Posted in Whathaveyou on September 21st, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Two answers to questions nobody asked: First, yes, I am starting to feel a bit the broken record posting endless lists of everybody’s Fall 2023 European tour dates. Second, yes, I knew Domkraft‘s isn’t the most extensive list of shows that I’ve put up as part of that. It’s basically a weekender that starts tonight, a dream-team bill in Denmark with Conan and Slomatics — a power-riff triumvirate when you include Domkraft — and a fest in Germany and another show in Belgium in November. But it’s not a week on the road, 10 days, two weeks, etc. It’s what press releases used to call ‘select dates.’
I almost made that the headline, but didn’t want anyone to think I was trying to be a dick. You don’t see me announcing a three-week tour either. Domkraft‘s new album, Sonic Moons (review here) has only been out for a couple weeks, and if you haven’t heard it — oh, do — it’s of course down at the bottom there, and you should know that posting the player again is almost entirely the reason for this post. Yeah, Fall tour dates have become a theme around here lately. Fine. Here are some more.
The difference is these are Domkraft‘s.
From the PR wire:
DOMKRAFT announce European live shows following the release of acclaimed new album “Sonic Moons”!
DOMKRAFT have announced a first string of live shows in Europe following hot on the heels of the release of the Swedish psychedelic doom masters’ acclaimed new album “Sonic Moons”, which hit stores worldwide on September 8, 2023 via Magnetic Eye Records.
DOMKRAFT comment: “We always strive to make music that is close to our hearts without repeating ourselves”, singer and bass player Martin Wegeland writes. “As we see it, if you want to hear something that sounds like our debut ‘The End of Electricity’ that album is already there to be listened to. We try to keep things fresh by taking different routes, inviting new elements into the toolbox that we start from, and it has been a pure joy to see how well received ‘Sonic Moons’ has been. Almost overwhelming, to be honest. Now we want nothing more than to go out and play these songs live. We’e starting with a select run of shows this autumn, and will cover much more ground on the live front in 2024.”
DOMKRAFT Live
21 SEP 2023 Oslo (NO) Vaterland 22 SEP 2023 Linköping (SE) The Crypt 23 SEP Malmö (SE) Plan B 21 OCT 2023 København (DK) Loppen +Conan +Slomatics 17 NOV 2023 Halle (DE) Deep Sound City Fest V 19 NOV 2023 Liege (BE) Kultura
Line-up Martin Wegeland – vocals, bass Martin Widholm – guitars Anders Dahlgren – drums
Posted in Reviews on September 14th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Sonic Moons commemorates the moment when a riff becomes the Riff. The fourth full-length from Swedish trio Domkraft — the stable lineup of bassist/vocalist Martin Wegeland, guitarist Martin Widholm and drummer Anders Dahlgren — is a seven-song/47-minute meditation on nod. As Domkraft have emerged to portray their own vision of psychedelic noise rock and melodic, atmospheric sludge, they haven’t wanted for variety, and they don’t here either as nine-minute cuts “Whispers” and “The Big Chill” bookend a procession that is no less at home casting deep spaces in its mix than honing catharsis via crush.
But Sonic Moons also has this groove. This ur-groove. It is primal, lurching, undulating. Much of the second half of “Whispers” is given to floating lead guitar, but earlier in the track, as all the ambience seems to solidify in the build at about two minutes in and tensely chug through the verse, right at 2:30 it kicks in, and it’s not a full minute before the band are back in the chug from whence they came, but they’ll break up those solos with a reprise and it’s how they end the song as well. It becomes a thread that runs across the album. It’s never quite the same, can be fast like in the barrage shove at the start of “Stellar Winds,” or expansive like when it comes out of the solo in “Magnetism.” It can be the foundation, like in the very-purposeful-seeming centerpiece “Slowburner,” or a blowout like in “Downpour,” maddeningly tense in “Black Moon Rising” and it helps put the crescendo of “The Big Chill” over the top in paying off the entire album while moving deeper into heavy psychedelia than the band have ever gone.
It is able to do all these things, this groove. It is Domkraft‘s own, and it’s never sounded more like a signature than it does here. You understand, I’m not saying Domkraft only have one rhythm. I’m saying that Sonic Moons taps into that node in your brain where the australopithecus once danced to two rocks banged together in time. Each track has its own intention, but feeds into an overarching flow that draws the songs together. A complete work derived from its individual pieces. The Riff becomes the theme around which the material is united. And as themes go, whoever came up with ‘kickass riffs exclusively’ should probably get a trophy.
The album is an accomplishment toward which Domkraft have been steadily building. Clearly working with the production team of Kalle Lilja and Per Stålberg at Welfare Sounds in Gothenburg — they helmed 2021’s Seeds (discussed here) and the band’s 2022 split LP with Slomatics, Ascend/Descend (review here) — and the also-returning Karl Daniel Lidén for mixing and mastering suits them. And Sonic Moons is a step forward from Seeds, which was a step forward from 2018’s Flood (review here), and so on back to 2016’s The End of Electricity (review here), but there will be recognizable elements in some of the harsher vocals, the tonal breadth and the upside-your-head nature of the riffing, but Domkraft are more psychedelic in passages of “The Big Chill” and “Whispers” (thinking the midsection in the latter) than they’ve ever outwardly been, and “Downpour” is heavy space rock à la Monster Magnet that feels like it’s hit the big finish by the time it’s halfway through and only grows more cacophonous from there. Even the cover art by Björn Atldax is in keeping with the spirit of what Domkraft have done before while making it own impression.
Trippy, vast, intermittently sprawling though Sonic Moons is, it’s also grounded in the post-hardcore/noise rock sludge of the band’s roots, and that serves them in their heaviest reaches, whether it’s the start of the extra-noisy “Stellar Winds” or the way “Magnetism” grows epic in its chorus like something New Zealand’s Beastwars might conjure, but churning, and part of that whole-album theme in its riffing. “Slowburner” is a landmark for the release as an entirety in no small part because it seems to strip away everything else that the other songs are doing, whether it’s the airy leads or some other exploration, and bask in the purity of its crunch.
But it wouldn’t be a landmark without those other songs around it, and much of the material throughout Sonic Moons interacts in that way, tracks enhancing each other, working off each other, complementing or contrasting like the dizzying finish of “Downpour” stopping cold as the clarity of the intro to “Black Moon Rising” is counted in, seeming to have discovered an extra layer of thickness as it revives the telltale nod following the closest thing to a departure therefrom. Or without the complexity of the shifts in “The Big Chill,” bass and drums mellowing ahead of the suitably massive peak as the vocals, not the guitar, put it over the top and the guitar sneaks a little melodic resonance into the last 30 seconds or so of the closer, as if to say thanks for coming and they’re not done yet.
That may well be the case and nothing on Sonic Moons leaves one thinking Domkraft are finished growing. If anything, the organic nature of how they’ve done so to this point — four LPs of steady, unforced evolution — sets them up for the longer-term progression that would already seem to be playing out. Their take has become more individualized with time and more malleable, and these tracks magnify what has worked to distinguish the band for the last seven years while actively pushing themselves further as musicians and songwriters.
Domkraft have more space than ever before, and they hit harder. They’re more melodic, but arguably more furious as well. It is so much to their credit that these notions that should be in conflict are not when one actually hears the record, and that Domkraft don’t come out of Sonic Moons sounding like anybody more than themselves. This is an act who’ve taken the time to develop their point of view on the kind of music they want to play, and who are able to reshape that perspective in service to their songs.
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 14th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Their 2021 album, Seeds (discussed here) was still fresh in memory when in 2022, they partnered with Slomatics for the best short release of last year, the split Ascend/Descend (review here) on Majestic Mountain Records. They covered each other’s songs. The art ruled. I did the liner notes for it and I think I wound up with three copies — at least two — of the vinyl because of the generosity of all parties involved, both bands and the label. If you’re me — and good on you that you’re not — there was nothing not to like. Accordingly, the news that the Göteborg three-piece will issue their fourth long-player, Sonic Moons, on Sept. 8 in continued cooperation with Magnetic Eye has just about made my day, and all the more so since the single they’ve unveiled along with the details of the album, the centerpiece “Slowburner,” is such a banger.
Just dive in. You won’t regret it. The vocals in the first couple minutes remind me of something. Something older, throaty, kind of a gruff bub-bub-bub I’m hearing in my head that I can’t place. Something American, maybe UK. It’s not Mark Lanegan, something more underground. Was it the 2011 Amebix record? I can’t figure it out and it’s driving me up a fucking wall. I’ll be sure to either chase it down or forget the entire question before I review the record, which I’m already looking forward to doing after hearing the single. [EDIT: It was Beastwars on the vocals.]
Also, check out that friggin’ cover art. Domkraft covers are always awesome. I think I fought this thing yesterday in Zelda. The PR wire sent this one with the info:
DOMKRAFT reveal first single ‘Slowburner’ and details of forthcoming new album “Sonic Moons”
Release date: September 8, 2023
Swedish psychedelic doom masters DOMKRAFT have released the relentless new track ‘Slowburner’ as the first single from their highly-anticipated fourth album “Sonic Moons”, which is slated for release September 8.
DOMKRAFT discuss the forthcoming album: “The theme of ‘Sonic Moons’ is not as much space as the title might suggest, it is essentially all about escapism”, singer and bass player Martin Wegeland writes. “To find that spot in your head and body where you can feel liberated and, if only briefly, escape the constant flood of burden that is life in the real world. Think of ‘Sonic Moons’ as a pill blister pack, where each song has its own active ingredient. Or an imaginary solar system where each track is its own planet. A galaxy of tunes, with different gravity, different temperatures. A riff- and rhythm-fueled exploration of inner and outer space. It’s about longing, hope, frustration, relief, and some plain old mindfucking. All by means of heavy rock.”
DOMKRAFT elaborate about the single: “Of all the songs on the new album, ‘Slowburner’ is probably the most straightforward, as it revolves around a grinding yet kind of catchy riff”, Martin Wegeland continues. “It’s a straight-up heavy rock song about suddenly realizing that you’re drifting into an expanding black hole, be it in a physical or spiritual sense. It could be a fragmented stream of thoughts from someone who is in and out of consciousness, adrift in a galactic escape pod, or it could be what keeps an insomniac earthling awake, given the state of everything.”
Tracklist 1. Whispers 2. Stellar Winds 3. Magnetism 4. Slowburner 5. Downpour 6. Black Moon Rising 7. The Big Chill
Recorded by Kalle Lilja and Per Stålberg at Welfare Sounds, Gothenburg, Sweden Mixed and mastered by Karl Daniel Lidén Cover artwork & layout by Björn Atldax
Line-up Martin Wegeland – vocals, bass Martin Widholm – guitars Anders Dahlgren – drums
