Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, 2021 marks the 15th anniversary of instrumentalist progressive/heavy psych rockers Monkey3, who released their second album, 39 Laps, on Buzzville Records in 2006 after making a self-titled debut in 2003. If the number in the band name strikes as weird, it was more common around the turn of the century with European acts; consider Hypnos 69 from Belgium or 7Zuma7 and 35007 from the Netherlands. The latter are perhaps most relevant when it comes to the work Monkey3 were doing in the mid-aughts — the self-titled included a song named for them, for example. 35007‘s final offering, Phase V (discussed here) came out on Stickman Records — with whom Monkey3 would sign for 2011’s third LP, Beyond the Black Sky (review here) — in 2005, and found that band working in a sphere of immersion to which 39 Laps is at least complementary if probably not working in direct answer. That is, bassist Christophe Picasso, drummer Walter Albrecht, guitarist Boris de Piante and keyboardist Guilaume Desboeufs — who may or may not also be dB and Mister Mapropre; the band have always been cagey about names — probably didn’t sit down and say they should directly build on what the Dutch band had done the year before, but the two records certainly work well alongside each other.

And while we’re setting an afternoon’s playlist of (at least mostly) instrumental meditative heavy psychedelic progressivism, it’s worth considering that as Monkey3 were finding their way forward with the six songs and 51 minutes of 39 Laps, Germany’s My Sleeping Karma released their own self-titled debut (discussed here) the same year, and despite a more direct thematic in the exploration of various Buddhist and other philosophies, they’re still a sonic fit as well. So Monkey3 have been and continue to be in good company.

They’ve also — here comes the inevitable pivot — done well to distinguish themselves among that very company, and 39 Laps is a prime example of how. The album doesn’t quite work shortest-to-longest in its procession of tracks, but among the five original inclusions, it separates into two halves with three six-minute cuts, “Xub,” “Last Moulinao” and “Driver,” comprising a theoretical side A and the longer “Jack” (9:09) and “Je et Bikkje” (13:24) on the again-theoretical side B. In reality, the original CD release also contains the nine-minute take on Ennio Morricone‘s “Once Upon a Time in the West” theme, starting with wind and sparse guitar and gradually building to a fully-weighted roll and topping it with a willfully grandiose guitar lead over the slowed-down progression as an apex before the ringing of the bell signals, I guess, the start of the movie. I’ll admit, it’s been a while.

Also in reality, by the time 39 Laps came out on vinyl, it was through the short-lived Napalm Records-offshoot Spinning Goblin Productions, and the album was released as a 2LP, with a cover of Black Sabbath‘s “Electric Funeral” also included on side D alongside the Morricone piece. So there.

These 15 years after the fact, there are arguments to be made as to whether 39 Laps works better with or without that final cover. “Je et Bikkje” caps at a fury, with a solo soaring out over an ocean of swirling synth and rhythmic churn — an encapsulation that’s an exciting moment on its own, a payoff for the earlier heft and percussive motion of the song’s midsection and the ongoing proggy tension of the guitar after its own volume surge. It’s a moot debate — the album is what it is — if perhaps a fun one, but if there’s a winning case, it’s probably “the more the merrier,” and that certainly applies to “Once Upon a Time in the West.”

To that point, Monkey3 have already wildly immersed the audience in their atmospherics. This band could and still can be crazy heavy, and “Driver” demonstrates that as plainly as possible, but they’re no less dedicated to trance than impact. The basslines are essential to this. Beneath the smooth, almost Tool-style bounce of the guitar as it makes its way into “Xub,” the bassline holds steady and not only adds to the movement of the build, but is the ground on which that movement takes place. That’s not to detract from the drums at all — steady snare pops are welcome punctuation throughout “Xub” and the rest of the album that follows — but just as often in the most ambient stretches of 39 Laps, the low end bears the significant task of grounding the procession, helping give structure to what especially without vocals could easily have become more ethereal than the band intended.

And perhaps it’s unsurprising that their intention and the realization of it is so much of why 39 Laps succeeds at that listener-immersion. Even unto “Once Upon a Time in the West,” this is an easy, easy, easy record in which to lose one’s self and be brought back by whatever given element — the vague effects-laden speech of “Je et Bikkje,” the acoustic guitar of “Last Moulinao,” the bursts of extra heft in the culmination of “Jack,” etc. — and the recording and mix of Mario Krag deserves special mention for the depths and spaces created in which one might explore. They remain resonant and broad in kind.

Long a staple of the Sound of Liberation booking roster, Monkey3 were recently announced as taking part in Desertfest Belgium 2021 in Antwerp and the newcomer Noise Fest in their native Switzerland, as well as Orange Factory‘s 25th anniversary bash next year, also in Belgium. I’ll admit — if it’s a thing that warrants confession — their appearance at Desertfest is what put them in my mind. They were there as well for their latest studio release, 2019’s Sphere (review here), and at the Orange Factory show, Monkey3 will play alongside a reunion for the aforementioned Hypnos 69, with whom they also put out a split in 2006, concurrent to 39 Laps.

They have other appearances booked and recently completed as well, and it could well be that 2022 will mark a fuller return to the road. They did tour in Fall 2019 to support Sphere, but if they needed an excuse to go, certainly even a delayed 20th anniversary celebration would more than suffice.

In any case, as always, I hope you enjoy. Thank you for reading.

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I need to shower. Maybe before I write this. Hang on…

…I do not even a little bit regret that decision. Yes, that puts it closer to 10AM than not — started the post before The Pecan woke up, finishing after he’s off to school — but a good, languid scalding was precise what I needed. As The Patient Mrs. tells me often, “You never regret showering.” She is correct in that, as in so much else.

Earlier this week, Tuesday in fact, was our 24th anniversary of when we first got together. I was 15 at the time. I turn 40 later this month. The lazy math on that says that’s over 60 percent of my life. There is nothing I regret less than spending that time in that way.

I wish I could say we did a lot to celebrate, but not really. We were pretty light on cash this week — getting caught up after her starting during-semester paychecks; we live mostly one to the next, like fucking everybody because the American social safety net is a scam and our government, when not actively trying to cause your death, doesn’t care if you live or die and if they did, even remotely, we’d have universal healthcare and basic income and we all know it and still do nothing about it — but my mother bought us takeout from our favorite diner and that was kind and made the kid happy since he got a cookie with his grilled cheese. Otherwise she worked and I was doing the Quarterly Review all week, so that was pretty much that. She’s got work this weekend too, and I’ve got more Quarterly review coming Monday and Tuesday and a liner notes project (Slomatics) and a bio project (Stompbox) besides, so yeah.

Plus the kid, whom I’ve taken to school the last two days because of a no-show bus. It came this morning. Just trying to keep us on our toes, I guess. We rearranged rocks in the yard while waiting. That’s real life.

Clutch, Stöner and King Buffalo are playing tomorrow night in New Haven, Connecticut. I’d love to go. I’m dying to go. To go, take pictures, see the KB guys play new songs, do the thing. I just can’t bring myself to do it. It feels too big. My kid can’t get vaccinated. My wife already is back working on a college campus. I’m vaccinated and so is she. And I don’t care if I get sick. Hell, there were at least three times during the Quarterly Review this week that I would’ve happily traded writing for lungfire. But I can’t be responsible for getting either of them sick. I just can’t.

Kind, Geezer and Curse the Son play Hamden (also CT) on Oct. 21. It’s a Thursday night. I’m thinking that might be a good, lower-key “first show back.” I doubt The Patient Mrs. will complain about spending time with her family up there.

My consolation in this is that I’ll get another chance with the full Clutch, Stöner and King Buffalo lineup in December in New Jersey. I have no idea what the world will look like then, let alone my own Covid-anxiety, but it’s less urgent in my brain than tomorrow, so it’s enough to hang my hat on. King Buffalo are also at Mercury Lounge on Nov. 7. I won’t go to that unless I’m feeling entirely on board after the Curse the Son show, but knowing it exists is a comfort.

That’s where I’m at. High on Fire at Le Poisson Rouge in Manhattan? No way. Pallbearer, Somnuri and Heavy Temple at Saint Vitus Bar in Brooklyn? Doubtful. I’m just not there.

I’m doing my best.

Next week — two more days of Quarterly Review (could definitely be more, but yeah…), plus Slowshine full stream, a Wail video premiere, and so on. Gonna try to review something in there as a favor to myself, but I haven’t decided what yet. And I’m gonna try to get a video interview done in there too, but we’ll see.

I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Have as much fun as you can. Hydrate. Watch your head. Listen to the Gimme Metal show today at 5PM Eastern. All that fun stuff.

New t-shirts coming soon.

FRM

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Proof positive that Cortez didn’t just end up a kickass heavy rock band, but in fact they started that way. Of course, the Boston five-piece were a much different band 13 years ago when they made their debut with the Thunder in a Forgotten Town EP in 2007. I remember (vaguely) the release piqued my interest because they were an American band releasing through a European label — Belgium’s Buzzville Records — which didn’t happen nearly as often in those days, and once I got a copy, I would’ve had to work hard not to dig it. Six songs, righteous hooks, classic vibe brought to modern production — the band worked with Marc Schleicher (then of Quintaine Americana, also Antler, later of Infernal Overdrive) at New Alliance Audio — and I never quite understood how they never got signed to Small Stone Records, as did Boston forerunners-of-riff Roadsaw, but they wound up just fine regardless.

Though the core of their sound and approach was intact, Cortez were a much different band in 2007 than they are now. Only two of the five players on Thunder in a Forgotten Town are still with the group in guitarist Scott O’Dowd and bassist/backing vocalist Jay Furlo. The nascent version of the band was rounded out by guitarist Tony D’Agostino, drummer Jeremy Hemond (who was also in Roadsaw) and vocalist Curtis Caswell, and though one can recognize roots in C.O.C.-style riffing in a song like “Stone the Bastards” — with its call-and-response gang shouts bringing in members of The Humanoids, We’re All Gonna Die and Cocked ‘n’ Loaded — the momentum built up over the course of that song and the outing as a whole belongs to Cortez even more in hindsight now than it did when they it out, by which I mean it’s become a crucial aspect of their sound in general, capturing that feeling of unhurried shove. Carefully composed songs that still push you through them at what feels like a hey-man-come-on-I’m-not-hurting-anybody escorted-out pace.

All business? Not quite, but close. Mostly business. Opener “The High Life” — its fuzzy launch riff telling you much of what you need to know, especially when the solo kicks in to lead into the verse — sets the proceedings off with no time wasted. Cortez are through the first verse and headed toward the chorus by the time the first minute is up, and then another quick lead and they’re back to the verse to start the cycle again in the next minute. They break for a longer solo but keep the central rhythm playing out underneath, then back to the verse and chorus, more soloing over a moderate tempo kick, then a couple ending lines and it’s done in a little over four minutes. Plain old heavy rock and roll. Not innovative in terms of structure, but it lets you know right off the bat that Cortez know what they’re doing, and Thunder in a Forgotten Town does nothing to dissuade one from that opinion from that point on. Kicking ass, chewing bubblegum, and so on.

The first five songs are within about a minute of each other length-wise, but still arranged from shortest to longest ahead of the nine-minute closer “Floodwater Rising.” “What Have You Done?” picks up where the opener left off with a strong hook and changes the break structure a bit with vocals getting a moment in a second-half quiet section, but the mood is well similar enough to be consistent. Melody fleshes out further in “The Ocean,” and reveals itself to be the essential component of Cortez‘s work that it’s become in the years since, even as the riffs pattern themselves in a steady roll, they become the backdrop of a layered-vocal arrangement that is sneakily effective in putting itself in the listener’s head. C.O.C. might be a reference point there as well as in “Stone the Bastards” still to come, but the modus is hardly limited to them, and as Thunder in a Forgotten Town demonstrates across its span, the band’s intention was never so much to reinvent the wheel as to make it spin in their own direction.

They do precisely that through “Lost Control” and “Stone the Bastards,” continuing to broaden the sphere of what they’ve set out while staying rooted in songwriting and mid-tempo push. It’s chug in “Lost Control” and group participation in “Stone the Bastards” as the band use their first outing to essentially work as a demo in showing off what they’re about, but perhaps “Floodwater Rising” — still the longest song despite ending after six of its total nine minutes, giving over the rest to residual noise — is the most indicative of the band Cortez would become, with a comfort switching paces and an underlying aggression of purpose that has only come more forward over time.

Thunder in a Forgotten Town, at 34 minutes, is listed as an EP, and it would be five years and a few lineup changes before their 2012 self-titled debut (review here) surfaced on Bilocation Records — to be followed by 2012’s The Depths Below (review here), 2014’s split with Borracho, 2018’s split with Wasted Theory (review here) and this Fall’s Sell the Future (review here) — but I’ll say it’s actually more of a debut album in its flow and construction. One could make the argument I suppose that it’s a demo as well, and I kind of alluded to that above, but there’s a level of craft that needs to be taken into account, and as it has all throughout Cortez‘s tenure, that makes all the difference. They are a different band now than they were then, as I said, but there’s no question that what they’ve been able to build across their now-three LPs has been built on the foundation Thunder in a Forgotten Town laid out, despite the shifts in personnel around Furlo and O’Dowd.

Album or EP, it seems ripe enough for a reissue at this point, even though it’s obviously readily available streaming-wise, as seen above. They still have CDs too, but I don’t know if Thunder in a Forgotten Town has ever been released on vinyl, and certainly it’s easy enough to imagine in red and black swirl wax to suit the cover art. Say, 300 copies? Alright, press it. That’s how it works, right?

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

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Fuck it. Thanks for reading.

Did you enter the year-end poll yet?

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