Long-running Birmingham heavy rockers Alunah will return with the band’s seventh full-length, Fever Dream, on Sept. 20. Following up 2022’s Strange Machine (review here) and continuing to issue through Heavy Psych Sounds — which last week announced it has re-signed them for this outing — the record also furthers the band’s collaboration with producer Chris Fielding (Conan, etc.), who has now helmed their last four albums going back to 2017’s Solennial (review here).
And while subsequent to that release the band went through their most major lineup shift, which brought vocalist Siân Greenaway on board with bassist Dan Burchmore and founding drummer Jake Mason — guitarist Matt Noble joined in 2020 — the fact remains that Alunah have never put out the same record twice. Their delve into classic heavy vibes can be heard on the suitably-hooky new single “Never Too Late,” and in the sharpness of its tonality and the urgent feel of its groove, there are hints of metal being dropped even as Francis Tobolsky of Dresden, Germany’s Wucan guests on vocals alongside Greenaway, who in the interim since 2022 has also signed to Rise Above with the more glam-rock-oriented project/alter-ego Bobbie Dazzle.
That is to say, “Never Too Late,” while catchy and very much Alunah‘s own, hints at shifts in intention as part of the band’s ongoing creative growth and expanding reach. This will likely be the record that carries them past their 20th anniversary (they started out in 2006), and moving forward feels like the most appropriate way they could possibly honor such a thing, since that’s what they’ve done all along.
Album details follow from the PR wire. “Never Too Late” premieres on the player like three lines down from here and last year’s standalone Alice Cooper cover is at the bottom of the post for further digging.
Get ready to have this one stuck in your head for the rest of the day, and enjoy:
Alunah, “Never Too Late” track premiere
With their third album on Heavy Psych Sounds Records, Alunah have wasted no time in a post-pandemic haze since their last release, balancing being on the European festival circuit alongside touring the UK. However, in a Birmingham rehearsal room away from the outside world, everyday life and online noise, their latest full length “Fever Dream” has been quietly brewing waiting to see the light of day.
Forged from a period of extensive jamming and soul searching “Fever Dream” digs into the core of what makes Alunah tick, being in a room together making the music they want to hear. Recorded during the winter of 2024, the atmosphere of the historic Foel Studio allows groove to flow alongside riff, heft and melody in equal measure. The brooding progressive majesty of the title track, the eastern soundscape of “Sacred Grooves” and the doom and roll of “Far From Reality” each highlight the album’s ability to surprise and deliver in equal measure throughout the emotive journey of its nine tracks. Let yourself fall deep into the “Fever Dream”.
“Never Too Late” combines the bones of an idea we came up with right at the start of the writing process for the album, along with fresh inspiration that happened once in the recording studio. Fran from Wucan graciously added her vocal lines to help surpass our initial vision, so turn it up loud and enjoy.
Credits Produced by Chris Fielding (Electric Wizard, Conan) Artwork by Stefán Ari (The Vintage Caravan) “Never Too Late” additional vocals by Francis Tobolsky (Wucan) “I’ve Paid The Price” additional piano by Aaron B. Thompson (Rosalie Cunningham)
ALUNAH lineup Siân Greenaway – Vocals Matt Noble – Guitar Dan Burchmore – Bass Jake Mason – Drums
Welcome back to the Quarterly Review. Good weekend? Restful? Did you get out and see some stuff? Did you loaf and hang out on the couch? There are advantages to either, to be sure. Friday night I watched my daughter (and a literal 40 other performers, no fewer than four of whom sang and/or danced to the same Taylor Swift song) do stand-up comedy telling math jokes at her elementary school variety show. She’s in kindergarten, she likes math, and she killed. Nice little moment for her, if one that came as part of a long evening generally.
The idea this week is the same as last week: 50 releases covered across five days. Put the two weeks together and the Spring 2024 Quarterly Review — which I’m pretty sure is what I called the one in March as well; who cares? — runs 100 strong. I’ll be traveling, some with family, some on my own, for a bit in the coming months, so this is a little bit my way of clearing my slate before that all happens, but it’s always satisfying to dig into so much and get a feel for what different acts are doing, try and convey some of that as directly as I can. If you’re reading, thanks. If this is the first you’re seeing of it and you want to see more, you can either scroll down or click here.
Either way, off we go.
Quarterly Review #51-60:
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Pelican, Adrift/Tending the Embers
Chicago (mostly-)instrumentalist stalwarts Pelican haven’t necessarily been silent since 2019’s Nighttime Stories (review here), with a digital live release in Spring 2020, catalog reissues on Thrill Jockey, a couple in-the-know covers posted and shows hither and yon, but the stated reason for the two-songer EP Adrift/Tending the Embers is to raise funds ahead of recording what will be their seventh album in a career now spanning more than 20 years. In addition to that being a cause worth supporting — they’re on the second pressing; 200 blue tapes — the two new original tracks “Adrift” (5:48) and “Tending the Embers” (4:26) reintroduce guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec as a studio presence alongside guitarist Trevor Shelley de Brauw, bassist Bryan Herweg and drummer Larry Herweg. Recorded by the esteemed Sanford Parker, neither cut ranges too far conceptually from the band’s central modus bringing together heavy groove with lighter/brighter reach of guitar, but come across like a tight, more concise encapsulation of earlier accomplishments. There’s a certain amount of comfort in that as they surf the crunching, somehow-noise-rock-inspired riff of “Adrift,” sounding refreshed in their purpose in a way that one hopes they can carry into making the intended LP.
Something of a harsher take on A Mortal Binding, which is the 15th full-length from UK death-doom forebears My Dying Bride, as well as their second for Nuclear Blast behind 2020’s lush The Ghost of Orion (review here. The seven-song/55-minute offering from the masters of misery derives its character in no small part from the front-mixed vocals of Aaron Stainthorpe, who from opener “Her Dominion” onward, switches between his morose semi-spoken approach, woeful as ever, and dry-throated harsher barks. And that the leadoff is all-screams feels like a purposeful choice as that rasp returns in the second half of “The 2nd of Three Bells,” the 11-minute “The Apocalyptist,” “A Starving Heart” and the ending section of closer “Crushed Embers.” I don’t know when the last time a My Dying Bride LP sounded so roiling, but it’s been a minute. The duly morose riffing of founding guitarist Andrew Craighan unites this outwardly nastier aspect with the more melodic “Thornwyck Hymn,” “Unthroned Creed” and the rest that isn’t throatripper-topped, but with returning producer Mark Mynett, the band has clearly honed in on a more stripped-down, still-room-for-violin approach, and it works in just about everything but the drums, which sound triggered/programmed in the way of modern metal. It remains easy to get caught in the band’s wretched sweep, and I’ll note that it’s a rare act who can surprise you 15 records later.
Masonic Wave‘s self-titled debut is the first public offering from the Chicago-based five-piece with Bruce Lamont (Yakuza, Corrections House, Led Zeppelin II, etc.) on vocals, and though “Justify the Cling” has a kind of darker intensity in its brooding first-half ambience, what that build and much besides throughout the eight-song offering leads to is a weighted take on post-hardcore that earlier pieces “Bully” and “Tent City” present in duly confrontational style before “Idle Hands” (the longest inclusion at just under eight minutes) digs into a similar explore-till-we-find-the-payoff ideology and “Julia” gnashes through noise-rock teethkicking. Some of the edge-of-the-next-outburst restlessness cast by Lamont, guitarists Scott Spidale and Sean Hulet, bassist Fritz Doreza and drummer Clayton DeMuth reminds of Chat Pile‘s arthouse disillusion, but “Nuzzle Up” has a cyclical crunch given breadth through the vocal melody and the sax amid the multiple angles and sharp corners of the penultimate “Mountains of Labor” are a clue to further weirdness to come before “Bamboozler” closes with heads-down urgency before subtly branching into a more spacious if still pointedly unrelaxed culmination. No clue where it might all be headed, but that’s part of the appeal as Masonic Wave‘s Sanford Parker-produced 39 minutes play out, the songs engaging almost in spite of themselves.
There are shades of latter-day Conan (whose producer/former bassist Chris Fielding mixed here) in the vocal trades and mega-toned gallop of opening track “Sky Father,” which Bismarck expand upon with the more pointedly post-metallic “Echoes,” shifting from the lurching ultracrush into a mellower midsection before the blastbeaten crescendo gives over to rumble and the hand-percussion-backed whispers of the intro to “Kigal.” Their first for Dark Essence, the six-song/35-minute Vourukasha follows 2020’s Oneiromancer (review here) and feels poised in its various transitions between consuming aural heft and leaving that same space in the mix open for comparatively minimal exploration. “Kigal” takes on a Middle Eastern lean and stays unshouted/growled for its five-plus minutes — a choice that both works and feels purposeful — but the foreboding drone of interlude “The Tree of All Seeds” comes to a noisy head as if to warn of the drop about to take place in the title-track, which flows through its initial movement with an emergent float of guitar that leads into its own ambient middle ahead of an engrossing, duly massive slowdown/payoff worthy of as much volume as it can be given. Wrapping with the nine-minute “Ocean Dweller,” they summarize what precedes on Vourukasha while shifting the structure as an extended, vocal-inclusive-at-the-front soundscape bookends around one more huge, slow-marching, consciousness-flattening procession. Extremity refined.
That fact that Sun Moon Holy Cult exist on paper as a band based in Tokyo playing a Sabbath-boogie-worshiping, riff-led take on heavy rock with a song like “I Cut Your Throat” leading off their self-titled debut makes a Church of Misery comparison somewhat inevitable, but the psych jamming around the wah-bass shuffle of “Out of the Dark,” longer-form structures, the vocal melodies and the Sleep-style march of “Savoordoom” that grows trippier as it delves further into its 13 minutes distinguish the newcomer four-piece of vocalist Hakuka, guitarist Ryu, bassist Ame and drummer Bato across the four-song LP’s 40 minutes. Issued through Captured Records and SloomWeep Productions, Sun Moon Holy Cult brings due bombast amid the roll of “Mystic River” as well, hitting its marks stylistically while showcasing the promise of a band with a clear idea of what they want their songs to do and perhaps how they want to grow over time. If this is to be the foundation of that growth, watch out.
Dortmund, Germany’s Daily Thompson made their way to Port Orchard, Washington, to record Chuparosa with Mos Generator‘s Tony Reed at the helm, and the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Danny Zaremba, bassist/vocalist Mercedes Lalakakis and drummer/vocalist Thorsten Stratmann bring a duly West Coast spirit to “I’m Free Tonight” and the grunge-informed roll of “Diamond Waves” and the verses of “Raindancer.” The former launches the 36-minute outing with a pointedly Fu Manchuian vibe, but the start-stops, fluid roll and interplay of vocals from Zaremba and Lalakakis lets “Pizza Boy” move in its own direction, and the brooding acoustic start of “Diamond Waves” and more languid wash of riff in the chorus look elsewhere in ’90s alternativism for their basis. The penultimate “Ghost Bird” brings in cigar-box guitar and dares some twang amid all the fuzz, but as “Raindancer” has already branched out with its quieter bassy midsection build and final desert-hued thrust, the album can accommodate such a shift without any trouble. The title-track trades between wistful grunge verses and a fuller-nodding hook, from which the three-piece take off for the bridge, thankfully returning to the chorus in Chuparosa‘s big finish. The manner in which the whole thing brims with purpose makes it seem like Daily Thompson knew exactly what they were going for in terms of sound, so I guess you could say it was probably worth the trip.
Kicking off with the markedly Graveyardian “Hangtime,” Mooch ultimately aren’t content to dwell solely in a heavy-blues-boogie sphere on Visions, their third LP and quick follow-up to 2023’s Hounds. Bluesy as the vibe is from which the Montreal trio set out, the subsequent “Morning Prayer” meanders through wah-strum open spaces early onto to delve into jangly classic-prog strum later, while “Intention” backs its drawling vocal melody with nylon-stringed acoustic guitar and hand percussion. Divergence continues to be the order of the day throughout the 41-minute eight-songer, with “New Door” shifting from its sleepy initial movement into an even quieter stretch of Doors-meets-Stones-y melody before the bass leads into its livelier solo section with just a tinge of Latin rhythm and “Together” giving more push behind a feel harkening back to the opener but that grows quiet and melodically expansive in its second half. This sets up the moodier vibe of “Vision” and gives the roll of “You Wouldn’t Know” an effective backdrop for its acoustic/electric blend and harmonized vocals, delivered patiently enough to let the lap steel slide into the arrangement easily before the brighter-toned “Reflections” caps with a tinge of modern heavy post-rock. What’s tying it together? Something intangible. Momentum. Flow. Maybe just the confidence to do it? I don’t know, but as subdued as they get, they never lose their momentum, and as much movement as their is, they never seem to lose their balance. Visions might not reveal its full scope the first time through, but subsequent listens bring due reward.
The narrative — blessings and peace upon it — has it that guitarist/vocalist Bobby Spender recruited bassist Loz Fancourt and drummer Harry Flowers after The Pleasure Dome‘s prior rhythm section left, ahead of putting together the varied 16 minutes of the Liminal Space EP. For what it’s worth, the revamped Bristol, UK, trio don’t sound any more haphazard than they want to in the loose-swinging sections of “Shoulder to Cry On” that offset the fuller shove of the chorus, or the punk-rooted alt-rock brashness of “The Duke Part II (Friends & Enemies),” and the blastbeat-inclusive tension of “Your Fucking Smile” that precedes the folk-blues finger-plucking of “Sugar.” Disjointed? Kind of, but that also feels like the point. Closer “Suicide” works around acoustic guitar and feels sincere in the lines, “Suicide, suicide/I’ve been there before/I’ve been there before/On your own/So hold on,” and the profession of love that resolves it, and while that’s at some remove from the bitter spirit of the first two post-intro tracks, Liminal Space makes its own kind of sense with the sans-effects voice of Spender at its core.
A solid four-songer from Birmingham’s Slump, who are fronted by guitarist Matt Noble (also Alunah), with drummer David Kabbouri Lara and bassist Ben Myles backing the riff-led material with punch in “Buried” after the careening hook of “Dust” opens with classic scorch in its solo and before the slower and more sludged “Kneel” gets down to its own screamier business and “Vultures” rounds out with a midtempo stomp early but nods to what seems like it’s going to be a more morose finish until the drum solo takes off toward the big-crash finish. As was the case on Slump‘s 2023 split with At War With the Sun, the feel across Dust is that of a nascent band — Slump got together in 2018, but this is their most substantial standalone release to-date — figuring out what they want to do. The ideas are there, and the volatility at which “Kneel” hints will hopefully continue to serve them well as they explore spaces between metal and heavy rock, classic and modern styles. A progression underway toward any number of potential avenues.
What dwells in Green Hog Band‘s Fuzz Realm? If you said “fuzz,” go ahead and get yourself a cookie (the judges also would’ve accepted “riffs” and “heavy vibes, dude”), but for those unfamiliar with the New Yorker trio’s methodology, there’s more to it than tone as guitarist/producer Mike Vivisector, bassist/vocalist Ivan Antipov and drummer Ronan Berry continue to carve out their niche of lo-fi stoner buzz marked by harsh, gurgly vocals in the vein of Attila Csihar, various samples, organ sounds and dug-in fuckall. “Escape on the Wheels” swings and chugs instrumentally, and “In the Mist of the Bong” has lyrics in English, so there’s no lack of variety despite the overarching pervasiveness of misanthropy. That mood is further cast in the closing salvo of the low-slung “Morning Dew” and left-open “Phantom,” both of which are instrumental save for some spoken lines in the latter, as the prevailing sense is that they were going to maybe put some verses on there but decided screw it and went back to their cave (presumably somewhere in Queens) instead, because up yours anyhow. 46 minutes of crust-stoned “up yours anyhow,” then.
[Please note: If you’ve been keeping up with this as a series, Technical Ecstasy would be next, but it closed out a week already and I stand by what I wrote there as it relates to the catalog. In any case, thanks for reading. -JJ]
Never Say Die! was of course the death knell of Black Sabbath‘s original run. It is to wonder what might’ve been had they been able to hold together the founding incarnation of the band into perpetuity instead of splitting with vocalist Ozzy Osbourne after wrapping the Fall tour alongside openers Van Halen supporting this release. But maybe there’s a glimpse of that in how the mixed-bag nine songs of Never Say Die! strode forth with swagger and renewed vigor after the band seemed confused in their ambitions on 1976’s Technical Ecstasy (discussed here), which was perhaps pulled between impulses toward commercial success, being taken seriously as artists, guitarist Tony Iommi‘s pull toward broader-scope songwriting that had been flourishing just a few years earlier on 1975’s Sabotage (discussed here) and 1973’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (discussed here) and his increasing role as producer and emergent bandleader. A flash of what an Ozzy-fronted Sabbath might’ve been as the shift to the 1980s loomed, just closer than the horizon.
To wit, a new generation of hard rock bands and also — a few acts like Trouble, The Obsessed and Saint Vitus working directly in younger-Sabbath‘s wake — were coming up and would continue to in the next few years. The ’70s were winding down. Vietnam was history. Even disco was passé by 1978, or at least on its way to becoming New Wave. Joy Division‘s first album would come out in 1979. Things had changed. Black Sabbath met those changes with what probably sounded at the time like a sustainable version of their approach. As pieces like “Junior’s Eyes” signaled their maturity in the parental voice of the lyrics and “Over to You” somewhat tamely renewed a penchant for societal critique that had brought about “Children of the Grave” and “War Pigs,” Never Say Die! would nonetheless be defined by the shove of its opening title-track.
Uptempo in its shove but inevitably swill swinging with Bill Ward on drums, “Never Say Die” is sub-four minutes of heavy rock righteousness with an earworm hook and a sweeping riff that gives both Osbourne and bassist Geezer Butler room to shine. Never Say Die! isn’t without its Sab-experimental aspects. Whether it’s Don Airey‘s keys starting off second track “Johnny Blade” and piano adding atmospheric light touches in “Air Dance” or the sax-laced strut of the penultimate interlude “Breakout” before Ward takes lead vocals for the finale “Swinging the Chain,” there’s plenty of showcase for the sonic progression that would in some ways end with this record. But while “Johnny Blade” has a Sabbath-does-Bowie vibe to its storytelling and does well in creating an atmosphere corresponding to that, at its heart is the bluesy stomp of its riff, and that holds true for “Junior’s Eyes” and side A capper “A Hard Road,” with its everybody-on-board gang vocals in the chorus and unabashed-feeling groove. All three of those run over six minutes long, and they’re not without their indulgences in solos and arrangement, but in terms of the underlying approach, the band’s vision of who they are seems clearer than it did two years prior.
I won’t claim to know why that is, and it doesn’t really line up with the circumstances of Never Say Die!‘s making, which involved Osbourne (whose father’s death is the basis for the aforementioned “Junior’s Eyes” lyric) quitting the band and being replaced by Dave Walker (Savoy Brown, Fleetwood Mac) before rejoining, finishing the record, touring, and being fired, various other disagreements over direction, more business trouble and working at a studio in Toronto that reportedly no one had looked at beforehand, drugs drugs drugs — also booze — and so on. But as side B launches with the standout “Shock Wave,” fostering a tonal grit reminiscent of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath topped off by a layered melody from Osbourne, if Never Say Die! is sloppy or haphazard, it’s organic to the material in a captured-live sense. “Air Dance” pushes against this idea with its midsection departure into piano, keys and wistful jazz guitar, and so does “Breakout” with its cocaine-era saxophone wankery, but Sabbath had done acoustic and/or piano pieces before, and “Air Dance” establishes its verse and atmosphere before embarking on what’s still a plotted linear build, and under the brass in the two and a half minutes of “Breakout” is a rolling movement that feels like it maybe taught Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats (among others) how guitars should sound.
“Over to You,” which appears between “Air Dance” and “Breakout” in the tracklisting, keeps the piano from the preceding song, and feels sure-footed enough in its verse and chorus that “Breakout” doesn’t come across as so substantially different in intent from “Orchid” on Master of Reality (discussed here) or “Laguna Sunrise” from Vol. 4 (discussed here), even if its actual execution leads it elsewhere. All of these feed into an overarching vibe for Never Say Die! that positions it as tangibly above Technical Ecstasy in craft and performance — each member of this band hit their stride as a player at some point in this eight-year stretch in ways that would define their respective career arcs, but that didn’t necessarily happen all at the same time or according to the order of LP releases — while having traded some of its soul for that self-awareness and direction.
As “Swinging the Chain” wraps, Ward holds out his notes and even hits a falsetto that speaks to his emergence as a singer. In another reality, would he have taken over lead vocals after Osbourne‘s departure? Or could Black Sabbath have pulled it together and kept the Osbourne/Iommi/Butler/Ward configuration somehow, and if they had, would they still push forward with something as outright majestic as 1980’s Heaven and Hell (discussed here), which introduced then ex-Rainbow singer Ronnie James Dio as their new frontman and felt like all the more a radical turn for it, or continue to backslide into a kind of comfortable mediocrity even before they hit middle-age? Flashes of their former greatness amid an endless string of identifiable but watered-down riffs, with neither the force nor passion behind them of their earliest work?
Of course these things could’ve happened, and if they had, maybe Black Sabbath would still be as revered as they’ve been since reforming their lineup in the later-1990s. But in this universe, Never Say Die is impossible to divorce from its context as the ‘last’ Black Sabbath original-lineup LP, and if you reorient to a position of looking forward from it rather than looking back at it, maybe that’s for the best. Nonetheless, at its center, it’s still these players captured at this time, and as the capstone of their run, there remains positive forward potential in its songs as well as the exeunt omnes spirit so easily read into “A Hard Road,” making it an ending worthy of the beginning from whence it came.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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I gotta answer some emails. If you’ve reached out to me, oh, let’s say in the last four or five months, and not heard back, I’m sorry. My time is pretty tight these days — genuinely more so than I expected it to be when I sent my daughter off to full-day kindergarten this past Fall — and I’ve found my capacity for getting back has taken the brunt of that. I was never especially good at email, to be honest. I find now I’m about ready to move on from it, though no, that doesn’t mean I’m shutting off the contact form on this site. Just that I’m ready for whatever technological advance in communications might eventually follow to render it obsolete. Branded mini-emails like social media DMs aren’t really cutting it either. Same anxiety on approach, less easy to sort through and find what you need when you need it.
First, I’m lucky anyone thinks enough of what I do here to send their music in the first place, whether it fits or not. Second, I’m doing my best and I acknowledge that things will not always be as they are today.
But yeah, email.
If you dug the string of Black Sabbath week-closeouts, I’m glad. It was a fun project. I was thinking I might dig into Kyuss in a similar fashion, but we’ll see. There are a couple other not-multiple-week odds and ends I’d like to do as well, but I’m content not to decide anything about even next Friday this week, as much as I do enjoy getting an answer for that kind of question ahead of time. For example, I currently have two full albums slated to stream in May, and not necessarily at the start of the month. Working ahead is how I stay sane in this to the extent that I do. In my head, I’m feeling like it’s time to put together the back end for Monday’s review.
And about next week. Monday’s a Skraeckoedlan full stream, Tuesday I’m going to try to follow that with a Colour Haze studio log-ish-type feature. Wednesday is Cancervo’s new LP, Thursday is the Esben Willems solo record with a track-by-track, and Friday I’m leaving open either for Craneium or some other review that strikes my fancy. Or maybe I’ll post that Brume video interview where I, well, just sucked. Their record doesn’t, and that helps. We’ll see.
I got some pretty thoughtful comments last week, more than just internet-style platitudes and/or empty optimism, and thank you for that. You might not find this surprising, but sometimes writing a thing out helps me organize my thoughts. Wild, I know.
This week was my wife’s Spring Break, and it was wonderful to have her home. Tuesday we went to the Job Lot, today we went to the library to look at alternative Zelda books for The Pecan, who at this point continues to want to read nothing else, and even just having her in the house, whether she’s working upstairs or down, whatever it is, makes life better on every level. I’ll miss her next week when she goes back to work.
I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Have fun, watch your head, hydrate. I’ve got my water jug and my bluetooth speaker and some clothes laid out for after I shower, which is my stank-ass-self’s next stop. Beyond that, primo hours of fuck-off time ahead. I hope you also get a bit of a chance to relax, however that looks for you. Thanks again for reading and checking in. Back Monday.
The number jump between 1973’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and 1975’s Sabotage feels big in comparison to the pace with which Black Sabbath released their first three records between Feb. 1970 and July 1971, but as their sixth album and first signed to NEMS Records, Sabotage followed copious road time in 1974 after canceling their Spring ’73 US run, and landed on July 28, 1975. That was about three months after the end of the Vietnam War. David Bowie had just put out “Fame.” Styx‘s “Lady” took off two years after its own release. Disco was coming up, punk was about to happen, Judas Priest would take the lessons Sabbath were teaching and utilize them in the personality shift between Rocka Rolla (1974) and Sad Wings of Destiny (1976), in no small part setting the stage for the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.
And while Black Sabbath were obviously essential in setting the stage for that setting the stage for the NWOBHM — perhaps the most proto of proto-metals — which arguably was the first time ‘metal’ stepped out as its own genre under the umbrella of rock and roll, by virtue of that, they couldn’t be part of the next generation’s movement. Their major creative innovation had already been made. But Sabbath had evolved as well, and in some ways, Sabotage is a pinnacle of what the original lineup of guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler, drummer Bill Ward and vocalist Ozzy Osbourne would accomplish before splitting with the latter after 1978’s Never Say Die!.
In the trajectory of the eight full-lengths released between 1970-1978, Sabotage resides at the tail end of the second group of three, continuing to build on the production style and driving heavy rock that began to surface in 1972 with Vol. 4 (discussed here) and the expanded arrangements brought to the aforementioned Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (discussed here). Some of the severity and harsh cast of their earliest work was gone, but Sabotage filled that space in the mix with more adventurous craft, the corresponding side-enders “Megalomania” and “The Writ” — the two longest tracks on the LP, which would become a trope of heavy rock — taking flight with a dark psychedelic cast in the former that gives over to a stark, effects-tainted procession and boogie jam, while “The Writ” recounts the legal trouble the band was in at the time lyrically during its roll, stops dead to weirdo ambient noise, and moves to incorporate acoustic guitar, chimes and pleading vocals in answer to its own crunch before finally deciding the latter is where it wants to end.
It’s arguable — here’s me, arguing — that Sabotage and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath are the two original-lineup Black Sabbath LPs in closest conversation with each other, despite the longer break between outings. It also features two of the best and hardest-hitting songs they’d release in opener “Hole in the Sky” and “Symptom of the Universe,” which follows after the bit-of-finger interlude “Don’t Start (Too Late)” and retains its aggressive shove 49 years after the fact. Ward is furious on the crash as he rides Iommi‘s verse riff, Butler is the weight in ‘heavy’ as ever, and Osbourne snarls the verse lines and holds out a “Yeah…” afterward in a way that none of the hundreds of cover versions have managed to capture. Then comes the willfully meandering acoustic guitar and percussion jam. Between it and “Hole in the Sky” prior, buzzing to life with an immediate roller groove and a riff that in the decades since has become a founding principal across two generations of heavy/stoner rock, Sabotage wouldn’t need much more to stand as a worthy entry in the Sabbath catalog, but in the instrumental-but-for-the-chorus grandiosity of “Supertzar,” the keyboard of Gerald “Jezz” Woodruffe interwoven into “Am I Going Insane (Radio)” and even the purpose with which they manifest the final build in “Megalomania,” the band are still presenting new ideas and pushing themselves forward.
That said, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath had “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” and “Sabbra Cadabra” as its straight-ahead-heavy party rockers, “Who Are You” as precursor to “Am I Going Insane (Radio),” and the branched-out arrangements of “A National Acrobat” and “Spiral Architect” to lend a high-concept, progressive feel that “The Writ” and “Supertzar” complement on Sabotage. Even on the most superficial level — their titles — they feel like companion pieces. Is that Black Sabbath, on a deadline, distracted by legal trouble, infamously cocaine-addled as I understand the entire music industry was circa 1975, and maybe getting a little tired of hanging out with each other all the time working more directly from one record to the next than they otherwise might? Leaning on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath more than Master of Reality (discussed here) or Paranoid (discussed here) drew from the self-titled (dicsussed here) in the primary of their two essential trilogies between 1970-’71?
Maybe. If they were developing a formula and measuring quotas for what each Black Sabbath record should include, fair enough, though part of the consistency of sound from Vol. 4 through Sabotage also has to be attributed to the band having taken on more responsibility for their own production in addition to defining their approach on an aesthetic level. The double-edge of their maturity meant that, while more mindful of what they were exploring around the core, riff-driven style that side B leadoff “The Thrill of it All” so readily highlights in its start-stop verse and handclaps as well as in the plus-keyboard second-half triumph before the fadeout, that also meant they had distinct ideas about who they were and what they did as a group that are inherently a limit as much as a blueprint. They weren’t shy about trying things they hadn’t done before, but they also had a career to protect — which would’ve been all the more in-mind given the court battles with management at the time — and Sabotage seems to be preserving what Sabbath had become as well as adding to that already prevalent sense of persona.
What does that mean? Late in 1975, NEMS issued the 2LP compilation We Sold Our Souls for Rock ‘n’ Roll, an encapsulating best-of drawn from their first six albums, and the sense of Black Sabbath as a band with ‘greatest hits’ stands in opposition to Black Sabbath as the clueless kids from Birmingham — Ozzy in “The Writ”: “I wish I’d walked before I started to run to you”– who blues-rocked their way into inventing doom. By knowing more about who they were and their goals, by maturing as artists and performers, they’d moved past the rawer side of their early outings. They were still heavy in tone, still forceful rhythmically with enough melody around that to be accessible and commercially viable when they wanted to be, but there’s still something about Sabotage as a whole that comes across as settling into the course of their career, and even at its most vibrant moments, Sabotage hints in hindsight at the unevenness to follow in 1976’s Technical Ecstasy no less than it frames the idolization of their younger days. It had only been five years, but it was the five years in which Black Sabbath grew up, for better and for worse.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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I was on a telehealth appointment Monday afternoon with my neurologist. A probably-overdue check-in after some months on a new combination of mood-stabilizers and ADHD meth-but-it’s-okay-because-we-say-it-is meds. As much as I frame my life experience — probably not all of it, but enough that I can’t really think of anything to which this doesn’t apply off the top of my head — around things like depression and anxiety, I’m starting to also feel like maybe I need to add OCD to that mix given how overwhelming I find small sudden changes and how heavily minute housekeeping shit weighs on my mind. I have another appointment in a month. I think it’s the day before I leave for Roadburn. Seems like a good time to bring that up.
‘At’ this Monday’s appointment — and I put ‘at’ in quotes because really I was on the same couch where I’m sitting now — I was talking about my tendency to fall down holes of negative self-talk. Not just I can’t do a thing — which rest assured I can’t, whatever it is, pretty much ever — but I’m a fucking idiot for trying and should just fucking die to ease the burdens of those who have to live with me, on and on in a thematic loop in my brain throughout every day. In parenting, in my relationship with my wife, which I don’t think is any less strained for my feeling like garbage all the time and telling myself I’m right to do so, and just in my own day to day, it gets brutal. Mean voice. Bad voice. And it’s my own voice. I’m that person calling me worthless. Hoo. Ray.
She told me to take a step back and, while assuring me it wasn’t pop-psych nonsense just in case that mattered to me (I’m not sure it does), to go into that conversation with myself and look at who I’m talking to. She specifically asked me how old is the me I’m speaking to. Am I speaking to me as a child like that? How old is the me in my head being chastised for whatever mistake he’s made, major, minor or not-actually-there? These things come up so often throughout the day — rest assured, I fuck up all the time and rarely let an opportunity slip to make myself feel bad about it — that I usually think I’m talking to myself now, in the present. Like I’m outside of the moment in so many ways, stuck in my narcissistic navelgazing viewpoint so much of the time, but that’s the moment where I really shine. Where I’m most myself. Tearing me down.
But I’ve been thinking about it all week. I might be 13. Pubescent, hapless, feeling and being made to feel shitty in my fat-kid body every day in a way that wasn’t even new by the time I’d started to listen to music and think about growing my hair out. A weird kid doing the class-clown thing in some attempt to find a place. I’ve been thinking about that kid a lot. It’s hard for me not to fucking hate him.
The questions she told me to ask myself: Why am I so brutal to him? Because he’s not worth it? Because he ruined my life, messing things up? What’s his true age? At that age, does he have everything he needs to make good judgements and take good actions? If he was my son, how would I help him? She encouraged me to realize that the power of my own adulthood is to not let it keep happening, to take care of that child and not reject him over and over. To help him recover and repair himself.
I had a paragraph here that I just deleted that totally derailed and redirected the conversation, so maybe it’s fair for me to say I find it difficult to process these ideas. I have a good life. It’s never been better to be me than it is now. Right now. I have a wife, a kid, a car, a house. My mother is still alive. My sister and her husband and my wife’s family and everybody’s kids are great. I’m well supported in the creative work I do, and I don’t have a job that I have to either go to or take away from my writing time/brainpower in order to perform. I am lucky to be me. I am also the thing most keeping me from realizing this and internalizing it on a level from which I might then live as though I really believed it to be true. Tidal waves of self-loathing. I drown.
I’m not over being that kid, whether or not he’s who I’m yelling at all the time (and he might be, I just don’t think it’s so easily settled). I’m not over finding out I couldn’t make a baby eight years ago after three years of trying. I’m not over eating disorders or feeling wrong in my body. I’m just older.
How much older? And what does it mean to be older? I don’t know. These are the kinds of things you explore in talk-therapy, which I’ve certainly cycled through any number of times in the last 25-30 years. One way or the other, I know enough to know I want to keep the life I have. I don’t want to alienate my wife. I don’t want to pass on my feeling-shitty-about-yourself character to my daughter, who has her own hills to climb as regards neurology. I want to help her. She’s the kid I want to embrace, to be there for, to help and love and serve more than some imaginary version of me. The way I am now, I get pissed when she talks back, I get sad when she throws a punch. Last night, I shut off the Switch because she was telling me no and I couldn’t tell her what to do after I asked her to go to the bathroom before bedtime, she turned and just started to wail on me. Then, when I left to take the dog out basically just to get out of the room before I lost it and wound up yelling at her, she followed me out of the house and it kept going.
This was five minutes out of an otherwise passable, not unpleasant evening, and afterward, we took the time to work it out, watched a Bluey and went upstairs to read the Zelda Encyclopedia— though we used to cover a range of topics, it’s been Zelda-only information processing since well before Xmas — and by the time I left her room, we were in a calmer, more peaceful place. It felt okay again. But that five minutes counts too, and I don’t want to live like that, standing in the yard in the dark trying to get the dog to pee while yelling at the kid to go in the house, sit and think about why she’s not playing Nintendo anymore. That’s not who I want to be at any age. I don’t want to be own my piece-of-shit father, or hers.
I’ve gone on here longer than I wanted to, and if you read all that, thanks. I’m not going to undercut how I feel by calling it a brain-dump, but clearly I’m trying to work things out in my head and sort through these issues, and if you put eyes to any of it, can relate or not, I appreciate your time. This site is basically the only outlet I have for this kind of exploration, and I value your… indulgence?… acceptance?… I don’t know. Maybe just feeling like I can say these things with less fear of being judged as the terrible person I’ve believed I am all along in some horrifying validation.
I wish you a great and safe weekend. Have fun if you like fun, be safe either way, and don’t forget to hydrate. Next week is slammed with a Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol review, full-album streams for the new Carpet (banger!) and Iota (ultra-banger!) LPs, another premiere for Maragda that I don’t think I’m supposed to talk about yet, and videos from Ripple Music doomers Haunted and Heavy Psych Sounds denizens Acid Mammoth. Yes, some days are doubled-up. Stick around and we’ll see if I make it through without collapsing.
With the clarion riff of its title-track sounding the call to worship at its outset, experiments in folk and synth more realized than the band had yet attempted, an emergent progression of sound, arguably the first party-rock riff in “Sabbra Cadabra” and performances that find the young Black Sabbath hitting their stride as players, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath was released in Dec. 1, 1973 on Vertigo Records. That put it just 14 months after Vol. 4 (discussed here), the band’s forward momentum taking a hit after the cancelation of their Spring 1973 tour either as a result of burnout, drugs, or both, depending on who’s telling the story, but it’s still about the same turnaround as that between Vol. 4 and its predecessor, 1971’s Master of Reality (review here). They were a working band.
And the eight songs and 42 minutes of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath sound like it. Gone is the willful cultish slog of their self-titled (discussed here), somewhat contrary to the impression of Dan Struzan‘s cover art, and the gritty judgementalism of Paranoid (discussed here) — at least mostly — as the returning four-piece of vocalist Ozzy Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, who branches out instrumentally on various keys, flute on “Looking for Today,” bagpipes on “Spiral Architect,” etc., bassist Geezer Butler (also some synth and Mellotron) and drummer Bill Ward dug into an expansion of ideas that began to come forward on the album prior to find a more rousing and uptempo take. Accordingly, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, as the fifth Black Sabbath full-length from the original lineup and the entry into the back half of their multi-genre-defining eight-record run, is also the first LP in their catalog that truly comes across like a follow-up to the one before it.
There are positive and negative aspects to that, and its audible in the expanded arrangements throughout as well as in the production around the guitar, bass, drums and vocals. As the Narrative (blessings and peace upon it) saw cocaine, alcohol and whatever other substance abuse famously rooting itself into the already-wasn’t-lacking-for-shenanigans culture of Black Sabbath as a group, they were also more confident and more self-aware in recording themselves than they’d yet been. Working with engineer Mike Butcher following writing sessions in Los Angeles (unsuccessful) and at Clearwell Castle in Gloucestershire, UK (successful), where the likes of Led Zeppelin, Queen and Deep Purple, among others, had composed and/or recorded (you can get married there now), the band stepped forward with a crunch in Iommi‘s tone audible right at the outset of “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” — reportedly the first riff he wrote for the album — that was consistent with Vol. 4 in a new and purposeful way. It was the first time Black Sabbath sounded like they actively chose how they wanted to sound on a recording.
I’ll also argue that Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and its July 1975 successor, Sabotage, represent this version of Black Sabbath at the peak of their powers. That isn’t to say it’s necessarily their ‘best’ album — I’m not picking — but it’s among the best played. Between Vol. 4, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Sabotage, Osbourne, whose first statement with the band in the eponymous “Black Sabbath” was that, yes, he could reach those notes organically, found new levels of accomplishment as a singer. Here, he’s grandiose with Butler‘s lyrics in “A National Acrobat,” emotive and sincere in the realization at the end of “Spiral Architect,” and the swagger and lighthearted spirit he brings to “Sabbra Cadabra” is enough to make its generic met-a-girl-feel-good-about-it storyline come through as sweet instead of hollow as did the sappy “Changes” a year earlier.
He’s credited with composing the side B standout “Who Are You” on synthesizer — Rick Wakeman of Yes sat in on keys; maybe also for “Sabbra Cadabra” — and demonstrates a range between the creeper cinematic vibe that makes it the darkest track on the album and the still-melodic shoutier approach on “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” that uses the instrument of his voice in more complex ways, also incorporating different effects so that the bluesy swing in “Sabbra Cadabra” and the back half of “Killing Yourself to Live” could exist alongside the more adventurous instrumental arrangements in “Fluff” and the closing salvo of “Looking for Today” and “Spiral Architect.” In a singularly influential discography spanning more than five decades, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath could easily be a candidate for Ozzy‘s best work as a singer, though admittedly it’s not the only one in the running.
But Ozzy wasn’t the only one to step up, either. While Ward would always be defined by his swing and the creativity with which his fills gave force and character in complement to Iommi‘s riffs, he sets a march in “A National Acrobat” that conveys drudgery without actually being it, gives nodding shape to “Who Are You,” and double-times the hi-hat in the verse of “Looking for Today” — more strut than march — to bring a sense of energy without taking away from the vocals and guitar or Butler‘s bass, which could by this point in the original Sabbath‘s tenure be well relied upon for righteousness. As Iommi dug into the sunny folkishness of “Fluff” and the not-guitar elements noted above brought to “Looking for Today” and “Spiral Architect,” one could not say his core modus had been abandoned, even if broader ambitions were coming to the surface around that. A greater depth of structure overall makes the sudden blues-rocker turn of “Killing Yourself to Live,” which might otherwise be thought of as a mirror atmospherically for “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath,” natural, and as far out as “Spiral Architect” goes after its acoustic introduction, it signals nascent maturity in its patient unfolding and finds space atop its central groove enough that neither the strings nor Butler‘s nose flute feel out of place.
As composers and musicians, Black Sabbath were growing, and things were only going to get weirder from here, but they had found the band they wanted to be and set themselves to chasing that ideal on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath in ways that would inform their work for the next five years and heavy music for the subsequent 50-plus so far. If I call it essential, I mean it speaks to the very heart of what Black Sabbath were at the time.
Like always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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Busy week, busy weekend. You know I’m still not caught up on news from last week’s Quarterly Review? I was a little embarrassed yesterday putting up that Inter Arma album news a week after the fact of the actual announcement, and there are a couple things that I’m probably just going to have to drop because more has come in. I don’t particularly enjoy that, which is putting it mildly, but I remind myself that the stakes are pretty low, content-urgency is an illusion, and that I do as much as I can. I’m trying. There’s just a lot out there.
Anyway. The kid had half-days Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday because of parent-teacher conference, so it was hands-on parenting time for most of the week, which not at all shockingly does not allow for much concentrated writing. That the news was good from her kindergarten teacher — she reads well, has stopped putting what we call “the claw” in other kids’ faces, got a perfect score on her last math assessment, etc. — I won’t say makes it worthwhile, because it’s worthwhile anyway spending time with your kid, but was encouraging just the same. She’s different at home and at school, and though we have a hard time sometimes — she started ice skating lessons again on Wednesday and that claw was dug into my throat as I carried her nervous-to-go self to the car so her mother could take her — every time I step back and look at the progress she’s made and the difficult work she’s done and does every day, I can only admire her strength. Less when she’s using that strength to punch me or The Patient Mrs. for turning off the Switch at bedtime or coming downstairs an hour later to whine in her Bluey voice that she’s hungry for another yogurt, but still.
I have a bio to write today and a call scheduled with Jack from Elephant Tree ahead of doing the liner notes for their upcoming PostWax split with Lowrider. I haven’t heard any music yet from it, so don’t ask. I think they’re still mixing. I guess I’ll probably ask about that, too. But hopefully there will be some downtime in there as well. The Patient Mrs.’ mother’s birthday was yesterday and she’s coming down from Connecticut to NJ for tonight and tomorrow, which will be great, and I think her sister and her sister’s kids are coming Saturday too? I’m not sure, but also wedged in the next two days is The Pecan at a mermaid-themed pottery-painting birthday party. I don’t know how all of this will shake out, but it won’t be the first tired Monday I’ve ever had, so whatever. See “worthwhile,” above.
I’m gonna leave it there.
Thanks again for reading. I hope you’re digging the Sabbath (though if not you’re probably not still reading either) and I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Next week is once more booked front-to-back, and I look forward to again feeling both like I’m doing way too much and like I can’t keep up at all. See you Monday.
My general tendency when it comes to the original era of Black Sabbath, from their 1970 self-titled debut (discussed here) up through 1978’s Never Say Die!, is to break the total of eight LPs into three groups:
The first three albums are one group. They represent the transition from hard blues to heavy rock and the codifying of dark atmospheres from cult folk and psychedelia into something new and the foundation of Black Sabbath‘s sound. Black Sabbath, its same-year follow-up Paranoid (discussed here) and 1971’s Master of Reality (discussed here) all happened within about 17 months of each other, and the shock waves of their impact are still rippling out more than five decades later. They are superlative within heavy music. Arguably the founding principles thereof.
Vol. 4, its iconic and oft-imitated cover art with Keith McMillan‘s photo of Ozzy Osbourne conveying the excitement of the band on stage brought to the studio, is the start of the second group, which is comprised of it and the two records that followed, while the last two from the original lineup make up the third. Appropriately titled Black Sabbath Vol. 4, it the first LP that Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward would release at more than a year’s remove from the one before it, and the first record without the involvement of producer Rodger Bain. Patrick Meehan, who also managed the band until 1975, produced Vol. 4 with engineers Vic Coopersmith-Heaven and Colin Caldwell, and the band have said in their sundry autobiographies and elsewhere that they consider it self-produced, which is believable as well given that the 10-song/42-minute album began an expansion of styles and ideas that would continue through the end of Sabbath‘s initial run.
And that expansion feels natural coming to fruition in new sounds. Black Sabbath didn’t happen in a vacuum, and you could spend a lifetime exploring the heavy rock of what RidingEasy Records‘ Brown Acid compilation series calls ‘The Comedown Era,’ loosely from about 1968-1975. Some of Led Zeppelin‘s countryside pastoralism would show itself on Vol. 4 in “St. Vitus Dance” or perhaps under the thicker lumber of “Cornucopia,” and “Tomorrow’s Dream” has a radio-friendly melody in the guitar and vocals in a way that feels far removed from the bleak visions wrought the year before in “Children of the Grave,” though that song finds a spiritual successor in Vol. 4 closer “Under the Sun,” which on some North American pressing or other would gain a subtitle to become “Under the Sun/Every Day Comes and Goes.”
Various editions jumble the tracklisting as well, either putting the oh-so-relevant cocaine anthem “Snowblind” — which is to “Sweet Leaf” what “Under the Sun” is to “Children of the Grave,” an extrapolation along a similar path, this one of harder drug use — first instead of the eight-minute original-pressing opener and longest track (immediate points) “Wheels of Confusion,” which remains one of the original Black Sabbath‘s most dynamic compositions, with its flowing, drawn-sounding intro giving over to a more active nod, finding sunshine between the clouds in its still-melancholic lovelorn verses before turning to a jammy bridge and bursting out as it approaches the halfway point led by a crunching riff from Iommi and going back to the verse before another stark transition leads to another sometimes-subtitled solo section, “The Straightener,” atop which the shred is duly winding and for which Butler adds 12-string guitar. It allows itself to give the impression of a jumble, of confusion, without giving up its momentum, and lets “Tomorrow’s Dream” come through as more straightforward and almost optimistic in its shove and lyrical resolve.
Adventurous in its inclusion of Mellotron on the acoustic-led side B interlude “Laguna Sunrise” and the druggy tossoff experimentation guitar noise of “FX,” Vol. 4 finds its greatest charge in “Supernaut,” which heralds accomplishments to come across 1973’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and 1975’s Sabotage in songs like “Sabbra Cadabra” and “Hole in the Sky” and represents the emergent command Black Sabbath had over their songwriting and the way that particular version of riff-led mid-tempo heavy could be a foundation they’d return to again and again as the work around it grew more complex. “Supernaut,” with its punches of bass, percussion break and landmark riff, has a force behind its movement that in the next few years and the decades that have followed since would become an essential tenet of metal, and its electricity is all the more crackling after the empty spaces of “FX” and the shift out of “Changes” just before.
And of that famously, in-many-ways-rightly maligned ballad, I’ll note that I almost never skip tracks as a policy. You take the bad with the good. But when I put on Vol. 4, if I can reach the button I’ll bypass “Changes” every time. I’ll even listen to “FX” after rather than go right into “Supernaut,” but not “Changes” if I can help it. The lyrics take the plainspokenness that made “War Pigs” so devastating and attempt to turn saccharine cliché into some kind of emotionality ring hollow, and though Vol. 4remains one of heavy music’s most essential albums, its place on any such list or in any such canon is asterisked in my estimation with “Changes” marring side A. On a critical level, the arrangement of guitar, piano and Mellotron are another example of Black Sabbath reaching into new sonic elements — they’d mellowed before, certainly, but put “Changes” next to “Solitude” from Master of Reality and the shift in intention is clear — but I’ve never been able to take those first lines “I feel unhappy/I feel so sad” seriously, and it undoes the whole thing, pulls me right out of the groove of the album in a way that I very much don’t want to be after “Tomorrow’s Dream.” I listened through “Changes” twice ahead of writing this, and it was a genuine effort. You’re welcome.
Obviously, Black Sabbath would endure despite that perceived misstep — and “Changes” has its champions as well — and as noted, Vol. 4 is among the most revered heavy albums of all time. No argument. They were back on the road in the US shortly after finishing the recording and shared the stage with Humble Pie, Gentle Giant, Groundhogs, Black Oak Arkansas, Wishbone Ash and Blue Öyster Cult ahead of the release, and tour Australia and New Zealand early in 1973 and Europe and the UK that Spring. By the time it was two months old, Vol. 4 moved enough units to get a Gold Record, but the band would cancel their April 1973 US run, and it would be another full year and then some before the arrival of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. People probably thought they were done.
By virtue of existing, Vol. 4 is an essential piece of the Black Sabbath catalog, but what makes it special even among Sabbath offerings is the evolution that was beginning to take hold in their approach, and if Master of Reality perfected the dark, heavy impulses shown through the first two albums before it, these songs are a forward step onto new ground and in no small way would define the course of Black Sabbath‘s next four releases.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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Quarterly Review this week was some labor. Wednesday, which was my busiest day (was posted yesterday), was particularly tough, not because of the music or anything, just the crush of other life aspects beyond the 10 records being written about that day. Nothing I’m sure that most humans wouldn’t be able to handle without feeling like their brain’s on fire, but yeah. Kid was pukey sick all last weekend — from Friday night on — through like Tuesday, and is still a little digestively wobbly. I’ve been trying to chase vomit smells to their source all week.
It’s about 10:30AM now. The QR was finished yesterday. This morning I was up at 4:15 and spent the next 45 minutes in and out of consciousness ahead of the alarm. At least I was ready to get up by the time I did. Plugged away on Vol. 4 till the kid got up, then did that routine, and after dropoff, The Patient Mrs. and I volunteered taking down the school book fair and whatnot. I’m awkward. That’s the moral of the story. Around normal people, I absolutely wilt. If I could physically shrink myself, I would. At one point, I said I was going to go sit in the car with the dog.
I don’t know what the weekend looks like. On the potential docket are driving to Connecticut tomorrow to see family — generally pleasant but not a minor or particularly relaxing day — and maybe going to the Nintendo store in NYC, as we’re currently wrapping up Tears of the Kingdom after putting in over 810 hours playing as a family with the three of us. It’s a big deal. I invited my mom to come watch us fight Ganon. I’ve got three pristine Gerudo Claymores ready to go. 130-plus Big Hearty Radishes! 600 Bomb Flowers! I’m dying to write about the game but probably won’t ever have time.
So maybe that’ll happen, maybe not. Sunday I’m interviewing the dudes from Apostle of Solitude about their 20th anniversary and it’s Author and Punisher in Brooklyn, which I said I want to see and do — not the least with Morne opening — but probably won’t because getting my ass into New York is pretty tough these days.
Whatever you’re up to, I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Have fun, watch your head, hydrate. I’m gonna go have an egg sandwich (thanks to The Patient Mrs.) and try to do some Duolingo before school’s out. Next week is full front to back. So’s the week after, actually. No substitute for keeping busy.
So this is it, but before we — you and I, not at the same time but together nonetheless — dive into the final 10 records of this well-still-basically-winter-but-almost-spring-and-god-damn-I-wish-winter-was-over Quarterly Review, how about a big, deep breath, huh? There. In occupational therapy and other teach-you-how-to-keep-your-shit-together circles, deep breathing is spoken of like it’s a magic secret invented in 1999, and you know what, I think it was. That shit definitely didn’t exist when I was a kid. Can be helpful though, sometimes, if you need just to pause for a second, literally a second, and stop that rush in your brain.
Or my brain. Because I’m definitely talking about me and I’ve come to understand in time not everyone’s operates like mine, even aside from whatever I’ve got going on neurologically, sensorially, emotionally or in terms of mental health. Ups and downs to that, as regards human experience. There are a great many things that I’m useless at. This is what I can do, so I’m doing it. Put your head down, keep working. I can do that. 10 records left? Easy. You might say I did the same thing yesterday, and that was already my busiest day, so this is gravy. And gravy, in its various contexts, textures, tastes, and delivery modes, is delicious. I hope you heard something new this week that you enjoyed. If not yet, there’s still hope.
Quarterly Review #41-50:
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Megaton Leviathan, Silver Tears
I’ll confess that when I held this spot for groundfloor now-Asoria, Oregon, dronegazers Megaton Leviathan, I was thinking of their Dec. 2023 instrumental album, Magick Helmet, with its expansive and noisy odes to outsider experimentalism of yore, but then founding principal Andrew James Costa Reuscher (vocals, guitars, synth, bass, etc.) announced a new lineup with the rhythm section of Alex Wynn (bass) and Tory Chappell (drums) and unveiled “Silver Tears” as the first offering from this new incarnation of the band, and its patient, swirling march and meditative overtones wouldn’t be ignored, however otherwise behind I might be. Next to Magick Helmet, “Silver Tears” is downright straightforward in its four-plus minutes, strong in its conveyance of an atmosphere that’s molten and maybe trying to get lost in its own trance a bit, which is fair enough for the hypnotic cast of the song’s ending. The lesson, as ever with Megaton Leviathan, is that you can’t predict what they’ll do next, and that’s been the case since their start over 15 years ago. One assumes the new lineup will play live and that Reuscher will keep pushing into the ether. Beyond that, they could head anywhere and not find a wrong direction.
They put their own spin on it, of course, but there’s love at heart in Merlin‘s take on the classic “Let’s All Go to the Lobby” jingle that serves as the centerpiece of Grind House, and indeed, the seven-song late-2023 long-player unfolds as an intentional cinematic tribute, with “Feature Presentation” bringing the lights down with some funkier elevator vibes before “The Revenger” invents an ’80s movie with its hook alone, “Master Thief ’77” offers precisely the action-packed bassline and wah you would hope, “Endless Calamity” horror-soundtracks with keyboard, “Blood Money” goes west with due Dollars Trilogy flourish, and the 12-minute “Grindhouse,” which culls together pieces of all of the above — “Let’s All Go to the Lobby” included — and adds a voiceover, which even though it doesn’t start with “In a world…” sets its narrative forth with the verve of coming attractions, semi-over-the-top and thus right on for where Merlin have always resided. Interpreting movie music, soundtracks and the incidental sounds of the theater experience, isn’t by any means the least intuitive leap the Kansas City four-piece could make, and the ease with which they swap one style for another underscores how multifaceted their sound can be while remaining their own. If you get it, you’ll get it.
After what seem to have been a couple more group-oriented full-lengths and an initial solo EP, Minsk-based heavy rockers Stonerhenge seem to have settled around the songwriting of multi-instrumentalist Serge “Skrypa” Skrypničenka. The self-released Gemini Twins is the third long-player from the mostly-instrumental Belarusian project, though the early 10-minute cut “The Story of Captain Glosster” proves crucial for the spoken word telling its titular tale, which ties into the narrative derived Gemini myth and the notion of love as bringing two halves of one whole person together, and there are other vocalizations in “Time Loop” and “Hypersleep,” the second half of “Starship Troopers,” and so on, so the songs aren’t without a human presence tying them together as they range in open space. This is doubly fortunate, as Skrypničenka embarks on movements of clear-eyed, guitar-led progressive heavy exploration, touching on psychedelia without getting too caught up in effects, too tricky in production, or too far removed from the rhythm of the flowing “Solstice” or the turns “Over the Mountain” makes en route its ah-here-we-are apex. Not without its proggy indulgences, the eight-song/46-minute collection rounds out with “Fugit Irreparable Tempus,” which in drawing a complete linear build across its five minutes from clean tone to a distorted finish, highlights the notion of a plot unfolding.
Guiltless make their debut with the four songs of Thorns on Neurot Recordings, following on in some ways from where guitarist, vocalist, noisemaker and apparent-spearhead Josh Graham (also ex-Battle of Mice, Red Sparowes, Neurosis visuals, etc.) and guitarist/more-noisemaker Dan Hawkins left off in A Storm of Light, in this case recording remotely and reincorporating drummer Billy Graves (also Generation of Vipers) and bringing in bassist Sacha Dunable, best known for his work in Intronaut and for founding Dunable Guitars. Gruff in the delivery vocally and otherwise, and suitably post-apocalyptic in its point of view, “All We Destroy” rumbles its assessment after “Devour-Collide” lays out the crunching tonal foundation and begins to expand outward therefrom, with “Dead Eye” seeming to hit that much harder as it rolls its wall o’ low end over a detritus-strewn landscape no more peaceful in its end than its beginning, with subsequent closer “In Radiant Glow” more malleable in tempo before seeming to pull itself apart lurching to the finish. I’d say I hope our species ultimately fares a bit better than Thorns portrays, but I have to acknowledge that there’s not much empirical evidence to base that on. Guiltless play these songs like an indictment.
The latest check-in from the dimension of Italian four-piece MR.BISON, Echoes From the Universe is the band’s most realized work to-date. It’s either their third LP or their fifth, depending on what counts as what, but where it sits in the discography is second to how much the effort stands out generally. Fostering a bright, lush sound distinguished through vocal harmonies and arrangement depth, the seven-song collection showcases the swath of elements that, at this point, has transcended its influence and genuinely found a place of its own. Space rock, Elderian prog, classic harmonized melody, and immediate charge in “The Child of the Night Sky” unfold to acoustics kept going amid dramatic crashes and the melodic roll of “Collision,” with sepia nostalgia creeping into the later lines of “Dead in the Eye” as the guitar becomes more expansive, only to be grounded by the purposeful repetitions of “Fragments” with the last-minute surge ending side A to let “The Promise” fade in with bells like a morning shimmer before exploring a cosmic breadth; it and the also-seven-minute “The Veil” serving as complement and contrast with the latter’s more terrestrial swing early resolving in a an ethereal wash to which “Staring at the Sun,” the finale, could just as easily be referring as to its own path of tension and release. I’ve written about the album a couple times already, but I wanted to put it here too, pretty much just to say don’t be surprised when you see it on my year-end list.
You’d figure with the slash in its title, the split release pairing UK sludge upstarts At War With the Sun and Slump, who are punk-prone on “Dust” and follow the riff on “Kneel” to a place much more metal, would break down into two sides between ‘SP’ and ‘LIT,’ but I’m not sure either At War With the Sun‘s “The Garden” (9:54) or the two Slump inclusions, which are three and seven minutes, respectively, could fit on a 7″ side. Need a bigger platter, and fair enough for holding the post-Eyehategod disillusioned barks of “The Garden” and the slogging downer groove they ride, or the way Slump‘s two songs unite around more open verses, the guitar dropping out in the strut of “Dust” and giving space to vocals in “Kneel,” even as each cut works toward its own ends stylistically. The mix on Slump‘s material is more in-your-face where At War With the Sun cast an introverted feel, but you want to take the central message as ‘Don’t worry, England’s still miserable,’ and keep an eye to see where both bands go from here as they continue to develop their approaches, I don’t think anyone’ll tell you you’re doing it wrong.
They know it’s gonna get brutal, the listener knows it’s gonna get brutal, and Massachusetts riff rollers Leather Lung don’t waste time in getting down to business on Graveside Grin, their awaited, middle-fingers-raised debut full-length on Magnetic Eye Records. An established live act in the Northeastern US with a sound culled from the seemingly disparate ends of sludge and party rock — could they be the next-gen inheritors of Weedeater‘s ‘ I don’t know how this is a good time but it is’ character? time will tell — the 40-minute 11-songer doesn’t dwell long in any one track, instead building momentum over a succession of pummelers on either side of the also-pummeling “Macrodose Interlude” until “Raised Me Rowdy,” which just might be an anthem, if a twisted one, fades to its finish. I’ve never been and will never be cool enough for this kind of party, but Leather Lung‘s innovation in bringing fun to extreme sounds and their ability to be catchy and caustic at the same time isn’t something to ignore. The time they’ve put in on EPs and touring shows in the purpose and intensity with which they execute “Empty Bottle Boogie” or the modern-metal guitar contortions of “Guilty Pleasure,” but they are firm in their purpose of engaging their audience on their own level, and accessible in that regard. And as raucous as they get, they’re never actually out of control. That’s what makes them truly dangerous.
A new(-ish) band releasing their first album through Sulatron Records would be notable enough, but Italy’s Citrus Citrus answer that significant endorsement with scope on Dec. 2023’s Albedo Massima, veering into and out of acid-laced traditions in what feels like a pursuit, like each song has a goal it’s chasing whether or not the band knew that when they started jamming. Drift and percussive intrigue mark the outset with “Sunday Morning in the Sun,” which lets “Lost It” surprise as it shifts momentarily into fuzzier, Colour Haze-y heavy psych as part of a series of tradeoffs that emerge, a chorus finish emphasizing structure. The Mediterranean twists of “Fantachimera” become explosively heavy, and that theme continues in the end of “Red Stone Seeds” after that centerpiece’s blown out experimental verses, keyboard drift building to heft that would surprise if not for “Lost It” earlier, while “Sleeping Giant” eschews that kind of tonal largesse for a synthier wash before “Frozen\Sun” creates and fills its own mellow and melancholy reaches. All the while, a pointedly organic production gives the band pockets to weave through dynamically, and melody abides. Not at all inactive, or actually that mellow, Albedo Massima resonates with the feel of an adventure just beginning. Here’s looking forward.
Troubled Sleep, A Trip Around the Sun & Solitary Man
Two initial tracks from Swedish newcomers Troubled Sleep, released as separate standalone singles and coupled together here because I can, “A Trip Around the Sun” and “Solitary Man” show a penchant for songwriting in a desert-style sphere, the former coming across as speaking to Kyuss-esque traditionalism while “Solitary Man” pushes a little further into classic heavy and more complex melodies while keeping a bounce that aligns to genre. Both are strikingly cohesive in their course and professional in their production, and while the band has yet to let much be known about their overarching intentions, whether they’re working toward an album or what, they sound like they most definitely could be, and I’ll just be honest and say that’s a record I’ll probably want to hear considering the surety with which “A Trip Around the Sun” and “Solitary Man” are brought to life. I’m not about to tell you they’re revolutionizing desert rock or heavy rock more broadly, but songs this solid don’t usually happen by accident, and Troubled Sleep sound like they know where they’re headed, even if the listener doesn’t yet. The word is potential and the tracks are positively littered with it.
I’m not sure how the double-kick intensity and progressive metal drive translates to the stately-paced, long-shots-of-things-floating-in-space of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, but Observers‘ debut, The Age of the Machine Entities, is sweeping enough to bridge cynical headscratching. And of course there were the whole lightspeed freakout and we-invented-murder parts of Arthur C. Clarke’s narrative as well, so there’s room for All India Radio‘s Martin Kennedy, joined by bassist Rich Gray, drummer Chris Bohm and their included host of guests to conjure the melodic wash of “Strange and Beautiful” after the blasting declarations of “Into the Eye” at the start, with “Pod Bay Doors” interpreting that crucial scene in the film through manipulated sampling (not exclusive to it), and the 11-minute “Metaphor” unfurls a subtly-moving, flute-featuring ambience ahead of the pair “The Star Child” and “The Narrow Way Part II” wrap by realigning around the project’s metallic foundation, which brings fresh perspective to a familiar subject in the realm of science fiction.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on February 23rd, 2024 by JJ Koczan
The quintessential third record. With the July 1971 release of Master of Reality (also discussed here), Black Sabbath further refined the dark, brooding aggression of Paranoid (discussed here) and the riff-following bad-trip hard acid blues of the self-titled (discussed here) to become something even more their own. More than five decades after the fact, the influence of the eight-song/34-minute LP continues to spread to new players, fans and underground culture at large, and it will probably never surpass Paranoid in sales, but there has been nothing made in the last 40-plus years that doom has been a genre primarily in Master of Reality‘s wake that has not been either directly or indirectly touched by its machinations. If you add pivotal opening track “Sweet Leaf” — which swapped out the storm and siren that began their first two records for a repeated cough counting into the riff in a way that’s become no less iconic, and was by no means the first rock song about marijuana but was perhaps the first to sound so hypnotically thick in tone — as a founding moment of all things stoner in heavy music, that reach goes even further.
It was their third go with producer Rodger Bain, who was then on-staff at Vertigo Records and would produce records for Troggs, Budgie, Arthur Brown and helm Judas Priest‘s undervalued Rocka Rolla before the 1970s were done, and clearly lessons had been learned over the past year. Black Sabbath both sharpened and filled out their attack to a degree that makes it difficult to avoid hyperbole in talking about it. Like either of its predecessors, it is arguable as the pinnacle of heavy music full-length recording in the 60-plus years that such a thing might have existed, and whether it’s “Lord of This World” speaking to economic and social inequalities, “Children of the Grave” chugging out a resistant surge, “After Forever” with its worshipful lyrics by drummer Bill Ward inadvertently inventing Christian metal, or the the soft-delivered quiet melancholia of “Solitude” before the escape-the-apocalypse envisioned in “Into the Void” — “Pollution kills the air, land and sea/Man prepares to meet his destiny” — as a wretched Earth is left behind in favor of a new planet where refugees might, “Make a home where love is there to stay/Peace and happiness in every day,” it is a landmark in performance, structure, atmosphere and purpose. Even the cover font gets ripped off. Rightly so.
At the core of the band’s craft, as ever, is Tony Iommi‘s guitar, and in Master of Reality, the boogie of “Rat Salad” that provided a side-step from Paranoid‘s harder fare becomes instead a showcase of more progressive ambitions that in some ways Iommi would struggle to make a part of Black Sabbath for the band’s entire career — and one could go on about the band’s working class background in Birmingham, England, as part of that; it comes up a bit in the 2010 Classic Albums: Paranoid documentary (review here) that was part of the VH1 series — with a showy mastery in his soloing throughout, as well as the interlude “Embryo” and side B intro “Orchid.”
At just 28 seconds and 1:31, respectively, they’re of course not as much a focal point as “Sweet Leaf” or “Into the Void,” etc., but the angular, off-sounding electric guitar strum of “Embryo” makes what might’ve been a tape-rolling toss-off into a landmark contrast as the brief gestation births “Children of the Grave” with an impact given additional force by the tense but obviously more subdued lead-in. And “Orchid” laid claim to both acoustic work and classical stylings as within Black Sabbath‘s sphere. From front to back, Master of Reality presents a more professional incarnation of Black Sabbath — still with the Iommi, Ward, Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler lineup and just a year after their first LP, mind you — who are more directed and purposefully denser in tone, who know what they want their songs to do and to sound like, and who are growing creatively.
The four-piece had toured diligently between 1970 and 1971 in the UK, continental Europe, and the US, taken on new management later in 1970 and as the tour wound down, both Paranoid and Black Sabbath went gold in US sales, so Black Sabbath were no longer an obscure, not-from-London band with druggy, sad-sounding songs. Their music had begun to speak to an audience, and as the third album, Master of Reality is a realization and an arrival in ways that would help define the band across the decades that followed. In its divergences as well as its most intense stretches, it pushed further than the band had yet gone into their persona, and to call it classic is in some ways laughable because its relevance is so enduring. Every single day, Master of Reality continues to have an effect on heavy music. Entire genre ecosystems thrive in the crater it left behind.
The way “Children of the Grave” and “Into the Void” anchor its sides, the way “Solitude” took the mellow-psych of “Planet Caravan” to a place of genuine emotional resonance, or how “Lord of This World” hit the economic angle in answer to “War Pigs,” or the maybe-drugs-are-the-answer-to-all-this-disillusion attitude of “Sweet Leaf” and the confidence with which Master of Reality directly addresses its audience throughout — all of this and more that had been lurking in Black Sabbath‘s approach across the year prior came to fruition here, and the result is a singular, unique achievement.
I don’t believe in gods, but Master of Reality in my mind represents an ideal of the ‘higher power’ that can be reached through creative collaboration. I offer it as nothing less than a reason to feel lucky to be alive at this time in human history and a remedy for troubled souls. Putting it on feels like going home, and while much of it is grim in theme, there is a warmth in its presentation that’s like nothing Black Sabbath would ever do again. If that’s hindsight perspective, informed maybe by the massive influence the album and band have had since, a fan speaking to fans, preaching to the converted, whatever? Good. That’s the point. If perhaps you never have, open your heart and let these songs in. Your life will be better for it.
Thanks for reading.
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Friday. Okay. Gotta get through the morning. Gotta get the kid fed, medded up, dropped off at school, then I’m home, finish posting, start setup for the Quarterly Review, hit the grocery store, blah blah. I woke up at 3:15AM. I figure maybe noon’ll be fuckoff time if I’m reasonably efficient? Very much looking forward to that.
She — the kid — has been on methylphenidate now for ADHD since December. It’s been a pretty remarkable turnaround at school from everything we’ve heard, which is great. The comedown at home is hard — it’s a whole thing with these drugs, apparently — but I’ll take the hit(s) for her to be successful elsewhere. I don’t think she’ll ever be an easygoing, cooperative kid, but I’m not easygoing or particularly cooperative either. Generally I’m a fucking prick to everybody without meaning to be and I feel terrible about it after the fact. So I’ll say she comes by it honestly and we’ll book some social skills classes at some point so she can learn why to say hello back to her classmates when they talk to her. That usually just gets the spit swished in her mouth. Kid is brutal.
The delivery method of the meds is kind of a quandary. She and The Patient Mrs. both have notably sensitive skin, and while slapping a patch on The Pecan’s lower back was working for a while, it’s been a week now and the itchy and plainly uncomfortable — though she’d just about never admit that out loud — is still there, which says to me finding another way was the right call. It’s fading, needs more lotion, etc. But what we’ve got instead are capsules with the medication in them that I’ve been opening up and putting in the morning yogurt that’s usually what she eats before a breakfast of cinnamon toast, apple, banana, strawberries if we have them. The dilemma is she doesn’t know I’m putting that in there.
Am I really supposed to be drugging my six-year-old daughter without her awareness? Does she not have rights as an individual? Isn’t it part of my job as a parent to build trust? How am I supposed to do that if I’m lying by concealment? The kid already tells me in so many words to fuck myself daily in any number of regards. I think I might deserve it more for this even than for suggesting she go to the bathroom when it’s been six hours and she needs to so badly she can’t sit still.
But here’s the rub: she might never eat yogurt again. She doesn’t eat meat, fish, beans, eggs, any of it. She eats cheese, but currently only Muenster and only sliced into small cubes. If I make some, every now and then I can get her to take a couple bites of almond/pecan butter, but that’s never a guarantee. Nutritionally, there’s a lot hinging on that yogurt. She is adamant about not trying new foods. Hard no. She did pasta for a while with butter, but it was basically just calories to get through an afternoon, and it didn’t last. And it turns out since it’s not the ’80s anymore you can’t just shove things in a kid’s mouth. It’s that whole autonomy thing again. Wildly inconvenient, that.
I don’t have a choice but to tell her. I’ll say we tried it this week and if it was okay with her we’ll keep going. My hope is that if I can convince her it’s a plan that’s already worked it’ll be easier for her to get past that initial wall of opposition into which just about any new idea or task is bound to slam, it’ll be easier for her to see that it’s alright, that it doesn’t make the yogurt taste funny, that it’s helping and that it doesn’t need to change. I’m trying to help, but I feel a very specific rot in my mind for this one. She deserves to know and deserve has nothing to actually do with it since it’s a basic human right.
How would I feel if some strange man put a drug in her food without her knowing it? How do I feel about being that man, even if my intentions are arguable as good and the results are positive across multiple levels? Ends justifying means? Am I right to compromise my values to support her success? Or am I teaching her that even the people she’s supposed to trust the most will betray that trust? Am I taking one for the team here or is it just easier for me to deal with getting the medication in her if she doesn’t know it’s happening? And does the fact that she’s six and not really able to make responsible judgments for herself at this point play in at all? Beyond the decision to medicate her in the first place — about which I have feelings, to say the least, mitigated though they are by the to-date outcome — is this even my jurisdiction?
So I guess telling her is my goal for Saturday morning. I’ll say we tried it this week and if it’s okay with her we’ll keep it going and if not we’ll find another way. But is she going to look at her yogurt every day now and wonder if it’s drugged? Or is she going to refuse the yogurt outright because that’s who she is, write it off entirely and lose a cornerstone of her daily intake with nothing on the horizon to replace it?
Guess we’ll find out.
As always, I thank you for reading and for your time. Have a great and safe weekend. Don’t forget to hydrate, watch your head, all that stuff. Quarterly Review starts Monday. I can’t wait to be stressed out all week and behind on news posts, which I already am. Rock and roll.
FRM.
[EDIT 10:37AM: So after writing the above, I decided there was no point in delaying until tomorrow to tell her; it wouldn’t make my case any stronger anyhow. I said that this week I’d been putting her medicine in her yogurt instead of doing the patch, and if it was okay we’d keep doing it. She was headed toward no, but we were able to sort of steer that back around to realizing it’s not a big deal and she ate the yogurt this morning knowing that the meds were in it. I feel better about it, and I’m really, really glad I don’t need a new primary source of protein for my kid. Sometimes you roll the dice and come out alright. I acknowledge I got away with one here, and for what it’s worth, I’m still not really okay with how I went about it. I’d say next time I’ll do differently, like I learned a moral lesson or something, but real life makes jokes of those promises and a moment’s need can eclipse bigger-picture concerns. I will continue to try my best to do right by my kid for as long as I am able.]
Forged from a period of extensive jamming and soul searching “Fever Dream” digs into the core of what makes Alunah tick, being in a room together making the music they want to hear. Recorded during the winter of 2024, the atmosphere of the historic Foel Studio allows groove to flow alongside riff, heft and melody in equal measure. The brooding progressive majesty of the title track, the eastern soundscape of “Sacred Grooves” and the doom and roll of “Far From Reality” each highlight the album’s ability to surprise and deliver in equal measure throughout the emotive journey of its nine tracks. Let yourself fall deep into the “Fever Dream”.
