I don’t know what day it is. The holiday here in the States has me all screwed up. I know it’s not the weekend anymore because I’m posting today, but really, if this is for Tuesday or Wednesday, I’m kind of at a loss. What I do know is that it’s 10 more records, and some quick math at the “71-80” below — which, yes, I put there ahead of time when I set up the back end of these posts so hopefully I don’t screw it up; it’s a whole fucking process; never ask me about it unless you want to be so bored at by the telling that your eyeballs explode — tells me today Wednesday, so I guess I figured it out. Hoo-ray.

Three quarters of the way through, which feels reasonably fancy. And today’s a good one, too. I hope as always that you find something you dig. Now that I know what day it is, I’m ready to start.

Quarterly Review #71-80:

MWWB, The Harvest

It’s difficult to separate MWWB‘s The Harvest from the fact that it might be the Welsh act’s final release, as frontwoman Jessica Ball explained here. Their synth-laced cosmic doom certainly deserves to keep going if it can, but on the chance not, The Harvest suitably reaps the fruit of the progression the band began to undertake with 2015’s Nachthexen (review here), their songs spacious despite the weight of their tones and atmospheric even at their most dense. Proggy instrumental explorations like “Let’s Send These Bastards Whence They Came” and “Interstellar Wrecking” and the semi-industrial, vocals-also-part-of-the-ambience “Betrayal” surround the largesse of the title-track, “Logic Bomb,” the especially lumbering “Strontium,” and so on, and “Moon Rise” caps with four and a half minutes of voice-over-guitar-and-keys atmospherics, managing to be heavy even without any of the usual trappings thereof. If this is it, what a run they had, both when they were Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard and with this as their potential swansong.

MWWB on Facebook

New Heavy Sounds website

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Righteous Fool, Righteous Fool

Look. Maybe it’s a fan-piece, but screw it, I’m a fan. And as someone who liked the second run of Corrosion of Conformity‘s Animosity-era lineup, this previously-unreleased LP from the three-piece that included C.O.C. bassist/vocalist Mike Dean and drummer/vocalist Reed Mullin (R.I.P.), as well as guitarist/vocalist Jason Browning, is only welcome. I remember when they put out the single on Southern Lord in 2010, you couldn’t really get a sense of what the band was about, but there’s so much groove in these songs — I’m looking right at you, “Hard Time Killing Floor” — that it’s that much more of a bummer the three-piece didn’t do anything else. Of course, Mullin rejoining Dean in C.O.C. wasn’t a hardship either, but especially in the aftermath of his death last year, it’s bittersweet to hear his performances on these songs and a collection of tracks that have lost none of their edge for the decade-plus they’ve sat on a shelf or hard drive somewhere. Call it a footnote if you want, but the songs stand on their own merits, and if you’re going to tell me you’ve never wanted to hear Dean sing “The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Pronged Crown),” then I think you and I are just done speaking for right now.

Righteous Fool on Facebook

Ripple Music website

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Seven Nines and Tens, Over Opiated in a Forest of Whispering Speakers

I agree, it’s a very long album title. And the band name is kind of opaque in a kind of opaque way. Double-O-paque. And the art by Ahmed Emad Eldin (Pink Floyd, etc.) is weird. All of this is true. But I’m going to step outside the usual review language here, and instead of talking about how Vancouver post-noise rock trio Seven Nines and Tens explore new melodic and atmospheric reaches while still crushing your rib cage on their first record for the e’er tastemaking Willowtip label, I’m just going to tell you listen. Really. That’s it. If you consider yourself someone with an open mind for music that is progressive in its artistic substance without conforming necessarily to genre, or if you’re somebody who feels like heavy music is tired and can’t connect to the figurative soul, just press play on the Bandcamp embed and see where you end up on the other side of Over Opiated in a Forest of Whispering Speakers‘ 37 minutes. Even if it doesn’t change your life, shaking you to your very core and giving you a new appreciation for what can be done on a level of craft in music that’s still somehow extreme, just let it run and then take a breath afterward, maybe get a drink of water, and take a minute to process. I wrote some more about the album here if you want the flowery whathaveyou, but really, don’t bother clicking that link. Just listen to the music. That’s all you need.

Seven Nines & Tens on Facebook

Willowtip Records website

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T.G. Olson, II

In March 2021, T.G. Olson, best known as the founding guitarist/vocalist for Across Tundras, released a self-titled solo album (review here). He’s had a slew of offerings out since — as he will; Olson is impossible to keep up with but one does one’s best — but II would seem to be a direct follow-up to that full-length’s declarative purpose, continuing and refining the sometimes-experimentalist, sometimes purposefully traditional folk songwriting and self-recording exploration Olson began (publicly, at least) a decade ago. Several of II‘s cuts feature contributions from Caleb R.K. Williams, but Olson‘s ability to build a depth of mix — consider the far-back harmonica in “Twice Gone” and any number of other flourishes throughout — is there regardless, and his voice is as definitively human as ever, wrought with a spirit of Americana and a wistfulness for a West that was wild not for its guns but the buffalo herds you could see from space and an emotionalism that makes the lyrics of “Saddled” seem all the more personal, whether or not they are, or the lines in “Enough Rope” that go, “Always been a bit of a misanthrope/Never had a healthy way to cope,” and don’t seem to realize that the song itself is the coping.

Electric Relics Records on Bandcamp

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Freebase Hyperspace, Planet High

Issued on limited blue vinyl through StoneFly Records, Freebase Hyperspace‘s first full-length, Planet High, is much more clearheaded in its delivery than the band would seem to want you to think. Sure, it’s got its cosmic echo in the guitar and the vocals and so on, but beneath that are solidified grooves shuffling, boogieing and underscoring even the solo-fueled jam-outs on “Golden Path” and “Introversion” with a thick, don’t-worry-we-got-this vibe. The band is comprised of vocalist Ayrian Quick, guitarist Justin Acevedo, bassist Stephen Moore and drummer Peter Hurd, and they answer 2018’s Activation Immediate not quite immediately but with fervent hooks and a resonant sense of motion. It’s from Portland, and it’s a party, but Planet High upends expectation in its bluesy vocals, in its moments of drift and in the fact that “Cat Dabs” — whatever that means, I don’t even want to look it up — is an actual song rather than a mess of cult stoner idolatries, emphasizing the niche being explored. And just because it bears mentioning, heavy rock is really, really white. More BIPOC and diversity across the board only makes the genre richer. But even those more general concerns aside, this one’s a stomper.

Freebase Hyperspace on Facebook

StoneFly Records store

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Melt Motif, A White Horse Will Take You Home

Not calling out other reviews (they exist; I haven’t read any), but any writeup about Melt Motif‘s debut album, A White Horse Will Take You Home, that doesn’t include the word “sultry” is missing something. Deeply moody on “Sleep” and the experimental-sounding “Black Hole” and occasionally delving into that highly-processed ’90s guitar sound that’s still got people working off inspiration from Nine Inch Nails‘ The Downward Spiral even if they don’t know it — see the chugs of “Mine” and “Andalusian Dog” for clear examples — the nine-track/37-minute LP nonetheless oozes sex across its span, such that even the sci-fi finale “Random Access Memory” holds to the theme. The band span’s from São Paulo, Brazil, to Bergen, Norway, and is driven by Rakel‘s vocals, Kenneth Rasmus Greve‘s guitar, synth and programming, and Joe Irente‘s bass, guitar, more synth and more programming. Together, they are modern industrial/electrionica in scope, the record almost goth in its theatrical pruning, and there’s some of the focus on tonal heft that one finds in others of the trio’s ilk, but Melt Motif use slower pacing and harder impacts as just more toys to be played with, and thus the album is deeply, repeatedly listenable, the clever pop structures and the clarity of the production working as the bed on which the entirety lays in waiting repose for those who’d take it on.

Melt Motif on Facebook

Apollon Records on Bandcamp

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Tenebra, Moongazer

Moongazer is the second full-length from Bologna, Italy-based heavy psychedelic blues rockers Tenebra, and a strong current of vintage heavy rock runs through it that’s met head-on by the fullness of the production, by which I mean that “Cracked Path” both reminds of Rainbow — yeah that’s right — and doesn’t sound like it’s pretending it’s 1973. Or 1993, for that matter. Brash and raucous on its face, the nine-song outing proves schooled in both current and classic heavy, and though “Winds of Change” isn’t a Scorpions cover, its quieter take still offers a chance for the band to showcase the voice of Silvia, whose throaty, push-it-out delivery becomes a central focus of the songs, be it the Iommic roll of “Black Lace” or the shuffling closer “Moon Maiden,” which boasts a guest appearance from Screaming Trees‘ Gary Lee Conner, or the prior “Dark and Distant Sky,” which indeed brings the dark up front and the distance in its second, more psych-leaning second half. All of this rounds out to a sound more geared toward groove than innovation, but which satisfies in that regard from the opening guitar figure of “Heavy Crusher” onward, a quick nod to desert rock there en route to broader landscapes.

Tenebra on Facebook

New Heavy Sounds website

Seeing Red Records website

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Doom Lab, IV: Ever Think You’re Smart​.​.​. And Then Find Out That You Aren’t?

With a drum machine backing, Doom Lab strums out riffs over the 16 mostly instrumental tracks of the project’s fourth demo since February of this year, Doom Lab IV: Ever Think You’re Smart​.​.​. And Then Find Out That You Aren’t?, a raw, sometimes-overmodulated crunch of tone lending a garage vibe to the entire procession. On some planet this might be punk rock, and maybe tucked away up in Anchorage, Alaska, it’s not surprising that Doom Lab would have a strange edge to their craft. Which they definitely do. “Clockwork Home II (Double-Thick Big Bottom End Dub)” layers in bass beneath a droning guitar, and “Diabolical Strike (w/ False Start)” is a bonus track (with vocals) that’s got the line, “You’ll think that everything is cool but then I’ll crush your motherfucking soul,” so, you know, it’s like that. Some pieces are more developed than others, as “Deity Skin II” has some nuanced layering of instrumentation, but in the harsh high end of “Spiral Strum to Heaven II” and the mostly-soloing “Infernal Intellect II,” Doom Lab pair weirdo-individualism with an obvious creative will. Approach with caution, because some of Doom Lab‘s work is really strange, but that’s clearly the intention from the start.

Doom Lab on Bandcamp

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White Fuzzy Bloodbath, Medicine

What you see is what you get in the sometimes manic, sometimes blissed-out, sometimes punk, sometimes fluid, always rocking Medicine by White Fuzzy Bloodbath, which hearkens to a day when the universe wasn’t defined by internet-ready subgenre designations and a band like this San Jose three-piece had a chance to be signed to Atlantic, tour the universe, and eventually influence other outcasts in their wake. Alas, props to White Fuzzy Bloodbath‘s Elise Tarens — joined in the band by Alex Bruno and Jeff Hurley — for the “Interlude” shout, “We’re White Fuzzy Bloodbath and the world has no fucking idea!” before the band launch into the duly raw “Chaos Creator.” Songs like “Monster,” “Beep-Bop Lives” and “Still” play fast and loose with deceptively technical angular heavy rock, and even the eight-minute title-track that rounds out before the cover of Beastie Boys‘ “Sabotage” refuses to give in and be just one thing. And about that cover? Well, not every experiment is going to lead to gold, but it’s representative on the whole of the band’s bravery to take on an iconic track like that and make their own. Not nearly everybody would be so bold.

White Fuzzy Bloodbath on Facebook

White Fuzzy Bloodbath on Bandcamp

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Secret Iris, What Are You Waiting For

With the vocal melody in its resonant hook, the lead guitar line that runs alongside and the thickened verse progression that complements, Secret Iris almost touch on Euro-style melancholic doom with the title-track of their debut 7″, What Are You Waiting For, but the Phoenix, Arizona, three-piece are up to different shenanigans entirely on the subsequent “Extrasensory Rejection (Winter Sanctuary),” which is faster, more punk, and decisively places them in a sphere of heavy grunge. Both guitarist Jeffrey Owens (ex-Goya) and bassist Tanner Grace (Sorxe) contribute vocals, while drummer Matt Arrebollo (Gatecreeper) is additionally credited with “counseling,” and the nine-minutes of the mini-platter first digitally issued in 2021 beef up a hodgepodge of ’90s and ’00s rock and punk, from Nirvana grunge to Foo Fighters accessibility, Bad Religion‘s punk and rock and a slowdown march after the break in the midsection that, if these guys were from the Northeast, I’d shout as a Life of Agony influence. Either way, it moves, it’s heavy, it’s catchy, and just the same, it manages not to make a caricature of its downer lyrics. The word I’m looking for is “intriguing,” and the potential for further intrigue is high.

Secret Iris on Facebook

Crisis Tree Records store

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Canadian auteur Devin Townsend released Accelerated Evolution, the first of only two albums from the short-lived era of The Devin Townsend Band, in March 2003, one month after his more extreme metal outfit, the riotous Strapping Young Lad, issued their own SYL. Divided in purpose like light and dark — something that Townsend may or may not explore on his upcoming companion album releases Lightwork (Oct. 28 release date) and Nightwork; dude puts out more music than even his own label can keep up with, let alone the rest of humanity — Accelerated Evolution prioritized melody and songcraft, and put to accessible use the wash of prog-leaning metal that typified earlier solo efforts like 1997’s Ocean Machine: Biomech, 1998’s Infinity and the somewhat meaner 2000 outing, Physicist. Despite the change in band situation — as in, he put together a band that wasn’t Strapping Young Lad — the lushness that unifies Accelerated Evolution‘s “Storm,” “Random Analysis,” “Deadhead,” “Away” and “Sunday Afternoon” (and while we’re at it also the rest) wasn’t unprecedented, continuing a thread from 2001’s Terria that still plays heavily into his work today, as demonstrated on 2019’s let’s-just-go-orchestral-and-see-what-happens Empath.

So, different from Strapping Young Lad and purposefully so, but that was consistent with Townsend‘s prior solo output. And the two outfits, through SYL‘s brilliant 2005 album, Alien, and The Devin Townsend Band‘s one-upping-by-being-even-more-brilliant Synchestra (discussed here), would eventually enter conversation, collide, and create something new in The Devin Townsend Project after SYL‘s 2006 swansong, The New Black, but for being in its particular spot in Devin Townsend‘s ongoing creative progression, for its clarity of intention to engage its audience with songcraft, for pulling away from some of the experiments in sound collage, etc., of his earlier solo records, and for the band, Accelerated Evolution could only be called prog, but its identity within that was and remains almost impossibly rich. It is the product of about three different creative transitions happening at the same time for its maker, and yet it is cohesive, massive, encompassing and vital.

Townsend‘s work has been sprinkled with enough hyperbole for the last 20-plus years that I don’t necessarily feel compelled to add to it, but he’s someone who has well earned the loyalty of his fans even as he’s delved into various indulgences and experiments — anyone remember Devlab? The Hummer? — and though I’ve come and gone following along his sometimes-merry-sometimes-tearjerking-sometimes-fun-sometimes-just-weird adventures in sound, Accelerated Evolution has remained a special point in the timeline. Not really appropriate to say “lightning in a bottle,” since Townsend could probably make 100 records like this if he wanted to, just build them up one layer of guitar at a time until he gets to an immersive shove like “Suicide” here or the made-to-move “Traveller” and concluding hookmeister “Slow Me Down,” but still. A creative moment that is fortunately preserved through the clear vision of his own production. It is beautiful where Strapping Young Lad often strove to be ugly, and Townsend‘s vocal ability to convey emotion in “Sunday Afternoon” manages to not at all contradict the rush of scream-laced opener “Depth Charge,” but instead to feed into the whole-album affect that holds firm throughout the 54-minute run.

What the fuck am I talking about? I love this record, is what I’m trying to say. Yeah, it’s probably as close as Devin Townsend has ever come to writing a pop version of his take on heavy prog metal, but I’d have a hard time directing you to an album that does a better job of speaking to its audience while serving its own creative ends. The languid roll of “Deadhead” after the shove of “Random Analysis” — which, yes, has the lines, “Still you’re saying ‘fa-ot is as fa-ot does with every little fa-ot thing a fa-ot do’/I’m not insane, I’m not insane, I’m just smarter than you”; a word choice that one assumes Townsend, who turned 50 in May, probably regrets even using in a quoted context — the sheer brazenness of making “Suicide” the centerpiece, and the fluidity with which Accelerated Evolution crosses lines between metal and not-metal in a song like “Traveller” working its way up to its screams, or how “Random Analysis” and “Deadhead” sets up the pattern for “Traveller” and the spacious guitar musing “Away” is nothing short of genius, and if you search through this site for how many times I’ve thrown that word around, you’ll see it’s few compared to how much music has been discussed in the last 13-plus years. This album is simply craft at another level.

I don’t want to sit here and try to mansplain Devin Townsend to you, what he’s accomplished in his career, whether it’s with Strapping Young Lad, Devin Townsend Band, Devin Townsend Project, Ziltoid, getting his start as a teenager with Steve Vai, all of that stuff. I just love these songs, and I’ve been a fan long enough that I don’t feel the need to feign impartiality and not say so. If you’ve never been interested in Townsend‘s output, or perhaps been put off by the eternal question of where to start or how to approach a catalog that encompasses multiple incarnations of the guy himself — I remember when The Devin Townsend Project started, thinking it lacked the moniker charm of The Devin Townsend Band, even if it had the added layer of humor thinking of himself as the project in question — it’s okay. I have come and gone over the years too, but sometimes you get on a kick and I’ve been rediscovering my affection for his work. This one stood out to me. If you’ve never listened to him before or given it a real shot, maybe Accelerated Evolution can be an entry point.

If nothing else, every time I put on “Sunday Afternoon,” I feel like my day gets a little bit better. Maybe you can too.

And like I mentioned above, Townsend‘s discography is ever-growing. The last couple years have been full of quarantine concerts, special editions — last December he released two records, The Puzzle and Snuggles, that I didn’t even know about until I started writing this — so there’s a universe to dig into. But especially if you’re new, start with this, keep it casual, and see where you end up.

As always, and maybe a little more than usual, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

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“Good morning daddy,” from upstairs. 5:27AM wakeup.

That’s The Pecan, who’s been waking up exceedingly early these last few weeks. Now sitting next to me, I wonder if he reads these words yet. Probably. My dude is scary intelligent and somewhat covert about skills development until all of a sudden he starts reading street signs and shit.

We had a rough week.

It culminated yesterday in a phone call at 9:24AM telling us to pick him up from camp, that he was no longer welcome. He’d been hitting, biting, kicking, having a hard time generally, and still doesn’t use the toilet, which was a requirement. Camp had a policy no money back. We got our money back. I’m rather proud of the email The Patient Mrs. and I wrote to the owner of the camp, and of the fact that I told the director of The Pecan’s section off directly and called his camp inadequate to my son’s needs, which apparently it was.

That was a shitty situation pretty much from day one, but I’d been hoping it would smooth out rather than take the turn it took, not the least because that was our plan for the summer. He’d be at camp. The writing days were easy, he was swimming every day, it seemed pretty perfect. Alas. Daddy Daycamp it is.

This invariably makes next week’s continuation of the Quarterly Review more complicated. I also have a Creem column due — they pay me! it’s been long enough that that’s a novelty — and PostWax liner notes revisions for Acid King. Complicated. See also “5:27AM wakeup” above. Used to be my man slept reliably until after six.

So camp’s out. We’re exploring other options, like having someone come and just hang out with him for a couple hours a day, go for walks and bike rides, maybe take him to the kiddie pool up the hill at the town pool if we decide to join or just make sure he doesn’t lack-of-impulse-control his way into playing in traffic while dancing in and drinking hose water, etc. I like that notion because it’s one-on-one, and that’s how he’s best, and it’s centered around the home, where I can still be available if needed for backup while I’m otherwise working on this site, but finding the right person is probably a longer-term project than this weekend. I worry about him being lonely. Even his cousins, who he loves, are older, and every time he’s in a setting with another kid there’s an issue. We’ve read 1-2-3 Magic and a host of others. If there was a magic bullet answer for this kid, I feel like we would at least have had a hint of it. As of now, the only way he listens to me, ever, is if I threaten to take some preferred activity or item, toy, etc., away. I don’t like being that person. I don’t like myself as that person.

Collectively, we feel awful. Him, her, me. The whole family. My mother came to the house yesterday afternoon, kind of just for moral support, and fell outside on our patio. Nothing broken, thankfully, but it was another kick that, the giant shit The Pecan took after bedtime — “Daddy… I have to poop…” from the top of the stairs as I was about to start watching the new Star Trek — was a fitting end to a day. Shit up the kid’s back, in his shirt. We’re talking about “diapers going away” starting tomorrow. I don’t know if I’m brave enough to pull the trigger on that and invite that kind of existential pain. Parenthood as a relative measurement of agonies.

He’s up and running and I need to get him breakfast (6:09AM, if you’re wondering), so I’m gonna punch out. Great and safe weekend. Hydrate, watch your head. No non-consensual biting. Gimme show next week.

FRM.

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The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Dave Cotton of Sevens Nines & Tens

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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

I’m an artist/musician/songwriter by definition. My parents forced me to take piano lessons at a really young age and I eventually learned other instruments is how I came to do it.

Describe your first musical memory.

My first memories of music were hearing soft rock songs on AM radio when I was four years old in my dad’s car. My dad didn’t listen to Rock Music or Heavy Metal so my idea of music at that age was that there was a ton of melody, especially with the vocals.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

My band played a show with Champagne, Illinois, band Hum. My band is named after a lyric of theirs so that was pretty trippy in terms of being a memorable gig.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

Before I became a support worker for adults addicted to drugs I was ignorant to the ideology that 99.9% of drug addicts have become that way, in part, because of substantial trauma in their lives.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

To better art.

How do you define success?

Doing something you personally love and having the self-confidence to know that you do it very well.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

I’m a support worker for adult addicts with mental health illnesses. I found a client of mine who died by suicide.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

An album that gets universal acclaim. Our third record has received some objective praise but also a fair amount of middling reviews. Anything less than eight out of 10 is middling to me. There are so many artists, your material better be good if you want to be remembered.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

To give purpose and inspire.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 reboot for ps4, the Dune film sequel, the next Blue Jays baseball season, the Cave In Relapse Records debut in 2022. Finishing the fourth Seven Nines & Tens record, it’s going to be so dope. Listen to my group and stay humble!

http://www.facebook.com/sevenninesandtens
https://sevenninesandtens.bandcamp.com/
http://www.sevenninesandtens.com/
http://www.facebook.com/willowtip
https://willowtip.bandcamp.com/
http://www.willowtip.com/

Seven Nines and Tens, Over Opiated in a Forest of Whispering Speakers (2022)

This is my effort to wipe the slate clean in my own brain. City, released in 1997 by Vancouver’s Devin Townsend-led Strapping Young Lad through Century Media, deserves to be in conversation as one of the best metal records of all time. Shit, Gene Hoglan’s drums alone. But that’s not really why I’m listening to it. I’m listening to it because I’ve spent this entire week pissed off at myself, totally unmotivated to write, and I just want something to shake me out of my own head while at the same time pummeling my bones into powder. Accept no substitutes.

Yesterday was a 10-post day. That happened both because relevant news announcements kept coming and because I fucked up on TWO premieres. One I forgot about while putting the day together on Wednesday — had to write the piece Wednesday night after the kid went to bed, which is generally me-and-Patient-Mrs. time — and the other I had to do Thursday morning. Both pieces kind of sucked as a result, but what does it even matter? No one gives a shit. Bands got links to share on social media and a pullquote and there you go. Everybody moves on. Oh hey, there’s Crowbar announcing a record. That’s content!

But really, fuck content.

Except “Room 429.” That’s content I can get behind. And “All Hail the New Flesh,” I suppose. “Detox.” “Oh My Fucking God.” Fucking “AAA.” The rest.

I haven’t been doing the writing I’ve been wanting to do and I’m furious about it. More, I’m furious because I feel like I’m not doing it because I don’t have time. There’s so much shit I feel ‘obligated’ to post about — obligated to whom? for what reason? — that I can’t even keep up with. Today I wanted to review the new Spaceslug. It’s out today. I was going to premiere it at one point and then the band decided to go with someone else. Their prerogative. I’ve done plenty with Spaceslug over their years and will likely continue to. Can’t have ego about that shit or you’ll lose your mind (though I admit sometimes I take it personally; I’ve never been cool enough blah blah blah). I’d love to interview them about the record, actually. But I was going to review the album anyway for today and with all the extra crap held over from Wednesday to yesterday there was just no way to get it done.

Next week, you say? That’s the Quarterly Review. So much for any time for anything else, really, Monday to Friday — actually I already have an interview scheduled I’ll need to post at some point with Jon from Conan, assuming it happens — and then next weekend, as I should be starting work on my own Best of 2021 list and all that, I’m slated to do an in-studio for two days. That’ll be good for getting me out of the house — something I ALMOST did this week to go see All Them Witches and pulled out in the end — but leaves me otherwise lacking time. I am tired and burnt out wondering what the fuck I even bother doing any of this for? Free CDs sometimes? I’m 40 years old. Is this really going to be my life’s work? A fucking blog that hasn’t been updated since 2009? Do I really hate myself this much?

And I just got hit up for something next Wednesday that I can’t really say no to, so in addition to 10 short reviews of discs, that. Ugh.

I pitched a book project to Sound of Liberation for next year covering the entirety of the Truckfighters, Greenleaf and Asteroid 15-date tour in Europe. I don’t know what next year will bring in terms of festivals — if Roadburn will happen, if I’ll be invited, etc.; it’s a whole new world and generally shittier, so I’m not counting on anything — and who knows too what next summer will be like by the time Freak Valley, which I’m dying to get to and should’ve been to years ago already, happens. SOL said yes to the book, which would be made from posts and pics I’d put on this site, edited together as a volume and probably fleshed out a bit by me after the tour, and I’ll be honest, I’m pretty much hanging my hat on that possibility. That’s the thing I’m looking forward to. It feels just a little too much like a daydream to be real, and thus I am skeptical of its reality. Mighty tenuous.

It’s the holidays so of course everything is awful. The kid hates my guts, which is legit because I’m a prick. The Patient Mrs. is stressed about work and money, also legit because we’re paycheck-to-almost-paycheck forever. I want to go to bed for a month and not see or talk to anybody. I hate being in my skin. Tired, old, sad and angry. Damaged and helping nothing.

“So here’s all my hopes and aspirations/Nothing but puke.” God damn this record is amazing.

That’s enough. New Gimme show today. 5PM. Free. http://gimmemetal.com

New merch at MIBK. Sweatpants and dugouts and shirts. Not free. http://mibk.bigcartel.com/products

Great and safe weekend. Quarterly Review starts Monday. Five days, plus another five in January.

FRM.

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Vancouver progressive noise rockers Seven Nines and Tens release their third album, Over Opiated in a Forest of Whispering Speakers, through Willowtip Records on Jan. 7. The first single from the new record is “Popular Delusions,” premiering a new video below directed by Bobby Markos, and its streaming ahead of a listed Dec. 29 digital issue only brings encouraging considerations for the trio’s first outing since 2017’s Set the Controls for the Heart of the Slums (review here), upping the clarity of their self-production while approaching their floating melodies with additional confidence and a deeper sense of arrangement.

Let’s get two things straight. First, the universe is fucked and everything is awful. Second, I have nowhere near enough education in noise, post-hardcore, ’90s emo, shoegaze or whatever else to properly dissect what Seven Nines and Tens are accomplishing here. To my weary ears, “Popular Delusions” effectively moves from a heavy Western guitar line calling back to Earth or Across Tundras into a proggy melodic wash of post-noise rock, gorgeously lush in its unfolding but as they show about a minute and a half into the 4:43 video, still able to host some volatility of tone.

There are moments of the procession that bring to mind what Hum were able to do after reemerging from the ether last year, but Dave Cotton (guitar/vocals), Max Madrus (bass/vocals) and Alexander Glassford (drums/vocals) bring a harder-edged spin to “Popular Delusions” that builds from where they were four years ago on Set the Controls for the Heart of the Slums. As an opening track and a first showcase for Over Opiated in a Forest of Whispering Speakers, it is enticing, though given the band’s past, I wouldn’t expect everything else to follow suit with what they’re doing here.

And perhaps when it comes to my own ignorance, it’s not so terrible in this case, since Seven Nines and Tens have so obviously put the priority on individualism, on making something new from their influences, rather than carbon-copying those influences themselves. Stick with “Popular Delusions” all the way through. Both the hypnotic video and the driving, harmonized, multi-tiered payoff of the song itself are more than worth it, and they could hardly be more appropriate to end the song with the repeated line, “In the middle of a fever dream.”

Video, quotes from Cotton and Markos, and preorder info follow.

Enjoy:

Seven Nines & Tens, “Popular Delusions” video premiere

David Cotton on “Popular Delusions”:

We started working with Bobby when he made a video for the Seven Nines & Tens song “Fight for your Right to Partial Relevance” in late 2019. Although the clip is unreleased (it’ll be released eventually) myself and the band were blown away by his work. Upon release of our new single Seven Nines bassist Max Madrus was particularly vocal about working with Bobby again. When Bobby gave a description of his treatment for the clip I was astounded. Our producer Adam Vee said the ending gave him chills. It’s almost uncanny to me how he conveyed the song in images. I feel like his video may complete the song.

Bobby Markos on “Popular Delusions”:

When the band sent me “Popular Delusions” to work with, I immediately began listening to the track while going through archival materials, trying to find a look to use as a jumping off point. I loved the concept of rooms containing impossibly large settings, so I began 3D modeling a modest sized home that would contain a variety of vast landscapes. I eventually modeled seven different room settings and then used some basic arithmetic to line them up linearly on the z-axis. Then, using After Effects 3D camera function, I moved through the entire body of work while syncing up with all of the song’s dynamic points. The final scene is a 3D modeling of the album art for ‘Over Opiated in a Forest of Whispering Speakers’.

The first single from the 3rd Seven Nines & Tens record “Over Opiated in a Forest of Whispering Speakers.”

Pre-order the record via Willowtip Records/Universal Music Group https://sevenninesandtens.bandcamp.com

Release date: January 7, 2022

Video created by Documavision
https://www.instagram.com/documavision/
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Recorded at Rain City Records by Matt Roach
https://www.facebook.com/Raincityrecords
https://www.mattroach.ca/

Music, lyrics, and guitar are written by David Cotton. Maximillian Madrus played Bass and sings. Alexander Glassford played the Drums and sings as well. Both contributed to arranging and pre-producing the tune. Matt Roach co-wrote portions of the vocal melodies and lyrics. He also produced the song along with Adam Vee and Cotton. Adam mixed and mastered the tune as well.

Seven Nines & Tens on Facebook

Seven Nines & Tens on Bandcamp

Seven Nines & Tens website

Willowtip Records on Facebook

Willowtip Records on Bandcamp

Willowtip Records website

Everybody come through day one intact? I know it got pretty weird there for a minute, but I felt like sense was ultimately made. Maybe not in all cases, but definitely most. Today also gets fairly wild, and some of this stuff has been covered before in some fashion and some of it not so much, but hell, you’ve been through this before, as have I, so you know what to expect when you’re expecting. Blood might be spilled. Bruises left. Or bliss. Or both sometimes. Hell’s bells. Let’s go already.

Quarterly Review #11-20:

Kal-El, Dark Majesty

With their fifth full-length, Dark Majesty, Norwegian heavy rockers and sci-fi-themed cleavage aficionados Kal-El make a willful play toward the epic. Their first 2LP and their first album for Majestic Mountain Records, the eight-song offering tops 65 minutes and splits into four two-song sides, each one seeming to grow bigger until the last of them, with the closing duo “Kala Mishaa” and “Vimana,” draws the proceedings to a massive close. Along the way, Kal-El not only offer their most melodically rich and spacious fare to-date — opening with their longest track in the 11:39 “Temple” (immediate points) — but blast Kyuss into the cosmos on the four-minute “Spiral,” and give Dozer a run for their money on “Comêta.” Gargantuan fuzz shines through on “Hyperion” in a near-maddening cacophony, but it might be the title-track that’s the greatest highlight in the end, marking the band’s accomplishment in heft, blending riffs and atmosphere to a broad and engaging degree. It is a triumph and it sounds like one.

Kal-El on Facebook

Majestic Mountain Records webstore

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The Ugly Kings, Strange, Strange Times

One would not accuse Melbourne’s The Ugly Kings of inaccuracy in titling their second album Strange, Strange Times, and though they launch with the post-Queens of the Stone Age title-track and the now-tinged cynicism of “Technodrone” and “Do You Feel Like You’re Paranoid?,” it’s in even moodier stretches like “Last Man Left Alive” they cast their lot toward individualism. Songs vary in intention but remain consistent in the quality of their construction and look-at-the-world-around-you theme, with “Lawman” leaning toward darker country blues, “Mr. Hyde” asking what would happen if Clutch and Ruff Majik ever crossed paths and the finale “Another Fucking Day” offering a deceptively immersive unfurling. I can’t help but wonder if The Ugly Kings feel surrounded in their home city by much, much druggier neo-psych acts in the heavy underground scene, but the clarity of purpose they bring to their songwriting would make them a standout one way or the other.

The Ugly Kings on Facebook

Napalm Records website

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Guhts, Blood Feather

Atmospheric and seething in kind, Guhts brings together members of New Yorkers Witchkiss and North Carolina’s Black Mountain Hunger for a pandemic-era debut release that in style explores the restlessness and the overwhelming nature of the age. With Amber Burns (interview here) on vocals, the drums programmed behind Scott Prater and Dan Shaneyfelt guitars/synths and the bass of Jesse Van Note, and a purpose wrought in immersion, the band distinguishes itself in its apropos grimness and in the potential for future exploration of the ideas laid out here, bordering in “The Mirror” on goth only after “Handless Maiden” offers raging, post-metallic lumber. One wonders how Blood Feather will sound five years from now, but more to the point, one wonders what Guhts might conjure in the meantime when/if they press forward. Either way, expect to see this on the list of 2021’s best short releases.

Guhts on Facebook

Guhts on Bandcamp

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Anunnaki, Martyr of Alexandria

Hey there, psych fans and experts on tragedies of the classic world, British Columbia two-piece Anunnaki have the psychedelic instrumental blowout themed around the murder of Hypatia you’ve been waiting for! Never heard of Hypatia? It doesn’t matter. Samples will provide some context and if they said the whole thing was about going shoe shopping, it wouldn’t be any less righteously far out. With “Golden Gate of the Sun” at the outset, the duo of Dave Read (guitar/bass) and Arlen Thompson (drums/synth) prime a bit of space-boogie, but the subsequent “Cyril, the Fanatic” shoves the freakery to the fore with wailing guitar and drones and seemingly whatever else they thought might work and does. The 15-minute finale, “The Cries of Hypatia,” dives deeper into drone, holding back the drums for about seven minutes while obscure speech and the titular cries unfold. Read and Thompson build it to a full, suitably deathly wash, and take the time to end minimal. Literary, arthouse, but not at all stale for that.

Anunnaki on Facebook

Cardinal Fuzz webstore

NoiseAgonyMayhem website

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Bill Fisher, Hallucinations of a Higher Truth

A departure even from his departure, Church of the Cosmic Skull bandleader Bill Fisher‘s second solo offering, Hallucinations of a Higher Truth, follows the darker progressive rock of 2020’s Mass Hypnosis and the Dark Triad (review here) with 40-plus minutes of piano-led singer-songwriter fare, taking a stated influence from the lyrics-as-everyday-musings of Randy Newman on songs like “Better Than You” and “Off to Work,” while revamping his main outfit’s “Answers in Your Soul” and “Evil in Your Eye” to suit the arrangement theme. As Fisher has engaged plenty with classic forms in his work, Hallucinations of a Higher Truth feels by no means beyond his creative reach, and he’s an accomplished enough songwriter and performer to pull it off, thereby demonstrating that if you can craft a song you can make it do whatever the hell you want, and that “you” in this case is him. This isn’t going to be everybody’s thing, but Fisher carries it ably.

Bill Fisher webstore

Church of the Cosmic Skull website

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Seum, Live From the Seum-Cave

Montreal low-end filthmongers Seum return to follow-up earlier 2021’s Winterized EP (review here) with Live From the Seum-Cave, basking in an even rawer incarnation of their guitars-need-not-apply drum/bass/vocals attack. “Sea Sick Six” is even nastier here than it was on the last EP, and the eponymous opener “Seum” is an anthem of disaffection that finds its lyrical answer in “Life Grinder” and “Blueberry Cash” alike — the why-do-I-even-have-this-shit-job point of view as unmistakable as the throat-singing that pops up in the aforementioned “Sea Sick Six.” The trio are beastly on “Winter of Seum,” and they make a special highlight of “Super Tanker” from 2020’s Summer of Seum EP, working tempo shifts into the punishing march that are less than predictable and yet totally over the top in their extremity. This is a good band who genuinely sound like they don’t give a fuck. That’s a hard thing to make believable. I hope they never put out a record and do EPs forever.

Seum on Facebook

Seum on Bandcamp

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Spirit Adrift, Forge Your Future

Spirit Adrift have broken out from the doomly mire to proffer clear-headed, soaring traditional heavy metal. The unit, led as ever by guitarist/bassist/vocalist Nate Garrett with Marcus Bryant on drums, offer three new tracks on Forge Your Future in the title-track, “Wake Up” and “Invisible Enemy,” channeling Randy Rhoads even through more denser tonality and the nodding groove of the last. Echo behind Garrett‘s vocals reminds here and there of Brian “Butch” Balich of Penance/Argus, but Spirit Adrift‘s path across four full-lengths and companion short releases like this one over the last six years has been its own, and the emergence of Garrett as a singer has been a crucial part of making these songs the concise epics they are. Crisp in craft and confident in delivery, Spirit Adrift only sound like masters of their domain here, and so they are. Heavy metal that loves heavy metal.

Spirit Adrift on Facebook

Century Media Records website

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Mutha Trucka, Mutha Trucka

The Chicago-based three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Eric Ervin, bassist/vocalist Dana “Erv” Ervin and drummer/backing vocalist Ted Sciaky plunge deep with their self-titled debut into the ’90s era of heavy rock, with vibes running between C.O.C., Monster Magnet, Clutch and Kyuss, among others, but there’s a might-throw-elbows spirit that comes through even in willfully spacious pieces like “I’m Free” (some Lemmy influence there too) and “Wizards & Gods” that adds aggro spirit to the bulk of the nine-song/39-minute affair, a piece like “D.B. Blues” — which stands for “Dirty Bitch Blues” — as unpretentious in its overarching style as it is politically incorrect. “Fogginess” hits near eight minutes and moves toward the trippier end of grunge, with one of the outing’s many layered solos playing out amid the solid groove beneath, the band refusing to compromise their abiding lack of pretense even in the face of that which would otherwise be psychedelic. Not much time for that nonsense — there’s crunch to be had.

Mutha Trucka on Facebook

Mutha Trucka on Bandcamp

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3rd Ear Experience, Danny Frankel’s 3rd Ear Experience

Who’s Danny Frankel? Long story short, he was Lou Reed‘s drummer, but in fact he’s got a session-player career that’s found him performing with a staggering array of artists and bands. He puts his stamp on his very own 3rd Ear Experience alongside the group’s founding guitarist Robbi Robb as well as a host of others including fellow founder AmritaKripa, synthesist Scott “Dr. Space” Heller and more besides. The resulting journey is six tracks and 63 minutes of psychedelic gloryscaping, desert-born but galaxy-bred, with longform works like “What Are Their Names” (18:18), “Weep No More, My Friend” (14:49) and closer “Timelessness Pt. 2” (12:03) expanding across exploratory and fluid movements offset by shorter stretches like the suitably percussive “Cosmos Glazed Elephant.” In opener “A Beautiful Questions,” the drums hardly feature, but the lead-in for “What Are Their Names” feels no less intentional than when the penultimate “Timelessness Pt. 1” gives way to silence ahead of the beginning of the finale. I’d say more, but I seem to have lost my train of hyperbole-laden praise. Wonderfully so.

3rd Ear Experience on Facebook

Space Rock Productions website

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Solarius, Universal Trial

Originally recorded in 2006, Solarius‘s heretofore unreleased four-song EP, Universal Trial, is notable for predating the self-titled Graveyard album, as guitarist/vocalist Jonatan Ramm would end up joining that band in 2008, seeming after Solarius dissolved. The 21-minute release arrives now with the considerable backing of Heavy Psych Sounds in no small part because of that nifty bit of context, and the classic-style boogie wrought in “Sky of Mine” is enough to make it a prescient-feeling footnote in the storied history of Swedish retroism, let alone the brooding-into-surging, organ-laced “Into the Sun,” which if it was issued by a new band this week would be an excuse unto itself for Bandcamp Friday. Wrapped in the shuffling title-track at the start and the harmonized, patiently-drawn “Mother Nature Mind” at the end, Universal Trial feels like a lesson in the essential role of producer Don Alsterberg (Graveyard, Blues Pills, Spiders, etc.) in defining the style as well as in what might’ve been if Solarius had put this out at the time.

Heavy Psych Sounds on Facebook

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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While the hard data tells us that Vancouver is located in British Columbia, tucked neatly on the northern side of the US/Canada border along the Pacific Coast, you might be forgiven for watching/listening to Dead Quiet‘s “Of Sound and Fury” and assuming the band is Swedish. The five-piece issued their third long-player, Truth and Ruin (discussed here), on the tail end of last year’s lost summer, and if they’re looking to remind listeners of the record’s sundry strengths — the Scandi-esque fluidity with which they bring together classic heavy rock sounds and modern production and tonality among them, as heard here — “Of Sound and Fury” is a righteous place to start.

Maybe it’s the organ, or the subtle underpinning of precision in delivery that tips hand to the players’ roots in more aggressive fare, but these two are elements working decidedly in favor of “Of Sound and Fury” and Dead Quiet more generally across Truth and Ruin‘s seven component tracks, weaving in and out of classic metal and various other microgenres en route to the sweeping nine-minute capper “Cold Grey Death,” dropping earworm hooks all the while that bring substance as much as style behind them. Hey kid, you like rock and roll? Here’s some. And they got t-shirts.

I say this as someone who’s had “Of Sound and Fury” on repeat in my stuck-in-my-head mental jukebox for the last couple days: no regrets. The song is honestly enough of a sell in itself, but you’ll see too in the video the five-piece seem to arm up with various weaponry, and I think they might be enacting socialist revolution? One of the dudes they take down looks like Grover Cleveland and the other looks like not-Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, and the back-room dealings of capitalism would seem to be what’s being conveyed as they play games with people’s lives. Legit. Their Jeff Bezos lookalike must have been in space that day, lest we forget our modern-day robber barons.

In any case, the best part is when they’re all standing around at the end and it’s just a second or so, but they’re like, “Okay, now what?” Indeed, gentlemen. With sincerity in my heart, I wish the members of Dead Quiet good luck in forming a new provisional representative government. My understanding is that shit gets tricky.

Enjoy the clip:

Dead Quiet, “Of Sound and Fury” video premiere

Forming in 2014, Dead Quiet established themselves quickly with the release of their debut self titled record in 2015. By the time writing commenced for their follow up record, Grand Rites in 2017, Dead Quiet had found their perfect line up in Kevin Keegan (Barn Burner), Brock MacInnes (Anciients), Mike Grossnickle (Hashteroid) and Jason Dana. The release of Grand Rites on Toronto’s Artoffact Records was followed by two European tours, one of which being direct support for John Garcia (Kyuss), as well as numerous festival appearances including Desertfest Belgium and Into the Void (NL), further cementing the band as one to watch out for.

After a rigorous year of touring, the band had no intention of slowing down and swiftly entered the studio to record their third record: Truth and Ruin. Again teaming up with Artoffact, Truth and Ruin saw the addition of Mike Rosen to the band and further broadened the already keyboard laden sound they’d established on previous efforts. Truth and Ruin proves that work ethic and chemistry can truly refine a band’s sound to what they had always been striving for: heavy instrumentation combined with rich melody and uniquely personal lyricism, making Dead Quiet one of the hottest, must-see bands on the Canadian landscape.

Lineup:
Kevin Keegan – vocals, guitar
Brock MacInnes – guitar
Mike Grossnickle – bass
Mike Rosen – keyboards, backing vocals
Jason Dana – drums

Dead Quiet, Truth and Ruin (2020)

Dead Quiet on Thee Facebooks

Dead Quiet on Bandcamp

Dead Quiet on Spotify

Artoffact Records on Bandcamp

Artoffact Records on Instagram

Artoffact Records website

The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Murray Acton of Stinkhorn & Dayglo Abortions

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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

I don’t really identify with genres and from the start, I wanted this band to be genre neutral. I would like to be able to play whatever style of music seems appropriate for the song. That said I am heavily influenced by the music of my youth. I was a teenager in the ‘70s, I remember when Master of Reality came out. That changed everything for me. Back then it was all about Black Sabbath, King Crimson, Rush, UFO, basically ‘70s metal. I can’t hide nor would I try to hide where I came from. I also have a punk band called the Dayglo Abortions. I built a song around a Black Sabbath riff on all nine (I think) of their albums. I don’t consider it theft, everyone knows it’s a Black Sabbath riff. It’s more of a tribute.
Describe your first musical memory.

My first record was the Walt Disney release of “Peter and the Wolf” conducted by Leopold Stakowski. There is a part in there where the wolf is stalking Peter in the woods. The music in that part gets all low and creepy, with woodwinds and strings. I loved it. I would play it over and over again. I spent my whole childhood trying to find more music like that. I found some. The Hall of the Mountain King from the Peer Gynt symphony was one. Then when I was I think 12 or 13, Master of Reality finally made it to the backwoods town I lived in. I remember rushing home with it. My cousin had the first Sabbath album and I liked it, but it didn’t prepare me for what I was about to hear. It was as profound as my first acid trip. At that point I new what I was going to be doing with my life.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

Jeasus there are so many. A few years ago the dayglo abortions played at the Montebello Rockfest in Quebec. They were really good to us and put us on the Punk stage just after the sun went down, and there was nobody playing on the corporate stages. I got to watch Converge from New York play right before us (if that doesn’t inspire you to play you’re in the wrong business). Then we went on. There were no other bands playing so the people from the corporate side all came over to see what was going on. There must have been 100,000 people in front of us. The French Canadian punks were up front and they were singing our songs with us at deafening volume that was out of hand. There’s video of it on Youtube as well. When it gets down to it though, the big shows are a bit weird. You are so disconnected from the audience, with the lights right in your face so you can’t even see them. There is nothing on earth that is as much fun as playing in a packed sweaty bar in Slovenia or something. I played in Slovenia in the middle of the Serb/Croat war. We were only a few miles from the Croatian border where the fighting was, and people from four countries, three of them were at war with each other, came to the show. It was awesome. They made us play our entire set twice, and one song four or five times in a row at the end. They would just push us back on the stage yelling, “You drink with us!”

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

Hmmm. I’m not sure. I was a weird kid. I had a bunch of beliefs right from the start. Adults are all liars and they want to take all your cool shit. No authority can be trusted for the same reason. Credit cards are a bad idea that the banks enslave people with. I really didn’t even like money for the same reasons. As I got older I picked up some more beliefs like beer and weed are good for you. The drugs that the pharma companies make are very bad for you, and the pharma companies are the worst drug pushers on the planet. Right along with the psychiatrists. There are more I’m sure… the universe is not held together by gravity. It’s electromagnetism, and there is no dark matter, or dark energy. Anyways I’ve got all these beliefs but none of them have ever been disproved.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

The Beautiful think about pursuits like that is your progression takes you to new places of creativity, which in turn inspires new ideas and directions for your so called “quest to enlightenment” I personally believe that us humans evolved into what we are with our big brains, because of the music we play, and it is our duty to the larger system that we are a part of to make our song join in with the songs of all the other creatures we share this place with. We’re not doing a very good job of it. That’s why the Mayan mystics say were disconnected from the universe. We need to connect to it with our music. It is a language that transcends spoken languages, and is capable of transmitting pure emotion. It is also the only thing we do that uses our entire brain. It’s obvious to me.

How do you define success?

Well seeing as I didn’t start playing music for the money, and I’m always broke, it’s obviously not for the money. (if that’s what you want in life, get a fucking job, you probably won’t make much playing music) Success to me is seeing three generations of a family at a show. Sitting in a locals-only bar, thousands of miles from home, with friends I’ve known for years from coming to that town once a year on tour. To have a bunch of top rated bands do a tribute album of your songs. That might be the biggest compliment I ever been given. There is a comp with bands like Napalm Death, Municipal Waste. Gwar, Agnostic Front. And stuff playing Dayglo Abortions songs. All those bands are better known than my band but apparently I was a big influence to them when they were growing up and shit. Crazy eh.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

I’ve had friends die in my arms from drug overdoses. I’ve been in multiple high speed car accidents. I’ve been beaten and pepper sprayed by the cops so many times it wasn’t even spicy anymore. But there is one thing I wish I hadn’t seen. Once in the ‘70s I walked into an orgy. It was on a kitchen floor and they were all friends. They tried to get me to stay and join in. I think I said. There’s 10 people here already, and eight of you are dudes. No thank you.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

When I was a kid I thought I could save the world with music. I was naive. Now I have concluded that it’s going to take more than that… wait… that’s it… something that I believed in that I have UN-believed. (to answer your question from earlier) I want to do a project that explores the use of instrumental music as a language to communicate directly to the creative force of the universe. Maybe make music that can be heard in other dimensions, or music that can be heard across the universe because it resonates with reality and propagates forever like a toroidal vortex, that folds in on itself like a smoke ring, and just keeps on going. Not sure how to go about it

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

Our art does so much for us. It tells us who we should hang with, how we should dress, who to vote for. It cheers us up when were sad. It helps us remember our past. But possibly it’s most important function is to point out and provide solutions to the things that we are doing wrong. The injustices, and the intolerance. It shows us how to defeat evil. It show us what true evil really is, and helps us fight it.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

I am looking forward to our solar system crossing the galactic plane. When it does the Earth’s magnetic field flips, and the earth will start spinning in the other direction. The Sun will go micro-nova, and just about everything on the planet will be killed. It happens every 12,00 years. The last time it happened was the younger dries extinction event. Humans have survived it several times, but not very many of them. That is why our DNA can be traced back to less than a thousand individuals. That is why there are so many indications that people went underground. (it takes 200 years for us to cross the galactic plane and things will be really shitty on the surface for much of that time) That is why all of the ancient sites are astronomical clocks, and why our ancestors were so hung up about the stars. They new it would happen again at the end of the long year, aka the procession of the zodiac. The Mayan calendar maps this out, and it says that the end of this age there will be a cleansing by fire. Anyways, I think it is an incredible privileged to be alive to witness the end of the world. It should be starting in the next 20 or so years, and I hope I live long enough to be there.

[Art at top of post by Trevor R. Coles.]

https://www.facebook.com/StinkhornStonerMetal/
https://murraythecretinacton.bandcamp.com/

Murray Acton, Covid-19 Nervous Breakdown (2021)

Stinkhorn, “High on Beans”