Band in the Pit Goda Archives

Band in the Pit Stream Goda LP in Full; Out Sunday

Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on October 13th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

On Oct. 15, which is this Sunday, Hungarian lumber-psych instrumentalists Band in the Pit will release their new album, the four-song Goda, through Psychedelic Source and Para Hobo Records. Why the odd-day release? Maybe just to remind us that these things are completely arbitrary. Maybe they had the day free and a regular Friday appointment. In any case, I assure you the date is not nearly important enough to warrant the four sentences I’ve now dedicated to it. If you want to skip ahead to the player and stream it,

The album runs four songs and three stages, by which I mean that the tracklisting — “Phalaris” (9:48), “Mantle” (11:16), “Goda” (6:38) and “Relight” (5:09) — is patterned through the first two longer pieces such that the shorter title-track and closer act like the reinforcement hypnotic suggestion to make sure you stay entranced. Recorded in 2021, Goda follows 2019’s two-song LP, Durée, and is their sixth full-length overall in the last decade-plus, the trio of guitarist Szabolcs Késmárky, bassist Vilmos Schneider and drummer Norman Prókai continuing to work with László Válik on the mix/master in Budapest and seeming to reside somewhere in terms of method between j-a-m heavy jamming and heavier-toned riffing.

The key is repetition. For as steady in their delivery and patient as they are nestling into their parts and residing there, Band in the Pit begin Goda already in progress — a crash into a new measure, as though the jam was already underway and you just teleported into the studio where it’s being recorded, presumably live (note: I actually don’t know how it was done, but listening, it’s hard to imagine another way). “Phalaris” evolves gradually over its nearly-10 minutes, has space for a right-on-fuzz guitar solo, and so on, but keeps its central rhythm consistent throughout. This means that even as the three-piece pass the seven-minute mark and the stately low end is met by a current of more scorching effects noise, the listener remains encased within the underlying groove. The wash? It’s just something that happens out there somewhere. It comes and goes and the noise is eventually the last thing to go as the song draws down, but it’s not that it was a contest and noise won over march. That march will own the day.

On a first listen, one new to the band — as I have no qualms admitting I am — might be a few minutes into “Mantle” before understanding what’s going on here. Like some of Earth‘s interpretations of drone, Band in the Pit build mantras from nod. Clear in its strum, Késmárky‘s guitar comes to the forefront of the mix and seems to lead the parade with Schneider and Prókai on board. At its root, it might be a heavy stoner riff not out of place on a record rife with Sleep worship, but as one might in a rehearsal space introducing a riff to a band and subsequently feeling out where it goes, “Mantle” suitably taps into the jam beneath what in many other circumstances becomes a part of a structured song. This willfully repetitive take and the raw character of the material overall become defining features, and between “Phalaris” and “Mantle,” more than half of Goda‘s 32-minute runtime is accounted for. As substance goes, it is not misplaced or misused.

Chemistry in the songs should be taken as a given. Band in the Pit probably wouldn’t exist at this point, never mind this record, if they didn’t enjoy being in the room together, and that comes through as they move deeper into the second half of “Mantle” and the procession starts to sort of playfully unravel, noise entering ahead of a fade that brings the crash-in of “Goda” to mirror that of “Phalaris” earlier. “Goda” is the start of side B and it hammers through a heavier riff than either of side A’s cuts boasted, departing at about two and a half minutes in for a ’90s noise howl of a brief solo before realigning around crashes. And I’m not sure if it’s actually something other than the guitar, bass or drums being beaten on, or maybe an echo or effect, but there’s an almost metallic ting as they circle around that same part.

There’s a slight but notable change after about four minutes into “Goda” where the strum opens a bit while the bass and drums, again, hold the foundation, and I swear to you that if they had someone screaming obscurities overtop about the Gemenc Forest would be some of the best progressive black metal you’d hear in 2023. As it stands, they ride the movement to a sudden stop and a dirtier guitar tone begins “Relight,” soon smoothly joined by the rhythm section. The spell of “Goda” is hardly broken by the closer, and Band in the Pit remain true to their purpose — that is, they find where they want to be and stay there in terms of a central chug — before shifting into weightier, noisier duggery to finish. By the time they’re done, they’re quiet again, capping with a quiet drone of residual noise, but they balance that moment of whole-album revelry with the calming affect of their repetitions.

If you can move your neck to nod, you can get down. Band in the Pit aren’t so much laying out a challenge with Goda as inviting the listener to dig in alongside the band. Because the hypnosis cast in “Phalaris” no doubt works both ways; the driver is also on board, if you get what I’m saying. That going-together sensibility further bolsters the immersive aspects of Goda, but if you find yourself feeling lost in listening, rest assured that the ground is still there under your feet and the path you and they are on remains ahead of you.

Please enjoy:

Vinyl preorder: https://psychedelicsourcerecords.bandcamp.com/album/goda

As heavy mountains sing.

Important to support the band directly at bandinthepit.bandcamp.com/album/goda-2 (they do merch combo, and lower prices)

Music written and performed by Band In The Pit.
Recorded in 2021 at L.V. Studio – Budapest – H.
Released in 2023 by Psychedelic Source Records and Para Hobo Records.

Releases October 15, 2023.

Mix and master – László Válik
Original artwork – Anna Kiss
Editing – Viktor Juhász-D

Drums – Norman Prókai
Guitar – Szabolcs Késmárky
Bass – Vilmos Schneider