded riffage that took hold in San Diego circa 2015-2020, in no small part inspired by the aforementioned. In such a way, The Third Coming is fluid in its movement without being static in terms of style, and it doesn’t ultimately end up anywhere one would come close to calling lost. Indeed, “Hazy Morning” and “Sauerkraut,” paired at the end as they are, only seem to herald further stylistic adventures to follow. Or at least that’s the hope in hearing it.
Whatever instigated this readjustment of balances in Madmess‘ sound to bring about songs that can be shorter and more direct, it feels like a realization on the part of the band as The Third Coming plays less to genre while remaining organically aligned to it. To say the very minimum, it is a record that understands, appreciates and makes solid use of its creative freedom, and if you heard either of their first two and thought the band had potential, these songs both answer that and leave the same impression afterward. Madmess continue to sound like they’re just getting started, and that vibrancy is becoming a key part of what they have to offer.
Album streams in full below, followed by more from the PR wire, including live dates announced the other day.
Please enjoy.
Always dynamic, always electrifying, and as powerful as ever, Portuguese powerhouse trio Madmess is gearing up to release their latest LP, “The Third Coming,” on May 9th via Glory or Death (USA), Kozmik Artifactz (EU), and gig.ROCKS! (PT).
Once a well-kept secret in Europe’s psychedelic music scene, their anonymity may soon fade. The single “Velvet Nebula,” the first preview of Madmess’ forthcoming third album, offered a taste of what’s ahead, following a year filled with touring highlights, including performances at Krach am Bach (Germany), ArcTanGent (UK), Freak Valley Xmas (DE), and Sonic Blast (PT).
Previously under the radar but with a devoted fanbase eagerly awaiting new songs, the album leans into a more classic sound, merging Bonham-inspired drumming with contemporary psychedelic melodies across seven mesmerizing tracks. These riffs are destined for live stages across Europe and beyond, where they truly come alive.
Announcing our next run of shows presenting “The Third Coming” in Europe, with dates in Portugal, Spain & France 💫
10.05 – Socorro, Porto 🇵🇹 20.05 – Wurlitzer, Madrid 🇪🇸 21.05 – El Bunker, Alicante 🇪🇸 23.05 – Sideral Fest, Capbreton 🇫🇷 24.05 – La grange Baffignac, Castres 🇫🇷 27.05 – La Ley Seca, Zaragoza 🇪🇸 28.05 – Dio Bar, Barcelona 🇪🇸 29.05 – La Rayuela, Miranda de Ebro 🇪🇸 30.05 – Rock dos Romanos, Coimbra 🇵🇹
Recorded at Hertzcontrol Studio by Marco Lima in Caminha, Portugal Produced/Mixed by Marco Lima Mastered by Alvaro Galego Artwork by Lory Cervi
And then sometimes, apparently, you might make a record with your cousin. I like to imagine a cartoon version of Dr. Space‘s mom — the venerable Ma Space — somehow in a New Jersey accent scolding her synth-wizard offspring: “You know, all your collaborations and you’ve never once jammed with your cousin!” Obviously, I don’t know that that happened and I’m pretty sure Scott “Dr. Space” Heller‘s mother wasn’t from my beloved Garden State — though you never know and the Jersey diaspora is remarkable — so I’m not trying to portray a realistic scenario so much as goof on the idea of family behind Quasars of Destiny. Uniting the aforementioned Dr. Space with guitarist, drummer (and other percussion), bassist, and Rhodes pianist Craig Wall and percussionist James Malley (credited with cowbell and shakers), Quasars in Space recorded the three-song/43-minute Music to Listen to While Eating Planets in July 2023 at Heller‘s Estúdio Paraíso Nas Nuvens in Portugal, and by the time they’re a few minutes into “Colossus Approacheth” (6:18), they’ve just about got it all figured out.
Of course, layering is a factor, and I’ve already added extraneous narrative to Music to Listen to While Eating Planets once and I don’t need to do so again, but that first of three inclusions, which is backed by meat-of-the-album “Colossus Consumes” (30:45) and “Colossus Seeks a New Planet” (6:14) to close out, has enough movement to show a breadth of influence — that is, that Wall as a guitarist isn’t necessarily coming from the same place genre-wise as Heller, even if he’s not far off. Wall has played with tribute-type cover outfits like Sweet Magic and Eclipse: A Pink Floyd Experience and done a fair amount of his own recording, but while adjacent under a ‘rock’ umbrella, Dr. Space‘s oeuvre is specialized to say the least. To wit, he’s Dr. Space. He’s been to grad school for cosmic jamming. But as “Colossus Approacheth” — think of it as a somewhat tentative approach as Wall, Heller and Malley get their feet under them — demonstrates and the dug-in half-hour of “Colossus Consumes” proves, there’s plenty trippery for everyone.
The extended middle-cut — an inevitable focal point as it takes up more than two thirds of the total runtime — is unsurprisingly an album unto itself. It takes place over three main movements, each of which has its own flow and patient execution, the procession starting quietly as the guitar and cymbals wake up. After a few minutes, they’re in a solid, bluesy roll with the synth flowing out around the meandering guitar and the underlying drums that would seem to have been the root for the entire first movement, which recedes into a synth-led midsection with the drums further back in the mix setting up the room a guitar solo is soon to occupy. And from about minute 20 onward, there’s a pickup in the drums that marks the transition to the psych-bluesy final section of “Colossus Consumes,” which nails the balance between its two sides.
Because it’s not like classic, blues, and psych and space rock are without their commonalities — again, it’s all rock music — but for one of these players, making a half-hour-long song is its own kind of norm, where for Wall, as with most other humans, his playing style at least as I hear it in Music to Listen to While Eating Planets drives more toward structure. By the end of “Colossus Consumes,” though, the flow has gotten more open, more linear, and fair enough. If, as a listener or player, you’re not feeling it 29 minutes into the 30-minute take, it’s probably safe for you to turn off the record player, put down your instruments, go catch a nap to get yourself right, etc.
When you can get to it — and I do very much mean that in the Funkadelic sense — Music to Listen to While Eating Planets sets itself up as a tale of discovery, with the ‘band’ or maybe even the music itself in the Colossus role, making the journey almost as much as the listener. The underlying message is everybody’s finding their way. “Colossus Approacheth” brings the first forward steps, seeing where the music wants to end up. Of course, “Colossus Consumes” is the bulk of that question’s answer; an expansive and engrossing undertaking that’s purposefully been put together as-is to entrance the audience and convey a sense of depth in the layering, harnessing the appeal of live performance in a recording context that, personnel-wise, calls for overdubbing for the songs to be complete. That is to say, Wall‘s a pretty talented player, but he’s not ripping into the shimmery Hendrixing in the later reaches of “Colossus Consumes” at the same time he’s banging away on drums, playing bass, shaking shakers and mixing the track (with Gordon Davies; Heller mixed the opening and closing cuts). You can only be in so many places at once and “Colossus Consumes” already resides in a few.
And what does that journey lead to? More exploration, naturally. “Colossus Seeks a New Planet” comes dangerously close to being a song, at least in a linear sense. It feels grounded in a way that certainly the preceding track inherently can’t, and it completes a circle that begins with “Colossus Approacheth” while setting Quasars of Destiny on a forward path. Mind you, I have no idea if they’ll pick up from the ethereally boogieing improvisational stretch that caps “Colossus Seeks a New Planet,” but there is narrative audible in the music and it sounds like if Heller and Wall and Malley wanted to get together every few years and see where they end up, they’ll indeed end up somewhere.
It sounds like more than a one-off, to put it plainly, whether or not it is. For those who arrived at the doorstep of Music to Listen to While Eating Planets via Dr. Space‘s work, either on his own, or with Øresund Space Collective, Black Moon Circle, Aural Hallucinations, and so on, Quasars of Destiny has a (nascent) persona of its own, distinct from the rest. That alone makes it worth pursuing in my mind; an unknown destination and a hypnotic trip. I guess sometimes imaginary cartoon mom is right.
Quasars of Destiny, Music to Listen to While Eating Planets (2025)
like the band’s earlier work, but that they’ve found ways to incorporate that growth in craft into their thankfully-unpretentious songwriting. But EC4 isn’t just shoving ’70s-via-’10s boogie either. The longest song at 6:22, “Traveler’s Moon” sets up the shift into the acoustic-led centerpiece “Tuning Tree,” departing the rockers-up-front initial impression of the record for the more psychedelic-flavored “Moss,” and reorient with the hooky-riffy ground-touch of “Lizard Brain” before “Other Planets” drifts into solo-topped doom rock majesty and “Flower of Salt” finishes with a blend of acoustic and organ that reminds of Lamp of the Universe. So yes, there’s more than one thing going on.
