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Album Review: Gods of Sometimes, Gods of Sometimes

Posted in Reviews on July 5th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

Gods of Sometimes Gods of Sometimes

With their self-titled debut, Gods of Sometimes present a melodic vision of mellow heavy rock with a special penchant for details. Vibes shift between the McCartney-esque bassline of “Dawn of the Tin Man” to the definitely-Lennon “Stilted Low” like a lost White Album piece, some shoegaze, plenty of psychedelia, subdued indie; it’s flowing, and the kind of thing that gets called minimalist because it isn’t loud but is nonetheless rich in its construction. Vocalist, guitarist and Mellotronist Andrew Giacumakis of Moab and bassist/drummer Brad Davis of Fu Manchu each share in the other’s role a bit, with Davis playing some guitar and adding vocals and Giacumakis adding drums and bass, and the Falling Dome Records nine-track/38-minute outing is more varied for that flexibility of approach.

From the initial echoing slide over the gentler acoustic strum of the eponymous opener “Gods of Sometimes,” the album demonstrates, yes, a love of The Beatles — which is not unexpected from Giacumakis, given the three albums Moab released between 2011-2018; Ab Ovo (interview here), Billow (review here), and Trough (discussed here, review here) — but a headphone-ready depth of mix that rewards closer attention, whether it’s the layer of backing vocals riding the held notes in the hook of “Gods of Sometimes” or the later Mellotron/acoustic piece “Wherewithal,” which becomes a highlight on the strength of its string sounds and chorus vocal melody. There is some experimental edge to centerpiece “Hand on the Hide,” making the song feel like it genuinely started with the drone at its outset and was perhaps built from there — the opposite just as likely — but even that sub-three-minute stretch finds its way into clearheaded melody by its finish, with drums arriving about halfway through and that drone staying, but moving to become more of a backdrop than forward feature, resting behind the acoustic guitar and drums and vocals easily.

Cuts like the single “In the End,” which brings in J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. and Witch on a later guitar solo, and “Watching for Satellites” — and maybe we can put “Gods of Sometimes” itself in the category as well — have more of a rock-based presentation, but the same is true even of closer “Just Another One,” which is quiet fuzz guitar with far-back drums and mostly-higher-register vocals at the start, before drifting smoothly into slow and psychedelic indie, growing lush by the time it’s two and a half minutes into its total 4:34, getting (relatively) heavy in its march and seeming to solidify in its back half the progression of its first, becoming a wash only for a moment before the snare snaps it to quick-fade-everybody-out silence.

Front-to-back, in the finer moments like the grunge-swing dig-in of “You Will” or the layer of long Mellotron notes that makes the plucked acoustic guitar sound almost classical as it runs alongside the multitracked vocals in the early verse of “Wherewithal” just before, Gods of Sometimes thrive. And they draw the songs together through quality of craft, structure, and atmosphere, so that malleable and adaptable as Giacumakis and Davis seem to be between the bounce and wisp of “Return of the Tin Man” — complemented by Radiohead vibes in the verse — and the blossoming effect of “In the End” as it moves toward its finish, and so on down the line of tracks each making its own impression with its own intent, nothing feels out of place. With that Endless Boogie backbeat under its meditative-but-cool figure and head-trip vocals, even “Hand on the Hide” fits. Think about Sgt. Pepper. Did “When I’m Sixty-Four” have any trouble picking up from “Within You Without You?” No. By keeping an open palette, Gods of Sometimes function similarly to create a whole-album feel.

gods of sometimes

As regards that feel, vibe, atmosphere, whatever — that intangible, mostly-unquantifiable thing that pulls you into a work instead of repelling you from it — Gods of Sometimes present very few challenges to being immersed. With all nine songs under five minutes long — “Dawn of the Tin Man” comes closest at 4:57 and others aren’t far behind, but still — they run no risk of overstaying their welcome, and the shifts in arrangement throughout, the easy transitions between acoustic and electric guitar, as well as their intertwining, the changing Mellotron sounds and flourishes like the glitchy crackles in the first verse and the keys/drones/backwards ending of “Watching for Satellites,” remain accessible thanks to the structures underlying and the daringly-pleasant melodies overlaid. In the tradition of bands like Masters of Reality, it is not challenging in the least, unless perhaps one is talking about challenging the conventions of heavy rock, because yes, Gods of Sometimes do, at least in part, do that.

That is to say, if you’re coming into Gods of Sometimes because you read that one of the guys from Fu Manchu and the dude from Moab who produced the last two Fu Manchu LPs — 2018’s Clone of the Universe (review here) and 2014’s Gigantoid (review here) — got together for a project and you’re thinking it might sound like either of their other acts, that’s not what their self-titled is doing or wants to do. There are common elements in some heavier tones and some of the rhythms of “Gods of Sometimes” — which was reportedly the first song they wrote — or “Dawn of the Tin Man,” which in coming after the opener signals the band’s purposefully placing catchier, more ‘rocking’ material up front before branching out with “Stilted Low” and regrounding in pop psych-rock via “In the End.” Their doing so speaks to the album as an introduction for those following Giacumakis and Davis from their respective bands to this one, and its warm and inviting presence and the back and forth that follows those first two tracks, weaving through melancholy and breadth en route to the payoff of “Just Another One,” make it an engrossing listen. It blossoms all the more on repeat visits.

Inevitably, the question becomes about the future of the project, if Giacumakis and Davis will continue this collaboration or if this self-titled is it. You never know. They’ve certainly given themselves a variety of aural paths to choose while remaining aware of what they want their songs to do and be, and if they can get another record together at any point — their other time commitments being what they are — one imagines their development will be taken on with no less fluidity than they offer here.

Gods of Sometimes, “Gods of Sometimes”

Gods of Sometimes, “In the End”

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Friday Full-Length: Moab, Trough

Posted in Bootleg Theater on April 28th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

A band who started out underrated and remained that way for the duration, Los Angeles three-piece Moab released Trough (review here) in 2018 through Falling Dome Records as their third full-length in a seven-year run. For the band — whose moniker, also stylized all-caps: MOAB, derives from the Bush-era acronym for “mother of all bombs” used in post-9/11 Iraq War propaganda — it was already probably going to be their last record by the time it came out, following as it did the late-2016 death of drummer Erik Herzog. Recording was still going on at the time, with guitarist/vocalist Andrew Giacumakis producing and bassist Joe Fuentes contributing as well, so on levels personal, creative, professional, logistical, on and on, it was a loss deeply felt. I remember interviewing Giacumakis in 2011 around the release of Moab‘s Kemado-issued debut, Ab Ovo, and getting the impression that Moab were friends as well as bandmates. In the case of Giacumakis and Herzog, they had played together in a band called Buellton in the ’90s, maybe prior to that too, I don’t know. Honestly, the bandmate connection is enough to make that loss hurt, even if they weren’t otherwise close, which they were.

It made Trough tough to take, not the least because the record is good and what do you say about grief when somebody is still in it? If my social media feed — loaded with death announcements, thanks algorithm — is anything to go by, nobody has a clue and me neither. But looking back with the distance that five years can allow, Trough stands out as a record well deserving another look, whether that’s for the current of Sabbath-worship that underscores nearly everything they touch, or the heavy-McCartney unfolding in the intro of “Skeptic’s Lament” that opens, or the lurching stomp/melodic vocal float in “Moss Gross Where No One Goes,” the what-if-Mastodon-were-a-SoCal-desert-pop-rock-band first two minutes of “Fifty Thousand Tons” and the stark turn to the dual-channel soloing in the bridge that follows, twisting like a fleet punker Floor back to the verse from whence they came, or the space echo laced through “All Automatons,” the purposefully disorienting guitar chasing itself across right and left headphones around 2:10 and the way there seem to be two layers of hi-hat in the solo there before Herzog switches back to the cowbell like nothing ever happened and maybe it didn’t in the first place.

With the hard-hitting post-Uncle Acid fuzz and morose melody of “The Onus,” the dug-in swirl of “Into the Sea Swine” and the Motörhead homage of that riff in “Medieval Moan” even if the song doesn’t actually sound all that much like Motörhead, the synth beginning and massive plod that emerges in “Turnin’ Slow,” each low-distorted strum a declaration, a bluesy solo and acoustic guitar arriving later like the proggy flourish you didn’t know was missing, and the final blowout of “Fend for Dawn,” moab troughwith Moab revealed as a secret thrash band all the while, Trough never dwells in one place for too long. The longest cuts are “Moss Grows Where No One Goes” (4:53) and “Turnin’ Slow” (4:48), which is fair since they’re also the slowest, but while each song seems to find its place in the flow of the 10-track/39-minute entirety, the arrangements are deceptively tight and speak to an editorial mindset in the composition — that is, the way they’re put together, it’s easy to think at some point in the process, either FuentesGiacumakis or Herzog questioned whether each part was doing work that needed to be done. The answer throughout the album is yes.

And even with the context of Herzog‘s passing surrounding them, the songs are fun. “Into the Sea Swine” arrives at its chorus with a palpable release of tension, which complements the jabs and crashes of “Skeptic’s Lament” and its post-Fu Manchu hook — lest we forget, Giacumakis produced that band’s Gigantoid LP in 2014; Fu bassist Brad Davis would sit in on drums for Moab in live shows supporting Trough in 2018 as well — while “Moss Grows Where No One Goes” cues its lumbering nature even in the singly-syllabic words of its title, then expands on that with unexpected grace before it’s even at the midpoint of its still-sub-five-minute run. That’s another strength here: the way Moab are able to bring a complete atmospheric impression forward, dwell there for a short time and following a not-rigid-but-unflinchingly-solid sense of structure, and move onto the next thing. Giacumakis‘ vocals — post-Ozzy in the vein of Sheavy or, if you’re on the Eastern Seaboard, maybe Freedom Hawk — are a tie that draws pieces together, but even they’re not unipolar, and less so on Trough even than the prior 2014 album, Billow (review here), which was issued through Scion A/V (remember that?). The pairing of “The Onus” and “Medieval Moan” in a linear format — on vinyl I think that’s probably where the side splits — is representative of the kind of turns Moab were able to make at this point, from the languid melody of the former to the outright shove that ensues. And then backed with the brighter uptick in “Fifty Thousand Tons,” Trough only grows richer as it moves into side B en route to that last (relative) rager in “Fend for Dawn.”

Through it all — hooks, grooves, melody, heavy tones and a band having cast an identity of their own expanding on what that can mean for them at a specific moment of realization. A third record in the ideal. Moab were outsider heavy rock in a way that freed them from adhering to all strict rules of the genre, but their celebration of them as filtered through their own sonic persona felt sincere from front to back. The chugs and mutes and stomps and crooning in “The Will is Weak,” the horns up earlier High on Fire righteousness of the cold ending to “Fend for Dawn,” and god damn if there isn’t some overarching thing about “All Automatons” — even apart from the aforementioned cowbell — just making it an absolute treasure of a track. Half a decade after its release, going on seven years since Herzog died, it’s easy to think Moab are done and one can look back on Trough and wonder what might’ve been had their circumstances been different, but that wistful mindset does nothing to diminish what they achieved in this record. I don’t often post links in Friday Full-Lengths (reviews aside), but they’ve still got copies of this one available: https://moabband.bigcartel.com/

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

A challenging and uncomfortable week. I was sick Wednesday into yesterday morning, better by the afternoon, but laid out just the same for about 24 hours in a way that I not often am. Something I ate, though I can’t pinpoint what. The Patient Mrs. speculated it was chicken we traveled to and from Maryland with this past weekend for her brother’s wedding in Baltimore County. I ate more of the same chicken last night — shit man, that stuff’s not cheap, leftovers gotta get ate; I’ll take the potential hit — but so far am fine. Maybe it was something at the wedding that gestated for a couple days. Whatever. I was asskicked. That’s the bottom line.

That was hard for The Pecan, who in a credit to her character tucked me in on the couch and let me rest a while in the morning — also not something that happens often — and that was remarkably sweet. After school, she made me a get-well card that now hangs next to my bed, but that was Wednesday and yesterday was a fucking trainwreck. How many times a day do you want to get punched by a five year old? I got hit with a fucking stick on Wednesday morning. It was a lowlight on an already downer morning.

I slept late this morning (alarm went off at four, I reset for five) and was still a little stoned when I woke up from last night’s pre-bed gummy. Not complaining. My mother came for dinner and it was kind of an emotionally heavy experience. One of her dogs is dying and she asked about when we had Dio put down and, well, that was enough to get The Patient Mrs. and I in actual tears. Not a fun story to tell. And there’s other family stuff too and it just was a lot on her and I’m glad we can be here to give somewhere to go and someone to talk to, but yeah, hard to take. Hard to see your mom in pain, and I feel like my mother and I are a lot alike in a lot of ways. Still awaiting diagnosis.

You might’ve noticed “her” above. In a moment of sensory-input-induced clarity, The Pecan informed us in no uncertain terms last night that the pronouns to use are “she/her” and while it’s going to require a bit of habit-building, I’ll be god damned if I’m not going to honor that. Even putting aside for a moment the terror of some fascist asshole beating my kid to death for somehow threatening their sense of self by, say, existing, and the suicide statistics of trans children in conflicted family situations, seeing The Pecan at that wedding this weekend in her fancypants Spring dress, I was looking at a happier, more comfortable kid than I would’ve seen had we somehow managed to force a suit, which we neither would nor likely could ever do anyhow. Life is really fucking hard and really fucking short. If this is a thing she can figure out at a young age — whatever the future might bring — and move forward from there, at least that’s one question among the infinity of discoveries about herself that she’ll make in her life that can be openly explored. And on the most absolutely basic level, I hope it makes her days easier. Not the least because in doing so it would do the same for mine.

It’s a bummer to shift gears in my brain and have a flash asking myself if I need to plug a Gimme Metal show. Obviously not, but the last one would air today if one were going to air and the app shuts down I think midnight tomorrow. That’s a loss.

The Patient Mrs. has been trying to sell me on doing a podcast together, but I don’t know. I’m sure it’ll be fun, and it’s not the kind of project on which we’d often collaborate — she and I have our own worlds, between hers in academia and me in music, that rarely cross over — but I might give it a shot. We’ll see if it happens.

Tomorrow I’m heading to Baltimore (yes, again) for Grim Reefer Fest. I’ll have that review up on Monday and then other whatnot thereafter. The whole week is full and there’s a Totimoshi video premiere in there somewhere so I’m prepared to call it a win.

I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Have fun, watch your head, hydrate, all that fun stuff.

FRM.

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Quarterly Review: Stuck in Motion, AVER, Massa, Alastor, Seid, Moab, Primitive Man & Unearthly Trance, Into Orbit, Super Thief, Absent

Posted in Reviews on March 18th, 2019 by JJ Koczan

quarterly-review-spring-2019

Let the games begin! The rules are the same: 10 albums per day, this time for a total of 60 between today and next Monday. It’s the Quarterly Review. Think of it like a breakfast buffet with an unending supply of pancakes except the pancakes are riffs and there’s only one dude cooking them and he’s really tired all the time and complains, complains, complains. Maybe not the best analogy. Still, it’s gonna be a ton of stuff, but there are some very, very cool records included, so please keep your eyes and your mind open for what’s coming, because you might find something here you really dig. If not, there’s always tomorrow. Let’s go.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

Stuck in Motion, Stuck in Motion

stuck in motion self-titled

The classic style cover art of Swedish trio Stuck in Motion‘s self-titled debut tells much of the story. It’s sweet-toned vintage-style soul rock, informed by Graveyard to some degree, but more aligned to retroism. The songs are bluesy and natural and not especially long, but have vibe for weeks, as demonstrated on the six-minute longest-track “Dreams of Flying,” or the flute-laden closer “Eken.” What the picture doesn’t tell you is the heavy use of clavinet in the band’s sound and just how much the vintage electric piano adds to what songs like “Slingrar” with its ultra-fluid shifts in tempo, or the sax-drenched penultimate cut “Orientalisk.” Comprised of guitarist/vocalist Max Kinnbo, drummer Gustaf Björkman and bassist/vocalist/clavinetist Adrian Norén, Stuck in Motion‘s debut successfully basks in a mellow psychedelic blues atmosphere and shows a patience for songwriting that bodes remarkably well. It should not be overlooked because you think you’re tired of vintage-style rock.

Stuck in Motion on Thee Facebooks

Stuck in Motion on Bandcamp

 

AVER, Orbis Majora

aver orbis majora

Following up their 2015 sophomore outing, Nadir (review here), which led to them getting picked up by Ripple Music, Australia’s AVER return with the progressive shove of Orbis Majora, five songs in 50 minutes of thoughtfully composed heavy progadelica, and while it’s not all so serious — closer “Hemp Fandango” well earns its title via a shuffling stonerly groove — opener “Feeding the Sun” and the subsequent “Disorder” set a mood of careful craftsmanship in longform pieces. The album’s peak might be in the 13-minute “Unanswered Prayers,” which culls together an extended linear build that’s equal parts immersive and gorgeous, but the rest of the album hardly lacks for depth or clarity of purpose. An underlying message from the Sydney four-piece would seem to be that they’re going to continue growing, even after more than a decade, because it’s not so much that they’re feeling their way toward their sound, but willfully pushing themselves to refine those parameters.

AVER on Thee Facebooks

Ripple Music on Bandcamp

 

Massa, Walls

massa walls

Flourish of keys adds nuance to Massa‘s moody, heavy post-rock style, the Rotterdam-based trio bringing an atmosphere to their second EP, Walls, across five tracks and 26 minutes marked by periodic samples from cinema and a sense of scope that seems to be born of an experimental impulse but not presented as the experiment itself. That is, they take the “let’s try this!” impulse and make a song out of it, as the chunky rhythm of instrumental centerpiece “Expedition” or the melodies in the prior “#8” show. Before finishing with the crash-into-push of the relatively brief “Intermassa,” the eight-minute “The Federal” complements winding guitar with organ to affect an engaging spirit somewhere between classic and futurist heavy, with the drums holding together proceedings that would seem to convey all the chaos of that temporal paradox. Perhaps it was opener “Shiva” that set this creator/destroyer tone, but either way, Massa bask in it and find a grim sense of identity thereby.

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Massa on Bandcamp

 

Alastor, Slave to the Grave

alastor slave to the grave

The first full-length from Swedish doomplodders Alastor and their debut on RidingEasy Records, late 2018’s Slave to the Grave is the four-piece’s most expansive offering yet in sonic scope as well as runtime. Following the 2017 EPs Blood on Satan’s Claw (review here) and Black Magic (review here), the seven-song/56-minute offering holds true to the murk-toned cultism and dense low-end rumble of the prior offerings, but the melodic resonance and sense of updating the aesthetic of traditional doom is palpable throughout the roller “Your Lives are Worthless,” while the later acoustic-led “Gone” speaks to a folkish influence that suits them surprisingly well given the heft that surrounds. They make an obvious focal point of 17-minute closer “Spider of My Love,” which though they’ve worked in longer forms before, is easily the grandest accomplishment they’ve yet unfurled. One might easily say the same applies to Slave to the Grave as a whole. Those who miss The Wounded Kings should take particular note of their trajectory.

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RidingEasy Records website

 

Seid, Weltschmerz, Baby!

seid-weltschmerz_baby-web

If Norwegian space-psych outfit Seid are feeling weary of the world, the way they show it in Weltschmerz, Baby! is by simply leaving it behind, substituting for reality a cosmic starscape of effects and synth, the odd sample and vaguely Hawkwindian etherealism. The centerpiece title-track is a banger along those lines, a swell of rhythmic intensity born out of the finale of the prior “Satan i Blodet” and the mellow, flowing “Trollmannens Hytte” before that, but the highlight might be the subsequent “Coyoteman,” which drifts into dream-prog led by echoing layers of guitar and eventually given over to a fading strain of noise that “Moloch vs. Gud” picks up with percussive purpose and flows directly into the closer “Mir (Drogarna Börjar Värka),” rife with ’70s astro-bounce and a long fadeout that’s less about the record ending and more about leaving the galaxy behind. Starting out at a decent clip with “Haukøye,” Weltschmerz, Baby! is all about the journey and a trip well worth taking.

Seid on Thee Facebooks

Sulatron Records website

 

Moab, Trough

moab trough

A good record tinged by the tragic loss of drummer Erik Herzog during the recording and finished by guitarist/vocalist Andrew Giacumakis and bassist Joe Fuentes, the 10-track/39-minute Trough demonstrates completely just how much Moab have been underrated since their 2011 debut, Ab Ovo (discussed here), and across the 2014 follow-up, Billow (review here), as they bring a West Coast noise-infused pulse to heavy rock drive on “All Automatons” and meet an enduring punker spirit face first with “Medieval Moan,” all the while presenting a clear head for songcraft amid deep-running tones and melodies. “The Will is Weak” makes perhaps the greatest impact in terms of heft, but heft is by no means all Moab have to offer. With the very real possibility this will be their final record, it is a worthy homage to their fallen comrade and a showcase of their strengths that’s bound someday to get the attention it deserves whenever some clever label decides to reissue it as a lost classic.

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Primitive Man & Unearthly Trance, Split

primitive man unearthly trance split

Well of course it’s a massive wash of doomed and hate-filled noise! What were you expecting, sunshine and puppies? Colorado’s Primitive Man and Brooklyn’s Unearthly Trance team up to compare misanthropic bona fides across seven tracks of blistering extremity that do Relapse Records proud. Starting with the collaborative intro “Merging,” the onslaught truly commences with Primitive Man’s 10-minute “Naked” and sinks into an abyss with the instrumental noisefest “Love Under Will,” which gradually makes its way into a swell of abrasive drone. Unearthly Trance, meanwhile, proffer immediate destructiveness with the churning “Mechanism Error” and make “Triumph” dark enough to live up to its most malevolent interpretations, while “Reverse the Day” makes me wonder what people who heard Godflesh in the ’80s must’ve thought of it and the six-minute finishing move “418” answers back to Primitive Man‘s droned-out anti-structure with a consuming void of fuckall depth. It’s like the two bands cut open their veins and recorded the disaffection that spilled out.

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Unearthly Trance on Thee Facebooks

Relapse Records website

 

Into Orbit, Shifter

Into Orbit Shifter

Progressive New Zealander two-piece Into OrbitPaul Stewart on guitar and Ian Moir on drums — offer up the single Shifter as the answer to their 2017 sophomore long-player, Unearthing. The Wellington instrumentalists did likewise leading into that album with a single that later showed up as part of a broader tracklist, so it may be that they’ve got another release already in the works, but either way, the 5:50 standalone track finds them dug into a full band sound with layered or looped guitar standing tall over the mid-paced drumming, affecting an emotion-driven atmosphere as much as the cerebral nature of its craft. Beginning with a thick chug, it works into more melodic spaciousness as it heads toward and through its midsection, lead guitar kicking in with harmony lines joining soon after as the two-piece build back up to a bigger finish. Whatever their plans, Into Orbit make it clear that just because something is prog doesn’t mean it needs to be staid or lack expressiveness.

Into Orbit on Thee Facebooks

Into Orbit on Bandcamp

 

Super Thief, Eating Alone in My Car

super thief eating alone in my car

Noise-punk intensity pervades Eating Alone in My Car, the not-quite-not-an-LP from Austin four-piece Super Thief. They call it an album, and that’s good enough for me, especially since at about 20 minutes there isn’t much more I’d ask of the thing that it doesn’t deliver, whether it’s the furious out-of-mindness of minute-long highlight “Woodchipper” or the poli-sci critique of that sandwiches the offering with opener “Gone Country” immediately taking a nihilist anti-stance while closer “You Play it Like a Joke but I Know You Really Mean It” — which consumes nearly half the total runtime at 9:32 — seems to run up the walls unable to stick to the “smoke ’em if you got ’em” point of view of the earlier cut. That’s how the bastards keep you running in circles, but at least Super Thief know where to direct the frustration. “Six Months Blind” and the title-track have a more personal take, but are still worth a read lyrically as much as a listen, as the rhythm of the words only adds to the striking personality of the material.

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Learning Curve Records website

 

Absent, Towards the Void

absent towards the void

Recorded in 2016, released on CD in 2018 and snagged by Cursed Tongue Records for a vinyl pressing, Absent‘s Towards the Void casts a shimmering plunge of cavernous doom, with swirling post-Electric Wizard guitar and echoing vocals adding to the spaciousness of its four component tracks as the Brasilia-based trio conjure atmospheric breadth to go along with their weighted lurch in opener “Ophidian Womb.” With tracks arranged shortest to longest between eight and a half and 11 minutes, “Semen Prayer,” “Funeral Sun” and “Urine” follow suit from the opener in terms of overall approach, but “Funeral Sun” speeds things up for a stretch while “Urine” lures the listener downward with a subdued opening leading to more filth-caked distortion and degenerate noise, capping with feedback because at that point what the hell matters anyway? Little question in listening why this one’s been making the rounds for over a year now. It will likely continue to do so for some time to come.

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Cursed Tongue Records webstore

 

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Moab Premiere New Track “Skeptics Lament”; Announce Trough Due Oct. 19

Posted in audiObelisk, Whathaveyou on August 24th, 2018 by JJ Koczan

moab

Los Angeles heavy rockers Moab are back with their third album, Trough, and it would seem to be a title loaded with meaning. Consider that guitarist/vocalist Andrew Giacumakis is also a noted recording engineer, having worked not only his own releases, but stuff for Fu Manchu and others, and think of “trough” in terms of waveforms. The lowest point.

And so it would seem to be. Late in 2016, Moab drummer Erik Herzog passed away. Giacumakis and bassist Joe Fuentes would pay him homage with a lyric video for “Nothing Escapes” (posted here) from their 2013 second LP, Billow (review here), which was issued through the now-defunct Scion A/V, and it was questionable whether or not the band would continue. Ultimately, they pressed forward, and recruited Fu Manchu‘s Brad Davis to fill the final spot in the trio to play live in support of Trough, which in light of everything they’ve been through in its making, seems to well earn the title it’s been given.

Trough is set to release on Oct. 19 through Falling Dome Records and brings Moab‘s sound to new places all the way around. From the uptempo Sheavy-style post-Sabbath heavy rock of “Into the Sea Swine” to the harder-hit lumber of “Moss Grows Where No One Goes” and the later jabs of “The Will is Weak,” it’s a record united in melody and hooks and purpose,  I have the pleasure today of not only announcing the fact of its existence, but also of premiering the first song from it. You’ll find some background and the tracklisting under the awesome-looking cover art below, and the track itself at the bottom of this post.

Please enjoy:

moab trough

MOAB – Trough

Equal parts dirge and grace, Moab earned critical praise with their first two albums Ab Ovo (Kemado) and Billow (ScionAV), establishing themselves as underground darlings of LA’s heavy music scene. A unique ability to blend atmosphere and melody into an incessant dark riff and drum attack, Moab creates a sonic massage and listenability that few other metal bands wield.

2018 finds the Los Angeles based trio set to release their 3rd full length album Trough, a record steeped in loss with the passing of drummer Erik Herzog mid-way through its production. A gifted drummer and founding member of the band, his untimely passing had the band considering retirement. But with encouragement from family and friends to finish the album and let Erik’s final work be heard, the band refocused and committed to the album’s completion. Remaining band members Andrew Giacumakis and Joe Fuentes, joined by Brad Davis (Fu Manchu) filling the void on drums, are set to play select shows in support of the album’s release.

1. Skeptics Lament 4:09
2. Into The Sea Swine 3:38
3. All Automatons 3:40
4. Moss Grows Where No One Goes 4:53
5. The Onus 3:37
6. Medieval Moan 2:38
7. Fifty Thousand Tons 3:19
8. The Will Is Weak 4:21
9. Turnin’ Slow 4:48
10. Fend For Dawn 4:07

MOAB live:
09.14 Cafe NELA Los Angeles CA w/ Biblical Proof of UFOs, The Freeks, Angry Samoan

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https://www.moabband.com/

Moab, “Skeptics Lament” official track premiere

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