A friendly reminder that the end of the week is not, in fact, the end of the Quarterly Review, which will continue through Monday and Tuesday. That brings the number of releases covered to 70 total, which feels like plenty, and should hopefully carry us through a busy Spring release season. I’m thinking June for the next QR now but don’t be surprised if that turns into July as we get closer. All I know is I wanna do it before it’s two full weeks again.

As always, I hope you’ve found something that speaks to you in all this 10-per-day nonsense. If not, first, wow, really? Second, it ain’t over yet. Maybe today’s your day. One way to know.

Quarterly Review #41-50:

Dead Meadow, Voyager to Voyager

You may be mellow-vibes, but unless you’re “Not the Season,” Dead Meadow have one up on you forever. While Voyager to Voyager, which is the L.A. band’s eighth or ninth LP depending on what you count, comes with the tragic real-world context of bassist Steve Kille‘s 2024 passing, he does feature on the long-running trio’s first offering through Heavy Psych Sounds, and whether it’s “The Space Between” or the shuffle-stepping “The Unhounded Now” or the pastoral “A Question of Will” and the jangly strum of “Small Acts of Kindness” later on, guitarist/vocalist Jason Simon, Kille and drummer Mark Laughlin celebrate the ultra-languid take on heavy, psychedelic and shoegazing rock that’s made Dead Meadow a household name for weirdos. Not that they’re not prone to a certain wistfulness, but Voyager to Voyager is vibrant rather than mournful, and the title-track is an album flow unto itself in just eight minutes. If you can slow your manic-ass brain long enough to sit and hear it front-to-back, you’re in for a treat.

Dead Meadow website

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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Seán Mulrooney, This is My Prayer

There is a sense of stepping out as Irish troubadour Seán Mulrooney makes his full-length solo debut with This is My Prayer on Ómós Records. Mulrooney is best known for residing at the core of Tau and the Drones of Praise, and for sure, pieces of This is My Prayer are coming from a similar place, but where there was psychedelic meander for the band, under his own moniker, Mulrooney brings a clarity of tone and presence to lyrics ranging from spiritual seeking to what seems to have been an unceremonious breakup. With character and emotion in his voice and range in his craft, Mulrooney sees a better world on “Ag Múscliaghacht” and posits a new masculinity — totally needed; trainwreck gender — in “Walking With the Wind,” meets indie simplicity with lap steel in “Jaguar Dreams” and, in closer “The Pufferfish,” pens a fun McCartney-style bouncer about tripping sea life. These are slivers of the adventures undertaken in singer-songwriter style as Mulrooney hones this solo identity. Very curious to see where the adventure might take him.

Seán Mulrooney on Bandcamp

Ómós Records website

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MaidaVale, Sun Dog

Issued in 2024, Sun Dog is the third MaidaVale long-player, and with it, the Swedish heavy psychedelic rockers showcase six years’ worth of growth from their second album. Melancholic of mood in “Fools” and “Control” and the folkish “Alla Dagar” and “Vultures,” Sun Dog starts uptempo with the Afrobeat-influenced “Faces,” drifts, shreds, then drifts again in “Give Me Your Attention,” dares toward pop in “Daybreak” and fosters a sense of the ironic in “Wide Smile is Fine” and “Pretty Places,” the latter of which, with a keyboardier arrangement, could’ve been the kind of New Wave hit that would still be in your head 40 years later. The nine-songer (10 if you get “Perplexity,” which was previously only on the vinyl) doesn’t dwell in any single space for too long — only “Wide Smile is Fine” and “Vultures” are over four minutes, though others are close — and that lets them balance the downer aspects with forward momentum. MaidaVale are no strangers to that kind of movement, of course, but Sun Dog‘s mature realization of their sound feels so much more vast in range.

MaidaVale website

Silver Dagger Records website

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Causa Sui, Loppen 2024

Here come Causa Sui with another live album. And I’m not saying the only reason the thankfully-prolific Danish psychedelic treasures, heavyjazz innovators and El Paraiso label honchos are only releasing a complement to 2023’s Loppen 2021 (review here) to rub in the fact that I’ve never been lucky enough to catch them on a stage — any stage — but I am starting to take it personally. Call me sensitive. In any case, despite feeling existentially mocked by their chemistry and the fluidity of “Sorcerer’s Disciple” or the 22-minute “Visions of a New Horizon,” the hour-long set is glorious as one would expect, and though Loppen 2024 is a blip on the way to Causa Sui‘s forthcoming studio album, In Flux, especially when set alongside their previous outing from the same Christiania-based venue, it highlights the variable persona of the band and the reach of their material. Someday I’ll see this goddamn band.

Causa Sui’s Linktr.ee

El Paraiso Records website

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Fulanno, Nosotros Somos el Fin del Mundo

Underlying the grit and stoner drawl of “El Rey del Mundo de los Muertos” is the lurching progression of Black Sabbath‘s “Sweet Leaf,” and that reinterprative ethic comes to the strutting Pentagrammery of “La Verdad es Tu Ataud” as well, but in the tonal density and the way their groove snails its way into your ear canal, the vibe Fulanno bring to Nosotros Somos el Fin del Mundo is in line with stoner doom traditionalism, and the revelry is palbale in the slow nod of the title-track or the horror samples sprinkled throughout or the earlier Electric Wizard-style languidity of “El Nacimiento de la Muerte.” They save an acoustic stretch in reserve to wrap “Desde las Tinieblas,” but if you think that’s going to clean your soul by that point then you haven’t been paying attention. Unrepentantly dark, stoned and laced with devil-, death-and riff-worship, Nosotros Somos el Fin del Mundo further distinguishes Fulanno in an always crowded Argentinian underground, and dooms like a bastard besides.

Fulanno on Bandcamp

Interstellar Smoke Records store

Smolder Brains Records on Bandcamp

Ruidoteka Records’ Linktr.ee

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Ze Stoner, Desert Buddhist

Because the age we live in permits such a thing and it tells you something about the music, I’m going to cut and paste the credits for Israeli duo Ze Stoner‘s debut EP/demo, Desert Buddhist. Dor Sarussi is credited with “bass guitar, spaceships, vocals,” while Alexander Krivinski handles “didgeridoo, spaceships, drums, and percussion.” How tripped out does a band need to be to have two members credited with “spaceships,” you ask? Quite tripped out indeed. Across the 12:09 “Part I – The Awakness” (sic) and the 11:41 “Part II – The Trip,” and the much-shorter 1:41 finale “Part III – The Enlightenment,” Ze Stoner take the meditative doom of Om or an outfit like Zaum and extrapolate from it a drone-based approach that retains a meditative character. It is extreme in its capacity to induce a trance, and as Desert Buddhist unfolds, it plays as longer movements tied together as a single work. There is massive potential here. One hopes Sarussi, Krivinski, their spaceships and didgeridoo are just beginning their adventures in the cosmos.

Ze Stoner on Bandcamp

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Arv, Curse & Courage

Oslo-based newcomers Arv aren’t shy about what their sound is trying to do. Their debut album, Curse & Courage, arrives via the wheelhouse of Vinter Records and brings together noise-laced and at-times-caustic hardcore with the atmospherics, echoing tremolo and churning intensity of post-metal. They lean to one side or the other throughout, and “Wrath” seems to get a bit of everything, but it’s a harder line to draw than one might think because hardcore as a style is all urgency and post-metal very often brings a more patient take. Being able to find a place in songwriting between the two, well, Arv aren’t the first to do it, but they are impressively cohesive for Curse & Courage being their first record, and the likes of “Victim,” the overwhelming rush of “Forsaken” earlier on and the more-ambient-but-still-vocally-harsh closing title-track set up multiple avenues for future evolution of the ideas they present here. Too aggressive to be universal in its appeal, but makes undeniable use of its scathe.

Arv website

Vinter Records website

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Fvzz Popvli, Melting Pop

I’m not sure what’s going on in “Erotik Fvel P.I.M.P.,” but there’s chicanery a-plenty throughout Fvzz Popvli‘s fourth full-length, Melting Pop, which is released in renewed cooperation with Heavy Psych Sounds. Hooks, fuzz, and the notion that anything else would be superfluous pervade the Indiana Jones-referencing “Temple of Doom” and “Telephone” at the outset, the latter with some choice backing vocals, and they kick the fuzz into overdrive on “Salty Biscvits” with room besides for a jangly verse. Running an ultra-manageable 30 minutes, the album breaks in half with four songs on each side. “Kommando” leads off the second half with dirtier low end tone ahead of the slower-rolling “Ovija,” which shouts and howls and is all kinds of righteously unruly, where “Cop Sacher” punks at the start and has both gang vocals and a saxophone, which I can say with confidence nothing else among the 70 records in this Quarterly Review even tried let alone pulled off, and they close with due swagger and surprising class in “The Knight.” Part of Fvzz Popvli‘s persona to this point has been based in rawness, so it’s interesting to hear them fleshing out more complex arrangments, but at heart they remain very much stoner rock for the glory of stoner rock.

Fvzz Popvli on Bandcamp

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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Rust Bucket, Rust Bucket

The tone worship is there, the working-class-dude stoner swing is there, and the humor that might result in a song like “Hypertension” — for which no less than Bob Balch of Fu Manchu sits in — so when I compare Rust Bucket to Maryland’s lost sons Earthride, please know that I’m not talking out of my ass. The Minnesota-based double-guitar five-piece revel in low end buzz-tone, and with no-pretense groove, throaty vocals and big personality, that spirit is there. Doesn’t account for the boogie of “Keep Us Down,” but everybody’s gotta throw down now and then. They shift into a sludgier mood by the time they get around to “The Darkness” and “Watch Your Back,” but the idea behind this first Rust Bucket feels much more like a bunch of guys getting together to hammer out some cool songs, maybe play some shows, do a record and see how it goes. On paper, that makes Rust Bucket an unassuming start, but its anti-bullshit stance, steady roll and addled swing make it a gem of the oldschool variety. Much to their credit, they call the style, “fuzzy caveman dad rock.” They forgot ‘bearded,’ but otherwise that about sums it up. Maybe the beard is implied?

Rust Bucket on Bandcamp

Glory or Death Records website

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Mountain Dust, Mountain Dust

It is appropriate that Mountain Dust named their third LP after themselves, since it finds them transcending their influences and honing a cross-genre approach that’s never sounded more their own than it does in these nine songs. From the densely-weighted misdirect of “Reap” with its Earth-sounding drone riff through the boogieing en route to the mellower and more open soul-showcase “Waiting for Days to End” — backing vocals included, see also “It’s Already Done” on side B — and the organ in “Vengeance,” the dynamic between the Graveyard-style ballad “This is It” and the keyboard/synth-fueled instrumental outro “All Eyes But Two,” Mountain Dust gracefullly subverts retroist expectations with individualized songwriting, performance and production, and this material solidifies the Montreal four-piece among the more flexible acts doing anything in the sphere of 1970s-style heavy rock. That’s still there, understand, but like the genre itself, Mountain Dust have very clearly grown outward from their foundations.

Mountain Dust website

Mountain Dust on Bandcamp

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Good first day yesterday. Good second day today. I’ve been doing Quarterly Reviews for over a decade now, and I’ve kind of learned over time the kind of thing I should be writing about. It might be a record that has a ton of hype or one that has none, and it might be any number of styles — I also like to sneak some stuff in here that doesn’t ‘fit’ once in a while — but in my mind the standard is, “is this something I’ll want to have heard and/or written about later?”

For all the terrors of our age, the glut of good music coming out means there’s more than ever I want to write about, and in a weird way, I look forward to Quarterly Reviews as a way for me to dig in and get caught up a bit. I’ve already been blindsided this QR and it’s the second day. I call that a win.

Quarterly Review #11-20:

Kal-El, Astral Voyager Vol. 1

There are few acts the world over who so succintly summarize so much of the appeal of modern heavy rock. Norway’s Kal-El offer big riffs, big hooks, big melodies, songwriting, and still manage heavy-mellow vibes thanks to an ongoing cosmic thematic that brings desert rock methods to more ethereal places. Is “Cloud Walker” the best song they’ve yet written? It’s on the list for sure, but don’t discount nine-minute opener/longest track (immediate points) “Astral Voyager” or the hey-that’s-a-Star-Trek-reference “Dilithium” with its dug-in low-distortion verses and the Captain‘s vocal outreach. All along, it’s never quite felt like Kal-El were reshaping heavy, but as time passes and they unveil Astral Voyager Vol. 1 with immediate promise of a follow-up, it’s curious how much Kal-El and notions of ‘peak genre’ align. Those of you who proselytize for riffs: even before you get to riding that groove in “Cosmic Sailor,” Kal-El are primed for ambassadorship.

Kal-El website

Majestic Mountain Records store

Blues Funeral Recordings website

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Bronco, Bronco

North Carolinian sludgethrowers Bronco take their name from their bassist/vocalist, who also goes by Bronco, and who in the 2010s cut a tone-worshiping generational swath through the Southern wing of the style as a member of Toke, proffering heavy riffs, harsh-throat vocals, and a disaffection that can only be called classic. With eight songs rolling out over 45 minutes, Bronco‘s Bronco picks up the thread where Toke left off with pieces like “Ride Eternal,” which crawls, or the declarative riffing of “Legion” (eerie guest vocals included amid all the pummel), or the closer “TONS,” which I’m going to assume isn’t titled after the Italian sludge-band, though if those guys wanted to put out a song called “Bronco” on their next record, they’d be well within their rights. A remarkably cohesive debut for something that’s so loudly telling you to fuck yourself. These guys’ll be opening for High on Fire in no time.

Bronco on Bandcamp

Magnetic Eye Records store

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Ocultum, Buena Muerte

Although one wouldn’t listen to Santiago, Chile’s Ocultum and be likely to have “refined” top the list of impressions given by the raw, rot-coated sludge of their third album and Heavy Psych Sounds debut, Buena Muerte, the grim-leaning atmosphere, charge later in the title-track, cultish presentation and the atmosphere emergent both from guitar-wail and yelling interlude “Fortunato’s Fortune” and from the material that surrounds, whether that’s the title-track or the just-under-12-minute “Last Weed on Earth.” The record finds the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Sebastián Bruna, bassist Pablo Cataldo and drummer Ricardo Robles dug in, stoned and malevolent. They’re not as over-the-top as many in cult rock, but one does get a sense of ceremony from “Last Weed on Earth” and subsequent capper “Emki’s Return” — the latter galloping in its first half and willfully devolved from there into avant noise — even if that’s more about the making of the songs than the performance of genre tropes.

Ocultum on Bandcamp

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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Fidel A Go Go, Diss Engaged

The grunge crunch of “Running With Secrets” and the Cantrell-y acoustics of “Push” are barely the beginning of the story as regards Fidel A Go Go‘s meld of sounds, which ranges from the willfully desert rocking “Sandstorm” to the proggy “Lil Shit,” the transposed blues of “Rainy Days” and the penultimate “Psychedelicexistentialcrisisalidocious,” which is serene in its melody and troubling in the words, as one would hope, and while the moniker and the punny album title speak to shenanigans, the Brisbane four-piece offer a point of view both instrumentally and lyrically that is engaging and draws together the stylistic range. There’s little doubt left to whom “A Stench of Musk” and “Barely an Adversary” are about, but even that’s not the extent of the perspective resonant in these 11 songs. There’s enough fuzz here for desert heads, but Fidel A Go Go are broader in attitude and craft, and Diss Engaged makes a point of its artistic freedom.

Fidel A Go Go website

Fidel A Go Go on Bandcamp

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Tumble, Lost in Light

Like their 2023 debut EP, Lady Cadaver, Tumble‘s second short offering, Lost in Light sees the trio of guitarist/vocalist Liam Deak, bassist Tarun Dawar and drummer Will Adams working with producer/engineer Ian Blurton (Ian Blurton’s Future Now, etc.) to hone and sharpen a classic, proto-metallic sound without seeing a dip in recording quality. As such, the five songs/20 minutes of Lost in Light are duly brash — looking at you, “Dead by Rumour” and the Radio Moscow-esque “The Less I Know” — but crisp in tone and execution. The mid-tempo “Sullen Slaves” picks up in its solo section later for a bit of boogie, and the slightly-slower metallic lurch of “Laid by Fear” sets up a contrast with the swinging closer “Wings of Gold” that makes the ending of the EP an absolute strut. They aren’t even asking a half-hour of your time, and the rewards are more than commensurate for getting down. They continue to be one to watch as they position themselves for a full-length debut in the next couple years.

Tumble’s Linktr.ee

Stickman Records website

Echodelick Records on Bandcamp

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Putan Club, Filles d’Octobre

Normally I might consider it a hindrance to have no clue what’s going on, but if you’ve never before encountered Italy/France semi-industrial duo Putan Club you might just find yourself in better position going into Filles d’Octobre as the avant garde radfem troupe unfurl a live set recorded at Portugal’s Amplifest, presumably in 2022. But if you don’t know it’s a live record, what’s coming musically, or that Filles d’Octobre is derived from their 2017 debut album, Filles de Mai, there’s a decent change your contextless self will be scrathing your head in wonder of just what’s going on with the bouncy lurch and maybe xylophone of “Filippino,” and that seems to suit Putan Club just fine. If you have to break something to remake it, Putan Club are set to the task of manifesting a rock and roll that is dangerous, new, unrepentantly socially critical, and ready to dance when you are. That they meet these significant ambitions head on shouldn’t be discounted. Not for everybody, but definitely for everybody who thinks they’ve heard it all.

Putan Club website

Toten Schwan Records on Bandcamp

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IAH, En Vivo en Cabezas de Tormenta

The first live offering from Argentinian prog-heavy instrumentalists IAH follows behind the band’s most expansive studio LP to-date, 2023’s V (review here), and brings into emphasis the group’s dynamic. It’s not just about being able to make a part sound floaty or to make the part next to it crush, but the character of a piece like the 24-minute “Noboj pri Uaset” (which might be new) is as much about the journey undertaken in their builds and the smoothness of the shifts between parts. They dip back to their earlier going for “Sheut” at the start of the set and “Ourboros” and “Eclipsum” the latter of which closes, and the bass in “Sentado en el Borde de una Pregunta” is worth the price of admission alone, never mind as a complement to the extended progression of “Noboj pri Uaset,” which is something of the buried lede here. So be it. On stage or on record, IAH offer immersion unto themselves. A little more tonal edge as a result of the live recording doesn’t hurt that one bit.

IAH website

IAH on Bandcamp

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Gin Lady, Before the Dawn of Time

Before the Dawn of Time is upwards of the seventh full-length from Swedish vintage-style heavy rockers Gin Lady, and in addition to seeing them make the jump from Kozmik Artifactz to Ripple Music, the sans-pretense 11-songer invents its own moment. It’s like the comedown era (from 1968-1974, roughly) happened, but happened differently. It’s another path to a heavy rock future. There’s ’70s vibes in “Tingens Sanna Natur” a-plenty, and if it’s boogie or push or hooky melodic wash you want, “Mulberry Bend” has you covered for that and then some, never mind the down-home strum of “Bliss on the Line” or the pastoral contemplation of “The Long Now,” as Gin Lady put a classy stamp of their own on classic aural ideologies, as what are no doubt hyperspecific keyboards make the production smooth and let “Ways to Cross the Sky” commune with Morricone while capper “You’re a Big Star” drops a melody that can really only be called “arena ready.” As it stands, it’ll probably go over killer at festivals across Europe.

Gin Lady on Bandcamp

Ripple Music website

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Adrift, Dry Soil

Duly apocalyptic for being the band’s first full-length release since 2019, Adrift‘s fourth album, Dry Soil, elicits an overarching doom that makes its tonal claustrophobia all the more affecting. The long-running Madrid outfit offer six songs that veer between the contemplative and the caustic as throatrippers worthy of Enslaved add an element of the extreme to the post-metallic intensity of “Edge” and “Restart” in the record’s middle. There are heavy rock underpinnings — that is, somebody here still likes Sabbath — but Adrift are well at home in all the bludgeonry, and “Bonfire” finishes by tying black metal, sludge, noise and darkly thrashing metal together with a suitably severe ambience. Are they torching it at the end? Kind of, but just replace “it” with “everything” and you’ll have a better idea perhaps of where they’re coming from on the whole. But for regionalist discrimination, Adrift would’ve conquered Europe a long time ago.

Adrift on Facebook

Adrift on Bandcamp

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Black Sadhu, Ashes of Aether

Berlin trio Black Sadhu — guitarist/vocalist Max Lowry (also synth, effects), bassist Alex Glimm and drummer Martin Cederlund — employ atmosphere to a point of cinematics on their second full-length, Ashes of Aether, following up the post-doom wash of 2021 standalone single “Mindless Masses” with plays back and forth between full-heft nod and take-a-breather meanderings. This cuts momentum less than one might think as the keyboard and drone and sample of “Tumors of Light” lend experimentalist verve to “Descent,” the next of the nine-track outing’s more-complete-song songs, as the latter unfolds with a shine on the crash that continues to cut through the surrounding rumble as the procession unfurls. Patience, then. So long as you know the payoff is coming — and it is; looking at you, “Electric Death” — and don’t mind being stretched and contorted on a molecular level between here and there, you should be good to go.

Black Sadhu on Bandcamp

Black Sadhu on Instagram

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Digitally released by the Argentina trio and due for a vinyl issue in early 2024 through Kozmik Artifactz, the fifth release from IAH, titled simply V, finds the band recommitting to their core approach while at the same time expanding their reach. The instrumentalist outfit with the returning lineup of guitarist/synthesist Mauricio Condon, bassist Juan Pablo Lucco Borlera and drummer José Landín have both pulled back into themselves as compares to 2021’s Omines (review here), which boasted collaborations with members of Poland’s Spaceslug and guest strings and was over an hour long. Two years later, IAH are able to transpose progressive textures onto their heavy riffing roots as 10-minute opener/longest track (immediate points) “Kutno” makes its impression with sharp snaps of snare and guitar/bass chug after the synthy drone intro and moves in its second half to a hypnotic and languid stretch of psychedelic contemplation before reality interrupts at 8:21 and they bookend with heavier chugging topped with a solo.

Precision and looseness. Tension and release. Severity and soothing. The band, who once again worked with co-producer Mario Carnerero at Gran Rosa Estudio, have made these essential components since their 2017 self-titled debut EP (review here), and V recalls that dynamic early, with hints dropped toward progressive metal but an offsetting circle around in the central riff of “Kutno” that keeps the groove rolling. To leadoff your record with a song that takes up nearly a quarter of its 41-minute runtime is no minor choice, but IAH have a history in that regard, though “Kutno” stands out for being more relatively extended than, say, closer “Las Palabras y el Mar” at 8:45, than some other long-openers have been in the past.

What does song length tell you in this case? Primarily how long the song is. To find out just about anything else requires hearing. “Madre de los Suspiros” follows “Kutno” with a creeper line of guitar and vague whispers of noise, cymbal crashes and an emergent movement at about a minute in that is both densely weighted and hypnotic. A threatening chug is complemented by higher plucked lead notes, but those soon are swallowed by the maw of the riff brought by the next change; a declining lumber that opens to a more hopeful sans-vocal hook that it makes positively swaggering by second time through, thud of drums and echoing tones giving spaciousness that feels well earned, another late solo taking hold to sort of expand the back half as they wind down what feels like a statement of who they are as a band made to themselves as well as their audience.

A little Karma to Burn in that midsection’s willfully straightforward riffing? Maybe. But by digging as deeply as they are into their style — by doubling-down as they are, particularly after the branching out of Omines — they own it. Listening to V, IAH sound poised and confident in what they’re doing. It’s their fourth LP, and as they shift from “Madre de los Suspiros” into the quiet outset of the eight-minute “Yaldabaoth,” which follows a similar structure to “Kutno” with grounded chug shifting into a calmer middle building to an apex, but in “Yaldabaoth,” that crescendo takes the form of post-rock shimmer-sprawl, evocative even as the drums beneath keep a decent clip, and ending to fit easily with the standalone echoing guitar piece “Sono io!” (1:44), an interlude and presumed side B intro that offers emotional presence and a breather moment before the blindside punch of chug from “Sentado en el Borde de una Pregunta.”

The penultimate cut on the six-tracker brings together the chug that’s been there all the while with a more insistent thrust in the drums, feeling urgent in its first half as it touches on proggier rhythmmaking without giving up the heavy nod, until at 2:46 a crash and stop brings standalone bass deep in the mix, soon enough joined by the drums and atmospheric guitar drawn overtop. While striking on paper, the suddenness of that change when one is actually hearing the album is hardly jarring. IAH simply going from one place to another. They’ve done it several times throughout V by “Sentado en el Borde de una Pregunta,” and the intensity of their return — the album’s genuine breakout-and-run moment — is a payoff serving for more than just the lone track in question. They carry it into a long fade and synth arrives to guide the transition into “Las Palabras y el Mar,” which resets to softer guitar at its beginning.

In the incorporation of synthesizer here, IAH highlight the ambience of V and their style generally while finding a new outlet for it. “Las Palabras y el Mar” plays with the underlying structure of the tracks a bit, with a flowing start shifting into heavier guitar before three minutes in, and even as it solidifies into a chug, much of the (relative) shove behind “Sentado en el Borde de una Pregunta” has dissipated, and a meta-echo — also some real echo — of the post-rock vibe in “Yaldabaoth” reinforces the idea of cognizance on the part of the band. Which is to say, they know what they’re doing. V‘s finale drops the heft in its second half, brings some back for a not-overblown epilogue, and end with melancholy standalone guitar, resonant with effects or synth behind it and consistent in terms of mood with much of what precedes.

This is a band who have found their sound, who know it, and who have purposefully set themselves to refining it and exploring around it while holding to the sphere they’ve marked as their own. One of V‘s greatest appeals is that it paints a sustainable portrait of what they do. With five offerings in six years, IAH have worked at a prolific pace up to now and there’s nothing to say that won’t continue, but V is mature and set in itself in a way that a first or second, even a third record generally can’t be, and that maturity includes the sense of ongoing creative evolution. The synth here is an easy example, and it might be that synth becomes more of a factor in the future and it might not, but that sensibility extends to the dynamic and chemistry between the members of IAH as well as to the places their material is willing to go and the textures being explored. They have never yet been so much their own thing as they are here.

IAH, V (2023)

IAH on Facebook

IAH on Instagram

IAH on Bandcamp

IAH BigCartel store

IAH website

Kozmik Artifactz website

Kozmik Artifactz on Facebook

Kozmik Artifactz on Instagram

Kozmik Artifactz on Bandcamp

Whatever else you might have on this weekend, you may want to take some time on Sunday to hit up a brand new album from increasingly progressive instrumentalist trio IAH. The band sent word through their Bandcamp page last night that they’ll release their new album, V, on Nov. 5. Last heard from with 2021’s Omines (review here), which was released through Kozmik Artifactz and featured a collaboration with members of Poland’s Spaceslug, the Argentinian three-piece toured in Europe earlier this year to support — I’m still somewhat surprised to think I’ve seen them (review here), which is genuinely not something I ever believed I would do; I was tired, but that was a good-ass day — making their second trip across the Atlantic following an initial go in 2019.

As for what to expect on V, I have some thoughts but they’re pretty general. To wit, IAH have been dug into a purposeful creative progression since their 2017 self-titled debut EP (review here) and 2018’s first-full-length follow-up, II (review here). Omines came quickly after 2020’s III (review here), but the sense of growth was palpable in the material through more than just the inclusion of vocals, and as far as hopes or expectations go, I’d think another forward step would be the thing — maybe somewhat in a darker mood, given the apparent cover art below — but you never know. Dudes could’ve gone polka metal and not told anyone. You can’t be too careful with these surprise album releases.

They don’t have any songs up yet, but uh, I think you can handle three days’ wait. Unless you’re six years old, in which case, good job reading. Go get a Rolo.

From the band:

We’re excited to share that on November 5th, we’ll be dropping our new album “V,” and we’d love for you to be there to give it a listen!

Big shoutout to all of you, and a huge thanks for your ever-support.

Remember, remember, the fifth of November…

IAH is:
Juan Pablo Lucco Borlera: Bass
Mauricio Condon: Guitar
José Landín: Drums

https://www.facebook.com/IAHBanda/
http://instagram.com/iahbanda
https://iahbanda.bandcamp.com/
http://iahbanda.com/
https://iah.bigcartel.com/

IAH, Omines (2021)

This week, Argentinian duo Les Nadie re-release their debut full-length, Destierro y Siembra (review here), through a veritable swath of labels: Echodelick Records in the US, Spinda Records in Spain, Psychedelic Salad Records in Australia, and Dirty Filthy Records in the UK. The level of support that’s rallied behind the first outing from the Córdoba-based two-piece of guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Juan Conde and drummer Rodri Deladerova should tell you something about the album even before you hit play on this bonus-track-inclusive reissue/first-physical-release streaming below.

Offered first by the band in 2022, it’s still a manageable 37 minutes with “Mal Viaje” (2:20) and “Hellkhan” (4:45) tacked onto the back end, and between the opening dense strums and swagger of “Grito el Indio” and the atmospheric guitar of “Venenauta” that used to close after the airy finish to the chugging “Del Pombero,” I’ll just say outright that you should consider yourself invited to hear it. If I’d had time to mail out cards, I might have. This will have to suffice.

I’ve promised myself I won’t re-review the album, and I won’t. Cut my hand open and swore a blood oath. But it doesn’t feel out of line to say that, for a record to be self-released by a band only to have four labels collaborate to pick it up and put it out less than a year later is pretty significant. The catchy melody in “Zhonda,” the way Codne and Deladerova weave in and out of riffy density and the playful desert weird of the airier guitar work. It’s the kind of record that has so much blended into it, it’s become something new, atmospherically.

And about those bonus tracks, “Mal Viaje” unfolds with a far back vocal over classically fuzzy guitar, less grunge than some of the proceedings, a stoner riff so groovy it feels like Fu Manchu wrote it circa 1995, but a drone runs throughout the entire song (it’s not long, but still) and gives it a personality of its own, while “Hellkhan” is more Kyuss in purpose and the tension in its rhythm. It also has its swirling element — effects, I think — and circles around an instrumental procession as that plays out, until just before 2:30 it drops out to a bridge to build back to full tonality (and drone) and they finish it cold.

Fair enough. Neither of the bonus tracks is knock-your-socks-off difference-maker must-own by itself — and that’s a lot to ask of studio leftovers or demos or whatever they are — but this is the first physical pressing for the album, and invariably this is the version of Destierro y Siembra most listeners will know because of that and the additional support behind the release. And neither do the bonus tracks take anything away from the original edition of the record, which is still under 40 minutes long and has what was the quiet atmospheric finish bolstered by the manner in which the mellow guitar stretch of original closer “Venenauta” meets with Deladerova‘s kick at the start of “Mal Viaje,” reinvigorating toward the next hypnotic close and that much more dynamic for how that procession plays out.

In addition to not reviewing, I’m not going to get into hyperbole about the album’s importance or the up-and-coming generation of heavy rockers in Argentina of which Les Nadie (not to be confused with Los Naides) would seem to be part — releases this year from Black Sky Giant and Moodoom and the continued success of an act like IAH, as well as a horde of other instrumentalists haunting Bandcamp also argue in favor — but suffice it to say there’s something happening there right now as there is in many other places and as the 2020s come into focus after their tumultuous and traumatic beginning, the shape that the next few years in heavy will take is being sculpted now, maybe also in Destierro y Siembra.

Not going to speak in absolutes — it’s an unpredictable world set in a universe of infinite possibilities — but part of enjoying Destierro y Siembra is wondering what Les Nadie might do from here, how they might flesh out their sound or deep-dive into the rawness that a duo configuration can provide, or both, or neither. Whatever comes, their debut is a special record and I’m glad to host it here and glad to have the excuse to listen again.

I hope you dig it:

Producido por Manu Collado en @fusisestudio (Córdoba , Argentina)

Grabación y mezcla a cargo de Manu Collado en @fusisestudio ,(Córdoba, Argentina) y Xavi Esterri Comes en @nomadstudio.es (Lleida, Catalunya) entre los meses de Marzo de 2021 y Julio de 2022.

Drum doc. Maxi Mansur

Mastering por Timone Brutti en Abdijan Studios , Lavaur, France.

Les Nadie son:
Juan Conde (guitar, voices)
Rodri Deladerova (drums)

Les Nadie on Instagram

Les Nadie on Facebook

Les Nadie on Bandcamp

Spinda Records on Facebook

Spinda Records on Instagram

Spinda Records on Bandcamp

Spinda Records website

Echodelick Records on Facebook

Echodelick Records on Instagram

Echodelick Records on Bandcamp

Echodelick Records website

Psychedelic Salad Records on Facebook

Psychedelic Salad Records on Instagram

Psychedelic Salad Records on Twitter

Psychedelic Salad Records store

Dirty Filthy Records on Facebook

Dirty Filthy Records on Instagram

Dirty Filthy Records store

I was not 24 hours removed from recommending this band to a friend who had just put me onto Black Sky Giant‘s new album as a candidate for the current best outfit in Argentinian heavy. A few years back, I might’ve said Certainly there are other candidates, but Les Nadie‘s Destierro y Siembra (review here) hit a nerve like few debuts do and particularly coming from a duo had a real sense of live chemistry without giving up production value. Just killer stuff. The kind of thing that maybe at least four labels would want to get behind for a proper release.

Well wouldn’t you know, that’s exactly what’s happened. Spinda Records sent the announcement below, but Psychedelic Salad in Australia, Echodelick in the States, and Dirty Filthy in the UK will also be giving a push. Psychedelic Salad and Echodelick are no strangers to collaborating (the same may be true of Dirty Filthy, I honestly don’t know) and you might recall Spinda‘s last roster-add was Bismut (info here), which was in collaboration with Lay Bare in the Netherlands. Shit is awesome, is all I’m saying. More collaboration. I don’t know what that does for the logistics of distribution, let alone anyone who works for a distributor outside the given network of ones involved in a given release, but it feels like a cool idea as a way to mitigate shipping costs to different regions while, again, everybody gets another voice behind promotion. Everybody wins.

In this case, Les Nadie do too. Their debut album will have four homes instead of just one, and there you go. Also, I think it’s hilarious that the glut of links in between the announcement text and the Bandcamp embed takes up more space than either that text or the player. You have to get your laughs where you can.

From Spinda via the PR wire:

Spinda Records – Argentinian psych-shoegaze band Les Nadie joins the family!

As many of you, we usually discover new music thanks to different magazines, websites and podcasts… Well, back in July 2022 we were reading a review of the debut album of an Argentinian band whilst we were listening to their songs, and we simply loved it. Immediately after, we contacted them with a proposition: to reissue that album on physical format, as it was available only on digital.

That band was the power duo Les Nadie, originally formed in 2018 by two young lads that, inspired by their predecessors such as Los Natas or Los Antiguos and the vast emptiness of the desert and the northern winds of their region, started mixing heavy riffs with other passages much calmer and reverberated, getting sometimes even very close to shoegaze and psych rock.

Les Nadie joins now Spinda Records in order to finally reissue on physical format that debut album that they self-released last year. And we’ll do it in collaboration with our friends at Psychedelic Salad Records (Australia), Dirty Filthy Records (UK) and Echodelick Records (US). ‘Destierro y Siembra‘ is the name of this awesome album, and it will be out (including some surprises) this Spring!

https://www.facebook.com/lesnadie

https://www.facebook.com/SpindaRecords
https://www.instagram.com/spindarecords
https://spindarecords.bandcamp.com/
https://www.spindarecords.com/

https://www.facebook.com/ERECORDSATL
https://www.instagram.com/echodelickrecords/
https://echodelickrecords.bandcamp.com/
https://www.echodelickrecords.com/

https://www.facebook.com/psychsalad/
https://www.instagram.com/psychsalad/
https://twitter.com/psychsalad
https://psychedelic-salad.com/shop/

https://www.facebook.com/dirtyfilthyrecords/
https://www.instagram.com/dirtyfilthyrecords/
https://dirtyfilthyrecords.bigcartel.com/

Les Nadie, Destierro y Siembra (2022)

Destierro y Siembra is not only the debut full-length from Córdoba, Argentina, duo Les Nadie, but the band’s first release of any kind as well. Comprised of guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Juan Codne and drummer Rodri Deladerova, the seven-song offering is low on hype and big on creativity, culling together a half-hour’s worth of material that brings a striking amount of character to largely familiar elements. Right at the outset, with the manner in which the post-Melvins roll-and-crash of lead cut “Gritó el Indio” gives way to layered ethereal howls (presumably representing the titular gritó, or cry) as it moves into its middle third, guitar effects placed overtop to add to the weirdness, turning back to the main riff soon enough before picking up the speed and shifting to a modified ending, Les Nadie signal their intention toward inventive structures and an unwillingness to play by traditional verse/chorus rules that only becomes a source of strength as the rest of the release unfolds.

Only the centerpiece “Helledén” (5:38) is longer than “Gritó el Indio” (5:35), and not by much, but quickly Les Nadie‘s work becomes as much about atmosphere, if not more, as about the riffs being played or the weight of the opener’s nod. “Zhonda” follows and begins with a more urgent pace and harder hitting drums from Deladerova, Codne‘s guitar turning from the crunch to an almost-noodling-but-not-quite succession of notes in what becomes the first real verse on Destierro y Siembra, all the more effective in the clarity of its delivery with that shimmer behind it and the fact that the band have gone about seven minutes into the offering without saying a word, despite the voice-as-instrument work on the first song. The lyrics, which translate to either a request for or a story about a wind from the south coming to bring rebirth — “Viento/Del sur viento/Baja a mi encuentro/Y resurrección” — are delivered twice through before the crunch resumes, sounding all the more grunge for the held note at the finish of the second time. The duo cycle through again before building into an early payoff of groove that gets accompanied by some howls not dissimilar from those in “Gritó el Indio,” but modified in purpose, now representing the wind itself as the song comes to its sudden end and “Siembra / Destierro,” which is as close to a title-track as Destierro y Siembra gets.

The ambience and feeling of open space in the recording, reverb on the guitar, continues in “Siembra / Destierro,” offset by a more solidified, fuzzier fluidity. Again, layering is a factor in the presentation, and as Destierro y Siembra was tracked between March 2020 and July 2021 (sounds about right) at studios in Córdoba and Catalonia, working with Manu Collado and the Lleida-based Xavi Esterri in the northern part of Spain, the fluidity of that jam comes across as well-honed, Codne‘s guitar swaying through the early procession — “Siembra,” presumably — before extending the method to the vocals of the following “Destierro,” which in their drawling, bottom-mouth layers recall the darker moments of Alice in Chains‘ Dirt over suitably heavy crashes and thuds. Thus the song ends, a final strum filling the silence before the airier, bouncing guitar figure of “Helledén” starts. After the first minute, the aforementioned centerpiece arrives at a lighthearted movement of guitar that becomes a recurring theme, balanced against jazzy jabs with vocals overtop. It is a willful contradiction of purpose that shouldn’t work but which the duo pull off readily, resolving in sweet, early Mars Red Sky rawness and melody, the guitar meandering to the end with just a flourish of cymbal wash.

As with “Zhonda” after “Gritó el Indio,” “Babas D’Allah” follows “Helledén” with a more straight-up riff, announcing itself via dense distortion before desert-hued noodling takes hold. With no more conflict than in “Helledén,” “Babas D’Allah” basks in its point and counterpoint, each change between them highlighting the differences and the unlikely flow that results as Les Nadie shift between the one and the other, the god-slobber’s 1994-ish Fu Manchu-style heavier riff seeming to find a complement in the intro to the penultimate “Del Pombero,” which starts out organic and weighted in a nod that comes through like a response to “Gritó el Indio” and that likewise builds out some of the Mars Red Sky melodicism as it breaks from the march for its verse before resuming the procession once more, a change that’s nowhere near as stark as some of those that come before it but that nonetheless finds the guitar resting to give space to the vocals, and solo lines and rhythm tracks working in layers as Codne and Deladerova summarize a good portion of what’s worked well in Destierro y Siembra — doing whatever they want, when they want to do it. Exploratory as the album may feel, there’s no questioning the confidence in Les Nadie to pull it off. And really, that and the creativity behind it in the first place is what it takes.

So, having been up, down, fast, slow, hither, yon, the desert, the beach, the garden, the boogie van and the monster truck, they end subtle and quiet with the guitar epilogue “Venenauta,” which is some reference to poison I can’t quite place translation-wise but that underscores how much of what makes Destierro y Siembra such an engaging listen across its relatively brief span comes down to the atmosphere in the material itself. There’s pastoralism, or at least a drive toward escape in the songs, but Les Nadie are neither cloying in their use of structure — not beating you over the head with a hook — nor so psychedelic as to be tripped out to the exclusion of conscious craft. Their efforts here stand as testament to the undervalued status of South American heavy rock in the broader, worldwide underground, but more crucially and more immediately, they announce Les Nadie as a band and Codne as a songwriter looking to break from the norm of sand-worship, riff-worship, worship-worship, etc., while remaining steadfast in their use of the tenets of genre. These two sides, like the banishment and sowing in the album’s title, feel disparate, but in Les Nadie‘s capable hands are the stuff of a richness that speaks to present immersion and future possibility all at once.

Les Nadie, Destierro y Siembra (2022)

Les Nadie on Instagram

Les Nadie on Facebook

Les Nadie on Bandcamp

Only fitting that Argentina-based three-piece IAH should return to European shores in support of their most expansive album to-date. The work in question is the late-2021 highlight Omines (review here), which found their instrumentalist heavy psychedelic rock in full blossom even as they reached beyond their own confines to incorporate strings as well as vocals for the first time, the latter supplied by Jan Rutka and Kamil Ziółkowski of Poland’s Spaceslug, who, to say the least, fit well on the record’s closing title-track.

It’s not the longest tour I’ll post about this week, but you’ll note the fact that the first three of the total seven shows take place in Poland. No word on whether the band will renew that Spaceslug collaboration on stage or otherwise, but they’ll be in the neighborhood — relatively speaking, anyhow — so it’s always possible. And as it says in the headline above, the tour concludes with their slot at Freak Valley Festival in Germany, where you bet your ass I’m looking forward to seeing them, among the slew of others in that rather look-forward-to-able lineup.

Even factoring in the global pandemic, IAH have built significant momentum behind them over the last five or so years since their self-titled debut (review here). The last time they went to Europe was Summer 2019 — Paris was the same venue — so figure that had conditions permitted, they’d have gone back before now, but like that run of shows, this one has a festival as its anchor, which if you need to understand why I advocate for a different fest every weekend somewhere in Europe, should tell you everything you need to know.

Safe travels to the band. They’re among my most anticipated for my upcoming first visit to Freak Valley:

June 6 PL Warsaw Hybrydy
June 7 PL Krakow Klub Zascianek
June 8 PL Wroclaw Klub Akademia
June 10 CZ Prague Cross Clube Prague
June 13 FR Paris Supersonic
June 14 FR Strasbourg
June 18 DE Netphen Freak Valley Festival

IAH is:
Juan Pablo Lucco Borlera: Bass
Mauricio Condon: Guitar
José Landín: Drums

https://www.instagram.com/iahbanda/
https://www.facebook.com/IAHBanda/
https://iahbanda.bandcamp.com/
https://iah.bigcartel.com/

IAH, Omines (2021)