Sweden’s Propane Propane released their Indigo (review here) LP in 2012 through Clostridium Records, and they’re marking that 10th anniversary by issuing three lost tracks from the era. The longer of them is “Purple Sun,” premiering below, and there’s an instrumental demo of the same song, as well as a track called “Cult of Börstig.” The vibe in that shorter, lyric-less piece is relatively soothing, where “Purple Sun” works to be anything but. Hypnotic, perhaps, for its overarching nod, the nine-minute roller digs deep into post-Electric Wizard riffing — in my head it sounds “very 2012,” and thinking that makes me smile — but the song’s weight and groove hardly sound dated for that. It will be easy to dig. If you’ve made it this far, you will not regret clicking play.
I imagine that when it came down to it, it was either “Purple Sun” or the 12-minute “Indigo” that would end up on the vinyl version of the album, and well, it’s hard to leave off the song you’ve named the record after (or vice versa), but while the atmosphere of “Indigo” is definitively less straightforward, droning out later into more cosmic fare after its drifty beginning, the relatively blunt (pun completely intended) riffery of “Purple Sun” has its own appeal, and the same goes for the manner in which it grows more aggressive in its vocals as it moves through. Propane Propane were not out to challenge the universe, but listening to it now, it feels all the more like a celebration, certainly of Indigo‘s 10 years, but of that era of the band’s work and the sheer joy of getting together in a room, being loud and fortunate enough to have someone there to press record.
No need to keep you. I think you get the picture, and if not, you will by the time “Purple Sun” locks in its groove. Some words from Benjamin Thörnblom (guitar, vocals, synth, production) follow the player below, giving background on the cultish underpinnings of “Purple Sun” and “Cult of Börstig” alike.
Please enjoy:
Propane Propane, “Purple Sun” premiere
Benjamin Thörnblom on Indigo & More:
“In the late 1960s a pyromanic family ravaged the Swedish countryside of Börstig, where I lived 1990-2001. Many of the neighbors had been mentally scarred for life from the terror this family inflicted upon the area. Hundreds of innocent animals lost their lives in the fire and smoke because of the madness of this family. In the end nobody in the family got prison as there was not enough evidence to prove guilt. During the long-winded trials two of the brothers claimed in opposition to each other to have started the fires. This and the lacking evidence left the court helpless and the brothers and their family walked free in the end, for good.
These events changed Börstig, it gave a springboard for paranoia among the villagers and eventually even generational trauma. Safety and trust got ripped out of the core of the area but people did try to go back to a normal life and not live under constant fear but it was very hard. Many waking up in panic during the nights for years to come from small noises or deep embedded fear that another fire could strike again at any given time.
During 2010 under the influence of substances, confusion and paranoia I wrote and recorded a song during roughly one or two days. The result became ‘Cult of Börstig’ which emotionally revolves around these events. I actually recorded the entire bass track first, standalone, and then did drums. Later I tracked the guitars and recorded deranged whispers and a bunch of hidden things.. It got pretty layer in the end.”
2022 marks the 10 year anniversary of Propane Propane’s album ‘INDIGO’. The roughly 9 minutes long ‘Purple Sun’ was recorded during the Indigo sessions at Boltzmann Brain Studio (2010/2011) but was at the end cut from the final release. It came down to both vinyl run-time constraints and the sense Purple Sun did not fit the context of an album that already had plenty of slow earth shattering titles such as “Food of The Gods”, “Truth” and “Indigo”.
The up until now unreleased track tells of a clan traveling through the country in service of a force and a deity they themselves have chosen to name “the purple sun”. By focusing and sacrificing their mental energy and essence to this hidden force they in return get an unspeakable but very real state of being which expands their capacity, strength and resilience in the journey through life.
The 10 year anniversary release contains the track Purple Sun and the demo originally called “Rising Sun”. The last track, a calm instrumental, called “Cult Of Börstig” revolves around the pyromaniac family ravaging the Swedish countryside of Börstig during the 60’s.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on January 28th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Italian heavy psychedelic fuzzbringers Carcaño released their second album, By Order of the Green Goddess (review here), through respected purveyors Clostridium Records in early 2021. It looks like it was a warm, sunny day that the Reggio Calabria four-piece took to Parco Ecolandia — Ecolandia Park — in order to record a live set in an amphitheater carved into a hill. Sunny enough that the sound recording gear of Ottavio Leo is tucked away back under an umbrella for shade, in any case. As it’s currently well below freezing where I am and the boiler clicked off for some reason last night, I’ll note that the apparent warmth is perhaps a bit more of an escape from winter as I wait for the heat to come back on.
The group — guitarists Elmore Penoise (also vocals and synth) and El Pez, bassist/synthesist Ugo “The Doc” and drummer Max “The Mind” — are spread out across a kind of makeshift stage, playing tracks from the record like the languid, exploratory feeling “I Don’t Belong Here” or the more raucous opener “Riding Space Elephants,” which kind of is what it sounds like. They had previously posted “Riding Space Elephants” from the set, which is reasonable considering the quality they were able to capture in sound and video, but the full 28-minute stretch hasn’t been unveiled until now. Fancy.
Grooves abound, heavy abounds, space abounds. Abound abounds. In a manner wholly unpretentious, the band put their listener in a nodding mindset while a multi-camera, drone-inclusive shoot cycles through one shot to the next, edited in rhythm but not necessarily locked to the changes of each song; more concert film than music video. In the age of livestreams, etc., Carcaño represent themselves and the album well, and if you ever wanted an advertisement for the kind of fun you might have been a heavy rock or heavy psych drummer, look no further than Max “The Mind”. He’s putting in work, no doubt about it, but golly he looks like he’s having a good time doing it. And bonus points for the Neurosis shirt, dude. Do it in style.
If you haven’t heard By Order of the Green Goddess, it’s streaming below in full. Tracks there are organized by “Day” — “Day 1…” “Day 2…” and so on — whereas the live set seems to dispense with that, but everything the band plays comes from the latest album, so the clip is a cool way to get introduced in any case. Certainly beats working on a lazy Friday.
Enjoy:
Carcaño, ‘Live at Ecolandia Park 2021’ full set premiere
Video by Saverio Autelitano photography Fabio Itri Sound Recording by Ottavio Leo (RecOnBlack) Clostridiumrecords
Recorded Live at Ecolandia Park
Fromhttps://turismo.reggiocal.it/: “Air, fire, water, and earth. These four elements identify the technological environmental amusement park called Ecolandia. It is a place where the beauty of the landscape blends with important activities that promote culture, social interaction, and the environment. Hence, therefore, the reference to the four thematic areas as ideal links to Greek mythology on the one hand, and, on the other, to a model of sustainable and participatory development.”
Setlist: Riding Space Elephants Green Grace I Don’t Belong Here Wasted Land
Carcaño are: Elmore Penoise – Voice & Guitar/Synth El Pez – Guitar Ugo “The Doc” – Bass/Synth Max “the Mind” – Drums
Posted in Questionnaire on November 9th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: El Pez of Carcaño
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
Just music and I got there because I developed a passion for sounds. What I do must always have fun.
Describe your first musical memory.
I was six or seven years old and I was in the car with my father, we were returning from the house we used for the holidays and on the highway he put on a stereo cassette and that moment I was struck by that voice, that guitar sound. He later discovered that it was “Across the Universe” by the Beatles. I remember it as if it were today and every time I take that stretch of road it comes back to me.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Concert of the Cure 1996 or 1997 and I was totally drunk, to enter two friends had to support me. I remember that for about an hour before the concert began, a music box sound was heard in the background which increased until the concert began. And I threw up. It was wonderful!
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
Every day!!! I have few certainties.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
In this moment nowhere, art as it is understood today has stopped pursuing what was its primary goal, that of creating a universal language. A single work of art stimulated both the proletarian and the wealthy and promoted it at best. Now it’s just an elitist issue.
How do you define success?
A successful man is a fully realized man. Success is not measured on the basis of the bank account, it is taken for granted and it seems a circumstance response but I really think so. If you still enjoy what you do then you are a successful man.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
Salvini in the government.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
It takes at least a month to answer this question, but I can tell you that I would like to be able to compose a riff like “The Wizard” (lol). No seriously I can’t answer.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Making you see things as you never imagined, must make you open your eyes and project your mind beyond any imposed limit and draw your own conclusions.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 1st, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Buenos Aires-based heavy instrumentalists Poseidótica are looking to release a new full-length next year — as are many at this point; I’ve got a growing list to prove it — and they’ve prefaced that offering with a new single called “Æon” that marks their third since lockdown last year, following behind May 2020’s mostly-drone “Aire” and Nov. 2020’s resonant escapist jaunt “Repercusión,” drifting in its initial guitar and percussion and later unfolding in a krautrock electronic pulse, like it turned out you were vacationing in the future the whole time. Given the shape that future has taken in reality, you might want to book with a different travel agent next time.
Nonetheless, “Æon” presents a more evened-out approach to progressive heavy psychedelic rock, though it still works in movements across its five-plus minutes, and the band seem to intimate that such will be the way of things on the impending long-player, which will not actually feature the track itself. Fair enough. Onto the aforementioned list they go, and one looks forward to finding out precisely where the last few years and a swap in guitarists has taken them.
They’ve also got a recent reissue out on Clostridium Records, and yes, I’m late on this news. What else is new?
From the PR wire:
In September 2021 Poseidótica released a new song called “Æon” that hints at the paths their fifth studio album will take, which is in the pre-production process and is scheduled to be released in mid-2022.
“Æon” presents as a novelty the entry of Eugenio De Luca, the group’s new guitarist replacing founding member Hernán Miceli, and was mixed and mastered by Martín Furia (actual guitarist of German’s thrash metal legends Destruction) in Antwerp, Belgium.
Although the song will not be included in the album, the track explores into the classic dynamics of the band with a more space and progressive rock approach.
During the isolation of 2020, the instrumental group that has already been on the road for 20 years, took the opportunity to deliver its full discography on vinyl and cassette through its own label Aquatalan Records, also releasing several limited editions of singles and EPs in 7″ format, making musical collaborations with some other alternative artists from Argentina like Boom Boom Kid, Carca, Marina Fages and Santiago Córdoba.
Their first three albums “Intramundo”, “La Distancia” and “Crónicas del Futuro” have exclusive distribution worldwide via Kozmik Artifactz.
In August 2021 their fourth album “El Dilema del Origen” was reissued on vinyl by the German label Clostridium Records in three different deluxe editions (Black, Bi-Colour and Swirl die-hard exclusive label edition).
With the flexibility of the restrictions in Argentina, the band returned to perform live concerts in their country, and had several shows scheduled between the end of the year and the beginning of 2022.
Posted in Reviews on September 27th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Not really much to say about it, is there? You know the deal. I know the deal. This time we go to 70. 10 records every day between today and next Tuesday. It seems insurmountable as usual right now, but as history has shown throughout the last seven or however many years I’ve been doing this kind of thing, it’ll work out. Time is utterly irrelevant when there’s distortion to be had. Wavelengths intersecting, dissolution of hours. You make an extra cup of coffee, I’ll burn from the inside out.
The Fall 2021 Quarterly Review begins today. Let’s boogie.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
Delco Detention, From the Basement
The essential bit of narrative here is that Tyler Pomerantz, founding guitarist of Delco Detention, is about 10 years old. Kid can fuzz. With his father, Adam, on drums, the ambitious young man has put together a wholly professional heavy rock record with a who’s who of collaborators, including Clutch‘s Neil Fallon on “The Joy of Home Schooling” (a video for which went viral last year), Jared Collins of Mississippi Bones, Earthless‘ Isaiah Mitchell, Bob Balch of Fu Manchu on the instrumental “The Action is Delco,” Erik Caplan of Thunderbird Divine on the highlight “Gods Surround,” as well as members of Hippie Death Cult, Kingsnake, The Age of Truth and others across the 15 tracks. The result is inherently diverse given the swath of personnel, tones, etc., but From the Basement plays thematically at points around the experience of being a young rocker — “All Ages Show,” “Digital Animal,” the title-track and “The Joy of Home Schooling” — but isn’t limited to that, and though there are some moodier stretches as there inevitably would be, Tyler holds his own among this esteemed company and the record’s an unabashed good time.
A fourth album arriving some eight years after the third, Fuzzy Lights‘ Burials doesn’t necessarily surprise with its patience, but its sense of world-building is immaculate and immersive. The Cambridge, UK, five-piece of violinist/vocalist Rachel Watkins, guitarist/electronicist Xavier Watkins, guitarist Chris Rogers, bassist Daniel Carney and drummer Mark Blay offer classic Britfolk melody tinged with heavy post-rock atmospherics and foreboding rhythmic push on the 10-minute “Songbird,” with the snare drum building tension for the payoff to come. Elsewhere, opener “Maiden’s Call” and “Haraldskær Woman” drift into darker vibes, while “Under the Waves” dares more uptempo psychedelic rock ahead of the highlight “Sirens” and closer “The Gathering Storm,” which offers bombast so smoothly executed one is surrounded by it almost before noticing. “Songbird,” “Maiden’s Call” and “The Graveyard Song” have their roots in a 2019 solo outing from Rachel Watkins called Collectanea, but however long this material may or may not have been around, it sounds refreshingly individual, natural, full, warm and still boldly forward thinking.
One with greater knowledge of such things than I might be able to sit and analyze and tell you what loops and effects guitarist Darryl Shepard (Kind, Hackman, Milligram, etc.) is using to make these noises, but that ain’t me. I’m happy to accept the mystery of his new two-songer/23-minute EP, (In) Control / Tired of Dying, which slowly unfolds the psych-drone of its 14-minute leadoff cut over its first several minutes before evening out into a mellow, drifting one-man guitar jam, replete with a solo that subtly builds in energy before entering its minute-long fadeout, as if Shepard were to say he wouldn’t want things to get too out of hand. “Tired of Dying” follows with immediately more threatening tone, deep, distorted, lumbering, sludgy, with space for drums behind that never come. That’s not Blackwolfgoat‘s thing. As much as “(In) Control” hypnotized with its sweeter, unassuming rollout, “Tired of Dying” is consumption on a headphone-destroyer level, nine and a half minutes of low wash that’s exploratory just the same. These pieces were recorded live, and it hasn’t been that long since Shepard‘s 2020 Blackwolfgoat full-length, Giving Up Feels So Good (review here), but each cut digs in in its own way and the isolated feel is nothing if not relevant.
From the outset with the stomps later in “Day 1 – The Beginning,” Italian fuzzers Carcaňo reveal some of the rawness in the production of their second full-length, By Order of the Green Goddess, but that doesn’t stop either their tones or the melodies floating over them from being lush across the album’s eight-song/40-minute run, whether that’s happening in the massive “Day 2 – Riding Space Elephants” (aren’t we all?) or the howling leadwork that tops the languid Sabbath/earlier-Mars Red Sky-gone-dark lumber of “Day 6 – I Don’t Belong Here.” They make it move on the cosmic chaos shuffle-and-push of “Day 4 – The Birth” and tap blatant Queens of the Stone Age up-strum riffing and wood block on “Day 5 – The Son of the Sun,” but it’s in spacious freakouts like “Day 3 – Green Grace” and the righteously drawn out “Day 7 – Wasted Land” that By Order of the Green Goddess most seems to set its course, with room for the acoustic experimentalism of “Day 8 – Running Back Home” at the end, familiar in concept but delightfully weird and ethereal in its execution.
Paeans to space and the desert, riffs on riffs on riffs, grit hither and yon — Melbourne’s Planet of the 8s are preaching to the converted on Lagrange Point Vol. 1, and they go so far in the opening “Lagrange Point” to explain in a Twilight Zone-esque monologue what the phenomenon actually is before “Holy Fire” unfurls its procession with the first of four included guest vocalists. King Carrot of Death by Carrot would seem to know of which he speaks there, while Diesel Doleman (Duneater) tops “Exit Planet” for an effect wholly akin to Astrosoniq at max thrust, while Georgie Cosson of Kitchen Witch joins Planet of the 8s‘ own bassist Michael “Sullo” Sullivan on “X-Ray,” and Jimi Coelli (Sheriff) takes on the early QOTSA-style riffing of “The Unofficial History of Babe Wolf,” which would also seem to be the subject of the cover art. They wrap all these comings and going with “The Three Body Problem,” a jazzy minute-long instrumental that’s there and gone before you’ve even caught your breath from the preceding songs. 21 minutes, huh? That 21 minutes is packed.
Debut albums with their stylistic ducks so much in a row are rare, but with the declaration “I am the mountain/You are the quake,” the chugging boogie in the post-Trouble “Did She?,” the opening hook of “Heads Will Roll,” the duly-open, semi-progressive tinge of “Skyscraper,” and the we-saved-extra-heavy-just-for-this finish of “Bury the Queen,” Austin’s High Desert Queen indeed show themselves as schooled with Secrets of the Black Moon. It is an encapsulation of modern stoner heavy idolatry, riff-led but not necessarily riff-dependent in its entirety, and both the good-vibes fuzz of “As We Roam” and the aptly-titled penultimate roller “The Wheel” manage to boast soaring vocal melodies that put the band in another league. They’re not necessarily starting a revolution in terms of style, but they bring together lush and crush effectively and when a band has so much of a clear idea of what they’re going for and the songwriting to back them up, first record or not, they rule the day. Don’t lose them among the swaths either of three-word-moniker heavy newcomers or the flood of Texan acts out there.
Heavy and ritualized enough to earn its release on 50 neon green tapes — CDs too — the second full-length from Russia’s Megalith Levitation, Void Psalms tops 53 minutes of beastly lurch, with opener “Phantasmagoric Journey” (13:08) playing like half-speed Celtic Frost while the back-to-back two-parters “Datura Revelations/Lysergic Phantoms” (12:47) and “Temple of Silence/Pillars of Creation” (19:45) bridge cult-heavy worship with experimental fuckall, never quite dipping entirely into dark psychedelia, but certainly refusing lucidity outright. I don’t know what’s up with the punch of bass in the back end of “Temple of Silence/Pillars of Creation,” but that froggy sound is gloriously weirdo in its affect, and makes the whole jam for me. They cap with “Last Vision,” an admirably massive riffer that only spans seven and a half minutes but in that time still finds a way to drone the shit out of its nod. Cheers to Chelyabinsk as Megalith Levitation (who are not to be confused with Megaton Leviathan) offer intentionally putrid fruit on which to feast.
There is death, and there is sludge. Do doomers mosh in Texas? “Devil’s Due” might provide an occasion to find out, as the second EP, The Pit of Suffering, from Austin extremist slingers Forebode follows 2019’s self-titled short release (review here) with plenty of slow-motion plunder, “Metal Slug” opening in grim praise of weed before the rest of what follows moves from shortest to longest in an onslaught that grows correspondingly more vicious. Rest your head on that bit of twang at the start of “Pit of Suffering” if you want, that’s only going to make it easier for the band to crush your skull in the stretch before it returns at the end. And oh, “Bane of Hammers.” You build in speed and get so brutal, and then you do, you do, you do slam on the brakes and finish out as heavy as possible, an ultimate eat-all-in-its-path tonality that would be off-putting were it not so outright gleeful in its disgusting nature. What fun they’re having making these terrible sounds. Love it.
Yeah, you think you can hang. You’re like, “Whatever, I like weird psych stuff.” Then Codex Serafini start in with the cave echo wails and the drones and the artsy experimentalism and you’re like, “Well, maybe I’m just gonna go back to Squaresville after all. Work in the morning, you know.” The Brighton, UK, fivesome have four tracks on Invisible Landscape, and I promise you no one of them is more real than the other. In fact, the entire thing is pretend. It doesn’t exist. Neither do you. You thought you did, then the sax started blowing and you realized you were just some kind of semi-sentient wisp swirling around in reverb and what the hell were we talking about okay yeah planets and stuff whatever it doesn’t matter just quick, put this on and be ready for the splatter when “Time, Change & Become” starts. You’re not gonna want to miss it, but there’s no way that stain is ever coming out of that shirt. Kablooie is how the cosmos dies.
Killers is the third full-length from Colorado fuzz rockers Stone Deaf, and they continue to have a chorus for every occasion, in this case going so far as to import “Gone Daddy Gone” from your teenage remembrance of Violent Femmes and actually talk about burning witches in the “Burn the Witch”-esque “Tightrope.” Queens of the Stone Age has been and continues to be a defining influence here, but from the electronics in “Cloven Hoof” to the harder edges of closing duo “Silverking” and “San Pedro Winter,” the band refuse to be identified by anything so much as their songcraft, which is tight and sharply produced across the 44 minutes of Killers, their punk rock having grown up but not having dulled so much as found a direction in which to point its angst. A collection of individual tracks, there’s nonetheless a build of momentum that starts early and carries through the entirety of the outing. I’ll leave to you to make the clever remark about there being “no fillers.” Enjoy that.
Posted in Reviews on December 22nd, 2020 by JJ Koczan
I just decided how long this Quarterly Review is actually going to be. It’s seven days, then I’ll do my year-end list and the poll results on New Year’s Eve and Day, respectively. That’s the plan. Though honestly, I might pick up after that weekend and continue QR-style for that next week. There’s a lot more to cover, I think. The amount of releases this year has been pretty insane and completely overwhelming. I’ve tried to keep up as best I can and clearly have failed in that regard or I probably wouldn’t be so swamped now. So it goes. One way or the other, I don’t think a lot of emails are getting answered for the next two weeks, though I’ll try to keep up with that too.
But anyhow, that’s what’s up. Here’s Day II (because this is the QR where I do Roman numerals for absolutely no reason).
Quarterly Review #11-20:
16, Dream Squasher
The fourth long-player since 16‘s studio return with 2009’s Bridges to Burn, the 10-track Dream Squasher begins with tales of love for kid and dog, respectively. The latter might be the sweetest lyrics I’ve ever read for something that’s still bludgeoning sludge — said dog also gets a mention amid the ultra-lumbering chug and samples of “Acid Tongue” — and it’s worth mentioning that as the Cali intensity institution nears 30 years since their start in 1991, they’re branching out in theme and craft alike, as the melody of the organ-laced “Sadlands” shows. There’s even some harmonica in “Agora (Killed by a Mountain Lion),” though it’s soon enough swallowed by pummel and the violent punk of “Ride the Waves” follows. “Summer of ’96” plays off Bryan Adams for another bit of familial love, while closing duo “Screw Unto Others” and “Kissing the Choir Boy” indict capitalist and religious figureheads in succession amid weighted plod and seething anger, the band oddly in their element in this meld of ups, downs and slaughter.
Kalamazoo four-piece BoneHawk make an awaited follow-up to their 2014 debut, Albino Rhino (discussed here), in the form of Iron Mountain, thereby reminding listeners why it’s been awaited in the first place. Solid, dual-guitar, newer-school post-The Sword heavy rock. Second cut “Summit Fever” reminds a bit of Valley of the Sun and Freedom Hawk, but neither is a bad echelon of acts to stand among, and the open melodies of the subsequent title-track and the later “Fire Lake” do much to distinguish BoneHawk along the way. The winding lead lines of centerpiece “Wildfire” offer due drama in their apex, and “Thunder Child” and “Future Mind” are both catchy enough to keep momentum rolling into the eight-minute closer “Lake of the Clouds,” which caps with due breadth and, yes, is the second song on the record about a lake. That’s how they do in Michigan and that’s just fine.
DÖ follow the Valborg example of lumbering barking extremity into a cosmic abyss on their Black Hole Mass three-songer, emitting charred roll like it’s interstellar background radiation and still managing to give an underlying sense of structure to proceedings vast and encompassing. “Gravity Sacrifice” and “Plasma “Psalm” are right on in their teeth-grinding shove, but it’s the 10-minute finale “Radiation Blessing” that steals my heart with its trippy break in the middle, sample, drifting guitar and all, as the Finnish trio build gradually back up to a massive march all the more effective for the atmosphere they’ve constructed around it. Construction, as it happens, is the underlying strength of Black Hole Mass, since it’s the firm sense of structure beneath their songs that allows them to so ably engage their dark matter metal over the course of these 22 minutes, but it’s done so smoothly one hardly thinks about it while listening. Instead, the best thing to do is go along for the ride, brief as it is, or at least bow head in appreciation to the ceremony as it trods across rigid stylistic dogma.
Howling Giant & Sergeant Thunderhoof, Turned to Stone Chapter 2: Masamune & Muramasa
Let this be a lesson to, well, everyone. This is how you do a conceptual split. Two bands getting together around a central idea — in this case, Tennessee’s Howling Giant and UK’s Sergeant Thunderhoof — both composing single tracks long enough to consume a vinyl side and expanding their reach not only to work with each other but further their own progressive sonic ideologies. Ripple Music‘s Turned to Stone split series is going to have a tough one to top in Masamune & Muramasa, as Howling Giant utterly shine in “Masamune” and the rougher-hewn tonality of Sergeant Thunderhoof‘s “Maramasa” makes an exceptional complement. Running about 41 minutes, the release is a journey through dynamic, with each act pushing their songwriting beyond prior limits in order to meet the occasion head-on and in grand fashion. They do, and the split easily stands among the best of 2020’s short releases as a result. If you want to hear where heavy rock is going, look no further.
Punkish shouts over dense noise rock tones, New York trio Chimney Creeps make their full-length debut with Nosedive, which they’ve self-released on vinyl. The album runs through seven tracks, and once it gets through the straight-ahead heavy punk of “March of the Creeps” and “Head in the Sand” at the outset, the palette begins to broaden in the fuzzy and gruff “Unholy Cow,” with the deceptively catchy “Splinter” following. “Creeper” and “Satisfied” before it are longer and accordingly more atmospheric, with a truck-backing-up sample at the start of “Creeper” that would seem to remind listeners just where the band’s sound has put them: out back, around the loading dock. Fair enough as “Diving Line” wraps in accordingly workmanlike fashion, the vocals cutting through clearly as they have all the while, prominent in the mix in a way that asks for balance. “Bright” I believe is the word an engineer might use, but the vocals stand out, is the bottom line, and thereby assure that the aggressive stance of the band comes across as more than a put-on.
Kingnomad‘s third album, Sagan Om Rymden certainly wants nothing for scope or ambition, setting its progressive tone with still-hooky opener “Omniverse,” before unfurling the more patient chug in “Small Beginnings” and taking on such weighted (anti-)matter as “Multiverse” and “The Creation Hymn” and “The Unanswered Question” later on. Along the way, the Swedish troupe nod at Ghost-style melodicism, Graveyard-ish heavy blues boogie — in “The Omega Experiment,” no less — progressive, psychedelic and heavy rocks and no less than the cosmos itself, as the Carl Sagan reference in the record’s title seems to inform the space-based mythology expressed and solidified within the songs. Even the acoustic-led interlude-plus “The Fermi Paradox” finds room to harmonize vocals and prove a massive step forward for the band. 2018’s The Great Nothing (review here) and 2017’s debut, Mapping the Inner Void (review here), were each more accomplished than the last, but Sagan Om Rymden is just a different level. It puts Kingnomad in a different class of band.
Shores of Null, Beyond the Shores (On Death and Dying)
By the time Shores of Null are nine minutes into the single 38-minute track that makes up their third album, Beyond the Shores (On Death and Dying), they would seem to have unveiled at least four of the five vocalists who appear throughout the proceedings, with the band’s own Davide Straccione joined by Swallow the Sun‘s Mikko Kotamäki as well as Thomas A.G. Jensen (Saturnus), Martina Lesley Guidi (of Rome’s Traffic Club) and Elisabetta Marchetti (INNO). There are guests on violin, piano and double-bass as well, so the very least one might say is that Shores of Null aren’t kidding around when they’re talking about this record in a sense of being ‘beyond’ themselves. The journey isn’t hindered so much as bolstered by the ambition, however, and the core five-piece maintain a steady presence throughout, serving collectively as the uniting factor as “Beyond the Shores (On Death and Dying)” moves through its portrayal of the stages of grief in according movements of songcraft, gorgeously-arranged and richly composed as they are as they head toward the final storm. In what’s been an exceptional year for death-doom, Shores of Null still stand out for the work they’ve done.
Tectonic sludge has become a mainstay in Polish heavy, and The Device, about whom precious little is known other than they’re very, very, very heavy when they want to be, add welcome atmospherics to the lumbering weedian procession. “Rise of the Device” begins the 47-minute Tribute Album in crushing form, but “Ritual” and the first minute or so of “BongOver” space out with droney minimalism, before the latter track — the centerpiece of the five-songer and only cut under six minutes long at 2:42 — explodes in consuming lurch. “Indica” plays out this structure again over a longer stretch, capping with birdsong and whispers and noise after quiet guitar and hypnotic, weighted riffing have played back and forth, but it’s in the 23-minute closer “Exhale” that the band finds their purpose, a live-sounding final jam picking up after a long droning stretch to finish the record with a groove that, indeed, feels like a release in the playing and the hearing. Someone’s speaking at the end but the words are obscured by echo, and to be sure, The Device have gotten their point across by then anyhow. The stark divisions between loud and quiet on Tribute Album are interesting, as well as what the band might do to cover the in-between going forward.
Spanish progressive heavy psychedelic semi-instrumentalists Domo follow late-2019’s Domonautas Vol. 1 (review here) with a four-song second installment, and Domonautas Vol. 2 answers its predecessor back with the jazz-into-doom of “Avasaxa” (7:43) and the meditation in “Dolmen” (13:50) on side A, and the quick intro-to-the-intro “El Altar” (2:06) and the 15-minute “Vientohalcón” on side B, each piece working with its own sense of motion and its own feeling of progression from one movement to the next, never rushed, never overly patient, but smooth and organic in execution even in its most active or heaviest stretches. The two most extended pieces offer particular joys, but neither should one discount the quirky rhythm at the outset of “Avasaxa” or the dramatic turn it makes just before five minutes in from meandering guitar noodling to plodding riffery, if only because it sounds like Domo are having so much fun catching the listener off guard. Exactly as they should be.
Doom be thy name. Or, I guess Early Moods be thy name, but doom definitely be thy game. The Los Angeles four-piece make their debut with the 26-minute Spellbound, and I suppose it’s an EP, but the raw Pentagram worship on display in the opening title-track and the Sabbath-ism that ensues flows easy and comes through with enough sincerity of purpose that if the band wanted to call it a full-length, one could hardly argue. Guitar heads will note the unbridled scorch of the solos throughout — centerpiece “Isolated” moves from one into a slow-Slayer riff that’s somehow also Candlemass, which is a feat in itself — while “Desire” rumbles with low-end distortion that calls to mind Entombed even as the vocals over top are almost pure Witchcraft. They save the most engaging melody for the finale “Living Hell,” but even that’s plenty grim and suited to its accompanying dirt-caked feel. Rough in production, but not lacking clarity, Spellbound entices and hints at things to come, but has a barebones appeal all its own as well.
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 30th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
Playing out across four extended tracks, the debut full-length Cactus Eater by Freiburg, Germany, desert-fuzz duo Desert Tree House was first released digitally by the band in June 2019. That’s about a year after Alpha and Pedro (the latter also of Deaf Proof) got together and started jamming, so yeah, they made pretty good time coming up with circa 45 minutes of material for the record. Safe to assume they had a pretty good idea of what they were going for, and the guitar-and-drum rawness conveys the spirit of their desert rock homage pretty smoothly, and as I apparently missed it the first time around, I’m glad to have caught wind of their doings via the news of the Cactus Eater vinyl release today through Clostridium Records.
For the converted, there’s little to argue with, and if you’re looking for some trippy groove to wander along with, the ebbs and flows of “Blue Sun Overdrive” do quite nicely. I’m not gonna say they’re changing the world — or trying to for that matter — but on a by-genre-for-genre level, they’ll get knowing heads nodding.
Stream’s at the bottom of the post if you want to check it out before you chase down a platter:
Desert Tree House – Cactus Eater LP
Desert Tree House is Alpha (guitars) and Pedro (drums), an instrumental Stoner Rock duo from Freiburg (GER) delivering songs ranging from doom to psychedelic and onward toward more progressive elements.
CLOSTRIDIUM RECORDS released their kick-ass debut on vinyl on 30.09.20. As DIE HARD “Sunrise Skytrip” edition in transparent and black with red and white splatter (incl. exklusive CACTUS EATER THE VOCAL SESSIONS CD feat Anti Man (Vocals LOA RIDE) & Isa (Vocals SOUND OF SMOKE), download code, poster and beer mat) or in classic black (incl. download code and beer mat).
This gorgeous LP treatment will maximize the enjoyment of listening to CACTUS EATER!
Desert Tree House is Alpha on guitar and Pedro on drums, an instrumental Stoner Rock duo from Freiburg, Germany, founded in mid 2018.
For these two men, it is all about the music, any fan of the Stoner style will thoroughly enjoy their brand of music as their debut CACTUS EATER with four songs, most of them running over 10 minutes, delivers catchy melodies and Psychedelica in a Truckfighters Style (“Cactus Eater”), a really heavy, doomy stonergroove like Kyuss did (“Cyancali Desert”), straight-forward rocking (“Dry Valley”) or bluesy and progressive stuff (“Blue Sun Overdrive”). And it’s not a simple citation or an arbitrary mixture, it’s a unique sound, it is pure riff worshipping for mind and soul!
Alpha also plays in Zim Zum Crash for years and Pedro is part of the Psychedelic Stoner band Deaf Proof founded in 2006 and of Heavy Water Cult (Alternative Stoner), which started 2016. They are also the founding members of the four-piece Doom band Brocken which has been around since 2017.
Their thorough and methodic approach to their music helped the two men move quickly from their initial session right onto the stage in June, and their efforts were quickly rewarded as they soon were opening for bands like Elder from the States, the Great Machine from Israel, the Re-Stoned from Russia, or even one of Germany’s own Stoner stalwarts: Rotor.
[Click play above to stream Domonautas Vol. 1 by Domo in its entirety. Album is out Dec. 15 on Clostridium Records.]
With psychedelia itself so often given to ideas of fluidity, being molten and/or in some way liquid, it only seems fair that Domo‘s Domonautas Vol. 1 should be such a melting pot. Issued on limited LP in an edition of 400 copies by Clostridium Records — 250 black, 150 red/black transparent splatter for a die-hard edition — the four-track/37-minute offering is the first offering of any kind from the Alicante, Spain, four-piece since 2015’s split with Pyramidal, Jams from the Sun (review here), which also followed some four years after their 2011 self-titled debut (review here).
Their stated intention is that Domonautas Vol. 1 is to be the first of a two-part continuity of albums with Maarten Donders cover art, and that Domonautas Vol. 2 will follow next year, essentially completing the single work across two LPs. I don’t know if Vol. 2 is written, let alone recorded — it could very well be both or either — but it’s an ambitious undertaking for the jam-based psych outfit, and however it works out over the next 12 months, it’s worth noting that Domonautas Vol. 1 in no way sounds incomplete. Its four included tracks are arranged for maximum immersion, with “Oxímoron” (5:15) at the outset giving way to “Astródomo” (12:28) on side A, and “Ritual del Sol” (12:04) and closer “Planisferio” (7:56) finishing the thread on side B.
This shorter-longer-longer-shorter construction, parabolic in its way, creates an arc that brings the listener deeper into the proceedings from the start of “Oxímoron,” which sets off in grandiose fashion, with effects-laced synth severity, like something out of a lysergic Ben-Hur, for almost its full initial two minutes, acting more as an intro to the album(s). From there, a drift of wah with a still-vaguely Middle Eastern vibe takes hold, echoing trumpet in the distance playing out alongside quiet drums from Paco and melodic guitar lines. Sam and Pablo (the latter also trumpet) handle six-string duties with due attention to effects sprawl.
Perhaps some of that Moorish architecture in the arrangement comes from a Viaje a 800 influence from further south in Algeciras on the coast, but, one way or the other, Domo use the final build to introduce bassist Óscar‘s first vocals of the record and with just a beat of a pause between, go from the end of “Oxímoron” to the full-on fuzz roll verse riff of “Astródomo,” thick and righteous, with vocals echoing up to further a sense of space, subtle layering of shouts and acoustic guitar flourish (or what sounds like it, anyhow) for further breadth. “Astródomo” is the longest cut on Domonautas Vol. 1 — not by a lot, but still — and it uses its time to affect multiple changes in movement, beginning a more winding transitional course at about three and a half minutes in as a bed for an emergent lead over a more forward rhythm before crashing into another verse, this one with a stomping march behind, and an extended ring-out and feedback course around the seven-minute mark, underscored and held together by the bassline.
It is a moment of hypnosis led by Óscar that the band will soon enough pay off with a return of vocals, guitar and drums, but that bassline — which seems to draw a bit from Clutch‘s “Spacegrass” in its construction; not a complaint — is a quiet moment that does much to showcase the range that seems to be at play across Domonautas Vol. 1, as the band are perfectly capable of moving between loud and quiet stretches, either creating a wash of effects and riffs or leaving open space for the unsuspecting audience to lose itself within. This serves them well during the instrumental passages of “Astródomo” and “Ritual del Sol,” the latter of which is arguably the most patient of the inclusions on the record.
It unfolds gradually across a multi-stage linear build, led by the guitar with effects/horn backing for atmosphere, and kicks in its fuzz at 3:45, still maintaining a post-rock kind of spirit, which will tie into “Planisferio” as well soon enough. A surge of low end accompanies the entry of vocals, and a new stage of nod is entered, but it’s short-lived as the bass and drums drop out to leave the guitar to set up a more forward riff that becomes the central adrenaline charge of the progression. They shift smoothly into a solo that carries them to and through the halfway point, turn back to a quick couple lines, then blast out even more desert-cosmic, eventually bringing the proceedings downward in energy level to a stretch of effects and subdued guitar float, tension holding in the bass as a tell that they’re not actually done yet.
Sure enough, after 10 minutes, they’re off and running again on the jam, and that leads them out in full party fashion. It would seem to be the apex of Domonautas Vol. 1 were it not for the instrumentalist work “Planisferio” does in setting up its grand finale, working from the ground up on a larger riff, receding again and gracefully executing a heavy psychedelic interpretation of what post-metal has taken on as a signature element: the “Stones from the Sky” moment, wherein that ultra-landmark Neurosis riff provides the foundation of a crescendo, usually manipulated in some way.
Domo join it to a melodic flourish of guitar and keep the central rhythm in focus all the while, pushing forward through that key progression and — most importantly — making it their own as the wind and twist toward the finish of the record, which comes in last crashes and residual guitars. I don’t know when Domonautas Vol. 2 might surface, and if there’s more to the story than Domo are telling here, I’ll be curious to find out just what that is, but it bears repeating that Domonautas Vol. 1 comes through as a coherent, complete statement, and doesn’t seem at its conclusion to be missing anything. That is, it doesn’t sound like you’re listening to half of a record, which is only a positive. Whatever Domo‘s future plans might be, after some years’ delay, they’ve given listeners plenty to explore with these tracks and the scope that seems to come so naturally from them.
