Durham, North Carolina’s Tooth will release their self-titled debut album on Oct. 17. And it’s a familiar enough story. Sure, you know how it goes. Band comes out of the gate roaring and gnashing teeth, kicking unbridled ass on a local/regional basis, builds some momentum with early EPs and then 16 years go by and they eventually put out a first album. Wait, that’s how it goes, right?
Okay, fine. So maybe the six songs and 36 minutes of Tooth — led off by “Howl,” which premieres on the player below — require a bit of context, and honestly, knowing they have their roots in the early/mid-aughts codification and ascent of what at the time was called ‘progressive sludge’ very much in the aftermath of Mastodon‘s Remission LP, which is a touchstone for Tooth in the pummel and headturning twists of “Assimilation,” where “Howl” digs in with more volatility and threat in its slowdown — more sludge, in other words. Not a complaint.
Topped off by J-me Guptill‘s mostly but not exclusively high-register, sharptooth screams, the cuts become all the more cutting, one into the next, with “Phineas” sampling Pet Sematary on the way to nestling into angularity in a way that reminds of the lessons Lord Dying learned from Voivod, en route to “Mordrake,” which is more blanketly aggressive in its High on Fire-ry charge and murderous theme; preface there to “Lobotomobile” later on. The going is fluid, often shoved along at a pace that feels fervent without giving up precision, and though I wouldn’t accuse anybody here of pretending it’s 2005 instead of whatever wretched year it is, the fact that these guys were plodding around the sweltering Southeastern Seaboard at the time is evident in their sound today.
And the razor-sharp riffing of Ben Wilson and Richard James (and I don’t feel back using such a hackneyed description; 20 years ago it might’ve been original), with guitars intertwining, splitting up to cover more ground, coming back together for all-the-more-craterous impacts underscored by bassist Ryland Fishel and drummer Noah Kessler like in the early slowdown of “Howl” — don’t worry, the Today is the Day-informed arthouse noise skronk will be back soon — or the post-hardcore charge in closer “Ask the Octavian” that’s actually a swing groove at its root but somewhat harder to recognize while you’re being bludgeoned in the face. Funny how that works.
Along with crushing, the odd bit of stab’n’slice and just plain old running you over, bludgeonry is just one of the selection of methods by which Tooth might kill, but there’s more to the album and its songs than violence. These guys would’ve laid waste on a bill circa 2004 with Zoroaster, for sure. Maybe there’s somebody reading who went to such a show.
If so, that is, if you were there with Tooth during their initial run and the two short releases preceding this, no doubt there’s an extra element of nostalgic warmth to Tooth that just about nobody outside of the heavy underground would ever understand. If that’s you, that’s a good thing, but if not — and I won’t claim at all to have caught them circa ’09, and I was around — if it’s not too late for them to be putting out the record, surely it’s not too late for you to hear them for the first time.
To that end, “Howl” premieres on the player below. Please enjoy:
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 9th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Though it’s been streaming since I don’t know when — May? was it May? — the self-titled sophomore LP (review here) from not-all-Southern-sludge socially conscious four-piece Doomsday Profit will see its real-life arrival next Friday, Sept. 19. The celebration starts early, with shows this weekend in Virginia and the band’s native North Carolina. The weekender is one of a few they’ll do between now and the start of November, as the PR wire informs, and while I know it’s not the farthest-ranging tour ever, at least they’re getting out, and it is another excuse for me to post about the record before it’s released, so I’ll take that happily.
And I guess I did and here we are.
Context and such:
North Carolina sludge metal outfit DOOMSDAY PROFIT announce select Southeast dates in support of their forthcoming self-titled album
North Carolina’s Doomsday Profit have announced a run of Southeast shows for the Fall, promoting the band’s self-titled album, out September 19. Dates include a double-header in Virginia and North Carolina with D.C. grind ‘n’ roll veterans Drugs of Faith, as well as a mini-tour to Tampa Doom & Gloom Fest II with stops in Columbia, SC, Athens, GA, Gainesville, FL, and Tampa.
Full dates and album promos below.
Upcoming Shows
Sep. 12 – Lynchburg, VA – Super Rad Arcade (with Drugs of Faith, Septic Vomit, Palladists) Sep. 13 – Winston-Salem, NC – Hoots Beer Co. (with Drugs of Faith, Valletta, And I Become Death) Oct. 17 – Durham, NC – TBA Oct. 30 – Columbia, SC – The Space (with Prosperity Gospel, Zyphoid) Oct. 31 – Athens, GA – Cine (with Lungburner, False Gods) Nov. 1 – Gainesville, FL – The Atlantic (with Grave Filth, Seeker) Nov. 2 – Tampa, FL – Deviant Libation (Tampa Doom & Gloom Fest II)
There’s no time to waste. At least that’s how Doomsday Profit seems to be operating. After making their debut with the gritty stoner-sludge of 2021’s In Idle Orbit, the Durham, N.C.-based band issued 2024’s psych-leaning split with Virginia-based Smoke, and has kept the momentum going ever since. With their forthcoming self-titled album, Doomsday Profit now has embedded an even wider array of influences into their acerbic, dystopian sludge. Particles of monolithic doom, grisly death ‘n’ roll grooves, driving punk rock and scathing black metal all flash in the band’s raw self-titled LP.
Doomsday Profit: Ryan Sweeney – bass guitar Kevin See – lead guitar Bryan Reed – vocals & guitar David Ruiz – drums
North Carolinian sludge metallers Doomsday Profit will release their second, self-titled album on Sept. 19. That’s just under a month away, but as they premiere the video for “Sin Eater” below, they note that it’s also the “eighth and final” single from the record, so one would hardly accuse them of not putting their money where their mouth is either in terms of reaching out to fans or manifesting the progressive-in-thought-and-lunkheaded-of-riff ideology of their sound in the release process. Ethical consistency.
That is to say, it’s one thing to say you believe everyone should have free healthcare. It’s another to give away most of your album while doing so. The generosity on the part of the four-piece of guitarist/vocalist Bryan Reed, lead guitarist/vocalist Kevin See, bassist/vocalist Ryan Sweeney and drummer David Ruiz feels consistent with the positions taken throughout. Only opener “It’s Already Over,” with its Rwake-esque semi-spoken parts over squibbly guitars and furious toms, is held back from the nine-song/43-minute LP.
“Sin Eater” is the penultimate track on the album, and its metaphor of the privileged using the poor as toilet paper for their souls should not be lost on the age of private space programs and ICE raids now localized to your hometown. While steeped in Southern heavy and sludge as they were on their 2021 debut, In Idle Orbit (review here), with songs like the early pair of “Stargazer” and “Spirits” or the memorable repetitions of the title in the lyrics of “Doomsday Profit,” almost spit out by the end of the song in disgust.
They veer into metal, as with the breakdown chug of “Terror Cycle,” even a bit of death metal there — also in “Drive Into the Sun,” but I think it’s mostly because the sub-three-minute cut is so punk that heavy as Doomsday Profit play it, it kind of sounds like Entombed; that should be read as a compliment to the song — and contrast that with the more atmospheric reach of the 7:38 finale “Monument to Nothing,” where the solo gives over to a slowdown after about four and a half minutes in before the next scorcher lead takes hold, pushes the band to the brink, and turns back around to end slow and Sabbathy because at the end of the day, the riff.
It is a time for bold statements, however, and in that regard, “The South Will Sink” seems like the kind of thing that would result in online death threats (probably good PR) or being put on some vague watchlist. The lyrics marry the climate crisis to the vision of ‘the South will rise again’ post-Civil War rhetoric, pointing out the ridiculousness of the latter in the face of the former’s rising waters. “Your shallow history/Of purblind hate/Slips deep into the dark/Of your advancing fate.” Stylistically speaking, Doomsday Profit don’t give themselves a lot of space for grand manifesto making. The longest line there is five words. In that kind of situation, you have to make your word choices count, and they do. I had to look up “purblind.”
Heavy-handed? Heavy everything. “The South Will Sink” is emblematic in the sense of standing as representative of their sound while also encapsulating the point of view of the lyrics. A prior single and a handy what-it’s-all-about summary, it leads into the title-track as if the band wants to remind you who just said the thing. After this, the Yatra-style extremity worked into “Sin Eater” makes for a welcome face-peel, double-kick culmination and all.
Doomsday Profit are continuing to grow, and it might be that somewhere along the line they discover that their particular take on ‘Southern sludge’ actually sounds more like progressive death metal, but that’s years off and dependent on their creative path going in that direction, so don’t think I’m saying that’s how they sound now. But it’s in there, along with doom riffs, groove despondency, and a willingness to take a position politically where so many others keep their heads down either for concern for safety, hopelessness or apathy. Take your pick.
Doomsday Profit is less a vision of a better future than a glimpse of the cold realities under the microplastic’ed sheen of today. May they grow ever more class-conscious.
Enjoy the video:
Doomsday Profit, “Sin Eater” video premiere
Doomsday Profit on “Sin Eater”:
In case you aren’t aware of the history of sin eaters, it was a practice associated primarily with isolated towns in Wales and other parts of the British Isles — and in some parts of Appalachia, as well. The family of a recently deceased person would hire a sin eater — usually a poor and desperate person living on the fringes of the community — to consume a ritual meal of bread and beer that would also carry with it the sins of the deceased. This way, the dead person could be absolved and go on to Heaven, while the sin-eater would carry the sins upon their soul instead.
Historically, the sin eater was a pariah; a poor outcast exploited to do the work no one else could stomach. Ironically, despite their sacrifice, the sin eater was subsequently cast even further to the fringes of society for doing such unseemly work and being tainted with the sins of others.
For us, it was a compelling bit of historical lore that also seemed to work as an allegory for the ways in which the powerful continue to place blame and burden upon marginalized members of society, and exploit people’s labor and desperation to further enrich themselves. The video was produced and directed by Graydaughter Creative here in North Carolina. Bongfoot drummer Curry Davis plays the titular sin eater.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT:
There’s much grief and inner turmoil one eventually comes to terms with in the undertaking of servitude that no amount of selflessness and goodwill ever prepares you for.
Through this lens, “Sin Eater” dares to slip a bitter pill of transcendental tribulation, leaving one to ask if the extent of societal expectation of self-sacrifice in full submission to a noble good is reasonable, regardless of the toil taken upon its called steward. I think these themes are driven home well by the guys in this track.
Undeniably, it’s such a universally identifiable struggle that I hope the music video encapsulates and prompts new discourse surrounding this invisible tension and burden society often goes to great lengths to conceal, ignore, and ultimately take for granted. — Grayson Simon
VIDEO CREDITS:
Director, Director of Photography, Editor: Grayson Simon (@vernal.lamb)
On this recording, Doomsday Profit is: Bryan Reed (rhythm guitar/vocals), Kevin See (lead guitar/vocals), Ryan Sweeney (bass/vocals), and David Ruiz (drums).
Alright, day two. Here we go. I never really know how a given day of the Quarterly Review is going to flow until I get there. The hope is that in slating releases for a given day — which I mostly do randomly over time, though I generally like to lead with something ‘bigger’ — I’ve considered things like not putting too much that sounds the same together, geographic variability, and so on. Sometimes that plan works, and I get a day like yesterday, which was pretty close to ideal. If that was the pattern for this entire QR, I’d be just fine with that, but I know better. One day at a time, as all the inspirational tchotchkes say.
Feeling good though headed into day two, so I’ll take it.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
Blackwater Holylight, If You Only Knew
The narrative around L.A.-by-way-of-Portland’s Blackwater Holylight at this point is one of growth, and well it should be. At seven years’ remove from their self-titled debut (review here), the four-piece offer the four-song If You Only Knew — three originals and a take on Radiohead‘s “All I Need” — as something of a stopgap four years after their third LP, Silence/Motion (review here). And like that 2021 album, “Wandering Lost,” “Torn Reckless” and “Fate is Forward” see the band working to expand their sound. They’re not upstarts anymore, and the marriage of dream-pop and crush on “Wandering Lost” alone is worth the price of admission, never mind the downward swirl of “Torn Reckless” the melodic burst-through and quiet space of “Fate is Forward” or the explosion in the back half of the Radiohead tune. Pro shop, all the way.
There’s a deep current of Melvinsian quirk in Spider Kitten‘s thickly-riffed slog, and it’s in the creeper-into-noiseburst of “Revelation #1” with its later rawest-Alice in Chains harmonies as much as the false start on “Febrile and Taciturn” and a chugblaster like “Wretched Evergreen” which is just one of the six songs in the 14-song tracklisting under two minutes long. Throughout the 37 minutes, shit gets weird. Then it gets weirder. Then they do folk balladeering in “Sueño” for a minimal-Western divergence prefacing the later soundtrackery of “Woe Betide Me.” Then they’re back to bashing away — but at what? Themselves? Their instruments certainly. Maybe a bit of shaking genre convention if not outright, all-the-time defiance. The key blend is ultimately of the crunch in their guitar and bass tones and the melodies that come to top it — not that all the vocals are melodic, mind you — with a kind of creative restlessness that makes each cut find its own way through, some at a decent clip, to leave a dent right in the middle of your forehead.
Montreal three-piece Mooch align with Black Throne Productions for their fourth album release. The band, comprised of guitarist/bassist/vocalist Ben Cornel, guitarist/vocalist/bassist/keyboardist Julian Iac and drummer/vocalist Alex Segreti, have run a thread of quick, purposeful growth through the last several years, with 2024’s Visions (review here) following 2023’s Wherever it Goes following their 2020 debut, Hounds, and other singles and such besides. At their hookiest, in a piece like “Hang Me Out (False Sun),” they remind some of At Devil Dirt‘s heavy-fuzz poppy plays, but one knows better than to expect Mooch to be singleminded on an LP, and Kin plays out with according complexity, finding a particularly satisfying resolution in “Prominence” before hitting successive, different crescendos in “Lightning Rod,” “Gemini” and the eight-minute “Zenith” to end the record. A band who genuinely seem to follow where the material takes them while refusing to get lost on the way.
I’m not a punker. I was never cool enough to listen to punk rock. Generally when I hear something that’s rooted in punk and it lands with me, I assume that means the band are doing punk wrong. If so, I like the way Snakes & Pyramids do punk wrong on Disappearer. The tonal presence, their willingness to make not-everything be exactly on-the-beat, the liberal doses of wah treatment on the lead guitar to give a psychedelic edge, the effects on the vocals helping that as well, plus the flexibility to roll out a heavy riff. There’s not a whole lot to not like as they push genre limits across 38 minutes and eight songs, finding space for post-punk in “Disappearer” or “All the Same” before they really dig in on the near-eight-minute closer “Seven Gods.” For future reference, the band is the doubly-Brian’ed three-piece of Brian Hammond (ex-The Curses), Brian Connor (ex-Motherboar) and Cavan Bligh. Psychedelic punk, even more than punk-metal or any other way you might want to try to blend it, is incredibly difficult to pull off well. That seems much less the case here.
Unbelievable Lake, I Have No Mouth and Yet I Must Scream
There is only one song on I Have No Mouth and Yet I Must Scream, and it’s the title-track. At 41 minutes long, that’s all you need, and Northern Irish psych-drone experimentalists Unbelievable Lake — think Queen Elephantine, but longer-form, more effects on the guitar, and dramatic in the ebbs and flows — the first 10 minutes are a movement unto themselves, with a linear build into a consuming payoff; due comedown provided. Those comparatively still stretches can be some of the most difficult for a band who’ve just blown it out to dwell in, but Unbelievable Lake use negative-space as much as crush to make their way toward the next culmination, which sort of gradually devolves instrumentally but makes its way along the path of residual noise toward one last round of pummel. You bet your ass they make it count. This is a significant accomplishment, and enough on its own wavelength that most ears will glaze over to hear it. But there’s just the right kind of brain out there for it, as well. Maybe that’s you.
Krautfuzz scorch the ground on the 23-minute “Live at the Church A” to such a degree that I’m surprised there was anything left to plug in for when they bring out J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. and Witch to take part in “Live at the Church B,” let alone a full album-unto-itself 39 minutes’ worth of go. Rest assured, there’s plenty of noiseshove in “Live at the Church B” as well, and it arrives quicker than in the preceding slab, guitar running forward and back in loops even before the swirl cuts through the fuller distortion surrounding at about seven minutes in, howls and wails and wormholes and spacetime bend inward, flex outward, breathe like the cosmic microwave background, and the exploration continues after the rumble (mostly) subsides, getting ready to sneak in one more mini-freakout before they’re done. Damn, Krautfuzz. Save some lysergic push for the rest of the class. Or better, don’t. Clearly they were rolling out the ‘red carpet’ for Mr. Mascis. It just happened to be red from all the plasma churning thereupon.
Even before they get to the six-and-a-half-minute “The Door” or the dreamy midsection of closer “Medusa,” London’s Sleeping Mountain demonstrate patience in their delivery early on with the instrumental-save-for-the-sample leadoff “Humans” and “Walls of Shadows,” which leads with guest vocals before the full tonal crux of the riff is unveiled, and continues in methodical, doom-leaning fashion. That’s a vibe that doesn’t necessarily persist as the later “Akelarre” puts the cymbals out front and pushes a more uptempo finish ahead of the closer “Medusa,” but the dude-twang “Alibi” and the all-in nod of “Tennessee Walking Horse” underscore the message of dynamic, and while this self-titled may be the first album from Sleeping Mountain, it portrays the three-piece as confident in their approach and sure of their direction, even if they’re not 100 percent on where that direction is going. Nor should they be. They should be writing the songs and letting the rest work itself out over time, which is what you get here. They sound like a band I’ll still be writing about in a decade, so I guess we’ll see how it goes.
Behold the awaited first album from Durham, UK, sludge-doom, put-a-pillow-over-your-face-and-it’s-made-of-riffs betrayers Goblinsmoker. Dubbed The King’s Eternal Throne and indeed capping with the three-minute minimalist homage “Toad King (Forest Synth Offering),” the preceding title-track works its way from its more poised opening into an engrossing meganod of hairy-ass distortion, with the later-arriving throatripper screams ready for whatever Dopethrone comparison you want to make, and no less sharp in the biting. Of course, by the time they get to that third-of-four inclusions, this has already been well proven on side A’s “Shamanic Rites” and “Burn Him,” the leadoff holding to a steady and malevolent lumber while the follow-up takes a faster swing to upending witchy convention as the vocals offer the most vicious devourment I’ve heard from an English band since Dopefight roamed the earth. Down with humans. Up with toads. Familiar enough in its sludgy roots, The King’s Eternal Throne makes its own trouble like dog food makes gravy (with added liquid, in other words), and basks in heaps of shenanigans besides. The songs are like slow-motion razor juggling.
The three-song sophomore full-length, Shrine, from Italian heavy progressives Onioroshi is the band’s first outing since 2019’s debut, Beyond These Mountains (review here), and is duly adventurous for that. Set up across “Pyramid” (18:18), “Laborintus” (15:35) and “Egg” (20:31), the album feels cohesive in refusing to be anything other than one it is. Its psychedelia is met with fervent terrestrial groove, and “Laborintus” spends most of its 15 minutes sounding like it’s about to fall apart, but never does. Duh, should I call it expansive? The truth is at 54 minutes, it’s a significant undertaking, but “Laborintus” ends up thrilling for the element of danger, and though raw in the production, “Egg” builds its own world in atmospherics, pushing further in the ebbs and flows of “Pyramid,” which itself takes loud/quiet trades to a less-predictable place. Some of Shrine feels insular, but that seems to be the point. A creative call to worship, and maybe worshiping the creativity itself.
Whoa. First of all, with Tempus Deorum, you’ve got L’Ira del Baccano. The Roman psychedelic explorers follow 2023’s Cosmic Evoked Potentials (review here) with the 19-minute piece “Tempus 25,” an ether-bound reach that hypnotizes well ahead of unveiling its full tonal breadth and even crushes a bit before receding ahead of the next go. With synth cascading through the midsection and a duly expansive build that hits two more climaxes before it’s through, “Tempus 25” sets itself up in contrast to Tilburg, the Netherlands’ Yama, whose 2014 debut, Ananta (review here), is well remembered as they offer three songs “Wish to Go Under,” “The Absolute” and “Naraka,” that feel more solidified in their structure but that offer complement to “Tempus 25” for that. Not short on scope themselves, Yama let the chug patterning and vocal soar of “The Absolute” stand in evidence of their progressivism, and after 11 years, they sound like they have more to say. One only hopes that’s the case all around on this somehow-tidy, 35-minute split LP.
Posted in audiObelisk on February 12th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
North Carolinian heavy progressive cosmic rockers Voidward will release their new three-songer, Occult Symmetry, on Feb. 21. As the follow-up to their 2022 self-titled LP (review here), the 19-minute outing is of course less substantial in runtime, but as the premiering-A/V-below lead cut “Light Rider” (4:33) — followed immediately by “Dark Miracle” (4:49) with “Plowman (Transmission to the Limerent Object)” (9:50) rounding out — demonstrates, the band are continuing to grow and develop their sound. Worth noting is that Occult Symmetry, in addition to the self-titled, also follows the Nov. 2024 four-song outing, The Plowman 11th Anniversary Series Macro-Single, which took the original “The Plowman” from the band’s 2013 debut EP, Knives, and reinterpreted it across four different versions, the first and most limerent of which is shared with the new EP as well.
That all gets kind of complex, and even more so when one considers Knives‘ foundation in black metal and sludge, but in the ensuing 12 years, Voidward have become a different band. Tonally, Occult Symmetry is less metal even than was the self-titled, and the guitar is able to reach that much farther in “Plowman” or “Dark Miracle” for that, the latter an intended complement to “Light Rider” and the redux’ed former standing on its own in runtime and maybe on side B of an imaginary 10″, if you prefer to think of it that way. There’s still plenty of distorted buzz, but the vocals lean more toward heavygaze and spaceprog than the rasp of the original “The Plowman,” and the intention feels more toward fluidity and a Pallbearer-esque wistful vocal melodicism takes hold amid the post-midsection chug. To compare, “Light Rider” tells its story in start-stop declarations drawing from and mellowing-out classic metal with a gentle push of groove in the chorus. There’s plenty of presence, no shortage of tonal weight, but “Light Rider” could just as easily be named for the fashion in which it carries its hook across to the listener. Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, shred, chorus, end — it’s pretty straight-ahead in terms of structure, and though it has its own procession, “Dark Miracle” is a suitable companion piece, like weirder, more patient Danava on a trip of ’70s/’80s metallurgy. Catchy like Scorpions, it is.
It’s all part of a plan the Durham-based trio are unfolding. I won’t pretend to understand it; hell, on my first read of the press release below, I thought Occult Symmetry was a three-song full-length, so there’s my depth of knowledge for you. As you can see, it’s kind of cryptic, but whatever The Void Cycle might be, Occult Symmetry is positioned as a “prelude” to it, and what comes through clearly in these tracks is the ongoing growth and exploration being undertaken by the band. This is an evolutionary process playing out in their songwriting that’s audible across their releases to-date, and their willingness to revisit older material with a fresh emotion and perspective speaks to the open nature of their creativity that’s let them evolve in the first place. They have chased their sound to this point; I will not speculate where it might lead them from here, whether that’s a second album or not.
“Light Rider” premieres on the players below, audio and video, followed by more from the PR wire.
Please enjoy:
Voidward, “Light Rider” video premiere
Voidward, “Light Rider” track premiere
Hailing from Durham, NC, the mysterious Voidward embraces all that is heavy, wrangling relentless riffs against swirling rhythms through shimmering psychedelia. High concept/low brow guitar+bass+drum epics with vivid vocal melodies and harmonies.
‘Occult Symmetry’ is a fully realized composition, divided into two movements: Light Rider and Dark Miracle. Light Rider and Dark Miracle are two entities engaged in a timeless orbit throughout existence, forever compelled and eternally repulsed by the same desire: Completion in the presence of one another. The Void Cycle is an epic poem describing the culmination of The Void as we know it in the separation of LightRider and Dark Miracle. Occult Symmetry is the prelude to The Void Cycle.
Preceding Occult Symmetry, Voidward released The Plowman 11th Anniversary Edition including a special Desert Bloom edition!
This version of The Plowman is the second installment in the Voidward Macro-Single Series. This is a series of re-inventions on the theme of The Plowman from The knives EP, and when complete, 11 editions of the Plowman will be available through various formats. This is the 11th Anniversary Edition, made available for a limited time to commemorate the upcoming Micro-Album “Occult Symmetry”
The Plowman 11th Anniversary Edition is the response to the initial call of The Void. The mysteries of Occult Symmetry are ahead. The Plowman knows the way.
The Void is heavy, both as a concept and an entity. Voidward is the only way we can experience that heaviness in our current state of consciousness. Sound is the only medium we have access to that, like The Void, is both physical and metaphysical.
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 22nd, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Heralding bruiser sludge in follow-up to their 2024 split with Smoke, North Carolinian four-piece Doomsday Profit unveil the eponymous first single from their upcoming self-titled sophomore LP. I don’t see a release date yet for the album, but the record’s done and they posted a song from it, so, you know, the promotional cycle has begun. April? June? You never really know, of course.
There’s some outward harshness — nothing untoward if you heard the split — but a hook is a hook and that’s working in Doomsday Profit‘s favor. The affect isn’t quite the next-gen sludge party Leather Lung are calling for, but there’s a strong learning-from-the-past-and-moving-forward current in “Doomsday Profit,” and for sure that’s a thing to dig.
Info and the lyric video follow, as per the PR wire:
‘
New Single and Lyric Video from NC sludge/doom outfit DOOMSDAY PROFIT
Doomsday Profit (Durham, N.C.) is pleased to announce the release of “Doomsday Profit,” the first single pulled from a new full-length album of the same name, due out later this year.
Barely letting the dust settle on last year’s split with Virginia psych-doom titans Smoke (Olde Magick Records), Doomsday Profit is ready to showcase the next era in the band’s sound. Recorded in summer 2024, “Doomsday Profit” is a long-gestating thesis statement, with pointed lyrics giving life to the band’s moniker, and a monolithic, minimalist arrangement mining the purest ores of sludge and doom.
Regarding the song, the band offers the following statement:
“Doomsday Profit” was one of the first songs we wrote, and we always pictured it as a sort of thesis statement. Lyrically, at least, we were trying to marry the political vitriol of our favorite hardcore punk with the senses of dread and inevitability that course through the best doom metal. How else are you supposed to feel when you can watch, in-real time, as the string-pullers of global policy, the heads of major business and government, continue to casually ignore every warning of catastrophe, just so they can squeeze a little more blood and money out of the third stone from the sun? We’re all doomed, and they’re the reason.
Musically, it took us a while to find the right way to deliver “Doomsday Profit.” It just didn’t feel complete, so we shelved it. When David Ruiz joined the band, we revisited it, and ended up paring down the arrangement. In keeping it a little simpler, it felt like it hit harder, and the lyrics could stand out a bit more. Another lesson from punk rock, it seems.
This is the version of “Doomsday Profit” we’re glad to present to you today, Inauguration Day in the USA. And as we send this, things are still looking pretty bleak. But one thing this band has proven to us, over and over again, is we’re not alone in our fear, or our anger, or our resolve to live the best lives we can while we can. This one’s for all of us.
Love, Doomsday Profit
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There’s no time to waste. At least that’s how Doomsday Profit seems to be operating. After making their debut with the gritty stoner-sludge of 2021’s In Idle Orbit, the Durham, N.C.-based band issued 2024’s psych-leaning split with Virginia-based Smoke, and has kept the momentum going ever since. With their forthcoming self-titled album, Doomsday profit now has embedded an even wider array of influences into their acerbic, dystopian sludge. Particles of monolithic doom, grisly death ‘n’ roll grooves, driving punk rock and scathing black metal all flash in the band’s raw self-titled LP.
As ever, Doomsday Profit has a finger pointed squarely at the powers that be, but they’ve also learned to turn their ire inward, and balance their vitriol with melancholic nuance. This broader approach has turned their already dynamic performances into a must-see, with a live resume that includes Hopscotch Music Festival and Seismic Summer, as well as supporting slots with established acts like Thou, The Obsessed, Black Tusk, REZN, and Restless Spirit.
On this recording, Doomsday Profit is: Bryan Reed (rhythm guitar/vocals), Kevin See (lead guitar/vocals), Ryan Sweeney (bass/vocals), and David Ruiz (drums).
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 14th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
If you’re skimming through the below and find yourself a little crossed up, the deal is this: Voidward have a new release coming out. It follows their 2022 self-titled (review here), is called Occult Symmetry, and is being released Feb. 21.
In addition to this, they’ve also got a four-songer called The Plowman 11th Anniversary Edition (streaming below) that takes the opening track from the band’s original 2013 debut EP, Knives, and expands on it in multiple directions and with varied intent in atmosphere and volume. The band have said they want to do revisit the entire EP this way, which is kind of an otherworldly undertaking, but far be it from me to complain.
The ‘macro-single,’ as they’ve dubbed it, is a fascinating project, but don’t be confused into thinking that (presumably any of the versions of) “The Plowman” will make it to Voidward‘s eventual sophomore full-length. Even so, the spirit of adventure represented here does much to remind of what appealed about the first album ahead of the second, so everything works out one way or the other.
The PR wire has details:
PRESS RELEASE: NC heavy psych band VOIDWARD to release new album February 21st, 2025
Hailing from Durham, NC, the mysterious Voidward embraces all that is heavy, wrangling relentless riffs against swirling rhythms through shimmering psychedelia. High concept/low brow guitar+bass+drum epics with vivid vocal melodies and harmonies.
‘Occult Symmetry’ is a fully realized composition, divided into two movements: Light Rider and Dark Miracle. Light Rider and Dark Miracle are two entities engaged in a timeless orbit throughout existence, forever compelled and eternally repulsed by the same desire: Completion in the presence of one another. The Void Cycle is an epic poem describing the culmination of The Void as we know it in the separation of LightRider and Dark Miracle. Occult Symmetry is the prelude to The Void Cycle.
Preceding Occult Symmetry, Voidward released The Plowman 11th Anniversary Edition including a special Desert Bloom edition!
This version of The Plowman is the second installment in the Voidward Macro-Single Series. This is a series of re-inventions on the theme of The Plowman from The knives EP, and when complete, 11 editions of the Plowman will be available through various formats. This is the 11th Anniversary Edition, made available for a limited time to commemorate the upcoming Micro-Album “Occult Symmetry”
The Plowman 11th Anniversary Edition is the response to the initial call of The Void. The mysteries of Occult Symmetry are ahead. The Plowman knows the way.
The Void is heavy, both as a concept and an entity. Voidward is the only way we can experience that heaviness in our current state of consciousness. Sound is the only medium we have access to that, like The Void, is both physical and metaphysical.
Posted in Reviews on October 31st, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Everybody wins. As Smoke from Richmond, Virginia, and Doomsday Profit from Durham, North Carolina, join forces for a six-song split LP under the banner of Olde Magick Records, neither misses the opportunity to showcase a distinctive voice within the sphere of Southern heavy and sludge metal. Taken as a whole, the split runs 35 minutes, and so is fairly concise, but that is plenty of time enough for both four-pieces to establish an atmosphere and give listeners a look at where they’re at in terms of sound and what they’re bringing to the style. In the case of Smoke, the bluesier swamp-psych of eight-minute opening track (also the longest; immediate points) “Appalachian Black Magic” — one’s brain wants to add a ‘k’ there too, but no, it’s just the regular ol’ magic-y kind of magic — creates an immediate sense of space in the mix, building up fluidly as a rolling haze might, setting the tone for the arrival of the vocals, which are effects-treated but not nearly as blown-out as they get.
Guitarist/vocalist Dalton Huskin (also Sun Years), who did the cover art for both sides, has a steady presence in the song, and without tipping into hey-whoa-mama-yeah cliché or chestbeating hyper-dudery, he, lead guitarist Ben Gold, bassist Stephen Tyree and drummer Alex Thurston branch off from the the sometimes noisy take the band has presented to date on their 2022 debut full-length, Groupthink (review here), which, no worries, is well represented here as “Scavenger” and “Hellish Rebuke” follow the expansive and lumbering slowdown finish of “Appalachian Black Magic” with a harder-hitting and rawer-feeling scathe. “Scavenger” in particular brings to mind a swinging interpretation of Unsane‘s ’90s-era assault, but tonally, in the impact of Thurston‘s kick and the punch of Tyree‘s bass that seems to be brought even further forward in “Hellish Rebuke,” the mini-set builds on the dynamic that the album laid out and, nasty or vibing, sounds like the work of a band actively engaged in their own growth. Recorded at Fainting Goat Studios and by Scotty Sandwich at The Sandwich Shoppe, mixed by Ben McLeod (All Them Witches) and mastered like both sides of the release by the esteemed Mikey Allred at Dark Art Audio, theirs is one of two strong showings here.
The other, of course, is from Doomsday Profit, who answer Smoke‘s next-gen stylizations with their own complementary take in “No Salvation,” “I Am Your God” and “Void Ritual.” While not a stated trilogy so far as I know, the three seem to set up a linear narrative across the split’s shorter half, running on either side of five minutes apiece and seeming to hold in reserve a particular vitriol for the closer. Fair enough for the bludgeoning. Last heard from with 2021’s In Idle Orbit (review here), Doomsday Profit drop the plague-horseman noms de guerre they used at the time in favor of presenting the lineup as guitarist/vocalist Bryan Reed, lead guitarist/vocalist Kevin See, bassist/vocalist Ryan Sweeney and drummer Tradd Yancey, who also recorded (and mixed) at The Sandwich Shoppe, and the straightforwardness of that shift in mindset does nothing to lessen either the pestilential extremity they wield in their sound or the outright lumber of their growl-topped riffing, as the early nod in “No Salvation” makes clear from the start.
In Doomsday Profit too, though, one can hear the affect of fresh ideas being brought to long-tenured genre parameters. Doomsday Profit are neither entirely doom, nor sludge metal, and though “I Am Your God” wants nothing for an overarching sense of bite as it unfurls grueling, chug-offset nod, the shift the band undertakes to a more meditative sound from the initial pummeling wrought is not to be discounted either in the smoothness of its transition or the hurdling of imaginary barriers it makes. Amid about 15 minutes of music — outside of it being a single extended piece, which isn’t what’s happening; these are individual songs that tie well together — it can be difficult to harness a sense of linearity, but by the time Doomsday Profit arrive at “Void Ritual,” the gnashing going on under the more open-feeling riffing creates an atmosphere that feels earned by the breadth of the two cuts prior; the languid malevolence and weighted chug in the last moments of “I Am Your God” before the concluding cymbal wash feel like a step along the path to where the finale goes. Just because it’s brutal doesn’t mean it can’t be spacious, and vice versa.
Again, the entirety of the split is still on the shorter end of full-length, and nothing contained within is so overblown as to feel needlessly grandiose — Doomsday Profit‘s lurch requires a certain stateliness of posture, and if you’re going to declare to someone, “I am your god,” over and over, you probably want to sound serious — and while they’re in pursuit of different aesthetic goals, Smoke and Doomsday Profit both show themselves to be groups continuing to discover who they are and just how far their reach can go in songwriting. I’ll spare you genre-type hyperbole about remaking Southern metal in their image, both because who cares and because it feels premature, but each of these two acts brings a distinct creative voice (and no, I’m not just talking about vocals) to the proceedings in commanding style, and each seems to have a better idea of who they are and want to be as a group than they had a couple years ago. They are growing bands. They have grown and will hopefully continue to do so.
At the same time, there’s more substance to this release than the potential of those who’ve made it, by which I mean that whatever Doomsday Profit and Smoke may or may not do over the next few years of their respective tenures, their contributions here are significant and not to be ignored in the face of resounding statements to come. They are not necessarily alone in expanding the scope of what a term like ‘Southern heavy’ can encompass, but this shared release highlights those efforts in ways that are undeniably righteous, in addition to being forward-thinking.
whatever wretched year it is, the fact that these guys were plodding around the sweltering Southeastern Seaboard at the time is evident in their sound today.
