Posted in Whathaveyou on May 10th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
October feels like a long time away, but so does four o’clock this afternoon, so fair enough for Desertfest Belgium 2022 to make its first lineup announcements for Antwerp (Oct. 14-16) and Ghent (Oct. 30). Am I crazy or should they not add a third one? Maybe Brussels or Liège? Imagine the entire month of October weekends in Belgium, each with its own Desertfest? Not everyone can spend a month touring in a loop around Belgium, but hell, it’s not like they’re short on bands. Do a third, maybe a fourth edition and make it like some kind of October… fest. I bet that’d work. Octoberfest. A totally original idea specifically for this circumstance that I just had right now. You’re welcome.
Looks like the Elder and Pallbearer tour will swing through, and I’ll be interested to see if Gozu are doing any broader touring or are just hitting Antwerp and out — also how that might be timed to their new record currently being tracked — and certainly the Belgium edition of Desertfest is established enough that it’ll probably sell out both these editions without the full lineup announced. Hey guys, if you want me to book DF Liège, just let me know. I’m around.
Meantime, PR wire:
DF 2022 ANTWERP & GHENT: FIRST NAMES! CAVE IN, ELDER, PALLBEARER & MORE
Now that you’ve secured your Early Bird, of course you are dying to find out what’s in store. Or maybe you wanted to wait out this first announcement before shelling over your hard-earned cash?
Whatever may be the case, the wait is over. We are excited to share our first names with you, for both the Antwerp and Ghent edition. A couple of scene stalwarts, as well as some more out-there choices. Here we go!
Confirmed for ANTWERP & GHENT: ELDER and PALLBEARER are two legendary tastes that go very well together. To drive that point home, they will be appearing together at both Desertfest Belgium editions this fall. That’s it, that’s the message – don’t tell us you need to know any more to get your engines revving! But just in case, we’ll throw in IRIST and their unholy mix of metalcore and doom. All of these will be appearing in both Antwerp and Ghent.
Confirmed for ANTWERP ONLY are the illustrious don’t-call-it-post outfit CAVE-IN, and balls-to-the-wall rock band GOZU.
Confirmed for GHENT ONLY we have the Japanese post-screamo legends ENVY, and French apocalyptic doomsayers REGARDE LES HOMMES TOMBER.
Only one more thing left to say: go get your tickets! Reduced Combi formulas are now available, for the separate events as well as one super-duper joint combi-to-rule-them-all:
Here we are in the Spring 2022 Quarterly Review. I have to hope and believe you know what this means by now. It’s been like eight years. To reiterate, 10 reviews a day for this week. I’ve also added next Monday to the mix because there’s just so, so, so much out there right now, so this Quarterly Review will total 60 albums covered. It could easily be more. And more. And more. You get the point.
So while we’re on the edge of this particular volcano, looking down into the molten center of the Quarterly Review itself, I’ll say thanks for reading if you do at any point, and I hope you find something to make doing so worth the effort.
Here we go.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
Spidergawd, VI
Like clockwork, Spidergawd released V (review here), in 2019, and amid the chaos of 2020, they announced they’d have a new record out in 2021 — already the longest pause between LPs of their career — for which they’d be touring. The Norwegian outfit — who aren’t so much saviors of rock as a reminder of why it doesn’t need saving in the first place — at last offer the nine songs and 41 minute straight-ahead drive of VI with their usual aplomb, energizing a classic heavy rock sound and reveling in the glorious hooks of “Prototype Design” and “Running Man” at the outset, throwing shoulders with the sheer swag of “Black Moon Rising,” and keeping the rush going all the way until “Morning Star” hints toward some of their prior psych-prog impulses. They’ve stripped those back here, and on the strength of their songwriting and the shining lights that seem to accompany their performance even on a studio recording, they remain incomparable in working to the high standard of their own setting.
The first Eight Bells full-length for Prophecy Productions, Legacy of Ruin comes six years after their second LP, Landless (review here), and finds founding guitarist/vocalist Melynda Marie Jackson, bassist/guitarist/vocalist Matt Solis, drummer Brian Burke, a host of guests and producer Billy Anderson complicating perceptions of Pacific Northwestern US black metal. Across the six songs and in extended cuts like “The Well” and closer “Premonition,” Eight Bells remind of their readiness to put melodies where others fear tread, and to execute individualized cross-genre breadth that even in the shorter “Torpid Dreamer” remains extreme, whatever else one might call it in terms of style. “The Crone” and other moments remind of Enslaved, but seem to be writing a folklore all their own in that.
Swiss four-piece Blue Rumble bring organically-produced, not-quite-vintage-but-retro-informed heavy psych blues boogie on their self-titled debut full-length, impressing with the sharp edges around which the grooves curve, the channel-spanning, shred-ready solo of the guitars, and the organ that add so much to where vocals might otherwise be. The five-minute stretch alone of second cut “Cosmopolitan Landscape,” which follows the garage urgency of opener “God Knows I Shoulda Been Gone,” runs from a mellow-blues exploration into a psych hypnosis and at last into a classic-prog freakout before, miraculously, returning, and that is by no means the total scope of the album, whether it’s the winding progressions in “Cup o’ Rosie (Just Another Groovy Thing),” the laid back midsection of “Sunset Fire Opal” or the hey-is-that-flute on the shorter pastoral interlude “Linda,” as if naming the song before that “Think for Yourself” wasn’t enough of a Beatles invocation. The strut continues unabated in “The Snake” and the grittier “Hangman,” and closer “Occhio e Croce” (‘eye and cross,” in Italian) shimmers with Mellotron fluidity atop its central build, leaving the raw vitality of the drums to lead into a big rock finish well earned. Heads up, heavy rock and rollers. This is hot shit.
It’s palindrome time on Mainz, Germany’s The Mountain King‘s WolloW. Once the solo-project of guitarist/vocalist/programmer Eric McQueen, the experimentalist band here includes guitarist Frank Grimbarth and guest bassist Jack Cradock — you can really hear that bass on “II In Grium Imus Noctem Aram et Consumimur Igni” (hope you practiced your conjugations) and through five songs, they cross genres from the atmospheric heavygaze-meets-Warning of “I Bongnob” through the blackened crunch of the above-noted second cut to a gloriously dreamy and still morose title-track, and the driving expanse of “V DNA Sand.” Then they do it backwards, as “V DNA Sand” seems to flip halfway through. But they’re also doing it backwards at the same time as forward, so as The Mountain King work back toward album finale “bongnoB I,” what was reversed and what wasn’t has switched and the listener isn’t really sure what’s up or down, where they are or why. This, of course, is exactly the point. Take that, form and structure! Open your mind and let doom in!
Berlin trio Sheev prove adept at skirting the line of outright aggression, and in fact crossing it, while maintaining control over their direction and execution. Mind Conductor is their debut album, and it works well to send signals of its complexity, samples and obscure sounds on “The Workshop” giving over the riffs of immediate impact on “Well Whined.” The channel-spanning guitar pulls on “Saltshifter,” the harmonies in the midsection of “All I Can,” the going-for-it-Danny–Carey-style drums on the penultimate “Baby Huey” (and bonus points for that reference) — all of these and so much more in the nine-song/53-minute span come together fluidly to create a portrait of the band’s depth of approach and the obvious consideration they put into what they do. Closer “Snakegosh” may offer assurance they don’t take themselves too seriously, but even that song’s initial rolling progression can’t help but wind its way through later angularities. It will be interesting to hear the direction they ultimately take over the course of multiple albums, but don’t let that draw focus from what they accomplish on this first one.
Dudes got riffs. From Medford, Oregon, Elk Witch draw more from the sphere of modern heavy rockers like earlier The Sword or Freedom Hawk than the uptempo post-Red Fang party jams for which much of the Pacific Northwest is known, but the groove is a good time just the same. The six tracks of Beyond the Mountain are born out of the trio’s 2021 debut EP — wait for it — The Mountain, but the four songs shared between the two offerings have been re-recorded here, repositioned and sandwiched between opener “Cape Foulweather” and closer “The Plight of Valus,” so the reworking feels consistent from front to back. And anyway, it’s only been a year, so ease up. Some light burl throughout, but the vocals on “Coyote and the Wind’s Daughters” remind me of Chritus in Goatess, so there’s some outright doom at work too, though “Greybeard Arsenal” might take the prize for its shimmering back-half slowdown either way, and “The Plight of Valus” starts out with a seeming wink at Kyuss‘ “El Rodeo,” so nothing is quite so simply traced. Raw, but they’ll continue to figure out where they’re headed, and the converted will nod knowingly. For what it’s worth, I dig it.
If “evocative” is what New Hampshire post-metallic mostly-instrumentalists KYOTY were going for with their third full-length, could they possibly have picked something better to call it than Isolation? It’d be a challenge. And with opener “Quarantine,” songs like “Ventilate,” “Languish,” “Faith,” and “Rift,” “Respite” and closer “A Fog, A Future Like a Place Imagined,” the richly progressive unit working as the two-piece of Nick Filth and Nathaniel Parker Raymond weave poetic aural tapestries crushing and spacious in kind with the existential dread and vague flashes of hope in pandemic reality of the 2020s thus far. Still, they work in impressionist fashion, so that the rumbling crackle of “Onus” and the near-industrial slog of “Respite” represent place and idea while also standing apart as a not-quite-objective observer, the lighter float of the guitar in “Faith” becoming a wash before its resonant drone draws it to a close. At 70 minutes, there’s a lot to say for a band who doesn’t have lyrics, but spoken lines further the sense of verse, and remind of the humanity behind the programming of “Holter” or the especially pummeling “Rift.” An album deep enough you could listen to it for years and hear something new.
Andalusian storytellers Red Eye make it plain from the outset that their ambitions are significant, and the seven songs of their third full-length play out those ambitions across ultra-flowing shifts between serenity and heft, working as more than just volume trades and bringing an atmospheric sprawl that is intended to convey time as well as place. In 46 minutes, they do for doom and various other microgenres — post-metal, some more extreme moments in “Beorg” and the morse-code-inclusive closer “Æsce” — what earlier Opeth did for death metal, adding shifts into unbridled folk melody and sometimes minimalist reach. Clearly meant to be taken in its entirety, The Cycle functions beautifully across its stretch, and the four-piece of guitarist/vocalist Antonio Campos (also lyrics), guitarist/vocalist Pablo Terol, bassist Antonio Muriel and drummer Ángel Arcas, bear weight of tone and history in kind, self-aware that the chants in “Tempel” brim with purpose, but expressive in the before and after such that they wherever they will and make it a joy to follow.
Originally recorded to come out in 2013, what would’ve been/is the Stoned Horses‘ self-titled debut full-length runs 12 tracks and swaps methodologies between instrumentalism and more verse/chorus-minded sludge rock. Riffs lead, in either case, and there’s a sense of worship that goes beyond Black Sabbath as the later “Scorpions Vitus” handily confirms. The semi-eponymous “A Stoned Horse” is memorable for its readiness to shout the hook at you repeatedly, and lest a band called Stoned Horses ever be accused of taking themselves too seriously, “My Horse is Faster Than Your Bike” is a sub-two-minute riffer that recalls late-’90s/early-’00s stoner rock fuckery, before everyone started getting progressive. Not short on charm, there’s plenty of substance behind it in “Le Calumet” like a northern Alabama Thunderpussy or the last cut, “The Legend of the Blue Pig,” which dares a bit more metal. Not groundbreaking, not trying to be, it’s a celebration of the tropes of genre given its own personality. I have nothing more to ask of it except what happened that it sat for nearly a decade without being released.
Antwerpen’s Gnome make it a hell of a lot of fun to trace their path across King, their second full-length, bringing in The Vintage Caravan‘s Óskar Logi early for “Your Empire” and finding a line between energetic, on-the-beat delivery and outright aggression, letting “Ambrosius” set the tone for what follows as they careen though cuts like the instrumental “Antibeast,” the swinging and catchy “Wencelas” and the crunching “Bulls of Bravik.” How do they do it? With the magic of shenanigans! As King (which “Wencelas” was) plays out, the suitably hatted trio get up to high grade nonsense on “Kraken Wanker” before “Stinth Thy Clep” and the 11-minute we-can-do-whatever-we-want-so-let’s-do-that-yes closer “Platypus Platoon” buries its later march amid a stream of ideas that, frankly, kind of sounds like it could just keep going. They are adventurous throughout the eight songs and 42 minutes, but have a solid foundation nonetheless of tone and consciousness, which are what save King from being a mess. It’s a hard balance to strike that they make sound easy.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on February 25th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
A while ago, I was fortunate enough to be asked to sit in for an episode of the Blynd Submyshynz podcast with Jeff Wilson (Kook, etc.) and JD Norton, both very nice guys. It was fun, and true to the name of the show, part of the thing was they played bands I’d never heard before and asked what I thought of them. Fun game. One of the bands they played was Antwerp, Belgium’s Gnome, and I recall digging it pretty well. At very least, I don’t remember talking crap about it, which, listening to a couple of the tracks from the band’s new album, King, is all the more fortunate because it saves me the trouble of having to eat my words. Nothing like efficiency.
“Ambrosius” — which grammatically speaking is the masculine singular form of “ambrosia” if I recall my Latin — is the first audio (or video) to be made public from King, which is set to release on May 6 through esteemed Belgian noise purveyor Polderrecords, and the heavy rock quotient is high compared to some of the label’s noisier fare, but certainly still hits hard enough to get the point across. In following up 2018’s instrumental Father of Time — which was what I heard — the band not only bring in The Vintage Caravan‘s Óskar Logi for a guest spot on the hooky “Your Empire,” but find a balance on “Ambrosius” between largesse of groove and a corresponding initial tension in the guitar, making a spot for themselves and their silly hats that allows them to move fluidly between tempos and some harder-hitting moments, as with the growls later on in the track.
Again, I haven’t heard the full record as yet — the other song I got to sample, “Kraken Bastard,” is instrumental but emphasizes the above-noted shifts just the same — but the video that follows here for “Ambrosius” should be enough to pique interest if your interest is up for piquing. Looks like they’re in a greenhouse or some such, which is fun.
More info on the album follows.
Enjoy:
Gnome, “Ambrosius” official video
“Ambrosius”, the first track taken from Gnome’s upcoming album “King”. Out May 6th, 2022 on Polderrecords.
Music by Gnome – http://www.facebook.com/officialgnomeband/ Recorded & Mixed at Rockstar Recordings by Frank Rotthier – Mastered by Larsson Mastering Video by Rutger Verbist
Gnome packs a bigger punch than their name suggests: combining irresistible hooks and thundering guitars, drums and bass with adventurous twists, they brew their unique and ultimately satisfying potion of stoner, prog and hardrock.
After the success of 2018 debut ‘Father of Time’, which demonstrates their knack for stacking riffs like lego bricks, and having conquered stages across Europe with their shin-kicking live sets, the power trio from Antwerp raise the bar with their majestic second outing ‘King’.
They sound bigger and heavier with more vocals (including special guest Oskar Logi from The Vintage Caravan) but never losing sight of the quest for the golden riff.
‘King’ was recorded with Frank Rotthier at Rockstar Recordings in between lockdowns in the fall of 2020 and will be released by POLDERRECORDS digital, on cd and on vinyl May 6th, 2022.
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 14th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Big update from Desertfest Belgium 2021. After recently unveiling some cancelations and following up with a list of the precautionary measures being taken to deal with happening during a pandemic, the Antwerp and Ghent-based editions of the festival both receive a round of lineup additions. Greece’s 1000mods will take part in both, while the likes of Electric Moon and Stoned Jesus join Ghent, and Monkey3 and Slift and Temple Fang confirmed for Antwerp. I’m not sure ultimately how many acts the two Desertfest Belgiums — Belgii? — will share between them, but with Ghent happening on one day and Antwerp happening across three, there’s bound to be significant variation. Looks like that’s happening here already, and take note of Ohio’s Frayle making the trip for Ghent. Hope they can get out of the US to make it in time, or that the EU hasn’t banned our infectious asses by then.
It’s nice to think about these things every day, isn’t it? Doesn’t it just feel like the way humanity was meant to live? Not at all a drain on one’s entire being.
I digress. Constantly. Here’s info from the PR wire:
DFBE21: A MASSIVE 20 NEW NAMES FOR ANTWERP & GHENT!
1000MODS playing both events, Monkey3, Stoned Jesus & much much more
Strap in folks, because this is going to be a ride.. after all the hassle with COVID and cancels, let’s have some great to even greater news about both festivals shall we? We have a whole slew of names for you and if we may say so ourselves: we’re positively STOKED about all of these. Scene favourites, new and upcoming acts, local gems to discover.. we have it all. Here we go!
First of all: the Greek stoner sensation 1000MODS will be playing Antwerp as well as Ghent. We love ‘em, you love ‘em, their mother loves ‘em – everybody loves ‘em, okay! They need no further introduction so let’s move on to another favourite that will grace the stage in Ghent: STONED JESUS is coming to town, and you all know what that means. Killer grooves and a mighty good time. We’re also extremely excited to have DELVING on board which is the new project of ELDER frontman Nick DiSalvo. This will be one of their first shows after the album dropped in June, and we can already tell you this one’s gonna be something special.
ALL NEW NAMES FOR DF GHENT: 1000MODS, STONED JESUS, DELVING, LILI REFRAIN, ELECTRIC MOON, NERO DI MARTE, HEMELBESTORMER, FRAYLE, IGNATZ, MODDER
Moving on to Antwerp, we’re looking forward to revisit the audiovisual extravaganza of MONKEY3 who completely killed it at our last edition. For more spaced-out craziness, YURI GAGARIN is always a safe choice so let’s go with that. With VILLAGERS OF IOANNINA CITY we have the second Greek band on the bill, with a more leftfield sound but no less essential.
ALL NEW NAMES FOR DF ANTWERP: MONKEY3, VILLAGERS OF IOANNINA CITY, 1000MODS, YURI GAGARIN, SLIFT, ALKERDEEL, ATOMIC VULTURE, TEMPLE FANG, DAILY THOMPSON, BISMUT, FAKE INDIANS.
We still have a few names up our sleeve, but we hope this whopper list goes a long way to get you stoked. Please remember that we have installed a COVID info page on our websites, where you can check what to do in order to come fully prepared to the festival. We’re updating it as we go, and we try to help out our non-EU visitors as well. Make sure to read it to avoid disappointments at the entrance.
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 3rd, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Can’t help but wonder if this isn’t the shape of things to come. Amid loosening regulations in the country, Desertfest Belgium 2021 announces a hopeful list of names for the Antwerp edition of the festival and also unveils that Wolves in the Throne Room — who were bringing Stygian Bough and Blood Incantation along for the trip — have canceled their Fall tour of Europe because, obviously, of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Thinking about what touring looks like in the future, it seems to me that domestic and continental runs are what’s coming back first. Places you can drive to on tour or take a train at most. Travel within the EU, travel within the US, within Asia, Australia.
I know Psycho Las Vegas managed to bring Psychlona across, but there were numerous international cancelations there as well, and seeing Wolves in the Throne Room pull out of their Fall stint makes me think that while regulations in Belgium are opening up (for now, remember; these things are fluid), it’s still so uncertain how the next several months are going to play out. It’s amazing to have no fucking idea about anything. I admire Desertfest Belgium for trying to make a thing happen, genuinely, but I don’t envy them the task.
While I’m opining, I think My Sleeping Karma might be my biggest bucket list band at this point. I’ve been a fan since their first record and I’ve never seen them live. I won’t be traveling to Antwerp to do so either, sorry to say. One day though. They join a slew of awesome acts here.
With hope and well wishes, this from the PR wire:
DF ANTWERP: Kadavar, My Sleeping Karma & more – WITTR cancelled
Summer’s nearly over, and yet it feels like life is only just beginning anew. COVID regulations are loosening up over here in Belgium, so we are looking hopeful towards the future. We’ll give you an update on the exact conditions very shortly.
First however, we have to bear some bad news that is very much still the result of the pandemic. Wolves In The Throne Room are forced to cancel their European fall tour, and in their wake we also have to forego Blood Incantation and Stygian Bough. All three will NOT be performing at either the Antwerp or Ghent editions of the festival.
We’re very sorry, but them’s the breaks in this Foul Year of our Lord 2021.
Fortunately, to make up for the loss we have some killer new additions to the Antwerp line-up as well! We figured you’re all in need of some face-melting unadulterated RAWK, and you know that’s what you get whenever KADAVAR hits the stage. On a more Sabbath-y trip, the same goes for DOPELORD who bring the Dooooooom with no prisoners taken.
Need some more healing vibes? Let the power of MY SLEEPING KARMA wash over you, as they bring back their entrancing instrumental groove after some severely trying times. MOHAMA SAZ hails from Spain, but cooks up a globetrotting psychedelic sound that is impossible to pin down. Total sonic freedom!
Closer to home, we present a new Dutch supergroup by the name of SPLINTER, born out of the ashes of Death Alley and Birth Of Joy. A fresh take on retro sounds, with a glorious Hammond organ sound at the juicy center. And finally, the Belgian black sludge sensation KLUDDE draws from local folklore to spin their evil tales of sorrow and despair.
TAKE NOTE: All of these bands will ONLY perform at the ANTWERP edition, we will complete the GHENT line-up later this month.
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 1st, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Not only something happening again that’s happened before, but also something new! Desertfest Belgium, with all due respect to the delta variant and yet-unforeseen circumstances, will be the first post-pandemic installment of Desertfest to take place, and in addition to announcing the beginnings of its lineup with Motorpsycho, Wolves in the Throne Room, Dool, Blood Incantation and Stygian Bough, they’ve also added a second city. A Ghent date will follow for the first time the three-day event in Antwerp. Desertfest Antwerp is Oct. 15-17, and Desertfest Ghent is Oct. 30. Belgian double-shot, and apparently it’ll be an ongoing thing. Pretty frickin’ cool.
Of course, there’s no guarantee it’s going to happen, but there’s no guarantee it’s not going to happen either, and that’s saying something at this point.
Tickets are available now and there’s more lineup announcements to come. This went to my spam folder for some reason, but rest assured I’ll be looking to sort out any technical kinks in the functioning of the PR wire, rerouting primary EPS conduits through the secondary couplings and so on.
Info:
FIRST NAMES FOR DFBE 2021: MOTORPSYCHO, WITTR & MORE
Tickets for Antwerp & Ghent are now available!
We’re back… bigger and better than ever.
Here’s the news you were waiting to hear: We will have a Desertfest Belgium edition at Trix Antwerpen on 15-16-17 October 2021.
BUT THERE’S MORE! We are adding a new festival edition in another esteemed Belgian club venue: Kunstencentrum Vooruit in Ghent. For this year, this event will be limited to one evening on 30/10, but you can expect a full-blown second festival weekend from 2022 onwards. Most of the lineup will be shared, but of course each venue will bring its own personal touch. We are most hyped for this new chapter in the Belgian DF saga!
As of 2pm CET today, the ticket booths for both our Antwerp & Ghent events are active. Just the sweet memories of past Desertfests should be enough to get your ass over there as we speak, but of course you’re also wondering what we have in store for you.
We have a few first names to share, and all of these will perform on both editions, Antwerp as well as Ghent. First up, we finally have the legendary MOTORPSYCHO headlining Desertfest! They definitely need no further introduction, so let’s move on to a killer two-punch of extreme metal favorites: WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM and BLOOD INCANTATION will bring their progressive take on blackened metal to the DF stage this year. On the slow end of the extreme spectrum, we have STYGIAN BOUGH, the moody folk dirge collab between BELL WITCH and AERIAL RUIN. And finally, from Holland we welcome DOOL and their unique blend of heavy psychedelia and gothic vibes.
If you have any questions about the tickets, get in touch: tickets@desertfest.be.
Of course, due to COVID still not entirely beaten we have a few restrictions and uncertainties to take into account. The lineup will be somewhat reduced, and we’ll probably have a few more local acts than usual. Still, we’re doing our best to make it worth your while, and we’re confident that you will all bring that precious Desertfest vibe that makes our festival the best in town, anytime and anywhere.
We hope this first batch of names gets you all hot and bothered for what’s to come – spread the word and see y’all in October!
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 14th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
The Belgian incarnation of Desertfest has announced that the October 2020 edition of the festival will not take place as previously planned. If you’re alive and reading this, you know why.
This is a bummer on multiple fronts. Those looking forward to some return to normalcy may have had the autumn months as a target date, and certainly many tours have been thusly rescheduled. But losing the Antwerp fest is particularly hard because it’s the first chip lost of a busy season. October in Europe? What does this mean for Up in Smoke? Keep it Low? Høstsabbat? And that’s before you consider the further implications to touring.
Is any of it ever coming back?
What will it look like when it does?
The announcement came down the PR wire:
DESERTFEST ANTWERP 2020 IS CANCELLED
Hello all you friends of Desertfest,
Yes, unfortunately we have little to add to the sad subject title of this mail.
With great pain and sorrow we have to let you know that, after serious consideration, we have decided to cancel the October 2020 edition of Desertfest Belgium.
Rest assured that we have not taken this decision lightly. Over the last few months we have devised several scenarios for October in which a gathering of thousands of rock enthusiasts from around the globe are enjoying a three-day international lineup of bands in an intimate setting. In the end we have come to the conclusion that such a scenario for this year is simply not a realistic option. Please take into account that the organisation of an event like this takes many months and a lot of prior engagements from artists and crew, and even at this point there are too many ifs and buts, too many risks, too much uncertainty.
All of you who already supported us by ordering tickets before even one name was communicated: we salute and thank you, and you will shortly receive a mail with detailedinstructions on how to register for your compensation, either a voucher or a refund.
To end on a brighter note: with this decision out of the way, we can now shift our full focus to thepreparation of a 2021 comeback that will make you all forget 2020 ever happened.. because we have plans and we can’t wait to share them with you. Keep an eye on the socials and our newsletter, news will be forthcoming within the next few weeks.
Thank you all for your understanding and your continued support. Stay safe and stay strong out there!
Horns up, Corona down, The Desertfest Belgium crew
Posted in Reviews on January 9th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
Yesterday was marked by a decisive lack of productivity. I got there, don’t get me wrong, but it took friggin’ forever to make it happen. I’m obviously hoping for a different result today and tomorrow. You would think 10 records is 10 records, but some days it’s easy flowing, bounce from one to the next without any trouble, and some days you’re me sitting there wondering how many times you can get away with using the word “style” in the same post. Punishing. The saving factor was that the music was good. Amazing how often that serves as the saving factor.
Just today and tomorrow left, so let’s dive in. Lots of different kinds of releases today, so keep your ears and mind open.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
We Lost the Sea, Triumph and Disaster
There is plenty of heavy post-rock floating — and I do mean floating — around these days, spreading ethereal and contemplative vibes hither and yon, but none have the emotional weight brought to bear instrumentally by Sydney, Australia’s We Lost the Sea. Across their 65-minute 2LP, Triumph and Disaster (on Translation Loss), the six-piece band recount a wordless narrative of the aftermath of the end of the world through the eyes of a mother and child on their last day. It is a touching and beautiful flow of sentiment, regret and weight that comes through the wash of three guitars and synth, bass and drums, and though 2015’s Departure Songs (review here, discussed here) worked in a similar vein in terms of style if not story, these seven tracks and 65 minutes are wholly distinguished by a willful-seeming progression on the part of the band and a patience and poise of execution as they alternate between longer and shorter pieces that only underscores how special their work truly is. At least the apocalypse is gorgeous.
Nothing against the progenitors of the form, but Nebula Drag seem with Blud to pull off the feat that Helmet never really could, bringing together a noise-rock derived dissonance of riff with a current of melody in the vocals and even moments of patience in the guitar to go along with the crunch of its more aggressive points. This inherently makes the Desert Records offering from the San Diego outfit a less outwardly intense affair than it might otherwise be, but songs like “Always Dying,” “Numb” and the closer “Mental” — as well as the album as a whole — are ultimately richer for it, and there’s still plenty of drive in opener “Dos Lados” and the shorter “Faces” and “What Went Wrong,” which arrive back to back on side B and lend the momentum that carries Nebula Drag through the remainder of the proceedings. It’s easy to hear to Blud superficially and pass it off as noise or heavy rock or this or that, but Nebula Drag earn and reward deeper listens in kind.
Los Angeles oppressive and misanthropic noise project Nothing is Real manifested some of the harshest sounds I heard in 2019 on Only the Wicked are Pure (review here), and the just-months-later follow-up, Pain is Joy, reminds of the constant sensory assault under which we all seem to live. Across five extended tracks of increased production value — still raw, just not as raw — the band seems to be forming a coherent philosophical perspective in “Existence is Pain,” the guest-vocalized “Realms of Madness,” “Life is but a Dream,” “Pain is Joy,” and “We Must Break Free,” but if there’s a will to explain the punishment that is living, there’s not much by way of answer forthcoming in the sludgy riffing, grinding onslaught and surprising solo soar of “We Must Break Free,” instrumental as it is. Still, the fact that Pain is Joy allows for the possibility of joy to exist at all, in any form, ever, distinguishes it from its predecessor, and likewise the clearer sound and cogent expressive purpose. A focused attack suits Nothing is Real. I have the feeling it won’t be long before we find out where it takes the band next.
If the name Oresteia isn’t immediately familiar, maybe “Agamemnon” will give some hint. San Francisco’s Lotus Thief, with their third full-length and second for Prophecy Productions, not only bring together progressive black metal, post-rock and drama-laced doom, but do so across eight-tracks and 38 minutes summarizing a 5th century Greek tragedy written in three parts. Ambitious? Yes. Successful? I’ll claim zero familiarity with the text itself, but for the eight-minute “Libation Bearers” alone — never mind any of the other immersive, beautiful wash the band emits throughout — I’m sure glad they’re engaging with it. Ambient stretches like “Banishment” and “Woe” and the barely-there “Reverence” add further character to the proceedings, but neither are “The Furies,” “Agamemnon,” “Sister in Silence” or subdued-but-tense closer “The Kindly Ones” lacking for atmosphere. Oresteia is grim, theatrical, stylistically forward-thinking and gorgeous. A perfect, perfect, perfect winter record.
Chugging, sprawling, and most of all reaching, the late-2019 debut LP, Our Unworn Limbs, from Ontario as-yet-solo-outfit Uncle Woe — composed, performed and recorded by Rain Fice — is one of marked promise, taking elements of modern progressive and cosmic doom from the likes of YOB‘s subtly angular riffing style and unfolding them across an emotionally resonant but still manageable 43-minute span. The stomp in “That’s How They Get You” is duly oppressive in following the opener “Son of the Queen,” but with the one-minute experiment “When the Night Fell Pt. 2” and jagged but harmonized “Mania for Breaking” ahead of 15-minute closer “Push the Blood Back In,” the record’s tumult and triumphs are presented with character and a welcome feeling of exploration. I would expect over time that the melodic basis and vocal presence Fice demonstrates in “Mania for Breaking” will continue to grow, but both are already significant factors in the success of that song and the album surrounding it, the first 20-plus minutes of which is spent mired in “Son of the Queen” and “That’s How They Get You,” as early proof of the sure controlling hand at the helm of the project. May it continue to be so.
Guitarist/vocalist Alex Wyld, bassist Doug MacKinnon and drummer Lewis May have processed the world around them and translated it into a riffy course of sci-fi and weirdo semi-prog thematics across Absurdum ad Nauseam. What else to call such a thing? At eight songs and 52 minutes, it stands astride the lines between heavy rock and doom and sludge in lengthier pieces like “The Cetacean,” “The Ivory Tower” and the finale “Hypercomputer Part 2,” yet when it comes to picking out discernible influences, one has to result to generalizations like Black Sabbath and Acrimony, the latter in the rolling largesse of “Spice” and “The Myth of Sisyphus” later on in the outing and the vocal effects there particularly, but neither is enough to give a sense of what Cybernetic Witch Cult are actually about in terms of the modernity of their approach and the it’s-okay-we-know-what-we’re-doing-just-trust-us vibe they bring as they rush through “Cromagnonaut” after the intro and “Hypercomputer Part 1.” I’m inclined to just go with it, which should tell you something in itself about the band’s ability to carry their listener through. They earn that trust.
Heavy blues meets heavy metal on Your Highness‘ self-titled and self-released third album, collecting eight tracks that divide evenly across two sides of an LP, each half ending with a longer piece, whether it’s “Black Fever” (9:00) on side A or “Kin’s Blood” (14:14) on side B. Through these, in full-throttle movements like opener “Devil’s Delight” and “Rope as a Gift” and in nestled-in groovers like “The Flood” and “To Wood and Stone,” Your Highness don’t shy away from bringing a sense of atmosphere to their material, but maintain a focus on burl, gruffness and tonal weight, an aggressive undercurrent in a song like “Born Anew” — the riff to which is nonetheless particularly bluesy — being emblematic of the perspective on display throughout. It moves too fleetly to ever be considered entirely sludge, but Your Highness‘ 51-minute span is prone to confrontation just the same, and its ferocious aspects come to a head in satisfying fashion as the wash of crash pays off “Kin’s Blood,” shouts cutting through en route to a finish of acoustic guitar that lands as a reminder to release the breath you’ve been holding the whole time. Heavy stuff? Why yes, it is.
Italy’s fervor for stoner rock is alive and well as represented in Demonic Sunset, the eight-song/34-minute debut full-length from Catanzaro’s Deep Valley Blues. Their sound works out to be more heavy rock than the desert one might imagine given the album cover, but that influence is still there, if beefed up tonally by guitarists Alessandro Morrone and Umberto Arena (the latter also backing vocals), bassist/vocalist Giando Sestito and drummer Giorgio Faini, whose fluid turns between propulsion and swing enable a song like “Dana Skully” to come together in its verse/chorus transitions. The penultimate nine-minute “Tired to Beg For” is an outlier among more straight-ahead songwriting, but they use the time well and close with the acoustic-led “Empire,” an encouraging showcase of sonic breadth to follow up on the start of “Lust Vegas” and a widening of the melodic range that one hopes Deep Valley Blues push further on subsequent releases. Centered around issues of mental health in terms of its lyrics, if somewhat vaguely, Demonic Sunset is a first LP that extends its focus to multiple levels while still keeping its feet on the ground in a way that will be familiar to experienced genre heads.
You can toss a coin as to whether Sky Shadow Obelisk are death-doom or doom-death, but as you do, just keep an eye on the bludgeoning doled out by the solo-project of Rhode Island-based composer Peter Scartabello on his latest EP, The Satyr’s Path, because it is equal parts thorough and ferocious. Flourish of keys and melody adds a progressive edge to the proceedings across the five-track release, particularly in its two instrumentals, the centerpiece “Ouroboros” and the first half of closer “Shadow of Spring,” but amid the harnessed madness of “Chain of Hephaestus” — which from its lyrics I can only think of as a work song — and the one-two of “The Serpent’s Egg” and the title-track early on, those moments of letup carry a tension of mood that even the grand finish in “Shadow of Spring” seems to acknowledge. It’s been since 2015 that Scartabello last offered up a Sky Shadow Obelisk full-length. He shows enough scope here to cover an album’s worth of ground, but on the most basic level, I’d take more if it was on offer.
Following up on a 2015 self-titled the material on Minus Green‘s sophomore album, Equals Zero, would seem to have at least in part been kicking around for a couple years, as the closer here, “Durial” (11:22) was released in a single version in 2016. Fair enough. If the other three cuts, opener “Primal” (9:58), “00” (11:51) and the penultimate “Kames” (10:08), have also been developed over that span, the extra rumination wouldn’t seem to have harmed them at all — they neither feel overthought to a point of staleness nor lack anything in terms of the natural vibe that their style of progressive instrumentalist heavy psychedelia warrants. The procession unfolds as a cleanly-structured LP with two songs per side arranged shorter-into-longer, and their sound is duly immersive to give an impression of exploration underway without being entirely jam-based in their structure. That is, listening to “00,” one gets the feeling it’s headed somewhere, which, fortunately it is. Where it and the record surrounding go ultimately isn’t revolutionary in aesthetic terms, but it is well performed and more than suitable for repeat visits. Contrary to the impression they might seek to give, it amounts to more than nothing.
