As summer soundtracks go, Alain Johannes‘ 2020 album, Hum (review here), makes for pretty melancholy fare, but the truth is that it’s become one of those records I fall back on regardless of season. Amid a regular flux of things in and out, it hasn’t left my phone and I often find myself putting it on in the car in those moments where it’s what-do-I-listen-to-can’t-think-too-hard-in-a-hurry-well-okay-it’s-Hum-again-because-that’s-awesome. It is a reliable listening experience for me. I’m not going to put it on and at any point regret it.

The album came out last July on Ipecac, and I’m sad to say I still don’t have the CD. On my last trips to Vintage Vinyl here in New Jersey before it closed, that’s what I went to find, and no dice. I looked at my other local shop as well, and nuh-uh. True, I could order from Amazon, but you know, support your stores and all that. It’s not even in Johannes‘ own webstore, where the preceding 2014 outing, Fragments and Wholes, Vol. 1, is also sold out on the old-style compact disc, though available on vinyl, along with Hum and his 2010’s solo debut, Spark (discussed here), LP sold out, CD available with an autograph, which is nice. I’m just shopping, don’t mind me.

But if one might be tempted to go down a virtual retail rabbit hole through Johannes‘ merch, let that stand as a testament to the quality of his work. “Here in the Silence,” with a new, animated video below, is a gorgeous song that comes from a beautiful record. If you don’t get snagged by it, I’m not sure what to tell you. It’s the frickin’ fifth video they’ve put out from the album — a regular media blitz — and that’s in addition to streaming the entire record on Bandcamp (aha! found my CD!), so it’s not like ample opportunity to dip toe isn’t being provided even for those who won’t dive headfirst. If I haven’t made it clear by this time, I support that headfirst dive. There are five videos and an album stream with this post that I hope demonstrate that.

Alain Johannes has a show in Los Angeles coming up Sept. 11 at Highland Park Bowl with Big Pig (feat. Dino Von Lalli from Fatso Jetson) and All Souls, who also recently announced they’d be working with him as producer for their next album, citing of course Johannes‘ litany of credits including Chris Cornell‘s Euphoria Mourning solo LP. Being a nerd for All Souls, I look forward to what that collaboration will do for their sound. Info on the show is here if you happen to be in L.A.: https://www.facebook.com/events/361081742034953/

Enjoy. All of it:

Alain Johannes, “Here in the Silence” official video

Celebrating the one year anniversary of Alain Johannes’ album, Hum, with a beautiful new video for the song “Here In The Silence”. Pick up a copy of the album at: https://lnkfi.re/AJHum

Directed and illustrated by Kartess – https://www.instagram.com/kartess/

Animation by Rodolfo Sanhueza – https://www.instagram.com/rodolfo_sanhueza_ch/

Made in Chile

Alain Johannes, Hum (2020)

Alain Johannes, “If Morning Comes” official video

Alain Johannes, “Hallowed Bones” official video

Alain Johannes, “Free” official video

Alain Johannes, “Hum” official video

Alain Johannes website

Alain Johannes on Facebook

Alain Johannes on Bandcamp

Alain Johannes on Instagram

Ipecac Recordings webstore

Later this year, Richmond, Virginia’s Thunderchief — named after a warplane? nope. — will release the follow-up to last year’s No Sufferance for Thy Fools, which will come preceded by a few cover tracks yet to be unveiled. That’s cool. No specifics other than Mike Dean produced, and it’ll be out “later this year,” which at this point I just read as “if you want vinyl you’re waiting longer” because of the state of the world, but these things happen when they happen. If you’re sitting around waiting for something you preordered and holding it against the band, label, whatever, that it hasn’t shown up, pull your head out of your ass.

Kind of curious to see the band, founding by Rik Surly, listing Erik Larson as a new member on drums. As I recall Larson and Surly were playing together back at Maryland Doom Fest a couple years ago when I couldn’t get in to see them because I’d lost my drivers’ license (it’s hard being a person, leave me alone) and hilariously got carded at the door. He’s also played on the records. But I guess sometimes these things get made official later on. So be it. You know he’ll kill it either way.

Thunderchief are back in MD for the The Deviant Collective two-dayer in Baltimore this weekend. Info on that is here: https://www.facebook.com/events/thedepot-baltimore/the-deviant-collective-day-1/312842907028651/

And the new album announcement from the PR wire follows here:

Richmond, VA’s nihilistic ruffian outfit THUNDERCHIEF, will be playing at The Depot in Baltimore, MD on Friday, August 13, 2021 as part of a 2-day event known as “The Deviant Collective” featuring Yatra, Horseburner, Stonecutters and Howling Giant.

This show will mark the first appearance of THUNDERCHIEF as a live DUO, moving forward w/ Erik Larson manning the drums.

The band will be premiering new material from a full-length album, recently recorded by Mike Dean of C.O.C., and will be releasing a series of “appetizer” cover songs, leading up to the album’s drop, expected later this year.

Stay tuned for future live dates/tours/news from the band at the links provided below.

Thunderchief are:
Rik Surly – Guitar/vocals
Erik Larson – Drums

www.thethunderchief.com
www.thethunderchief.bandcamp.com
www.instagram.com/thunderchiefofficial
www.facebook.com/thunderchiefrva

Thunderchief, No Sufferance for Thy Fools (2020)

No brainer. I’ve never had the chance to see High Fighter, and in this era of live outings helping acts keep momentum otherwise lost to not being able to tour, who’s gonna argue? The Hamburg sludgecore aggressors are two years out from 2019’s Champain (review here), and of course their normally packed dance card of gigs has been empty, so yeah, they did the Rockpalast stream thing, filmed amid industry (science and technology!), and have the audio coming out now through Argonauata as a live LP. Yes, totally. This makes absolute sense to me. This is what you do.

Of note is the departure of Chris “Shi” Pappas, which I didn’t realize had happened and leaves High Fighter moving forward as a four-piece. One doubts they’ll be wanting when it comes to heaviness when all is said and done, but for a band who have a pretty established dynamic, it’ll be a change to listen for on their next album.

Found this on the ol’ social medias, I did:

HIGH FIGHTER – “Live at WDR Rockpalast” – ALBUM RELEASE!

Friends & Vinyl rockers, we’re happy to finally announce, we are going to release our first live album Nov. 26!

“Live at WDR Rockpalast” was recorded as a part of last year’s WDR “Offstage” concert- series which aired on TV and is available to stream online; filmed at the incredible, industrial setting of the Landschaftspark Duisburg- Nord. The album will be released as a strictly limited Vinyl edition + Digital formats on November 26th through Argonauta Records, with a pre-sale to follow soon!

Featuring a heavy set and collection of songs taken from our first 3 records, the album was recorded by Dominik Schenke with a pre- mix by Christoph Scheidel at 79 SOUND. Jan Oberg (Earth Ship / Grin) added the final mix and mastering at Hidden Planet Studio in Berlin.

With many thanks to the whole WDR-Rockpalast- crew, it was also a very special gig for us as it’s been the last show we have played with our former guitarist and dear friend, Shi, who decided to leave the band a few months later. This album is kind of dedicated to him and us as a five- piece band, from now on you won’t get to see High Fighter in this line- up again. We will continue as the four of us, and we are heavily working on many new songs and sound for our third album, but meanwhile, we hope you enjoy this little live affair!

“Live at WDR” Tracklist:
Side A:
01. Darkest Days
02. When We Suffer
03. Dead Gift
04. Black Waters
Side B:
05. A Silver Heart
06. Down To The Sky
07. Before I Disappear
08. Shine Equal Dark

HIGH FIGHTER is:
Mona Miluski – vocals
Christian “Shi” Pappas – guitar
Ingwer Boysen – guitar
Constantin Wüst – bass
Thomas Wildelau – drums & backing vocals

www.highfighter.de
www.facebook.com/highfighter
www.instagram.com/highfighter_official
www.highfighter.bandcamp.com
www.argonautarecords.com
www.facebook.com/ArgonautaRecords

High Fighter, Live at WDR Rockpalast teaser

Roman heavy rockers Solar Mantra will release their debut long-player, Away, through Argonauta Records on Sept. 3. It follows behind the band’s 2018 self-titled EP and in addition to capping with an eponymous track in the seven-minute “Solar Mantra,” Away boasts punch after punch of heavy grooves and rough attitude, brashness and burl making their presence felt on lead cut “Stone Rider” and the subsequent bruiser “Pacciani” and holding sway for duration, even as songs like “This Iz” tap into Constellation-era Alabama Thunderpussy-esque Southern heavy and “Crown” touches on doom in its melody.

Along the way, “Candy Man” and “Hurricane” and “Mazinga” brim with festival-ready vitality as Francesco Carretti‘s riffs set the patterns given heft and movement through Simone Bianchini‘s drums and Federico “Quattro” Lombardi‘s bass, solos liberally strewn about the proceedings to offset the verses and choruses from frontman Tommaso Santillo, whose gruff voice proves malleable throughout to the various builds and progressions of the tracks, more laid back in the early going of “Monster of the Deep” and belting out the final hook later. Wild guess, but some beer may have been consumed during the making of Away.

Their songs are neither revolutionary nor unwelcome. An able execution of genre, they tap into late ’90s and early ’00s stoner vibes without sounding either too much like Kyuss or Clutch, and as a first full-length — and a long one at 52 minutes/11 tracks — there’s no point at which Away feels disengaged from its central aesthetic purpose, which is unpretentious even as “Solar Mantra” hits into some more complex melodic fare and near-psychedelic guitar work. Rock for rockers? With the trades between double-time hi-hat tension and riffy strut, it’s hard to think of “Hard as a Stone” any other way.

And even the penultimate ‘Snake,” which is more severe in its riff, holds itself to the standard the band have by then well set, balancing aggression and groove in a way that feels aware of the style it’s playing toward but unforced despite that. That is to say, first record or not, new-ish lineup or not, Solar Mantra come across as having every idea of what they want their material to do, and that’s what Away brings to life. They hit it hard, with due vitality, and ask little of the listener more than coming along for the trip. The vibe will be familiar, and so will the choruses by the time you’re through the record a couple times.

The video — watch for Santillo‘s eyeliner to come and go — for “Stone Rider” is premiering below, followed by more info from the PR wire.

Please enjoy:

Solar Mantra, “Stone Rider” video premiere

September 3, 2021 will see Roman stoner rockers SOLAR MANTRA to release their first full- length album through Argonauta Records.

The band, who formed in 2017, takes its listener on a wild fuzz rock trip into a psychedelic wonderland. With their catchy yet powerful and heavily groovy stoner sound, the Italian four-piece creates a revitalizing vibe that is immediately evident. From the crushing album opener “Stone Rider” to the equal bracing, grande finale “Solar Mantra”, Away unleashes eleven gritty and hooking songs that deliver the perfect soundtrack for a roadtrip in the sun!

“Away is the result of a new creativity vein that came from the new line up, since 2019, with Francesco on guitar and Federico on bass,” says vocalist Tommaso Santillo. “The different influences from our first EP created a new sound and groove that comes to light on our new album “Away”.

The leitmotif is the hypocrisy of the appearance, about the difference between our real emotions, feelings, beliefs, opinions and what we want or we are forced to show in this “over-ruled” social environment. The artwork expresses the will to escape from this black hole of social rules and regulations towards the inspiriting light of the sun… in one word: “Away”.”

Release: September 3, 2021 – Argonauta Records Formats: CD + Digital.

Tracklist:
1. Stone Rider
2. Pacciani
3. Candyman
4. Monster From The Abyss
5. Mazinga
6. Thiz Iz
7. Hard As A Stone
8. Crown
9. Hurricane
10. The Snake
11. Solar Mantra

Solar Mantra is:
Tommaso Santillo (vocals)
Francesco Carretti (guitar)
Federico “Quattro” Lombardi (bass)
Simone Bianchini (drums)

Solar Mantra on Facebook

Solar Mantra on Instagram

Solar Mantra on Bandcamp

Argonauta Records website

El Perro will release their debut album, Hair Of, early next year on Alive Records. Details on the record are pretty scarce at this point, which is fair since it’s August, but a lead single, “Black Days,” is streaming now, and there are West Coast tour dates already in progress. For those who’ve been keeping up, the band formed in 2019 by Radio Moscow guitarist/vocalist Parker Griggs were all set to head to Europe last Spring to make their debut there, playing alongside the likes of Colour Haze and doing festivals and blah blah pandemic. This is their first tour — and they’re out with Spirit Mother, who are awesome — though they’ve done shows here and there on the way.

I was fortunate enough to hear a few demos from the band and to interview Griggs to talk about starting the project — at that point I was happy just to learn who else was in the band — and the boogie runs deep, the fuzz runs hot and the funk am delic. “Black Days” would seem to represent the different sides of the band well, and if this is a ‘Single Edit,’ one can imagine where they space it out amid the expected classic-style shred.

Info and what may or may not be the Hair Of cover art came down the PR wire:

EL PERRO – debut single available now for streaming everywhere!

Debut album “Hair Of” due early 2022.

EL PERRO is a brand new band led by guitarist/vocalist/songwriter/producer Parker Griggs. The band’s sound contains elements that fans of his band Radio Moscow will recognize, but this is rock music with a new, fresh spin and feel. El Perro takes heavy psychedelic rock as a starting point and adds the additional instrumentation of a second guitar and a percussionist, pushing the music into more syncopated territory, spiced with Latin rhythms and hints of Funkadelic-style grooves. You could say that El Perro plays psychedelic funk rock, and you wouldn’t be wrong.

In late 2019, hungry to do something fresh, Parker Griggs decided to put together a five piece band, with members including former Radio Moscow drummer Lonnie Blanton, bassist Shawn Davis, and guitarist Holland Redd. With the addition of a percussionist the El Perro sound and style coalesced.

EL PERRO USA Summer Tour with Spirit Mother:
• August 10 @ 7th St. Entry — Minneapolis, MN
• August 12 @ Reggies — Chicago, IL
• August 13 @ The Cooperage — Milwaukee, WI
• August 14 @ The Washington — Burlington, IA
• August 15 @ The East Room — Nashville, TN
• August 18 @ The Whittier Bar — Tulsa, OK
• August 19 @ Deep Ellum Art Co. — Dallas, TX
• August 20 @ Eighteen Ten Ojeman — Houston, TX
• August 21 @ The Far Out Lounge & Stage — Austin, TX
• August 24 @ Launchpad — Albuquerque, NM

El Perro is:
Parker Griggs – Guitar/vocals
Holland Redd – Guitar
Shawn Davis – Bass
Lonnie Blanton – Drums
Blake Armstrong – Percussion

https://www.facebook.com/elperrotheband
https://www.facebook.com/AliveNaturalsoundRecords/

El Perro, “Black Days”

El Perro, “The Mould”

[Click play above to stream the premiere of Weeed’s ‘Sun Song’ from Do You Fall? LP. Album is available now to order on LP, CD and tape through Halfshell Records and Six Tonnes de Chair Records.]

Oregonian riffers, jammers and all around weirdos Weeed make a departure with their seventh full-length, Do You Fall?, but that’s pretty consistent. Everything they do is a departure. Mostly for the listener in terms of the Portland five-piece taking you from the place you are to the place they want you to be. They’ve done this through an array of heavy styles over the course of the last however long, relying on an unflinchingly organic underpinning since their days of blowout noise adventures like “Stoned in the Dungeon” from 2013’s Garden of Weeeden debut long-player (recorded in 2008), and transposing that over increasingly progressive and spacious fare on recent outings like 2018’s four-songer This, which could stand a CD reissue, and 2019’s You Are the Sky (review here), while still keeping an experimentalist, sometimes playful edge.

Do You Fall? builds on some of the impulses shown within You Are the Sky in suitably natural fashion. Enough to make one wonder if the sky is falling. And it’s worth noting that Dylan White, who engineered Do You Fall? and mixed alongside the band (Mikey Young mastered), also worked on You Are the Sky. The context, however, has shifted from one release to the next, and though songs like “Anicha” or the later march-groover “Sun Song” have their howls and stretches of heft, which is not to mention the divergence that the 10-minute “Reflection” makes into wailing electrified drone guitar before its final moment brings the band around to repetitions of “We shall reflect…” before they finally reveal “…the creative energy of the sun” in the last line and subsequently move into “Sun Song.”

This record — laced with vocal harmonies from guitarists Gabriel Seaver (acoustic and electric, also lyrics and the percussive qraqeb) and Mitch Fosnaugh (electric, also flute, slide guitar) — is like that all over, the nine tracks flowing and tying together in subtle ways throughout a wholly immersive 48-minute span, that wakes up in jazz-haphazard fashion on “Ontological Register” with the drums of John Goodhue and Evan Franz (both also tambourine, the latter also cover art) more acting out along with the hear-the-pick-on-the-string guitar strums than keeping time before the either looped or looped sounding acoustic foundation of ‘Moment to Moment” takes hold and reveals the hypnosis that is central to Weeed‘s mission here.

The key lines arrive in the 13-minute, multi-movement “Rhythm on the Ground,” teased also at the very end of “Moment to Moment”: “Give your body to the trance/Give your mind up to the dance.”

That is the ethic by which Do You Fall?, and the band — rounded out here by Ian Hartley, who adds clave, congas, shaker and cabasa for further percussion presence — abide, and from the way the waves pick up in “Moment to Moment” and the guitar enters over them, it’s abundantly clear that Weeed are working internally as well as externally. That is, it’s the trance they’re seeking as well as conveying to their audience. Vocals are gentle but richly melodic throughout the album’s entirety, but the pieces that comprise the whole aren’t necessarily reliant on voice to carry their message — though the lyrics do offer clarity as noted with “Rhythm on the Ground” above.

That song follows “Moment to Moment” and is a purposeful landmark complemented later by “Reflection,” these two extended tracks pushing deeper into the immersion so intentional on the part of the band. Percussion fades in at the outset of “Rhythm on the Ground,” a brief introduction that gives way to acoustic guitar, a verse, echoing flute, double-drums, a pilgrimage march, winding jam, electric solo increasing in energy, a build, a cut back to quiet, “Give your body to the trance/Give your mind up to the dance,” a gradual resurgence, percussion in and out again, a mantra-esque urging to “dissolve,” cymbal washes to do that, and an end on “Give your mind up…” before “Anicha” arrives to keep the momentum rolling.

It’s an outright gorgeous procession, and shorter pieces like “Anicha,” the duly-barefoot-sounding acoustic instrumental “Something About Having Your Feet in the River” (listed with all-lowercase stylization on the actual album), “Sun Song” and “Path to Dhamma Kuñja” — the latter named for a meditation center in Onalaska, Washington — offer various residualities to it, as well as to “Reflection,” which comes together around a more prog rock vibe in general, but showcases no less breadth for that. Likewise, “Something About Having Your Feet in the River” seems to answer “Ontological Register” in purpose — maybe opening side B, I don’t know — and the Eastern-tinged inflection of electric guitar in “Path to Dhamma Kuñja” seems to resolve the repetitions of “Anicha” even as it expands on them and heads toward the concluding reprise of “Rhythm on the Ground Pt. 3,” which brings back those essential lines that Weeed seem to have kept at their core all the while.

“Part 3,” it should be said, is not actually the end of “Rhythm on the Ground,” but a selected three-minute snippet of it that lets Do You Fall? conclude at a moment of strumming guitar and flute that feels like it could just as easily take flight as cut to silence in the way it does. This too is an example of the band’s effective world-building here, the manner in which everything they present unfolds not quite as a single song or a single idea, but as an entirety, given a direction but loose in that to find its own way there. Psychedelia, freak folk, acid prog neo-Zendik this or that, whatever stylistic tags one might want to foist on it, Do You Fall? exists within and without these things, finding a wavelength in its own cosmos and residing there peacefully but not at all still. Is the sky falling? Probably, yeah. Do you fall? Sometimes. But maybe for a few minutes that can be alright too. It can all be part of it. Ether and sunshine. It doesn’t have to make sense just to be, right? That’d be okay, right? Just for a few minutes?

Weeed, Do You Fall? (2021)

Weeed on Facebook

Weeed on Instagram

Weeed on Bandcamp

Weeed store

Halfshell Records on Facebook

Halfshell Records on Instagram

Halfshell Records on Bandcamp

Six Tonnes de Chair Records on Facebook

Six Tonnes de Chair Records on Instagram

Six Tonnes de Chair Records on Bandcamp

The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Daniel Palm of Cities of Mars

—

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

Me and my band mates are trying to entertain and tell a story through loud riffs. We’re playing and creating heavy atmospheric music, trying to make sense of a universe full of ideas and influences. We want to do so much but reality in terms of time, family, money or whatever always seems to get in the way.

I’ve been playing heavy music for 25 years and I’ve promoted shows and festivals on and off for 15. Never an expert and always a bit out of my depth I’ve made every mistake possible, before arriving in a state that is more confident but still confused.

Trying to make sense of the music industry seems like a life long struggle. After my former band went on hiatus in 2013 I had a few years without music and it was a disaster. I had to play again and went about getting a concept together, where all the music I wanted to do came together. I had the good fortune to hook up with Chris and Johan and here we are, a tiny blip on the scene radar but with good fun and a few good riffs to our name.

Describe your first musical memory.

I played the trumpet from an early age but since music school only handed us classical music (that I have never liked, not then, not now) it left me spiritually empty. When I was eleven, a school mate introduced me to hard rock and I wished for a Kiss album for Christmas. We had no record player but my parents bought Animalize on cassette, but since no cassette player was to be found in my grandparents house, I want outside through thick snow and played it on our car stereo. From there, it’s always been about riffs and pounding drums. Never could stand Kiss after that though, they are a terrible band that I outgrew within a year. But then came WASP, AC/DC, ZZ Top, Purple, Slayer…

Describe your best musical memory to date.

Hard to pick! It might have been our debut gig at my own Wizard of Fuzz festival in 2015, where I basically had put together a festival so our first show would be a proper one, rather than at Billy-Bobs grill with two people and a dog watching. The festival had 14 bands and we got through our very first gig with some level of success that really gav eus confidence in what we do. But also, all the cool people we’ve met on tour and all the friends that we ’ve made have given us so many memories. Can’t wait to get back to touring!

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

I think over the last few years, my belief that we are evolving as societies and as people has been tested and stretched thin. The rise of fascism in many corners of the world, the anti-vaxx movement, climate deniers, flat-earthers… It seems like we are moving away from reason and facts, that emotion has replaced wisdom and that stupidity just flies better than science. I really thought that scientific knowledge somehow would be the natural thing for society, values and social interactions to follow. Instead we are moving, at least in some parts of the world, towards the movie Idiocracy. I can’t watch that movie anymore, it just isn’t funny because it’s so close to our current mentality.

How do you define success?

In a music context, it’s quite easy. I wanted to create music that I like and play it in front of people who also like it. Our fans aren’t legion, but there are some and that counts for a good sense of success.

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

A few weeks ago, a saw the entire hairy buttcrack of our bricklayer while renovating our old family farm. No one should have to see that.

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

An epic bass line, one that really defines a song, possible for Regular Joes to know in their local music quiz.

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

I would say it’s a valve, to release ideas or concepts that won’t fit into the more static realms. To provide tools and arenas where big or small questions can be asked and to explore into our inner selves…

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

I’m starting a new job in September where I’ll be working with traditional house renovations, with all old school methods and materials and the reuse of old, good quality materials. It’ll be great to combine my passion for old houses with modern circular economy and enthusiastic customers who share those passions.

www.facebook.com/citiesofmars
http://citiesofmars.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/citiesofmars
https://www.facebook.com/theripplemusic/
https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/
http://www.ripple-music.com/

Cities of Mars, The Horologist (2019)

Snare snaps and then you’re immediately swallowed by the fuzz of Bogwife‘s new single. If you’re the type to get a headache or worse from flashing lights, you’ll want to listen to “Celestial Dawn” without necessarily watching the video that’s premiering below — that is, I encourage you to hear the track one way or the other, but I’m not trying to hurt anybody by not giving fair warning — which culls together performance footage of the Danish four-piece as they unfurl the first audio from their upcoming LP, A Passage Divine. Set to release on Sept. 17, their second album overall behind last summer’s Halls of Rebirth (on Psychedelic Salad) reunites the band with producer Jacob Bredahl (HateSphere, Allhelluja, many, many more as performer and producer) and will be Bogwife‘s first offering through Majestic Mountain Records.

The consuming riffage becomes the theme of “Celestial Dawn,” tapping into Witchcult-era Electric Wizard while remaining more clearheaded in its vocal melody, nestling into a nodding groove that is smooth, warm and weighted in kind. Whether you watch the video or put it on switch tabs or apps or whatever, the track is easy to dig and I’m happy to premiere it ahead of A Passage Divine starting preorders.

You’ll find it at the bottom of the post, following the announcement from the PR wire:

A Passage Divine, the brand-new album by Bogwife will be officially released on 17th September

Pre-order the album HERE: https://majesticmountainrecords.bigcartel.com/

Formed in 2018 in the city of Aalborg, Bogwife – named after a mythical, swamp dwelling creature from Scandinavian folklore – is a Danish quartet which experiments with elements of doom, stoner rock and psychedelia to create a mesmerising mist of sound which, much like its namesake, casts a spell over everyone it touches.

Their debut album, Halls of Rebirth, released in July of last year was not only well received across the scene in general, which was no small feat given how little opportunity the band had to play live or test their material out in front of fans. Using that spare time to write new material instead, the band pushed ahead and recorded their second full-length – titled, A Passage Divine – with Jacob Bredahl at Dead Rat Studio in the spring of 2021.

“For us, A Passage Divine is a natural continuation of what we began exploring on our last record, both in terms of our musical development and how we write and compose lyrics,” explains the band. “Lyrically, all the songs revolve around the bog and the significance the bog had mythologically in the Iron Age in Europe. Whereas musically, it all just felt ‘right’ instead of us putting pressure on ourselves to achieve a specific goal or structure.”

A Passage Divine, the brand-new album by Bogwife will be officially released on 17th September through Majestic Mountain Records

Track Listing
1. The Approach
2. Restoration
3. Among the Trees
4. Celestial Dawn
5. Descent

Artist: Bogwife
Album: A Passage Divine
Record Label: Majestic Mountain Records
Formats: CD/Digital/Vinyl
Release Date: 17/09/2021

https://www.facebook.com/Bogwife
https://bogwife.bandcamp.com
https://www.instagram.com/bogwifeband/
http://majesticmountainrecords.bigcartel.com
http://facebook.com/majesticmountainrecords
http://instagram.com/majesticmountainrecords

Bogwife, “Celestial Dawn” video premiere