Posted in Whathaveyou on February 10th, 2016 by JJ Koczan
After a successful first installment last year, Shadow Woods Metal Fest 2016 bursts out of the gate with 20-plus bands for what’s still being touted as its initial lineup — i.e., there’s more to come. Seems reasonable. Now that they’ve shown it can happen without the universe collapsing or the ultra-oppressive Federal Forestry Service (note: I have no idea if that’s a real thing) clamping down hard on longhair campers, it seems only fair to expect the event to grow both in actual scope and reputation.
The first group of acts spans a range from extreme metal to psychedelic heavy rock, but a few highlights thus far include Maryland dronecasters Darsombra, Philly riff-rollers Wizard Eye, and MD heavy rockers Faith in Jane, who’ll team up with Scott “Wino” Weinrich himself for a special set. There have been murmurings of those two parties jamming for a little bit now, and you can see video of them doing just that from this past weekend below. It ain’t Wino Wednesday, exactly, but it’s cool to watch anyway.
Also included are Destroyer of Light from Austin, Temple of Void from Michigan and a whole bunch of others put together by fest-organizer Mary Spiro, who very clearly knows what she’s doing:
SHADOW WOODS METAL FEST, the Mid-Atlantic’s open-air camping metal party, will once again terrorize the woodlands of central Maryland this fall with three days of more than thirty bands from diverse metal genres and regions. The 2016 festival runs from Thursday, September 15th through Sunday, September 18th at Camp Hidden Valley, in White Hall, Maryland, the same location where the maiden edition of the fest was held last year.
Organizers of SHADOW WOODS METAL FEST began announcing performers in mid-January and have been carefully curating this year’s lineup. “The response from performers and attendees to the 2015 event was overwhelmingly positive with many people telling me it was the best weekend of their lives!” says festival founder Mary Spiro of Metallomusikum.com/Shadow Woods Productions LLC. “We are humbled and frankly completely surprised by the outpouring of praise for the fest. There has been enormous interest from the metal community for certain bands to perform. Our team is taking its time to make sure the lineup matches our attendee’s expectations and sets us apart from other fests. We also want each day to have flow. It’s a balancing act.”
Spiro says that when all is said and done, the final lineup will surpass the ferocity of the inaugural installment. As of February 9th, twenty-one bands have been announced, including horror death mongers Acid Witch, death thrashers Coffin Dust, underground black metal kings Blood Storm, doom merchants Wizard Eye, psychedelic black metal gurus Helleborus, and Maryland doom trio Faith In Jane joins forces with the genre’s godfather Scott “Wino” Weinrich (The Obsessed, Spirit Caravan, Saint Vitus) for an exclusive SWMF performance, with much more to be announced.
Early Bird Weekend Passes for SHADOW WOODS METAL FEST go on sale at noon EST, February 12th for $115 onBrownPaperTickets.com.
Tent camping is included with the weekend pass. People who want to reserve cabin beds can do so for an additional $20 for the duration of the fest.
“It could be late Spring before we have the whole lineup in hand,” Spiro said. “It’s taking longer than we anticipated, but we think our patience will be rewarded, and festival goers will be really pleased with the bands yet to be announced.”
SHADOW WOODS METAL FEST 2016 Confirmed Lineup: A SOUND OF THUNDER (DC) **traditional old-school heavy metal ACID WITCH (Detroit) **horror death BLOOD STORM (PA/TX) **black thrash BOUND BY THE GRAVE (Baltimore) *death CEMETERY PISS (Baltimore) **black COFFIN DUST (Philadelphia) **death CORPSE LIGHT (Baltimore) *doom DARSOMBRA (MD) **metal drone DESTROYER OF LIGHT (Austin, TX) **sludge EMPYREUS(Chicago) **black FAITH IN JANE FEATURING WINO (MD) ** doom trio joined by the godfather of the sound GENEVIEVE (MD) **experimental black GRAVE GNOSIS (St. Petersburg, FL) **black HAXEN (Rhode Island) **black HELLEBORUS (Manitou Springs, CO) **black MYOPIC (DC) **death/doom SAPREMIA (New Jersey) **death TELOCH VOVIN (NY) **black TEMPLE OF VOID (Detroit) **doom WIZARD EYE (PA) **doom XEUKATRE (Baltimore) **black MANY MORE BANDS YET TO BE ANNOUNCED
Day one down and feeling good so far. Day two continues the thread of mixing more known quantities with bands either self-releasing or putting out demos, etc., and I like that. More than last time around — last quarter, if you want to use the business-y sounding language for it — I tried to really get a balance across this batch of reviews, posted yesterday and coming up over the next couple days. We’ll see how it works out when it’s over. It remains a ton of stuff, and I hope you dig it. Day two starts right now.
Quarterly review #11-20:
Horsehunter, Caged in Flesh
Pushing their way to the fore of Melbourne’s heavy surge, double-guitar four-piece Horsehunter proffer oppressive tonal crush on the four tracks of their 2LP Magnetic Eye Records debut, Caged in Flesh. The story goes that, unsatisfied the initial recordings weren’t heavy enough, the band – guitarists Michael Harutyanyan (also vocals) and Dan McDonald, bassist/vocalist Himi Stringer and drummer Nick Cron – went back into the studio and redid the entire thing. Mission accomplished. By the time 16-minute opener and longest track (immediate points) “Stoned to Death” is done, lungs are suitably deflated, spines are cracked, skulls cleaved, and so on. They’re hardly the only ones in the world to conjure formidable tonal heft, but it’s the deft changes in vocals – clean here, shouts there, more abrasive at the start of the title-track – and the sense of atmosphere in the three-minute penultimate interlude that really distinguish Horsehunter, as well as how smoothly that atmosphere integrates with the pummel in the second half of closer “Witchery,” attention to detail and awareness of the need for more than just sonic weight boding well for future progression.
A staggeringly heavy debut full-length from Sacramento, CA, five-piece Church, Unanswered Hymns was initially released digitally by the band and quickly picked up for a cassette issue by Transylvanian Tapes and forthcoming LP through Battleground Records. One gets the sense listening to the three extended tracks – 19-minute opener “Dawning” being the longest of the bunch (immediate points) – that those won’t be the last versions to come. Psychedelic doom blends seamlessly with vicious sludge extremity, creating a morass engulfing in its tones, spacious in its breadth and unrepentantly heavy, making it one of 2015’s best debut releases, hands down, and a glorious revelry in bleak tectonics that challenges the listener to match its level of melancholy without giving into an impulse for post-Pallbearer emotive theatrics. As thrilling as they are plodding, expect the echoes of “Dawning,” “Stargazer” and “Offering” to resonate for some time to come, and should Church show any predilection for touring in the next couple years, they have the potential to make a genuine impact on American doom. Yes, I mean it.
Recorded in a day and released by Grimoire Records, the four-track Without Form is slated as the debut from Baltimore atmospheric doomers Corpse Light, but the band have had tracks come out in drips and drabs since getting their start as Ophidian in mid-2012, even if this is their first proper release. Either way, “The Fool” sets up an immediate and grim ambience, the churning lurch from guitarists Keiran Holmes and Don Selner and bassist Aurora Raiten set to roll by Lawrence Grimes (The Osedax) and given earthy aggression by the vocals of Jim Webb. “Lying in State” fleshes out these morose aggro vibes, but it’s with the drop-everything-and-kill peak of the subsequent “R Complex” that Corpse Light hit their angriest mark. If Without Form was just about that, it would be the highlight, but the album’s 29 minutes have more to offer than pissed off tonally-weighted post-hardcore, as closer “Kenophobia”’s clever turns and deceptive forward momentum demonstrate, though a touch of that kind of thing never hurts either.
Heavy psych four-piece Sunder will make their debut this summer through Tee Pee and Crusher Records with a 7” for “Cursed Wolf,” so consider this notice of the tracks on their not-for-public-consumption demo a heads up on things to come. Their “Deadly Flower” was streamed here this past April, and the band’s previous incarnation, The Socks, released their self-titled debut (review here) on Small Stone in 2014, but with songs like the key-laced stomper “Bleeding Trees,” the ‘70s rusher “Against the Grain,” and the Uncle Acid-style swinging “Daughter of the Snows,” the Lyon, France, outfit continue to refine a style drawing together different vibes of the psychedelic era. “Deadly Flower” was also distinguished by its key work, and as for “Cursed Wolf” itself, the melody reminds of proto-psych Beatles singles (thinking “Rain” specifically), but the groove still holds firm to a sense of weight that’s thoroughly modern, and by that I mean it sounds like 1972. Keep an eye out.
Granted not everyone is going to make this immediate association, but when I first saw the moniker T-Tops, I couldn’t help think of like C-grade generic stonerisms, songs about beer and pretending to be from the South and all that. If you experienced something similar in seeing the name, rest easy. The Pittsburgh trio of guitarist/vocalist Pat Waters (ex-The Fitt, Wormrigg), bassist Jason Orr (Wormrigg) and drummer Jason Jouver (ex-Don Caballero) are down with far more sinister punk and noise on their self-titled, self-released debut full-length, riding, shooting straight and speaking truth on cuts like “Wipe Down” and the catchy “Pretty on a Girl” after the tense sampling of “A Certain Cordial Exhilaration” turns over the power-push to “Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’.” “Ralphie” is probably an inside-joke if not a Christmas Story reference, but point is these guys are way less about-to-sing-about-muscle-cars than the name implies and their tight, crisp rhythmic turns come accompanied by vicious tonal force and an utter lack of bullshit, which is a scenario far preferable to that which one might otherwise expect.
Issued by Aqulamb in the imprint’s standard 100-page art book/download format, the self-titled debut from fellow Brooklynites The Space Merchants seeks to draw a line between psychedelic rock and country. And not pretend country like people with a Johnny Cash fetish because he covered that Nine Inch Nails song one time – actual, bright, pastoral, classic country. Call the results psychtwang and applaud the effort, which works oddly well in a thoroughly vintage context to come across on “Mainline the Sun” like something from a lost ‘60s variety show. Parts of “One Cut Like the Moon” and the later fuzz of “One Thousand Years of Boredom” give away their modernity, but The Space Merchants’ push toward a stylistic niche suits them well, and the intertwined vocal arrangements from guitarist Michael Guggino, bassist Aileen Brophy and keyboardist Ani Monteleone – Carter Logan drums to round out the four-piece – add to the rich, welcoming feel that remains prevalent even as the eight-minute “Where’s the Rest of Life” slips into wah-soaked noise to finish out.
The undercurrent of black metal coursing beneath the surface of Etiolated’s debut full-length, Grey Limbs, Grey Skies, eventually comes to the surface in 10-minute opener “Internal Abyss” and 16-minute eponymous closer, which bookends, but in part it’s the tension of waiting for those rampaging surges that keeps one hooked to the Armus Productions release. Guttural death growls echo up from dense tonal reaches, and tempo shifts, whether in those longer tracks or three-minute lumbering slice “Futility” are fluid, the North Carolina five-piece executing a slow-grinding chug in centerpiece “Exsanguinate,” which seems like a murk without end until the 1:47 “For Your Hell” kicks into a speedier, more blackened rush, guest vocalist Ryan McCarthy joining guitarist/vocalists James Storelli and Walls, bassist Cody Rogers and drummer Elliot Thompson in furthering the already prevalent sense of extremism before “Etiolated,” after a surprisingly peaceful if brooding midsection, plods the album to a close. To say “not for the faint of heart” would be putting it lightly, but if I had a vest and if Etiolated had patches, the two parties would definitely meet up at some point in the near future.
It has not taken long for the discography of UK psych jammers Blown Out to become a populated murky cosmos of its own. Planetary Engineering is released on Oaken Palace Records and finds the three-piece of guitarist Mike Vest (also Bong, etc.), bassist John-Michael Hedley (also Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs) and drummer Matt Baty (also the head of Box Records) exploring two mesmeric and sprawling instrumentals – one per side – that bend and flourish and hypnotize in organically-concocted swirl. Side A’s “Transcending Deep Infinity” tops 20 minutes and shifts from its spacey build to a low key groove at about 7:30 in, pulsing forward once more amid head-turning repetition, deep echoes and longform nod, culminating in a two-minute fadeout that brings forward “Thousand Years in the Sunshine,” an immediate bass groove and interstellar swirl no less trance-inducing than its predecessor. Cyclical drum fills morph over time behind the guitar and bass, and Planetary Engineering seems to push continually further out until, of course, it disintegrates, presumably as it crosses the galactic barrier.
I was fortunate enough to have been in attendance at Het Patronaat in Tilburg when French post-black metallers Les Discrets took the stage at Roadburn 2013. As such, it’s with some trepidation I approach their Live at Roadburn recording on Prophecy Productions – the impression they made live wasn’t something I’d want potentially spoiled or brought to earth by a document proving it was just another set. With Neige of Alcest on bass with guitarist/vocalist Fursy Teyssier, Les Discrets proved to be something really special to those who, like me, were there to catch them, and the eight-track Live at Roadburn – fortunately – captures both the majestic lushness they brought with them and the underlying weight that seemed to add impact to the material. What might sound like post-production mixing on “L’Echappée” or the wash of “Chanson D’Automne” isn’t – it really was that beautiful and that perfectly balanced coming from the stage. A vastly underrated act and a document that reminds of how stellar they were without sullying the memory in the slightest.
Brooklynite foursome Beast Modulus seem to care less about meshing with ideas of genre than sticking them in a meatgrinder and seeing what comes out. To wit the riotous chugging of “Cowboy Caligula,” and the blackened thrust of “WaSaBi!” on their self-released, self-titled outing, which leads to dueling growls and screams on the tonally weighted post-hardcore “Fabulous,” and the appropriately mathy turns of the thrashing “Tyranny of Numbers.” Inventive in their stylizations and in where the six songs included on the release actually go – hint: they go to “heavy” – the lineup of vocalist Kurt Applegate, guitarist Owen Burley, bassist Jesse Adelson and drummer Jody Smith have some post-Dillinger Escape Plan vibe in the calculated chaos of “Kalashnikov,” but closer “Killing Champion” is too impatient to even be held by that, the prevailing manic angularity of Beast Modulus ultimately crafting its own identity from the physical assault the music seems intent on perpetrating upon the listener.
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 31st, 2015 by JJ Koczan
If you’d like a quick lesson in efficiency — and hey, I know we all would — look no further than going Baltimore concern Grimoire Records. Earlier this month, a mere 16 days ago, the label’s Noel Mueller and Phil Doccolo had fellow Baltimore natives Corpse Light into the Grimoire studio. The five-piece band recorded four songs with Mueller at the helm, they were subsequently mixed and mastered. At some point in there, artwork happened and bam, a May 19 release date has been set for Without Form, Corpse Light‘s full-length debut, through Grimoire Records. Not a bad a-to-z in 16 days.
Grimoire was threatening notice of the mix’s heft as early as March 17, and the eight minutes of “Lying in State,” which was unveiled today as the first audio to come from the album, make good on that promise, taking post-sludge and doom cues and putting them to punishing use. Slow guitar triumph plays out over a pretty significant span, but I have my doubts that “Lying in State” is the whole story when it comes to Without Form, and that Corpse Light have a couple more tricks up their sleeves than the formidable rumbling and growling on hand here. Or, you know, if not, this is still probably enough to carry them through a record. We’ll see when it hits, I guess.
Info on the recording is below, followed by “Lying in State” itself:
Epic, pummeling doom from Baltimore for fans of Neurosis, Cult of Luna, Mouth of the Architect. Available 05/19/2015 on CD/cassette/digital download through Grimoire Records.
Corpse Light is Jim Webb {Vox}, Larrigold Grimes {Drums}, Aurora Raiten {Bass}, Keiran Holmes {Guitar}, and Don Selner {Guitar}. Guest vocals on Lying in State by Noel.
“Without Form” was recorded on 03/15/2015 by Noel Mueller of Grimoire Records. Mixed and mastered by Noel Mueller/Grimoire Records.
