Posted in Whathaveyou on March 14th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
As you can see on the poster below, DVNE aren’t exactly taking it easy this coming Spring. They’ll be on the road from May 1 to June 1 with festival dates thereafter as they continue to support their 2024 album, Voidkind (review here), which I’m happy as hell to have an excuse to put on this afternoon while I write about the tour.
I’ve been lucky enough to see DVNE twice over the years and if all goes according to my evil plan I’ll see them again on this run at Desertfest Oslo, and Voidkind is part of the reason I’m so much looking forward to that. As precise as DVNE are on the record, I’ve never heard them put anything to tape they couldn’t do from the stage, and so I find myself hoping very much that songs like “Eleonora” or “Sarmatæ” make it into the setlist. Fingers crossed.
I don’t know Allochiria, but given the other three who’ll be supporting DVNE along the way — Pothamus, Sunnata and Pijn — I should probably get on that.
No text list of the shows that I saw — bad for archiving, easy for social media posting; nobody thinks long-term, including me or I’d be printing ‘zines in my basement — but the poster has it and I know you’re perfectly capable of checking local listings, and so on. Here’s the announcement from socials:
⚔️ European Spring/Summer Tour Update ⚔️
More shows, tour supports & new art! We will finally play in the Balkans with shows in Ljubljana, Zagreb, Novi Sad and Sofia before we head to Greece.
Vienna—after last year’s flooding, we said we’d run it again! Excited to finally make it up to you!
We will also hit a few festivals this summer with Rock For People, Alcatraz Festival, and ArcTanGent, with more festivals to come.
Joining us along the way: ⚫️ Pothamus (Belgium & Netherlands) ⚫️ SUNNATA (Poland) ⚫️ Allochiria (Balkans & Greece) ⚫️ Pijn (Haarlem) + Local supports to be announced
Posted in Features on December 19th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
[PLEASE NOTE: These are not the results of the year-end poll, which ends in January. If you haven’t contributed your picks yet, please do so here.]
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Hi, and welcome to The Obelisk’s year in review for 2024. This is a thing that’s kind of developed over the 15-plus years the site’s been in operation, and it’s something that people sometimes tell me has been a help when it comes to finding new music. I know for myself as well, I’ve referred back to these lists a lot in subsequent years, to see where bands were and where my head was, and so on. Are best-of lists meaningful, at all, in any way? Probably to the person making them, and that’s me, so I’ll proceed.
I thought the format last year worked pretty well, so I’ve hijacked it for use here. Not something I expect anyone to notice, but I did want to mention it on the off-chance. I don’t have a best live album of the year, but there are a few worth talking about, surely.
It’s been a busy, fast year. The barrage of music is overwhelming — and as problems go, that’s among the best ones to have — but I do think we’re seeing some tapering off. Generational turnover is, in fact, a constant, but the 2020s are taking shape now with bands who started making their name around the mid-2010s shifting into headliner status, new bands coming up beneath, more diverse in sound and construction, and with new ideas. This isn’t universal, but it is the ideal vision of the thing. Circle of life and such.
But it’s a lot. Including the 50-releases-strong Quarterly Review last week, I’m well north of having reviewed 400 total different mostly-full-lengths since January. That’s insane. The math is obvious, but I’ll point out anyhow that you could buy an album for every day of the year and have enough for an extra month-plus afterward. An astonishing amount of music, and I’m by no means reviewing everything.
Which brings me to the inevitable last point. I haven’t reviewed everything. If you’re here wondering where Opeth and Blood Incantation are landing on my list, they aren’t. Nothing against either of them, I just haven’t dug into the records since I knew I wouldn’t be reviewing them. The regular standard of doing as much as I can, when I can, about as much as I can, applies.
Please if you disagree with some pick below or other — and if you do, that’s healthy — I kindly ask you to keep things civil in the comments. I’m not here to call people out on enjoying things I don’t — fascism aside — and I know it makes me sad when I break my ass for days to put this together and the first comment is, “NO [WHOEVER]. LIST SUCKS. NEVER READING THIS FILTH AGAIN,” etc. Before you comment, please take a second to read what you put back to yourself for kindness. That’s good for spelling too, not that I’d know.
That’s all the stalling I can do. Time to dive in. Happy holidays.
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The Top 60 Albums of 2024
**NOTE**: If you’re looking for something specific, try a text search.
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60-31
60. Psychlona, Warped Vision
59. Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships, The Mind Like Fire Unbound
58. Massive Hassle, Unreal Damage
57. Temple of the Fuzz Witch, Apotheosis
56. Space Shepherds, Cycler
55. Abrams, Blue City
54. Castle Rat, Into the Realm
53. Heath, Isaak’s Marble
52. Weite, Oase
51. Cosmic Fall, Back Where the Fire Flows
50. Troy the Band, Cataclysm
49. Sunnata, Chasing Shadows
48. Skraeckoedlan, Vermillion Sky
47. Acid Mammoth, Supersonic Megafauna Collision
46. Deer Creek, The Hiraeth Pit
45. Big Scenic Nowhere, The Waydown
44. Grin, Hush
43. The Swell Fellas, Residuum Unknown
42. The Gates of Slumber, The Gates of Slumber
41. Coltaine, Forgotten Ways
40. Mountain of Misery, The Land
39. Mammoth Volume, Raised Up by Witches
38. Delving, All Paths Diverge
37. High on Fire, Cometh the Storm
36. Thou, Umbilical
35. The Giraffes, Cigarette
34. Fu Manchu, The Return of Tomorrow
33. Full Earth, Cloud Sculptors
32. Daevar, Amber Eyes
31. Causa Sui, From the Source
Notes:
Just in case you’re the type of person who’d say, “Oh how could you have a top 60? after a certain number it’s all the same,” I’ll admit that’s true, but 60 is apparently nowhere near the ‘certain number’ in question for me this year. I agonized over this part of the list. More than the top 30, and more than picking a best short release, best debut, or anything else. I wanted basically a second top 30, and I feel like if I saw this as that, as 30-1, I’d congratulate whoever submitted it on their taste. But maybe that’s just me agreeing with myself.
I like the mix of up and comers and established acts here. Sunnata and Skraeckoedlan, The Giraffes, of course High on Fire, Deer Creek and so on, mixing with up and comers like Full Earth, Daevar, Acid Mammoth, Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships, Heath, Troy the Band and Weite. I feel somewhat compelled to justify my High on Fire placement, especially looking at the results so far of the year-end poll. They’re amazing, they’re devastating, they’re a singular live act, but I just didn’t listen to the record that much. There. A big part of me feels like it should be top 10 just by virtue of who the band are, but if I did that for everybody who deserved it, I wouldn’t have room for anything new. All I can do is be honest to my own listening habits and opinions. I know High on Fire are really, really good. I know this album is really, really good. That’s why it’s on this list. Should it be higher? Probably. I’m doing my best.
Thank you for your kind attention in this matter. Also, listen to The Giraffes.
You won’t hear me say a downer word about An Earlier Time‘s quieter stretches, but it’s the sweeping moments like “Limitless” that find Boston’s Sundrifter making the most resonant impression. Their third full-length and the follow-up to 2018’s Visitations (review here), it was a strong declaration of who Sundrifter want to be as they continue to grow, and deserved more love than I saw that it got.
Oh, look out for Mr. Blogosphere. He’s out here taking a real risk putting Tranquonauts on the year-end list, like the combining of forces between Melbourne, Australia, heavy psych blues rockers Seedy Jeezus and guitarist Isaiah Mitchell wasn’t gonna work the second time around? Wow, Mitchell‘s and Lex Waterreus‘ guitars sure do sound awesome together. Oh — it’s a hot-take! Better get your react videos ready. The internet is terrible. This album offers escape from it.
At the risk of having to give back my Music-Journalism-Level membership to the Sycophant Society, I’ll dare to point out that Chat Pile are way, way hyped. That happens sometimes. It’s not like they’re out there being like, “Hey we’re the noise rock white dudes shifting paradigms for noise rock white dudes, best in a generation.” It’s people like me with all the hyperbole and comma splicing. I get that too. It’s a sound geared toward inciting a strong reaction, from the sneering sarcasm of the title down. By the way, am I the only one who looks at the title Cool World and thinks of the 1992 semi-animated film of the same name? I kind of hope so. See? Big feelings all around.
Rest assured, I don’t, but if I had any friends, I’d be like, “Hey, you should check out this band Gnome from Belgium. They’ve got fun riffs and they beat you over the head with them until you remember them by heart.” And these ‘friends’ would be all, “Wow man, that sounds definitely like something I would ever want to introduce to the scope of my life experiences! Thank you! I’m so glad to be your friend and the world is definitely a better place with you in it.” And then everybody’s day is better, all because of sharing and the shenanigans-laced riff metal proffered by these three behatted miscreants from Antwerpen.
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26. Brant Bjork Trio, Once Upon a Time in the Desert
Brant Bjork‘s solo band begat Stöner, and Stöner begat Brant Bjork Trio as Bjork, drummer Ryan Güt and bassist Mario Lalli (Fatso Jetson, Mario Lalli and the Rubber Snake Charmers, Yawning Man, etc.). I’ll cop to being a nerd for Brant Bjork‘s output generally — it’s a kind of cool so definitively Californian, my NJ-ass self can’t help but admire it — but the chemistry in Once Upon a Time in the Desert is on point to an undeniable degree, and the songs are a reminder of how the back catalog got so strong in the first place. What else could you want?
Five albums in, a post-arrival Sergeant Thunderhoof stand ready. They know who they are, what they want their songs to do, why and how to make it happen. The Ghost of Badon Hill gives a conceptual focus to unite material intentionally sprawling, and lets listeners immerse in a narrative all the more easily for the quality of its songcraft. Self-recorded, it is masterful in performance and assured of its execution, pored over but not overworked; the happy accidents might have been left in on purpose, but they still sound like accidents. And Sergeant Thunderhoof still sound like a band driving themselves toward the unknown.
Doom metal is lucky to have Early Moods laying out a template for the next generation to hopefully follow. The Los Angeles five-piece’s second full-length, A Sinner’s Past, refined the lurch of their 2022 self-titled (review here), and the combination of hard touring and progressive craft continues to bode well as they look toward their next offering. They’ve put in their work, however swift their ascent to this point might feel, and they’re about one great record away from standing among the best doom of the 21st century. You could easily argue they’re already there. Every reason is accounted for on A Sinner’s Past.
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23. Morpholith, Dystopian Distributions of Mass Produced Narcotics
Iceland’s Morpholith enter the conversation with Dystopian Distributions of Mass Produced Narcotics, which has cosmic-doom breadth and bong-metal crush to spare in the first four minutes of “Psychophere” alone, never mind anything that surrounds. The band’s debut is a bombastic plodder, beating out the march to a futuristic — and cold — vision of the riff-filled land that may or may not be Reykjavik in the wintertime while simultaneously being both very much of weed and not outwardly about it, seeming to have much more than addled, Mid Atlantic Ridge-heavy riff worship because — look out! — they do. If cosmic doom is ever going to be more than a loose thread connecting YOB and Ufomammut, bands like Morpholith need to keep pushing it forward like this. “Dismalium.” I dare you.
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22. Lamp of the Universe Meets Dr. Space, Enters Your Somas
Lamp of the Universe is multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer and vocalist Craig Williamson, based in New Zealand. Dr. Space is synthesist, keyboardist, producer, bootlegger and bandleader Scott Heller. The ‘meeting’ of these two expanded minds takes place over two extended tracks, one vinyl side per, of lush psychedelic and multi-tiered drones, absolutely perfect for the zone-out hypnosis you’ve been trying to put yourself in all day but for that pesky consciousness. I wish I could come up with some kind of ritual awesome enough for the keyboard textures in “Enters Your Somas” or the propulsive space rock thuddenchug of “Infiltrates Your Mind,” but some sounds are just too cool for the planet. Come see how the freaks get down.
I spent some significant time with Dool‘s The Shape of Fluidity this Spring, before and after seeing them at Roadburn (review here), which was another highlight of the year. The album’s triumph, in songwriting, in transcending genre bounds and in conveying its theme of breaking loose from the gender binary, gave my parent-of-a-trans-kid self a hopeful vision of a future beyond dark, hateful rhetoric or implied/real violence. It showed me a possible path to victory on what will be and already is a hard road. It was there when I needed it, which is a specific ideal of art providing care. I’ll never forget that.
Granted the Western soundscaping at the outset of the eponymous “Buzzard” lays it on thick, but it’s supposed to! We’re talking fire-and-brimstone earthbound Americana folk with a doomly rhythmic cast, given the self-aware title of Doom Folk by the solo artist Buzzard, aka Christopher Thomas Elliott, laying it on thick is the point. Elliott has a follow-up out soon already. Thinking of Doom Folk as the beginning of a creative progression makes its nuance and individualist drive even more exciting, but the rawness of this debut, the straightforwardness of its structures and the resulting memorability are part of the appeal for sure.
Seven bangers. Not a dud in the bunch. Two nine-minute songs and you still couldn’t say a moment of High Desert Queen‘s rightly anticipated sophomore LP is wasted. Not when you’re building up to the roll of “Head Honcho,” certainly. The Texas outfit built on the good-time largesse and party-but-not-a-party-so-cool-you-don’t-feel-welcome vibing of 2021’s Secrets of the Black Moon (review here) and set themselves vociferously to the task of being the change in heavy rock that they wanted to hear. Palm Reader‘s infectiousness is a strength, both in terms of a catchy piece like “Ancient Aliens” or “Time Waster,” and also in the overarching positive-framed mood and heart so clearly put into the material.
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18. Ufomammut, Hidden
Released by Supernatural Cat and Neurot Recordings. Reviewed May 21.
Now a quarter-century on from their start, Italian trio Ufomammut have yet to put out a record that didn’t sound like a forward step from the one before it. And Hidden is their 10th album. The band are progenitors and refiners of a cosmic doom sound that is unto itself, and cuts like “Kismet” and “Leeched” manage to be both lumbering in their massive-tone grooves and sprawling with a synthy ambience that, though certainly influential, is immediately recognizable as Ufomammut. Hidden is part of a creative trajectory, to be sure, and the arc is ongoing, but there’s more than enough substance here to leave a crater behind in the listener’s brain.
In its arrangement as five separate dreams taking place over its component tracks, the only thing Pentasomnia doesn’t take into account is that another Iota LP was a dream all on its own even before music actually happened. A full 16 years after shaking the galaxy’s core with their 2008 debut, Tales (discussed here, and here), the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Joey Toscano (Dwellers, Hibernaut), drummer/producer Andy Patterson (The Otolith, ex-SubRosa, etc.) and bassist Oz Yasri (ex-Bird Eater) making a comeback — let alone it actually being good — was nigh on unthinkable. Then you heard “The Intruder” and reality shifted just a bit. Pretty sweet.
Few albums in 2024 were as entrancing as Langt, Langt Vekk, the hopefully-not-a-one-off collaboration between Norwegian progressive heavy instrumentalists Kanaan and neofolk contemporaries Ævestaden. Both adventurous outfits in their own right, the combination of elements, from live drums and synth to traditional plucked strings and Norwegian-language vocal choruses, works stunningly well. That little bit of fuzz in “Habbor og Signe,” or the cymbal wash behind “Dalebu Jonsson” — the songs are full of these little nuances or flourishes waiting to be found, but even with the most superficial of listens, the achievement resounds, whether one approaches from a viewpoint of heavy rock, prog, folk or psychedelia.
You know, I’ve kind of dug DVNE records all along, and I can’t really call Voidkind a surprise after 2021’s Etemen Ænka (review here), but these songs — “Eleonora,” “Sarmatae,” “Abode of the Perfect Soul,” among others — hit me much harder than I had expected, and the more I listened to try to twist my head around “Reliquary,” the more the album as a whole revealed of its character and detail. I review a lot of stuff, and I hear more than I review, so I don’t always get pulled back by every record, but Voidkind kept calling for return visits.
Look. If you’re reading this, I know I don’t have to tell you about Orange Goblin. Even if you don’t already have a soft spot for the long-running UK doom rockers, they’re perfectly happy to pummel one into you with Science, Not Fiction, their first album since 2018 and a realignment toward a harder-edged heavy rock sound, where the last, say, two records had leaned more metal. I heard some griping about the production not helping, but I heard absolutely nothing to complain about here. The band are on fire and the recording shows it, the songs aren’t necessarily any great progressive leap but for sure they’re Orange Goblin songs, and for a band who owes nobody proof of anything, they set a high standard and deliver accordingly, like god damned professionals should.
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13. Spaceslug, Out of Water
Released by Electric Witch Mountain Recordings. Reviewed May 14.
What I didn’t get about Spaceslug until I finally saw them live at Desertfest New York (review here) was just how metal the impact of their songs can get. It’s not necessarily that they’ve grown more aggressive, unless you want to incorporate harsh vocals or shouting — “Tears of Antimatter” also has gently-delivered barely-there spoken word, so it depends on the story you want to tell — but the blend of melancholic doom, heavy psychedelia and melodic fluidity that has become Spaceslug‘s stylistic wheelhouse is not to be missed. Out of Water finds them at their broadest and least concerned with genre, and brings into relief how special a band they’ve become. Also it rocks.
No secret how Craneium are doing it on Point of No Return; it’s right there in the songs. All of them. “One Thousand Sighs,” “The Sun,” “A Distant Shore,” “…Of Laughter and Cries,” “Things Have Changed” and “Search Eternal.” Texture and hooks, heft and scope and melody and crash and shove, classy progressive execution and swaggering conjurations. Most of all, songs that stay with you. Chances are, if you heard this record and gave it its due attention at some point in your time with it, you didn’t have to do much more than read the titles to have the tracks playing in your head. That’s not a coincidence. It’s craft. It’s a willful outreach on the part of the band and material. It’s what makes you want to sing along. And why would you not?
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11. Guhts, Regeneration
Released by Seeing Red Records and New Heavy Sounds. Reviewed Feb. 5.
More on it below, but for the moment, suffice it to say that the bludgeoning and/or scathe of Regeneration at its most intense and the depths its mix seemed to find, the debut full-length from New York post-metallers Guhts dared visceral emotionality in a way few records so heavy could or would hope to. The willing-to-break-her-voice-if-necessary performance of Amber Gardner and the weighted undulations surrounding from guitarist Scott Prater, bassist Daniel Martinez and drummer Brian Clemens, the open sway, unfettered crush, and quiet spaces offsetting all that bombast result in both a chaotic feel and an applicable world. Therefore it must be modern. Fine. It sounds like the future.
As to how Philadelphia’s Heavy Temple managed to fit so much swagger onto a single platter, you’d have to ask them, but their second album, Garden of Heathens, landed hard in tone and attitude alike. Songs like “Extreme Indifference to Life,” “House of Warship” and the galloping payoff of “Jesus Wept” ahead of the thrashy finale “Psychomanteum” affirmed what was set out in 2021’s Lupi Amoris (review here) and their earlier short releases while marking out and conquering decisively new territory in their sound. I know it was recorded two years ago or something like that, but it’s still a band beginning to realize their potential in craft and performance, and if a third LP happens sooner than later, so much the better.
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9. 1000mods, Cheat Death
Released by Ouga Booga and the Mighty Oug and Ripple Music. Reviewed Nov. 11.
Whether one embraces Cheat Death because the songs kick ass or because 1000mods are so vivid and uncompromising in pushing themselves forward from release to release, I don’t think you’re wrong. The forerunners of their generation in Greek heavy rock remain among the finest Europe’s heavy underground have to offer, and the atmosphere they’re able to conjure alongside the straight-ahead Matt Bayles-produced punk-metal hooks of these songs is emblematic of why. Without ever giving up their foundation in heavy rock, 1000mods have consistently refined their processes and grown as songwriters. The joke of Cheat Death is how alive the material feels.
Faced with the considerable task of following up the to-date album of their career, Elektrik Ram (review here), just one year later, South African heavy rockers Ruff Majik did not flinch. Instead, Moth Eater takes the outright charge and sharpness-minded efficiency of its predecessor in a stated trilogy that began with 2020’s The Devil’s Cattle (review here) and sets it as the foundation for a confident, creative growth and sustainable expansion of sound. They’re a little more willing to dwell in parts, and they’re well aware of how catchy they can be, but also, they know the power of momentum and they’re fully in control of the narratives they’re telling. As Moth Eater readily demonstrates, it’s hard to know which of that it is that makes them most dangerous.
It’s hard to overstate the accomplishment of Nell’ Ora Blu, and I’m well aware that the critical sphere is full of plenty who’ve spent the better part of 2024 trying. Reasonable. The completeness of the world Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats built in the work based around the concept of soundtracking a giallo film that didn’t exist was singularly evocative. With original dialogue recorded (in Italian) specifically for ‘movie’ ambience, Uncle Acid took what had always been an influence on the band’s sound within genre-cinema and its methods of storytelling, and flipped the process on its head by creating its own story. Their influence is already well spread throughout the heavy underground, for sure, but in bringing a vision to life, this might be the album Uncle Acid have been working toward all along.
A forward-thinking masterwork from even before “Deadname” sneaks a layer of acoustic guitar under the mountain of distortion in the verse lines and “Arrival” and “Transitions” give evocative chronicle to the album’s trans-experiential theme — it is the band’s first since guitarist/vocalist Simona Ohlsson transitioned, and admirable for both its projected triumph and vulnerability around that — the fifth full-length from Vokonis continues the progressive path they have walked for the last decade-plus. A lineup change has brought some shift in dynamic, but a new strength of voice behind the material that makes “Phantom Carriage,” “Chrysalis,” and, suitably enough, “Arrival,” feel like a declarative pinnacle, and having something to say makes the raw impact of its heaviest moments all the more powerful.
There’s little funnier to me about heavy rock as it exists in 2024 than the idea that Greenleaf would be a band people take for granted. “Oh, Tommi Holappa and Company putting out another collection of classic-heavy and blues-rocking bangers? Business as usual, I guess.” Until you listen to the album, maybe. Then you get the tumble of “Avalanche,” the hooks in “Breathe, Breathe Out,” and “A Wolf in My Mind,” the subdued-bluesy pair “That Obsidian Grin” and “An Alabastrine Smile” to remind how you much this band has been able to grow since Arvid Hällagård made his first appearance with them a decade ago, the way they’re able to move through a jam and land in a groove as solid as “Oh Dandelion,” reminiscent of Clutch in its start-stop funk but defined by its own persona. Every Greenleaf record is a gift. If feeling that way means I’m not impartial, good. We understand each other.
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4. Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol, Big Dumb Riffs
Promises made, promises kept. Austin-based crunch purveyors Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol stripped any and all excess out of their approach on Big Dumb Riffs, resulting in a quick-feeling collection of memorable, heavy tracks that, whether fast like “1800EATSHIT” or slow like “In a Jar,” are united in the album’s central stated purpose. Already an established brand of heavy revelry, the three-piece didn’t change anything radically in aesthetic terms, but the songs found their target one after the other, front to back, and were clever and well composed, however willfully lunkheaded the central riffery might have been. They’re headed to Europe in Spring, and I’m already hearing rumors of a next record, so keep an eye out in 2025.
Slomosa‘s released-in-2020 self-titled debut (review here) was a salve to many in troubled times, representing a next-generation hope for underground heavy in energetically-delivered, classic-feeling songs. Tundra Rock, which gives a name to the band’s style seemingly in direct answer to anyone who might class them as ‘desert,’ confirms the Norwegian four-piece at the forefront of an up and coming cohort of younger acts beginning to find their expressive modus and step beyond their root influences. Tundra Rock finds Slomosa doing this while giving their dual-vocal live dynamic vibrant studio representation and growing their material in character and melody alike. Heavy rock and roll is Slomosa‘s for the taking.
A record that didn’t need to be loud to be heavy, Brume‘s Marten is without question my most-listened-to album of 2024. That needs no qualifying. I had high expectations going into it after seeing the San Francisco band at Desertfest New York 2022 (review here), and Marten surpassed every hope I might’ve been able to harness for it and then some. The collective voice of the band incorporating multiple viewpoints from bassist/vocalist/keyboardist Susie McMullan, guitarist/vocalist Jamie McCathie, drummer Jordan Perkins Lewis, and in her first appearance as a full-on member of the band, cellist/vocalist Jackie Perez Gratz (Grayceon, Amber Asylum, etc.), resulted in a fluid but deeply divergent collection, comprised of songs that went where they wanted to go — or didn’t, thank you very much — according to their own whims and purposes. It is a landmark for Brume and, if any number of subgenres are lucky, a blueprint from which others will hopefully learn.
I acknowledge breaking my own rules here — splits are always, until and including this year, categorized as short releases in these lists — but when it came to it, the thought of putting Elephant Tree and Lowrider‘s The Long Forever anywhere else, considering it as anything else, seemed ridiculous. Especially if you count writing the liner notes for it, I’ve gone on at length about the release as an intersection of crucial moments for the respective bands, with Lowrider following their first album in 20 years, Refractions (review here), and Elephant Tree answering the progressive statement of their own second LP, Habits (review here), both released in 2020. The storyline gets deeper as Elephant Tree also look to reestablish themselves following a near-fatal accident suffered by guitarist/vocalist Jack Townley, melding rawness of tone with lush vocal harmonies, and Lowrider drag fuzz-rock traditionalism kicking and screaming into a reality of being both fun and intelligent. There ultimately was nothing else to call The Long Forever than the album of the year. If that comes with an asterisk because it’s a split, it doesn’t lessen the effect of hearing it at all. So yeah, I’m breaking the rules of the game. I’m inconsistent. Unprofessional. Biased. I don’t know what to tell you except love makes you do crazy things. In these songs themselves — do I even need to talk about the collaboration — and in the drive behind them, that’s what most resonates here.
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The Top 60 Albums of 2024: Honorable Mention
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If the 60 above wasn’t enough, here are more leads to chase down, alphabetical but in kind of a hyper-specific, ass-backwards-seeming way:
Acid Rooster, Alber Jupiter, Altareth, Alunah, Astrometer, Bismarck, Black Capricorn, Blasting Rod, BleakHeart, Blue Heron, Bongripper, Boozewa, Caffeine, Carpet, Castle, Cleen, Clouds Taste Satanic, Codex Serafini, Cold in Berlin, Cortez, The Cosmic Dead, Crypt Sermon, Daily Thompson, Deadpeach, Deaf Wolf, Demon Head, Destroyer of Light, Dopethrone, Duel, Earth Ship, Elephant Tree, Emu, Familiars, Bill Fisher, 40 Watt Sun, Ghost Frog, Goat Major, Guenna, Heath, High Reeper, Hijss, Horseburner, Ian Blurton’s Future Now, Insect Ark, Inter Arma, Kelley Juett, Juke Cove, Kalgon, Kandodo, Kant, Kariti, Kungens Män (x2), Kurokuma, Leather Lung, Legions of Doom, Lord Buffalo, Magic Fig, Magick Brother & Mystic Sister, Magick Potion, Magmakammer, Mammoth Caravan, Massive Hassle, MC MYASNOI, Merlin, Methadone Skies, Monkey3, Morag Tong, The Mountain King, Mount Hush, MR.BISON, My Dying Bride, Myriad’s Veil, No Man’s Valley, Norna, The Obsessed, Oryx, Pallbearer, Patriarchs in Black, Pia Isa, Planet of Zeus, Red Mesa, Rezn, Rifflord, Sacri Monti, Sandveiss, Satan’s Satyrs, Saturnalia Temple, Scorched Oak, Sheepfucker & Kraut, Slift, Slower, Slow Green Thing, SoftSun, The Sonic Dawn, SONS OF ZÖKU, Spacedrifter, Spiral Grave, Spirit Mother, Stonebride, Sun Blood Stories, Sunface, Sun Moon Holy Cult, Swallow the Sun, The Swell Fellas, Swell O, Temple Fang, 10,000 Years, Thomas Greenwood and the Talismans, Thunderbird Divine, Tigers on Opium, Traum, 24/7 Diva Heaven, Valley of the Sun, Vlimmer, Void Commander, Weather Systems, The Whims of the Great Magnet, Whispering Void, White Hills, Per Wiberg, Esben Willems, Worshipper, WyndRider…
Notes:
With the eternal caveat that I’ll be adding to the honorable mentions for the next few days as people drop names they remembered and I forgot, I’ll say I can live with the list as it is now. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m happy with it, but I’ll live. I felt like there was just too much good stuff in the 60-30, stuff that deserved a better look, and god damn, look at the honorable mentions. You’re gonna tell me Rezn wasn’t top 30 material? Or Inter Arma, or 10,000 Years (who I still need to review), or Kandodo or Cortez, or Bongripper, Blue Heron, Merlin, Slower? Mount Hush, Vlimmer, Destroyer of Light — I could do this all day. That Carpet record. That MR.BISON record. Valley of the Sun. I see these names and want to punch myself. Then I see the names in the top 30 and I go, “Well…” and kind of have to hold off. I guess that means it turned out to be a pretty fantastic year.
I know for a fact I didn’t hear everything that came out, and I’m willing to bet that any number of people who see this will have their own opinions on the best albums of 2024 from top to bottom. I celebrate this difference and look forward to being exposed to new sounds because of it. Let comments fly, please. Once again, my only ask is that you keep it kind as relates to my own list(s) and any other picks someone might offer. If I’ve got facts wrong, something was a Dec. 2023 release instead of Jan. 2024, whatever, by all means, let me know. But we’re all friends here and being a jerk about it solves nothing.
And yes, I’ll admit to projecting some self-criticism in the Elephant Tree/Lowrider selection for album of the year. All I can tell you is I stand by that pick. It’s that because when I was putting together the list, it couldn’t have been anywhere else. I don’t love breaking my own arbitrary rules nearly as much as I love imposing those arbitrary rules in the first place, but sometimes apparently one is forced from one’s comfort zone to their own general betterment. Who knew?
Of course we’re not done yet.
—
Debut Album of the Year 2024
Guhts, Regeneration
Other notable debuts (alphabetical):
Azutmaga, Offering
Buzzard, Doom Folk
Castle Rat, Into the Realm
Cleen, Excursion
Coltaine, Forgotten Ways
Full Earth, Cloud Sculptors
Goat Generator, Goat Generator
Goat Major, Ritual
Grave Speaker, Grave Speaker
Guenna, Peak of Jin’Arrah
Hashtronaut, No Return
Heath, Isaak’s Marble
Hijss, Stuck on Common Ground
Kalgon, Kalgon
Kant, Paranoia Pilgrimage
Kitsa, Dead by Dawn
Leather Lung, Graveside Grin
Legions of Doom, The Skull 3
Magic Fig, Magic Fig
Magick Potion, Magick Potion
Morpholith, Dystopian Distributions of Mass Produced Narcotics
Myriad’s Veil, Pendant
Neon Nightmare, Faded Dream
Plant, Cosmic Phytophthora
Rabid Children, Does the Heartbeat
Saltpig, Saltpig
Semuta, Glacial Erratic
SoftSun, Daylight in the Dark
Spacedrifter, When the Colors Fade
Sun Moon Holy Cult, Sun Moon Holy Cult
Ten Ton Slug, Colossal Oppressor
Tet, Tet
Tigers on Opium, Psychodrama
Tommy and the Teleboys, Gods Used in Great Condition
Troy the Band, Cataclysm
Weather Systems, Ocean Without a Shore
Esben Willems, Glowing Darkness
Young Acid, Murder at Maple Mountain
Notes:
First about Guhts: From the Andy Patterson recording and parts of the songs themselves, Guhts weren’t hiding influence from the likes of SubRosa or Julie Christmas, Made Out of Babies, etc., but what Regeneration did so well — and what I was trying to convey above — was take those recognizable elements and redirect them toward an expressive individuality. That album could be punishingly heavy or sweet and soothing and the fact that you never quite knew which was coming next was a major asset working in the band’s favor. There are a lot of killer debuts on this list, and plenty I’m sure that I’ve left off because, well, I’m inept, but Regeneration was so sure of what it was about and so crisp in making that real through sound that it’s still stunning.
A lot to celebrate on this list. Full Earth at the outset of a hopefully long-term progression. Tigers on Opium with attitude and craft. Castle Rat giving stage drama studio life. Weather Systems picking up where Anathema left off. Promising starts for Pontiac, Hashtronaut, Neon Nightmare, Cleen, Coltaine, Troy the Band, Buzzard, Magic Fig, Legions of Doom, and Heath, among others. If you’re worried about the state of underground heavy music, you don’t need to be. Granted the future of anything is unknowable even before you apply “uncertain times” caveats and all the rest, but bands are stepping up to carry the torch of established sounds and pushing themselves to realize new ideas — whether that’s Guhts and Magic Fig or Tigers on Opium, or Legions of Doom, Ten Ton Slug, Weather Systems and Monolord’s Esben Willems, new players or ones who’ve been around for decades.
If you want a top ten — and who doesn’t? — in addition to Guhts, make your way through Full Earth, Sun Moon Holy Cult, Morpholith, Guenna, Coltaine, Troy the Band, Young Acid, Emu, Buzzard and Kant to start, and you can dig deeper from there. That’s actually 11, but I don’t care. More new music won’t hurt you.
We press on.
—
Short Release of the Year 2024
Moura, Fume Santo de Loureiro
Other notable EPs, Splits, Demos, Singles, etc.
Aktopasa, Ultrawest
Alreckque, 6PM
Bog Wizard, Journey Through the Dying Lands
Conan, DIY Series Issue 1
Cortége, Under the Endless Sky
Cult of Dom Keller, Extinction EP
Michael Rudolph Cummings, Money EP
Deer Lord, Dark Matter Pt. 2
Eagle Twin & The Otolith, Legends of the Desert Vol. 4
Fuzznaut, Wind Doula
Fuzzter, Pandemonium EP
Geezer & Isaak, Interstellar Cosmic Blues and the Riffalicious Stoner Dudes
Harvestman, Triptych EP(s)
Hermano, When the Moon Was High
Hollow Leg, Dust & Echoes
Holy Fingers, Endless Light Infinite Presence
King Buffalo, Balrog
Lurcher, Breathe EP
Okkoto, All is Light
Ord Cannon, Foreshots EP
Orme, No Serpents No Saviours
Pelican, Adrift/Tending the Embers
Pontiac, Hard Knox EP
Rope Trick, Red Tide EP
Sacred Buzz, Radio Radiation
Smoke & Doomsday Profit, Split
Spiral Guru, Silenced Voices EP
Toad Venom, Jag har inga problen osv...
Trigona & IO Audio Recordings, Split
Various Artists, International Space Station Vol. 2
Notes:
This category includes so much and can range so vastly between an EP that’s about 30 seconds short of being a full album to a standalone single released just for the hell of it to a band’s first rehearsal room demo. “Short releases” encompasses a lot, and as noted above, I’ve already broken my rules about where splits go. What about The Otolith and Eagle Twin? Geezer and Isaak? Smoke and Doomsday Profit? Trigona and IO Audio Recordings? The International Space Station four-wayer? If I’m crossing lines, don’t these also need to be considered as full-lengths?
You know what really sucks about it? This is an argument I’m going to have with myself for probably the next year. An existential crisis playing out in the back of my mind. More important? The Moura EP. The soundtracky textures the Spanish folk-informed progressive psychedelic rockers brought to the follow-up for their second album were both otherworldly and ground-born, and the material put emphasis on how much care and craft goes into their work while retaining the organic core against the threat of pretense. It was my most listened to short release of 2024, followed by Pelican, Holy Fingers, Pontiac, Toad Venom, Hollow Leg (x2), and Sacred Buzz. A new King Buffalo single was a late-year boon, that Hermano was worth it for the previously-unreleased studio track alone, and strong showings from Michael Rudolph Cummings, Deer Lord, Conan and Cortége, along with the aforementioned splits, assured that through the entire year, attention spans would receive consistent challenge in the movement from one thing to the next.
By way of a familiar confession, my list of short releases is nowhere near complete. It never is, and it never really could be. I’m sure there will be some I left out that I’ll add in for honorable mentions, etc., but I stand by the Moura pick for best short outing. They brought a soul to it that put the lie to the notion of EPs as between-album gap-fillers, and in a year that didn’t lack substance among its brevity-focused options, Fume Santo de Loureiro stood out in character, aesthetic and songwriting. Nobody else is making music quite like Moura.
If you have more to add here, by all means, please and thank you. Comments are below.
—
Live Albums
Live Album of the Year 2024
Temple Fang, Live at Krach Am Bach
Castle, One Knight Stands: Live in NY
Danava, Live
Elder, Live at Maida Vale
Snail, Thou Art There
Stöner, Hittin’ the Bitchin’ Switch
Sula Bassana & Skyjoggers, Split
The Whims of the Great Magnet, Live at Bankastudios Maastricht 22-12-2023
Notes:
Fewer releases listed here than last year, but some killer ones for that. I put Temple Fang out there as live album of the year, and since we’re late in the post I’ll tell you honestly that it probably could be any of these on a given day. Danava’s live record crossed decades in badassery, the Sula/Skyjoggers split captured the vibe of a club night in Germany, the Whims of the Great Magnet’s live release made an excellent predecessor to their out-this-month studio album, Snail recorded theirs at a show I put on, Stöner capture the end of their two-album cycle with an awesome set, and Elder are Elder. The Maida Vale recording is short, and their songs are long, or you probably would’ve heard a lot more about that this year. If/when they do a proper live album, it will be a no-brainer.
But the Temple Fang has it all in molten progressivism, heavy tones, immersive psychedelia and outright soul, and of the bands I’ve managed to list here — if you want to add to the list, please do — there’s nobody who so much defines what they do by its live incarnation. Temple Fang’s music changes every night. They follow where it leads in a different way, and the ritualization of their performance comes through in Live at Krach Am Bach resoundingly. I’m not saying a bad word about their studio work to this point, but their heart manifests in a different way and at a different level onstage. They’re a great band and this shows a big part of why.
—
Looking Ahead to 2025
Names, right? This one’s all about the names? Get to the names, jack? Okay, calm down.
With eternal appreciation to the folks of fine, upstanding moral character in the ‘The Obelisk Collective’ group on Facebook for the assistance, here’s a smattering of what one might look forward to in 2025:
Aawks, After Nations, All Them Witches, Amber Asylum, Author & Punisher, Bandshee, Black Spirit Crown, Bog Wizard, Bone Church, Borracho, Bronco, Buzzard, Dee Calhoun, Causa Sui, The Cimmerian, Clutch, Conan, Corrosion of Conformity, Daevar, Dead Meadow, Dead Shrine, Demons My Friends, Dream Unending, DUNDDW, Dunes, Flummox, Fuzz Sagrado, FVZZ POPVLI, Gaytheist, Gin Lady, Gnarled, Gnod & White Hills, Gods and Punks, Godzillionaire, Haze Mage, Kaiser, Kal-El, King Buffalo, Lamassu, Lo-Pan, Madmess, Mantar, Masters of Reality, Messa, Seán Mulrooney, Mouth., New Dawn Fades, Nightstalker, Øresund Space Collective, Pentagram, Pesta, Pothamus, Dax Riggs, Seedy Jeezus, Slomatics, Slow Wake, Stoned Jesus, Stone Machine Electric, Temple Fang, 3rd Ear Experience, Triptykon, Trouble, Turtle Skull, Warlung, Weedpecker, Yawning Balch, Year of the Cobra, YOB… and because it still hasn’t happened and someone invariably calls me out if they’re not listed: Om.
If you have names to add, “smash that comment button,” in the parlance of our times. Only don’t really smash it because you might hurt your hand or break your phone with your awesome strength.
—
THANK YOU
It was among my primary goals for this post that it should be shorter than last year’s, and it looks like I’ll achieve that with room to spare, so I’m glad. Sometimes I get carried away, I think I probably don’t need to tell you.
Before I let go of 2024 — actually I still want to review that The Whims of the Great Magnet studio release and I’ve got a Darsombra video premiere set before the end of the year, news to catch up on from like the last two weeks and a whole lot more to cover — I’d like to take a moment to thank you one more time for reading and for being part of this project this year and each year it’s been ongoing. Your support is absolutely what keeps this site going and it means more to me than I can ever hope to comprehend.
Thank you to The Patient Mrs., who in the course of a given week let alone year puts up with more of my bullshit than any human being should ever have to. “Yes, love, the world’s ending and we have no money and the house is falling down around us and the dog needs to pee, but I just need two or three hours to go sit and write about riffs — is that cool?” Or better, when I’m pissy about it. The “my wife is a saint” routine is pretty played out as far as dudely excuses for being selfish, lazy and/or dumb go, but well, I am all of those things on the extreme regular and she hasn’t booted my ass to the curb yet. I find this to be a reason to celebrate and a thing to appreciate. I am loved and cared for in ways I could never hope to earn.
Thank you to my family for their support, year in and year out. They’ve all got Obelisk shirts and they all wear them, and while I’m not sure they understand the true depths of egoistic depravity involved in this project, they’ve been on board with it since the start, and this includes my wife’s side of the family as well. I am incredibly lucky to have the life I have.
I’m going to keep listening to music, keep writing about it as much as I can. I’m not quite as generally panicked about it as I used to be — older, busier in different ways, over the FOMO, maybe a little more discerning in terms of taste? — and I’m significantly less likely to break my brain answering email, but I’m doing my best.
The Obelisk presses on into what will be a busy 2025. I’ve got trips slated to Planet Desert Rock Weekend in Las Vegas this January, Desertfest Oslo in May, Freak Valley in Germany in June, Bear Stone in Croatia in July, and Desertfest New York in September, with more hopefully to come. I look forward to these adventures and to doing the writing that will happen as part of them, and one more time, I thank you for your time and attention in reading, in the past, now, and in the future. I’m taking tomorrow off. All the way off. Back on Monday for more.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 11th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
After unveiling an initial lineup featuring Chat Pile, Oranssi Pazuzu, Hippie Death Cult, Elder, Whores., Help, Agriculture, Magmakammer and others, the 2025 edition of Desertfest Oslo — just the second one behind the first earlier this year — has brought four more acts on board to entice those thinking about digging into the next bunch of early-bird tickets, also just released to follow, as I understand it, a more-than-handful that already sold out. Good for them, making a thing work.
Elephant Tree and Truckfighters might be the marquee names here, Truckfighters because they’re Truckfighters and they’re going to make an impression every time they touch a stage, and Elephant Tree owing to the recently-issued split with Lowrider that’s being roundly hailed as album of the year despite kind of being two mini-albums, but don’t neglect DVNE or Håndgemeng here. Thus far, Håndgemeng are the first repeat act of Desertfest Oslo‘s relatively brief history — house band? — and DVNE are still at just a few months’ remove from their Voidkind LP, likewise soaring and stunning. It’s just four bands, but it’s quality over quantity here, is what I’m saying.
The fest is set for May 9 and 10 in Oslo at Revolver, John Dee and Rockefeller, and of course there will be more to come probably ahead of as well as in the New Year, so keep an eye out. We saw this year already Desertfest Oslo became an anchor for many Spring tours in Europe. I would expect that trend to continue unabated, and reasonably so.
From the PR wire, or socials, or somewhere on the internet:
Desert Cruisers and Scandi Stoners, Heavy Rockers and Angry Loners!
Buckle up hard, we have a new batch of bands dropping for you, followed by a new batch of early bird tickets! Secure your entrance, you DO NOT want to miss out on Desertfest Oslo 2025🔥
🪐 Elephant Tree 🪐 Masterful Londoners who somehow mix a retro psychedelic sound with the more modern stonerrock vibe. They are effortlessly creating one of the most unique and uplifting sounds out there, with their stellar harmonies as a bulletproof signature, easily separating them from most of their peers. Elephant Tree manage to refine some of the best elements coming out from Seattle in the nineties, owning it, and creating their own legacy around it. What a bunch of lads.
Their sound sweeps you of your feet, throws you in a sonic vortex, and spits you out on to a solitary astral plane of dreamy soundwaves.
🪐 Truckfighters 🪐 Few other bands can boast this level of energy and tightness along a library of absolute banging hits. Sweden is ripe with stonerrock, but Truckfighters may just be the beefiest wrestler in the ring. They have been around for what seems like forever, but never resting of old endevours. Always a must-see live! Truckfighters are in it with their hearts and souls, and we cant wait to welcome them to Oslo in May.
🪐 DVNE 🪐 The Scottish highlanders creates a supernova of sludge and progressive metal, with doomy post metal aesthetics. With complete darkness as their canvas, they paint a surreal, dreamy, cosmic landscape as a backdrop for their harsh vocals. Their ebb&flow and ever evolving sound will keep you on your toes at all time. Andy yes, you should pay attention!
🪐 Håndgemeng 🪐
The local heroes with flared jeans, cowboy boots and more fuzz than rubber slippers on a wall-to-wall carpet are returning! It is the perfect opener. The ideal palate cleanser. The ultimate in-your-face desert rock blast off for Desertfest Oslo 2025.
Voidkind is the third full-length from Edinburgh-based five-piece DVNE and their second to be issued with the historically-significant endorsement of Metal Blade Records behind 2021’s Etemen Ænka (review here) and sees the heavy, progressive metallers reaching for and attaining new levels of refinement in terms of craft. In intensity, melody, ambience and impact, Voidkind (cover art by Felix Abel Klae) weaves its 10 tracks together across nearly an hour’s runtime that is so clearly meant to be taken in its entirety and only benefits from having enough arrogance to demand the listener’s attention for its span despite earning it with the songs themselves.
And as to those songs. They are dynamic in tempo, volume, the arrangements of vocals from Daniel Barter (also guitar live), keyboardist Maxime Keller and guitarist/keyboardist Victor Vicart, and the hairpin rhythmic turns of bassist/guitarist Allan Paterson (Alexandros Keros also contributes bass on stage) and drummer Dudley Tait, the latter with a performance that could and probably should be a blueprint on how to accompany younger-Mastodon-style angular riffing without overplaying. Working with returning producer Graeme Young on the recording and mix (Robyn Dawson assisted engineering) and the also-returning Magnus Lindberg (Domkraft, Vokonis, Wren, countless others, plus his own band) for the master, the pieces that comprise Voidkind resonate with scope and narrative, and as deep as you want to dig into the references and vocabulary of the lyrics, DVNE will meet you there for lines like “Synesthetic submergence saturates the mind,” from “Abode of the Perfect Soul” or “The zephyrian scents of verbena” from “Eleonora” earlier as the band dig in following the more bombastic, willfully aggressive opener “Summa Blasphemia.”
Like the lyrics, the instrumental arrangements feel plotted, worked on, and thoughtful of the linear thread that brings the songs together and the intended flow across Voidkind as a whole. “Summa Blasphemia” takes about nine seconds for its surge to sweep in, but from that point on, DVNE‘s sense of control is complete in the turn that introduces the record’s first soaring, melodic, emotive vocals at about the one-minute mark so they can gradually come together in the apex with the harsher growls and screams that pervade amid all the ensuing crush, and in the way “Reliquary” moves from its solo section to the ambient break that begins its second-half build, in the subtle atmospheric flourish of interludes “Path of Dust” (led by guitar) and “Path of Ether” (more of a keyboard/synth drone) and how they surround “Sarmatæ” even on the 2LP edition of the album, giving that song’s memorable lines about casting tales and ribbons into fire space to breathe before the rush start of “Abode of the Perfect Soul” renews the onslaught en route to the closing pair of the lushly post-metallic “Plērōma” and the near-10-minute finale “Cobalt Sun Necropolis,” which feels like nothing so much as a next-generation’s nodding back as its last crescendo is blown out in a mode not dissimilar from Neurosis‘ “Stones From the Sky” at the finish.
There are arguments to be made for and against what seems from outside to be such a deeply cerebral take, but at more than 10 years’ remove from their debut EP, Progenitor (review here), DVNE know who they are in terms of sound, and Voidkind comes through as all the more sculpted and literary in its ambitions for their efforts, and as they stand in the center of the tumult in “Eleonora” or bring together the airier float of guitar on “Reaching for Telos” with layered vocal harmonies as yet another example of their growth as a unit, the complexity is a strength. They’re never lost in it. They never forget where they just came from or lose track of where they’re going, how it fits, or why. As a listener, Voidkind is exciting even on a first impression because of its charge, its aggro throb, its stops and starts and twists that toy with adrenaline and pull you deeper into the material, but the reason any of it works at all is the emergent mastery of songwriting DVNE have been chasing for the last decade-plus.
So is Voidkind an arrival moment? Sure, and you wouldn’t have been wrong to say the same of Etemen Ænka or 2017’s debut LP, Asheran, either. At the very least, it’s a landmark for them along their path of continued evolution, but I also can’t seem to get out of my head the notion of placing it in the broader sphere of metal. Part of that might just be that DVNE sound fresh in their ideas of what heavy sounds can convey, whether fast or slow, loud or quiet, dissonant, melodic, etc., but Voidkind only gets more difficult to categorize the more one hears it. With the level of consideration put in and the somewhat heady vibes throughout, it’s only fair to call it progressive despite how much it uses raw ferocity to make its case, and while it might owe a debt of influence to post-hardcore, post-metal, sludge, and doom, it’s not just any one of those things. Familiar in parts, but imaginative and distinguished in its point of view.
Metal, as a genre, has splintered since the dawn of the internet such that, if someone were describing a band as “metal,” it would tell you almost nothing about the character of what you’re hearing other than it’s probably loud and potentially unspeakably dumb. Is DVNE metal? Is Pantera? Tool? Five Finger Death Punch (who are the worst band I’ve ever seen and I will say so every time I mention them)? Korn? Black Sabbath? You can get debate for the rest of your life about what is or isn’t metal, musically or as a lifestyle, without even a coherent definition to work from, and given the emotional attachment of those in the subculture to it and a long-held mistrust when those from outside — i.e., the broader pop-cultural sphere — deign to acknowledge its existence, that’s not likely to change. So what is metal and what should it be? I promise you I have no idea and I wouldn’t be so pretentious as to make any declaration in that regard even if I did. But if DVNE were the shape of metal to come, I have a hard time seeing how metal could be anything but better for it.
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 12th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
DVNE‘s Bandcamp updated overnight (or at least I saw the email this morning) to account for the new release, and the PR wire made it official just a bit ago that Voidkind, the third LP from the Edinburgh-based progressive/post-metallers, will be out April 19. Am I crazy or does that seem like a time crunch? Singles are starting to roll out for records that aren’t coming until June, and April 19 is just five weeks away.
Maybe they’re in a hurry, and with the coinciding tour also coming up quickly, fair enough. Keeping good company as they go, DVNE will embark on their Spring tour of the UK and Europe on April 23, just on the other side of Voidkind‘s release weekend. So perhaps that’s where some of the urgency comes from, or maybe that’s just me feeling the after-effects of listening to the new single “Plerõma,” with its winding riff and striking melodic turn. As with DVNE‘s 2021 long-player, Etemen Ænka (review here), the new album will be out on Metal Blade.
I’ll also note this isn’t the first time a band has cited the game Dark Souls (released 2011 for PS3/Xbox, remastered in 2018, with sequels in 2012 and 2016) as inspiration. I only mention it in case you, like me, just got out of an 835-hour relationship with Tears of the Kingdom and are looking for something on the rebound.
Meanwhile, preorders are up, the video’s at the bottom of the post and the album info and tour dates came from the PR wire.
Have at it:
DVNE: Scottish Progressive Post-Metal Collective To Release Voidkind April 19th On Metal Blade Records; New Video/Single Now Playing + Preorders Available
Scottish progressive post-metal act DVNE will release their new full-length, Voidkind, on April 19th via Metal Blade Records.
Formed in Edinburgh in 2013 by Frenchman Victor Vicart and native Scot Dudley Tait, progressive post-metal/sludge artisans DVNE have been building a powerful head of steam since their second album, 2021’s kaleidoscopically mesmerizing Etemen Ænka. Their first release for the legendary Metal Blade Records label, the LP was a concerted hike up the greasy pole for this enigmatic outfit, enabling DVNE to embark on UK and European headline tours and win spots at such discerning festivals as Hellfest, ArcTanGent, Desertfest, Damnation, and Resurrection. A live EP of reimagined album tunes, 2022’s Cycles Of Asphodel, kept up their profile while satiating demand from a rapidly mushrooming fanbase, and now in 2024, stunning third album Voidkind looks set to propel this expanded five-piece line-up (welcoming Maxime Keller on keyboards) to the top of their game.
Voidkind succeeds in finding new modes of expression for DVNE. The songs are more pointed, direct, and memorable, but the soundscape still has a radiant, evolving, hypnotic flow, the effect achieved with fewer layers of sonic ornamentation, consciously urging closer to DVNE’s incendiary live sound. And despite the addition of a full-time keyboardist, Vicart has no doubt about the album’s defining feature, “We wanted very distinct left and right guitars, and punchier drums and bass, which would transcribe better live. And the synths needed to be clearer; it’s very easy to put five guitars on each side, loads of different vocals and keys, but then you end up watching a band with an album you really like, and the songs sound nothing like the record. That’s what we wanted to avoid. As soon as the song starts, we want people to immediately recognise the riff.”
Conceptually, the lyrics continue the band’s overarching narrative – “following a religious group through the generation line from the beginning to its end” – while Voidkind’s extraordinary sleeve art depicts the main theme of this chapter, namely, “a godlike entity seducing and luring followers through their dreams and these followers’ multigenerational journey to reach their god dimension.”
One book that has been particularly impactful on the band’s thought process: 1989 novel Hyperion by Dan Simmonds. Notes Vicart, “It’s a very dark Sci-Fi book with loads of interesting parts, so you can go really prog with it, but you can also go more violent and animalistic.” Further inspirational touchstones include FromSoftware video game Dark Souls, and the Japanese manga series that inspired it, Berserk, “It’s a very cool, violent, psychedelic, medieval dark fantasy,” explains Vicart. “We wanted to have these kinds of visuals and aesthetics on this album, in this mix-up of things. Even without the vocals we wanted to evoke something, different places and spaces, and take the listener on a journey.”
Vicart further elaborates on the themes driving “Plerõma,” the first single from Voidkind, and its accompanying video, which was directed by Vicart, “Plerõma is a concept that has appeared in Gnosticism, Greek Philosophy, and Judeo-Christian religions. In Gnosticism, it is the spiritual universe as the abode of God and of the totality of the divine powers and emanations. It is also the ultimate source of transformation. ‘Plerõma’ is a key moment of the album narrative where religious followers are consuming the essence of their deity and reach a new sense of awakened existence. It is the first step in their transformation. Musically, it also represents something similar to us, as it is a song that is bringing new elements that we didn’t explore musically until that point.”
Voidkind was recorded between September and November 2023 in Edinburgh at Craigiehall Temple and Byres Farm in Scotland and features the stunning artwork of Felix Abel Klae.
The record will be released on CD and digital formats as well as 2xLP in the following color variants:
Burnt Skin Marble (US) White Black Marble (US) Dark Crimson Marbled (EU) 180g Black (EU) Grey Brown w/ Black Smoke (EU – ltd. 500) Crystal Clear (EU – ltd. 300) White/Black Dust (EU – ltd. 300) Clear w/ Black Smoke (EU – ltd. 666) Clear w/ Black, Red + Gold Splatter (EU – ltd.200) Clear w/ Black Smoke (Band Exclusive – ltd. 666 availableHERE) Clear w/ Black, Red + Gold Splatter (Band Exclusive – ltd. 200 availableHERE)
Voidkind Track Listing: 1. Summa Blasphemia 2. Eleonor 3. Reaching for Telo 4. Reliquar 5. Path of Dust 6. Sarmatae 7. Path of Ether 8. Abode of the Perfect Soul 9. Plerõma 10. Cobalt Sun Necropoli
Following the release of Voidkind, DVNE will embark on a European Spring tour which includes shows with Sleemo, Conjurer, and My Diligence on select dates. See all confirmed dates below.
DVNE Live: 4/23/2024 The Cluny – Newcastle, UK w/ Sleemo 4/24/2024 Brudenell — Leeds, UK w/ Sleemo 4/25/2024 Voodoo Daddies – Norwich, UK w/ Sleemo 4/26/2024 Green Door Store – Brighton, UK w/ Sleemo 4/27/2024 The Exchange – Bristol, UK w/ Sleemo 4/28/2024 Devils Dog – Birmingham, UK w/ Sleemo 5/04/2024 Headbangers – Ball Izegem, BE w/ Conjurer 5/05/2024 P8 – Karlsruhe, DE w/ Conjurer 5/07/2024 Casseopia – Berlin, DE w/ Conjurer 5/08/2024 Rosenkeller – Jena, DE w/ Conjurer 5/09/2024 Schon Schön – Mainz, DE w/ Conjurer 5/10/2024 Dunk Festival – Ghent, BE 5/11/2024 Hall Of Fame – Tilburg, NL w/ Conjurer 5/16/2024 La Belle Angele – Edinburgh, UK 5/19/2024 Desertfest, – London, UK 5/22/2024 Le Ferrailleur – Nantes, FR w/ My Diligence 5/23/2024 Le Confort Moderne – Poitiers, FR w/ My Diligence 5/24/2024 Le Rex – Toulouse, FR w/ My Diligence 5/26/2024 L’Antirouille – Montpellier, FR w/ My Diligence 5/28/2024 Les Caves du Manoir – Martigny, CH w/ My Diligence 5/29/2024 Amperage – Grenoble, FR w/ My Diligence 5/30/2024 La Laiterie – Strasbourg, FR w/ My Diligence 5/31/2024 Black Lab – Lille, FR w/ My Diligence 6/01/2024 Le Petit Bain – Paris, FR w/ My Diligence 6/02/2024 Club Zentral – Stuttgart, DE 6/04/2024 Rockhouse – Salzburg, AT 6/05/2024 Dürer Kert – Budapest, HU 6/06/2024 Escape – Vienna, AT 6/08/2024 Mystic Festival – Gdansk, PL 6/09/2024 Into The Grave Festival – Leeuwarden, NL 6/11/2024 Le Botanique – Brussels, BE w/ My Diligence 6/19/2024 Copenhell – Copenhagen, DK
DVNE Album Lineup: Allan Paterson – guitars, bass Daniel Barter – vocals Dudley Tait – drums Maxime Keller – keys, vocals Victor Vicart – guitars, keys, vocals
DVNE Live Lineup: Allan Paterson – bass Daniel Barter – guitar, vocals Dudley Tait – drums Maxime Keller – keys, vocals Victor Vicart – guitar, vocals Occasional Live Member: Alexandros Keros – bass
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 1st, 2024 by JJ Koczan
So I guess this is the last announcement for the lineup of Desertfest London 2024, and I’ll just say I kind of love the casual manner in which the festival set for May 17-19 tosses in another 30-plus names for the bill. Oh no big deal but here’s like two more fests we’re just gonna add while we give you the schedule. Badass. There’s a lot to dig here on all levels, from the headliners — that Friday at The Electric Ballroom, also Saturday and Sunday, looks pretty sweet — and while I’d set up camp at The Underworld on Saturday, no question I’d have to abscond from that home base to at least catch a bit of Saint Karloff, Acid King, and so on, and, well, on Sunday I’m actually kind of relieved I’m just pretending to have to pick one spot to be in, as each room has a distinctive pull. DVNE and Morag Tong or Borracho and Kadabra? Ufomammut and Monolord or Stinking Lizaveta, Darsombra and Orme? This shit is hard sometimes.
You could go on here in choose-your-adventure daydreaming, and frankly I’d encourage you to do just that. Worst that happens is you end up listening to good music. Or, you know, going to the fest, which would also be the best thing that could happen. Here’s why:
Desertfest London announces day splits and 32 additional artists
Friday 17th May – Sunday 19th May 2024 Weekend & Day Tickets now on sale
Desertfest London has revealed their day and stage splits for their 13th edition, taking place this May across multiple venues in Camden, London.
The festival proudly welcomes Masters of Reality as Friday’s Electric Ballrooms headliners, with Chris Goss at the helm providing a master-class in desert sounds. Plus, newly announced for this stage are Colour Haze and Frankie and The Witch Fingers who will join Brant Bjork Trio and Mondo Generator to kick off the weekend in true Desertfest style. Mantar and Raging Speedhorn will shake-up the Underworld, whilst Brume and Alber Jupiter psych-out at The Black Heart.
Saturday sees skate-punk legends Suicidal Tendencies back in London for the first time in seven years, as they decimate the equally legendary Roundhouse. Joined by Cancer Bats, Bongripper, Acid King and newest addition to the bill, Pest Control. Saturday’s Roundhouse stage is undeniably a melting pot of genres, but celebrating one common thread – insane live performances. Elsewhere, Maserati, Monkey3, Domkraft, Wet Cactus and many more will level Camden to the ground.
Back at the Ballroom on Sunday night, the festival enters its final day with a dose of experimental heaviness from Godflesh, Ozric Tentacles, Monolord, Ufomammut & Ashenspire. Additionally, Desertfest will be welcoming Bat Sabbath, the Black-Sabbath cover band formed by Cancer Bats to close out the entire weekend at our Underworld Stage after-party. Plus, DVNE, Nightstalker, Astroqueen, Stinking Lizaveta & The Grudge, with a hell of a lot more will be rounding off the weekend’s festivities.
Across the weekend, Desertfest has also newly announced the likes of Morag Tong, Borracho, Noisepicker, Gramma Vedetta, Lodestar, Kulk, Earth Tongue, Skypilot, Wolfshead, Weedsnake, Orsak:Oslo, WAXY, Horndal, Silverburn, Fires In The Distance, Sleemo, Midwich Cuckoos, Akersborg, Grand Atomic, Voidlurker, Under The Ashes and Fuz Caldrin.
Weekend & Day Tickets for the event are on sale now via www.desertfest.co.uk
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 13th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Edinburgh-based heavy progressive metallers DVNE are set to hit the road across the UK next April as a precursor to appearing at Resurrection Fest in Spain and ArcTanGent in England. They go ostensibly as they continue to support 2021’s Etemen Ænka (review here), which will be two years old by the time these shows start, but is a cause worth supporting nonetheless. And for the merch table, they did issue a live album earlier this year. Actually, I wouldn’t necessarily be surprised if they put together an EP or something ahead of next Spring and Summer and hit the road harder again, but if this is it, then at least they’re getting out. Certainly right around March 2021 there wasn’t a lot of that happening, UK or elsewhere.
I was fortunate enough to catch DVNE for the second time this past summer as they appeared at Freak Valley Festival (review here), and hearing the complex structures and melodies from Etemen Ænka come through with no letup on impact — that blend of progressivism and heft — was only reassuring when it comes to their presentation of the work live. I guess that’s my way of saying if you dug the record — stream is below for a refresher — you won’t be disappointed by how they present it live, as sharply-produced as that album is.
TUE 11 APRIL Stereo Glasgow, UK WED 12 APRIL Nottingham Bodega Nottingham, UK THU 13 APRIL The Corporation Sheffield, UK FRI 14 APRIL Crofters Rights Bristol Bristol, UK SAT 15 APRIL Oslo Hackney London, UK SUN 16 APRIL Soup Manchester, UK WED 28 JUNE – SAT 1 JULY Resurrection Fest 2023 Viveiro, Spain WED 16 AUGUST ArcTanGent 2023 Compton Martin, UK
Excited to get back on the road.
Art by Chris J Alliston
Dvne line-up: Victor Vicart – guitar, vocals, keys Dudley Tait – drums Daniel Barter – guitar, vocals Allan Paterson – bass Maxime Keller – keys
A lot going on as the festival and its many volunteers — designated by crew shirts from various years — get ready for the first full day. First band is on in about 70 minutes.
I crashed out hard last night after a vigorous round of nesting — pillows here, water bottle there, white noise on, window open to let cool air in, book loaded on tablet so I could look at words for about seven seconds before falling asleep, etc. — and woke up with the alarm at 10AM, which is only ironic because that’s 4AM at home and I might be up then on any given day anyhow. What jetlag?
Hydrated. Took ibuprofen, drank three cups of drip coffee and some assemblage of espressos — two doubles and then some — ate a protein bar and got my head right before coming back here. DVNE growling through soundcheck right now is hilarious. Not everyone can do that without music behind. Now singing clean in French. Chuckles from those lounging nearby.
The sun is out and there’s more of a breeze so far, though it will get warmer over the next couple hours. It doesn’t matter though. FVF provides places to be, whether it’s the seats on the side or this tent or the hammocks under the trees in back, and so on. People go, have a smoke, catch their breath, rest before the next thing. I am sitting in a chair, as opposed to a bench or on the ground. This itself feels like a novelty, and backstage has its own amenities, including bathrooms and places to fill your water bottle.
There are three more bands on the bill today than yesterday and the last of them is Pelican, which I hope will feel like a wonderful moment of arrival after the long stretch. But we’re in it now with doors open and the hangover soon to give way to new drunkenness. Folks went hard last night, and it wasn’t just Mr. Roomtwentynine. I’ll be interested to see how it goes once the music starts, which it will soon enough.
Notes on the day, taken as it happened:
DVNE
What a way to start the day. The largely uptempo UK post-metal outfit probably aren’t used to playing in sunshine, but all the better to see them obliterate. I’ve been lucky enough to catch DVNE live before, at Psycho Las Vegas a few years back (everything was a few years back), but the Etemen Ænka (review here) record that they put out between them and now brought them to a new level. They sound like a band who put work and conscious thought into the atmospheres they create — progressive in that way — and their clear desire to not do the same thing all the time, to distinguish themselves even among the crowded sphere of post-metal is something to deeply respect, all the more because they do it. And just when they seem to get all caught up in a mire of tense, complicated prog-metal noodling, that’s when they turn around and bash you over the head with a riff and if you can’t get down with that, why even have ears? Their sound goes as deep as you’re willing to follow it and on stage they back that cerebralness with due passion-derived force. Or, if you prefer the short version, this is a cool fucking band. I was surprised it wasn’t being filmed, but I guess one can’t have everything.
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Supersonic Blues
Hey, guess what? Been a few years since I last saw Netherlands classic rockers Supersonic Blues. Shocking, right? Well, earlier this year they put out their awaited debut album, It’s Heavy (review here) on Who Can You Trust? Records, and man, that record is a burner. A boogie burner, even better. Seeing and hearing them play songs from it put them high on my list of anticipated bands for Freak Valley 2022, but that they played as a two-guitar four-piece and seemed to take a special jammy pleasure in doing so made them even more enjoyable to watch. You wouldn’t call them innovative — and that’s not intended as a slight, they’re actively trying not to reinvent the wheel — but their songs and vibes are tremendous fun. One of those bands who are mellow no matter how heavy they get, and who seem to find a sweet spot between ’70s grooves and a kind of laid back melodicism. There’s a part of me that hopes they never add a keyboardist and go prog — which is what a goodly portion of the bands who influenced Supersonic Blues ended up doing — but time will tell of their ultimate direction. Right now, and for the last five or so years, they’re a blast. A party that’s been waiting for you to show up. They brought their own drums.
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Kosmodome
My first time seeing Kosmodone, whose name I’ve seen around a lot. I’ve played them on the Gimme Metal show before, but not really written about them, but they remind a bit of Hypnos 69’s warm prog, their stage arrangement such that the drummer/vocalist is off to the side rather than behind the guitars and bass, which is kind of where the keys are. They’re young, which means they can play prog without needing to stand still on stage and maybe have some Motorpsycho influence, and it’s hard to be really immersive when it’s broad daylight and still heating up, but whatever, it’s a good time. In the hills around there are hawks circling the woods, or maybe that’s the campsite, I don’t know. Either way, Kosmodome released their self-titled album last December and dedicated “The 1%” from it to all the children in the crowd, and yes, there are plenty of them and a few more clearly impending. I can’t imagine my family, my wife and son, would enjoy this — he might for a while but then would be trying to get on stage, she simply wouldn’t — but it would be an interesting experiment. Kosmodome came here from Bergen, Norway, and it occurs to me I have no clue how far away that is. Hard to get your bearings at a thing like this. But I know today’s Thursday, because that’s when Kosmodome played. They closed with “Orbit,” which also finishes the record, and I might have to buy this album now.
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Les Big Byrd
Hell yes Swedish space rock. This was my first experience with Les Big Byrd — and they pronounced it “less” on stage rather than the French “lay” Big Byrd — but however you want to say it they brought trance groove to the hottest part of the day, riding motorik groove and a balance between songwriting and jamming with similar ease. As I’d never heard them, their synth-laced sound hit a laid back feel just right, and they also had a side-of-stage drummer, like Kosmodome, except on the other side, and he did backing vocals. They said they’ll have a new record out this Fall, and if I had any idea what month it is, I might know how far away that is from now, but at least I’ll know to keep an eye out for it. I’d dozed in the shade prior to their going on, my new hippie hat over my face, and they made easing back to full consciousness smoother than, say, Mondo Generator probably would. I chased down some coffee later in the set in the interest of remaining upright for the second half of the day’s lineup and they were done by the time I got back, but I’d watched a bit out front on the grass, people dancing on either side of me to the fluid sounds. I’ll take it.
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Mondo Generator
Would you fuck with Mondo Generator? I wouldn’t. Seems like a good way to get punched. They’re like punk rock aggro taken to its natural extreme; a legacy of dirty, fucked up, angry — and in their case, heavy — rock and roll that is dangerous and in pursuit of danger as the end. Nick Oliveri doubles in Stöner with Brant Bjork these days, but it’s been nearly a decade since last time I saw Mondo Generator (review here) and they were a four-piece then, but they worked well as a trio. The rawer the better. Mike Pygmie I saw a few weeks ago playing with John Garcia at Desertfest New York (review here), but it’s been years since I watched the malleable Mike Amster bash away at a drum kit, and that was a pleasure as well. I don’t think I’ll ever be intense enough for Mondo Generator, but I’m honestly not sure anyone is. All the more reason to put Kyuss and Queens of the Stone Age songs in the set: no one’s gonna argue with “Green Machine” and “Thirteenth Floor,” or at very least no one here. Even when they slow down though, they’re mean, and after they closed with “Tension Head” into “Allen’s Wrench” and “Millionaire,” just to make sure everybody goes home happy after getting their ass kicked., the crowd called for one more and apparently they had time, so they threw in Queens of the Stone Age’s “Six Shooter” with Oliveri putting down the bass and just singing. That was a fun 90 seconds for sure.
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The Atomic Bitchwax
Yay! If we’re being completely honest with each other, that’s about the extent of my depth of insight watching The Atomic Bitchwax right now. I’ll never claim to be impartial about this band, however many times I may be so fortunate as to see them or write about them, but they’re just one of the tightest heavy rock acts you’ll ever see. A couple weeks ago they absolutely flattened me at Saint Vitus Bar in Brooklyn (review here) and it was nothing but a joy. Similar set here, the lines about songs about Kung Fu and shouting out “Kiss the Sun” to the ladies, etc., but they tore into it and were a blowout and a blast and probably six or seven other adjectives that collectively round down to “quite exciting, indeed,” while also exuding glee at doing so, Bob Pantella, Garrett Sweeney and Chris Kosnik (who I’m starting to think of writing in for the upcoming US midterm congressional election) simply working at another level from just about everybody and giving Mondo Generator a run for their money without the same kind of aggression behind it. What a tour that would be. ‘Too Fast for Your Brain 2022.’ I know things are about to take a mellower turn, but these guys were the kick in the ass I needed heading into the rest of the night. A heartfelt fucking a, The Atomic Bitchwax. Thanks for the boost. And for “So Come On.” And that slowdown and speed up in “Shitkicker.” And the Deep Purple. Right on.
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Toundra
After 9PM just now and still very light out. I guess that’s why I was disoriented last night, because night happened at a different time. Also the no sleep. I’ll admit to being relieved watching Toundra. I was expecting a big post-Bitchwax comedown, but that’s not at all what Spanish instrumentalists Toundra delivered. I’ve heard them before, written about them before, but as dug-in as their style is in that vaguely-My-Sleeping-Karma-ish progressive-meditative-sans-vocal heavy, they were jumping around on stage while they played it. It can be done! And even the dreamier stretches were given a push that was a perfect accompaniment to the richness of their tones and the lead guitar lines floating overhead. For a crowd who’ve largely spent already the last seven-plus hours drinking, or just for me who could use another coffee (perpetually), they were outright engaging to the crowd — very definitely a show — without giving up their progressive aspects. That’s not an easy thing to pull off, and they were treated with due respect by the crowd, I’m sure some of whom saw them here when they played in 2016. As I didn’t, I’m glad I’m seeing them now. If that makes me late to the party or whatever, fine. Story of my life. And yes, they had their “Stones From the Sky” moment. Someone in the back behind the lawn, by the merch and food, was burning incense. Balloons were being batted around until meeting their inevitable end. Kids sat on parents’ shoulders. Freak Valley could give classes in how to define heavy peace. Subsection on the syllabus for this set right now. How lucky I am to be here.
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Endless Boogie
The app I use to order pizza just sent me a “hey you should order a pizza notification.” It’s like somehow it knew Endless Boogie were playing. It’s usually right anyway, and the theory applies here if not the logistics. Paul Major, center stage, guitar in hand, occasionally grumping into the microphone while grooving out — this is kind of a band you need to see live to understand. And they’re from New York. And I live in New Jersey. And I’ve seen them once before this. And it was in Europe. If you have a “go figure” file, that can go right in there. They’re hitting it though. As mellow as their records can be, and as only-on-their-own-clock as they come across, their material isn’t staid or unipolar. It’s a classic kind of dynamic and nothing fancy on paper, but if you want dig a band Endless Boogie are a band to dig, and that’s a compliment. What they’re doing on paper couldn’t be simpler — starting out and seeing where it goes — but what distinguishes them is their personality as players — and that’s not just Major either — and the conversing they do as they ooze through one movement to the next, one jam to the next. I’ll spare you wax poetics in the spirit of Manhattan concrete, but whatever they might have in common with whoever, they are their own thing. Once again, people are dancing, even bigger bubbles are being blown, and meanwhile the band is on stage ripping it up. They dedicated the entire last half-hour of their set to one song, a flowing jam with repeated cycles about smoking in the house that also magically became space rock. There really is nothing like a band who keep their word.
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Pelican
I’m going to try to assemble a few coherent thoughts, but I can’t promise anything as regards making sense. What I didn’t realize throughout today was just how much it was building toward Pelican, and just how much the veteran Chicago instrumental four-piece were positioned as a culmination. They were the point of convergence. I’m not going to list the tie to each act, because why would I?, but as well as setting the course for an innumerable amount of acts in terms of their influence, they also kick a good deal of ass. That is to say, they’re a headliner on paper as well as in reality. I lost my left earplug right before they went on — I’d left my bag on the other side of the photo pit, and getting there was a journey; just trust me — but even with two full festival days left, I’m less distraught at the ringing in my ear with them as the cause than I might be other under circumstances. It got chilly after the sun went down, but I found a spot in back to watch them for just a bit before moving elsewhere and the swirling lights, the presence of the band on stage, the volume even after I replaced that earplug — staggering. I don’t even know how many times I’ve used the word “beautiful” in the last two days at Freak Valley, and this probably won’t be the last one either, but that’s really what it was. The end of a long day, people slouching with fatigue, booze, whatever. And then Pelican comes on and it’s this massive waveform of positive energy. A celebration, maybe. I don’t know, but it felt like resonant joy pushed through all that crunching tonality, all that hugeness of nod. Heart. In a universe where authenticity is a myth, Pelican communicate something essential — not quite primal, but not far off — for those ready to accept the invitation to hear it. That’s all. No big deal.
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06.17.22 – Fri. – 10:54AM – Hotel
Liebe freunden — as the fellow says; it’s a kind of catchphrase for the fest and an appropriate, organic one — it occurred to me last night that I hadn’t had a meal since before I flew out on Tuesday, and that that last meal was composed entirely of Swiss cheese. So yes, breakfast. Some peppery eggs, assorted slices of cheese, coffee. The Karma to Burn of meals. Keep it simple as much as possible. Hydrate. I drank about half a liter of water per band yesterday. Take Advil. Sit down. Breathe to the extent that whatever allergy it is allows. Exist.
I’ve said a fair amount about the music so far, but the atmosphere here shouldn’t be neglected either. The spirit of the place, the green trees, green grass, yes. But also the kindness of the people. I was in the photo pit last night and someone up front in the crowd tapped me on the shoulder and said he probably wouldn’t be there if not for this site. I met a married couple (who’d gotten engaged at the festival in 2017) who were lovely and whose names I remember but won’t say, because, you know.
It’s not for me to be taking pictures of the crowd, of people who aren’t performing, who are there to hang out and enjoy themselves. It seems intrusive. But understand that, being here, the kindness of everybody I’ve met has been as essential as the music, as the setting. The people, the place, the thing. It is all the nouns, spiritually restorative.
Today I will pack a hoodie for the nighttime. Forgive me for being out of practice. I was burning yesterday afternoon and ended up buying a hat as well, so yes, you learn and relearn as you go. But strangers, friends, and strangers who become friends help along the way. Maybe not with showering — that I’ll do on my own — but the rest of it. As loud and raucous and go-go-go as it can be, it’s serene too. An existential butterfly landing on your nose. Just for a moment, I know. Two more days.
