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King Howl Premiere “Home”; Homecoming Out June 9

Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on May 17th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

King Howl (Photo by Elena Cabitza)

Caligari heavy blues rockers King Howl will release their third album, Homecoming, on June 9 through Electric Valley Records. With a liberal dose of harmonica at the outset and an uptempo kick to match, hints of Grinderman in its second half, the 11-track/40-minute LP begins at a burn with “The Rooster,” the slide-guitar-inclusive “From the Cradle” and the fuzzier shove and Hendrixian lead flourish of “The Train,” a salvo of three songs none of which hits three minutes in length, and only really the last of which speaks to the band’s foundation in heavy rock. In this way, the Sardinian four-piece of vocalist Diego Pani (also harmonica), guitarist Marco Antagonista, and the dual-Alessandro rhythm section of bassist Alessandro Cau and drummer Alessandro Sedda hone momentum and seem immediately to bring their listener along with them as they move through, not recklessly or haphazard, but with vitality enough to match their bluesy aesthetic.

“John Henry Days” is longer at 4:25, broader, more patient and fuzzier, like Five Horse Johnson in the old days and a raucous rollout in its back half, though it ends with the acoustic guitar peppered throughout. “Motorsound” and “Slowly Coming Down” put further emphasis on the variety in King Howl‘s sound, swapping out the high-energy swing of the former — like a retro take on ’10s retroism — for a mellower unfolding, languid in its melody and semi-psych echoing solo and filled out by fuzz-coated bass notes, closing side A with a hint toward further expansion to come even as “Tempted” (2:50) arrives to revitalize the thrust that began the album on “The Rooster,” slide guitar and all, before “Jupiter” plays back and forth in loud/quiet trades and build-and-runs, fuzzed enough to evoke both very large planets and ancient deities, if somewhat understated in its finish.

The organ that sweeps in on “The Great Blue Heron” and the buzzsaw lead that cuts through its back half likewise speak to classic heavy rock influences, but it’s all tied to blues rock either way and King Howl offer an example of that root in the mid-tempo piece before giving over to “Gimme Shelter,” a cover of the Rolling Stones‘ iconic single. I’ll admit that personally I’m not a fan of the song — I saw the band once in the ’90s, so I’ve got that going for me — but it makes sense in light of the purported on-the-road-in-the-1960s-narrative the album follows even if it’s somewhat sonically superfluous, and I’ve been arguing back and forth with myself whether or not it makes the album stronger. I’m not sure it does, though King Howl deserve credit for taking something that just about everyone on the planet has likely heard whether they know/like it or not and making it their own. That’s not a minor achievement. If you’re the type to skip, maybe you skip it. If not, maybe you have that song stuck in your head for the rest of the day. As with all things: Choose Your Adventure.

king howl homecomingBut if the record is going to be called Homecoming, then the place to end it is “Home,” and that’s exactly what King Howl do. The closer (premiering below) is the longest inclusion at 5:43 and pulls together a lot of what works best throughout Homecoming in terms of groove, melody and the balance of elements in the mix; the vocals are in focus but not overbearing, the jabs of rhythm guitar are bright but not blinding, the rhythm is fluid and steady but not boring, the organ adds to each build into the hook, and so on. There’s a break after the midpoint with quiet standalone vocals, but to King Howl‘s credit, they finish by bringing it all the way back to an apex and then fading it out long, whether that’s the heavy blues train departing the station, seeming not so much like the song or story is ending but that we’re the ones leaving it behind. Fair enoough.

King Howl revel in their rougher-edged moments — “Tempted,” “The Train,” etc. — and offer diversity in their approach enough to hold fickle modern attentions, but the highlight of Homecoming, the finale aside, is the fact that they have a heavy blues sound, harmonica, organ and all, that comes across as organic when so much heavy blues is an absolute put-on on the part of those making it. Yes, they’re engaging with a folk tradition outside of their own — i.e., the African-American folk roots out from which blues music grew over a century ago — but they don’t sound like they’re pretending to be something they’re not in terms of style, and a big credit for that goes to Pani‘s vocals, which feel natural and developed over the course of the band’s three full-lengths to-date.

There’s a lot to dig into and a lot to dig, but King Howl are engaging throughout Homecoming and sound comfortable in their skin and like they didn’t have to sacrifice their edge to get there, setting stage-ready vibrancy to the cause of good-time classic heavy blues, and then some. Six years after their second long-player, Rougarou (they covered Canned Heat there, having already done Skip James and Blind Willie Johnson on 2014’s debut King Howl Quartet), this return speaks of the living done in the interim and benefits from the care put into its crafting.

“Home” premieres below, followed by more info from the PR wire.

Please enjoy:

King Howl, “Home” track premiere

King Howl on “Home”:

“Home” is the last track of our new album, ‘Homecoming.’ An angry but hopeful homecoming that concludes an epic in music, a round trip of growth and change, of damnation, redemption, and rebirth. A classic rock song with a blues feeling and the guts of stoner rock, empowered by the Hammond organ.

KING HOWL from Cagliari, Sardinia, play HEAVY BLUES: the raw sounds of the blues are filtered by a multitude of different musical influences coming from stoner rock, 70’s classic rock, funk, and punk in a crossover labored with spontaneity and naturalness, a flow of sounds that never stops.

Pre-order here:
https://www.electricvalleyrecords.com
http://www.evrecords.bandcamp.com

King Howl attracted conspicuous attention with their first full-length “King Howl Quartet” (2012, Talk About Records/Go Down Records), which imposed a personal sound, pushed by singles like “Morning” and “Drunk.”

In 2014, the 4-track “Truck Stop Ep” (Talk About Records) brought new nuances to King Howl’s trademark, developing a more mature songwriting exposed in songs like “Kerouac” or “Time to say Goodbye.” In July 2017, King Howl released their last full length called “Rougarou.” 10 tracks of blues fueled – booze-soaked Rock’n’Roll, another proof of the band’s peculiar sound defined through years on the road, represented by bangers such as “Gone,” “Screaming” and “Demons.” The band toured all of Italy and central Europe several times, often included in the bills of international festivals such as Pietrasonica Festival, Time in Jazz, Duna Jam, Maximum Festival, Crumble Fight Fest, Freiburg Fuzz Fest, Swanflight Festival, Narcao Blues, Aglientu Summer Blues and opening (among others) for Mud Morganfield, Fatso Jetson, Yawning Man, Greenleaf, My Sleeping Karma, Siena Root, Bob Margolin.

King Howl’s new album, titled “Homecoming” will be released by Electric Valley Records on June 16, 2023. The work represents a new chapter in the band’s stylistic universe, spurring King Howl’s trademark sound while mixing it with new compositional and sound influences. A mix of blues, stoner, psychedelia, and classic rock that paints the soundscape of an on-the-road story set in 1960s America. The album was recorded in Sardinia by Roberto Macis and Willy Cuccu and mixed by Nene Baratto and Richard Behrens at Big Snuff Studio in Berlin, a key production hub for international heavy Psych (Kadavar, Samsara Blues Experiment, Elder, Wucan). Artwork by Elena Cabitza.

Tracklisting:
1. The Rooster
2. From the Cradle
3. The Train
4. John Henry Days
5. Motorsound
6. Slowly Coming Down
7. Tempted
8. Jupiter
9. The Great Blue Heron
10. Gimme Shelter (Rolling Stones cover)
11. Home

King Howl:
Diego Pani – Voce, Armonica
Marco Antagonista – Chitarra
Alessandro Cau – Basso
Alessandro Sedda – Batteria

King Howl on Facebook

King Howl on Instagram

King Howl on Bandcamp

King Howl website

Electric Valley Records website

Electric Valley Records on Facebook

Electric Valley Records on Instagram

Electric Valley Records on Bandcamp

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Elepharmers Sign to Electric Valley Records; New Album out in 2019

Posted in Whathaveyou on September 10th, 2018 by JJ Koczan

There’s a running gag around my house — there are a few, actually — wherein, as the husband and patriarch of our family, I am the spiritual head of the household for myself, The Patient Mrs., The Pecan and The Little Dog Dio, and as such, I’ve chosen the religion for the family to be “ancient astronaut theory.” I’ll admit, lately I’ve also been flirting with crystals — which I’m not even sure how you’d make that a religion, but you know, can’t you kind of say the same for any dogma? — so my position is evolving as the spiritual head of the household, but for now, yeah, aliens. Accordingly it’s with particular interest that I look forward to the release of the third album from Italian three-piece Elepharmers, which will also be their debut on Electric Valley Records, and will cavort with ancient astronaut theory as well as other doodads out of the sci-fi landscape.

Not that ancient astronaut theory isn’t real, mind you. This is the spiritual foundation of my home we’re talking about.

And so on.

From the PR wire:

elepharmers

Electric Valley Records is proud to announce the signing of the Stoner Doom Psych band ELEPHARMERS

Elepharmers are a trio that plays a mix of hard 70’s blues, psychedelic space-rock, 90’s stoner: they come from Sardinia (Italy), an island in the West Mediterranean Sea.The band’s members are strongly influenced by their native land: sunny and unspoiled plains, wild coasts, mysterious megalithic sites, ancient forests. Elepharmers’ sound is made by impressive riffs & psychedelic guitar solos, powerful drums’ grooves, bluesy vocals and some synth incursions. The band released 2 full-lenght albums: “Weird Tales From the Third Planet” (Go Down Records, 2013) and “Erebus” (Go Down Records, 2016).

Elepharmers toured Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Netherlands; they played at important international festivals like Duna Jam, Elav Stoner Open Air, Maximum Festival, Monolithix Fest and they shared the stage with bands like Karma to Burn, Yawning Man, Red Fang, Mars Red Sky, Toner Low, Monkey 3, Electric Moon and many others. In 2018 the band is working on a new album: a concept inspired by Isaac Asimov’ sci-fi novels and Zecharia Sitchin’s theories about “ancient astronauts”. The new album will be released in February 2019 by Electric Valley Records.

Elepharmers is:
El Chino – vocals; rhythm guitar; bass; harmonica
Andrea “Fex” Cadeddu – lead & rhythm guitars –
Maurizio Mura – drums

www.facebook.com/elepharmers
www.instagram.com/elepharmers
https://twitter.com/Elepharmers
https://elepharmers.bandcamp.com/
www.facebook.com/electricvalleyrecords
www.instagram.com/electricvalleyrecords
www.electricvalleyrecords.com

Elepharmers, Erebus (2016)

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