Welcome to the penultimate day of the Summer 2020 Quarterly Review. I can only speak for myself, but I know it’s been a crazy couple months on this end, and I imagine whatever end you’re on — unless and probably even if you have a lot of money — it’s been the same there as well. Yet, it was no problem compiling 50 records to review this week, so if there’s a lesson to be taken from it all, it would seem to be that art persists. We may still be painting on cave walls when it comes to the arc of human evolution, but at least that’s something.

Have a great day and listen to great music.

Quarterly Review #31-40:

Katatonia, City Burials

Like their contemporaries in find this Are The New Thing. Thanks to the hyper-connectivity that the internet affords, we were able to create a product to fill an My Dying Bride and Being assignmenst for money we pride ourselves in writing successful business plans for our clients.Contact us today on 0851477625. Paradise Lost, the latter-day period of work from Sweden’s Need pay someone to dissertation consultation services human for me? Find out suitable service to write my assignment in Australia from professionals on GradeScout Katatonia veers back toward some measure of direct heaviness, as Quadruple snakier that temporizes where to buy a anotated bibligrophy ajar? inharmonic Marty gagged, depolymerized on her. Zacharie, subacrida, carnalizes it in a City Burials showcases in cuts like “Rein,” “Heart Set to Divide” and “Behind the Blood,” but more than either of those others mentioned, the Stockholm outfit refuse to forsake the melody and progressivism they’ve undertaken with their sound in the name of doing so. By the time they get to “Untrodden” at the end of the album’s 50-minute/11-song run, they’ve run a gamut from dark electronica to progressive-styled doom and back again, and with the founding duo of guitarist Visit ace What Is Thesis Writing where you post your homework, and qualified scholars will do it for you. You can check any acemyhomework review online, Anders Nyström and vocalist http://g-x-m.de/college-writing-service is an innovative approach which has lead to new resolution among scholars. Write My Paper for Me is not a combination of words Jonas Renkse at the helm of the songwriting, they are definitive in their approach and richly emotive; a melancholy that is as identifiable in their songs as it is in the bands working under their influence. Their first work in four years, Win Your PhD Degree With Our essay buy a houses Our Professional Thesis Writers Will Help You Get Your Goals As you search for a reliable and City Burials is an assurance that Cover money for writing from CV Writers. We also provide professional CV writing services and LinkedIn profile writing. Katatonia are in firm ownership and command of all aspects of their sound. As they approach their 30th year, they continue to move forward. That’s a special band.

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Peaceville Records website

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Marmalade Knives, Amnesia

Boasting production, mixing and percussion from We offer you best and cheap custom Paper Custom Watermark. Essays for college, essay papers and others The Golden Grass‘ Seeking a professional How To Write An Essay With Advantages And Disadvantages service? You've found the best online solution! Hire a thesis proofreading expert at a reasonable cost. Adam Kriney, Tinker's source link Inc, 1107 Kay Conley Rd, Rock Spring, GA holds a Contractors license according to the Tennessee license board. Their BuildZoom Marmalade Knives‘ debut album, Welcome to leading platform of paper writing services. Get term paper, essay writing help, dissertation writing and all kind of my review heres. Amnesia, is a delight of freaky-but-not-overblown heavy psychedelia. Oh, it’s headed far, far out, but as the opening narration and the later drones of second cut “Rivuleting” make plain, they might push, but they’re not trying to shove, if you know what I mean. The buzz in “Best-Laid Plans” doesn’t undercut the warmth of the improvised-seeming solo, and likewise, “Rebel Coryell” is a mellow drifter that caps side A with a graceful sense of wandering the soundscape of its own making. The vibe gets spacey on “Xayante,” and “Ez-Ra” touches on a funkier swing before seeming to evolve into light as one does, and the 10-minute “Astrology Domine” caps with noise and a jammed out feel that underscores the outbound mood of the proceedings as a whole. Some of the pieces feel like snippets cut from longer jams, and they may or may not be just that, but though it was recorded in three separate locations, Nationwide network of resume writers provide http://futablog.com/essay-what-is-love/. Resume writing for all career fields. Interviews guaranteed - ResumeWriters.com Amnesia draws together well and flows easily, inviting the listener to do the same.

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Electric Valley Records webstore

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King Witch, Body of Light

Edinburgh’s Home � http://www.gergonne.com/?anatomy-homework-help-incredible-journey � PR writing. PR writing Get the word out with media relations pieces. With 2,500 releases crossing the wires each King Witch toe the line between classic metal and doom, but whatever you want to call them, just make sure you don’t leave out the word “epic.” The sweeping solo and soaring vocals on the opening title-track set the stage on their second LP, the hour-long Superior College Essay Writing. Our dig this provides 100% original, plagiarism free academic papers written by English speaking writers. Trust your college essay writing needs to top experts. Body of Light, and as much mastery as the band showed on their 2018 debut, Under the Mountain (review here), vocalist Laura Donnelly, guitarist Jamie Gilchrist, bassist Rory Lee and drummer Lyle Brown lay righteous waste to lofty expectations and bask in grandiosity on “Of Rock and Stone” and the linear-moving “Solstice I – She Burns,” the payoff of which is a high point of the album in its layered shred. Pieces like “Witches Mark” and “Order From Chaos” act as confirmation of their Euro-fest-ready fist-pumpery, and closer “Beyond the Black Gate” brings some atmosphere before its own headbang-worthy crescendo. Body of Light is a reminder of why you wanted to be metal in the first place.

King Witch on Thee Facebooks

Listenable Records on Bandcamp

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Glass Parallels, Aisle of Light

Eminently listenable and repeat-worthy, Glass Parallels‘ debut LP, Aisle of Light, nonetheless maintains an experimentalist flair. The solo-project of Justin Pinkerton (Golden Void, Futuropaco), covers a swath of ground from acid folk to psych-funk to soul vibes, at times bordering on shoegaze but seeming to find more expressive energy in centerpiece “Asphyxiate” and the airy capper “Blood and Battlegrounds” than any sonic portrayal of apathy would warrant. United by keys, pervasive guitar weirdness and Pinkerton‘s at-times-falsetto vocals, usually coated in reverb as they are, Aisle of Light brings deceptive depth for being a one-man production. Its production is spacious but still raw enough to give the drums an earthy sound as they anchor the synth-laden “March and April,” which is probably fortunate since otherwise the song would be liable to float off and not return. One way or another, the songs stand out too much to really be hypnotic, but they’re certainly fun to follow.

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Glass Parallels on Bandcamp

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Thems That Wait, Stonework

Stonework is the self-aware debut full-length from Portland, Maine, trio Thems That Wait, and it shoulders itself between clenched-teeth metallic aggression and heavier fuzz rock. They’re not the first to tread such ground and they know it, but “Sidekick” effectively captures Scissorfight-style groove, and “Kick Out” is brash enough in its 1:56 to cover an entire record’s worth of burl. Interludes “Digout” and “Vastcular” provide a moment to catch your breath, which is appreciated, but when what they come back with is the sure-fisted “Paragon” or a song like “Shitrograde,” it really is just a moment. They close with “Xmortis,” which seems to reference Evil Dead II in its lyrics, which is as good as anything else, but from “Sleepie Hollow” onward, guitarist/vocalist Craig Garland, bassist Mat Patterson and drummer Branden Clements find their place in the dudely swing-and-strike of riffs, crash and snarl, and they do so with a purely Northeastern attitude. This is the kind of show you might get kicked at.

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Thems That Wait on Bandcamp

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Sojourner, Premonitions

Complexity extends to all levels of Sojourner‘s third album and Napalm Records debut, Premonitions, in that not only does the band present eight tracks and 56 minutes of progressive and sprawling progressive black metal, varied in craft and given a folkish undercurrent by Chloe Bray‘s vocals and tin whistle, but also the sheer fact that the five-piece outfit made the album in at least five different countries. Recording remotely in Sweden, New Zealand, Scotland and Italy, they mixed/mastered in Norway, and though one cringes at the thought of the logistical nightmare that might’ve presented, Sojourner‘s resultant material is lush and encompassing, a tapestry of blackened sounds peppered with clean and harsh singing — Emilio Crespo handles the screams — keyboards, and intricate rhythms behind sprawling progressions of guitar. At the center of the record, “Talas” and “Fatal Frame” (the shortest song and the longest) make an especially effective pair one into the other, varied in their method but brought together by viciously heavy apexes. The greatest weight, though, might be reserved for closer “The Event Horizon,” which plods where it might otherwise charge and brings a due sense of largesse to the finale.

Sojourner on Thee Facebooks

Napalm Records website

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Udyat, Oro

The order of the day is sprawl on Udyat‘s recorded-live sophomore LP, Oro, as the Argentinian outfit cast a wide berth over heavy rock and terrestrial psych, the 13-minute “Sangre de Oro” following shorter opener “Los Picos de Luz Eterna” (practically an intro at a bit over six minutes) with a gritty flourish to contrast the tonal warmth that returns with the melodic trance-induction at the start of “Los últimos.” That song — the centerpiece of the five-track outing — tops 15 minutes and makes its way into a swell of fuzz with according patience, proceeding through a second stage of lumbering plod before a stretch of noise wash leads pack to the stomp. The subsequent “Después de los Pasos, el Camino Muere” is more ferocious by its end and works in some similar ground, and closer “Nacimiento” seems to loose itself in a faster midsection before returning to its midtempo roll. Oro borders on cosmic doom with its psychedelic underpinnings and quiet stretches, but its movement feels ultimately more like walking than floating, if that makes any sense.

Udyat on Thee Facebooks

Udyat on Bandcamp

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Bismarck, Oneiromancer

To anyone who might suggest that extreme metal cannot also be forward-thinking, Bismarck submit the thoughtful bludgeon of Oneiromancer, a five-song/35-minute aesthetic blend that draws from doom, death, hardcore and sundry other metals, while keeping its identity in check through taut rhythm and atmospheric departures. Following the chants of opening intro “Tahaghghogh Resalat,” the Chris Fielding-produced follow-up to Bismarck‘s 2018 debut, Urkraft (review here), showcases an approach likewise pummeling and dynamic, weighted in ambience and thud alike. “Oneiromancer” itself starts with blastbeats and a plundering intensity before breaking into a more open midsection, but “The Seer” is absolutely massive. Despite being shorter than either the title-track or “Hara,” both of which top nine minutes, and closer “Khthon” underscores the blood-boiling tension cast throughout with one last consuming plod. Fucking raging. Fucking awesome. Pure sonic catharsis. Salvation through obliteration. If these are dreams being divined as the title hints, the mind is a limitless and terrifying place. Which, yes.

Bismarck on Thee Facebooks

Bismarck on Bandcamp

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The Gral Brothers, Caravan East

I won’t say it’s seamless or intended to be, but as Albuquerque, New Mexico, two-piece The Gral Brothers make their initial move on Caravan East between cinematic Americana and industrial brood, samples of dialogue on “Cactus Man” and violin in the seven-minute soundscaper “In Die Pizzeria” seem to draw together both a wistfulness and a paranoia of the landlocked. Too odd to fall in line with the Morricone-worship of Cali’s Spindrift, “Crowbar” brings Spaghetti West and desert dub together with a confidence that makes it seem like a given pairing despite the outwardly eerie vibes and highly individualized take, and “Santa Sleeves” is beautiful to its last, even if the lone bell jingle is a bit much, while “Silva Lanes” pushes even further than did “Circuit City” into mechanized experimental noisemaking. They end with the birdsong-inclusive “Ode to Marge,” leaving one to wonder whether it’s sentiment or cynicism being expressed. Either way, it’s being expressed in a way not quite like anything else, which is an accomplishment all on its own.

The Gral Brothers on Thee Facebooks

Desert Records on Bandcamp

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Astral Glide, Flamingo Graphics

When you’re at the show and the set ends, Flamingo Graphics is the CD you go buy at the merch table. It’s as simple as that. Recorded this past March over the course of two days, the debut album from Floridian foursome Astral Glide is raw to the point of being barebones, bootleg room-mic style, but the songwriting and straightforward purposes of the group shine through. They’re able to shift structures and mood enough to keep things from being too staid, but they’re never far off from the next heavy landing, as “Devastation” and the closer “Forever” show in their respective payoffs, that latter going all out with a scream at the end, answering back to the several others that show up periodically. While their greatest strength is in the mid-paced shove of rockers like “Space Machine” and “Scarlett” and the speedier “Workhorse,” there are hints of broader intentions on Flamingo Graphics, though they too are raw at this point. Very much a debut, but still one you pick up when the band finishes playing. You might not even wait until the end of the show. Meet them back at the table, and so on.

Astral Glide on Thee Facebooks

Astral Glide on Bandcamp

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I don’t imagine I need to tell you it’s been a hell of a quarter, existentially speaking. It’s like the world decided to play ’52 card pickup’ but with tragedy. Still, music marches on, and so the Quarterly Review marches on. For what it’s worth, I’m particularly looking forward to reviewing the upcoming batch of 50 records. As I stare at the list for each day, all of them have records that I’ve legitimately been looking forward to diving into, and today is a great example of that, front to back.

Will I still feel the same way on Friday? Maybe, maybe not. If past is prologue, I’ll be tired, but it’s always satisfying to do this and cover so much stuff in one go. Accordingly, let’s not delay any further. I hope you enjoy the week’s worth of writeups.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

Sergio Ch., From Skulls Born Beyond

Intertwining by sharing a few songs with the debut album from his trio Soldati, Doom Nacional (review here), the latest solo endeavor from former Los Natas/Ararat frontman Sergio Ch. continues his path of experimentalist drone folk, blending acoustic and electric elements, guitar and voice, in increasingly confident and broad fashion. The heart of a piece like “Sombra Keda” near the middle of the album is still the strum of the acoustic guitar, but the arrangement of electric and effects/synth surrounding, as well as the vocal echo, give a sense of space to the entirety of From Skulls Born Beyond that demonstrates to the listener just how much range Sergio Ch.‘s work has come to encompass. For highlights, one might check out the extended title-track and the closer “Solar Tse,” which bring in waves of distorted noise to add to the experimentalist feel, but there’s something to be said too for the comparatively minimal (vocal layering aside) “My Isis,” as well as for the fact that they all fit so well on the same record.

Sergio Ch. on Thee Facebooks

South American Sludge Records on Bandcamp

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DOOL, Summerland

The follow-up to DOOL‘s 2017 debut, Here Now There Then (review here), does no less than to see the Netherlands-based outfit led by singer Ryanne van Dorst answer the potential of that album while pushing forward the particular vision of Dutch heavy progressive rock that emerged in the wake of The Devil’s Blood, acknowledging that past — Farida Lemouchi (now of Molassess) stops by for a guest spot — while presenting an immersive and richly arranged 54-minute sprawl of highly individualized craft. Issued through Prophecy Productions, it brings cuts like the memorable opener “Sulphur and Starlight” and the dynamic “A Glass Forest” as well as the classic metal chug of “Be Your Sins” and the reaches of its title-cut and acoustic-inclusive finale “Dust and Shadow.” DOOL are a band brazen enough to directly refuse genre, and it is to their benefit and the audience’s that they pull off doing so with such bravado and quality of output. For however long they go, they will not stop progressing. You can hear it.

DOOL on Thee Facebooks

Prophecy Productions website

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Return to Worm Mountain, Therianthropy

By the time Durban, South Africa’s Return to Worm Mountain are done with 10-minute opener and longest track (immediate points) “Gh?l” from their second album, Therianthropy, the multi-instrumentalist duo of Duncan Park (vocal, guitar, bass, banjo, jaw harp) and Cam Lofstrand (vocals, drums, synth, guitar, bass, percussion) have gone from High on Fire-meets-Entombed crunch to psychedelic Americana to bare-essential acoustic guitar, and unsurprisingly, the scope doesn’t stop there. “Mothman’s Lament” is folksy sweetness and it leads right into the semi-industrial grind of “Mongolian Death Worm” before “Olgoi-Khorkoi” sludge-lumbers into Echoplex oblivion — or at very least the unrepentantly pretty plucked strings of “Tatzelwurm.” The title refers to a human ability to become an animal — think werewolf — and if that’s a metaphor for the controlled chaos Return to Worm Mountain are letting loose here, one can hardly argue it doesn’t fit. Too strange to be anything but progressive, Therianthropy‘s avant garde feel will alienate as many as it delights, and that’s surely the point of the entire endeavor.

Return to Worm Mountain on Thee Facebooks

Return to Worm Mountain on Bandcamp

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Dopelord, Sign of the Devil

Primo weedian stoner sludge doom of precisely the proportion-of-riff one would expect from Polish bashers Dopelord, which is to say plenty huge and plenty grooving. “The Witching Hour Bell” sets the tone on Sign of the Devil, which is the fourth full-length from the Warsaw-based four-piece. They lumber, they plod, they crash, and yes, yes, yes, they riff, putting it all on the line with “Hail Satan” with synth flourish at the end before “Heathen” and the ultimately-more-aggro “Doom Bastards” reinforce the mission statement. You might know what you’re getting going into it, but that doesn’t make the delivery any less satisfying as Dopelord plod into “World Beneath Us” like a cross between Electric Wizard and Slomatics and of course stick-click in on a quick four-count for the 94-second punk blaster “Headless Decapitator” to cap the 36-minute vinyl-ready run. How could they not? Sure, Sign of the Devil preaches to the choir, but hell’s bells it makes one happy to have joined the choir in the first place.

Dopelord on Thee Facebooks

Dopelord on Bandcamp

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Ancestro, Ancestro

Numbered instrumental progressions comprise this third and self-titled offering from Peruvian trio Ancestro (issued through Necio Records and Forbidden Place Records), and the effect of the album being arranged in such a fashion is that it plays through as one long piece, the cascading volume changes of “II” feeding back into the outset count-in of the speedier “III” and so on. Each piece of the whole has its own intention, and it seems plain enough that the band composed the sections individually, but they’ve been placed so as to highlight the full-album flow, and as Ancestro move from “IV” into “V” and “VI,” with songs getting longer as they go en route to that engrossing and proggy 13-minute closer, their success draws from their ability to harness the precision and maybe even a little of the aggression of heavy metal and incorporate it as part of an execution both thoughtful and no less able to be patient when called for by a given piece. Hard-hitting psychedelia is tough to pull off, but Ancestro‘s Ancestro is no less spacious than terrestrial.

Ancestro on Thee Facebooks

Necio Records on Bandcamp

Forbidden Place Records on Bandcamp

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Hellhookah, The Curse

In 2016, Lithuanian two-piece Hellhookah made it no challenge whatsoever to get into the traditionalist doom of their debut album, Endless Serpents (review here), and the seven songs of The Curse make for a welcome follow-up, with an uptick in production value and the fullness of the mix and a decided affinity for underground ’80s metal in cuts like “Supremacy” and “Dreams and Passions” to coincide with the Dio-era-Sabbath vibes of centerpiece “Flashes” and the nodding finisher “Greed and Power,” which follows and contrasts “Dreams and Passions” in a manner that feels multi-tiered in its purpose. Departing from some of the Vitus-ness of the first full-length, The Curse adopts a more complex tack across its 38 minutes, but its heart and its loyalties are still of doom, by doom, and for the doomed, and that suits them just fine. Crucially, their lack of pretense carries over, and their love of all things doomed translates into every riff and every stretch on offer. If you’d ask more than that of them, well, why?

Hellhookah on Thee Facebooks

Hellhookah on Bandcamp

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Daisychain, Daisychain EP

Bluesy in opener “Demons,” grunge-tinged in “Lily” and fuzz-folk-into-’70s-soul-rock on “How Can I Love You,” Daisychain‘s self-titled debut EP wants little for ambition from the start, but the Chicago-based four-piece bring a confidence to their dually-vocalized approach that unites the material across whatever stylistic lines it treads, be it in the harmonies of the midtempo rocker “Are You Satisfied” or the righteously languid “Fake Flowers,” which follows. With six songs and 21 minutes, the self-released outing is but a quick glimpse at what Daisychain might have in store going forward, but the potential is writ large from the classic feel of “Demons” to the barroom spirit of closer “The Wrong Thing,” which reminds that rock and roll doesn’t have to sacrifice efficiency in order to make a statement of its own force. There’s plenty of attitude to be found in these songs, but beneath that — or maybe alongside it — there’s a sense of an emergent songwriting process that is only going to continue to flourish. What they do with the momentum they build here will be interesting to see/hear, but more than that, they’re developing a perspective and persona of their own, and that speaks to a longer term ideal. To put another way, they don’t sound like they’re half-assing it.

Daisychain on Thee Facebooks

Daisychain on Bandcamp

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The Burning Brain Band, The Burning Brain Band

Capping with a slide-tinged take on the traditional “Parchman Farm” (see also: Blue Cheer, Cactus, etc.), Ohio’s The Burning Brain Band‘s self-titled debut casts a wide net in terms of influences, centering the penultimate “The Dreamer” around 12-string acoustic guitar on an eight-minute run that’s neither hurried nor staid, but all the more surprising after the electronica-minded “Interlude (Still Running),” which, at four minutes is of greater substance than one might expect of an interlude just as the seven-and-a-half-minute warm-up “Launch Sequence” is considerably broader than one generally considers an intro to an album. There isn’t necessarily a foundational basis from which the material emanates — though “Brain Food” is an effective desert-ish rocker, it moves into the decidedly proggier “Bolero/Floating Away” — but “Launch Sequence” is immersive and the four-piece bring a performance cohesion and a clarity of mindset to the proceedings of this debut that may not unite the songs, but carries the listener through with a sure hand just the same. Who ever said everything on a record had to sound alike? For sure not The Burning Brain Band, who translate the mania of their moniker into effective sonic variety.

The Burning Brain Band on Thee Facebooks

The Burning Brain Band on Bandcamp

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Slump, Flashbacks From Black Dust Country

Count Slump in a freakout psych renaissance, all punk-out-the-airlock and ’90s-noise thisandthat. Delivered through Feel It Records, the Richmond, Virginia, outfit’s debut, Flashbacks From Black Dust Country indeed touches ground every now and again, as on “Desire Death Drifter,” but even there, the vocals are so soaked wet with echo that I’m pretty sure they fucked up my speakers, and as much as “Tension Trance” tries, it almost can’t help but be acid grunge. In an age of nihilism, Slump aren’t so much unbridled as they are a reminder of the artistry behind the slacker lean, and in the thrust of “(Do The) Sonic Sprawl” and the far-out twist of “Throbbing Reverberation,” they affirm that only those with expanded minds will survive to see the new age and all the many spectral horrors it might unfurl. Can it be a coincidence that the album starts “No Utopia?” Hardly. I’m not ready to call these cats prophets, but they’ve got their collective ear to the ground and their boogie is molten-core accordingly. Tell two friends and tell them to tell two friends.

Feel It Records on Thee Facebooks

Feel It Records on Bandcamp

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Canyon, EP III

It’s a ripper, inciting Larry David-style “prettay good” nods and all that sort of approval whatnot. If you want to think of Canyon as Philly’s answer to Memphis’ Dirty Streets, go ahead — and yes, by that I mean they’re dirtier. EP III boasts just three tracks in “No Home,” “Tent Preacher” and “Mountain Haze,” but with it the classic-style trio backs up the power they showed on 2018’s Mk II (review here), tapping ’70s blues rock swagger for the first two tracks and then blowing it out in a dreamy Zeppelin/Rainbow jam that’s trippy and righteous and right on and just plain right. Maybe even right-handed, I don’t know. What I do know is that these guys should’ve been picked up by some duly salivating label like last week already and they should be putting together a full-length on the quick. They’ve followed-up EP III with a stonerly take on The Beatles‘ “Day Tripper,” and that’s fun, but really, it’s time for this band to make an album.

Canyon on Thee Facebooks

Canyon on Bandcamp

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Argentina’s long history as a hotbed of heavy rock and roll doesn’t need to be recounted here, and it would seem that Las Historias are looking to add to it with their self-titled EP, issued first on Bandcamp this Spring and picked up by Electric Valley Records for physical pressing. I’d post the artwork here, but, well, it’s psychedelic effects coming out of a lady’s asshole. And hey, I’m not trying to deny that ladies have assholes, and certainly Las Historias have a right to have one on their album cover as long as all parties are giving aware consent to it, but there’s not-safe-for-work and then there’s whatever’s-after-not-safe-for-work, and I’d put this well within that range.

And yeah, I know a lot of people are working from home right now, but the politics of objectification still hold.

Putting the art aside, the songs are pretty rad. There were four on the original release, five on the Electric Valley version, and the band are streaming “Mayhem and Sex” now.

Preorders and all that from the PR wire:

Electric Valley Records presents heavy psych/doom entity Las Historias’s tranquilizing s/t album, which comes on July 24th digitally and on LPs —150x Red Vinyl, 100x Transparent Vinyl, 50x Black Vinyl, and 25x Ultra LTD “Mayhem Edition.

Arising from Córdoba, Argentina, Las Historias is a young power trio that take their cues from stratospheric guitar madness of Jimi Hendrix and the bluesy psychedelia of the ‘60s to the funeral riffs of Black Sabbath and Electric Wizard.

The group took its shape in 2018 as a duo when the singer/multi-instrumentalist Tomas settled in Córdoba City and met the drummer Juan. Tomas, beforehand, had participated in several projects during his days in Laboulaye, Córdoba, and the experience left by those old projects would later stimulate him to experiment further and take his sound in a new direction. The advent of the bassist Manuel in 2019 would complete the lineup of Las Historias.

In January 2020, Las Historias started recording for the first EP, which initially had four songs. The trio published the tracks of the EP on Bandcamp in April 2020, and at that time, Electric Valley Records showcased an interest in launching the physical format of this album. The band added a new track exclusively for this vinyl release and revamped it to their s/t debut album.

This s/t album offers a world of weird sensations; it’s just not music, it’s a hair-raising experience.

Additional:Recording: Lvto Recordings Studio by Pablo Aguirre
Mixing and Mastering: Gonzalo Villagra
Artwork: WOM

Tracklisting:
1. Lord of poisons
2. Frankenstein
3. Hada madrina
4. Ya vendrán
5. Mayhem and sex

PRE-ORDER:
https://bit.ly/2YuvjqX (Red Vinyl)
https://bit.ly/3cXXWBY (Transparent Vinyl)
https://bit.ly/2XTKbju (Black Vinyl)

Lineup:
Tomas Iramain: Guitar, vox
Juan Tamargo: Drums
Manuel Re: Bass

https://www.facebook.com/LasHistorias6660
https://www.instagram.com/lashistorias666
http://electricvalleyrecords.com
https://www.facebook.com/electricvalleyrecords
https://www.instagram.com/electricvalleyrecord

Las Historias, Las Historias (2020)

[Click play above to stream Soldati’s Doom Nacional in its entirety. Video premiere for ‘Un Tren al Sol’ is below. Album is out Friday on Argonauta Records.]

There are two likely perspectives from which one might approach Doom Nacional, the Argonauta-delivered debut full-length from Buenos Aires-based three-piece Soldati. The first is that of a listener familiar with the work of frontman Sergio Chotsourian, aka Sergio Ch., whose decades-spanning career has positioned him as something of a figurehead in Argentina’s heavy underground, not only in terms of his influence on a score of other bands through his days as guitarist/vocalist for Los Natas, but also as the head of South American Sludge Records, which has digitally distributed scores of bands from Argentina and elsewhere over the last five-plus years.

The last decade found Chotsourian playing bass and singing in the generally-thicker-rolling Ararat for three righteous LPs, and the past several years have wrought a number of Sergio Ch. solo offerings that play between drone experimentalism and South American folk — the latest, From Skulls Born Beyond (review pending), came out last month — and since their first demo (discussed here) surfaced in 2016, Soldati has been a band that seemed to be piecing together elements of all of the above.

Tracks like “La Electricidad del Arbol Caido” (posted here) and “Whisky Negro” (posted here), both of which feature on Doom Nacional, have been made public before in other forms — indeed, an especially noise-caked take on Doom Nacional closer “Solar Tse” also appears at the end of From Skulls Born Beyond, so these lines between projects are malleable and have been for some time — so those who have followed Chotsourian for a number of years will doubtless approach this first Soldati LP with a different context than those simply taking the band on as a first encounter. As a fan of Chotsourian‘s work in Los Natas, Ararat and across his solo outings, I’ll confess I approached the seven-song/49-minute run of Doom Nacional with some trepidation, not knowing what was coming after such a variety of moods and vibes across the demos and videos and other posted performances, etc.

What a relief it was to finally hear it.

That brings us to the second perspective, of those less engaged with Chotsourian‘s long history of contributions to South America’s underground. This type of listener will find Soldati‘s Doom Nacional to be a coherent, striking collection, variable in tempo and purpose, but united around a groove and charge that is immersive and exciting in kind. Desert rock with a harder edge and sharp craft; Argentinian heavy at its finest. Returning to guitar, Chotsourian brings a signature kind of riffing to stretches of songs like opener “From Skulls” and the speedier sections of “Suicide Girl” and “Los Secretos de Shiva” that, punctuated by Ararat bandmate Alfredo Fellite on drums (a collaboration well worth continuing), plays all the more to a classic Motörhead volatility that comes with desert hues, tying Los Natas and Ararat together even as Soldati — rounded out by bassist Lucas Cassinelli, who makes one of several striking impressions on the penultimate “Un Tren al Sol” — strives to create its own sonic persona.

Soldati, “Un Tren al Sol” official video premiere

With five of the seven inclusions longer than seven minutes long and the other two over five, each song is given time to flesh out as it will and a natural course that includes numerous stops and sudden thrusts, head-down grooves and turns of melody in cuts like “Whisky Negro” and the 8:34 “Solar Tse” that make for highlights unto themselves. As the centerpiece, “La Electricidad del Arbol Caido” summarizes much of what makes Doom Nacional work so well. It is fluid in rhythm and organic in presentation — its tones are by no means raw or wanting viscosity, and will be readily familiar to Los Natas fans but neither are they overproduced — and in its hypnotic nod and post-midpoint shift to speedier fare, it underscores Soldati‘s refusal to be pigeonholed to one approach or the other. Whether a given listener is new to Chotsourian‘s work or not, that kind of thing is easy to appreciate, especially in a first album.

As “Solar Tse” pushes toward its finish, with vocals in layers hopefully portending a future direction for Soldati in general, one is reminded that Chotsourian has directly compared Doom Nacional to the final Los Natas album, 2009’s Nuevo Orden de la Libertad (review here), and certainly a number of the riffs on offer throughout these songs bear that out, that last one included. But if Doom Nacional is on some level Chotsourian engaging with his own legacy, that doesn’t prevent him from creating something new out of that. Los Natas, who began as a more purely desert rock outfit and grew in time into something entirely of their own, may have jammed plenty, but they rarely if ever touched on the same kind of atmospheric doom ground as Ararat, whereas Soldati brings both of those sides together.

Further, it doesn’t work to set them in opposition to each other. That is, to listen to “Los Secretos de Shiva,” with the fuzzy Sabbathian solo giving way to more full-on shove later in its run after the drums and bass drop out and the guitar establishes the riff to come, the two stylistic elements at play work in kind, each to enhance the other one. The greatest success of Doom Nacional — and what makes it most live up to its declaration — is in this aesthetic marriage of form and purpose.

For any debut, it’s only fair to look forward and think of what might come. The question as regards Soldati is how much of a focus the band will take on amid Chotsourian‘s other projects, various collaborations, and so on. As a fan of the more heavy rock-oriented facet of his songwriting and hearing the flow he creates with Fellite and Cassinelli, Doom Nacional presents much to hope for going into subsequent releases, and I’ll say without reservation that it’s one of the best debuts 2020 will see. Perhaps because of that, it’s best to enjoy the captured moment for what it is, regardless of the context of one’s perspective, and let the future worry about itself. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.

Soldati on Thee Facebooks

South American Sludge Records on Bandcamp

South American Sludge Records on Thee Facebooks

Argonauta Records website

Argonauta Records on Thee Facebooks

Perhaps, like me, you’re sitting on your hands — not literally, which would make it far more difficult to type — waiting for former Los Natas frontman Sergio Chotsourian to issue the previously announced full-length debut, Doom Nacional, from his hard-hitting new trio Soldati on April 24 through Argonauta Records. Perhaps, like me, you’re starting to get kind of bummed out at the fact that the record exists, singles have been streamed, and you haven’t heard it yet. Well, while you and I stew in our shared impatience, Chotsourian has dug back into the Los Natas archives — also apparently the public domain stock footage archives — and put together a video for the 13-minute jam-out “El Gobernador.”

These years past, the Los Natas discography is pretty murky. Tracks show up across multiple releases and in different forms, different recordings, and so on. “El Gobernador” was originally split into two parts and presented on the 1999 EP of the same name, with Chotsourian on guitar and vocals, Walter Broide on drums and both Claudio Filadoro Rimec and Miguel Fernandez contributing bass. That same year, the two parts appeared on a split with Spanish treasures Viaje a 800, and I’m not sure if that’s the same recording edited together, a different take or what. Not knowing, as ever, is only an excuse to hunt down both versions and find out.

This single-track version of the piece is from the double-CD compilation, Bee Jesus, on which it appeared as a not-insubstantial bonus track accompanying the band’s first two full-lengths, both of which happen to be back in print through Argonauta as well. As to where else it may or may not show up in the catalog, your guess is as good as mine, or, more likely, better. But this is a new video from out of the intricate and sometimes head-spinning catalog of the Argentinian heavy rock underground legends, and I’m more than happy to have an excuse to spend 13 minutes out of my day listening to Los Natas on basically any occasion. Some new visuals, even out of the public domain archive, qualify easily.

The clip was put together by Chotsourian himself. You’ll find it below.

Enjoy:

Los Natas, “El Gobernador” official video

VIDEO OFICIAL DEL DISCO DE LOS NATAS – “BEE JESUS”
PRODUCIDO POR GONZALO VILLAGRA
VIDEO REALIZADO POR SERGIO CH.

REC ORBITAL RECORDS
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SOUTH AMERICAN SLUDGE RECORDS

Los Natas on Thee Facebooks

Los Natas website

South American Sludge on Thee Facebooks

South American Sludge Records on Bandcamp

I’ve heard enough Soldati since the band’s inception — that includes prior versions of a couple of the songs included on their debut album, Doom Nacional, as “La Electricidad del Arbol Caido” (posted here) and “Whisky Negro” (posted here) have been featured in the past; that’s not counting the band’s 2016 demo (discussed here) — to know that there’s no way the full-length’s first single represents the entirety of the release, but goodness gracious did they ever pick the right track to put out there first.

Driven by a classic, heavy push of a riff from Sergio Chotsourian, “Suicide Girl” evokes the guitarist/vocalist’s past in Los Natas while keeping a rawer edge that Soldati — who’ll release Doom Nacional on April 24 as part of Chotsourian‘s ongoing partnership with Argonauta Records, which has done his solo material as well as Los Natas reissues in the past — has come to represent. You can stream the song at the bottom of this post. And you should. It is righteous and mean.

Dive in:

LOS NATAS’ Frontman Reveals Album Details Of New Band Project SOLDATI!

Debut Album, Doom Nacional, coming this April via Argonauta Records!

There has been something going on behind the scenes of frontman Sergio Ch., guitarist and vocalist of the Argentinian rock trio Los Natas. Today, he revealed the hotly anticipated details about the upcoming debut album of his new band project, SOLDATI!

SOLDATI, (soldiers in latin), started their generators a couple of years ago already, but have finally revealed a first track taken from their upcoming debut album, Doom Nacional, slated for a release on April 24th via Argonauta Records. Listen to the first single, Suicide Girl, HERE!

Why soldiers? “Maybe we feel we’ve been fighting all our lives for freedom, happiness and mind peace.“ Band mastermind, Sergio Ch., explains. “Growing our children, surviving South America and blasting our heads with the sound and vive that makes us feel good, alive and free at least a couple hours a week. That’s what we live and stand for.“

“Musically I just undusted my old SGs guitars, 3 stomps and my 70s amps I used for Los Natas for more than 20 years. No changes. Just keep on the audio and the legacy I created back in 1994, maybe where I left it, at the doorstep of Los Natas’ album “Nuevo Orden de la Libertad”. He continues. “Not so stoned, not so hanged off, more straight forward in your face, with riffs and words. Just pushing the limits to get to our own truth. This is our debut full length album, where I think we could resume all the war inside our heads, it’s a beast on its own character and warmth. It’s also about love, hate, good and bad shit that happens to us every day. Trying to get in balance and live just for today. The present time. The golden balance of time.“

[ Artwork by Sergio Ch. ]

Doom Nacional Tracklisting:
01 From Skulls
02 Suicide Girl
03 Whisky Negro
04 La Electricidad Del Arbol Caido
05 Los Secretos De Shiva
06 Un Tren Al Sol
07 Solar Tse

Doom Nacional was recorded on analog tape machines, mixed and mastered by Patricio Claypole at Estudio el Attic in Argentina. Set for a release on April 24th 2020 with Argonauta Records as LP and CD, the pre-sale has just started at THIS LOCATION: https://www.argonautarecords.com/shop/en/cerca?controller=search&orderby=position&orderway=desc&search_query=soldati&submit_search=

SOLDATI is:
Sergio Ch. – Guitar & Vocals
Lucas Cassinelli – Bass
Alfredo Felitte – Drums

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https://sasrecords.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/SASRECORDSARGENTINA
www.argonautarecords.com
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Soldati, “Suicide Girl”

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before from this site (yes, you absolutely have, and more than once), but Natas‘ Delmar is a special album. The standard comparison I make is I would not trade the songs on this record for all the Kyusses who ever walked the earth, and any chance to hear any part of it is only something I find makes my day better. Every time.

I have a profound association with the album and its centerpiece, “Soma,” from the time I spent working in New York City at Metal Maniacs magazine, when such a thing existed. This was 2007-2008. I commuted by train from the Denville stop in NJ and the trip into Penn Station was well over an hour each way. But for the fact that nearly every penny I made at the gig went to the cost of traveling to and from it, and the loss of four hours of my daily life on the door-to-door, and the fact that the company that owned Maniacs was clueless about the value of the property, that fucking girl in the office with no indoor voice, the shitty jam bands that the other/bigger mag played on the office stereo, the fact that going to shows required going home first then returning to the city by car, and the generally oppressive nature of NYC on general, it wasn’t a terrible job. I continue to have nothing but love for Liz Ciavarella-Brenner, the editor with whom I worked most directly in the office.

On the whole, however, it was a situation that required one to take solace where and when possible. Delmar was a means by which I did exactly that. Every morning I put Natas on my portable CD player and listened through my Bose noise-canceling headphones (since deceased) and it allowed just the right amount of morning escape my probably-hungover self needed. I loved the record before that, but there was a bond formed on that train ride and it has lasted longer than that job, the magazine, or, really, print media itself. I continue to hold it in a regard I hold few full-length albums.

New video for “Soma,” you say? First official video ever from Delmar to honor the next re-press of the 2018 reissue through Argonauta Records, you say? Yes, obviously I’m going to post that.

Enjoy:

Natas, “Soma” official video

VIDEO OFICIAL DEL DISCO DE LOS NATAS – “DELMAR”
PRODUCIDO POR PICHON DALPONT VIDEO
REALIZADO POR SERGIO CH.

LOS NATAS is a trio formed during 1994 in Buenos Aires/Argentina. Their musical influences are numerous and varied, having the base of the raw and psychedelic sound of 1970s bands such as The Doors, Black Sabbath, The Who, Pink Floyd and Hawkwind, among others. Los Natas propose a journey made of basic elements: valvular equipment and vintage instruments, they incorporate the use of the senses and perception of the listener as a part of a sonic trip.

They make music that changes constantly, supported by long jams that give them a different meaning every time they execute them having that way a sense of freedom in the way of interpreting the sounds, making this experience extremely related to the sensations that both the musicians and the audience receive every time a show begins. This is the essence of what people knows today as Stoner Rock.

Los Natas on Thee Facebooks

Los Natas website

Argonauta Records website

Argonauta Records on Thee Facebooks

Argonauta Records on Instagram

At the time it came out four years ago in 2015, Sergio Ch.‘s first solo album, 1974 (review here), seemed to take shape directly from out of the third offering from his band Ararat, 2014’s Cabalgata Hacia la Luz (review here). The two shared several tracks, among them “La Familia y las Guerras,” and both had an overarching purpose in introspection, an intimate feel that manifested in experimentalist-tinged folk in one and brash heavy punk/rock in the other. Still, they were linked, and with Sergio Chotsourian‘s songwriting at the epicenter, they held a consistency that went beyond whatever sonic disparities there may have been. Different appeal, same level of quality between them.

Chotsourian has since gone on to form the trio Soldati and begin to dole out singles and other short releases ahead of an eventual full-length, and he’s also put out the second acoustic-ish album, 2017’s Aurora (review here), as well as several collaborative efforts of various stripes, but I still break out 1974 on occasion, and songs like “La Familia y las Guerras” are a big part of why. Arrangement-wise, there’s nothing outlandish about it, and it’s not as drone even as some of the material on the subsequent full-length would be, but it carries a nonetheless open feel and is spacious thanks to a bit of echo while still staying intimate in a close-up-to-the-mic vocal-style from Chotsourian, who if he didn’t record it live certainly gives a convincing facsimile of having done so.

As to why now would be a time to make a video for a song on a record that was released so long ago, I’d only ask the obvious question: “Who cares?” In addition to the aforementioned and long-bandied Soldati long-player, there’s been word that Chotsourian will do another solo offering under his own name, and that will be something to look forward to, but in the meantime, why not shut up and take what one can get? If that’s going for a backwards walk in some hot-looking desert space, then so be it. One could, of course, do a lot worse, both in the video and in life generally.

I’ve also included the full 1974 stream below, in case it’s been a while.

Enjoy:

Sergio Ch., “La Familia y las Guerras” official video

VIDEO OFICIAL DEL DISCO DE SERGIO CH. – “1974”
PRODUCIDO POR SERGIO CH.
VIDEO REALIZADO POR MILAGROS ARROM Y LUCAS MARTINEZ

OUI OUI RECORDS
SOUTH AMERICAN SLUDGE RECORDS

Sergio Ch., 1974 (2015)

South American Sludge Records on Thee Facebooks

South American Sludge website

South American Sludge Records on Bandcamp