Posted in Reviews on January 5th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
For the second orbit in a row, Rosario, Argentina, instrumentalists Black Sky Giant greet the New Year with the New Record. And so we climb aboard The Red Chariot. The turnover from 2022 into 2023, a year ago, brought the seemingly-anonymous, DIY-recording-and-releasing outfit’s fifth full-length, Primigenian (review here), which followed on from Jan. 2022’s End of Days Pilgrimage, so they’re well familiar with putting out new music in the industry’s traditional winter doldrums. To wit, they issued their fourth album, Falling Mothership in June 2021, but before that, there was Planet Terror in January of that same year, and I don’t know when in 2020 their debut, Orbiter, first came out, but the reissue was late Dec. 2021 (dates sourced from Bandcamp), which is close enough. Whatever their reason might be — or sometimes a band just falls into these patterns and there isn’t a reason — right now-ish seems to be their spot, and as habit breeds expectation it doesn’t seem unreasonable to think that in Jan. 2025, they might have another 40-ish minutes of material behind which march into that unknown and distant-sounding future.
In the meantime, The Red Chariot invites the audience not only to appreciate how prolific Black Sky Giant have been over the last four-plus years — six LPs is nothing to sneeze at in that span, even if you’re not waiting on a lyricist and making it all yourself, etc. — but to process how their style has evolved in that relatively short period of time. Heavy psychedelia, post-rock, krautrock and prog have been factors since the outset, as a revisit to Orbiter will demonstrate, but The Red Chariot takes off with its title-track and harnesses a linear-coursing progressive fluidity that, with its effects wobbles, steady, maybe-programmed drums and root guitar figure coherent beneath the swirl, is a preface for the post-punk melancholic bounce of “A Timeless Oracle” and a hint at some of the spaces songs like “Submerged Towers” or the Euro-style meditative heavy riffing on “Electrical Civilization” will occupy.
Across eight songs and 38 minutes, Black Sky Giant hold firmly to that rhythmic flow that takes hold in “The Red Chariot,” and as the subsequent “Path” broadens the reach in its atmospheric, contemplative stretch, it’s lead guitar taking the place of vocals, but doing so with uncommon soulfulness and melodic expression. It’s not quite trying to sing lines, as some lead guitars do in no-singer units, but in the slow, echo-laced and foggy unfolding of “Path,” the guitar brings character to complement and contrast the heft of the bass that thickens up around three minutes in, and The Red Chariot isn’t through the first half of its first side before the band have managed to establish their presence and (part of their) intention, and it isn’t through its first three minutes before the willing listener is immersed.
As noted, “A Timeless Oracle” builds off the title-track and picks up from the sleepy, bluesy guitar layers that cap “Path” with an immediately decisive beat and shimmering guitar, quickly nestling into a verse that’s more The Cure than Kyuss (not complaining) and that builds to a quick head in its sub-three-minute run, but feels more like an idea being tried out than a fully-realized, fleshed-out piece like the side A finale “Illuminated by Reflection,” which follows, or the arranged-shortest-to-longest-but-it’s-all-dug-in progressive heavy psych that typifies The Red Chariot‘s back half.
Ambience is, has become, crucial, and while the underground sphere in which Black Sky Giant are operating might be under the grand and e’er-expanding umbrella of ‘Heavy,’ the wisps of Colour Haze-y guitar put to dramatic use across the slight Earth tinge of “Illuminated by Reflection” after “A Timeless Oracle” emphasizes the band’s ability to work in multiple niches at the same time. Thus the personality of The Red Chariot is built from its component songs, and it feels is all the more complete with “Submerged Towers” answering back to the delay-guitar and post-whathaveyou vibes of the opener and “A Timeless Oracle.” I can’t say with 100 percent certainty that “Submerged Towers” and “The Red Chariot” itself aren’t part of the same progression. If they’re not, or if one isn’t working off the other, they’re pretty close.
If the pattern would hold, with Black Sky Giant alternating back and forth between prog-psych and heavy-post-punk methodologies, the denser-seeming fuzz of “Electrical Civilization” would hold and flesh out as it does — it is marked by a midsection that dares to be pretty in a way rock can’t always manage before transitioning back to the central riff in a way that recalls earlier Tool — and “Augury” would answer in contradiction. That is not how they roll it out, however, as the penultimate “Augury” arrives with immediate prog-heavy clarity. The turn they’ve made instead is into the atmospheric heavy rock of “Path” and “Illuminated by Reflection,” and the personality of the guitar as it twists into verse lines at about a minute in is no less resonant than in the earlier tracks. Lead-style riffing carries through the midsection and into a broader finish, almost wistful or Southern in its layering, but as much as to auger is to foretell — and one might argue that each Black Sky Giant outing has been an auger for the progression of the next; I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the post-punk here is more manifest next time, but I’ll stop short of predicting — it comes across like a good time being remembered, perhaps as it happened.
Rounding out is the six-minute “In the Sight of the Mountain God,” which feels duly reverential, and if you’d look for sacred mountains, Argentina’s got plenty in its western Andes, among them Aconcagua, which is tallest in the Americas. Whatever burg hosts this particular deity, one assumes that like all gods, it prefers gradual tempos, tonal richness, and a sonic conversation with the ethereal offered through terrestrial means, and sure enough that’s the offering being made by Black Sky Giant, though a shift at three minutes in results in a minor redirection as a setup for the shred-into-the-fade ending. And the noisy finish is somewhat surprising given how controlled and thoughtful the band (who I assume is more than one person, but of course I could be wrong) have been up to that moment, but I suspect that the giving over to that more raucous impulse is the point, and so “In the Sight of the Mountain God” is a fit conceptually as well as in tone and mood.
A lot can and will happen before Jan. 2025 comes around, and it may be that one won’t hear from Black Sky Giant until then if they do another record, if that’s their plan at all. As it stands, the instrumental approach, the narrative slivers posted with the records, and the thematic stylization of the artwork draw The Red Chariot into the context of what Black Sky Giant do as representing their most forward-thinking outing to-date, but it’s clear that the pursuit-of-sound chase that’s brought them here will continue unabated as long as the band itself does.
Posted in Reviews on April 10th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Welcome to the Spring 2023 Quarterly Review. Between today and next Tuesday, a total of 70 records will be covered with a follow-up week slated for May bringing that to 120. Rest assured, it’ll be plenty. If you’re reading this, I feel safe assuming you know the deal: 10 albums per day from front to back, ranging in style, geography, type of release — album, EP, singles even, etc. — and the level of hype and profile surrounding. The Quarterly Review is always a massive undertaking, but I’ve never done one and regretted it later, and looking at what’s coming up across the next seven days, there are more than few records featured that are already on my ongoing best of 2023 list. So please, keep an eye and ear out, and hopefully you’ll also find something new that speaks to you.
We begin.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
ISAAK, Hey
Last heard from as regards LPs with 2015’s Serominize (review here) and marking 10 years since their 2013 debut under the name, The Longer the Beard the Harder the Sound (review here), Genoa-based heavy rockers ISAAK return with the simply-titled Hey and encapsulate the heads-up fuzz energy that’s always been at the core of their approach. Vocalist Giacomo H. Boeddu has hints of Danzig in “OBG” and the swing-shoving “Sleepwalker” later on, but whether it’s the centerpiece Wipers cover “Over the Edge,” the rolling “Dormhouse” that follows, or the melodic highlight “Rotten” that precedes, the entire band feel cohesive and mature in their purposeful songwriting. They’re labelmates and sonic kin to Texas’ Duel, but less bombastic, with a knife infomercial opening their awaited third record before the title-track and “OBG” begin to build the momentum that carries the band through their varied material, spacious on “Except,” consuming in the apex of “Fake it Till You Make It,” but engaging throughout in groove and structure.
With doom in their collective heart and riffs to spare, UK doom metal traditionalists Iron Void roll out a weighted 44 minutes across the nine songs of their fourth full-length, IV, seeming to rail against pandemic-era restrictions in “Grave Dance” and tech culture in “Slave One” while “Pandora’s Box” rocks out Sabbathian amid the sundry anxieties of our age. Iron Void have been around for 25 years as of 2023 — like a British Orodruin or trad-doom more generally, they’ve been undervalued for most of that time — and their songwriting earns the judgmental crankiness of its perspective, but each half of the LP gets a rousing closer in “Blind Dead” and “Last Rites,” and Iron Void doom out like there’s no tomorrow even on the airier “She” because, as we’ve seen in the varying apocalypses since the band put out 2018’s Excalibur (review here), there might not be. So much the better to dive into the hook of “Living on the Earth” or the grittier “Lords of the Wasteland,” the metal-of-yore sensibility tapping into early NWOBHM without going full-Maiden. Kind of a mixed bag, it might take a few listens to sink in, but IV shows the enduring strengths of Iron Void and is clearly meant more for those repeat visits than some kind of cloying immediacy. An album to be lived with and doomed with.
An offering of thickened, massive lava-flow sludge, plodding doom and atmospheric severity, Dread Witch‘s self-released (not for long, one suspects) first long-player, Tower of the Severed Serpent, announces a significant arrival on the part of the onslaught-prone Danish outfit, who recorded as a trio, play live as a five-piece and likely need at least that many people to convey the density of a song like the opener/longest track (immediate points) “The Tower,” the eight minutes of which are emblematic of the force of execution with which the band delivers the rest of what follows, runtimes situated longest to shortest across the near-caustic chug of “Serpent God,” the Celtic Frost-y declarations and mega-riff ethos of “Leech,” the play between key-led minimalism and all-out stomp on “Wormtongue” and the earlier-feeling noise intensity of “Into the Crypt” before the more purely ambient but still heavy instrumental “Severed” wraps, conveying weight of emotion to complement the tonal tectonics prior. Bordering on the extreme and clearly enjoying the crush that doing so affords them, Dread Witch make more of a crater than an impression and would be outright barbaric were their sound not so methodical in immersing the audience. Pro sound, loaded with potential, heavy as shit; these are the makings of a welcome debut.
Next-generation heavy fuzz purveyed with particular glee, Tidal Wave seem to explore the very reaches they conjure through verses and choruses on their eight-song Ripple Music label debut (second LP overall behind 2019’s Blueberry Muffin), The Lord Knows, and they make the going fun throughout the 41-minute outing, finding the shuffle in the shove of “Robbero Bobbero” while honing classic desert idolatry on “Lizard King” and “End of the Line” at the outset. What a relief it is to know that heavy rock and roll won’t die with the aging-out of so many of its Gen-X and Millennial purveyors, and as Tidal Wave step forward with the low-end semi-metal roll of “Pentagram” and the grander spaces of “By Order of the King” before “Purple Bird” returns to the sands and “Thorsakir” meets that on an open field of battle, it seems the last word has not been said on Tidal Wave in terms of aesthetic. They’ve got time to continue to push deeper into their craft — and maybe that will or won’t result in their settling on one path or another — but the range of moods on The Lord Knows suits them well, and without pretense or overblown ceremony the Sundsvall four-piece bring together elements of classic heavy rock and metal while claiming a persona that can move back and forth between them. Kind of the ideal for a younger band.
Persistently weird in the mold of Arthur Brown with unpredictability as a defining feature, Guided Meditation Doomjazz may mostly be a cathartic salve for founding bassist, vocalist, experimentalist, etc.-ist Blaise the Seeker, but that hardly makes the expression any less valid. Expect arrives as a five-song EP, ready to meander in the take-the-moniker-literally “Collapse in Dignity” and the fuzz-drenched slow-plod finisher “Sit in Surrender” — watery psychedelic guitar weaving overhead like a cloud you can reshape with your mind — that devolves into drone and noise, but not unstructured and not without intention behind even its most out-there moments. The bluesy sway of “The Mind is Divided” follows the howling scene-setting of the titular opener, while “Stream of Crystal Water” narrates its verse over crunchier riffing before the sung chorus-of-sorts, the overarching dug-in sensibility conveying some essence of what seems despite a prolific spate of releases to be an experience intended for a live setting, with all the one-on-one mind-expansion and arthouse performance that inevitably coincides with it. Still, with a rough-feeling production, Expect carries a breadth that makes communing with it that much easier. Go on, dare to get lost for a little while. See where you end up.
II is the vocalized follow-up to Cancervo‘s 2021 debut, 1 (review here), and finds the formerly-instrumental Lombardy, Italy, three-piece delving further into the doomed aspects of the initial offering with a greater clarity on “Arera,” “Herdsman of Grem” and “The Cult of Armentarga,” letting some of the psychedelia of the first record go while maintaining enough of an atmosphere to be hypnotic as the vocals follow the marching rhythm as the latter track moves into its midsection or the rhythmic chains in the subsequent “Devil’s Coffin” (an instrumental) lock step with the snare in a floating, loosely-Eastern-scaled break before the bigger-sounding end. Between “Devil’s Coffin” and the feedback-prone also-instrumental “Zambla” ahead of 8:43 closer “Zambel’s Goat” — on which the vocals return in a first-half of subdued guitar-led doomjamming prior to the burst moment at 4:49 — II goes deeper as it plays through and is made whole by its meditative feel, some semblance of head-trip cult doom running alongside, but if it’s a cult it’s one with its own mythology. Not where one expected them to go after 1, but that’s what makes it exciting, and that they lay claim to arrangement flourish, chanting vocals and slogging tempos as they do bodes well for future exploration.
So heavy it crashed my laptop. Twice. The second full-length from Mumbai post-metallers Dirge is a self-titled four-songer that culls psychedelia from tonal tectonics, not contrasting the two but finding depth in the ways they can interact. Mixed by Sanford Parker, the longer-form pieces comprise a single entirety without seeming to have been written as one long track, the harsh vocals of Tabish Khidir adding urgency to the guitar work of Ashish Dharkar and Varun Patil (the latter also backing vocals) as bassist Harshad Bhagwat and drummer Aryaman Chatterji underscore and punctuate the chugging procession of opener “Condemned” that’s offset if not countermanded by its quieter stretch. If you’re looking for your “Stones From the Sky”-moment as regards riffing, it’s in the 12-minute second cut, “Malignant,” the bleak triumph of which spills over in scream-topped angularity into “Grief” (despite a stop) while the latter feels all the more massive for its comedown moments. In another context, closer “Hollow” might be funeral doom, but it’s gorgeous either way, and it fits with the other three tracks in terms of its interior claustrophobia and thoughtful aggression. They’re largely playing toward genre tenets, but Dirge‘s gravity in doing so is undeniable, and the space they create is likewise dark and inviting, if not for my own tech.
Witch Ripper‘s sophomore LP and Magnetic Eye label-debut, The Flight After the Fall, touches on anthemic prog rock and metal with heavy-toned flourish and plenty of righteous burl in cuts like “Madness and Ritual Solitude” and the early verses of “The Obsidian Forge,” though the can-sing vocals of guitarists Chad Fox and Curtis Parker and bassist Brian Kim — drummer Joe Eck doesn’t get a mic but has plenty to do anyhow — are able to push that centerpiece and the rest of what surrounds over into the epic at a measure’s notice. Or not, which only makes Witch Ripper more dynamic en route to the 16:45 sprawling finish of “Everlasting in Retrograde Parts 1 and 2,” picking up from the lyrics of the leadoff “Enter the Loop” to put emphasis on the considered nature of the release as a whole, which is a showcase of ambition in songwriting as much as performance of said songs, conceptual reach and moments of sheer pummel. It’s been well hyped, and by the time “Icarus Equation” soars into its last chorus without its wings melting, it’s easy to hear why in the fullness of its progressive heft and melodic theatricality. It’s not a minor undertaking at 47 minutes, but it wouldn’t be a minor undertaking if it was half that, given the vastness of Witch Ripper‘s sound. Be ready to travel with it.
In stated narrative conversation with the Arabic influence on Spanish and greater Western European (read: white) culture, specifically in this case as regards the work of Persian philosopher Ibn Sina, Parisian self-releasing three-piece Pelegrin follow-up 2019’s Al-Mahruqa (review here) with the expansive six songs of Ways of Avicenna, with guitarist/vocalist François Roze de Gracia, bassist/backing vocalist Jason Recoing and drummer/percussionist Antoine Ebel working decisively to create a feeling of space not so much in terms of the actual band in the room, but of an ancient night sky on songs like “Madrassa” and the rolling heavy prog solo drama of the later “Mystical Appear,” shades of doom and psychedelia pervasive around the central riff-led constructions, the folkish middles of “Thunderstorm” and “Reach for the Sun” and the acoustic two-minute “Disgrace” a preface to the patient manner in which the trio feel their way into the final build of closer “Forsaken Land.” I’m neither a historical scholar nor a philosopher, and thankfully the album doesn’t require you to be, but Pelegrin could so easily tip over into the kind of cartoonish cultural appropriation that one finds among certain other sects of European psychedelia, and they simply don’t. Whether the music speaks to you or not, appreciate that.
Lush but not overblown, Argentinian instrumentalists Black Sky Giant fluidly and gorgeously bring together psychedelia and post-rock on their third album, Primigenian, distinguishing their six-song/31-minute brevity with an overarching progressive style that brings an evocative feel whether it’s to the guitar solos in “At the Gates” or the subsequent kick propulsion of “Stardust” — which does seem to have singing, though one can barely make out what if anything is actually being said — as from the denser tonality of the opening title-track, they go on to unfurl the spiritual-uplift of “The Great Hall,” fading into a cosmic boogie on the relatively brief “Sonic Thoughts” as they, like so many, would seem to have encountered SLIFT‘s Ummon sometime in the last two years. Doesn’t matter; it’s just a piece of the puzzle here and the shortest track, sitting as it does on the precipice of capper “The Foundational Found Tapes,” which plays out like amalgamated parts of what might’ve been other works, intermittently drummed and universally ambient, as though to point out the inherently incomplete nature of human-written histories. They fade out that last piece after seeming to put said tapes into a player of some sort (vague samples surrounding) and ending with an especially dream-toned movement. I wouldn’t dare speculate what it all means, but I think we might be the ancient progenitors in question. Fair enough. If this is what’s found by whatever species is next dominant on this planet — I hope they do better at it than humans have — we could do far worse for representation.
I feel like I’m doubling down on heavy shit, and that’s probably a good thing. This is a killer show. New Dozer, the riffy cut from the new Enslaved right after the Polymoon song where they sound like Enslaved. The most arrogant track from the Mathew’s Hidden Museum record (not a rag on it, the arrogance is what makes it), the closer from the Sandrider record where they do the big riff thing, fucking Stoned Jesus’ “Season of the Witch” that I’ve been dying to share since whenever the hell it was I got the record, god damn, and Black Sky Giant’s gorgeous post-prog immersion and Ruff Majik’s new single speaking of fucking arrogance, but like super-depressed-you’re-actually-kind-of-worried-about-them arrogance. Their new record is so fucking good. I’mma put it on right now, and mark your calendar because I’m streaming it April 27. That’s right. I book shit that early. Hell, I’ve got a stream slated for July 12. Who even knows if the planet will still be here?
Anyway, the list in progress: it’s got that Abanamat and Hail the Void that everyone’s all over, Cleõphüzz whose debut album came out after they already broke up — I love this genre — and new The Freak Folk of Mangrovia that I got like five minutes before making the playlist, and a fucking band called Bong Corleone! Bong Corleone! I don’t know how that alone wouldn’t make you listen to the show. Dread Witch are heavy as hell, and I played the longest Swarm track I could because they rule and I figured the more of the show they take up the better.
I know I always say thanks if you listen. And hey, thanks if you listen. But if you don’t catch this one, it ain’t my damn fault. Show is awesome.
The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.
Full playlist:
The Obelisk Show – 03.03.23 (VT = voice track)
Dread Witch
Wormtongue
Tower of the Severed Serpent
Ruff Majik
Cement Brain
Elektrik Ram
Black Sky Giant
At the Gates
Primigenian
Stoned Jesus
Season of the Witch
Father Light
VT
Sandrider
Grouper
Enveletration
Dozer
Ex-Human, Now Beast
Drifting in the Endless Void
Cleõphüzz
When the Siren Blows
Mystic Vulture
Healthyliving
Galleries
Songs of Abundance, Psalms of Grief
Mathew’s Hidden Museum
Born on the 3rd of July
Mathew’s Hidden Museum
Hail the Void
Talking to the Dead
Memento Mori
Polymoon
Instar
Chrysalis
Enslaved
Congelia
Heimdal
Abanamat
Voidgazer
Abanamat
The Freak Folk of Mangrovia
Astral Nomads
Astral Nomads
VT
Bong Corleone
Offering
Bong Corleone
Swarm
We Should Know
Swarm
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is March 3 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.
