Posted in Bootleg Theater on September 21st, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Oxford-based heavy burl riffers Desert Storm released their sixth full-length, Death Rattle (review here), earlier this year through APF Records. This is the second video premiere I’ve done from the record — the first was with the review, which is why I’m not spamming you with the link right now — behind that for “Bad Trip,” and, well, if they asked me to do a third, I probably would.
Here’s why: Desert Storm are among the dudeliest bands I cover on this site. You hear Death Rattle or anything going back to their 2010 debut, Forked Tongues (review here) — that’s right, I’ve been writing about these guys for over 12 years now — and you have no doubt that the parties behind it are dudes. From the guttural vocals of Matthew Ryan through Ryan Cole‘s guitar, Matthew Dennett‘s bass and Elliot Cole‘s drumming, and across different lineups, they have been no less consistent in this regard than in the growing quality of their songwriting, their expanding creative reach, and their maturity as performers.
Gender issues and gender expression — the performance of gender — have come into my life recently in a way that I never anticipated, and I find I’m thinking about these things differently than I used to. What is masculine? What does femininity look like? I’ve had occasion to examine these questions from a new point of view, as a parent, as an adult, rather than being a young (or old) person trying to figure something out about myself. But I’ve never been particularly ‘manly.’ I can move furniture, because I’m big, but that’s about as far as it goes, and maybe I find Desert Storm‘s expressed hyper-dudeness as a kind of fascinating, unconscious declaration of themselves. They border on chestbeating, but I know they’re on the right side of the line there, because if they weren’t, I wouldn’t have had words to say about them for the last decade-plus. Helps when the band kicks ass, just about always.
“Salt of the Earth” crunches with force and purpose, and if you dig the clip premiering below — and I hope you do — the full Death Rattle stream is below, courtesy of Desert Storm‘s Bandcamp. The band’s Nov. live dates are in there as well.
Here you go:
Desert Storm, “Salt of the Earth” video premiere
Taken from Desert Storm’s new album Death Rattle, released by APF Records 31st March 2023.
“Salt of the Earth” Recorded and mixed at Woodworm Studios, Oxfordshire UK, between winter of 2021 and summer of 2022 by Steve “Geezer” Watkins. Mastered in September 2022 by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege, Portland OR, USA. All music written by Desert Storm. All lyrics writted by Matthew Ryan. Artwork design by David Paul Seymour. Layout by Dominic Sohor.
Desert Storm UK Tour Dates 23.09.23 | Bristol | The Gryphon 29.09.23 | Hull | Polar Bear Music Club 30.09.23 | Manchester | Riffolution Festival 05.01.24 | Southampton | The Joiners 06.01.24 | London | The Black Heart 07.01.24 | Sheffield | Corporation 23.03.24 | Oxford | Buried In Smoke Festival
Desert Storm is – Matthew Ryan – Vocals Ryan Cole – Guitars Elliot Cole – Drums & Percussion Matthew Dennett – Bass
Having marked their 15th anniversary two years ago, Oxford semi-aggro heavy rockers Desert Storm will issue their sixth album, Death Rattle, on March 31 through respected purveyor APF Records. The occasion also brought some change, as concurrent to their celebratory tour — also supporting their last album, 2020’s Omens (discussed here) — the veteran outfit swapped bassists, bringing Matthew Dennett (also of Battalions) in to replace Chris Benoist, who’d been with them at least since 2010’s debut album, Forked Tongues (review here), and probably longer, and also stripped down their lineup, moving from two guitarists to one in bidding farewell to Chris White (who also handled keys, backing vocals and some bass).
That leaves vocalist Matthew Ryan, guitarist Ryan Cole and drummer Elliot Cole (the latter two, who, yes, are twins, also of Wall and the recently-hiatus’ed The Grand Mal) as the remaining founders of a band that up till that point had managed to keep its lineup steady all the while. Longtime followers of Desert Storm may note some shift in dynamic in the direct one-to-the-other in comparing the nine-song/47-minute Death Rattle to its predecessor, but anyone concerned about some lack of impact as a result of the missing guitar need not fret — it’s called layering, as heard in the layered lead lines of “Druid’s Heath” — as there’s still heavy to spare in Desert Storm‘s sound, and perhaps a bit more flexibility around that than there’s been previously.
But the truth is even that’s more a continuation of the steady expansion of sound that’s been taking place all the while in Desert Storm rather than some radical shift brought on by a specific event. That’s not to downplay what either Benoist or White brought to the band, just to say that Desert Storm have been about more than boozy Southern-style burl ‘n’ plunder for years now and Death Rattle continues to move forward. “Master of None” provides a reassuringly weighted opening, a big swing in the drums behind the relatively straightforward, stage-ready rocker, catchy and punchy in kind in its hook and hinting in the melody of its bridge at some of the range that fleshes out beginning with second track (and lead single) “Cheyne Stoking,” also the longest inclusion at 7:46.
With no shortage of crash and thud behind in Elliot Cole‘s drumming, building tension that’s carried over from the leadoff and opening wide as it moves into its midsection, the band move fluidly through a progressive-tinged bombast, Ryan audibly pushing himself vocally to add to the melody around the three-minute mark as much as he brings to the headbanger-chugging crunch just half a minute later after the next turn. “Death Rattle” has a hook of its own and is emblematic of many of the moves Desert Storm make throughout Death Rattle, whether it’s the way the later “Insomniac” bravely lets go of its massive, intense and guttural beginning to shift into a long and relatively minimal stretch before coming back not quite at full oomph for a long march and fadeout, or the acoustic-underpinned album centerpiece “Salt of the Earth,” with its trades in volume and intertwining layers of fuzz and melody.
As “Melatone” touches on post-rock in its own floating layers of guitar — if you told me White was actually on the record alongside Ryan Cole, I’d believe you, but the point about the more open sound stands — and echoes the patient intro and subdued finish of the earlier “Bad Trip” (video premiering below), the sense that Desert Storm are perhaps letting the songs breathe a bit more becomes all the more an essential facet of Death Rattle. Even set next to, say, “The Path of Most Resistance” from Omens, the band in their maturity seem comfortable in pulling back on the onslaught factor — in places, lest we forget the frustrated mania that launches “Insomniac” or the wash of crash behind the final chorus of “Cheyne Stoking,” let alone the payoff of “Bad Trip” itself — and that also lets the distinguishing fuzz of “Melatone” and the crush/drift duality of the penultimate “Self Deprecation” have a richer context in which to unfold. Death Rattle, then, becomes not a story of what Desert Storm have lost, but the manner in which they’ve been able to stay on the path of their overarching progression despite the changes in their makeup.
Taken as a whole, Death Rattle is their most expansive offering to date, and maintains the strength of songwriting that’s been so consistent throughout their career while stepping with characteristic boldness onto new-feeling stylistic ground. If there’s a hiccup in the material from bringing Dennett in on bass, I haven’t found it, and as the record unfolds from “Master of None” into the more complex fare that follows, the band come across as well in control of both where their material is going, how it’s getting there, and — perhaps most importantly — why.
They close Death Rattle with the 2:42 instrumental “New Dawn,” which sweeps in on atmospheric guitar and percussion that still has some density of stomp behind; a desert-bluesy vibe without being blues or desert rock. Acoustic guitar returns under the electrics and there’s a vague sense of threat in the tension of its more active parts, but the guitars let it go gently at around two and a half minutes in and Desert Storm finish in a way that’s not so much unlike “Rebirth” from the last album (save for not having vocals), but more efficiently establishes its mood.
It becomes an ending representative in affect if not a total summary of how Death Rattle functions, and underscores the point that Desert Storm, at this stage in their tenure, know who they are and what they want to do as a unit, even as that idea evolves with time. One tends to make note of titles that could be interpreted as endings for the band in question, and Death Rattle — recorded and mixed by Steve “Geezer” Watkins at Woodworm Studios in Oxfordshire — certainly fits that bill, but whether or not it’s last rites for Desert Storm personally, the scope and sense of craft they bring forth is a triumph for them as a group and feels like a level of realization they’ve been working toward for years now. If they keep it going, so much the better.
The video premiere for “Bad Trip” is on the player below, followed by some comment from the band, the preorder link, tour dates and whatnot from the PR wire.
Please enjoy:
Desert Storm, “Bad Trip” video premiere
Matthew Ryan on “Bad Trip”:
“What happened quite naturally during the writing process for Bad Trip, was something just clicked. The thoughts and emotions associated just felt so familiar. It was an obvious choice at the time. This is a Eulogy about a great man who the band knew fondly. March 2023 marks the tenth year of his premature passing, and so it felt fitting to pay tribute by releasing Death Rattle this month. He was a thinker, was studying philosophy and was a self-professed psychonaut. He joined us on tour in our formative years and we loved having him on the road. We admired him and cared a lot about him, has been in our thoughts and our liner notes, but it is high time we immortalised him through song. As we get older, we think about our life experiences as well as his own that he is missing out on. Not able to join us in the journey through life, to see us wed, with families, large milestones and celebrations. He is sorely missed. The title itself refers to a particularly hairy moment in his history where we learned that the intensity of blotter acid is far easier to regulate than that of concentrated liquid acid. It was understood that a single droplet would be sufficient for an intense hallucinogenic experience, however, to mark the final trip of the bottle, somebody decided to lick the glass pipette.”
Desert Storm is a four-piece progressive metal band, which has been wielding crushing riffs and grooves into earholes around the world for the past 15 years. 31st March 2023 will see the release of their new album ‘Death Rattle’ out worldwide on APF Records (Video Nasties, Possessor, Battalions). In 2023 they will tour extensively to support the release of ‘Death Rattle’.
DESERT STORM ‘DEATH RATTLE’ EUROPEAN TOUR 31.03.23 | UK | Oxford | o2 Academy 2 01.04.23 | NL | Arnhem | Willemeen 02.04.23 | BE | Retie | Cafe Bazaar 03.04.23 | DE | Hamburg | Bar 227 04.04.23 | NL | Den Haag | Paard Cafe 05.04.23 | NL | Eindhoven | Effenaar 06.04.23 | DE | Dresden | Chemiefabrik 07.04.23 | CZ | Prague | Modra Vopice 08.04.23 | SK | Kosice | Collosseum 09.04.23 | PL | Katowice | Katofonia 10.04.23 | DE | Furth | Kunstkeller 027 11.04.23 | BE | Antwerp | Kids Rhythm n blues kaffee 12.04.23 | DE | Aachen | Musikbunker 20.05.23 | UK | London | The Dome 08.09.23 | NO | Stavanger | Checkpoint Charlie 09.09.23 | NO | Sandnes | Tribute 10.09.23 | NO | Oslo | Brewgata 30.09.23 | UK | Manchester | Riffolution Festival 17.11.23 | NL | Amsterdam | The Cave 18.11.23 | NL | Coevorden | MFC
Desert Storm is – Matthew Ryan – Vocals Ryan Cole – Guitars Elliot Cole – Drums & Percussion Matthew Dennett – Bass
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 8th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Last year, Oxford four-piece Desert Storm celebrated their 15th anniversary, and the impending APF Records issue of their new album, Death Rattle, and the concurrent tour that starts with a March 31 hometown release show would seem to double-down on their commitment to the ideal. They’ve got a couple runs lined up throughout this year — they’ll be in Norway in September, the Netherlands in November, etc. — and that’s about right for the band, whose hard-hitting approach is reaffirmed amid a played-up progressive flourish in the new single “Cheyne Stoking,” for which you can see a fairly disturbing video at the bottom of this post.
I try not to be too superstitious generally, but my eyebrows always go up at least a little when a band inadvertently references a demise, since I tend to believe that all art is on some level about itself. There are a lot of final albums with death or departure in the title, is all. Plenty without, too, but if Death Rattle was to be the final statement from Desert Storm, the band by no means owe anyone anything. They’ve consistently put everything they’ve got into what they do, and if you can’t respect that I’ve got nothing for you. I haven’t heard the new album yet, but I look forward to doing so in good time.
Meanwhile, the PR wire has preorders, tour dates, and copious narrative, blessings and peace upon it:
DESERT STORM ANNOUNCE NEW ALBUM ‘DEATH RATTLE’
RELEASED 31ST MARCH 2023 (APF RECORDS) / SHARE FIRST SINGLE
Desert Storm is a four-piece progressive metal band, which has been wielding crushing riffs and grooves into earholes around the world for the past 15 years.
Hailing from Oxford, the city of screaming spires, Desert Storm deliver their own unique brand of heavy music. Their sound is loud, punishing and unforgiving, but also woven with elation and electrical ecstasy.
31st March 2023 will see the release of their new album ‘Death Rattle’ out worldwide on APF Records (Video Nasties, Possessor, Battalions). Vocalist Matt Ryan states, “Death Rattle is an album that leans to Desert Storm’s strengths in songwriting ability. It is cohesive and flows with each song telling an individual tale, bound by common topics throughout. Genre traversing, musically progressing from the extreme and hard to softer palettes, moments of the ethereal. The light and dark shades are synonymous with the Desert Storm sound, as that which is completely light or dark is neither truly without contrast. This is true also for the lyrics which span thematically. The core string section of two guitars and single bass are complemented by an array of other instruments throughout the album, but act as a solid foundation for heavy grooves and riffs. Death Rattle is best served loud.”
The album was recorded & mixed at the beautiful Woodworm Studios in Oxfordshire by Steve ‘Geezer’ Watkins. The studio used to be owned by legendary folk band Fairport Convention, and in recent years has seen the likes of Tony Iommi & Rob Halford recording there.
Once the album was recorded and mixed, it was sent to Portland, Oregon, USA for Brad Boatright at Audiosiege to master (Torche, Nails, High on Fire). The artwork is by David Paul Seymour & layout by Dominic Sohor.
Commenting on first single ‘Cheyne Stoking’, Matt adds, “Cheyne Stoking is about the death trip that occurs in all of us, moments before we die. As the pineal gland just straight dumps what DMT remains into the body to invoke the deepest dreamlike experience, otherwise referred to as the near-death experience. Lyrics drawing partially from ingestion of synthesized DMT and some imagination as it differs to what is reported of the actual death experience. Thoughts and memories come to the forefront of the mind, and it is reportedly like living everything all at once before the final curtain call. The lyrics are not cryptic, they quite explicitly describe what we imagine to be the experience. Cheyne stokes breathing is also known as the death rattle. This is where the breath becomes irregular and raspy in the final moments before death. This seemed a fitting title for the track and subsequently the album.”
In some towns you have a music scene to work with and in others, you have to make the scene around you. Desert Storm built the Oxford scene themselves. Launched into the world in 2007, Desert Storm’s mix of progressive metal and stoner doom was underpinned with a driving, pure rock ‘n’ roll strut. It’s a formula which makes for a reliably arse-kicking band.
After testing the waters with their 2008 self-titled EP, Desert Storm truly came into their own in time for their debut full length, Forked Tongues in 2010; a radically tighter band on said record and finally beginning to capture the force of their live shows. It’s an upward trend that carried through their two follow ups Horizontal Life and Omniscient respectively.
Perhaps that evolution in sound on record is through their consistency in touring. Always taking their wares on the road, operation Desert Storm has been in full effect on tours with the likes of Karma to Burn and Nashville Pussy, as well as when sharing the stage with bands such as Orange Goblin, Weedeater and The Atomic Bitchwax.
By the time of 2018’s Sentinels [APF011], Desert Storm had found a refined sound. More “oomph” driving the power behind the band than in any previous outing, tastier riffs and more viscidity throughout the record, it captured a band at the top of their game; road hardened and ready to get stuck in. Whether it’s the springy, stoner stomp of ‘Drifter’, or the verging on thrash moments seen in ‘Too Far Gone’ or everything in between, this was THE Desert Storm album so far.
But we didn’t bet against them topping those heights when the next album came around, and we were right not to do so. 2020’s Omens became their piece de la resistance. In 2022 Desert Storm won an HRH Award, in the Stoner Lords category, beating off stiff competition from Black Rainbows, Kadavar and Green Lung.
Unable to tour it due to the pandemic, work commenced on a new record which has resulted in ‘Death Rattle’, their greatest effort yet.
Over the years Desert Storm have been out on countless headline tours and have toured and shared the stages across the UK & Europe with many incredible bands including Crowbar, Orange Goblin, Karma To Burn, Red Fang, Corrosion of Conformity, CKY, American Headcharge, Conjurer and Raging Speedhorn to name a few. In 2023 they will tour extensively to support the release of ‘Death Rattle’.
DESERT STORM ‘DEATH RATTLE’ EUROPEAN TOUR 31.03.23 | UK | Oxford | o2 Academy 2 01.04.23 | NL | Arnhem | Willemeen 02.04.23 | BE | Retie | Cafe Bazaar 03.04.23 | DE | Hamburg | Bar 227 04.04.23 | NL | Den Haag | Paard Cafe 05.04.23 | NL | Eindhoven | Effenaar 06.04.23 | DE | Dresden | Chemiefabrik 07.04.23 | CZ | Prague | Modra Vopice 08.04.23 | SK | Kosice | Collosseum 09.04.23 | PL | Katowice | Katofonia 10.04.23 | DE | Furth | Kunstkeller 027 11.04.23 | BE | Antwerp | Kids Rhythm n blues kaffee 12.04.23 | DE | Aachen | Musikbunker 20.05.23 | UK | London | The Dome 08.09.23 | NO | Stavanger | Checkpoint Charlie 09.09.23 | NO | Sandnes | Tribute 10.09.23 | NO | Oslo | Brewgata 30.09.23 | UK | Manchester | Riffolution Festival 17.11.23 | NL | Amsterdam | The Cave 18.11.23 | NL | Coevorden | MFC
Desert Storm is – Matthew Ryan – Vocals Ryan Cole – Guitars Elliot Cole – Drums & Percussion Matthew Dennett – Bass
