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Quarterly Review: Darsombra, Bottomless, The Death Wheelers, Caivano, Entropía, Ghorot, Moozoonsii, Death Wvrm, Mudness, The Space Huns

Posted in Reviews on October 5th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

the obelisk winter quarterly review

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

darsombra dumesday book

Forever touring and avant garde to their very marrow, ostensibly-Baltimorean duo DarsombraAnn 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?

Darsombra on Instagram

Darsombra on Bandcamp

Bottomless, The Banishing

bottomless the banishing

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.

Bottomless on Facebook

Dying Victims Productions website

The Death Wheelers, Chaos and the Art of Motorcycle Madness

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 Death Wheelers on Facebook

RidingEasy Records store

Caivano, Caivano

Caivano Caivano

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.

Caivano on Instagram

Entropía, Eclipses

Entropía Eclipses

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.

Entropía on Facebook

Clostridium Records store

Ghorot, Wound

Ghorot Wound

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.

Ghorot on Facebook

Lay Bare Recordings website

King of the Monsters Records website

Moozoonsii, Outward

Moozoonsii Outward

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.

Moozoonsii on Facebook

Moozoonsii on Bandcamp

Death Wvrm, Enter / The Endless

Death Wvrm enter

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.

Death Wvrm on Instagram

Death Wvrm on Bandcamp

Mudness, Mudness

Mudness Mudness

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.

Mudness on Facebook

Mudness on Bandcamp

The Space Huns, Legends of the Ancient Tribes

The Space Huns Legends of the Ancient Tribes

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.

The Space Huns on Facebook

The Space Huns on Bandcamp

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Bottomless Premiere “Centuries Asleep” Lyric Video; Self-Titled Debut out July 16

Posted in Bootleg Theater on May 20th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

bottomless

Italian trio Bottomless make their self-titled debut July 16 through Spikerot Records. Oh, it’s doomy. Classic doom. Doom schooled in the ways of doom. Comprised in the CD version of 10 tracks running a total of 46 minutes, the collection does not dissemble and gets right to business with the post-Saint Vitus rollout of opener “Monastery,” guitarist/vocalist Giorgio Trombino going all-in on the Reagers-style vocals. Cuts like the subsequent “Centuries Asleep” have a bit more boogie and the title-track or the later “Loveless Reign” nod toward The Obsessed while the shove of “Losing Shape” vibes deep in Pentagram, but one way or another, it all comes back to pure doom, with Trombino, bassist Sara Bianchin and drummer David Lucido offering more than referential reverence in their progressions, but still speaking most to an audience of the genre-converted. In another time, another place, it’s easy to imagine their logo on any number of Doom Over…-style festival posters. They may yet get there.

Trombino and Lucido have played together in a number of outfits as you can read below, and Bianchin is perhaps best known for her work in Messa, so maybe their cohesion around the central idea of Bottomless — that is, dooom, with three ‘o’s and all — shouldn’t be a surprise, but it is righteous. bottomless bottomlessListening to LP-centerpiece “Ash” lumber across its first half before an “alright!” from Trombino signals the tempo shift in its second is to hear worship expressed as persona. Like their cover art works off of Henri-Joseph Harpignies’ painting Lever de Lune sur un Étang — yes, I was given that info; that’s not a pick I made off the top of my head and I won’t pretend otherwise — so too is their aesthetic born of established methods but presented in sincere, back-to-the-roots fashion, and what once made Reverend Bizarre‘s work so purposeful resonates too in “Vestige” here in a sense that richness of sound means more than just subsuming oneself in microgenre for its own sake. They knock on your door. You answer. They hold up the pamphlet comprised entirely of killer riffs and nodding grooves. On the front, you read the words, “Is there room for doom in your heart?”

Almost certainly there is.

And just as the resounding push in “Cradling Obsession” is sure to enact a satisfied metal-frown even unto its fading solo and the arrival of the bonus track “Hell Vacation,” so too does the earlier “Centuries Asleep” speak to the core of what makes doom doomed. The band cites a ’70s influence, calling out the Tony Iommi-produced Necromandus as well as underrated Scots Iron Claw, and fair enough, but if you’re wondering what makes it lead-single-ready, it’s the hook and the fullness of its sound that’s doing the heavy lifting here, as well as the bleeding-black sneering vocal from Trombino. Fucking a.

Ahead of the album’s release this summer, still about two months off, you can stream a lyric video for “Centuries Asleep” premiering below, followed by a few words from the band about it, preorder link, album info, etc.

Doom on:

Bottomless, “Centuries Asleep” lyric video premiere

Bottomless on “Centuries Asleep”:

This particular song strikes closest to our vision of 70s dark and doomed rock. Iron Claw, Necromandus: you name ’em. We try to write rock songs, first and foremost, and they gotta have that structure and feel otherwise it’s plain musical failure. It’s about a vision of an ever still and dangerous world.

Bottomless is our vehicle to express a love that never dies, i.e. that for the most threatening, Sabbathic form of slow heavy metal we could ever come up with. There’s no room for anything but our influences inside this project. That being said, our first album is the materialization of our vision.

Preorder: https://smarturl.it/bottomless
Set for release on July 16th 2021 and featuring members of well known acts like Messa, Assumption and more, BOTTOMLESS will stir up the scene with their upcoming debut album, to be released this summer via Spikerot Records! Consisting of guitarist/singer Giorgio Trombino and drummer David Lucido (together in Assumption, Undead Creep, Haemophagus, Morbo and more) and joined by Sara Bianchin (Messa, Restos Humanos) in 2018 on bass, a constantly demanding musical schedule has forced the trio to keep postponing the recording and release of their first-full length album for years, yet, in 2021, it is finally about to come to life. BOTTOMLESS’ first self-titled record will be coming out on CD, LP and digital and features nothing but unadulterated Doom Metal in the vein of the ancient masters Black Sabbath, Saint Vitus, Pentagram, Trouble and The Obsessed!

BOTTOMLESS’ s/t debut will be coming out July 16th on Spikerot Records and is now available for pre-order here: http://smarturl.it/bottomless

Tracklist:
01. Monastery
02. Centuries Asleep
03. Bottomless
04. The Talking Mask
05. Ash
06. Losing Shape
07. Loveless Reign
08. Vestige
09. Cradling Obsession
10. Hell Vacation (CD BONUS TRACK)

BOTTOMLESS are:
Giorgio Trombino – Guitars / Vocals
Sara Bianchin – Bass
David Lucido – Drums

Bottomless on Facebook

Bottomless on Instagram

Spikerot Records on Facebook

Spikerot Records on Instagram

Spikerot Records website

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Bottomless Sign to Spikerot Records for Self-Titled Debut

Posted in Whathaveyou on February 16th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

Not much to tell at this point about Bottomless. If it helps, one suspects their moniker derives from some endless doomly abyss — be it actual, metaphorical or emotional — rather than simply having no pants on, though in the age of waist-up videoconferencing, perhaps it’s best not to take anything for granted.

A social media presence for the Italian trio would seem to have emerged just before the announcement that they’ve signed to Spikerot Records went out, though they’ve most likely been working on the QT for longer, since they’ll issue a full-length already later this year. I don’t know the status of any recording or progress, and there isn’t even a demo posted that I could find — which should only tell you that, yes, there probably is, and most likely it’s ridiculously easy to find — but it’ll be along when it comes along. The personnel here caught my eye, and of course Spikerot has shown they know what they’re doing on multiple occasions at this point. One can hardly argue with the mission as it’s presented here. For the rest, we’ll see I guess.

To the PR wire:

bottomless

BOTTOMLESS (feat. members of Assumption, Messa, Haemophagus) signs to Spikerot Records!

Spikerot Records is extremely stoked to announce the signing of BOTTOMLESS, the brand new project formed by Giorgio Trombino and David Lucido, respectively guitar/vocals and drums (together in Assumption, Undead Creep, Haemophagus, Morbo and others) and by Sara Bianchin (Messa, Restos Humanos) on bass.

BOTTOMLESS play nothing but unadulterated Doom Metal in the vein of the ancient masters Black Sabbath, Saint Vitus, Pentagram, Trouble, The Obsessed.

“Bottomless is our vehicle to express a love that never dies, i.e. that for the most threatening, Sabbathic form of slow heavy metal we could ever come up with” says Trombino. “There’s no room for anything but our influences inside this project. That being said, our first album is the materialization of our vision. We thank Spikerot for believing in Bottomless since the very start. There is no end…”.

The trio’s first self-titled record is expected to be released in late 2021 via Spikerot Records on CD, LP and Digital.

BOTTOMLESS are:
Giorgio Trombino – Guitar / Vocals
Sara Bianchin – Bass
David Lucido – Drums

https://www.facebook.com/Bottomless-100978085366847
https://www.instagram.com/bottomlessdoom/
www.facebook.com/spikerotrecords
https://www.instagram.com/spikerotrecords/
www.spikerot.com

Undead Creep, Enchantments From the Haunted Hills (2012)

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