This isn’t the end of the Quarterly Review — it wraps up on Monday — but it is the end of the week, and I’m ready for it. The music’s been good though and that’s something of a salvation for times where it seems like the strange and terrifying are in competition with each other to make life more awful. That doesn’t end on the weekend, of course, but at least I’ll have two days to put together the last post of this QR, and when you’ve been writing 10 reviews a day all week, half that counts as respite. Something like it, anyhow.

So before we wrap up the week with whatever on earth I’ll actually pick to close it out (any requests?), here’s one more batch, with my thanks for your valuable time and attention. Hope you find something cool.

Quarterly Review #51-60:

P+A+G+E+S, No More Can Be Done

No More Can Be Done is the debut album from South Africa’s P+A+G+E+S, but the Cape Town trio spent five years in the 2010s together as Morning Pages, so that their first record would hold so much intention behind it shouldn’t necessarily be a shocker. The reason behind the name change? An apparent change in their project, which is to say the band got way, way darker, way, way heavier and nasty in that sharp-toothed-thing-you-can’t-see-but-you-know-is-there-also-there-are-no-lights kind of way. The 15-minute opener/longest track (immediate points) “The Passage” leads the way down into the bleak, extreme sludge that follows, but as the careful linear build of “Shine On” later demonstrates, P+A+G+E+S are more methodical than the noise and outwardly chaotic feel would seem to indicate. Atmosphere plays a central role in what they do, and that’s consistent from their run as Morning Pages, but No More Can Be Done is about what’s lurking and lurching in the bleakness.

P+A+G+E+S Linktr.ee

P+A+G+E+S on Bandcamp

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Bask, The Turning

Following the intro “Chasm,” Bask launch their fourth album, The Turning, with minor-key mystique and subsequent crush via “In the Heat of the Dying Sun” and “The Traveler,” piling triumph upon triumph in a way that is indicative of the progressive songwriting at work. “The Cloth” is slower, but neither less weighted nor less gorgeous for that, and as “Dig My Heels” works in some of the Southern/Americana pastoralism the Asheville, North Carolina, outfit have always been known for, the melody proves a standout, setting up another life-affirming payoff in the seven-minute “Unwound,” the mellower turn for the build of “Long Lost Light” and the somewhat wistfully twanging undertones of the title-track, which closes with grace and poise rare enough in heavy anything. Clearly a band who have worked to and been successful in transcending their root influences, and an identity that’s been hard-forged over their decade-plus. The Turning sees them actively bring their approach to another level.

Bask on Bandcamp

Season of Mist website

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Matus, El Aullido b/w Planetario

A 15-minute two-songer from Lima, Peru’s Matus, as the psychedelic weirdo sometimes-cultists of long standing offer “El Aullido” (8:45) and “Planetario” (6:55) as their first outing since 2021’s Espejismos II (review here). Both processions — and they are that — feel built out from jams, but the recordings have guitarist Manolo Garfias and keyboardist Richard Nossar (both also alternate bass duties) at their core, along with Roberto Soto‘s drumming, Veronik‘s theremin in the deep-freakout section of “Planetario,” Úrsula Inga‘s vocals on “El Aullido,” and so on with other guests (including Camilo Uriarte, who co-produced and mixed, along solo artist Chino Burga on guitar, and Cristóbal Pérez on sax for “Planetario”) adding to the movement. “El Aullido” pairs shoegaze with a roll informed by South American folk, perfect for Inga‘s vocals, while “Planetario” carries more of its melody in the keyboards and surrounding ambience. It’s a welcome check-in from Matus as they celebrate the 20th anniversary of the band.

Matus on Bandcamp

Matus on Facebook

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November Fire, 2025

Where New England bizarropsych rockers November’s Fire‘s 2024 album, Through a Mournful Song, took an approach to its material like some of earliest Monster Magnet‘s underproduced kitchen-sink quirk, the two-song EP 2025 presents two different faces, and that turns out to be because the songs included are over 30 years old. “2025” and “Somnia” — the latter which brings in original guitarist Greg Brosseau for a guest spot that includes clean lead vocals — were allegedly written in the early 1990s, and if you told me the root of the title-track was a teenaged thrash riff, they make that easy enough to believe in the modernized, thickened chug of the song as it stands now. That is to say, they’ve brought it into the sludgy experimentalist context of the work now, but it remains dark. As it inevitably would. “Somnia” is shorter, has some backing chants, and feels meditative even as the guitar holds to its restlessness. Weird band staying weird, screwing around with their old stuff and getting something out of it. Sometimes an experiment works.

November Fire Linktr.ee

November Fire on Bandcamp

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Goatmilker, Goatmilker

Bergen, Norway, four-piece Goatmilker don’t really leave you with much choice other than to call them progressive, though that hardly says boo about the reach of their self-titled debut, which is as much psychedelic punk as it is black metal in its rhythms, but remains a work of heavy rock and roll nonetheless, grooving, catchy on “Devils on My Tail,” aggro-weird on “Time… Tearing Apart,” all-in on tonal overwhelm for “Mountains” and cheekily grandiose in the finale “Storm” only after they’ve seen fit to take on Journey‘s “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart),” which given the goes-where-it-wants succession leading up to it hardly feels out of place at all. While at no risk of overstaying its welcome at eight songs and 34 minutes, Goatmilker does make for a challenging listen at times, but the rewards for actually paying attention to what they’re doing are worth whatever effort is required. That is to say, engage actively for best results.

Goatmilker Linktr.ee

Goatmilker on Instagram

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Grin, Incantation

If Grin sound a little different on Incantation, a two-track 7″ with a digital bonus cut in the flatteningly heavy “Echoes in the Static,” that might be because the duo of drummer/vocalist Jan Oberg and bassist Sabine Oberg didn’t record themselves as usual, but instead tracked live at Wave Akademie in their native Berlin with Anton Urban (Jan Oberg co-produced, mixed and mastered, so still had a hand for sure). So, rather than the studio leftovers one might expect mere months after the band’s last full-length, Acid Gods (review here), the songs may have their origins as such but arise from different circumstances. There’s some more of a wash to “Incantation” and “The Color of Ghosts,” and “Echoes in the Static” is consumed by its titular noise toward its finish, but “The Color of Ghosts” dares some melodic vocals amid all that bombast, and as usual, Grin forge their own take on metal, sludge and intense atmospheric heavy.

Grin on Bandcamp

The Lasting Dose Records on Bandcamp

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Mezzoa, TON 618

A collection of bangers on the second LP through Glory or Death Records from San Diego rockers Mezzoa, TON 618 plays out over the course of a taut 13 songs and 39 minutes, careening desert style in “Hard to Hear,” punking up the groove in “Chump” before basking in Sabbath worship for “Wasted Universe” (think “Symptom” thereof), building crunching tension in “Uncle Cho” only to release it in the second half of the song with a grunge melody, carrying that melody into “Smiles for Everyone,” and then slamming all that momentum into the fuzzed radness of the lead tone and Alice in Chainsy vocal of “How You Been.” That’s not the end, I’m just less efficient than the band and so I’m running out of space. “Blessing” attains inner Nirvana while “Desert Snakes” sounds like it’s ready for a John Garcia guest spot, “Chachi Liberachi” echoes the sharper corners of “Wasted Universe,” “Goin’ Down” has that riff that every New York hardcore song ever (yes, all of them. don’t @ me.) has but goes somewhere completely different with it, and closer “How Are We” highlights the craft that’s let them do it all in the first place. Hey kid, you like rock music? Well get a load of this.

Mezzoa on Bandcamp

Glory or Death Records website

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Orsak:Oslo, Silt and Static

Beginning with its longest track in the nine-minute “Biting In,” Orsak:Oslo‘s Silt and Static finds the Norwegian/Swedish outfit somewhat outgrown from their dronier foundations, harnessing a psychedelia that moves with krautrocking purposes, while retaining the band’s previously-established ambient instrumentalist approach. “Days Adrift” is an even thicker roll, with ebbs and flows that give precedent to the shove that results in “Salt Stains,” which follows, while “Petals” dips momentarily into minimalism. But the story here is the fullness of sound, with pieces like the subdued-but-building “Resonance in Ash” or “Petals” in conversation with Pelican/Russian Circles-style heavy, while “The Onward Stride” and “Time Leak” bring prog more to the forefront and “Bread and Sink” lets the rumble bring it all together. In these ways, Silt and Static rewrites the story of Orsak:Oslo as a band, and their reach has never seemed so broad.

Orsak:Oslo website

Vinter Records website

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Modder, Destroying Ourselves for a Place in the Sun

The hypnotic drone finish of “Type 27” that ends side A of Modder‘s second album, Destroying Ourselves for a Place in the Sun, is just one way the band incorporate ambience as a key element in their trades between loud and quiet, tense and open, and crushing and spacious. These different sides come together in various combinations across the six cuts on the Belgian instrumentalist five-piece’s 41-minute run, which sets out in oppressive and blasting fashion with “Stone Eternal,” as heavy as whatever doom you want to put it next to and still able to hit with the precision of Gojira. The shorter “Mather” is more angular, glitchy and mirrored by “Chaoism” on the album’s second half, and though they lead off with their longest track (immediate points) in “Stone Eternal,” the heavy djenty chug that comes to fruition on “In the Sun” is unmistakable as anything but the closer, building, receding, tossing in what sure sounds like a human voice chanting and surging in intensity to round out with a keyboard-overlaid bludgeoning. By then you’re pretty much pulp anyway.

Modder Linktr.ee

Lay Bare Recordings website

Consouling Sounds store

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Futuredrugs, Past Warnings of Present Futures

Past Warnings of Present Futures tells you a lot about its point of view in the title, but electronic experimentalists Futuredrugs push the meaning deeper still, opening with a barely recognizable take on “What a Wonderful World” with “Skies of Blue” and revamping Tom Waits‘ “Dirt in the Ground” on “…And the Gallows Groaned.” The cinematic, dark synth/programmed backdrop of these and the sampled “No Home” blur the line between originality and reinterpretation/manipulation, and I won’t claim to know whether pieces like “Ice Age Coming” or “When the Last Tree Falls” are similarly sourced, but maybe. In any case, in a time when remembering things like “nothing matters anyway” is a comfort, there is space for the open-minded listener to dwell among these seven tracks, which when taken as a whole succeed in embodying the apocalyptic hellscape of recent years. I don’t know if they’re offering sanctuary so much as a snapshot, but as that, it sure feels like an accurate depiction.

Futuredrugs on Bandcamp

Futuredrugs on Instagram

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If you’ve been keeping up, you already know this Quarterly Review goes through next Monday (because screw weekends anyhow) and will top out at 70 releases covered. Today, then, is when we hit the halfway mark en route to that number. Does it matter? Probably not unless you’re the guy on the other side of the laptop writing it, but maybe you just enjoy having the division done for you.

More of a range of styles today than yesterday, which I need to keep this going, so you’ll pardon me while I dig in in the hope that you do the same. Thanks for reading.

Quarterly Review #31-40:

Mountain of Misery, Shades of the Ashes

Somewhat impressively, Mountain of Misery remains the solo-project of Kamil Ziółkowski, who perhaps if he wasn’t also the drummer/vocalist in Spaceslug might’ve put together a full band by now, but seems committed to keeping the band in-house. But it is a band, to be sure. Shades of the Ashes is Ziółkowski‘s third LP under the moniker, and it pushes deeper into a progression distinct from Spaceslug however familiar some of the vocals are, and offers depth of its own, whether that’s tonally in the thickened fuzz of “Follow the Sun” or the way he makes it boogie in “Speed King” (not a cover) while at the same time setting up the lush nod of “From Fall to Rise.” Between “Thornado” at the outset and the eight-minute finale “Blow,” Ziółkowski refines Mountain of Misery‘s sound with a freshness that is metal, grunge, heavy rock and psychedelic all at once, and stronger for that cohesion with his signature mellow vocals over top. It’s kind of surprising at this point he hasn’t been tempted to do it live, but clearly this is working, so I wouldn’t necessarily encourage messing with the process either.

Mountain of Misery on Bandcamp

Mountain of Misery on Facebook

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Dërro, Halcyon

A fresh take on the notion of Southern heavy from Asheville, North Carolina’s Dërro, who put a bit of twang into the post-Alice in Chains harmonies of “Brain Worm” (surely a song for our times) and a bit of emotive soar into “Echo Mountain” in complement to a guitar tone that feels kin to earlier Tool, all while retaining a ‘doing its own thing’ vibe. That is to say, the six-song Halcyon — which is the band’s first outing so far as I know — feels like the credited-as-composers duo of Neal Brewer and Corey Tossas, working with Pat Gerasia on drums, would seem to have come into this debut offering with a firm idea of what they wanted the band to be sound-wise, and unless they’ve secretly been working on it for a decade, the results of that shimmer with intention and feeling alike in the chuggy “Alone” and the drawl-into-power-nod opening title-track. One to watch? Maybe, but way more of a thing to hear now.

Dërro on Bandcamp

Dërro on Instagram

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Soporose, Soporose

The guitar/drum duo of Marco Bianciardi (The Somnambulist, ex-Arte, etc.) and Sara Neidorf (Mellowdeath, Sarattma, ex-Aptera, etc.) apparently recorded their six-track/36-minutes self-titled debut in a day. That implies much of it was done live, though it doesn’t account for the keyboards that show up in “Spectral Swell” and “Countershading,” or the lead layering in “Talking Moonshine,” but it’s not unlikely that after showing up and banging it out they had a little time for overdubs. Fair enough. The pieces are varied and prone to getting weirder toward their respective ends, rooted in doomjazz but groove-conscious just the same, and the garage-y strum in “Gruttling From Outer Space” bends and twists as it goes in a way that surely defines what ‘gruttling’ might be, while “Edge of Forthcoming Rain” hints at more peaceful ideas without giving up its restlessness and “The Cosmonaut’s Secret” turns out to be the shove into its own finish. They close with a saunter in “Talking Moonshine” and that feels as right as anything for a collection that’s so casually eclectic while minimizing the actual elements involved in its making.

Soporose Linktr.ee

Soporose on Bandcamp

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VVarp, Power Held in Stone

Melbourne three-piece VVarp — also stylized all-caps: VVARP — seem to imagine a universe wherein the thickened tones and keyboard flourish of Slomatics meets with more traditionalist doom riffing, but that’s still just half the story as bassist Claudia Sullivan and guitarist/keyboardist John Bollen share lead vocals in harmonized style over the voluminous roll of “Druid Warfare,” the cavernous and lumbering “A Path Through the Veil,” assuring there’s beauty to coincide with all the crush that surrounds. Running 34 minutes and five tracks, Power Held in Stone follows 2020’s First Levitations and is accordingly their second full-length, given ethereal, almost-chanting presence through the vocals on centerpiece “Equinox Portal” where “Iron Cloak” is more resolved to its own heads-down-all-go bombast fueled by drummer Scott McLatchie as the song shoves into the residual keys that carry to the rumble at the outset of 10-minute capper “Stone Silhouette,” likewise gorgeous, immersive and encompassing.

VVarp on Bandcamp

VVarp on Instagram

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Atom Juice, Atom Juice

Easily among the best debut albums I’ve heard in 2025 comes this modernized-classic psychedelia outreach from Poland’s Atom Juice, who would seem to have some relation to meloproggers Weedpecker through guitarist/vocalist Bartek Dobry, but who take a different path to get to bright and melodic fruition. The five-piece outfit’s self-titled debut (on Heavy Psych Sounds) runs shortest to longest on each of its component sides, with copious Beatles influence in “Gooboo” (circa ’70) and delves elsewhere into modern space rock (“Dead Hookers”), the most engaging funk-psych I’ve heard since Wight on “Sexi Frogs,” and an identity in the doing conjured through a blend of influences older and new. As closer “Honey” gives a bit of push in its first half, there’s nowhere Atom Juice wind up on the record that they don’t make themselves welcome, and with rare warmth, they give hopeful hints at the shape of heavy psychedelia to come. I haven’t seen a lot of hype for this one. If you’re reading this, don’t skip it.

Atom Juice on Bandcamp

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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Hooveriii, Manhunter

The 15 tracks of Hooveriii‘s Manhunter have a foundation in garage rock and an according off-the-cuff feel, but at the same time, interludes and exploratory instrumentals like “In the Rain,” “Night Walks in Montreaux,” the spacey title-track and the penultimate organ soundscaper “Awful Planet” assure that nothing actually comes across as haphazard in a way that undercuts the dynamic. “Melody” and “Tin Lips” open in rocking style, while the fuzz grows more fervent in “Westside Pavilion of Dreams” and “Heaven at the Gates” before “Cul-de-Sac” marks the transition to the next phase with the forceful shuffle of “The Fly,” answered a short while later by the heft of “Question.” It goes like this, flowing except where it doesn’t want to, and with the jazzy “Me King” and the aforementioned mellow-vocalized “Awful Planet” for setup, “Stage” reroutes into pastoralism and feels pointedly kind in so doing. Clearly a band for whom genre takes a secondary role to their own craft, and one whose appeal is broader for that.

Hooveriii on Bandcamp

The Reverb Appreciation Society store

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Gaupa, Fyr

Fluidity is part of the nature of what Sweden’s Gaupa do, as the Falun-based troupe have established over their two-to-date LPs and other sundry outings. The five-song/35-minute Fyr finds them working with producer Karl Daniel Lidén — which was a very good idea that somebody had — and is billed as a mini-album, which I think is to account for its being only one minute shorter than their most recent LP, 2022’s Myriad (review here). Vocalist Emma Näslund remains a focal point in the songs, but the balance of the mix is malleable as “Heavy Lord” demonstrates, and “Elastic Sheep” finds the entire band aligned around a fullness that one only hopes is emblematic of their third to come. Plus a big ol’ slowdown, and while we’re talking bonuses, the 11-minute live take on “Febersvan” from their first EP is a welcome glimpse at how far they’ve progressed to this point to complement the potential still so obvious in their sound. They’re the kind of band you hope never stop growing.

Gaupa Linktr.ee

Nuclear Blast Records store

Magnetic Eye Records store

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Foot, The Hammer

With multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Paul Holden still at the center of the project — Mathias Dowle is also credited with playing on and co-engineering the album with Holden and Ryan Fallis — Melbourne psych-grunge rockers Foot seem to pick up where they left off with 2022’s You Are Weightless, tapping into a style that’s grounded in terms of structure and committedly straightforward but that still lends a feeling of scope and space to the nine cuts on the 45-minute Copper Feast-issued LP. The fuzz is prevalent, perhaps nowhere more so than “Walking Into Walls All Week,” where “Intensify” is more of a vocal showcase until its later heavy sweep. Holden does a cover of Marcy Playground‘s “Sex and Candy”… for… some reason… and but for that, as one would both expect and hope for the band at this point, they remain a songwriting-based unit, able to present a diversity of ideas and moods without ever making it feel like a departure at all.

Foot on Bandcamp

Copper Feast Records website

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Diagram, Short Circuit Control

Enter Diagram with a ready definition for ‘dug in’ on their second album, Short Circuit Control. The Berlin duo of founder Hákon Aðalsteinsson and Fred Sunesen offer heady listeners a heady listen with nine inclusions that commune with the history of electronics in krautrock while still keeping both a modern and a psychedelic affect. Is that neo-kraut? I honestly don’t know, but cuts like “This is How We Lead Our Lives” transcend their outward poppiness through repetition and exploration, and the abiding lesson seems to be that just because something is dancey doesn’t also mean it can’t be purposefully building an atmosphere — “Close Your Eyes” walks by and waves (not that you can see it with your eyes closed). The single “Dub Boy” answers the New Wave aspects of opener “Breath in Your Fire,” and a ’90s electro finale awaits in “Through the Wall of Sound” for anybody adventurous enough to take it on.

Diagram on Bandcamp

P.U.G. Records on Bandcamp

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The Phantom Eye, Cymatic Waves

Brookynite heavy progressive rockers The Phantom Eye offer blend across Cymatic Waves‘ four tracks that feels metallic at its root but has grown and redirected to more complex fare. Between the volume trades of “Circuit Rider,” the noise baked into the finish of “Palindrome,” the synth adding drama to “Black Hotel” and the intricate balancing of guitar layers in “Silent Symphony,” the focus is never purely on just being heavy, but ‘heavy,’ as a musical ideal, is a piece of the puzzle here, framing a broad melodic reach and giving shape to the structures underlying. I wouldn’t hazard a guess as to what they might sound like in five years, but as they’re following 2021’s Chromesthesia EP (review here) with this second short release, it’s even more difficult to pin them down as any one thing. This could hardly feel more intentional than it does in the songs. There’s a plan at work here. It’s just starting to pan out.

The Phantom Eye Linktr.ee

The Phantom Eye on Bandcamp

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Welcome to the Spring 2025 Quarterly Review. If you’re unfamiliar with the format or how this goes, the quick version is each day brings 10 new releases — albums, EPs, even a single every now and again — that are reviewed at at the end of it everybody has a ton of new music to listen to and I’m a little closer to being caught up to what’s coming out after spending about a season falling behind on coverage. Everybody wins, mostly.

It’s a seven-day QR. As always, some of what will be covered is older and some is new. There are a couple 2024 releases. The 10,000 Years record, for example, I should’ve reviewed five times over by now, but life happens. There’s also stuff that isn’t released yet, so it all averages out to some approximation of relevance. Hopefully.

In any case, we proceed. Thanks if you keep up this week and into next.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

Pagan Altar, Never Quite Dead

Classic metal par excellence pervades the first Pagan Altar album since 2017 and the first to feature vocalist Brendan Radigan (Magic Circle) in place of founding singer Terry Jones, who passed away in 2015 and whose son, guitarist Alan Jones, is the sole remaining founding member of the band, which started in 1978. Never Quite Dead collects eight varied tracks, some further evidence for the line of NWOBHM extending out of the dual-guitar pioneering of Thin Lizzy, plenty of overarching melancholy, and it honors the idea of the band having a classic sound without sacrificing modern impact in the recording. The subdued “Liston Church,” the later doomly sprawl of “The Dead’s Last March” and the willful grandiosity of the nine-minute finale “Kismet” assure that Never Quite Dead indeed resonates vibrant with a heart made of denim.

Pagan Altar on Facebook

Dying Victims Productions website

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Designer, Weekend at Brian’s

Somewhere between proto-punk and 1990s alt-rock come Designer with the three-song demo Weekend at Brian’s. Based in Asheville, the band have an edge of danger to their tones, but the outward face is catchy and quirky, a little Blondie but with deceptively heavy riffing in “Magic Memory” and extra-satisfyingly farty bass in “Midnight Waltz” as the band engage Blue Öyster Cult in a conversation of fears, the band wind up somewhere between heavy modern indie and retro-minded fare. “Ugly in the Streets” moves like a Ramones song and I’ve got no problem with that. However they go, the songs are pointedly straightforward, and they kind of need to be for the stripped-down style to work. Nothing’s over three minutes long, the songs are tight, and it’s got style without overloading on the pretense, which especially for a new outfit is an excellent place to start.

Designer on Instagram

Designer on Bandcamp

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10,000 Years, All Quiet on the Final Frontier

The hopeful keyboard of album intro “Orbital Decay” gradually devolves into noise, and from there, Swedish crash-and-bash specialists 10,000 Years show you what it’s all about — gutted-out heavy riffing, ace swing in “The Experiment” and a whole lot of head-down forward shove. The Västerås-based trio have yet to put out a record that wasn’t a step forward from the one before it, and this late-2024 third full-length feels duly realized in how it incorporates the psychedelic aspects of “Ablaze in the Now” with the physical intensity of “The Weight of a Feather” or closer “Down the Heavy Path.” But they’re more dynamic on the whole, as “Death Valley Ritual” dares a bit of spoken drama, and “High Noon in Sword City” reminds that there’s a good dose of noise rock underpinning what 10,000 Years do, and that cacophony still suits them even as they’ve expanded around that foundation over the last five years.

10,000 Years on Facebook

Ripple Music website

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Amber Asylum, Ruby Red

Amber Asylum are a San Francisco arthouse institution, and from its outset with the five-minute instrumental “Secrets,” the band’s 10th album, Ruby Red, counsels patience in mournful, often softspoken chamber doom. The use of space as the title-track unfolds with founding violinist/vocalist Kris Force‘s voice over minimalist bass, encompassing and sad as the song plays out with an emergent dirge of strings and percussion, where the subsequent “Demagogue” is more actively drummed, the band having already drawn the listener deeper into the record’s seven-song cycle. The cello of Jackie Perez-Gratz (also Grayceon, Brume) gives centerpiece “The Morrigan” extra character later on, and it’s there in “Azure” as well, though the context shifts with foreboding drones of various wavelengths behind the vocals. Ambience plus bite. “Weaver” rolls through its first half instrumentally, realigning around the strings and steady movement; its back half is reverently sung without lyrics. And when they get to closer “A Call on the Wind,” the sense of unease in the violin is met with banging-on-a-spring-style experimentalist noise, just to underscore the sense of things being wrong as far as realities go. It’s not a minor undertaking as regards atmospheric or emotional weight, but empathy resounds.

Amber Asylum on Instagram

Prophecy Productions website

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Weevil, Easy Way

With Fu Manchu as a defining influence, Greek heavy rockers Weevil set forth with Easy Way, their 10-song/42-minute self-released debut album. They pay homage to Lemmy with the cleverly-titled “Rickenbästard” — you know I’m a sucker for charm — and diverge from the straight-ahead heavy thrust on the mellower, longer “The Old Man Lied” and “Insomnia,” but by and large, the five-piece are here to throw down riffy groove and have a good time, and they do just that. The title-track, “Wake the Dead” and “Headache” provide a charged beginning, and even by the time the crunch of “Gonna Fall” slides casually into the nodder hook of closer “Last Night a Zombie” (“…ate my brain” is the rest of the line), they’ve still got enough energy to make it feel like the party could easily continue. It just might. There’s perspective in this material that feels like it might take shape over time, and in my mind, Weevil get immediate credit for being upfront in their homage and wearing their own heavy fandom on their sleeves. You can hear their love for it.

Weevil on Facebook

Weevil on Bandcamp

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Kazea, I, Ancestral

Adventurous and forward-thinking post-metal pervades Swedish trio Kazea‘s debut album, and the sound is flexible enough in their craft to let “Whispering Hand” careen like neo-psych after the screams and lurch of “Trenches” provide one of the record’s most extreme moments, bolstered by guest vocals. Indeed, “Whispering Hand” is a rocker and something of an outlier for that, as Pale City Skin draws a downerist line between Crippled Black Phoenix and circa-’04 Neurosis, “Wailing Blood” finds a way to meld driving rhythm and atmospheric heft, and the seven-minute “Seamlessly Woven” caps with suitable depth of wash, following the lushness of the penultimate “The North Passage” in its howling, growl-topped chorus with another expression of the ethereal. I haven’t heard a ton of hype about I, Ancestral, but regardless, this is one of the best debut albums I’ve heard so far this year for sure. Post-metal needs bands willing to push its limits.

Kazea on Instagram

Suicide Records website

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Electric Eye, Dyp Tid

Hard not to think of the 14-minute weirdo-psych jam “Mycelium” as the highlight of Dyp Tid, but one shouldn’t discount the lead-you-in warmth and serenity of opener “Pendelen Svinger,” or the bit of dub in the drumming of “Clock of the Long Now,” and so on as Norway’s Electric Eye — which is a pretty straightforward name, considering the sound — vibe blissful for the duration. The drone “Den Første Lysstråle” is hypnotic, and though the vocals in “Mycelium” are a sample, the human presence periodically sprinkled throughout the album feels like it’s adding comfort amid what might be an anxious plunge into the cosmos. They finish with “Hvit Lotus,” which marries together various kinds of synth over a deceptively casual beat, capping light with vocals or synth-vocals in a bright chorus over chime sounds and drifting guitar. You made it to the island. You’re safe. Gentle fade out.

Electric Eye website

Fuzz Club Records website

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Void Sinker, Oxygen

Multi-instrumentalist and producer Guglielmo Allegro is the sole denizen behind Void Sinker, and while I know full well we live in an age of technological wonders/horrors, that one person could conjure up such encompassing heavy sounds — the way 14-minute opener “Satellite” just swallows you whole — is impressive. Oxygen is the Salerno, Italy, DIY project’s fourth full-length in two years, and its intent to crush is plain from the outset. “Satellite” has its own summary progression of what the rest of the album does, and then “Oxygen” (9:45), “Collision” (15:23) and “Abyss” (13:32) play through increasingly noisy slab-riff distribution. This is done methodically, at mostly slow tempos, with tonal depth and an obvious awareness of where it’s coming from. Presumably that, and a lack of argument from anyone else when he wants to ride a groove for 15 minutes, is why Void Sinker is a solo outfit. One of distinctive bludgeon, it turns out. Like big riffs pushing the air out of your lungs? Here you go.

Void Sinker on Instagram

Void Sinker on Bandcamp

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André Drage Group, Wolves

Draken drummer André Drage leads the group that shares his name from behind the kit, it would seem, but even if only one name gets to be in the moniker, make no mistake, the entire band is present and accounted for. Challenging each other in jazz-prog fashion, Wolves is the second album from the Group in as many months. It leads off with its longest track (immediate points) “Brainsoup,” and by the time they’re through with it, it is. We’re talking ace prog boogie, funky like El Perro might do it, but looser and more improv feeling in the solo of “Potent Elixirs,” giving a spontaneous impression even in the studio, ebbing and flowing in the runs of “Tigerboy” while “Wind in Their Sails” is both more King Crimson and more shuffling-Rhodes-jam, which is the kind of party you want to be at whether you know it or not. The penultimate “Fire” gets lit by the guitar, and they round out with “Nesodden,” a sweet comedown from some of Wolves‘ more frenetic movements. Like a supernova, but not uncontained. This is a band ready to drop jaws.

André Drage Group on Bandcamp

Drage Records website

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The Mystery Lights, Purgatory

The Sept. 2024 third album from NYC-based vintage rockers The Mystery Lights skillfully weaves together garage rock and ’60s pop theatrics, giving the bounce and sway of the title-track an immediately nostalgic impression that the jangly “In the Streets” is probably about a ahead from in terms of influence, but the blend is the thing. Regardless of how developed the punk is or isn’t in a given track — I dig the shaker in “Trouble” and it manages a sense of ‘island’ without being racist, so bonus points for that — or how “Cerebral Crack” brings flute in with its extra-fuzzed guitar later on or “Memories” and “Automatic Response” feel more soul than rock in both intent and manifestation, The Mystery Lights benefit from pairing stylistic complexity with structural simplicity, and the 12 songs of Purgatory find a niche outside genre norms and time all the more for the fact that the band don’t seem concerned with anything so much as writing songs that sound like home the first time you hear them.

The Mystery Lights’ Linktr.ee

The Mystery Lights on Bandcamp

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Day four of five for this snuck-in-before-the-end-of-the-year Quarterly Review, and I’m left wondering if maybe it won’t be worth booking another week for January or early February, and if that happens, is it still “quarterly” at that point if you do it like six times a year? ‘Bimonthly Quality Control Assessments’ coming soon! Alert your HR supervisors to tell your servers of any allergies.

No, not really.

I’ll figure out a way to sandwich more music into this site if it kills me. Which I guess it might. Whatever, let’s do this thing.

Quarterly Review #31-40

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Sergeant Thunderhoof, The Ghost of Badon Hill

A marked accomplishment in progressive heavy rock, The Ghost of Badon Hill is the fifth full-length from UK five-piece Sergeant Thunderhoof, who even without the element of surprise on their side — which is to say one is right to approach the 45-minute six-tracker with high expectations based on the band’s past work; their last LP was 2022’s This Sceptred Veil (review here)  — rally around a folklore-born concept and deliver the to-date album of their career. From the first emergence of heft in “Badon” topped with Daniel Flitcroft soar-prone vocals, Sergeant Thunderhoof — guitarists Mark Sayer and Josh Gallop, bassist Jim Camp and drummer Darren Ashman, and the aforementioned Flitcroft — confidently execute their vision of a melodic riffprog scope. The songs have nuance and character, the narrative feels like it moves through the material, there are memorable hooks and grand atmospheric passages. It is by its very nature not without some indulgent aspects, but also a near-perfect incarnation of what one might ask it to be.

Sergeant Thunderhoof on Facebook

Pale Wizard Records store

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Swallow the Sun, Shining

The stated objective of Swallow the Sun‘s Shining was for less misery, and fair enough as the Finnish death-doomers have been at it for about a quarter of a century now and that’s a long time to feel so resoundingly wretched, however relatably one does it. What does less-misery sound like? First of all, still kinda miserable. If you know Swallow the Sun, they are still definitely recognizable in pieces like “Innocence Was Long Forgotten,” “What I Have Become” and “MelancHoly,” but even the frontloading of these singles — don’t worry, from “Kold” and the ultra Type O Negative-style “November Dust” (get it?), to the combination of floating, dancing keyboard lines and drawn out guitars in the final reaches of the title-track, they’re not short on highlights — conveys the modernity brought into focus. Produced by Dan Lancaster (Bring Me the Horizon, A Day to Remember, Muse), the songs are in conversation with the current sphere of metal in a way that Swallow the Sun have never been, broadening the definition of what they do while retaining a focus on craft. They’re professionals.

Swallow the Sun on Facebook

Century Media website

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Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships, The Mind Like Fire Unbound

Where’s the intermittently-crushing sci-fi-concept death-stoner, you ask? Well, friend, Lincoln, Nebraska’s Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships would like to have a word, and on The Mind Like Fire Unbound, there’s a non-zero chance that word will come in the form of layered death metal growls and rasping throatripper screams representing an insectoid species about to tear more-melodically-voiced human colonizers to pieces. The 45-minute LP’s 14-minute opener “BUGS” that lays out this warning is followed by the harsh, cosmic-paranoia conjuration of “Dark Forest” before a pivot in 8:42 centerpiece “Infinite Inertia” — and yes, the structure of the tracks is purposeful; longest at the open and close with shorter pieces on either side of “Infinite Inertia” — takes the emotive cast of Pallbearer to an extrapolated psychedelic metalgaze, huge and broad and lumbering. Of course the contrast is swift in the two-minute “I Hate Space,” but where one expects more bludgeonry, the shortest inclusion stays clean vocally amid its uptempo, Torche-but-not-really push. Organ joins the march in the closing title-track (14:57), which gallops following its extended intro, doom-crashes to a crawl and returns to double-kick behind the encompassing last solo, rounding out with suitable showcase of breadth and intention.

Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships on Facebook

Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships on Bandcamp

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Planet of Zeus, Afterlife

Planet of Zeus make a striking return with their sixth album, Afterlife, basing their theme around mythologies current and past and accompanying that with a sound that’s both less brash than they were a few years back on 2019’s Faith in Physics (review here) and refined in the sharpness and efficiency of its songwriting. It’s a rocker, which is what one has come to expect from these Athens-based veterans. Afterlife builds momentum through desert-style rockers like “Baptized in His Death” and the hooky “No Ordinary Life” and “The Song You Misunderstand,” getting poppish in the stomp of “Bad Milk” only after the bluesy “Let’s Call it Even” and before the punkier “Letter to a Newborn,” going where it wants and leaving no mystery as to how it’s getting there because it doesn’t need to. One of the foremost Greek outfits of their generation, Planet of Zeus show up, tell you what they’re going to do, then do it and get out, still managing to leave behind some atmospheric resonance in “State of Non-Existence.” There’s audible, continued forward growth and kickass tunes. If that sounds pretty ideal, it is.

Planet of Zeus on Facebook

Planet of Zeus on Bandcamp

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Human Teorema, Le Premier Soleil de Jan Calet

Cinematic in its portrayal, Le Premier Soleil de Jan Calet positions itself as cosmically minded, and manifests that in sometimes-minimal — effectively so, since it’s hypnotic — aural spaciousness, but Paris’ Human Teorema veer into Eastern-influenced scales amid their exploratory, otherworldly-on-purpose landscaping, and each planet on which they touch down, from “Onirico” (7:43) to “Studiis” (15:54) and “Spedizione” (23:20) is weirder than the last, shifting between these vast passages and jammier stretches still laced with synth. Each piece has its own procession and dynamic, and perhaps the shifts in intent are most prevalent within “Studiis,” but the closer is, on the balance, a banger as well, and there’s no interruption in flow once you’ve made the initial choice to go with Le Premier Soleil de Jan Calet. An instrumental approach allows Human Teorema to embody descriptive impressions that words couldn’t create, and when they decide to hit it hard, they’re heavy enough for the scale they’ve set. Won’t resonate universally (what does?), but worth meeting on its level.

Human Teorema on Instagram

Sulatron Records store

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Caged Wolves, A Deserts Tale

There are two epics north of the 10-minute mark on Caged Wolves‘ maybe-debut LP, A Deserts Tale: “Lost in the Desert” (11:26) right after the intro “Dusk” and “Chaac” (10:46) right before the hopeful outro “Dawn.” The album runs a densely-packed 48 minutes through eight tracks total, and pieces like the distortion-drone-backed “Call of the Void,” the alt-prog rocking “Eleutheromania,” “Laguna,” which is like earlier Radiohead in that it goes somewhere on a linear build, and the spoken-word-over-noise interlude “The Lost Tale” aren’t exactly wanting for proportion, regardless of runtime. The bassline that opens “Call of the Void” alone would be enough to scatter orcs, but that still pales next to “Chaac,” which pushes further and deeper, topping with atmospheric screams and managing nonetheless to come out of the other side of that harsh payoff of some of the album’s most weighted slog in order to bookend and give the song the finish it deserves, completing it where many wouldn’t have been so thoughtful. This impression is writ large throughout and stands among the clearest cases for A Deserts Tale as the beginning of a longer-term development.

Caged Wolves on Facebook

Tape Capitol Music store

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Anomalos Kosmos, Liminal Escapism

I find myself wanting to talk about how big Liminal Escapism sounds, but I don’t mean in terms of tonal proportion so much as the distances that seem to be encompassed by Greek progressive instrumentalists Anomalos Kosmos. With an influence from Grails and, let’s say, 50 years’ worth of prog rock composition (but definitely honoring the earlier end of that timeline), Anomalos Kosmos offer emotional evocation in pieces that feel compact on either side of six or seven minutes, taking the root jams and building them into structures that still come across as a journey. The classy soloing in “Me Orizeis” and synthy shimmer of “Parapatao,” the rumble beneath the crescendo of “Kitonas” and all of that gosh darn flow in “Flow” speak to a songwriting process that is aware of its audience but feels no need to talk down, musically speaking, to feed notions of accessibility. Instead, the immersion and energetic drumming of “Teledos” and the way closer “Cigu” rallies around pastoral fuzz invite the listener to come along on this apparently lightspeed voyage — thankfully not tempo-wise — and allow room for the person hearing these sounds to cast their own interpretations thereof.

Anomalos Kosmos on Facebook

Anomalos Kosmos on Bandcamp

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Pilot Voyager, Grand Fractal Orchestra

One could not hope to fully encapsulate an impression here of nearly three and a half hours of sometimes-improv psych-drone, and I refuse to feel bad for not trying. Instead, I’ll tell you that Grand Fractal Orchestra — the Psychedelic Source Records 3CD edition of which has already sold out — finds Budapest-based guitarist Ákos Karancz deeply engaged in the unfolding sounds here. Layering effects, collaborating with others from the informal PSR collective like zitherist Márton Havlik or singer Krisztina Benus, and so on, Karancz constructs each piece in a way that feels both steered in a direction and organic to where the music wants to go. “Ore Genesis” gets a little frantic around the middle but finds its chill, “Human Habitat” is duly foreboding, and the two-part, 49-minute-total capper “Transforming Time to Space” is beautiful and meditative, like staring at a fountain with your ears. It goes without saying not everybody has the time or the attention span to sit with a release like this, but if you take it one track at a time for the next four years or so, there’s worlds enough in these songs that they’ll probably just keep sinking in. And if Karancz puts outs like five new albums in that time too, so much the better.

Pilot Voyager on Instagram

Psychedelic Source Records on Bandcamp

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Blake Hornsby, A Village of Many Springs

It probably goes without saying — at least it should — that while the classic folk fingerplucking of “Whispering Waters” and the Americana-busy “Laurel Creek Blues” give a sweet introduction to Blake Hornsby‘s A Village of Many Springs, inevitably it’s the 23-minute experimentalist spread of the finale, “Bury My Soul in the Linville River,” that’s going to be a focal point for many listeners, and fair enough. The earthbound-cosmic feel of that piece, its devolution into Lennon-circa-1968 tape noise and concluding drone, aren’t at all without preface. A Village of Many Springs gets weirder as it goes, with the eight-minute “Cathedral Falls” building over its time into a payoff of seemingly on-guitar violence, and the subsequent “O How the Water Flows” nestling into a sweet spot between Appalachian nostalgia and foreboding twang. There’s percussion and manipulation of noise later, too, but even in its repetition, “O How the Water Flows” continues Hornsby‘s trajectory. For what’s apparently an ode to water in the region surrounding Hornsby‘s home in Asheville, North Carolina, that it feels fluid should be no surprise, but by no means does one need to have visited Laurel Creek to appreciate the blues Hornsby conjures for them.

Blake Hornsby on Facebook

Echodelick Records website

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Congulus, G​ö​ç​ebe

With a sensibility in some of the synth of “Hacamat” born of space rock, Congulus have no trouble moving from that to the 1990s-style alt-rock saunter of “Diri Bir Nefes,” furthering the momentum already on the Istanbul-based instrumentalist trio’s side after opener “İskeletin Düğün Halayı” before “Senin Sırlarının Yenilmez Gücünü Gördüm” spaces out its solo over scales out of Turkish folk and “Park” marries together the divergent chugs of Judas Priest and Meshuggah, there’s plenty of adventure to be had on Göç​ebe. It’s the band’s second full-length behind 2019’s Bozk​ı​r — they’ve had short releases between — and it moves from “Park” into the push of “Zarzaram” and “Vordonisi” with efficiency that’s only deceptive because there’s so much stylistic range, letting “Ulak” have its open sway and still bash away for a moment or two before “Sonunda Ah Çekeriz Derinden” closes by tying space rock, Mediterranean traditionalism and modern boogie together in one last jam before consigning the listener back to the harsher, decidedly less utopian vibes of reality.

Congulus on Facebook

Congulus on Bandcamp

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Oh hi, I didn’t see you there. Me? Oh, you know. Nothing much. Staring off a cliffside about to jump headfirst into a pool of 100 records. The usual.

I’m pretty sure this is the second time this year that a single Quarterly Review has needed to be two weeks long. It’s been a busy year, granted, but still. I keep waiting for the tide to ebb, but it hasn’t really at all. Older bands keep going, or a lot of them do, anyhow — or they come back — and new bands come up. But for all the war, famine, plague and strife and crisis and such, it’s a golden age.

But hey, don’t let me keep you. I’ve apparently been doing QRs since 2013, and I remember trying to find a way to squeeze together similar roundups before it. I have no insight to add about that, it’s just something I dug back to find out the other day and was surprised because 11 years of this kind of thing is a really long gosh darn time.

On that note, let’s go.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

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Agusa, Noir

The included bits of Swedish dialogue from the short film for which Agusa‘s Noir was written to serve as a soundtrack would probably ground the proceedings some if I spoke Swedish, admittedly. As it is, those voices become part of the dream world the Malmö-based otherwise-instrumentalist adventurers conjure across 15 at times wildly divergent pieces. In arrangement and resultant mood, from the ’70s piano sentimentality of “Ljusglimtar” to the darker church organ and flute workings of “Stad i mörker,” which is reprised as a dirge at the end, the tracks are evocative across a swath of atmospheres, and it’s not all drones or background noise. They get their rock in, and if you stick around for “Kalkbrottets hemlighet,” you get to have the extra pleasure of hearing the guitar eat the rest of the song. You could say that’s not a thing you care about hearing but I know it’d be a lie, so don’t bother. If you’ve hesitated to take on Agusa in the past because sometimes generally-longform instrumental progressive psychedelic heavy rock can be a lot when you’re trying to get to know it, consider Noir‘s shorter inclusions a decent entry point to the band. Each one is like a brief snippet serving as another demonstration of the kind of immersion they can bring to what they play.

Agusa on Facebook

Kommun 2 website

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Octoploid, Beyond the Aeons

With an assembled cast of singers that includes Mikko Kotamäki (Swallow the Sun), his Amorphis bandmates Tomi Koivusaari and Tomi Joutsen, Petri Eskelinen of Rapture, and Barren Earth bandmate Jón Aldará, and guests on lead guitar and a drummer from the underappreciated Mannhai, and Barren Earth‘s keyboardist sitting in for good measure, bassist Olli Pekka-Laine harnesses a spectacularly Finnish take on proggy death-psych metal for Octoploid‘s first long-player, Beyond the Aeons. The songs feel extrapolated from Amorphis circa Elegy, putting guttural vocals to folk inspired guitar twists and prog-rock grooves, but aren’t trying to be that at all, and as ferocious as it gets, there’s always some brighter element happening, something cosmic or folkish or on the title-track both, and Octoploid feels like an expression of creative freedom based on a vision of a kind of music Pekka-Laine wanted to hear. I want to hear it too.

Octoploid on Facebook

Reigning Phoenix Music website

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The Obscure River Experiment, The Ore

The Obscure River Experiment, as a group collected together for the live performance from which The Ore has been culled, may or may not be a band. It is comprised of players from the sphere of Psychedelic Source Records, and so as members of River Flows Reverse, Obscure Supersession Collective, Los Tayos and others collaborate here in these four periodically scorching jams — looking at you, middle of “Soul’s Shiver Pt. 2” — it could be something that’ll happen again next week or next never. Not knowing is part of the fun, because as far out as something like The Obscure River Experiment might and in fact does go, there’s chemistry enough between all of these players to hold it together. “Soul Shiver Pt. 1” wakes up and introduces the band, “Pt. 2” blows it out for a while, “I See Horses” gets funky and then blows it out, and “The Moon in Flesh and Bone” feels immediately ceremonial with its sustained organ notes, but becomes a cosmic boogie ripper, complete with a welcome return of vocals. Was it all made up on the spot? Was it all a dream? Maybe both?

Psychedelic Source Records on Spotify

Psychedelic Source Records on Bandcamp

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Shun, Dismantle

Way underhyped South Carolinian progressive heavy rockers Shun arrive at the sound of their second LP, Dismantle, able to conjure elements of The Cure and Katatonia alongside Cave In-style punk-born groove, but in Shun‘s case, the underlying foundation is noise rock, so when “Aviator” opens up to its hook or “NRNS” is suddenly careening pummel or “Drawing Names” half-times the drums to get bigger behind the forward/obvious-focal-point vocal melodies of Matt Whitehead (ex-Throttlerod), there’s reach and impact working in conjunction with a thoughtful songwriting process pushed forward from where on their 2021 self-titled debut (review here) but that still seems to be actively working to engage the listener. That’s not a complaint, mind you, especially since Dismantle succeeds to vividly in doing so, and continues to offer nuance and twists on the plot right up to the willful slog ending with (most of) “Interstellar.”

Shun on Facebook

Small Stone Records website

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No Man’s Valley, Chrononaut Cocktail Bar/Flight of the Sloths

Whether it’s the brooding Nick Cave-style cabaret minimalism of “Creepoid Blues,” the ’60s psych of “Love” or the lush progressivism that emerges in “Seeing Things,” the hook of “Shapeshifter” or “Orange Juice” coming in with shaker at the end to keep things from finishing too melancholy, the first half of No Man’s Valley‘s Chrononaut Cocktail Bar/Flight of the Sloths still can only account for part of the scope as they set forth the pastoralist launch of the 18-minute “Flight of the Sloths” on side B, moving from acoustic strum and a repeating title line into a gradual build effective enough so that when Jasper Hesselink returns on vocals 13 minutes later in the spaced-out payoff — because yes, the sloths are flying between planets; was there any doubt? — it makes you want to believe the sloths are out there working hard to stay in the air. The real kicker? No Man’s Valley are no less considered in how they bring “Flight of the Sloths” up and down across its span than they are “Love” or “Shapeshifter” early on, both under three minutes long. And that’s what maturing as songwriters can do for you, though No Man’s Valley have always had a leg up in that regard.

No Man’s Valley on Facebook

No Man’s Valley on Bandcamp

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Land Mammal, Emergence

Dallas’ Land Mammal defy expectation a few times over on their second full-length, with the songwriting of Will Weise and Kinsley August turning toward greater depth of arrangement and more meditative atmospheres across the nine songs/34 minutes of Emergence, which even in a rolling groove like “Divide” has room for flute and strings. Elsewhere, sitar and tanpura meet with lap steel and keyboard as Land Mammal search for an individual approach to modern progressive heavy. There’s some shades of Elder in August‘s approach on “I Am” or the earlier “Tear You Down,” but the instrumental contexts surrounding are wildly different, and Land Mammal thrive in the details, be it the hand-percussion and far-back fuzz colliding on “The Circle,” or the tabla and sitar, drums and keys as “Transcendence (Part I)” and “Transcendence (Part II)” finish, the latter with the sounds of getting out of the car and walking in the house for epilogue. Yeah, I guess after shifting the entire stylistic scope of your band you’d probably want to go inside and rest for a bit. Well earned.

Land Mammal on Facebook

Kozmik Artifactz store

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Forgotten King, The Seeker

Released through Majestic Mountain Records, the debut full-length from Forgotten King, The Seeker, would seem to have been composed and recorded entirely by Azul Josh Bisama, also guitarist in Kal-El, though a full lineup has since formed. That happens. Just means the second album will have a different dynamic than the first, and there are some parts as in the early cut “Lost” where that will be a benefit as Azul Josh refines the work laying out a largesse-minded, emotively-evocative approach on these six cuts, likewise weighted and soaring. The album is nothing if not aptly-named, though, as Forgotten King lumber through “Drag” and march across 10 minutes of stately atmospheric doom, eventually seeing the melodic vocals give way to harsher fare in the second half, what’s being sought seems to have been found at least on a conceptual level, and one might say the same of “Around the Corner” or “The Sun” taking familiar-leaning desert rock progressions and doing something decisively ‘else’ with them. Very much feels like the encouraging beginning of a longer exploration.

Forgotten King on Facebook

Majestic Mountain Records store

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Church of Hed, The Fifth Hour

Branched off from drummer/synthesist Paul Williams‘ intermittent work over the decades with Quarkspace, the mostly-solo-project Church of Hed explores progressive, kraut and space rock in a way one expects far more from Denmark than Columbus, Ohio — to wit, Jonathan Segel (Øresund Space Collective, Camper Van Beethoven) guests on violin, bass and guitar at various points throughout the nine-tracker, which indeed is about an hour long at 57 minutes. Church of Hed‘s last outing, 2022’s The Father Road, was an audio travelogue crossing the United States from one coast to the other. The Fifth Hour is rarely so concerned with terrestrial impressionism, and especially in its longer-form pieces “Pleiades Waypoint” (13:50), “Son of a Silicon Rogue” (14:59) or “The Fifth Hour” (8:43), it digs into sci-fi prog impulses that even in the weird blips and robot twists of the interlude “Aniluminescence 2” or the misshapen techno in the closing semi-reprise “Bastard Son of The Fifth Hour” never quite feels as dystopian as some other futures in the multiverse, and that becomes a strength.

Church of Hed on Facebook

Church of Hed website

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Zolle, Rosa

Like the Melvins on an AC/DC kick or what you might get if you took ’70s arena rock, put it in a can and shook it really, really hard, Italian duo Zolle are a burst of weirdo sensation on their fifth full-length, Rosa. The songs are ready for whatever football match stadium P.A. you might want to put them on — hugely, straight-ahead, uptempo, catchy, fun in pieces like “Pepe” and “Lana” at the outset, “Merda,” “Pompon,” “Confetto” and “Fiocco” later on, likewise huge and silly in “Pois” or closer “Maialini e Maialine,” and almost grounded on “Toffolette e Zuccherini” at the start but off and running again soon enough — if you can keep up with guitarist/vocalist Marcello and drummer Stefano, for sure they make it worth the effort, and capture some of the intensity of purpose they bring to the stage in the studio and at the same time highlighting the shenanigans writ large throughout in their riffs and the cheeky bit of pop grandiosity that’s such a toy in their hands. You would not call it light on persona.

Zolle on Facebook

Subsound Records website

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Shadow and Claw, Whereabouts Unknown

Thicker in tone than much of modern black metal, and willing toward the organic in a way that feels born of Cascadia a little more to the northwest as they blast away in “Era of Ash,” Boise, Idaho’s Shadow and Claw nonetheless execute moody rippers across the five songs/41 minute of their debut, Whereabouts Unknown. Known for his work in Ealdor Bealu and the solo-project Sawtooth Monk, guitarist/vocalist Travis Abbott showcases a rasp worthy of Enslaved‘s Grutle Kjellson on the 10-minute “Wrath of Thunder,” so while there are wolves amid the trio’s better chairs, to be sure, Shadow and Claw aren’t necessarily working from any single influence in or out of char-prone extreme metals, and as the centerpiece gives over to the eponymous “Shadow and Claw,” those progressive aspirations are reaffirmed as Abbott, drummer/backing vocalist Aaron Bossart (also samples) and bassist/backing vocalist Geno Lopez find room for a running-water-backed acoustic epilogue to “Scouring the Plane of Existence” and the album as a whole. Easy to imagine them casting these songs into the sunset on the side of some pointy Rocky Mountain or other, shadows cast and claws raised.

Shadow and Claw on Facebook

Shadow and Claw on Bandcamp

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Based in Asheville, North Carolina, Angelica and The Crooked Path is a newcomer four-piece who’ve made an initial showing in two separately released singles, “Lily” and “Creatures of Spring.” They call it “bloom metal,” and fair enough — what? I should argue? — and what that translates to in terms of the tracks is a heavy, lush and psychedelic atmosphere, able to dig into the crunchier-style riff of “Lily” or find a folkish pulse in “Creatures of Spring.” They call the latter their “more eclectic” work, which makes sense as it seems to have a broader stylistic reach and more open feel generally, but putting the two songs next to each other is where you really get a fuller picture of the potential here.

So that’s what I did. You’ll find both “Lily” and “Creatures of Spring” below. Both were posted in June. For what it’s worth, I heard “Lily” first. I won’t tell you what order to listen to them in, but if you start “Creatures of Spring,” take my advice and stick with it. I’d take an album of this immediately if such a thing existed. Since not, I’ll just look forward to more from them.

From the PR wire:

Newcomers Angelica & The Crooked Path Introduce Bloom Metal with Two Singles

Hailing from the foothills of Southern Appalachia, Angelica & The Crooked Path defines their style as “bloom metal,” combining elements of shimmering sludge and dream-pop. Carving out their own niche, their aesthetic blurs the edges of the amp-worshiping riff genres, hypnagogic and alluring. The Asheville, NC-based quartet has marked their arrival with two singles: “Lily” and “Creatures of Spring.” The latter draws inspiration from the myth of Elizabeth Bathory and includes a quote from the 1992 black fantasy comedy Death Becomes Her.

States Angelica & The Crooked Path:
“We made our debut late this spring with two singles. The first, ‘Lily,’ aims to demonstrate our contrasting heaviness and sense of melody by fusing lumbering sludge riffs with celestial female vocals and a chorus with a hook. The second, ‘Creatures of Spring,’ is our more adventurous offering, showing an eclectic range of influence from genres such as post-rock, choral music, and jazz.”

Both songs are mastered by Ryan Williams and produced, engineered, and mixed by Dave Kaminsky at Studio Wormwood (www.studiowormwood.com).

Angelica & The Crooked Path is:
Esmé – vocals
Gerri – bass
Nicholas – drums
Ursula – guitar

https://angelicadoom.com
https://www.instagram.com/angelicadoom
https://www.tiktok.com/@angelicadoom
https://angelicadoom.bandcamp.com
https://open.spotify.com/track/4lotet7VAzojrSiuPZVeI7
https://www.youtube.com/@AngelicaDoom

Angelica and the Crooked Path, “Creatures of Spring”

Angelica and the Crooked Path, “Lily”

At least part of the PR wire text below comes from the bio I wrote for Shun‘s second full-length, Dismantle, which is coming out through Small Stone Records on July 19. I think from after the first sentence through the part where Matt Whitehead comments on the first single “Drawing Names,” maybe? There was a press quote in there too, but yeah. In any case, let the point here be the song, since as the guy who wrote the bio I’ll tell you outright you and the band both are probably better served just by hearing the song, which is in the embed at the bottom of the post.

Heavy post-hardcore rock? Emo-informed progressive grungegaze? I don’t know how you categorize it — which should make writing the review a blast — but Dismantle follows behind the Shun‘s 2021 self-titled debut (review here), and I didn’t know how to categorize that either, but I enjoyed it. The new one’s a banger too, as it happens.

Info follows in blue. You know what’s up:

SHUN: North/South Carolina Rock Outfit To Release Dismantle Full-Length July 19th Via Small Stone Recordings; New Single Now Playing + Preorders Available

North/South Carolina heavy rock outfit SHUN will release their long-awaited new full-length, Dismantle, July 19th via Small Stone Recordings!

SHUN released their self-titled debut through Small Stone in 2021. Dismantle continues several crucial threads from the debut in terms of songwriting and the returning production of J. Robbins (who also contributes percussion, guitar, and synth), while expanding their scope with a more refined crunch and drifting, ethereal outreach. It is heavier and paints a broader landscape in Matt Whitehead’s vocal and guitar melodies, able to take a prog-metal chug in “Horses” and reshape it as the backdrop for weighted post-rock while refusing to sap its own vitality in service to shoegazey posturing.

Punk and noise rock such as Cave In and Hum feel like touchstones as much as Sabbath and whom- or whatever might’ve inspired the crush tucked at the end of “You’re The Sea,” and while Dismantle may hint as a title at notions of things coming apart, there’s as much being built in its ten tracks as is being destroyed. What results from the trio of Whitehead, bassist Jeff Baucom, and drummer Rob Elzey (Bo Leslie has since joined on guitar, re-completing the lineup) is material varied in its purpose but drawn together in traditional fashion by the electricity of its performances. The band-in-the-room feel in the methodical rollout of opener “Blind Eye” is all the more resonant with the debut having been remotely assembled during plague lockdowns.

Does that make Dismantle something like a second first album? Not really, but if it helps you get on board, you probably won’t get a ton of arguments. While Whitehead’s past in Small Stone denizens Throttlerod is still relevant to SHUN in some essential and riffy ways, SHUN steps forward with Dismantle and declares their meld of styles in tracks like “The Getaway” and “Interstellar” which are able to push, pull, crash down loud, or recede into float as they will. That they’d wield such command in their craft likely won’t be a surprise to those who took on the self-titled, but among the things Dismantle undoes, it strips the listener of expectations and replaces them with its unflinching creativity and refreshingly forward-looking take.

Comments Whitehead on the band’s first single, “‘Drawing Names’ was written in its entirety in under 30 minutes while jamming at our drummer’s house. I’ve found those quick-to-come-together songs that aren’t over-thought and overworked often turn out the best… go figure. The recording of the track was super fun and collaborative as well. I’ll never forget J. Robbins crouched down by my delay pedals turning knobs while I played one section. And then he later added a double tambourine part in the chorus which we absolutely loved.”

Dismantle, which features artwork by Alexander Von Wieding, will be released on CD, limited LP, and digital formats. Find preorders at THIS LOCATION: https://smallstone.bandcamp.com/album/dismantle

Fans of Torche, Cave In, Alice In Chains, Failure, ASG, and huge riffs, pay heed.

Dismantle Track Listing:
1. Blind Eye
2. Aviator
3. Horses
4. Drawing Names
5. Storms
6. NRNS
7. You’re The Sea
8. The Getaway
9. Through The Looking Glass
10. Interstellar

SHUN – Dismantle Record Release Shows:
7/19/2024 The Odditorium – Asheville, NC
7/20/2024 Swanson’s Warehouse – Greenville, SC
7/26/2024 New Brookland Tavern – Columbia, SC
8/02/2024 185 King – Brevard, NC

SHUN:
Matt Whitehead – guitar, vocals
Rob Elzey – drums
Jeff Baucom – bass
Additional musicians:
J. Robbins – percussion, synths, guitar
Bo Leslie – guitar

https://www.facebook.com/ShunTheBand
https://www.instagram.com/Shuntheband
http://shuntheband.bandcamp.com

http://www.smallstone.com
http://www.facebook.com/smallstonerecords
http://www.instagram.com/smallstonerecords
https://smallstone.bandcamp.com/

Shun, Dismantle (2024)

This is the next-to-last day of this Quarterly Review, and while it’s been a lot, it’s been encouraging to dig into so much stuff in such intense fashion. I’ve added a few releases to my notes for year-end lists, but more importantly, I’ve gotten to hear and cover stuff that otherwise I might not, and that’s the value at a QR has for me at its core, so while we’re not through yet, I’ll just say thanks again for reading and that I hope you’ve also found something that speaks to you in these many blocks of text and embedded streaming players. If not, there’s still 20 records to go, so take comfort in that as needed.

Quarterly Review #81-90:

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Harvestman, Triptych: Part One

The weirdo-psych experimental project of Steve Von Till (now ex-Neurosis, which is still sad on a couple levels) begins a released-according-to-lunar-orbit trilogy of albums in Triptych: Part One, which is headlined by opening track “Psilosynth,” boasting a guest appearance from Al Cisneros (Sleep, Om) on bass. If those two want to start an outsider-art dub-drone band together, my middle-aged burnout self is here for it — “Psilosynth (Harvest Dub),” a title that could hardly be more Von Till and Cisneros, appears a little later, which suggests they might also be on board — but that’s only part of the world being created in Triptych: Part One as “Mare and Foal” manipulates bagpipes into ghostly melodies, “Give Your Heart to the Hawk” echoes poetry over ambient strum, “Coma” and “How to Purify Mercury” layer synthesized drone and/or effects-guitar to sci-fi affect and “Nocturnal Field Song” finds YOB‘s Dave French banging away on something metal in the background while the crickets chirp. The abiding spirit is subdued, exploratory as Von Till‘s solo works perpetually are, and even as the story is only a third told, the immersion on Triptych: Part One goes as deep as the listener is willing to let it. I look forward to being a couple moons late reviewing the next installment.

Harvestman on Facebook

Neurot Recordings website

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Kalgon, Kalgon

As they make their self-titled full-length debut, Asheville, North Carolina’s Kalgon lay claim to a deceptive wide swath of territory even separate from the thrashier departure “Apocalyptic Meiosis” as they lumber through “The Isolate” and the more melodic “Grade of the Slope,” stoner-doom leaning into psych and more cosmic vibing, with the mournful “Windigo” leading into “Eye of the Needle”‘s slo-mo-stoner-swing and gutted out vocals turning to Beatlesy melody — guitarist Brandon Davis and bassist Berten Lee Tanner share those duties while Marc Russo rounds out the trio on drums — in its still-marching second half and the post-Pallbearer reaches and acoustic finish of “Setting Sun.” An interlude serves as centerpiece between “Apocalyptic Meiosis” and “Windigo,” and that two-plus-minute excursion into wavy drone and amplifier hum works well to keep a sense of flow as the next track crashes in, but more, it speaks to longer term possibilities for how the band might grow, both in terms of what they do sonically and in their already-clear penchant for seeing their first LP as a whole, single work with its own progression and story to tell.

Kalgon on Facebook

Kalgon on Bandcamp

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Agriculture, Living is Easy

Surely there’s some element in Agriculture‘s self-applied aesthetic frame of “ecstatic black metal” in the power of suggestion, but as they follow-up their 2022 self-titled debut with the four-song Living is Easy EP and move from the major-key lightburst of the title-track into the endearingly, organically, folkishly strained harmonies of “Being Eaten by a Tiger,” renew the overwhelming blasts of tremolo and seared screams on “In the House of Angel Flesh” and round out with a minute of spoken word recitation in “When You Were Born,” guitarists Richard Chowenhill (also credited with co-engineering, mixing and mastering) and Dan Meyer (also vocals), bassist/vocalist Leah B. Levinson and drummer/percussionist Kern Haug present an innovative perspective on the genre that reminds of nothing so much as the manner in which earliest Wolves in the Throne Room showed that black metal could do something more than it had done previously. That’s not a sonic comparison, necessarily — though there are basic stylistic aspects shared between the two — but more about the way Agriculture are using black metal toward purposefully new expressive ends. I’m not Mr. Char by any means, but it’s been probably that long since the last time I heard something that was so definitively black metal and worked as much to refresh what that means.

Agriculture on Facebook

The Flenser website

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Saltpig, Saltpig

Apparently self-released by the intercontinental duo last Fall and picked up for issue through Heavy Psych Sounds, Saltpig‘s self-titled debut modernizes classic charge and swing in increasingly doomed fashion across the first four songs of its A-side, laces “Burn the Witch” with samples themed around the titular subject, and dedicates all of side B to the blown out mostly-instrumental roll of “1950,” which is in fact 19 minutes and 50 seconds long. The band, comprised of guitarist/vocalist/noisemaker Mitch Davis (also producer for a swath of more commercially viable fare) and drummer Fabio Alessandrini (ex-Annihilator), are based in New York and Italy, respectively, and whatever on earth might’ve brought them together, in both the heavy-garage strut of “Demon” and the willfully harsh manner in which they represent themselves in the record’s back half, they bask in the rougher edges of their tones and approach more generally. “When You Were Dead” is something of a preface in its thicker distortion to “1950,” but its cavernous shouted vocals retain a psychedelic presence amid the ensuing grit, whereas once the closer gets underway from its feedback-soaked first two minutes, they make it plain there’s no coming back.

Saltpig on Facebook

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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Druidess, Hermits and Mandrakes

Newcomer UK doomers Druidess nod forth on their debut EP, Hermits and Mandrakes, with a buzzing tonality in “Witches’ Sabbath” that’s distinctly more Monolord than Electric Wizard, and while that’s fascinating academically and in terms of the generational shift happening in the heavy underground over the last few years, the fuzz that accompanies the hook of “Mandragora,” which follows, brings a tempo boost that situates the two-piece of vocalist Shonagh Brown and multi-instrumentalist/producer Daniel Downing (guitar, bass, keys, drum programming; he even had a hand in the artwork, apparently) in a more rocking vein. It’s heavy either way you go, and “Knightingales” brings Green Lung-style organ into the mix along with another standout hook before “The Hermit of Druid’s Temple” signs over its soul to faster Sabbath worship and closer “The Forest Witches’ Daughter” underscores the commitment to same in combination with a more occult thematic. It’s familiar-enough terrain, ultimately, but the heft they conjure early on and the movement they bring to it later should be plenty to catch ears among the similarly converted, and in song and performance they display a self-awareness of craft that is no less a source of their potential.

Druidess on Facebook

Druidess on Bandcamp

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Astral Construct, Traveling a Higher Consciousness

One-man sans-vocals psych outfit Astral Construct — aka Denver-based multi-instrumentalist Drew Patricks — released Traveling a Higher Consciousness last year, and well, I guess I got lost in a temporal wormhole or some such because it’s not last year anymore. The record’s five-track journey is encompassing in its metal-rooted take on heavy psychedelia, however, and that’s fortunate as “Accessing the Mind’s Eye” solidifies from its languid first-half unfolding into more stately progressive riffage. Bookended by the dreamy manifestation of “Heart of the Nebula” (8:12) and “Interstellar” (9:26), which moves between marching declaration and expansive helium-guitar float, the album touches ground in centerpiece “The Traveler,” but even there could hardly be called terrestrial once the drums drop out and the keys sweep in near the quick-fade finish that brings about the more angular “Long View of Astral Consciousness,” that penultimate track daring a bit of double-kick in the drums heading toward its own culmination. Now, then or future, whether it’s looking inward or out, Traveling a Higher Consciousness is a revelry for the cosmos waiting to be engaged. You might just end up in a different year upon hearing it.

Astral Construct on Facebook

Astral Construct on Bandcamp

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Ainu, Ainu

Although their moniker comes from an indigenous group who lived on Hokkaido before that island became part of modern Japan, Ainu are based in Genoa, Italy, and their self-titled debut has little to do sound-wise with the people or their culture. Fair enough. Ainu‘s Ainu, which starts out in “Il Faro” with sparse atmospheric guitar and someone yelling at you in Italian presumably about the sea (around which the record is themed), uses speech and samples to hold most positions vocals would otherwise occupy, though the two-minute “D.E.V.S.” is almost entirely voice-based, so the rules aren’t so strictly applied one way or the other. Similarly, as the three-piece course between grounded sludgier progressions and drifting post-heavy, touching on more aggressive moods in the late reaches of “Aiutami A. Ricordare” and the nodding culmination of “Khrono” but letting the breadth of “Call of the Sea” unfold across divergent movements of crunchier riffs and operatic prog grandiosity. You would not call it predictable, however tidal the flow from one piece to the next might be.

Ainu on Facebook

Subsound Records website

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Grid, The World Before Us

Progressive sludge set to a backdrop of science-fiction and extrasolar range, The World Before Us marks a turn from heretofore instrumental New York trio Grid, who not only feature vocals throughout their 38-minute six-tracker third LP, but vary their approach in that regard such that as “Our History Hidden” takes hold following the keyboardy intro “Singularity” (in we go!), the first three of the song’s 12 minutes find them shifting from sub-soaring melodicism to hard-growled metallic crunch with the comfort of an act who’ve been pulling off such things for much longer. The subsequent “Traversing the Interstellar Gateway” (9:31) works toward similar ends, only with guitar instead of singing, and the standout galloping kickdrum of “Architects of Our World” leads to a deeper dig into the back and forth between melody and dissonance, led into by the threatening effects manipulations of the interlude “Contact” and eventually giving over to the capstone outro “Duality” that, if it needs to be said, mirrors “Singularity” at the start. There’s nuance and texture in this interplay between styles — POV: you dig Opeth and Hawkwind — and my suspicion is that if Grid keep to this methodology going forward, the vocal arrangements will continue to evolve along with the rest of the band’s expanding-in-all-directions stylizations.

Grid on Facebook

Grid on Bandcamp

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Dätcha Mandala, Koda

The stated intentions of Bordeaux, France’s Dätcha Mandala in bringing elements of ’90s British alternative rock into their heavier context with their Koda LP are audible in opener “She Said” and the title-track that follows it, but it’s the underlying thread of heavy rock that wins the day across the 11-song outing, however danceable “Wild Fire” makes it or however attitude-signaling the belly-belch that starts “Thousand Pieces” is in itself. That’s not to say Koda doesn’t succeed at what it’s doing, just that there’s more to the proceedings than playing toward that particular vision of cool. “It’s Not Only Rock and Roll (And We Don’t Like It)” has fuzzy charm and a hook to boot, while “Om Namah Shivaya” ignites with an energy that is proggy and urgent in kind — the kind of song that makes you a fan at the show even if you’ve never heard the band before — and closer “Homeland” dares some burl amid its harmonized chorus and flowing final guitar solo, answering back to the post-burp chug in “Thousand Pieces” and underscoring the multifaceted nature of the album as a whole. I suppose if you have prior experience with Dätcha Mandala, you know they’re not just about one thing, but for newcomers, expect happy surprises.

Dätcha Mandala on Facebook

Discos Macarras Records website

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Dr. Space Meets Mr. Mekon, The Bubbles Scopes

Given the principals involved — Scott “Dr. Space” Heller of Øresund Space Collective, Black Moon Circle, et al, and Chris Purdon of Hawklords and Nik Turner’s Space Ritual — it should come as no surprise that The Bubbles Scopes complements its grammatical counterintuitiveness with alien soundscape concoctions of synth-based potency; the adventure into the unknown-until-it’s-recorded palpable across two extended tracks suitably titled “Trip 1” (22:56) and “Trip 2” (15:45). Longform waveforms, both. The collaboration — one of at least two Heller has slated for release this Spring; stay tuned tomorrow — makes it clear from the very beginning that the far-out course The Bubbles Scopes follows is for those who dwell in rooms with melting walls, but in the various pulsations and throbs of “Trip 1,’ the transition from organ to more electronic-feeling keyboard, and so on, human presence is no more absent than they want it to be, and while the loops are dizzying and “Trip 2” seems to reach into different dimensions with its depth of mix, when the scope is so wide, the sounds almost can’t help but feel free. And so they do. They put 30 copies on tape, because even in space all things digitalia are ephemeral. If you want one, engage your FOMO and make it happen because the chance may or may not come again.

Dr. Space on Facebook

Dr. Space on Bandcamp

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