Wow. This is a pretty good day. I mean, I knew that coming into it — I’m the one slating the reviews — but looking up there at the names in the header, that’s a pretty killer assemblage. Maybe I’m making it easy for myself and loading up the QR with stuff I like and want to write about. Fine. Sometimes I need to remind myself that’s the point of this project in the first place.

Hope you’re having an awesome week. I am.

Quarterly Review #21-30

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Thou, Umbilical

Even knowing that the creation of a sense of overwhelm is on purpose and is part of the artistry of what Thou do, Thou are overwhelming. The stated purpose behind Umbilical is an embrace of their collective inner hardcore kid. Fine. Slow down hardcore and you pretty much get sludge metal one way or the other and Thou‘s take on it is undeniably vicious and has a character that is its own. Songs like “I Feel Nothing When You Cry” and “The Promise” envision dark futures from a bleak present, and the poetry from which the lyrics get their shape is as despondent and cynical as one could ever ask, waiting to be dug into and interpreted by the listener. Let’s be honest. I have always had a hard time buying into the hype on Thou. I’ve seen them live and enjoyed it and you can’t hear them on record and say they aren’t good at what they do, but their kind of extremity isn’t what I’m reaching for most days when I’m trying to not be in the exact hopeless mindset the band are aiming for. Umbilical isn’t the record to change my mind and it doesn’t need to be. It’s precisely what it’s going for. Caustic.

Thou on Bandcamp

Sacred Bones Records website

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Cortez, Thieves and Charlatans

The fourth full-length from Boston’s Cortez sets a tone with opener “Gimme Danger (On My Stereo)” (premiered here) for straight-ahead, tightly-composed, uptempo heavy rock, and sure enough that would put Thieves and Charlatans — recorded by Benny Grotto at Mad Oak Studios — in line with Cortez‘s work to-date. What unfolds from the seven-minute “Leaders of Nobody” onward is a statement of expanded boundaries in what Cortez‘s sound can encompass. The organ-laced jamitude of “Levels” or the doom rock largesse of “Liminal Spaces” that doesn’t clash with the prior swing of “Stove Up” mostly because the band know how to write songs; across eight songs and 51 minutes, the five-piece of vocalist Matt Harrington, guitarists Scott O’Dowd and Alasdair Swan, bassist Jay Furlo and sitting-in drummer Alexei Rodriguez (plus a couple other guests from Boston’s heavy underground) reaffirm their level of craft, unite disparate material through performance and present a more varied and progressive take than they’ve ever had. They’re past 25 years at this point and still growing in sound. They may be underrated forever, but that’s a special band.

Cortez on Facebook

Ripple Music website

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Lydsyn, Højspændt

Writing a catchy song is not easy. Writing a song so catchy it’s still catchy even though you don’t speak the language is the provenance of the likes of Uffe Lorenzen. The founding frontman of in-the-ether-for-now Copenhagen heavy/garage psych pioneers Baby Woodrose digs into more straightforward fare on the second full-length from his new trio Lydsyn, putting a long-established Stooges influence to good use in “Hejremanden” after establishing at the outset that “Musik Er Nummer 1” (‘music is number one’) and before the subsequent slowdown into harmony blues with “UFO.” “Nørrebro” has what would seem to be intentional cool-neighborhood strut, and those seeking more of a garage-type energy might find it in “Du Vil Have Mere” or “Opråb” earlier on, and closer “Den Døde By” has a scorch that feels loyal to Baby Woodrose‘s style of psych, but whatever ties there are to Lorenzen‘s contributions over the last 20-plus years, Lydsyn stand out for the resultant quality of songwriting and for having their own dynamic building on Lorenzen‘s solo work and post-Baby Woodrose arc.

Lydsyn on Facebook

Bad Afro Records website

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Magick Potion, Magick Potion

The popular wisdom has had it for a few years now that retroism is out. Hearing Baltimorean power trio Magick Potion vibe their way into swaying ’70s-style heavy blues on “Empress,” smoothly avoiding the trap of sounding like Graveyard and spacing out more over the dramatic first two minutes of “Wizard” and the proto-doomly rhythmic jabs that follow. Guitarist/vocalist/organist Dresden Boulden, bassist/vocalist Triston Grove and drummer Jason Geezus Kendall capture a sound that’s as fresh as it is familiar, and while there’s no question that the aesthetic behind the big-swing “Never Change” and the drawling, sunshine-stoned “Pagan” is rooted in the ’68-’74 “comedown era” — as their label, RidingEasy Records has put it in the past — classic heavy rock has become a genre unto itself over the last 25-plus years, and Magick Potion present a strong, next-generation take on the style that’s brash without being willfully ridiculous and that has the chops to back up its sonic callouts. The potential for growth is significant, as it would be with any band starting out with as much chemistry as they have, but don’t take that as a backhanded way of saying the self-titled is somehow lacking. To be sure, they nail it.

Magick Potion on Instagram

RidingEasy Records store

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Weite, Oase

Oase is the second full-length from Berlin’s Weite behind 2023’s Assemblage (review here), also on Stickman, and it’s their first with keyboardist Fabien deMenou in the lineup with bassist Ingwer Boysen (Delving), guitarists Michael Risberg (Delving, Elder) and Ben Lubin (Lawns), and drummer Nick DiSalvo (Delving, Elder), and it unfurls across as pointedly atmospheric 53 minutes, honed from classic progressive rock but by the time they get to “(einschlafphase)” expanded into a cosmic, almost new age drone. Longer pieces like “Roter Traum” (10:55), “Eigengrau” (12:41) or even the opening “Versteinert” (9:36) offer impact as well as mood, maybe even a little boogie, “Woodbury Hollow” is more pastoral but no less affecting. The same goes for “Time Will Paint Another Picture,” which seems to emphasize modernity in the clarity of its production even amid vintage influences. Capping with the journey-to-freakout “The Slow Wave,” Oase pushes the scope of Weite‘s sound farther out while hitting harder than their first record, adding to the arrangements, and embracing new ideas. Unless you have a moral aversion to prog for some reason, there’s no angle from which this one doesn’t make itself a must-hear.

Weite on Facebook

Stickman Records website

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Orbiter, Distorted Folklore

Big on tone and melody in a way that feels inspired by the modern sphere of heavy — thinking that Hum record, Elephant Tree, Magnetic Eye-type stuff — Florida’s Orbiter set forth across vast reaches in Distorted Folklore, a song like “Lightning Miles” growing more expansive even as it follows a stoner-bouncing drum pattern. Layering is a big factor, but it doesn’t feel like trickery or the band trying to sound like anything or anyone in particular so much as they’re trying to serve their songs — Jonathan Nunez (ex-Torche, etc.) produced; plenty of room in the mix for however big Orbiter want to get — as they shift from the rush that typified stretches of their 2019 debut, Southern Failures, to a generally more lumbering approach. The slowdown suits them here, though fast or slow, the procession of their work is as much about breadth as impact. Whatever direction they take as they move into their second decade, that foundation is crucial.

Orbiter on Facebook

Orbiter on Bandcamp

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Vlimmer, Bodenhex

As regards genre: “dark arts?” Taking into account the 44 minutes of Vlimmer‘s fourth LP, which is post-industrial as much as it’s post-punk, with plenty of goth, some metal, some doom, some dance music, and so on factored in, there’s not a lot else that might encompass the divergent intentions of “Endpuzzle” or “Überrennen” as the Berlin solo-project of Alexander Donat harnesses ethereal urbanity in the brooding-till-it-bursts “Sinkopf” or the manic pulses under the vocal longing of closer “Fadenverlust.” To Donat‘s credit, from the depth of the setup given by longest/opening track (immediate points) “2025” to the goth-coated keyboard throb in “Mondläufer,” Bodenhex never goes anywhere it isn’t meant to go, and unto the finest details of its mix and arrangements, Vlimmer‘s work exudes expressive purpose. It is a record that has been hammered out over a period of time to be what it is, and that has lost none of the immediacy that likely birthed it in that process.

Vlimmer on Facebook

Blackjack Illuminist Records on Bandcamp

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Moon Goons, Lady of Many Faces

Indianapolis four-piece Moon Goons cut an immediately individual impression on their third album, Lady of Many Faces. The album, which often presents itself as a chaotic mash of ideas, is in fact not that thing. The band is well in control, just able and/or wanting to do more with their sound than most. They are also mindfully, pointedly weird. If you ever believed space rock could have been invented in an alternate reality 1990s and run through filters of lysergism and Devin Townsend-style progressive metal, you might take the time now to book the tattoo of the cover of Lady of Many Faces you’re about to want. Shenanigans abound in the eight songs, if I haven’t made that clear, and even the nod of “Doom Tomb Giant” feels like a freakout given the treatment put on by Moon Goons, but the thing about the album is that as frenetic as the four-piece of lead vocalist/guitarist Corey Standifer, keyboardist/vocalist Brooke Rice, bassist Devin Kearns and drummer Jacob Kozlowski get on their way to the doped epic finisher title-track, the danger of it coming apart is a well constructed, skillfully executed illusion. And what a show it is.

Moon Goons on Facebook

Romanus Records website

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Familiars, Easy Does It

Although it opens up with some element of foreboding by transposing the progression of AC/DC‘s “Hells Bells” onto its own purposes in heavy Canadiana rock, and it gets a bit shouty/sludgy in the lyrical crescendo of “What a Dummy,” which seems to be about getting pulled over on a DUI, or the later “The Castle of White Lake,” much of Familiars‘ Easy Does It lives up to its name. Far from inactive, the band are never in any particular rush, and while a piece like “Golden Season,” with its singer-songwriter vocal, acoustic guitar and backing string sounds, carries a sense of melancholy — certainly more than the mellow groover swing and highlight bass lumber of “Gustin Grove,” say — the band never lay it on so thick as to disrupt their own momentum more than they want to. Working as a five-piece with pedal steel, piano and other keys alongside the core guitar, bass and drums, Easy Does It finds a balance of accessibility and deeper-engaging fare combined with twists of the unexpected.

Familiars on Facebook

Familiars on Bandcamp

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The Fërtility Cült, A Song of Anger

Progressive stoner psych rockers The Fërtility Cült unveil their fifth album, A Song of Anger, awash in otherworldly soul music vibes, sax and fuzz and roll in conjunction with carefully arranged harmonies and melodic and rhythmic turns. There’s a lot of heavy prog around — I don’t even know how many times I’ve used the word today and frankly I’m scared to check — and admittedly part of that is how open that designation can feel, but The Fërtility Cült seem to take an especially fervent delight in their slow, molten, flowing chicanery on “The Duel” and elsewhere, and the abiding sense is that part of it is a joke, but part of everything is a joke and also the universe is out there and we should go are you ready? A Song of Anger is billed as a prequel, and perhaps “The Curse of the Atreides” gives some thematic hint as well, but whether you’ve been with them all along or this is the first you’ve heard, the 12-minute closing title-track is its own world. If you think you’re ready — and good on you for that — the dive is waiting for your immersion.

The Fërtility Cült on Facebook

The Fërtility Cült on Bandcamp

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While the song is catchy in a classic way that goes beyond language, I’ll admit to a bourgeois shame not knowing even how to start counting in Danish, and so Lydsyn‘s new single, “Musik Er Nummer 1,” taught me that “en” is “one.” Never too old to learn. Hopefully at some point they put out a song about the number two.

The Copenhagen heavy rock and rollers will release their second album, Højspændt (“high tension,” according to a major internet company’s translation matrix), on Oct. 25 through Bad Afro Records. A promo clip — maybe a snippet of a larger video for the song yet to be unveiled? — has been posted, along with the song itself, which one can easily imagine frontman Uffe Lorenzen, who’s still perhaps better known as Lorenzo Woodrose of Baby Woodrose, though he has solo material under his own name, has been part of other bands/projects, and so on, delivering the title line at a gig like that depicted. Regardless of my linguistic ignorance, the band’s 2022 self-titled debut (review here) was a jewel of garage and proto-heavy stylization from a master of the form prone to psychedelic leans. Where the next one might go, I haven’t heard it and won’t speculate, but songwriting is songwriting, and “Music Er Nummer En” reaffirms that’s exactly what’s at play here.

No real PR wire announce for this one, but Bad Afro and the band both posted the song/video with some info and confirmed the release on social media, and the below is cobbled together from that and Bandcamp:

Online NOW: “Musik Er Nummer 1” is the first digital single taken from the upcoming Lydsyn album “Højspændt” due out October 25th.

You can have a listen at your preferred streaming platform here: https://lydsyn.lnk.to/musik

If you are not into streaming you can listen for free at the Bad Afro Bandcamp: https://badafrorecords.bandcamp.com/track/musik-er-nummer-1

Here is the first single from our upcoming album Højspændt. The pictures come from the two sold out concerts at the Flea in April, where we played all the songs live for the first time. If you were present, there’s a good chance that you can spot yourself in the video. album will be released on the 25th. october.

Camera: Jens Raadal and Claus Michaelsen
Klip og grade: Fuzz Cake Film

https://www.facebook.com/lydsyn
https://www.instagram.com/lydsyn/

https://badafrorecords.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/BadAfroRecs
http://badafro.dk/

Lydsyn, “Musik Er Nummer 1”

Lydsyn, “Musik Er Nummer 1” promo video

Life can take you to some unexpected places, but if you’re Uffe Lorenzen, a lot of them might be garage rock. The king of Danish garage psych, best known for his work under the nom de plume Lorenzo Woodrose, has spent the last five years developing his solo aesthetic, putting out three full-lengths in 2020’s Magisk Realisme (review here), 2019’s Triprapport (review here) and 2017’s Galmandsværk (review here), departing from where he left his main outfit Baby Woodrose behind with 2016’s Freedom (review here) as though to search out precisely that; to find some kind of freedom that perhaps being Lorenzo Woodrose was not at the time providing.

Lydsyn is very specifically not a return to Baby Woodrose, and those who approach it knowing Lorenzen‘s output either on his own or with that band shouldn’t be expecting one. Heralded by the early singles “Kat Ser Kat” (posted here) and “To Syge Skud” (posted here), Lydsyn‘s self-titled debut album is a return to form for Lorenzen in that he’s fronting a trio — Palle Demant on bass and Jens Eyde on drums — but the end result sounds more like a rock-band-extension of his solo work because… wait for it… that’s exactly what it is.

The narrative (blessings and peace upon it) holds that Lorenzen, Demant and Eyde were assembled as a live act to bring Lorenzen‘s solo material to the stage. There were tour dates booked when the pandemic hit and writing became the outlet for what-the-hell-else-to-do restlessness, and Lydsyn — with production by the esteemed Flemming Rasmussen at Sweet Silence in Copenhagen — arrives as the result of those sessions. For those who’ve tracked Lorenzen through the years in On Trial, Baby Woodrose, Dragontears, and Spids Nøgenhat, the latter of whom are an important touchstone here as regards Lydsyn digging into a classic rock sound born specifically of Denmark’s own history therein.

“Hymne Til Kroppen” is a cover of funky late-’70s curios Splask, and there are revivalist elements at work across Lydsyn from the opening guitar lines of “Jericho” through the atmospheric heavy blues of closer “Bålet,” also the longest track at 6:41 and a moment in which the impact of the power trio is at its most vital (not the only one, mind you), with Demant‘s bass and Eyde‘s crash backing Lorenzen‘s madman-in-tears vocals amid rattlesnake shakers and a steady march that holds even as they shift into and out of a freaked-out, noisy solo after four minutes in.

Though it sounds casual, and there’s no pretense of being anything other than it is as a showcase of songwriting and craft — seven out of the nine included songs start with guitar; they know the kind of impression they’re trying to make — the record is anything but careless, with ’60s detailing of organ in “Tragisk Eskapisme” and a start-stop strut in the earlier “Døde Stamgæster” that is both comfortable in its pace and classic in form despite the only-modern breadth of the actual recording. That is, Lydsyn are informed by the era, not trying to sound like it.

While “To Syge Skud,” which is based around acoustic guitar with electric layered in, is probably the most reminiscent of Lorenzen‘s solo output, even that connection is partial and the song is built out with backing vocals and a fuzzy lead before its 2:44 are done, taking the howling garage jangle of “Jericho” and the thicker fuzz of “Døde Stamgæster” to a more serene place ahead of “Kat Ser Kat,” the strum of which sounds well in anticipation of “Bålet” later on without actually doing the same thing. Each of these first four songs offers something different from the rest that surround it and “Hymne Til Kroppen,” which finishes off side A of the 38-minute LP, follows suit, with a funky underpinning for its fuzz-on tension release, Lorenzen‘s vocals easy-riding that groove and matching his own lead guitar note for note in righteous fashion.

The two solo sections — rippers, both — give an opportunity to make the most of Lydsyn as a power trio, with the rhythm section holding the central motion of the song while the guitar momentarily loses its shit, and they don’t miss that chance, remaining cohesive as they’d almost have to given who they are despite the off-the-rails vibe and heavy payoff of the song. That pickup of energy bleeds into side B as “Abernes Planet” begins with a clarity of strum not entirely dissimilar from “Jericho,” but a more winding verse and chorus/bridge. Demant‘s bass, which, again, will lead the way to the album’s end, makes “Abernes Planet” a highlight with its natural tonal warmth; the track barely touches three minutes long, and not a second is wasted.

Tambourine, the aforementioned organ, and what sounds like acoustic strum alongside the electric make “Tragisk Eskapisme” feel particularly full, but not overly so. Like the rest of what surrounds, it is in balance as its six-minute course fleshed out by a momentary veer into psychedelia leads to the similarly arranged but more pointed “Tårnet” and the finale’s lower turn, but there’s a point — right around “To Syge Skud,” if not sooner — where you realize you’re in good hands and just kind of let it roll, and that’s really how Lydsyn‘s Lydsyn is best heard. With trust.

Maybe you’ve never heard a band Uffe Lorenzen has played in. Maybe you don’t have a museum-grade certification in Danish rock history. Maybe you don’t speak the language. That’s fine. Me neither. The fact is that even for the previously unindoctrinated, the songs are nothing if not listenable, smoothly made with expert and experienced care, and even if you don’t go into Lydsyn with some vague idea of what’s coming, they earn that trust all over again on their own as a kind of mostly-mellow but immersive and at times scorching garage-informed heavy rock record.

It wasn’t the way they planned it, maybe, since they reportedly didn’t plan on being a band separate from Lorenzen‘s solo incarnation, but there’s life here and if Lydsyn is going to be an outlet for Lorenzen to explore these kinds of ideas in the absence of Baby Woodrose or other projects, he makes himself right at home in the material. He makes the listener right at home too.

Lydsyn, “Kat Ser Kat” official video

Lydsyn, Lydsyn (2022)

Lydsyn on Instagram

Lydsyn on Facebook

Bad Afro Records on Bandcamp

Bad Afro Records on Facebook

Bad Afro Records website

Danish heavy rockers Lydsyn today release their new single ‘To Syge Skud,’ and with it enter into the promotional cycle for their upcoming debut album, which will be out on Sept. 23. I don’t know the name of the record yet, but it’ll be out through Bad Afro, the imprint which has long-since been responsible for issuing the work of Uffe Lorenzen, aka Lorenzo Woodrose of Baby Woodrose, Spids Nøgenhat, Dragontears and so on. Lorenzen and the new three-piece released their first two-songer, led by the single “Kat Ser Kat” (posted here), last September, and “To Syge Skud,” which translates to English as ‘two sick shots,’ bears some hallmarks of Lorenzen‘s classic-style songcraft.

For example, it’s short. Drawing from garage rock and ’60s psychedelics, Lorenzen and company — Palle Demant plays bass, Jens Eyde drums — dig into a straight-ahead structure that’s catchy even if you don’t happen to speak Danish, and with a foundation of casually strummed acoustic guitar blended with electric, it’s evocative of Lorenzen‘s solo work over the last few years while, obviously, more built out with the additional players involved.

It’s in and out in under three minutes and that’s plenty enough time to make me look forward to the LP to come, which to be fair I probably would anyhow. But there’s a lyric video at the bottom of this post so you can hear it and links below where you can get it, so I’ll leave you to that with best wishes for the brief but pleasant journey ahead.

Here you go:

LYDSYN – “To Syge Skud”

“To Syge Skud” is taken from the upcoming Lydsyn debut album due out September 23th 2022 on Bad Afro Records.

Streaming:
https://lydsyn.lnk.to/skud

Bandcamp:
https://badafrorecords.bandcamp.com/track/to-syge-skud

Lydsyn is Uffe Lorenzen (Baby Woodrose/Spids Nøgenhat) on guitar and vocals, Palle Demant (The Sledge) on bass and Jens Eyde on drums. The band was originally formed out of boredom due to Covid 19 lockdown and was meant as a backing band that would make it possible for Uffe Lorenzen to play songs from his three recent solo albums live. As several tours went down the drain and was postponed also due to Covid 19 the band kept on rehearsing and ended up making their own material.

https://www.facebook.com/lydsyn
https://www.instagram.com/lydsyn/

https://badafrorecords.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/badafrorecords
http://badafro.dk/

Lydsyn, “To Syge Skud” lyric video

Somehow it feels longer than it’s actually been. Yeah, a year’s changed over, but it’s really only been about a month since the last Quarterly Review installment, which I said at the time was only half of the full proceedings. I’ve started the count over at 1-50, but in my head, this is really a continuation of that five-day stretch more than something separate. It’s been booked out I think since before the last round of 50 was done, if that tells you anything. Should tell you 2021 was a busy year and 2022 looks like it’ll be more of the same in that regard. Also a few other regards, but let’s keep it optimistic, hmm?

We start today fresh with a wide swath of stuff for digging and, well, I hope you dig it. Let’s go.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

Zack Oakley, Badlands

Apparently I’ve been spelling Zack Oakley‘s name wrong for the better part of a decade. Zack with a ‘k’ instead of an ‘h’ at the end. I feel like a jerk. By any spelling, dude both shreds and can write a song. Known for his work in Joy, Pharlee, Volcano, etc., he brings vibrant classic heavy to the fore on his solo debut, Badlands, sounding like a one-man San Diego scene on “I’m the One” only after declaring his own genre in opener “Freedom Rock.” “Mexico” vibes on harmonica-laced heavy blues and the acoustic-led “Looking High Searching Low” follows suit with slide, but there’s tinge of psych on the catchy “Desert Shack,” and “Fever” stomps out in pure Hendrix style without sounding ridiculous, which is not an achievement to be understated. Closing duo “Acid Rain” and “Badlands” meet at the place where the ’60s ended and the ’70s started, swaggering through time with more hooks and a sound that might be garage if your garage had a really nice studio in it. I’ll take more of this anytime Mr. Oakley wants to belt it out.

Zack Oakley website

Kommune Records on Bandcamp

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Vøuhl, Vøuhl

Issued by Shawn Pelata — also known as Pælãtä Shåvvn, with an apparent thing for accent marks — the self-titled debut from Vøuhl mixes industrial-style experimentalism, dark ambience and a strong cinematic current across a still-relatively-unassuming five-songs and 23 minutes, hitting a resonant minimalism at the ending of “Evvûl” while building to a fuller-sounding progression on the subsequent “Välle.” Drones, echoing, looped beats and thoughtfully executed synth let Pelata construct each atmosphere as an individual piece, but with the attention obviously paid to the presentation of the whole, there’s nothing that keeps one piece from tying into the next either, so whether one approaches Vøuhl‘s Vøuhl as an EP or a short album, the impression of a deep-running soundscape is made one way or the other. What seems to be speech samples in “Aurô” and noise-laced closer “ßlasste” — thoroughly manipulated — may hint at things to come, but I hope not entirely at the expense of the percussive urgency of opener “Dùste” here.

Vøuhl on Facebook

Stone Groove Records website

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White Manna, First Welcome

At first you’re all like, “yeah this is right on I can handle it” and then all of a sudden White Manna are about four minutes into the freakery of “Light Cones” opening up their latest opus First Welcome and you’re starting to panic because you took too much and you’re couchlocked. The heretofore undervalued Calipsych weirdos are out-out-out on their new eight-songer, done in an LP-ready 39 minutes but drippy droppy through an interdimensional swap-meet of renegade noises and melted-down aesthetics. Maybe you heard 2020’s ARC (review here) and thereby got on board, or maybe you don’t know them at all. Doesn’t matter. The thing is they’re already in your brain and by the time you’re done with the triumph-boogie of “Lions of Fire” you realize you’re one with the vibrating universe and only then are you ready to meet the “Monogamous Cassanova” in krautrock purgatory before the swirling “Milk Symposium” spreads itself out like a blanket over the sun. Too trippy for everything, and so just. fucking. right. If you can hang with this, I wanna be friends.

White Manna on Facebook

Cardinal Fuzz webstore

Centripetal Force Records website

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Daily Thompson, God of Spinoza

In 2022, German heavy rockers Daily Thompson mark a decade since their founding. God of Spinoza is their fifth full-length, and in songs like “Cantaloupe Melon,” “Golden Desert Child,” and “Muaratic Acid,” the reliability one has come to expect from them is only reinforced. Their sound hinges on psychedelia, but complements that with an abiding sense of grunge and a patience in songwriting. They’ve done heavy blues and straight-up rock in the past, so neither is out of the trio’s wheelhouse — the penultimate “Midnight Soldier” is a breakout here — but the title-track’s drawn-out “yeah”s and slacker-nod rhythm seem to draw more directly from the Alice in Chains school of making material sound slow without actually having it crawl or sacrifice accessibility. I’d give them points regardless for calling a song “I Saw Jesus in a Taco Bell,” but the closer is a genuine highlight on God of Spinoza turning a long stretch of disaffection to immersive fuzz with a deftness befitting a band on their fifth record who know precisely who they are. Like I said, reliable.

Daily Thompson on Facebook

Noisolution website

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Headless Monarch, Titan Slug

Founded by guitarist/bassist Collin Green, Headless Monarch released their first demo in 2013 and their most recent EP, Nothing on the Horizon, in 2016. Five years later, Green and drummer Brandon Zackey offer the late-2021 debut full-length, Titan Slug, working in collaboration for the first time with vocalist and producer Otu Suurmunne of Moonic Productions — who mostly goes by Otu — across a richly executed collection of six tracks, three new, three from prior outings. Not sure if Otu is a hired gun as a singer working alongside the other two, but there’s little arguing with the results they glean as a trio across a song like “Fever Dream” or “Sleeper Now Rise,” the latter taken from Headless Monarch‘s 2015 two-songer and positioned in a more aggressive stance overall. The newer songs come across as more fleshed out, but even “Eight Minutes of Light” from the first demo has atmospheric reach to go with its clarity of focus and noteworthy heft. One only hopes the collaboration continues and inspires further work along these lines.

Headless Monarch on Instagram

Headless Monarch on Bandcamp

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Some Pills for Ayala, Space Octopus

Technically speaking, you had me at Space Octopus. After releasing a self-titled EP under the somewhat-troubling moniker (one hopes it’s not too many) Some Pills for Ayala, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and producer Néstor Ayala Cortés of At Devil Dirt returns with this two-songer, comprised of its 11-minute title-cut and the shorter “It’s Been a Long Trip.” The lead track is duly dream-drifty in its procession, a subtle build underway across its span but pushing more for hypnosis than impact and getting there to be sure, even as the second half grows thicker in tone. At 3:48, “It’s Been a Long Trip” comes across more as an experiment in technique captured and used as the foundation for Cortés‘ soft, wide echoing vocals. Lysergic and adventurous in kind, the 15-minute EP is nonetheless serene in its presence and soothing overall. Could be that Cortés might push deeper into folk as he goes forward, but the acidy foundation he’s working from will only add to that.

Some Pills for Ayala on Instagram

Some Pills for Ayala on Bandcamp

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Il Mostro, Occult Practices

It’s a quick in-out from Boston heavy punkers Il Mostro on the Occult Practices EP. Four songs, the last of which is a cover of T.S.O.L.‘s “Black Magic,” nothing over three minutes long, all fits neatly on a 7″. For what they’re doing, that makes sense, taking the high-velocity ethic of Motörhead or Peter Pan Speedrock (if you need a second plays-fast-punk-derived-and-rocks band) and delivering with an appropriately straightforward thrust. Opener “Firewitch” ends with giggling, and that’s fair enough to convey the overarching lack of pretense throughout, but they do well with the cover and have a righteous balance between control and chaos in the relatively-mid-paced “Trial” and the sprinter “Faith in Ghosts,” which follows. Is cult punk a thing? I guess you could ask the Misfits that question, but Il Mostro mostly avoid sounding like that Jersey band, and it’s easy enough to imagine them bashing walls at any number of Beantown havens or bathed under the telltale red lights of O’Brien’s as they tear into a set. So be it, punkers.

Il Mostro on Facebook

Il Mostro on Bandcamp

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Carmen Sea, Hiss

Should it come as a surprise that an EP of violin-laced/led instrumentalist progressive post-rock, willfully working against genre convention in order to cross between metal, rock and more atmospheric fare includes an element of self-indulgence? Nope. How could it be otherwise? The five-track Hiss from Parisian four-piece Carmen Sea is a heady outing indeed, but at just 29 minutes, the band doesn’t actually lose themselves in what they’re doing, and the surprises they offer along the way like the electronic turns in “Black Echoes” or the quiet drone stretch in the first half of 11-minute closer “Glow in Space” — which gets plenty tense soon enough — provide welcome defiance of expectation. That is to say, whatever else they are, Carmen Sea are not predictable, and that serves them well here and will continue to. “Frames” begins jarring and strutting, but finds its strength in its more floating movement, though the later bridge of classical and weighted musics feels like the realization that might’ve led to creating the band in the first place. There’s potential in toying with that balance.

Carmen Sea on Facebook

Carmen Sea Distrokid

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Trip Hill, Ain’t Trip Ceremony

Florence’s Fabrizio Cecchi has vibe to spare with his solo-project Trip Hill, and Denmark’s Bad Afro Records has stepped forward to issue the 2020 offering, Ain’t Trip Ceremony, toward broader consciousness. The eight-song/39-minute long-player is duly dug-in, and its psychedelic reach comes with a humility of craft that makes the songs likewise peaceful and exploratory and entrancing. Repetition is key for the latter, but Cecchi also manages to keep things moving across the album, with a fuzzy cut like “Spam Mind” seeming to build on top of loops and shifting into a not-overblown space rock, hardly mellow, but more acknowledging the vastness of the cosmos than one might expect. The more densely-fuzzed “Ralph’s Heart Attack” leads into the guitar-focused “Pan” ahead of the finale “What Happened to Will,” but that’s after “Tame Ùkhan” has gone a-wandering and decided to stay that way and the seven-minute “Trái tim Thán Yêu” has singlehandedly justified the vinyl release in its blend of percussive urgency and psychedelic shimmer. Go in with an open mind and you won’t go wrong.

Trip Hill on Facebook

Bad Afro Records on Bandcamp

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Yanomamo & Slomatics, Split 7″

Yanomamo begin their Iommium Records two-song split 7″ with Slomatics by harshly delivering a deceptively positive message: “If you’re going to seek revenge/Might as well dig two graves/He who holds resentment is already digging his own.” Fair enough. The Sydney, Australia, and Belfast, Northern Ireland, outfits offer about 10 and a half minutes of material between them, but complement each other well, with the thickness of the latter building off the raw presentation of the former, Yanomamo‘s guttural portrayal of bitterness offered in scream-topped sludge crash on “Dig Two Graves” that builds in momentum toward the end while Slomatics‘ “Griefhound” offers the futurist tonal density and expanse of vocal echo typifying their latter-day work and turns a quiet, chugging bridge into a consciousness-slamming payoff. Neither act is really out of their comfort zone, but established listeners will revel in the chance to hear them alongside each other, and if you hear complaints about either of these cuts, they won’t be from me.

Yanomamo on Facebook

Slomatics on Facebook

Iommium Records on Bandcamp

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Buzzing and hypnotic, the first single from Trip Hill‘s forthcoming LP, Ain’t Trip Ceremony — say it out loud kind of quickly, to reveal the wordplay — is short at three minutes long, but bodes well just the same. I don’t think there are words in “Dropside” other than the title, but that’s all Florence’s Fabrizio Cecchi needs to get the point across from his long-running solo outfit. Ain’t Trip Ceremony was originally self-released late last year as a limited CDR, but Bad Afro Records has picked up the outing for an LP edition due out Oct. 29, and “Dropside” will precede the vinyl on Sept. 24.

If you want to do a headfirst dive in the interim, Trip Hill‘s Bandcamp page is like a coral reef for the many different colors it offers. Earlier this year, Cecchi re-released the 2000 compilation Takes From Oblivion from ’90s-era demo recordings, and you’ll find that, the 2019 LP Psych Wedding, and the new single all streaming below, because I guess I got excited about a thing. Bad Afro doesn’t sign non-Uffe Lorenzen-related bands every day, you know. Gotta figure this is going to be right on.

PR wire info follows:

Trip Hill – “Dropside” single out September 24th

Trip Hill is a one-man operation by Fabrizio Cecchi out of Florence, Italy. With a naïve approach to making music and inspiration from all over the world he is making his own homemade and original version of trippy psychedelia and krautrock. “Dropside” is the first single from the Ain’t Trip Ceremony album due out October 29th on Bad Afro Records.

Fabrizio Cecchi played in various garage and psych rock bands in the early 90’s but by 1994 he set his own cause and started to work alone and in his own universe. Originally a bass-player he since taught himself guitar, drums, keyboards and various other instruments to be able to find his own way in making psychedelic music.

Ain’t Trip Ceremony is the latest output in a long string of experimental home productions recorded in his basement studio. Until recently it was only available on his bandcamp and as a very cool limited edition CD-R with covers printed on thick cardboard with a special linograph technique. But now it gets the proper release on vinyl via Bad Afro Records that these recordings deserve. 1st print is limited to 500 copies on black vinyl.

https://www.facebook.com/Triphill.band
https://triphill.bandcamp.com/
https://badafrorecords.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/badafrorecords
http://badafro.dk/

Trip Hill, Takes From Oblivion (2021)

Trip Hill, Psych Wedding (2019)

Lydsyn is the new trio fronted by Uffe Lorenzen, who’s probably still best known as Lorenzo Woodrose of Baby Woodrose fame. The Danish psych figurehead has spent the last several years doing solo releases, but the classic-style of Lydsyn‘s debut single “Kat Ser Kat” suits his songwriting style, and it’s by no means his first time working with Palle Demant — who plays bass in the band and directed the video you’ll find at the bottom of this post — in one capacity or another.

Good vibes persist in the track, and I haven’t heard the B-side at this point, but the 7″ came out on Bad Afro Records (of course) this past Friday so it’s there if you dig what you hear and want to chase it down. I wouldn’t blame you in the least. Clearheaded rock songcraft, no real need for frills, but there’s still a little edge of the trippy. At least enough to make it a good time.

One assumes an album will follow sooner or later, but the single is a good place to start. It came from the PR wire:

Lydsyn – Kat Ser Kat 7” single

Lydsyn is Uffe Lorenzen (Baby Woodrose/Spids Nøgenhat) on guitar and vocals, Palle Demant (The Sledge) on bass and Jens Eyde on drums. The band was originally formed out of boredom due to Covid 19 lockdown and was meant as a backing band that would make it possible for Uffe Lorenzen to play songs from his three recent solo albums live. As several tours went down the drain and was postponed also due to Covid 19 the band kept on rehearsing and ended up making their own material.

“Kat Ser Kat” is the debut single by Lydsyn and it was recorded, mixed and mastered in 14 hours by Flemming Rasmussen at the Sweet Silence studio in June 2021. Both “Kat Ser Kat” and the b-side “Abernes Planet” are exclusive to this single due out September 3rd.

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Lydsyn, “Kat Ser Kat” official video

[Click play above to stream Uffe Lorenzen’s Magisk Realisme in full. Album is out tomorrow on Bad Afro Records.]

An unhurried feel persists throughout the third Uffe Lorenzen solo album, Magisk Realisme. The title translates in straightforward fashion to magical realism, referencing the literary style that brings magical or otherworldly elements to an otherwise “normal,” modern context. It’s fair enough ground for Lorenzen to work in, considering his pedigree dating back 30 years to the beginnings of Danish psychedelic rockers On Trial, for whom he handled drums. That band went on for more than a decade, but the even greater impact on underground psych revivalism for Lorenzen would come with the advent of his own band, Baby Woodrose, in the early aughts. Adopting the nom de plume Lorenzo Woodrose, Lorenzen became an icon — seriously: he was on Danish Sesame Street and everything — of garage and traditionalist psych, performing with an inimitable energy and a cosmos-bound feel that came accompanied by an oft-voiced commitment to a psychotropic lifestyle.

The advent of a solo career, doing work under his own name and in the Danish language, began with the 2017 solo debut, Galmandsværk (review here) and continued in 2019 with Triprapport (review here), and with Magisk Realisme — released like its predecessors through Bad Afro Records — Lorenzen seems to work to reconcile the various sides of his sonic persona while presenting a cool-toned and engaging float. What began as an exploration of acid folk has transcended stylistically and seemed to become all the more personal even as it covers more aesthetic ground, which is to say, with Lorenzen looking at more of his rocking side — see also: Baby Woodrose, Dragontears, Spids Nøgenhat and so on — Magisk Realisme gives a proportionately more complete picture of who he is artistically. It’s not that this aspect of his work was ignored on Galmandsværk or Triprapport since the underlying structure of his songs is largely unshakable — not to say Lorenzen has never jammed out, but some of his most effective work is in the pre-punk space-garage vein, verses and choruses at the forefront.

That’s true of Magisk Realisme as well, which seems to present a maturation of Lorenzen as a solo performer. He plays nearly all the instruments on the record, with Henrik Lysgaard Madsen adding a notable pedal steel guitar to “Caminoen” while Trine Trash sings backup and plays cello and Anders Juhl Nielsen brings trumpet — yes, trumpet — to “Efterår.” That’s a standout moment, to be sure, but the “magical realism” involved in the album’s title more likely refers to the blend of earthbound and psychedelic elements that takes place across its somewhat unassuming 10-song/37-minute span; a classic-style LP format, divided evenly into two five-track sides. That begins with “Lad Det Gå,” the lead cut that opens with a telltale strummed riff and “Yeah!” from Lorenzen that itself is a dogwhistle to let his fanbase know the man himself has arrived.

Organ, electric guitar, and of course Lorenzen‘s voice, drums, bass, etc., and the backing vocals of Trine Trash in the hook, all set a familiar stage drawing from ’60s psych, but in truth there’s nothing retro about it — the sound is modern, crisp, and the mix executed with a depth and a clarity that allows for the solo in the second half to top the rhythm track fluidly before cutting back to a last verse. A highlight to start off, then, and “I Mit Blod” hits a little harder, even, ahead of the shift to acoustic for “Efterår” and the mellow roll and wistful pedal steel in “Caminoen.” These turns of mood and arrangement are handled with remarkable smoothness, and while one should expect no less from a composer of such experience as Lorenzen, it’s nonetheless significant that even in this relatively new context of solo performance, he’s so able to lead the audience wherever he wants to go. On the title-track, that’s to the very heart of guy-and-guitar vibing, an acoustic strum taking a progression that might in another situation be a driving rock riff and turning it into a sentimental meditation. I won’t pretend to speak Danish, but the vocal performance there from Lorenzen, stark with just his own guitar accompanying, is a highlight either way.

More of the same on side B? Well, it starts with another “Yeah!” at the beginning of the also-organ-laced “Livet Skriger,” and Trash returns on backing vocals, so there’s definitely some mirroring going on with the first half of the record, but the pacing has more shove in “Livet Skriger” than did “Lad Det Gå,” and the feeling is of shaking loose, breaking free perhaps, from any constraints. Liberation rock, and perhaps as close as Magisk Realisme comes to Baby Woodrose. An immediate dreamy turn is undertaken with “Tornerose,” wah guitar peppered along with layers of vocals and a subdued spirit that still carries some motion with the drums behind it, deep-mixed though they are, and “Nede Af Vejen” picks up on that and adds tambourine for further percussive revival, which further smooths the shift into “Stjernestøv.” The penultimate inclusion on Magisk Realisme reinforces the album’s core blend of songwriting and more full-band-style performance from Woodrose, with organ, tambourine, drums, electric guitar, and so on, as he moves through a subtly quick 2:22 to ground the record one last time ahead of “Dommedags Eftermiddag,” for which the drums depart and a fuller drift and trippy melodic wash takes hold.

Lorenzen‘s echoing voice is well established as being suited to such fare, and amid the waves and wahs of electric and acoustic guitar and whatever keys are happening in there, he provides a human presence that is inimitable enough to be entirely his own. The same is true of the record as a whole. Uffe Lorenzen, as a musical project by the person of the same name, is becoming more complex, but in so doing, it also seems to be getting closer to encompassing all the work of that person in the first place. Does it represent a shifting interest in modes of expression back toward rock from the folkier movements of his first two solo albums? Certainly possible, but that’s not something that can really be answered until the next one comes along. Most crucially, Lorenzen shows no signs of stopping or letting up on his creative evolution, and whatever it is he’s searching for in this ethereal landscape, he seems bound only to keep looking. So much the better.

Uffe Lorenzen, “Caminoen” official video

Uffe Lorenzen on Thee Facebooks

Baby Woodrose on Thee Facebooks

Baby Woodrose on Bandcamp

Baby Woodrose website

Bad Afro Records on Bandcamp

Bad Afro Records on Thee Facebooks

Bad Afro Records website