Posted in Bootleg Theater on November 14th, 2019 by JJ Koczan
Later this month, French heavy rockers Denizen will release their third album and second on Argonauta Records, High Winds Preacher. After more than 15 years together, the band have been long enough set on a path toward individuality that it doesn’t seem unreasonable going into their latest work with some measure of expectation, and from the initial push of “Shadow Dancer” through the thicker-toned roll of “Among the Trees” and the let’s-make-the-riff-even-bigger “Ears Wide Opened” before the pure Orange Goblinery of “Chasing the Guru,” they take a familiar but distinct shape in following up their 2017 Songs from the Kraken: The Georges Sessions EP, and their two full-lengths, 2015’s Troubled Waters (review here) and 2011’s Whispering Wild Stories (review here), and the bulk of High Winds Preacher feels dedicated more toward conjuring those high winds via all-out thrust than doing much by way of preaching.
Either way, they do what they do in full awareness of what they’re doing while they do it. To wit, after the bit of slowdown in “Mandrake is Everywhere,” which follows the high-gear “The Beast,” the four-piece are back off and running as they careen through “White Flamingo,” “Deaf Taint,” “Punch Out” and closer “Tomahawk” on what would be the vinyl side B, culminating — of course — in a big, big, big ol’ haymaker of a riff in the finale. Their style is playing to genre, let there be no doubt, but their songs make an impression just the same, and it’s through the sheer energy of their execution that much of that impression comes. Calisthenics as songwriting is a post-Truckfighters European specialty, but any number of bands can sound like they might jump around on stage. Denizen sound like they might jump around in the studio as well, and the fact that that’s the case after over a decade and a half is not a consideration to be taken lightly.
Reinventing the wheel? Nope. Fixing what ain’t broken? Nope. Asking to be anything more than the complement and maybe even some motivating fuel for your good time? Nope. Run with it. They are.
Again, “Shadow Dancer” kicks off the record, and you can see the video for it premiering below. Please note that a sample of the film clip that starts the video is actually in the audio version of the song as well, so kudos the Denizen cats on striving for accuracy.
High Winds Preacher is out Nov. 29.
Enjoy:
Denizen, “Shadow Dancer” official video premiere
DENIZEN formed in the south of France between Montpellier and Sète in 2003. After their demo debut Far From Common Strategy (2006), released on Prototype Records, the band participated in a split tribute to Black Sabbath with the bands Illtemper and Stuntman.
Following their first full length album, Snatches Into Uproar in 2009, DENIZEN moved towards a more rock groove with heavy sludge and stoner influences. With their 2011- release, Whispering Wild Stories, DENIZEN’s Classic Rock influences became assertive: 70’s typed riffing, the wah-wah and melodic vocals, took the band on higher levels and to tour Europe with acts alike Steak or Black Rainbows. The highly acclaimed, third album Troubled Waters (2014 on Argonauta Records) unleashed a heavy rock feeling with a healthy dose of the blues, but the band’s main concern has always been focused on the riff. DENIZEN’s brand new record, High Winds Preacher, will definitely preach the almighty riff again!
Recorded and mixed by Colin Trognée at Studio Mordor Except drums, recorded at Buèges Valley Recording Service by Simon Pillard & Colin Trognée
Mastered by Kent Stump at Crystal Clear Sound
Artwork by Brice Cossu
DENIZEN is: Fabien Aletto – Vocals Yann Chinette – Guitars Andreas Goumy – Drums Colin Trognée – Bass
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 2nd, 2016 by JJ Koczan
Italian label Argonauta Records has announced the seven-band lineup for its second Argonauta Fest. Given the mathematically-accurate designation Argonauta Fest 2, it will boast performances from France’s Denizen as well as a strong host of varied acts from Italy, including Bantoriak, who debuted on Argonauta with last year’s Weedooism (review here), and a few acts who’ve just released new outings in the past month, Muschio and Jordaan, both of whom making their debut through the imprint.
Argonauta has grown quickly over the last couple years and evolved into a label with a strong and aesthetically-diverse roster of bands, but has managed that growth well along the way so that each group/artist is supported along the way. The first Argonauta Fest featured the likes of Nibiru and Varego, and I think the fact that there isn’t one act held over from last year to this year shows the kind of scope they’re working with.
Fest is set for May 7 in Vercelli, Italy. Info follows from the PR wire:
ARGONAUTA Records present: ARGONAUTA FEST second edition!
From the label: “After a whole year of massive work, great bands and tons of feedback across the board, we’re happy to officially announce the second edition of ARGONAUTA FEST! Seven (!) bands of our roster will create a night that will move into Stoner, Post Metal, Fuzz, Noise Rock and Doom territories. A fine opportunity to share with us a party made of great sounds and bands. Stay tuned on our official sites for more details. ARGONAUTA FEST 2016 is scheduled by Saturday May 7th, 2016 at OFFICINE SONORE (Vercelli, Italy).
Official poster run by MARCO CASTAGNETTO (www.zenpunkart.com), also known for his musical projects SHABDA and THEE MALDOROR KOLLECTIVE.
ARGONAUTA Fest 2016 features the following bands:
DENIZEN (France, Stoner Rock) SEPVLCRVM (Ita, Ritual Drone) BANTORIAK (Ita, Stoner Desert Rock) FILTH IN MY GARAGE (Ita, Noise Rock / Hardcore) MUSCHIO (Ita, Fuzz Rock) WOWS (Ita, Doom / Post Metal) JORDAAN (Ita, Psych Post Rock)
Posted in Reviews on October 1st, 2015 by JJ Koczan
We’re in the thick of it now. It’s hard sometimes putting these things together to remember that each band has worked incredibly hard to put out an album. I’ve been through that process (once), and so I know it can be harrowing at times between acts going back and forth about recording, what’s included, how to release, when, and so on. There’s a lot to cover this week — and we’re not out of the woods yet — but I hope that, just because each review is short, you don’t take that as a sign I don’t have the utmost respect for the effort that has gone into making each of these releases. It can be a tremendous pain in the ass, but of course it’s worth it when you get to the end product. We continue.
Fall 2015 Quarterly Review #31-40:
We Lost the Sea, Departure Songs
To be blunt, We Lost the Sea’s Departure Songs is the kind of album that immediately makes me want to own everything the band has done, in hard copy, for posterity. The Sydney outfit’s third full-length finds its crux in its two-part closing duo of “Challenger Part 1 – Flight” and “Challenger Part 2 – A Swan Song,” enacting a lush instrumental interpretation of the Space Shuttle Challenger flight and disaster that took place nearly 30 years ago in Jan. 1986. In its progression, patience, flow and discernable narrative thread it is nothing short of brilliant, a lush and sad beauty that serves as a genuinely affecting reminder of the hope for a better future that died with that shuttle’s civilian crew and the era of aspiration that tragedy brought to a close. I think the closing sample is the only time I’ve ever heard Ronald Reagan speak in my adult life and felt something other than anger, and that’s a testament to the ground Departure Songs covers – on the preceding three cuts as well as the final two – and the masterful execution on the part of We Lost the Sea.
There does not yet exist a name for what Finland’s Dark Buddha Rising bring to bear on the two side-consuming tracks of their Neurot Recordings debut and sixth album overall, Inversum. Self-recorded and presented following some shifts in lineup, the album swells to a massive head of bleak, noise-infused psychedelia, fully ritualized and self-aware but still vibrant as it makes its way further and further down into itself. It is bright black, based so much around contrasting ideas of form and tonality that to listen to it, one almost doesn’t believe that the band are accomplishing what they are on an aesthetic level, but the weight, chants, screams, cavernous feel and nod that “Eso” (24:05) and “Exo” (23:52) enact is ultimately real no matter how nightmarish and otherworldly the impression might be. A work that sounds as likely to digest as be digested, it constructs a temple of its own sound and then burns that temple and everything around it in a glorious final push into charred chaos.
Few endorsements carry as much weight for me as that of Germany’s Nasoni Records, so when I see that venerable imprint is on board for the release of Red Mountains’ first album, Down with the Sun, expectations immediately rise. The Norwegian four-piece don’t disappoint, calling forth a heavy psychedelia weighted enough to be immersive without really falling into the trap of sounding too post-Colour Haze or Causa Sui, finding a balance right away on opener “Six Hands” between open-vibe and structured songcraft. They toy with one side or the other, getting crunchy on “Rodents” and tripping out into ambient echoing on the penultimate “Silver Grey Sky,” but that only makes the debut seem all the more promising. Particularly satisfying is the scope between “Sun” and “Sleepy Desert Blues,” which is enough to make the listener think that grunge and desert rock happened in the same place. An engaging and already-on-the-right-track start from a band who sound like they’re only going to continue to grow.
It’s improper to think of Germany’s Black Space Riders as entirely psychedelic if only because that somehow implies a lack of clearheaded consciousness in their work, which as their fourth album, Refugeeum, demonstrates, is the very core tying all the expanses they cover together. As Europe comes to grip with its most dire refugee crisis since World War II, Black Space Riders take their thematic movement from such terrestrial issues (a first for them) and it makes a song like 11-minute centerpiece “Run to the Plains” all the more resonant. Of course, the big-chug groove of “Born a Lion (Homeless)” and the cosmic thrust of the penultimate “Walking Shades” still have a psychedelic resonance, but the balance between the earthly and the otherworldly do well to highlight the progressivism that’s been at work in the band’s sound all along. A considerable undertaking at 61 minutes, Refugeeum is an important step in an ongoing development that has just made another unexpected and welcome turn.
And so, with their third and final outing, III, Portland, Oregon, trio Lamprey reserve their strongest point for their closing argument. The two-bass trio of bassist/vocalist Blaine Burnham (now drumming in Mane of the Cur), bassist Justin Brown (now bass-ing in Witch Mountain) and drummer Spencer Norman recorded the conclusive six-tracker with Adam Pike at Toadhouse (Red Fang, Mammoth Salmon, etc.) and even the slower shifts of “Harpies” and the decidedly Conan-esque “Lament of the Deathworm” breeze right by. Like their two prior releases, 2012’S The Burden of Beasts (review here) and 2011’s Ancient Secrets (review here), III is a showcase of songcraft as much as tone, and it seems to presage its own vinyl reissue, each of the two halves starting with a shorter piece, the opener “Iron Awake” a notably vicious stomp that sets a destructive vibe that the rumble and weirdo keys and leads that finish out “Gaea” seem to be answering, a quick fade bringing an end to an underrated act. They’ll be missed.
If newcomer bruisers Godsleep seem to share some commonality of method with fellow Athenians 1000mods, it’s worth noting that on their debut, Thousand Sons of Sleep, they also share a recording engineer in George Leodis. Fair enough. The big-toned riffing and shouty burl on which Godsleep cast their foundation makes its identity felt in the post-Kyussism of “Thirteen” and stonerly grit of centerpiece “This is Mine,” which follows the extended opening salvo of “The Call,” “Thirteen” and “Wrong Turn,” the latter of which is the longest cut at 9:09 and among its most satisfyingly fuzzed nods. They’re playing to style perhaps, but doing so well, and if you’ve gotta start somewhere, recording live and coming out with a heavy-as-hell groove like what emerges in the second half of “Home” is a good place to start. Godsleep are already a year past from when they recorded Thousand Sons of Sleep in Summer 2014, so I wouldn’t be surprised if a follow-up happened sooner than later.
Slow Joe Crow & the Berserker Blues Band, We are Blues People
Kentucky-based, cumbersomely-named Slow Joe Crow and the Berserker Blues Band may indeed live up to the We are Blues People title of their debut EP, but they’re definitely riff people as well. As such, the four-track sampling of their wares draws from both sides on a cut like opener “No One Else,” the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Austin P. Lunn, bassist Patrick Flanary and drummer Thom Hammerheart in the process of figuring out how much they want to lean to one or the other. They round out with a fuzzy take on the traditional “John the Revelator,” but the earlier “Muddy Water Rising” strikes a more effective and more authentic-feeling balance, leading to the slow jam of “Before I Go,” which adds a ‘70s rock vibe to push the bluesy feel even further and expand the palette in a manner one hopes they continue to pursue as they move forward.
Canadian trio Monobrow follow their 2014 LP, Big Sky, Black Horse (review here) with what’s essentially a new single that finds them continuing to step forward in their approach. Dubbed A Handwritten Letter from the Moon and taking its name from the 8:33 title-track, the Ottawa group’s latest offering finds the instrumental outfit smoothing out the tones a bit, still hitting into raucous grooves, but closer to Truckfighters than their prior brashness. I don’t know if it’s a method they’ll stick to going into their fourth LP next year, but the result is dynamic and suits them well. “A Handwritten Letter from the Moon” comes coupled with “Dyatlov Station 3,” a seven-minute rehearsal-space jam from 2011 that fascinatingly (and I’m sure by no coincidence) showcases some similar classic heavy rock influence. The only real shame of the release is that both these tracks are probably too long to fit on a 7”, since a small platter of vinyl would be a perfect way to hold over listeners until the next album arrives. As it stands, the digital version is hardly roughing it.
French heavy rocking four-piece Denizen issued their decidedly Clutchian debut, Whispering Wild Stories (review here), in 2011, and follow it through Argonauta Records with Troubled Waters, a more individualized 10-track outing that alternates between punkish rawness and classic upbeat grooves. Four years after their first album, their progression hasn’t come at the cost of songwriting, and while they still have work to do in distinguishing themselves in a crowded, varied European market, they deliver the material with an energy and vitality that makes even its familiar parts easy enough to get down with, be it the Southern heavy solo of “Jocelyne” or the meaner bite of “Enter Truckman.” I’ll take the pair of “King of Horses” and “Heavy Rider” as highlights, and remain interested to find out where Denizen head from here, as well as how long it might take them to get there. Four years between records gives Troubled Waters the feel of a second debut as much as a sophomore effort.
Releasing through Candlelight in their native UK, doom metal trio Witchsorrow mark a decade with their third album, No Light, Only Fire. Opener “There is No Light There is Only Fire” seems to nod immediately at Cathedral, with a speedier, chuggier take, and the record proceeds to alternate between shorter and longer tracks en route to the 14-minute closer “De Mysteriis Doom Sabbathas,” cuts like “Negative Utopia” and “Disaster Reality” sailing a black ship past the 10-minute mark on a rumbling sea of riffs and slow motion nod. They break for a minute with the acoustic interlude “Four Candles” before embarking on the finale, and the respite is appreciated once the agonizing undulations of “De Mysteriis Doom Sabbathas” are underway, using nearly every second of their 14:25 to affirm Witchsorrow’s trad doom mastery and bleak, darkened heft. No light? Maybe a little light, but it’s still pretty damn dark, and indeed, it smells like smoke.
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 8th, 2015 by JJ Koczan
Argonauta Records went ahead and made you a mixtape. And they put Christopher Lee on the cover, so, you know, right on. Devouring the Mountains Vol. II includes 12 tracks from bands on the Italian imprint’s growing and increasingly diverse roster, including the likes of Denizen, Kayleth and Witch Charmer. A little all over style-wise — or if not all over, at least some — maybe, but you get a good sense of what’s driving the label’s taste from it and what’s underlying to bring all these bands together in the first place.
Worth noting that the first Devouring the Mountains comp was issued in May 2014, and there are no bands repeated between the two. Not one act appears on the second one who also appeared in the previous. Pretty impressive that Argonauta would not only have that many groups on its roster, but would have enough fresh material from them not to have to double up. Not even once. Wild.
It’s a free download, which is even better. For the digging:
Argonauta Records presents Devouring the Mountains vol.2
Today we celebrate another twelve months spent together, with 12 great bands and awesome albums! This new sampler is our gift to thank you for the continued support: DEVOURING THE MOUNTAINS VOL.2 features tons of heavy riffs from our Stoner, Sludge, Doom, Drone, Post Metal roster. FREE DOWNLOAD, make sure to not miss it! 12 songs also featuring a previously unreleased track by Italian Psych Sludgers NIBIRU, directly from “Padmalotus” recording sessions.
Cover artwork by Argonauta Records, our personal tribute to legendary Christopher Lee in the movie The Wicker Man.
TRACKLIST: 1. BANTORIAK – Entering the Temple 02:19 2. WITCH CHARMER – A Watching of Wolves 06:47 3. DEAF EYES – Black Canvas 04:30 4. TOVARISH – Call of the Kursk 05:40 5. DENIZEN – Whoresmoker 04:59 6. THEE MALDOROR KOLLECTIVE – Mariguanda 08:31 7. KAYLETH – Lies of Mind 04:40 8. [‘selv?] – Persistent 06:46 9. LAST MINUTE TO JAFFNA – Chapter DCCXV 08:08 10. OBESE – Down the Gauntlet 04:18 11. MAGI – A Million Questions 06:28 12. NIBIRU – Carma Geta (previously unreleased) 10:35
Posted in On the Radar on April 4th, 2011 by JJ Koczan
Oh yes they’re a new world samurai… and although how a group of people could come together and be a single samurai eludes me, I think you get the point. The point is that the impetus behind French four-piece Denizen seems to be to binge on older Clutch‘s style and then purge themselves in the form of their new Whispering Wild Stories full-length. The songs are energetic and just the right amount of sloppy, the cover has owls on it who look like they’re about ready to do battle, and they cover “Sunshine of Your Love.” That’s good enough for me.
Some kindly representative from Denizen posted the link to their Bandcamp page on the forum, and since the songs were just the thing to pick me up from my afternoon’s doomed rut, I figured I’d pass them along. Thoroughly unpretentious, but a little snotty in the punk rock tradition, and still riff-led enough to call it stoner, Whispering Wild Stories is a fun fix. I don’t think I’d make an heirloom out of it (okay, I’ll stop with the Clutch references), but there’s good times to be had, so go ahead and have them:
as they careen through “White Flamingo,” “Deaf Taint,” “Punch Out” and closer “Tomahawk” on what would be the vinyl side B, culminating — of course — in a big, big, big ol’ haymaker of a riff in the finale. Their style is playing to genre, let there be no doubt, but their songs make an impression just the same, and it’s through the sheer energy of their execution that much of that impression comes. Calisthenics as songwriting is a post-Truckfighters European specialty, but any number of bands can sound like they might jump around on stage. Denizen sound like they might jump around in the studio as well, and the fact that that’s the case after over a decade and a half is not a consideration to be taken lightly.
