Austin’s Bridge Farmers have climbed the mountain of madness. They’ve ridden the road to oblivion. They’ve eaten the proverbial brown acid, with Cthulhu, in the eye of a hurricane. And, presumably a few days later, the psych-sludge rockers from the Lone Star State decided to document their experiences in the form of their second full-length, Cosmic Trigger, released through Olde Magick Records. It’s been some five years since their 2018 self-titled (discussed here), and some of the shifts in approach that the six songs/44 minutes of this follow-up long-player presents can be accounted for in adding guitarist Pete Brown to the band alongside guitarist/vocalist Tyler Hautala, bassist Garrett Carr and drummer Kyle Rice — I’m not certain how permanent that addition is, but what is permanence anyway when you’re melting the universe to so much transdimensional goo? — but not all of them.

The churning and psychedelic boogie of the nonetheless-noise-drenched, maybe-theremin-inclusive “Temple of Eris I” and the scorching and expansive space rock jam that ensues on “Temple of Eris II” can’t really be written off as just the difference having two guitars makes. Given the sound, it’s more likely the stratospheric drive came first and then the advent of Brown on guitar, but whatever did it, Bridge Farmers are a weirder band than they were half a decade ago — for what it’s worth, it was eight years from their 2010 debut, Din of Celestial Birds, to Bridge Farmers, so five years isn’t their longest divide, and they had other offerings in between — and that weirdness suits them delightfully.

The way Cosmic Trigger is structured is important to the fluidity within and between the six inclusions, which are set up in a pattern of three pairs of shorter and longer songs. To wit, the tracklisting, with runtimes:

1. Frater Achad (5:16)
2. Street Needles (10:06)
3. Temple of Eris I (4:28)
4. Temple of Eris II (8:10)
5. Dark Star (3:20)
6. Lynx (12:40)

From this we can see that Bridge Farmers — who produced Cosmic Trigger themselves with Daniel McNeill engineering and Tad Doyle (TAD, Hog Molly, Brothers of the Sonic Cloth) mastering at Witch Ape Studios — approach their third album with a marked sense of purpose, and neither the pairings nor their succession one to the next feels haphazard. Blowing itself quickly out the airlock, the album launches with what might be its oldest song, as “Frater Achad” bass-lumbers into its noisy, vocal-echo-stretching procession, atmospherically vast and unrepentantly stoned in tone. That the song moves at all feels like a collective feat of strength for an early Festivus, but as gravitationally dense as it is, Hautala‘s shouts are loose, almost bluesy in their more melodic moments, and feel born out of some of the same impulse as earliest Monster Magnet, or a less-manic Ecstatic Vision, if you’d like a more modern example, and underneath part of the solo in the second half of “Frater Achad” there seems to be a layer of guitar that’s (maybe) just a pick hitting a string.

I don’t know if that’s actually part of the lead track or a complementary noise — there’s a drone like a mouth harp as well for a while and cacophony is the general idea so it’s hard to tell exactly — but it’s emblematic of the will to experiment, the manner in which the songs have been built up, and the open-mindedness/expanded-consciousness of the band generally. It’s like sludge rock macrodosing ketamine, numbing thought with an onslaught of swing ‘n’ swirl, and that’s before “Street Needles” takes hold to spend 10 minutes pondering what might’ve been if Electric Wizard and Unsane were the same band and they dropped a gallon of acid and rewrote Black Sabbath‘s “Black Sabbath” after jamming out its ultra-recognizable central riff for, I don’t know, six hours?

An almost-Looney Tunes wakeup guitar stretch starts “Temple of Eris I,” and the only direct two-parter on Cosmic Trigger proceeds to build itself up from there until at 1:45 into its 4:28 it can’t take it anymore and begins its outbound launch. Wah guitar, howls of something or other, a steady, righteous air push of bass, and a whole lot of acid wash takes hold and that is the course of the song right into its fade out, which is a surprise until “Temple of Eris II” walks that fade back up slowly, false ending-style. I think it’s guitar, but if you told me it was keys or actual sax, I’d believe you, but either way, it’s a lead where Hawkwind would’ve put the saxophone and it serves just as well in the early going, eventually becoming part of the overarching push, which turns past three and a half minutes in into comedown tom thud and circular trails of guitar.

But wait! As they head toward minute five, they start to give the impression they’re not done and with crash cymbal counting in, they start the thrusters anew and are off to interstellar glory once again, pushing past spiral galaxies left spinning like so many pinwheels in their wonderfully make-believe wake. “Dark Star” follows and regrounds immediately with thick but punkish bass, echoing shouts that could just as easily have been on a Ministry record in the ’90s and an entirely different kind of shove that slams into a wall before its first minute is done, staggers for a moment, then surges again, staggers again, and surges again, a last few lyrics arriving to check if you’re dizzy enough.

That leaves “Lynx” at the finish; the longest track and maybe also the farthest reaching, cosmic and mellow at first, with calmed vocals and an eventual tsunami wall of fuzz that swallows everything. From there the pace picks up to a dense-in-the-low-end, echo-shout-topped boogie, evens out to a desert rock riff with what sounds like a siren blaring from one channel to another, and a where-did-that-come-from revitalization of the space rock tap-tap-tap behind the riff. They resolve it in heavy psychedelic fashion, daring a bit of melody in the layering of guitar and maybe keys while remaining superficially furious until the tape runs out and they’re done for real.

They’ve reportedly got a fourth full-length currently at some stage of progress or other, so it may or may not be another five years before Bridge Farmers are next heard from. I won’t claim to know anything there or to have a guess at where they’re going sound-wise after sitting Cosmic Trigger next to Bridge Farmers and experiencing the acid noise of these tracks, but whether another long-player manifests this year, next year, or in 2028, or never, that does nothing to undercut either the redirect Bridge Farmers have undertaken stylistically or the multifaceted take that’s resulted from it.

In being sort of all-over-the-place while making sense in its own context, “Lynx” is a fitting capper for the album as a whole; it may not encapsulate the full range of ground they trod, but it’s got a goodly portion of it, and in the sure-footed manner of its going it is analogous to the record itself. Even if you emerge from Cosmic Trigger wondering what the hell just happened, rest assured, you’re doing it right. So are they. Just go back, listen again, and let the math work itself out.

Bridge Farmers, Cosmic Trigger (2023)

BANDCAMP PLAYER

Bridge Farmers, “Frater Achad” official video

Bridge Farmers on Facebook

Bridge Farmers on Instagram

Bridge Farmers on Bandcamp

Olde Magick Records on Facebook

Olde Magick Records on Instagram

Olde Magick Records on Bandcamp

Austin, Texas, heavy psych rockers Bridge Farmers release their second album, Cosmic Trigger, May 19 on Olde Magick Records. The three-piece signed to the label early in February and have been dropping hints for a while on a follow-up to their 2018 self-titled debut (discussed here), which was brought to my attention last December in righteous check-this-out-you-dope fashion. Thankfully, I’ll add. But the unveiling of a solid release date is new, and one assumes that at some point between now and then, either they or Olde Magick or both will have preorders up and maybe even a song or two — should I ask to do a stream? probably — and so on with all that putting-out-a-record stuff.

But they posted the photo below of the record in-hand — an exciting mail day in the life of any band — and noted that although it’s been half a decade since their first full-length, they’re currently working on a third in the studio. Presumably that will be released sometime before 2028, but if you’d seek hints at what’s to come with Cosmic Trigger, look no further than 2020’s Live at the Electric Church (recall Duel also did a live record from the same venue), which captures their sound in raw but expansive fashion. That live outing was also recorded in 2018, so I don’t think any of the songs will be on the new record — all but “Frater Achad” appeared on Bridge Farmers, and that was released as part of a two-songer in 2016 — but it’s still an opportunity to dig deeper should you wish to do so ahead of Cosmic Trigger‘s arrival next month.

Here’s that post, dutifully hoisted from social media:

Whilst recording our 3rd album at the Cornpound in San Antone we got our grubby little fingers on our 2nd album ‘Cosmic Trigger,’ to be released on May 19th.

Release show details coming soon!

@oldemagickrecordsofficial
@worshipercabinets
@worshiperdrums

Bridge Farmers are:
Tyler Hautala – Guitar/Vocals
Garett Carr – Bass
Kyle Rice – Drums

https://www.facebook.com/BridgeFarmers/
https://www.instagram.com/bridgefarmersatx/
https://bridgefarmers.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/oldemagickrecords
https://www.instagram.com/oldemagickrecordsofficial/
https://oldemagickrecords.bandcamp.com/

Bridge Farmers, Live at the Electric Church (2020)

Sometimes someone puts you onto a band and it leaves you utterly flat. Sometimes someone puts you onto a band and you play it and find out it’s a massive-sounding collection of fuzz-drenched stoner metal roll with psychedelic flourish and noisy roots that spread out across six tracks on a 43-minute long-player that actually turns out to be a bit of a gem. Well hi, Bridge Farmers.

The Austin, Texas-based sludge rocking three-piece were brought to my attention last week with a pointing finger directed at their 2018 self-titled. The band, who of course are not to be confused with New York doomers Blood Farmers — we’re farming infrastructure here, remember — released their debut album, Din of Celestial Birds in 2010, and have little in common with the similarly-named NYC outfit in terms of methodology other than being trios. Bridge Farmers, with the lineup of guitarist/vocalist Tyler Hautala, bassist Garett Carr and drummer Kyle Rice, have a few other short offerings on their collective CV — a cover of Pink Floyd‘s “The Nile Song” in early 2020, a live record, Live at the Electric Church (you might recall fellow Austinites Duel released a set from the same venue in 2018), as the world shut itself down that Spring, an earlier two-songer from June 2016 and a concurrent single, “Wicked Sun,” which opens side B here. They are, in short, a band who made an album that someone told me I should check out. That happens from time to time, and if I’m lucky, it works out this well.

Bridge Farmers‘ Bridge Farmers, released only on LP/DL, basks in many elements that to current heavy heads will ring familiar. Throughout the record, there are shades of Electric Wizard (early and later, if you want to trace some of the shoutier vocals), Monolord, Sleep and Matt Pike more generally — opener “The Source” reminds somewhat of High on Fire‘s “Madness of an Architect” in the pattern of its riff — as well as more lurch-prone psychedelia later on in the gleefully blown-out penultimate cut “Death Moon” and the noisy back-end of subsequent finale “Pyramids of Montauk,” and of course Black Sabbath in the shuffle-under-a-dual-channel-guitar-solo crescendo of the closer’s side A counterpart, “Stoned Ape.”

Both of those tracks — “Stoned Ape” and “Pyramids of Montauk” — top 10 minutes long, where nothing else reaches six-point-five, so their placement at the culmination of each half of the record feels purposeful and the fact that they self-released it on vinyl instead of, say, cramming it all onto a CD and just telling people to pretend if was spinning slower or some such, speaks to that as well. They’re not the first band I’ve written about this week to set up an LP structure like this, and it’s something likely to be encountered next week as well, but even the idea of that division works in Bridge Farmers‘ favor in terms of how the songs feed into each other. It’s a time-tested method put to good use.

With “The Source” and side B’s “Wicked Sun” and “Death Moon” all shortly over six minutes long, the real outlier on the record is second track “Phosphene Temple.” Sandwiched between “The Source” and “Stoned Ape,” it’s relatively in and out at 3:48, and though it’s not punk or anything, there is an added sense of urgency that comes from the kick in tempo compared to much of what surrounds. It picks up from residual feedback and ends in — wait for it — residual noise before “Stoned Ape” announces itself with a riff that seems to lumber even without drums pushing it from behind, and during its stretch, the band maintain the weight of those other songs while making it move in a way that they’re just not universally interested in doing, and fair enough for changing it up. What ultimately unites “Phosphene Temple” with the rest of the album on which it features is the outright bite of its tonality and the somewhat chaotic atmosphere that creates across the board.

Since the self-titled  followed eight years after the first, some change in methodology could hardly be called unreasonable, but it’s striking how much harder Bridge Farmers hits in comparison to Din of Celestial Birds, which sounds much clearer on the whole. Both the aforementioned 2016 two-songer, Frater Achad​/​Feast of Flesh, and that same year’s version of “Wicked Sun” have kind of a demo, live-in-the-room sound to them (whether or not they were recorded live in the rehearsal space, I don’t know), but even before one gets to the sheer amount of noise and feedback pushed into these tracks — which puts you about as far as the intro to “The Source,” where a harsh ring of feedback features before the verse starts — the fullness of the guitar and bass is a distinct departure from Bridge Farmers circa 2010. Whatever might be behind that shift, if it’s change in personnel or more general mindset, I don’t know. Again, someone just told me to check out this band — thanks, Marzia — and I did. You can hit them up and find out how come they got so mean toward the end of the decade.

Before you do, make sure you give due attention to the semi-psych reach of “Death Moon.” It shows itself first in the lead guitar atop a steady-as-ever mid-paced nodder of a groove, and comes around again to some degree in the song’s second half. This pairs “Death Moon” — that’s not a space station! — with  “Pyramids of Montauk,” which is as righteous a finale as one could hope to encounter tucked away under all that riffy morass. The vocals seem to cut through more in the early verses, no less hypnotic than the crash behind, and while the noise quotient is maintained — as, by the way, one would hope; please don’t read any of this as complaint about too much noise; noise it up, noisemakers — there’s breadth enough to set up well the shift the track makes before the five-minute mark, beginning an outward roll from which it’s readily apparent they’re not coming back.

First it gets fast and loud, then it gets delightfully weird, and they slow down again as they end it — classic move — but that shove is effective in adding to the overarching spaciousness that in there in some of the material, despite the somewhat manic cast of that moment. That is, it’s stars exploding, not zero-gravity drift, and the band’s willingness to not only call back to “Phosphene Temple” in terms of pacing but add a hint of something new while doing so makes the finish all the more satisfying.

I was told to listen and I’m glad I did. I’m writing about Bridge Farmers now in the hope that maybe the same will be the case for you.

Thanks for reading.

—

I’m writing to you from gate 63 at terminal B of Newark Liberty Airport. In about two hours, I’ll board SAS flight SK 904 to Stockholm, Sweden, where this weekend I’ll attend Truckfighters Fuzz Festival #3 (info here) in the company of New York’s Kings Destroy, with whom I’m traveling. This will be my first time in Sweden, and to say I’m looking forward to actually setting foot in the country that has produced so much of the music I love — from Dozer and Greenleaf and Truckfighters, who are playing, to perhaps actually hundreds of other bands through the ages — is me trying to play it cool. In what is probably no longer the parlance of our times, I’m stoked.

Until about the middle of last week, I thought this trip was happening next week — the 16th and 17th for the fest instead of the 9th and 10th — and so the last few days have been a bit hairy as I’ve gone from getting home from Richmond, Virginia, on Sunday after attending the Alabama Thunderpussy reunion the night before to getting myself packed and ready to roll out today, which is Thursday. But I’m here. I’m pretty sure I packed enough crap, and if not, I hear that major urban centers around the world are stocked with, you know, more crap. So yes, even if it’s been a crunch to prepare, and even if I feel that much more guilt for being apart from The Patient Mrs. and The Pecan two weekends in a row I’m excited for what’s to come, musically at the fest, seeing people, hopefully seeing a bit of the city on Sunday before I leave first thing Monday morning local time.

I’m reviewing the fest, of course. I’ll try to post some photos on socials if I get anything decent, and the reviews of each night will be up Monday and Tuesday, respectively. I know, what happened to posting on the weekend, dude? Been doing too much of that shit, and I feel like the gains are minimal. Plus, with the way my travel schedule is, it gives me something to have for the first part of the week, since in terms of writing ahead of time, I essentially lose both Monday and Tuesday to travel. I’ll be back in New Jersey on Monday afternoon, barring disaster, but I neither expect to be able to nor will I likely have the brain power to take my laptop out and start working on a review first thing through the door. There’s gonna be dishes to do, I already know. It’s fine, Wendy. I get it. We’re all doing our best.

So I’ll post the review of the second day of Fuzz Festival on Tuesday from home, and that morning, slip back into the routine of getting up early to work on reviews and other whatnot. It is my sincere hope that by Wednesday I’m back up to a normal amount of posting, and I remain fully aware that if that doesn’t happen, I am the only person who gives even the remotest semblance of a crap.

To follow-up: last week I was feeling pretty down. Down on this site, down on things more generally in my day-to-day, down on me, etc. I got a few supportive comments and a few encouraging emails from people and I want to say thanks to everybody who reached out. I didn’t have that in mind when I was writing last Friday, but it means a lot to know that someone’s out there and cares enough to get in touch. If that was you, and it very well might’ve been since I don’t think a lot of people read these posts this far down, thank you.

Today (Friday) is a new episode of ‘The Obelisk Show’ on Gimme Metal. If you want a preview of some of what will feature around here in year-end coverage, tune in. 2PM Pacific, 5PM Eastern. Free to listen on their app or http://gimmemetal.com.

Thanks if you check that out, thanks to everyone who’s contributed to the Best of 2022 Poll, and thanks to you for reading.

I hope you have a great and safe weekend. We’re getting on holiday time. If you need a mental health break, take it (he said frantically typing so he can finish this post before his group boards the plane). Otherwise, check back Monday for Fuzz Festival coverage and a whole bunch of other adventures to come.

FRM.

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Back for its second year and with a fourth day in tow, Ripplefest Texas 2022 confirms its full lineup, a total beast of legends and newcomers. Really, I don’t even know what to say here except that if you’re lucky enough to go, it’s probably the kind of thing you’re going to remember for a long gosh-darn time, and it’s the kind of lineup that serves as lording-over fodder on the part of those who were there to those who weren’t. Well, at least it would if the heavy underground weren’t too cool to each other for that kind of gatekeeping nonsense. In any case, this looks like a massive undertaking to put on, and the roster of assembled acts gets a hearty ‘fucking a’ from my corner of the universe.

Tickets for all four days will run you $150, but I feel like the festival earns that on both quality and quantity of product.

Here’s the announcement, info and links:

RIPPLE FEST TEXAS – The Far Out Lounge – July 21-24

4-day passes available now!

RippleFest Texas 2022 is back and the lineup is as big and hot as Texas itself! 4 days of blistering hot music at Austin’s premier music venue The Far Out Lounge. There will be everything from crushing heavy riffs, to acoustic and banjo picking, to improvisation jam sessions and puppet shows! So many legends and great music that this will be a 4 day weekend you will not want to miss!

TICKETS:
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/thefaroutloungestage/639551

FULL LINEUP:
Eagles of Death Metal, The Sword, Crowbar, Mothership, Big Business, The Obsessed, Stöner, Spirit Adrift, The Heavy Eyes, Sasquatch, REZN, Fatso Jetson, Heavy Temple, J.D. Pinkus, Lord Buffalo, Lo-Pan, Wino, El Perro, Void Vator, Hippie Death Cult, Howling Giant, Doctor Smoke, Nick Oliveri, High Desert Queen, Destroyer of Light, Ape Machine, High Priestess, Dryheat, Rubber Snake Charmers, Sun Crow, Holy Death Trio, Bone Church, Horseburner, Spirit Mother, Thunder Horse, Mother Iron Horse, The Age of Truth, Salem’s Bend, Las Cruces, All Souls, Kind, Fostermother, The Absurd, Godeye, Ole English, Mr. Plow, Snake Mountain Revival, Blue Heron, Grail, Formula 400, Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol, Eagle Claw, Bridge Farmers.

The Far Out Lounge is located at 8504 South Congress. Winner of Best New Venue at the Austin Music Awards 2020.

http://www.thefaroutaustin.com/

https://www.facebook.com/ripplefesttexas
https://www.facebook.com/LOMSProductions/
https://www.facebook.com/theripplemusic/
https://www.instagram.com/ripplemusic/
https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/
http://www.ripple-music.com/

Lo-Pan, Live at the Grog Shop, Cleveland, Ohio, Feb 18, 2022