The Elven will release their debut album, Solstice, this week through Spinda Records, Clostridium Records and Echodelick Records. If that seems like a mighty consortium for a newcomer outfit, it’s worth noting that the band is comprised of members of Spain’s Saturna — bassist Rod Tirado and guitarist/vocalist James Vieco — collaborating with Earthless guitarist Isaiah Mitchell. With the lineup completed by keyboardist Tabatha Puig and drummer Javi Gómez, the full band came together as a pandemic-era divergence on the part of Tirado and Vieco, and while I don’t know the timing on at what point in the last five years it was actually put to tape — which really only matters if you’re curious how long it took the songs to come together and how long they’ve been sitting on the release, which I am — the sound of the band speaks to a timeless encapsulation of classic and heavy rock. Suddenly three labels to cover different geographic regions doesn’t seem like too much.
Opener “Shine” begins with a stretch of standalone guitar and vocals, offering immediately organic tonality and a recognizably strong, ’70s-style vocal from Vieco that will continue to mesh well with the proceedings throughout. There are flashes of proggier effects, synthy flashes from Puig‘s keys and leans into psychedelia amid the low-end warmth of the underlying riffing, varying in fuzz and tone and of course every now and then taking off on an ace solo or two — unavoidable given personnel and not a thing about which to complain — but what’s most striking about it is the cohesiveness of character. “Shine” resolves in a purposeful, soulful chorus and lets the listener loose on the rest of the album with high expectations that the strum and circa-’68 bottom-of-mouth-style verse and subsequent classy scorch of “Far Beyond” begins to meet.
Whatever the original impetus might’ve been — one assumes plague restlessness — behind the formation of The Elven, the band remain striking in their blend of influences from a span of decades, letting “Closer to Freedom” follow “Far Beyond” as a slower, drumless melodic divergence before the shuffle renews in “New Pair of Wings,” which answers the textural elements of hte songs preceding with a purposefully light, airy pastoralia of tone. Even the solo sounds nostalgic, and it’s supposed to, so that’s a win. Further to the purposeful nature of the entire affair, Solistice‘s eight tracks/34 minutes play out in a back and forth of longer and shorter songs, the longest of which is side B opener “Stand Right Next to Me” at 6:20.
There’s a sax, or what sounds like one, in “Stand Right Next to Me,” and that adds to the fullness of the jam that follows the earlier verse, which sets the vocals deeper in the mix for a broader sound. The band are well comfortable in the swing and the finish is classic enough that it sounds like they’re ending the intro to a late-night talk show, by which I of course mean they’re both pro-shop and on-fire, and the realignment toward the shorter and more straight-ahead “Out the Door” does nothing to lessen that impression. Somewhat crunchier in tone — nothing here comes close to aggression; for context, there’s still room for a honky-tonk sound from the keys — it recalls early ’70s blues-boogie without aping either structure or production, conveying a clarity of sound as well as an aesthetic of humility despite the arrangement outreach. The abiding lack of pretense and/or extraneous bullshit serves them well throughout.
The last longer-shorter pairing is “Wherever I Go,” duly rambling and Joe Cocker-esque in its throaty melody and sway, and the 2:23 “All of a Sudden,” which is a quieter outro based around the guitar with flourish of keys to complement. A subdued ending to a record that’s never quite let it all loose but that instead has skillfully and gracefully carried the listener from one end to the other, still remaining balanced between intention and execution, by which I mean nothing is overwritten or overplayed for what they’re trying to do. Again, pro-shop. Those who come into Solstice with the context in mind of who these players are and their prior work will probably get their hopes up going into it, but regardless of where you think the music might go because you know Saturna or Earthless, part of what The Elven accomplish on this first album is to create a vibrant persona of the band’s own.
The album is out April 3, which is Thursday, and can be ordered now. You’ll find it in full on the player below, followed by more info from the PR wire. I didn’t mention it in the review proper, but credit to Jondix for the badass art.
Enjoy the stream:
‘Solstice’ will be available on April 3, 2025, and will be released exclusively in digital format and on vinyl; in a limited edition of 300 copies in marbled yellow, which can already be pre-ordered atspindarecords.com.
What began at the end of 2020 as an irrational need to compose music by Rod Tirado and James Vieco from Saturna soon took on a different identity when they brought in their friends Isaiah Mitchell (Earthless) on lead guitar, Tabatha Puig on keyboards, and Javi Gómez on drums. In just one month, they wrote the 8 songs that make up this debut album, titled ‘Solstice’, which they recorded with all the freshness and spontaneity of the moment at the Analog Drive-in Studios, alongside Christian A. Korn at the controls and Dani Pernas as co-producer. Pernas would later handle the mixing before passing the project on to Estanis Elorza for mastering.
For the graphic design, they once again enlisted an illustration by Jondix (Tool, Black Sabbath, High on Fire, Electric Wizard) and the design by Jalón de Aquiles for a vinyl edition that will be released by Spinda Records (ES), in a new collaboration with Clostridium Records (DE) and Echodelick Records (US), who previously worked together on the debut album by Loma Baja.
Solstice 1. Shine 2. Far beyond 3. Closer to freedom 4. New pair of wings 5. Stand right next to me 6. Out the door 7. Wherever I go 8. All of a sudden
THE ELVEN is: Rod Tirado: bass James Vieco: guitars, vocals Isaiah Mitchell: guitars Tabatha Puig: keys Javi Gómez: drums
Posted in Reviews on January 3rd, 2025 by JJ Koczan
The album sets its theme around the sea, which is fair enough, but if you find yourself drawn toward the sky, cosmos or some kind of other otherworldly landscape during the 40 minutes of West Mata, one could hardly blame Kombynat Robotron. At a certain point, expanse is expanse. Recorded in Spring 2023 at ZFML with Kio Krabbenhöft helming (Felix Margraf mixed and mastered), West Mata takes place over three extended tracks, beginning with the longest (immediate points) “Jason II” (21:54) on side A before “Vasa” (6:57) and “Trieste” (11:36) take hold across side B and setting out on a textured course of mindful drift in its initial going. Guitarist Jannes Ihnen echoes out across mellowpsych reaches, a tonal shimmer having emerged from a cocoon of drone gradually in the first couple minutes, and bassist Claas Ogorek and drummer Thomas Handschick — both also of the more crush-minded Earthbong — give the groove cohesion without taking away from the fluidity, which is an obvious priority for an album that, at some point or other, the band decided was about water.
As much fun as it can be and often is to accede to the whims of an album like West Mata, with a stated expressive purpose, the fact of the matter is that the subject being instrumentally explored can’t be effectively conveyed without real world chemistry underlying. That is to say, it wouldn’t matter what the songs were about if the songs didn’t take the listener anywhere. However, West Mata is duly transportive. “Jason II” doesn’t ever have the outward arrogance to be sweeping, but the howling guitar and residual distorted rumblings, the casual tap of the ride and snare acting as aural emulsifier, are so smooth that by the time Kombynat Robotron are eight minutes in, the pictures are vivid. A re-mellowing brings warmth of low end beneath a sparser lead layer, and though the song is only half over circa 10:45, what’s been laid out at that point is a single procession of slow movement. If you told me it was about the galaxial orbit or the superposition of quantum states, I don’t think I’d be able to fight you and say, “No way, boss! It’s the ocean!” with more than their say-so to back me up. Granted that’s not nothing, but six LPs and however-many whatever-elses later — earlier in 2024, they took part in a four-way split (review here) for Worst Bassist Records, for example — Kombynat Robotron aren’t so closed in the evocations on a sheer sonic level.
This sounds like a critique of the band, or like I’m saying they didn’t accomplish their goal in basing West Mata around the sea. I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying that whether you think “Jason II” is about horror flicks or Argonauts, there’s room in the material itself for your interpretation. Kombynat Robotron have an open, jam-based approach to psychedelia, and West Mata is rich in atmosphere as well as tone. If you didn’t know “Vasa” was named for a 17th century Swedish shipwreck or “Trieste” for the first vessel to submerge into the Mariana Trench, or indeed that the album itself is named for a chain of active volcanoes near the Pacific Island of Tonga, you can probably still appreciate the serenity with which “Jason II” (perhaps named for a model of submersible) contemplates its back half, or the transition to a more physical rhythm in “Vasa,” or the noisier crux of “Trieste.”
This is not a weakness. West Mata is what it was intended to be, and more. A given listener’s choice whether or not to engage with the thematic will invariably play into how they hear the material — the power of suggestion is always a factor, but on general principle, you won’t hear me rag on a band for the decision to apply narrative to their work — and however they go, the point is that Kombynat Robotron are headed out.
With a progression between its songs that moves from the least to arguably the most active material — if you want to quibble on “active” between the boogie of “Vasa” and the scorch of “Trieste,” I’ll cite the careening, daring-toward-abrasive finish of the latter as the noisiest and busiest stretch included among the three cuts — there is a strong sense of a plan at work, but at no point in West Mata are Kombynat Robotron too heavy-handed in it. There are changes, of course, as one part evolves into the next and the personality of a work begins to take shape, and each piece seems to reset before it begins its own plunge, but movement overarching is from a minimal sound to a wash (you bet your ass I intended that pun), and that linearity lends a distinctive set of purpose to the proceedings, heady though it is. But it’s okay. Somehow I think if you can put up with reading this review up to this point, ‘heady’ won’t be too much of a threat to keep you from enjoying a 40-minute long-player. Just speculating.
In the interest of honesty, and maybe this came through in the discussion above whether I wanted it to or not, I let go of the watery foundation pretty quickly with West Mata. I tend to think of a style like Kombynat Robotron‘s on more cosmic terms — and for sure the band are no stranger to those — and that’s where my head went, with “Trieste” boasting a somewhat darker ambience as it departs the cacophony to leave residual drone and amplifier hum. Whether that’s the last thing you hear before you fall in the singularity or come up to the surface with the ocean on all sides, the album holds up. That isn’t necessarily a surprise for Kombynat Robotron, who’ve been at it with all due proficiency to suit a genre existing well outside of normal spacetime for eight years or so, but it does account for the surehanded guidance they provide to the mediation in sound happening here. And if you take that mediation in a different direction, I can’t imagine anybody’s gonna yell at you. No one is going to say you’re wrong. Have your own experience. I got away with it so far.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 20th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
You ever put on the wrong record? Well, yesterday, I had the wrong record on, and it wasn’t until I stopped it and put on Kombynat Robotron‘s upcoming three-song LP West Mata instead that I realized it. The German cosmic-jam expeditionists — who share members with the more plundering but also longform-prone Earthbong — will release the album Dec. 6 through a multinational consortium that includes Cardinal Fuzz, Little Cloud Records and Clostridium Records. It’s not an insignificant amount of support for an instrumental improv-based space rock outfit, but I mean, I get it. Maybe West Mata was the right record for all of them too.
No public audio yet, but the release date’s Dec. 6, so coming around quick. Preorders are up from everybody, and the links are below. The PR wire brings more about the record’s aquatic theme:
Kombynat Robotron – West Mata – Release: Dec 6th 2024
West Mata is the 6th studio record by Kiel/Germany based Psych/Krautrockband Kombynat Robotron. The release of this album is the result of a cooperation between Clostridium Records (Germany), Cardinal Fuzz Records (UK) and Little Cloud Records (USA).
After their space-themed record -270°C (2021) and the following, earth-themed record Frohe Zukunft (2023) Kombynat Robotron are closing the circle with the waterthemed West Mata.
With a total length of about 50 minutes split in three tracks the band returns to their long-form jam-based approach to songwriting on West Mata.
For thousands of years, the sea has been both a place of longing and an antagonist for mankind and, despite being fully explored, it still resists all of mankind’s efforts and technical sophistications. The eternal continuity of the sea is taken up as a musical motif by all three tracks on West Mata. Seemingly stoic and unchanging, the rhythm undulates in the depths and yet every moment is full of change and movement on the surface.
In 21 minutes, Jason 2 unfolds it’s wings like a manta ray and takes us from Greek mythology to modern satellite technology: silvery sound surfaces that merge in silent agreement, come together to form the same and yet always different shapes, disappear and emerge again.
A look into the depths belies the impression of timelessness, because the history of exploring and mastering the seas is always also a history of hubris and failure. The wreck of the Vasa, which sank on its maiden voyage almost 400 years ago due to a design flaw, had not yet been recovered when the Titanic sank in 1912 after colliding with an iceberg. A story, a motif, told in ever-changing variations. It has always been the same, same old story.
With Trieste the album finally plunges into the endless depths of the ocean. The movement forward is a movement downwards, driven by the belief that there is something to be discovered and understood even in the most hostile environment. We can just hope that the steel shell can withstand the pressure that increases with every meter and hope we can catch a glimpse of the abyss before the abyss looks back in us. Get in and look into the depths.
Das Album will be released in three different vinyl editions:
Alright, back at it. Putting together yesterday over the weekend was more scattershot than I’d prefer, but one might say the same of parenting in general, so I’ll leave it at that. Still, as happens with Quarterly Reviews, we got there. That my wife gave me an extra 40 minutes to bang out the Wizzerd video premiere was appreciated. As always, she makes everything possible.
Compared to some QRs, there are a few ‘bigger’ releases here. You’ll note High on Fire leading off today. That trend will continue over this and next week with the likes of Pallbearer, Uncle Acid, Bongripper, Harvestman (Steve Von Till, ex-Neurosis), Inter Arma, Saturnalia Temple spread throughout. The Pelican two-songer and My Dying Bride back to back a week from today. That’ll be a fun one. As always, it’s about the time crunch for me for what goes in the Quarterly Review. Things I want to cover before it’s too late that I can fit here. Ain’t nobody holding their breath for my opinion on any of it, or on anything generally for that matter, but I’m not trying to slight well known bands by stuffing them into what when it started over a decade ago I thought would be a catchall for demos and EPs. Sometimes I like the challenge of a shorter word count, too.
And I remind myself here again nobody really cares. Fine, let’s go.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
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High on Fire, Cometh the Storm
What seems at first to be business as usual for High on Fire‘s fourth album produced by Kurt Ballou, fifth for MNRK Heavy (formerly E1), and ninth overall, gradually reveals itself to be the band’s tonally heaviest work in at least the last 15 years. What’s actually new is drummer Coady Willis (Big Business, Melvins) making his first studio appearance alongside founding guitarist/vocalist Matt Pike (Sleep, Pike vs. the Automaton) and long-tenured bassist/backing vocalist Jeff Matz (also saz on the instrumental interlude-plus “Karanlik Yol”), and for sure Willis‘ thud in “Trismegistus,” galloping intensity in the thrashy and angular “The Beating” and declarative stomp beneath the big slowdown of 10-minute closer “Darker Fleece” is part of it, but from the way Pike and Matz bring “Cometh the Storm’ and “Sol’s Golden Curse” in the record’s middle to such cacophonous ends, the three-and-a-half-minute face-kick that is “Lightning Beard” and the suckerpunch that starts off with “Lambsbread,” to how even the more vocally melodic “Hunting Shadows” is carried on a wave of filthy, hard-landing distortion, their ferocity is reaffirmed in thicker grooves and unmitigated pummel. While in some ways this is what one would expect, it’s also everything for which one might hope from High on Fire a quarter-century on from their first demo. Triumph.
A release concurrent to a remastered edition of their 2016 debut, Lemanis (review here), only puts into emphasis how much Spaceslug have come into their own over eight productive years. Recorded by drummer/vocalist Kamil Ziółkowski (also Mountain of Misery), with guitarist/vocalist Bartosz Janik and bassist/vocalist Jan Rutka dug into familiar tonal textures throughout five tracks and a quick but inevitably full-length-flowing 32 minutes, Out of Water is both otherworldly and emotionally evocative in the rollout of “Arise the Sun” following the intertwined shouts of opener “Tears of Antimatter,” and in keeping with their progression, they nudge toward metallic aggression as a way to solidify their heavy psychedelic aspects. “Out of Water” is duly mournful to encapsulate such a tragic notion, and the nod of “Delusions” only grows more forcefully applied after the return from that song’s atmospheric break, and while they depart with “In Serenity” to what feels like the escapism of sunnier riffing, even that becomes more urgent toward the album’s finish. The reason it works is they’re bending genre to their songs, not the other way around, and as Spaceslug mature as a group, they’ve become one of Poland’s most essential heavy acts.
First issued on CD through JM Records in 2023, Lie Heavy‘s debut album, Burn to the Moon, sees broader release through Heavy Psych Sounds with revamped art to complement the Raleigh, North Carolina, four-piece’s tonal heft and classic reach in pieces like “In the Shadow” and “The Long March,” respectively. The band is fronted by Karl Agell (vocalist for C.O.C.‘s 1991 Blind album and now also in The Skull-offshoot Legions of Doom), and across the 12-song/51-minute run, and whether it’s the crunch of the ripper “When the Universe Cries” or the Clutch-style heavy funk of “Chunkadelic” pushing further from the start-stops of “In the Shadow” or the layered crescendo of “Unbeliever” a short time later, he and bassist/vocalist TR Gwynne, guitarist/vocalist Graham Fry and drummer/vocalist Jeff “JD” Dennis deliver sans-pretense riff-led fare. They’re not trying to fix what wasn’t broken in the ’90s, to be sure, but you can’t really call it a retread either as they swing through “Drag the World” and its capstone counterpart “End the World”; it all goes back to Black Sabbath anyway. The converted will get it no problem.
Dublin, Ireland, trio Burning Realm mark their first release with the four-song Face the Fire EP, taking the cosmic-tinged restlessness of Wild Rocket and setting it alongside more grounded riffing, hinting at thrash in the ping ride on “From Beyond” but careening in the modern mode either way. Lead cut “Homosapien” gives Hawkwindian vibes early — the trap, which is sounding like Slift, is largely avoided, though King Gizzard may still be relevant as an influence — but smoothly gives over to acoustics and vocal drone once its urgency has bene vaporized, and spacious as the vocal echo is, “Face the Fire” is classic stoner roll even into its speedier ending, the momentum of which is continued in closer “Warped One (Arise),” which is more charged on the whole in a way that feels linear and intended in relation to what’s put before it. A 16-minute self-released introduction to who Burning Realm are now, it holds promise for how they might develop stylistically and grow in terms of range. Whatever comes or doesn’t, it’s easy enough to dig as it is. If you were at a show and someone handed you the tape, you’d be stoked once you put it on in the car. Also it’s like 1995 in that scenario, apparently.
Offered through an international consortium of record labels that includes Crême Brûlée Records in the band’s native France, Echodelick in the US, Clostridium in Germany and Weird Beard in the UK, French heavy psych thrusters Kalac‘s inaugural full-length, Odyssée — also stylized all-caps — doesn’t leave much to wonder why so many imprints might want some for the distro. With a focus on rhythmic movement in the we-gotta-get-to-space-like-five-minutes-ago modus of current-day heavy neo-space-rock, the mostly instrumental procession hypnotizes even as it peppers its expanses with verses here or there. That might be most effectively wrought in the payoff noiseblaster wash of “II,” which I’m just going to assume opens side B, but the boogie quotient is strong from “Arguenon” to “Beautiful Night,” and while might ring familiar to others operating in the aesthetic galaxial quadrant, the energy of Kalac‘s delivery and the not-haphazard-but-not-always-in-the-same-spot-either placement of the vocals are enough to distinguish them and make the six-tracker as exciting to hear as it sounds like it probably was to record.
The live-tracked fourth outing from Helsinki psych improvisationalists Alkuräjähdys, the lowercase-stylized ehdot. blends mechanical and electronic sounds with more organic psychedelic jamming, the synth and bassier punchthrough in the midsection of opening piece “.matriisi” indeed evocative of the dot-matrix printer to which its title is in reference, while “központ,” which follows, meanders into a broader swath of guitar-based noise atop a languidly graceful roll of drums. That let’s-try-it-slower ideology is manifest in the first half of the duly two-sided “a-b” as well, as the 12-minute finale begins by lurching through the denser distortion of a central riff en route to a skronk-jazz transition to a tighter midtempo groove that I’ll compare to Endless Boogie and very much intend that as a compliment. I don’t think they’re out to change the world so much as get in a room, hit it and see where the whole thing ends up, but those are noble creative aims in concept and practice, and between the two guitars, effects, synth and whathaveyou, there’s plenty of weird to go around.
Already a significant undertaking as a 95-minute 2LP running 11 tracks themed — as the title(s) would hint — around tarot cards, the mostly serene sprawl of Magick Brother & Mystic Sister‘s Tarot Pt. 1 is still just the first of two companion albums to be issued as the follow-up to the Barcelona outfit’s 2020 self-titled debut (discussed here). Offered through respected Greek purveyor Sound Effect Records, Tarot Pt. 1 gives breadth beyond just the runtime in the sitar-laced psych-funk of “The Hierophant” (swap sitar for organ, synth and flute on “The Chariot”) and the classic-prog pastoralia of closer “The Wheel of Fortune,” and as with the plague-era debut, at the heart of the material is a soothing acid folk, and while the keys in the first half of “The Emperor” grow insistent and there’s some foreboding in the early Mellotron and key lines of “The Lovers,” Tarot Pt. 1 resonates comfort and care in its arrangements as well as ambition in its scope. Maybe another hour and a half on the way? Sign me up.
The eight-year distance from their 2016 debut long-player, Little Cliffs, seems to have smoothed out some (not all, which isn’t a complaint) of the rough edges in Amigo‘s sound, as the seemingly reinvigorated San Diego four-piece of lead guitarist/vocalist Jeff Podeszwik (King Chiefs), guitarist Anthony Mattos, bassist Sufi Karalen and drummer Anthony Alley offer five song across an accessible, straightforward 17 minutes united beneath the fair-enough title of Good Time Island. Without losing the weight of their tones, a Weezery pop sensibility comes through in “Dope Den” while “Frog Face” is even more specifically indebted to The Cars. Neither “Telescope Boy” nor “Banana Phone” lacks punch, but Amigo hold some in reserve for “Me and Soof,” which rounds out the proceedings, and they put it to solid use for an approach that’s ’90s-informed without that necessarily meaning stoner, grunge or alt, and envision a commercially relevant, songwriting-based heavy rock and roll for an alternate universe that, by all accounts here, sounds like a decent place to be.
Culminating in the Sabbathian shuffle of “Eye for an Eye,” Wild Fever is the hook-drenched third full-length from Montreal fuzzbringers The Hazytones, and while they’ve still got the ‘tones’ part down pat, it’s easy to argue the eight included tracks are the least ‘hazy’ they’ve been to-date. Following on from the direction of 2018’s II: Monarchs of Oblivion (review here), the Esben Willems-mixed/Kent Stump-mastered 40-minute long-player isn’t shy about leaning into the grittier side of what they do as the opening title-track rolls out a chorus that reminds of C.O.C. circa In the Arms of God while retaining some of the melody between the vocals of Mick Martel (also guitar and keys) and Gabriel Prieur (also drums and bass), and with the correspondingly thick bass of Caleb Sanders for accompaniment and lead guitarist John Choffel‘s solo rising out of the murk on “Disease,” honing in on the brashness suits them well. Not where one might have expected them to end up six years later, but no less enjoyable for that, either.
God damn that’s harsh. Mostly anonymous industrialists — you get F and N for names and that’s it — All Are to Return are all the more punishing in the horrific recesses and engulfing blasts of static that populate III than they were in 2022’s II (review here), and the fact that the eight-songer is only 32 minutes long is about as close as they come to any concept of mercy for the psyche of their audience. Beyond that, “Moratorium,” “Colony Collapse,” the eats-you-dead “Archive of the Sky” and even the droning “Legacy” cast a willfully wretched extremity, and what might be a humanizing presence of vocals elsewhere is screams channeled through so much distortion as to be barely recognizable as coming from a human throat here. If the question being posed is, “how much can you take?,” the answer for most of those brave enough to even give III a shot will be, “markedly less than this.” A cry from the depths realizing a brutal vision.
Posted in Reviews on February 27th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
A word about the image above. ‘AI art’ has become a thing people argue about on the internet. Like everything. Fine. I made the above image with a prompt through whatever Microsoft is calling its bot this week and got what I wanted. I didn’t have to talk to anyone or pay anyone in anything more than the personal data you compromise every time you use the internet for anything, and it was done. I could never draw, but when I finished, I felt like I’d at least taken part in some way in making this thing. And telling a computer what to make and seeing what it gets right and wrong is fascinating. You might feel a bit like you’re painting with words, which as someone who could never draw but could construct a sentence, I can appreciate.
I’m a big supporter of human creativity, and yes, corporations who already hold creative professionals — writers, editors, graphic designers, etc. — in such outward contempt will be only too happy to replace them with robots. I was there when magazines died; I know how that goes. But instead of being reactionaries and calling for never-gonna-happen-anyway bans, isn’t it maybe worth acknowledging that there’s no going back in time, that AI art isn’t going anywhere, and that it might just have valid creative uses? I don’t feel like I need to defend myself for making or using the image above, but I did try to get a human artist first and it didn’t work out. In the hard reality of limited minutes, how much should I really chase when there’s an easier way to get what I want? And how much can people be expected to live up to that shifting moral obligation in the long term?
The future will laugh at us, inevitably, either way. And fair enough with the world we’re leaving them.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
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Lord Dying, Clandestine Transcendence
While bearing the tonal force of their roots in doom, Portland’s Lord Dying have nonetheless willfully become a crucial purveyor of forward-thinking death metal, driven by extremity but refusing to subdue its own impulses to fit with genre. At 12 songs and an hour’s runtime, Clandestine Transcendence neither is nor is supposed to be a minor undertaking, but with a melodic declaration in “Unto Becoming” that’ll elicit knowing nods from Virus fans and a mentality of creative reach that’s worthy of comparison to Enslaved, Lord Dying showcase mastery of the style the four-piece of guitarist/vocalist Erik Olson, guitarist Chris Evans, bassist/vocalist Alyssa Maucere and drummer Kevin Swartz explored with vigilance on 2019’s Mysterium Tremendum (review here), and an ability to depart from aggression without losing their intensity or impact on “Dancing on the Emptiness” or in the payoff of “Break in the Clouds (In the Darkness of Our Minds).” They may be headed toward too-weird-for-everybody megaprogmetal ultimately, but the challenges-to-stylistic-homogeny of their material are only part of what gives Clandestine Transcendence its crux, and in fostering the call-and-response onslaught of “Facing the Incomprehensible” alongside the epic reach of “A Bond Broken by Death,” they cast their own mold as unique within or without of the heavy underground sphere.
The late-2023 self-titled debut from Black Glow marks a new beginning for Monterrey, Mexico, guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Gina Rios, formerly of Spacegoat, and something of a creative redirect, taking on a sound that is less indebted to boogie and classic doom but that has clearly learned the lessons of its influences. Also credited with producing (Victor “KB” Velazquez recorded, mixed and mastered, which doesn’t invalidate the credit), Rios is a strong enough performer to carry the five-song EP/short-LP on her own, but thankfully bassist Oscar Saucedo and drummer Octavio Diliegros bring tonal fullness to the breadth of atmosphere in the rolling closer “Obscured Jail,” reaching past seven minutes with fluidity that adds to Black Glow‘s aspects of purpose and craft, which are significant despite being the band’s first outing. As a vehicle for Rios‘ songwriting, Black Glow sound immediately like they can evolve in ways Spacegoat likely couldn’t or wouldn’t have, and that prospect is all the more enticing with the accomplishments displayed here.
Between the leadoff of “Into the Chronosphere” and “The Glowing Sea,” “Return to Antares,” “Burning Mountain” and “Desert Haze,” UK instrumentalists Cracked Machine aren’t short on destinations for the journey that is their fourth full-length, Wormwood, but with more angular texturing on “Eigenstate” and the blend of tonal float — yes, even the bass — and terrestrial groove wrought in the closing title-track, the band manage to emphasize plot as well as a sense of freedom endemic to jam-born heavy psychedelia. That is to say, as second cut “Song of Artemis” gives brooding reply to the energetic “Into the Chronosphere,” which is loosely krautrocky in its dug-in feel and exploratory as part of that, they are not trying to pretend this material just happened. Layers of effects and a purposeful reach between its low and high ends in the solo of “The Glowing Sea” — with the drums holding the two together, as one would hope — and subsequent section of standalone guitar as the start of a linear build that spreads wide sonically rather than overpowering with volume speaks to a dynamic that’s about more than just loud or quiet, and the keyboard holding notes in the culmination of “Burning Mountain” is nothing if not purposeful in its shimmering resonance. They may be headed all over the place, but I think that’s just a sign Cracked Machine know how to get there.
Currently also of Kamchatka and Spiritual Beggars and maybe Switchblade, the career arc of Per Wiberg (also ex-Opeth, live work and/or studio contributions for Candlemass, Grand Magus, Arch Enemy, mostly on keys or organ) varies widely in style within a heavy sphere, and it should be no surprise that his solo work is likewise multifaceted. Following on from 2021’s EP, All Is Well In the Land of the Living But for the Rest of Us… Lights Out (review here), the six-song and 41-minute (seven/47 with the bonus track Warrior Soul cover “The Losers”) finds cohesion in a thread of progressive styles that allows Wiberg to explore what might be a Gary Numan influence in the verses of “The Serpent’s Here” itself while emerging with a heavy, catchy and melodic chorus marked by a driving riff. The eight-minute “Blackguards Stand Silent” works in movements across a structural departure as the rhythm section of Mikael Tuominen (Kungens Män) and drummer Tor Sjödén (Viagra Boys) get a subtle workout, and “He Just Disappeared” pushes into the cinematic on a patient line of drone, a contemplative departure after the melancholic piano of “This House is Someone Else’s Now” that allows “Follow the Unknown” to cap the album-proper with a return to the full-band feel and a pointed grace of keys and synth, clearly working to its creator’s own high standard.
Bremen, Germany’s Swell O released their apparently-recorded-in-a-day debut album, Morning Haze, in Feb. 2023 and followed with a vinyl release this past Fall on Clostridium Records, and if there’s anything clouding their vision as regards songwriting, it didn’t make it onto the record. Proffering solid, engaging, festival-ready desert-style heavy rock, “Hitchhiker” sweeps down the open highway of its own riff while “Black Cat” tips hat to Fu Manchu, the title-track veers into pop-punkish uptempoism in a way “Shine Through” contrasts with less shove and more ambience. The seven-minute “Summit” extrapolates a lean toward the psychedelic from Kyussian foundations, but the crux on Morning Haze is straightforward and aware of where it wants its songs to be aesthetically. It’s not a revolution in that regard, but it’s not supposed to be, and for all its in-genre loyalism, Morning Haze demonstrates an emergent persona in the modernized ’90s fuzz-crunch semi-blowout of “Venom” at the end, which wraps a salvo that started with “Hitchhiker” and lets Swell O make the most of their over-quickly 31-minute first LP.
Accounting for everything from goth to post-hardcore to the churn of Godflesh in an encompassing interpretation of post-punk, London outfit Cower could fill this space with pedigree alone and manage to nonetheless make a distinct impression across the nine songs of Celestial Devastation. Organic and sad on “We Need to Have the Talk,” inorganic and sad on “Hard-Coded in the Souls of Men,” electronic anti-chic before the guitar surge in “Buffeted by Solar Winds,” and bringing fresh perspective to Kataonia-style depressive metal in “Aging Stallions,” it’s a album that willfully shirks genre — a few of them, actually — in service to its songs, as between the software-driven title-track and the downer-New-Wave-as-doom centerpiece “Deathless and Free,” Cower embark on an apparent critique of tech as integrated into current life (though I can’t find a lyric sheet) and approach from seemingly divergent angles without losing track of the larger picture of the LP’s atmosphere. Celestial Devastation is the second album from the trio, comprised of Tom Lacey, Wayne Adams (who also produced, as he will) and Gareth Thomas. Expect them to continue to define and refine this style as they move forward, and expect it to become even more their own than it is here. A band like this, if they last, almost can’t help but grow.
Boston’s HORSEN3CK, who’ve gone all-caps and traded their second ‘e’ for a ‘3’ since unveiling the included-here “Something’s Broken” as a debut standalone single this January, make a rousing four-song statement of intent even as the lineup shifts from piece to piece around the core duo of Tim Catz and Jeremy Hemond, best known together for their work as the rhythm section of Roadsaw. With their maybe-not-right-now bandmate Ian Ross adding guitar to “Something’s Broken” and a different lead vocalist on each song, Heavy Spells has inherent variety even before “Haunted Heart” exalts its darker mood with pulls reminiscent of Alice in Chains‘ “Frogs.” With Catz taking a turn on vocals, “Golden Ghost” is punk under its surface class, and though “Haunted Heart” grows in its crescendo, its greater impact is in the vibe, which is richer for the shift in approach. “Thirst” rounds out with a particular brashness, but nowhere HORSEN3CK go feels even vaguely out of their reach. Alright guys. Concept proved, now go do a full-length. When they do, I’ll be intrigued to see if the lineup solidifies.
New Jersey doom rockers Troll Teeth‘s stated goal with Sluagh Vol. 1 was to find a sound the character of which would be defined in part by its rawer, retro-styled recording. The resultant four-song outing, which was their second EP of 2023 behind Underground Vol. 1, doesn’t actually veer into vintage-style ’70s worship, but lives up to the premise just the same in its abiding rawness. “3 Shots for a 6 Shooter” brings a Queens of the Stone Age-style vocal melody over an instrumental that’s meaner than anything that band ever put to tape, while nine-minute opener “1,000 Ton Brick” feels very clearly titled in honor of its own roll. It might be the heaviest stretch on the EP but for the rumbling low distortion spliced in among the psychedelic unfolding of 16-minute closer “Purgatory,” which submerges the listener in its course after “Here Lies” seems to build and build and build through the entirety of its still-hooky execution. With its title referencing the original name of the band and a focus on older material, the rougher presentation suits the songs, though it’s not like there’s a pristine “1,000 Ton Brick” out there to compare it to. Whether there will be at Sluagh Vol. 2 at any point, I don’t know, but even the intentionality of realizing his material in the recording process argues in favor of future revisits.
Celebrating their own dark side in the opener “Wicked Voice,” German heavy rockers Black Ocean’s Edge keep the proceedings relatively friendly on Call of the Sirens, their debut long-player behind 2022’s Dive Deep EP, at least as regards accessibility and the catchiness of their craft. Vibrant and consistent in tone, the Ulm four-piece find room for the classic rock of “Leather ‘n’ Velvet” and the that-might-be-actual-flute-laced prog-psych payoff of “Lion in a Cage” between the second two of the three parts that comprise the title-track, which departs from the heavy blues rock of “Drift” or “Cold Black Water,” which is the centerpiece and longest inclusion at 7:43 and sets its classic-heavy influences to work with a forward-looking perspective. At 42 minutes and nine tracks, Call of the Sirens feels professional in how it reaches out to its audience, and it leaves little to doubt from Black Ocean’s Edge as regards songwriting, production or style. They may refine and sharpen their approach over time, and with these songs as where they’re coming from, they’ll be in that much better position to hit the ears of the converted.
Note: this album is out in April and I couldn’t find cover art. Band photo above is by Matija Kasalo.
If an album could ask you, musically, why you’re in such a hurry — and not like hurrying to work, really in a hurry, like in how you live — the mellow psych and acid folk proffered by Adelaide, Australia’s SONS OF ZÖKU on their second full-length, ËNDLËSS, might just be doing that. Don’t take that to mean the album is still or staid though, because they’re not through “Moonlight” after the intro before the bass gets funky behind all that serene melody, and when you’re worshiping the sun that’s all the more reason to dance by the moon. Harmonies resonate in “Earth Chant” (and all around) atop initially quiet guitar noodling, and the adventures in arrangement continue in the various chimes and percussion instruments, the touch of Easternism in “Kuhnoo” and the keyboard-fueled melodic payoff to the pastoralism of “Hunters.” With flute and a rhythmic delivery to its group vocal, “O Saber” borders on the tribal, while “Yumi” digs on cosmic prog insistence in a way that calls to mind the underappreciated Death Hawks and finds its way in a concluding instrumental stretch that doesn’t lose its spontaneous feel despite being more cogent than improv generally comes across. “Lonesome Tale” is a melancholy-vibe-reprise centered around acoustic guitar and “Nu Poeme” gives a sense of grandeur that is unto itself without going much past four minutes in the doing. Such triumphs are rare more broadly but become almost commonplace as SONS OF ZÖKU set their own context with a sound harnessing the inspiration of decades directing itself toward an optimistic future.
Posted in Reviews on February 26th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Admittedly, there’s some ambition in my mind calling this the ‘Spring 2024 Quarterly Review.’ I’m done with winter and March starts on Friday, so yeah, it’s kind of a reach as regards the traditional seasonal patterns of Northern New Jersey where I live, but hell, these things actually get decided here by pissing off a rodent. Maybe it doesn’t need to be so rigidly defined after all.
After doing QRs for I guess about nine years now, I finally made myself a template for the back-end layout. It’s not a huge leap, but will mean about five more minutes I can dedicate to listening, and when you’re trying to touch on 50 records in the span of a work week and attempt some semblance of representing what they’re about, five minutes can help. Still, it’s a new thing, and if you see ‘ARTIST’ listed where a band’s name should be or LINK where ‘So and So on Facebook’ goes, a friendly comment letting me know would be helpful.
Thanks in advance and I hope you find something in all of this to come that speaks to you. I’ll try to come up for air at some point.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
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Slift, Ilion
One of the few non-billionaire groups of people who might be able to say they had a good year in 2020, Toulouse, France, spaceblasters Slift signed to Sub Pop on the strength of that wretched year’s Ummon (review here) and the spectacle-laced live shows with which they present their material. Their ideology is cosmic, their delivery markedly epic, and Ilion pushes the blinding light and the rhythmic force directly at you, creating a sweeping momentum contrasted by ambient stretches like that tucked at the end of 12-minute hypnotic planetmaker “The Words That Have Never Been Heard,” the drone finale “Enter the Loop” or any number of spots between along the record’s repetition-churning, willfully-overblown 79-minute course of builds and surging payoffs. A cynic might tell you it’s not anything Hawkwind didn’t do in 1974 offered with modern effects and beefier tones, but, uh, is that really something to complain about? The hype around Ilion hasn’t been as fervent as was for Ummon — it’s a different moment — but Slift have set themselves on a progressive course and in the years to come, this may indeed become their most influential work. For that alone it’s among 2024’s most essential heavy albums, never mind the actual journey of listening. Bands like this don’t happen every day.
The only thing keeping Grin from being punk rock is the fact that they don’t play punk. Otherwise, the self-recording, self-releasing (on The Lasting Dose Records) Berlin metal-sludge slingers tick no shortage of boxes as regards ethic, commitment to an uncompromised vision of their sound, and on Hush, their fourth long-player which features tracks from 2023’s Black Nothingness (review here), they sharpen their attack to a point that reminds of dug-in Swedish death metal on “Pyramid” with a winding lead line threaded across, find post-metallic ambience in “Neon Skies,” steamroll with the groove of the penultimate “The Tempest of Time,” and manage to make even the crushing “Midnight Blue Sorrow” — which arrives after the powerful opening statement of “Hush” “Calice” and “Gatekeeper” — have a sense of creative reach. With Sabine Oberg on bass and Jan Oberg handling drums, guitar, vocals, noise and production, they’ve become flexible enough in their craft to harness raw charge or atmospheric sprawl at will, and through 16 songs and 40 minutes (“Portal” is the longest track at 3:45), their intensity is multifaceted, multi-angular, and downright ripping. Aggression suits this project, but that’s never all that’s happening in Grin, and they’re stronger for that.
A debut solo-band outing from guitarist, bassist, vocalist and songwriter Dave Cotton, also of Seven Nines and Tens, Pontiac‘s Hard Knox lands on strictly limited tape through Coup Sur Coup Records and is only 16 minutes long, but that’s time enough for its six songs to find connections in harmony to Beach Boys and The Beatles while sometimes dropping to a singular, semi-spoken verse in opener/longest track (immediate points, even though four minutes isn’t that long) “Glory Ragged,” which moves in one direction, stops, reorients, and shifts between genres with pastoralism and purpose. Cotton handles six-string and 12-string, but isn’t alone in Pontiac, as his Seven Nines and Tens bandmate Drew Thomas Christie handles drums, Adam Vee adds guitar, drums, a Coke bottle and a Brita filter, and CJ Wallis contributes piano to the drifty textures of “Road High” before “Exotic Tattoos of the Millennias” answers the pre-christofascism country influence shown on “Counterculture Millionaire” with an oldies swing ramble-rolling to a catchy finish. For fun I’ll dare a wild guess that Cotton‘s dad played that stuff when he was a kid, as it feels learned through osmosis, but I have no confirmation of that. It is its own kind of interpretation of progressive music, and as the beginning of a new exploration, Cotton opens doors to a swath of styles that cross genres in ways few are able to do and remain so coherent. Quick listen, and it dares you to keep up with its changes and patterns, but among its principal accomplishments is to make itself organic in scope, with Cotton cast as the weirdo mastermind in the center. They’ll reportedly play live, so heads up.
Already fluid as they open with the rocker “Into the Space,” exclamatory Chilean five-piece The Polvos! delve into more psychedelic reaches in “Fire Dance” and the jammy and (appropriately) floaty midsection of “Going Down,” the centerpiece of their 35-minute sophomore LP, Floating. That song bursts to life a short time later and isn’t quite as immediate as the charge of “Into the Space,” but serves as a landmark just the same as “Acid Waterfall” and “The Anubis Death” hold their tension in the drums and let the guitars go adventuring as they will. There’s maybe some aspect of Earthless influence happening, but The Polvos! meld that make-it-bigger mentality with traditional verse/chorus structures and are more grounded for it even as the spaces created in the songs give listeners an opportunity for immersion. It may not be a revolution in terms of style, but there is a conversation happening here with modern heavy psych from Europe as well that adds intrigue, and the band never go so far into their own ether so as to actually disappear. Even after the shreddy finish of “The Anubis Death,” it kind of feels like they might come back out for an encore, and you know, that’d be just fine.
The Cosmic Gospel, Cosmic Songs for Reptiles in Love
With a current of buzz-fuzz drawn across its eight component tracks that allow seemingly disparate moves like the Blondie disco keys in “Hot Car Song” to emerge from the acoustic “Core Memory Unlocked” before giving over to the weirdo Casio-beat bounce of “Psychrolutes Marcidus Man,” a kind of ’60s character reimagined as heavy bedroom indie, The Cosmic Gospel‘s Cosmic Songs for Reptiles in Love isn’t without its resentments, but the almost-entirely-solo-project of Mercata, Italy-based multi-instrumentalist Gabriel Medina is more defined by its sweetness of melody and gentle delivery on the whole. An experiment like the penultimate “Wrath and Gods” carries some “Revolution 9” feel, but Medina does well earlier to set a broad context amid the hook of opener “It’s Forever Midnight” and the subsequent, lightly dub beat and keyboard focus on “The Richest Guy on the Planet is My Best Friend,” such that when closer “I Sew Your Eyes So You Don’t See How I Eat Your Heart” pairs the malevolent intent of its title with light fuzzy soloing atop an easy flowing, summery flow, the album has come to make its own kind of sense and define its path. This is exactly what one would most hope for it, and as reptiles are cold-blooded, they should be used to shifts in temperature like those presented throughout. Most humans won’t get it, but you’ve never been ‘most humans,’ have you?
Massachusetts garage doomers Grave Speaker‘s self-titled debut was issued digitally by the band this past Fall and was snagged by Electric Valley Records for a vinyl release. The Mellotron melancholia that pervades the midsection of the eponymous “Grave Speaker” justifies the wax, but the cult-leaning-in-sound-if-not-theme outfit that marks a new beginning for ex-High n’ Heavy guitarist John Steele unfurl a righteously dirty fuzz over the march of “Blood of Old” at the outset and then immediately up themselves in the riffy stoner delve of “Earth and Mud.” The blown-out vocals on the latter, as well as the far-off-mic rawness of “The Bard’s Theme” that surrounds its Hendrixian solo, remind of a time when Ice Dragon roamed New England’s troubled woods, and if Grave Speaker will look to take on a similar trajectory of scope, they do more than drop hints of psychedelia here, in “Grave Speaker” and elsewhere, but they’re no more beholden to that than the Sabbathism of capper “Make Me Crawl” or the cavernous echo of “Earthbound.” It’s an initial collection, so one expects they’ll range some either way with time, but the way the production becomes part of the character of the songs speaks to a strong idea of aesthetic coming through, and the songwriting holds up to that.
While at the same time proffering his most expansive vision yet of a progressive psychedelia weighted in tone, emotionally expressive and able to move its focus fluidly between its layers of keyboard, synth and guitar such that the mix feels all the more dynamic and the material all the more alive (there’s an entire sub-plot here about the growth in self-production; a discussion for another time), Surya Kris Peters‘ 10-song/46-minute There’s Light in the Distance also brings the former Samsara Blues Experiment guitarist/vocalist closer to uniting his current projects than he’s yet been, the distant light here blurring the line where Surya Kris Peters ends and the emergently-rocking Fuzz Sagrado begins. This process has been going on for the last few years following the end of his former outfit and a relocation from Germany to Brazil, but in its spacious second half as well as the push of its first, a song like “Mode Azul” feels like there’s nothing stopping it from being played on stage beyond personnel. Coinciding with that are arrangement details like the piano at the start of “Life is Just a Dream” or the synth that gives so much movement under the echoing lead in “Let’s Wait Out the Storm,” as Peters seems to find new avenues even as he works his way home to his own vision of what heavy rock can be.
Unilateralis is the four-song follow-up EP to Polish heavydelvers Gozd‘s late-2023 debut album, This is Not the End, and its 20-plus minutes find a place for themselves in a doom that feels both traditional and forward thinking across eight-minute opener and longest track (immediate points, even for an EP) “Somewhere in Between” before the charge of “Rotten Humanity” answers with brasher thrust and aggressive-undercurrent stoner rock with an airy post-metallic break in the middle and rolling ending. From there, “Thanatophobia” picks up the energy from its ambient intro and explodes into its for-the-converted nod, setting up a linear build after its initial verses and seeing it through with due diligence in noise, and closer “Tentative Minds” purposefully hypnotizes with its vague-speech in the intro and casual bassline and drum swing before the riff kicks in for the finale. The largesse of its loudest moments bolster the overarching atmosphere no less than the softest standalone guitar parts, and Gozd seem wholly comfortable in the spaces between microgenres. A niche among niches, but that’s also how individuality happens, and it’s happening here.
You wouldn’t accuse Austria’s Sativa Root of thematic subtlety on their third album, Kings of the Weed Age, which broadcasts a stoner worship in offerings like “Megalobong” and “Weedotaur” and probably whatever “F.A.T.” stands for, but that’s not what they’re going for anyway. With its titular intro starting off, spoken voices vague in the ambience, “Weedotaur”‘s 11 minutes lumber with all due bong-metallian slog, and the crush becomes central to the proceedings if not necessarily unipolar in terms of the band’s approach. That is to say, amid the onslaught of volume and tonal density in “Green Smegma” and the spin-your-head soloing in “Assassins Weed” (think Assassins Creed), the instrumentalist course undertaken may be willfully monolithic, but they’re not playing the same song five times on six tracks and calling it new. “F.A.T.” begins on a quiet stretch of guitar that recalls some of YOB‘s epics, complementing both the intro and “Weedotaur,” before bringing its full weight down on the listener again as if to underscore the message of its stoned instrumental catharsis on its way out the door. They sound like they could do this all day. It can be overwhelming at times, but that’s not really a complaint.
Comprised of guitarist/vocalist Mateusz, bassist Michał and drummer Tomek, Polish riffcrafters Volt Ritual are appealingly light on pretense as they offer Return to Jupiter‘s four tracks, and though as a Star Trek fan I can’t get behind their lyrical impugning of Starfleet as they imagine what Earth colonialism would look like to a somehow-populated Jupiter, they’re not short on reasons to be cynical, if in fact that’s what’s happening in the song. “Ghostpolis” follows the sample-laced instrumental opener “Heavy Metal is Good for You” and rolls loose but accessible even in its later shouts before the more uptempo “Gwiazdolot” swaps English lyrics for Polish (casting off another cultural colonialization, arguably) and providing a break ahead of the closing title-track, which is longer at 7:37 and a clear focal point for more than just bearing the name of the EP, summarizing as it does the course of the cuts before it and even bringing a last scream as if to say “Ghostpolis” wasn’t a fluke. Their 2022 debut album began with “Approaching Jupiter,” and this Return feels organically built off that while trying some new ideas in its effects and general structure. One hopes the plot continues in some way next time along this course.
Posted in Reviews on October 5th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Welcome to Thursday of the Fall 202 Quarterly Review. It’s been a good run so far. three days and 30 records, about to be four and 40. I’ve got enough on my desktop and there’s enough stuff coming out this month that I could probably do a second Fall QR in November, and maybe stave off needing to do a double-one in December as I had been planning in the back of my head. Whatever, I’ll figure it out.
I hope you’ve been able to find something you dig. I definitely have, but that’s how it generally goes. These things are always a lot of work, and somehow I seem to plan them on the busiest weeks — today we’re volunteering at the grade school book fair; I think I’ll dig out my old Slayer God Hates Us All shirt from 20 years ago and see if it still fits. Sadly, I think we all know how that experiment will work out.
Anyway, busy times, good music, blah blah, let’s roll.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
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Darsombra, Dumesday Book
Forever touring and avant garde to their very marrow, ostensibly-Baltimorean duo Darsombra — Ann Everton on keys, vocals, live visuals, and who the hell knows what else, Brian Daniloski on guitar, a living-room pedal board, and engineering at the band’s home studio — unveil Dumesday Book as a 75-minute collection not only of works like “Call the Doctor” (posted here) or “Call the Doctor” (posted here), which appear as remixes, but their first proper album of this troubled decade after 2019’s Transmission (review here) saw them reach so far out into the cosmic thread to harness their bizarre stretches of bleeps and boops, manipulated vocals, drones, noise and suitably distraught collage in “Everything is Canceled” — which they answer later with “Still Canceled,” because charm — but the reassurance here is in the continuation of Daniloski and Everton‘s audio adventures, and their commitment to what should probably at this point in space-time be classified as free jazz remains unflinching. Squares need not apply, and if you’re into stuff like structure, there’s some of that, but all Darsombra ever need to get gone is a direction in which to head — literally or figuratively — so why not pick them all?
Cavernous in its echo and with a grit of tone that is the aural equivalent of the feeling of pull in your hand when you make a doom claw, The Banishing is the second full-length from Italian doom rockers Bottomless. Working as the trio of vocalist/guitarist Giorgio Trombino (ex-Elevators to the Grateful Sky, etc.), drummer David Lucido (Assumption, among a slew of others) and bassist Sara Bianchin — the latter also of Messa and recently replaced in Bottomless by Laura Nardelli (Ponte del Diavolo, etc.) — the band follow their 2021 self-titled debut (review here) with an eight-track collection that comes across as its own vision of garage doom. It’s not about progressive flourish or elaborate production, but about digging into the raw creeper groove of “Guardians of Silence” or the righteous post-Pentagram chug-and-nod of “Let Them Burn.” It is not solely intended as worship for what’s come before. Doom-of-eld, the NWOBHM, ’70s proto splurges all abound, but in the vocal and guitar melody of “By the Sword of the Archangel” and the dramatic rolling finish of “Dark Waters” after the acoustic-led interlude “Drawn Into Yesterday,” in the gruel of “Illusion Sun,” they channel these elements through themselves and come out with an album that, for as dark and grim as it would likely sound to more than 99 percent of the general human population, is pure heart.
The Death Wheelers, Chaos and the Art of Motorcycle Madness
Look. I don’t know The Death Wheelers personally at all. We don’t hang out on weekends. But the sample-laced (“We wanna be free to ride our machines without being hassled by the Man — and we wanna get loaded!” etc.), motorcycle-themed Québecois instrumental outfit sound on their second LP, the 12-track/40-minute riff-pusher Chaos and the Art of Motorcycle Madness, like they’re onto something. And again, I don’t know these cats at all. I don’t know what they do for work, what their lives are like, any of it. But if The Death Wheelers want to get out and give this record the support it deserves, the place they need to be is Europe. Yeah, I know there was The Picturebooks, but they were clean-chrome and The Death Wheelers just cracked a smile and showed you the fly that got splattered on their front tooth while they were riding — sonically speaking. The dust boogie of “Lucifer’s Bend,” the duly stoned “Interquaalude” ahead of the capper duo of “Sissy Bar Strut (Nymphony 69)” and “Cycling for Satan Part II” and the blowout roll in “Ride into the Röt (Everything Lewder Than Everything Else)” — this is a band who should bypass America completely for touring and focus entirely on Europe. Because the US will come around, to be sure, but not for another three or four month-long Euro stints get the point across. I don’t know that that’ll happen or it won’t, but they sound ready.
The career arc of guitarist Phil Caivano — and of course he does other stuff as well, including vocals on his self-titled solo-project’s debut, Caivano, but some people seem to have been born to hold a guitar in their hands and he’s one of those; see also Bob Balch — is both longer and broader than his quarter-century as guitarist and songwriting contributor to Monster Magnet, but the NJ heavy rock stalwarts will nonetheless be the closest comparison point to these 10 tracks and 33 minutes, a kind of signature sleazy roll in “Talk to the Dead,” the time-to-get-off-your-ass push of “Come and Get Me” at the start or the punkier “Verge of Yesterday” — touch of Motörhead there seeming well earned — a cosmic ripper on a space backbeat in “Fun & Games,” but all of this is within a tonal and production context that’s consistent across the span, malleable in style, unshakable in structure. Closer “Face the Music” is the longest cut at 5:04 and is a drumless spacey experiment with vocals and a guitar figure wrapped around a central drone, and that adds yet more character to the proceedings. I’d wonder how long some of these songs or parts have been around or if Caivano is going to put a group together — could be interesting — and make a go of it apart from his ‘main band,’ but he’s long since established himself as an exceptional player, and listening to some of this material highlights contributions of style and substance to shaping Monster Magnet as well. Phil Caivano: songwriter.
Together for nearly a decade, richly informed by the progressive and space rock(s) of the 1970s, prone to headspinning feats of lead guitar like that in the back end of second cut “Dysania,” Entropía offer their second full-length in Eclipses, a five-track/40-minute excursion of organ-inclusive cosmic prog that reminds of Hypnos 69 in the warm serenity at the start of “Tarbes,” threatens the epic on seven-minute opener “Thesan” and delivers readily throughout; a work of scope that runs deep in the pairing of “Tarbes” and “Caleidoscopia” — both of which top nine minutes long — but it’s there that Entropía reveal the full spectrum of light they’re working with, whether it’s that tonal largesse that rears up in the latter or the jazzy kosmiche shove in the payoff of the former. And the drums come forward to start closer “Polaris,” which follows, as Entropía nestle into one more groovy submersion, finding heavy shuffle in the drums — hell yeah — and holding that tension until it’s time for the multi-tiered finish and only-necessary peaceful comedown. It’s inevitable that some records in a Quarterly Review get written about and I never listen to them again. I’ll be back to this one.
God damn, Ghorot, leave some nasty for the rest of the class. The Boise, Idaho, three-piece — vocalist/bassist Carson Russell (also Ealdor Bealu), guitarist/vocalist Chad Remains (ex-Uzala) and drummer/vocalist Brandon Walker — launch their second LP, Wound, with the gloriously screamed, righteously-coated-in-filth, choking-on-mud extreme sludge they appropriately titled “Dredge.” And fuck if it doesn’t get meaner from there as Ghorot — working with esteemed producer Andy Patterson (The Otolith, etc.) and releasing through Lay Bare Recordings and King of the Monsters Records — take the measure of your days and issue summary judgment in the negative through the mellow-harshing bite of “In Asentia,” the least brutal part of which kind of sounds like High on Fire and the death/black metal in centerpiece “Corsican Leather.” All of which is only on side A. On side B, “Canyon Lands” imagines a heavy Western meditation — shades of Ealdor Bealu in the guitar — that retains its old-wizard vocal gurgle, and capper “Neanderskull” finally pushes the entire affair off of whatever high desert cliffside from which it’s been proclaiming all this uberdeath and into a waiting abyss of willfully knuckledragging blower deconstruction. The really scary shit is these guys’ll probably do another record after this one. Yikes.
With the self-release of Outward, heavy progressive psych instrumentalists Moozoonsii complete a duology of pandemic-constructed outings that began with last year’s (of course) Inward, and to do so, the trio based in Nantes, France, continue to foster a methodology somewhere between metal and rock, finding ground in precision riffing in the 10-minute “Nova” or in the bumps and crashes after eight minutes into the 13-minute “Far Waste,” but they’re just as prone to jazzy skronk-outs like in the midsection solo of “Lugubris,” and the entire release is informed by the unfolding psychedelic meditationscape of “Stryge” at the start, so by no, no, no means at all are they doing one thing for the duration. “Toxic Lunar Vibration,” which splits the two noted extended tracks, brings the sides together as if to emphasize this point, not so much fitting those pointed angles together as delighting in the ways in which they do and don’t fit at certain times as part of their creative expression. Pairing that impulse with the kind of heavy-as-your-face-if-your-face-had-a-big-boulder-on-it fuzz in “Tauredunum” is a hell of a place to wind up. The unpredictable character of the material that surrounds only makes that ending sweeter and more satisfying.
An initial two tracks from UK trio Death Wvrm, both instrumental, surfaced earlier this year, one in Spring around the time of their appearance at Desertfest London — quiet a coup for a seemingly nascent band; but listening to them I get it — and after. “Enter” was first, “The Endless” second, and the two of them tell a story unto themselves; narrative seeming to be part of the group’s mission from this point of outset, as each single comes with a few sentences of accompanying scene-setting. Certainly not going to complain about the story, and the band have some other surprises in store in these initial cuts, be it the bright, mid-period Beatles-y tone in the guitar for “The Endless” (it’s actually only about four and a half minutes) or the driving fuzz that takes hold after the snap of snare at 2:59, or the complementary layer of guitar in “Enter” that speaks to broader ambitions sound-wise almost immediately on the part of the band. “Enter” and “The Endless” both start quiet and get louder — the scorch in “Enter” isn’t to be discounted — but they do so in differing ways, and so while one listens to the first two cuts a band is putting out and expects growth in complexity and method, that’s actually just fine, because it’s exactly also what one is left wanting after the two songs are done: more. I’m not saying show up at their house or anything, but maybe give a follow on Bandcamp and keep an eye.
Safe to assume some level of self-awareness on the part of Brazilian trio Mudness who, after unveiling their first single “R.I.P.” in 2020 make their self-titled full-length debut with seven songs of hard-burned wizard riffing, the plod of “Gone” (also an advance single, if not by three years) and guitarist Renan Casarin‘s Obornian moans underscoring the disaffected stoner idolatry. Joined by Fernando Dal Bó, whose bass work is crucial to the success of the entire release — can’t roll it if it ain’t heavy — and drummer Pedro Silvano, who adds malevolent swing to the slow march forward of “This End Body,” the centerpiece of the seven-song/35-minute long player. There’s an interlude, “Lamuria,” that could probably have shown up earlier, but one should keep in mind that the sense of onslaught between the likes of “Evil Roots” and “Yellow Imp” is part of the point, and likewise that they’re saving an extra layer of aural grime for “Final Breeze,” where they answer the more individual take of “This End Body” with a reach into melodicism and mark their appeal both in what they might bring to their sound moving forward and the planet-sucked-anyhow despondent crush of this collection. Putting it on the list for the best debuts of 2023. It’s not innovative, or trying to be, but that doesn’t stop it from accomplishing its aims in slow, mostly miserable stride.
I’m not generally one to tell you how to spend your money, but if you take a look over at The Space Huns‘ Bandcamp page (linked below), you’ll see that the Hungarian psych jammers’ entire digital discography is €3.50. Again, not trying to tell you how to live your life, but Legends of the Ancient Tribes, the Szeged-based trio’s new hour-long album, has a song on it called “Goats on a Discount Private Space Shuttle Voyage,” and from where I sit that entitles the three-piece of guitarist Csaba Szőke, bassist Tamás Tikvicki and drummer Mátyás Mozsár to that cash and perhaps more. I could just as easily note “Sgt. Taurus on Coke” at the start of the outing or “The Melancholic Stag Beetle Who Got Inspired by Corporate Motivational Coaches” — or the essential fact that in addition to the best song titles I’ve seen all year (again, and perhaps more), the jams are ace. Chemistry to spare, patience when it’s called for but malleable enough to boogie or nod and sound no less natural doing either, while keeping an exploratory if not improvisational — and it might be that too — character to the material. It’s not a minor undertaking at 59 minutes, but between the added charm of the track names and the grin-inducing nod of “Cosmic Cities of the Giant Snail Kingdom,” they make it easy.
Madrid-based four-piece Loma Baja encompass a complex psychedelia throughout their debut album, Piscinas Verticales, which is set to release this week through the significant label consortium of Spinda Records, Lay Bare Recordings, Clostridium Records and Echodelick Records. To wit, amid the hypnotic post-psych rollout of opening track “V70,” guitars all bendy around the central march, vocals present and melodic but still obscure, some element of Pixies in there somewhere, an ambulance drives by periodically. It happens four or five times as the malleable mix demonstrates early the sort of experimental tinge to the band’s songcraft.
But as with much of what follows, the interplay of that drone (synth? sample?) and the guitar solo isn’t just about the group — guitarist/synthesist/vocalist/sampler Jorge García (Adrift, Gentemayor and formerly El Páramo), guitarist Victor Teixeira, bassist/keyboardist/vocalist Pacomoto (G.A.S. Drummers) and drummer Raúl Lorenzo (who also works with Toundra) — being able to make a sound, but also what they do with that in terms of songwriting. Shades of shoegaze-era Sonic Youth are cast under the sample and before the emergent cymbal wash of “La Emboscada,” the bass thick underneath the various noises and guitar lines going in and out as the low end and drums guide the procession into a melodic bridge and back through where it came from, that original sample continuing, like a news reading or an airport announcement, vague for being in another language that maybe you know and maybe you don’t.
One in each channel, García and Teixeira seem to be having a conversation on guitar early in “Canción de Manuel” that reminds a bit of the most out-there Fatso Jetson ever gets, but is tinted atmospherically darker and is more progressive in its presentation, but it’s Lorenzo moving to toms that signals the shift into classic prog stateliness, like something out of a sci-fi soundtrack transposed onto a space rock arrangement, severe with the synth lines and thud after that transition, working into and through a build as the keyboard melody holds, vocals or a sample echoing over the final moments as you realize the payoff isn’t coming and the song stops, letting the longer “Crónica Negra” (7:08) take its time waking up with feedback as the end of side A, mirrored later by the 10-minute “Hierros Viejos” in a show of structure that’s further evidence for a masterplan at work behind the material as opposed to it being a hodgepodge of ideas rather than songs.
It is not that. The brooding unfurl of “Crónica Negra” is mellower and feels like it’s raining outside, but there’s threat of breakout in the lightly-slogging lead guitar, synth in the left channel winding through frequency manipulation before a quick stop brings the next stage, with the drums louder and more forward, the guitar and keys swelling to a wash of fuzz, voices singing out — maybe a sample, maybe Pacomoto and García; hopefully they wrote down somewhere what they did — and a convergence around a dramatic-feeling crescendo that drops at 6:22 to the bassline, guitar skronk and repeat swells either of synth or manipulated feedback, probably both.
It’s not gonna get less weird in the vertical pools. Side B, which features a corresponding four pieces, starts with “Invocación,” which meanders before landing after about a minute in a Melvinsian repetitive nod that’s rich in tone and all the more righteous when the left-side guitar spaces out and the drums open up in the second half. All of a sudden, Loma Baja are instrumental heavy post-rock — except there might be vocals; ha — but dug into a purposeful melodic riff like those in the second halves of “La Emboscada” or “Canción de Manuel,” toying with cinematic grandiosity but never losing their ultimate direction, ending again with a return to the central march.
What was the album’s lead single, “Boda Final / Velorio” is more indie rock at the start, and the as-yet-most-definitely-vocalized inclusion on the record — hence single — but holds to the intention toward breadth in the material that surrounds, the keys in the left channel and the lead guitar in the right again working to surround the listener as the vocals reinforce notions of otherplanetary classic prog before the jabbing kinda-waltz resumes, makes a riffy turn, then rights itself to finish, shifting immediately into the underlying buzz and quiet interplay of guitars in the intro of the penultimate “Hierros Viejos,” making the bed for a robot-voice verse that will stay for the song’s four-minute duration, threatening heft and volume while, like “Canción de Manuel” before it, making a point of defying expectation and giving over to the drone at the end, the ambient stage set for “AAAAA” to cap.
And “AAAAA” is itself the awaited riffout. At 10 minutes long, it is a substantial portion of Piscinas Verticales, and its echoing vocals remind a bit of Ufomammut‘s earlier kosmic heavy, but the line of guitar introduced at the outset holds through the volume surge and comes back that much stronger for it. It is a solid one, two, three, four, count, and made to be repetitive, but the progression morphs subtly as time goes on, the next verse leading to another chorus-ish push carrying through the midpoint before the keys take a solo and the guitars seem to melt to feedback. Vocals — not a focal point for most of the record — announce the arrival at the next stage of the march, the volume seeming to get deeper as well as louder and noisier.
By the time they’re in the seventh minute, “AAAAA” has been stripped to a wall of feedback and noise, rumble beneath and scorch above, and somewhere in there the drums turned backwards but are largely gone as Loma Baja let that moment evolve, play out, and die on its own terms. They make a point of noting that Piscinas Verticales was recorded live. Fair enough, but it must have been a hell of a mixing process, though one can’t argue with the results as each consecutive part, track, side, feels rife with purpose even when that purpose is counterintuitive to the expectation of heavy rock/psych/prog songwriting. Those, in fact, are some of the record’s highlight stretches — it’s not every band willing to challenge the listener on their first long-player.
To coincide with that challenge that the material offers, Loma Baja accomplish a feat of world-building across Piscinas Verticales such that the context of the songs becomes their own regardless of names dropped above or other influences at work. Pieces like “Crónica Negra,” “Boda Final / Velorio” and “Hierros Viejos” working toward divergent ends at different angles from the same foundation. In this way, Loma Baja convey breadth while keeping their tones and melodic reach consistent, so that the album comes through as a complete statement that deserves to be heard.
So here we are. I’m excited to host the premiere of Piscinas Verticales on the player below. You’ll find it followed by the album particulars courtesy of Spinda Records via the PR wire, the video for “Boda Final / Velorio” and the many links from which the album can be ordered.
Please enjoy:
Loma Baja, Piscinas Verticales album premiere
Produced by Rafa Camisón and Loma Baja. Recorded in a live session at Metropol Studios (Madrid, Spain) by Rafa Camisón, with the assistance of Arturo Rebollo, between 27th and 29th July 2022. Mixed by Rafa Camisón at Estudio Setentaynueve (Jerez, Spain). Mastered by Víctor García at Ultramarinos Mastering (Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Spain). Artwork by Bol Estudio (Jorge García). Idea album title by Diana Calabaza Cósmica.
The album is coming out on 26th May 2023 through the collaboration between indie labels Spinda Records (SP), Lay Bare Recordings (NL), Clostridium Records (GE) and Echodelick Records (US). Album pre-order available at label sites from 21st April.
200x STANDARD BLACK VINYL 200x ELECTRIC BLUE VINYL DIGITAL / STREAMING
1. V70 2. La Emboscada 3. Canción de Manuel 4. Crónica Negra 5. Invocación 6. Boda Final / Velorio 7. Hierros Viejos
