Day four of five for this snuck-in-before-the-end-of-the-year Quarterly Review, and I’m left wondering if maybe it won’t be worth booking another week for January or early February, and if that happens, is it still “quarterly” at that point if you do it like six times a year? ‘Bimonthly Quality Control Assessments’ coming soon! Alert your HR supervisors to tell your servers of any allergies.

No, not really.

I’ll figure out a way to sandwich more music into this site if it kills me. Which I guess it might. Whatever, let’s do this thing.

Quarterly Review #31-40

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Sergeant Thunderhoof, The Ghost of Badon Hill

A marked accomplishment in progressive heavy rock, The Ghost of Badon Hill is the fifth full-length from UK five-piece Sergeant Thunderhoof, who even without the element of surprise on their side — which is to say one is right to approach the 45-minute six-tracker with high expectations based on the band’s past work; their last LP was 2022’s This Sceptred Veil (review here)  — rally around a folklore-born concept and deliver the to-date album of their career. From the first emergence of heft in “Badon” topped with Daniel Flitcroft soar-prone vocals, Sergeant Thunderhoof — guitarists Mark Sayer and Josh Gallop, bassist Jim Camp and drummer Darren Ashman, and the aforementioned Flitcroft — confidently execute their vision of a melodic riffprog scope. The songs have nuance and character, the narrative feels like it moves through the material, there are memorable hooks and grand atmospheric passages. It is by its very nature not without some indulgent aspects, but also a near-perfect incarnation of what one might ask it to be.

Sergeant Thunderhoof on Facebook

Pale Wizard Records store

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Swallow the Sun, Shining

The stated objective of Swallow the Sun‘s Shining was for less misery, and fair enough as the Finnish death-doomers have been at it for about a quarter of a century now and that’s a long time to feel so resoundingly wretched, however relatably one does it. What does less-misery sound like? First of all, still kinda miserable. If you know Swallow the Sun, they are still definitely recognizable in pieces like “Innocence Was Long Forgotten,” “What I Have Become” and “MelancHoly,” but even the frontloading of these singles — don’t worry, from “Kold” and the ultra Type O Negative-style “November Dust” (get it?), to the combination of floating, dancing keyboard lines and drawn out guitars in the final reaches of the title-track, they’re not short on highlights — conveys the modernity brought into focus. Produced by Dan Lancaster (Bring Me the Horizon, A Day to Remember, Muse), the songs are in conversation with the current sphere of metal in a way that Swallow the Sun have never been, broadening the definition of what they do while retaining a focus on craft. They’re professionals.

Swallow the Sun on Facebook

Century Media website

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Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships, The Mind Like Fire Unbound

Where’s the intermittently-crushing sci-fi-concept death-stoner, you ask? Well, friend, Lincoln, Nebraska’s Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships would like to have a word, and on The Mind Like Fire Unbound, there’s a non-zero chance that word will come in the form of layered death metal growls and rasping throatripper screams representing an insectoid species about to tear more-melodically-voiced human colonizers to pieces. The 45-minute LP’s 14-minute opener “BUGS” that lays out this warning is followed by the harsh, cosmic-paranoia conjuration of “Dark Forest” before a pivot in 8:42 centerpiece “Infinite Inertia” — and yes, the structure of the tracks is purposeful; longest at the open and close with shorter pieces on either side of “Infinite Inertia” — takes the emotive cast of Pallbearer to an extrapolated psychedelic metalgaze, huge and broad and lumbering. Of course the contrast is swift in the two-minute “I Hate Space,” but where one expects more bludgeonry, the shortest inclusion stays clean vocally amid its uptempo, Torche-but-not-really push. Organ joins the march in the closing title-track (14:57), which gallops following its extended intro, doom-crashes to a crawl and returns to double-kick behind the encompassing last solo, rounding out with suitable showcase of breadth and intention.

Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships on Facebook

Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships on Bandcamp

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Planet of Zeus, Afterlife

Planet of Zeus make a striking return with their sixth album, Afterlife, basing their theme around mythologies current and past and accompanying that with a sound that’s both less brash than they were a few years back on 2019’s Faith in Physics (review here) and refined in the sharpness and efficiency of its songwriting. It’s a rocker, which is what one has come to expect from these Athens-based veterans. Afterlife builds momentum through desert-style rockers like “Baptized in His Death” and the hooky “No Ordinary Life” and “The Song You Misunderstand,” getting poppish in the stomp of “Bad Milk” only after the bluesy “Let’s Call it Even” and before the punkier “Letter to a Newborn,” going where it wants and leaving no mystery as to how it’s getting there because it doesn’t need to. One of the foremost Greek outfits of their generation, Planet of Zeus show up, tell you what they’re going to do, then do it and get out, still managing to leave behind some atmospheric resonance in “State of Non-Existence.” There’s audible, continued forward growth and kickass tunes. If that sounds pretty ideal, it is.

Planet of Zeus on Facebook

Planet of Zeus on Bandcamp

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Human Teorema, Le Premier Soleil de Jan Calet

Cinematic in its portrayal, Le Premier Soleil de Jan Calet positions itself as cosmically minded, and manifests that in sometimes-minimal — effectively so, since it’s hypnotic — aural spaciousness, but Paris’ Human Teorema veer into Eastern-influenced scales amid their exploratory, otherworldly-on-purpose landscaping, and each planet on which they touch down, from “Onirico” (7:43) to “Studiis” (15:54) and “Spedizione” (23:20) is weirder than the last, shifting between these vast passages and jammier stretches still laced with synth. Each piece has its own procession and dynamic, and perhaps the shifts in intent are most prevalent within “Studiis,” but the closer is, on the balance, a banger as well, and there’s no interruption in flow once you’ve made the initial choice to go with Le Premier Soleil de Jan Calet. An instrumental approach allows Human Teorema to embody descriptive impressions that words couldn’t create, and when they decide to hit it hard, they’re heavy enough for the scale they’ve set. Won’t resonate universally (what does?), but worth meeting on its level.

Human Teorema on Instagram

Sulatron Records store

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Caged Wolves, A Deserts Tale

There are two epics north of the 10-minute mark on Caged Wolves‘ maybe-debut LP, A Deserts Tale: “Lost in the Desert” (11:26) right after the intro “Dusk” and “Chaac” (10:46) right before the hopeful outro “Dawn.” The album runs a densely-packed 48 minutes through eight tracks total, and pieces like the distortion-drone-backed “Call of the Void,” the alt-prog rocking “Eleutheromania,” “Laguna,” which is like earlier Radiohead in that it goes somewhere on a linear build, and the spoken-word-over-noise interlude “The Lost Tale” aren’t exactly wanting for proportion, regardless of runtime. The bassline that opens “Call of the Void” alone would be enough to scatter orcs, but that still pales next to “Chaac,” which pushes further and deeper, topping with atmospheric screams and managing nonetheless to come out of the other side of that harsh payoff of some of the album’s most weighted slog in order to bookend and give the song the finish it deserves, completing it where many wouldn’t have been so thoughtful. This impression is writ large throughout and stands among the clearest cases for A Deserts Tale as the beginning of a longer-term development.

Caged Wolves on Facebook

Tape Capitol Music store

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Anomalos Kosmos, Liminal Escapism

I find myself wanting to talk about how big Liminal Escapism sounds, but I don’t mean in terms of tonal proportion so much as the distances that seem to be encompassed by Greek progressive instrumentalists Anomalos Kosmos. With an influence from Grails and, let’s say, 50 years’ worth of prog rock composition (but definitely honoring the earlier end of that timeline), Anomalos Kosmos offer emotional evocation in pieces that feel compact on either side of six or seven minutes, taking the root jams and building them into structures that still come across as a journey. The classy soloing in “Me Orizeis” and synthy shimmer of “Parapatao,” the rumble beneath the crescendo of “Kitonas” and all of that gosh darn flow in “Flow” speak to a songwriting process that is aware of its audience but feels no need to talk down, musically speaking, to feed notions of accessibility. Instead, the immersion and energetic drumming of “Teledos” and the way closer “Cigu” rallies around pastoral fuzz invite the listener to come along on this apparently lightspeed voyage — thankfully not tempo-wise — and allow room for the person hearing these sounds to cast their own interpretations thereof.

Anomalos Kosmos on Facebook

Anomalos Kosmos on Bandcamp

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Pilot Voyager, Grand Fractal Orchestra

One could not hope to fully encapsulate an impression here of nearly three and a half hours of sometimes-improv psych-drone, and I refuse to feel bad for not trying. Instead, I’ll tell you that Grand Fractal Orchestra — the Psychedelic Source Records 3CD edition of which has already sold out — finds Budapest-based guitarist Ákos Karancz deeply engaged in the unfolding sounds here. Layering effects, collaborating with others from the informal PSR collective like zitherist Márton Havlik or singer Krisztina Benus, and so on, Karancz constructs each piece in a way that feels both steered in a direction and organic to where the music wants to go. “Ore Genesis” gets a little frantic around the middle but finds its chill, “Human Habitat” is duly foreboding, and the two-part, 49-minute-total capper “Transforming Time to Space” is beautiful and meditative, like staring at a fountain with your ears. It goes without saying not everybody has the time or the attention span to sit with a release like this, but if you take it one track at a time for the next four years or so, there’s worlds enough in these songs that they’ll probably just keep sinking in. And if Karancz puts outs like five new albums in that time too, so much the better.

Pilot Voyager on Instagram

Psychedelic Source Records on Bandcamp

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Blake Hornsby, A Village of Many Springs

It probably goes without saying — at least it should — that while the classic folk fingerplucking of “Whispering Waters” and the Americana-busy “Laurel Creek Blues” give a sweet introduction to Blake Hornsby‘s A Village of Many Springs, inevitably it’s the 23-minute experimentalist spread of the finale, “Bury My Soul in the Linville River,” that’s going to be a focal point for many listeners, and fair enough. The earthbound-cosmic feel of that piece, its devolution into Lennon-circa-1968 tape noise and concluding drone, aren’t at all without preface. A Village of Many Springs gets weirder as it goes, with the eight-minute “Cathedral Falls” building over its time into a payoff of seemingly on-guitar violence, and the subsequent “O How the Water Flows” nestling into a sweet spot between Appalachian nostalgia and foreboding twang. There’s percussion and manipulation of noise later, too, but even in its repetition, “O How the Water Flows” continues Hornsby‘s trajectory. For what’s apparently an ode to water in the region surrounding Hornsby‘s home in Asheville, North Carolina, that it feels fluid should be no surprise, but by no means does one need to have visited Laurel Creek to appreciate the blues Hornsby conjures for them.

Blake Hornsby on Facebook

Echodelick Records website

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Congulus, G​ö​ç​ebe

With a sensibility in some of the synth of “Hacamat” born of space rock, Congulus have no trouble moving from that to the 1990s-style alt-rock saunter of “Diri Bir Nefes,” furthering the momentum already on the Istanbul-based instrumentalist trio’s side after opener “İskeletin Düğün Halayı” before “Senin Sırlarının Yenilmez Gücünü Gördüm” spaces out its solo over scales out of Turkish folk and “Park” marries together the divergent chugs of Judas Priest and Meshuggah, there’s plenty of adventure to be had on Göç​ebe. It’s the band’s second full-length behind 2019’s Bozk​ı​r — they’ve had short releases between — and it moves from “Park” into the push of “Zarzaram” and “Vordonisi” with efficiency that’s only deceptive because there’s so much stylistic range, letting “Ulak” have its open sway and still bash away for a moment or two before “Sonunda Ah Çekeriz Derinden” closes by tying space rock, Mediterranean traditionalism and modern boogie together in one last jam before consigning the listener back to the harsher, decidedly less utopian vibes of reality.

Congulus on Facebook

Congulus on Bandcamp

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I’m pretty sure this is day eight. Like, not 100 percent or anything, but without looking I feel pretty good about saying that today would be the day we hit three-quarters of the way through the Fall 2024 Quarterly Review — if it was actually going to end on Friday. Yeah, turns out I have enough stuff I want to write about to add an 11th day, so it’s going to go to 110 releases instead of 100 and end Monday instead. It’s gotta stop at some point and I have a premiere set for next Tuesday, so that’s as good a time as any, but while I can sneak the extra QR day in, it makes sense to do so on any level except the practical, on which none of it makes any sense so that doesn’t do us any good anyway.

We — you and I — march on.

Quarterly Review #71-80:

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Trigona & IO Audio Recordings, Split LP

Doing a shortform review of a split sometimes works out to have all the depth of insight of “Hey this thing exists,” but hey, this thing exists. Bringing together California’s IO Audio Recordings and Australia’s Trigona — both solo outfits with their controls set for the heart of the heretofore sonically unknown; they collaborate on a vinyl-only bonus track called “Space Sickness” — the 39-minute digital form of the release further breaks down to three Trigona tracks in the first half and two from IO Audio Recordings (whose moniker is also styled all-lowercase: io audio recordings), and any way you go at any given point throughout, it’s pretty gone. Trigona‘s “Spectra,” “Andaman Sky” and “Vespicula” have a full-band heavy psych shimmer and a thread of drone that works well to transition into IO Audio Recordings‘ “Paranormal Champion” and “Ascend and Return,” the former of which pushes into a wash in its middle that seems to be in the spirit of Sonic Youth, getting duly noisy at the long-fading end, and the latter moving from a darker industrial rock into hypnotic ambience to round out. Both of these entities have other fairly recent releases out — to say nothing of the labels standing behind them — but so much the better for those who find this split to bask in the warmth of “Andaman Sky” and find a personal space within the sounds. If it’s obscure, so be it. It exists.

IO Audio Recordings on Instagram

Trigona on Bandcamp

Echodelick Records website

Weird Beard Records store

Fuzzed Up and Astromoon Records

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Emu, Emu

Aussie rockers Emu promise on the opening track of their self-titled debut that, “A new age is coming,” and they sound like they’re trying to push it along all by themselves. Like much of what follows on the six-track/41-minute long-player, “New Age” offers a blend of in-your-face classic-style heavy rock and roll — not quite boogie, but they’re not opposed to it as the ZZ Toppish middle of “Desert Phoenix” shows — and raucous jamming. “Sittin’ Here Thinkin'” is a couple minutes shorter and thus more direct feeling, while apparent side B opener “The Hatching” is a three-minute acoustic-led interlude before the solidifying-from-the-ether “Once Were Gums” and the bigger-swinging “Will We Ever Learn?” renew the dig-in, the latter diverging near its halfway point to a finishing build that serves the entire record well. The Sunshine Coast trio’s energy and modernized ’70s-isms call to mind some of what was coming from San Diego starting about a decade ago, but ambition is plain to hear in the longer tracks and the material wants neither for expanse or movement. The very definition of an encouraging start.

Emu on Facebook

Black Farm Records store

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Solemn Ceremony, Chapter III

Multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Phil Howlett (Lucifer’s Fall, Rote Mare, etc.) is the driving force behind Adelaide’s Solemn Ceremony, and on Chapter III, he and lead guitarist Kieran Provis capture a rare spirit of raw 1980s doom with a glee that, thankfully, doesn’t undercut all the misery on display in the songs themselves. Howlett also plays guitar, bass and drums, and seems to have engineered at least part of the recording, and his vocals are a big part of what so much characterizes the doom Solemn Ceremony proffer. In his throatier moments, he has a push that reminds distinctively of Scott Reagers from Saint Vitus, and while the music is by no means limited to this influence — “Chapter III” is more morose emotionally and the uptempo movements of “The King of Slaves” and “Skull Smasher” clearly have broader tape collections — it is the rawer side of traditionalist doom that Howlett is harnessing, and since he wields it less like a precious thing than the anti-punk lifeblood it was at the time, it works. Doom from doom, by doom, for doom.

Solemn Ceremony on Facebook

Solemn Ceremony on Bandcamp

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Glacier, A Distant, Violent Shudder

As was the case with their 2019 outing, No Light Ever (review here), Boston post-metallic instrumentalists Glacier make a priority of immersing the lister in the proceedings of their five-track/46-minute A Distant, Violent Shudder. Five years later, they continue to take some influence from Red Sparowes in terms of presentation and how the songs are titled, etc., but as the full crux of second cut “‘The Old Timers Said They’d Never Seen Nothin’ Like That'” comes forward at around three minutes in, Glacier are outright heavier, and they go on to prove it again and again as the album plays out. Fair enough. From “Grief Rolled in Like a Storm” to “Sand Bitten Lungs,” which seems to be making its way back to its start the whole time but ends up in an even heftier churning repetition, Glacier remain poised as they sculpt the pieces that comprise the record, the semi-title-track “Distant/Violent” doing much to build and tear down the world it makes. Heavy existentialism.

Glacier on Facebook

Post. Recordings on Bandcamp

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DÖ, Unversum

Like a reminder that the cosmos is both impossibly cold and hot enough to fuse hydrogen atoms, the third full-length from Finnish progressive blackened sludge rockers DÖ sets its own frame of reference in “Call of the Supervoid.” That lead cut doesn’t lay out everywhere Unversum goes throughout its contemplative eight songs and 45 minutes, but it does establish the tonal reach, the vocal rasp and the heft the trio foster throughout, so that by the time they’re nestled into the nodding second half of “Melting Gaze of the Origin,” en route to the explosive and suitably gravitational roll that would seem to begin side B in “Ode to the Dark Matter,” they’ve laid out the tenets by which Unversum operates and can proceed to add to that context. That they’re flexible enough to spend the early going of “Faster Than Light” in a psychedelic holding pattern should be seen as emblematic of their breadth on the whole, never mind the crush and seethe of “Nuclear Emperor” or “Moldy Moon,” but their extremity is tempered cleverly by their slower pacing, and that lets their individualized craft come across organically as Unversum carries the listener deeper into its expanse.

DÖ on Facebook

Lay Bare Recordings website

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Aeternal Chambers, Aeternal Chambers

In 2022, when Raf Ruett (guitar, keys), Alex Nervo (bass, keys) and Neil Dawson (drums) were part of what might’ve been the final Obiat album, Indian Ocean (review here), it was an expansive, years-in-the-making culmination of that band’s time together, with recordings taking place across continents, guest vocals and arrangements for horns. As Ruett, Nervo and Dawson reemerge in Aeternal Chambers, there have clearly been a few aspects redirected. For starters, the band’s first four songs to be made public on their self-titled debut EP are instrumental, and so are able to breathe and develop differently. Each half of the 30-minute EP is comprised of a nine-minute and a six-minute track, and even the shorter ones clue the listener into the intense focus on ambience, hitting harder à la post-metal in “Drive Me to Ruin” but keeping a brighter tone in the lead guitar to contrast any sense of plunge, saving the biggest for last in “Glitch in the Mist.” More of this will do just fine, thanks.

Aeternal Chambers on Facebook

Aeternal Chambers on Bandcamp

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OmenBringer, Thicc Darkness

From the non-cartoon butt on the front cover to quoting Lord of the Rings at the end of the album-intro “The Pact,” to catchy hooks throughout “Spells,” “Tungs” and the speedier “My Coven,” OmenBringer would seem to have a firm grasp on the audience demographic they’re aiming for, but there’s more happening in the tracks than plying the male gaze as the Nasheville four-piece make their self-released full-length debut. And that’s fortunate, because the record is 53 minutes long. I’m sorry, nobody needs to be putting out a 53-minute album in 2024 (I get it, first album, self-release, you might never get another chance; I’ve been there), but vocalist Molly Kent, guitarists Cory Cline (lead, also bass) and Spookie Rollings and drummer Tyler Boydstun mitigate this by making the late-arriving title-track an empowerment anthem — plus banjo? is that a banjo? — and fostering keyboardy drama in the hypnotic interlude “The Long Walk,” which follows. Ups and downs throughout, but a solid underpinning of metal gives the songs a foundation on which to build, and the penultimate “Stake” even hints at cinematic growth to come.

OmenBringer on Facebook

OmenBringer on Bandcamp

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Urzah, The Scorching Gaze

The declarative, 16-worthy sludge-metal chug of closer “Thera II (Embers of Descent)” is honestly worth the price of admission alone here, if you’re desperate for impetus, and Bristol’s Urzah bring the earlier “Of Decay” to a head like Amenra at their undulating finest, and The Scorching Gaze, which is the band’s first album, resounds with scope. Bolstered by guest vocal appearances by Eleanor Tinlin spread across opening duo “I, Empyrean” and “Lacrimare (Misery’s Shadow)” as well as the subdued “The Aesthetic” after the appropriately tumultuous “A Storm is Ever Approaching,” Urzah are able to foster aural textures that are about more than just the physicality of the music itself, correspondingly spacious and complex, but never lack immediacy, not the least for the post-hardcore shouts from guitarist Ed Fairman, who’s joined in the band by drummer James Brown, bassist Les Grodek and guitarist Tom McElveen. It doesn’t feel like Urzah‘s style is a settled issue — it’s their first LP; that’s not at all a dig on the band — and as the march of “Thera II (Embers of Descent)” gives way to its fade, one can only hope they stay so open-minded in their craft.

Urzah on Facebook

APF Records website

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Goat Generator, Goat Generator

Whatever the narrative you want to put to Goat Generator‘s self-titled debut, whether you want to hone in on the cultish doom-prog boogie of “Black Magik,” the more modern synthy prog-psych of “Waving Around” and “Dreamt by the Sea,” the four-minute desert-rocking homage to wildlife in “Honey Badger” or the tambourine-inclusive spoken-word verses build of “Everyday Apocalypse Blues” or the way they take 11 minutes well spent to tie it all together in the subsequent closer “Far From Divine/Kingdom Gone” — whatever your angle of approach — there’s no getting around the story of the band being how much better they are than their name. The Leipzig-based four-piece offer songs varied in purpose and mood, speaking to genre from within and showcasing the vocals of Tag Hell without shortchanging the instrumental impact of Patrick Thiele‘s guitar, Martin Schubert‘s bass and Götz Götzelmann‘s drums, and they called it Goat Generator, which isn’t quite over-the-top enough to be righteously ridiculous as a moniker and reminds of nothing so much of the Stoner Rock Band Name Generator, feeling bland in a way that the music very much is not. It’s their first LP after a 2022 demo, and I’m not gonna sit here and tell a band to change their name, so I’ll tell you instead that if you’re put off by that kind of thing in this case, it’s to your own detriment to let it keep you from hearing the songs.

Goat Generator on Facebook

Goat Generator on Bandcamp

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Head Shoppe, Head Shoppe

Rife with a languid pastoralism and threads of traditionalist folk guitar (not entirely acoustic), synth enough to make the procession that emerges behind the finishing “Candlelight Vigil” no more out of place than it wants to be in its casual, snap-along, out-for-a-walk vibe soon met with low end fuzz and a wash of keyboard melody, Head Shoppe‘s self-titled debut lets each of its six component pieces find its own way, and the result is a malleability that extends less to form — these are guitar and synth-based instrumental works of sometimes weighted psychedelia — than to the intangible nature of the creative spirit being manifest. I know nothing in terms of the process through which Head Shoppe‘s Eric Von Harding composes, but his style is able to incorporate field recordings that are emotionally evocative while also giving the otherwise sprawling “Saunders Meadow” the conceptualist ground above which it drifts. The also-eight-minute “Gracias a la Vida” uses cymbals and even manipulated voice to conjure memory before delving into flamenco stylizations, and is as much about the transition from one to the other as just what might’ve brought them together in the first place. An escape, maybe.

Head Shoppe on Linktr.ee

Meadows Heavy Recorders on Bandcamp

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[Click play above to stream International Space Station Vol. 2 in full. The split is out Aug. 20 on Worst Bassist, Weird Beard and Echodelick Records.]

In addition to being the most expensive thing ever built, the International Space Station is the most resounding proof ever manifest of the potential for what humanity can accomplish when we, in even momentary or compartmentalized fashion, put aside our differences and genuinely collaborate. Human potential, circling the planet above our heads every 90 minutes or so. Worst Bassist Records (Germany/EU), working in conjunction with Weird Beard Records (UK) and Echodelick Records (US), offers the second installment of its split series, International Space Station Vol. 2, both in tribute and in some of the same cooperative spirit. Like its 2022 predecessor, International Space Station Vol. 1 (review here), the assemblage features four bands, including the Americans Verstärker, from Kentucky, as well as Kombynat Robotron (from Germany), Speck (from Austria) and Sarkh (from Germany). It’s not quite the same as Europe, Russia, Canada and America spending billions of dollars to construct the ISS itself, module by module, but as one would hope, each band brings something of their own to the overarching scope of International Space Station Vol. 2, while keeping to the abiding space rock theme, in essence if not necessarily genre tropes. It’s cosmic one way or the other, to be sure.

As with Vol. 1, each band on Vol. 2 is given a side to work with to make a full 72-minute 2LP. Verstärker lead off and bring the first of the split’s delves into krautrock across “Weltraumtraum” (12:16) and “Kvant” (5:46), the latter of which is an immersive, multi-tiered drone that gradually emerges from the second half of “Weltraumtraum.” The two are likewise exploratory, if in different ways, as the first cut starts out with a more urgent gallop on drums and a bassline that keeps it cool but still moves, guitar feeling out the spaces in the swirl. A boogie takes hold until about four and a half minutes in, where the change marked by a stop of drums leads to a heavier outbound thrust. About force more than escape velocity, the next two minutes of push give over to mellower bassy jamming and guitar effects floating overhead, a little ghostly, but there. The drums keep the tension so that when “Weltraumtraum” starts to build back up it makes sense, and even after the crescendo, until just about 10 minutes in, the drums hold out amid the residual synth and guitar echoes. Once they go, it’s the sci-fi drone of “Kvant” all the way — an initial and not at all last hypnotic stretch as International Space Station Vol. 2 broadens its reach.

Kombynat Robotron bring a reset at the start of their lone inclusion “Montan” (15:31) and answer the proggy flow of Verstärker‘s longer piece with an easy movement of their own. Shimmering guitar over a krautrock groove probably shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone familiar with the band, this split series, or the style more generally, but Kombynat Robotron bring a Yawning–Man-in-space sensibility to the guitar work and subtle gotta-go of the rhythm. A crash and stop at five minutes in marks the divergence from where they’ve been to where they’re going, which is to a more actively swirling solo section, with crash cymbal adding to the build as they move further into the maybe-improvised unknown. Howls and wails circa 8:20 preface a pickup in the toms, and the Kiel trio carry their procession in willfully, increasingly noisy style across its back half, such that when it ends with a feedbackscape, it makes sense, feeling all the more vibrant and nebular in their fusing of elements. As the only band with one song here — everyone else does a long one and a short one, like Verstärker — Kombynat Robotron still use their time well to emphasize performance as well as exploration. “Montan” is duly massive as a result.

The immediate impression when Speck set forth with “Flaniergang” (16:03), with “Bes, So Bes” (4:29) following, is cleaner in tone, but it’s the urging motion of the drums that is most consuming. Accompanied by a bassline one might be tempted to call “solid” were it not so utterly liquefied, the drums mark out the path the song will take and give everybody — yes, including you — the chance to get on board before the real takeoff. That comes shortly after three minutes in as the guitar comes forward and the groove opens up with chugging interstellar build. Hints of heavy psych melodicism persist in the guitar, and that’ll do quite nicely, thank you, but Speck bring the proceedings back down for a quick refueling ahead of the next launch, which comes in short order. It’s not the last either — they sneak in a third redirect in the last two minutes that makes “Flaniergang” even more exciting, capping with feedback that leads directly into the cymbal wash of “Bes, So Bes,” a slow-rolling improv-feeling jaunt into low gravity that isn’t shapeless but which is clear in its less-rigid structure, and at this point in the split, calling something “less rigid” is really saying something.

Given the unenviable task of rounding out the final of the 2LP’s four sides, Sarkh flip the script and put the shorter song first, topping “Helios” (6:17) with a sample in its early going and sweeping in with heavier tones and some of the post-metallic expanse they’ve established as well within their reach. By the time they’re three minutes in, “Helios” is crushing and sprawling in kind, and they continue to set airy post-rock guitar against what in context sounds downright pummeling as the song churns to its purposeful ending, a stretch of low hum making the transition between “Helios” and the concluding “Cape Wrath” (11:37). Terrestrial, if not cavernous in its sound, and once again, remarkably heavy, “Cape Wrath” turns from the patterned riff that begins it, drops the drums and resets for a breath around ambient guitar, and thereby sets out on one big, last build, the payoff of which is your explanation for why Sarkh appear last on International Space Station Vol. 2 — once you go in the black hole, there’s no getting back out. It’s okay though, because as gravitational as they get, Sarkh retain enough presence and intentionality to bring “Cape Wrath” to a close with a change to sparse standalone guitar, not unlike that which set out that build to begin with.

And really, who knows where or when that was. On the cosmic-web-defined, impossible-to-comprehend-by-our-bacteria-brains scales of time and space in the universe, International Space Station and the structure that inspired the series in the first are — like everything else human beings have ever done and likely will ever do — small achievements, but they share that aspect of realized potential, and like the different sections of the ISS being assembled in orbit some 255 miles above the surface of the planet, each band’s material adds to the complexity of what’s portrayed by the whole, which is a fresh, multidimensional space rock that speaks no less to an optimistic future. The eons-long course of civilization’s history has wrought little that is more worth celebrating, and International Space Station Vol. 2 feels suitably reverent.

Verstärker on Facebook

Verstärker on Instagram

Verstärker on Bandcamp

Kombynat Robotron on Facebook

Kombynat Robotron on Instagram

Kombynat Robotron on Bandcamp

Speck on Facebook

Speck on Instagram

Speck on Bandcamp

Sarkh on Facebook

Sarkh on Instagram

Sarkh on Bandcamp

Worst Bassist Records on Facebook

Worst Bassist Records on Instagram

Worst Bassist Records on Bandcamp

Worst Bassist Records website

Echodelick Records on Facebook

Echodelick Records on Instagram

Echodelick Records on Bandcamp

Echodelick Records website

Weird Beard Records on Facebook

Weird Beard Records on Bandcamp

Weird Beard Records store

A field recording of insects begins 21-minute opener and longest track (immediate points) “Earth” on the self-titled debut from Moonseeds, but it isn’t long before the resonant, duly pastoral wandering guitar of Lex Waterreus begins to unfurl a sunrise of tone. Waterreus, known for his work in Australian heavy psych rockers Seedy Jeezus, as well as for his retro-styled graphic design, is soon joined by cymbal washes and gentle toms from Dave “Sula Bassana” Schmidt and, gradually, the exploratory bass of “Komet Lulu” Neudeck. When Moonseeds‘ Moonseeds was first recorded, reportedly in 2018 after Seedy Jeezus finished a European tour, both Schmidt and Neudeck were still members of Electric Moon — the former currently has a Sula Bassana live band going and is always doing numerous other projects and collaborations, while the latter has founded Worst Bassist Records and just released an album with a new band, The Barren Room; it’s unknown just how forever-done Electric Moon are –and with additional effects from all as well as organ and Mellotron, a recording and mix from Schmidt and vocals from Wattereus, the three-song/41-minute long-player might be a one-off, but if so, it’s one with noteworthy persona.

Comprising all of side A, “Earth” (21:10) gives way to “Sun” (7:12) and “Moon” (12:58) for the vinyl’s second side, and between the three of them, the expanse seems a little broader in scale than the 93 million miles of one astronomical unit can really account for, but is still less about space than the cosmic soul residing therein as manifest in Waterreus‘ soloing. He is a classic lead guitarist, and given the opportunity by the mellow rhythmic backdrop of “Earth,” he does not miss the opportunity to go, go, go where the fretboard seems to want to go, setting a hypnotic and winding but distinctly his own course as the chirps continue even amid the slow-mo scorch around 11 minutes in, bluesy shred and crash cymbal hitting a crescendo that carries forward in a build of swirl and effects filling out the mix with slow undulations and a thudding beat beneath that find their own evolutionary path across the next few minutes so that the change when Schmidt moves off the cymbals at around the 17-minute mark is striking and the howls of guitar stand out in a different, lonelier way headed into the comedown.

The bugs have been at it the whole time, and as “Earth” quiets down, that becomes even more apparent — visions of post-apocalyptic sci-fi in the six-legged insectoid post-human inheritors of the planet — and gentle repetitions of the guitar line lead the way out with some subtle flourish layered in, then are gone. Of course, as it makes up half the record — which was mastered by Eroc (Grobschnitt; he’s billed as “krautrock legend Eroc,” and fair enough) — “Earth” is an inevitable focal point of Moonseeds, but side B has its own statement to make in pairing “Sun” and “Moon.” If you want to think of it as a question of perspective, perhaps we’re on “Earth” with a clear view of the “Moon” and the “Sun,” which is millions of times larger than either of the others and hot enough to fuse hydrogen into helium, but the shortest piece here, at further remove as the others orbit around it. It is distinguished by a sense of melancholy even before Waterreus dares to add a human voice to the proceedings. The open reaches in the mix are complemented by a line of organ that threads through quietly, while the drums and the effects-laced voice both seem farther back.

There were recordings done in 2023 — Seedy Jeezus were back in Europe — in addition to what had been put to tape in 2018, and I don’t know if that’s part of what has allowed “Sun” to become more of a song than a jam, but its resonance extends to the emotional even before it heads to the midsection, somewhere between Led Zeppelin at their least-coked and King Crimson at their most fluid, but not really either of them. Mellow space rock, maybe, if you need a genre tag, but in the hearing it’s more about the presence of the keys and the wistfulness of the guitar. They’re not melodramatic or over-the-top, but in a third of the runtime, they manage to foster an impression apart from “Earth” — the vocals help the distinction, but aren’t the only source of it — and put the aforementioned soul of Waterreus‘ guitar to a particularly expressive use; not quite shooting for “Maggot Brain” territory, but definitely “Maggot Brain”-aware. The finish is a little janglier, but that it’s preserved rather than faded out adds to the organic feel of the entirety, making it believable that the entire proceedings were made up on the spot.

And with these players, they may have been. “Moon” begins around the guitar and unfolds quickly with an uptempo-by-comparison groove while maintaining the peacefulness that has been overarching throughout. Neudeck‘s fuzzed bass holds together cyclical low end as the drums turn back through measures and the guitar leads the build — it’s the stuff of power-trio traditionalism, wrought with individualized purpose. Right after four minutes in, Waterreus seems to propose a more active stretch, and Schmidt and Neudeck are immediately on board, which makes for a quick, easily-missed example of the conversation happening between players throughout Moonseeds, the way the material moves, allowing everybody space in a mix that’s wide enough to hold all of them and keyboards besides.

The finale, instrumental in its first half, finds itself in willful repetitions through the midsection before the drums and bass drop out and the vague swirls of vocals, maybe synthesizer, and such are established. The guitar comes back bright and joined by organ (at least I’m hearing one) for a worthy apex and subsequent noisy ending, after which they’re gone like they were never there in the first place. It’s hard to know with a project like this if it’s something that will or would ever happen again — Neudeck and Schmidt aren’t in a band together anymore and Waterreus lives halfway around the world; it’s clearly not conducive to weekly rehearsals — but as a listening experience, it’s understandable how these recordings might have held on in the back of the mind for six years before coming out. They capture a special moment in the studio and build around that central, maybe-improv foundation and hold a character that is their own. I wouldn’t hazard to predict whether or not there’s more in reserve for future release or whether or not these three will ever be in the same space again, but even if not, that does nothing to detract from the immersion and the light they offer here.

Moonseeds, Moonseeds (2024)

Sulatron Records on Facebook

Sulatron Records on Instagram

Sulatron Records website

Echodelick Records on Facebook

Echodelick Records on Instagram

Echodelick Records on Bandcamp

Echodelick Records website

Blown Music on Facebook

I know I’ve said this before, but I continue to believe there’s something extra rad about a four-way split. Two, generally pretty cool, but often leads to a sense of one band competing with the other or at least a tendency on the part of the listener to compare them, which is just the same thing from the other side. Three, well fine as long as you don’t have any intention toward vinyl. But a four-way 2LP split breaks up in a satisfying way, as everybody gets to showcase their aural wares on their own side, and there’s usually enough breadth of personality between the four bands that the listener is more inclined to take everything as it comes. As Worst Bassist Records showed with three first installment of the four-way split series International Space Station (review here) in 2022, ‘take it as it comes’ is precisely the best way to go in hearing it.

Jointly released through Weird Beard Records in the UK and Echodelick Records in the US, and I believe available to preorder from all of them, International Space Station Vol. 2 once again brings together an intercontinental assemblage in Verstärker (from the US, despite the maybe-misleading umlaut), Kombynat Robotron and Sarkh (from Germany), and Speck (from Austria), and everybody but Kombynat Robotron already has a song streaming. And Kombynat Robotron aren’t being jerks or holdouts or whathaveyou, but they’ve only got one song on their side. Fair enough up keep it under wraps for now.

If you do want to hear that — and we both know you do — come back Aug. 19, as I’ll be streaming the album in full that day with what I’m sure will be a duly slobbering review full of obscure Star Trek references and cosmic buzzwords picked up from the PBS S0ace Time science videos my daughter watches with ironically religious fervor. So it’ll be awesome, in other words.

For now, art, info and copious linkage follow. Engage:

The long awaited vol. 2 of the Intrernational Space Station arrives!

2-LP in a fat gatefold cover, colored wax, limited to 500
LP 1: orange wax
LP 2: blue wax
CD in digisleeve lim. 100

Four international bands (Verstärker, Kombynat Robotron, Speck, Sarkh) contributing 1 LP side each, instrumental, about how to watch the ISS crossing their skies from time to time… or being overwhelmed by the rough beauty of the ocean…

Long and psychedelic tracks pulsating through space and try to follow the way of the space station around our globe and even beyond, to contribute you the opportunity to travel through your inner cosmosis while listening, only interrupted by the needle lifting, which could just be some stops at random interstellar stations, to release and gain passengers.

2-LP in a fat gatefold cover, colored wax, limited to 500
LP 1: orange wax
LP 2: blue wax

Out via Worst Bassist (DE+World), Echodelick (USA) and Weird Beird (UK)
August 20th 2024
Comes with Download Code

CD out via Worst Bassist on Aug. 20th.

Verstärker

Verstärker from Kentucky, USA, play monotonic motorik sound, surrounded by soundscapes and beautiful noise.

Groove, shifts, scapes, beauty, intensity, it’s all there.

Kombynat Robotron

Germany’s high flying neo-krautrockers continue on side B with their floating and dynamic longtrack.

Speck

Side C kicks off with Austria’s instrumental psychedelic mantra jammers Speck, who created a journey through mind and space until…

Sarkh

… the ISS takes another turn over Germany and brings you a force of nature to end all this, with side D.

You’ll be torn apart and re-built again through the heavy and yet delightful instrumentals.

1. Verstärker – Weltraumtraum
2. Verstärker – Kvant
3. Kombynat Robotron – Montan
4. Speck – Flaniergang
5. Speck – Bes, so bes
6. Sarkh – Helios
7. Sarkh – Cape Wrath

https://www.facebook.com/verstarker
http://instagram.com/verstarker/
https://verstarker.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/KombynatRobotron
https://www.instagram.com/kombynat_robotron
https://kombynatrobotron.bandcamp.com/

http://www.facebook.com/speckspeckspeck
http://www.instagram.com/speck_speck_speck
https://speckspeckspeck.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/SarkhWorship/
https://www.instagram.com/sarkh.evolve
https://sarkh.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/worstbassistrecords
https://www.instagram.com/worst.bassist.records
https://worstbassistrecords.bandcamp.com/
https://www.worstbassist.com/

https://www.facebook.com/ERECORDSATL
https://www.instagram.com/echodelickrecords/
https://echodelickrecords.bandcamp.com/
https://www.echodelickrecords.com/

https://www.facebook.com/WeirdBeardRecs/
https://weirdbeardrecs.bandcamp.com/
https://theweirdbeard.bigcartel.com/

Various Artists, International Space Station Vol. 2 (2024)

Alright, back at it. Putting together yesterday over the weekend was more scattershot than I’d prefer, but one might say the same of parenting in general, so I’ll leave it at that. Still, as happens with Quarterly Reviews, we got there. That my wife gave me an extra 40 minutes to bang out the Wizzerd video premiere was appreciated. As always, she makes everything possible.

Compared to some QRs, there are a few ‘bigger’ releases here. You’ll note High on Fire leading off today. That trend will continue over this and next week with the likes of Pallbearer, Uncle Acid, Bongripper, Harvestman (Steve Von Till, ex-Neurosis), Inter Arma, Saturnalia Temple spread throughout. The Pelican two-songer and My Dying Bride back to back a week from today. That’ll be a fun one. As always, it’s about the time crunch for me for what goes in the Quarterly Review. Things I want to cover before it’s too late that I can fit here. Ain’t nobody holding their breath for my opinion on any of it, or on anything generally for that matter, but I’m not trying to slight well known bands by stuffing them into what when it started over a decade ago I thought would be a catchall for demos and EPs. Sometimes I like the challenge of a shorter word count, too.

And I remind myself here again nobody really cares. Fine, let’s go.

Quarterly Review #11-20:

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High on Fire, Cometh the Storm

What seems at first to be business as usual for High on Fire‘s fourth album produced by Kurt Ballou, fifth for MNRK Heavy (formerly E1), and ninth overall, gradually reveals itself to be the band’s tonally heaviest work in at least the last 15 years. What’s actually new is drummer Coady Willis (Big Business, Melvins) making his first studio appearance alongside founding guitarist/vocalist Matt Pike (Sleep, Pike vs. the Automaton) and long-tenured bassist/backing vocalist Jeff Matz (also saz on the instrumental interlude-plus “Karanlik Yol”), and for sure Willis‘ thud in “Trismegistus,” galloping intensity in the thrashy and angular “The Beating” and declarative stomp beneath the big slowdown of 10-minute closer “Darker Fleece” is part of it, but from the way Pike and Matz bring “Cometh the Storm’ and “Sol’s Golden Curse” in the record’s middle to such cacophonous ends, the three-and-a-half-minute face-kick that is “Lightning Beard” and the suckerpunch that starts off with “Lambsbread,” to how even the more vocally melodic “Hunting Shadows” is carried on a wave of filthy, hard-landing distortion, their ferocity is reaffirmed in thicker grooves and unmitigated pummel. While in some ways this is what one would expect, it’s also everything for which one might hope from High on Fire a quarter-century on from their first demo. Triumph.

High on Fire on Facebook

MNRK Heavy website

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Spaceslug, Out of Water

A release concurrent to a remastered edition of their 2016 debut, Lemanis (review here), only puts into emphasis how much Spaceslug have come into their own over eight productive years. Recorded by drummer/vocalist Kamil Ziółkowski (also Mountain of Misery), with guitarist/vocalist Bartosz Janik and bassist/vocalist Jan Rutka dug into familiar tonal textures throughout five tracks and a quick but inevitably full-length-flowing 32 minutes, Out of Water is both otherworldly and emotionally evocative in the rollout of “Arise the Sun” following the intertwined shouts of opener “Tears of Antimatter,” and in keeping with their progression, they nudge toward metallic aggression as a way to solidify their heavy psychedelic aspects. “Out of Water” is duly mournful to encapsulate such a tragic notion, and the nod of “Delusions” only grows more forcefully applied after the return from that song’s atmospheric break, and while they depart with “In Serenity” to what feels like the escapism of sunnier riffing, even that becomes more urgent toward the album’s finish. The reason it works is they’re bending genre to their songs, not the other way around, and as Spaceslug mature as a group, they’ve become one of Poland’s most essential heavy acts.

Spaceslug on Facebook

Spaceslug on Bandcamp

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Lie Heavy, Burn to the Moon

First issued on CD through JM Records in 2023, Lie Heavy‘s debut album, Burn to the Moon, sees broader release through Heavy Psych Sounds with revamped art to complement the Raleigh, North Carolina, four-piece’s tonal heft and classic reach in pieces like “In the Shadow” and “The Long March,” respectively. The band is fronted by Karl Agell (vocalist for C.O.C.‘s 1991 Blind album and now also in The Skull-offshoot Legions of Doom), and across the 12-song/51-minute run, and whether it’s the crunch of the ripper “When the Universe Cries” or the Clutch-style heavy funk of “Chunkadelic” pushing further from the start-stops of “In the Shadow” or the layered crescendo of “Unbeliever” a short time later, he and bassist/vocalist TR Gwynne, guitarist/vocalist Graham Fry and drummer/vocalist Jeff “JD” Dennis deliver sans-pretense riff-led fare. They’re not trying to fix what wasn’t broken in the ’90s, to be sure, but you can’t really call it a retread either as they swing through “Drag the World” and its capstone counterpart “End the World”; it all goes back to Black Sabbath anyway. The converted will get it no problem.

Lie Heavy on Facebook

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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Burning Realm, Face the Fire

Dublin, Ireland, trio Burning Realm mark their first release with the four-song Face the Fire EP, taking the cosmic-tinged restlessness of Wild Rocket and setting it alongside more grounded riffing, hinting at thrash in the ping ride on “From Beyond” but careening in the modern mode either way. Lead cut “Homosapien” gives Hawkwindian vibes early — the trap, which is sounding like Slift, is largely avoided, though King Gizzard may still be relevant as an influence — but smoothly gives over to acoustics and vocal drone once its urgency has bene vaporized, and spacious as the vocal echo is, “Face the Fire” is classic stoner roll even into its speedier ending, the momentum of which is continued in closer “Warped One (Arise),” which is more charged on the whole in a way that feels linear and intended in relation to what’s put before it. A 16-minute self-released introduction to who Burning Realm are now, it holds promise for how they might develop stylistically and grow in terms of range. Whatever comes or doesn’t, it’s easy enough to dig as it is. If you were at a show and someone handed you the tape, you’d be stoked once you put it on in the car. Also it’s like 1995 in that scenario, apparently.

Burning Realm on Facebook

Burning Realm on Bandcamp

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Kalac, Odyss​é​e

Offered through an international consortium of record labels that includes Crême Brûlée Records in the band’s native France, Echodelick in the US, Clostridium in Germany and Weird Beard in the UK, French heavy psych thrusters Kalac‘s inaugural full-length, Odyss​é​e — also stylized all-caps — doesn’t leave much to wonder why so many imprints might want some for the distro. With a focus on rhythmic movement in the we-gotta-get-to-space-like-five-minutes-ago modus of current-day heavy neo-space-rock, the mostly instrumental procession hypnotizes even as it peppers its expanses with verses here or there. That might be most effectively wrought in the payoff noiseblaster wash of “II,” which I’m just going to assume opens side B, but the boogie quotient is strong from “Arguenon” to “Beautiful Night,” and while might ring familiar to others operating in the aesthetic galaxial quadrant, the energy of Kalac‘s delivery and the not-haphazard-but-not-always-in-the-same-spot-either placement of the vocals are enough to distinguish them and make the six-tracker as exciting to hear as it sounds like it probably was to record.

Kalac on Facebook

Crême Brûlée Records on Bandcamp

Clostridium Records store

Weird Beard Records store

Echodelick Records on Bandcamp

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Alkuräjähdys, Ehdot.

The live-tracked fourth outing from Helsinki psych improvisationalists Alkuräjähdys, the lowercase-stylized ehdot. blends mechanical and electronic sounds with more organic psychedelic jamming, the synth and bassier punchthrough in the midsection of opening piece “.matriisi” indeed evocative of the dot-matrix printer to which its title is in reference, while “központ,” which follows, meanders into a broader swath of guitar-based noise atop a languidly graceful roll of drums. That let’s-try-it-slower ideology is manifest in the first half of the duly two-sided “a-b” as well, as the 12-minute finale begins by lurching through the denser distortion of a central riff en route to a skronk-jazz transition to a tighter midtempo groove that I’ll compare to Endless Boogie and very much intend that as a compliment. I don’t think they’re out to change the world so much as get in a room, hit it and see where the whole thing ends up, but those are noble creative aims in concept and practice, and between the two guitars, effects, synth and whathaveyou, there’s plenty of weird to go around.

Alkuräjähdys on Instagram

Alkuräjähdys on Bandcamp

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Magick Brother & Mystic Sister, Tarot Pt. 1

Already a significant undertaking as a 95-minute 2LP running 11 tracks themed — as the title(s) would hint — around tarot cards, the mostly serene sprawl of Magick Brother & Mystic Sister‘s Tarot Pt. 1 is still just the first of two companion albums to be issued as the follow-up to the Barcelona outfit’s 2020 self-titled debut (discussed here). Offered through respected Greek purveyor Sound Effect Records, Tarot Pt. 1 gives breadth beyond just the runtime in the sitar-laced psych-funk of “The Hierophant” (swap sitar for organ, synth and flute on “The Chariot”) and the classic-prog pastoralia of closer “The Wheel of Fortune,” and as with the plague-era debut, at the heart of the material is a soothing acid folk, and while the keys in the first half of “The Emperor” grow insistent and there’s some foreboding in the early Mellotron and key lines of “The Lovers,” Tarot Pt. 1 resonates comfort and care in its arrangements as well as ambition in its scope. Maybe another hour and a half on the way? Sign me up.

Magick Brother & Mystic Sister on Facebook

Sound Effect Records store

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Amigo, Good Time Island

The eight-year distance from their 2016 debut long-player, Little Cliffs, seems to have smoothed out some (not all, which isn’t a complaint) of the rough edges in Amigo‘s sound, as the seemingly reinvigorated San Diego four-piece of lead guitarist/vocalist Jeff Podeszwik (King Chiefs), guitarist Anthony Mattos, bassist Sufi Karalen and drummer Anthony Alley offer five song across an accessible, straightforward 17 minutes united beneath the fair-enough title of Good Time Island. Without losing the weight of their tones, a Weezery pop sensibility comes through in “Dope Den” while “Frog Face” is even more specifically indebted to The Cars. Neither “Telescope Boy” nor “Banana Phone” lacks punch, but Amigo hold some in reserve for “Me and Soof,” which rounds out the proceedings, and they put it to solid use for an approach that’s ’90s-informed without that necessarily meaning stoner, grunge or alt, and envision a commercially relevant, songwriting-based heavy rock and roll for an alternate universe that, by all accounts here, sounds like a decent place to be.

Amigo on Facebook

Roosevelt Row Records store

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The Hazytones, Wild Fever

Culminating in the Sabbathian shuffle of “Eye for an Eye,” Wild Fever is the hook-drenched third full-length from Montreal fuzzbringers The Hazytones, and while they’ve still got the ‘tones’ part down pat, it’s easy to argue the eight included tracks are the least ‘hazy’ they’ve been to-date. Following on from the direction of 2018’s II: Monarchs of Oblivion (review here), the Esben Willems-mixed/Kent Stump-mastered 40-minute long-player isn’t shy about leaning into the grittier side of what they do as the opening title-track rolls out a chorus that reminds of C.O.C. circa In the Arms of God while retaining some of the melody between the vocals of Mick Martel (also guitar and keys) and Gabriel Prieur (also drums and bass), and with the correspondingly thick bass of Caleb Sanders for accompaniment and lead guitarist John Choffel‘s solo rising out of the murk on “Disease,” honing in on the brashness suits them well. Not where one might have expected them to end up six years later, but no less enjoyable for that, either.

The Hazytones on Facebook

Black Throne Productions store

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All Are to Return, III

God damn that’s harsh. Mostly anonymous industrialists — you get F and N for names and that’s it — All Are to Return are all the more punishing in the horrific recesses and engulfing blasts of static that populate III than they were in 2022’s II (review here), and the fact that the eight-songer is only 32 minutes long is about as close as they come to any concept of mercy for the psyche of their audience. Beyond that, “Moratorium,” “Colony Collapse,” the eats-you-dead “Archive of the Sky” and even the droning “Legacy” cast a willfully wretched extremity, and what might be a humanizing presence of vocals elsewhere is screams channeled through so much distortion as to be barely recognizable as coming from a human throat here. If the question being posed is, “how much can you take?,” the answer for most of those brave enough to even give III a shot will be, “markedly less than this.” A cry from the depths realizing a brutal vision.

All Are to Return on Bandcamp

Tartarus Records store

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Well, this is it. I still haven’t decided if I’m going to do Monday and Tuesday, or just Monday, or Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or the whole week next week or what. I don’t know. But while I figure it out — and not having this planned is kind of a novelty for me; something against my nature that I’m kind of forcing I think just to make myself uncomfortable — there are 10 more records to dig through today and it’s been a killer week. Yeah, that’s the other thing. Maybe it’s better to quit while I’m ahead.

I’ll kick it back and forth while writing today and getting the last of what I’d originally slated covered, then see how much I still have waiting to be covered. You can’t ever get everything. I keep learning that every year. But if I don’t do it Monday and Tuesday, it’ll either be last week of December or maybe second week of January, so it’s not long until the next one. Never is, I guess.

If this is it for now or not, thanks for reading. I hope you found music that has touched your life and/or made your day better.

Quarterly Review #41-50:

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David Eugene Edwards, Hyacinth

There are not a ton of surprises to behold in what’s positioned as a first solo studio offering from David Eugene Edwards, whose pedigree would be impressive enough if it only included either 16 Horsepower or Wovenhand but of course is singular in including both. But you don’t need surprises. Titled Hyacinth and issued through Sargent House, the voice, the presence, the sense of intimacy and grandiosity both accounted for as Edwards taps acoustic simplicity in “Bright Boy,” though even that is accompanied by the programmed electronics that provides backing through much of the included 11 tracks. Atop and within these expanses, Edwards broods poetic and explores atmospheres that are heavy in a different way from what Wovenhand has become, chasing tone or intensity. On Hyacinth, it’s more about the impact of the slow-rolling beat in “Celeste” and the blend of organic/inorganic than just how loud a part is or isn’t. Whether a solo career under his name will take the place of Wovenhand or coincide, I don’t know.

David Eugene Edwards on Instagram

Sargent House website

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Beastwars, Tyranny of Distance

Whatever led Beastwars to decide it was time to do a covers EP, fine. No, really, it’s fine. It’s fine that it’s 32 minutes long. It’s fine that I’ve never heard The Gordons, or Julia Deans, or Superette, or The 3Ds or any of the other New Zealand-based artists the Wellington bashers are covering. It’s fine. It’s fine that it sounds different than 2019’s IV (review here). It should. It’s been nearly five years and Beastwars didn’t write these eight songs, though it seems safe to assume they did a fair bit of rearranging since it all sounds so much like Beastwars. But the reason it’s all fine is that when it’s over, whether I know the original version of “Waves” or the blues-turns-crushing “High and Lonely” originally by Nadia Reid, or not, when it’s all over, I’ve got over half an hour more recorded Beastwars music than I had before Tyranny of Distance showed up, and if you don’t consider that a win, you probably already stopped reading. That’s fine too. A sidestep for them in not being an epic landmark LP, and a chance for new ideas to flourish.

Beastwars on Facebook

Beastwars BigCartel store

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Sun Dial, Messages From the Mothership

Because Messages From the Mothership stacks its longer songs (six-seven minutes) in the back half of its tracklisting, one might be tempted to say Sun Dial push further out as they go, but the truth is that ’60s pop-inflected three-minute opener “Echoes All Around” is pretty out there, and the penultimate “Saucer Noise” — the longest inclusion at 7:47 — is no less melodically present than the more structure-forward leadoff. The difference, principally, is a long stretch of keyboard, but that’s well within the UK outfit’s vintage-synth wheelhouse, and anyway, “Demagnitized” is essentially seven minutes of wobbly drone at the end of the record, so they get weirder, as prefaced in the early going by, well, the early going itself, but also “New Day,” which is more exploratory than the radio-friendly-but-won’t-be-on-the-radio harmonies of “Living for Today” and the duly shimmering strum of “Burning Bright.” This is familiar terrain for Sun Dial, but they approach it with a perspective that’s fresh and, in the title-track, a little bit funky to boot.

Sun Dial on Facebook

Sulatron Records webstore

Echodelick Records website

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Fuzzy Grass, The Revenge of the Blue Nut

With rampant heavy blues and a Mk II Deep Purple boogie bent, Toulouse, France’s Fuzzy Grass present The Revenge of the Blue Nut, and there’s a story there but to be honest I’m not sure I want to know. The heavy ’70s persist as an influence — no surprise for a group who named their 2018 debut 1971 — and pieces like “I’m Alright” and “The Dreamer” feel at least in part informed by Graveyard‘s slow-soul-to-boogie-blowout methodology. Raw fuzz rolls out in 11-minute capper “Moonlight Shades” with a swinging nod that’s a highlight even after “Why You Stop Me” just before, and grows noisy, expansive, eventually furious as it approaches the end, coherent in the verse and cacophonous in just about everything else. But the rawness bolsters the character of the album in ways beyond enhancing the vintage-ist impression, and Fuzzy Grass unite decades of influences with vibrant shred and groove that’s welcoming even at its bluest.

Fuzzy Grass on Facebook

Kozmik Artifactz store

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Morne, Engraved with Pain

If you go by the current of sizzling electronic pops deeper in the mix, even the outwardly quiet intro to Morne‘s Engraved with Pain is intense. The Boston-based crush-metallers have examined the world around them thoroughly ahead of this fifth full-length, and their disappointment is brutally brought to realization across four songs — “Engraved with Pain” (10:42), “Memories Like Stone” (10:48), “Wretched Empire” (7:45) and “Fire and Dust” (11:40) — written and executed with a dark mastery that goes beyond the weight of the guitar and bass and drums and gutturally shouted vocals to the aura around the music itself. Engraved with Pain makes the air around it feel heavier, basking in an individualized vision of metal that’s part Ministry, part Gojira, lots of Celtic Frost, progressive and bleak in kind — the kind of superlative and consuming listening experience that makes you wonder why you ever listen to anything else except that you’re also exhausted from it because Morne just gave you an existential flaying the likes of which you’ve not had in some time. Artistry. Don’t be shocked when it’s on my ‘best of the year’ list in a couple weeks. I might just go to a store and buy the CD.

Morne on Facebook

Metal Blade Records website

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Appalooza, The Shining Son

Don’t tell the swingin’-dick Western swag of “Wounded,” but Appalooza are a metal band. To wit, The Shining Son, their very-dudely follow-up to 2021’s The Holy of Holies (review here) and second outing for Ripple Music. Opener “Pelican” has more in common with Sepultura than Kyuss, or Pelican for that matter. “Unbreakable” and “Wasted Land” both boast screams worthy of Devin Townsend, while the acoustic/electric urgency in “Wasted Land” and the tumultuous scope of the seven-plus-minute track recall some of Primordial‘s battle-aftermath mourning. “Groundhog Days” has an airy melody and is more decisively heavy rock, and the hypnotic post-doom apparent-murder-balladry of “Killing Maria” answers that at the album’s close, and “Framed” hits heavy blues à la a missed outfit like Dwellers, but even in “Sunburn” there’s an immediacy to the rhythm between the guitar and percussion, and though they’re not necessarily always aggressive in their delivery, nor do they want to be. Metal they are, if only under the surface, and that, coupled with the care they put into their songwriting, makes The Shining Son stand out all the more in an ever-crowded Euro underground.

Appalooza on Facebook

Ripple Music website

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Space Shepherds, Washed Up on a Shore of Stars

An invitation to chill the beans delivered to your ears courtesy of Irish cosmic jammers Space Shepherds as two longform jams. “Wading Through the Infinite Sea” nestles into a funky groove and spends who-even-cares-how-much-time of its total 27 minutes vibing out with noodling guitar and a steady, languid, periodically funk-leaning flow. I don’t know if it was made up on the spot, but it sure sounds like it was, and though the drums get a little restless as keys and guitar keep dreaming, the elements gradually align and push toward and through denser clouds of dust and gas on their way to being suns, a returning lick at the end looking slightly in the direction of Elder but after nearly half an hour it belongs to no one so much as Space Shepherds themselves. ‘Side B,’ as it were, is “Void Hurler” (18:41), which is more active early around circles being drawn on the snare, and it has a crescendo and a synthy finish, but is ultimately more about the exploration and little moments along the way like the drums decided to add a bit of push to what might’ve otherwise been the comedown, or the fuzz buzzing amid the drone circa 10 minutes in. You can sit and listen and follow each waveform on its journey or you can relax and let the whole thing carry you. No wrong answer for jams this engaging.

Space Shepherds on Facebook

Space Shepherds on Bandcamp

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Rey Mosca, Volumen! Sesion AMB

Young Chilean four-piece Rey Mosca — the lineup of Josué Campos, Valentín Pérez, Damián Arros and Rafael Álvarez — hold a spaciousness in reserve for the midsection of teh seven-minute “Sol del Tiempo,” which is the third of the three songs included in their live-recorded Volumen! Sesion AMB EP. A ready hint is dropped of a switch in methodology since both “Psychodoom” and ” Perdiendo el Control” are under two minutes long. Crust around the edge of the riff greets the listener with “Psychodoom,” which spends about a third of its 90 seconds on its intro and so is barely started by the time it’s over. Awesome. “Perdiendo el Control” is quicker into its verse and quicker generally and gets brasher in its second half with some hardcore shout-alongs, but it too is there and gone, where “Sol del Tiempo” is more patient from the outset, flirting with ’90s noise crunch in its finish but finding a path through a developing interpretation of psychedelic doom en route. I don’t know if “Sol del Tiempo” would fit on a 7″, but it might be worth a shot as Rey Mosca serve notice of their potential hopefully to flourish.

LINK

Rey Mosca on Bandcamp

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Fawn Limbs & Nadja, Vestigial Spectra

Principally engaged in the consumption and expulsion of expectations, Fawn Limbs and Nadja — experimentalists from Finland and Germany-via-Canada, respectively — drone as one might think in opener “Isomerich,” and in the subsequent “Black Body Radiation” and “Cascading Entropy,” they give Primitive Man, The Body or any other extremely violent, doom-derived bludgeoners you want to name a run for their money in terms of sheer noisy assault. Somebody’s been reading about exoplanets, as the drone/harsh noise pairing “Redshifted” and “Blueshifted” (look it up, it’s super cool) reset the aural trebuchet for its next launch, the latter growing caustic on the way, ahead of “Distilled in Observance” renewing the punishment in earnest. And it is earnest. They mean every second of it as Fawn Limbs and Nadja grind souls to powder with all-or-nothing fury, dropping overwhelming drive to round out “Distilled in Observance” before the 11-minute “Metastable Ion Decay” bursts out from the chest of its intro drone to devour everybody on the ship except Sigourney Weaver. I’m not lying to you — this is ferocious. You might think you’re up for it. One sure way to find out, but you should know you’re being tested.

Fawn Limbs on Facebook

Nadja on Facebook

Sludgelord Records on Facebook

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Dune Pilot, Magnetic

Do they pilot, a-pilot, do they the dune? Probably. Regardless, German heavy rockers Dune Pilot offer their third full-length and first for Argonauta Records in the 11-song Magnetic, taking cues from modern fuzz in the vein of Truckfighters for “Visions” after the opening title-track sets the mood and establishes the mostly-dry sound of the vocals as they cut through the guitar and bass tones. A push of voice becomes a defining feature of Magnetic, which isn’t such a departure from 2018’s Lucy, though the rush of “Next to the Liquor Store” and the breadth in the fuzz of “Highest Bid” and the largesse of the nod in “Let You Down” assure that Dune Pilot don’t come close to wearing down their welcome in the 46 minutes, cuts like the bluesy “So Mad” and the big-chorus ideology of “Heap of Shards” coexisting drawn together by the vitality of the performances behind them as well as the surety of their craft. It is heavy rock that feels specifically geared toward the lovers thereof.

Dune Pilot on Facebook

Argonauta Records website

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Day three of the Quarterly Review is always a good time. Passing the halfway point for the week isn’t nothing, and I take comfort in knowing there’s another 25 to come after the first 25 are down. Sometimes it’s the little things.

But let’s not waste the few moments we have. I hope you find something you dig.

Quarterly Review #21-30:

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Melody Fields, 1901

Though it starts out firmly entrenched in ’60s psychedelia in “Going Back,” Melody Fields‘ 1901 is less genre-adherent and/or retroist than one might expect. “Jesus” borrows from ’70s soul, but is languid in its rollout with horn-esque sounds for a Morricone-ish vibe, while “Rave On” makes a hook of its folkish and noodly bridge. Keyboards bring a krautrock spirit to “Mellanväsen,” which is fair as “Transatlantic” blisses out ’90s electro-rock, and “Home at Last” prog-shuffles in its own swirl — a masterclass in whatever kind of psych you want to call it — as “Indian MC” has an acoustic strum that reminds of some of Lamp of the Universe‘s recent urgings, and “Void” offers 53 seconds of drone before the stomp of the catchy “In Love” and the keyboard-dreamy “Mayday” ends side B with a departure to match “Transatlantic” capping side A. Unexpectedly, 1901, which is the Swedish outfit’s second LP behind their 2018 self-titled debut (review here), is one of two albums they have for Fall 2023, with 1991 a seeming companion piece. Here’s looking forward.

Melody Fields on Facebook

Melody Fields on Bandcamp

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La Chinga, Primal Forces

La Chinga don’t have time for bullshit. They’re going right to the source. Black Sabbath. Motörhead. Enough Judas Priest in “Electric Eliminator” for the whole class and a riffy swagger, loosely Southern in “Stars Fall From the Sky,” and elsewhere, that reminds of Dixie Witch or Halfway to Gone, and that aughts era of heavy generally. “Backs to the Wall” careens with such a love of ’80s metal it reminds of Bible of the Devil — while cuts like “Bolt of Lightning,” “Rings of Power” and smash-then-run opener “Light it Up” immediately positions the trio between ’70s heavy rock and the more aggressive fare it helped produce. Throughout, La Chinga are poised but not so much so as to take away from the energy of their songs, which are impeccably written, varied in energy, and drawn together through the vitality of their delivery. Here’s a kickass rock band, kicking ass. It might be a little too over-the-top for some listeners, but over-the-top is a target unto itself. La Chinga hit it like oldschool masters.

La Chinga on Facebook

Ripple Music website

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Massive Hassle, Number One

Best known for their work together in Mammothwing and now also both members of Church of the Cosmic Skull as well, brothers Bill Fisher and Marty Fisher make a point of stripping back as much as possible with Massive Hassle, scaling down the complex arrangements of what’s now their main outfit but leaving room for harmonies, on-sleeve Thin Lizzy love and massive fuzz in cuts like “Lane,” “Drifter,” the speedier penultimate “Drink” and the slow-nod payoff of “Fibber,” which closes. That attitude — which one might see developing in response to years spend plugging away in a group with seven people and everyone wears matching suits — assures a song like “Kneel” fits, with its restless twists feeling born organically out of teenage frustrations, but many of Number One‘s strongest moments are in its quieter, bluesy explorations. The guitar holds a note, just long enough that it feels like it might miss the beat on the turnaround, then there’s the snare. With soul in the vocals to spare and a tension you go for every time, if Massive Hassle keep this up they’re going to have to be a real band, and ugh, what a pain in the ass that is.

Massive Hassle on Facebook

Massive Hassle website

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Sherpa, Land of Corals

One of the best albums of 2023, and not near the bottom of the list. Italy’s Sherpa demonstrated their adventurous side with 2018’s Tigris & Euphrates (review here), but the six-song/39-minute Land of Corals is in a class of its own as regards their work. Breaking down genre barriers between industrial/dance, psychedelia, doom, and prog, Sherpa keep a special level of tonal heft in reserve that’s revealed near the end of opener “Silt” and is worthy — yes I mean this — of countrymen Ufomammut in its cosmic impact. “High Walls” is more of a techno throb with a languid melodic vocal, but the two-part, eight-minute “Priest of Corals” begins a thread of Ulverian atmospherics that continues not so much in the second half of the song itself, which brings back the heavy from “Silt” and rolls back and forth over the skull, but in the subsequent “Arousal,” which has an experimental edge in its later reaches and backs its beat with a resonant sprawl of drone. This is so much setup for the apex in “Coward/Pilgrimage to the Sun,” which is the kind of wash that will make you wonder if we’re all just chemicals, and closer “Path/Mud/Barn,” which feels well within its rights to take its central piano line for a walk. I haven’t seen a ton of hype for it, which tracks, but this feels like a record that’s getting to know you while you’re getting to know it.

Sherpa on Facebook

Subsound Records store

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Acid Throne, Kingdom’s Death

A sludge metal of marked ferocity and brand-name largesse, Acid Throne‘s debut album, Kingdom’s Death sets out with destructive and atmospheric purpose alike, and while it’s vocals are largely grunts in “River (Bare My Bones)” and the straight-up deathly “Hallowed Ground,” if there’s primitivism at work in the 43-minute six-songer, it’s neither in the character of their tones or what they’re playing. Like a rockslide in a cavern, “Death is Not the End” is the beginning, with melodic flourish in the lead guitar as it passes the halfway point and enough crush generally to force your blood through your pores. It moves slower than “River (Bare My Bones),” but the Norwich, UK, trio are dug in regardless of tempo, with “King Slayer” unfolding like Entombed before revealing itself as more in line with a doomed take on Nile or Morbid Angel. Both it and “War Torn” grow huge by their finish, and the same is true of “Hallowed Ground,” though if you go from after the intro it also started out that way, and the 11-minute closer “Last Will & Testament” is engrossing enough that its last drones give seamlessly over to falling rain almost before you know it. There are days like this. Believe it.

Acid Throne on Facebook

Acid Throne on Bandcamp

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The Holy Nothing, Vol. 1: A Profound and Nameless Fear

With an intensity thrust forth from decades of Midwestern post-hardcore disaffection, Indiana trio The Holy Nothing make their presence felt with Vol. 1: A Profound and Nameless Fear, a five-song/17-minute EP that’s weighted and barking in its onslaught and pivots almost frenetically from part to part, but that nonetheless has an overarching groove that’s pure Sabbath boogie in centerpiece “Unending Death,” and opener “Bathe Me” sets the pummeling course with noise rock and nu metal chicanery, while “Bliss Trench” raw-throats its punkish first half en route to a slowdown that knows it’s hot shit. Bass leads the way into “Mondegreen,” with a threatening chug and post-hardcore boogie, just an edge of grunge to its later hook to go with the last screams, and feedback as it inevitably would, leads the way into “Doom Church,” with a more melodic and spacious echoing vocal and a riff that seems to kind of eat the rest of the song surrounding. I’ll be curious how the quirk extrapolates over a full-length’s runtime, but they sound like they’re ready to get weird and they’re from Fort Wayne, which is where Charlton Heston was from in Planet of the Apes, and I’m sorry, but that’s just too on-the-nose to be a coincidence.

The Holy Nothing on Facebook

The Holy Nothing on Bandcamp

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Runway, Runway

Runway may be making their self-titled debut with this eight-song/31-minute blowout LP delivered through Cardinal Fuzz, Echodelick and We, Here & Now as a triumvirate of lysergic righteousness, but the band is made up of five former members of Saskatoon instrumentalists Shooting Guns so it’s not exactly their first time at the dance of wavy lines and chambered echo that make even the two-minute “No Witnesses” feel broad, and the crunch-fuzz of “Attempted Mordor,” the double-time hi-hat on “Franchy Cordero” that vibes with all the casual saunter of Endless Boogie but in a shorter package as the song’s only four minutes long. “Banderas” follows a chugging tack and doesn’t seem to release its tension even in the payoff, but “Crosshairs” is all freedom-rock, baby, with a riff like they put the good version of America in can, and the seven-minute capper “Mailman” reminds that our destination was the cosmos all along. Jam on, you glorious Canadian freaks. By this moniker or any other, your repetitive excavations are always welcome on these shores.

Runway on Facebook

Echodelick Records website

Cardinal Fuzz store

https://wehereandnow.bandcamp.com/music

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Wet Cactus, Magma Tres

Spanish heavy rockers Wet Cactus look to position themselves at the forefront of a regional blossoming with their third album, the 12-track Magma Tres. Issued through Electric Valley Records, the 45-minute long-player follows 2018’s Dust, Hunger and Gloom (review here) and sees the band tying together straightforward, desert-style heavy rock with a bit of grunge sway in “Profound Dream” before it twists around to heavy-footed QOTSA start-stops ahead of the fuzzy trash-boogie of “Mirage” and the duly headspinning guitar work of “My Gaze is Fixed Ahead.” The second half of the LP has interludes between sets of two tracks — the album begins with “I. The Long Escape…” as the first of them — but the careening “Self Bitten Snake” and the tense toms under the psych guitar before that big last hook in “Solar Prominence” want nothing for immediacy, and even “IV. …Of His Musical Ashes!,” which closes, becomes a charge with the band’s collective force behind it. There’s more to what they do than people know, but you could easily say the same thing about the entire Iberian Peninsula’s heavy underground.

Wet Cactus on Facebook

Electric Valley Records website

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MC MYASNOI, Falling Lower Than You Expected

All-caps Icelandic troupe MC MYASNOI telegraph their experimentalism early in the drone of “Liquid Lung [Nucomp]” and let some of the noise around the electronic nod in “Antenula [OEBT]” grow caustic in the first half before first bliss then horror build around a progression of drums, ending with sax and feedback and noise and where were the lines between them anyway. The delve into the unknown threads more feedback through “Slug Paradox,” which has a vocal line somewhere not terribly far off from shoegaze, but is itself nothing so pedestrian, while “Kuroki” sounds like it could’ve been recorded at rehearsal, possibly on the other side of the wall. The go-wherever-you-end-up penchant holds in “Bleach in Eye,” and when “Xcomputer must dieX” clicks on, it brings about the rumble MC MYASNOI seem to have been threatening all along without giving up the abidingly oddball stance, what with the keyboard and sax and noise, noise, noise, plus whispers at the end. I’m sure that in the vast multiverse there’s a plenet that’s ready for the kind of off-kilter-everythingism wrought by MC MYASNOI, but you can bet your ass this ain’t it. And if you’re too weird for earth, you’re alright by me.

MC MYASNOI on Facebook

MC MYASNOI on Bandcamp

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Cinder Well, Cadence

The 2020 album from transient folk singer-songwriter Cinder Well, No Summer (review here), landed with palpable empathy in a troubled July, and Cadence has a similar minimalist place to dwell in “Overgrown” or finale “I Will Close in the Moonlight,” but by and large the arrangements are more lush throughout the nine songs of the latest work. Naturally, Amelia Baker‘s voice remains a focal point for the material, but organ, viola and fiddle, drums and bass, etc., bring variety to the gentle delivery of “Gone the Holding,” the later reaches of “Crow” and allow for the build of elements in “A Scorched Lament” that make that song’s swaying crescendo such a high point. And having high points is somewhat striking, in context, but Cinder Well‘s range as shown throughout Cadence is beholden to no single emotional or even stylistic expression. If you’d read this and gripe that the record isn’t heavy — shit. Listen again.

Cinder Well on Facebook

Free Dirt Records on Bandcamp

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