Happy Monday, and welcome to the Quarterly Review. Or welcome back, anyhow. I said last month that I might try to sneak another one of these weeks in before the end of November, and I’m honestly not prepared to say this’ll be it for the year. There’s a lot out there to keep up with, and this is the most efficient means I have for ‘keeping up,’ as best as I can do that anyhow. I don’t know, man. I’m just trying to get through the day.

This QR is 50 releases — I was slating them right up to yesterday, so some of it’s pretty fresh — and will go from today through Friday. It will be most, if not all, of what is posted this week. I hope you find something you enjoy. Let’s go.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

Beastwars, The Ship // The Sea

At nearly 15 years’ remove from their self-titled debut (review here), New Zealand’s Beastwars have been through ringers in life and music alike, but their sound on their sixth full-length, they’ve never sounded quite so refined. Understand, it’s Beastwars, so I still mean immersive and crushing riff-heavy rock, which the band have honed to a point of bordering on noise rock in pieces like “The Storm” or the later “You Know They’re Burning the Land.” “Rust” and “The Howling” maintain a sense of the epic with Matt Hyde‘s shouts alternately into and out from the abyss, but the band have grown in the six years since their last album of originals, 2019’s IV (review here), and for the blowout in “The Devil” and the weight of chug in “Guardian of Fire,” their impact feels all the more craterous for it.

Beastwars store

Beastwars on Bandcamp

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Lacertilia, Transcend

I won’t take away from the shorter bangers here, whether it’s the wah-on immediacy of “Listen Close” or “Weird Scenes” with its stick-click immediacy, but each half(-ish) of Lacertilia‘s third LP (first for Majestic Mountain), Transcend, ends with a more extended cut, with “Nothing Sacred” (10:34) and “The Sun is the Key” (7:13) rounding out their respective sides, and the band are right to take the time when they take it. Of course, it’s symptomatic of the broader variety brought to the Cardiff five-piece’s craft, and they make Transcend a showcase of their reach, be it into acoustic strum and emergent bluesier scorch on “Over and Out,” the twisting lead guitar progressivism of “Deviate From the Plan,” which meets the grandeur halfway, or the percussion-laced instrumentalist build of the semi-title-track “Transcending.” They end up offering something different with each of the 10 songs, and balance raucousness and expressive purpose as they go in malleable and distinctive style.

Lacertilia on Bandcamp

Majestic Mountain Records store

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Dune Aurora, Ice Age Desert

With their debut album, Turin three-piece Dune Aurora draw together disparate ideas from across the modern riffy pastiche such that garage-style sway and more traditonalist stoner chug combine with at-times-ethereal melody, desert push, psychedelia and, in the case of “Trapdoor,” a poppier take entirely. There’s cohesion in the songwriting to match the aesthetic ambition, though, and Dune Aurora don’t come off as haphazard so much as multifaceted. The reworked prior single “Fire” demonstrates a fuzzy drive waiting in the wings as part of their approach, but the nod in “Burning Waters” is more dug in, and “Sunless Queen” reveals a patience underlying their builds that might come out more on subsequent outings, but the shove of “Crocodile” and that Nirvana riff in “Dune Chameleon” are vital to Ice Age Desert too, and it’s still just a sampling of the elements Dune Aurora use to ensnare the listener. As much as they have going on, that they don’t come across as confused seems to give them all the more potential.

Dune Aurora on Bandcamp

Argonauta Records website

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Khayrava, Ghost Pain

Ghost Pain is the debut two-songer from Almeria, Spain, post-metallic four-piece Khayrava, who present “Red Hot Sun” (7:04) and “Ghost Pain” (10:32) with a marked sense of texture as part of their intention. Both tracks crush, but both also offer a moment of departure from that, and the latter plays off the impact of the former with a keyboardier air and its later divergence into floating melody and crash before, just past the eight-minute mark, they torch the whole thing with a worthy and minutes-long crescendo. “Red Hot Sun” is huge, but its midsection gives over to a break of Tool-y groove met with heavy post-rock flourish from the guitar. That also, of course, comes back around to the pummel, but it’s in the getting there that Khayrava begin to reveal the character of the band, and with the depth of mix they bring to Ghost Pain and the clear intent toward nuance of style, I’ll be on the lookout for where they go from here.

Khayrava on Bandcamp

Khayrava on Instagram

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River Cult, High Anxiety

“Who invented 9-5,” River Cult ask on “Fast Crash.” “They should be shot dead,” is the answer the lyrics give. Fair. The third long-player from the heretofore undervalued New York-based disgruntled fuzzbringers manages to make a mental health crisis swing like desert rock on “Smoke Break,” the sixth of the seven inclusions on the 38-minute offering, seeming to answer the crash-in, warm tone and lyrical fuckall of the opening title-track in the process. They’re not wrong, and if you’re gonna say the world sucks, at least “Feels Good to Scream” has a density of distortion to hold up to the message, vocals biting through like early-metal’s cultist inheritor, cavernous and obscure ahead of centerpiece “Mind the Teeth” start-stop chugging as the lore of ‘The Wolf’ is cast. The trio of guitarist/vocalist Sean Forlenza, bassist Anthony Mendolia and drummer Eli Pizzuto (ex-Naam) find a niche for themselves in downtrodden fuzz, ending with “New Song,” which even having been tracked at Brooklyn’s Studio G sounds fresh off the stage.

River Cult on Bandcamp

River Cult on Instagram

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Beast Eagle, Sorceress

In the soaring vocals of Kate Prokop and the riffs behind them chugging away at the verses of “The Dead Follow” and the moodier surge into the layered hook of “Witch Hunt,” Omaha, Nebraska’s Beast Eagle answer their 2024 self-titled debut EP with five more songs of metal-rooted heavy groove, clear and fluid in “Sharp Tongue” but not without aggression underlying. The bass in “The Dead Follow” is mixed the way I feel bass should always be — forward — and that gives even the mellower stretch as they move into the ending a different sense of presence than it might otherwise have, but in the galloping verse and sprawling chorus of “The Demonstration” and the rush of “Send Me Down,” the latter of which, admittedly, is more of a rocker, speaking to a burgeoning dynamic in their sound, they retain a feeling of charge, and that defines Sorceress‘ 19-minute run as much as the taut chug in “Sharp Tongue.”

Beast Eagle on Bandcamp

Beast Eagle on Instagram

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The Munsens, Degradation in the Hyperreal

Having relocated from Denver to Asbury Park, New Jersey, The Munsens are no less vicious or crushing on their second album, Degradation in the Hyperreal. “Eternal Grasp” starts the procession as much death metal as it is sludge, which is an ethic that “Supreme Death” will bring to gorgeously extreme fruition a short time later, while pieces like the melancholic, minimalist instrumental “Vesper” and the blistering megasludger “Sacred Ivory” and the outro “I Avow” offset the onslaught of “The Knife,” “Scaling Ceausescu’s Balcony” and the lumber-into-double-kick of “Drauga,” vocals offering precious little comfort for the downward journey of the record’s 46 minutes. That “The Knife” finishes, specifically, ahead of “I Avow,” stands as testament to just how far The Munsens have pushed into extremity over the course of their decade-plus, but they are not entirely unforgiving either, despite having grown only more gnashing over the course of their decade-plus tenure.

The Munsens on Bandcamp

The Munsens on Instagram

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Rattlesnake Venom Trip, Eclipse the Sun

They’re not thrash, but thrash is part of what Dayton, Ohio’s Rattlesnake Venom Trip get up to on their new four-song EP, Eclipse the Sun, with a sharp edge to the riffing on lead cut “Hollowed Eyes” that tells the tale. The second half of that track subsides some in terms of forward thrust, setting up the still-chugging-but-slower “Ablaze Set I,” with a more resonant hook, and “Brushstrokes/Eclipse the Sun,” which in its first half is as far as Rattlesnake Venom Trip go in divergence from the burl and push, but in its second answers for the metal and the nod both that it seems to have inherited from the opener. Punchy bass’ed reinforcement takes place over the five minutes of “Cold Winds Blow,” and the four-piece maintain a clear-eyed sense of identity through whatever turns the material makes, somewhere between heavy rock, Southern metal, thrash and stoner idolatry. You could sit and parse it, but the band make it pretty easy to trust where they’re headed as they go.

Rattlesnake Venom Trip website

Rattlesnake Venom Trip on Bandcamp

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Pesta, The Craft of Pain

For their third long-player, The Craft of Pain (on Glory or Death), Brazil’s Pesta offer a take on doom born of traditional metal. They’re not aggro, or outwardly depressive, but “Masters of the Craft of Pain” and the swinging “Marked by Hate” find a route from Sabbath and the NWOBHM to doom just the same. A guest appearance from Scott “Wino” Weinrich (The Obsessed, etc.) on vocals for “Mirror Maze” is a departure, but not so radical as to be out of place, especially backed by the depth of groove in the subsequent rocker “In the Drive’s End.” On side B, the pair of “The Inquisitor Pt. I” and the initially-acoustic-based “The Inquisitor Pt. II” provide a more theatrical reach, but the acoustic-and-key-strings “Canto XXI” brings in Rodrigo Garcia (Diffuse Reality) for another curve before “Shadows of a Desire” returns to ground to finish out not so far from where “Marked by Hate” left off. At no point do Pesta feel like they’ve diverged from where they want to be.

Pesta on Bandcamp

Glory or Death Records website

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Atom Lux, Voidgaze Dopamine Salad

The lyrics posted with the cumbersomely-titled “J.I.B.B.E.R.I.S.H. (John Inflates Balloons Because Every Remote Island Starts Hallucinating)” are wrong, and the level of psychedelic tricksterism and playfulness across Atom Lux‘s debut, Voidgaze Dopamine Salad is such that I’m not sure if that’s on purpose or not. Rest assured, different references to “I Am the Walrus” are being made. The self-recording solo-project of Roman multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Lucio Filizola is a garden of weirdo delights, with the keyboardy bounce of “Death by Small Talk” giving away none of the subversively easy garage swing of “Spaghettification Apocalypse” and “Stoned Monkey Heritage” bashing away like it’s an alternate-reality 1964, which by the way I’m no longer convinced it isn’t. It’s from gleeful oddities like “Dance Plague Delirium” that progressive rock first emerged in the comedown era. The same trajectory may or may not be in store for Atom Lux long term, but right now any kind of ‘comedown’ still feels a good ways off.

Atom Lux on Bandcamp

Atom Lux on Instagram

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The phrase “new Beastwars” should be about all you need to know here, honestly. The New Zealand crusher four-piece will release their new album, The Ship // The Sea on Nov. 7, and they’re streaming the first single “Levitate” from it now. The song is under three and a half minutes and has some flexibility around the band’s preceding reputation for heft, but dynamic isn’t necessarily new for them either.

Their last release, 2023’s Tyranny of Distance (review here), was a pandemic-born full-length of covers taking on New Zealand artists from across different styles. Accordingly, I don’t know if you call The Ship // The Sea their fifth or sixth LP, but it’s definitely the next one and I’m looking forward to hearing it.

You’ll find the song at the bottom of this post. Blue text — including Australian tour dates presented by Beats Cartel — comes from the PR wire:

BEASTWARS Announce New Album THE SHIP // THE SEA | Listen to First Single ‘LEVITATE’

The southern hemisphere’s kings of apocalyptic metal rise again with their sixth studio album, The Ship // The Sea (out 7th November 2025 via Destroy Records)

Listen to New Single ‘Levitate’ – HERE: https://beastwars.lnk.to/Levitate

Like bearing witness to a world sliding headlong into the abyss, Beastwars are no strangers to soundtracking times of war, disaster, and collapse – when half-truths and hidden agendas lurk behind every act of the world’s eroding empires.

From the very beginning, their music has embodied the apocalyptic feeling of these end times: primal, hypnotic, and relentlessly heavy. Their 2011 self-titled debut declared as much, and tragically, feels more relevant today than ever. Fourteen years later, the world has only grown harsher and Beastwars’ sixth record, The Ship // The Sea, distils that darkness into one of the most intense and cathartic albums of their career.

In 2021 and 2023, the band toured their first two albums in full. Revisiting that early material reignited the raw energy at their core, inspiring them to strip back the progressive flourishes of recent years and reconnect with the heaviness of their origins. The Ship // The Sea channels that spirit into towering riffs and unflinching emotion, unfolding like a sequence of hellish headlines. Mute the endless stream of calamities on your screen. Beastwars’ heavy howls create an eerily apocalyptic soundtrack for the present day.

“Life has become a marathon for most people,” says Hyde. “How can we not see the injustice, the cruelty of the world? Our new album is like Picasso’s Guernica – a reflection of war and horror, of endings and upheavals. It’s the sound of a ship adrift on a cruel sea.”

Water runs as the central motif throughout the record, the ship representing the body and the sea symbolising life. Lyrically, the songs traverse survival, purification, wisdom, and healing, always with an undercurrent of danger and the fight to endure.

To capture this vision, Beastwars decided that they needed to record by the ocean. They decamped to Studio 11b near the beach in Mount Maunganui then completed the album back in their hometown of Wellington, once again working alongside longtime collaborator James Goldsmith.

Having co-produced the band’s last three albums and engineered their live shows, Goldsmith was the ideal partner to harness their ferocity with heightened intensity.

As ever, the music is paired with artwork by Nick Keller (Weta Workshop: Narnia, Avatar, The Hobbit). His vast oil painting for The Ship // The Sea is both terrifying and transcendent, an otherworldly vision that mirrors the sound within.

The Ship // The Sea will be released Friday 7th November 2025 via Destroy Records on LP and digital formats, with pre-orders available now at www.beastwarsband.com. The band will also tour Australia and New Zealand this November in support of the release.

Tracklisting:
1. We Don’t Say Fear
2. Guardian of Fire
3. Levitate
4. The Storm
5. Rust
6. Blood Will Flow
7. The Howling
8. You Know They’re Burning the Land
9. The Devil
10. Light Leads the Way

Tour Dates:
Mo’s Desert Clubhouse – Gold Coast, Aus – Wed 12th November
The Brightside – Brisbane, Aus – Thu 13th November
The Landsdowne – Sydney, Aus – Fri 14th November
The Evelyn – Melbourne, Aus – Sat 15th November
River Rocks Rehab – Geelong, Aus – Sun 16th November
Last Place – Hamilton – Thu 20th November
Double Whammy – Auckland – Fri 21st November
Meow Nui – Wellington – Sat 22nd November
Dropkicks – Dunedin – Fri 28th November
Churchill’s – Christchurch – Sat 29th November

Oil painting by Nick Keller
Produced by James Goldsmith and Nathan Hickey
Recorded and mixed by James Goldsmith
Mastered by Will Borza
This album was created with the generous support of NZ On Air

Beastwars are:
Matthew Hyde – Vocals
Christian Pearce – Guitar
James Woods – Bass
Nathan Hickey – Drums

https://beastwars.bigcartel.com/
https://beastwars.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/beastwarsband/
https://www.facebook.com/beastwars666/

Beastwars, The Ship // The Sea (2025)

Well, this is it. I still haven’t decided if I’m going to do Monday and Tuesday, or just Monday, or Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or the whole week next week or what. I don’t know. But while I figure it out — and not having this planned is kind of a novelty for me; something against my nature that I’m kind of forcing I think just to make myself uncomfortable — there are 10 more records to dig through today and it’s been a killer week. Yeah, that’s the other thing. Maybe it’s better to quit while I’m ahead.

I’ll kick it back and forth while writing today and getting the last of what I’d originally slated covered, then see how much I still have waiting to be covered. You can’t ever get everything. I keep learning that every year. But if I don’t do it Monday and Tuesday, it’ll either be last week of December or maybe second week of January, so it’s not long until the next one. Never is, I guess.

If this is it for now or not, thanks for reading. I hope you found music that has touched your life and/or made your day better.

Quarterly Review #41-50:

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David Eugene Edwards, Hyacinth

There are not a ton of surprises to behold in what’s positioned as a first solo studio offering from David Eugene Edwards, whose pedigree would be impressive enough if it only included either 16 Horsepower or Wovenhand but of course is singular in including both. But you don’t need surprises. Titled Hyacinth and issued through Sargent House, the voice, the presence, the sense of intimacy and grandiosity both accounted for as Edwards taps acoustic simplicity in “Bright Boy,” though even that is accompanied by the programmed electronics that provides backing through much of the included 11 tracks. Atop and within these expanses, Edwards broods poetic and explores atmospheres that are heavy in a different way from what Wovenhand has become, chasing tone or intensity. On Hyacinth, it’s more about the impact of the slow-rolling beat in “Celeste” and the blend of organic/inorganic than just how loud a part is or isn’t. Whether a solo career under his name will take the place of Wovenhand or coincide, I don’t know.

David Eugene Edwards on Instagram

Sargent House website

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Beastwars, Tyranny of Distance

Whatever led Beastwars to decide it was time to do a covers EP, fine. No, really, it’s fine. It’s fine that it’s 32 minutes long. It’s fine that I’ve never heard The Gordons, or Julia Deans, or Superette, or The 3Ds or any of the other New Zealand-based artists the Wellington bashers are covering. It’s fine. It’s fine that it sounds different than 2019’s IV (review here). It should. It’s been nearly five years and Beastwars didn’t write these eight songs, though it seems safe to assume they did a fair bit of rearranging since it all sounds so much like Beastwars. But the reason it’s all fine is that when it’s over, whether I know the original version of “Waves” or the blues-turns-crushing “High and Lonely” originally by Nadia Reid, or not, when it’s all over, I’ve got over half an hour more recorded Beastwars music than I had before Tyranny of Distance showed up, and if you don’t consider that a win, you probably already stopped reading. That’s fine too. A sidestep for them in not being an epic landmark LP, and a chance for new ideas to flourish.

Beastwars on Facebook

Beastwars BigCartel store

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Sun Dial, Messages From the Mothership

Because Messages From the Mothership stacks its longer songs (six-seven minutes) in the back half of its tracklisting, one might be tempted to say Sun Dial push further out as they go, but the truth is that ’60s pop-inflected three-minute opener “Echoes All Around” is pretty out there, and the penultimate “Saucer Noise” — the longest inclusion at 7:47 — is no less melodically present than the more structure-forward leadoff. The difference, principally, is a long stretch of keyboard, but that’s well within the UK outfit’s vintage-synth wheelhouse, and anyway, “Demagnitized” is essentially seven minutes of wobbly drone at the end of the record, so they get weirder, as prefaced in the early going by, well, the early going itself, but also “New Day,” which is more exploratory than the radio-friendly-but-won’t-be-on-the-radio harmonies of “Living for Today” and the duly shimmering strum of “Burning Bright.” This is familiar terrain for Sun Dial, but they approach it with a perspective that’s fresh and, in the title-track, a little bit funky to boot.

Sun Dial on Facebook

Sulatron Records webstore

Echodelick Records website

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Fuzzy Grass, The Revenge of the Blue Nut

With rampant heavy blues and a Mk II Deep Purple boogie bent, Toulouse, France’s Fuzzy Grass present The Revenge of the Blue Nut, and there’s a story there but to be honest I’m not sure I want to know. The heavy ’70s persist as an influence — no surprise for a group who named their 2018 debut 1971 — and pieces like “I’m Alright” and “The Dreamer” feel at least in part informed by Graveyard‘s slow-soul-to-boogie-blowout methodology. Raw fuzz rolls out in 11-minute capper “Moonlight Shades” with a swinging nod that’s a highlight even after “Why You Stop Me” just before, and grows noisy, expansive, eventually furious as it approaches the end, coherent in the verse and cacophonous in just about everything else. But the rawness bolsters the character of the album in ways beyond enhancing the vintage-ist impression, and Fuzzy Grass unite decades of influences with vibrant shred and groove that’s welcoming even at its bluest.

Fuzzy Grass on Facebook

Kozmik Artifactz store

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Morne, Engraved with Pain

If you go by the current of sizzling electronic pops deeper in the mix, even the outwardly quiet intro to Morne‘s Engraved with Pain is intense. The Boston-based crush-metallers have examined the world around them thoroughly ahead of this fifth full-length, and their disappointment is brutally brought to realization across four songs — “Engraved with Pain” (10:42), “Memories Like Stone” (10:48), “Wretched Empire” (7:45) and “Fire and Dust” (11:40) — written and executed with a dark mastery that goes beyond the weight of the guitar and bass and drums and gutturally shouted vocals to the aura around the music itself. Engraved with Pain makes the air around it feel heavier, basking in an individualized vision of metal that’s part Ministry, part Gojira, lots of Celtic Frost, progressive and bleak in kind — the kind of superlative and consuming listening experience that makes you wonder why you ever listen to anything else except that you’re also exhausted from it because Morne just gave you an existential flaying the likes of which you’ve not had in some time. Artistry. Don’t be shocked when it’s on my ‘best of the year’ list in a couple weeks. I might just go to a store and buy the CD.

Morne on Facebook

Metal Blade Records website

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Appalooza, The Shining Son

Don’t tell the swingin’-dick Western swag of “Wounded,” but Appalooza are a metal band. To wit, The Shining Son, their very-dudely follow-up to 2021’s The Holy of Holies (review here) and second outing for Ripple Music. Opener “Pelican” has more in common with Sepultura than Kyuss, or Pelican for that matter. “Unbreakable” and “Wasted Land” both boast screams worthy of Devin Townsend, while the acoustic/electric urgency in “Wasted Land” and the tumultuous scope of the seven-plus-minute track recall some of Primordial‘s battle-aftermath mourning. “Groundhog Days” has an airy melody and is more decisively heavy rock, and the hypnotic post-doom apparent-murder-balladry of “Killing Maria” answers that at the album’s close, and “Framed” hits heavy blues à la a missed outfit like Dwellers, but even in “Sunburn” there’s an immediacy to the rhythm between the guitar and percussion, and though they’re not necessarily always aggressive in their delivery, nor do they want to be. Metal they are, if only under the surface, and that, coupled with the care they put into their songwriting, makes The Shining Son stand out all the more in an ever-crowded Euro underground.

Appalooza on Facebook

Ripple Music website

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Space Shepherds, Washed Up on a Shore of Stars

An invitation to chill the beans delivered to your ears courtesy of Irish cosmic jammers Space Shepherds as two longform jams. “Wading Through the Infinite Sea” nestles into a funky groove and spends who-even-cares-how-much-time of its total 27 minutes vibing out with noodling guitar and a steady, languid, periodically funk-leaning flow. I don’t know if it was made up on the spot, but it sure sounds like it was, and though the drums get a little restless as keys and guitar keep dreaming, the elements gradually align and push toward and through denser clouds of dust and gas on their way to being suns, a returning lick at the end looking slightly in the direction of Elder but after nearly half an hour it belongs to no one so much as Space Shepherds themselves. ‘Side B,’ as it were, is “Void Hurler” (18:41), which is more active early around circles being drawn on the snare, and it has a crescendo and a synthy finish, but is ultimately more about the exploration and little moments along the way like the drums decided to add a bit of push to what might’ve otherwise been the comedown, or the fuzz buzzing amid the drone circa 10 minutes in. You can sit and listen and follow each waveform on its journey or you can relax and let the whole thing carry you. No wrong answer for jams this engaging.

Space Shepherds on Facebook

Space Shepherds on Bandcamp

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Rey Mosca, Volumen! Sesion AMB

Young Chilean four-piece Rey Mosca — the lineup of Josué Campos, Valentín Pérez, Damián Arros and Rafael Álvarez — hold a spaciousness in reserve for the midsection of teh seven-minute “Sol del Tiempo,” which is the third of the three songs included in their live-recorded Volumen! Sesion AMB EP. A ready hint is dropped of a switch in methodology since both “Psychodoom” and ” Perdiendo el Control” are under two minutes long. Crust around the edge of the riff greets the listener with “Psychodoom,” which spends about a third of its 90 seconds on its intro and so is barely started by the time it’s over. Awesome. “Perdiendo el Control” is quicker into its verse and quicker generally and gets brasher in its second half with some hardcore shout-alongs, but it too is there and gone, where “Sol del Tiempo” is more patient from the outset, flirting with ’90s noise crunch in its finish but finding a path through a developing interpretation of psychedelic doom en route. I don’t know if “Sol del Tiempo” would fit on a 7″, but it might be worth a shot as Rey Mosca serve notice of their potential hopefully to flourish.

LINK

Rey Mosca on Bandcamp

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Fawn Limbs & Nadja, Vestigial Spectra

Principally engaged in the consumption and expulsion of expectations, Fawn Limbs and Nadja — experimentalists from Finland and Germany-via-Canada, respectively — drone as one might think in opener “Isomerich,” and in the subsequent “Black Body Radiation” and “Cascading Entropy,” they give Primitive Man, The Body or any other extremely violent, doom-derived bludgeoners you want to name a run for their money in terms of sheer noisy assault. Somebody’s been reading about exoplanets, as the drone/harsh noise pairing “Redshifted” and “Blueshifted” (look it up, it’s super cool) reset the aural trebuchet for its next launch, the latter growing caustic on the way, ahead of “Distilled in Observance” renewing the punishment in earnest. And it is earnest. They mean every second of it as Fawn Limbs and Nadja grind souls to powder with all-or-nothing fury, dropping overwhelming drive to round out “Distilled in Observance” before the 11-minute “Metastable Ion Decay” bursts out from the chest of its intro drone to devour everybody on the ship except Sigourney Weaver. I’m not lying to you — this is ferocious. You might think you’re up for it. One sure way to find out, but you should know you’re being tested.

Fawn Limbs on Facebook

Nadja on Facebook

Sludgelord Records on Facebook

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Dune Pilot, Magnetic

Do they pilot, a-pilot, do they the dune? Probably. Regardless, German heavy rockers Dune Pilot offer their third full-length and first for Argonauta Records in the 11-song Magnetic, taking cues from modern fuzz in the vein of Truckfighters for “Visions” after the opening title-track sets the mood and establishes the mostly-dry sound of the vocals as they cut through the guitar and bass tones. A push of voice becomes a defining feature of Magnetic, which isn’t such a departure from 2018’s Lucy, though the rush of “Next to the Liquor Store” and the breadth in the fuzz of “Highest Bid” and the largesse of the nod in “Let You Down” assure that Dune Pilot don’t come close to wearing down their welcome in the 46 minutes, cuts like the bluesy “So Mad” and the big-chorus ideology of “Heap of Shards” coexisting drawn together by the vitality of the performances behind them as well as the surety of their craft. It is heavy rock that feels specifically geared toward the lovers thereof.

Dune Pilot on Facebook

Argonauta Records website

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With no intent to offend, I’ll say outright that I have never heard of any of the artists Beastwars are covering on their upcoming eight-track covers LP, Tyranny of Distance, but I’ve heard the thing and it sure sounds like Beastwars, which is enough for me. I got a listen-through and didn’t initially know it was covers, but remarked on some different kinds of moods and shifts in sound around their central crushing ethic — you can hear some of that in the single “Waves” at the bottom of the post, and not just in the guest vocals from Julia Deans — and then was told what the deal was. As regards ferocity, I’ve yet to do a side-by-side with 2019’s IV (review here), but I’m genuinely thrilled to have the excuse to do one.

One of the vinyl editions is already sold out on preorder. I would not be surprised if others go before the actual release date, which is Oct. 13. So just a heads up on that.

Here’s info from the PR wire:

BEASTWARS: Wellington Metallers Celebrate the Music of New Zealand with TYRANNY OF DISTANCE Covers Album

The band’s fifth studio album offers interpretations of classic NZ artists such as The 3Ds, The Gordons, Superette, Snapper, and more!

Tyranny of Distance will be released on 13th October 2023 | Pre-order HERE: https://beastwars.bigcartel.com/

Renowned Wellington metallers Beastwars are thrilled to announce the release of their long-awaited fifth studio album, Tyranny of Distance, this October.

Showcasing the band’s remarkable talent for covering a range of artists and genres, the album spans across four decades of New Zealand’s rich musical history. Featuring reimagined tracks by acts such as The Gordons, Superette, Snapper, Marlon Williams, The 3Ds and more, Beastwars have extracted, mutated and distorted riffs to create a fresh and characteristically powerful sound.

The concept behind the album took root several years ago when vocalist Matthew Hyde expressed his admiration and desire to cover Marlon Williams’s ‘Dark Child’. The band didn’t pursue the idea until 2022 when they were approached to contribute a song to a Soundgarden tribute album. While on hiatus with band members facing personal challenges, the prospect of creating new, original music felt seemingly impossible. Yet they quickly discovered that the act of making music together was not only healing and cathartic but incredibly enjoyable. This realisation led to the resurrection and expansion of the idea to cover Williams’ song, marking the beginning of an ambitious journey involving shortlisting songs, seeking artists’ blessings, uncovering the inspirations behind the tracks, and even undertaking the challenging quest to decipher long-lost lyrics from original recordings.

Panhead Custom Ales, local institution and champions of rock music and custom car culture stepped up to show their unwavering support for Beastwars by embracing a simple proposition: “Would you finance the band’s recording of hot-rodded New Zealand songs?” Their answer? A resounding, “hell yeah!”

‘Waves’, the first single from Tyranny of Distance – featuring Fur Patrol’s Julia Deans and originally performed by ’90s Flying Nun act, Superette – exemplifies the band’s experimental approach when pushing the boundaries of the source material. With two Superette songs initially considered for the project, Beastwars based the song on the monolithic riff from ‘Saskatchewan’, overlaying the haunting lyrics and melody of ‘Waves’ to carry the pathos of the original, while making it entirely their own.

To celebrate the release of Tyranny of Distance, the band will also embark on a nationwide tour this October and November, with seven dates scheduled across Aotearoa (see below). For live performances, Christian Pearce, who also contributes to Beastwars’ side projects End Boss and Putrid Future, will join the band on guitar duties while original member Clayton Anderson takes a temporary break.

Tyranny of Distance will be released on 13th October 2023

Obey the Riff, Long Live the Beast!

TYRANNY OF DISTANCE NZ ALBUM TOUR DATES:
13/10 – The Musicians Club, Whanganui
14/10 – Zeal/The Mayfair, New Plymouth
26/10 – Last Place, Hamilton
27/10 – Galatos, Auckland
28/10 – San Fran, Wellington
3/11 – 12 Bar, Christchurch
4/11 – Dive, Dunedin

Tickets on sale now from www.beastwarsband.com

TRACK LISTING:
1. Identity (Orig. by The Gordons)
2. Waves (Orig. by Superette)
3. Emmanuelle (Orig. by Snapper)
4. Dark Child (Orig. by Marlon Williams)
5. Looking for the Sun (Orig. by Children’s Hour)
6. High and Lonely (Orig. by Nadia Reid)
7. We Light Fire (Orig. by Julia Deans)
8. Spooky (Orig. by The 3Ds)

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https://beastwars.bigcartel.com/

Beastwars, Tyranny of Distance (2023)

Welcome to Day Four of the Jan. 2022 Quarterly Review. Or maybe it’s the other half of the Dec. 2021 Quarterly Review. Or maybe I overthink these things. The latter feels most likely. Inanycase, welcome. If you’ve been keeping up with the records as they’ve been coming in 10-per-day batches over the course of this week, thanks. If not, well, if you’re interested, it’s not like the posts disappeared. Just keep scrolling, then I think click through. One of these days I’ll get an infinite scroll plug-in. Those are for the cool kids.

Also, ‘Infinite Scroll’ is, as of right now, the name of my ’90s-style pixel-art role playing game. Ask me about the plot when these reviews are done.

For now…

Quarterly Review #31-40:

SOM, The Shape of Everything

Working from a foundation in heavy post-rock, Connecticut’s SOM soar and float like so many shoreline seagulls over the Long Island Sound on the eight-song/34-minute The Shape of Everything, which would call to mind the melancholy of Katatoniia were its sadness not even more shimmering. Early pieces “Moment” and “Animals” build a depth of modern progressive metal riffing beneath only the airiest of guitar leads, a wash of distortion meeting a wash of melody, and with guitarist/vocalist/producer Will Benoit helming, his voice rings through clear in melody and still somewhat ethereal, calling to mind a more organically-constructed Jesu in poppier as well as some heavier stretches. The penultimate “Heart Attack” tips into heavier fare with a steady bassline and bursts of crunching guitar, and the finale “Son of Winter” answers back with a (snow)blinding spaciousness and an entrancing last buildup. There’s enough room here to really get lost, and SOM are too mindful of their craft to let it happen.

SOM website

Pelagic Records webstore

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Dr. Space, Muzik 2 Loze Yr Mynd Inn

Alright, I admit it. I went to “Icy Flatulence” first. Even before “Cyborgian Burger Hut” or “Euphoric Nostril.” Scott Heller, otherwise known as Dr. Space of Øresund Space Collective and any number of other outfits on a given day, is as-ever exploring on Muzik 2 Loze Yr Mynd Inn, and the results are hypnotic enough that they might leave you using the kind of spelling on the album’s title, but even in the relatively serene “Garden of Rainbow Unicorns” there’s a forward keyline — and actually, in that song, an undercurrent of horror soundtracking that makes me think the unicorn is about to eat me; could happen — and the extended pair of “T-E-T” and “Ribbons in Time” are marked by ’80s sci-fi beeps and boops and a kind of electronic shuffle, respectively, though the latter is probably as close as the 54-minute six-songer comes to soundscaping. Which is like landscaping only, in this case, happening in another galaxy somewhere. And there they call it jazz as they should and all is well. In all seriousness, I keep a running list in my brain of bands who should ask Dr. Space to guest on their records. Your band is probably on it. It’s pretty much everybody.

Dr. Space on Bandcamp

Space Rock Productions website

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Beastwars, Cold Wind / When I’m King

Here’s some context you probably don’t need: “Cold Wind” and “When I’m King” were written around the time of Wellington, New Zealand’s Beastwars‘ 2011 self-titled debut (review here). They may even have been recorded — I could’ve sworn “When I’m King” popped up somewhere at some point — but they’ve now been redone from the ground up and they’re pressed to a limited 7″ as part of the 10th anniversary celebration that also saw the self-titled get a new vinyl issue. Now, is it helpful knowing that? Yeah, sure. If I came at you instead and said, “Hey, new Beastwars!” though, it’d probably be more of a draw, and whatever gets Beastwars in as many ears as possible is what should invariably be done. “When I’m King” is a banger (bonus points for gang shouts), “Cold Wind” a little more seething, but both tracks harness that peculiarly sludged tonality that the band has owned for more than a decade now, and the guttural delivery of Matthew Hyde is only more resonant for the years between the writing and the execution of these songs. That execution is beheading by riffs, by the way.

Beastwars on Facebook

Beastwars on Bandcamp

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Deathbell, A Nocturnal Crossing

A Nocturnal Crossing, the second album from Toulouse, France’s Deathbell and their first for Svart Records, can come at you from any number of angles seemingly at any point. Which thread are you following? Is it the soaring, classic-feeling occult rock melodies of Lauren Gaynor, or her organ work that, at the same time, adds gothic drama to so much of the material on the six-songer? Is it the lumbering groove of “Shifting Sands” and the doomed fuzz of “Devoured on the Peak” earlier, speaking to entirely different traditions? Or maybe the atmosphere in “Silent She Comes,” which is almost post-metallic in its shining lead guitar? Or perhaps, and hopefully I think, it’s all of these things as skillfully woven together as they are in these tracks. Opener “The Stronghold and the Archer” and the closing title-track mirror each other in their underlying metallic influence, but that too becomes one more texture at Deathbell‘s disposal, brought forward in such a way as to emphasize the unity of the whole work as much as the individual progressions.

Deathbell on Facebook

Svart Records website

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Malady, Ainavihantaa

After debuting on Svart with 2018’s Toinen Toista (review here), sax-laced Helskini classic prog pastoralists Malady offer Ainavihantaa (‘all the time’) across a lush and welcoming six tracks and 37 minutes. The flow is immediate and paramount on opener “Alava Vaara” and through the flute/sax tradeoff in “Vapaa Ja Autio,” which follows, and though it’s heady fare, somehow the “Foxy-Lady”-if-King–Crimson-wrote-it strut-into-meander of “Sisävesien Rannat” skirts a line of indulgence without fully toppling over. Side B is jazzy and winding across “Dyadi” and “Haavan Väri” ahead of the title-track, but the human presence of vocals, even in a language I don’t speak, does wonders in keeping the proceedings grounded, right up to the Beatlesian finish of “Ainavihantaa” itself. This was on a lot of best-of-2021 lists and it’s not a challenge to see why.

Malady on Facebook

Svart Records website

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Wormsand, Shapeless Mass

The Earth, ecologically devastated by industrialization and the wastefulness of humans — capitalism, in other words — becomes a wasteland. A few billionaires, who’ve been playing around with laughably-phallic rockets anyway, decide they’re going to escape out into space and leave the rest of the species, which they’ve destroyed, to suffer. It would be — and used to be — the stuff of decent science fiction were it not basically what homo sapiens are living through right now. A mass extinction owing to climate change the roots of which are in anthropocene action and inaction alike. French outfit Wormsand tell this utterly-plausible story in cascading doom riffs that reminds at once of Pallbearer and Forming the Void, keeping an edge of modern heavy prog to their plodding and accompanying with clean vocals and some more gutty shouts. As one might expect, things get pretty grim by the time they’re down to “Carrions,” “Collapsing” and “Shapeless Mass” near the album’s end, but the trio get big, big points for not trying to offer some placating “you can avoid this future” message of hope at the end, instead highlighting the final message, “The oracles warned us long ago/That a huge mass would swallow us all.” Ambitious in narrative concept, expertly conveyed.

Wormsand on Facebook

Stellar Frequencies on Bandcamp

Saka Čost on Bandcamp

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Thunderchief, Synanthrope

I hate to call out a falsehood, but Virginia duo Thunderchief‘s claim that, “No fucks were used, or given, on this recording,” just isn’t the case. I’m sorry. You don’t rip the fuck out of your throat like Rik Surly does on “Aiboh/Phobia” without a clear intent. That intent might be — and would seem to be — fuckall, but fuckall’s way different from ‘no fucks.’ If they didn’t give a fuck, Synanthrope could hardly come across as furious as it does in these seven tracks, totaling a consuming, gruff, sludged 39 minutes, marked out by centerpiece “King of the Pleistocene” fucking with your conception of desert rock, the second part of “Aiboh/Phobia” — the part named after a grind band, oddly enough — and “Toss Me a Crumb” fucking around with some grind, and closer “Paw” trodding out its feedback-laden course with Erik Larson‘s drums marching in crash with Surly‘s riffs. Hell, you got Mike Dean to record the thing. That’s giving a fuck all by itself. This kind of heavy and righteous, purposeful aural cruelty doesn’t happen by mistake. It’s too good to be fuckless. Sorry.

Thunderchief on Facebook

Thunderchief on Bandcamp

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Turkey Vulture, Twist the Knife

No lyric sheet necessary to get that the longest song on Turkey Vulture‘s Twist the Knife EP, the three-minute “Livestock on Our Way to Slaughter,” is based lyrically on the ever-relevant film They Live. The married Connecticut duo of guitarist/bassist/vocalist Jessie May and drummer Jim Clegg (also in charge of visuals), find thrashy release on the four-song release, which totals about eight minutes and in opener “Fiji,” “Where the Truth Dwells,” as well as “Livestock on Our Way to Slaughter,” they rip with surprising metallic thrust. The closing “She’s Married (But Not to Me)” is something of a further shift, and had me searching for an original version out there somewhere thinking it was a cover either of Buddy Holly or some wistful punk band, but no, seems to be an original. So be it. Clearly, at this point, May and Clegg are finding new modes of sonic catharsis that even a couple years ago they likely wouldn’t have dared. They’re a stronger band for their readiness to follow such whims.

Turkey Vulture on Facebook

Turkey Vultre on Bandcamp

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Stargo, Dammbruch

In Stargo‘s Dammbruch, I hear a signal back to European heavy rock’s prior instrumentalist generation, the Dortmunder three-piece not completely divorced from the riffy progressions that drove the warmth creating heavy psychedelia in the first place, even as the four-part, 14-minute title-track of the EP shifts between those impulses and more progressive, weighted, extreme or airy movements before its eerily peaceful conclusion. “Copter,” which could be titled after its wub-wub-wub effect early and the guitar chug that takes hold of it, and the closer “Bathysphere,” with its outward reach of guitar telegraphed in the first half but still resonant at the end, bring likeminded breadth in shorter bursts, but the abiding story of the EP is what the band — who made their full-length debut with 2020’s Parasight — might continue to offer as their style continues to develop. 35007, My Sleeping Karma, The Ocean, Pelican and Russian Circles — Stargo‘s sound is a melting pot of ideas. They only need to keep exploring.

Stargo on Facebook

Stargo on Bandcamp

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Ascia, Volume II

Fabrizio Monni, also of Black Capricorn, issues a second EP from the solo-project Ascia following up on Sept. 2021’s Volume I (review here) with the marauding lumber of Dec. 2021’s Volume II, bringing his axe down across five tracks in a sub-20-minute run that’s been compiled onto a limited CD with the first release. Makes sense. The two outings share an affinity for the running megafuzz of earliest High on Fire and showcase the emerging personality of the new outfit in the melodies of “The Will of Gods” and the untempered doom of the later slowdown in “Thousands of Ghosts.” The instrumental “A Night with Shahrazad” closes, and feels a bit like a piece of a song — it crashes out just when you think the vocals might kick in — but if Monni‘s leaving his audience wanting more, well, he also seems quick enough to provide. “Eternal Glory” and “Ruins of War” will remind you what you liked about the first EP, and the rest will remind you why you’re looking forward to the next one. Mark it a win.

Ascia on Bandcamp

Black Capricorn on Facebook

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Remember that time Beastwars put out their self-titled debut (review here) in 2011? I do. It was awesome. That record dominated nearly everything in its path, and it set the New Zealand band’s destructive course in motion in a way for which one can only feel grateful these 10 years later. The Wellington-based four-piece embarked earlier this year on a round of tour dates playing their first album in its entirety, and in reissuing it, they included a 7″ with two songs initially left off the LP, re-recorded by the band as they are now.

“Cold Wind” and “When I’m King” can both be streamed now, and the band have made a few limited copies of the 7″ available in standalone fashion. Shipping ain’t cheap, I’ll tall you right now, but I’ve been watching the numbers available tick down over the last few days, and I’ll confess to feeling an increasing sense of urgency as they do. My inclination is to treasure pretty much anything Beastwars do at this point as a bonus, what with the band having broken up before eventually coming back together for 2019’s IV (review here).

I don’t know how long they’ll last but the songs, unsurprisingly, are killer, so it’s one you might want to snag while the snagging’s good and the numbers tick down to zero.

Art/info/links/audio follow:

Don’t let the disheveled looks deceive you. This 7″ is fresh out of the vault. 2 tracks that we love that didn’t make it on to our debut album have been re-recorded and pressed to fresh black vinyl by Holiday Records in Aotearoa, New Zealand.

Hand numbered and limited to 300 copies worldwide. This will never be repressed.

Tracklisting:
1. Cold Wind 04:44
2. When I’m King 02:57

BEASTWARS:
Clayton Anderson – Guitar
Nathan Hickey – Drums
Matt Hyde – Vocals
James Woods – Bass

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https://beastwars.bandcamp.com/
https://twitter.com/beastwarsband
https://www.instagram.com/beastwarsband/

Beastwars, Cold Wind/When I’m King (2021)

Hard not to look at this and be insanely jealous. In another continuum, I would’ve seen New Zealand’s Beastwars last year at Freak Valley in Germany. In this continuum, Freak Valley 2021 has already been postponed to 2022. Even in this decidedly shittier continuum, however, New Zealand remains safe to tour and Beastwars — celebrating the 10th anniversary of their self-titled debut (review here) while two years removed from their unexpected fourth album, IV (review here) — are making the most of it. Rightfully so.

They and Earth Tongue will do six dates together throughout May and Beastwars will play the self-titled in full, press it anew and release a new 7″. Tickets for the band’s hometown of Wellington are gone on presales, which isn’t a surprise, but if you’re in New Zealand and reading this, I’m sure you can travel and see them in another town. Because your country beat the plague.

The tour poster rules and can be found below, as well as the new recording of “When I’m King” the band has done to mark the occasion.

Dig:

Beastwars – 10th Anniversary Tour

Big news! Our debut album is turning 10(!) so we are repressing the album, releasing a limited edition 7″ of 2 songs from that era and going on tour playing the whole thing start to finish (+ whole heap of other tunes). And even better, Earth Tongue are joining us for the whole tour!

Find the link to limited early bird tickets and the new recording of “When I’m King” [below].

Thanks for such a great response to the tour! Wellington early bird tickets sold out this arvo and all other shows are selling strong. Highly recommend hitting Under the Radar. That’s pretty much the price of a beer!

Tickets from: https://www.undertheradar.co.nz/news/18238/Beastwars-Announce-10th-Anniversary-Tour–Vinyl-Reissue-Of-Debut-Album.utr

Auckland tix from: https://aaaticketing.co.nz/event/42df7656330b301012fc0b4a99b5ae47

BEASTWARS 10th Anniversary Tour with special guests EARTH TONGUE
Friday 7th May – Totara St. – Mount Maunganui
Saturday 8th May – Powerstation, Auckland
Friday 14th May – Starters, Dunedin
Saturday 15th May – Cassels Blue Smoke, Christchurch
Friday 21st May – Wakatu Hotel, Nelson
Saturday 22nd May – Hunter Lounge, Wellington

BEASTWARS:
Clayton Anderson – Guitar
Nathan Hickey – Drums
Matt Hyde – Vocals
James Woods – Bass

https://www.facebook.com/beastwars666/
https://beastwars.bandcamp.com/
https://twitter.com/beastwarsband
https://www.instagram.com/beastwarsband/
http://www.obeytheriff.com

Beastwars, “When I’m King” (2021)

Freak Valley 2020 has revealed its official poster art, once again contributed by Sebastian Jerke who has done the past I-don’t-know-how-many-years. It’s a kind of deer-fox-wolf-dragon-warthog beast that, well, if you look to long at it might just haunt your dreams, but is unquestionably exquisite in its detail and creativity. From the forked tongue to the fact that it’s holding a tattered black flag and the logo of the festival like a trophy it just won for Most Horrifying Thing With Feathers, it’s every bit the hoodie-worthy level of work one has come to expect from Jerke, who is no stranger to killing it.

Speaking of killing it — FUCKING BEASTWARS ARE PLAYING FREAK VALLEY. I’m thrilled to say I’ve got my flight booked, and no, I have no clue how to get from the airport in Frankfurt to Siegen, and no, I have no clue where I’m staying when I get there, but hot damn, I’m going to Freak Valley 2020. Thanks so much to the festival for inviting me. This is a trip that has been years in the making and I could not possibly be more stoked on it, not the least because it means I’ll see Beastwars, whose work I’ve spent the last decade being pummeled by. Elder ain’t bad either. Ha.

All kidding aside — of course Elder are amazing blah blah blah — this is a pretty killer round of adds. I wrote the announcement, as I’ve done all the Freak Valley 2020 announcements, and I didn’t know Hank Davison at all, but his stuff is pretty right on, and I felt like having seen Sunnata in Norway last October gave me a distinct advantage in understanding where the band was coming from. Revvnant‘s recently-unveiled single bodes well for that set’s experimentalist bent, and while I won’t give The Great Machine too many points for the title of their most recent album, their stuff is pretty off-the-wall heavy in that kind of what-you-wish-Queens–of–the–Stone–Age-became kind of way. I’ll take that.

So here you go. If you’re going, I’ll see you there:

Freaks, The Countdown Is On!

Every one of these announcements brings us closer to Freak Valley Festival 2020 and we can’t wait to welcome you all. There are some huge names coming to the lineup this time, so let’s get down to business!

Join us in welcoming Elder, Beastwars, Sunnata, The Great Machine, Hank Davison & Friends, and Revvnant!

ELDER

Do they need an introduction? We certainly don’t think so. They stand among the next generation’s most crucial and most progressive heavy acts to be found anywhere. With guitarist/vocalist Nick DiSalvo and new drummer Georg Edert based in Berlin, the four-piece are half German at this point, so maybe we’ll think of them coming to FVF as something like a hometown show! Why not? Their upcoming album, Omens, is out in April and paints a proggy wonderland of heavy riffs and lush melodies like never before, with DiSalvo and Mike Risberg’s guitars and keys fleshing ever further out and Jack Donovan’s bass holding down the band’s inimitable groove. They are one-of-a-kind and stand among the upper echelon of modern heavy. There. How’s that for an introduction?

BEASTWARS

You asked, we answered. Let’s face it, Beastwars coming from New Zealand to play at Freak Valley is a gift we’re giving ourselves as much as we’re presenting them to you. For years, we’ve watched and admired from afar as their crushing riffs resonated from Aus/NZ tour after Aus/NZ tour and when the band broke up following 2016’s ‘The Death of All Things,’ we thought we’d never get the chance to witness them in-person. It was facing mortality that brought them back together for 2019’s ‘IV,’ but their sound was as much a physical sonic force as ever, and their sludge will be even more epic coming from the stage. If you know their albums, you already know why we’re so excited. If not, there’s still time to get yourself educated.

SUNNATA

Those who’ve paid heed to the weighted prog rock/metal of Poland’s Sunnata — whose style is like a plant grown from roots of grunge that reaches out to the stratosphere — can attest to the sense of poise and presence they bring live. Their studio work is melodic and forward thinking, to be sure, and on stage, the band transform themselves as a part of the ritual of playing. It’s not just about headbanging or throwing themselves into the songs, it’s about watching their communion with the material as the play, and thus having your own experience with their work. While avoiding all cult rock cliche, they actually bring a ceremonial feel to each performance, and we know you’ll agree as we bring them to Freak Valley 2020.

THE GREAT MACHINE

From the raging speed-punk of “Bitch Too” to the sprawling nod and crash of “DM II,” Israeli three-piece The Great Machine made one hell of an impression with their 2019 album, ‘Greatestits,’ and we knew there was no way we could let 2020 pass without inviting them back to play Freak Valley Festival for the second time. Maybe you caught them in 2017 as they were supporting their ‘Love’ album — “South West Sugar Rush,” anyone? — but you can still expect something new and off the wall for their return. And anyone else who didn’t see them last time? Yeah, you’re in for a treat.

HANK DAVISON & FRIENDS

You Freaks outside of Germany might not be as familiar, but Hank Davison is an institution when it comes to biker blues. From his days leading the Hank Davison Band to his solo acoustic work and more recently finding a middle ground performing unplugged with Hank Davison & Friends, the man himself brings a sense of outlaw country danger and classic blues to everything he does. At the tender age of 63, Davison sets the standard for badassery everywhere he goes, and you know we love our blues here at Freak Valley, so get ready to get down as the “Face of a Wanted Man” itself comes to our stage for the first time. We promise it’ll be something you’ll be talking about long after the weekend is over.

REVVNANT

Back in 2018, it was with bittersweet joy that we played host to the final gig from Baltimore-based blues rockers The Flying Eyes, whom we loved dearly. Revvnant is a new project spearheaded by Elias Schutzmann (also of Black Lung) that brings him out from behind the drumkit to front the band based around psychedelic and progressive experimentation, analog synth, washes of effects noise, soulful vocals, the occasional bit of death-whistle and more. Joined by keyboardist Trevor Shipley and Burnpilot’s Sidney Yendis on drums, Revvnant seem poised to blow open the doors of perception, and we can’t wait to watch them walk through as they forge their own path forward.

Still more to come!

FREAK VALLEY 2020
No Fillers – Just Killers

https://www.facebook.com/events/2434350453469407/
https://www.facebook.com/freakvalley/
http://www.freakvalley.de/
http://www.rockfreaks.de/

Elder, “Omens”