Sometimes it’s kind of funny to write a band’s bio — in this specific case it’s also a frickin’ honor — and then not know when it’s going to be used and be surprised to see it come back down the PR wire. You do a thing, send it off, and a little while later, it comes back to you. I thank Liz Ciavarella, who has only been supporting my efforts and making me a better writer AS WELL AS giving me stuff to write about for the last, oh, 18 years or thereabouts, for putting my name out for bio writing stuff. Sometimes I get a little Paypal money for Bandcamp, sometimes it’s just a cool thing to do, but it’s always appreciated and if someone thinks enough of my work in general to ask, well, that’s a push to do a thing right there.

But to get to the point, Legions of Doom are recording this month their debut album. They’re in kind of a fluid situation, sort of transitioning out of The Skull but still keeping that band — whose frontman Eric Wagner passed away in 2021 — in reserve for special slots at festivals and such, and moving ahead with Legions of Doom as a next phase for bassist Ron Holzner, guitarist Lothar Keller and drummer Henry Vasquez. That that core trio are working with vocalists Scott Reagers (original frontman of Saint Vitus) and Karl Agell (Lie Heavy, ex-Leadfoot, C.O.C. Blind, Kinghitter) tells you the size of the gap left by Wagner‘s absence and also shows a readiness to explore new ideas. Guitarist Scott Little, also formerly of Leadfoot, will be a part of both Legions of Doom and The Skull, at least as I understood it.

Interested as always to hear what Sanford Parker, who will engineer the impending session leading toward a Fall release, gets from the band, especially working in Electrical Audio, which will make it a good day to be Vasquez for drum sounds. The bio I wrote appears in blue text below, as served up by the PR wire. Note they’ll be at Ripplefest Texas in September as I also hope very much to be:

LEGIONS OF DOOM: Doom Metal Supergroup Featuring Vocalist Duo Karl Agell And Scott Reagers To Enter Studio This Month

Banded together out of mutual respect, admiration, history, and a strong desire to move ever forward, LEGIONS OF DOOM brings together split-duty lead singers Scott Reagers (Saint Vitus) and Karl Agell (Lie Heavy, Karl Agell’s Blind, Leadfoot), bassist Ron Holzner (The Skull, Trouble, Earthen Grave), guitarists Lothar Keller (The Skull, Sacred Dawn), and Scott Little (Leadfoot), and drummer Henry Vasquez (The Skull, Saint Vitus, Blood Of The Sun), and was born as a project following the death of The Skull vocalist Eric Wagner (also ex-Trouble) in 2021. Initial The Skull/LEGIONS OF DOOM shows in tribute to Wagner were held in 2023, and in 2024, LEGIONS OF DOOM will record both the album that The Skull would have made and a new collection of original material that’s been worked on since.

Plans to record at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio with engineer Sanford Parker (YOB, Wovenhand, Eyehategod) will lead to a first release this Fall on Tee Pee Records, and in the interim, LEGIONS OF DOOM will again take to the stage. Fall/Winter European and US touring is being discussed, with a just announced appearance in September of this year at Ripplefest in Austin, Texas. While LEGIONS OF DOOM will step forward as the priority, Holzner assures The Skull isn’t fading completely.

“The Skull, featuring me, Lothar, Henry, Scott Little, and Karl singing, will continue in a limited capacity doing occasional shows,” informs Holzner. “The Skull shows will consist of 90-95 percent The Skull music. LEGIONS OF DOOM shows consist of all our combined history: Blind-era Corrosion Of Conformity, Trouble, Leadfoot, The Skull, Saint Vitus, and LEGIONS OF DOOM material, too.”

Adds Karl Agell, “When Ron asked me to join him in carrying on the doom metal tradition that he was part of and established first with Trouble and then The Skull, there was only one path forward. I truly look forward to performing songs from the massive legacy of all the members of LEGIONS OF DOOM.”

Having already appeared at Hellfest in France, Graspop Metal Meeting in Belgium, and Legions Of Metal in Chicago, expect LEGIONS OF DOOM to continue to roll out confirmations as they move toward the album release, because with these guys, it’s never just about what’s been done in the past, but adding to that legacy as well. Just as The Skull built on the foundations Trouble laid at the core of the doom metal genre, look for LEGIONS OF DOOM to push to new ground along that familiar path. [words by JJ Koczan]

LEGION OF DOOM:
Ron Holzner – bass
Lothar Keller – guitars
Scott Little – guitars
Henry Vasquez – drums
Karl Agell – vocals
Scott Reagers – vocals

http://www.facebook.com/legionofdoom
https://www.instagram.com/legionsofdoomband/

http://www.facebook.com/troubletheskull
http://www.instagram.com/theskullusa

teepeerecords.com
https://www.facebook.com/teepeerecords/
https://www.instagram.com/teepeerecords
https://teepeerecords.bandcamp.com/

Legions of Doom, Live at Legions of Metal Fest 2023, Chicago, IL

This past Friday, classically progressive heavy rockers Mouth released Vortex Redux through This Charming Man Records. And though ‘redux’ in a heavy context has come to be associated with Magnetic Eye Records‘ ongoing album-tribute series, no, this is not Mouth or anyone else covering their own album. Remastered with the included bonus track “Turn the Lie” (video premiering below) and liner notes by yours truly.

The Köln-based trio — now comprised of guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Christian Koller, drummer/keyboardist Nick Mavridis and bassist Thomas Johnen, who made his first appearance on last year’s Getaway (review here) in the role previously filled by Gerald Kirsch — originally released Vortex (review here) in 2017 through Al!ve/Blunoise Records as an eight-years-later follow-up to their debut, Rhizome, but really, it was the point at which their proggy intent found its fruition. With underlying influence from the heavier end of the style and a modern cast on vintage ideologies, they’ve been able to position themselves in both worlds as a band whose foundation is in prog textures with keys and retro organs and synth and melodies and all that stuff mixed with the occasional let-loose of a thicker shove.

It’s a fine line and Mouth dance all over it, but you’ll pardon me if I leave the analysis there. I’ve both reviewed this album AND I wrote the liner notes below in blue — as opposed to the usual ‘bio I wrote’ tag I apply in situations where editorial and promotional lines are blurred (always uncomfortable; full disclosure, I actually don’t remember if I was compensated or not for the below writing; I’m terrible with money and knowing things generally; see also ‘incompetent’) — that begin with “Welcome…” and end where they end. Seems like plenty, so if you’re still reading at all and haven’t already started the clip, I’ll just say that that whole “prog + fun” equation alluded to above is exactly what comes to life here, and in close-up style.

Plenty more of my blah blah blah follows — I didn’t even know they were using the notes as promo copy until the record was out, but fair enough — and the clip’s three minutes and weird and kind of lo-fi, which somehow makes it more of a good time. But you’re right in the box with them, so I hope you’ve showered recently. Nobody wants to be the one stinking up the practice space.

Please enjoy:

Mouth, “Turn the Lie” video premiere

This is the bonus track of the redux version of MOUTH’s second album VORTEX.
Order the new mastered and reworked album here:

https://thischarmingmanrecords.de/produkt/mouth-vortex-redux-col-12/

camera: Jerome Crutsen

Welcome to the definitive Vortex. The LP you’re holding has been on a journey, and no, not just shipping. Mouth’s second after 2009’s Rhizome, Vortex was mostly recorded in 2011 and 2012 over five sessions in a small space where the band rehearsed. Material was pieced together intermittently over a period of 11 months with Chris Koller handling guitar, keys and bass and Nick Mavridis on drums. That’s where it started. Two construction projects: the studio and a recording that would help define the course of the band in classic and melodic progressive rock, happening almost simultaneously in a creative meta-narrative that could easily stand as analog for the depth of pieces like “Into the Light” or the sprawling “Vortex” itself, which opens the record (new and old editions) in an encompassing display of impulse and fluidity

Through experiments in atmosphere like “March of the Cyclopes” and toward the finish of “Epilogue,” Mouth married sounds that in other contexts would come up disparate, like finding a hidden magnetism between two north poles.

Most of the Vortex songs were created on the spot in the studio.There would be no way to know it at the time, but this process would result in a collection of songs with a broad range, within as well as between the component tracks. “Parade” taps Sly Stone on the shoulder and asks if he wants to party (he does), while the penultimate “Soon After…” resonates with its smoky, mellow-jazz vibe. “Vortex” itself happens over six movements and was put together across different sessions, while “Epilogue” happened in a day.

Dissatisfaction with the original mix – and when an album has as much put into its arrangements as Vortex, that balance matters – would lead Mouth to offer Out of the Vortex in 2020 as a collection of alternate versions of pieces like “Mountain” and “Parade,” as well as the unreleased “Ready” and “Homagotago’s Paddle Boat Trip,” the latter an apparent successor to a cut from Floating. But sometimes a thing nestles itself into the back of your head and just won’t leave, and Mouth’s pursuit of a finished Vortex would lead them into the studio again.

Koller handled the remix himself in Oct. 2023, and in addition to helming the new master, krautrock legend Eroc (who drummed in Grobschnitt) brought a gong to mark the beginning of “March of the Cyclopes.” Like a lot of the finer touches on this Vortex, be it a hashed-out stretch in the title-track built on a drum/bass jam or just pulling the vocals and Hammond down a bit in “Epilogue,” the result is a stylistic flourishing that was there all along throughout the journey and now can finally shine as the band intended. – JJ Koczan / Dec. 2023

Pressing Info:
100 copies black (mailorder edition)
400 copies purple transparent wax
-> all copies come with a fold out poster

Mouth, Vortex Redux (2024)

Mouth on Facebook

Mouth on Instagram

Mouth on Bandcamp

Mouth on Soundcloud

Mouth linktr.ee

This Charming Man Records website

This Charming Man Records on Facebook

This Charming Man Records on Instagram

This Charming Man Records on Bandcamp

If you were hanging around these parts earlier this month, you already knew Iota would return this year with their first album since 2008’s epic-and-I-don’t-always-call-things-epic debut, Tales (discussed here and here). That’s news to me, I don’t know about you. Good news. If you dug what guitarist Joey Toscano brought to the two Dwellers full-lengths on Small Stone in terms of melody and emotion, that melds gorgeously on Pentasomnia with a style of bluesy desertism that even Tales, broad as it was, only half defined.

Yeah, I’ve heard the record. The bio I wrote for it, which is what’s linked above, also came in with the PR wire confirmation of the March 22 release for Pentasomnia and the track stream for “The Returner.” Which you should hear. Here, let me stop talking so you can get on that.

Go go go listen listen listen and then probably preorder or something:

IOTA: Salt Lake City Cult Psychedelic Rock Trio To Release Pentasomnia Full-Length March 22nd On Small Stone Recordings; New Track Streaming + Preorders Available

Cult psychedelic heavy rock trio IOTA will release their long-awaited Pentasomnia full-length on March 22nd via Small Stone Recordings!

It’s been nearly sixteen years since Salt Lake City’s IOTA carved a place for themselves in the heavy underground with their debut album, Tales. Released by Small Stone Recordings, it was recorded by drummer Andy Patterson (The Otolith, ex-SubRosa), with founding guitarist/vocalist Joey Toscano (who’d form Dwellers later), and bassist Oz Inglorious (ex-Bird Eater, Suffocater) and drew heavy rock impulses across space in a way that was innovative and engrossing. Marked by the twenty-minute “Dimensional Orbiter” that was the first song the band ever wrote, it showed huge potential for IOTA, who moved onto other outfits while the cult of those in the know steadily grew.

Pentasomnia, an album of five dreams, marks a return for a project begun by Toscano circa 2001, a band that has been intermittently lived with, shelved, pushed, pulled, stretched, and twisted, but whose sound shimmers with atmosphere and the resonant, bluesy emotionalism of Toscano’s vocals. Rather than some slapdash decade-and-a-half-later follow-up to a record on its way to being a niche-classic, Pentasomnia is cohesive, and as much an unexpected step forward as an unexpected return. IOTA — Toscano, Inglorious, and Patterson — revel in the groove and sway of these five songs, from the boozy head-hang of opener “The Intruder” into the ambient push of “The Returner,” which feels like a manifestation of the meld between cosmic and desert rock that was so much the heart of the band during their first run; the very essence of what they do, given new life and perspective.

“Pentasomnia is an amalgamation,” says Toscano, “roughly translating to ‘five dreams.’ Each song is told from the perspective of a different mental state. Challenging the ideas of traditional norms about identity and our place within the world; questioning the very idea of a self. A cathartic acknowledgement of our infinitesimally small place in a vast musical landscape. Live shows will unveil the album’s essence, offering glimpses into our musical journey’s dark comedy and complexity. Enjoy these songs as snapshots of a fever dream.”

IOTA’s sophomore full-length was written and recorded live over a series of sessions between 2018 and 2019 and completed in the tumultuous years after with family health emergencies, other projects and recordings, the pandemic, work, and all the stuff of life happening all at once. And yet somehow, in and perhaps from all of that, the three-piece have managed to come back together, find each other and renew their sound, and to let the intervening time underscore how crucial their collaboration genuinely is. There are going to be a lot of heavy rock records released in 2024. You sleep on IOTA at your own risk.

In advance of the release, today the band debuts first single, “The Returner.” Toscano further notes, “Pentasomnia, is centered around dreams. With each song narrating a first-person account of an acute mind state, ‘The Returner’ — the album’s third track — attempts to describe the character’s experience of waking from the dream of life, encountering their now unrestrained hallucinations in the in-between, and then returning to yet another dream. Interpretation, divine.”

Stream IOTA’s “The Returner” at THIS LOCATION.

Pentasomnia will be released on CD, LP, and limited-edition vinyl. Find preorders at the Small Stone Bandamp page HERE: https://smallstone.bandcamp.com/album/pentasomnia

Pentasomnia Track Listing:
1. The Intruder
2. The Witness
3. The Returner
4. The Timekeeper
5. The Great Dissolver

IOTA:
Joey Toscano – guitars, synths, vocals
Oz Inglorious – bass
Andy Patterson – drums

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

https://www.facebook.com/smallstonerecords
https://www.instagram.com/smallstonerecords
https://smallstone.bandcamp.com/
https://smallstone.com

Iota, Pentasomnia (2024)

Iota, Tales (2008)

Boston progressive melodic heavy rockers Sundrifter go big on their third full-length, An Earlier Time, set for release Feb. 16 on Small Stone Records. From the triumphal chugs and declarative rhythm of opener “Limitless” (premiering below), the album will make you believe music and just about anything else you want can fly, the band’s songs honing character through atmospheric riffing, and the theatrical, unafraid-to-reach vocals of Craig Peura.

The follow-up to 2018’s Visitations (review here) shares its predecessor’s penchant for minimalism in its closer, as An Earlier Time departs the willful grandiosities of “Limitless” or “Prehistoric Liftoff” — one is reminded of Torche‘s “Tarpit Carnivore” — or the escape-velocity charge of “Space Exploration,” the “Way out here is where I belong” lyrical perspective of which is consistent with the breaking-out of “Not Coming Back” from their 2016 debut of the same name or “I Want to Leave” from Visitations, for the relatively subdued open space of “Last Transmission” at the finish. But to get there, Peura, bassist Paul Gaughran and drummer Patrick Queenan careen and lumber through material that takes the tonal largesse of bong metal and puts it to an emotive purpose all the more affirming for the heft behind it.

Sundrifter‘s sound has blossomed, which is not to say Big Bang’ed. But ‘big’ should be an operative word here if its place in the first sentence wasn’t enough of a clue, and as heavy as Peura‘s guitar and Gaughran‘s bass might be, the distance perceived between them and the echoing of Queenan‘s drums is essential in crafting the open feel that makes “Limitless” such a powerful preface to what follows on An Earlier Time, whether it’s the reverb-cavern roll of “Nuclear Sacrifice” or the emotional charge given to side B across “Begin Again,” “Want You Home” and the penultimate “Final Chance,” the latter of which ends with drawn-out crashes to give a smoother transition to “Last Transmission.” Informed in part by the sweeping pop of Muse, and more spread out in sound than Forming the Void but with a modern-prog-heavy patience to their execution, Sundrifter manifest style in service to songwriting, and their material carries vitality in performance as well as its effects-born sprawl.

What’s perhaps most admirable about Sundrifter circa An Earlier Time, aka now, is that as much as “Limitless” or “Final Chance” or “Want You Home” seem to reach out, the band are never out of control. To be sure, Peura is a soulful vocalist and part of that is the push of his delivery, but the band never leaves their comfort zone without making sure their audience is along for the ride, and the six years since their last album has obviously given them time to focus on their craft. Not overthought, these songs find a hard balance between their emotive crux and expansive sound, and Sundrifter come through as vibrant, sincere and uplifting without the saccharine toxicity of 2020s internet platitudes; all heart (plus songwriting, plus aesthetic, etc.) at a moment where that could hardly be more necessary.

Sundrifter, “Limitless” video premiere

Craig Peura on “Limitless”:

‘Limitless’ is about knowing in your heart where you belong and not being afraid to jump from the highest point to find it.

Paul Gaughran on “Limitless”:

I recall this tune being the first to gain serious form during the writing for “An Earlier Time”. The style and feel of the initial riff that Craig presented us was a combination of all my favorite aspects of the previous record, but from an instrumental perspective also gave more room to work with and be creative within. The song starts from a very grounded, almost tribal sounding straight-forward arrangement and by the end is so densely orchestrated and spacial. It closes sounding elevated, even heavenly. Sort of an attempt to convey an earth-to-sky experience I suppose. I think it sets the tone for the record well.

Patrick Queenan on “Limitless”:

“Returning to Futura Studios to track drums with our engineer Dan is always a no brainer. The former masonic temple converted recording studio provides not only the best expansive space to track epic sounding drums in but on a metaphysical level provides a certain energy or vibe to the recording process. Drums being the first tracks to be recorded followed by a global shut down in 2020 this video along with the record “An Earlier Time” serve as a real time capsule. Over the past four years a lot has changed for us individually and as a group but now here in 2024 we are feeling quite LIMITLESS.”

An Earlier Time will be released on CD, limited edition LP, and digitally. Find preorders at the official Small Stone Recordings Bandcamp page HERE: https://smallstone.bandcamp.com/album/an-earlier-time

An Earlier Time Track Listing:
1. Limitless
2. Space Exploration
3. Nuclear Sacrifice
4. Prehistoric Liftoff
5. Begin Again
6. Want You Home
7. Final Chance
8. Last Transmission

SUNDRIFTER Live:
2/01/2023 Widowmaker Brewery – Braintree, MA w/ Swamphead, Bone Church, Earthlore</span

Sundrifter are:
Craig Peura – vocals, guitar
Paul Gaughran – bass
Patrick Queenan – drums

Sundrifter website

Sundrifter on Facebook

Sundrifter on Instagram

Small Stone Records website

Small Stone Records on Facebook

Small Stone Records on Instagram

Small Stone Records on Bandcamp

In March, Iota will release their second album. If that doesn’t ring like an event to you, take about an hour of your life, go back and listen to their 2008 debut, Tales (discussed here and here). It’s at the bottom of this post. You don’t have to go far.

The three-piece of founding guitarist/vocalist Joey Toscano, who’d go on to found Dwellers after Iota and put out two records on Small Stone with that project, bassist Oz Yasri (who joined Bird Eater after) and drummer/producer Andy Patterson (SubRosa, The Otolith, Insect Ark for a minute there, tons of others) will officially announce the release of their sophomore full-length, Pentasomnia, next week. It’ll be the full usual deal — artwork, track premiere, album details, a bio I wrote and all that. I don’t think I’m doing the premiere, but it’ll be somewhere on the internet and for sure I’ll post about it too. Next week.

But I was asked to do the bio for the record, and since I dig this band a lot, still dig Tales and its newcomer counterpart, I asked if I could take the bio I wrote — that’s below — and use it as kind of a soft-launch announcement for the record to come. So yes, look for all that other stuff next week. But now you already know that’s coming, and way to be ahead of the game.

Here’s that bio, with more to follow next week with the official announcement:

It’s been nearly 16 years since Salt Lake City’s Iota carved a place for themselves in the heavy underground with their debut album, Tales. Released by Small Stone Records, recorded by drummer Andy Patterson (The Otolith, ex-SubRosa, etc.), with founding guitarist/vocalist Joey Toscano (who’d form Dwellers after) and bassist Oz Yasri (later of Bird Eater) drawing heavy rock impulses across space in a way that was innovative and engrossing. Marked by the 20-minute “Dimensional Orbiter” that was the first song the band ever wrote, it showed huge potential for Iota, who moved onto other outfits while the cult of those in the know steadily grew.

Pentasomnia, an album of five dreams, marks a return for a project begun by Toscano circa 2001, a band that has been intermittently lived with, shelved, pushed, pulled, stretched and twisted, but whose sound shimmers with atmosphere and the resonant, bluesy emotionalism of Toscano’s vocals. Rather than some slapdash decade-and-a-half-later follow-up to a record on its way to being a niche-classic, Pentasomnia is cohesive, and as much an unexpected step forward as an unexpected return. Iota — Toscano, Yasri, Patterson — revel in the groove and sway of these five songs, from the boozy head-hang of opener “The Intruder” into the ambient push of “The Returner,” which feels like a manifestation of the meld between cosmic and desert rocks that was so much the heart of the band during their first run; the very essence of what they do, given new life and perspective.

“Pentasomnia is an amalgamation,” says Toscano, “roughly translating to ‘five dreams’. Each song is told from the perspective of a different mental state. Challenging the ideas of traditional norms about identity and our place within the world; questioning the very idea of a self. A cathartic acknowledgement of our infinitesimally small place in a vast musical landscape. Live shows will unveil the album’s essence, offering glimpses into our musical journey’s dark comedy and complexity. Enjoy these songs as snapshots of a fever dream.”

Iota’s awaited sophomore full-length was written and recorded live over a series of sessions between 2018 and 2019 and completed in the tumultuous years after, family health emergencies, other projects and recordings, the odd pandemic, work, all the stuff of life happening all at once as ever. And somehow, in and perhaps from all of that, the three-piece have managed to come back together, find each other and renew their sound, and to let the intervening time underscore how crucial their collaboration genuinely is. There are going to be a lot of heavy rock records released in 2024. You sleep on Iota at your own risk.

https://smallstone.com
https://www.facebook.com/smallstonerecords
https://www.instagram.com/smallstonerecords

Iota, Tales (2008)

Big sound here from Sundrifter, whose An Earlier Time is deceptively forward-thinking considering the nostalgic evocations of the title. The Boston trio, who you”ll recall were sharing drummer Patrick Queenan with Gozu for a bit there, will issue An Earlier Time through Small Stone Records on Feb. 16, which feels like it’s coming up quick at this point but that’s life in January. It was the band’s 2018 outing, Visitations (review here), that caught the ears of the long-running Detroit imprint, leading to a months-after-the-DIY-release reissue — I seem to recall something similar happened with Lo-Pan in the long, long ago; it’s not unheard of — and An Earlier Time broadens the sound of that record exponentially, harnessing grander spaces, dynamic changes and an abidingly cosmic feel to even its most driving moments, and yes, I’m looking right at you, “Space Exploration.”

That song is one of eight on the record, and like many of them, it could’ve been the lead single just as easily as “Begin Again,” but the initial push, roll and soul there can’t be denied. Available to stream on the player at the bottom of the post, An Earlier Time‘s first public snippet is telling in the overarching largesse that unites the material across the record, but has an impact in its middle stretch that is its own, fleshed out by Craig Puera‘s melodic vocals holding out notes into an echoing expanse.

I firmly believe it’s not a thing you’ll regret hearing. So, by all means, go for it:

SUNDRIFTER: Boston-Based Desert Rock Trio To Release An Earlier Time Full-Length February 16th Via Small Stone Recordings; New Track Streaming + Preorders Available

Boston-based desert rock trio SUNDRIFTER will release their long-awaited new full-length, An Earlier Time, on February 16th via Small Stone Recordings, today unveiling the album’s cover art, track listing, and first single.

SUNDRIFTER’s sound is bigger and broader on An Earlier Time. From the appropriate beginning of “Limitless” onward, the New England three-piece answers the potential of their 2019 sophomore album, Visitations, and their 2016 debut, Not Coming Back, with a collection that is likewise huge and intimate, bringing together expansive atmospheres a la Hum’s heavy post-rock vision with Soundgarden’s unmitigated heavy revelry and melodic command and the contemplative expressivism of Radiohead. The offering features eight songs, each one of them a world to get lost in.

With the returning trio of guitarist/vocalist Craig Peura, bassist Paul Gaughran, and drummer Patrick Queenan, SUNDRIFTER calls to mind the expansive atmospheric heavy rock of outfits like Forming The Void or Small Stone veterans Abrahma, but Peura’s vocals cull influence from ’90s alt rock in a way that emphasizes the individual now more than ever. The band’s third album realizations come complemented by the return of producer/mixer Dan Schwartz, mastering by Chris Goosman, and cover art by Branca Studio, furthering the “complete package” sensibility fostered in no small part by the weighted complexity and breadth of the tracks themselves. It’s not so much heavy rock as is, but as it could be.

In advance of the official release of An Earlier Time, today the band reveals the record’s first single, “Begin Again.” With Peura elaborating, “‘Begin Again’ is a constant battle to overcome negative self-talk and the pain that it can bring telling you of your failures, and the excitement that comes when you decide to acknowledge them and begin again.”

“I’d say the name says everything,” Gaughran continues. “It’s a statement of intention from the band. It’s taken far longer than we’d have liked to make this record, but time has its upsides. I’d like to think we’ve used it to hone in on a sound that better reflects our collective influences as a band, both musical and non-musical. ‘Begin Again’ tonally evokes all those influences, whether it be space and the desert or any of the spiritual concepts expressed lyrically, all while retaining the signature characteristics of our brand of heavy psychedelic rock.”

Queenan adds, “As the ancients had to rebuild humanity and societies after cataclysmic events so are we emerging from the ash and beginning yet again.”

An Earlier Time will be released on CD, limited edition LP, and digitally. Find preorders at the official Small Stone Recordings Bandcamp page HERE: https://smallstone.bandcamp.com/album/an-earlier-time

An Earlier Time Track Listing:
1. Limitless
2. Space Exploration
3. Nuclear Sacrifice
4. Prehistoric Liftoff
5. Begin Again
6. Want You Home
7. Final Chance
8. Last Transmission

SUNDRIFTER Live:
2/01/2023 Widowmaker Brewery – Braintree, MA w/ Swamphead, Bone Church, Earthlore

SUNDRIFTER:
Craig Peura – vocals, guitar
Paul Gaughran – bass
Patrick Queenan – drums

https://sundrifterband.com
https://www.facebook.com/sundriftermusic
https://www.instagram.com/sundrifterbc

https://smallstone.com
https://www.facebook.com/smallstonerecords
https://www.instagram.com/smallstonerecords

Sundrifter, An Earlier Time (2024)

About a month ago, maybe two, I was fortunate to get an email from Metal Blade asking if I was interested in writing a bio for the new album from Boston atmospheric doomers, titled Engraved With Pain, and it was an easy yes. Heralded critically for their individualism and merging of different styles, I’d count them as undervalued considering their sound is malleable enough to fit on bills with a metal band like Gojira (a random name with precious little to do with Morne stylistically — any range of bleak proggers bubbled up from the heavy underground, sludge, death metal, industrial, on and on. And the record is four tracks long, utterly consuming, which is shown even in the small sample offered by the first single “Wretched Empire,” streaming below.

So I wrote the thing, duh. And it’s here though I’m posting it mostly to be archived here — it’s nice to keep things in a place — and if you want to skip it and go right to the song, no offense taken.

Here’s the art and info, including the bio I wrote (paragraphs two to four), and the single. Expect multi-tiered crush. Bask in it.

Off you go:

Morne: Boston Post-Metal Practitioners to Release “Engraved with Pain” Full-Length November 3rd via Metal Blade Records

“Wretched Empire” Video / Single Now Playing + Pre-orders Available

Boston-based post-metal practitioners and recent Metal Blade Records signees MORNE will unleash their devastating Engraved With Pain full-length on November 3rd, today unveiling the record’s first single, artwork, and pre-orders.

The stylistic pyroclasm of MORNE’s bleak, extreme but reachable metal did not happen overnight. Since their 2009 debut album, Untold Wait, the quartet has made simple categorizations like “doom” or even “metal” laughable, and their latest and fifth full-length, fittingly titled Engraved With Pain, refines their attack to a level toward which even 2018’s To The Night Unknown could only hint.

Engraved With Pain is a moment of grim triumph, as rooted in Celtic Frost as in Ministry, still somehow extrapolated from the gods Black Sabbath and characteristic of no one so much as themselves. Spacious, crushing, darkly thoughtful enough to be progressive but never so indulgent as to lose sight of its core message, the offering was recorded with legendary producer Kurt Ballou at GodCity Studio in Salem, Massachusetts.

Playing out across four chapters in forty-minutes, the album sees the veteran outfit crafting rhythmic tension and lung-squeezing atmospheres as Polish-born guitarist/vocalist Miłosz Gassan emits layered guttural shouts that speak to inner and outer crises. Engraved With Pain makes its title believable, and from its eponymous opener through “Memories Like Stone,” “Wretched Empire,” and “Fire And Dust,” it carries humanity individually and collectively through the realities of its decline.

“‘Wretched Empire’ is the first song off of our new album to be published bringing the wait to its end,” Gassan notes of the band’s first single, as well as their first ever video. “Barebone, stripped down riffs and a cold look at today’s reality, lyrically it’s my take on the current situation in the world: How divided everything is and how people are prone to being misled. How we forget our history; history that happened not that long ago. I never comment on my lyrics but maybe in this case it’s needed. I call humanity a ‘wretched empire.’ It’s not an optimistic song. I hope people will enjoy it and find something for themselves in this single and the whole album as well.”

Engraved With Pain will be released on CD, LP, and digital formats. Find pre-orders at: metalblade.com/morne

Photo by Hillarie Jason

MORNE:
Milosz Gassan – Guitar, Vocals
Paul Rajpal – Guitar
Morgan Coe – Bass
Billy Knockenhauer – Drums

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https://morneband.bandcamp.com

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Morne, Engraved With Pain (2023)

Morne, “Wretched Empire” official video

My thinking here was that these are things Colour Haze would never say about themselves, but that should be said at this point about who they are, what they’ve done over a near-30-year span, and their consistent will to move forward. If you read this site on anything remotely resembling a regular basis, you probably already know they’re an act whose work I treasure on a personal level, and right up to late-2022’s Sacred (review here) — and as it says below — they are singular in my mind. A once-in-a-generation kind of band.

With a long-awaited return to the US slated for later this year at Desertfest New York (info here), I was asked to write a kind of general bio, which of course was a big yes. It’s less a comment on the substance of their whole body of work than a look at where they’re at after a few changes over the last several years, but hopefully it gets some of the point across of how special they are.

I’m honestly putting it here more for my own posterity than anything else, but here’s the bio I wrote, put in PR wire blue basically for form’s sake:

Over more than the last 25 years, Munich, Germany’s Colour Haze have made themselves an institution in underground music. They are progenitors of a style of heavy psychedelia that has influenced two generations of players and counting, marked by warm tonality, flowing rhythms, and immersive melody, embodying a jam spirit while remaining rooted in classic progressive rock.

Led by founding guitarist/vocalist Stefan Koglek and longtime drummer Manfred Merwald, the band has revamped its lineup in the last few years to emerge as a four-piece, with Jan Faszbender on organ/synth and the newest addition, Mario Oberpucher on bass. In late 2022, Colour Haze released their 14th album, Sacred, through Koglek’s own Elektrohasch Schallplatten label.

The follow-up to 2019’s We Are, the latest offering not only introduced Oberpucher as a part of the studio process, but furthered the dynamic exchange between guitar and keys that has made Colour Haze’s latest works feel so adventurous. With a lyrical awareness of the world around them and a mindset critical but loving, the songs are fluid in their jammy foundations and convey the on-stage chemistry of Colour Haze as they continue, always, to grow.

Sacred is a salve for troubled years, but consistently finds ways to put the song first, encouraging the audience’s imagination with evocative and expressive instrumentalism and a serenity that holds firm even at the most raucous moments. Full of righteous twists and unexpected divergences, it nonetheless boasts an overarching groove and the depth of approach that fans know the band will always deliver.

Colour Haze are singular. There is only one. And they are one of the most crucial bands Europe’s heavy underground has ever produced. The ultimate impact of their work is unknowable, since their influence has yet to dwindle, but heavy psychedelic rock would not exist as it does today without them. Their discography is a path traced through landmarks, telling a gorgeous story of growth and commitment to ongoing progression that brings the band to the present day and, hopefully, beyond into a future that is inherently better for their being part of it. – JJ Koczan

Colour Haze, Sacred (2022)

Colour Haze website

Colour Haze on Facebook

Colour Haze on Instagram

Elektrohasch Schallplatten website

Elektrohasch Schallplatten on Facebook