Belfast post-sludge crushers Nomadic Rituals release their fourth album, Fust, March 14 on Cursed Monk Records. It’s the UK trio’s first offering since 2021’s Tides, which by astounding coincidence was reviewed here four years ago this week, and its 43 minutes present a dark, encompassing, rumbling chasm of tone through which hard-barked shouts and death grunts surface. In the realm of the post-metallic, cuts like the stomp-marching opener “Nothing Left to Call Home” still manage to tick the genre’s required boxes for atmosphere, but if you’ve never taken on Nomadic Rituals before, it’s worth noting that this isn’t synth-fetish ambience and telegraphed loud/quiet tradeoffs. As a unit, Nomadic Rituals even at their quietest — the moment of letup at the beginning of “Beneath Black Skies” at the presumed start of side B, for example — are foreboding, and tonal and atmospheric weight are working toward likewise threatening ends.
“Change,” for which a duly stark performance video is premiering below, is the first single from the record, and it meets the listener at the place where Isis once internalized Godflesh‘s despondent plod. It is the penultimate cut on the six-track/43-minute onslaught, and in following Rwake-y lurch of “Beneath Black Skies,” it precedes the gnashing “The Rot,” which closes and is the longest inclusion at 9:28, rife with feedback and even rawer-throated vocally by the finish than it was at the start. That placement, as well as the tension in the drums and the work the three-piece do across “Nothing Left to Call Home,” the scathing “Boundless Formless” that makes the abyss first and then stares into it, and the hits-harder-when-the-vocals-go-high-low-death-metal-in-the-chorus “Fault in the Process” on side A, lays out the context for all the second half of the LP’s amplified devastation, but Nomadic Rituals are plenty consistent across Fust. Whatever they come upon is flattened.
Okay, here goes. For the last week-plus, I’ve been doing my best to completely bury my head in the sand and ignore the world outside my house. I actively don’t want to know what’s happening. My reasons are political, but real in ways that affect my daily life; I am not in the abstract in my concerns, and if I was, I’m not sure that invalidates them. The reason I’m telling you this at all isn’t just because I’m stoned and into honesty, but to point out that while Fust is playing, it’s really hard to forget that the same world outside is a terrible place filled with cruel people who, even if they don’t actively want to hurt others, don’t help when they could. Apathy as a moral position. Well fine. I wanna check out, too. I’ll just let it all go and trust it will be fine because that’s what my mom told me when I was five. Nomadic Rituals reveal this for the weakness it is, foster aggression, and herald the catharsis behind their cruelty. Fust, it turns out, is too pummeling to play pretend, even when you really want to.
Obviously not everybody has the same backdrop of existential-dread — though I don’t know why not — but however you hear Fust, expect to be moved by the impact of the material and the all-mellows-harshed delivery as a whole. Nomadic Rituals aren’t new to this, and the mood-creating intention behind their craft can be felt even in the arrangements themselves — the relatively stage-ready sound isn’t overly layered, etc. — and the rawness of approach they represent. “Change” doesn’t stand in as analogous to everything Nomadic Rituals have going on in Fust, but it harnesses the same intensity that drives the material around it, and its viciousness is not to be understated. In that way, it very much is a stand-in for the entire album.
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 21st, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Something unsurprising about the new Nomadic Rituals track? It’s very, very heavy. This is consistent from Northern Irish post-metallic crushers Nomadic Rituals, whose new album is called Fust and was announced by Cursed Monk Records as being due March 14. I haven’t heard the full record yet because I’m not that cool, but if you ever heard people talk about how Isis were influenced by Godflesh and it didn’t make sense to you, “Change” brings that connection to light in its semi-industrial churn. The weight that ensues is very much the band’s own and expertly wielded in addition to bludgeoning.
It’s a kind of extreme post-metal, and like extreme anything, it’s going to leave some listeners cold. I’m fairly certain drawing a line between those who can take it and those who can’t is part of what “Change” is doing — the same could be said of Nomadic Rituals‘ work to this point more generally — but if you can hang with this kind of Primitive Man-ish caustic claustrophobia, the catharsis is real.
From the label:
Nomadic Rituals are back with their fourth album, “Fust”.
This latest offering promises to be their most intense and evocative work yet to capture the essence of their evolution and the raw power that defines their music.
Fust is 6 track album that points the finger directly at the human race, highlighting its flaws and attitudes toward catastrophe and corruption.
With a reputation for exhilarating live performances and a commitment to sonic exploration, Nomadic Rituals continues to carve out their own legacy in the world of heavy music.
“Fust” will be released March 14th, on Digital and CD, and April 11th on LP.
Posted in Reviews on October 21st, 2024 by JJ Koczan
This is the last day of the Fall 2024 Quarterly Review. Day 11 of 10, as it were. Bonus-extra, as we say at home. 10 more releases of various kinds to underscore the point of the infinite creative sphere. Before we dive in, I want to make a note about the header above. It’s the same one I used a couple times during the pandemic, with the four horseman of the apocalypse riding, and I put it in place of the AI art I’d been using because that seems to be a trigger for so many people.
In my head, I did that to avoid the conversation, to avoid dealing with someone who might be like, “Ugh, AI art” and then a conversation that deteriorates in the way of people talking at each other on the internet. This saves me the trouble. I’ll note the irony that swiping an old etching out of the public domain and slapping an Obelisk logo on it is arguably less creative than feeding a prompt into a generative whathaveyou, but at least this way I don’t have to hear the underground’s moral panic that AI is coming for stoner rock.
Quarterly Review #101-110:
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Chat Pile, Cool World
Chat Pile are two-for-two on living up to the hype in my mind as Cool World follows the band’s 2022 debut, God’s Country (review here), with a darker, more metal take on that record’s trauma-poetic and nihilistic noise rock. Some of the bassy jabs in songs like “Camcorder” and “Frownland” remind of Korn circa their self-titled, but I’m not sure Chat Pile were born when that record came out, and that harder, fuller-sounding impact comes in a context with “Tape” following “Camcorder” in bringing together Meshuggah and post-punk, so take it as you will. Based in Oklahoma City, Chat Pile are officially A Big Deal With Dudes™, but in a style that’s not exactly known for reinvention — i.e. noise rock — they are legitimately a breath of air that would be ‘fresh’ if it weren’t so desolate and remains innovative regardless. There’s gonna be a lot of mediocre riffs and shitty poetry written in an attempt to capture a fraction of what this record does.
I guess the anonymous project Neon Nightamre — who sound and aesthetic-wise are straight-up October Rust-and-later Type O Negative; the reason the album caught my eye was the framing of the letters around the corners — have gotten some harsh response to their debut, Faded Dream. Critic-type dudes pearl-clutching a band’s open unoriginality. Because to be sure, beyond dedicating the album to Peter Steele — and maybe they did, I haven’t seen the full artwork — Neon Nightmare could hardly do more in naked homage to the semi-goth Brooklyn legends and their distinctive Beatles/Sabbath worship. But I mean, that’s the point. It’s not like this band is saying they’re the first ones doing any of this, and in a world where AI could scrape every Type O record and pump out some half-assed interpretation in five minutes, isn’t something that attempts to demonstrate actual human love for the source material as it builds on it worth at least acknowledging as creative? I like Type O Negative a lot. The existence of Neon Nightmare doesn’t lessen that at all, and there are individual flashes of style in “Lost Silver” — the keyboard line feels like an easter egg from “Anesthesia”; I wondered if the title was in honor of Josh Silver — and the guitar work of “She’s Drowning” that make me even more curious to see where this goes.
Brooklyn-based instrumentalist five-piece Astrometer present their full-length debut after releasing their first demo, Incubation (review here), in 2022. The double-guitar pairing of Carmine Laietta V and Drew Mack and the drumming of Jeff Stieber at times will put you in mind of their collective past playing together in Hull, but the keys of Jon Ehlers (Bangladeafy) and the basswork of Sam Brodsky (Meek is Murder) assure that the newer collective have a persona and direction of their own, so that while the soaring solo in “Power Vulture” or the crashes of “Blood Wedding” might ring familiar, the context has shifted, so that those crashes come accompanied by sax and there’s room for a song like “Conglobulations” with its quirk, rush and crunching bounce to feel cosmic with the keyboard, and that blend of crush and reach extends into the march of closer “Do I Know How to Party…” which feels like a preface for things to come in its progressive punch.
An annual check-in from universe-and-chill molten and mellow heavy psych explorers Acid Rooster. It’s only been a year since the band unfurled Flowers and Dead Souls, but Hall of Mirrors offers another chance to be hypnotized by the band’s consuming fluidity, the 39-minute four-songer coming across as focused on listener immersion in no small part as a result of Acid Rooster‘s own. That is, it’s not like you’re swimming around the bassline and residual synth and guitar effects noise in the middle of the 14-minute “Chandelier Arp” and the band are standing calm and dry back on the beach. No way. They’re right in it. I don’t know if they were closed-eyes entranced while the recording was taking place, but if you want a definition of ‘dug in,’ Hall of Mirrors has four, and Acid Rooster‘s capacity for conveying purpose as they plunge into a jam-born piece like “Confidence of Ignorance” sets them apart from much of Europe’s psychedelic underground in establishing a meditative atmosphere. They are unafraid of the serene, and not boring. This is an achievement.
Giants Dawrfs and Black Holes, Echo on Death of Narcissus
Five years on from their start, Germany’s Giants Dwarfs and Black Holes present Echo on Death of Narcissus as their third full-length and the follow-up to 2023’s In a Sandbox Full of Suns (review here) as the four-piece bring in new guitarist Caio Puttini Chaves alongside vocalist Christiane Thomaßen, guitarist Tomasz Riedel (also bass and keys) and drummer Carsten Freckmann for a five-track collection that has another album’s worth of knows-what-it’s-about behind it. Opener “Again,” long enough at eight minutes to be a bookend with the finale “Take Me Down” (13:23) but not so long as to undercut that expanse, leads into three competent showings of classic progressive/psychedelic rock, casual in the flow between “Soul Trip” and the foreboding strums of centerpiece “Flowers of Evil” ahead of the also-languid “December Bloom.” And when they get there, “Take Me Down” has a jammy breadth all its own that shimmers in the back half soloing, which kind of devolves at the end, but resounds all the more as organic for that.
Oryx‘s Primordial Sky threads a stylistic needle across its four songs. Delivered through Translation Loss, the 41-minute follow-up to the Denver trio’s 2021 offering, Lamenting a Dead World (discussed here), is no less extreme than one would expect, but to listen to 13-minute opener/longest track (immediate points), 13-minute capper “Look Upon the Earth,” or either of the seven-minute cuts between, it’s plain to both hear and see that there’s more to Oryx atmospherically than onslaught, however low guitarist Thomas Davis (also synth) pushes his growls amid the lurching grooves of bassist Joshua Kauffman and drummer Abigail Davis. This is something that five records and more than a decade on from their start their listeners know well, but as they refine their processes, even the outright sharp-toothed consumption of “Ephemeral” has some element of outreach.
Heads up on this record for those who dig the mellower end of heavy psych, plus intricacy of arrangement, which is a number in which I very much count myself. By that I mean don’t be surprised when Sunface‘s Cloud Castles shows up on my year-end list. It’s less outwardly traditionalist than some of the heavy rock coming out of Norway at this point in history, but showcasing a richer underground only makes Cloud Castles more vital in my mind, and as even a shorter song like “Thunder Era” includes an open-enough sensibility to let a shoegazier sway enter the proceedings in “Violet Ponds” without seeming incongruous for the post-All Them Witches bluesy sway that underlies it. Innovative for the percussion in “Tall Trees” alone, Sunface are weighted in tone but able to move in a way that feels like their own, and to convey that movement without upsetting the full-album flow across the 10 songs and 44 minutes with radical changes in meter, while at the same time not dwelling too long in any single stretch or atmosphere.
While consistent with their two prior LPs in the general modus of unmitigated aural heft and oppressive, extreme sludge, Fórn declare themselves on broader aesthetic ground in incorporating electronic elements courtesy of guitarist Joey Gonzalez and Andrew Nault, as well as newcomer synthesist Lane Shi Otayonii, whose clean vocals also provide a sense of space to 11-minute post-intro plunge “Soul Shadow.” If it’s the difference between all-crush and mostly-crush, that’s not nothing, and “Anamnesis” can be that much noisier for the band’s exploring a more encompassing sound. Live drums are handled in a guest capacity by Ilsa‘s Josh Brettell, and that band’s Orion Peter also sits in alongside Fórn‘s Chris Pinto and Otayonii, and with Danny Boyd on guitar and Brian Barbaruolo on bass, the sound is duly massive, tectonic and three-dimensional; the work of a band following a linear progression toward new ideas and balancing that against the devastation laid forth in their songs. Repercussions of the Self does not want for challenge directed toward the listener, but the crux is catharsis more than navelgazing, and the intensity here is no less crucial to Fórn‘s post-metallic scene-setting than it has been to this point in their tenure. Good band actively making themselves better.
Big-riffed heavy fuzz rock from Northern Ireland as the Belfast-based self-releasing-for-now four-piece of vocalist/synthesist Fionnuala McGlinchy, guitarist Tom Finney, bassist Michael McFarlane and drummer Ciaran O’Kane touch on vibes reminiscent of some of Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard‘s synth-fused sci-fi doom roil while keeping the material more earthbound in terms of tone and structure, so that the seven-minute “The Abstract” isn’t quite all-in on living up to the title, plenty liquefied, but still aware of itself and where it’s going. This mitigated terrestrialism — think Middle of Nowhere-era Acid King — is the source of a balance to which Negative Space, the band’s second album, is able to reshape as required by a given song — “Burning Gaze” has its far-out elements, they’re there for a reason — and thereby portray a range of moods rather than dwelling in the same emotional or atmospheric space for the duration. Bookending intro “As Above” and the closer “So Below” further the impression of the album as a single work/journey to undertake, and indeed that seems to be how the character of “The Forest,” “Delirium” and the rest of the material flourishes.
Romanian instrumentalist heavy psych purveyors Methadone Skies sent word of the follow-up to 2021’s Retrofuture Caveman (review here) last month and said that the six-songer Spectres at Dawn was the heaviest work they’d done in their now-six-album tenure. Well they’re right. Taking cues from Russian Circles and various others in the post-heavy sphere, guitarists Alexandru Wehry and Casian Stanciu, bassist Mihai Guta and drummer Flavius Retea (also keyboards, of increasing prominence in the sound), are still able to dive into a passage and carry across a feeling of openness and expanse, but on “Mano Cornetto” here that becomes just part of a surprisingly stately rush of space metal, and 10-minute closer “Use the Excessive Force” seems to be laying out its intention right there in the title. Whether the ensuing blastbeats are, in fact, excessive, will be up to the individual listener, but either way, Methadone Skies have done their diligence in letting listeners know where they’re headed, and Spectres at Dawn embodies that forwardness of ethic on multiple levels.
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 18th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
While a little more than a month out from the recording of their next full-length, North Irish heavy sci-fi tonal plungemakers Slomatics have all-of-a-sudden-like dropped a new 2CD compilation to mark their 20th anniversary as a band.
Both are good news and something of a surprise. After all, it hasn’t been that long since the Belfast three-piece issued 2023’s Strontium Fields (review here), so even if their eighth album were to surface in early 2025 — which would be likely given the Fall start — that’s still a pretty quick turnaround. In the meantime, the double-disc Silver Ships Into the Past pairs off-album tracks (and calling them that somewhat undersells the quality of material Slomatics are likely to include on a split) with a selection of live-recorded tunes spanning the last 20 years. It’s got “Buried Axes on Regulus Minor,” man. I’m not sure what more you’d want.
I’d tell you to buy a copy, but honestly I don’t want them to sell out before (my wife’s) payday, so yeah, maybe hold off. By all means, feel free to pummel yourself into oblivion with max-volume streaming though. Bandcamp player is at the bottom of the post. Text came down the PR wire:
2024 marks 20 years of Slomatics. Even writing that down feels a little surreal; there’s even a chance that you might not have been born when we released our first 7 inch in 2005. 20 years is a long time to do anything, but for us it’s hard to imagine not doing this. Our ambitions in 2004 were much the same as they are now – make it to weekly rehearsal, play a few shows, and write new music.
The last of those aims has remained central for us; we are old enough to remember a time when bands released an album every year. We aren’t a full time band, and real life takes up too much time for that level of productivity, but we have tried to release as much music as possible over the 20 years. I’m sure a music industry mogul would advise us against releasing so many splits with other bands, but for us getting to share a release with a band we love is really what music is all about.
This collection ties together all the non-album studio material we have released since 2012, the year that our cosmic leader Marty agreed to ‘sit in on drums for a few shows’. CD2 is a live session we recorded in our second home – Start Together Studios here in Belfast, drawing together songs from the entire duration of the band. We return to the studio in September to record album number 8, so until then, here is a reflection on what happens when three middle-aged volume freaks end up in room together every week.
This double CD comes in a gatefold digi-pack cover, and is strictly limited. Orders are live on Bandcamp right now.
Tracklisting: 1. Running Battle 05:10 2. Son of Ampbreaker 04:46 3. Ulysses, My Father 04:26 4. Ancient Architects 08:11 5. Silver Ships Into The Future 03:40 6. Masters Descent 08:11 7. Kaān 05:43 8. Proto Hag 04:30 9. Monitors 07:13 10. Griefhound 04:25 11. Positive Runes 08:02 12. Buried Axes on Regulus Minor 03:54 13. Dustrider 04:52 14. Electric Breath (Live) 06:12 15. Futurian (Live) 03:51 16. Lost Punisher (Live) 04:26 17. And Yet It Moves (Live) 07:20 18. Tramontane (Live) 06:00 19. Son of Ampbreaker (Lve) 05:38
CD1: Tracks 1, 2 and 7-13 produced and mixed by Rocky O’Reilly at Start Together
Tracks 3-6 recorded and mixed by Chris Fielding at Skyhammer Studio.
CD2: Tracks 14-19 recorded live at Start Together Studio, Belfast. Mixed by Niall Doran.
Slomatics are: Marty Harvey – Drums, keys, vocals Chris Couzens – Guitar David Majury – Guitar
Posted in Reviews on August 29th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
On the cusp of marking their 20th anniversary as a band in 2024, the Belfast-based gravitational force known as Slomatics offer Strontium Fields as their seventh album. Issued as their third LP for Black Bow Records behind 2019’s Canyons (review here) and 2017’s Future Echo Returns (review here), produced as ever by Rocky O’Reilly at Start Together Studio — O’Reilly plays on it as well, I think — and as Strontium Fields boasts mastering by James Plotkin, the returning trio lineup of guitarists David Majury and Chris Couzens and drummer/vocalist/synthesist Marty Harvey (also War Iron), epic gatefold artwork (by Ryan Lesser in this case), and tectonically chugging riffs meeting with grandiose sci-fi keyboard, there’s plenty in the eight-song/36-minute full-length to make familiar listeners feel in-the-know. Opener “Wooden Satellites” sets a course through tumult and tone, the Northern Irish three-piece beginning at a semi-slog through downer-chug riffing laced as it moves into the first verse with theremin-esque sounds, soon enough establishing the chorus that coincides; some mention of a Red Queen along the way adds a sense of story, but I haven’t seen a lyric sheet so can’t necessarily speak to it.
But strontium — chemical symbol Sr, number 38 on the periodic table — is an alkaline earth metal abundant in the planet’s crust, is used to turn fireworks and flares red, sometimes to make stuff glow in the dark, and is radioactive in its man-made isotopes. One imagines a field of it would be a striking and apocalyptic image, which is suitable to Slomatics‘ general aesthetic. They are cybernetic dystopia’s favorite riffers. And as much as Strontium Fields celebrates that, it also finds Slomatics trying new ideas in sound even from what they were doing in 2022 on their split with Sweden’s Domkraft, Ascend/Descend (review here). This is most emphasized across the span in Harvey‘s vocals, which have never engaged in more complex melodicism or soared quite as they do here. There’s some layering, maybe a guest spot, in “Wooden Satellites,” but as Strontium Fields plays through side A in “I, Neanderthal,” “Time Capture” and “Like a Kind of Minotaur” — which, sure enough, is; the band have always had a knack for titling songs seemingly in answer to the riffs on which they’re based — and across side B headed toward the finale in “With Dark Future,” its component tracks also interact in new ways.
To wit, “I, Neanderthal” taps into Metallica‘s “Sad But True” in its intro with more open drums before building into its push-forward verse, more uptempo than the opener but still midtempo by most standards. Harvey, his voice compressed, has a shout like Lee Dorrian on some of the later Cathedral fare, but as the chorus spreads wide to offset some of the tension amassed in the verse and bridge, the belted-out melody returns. At 3:10, the guitars cut out and piano comes in where the riff had been to round out a four minutes that feels much bigger ahead of the synthy start of “Time Capture,” which is at the core of what Slomatics are bringing to Strontium Fields atmospherically. Feeling like a pandemic-era contemplation, it removes the weighted wall of distortion that typifies their approach, and instead puts a keyboard or effects drone at the forefront with Harvey‘s duly mournful vocal overtop, verse harmonies echoing “Wooden Satellites” in a sidestep context like futurist ambient pop. At none of its opportunities to ‘get heavy’ does it do so.
I know that sounds funny, but considering who Slomatics are and who they’ve become over their seven records together, it means something. There is guitar that comes in later (unless it’s more keys), at around 4:30 to add to the last verse, but while Slomatics have had atmospheric breaks, usually contrasted by the arrival of some particularly crushing progression, the focus on melody throughout Strontium Fields and the way they execute “Time Capture” come across as genuinely new, which is something to appreciate for a band approaching 20 years since their start and who are now past a decade in their current configuration. Where otherwise “Time Capture” might explode in a skullcleaver of a riff, Strontium Fields leaves it to “Like a Kind of Minotaur” to fill that role, which it does in immediate crush and a classic Slomatics nod and a general gone-to-ground vibe. It changes at the halfway point and opens a bit with some wah guitar, but that “ough” at 3:03 is fully earned as they ride the chug to the end of side A and, on linear/digital formats, make another smooth turn into the quiet beginning of “Voidians.”
And for at least the better part of its first two minutes, “Voidians” works a bit like “Time Capture” in its quieter, mood-minded reach. But when the opportunity presents itself at 1:55 into the total 6:32 (it’s the longest inclusion but not by a ton over “Time Capture” or “With Dark Futures”), “Voidians” does get heavy, cycling through a louder chorus before dropping out to loop through the verse again. Its second chorus gives over to kick-driven lumber, and Slomatics chug into synth-laced oblivion to end, but the affect of the intro to “Voidians” and the whole of “Time Capture” is resonant throughout, and the wistful balladry and shimmering strum of the 2:37 “Zodiac Arts Lab” go even further, with a vocal/guitar melody that reminds in part of INXS‘ “Never Tear Us Apart” perhaps as delivered by Tau and the Drones of Praise, a second guitar entering with lead lines around the central rhythm. It’s the shortest cut, and the boldest in many ways, including in its lack of drums, which if vinyl symmetry follows means that the subsequent, penultimate “ARCS” is going to destroy.
It does. Slowly. Barely there in its creeper guitar outset, it lurches forth on undulations of doomer distortion as a backdrop for a clear verse almost seeming to continue the style of “Zodiac Arts Lab,” but in a decidedly more tectonic form, and while “Time Capture,” “Voidians,” and “Zodiac Arts Lab” show Slomatics working in new methods, “ARCS” internalizes that, pairs it with their long-established tonal heft and offers something that is emotional and evocative as an end product. And even if these are elements/ideas that Slomatics have presented on record before, they’re doing so here in new ways and as “ARCS” drops out, surges again, peaks heavy and caps with the drums fading as they’re soon to again on “With Dark Futures,” Strontium Fields underscores the multifaceted take Slomatics have developed over the last decade-plus. The closer arrives crashing in big, unfolds itself over its intro. Verses peppered with whispers seem to speak directly to the audience (or the self): “You are awake/You are alive/Breathe/Just breathe,” they advise.
There are twists in the plot of the final chapter here as well, as “With Dark Futures” stops and feedbacks as if to say “here we go around again” before resuming its planetary stomp, incorporating the synth, which only makes it sound huger. Harvey returns for last verses, and they cap with a due crescendo before the aforementioned percussive fadeout, but even in having less outright tension in the early verses, “With Dark Futures” finds Slomatics exploring, details like whispers at the end of some of the verse lines, or the way they carry into the finish assuring the point is conveyed, which it is beyond a doubt. With their modus steady beneath them, Slomatics feel somewhat freer to explore upward, looking at the sky aurally and maybe finding a bit of escapism in that. What Strontium Fields will mean for them as they move forward, I can’t say, but in both its expected and unexpected aspects, it offers a heaping dose of the vitality so much a part of their process and a deeper look at their dynamic than they’ve ever before given. That these songs are very, very heavy shouldn’t be taken for granted, and that they’re more than just that is a thing to be appreciated.
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 10th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
I don’t often actually put releases on my calendar, because, well, if I want to look up when something I’ve written about is due, I can just come here and find it in the back end of the site. Slomatics, though, are an exception on multiple fronts. Their new full-length, Strontium Fields, will release on Sept. 8, and that’ll go on the calendar for sure. The Northern Irish trio’s follow-up to their well-received Ascend/Descend (review here) 2022 split with Domkraft (who also have a new album coming) and others with Yanomamo and Ungraven — I’ll spare you the links… for now — comes four years after the last Slomatics LP, Canyons (review here), which like the forthcoming Strontium Fields was offered through Black Bow Records, the label helmed by Jon Davis of pummeling UK riffers Conan.
And not unlike Conan‘s last record, come to think of it, Slomatics branch out a bit on their latest collection. Across eight songs they offer their signature tonal crush with an uptick in reach and atmosphere, as well as some of the most complex melodies they’ve put to tape — they were produced, as always, by Rocky O’Reilly at Start Together in Belfast — and I’m curious to see how it will be received. You get hints of that in the synth and vocals of “I, Neanderthal,” the first single from the album, which you can and should stream at the bottom of this post. In fact, why don’t I just leave you to it?
From the PR wire:
SLOMATICS – Strontium Fields
We are excited to announce our new album ‘Strontium Fields’ will be released through @blackbowrecords on September 8th. Pre-orders are live on our bandcamp and Blackbow records Big Cartel right now!
There are three vinyl variants, with the ‘starburst’ vinyl being sold exclusively by us.
The first song from the album ‘I, Neanderthal’ will be streaming on Bandcamp today.
For the bargain lovers out there we are offering two bundle deals, including new shirts.
Thanks to everyone involved in getting this album out there, and thank YOU for your support. We can’t wait for you to hear these songs!
Tracklisting: 1. Wooden Satellites 2. I, Neanderthal 3. Time Capture 4. Like A Kind of Minotaur 5. Voidians 6. Zodiac Arts Lab 7. ARCS 8. With Dark Futures
Slomatics produced by Rocky O’Reilly at Start Together Studio. Artwork by Ryan Lesser Mastered by James Plotkin. Released via Black Bow Records.
Slomatics are: Marty Harvey – Drums, keys, vocals Chris Couzens – Guitar David Majury – Guitar
Posted in Reviews on April 14th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
If you work in an office, or you ever have, or you’ve ever spoken to someone who has or does or whatever — which is everybody, is what I’m saying — then you’ll probably have a good idea of why I cringe at saying “happy Friday” as though the end of a workweek’s slog is a holiday even with the next week peering just over the horizon beyond the next 48 hours of not-your-boss time. Nonetheless, we’re at the end of this week, hitting 50 records covered in this Quarterly Review, and while I’ll spend a decent portion of the upcoming weekend working on wrapping it up on Monday and Tuesday, I’m grateful for the ability to breathe a bit in doing that more than I have throughout this week.
I’ll say as much in closing out the week as well, but thanks for reading. As always, I hope you enjoy.
Quarterly Review #41-50:
Black Helium, UM
It’s just too cool for the planet. Earth needs to step up its game if it wants to be able handle what London’s Black Helium are dishing out across their five-song third record, UM, from the sprawl and heavy hippie rock of “Another Heaven” to the utter doom that rises to prominence in that 12-minute-ish cut and the oblivion-bound boogie, blowout, and bonfire that is 15:47 closer “The Keys to Red Skeleton’s House (Open the Door)” on the other end, never mind the u-shaped kosmiche march of “I Saw God,” the shorter, stranger, organ-led centerpiece “Dungeon Head” or the motorik “Summer of Hair” that’s so teeth-grindingly tense by the time it’s done you can feel it in your toes. These are but glimpses of the substance that comprises the 45-minute out-there-out-there-out-there stretch of UM, which by the way is also a party? And you’re invited? I think? Yeah, you can go, but the rest of these fools gotta get right if they want to hang with the likes of “I Saw God,” because Black Helium do it weird for the weirdos and the planet might be round but that duddn’t mean it’s not also square. Good thing Black Helium remembered to bring the launch codes. Fire it up. We’re outta here and off to better, trippier, meltier places. Fortunately they’re able to steer the ship as well as set its controls to the heart of the sun.
A demo recording of a single, 29-minute track that’s slated to appear on Seismic‘s debut full-length based around the works of H.G. Wells sometime later this year — yeah, it’s safe to say there’s a bit of context that goes along with understanding where the Philadelphia instrumentalist trio/live-foursome are coming from on “The Time Machine.” Nonetheless, the reach of the song itself — which moves from its hypnotic beginning at about five minutes in to a solo-topped stretch that then gives over to thud-thud-thud pounding heft before embarking on an adventure 30,000 leagues under the drone, only to rise and riff again, doom. the. fuck. on., and recede to minimalist meditation before resolving in mystique-bent distortion and lumber — is significant, and more than enough to stand on its own considering that in this apparently-demo version, its sound is grippingly full. As to what else might be in store for the above-mentioned LP or when it might land, I have no idea and won’t speculate — I’m just going by what they say about it — but I know enough at this point in my life to understand that when a band comes along and hits you with a half-hour sledgehammering to the frontal cortex as a sign of things to come, it’s going to be worth keeping track of what they do next. If you haven’t heard “The Time Machine” yet, consider this a heads up to their heads up.
Something of an awaited first long-player from Chicago’s These Beasts, who crush the Sanford Parker-produced Cares, Wills, Wants with modern edge and fluidity moving between heavier rock and sludge metal, the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Chris Roo, bassist/vocalist Todd Fabian and drummer Keith Anderson scratching a similar itch in intensity and aggression as did L.A. sludgecore pummelers -(16)- late last year, but with their own shimmer in the guitar on “Nervous Fingers,” post-Baroness melody in “Cocaine Footprints,” and tonal heft worthy of Floor on the likes of “Blind Eyes” and the more purely caustic noise rock of “Ten Dollars and Zero Effort.” “Code Name” dizzies at the outset, while “Trap Door” closes and tops out at over seven minutes, perhaps taking its title from the moment when, as it enters its final minute, the bottom drops out and the listener is eaten alive. Beautifully destructive, it’s also somehow what I wish post-hardcore had been in the 2000s, ripping and gnarling on “Southpaw” while still having space among the righteously maddening, Neurot-tribal percussion work to welcome former Pelican guitarist Dallas Thomas for a guest spot. Next wave of artsy Chicago heavy noise? Sign me up. And I don’t know if that’s Roo or Fabian with the harsh scream, but it’s a good one. You can hear the mucus trying to save the throat from itself. Vocal cords, right down the trap door.
Comprised of Cucho Segura on guitar and vocals, Sara Gdm on bass and drummer Rafa Pacheco, Ajeeb are the first band from the Canary Islands to be written about here, and their second album — issued through no fewer than 10 record labels, some of which are linked below — is the 11-song/42-minute Refractions, reminding in heavy fashion that the roots of grunge were in noisy punk all along. There’s some kick behind songs like “Far Enough” and “Mold,” and the later “Stuck for Decades” reminds of grainy festival videos where moshing was just people running into each other — whereas on “Mustard Surfing” someone might get punched in the head — but the listening experience goes deeper the further in you get, with side B offering a more dug-in take with the even-more-grunge “Slow-Vakia” building on “Oh Well” two songs earlier and leading into the low-end shovefest “Stuck for Decades,” which you think is going to let you breathe and then doesn’t, the noisier “Double Somersault” and closer/longest song “Tail Chasing” (5:13) taking the blink-and-it’s-over quiet part in “Amnesia” and building it out over a dynamic finish. The more you listen, the more you’re gonna hear, of course, but on the most basic level, the adaptable nature of their sound results in a markedly individual take. It’s the kind of thing 10 labels might want to release.
One might be tempted to think of Porto-based funeral doomers OAK as a side-project for guitarist/vocalist Guilherme Henriques, bassist Lucas Ferrand and drummer Pedro Soares, the first two of whom play currently and the latter formerly of also-on-Season–of–Mist extreme metallers Gaerea, but that does nothing to take away from the substance of the single-song full-length Disintegrate, which plies its heft in emotionality, ambience and tone alike. Throughout 44 minutes, the three-piece run an album’s worth of a gamut in terms of tempo, volume, ebbs and flows, staying grim all the while but allowing for the existence of beauty in that darkness, no less at some of the most willfully grueling moments. The rise and fall around 20 minutes in, going from double-kick-infused metallurgy to minimal standalone guitar and rebuilding toward death-growl-topped nod some six minutes later, is worth the price of admission alone, but the tortured ending, with flourish either of lead guitar or keys behind the shouted layers before moving into tremolo payoff and the quieter contemplation that post-scripts, shouldn’t be missed either. Like any offering of such extremity, Disintegrate won’t be for everyone, but it makes even the air you breathe feel heavier as it draws you into the melancholic shade it casts.
“Are we cursed?” “Is this living?” “Are we dying?” These are the questions asked after the on-rhythm sampled orgasmic moaning abates on the slow-undulating title-track of Ultra Void‘s Mother of Doom. Billed as an EP, the five-songer skirts the line of full-length consideration at 31 minutes — all the more for its molten flow as punctuated by the programmed drums — and finds the Brooklynite outfit revamped as a solo-project for Jihef Garnero, who moves from that leadoff to let the big riff do most of the talking in the stoned-metal “Sic Mundus Creatus Est” and the raw self-jam of the nine-minute “Måntår,” which holds back its vocals for later and is duly hypnotic for it. Shorter and more rocking, “Squares & Circles” maintains the weirdo vibe just the same, and at just three and a half minutes, “Special K” closes out in similar fashion with perhaps more swing in the rhythm. With those last two songs offsetting the down-the-life-drain spirit of the first three, Mother of Doom seems experimental in its construction — Garnero feeling his way into this new incarnation of the band and perhaps also recording and mixing himself in this context — but the disillusion comes through as organic, and whether we’re living or dying (spoiler: dying), that gives these songs the decisive “ugh” with which they seem to view the world around them.
Italian trio Aktopasa — also stylized as Akṭōpasa, if you’re in a fancy mood — seem to revel in the breakout moments on their second long-player and Argonauta label debut, Journey to the Pink Planet, as heard in the crescendo nod and boogie, respectively, of post-intro opener “Calima” (10:27) and closer “Foreign Lane” (10:45), the album’s two longest tracks and purposefully-placed bookends around the other songs. Elsewhere, the Venice-based almost-entirely-instrumentalists drift early in “It’s Not the Reason” — which actually features the record’s only vocals near its own end, contributed by Mattia Filippetto — and tick boxes around the tenets of heavy psychedelic microgenre, from the post-Colour Haze floating intimacy at the start of “Agarthi” to the fuzzy and fluid jam that branches out from it and the subsequent “Sirdarja” with its tabla and either sitar or guitar-as-sitar outset and warm-toned, semi-improv-sounding jazzier conclusion. From “Alif” (the intro) into “Calima” and “Lunar Eclipse,” the intent is to hypnotize and carry the listener through, and Aktopasa do so effectively, giving the chemistry between guitarist Lorenzo Barutta, bassist Silvio Tozzato and drummer Marco Sebastiano Alessi a suitably natural showcase and finding peace in the process, at least sonically-speaking, that’s then fleshed out over the remainder. A record to breathe with.
There’s heavy metal somewhere factored into the sound of Philadelphia’s Troll Teeth, but where it resides changes. The band — who here work as a four-piece for the first time — unveil their Underground Vol. 1 EP with four songs, and each one has a different take. In “Cher Ami,” the question is what would’ve happened if Queens of the Stone Age were in the NWOBHM. In “Expired,” it’s whether or not the howling of the two guitars will actually melt the chug that offsets it. It doesn’t, but it comes close to overwhelming in the process. On “Broken Toy” it’s can something be desert rock because of the drums alone, and in the six-minute closer “Garden of Pillars” it’s Alice in Chains with a (more) doomly reimagining and greater melodic reach in vocals as compared to the other three songs, but filled out with a metallic shred that I guess is a luxury of having two guitars on a record when you haven’t done so before. Blink and you’ll miss its 17-minute runtime, but Troll Teeth have four LPs out through Electric Talon, including 2022’s Hanged, Drawn, & Quartered, so there’s plenty more to dig into should you be so inclined. Still, if the idea behind Underground Vol. 1 was to scope out whether the band works as constructed here, the concept is proven. Yes, it works. Now go write more songs.
Lead track “Jukai” hasn’t exploded yet before Finis Hominis‘ Sordidum Est EP has unveiled the caustic nature of its bite in scathing feedback, and what ensues from there gives little letup in the oppressive, extreme sludge brutality, which makes even the minute-long “Cavum Nigrum” sample-topped drone interlude claustrophobic, never mind the assault that takes place — fast first, then slow, then crying, then slow, then dead — on nine-minute capper “Lorem Ipsum.” The bass hum that begins centerpiece “Improportionatus” is a thread throughout that 7:58 piece, the foundation on which the rest of the song resides, the indecipherable-even-if-they-were-in-English growls and throat-tearing shouts perfectly suited to the heft of the nastiness surrounding. “Jukai” has some swing in the middle but hearing it is still like trying to inhale concrete, and “Sinne Floribus” is even meaner and rawer, the Brazilian trio resolving in a devastating and noise-caked, visceral regardless of pace or crash, united in its alienated feel and aural punishment. And it’s their first EP! Jesus. Unless they’re actually as unhinged as they at times sound — possible, but difficult — I wouldn’t at all expect it to be their last. A band like this doesn’t happen unless the people behind it feel like it needs to, and most likely it does.
With its title maybe referring to the communion among players and the music they’re making in the moment of its own heavy psych jams, Losing Time Finding Space is the second studio full-length from Belfast instrumentalist unit Space Shepherds. The improvised-sounding troupe seem to have a lineup no less fluid than the material they unfurl, but the keyboard in “Ending the Beginning (Pt. 1)” gives a cinematic ambience to the midsection, and the fact that they even included an intro and interlude — both under two minutes long — next to tracks the shortest of which is 12:57 shows a sense of humor and personality to go along with all that out-there cosmic exploratory seeking. Together comprising a title-track, “Losing Time…” (17:34) and “…Finding Space” (13:27) are unsurprisingly an album unto themselves, and being split like “Ending the Beginning” speaks perhaps of a 2LP edition to come, or at very least is emblematic of the mindset with which they’re approaching their work. That is to say, as they move forward with these kinds of mellow-lysergic jams, they’re not unmindful either of the listener’s involvement in the experience or the prospect of realizing them in the physical as well as digital realms. For now, an hour’s worth of longform psychedelic immersion will do nicely, thank you very much.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 18th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Yeah, but what will you need gods for? Granted, opiates for the masses won’t get far without them, but how many other uses do abstract deities actually have? For all the purported omnipotence, has one ever managed to jump a car battery? Ever made you soup when you’re sick? Organized and executed a surprise birthday party, or even aided in any way in doing so?
No. Where, indeed, is your savior now?
You Will Need Gods is the impending second full-length from Belfast’s Molarbear, and it’s out Xmas week — see? you don’t even need gods for ostensibly religious holidays — through Cursed Monk as the follow-up to 2018’s Storklord, which I’m just going to assume was a shenanigans-laced treatise on human reproductive culture. You can see the band’s winner of a video for “Omega Supreme” at the bottom of this post, and it should give something of an idea where they’re coming from in terms of point of view, with a robot and a dinosaur and heavy aggro groove and all that fun stuff. I haven’t heard the rest of the record yet, because existentially speaking I’m something of a slouch, but the holidays will be here before you know it. Preorders are already up.
You don’t actually need gods to preorder either. Just PayPal or some such.
I really can’t wait to read the lyrics for this one. From the PR wire:
Cursed Monk Records are thrilled to release MOLARBEAR’s sophomore album You will Need Gods on December 23rd.
Since their debut Storklord, Belfast’s MOLARBEAR have become a live favorite all across Ireland with their crushingly heavy, groove laden shows. This year their music video for Omega Supreme was even nominated for an Northern Ireland Music Prize for Video Of The Year.
Big dirty riffs, lots of shouting and also some nice bits, infectious experimental sludge documenting the human experience. you’ll love it.
Okay, here goes. For the last week-plus, I’ve been doing my best to completely bury my head in the sand and ignore the world outside my house. I actively don’t want to know what’s happening. My reasons are political, but real in ways that affect my daily life; I am not in the abstract in my concerns, and if I was, I’m not sure that invalidates them. The reason I’m telling you this at all isn’t just because I’m stoned and into honesty, but to point out that while Fust is playing, it’s really hard to forget that the same world outside is a terrible place filled with cruel people who, even if they don’t actively want to hurt others, don’t help when they could. Apathy as a moral position. Well fine. I wanna check out, too. I’ll just let it all go and trust it will be fine because that’s what my mom told me when I was five. Nomadic Rituals reveal this for the weakness it is, foster aggression, and herald the catharsis behind their cruelty. Fust, it turns out, is too pummeling to play pretend, even when you really want to.
