Posted in Whathaveyou on May 2nd, 2024 by JJ Koczan
I guess at some point between the first announcement and now, Spirit Adrift and Fistula dropped off the lineup for Mutants of the Monster 2024, but fair enough for Cancerslug and Left Lane Cruiser to sign on and Little Rock, Arkansas, hometown post-sludge heroes Rwake — whose frontman Chris “CT” Terry is behind the fest — to make a return appearance along with a slew of others from the Southeast US and beyond. Anytime Deadbird show up just about anywhere, it’s notable, never mind tour-buddies Weedeater and Telekinetic Yeti stopping through or John Garcia doing a solo set that pretty much guarantees everyone in attendance will be able to go home saying they watched him do Kyuss‘ “Whitewater” in person.
Also known as Mutants Fest for short, the three-dayer is set for May 16-18 in North Little Rock, and looks like a good, intermittently harsh time. The PR wire brought the final lineup and ticket links so you still have some time to get your travel plans together:
MUTANTS OF THE MONSTER FEST 2024 Reveals Final Lineup, Announces Special Sale for National Concert Week
Featuring John Garcia (Formerly of Kyuss), Weedeater, Telekinetic Yeti, Rebelmatic, Cancerslug (Just added), Deadbird, Rwake (Just added!), Flummox + more!
Taking place in North Little Rock, AR at the Argenta Community Theater and Four Quarter Bar from May 16-18!
MUTANTS OF THE MONSTER FEST will return in 2024 to Little Rock, AR from May 16-18! The multi-day festival will take place in the Argenta Arts District and has revealed the final lineup, which now includes the new additions of CANCERSLUG and RWAKE. The full lineup can be found below!
In honor of National Concert Week, the festival is now offering a special discount on tickets and passes that will run until this Tuesday, May 7 @ 11:59 P.M. EDT. Currently, fans can score single day tickets for Friday and Saturday for only $20 while a full festival pass is temporarily discounted at $95!Passes are now available HEREand will cover both stages for all three days of the event.
The full lineup is as follows:
JOHN GARCIA (Formerly of Kyuss playing all of the hits!) WEEDEATER DEADBIRD TELEKINETIC YETI DEEPSTARIA ENIGMATICA MEDICINE HORSE ADAM FAUCETT REBELMATIC FLUMMOX WHETHER SEAHAG OROROR CRANKBAIT MAMMOTH CARAVAN SPORTS DIREWOLF RWAKE CANCERSLUG
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 20th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
No real getting around Pallbearer‘s fifth LP, Mind Burns Alive — announced today with a May 17 release date as their second album for Nuclear Blast behind 2020’s Forgotten Days (review here) — as one of the biggest doom releases of the year. The Little Rock, Arkansas, four-piece now in their 16th year have done more to modernize the emotive doom melancholia fostered by the likes of Anathema, Moonspell, maybe even on some level their now-labelmates My Dying Bride — for whose new album Mind Burns Alive should make a fitting complement — for the subsequent generation, and as the first single and lead track “Where the Light Fades” shows, their own maturity as a group has only brought more poise and soul to their approach. Plus they tour. Hard. Regularly.
They’ll do so again for Mind Burns Alive, of course, and after co-headlining a Euro run with Elder in 2022, Pallbearer have lined up support from REZN, The Keening, Rwake and Inter Arma — not everybody all at once; calm down — for back-t0-back stints on the East and West Coasts. Dates, preorders, more about the record, the cover art, the tour poster, the ticket link for when they go on sale and of course the “Where the Light Fades” video all follow here, and I celebrate the PR wire for doing so much heavy lifting. If and when you start the clip, give it some time to build up. They get there, and the melodic path being explored is part of the point. Not the first time in Pallbearer‘s arc that they’ve rewarded the patience of their audience, by any means.
Have at it:
PALLBEARER’S ACHINGLY BEAUTIFUL NEW ALBUM, MIND BURNS ALIVE, ARRIVES MAY 17 VIA NUCLEAR BLAST RECORDS
EXTENSIVE NORTH AMERICAN TOUR ANNOUNCED; TICKETS ON-SALE THIS FRIDAY
Pallbearer, indisputable masters of emotionally insightful and stirring heavy music, return with their most raw and heartfelt album to date: Mind Burns Alive (May 17, Nuclear Blast Records).
“These songs are a deeper exploration of dynamics and sonic color than anything we have done up to this point,” vocalist/guitarist Brett Campbell explains, shedding light on the band’s decision to strip everything back on the forthcoming nearly hour-long album. “I’m of the belief that true heaviness comes from emotional weight, and sometimes sheer bludgeoning isn’t the right approach to getting a feeling across.”
A preview of Mind Burns Alive arrives today with the release of “Where The Light Fades” and its Dan Almasy-directed video. Lyrically, the song eludes to what are the overall themes on the six-song album, as Campbell describes the tracks as “vignettes that tell the stories of people who deal with myriad sicknesses of the spirit… illnesses communicated by the world we live in, and the subjects are the symptoms of the disease.”
Five years in the making, with recording initially slated for 2020, and thwarted yet again in 2022, it was 2023 that saw the band members living locally to one another in Little Rock for the first time in nine years. As a group, they self-produced the album in their own, newly constructed studio (Idlewild Audio) and at Fellowship Hall Sound. Reflecting on this, bassist/vocalist Joseph D. Rowland remarked, “It’s ironic given that the album is largely centered around isolation, but it felt like it summoned us into being back together again in one town, after so long apart.”
The band has simultaneously announced their most extensive North American tour since 2018, dubbed the “Temporary Spaces North American Tour,” the six-week trek launches on June 6. Tickets are on-sale this Friday at 10 am local time. Openers include Rwake (June 6 to 9; 29), REZN (June 11 to 29), Inter Arma (July 11 to August 3), with The Keening opening on all dates. Visit Pallbearerdoom.com for ticket links.
Pallbearer headlines the opening night of Stumpfest X on April 11 at Mississippi Studios in Portland, Ore.. The band has also confirmed two special European performances: The Copenhell Metal Cruise (Copenhagen to Oslo) from Oct. 25 to 27, and Nov. 16 at Helldorado in Eindhoven (The Netherlands). More European dates will be announced soon.
Mind Burns Alive tracklist: 1. Where The Light Fades 2. Mind Burns Alive 3. Signals 4. Endless Place 5. Daybreak 6. With Disease
“Temporary Spaces North American Tour”: June 6 Memphis, TN Growlers * June 7 Murfreesboro, TN Hop Springs * June 8 Birmingham, AL Zydeco * June 9 Atlanta, GA The Masquerade * June 11 Durham, NC The Fruit # June 12 Asheville, NC Euology at Burial Beer Co. # June 14 Baltimore, MD Metro Gallery # June 15 Lancaster, PA Tellus360 # June 16 Philadelphia, PA Underground Arts # June 18 Hamden, CT Space Ballroom # June 20 Brooklyn, NY Music Hall of Williamsburg # June 21 Boston, MA The Sinclair # June 22 Montreal, QC Theatre Fairmount # June 23 Toronto, ON Velvet Underground # June 25 Milwaukee, WI Vivarium # June 26 Chicago, IL Thalia Hall # June 27 St. Paul, MN Turf Club # June 28 Lawrence, KS The Bottleneck # June 29 Little Rock, AR The Hall & July 11 St. Louis, MO Off Broadway ^ July 13 Denver, CO Gothic Theatre ^ July 15 Calgary, AB Dickens ^ July 16 Edmonton, AB The Starlite Room ^ July 18 Vancouver, BC Rickshaw Theatre ^ July 19 Seattle, WA Substation ^ July 23 Sacramento, CA The Starlet Room ^ July 24 San Francisco, CA Great American Music Hall ^ July 26 Santa Cruz, CA The Catalyst ^ July 27 San Diego, CA Brick By Brick ^ July 28 Los Angeles, CA Teragram Ballroom ^ July 29 Phoenix, AZ Crescent Ballroom ^ July 30 Albuquerque, NM Sister Bar ^ August 1 Dallas, TX Trees ^ August 2 Austin, TX Parish ^ August 3 Houston, TX White Oak Music Hall ^ *-w/Rwake & The Keening # – w/REZN & The Keening & – w/Rwake, REZN & The Keening ^ – w/Inter Arma & The Keening
Pallbearer is Brett Campbell (vocals/electric guitar/synthesizer), Devin Holt (electric and acoustic guitar/vocals), Mark Lierly (drums/percussion) and Joseph D. Rowland (vocals/bass guitar/synthesizer).
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 11th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Shit, man. Anybody got a line on a crash spot in Little Rock? Mutants of the Monster Fest — or if you’re on friendly terms you can go with Mutants Fest, like on the poster — has announced its initial lineup for May 16-18, with John Garcia as the first headliner. I’m not sure if it’s a solo show or with the full backing as John Garcia and the Band of Gold, but as noted below he’ll be doing Kyuss songs in addition to his own stuff and if the universe aligns just so, you might even get a track from the catalogs of SloBurn, Unida or Hermano, the latter of whom have reissues out on Ripple now.
But Garcia is just the start and down the line through Weedeater and Telekinetic Yeti (tour partners again?), Spirit Adrift, Deadbird, Fistula, Rebelmatic, Flummox, Medicine Horse, Seahag and Adam Faucett, and the sense of curation remains strong. Mammoth Caravan will have a new record out by the time they play, and they might not be the only ones, but even if everyone showed up with nothing on the merch table (highly unlikely), it’d still be a riotous bill and there’s more to come since, you know, three days and all that.
Tickets are available through Last Chance Records as linked below. I’ll do my best to keep up are more names are added to Mutants of the Monster 2024. Here’s how the PR wire put it:
MUTANTS OF THE MONSTER FEST 2024 Reveals First Wave of Bands; Incl. John Garcia (ex-Kyuss), Weedeater, Telekinetic Yeti, Spirit Adrift + More!
Taking place in North Little Rock, AR at the Argenta Community Theater and Four Quarter Bar from May 16-18!
MUTANTS OF THE MONSTER FEST will return in 2024 to Little Rock, AR from May 16-18! The multi-day festival will take place in the Argenta Arts District and has revealed the first wave of bands, which is as follows:
JOHN GARCIA (Formerly of Kyuss playing all of the hits!) WEEDEATER SPIRIT ADRIFT FISTULA DEADBIRD TELEKINETIC YETI DEEPSTARIA ENIGMATICA MEDICINE HORSE ADAM FAUCETT REBELMATIC FLUMMOX WHETHER SEAHAG OROROR CRANKBAIT MAMMOTH CARAVAN SPORTS DIREWOLF
Early bird tickets are now available HERE starting today through Monday, December 11. The pass will cover both stages for all three days of the event.
Little Rock, Arkansas-based sludge rollers Mammoth Caravan are set to issue their debut full-length, Ice Cold Oblivion, on Feb. 25. The album is the three-piece’s first release outside of a limited CD/tape Demo 2022 that featured the songs “Ice Cold Oblivion” and “Nomad,” which clearly they wound up pretty fond of since they open the album here in succession. Fair enough, particularly as the Monolordian buzz that grows so massive past the initial temporal displacement of effects looping in the title-track to act as a kind of welcome to the proceedings as a whole. With Evan Swift on guitar, Brandon Ringo on bass and vocals and Robert Warner drumming, Mammoth Caravan demonstrate immediately they know where they’re coming from, finding ground between the dug-in low-and-slow riffing of Crowbar and some of Egypt‘s bluesier rasp vocally — though Ringo changes it up to a cleaner style in the title-cut and later as well on “Periglacial,” and “Nomad” layers higher shouts over deathly growling, which also features in “Petroglyphs” (premiering below) so it’s not one thing or the other, either — as they instrumentally convey a largesse to suit the narrative of their moniker in the lyrics of the record about, wait for it, a caravan of mammoths.
Presented across two vinyl sides of three songs each, the 38 minutes of Ice Cold Oblivion make their primary impression in lumber, heft, and march. They’ve been compared to Eyehategod — 30 years later, if you play slow and scream at all, someone’s still gonna say you sound like Eyehategod; this is a thing about which I have surprisingly strong feelings — but that doesn’t account either for their more metal aspects throughout or the drifting mellow guitar that bookends “Petroglyphs,” so while it may be a case of those hearing the record trying to lump the band into a category where they don’t fit as neatly as some others might, in this case ‘sludge metal,’ it’s ultimately to the trio’s credit that even on their first offering they’re able to look outside microgenre and work in aspects of different heavy styles. They’re not about to start playing polka in 10-minute closer “Frostbite,” which grows plenty massive and encompassing enough in its final slowdown to be a worthy finish to all the pleistocene plod and snare bite cutting through, but neither should they be mistaken for being completely unipolar. As the philosopher Daniel Tiger reminds us: “you can be more than one thing.” And so they are, even as much as the consuming lurch of Ice Cold Oblivion is the backdrop against which those other elements play out.
They are, then, encouragingly malleable in their songwriting and the general quotient of nastiness on display at any given time. “Ice Cold Oblivion” and “Frostbite” do a bit of worldmaking as longer songs first and last, but the converted should have no trouble nodding along as “Petroglyphs” shifts after its quiet opening to harsh buzz and growls, tense and slow, then slower, then faster, then churning, then out on that same guitar figure that introduced it. Mammoth Caravan aren’t so much flying in the face of convention as choosing which versions of it they want to take for their own. This attitude and direction will serve them well as they move forward from here, but there’s something to be said for Ice Cold Oblivion‘s rawest moments as well, be it the sheer riff worship in the instrumental “Megafauna” or “Periglacial” daring toward Primitive Man-style ultradoom before changing to the aforementioned clean vocals en route to the fadeout of guitar and bass that leave the drums that started it. One way or the other, they effectively bring to life a sound like nature trying to kill early humans, and really, seeing how it all turned out, who could blame it for trying?
Below you’ll find the video for “Petroglyphs,” which is wonderfully DIY at the playground, kid finds an eyeball, and so on. It’s the third single from Ice Cold Oblivion behind “Frostbite” and “Nomad” — though obviously the demo of the title-track is streaming as well — and begins to show the flora growing alongside all that crushing fauna in the epoch in which the band here reside. To make it as plain as I can: it is very heavy. You can’t say you weren’t told in advance.
Enjoy:
Mammoth Caravan, “Petroglyphs” video premiere
Video shot and edited by Machete Eddy.
Sludge/Doom Metal trio MAMMOTH CARAVAN will release debut/concept album Ice Cold Oblivion February 25, 2023 on CD, digital, cassette, and vinyl formats.
Ice Cold Oblivion was recorded, mixed and mastered by Jason Tedford at Wolfman Studios.
Posted in Questionnaire on November 29th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Jeff Morgan of Rwake, Deadbird, The Lights Inside the Woods, Madman Morgan, The Ominous Warning, Ash of Cedars
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
As far as musically, I search the cosmic depths for paths that lead me to melodies and rhythms that I can manifest into this universe. Then I take those sounds and build them into music that can hopefully take others to the same place.
I started this journey in my early teens with the tools I learned from my parents, who were both heavily immersed in metaphysics at that time.
Describe your first musical memory.
Hard to pinpoint the actual “first”, but one of the earliest is when my biological father was blasting Marty Robbins “Don’t Worry About Me” and was in my face yelling at me about how cool the distorted bass sounded on the huge home stereo we had. I was probably four or five years old. I later found out it’s actually a lap steel, not a bass.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
When Rwake played Maryland Deathfest in 2012, we played “Was Only a Dream” off of Rest. During the last section, I felt the whole crowd come together as one and almost everyone in the room were all of one mind for several minutes. It was a very magic moment for sure.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
Having kids really tested my belief that my sole purpose in life was to create and play music on a full time scale. It was very hard at first to stop touring and stay home with the family. Over time I have learned how to balance my commitment to being a super-dad with my obsession to create and perform gloomy music.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
For me, the progression leads to a lifetime’s worth of massive volumes of music that will mostly be undiscovered til my eventual death.
For the world, the progression is so rapid and awe-inspiring, it’s hard to even imagine where It will lead. Every day I hear new music that exceeds what I thought possible. That’s the beauty of art.
How do you define success?
Musically, I define success by the amount of pride I feel when I listen to the musical projects I’m involved with. Also, I am constantly humbled by all the love for the music I’ve been a part of, and I cherish all the friendships made along the way.
Personally I define success by the smiles on my kids’ faces, and watching them grow up. When my family is happy, I’m happy.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
When Rwake was a young new band, we thought it would be a good idea to bring a bloated dead possum to the show and cook it in an electric skillet during our set. I wish I would have never seen all the bugs running out of it when I dumped it out of the trash bag into the skillet.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I’m in the process of creating a live full band version of a gloomy dark acoustic project that I have called The Lights Inside the Woods. I’ve always wanted to be a part of something more quiet and clean, yet still dark and trance inducing. I can’t wait to see how it progresses.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Communication. Sharing the results of the quest together. Art is all about the ritual for me. It’s is an endless quest to find the deepest darkest unheard energies and give them a voice.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
We are returning to Iceland later this month to hike Landmannalaugar in the Highlands. Iceland is such a magical place and I can’t wait to return.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on November 11th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
A band who don’t get enough credit. Rwake released the cumbersome-but-righteously-titled If You Walk Before You Crawl, You Crawl Before You Die in 2004 through At a Loss Recordings. Based in Little Rock, Arkansas, the six-piece outfit — six of ’em! — traveled to Chicago in March of that year to record for six days with Sanford Parker, who also mixed (John Brearley is credited with engineering as well; Alan Douches mastered), and what they went home with remains these 18 years later both monstrous and unlike nearly anything else that was coming out at the time. With discernable influences from the likes of Neurosis and Buzzov*en, two singers in Christopher “CT” Terry and Brittany “B” Fugate (the latter also Moog), and a sound that both was and was not in league with the then-nascent movement of post-metal, they were able to bring together atmosphere and impact in a way that few acts of the style before or since have.
From the seven-minute opener “Dying Spiral Galaxies” — hell of a place to start — through the double-whammy titular finale of “If You Walk Before You Crawl” and “You Crawl Before You Die,” Rwake harnessed a creative scope that could either be the screamed poetry over acoustic guitar and distorted bass of “Sleep and Forget Forever” or the deceptively methodical onslaught of volume that was “Embedded,” and even listening to it now, you never quite know where the next turn is headed until it gets there. It is likewise gross and beautiful.
Comprised of Fugate, Terry (also of Iron Tongue), guitarists Kris “Gravy” Graves and Kiffin Rogers, bassist Reid Raley (who played with The Obsessed from circa 2013-2019) and drummer Jeff Morgan (also bass/vocals in the undervalued Deadbird), if Rwake‘s output wasn’t the product of multiple songwriters, it was at least informed by multiple personalities somewhere along the way. If You Walk Before You Crawl, You Crawl Before You Die was their third full-length, preceded by 1999’s Absence Due to Projection and 2002’s Hell is a Door to the Sun, and it took the avant sludginess of those offerings to a new level, remaining cohesive even at its most unhinged and noisiest — looking at you, “Woodson Lateral” — resulting in a powerful combination of control and chaos.
Concurrent to releases like Neurosis‘ The Eye of Every Storm, Isis‘ Panopticon, Cult of Luna‘s Salvation and Mouth of the Architect‘s Time and Withering, among others, it was a piece of an expanding aesthetic puzzle, yet it stood out even among peers and offered depth in a way that was organically its own. And while a lot of those bands used similar elements, be it synth, or effective layering of guitar, loud/quiet trades and malleable tempos, etc., Rwake tapped into a more vicious gnash when they wanted to — the first time I saw Fugate live was SXSW around the time of this release; she was hunched over at the front of the stage and I couldn’t even see her at first for the rest of the crowd in front of me, just heard that rasp, and when she stood up, a jolt of electricity went through the room; what a scream — and their songs seemed to take special delight in shirking the rules of microgenre even as those were still being defined.
Laced with samples throughout in a way that was very much emblematic of Southern sludge at the time — the album begins with some conservative or other worrying about the deleterious effects of rock and roll on the mind, ambient screams and acoustic guitar behind, before the requisite volume kick actually launches “Dying Spiral Galaxies” — If You Walk Before You Crawl, You Crawl Before You Die is still head-spinning in its complexity, and offers multiple paths to its audience. If you put it on and follow the guitar, you’ll get an offering of ace riffs front to back, peppered through with stretches of acoustic and more subdued fare, be it “Intro” ahead of “Sleep and Forget Forever” or “If You Walk Before You Crawl” itself.
Concentrate on the vocals and you’ll hear arrangements of marked reach in conveying emotion as well as raw ferocity, an abiding mournfulness that only feels more relevant now and a disaffection that seemed to be speaking to its own experience of the place it was from — lest we forget, CT produced the documentary Slow Southern Steel in 2010 — further evidenced by moments like the sample at the start and in the second half of “Woodson Lateral,” the warning of people living in the woods and on the road of the same name through Pulaski County, where Little Rock is located. Follow the bass and you’re consumed entirely. Follow the drums and it’s damn near jazz, at least intermittently.
There is, in other words, a lot to be heard if you’re willing to engage Rwake on their own wavelength, which given the extremity of purpose around which their work always was/has been based, not everyone can or is willing to do. Fair enough. An outlier position suits them well on If You Walk Before You Crawl, You Crawl Before You Die, with its closer “You Crawl Before You Die” nearly hitting the 10-minute mark and finding the band at their most dug-in as they make their way to the noise-drenched, mania-screaming, torn-apart-until-only-feedback-is-left finale; like they had a strategic reserve of scathe just waiting to be busted out at the right time.
Maybe part of why their work remains underrated is because they never quite fit in one niche or another, though they signed to Relapse for 2007’s Voices of Omens and 2011’s Rest (review here) — also a 2015 reissue of their 1998 demo Xenoglossalgia (The Last Stage of Awareness) — so they were certainly in good company despite all that pesky doing-their-own-thing that made them harder to categorize. That same ethic, along with the sense of punishment and downerism that so much of it conveys, is also why If You Walk Before You Crawl, You Crawl Before You Die holds up so well. If it was ahead of its time then, and maybe it was, it still kind of feels that way now. You’ll note the version above is from an 8-track tape edition from Texas-based Dead Media Tapes. And that feels about right,l. On its face and under the surface, it’s just pervasively, definitively weird. And weird is fucking awesome.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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I was going to close out last week with this record, but was both out of my mind in pain from my knee — I tore my meniscus at the start of October and there have been good days and bad since — and short on time. If anyone noticed the lack of a Friday Full-Length, no one said anything, and I did extra shares on social media for Bandcamp Friday, so whatever. I remain convinced that I give the biggest crap about that kind of thing anyhow, so it’s on me. Fine. Sometimes you need a day of just six posts on the site. Ha.
I had arthroscopic surgery on the same knee — they marked it with a pen and everything; “YES” in purple letters so they knew to do the left — yesterday afternoon, and could immediately move better. I was given a piece of paper with stretches and exercises to do three times a day, which I did last night before bed with a due amount of discomfort. But the mental difference of productive, healing pain instead of just ongoing injury pain is huge, and this morning I could bend my knee when I sat down on the couch to begin writing, which feels like a novelty even tight as my knee is. It’s been weeks since I could do that. Painkillers don’t hurt either, as it were.
The timing is good, because in 10 days, The Pecan, The Patient Mrs. and I fly to Mexico for the wedding of a couple who are good friends of long standing, and one imagines that will require walking in addition to the air travel. I don’t know that I’ll be running laps by then, but sore as I am now, I feel better than I did. On the mend, as it were. I am fortunate that my wife as a professor at a public university is on a state health insurance plan, or I’d probably never be able to have it fixed. The economic realities of medicine in this country are horrifying and infuriating. Universal healthcare now. Shit, universal healthcare 40 years ago. Alas, everybody’s got their money to make. Don’t get me started.
But I’m lucky I’ll spend hopefully as much time as I can stand not standing (I seem to have lost my ability to sit still during the day) this weekend dedicated to actively healing, icing, doing those leglifts which I hope will become less excruciating, then I have a follow-up next Friday morning with the orthopedist — dude was all-swagger; Lita Ford’s “Kiss Me Deadly” was playing on the radio in the OR when they wheeled me in, followed immediately by TLC’s “Scrubs”; surgical equipment kept in a huge black Husky-brand tool chest; this is who you want operating on you — to get the stitches out and see if I’ll need physical therapy. I might. I can feel a shift in muscle mass in my legs as a result of walking funny for a month, and I’m a wuss generally, so I wouldn’t be surprised if even in what for me feels like diligence doing the stretches, I’m not pushing hard enough.
And while we’re talking about follow-ups, I have one on Monday with my neurologist (if you’re interested, more on this adventure here) that’s supposed to be more of a psychiatric thing, I think? I don’t know. Anyway, the doctor was nice and it’s a virtual appointment, so that’s easy enough. The Patient Mrs. will be at work, but I’ll see if I can’t loop her in through Zoom because the wretched truth is I’m not a reliable narrator of my own life. Is anybody? I’m interested to hear what she says, even if the entire process feels somewhat like an indulgence. I do miss swimming, which I haven’t done but once to try it since I hurt my knee.
New River Flows Reverse stream on Monday, and Mythosphere, High Noon Kahuna, Captain Caravan/Kaiser and Candlemass are lined up for review after that, so it’s a full week. Expect fewer posts while I’m in Mexico — it’s also Thanksgiving week here in the States, so there’s less going on generally — but I’m sure something will come along that I feel compelled to write about. Never fails, even if I’m on “vacation,” as much as traveling with a five year old after knee surgery can ever actually be that.
In any case, I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Have fun, watch your head, hydrate, all that fun stuff. See you back here Monday for more shenanigans.
Posted in Reviews on September 29th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
According to my notes, today is Day Three of the Fall 2021 Quarterly Review. Are you impressed to have made it this far? I kind of am, but, you know, I would be. I hope you’ve managed to find something you dig over the course of the first 20 records, and if not, why not? I’ve certainly added to a few year-end lists between debut albums, regular-old albums and short releases. Today’s no different. Without giving away any secrets ahead of time, this is a pretty wacky stylistic spread from the start and that’s how I like it. Maybe by next Tuesday it’ll all make a kind of sense, and maybe it won’t. In any case, this is apparently my idea of fun, so let’s have fun.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
Thief, The 16 Deaths of My Master
Someone used the phrase “techno for metalheads” in an email to me the other day (about something else) and I can’t get it out of my head concerning Thief‘s The 16 Deaths of My Master. From the swelling distortion of opener “Underking” to the odd bit of harpsicord that shows up in “Scorpion Mother” to the bassy rumble underscoring “Fire in the Land of Endless Rain,” the post-everything “Lover Boy,” droning “Life Clipper,” lazyman’s hip-hop on “Gorelord” and “Crestfaller” and Beck-on-acid finale in “Seance for Eight Oscillators,” there’s certainly plenty of variety to go around, but in the dance-dream “Apple Eaters” and goth-with-’90s-beatmaking “Bootleg Blood” and pretend-your-car-ride-is-a-movie-soundtrack “Wing Clipper,” the metallic underpinning of Dylan Neal (also Botanist) is still there, and the lyrical highlight “Teenage Satanist” rings true. Still, songs like the consuming washer “Night Spikes and subsequent drum’n’bass-vibing “Victim Exit Stage Left” are inventive, fascinating, short and almost poppy in themselves but part of a 16-track entirety that is head-spinning. If that’s techno for metalheads, so be it. Horns up for dat bass.
The album’s title is kind of another interpretation of the band’s name, the idea behind the Latin phrase Per Aspera Ad Astra being moving through challenges to the stars and the Santiago, Chile, one-man death-doom outfit being Rise to the Sky. Multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Sergio González Catalán reportedly wrote and arranged the title-track in the days following his father’s funeral, and the grand, flowing string sounds and engrossing heft that ensues feel genuinely mournful, capping with a progression of solo piano before “End My Night” seems to pick up where “The Loss of Hope” left off. The lyrics to closer “Only Our Past Remains” derive from a poem by Catalán‘s father, and the sense of tribute is palpable across the album’s 46 minutes. I’m not sure how the Russian folk melody bonus instrumental “Horse” might tie in, but neither is it out of place among “Deep Lament” and “Bleeding Heart,” the latter of which dares some clean vocals alongside the gutturalism, and in context, the rest of the album seems to answer with loss what opener “Life in Suspense” is waiting for.
Those familiar with Brian Ellis and Conor Riley‘s work in Astra should not be surprised to find them exploring ’70s-style progressive rock in Birth, and anybody who heard Psicomagia already knows that bassist Trevor Mast and drummer Paul Marrone (also Radio Moscow) are a rhythm section well up to whatever task you might want to set before them. Thus Birth‘s Demo arrives some four years after its recording, with “Descending Us” (posted here) leading off in dramatic Deep Purple-y fashion backed by the jammier but gloriously mellotroned and Rhodes’ed “Cosmic Wind” and “Long Way Down,” which digs itself into a righteous King Crimson payoff with due class even as it revels in its rough edges. Marrone‘s since left the band and whoever replaces him has big shoes to fill, but god damn, just put out a record already, would you?
Wielding mighty tonality and meeting Monolordian lurch with an aural space wide enough to contain it, Old Horn Tooth follow their 2019 debut LP, From the Ghost Grey Depths, with the single-song EP True Death, proffering a largesse rarely heard even from London’s ultra-populated heavy underground and working their way into, out of, back into, out of and through a nod that the converted among riff-heads likely find irresistible and hypnotic in kind. To say the trio of guitarist/vocalist Chris, bassist/keyboardist Ollie and drummer Mark ride out the groove is perhaps underselling it, but as my first exposure to the band, I’m only sorry to have missed out on both the orange tapes and the limited flash drives they were selling. So it goes. Slow riffs, fast sales. I’ll catch them next time and drown my sorrows in the interim in this immersive, probably-gonna-get-picked-up-by-some-label-for-a-vinyl-release offering. And hey, maybe if you and I both email them, they’ll press a few more cassettes.
Pro-shop-level doom from an initial public offering by Solemn Lament, bringing together the significant likes of vocalist Phil Swanson (ex-Hour of 13, Vestal Claret, countless others), drummer Justin DeTore (Magic Circle and more recently Dream Unending) as well as Blind Dead‘s Drew Wardlaw on bass and Adam Jacino on lead guitar, and Eric Wenstrom on rhythm guitar. These personages cross coastlines to three tracks and intro of grand and immersive doom metal, willfully diving into the Peaceville-three legacy on “Stricken” to find the beauty in darkness after the lumber and chug of the nine-minute “Celeste” resolves with patient grace and “Old Crow” furthers the Paradise Lost spirit in its central riff. Geography is an obvious challenge, but if Solemn Lament can build on the potential they show in this debut EP, they could be onto something really special.
A stunning third full-length from Fayetteville, Arkansas, trio Terminus, The Silent Bell Toll bridges doomed heft and roll, progressive melodicism and thoughtful heavy rock construction into a potent combination of hooks and sheer impact. It’s worth noting that the 10-minute closer of the nine-song/40-minute outing, “Oh Madrigal,” soars vocally, but hell, so does the 3:18 “Black Swan” earlier. Guitarist Sebastian Thomas (also cover art) and bassist Julian Thomas share vocal duties gorgeously throughout while drummer Scott Wood rolls songs like “The Lion’s Den” and “The Silent Bell Toll” — that nod under the solo; goodness gracious — in such a way as to highlight the epic feel even as the structure beneath is reinforced. With three instrumentals peppered throughout to break up the chapters as intro, centerpiece and penultimate, there’s all the more evidence that Terminus are considered in their approach and that the level of realization across The Silent Bell Toll is not happenstance.
Clearly named in honor of its defining intent, Recurring Nightmare is the three-song/48-minute debut full-length from Boston-based charred sludge outfit, who take the noisy heft of ultra-disaffected purveyors like Indian or Primitive Man and push it into a blackened metallic sphere further distinguished by harshly ambient drones. One can dig Neurosis-style riffing out of the 19:30 closer “Guillotine” or opener “Torch and Spear,” but the question is how much one’s hand is going to be sliced open in that process. And the answer is plenty. Their tones don’t so much rumble as crumble, vocals are willfully indecipherable throat-clenching screams, and the drums duly glacial. There is little kindness to be had in 16:43 centerpiece “Freedom Fever Dream” — originally broken into two parts as a demo in 2019 — which resolves itself lyrically in mourning a lost ideal over a dense lurch that’s met with still-atmospheric churning. Their established goal, if that’s what it is, has been met with all appropriate viciousness and extremity.
An ethic toward straight-ahead riff rock is writ large throughout Taxi Caveman‘s self-titled debut full-length, the Warsaw trio offering a face-first dive into fuzz of varying sizes and shaping their material around the sleek groove of “Prisoner” or the more aggressively bent vinyl-side-launchers “Building With Fire” and “Asteroid.” There’s a highlight hook in “I, the Witch” and the instrumental “426” leads into the Dozer-esque initial verse of 10-minute closer “Empire of the Sun,” but the three-piece find their own way through ultimately, loosening some of the verse/chorus reins in order to affect more of a jammed feel. It’s a departure from the crunch of “Asteroid” or “Prisoner” and the big, big, big sound that starts “Building With Fire,” but I’m certainly not about to hold some nascent sonic diversity against them. They’re playing to genre across these 33 minutes, but they do so without pretense and with a mind toward kicking as much ass as possible. Not changing the world, but it’s not trying to and it’s fun enough in listening that it doesn’t need to.
“Negative Libra” runs 36:36 and is the lone track on the album that bears its name from Las Vegas-based solo-project Droneroom. The flowing work of Blake Conley develops in slow, meditative form and gradually introduces lap steel to shimmer along with its post-landscape etherealities, evocative of cinema as they are without exactly playing to one or the other film-genre tropes. That is to say, Conley isn’t strictly horror soundtracking or Western soundtracking, and so on. Perhaps in part because of that, “Negative Libra” is allowed to discover its path and flourish as it goes — I’m not sure as to the layering process of making it vis-à-vis what was tracked live and put on top after — but the sense of exploration-of-moment that comes through is palpable and serene even as the guitar comes forward just before hitting the 27-minute mark to begin the transition into the song’s noisier payoff and final, concluding hum.
Blown-out vocals add an otherworldly tinge to Arizona-based one-man-band Aiwass‘ debut full-length, Wayward Gods, giving the already gargantuan tones a sense of space to match. Opener “Titan” and closer “Mythos” seem to push even further in this regard than, say, the centerpiece “Man as God” — the last track feeling particularly Monolordly in its lumbering — but by the time “Titan” and the subsequent, 10-minute inclusion “From Chains,” which ends cold with a guest solo by Vinny Tauber of Ohio’s Taubnernaut and shifts into the cawing blackbird at the outset of “Man as God” with a purposefully jarring intent. Despite the cringe-ready cartoon-boobs cover art, the newcomer project finds a heavy niche that subverts expectation as much as it meets it and sets broad ground to explore on future outings. As an idea, “gonna start a heavy, huge-sounding band during the pandemic,” is pretty straightforward. What results from that in Aiwass runs deeper.
Posted in Questionnaire on March 8th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Raif Box of Bones of the Earth
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I play bass and sing in Bones of the Earth. I also own a small studio called Holy Anvil Recording Co. Being a musician has been a dream of mine since I was a kid but becoming an audio engineer happened purely out of curiosity. It was like, “hey I wonder if I could learn how to do this?” and that just spiraled out of control until I eventually came to open up a little studio here in Fayetteville, AR.
Describe your first musical memory.
I want to say my family went to some sort of country festival in Texas when I was real young. I believe it to be one of my first memories, although to be honest I have a terrible memory. Alan Jackson was the headliner. All I remember is that it was very hot, and at some point the people a couple rows up had too much to drink and started fighting.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Russian Circles at George’s Majestic Lounge was easily the best performance from any band I’ve ever seen. What they can accomplish live is incredible.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
I’ve been struggling lately with the notion that most people are generally well intentioned and kind. Perhaps that was just a naivety.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
I think that there is a very fine line between refining your craft and becoming stagnant. I doubt that it’s a simple thing to find once you arrive there, but I can hope that if that time comes for me I can look back at what I’ve accomplished and be proud.
How do you define success?
If I can survive purely off of doing what I love to do, I’d call that a success. If that’s living in a van with my best buds, hell yeah.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
I went to see Nickelback with my dad once. I love my dad, but boy I really could’ve done without seeing that.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
One day I want to start an actual play D&D podcast with some friends.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Empathy. I think regardless of the medium, the goal is to share something unique to you with other people and hope that they can make a connection with it. When someone does that and you see it happen, and you know that you took part in creating something that changed something in the world, however small, that’s just the best feeling in the world.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
