Quarterly Review: Chat Pile, Neon Nightmare, Astrometer, Acid Rooster, Giants Dwarfs and Black Holes, Oryx, Sunface, Fórn, Gravity Well, Methadone Skies

Posted in Reviews on October 21st, 2024 by JJ Koczan

THE-OBELISK-FALL-2020-QUARTERLY-REVIEW

This is the last day of the Fall 2024 Quarterly Review. Day 11 of 10, as it were. Bonus-extra, as we say at home. 10 more releases of various kinds to underscore the point of the infinite creative sphere. Before we dive in, I want to make a note about the header above. It’s the same one I used a couple times during the pandemic, with the four horseman of the apocalypse riding, and I put it in place of the AI art I’d been using because that seems to be a trigger for so many people.

In my head, I did that to avoid the conversation, to avoid dealing with someone who might be like, “Ugh, AI art” and then a conversation that deteriorates in the way of people talking at each other on the internet. This saves me the trouble. I’ll note the irony that swiping an old etching out of the public domain and slapping an Obelisk logo on it is arguably less creative than feeding a prompt into a generative whathaveyou, but at least this way I don’t have to hear the underground’s moral panic that AI is coming for stoner rock.

Quarterly Review #101-110:

Chat Pile, Cool World

chat pile cool world

Chat Pile are two-for-two on living up to the hype in my mind as Cool World follows the band’s 2022 debut, God’s Country (review here), with a darker, more metal take on that record’s trauma-poetic and nihilistic noise rock. Some of the bassy jabs in songs like “Camcorder” and “Frownland” remind of Korn circa their self-titled, but I’m not sure Chat Pile were born when that record came out, and that harder, fuller-sounding impact comes in a context with “Tape” following “Camcorder” in bringing together Meshuggah and post-punk, so take it as you will. Based in Oklahoma City, Chat Pile are officially A Big Deal With Dudes™, but in a style that’s not exactly known for reinvention — i.e. noise rock — they are legitimately a breath of air that would be ‘fresh’ if it weren’t so desolate and remains innovative regardless. There’s gonna be a lot of mediocre riffs and shitty poetry written in an attempt to capture a fraction of what this record does.

Chat Pile on Facebook

The Flenser website

Neon Nightmare, Faded Dream

Neon Nightmare Faded Dream

I guess the anonymous project Neon Nightamre — who sound and aesthetic-wise are straight-up October Rust-and-later Type O Negative; the reason the album caught my eye was the framing of the letters around the corners — have gotten some harsh response to their debut, Faded Dream. Critic-type dudes pearl-clutching a band’s open unoriginality. Because to be sure, beyond dedicating the album to Peter Steele — and maybe they did, I haven’t seen the full artwork — Neon Nightmare could hardly do more in naked homage to the semi-goth Brooklyn legends and their distinctive Beatles/Sabbath worship. But I mean, that’s the point. It’s not like this band is saying they’re the first ones doing any of this, and in a world where AI could scrape every Type O record and pump out some half-assed interpretation in five minutes, isn’t something that attempts to demonstrate actual human love for the source material as it builds on it worth at least acknowledging as creative? I like Type O Negative a lot. The existence of Neon Nightmare doesn’t lessen that at all, and there are individual flashes of style in “Lost Silver” — the keyboard line feels like an easter egg from “Anesthesia”; I wondered if the title was in honor of Josh Silver — and the guitar work of “She’s Drowning” that make me even more curious to see where this goes.

Neon Nightmare on Facebook

20 Buck Spin website

Astrometer, Outermost

astrometer outermost

Brooklyn-based instrumentalist five-piece Astrometer present their full-length debut after releasing their first demo, Incubation (review here), in 2022. The double-guitar pairing of Carmine Laietta V and Drew Mack and the drumming of Jeff Stieber at times will put you in mind of their collective past playing together in Hull, but the keys of Jon Ehlers (Bangladeafy) and the basswork of Sam Brodsky (Meek is Murder) assure that the newer collective have a persona and direction of their own, so that while the soaring solo in “Power Vulture” or the crashes of “Blood Wedding” might ring familiar, the context has shifted, so that those crashes come accompanied by sax and there’s room for a song like “Conglobulations” with its quirk, rush and crunching bounce to feel cosmic with the keyboard, and that blend of crush and reach extends into the march of closer “Do I Know How to Party…” which feels like a preface for things to come in its progressive punch.

Astrometer on Facebook

Astrometer on Bandcamp

Acid Rooster, Hall of Mirrors

acid rooster hall of mirrors

An annual check-in from universe-and-chill molten and mellow heavy psych explorers Acid Rooster. It’s only been a year since the band unfurled Flowers and Dead Souls, but Hall of Mirrors offers another chance to be hypnotized by the band’s consuming fluidity, the 39-minute four-songer coming across as focused on listener immersion in no small part as a result of Acid Rooster‘s own. That is, it’s not like you’re swimming around the bassline and residual synth and guitar effects noise in the middle of the 14-minute “Chandelier Arp” and the band are standing calm and dry back on the beach. No way. They’re right in it. I don’t know if they were closed-eyes entranced while the recording was taking place, but if you want a definition of ‘dug in,’ Hall of Mirrors has four, and Acid Rooster‘s capacity for conveying purpose as they plunge into a jam-born piece like “Confidence of Ignorance” sets them apart from much of Europe’s psychedelic underground in establishing a meditative atmosphere. They are unafraid of the serene, and not boring. This is an achievement.

Acid Rooster on Facebook

Cardinal Fuzz webstore

Little Cloud Records website

Tonzonen website

Giants Dawrfs and Black Holes, Echo on Death of Narcissus

Giants Dwarfs And Black Holes Echo on Death of Narcissus

Five years on from their start, Germany’s Giants Dwarfs and Black Holes present Echo on Death of Narcissus as their third full-length and the follow-up to 2023’s In a Sandbox Full of Suns (review here) as the four-piece bring in new guitarist Caio Puttini Chaves alongside vocalist Christiane Thomaßen, guitarist Tomasz Riedel (also bass and keys) and drummer Carsten Freckmann for a five-track collection that has another album’s worth of knows-what-it’s-about behind it. Opener “Again,” long enough at eight minutes to be a bookend with the finale “Take Me Down” (13:23) but not so long as to undercut that expanse, leads into three competent showings of classic progressive/psychedelic rock, casual in the flow between “Soul Trip” and the foreboding strums of centerpiece “Flowers of Evil” ahead of the also-languid “December Bloom.” And when they get there, “Take Me Down” has a jammy breadth all its own that shimmers in the back half soloing, which kind of devolves at the end, but resounds all the more as organic for that.

Giants Dwarfs and Black Holes on Facebook

Sireena Records website

Oryx, Primordial Sky

Oryx primordial Sky

Oryx‘s Primordial Sky threads a stylistic needle across its four songs. Delivered through Translation Loss, the 41-minute follow-up to the Denver trio’s 2021 offering, Lamenting a Dead World (discussed here), is no less extreme than one would expect, but to listen to 13-minute opener/longest track (immediate points), 13-minute capper “Look Upon the Earth,” or either of the seven-minute cuts between, it’s plain to both hear and see that there’s more to Oryx atmospherically than onslaught, however low guitarist Thomas Davis (also synth) pushes his growls amid the lurching grooves of bassist Joshua Kauffman and drummer Abigail Davis. This is something that five records and more than a decade on from their start their listeners know well, but as they refine their processes, even the outright sharp-toothed consumption of “Ephemeral” has some element of outreach.

Oryx on Facebook

Translation Loss Records store

Sunface, Cloud Castles

Sunface Cloud Castles

Heads up on this record for those who dig the mellower end of heavy psych, plus intricacy of arrangement, which is a number in which I very much count myself. By that I mean don’t be surprised when Sunface‘s Cloud Castles shows up on my year-end list. It’s less outwardly traditionalist than some of the heavy rock coming out of Norway at this point in history, but showcasing a richer underground only makes Cloud Castles more vital in my mind, and as even a shorter song like “Thunder Era” includes an open-enough sensibility to let a shoegazier sway enter the proceedings in “Violet Ponds” without seeming incongruous for the post-All Them Witches bluesy sway that underlies it. Innovative for the percussion in “Tall Trees” alone, Sunface are weighted in tone but able to move in a way that feels like their own, and to convey that movement without upsetting the full-album flow across the 10 songs and 44 minutes with radical changes in meter, while at the same time not dwelling too long in any single stretch or atmosphere.

Sunface on Facebook

Apollon Records website

Fórn, Repercussions of the Self

forn repercussions of the self

While consistent with their two prior LPs in the general modus of unmitigated aural heft and oppressive, extreme sludge, Fórn declare themselves on broader aesthetic ground in incorporating electronic elements courtesy of guitarist Joey Gonzalez and Andrew Nault, as well as newcomer synthesist Lane Shi Otayonii, whose clean vocals also provide a sense of space to 11-minute post-intro plunge “Soul Shadow.” If it’s the difference between all-crush and mostly-crush, that’s not nothing, and “Anamnesis” can be that much noisier for the band’s exploring a more encompassing sound. Live drums are handled in a guest capacity by Ilsa‘s Josh Brettell, and that band’s Orion Peter also sits in alongside Fórn‘s Chris Pinto and Otayonii, and with Danny Boyd on guitar and Brian Barbaruolo on bass, the sound is duly massive, tectonic and three-dimensional; the work of a band following a linear progression toward new ideas and balancing that against the devastation laid forth in their songs. Repercussions of the Self does not want for challenge directed toward the listener, but the crux is catharsis more than navelgazing, and the intensity here is no less crucial to Fórn‘s post-metallic scene-setting than it has been to this point in their tenure. Good band actively making themselves better.

Fórn on Facebook

Persistent Vision Records website

Gravity Well, Negative Space

Gravity Well Negative Space

Big-riffed heavy fuzz rock from Northern Ireland as the Belfast-based self-releasing-for-now four-piece of vocalist/synthesist Fionnuala McGlinchy, guitarist Tom Finney, bassist Michael McFarlane and drummer Ciaran O’Kane touch on vibes reminiscent of some of Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard‘s synth-fused sci-fi doom roil while keeping the material more earthbound in terms of tone and structure, so that the seven-minute “The Abstract” isn’t quite all-in on living up to the title, plenty liquefied, but still aware of itself and where it’s going. This mitigated terrestrialism — think Middle of Nowhere-era Acid King — is the source of a balance to which Negative Space, the band’s second album, is able to reshape as required by a given song — “Burning Gaze” has its far-out elements, they’re there for a reason — and thereby portray a range of moods rather than dwelling in the same emotional or atmospheric space for the duration. Bookending intro “As Above” and the closer “So Below” further the impression of the album as a single work/journey to undertake, and indeed that seems to be how the character of “The Forest,” “Delirium” and the rest of the material flourishes.

Gravity Well on Facebook

Gravity Well on Bandcamp

Methadone Skies, Spectres at Dawn

methadone skies spectres at dawn

Romanian instrumentalist heavy psych purveyors Methadone Skies sent word of the follow-up to 2021’s Retrofuture Caveman (review here) last month and said that the six-songer Spectres at Dawn was the heaviest work they’d done in their now-six-album tenure. Well they’re right. Taking cues from Russian Circles and various others in the post-heavy sphere, guitarists Alexandru Wehry and Casian Stanciu, bassist Mihai Guta and drummer Flavius Retea (also keyboards, of increasing prominence in the sound), are still able to dive into a passage and carry across a feeling of openness and expanse, but on “Mano Cornetto” here that becomes just part of a surprisingly stately rush of space metal, and 10-minute closer “Use the Excessive Force” seems to be laying out its intention right there in the title. Whether the ensuing blastbeats are, in fact, excessive, will be up to the individual listener, but either way, Methadone Skies have done their diligence in letting listeners know where they’re headed, and Spectres at Dawn embodies that forwardness of ethic on multiple levels.

Methadone Skies on Facebook

Methadone Skies on Bandcamp

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Acid Rooster Announce New Album Hall of Mirrors Out Oct. 25

Posted in Whathaveyou on August 27th, 2024 by JJ Koczan

acid rooster hall of mirrors

New Acid Rooster coming up. The Leipzig, Germany, psych rockers released their Flowers and Dead Souls LP, and I whiffed on reviewing that, but I’m hoping that Hall of Mirrors will be my chance to really engage with their work, because while I did manage to dig into their 2022 LP, Ad Astra (review here), my big takeaway therefrom was “hey this is pretty good I’d like to hear more if it.” Sometimes life happens and you don’t hear every record, or even every cool record. That’s why I do year-end polls — so I can spend the next half-decade trying to catch up with whatever I missed in a given year. Acid Rooster featured on a number of lists from last year’s poll, so they fit the bill nicely there.

This is the part where I tell you there’s no audio from Hall of Mirrors posted yet, and while that’s true at least so far as I can find, my suggestion is you check again around the time preorders start — that’s Sept. 15 ahead of an Oct. 25 release — and whether you’re in the applied region of one or the other labels behind the album or purchasing from the band itself, the odds should be better. In the meantime, in case you’re like me, the 2023 album streams in full at the bottom of this post. And I know I don’t need to say that, that you can find it, but I remember a time before all music was immediately accessible all the time once it was released, and that’s a novelty that may never actually fade for me.

So, enjoy. Album announce and live dates follow from social media:

acid rooster hall of mirors lp back

We are thrilled to announce our new studio album „Hall of Mirrors“ !!

It was recorded on two off days during our UK-tour in 2022 at Dystopia Glasgow and mixed at Fuzzface Studio by Jason Shaw. Mastered by Joe Carra at Crystal Mastering. Artwork by Marco Heinzmann aka Super Quiet.

Presale starts on september 15th via Tonzonen, Cardinal Fuzz, Little Cloud Records and our bandcamp page.

Official release is on october 25th!

Acid Rooster live:
14.09. Berlin, Future Fest
01.10. Weimar, C.Keller
03.10. Leipzig, Ilses Erika + Datashock
04.10. Nürnberg, heizhaus + Datashock
05.10. Würzburg, Immerhin + Datashock

Tickets: http://www.elborrachobookings.com/artist/acid-rooster/

https://www.facebook.com/acidrooster/
https://www.instagram.com/acidrooster_band/
https://acidrooster.bandcamp.com/
https://linktr.ee/acidrooster

https://www.facebook.com/CardinalFuzz/
cardinalfuzz.bigcartel.com/

https://www.instagram.com/littlecloudrecords/
https://www.facebook.com/littlecloudrecords/
http://littlecloudrec.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Tonzonen/
https://www.instagram.com/tonzonenrecords/
https://www.tonzonen.de

Acid Rooster, Flowers and Dead Souls (2023)

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Abronia Premiere “Plant the Flag” Video

Posted in Bootleg Theater on September 27th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

Abronia

Portland, Oregon’s Abronia released their third album, Map of Dawn (review here), earlier this year on Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube Records and spent a couple hot weeks in July on the road in Europe supporting it. As Fall comes to the Pacific Northwest, leaves changing color amid the evergreens, the band settle into the post-release comedown, going from, “We just put out a new LP,” to, “We released a record this year.”

The difference in mindset isn’t nothing, especially after a tour like they did, going abroad for what I’m pretty sure was their first time as a band, on the strength of their finest work to-date, living what many in the US continue to think of as ‘the dream’ for celebrating a new release. And hey, the vinyl’s sold out internationally (still some left for North America), so in addition to the aesthetic accomplishments of Map of Dawn, it’s also been well received. You would mark it a win, is what I’m saying.

But that aftermath can be a doldrum stretch for a group. Less going on at home than away, some of the hoopla surrounding the actual release process lessened over time, and so on. So they’ve got a new video for “Plant the Flag,” which is the second cut on Map of Dawn behind the opener “Night Hoarders,” and it’s creative right unto being presented in a box-tv format. I’m assuming that’s a social media thing, but it does cleverly capture more of a phone screen, and it looks different than most of what’s out there and shooting for cinematic in terms of aspect ratios.

Further, the video emphasizes the depth of atmosphere that Abronia have made their own in the spheres of psychedelic Westernism and heavy psychedelia, encapsulating the cohesion with which they bring these ideas together through songwriting quickly in under four minutes. It thereby serves all the more useful as a post-release single to draw in those who either missed the release in May, meant to dig deeper into the record and got distracted by something else — that happens, even with really good records — or who’ve never heard the band before and might not have an idea what they’re about.

Not that “Plant the Flag” is a complete summary, but on Map of Dawn, it is effective in drawing you deeper into the album, and as a standalone it was certainly more than enough that I went ahead and started streaming the full thing again which, if it needs to be said, is not a thing I regret as “Plant the Flag” gives way to “Games” with such fluidity. Maybe you’ll feel the same. Bandcamp player’s near the links at the bottom if you’d like to find out after you watch the video.

Which is right here, followed by some comment from the band and credits and whatnot. Enjoy:

Abronia, “Plant the Flag” official video

Eric Crespo on “Plant the Flag”:

This video was made by our pedal steel Rick Pedrosa. It includes images that we cut out as potential collage fodder for our album covers, but didn’t end up using. For this video he place the images behind glass and poured different colored dyes over the glass.

Video by Rick Pedrosa and Abronia–”Plant the Flag” from the album “Map of Dawn” released on vinyl by Cardinal Fuzz (UK/EU/The World) and Feeeding Tube Records (North America).

Vinyl copies available for North America available at https://feedingtuberecords.com/releases/map-of-dawn/

Vinyl through Cardinal Fuzz (Europe/UK/rest of World) currently Sold Out.

Digital at http://abronia.bandcamp.com

Abronia, Map of Dawn (2022)

Abronia on Facebook

Abronia on Instagram

Abronia on Bandcamp

Cardinal Fuzz Records on Facebook

Cardinal Fuzz Records store

Cardinal Fuzz Records on Bandcamp

Feeding Tube Records on Facebook

Feeding Tube Records on Bandcamp

Feeding Tube Records website

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Quarterly Review: The John Denver Airport Conspiracy, Avi C. Engel, Cormano, Black Lung, Slowenya, Superlynx, Øresund Space Collective, Zone Six, The Cimmerian, Ultracombo

Posted in Reviews on July 1st, 2022 by JJ Koczan

THE-OBELISK-FALL-2020-QUARTERLY-REVIEW

Today’s Friday, and in most but a decreasing number of circumstances, that means a Quarterly Review is over. Not this one. Remember, doublewide means it goes to 100 albums. The really crazy part? It could go longer. I could add another day. It could go to 11! Have I done that before?

Probably. That Spinal Tap reference is too obvious for me to have never made it. In any case, I’ve got something booked for Monday after next already, so I won’t be adding another day, but I could just on the releases that came in over the last couple days. Onto the list for next time. Late September/early October, I think.

If you’re hurting for Quarterly Review in the meantime? Yeah, stick around. There’s a whole other week coming up. That’s what I’ve been saying. Have a great weekend and we’ll pick back up on Monday with another 10 records.

Quarterly Review #41-50:

The John Denver Airport Conspiracy, Something’s Gotta Give

John Denver Airport Conspiracy Something's Gotta Give

Hail Toronto psych. The John Denver Airport Conspiracy released Something’s Gotta Give as a 16-tracker name-your-price Bandcamp download nearly a year ago, and vinyl delays give squares like yours truly who missed it at the time another opportunity to get on board. The 14-song LP edition runs 42 minutes, and it’s time well spent in being out of its own time, a pedal steel Americana-fying the ’60s drift of “Comin’ Through” while “Jeff Bezos Actually Works for Me” pairs garage strum-and-strut with a cavernous echo for an effect like shoegaze that looked up. “2000 November” and closer “The Lab” dares proto-punk shimmy and “Green Chair” has that B3 organ sound and lazy jangle that one can’t help but associate with 1967, “Ya, I Wonder” perhaps a few years before that, but “The Big Greaser” works in less directly temporal spaces, and the whole album is united by an overarching mellow spirit, not totally in a fog because actually the structures on some of these songs are pretty tight — as they were in the 1960s — but they’ve definitely and purposefully kept a few screws loose. Their sound may solidify over time and it may not, but as a debut album, Something’s Gotta Give is deceptively rich in its purpose and engaging in its craft and style alike. I wish I’d heard it earlier, I’m glad to have heard it now.

The John Denver Airport Conspiracy on Instagram

Cardinal Fuzz Records webstore

Little Cloud Records website

 

Avi C. Engel, Their Invisible Hands

Avi C. Engel Their Invisible Hands

Avi C. Engel‘s experimentalist folk songwriting moves into and across and over and through various traditions and methods, but their voice is as resonant, human and unifying as ever, and that’s true from “O Human Child” through the softly echoing guitar pieces “Golden Egg” and “High Alien Priest,” the more ethereal “Glass Mountain,” and so on, while excursions like “I Drink the Rain,” “Cryptid Bop” and “Dead Tree March” earlier add not only instrumental flourish but an avant garde sensibility consistent with Engel‘s past work, even if as songs they remain resoundingly cohesive. That is to say, while founded on experimentalist principles, they are built into songs rather than presented in their rawest form. The inclusion of organ in finale “The Devils are Snoring” is striking and complements the minimalist vocals and backing drone, but by then Engel has long established their ability to put the listener where they wants, with the image of “Rowing Home Through a Sea of Golden Leaves” duly poetic to suit the music as demonstration. Gorgeous, impassioned, hurt but striving and ever moving forward creatively. Engel‘s work remains a treasure for those with ears to hear it. “I Drink the Rain” is an album unto itself.

Avi C. Engel on Facebook

Avi C. Engel on Bandcamp

 

Cormano, Weird Tales

Cormano Weird Tales

Though the initial push of doomer riffing and melodic vocals in the post-intro title-track “Weird Tales” reminds a bit of Apostle of Solitude, the hooky brand of heavy wrought by Chilean three-piece Cormano — vocalist/guitarist Aaron Saavedra, bassist/backing vocalist Claudio Bobadilla, drummer/backing vocalist Rodrigo Jiménez — on their debut full-length is more about rock than such morose proceedings, and in fact it’s the prior intro “La Marcha del Desierto” that makes that plain. They’ll delve into psychedelic airiness in “El Caleuche” — the bassline underneath a highlight on its own — and if you read “Bury Me With My Money” as a capitalist critique, it’s almost fun instead of tragic, but their swing in “Urknall” and the roll of “Rise From Your Grave” (second Altered Beast reference of this Quarterly Review; pure coincidence) act as precursor to the thickened unfurling of “Futuere” and “A Boy and His Dog,” a closing pair that reinforce Cormano‘s ultimate direction as anything but settled, the latter featuring a pointedly heavy crash before a surprisingly gentle finish. Will be curious to see where their impulses lead them, but Weird Tales is that much stronger for the variety currently in their influences.

Cormano on Facebook

Cormano on Bandcamp

 

Black Lung, Dark Waves

Black Lung Dark Waves

Like the rest of reality, Baltimorean heavy psychedelic blues rockers Black Lung have undergone a few significant changes in the last three years. Guitarist/vocalist Dave Cavalier (also Mellotron) and drummer/synthesist Elias Schutzman (also Revvnant, ex-The Flying Eyes) bid farewell to fellow founding member Adam Bufano (guitar, also ex-The Flying Eyes) and brought in Dave Fullerton to fill the role, while also, for the first time, adding a bassist in Charles Braese. Thus, their first record for Heavy Psych Sounds, the J. Robbins-produced/Kurt Ballou-mixed Dark Waves is a notable departure in form from 2019’s Ancients (review here), even if the band’s core methodology and aesthetic are the same. The sound is fuller, richer, and more able to hold the various Mellotrons and other flourishes, as well as the cello in “Hollow Dreams” and guest vocals on “Death Grip” and guest keys on “The Cog” and “The Path.” Taking inspiration from modern global uncertainties sociopolitical, medical and otherwise, the band put you in a mind of living through the current moment, thankfully without inducing the level of anxiety that seems to define it. Small favors amid big riffs. With shades of All Them Witches and further psychedelic exploring transposed onto their already-a-given level of songwriting, Black Lung sound like they’re making a second debut.

Black Lung on Facebook

Heavy Psych Sounds website

 

Slowenya, Meadow

Slowenya Meadow

Make a big space and fill it with righteousness. Finland’s Slowenya are born out of an experimentalist hotbed in Turku, and the three-piece do justice to an expectation of far-out tendencies across the nonetheless-concise 31 minutes and six songs of Meadow, their second long-player in as many years. There’s an undercurrent of metal as “Synchronized” holds forth with a resilient, earthy chug, but the melodicism that typifies the vocals running alongside is lighter, born of a proggy mindset and able to keep any overarching aggression in check. With synths, samples, and ambient sounds filling out the mix — not that the massive tonality of the guitar and bass itself doesn’t do the job — a breadth is cast from “Intro” onward through “Nákàn” and the gone-full-YOB swell of “Irrevocable,” which is yet another of the tracks on Meadow one might hear and expect to be 20 minutes long and instead is under seven. The penultimate “Transients” pushes deeper into drone, and “Resonate and Relate” (7:53) caps Slowenya‘s impressive second LP with a due blend of melodic wash and lurching rhythmic physicality, the screams into a sudden stop effectively carrying the threat of more to come. You want to hear this.

Slowenya linktr.ee

Karhuvaltio Records on Facebook

 

Superlynx, Solstice EP

Superlynx Solstice

As their growing fanbase immediately set about waiting for their third full-length after 2021’s Electric Temple, Norwegian heavy-broodgaze trio Superlynx issued at the very end of the year the Solstice EP, combining covers from Saint Vitus, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Nat King Cole (because obviously he’d be third on that list) and Nirvana with two originals in “Reorbit” and “Cosmic Wave.” As bassist/vocalist Pia Isaksen has already put out a solo release in 2022, drummer Ole Teigen has a blues band on the side among other projects, and one assumes guitarist Daniel Bakken is up to something else as well, Solstice serves as a welcome holdover of momentum after the album. It’s worth the price of admission (eight Euro) for the take on Nirvana‘s “Something in the Way” alone, but the so-slow-it-sounds-like-it’s-about-to-fall-apart “Reorbit” and the leadoff adaptation of “Born Too Late” enforces that song’s message with a modernized and made-even-more slogging sense of defeat. Maybe we were all born too late. Maybe that’s humanity’s fucking problem. Anyway, after you get this, get Isaksen‘s solo record as Pia Isa. You won’t regret that either, especially with the subdued vibe in some of the material on this one.

Superlynx on Facebook

Dark Essence Records website

 

Øresund Space Collective, Oily Echoes of the Soul

oresund space collective oily echoes of the soul

The always-hit-record ethic of multinational conglomerate jammers Øresund Space Collective pays dividends once again as Oily Echoes of the Soul emerges publicly — it was previously released in a different form to Bandcamp subscribers — as carved from a session all the way back in 2010. At the time I’m pretty certain all members of the band actually lived in Denmark, but sitarist K.G. Westman, who appeared here while still a member of Siena Root, is from Sweden, so whatever. Ultimately the affair is less about where they’re from than where you’re going while hearing it, which is off to a laid-back, anything goes psychedelic improvisation, beginning with the funky and suitably explorational, half-hour-long opener “Bump and Grind ØSC Style” before moving into the sitar-led “Peace of Mynd” (13:27) and the 24-minute title-track’s organic surges and recessions of volume; proggy, ’70s, and unforced as they are. Before twang-happy and much shorter closer “Shit Kickin'” (4:10), the 15-minute “Deep Breath for the EARTH” offers affirmation of the project’s reliably expansive sound. I’ve made no secret that I listen to this band in no small part for the emotionally and/or existentially soothing facets of their sound. Those are on ready display here, and I’ll be returning to this 12-year-old session accordingly.

Øresund Space Collective on Bandcamp

Space Rock Productions website

 

Zone Six, Beautiful EP

ZONE SIX BEAUTIFUL

Recorded in Dec. 1997 at Zone Six‘s practice space, the two-song Beautiful EP portrays a much different band than Zone Six ultimately became, with Australian-born vocalist Jodi Barry and then-Liquid Visions members Dave “Sula Bassana” Schmidt (bass, effects), Hans-Peter Ringholz (guitar, noise) and drummer/recording specialist Claus Bühler as well as keyboardist/etc.-ist Rusty and bringing two longform, molten works of pioneering-at-the-time heavy psychedelia. I mean, we’re talking 20 years ahead of their time, at least, here. It’s still forward-thinking. The guitars and breathy vocals in “Something’s Missing” are a joy and “Beautiful” plays off drone-style atmospherics with intermittently jazzy verses and a more active rhythm, winding guitar and pervasively spaced mindbending. Imagining what could’ve been if this record had been finished, one could repaint the scope of 2010s-era European heavy psychedelia as a whole, but on their own, the two extended inclusions on the 23-minute EP are a gorgeous glimpse at this fleeting moment in time. It is what it says it is.

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TO THE PAST

 

The Cimmerian, Thrice Majestic

The Cimmerian Thrice Majestic

Thrice Majestic and four-times barbarous comes this debut EP release from Los Angeles’ The Cimmerian, a new trio featuring Massachusetts expat David Gein (ex-bass, The Scimitar, etc.) on guitar, and the brand of heavy that ensues readily crosses the line between metal and doom, as the galloping “Emerald Scripture” reinforces directly after the eight-minute highlight and longest groover “Silver and Gold.” Drummer David Morales isn’t shy with the double-kick and neither should he be, and bassist/vocalist Nicolas Rocha has a bark that reminds of Entombed‘s L.G. Petrov, and that is not a compliment I’m ever going to hand out lightly. Lead cut “Howls of Lust and Fury” promises High on Fire-ist thrash in its opening, but The Cimmerian‘s form of pummel goes beyond any single point of inspiration, even on this presumably formative suckerpunch of an EP, which balances intensity and nod in the finishing move “Neck Breaker,” a last growl perhaps the most brutal of all. Fucking a. More of this.

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The Cimmerian on Bandcamp

 

Ultracombo, Season II

Ultracombo Season II

You could probably sit and parse out where Ultracombo are coming from — geographically, it’s Vincenza, Italy — in terms of sound on the sequentially titled follow-up to 2019’s Season I (review here), but to do so denies the double-guitar five-piece credit for the obvious efforts they’ve put into making this material their own. Those efforts pay off in the listening experience of the five-tracker, which runs 25 minutes and so offers plenty enough to make an impression. Witness the slowdown in centerpiece “Umanotest” or the keyboard-or-keyboard-esque lead in the back half of the prior “Follia,” the added jammy feel in “Specchio,” the this-is-the-difference-the-right-drummer-makes “12345” or the return of the synth and an added bit of playfulness before the big ending in — what else? — “La Fine.” That this EP manages to careen and pull such hairpin turns of rhythm is a triumph unto itself. That it manages to do so without sounding like Queens of the Stone Age feels like a fucking miracle. “Dear Ultracombo, Hope you’re well. Time to make an album. Put in an interlude or two depending on space. Sincerely, some dude on the internet.”

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Quarterly Review: My Diligence, BBF, Druids, Kandodo4, Into the Valley of Death, Stuck in Motion, Sageness, Kaleidobolt, The Tazers, Obelos

Posted in Reviews on June 29th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

THE-OBELISK-FALL-2020-QUARTERLY-REVIEW

Oh we’re in the thick of it now, make no mistake. Day one? A novelty. Day two? I don’t know, slightly less of a novelty? But by the time you get to day three in a Quarterly Review, you know how far you’ve come and how far you still have to go. In this particular case, building toward 100 records total covered, today passes the line of the first quarter done, and that’s not nothing, even if there’s a hell of a lot more on the way.

That said, let’s not waste time we don’t have. I hope you find something killer in here, because I already have.

Quarterly Review #21-30:

My Diligence, The Matter, Form and Power

my diligence the matter form and power

The Matter, Form and Power is the third long-player from Brussels’ My Diligence, whose expansive take on melodic noise rock has never sounded grander. The largesse of songs like the Floor-esque “Multiversal Tree” or the choruses in “On the Wire” and the layered post-hardcore screams in “Sail to the Red Light” — to say nothing of the massive nod with which the title-track opens, or the progressively-minded lumbering with which the 10-minute “Elasmotherium” closes — brims with purpose in laying the atmospheric foundation from which the material soars outward. With “Celestial Kingdom” as its centerpiece, the heavy starting far, far away and shifting into an earliest-Mastodon chug as drift and heft collide, there are hints of Cave In in form if not all through the execution — that is, My Diligence cross similar boundaries but don’t necessarily sound the same — such that the growling that populates that song’s second half isn’t so much a surprise as it is a slamming, consuming, welcome advent. Music as a force. As much volume as you can give it, give it.

My Diligence on Facebook

Mottow Soundz website

 

BBF, I Will Be Found

BBF I Will Be Found

Their moniker derived from the initials of the three members — bassist/vocalist/synthesist Pietro Brunetti, guitarist/vocalist Claudio Banelli and drummer Carlo Forgiarini — Italian troupe BBF aren’t through I Will Be Found‘s five minute opener “Freedom” before they’ve transposed grunge vibes onto a go-where-it-wants psychedelia from out of an acoustic, bluesy beginning. Garage rock in “Cosmic Surgery,” meditative jamming in “Rise,” and a vast expanse in “T-Rex” that delivers the album’s title line while furthering with even-the-drums-have-echo breadth the psych vibe such that the synthy take of the penultimate “Wake Up” becomes just another part of the procession, its floating guitar met with percussion real and imagined ahead of the bookending acoustic-based closer “Supernova,” which dedicates its last 90 seconds or so to a hidden track comprised entirely of sweet acoustic notes that might’ve otherwise ended up as an interlude but work just as well tucked away as they are. Here’s a band who know the rules and seem to take a special joy in bending if not outright breaking them, drawing from various styles in order to make their songs their own. To say they acquit themselves well in doing so is an understatement.

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Argonauta Records website

 

Druids, Shadow Work

Druids Shadow Work

Progressive and melodic, the fourth album from Iowan trio Druids is nonetheless at times crushingly heavy, and in a longer piece like “Ide’s Koan,” the band demonstrate how to execute a patient, dynamic build, beginning slow and spaced out and gradually growing in intensity until they reach a multi-layered shouting apex. Drew Rauch (bass), Luke Rauch (guitar) and Keith Rich (drums) all contribute vocals at one point or another, and whether it’s in the plodding rock of “Dance of Skulls” or the not-the-longest-track-but-the-farthest-reaching closer “Cloak/Nior Bloom,” their modern prog metal works off influences like Baroness, Mastodon, Gojira, etc., while retaining character of its own through both rhythmic intricacy and its abiding use of melody, both well on display in “Othenian Blood” and the subsequent, drum-intensive “Traveller” alike. “Path to R” starts Shadow Work mellow after the ceremonial build-up of “Aether,” but the tension is almost immediate and Druids‘ telegraphing that the heavy is coming makes it no less satisfying when it lands.

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Pelagic Records on Bandcamp

 

Kandodo4, Burning the (Kandl)

Kandodo4 Burning the (Kandl)

Though it’s spread across two LPs, don’t think of Kandodo4‘s Burning the (Kandl) as an album. Or even a live album, though technically it’s that. You might not know, you might not care, but it’s a historical preservation. ‘The time that thing happened,’ where the thing is Simon Price of The Heads leading a jam under the banner of his Kandodo side-project featuring Robert Hampson of Loop, and bassist Hugo Morgan and drummer Wayne Maskell — who play in both The Heads and Loop — as part of The Heads‘ residency at Roadburn Festival 2015 (review here). I tell you, I was there, and I’ve seen few psychedelic rituals that could compare in flow or letting the music find its own shape(lessness) as it will. Burning the (Kandl) not only has the live set, but the lone rehearsal that the one-off-four-piece did prior to taking stage at Het Patronaat in Tilburg, the Netherlands, that evening. Thus, history. Certainly for the fest, for the players and those who were there, but I like to think in listening to these side-long stretches of expanse upon expanse that all of our great-grandchildren will worship at the altar of this stuff in a better world. Maybe, maybe not, but better to have Burning the (Kandl) ready to go just in case.

Kandodo on Facebook

Kandodo on Bandcamp

Cardinal Fuzz webstore

 

Into the Valley of Death, Ruthless

Into the Valley of Death Ruthless

The second EP in about nine months from Los Angeles’ Spencer Robinson — operating under the moniker of Into the Valley of Death — the seven-song Ruthless feels very much like a debut album despite a runtime circa 25 minutes. The songs are cohesive in bringing together doom and grunge as they do, and as with the prior Space Age, the lo-fi aspects of the recording become part of the overarching character of the material. Guitars are up, bass is up, drums are likely programmed, vocals are throaty and obscure at least until they declare you dead on “Ghost,” and the pieces running in the three-to-four-minute range have a kind of languid drawl about them that sound purely stoned even as they seem to reach out into the desert after which the project is seemingly named. Robinson, who also played bass in The Lords of Altamont and has another outfit wherein he fronts a full backing band, is up to some curious shit here, and whether or not it was, it definitely sounds like it was recorded at night. I’m not sure where it’s going, and I’m not sure where it’s been, but I know I’ll look forward to finding out.

Into the Valley of Death on Bandcamp

Doomsayer Records on Facebook

 

Stuck in Motion, Still Stuck

Stuck in Motion Ut pa Tur

Enköping, Sweden’s Stuck in Motion issued their 2018 self-titled debut (review here) to due fanfare, and Still Stuck (changed from the working title ‘Ut på Tur,’ which translates, “on tour”) arrives with a brisk reminder why. Jammy in spirit, early singles “Höjdpunkternas Land,” “Lucy” and “På Väg” brim with vitality and a refreshing take on classic heavy rock, not strictly retro, not strictly not, and all the more able to jam and offer breadth around traditional structures as in “I de Blå” for that, weaving their way into and out of instrumental sections with a jazzy conversation between guitars and keys, bass and drums, percussion, and so on. Combined with the melodies of “Tupida,” the heavier tone underlying “Fisken” and the organ-and-synth-laced shuffle of the penultimate “Tung Sol,” there’s a balance between psych and prog — and, on the closing title-track, horns — which are emblematic of an organic style that couldn’t be faked even if the band wanted to try. I don’t know the exact release date for Still Stuck — I thought it was already out when I slated this review — but its eight songs and 40 minutes are like the kind of afternoon you don’t want to end. Sunshine and impossible blue sky.

Stuck in Motion on Facebook

Stuck in Motion on Bandcamp

 

Sageness, Tr3s

SageNESS Tr3s

A blurb posted by Spanish instrumentalists Sageness — also written SageNESS — with the release of Tr3s reads as follows: “The future seen from the past, where another current reality is possible, follow us and we will transfer to a new dimension. (Tr3s),” and fair enough. One could hardly begrudge the trio a bit of escapism in their work, and listening to the 36 minutes across four songs that comprises Tr3s, they do seem to be finding their way into the ‘way out.’ Though if where they’re ending up is 12-minute finale “Event Horizon,” in which the very jam itself seems to be taffy-pulled on a molecular level until the solid bassline and drums dissipate and what takes hold is a freakout of propulsive, drift-toned guitar, I’m not sure if they do or don’t ultimately make it to another dimension. Maybe that’s on the other side? Either way, after the scope of “Greenhouse” and the more plotted-seeming stops of “Spirit Machine,” that end is somewhat inevitable, and we may be stuck in reality for real life, but Sageness‘ fuzzy and warm-toned heavy psychedelic rock makes a reasoned argument for daydreaming the opposite.

Sageness on Facebook

Interstellar Smoke Records store

 

Kaleidobolt, This One Simple Trick

kaleidobolt this one simple trick

You think you’re up for Kaleidobolt, and that’s adorable, but let’s be honest. The Finnish trio — whose head-spinning, too-odd-not-to-be-prog heavy rock makes This One Simple Trick laughable as a title — are on another level. You and me? They’re running circles around us in “Fantastic Corps” and letting the truth about humans be known amid the fuzz of “Ultraviolent Chimpanzee” after the alternately frenetic and spaced “Borded Control,” momentarily stopping their helicopter twirl to “Walk on Grapes” at the album’s finish, but even then they’re walking on grapes on another planet yet to be catalogued by known science. 2019’s Bitter (review here) boasted likewise self-awareness, but This One Simple Trick is a bolder step into their individuality of purpose, and rest assured, they found it. I don’t know if they’re a “best kept secret” or just underrated. However you say it, more people should be aware. Onto the list of 2022’s best albums it goes, and if there are any simple tricks involved here, I’d love to know what they are.

Kaleidobolt on Facebook

Svart Records website

 

The Tazers, Outer Space

The Tazers Outer Space

It probably wouldn’t fit on a 7″, but The TazersOuter Space EP isn’t much over that limit at four songs and 13 minutes. The Johannesburg trio’s melodicism is striking nearly at the outset of the opening title-track, and the fuzz guitar that coincides is no less right on as they touch on psychedelia without ever ranging so much as to lose sight of the structures at work. “Glass Ceiling” boasts a garage-rocking urgency but is nonetheless not an all-out sprint in its delivery, and “Ready to Die” hits into Queens of the Stone Age-esque rush after an acoustic opening and before its fuzzy rampage of a chorus, while “Up in the Air” is a little more psych-funk until solidifying around the repeated lines, “Give me a reason/Show me a sign,” which culminate as the EP’s final plea, like Witch played at 45RPM or your favorite stoner band’s cooler cousin. Four songs, it probably took more effort to put together than they’d like you to think, but the casual cool they ooze is as infectious as the songs themselves.

The Tazers on Facebook

The Tazers on Instagram

 

Obelos, Green Giant

Obelos Green Giant

Bong-worship sludge from London. It’s hard to know the extent to which Obelos — which for some reason my fingers have trouble typing correctly — are just fucking around, but their dank, lurching riffs, throaty screams and slow-motion crashes certainly paint a picture anyhow. Paint it green, with maybe some little orange or purple flecks in there. Interludes “Paranoise” and “Holy Smokes” bring harsh noise and a kind of improvised-feeling, also-quite-noisy chicanery, but the primary impression in Green Giant‘s six tracks/27 time-bending minutes is of nodding, couchlocked stoner crush, and I wouldn’t dare ask anything more of it than that. Neither should you. I’d argue this is an album rather than the EP it’s categorized as being, since it flows and definitely gets its point across in a full-length manner, but I’m not even gonna fight the band on that because they might break out a 50-minute record or some shit and, well, I’m just not sure I’m ready to get that high this early in the morning. Might have to reserve an entire day for that. Which might be fun, too.

Obelos linktr.ee

Obelos on Instagram

 

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Abronia Finalize UK and European Tour Dates

Posted in Whathaveyou on June 21st, 2022 by JJ Koczan

From Portland, Oregon, Abronia are set to travel at the end of this month to begin a round of European and UK shows that includes stops in Croatia, Italy, Germany and France (as well as the UK, duh). They’ll be abroad for 17 dates — a healthy tour, and if I’m not mistaken their first on the continent — and while the impetus occasion seems to be a slot at Supersonic in Birmingham, they’ll also be at Eastfilly Fest in Stuttgart, Germany to close out the run.

Fair enough, and if you’re wondering, yes, I’m having a good time posting all these tour dates the last few weeks. If I told you how I’d missed it, you wouldn’t believe me. All the better to see Abronia get across the Atlantic, since they go in support of their third full-length and finest work to-date, Map of Dawn (review here), newly out on Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube Records.

I’m on board with the whole idea, fine, but my question is whether or not the “big drum” that they use in place of a standard kit will be making the journey or if there’s some contingency in place. Do you ship it ahead of time? Line up a rental or a borrow for the shows? Buy one and use it as a raft to float back? These are logistical questions only the band can answer, and frankly, I’d feel silly if I asked.

Dates from socials:

Abronia tour Square

ABRONIA EURO & UK TOUR

Final European/UK Tour Dates:

Thu.30.6.22 HR ZAGREB – Club Mochvara
Fri.1.7.22 IT BOLOGNA – Freakout
Sat.2.7.22 – IT GAVERIN TERME – Colle Gallo (House Concert)
Sun.3.7.22 DE MUNICH- Neitzsche-Keller
Mon.4.7.22 DE BERLIN -Schokoladen
Tue.5.7.22 DE KUSEL – Schalander
Wed.6.7.22 FR ROUEN – Le 3 Pieces
Thu.7.7.22 UK HASTINGS – The Piper
Fri.8.7.22 UK BIRMINGHAM – Supersonic Festival
Sat.9.7.22 UK LONDON – 229 London
Sun.10.7.22 UK MANCHESTER – Retro Manchester
Mon.11.7.22 UK DUMFRIES – The Venue
Tue.12.7.22 UK BRISTOL -The Lanes
Wed.13.7.22 UK BRIGHTON – The Hope and Ruin
Thu.14.7.22 FR PARIS – Olympic Cafe
Fri.15.7.22 DE SAARBRÜCKEN – The Silo
Sat.16.7.22 DE STUTTGART – Eastfilly Fest

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Abronia, Map of Dawn (2022)

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Album Review: Abronia, Map of Dawn

Posted in Reviews on May 30th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

abronia map of dawn

Abronia are middle of the night music. If you should encounter the Portland, Oregon, psychedelic Americana troupe’s third album, Map of Dawn outside in the dark, surrounded by insects chirruping, crackling firewood or pre-dawn birdsong, so much the better, but one way or the other, the spirit of the songs is a nighttime spirit. Or at very least, a spirit in which each nuanced twist warrants appreciation, between the guitars of Paul Michael Schaefer and Eric Crespo (also vocals), each extra push behind the commanding vocals of Keelin Mayer, each wispy uncurling of Rick Pedrosa‘s pedal steel, the sundry percussion around Shaver‘s big drum, Shaun Lyvers‘ bass holding it all together and the occasional bit of tenor sax, also courtesy of Mayer‘s lungs. The way one guitar plays to the calm background while the other noodles out the lead line of “Night Hoarders,” or the theatrical poetics of centerpiece “Wave of the Hand,” or the way the big-drum rhythmic pattern of the subsequent “What We Can See” becomes subsumed by layers of melody, even as those layers follow the pattern, before Crespo and Mayer‘s shared verse gives over to hand drums and pedal steel with that strum still behind.

Each instrument throughout the seven-song/39-minute spread dances out in layers, each layer linked to a performance. You can trace the layers as you go, follow any number of paths as you listen. You can walk through Map of Dawn any way you want. The sun’s coming up no matter what. A solidified lineup has allowed Abronia room to grow as a unit and they have not squandered that opportunity.

As the follow-up to 2020’s The Whole of Each Eye (review here) and 2017’s Obsidian Visions/Shadowed Lands (review here), Map of Dawn bears a confidence of approach befitting the group’s five years of experience. For sure they’re still exploring new reaches here, new ways of harnessing mood in their sounds — atmosphere is and has been paramount, if it needs to be said, but Mayer as a singer is able as well to convey a range of emotion, which is why “Wave of the Hand” works — toying with Morricone and a creeper riff on “Games” after the heavy folk of “Plant the Flag” pays off in a single, sudden burst, which in itself feels pretty daring, or the way in which the penultimate “Invite Jeffrey Over” leaves so much empty room even with the pedal steel humming deep in the mix like a Hammond organ otherwise might.

Map of Dawn might play to a similar style as Abronia‘s past offerings — like cult rock if the cult was the mythologies of the American West — but it does so with a firmer grasp of intent. Certainly Shaver‘s big drum is a consistent distinguishing presence, the band eschewing a full kit in favor of forcing the hand of creativity in terms of percussion. That can mean a shaker here or a tambourine there, which can change the entire effect a given song has on the listener, so the “drums” in terms of the-part-of-a-track-where-someone-is-banging-on-or-shaking-something become no less of an arrangement element than pedal steel, adding to the complexity of the material even as they remove one of rock’s most common standbys.

abronia (Photo by Joey Binhammer)

Being one of three songs over six minutes long — the others are “Invite Jeffrey Over” (6:06) and the subsequent closer “Caught Between Hives” (8:24) — it’s obvious going into Map of Dawn that “Night Hoarders” is meant to draw the listener into the world the band are portraying, and so it does. By the time it’s two minutes in, Mayer‘s vocals are echoing out noted proclamations and the guitars are strumming in seeming triumph while the pedal steel follows their root notes, then the sax notes blow and they shift into a drippy, Dead Meadow-style wah lead. You understand at this point that the song is halfway over. It spins like a loom, steady. The transition back to the verse and the declarative chorus is easily enough made, sax included, there’s a stop before the last reprise, then the drum gradually drops out and the guitars (pedal steel included) carry out the last minute quietly.

Comparatively, the uptempo start of “Plant the Flag,” with its vaguely surf rock outset feels like a stark turn, but it’s not. Crespo joins Mayer in the verse lines, setting up “What We Can See” on side B, and Abronia build on the work they’ve already done establishing the ambience in “Night Hoarders,” subtly moving from building that world to inhabiting it and having already brought the audience into that experience as well. They peruse different breadths in “Games,” in “Wave of the Hand” with its midsection freakout wash feeling all the more vital for being the album’s midsection, then cutting to the track’s all-in ending. Each song is a potential highlight depending on the path you’re walking, which layer you’re following.

The pairing of “Invite Jeffrey Over” and “Caught Between Hives” feels intentional, and the latter provides an ending that is resonant to the proceedings as well as a sonic payoff. More controlled than the wash of “Wave of the Hand” but coming apart in a way that feels suitably organic at the finish. I’d add “What We Can See” to the concluding salvo, as well. While it’s somewhat shorter, its specifically ’60s psychedelia is a standout moment as a showcase for Mayer‘s and Crespo‘s voices working together and for the range of what Abronia bring to their aesthetic palette, harnessing ideas of desert mysticism and lysergic hypnosis while building a tension soon enough to be dropped outright in favor of the shift to the quiet start of the soon-to-be-plenty-intense “Invite Jeffrey Over.”

It’s a moment where Abronia prove they can do whatever they want from their sonic foundation. They know who they are as a band and they understand how to manifest that in a studio setting. Map of Dawn isn’t a record a band could make their first time out, but it could make a vital introduction to new listeners. The manner in which it engages their half-decade of growth, their process of sorting out their identity, and the way it still looks ahead to what might come are little if not an invitation to follow along. Whichever route you go, whichever evocative layer catches your fancy, go safely. Don’t twist an ankle while you dance the sunrise.

Abronia, Map of Dawn (2022)

Abronia on Facebook

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Abronia on Bandcamp

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Quarterly Review: Kal-El, The Ugly Kings, Guhts, Anunnaki, Bill Fisher, Seum, Spirit Adrift, Mutha Trucka, 3rd Ear Experience, Solarius

Posted in Reviews on September 28th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

the-obelisk-fall-2016-quarterly-review

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

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

 

The Ugly Kings, Strange, Strange Times

The Ugly King 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

 

Guhts, Blood Feather

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

 

Anunnaki, Martyr of Alexandria

annunaki 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.

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NoiseAgonyMayhem website

 

Bill Fisher, Hallucinations of a Higher Truth

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.

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Church of the Cosmic Skull website

 

Seum, Live From the Seum-Cave

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.

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Spirit Adrift, Forge Your Future

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.

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Century Media Records website

 

Mutha Trucka, Mutha Trucka

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.

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

3rd Ear Experience Danny Frankels 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.

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Space Rock Productions website

 

Solarius, Universal Trial

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.

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