The continued evolution of Boise four-piece Ealdor Bealu brings their fourth album, Graves of the Silent Plain, after four years that makes for the longest between-records stretch of their tenure thus far. And where 2022’s Psychic Forms (review here) took the prior landscape-psych spaciousness and progressive intent of their first two full-lengths, 2017’s Dark Water at the Foot of the Mountain (review here) and 2019’s Spirit of the Lonely Places (review here), and pushed them into new and lush aural reaches, the five songs and 42 minutes of Graves of the Silent Plain mark a turn in the intent behind the craft.
Sure, a cut like centerpiece “Erosion” (6:06) still has layers of interwoven acoustic guitar behind bassist Rylie Collingwood‘s singing-out, a folkish or at very least sun-coated atmosphere taking its time to develop the melody before heavier tones arrive in the second half, swirling leads and warm bass and all for a still-controlled, fluid crescendo, by the time they get there, the shift in purpose is already long since established. It begins, suitably enough, in opener “Ponderay” (8:10), which sets out on fuzzed riffing from guitarist/vocalist Carson Russell (also Ghorot) and guitarist/backing vocalist Travis Abbott (also Sawtooth Monk, Shadow and Claw) and locks in an immediate groove with new drummer Cameron Elgart — to-date, Ealdor Bealu have never had the same drummer from one album to the next, so yes, Elgart is debuting here — cutting through the compressed sounding guitars before Collingwood starts the verse with a surprising, declaratively black metal rasp.
Not at all the first time Ealdor Bealu have featured harsh vocals in their songs, but it is especially vicious in light of a rawer production style — the band recorded with Andy Agenbroad at The Chop Shop in Boise, who also helmed Spirit of the Lonely Places, and mixed themselves at Hinge MusicStudio; the esteemed James Plotkin mastered — and especially the effect of having that be the first impression Graves of the Silent Plain makes informs everything that follows, even if it’s only about a minute later that Russell and Collingwood come together in a cleaner-sung voice to top an instrumental surge.
That early char doesn’t return, and “Ponderay” grows more spacious as it goes, but the impression that initial defiance of expectation leaves is never lost. It feels like it’s in the band’s collective back pocket all the while and it serves to make the listening experience of the whole album feel less predictable. Doing so invariably suits Ealdor Bealu, for whom dynamic has always been central and whose songs continue to flow as thoughtful and expressive in kind. Abbott takes the lead vocal in “Abandoned to Decay” (9:36) with backing melodies from Collingwood and a flash of rasp from Abbott along with a memorable instrumental push starting right around the five-minute mark with a forward solo, a receding into comedown and a satisfying roll of an ending leading into the shimmering guitar at the outset of “Erosion.” Ealdor Bealu are no strangers to creating a full-length flow, songs that seem to interact with each other to give an overarching impression, but I can’t remember that sounding so purposeful as it does on Graves of the Silent Plain.
Is that maturity? It might be, and that’s not unreasonable nine years after their debut, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still trying new things, as “Ponderay” demonstrates almost immediately upon pressing play. As “Erosion” is brought down from its apex to a few seconds of silence ahead of “Gold Mountain” (10:48), I’m not sure where the vinyl side-split actually is, but the mellow drums and acoustic/electric unfolding of “Gold Mountain” is the beginning of side B, the patience allows the listener to immerse deeper.
It’s still less about effects and reverby echoing canyons than their sound has been in the past — we’re feet-on-the-ground here, if that makes any sense thinking of their sound — but it would be difficult to think of “Gold Mountain” as anything other than expansive even if the guitars crunch more than they sprawl as they move back and forth between fuller riffing and leaving space open in the verse behind Abbott and Collingwood. A long bridge brings them to a noodlier heavy psych progression with Collingwood in the lead and guitar doing the backing vocals (yes that’s what I mean to say) before the actual solo takes hold near the finish, a last-minute slowdown and crashout feeling well earned by the breadth harnessed before it with a considered balance in the guitars and a light-touch fade that underscores the intent to convey a sense of performance as they’ve done across the span to that point.
And maybe that’s where some of the more barebones intent comes from — wanting to make a record that sounds like they do live. Fair enough. The closer “Buried at Boothill” (7:36) adds nuance to the guitar line behind Collingwood‘s soprano reach; a figure more than a riff, which comes with the chorus before a break in the midsection turns them toward heavier-toned push. Thus do the monsters return. I think it’s Collingwood and Abbott, but I could be wrong. Either way, the harsher vocals coming back feels like a purposeful bookend to “Ponderay,” and placed for effect, but the swirl isn’t gone from “Buried at Boothill” either, and that carries the finale back to its hook before another mini-screamout caps.
The message, of course, is one of dynamic, of the chemistry between Collingwood, Abbott and Russell (not to leave Elgart out, but I’m talking about something that’s been built over their albums to-date), and of the still increasing range of their songwrting. Again, they underscore the notion of Graves of the Silent Plain as a single work with “Buried at Boothill,” and more than they’re in conversation with any particular influence or point of inspiration, they’re in conversation with themselves, reveling in the process of creation and, while a bit heady as always, never so cerebral as to detract from the emotional resonance of the songs, the melodies, the variable weight in the material, and so on. It’s a very particular kind of gorgeousness, and Ealdor Bealu own it here more than they ever have to-date.
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 19th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Boise’s Ealdor Bealu signed to Ripple Musicback in January and the only question since has been when their fourth album was going to come out. July 10, as it’s been announced today. The four-piece are streaming opening cut “Ponderay” now — love an eight-minute single — with some surprising vocal char in its early verses, and a thoughtful, progressive course that’s indicative of their atmospheres on albums past while still sounding like they’re coming from a different place than they were on 2022’s Psychic Forms (review here).
I just got the record this morning, and I’ve been through it all of not-yet-once-fully, so I’m not looking to make any definitive statements, but the tones in Carson Russel and Travis Abbott‘s guitars, Cameron Elgart‘s snare and certainly those harsher vocals from bassist Rylie Collingwood feel somewhat stripped-down in “Ponderay,” and the intertwining melodies of “Abandoned to Decay,” presented without any great wash of effects, seems to back the assertion on first blush. That’s the first two tracks, mind you. I could sit here and liveblog the whole album, and that might be fun, but probably only for me and I need to remind myself to wait to talk about it until I actually have something to say. That becomes more difficult with a band who have so much going on, generally, in terms of sound.
If it tells you the kind of esteem in which I hold Ealdor Bealu‘s music, look how many other news posts have gone up so far this week while the Quarterly Review is going on.
From the PR wire:
US heavy psych explorers EALDOR BEALU announce new album “Graves of the Silent Plain” on Ripple Music this summer; debut track streaming!
Idaho-based heavy psych metal merchants EALDOR BEALU have signed to Ripple Music for the release of their new studio album “Graves of the Silent Plain” this July 10th, and present the debut single “Ponderay” today.
Hailing from the high desert of Idaho, progressive heavy psych quartet Ealdor Bealu was formed in 2015 by Carson Russel (Ghorot), Rylie Colingwood, Travis Abbott (Shadow & Claw) and Alex Wargo. With a focus on shifting dynamics from the ambient to the massive and back again, Ealdor Bealu’s sound expands beyond genre boundaries.
Ealdor Bealu conjures a rare and powerful alchemy on their upcoming album and Ripple Music debut Graves of the Silent Plain. Across five deeply evocative tracks — with tracks such as ‘Abandoned to Decay,’ ‘Erosion,’ and ‘Gold Mountain’ — the band melds heavy rock, heavy psychedelia and dark folk ambience. Anchored by dual vocal forces (ethereal female leads and a soulful male croon) and built on patient, explosive dynamics, the album unfolds like a lost soundtrack to a mythical Western. Cinematic, melancholic and strikingly epic. It will be released on July 10th on LP, CD and digital through Ripple Music.
EALDOR BEALU “Graves of the Silent Plain” Out July 10th on Ripple Music (LP/CD/digital)
Tracklisting: 1. Ponderay 2. Abandoned to Decay 3. Erosion 4. Gold Mountain 5. Buried at Boothill
Over the past decade, Idaho’s Ealdor Bealu has carved a singular path through heavy psychedelia, dark folk, and progressive metal, earning regional, national, and international praise across four full-length releases.
Their 2017 debut, Dark Water at the Foot of the Mountain, landed on several Album of the Year lists with its expansive, haunting 60-minute vision. The 2019 sophomore LP, Spirit of the Lonely Places deepened the band’s heavy psychedelic edge while retaining their atmospheric Western heart.
2022’s Psychic Forms (Metal Assault Records) pushed further into progressive metal, driven by the dynamic drumming of Michael Mulcock and the addition of husky, Americana-tinged vocals from Travis Abbott alongside the established voices of Carson Russell and Rylie Collingwood. It became the band’s most successful release to date, and Cameron Elgart (Crush the Monster) joined on drums shortly after.
Ealdor Bealu has consistently toured the Western US, playing Treefort Music Fest, Offbeat Music Fest, Crucial Fest, and others. The band celebrated their 2025 decade milestone with a career-spanning Treefort set, a two-week West Coast tour, and a performance at Portland’s Sound Castle festival.
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 14th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Last Spring, Boise, Idaho, progressive heavy rockers Ealdor Bealu celebrated a decade together with a West Coast tour. During their time, the band have produced three full-length albums in 2017’s Dark Water at the Foot of the Mountain (review here), 2019’s Spirit of the Lonely Places (review here) and 2022’s Psychic Forms (review here), infusing their work with an increasing reach and a sense of high-desert vastness purposeful in its landscaping-through-sound. That the band have a fourth record on the way is good news, and that it will arrive sometime later this year with the backing of Ripple Music is all the better.
One might throw in a request for some catalog reissues as well, certainly for the last two, if not all three of the LPs linked above, but a new album will be welcome and one expects that the forward-thinking melody and musicality shown through their work to-date will remain intact, resulting in something that feels grown out of what they’ve done before but that can stand on its own as well. At least that’s how they’ve done it thus far. What follows here, hoisted unceremoniously from social media in the cut-and-paste fashion that’s probably as out of date as the rest of this site, is just the signing announcement. There’s no concrete word of a new album, but such a thing exists or will exist and that’s why you’re being told about the signing.
A teaser, then, with more to come. Fine. I’ll take it for today and look forward to what’s coming. If you’ve got a most-anticipated-for-2026 list, or upcoming-albums or whatever you might want to call it now that we’re actually half a month into the New Year, hold a space for this one.
From socials:
Please welcome to the Ripple Family. Ealdor Bealu. Bringing with them one of the most original sounds in heavy psych desert rock. Look for a new album later this year.
Thanks to Brad Frye for bringing us together!
Says the band:
It is with great pleasure that we announce our biggest news to date… Ealdor Bealu has officially signed with Ripple Music!! We’re so incredibly honored to be joining forces with one of the most prolific labels in the Stoner/Heavy-Psych/Desert game, it’s been a long time coming and we’re stoked to finally find a proper label home for the band.
Our long awaited 4th full-length record will see a heralded release on Ripple this summer on Vinyl/CD/Digital formats!! We’re thrilled to finally get this record out to all of you who have patiently waited over these past couple years. Keep watch over our socials for more news and updates, we can’t wait to share what we have in store with you all 🖤
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 11th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Are you waiting for word on the next Ealdor Bealu record? Fair enough, me too. This isn’t it. They’re not egregiously overdue for a follow-up to 2022’s Psychic Forms (review here), mind you, I’m just impatient. If you’d like a refresher as to why, “Be Ye Gone” from the album is cued up on that Bandcamp player at the bottom of this post. You need look no further.
To the business at hand: a tour. Be they going. Cool. The extra-neato twist is it’s the 10th anniversary of the band, which calls to mind how broadly their Western-tinged open-spaces heavy Americana has flourished, their songwriting growing more progressive each time out such that Psychic Forms was as much transcendent of genre as it was cherrypicking elements of different styles and influences. Good band? Yeah. And apparently they’ve been at it for a decade. Rock out.
I assume that’s the plan. They have a hometown show a couple nights before supporting Witch Ripper (who’ll be concurrently on the road; the bands meet up again in Seattle), and will be sharing the stage with a righteous assortment of others along the way on the tour-proper. Pretty sure the below came from social media, but if it was PR wire, don’t hold it against me. People start checking sources I could lose my license, get kicked out of the stoner bloggers union (Local 666 or something stupid like that), give up my fatcat salary, har har har on on on.
In all seriousness — for really real — heartfelt congratulations to Ealdor Bealu on not only making it a decade, but on the decade they had and the point to which it’s brought them as a band. Cool to look back on their growth over the last 10 years, but even more, I still can’t wait to find out where they’ll take their sound next. For now, that’s on the road:
🏜️ A DECADE OF HIGH-DESERT PSYCHEDELIA 🏜️
5/9 Boise, ID @ Neurolux with Witchripper + Larkspur 5/14 Reno, NV @ Lo-Bar Social with Kanawha + Beach Master 5/15 Palmdale, CA @ Transplants Brewing with Old Blood + Sea of Snakes 5/16 San Diego, CA @ Brick by Brick with The Freeks + Desert Suns + Nebula Drag 5/17 Long Beach, CA @ Supply and Demand with Behold the Monolith + Pegzilla + The Cimmerian 5/18 San Luis Obispo, CA @ Dark Nectar Coffee with Jovian Queen + Corporal Psyche 5/19 Sacramento, CA @ Cafe Colonial with Oceans of Ash + Anime Aliens 5/20 Chico, CA @ Naked Lounge with Shadow Limb + West by Swan 5/22 Seattle, WA @ Substation with Witch Ripper + Sorcia 5/23 Bellingham, WA @ The Shakedown with Sun Crow + Feral Moon 5/24 Spokane, WA @ The Big Dipper with Portal to the Goddamn Blood Dimension + Merck + Earthworks 6/14 TO BE ANNOUNCED…
Posted in Reviews on October 7th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Oh hi, I didn’t see you there. Me? Oh, you know. Nothing much. Staring off a cliffside about to jump headfirst into a pool of 100 records. The usual.
I’m pretty sure this is the second time this year that a single Quarterly Review has needed to be two weeks long. It’s been a busy year, granted, but still. I keep waiting for the tide to ebb, but it hasn’t really at all. Older bands keep going, or a lot of them do, anyhow — or they come back — and new bands come up. But for all the war, famine, plague and strife and crisis and such, it’s a golden age.
But hey, don’t let me keep you. I’ve apparently been doing QRs since 2013, and I remember trying to find a way to squeeze together similar roundups before it. I have no insight to add about that, it’s just something I dug back to find out the other day and was surprised because 11 years of this kind of thing is a really long gosh darn time.
On that note, let’s go.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
—
Agusa, Noir
The included bits of Swedish dialogue from the short film for which Agusa‘s Noir was written to serve as a soundtrack would probably ground the proceedings some if I spoke Swedish, admittedly. As it is, those voices become part of the dream world the Malmö-based otherwise-instrumentalist adventurers conjure across 15 at times wildly divergent pieces. In arrangement and resultant mood, from the ’70s piano sentimentality of “Ljusglimtar” to the darker church organ and flute workings of “Stad i mörker,” which is reprised as a dirge at the end, the tracks are evocative across a swath of atmospheres, and it’s not all drones or background noise. They get their rock in, and if you stick around for “Kalkbrottets hemlighet,” you get to have the extra pleasure of hearing the guitar eat the rest of the song. You could say that’s not a thing you care about hearing but I know it’d be a lie, so don’t bother. If you’ve hesitated to take on Agusa in the past because sometimes generally-longform instrumental progressive psychedelic heavy rock can be a lot when you’re trying to get to know it, consider Noir‘s shorter inclusions a decent entry point to the band. Each one is like a brief snippet serving as another demonstration of the kind of immersion they can bring to what they play.
With an assembled cast of singers that includes Mikko Kotamäki (Swallow the Sun), his Amorphis bandmates Tomi Koivusaari and Tomi Joutsen, Petri Eskelinen of Rapture, and Barren Earth bandmate Jón Aldará, and guests on lead guitar and a drummer from the underappreciated Mannhai, and Barren Earth‘s keyboardist sitting in for good measure, bassist Olli Pekka-Laine harnesses a spectacularly Finnish take on proggy death-psych metal for Octoploid‘s first long-player, Beyond the Aeons. The songs feel extrapolated from Amorphis circa Elegy, putting guttural vocals to folk inspired guitar twists and prog-rock grooves, but aren’t trying to be that at all, and as ferocious as it gets, there’s always some brighter element happening, something cosmic or folkish or on the title-track both, and Octoploid feels like an expression of creative freedom based on a vision of a kind of music Pekka-Laine wanted to hear. I want to hear it too.
The Obscure River Experiment, as a group collected together for the live performance from which The Ore has been culled, may or may not be a band. It is comprised of players from the sphere of Psychedelic Source Records, and so as members of River Flows Reverse, Obscure Supersession Collective, Los Tayos and others collaborate here in these four periodically scorching jams — looking at you, middle of “Soul’s Shiver Pt. 2” — it could be something that’ll happen again next week or next never. Not knowing is part of the fun, because as far out as something like The Obscure River Experiment might and in fact does go, there’s chemistry enough between all of these players to hold it together. “Soul Shiver Pt. 1” wakes up and introduces the band, “Pt. 2” blows it out for a while, “I See Horses” gets funky and then blows it out, and “The Moon in Flesh and Bone” feels immediately ceremonial with its sustained organ notes, but becomes a cosmic boogie ripper, complete with a welcome return of vocals. Was it all made up on the spot? Was it all a dream? Maybe both?
Way underhyped South Carolinian progressive heavy rockers Shun arrive at the sound of their second LP, Dismantle, able to conjure elements of The Cure and Katatonia alongside Cave In-style punk-born groove, but in Shun‘s case, the underlying foundation is noise rock, so when “Aviator” opens up to its hook or “NRNS” is suddenly careening pummel or “Drawing Names” half-times the drums to get bigger behind the forward/obvious-focal-point vocal melodies of Matt Whitehead (ex-Throttlerod), there’s reach and impact working in conjunction with a thoughtful songwriting process pushed forward from where on their 2021 self-titled debut (review here) but that still seems to be actively working to engage the listener. That’s not a complaint, mind you, especially since Dismantle succeeds to vividly in doing so, and continues to offer nuance and twists on the plot right up to the willful slog ending with (most of) “Interstellar.”
No Man’s Valley, Chrononaut Cocktail Bar/Flight of the Sloths
Whether it’s the brooding Nick Cave-style cabaret minimalism of “Creepoid Blues,” the ’60s psych of “Love” or the lush progressivism that emerges in “Seeing Things,” the hook of “Shapeshifter” or “Orange Juice” coming in with shaker at the end to keep things from finishing too melancholy, the first half of No Man’s Valley‘s Chrononaut Cocktail Bar/Flight of the Sloths still can only account for part of the scope as they set forth the pastoralist launch of the 18-minute “Flight of the Sloths” on side B, moving from acoustic strum and a repeating title line into a gradual build effective enough so that when Jasper Hesselink returns on vocals 13 minutes later in the spaced-out payoff — because yes, the sloths are flying between planets; was there any doubt? — it makes you want to believe the sloths are out there working hard to stay in the air. The real kicker? No Man’s Valley are no less considered in how they bring “Flight of the Sloths” up and down across its span than they are “Love” or “Shapeshifter” early on, both under three minutes long. And that’s what maturing as songwriters can do for you, though No Man’s Valley have always had a leg up in that regard.
Dallas’ Land Mammal defy expectation a few times over on their second full-length, with the songwriting of Will Weise and Kinsley August turning toward greater depth of arrangement and more meditative atmospheres across the nine songs/34 minutes of Emergence, which even in a rolling groove like “Divide” has room for flute and strings. Elsewhere, sitar and tanpura meet with lap steel and keyboard as Land Mammal search for an individual approach to modern progressive heavy. There’s some shades of Elder in August‘s approach on “I Am” or the earlier “Tear You Down,” but the instrumental contexts surrounding are wildly different, and Land Mammal thrive in the details, be it the hand-percussion and far-back fuzz colliding on “The Circle,” or the tabla and sitar, drums and keys as “Transcendence (Part I)” and “Transcendence (Part II)” finish, the latter with the sounds of getting out of the car and walking in the house for epilogue. Yeah, I guess after shifting the entire stylistic scope of your band you’d probably want to go inside and rest for a bit. Well earned.
Released through Majestic Mountain Records, the debut full-length from Forgotten King, The Seeker, would seem to have been composed and recorded entirely by Azul Josh Bisama, also guitarist in Kal-El, though a full lineup has since formed. That happens. Just means the second album will have a different dynamic than the first, and there are some parts as in the early cut “Lost” where that will be a benefit as Azul Josh refines the work laying out a largesse-minded, emotively-evocative approach on these six cuts, likewise weighted and soaring. The album is nothing if not aptly-named, though, as Forgotten King lumber through “Drag” and march across 10 minutes of stately atmospheric doom, eventually seeing the melodic vocals give way to harsher fare in the second half, what’s being sought seems to have been found at least on a conceptual level, and one might say the same of “Around the Corner” or “The Sun” taking familiar-leaning desert rock progressions and doing something decisively ‘else’ with them. Very much feels like the encouraging beginning of a longer exploration.
Branched off from drummer/synthesist Paul Williams‘ intermittent work over the decades with Quarkspace, the mostly-solo-project Church of Hed explores progressive, kraut and space rock in a way one expects far more from Denmark than Columbus, Ohio — to wit, Jonathan Segel (Øresund Space Collective, Camper Van Beethoven) guests on violin, bass and guitar at various points throughout the nine-tracker, which indeed is about an hour long at 57 minutes. Church of Hed‘s last outing, 2022’s The Father Road, was an audio travelogue crossing the United States from one coast to the other. The Fifth Hour is rarely so concerned with terrestrial impressionism, and especially in its longer-form pieces “Pleiades Waypoint” (13:50), “Son of a Silicon Rogue” (14:59) or “The Fifth Hour” (8:43), it digs into sci-fi prog impulses that even in the weird blips and robot twists of the interlude “Aniluminescence 2” or the misshapen techno in the closing semi-reprise “Bastard Son of The Fifth Hour” never quite feels as dystopian as some other futures in the multiverse, and that becomes a strength.
Like the Melvins on an AC/DC kick or what you might get if you took ’70s arena rock, put it in a can and shook it really, really hard, Italian duo Zolle are a burst of weirdo sensation on their fifth full-length, Rosa. The songs are ready for whatever football match stadium P.A. you might want to put them on — hugely, straight-ahead, uptempo, catchy, fun in pieces like “Pepe” and “Lana” at the outset, “Merda,” “Pompon,” “Confetto” and “Fiocco” later on, likewise huge and silly in “Pois” or closer “Maialini e Maialine,” and almost grounded on “Toffolette e Zuccherini” at the start but off and running again soon enough — if you can keep up with guitarist/vocalist Marcello and drummer Stefano, for sure they make it worth the effort, and capture some of the intensity of purpose they bring to the stage in the studio and at the same time highlighting the shenanigans writ large throughout in their riffs and the cheeky bit of pop grandiosity that’s such a toy in their hands. You would not call it light on persona.
Thicker in tone than much of modern black metal, and willing toward the organic in a way that feels born of Cascadia a little more to the northwest as they blast away in “Era of Ash,” Boise, Idaho’s Shadow and Claw nonetheless execute moody rippers across the five songs/41 minute of their debut, Whereabouts Unknown. Known for his work in Ealdor Bealu and the solo-project Sawtooth Monk, guitarist/vocalist Travis Abbott showcases a rasp worthy of Enslaved‘s Grutle Kjellson on the 10-minute “Wrath of Thunder,” so while there are wolves amid the trio’s better chairs, to be sure, Shadow and Claw aren’t necessarily working from any single influence in or out of char-prone extreme metals, and as the centerpiece gives over to the eponymous “Shadow and Claw,” those progressive aspirations are reaffirmed as Abbott, drummer/backing vocalist Aaron Bossart (also samples) and bassist/backing vocalist Geno Lopez find room for a running-water-backed acoustic epilogue to “Scouring the Plane of Existence” and the album as a whole. Easy to imagine them casting these songs into the sunset on the side of some pointy Rocky Mountain or other, shadows cast and claws raised.
Posted in Reviews on October 5th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Welcome to Thursday of the Fall 202 Quarterly Review. It’s been a good run so far. three days and 30 records, about to be four and 40. I’ve got enough on my desktop and there’s enough stuff coming out this month that I could probably do a second Fall QR in November, and maybe stave off needing to do a double-one in December as I had been planning in the back of my head. Whatever, I’ll figure it out.
I hope you’ve been able to find something you dig. I definitely have, but that’s how it generally goes. These things are always a lot of work, and somehow I seem to plan them on the busiest weeks — today we’re volunteering at the grade school book fair; I think I’ll dig out my old Slayer God Hates Us All shirt from 20 years ago and see if it still fits. Sadly, I think we all know how that experiment will work out.
Anyway, busy times, good music, blah blah, let’s roll.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
—
Darsombra, Dumesday Book
Forever touring and avant garde to their very marrow, ostensibly-Baltimorean duo Darsombra — Ann Everton on keys, vocals, live visuals, and who the hell knows what else, Brian Daniloski on guitar, a living-room pedal board, and engineering at the band’s home studio — unveil Dumesday Book as a 75-minute collection not only of works like “Call the Doctor” (posted here) or “Call the Doctor” (posted here), which appear as remixes, but their first proper album of this troubled decade after 2019’s Transmission (review here) saw them reach so far out into the cosmic thread to harness their bizarre stretches of bleeps and boops, manipulated vocals, drones, noise and suitably distraught collage in “Everything is Canceled” — which they answer later with “Still Canceled,” because charm — but the reassurance here is in the continuation of Daniloski and Everton‘s audio adventures, and their commitment to what should probably at this point in space-time be classified as free jazz remains unflinching. Squares need not apply, and if you’re into stuff like structure, there’s some of that, but all Darsombra ever need to get gone is a direction in which to head — literally or figuratively — so why not pick them all?
Cavernous in its echo and with a grit of tone that is the aural equivalent of the feeling of pull in your hand when you make a doom claw, The Banishing is the second full-length from Italian doom rockers Bottomless. Working as the trio of vocalist/guitarist Giorgio Trombino (ex-Elevators to the Grateful Sky, etc.), drummer David Lucido (Assumption, among a slew of others) and bassist Sara Bianchin — the latter also of Messa and recently replaced in Bottomless by Laura Nardelli (Ponte del Diavolo, etc.) — the band follow their 2021 self-titled debut (review here) with an eight-track collection that comes across as its own vision of garage doom. It’s not about progressive flourish or elaborate production, but about digging into the raw creeper groove of “Guardians of Silence” or the righteous post-Pentagram chug-and-nod of “Let Them Burn.” It is not solely intended as worship for what’s come before. Doom-of-eld, the NWOBHM, ’70s proto splurges all abound, but in the vocal and guitar melody of “By the Sword of the Archangel” and the dramatic rolling finish of “Dark Waters” after the acoustic-led interlude “Drawn Into Yesterday,” in the gruel of “Illusion Sun,” they channel these elements through themselves and come out with an album that, for as dark and grim as it would likely sound to more than 99 percent of the general human population, is pure heart.
The Death Wheelers, Chaos and the Art of Motorcycle Madness
Look. I don’t know The Death Wheelers personally at all. We don’t hang out on weekends. But the sample-laced (“We wanna be free to ride our machines without being hassled by the Man — and we wanna get loaded!” etc.), motorcycle-themed Québecois instrumental outfit sound on their second LP, the 12-track/40-minute riff-pusher Chaos and the Art of Motorcycle Madness, like they’re onto something. And again, I don’t know these cats at all. I don’t know what they do for work, what their lives are like, any of it. But if The Death Wheelers want to get out and give this record the support it deserves, the place they need to be is Europe. Yeah, I know there was The Picturebooks, but they were clean-chrome and The Death Wheelers just cracked a smile and showed you the fly that got splattered on their front tooth while they were riding — sonically speaking. The dust boogie of “Lucifer’s Bend,” the duly stoned “Interquaalude” ahead of the capper duo of “Sissy Bar Strut (Nymphony 69)” and “Cycling for Satan Part II” and the blowout roll in “Ride into the Röt (Everything Lewder Than Everything Else)” — this is a band who should bypass America completely for touring and focus entirely on Europe. Because the US will come around, to be sure, but not for another three or four month-long Euro stints get the point across. I don’t know that that’ll happen or it won’t, but they sound ready.
The career arc of guitarist Phil Caivano — and of course he does other stuff as well, including vocals on his self-titled solo-project’s debut, Caivano, but some people seem to have been born to hold a guitar in their hands and he’s one of those; see also Bob Balch — is both longer and broader than his quarter-century as guitarist and songwriting contributor to Monster Magnet, but the NJ heavy rock stalwarts will nonetheless be the closest comparison point to these 10 tracks and 33 minutes, a kind of signature sleazy roll in “Talk to the Dead,” the time-to-get-off-your-ass push of “Come and Get Me” at the start or the punkier “Verge of Yesterday” — touch of Motörhead there seeming well earned — a cosmic ripper on a space backbeat in “Fun & Games,” but all of this is within a tonal and production context that’s consistent across the span, malleable in style, unshakable in structure. Closer “Face the Music” is the longest cut at 5:04 and is a drumless spacey experiment with vocals and a guitar figure wrapped around a central drone, and that adds yet more character to the proceedings. I’d wonder how long some of these songs or parts have been around or if Caivano is going to put a group together — could be interesting — and make a go of it apart from his ‘main band,’ but he’s long since established himself as an exceptional player, and listening to some of this material highlights contributions of style and substance to shaping Monster Magnet as well. Phil Caivano: songwriter.
Together for nearly a decade, richly informed by the progressive and space rock(s) of the 1970s, prone to headspinning feats of lead guitar like that in the back end of second cut “Dysania,” Entropía offer their second full-length in Eclipses, a five-track/40-minute excursion of organ-inclusive cosmic prog that reminds of Hypnos 69 in the warm serenity at the start of “Tarbes,” threatens the epic on seven-minute opener “Thesan” and delivers readily throughout; a work of scope that runs deep in the pairing of “Tarbes” and “Caleidoscopia” — both of which top nine minutes long — but it’s there that Entropía reveal the full spectrum of light they’re working with, whether it’s that tonal largesse that rears up in the latter or the jazzy kosmiche shove in the payoff of the former. And the drums come forward to start closer “Polaris,” which follows, as Entropía nestle into one more groovy submersion, finding heavy shuffle in the drums — hell yeah — and holding that tension until it’s time for the multi-tiered finish and only-necessary peaceful comedown. It’s inevitable that some records in a Quarterly Review get written about and I never listen to them again. I’ll be back to this one.
God damn, Ghorot, leave some nasty for the rest of the class. The Boise, Idaho, three-piece — vocalist/bassist Carson Russell (also Ealdor Bealu), guitarist/vocalist Chad Remains (ex-Uzala) and drummer/vocalist Brandon Walker — launch their second LP, Wound, with the gloriously screamed, righteously-coated-in-filth, choking-on-mud extreme sludge they appropriately titled “Dredge.” And fuck if it doesn’t get meaner from there as Ghorot — working with esteemed producer Andy Patterson (The Otolith, etc.) and releasing through Lay Bare Recordings and King of the Monsters Records — take the measure of your days and issue summary judgment in the negative through the mellow-harshing bite of “In Asentia,” the least brutal part of which kind of sounds like High on Fire and the death/black metal in centerpiece “Corsican Leather.” All of which is only on side A. On side B, “Canyon Lands” imagines a heavy Western meditation — shades of Ealdor Bealu in the guitar — that retains its old-wizard vocal gurgle, and capper “Neanderskull” finally pushes the entire affair off of whatever high desert cliffside from which it’s been proclaiming all this uberdeath and into a waiting abyss of willfully knuckledragging blower deconstruction. The really scary shit is these guys’ll probably do another record after this one. Yikes.
With the self-release of Outward, heavy progressive psych instrumentalists Moozoonsii complete a duology of pandemic-constructed outings that began with last year’s (of course) Inward, and to do so, the trio based in Nantes, France, continue to foster a methodology somewhere between metal and rock, finding ground in precision riffing in the 10-minute “Nova” or in the bumps and crashes after eight minutes into the 13-minute “Far Waste,” but they’re just as prone to jazzy skronk-outs like in the midsection solo of “Lugubris,” and the entire release is informed by the unfolding psychedelic meditationscape of “Stryge” at the start, so by no, no, no means at all are they doing one thing for the duration. “Toxic Lunar Vibration,” which splits the two noted extended tracks, brings the sides together as if to emphasize this point, not so much fitting those pointed angles together as delighting in the ways in which they do and don’t fit at certain times as part of their creative expression. Pairing that impulse with the kind of heavy-as-your-face-if-your-face-had-a-big-boulder-on-it fuzz in “Tauredunum” is a hell of a place to wind up. The unpredictable character of the material that surrounds only makes that ending sweeter and more satisfying.
An initial two tracks from UK trio Death Wvrm, both instrumental, surfaced earlier this year, one in Spring around the time of their appearance at Desertfest London — quiet a coup for a seemingly nascent band; but listening to them I get it — and after. “Enter” was first, “The Endless” second, and the two of them tell a story unto themselves; narrative seeming to be part of the group’s mission from this point of outset, as each single comes with a few sentences of accompanying scene-setting. Certainly not going to complain about the story, and the band have some other surprises in store in these initial cuts, be it the bright, mid-period Beatles-y tone in the guitar for “The Endless” (it’s actually only about four and a half minutes) or the driving fuzz that takes hold after the snap of snare at 2:59, or the complementary layer of guitar in “Enter” that speaks to broader ambitions sound-wise almost immediately on the part of the band. “Enter” and “The Endless” both start quiet and get louder — the scorch in “Enter” isn’t to be discounted — but they do so in differing ways, and so while one listens to the first two cuts a band is putting out and expects growth in complexity and method, that’s actually just fine, because it’s exactly also what one is left wanting after the two songs are done: more. I’m not saying show up at their house or anything, but maybe give a follow on Bandcamp and keep an eye.
Safe to assume some level of self-awareness on the part of Brazilian trio Mudness who, after unveiling their first single “R.I.P.” in 2020 make their self-titled full-length debut with seven songs of hard-burned wizard riffing, the plod of “Gone” (also an advance single, if not by three years) and guitarist Renan Casarin‘s Obornian moans underscoring the disaffected stoner idolatry. Joined by Fernando Dal Bó, whose bass work is crucial to the success of the entire release — can’t roll it if it ain’t heavy — and drummer Pedro Silvano, who adds malevolent swing to the slow march forward of “This End Body,” the centerpiece of the seven-song/35-minute long player. There’s an interlude, “Lamuria,” that could probably have shown up earlier, but one should keep in mind that the sense of onslaught between the likes of “Evil Roots” and “Yellow Imp” is part of the point, and likewise that they’re saving an extra layer of aural grime for “Final Breeze,” where they answer the more individual take of “This End Body” with a reach into melodicism and mark their appeal both in what they might bring to their sound moving forward and the planet-sucked-anyhow despondent crush of this collection. Putting it on the list for the best debuts of 2023. It’s not innovative, or trying to be, but that doesn’t stop it from accomplishing its aims in slow, mostly miserable stride.
I’m not generally one to tell you how to spend your money, but if you take a look over at The Space Huns‘ Bandcamp page (linked below), you’ll see that the Hungarian psych jammers’ entire digital discography is €3.50. Again, not trying to tell you how to live your life, but Legends of the Ancient Tribes, the Szeged-based trio’s new hour-long album, has a song on it called “Goats on a Discount Private Space Shuttle Voyage,” and from where I sit that entitles the three-piece of guitarist Csaba Szőke, bassist Tamás Tikvicki and drummer Mátyás Mozsár to that cash and perhaps more. I could just as easily note “Sgt. Taurus on Coke” at the start of the outing or “The Melancholic Stag Beetle Who Got Inspired by Corporate Motivational Coaches” — or the essential fact that in addition to the best song titles I’ve seen all year (again, and perhaps more), the jams are ace. Chemistry to spare, patience when it’s called for but malleable enough to boogie or nod and sound no less natural doing either, while keeping an exploratory if not improvisational — and it might be that too — character to the material. It’s not a minor undertaking at 59 minutes, but between the added charm of the track names and the grin-inducing nod of “Cosmic Cities of the Giant Snail Kingdom,” they make it easy.
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 17th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
You’ll forgive me if I’m late posting these Ghorot tour dates. The Boise-based deathbringers will issue their second album, titled simply Wound, on Oct. 7, and the tour starts that very same night n their hometown. They’ve got Chrome Ghost out for part of the trip, but if you look at the list of shows, badassery abounds from all sides, with the likes of Destroyer of Light, Sorxe, Behold! The Monolith, The Cimmerian, Nebula Drag, Sky Pig, and others showing up on bills throughout the West Coast and Midwest, whatever Texas considers itself part of these days. Another universe, maybe, if you ask their dickweed of governor.
But don’t let me get sidetracked. The news of Ghorot‘s release date is welcome and I’ve been waiting for it. Fall should work well for the band’s particular brand of extreme sludge, which at least on their 2021 debut, Loss of Light (review here), carried a fervent scent of rotting dirt along with its harsh tones and purposes. One would expect no less of Wound upon its arrival in October, which the band confirms through the PR wire below:
GHOROT – MAJOR TOUR ANNOUNCEMENT
Boise’s blackened-doom bastards Ghorot are headed out on an 18-date Western US Tour this October in support of their sophomore album WOUND, which drops on Friday 10/7 on Lay Bare Recordings, King Of The Monsters Records, and Transylvanian Recordings!! Tour support on our west coast leg will be provided by Sacramento’s sludge heroes and our TR label-mates Chrome Ghost!!
WOUND ACROSS THE WEST TOUR DATES 10/7 Boise, ID @ Neurolux with Possessive + TBA 10/11 SLC, UT @ Aces High Saloon with Swarmer + Harvest of Ash 10/12 Denver, CO @ HQ with Matriarch + VOIDEATER 10/13 Albuquerque, NM @ Ren’s Den with High Hover + Nomestomper + FaceRipper 10/14 Dallas, TX @ Three Links – Deep Ellum, TX with Mountain of Smoke + Imperial Slaughter + Kólga 10/15 San Antonio, TX @ Hi-Tones with Nocturnal Hell + Earthen 10/16 Corpus Christi @ Boozerz Rock Bar with TBA 10/17 Austin, TX @ The Lost Well with Destroyer of Light + Deathblow + Ungrieved 10/18 El Paso, TX @ Rockhouse Dive Bar Kitchen Venue with Heinous Mutation + TBA 10/19 Tempe, AZ @ Yucca Tap Room with MutilatedTyrant + Sorxe + Stone Witch 10/20 San Diego, CA @ Til Two Club with Chrome Ghost + Nebula Drag + TBA 10/22 Palmdale, CA @ Transplants Brewing Company with Chrome Ghost + Behold! The Monolith + The Cimmerian 10/23 San Francisco, CA @ Kilowatt Bar with Chrome Ghost + Snakemother 10/24 Sacramento, CA @ Cafe Colonial with Chrome Ghost + SKY PIG 10/25 Eugene, OR @ Sam Bond’s Garage with Chrome Ghost + Red Cloud 10/26 Portland, OR @ High Water Mark Lounge with Chrome Ghost + Drouth + TBA 10/27 Seattle, WA @ Funhouse Seattle with Chrome Ghost + Empress + Grim Earth 10/28 Bellingham, WA @ Karate Church with Chrome Ghost + Empress + Inpathos
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 26th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
After supporting Earth last month and gigging with the touring Cortége in their native Boise, Idaho, melodic progressive heavy rockers Ealdor Bealu entered The Chop Shop to begin recording their fourth long-player, presumably for release sometime next year. The band comprised of guitarist/vocalists Carson Russell (also Ghorot) and Travis Abbott (also Sawtooth Monk), bassist/vocalist Rylie Collingwood and new drummer Cameron Elgart (also guitar in Crush the Monster) are now finished at least with some part of that process, having spent four days working with Andy Agenbroad on the follow-up to 2022’s Psychic Forms (review here), which came out through Metal Assault Records and whose echoing strains I don’t even have to put on to hear in my head. Not a complaint.
Questions abound. What does the new album hold and what’s next and is there more to do — overdubs? on to mixing/mastering? timeline on the release? — and what’s the big show they’re about to announce later this week, perhaps even seven or so minutes after this post goes live if my usual luck for these things holds? Well, this is usually the part where I tell you I sent the band a message or something to find all this stuff out, but the truth is I keep up pretty vigorously on Ealdor Bealu‘s doings, and after a while it kind of starts to feel a little stalker-ish. Like, maybe this band from more than halfway across the country has something better to do than field who-what-when-wheres from my couchbound ass. Maybe for today we can just be stoked the recording is nearly done and leave it at that? Yeah? Cool.
Here’s what they had to say for the time being, emojis and all:
That’s a wrap on 4 incredible days recording at The Chop Shop recording services!! It was such a pleasure to reunite with the legendary Andy Agenbroad, a consummate professional and an excellent human being (#128420#)
One more short session to go next Monday and we’ll have this thing in the bag!! Next up will be Z.V. House of Rabbitbrush Audio on the mix, can’t wait to see this music continue to evolve and grow (#127926#)
Next Ealdor Bealu show will be announced later this week, and it’s gonna be a BANGER!! Stay tuned…
