Posted in Whathaveyou on July 26th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
The new Duel album, Breakfast With Satan, came out earlier this month on Heavy Psych Sounds, and to no surprise whatsoever, the Austin-based purveyors of heavy charge will waste no time getting out to support it. If you’ve never seen the four-piece live — or if you have, for that matter — and are presented with the opportunity, you’d be doing yourself a favor by doing so. I won’t say a bad word about their records, unless you want to count “fuck yeah” and make me put a coin in the imaginary swear jar, but they’re a stage band all the way. The grit and grime and just-barely-on-the-rail-seeming shove of their studio work, hand-delivered with metallic vitality right to your waning eardrums. They’ve got a couple fests on this Euro jaunt starting Aug. 6, but most of it is club shows, which is a context in which they shine. Not that ringing or over an open European field doesn’t also work, but there’s something electric about their sound bouncing off the back wall to club your skull while on the other side your face is being melted.
Good band? Yeah, that’s pretty much what I’m saying. Here there be tour dates, as posted by their label, the esteemed Heavy Psych Sounds:
Europe!!! Duel will be coming your way next month so don’t miss them!!! And be sure to pick up their new LP Breakfast With Death from us at www.heavypsychsounds.com
TU 06.08.24 DE MANNHEIM – ALTER WE 07.08.24 DE JENA – KUBA TH 08.08.24 DE DRESDEN – CHEMIEFABRIK FR 09.08.24 DE MARIENTHAL – HOFLÄRM SA 10.08.24 DE MUNSTER – RARE GUITAR SU 11.08.24 DE TÜBINGEN – NULL8-15 MO 12.08.24 IT VERONA – FINE DI MONDO TU 13.08.24 IT SEZZADIO – CASCINA BELLARIA WE 14.08.24 IT SAN ZENONE – VILLA ALBRIZZI TH 15.08.24 IT FRANCAVILLA – FRANTIC FEST FR 16.08.24 FR CHAMBERY – BRIN DE ZINC SA 17.08.24 FR ***OPEN SLOT*** SU 18.08.24 FR CARHAIX – MOTOCULTOR FEST TU 20.08.24 FR PARIS – SUPERSONIC WE 21.08.24 BE BRUSSELS – LA SOURCE TH 22.08.24 UK BRIGHTON – THE GREEN DOOR STORE FR 23.08.24 UK LONDON – BLACK HEART SA 24.08.24 UK MILTON KEYNES – CRAUFURD ARMS SU 25.08.24 UK SHEFFIELD – COSMIC VIBRATION
DUEL is Tom Frank – lead vocals & guitar Jeff Henson – lead guitar & backing vocals Patrick “Scooch” Pascucci – Drums Drew Potter – bass & backing vocals
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 19th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Since July 11, a little over a week ago, Texas feelgood heavy rockers High Desert Queen have been on a European tour that’s included a stop at Stoned From the Underground and numerous other shows in and around Germany. The tour wraps up Aug. 3 and I assume they’ll fly home out of Schiphol in Amsterdam back to the US. Their arrival on US shores will give them about a month’s time to prepare to hit the road again, this time looping up the East Coast and into the Midwest for club shows and slots at Desertfest New York and the band-affiliated Ripplefest Texas, dates with Dozer and Gozu, Valley of the Sun and more. You would not accuse them of not putting in their time on the road. Or you could, I guess, but you’d be dumb and wrong to do so.
They go (and go, and go) in support of their second full-length, Palm Reader (review here), which came out in May as their first outing for Magnetic Eye Records, and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if they managed to sneak in a West Coast run over the coming winter as well. That’s how they do, and by any and all outward indications from the band, they actually enjoy it. Imagine that for a minute.
Then imagine that joy being shared from the stage, via riffs. Here are the dates:
FALL USA TOUR! This September we will be playing in cities we’ve never played in! Plus for the last half of the tour we will be supporting the legendary (and our good friends) Dozer. Check your local venues for tickets as these will go fast!
Which show will we see you at? 🤘🔥❤️
Sept. 5 Dallas, TX Three Links Sept. 6 New Orleans, LA Santos Bar Sept. 7 Chattanooga, TN The Dragon’s Roast Sept. 8 Asheville, NC. The Odd+ Sept. 9 Richmond, VA Another Round Sept. 10 Erie, PA Hippie and the Hound Sept. 11 Youngstown, OH Westside Bowl Sept. 12 Buffalo, NY Bugjar Sept. 13 Braintree, MA Widowmaker Brewing* Sept. 14 Queens, NY DesertFest NYC Sept. 15 Montreal, QC Piranha Bar* Sept. 16 Toronto, ON Garrison* Sept. 17 Grand Rapids, MI Pyramid Scheme* Sept. 18 Chicago, IL Reggie’s* Sept. 19 Lincoln, NB Reverb Lounge* Sept. 20 Oklahoma City, OK Resonant Head* Sept. 21 Austin, TX RippleFest Texas
Poster Art by f1ca_studio
Remaining European tour dates:
19/7 Leipzig, DE Kulturlounge 20/7 Munster, DE Rare Guitar 22/7 Bamberg, DE Live Club Bamberg 24/7 Göppingen, DE Gaststätte Zille 25/7 Karlshrue, DE Alte Hackerei 26/7 Neuensee, DE Rock im Wald Festival 27/7 Ulm, DE Hexenhaus 28/7 Cham, DE L.A. Club 29/7 Munich, DE Unter Deck 31/7 Ljubljana, SL Channel Zero 3/8 Amsterdam, NE De Tanker In Noord
HIGH DESERT QUEEN are: Ryan Garney – vocals Phil Hook – drums Morgan Miller – bass Rusty Miller – guitar
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 11th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
What you can glean from Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol signing with Doomstar Bookings and heralding tour plans for the first half of next year is (1:) that will probably include a slew of festival slots and (2:) their earlier-2024 fifth album, Big Dumb Riffs (review here) and the past couple years of hard touring have helped spread the word of their particular take on heavy, combining taut songcraft, a willful drive toward directness, and a heaping dose of shenanigans for a take that feels like it’s been in development for about eight years because, well, it has.
I look forward to seeing where 2025 takes them, and in the meantime they’ll apparently have another US tour for the last quarter of this year — I guess around their hometown appearances at Levitation and Austin City Limits so whatever angle you’re looking from, there’s more to come.
The PR wire dives in on where they’re at and headed:
Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol join Doomstar roster for EU & UK touring
More US dates September-December 2024
Austin trio Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol today announce they have joined the roster of Doomstar Bookings for EU & UK touring beginning in Spring 2025. Meanwhile, the band continues domestic dates this Fall supporting their new album BIG DUMB RIFFS from September through December. All tour dates will be announced soon. See current shows, including Austin City Limits’ prestigious ACL Fest and Levitation 2024 with The Sword and Pentagram.
BIG DUMB RIFFS is available on digital, LP and cassette, released May 10th, 2024. Order/stream the album on all formats HERE:https://taplink.cc/rickshawbillie
The band-curated second annual Rickshaw Billie’s BIG DUMB FEST in Austin, TX on June 1st SOLD OUT at Mohawk Austin. This follows a string of sold out dates throughout Texas, Denver, Los Angeles, Brooklyn and more.
“Our catalog has never been short on big dumb riffs, but the idea on this record was to really turn the screw,” says RBBP bassist Aaron Metzdorf. On Big Dumb Riffs, that screw is cranked incredibly tight.
“We just wanted ‘the part’: The opening of Pantera’s ‘Primal Concrete Sledge’, the breakdown in Primus’ ‘Pudding Time’ — the shit that makes you move and lose your mind. Just that part the whole time.”
Across 11 concise, taut songs — most clocking in around 2 minutes or less — Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol demonstrates their skillful ability to blend the merciless low end of Leo Lydon’s 8-string guitar, Aaron Metzdorf’s masterful chordwork on the bass, and Sean St.Germain’s driving drumming.
Hot on the heels of their breakout 5th studio release Doom Wop (2023), Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol returns with Big Dumb Riffs: A whole new variant of the fuzzed out, overdriven, melodic, groovy music they have been making since 2016. While Big Dumb Riffs is decidedly more aggressive and rhythmic, it still retains the overtly melodic feel of Doom Wop. But Leo Lydon’s vocals are considerably more angry and negative (song titles like “1-800-EAT-SHIT” and “Body Bag” should be a clue.)
“The whole writing process was, ‘what if we just played two notes the whole song’,” Metzdorf says. “‘What if we tuned down to almost unusable string tension?’, ‘what if we write a record that will make everyone say ‘wow that is dumb’? Leo and I really move around on stage a lot. Being a dingus is crucial to the groove. All these riffs were designed to allow us to act bigger and dumber on stage.”
Big Dumb Riffs is available on Limited Edition transparent orange vinyl LP, cassette, download and streaming, released on March 22, 2024. Orders are available HERE:https://rickshawbilliesburgerpatrol.bigcartel.com/
RICKSHAW BILLIE’S BURGER PATROL LIVE 2024: 10/13 Austin, TX – Austin City Limits’ ACL Fest 11/03 Austin, TX – Stubb’s – w/ The Sword, Pentagram
Austin, Texas, heavy Americana four-piece Lord Buffalo will release their third album, Holus Bolus, on July 12 through Blues Funeral Recordings. And as surely as one would never mistake a holus bolus for a rumpus, a ruckus or a hullabaloo, the textures of Lord Buffalo‘s sound across the record’s seven songs and 38 minutes are accordingly recognizable. If you heard 2020’s Tohu Wa Bohu (discussed here), the hard strikes of maybe-piano and low-drawl effects of “Slow Drug” will feel like an inheritor of some of that outing’s ambience, and the swing to which the band set those elements arises to sashay only after the opening title-track has reimagined Wovenhand as fronted by Nick Cave. We are grim, grey, thoroughly American gothic. Violins and violence.
Elsewhere amid the tumult, centerpiece “Malpaisano” tackles a vast dronescape that is not at all minimalist while seeming to be exactly and purposefully that, topped with Daniel Pruitt‘s All Them Witches-y musings, and “Passing Joy” brings together loose-strum acoustic ramble and bowed-string noise in a cinematic culmination that can’t help but resonate troubled times, and “I Wait on the Door Slab” (lyric video premiering below) teases folkish casualness, but is off on a build of layers upon layers in what first feels like manifest destiny trampling skulls forgotten in history’s romance but turns to a shimmer of guitar like it found Jesus meandering through the prairie because he’s always in the last place you look or so I’m told. The melody, the sweep, the underlying somehow-doom groove like the matte painting against which the grainy scene is portrayed — this is the stuff of thoughtful construction and meticulous detailing, maybe cynical but at least it seems to have earned that.
While there are plenty of moments throughout — to wit: the echoing lumber at the start of the penultimate “Cracks in the Vermeer,” soulful vocals soon to join — that feel obscure or perhaps intentionally vague in a way that comes across as more than the sum of their parts partly because you don’t know what the band is actually banging on, it would be a mistake to call Lord Buffalo or this encompassing Holus Bolus experimental, because by the time these songs hit your ears, the experiments have already been conducted. On a scientific level, a progression like “Cracks in the Vermeer,” or indeed “I Wait on the Door Slab” with its fuck-yes second-half heft and nigh on industrial stomp, does not hit its wash by happenstance. The sound of each cut is reasoned, plotted. And like the mix, which has enough going on to have potentially taken much longer than it probably actually did to finalize, the moody vibe of closer “Rowing in Eden” feels broader and deeper in its overarching instrumental severity than the band have yet gone; growth evident in in the vividness of the shapes and silhouettes in their fog.
As to what, if anything Holus Bolus is saying about America itself, I won’t speculate beyond basics like “dark” and “foreboding,” but that’s honestly enough in a culture that can’t stop hatefucking itself with false nostalgia en route to paved-over, luxury-rental, VC-funded obliteration masqueraded as authentic anything. Lord Buffalo aren’t trying to find redemption here, or to paint things as other than they are, but it’s not disgust that makes “Holus Bolus” shine and it’s not hopelessness that lends “I Wait on the Door Slab” such a feeling of rhythmic movement. Perhaps it is the nature of the thing to feel some hope. Perhaps it is desperate. Either way, before the oceans rightly rise to consume all of us, Holus Bolus gives an emotionalist lifeline to the lost and the weird who recognize the post-modernism for what it is — a death of gods and a call to dance. So get your shoes on and go.
Lyric video for “I Wait on the Door Slab” follows, backed by PR wire text in blue.
Please enjoy:
Lord Buffalo, “I Wait on the Door Slab” lyric video premiere
Lord Buffalo is heavy in the way that ghosts are heavy… in the way that billowing dust is heavy.
That is to say, the Austin, TX Psych-Americana band’s music impacts hard, though it seems impossible to touch. Their sound flows through us, it doesn’t invite the Pavlovian response of typical heavy rock music.
Perhaps it’s fitting then that their new album Holus Bolus takes its name from an antiquated term meaning “all at once.” It materializes instantly from the first notes of the opening title track, like a dark grey haze drawing listeners in with the band’s deft juxtapositions of droning violin, guitars, drums and vocals. It draws equally from Morricone and Badalementi as from Sabbath and Swans.
While the quartet trudges the same murky waters as dark emotive brethren David Eugene Edwards/Woven Hand, Chelsea Wolfe, Emma Ruth Rundle, Earth/Dylan Carlson, Echo & The Bunnymen, Nick Cave, etc., their creative interplay of Middle Eastern influence with a distinctly Western feel takes listeners in entirely new directions as the album envelops them.
Lord Buffalo is Daniel Pruitt (guitar, bass, piano, vocals, melodica), Garrett Hellman (guitar, sub-bass, piano, synths), Patrick Patterson (violin), and Yamal Said (drums, percussion). Holus Bolus was recorded by Danny Reisch and Max Lorenzen at Good Danny’s in Lockhart, TX. Mixed by Danny Reisch. Mastered by Max Lorenzen.
“While the making of this record feels a bit like a sleep-deprived hallucination to me,” Pruitt says. “Listening to it now, I find it strangely hopeful — there’s a kind of release that you hit in exhaustion. I think the record knew what it was after, even if we didn’t. It felt very much like the record just appeared one day, holus bolus.”
Demons My Friends filmed the video premiering below earlier this Spring as they played two support gigs for Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson in Guadalajara. There’s some joke there to be made about stoner rock and Dickinson famously yelling at people in the crowd for smoking weed, but that’s a good spot to play regardless of whether or not you’re a Maiden fan, and why poke fun anyhow. To mark the occasion, the song “Inner Slay” becomes the backdrop for a clip that captures the TX/MX-based three-piece onstage and off, and while it’s not the most party-ready cut from their 2023 debut long-player, Demons Seem to Gather (review here), with some edge of Pallbearer-style emotionalism resonating in its echoing melody, but that adds rather than takes away from the experience, and clearly it was a special moment for the band. At five minutes, “Inner Slay” is one of the longer songs on the record. Maybe they had more they wanted to remember than the 3:13 “Make Them Pay” could hold. I ain’t arguing.
The band were on tour in May and will be out again in September in Austin — where at least some percentage of the trio is based, I think, split between there and Mexico City — as part of the sprawling gathering that will be this year’s Ripplefest Texas, and in October they’re set to appear at Monterrey Metal Fest, where the likes of Satyricon and Enslaved will also play. Demons My Friends aren’t that aggro, but their tones are likewise fuzzed and expansive, and as alluded above, there are darker tinges of doom beneath the exterior of some of their material, whether it’s the Monolordy roll of album opener “The Tower Falls” or the thickened shuffle in the verses of “Fire Mountain” later on. Either way, the spirit in which the the “Inner Slay” clip arrives is pretty straightforward — commemoration — and indeed it looks like a couple nights worth remembering.
If you didn’t catch the album, no sweat, it’s not like they’ve put out three more since (yet). The full Bandcamp stream is at the bottom of this post, and you might find that after you see them celebrating what will surely be a highlight of the time around their first album, it’s cool to see clips spliced into the “Inner Slay” video of them laughing and having a good time backstage and soundchecking and whatnot. Cool band does cool thing — again, pretty straightforward. But if they’re new to you and you find yourself thinking of forward potential in their sound, the various avenues that Demons Seem to Gather sets up for them to explore while offering solid structures underneath their more soaring elements for a strong foundation in craft, that’s pretty much where I’m at too. Very interested to see where the next few years take them, and that they’re thus far playing into being the outsider act on more metal lineups — not that Bruce Dickinson and Satyricon play the same kind of stuff, but you know what I mean — is fascinating and bold. I expect to hear good things after Ripplefest.
For now, here’s the video. Please enjoy:
Demons My Friends, “Inner Slay” video premiere
Recorded on April 18 2024 at Teatro Diana in Guadalajara, Mexico during the first of the two shows that DMF opened for Bruce Dickinson on his Mandrake Project World Tour.
“Inner Slay” appears on Demons My Friends’ full-length album, “Demons Seem To Gather”, available everywhere via Gravitoyd Heavy Music (in partnership with Wiseband France).
Video shot, edited and directed by Alexander Bizzarro. “Inner Slay” produced and mixed by Jeff Henson at Red Nova Ranch (Austin, TX) and mastered by Alberto De Icaza.
Festival Appearances Sept 21st – Ripplefest Texas – Austin TX Oct 12th – Mexico Metal Fest – Monterrey, Mexico
Demons My Friends is: Pablo Anton – guitar/vox Lu Salinas – Bass/vox Tarro Martinez – Drums
I wouldn’t say we’re in the home stretch yet, but this 100-release Quarterly Review is more than three-quarters done after today, so I guess it’s debatable. In any case, we proceed. I hope you’ve enjoyed what’s been on offer so far. Yesterday was a little manic, but I got there. Today, tomorrow, I expect much the same. The order of things, as that one Jem’Hadar liked to say.
Quarterly Review #71-80:
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Bongripper, Empty
Eight albums and the emergence of a microgenre cast partly in their image later, it would take a lot for Chicago ultra-crush instrumentalists Bongripper to surprise their listenership, at least as regards their basic approach. If you think that’s a bad thing, fine, but I’d put the 66 minutes of Empty forward to argue otherwise. Six years after 2018’s two-song LP Terminal (review here) — with a live record and single between — the four new songs of Empty dare to sneakily convey a hopeful message in the concave tracklisting: “Nothing” (20:40), “Remains’ (12:04), “Forever” (12:43), “Empty” (21:24). That message might be what’s expressed in the echoing post-metallic lead guitar on the finale and the organ on the prior “Forever,” or, frankly, it might not. Because in the great, lumbering, riffy morass that is their sound, there’s room for multiple interpretations as well as largesse enough to accommodate the odd skyscraper, so take it as you will. Just because you might go into it with some idea of what’s coming doesn’t mean you won’t get flattened.
My general policy as regards “last” records is to never say never until everybody’s holograms have been deleted, but the seven songs and 39 minutes of Degradation Years represent an ending for Destroyer of Light just the same, and the Austin-based troupe end as they began, which is by not being the band people expected them to be. Their previous long-player, 2022’s Panic (review here), dug into atmospheric doom in engrossing fashion, and Degradation Years presents not-at-all-their-first pivot, with post-punk atmospherics and ’90s-alt melodies on “Waiting for the End” and heavy drift on “Perception of Time.” “Failure” is duly sad, where the shorter, riffier “Blind Faith” shreds and careens heading into its verse, and the nine-minute “Where I Cannot Follow” gives Pallbearer‘s emotive crux a look on the way to its airy tremolo finish. Guitarist/vocalist Steve Colca has a couple other nascent projects going, guitarist Keegan Kjeldsen and drummer Kelly Turner are in Slumbering Sun, and Mike Swarbrick who plays bass here is in Cortége, but Destroyer of Light always stood on their own, and they never stopped growing across their 12-year run. Job well done.
If you take away the on-stage theatricality, the medieval/horror fetish play, and all the hype, what you’re left with on Castle Rat‘s first album, Into the Realm is a solid collection of raw, classic-styled doom rock able to account for the Doors-y guitar in the quiet strum of the gets-heavy-later “Cry for Me” as well as the shrieks of “Fresh Fur” and opener “Dagger Dragger,” the nod and chug of “Nightblood” and the proto-metal of “Feed the Dream” via three interludes spaced out across its brief 32-minute stretch. Of course, taking away the drama, the sex, and aesthetic cultistry is missing part of the point of the band in the first place, but what I’m saying is that Into the Realm has more going for it than the fact that the band are young and good looking, willing to writhe, and thus marketable. They could haunt Brooklyn basements for the next 15-20 years or go tour with Ghost tomorrow, I honestly have no clue about their ambitions or goals in that regard, but their songs present a strong stylistic vision in accord with their overarching persona, resonating with a fresh generational take and potential progression. That’s enough on its own to make Into the Realm one of the year’s most notable debuts.
With their third full-length and first for Ripple Music, Detroit trio Temple of the Fuzz Witch — guitarist/vocalist Noah Bruner (also synth), bassist Joe Peet and drummer Taylor Christian — follow their 2020 offering, Red Tide (review here), with a somewhat revamped imagining of who they are. Apotheosis — as high as you can get — introduces layers of harsh vocals and charred vibes amid the consuming lumber of its tonality, still cultish in atmosphere but heavier in its ritualizing and darker. The screams work, and songs like “Nephilim” benefit from Bruner‘s ability to shift from clean to harsh vocals there and across the nine-songer’s 39 minutes, and while there’s plenty of slog, a faster song like “Bow Down” stands out all the more from the grim, somehow-purple mist in which even the spacious midsection of “Raze” seems to reside. The bottom line is if you think you knew who they were or you judged them as a bong-metal tossoff because of their silly name, you’re already missing out. If you’re cool with that, fair enough. It’s not my job to sell you records anyway.
Among the final releases for Trepanation Recordings, White Ink is the years-in-the-making first LP from Bologna, Italy’s State of Non Return — and if you’re hearing a dogwhistle in their moniker for meditative fare because that’s also the name of an Om song, you’re neither entirely correct or incorrect. From the succession of the three circa-nine-minutes-each cuts “Catharsis,” “Vertigo” and “White Ink,” the trio harness a thoughtful take on brooding desert nod, with “Vertigo” boasting some more aggro-tinged shouts ahead of the chug in its middle building on the spoken word of the opener, and the intro to the title-track building into a roll of tempered distortion that offers due payoff in its sharp-edged leads and hypnotic repetitions, to the 15-minute finale “Pendulum” that offers due back and forth between minimal spaces and full-on voluminosity before taking off on an extended linear build to end, the focus is more on atmosphere than spiritual contemplation, and State of Non Return find individualism in moody contemplation and the tension-release of their heaviest moments. Some bands grow into their own sound over time. State of Non Return, who got together in 2016, seem to have spent at least some of that span of years since doing the legwork ahead of this release.
Writing and recording as a solo artist under the banner of Thief — there’s a band for stage purposes — Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Dylan Neal (also Botanist) pulls back from the ’90s-attitudinal industrial and nü-metal flirtations of 2021’s The 16 Deaths of My Master (review here) and reroutes the purpose toward more emotive atmospheric ends. Sure, “Dead Coyote Dreams” still sneaks out of its house to smoke cigarettes at night, and that’s cool forever and you know it, but with an urgent beat behind it, “Cinderland” opens to a wash that is encompassing in ways Thief had little interest in being three years ago, despite working with largely similar elements blending electronica, synth, and organic instrumentation. The narrative — blessings and peace upon it — holds that Neal‘s father’s onset of dementia inspired the turn, and that’s certainly reason enough if you need a reason, but if there’s processing taking place over the 12 inclusions and 44 minutes that Bleed, Memory spans, along with its allusions to James Joyce, Vladimir Nabokov, etc., that does not at all make the work feel anymore lost than it’s intended to be in the post-techno of “Paramnesia” or the wub-and-shimmer of “To Whom it May Concern” that rounds out. I’ll allow that being of a certain age might make it more relatable.
New Jersey’s Ravens mark their first public offering with this seven-song self-titled debut, spacious in its vocal echo and ostensibly led by riffs though that doesn’t necessarily mean the guitar is foremost in the mix throughout. The guitar/drum duo of Zack Kurland (Green Dragon, ex-Sweet Diesel, etc.) and drummer Chris Daly (Texas is the Reason, Resurrection, etc.) emerges out of the trio Altered States with grounded rhythmic purpose beneath the atmospheric tones and vocal melodies, touching on pop in “Get On, Get On” while “New Speedway Boogie” struts with thicker tone and a less shoegazing intent than the likes of “To Whom You Were Born,” the languid “Miscommunication” and “Revolution 0,” though that two-minute piece ends with a Misfits-y vocal, so nothing is so black and white stylistically — a notion underscored as closer “Amen” builds from its All Them Witches-swaying meanderings to a full, driving wah-scorched wash to end off. Where they might be headed next, I have no idea, but if you can get on board with this one, the songs refuse to be sublimated to fit genre, and there are fewer more encouraging starts than that.
Each of the 10 songs on Spacedrifter‘s first full-length, When the Colors Fade, works from its own intention, whether it’s the frenetic MondoGenerator thrust of “(Radio Edit)” or the touch of boogie in opener “Dwell,” but grunge and desert rock are at the root of much the proceedings, as the earliest-QOTSA fuzz of “Buried in Stone” will attest. But the scope of the whole is richer in hearing than on paper, and shifts like the layered vocal melodies in “Have a Girl” or the loose bluesy swing of the penultimate “NFOB,” the band’s willingness to let a part breathe without dwelling too long on any single idea, results in a balance that speaks to the open sensibilities of turn-of-the-century era European heavy without being a retread of those bands either. Comprised of bassist/vocalist/producer Olle Söderberg, drummer/vocalist Isac Löfgren guitarist/vocalist Adam Hante and guitarist John Söderberg, Spacedrifter‘s songwriting feels and organic in its scope and how it communes with the time before the “rules” of various microgenres were set, and is low-key refreshing not like an album you’re gonna hear a ton of hyperbole about, but one that’s going to stay with you longer than its 39 minutes, especially after you let it sink in over a couple listens. So yeah, I’m saying don’t be surprised when it’s on my year-end debuts list, blah blah whatever, but also watch out for how their sound develops from here.
Collyn McCoy, Night of the Bastard Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Assembled across varied movements of synthesizer ranging from half-a-minute to a bit under four minutes long, the score for the indie horror film Night of the Bastard finds L.A.’s Collyn McCoy (also of Circle of Sighs, bassist for Unida, etc.) performing under his experimental-and-then-some electronic alias Nyte Vypr, and if that doesn’t telegraph weirdness to come, well, you can just take my word for it that it should. I can’t claim to have seen the movie, which is reportedly available hither and yon in the clusterfuck that is the modern streamscape, but ’80s horror plays a big role in pieces like “Shards and Splinters” and the opening “Night of the Bastard” itself, while “If We Only Had Car Keys” and “Get Out” feel even more specifically John Carpenter in their beat and keyboard handclaps. Closer “The Sorceress” is pointedly terrifying, but “Turtle Feed” follows a drone and piano line to more peaceful ends that come across as far, far away from the foreboding soundscape of “Go Fuck Yourself.” Remember that part where I said it was going to get weird? It does, and it’s clearly supposed to, so mark it another win for McCoy‘s divergent CV.
I hate to be that guy, but while Face the Psych is the third long-player from Portugal’s Misleading, it’s my first time hearing them, so I can’t help but feel like it’s worth noting that, in fact, they’re not that misleading at all. They tell you to face the psych and then, across seven cosmos-burning tracks and 54 minutes in an alternate dimension, you face it. Spoiler: it’s fucking rad. While largely avoiding the trap of oh-so-happening-right-now space metal, Misleading are perfectly willing to let themselves be carried where the flow of “Tutte le Nove Vite” takes them — church organ righteousness, bassy shuffle, jams that run in gravitational circles, and so on — and to shove and be shoved by the insistence of “Cheating Death” a short while later. The centerpiece “Spazio Nascoto” thickens up stonerized swing after a long intro of synth drone, and 12-minute capper “Egregore” feels like the entire song, not just the guitar and bass, has been put through the wah pedal. As likely to make you punchdrunk as entranced, willfully unhinged, and raw despite filling all the reaches of its mix and then some, it’s not so much misleading as leading-astray as you suddenly realize an hour later you’ve quit your job and dropped out of life, ne’er to be seen, heard from or hounded by debt collectors again. Congrats on that, by the way.
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 1st, 2024 by JJ Koczan
So here’s what happened. All of a sudden, toward the end of last week or whenever it was, a bunch of cool bands started to announce they were touring with other cool bands. Package tours are a long-held tradition, especially for times when money’s tight in various spots around the world, and a decent way for acts to sometimes share road expenses as well as give club crowds more reason to leave the house. Whether it’s Greenleaf and Slomosa or Dopelord and Red Sun Atacama in Europe, Mars Red Sky and Howling Giant or — the subject at hand — Austin, Texas, trio The Well and Seattle duo Year of the Cobra; none of these sounds like anything other than a killer night in the making.
But for The Well and Year of the Cobra, there are a bunch of other shows both bands are playing in addition to those they’ll do together, with the former heading to Tennessee later in August for Muddy Roots and the latter with a few dates in the Pacific Northwest in early June, and so on. There wasn’t one general announcement for the tour that I found on socials, so I took the dates that were posted by each band, the Branca Studio art that accompanied, and I decided rather than try to parse out who’s where for one broader list, to just have them as they are.
The Well‘s dates are under the band’s name, and ditto that for Year of the Cobra, whose new album I think is recorded — another announcement to wait for — and will hopefully be out in the coming months. Both their latest LP and The Well‘s were in 2019, so if you said they’re due, fair enough. Do I honestly believe I needed to tell you about organizing two posts into this single one? No. But I did anyway, because that’s how it is when you’re neurotic. Now you know.
From social media as noted:
THE WELL
YOU KNOW WE CANT STAY AWAY FOR LONG! STOKED TO HIT THE ROAD WITH @yearofthecobra THIS SUMMER!
More dates to come; here’s a teaser with some killer artwork by the goat @branca_studio
7.19 – Tulsa, OK – Mercury Lounge 7.20 – OKC, OK – Blue Note Lounge 7.21 – KC, MO – recordBar 7.22 – Minneapolis, MN – 7th St. Entry (18+) 7.23 – Chicago, IL – The Empty Bottle* 7.24 – Youngstown, OH – Westside Bowl* (all ages) 7.25 – Albany, NY – Fuze Box* 7.26 – Providence, RI – Alchemy (all ages) 7.27 – Manchester, NH – Jewel Music Venue* 7.28 – NY, NY – The Bowery Electric* 7.29 – Philadelphia, PA – Kung Fu Necktie* 7.30 – Chapel Hill, NC – Local 506* (all ages) 8.4 – Dallas, TX – Ruins* 8.6 – Scottsdale, AZ – Pub Rock* 8.7 – LA, CA – Permanent Records* 8.8 – Long Beach, CA – Alex’s Bar* 8.9 – Sacramento, CA – Cafe Colonial* 8.10 – SF, CA – Kilowatt Bar* 8.31 – Cookeville, TN – Muddy Roots Festival * – w/ Year of the Cobra
YEAR OF THE COBRA
Yo! Excited to announce our US tour with @thewellband. More dates coming soon, but for now…we feast!!!
6.1 – Bellingham, WA – The Shakedown 6.2 – Vancouver, BC – The Cobalt Cabaret 6.9 – Portland, OR – Polaris Hall 7.20 – Libby, MT – Montvana Festival 7.23 – Chicago, IL – The Empty Bottle* 7.24 – Youngstown, OH – Westside Bowl* (all ages) 7.25 – Albany, NY – Fuze Box* 7.27 – Manchester, NH – Jewel Music Venue* 7.28 – NY, NY – The Bowery Electric* 7.29 – Philadelphia, PA – Kung Fu Necktie* 7.30 – Chapel Hill, NC – Local 506* (all ages) 8.2 – Lafayette, LA – Freetown Boom Boom Room* 8.4 – Dallas, TX – Ruins* 8.6 – Scottsdale, AZ – Pub Rock* 8.7 – LA, CA – Permanent Records* 8.8 – Long Beach, CA – Alex’s Bar* 8.9 – Sacramento, CA – Cafe Colonial* 8.10 – SF, CA – Kilowatt Bar* 8.11 – Santa Cruz – Moe’s Alley* *w/The Well
The anticipated sophomore full-length from big-swing Austin, Texas, heavy rockers High Desert Queen, Palm Reader, is set to release May 31 through Magnetic Eye Records. And as the follow-up to 2021’s well-received Secrets of the Black Moon (review here) and the four-piece’s 2023 split with Albuquerque’s Blue Heron, Turned to Stone Ch. 8: The Wake (review here) — both on Ripple Music — it answers the high expectations placed on it with organic craft and a focus on largesse that would seem to put the ‘Texas’ in the self-applied tag ‘Texas desert rock.’
That is to say, with Palm Reader, High Desert Queen are all in. There’s no sneering irony or pretense in the seven included cuts, and as heavy as they are, the vibe is positive even in the mellow first half of the penultimate “Tuesday Night Blues,” which is about as close to a comedown as the band — vocalist Ryan Garney (also of Lick of My Spoon Productions and the ‘head honcho’ of Ripplefest Texas), guitarist Rusty Miller, bassist Morgan Miller, drummer Phil Hook — get, and the collective pursuit of bigger riffs and nods comes through fluidly with an engrossing and reportedly live-performance-centered production by Casey Johns at Yellow Dog Studios in Wimberley, TX, and the subsequent mix/master at Tri-Lamb in Sweden by Karl Daniel Lidén (Greenleaf, Dozer, Katatonia, on and on) highlighting space and impact alike.
With “Ancient Aliens” and “Death Perception” — the latter featuring a duet with guest vocalist Emma Näslund of Gaupa, whom the band met in Stockholm at Truckfighters Fuzz Fest in late-2022 (review here) — at the outset, Palm Reader welcomes the listener into the set, digs in for the first of two nine-minute jammers without losing sight of the hook in “Head Honcho,” and never diverts from its central goals of conveying the band’s onstage energy and penchant for turning choice riffs into good times. If you come out the other side of the massive, increasingly-shoving chug that closes the album in “Solar Rain” — the other nine-minute jam — and say to yourself that High Desert Queen are a band you need to see live, then Palm Reader will likely have fulfilled the band’s mission for it.
It’s not that they’re reinventing their genre or enacting some kind of stylistic insurgency, but High Desert Queen came out of the gate knowing what they were about, and Palm Reader refines their songwriting while staying true to the core purpose. They’re not fixing what wasn’t broken, and the album isn’t just a succession of comfortably-paced lumbering nods and catchy rhymes — as the centerpiece title-track demonstrates with its funkier strut to finish side A with a kick of momentum picking up from the scorching last chorus of “Head Honcho” — but while their material is more about audience-communion than trying to convince anyone within earshot how clever or progressive or even original they are, the sincerity of their delivery and the natural flow that emerges within and between the songs make long-established methods feel fresh, vibrant.
Secrets of the Black Moon did this as well, and the difference might just be the result of High Desert Queen having spent so much of the time between their two-to-date LPs on various stages in various countries, but whether it’s the still-grounded, semi-psych delve in the build toward that climax in “Head Honcho” or the drums setting the start-stop-and-twist pattern for the thickened boogie of “Time Waster” at the start of side B, the songs come across as thoughtful without being overwrought and arranged in such a way as to carry the listener from one end to the other with an overarching movement that doesn’t undercut the impact of the individual pieces comprising it. There’s a sweet-spot for this in heavy rock and roll. High Desert Queen follow the riff to get to it and reside there for the duration.
And nothing they do throughout, from their most mountainous stretches to the screams capping “Solar Rain,” from the declarative nod and post-C.O.C. burl of “Ancient Aliens” to the way “Palm Reader” provides enough of a shift in method that they don’t need an interlude to break up the proceedings, takes away from the heart behind it. I wasn’t kidding above when I said “all in.” Whatever else it might accomplish in songwriting, performance or reach, Palm Reader sounds like nothing so much as a band giving everything they have to each moment of its making. That’s evident in Garney‘s echoing bellows and Miller‘s deceptively-classy soloing on “Time Waster” as well as the point where “Tuesday Night Blues” kicks in from its quieter, spoken-word-topped intro to set its course of fluid loud/quiet trades in motion, and comes to feel like no less of a priority than the heaviest of riffs at the album’s foundation. While certainly self-aware in the sense of knowing what it’s doing, where it’s going and how it’s getting there, Palm Reader is most of all driven by passion.
Of course, chemistry also helps, and even putting aside the fact that Rusty and MorganMiller are related by blood, High Desert Queen have plenty of it on offer as they align around this or that movement, shifting smoothly whether it’s from the verse to the chorus of “Ancient Aliens” or bringing the midsection cacophony of “Solar Rain” to a stop to let the guitar lay down the riff anchoring the mounting intensity of the record’s finish. Front to back, High Desert Queen neither overshoot nor undersell their marks, and Palm Reader is the kind of outing you could play for someone with no prior familiarity or association with underground heavy music as ready argument in favor of conversion. It’s kind of a party, and without seeming like dumbed-down-for-accessibility caricature, it works on its own level to assure that all who might hear it invited. Give it the proper volume and you might just end up making friends.
The e’er-crucial preorder link, live dates and more info follow the premiere of the lyric video for “Death Perception” in the embed below, courtesy of the PR wire.
Please enjoy:
High Desert Queen, “Death Perception” (feat. Emma Näslund) lyric video premiere
HIGH DESERT QUEEN’s sophomore full-length “Palm Reader” is bursting with raw energy and radiates the feeling of 666 diesel horses thundering loud. The album is crammed with cool vibes, ripping leads, and a ton of desert fuzz with a focus on great songs rather than trying to stay confined within a corral of a particular style.
HIGH DESERT QUEEN had what it takes to kick the scene into gear again. Their vast musical influences ranging from grunge to funk, old school metal to doom and much more provide an ideal foundation for new ideas and a rejuvenating approach to the genre. Their thunderous, fuzz-drenched anthems are delivered with a healthy dose of groove and catchy melodies, and get a massive boost from an emotional intelligence in their music that’s hard to find. The newly-minted sound is linked to the rich heritage of their environs, inspiring the style tag ‘Texas desert rock’.
Answering the exponentially multiplying requests for new material from their steadily growing following, HIGH DESERT QUEEN flanked their live activities with the “Turned to Stone Ch. 8” split release with BLUE HERON, and contributed a track to “Best of Soundgarden Redux”, the latest instalment of the bestselling Magnetic Eye Records Redux series.
With “Palm Reader”, HIGH DESERT QUEEN have made a quantum leap in their evolution as the Texans found the perfect balance between the well-loved legacy of the desert rock genre and carving out their very own path. Fueled by the power and spirit of live music, this album rocks as hard and honest as can be done.
HIGH DESERT QUEEN live: 24 MAY 2024 Lafayette, LA (US) Freetown Boom Boom Room 25 MAY 2024 Houston, TX (US) White Oak Music Hall 26 MAY 2024 Arlington, TX (US) Division Brewery 30 MAY 2024 Austin, TX (US) The Far Out Lounge 31 MAY 2024 Bryan, TX (US) The 101 01 JUN 2024 San Antonio, TX (US) The Amp Room 02 JUN 2024 New Braunfels, TX (US) Guadalupe Brewery 13 JUL 2024 Erfurt (DE) Stoned from the Underground Festival 26 JUL 2024 Neuensee (DE) Rock im Wald Festival 21 SEP 2024 Austin, TX (US) Far Out Lounge, RippleFest Texas
Line-up Ryan Garney – vocals Phil Hook – drums Morgan Miller – bass Rusty Miller – guitar
High Desert Queen, “Ancient Aliens” official video
