Posted in Whathaveyou on March 1st, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Based in Prague, Acid Row have newly released their Afterglow LP, and next month, the Czechia-based outfit will team up with Linz, Austria’s Swanmay for an 11-date tour starting in Acid Row‘s hometown and moving toward (and through) home-base for Swanmay as they hit stops along the way. Swanmay are looking to issue their second long-player, Frantic Feel, later in 2022 as the follow-up to 2017’s Stoner Circus. As that album is apparently in the can, it wouldn’t be a surprise in the slightest if they threw a couple new songs into the set. Seems only proper.
There are two open slots, and I like to think that we live in a world where I might post a tour with open slots and someone might see that they’re open and say, “hey, I live near wherever they were the night before or are going the night after, and I like cool shows. I think I’ll put one on.” And then do that. And maybe it’s someone who’s put on shows before, and maybe not. Maybe someone tries something new, decides it’s awesome and keeps doing it. Then there’s more places to play for bands, and fewer open slots on tours. And everyone gets paid and fed and, while we’re at it, universal healthcare. That’d be great.
Point is help out if you can. From the PR wire:
SWANMAY & ACID ROW Tour
Swanmay is a Doom inspired Stoner/Grunge trio from Austria, founded in 2014. With amp-walls, aluminum guitars and an arsenal of fuzz pedals they were able to manifest their distinctive heavy stoner sound and play dozens of shows all over Europe as a support for Kadavar, Truckfighters, Brant Bjork, The Atomic Bitchwax, Elder, Ufommamut and many more.
The three Fuzzgeeks have now recorded their second full length album „Frantic Feel” and are more than ready to play live again. LP#2 will be released later in 2022.
If Robert Johnson would have reached the days of electric guitars and amps, he might have considered jamming with Czech stoner lunatics from Acid Row. A three-piece from Prague combining different genres and subgenres related mainly to stoner rock with tendencies and attitude of punk, echoes of doom metal, hazed with elements of psychedelic rock, poignant noise rock or 90’s grunge.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 8th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
The first Heavy Psych Sounds Fest in Salzburg, Austria, will take place June 4 and 5, 2022 with Elder, Mondo Generator, Black Rainbows, Duel, Ecstatic Vision, Giobia, Acid Mammoth, Geezer, 1782, Hazemaze, Sleepwulf, Tons, Deadsmoke, Ryte and Oreyeon playing. Because shit, I guess if you’re gonna do a thing, make it count.
This tells us a few things about the European touring circuit for next summer, some of which we knew, some not so much. That Geezer would head abroad again was unveiled with their last Heavy Psych Sounds Fest announcement, but to see others pulled not only from the US — Duel, Ecstatic Vision, Mondo Generator — but with a meet-in-the-middle vibe from north and south in Europe as well — Sleepwulf and Acid Mammoth, Tons and Black Rainbows, etc. — is enough to make me think that the Rockhouse Bar in Salzburg that’s set to host the two-dayer will be a significant centerpoint for the label’s summertime activities. Maybe not all of these bands will be doing full European tours, but some of them definitely will. Mix and match your favorite combination. See how many killer shows you can make out of this single, also killer festival.
I don’t even remember what I was gonna post before this came down the PR wire, but I guess whatever it was can wait.
Because here:
*** HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST SALZBURG ***
Heavy Psych Sounds Records & Booking will smash Salzburg with their highly acclaimed mini festival-series, the HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST!
In cooperation with Rockhouse Bar, today Heavy Psych Sounds has announced the dates and full bands line-up of the first HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST – SALZBURG.
The HPS Fest Salzburg will be taking place 4th and 5th of June, 2022 at the Rockhouse Bar in Salzburg !!!
HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST – SALZBURG @ Rockhouse Bar, Salzburg June 4th and 5th 2022
feat. ELDER MONDO GENERATOR BLACK RAINBOWS DUEL ECSTATIC VISION GIÖBIA ACID MAMMOTH 1782 GEEZER HAZEMAZE SLEEPWULF TONS DEADSMOKE RYTE OREYEON
We’ll have 50 early bird tickets online and 50 more early bird that will be sold at the Dome of Rock festival at the Rockhouse from 2nd to 4th December 2021.
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 24th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Here come Chorosia out of Wien with a reminder of how fine the line can be between sludge, doom and post-metal when you have a band willing to screw with the formula. “Seeds of Hate” is the four-piece’s first single from the upcoming sophomore full-length, A Call to Love — and no, that contradiction isn’t being ignored — which is out Oct. 22 on Grazil Records as the follow-up to a 2018 self-titled debut, and by the time you’re ready to think you’ve got a handle on the dirt-coated roll they undertake with willful repetitiveness and the post-Scott Kelly raw-throat vocals that accompany, the Austrian outfit are already gearing up to smack you in the face with a NWOBHM-style guitar solo.
A Call toLove continues to play out in this somewhat unexpected stylistic blend, keeping one foot in ambience with cuts like “Dune Messiah” and “Hope Country” and the other foot on your throat with the opening title-track — don’t let me spoil it; I think it’s meant to be the biggest surprise of all — as well as extended pieces like “Innocence” and the closer “Star Veins.” There’s some metal in there for sure. Not always the friendly kind.
Bottom line? “Seeds of Hate” is more ‘heads up’ than ‘full summary’ when it comes to the rest of the album, but as it’s my first experience listening to Chorosia, it immediately made me want to investigate further. Perhaps you’ll find the same.
Background info and audio follows:
Chorosia – A Call to Love – Oct. 22
Chorosia is a progressive sludge metal band from Vienna, Austria founded in 2017. The band is composed of Anto Pranjić (guitars/vocals), Florian Zeus (guitars), Christian Umkehrer (bass), and Gregory Reinig (drums). So far, Chorosia has released one album in 2018.
After doing a number of local dates to promote the album (which included playing with various well-known names such as Crowbar, Dopelord, Yob, Neurosis, Black Tusk, and the Skull), the band had decided to take their music on a tour in 2019. The self-organized tour consisted of five packed shows in eight days in central and southern Europe.
In 2020/2021, due to the global pandemic the band was stopped from going on another tour which had been planned for southern Germany. However, using the circumstances and the time on their side, Chorosia has written and recorded their second album which consists of 9 songs clocking in over 60 minutes of new music. “Seeds Of Hate” is the first single off the upcoming album called ‘A Call to Love’ coming out on October 22nd. Grazil Records will release the album on CDs and Tapes and digitally.
Chorosia: Anto Pranjić – guitars/vocals Florian Zeus – guitars Christian Umkehrer – bass Gregory Reinig – drums
Posted in Bootleg Theater on September 10th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Vienna, Austria, sludge metallers TarLung released their third album, Architect (review here), this past June, and to save you the trouble of clicking that review link, I’ll say instead that, oh, it was ghastly affair. Punishing! Brutal! Heavy like the way you think of cinderblocks holding things in place underground. The riffs were baked until burnt, the tones extreme, the vocals that accompanied all set to harsh your mellow with only a minimum of courtesy’s advance notice. It was not an act of kindness. It was not out to do favors for your eardrums. It was sludge. And it was metal.
I’m kidding, of course, but the fact of the matter is that TarLung — the trio of Philipp “Five” Seiler on guitar/vocals, Rotten on guitar, and Marian Waibl on drums — don’t even need bass to get the crucial heft of their sound across. You can watch their video for “Horses of Plague” premiering below and in addition to finding the song prescient as only a track written about a plague in 2019 could be, and appreciating their use of silhouettes and lighting and video effects, no doubt you’ll find that if you had a box on your day’s to-do list that said, “get pummeled by killer riffs,” that box will emerge on the other side of the just-under-six-minute clip duly ticked. As regards mood, you might find yourself ticked as well. Something about the tension after the solo in this one just feels seething in its execution.
The full stream of Architect is down near the bottom of the post, and I thank TarLung sincerely for the depth of thought they put into their quote. I mean that. Sometimes you ask a band for a quote and you get back either “can’t wait to share the song!” or “it’s a song I dunno.” TarLung not only explain their reasoning for picking the single — it’s heavy! — but they talk about how the clip was made, when, when the song was made, and note the fact that the record will be distributed in the US through Ripple Music. Actual information! Maybe their more courteous than I initially gave them credit for being.
Enjoy the clip (and quote), both of which follow here:
TarLung, “Horses of Plague” official video premiere
TarLung on “Horses of Plague”:
We wanted to do something special for our first video. The intention was to create something that has not been overdone within music videos yet. We came up with the idea of some sort of a “shadow theater” style video, mixed with different stock clips and a doomish vibe all around.
A distinctive inspiration was the fight scene from Kill Bill Vol. I where the lights go out and you can only see the shadows and silhouettes of the action. Mix in a video like Wilma’s Rainbow by Helmet and you get the rough idea what we were going for.
We chose to work with Schrankenstein Media, as he created a great video for the song “Past Recovery” by fellow Austrian heavyweights UGF. We heard he is very chill and easy to work with, and we can definitely confirm that. Working with Schrankenstein was great and we recommend to hit him up if you need a music video made in Austria or Germany.
The video was shot on location at Ann & Pat’s (a small but very nice venue in Linz, Upper Austria) using a big white screen and some background lighting. You can find some behind the scenes pictures and videos on our Instagram page if you are interested in the making of the video.
The song ‘Horses Of Plague’ was chosen because it’s one of the more powerful and hard-hitting songs on our new record. The lyrics are also quite fitting to the whole pandemic situation we are currently living in, as they were inspired by Terry Gilliam’s masterpiece 12 Monkeys. Strangely the song and lyrics were finished in Oktober 2019, just a few months before the world got turned upside down by the virus.
The latest TarLung album ‘Architect’ has been released in June, to great critical and public acclaim. “Horses of Plague” is the penultimate track on this record. Check it out and get a copy pressed on transparent vinyl, featuring the great artwork of Alex Eckman-Lawn, via our bandcamp page:https://tarlung.bandcamp.com
We are also working on a distribution with Ripple Music for our fans based in the USA . So if you want to save some shipping costs, our vinyl will be available via Ripple Music very soon.
Vienna quirk rockers Hypnotic Floor will release their second full-length, Odd Conjectures next month through StoneFree Records. The first single from the outing is the bouncing, fuzzy-but-mathy “Toxo,” premiering below in a video that’s suitably weirdo in its vibe, with a claymation storyline playing out that’s probably a metaphor for something about violence but I’m not even sure what and I think that might be the point to start with. It goes like that.
I’m a fan of not knowing things sometimes, and the proggy underpinnings here, the sense of control Hypnotic Floor exhibit as they hop from one measure to the next, the vocals of Julian Streit recalling some lost krautrock incantation about traveling inside your brain, lets you know they’re in charge of the procession, thoughtful about the song’s movement and indeed that of the clay accompanying. I don’t know who in the band — whether Streit, guitarist Jonas Biesenbender, bassist Andreas Gnigler or drummer Serafin Eiter — is down with stop-motion photography, but the “Toxo” clip is, like the song itself, a work of very specific skill and precision. It reminds me of an old Sesame Street interlude, except longer, and instead of spelling out letters the clay alien creatures seem to kill each other and lay eggs on corpses. Okay, so maybe not Sesame Street. You get what I’m saying though.
So what does the rest of Odd Conjectures hold? I don’t know that either. Haven’t heard it. But based on “Toxo,” I’d expect it to be aptly named, since the spirit in which the song is brought to bear seems very much forward-looking and is, as noted at the outset, in no small part defined by its quirk. But we’ll see when we get there.
Until then, enjoy the video:
Hypnotic Floor, “Toxo” Video Premiere
Toxo is the first single from the upcoming album “ODD CONJECTURES” which will be release via StoneFree Records early September.
The Vienna quartet HYPNOTIC FLOOR combines influences of Psych-, Kraut- and Progressive Rock. Their music is shaped by fuzzy riffs, spaced out synths and changing timesignatures and covers a varied range of sounds. The contrast between complex melodic lines and hypnotic and repetitive grooves is predominant throughout their meandering songs.
In February 2020 they released their debut album „Foggy Bog Eyes“ via “Ultraviolence Records”.
Members: Jonas Biesenbender – Guitar Julian Streit – Guitar, Vocals Andreas Gnigler – Bass Serafin Eiter – Drums
We proceed onward, into this ever-growing swath of typos, lineup corrections made after posting, and riffs — more riffs! — that is the Quarterly Review. Today is Day Four and I’m feeling good. Not to say there isn’t some manner of exhaustion, but the music has been killer — today is particularly awesome — and that makes life much, much, much better as I’ve already said. I hope you’ve found one or two or 10 records so far that you’ve really dug. I know I’ve added a few to my best of 2021 list, including stuff right here. So yeah, we roll on.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
Spelljammer, Abyssal Trip
To envision an expanse, and to crush it. Stockholm three-piece Spelljammer return five years after Ancient of Days (review here), with an all-the-more-massive second long-player through RidingEasy, turning their front-cover astronaut around to face the audience head on and offering 43 minutes/six tracks of encompassing largesse, topping 10 minutes in the title-track and “Silent Rift,” both on side B with the interlude “Peregrine” between them, after the three side A rollers, “Bellwether,” “Lake” and “Among the Holy” have tripped out outward and downward into an atmospheric plunge that is a joy to take feeling specifically geared as an invite to the converted. We are here, come worship with us. Also get crushed. Spelljammer records may not happen all the time, but you won’t be through “Bellwether” before you’re saying it was worth the wait.
A deceptively graceful second LP from Melbourne’s The Black Heart Death Cult, Sonic Mantras pulls together an eight-song/45-minute run that unfolds bookended by “Goodbye Gatwick Blues” (8:59) and “Sonic Dhoom” (9:47) and in between ebbs and flows across shorter pieces that maximize their flow in whether shoegazing, heavygazing, blissing out, or whatever we’re calling it this week on “The Sun Inside” and “One Way Through,” or finding their way to a particularly deadened meadow on “Trees,” or tripping the light hypnotic on “Dark Waves” just ahead of the closer. “Cold Fields” churns urgently in its 2:28 but remains spacious, and everywhere The Black Heart Death Cult go, they remain liquefied in their sound, like a seemingly amorphous thing that nonetheless manages to hold its shape despite outside conditions. Whatever form they take, then, they are themselves, and Sonic Mantras emphasizes how yet-underappreciated they are in emerging from the ever-busy Aussie underground.
Tetra is the third long-player from Milwaukee’s Shogun, and in addition to the 10-minute “Delta,” which marries blues gargle with YOB slow-gallop before jamming out across its 10-minute span, it brings straight-shooter fuzz rockers like “Gravitas,” the someone-in-this-band-listened-to-Megadeth-in-the-’90s-and-that’s-okay beginnings of “Buddha’s Palm/Aviary” and likewise crunch of “Axiom” later, but also the quiet classic progressive rock of “Gone Forever,” and the more patient coming together of psychedelia and harder-hitting movement on closer “Maximum Ray.” Somewhat undercut by a not-raw-but-not-bursting-with-life production, pieces like “Buddha’s Palm/Aviary,” which gives over to a sweeter stretch of guitar in its second movement, and “Vertex/Universal Pain Center,” which in its back end brings around that YOB influence again and puts it to good use, are outwardly complex enough to put the lie to the evenhandedness of the recording. There’s more going on in Tetra than it first seems, and the more you listen, the more you find.
Keeping up with Nadja has proven nigh on impossible over the better part of the last two decades, as the Berlin-by-way-of-Toronto duo have issued over 25 albums in 19 years, plus splits and live offerings and digital singles and oh my goodness I do believe I have the vapors that’s a lot of Nadja. For those of us who flit in and out like the dilletantes we ultimately are, Luminous Rot‘s aligning Aidan Baker and Leah Buckareff with Southern Lord makes it an easy landmark, but really most of what the six-cut/48-minute long-player does is offer a reminder of the vital experimentalism the lazy are missing in the first place. The consuming, swelling drone of “Cuts on Your Hands,” blown-out sub-industrialism of “Starres,” hook of the title-track and careful-what-you-wish-for anchor riff of “Fruiting Bodies” — these and the noisily churning closer “Dark Inclusions” are a fervent argument in Nadja‘s favor as being more than a sometimes-check-in kind of band, and for immediately digging into the 43-minute single-song album Seemannsgarn, which they released earlier this year. So much space and nothing to lose.
Welcome to punishment as a primary consideration. Indianapolis death-doom four-piece hold back the truly crawling fare until “Perverted Reflection,” which is track three of the total seven on their debut full-length, Upon a Throne of Jackals, but by then the extremity has already shown its unrepentant face across the buried-alive “Final Spasms of the Drowned” and the oldschool death metal of “The Altar.” Centerpiece “Invert Every Throne” calls to mind Conan in its nod, but Shroud of Vulture are more about rawness than sheer largesse in tone, and their prone-to-blasting style gives them an edge there and in “Halo of Tarnished Light,” which follows. The closing pair of “Concealing Rabid Laughter” and “Stone Coffin of Existence” both top seven minutes and offset grueling tension with grueling release, but it’s the stench of decay that so much defines Upon a Throne of Jackals, as though somebody rebuilt Sunlight Studio brick for brick in Hoosier Country. Compelling and filthy in kind.
Towards Atlantis Lights, When the Ashes Devoured the Sun
Ultra-grueling, dramatic death-doom tragedies permeate the second full-length, When the Ashes Devoured the Sun, from UK-based four-piece Towards Atlantis Lights, with vocalist/keyboardist Kostas Panagiotou and guitarist Ivan Zara at the heart of the compositions while bassist Riccardo Veronese and drummer Ivano Olivieri assure the impact that coincides with the cavernous procession matches in scope. The follow-up to 2018’s Dust of Aeons (review here), this six-track collection fosters classicism and modern apocalyptic vibes alike, and whether raging or morose, its dirge atmosphere remains firm and uncompromised. Heavy lumber for heavy hearts. The kind of doom that doesn’t look up. That doesn’t mean it’s not massive in scope — it is, even more than the first record — just that nearly everything it sees is downward. If there’s hope, it is a vague thing, lost to periphery. So be it.
It has been said on multiple occasions that “space is the place.” The curiously-capitalized Colorado outfit ASTRAL CONstruct would seem to live by this ethic on their debut album, Tales of Cosmic Journeys, unfurling as they do eight flowing progressions of instrumental slow-CGI-of-the-planets pieces that are more plotted in their course than jams, but feel built from jams just the same. Raw in its production and mix, and mastered by Kent Stump of Wo Fat, there’s enough atmosphere to let the lead guitar breathe, certainly, and to sustain life in general even on “Jettisoned Adrift in the Space Debris,” and the image evoked by “Hand Against the Solar Winds” feels particularly inspired given that song’s languid roll. The record starts and ends in cryogenic sleep, and if upon waking we’re transported to another place and another time, who knows what wonders we might see along the way. ASTRAL CONstruct‘s exploration would seem to be just beginning here, but their “Cosmos Perspective” is engaging just the same.
Vienna-based sludgedrivers TarLung were last heard from with 2017’s Beyond the Black Pyramid (discussed here), and Architect continues the progression laid out there in melding vocal extremity and heavy-but-not-too-heavy-to-move riffing. It might seem like a fine line to draw, and it is, and that only makes songs like “Widow’s Bane” and “Horses of Plague” all the more nuanced as their deathly growls and severe atmospheres mesh with what in another context might just be stoner rock groove. Carcass circa the criminally undervalued Swansong, Six Feet Under. TarLung manage to find a place in stoner sludge that isn’t just Bongzilla worship, or Bongripper worship, or Bong worship. I’m not sure it’s worship at all, frankly, and I like that about it as the closing title-track slow-moshes my brain into goo.
Somewhere in the great mystical expanse between Kalispell, Montana, and Kansas City, Missouri, two practicioners of the riffly dark arts meet on a field of battle. Wizzerd come packing the 19-minute acoustic-into-heavy-prog-into-sitar-laced-jam-out “We Are,” as if to encompass that declaration in all its scope, while Merlin answer back with the organ-led “Merlin’s Bizarre Adventure” (21:51), all chug and lumber until it’s time for weirdo progressive fusion reggae and an ensuing Purple-tinged psych expansion. Who wins? I don’t know. Ripple Music in releasing it in the first place, I guess. Continuing the label’s influential split series(es), Turned to Stone Chapter III pushes well over the top in the purposes of both acts involved, and in that, it’s maybe less of a battle than two purveyors joining forces to weave some kind of Meteo down on the heads of all who might take them on. If you’ve think you’ve got the gift, they seem only too ready to test that out.
“Life Grinder” begins with a sample: “I don’t know if you need all that bass,” and the answer, “Oh, you need all that bass.” That’s already after “Sea Sick Six” has revealed the Montreal-based trio’s sans-guitar extremist sludge roll, and the three-piece seem only too happy to keep up the theme. Vocals are harsh, biting, grating, purposeful in their fuckall, and the whole 28-minute affair of Winterized is cathartic aural violence, except perhaps the interlude “666,” which is a quiet moment between “Broken Bones” and “Black Snail Volcano,” which finally seems to just explode in its outright aggression, nod notwithstanding. A slowed down Ramones cover — reinventing “Pet Sematary” as “Red Sematary” — has a layer of spoken chanting vocals layered in and closes out, but the skin has been peeled so far back by then and Seum have doused so much salt onto the wounds that even Bongzilla might cringe. The low-end-only approach only makes it more punishing and more punk rock at the same time. Fucking mean.
Posted in Reviews on February 18th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Structure reveals itself over time to be of significant importance to Graz, Austria’s Savanah, even if that doesn’t always show itself in the most obvious of ways. Those, I suppose, would be predictable verse/chorus turns, A/B rhyme patterns and other such accessible and no-less-valid modes of expression, and that’s not what Savanah have ever really been about from their first EP, 2015’s Deep Shades, through 2017’s The Healer (review here) and now their second album, Olympus Mons. Issuing through reliable Austrian imprint StoneFree Records, the trio of bassist/vocalist Benjamin Schwarz, guitarist Jakob Gauster and drummer Felix Thalhammer clearly prefer a melding of aesthetics and ideas. And yet, to look back at The Healer, it was an album that purposefully saved its most forward-thinking material for its final two tracks, longer and of greater reach as they were. They were the destination toward which the album was building.
Olympus Mons seems to pick up that journey where it left off. True, it also ends with its two longest cuts in “1872” (9:11) and “Olympus Mons” (13:04), but the distinction is less immediate between those songs and the opening pair of “Kaleidoscopia” and “Velvet Scarf,” both of which run eight minutes long. Of further interest, the three-minute instrumental “Tharsis” divides these two sections. Doubtless it’s included on side A of the vinyl version of Olympus Mons with the opening duo before it, but its positioning can only be intentional and it speaks to the level of consideration Savanah are putting into their work and and their engagement of the listener overall. I would argue that this purposefulness no less represents their status as a progressive unit than the total five tracks/42 minutes of Olympus Mons itself, which sees them port such a level of intention to their songwriting, continuing the trail that The Healer and Deep Shades — which, though shorter, mirrors the structure of Olympus Mons more directly than the LP that followed — set out, while moving decidedly further along the same path of meeting cohesive songcraft with riffs that blur the line between rock and metal and find a place between sounds and styles that is their own.
All well and good, but what does it sound like? Well, if you’re going to name your record after the tallest mountain in the solar system, you should probably pack in some sense of largesse, and Savanah most certainly do that. Guitar, bass and drums are all geared toward being heard with whatever volume can be spared for the cause, and Schwarz‘s echoing vocals add to the cavernous feel throughout. Much of what one needs to know on the most basic level about Olympus Mons can be heard in “Kaleidoscopia.” A righteous and no doubt purposefully-placed opener, it brings a defining hook for what follows and starts with a near-immediate groove, the drums quickly giving way to the central riff, delivered with metallic surety and a crisp separation between the guitar and bass. The production style — the album was recorded by Hannes Mottl Audioproductions — might link Olympus Mons to the post-Mastodon school of big-bigger-biggest groovers, but like the rest of what they do, they seem to pull from varying influences what works for them and translate it toward their own purposes.
In that way, “Kaleidoscopia” represents well what follows, since one might think of a kaleidoscope itself using different angles and colors to give a similar impression. Olympus Mons, then, is telling the listener about itself. As the song moves through its quiet and semi-psych midsection, there’s shades of later, proggier Truckfighters — partially in the vocals — but once the riff kicks back in, Savanah are again steering their own course. “Velvet Scarf” changes methods, opening quiet and hypnotic before hitting into its main progression, which then moves into a chugging semi-chorus, mellowing and building once more toward a bigger, solo-topped apex. The two songs are just different enough despite their similar runtime and the obvious consistency of production to keep the listener aware of the possibility of change, and that’s fortunate as “Tharsis” takes hold with its condensed run through multiple parts, here led by guitar, there bass, always with the drums keeping it steady. It’s too brash and lumbering to be graceful, but neither do Savanah make a misstep along the way.
As noted, The Healer also capped with its two longest songs. The difference is one that only a few years could bring in terms of the band’s growth. The vocal melody in “1872” is offered with a confidence that could only be born of having the experience of the first album and EP behind the band, and the smoothness which which the song moves through its nine minutes only adds to the demonstration, including trades back and forth of volume late and the rumbling noise that leads directly into “Olympus Mons” itself. At 13 minutes, the title-track consumes a not insignificant portion of the album’s runtime, but fair enough again for the subject matter. And to their credit, Savanah make it a journey, touching on modern heavy psychedelia, rolling doom and classic metallic force that summarizes the case they began to make with “Kaleidoscopia” even as it evidences potential still to flourish in their sound.
Whatever Savanah may or may not do from here, the still-somehow-jammy ending of Olympus Mons — with bass so rich you can practically see the strings vibrating in your mind’s eye beneath a triumphant final riff, wide-open drums and a vocal taking flight overtop — makes it clear that if the band are interested in climbing mountains, they’re still looking for higher ones to take on. That is to say, as much as Olympus Mons distinguishes them in style and purpose, as well as songwriting, it does not sound like the work of a group who have no interest in pushing further. A third album is a crucial moment for a band, and as their second, Olympus Mons not only satisfies in its own right, but holds promise for the next steps of their creative pilgrimage still to come. Immersive and progressive, engaging genre but not beholden to it, and clear in its mission, Savanah‘s Olympus Mons is an adventure in the listening guided by the steady presence of its makers.
Posted in audiObelisk on February 1st, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Austrian double-guitar instrumentalists Mothers of the Land found themselves in what will by now be a familiar pickle circa last summer. They had their sophomore full-length, Hunting Grounds (review here), set to release on June 19, and there was of course no way to make a release gig or any others supporting it happen. They did what a lot of those in similar situations did — they went into a studio and recorded themselves playing live. You’ve heard this story before? Good. Like I said, it should be familiar by now.
That doesn’t however, change just how much 2020 absolutely blew ass for bands, big and small. Consider a group like Mothers of the Land. Their debut album, Temple Without Walls, came out in 2016, and got a favorable response. So the entire planet shuts down just as you’re putting together the follow-up for release, and what the hell do you do? Shows are out, but do you even bother issuing the album? Should you wait, and until when? Facing the situation of not knowing when the pandemic was going to end, Mothers of the Land — like many others — put out their record. And to listen to Hunting Grounds, its heavy NWOBHM-inspired grooves are delivered with an energy that deserves to be heard.
But putting the album out could only replace one frustration with another, because you can’t go and put it in a crowd’s ears directly anymore. Here we are, going on eight months later, and Live at Deer in the Headlights Studio, which brings three songs from Hunting Grounds and one from its predecessor, is being issued, not to take the place of live shows — how could it? — but at least to give some representation of the band’s dynamic in that setting. As “Queen of the Den” flows into the guitarmonized unfolding of “Harvest,” the nobility of their intent is plain to hear and their melodies engage with a spirit of triumph through adversity. If you can relate to such a thing, chances are you’re a human being and alive.
“Nightwalk Blues” is the only cut included from Temple Without Walls and it soars in classic form, giving way to “Showdown,” which capped Hunting Grounds, as if to bring to emphasis the progression the years between the two LPs brought forth in their dynamic and style. Fret not, there’s still plenty of groove to go around, and go around it does.
Live at Deer in the Headlights Studio was recorded by Markus Matzinger (who also mixed) and Paul Bacher. You’ll find it streaming in full below, followed by the story as told by the band.
Please enjoy:
„Live Session at Deer In The Headlights Studios 2020“ We had a new album coming in mid June and there was no chance to play any shows to promote „Hunting Grounds“ due to the lockdown measures in Austria. So we did what we thought would be the closest thing to a live show – a live session.
“Deer In The Headlights Studio” has a tradition to do live sessions and have an amazing team of sound engineers. They told us we could only do three songs, but luckily we could convince them to add another one, since one of them was so short – like just three minutes or so.. The only criterium for choosing the songs was the amount of fun we have playing them – we hope you enjoy it as much as we did and still do!
The recording took place at “Deer In The Headlights Studios” Linz, Austria on May 30, 2020. Engineering: Markus Matzinger and Paul Bacher Mix: Markus Matzinger
Tracklisting: 1. Queen of the Den 05:04 2. Harvest 03:48 3. Nightwalk Blues 05:11 4. Showdown 09:17
Mothers Of The Land: Georg Pluschkowitz (guitar) Jack Jindra (guitar) Johannes ‘Jon’ Zeininger (bass) Jakob Haug (drums)
