Posted in Whathaveyou on January 7th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Set to take place at The Ottobar in Baltimore once again at the tail end of April — 4/20 season, if you’re not the type who gets stoned to do the dishes — the all-dayer Grim Reefer Fest has unveiled its 2025 billing, with Chicago psychedelic texturalists Rezn and D.C. industrialized post-punkers Vosh at the top of the bill, with Temple of the Fuzz Witch coming from Michigan as they continue to spread the word of their own well-received 2024 outing, Apotheosis (review here), Dallas rockers Temptress and the house band Haze Mage taking part, as well as heavy noise rockers Consumer Culture, and Sorge, who are well due for a follow-up to their impressive 2020 debut EP (review here).
Rounding out are Richmond duo Thunderchief, Pennsylvania melo-cult classicists SpellBook and Baltimore’s own Knub, who I’ve never heard of before now but who are killer, opening. Their logo is noise and their sound is too, but throw in some poppier melody and turns out I have some homework to do. I put Knub‘s tracks from their 2023 split with Brain Cave below, in case you also want to dig in. There’s a Black Lung set there too from 2024’s Grim Reefer Fest just for the hell of it — as the fest notes, there’s more on the YouTube Channel — and while I’m dropping dates and links, I’ll note that I was fortunate enough to attend Grim Reefer Fest in 2023 (review here), and if you’re on the fence, I’ll confirm it’s a blast and well run. Maybe that helps? There’s food and such and it’s low-key; an easygoing vibe in which to be variably pummeled by volume.
The announcement from the fest follows here. Keep an eye as some things may change, but it looks like a good time to me as it is. And the poster, as you can see, continues a years-long streak of righteousness from Grim Reefer Fest as well. From socials:
Grim Reefer Fest 2025
We are excited to announce the return of Grim Reefer Fest! Join us once again at the legendary Ottobar in Baltimore, MD for a full day of heavy music, dank vibes, and high spirits! Join us on Saturday April 19th, 2025 as we celebrate the High Holidays with a stacked lineup from start to finish with some of the best bands the scene has to offer! Featuring the heavy psych sounds of Rezn, the mesmerizing Vosh, the heavy hitting Temple of the Fuzz Witch and many more (10 bands total)!
This is the 6th year of Grim Reefer Fest and one of our most ambitious lineups yet! We’re proud of what we’re accomplishing as a DIY grassroots festival. The genres and sounds for this year’s bands range from heavy psych to stoner doom to industrial darkwave to noise rock with so much more in between! There’s so many interpretations of what heavy music is, and to us, they all fit in a proper 4/20 celebration! We strive to grow our event more and more each year and to become a premiere heavy music regional event on the east coast!
The full list of performers at this year’s fest includes:
Posted in Bootleg Theater on December 30th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Should it strike you as an ambitious undertaking for Darsombra to assemble a full visual album around their pandemic-themed, finding-freedom-in-lockdown 2LP, Dumesday Book (review here), well, it is. But the truth is that the Baltimorean experimentalist two-piece of guitarist/noisemaker Brian Daniloski and keyboardist/sparse-vocalist/video-artist Ann Everton are already well on their way. “Everything is Canceled,” which is premiering below, is the fifth clip they’ve unveiled around the 10-track record, even if “Call the Doctor” (premiered here) and “Nightgarden” predate the release itself and were for those songs as singles.
They DIY it with Everton directing, always manage to come up with something fun and/or visually interesting, and by now seem pretty comfortable applying their abstract approach in a multimedia context. Plus they did one in 2020 for their last album, Transmission (review here), so they’ve got practice at it as well. It’s Darsombra, folks. They may sound as weird as the day is long, but you can trust that whatever shenanigans they’re getting up to has genuine heart behind it because they pour everything they have into everything they do and they never fail to express a feeling, mood, or atmosphere or evoke a thought, even if it’s by putting Daniloski in a lizard mask and running the footage of him noodle-shredding backwards in one of the various domestic and foreign castles that serve as a visual backdrop.
“Everything is Canceled” (the filming wasn’t) was mostly captured on July 13, which was about a month after Darsombra‘s 2024 European tour ended — the 2025 dates with Stinking Lizaveta are below, with TBDs; help if you can. The casting call for it read in-part as follows:
“…all you need to do is to pretend to be a scholar who is driven to temporary hysterics/distraction/mania/religious fervor/anger/annoyance/strong-emotion-that-is-unpleasant by looking at/through a book on a lectern in a great hall setting. Dress is “scholarly”, especially medieval scholarly, whatever that means. Bonus points if you have your own graduation/scholar’s robe! Think many-sheets-of-paper-flying-through-the-air pandemonium. (Double bonus points if you have many sheets of paper with writing on them to throw around and recycle afterwards.)…”
You can see in the video, they did manage to get folks out for it, paper and robes and all, and they’d have had a good deal of recycling to do. Fair enough. In addition to that motif, Daniloski‘s delightfully over-the-top solo and the chants of vocals less often featured in Darsombra‘s work up to now, watch out near the end as there’s a quote that appears on screen. It reads like Chaucer, but I couldn’t trace it directly. In any case, it becomes one more part of the absurdity overarching and whatever the source, the fact that you don’t get to know feels like part of the artistic statement.
Darsombra have a southbound January run along the Atlantic Seaboard coming up in addition to the aforementioned European stint in Spring with Stinking Lizaveta — again, help out if you can; no, it’s not surprising they’d have two tours announced and the year hasn’t started yet — and all of those dates follow the “Everything is Canceled” premiere below and some words from the band that includes the reveal of the visual-album plan they’ll work on over the course of this year. Keep an eye out for casting calls.
And please enjoy:
Darsombra, “Everything is Canceled” video premiere
Darsombra on “Everything is Canceled”:
“Everything Is Canceled” is a more unusual offering for us, both in sound and vision — but also in how it came together. As part of our 2023 album, Dumesday Book, the song’s sound is enveloped in the energy of the pandemic. Ann wrote the lyrics and their melody while turning the compost in mid-March 2020, shortly after quarantine was announced, and Brian poured out the guitar solo in an inspired moment after days of having nothing to do but jam — the raw recording is featured on the track, digital glitches, a sneeze, and all. You’d think these were pretty ideal conditions for songwriting, but as we all remember, any superficial gift of time in 2020 was accompanied by a profound sense of grief for a lost reality and longing for the “before times”. Everything was canceled.
The storyboard to the video came to Ann in a dream in 2023 — one of those really vivid dreams that keeps you living in its world even after you wake up. She realized her subconscious vision by shooting on location in castles both near (in Baltimore) and far (in the EU and UK). The video also serves as a scene from a larger work, which is a feature film to our 75-minute album “Dumesday Book”. The film is about 60% finished; we expect to have it out in 2025 or 2026.
DARSOMBRA WINTOUR 2025 JAN 4 – Philadelphia PA @ Johnny Brenda’s w/ Stinking Lizaveta, Eye Flys JAN 8 – Durham NC @ Rubies w/ Dazzling Durham Dancers Burlesque, Berry Bueno Brigade JAN 9 – Wilmington NC @ Reggie’s w/ Street Clones, ARKN JAN 10 – Jacksonville FL @ The Walrus w/ Severed+Said, Ian Chase, Ducats JAN 11 – Miami FL @ The Club w/ Erratix, Dania Sixto, Robert King, DJ Nuke Em All JAN 16 – Orlando FL @ Lil Indies w/ Bryan Raymond, Dougie Flesh and the Slashers JAN 17 – Savannah GA @ Wormhole w/ Bathsh3ba JAN 18 – Greenville NC @ Alley Cat Records w/ Paper Skulls, Bitter Inc., Faith Kelly, Caswyn Moon, HYPER-VCR
DARSOMBRA / STINKING LIZAVETA EUROPE TOUR May 25 – Berlin GERMANY @ Desertfest Berlin May 29 – Wroclaw POLAND @ Kalambur May 30 – Krakow POLAND May 31 – Kosice SLOVAKIA @ Collosseum June 3 – Vienna AUSTRIA @ Arena June 5 – Nuremberg GERMANY @ Kunstverein Hintere Cramergasse e.V. June 6 – Potsdam GERMANY @ Archive June 7 – Dresden GERMANY @ Veränderbar June 11 – Brno CZECH REPUBLIC @ Kabinet Muz June 12 – Berlin GERMANY @ Schokoladen June 13 – Brandenburg GERMANY June 20 – Herzberg GERMANY
More dates TBA – Please get in touch if you can help.
Posted in Reviews on December 11th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 15th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
When you think about, how could Darsombranot announce January touring? Wouldn’t it kind of be counter to the exploratory ethic of the band in the first place? They go everywhere, and the experience of going is part of the thing. It becomes part of their music, not just on the next record when Brian Daniloski and Ann Everton transpose their nomadic and freaked-out adventures onto expansive slabs of synth-soaked psych-drone. And at heart is always a willful experimentalism, so yeah, Darsombra heading out on Jan. 4 (my mother’s birthday) for a round of shows spread out across the Southeast, at a time when most people are home tucked under their snuggies or whathaveyou, makes a very particular kind of sense. If you let it. You should let it.
Of course, Everton and Daniloski are never too far from the road either way. A couple weeks ago, they wrapped a Fall tour that started at the end of August and covered both US coasts, points between and stops in Mexico. Earlier this year, they were in Europe, where I was fortunate enough to see them spreading joy in the Netherlands at Roadburn Festival (review here). They don’t really ever come off touring for more than a month or two, so don’t be surprised when more is announced for their 2025.
For now, though here’s where they’ll be. Note Stinking Lizaveta and Eye Flys on the Philly date. Nice one:
Now announcing Darsombra’s next tour! We’re heading south for the winter!
DARSOMBRA WINTOUR 2025 DATES
JAN 4 – Philadelphia PA @ Johnny Brenda’s w/ Stinking Lizaveta, Eye Flys JAN 8 – Durham NC @ Rubies JAN 9 – Wilmington NC @ Reggie’s JAN 10 – Jacksonville FL @ The Walrus w/ Severed+Said, Ian Chase, Ducats JAN 11 – Miami FL @ Miami Music Archive JAN 16 – Orlando FL @ Lil Indies w/ Bryan Raymond JAN 17 – Savannah GA @ Wormhole JAN 18 – Greenville NC @ Alley Cat Records
Along with all of the show announcements this week, I also want to let you know that we are booking a European tour for Darsombra and Stinking Lizaveta for May/June 2025 around several confirmed festival appearances (more details of that TBA). We are looking for contacts in Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, and Denmark. Please get in touch if you can help! ROCK ON!!!
Posted in Reviews on October 9th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
I have to stop and think about what day it is, so we must be at least ankle-deep in the Quarterly Review. After a couple days, it all starts to bleed together. Wednesday and Thursday just become Tenrecordsperday and every day is Tenrecordsperday. I got to relax for about an hour yesterday though, and that doesn’t always happen during a Quarterly Review week. I barely knew where to put myself. I took a shower, which was the right call.
As to whether I’ll have capacity for basic grooming and/or other food/water-type needs-meeting while busting out these reviews, it’s time to find out.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
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Vibravoid, We Cannot Awake
Of course, the 20-minute title-track head rock epic “We Cannot Awake” is going to be a focal point, but even as it veers into the far-out reaches of candy-colored space rock, Vibravoid‘s extended B-side still doesn’t encompass everything offered by the album that shares its name. Early cuts “Get to You” and “On Empty Streets” and “The End of the Game” seem to regard the world with cynicism that’s well enough earned on the world’s part, but if Vibravoid are a band out of time and should’ve been going in the 1960s, they’ve made a pretty decent run of it despite their somewhat anachronistic existence. “We Cannot Awake” is for sure an epic, and the five shorter tracks on side A are a reminder of the distinguished songwriting of Vibravoid more than 30 years on from their start, and as it’s a little less explicitly garage-rooted than their turn-of-the-century work, it further demonstrates just how much the band have brought to the form over time, with ‘form’ being relative there for a style that’s so molten. Some day this band will get their due. They were there ahead of the stoners, the vintage rockers, the neopsych freaks, and they’ll probably still be there after, acid-coating dystopia as, oh wait, they already are.
Taking influence from the earlier-Mastodon style of twist-and-gallop riffing, adding in vocal harmonies and their own progressive twists, West Virginia’s Horseburner declare themselves with their third album, Voice of Storms, establishing a sound based on immediacy and impact alike, but that gives the listener respite in the series of interludes begun by the building intro “Summer’s Bride” — there’s also the initially-acoustic-based “The Fawn,” which delivers the album’s title-line before basking in Alice in Chains-circa Jar of Flies vibes, and the dream-into-crunch of the penultimate “Silver Arrow,” which is how you kill Ganon — that have the effect of spacing out some of the more dizzying fare like “Hidden Bridges” and “Heaven’s Eye” or letting “Diana” and closer “Widow” each have some breathing room to as to not overwhelm the audience in the record’s later plunge. Because once they get going, as “The Gift” picks up from “Summer’s Bride” and sets them at speed, the trio dare you to keep pace if you can.
Some pressure on Dune-themed Montreal heavy rockers Sons of Arrakis as they follow-up their well-received 20222 debut, Volume I (review here) with the 10-track/33-minute Volume II. The metal-rooted riff rockers have tightened the songwriting and expanded the progressive reach and variety of the material, a song like “High Handed Enemy” drawing from an Elder-style shimmer and setting it to a pop-minded structure. Smooth in production and rife with melody, Volume II isn’t without its edge as shown early on by “Beyond the Screen of Illusion,” and after the thoughtful melodicism of “Metamorphosis,” the burst of energy in “Blood for Blood” prefaces the blowout in “Burn Into Blaze” before the outro “Caladan” closes on an atmospheric note. No want of dynamic or purpose whatsoever. I’ve seen less hype on the interwebs about Volume II than I did its predecessor, and that’s just one of the very many things to enjoy about it.
Classic heavy metal is fortunate to have the likes of Crypt Sermon flying its flag. The Philadelphia-based outfit continue on The Stygian Rose to stake their claim somewhere between NWOBHM and doom in terms of style — there are parts of the album that feel specifically Hellhound Records, the likes of “Down in the Hollow” is more modern, at least in its ending — but five years on from their second LP, 2019’s The Ruins of Fading Light (review here), the band come across with all the more of a grasp of their sound, so that when “Heavy is the Crown of Bone” lays out its riff, everybody knows what they’re going for is Candlemass circa ’86, but that becomes the basis from which they build out, and from thrash to ’80s-style keyboard dramaturge in “Scrying Orb” ahead of the sweeping 11-minute closing title-track, which is so endearingly full-on in its later roll that it’s hard to keep from headbanging as I type. Alas.
The kind of undulating riffy largesse Eyes of the Oak proffer on their second full-length, Neolithic Flint Dagger, puts them in line with Swedish countrymen like Domkraft and Cities of Mars, but the former are more noise rock and the latter aren’t a band anymore, so actually it’s a pretty decent niche to be in. The Sörmland four-piece use the room in their mix to veer between more straight-ahead vocal command and layered chants like those in the nine-minute “Offering to the Gods,” the chorus of which is quietly reprised in the 35-second closing title-track. Not to be understated is the work the immediate chug of “Cold Alchemy” and the marching nodder “Way Home” do in setting the tone for a nuanced sound, so that the pockets of sound that will come to be filled by another layer of vocals, or a guitar lead, or an effect or whatever it is are laid out and then the band proceeds to dance around that central point and find more and more room for flourish as they go. Bonus points for the soul in “The Burning of Rome,” but they honestly don’t need bonus points.
A kind of artful post-hardcore that’s outright combustible in “Concrete,” Mast Year‘s sound still has room to grow as they offer their first long-player in the 25-minute Point of View on respected Marylander imprint Grimoire Records, but part of that impression comes from how open the songs feel generally. That’s not to say the nine-minute “Figure of Speech” doesn’t have its crushing side to account for or that “Teignmouth Electron” before it isn’t gnashing in its later moments, but it’s the band’s willingness to go where the material is leading that seems to get them to places like the foreboding drone of “Love Note” and deconstructing intensity of “Erocide,” just as they’re able to lean between math metal and sludge, which is like the opposite of math, Mast Year cover a lot of ground in their extremes. The minor in creeper noisemaking — “Love Note,” closer “Timelessness” — shouldn’t be neglected for adding to the mood. Mast Year have plenty of ways to pummel, though, and an apparent interest in pushing their own limits.
In the span of about 20 minutes, Wizard Tattoo‘s Living Just for Dying EP, which finds project-founder Bram the Bard once again working mostly solo, save for guest vocals by Djinnifer on “The Wizard Who Loved Me” and Fausto Aurelias, who complements the extreme metal surge and charred-rock verse of “Tomorrow Dies” with a suitably guttural take; think Satyricon more than Mayhem, maybe some Darkthrone. Considering the four-tracker opens with the acoustic “Living Just for Dying” and caps with similar balladeering in “Sanity’s Eclipse,” the EP pretty efficiently conveys Wizard Tattoo‘s go-anywhereism and genre-line transgression at least in terms of the ethic of playing to different sounds and seeing how they rest alongside each other. To that end, detailed transitions between “The Wizard Who Loved Me” and “Tomorrow Dies,” between “Tomorrow Dies” and “Sanity’s Ecilpse,” etc., make for a carefully guided listening process, which feels short and complete and like a form that suits Bram the Bard well.
Virginian trio Üga Büga — guitarist/vocalist Calloway Jones, bassist/backing vocalist Niko Cvetanovich and drummer/backing vocalist Jimmy Czywczynski — don’t have to go far to find despondent sludgy grooves, but they range nonetheless as their debut full-length, Year of the Hog unfolds, “Skingrafter” marrying a crooning vocal in contrast to some of the surrounding rasp and burl to a build of crunching heavy riff. The album is bombastic as a defining feature — songs like “Change My Name” and “Rape of the Poor” come to mind — but there’s a perspective being cast in the material as well, a point of view to the lyrics, that comes through as clearly as the thrashy plunder of “Supreme Truth” later on, and I’m not sure what’s being said, but I am pretty sure “Mockingbird” knows it’s doing Phantom of the Opera, and that’s not nothing. They round out Year of the Hog with its eight-minute title-track, and finish with a duly metallic push, leaning into the aggressive aspects that have been malleably balanced all along.
Ultimately, The Moon is Flat‘s methodology on their third album, A Distant Point of Light, isn’t so radically different from how their second LP, All the Pretty Colors, worked in 2021, with longer-form jamming interspliced with structured craft, songs that may or may not open up to broader reaches, but that are definitively songs rather than open-ended or whittled-down jams (nothing against that approach either, mind you). The difference between the two is that A Distant Point of Light‘s six tracks and 52 minutes feel like they’ve learned much from the prior outing, so “Sound the Alarm” starts off bringing the two sides together before “Awestruck” departs into dream-QOTSA and progadelic vibery, and “I Saw Something” and its five-minute counterpart, closer “Where All Ends Meet” sandwich the 11-minutes each “Meanwhile” and “A Distant Point of Light,” The Moon is Flat digging in dynamically through mostly languid tempos and fluid, progressive builds of volume. But when they go, they go. Watch out for that title-track.
Chronicle II: Hypergenesis continues the thread that London instrumentalists began with their debut 2020’s Chronicle I: The Truthseseker and continued on the prequel EP, 2021’s Chronicle: Prologue, exploring heavy progressive conceptualism in evocative post-heavy pieces like opener “Daybreak,” which resolves in a riotous breakdown, or “The Archivist,” which is more angular when it wants to be but feels like a next-generation’s celebration of riffy chicanery in a way that I can only think of as encouraging for how seriously it seems not to take itself. The post-rocking side of what they do is well reinforced throughout — so is the crush — whether it’s “Dead Language” or “Into the Hazel Woods,” but there’s nothing on Chronicle II: Hypergenesis more consuming than the crescendo of the closing “Hypergenesis,” and the band very clearly know it; it’s a part so good even the band with no singer has to put some voice to it. That last groove is defining, but much of Chronicle II: Hypergenesis actively works against that sort of genre rigidity, and much to the album’s greater benefit.
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 29th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
I’ve seen a decent number of bands play so far this year and Darsombra are among those whose sets I least regret watching. The mostly-nomadic experimentalist drone/noise/joy purveying two-piece are headed out once more in continued support of both 2023’s Dumesday Book (review here) and the betterment of the universe more broadly, and starting this weekend, they’ll voyage across the United States and head into Mexico for a few shows.
Some particularly notable ones here. The [DM for address] in Joshua Tree — well that’s bound to be a good time. And golly it would be awesome to see Darsombra sharing the stage with Alma Sangre, which is Antonio Aguilar and Meg Castellanos of Totimoshi and All Souls, in Los Angeles or anywhere else in the cosmos. A stretch through Texas and Oklahoma with Cortège is a likewise righteous pairing, and meeting up with JD Pinkus in Asheville, North Carolina, is bound to be rad as well, though I guess you could say the same of all these dates, which kick off in earnest later in August after a fest appearance in the band’s native Baltimore, and run through October with a few days’ break here and there intermittently. Very much a Darsombra tour. Get to a place, maybe weird-out for a couple days, continue on. Righteous unto themselves, both in concept and the on-stage reality of what they do. If they’re coming to your neighborhood — and there’s a genuine possibility they might be; DM for address — you should go.
From the PR wire:
DARSOMBRA: Baltimore Transapocalyptic Galaxy Rock Duo Announces Dumesday Book 2024 US/Mexico Tour Running From August Through October
Following several other expansive tours throughout North America, Europe, and the UK – including performances at Roadburn Festival, Exile On Mainstream 25 Festival, Desertfest London – in support of their Dumeseday Book album, Baltimore, Maryland-based transapocalyptic galaxy rock duo DARSOMBRA will embark on another massive tour this year.
The Dumesday Book 2024 US/Mexico Tour will be led by a performance at Subscape Festival in the band’s hometown on August 3rd, and the full tour will kick off on August 29th in Lexington, Kentucky. They’ll traverse Southwesterly across the country and into Baja Mexico for three shows, after which they’ll wind back up through the Southwest, Southeast, and up the East Coast, ending the tour on in Littleton, New Hampshire on October 26th. See the confirmed routing below, and, as always, stand by for additional updates to post.
DARSOMBRA – Dumesday Book 2024 US/Mexico Tour: 8/03/2024 Subscape Festival – Baltimore, MD 8/29/2024 Green Lantern – Lexington, KY w/ Jeanne le Fou, Whomp That Sucker 8/30/2024 Platypus – St. Louis, MO w/ Graeme Ronald, Radiator Greys, Eric Hall 8/31/2024 miniBar – Kansas City, MO w/ The Philistines, The Moose 9/01/2024 Replay – Lawrence, KS 9/03/2024 Squirm Gallery – Denver, CO w/ Witch Baby, Graveyard People, Equine 9/04/2024 What’s Left Records – Colorado Springs, CO 9/06/2024 Revolt Gallery – Taos, NM w/ Daily Winter Crow, DJ Bonehead 9/07/2024 Guild Cinema – Albuquerque, NM w/ Train Conductor 9/12/2024 The Eagle – San Francisco, CA w/ Veils 9/13/2024 Satellite Of Love – San Luis Obispo, CA w/ Frequent Weaver 9/14/2024 [DM for address] – Joshua Tree, CA 9/15/2024 The Redwood – Los Angeles, CA w/ Alma Sangre 9/19/2024 Tower Bar – San Diego, CA 9/20/2024 Moustache Bar – Tijuana, BN w/ Astral Azif 9/21/2024 Black Dog Bar – Ensenada, BN w/ Astral Azif 9/22/2024 Malgro Cervecería – Mexicali, BN w/ Astral Azif 9/24/2024 Groundworks – Tucson, AZ 9/26/2024 13th Floor – Austin, TX w/ Cortège 9/27/2024 Paper Tiger – San Antonio, TX w/ Cortège, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy 9/28/2024 The 101 – Bryan, TX w/ Cortège, Mutant Love 9/29/2024 Black Magic Social Club – Houston, TX w/ Cortège, Unified Space 10/01/2024 Rubber Gloves – Denton, TX w/ Cortège 10/02/2024 Whittier – Tulsa, OK w/ Cortège 10/04/2024 White Water Tavern – Little Rock, AR w/ DOT 10/06/2024 Fred Hampton Free Store – New Orleans, LA w/ FatPlastik 10/07/2024 The Kelly – Wetumpka, AL 10/08/2024 Ciné Theater – Athens, GA w/ Rat Babies 10/09/2024 The Spaze – Columbia, SC w/ Burrito Wolf 10/11/2024 The Odd – Asheville, NC w/ JD Pinkus, Bad Authors 10/12/2024 Monstercade – Winston-Salem, NC w/ Emceein Eye 10/24/2024 Mama Tried @ Mama Tried – Brooklyn, NY w/ Polly Vinylchloryd 10/25/2024 Myrtle – Providence, RI w/ Dyr Faser, Wooll, Small Pond 10/26/2024 Loading Dock – Littleton, NH w/ Wave Generators, Haunting Titans
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 21st, 2024 by JJ Koczan
A sorta-new two-songer from Baltimorean atmospheric heavy rockers Holy Fingers is welcome news from where I sit. The folk-informed, richly melodic and spacious four-piece wanted nothing for exploration on their aptly-titled third album, III (review here), and while the pieces that comprise Endless Light ∞ Infinite Presence — which I’d have listed a ssich in the headline above if I could get the little infinity character to show up in WordPress; not just being lazy — were recorded in 2018 during the sessions for the prior album, that same year’s II (discussed here), they nonetheless offer a convenient glimpse of the depth in the band’s sound and their ability to move between heavy vibes and post-rock float.
“Endless Light” starts out with amplified buzz and a quiet intro of guitar that reminds of King Buffalo and is duly tense as Tracey Buchanan arrives on vocals over the strum and begins the verse as the noise dissipates into a more fluid march. Layering in Buchanan‘s voice adds to the dimensionality building to the release of the chorus, and “Endless Light” hits a payoff that’s vibrant in chug without giving up the foggy swirl from which it emerges en route to the drums dropping out and the wash of noise capping for the last minute or so, hypnotic in the going. To follow, “Infinite Presence” calls to mind some of the sparse open spaces Ides of Gemini conjured, but is exploratory and folkish and feels intentionally searching. It becomes engrossing as it moves through the second half, and seems to be where the standout repetition of the title-line in “Hunted” from III sourced its delivery, and fair enough.
Loud, quiet, minimal or maximal, Endless Light ∞ Infinite Presence relates some of the patience and presence that makes Holy Fingers‘ work in general so striking to hear. I can think of at least three labels off the top of my head who should be putting it out on tape, but don’t let that stop you from getting the download if you’re feeling that. You’ll find it linked through the player at the bottom of this post, naturally.
Please enjoy:
A note on the text:
HOLY FINGERS – Endless Light ∞ Infinite Presence EP
Endless Light ∞ Infinite Presence EP – Very excited to share these songs, recorded back in the HF II sessions. Available now on Bandcamp, coming soon to Spotify, Apple Music, etc. Let us know what you think in the comments.
Darsombra released their plague-chronicle 2LP Dumesday Book (review here) last August — Crucial Blast has a double-tape out as of March — and, well, maybe it’s time to start thinking of the go-forth-from-Maryland two-piece as more of a longform art project than a band. If they were more pretentious, less inclined to roam and had more money, they’d probably be able to cast themselves as ‘arthouse,’ but the fact is their work isn’t really meant for gallery walls or any other kind. It’s too open in itself to be so contained. Free-drone.
From the sirens of “Call the Doctor (Pandemonium Mix)” and the chants of “Everything is Canceled,” from the drumless guitar prog and oddball vocals repeating the title of “Gibbet Lore” as it comes to a head to the serene reaches where the near-18 minutes of “Azimuth” end up, there’s not much that feels off limits to the duo of Ann Everton and Brian Daniloski. Synthesized, organic, programmed or pulsed, the material is defined in part by the whims it chooses to follow, and while that can at times lead to a kind of willful disjointedness — because not everything connects and not everything is supposed to; you’re not in an ’80s sitcom — Dumesday Book is an encompassing memoir of a time that at least many would rather forget than learn from. They’re not much for percussion and never have been, but neither do pieces like the empty-space strum and blown-out preach of “Plague Times” or the foreboding reprise “Still Canceled” lack movement. As they do, Darsombra are just tracing the patterns of their own math.
I won’t lie to you and say it isn’t helpful having a stated and discernible theme to latch onto in listening to Dumesday Book — the tracks themselves more ‘of the time’ than ‘about’ it — but their keys-and-guitar-based explorations have rarely been unwelcoming in the past, at least to those able to let go of expecting things like verses and choruses in their music. As regards the video premiering below for opening track “Shelter in Place,” the visual fluidity of movement of wind through the dark fabric that becomes ghostly, cosmic, colorized, and so on, is somewhat ironic given the title’s inherent stillness, but I’m not sure that isn’t the idea or that the spectral figure reminiscent of Death itself isn’t the story of the covid pandemic arriving at the shores of humanity’s collective helplessness at the outset of this downhill decade. And you know what? It’s Darsombra, so it’s also okay to not be sure. Not like they’re judging.
Everton and Daniloski begin their next European tour at Roadburn 2024 this Friday, and they’ll hook up with Stinking Lizaveta for the UK portion of the run to hit Desertfest London after playing the anniversary party for Exile on Mainstream in Germany. They’re abroad through the end of May and into June, and it likely won’t be long before they announce the next month-plus tour after this one because that’s how it goes with Darsombra‘s have-noise-will-travel nomadic tendencies. No coincidence that comes paired with such a resonant sense of sonic adventurousness.
“Shelter in Place,” at just three minutes, is the opening to the world portrayed throughout Dumesday Book. On its own, it provides a sample of Darsombra‘s aural dimensionality without necessarily encapsulating the whole. It leads you in, in other words.
Please enjoy:
Darsombra, “Shelter in Place” video premiere
Music by Darsombra Video directed and edited by Ann Everton Camera work by Brian Daniloski
“Shelter In Place” is the first track on Darsombra’s 2023 double album, “Dumesday Book”, available atdarsombra.com.
Shot on location at Assateague Island, USA. No ponies were harmed in the making of this film.
The latest video from Dumesday Book arrives with “Shelter In Place,” the album’s opening track. “Shelter In Place” is an ominous, majestic introduction to the album’s uncertain journey of the deep range of human emotions characteristic during plague times. The track is quaking, vast, and full of portent; the video, filmed and edited by Everton, gives the tsunami of precarious fear a doleful, baleful visage. Welcome to the trip.
Dumesday Book is available on CD, 2xLP, and digitally on DARSOMBRA’s Pnictogen Records. Physical formats include a twelve-page booklet, a sticker, and a download code with access to bonus material.
This week, DARSOMBRA will make their return to the Roadburn Festival alongside The Jesus And Mary Chain, Chelsea Wolfe, Khanate, Blood Incantation, and dozens more. Roadburn is followed by shows across Germany, Poland, Holland, and Belgium, on their way to play Exile On Mainstream 25 Festival dates in both Berlin and Leipzig – the 25th anniversary of the diverse label for which DARSOMBRA is an alumni act – with Ostinato, A Whisper In The Noise, Caspar Brötzmann Massaker, Conny Ochs, and many others also on the four-day/two-city bill.
In the wake of EOM25, they’ll join up with their allies Stinking Lizaveta for shows across the UK, including Desertfest London with Godflesh, Suicidal Tendencies, Ufomammut, Bongripper, Acid King, Monolord, and many more. DARSOMBRA will then make their live debut in Ireland, playing three shows across the country. See all confirmed dates below and watch for additional tour dates for the Summer and Fall months to be announced.
DARSOMBRA Tour Dates: 4/19/2024 Roadburn Festival – Tilburg, NL 4/24/2024 Kunstverein Hintere Cramergasse e.V – Nuremberg, DE 4/25/2024 Kalambur – Wroclaw, PL 4/26/2024 Lot Chmiela – Poznan, PL 4/27/2024 Awaria – Krakow, PL 4/28/2024 Mlodsza Siostra – Warsaw, PL 5/03/2024 Het Alternatief – Nijmegen, NL 5/05/2024 De Loft – Herent, BE 5/09/2024 Exile On Mainstream 25 Fest – Berlin, DE 5/10/2024 Exile On Mainstream 25 Fest – Leipzig, DE 5/14/2024 The Gryphon – Bristol, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta 5/16/2024 Puzzle Hall Inn – Sowerby Bridge, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta 5/17/2024 The Cellar – Cardigan, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta 5/19/2024 Desertfest – London, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta 5/22/2024 The Lubber Fiend – Newcastle, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta 5/23/2024 BLOC – Glasgow, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta 5/24/2024 St. Vincent’s Chapel – Edinburgh, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta 5/25/2024 Tooth & Claw – Inverness, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta 5/30/2024 Coughlan’s – Cork, IE 5/31/2024 Kasbah/Dolan’s – Limerick, IE 6/01/2024 Saturday Anseo – Dublin, IE
