Belfast post-sludge crushers Nomadic Rituals release their fourth album, Fust, March 14 on Cursed Monk Records. It’s the UK trio’s first offering since 2021’s Tides, which by astounding coincidence was reviewed here four years ago this week, and its 43 minutes present a dark, encompassing, rumbling chasm of tone through which hard-barked shouts and death grunts surface. In the realm of the post-metallic, cuts like the stomp-marching opener “Nothing Left to Call Home” still manage to tick the genre’s required boxes for atmosphere, but if you’ve never taken on Nomadic Rituals before, it’s worth noting that this isn’t synth-fetish ambience and telegraphed loud/quiet tradeoffs. As a unit, Nomadic Rituals even at their quietest — the moment of letup at the beginning of “Beneath Black Skies” at the presumed start of side B, for example — are foreboding, and tonal and atmospheric weight are working toward likewise threatening ends.
“Change,” for which a duly stark performance video is premiering below, is the first single from the record, and it meets the listener at the place where Isis once internalized Godflesh‘s despondent plod. It is the penultimate cut on the six-track/43-minute onslaught, and in following Rwake-y lurch of “Beneath Black Skies,” it precedes the gnashing “The Rot,” which closes and is the longest inclusion at 9:28, rife with feedback and even rawer-throated vocally by the finish than it was at the start. That placement, as well as the tension in the drums and the work the three-piece do across “Nothing Left to Call Home,” the scathing “Boundless Formless” that makes the abyss first and then stares into it, and the hits-harder-when-the-vocals-go-high-low-death-metal-in-the-chorus “Fault in the Process” on side A, lays out the context for all the second half of the LP’s amplified devastation, but Nomadic Rituals are plenty consistent across Fust. Whatever they come upon is flattened.
Okay, here goes. For the last week-plus, I’ve been doing my best to completely bury my head in the sand and ignore the world outside my house. I actively don’t want to know what’s happening. My reasons are political, but real in ways that affect my daily life; I am not in the abstract in my concerns, and if I was, I’m not sure that invalidates them. The reason I’m telling you this at all isn’t just because I’m stoned and into honesty, but to point out that while Fust is playing, it’s really hard to forget that the same world outside is a terrible place filled with cruel people who, even if they don’t actively want to hurt others, don’t help when they could. Apathy as a moral position. Well fine. I wanna check out, too. I’ll just let it all go and trust it will be fine because that’s what my mom told me when I was five. Nomadic Rituals reveal this for the weakness it is, foster aggression, and herald the catharsis behind their cruelty. Fust, it turns out, is too pummeling to play pretend, even when you really want to.
Obviously not everybody has the same backdrop of existential-dread — though I don’t know why not — but however you hear Fust, expect to be moved by the impact of the material and the all-mellows-harshed delivery as a whole. Nomadic Rituals aren’t new to this, and the mood-creating intention behind their craft can be felt even in the arrangements themselves — the relatively stage-ready sound isn’t overly layered, etc. — and the rawness of approach they represent. “Change” doesn’t stand in as analogous to everything Nomadic Rituals have going on in Fust, but it harnesses the same intensity that drives the material around it, and its viciousness is not to be understated. In that way, it very much is a stand-in for the entire album.
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 21st, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Something unsurprising about the new Nomadic Rituals track? It’s very, very heavy. This is consistent from Northern Irish post-metallic crushers Nomadic Rituals, whose new album is called Fust and was announced by Cursed Monk Records as being due March 14. I haven’t heard the full record yet because I’m not that cool, but if you ever heard people talk about how Isis were influenced by Godflesh and it didn’t make sense to you, “Change” brings that connection to light in its semi-industrial churn. The weight that ensues is very much the band’s own and expertly wielded in addition to bludgeoning.
It’s a kind of extreme post-metal, and like extreme anything, it’s going to leave some listeners cold. I’m fairly certain drawing a line between those who can take it and those who can’t is part of what “Change” is doing — the same could be said of Nomadic Rituals‘ work to this point more generally — but if you can hang with this kind of Primitive Man-ish caustic claustrophobia, the catharsis is real.
From the label:
Nomadic Rituals are back with their fourth album, “Fust”.
This latest offering promises to be their most intense and evocative work yet to capture the essence of their evolution and the raw power that defines their music.
Fust is 6 track album that points the finger directly at the human race, highlighting its flaws and attitudes toward catastrophe and corruption.
With a reputation for exhilarating live performances and a commitment to sonic exploration, Nomadic Rituals continues to carve out their own legacy in the world of heavy music.
“Fust” will be released March 14th, on Digital and CD, and April 11th on LP.
Posted in Reviews on October 17th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Writing this intro from a bench near the playground at my daughter’s grade school. It was different equipment at the time — made of unrecycled tires, because it was the ’80s — but I used to play here when I was her age too. The Pecan’s day ended about 10 minutes ago and after-school go-time has become part of the routine when we don’t have to be elsewhere. It’s chilly today — I have my hat on for the first time since winter, but if I was more used to the cold, I wouldn’t need it. If it was April, I’d be in shorts celebrating the arrival of spring. All depends on which way the planet is tipped, I guess.
Pretty sure I mentioned this at some point, but in part because the Quarterly Review is going well, I’m adding an 11th day. That brings it up to 110 releases, which, frankly, is just stupid. I don’t really have a reason I’m doing any of it except that I am. I feel the same about a lot of this lately.
As happens with any decent QR more than a week long, I’m behind on news. I don’t really have anything to say about a new Dax Riggs song or an Acid Bath reunion without any context, and I’m not cool enough to be in the know on any of it, but Roadburn has done a lineup announcement that I’d like to post and Uncle Acid announced a US tour, so there’s stuff to catch up on. Tuesday and on, I suppose. Good thing the internet exists or disseminating any of this information might have any stakes to it whatsoever.
Quarterly Review #81-90:
—
Castle, Evil Remains
Hammerheart Records steps forth to issue the masterful metallurgy of Castle‘s Evil Remains. The duo of bassist/vocalist Liz Blackwell and guitarist/vocalist Mat Davis work with drummer Mike Cotton on the 37-minute eight-tracker that’s the first new Castle LP since 2018’s Deal Thy Fate (review here), and their take on dark heavy rock meeting in a pocketknife alley with doom, thrash and classic metal continues to be utterly their own. “Queen of Death,” “Nosferatu Nights,” the swaggering “Evil Remains” itself, all the way down to the twisting leads, dual-vocals and hard-chug of “Cold Grave” — the message of the album is glaring across its span in how undervalued Castle are and have been over their 15 years, but even that can’t top the vibrancy of the songs themselves, which have long given up genre concerns in pursuit of the individualism they’ve found.
Clearly, Vancouver’s Waingro titled their new release Sports in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Huey Lewis album of the same name. It’s hard to find the influence of the 1980s pop superstar — who, with Sports, really came into his own, commercially and artistically, according to American Psycho — in the band’s ripper heavy hardcore punk, but they’ve got five tracks in 11 minutes, so there’s no risk of overstaying their welcome with the likes of the minute-long fuzz instrumental “Masonic Falls” or the apocalyptic post-hardcore of centerpiece “Brougham,” which follows the opening pair of “Fuel for Vomit” and “Sports,” which don’t seem to have been put together accidentally as the EP closes with its two shortest pieces in “Masonic Falls” and the subsequent “Pray for Blackout.” Both are under two minutes long, and while the former is something of a breather after the assault of “Brougham,” “Pray for Blackout” is vicious and pummeling, leaving on an intense, raw note in which Waingro bask.
15-minute opener “Dåderman Renoverar” jams its way into a sax-topped ’50 bop and swing, like you’re down at the soda shop getting a pull of root beer and here come these crazy Swedish psychedelic jammers to get the hula-hoops spinning, so yes, För Samtida Djur 2 is very much a Kungens Män release. As well it should be, following just months behind the preceding För Samtida Djur 1 (review here) with four more pieces piped in from the greater distances of Out There in improv rock-as-jazz psychedelic fashion. “Dåderman Renoverar” is leadoff and longest (immediate points), while “Väntar På Zonen” (8:28) is less of a build than a mellow dwell, “Skör Lugg” (11:43) hypnotizes with guitar before unfurling a pastoralism worthy of Sweden’s history of progressive psych-folk and “Gubbar Reser Sig” (8:36) ends with a bit of bounce and build amid brighter jangle that they let unwind at the finish, completing the cycle in duly eccentric fashion. This band is a treasure, make no mistake. Every time they step in a room, someone should be recording.
Maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that Caffeine‘s The Threshold feels so tense and taut since it executes its eight songs in 29 minutes — 10 of which are dedicated to “Ghost Town” and “The Agency” on side B — but as its two sides play out, the Hanover, Germany-based trio of vocalist/bassist Denis Radoncic, guitarist Andre Werk and drummer/vocalist Enrico “Rocko” Winkler, plus Sebi on keys and guitar, find a progressive heavy thrust that’s informed by early Mastodon in its crunch and the rearing-up of riffs on “Last Train” and the twisting rhythms of the title-track, but from a post-hardcore rush in “The THreshold” to the humming tones of the penultimate interlude “Citadel” — which has a more percussive counterpart in side A’s “Rorschach’s Waltz” to the pro-shop heavy metal of “Dead End,” Caffeine‘s material sounds thoughtful in its construction without being a gimme in terms of influence or losing itself in the intensity as it unfolds. This is the band’s second record. It’s a fucking beast.
They’re delivered in a deathly rasp, as perhaps it would need to be, before the clean vocals arrive, but the lyrics in “Space is Now Tainted” from The Mountain King‘s 13th album in 10 years, Stoma, are among the most fitting encapsulations of life under apocalypse-capitalism that I’ve seen. The whole song is brilliant, and it’s one of eight on the 48-minute LP, so I’m not trying to neglect anything else, but when I see lines like, “And when the last tree is down/You will climb the bodies of the ones who didn’t drown,” it’s hard not to be taken aback. The later “Dripping Bats” offers thoughts and prayers for the death of god, so the righteousness is by no means isolated as The Mountain King find a version of doom metal the chug of which has learned at least as much from Carcass‘ Heartwork as anything Black Sabbath ever did, and pushes into avant miserablism in “Twomb” or the intermittently volatile/gorgeous “To the Caves!,” which would seem to be the end The Mountain King see for human decline. Back to the caves. At least the end of the world turned up some good art. I wish more bands would dare to have an opinion.
Time will tell how the balance of NWOBHM grandstanding and from-farther-back boogie shakes out in the sound of German newcomers Kant, but for now, it’s an intriguing blend on the Aschaffenburg-based four-piece’s debut album, Paranoia Pilgrimage, and with the backing of Sound of Liberation Records, one might take the cavernous vocals, cultish melodies and declarative guitar work as part of the needed injection of fresh perspectives that the European heavy underground has been receiving the last few years in generational turnover. That is to say, there’s potential in the nuance of a song like “Traitors Lair,” which injects from flute-prog into the proceedings, and even as Kant search for ‘their sound,’ what they’re finding is likewise varied and exciting, if not blindingly original. The sharper corners of “Dark Procession” and the atmospheric depth offered in opener “The Great Serpent” both find an underpinning of darker, more cultish sounds — unsurprisingly, “Occult Worship” bears that out as well — but when the lead cut launches into its solo late in its five-minute going, Kant revel in the freedom of that breakout. Wherever time and their exploration takes them, Paranoia Pilgrimage is the foundation on which they’ll build.
With a mix and master by Karl Daniel Lidén (Katatonia, Dozer, Greenleaf, Vaka, Demon Cleaner, etc.) building on the production helmed by guitarist/vocalist Luc Bourgeois and guitarist Shawn Rice, it’s little wonder Sandveiss‘ third full-length, Standing in the Fire, sounds as full and charged as it does, from the first tones of “I’ll Be Rising” through drummer Dominic Gaumond‘s clinic in “Bleed Me Dry.” Completed by bassist Maxime Moisan, who is the force behind the propulsive “Wait and See” and the later, more expansive “These Cold Hands,” Sandveiss present Standing in the Fire as a showcase of multifaceted songwriting intent. The title-track, opener “I’ll Be Rising,” and the careening “Fade (Into the Night)” are catchy uptempo fuzzers kin to the ethic of Valley of the Sun, but “No Love Here” and the ensuing huge roll of “Bleed Me Dry” bring a stately cast and highlight some of the variety of mood and purpose amid all the heft and professional-grade craft throughout.
If you like your sludge noisy — or your noise sludged — aggressive and pummeling, Plant signal from Madison, Wisconsin, with their first album, Cosmic Phytophthora, a gnashing and duly punishing 44-minute/six-song assault that hits a particularly escape-proof crescendo in side B’s “Envenoming the Carrion” (11:59) and “Skyburial” (11:04) before closing with the harsh tumult of “Wolf Plague.” Once upon a time bands like Axehandle and The Mighty Nimbus walked the earth. Plant would stand well alongside either, with leadoff “Until it Dies” cracking open a can — I’ll assume lime seltzer? — before the drums kick in on what’s basically a spoken-word-topped riff introducing the seethe and tones that define what’s to come, screaming by the time its three minutes are up. “Anthracnos Stalk Rot” and the outright brutality of “Root Worm” follow and underscore the impression of a horticultural thematic, but whether you’re digging on plant parts or reeling from the various punches the band throw along the way, it’s hard not to be moved by a debut that has such a clear idea of what it’s about. Make it loud, make it caustic, make it hurt. Riffs to break oneself upon.
Tommy and the Teleboys, Gods, Used, in Great Condition
There are threads of punk and classic rock running through Tommy and the Teleboys‘ dance-ready debut long-player, Gods, Used in Great Condition, but ultimately the album is neither of them. United under a scope that includes psychedelia, proggy-jazz and maybe a bit of heavy blues, the post-modern nine-song outing has a depth of mix all the more emphasized through the band’s stylistic range, but it’s a feeling of brashness that seems most to bring the songs together and the vital sense of command in the tracks themselves. Each follows its own plot, whether it’s the willfully off-kilter “Loverboy” or textured pieces like “Seninle” and “Srevokk” later on, but “Gib Mir” and “Jesus Crowd” at the start — shades of Bowie Ameriphobia in the latter — give Gods, Used in Great Condition quirk to coincide with all its hey-we’re-not-40-yet urgency, and while the band range hither and yon in terms of style, there’s nowhere the melodic wash of “Jeffrey 3000” or the otherworldly wistful strum of “Night at the Junkyard” go that feels out of place in the surrounding context, and Tommy and the Teleboys seem to be serving notice to anyone clued in of intention to disrupt. One hopes they do.
MEDB is a new solo-project by Rodger Boyle, who also runs Cursed Monk Records and features in bands like Noosed, ÚATH and Stonecarver, among others, and this first demo unveils four songs working under the stated concept of conveying the landscape/ambience of Boyle‘s home in Waterford, Ireland. Certainly the ambience of “Returning Home” is darker than the photos from the Port Láirge tourism committee, but while MEDB lays claim to a drumless drone on that nine-and-a-half-minute opener, “Glasha,” “Mahon Falls” and “The Wild Deer of Sillaheen” conjure a more full-band impression, plodding in “Glasha” before “Mahon Falls” digs into a more open and meditative feel in one guitar layer while lower distortion holds sway beneath, and “The Wild Deer of Sillaheen” earns its post-metallic antlers at the finish. So you’re saying there’s more than one thing going on in Waterford? Reasonable to expect for the oldest city in the Republic of Ireland, and all the better for inspiring future manifestation from MEDB, whatever form that might take. You could do worse than learning about a place through audio.
Cork, Ireland-based atmospheric sludge/post-metal four-piece Coroza will release their second album, As Within, through Cursed Monk Records on May 20. Today they’re premiering their video for the title-track, which takes the familiar notion of a band-in-a-place-type clip and uses it as a means of emphasizing the mood and character of the music. As the 10-minute finale of the LP that bears its name unfolds, its quiet intro pulls back from the colorful stained glass of the initial shot and shifts into black and white as the pullback from the window reveals Coroza set up on the floor of what looks to be a fancy university library or some such. At about a minute in, both the song and the clip burst to life around a heavier part change, the color returns with vivid clarity and the band play through the closing cut that gives the album its name.
That visual change is thoughtful, not haphazard, and like the various mirror effects and swirls throughout, it coincides with where the song is going and highlights the considered aspects of Coroza‘s craft. In following their 2019 debut, Chaliceburner (review here), guitarist/vocalists Jack O’Neill and Ciarán Coghlan, bassist Tomás O’Brien (who makes his first recorded appearance on the album) and drummer Oliver Cunningham depart from some of the ultra-extended fare on offer such that, where only one song on Chaliceburner was under 10 minutes long, on As Within, the only track that crosses the same line is “As Within” itself, however close others might come.
It’s not a huge upheaval in aesthetic terms, but at five songs and 42 minutes, As Within gives a more efficient impression even in the take-a-moment-to-commune-with-the-deity-or-deities-of-your-choice-before-the-riff-hits break in the penultimate “Scorched Earth.” Whether that’s a purposeful change of approach, mindful creative progression or simply the shape the songs took as the bludgeoning nods were compiled, I don’t know, but like when the color pops back on in the “As Within” video, the methodical manner in which the bordering-on-extreme heft of “Immersed” is delivered, and the way the instrumental “The Shifting Sands” follows its quiet-loud-quiet pattern as something of an interlude-plus for the centerpiece of the digital and CD versions of the album, it feels like they meant for it to happen.
But to be sure, the crux of As Within is in its crush, conveyed immediately upon the start of opener “Myrrh,” which has well-I’m-sure-this-is-about-as-heavy-as-it’ll-get written all over it until “Immersed” comes on some nine minutes later and is even more trenchantly apocalyptic. Given space in the reverb on that low distortion as well as in the vocal tradeoffs between Coghlan and O’Neill — a guttural rasp reminiscent of Celestial-era Isis meeting with chant-like meditative melodies in the cleaner parts — As Within opens further in “The Shifting Sands” en route to the renewed intensity of “Scorched Earth” and the title-track’s subdued intro and ensuing productive destruction resolved in mood and thoughtful in execution. If it’s never occurred to you to say the phrase, “Hail Irish heavy” out loud, the monolithic lumber and roiling tension of “As Within” might get you there.
They provide a bit of relief around six minutes in, and the leads in the second half carry an airier reach not entirely removed from the plod-and-tremolo finish of “Myrrh,” the opener and closer giving a symmetrical feel to As Within while further emphasizing the sense of purpose brought to the album as a whole work. They know of what they obliterate — which is to say they’re schooled in genre and I don’t think anyone here would try to get away with saying they’d never heard Neurosis — but Coroza‘s second full-length takes significant strides in establishing the band’s place in the harder-hitting depths of the post-metallic sphere, doing so with distinct, affecting and cathartic force.
Coroza will play at Cursed Monk Records‘ 2024 edition of Monk Fest on July 6, performing As Within in its entirety. I hope someone gets video with soundboard audio.
More on that (including the ticket link) and about the record (including the preorder link) follows the video premiere below, courtesy of the PR wire.
Please enjoy:
Coroza, “As Within” video premiere
Cursed Monk Records are thrilled to announce that we will be releasing Coroza’s sophomore album “As Within.”
Not only will Coroza be joining us for this year’s Monk Fest, but they will also be playing their new album “As Within” in full! Monk Fest 2024 will take place on July 6th. Monk Fest is in aid of Temple St. Children’s Hospital. Tickets are available here:https://www.eventbrite.com/e/monk-fest-2024-tickets-765729105367
Coroza was formed in Cork, Ireland in mid-2015 and over the course of two years honed their sound into a devastatingly heavy form, which encompasses heavy blues, metal, sludge, doom and stoner elements, leading to the release of their well-received self-titled demo in 2017.
Extensive gigging cemented them into the local scene and soon Coroza began appearing on bills around Ireland, landing support slots to international touring bands such as Conan, Bolzer and Tusker. 2019 saw the release of their debut album Chaliceburner which was met with positive reviews.
Coroza’s second album titled “As Within”, was recorded and mixed by renowned producer Aidan Cunningham and mastered by Magnus Lindberg (Cult of Luna).
Says the band: “We would like to thank Aidan Cunningham – Mixing for recording and mixing this album. All tracks were recorded live in the room with some overdubs added afterward. Aidan’s work ethic, knowledge and insight was invaluable and we cannot thank him enough for how this album turned out. He captured the exact sound we were hoping for. Also, a huge thanks to Magnus Lindberg Productions for mastering the album and ensuring it gets heard perfectly in all formats.”
‘As Within’ releases May 20th on LP, CD, Cassette, and Digital!
Posted in Questionnaire on October 16th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: S.M. from Blut
—
How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
Destruction through repetition. Repetition through destruction. Broken amps forever!
Blut is a by product of a down trodden existence, soaked in booze and regret, it came to us through a need to do something repetitive and loud with no real rules or boundaries.
Describe your first musical memory.
Listening to Boney-M in my mum’s car then getting home and Led zeppelin is on the radio.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
SWANS
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
I,m not sure we really believe in anything, especially anything political or religious.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Can lead many places some good some not so good, its the trauma and tragedy leading up to the progression which is of most importance to us.
How do you define success?
Making sure that the person who digs your first record digs the latest record as well, never compromising and playing loud at every opportunity! Oh and fuck the money!
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadnt
The many saints of Newark.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
Double album. One doom disc one noise disc.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
To terrorize and make the listener or viewer think and feel something, to batter down the mediocre, to move forward with limited and broken tools, to struggle.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Posted in Questionnaire on May 5th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Alex Hölzinger of TOOMS
—
How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
The short answer is Slippery Metal. That phrase kinda started as a joke, but I guess over time it became true. We find it hard to pin down exactly what genre we play. We have such varied taste in music, and not just in metal. I would like to think that that eclectic taste an be heard in the music. We all met about 10 years ago while studying fine art and we jammed here and there over the years. Played a couple shows at house parties and some small venues. Even recorded an EP. But we never really took it too seriously. When we re-branded as TOOMS about 4 or 5 years ago, we got more focused, began writing more songs. We set goals for ourselves as a band. Got better at our instruments. Began making merch etc. It is in constant development, and I love where it is and where it’s going. That said, we are still not taking it too seriously haha.
Describe your first musical memory.
As a kid, maybe 3 or 4, I had a tennis racket that I would play as a guitar while running around the apartment listening to Die Toten Hosen’s – Ein Kleines Bisschen Horrorschau. Definitely my first introduction to guitar music. Where it all started to go wrong I suppose haha.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
As a band, I’m sure I can speak for all three of us when I say getting to close out the Jagger Stage at Bloodstock 2022. That definitely felt good. So cool to bring our weird sounding band to a bigger stage and get a positive reaction. The first time we where invited to play The Siege of Limerick was also a milestone for us. Maybe recording our first full-length too. We unfortunately released it during global lockdown, and never got to do an album launch or anything, but the experience of being in a studio and everything that goes along with that was great. We learned A LOT while making T.O.O.M.S.
As a personal memory, I would have to say seeing Soundgarden followed by Black Sabbath in 2012, to this day, crowd surfing the length and breadth of that enormous crowd during Paranoid, highlight of my life. Seeing Sleep for the first time was a spiritual thing too. That band has some of the most amazing lore. Dopesmoker to this day remains the Mac Daddy of stoner doom.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
Wow, that is a great question. I could get real dark on this one (#128517#)
But I guess I’ll just say this, no matter how hard things get, they always get easier. Pressure forms diamonds folks.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Better art, or rather more refined art. You learn how say more with less.
How do you define success?
Success to me is being happy and content, and being proud of what you do and how you do it. Leading a simple life without any unnecessary stress.
Also driving a sports car and owning a huge house with gold toilets and marble floors, filled with lots of expensive vases and a jet ski. Oh and various exotic pattés in the double door fridges you have in each room of your 16 room mansion. Hmmm, maybe being buried in one of those limited edition KISS coffins, that is pretty fuckin’ successful.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
I saw GZA preforming Liquid Swords in its entirety. That was once one of my favorite hip-hop albums. Haven’t been able to listen to it since.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
Music that sells (#128517#) I joke I joke.
I have been meaning to make this lamp/sculpture from a log and LEDs. I have been drying it for a number of years, and I think it’s about ready to go. More music with TOOMS obviously too, we have enough material for a second album, pretty much ready to go.
I’d love to get into making short films too, and score them myself. I have made a couple music videos and really enjoyed the process. From filming to editing. Imagine a spaghetti western meets an art house ambient kind of thing. Beyond the Black Rainbow meets the Dollars Trilogy, something like that.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
To make the viewer/listener think, feel or question. And to allow the creator to express and share freely. Sometimes it’s a pure cathartic release, other times it’s an idea manifest and shared. Abstract or more on the nose, doesn’t matter, subconsciously, it’s a release. At least if it’s made with passion and integrity. I also believe that once art is created, it’s left into the world, and will survive longer than its maker, so you get to leave a part of yourself behind. Always thought that was pretty cool.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 18th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Yeah, but what will you need gods for? Granted, opiates for the masses won’t get far without them, but how many other uses do abstract deities actually have? For all the purported omnipotence, has one ever managed to jump a car battery? Ever made you soup when you’re sick? Organized and executed a surprise birthday party, or even aided in any way in doing so?
No. Where, indeed, is your savior now?
You Will Need Gods is the impending second full-length from Belfast’s Molarbear, and it’s out Xmas week — see? you don’t even need gods for ostensibly religious holidays — through Cursed Monk as the follow-up to 2018’s Storklord, which I’m just going to assume was a shenanigans-laced treatise on human reproductive culture. You can see the band’s winner of a video for “Omega Supreme” at the bottom of this post, and it should give something of an idea where they’re coming from in terms of point of view, with a robot and a dinosaur and heavy aggro groove and all that fun stuff. I haven’t heard the rest of the record yet, because existentially speaking I’m something of a slouch, but the holidays will be here before you know it. Preorders are already up.
You don’t actually need gods to preorder either. Just PayPal or some such.
I really can’t wait to read the lyrics for this one. From the PR wire:
Cursed Monk Records are thrilled to release MOLARBEAR’s sophomore album You will Need Gods on December 23rd.
Since their debut Storklord, Belfast’s MOLARBEAR have become a live favorite all across Ireland with their crushingly heavy, groove laden shows. This year their music video for Omega Supreme was even nominated for an Northern Ireland Music Prize for Video Of The Year.
Big dirty riffs, lots of shouting and also some nice bits, infectious experimental sludge documenting the human experience. you’ll love it.
Costa Rican death sludge four-piece VoidOath are set to issue their first full-length, Ascension Beyond Kokytus, Sept. 30 through Cursed Monk Records and Cognitive Discordance Records. The project bears relation to the likewise-longform Crypt Monarch in guitarist/vocalist Christopher G. De Haan (who may or may not have also produced) and guitarist Jose Rodríguez, as well as Age of the Wolf in De Haan and drummer Gabriel Ortiz — VoidOath is completed by bassist Allan Salas — and the album follows 2020’s debut EP, Illumination Through Necromancy, which was one of any number of gruesome death-doom-infused offerings that, in that wretched year, felt just right for the moment being lived. And so I’m not just parroting PR wire info at you that you can read for yourself in blue below, Ascension Beyond Kokytus is a horror narrative lyrically, though to be perfectly honest, these songs could be about sunshine and puppies and rainbows and if they sounded like this, that’d probably still be true.
And with that bit of context out of the way, let us now consume rot. Don’t be fooled by the bit of brighter progressive flourish in the opening riff of “From Gods to Morsels (Destruction)” as the album rounds out, VoidOath are here for death. De Haan‘s vocals are either gut-born growls or far back shouts, and they occur in such a mire of low-wash tone that even when the band are playing fast — which they do from time to time across the five-song/49-minute offering — it’s hard to tell just how much the song is actually moving. Maybe that’s an exaggeration as the 15-minute opener and longest track (immediate points) “Orion-Cygnus Descent (Arrival)” launches into blasts and stretches of abyssal churning, but Ascension Beyond Kokytus is nothing if not exaggerated, pulling elements of sludge, atmospheres of filth-coated slow death metal and just an edge of post-metallic drone to coincide into their particular sphere of cohesive extremity. There is purpose to the music beyond backing the story being told lyrically, and as “Festered Sepsis Lacerations (Assimilation)” (premiering below) crushes as the most straight-ahead death metal inclusion — shades of un-Egyptified Nile, Incantation, etc. — the overarching groove would be a lifeline were it not the very undercurrent pulling you continually downward.
The last, let’s say dying, distortion of “Festered Sepsis Lacerations (Assimilation)” leads to a brief centerpiece interlude in “A Flare in Emptiness” — it could easily have been the start of the subsequent “Alabaster Ruminations (Isolation)” and I suspect from its placement and title that its use as a bridge from one half of the tracklist to the other is a momentary, almost subconscious, break from the onslaught — and the inhale before VoidOath dive back in is welcome. Vague speech, either sampled or not, tops the initial rollout of “Alabaster Ruminations (Isolation),” and what emerges after is noisier and less generally hinged, but ultimately settles after about the eight-minute mark into a steadier push, soon topped with high-blood-pressure leads and an interplay of higher throatrippers and low growls — the harmony of decay — before giving way suddenly to the aforementioned riff to “From Gods to Morsels (Destruction)” and its reassertion of marching bludgeonry. Some gallop, some push, but the balance is decisive and the judgment is harsh as VoidOath work toward setting up the all-out force of the last five or so minutes, moving from crash-cymbal-driven lumbering to start-stop hits, to squibbly gallop, a build of intensity (ha!) and a last fade of residual noise, like the threat moving away at last.
Imagine being picked up by some very, very large hand and squeezed until your ribs break and entrails come spewing out of your various orifices like so much chunky juice from a piece of fruit. So it is that VoidOath execute their debut album.
Kokytus, in Greek mythology, is one of the five rivers surrounding Hades. It is safe to assume that in ascending beyond it, one is well and truly fucked.
“Festered Sepsis Lacerations (Assimilation)” premieres below. Enjoy if you can:
Cognitive Discordance Records, in conspiracy with Cursed Monk Records, is proud to announce the debut full-length of Costa Rica’s abysmal sludge conjurers VoidOath. Titled Ascension Beyond Kokytus, the horror-themed conceptual album will be out on 30 September 2022. For the American release, Cognitive Discordance Records (Costa Rica) is issuing a limited run of Jewel Case CDs; for the UK/European release, Cursed Monk Records (Ireland) is releasing a limited edition of digipak CDs.
The dark, heavy and melt-inducing sound of VoidOath is the outcome of their approach to illustrate diverse horror works in a disturbing, frantic and distorted way. Their first EP, Illumination Through Necromancy, released in May 2020, was well received. The San José doom monstrosity VoidOath is now poised to reveal Ascension Beyond Kokytus, their first full-length release, deep within the cold, frost and blood in the farthest and isolated regions on the planet. Ascension Beyond Kokytus is based on John W. Campbell Jr’s Who Goes There? (Frozen Hell) and its adaptation of John Carpenter’s film The Thing (1982). Dwelling on deep feelings of fear, despair, loneliness and horror, the album drowns its listener in seamlessly endless waves of crushing violence and noise.
Track Listing: 01. Orion-Cygnus Descent (Arrival) (15:45) 02. Festered Sepsis Lacerations (Assimilation) (6:31) 03. A Flare in Emptiness (0:31) 04. Alabaster Ruminations (Isolation) (13:23) 05. From Gods to Morsels (Destruction) (12:52)
Produced, mixed and mastered by A Cabin in the Woods Recordings (Crypt Monarch, Engraved). Artwork by Nataly Nikitina. Layout by Cerrabuz.
—BAND LINEUP— Christopher De Haan – Guitars, Vocals Gabriel Ortiz – Drums Jose Rodríguez – Guitars, Synths Allan Salas – Bass
Okay, here goes. For the last week-plus, I’ve been doing my best to completely bury my head in the sand and ignore the world outside my house. I actively don’t want to know what’s happening. My reasons are political, but real in ways that affect my daily life; I am not in the abstract in my concerns, and if I was, I’m not sure that invalidates them. The reason I’m telling you this at all isn’t just because I’m stoned and into honesty, but to point out that while Fust is playing, it’s really hard to forget that the same world outside is a terrible place filled with cruel people who, even if they don’t actively want to hurt others, don’t help when they could. Apathy as a moral position. Well fine. I wanna check out, too. I’ll just let it all go and trust it will be fine because that’s what my mom told me when I was five. Nomadic Rituals reveal this for the weakness it is, foster aggression, and herald the catharsis behind their cruelty. Fust, it turns out, is too pummeling to play pretend, even when you really want to.
