If you go to the Colour Haze Bandcamp page, where there isn’t music streaming or I’d embed that but where you can nonetheless buy physical media, you’ll see they refer to 2000’s CO2 (properly ‘CO₂‘) as their debut. And I see where they’re coming from with that. I do. But it’s not really the case, and positioning it as such inherently devalues the work and the growth that the Munich-based forebears of heavy psychedelia put in to get to this point. CO2, issued first through Homegrown Records and subsequently reissued through Elektrohasch in 2014 and 2021, is the fourth Colour Haze full-length, following just one year behind 1999’s Periscope (discussed here) and preceded by 1998’s Seven (discussed here) and 1995’s Chopping Machine (discussed here), and even if the band wanted to position Chopping Machine and Seven as demo full-lengths — neither really represent what would take shape as Colour Haze‘s approach in either lineup or sound and the latter was never released to any kind of actual public distribution — it’s a shame to see Periscope written off in that manner, since it was an important step on the way to what was further realized across CO2 in terms of the desert rock influence the trio of guitarist/vocalist Stefan Koglek, bassist Philipp Rasthofer (he also did the cover art) and drummer Manfred Merwald were beginning to branch off from even as they celebrated some of their thickest and gnarliest riffage.

But again, I get it. What Colour Haze are saying in doing that is that nothing up to this point really portrays the band they became or what they wanted their music to be, and CO2 inarguably does in some very crucial ways. The telltale, immediately-identifiable warmth in Koglek‘s guitar tone is intact here, put to rocking use on opener “Get it On,” “All Right” and the later roller “Motormind,” as well as various crescendos throughout, and the sense of dynamic, especially for it having only been a year since the initial explorational flourishes of Periscope, is much broader. The closing title-track, at 11 minutes long, is the best example here of their uptick in reach, but it’s audible in every song. The way Colour Haze dwell in this material is different than everything that came before. Even the rough-edged layered vocal of second cut “Shine” and the mellow mini-jam it leads to make sense on a timeline of the band’s discovering who they are. It’s a tricky question — artistic intent is a moving target, as one can hear throughout Colour Haze‘s 30-plus-year catalog — but if they feel CO2 is more representative of the band as a whole, I can only agree. Where I respectfully part-ways opinion-wise is in writing off the three albums the band made to get to this point at the turn of the century, which I’d argue are essential to the process of creative evolution that, also more than three decades on, is still underway in their sound.

‘All Colour Haze albums matter?’ A fan’s argument if ever I heard one, but I’ll cop to being a fan, and CO2 showcases a swath of reasons why.

Recorded in their rehearsal space with Koglek producing — overdubs and mixing found them once again working with former drummer Tim Höfer — and sounding both more confident and bolder in pushing himself on vocals, the six songs of CO2 present as a fluid 40-minute entirety. It wasn’t written and doesn’t play out as one long song, but the album is in conversation with itself in a way their material had not yet been, and though the roots are evident as well on Periscope, the riffs to pieces like “CO2” and the prior “Inside” (which was adapted from James Taylor‘s “Angry Blues”) present a few progressions that the next few years would reveal as signature. The way “Inside” swells and recedes in volume, for example, is telling for what the latter half of the aughts would manifest in their sound, and the shove in “All Right” rests well alongside future breakouts across albums that would follow. Perhaps most of all, CO2 ties together threads present in the band’s prior material and codifies them into a burgeoning perspective on heavy rock and roll. They’re not experimenting with flashes of post-Kyuss desert influence. They’ve found their own way to be heavy and still sound laid back.

An essential piece of this puzzle and something critical CO2 brings to their work, is patience. Sure, they were recording at band practice, and of course capturing an energy akin to what they bring to the stage is a part of the apparent intention behind that — the saga of Colour Haze self-recording is long and something of an experiential roller coaster; we’ll get there — but it’s in terms of how they’re playing the songs that the change is audible. There’s no sense of rush even in the quickest, loudest parts on CO2, and with the strength of the rhythm section behind it, the guitar is able to breathe differently in “Shine,” “Motormind,” “Inside” and of course “CO2” itself, and this would over the next few years become an essential facet of their sound. Consider the way Koglek handles the lead coming out of the midsection in “Motormind.” That’s a plotted, careful stretch into the stop, not a haphazard tossoff solo. It adds to the character of the song in a more conscious way than Colour Haze had yet brought to bear.

Without discounting the growth that took them to this point, CO2 is inarguably envisioning Colour Haze as part of an international heavy rock underground, but beginning to find their own way within that. It is a work of genre with a spin of persona, and 26 years after its release, it remains a satisfying listen both for what it demonstrates in the richness of tone and the emergent chemistry between Koglek, Rasthofer and Merwald that would continue to develop and let them explore more progressive and psychedelic ideas over the next few years, and on its own in terms of the songs and the sweep of its groove. It’s the point in the discography at which Colour Haze feel fully like themselves, and as such, a landmark.

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

—

I slept late this morning. The Pecan came in at 6:30, her alarm having gone off, and got me up. The last few weeks, I’ve been getting up at 5:30 to at least start writing before she wakes up and the morning routine of breakfast, get dressed, bathroom, go to school, etc., begins. And being able to pound out 500 or so words in that hour goes a long way toward a review or a post like the above, and I for sure missed that today, but man, I needed that hour. The Patient Mrs. said my alarm did go off but I shut it off. I do not have any conscious recollection of that, and I do not have any trouble believing her recollection of events.

Even with this past Monday off for Labor Day, the half-hour-each-way commute to and from The Pecan’s new school has required a restructuring of how I go about my day and what my expectations for productivity can really be. If we didn’t have the dog, I’d go to the library near her school and do whatever writing the day requires of me there, but I can’t really just leave the dog alone at the house — she has a little gated area in our pantry that we call “the Tilly apartment,” and that’s better than a crate, but still — for six hours. It’s irresponsible and not good for the dog. She’s a companion dog.

But so I do the back and forth, leave at 8:05 of thereabouts to drop The Pecan off, head back home — yesterday I made it just in time for Hungarian class at 9:30; today was better on timing — and then at like 1:40, I go back for a 2:10-2:15 pickup. Between, I’m here banging out as much as I can and have capacity to do. I wasn’t kidding last week or the week before, whenever it was, when I said I needed some time to get adjusted. That adjustment continues. It’ll be a few more weeks at least, but I know that by June, it’ll flow more naturally. It’s just a lot right now, in no small part because I’ve had it so easy for the last eight-plus years in terms of driving. This is more in-the-car time than I’ve had since the summer before she was born, and that was 2017.

So what, life is change. And tiring. I guess all I’m saying is that if you saw like two posts a day this week — yesterday was three, so was today — that change is part of the reason why.

The good news is that, thus far, the ultimately minor inconvenience of restructuring the she’s-at-school part of my day has been entirely worth it. The Patient Mrs. asked her flat out this morning if she loved the new school she’s at — usually a question to which one probably wouldn’t expect an answer, because that would be a direct expression of feelings — and The Pecan gave a yes without hesitation. She’s started to brush her own teeth at night as well, and is taking part more in dressing herself.

When I go to pick her up, she’s excited to show me the projects she’s working on — she made a cardboard guitar this week in art and was stoked on it, yesterday built a bridge with magnetic Minecraft blocks and an RV with magnatiles and made a tomato/basil/japapeno salad with stuff from the garden they grow behind the building — and when we had our first real hiccup this week and she fought with her gym teacher about being allowed to get something out of the supply closet which led to an attempted bite, the school heard our concerns and advice and eased up a bit yesterday.

They’re starting to introduce more academic work to the day, but they’re giving her the time she needs to actually build a rapport and understand and feel good in the place she’s in instead of coercing her with a token economy point system. It’s a different approach, and more rough days will happen, and rougher ones, but I’m glad to see her feeling engaged because she didn’t really have that last year at the public school except in fourth grade math, which had its own issues, and the second half of the year before she was too much in burnout to really be part of anything.

The district continues with bullshit. Now they’re delaying signing the agreement, I think just to be dicks. Clearly they don’t want to educate her. And clearly they’re unable to do so as they couldn’t do it for three years, but our trying something outside their institutional structure seems to have broken something in the collective brain — I say this in full recognition that my wife is on the school board — and they can’t get on board with the idea that either this might work or that something out of the but-we-don’t-call-it-punishment behaviorist purview might be answer for our child who is an outlier in so many ways: academic, social, existential, etc. All they have is that square hole they’re trying to push her through. It being 9/11, one recalls the time George W. Bush said the problem with Vietnam was that US troops didn’t stay long enough.

Whatever the ultimate outcome of this academic year is, I won’t send her back to public school. We’d keep her home and I’d do a homeschool curriciulum. Not preferrred, but especially after seeing how she’s hit the ground running at this new place, the active harm her prior setting was doing to her has been made that much clearer.

Unless you’re the Parsippany Troy-Hills school district, and actively, with no data to support any claims you make, not paying the slightest bit of attention. Really, problematically, invested in that point system, because it’s all they’ve got.

Enough.

Next week, premieres are slated for Auralayer, Samavayo, Saturna and Dead Sea Apes, and honestly, that’ll probably be enough. I have a bunch of Sept. releases I want to review, like Green Lung and Polymoon, Moon Destroys and so on, and I might mark off some space the week after for that, but I was glad to get Sleep and Besvärjelsen done this week, not to mention the Shovelhead piece that went up today or the Buzzard and Spirit Mother and The Machine reviews last week. I’m keeping up as best I’m able and slating stuff for a Quarterly Review next month at the same time, though looking at the calendar that might be the first week of November. We’ll see.

Zelda update: I beat A Link Between Worlds again earlier this week and Wednesday night ran through the Twilight Princess endgame in Dusklight (the unofficial PC port; recommended if you want to play) just to watch the ending. Last night The Pecan did the same with Tears of the Kingdom and I got a chuckle out of that. I played a bit of The Adventures of Elliott yesterday as well, which I hadn’t had the chance to pick up in a while, and which remains both fun and very derivative of A Link to the Past. It’s got a Final Fantasy-style narrative though, and I like that too since I always enjoyed those games. It’s nerdy, cozy fun. I watched the Nintendo Direct earlier this week for the Zelda 40th anniversary and in addition to being bummed the preorders are sold out for the Zelda-themed Switch 2, I’m very much looking forward to getting my preorder in for the Ocarina of Time remake. The trailer looks awesome and I could pick out the spots in the game being showcased too, which was enjoyable.

That’s the story of it. I hope you have a great and safe weekend, as always, and I thank you for reading. The world continues to be a shitshow but this place and this project have been a refuge for me amid the broader horrors. I hope you’ve found cool music, at the very least.

Unless you’re a fascist, in which case, as always, you can fuck yourself off what your dumb ass believes is the edge of the flat Earth.

FRM.

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