Posted in Whathaveyou on March 7th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
The news that Philadelphia heavy rockers Thunderbird Divine have been picked up by Black Doomba Records for their next album is already a win even before you get to the manner of their delivery, which is with the charm-drenched video below filmed on what seems to have been a day like any other in the rehearsal space until it wasn’t pizza at the door. Good fun, and a Pulp Fiction reference at the end to boot.
Early last year, Thunderbird Divine unveiled standalone covers of The Osmonds‘ “Crazy Horses” (premiered here) and Barry White‘s “I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little More, Babe” (premiered here), following on from their take on The Yardbirds‘ “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago” that featured among the originals on 2020’s The Hand of Man EP (review here). 2024 puts us at five years and at least a partial lineup swap’s remove from their debut full-length, 2019’s Magnasonic (review here), so even seeing mention of “Fall of 2024” as a potential arrival date for their sophomore LP is welcome. I haven’t heard it yet, but I hear good things about it and the stretch after the first has only found them growing funkier, so here’s looking forward.
The PR wire makes it official, but don’t forget to watch the clip as well for a highlight 90 seconds of your day:
THUNDERBIRD DIVINE Rocks the Scene: Signs with Black Doomba Records for Explosive Fall 2024 Album Release
In an electrifying new partnership, the esteemed Philadelphia-based band THUNDERBIRD DIVINE has inked a deal with Black Doomba Records, signaling a bold new chapter in their already illustrious journey. This collaboration promises to unleash an album in the fall of 2024 that will further cement THUNDERBIRD DIVINE’s place in the pantheon of riff-heavy psychedelic/stoner/doom music.
Since their formation in March 2017, THUNDERBIRD DIVINE has captivated audiences with their unique blend of sonic textures and musical experimentation, drawing inspiration from the likes of Monster Magnet, Hawkwind, and The MC5. Their journey has seen them release critically acclaimed albums such as Magnasonic and The Hand of Man, alongside memorable singles and covers that showcase their versatility and creative prowess.
The upcoming album, set for release in the fall of 2024, is eagerly anticipated by fans and critics alike. It promises to be a testament to the band’s relentless pursuit of musical innovation, featuring compositions that are both emotionally compelling and sonically adventurous. This new project will not only highlight THUNDERBIRD DIVINE’s mastery of traditional rock songwriting but will also delve into complex textures and sounds, further pushing the boundaries of their genre.
THUNDERBIRD DIVINE comprises Erik Caplan, Michael Stuart, Joshua Adam Solomon, and Jack Falkenbach – a lineup of multi-instrumentalists known for their musical virtuosity and experimental approach. The band’s dedication to in-house recording and embracing technological advancements in search of the perfect sound has set them apart in the music world.
The partnership with Black Doomba Records, a label renowned for its dedication to the heavy music scene, marks a significant milestone for THUNDERBIRD DIVINE. This alliance is set to amplify the band’s reach and introduce their groundbreaking music to a wider audience.
Stay tuned for more updates on THUNDERBIRD DIVINE’s forthcoming album and their journey with Black Doomba Records. In the meantime, fans can connect with the band through their official social media pages and Bandcamp profile.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on September 11th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Birmingham, Alabama-based melodic doom metallers EMBR are working toward the release of their self-titled sophomore full-length Dec. 8 on Black Doomba Records. Preorders start Nov. 10. “Nomega” arrives as the second single of three from EMBR ahead of the album, coming behind “Black,” which was posted in July. From both tracks together, one might extrapolate a few things about the record to come.
EMBR issued their debut, 1823 (review here) — one of a series of outings with numerical titles, which is a methodology that would seem to have been left behind at least for the moment — in Summer 2020 through New Heavy Sounds, and the returning four-piece of vocalist Crystal Bigelow, guitarist Mark Buchanan, bassist Alan Light (since replaced by Justin Regelin, who’s in the video) and drummer Eric Bigelow have not grown any less expansive. With a strong foundation in metal, they come across in “Nomega” as more confident in themselves and their sound. One will hear consistency between “Nomega” and “Black” — as would be expected from two songs on the same album, though nothing is absolute — and the recording by Matt Washburn (Mastodon, Atheist, Elder, etc.) assures that tonal heft is not lost to atmospheric breadth.
Layered whispers and screams back Crystal‘s crooning verse and chorus lines as the video plays through a They Live theme that would make it worth sticking around to the end of the clip even if the song didn’t. Not slow, but not hurried, “Nomega” has push behind its movement — Light‘s full-of-punch bassline reminding in the song’s turns of Faith No More‘s “Last Cup of Sorrow” — and balances that with giving the vocal melody room to feature as it does. As with “Black,” the abiding feel of “Nomega” is dark — a nice contrast to see them playing in a white room — and accounts for the grunge background the band willfully embraced on their 2023 covers EP, Idolatry, but is unmistakably metal in its construction.
So what do we learn? To be on the lookout for the album, primarily. Maybe also that as severe as EMBR‘s sound gets, they remain grounded in their approach and conscious of dynamic in their material. We knew that, probably, but a little reinforcement is always welcome. As you listen, keep ideas about craft in mind. Think about building the arrangements. The tone of guitar and bass, the position of the drums in the mix, where the background whispers are, all that kind of stuff. EMBR seem to be inviting their listenership to bask in the details. Doing so is bound to make one look forward all the more to when EMBR lands.
Video premieres below, followed by more info from the band, the lyrics, and so on. Please enjoy:
EMBR formed in 2015. Their mission statement is to find the happy medium between both sonic worlds, to walk with one foot in somber density and the other in a place of blissful, uplifting tranquility. They have released 5 EP’s and 1 full length album.
Statement about the single, “Nomega” from Erik Bigelow (drummer) ” Nomega is essentially about the dark spirits behind the curtain. The frauds, scam-artists and cheats draping their two-faces in propaganda and deception. It’s about the pillagers, thieves, and highwaymen that steal our dreams from under us. It’s also a call to action to hold these rotting corpses accountable and pull them from the “branches”. “
Lyrics: “Nomega” (Crystal Bigelow, Erik Bigelow, Mark Buchanan)
Slipping with their forked tongues They slide in and out Shifting and shaping they change Cutting and scraping the remains Melting and merging they slip They drift deep into the night Dripping with their deeds soaked and wet Devils be dragged into the night Try to hide Stay out of sight Devils be dragged So they can feel their bite Reach through the branches Drag ’em out Pulled out into the open now Wrapped in all that was stolen
Video: Erik Bigelow Cover art: Erik Bigelow
Recorded at Ledbelly Sound Studio by Matt Washburn
Recording Musicians: Crystal Bigelow – Vocals Mark Buchanan – Guitar Justin Regelin – Bass Eric Bigelow – Drums
Posted in Questionnaire on June 1st, 2023 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Jay Ovittore of Holyroller
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
Music is life for me. Playing, discovering, learning or listening to music. Music has always been in my blood. I started playing drums around 6 years old. My Dad was a Bass Player before I was born and was always supportive of me and my music, so maybe it was in my genes. I was lucky to have that supportz most aren’t as lucky.
As far as defining what I do, me personally, I beat the shit out of my drums to express emotions I am feeling. It is the best stress relief. The band gets a lot of labels, Doom, Stoner, Psych,etc…I like to think we are a rock n roll band, and if it fits into a niche that you enjoy then great, but the reality is we strive to write good rock n roll songs.
Describe your first musical memory.
I used to spend summers in Mount Vernon, NY (home of Lou Albano and Denzel Washington) with my grandparents. My Uncle Ronnie lived there too. We would hang out and he would play me some of his vinyl. The one that changed my life was The Police- Reggatta de Blanc. I was air drumming to Stewart Copeland and my Uncle caught that and called my Dad and said, “You have to get this boy a drum kit”. Rest is history.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
I got to open for Clutch on their Robot Hive/Exodus tour on New Year’s Eve here in NC. I would describe more but I was in the moment and not so sober.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
Religion seems to be a good one…I am an Atheist and it seems a challenge to some who do have different beliefs to test my “lack of faith”. I believe in those I surround myself with and they believe in me….I do good things and treat folks like I want to be treated. I don’t need organized religion to justify who I am or what I do. I’m also not going to judge you if you need it your life, because it’s really none of my business.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
I think artists are always growing, or they should be. It seems that most bands debuts are always golden, but those follow up albums always seem to lack. We strive to not jump off the cliff with our writing. We changed a lot from our self titled EP to our debut label release Swimming Witches. I feel like we push each other to be better, write better and I just wish the world could see the magic when it happens, because sometimes it’s hard for me to believe that we just wrote that. It’s natural to mature as an artist, experiment and explore. It’s healthy for you.
How do you define success?
Some define success in dollars or album sales. As those would be nice, I see it a bit different. Not every band can go out and make a living doing this thing. So for me it is those moments with fans we make…when they tell us how they feel because of what we play. If I change one person’s life with the music we put out, I am successful.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
Can I just list our some of my ex’s here?
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
A solution to all this hatred in the world. People of different political beliefs, religions, color, lifestyle just flat out hating each other and there is no room to discuss things like adults and get shit done. Smoke some weed and have a conversation. Maybe if weed was legal in more places we would have as many fucked up mass shootings that seem like just every day normal events now because we have become numb. I certainly don’t have the answer to solve all of it, but violence and hatred has to stop.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Art is a historical document of the time we live in. It tells a story of a certain time and be it music or paintings or tattoos, the story lies within.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
This is the toughest question here, because everything in my life is musical in some way. I guess I can say eventually going to Italy (but I’m really hoping that it is part of a tour). It’s the one place on the world I want to see more then any other. Hell, I might not come back.
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 2nd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
EMBR have a new record apparently in the can and they’ll release it as their first offering as part of the emergent lineup of Black Doomba Records. The Birmingham, Alabama-based four-piece join the ranks of MNRVA, Grave Next Door, HolyRoller, Grave Huffer and DayGlo Mourning, with whom they collaborated last year on a cover of “Bury Me in Smoke” from Down‘s seminal Nola LP, and their signing to Black Doomba comes shortly after the release of their Idolatry four-song EP with covers of Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Nirvana and Stone Temple Pilots. Because the ’90s, that’s why.
They also come to Black Doomba as veterans of New Heavy Sounds and while I don’t have a release date for their next offering as yet, one imagines they’ll get there sooner or later since they’ve had a productive run of offerings since 2016, before they lost that second ‘e’ in their moniker.
In a spirit of looking forward, here’s word from the PR wire:
Progressive Doom Band ‘EMBR’ Signs With Black Doomba Records!
EMBR has many solid releases under their belt. In 2016 they released ‘261’, followed by ‘271’ and ‘326:Spiritual Dialysis’. They released their debut full length album ‘1823’ on the UK label New Heavy Sounds in 2020 to critical acclaim. After ‘1823’ they released the 4 song EP ‘Idolatry’ and also a single for “Mary Did You Know” in December 2020. In 2021 EMBR released a 3 song EP, ‘1021’, to commemorate New Heavy Sound’s 10-year anniversary along with a cover of the Down classic “Bury Me in Smoke” in collaboration with DayGlo Mourning.
EMBR has completed the next album in which they used the current cultural chaos as fuel. It will be released via Black Doomba Records.
Statement from Tommy Stewart, Black Doomba Records, “I’m very proud to be able to work with the unique sound and talents of EMBR. We’ll have more information to release about their newest album describing the meaning of the album, title, and cover art soon, planned to be available in 2023.”
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 28th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Cheers to Long Island’s Indus Valley Kings on signing with Black Doomba Records to release their third long-player at some point in the unknowable future. The band, whose sophomore outing was 2022’s done-thick-and-hooky Origin (review here), don’t have a release date set or anything, and I don’t know if they’ve even recorded or started writing or what for the next record, but if it’s on the strength of Origin and the preceding 2021 self-titled that they got picked up, you won’t hear me argue. Melodic, unpretentious heavy rock is nearly always welcome in my earbuds, and only more so with that bassline tucked into the midsection of “…And the Dead Shall Rise,” never mind the boogie and/or roll that ensue from there.
Album news will come when it comes — what’re you, in a hurry? — but in the meantime, the trio have live dates set throughout Spring and Summer. They hit Maryland Doom Fest in 2022 and they’ll play the Long Island Doom, Sludge & Metal Festival on April 29, as well as dates around the Eastern Seaboard and an Ohio weekender in May, keeping company with Sons of Ghidorah.
Those dates, the text signing announcement, and the video signing announcement follow here in blue, as culled from social media:
Black Doomba Records is proud to announce signing the amazing Indus Valley Kings !
Please check out their first two albums. We’ll be thrilled and honored to released their 3rd full album when they’re ready.
Says the band: “We are elated to announce we’ve signed with Black Doomba Records! Tommy Stewart has been in our corner since he first heard our band and we are looking forward to releasing a killer 3rd album on his prosperous and ever-evolving label!”
More about:
From Long Island, New York, Indus Valley Kings offer their heavy, down-tuned music to rock the souls of a modern civilization. They’re often compared to Kyuss, Corrosion of Conformity, and 70’s era Black Sabbath.
Upcoming shows 2023!
April 1 – The Kennel at West York Inn – York, PA w/ Weed Coughin, Almost Honest, Wrath of Typhon April 21 – The Depot – Baltimore, MD w/ /High Leaf, Mangog, The Crows Eye April 29 – Long Island Doom, Sludge & Metal Festival 2023 – Bethpage, NY May 5 – Westside Bowl – Youngstown, OH w/ Sons of Ghidorah May 6 – Buzzbin – Canton, OH w/ Sons of Ghidorah July 15 – 3rd Annual River Jam – Falling Waters, WV
More shows TBA!
Indus Valley Kings are: Billy Fridrich – lead and rhythm guitars, lead vocals Jonathan Lesley Habers – bass, vocals Dan Lofaro – drums
Posted in Questionnaire on November 14th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Kevin Jennings of MNRVA
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
We call it doom fuzz; others call it doom metal. It hangs in that zone of black electricity that flows in between everything. We had been in other bands, and this was an outlet that was different from what we had done before. Byron had experience playing in technical, prog type metal over the years and Gina and I had been in the garage rock scene for a while. We just started jamming together doing cover songs at first and then it turned into us showing each other what we had been working on. Those turned into the songs on our album.
Describe your first musical memory.
I remember seeing Phil Collins on MTV when I was a kid and music videos interested me at an early age. That turned into appreciating the music. We would also watch movies and I’d find the soundtrack at the store and have my mom buy the tape. I remember my aunt bought me the Mortal Kombat movie soundtrack and I played the tape until it died. There were so many great bands on there like Bile, Traci Lords, and Gravity Kills. At a young age I was getting into the weird snippets of industrial an when I was in my early 20s, my old boss shined me onto Nitzer Ebb’s Belief and that album was nothing I had heard at the time. Great stuff.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
The best musical memory to date was my wife and I’s first date. It was also our other band’s first practice. Both the band and our relationship started at the same time.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
That’s almost constant. The more you open yourself to what is outside of yourself or your small world, you really find how much you don’t know. That’s exciting though, living life like a sponge.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Artistic progression can lead you anywhere and to anything. Don’t settle for just one artistic outlet. Find multiple outlets to get the expression out. There’s no wrong way to go. See where it takes you.
How do you define success?
The only thing we have “for sure” is right now. There’s no guarantee of anything else. Take the opportunity to do what makes you happy, as long as it doesn’t hurt others. Success to me is being able to do the things you love and taking that to other places around the world.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
Have you been on the internet?
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I’d like to have the time to do a weird side project in the vein of Fever Ray’s first album.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
The freedom of expression.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
My wife and I are planning a trip to Hawaii in the spring!
This is the part where I’m supposed to tell you I’m quaking in my flip-flops about doing 100 reviews in the span of two weeks, how worried I am I’ll run out of ways to say something is weird, or psychedelic, or heavy, or whatever. You know what? This time, even with a doublewide Quarterly Review — which means 100 records between now and next Friday — I feel like we got this. It’ll get done. And if it doesn’t? I’ll take an extra day. Who even pretends to give a crap?
I think that’s probably the right idea, so let’s get this show on the road, as my dear wife is fond of saying.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
Alunah, Strange Machine
Following on from 2019’s Violet Hour (review here), Birmingham’s Alunah offer the nine songs and 42 minutes of Strange Machine on Heavy Psych Sounds. It’s a wonder to think this is the band who a decade ago released White Hoarhound (review here), but of course it’s mostly not. Alunah circa 2022 bring a powerhouse take on classic heavy rock and roll, with Siân Greenaway‘s voice layered out across proto-metallic riffs and occasional nods such as “Fade Into Fantasy” or “Psychedelic Expressway” pulling away from the more straight-ahead punch. One can’t help but be reminded of Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio — a different, more progressive and expansive take on the same style they started with — which I guess would make Strange Machine their Mob Rules. They may or may not be the band you expected, but they’re quite a band if you’re willing to give the songs a chance.
Skipping neither the death nor the doom ends of death-doom, Los Angeles-based QAALM make a gruesome and melancholic debut with Resilience & Despair, with a vicious, barking growl up front that reminds of none so much as George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher, but that’s met intermittently with airy stretches of emotionally weighted float led by its two guitars. Across the four-song/69-minute outing, no song is shorter than opener “Reflections Doubt” (14:40), and while that song, “Existence Asunder” (19:35), “Cosmic Descent” (18:23) and “Lurking Death” (17:16) have their more intense moments, the balance of miseries defines the record by its spaciousness and the weight of the chug that offsets. The cello in “Lurking Death” adds fullness to create a Katatonia-style backdrop, but QAALM are altogether more extreme, and whatever lessons they’ve learned from the masters of the form, they’re being put to excruciating use. And the band knows it. Go four minutes into any one of these songs and tell me they’re not having a great time. I dare you.
The Traveler is Sterling DeWeese‘s second solo full-length under the banner of Ambassador Hazy behind 2020’s Glacial Erratics (review here) and it invariably brings a more cohesive vision of the bedroom-psychedelic experimentalist songcraft that defined its predecessor. “All We Wanted,” for example, is song enough that it could work in any number of genre contexts, and where “Take the Sour With the Sweet” is unabashed in its alt-universe garage rock ambitions, it remains righteously weird enough to be DeWeese‘s own. Fuller band arrangements on pieces like that or the later “Don’t Smash it to Pieces” reinforce the notion of a solidifying approach, but “Simple Thing” nonetheless manages to come across like Dead Meadow borrowed a drum machine from Godflesh circa 1987. There’s sweetness underlying “Afterglow,” however, and “Percolator,” which may or may not actually have one sampled, is way, way out there, and in no small way The Traveler is about that mix of humanity and creative reaching.
Strange things afoot in Stockholm. Blending classic doom and heavy rock with a clean, clear production, shades of early heavy metal and the odd bit of ’70s folk in the verse of “While the Devil is Asleep,” the five-piece Spiral Skies follow 2018’s Blues for a Dying Planet with Death is But a Door, a collection that swings and grooves and is epic and intimate across its nine songs/43 minutes, a cut like “Somewhere in the Dark” seeming to grow bigger as it moves toward its finish. Five of the nine inclusions make some reference to sleep or the night or darkness — including “Nattmaran” — but one can hardly begrudge Spiral Skies working on a theme when this is the level of the work they’re doing. “The Endless Sea” begins the process of excavating the band’s stylistic niche, and by “Time” and “Mirage” it’s long since uncovered, and the band’s demonstration of nuance, melody and songwriting finds its resolution on closer “Mirror of Illusion,” which touches on psychedelia as if to forewarn the listener of more to come. Familiar, but not quite like anything else.
Almost tragically atmospheric given the moods involved, Wyoming-based industrial metallurgists Lament Cityscape commence the machine-doom of A Darker Discharge following a trilogy of 2020 EPs compiled last year onto CD as Pneumatic Wet. That release was an hour long, this one is 24 minutes, which adds to the intensity somehow of the expression at the behest of David Small (Glacial Tomb, ex-Mountaineer, etc.) and Mike McClatchey (also ex-Mountaineer), the ambience of six-minute centerpiece “Innocence of Shared Experiences” making its way into a willfully grandiose wash after “All These Wires” and “Another Arc” traded off in caustic ’90s-style punishment. “The Under Dark” is a cacophony early and still intense after the fog clears, and it, “Where the Walls Used to Be” and the coursing-till-it-slows-down, gonna-get-noisy “Part of the Mother” form a trilogy of sorts for side B, each feeding into the overarching impression of emotional untetheredness that underscores all that fury.
You got friends? Me neither. But if we did, and we told them about the wholesome exploratory jams of Belfast trio Electric Octopus, I bet their hypothetical minds would be blown. St. Patrick’s Cough is the latest studio collection from the instrumentalist improv-specialists, and it comes and goes through glimpses of various jams in progress, piecing together across 13 songs and 73 minutes — that’s short for Electric Octopus — that find the chemistry vital as they seamlessly bring together psychedelia, funk, heavy rock, minimalist drone on “Restaurant Banking” and blown-out steel-drum-style island vibes on “A2enmod.” There’s enough ground covered throughout for a good bit of frolicking — and if you’ve never frolicked through an Electric Octopus release, here’s a good place to start — but in smaller experiments like the acoustic slog “You Have to Be Stupid to See That” or the rumbling “Universal Knife” or the shimmering-fuzz-is-this-tuning-up “Town,” it’s only encouraging to see the band continue to try new ideas and push themselves even farther out than they were. For an act who already dwells in the ‘way gone,’ it says something that they’re refusing to rest on their freaked-out laurels.
Behold, the sludge of death. Maybe it’s not fair to call When the World Dies one of 2022’s best debut albums since Come to Grief is intended as a continuation by guitarist/backing vocalist Terry Savastano (also WarHorse) and drummer Chuck Conlon of the devastation once wrought by Grief, but as they unleash the chestripping “Life’s Curse” and the slow-grind filthy onslaught of “Scum Like You,” who gives a shit? When the World Dies, produced of course by Converge‘s Kurt Ballou at GodCity, spreads aural violence across its 37 minutes with a particular glee, resting only for a breath before meting out the next lurching beating. Jonathan Hébert‘s vocal cords deserve a medal for the brutality they suffer in his screams in the four-minute title-track alone, never mind the grime-encrusted pummel of closer “Death Can’t Come Fast Enough.” Will to abrasion. Will to disturb. Heavy in spirit but so raw in its force that if you even manage to make it that deep you’ve probably already drowned. A biblical-style gnashing of teeth. Fucking madness.
In the works one way or the other since 2020, the sophomore full-length from Pittsburgh heavy rockers ZOM brings straight-ahead classicism with a modernized production vibe, some influence derived from the earlier days of Clutch or The Sword and of course Black Sabbath — looking at you, “Running Man” — but there’s a clarity of purpose behind the material that is ZOM‘s own. They are playing rock for rockers, and are geared more toward revelry than conversion, but there’s no arguing with the solidity of their craft and the meeting of their ambitions. Their last record took them to Iceland, and this one has led them to the UK. Don’t be surprised when ZOM announce an Australian tour one of these days, just because they can, but wherever they go, know what they have the songs on their side to get them there. In terms of style, there’s very little revolutionary about Fear and Failure, but ZOM aren’t trying to revamp what you know of as heavy rock and roll so much as looking to mark their place within it. Listening to the burly chug of “Another Day to Run,” and the conversation the band seems to be having with the more semi-metal moments of Shadow Witch and others, their efforts sound not at all misspent.
Making their debut through Black Doomba Records, Columbia, South Carolina’s MNRVA recorded the eight-song Hollow in Spring 2019, and one assumes that the three-year delay in releasing is owed at least in to aligning with the label, plus pandemic, plus life happens, and so on. In any case, from “Not the One” onward, their fuzz-coated doom rock reminds of a grittier take on Cathedral, with guitarist Byron Hawk and bassist Kevin Jennings sharing vocal duties effectively while Gina Ercolini drives the march behind them. There’s some shifting in tempo between “Hollow” and a more brash piece like “With Fire” or the somehow-even-noisier-seeming penultimate cut “No Solution,” but the grit there is a feature throughout the album just the same. Their 2019 EP, Black Sky (review here), set them up for this, but only really in hindsight, and one wonders what they may have been up to in the time since putting this collection to tape if this is where they were three years ago. Some of this is straight-up half-speed noise rock riffing and that’s just fine.
The third full-length, Accelerationist, from Easthampton, Massachusetts’ Problem With Dragons is odd and nuanced enough by the time they get to the vocal effects on “Have Mercy, Show Mercy” — unless that’s a tracheostomy thing; robot voice; that’s not the first instance of it — to earn being called progressive, and though their foundation is in more straightforward heavy rock impulses, sludge and fuzz, they’ve been at it for 15 years and have well developed their own approach. Thus “Live by the Sword” opens to set up lumbering pieces like “Astro Magnum” and the finale title-track while “In the Name of His Shadow” tips more toward metal and the seven-minute “Don’t Fail Me” meets its early burl (gets the wurlm?) with airier soloing later on, maximizing the space in the album’s longest track. “A Demon Possessed” and “Dark Times (for Dark Times)” border on doom, but in being part of Problem With Dragons‘ overall pastiche, and in the band’s almost Cynic-al style of melodic singing, they are united with the rest of what surrounds. Some bands, you can just tell when individualism is part of their mission.
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 3rd, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Columbia, South Carolina’s MNRVA will make their full-length debut sometime in 2022 on Black Doomba Records. You can hear the ol’ crunchnlumber of their 2019 EP, Black Sky (review here), below and from there the label’s interest should pretty much be self-explanatory. The three-piece clearly know how to conjure some rumble and whether it’s the guitar hook of “Not the One,” the low-end-forward, punk-at-half-speed grit of “No Solution” or the chug that comes to define the title-track, the three-tracker makes no bones about where it’s coming from sonically and wouldn’t make any sense if it did. Riffs by riff-heads, groove by groovers, captured in such a way as to give a sense both of space and largesse.
If you feel like you might be able to vibe to such a thing, and you’re still reading this sentence, you’re probably right. So have at it.
Announcement came down the PR wire:
MNRVA Sign to Black Doomba Records
Conjuring ludicrously distorted guitar tones and guttural lows, doom-fuzz trio MNRVA combine the essence of doom metal with a razor-sharp sludge edge. Since forming in 2018, MNRVA have been striving to transcend the boundaries within heavy music by cultivating a progressive style. Their debut EP Black Sky provided a tantalising glimpse of MNRVA’s musical capabilities and paves the way for their upcoming full-length, releasing via Black Doomba Records.
MNRVA comments:
“We are super excited to announce we’ve signed to Black Doomba Records! The vibe they are on is the perfect fit for MNRVA and we can’t wait for everyone to hear the record in 2022.”
Tommy Stewart of Black Doomba Records comments:
“Black Doomba Records is proud to have sealed a pact with South Carolina’s MNRVA. I’m looking forward to sharing the upcoming album which is dripping with fuzzy sludgy vibes and a bit of southern style sludge. Initially I think what got me the most were the vocals, cloaked in floating and haunting melodies and the songs themselves. MNRVA will be out on vinyl and CD and I can wait to share it with fans.”
MNRVA’s forthcoming release was recorded at The Jam Room Recording Studio which has been used by the likes of southeastern U.S. heavyweights such as BARONESS, BLACK TUSK, and KYLESA. The heavy trio strive to produce an unyielding sound blending the guitar grind of the MELVINS, the vocal interplay of MASTODON, and the post-doom heaviness of BEREFT.