Oh my breaking heart as we move into day seven of the Summer 2021 Quarterly Review and I am reminded that the wages of hubris are feeling like a dumbass later. I was loading up my laptop on Saturday — so pleased with how ahead-of-the-game I was able to stay all last week — when the thing decided it was gonna give itself some time off one way or the other.

I dropped it for repair about 20 minutes before the guy I’ve come to trust was closing shop. He said he’d be in touch on Monday. Needless to say, I’m on my backup cheapie Chromebook, reviewing off Bandcamp streams, eagerly awaiting that call which I can only hope has come in by the time this is posted. I’ll keep you in the loop, of course, but putting together the reviews for yesterday? That was not pretty.

I expressly thank The Patient Mrs., through whom all things are possible.

Onward.

Quarterly Review #61-70:

Geezer, Solstice

Geezer‘s ambition could hardly be clearer in their 17-minute “Solstice” jam. It was the Solstice — Winter 2020, to be specific — and the Kingston, New York, trio jammed. Guitarist/vocalist Pat Harrington (who doesn’t sing on the track) added some dreamy synth after the fact, and the affect is all the more hypnotic for it. Harrington, bassist Richie Touseull and drummer Steve Markota are no strangers to exploratory fare, as they showed on 2020’s righteous Groovy (review here), and as a Bandcamp Friday-era stopgap offering, “Solstice” brings a sampling of who they are in the rehearsal space, willing to be heavy, willing to not, ready to go where the music leads them. If Geezer wanted to do a whole full-length like this, I wouldn’t fight them, so you most definitely will not find me arguing against a digital single either. With jams this tasty, you take what you can get.

Geezer on Facebook

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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Spaceslug, The Event Horizon

Issued less as a stopgap, which a digital-only single might normally be, than as a response to the band having lost gear in a practice space flood, the 8:52 single-song outing The Event Horizon was recorded at the same time as Spaceslug‘s late 2020 EP The Leftovers (review here) and in a way acts to bridge the melancholy beyond-genre push of that release with the more weighted, spacious roll that has typified the Polish outfit’s work to-date — their latest full-length was 2019’s Reign of the Orion (review here), and they recently finished a new one. So perhaps “The Event Horizon,” with its hypnotically languid rhythm and concluding drift, is a stopgap after all, but between helping the band recoup their losses and thinking of what might be coming next, it’s an exciting if not-unalloyed listening experience, and the three-piece move deeper into a signature sound even as they continue to bring the definition of what that means to new places.

Spaceslug on Thee Facebooks

Spaceslug on Bandcamp

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Expo Seventy, Evolution

Creating sometimes-scorching, droning psychedelic soundtracks to all your favorite classic sci-fi films that never existed, Kansas City’s Expo Seventy offer a call to worship for freaks and converted heads on their new album, Evolution. Still headed by guitarist James Wright as on late-2016’s America Here and Now Sessions (review here), the band offer new glories celestial and terrestrial instrumental chemistry throughout the six tracks (seven on the CD) of Evolution, lumbering away on “Echoes of Ether” only after floating in brass-section antigrav conditions on “The Slow Death of Tomorrow.” Can you hang? You’ll know one way or the other as the culminating duo “Second Vision, First Sight” and “First Vision, Second Sight” are done with you, having altered dimensions so thoroughly that the ethereal will either come to feel like home or you will simply have melted. In any case, lash yourself to it. Own that shit.

Expo Seventy on Facebook

Essence Music on Bandcamp

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Boss Keloid, Family the Smiling Thrush

Peak-era Faith No More reborn in progressive heavy fuzz? What stoner rock might’ve been if it went to college instead of spending all that time hanging around talking about old cars? I don’t know where UK four-piece Boss Keloid ultimately stand on their admirable fifth LP, Family the Smiling Thrush — the follow-up to 2018’s also-well-received Melted on the Inch (review here) — but they most certainly stand on their own. Across seven tracks, the band careen, crash, lumber, rush and ponder — lyrics no less worth a close read than any other component — and from opener/longest track (immediate points) “Orang of Noyn” on, they make it abundantly clear that their style’s unpredictability is an asset, and that just because you might not know where they’re going next doesn’t mean they don’t. Melodic, complex and cerebral, there’s still a human presence here, a sense of a plan unfolding, that makes the album seem all the more masterful.

Boss Keloid on Facebook

Ripple Music on Bandcamp

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Bong-Ra, Antediluvian

Though it’s ultimately less electric-kool-aid than endless-churning-abyss-with-psychdelic-saxophone-screaming-up-at-you-like-free-jazz-trapped-in-the-downward-tonal-spiral, Bong-Ra‘s four-tracker Antediluvian is duly experimentalist in being born out of the mind of Jason Köhnen, whose work on this project not only extends more than 20 years, but who has been a part of landmark Dutch outfits like Celestial Season, The Kilmanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble and The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation, among scores of others. The procession on this full-length, originally released in 2018 through Svart Lava, is wild times indeed, but immersive despite feeling at times like a litmus for how much you can take, with Köhnen‘s bass/keys/etc. and Balazs Pandi‘s drums meeting with Colin Webster‘s saxophone and Chloe Herrington‘s bassoon, willfully plodding through long-ish form improv-seeming movements of atmospheric heft creation.

Jason Köhnen website

Tartarus Records store

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Zebu, Reek of the Parvenu

A coherent and forceful debut full-length, Reek of the Parvenu quickly shows the metallic undercurrent from Athens-based four-piece Zebu on opener “The Setting Dust,” and pushes from there in groove metal fashion, taking some impulses from heavy rock but holding largely to a central aggressive stance and tension in the rhythm that is a backdrop even as the later “Nature of Failure” breaks from its chugging shove for a quieter stretch. That is to say, the next punch is always coming, and Zebu‘s blows are effectively delivered — looking at you, “Burden” — though some of the slower, sludgier cuts like “Our Shame” or the doomier finale “The City” bring a welcome atmosphere to go with the coinciding burl. I’m not sure if “People Under the Stairs” wants to kick my ass or crack a beer, but the songwriting is air tight and the thrashy threat only contributes to the immediacy of the release on the whole. They’re not screwing around.

Zebu on Facebook

Zebu on Bandcamp

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Los Disidentes del Sucio Motel, Polaris

It’s been 11 years since France’s Los Disidentes del Sucio Motel debuted with Soundtrack From the Motion Picture (review here), an engaging, kind of silly play on stoner rock and B-movie tropes. Beneath that, however, it was also a concept album, and the band — who now seem to prefer LDDSM for a moniker — still work from that foundation on their fourth full-length, Polaris. The difference scope and sonic maturity. Rife with vocal harmonies and progressive flourish, the 10-track answer to 2016’s Human Collapse (review here) smoothly shifts between the patient and the urgent, the intimate and the grand — and that’s in the first two minutes of “Blue Giant” alone — finding their way into a proggy post-heavy rock that’s too clearheaded to be psychedelic, but that balances the crunch of “Horizon” with a sense of the otherworldly just the same.

Los Disidentes del Sucio Motel on Facebook

Klonosphere Records website

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LáGoon, Skullactic Visions

With their fourth long-player, guitarist/vocalist Anthony Gaglia and drummer Brady Maurer of Portland, Oregon’s LáGoon welcome bassist Kenny Combs to the fold and dive as a trio — their first three-piece outing was last year’s Father of Death EP — headfirst into murky riffing and heady heavy rock, made all the more spacious through cavern echo and the garage doom vocals Gaglia brings on the title-track, as well as the synth that surfaces on the subsequent interlude “Buried” and elsewhere throughout. The earlier “Beyond the Trees” is particularly bleak and otherworldly, but I won’t take away from the further-down procession of “Hill Bomb” and “The Slow Down” into “Final Ride,” the last of which closes out with scummer doom that’s familiar but distinct enough to be their own. There are moments on Skullactic Visions where, for as much as they could sound like Electric Wizard given the ingredients, I’m all the gladder they don’t.

LaGoon on Facebook

Interstellar Smoke Records webstore

Forbidden Place Records on Bandcamp

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Maha Sohona, Endless Searcher

Maha Sohona‘s second album comes some seven years after their self-titled debut, but who cares about time when you’ve got your headphones on and you’re surrounded by the richness of tone on offer throughout Endless Searcher‘s five rolling tracks? Heavy and laid back, the trio of guitarist/vocalist Johan Bernhardtson, bassist Thomas Hedlund and drummer David Lundsten finding some kinship with Polish three-piece Spaceslug in their post-Sungrazer blend of weight and flow, a jam like “Luftslot” nodding and conjuring depth even as it soars. Can’t argue with the quicker push of “A Black Star” or the purposefully straightforward “Scavengers” (where the title-line is delivered) but some of the mellow moments in opener “Leaves” and especially the building instrumental finisher “Orbit X” are even more satisfying for how effectively they move you place to place almost without your realizing it. I’ve got nothing for you if you can’t dig this vibe.

Maha Sohona on Facebook

Made of Stone Recordings on Bandcamp

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The Bad Sugar Rush, Liar/Push Me

Keen observers will recognize The Bad Sugar Rush vocalist René Hofmann from his work with Wight, but the work here alongside guitarist Josko Joke-Tovic, bassist Minyeong Fischer and drummer Peter Zettl is distinct from that other unit here, even as the Humble Pie-esque “Push Me” and semi-sleeze “Liar” both have some shade of funk to their procession. Both cuts circa four minutes makes for a suitable debut 7″ with respected purveyor H42 Records doing the honors, and the results are an encouragingly catchy display of what a first full-length might accomplish when and however such a thing emerges. There’s classic heavy rock as the foundation, but more than outright ’70s worship — though some of that too — it’s the organic feel of the songs that leaves an impression on the listener, though the background singers on “Push Me” don’t hurt in that regard, certainly. An auspicious and intriguind first showing.

The Bad Sugar Rush on Facebook

H42 Records website

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Warm vibe, melody, space — there’s very little for heavy psych heads not to dig in Supermoon‘s Supermoon, the 2020-released debut album from the Athens-based unit. They call it “forest rock.” Like many in the broad pantheon of Greek heavy, they find an avenue through which to work Mediterranean folk aspects into their sound, and in a perfect world, they’d be on a package tour already through Sound of Liberation with some awesome poster and a title based on ancient literature — in an even more perfect world than that, I’d present said tour — but on Planet Here, they’ll release Supermoon through Made of Stone Recordings on vinyl, and all things considered, that’s nothing to hack up a lung at.

If you missed Supermoon the first time around, as I did, first of all you get a pass in the ‘2020 Required You to Be Looking at Other Things’ accord, you’ll find it streaming in its entirety at the bottom of this post and it’s worth digging into. If my say-so isn’t enough for you to take it on, well, okay, that’s alright. I was recently accused of “erring on the side of hype,” which I’m not sure I’m ashamed of. The possibility that hearing something new might enrich someone else’s day as well as my own is a big part of why I’m typing right now.

If that’s not you this time, maybe next time. If it is, all the better. When it comes to it though, what do you really have to lose?

To the PR wire:

Supermoon, the brand new sensation in psychedelic rock out of Athens, Greece release their stoner/doom debut album in limited analogue LP editions

Pre-order “Supermoon” here: https://madeofstonerecordings.bandcamp.com/album/supermoon-supermoon

Supermoon are a forest rock band from Athens, Greece, established in 2019 by Vasilis Tsigkris. Starting as a solo project, during the creation of the debut album, Supermoon are now a full power trio: Vasilis Tsigkris – Bass / Vocals, Dimitris Foukarakis – Guitar and Dimitris Tsarnos – Drums.

Their forest rock combines heavy psychedelic music, with lyrics inspired by spirituality, nature, folk tales and mythology.

Filled with heavy basslines and melodic guitars, psychedelic atmosphere, stoner/doom hypnotic tempo and space vocal elements, Supermoon manage to succeed effortless crossovers in music genres, creating a brand new yet intimate musical universe, which stands on the brink of darkness, bathed in light.

Made of Stone Recordings is proud to present the LP editions of “Supermoon” in limited black and teal/turquoise 180 gr vinyl out on 15.06.2021

https://www.facebook.com/supermoongr
https://www.instagram.com/supermoongr/
https://supermoongr.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/madeofstonerecordings
https://madeofstonerecordings.bandcamp.com/

Supermoon, Supermoon (2020)

[Click play above to stream Acid Mammoth’s Caravan in full. Album is out this Friday, March 5, on Heavy Psych Sounds.]

It is difficult to separate Acid Mammoth‘s third full-length, Caravan, from the context in which it arrives — and no, I’m not talking about covid-19, though obviously that too. It is the band’s second offering through Heavy Psych Sounds behind 2019’s Under Acid Hoof (review here), and the label has gotten behind a recent reissue of their 2017 self-titled debut as well, and the Athenian four-piece appeared last year on a split with 1782 (review here) as part of the label’s ongoing Doom Sessions series. With the boom in underground heavy that Greece has seen in the past decade, Acid Mammoth find themselves in a somewhat vaunted position, representing Athens on Europe’s preeminent heavy label. True, Nightstalker and Planet of Zeus — both of whom have been around longer — released albums on Heavy Psych Sounds in 2019, but as much as Acid Mammoth‘s lineup crosses generations in its string section with Chris Babalis, Jr. on vocals on guitar and his father, Chris Babalis, Sr., also on guitar, their sound and presentation represent that which is thoroughly modern in doom, a sonic devotion to riff that’s made its way through the lumber of Black Sabbath, Electric Wizard and Monolord to get where it is today.

In Acid Mammoth‘s hands, with Marios Louvaris slamming away on the floor tom as though stomping out the beating heart of societal collapse itself in “Psychedelic Wasteland” — a song for our times if ever there was one — and Dimosthenis Varikos bringing a murk to the low end that dooms the doom all the more, it is primitive on its face but deceptively intricate and ably constructed, with a consistency of craft that unites the material across this five song/40-minute release and finds Acid Mammoth living up to the challenge and responsibility before them. No single band could possibly embody the entirety of ‘Greek heavy’ as a form simply because it isn’t a singular form, but in culling influences from the worldwide heavy sphere and reshaping them into something of their own, Acid Mammoth nonetheless bring to life a key ethic in what’s made Greece flourish these last years, and so, are a fitting and vital representation after all.

Also, they riff. Oh my how they do riff. Caravan begins its course with “Berserker,” a five-minute clinic in how to make plod catchy that starts with an evil laugh as if Acid Mammoth, in knowing what’s coming, stand before the open door of a house of horrors. Sorry to disappoint, but what follows is far from horrific. It is stoner-doom for stoner-doomers, to be sure, and perhaps its argument for conversion might win a few new heads along the way — anything’s possible — but what’s clear from the outset is Acid Mammoth know what they’re doing and where they want their Caravan to go. Shades of psychedelia affect the solo in “Berserker” momentarily, but the lead work is almost oddly classy throughout the release, and it’s the forward push that ultimately wins the day, driven in no small part by Louvaris‘ insistent snare. A final chorus, a momentary ride on the groove, some slow-fade rumble and “Psychedelic Wasteland” takes hold with due feedback and thud.

Slower, longer at 8:53, and less immediate, it’s a suitable follow-up to the leadoff, luring the listener deeper into the world of Acid Mammoth‘s making, for which perhaps their own description is best. “Psychedelic Wasteland” isn’t as catchy as “Berserker” before it, but it doesn’t need to be for the job it’s doing, and its patience in delivery acts as a foreshadow for what will soon enough follow on side B’s two cuts, “Caravan” and “Black Dust.” After rolling out its grim procession, it culminates with a bookend of noise and fading tom hits, giving way fluidly to the opening riff of “Ivory Towers,” which reminds of Acid King‘s “Electric Machine” in its central progression but, again, is given a roll and a role of its own in capping the first half of Caravan. Thus far, the key throughout the release has indeed been the sense of forward motion, and another manner in which the collection isn’t as straightforward as it might at first seem is in how successfully it pushes its audience along the path its sets out. Even when they’re at their most mired — those moments are still to come in side B, granted — Acid Mammoth aren’t by any means still, and in “Ivory Towers,” they make a worthy centerpiece out of the structure that underlies their superficial rumbling chaos.

The “Caravan” departs about 15 seconds into the song of the same name after a beginning rumble. Acid Mammoth work quickly to align themselves with the storied stoner epics of yore — need I namedrop “Dopesmoker?” — with a general uptick in largesse of sound, and the nodding groove that accompanies is of the sort that one might want to title an album after. They’re just about four minutes into the total 11 before the first vocals arrive, which is plenty of time for them to establish the hypnotic roll they’re shooting for, and amid fuzzy solo lines peppered throughout in homage to those who’ve journeyed before them, they set out. Guitars drop circa 8:30 and the bass leads the way into the final push, and father and son solo lines (or at least one of them layered; but who doesn’t like a story of familial togetherness?) take the forefront on the way out.

“Caravan” would seem to be the apex of Caravan, but “Black Dust” is more than epilogue at a near-nine-minute stretch. Its Wizardly riff reaffirms Acid Mammoth‘s place among the chosen few, and if this it’s the band’s image of a pandemic-era dystopian aftermath, one is not the least inclined to argue. Further, “Black Dust” subtly unites sides B and A by leaning a little more into a hook than did “Caravan,” recalling “Berserker” and “Ivory Towers” earlier on, thereby summarizing the proceedings as a whole. There’s no corresponding sample at the end to answer the laugh at the beginning, but Acid Mammoth leave little unsaid just the same. In sound and style, Caravan isn’t revolutionary by any means, but the band acquits themselves as able to stand tall among their forebears, and their delivery is enough to make those footsteps of giants feel freshly trod.

Acid Mammoth, “Caravan” official video

Acid Mammoth on Facebook

Acid Mammoth on Bandcamp

Heavy Psych Sounds on Bandcamp

Heavy Psych Sounds website

I know everybody’s sad there are no live shows. Believe me, I know it. I know it every day, over and over again. I miss concerts like I miss the members of my family whose house I haven’t been in for a year. But can we pause all that misery for a second and appreciate the absolute age of wonders in which we live?

I’ve never been to An Club in the anarcho-refuge of Exarchia. I’ve never seen Puta Volcano live. And but for financial constraints, neither is an impossibility in a (more) perfect world, but I watch the Athenian four-piece’s recorded live set to support last year’s AMMA (discussed here), and with the pro-shop sound and video, I wish I could go back and deliver an “it gets better” message to my teenage bootleg-loving self. I imagine going back in time and saying that there will come a day when all these bands will basically start issuing their own soundboard recordings and not only will videos and audio like this exist, but it’ll be free to stream. Of course, there’s a cost when one considers what’s been given up in order to usher this age of alt-experience live music, but I’m just trying to look on the bright side here. I know lives have been lost. I get it. I check the numbers every day.

You want the truth? I’m tired. I’m tired of the whole thing. I’m tired of masks. I’m tired of social distancing, restricted travel. I’m even tired of Anthony “The Fauch” Fauci. I’m tired of pretending each loss of life is a tragedy or like I can imagine the scale of loss. I’m so tired. Tired of the secret thanatos in all of us rooting for the virus. I was tired of 2020 and I’m already tired of 2021. I want real life back.

The corresponding truth? None of that matters. Me being sick of the plague has no bearing on the increase or decline in new cases, new mutations, any of it. Could not be less consequential.

Take what you can get. That’s the moral of the story. I wish like hell I had some pseudo-zen social media bullshit wisdom to share with you about living through this time, like it’s some learning experience from which to draw strength. It isn’t, and that toxic-ass selfishness is part of why we’re in such a fucking mess. I wish I could believe any of that, like I look at the bear in Grizzly Man and see a friend when Werner Herzog sees boredom and a vague interest in food. I don’t. That guy got eaten by the fucking bear and it’s not supposed to make sense. Carl Sagan said that the universe does not owe us conformity to our expectations of it. It ain’t about you and it ain’t about me. Don’t look for answers.

So take what you can get. Eat what you can eat, drink what you can drink, fuck when you can fuck. None of it means anything anyway and sooner or later whether it’s the plague or you’re hit by a bus you’re gonna be fucking dead and it won’t matter anymore. You might as well enjoy good music while you can. In four billion years the sun will swallow the planet and everything that was ever done by our pitiful species in its probably-embarrasingly-short run will be burned away. Blow off work — shit, quit your job — watch Puta Volcano for an hour, and if you can escape the volume of your own thoughts by giving it some competition through the volume of your headphones, do it. That’s paradise, that hour.

That’s all I’ve got. AMMA ruled. This is a good band playing a cool room and putting on a killer show to an imaginary crowd (what seems to have been a substantial crew notwithstanding). Enjoy it while you can.

Puta Volcano, Live at An Club, Athens

Puta Volcano on ‘Live at An Club’:

Transforming a legendary venue, one that has nurtured the musical underground scene of downtown Athens, into a starship sailing towards an event horizon. Instead of focusing on the undeniable bleakness of our present, we’d like to think that initiatives like this hint at an evolved meta-gig. One where in the future, we can connect people moshing in the venue with people all over the world streaming it at home.

PUTA VOLCANO at AN CLUB | STAGES A/LIVE

STAGES A/LIVE, a series of concerts in support of the independent Greek music scene, presents Puta Volcano on the stage of AN Club, the legendary basement club of Athens, with an explosive digital live show.

The essence of Puta Volcano, a band with a powerful stage presence and crystalline sound, lies not in appearances but in the very being of their sound, created collaboratively by four fanatical bandmates: Steve S. on drums, Alex Pi on guitar, Bookies on bass, and Anna on vocals.

Turn the volume up and tune in Sunday, February 14, at 9 pm (EET) at the Onassis Foundation YouTube Channel. Until we can all be together again at a live concert, music will be bringing us closer, even if we’re far apart.

Concept & Curation: Christos Sarris
Production Coordinators: Smaragda Dogani, Elena Choremi
Production: Onassis Stegi

PUTA VOLCANO
Anna Papathanasiou: vocals
Alex Pi: guitar
Steve Stefanidis: drums
Bookies: bass
Management: Mihalis Kaloudis
Anna Papathanasiou’s styling: Philippe G.Missas

AN CLUB
Location Manager: Panagiotis Kaparidis
Art Direction: Eva Kolomvou
F.O.H Sound Engineer: Tasos Malliouras (aka. Anastasios Tsompanis)
Electrician: Charalampos Tsimpanis
PRODUCTION EXECUTION
Production: Marina Danezi
Production Manager: Steven Elpiziotis

FILMING
Director – Camera: Christos Sarris
Director of Photography: Evan Maragkoudakis
Cameras: Dimitris Zivopoulos, Orfeas Kalafatis, Filippos Zamidis, Koralia Dogani
Lighting Technician: Menelaos Orfanos
Recording Engineer – Mixing Engineer: Jacopo Focas
Editor: Tryfon Karatzinas
Colorist: Manthos Sardis
Photography: Pinelopi Gerasimou

ONASSIS STEGI
Technical Manager: Lefteris Karabilas
Technical Director & Project Support: Phil Hills
Lighting Technicians: Pavlos Pappas, Giorgos Tsitsigos
Stage Technicians: Panos Koutsoumanos, Platonas Tsamados
Production Manager – Production Management Consultant: Dimitra Dernikou
Production Coordinators: Smaragda Dogani, Elena Choremi
Line Production: Irilena Tsami, Ioulia Stamouli

Puta Volcano on Thee Facebooks

Puta Volcano on Instagram

Puta Volcano on Bandcamp

Puta Volcano website

Feb. 26 is the release date for Holy Monitor‘s third album, Southern Lights, through Blackspin Records/Primitive Music, and the offering brings eight songs of engaging, calmer-than-you-are heavy psychedelic warmth as the Athenian five-piece engage touches of proggy keys and rhythms amid a bed of languid fuzz. They hypnotize immediately with “River” and though “Naked in the Rain,” which follows, is a little more uptempo, the spacious vibe is prevalent and resonant in kind, and that continues throughout the rest of Southern Lights that follows; tonal presence and rhythmic motion seeking not to crush or overwhelm, but more to accompany the listener on an outward-directed journey.

Patient and fluid, each half of the manageable 39-minute LP opens with its longest track — side B’s rousing “The Sky is Falling Down” is the longest song at 7:37 — and as much as Southern Lights feels like it’s moving toward space, it’s hard to ignore the watery themes set by “River,” “Naked in the Rain,” “Blue Whale,” and the closing pair “Ocean Trail” and “Under the Sea.” For a band who issued This Desert Land as an EP last year, they would seem to be changing it up in terms of setting. So be it. Accompanied by the cosmic “Hourglass” and the title-track, Holy Monitor offer a richness malleable to any number of elements.

You can dive into the track at the bottom of this post. I didn’t mean for this to turn into an album review, but I guess that happens sometimes. In any case, “Naked in the Rain” represents it well, so hopefully you dig it too.

Info follows:

Holy Monitor – Southern Lights

‘Naked in the Rain’ is inspired by the traditional music of Epirus and the Bacchanalian frenzied rites. Holy Monitor’s wild, intoxicating psychedelic groove vibes triggered by elaborately carved soundscapes take listeners into hedonistic, mad dance to exorcise the rain and revolt against reality. This Bacchic ritual to the sun symbolizes the human need to rebirth, the ecstatic loss of self, a provocative critique of conformity.

Athens’ quintet, Holy Monitor will release their eagerly awaited third album ‘Southern Lights’ on 26 February 2021 on Blackspin/Primitive Music, an astonishing and affecting follow up to their 2020 critically acclaimed EP release, ‘This Desert Land’.

Holy Monitor is a music collective blending space rock with repeatable psyched riffs & beats and ambient sensibility. The band originates from Athens, Greece and founded in the summer of 2015 by guitarist Stefanos Mitsis and singer/guitarist George Nikas, as a studio project. After recording and releasing “Golden Light” and “Aeolus” EP’s, the band was joined by Alex Bolpasis (bass), Vangelis Mitsis (keyboards) and Dimitris Doumouliakas (drums) and started performing live as a five-piece. Their self-titled album was released in 2017 by Blackspin Records/Primitive Music.

Blending motorik kraut rhythms, hypnotic vocals and sticky guitar riffs, the band creates an environment of cosmic-space feelings, leading the audience into a bright sonic swirl of psychedelic oscillations. Their sophomore album “II” was released in 2018 by Blackspin Records/Primitive Music. Applying new elements of frenzy psychedelia and classy motorik riffs succeed to build a symmetric kraut pattern surrounded from unstoppable groovy vibes.

Tracklist:
1. River
2. Naked In The Rain
3. Blue Whale
4. Southern Lights
5. The Sky Is Falling Down
6. Hourglass
7. Ocean Trail
8. Under The Sea

Holy Monitor is:
George Nikas: Vocals, Guitars
Stefanos Mitsis: Guitars
Alex Bolpasis: Bass
Vangelis Mitsis: Keys
Dimitris Doumouliakas: Drums

https://www.facebook.com/holymonitor/
https://www.instagram.com/holymonitor/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/40sQBIpuOUdXrZ8EZNbiif
https://holymonitor.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/blackspin.gr
https://www.blackspin.gr/
https://www.facebook.com/PrimitiveMusicGr/
https://primitivemusic.gr/

Holy Monitor, “Naked in the Rain” official track premiere

New week, same Quarterly Review. Today is the next-to-last round for this time, though once again, I look at the folders of albums on my desktop and the CDs and LPs that have come in and I realize it could easily go longer. I never really caught up from the last QR. I guess it’s been that kind of year. In any case, more good stuff today, so sit tight and enjoy. If you didn’t find anything last week that stuck out to you, maybe today’s your day.

Quarterly Review #51-60:

Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou, May Our Chambers Be Full

Sure, there’s poise and plunder amid torrents of emotion and weighted tonality, but what’s really astonishing about May Our Chambers Be Full, the first collaboration between Louisville’s Emma Ruth Rundle (Red Sparowes‘ third LP, the Nocturnes, Marriages, etc.) and New Orleans’ sludgers Thou is that it feels so much more substantial than its 36 minutes. That’s not to say it drags, though it does when it wants to in terms of tempo, but just that its impact both in songs where Rundle and Thou‘s Bryan Funck trade off like “Ancestral Recall” or when they come together as on opener “Killing Floor” is such that it feels longer. Atmosphere is certainly a factor, but May Our Chambers Be Full is so striking because of its blend of extremity and melody, emotion and sheer catharsis, and the breadth that seems to accompany its consuming crush. In a couple years, there are going to be an awful lot of bands putting out debut albums that sound very much like this. Follow-up EP out soon.

Emma Ruth Rundle on Thee Facebooks

Thou on Instagram

Sacred Bones Records website

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Spaceslug, Leftovers

Produced by the band and Piotr Grzegorowski — who also guests on synth and guitar — during the plague-addled Spring of 2020, Spaceslug‘s Leftovers EP represents a branching out in terms of style to incorporate a sense of melancholy alongside their established sprawling psychedelics. The 21-minute five-tracker is less a follow-up to 2019’s Reign of the Orion (review here) than a standalone sidestep, but in the acoustic/synth rollout of “From Behind the Glass” and in the especially-stripped-down-feeling centerpiece “The Birds are Loudest in May” it lives up to the challenge of blending an organic atmosphere with the otherworldly sensibilities Spaceslug have honed so well throughout their tenure. Having started with its longest and synthiest track in “Wasted Illusion,” Leftovers caps with the shorter and more active “Place to Turn” and its title-track, which adds a spindly layer of electric guitar (or something that sounds like it) for an experimentalist vibe. Very 2020, but no less welcome for that. The question is whether these impulses show up in Spaceslug‘s work from here on out, and if so, how.

Spaceslug on Thee Facebooks

Spaceslug on Bandcamp

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Malsten, The Haunting of Silvåkra Mill

Malmö-based four-piece Malsten make their full-length debut on Interstellar Smoke Records with the four-song/44-minute The Haunting of Silvåkra Mill, and in so doing show an immediate command of post-Pallbearer spaciousness and melodic-doom traditionalism. Their lumber is prevalent and engrossing tonally on opener “Torsion” (10:36), uses silence effectively on “Immolation” (10:24), and seems to find a place between Warning and Lord Vicar on “Grinder” (9:02) ahead of the epic-on-top-of-epics summary in closer “Compunction” (13:54), which finds Malsten having reserved another level of heavy to keep as their final statement. So be it. Very heavy and worthy of as much volume as you can give it, The Haunting of Silvåkra Mill is an accomplished beginning and heralds significant potential on the part of what’s to come from Malsten. I’d watch this band do a live stream playing this record front-to-back. Just saying.

Malsten on Thee Facebooks

Interstellar Smoke Records webstore

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Sun Crow, Quest for Oblivion

A significant undertaking of progressive heavy and noise rock, Sun Crow‘s Quest for Oblivion is among the most ambitious debut albums I’ve heard in 2020, but there’s nothing it sets for itself in terms of goals that it doesn’t accomplish, as vocalist Charles Wilson flips between clean melodies and effective screams atop the riffs of guitarist Ben Nechanicky, the bass of Brian Steel and Keith Hastreiter‘s drums. Somebody’s gonna sign these guys. Even at 70 minutes, Quest for Oblivion, from its post-apocalyptic standpoint, aesthetic cohesion, fluid songcraft and accomplished performance, is simply too good to leave without a proper 2LP release. Individualized in atmosphere though working with familiar-enough elements, it is an album that makes it joyously difficult to pick apart influences, unleashing an initial burst of four longer tracks before giving way (albeit momentarily) to “Fear” and the outlying, brazenly Motörheady “Nothing Behind” before returning to cosmic heavy in “Hypersonic” and the 11-minute “Titans,” which uses its time just as well as everything else that surrounds. Ironic that a record that seems to be about a wasteland should bring so much hope for the future.

Sun Crow on Thee Facebooks

Sun Crow on Bandcamp

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Honeybadger, Pleasure Delayer

It doesn’t take Honeybadger long to land their first effective punch on their debut LP, Pleasure Delayer, as the hook of opener/longest track (immediate points) “The Wolf” hits square on the jaw and precedes an atmospheric guitar outro that leads into the rest of the album as a closer might otherwise lead the way out. A product of Athens’ heavy rock boom, the four-piece distinguish themselves in fuzzy tones and an approach that comes right to the edge of burl and doesn’t quite tip over, thankfully and gracefully staving off chestbeating in favor of quality songcraft on “The Well” and the engagingly bass-led “Crazy Ride,” from which the initially slower, bluesier “Good for Nothing” picks up with some Truckfighters, some 1000mods and a whole lot of fun. Side B’s hooks are no less satisfyingly straightforward. “That Feel” feels born for the stage, while “Laura Palmer” makes a memorable chorus out of that Twin Peaks character’s slaying, the penultimate “Holler” feels indeed like the work of a band trying to stand themselves out from a crowded pack and “Truth in the Lie” caps mirroring the energy of “Good for Nothing” but resounding in a cold finish. Efficient, hooky, smoothly executed. There’s nothing one might reasonably ask of Pleasure Delayer that it doesn’t deliver.

Honeybadger on Thee Facebooks

Honeybadger on Bandcamp

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Monte Luna, Mind Control Broadcast

Released name-your-price as a benefit for the venue The Lost Well in Monte Luna‘s hometown of Austin and derived from a CvltNation-sponsored livestream, the three-song Mind Control Broadcast follows 2019’s Drowners’ Wives (review here) and is intended as a glimpse at their impending third LP, likely due in 2021. That record will be one to look forward to, but it’ll be hard to trade out the raw bludgeon of “Blackstar” — the leadoff here — for another, maybe-not-live-recorded version. True, the setting doesn’t necessarily allow for the band to bring in guests like they did last time around or to flesh out melodies in the same way, but the sound is brash and thrilling and lets “Rust Goliath” live up to its name in largesse, while saving its nastiest for last in “Fear the Sun,” the glorious bassline of which it feels like a spoiler even mentioning for someone who hasn’t heard it yet. 22 of the sludgiest minutes you’re likely to spend today.

Monte Luna on Thee Facebooks

Monte Luna BigCartel store

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Hombrehumano, Crepuscular

As satisfying as the laid-back-heavy desert rock flow of “Rolito” is, and as well done as what surrounds on Hombrehumano‘s 2019 debut album, Crepuscular, turns out to be in its 53-minute run, it’s in the longer pieces like the Western “Puerto Gris” or the post-Brant Bjork “Metamorfosis” that they really shine. That’s not to take away from the opening instrumental “Nomada” that establishes the tones and sets the atmosphere in which the rest of the record takes place, or the nod of “Primaveras de Olvido,” and certainly the fuzz-boogie and percussion of “Ouroboro” shine in a manner worthy of being depicted on the cover, but the Argentinian four-piece do well with the extra time to flesh out their material. But, either way you go, you go. Hombrehumano craft sweet fuzz and spaciousness on “Puerto Gris” and answer it back later in “Zombakice” and add twists of percussion and acoustics and vocal effects — never mind the birdsong — on closer “Del Ensueño.” Es un ejemplo más de lo que le falta a la cultura gringo al no adorar fuertemente a los sudamericanos.

Hombrehumano on Thee Facebooks

Hombrehumano on Bandcamp

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Veljet, Viva El Diablo

Even my non-Spanish-speaking ass can translate Viva el Diablo, the title of Mexican instrumentalist three-piece Veljet‘s debut album. Initially released by the band in March 2020, it was subsequently reissued for physical pressing with a seventh track, “Leviatan,” added, bringing the runtime to a vinyl-ready 37 minutes. The apparently-devil-worshiping title-cut is still the longest at a doomly eight minutes, but though the production is fairly raw, Veljet‘s material taps into a few different impulses within the heavy rock sphere, offsetting willfully repetitive riffing in “El Día de las Manos” with scorching solo work while “Jay Adams” — presumably named in homage to the Dogtown skater — pulls some trad-metal riffing into its second half. “Cutlass” is short at 2:36, but makes the record as a whole feel less predictable for that, and the add-on “Leviatan” embodies its great sea beast with a nod up front that opens to later cacophony. The vibe throughout is you’re-in-the-room live jams, and Veljet have well enough chemistry to carry the songs across in that setting.

Veljet on Thee Facebooks

The Swamp Records website

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Witchrider, Electrical Storm

Smoothly produced and executed, not lacking energy but produced for a very studio-style fullness, Witchrider‘s second LP arrives via Fuzzorama Records in answer to 2014’s Unmountable Stairs with a pro-shop feel for its 50-minute duration. Songs are sharply hooked and energetic, beefing up Queens of the Stone Age-style desert rock early on “Shadows” and “You Lied” before the guitars introduce a broader palette with the title-track. The chorus of “Mess Creator” and the big finish in closer “The Weatherman” are highlights, but songs like “Keep Me out of It” and “Come Back” feel built for a commercial infrastructure that — at least in radio-free America — doesn’t exist anymore. I’m not sure what it takes to attract the attention of picky algorithms, but if it’s grounded songwriting, varied material and crisp performance like it was when there was a cable channel playing music videos, then Witchrider are ready to roll. As it stands, the Austrian outfit seem underserved by the inability to even get on a festival stage and play this material live to win converts in that manner. They’re hardly alone in that, but with material that seems so poised specifically toward audience engagement, it comes through all the more, which of course is a testament to the quality of the work itself.

Witchrider on Thee Facebooks

Fuzzorama Records website

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Devil Worshipper, 3

Opening with its longest track (immediate points) in the 10-minute “Silver Dagger” and presented with the burning red eyes of Christopher Lee’s Dracula on the front, the 33-minute 3 tape from Seattle’s Devil Worshipper maintains the weirdo-experimental spirit of the outfit’s 2015 self-titled debut (review here), finding a kind of Butthole Surfers-into-a-cassette-recorder, anything-goes-until-it-sucks, dark ’90s psychedelia they call “garage metal.” Fair enough. Apparently more efficient than anything I can come up with for it, though what doesn’t necessarily account for is the way the 3 challenges the listener, the remastered versions of “Into Radiation Wave” and “Chem Rails” from the first album, or the horror atmospherics of “Drinking Blood.” It’s like it’s too weird for this planet so it finally made one for itself. Well earned.

Devil Worshipper on Thee Facebooks

Puppy Mill Recordings on Bandcamp

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I won’t attempt to predict the course your afternoon or evening might take, but there’s a good chance the new Krause single is going to have the nastiest tone you’ll hear today. The Athenian noise-sludge four-piece have a new two-songer coming out for Record Store Day — also, I guess they rescheduled Record Store Day? — this Saturday and the title-track, “Vague Outlines of Almost Recognisable Shapes,” is streaming in advance. It’s a monster. And it’s in your house. And it’s eating your foot. Bye bye, foot. Oop. Bye bye, other foot. And so on. Thanks, Inner Ear Records.

If you’re the kind of person who likes your noise noisy and wishes sludge would get over its own artsiness and get down to the business of bludgeon, Krause might just be for you. Won’t you take a couple minutes out of your busy day and find out?

Nasty shit. The PR wire has it like this:

KRAUSE – Vague Outlines of Almost Recognisable Shapes

From the single Vague Outlines of Almost Recognisable Shapes?/?The Fraternity of Lost Men?-?Children released on Record Store Day (26/09/2020)

https://krause666.bandcamp.com/album/vague-outlines-of-almost-recognisable-shapes-the-fraternity-of-lost-men-children

Athenian noise-rock quartet Krause are back with a 7-inch featuring a pair of new tracks. The single is split into “The Vague Outlines of Almost Recognisable Shapes” and The Fraternity of Lost Men-Children”, the band’s first new material following up their sophomore album “The Ecstasy of Infinite Sterility”.

Band says: “”Vague Outlines…” captures the frustration and anger we have been feeling as people and as musicians over the past few months. It serves both as a reaction to the prevailing sociopolitical situation and a taste of what is to come from Krause in the future.”

This year we will be celebrating Record Store Day with Krause’s new, limited edition, 7-inch 45 RPM single “The Vague Outlines of Almost Recognisable Shapes/ The Fraternity of Lost Men-Children”.

Heavy-as-all-hell Athens, Greece noise rock quartet Krause formed in 2016 and exploded onto the scene in 2017 with its massive debut LP 2am THOUGHTS (Riot Season, UK). Next came the equally well received The Ecstasy OF Infinite Sterility in 2019, a brutal, sparsely melodic monolith of an album.

Featuring veterans of various scenes and genres (active and past members of VULNUS, Cut off, Rita Mosss, Casual Nun, Progress of Inhumanity, Dusteroid and Straighthate), KRAUSE play AmRep/Touch and Go inspired heavy noise rock and put on an equally unforgiving live show to go with it.

The Vague Outlines of Almost Recognisable Shapes/The Fraternity of Lost Men-Children 7-inch serves as a harbinger of things to come. Two slabs of uncompromising sonic violence, heavy yet catchy, that give an inkling of what KRAUSE have in store for us in the future.

KRAUSE:
Babis Kourkoulis – Guitar, vocals
Alex Vagenas – Guitar, vocals
Kostas Kagkelaris – Bass, vocals
Nick Prapas – Drums

https://www.facebook.com/krause666/
https://www.instagram.com/krauseband/
https://krause666.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/InnerEarRecords/
https://www.instagram.com/innerearrecords/
http://inner-ear.gr/

Krause, “Vague Outlines of Almost Recognisable Shapes”

Here’s what you need to know: On Sept. 18, Heavy Psych Sounds will release Doom Sessions Vol. 2, bringing together Italy’s 1782 and Greece’s Acid Mammoth. Yeah, I know, Doom Sessions Vol. 1, with Conan and Deadsmoke isn’t even out until July 17, but I guess the label is trying to stay ahead of the game. What it rounds out to is more riffs, and I know damn well you’ve got room in your life for more riffs, so quit yer yappin’ and dig into 1782‘s “Bloody Ritual” on the streaming doodad below in all its premiere-y goodness. It runs five minutes and it’s got like a whole day’s worth of Vitamin Nod. Take your pills, man.

How on earth did Heavy Psych Sounds get the notion to pair up these Roman and Greek titans? Well, both bands released records through the imprint last year. For the duo 1782 — which also features in its lineup Marco Nieddu, who runs Electric Valley Records — it was their self-titled debut (review here), rife with willful primitivism of its approach, drawing from VHS horror grain and a post-EWiz groove that remains well intact on “Bloody Ritual.” Acid Mammoth‘s second album, Under Acid Hoof (review here), arrived later in the year and shared some genre-on-genre aesthetic with their labelmates, both bands favoring a rawness of approach and themes centered around ritualism, darkness, the devil and all that other spooky fun stuff.

I haven’t been graced with the full release as yet, so I can’t speak to what Acid Mammoth are doing this time — please don’t go prog; sometimes I feel like everybody’s going prog — but if it’s up to 1782 to set the tone with “Bloody Ritual,” they’re setting it for all the fuzzy decay you can handle. Like body odor and liquor breath put to tape. Full on scuzz.

Dig:

https://soundcloud.com/user-224411652/1782-bloody-ritual/s-cx3vSg3JJOj

Bloody Ritual is the first single taken from the upcoming split album DOOM SESSIONS VOL.2 – 1782 // ACID MAMMOTH. This first single is from 1782.

The release will see the light September 18th via Heavy Psych Sounds.

ALBUM PRESALE:
https://heavypsychsoundsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/doom-sessions-vol-2-1782-acid-mammoth

TRACKLIST

SIDE A – 1782
Bloody Ritual
Hey Satan
Witch Death Cult

SIDE B – Acid Mammoth
Black Wedding
Sleepless Malice
Cosmic Pyres

Say 1782:
“A song that goes straight to the point, the emotions of the last moments of a ritual, fuzzy and heavy riffs, the battery like a boulder that enters your mind! Bloody Ritual is the track that opens Doom Sessions vol.2, 1782 & Acid Mammoth split album!”

1782 on Thee Facebooks

1782 on Instagram

Acid Mammoth on Thee Facebooks

Acid Mammoth on Bandcamp

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Heavy Psych Sounds website

Heavy Psych Sounds on Bandcamp