Posted in audiObelisk on June 6th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Denver’s Burning Sister are releasing their new single “When Tomorrow Hits” this Friday, June 9. Technically, it’s a Mudhoney cover, but the Colorado trio who released their debut album, Mile High Downer Rock (review here), in 2022, are more loyal to the Spacemen 3 version taken from 1991’s Recurring, slowing down and fleshing out with echo and shoegazing atmospherics the rawer take of the original original from Mudhoney‘s 1989 self-titled. To say both versions inform Burning Sister‘s take is redundant — it’s the same frickin’ song, that’s what a cover is — but the breadth that “When Tomorrow Hits” fosters is a preface to the band’s upcoming EP, Get Your Head Right, which will be out later this year, and in that it is a herald of expansive vibe to come.
They didn’t write it, so I wouldn’t expect “When Tomorrow Hits” to necessarily define the other tracks on Get Your Head Right, but they build it up from silence to full-volume with patience and mellow-at-first groove, part addled shoegaze à la Dead Meadow, especially once the vocals start, but still held to the structure beneath in its linear movement to the payoff that starts right around 3:10. With the languid flow intact, Burning Sister roll into that volume swell of up and down undulations and give “When Tomorrow Hits” the push it deserves, making it their own across a hypnotic four and a half minutes that tell as much about Burning Sister‘s own influences — what they mean by ‘downer rock,’ for example — and the take on heavy they’re aiming toward. I look forward to hearing “When Tomorrow Hits” in the context of the rest of Get Your Head Right, but it seems like that in-between, pre-grunge moment circa 1988-1991, where ’80s punk and noise was starting to fill out its bottom end and hit with slower tempos, is a definite factor in the makeup of their sound. Noted.
There’s also a personal connection, as bassist/vocalist/synthesist Steve Miller explains in the quote below. I have yet to hear a solid release date for the EP, but frankly, the album’s not that old — the Bandcamp player is down there, you’ll see it — and in thinking about the song in relation to the full-length preceding, the cover adds some reach to what Mile High Downer Rock showed without actually departing in mood. And by mood, I mean downerism and heft.
With the hope of more to come near the EP’s arrival, enjoy “When Tomorrow Hits”:
Steve from Burning Sister on “When Tomorrow Hits”:
“When Tomorrow Hits” by Mudhoney is a late-’80s downer rock classic and the song is just as impactful today as when it came out in 1989. Then Spacemen 3 come around a couple of years later with their final album and make what I consider to be one of the most definitive cover tunes ever—they managed to capture the gravity and essence of the original track, but also successfully make it their own. If we get even halfway there, we’re stoked. This song is dedicated to my friend, Aaron, who passed away in 2011. He introduced me to Spacemen 3 and was with me when I bought my first bass in a pawn shop in Detroit. I can remember many of our conversations about music, particularly about “When Tomorrow Hits,” as if it was yesterday. This one’s for him.
The first single from the band’s upcoming EP Get Your Head Right, out later in 2023.
A powerful cover of Mudhoney’s classic song When Tomorrow Hits that breathes new life and meaning into the track.
Released independently on June 9th. Tracked/Mixed/Mastered by Austin at All Aces Studios.
Steve Miller – bass, synth, vox Nathan Rorabaugh – guitars Alison Salutz – drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 2nd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
In the grim early winter hours of 2023, Denver, Colorado, classic heavy rockers Love Gang offered their Meanstreak (review here) LP as a salve for January’s inherent woes. The album was like the party you think you’re not cool enough to be at, but then you go and it turns out you were and you had a bunch of friends all along and the magic was in you the whole time and something something E.T.’s light-up finger. For a record titled as it was and that started with a song called “Deathride,” it was deceptively good fun. And whether you got there or not, you were invited.
And as Love Gang announce a European incursion that will take them across two-plus weeks on their way to SonicBlast Fest in Portugal, they’ve still got some open slots, so not only is it not too late for you to check out the album — it’s streaming at the bottom of the post, of course — but if you happen to live, say, between Zero Branco in Italy and Bratislava in Slovakia, or somewhere else close by, you can be the hero who picks up on of the TBAs here and turns it into a night you at very least won’t regret having put together. It could be you. At that party.
Go for it:
LOVE GANG – Euro Tour 2023
We are stoked to announce the LOVE GANG Euro Tour 2023 !!
Our US rockenrollerz LOVE GANG will smash Europe this Summer including the mighties Kommz Festival and Sonic Blast!! The band will present the latest album MEANSTREAK !!!
Still few open slots
*** LOVE GANG *** EURO TOUR 2023 WE 26/07/2023 *** OPEN SLOT *** TH 27/07/2023 IT LECCO – CIRCOLO LIBERO PENSIERO FR 28/07/2023 IT ALESSANDRIA-CASCINA BELLARIA SA 29/07/2023 IT TORINO – BLAH BLAH SU 30/07/2023 IT PISA – PONTILE 102 MO 31/07/2023 IT ZERO BRANCO – ALTROQUANDO TU 01/08/2023 *** OPEN SLOT WE 02/08/2023 SK BRATISLAVA – KONCERTY NA GARAŽACH TH 03/08/2023 *** OPEN SLOT *** FR 04/08/2023 DE SAARBRUCKEN – HORST SA 05/08/2023 DE ASCHAFFENBURG – KOMMZ FESTIVAL SU 06/08/2023 CZ BILINA – ROCK PUB MOSKVA MO 07/08/2023 CZ PRAGUE – CROSS CLUB TU 08/08/2023 *** OPEN SLOT *** WE 09/08/2023 DE MANNHEIM – ALTER TH 10/08/2023 CH BASEL – QUARTERDECK SA 12/08/2023 PL ANCORA – SONIC BLAST
Love Gang is a rock ‘n roll band based out of Denver, Colorado. Formed in 2015, Love Gang is a throwback to the golden days of rock ‘n roll when the amps were loud, the hair was long and the drugs were cheap. Influenced by the obscure and underground rock of the 70s, they manage to keep their sound classic and true while also creating original, compelling songs that don’t grow tired or sound as if you’ve heard it all before. Love Gang likes to play fast, high energy songs full of driving blues boogie, wailing psychedelic guitar solos and crunchy hammond organ.
LOVE GANG is Kam Wentworth – Guitar & Vocals Leo Muñoz – Organ Grady O’Donnell – Bass Shaun Goodwin – Drums
Posted in Questionnaire on May 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: Paul Vismara of Deer Creek
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I like heavy music. Always have. I remember as a boy being in church and hoping they’d play the one sort of heavy song. It had a heavy riff. I’m always aiming for something on the heavy side, but I mostly care about good songwriting. All of the technical skills mean nothing if you can’t produce interesting, compelling work. All art is subjective, so there will be plenty of people who think what we do sucks. Get in line. Sometimes I think that too. But I keep coming back and working on it and trying to push myself to improve.
I’ve always hoped to write interesting music and not necessarily conform to expectations, at least structurally. I learned that from playing with some friends in an AmRep-style band in Chicago in the early ’90s. We liked Slint, Sonic Youth, the Melvins, Jesus Lizard and were influenced by their willingness to challenge conventions. After our first album (verse/chorus/verse-style) we deliberately tried to get away from that, we jammed a lot more and allowed ourselves to sort of go anywhere. That was the first time I really started writing songs. I brought in a couple of riffs and they said, “where does it go next?” And I’d describe what I heard in my head and they really helped flesh out those ideas. I have often naturally written in odd timings and they encouraged me to have confidence and keep working at it. By the time Conan [Hultgren] and I formed Deer Creek that writing style of let-the-song-tell-you-where-it-wants-to-go was firmly rooted in my mind.
Describe your first musical memory.
My parents listened to big band music and the Boston Pops. I think they gave me this record when I was about 5 years old. Leonard Bernstein narrating Peter and the Wolf. The flip side was the Nutcracker Suite by the New York Philharmonic. I played that record obsessively for weeks and weeks. I’d listen to it pretty much every day. I think I was drawn to the idea that the music could be a character as heard on the Peter side and I just loved the energy, emotion and beauty of the Nutcracker side.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
This is nearly impossible to answer. I’ve been fortunate to have experienced a lot of wonderful musical moments in my life. One answer would be the first time I heard the first song I wrote. I wasn’t the one to first play it. My art school friend, Paul, taught me some basic chords on the guitar and I started practicing and learning. I wrote a song, mostly in my head. Paul came over and I painstakingly showed him each chord; willing my fingers into the chord shapes. I strummed each one separately and then said, “okay, now put them all together and play it fast.” Paul played it and I said, “THAT’S IT!!!”
Another could be: We got a note from a guy in Spain this morning and he said our music saved him during a recent bad stretch of his life. We didn’t set out to do that, but, man, that’s pretty damn humbling to hear.
Maybe the first time I saw Solace or Ufomammut. Being at many Emissions From the Monolith festivals. The first Psycho Vegas I attended. Just being at shows with friends.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
2016 election. I trusted that the American people weren’t foolish enough to elect a man who bragged about sexually assaulting women.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Hopefully, it’s a never-ending quest for expression, challenge and improvement. It’s easy to feel that everything has been done, but it hasn’t. There are always new ways to reveal the world or a part of it.
How do you define success?
You’re doing what you want to do, whether it’s financially rewarding or not.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
I’ve been lucky enough to not really have an answer for this one.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
More joy.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Moving the viewer/listener.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Didn’t we just do this? Yeah, kind of. It’s been a weird season, but I knew last month when I launched the Spring 2023 Quarterly Review that it needed to be more than two full weeks and given the timing of everything else slated around then and now, this is what worked to make it happen. For what it’s worth, I have QRs scheduled for July and early October, subject to change, of course.
The bottom line either way is it’s another batch of 50 reviews this week and then that’s a wrap for Spring. It’s a constant barrage of music these days anyhow, and I’m forever behind on everything, but I hope at least you can find something here you dig, whether previously familiar or not. We go.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
HIGH LEAF, Vision Quest
An awaited debut from this Philadelphia heavy rock scene outfit, HIGH LEAF‘s Vision Quest makes its home among heavy tropes (also some minute cultural appropriation in the title) with unabashed glee and deceptively sharp songwriting. Certainly opener “Green Rider” is perfectly willing to beat you over the head with its chorus — and rightly so, you have it coming — but the spacious title-track that follows stretches over eight minutes and seamlessly works through drift and heavy psych impulses to get to the post-grunge roll that makes its increasingly aggro presence known past six minutes in, and that’s by no means the final bit of sludge to be had as the later “Hard to Find” leans toward nastiness only to be offset by the funky outset of “Painted Desert,” having pushed deeper from the Kyussery of “Dead Eye” and a swagger in “Subversive” worthy of comparison to Earthride. This lineup of the band has already split (there’s a new one, no worries), and how that reboot will affect HIGH LEAF going forward obviously remains to be seen, but this is a ‘serving notice’-type debut, doubling down on that in closing duo “March to the Grave” and “The Rot,” and the eight songs and 38 minutes commune with groove and riffs like they’ve been speaking the language the whole time. There’s definitely a vision at work. Let’s see where the quest takes them.
Fucking hell I wish this was what the future sounded like. It rocks. It’s interesting. It’s driven to be its own thing despite traceable roots. It’s got edge but it’s not hackneyed. It’s the tomorrow we were promised when industrial rock and metal became a thing in the 1990s and that corporate alt-everything and pop-punk usurped. I knew I wanted to write about it now, because it’s coming out now, but I’ll tell you honestly, I’ve barely scratched the surface of JAAW‘s Svart-issued debut, Supercluster — recorded at Bear Bites Horse in London by Wayne Adams, who’s also in the band alongside Andy Cairns of Therapy?, Mugstar‘s Jason Stoll and Adam Betts (of Squarepusher and others) — and this is the kind of album that’s going to be years in revealing itself. How about this? Sometime in 2028, if this site is still here, I’ll follow-up and let you know what I’ve found digging into the sinister groove of “Rot” or the shout-kraut rumble and noise of “Bring Home the Motherlode, Barry,” “The Dead Drop” going from minimalism to full heavy New Wave wash in five minutes’ time, and so on, but for right now, let it serve as the cannonball to be lobbed at anyone who says there aren’t any acts out there doing new things or pushing different styles forward, because hell’s bells, that’s the only place this goes even as it also seems to go everywhere at the same time, unto closing out with a Björk cover “Army of Me” as imagined by Ministry doing ’90s drum ‘n’ bass. Some things are just bigger than the year of their release, and I look forward to living with this record.
The Bridesmaid, Come on People Now, Smile on Your Brother
From the opening drone-and-toy-chime-forward over industrial black metal of “Leytonstone: Eat Your Landlord” through the sample-fed machine sludge-turned-psych experimentalism that gives way to a shimmering haze of jazz metal in “Cleveland: And the Rain Came Down” and the can’t-fool-me-by-now acoustic strum at the start of “Summerland: A Long, Maintenance-Free Life” that runs a current of cello under its aural collage and low-end lumber early only to bask in news-and-drone departure with percussion later on the way to what post-hardcore could still someday be, the name of the EP is Come on People Now, Smile on Your Brother and The Bridesmaid deliver the proceedings in a manner more suited to Kurt Cobain‘s fuckall rasp of that line rather than the Youngbloods original. So it’s probably the latter. In any case, the UK solo-plus-friends outfit helmed and steered by JJ Saddington are an aural barrage, and while the temptation is to think of the three-song/21-minute offering as a blender on liquefy, the truth is the material is more thought out, more considerately mixed, and more engaging, than that kind of spastic randomness implies. If you can keep up with the changes, the adventure of listening is well worth the ankles sprained in its twists, but you should go into it knowing that the challenge is part of the appeal.
If the hard push and tonal burl of comparatively straight-ahead opener “The Last Witch” aren’t convincing, stick around through “Celestial Bird Spirit” and “Impermanence” on the rest of side A before you resolve one way or the other as regards Milana‘s debut album, Milvus. The Mallorca-based four-piece are for sure in conversation with fest-ready modern European heavy rock, and that’s the thread that weaves throughout the album, but in the 11-minute “Impermanance,” they build on the more temperate rollout of “Celestial Bird Spirit” and find an intriguing blend of atmosphere and dense fuzz, more moody than psychedelic, but smart to hold back its weightiest tonality for the rolling end. Appropriately enough, “Lucid Reality” brings them back to ground at the start of side B, but still has an atmospheric effect in its verse, with vocal layering over open-spaced guitar and an alt-rock pickup as they move toward the chorus, and Howling Wolf gives a class-conscious definition of the blues, in the long intro of “Gray City Lights,” setting a difficult standard for the rest of the song to match, but the organ helps. And all seems well and fine for “Whispering Wind” to wrap up mirroring the rocker “The Last Witch” at the start until the song breaks, the harmony starts, and then the growls and massive fuzz start in the last minute and it turns out they were metal all along. Go figure. There’s growing to do, but there’s more happening on Milvus than one listen will tell you, and that in itself is a good sign.
Swedish upstart four-piece New Mexican Doom Cult offer a distinctly Monolordian weep of lead guitar on “Seven Spirits,” but even that is filtered through the band’s own take, and that’s true of their first full-length, Necropolis more generally, as the Gävle outfit now comprised of guitarist/vocalist/principal songwriter Nils Ahnland, guitarist Johan Klyven Kvastegård, bassist Emil Alstermark and drummer Jonathan Ekvall present seven songs and 48 minutes of dug-in rockers, distortion keyed to its fuzziest degree as Ahnland hints vocally on “Underground” toward a root in darker and more metallic fare ahead of the chugging build that rounds out the eight-minute centerpiece title-track and the make-doom-swing ethic being followed in closer “Worship the Sun.” “Vortex” is a highlight for the melody as much as the double-dose of nodfuzz guitar work, and opener “Architect” sets an atmospheric course but assures that the sense of movement is never really gone, something that’s a benefit even to the righteous Sabbath blowout verse in the penultimate “Archangel.” Much of what they’re doing will be familiar to experienced heads, but not unwelcome for that.
Capable double-guitar heavy rock pervades the 43-minute Gentle Beast by the Swiss five-piece of the same name. Mixed by Jeff Henson of Duel and issued through Sixteentimes Music, the eight-song run is defined by knowing itself as stoner rock, and that remains true as “Super Sapiens” departs into its post-midsection jam, eventually returning to the chorus, which is almost unfortunately hooky. “Greedy Man” is almost purely Kyuss in its constructed pairing of protest and riff, but the “Caterpillar” shows a different side of the band’s character in its smooth volume shifts, winding leads and understated finish, leading into the sharper-edged outset of closer “Toxic Times.” In the forward thrust of “Joint Venture,” the opener “Asteroid Miner” with its gruff presentation, and the speedier swing of “Headcage” reinforcing the vocal reference to Samsara Blues Experiment in the leadoff, Gentle Beast tick all the boxes they need to tick for this debut long-player some four years after the band’s initial 7″ single, setting up multiple avenues of possible and hopeful progression while proving dexterous songwriters in the now. Won’t change your life, but isn’t trying to convince you it will, either.
Denver four-piece Bloodsports — also stylized all-lowercase: bloodsports — give a heavygaze impression with “Sky Mall” at the launch of their self-titled debut EP that the subsequent “Crimp” gleefully pulls the rug right from under with a solo section like All Them Witches grew up listening to The Cure after its Weezery verse, and the proceedings only gets grungier from there with the low-key Nirvana brooding of “Sustain” (also issued in 2022 as a standalone single) and its larger-scale, scorch-topped distorted finish and the shaker-inclusive indie ritual that is “Carnival” until it explodes into a blowout ending like the release of tension everyone always wanted but never actually got from Violent Femmes. Some noisy skronk guitar finishes over the hungover fuzz, which is emblematic of the way the entire release — only 11 minutes long, mind you — derives its character from the negative space, from its smaller moments of nuance, as well as from its fuller-sounding stretches. They’re young and they sound it, but there’s a sonic ideal being chased through the material and Bloodsports may yet carve their aural persona from that chase. As it is, the emotive aspects on display in “Sustain” and the volatility shown in the roll of “Sky Mall” make in plain that this project has places it wants to go and areas to explore, and one hopes Bloodsports continue to bring their ideas together with such fluidity.
Recorded seemingly almost entirely live on audio and video, vibrancy would seem to be the underpinning that draws Night Fishing‘s Live Bait together, if fishing isn’t. The Denver four-piece are a relatively new formation, with guitarists Graham Zander (also Green Druid) and Zach Amster (Abrams), bassist Justin Sanderson (Muscle Beach) and drummer Gordon Koch (Call of the Void) all coming together from their sundry other projects to explore a space between the kosmiche, heavy rock and semi-improv jamming. The turns and fills and crashes that round out the second of three cuts, “No Services,” for example, feel off-the-cuff, but throughout most of “Alone With My Thoughts” and at least in the initial Slift-like shuffle at the start of “Slapback Twister,” there’s a plan at work. At 25 minutes, they’re only about a song shy of making Live Bait a full-length — though another track might mess up the shortest-to-longest and alphabetical ordering Live Bait has now, which are fun — but the instrumentalist exploration is suited to the nascent feel of the outfit, and while I don’t think Night Fishing is anybody’s only band here, if they can build on the sense of purpose they give to the jangly rhythm and airy solo of “Slapback Twister” and the right-on push of “Alone With My Thoughts,” they can make their records as long or as short as they want and they’re still bound to catch ears.
Following last year’s self-titled debut EP, Indianapolis solo-project Wizard Tattoo cuts itself open and bleeds DIY on the seven songs and 40 minutes of the self-recorded, self-released Fables of the Damned, beginning with distinct moments of departure in opener “Wizard Van” and “The Black Mountain Pass,” the latter of which returns to its gutted-out chorus with maestro Bram the Bard (who also did the cover) cutting through the tonescape of his own creation to underscore the structure at work. There are stories to be told in “The Vengeful Thulsa Dan” and the folkish “Any Which Way but Tuned,” which brings together acoustics and chanting like a gamer version of Wovenhand, deep-mixed tom thud peppered throughout while the chimes are more forward, while the seven-minute “The Ghost of Doctor Beast” picks up with the slowest and most doomed of the included rollouts, “God Damn This Wizard Tattoo” ups the tempo with a catchy chorus, a little bit of mania in the hi-hat under the guitar solo, and hints dropped in the bassline of the grunge aspects soon to be highlighted in instrumental closer “Abendrote.” The sense of character is bigger than the production, and that balance is something that will need to be ironed out over time, but the dug-in curio aspects of Fables of the Damned make it engaging, whatever it may or may not lead toward.
I’ll never claim to be anything more than a dilettante when it comes to noise rock, and I’ll tell you outright that Kansas City’s Nerver are new to me as of this Brothers in Christ split with Oklahoma City’s Chat Pile, but both acts are coming from a strong Midwestern tradition of post-industrial (talking economy not genre) disaffection and building on momentum from strong 2022 releases, those being Nerver‘s even-the-CD-sold-out (aha! but not from the label! got it!) sophomore full-length CASH and Chat Pile‘s much-lauded debut, God’s Country (review here), and the scream-topped bombast of the one and volatile emotive antipoetry of the other make fitting companions across the included four songs, as Nerver‘s “Kicks in the Sky” underscores its jabs with deep low rumble as a bed for the harshly delivered verse and “The Nerve” shoves itself faceward in faster and less angular fashion, consuming like Chicago post-metal but pissed off like Midwestern hardcore while Chat Pile build through “King” en route to the panicked slaughter of “Cut,” which is sure enough to trigger fight-or-flight in your brain before its sub-five-minute run is up. Neither arrives at this point without hype behind them, both would seem to have earned it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go put on that Nerver album and play a bit of catchup.
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 6th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
A fascinating turn here for Denver guitarist Zach Amster, whose other outfit Abrams recently announced a tour for May in the company of BleakHeart (dates here), and joins members of Green Druid, Muscle Beach and Call of the Void in the new instrumentalist four-piece Night Fishing. One doesn’t even have to get through the nine-minute entirety of “Alone With My Thoughts” — which one surely is when fishing at night; I’d also like to mention that my phone corrected ‘thoughts’ to ‘thighs’ there, which would be a winner as regards typos — to get the sense of shift that Night Fishing‘s impending Brutal Panda-delivered three-songer, Live Bait (getting the theme?), is playing toward. There’s some of Slift‘s Euro-style space boogie in there, along with a touch of psychedelic atmosphere, but a solid rhythm lies beneath the sprawl of its exploration, and you would definitely still call it rock rather than a loose lysergic jam. There’s a plan at work.
That’s something Night Fishing shares with Abrams, but the absence of vocals is interesting. They could probably tour Europe on these songs for two months, hit festivals and whatnot, and never look back, and nor could they be faulted for doing exactly that if it came to it. Of course, I don’t know what they will or won’t — I haven’t even heard the other two tracks here yet, so any assessment of aesthetic is partial at best — but when I think about Abrams poppish aspects next to this, let alone the other members’ main projects, it feels like a change that’s worth noting and I look forward to where it might lead, even if that’s just a lot of riffs about fishing. Here for it, in the parlance of our times, or, more likely, a couple years ago. I’m always behind on that shit.
The PR wire has the AI art, release info and the song stream. Live Bait is out April 21. Enjoy:
Instrumental Psych Rockers NIGHT FISHING Share New Single, “Alone With My Thoughts”, + Video
New EP, ‘Live Bait’, Out April 21st via Brutal Panda Records
Brutal Panda Records will release ‘Live Bait’, the debut EP from Denver, CO’s NIGHT FISHING, on April 21st. Comprised of four seasoned Rocky Mountain Road Dogs (members of Call of the Void, Green Druid, Abrams, Muscle Beach), NIGHT FISHING exist to explore the boundaries of improvisation, mood and structure within the realms of heavy, instrumental sound. Today, they’re revealing the music video for “Alone With My Thoughts,” the record’s second single.
Across three tracks and 25+ minutes of fuzzed-out Heavy Psych, hypnotic Krautrock and free-form jazz, NIGHT FISHING seamlessly weave together a melting pot of brain-liquifying sonic euphoria. An experience that could only be formulated live in the studio and within the confines of the moment…NIGHT FISHING is for lovers and will take you where the vibe wants to go.
Drummer Gordon Koch, who also created the album’s trippy artwork via Artificial Intelligence, commented on how the project came together:
“NIGHT FISHING is a Heavy Psych/Krautrock improv concept I mulled over during the lockdown period of the initial COVID-19 outbreak. My longtime touring metal band (Call of the Void) had just broken up (December 2019) and my jazz connection had moved out of state so I had no musical prospects while I was held up in my apartment. I wanted to combine elements of improv jazz into a rock format using light song structure to allow for more natural flow of solos, giving each player room to breathe and express themselves. Once the city opened back up a little bit I hit the pavement looking for players. I found 3 friends from the Denver metal scene who were looking for something different and could handle the riffage!
“This EP was recorded live, as both an audio and visual experience, by Chris McNaughton at Rocky Mountain Recorders. We sat in the round with a full camera crew in the studio, led by Alex Pace, to capture the moment and energy, bouncing solos off each other all in one take. I feel like these first songs are a more “live” experience so I wanted the video crew there to allow everyone to join us. We were mostly familiar with all the hits but use a lot of eye contact and musical cues to move things along. This session was a BLAST to record, I think about 4 hours total in the room.”
He elaborated further on their second single “Alone With My Thoughts”, saying:
“This was our first song written as a group that took the NIGHT FISHING idea to fruition. Once we played it live in front of people we knew we had a great formula to expand on.”
‘Live Bait’ will see an April 21st release on tape, CD and digital formats.
A super limited deluxe, tackle box edition complete with a one-of-a-kind fishing certificate will also be available along with a gently used fishing vessel, limited to 1, for the TRUE DIE-HARDS ONLY!
NIGHT FISHING will be performing a record release show at The Crypt on April 28th in Denver, CO
‘Live Bait’ Track List: 1. Alone with My Thoughts 2. No Services 3. Slapback Twister
About NIGHT FISHING:
Four Denver road dogs (Call of the Void, Green Druid, Abrams, Muscle Beach) having a good time in the space of improvisation and slight structure. Heavy psych and Krautrock with jazz rules, a project meant to include both listeners and musicians.
We go where the vibe is pushing us. NIGHT FISHING is for lovers.
NIGHT FISHING are: Gordon Koch – Drums Graham Zander – Guitar Zach Amster – Guitar Justin Sanderson – Bass
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 22nd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
It’s about two weeks that Denver now-four-piece Abrams will spend touring the West Coast in support of their 2022 album, In the Dark (review here), the latest and most accomplished manifestation of their songwriting to-date. They’re joined for the stint by BleakHeart, whose Twilight Visions two-tracker was released last February. Thus ‘Twilight Visions of the Dark’ is only suitable as a title for the tour, which begins with a hometown Denver show on May 5 ahead of hitting Salt Lake City, Boise, Seattle, and so on through May 20, when they wrap up in Albuquerque and head back to Colorado.
The part about already having new material to try out on the road is certainly noteworthy — there was a glut of songs for In the Dark, so maybe some of what didn’t get on the record last time around is being carried over? certainly not impossible they’ve just kept writing, though — but what stands out more is the combination of styles here, Abrams complementing the heaviness of BleakHeart and BleakHeart drawing an ear to the more ambient elements at work beneath the surface in Abrams‘ sound, even if the two acts might seem counterintuitive as compatriots. Not rocket science, but it’s the kind of pairing that turns a good show into a memorable night.
The PR wire has dates and whatnot:
ABRAMS: Denver Sludge/Post-Metal Outfit Announces May Tour With BleakHeart; In The Dark Full-Length Out Now On Small Stone Recordings
Denver sludge/post-metal outfit ABRAMS will join BleakHeart for a Western US tour this May! The twelve-date Twilight Visions Of The Dark run begins May 5th in Denver, Colorado and ends May 20th in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Comments ABRAMS, “We are stoked to go on road this May to promote our latest release In The Dark. Our sets will also include some older staples while debuting new songs to prepare for our next recording. We couldn’t be happier to split the bill with our friends in BleakHeart who bring their beautiful blend of shoegaze, doom, and rock. Their live show is incredible. This tour is not to be missed, see you out there!”
See all confirmed dates below.
ABRAMS w/ BleakHeart: 5/05/2023 Hi Dive – Denver, CO 5/09/2023 Aces High Saloon – Salt Lake City, UT 5/10/2023 CRLB – Boise, ID 5/11/2023 Funhouse – Seattle, WA 5/12/2023 The Six – Portland, OR 5/13/2023 The Dip – Redding, CA 5/14/2023 Bottom Of The Hill – San Francisco, CA 5/15/2023 Cafe Colonial – Sacramento, CA 5/17/2023 Permanent Records – Los Angeles, CA 5/18/2023 Transplants – Palmdale, CA 5/19/2023 Tempe, AZ 5/20/2023 Sister Bar – Albuquerque, NM
ABRAMS’ most recent studio offering, In The Dark, was released last Fall via Small Stone Recordings. A fine-tuned, forty-five-minute sonic journey detailing the angers, fears, frustrations, and joys inherent in living in a world gone mad, In The Dark boasts cinematic guitar riffs, brooding leads, and addictive vocal hooks for a record that’s at once mature, polished, and intensely passionate. With hints of early AmRep mixed in with the larger sounds of ‘90s alt heroes Failure, Quicksand, and Hum combined that with the heaviness of recent Mastodon and stoner psychedelia of All Them Witches, ABRAMS delivers a distinct sound that’s fresh yet warrmly familiar.
In The Dark features cover art by Robin Gnista and is available on CD and digitally. A second vinyl pressing of the record in Red is also available. Find all ordering options at THIS LOCATION:https://smallstone.bandcamp.com/album/in-the-dark
Abrams is: Zach Amster – Guitars and Vox Taylor Iversen – Bass and Vox Patrick Alberts – Guitar Ryan DeWitt – Drums
Posted in Reviews on January 12th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
We press on, until the end, though tired and long since out of adjectival alternatives to ‘heavy.’ The only way out is through, or so I’m told. Therefore, we go through.
Morale? Low. Brain, exhausted. The shit? Hit the fan like three days ago. The walls, existentially speaking, are a mess. Still, we go through.
Two more days to go. Thanks for reading.
Winter 2023 Quarterly Review #81-90:
Farflung, Like Drones in Honey
No question Farflung are space rock. It’s not up for debate. They are who they are and on their 10th full-length, Like Drones in Honey (on Sulatron, which suits both them and label), they remain Farflung. But whether it’s the sweet ending of the “Baile an Doire” or the fuzz riffing beneath the sneer of “King Fright” and the careening garage strum of “Earthmen Look Alike to Me,” the album offers a slew of reminders that as far out as Farflung get — and oh my goodness, they go — the long-running Los Angeles outfit were also there in the mid and late ’90s as heavy rock and, in California particularly, desert rock took shape. Of course, opener “Acid Drain” weaves itself into the fabric of the universe via effects blowout and impulse-engine chug, and after that finish in “Baile an Doire,” they keep the experimentalism going on the backwards/forwards piano/violin of “Touch of the Lemmings Kiss” and the whispers and underwater rhythm of closer “A Year in Japan,” but even in the middle of the pastoral “Tiny Cities Made of Broken Teeth” or in the second half of the drifting “Dludgemasterpoede,” they’re space and rock, and it’s worth not forgetting about the latter even as you blast off with weirdo rocket fuel. Like their genre overall, like Sulatron, Farflung are underrated. It is lucky that doesn’t slow their outbound trip in the slightest.
Whether you want to namedrop one or another Coltrane or the likes of Amon Düül or Magma or whoever else, the point is the same: Neptunian Maximalism are not making conventional music. Yeah, there’s rhythm, meter, even some melody, but the 66-minute run of the recorded-on-stage Finis Gloriae Mundi isn’t defined by songs so much as the pieces that make up its consuming entirety. As a group, the Belgians’ project isn’t to write songs to much as to manifest an expression of an idea; in this case, apparently, the end of the world. A given stretch might drone or shred, meditate in avant-jazz or move-move-move-baby in heavy kosmiche push, but as they make their way to the two-part culmination “The Conference of the Stars,” the sense of bringing-it-all-down is palpable, and so fair enough for their staying on theme and offering “Neptunian’s Raga Marwa” as a hint toward the cycle of ending and new beginnings, bright sitar rising out of low, droning, presented-as-empty space. For most, their extreme take on prog and psych will simply be too dug in, too far from the norm, and that’s okay. Neptunian Maximalism aren’t so much trying to be universal as to try to commune with the universe itself, wherever that might exist if it does at all. End of the world? Fine. Let it go. Another one will come along eventually.
Four years after their 2018 self-titled debut (review here), Denver heavy rock and rollers Near Dusk gather eight songs across and smooth-rolling, vinyl-minded 37 minutes for Through the Cosmic Fog, which takes its title from the seven-and-a-half-minute penultimate instrumental “Cosmic Fog,” a languid but not inactive jam that feels especially vital for the character it adds among the more straightforward songs earlier in the record — the rockers, as it were — that comprise side A: “The Way it Goes,” “Spliff ’em All,” and so on. “Cosmic Fog” isn’t side B’s only moment of departure, as the drumless guitar-exploration-into-acoustic “Roses of Durban” and the slower rolling finisher “Slab City” fill out the expansion set forth with the bluesy solo in the back end of “EMFD,” but the strength of craft they show on the first four songs isn’t to be discounted either for the fullness or the competence of their approach. The three-piece of Matthew Orloff, Jon Orloff and Kellen McInerney know where they’re coming from in West Coast-style heavy, not-quite-party, rock, and it’s the strength of the foundation they build early in the opening duo and “The Damned” and “Blood for Money,” that lets them reach outward late, allowing Through the Cosmic Fog to claim its space as a classically structured, immediately welcome heavy rock LP.
The 2023 self-titled debut EP from Portland, Oregon’s Simple Forms collects four prior singles issued over the course of 2021 and 2022 into one convenient package, and even if you’ve been keeping up with the trickle of material from the band that boasts members of YOB, (now) Hot Victory, Dark Castle and Norska, hearing the tracks right next to each other does change the context somewhat, as with the darker turn of “From Weathered Hand” after “Reaching for the Shadow” or the way that leadoff and “Together We Will Rest” seem to complement each other in the brightness of the forward guitar, a kind of Euro-style proggy noodling that reminds of The Devil’s Blood or something more goth, transposed onto a forward-pushing Pacific Northwestern crunch. The hints of black metal in the riffing of “The Void Beneath” highlight the point that this is just the start for guitarists Rob Shaffer and Dustin Rieseberg, bassist Aaron Rieseberg and grunge-informed frontman Jason Oswald (who also played drums and synth here), but already their sprawl is nuanced and directed toward individualism. I don’t know what their plans might be moving forward, but if the single releases didn’t highlight their potential, certainly the four songs all together does. A 19-minute sampler of what might be, if it will be.
Probably safe to call Lybica a side-project for Justin Foley, since it seems unlikely to start taking priority over his position as drummer in metalcore mainstays Killswitch Engage anytime soon, but the band’s self-titled debut offers a glimpse of some other influences at work. Instrumental in its entirety, it comes together with Foley leading on guitar joined by bassist Doug French and guitarist Joey Johnson (both of Gravel Kings) and drummer Chris Lane (A Brilliant Lie), and sure, there’s some pretty flourish of guitar, and some heavier, more direct chugging crunch — “Palatial” in another context might have a breakdown riff, and the subsequent “Oktavist” is more directly instru-metal — but even in the weighted stretch at the culmination of “Ferment,” and in the tense impression at the beginning of seven-minute closer “Charyou,” the vibe is more in line with Russian Circles than Foley‘s main outfit, and clearly that’s the point. “Ascend” and “Resonance” open the album with pointedly non-metallic atmospheres, and they, along with the harder-hitting cuts and “Manifest,” “Voltaic” and “Charyou,” which bring the two sides together, set up a dynamic that, while familiar in this initial stage, is both satisfying in impact and more aggressive moments while immersive in scope.
Just as their moniker might belong to some lost-classic heavy band from 1972 one happens upon in a record store, buys for the cover, and subsequently loves, so too does Naples four-piece Bird tap into proto-metal vibes on their latest single Walpurgis. And that’s not happenstance. While their production isn’t quite tipped over into pure vintage-ism, it’s definitely organic, and they’ve covered the likes of Rainbow, Uriah Heep and Deep Purple, so while “Walpurgis” itself leans toward doom in its catchy and utterly reasonable three-plus minutes, there’s no doubt Bird know where their nest is, stylistically speaking. Given a boost through release by Olde Magick Records, the single-songer follows 2021’s The Great Beast From the Sea EP, which proffered a bit more burl and modern style in its overarching sound, so it could be that as they continue to grow they’re learning a bit more patience in their approach, as “Walpurgis” is nestled right into a tempo that, while active enough to still swing, is languid just the same in its flow, with maybe a bit more rawness in the separation of the guitar, bass, drums and organ. Most importantly, it suits the song, and piques curiosity as to where Bird go next, as any decent single should.
Without getting into which of them does what where — because they switch, and it’s complicated, and there’s only so much room — the core of the sound for Melbourne-based four-piece Pseudo Mind Hive is in has-chops boogie rock, but that’s a beginning descriptor, not an end. It doesn’t account for the psych-surf-fuzz in two-minute instrumental opener “Hot Tooth” on their Eclectica EP, for example, or the what-if-Queens–of–the–Stone–Age-kept-going-like-the-self-titled “Moon Boots” that follows on the five-song offering. “You Can Run” has a fuzzy shuffle and up-strummed chug that earns the accompanying handclaps like Joan Jett, while “This Old Tree” dares past the four-minute mark with its scorching jive, born out of a smoother start-stop fuzz verse with its own sort of guitar antics, and “Coming Down,” well, doesn’t at first, but does give way soon enough to a dreamier psychedelic cast and some highlight vocal melody before it finds itself awake again and already running, tense in its builds and overlaid high-register noises, which stand out even in the long fade. Blink and you’ll miss it as it dashes by, all momentum and high-grade songcraft, but that’s alright. It does fine on repeat listens as well, which obviously is no coincidence.
On. Slaught. Call it atmospheric sludge, call it post-metal; I sincerely doubt Philadelphia’s Oktas give a shit. Across the four songs and 36 minutes of the two-bass-no-guitar band’s utterly bludgeoning debut album, The Finite and the Infinite, the band — bassist/vocalist Bob Stokes, cellist Agnes Kline, bassist Carl Whitlock and drummer Ron Macauley — capture a severity of tone and a range that goes beyond loud/quiet tradeoffs into the making of songs that are memorable while not necessarily delivering hooks in the traditional verse/chorus manner. It’s the cello that stands out as opener “Collateral Damage” plods to its finish — though Macauley‘s drum fills deserve special mention — and even as “Epicyon” introduces the first of the record’s softer breaks, it is contrasted in doing so by a section of outright death metal onslaught so that the two play back and forth before eventually joining forces in another dynamic and crushing finish. Tempo kick is what’s missing thus far and “Light in the Suffering” hits that mark immediately, finding blackened tremolo on the other side of its own extended cello-led subdued stretch, coming to a head just before the ending so that finale “A Long, Dreamless Sleep” can start with its Carl Sagan sample about how horrible humans are (correct), and build gracefully over the next few minutes before saying screw it and diving headfirst into cyclical chug and sprinting extremity. Somebody sign this band and press this shit up already.
This is a rock and roll band, make no mistake. Berlin’s Scream of the Butterfly draw across decades of influence, from ’60s pop and ’70s heavy to ’90s grunge, ’00s garage and whatever the hell’s been going on the last 10-plus years to craft an amalgamated sound that is cohesive thanks largely to the tightness of their performances — energetic, sure, but they make it sound easy — the overarching gotta-get-up urgency of their push and groove, and the current of craft that draws it all together. They’ve got 10 songs on The Grand Stadium, which is their third album, and they all seem to be trying to outdo each other in terms of hooks, electricity, vibe, and so on. Even the acoustic-led atmosphere-piece “Now, Then and Nowhere” leaves a mark, to say nothing of the much, much heavier “Sweet Adeleine” or the sunshine in “Dead End Land” or the bluesy shove of “Ain’t No Living.” Imagine time as a malleable thing and some understanding of how the two-minute “Say Your Name to Me” can exist in different styles simultaneously, be classic and forward thinking, spare and spacious. And I don’t know what’s going on with all the people talking in “Hallway of a Thousand Eyes,” but Scream of the Butterfly make it easy to dig anyway and remind throughout of the power that can be realized when a band is both genuinely multifaceted and talented songwriters. Scary stuff, that.
Based in Kassel with lyrics in their native German, Holz are vocalist/guitarist Leonard Riegel, bassist Maik Blümke and drummer Martin Nickel, and on their self-titled debut (released by Tonzonen), they tear with vigor into a style that’s somewhere between noise rock, stoner heavy and rawer punk, finding a niche for themselves that feels barebones with the dry — that is, little to no effects — vocal treatment and a drum sound that cuts through the fuzz that surrounds on early highlight “Bitte” and the later, more noisily swaying “Nichts.” The eight-minute “Garten” is a departure from its surroundings with a lengthy fuzz jam in its midsection — not as mellow as you’re thinking; the drums remain restless and hint toward the resurgence to come — while “Zerstören” reignites desert rock riffing to its own in-the-rehearsal-room-feeling purposes. Intensity is an asset there and at various other points throughout, but there’s more to Holz than ‘go’ as the rolling “50 Meilen Geradeaus” and the swing-happy, bit-o’-melody-and-all “Dämon” showcase, but when they want to, they’re ready and willing to stomp into heavier tones, impatient thrust, or as in the penultimate “Warten,” a little bit of both. Not everybody goes on a rampage their first time out, but it definitely suits Holz to wreck shit in such a fashion.
Posted in Reviews on January 10th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Oh, hello. I didn’t see you come in. What’s going on? Not much. You? Well, you see, it’s just another 10 records for the Quarterly Review, you know how it goes. Yup, day seven. That’s up to 70 records, and it’ll keep going for the rest of this week. Have I mentioned yet I was thinking about adding an 11th day? What can I say, some cool stuff has come along this last week and a half since I’ve been doing this. Better now than in a couple months, maybe. Anyway, make yourself comfortable. Hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading.
Winter 2023 Quarterly Review #61-70:
Jason Simon, Hindsight 2020
What this sweetly melodic and delicately arranged 2022 collection lacks in marketing — the title Hindsight 2020 is accurate in that that’s when it was mostly recorded, but ‘let’s remember an awful time’ is hardly a way to pitch an audience on a vinyl — but as Jason Simon (also Dead Meadow) languidly meanders through covers of Tom Petty (“Crawling Back to You” becomes ethereal post-rock), Jody Reynolds & Bobbie Gentry, The Gun Club, Jackson C. Frank, Bert Jansch and John Prine, the latter of whom passed away after contracting covid-19, without the lockdown from which this record probably wouldn’t exist as it does. Probably not a coincidence. On banjo for three peppered-in originals starting with a relaxed mood-setting intro, as well as guitar, vocals, Moog, bass, Juno-60, and mandolin throughout, Simon and a few companions dig into these folk roots, making them his own and creating a whole-album flow for what might in less capable hands be a hodgepodge of competing influences. As it stands, by the time the melancholy strum of “October” takes hold, Simon has long since succeeded in creating a vibe that rightly has “Ghosts Gather Now” as its centerpiece, pulling as it does from these spirits to make something of its own. 2020 sucked; nobody’s arguing. But at least in hindsight something beautiful can come out of it.
Virginian trio Smoke cast an eye toward the trailblazing heavy psych of Sungrazer on “Temple” from their early 2022 debut album, guitarist Dalton handling the melodic vocals that will soon enough grow throatier in their passionate delivery, but even more than this, Groupthink sees the band — Dalton, guitarist Ben and drummer Alex; first names only — digging full-on into turn-of-the-century-style nodding heavy, shades of Man’s Ruin-era classics from the likes of Acid King, maybe even some of Sons of Otis‘ bombed-out largesse, showing themselves filtered through a next-generational execution, varied enough so as not to be single-minded in idolatry as “Davidian” picks up energy in its late solo, the 18-minute “One Eyed King” earns its lumbering payoff and lines of floating guitar, “The Supplication of Flame” arrives based around acoustic guitar forward in the mix ahead of the electrics (at least at first) and closer “Telah” basks in a righteous stomp that underscores the point. At 58 minutes, Groupthink isn’t a minor undertaking, but it is one of 2022’s most impressive debut albums and laced with potential for what may develop in their sound. It is stronger in craft than one might initially think, and has to be to hold up all that heft in its fuzz.
Not so much ’70s-style retroism as tapping into a kind of raw, ’90s heavy rock vision — Nebula, Monster Magnet, as well as Peru and greater South America’s own storied history of fuzzmaking — Rifle‘s Repossessed is relatively rough in its production, but as in the best of cases, that becomes a part of its appeal as the Lima-based three-piece of guitarist/bassist/vocalist Alejandro Suni, guitarist Magno Mendoza and drummer Cesar Araujo ride their riffs down the highway and into a fog of tonal buzz, fervent, butt-sized low end and druggy, outsider vibes. “The Thrill is Back” struts coated in road dirt as it is, and that thrill is found likewise in the scorch-psych of “Demon Djinn” and the earlier blowout “Fiend” that follows opener “Seven Thousand Demons” and sets a bluesy lyrical foundation so that six-minute finale “Spirit Rise” seems to offer some sense of realization or, if not that, then at least acceptance of this well-baked way of life. As the band’s first release, this late-2022 seven-song/32-minute offering feels ready to be pressed up on vinyl by some discerning purveyor, if not for the underlying desert rock drive of “Madness” then surely for the swing in “Sonic Rage,” and it’s one of those records that isn’t going to speak to everyone, but is going to hit just right for some others, dug as it is into a niche between what’s come before and its own encapsulation of a red-eyed stoner future.
If there should be any doubt that Indianapolis’ Mother of Graves are schooled in the sound they’re shooting for, let the fact that Dan Swanö (Katatonia, Opeth, on into infinity) mastered the recording/mix by the band’s own Ben Sandman make it clear where their particular angle on melancholic death-doom is coming from in its grim, wintry soul-dance. Where the Shadows Adorn follows 2020’s likewise-dead-on debut, In Somber Dreams (discussed here), but the stately, poised rollout of a song like “Rain” and the subdued sections before “Of Solitude and Stone” enters its last push, has all the hallmarks of forward growth in songwriting as well as in confidence on the part of the band. Front to back, Where the Shadows Adorn is deathly in its consumption, a fresh interpretation of a moment in history when the likes of Katatonia especially but also acts like My Dying Bride and others of the Peaceville ilk were considered on the extreme end of metal despite their sometimes-grueling tempos. The question remains whether this is where Mother of Graves will reside for the duration or if, like their influences, their depressive streak will grow more melodic with age. As it stands, adorned in shadow, their emotional and atmospheric weight is darkly majestic.
This self-titled four-songer is the first release from Helsinki, Finland’s Swarm, and though it’s billed as an EP, its 28 minutes are wrought with a substantial flow and unifying melodic complexity due both to the depth of vocal complementary arrangements between singer Hilja Vedenpää and guitarist Panu Willman, as well as the intertwining of Willman and Einari Toiviainen‘s guitars atop the rolling grooves of Leo Lehtonen‘s bass and Dani Paajanen‘s drumming; the whole band operating together with a sense of purpose that goes beyond the standard ‘riff out and see what happens’ beginning of so many bands. A line of rhythmic notes atop the riff in “Nevermore” around five minutes is emblematic of the flourish the band brings to the release, and one would note the grungier float in “There Again,” and the moodier acoustics of “Frail” and the more full-on duet in the verses of closer “We Should Know” — never mind the pre-fade chug that caps or the consuming heft offsetting those verses — as further distinguishing factors. Self-released in June 2022, Swarm‘s Swarm carries the air of a precursor, and though it’s not known yet to precisely what, the note to keep eyes and ears open is well received. To put it another way, they sound very much like they know what they want to be and to accomplish as a group. If they’re heading into a debut album next, they’re ready to take on the task.
The self-titled-era Alice in Chains-style vocals on Baardvader‘s second LP, Foolish Fires, make them a ready standout from the slew of up and coming European heavy rollers, but the Den Haag trio have a distinct blend of crunch in their tone and atmosphere surrounding that make a song such as “Understand” memorable for more than just the pleading repetitions of its title in the hook. Opener “Pray” sets a hard-hitting fluidity in motion and “Illuminate” answers back as it caps side A with (dat) bass and airy guitar in an open soundscape soon to be filled with a wall o’ fuzz and more dug-in grunge spirit. As they make their way toward the louder, vocally-layered, highlight-solo finish that the 10-minutes “Echoes” provides, there’s some trace of The Machine‘s noisier affinity in their tones on “Blinded Out,” including the solo, and “Prolong Eternity” culminates with intensity leading into the already-noted closer, but “Echoes” has the throatier shouts — like “Illuminate” before it — to back its case as the destination for where they’ve been headed all along, and works to send Foolish Fires out as a triumphant demonstration of Baardvader‘s appeal, which is relatively straightforward considering how much they nod along the way, their sound sharing grunge’s ability to be aggressive without being metal, heavy without being aggressive, and something of their own that still rings familiar. They’re just beginning to realize their potential, and this record is an important step in that process.
Rest easy, you’re in capable hands. And even if you didn’t hear Love Gang‘s 2020 debut, Dead Man’s Game (review here), the fact that the Denver four-piece went down to Austin, Texas, to record with Gian Ortiz of Amplified Heat producing tells you what you need to know about their boogie on Meanstreak. And what you need to know is largely that you want to hear it. As one might expect, ’70s vibes pervade the eight-tracker, which puts the guitars forward and de-emphasizes some of the organ and flute one might’ve encountered on their first LP, saving it for side B’s “Shake This Feelin’,” the six-minute stretchout “Headed Down to Mexico,” and the closing “Fade Away,” where it ties together with the thrust of earlier cuts like the circuitous “Blinded by Fear” (not an At the Gates cover, though that would be fun), or “Deathride” and the title-track, which shove shove shove as the opening pair so “Bad News” can complete the barnburning salvo. Tucked away before the finale is “Same Ol’ Blues,” a harmonica-laced acoustic cut dug out of your cool uncle’s record collection so that some day, if you’re lucky, some shitbird younger relation of yours may come along and find it here in your own record collection, thus perpetuating the cycle of boogie into perpetuity. Humanity should be so lucky.
The first and probably not last Astral Magic release of 2023, We Are Stardust, finds project-spearhead Santtu Laakso — songwriting, synth, bass, vocals, mixing, cover art, etc. — working mostly in solo fashion. Jonathan Segel of Camper Van Beethoven/Øresund Space Collective adds guitar and violin (he also mastered the recording), and Samuli Sailo plays guitar on “Drop It,” but the 11-song/60-minute space rocker bears the hallmarks of Laakso‘s Hawkwindian craft, the songs rife with layers of synth and effects behind the forward vocals, programmed drums behind bolstering the krautrock feel. There’s a mellower jam like “Bottled Up Inside,” which puts the guitar solo where voice(s) might otherwise be, and “Out in the Cold” touches loosely on Pink Floyd without giving over entirely to that impulse or meandering too far from its central progression, letting the swirling “Lost Planet” and “Violet Sky” finish with a return to the kosmiche of the opening title-track and “The Simulacra,” which feels almost like a return to ground after the proto-New Wave-y “They Walk Among Us,” though “ground” should be considered on relative terms there because by most standards, Astral Magic start, end, and remain sonically in the farther far out.
Thank You Lord for Satan, Thank You Lord for Satan
Self-recorded exploratory songcraft is writ large across the Buh Records self-titled debut from Thank You Lord for Satan — the Lima, Peru, two-piece of Paloma La Hoz (ex-Mitad Humana) and Henry Gates (Resplandor) — and the effect throughout the born-during-pandemic-lockdown eight-song offering is a kind of poised intimacy, artsy and performative as La Hoz handles most of but not all the lead vocals with Gates joining in, as on the moody shoegazer “Wet Morning” ahead of the pointedly Badalamenti-esque “Before EQ1.” Opener “A Million Songs Ago” is a rocker, and “Wet Morning” too in at least its including drums, but that’s only a piece of what Thank You Lord for Satan are digging into, as “Isolation” feels duly empty and religious and “Conversations al Amanecer” and “When We Dance” has a kind of electronic-inflected pop-psych at its core, willfully contrasting the folkish “Sad Song” (with Gates‘ lead vocal) and “Devine Destiny,” a side B counterpart to “Isolation” that reveals the hidden structure beneath all this go-wherever-ism, or at very least ends the album on a suitably contemplative note, some electronic snare-ish sound there rising in the mix before being cast off into the ether with the rest of everything.
Consider this less a review of The Corpse Vanishes, which is but a single Dec. 2022 three-songer among a glut of releases — including at least one more recent — from Herndon, Virginia’s Druid Stone available through their Bandcamp. The ethic of the band, as led by guitarist Demeter Capsalis, would seem to be as bootleg as possible. Shows are recorded and presented barebones. Rehearsal room demos like “The Corpse Vanishes” and “Night of the Living Dead” — which jams its way into “What Child is This” — here are as raw as raw gets, and in the 20-minute included jam on Electric Wizard‘s “Mother of Serpents,” which was recorded live on Dec. 2 and issued four days later, the power goes out for about three of the first five minutes and Capsalis, who has already explained that most of the band had other stuff to do and that’s why he’s jamming with two friends for the full set, has to keep it going on stage banter alone. Most bands would never release that kind of thing. I respect the shit out of it. Not just because I dig bootlegs — though I do — but because in this age of infinite everything, why not release everything? Don’t you know the fucking planet’s dying? Why the hell would you keep secrets? Who has time for that? Fuck it. Put it all out there. Absolutely. Whether you dig into The Corpse Vanishes or any other of the slew, you might just find that whatever you listen to afterward seems unnecessarily polished. And maybe it is.
