Quarterly Review: Alunah, Coilguns, Robot God, Fuzznaut, Void Moon, Kelley Juett, Whispering Void, Orme, Azutmaga, Poste 942

Posted in Reviews on October 11th, 2024 by JJ Koczan

THE-OBELISK-FALL-2020-QUARTERLY-REVIEW

I got a note from the contact form a bit ago in my email, which happens enough that it’s not really news, except that it wasn’t addressed to me. That happens sometimes too. A band has a form letter they send out with info — it’s not the most personal touch, but has a purpose and doesn’t preclude following-up individually — or just wants to say the same thing to however many outlets. Fair game. This was specifically addressed to somebody else. And it kind of ends with the band saying to send a donation link, like, “Wink wink we donate and you post our stuff.”

Well shit. You mean I coulda been making fat stacks off these stoner bands all the while? Living in my dream house with C.O.C. on the outdoor speakers just by exploiting a couple acts trying to get their riffs heard? Well I’ll be damned. Yeah man, here’s my donation link. Daddy needs a new pair of orthopedic flip-flops. I’ma never pay taxes again.

Life, sometimes.

Quarterly Review #41-50:

Alunah, Fever Dream

Alunah Fever Dream

The seventh full-length from UK outfit Alunah, Fever Dream, will be immediately noteworthy for being the band’s last (though one never knows) with vocalist Siân Greenaway fronting the band, presiding over an era of transition when they had to find a new identity for themselves. Fever Dream is the third Alunah LP with Greenaway, and its nine songs show plainly how far the band has come in the six-plus years of her tenure. “Never Too Late” kicks off with both feet at the intersection of heavy rock and classic metal, with a hook besides, and “Trickster of Time” follows up with boogie and flute, because you’re special and deserve nice things. The four-piece as they are here — Greenaway on vocals (and flute), guitarist Matt Noble, bassist Dan Burchmore and founding drummer Jake Mason — are able to bring some drama in “Fever Dream,” to imagine lone-guitar metal Thin Lizzy in the solo of the swaggering “Hazy Jane,” go from pastoral to crushing in “Celestial” and touch on prog in “The Odyssey.” The finale “I’ve Paid the Price” tips into piano grandiosity, but by the time they get there, it feels earned. A worthy culmination for this version of this band.

Alunah on Facebook

Heavy Psych Sounds website

Coilguns, Odd Love

coilguns odd love

Swiss heavy post-hardcore unit Coilguns‘ fourth LP and the first in five years, though they’ve had EPs and splits in that time, Odd Love offers 11 songs across an adventurous 48 minutes, alternately raw or lush, hitting hard with a slamming impact or careening or twisting around, mathy and angular. In “Generic Skincare,” it’s both and a jet-engine riff to boot. Atmosphere comes to the fore on “Caravel,” the early going of “Featherweight” and the later “The Wind to Wash the Pain,” but even the most straight-ahead moments of charge have some richer context around them, whether that’s the monstrous tension and release of capper “Bunker Vaults” or, well, the monstrous tension and release of “Black Chyme” earlier on. It’s not the kind of thing I always reach for, but Coilguns make post-hardcore disaffection sound like a good time, with intensity and spaciousness interwoven in their style and a vicious streak that comes out on the regular. Four records deep, the band know what they’re about but are still exploring.

Coilguns on Facebook

Hummus Records website

Robot God, Subconscious Awakening

robot god subconscious awakeningrobot god subconscious awakening

Subconscious Awakening is Robot God‘s second album of 2024 and works in a similar two-sides/four-songs structure as the preceding Portal Within, released this past Spring, where each half of the record is subdivided into one longer and shorter song. It feels even more purposeful on Subconscious Awakening since both “Mandatory Remedy” and “Sonic Crucifixion” both hover around eight and a half minutes while side A opens with the 13-minute “Blind Serpent” and side B with the 11-minute title-track. Rife with textured effects, some samples, and thoughtful melodic vocals, Subconscious Awakening of course shares some similarity of purpose with Portal Within, which was also recorded at the same time, but a song like “Sonic Crucifixion” creates its own sprawl, and the outward movement between that closer and the title-track before it underscores the progressivism at work in the band’s sound amid tonal heft and complex, sometimes linear structures. Takes some concentration to wield that kind of groove.

Robot God on Facebook

Kozmik Artifactz website

Fuzznaut, Wind Doula

fuzznaut wind doula

Especially for an experimentalist, drone-based act who relies on audience theater-of-the-mind as a necessary component of appreciating its output, Pittsburgh solo outfit Fuzznaut — aka guitarist Emilio Rizzo — makes narrative a part of what the band does. Earlier this year, Fuzznaut‘s “Space Rock” single reaped wide praise for its cosmic aspects. “Wind Doula” specifically cites Neil Young‘s soundtrack for the film Dead Man as an influence, and thus brings four minutes more closely tied to empty spread of prairie, perhaps with some filtering being done through Earth‘s own take on the style as heard in 2005’s seminal Hex: Or Printing in the Infernal Method. One has to wonder if, had Rizzo issued “Wind Doula” with a picture of an astronaut floating free on its cover, it would be the cosmic microwave background present in the track instead of stark wind across the Great Plains, but there’s much more to Fuzznaut than self-awareness and the power of suggestion. Chalk up another aesthetic tryout that works.

Fuzznaut on Facebook

Fuzznaut on Bandcamp

Void Moon, Dreams Inside the Sun

void moon dreams inside the sun

Trad metal enthusiasts will delight at the specificity of the moment in the history of the style Void Moon interpret on their fourth album, Dreams Inside the Sun. It’s not that they’re pretending outright that it’s 1986, like the Swedish two-piece of guitarist/bassist Peter Svensson and drummer/vocalist Marcus Rosenqvist are wearing hightops and trying to convince you they’re Candlemass, but that era is present in the songwriting and production throughout Dreams Inside the Sun, even if the sound of the record is less directly anachronistic and their metallurgical underpinnings aren’t limited to doom between slowed down thrash riffs, power-metal-style vocalizing and the consuming Iommic nod of “East of the Sun” meeting with a Solitude Aeturnus-style chug, all the more righteous for being brought in to serve the song rather than to simply demonstrate craft. That is to say, the relative barn-burner “Broken Skies” and the all-in eight-minute closer “The Wolf (At the End of the World,” which has some folk in its verse as well, use a purposefully familiar foundation as a starting point for the band to carve their own niche, and it very much works.

Void Moon on Facebook

Personal Records website

Kelley Juett, Wandering West

Kelley Juett Wandering West

Best known for slinging his six-string alongside brother Kyle Juett in Texas rockers Mothership, Kelley Juett‘s debut solo offering, Wandering West pulls far away from that classic power trio in intention while still keeping Juett‘s primary instrument as the focus. Some loops and layering don’t quite bring Wandering West the same kind of experimental feel as, say, Blackwolfgoat or a similar guitarist-gonna-guitar exploratory project, but they sit well nonetheless alongside the fluid noodling of Juett‘s drumless self-jams. He backs his own solo in centerpiece “Breezin’,” and the subsequent “Electric Dreamland” seems to use the empty space as much as the notes being cast out into it to create its sense of ambience, so if part of what Juett is doing on Wandering West is beginning the process of figuring out who he is as a solo artist, he’s someone who can turn a seven-minute meander like “Lonely One” (playing off Mos Generator?) into a bluesy contemplation of evolving reach, the guitar perfectly content to talk to itself if there’s nobody else around. Time may show it to be formative, but let the future worry about the future. There’s a lot to dig into, here and now.

Mothership on Facebook

Glory or Death Records website

Whispering Void, At the Sound of the Heart

Whispering Void At the Sound of the Heart

With vocalists Kristian Eivind Espedal (Gaahls Wyrd, Trelldom, ex-Gorgoroth, etc.) and Lindy-Fay Hella (Wardruna, solo, etc.), guitarist Ronny “Valgard” Stavestrand (Trelldom) and drummer/bassist/keyboardist/producer Iver Sandøy (Enslaved, Relentless Agression, etc.), who also helmed (most of) the recording and mixed and mastered, Whispering Void easily could have fallen into the trap of being no more than the sum of its pedigree. Instead, the seven songs on debut album At the Sound of the Heart harness aspects of Norwegian folk for a rock sound that’s dark enough for the lower semi-growls in the eponymous “Whispering Void” to feel like they’re playing toward a gothic sentiment that’s not out of character when there’s so much melancholy around generally. Mid-period Anathema feel like a reference point for “Lauvvind” and the surging “We Are Here” later on, and by that I mean the album is intricately textured and absolutely gorgeous and you’ll be lucky if you take this as your cue to hear it.

Whispering Void on Facebook

Prophecy Productions on Bandcamp

Orme, No Serpents, No Saviours

Orme No Serpents No Saviours Artwork

You know how sometimes in a workplace where there’s a Boss With Personality™, there might be a novelty sign or a desk tchotchke that says, “The beatings will continue until morale improves?” Like, haha, in addition to wage theft you might get smacked if you get uppity about, say, wage theft? Fine. Orme sound like what happens when morale doesn’t improve. The 24-minute single-song No Serpents, No Saviours EP comes a little more than a year after the band’s two-song/double-vinyl self-titled debut (review here) and finds them likewise at home in longform songwriting. There are elements of death-doom, but Orme are sludgier in their presentation, and so wind up able to be morose and filthy in kind, moving from the opening crush through a quiet stretch after six minutes in that builds into persistent thuds before dropping out again, a sample helping mark the transitions between movements, and a succession of massive lumbering parts trading off leading into a final march that feels as tall as it is wide. I like that, in a time where the trend is so geared toward lush melody, Orme are unrepentantly nasty.

Orme on Facebook

Orme on Bandcamp

Azutmaga, Offering

azutmaga offering

Budapest instrumentalist duo Azutmaga make their full-length debut with the aptly-titled Offering, compiling nine single-word-title pieces that reside stylistically somewhere between sludge metal and doom. Self-recorded by guitarist Patrik Veréb (who also mixed and mastered at Terem Studio) and self-released by Veréb and drummer Martin Várszegi, it’s a relatively stripped-down procession, but not lacking breadth as the longer “Aura” builds up to its full roll or the minute-long “Orca” provides an acoustic break ahead of the languid big-swing semi-psychedelia of “Mirror,” informed by Eastern European folk melodies but ready to depart into less terrestrial spheres. It should come as no surprise that “Portal” follows. Offering might at first give something of a monolithic impression as “Purge” calls to mind Earth‘s steady drone rock, but Azutmaga have a whole other level of volume to unfurl. Just so happens their dynamic goes from loud to louder.

Azutmaga on Facebook

Azutmaga on Bandcamp

Poste 942, #chaleurhumaine

poste 942 chaleurhumaine

After trickling out singles for over a year, including the title-track of the album and, in 2022, an early version of the instrumental “The Freaks Come Out at Night” that may or may not have been from before vocalist Virginie D. joined the band, the hashtag-named #chaleurhumaine delights in shirking heavy rock conventions, whether it’s the French-language lyrics or divergences into punk and harder fare, but nothing here — regardless of one’s linguistic background — is so challenging as to be inaccessible. Catchy songs are catchy, whether that’s “Fada Fighters” or “La Diable au Corps,” which dares a bit of harmonica along with its full-toned blues rock riffing. Likewise, nowhere the album goes feels beyond the band’s reach, and while “La Ligne” doesn’t sound especially daring as it plays up the brighter pop in its verse and shove of a chorus, well made songs never have any trouble finding welcome. I’m not sure why it’s a hashtag, but #chaleurhumaine feels complete and engaging, at once familiar and nothing so much as itself.

Poste 942 on Facebook

Poste 942 on Bandcamp

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Desertfest Belgium 2024 Lineup Complete; Conan, Causa Sui, Ruff Majik & More Added

Posted in Whathaveyou on June 5th, 2024 by JJ Koczan

I mean, it’s not like the 2024 lineup for Desertfest Antwerp — aka Desertfest Belgium — wasn’t already stunning, but go ahead and throw ConanCausa SuiRuff Majik, Birds in Row, Valley of the SunDelvingDaevarCoilguns, and the others below into the mix and that definitely doesn’t hurt. The headliners speak for themselves — Monster Magnet are a call to show up, Fu Manchu will be supporting their new record, which is out this month, and Russian Circles are Russian Circles — but as you dig into each line of the poster below, you can see there isn’t really a point where the hits stop coming. I won’t claim to be familiar with the likes of Tangled HornsGiac TaylorThroatsnapper or Divided, who are also newly tacked onto the bill, but as they join the likes of SpaceslugStoned JesusMessaChild, and others on my personal hope-I-see-before-I-die list, it’s striking both how broad and how rad this lineup is on the whole.

And yes, that’s the extent of the insight. This looks killer. I’ve only been through Belgium once, and it was to change trains. I was there just long enough to try and fail at ordering coffee in French, but if there ever was a reason to want to head back and give that another shot likely to the same result, this would likely be it. Rezn and Seedy Jeezus and Mondo Drag? In the parlance of our times: “let’s go.”

Ticket link and the relatively brief final announcement from the fest follow here, emojis intact, as seen on social media:

Desertfest Belgium 2024 final lineup

Hold fast for the 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐀𝐧𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐩 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒 lineup is complete! ⚡ Forged in blood and sweat, we present you with the final additions to the bill:

Conan / Birds in Row / Causa Sui / Valley of the Sun / Coilguns / delving / Ruff Majik / Red Scalp / Tangled Horns / Divided / Throatsnapper / Giac Taylor / Daevar

Now with that sweet cherry on top there’s no reason not to get a ticket 🍒: https://www.desertfest.be/antwerp/information/ticketing/

Spread the word, share the post and see you later in Antwerp!

http://www.desertfest.be/
https://www.facebook.com/desertfestbelgium/
https://www.instagram.com/desertfest_belgium/

Ruff Majik, “Swine Tooth Grin” live in Nürnberg, Germany, 05.29.24

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Roadburn 2019: Grails, Hexvessel, Uran, Lucy in Blue, Bismuth, Third Commissioned Project and More Added

Posted in Whathaveyou on December 14th, 2018 by JJ Koczan

roadburn 2019 banner

I mean. Look. Hey. You know. It’s, uh. Yeah.

Roadburn and I kind of hit this point every year — at least we have for the last decade. The lineup announcements come through, and after a while, I just don’t even know what to say about it anymore. “Hey, so, look’s like Roadburn‘s gonna be all things to all people again” doesn’t really cut it as far as editorial content goes.

Here’s a point I’ll make: I think if you look at the Roadburn 2019 lineup, with its three commissioned projects — the third of which is newly announced — two career-spanning headline slots from Sleep, bands from multiple corners of the globe, a couple label showcases thrown in for good measure, and more still to come, it’s pretty safe to say it’s the biggest, farthest-reaching Roadburn yet. And even that. Is something I say. Every friggin’ year.

Doesn’t mean it doesn’t apply. It’ll be nice to see Grails again, and I was hoping Hexvessel would get added when their new video showed up earlier this week. A little more Aaron Turner doesn’t hurt either.

The PR wire has the lot of it, and you’ll see below the gorgeous individual day posters by Maarten Donders.

Dig:

More names announced for Roadburn 2019 including third commissioned project

– Tomas Lindberg adds more names to The Burning Darkness including GRAILS and URAN
– HEXVESSEL to perform All Tree in full
– Dutch black metal to be showcased in commissioned project MAALSTROOM
– Aaron Turner, Will Brooks and Dennis Tyfus to unite as DOOLHOF

Roadburn’s artistic director, Walter Hoeijmakers comments:

“We’re thrilled that 4-day tickets have sold out this side of Christmas – with still some of the line up to announce! Don’t delay on day tickets as we hope that they too will go quickly. We are nearing the end of our announcements, but there is still a handful of bands to present in the new year.”

TOMAS LINDBERG’S THE BURNING DARKNESS

GRAILS

GRAILS are set to return to Roadburn Festival exactly ten years after they performed at Neurosis’ curated event, Beyond The Pale back in 2009. We’re thrilled to announce that they’ll be making a return to join us in Tilburg – once again as a result of an invitation from our curator.

FONTÄN

“The whole vibe of FONTÄN reeks of folky, trippy melancholia, in the most unsentimental way. This is something that could easily have been produced by Brian Eno in his prime.” says Lindberg of his choice.

THE EXORCIST GBG

One of three Gothenburg based bands in this latest announcement, Lindberg describes THE EXORCIST GBG as: “a mind and time bending electronic psych experience, with a serious funk dance groove, like the legendary Goblin on dangerous cult-ritual-inducing drugs.”

URAN

When Tomas Lindberg describes a band as Sweden’s best kept secret, it’s time to start paying attention. He comments of URAN: “Imagine the heaviest psych, in a street fight with the most hypnotizing Stooges riffs, with an electronic Kraut edge and a monstrous Hawkwind presence.”

HEXVESSEL

HEXVESSEL’s new album, All Tree, will be released in February and the sole track released at the time of writing gives a tantalising glimpse of what to expect. It’s considered, haunting and – quite honestly – downright beautiful.
Prepare yourselves for some pin-drop moments amongst some soul shaking sonic shifts: Hexvessel are back!

DOOLHOF

The component parts of DOOLHOF are Aaron Turner, Will Brooks and Dennis Tyfus. Musically and artistically these three men appear to be worlds apart but look a little deeper and it’s obvious there’s a streak of experimental vigour and curiosity that runs through them all – and in this case, unites them.

When the idea of a collaborative project was floated, Turner singled out Will Brooks early on. Brooks made his Roadburn debut with Dälek in 2017; one of the most talked about performances of that edition, Dälek were instrumental in expanding the scope of the festival. Tyfus is a Belgian audio/visual artist whose Ultra Eczema label has served as the nucleus for a vast and eclectic array of creative endeavours.

That its participants have named it DOOLHOF (Dutch for ‘maze’) leads our minds to bubble over with possibilities.

MAALSTROOM

The third and final commissioned piece for Roadburn 2019 is a collaboration between a seething mass of up and coming – not to mention, vitally important – Dutch black metal bands. The project is titled MAALSTROOM and will unite over a dozen musicians from Laster, Verwoed, Witte Wieven, Turia, Fluisteraars, Grey Aura, Terzij de Horde, Folteraar, Nefast – and more.

Roadburn has showcased slivers of this innovative and burgeoning scene in previous years, but never before has such a heavy and accomplished array of Dutch musicians gathered together under one banner.

Exclusively for Roadburn Festival, MAALSTROOM will compose and perform a piece that spans five movements, with an evolving line-up of performers embellishing an ambient backdrop. This is not merely a show, nor a ritual; it is a current to be dragged along by.

MAALSTROOM is possible thanks to the continued support of the City of Tilburg and Brabant C.

As well as participating in MAALSTROOM the following bands will perform their own sets at Roadburn Festival 2019:
LASTER
TERZIJ DE HORDE
WITTE WIEVEN
DODECAHEDRON
TURIA
NUSQUAMA

ALSO ANNOUNCED TODAY:
BISMUTH bring ethereal doom to Roadburn
COILGUNS are primed to deliver an ear pummelling
CROWHURST will bring a world of pain
CROWHURST & GNAW THEIR TONGUES unite in harsh noise
FAUNA evoke manifestations of nature and wilderness through the lens of black metal
FOTOCRIME will shed light on a darkened room
LUCY IN BLUE set off on a psychedelic prog quest to Roadburn
PHARMAKON will summon disconnecting ambience and caustic crescendos of industrial noise
THOR & FRIENDS to bring their warm, hypnotic songs to Roadburn
TWIN TEMPLE’s Satanic doo-wop will reign supreme
WRONG will deliver angular melody and abrasiveness

TICKETS:
Single day tickets will go on sale on tonight – Thursday, December 13 at 8pm CET/7pm GMT/ 2pm EST. 4-day tickets are SOLD OUT, 3-day tickets are still available in limited numbers.

Tickets are be priced as follows:
3 days ticket (Thu-Sat) €181 + €4,50 service fee
Day ticket (Thu, Fri or Sat) €62 + €4,50 service fee
Sunday ticket €55,50 + €4,50 service fee

https://www.facebook.com/roadburnfestival/
http://www.twitter.com/Roadburnfest
http://www.instagram.com/roadburnfest
http://www.roadburn.com

Hexvessel, “Old Tree” official video

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

VVitch Festival 2018 Confirms Lineup with Dopethrone, Celeste, Eagle Twin and More

Posted in Whathaveyou on June 22nd, 2018 by JJ Koczan

Set in Milan across four nights and three different venues taking place over the course of two months, the full VVitch Festival is a season-long experience. It draws bands from multiple regions in Europe, the US and Canada, and is no less eclectic in its sound than in the geography. Each show has a different theme that feeds into the larger entirety of the experience, and VVitch Festival proper will be held as the last night, with Frizzi 2 FulciCeleste, KENmodeBelzebong and The Necromancers (who are touring together and also making a stop in Austria at the Heavy Psych Sounds Fest), Birds in Row and Coilguns. Seems like a pretty sick night and all over the place, but again, it’s just the last of four in the series.

Full lineups follow here, along with event links as per the PR wire:

vvitch festival lineup

-VVITCH-

Inspired by witchcraft and horror movies themes, between doom, sludge, black, grind, death and post metal, it?s coming soon in Milano, Italy, a new event for metal maniacs called “VVITCH FESTIVAL”. A trilogy of events plus a fourth one, the festival. Three different venues in Milano, 17 bands, some of them for the first time in Italy, some for exclusive Italian shows.

“..dark forces are going to cross the walls of the city, after the Sacrifice and the Ritual, the Evocation..”

VVITCH I – Sacrifice
September 19th 2018, Spazio Ligera, Milano
DEMILICH (FIN) exclusive Italian show
SPECTRAL VOICE (USA) exclusive Italian show
CARDIAC ARREST (USA) exclusive Italian show
FB event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1568544103256273

VVITCH II – Ritual
October 11th 2018, Kraken Pub, Milano
DOPETHRONE (CAN)
EAGLE TWIN (USA)
MESSA (IT)
FB event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1979301145733544

VVITCH III – Evocation
November 3rd 2018, Spazio Ligera, Milano
BOLOGNA VIOLENTA (IT) “Uno Bianca” full album set
FISTULA (USA) exclusive Italian show
GRIME (IT)
DEATH HAS GONE (IT)
FB event: https://www.facebook.com/events/2063352060550129

VVITCH FESTIVAL
November 25th 2018, Circolo Magnolia, Milano
FRIZZI 2 FULCI (IT)
(live soundtracks by Fabio Frizzi, of Lucio Fulci’s horror cult movies, for the
first time in Milano)
CELESTE (FR) exclusive Italian show
KEN MODE (CAN) exclusive Italian show
BELZEBONG (PL)
BIRDS IN ROW (FR)
COILGUNS (CH)
THE NECROMANCERS (FR)
FB event: https://www.facebook.com/events/172227866788138

https://www.facebook.com/vvitchfestival

Eagle Twin, The Thundering Heard (2018)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,