I hadn’t listened (at least consciously; there’s a lot that comes and goes through my ears in a given day) to Bones of Minerva‘s 2022 Embers album, but if there was one band who didn’t actually play the thing about whom I heard a lot at SonicBlast Fest in Portugal last month, it was this Madrid-based four-piece, whose stylistic gamut runs between ambient drone, crushing sludge and teeth-gnashing ‘core of this or that variety. Melodic when they’re not furious, quiet when they’re not loud, the four-piece would seem to have earned that word-of-mouth, and it’s sounding more and more like I’m about to earn paying eight euro for the download. So it goes.

Lesson learned on my part, I guess. Iberian heavy doesn’t screw around. They’ll play France and Germany for the first time next month, and while I know there’s a good deal of tribalism in the Euro heavy underground — nobody talks about it, but each region has its regionalism — the fact that they’ll be out with Svalbard from the UK should help bring soon-to-be-crunched skulls to the room. For the rest of us, if you can get down with volatility, the Embers stream is down there at the bottom of the post, and now you too get to tell someone you heard about this band from word of mouth. Isn’t it amazing how that works.

From the PR wire:

Bones of Minerva Join Svalbard for German and French Tour Dates

Following their UK tour, including a performance at Bristol’s esteemed ArcTanGent festival, Madrid-based post-rock/metal band Bones of Minerva will be joining the British post-metal outfit Svalbard on their upcoming October tour. The Spanish quartet will be supporting Svalbard during their shows in Germany and France, making their debut appearances in both countries.

States Bones of Minerva:
“We just can’t wait to play these shows with Svalbard. They are an incredible band, and we are so grateful and excited to be joining them on the road.”

Bones of Minerva in Germany & France in October:
10/15: Cologne, DE @Helios 37
10/16: Berlin, DE @Urban Spree
10/17: Dresden, DE @Chemiefabrik
10/18: Neunkirchen, DE @Strummsche Reithalle
10/19: Paris, FR @Backstage By The Mill

Since the release of their sophomore album, EMBERS, last year, Bones of Minerva has been on a busy ride. In June 2023, they performed at Azkena Rock in the Basque Country, sharing the stage with legendary acts like Melvins and Iggy Pop. And recently, after completing their August UK tour successfully, they played an intense gig with fellow Spanish grungy noise rockers Rosy Finch. Additionally, they are lined up for a series of other shows across Europe.

Stream/Download the latest album, EMBERS, on your preferred digital platforms HERE: https://linktr.ee/bonesofminerva
Purchase CD/Vinyl/merch HERE (Store): https://bonesofminerva.com/merch
or HERE (Bandcamp): https://bonesofminerva.bandcamp.com/album/embers

Long-time friends Chloé (bass), Eustaquia (vocals), and Ruth (guitar) started Bones of Minerva in 2013, with Nerea joining on drums in early 2018. Like a chimera, their music is a menagerie of sound: the vocalist Eustaquia shifts from hypnotic melodies to savage growls, pairing introspective lyrics with dreamy landscapes whilst Nerea is a powerhouse of crashing progressive rhythms that pairs with the band’s heavy riffs and swirling basslines to brutal effect.

Their debut, Blue Mountains (2017), was initially self-released, with a reissue through Nooirax and La Rubia Producciones the following year. Two years of nonstop activities saw them play festivals like Download Madrid and Resurrection Fest and dates all over Spain, Sweden, and the UK.

In early 2022, the band announced their signing with Spanish label Aloud Music (Toundra, Viva Belgrado) alongside La Rubia Producciones once more to release their second full-length. A new single, “Swamp,” was released soon after as a 7″ to mark the beginning of this new chapter, and on 16 September of the year, their second album, EMBERS, was released in full.

The band opted for a live recording at Metropol Studios (Madrid) with producer Alex Cappa, a process that has seen the band hone their sound and expand into progressive and post-rock territory on tracks like “Merula or Silence.” EMBERS is a journey that takes the listeners through smoke, across forests and swamps, to the very roots of mother earth herself. It is the remnants of fire ready to surge at any moment as a roaring force.

Track Listing:
01. Forest
02. Swamp
03. Cuna
04. Dream
05. Fuego
06. Merula
07. Claws
08. Silence
09. Flood
10. Madre
11. Hands

https://bonesofminerva.com
https://linktr.ee/bonesofminerva
https://www.facebook.com/bonesofminerva
https://www.instagram.com/bonesofminerva

https://linktr.ee/larubiaproducciones
https://www.larubiaproducciones.com

https://aloudmusic.com

Bones of Minerva, Embers (2022)

Barcelona-based progressive noisemakers Thermic Boogie will release their new EP, Fracture, on Feb. 6. That’s a digital arrival date, and one can’t help but wonder if part of the reason they’re putting the songs out first into the interweb-ether is because the 12″ vinyl edition is being done in partnership with no fewer than six independent record labels. Six! That’s a conglomerate! It’s hard enough to coordinate one band and one label, let alone one band and five. But hey, that’s part of the adventure, and Fracture — so titled no doubt to convey its intentions toward audience expectation — is nothing if not an adventure. Comprised of three tracks — “Coup de Grâce,” “Grey Gardens” and “Ocean” — the EP runs a blunt 18 minutes that largely takes the noise rock elements that factored into the band’s early 2016 debut album, Vastness and Matter (review here), and ups the aggression level while adding vocals to their once-instrumental arsenal.

That’s a significant change both on paper and in the reality of listening to what guitarist Albert Martínez-López and drummer Baptiste Gautier-Lorenzo bring to the material in terms of character. Handled by Gautier-Lorenzo, the vocals are shouts and occasionally harsher takes that add to the aggressive feel of the songs, and while Martínez-López still puts a bit of space in his solo late into the opener, the focus has notably shifted to a crush ‘n’ crunch mentality driven forward with marked precision. Again, this side was there when Thermic Boogie did the album, but as the sharp-edged riffing of “Grey Gardens” takes hold, the two-piece sound like Akimbo or other acolytes of US West Coast noise rock, a biting wah worked into the thrust alongside dips into extremity and ferocious percussiveness and chug. “Ocean” follows the pattern laid out by the first two, but with more sway in the rhythm and nuance to Martínez-López‘s winding guitar, calling to mind earliest Mastodon with a punker mindset, the line between metal and rock and noise and punk blurring until it disappears or, to give another image, bring stomped into oblivion.

All the while — vocals. I won’t pretend to know what’s behind the shift in approach or whether Thermic Boogie are testing the waters for future exploration along the same lines or just trying something for a one-off release, but what they’re doing here works, and especially as the longer two tracks at 7:19 and 6:53, respectively, “Coup de Grâce” and “Ocean” demonstrate that plainly. While “Grey Gardens,” which is just over four minutes, is more intense, and that is a purpose unto itself, “Ocean” in particular shows a noteworthy move into noise as more than just an assault of volume, melody creeping into the guitar in a way that holds promise moving forward. And if Fracture does anything, it’s that. Again, it’s under 20 minutes long — shorter, indeed, than was the track “Quadratonic Magnitude” from the LP — but even more than its brevity, it’s the turn of approach that makes its run more of a sprint than a slog.

Maybe Thermic Boogie will move forward directly from here, or maybe they’ll do something completely different again the next time out. Maybe their next release will be space rock. Who knows? The important thing is Martínez-López and Gautier-Lorenzo have put themselves in a position to be more pointed in their delivery while leaving their audience guessing as to what they might do next. That’s a damn good place to be for a band, and if you’ve got any brains left unmelted after the slamming crash of “Coup de Grâce,” there’s a good chance they’ll be telling you to look forward to finding out where Thermic Boogie end up.

If nothing else, it’s easy to see why they’d want to get the release out as soon as possible. Look for the vinyl on Big Ground Records, Aloud Music, Solo Bongs Records, Woooaaaaargh, The Brave Records and Violence in the Veins, and the digital release at the start of next month. In the meantime, I’m happy to host the premiere of “Ocean” on the player below, followed by more info about the EP.

Please enjoy:

The EP is going to be out soon on 12″ vinyl disc. There are 6 different labels cooperating for this edition:
– Big Ground Records (SP)
– Aloud Music (SP)
– Solo Bongs Records (SP)
– Woooaaaaargh (DE)
– The Brave Records (SP)
– Violence in the veins (SP)

# VINYL #
BGLP001, ALOUD027LP, SLBNGS420, WRG191, TBR30/04-18, VIO28

# CD #
BGCD004

Recorded in December 2017 in Sabadell (Barcelona)
Sound takes and mixes by Baptiste Gautier-Lorenzo
Master audio by Victor Garcia (Ultramarinos)
Photography by Domingo Escidero
Graphic designs by Albert Martinez-Lopez

Thermic Boogie is:
Albert Martinez-Lopez – Kramer guitars and throats
Baptiste Gautier-Lorenzo – Ludwig drums and throats

Thermic Boogie on Thee Facebooks

Thermic Boogie on Bandcamp

Big Ground Records webstore

Aloud Music webstore

Solo Bongs Records on Bandcamp

Wooaaargh webstore

The Brave Records webstore

Violence in the Veins on Bandcamp