Posted in Whathaveyou on March 14th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
I wanna say this will be Early Moods‘ first time embarking on a European tour, but I’m not actually sure that’s true, as they played Desertfest London in 2023. In any case, as the Los Angeles doom metallers continue to support their 2024 album A Sinner’s Past (review here), they’ll be out with Zig Zags and making stops at Freak Valley and Rock in Bourlon. As previously posted, Early Moods also have a Spring tour coming up on the US West Coast, where they’ll be joined by Marylander vintage heavy rockers Magick Potion.
That’s the basics, and whether or not it’s the band’s initial incursion to the continent itself, their going to Europe is good news. I look forward to seeing them at Freak Valley, as it’s been a few years.
From socials, plus that prior-announced Spring tour:
We’re excited to be heading to Europe this June with our labelmates @zigzagsmusic ! This tour will be starting in Denmark and ending in France, we can’t wait to see you all out there and have a good time. Which country will we be seeing you at?
Early Moods European Tour w/ Zig Zags 11/06 COPENHAGEN, DENMARK- STENGADE 12/06 STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN- GERONIMO’S FGT 13/06 GOTHENBURG, SWEDEN- MONUMENT 14/06 AALBORG, DENMARK- STUDENTERHUSET 15/06 OLDENBURG, GERMANY- MTS 17/06 BOCHUM, GERMANY – DIE TROMPETE 18/06 NIJMEGEN, NETHERLANDS – MERLEYN 19/06 GRONINGEN, NETHERLANDS – VERA 20/06 NETPHEN, GERMANY- FREAK VALLEY FESTIVAL 21/06 BERLIN, GERMANY- NEUE ZUKUNFT 22/06 SLAVONICE, CZECH REPUBLIC – BARÁK 23/06 BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA – ZALÁR 24/06 LINZ, AUSTRIA- KAPU 25/06 BASEL, SWITZERLAND – QUARTERDECK 26/06 AARAU, SWITZERLAND – KIFF 27/06 MANIGOD, FRANCE- NAMASS PAMOUSS 28/06 KARLSRUHE, GERMANY – ALTE HACKEREI 29/06 BOURLON, FRANCE- ROCK IN BOURLON
Early Moods West Coast Spring 2025 w/ Magick Potion 4/06 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Aces High 4/08 – Seattle, WA @ Clockout Lounge 4/09 – Vancouver BC @ Wise Hall 4/10 – Bellingham, WA @ Shakedown 4/11 – Portland, OR @ Twilight Cafe 4/12 – Eugene, OR @ John Henry’s 4/15 – Sacramento, CA @ Cafe Colonial 4/16 – Reno, NV @ LoBar Social 4/17 – Oakland, CA @ Stork Club 4/18 – Palmdale, CA @ Transplants Brewing
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 14th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
It hasn’t been that long since Early Moods were last out on the Pacific Coast supporting their 2024 album, A Sinner’s Past (review here), but by the time April comes around, November will have been an eternity ago. The doomly upstarts have begun the shift from opening to headlining, and if their trajectory holds, it would make sense to see them in the years to come with more tours like this one, a quick 10-date regional jaunt supported by an upstart band on their label, RidingEasy Records. The Fall tour, I’ll note, was co-headlining with Castle Rat, and it’s Maryland’s boogie-prone heavy classic rockers Magick Potion playing first on this run, so Early Moods continue to keep good company and find ways to hold onto the momentum they’ve been riding for at least the last three years since they started touring.
Europe in 2025? Almost certainly, as Early Moods have already been confirmed for Freak Valley Festival in Germany this June and will likely have dates around that. Their sound, familiar in its doomly pastiche but energetic and modern in presentation, speaks directly to the doomly converted but has the power to reach across metallic subgenres as well. This has let them become one of the underground’s most hopeful prospects, and if they keep going the way they are, they might elbow their way to the forefront of an up and coming generation of doom that’s barely starting to take shape in their wake. I’d love to find this post again in five years and see what I think. I’ll set a reminder in my phone.
Dates came from Nanotear‘s social media:
West coast we have not forsaken you! Early Moods + Magick Potion are coming…
4/06 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Aces High 4/08 – Seattle, WA @ Clockout Lounge 4/09 – Vancouver BC @ Wise Hall 4/10 – Bellingham, WA @ Shakedown 4/11 – Portland, OR @ Twilight Cafe 4/12 – Eugene, OR @ John Henry’s 4/15 – Sacramento, CA @ Cafe Colonial 4/16 – Reno, NV @ LoBar Social 4/17 – Oakland, CA @ Stork Club 4/18 – Palmdale, CA @ Transplants Brewing
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 9th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
The name of the tour, ‘Realm of Sinners,’ comes from the titles of Early Moods‘ and Castle Rat‘s 2024 albums — A Sinner’s Past (review here) and Enter the Realm (review here), respectively — and the pairing brings together two of next-gen doom metal’s most to-date emergent outfits, each with their own take on classic genre tropes and noted divergences therefrom. Castle Rat aren’t on every show listed below, and it’s not the longest run either band will have to their credit, but screw it, cool bands getting together and playing cool shows. I don’t need to justify posting about that, and if you believe otherwise, listen to the record and be ready to disagree with yourself.
Also note the Nov. 15 show with Acid King, because Acid King. The Early Moods/Castle Rat tour runs into San Francisco for one of two hometown headlining nights Acid King are doing, and both evenings look like bangers. Just saying, should you happen to be in the area or have the resources at your disposal to get there. The tour will start in Vegas on Nov. 5 and go as far north as Seattle before looping back down to finish in Early Moods‘ own homebase, Los Angeles, on Nov. 17. To fill in the spaces between, you’ll find the routing below as booked by Nanotear:
🦇𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐌 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐓𝐎𝐔𝐑🦇
We’ll be hitting the West Coast this November w/ @castle.rat ! Which show will we see you at ?
Tue 11/5 – Las Vegas, NV @ Sinwave * Wed 11/6 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Aces High * Thu 11/7 – Boise, ID @ Shrine Basement * Fri 11/8 – Portland, OR @ Star Theater Sat 11/9 – Seattle, WA @ Clock-Out Lounge * Sun 11/10 – Eugene, OR @ John Henry’s Tue 11/12 – Sacramento, CA @ Café Colonial Wed 11/13 – Reno, NV @ Lo Bar Social (free show) Fri 11/15 – San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel w/ Acid King Sat 11/16 – Oceanside, CA @ Pour House Sun 11/17 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo
Posted in Reviews on March 29th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Part of what has been exciting about L.A. County classic doom metallers Early Moods over the last few years is the potential for how they might develop as a new generation’s spearhead in engaging the style. A Sinner’s Past is their second LP through RidingEasy Records behind 2022’s self-titled debut (review here) and their 2020 debut EP, Spellbound (review here), and it follows suit with their prior work in being in immediate conversation with the doom of yore. Somewhere, swimming a vault of Black Sabbath bootlegs like some doom-riffing Scrooge McDuck, Leif Edling is smiling. Candlemass have been a guiding presence for Early Moods since their outset, but as the five-piece of vocalist Alberto Alcaraz (also keys), guitarists Eddie Andrade and Oscar Hernandez (lead), bassist Elix Feliciano and drummer Chris Flores specifically tap “Samarithan” for the verses of “The Apparition,” even the command and confidence with which they’re doing so comes across as continued progression.
But across its CD-era-vibing 49-minute runtime and eight component tracks, A Sinner’s Past is about more than saluting genre heroes. Early Moods had already begun the process of internalizing root influences like the aforementioned Candlemass and various eras of Sabbath, and in the way the punchy bass and steady nod that begins opening cut “Last Hour” gives over right about halfway into its 5:41 to gallop, swing and shred, they not only foreshadow tempo shifts to come like that in the reaches of the eight-minute “Hell’s Odyssey,” penultimate to closer “Soul Sorcery” on side B, but offer a first look at the grim recesses in which their tones will dwell throughout and the expanded scope and intentions heard throughout in “Unhinged Spirit,” with its acoustic intro leading to a procession that lumbers until it careens, or the harsher vocal moments in “Blood Offerings” and “Walpurguise” calling out to the metal of the 1980s without ignoring the 40 years since.
Relative youth as compared to much of the current sphere of doom is still an advantage Early Moods enjoy, and A Sinner’s Past is still rife with the energy of a young band exploring their sound and style, but they also have a better idea of what they want in both of those than they did two years ago, and that comes through as well as “Blood Offerings” trades the Candlemassian poise for a more dug-in, Pentagram-style shove — at least until the screams come (get it? anybody? no? moving on.) — with all due grit and groove, and the title-track makes even the entry of Flores‘ speedy hi-hat at 4:09 as they transition from the initial plod and dudes-running-in-a-circle mosh through the circa-’75 Iommic solo section and into the chugging build-up to the faster culmination, another solo thrown in for good measure before they cap with the riff. That they would cover that kind of ground on their second album isn’t a huge surprise — they’ve proven at this point able to keep their collective head as songwriters through various changes of mood, tempo and melody within their doomly trajectory; they’re a good band and that’s a thing good bands can do when they want to — but that they’d do it with such clear purpose and still convey an overarching atmosphere through those changes is an aspect of A Sinner’s Past that’s demonstrative of their growth as a unit, and it’s not at all the only one.
The production, helmed by Allen Falcon at Birdcage Studios in Pico Rivera, finds the more cavernous veneer of the first album traded for an in-your-face aural crunch that’s modern in the separation of the instruments but allows a sense of live performance to come through, whether it’s at the dirge pace of “The Apparition,” the midtempo nods of “Unhinged Spirit” and “Walpurguise” or the plod-into-swing of “Soul Sorcery.” While still resonant in their homage to the doom of eld, Early Moods are beginning to cast genre in their image, and the most vital moments of A Sinner’s Past are in the weight of a drag, the coursing tension of their faster movements, and how each plays off the other. They are becoming more dynamic — no doubt the not-minor amount of touring they’ve done in the last year-plus is a piece of this and will continue to be — and stronger for that.
That’s worth appreciating, to be sure, but if your experience of “Hell’s Odyssey” is more about the journey being undertaken and less about how skillfully it retains its impact amid the faster delivery early on — the answer for that, if you’re curious, is the same as nearly always: the bass — and moves into NWOBHM harmonized leads from Andrade and Hernandez before the latter launches into the solo in earnest, I don’t think you’re wrong. Part of the appeal of Early Moods as an emergent revamp of traditionalist doom is the familiar that’s to be found within the new, in aesthetic terms. I don’t think they’ve done their best work as a band yet, but A Sinner’s Past gives more than a few hints of where they’re headed, and the forward potential in their work is no less prevalent for what they’ve achieved in these songs.
You can overthink it if you want — clearly I’m a fan of that approach in any number of contexts — but the material is composed and executed in such a way that, if you want to nod out and let the groove carry you from “Last Hour” to “Soul Sorcery,” there’s nothing in that span that’s going to pull you out of the moment, and for that alone, A Sinner’s Past is a substantial offering. They’ve been on their way to headlining pretty much since the word go, and seem to be motivated toward those ends, toward making an impact on doom and influencing those who inevitably will follow in their wake, but whatever their future might or might not bring, the sense of an idea conceived and realized across A Sinner’s Past is palpable and so is the artistic growth within and around that. If it does turn out to be their most significant contribution to doom — if the band ended tomorrow and cut short all that potential and blah blah blah — you wouldn’t be able to listen to this record and say they didn’t give everything they had to it.
