Posted in Whathaveyou on September 1st, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Danish stonerpsych rockers Sonic Moon made a splash with their vibe-heavy 2023 debut album, Return Without Any Memory (review here), on Olde Magick Records, and have now signed to Ripple Music for the as-yet-untitled-but-a-press-release-is-probably-coming-soon follow-up. The five-piece from Aarhus have set a Nov. 6 release for their sophomore outing, and I’ll admit, it’s got me curious how the fuzz and mellow roll of the first record will have changed in the years since, whether they’re sticking to their guns in terms of sound or branching out either into psychedelia or the janga-janga push of songs like “Give it Time,” which I wouldn’t necessarily call straightforward except in the context of the clear worship of fuzz, about which you certainly won’t hear me complain.
Again, there’s probably a press release coming about this, but Ripple and Sonic Moon both made the signing announcement on their socials and you’ll find those below, dutifully cut and pasted. The label has promised other signings and more to come, so keep an eye on it, but in the meantime, the warmth in Sonic Moon‘s sound makes them both a good fit and a welcome return.
Here’s what everybody had to say:
Says Ripple Music:
Let’s have some fun, shall we? I’ve been sitting on a slew of signing announcements to end your 2026 and bring in a totally killer Ripple 2027 for you Waveriders!
So let’s start here. Please welcome to the Ripple family Sonic Moon. Their last album was a personal favorite of mine, and the new one builds and grows from there.
Coming to you November 6 2026!
Give a big Waverider welcome!
Says the band:
“Big news! We’re thrilled to announce that we’ll be joining the mighty Ripple Music family as our next album will be releasing on November 6. More details soon”
Posted in Reviews on August 11th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
I don’t know how many Quarterly Reviews I’ve done at this point, but aside making my wife avoid me for a week, they’re always their own, probably-doesn’t-make-sense-to-anyone-else kind of fun, and it’s an engagement with music that I don’t get in any other way, even doing this site. Some of it feels like the old days in print, with the pile of CDs on my desk waiting to be reviewed for that week’s column, maybe 100 words per (I try to keep it to 150-200 here), with half the challenge going from one thing to the next and not repeating myself. But I don’t really expect anyone to get that. It’s work, but I enjoy it.
Yesterday was killer like Phyllis Diller. If nothing hit you, I hope today’s more your speed. If not, check back tomorrow. I’ll still be here, doing the thing.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
Edena Gardens, Quintessence
The fifth album from the instrumentalist amalgam of Causa Sui and Papir, Edena Gardens‘ Quintessence not only references the ordinal relevance but embodies the title’s implication of getting to the very root purpose of the project. Spread across four sides of a 2LP, the 80-minute six-songer is the band’s most open and rawest-feeling outing to-date, and for a project that was ‘supposed’ to produce a trilogy and then everybody goes home, they continue to bring a sense of vibrancy and exploration to their jams. The difference is that here, the songs are longer, there’s less editing involved, and the production, while clear enough to convey the spirit of what they’re doing, feels pointedly straightforward in doing so. And from the willfully, surprisingly Sabbathian “Nigredo” onward, the titles give hints toward their evocations of ground and color, be it “Earth Blemish” or the 22-minute finale “The Vermillion Quintessence.” Maybe not the best place to start with the band, but on the other hand, maybe it absolutely is.
“You Already Know” is the fourth studio single from New Zealand four-piece Stone Clones, founded in 2021 by the brotherly pair of guitarists Seager and Calum Ray, the former of whom also serves as lead vocalist in harmony with bassist Juan Los B while Dylan Byrne holds the alt-rock-informed-desert push through the chorus toward the particularly post-Homme solo that follows. The lyrics are something of an assessment of modernity and the “you” in question becomes a stand-in for the greed that exploits and ruins the polis of our day. The song runs 6:20 and captures a mood without giving entirely over to it even in that final verse where some of the purported Radiohead influence comes out, and as they continue to grow and work toward a somewhat inevitable debut album, the place they’re making for themselves between styles will continue to hone its own identity through the songcraft they demonstrate here, making heavy sounds and ideas feel light and able to sway the balance in whatever direction they want.
Comprised of just the two songs “Lever” (7:49) and “Capra” (5:42), this second EP offering from psychedelic depthmakers Os Solair doesn’t shy away from heft just because it’s also creating a sense of space or wash of effects. “Lever” grows more fervent as it goes and “Capra” picks up where it left off, but the Darmstadt, Germany, four-piece are mindful of dynamic and melodicism as well, and apparently recording live in their rehearsal space with vocal overdubs after, they come across as atmospheric and bit noisy but not really chaotic in the sense of not knowing where they’re headed. That is to say there’s a plan at work on Lever/Capra, and that can be heard as the latter cut moves into its more subdued, psych-adventuring midsection, tense enough in the drums to convey the explosion that’s coming but nonetheless a turn from the lower-end weight of the song’s beginning. Molten in its use of effects on guitar and vocals, it’s almost subversively grounded in the rhythm section, but the two sides work together with a fluidity that’s where the band’s real potential lies. I will look forward to what they do next.
The Nothing is the first solo album from former Midnight Whiskey Massacre guitarist Darren Ironside, and perhaps unsurprisingly the guitar leads the way for most of the nine-song offering. Based in the UK, Ironside blends throaty vocals that at times cross over to the metallic over a succession of riffs informed by doom rock, thrash, classic heavy, etc., over what I’m fairly sure are programmed drum progression, and though the mix is raw and pushes the vocals forward, songs like “To the Gallows” carry across a sense of brooding as the shred pervades, complementing the lyrical disaffection of “Forgotten Dream” — a familiar Charlie Chaplin sample there as well — and, on the other side of the noisy interlude “Nebula Rising,” “Overwatch and Control.” The bottom line is Ironside, who also self-produced, is figuring out where he wants his songs to go — or where they want to go, if you’d rather personify — and beginning to shape his own sound separate from his prior outfit and has something to say about the world around him. It’s raw and will come off abrasive at first to the unacclimated, but there’s groove to be had.
The ad astra per aspera narrative of New York’s Sun Voyager continues with their latest standalone single, “Coming Down,” which arrives scorching as if they knew the summer would be too damn hot and required something duly humid to coincide. No surprise though it’s a burner, and in the ascendance of guitarist Christian “Shaman Smoke” Lopez as a lead vocalist joined by bassist Stefan Mersch — the band is completed by drummer Kyle Beach, reliable and not to be discounted in holding their songs together — here manifests a sense of breakout that is wrought in the reptitions of the title line, sneering with attitude and righteously cosmic. It’s been nearly four years since Lopez joined Sun Voyager after they lost their prior guitarist/vocalist, and the time the band spent woodshedding and nailing down their chemistry is audible on “Coming Down” as well as the prior serve-notice single “Running Hot” (premiered here). I don’t know what it’s leading toward beyond probably an LP sooner or later, but Sun Voyager sound increasingly ready for whatever’s coming. East Coast psych gnarl. Get it.
Cultish and telegraphing their Iommi worship in their presentation — they’re certainly not hiding it in the music either — Athenian trio Oath reportedly recorded their first full-length Unteach live, and while I don’t know how that accounts for the doubled solos, with one foot in the Hammer Horror of “Alucarda ’77,” and the other in the pastoral “Orchid”ness of “Through the Evergreen Fields,” the band carve a place for themselves in “My Second Life” with a sound that’s as much proto-doom as it is punk as it is metal, and the place it winds up is crushingly heavy in “Soviet Invasion” and the penultimate “Dies Capri” and still plenty heavy but more playful in “Fur, Claws and Leather,” taking influence maybe from earliest Electric Wizard, is satisfyingly individual. That is to say, while you can pinpoint the roots of where they’re coming from, the actual material of the album, raw as it is, is not at all without stylistic nuance. They let the slower tempos manifest foreboding rather than occult theatrics, and that suits the buzz-tone riffs as well. It’s a weird one, but full of purpose in that, and so appreciable.
Somewhere in the gray ether that exists between post- and black metals, Greek unit Automaton harness a grim spaciousness as their Sound Effect Records-delivered third album Labyrinth, retelling the titular mythology in impressionist lyrics throughout as the six-song/46-minute sprawl varies from ripping to crushing and back again. “Ariadne” and the prior “Minotaur” hone a thickened viciousness, while the 12-minute “Black Sails” is a more ambient delve, building in its second half to a march ahead of the cavernous interlude “Your Bull Nature Clouds Your Human Self” — perhaps a thesis for the record — before the blastbeats resume in closer “Battle in the Labyrinth.” The story is allegorical (duh) and the telling is relevant in theme as well as aesthetic, but the gnash stands on its own as well in its fury and satisfies in terms of the plot as well as in execution. Much to its credit, even as it follows a linear narrative, at no point does Labyrinth feel like it’s subsumed songwriting to that, and each piece fleshes out with a patience correspondant to mastery.
Ultimately, it’s the poise here that makes Witch Ripper‘s third album so lethal, and if you’ve seen the band likened to Mastodon somewhere along the way, the Matt Bayles production probably has something to do with that, but the Seattle progressive riff metallers conjure their own feeling of space across the seven included songs. I’ve said on multiple occasions that part of what’s kept me from being a fan of this band is the kind of unthinking misogynist implication of their moniker, but there’s no denying either the growth they’ve undertake between albums or the sense of accomplishment overarching Through the Hourglass as a manifestation of their approach that they’ve been working toward all the while. Alternating between shorter and longer songs highlights the structural variety on display, and the shifts between clean-sung and harsher vocal styles gives purpose and drama to the procession from one piece to the next, with closer “The Spiral Eye” seeming to take cues from the likes of Blood Incantation in its leads while providing due culmination to the encompassing entirety prior. They’ve always meant business and they still do.
Self-releasing UK apparent-newcomers Hostile Tides offer their first EP in the five-song/17-minute Dead Man Talking, taking a double-guitar approach to heavy instrumentalism that’s pretty clearly in the process of shaking out where they’re headed in terms of style but that just the same conveys their setting forth on that progression. Chunky-style riffing in the centerpiece “Adrift” feels like it’s got some ’90s crunch, but it’s kind of hard to tell if that’s the rougher edges of the recording showing through an initial outing or something purposeful on the part of the band, or both, considering the way the song turns to a dreamier midsection with the bass holding to ground while the guitars branch out into atmospherics. Tonally more Karma to Burn than Russian Circles, they make the divergences a strength and a distinguishing factor, and the five-minute capper (the EP works shortest to longest) “Peaks” hints toward a burgeoning patience of craft. They could go just about anywhere from here.
Johnny Tirade and The Circle of Futures Past, What is at the Beginning of Eternity, the End of Time, the Beginning of Every End, and the End of Every Place
When Dublin’s Johnny Tirade and The Circle of Futures Past labels themselves as “stoner industrial-tinged,” I think they’re talking about the Ministry-esque push of opener “Hey Man” and the overarching tonal crunch (maybe also the drum machine) more than the acoustic guitar in near-17-minute centerpiece “Memory Hole” (also sax) and the concluding “Improv,” but one way or the other, that self-applied tag hardly encapsulates the weirdo gamut of the band’s cumbersomely-named 31-minute debut album, What is at the Beginning of Eternity, the End of Time, the Beginning of Every End, and the End of Every Place. But it’s part of it. There’s an earnest experimentalism at play in the songs as each of the five tracks wants to and does head to its own destination, but the more you hear “Lizard Johnny” or the samples and spoken verses of “American Dream” (prececed by “Fuck the…” in the chorus; fair enough), the more they make their own kind of linear sense, and as a showcase for what the band/project might become, the plunge undertaken in these tracks is an encouragingly odd fit for any number of square-hole genres in which one might try to shove them.
Welcome to the Quarterly Review. I’m not sure which quarter it is, and actually it’s been less than two full months since the last time we did this, but I had this crazy idea to NOT fall 50 records even further behind in covering stuff, so I decided to run one now. Maybe I’ll do another in July. Maybe a piano will fall on my head.
You know the drill by now. 10 releases per day covered. I think I’m going to keep this to 50 total, but I might tack on another day or two if I get through it and still have a bunch more on the docket. We’ll see. But time’s a crunch, so we gotta move.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
Abrams, Loon
When the postmortem is done on this generation of heavy rock and roll, Abrams might be among its most underrated bands in terms of songwriting. The Denver unit led by guitarist/vocalist Zachary Amster offer the taut 10-song/37-minute run of Loon as further argument in their favor, basking in a heavy and post-hardcore blend and working with Godcity Studio and Kurt Ballou (Converge, High on Fire, etc.) to foster a more aggressive sound in pieces like “Glass House,” “While Walls,” “Said and Done,” and so on, bordering on noise rock while bringing grunge melody to “A State of Mind” and blasting double-kick drumming to closer “Remains.” At this point, I’m wondering if they’re too good. Are they too polished, is Amster too capable a singer? Is the songwriting too tight? In the immortal words of Will Ferrell, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. Once again, Abrams do nothing wrong. One hopes the added charge wakes up more ears to what they’re doing. Or even better, instead of snagging jaded oldheads, put this shit on TikTok and let the 17 year olds learn about melody from it. That’s how it works now, right?
Buzzard, Take the Tyrant Down (Acoustic) b/w Hunchback, Vicar & Wizard
Two cuts from Massachusetts solo artist Buzzard, aka Christopher Thomas Elliott, whose voice and point of view for me personally has been salve in terrible times and for that a marker of the era. Late last year, Elliott released the EP Everything is Not Going to Be Alright (review here) with a plugged version of “Take the Tyrant Down,” which is stripped down here of its later chug and “Down down down/Sic semper tyrannis” vocal bridge. Perhaps too heavyhanded? It becomes a quiter contemplation of overcoming oppression, and its ultimate victory is no less sweet. The (digital) B-side is “Hunchback, Vicar and Wizard,” which wraps itself in an acoustic central line like “Doom Folk Fury” from the EP (which has also been expanded to an LP this year, heads up) but is less of a chorus surge, letting the Mellotron bring atmospheric backing to the lyrical tale of cathartic justice for the abuse victims of clergy. Yes, I’m talking about killing priests who rape children. Or Elliott is anyhow, in his increasingly solidified and yet malleable doom-folk aesthetic, with craft likewise prolific and purposeful.
As I understand it, Masheena have traded out half their lineup since recording Let the Spiders In with producer Machine (Clutch, etc.) in early 2024, but either way, the Bergen, Norway, heavy rocking four-piece bring expansive melodies to sharp structures in hooky cuts like “Going to the Mountain” and “One Good Eye,” taking bluesy energy in pieces like “Been Waiting” and “Don’t Tell Her” and the chug of the penultimate “Riffy” and fostering a sound that’s straightforward and accessible while not lacking at all in variety. It’s their second LP, and though on “Sara Lost Her Way,” they edge close to the big-stage energy of countrymen Spidergawd, the thickness in “Riffy” and the subsequent, nonetheless shuffling closer “You Owe Me,” as well as the generally bluesier foundations, aid in distinction. The album is paced comfortably at 34 minutes but never in any danger of overstaying its welcome. Can’t help but be curious how the dynamic has changed with the new lineup. It’s certainly solid in this material.
As Buenos Aires-based singer-songwriter Sergio Chotsourian (aka Sergio Ch., of Los Natas, Ararat, Soldati, etc.) has developed his solo approach, it’s satisfying to hear him working with a drum machine on “Last Dance,” the first cut on this two-song EP, paired with the 12-minute “The Journey.” It highlights a modernized bedroom-folk intimacy that’s always been in his experimentalist craft, and lets the guitar become the source of tension in the piece, which it does righteously. “The Journey” is more synth-based and is instrumental for most of its stretch, but there are late-arriving vocals. He also seems to be trying something new with his voice, though that might just be a result of returning to English-language lyrics after however long it’s been since last time. Note the guitar figure consistent beneath the keys of “The Journey” as well. Last Dance of a Dying Man is Sergio being Sergio, but part of that is pushing his own boundaries, and that can clearly be heard in these songs.
LSDREI, a combination of LSD and ‘drei,’ as in ‘three,’ is indeed the third LP from Danish jammers Vestjysk Ørken, and it begins with a long monologue over foreboding backing drone spoken by the drug itself, maybe from an old propaganda film? In any case, this first eight minutes set the mood before a burst-in of heavy fuzz after the eight-minute mark starts what’s presumed to be ‘Violets and Yellow’ in the six-parts-presented-as-a-single-36-minute-track of the LP. The full course is listed as “The Traveler / Violets & Yellow / Drei / Running My Head / (Backwards) Like A Mirror / Lovely Colours Shimmering,” and though immersion has always been a top priority for the Esbjerg outfit — theirs and yours both — they’ve never sounded quite so intentional in their exploration. The lumber gives way to shimmering lead guitar, more speech and a light but bassy boogie as they pass the halfway point, and plays back and forth from there between airy verses, ebbs and flows, more samples and, in the last few minutes, both shove and a massive concluding roll finishing with vague but angry shouts of a populace. It gets weird, kids. Actually, starts weird and gets weirder. For best results, recommend you do likewise.
Liminal Sky is presented as an extension of the work drummer, guitarist and keyboardist Jaime Gomez Arellano (also a noted producer in London) and guitarist, bassist, keyboardist Daniel Knight did together in the band Messenger, but the debut album All Tomorrow’s Darkness takes on an identity of its own, thanks in no small part to vocal collaborations with Mat McNerny (Hexvessel, Grave Pleasures), Kristoffer Rygg (Ulver) and Karin Park (Årabrot), as well as a slew of instrumental contributors too many to list in this space. This amalgam results in an emotionally resonant, post-genre melancholia, kin to the beauty in darkness in pieces like “Algebra of Unknowing,” “Penance” and “Forget Me Not,” the latter of which hits into a satisfying crescendo without giving up its core expressive purpose. It is not a minor undertaking in the substance of its songs, but Arellano and Knight create an entire world for this material, and the listener, to dwell in.
Professional-grade delivery from a professional band. Master of the Skies is the 11th album in the 35-plus-year tenure of Sweden’s The Quill, and if they’re exploring themes of mastery, you could hardly find a better theme to coincide with their sound. With expert hand and worldly care, they gracefully guide the listener through a diverse 45-minute collection, with rockers and ballads and acoustic numbers and the nine-minute volume-trade sprawl of the penultimate “Mastodon,” part Sabbath as they go, but more of a decades-meld of heavy rock ideologies so that “You Can Not Kill My Soul” hits with triumphant melody and side B opener “If Tomorrow Never Comes” wraps itself up in chugging largesse. The band — vocalist Magnus Ekwall, guitarist Christian Carlsson, bassist Roger Nilsson and drummer Jolle Atlagic — are unflinching in the refinement of their approach, but even when they reprise lead cut “Master of the Skies” to finish, there’s no pretense, just some of the most solid craft a band could hope to stand on.
Unearthed from the depths of Columbus, Ohio’s underground, Greenthrone‘s The Greenthrone EP was put to tape in 2010 and 2011 as a series of demos from what was then the bombastic duo of Danny Bays (guitar/vocals) and Lisa Bella Donna (drums/production), the latter also of much-missed progressive heavy explorers EYE. A five-song collection, it is brash and raw and finds Bays‘ vocal delivery somewhere between Matt Pike and Chuck Schuldiner on “The Sentinel” and “Beyond the Veil,” and that’s before they get into the sludgy push/roll of centerpiece “Hidden in Plain Sight” or the righteously-tin-can “Brujo,” and “Feather Crown” to close. There’s an audible shift in sound there ahead of the last two tracks, but there was point of view in the band even 15 years ago. Bays got a new lineup going at some point, a trio, and hopefully there’s more to follow sooner or later.
Dave Heumann, Chimes of Freedom // Further Adventures of Big Ten
Two at least semi-covers; one straight up take on Bob Dylan, the latter transmogrified reportedly from The Grateful Dead and David Crosby, and either make a fitting place for Arbouretum frontman Dave Heumann to dwell in for a while. The fragility of his voice in Dylan‘s lyrics on “Chimes of Freedom” makes that song feel all the more like a song for the people — in both the folk music and political senses, because they’re linked — while “Further Adventures of Big Ten” feels more like an exploration, being instrumental and set atop a drone and backed with hand-percussion as it is. “Chimes of Freedom” is the more straightforward, I guess, but its organ line and way-back-there gentle drums feel emblematic of the 1964 original, captured at the precipice of the birth of the psychedelic era. You could say a lot about the choices one way or the other, but from where I sit it’s five more minutes of Heumann singing and about 11 of him playing and I’ll take what I can get, thanks. He’s like if you gave the National Park System a voice.
Most of all, Towers of Silence sounds like the beginning of a rich and creative plunge into sound. Netherlands-based four-piece A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers take a sludgy angle on post-metallic lurch on this three-songer, and as “The Massacre of Flour” unfolds, it seems like it’s going to be all-onslaught until they hang a louie into a psychedelic midsection framed on the other side by a punishing return. “I Fuck People” follows and is noisier and more chaotic, but still manages to find room for saxophone in its second half, while the nine-minute title-track wraps by flipping the script into volume trades between meditative melodic contemplation and heavier bashing-away. The message that comes through is A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers aren’t restrained by genre ideology. Breaking out of it on three songs, they’re at the starting point in developing the individual creative expression one hears in this material. The prospects for where their journey might take them are exciting.
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 2nd, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Uffe Lorenzen, perhaps still best known as the frontman for Baby Woodrose under the name Lorenzo Woodrose, though On Trial and Dragontears might have something to say about it, has a new solo release, Glemte Spor, coming later this month on Bad Afro Records. It’s covers, but if you, like me, have never heard any of it, then, well, it’s new to you too. The first single “Når Mørket Falder” is to be followed tomorrow by “Ingenting,” and while I’m sure you know the original versions by the original artists because you’re cultured and generally awesome like that, to me it just sounds like Lorenzen doing his solo thing. Some folk, some rock, all in Danish, deep in vibe.
It should be noted that even as this solo outing is in the works, Lorenzen‘s current trio Lydsyn remain active. They’ll be at Down the Hill in Belgium this August. More about that on socials linked under the album info below:
For the past 10 years Uffe Lorenzen (known for his past in Baby Woodrose and Spids Nøgenhat) has chosen to interpretate an old Danish song on all his albums. That goes for his three solo albums and the two by his latest rock band Lydsyn. On his new solo record Glemte Spor (forgotten tracks) he has made a full album of 10 interpretations of songs from 1967 to 1999. Some are Danish classics, some are really obscure songs that he has made his own. Many of them can be considered as protest songs or has an anti-war vibe.
– “I found out that I really like the challenge of interpretation of other people’s songs and make them my own. To twist them, interpretate them and maybe even improve them. Many of the songs will be unknown for most people, while others are Danish classics. What they have in common is that they somehow have made me who I am”, says Uffe Lorenzen.
The album was recorded in a small studio in Copenhagen together with Morten Hart Grabowski. In more than 20 sessions they cut a list of 50 songs down to the ten that ended up on the album. According to Lorenzen the recordings were done in a very relaxed atmosphere:
– “We smoked some weed and drank some red wine which made the process really relaxed and I think you can hear that in the final result”
Later on Flemming Rasmussen did the mix and mastering in his famous Sweet Silence studio. Glemte Spor will be released April 24th on Bad Afro Records and first print is limited to a 1000 copies on black vinyl.
Tracklisting: 1. At Ruste Op 2. Baglæns 3. Ingenting 4. Spredt For Vinden 5. Nashet 6. Små Hjul 7. MorFar 8. Når Mørket Falder 9. Lil Johnnys Mund 10. Panorama
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 5th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Stacked lineup for Esbjerg Fuzztival 2026 in Denmark, which is expanding beyond its two-dayer presentation with a pre-party on Thursday, May 28 that will be overseen by the fest’s house band, the instrumentalists Vestjysk Ørken, whose third LP will be out by the time they hit the stage. Yawning Man and Fuzz Sagrado headline, with Howling Giant, Craneium, Child, SoftSun, Deville and others providing strong backing for the fest-proper, for which the lineup is now fully announced. That’s as opposed to the pre-show, which still has question marks on the poster below for two more bands playing.
Whoever they get, the Fuzztival always delivers a sense of vibe and already we see it doing so here while showcasing variety in a heavy underground context. I mean, they have ChildandChildrenn — what more could you want? Kidding aside, even two bands like Craneium and Howling Giant, both of whom I would describe as melodic and progressive heavy rock, are aproaching those ideas from different angles, so while it’s 14 acts for two days, each one is bringing something of their own to the proceedings.
From social media:
ESBJERG FUZZTIVAL – Full Festival Announcement!!
We are PROUD to be hosting the legends of the desert YAWNING MAN as our Saturday night headliner! What an absolute treat that we have been looking forward to for a long time!
Also proud to be adding SoftSun to the poster! The project between Gary Arce (Yawning Man) and Pia Isaksen (Superlynx). We can’t wait!
14 bands over two days – but wait, there’s more! The Fuzztival Pre-Party on Thursday the 28th we will host 3 additional bands TBA. First band on stage will be Vestjysk Ørken – while they have opened the festival for the past 8 editions, the tradition is now coming to an end, and they are moving to the pre-party instead! Don’t miss out, as their third album is releasing in April, so they will have fresh tunes for us!
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 8th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
To the surprise of none in the vast cosmos and the reassurance of all, the actually-multinational Øresund Space Collective — named for Øresund, a strait forming part of the Denmark/Sweden border — have a busy 2026 ahead of them. With the bandleading presence of Scott “Dr. Space” Heller, ØSC will embark on a split release with Hungary’s Psychedelic Source Records — being a fan of both involved parties, this one has me very, very nerd-stoked — and hopefully a live release from their 2025 20th anniversary party (the first day, anyhow) and other outings from sessions between 2023-2025.
Release dates? I don’t know, but I’ll say this, if Øresund Space Collective are saying three LPs and maybe live stuff adn a split on top of that, plus whatever recordings go out to Bandcamp subscribers, I believe them, and I believe as well this might not be it. The bottom line, then, is if you don’t subscribe to the newsletter, in the interest in friendship, I recommend you do so in order to keep up.
Here’s the update for now:
Øresund Space Collective Newsletter 2026
Hope you all had a good 2025 in this ever changing and crazy world. The music business is so hard these days, I have to say, we are barely getting by folks. It is getting harder to sell the records and CDs but that does not mean we will stop!!! It does not help that due to this tarriff crap, I am unable to ship CDs and LPs to the USA, since September.
2025 musically was a great year with our 20th annivesary celebrations in Copenhagen and some other memorable shows as well. We have a great multitrack from the first day and it sounds great but sadly, Day 2, the files have a digital problem that it is not possible to fix. The idea was to make a 4 CD release of this show as it was so special and mostly great. We will see.
The 10th anniversary Spaceboat in Hamburg (thanks Sabine). Wow.. We ended the year with 6 days of recording at my studio in Portugal and that was fun. 45 jams recorded so it will take some time to sort thru and mix the best of this stuff.
So what can you expect in 2026…
– Split LP with Psychedelic Source Records (Echodelick Records)- vinyl only 150 copies. Also availble on bandcamp digitally. We will only have about 25 copies to sell on bandcamp.
– Progably You´re Wrong 2LP/2CD (Space Rock Productions) 300 vinyl, 200 CD. Music from the 2022 studio session and one of my fave all time ØSC pieces!! Look forward for the world to hear it.
– Glossolalia LP (Space Rock Productions)- 200 or 300. This was originally released only on CD and was outtakes from the Good Planets are hard to find session that Dan McGuire put his spoken word poetry on the top!! It has never been released on vinyl. It will have new artwork and remastered sound.
– ØSC Theseus Discovers a New Universe 2LP/3CD. (from the Stockholm 2024 session with Christian (Yuri Gagarin)).
Bandcamp subscriber releases: I hope there will be 2 or 3. For sure one from the 2025 studio session.
Concerts
It is so difficult to break even or earn money from touring now, so at the moment, looks like the Spaceboat on June 12-13th and a two shows in August near Malmo, might be the only shows in 2026, unless we get invited to play others and cover the expenses.
Spaceboat XI / June 12th & 13th, 2026 organizer: Sabine / Sapphire Records Hamburg
Posted in Reviews on November 25th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
First, a note about math. Copenhagen mellowpsych instrumentalists Papir were last heard from with 2022’s 7 (review here), which, intuitively, was put forth as their seventh album. Three years later, here come the seven songs and 75 minutes of IX. What happened to VIII? Did I miss an eighth Papir record? Now, before 7, in 2021, the trio released the 2LP collection Jams (review here), which very much was what it purported to be: jams.
But if they were going to count that instead of a numbered release, wouldn’t the bump have been before 7? So that would’ve been 8 or VIII or however they decided to write it? Or, alternatively, maybe there’s a lost Papir record. Maybe VIII exists on a hard drive somewhere. Maybe they skipped it out of some Danish superstition I don’t know. Maybe it got lost on the way to mastering and they’re so creative they decided to make a whole new record instead of just resending files.
I don’t know.
And does it matter when you’re dug into the pastoralist sprawl in “IX.IIII” (9:34), after Christoffer Brøchmann Christensen drums drop out (they come back, cymbals and light hits, don’t worry) when it’s just guitarist Nicklas Sørensen and bassist Christian Becher Clausen out there searching? No, to be sure, it doesn’t matter in the slightest. Papir could call their curiously-named eighth full-length anything else and it would still sound as sweet. The wash that’s created in opener “IX.I” (9:23) and the subtle, spacey movement in “IX.II” (10:33) that gives over later to more drift — name the record whatever, they remain. Papir have always been about exploration in a space, whether that’s a live setting, a studio, presumably a rehearsal room, etc. Their sound feels out the boundaries of the walls, bounces here and there, and coming through headphones, modern psychedelia holds few delights as comforting as having that beamed directly into your head. There’s sooth and surf in “IX.III” (10:06), and it comes through gorgeously with the organic tones, effects flourish, and patient delivery that have become staple elements of Papir‘s approach over the last 15 years.
A nuanced conversation between the guitar and bass in “IX.III” as the second half plays out sounds more structured than improvised, but IX wouldn’t be the first instance of Papir toying with the lines between making it up on the spot and composing. I’m not sure if it’s lap steel or an effect, but “IX.III” gives itself over to sentimentality in its later reaches, giving over to “IX.IIII” as the jazzier centerpiece with additional percussion, shakers and such, for extra motor-conveyance, some genuine Earthless-style solo shred in the first half and the aforementioned blissery in the second. That lead is abut as energetic as Papir get on the album, though 21-minute finale “IX.IIIIIII” (hey, I don’t name ’em, I just make run-on sentences about ’em) has its bursts as well as one might expect. One doesn’t generally think of Papir as trying to be heavy for heaviness’ sake, as they’ve never needed that to bring a sense of presence to their material, but their dynamic has grown broader, and especially on an offering that has so much palpable space, so much room in the sound, to hear them fill it in such a manner is thrilling, even just for a time.
Actually, I’ll say especially just for a time, because the truth is that Papir wouldn’t be half as immersive or comforting as they are if they were just unipolar in going all-in. They’ve learned in their years to follow where their whims take them, and the result is a vast and expansive sound, brought into emphasis as “IX.IIIII” (5:20) takes hold following the residual echo of the song before, fading in with a welcoming swirl of, I don’t know, magic? Did I just beat a dungeon boss? Maybe. Sørensen‘s guitar dares a strum and some notes, and every single one of them sends out ripples as on water through the background of shimmering, sun-reflecting drone. “IX.IIIII” is the shortest inclusion on IX, and fair enough to call it an interlude, but the later low frequency — could be bass, could be cello or keys — stands out all the more for the focused backdrop, and the song ends fluidly to move into the penultimate “IX.IIIIII” (8:47).
“IX.IIIIII” almost can’t help but feel more active, what with drums and bass and all. Clausen reminds that there’s serenity to be found in the low end too, and while the guitar floats overhead in a kind of following-along meander, and the drums provide emphasis and punctuation to the procession as it unfolds, it’s the bass at the center of the track and it’s one more dynamic turn ahead of the extended closer “IX.IIIIIII” to come, which invariably would do well in capturing much of the album’s scope considering unless it was going to make some kind of dramatic shift, which, I mean, it’s a universe of infinite possibility, but Papir do an awful lot of work to establish the atmosphere on IX, and they’re veterans at this point enough to know whether something is going to fit. Bigger though it is, “IX.IIIIIII” still very much fits here.
Admittedly, I’m writing from the perspective of someone for whom Papir are a known quantity, though surely if it’s your first encounter with the band — not gatekeeping or criticizing; they’ve been around for a minute but nobody expects you to hear everything; yes I’m half talking to myself there — they’ll come across as no less welcoming. The difference between IX and some of what they’ve done in the past is that the exploration in this material feels like it already knows where it is and it is where it wants to be. That is to say, in their maturity, Papir aren’t necessarily concerning themselves overmuch with where their flights take them, the point is going, and the way they go is by enacting the chemistry one can hear rampant throughout IX. If there’s escapism to hear, as there often is in something so evocative and pastoral, for the band the escape seems to be in the process of playing and creating itself, rather than something specifically evoked by the music.
This means their command is absolute — it’s not a leap at this point to say, wherever VIII went, that Papir are masters at what they do, and that’s not an opinion I form lightly — and while they obviously delight in sometimes just hitting record and seeing where they end up in a jam, going hard or not, that too is a conscious decision made on the part of the band, whose passion and revelry, even at the most subdued stretches, is carried across with vibrant resonance.
Posted in Reviews on October 6th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Day two. Normally this is time for hubristic gibberish about how easy the QR will be, the overconfidence of one whose trees rarely appear as forests. But we persist anyhow, and today looks pretty good from where I’m sitting now, so despite the ‘Day 2 on a Monday’ weirdness, which I’m pretty sure makes no one other than myself even raise an eyebrow, things are rolling and one hopes will continue to be fluid. I wouldn’t say Day 1 came together easily, since it took me like two and a half days to get done, but neither was out unpleasant. Hoping for more of the same here, plus efficiency.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
Queens of the Stone Age, Alive in the Catacombs
Something of an identity crisis in Queens of the Stone Age perhaps that sees the long-running highest commercial export of desert rock shift from the cloying pop of their last two albums to a comparatively stripped down live recording in — you guessed it — catacombs, where apparently the acoustics are pretty sweet. Anybody remember when Tenacious D went into ‘the cave’ on the Tribute EP? No? Didn’t think so. Frontman Josh Homme, who carries the minimal arrangements on vocals largely with ease, and his ever-ace band filmed the whole thing; it’s all sepia, all very artsy, and they do “Kalopsia” and dip back 20 years to finish with “I Never Came” after “Suture Up Your Future,” which is the second inclusion by then from 2007’s Era Vulgaris. All told it’s five songs and 27 minutes, and whether you hear it as a cringe hyperindulgence of unaware self-parody or as an expression of human artistry in organic form surrounded by memento mori probably depends on how deep you run with the band. But they’re not hurting anybody either way.
Between recording and then remixing/remastering their 2021 debut Primeval Transmissions (review here) and signing to Argonauta Records, Portland meditative duo Breath, comprised of Ian Caton and Steven O’Kelly, expanded the lineup with Lauren Hatch on keys and their second album, Brahman, brings Rob Wrong (Witch Mountain) into the fold on guitar as well as helming the recording. The sense across the eight songs/42 minutes is still of exploring the reaches of consciousness, very post-Om in the foundational basslines and dry vocals, but having Wrong rip out a solo in each break of “Awen” sure doesn’t hurt, and hearing the full band come together around the culmination of “Hy-Brasil,” keys, guitar, bass, drums all-in tonally, is emblematic of their expanding horizons. As for those, “Sages” pushes toward its own vision of psych rock in conversation with the opener, and “Cedars of Lebanon” demonstrates malleability and balance that one hopes portend more to come as the band continues to grow and gel.
Johan Langquist The Castle, Johan Langquist The Castle
Kind of an awkward moniker grammatically for the solo-band fronted by original/once-again/maybe-erstwhile Candlemass vocalist Johan Langquist. Is it possessive? Is he The Castle? I don’t quite understand, but from the operatic complement of Emelie Lindquist‘s backing vocals on opener “Eye of Death” through the litany of compiled singles Johan Langquist The Castle dropped over the course of 2024, there’s no mistaking the classic nature of the doom. “Castle of My Dreams” flows keyboardier on balance, while “Where Are the Heroes” gives riffers shelter in its chug, while “Raw Energy” and “Revolution” toy with the balance between the two sides, with “Freedom” as a classic-metal epic and “Bird of Sadness” as the comedown epilogue. Langquist, absent decades between fronting the first Candlemass LP in 1986 and rejoining the band circa 2011, would seem to be making up for lost time, and the ideas he’s exploring here warrant the investigation. I’m curious where this leads, which I think I’m supposed to be, so right on.
From Joshua Tree, California, Maliciouz is the solo-outfit of Michael Muckow, who handles guitar, bass and drums for the molasses-thick instrumentalist proceedings. Tortoise arrives beating you over the head with its tone and metaphor alike; eight songs and 58 minutes of lumbering density wrought with dug-in purpose, harnessing heaviness-of-place as riffs and often melancholic drone metal crash. It’s an art project, but without pretense of being anything other than it is, and Muckow — who makes a point of noting his age (67) in the press material — composes for flow and immersion as each slow march gives way to the next, culminating in the semi-acoustic “The End,” which is no less on-the-nose than calling the album Tortoise to start with. No grand reflections, no sweeping statement. Tortoise lets the riffs do the talking and they say plenty about the grit and expanse Muckow is trying to conjure. Be careful out there. He makes it easy to get lost.
The former co-guitarist/vocalist of Neurosis has come a long way since his guy-and-guitar beginnings as a solo artist, and Alone in a World of Wounds reaps the textural fruit of Steve Von Till‘s willful artistic progression in a piece like the leadoff “The Corpse Road” or “Distance,” which caps side A fluidly with the only use of drums on the record, reminiscent of The Keening‘s awareness of sonic weight and atmospheric sidestep. The cello, synth and field recordings build out what would be minimalist arrangements without them and remain early-morning quiet, the piano on the spoken-word-topped “The Dawning of the Day (Insomnia)” and flirtations with lushness on “Horizons Undone” softly shaping the album’s world with the electronics of “Old Bent Pine” ahead of the guitar-based “River of No Return,” which closes with what feels like an updated take on Von Till‘s earlier woodsfolk craft, reminding that ‘heavy’ is just as much existential as it is aural.
Solitude Over Control is as much a confrontation as an album, and that’s very clearly the intention behind Glasgow’s Mrs Frighthouse for their Lay Bare-issued debut LP, Solitude Over Control. Its 11 songs foster a bleak gamut of industrial sounds, portraying dark and inflicted sexual violence as part of the band’s expression. Slaying rapists, then, and fair enough. Intertwining layers of vocals and experimentalist pieces like “Seagulls (Part 1)” give an avant-garde air to the crush of “DIY Exorcism” and the lurching, abrasive finish of “White Plaster Roses,” soprano vocals and electronic noise externalizing the unsettled in a way that can only really be thought of as ‘extreme’ in a musical sense. “My body has never been mine,” confess the lyrics of “Our Culture Without Autonomy” with horror-style keyboard behind them; there’s a show being put on here, but it’s visceral just the same, and the later “My Body is a Crime Scene” turns the accusation direct: “My body is a crime scene/He did this to me/My body is a crime scene/You did this to me” in a moment that lands powerfully unless you’re a fucking sociopath.
A joint release between Majestic Mountain and Copper Feast Records, Eroded Forms/Inertia presents as a double-EP split release between Melbourne, Australia, melodic heavy post-metallic rockers Droid, who dare toward aggression on “Reverence” and the sludgier shouts of “Ruin” after leading off with “Khaki” without giving away the plot such that the blastbeats of “Resonance” still hit as a surprise, and Sweden’s I Am Low, who answer the fullness of tone with careening on “Sweet M16” before the grunge melody of “Greed” makes that song a highlight, “Waves” flows with less emotional baggage and a subtle hook, and “Inertia” wraps as a landing point with duly vibrant crash. Grunge and a hairy kind of fuzz are shared between the bands, but each has their own purpose. I don’t know if it’s a release of convenience to make it a split, but it makes for an engaging showcase, and if you’ve never come across either of them, the best arguments for digging in are right there in the songs.
Portland five-piece doomly flamekeepers Tar Pit begin their second full-length (on Transylvanian) with the 10-minute three-parter “Dagon, Dark Lord Dwelling Beneath,” the longest inclusion (immediate points) at 10:15 and bookended with the title-cut at the record’s end. Between, from the more rocking aspects of “Coven Vespers” to the downtrodden roll of “Blessed King of Longing,” the five-piece remind of doom at the turn of the century, when ‘traditionalism’ in doom metal was something of a defiance against modernity instead of an aesthetic unto itself. More than 20 years, The Gates of Slumber, Reverend Bizarre, and what was then the Church of True Doom would seem to have evolved into Tar Pit‘s Eldritch Doom Syndicate, and that’s nothing to complain about as “Blue Light Cemetery” accounts for Candlemass and Cathedral after the dim-blues of “Jubilee” secures the band’s place in the heavy morose. If you were just getting into doom, this kind of thing might make you want to start a band, and yes, that’s a compliment.
Dirt-coated riffing leads the way on GRGL‘s Horror-Bloated Ouroboros six-song EP, as Jake‘s guitar, Hal‘s bass and Nick‘s drumming in the first-names-only Salt Lake City trio align around a chug in the opening “Horror-Bloated Ouroboros (An Overview),” that, despite the dry-throated barks that top it, remains among the more accessible moments of the churning sludge-doom outfit’s 23-minute outing. To wit, “Born Again” and the even more gurgley (hey wait a minute!) “My Skeleton” takes roughly the same elemental formula and slows it the frick down, thereby becoming immediately more tortured. The overarching impression is unipolar — raw, heavy, miserable — and the vocals are part of that, but the dynamic between those first two songs is answered for in the uptick of pace that arrives with “My Pie Hole” and the angularity of the shorter instrumental “Absorption/Secretion,” while the plodding reprise “Born Again (Again)” closes so as to make sure everybody ultimately gets where they need to be, i.e., hammered into the ground. Eat dust shit sludge. Hard to get away from thinking of this as the true sound of our times. Maybe it’s the title.
It’s a clear and classic style across Grusom‘s aptly-titled third album, III, which arrives some seven years after they were last heard from with 2018’s II (review here), the band who’ve become a low-key staple of the Kozmik Artifactz roster demonstrating in no uncertain terms what’s gotten them there. Vintage-heavy heads will find plenty to dig in the organ-laced flow of “Shadow Crawler,” “Hell Maker,” the later “Fatal Romance” and the more open finale “Mortal Desire,” and while “Le Voyage” has many of the same aspects at work, it shows the Danish six-piece as flexible enough in their approach to convey a range of emotions, ditto the wistful Graveyard-y “Memories” and the interlude “Euphoria,” making sure that among the places III might take a given listener, there’s nothing to remove them from the procession carried along by the band.
