Posted in Whathaveyou on March 31st, 2025 by JJ Koczan
The above photo of Denver’s Oryx was taken at the release show this past January for the band’s latest album, Primordial Sky (review here), and quite simply, it’s what it’s all about. Even before you get to Tommy Davis holding his guitar aloft in triumph, look at the sheer victory on each of their faces. Perhaps most obviously bassist Joshua Kauffman, but definitely there for Tommy and drummer Abigail Davis as well. Sweaty, tired, having very clearly just laid waste to a hometown gig in celebration of their best and farthest reaching work to-date. Fuck. Ing. A.
And speaking of ‘farthest reaching,’ just as Primordial Sky explores new and genre-defiant ground for the band, so too will their travels take them to places yet-unflattened by their volume, tonal density and cathartic take on extreme sludge, likewise spacious and crushing. They’ll go to Japan for the first time in July for a stint of six shows rounding out with two nights in Tokyo. It’s nothing but a feelgood story as far as I’m concerned. Good band puts out killer record and a couple months later does something they’ve apparently been angling toward for years.
You know how on the news they always try to leave off with a story about some neighborhood squirrel who saved a family from a house fire or the cat that traveled 1,500 miles to reunite with its family? Well, something like this is my version of that. Apart perhaps from the music itself — and I’d argue resonant catharsis counteracts depressive aspects; perhaps unsuccessfully depending on the listener — there’s no downer here. It’s only awesome. It feels good to be happy for Oryx, so whether you’ll go to Japan or you’re already there and whether you’ll see them or not, my recommendation is be glad for the band. For most acts from the US, it’s the trip of a lifetime and they’re about to make it. Couldn’t be radder.
From socials:
ORYX – Japanese Tour
Proud to announce our first shows ever in Japan performing ‘Primordial Sky’ this summer. Lineup details to come for each show. We can’t wait! 💥
ORYX JAPAN TOUR 2025 7月1日（火）- 大阪 – HOKAGE 7月2日（水）- 名古屋 – HUCK FINN 7月3日（木）- 京都 – SOCRATES 7月4日（金）- 横浜 – EL PUENTE 7月5日（土）- 東京 – PIT BAR 7月6日 (日) – 東京 – MOD 7/1 (TUE) – OSAKA 大阪 – HOKAGE 7/2 (WED) – NAGOYA 名古屋 – HUCK FINN 7/3 (THU) – KYOTO 京都 – SOCRATES 7/4 (FRI) – YOKOHAMA 横浜 – EL PUENTE 7/5 (SAT) – TOKYO 東京 – PIT BAR 7/6 (SUN) – TOKYO 東京 – MOD
ORYX is: Thomas Davis – all guitars, vocals, synth Abigail Davis – drums Joshua Kauffman – bass
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 11th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
You would not accuse Hashtronaut of not knowing what they’re about in Ufomammut-style cosmic largesse and crush and unmititgated stoner idolatry. The suitably-mile-high Denver rollers of very, very large riffs will head out next month on a Spring tour supporting their 2024 debut full-length, No Return (review here), which will see the anniversary of its release shortly before this run starts. Woe unto the eardrums of the masses.
I’m not sure if this is their first time on the Eastern Seaboard or not and I’m not going to pretend to know, but they mention a bunch of new cities either way in the quote below and hint at new material perhaps making its way into the set, to take it as a win either way. I spent half of last year wondering why I didn’t hear more people sloberring on this record on social media and the other half of the year being like “it’s because you don’t pay attention to that shit, duh.” Either way, somebody should be going door-to-door telling nodders about these dudes, and to-date I’ve heard nary a knock.
From the PR wire:
HASHTRONAUT announce East Coast spring tour; debut album available now on Blues Funeral Recordings
Denver, Colorado’s stoner doom specialists HASHTRONAUT are set to spread their skull-crushing, weed-laden gospel with an extensive East Coast tour this spring. Their debut album “No Return” is available now on Blues Funeral Recordings.
Red-eyed at the crossroads of thunderous stoner sludge and towering doom, HASHTRONAUT daze and inebriate the riff-obsessed masses on this planet and beyond. Released in 2024 on Blues Funeral Recordings, their acclaimed debut album “No Return” is a resiny slab in the grand tradition of weed-fiend odysseys from Sleep to Bongzilla, an intoxicating and pummeling trip with a lungful of potent hook-doom and strikingly anthemic vocals that will enthrall fans of Monolord, Windhand or Dopelord. Stream their debut album “No Return” at this location:https://lnkfi.re/hashtronaut
About the upcoming US tour, the band says: “We couldn’t be more excited to get back out on the road again this spring, and even more excited to visit a whole bunch of new cities along the way!! It’s been a long, cold winter in our bunker somewhere outside of Denver, but we emerge with new amps, new riffs, and a new trick or two up our sleeve! See you out there!”
Hashtronaut upcoming US shows: 4.4 – Chicago, Illinois – Reggies 4.6 – Youngstown, Ohio – Westside Bowl 4.7 – Troy, New York – No Fun 4.8 – Brooklyn, New York – The Woodshop 4.9 – Boston, Massachusetts – Middle East Upstairs * 4.10 – Providence, Rhode Island – Alchemy * 4.11 – Lewiston, Maine – The Cage * 4.12 – New London, Connecticut – Telegraph A.Z. * 4.13 – Washington, D.C. – Pie Shop * 4.14 – Atlanta, Georgia – Bogg’s Social 4.15 – Nashville, Tennessee – The Cobra 4.17 – Boone, North Carolina – Lily’s Snack Bar 4.18 – Lexington, Kentucky – Legalize Lex @ Al’s Bar 4.19 – Kansas City, Missouri – Minibar 4.20 – Denver, Colorado – Hi-Dive * with Worshipper
HASHTRONAUT current lineup: Michael Honiotes – Drums* Kellen McInerney – Regular Guitar Robb Park – Stunt Guitar Daniel Smith – Bass/Vocals *all tracks on the album recorded by Eric Garcia
Posted in Reviews on October 21st, 2024 by JJ Koczan
This is the last day of the Fall 2024 Quarterly Review. Day 11 of 10, as it were. Bonus-extra, as we say at home. 10 more releases of various kinds to underscore the point of the infinite creative sphere. Before we dive in, I want to make a note about the header above. It’s the same one I used a couple times during the pandemic, with the four horseman of the apocalypse riding, and I put it in place of the AI art I’d been using because that seems to be a trigger for so many people.
In my head, I did that to avoid the conversation, to avoid dealing with someone who might be like, “Ugh, AI art” and then a conversation that deteriorates in the way of people talking at each other on the internet. This saves me the trouble. I’ll note the irony that swiping an old etching out of the public domain and slapping an Obelisk logo on it is arguably less creative than feeding a prompt into a generative whathaveyou, but at least this way I don’t have to hear the underground’s moral panic that AI is coming for stoner rock.
Quarterly Review #101-110:
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Chat Pile, Cool World
Chat Pile are two-for-two on living up to the hype in my mind as Cool World follows the band’s 2022 debut, God’s Country (review here), with a darker, more metal take on that record’s trauma-poetic and nihilistic noise rock. Some of the bassy jabs in songs like “Camcorder” and “Frownland” remind of Korn circa their self-titled, but I’m not sure Chat Pile were born when that record came out, and that harder, fuller-sounding impact comes in a context with “Tape” following “Camcorder” in bringing together Meshuggah and post-punk, so take it as you will. Based in Oklahoma City, Chat Pile are officially A Big Deal With Dudes™, but in a style that’s not exactly known for reinvention — i.e. noise rock — they are legitimately a breath of air that would be ‘fresh’ if it weren’t so desolate and remains innovative regardless. There’s gonna be a lot of mediocre riffs and shitty poetry written in an attempt to capture a fraction of what this record does.
I guess the anonymous project Neon Nightamre — who sound and aesthetic-wise are straight-up October Rust-and-later Type O Negative; the reason the album caught my eye was the framing of the letters around the corners — have gotten some harsh response to their debut, Faded Dream. Critic-type dudes pearl-clutching a band’s open unoriginality. Because to be sure, beyond dedicating the album to Peter Steele — and maybe they did, I haven’t seen the full artwork — Neon Nightmare could hardly do more in naked homage to the semi-goth Brooklyn legends and their distinctive Beatles/Sabbath worship. But I mean, that’s the point. It’s not like this band is saying they’re the first ones doing any of this, and in a world where AI could scrape every Type O record and pump out some half-assed interpretation in five minutes, isn’t something that attempts to demonstrate actual human love for the source material as it builds on it worth at least acknowledging as creative? I like Type O Negative a lot. The existence of Neon Nightmare doesn’t lessen that at all, and there are individual flashes of style in “Lost Silver” — the keyboard line feels like an easter egg from “Anesthesia”; I wondered if the title was in honor of Josh Silver — and the guitar work of “She’s Drowning” that make me even more curious to see where this goes.
Brooklyn-based instrumentalist five-piece Astrometer present their full-length debut after releasing their first demo, Incubation (review here), in 2022. The double-guitar pairing of Carmine Laietta V and Drew Mack and the drumming of Jeff Stieber at times will put you in mind of their collective past playing together in Hull, but the keys of Jon Ehlers (Bangladeafy) and the basswork of Sam Brodsky (Meek is Murder) assure that the newer collective have a persona and direction of their own, so that while the soaring solo in “Power Vulture” or the crashes of “Blood Wedding” might ring familiar, the context has shifted, so that those crashes come accompanied by sax and there’s room for a song like “Conglobulations” with its quirk, rush and crunching bounce to feel cosmic with the keyboard, and that blend of crush and reach extends into the march of closer “Do I Know How to Party…” which feels like a preface for things to come in its progressive punch.
An annual check-in from universe-and-chill molten and mellow heavy psych explorers Acid Rooster. It’s only been a year since the band unfurled Flowers and Dead Souls, but Hall of Mirrors offers another chance to be hypnotized by the band’s consuming fluidity, the 39-minute four-songer coming across as focused on listener immersion in no small part as a result of Acid Rooster‘s own. That is, it’s not like you’re swimming around the bassline and residual synth and guitar effects noise in the middle of the 14-minute “Chandelier Arp” and the band are standing calm and dry back on the beach. No way. They’re right in it. I don’t know if they were closed-eyes entranced while the recording was taking place, but if you want a definition of ‘dug in,’ Hall of Mirrors has four, and Acid Rooster‘s capacity for conveying purpose as they plunge into a jam-born piece like “Confidence of Ignorance” sets them apart from much of Europe’s psychedelic underground in establishing a meditative atmosphere. They are unafraid of the serene, and not boring. This is an achievement.
Giants Dawrfs and Black Holes, Echo on Death of Narcissus
Five years on from their start, Germany’s Giants Dwarfs and Black Holes present Echo on Death of Narcissus as their third full-length and the follow-up to 2023’s In a Sandbox Full of Suns (review here) as the four-piece bring in new guitarist Caio Puttini Chaves alongside vocalist Christiane Thomaßen, guitarist Tomasz Riedel (also bass and keys) and drummer Carsten Freckmann for a five-track collection that has another album’s worth of knows-what-it’s-about behind it. Opener “Again,” long enough at eight minutes to be a bookend with the finale “Take Me Down” (13:23) but not so long as to undercut that expanse, leads into three competent showings of classic progressive/psychedelic rock, casual in the flow between “Soul Trip” and the foreboding strums of centerpiece “Flowers of Evil” ahead of the also-languid “December Bloom.” And when they get there, “Take Me Down” has a jammy breadth all its own that shimmers in the back half soloing, which kind of devolves at the end, but resounds all the more as organic for that.
Oryx‘s Primordial Sky threads a stylistic needle across its four songs. Delivered through Translation Loss, the 41-minute follow-up to the Denver trio’s 2021 offering, Lamenting a Dead World (discussed here), is no less extreme than one would expect, but to listen to 13-minute opener/longest track (immediate points), 13-minute capper “Look Upon the Earth,” or either of the seven-minute cuts between, it’s plain to both hear and see that there’s more to Oryx atmospherically than onslaught, however low guitarist Thomas Davis (also synth) pushes his growls amid the lurching grooves of bassist Joshua Kauffman and drummer Abigail Davis. This is something that five records and more than a decade on from their start their listeners know well, but as they refine their processes, even the outright sharp-toothed consumption of “Ephemeral” has some element of outreach.
Heads up on this record for those who dig the mellower end of heavy psych, plus intricacy of arrangement, which is a number in which I very much count myself. By that I mean don’t be surprised when Sunface‘s Cloud Castles shows up on my year-end list. It’s less outwardly traditionalist than some of the heavy rock coming out of Norway at this point in history, but showcasing a richer underground only makes Cloud Castles more vital in my mind, and as even a shorter song like “Thunder Era” includes an open-enough sensibility to let a shoegazier sway enter the proceedings in “Violet Ponds” without seeming incongruous for the post-All Them Witches bluesy sway that underlies it. Innovative for the percussion in “Tall Trees” alone, Sunface are weighted in tone but able to move in a way that feels like their own, and to convey that movement without upsetting the full-album flow across the 10 songs and 44 minutes with radical changes in meter, while at the same time not dwelling too long in any single stretch or atmosphere.
While consistent with their two prior LPs in the general modus of unmitigated aural heft and oppressive, extreme sludge, Fórn declare themselves on broader aesthetic ground in incorporating electronic elements courtesy of guitarist Joey Gonzalez and Andrew Nault, as well as newcomer synthesist Lane Shi Otayonii, whose clean vocals also provide a sense of space to 11-minute post-intro plunge “Soul Shadow.” If it’s the difference between all-crush and mostly-crush, that’s not nothing, and “Anamnesis” can be that much noisier for the band’s exploring a more encompassing sound. Live drums are handled in a guest capacity by Ilsa‘s Josh Brettell, and that band’s Orion Peter also sits in alongside Fórn‘s Chris Pinto and Otayonii, and with Danny Boyd on guitar and Brian Barbaruolo on bass, the sound is duly massive, tectonic and three-dimensional; the work of a band following a linear progression toward new ideas and balancing that against the devastation laid forth in their songs. Repercussions of the Self does not want for challenge directed toward the listener, but the crux is catharsis more than navelgazing, and the intensity here is no less crucial to Fórn‘s post-metallic scene-setting than it has been to this point in their tenure. Good band actively making themselves better.
Big-riffed heavy fuzz rock from Northern Ireland as the Belfast-based self-releasing-for-now four-piece of vocalist/synthesist Fionnuala McGlinchy, guitarist Tom Finney, bassist Michael McFarlane and drummer Ciaran O’Kane touch on vibes reminiscent of some of Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard‘s synth-fused sci-fi doom roil while keeping the material more earthbound in terms of tone and structure, so that the seven-minute “The Abstract” isn’t quite all-in on living up to the title, plenty liquefied, but still aware of itself and where it’s going. This mitigated terrestrialism — think Middle of Nowhere-era Acid King — is the source of a balance to which Negative Space, the band’s second album, is able to reshape as required by a given song — “Burning Gaze” has its far-out elements, they’re there for a reason — and thereby portray a range of moods rather than dwelling in the same emotional or atmospheric space for the duration. Bookending intro “As Above” and the closer “So Below” further the impression of the album as a single work/journey to undertake, and indeed that seems to be how the character of “The Forest,” “Delirium” and the rest of the material flourishes.
Romanian instrumentalist heavy psych purveyors Methadone Skies sent word of the follow-up to 2021’s Retrofuture Caveman (review here) last month and said that the six-songer Spectres at Dawn was the heaviest work they’d done in their now-six-album tenure. Well they’re right. Taking cues from Russian Circles and various others in the post-heavy sphere, guitarists Alexandru Wehry and Casian Stanciu, bassist Mihai Guta and drummer Flavius Retea (also keyboards, of increasing prominence in the sound), are still able to dive into a passage and carry across a feeling of openness and expanse, but on “Mano Cornetto” here that becomes just part of a surprisingly stately rush of space metal, and 10-minute closer “Use the Excessive Force” seems to be laying out its intention right there in the title. Whether the ensuing blastbeats are, in fact, excessive, will be up to the individual listener, but either way, Methadone Skies have done their diligence in letting listeners know where they’re headed, and Spectres at Dawn embodies that forwardness of ethic on multiple levels.
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 29th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Seven minutes of deathly splendor in Oryx‘s new single “Myopic.” The Denver trio founded by the partnered team of guitarist/vocalist Thomas Davis and drummer Abigail Davis and now completed by bassist Joshua Kauffman are set to release their four-song long-player, Primordial Sky, this Fall through Translation Loss. That same label released the band’s last outing, Lamenting a Dead World (discussed here), and if you heard that record and reasonably wondered where on earth one might possibly go from there, the answer “Myopic” seems to provide is ‘deeper.’
Deeper and perhaps more open. I won’t count on the single to speak for the entirety of the album even if it’s a quarter of the tracklisting, but as immersive as “Myopic” is, it’s also spacious and fluid. The crashes before its post-midsection acoustic break come across as particularly fervent, but they’re no less accounted for in terms of scope than the strum that follows and serves as the foundation for the onslaught that follows. Shit is heavy, kids. If you prefer your records noncorporeal, the digital release is Oct. 18. Vinyl hounds wait until Nov. 22, but surely that will come with additional anticipation and self-congratulations at defying the instant gratification of our age, and what feels better than that kind of self-appointed moral superiority? I won’t tell you how to hear it, or even to hear it — I’m not your boss — but the arguments in favor of doing so are myriad, and the stunning John Harris cover art begs to be held.
I have more to say on this one, and I’ll hope the time between now and Oct./Nov. provides a chance to do so. Either way, here’s the info for the album and the all-crucial preorder link, courtesy of the PR wire:
Denver doom/sludge masterminds Oryx announce Primordial Sky, the bands fourth studio album, for release on October 18, 2024 (digital) via Translation Loss Records.
Primordial Sky shows the trio, comprised of husband-and-wife duo Thomas (guitars & vocals) and Abigail (drummer) Davis, joined by bassist Joshua Kauffman – embracing a powerful statement of sonic devastation. Amidst a mood of profound contemplation, the lyrics delve into subjects capturing the struggle of mortality and existence. With a penchant for creating an oppressive atmosphere, Primordial Sky delivers slow-burning behemoths that ascend to staggering crescendos. Oryx is the sonic embodiment of desolation, a monolithic wall of sound that demands to be experienced at full volume.
About the track and the album release, vocalist & guitarist Thomas Davis shares:
“Lyrically, “Myopic” is a requiem portraying a state of conflict with the human condition amidst a deep-seated psychosis that demands immediate gratification, simultaneously speeding towards an extinction event of our own creation. Writing this song involved a multi-faceted approach, incorporating bass and guitar harmonies, an acoustic interlude, and pummeling drums. This song is one of Primordial Sky’s most aggressive and energetic tracks, while still featuring the intricate layering embodied throughout the rest of the album. Primordial Sky is ORYX’s pinnacle offering to date, showcasing each member’s best work and a surgical collective approach to exploring deeply expressive songwriting. Writing and recording these songs has been an immensely cathartic journey, one that we are eager to share with the world.”
Primordial Sky features stunning album artwork by world renowned Sci-Fi/NASA artist, John Harris.
The album will be released digitally worldwide on October 18, 2024 and on vinyl November 22, 2024. Three limited edition vinyl variants will be avail via Translation Loss Records.
Bone White with Splatter Edition (Limited to 100 copies)
Custom Three Color Merge with Splatter Edition (Limited to 100 copies)
Track Listing: 1. Primordial Sky 2. Myopic 3. Ephemeral 4. Look Upon The Earth
Recording Details: Recorded in January 2024 at Archive Recordings in Salt Lake City, UT. Recorded, Mixed, and Mastered by Wes Johnson. Promo photo by Mitch Kline.
ORYX is: Thomas Davis – all guitars, vocals, synth Abigail Davis – drums Joshua Kauffman – bass
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 13th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Hey, have you heard the one about the band touring this Fall around appearances at Desertfest New York and Ripplefest Texas? Yes, likely you have. But that band wasn’t Abrams, and the Denver four-piece are among the acts I’m most looking forward to seeing at the aforementioned NYC three-dayer. Led by guitarist/vocalist Zach Amster, the band released their Kurt Ballou-helmed Blue City (review here) album earlier this year on Blues Funeral, and I expect it will be fun to watch people who haven’t heard them before stand in front of the stage and become fans. Yeah, Abrams have been around a bit, releasing through Small Stone and Sailor Records before linking up with their current label, and their records have always been cool, well-crafted, and so on. But I’m guessing that live it’s another level, and I’ll have those high hopes with me (hopefully; I should send an email about press accreditation, huh?) at the Knockdown Center as they roll through, and I anticipate having a better sense of what Abrams are all about when they’re done than I will have had going in. I’m a firm believer in precisely that kind of lifelong learning.
The PR wire brought the dates uniting the two fest appearances:
Denver heavy rockers ABRAMS announce fall US shows; new album “Blue City” available now on Blues Funeral Recordings.
Denver heavy rock goldsmiths ABRAMS announce a string of fall US shows (including appearances at Desertfest New York and Ripplefest Texas) in support of their new album “Blue City” released this spring on Blues Funeral Recordings.
About the tour, guitarist and vocalist Zach Amster says: “Abrams is so excited to hit the road again this September promoting our latest release ‘Blue City’ out on Blues Funeral Recordings. We have been thrilled by the response and support we have received about how much people have been digging the album. It’s been a couple of years since we have played out East, so touring around two of the coolest heavy underground festivals in the States (DesertFest and RippleFest) is going to be so great. We can’t wait to see you out there!”
Recorded and produced by Kurt Ballou (Converge, High On Fire) at the legendary GodCity Studio, their new album and Blues Funeral Recordings debut “Blue City” is where genre-defying heaviness and perfect melodic songcraft converge, best described as “a sound that’s cathartic, contemplative and would fit right in on a playlist full of Mastodon, Torche and Baroness tunes” by Metalsucks and “an upswell of positivity in the face of frustration that’s sure to shake you from your existential slumber” by Metal Hammer Magazine, while Distorted Sound Magazine praised ABRAMS as “one of the most musically diverse and emotionally impactful bands in the scene.”
Abrams fall shows 2024: Sept 8 – Denver, CO – Hi-Dive Sept 11 – Chicago, IL – Reggie’s Sept 12 – Columbus, OH – Spacebar Sept 13 – Queens, NY – Desertfest New York Sept 14 – Toledo, OH – Ottawa Tavern Sept 15 – Louisville, KY – Portal Sept 16 – St Louis, MO – Platypus Sept 17 – Lawrence, KS – Replay Lounge Sept 21 – Austin, TX – Ripplefest Texas
Fusing melody and dissonance, ABRAMS blast forth a cathartic mix of catchy, driving rhythms, soaring vocals and ethereal ambiance into the heavy music landscape. Wielding elements of heavy rock, shoegaze, grunge and post-metal with ease and fluency, they create a crystalline heaviness that’s bittersweet and nostalgic yet also gazes forward.
Having shared the stage with Unsane, KEN mode, King Buffalo, Khemmis, Jaye Jayle or Emma Ruth Rundle, ABRAMS has always strived to deliver memorable live shows. A spearhead of the Denver rock scene, the foursome has recently joined the ranks of tastemaker label Blues Funeral Recordings (Acid King, Dead Meadow, Dozer…) for the spring 2024 release of their fifth album “Blue City”, recorded and produced by Converge’s Kurt Ballou at GodCity Studio.
ABRAMS lineup: Zachary Amster – guitar, vocals Taylor Iversen – bass, vocals Ryan DeWitt – drums Graham Zander – guitar
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 11th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Based in Denver — also perhaps the Oort Cloud — the progressive/death metal unit Blood Incantation will issue their new two-track full-length, Absolute Elsewhere, in October through Century Media. The offering follows on from 2022’s synth-led Timewave Zero EP, performed in full by the band at this year’s Roadburn Festival (review here), which was a highlight both for the ultra-dug-in krautrock worship and the laser lightshow that accompanied. At least going by the descriptions below, Absolute Elsewhere — with all the hi-we-like-obscure-prog signaling and pulp sci-fi vibes — would seem to follow suit.
No complaints there. I dig their death metal side and have been lucky enough to see them crush bones thusly as well, but they’re a better band for the scope they bring to their dark-energy-expanded explorations. There’s two tracks on the new record and I haven’t heard any of it yet, but the video for “Luminescent Bridge” that they put out in April should be fair enough induction, and if not, there’s an app called ‘Elsewhere Searcher’ that I haven’t checked out yet but likely has some snippet or other to show off. Also note Nicklas Malmqvist of Hällas sitting in and guest appearances from Thorsten Quaeschning (Tangerine Dream) and Malte Gericke (Sijjin) as the band continue to reach into the beyond to discover new places their music can go.
Oct. 4 is the release date. Surely touring will happen. Keep an eye out. Here’s this from the PR wire:
BLOOD INCANTATION Announce New Album Absolute Elsewhere Coming October 4 via Century Media
The new Blood Incantation album, Absolute Elsewhere, is unlike anything you’ve ever heard before. Yes, that’s an audacious, possibly hyperbolic claim, but few can claim a sonic watershed as readily as this Denver, Colorado quartet. Hovering at nearly 45 minutes, their longest full length recording yet, the album’s two sprawling movements – “The Stargate” and “The Message” – are as confounding as they are engaging, exponentially expanding upon the formulas laid down by their scene-shattering debut Starspawn (2016) and landmark followup Hidden History of the Human Race (2019).
As Blood Incantation’s Paul Riedl tells, “‘Absolute Elsewhere’ is our most potent audial extract/musical trip yet; like the soundtrack to a Herzog-style Sci-Fi epic about the history of/battle for human consciousness itself, via a 70s Prog album played by a 90s Death Metal band from the future.” For inspiration, the group looked to the mid-70’s progressive rock collective, Absolute Elsewhere (best known as a celestial stopover for King Crimson drummer, Bill Bruford) as the album’s namesake. For the uninitiated, Absolute Elsewhere’s obscure 1976 album, In Search of Ancient Gods, was constructed as a musical accompaniment to the works of Chariots of the Gods author, Erich Von Daniken, and his theories of non-terrestrial humanoid prompts towards mankind’s evolution. The subject matter of which should serve as no surprise to anyone familiar with Blood Incantation’s cosmically philosophical leanings. But make no mistake, the four musicians working under the Blood Incantation banner for the past decade – guitarist and vocalist Paul Riedl, drummer Isaac Faulk, guitarist Morris Kolontyrsky and bassist Jeff Barrett – have successfully left the microgravity of genre behind and are re-writing the Rosetta Stone of extreme music with a new language entirely. Demonstrations like their 2022 all-synth show or 2024’s Roadburn Festival headlining appearance where they played back-to-back death metal and ambient made it clear: Blood Incantation have honed their abilities to go boldly where few bands have gone before, and reveal no signs of slowing down.
For Absolute Elsewhere, the band’s first full-length since their cinematic Timewave Zero EP (2022) and epic Luminescent Bridge maxi-single (2023), Blood Incantation decamped to the celebrated Hansa Tonstudios in Berlin, Germany in July 2023 to record with wünderkid producer Arthur Rizk (Power Trip, Spectral Voice, Kreator, Wayfarer, Sumerlands, etc). This legendary, pre-Weimar-built recording complex was where many of their most progressive influences including Tangerine Dream, Eloy and Brian Eno created classic albums in the 1970s. Unmistakably, Hansa and Berlin became part of the underlying character of the album, culminating in Tangerine Dream’s own Thorsten Quaeschning contributing lead synths, Mellotron and programming to “The Stargate [Tablet II]”. Other special guests include Nicklas Malmqvist, from Sweden’s star-riding Hällas, on lead synths/keys, piano and Mellotron throughout all tracks, and Malte Gericke, the Sijjin/ex-Necros Christos mainman contributing guest vocals in his native tongue. Underscoring the classic Progressive Rock vibe, the album is adorned with contemporary visionary paintings by the iconic and reclusive 70s Sci-Fi artist Steve R. Dodd. Together, this international all-star team adds to the unearthly atmospherics of Absolute Elsewhere, which defines a new musical epoch for Blood Incantation.
Today they have launched their Stargate Research Society discord and Elsewhere Searcher app – a home for discussions of all things Blood Incantation. Researchers at the society recently unearthed an 80’s era floppy disk containing vintage celestial tracker software. The researchers were able to re-activate the space tracker and through meticulous study of the visible solar system have noticed the appearance of a new red planet in the vicinity of Orion’s Belt. The researchers also claim that the new planet is intermittently emitting signals, although no recordings of these transmissions have been captured yet. The society has made their research available to the public in an effort to warn citizens of the planet’s rapid approach toward Earth, with a possible collision occurring in October 2024. The tracker is open for public use at www.stargateresearchsociety.app.
Absolute Elsewhere Tracklist: 1. The Stargate (20:20) 2. The Message (23:23)
Blood Incantation Lineup: Paul Riedl – Guitars, Vocals Isaac Faulk – Drums Morris Kolontyrsky – Guitars Jeff Barrett – Fretless Bass
Heavy existentialism. With the Welsh concept of ‘hiraeth’ — being homesick for a place to which you can never return; mourning a loss of self-in-place — at its core, The Hiraeth Pit is the second Deer Creek full-length. The long-running Denver heavy rockers issued Menticide (review here) as a 20-years-later debut album in 2022, and the seven-track/38-minute The Hiraeth Pit follows just two years after with another round of consuming riff-led miseries. That relatively quick turnaround isn’t really a factor in terms of the band’s sound, as the four-piece of guitarist/vocalists Paul Vismara and Conan Hultgren, bassist/keyboardist Stephanie Hopper and drummer Marc Brooks have been around long enough to have some sense of who they are as a group either way, but atmospherically and in terms of mood, The Hiraeth Pit — recorded and mixed by Bart McCrorey at Crash Pad Studios, mastered by Chris Gresham at Ember Audio Productions — is vividly downtrodden.
It’s not that they’re playing death-doom, or even doom at all all of the time, but life becomes a wait for death within the album’s span, and lyrics like, “Why are we here again and again?/Simply fighting for your boring life,” from the penultimate “We Dreamed of Flames and Suffocation,” or the line “I watched the last bird die in your arms,” from the more broadly socially conscious “Crushed by the Hand Slowly Filling with Gold,” are emblematic of the point of view from which the proceedings as a whole emanate. With Vismara‘s lead vocals severe in delivery in a way that in other contexts might lean toward goth but is born of classic doom, the affecting depressiveness is there from the lumbering opener “Bodies to Be Kicked” onward, and it is the defining spirit of The Hiraeth Pit. As the listener, they put you right in it, and the deeper you go, the less any kind of escape feels possible. How do you escape when you’re your own problem anyway? When the mundane becomes a thing you dread?
“Grey” takes that hopelessness and departs from its first two verses into a litany of references to science fiction from Ghost in the Shell to The Wrath of Khan, but the central question around that escapism is asking the aliens, “As you get ready to leave/Will you give us a ride?” and the answer is a resounding no. We’re stuck here, in modernity. Stuck with the opiate crisis in “Bodies to Be Kicked” or the descent into distinctly-American stupid-leads-the-way fascism on “The Wretches Who Grovel” and “Crushed by the Hand Slowly Filling with Gold,’ grifted, without agency, and punished for existing as something other than rich. Stuck as “They Were Buried Yesterday” seems like it’s trying to shake itself out of grief but can’t, and stuck as “We Dreamed of Flames and Suffocation” imagines an overthrow of what capitalists sell as the natural order, but feels all the more like a dream as Deer Creek land in the bleak reality of closer “Almshouse Stench,” where “My zest for life grows cold,” and the album’s last lines beg for relief: “Save me from this pain/For I cannot face another day/Dreadful day of rain/Plagued by this clouded fate.”
To be sure, Deer Creek aren’t the first band to operate in this kind of emotional sphere of inward-looking and outwardly-trajected disaffection, but they are striking in the forwardness with which they do it, and the according feeling of gruel with which The Hiraeth Pit is delivered. It is resolute in its sadness, weary by the finish in a way that is consuming but not necessarily mirrored in the tempos of “Bodies to Be Kicked” or “The Wretches Who Grovel,” which at least feel relatively upbeat for how disheartened much of the lyrical perspective actually is. This contrast becomes part of what makes The Hiraeth Pit so engrossing, and it’s worth emphasizing the word “relatively” in that last sentence; it’s not like Deer Creek are writing Torche-style sludge-pop about feeling dead inside, but there’s movement in that opening duo and in the cave-doom-NWOBHM (think Witchfinder General and Pagan Altar, etc.) chug in the chorus of “Crushed by the Hand Slowly Filling with Gold” that lets the material come across as not completely void of hope even as “Crushed by the Hand Slowly Filling with Gold” resolves in flashes of noisy “soloing” that feel specifically in the tradition of Saint Vitus, who of course were no slouches themselves when it came to thematic downerism.
Ultimately, the lesson of The Hiraeth Pit isn’t so far removed from that of Menticide, but the sophomore long-player feels more purposeful in its construction as it makes a centerpiece of “They Were Buried Yesterday” and gives breadth to the central intangibility of mourning: “Ah, I miss you.” Not brutal in the sense of death metal or other extreme styles, it nonetheless seems to center around the weight of its emotionalism as much as that offered tonally, and that leaves even “Grey” — which is arguably the least melancholic of the tracks, with its self-aware winks at The Empire Strikes Back, Dune, and so on — as an act of labor. But at no point, in “Grey” or otherwise, does it feel performative, like the band are putting on some woebegone veneer. In this way, “We Dreamed of Flames and Suffocation” feels almost daring in its willingness to envision living something other than the boot-on-neck life, and the most punishing impact isn’t even the extra-fervent plod around which “Almhouse Stench” coils and the low, throaty growl that accompanies, but the overarching feeling of loss and being lost that finds its culmination therein.
I’ve remarked on the lyrics a decent amount, and fair enough as The Hiraeth Pit has something to say about what serves as its crux in terms of subject matter, but it’s noteworthy that the title-line itself, which appears in “They Were Buried Yesterday,” isn’t trying to revel or celebrate grief. There’s no glee. But as purposeful as Deer Creek are in the expression that defines the work, they’re not lost in it or themselves consumed by what, as a listener, feels so consuming. This is where 20 years of songwriting before they did their first record comes into play, perhaps, but it’s also clear that in following-up Menticide, they’ve discovered something more about what makes an album a front-to-back experience. The Hiraeth Pit only benefits from this learning.
This is the next-to-last day of this Quarterly Review, and while it’s been a lot, it’s been encouraging to dig into so much stuff in such intense fashion. I’ve added a few releases to my notes for year-end lists, but more importantly, I’ve gotten to hear and cover stuff that otherwise I might not, and that’s the value at a QR has for me at its core, so while we’re not through yet, I’ll just say thanks again for reading and that I hope you’ve also found something that speaks to you in these many blocks of text and embedded streaming players. If not, there’s still 20 records to go, so take comfort in that as needed.
Quarterly Review #81-90:
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Harvestman, Triptych: Part One
The weirdo-psych experimental project of Steve Von Till (now ex-Neurosis, which is still sad on a couple levels) begins a released-according-to-lunar-orbit trilogy of albums in Triptych: Part One, which is headlined by opening track “Psilosynth,” boasting a guest appearance from Al Cisneros (Sleep, Om) on bass. If those two want to start an outsider-art dub-drone band together, my middle-aged burnout self is here for it — “Psilosynth (Harvest Dub),” a title that could hardly be more Von Till and Cisneros, appears a little later, which suggests they might also be on board — but that’s only part of the world being created in Triptych: Part One as “Mare and Foal” manipulates bagpipes into ghostly melodies, “Give Your Heart to the Hawk” echoes poetry over ambient strum, “Coma” and “How to Purify Mercury” layer synthesized drone and/or effects-guitar to sci-fi affect and “Nocturnal Field Song” finds YOB‘s Dave French banging away on something metal in the background while the crickets chirp. The abiding spirit is subdued, exploratory as Von Till‘s solo works perpetually are, and even as the story is only a third told, the immersion on Triptych: Part One goes as deep as the listener is willing to let it. I look forward to being a couple moons late reviewing the next installment.
As they make their self-titled full-length debut, Asheville, North Carolina’s Kalgon lay claim to a deceptive wide swath of territory even separate from the thrashier departure “Apocalyptic Meiosis” as they lumber through “The Isolate” and the more melodic “Grade of the Slope,” stoner-doom leaning into psych and more cosmic vibing, with the mournful “Windigo” leading into “Eye of the Needle”‘s slo-mo-stoner-swing and gutted out vocals turning to Beatlesy melody — guitarist Brandon Davis and bassist Berten Lee Tanner share those duties while Marc Russo rounds out the trio on drums — in its still-marching second half and the post-Pallbearer reaches and acoustic finish of “Setting Sun.” An interlude serves as centerpiece between “Apocalyptic Meiosis” and “Windigo,” and that two-plus-minute excursion into wavy drone and amplifier hum works well to keep a sense of flow as the next track crashes in, but more, it speaks to longer term possibilities for how the band might grow, both in terms of what they do sonically and in their already-clear penchant for seeing their first LP as a whole, single work with its own progression and story to tell.
Surely there’s some element in Agriculture‘s self-applied aesthetic frame of “ecstatic black metal” in the power of suggestion, but as they follow-up their 2022 self-titled debut with the four-song Living is Easy EP and move from the major-key lightburst of the title-track into the endearingly, organically, folkishly strained harmonies of “Being Eaten by a Tiger,” renew the overwhelming blasts of tremolo and seared screams on “In the House of Angel Flesh” and round out with a minute of spoken word recitation in “When You Were Born,” guitarists Richard Chowenhill (also credited with co-engineering, mixing and mastering) and Dan Meyer (also vocals), bassist/vocalist Leah B. Levinson and drummer/percussionist Kern Haug present an innovative perspective on the genre that reminds of nothing so much as the manner in which earliest Wolves in the Throne Room showed that black metal could do something more than it had done previously. That’s not a sonic comparison, necessarily — though there are basic stylistic aspects shared between the two — but more about the way Agriculture are using black metal toward purposefully new expressive ends. I’m not Mr. Char by any means, but it’s been probably that long since the last time I heard something that was so definitively black metal and worked as much to refresh what that means.
Apparently self-released by the intercontinental duo last Fall and picked up for issue through Heavy Psych Sounds, Saltpig‘s self-titled debut modernizes classic charge and swing in increasingly doomed fashion across the first four songs of its A-side, laces “Burn the Witch” with samples themed around the titular subject, and dedicates all of side B to the blown out mostly-instrumental roll of “1950,” which is in fact 19 minutes and 50 seconds long. The band, comprised of guitarist/vocalist/noisemaker Mitch Davis (also producer for a swath of more commercially viable fare) and drummer Fabio Alessandrini (ex-Annihilator), are based in New York and Italy, respectively, and whatever on earth might’ve brought them together, in both the heavy-garage strut of “Demon” and the willfully harsh manner in which they represent themselves in the record’s back half, they bask in the rougher edges of their tones and approach more generally. “When You Were Dead” is something of a preface in its thicker distortion to “1950,” but its cavernous shouted vocals retain a psychedelic presence amid the ensuing grit, whereas once the closer gets underway from its feedback-soaked first two minutes, they make it plain there’s no coming back.
Newcomer UK doomers Druidess nod forth on their debut EP, Hermits and Mandrakes, with a buzzing tonality in “Witches’ Sabbath” that’s distinctly more Monolord than Electric Wizard, and while that’s fascinating academically and in terms of the generational shift happening in the heavy underground over the last few years, the fuzz that accompanies the hook of “Mandragora,” which follows, brings a tempo boost that situates the two-piece of vocalist Shonagh Brown and multi-instrumentalist/producer Daniel Downing (guitar, bass, keys, drum programming; he even had a hand in the artwork, apparently) in a more rocking vein. It’s heavy either way you go, and “Knightingales” brings Green Lung-style organ into the mix along with another standout hook before “The Hermit of Druid’s Temple” signs over its soul to faster Sabbath worship and closer “The Forest Witches’ Daughter” underscores the commitment to same in combination with a more occult thematic. It’s familiar-enough terrain, ultimately, but the heft they conjure early on and the movement they bring to it later should be plenty to catch ears among the similarly converted, and in song and performance they display a self-awareness of craft that is no less a source of their potential.
Astral Construct, Traveling a Higher Consciousness
One-man sans-vocals psych outfit Astral Construct — aka Denver-based multi-instrumentalist Drew Patricks — released Traveling a Higher Consciousness last year, and well, I guess I got lost in a temporal wormhole or some such because it’s not last year anymore. The record’s five-track journey is encompassing in its metal-rooted take on heavy psychedelia, however, and that’s fortunate as “Accessing the Mind’s Eye” solidifies from its languid first-half unfolding into more stately progressive riffage. Bookended by the dreamy manifestation of “Heart of the Nebula” (8:12) and “Interstellar” (9:26), which moves between marching declaration and expansive helium-guitar float, the album touches ground in centerpiece “The Traveler,” but even there could hardly be called terrestrial once the drums drop out and the keys sweep in near the quick-fade finish that brings about the more angular “Long View of Astral Consciousness,” that penultimate track daring a bit of double-kick in the drums heading toward its own culmination. Now, then or future, whether it’s looking inward or out, Traveling a Higher Consciousness is a revelry for the cosmos waiting to be engaged. You might just end up in a different year upon hearing it.
Although their moniker comes from an indigenous group who lived on Hokkaido before that island became part of modern Japan, Ainu are based in Genoa, Italy, and their self-titled debut has little to do sound-wise with the people or their culture. Fair enough. Ainu‘s Ainu, which starts out in “Il Faro” with sparse atmospheric guitar and someone yelling at you in Italian presumably about the sea (around which the record is themed), uses speech and samples to hold most positions vocals would otherwise occupy, though the two-minute “D.E.V.S.” is almost entirely voice-based, so the rules aren’t so strictly applied one way or the other. Similarly, as the three-piece course between grounded sludgier progressions and drifting post-heavy, touching on more aggressive moods in the late reaches of “Aiutami A. Ricordare” and the nodding culmination of “Khrono” but letting the breadth of “Call of the Sea” unfold across divergent movements of crunchier riffs and operatic prog grandiosity. You would not call it predictable, however tidal the flow from one piece to the next might be.
Progressive sludge set to a backdrop of science-fiction and extrasolar range, The World Before Us marks a turn from heretofore instrumental New York trio Grid, who not only feature vocals throughout their 38-minute six-tracker third LP, but vary their approach in that regard such that as “Our History Hidden” takes hold following the keyboardy intro “Singularity” (in we go!), the first three of the song’s 12 minutes find them shifting from sub-soaring melodicism to hard-growled metallic crunch with the comfort of an act who’ve been pulling off such things for much longer. The subsequent “Traversing the Interstellar Gateway” (9:31) works toward similar ends, only with guitar instead of singing, and the standout galloping kickdrum of “Architects of Our World” leads to a deeper dig into the back and forth between melody and dissonance, led into by the threatening effects manipulations of the interlude “Contact” and eventually giving over to the capstone outro “Duality” that, if it needs to be said, mirrors “Singularity” at the start. There’s nuance and texture in this interplay between styles — POV: you dig OpethandHawkwind — and my suspicion is that if Grid keep to this methodology going forward, the vocal arrangements will continue to evolve along with the rest of the band’s expanding-in-all-directions stylizations.
The stated intentions of Bordeaux, France’s Dätcha Mandala in bringing elements of ’90s British alternative rock into their heavier context with their Koda LP are audible in opener “She Said” and the title-track that follows it, but it’s the underlying thread of heavy rock that wins the day across the 11-song outing, however danceable “Wild Fire” makes it or however attitude-signaling the belly-belch that starts “Thousand Pieces” is in itself. That’s not to say Koda doesn’t succeed at what it’s doing, just that there’s more to the proceedings than playing toward that particular vision of cool. “It’s Not Only Rock and Roll (And We Don’t Like It)” has fuzzy charm and a hook to boot, while “Om Namah Shivaya” ignites with an energy that is proggy and urgent in kind — the kind of song that makes you a fan at the show even if you’ve never heard the band before — and closer “Homeland” dares some burl amid its harmonized chorus and flowing final guitar solo, answering back to the post-burp chug in “Thousand Pieces” and underscoring the multifaceted nature of the album as a whole. I suppose if you have prior experience with Dätcha Mandala, you know they’re not just about one thing, but for newcomers, expect happy surprises.
Given the principals involved — Scott “Dr. Space” Heller of Øresund Space Collective, Black Moon Circle, et al, and Chris Purdon of Hawklords and Nik Turner’s Space Ritual — it should come as no surprise that The Bubbles Scopes complements its grammatical counterintuitiveness with alien soundscape concoctions of synth-based potency; the adventure into the unknown-until-it’s-recorded palpable across two extended tracks suitably titled “Trip 1” (22:56) and “Trip 2” (15:45). Longform waveforms, both. The collaboration — one of at least two Heller has slated for release this Spring; stay tuned tomorrow — makes it clear from the very beginning that the far-out course The Bubbles Scopes follows is for those who dwell in rooms with melting walls, but in the various pulsations and throbs of “Trip 1,’ the transition from organ to more electronic-feeling keyboard, and so on, human presence is no more absent than they want it to be, and while the loops are dizzying and “Trip 2” seems to reach into different dimensions with its depth of mix, when the scope is so wide, the sounds almost can’t help but feel free. And so they do. They put 30 copies on tape, because even in space all things digitalia are ephemeral. If you want one, engage your FOMO and make it happen because the chance may or may not come again.
