Posted in Whathaveyou on March 6th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Please tell me if I’m crazy, but I don’t see a title here. I guess stranger things have happened, but with the unveiling of the new lyric video for “Raven Bones” and the announcement of their signing to Argonauta Records, Finnish doom rollers Orbiter nonetheless herald their upcoming debut album, whatever it’ll be called and whenever it’ll be issued, presumably sometime later this year.
Then a five-piece, the band released their debut EP, The Deluge (discussed here) early in 2020 and “Raven Bones” accounts for an element of grunge along with the weighted, doomed roll of their riffing, vocals carefully layered to accent mood along with melody. Whatever album details aren’t included — title as noted, also art, tracklisting, etc. — the song itself makes up for a lot, which is probably what you want, considering.
I’ll hope to have more on the record once we get closer to its TBA release date, and kudos to the band and label on the team-up in the meantime. Most of what follows is basic background — bio stuff — but it’s something to go on, at least, and it’s enough of an excuse to post the track, so there you have it. The promo plan works:
Finnish Psychedelic Doom Metal Act ORBITER Sign to Argonauta Records and Share New Song and Lyrics Video
“We’re thoroughly excited to be releasing our debut album with Argonauta Records. The label has exactly the kind of attitude we’re looking for, and it has a deep understanding of the doom, stoner, and heavy psych scenes. We’ve already been playing some of the new material at our live shows, and the audience responses have been thrilled, so we can’t wait to get these songs officially released!”
The sound of Orbiter is a unique brew of grinding riffs, atmospheric psychedelia, and hypnotically soaring vocals. The band is firmly rooted in doom metal and stoner rock, yet they adventurously take influences from a wide range of genres and even visual arts to create an approach that is truly their own.
Formed in 2014 in Helsinki, Finland, Orbiter spent their early years crafting their style and artistic direction. The final piece of the puzzle fell into place when German singer-songwriter and filmmaker Carolin joined the band in 2019. Shortly thereafter they released their debut EP The Deluge, which received excellent reviews and established the band as a force to be reckoned with in the heavy music and doom metal underground scenes.
The current line-up consists of Carolin Koss (vocals), Alexander Meaney (guitars), Tuomas Talka (bass), and Sami Heiniö (drums). Orbiter have established a solid reputation as a great live act through their atmospheric shows on the club circuit and in festivals in Finland and Germany.
In 2022, Orbiter recorded their debut full length album with producer Hiili Hiilesmaa (HIM, Apocalyptica). The album was mixed by Hiilesmaa and mastered by Ted Jensen (Alice In Chains, Mastodon). The upcoming record will be released via Argonauta Records in 2023 on VINYL, CD, and DIGITAL editions.
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 3rd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Finland’s Gangrened aren’t thinking of Ambient Doom Dream so much as a follow-up to 2021’s Deadly Algorithm (review here) as an aside intended to bridge the gap between that LP and the next round of post-doom punishment, whenever that might arrive. The title offers clues to the sound, and while I get that they’d risk corniness if they’d gone with ‘Nightmare’ instead of ‘Dream’ in naming the offering, rest assured that the sense of challenge of the prior album and the current of extremity that ran through it can still be felt in the rumbles and biting guitar feedback drones of the single “Transitional Trance 2,” which reminds of earliest, pre-street cred SunnO))) in its unbridled ceremony of harsh amplification. Underscored with pulses of synth, it is all the more encompassing at high volumes, where the tonal textures seem to take on a life of their own before ending suddenly as though someone walked into the room demanding to know what all the shaking walls and floors were about.
That’s the improvisational nature of the release coming through, of course, and the feel of “Transitional Trance 2” is correspondingly placed in Gangrened‘s rehearsal spot where the exploration of Ambient Doom Dream was captured. The band have gone through a shift in lineup, as well happen, but even just the single shows them continuing to move forward creatively, and elsewhere on the new release they’re also reinterpreting older movements and venturing into unknown spaces. If you didn’t hear Deadly Algorithm (which you can at the link above), “Transitional Trance 2” isn’t necessarily representative of the whole scope of their work, but in its oppressive atmosphere there is certainly consistency of purpose to be had.
They’ve got a private-press CD version coming, and you’ll find more info below. There’s a fair amount of description to work from — always welcome — and I think among the keywords you’ll find, the standout phrase is “Then this happened.” Surely this is the kind of noise that might change your plans for what’s next.
Courtesy of the PR wire:
GANGRENED – “AMBIENT DOOM DREAM” – New limited CD/Digital release. New song advanced and pre-order open
Ambient doom dream is the first long length music release of the current Gangrened line-up leaving aside drums and vocals. It captures an improvised piece of music from their second rehearsal together as Gangrened. This is the story behind this recording: The Friday May 5th 2022 Jon Imbernon, guitarist, and Olli Wikström, synth and sampler, met in Seinajöki (Finland) with Lassi Männikkö, previous Gangrened drummer, to pick up Jon´s guitar gear after the last gigs of previous line up to bring it to the new rehearsal room in Kokkola.
While the trip back to Kokkola and with the first hits of the Finnish summer felt like end of a era and beginning of a new one. This same day when arriving in Kokkola the new line up set up their gear in the new place and started jamming. Jon with his stereo guitar rig placed around the room. Olli with his set up for this occasion consisting of synth and sampler. Amps were properly loud, and Jon brought in a guitar lick which he was noddling with for a while already. The inspiration and excitement was flowing resulting into that they both realized to be able to create solid music in real time while improvising. Then it was decided to come back the day after and record the improvisation and develop the raw idea of jamming around that guitar lick.
Then this happened and it was captured 50 mins of the actual rehearsal/improvisation. The 2 of them improvising around that guitar lick and way way beyond….. The recording sounded specially good considering the minimal recording set up was used, even Jon considers that the guitar tone is more natural and loyal to his guitar sound than the guitar sound in Deadly Algorithm. So it was decided to release what was considered the highlight of the improvisation as a track as a digital single: “Turbulent Times”.
After that came the possibility of releasing the whole thing physically through Clouded Mind Records from Sweden, so the original mix was remixed and mastered by Miguel Souto in Spain putting the whole recording into a next level thanks to Miguel´s work. So here it is, the whole improvisation has been divided in 6 tracks, including “Turbulent Times” remixed and remastered and having as end a revision of the intro of the song “Kuningatar” from Deadly Algorithm recorded the way Jon was playing it live, more spacial, but with synth and sampler and without drums and bass.
“Ambient Doom Dream”, represents a exercise of immersion by Gangrened´s new line up in the more dreamy 90s, think about Kranky Records, or Slowdive’s “Pigmalyon” album blended with blurry heavy fuzzed guitars and droned synths all with a lot of feedback in the key of trance in between. A heavy dreamy experience from beginning to end. Besides “Turbulent Times, another highlight of “Ambient Doom Dream” is “Imbernon VS. Qstaw” second track and another descension into despair like “Harrbåda” from “Deadly Algorithm” was but deeper and heavier sounding, and created 100% on the fly while improvising.
Needs to be mentioned that this is not the second album of Gangrened, this is a evolutionary transitional release between first and second album.
“Ambient Doom Dream” will be released digitally in all streaming platforms and also on a small run of 33 handmade digipack CDs by the Swedish label Clouded Mind Records the Friday 5th May, a year after the recording was made. In the meantime, The 5th track “Transitional trance 2” extracted from this dreamy musical piece is released now (3rd march) in all streaming platforms.
Tracklisting: 1. Intro 2. Imbernon VS Qstaw 3. Transitional Trance 1 4. Turbulent Times 5. Transitional Trance 2 6. Kuningatar Intro (live revision)
Releases May 5, 2023
Mixing and mastering by Miguel Souto.
Jon Imbernon – Guitars and feedback in trance key. Olli Wikström – Sampler, synth and effects.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 13th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Last I heard from Finnish outfit Craneium, the Turku-based heavy rockers had finished recording their next full-length for The Sign Records, following up on 2021’s Unknown Heights (review here). Frankly, it still hasn’t been that long since that record came out, so it’s not really a worry that instead of news about the next album, the new song “Sands of Gold” arrives specifically pointed out as a standalone single rather than a herald of an LP to follow.
If it’s the ubiquitous pressing delays, cost-of-everything concerns, or whatever else might be behind putting this out before moving forward with a new album, it doesn’t really matter. New Craneium is welcome regardless, and if this is the capstone for their Unknown Heights era, it both reminds how cool that record was and makes me look forward to what’s coming next.
YouTube stream is at the bottom of this post. If you prefer another service, there’s a bunch linked in the PR wire info that follows here:
Craneium release stand alone single “Sands of Gold”!
The new single from Finlands’ Craneium is called “Sands of Gold” and it oozes of heavy blues rock, desert sand and gasoline. But it’s more than a heavy rock tune with a lot of drive, it’s also a song filled with hope.
The stand alone single was written during the sessions for the bands’ latest album “Unknown Heights” (2021). The band recorded the song at V.R. Studio in Turku together with Joona Hassinen from Studio Underjord.
Guitarist Martin, who also handles the lead vocal duties on the track, explains: “The line ‘we all must do our part / got a new world here in our hearts’ is inspired by a quote by anarcho-syndicalist Buenaventura Durruti. The song is about believing in your thing and staying true to your ideas, even if it at times may seem dark. Something we all could use a little more of right now.”
Posted in Reviews on February 7th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
The immediate implication of Chrysalis, the second full-length from Tampere, Finland, progressive space resonators Polymoon, is metamorphosis. Major change. Progression. One thing growing into another, and perhaps, having unveiled their debut in 2020’s Caterpillars of Creation (review here), the band are talking about themselves somewhat, setting themselves in a position of being something malleable, able to grow and assume a different form than they had in a more ‘larval’ stage.
Issued through Robotor Records — the label headed by Berlin heavy rock magnates Kadavar, whose drummer Tiger Bartelt produced and mixed Polymoon at Kadavar Studio; Janne Hakanen mastered — Chrysalis comprises six songs and stretches vast distances across 44 minutes of cosmic bursts, galloping, twisting proggy thrust and a psychedelia that, while heavy in its underpinnings and accessible through melody and the bright, sometimes blinding timbre of the guitar and synth, is nonetheless flying from the moment opener “Crown of the Universe” sweeps in on a lead guitar hook from its initial two-and-a-half-minute quiet intro of synth, guitar and vocals, with precious little letup in its push from there. It’s not until side A closer “Instar,” really, two songs later, that the tension that begins in “Crown of the Universe” is released. And that is not the last time that happens.
Polymoon leave no doubt this is on purpose, and among Chrysalis‘ great triumphs is that the returning five-piece of vocalist/synthesist Kalle-Erik Kosonen, guitarists Jesse Jaksola and Otto Kontio, bassist Juuso Valli and drummer Tuomas Heikura never lose control — and their own growth as a band is writ large across the album as one of its major themes. As alluded above, they have become another thing. They have moved forward. It’s everywhere on Chrysalis. Atmospheric as they are, Kosonen‘s vocals are both higher in the mix generally and more confident in their delivery.
This is shown quickly in “Crown of the Universe” as well, which once it kicks in sees the band rocketlaunching Songs for the Deaf-desert sprint with the lyrics urging a kind of personal/galaxial rebirth, some falsetto included from Kosonen along with guest Moog from Finnish synth-wizard Esa Kotilainen (Wigwam, Tasavallan Presidentti, etc.). Accordingly, Heikura‘s drumming would be manic in its shove behind the two guitars and bass were it not so masterfully executed, lending urgency and immediacy to “Crown of the Universe” and the subsequent, even shinier “Wave Back to Confusion” early on before the glorious nine-minute “Instar” pauses at its outset, works itself into a frenzy, and, just when you think your head is about to explode because even the quiet part is interweaving angular lines of guitar, after seven minutes in, the band finally lets it go and supernova-blasts into a rolling movement slowdown, guitar solo pulled out over interstellar plod to serve as the apex for the album’s first half. Like much of Chrysalis, it is lush and gorgeous and the band know it and built it that way on purpose.
The linear quality of the three songs working together — not linear in terms of a build within the first two tracks, necessarily, though neither wants for “get loud” at its finish — pushing and carrying the listener toward that crescendo in “Instar” is further argument for Polymoon‘s evolution as being part of the story the album is telling, and in all the tumult of their conveyance, one finds especially on repeat listens a kind of overarching pulse of life to follow in and between the songs, everything feeling connected whether it’s a synthy intro to “Instar” or the consuming swirl of “Wave Back to Confusion” just before.
And the material on side B: the outright party that is “Set the Sun”; “A Day in the Air,” which picks up from its doomed intro for a full-speed tear that’s reminiscent of nothing so much as latter-day Enslaved (and every bit worthy of the compliment in that comparison); and the corresponding nine-minute Floyd-referencing capstone “Viper at the Gates of Dawn,” is likewise communicative. Continuing on with the next stage from “Instar” — because it’s a whole-album narrative and not just something that applies to one side and then the other –the album genuinely becomes a tale of becoming, and as much for the band as anything else. It is united by Polymoon‘s apparent ability to dizzy their audience without losing their own balance in either the writing or performance, which is something that Caterpillars of Creation hinted toward but was more focused on lumber where Chrysalis genuinely seems to be breaking free of containment and running (or flying, if we’re keeping to the metaphor) loose. But “loose” doesn’t mean sloppy, just unencumbered.
They convey this while the individual members simultaneously put on a clinic in their respective crafts, whether it’s the classy fluidity with which Kontio and Jaksola interact on guitar and the attention to detail of their work there, the nuance of that interplay — not to mention whatever the hell is happening with the solos at the start of “A Day in the Air,” or Valli saving some but by no means all of the tastiest basslines for “Viper at the Gates of Dawn,” or Heikura‘s stunning performance throughout, the drums challenging every other instrument to keep up, which is a game that, thankfully, the band as a whole is prepared to play.
Together with Kosonen‘s noted progression on vocals and the abiding melody of the keys, the delicate manner in which atmospheres are concocted, the sheer wash they create at times, Polymoon are able to affect a run like that in “A Day in the Air,” building dreamily with delightful, playful misdirection toward a huge, encompassing doomly stride that’s outright heavier than they’ve been on record to-date. They rightly ride that groove to the end of the song and crash it out — you’ll note it wasn’t until track three on side A that they hit the slowdown; they’re changing up structure and how the songs function on their sides, again adding to the richness of the overall listening experience — ahead of the snare-to-start non-intro to “Viper at the Gates of Dawn,” which is soon ringing out petals of lead guitar through deceptively grounded verses in rushing-but-unrushed antimatter-fueled krautmetal fashion.
“Viper at the Gates of Dawn” summarizes well the strengths to be found throughout Chrysalis, including the flow that brings it methodically to its heavier push, echoing vocals after the two-minute mark as Kosonen recalls the falsetto he unveiled in “Crown of the Universe” and uses it in such a way as to set up a self-call-and-response before gliding over the subsequent verse. Oh, and then they start to mean business. Guitar surges forward as the vocals fade back, the solo lining up with the rhythm line, moving around it, drums and bass running alongside. The vocals come back before six minutes in, joining the build for a last chorus, a note held like they didn’t want to let it go, and then the quiet drift that might be flight moves further and further out, peaceful as it goes, offers one last moment of grace to appreciate on a record that’s already given much in that regard.
Of course, they’ve set themselves up for the third installment in the trilogy. The caterpillar crawled. The chrysalis brought change. The butterfly would seem to be the next logical step. Or maybe this story is done. I don’t know, and while speculation is fun, that’s all it is. If this an ending or a beginning — a bit of both — it is the accomplishments throughout Chrysalis in realizing an evolved vision of what Polymoon‘s debut was that are most striking, whatever potential there may also be for the band to take it a step further still. This is the kind of album that’s able to take notions and tropes of genre to places they do not often go, and to meld stylistic elements that in less capable hands would be too disparate to connect. And to do it with class, and distinction, and passion. Beautiful.
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 27th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
I can’t imagine being a heavy-minded label, hearing these two songs from Helsinki doom rockers Swarm, and not immediately wanting to sign the band. Between the dense, lumbering heft of their riffs, readily familiar but distinguished with an undertone of metal that is more fully realized in the guitar solos, and the dynamic vocal arrangements led by Hilja Vedenpää, Swarm call to mind the somehow floating largesse of Elephant Tree and a perhaps more of-genre take on the emotive doom of Pallbearer.
The nine-minute “Sun is the One” is resonant and patient even through its post-midpoint tempo kick, and it turns reliably back toward its slower hook with marked fluidity. At about a third of the runtime, the softly-delivered “Weight” plays claim to folk balladeering, more internationally informed than Finnish in style, but richly melodic and spacious in a way that reminds just how much room they have to fill and how they do so when they choose.
Swarm‘s self-titled EP (review here) was well received in 2022. This two-songer says to me that’s no fluke and that the potential here is even greater than the EP hinted. Debut album, please.
Tracks are streaming on the player at the bottom of this post. Release info follows with the Bandcamp update. Enjoy.
“Hey guys!
Here´s our new single which contains two songs, Sun Is The One and Weight.
We are very excited and happy of this moment at hand, it was a long wait. So, here you go, kick back and have a listen.
Thank you for the support that you´ve shown us, it really means the world to our band. Much love.
Have a good one! – Swarm”
Tracklisting: 1. Sun Is The One 09:11 2. Weight 03:21
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 25th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Polymoon smack of brilliance. Like, right upside your head. The Finnish not-upstart-for-much-longer prog-psych troupe have unveiled their video for “Set the Sun,” the second single from their upcoming sophomore long-player, Chrysalis, and it’s a beautiful bit of aural wash krautmetal, feverish in its affect but controlled in terms of performance even as it pushes toward its dramatic apex, conveying the sense of transition happening across the record in a surge of volume that, well, whatever space you can give it, give it and know that by the time the near-seven minutes are up, you won’t regret having done so.
Chrysalis is out Feb. 17. I’ve booked out Feb. 7 to review it and no, I don’t think there’s going to be a premiere with that or anything, but it’s a deep record and I want to try to give it its due anyhow, since it’s very clear to me in listening that a lot of love went into making it. I think you can hear some of that in “Set the Sun,” about which you can read more in the blue text off the PR wire, and for which you can find the video at the bottom of this post. Note that Marco Menestrina of Kaleidobolt helped make it. Figures Polymoon and Kaleidobolt would be buds. I’m sure there’s a ‘New Wave of…’ joke to be made there, but frankly even those two groups are too distinct to really be part of a wave. I’m just glad they exist.
Take a step into the unknown and dive into the second single from Polymoon’s highly anticipated sophomore album “Chrysalis”. “Set The Sun” takes a heavier turn both sonically and visually and spirals into the world of figure skating.
The second appetizer from Polymoon’s sophomore album “Chrysalis” will be available in visual form this Friday. The second single “Set The Sun” will be available on all streaming platforms on the 20th of January. “Chrysalis” will be released by Berlin-based and Kadavar driven label Robotor Records on the 17th of February, 2023.
“Set The Sun” is the second single from the forthcoming album “Chrysalis” and is accompanied by a music video directed, filmed and edited by Polymoon members Kalle-Erik Kosonen, Jesse Jaksola and Marco Menestrina. In the music video, Polymoon guitarist Jesse Jaksola wanders around an eerie wintery forest on a bicycle before seeing his life flash before his eyes. However, the ephemeral vision takes him to a whole another world. Check it out below.
“‘In this song, the second phase of metamorphosis has begun and the golden chrysalis starts to form around the character. The song is a depiction of depression and closing into the shell. There is a party for one in a golden room inside one’s mind.
Set The Sun is musically the heaviest song of the album. It goes hand in hand with the lyrics, from sanity to insanity. It is dark and majestic. You’ll find yourself singing the lyrics with a smile on your face and you have no idea why. We wanted to create a beautiful and dreamy music video that has contrast to the heaviness of the song.
The progressive and heavy rock genre we represent has maintained a rather traditional and one-dimensional image of what kind of art and for what kind of audience is made within the genre. Through our visual expression, we want to break the structures of a genre perceived as strongly masculine and with our own contribution make the scene safe and easily approachable for all listeners.”
“Chrysalis” – out February 17 – follows Polymoon’s critically acclaimed debut album “Caterpillars Of Creation” that was released in 2020. The new album is set to be released while the band is on tour, performing alongside the Finnish psychedelic rock group Death Hawks with announced dates in early 2023.
POLYMOON is: Tuomas Heikura / Drums Jesse Jaksola / Guitar Otto Kontio / Guitar Kalle-Erik Kosonen / Vocals, Synthesizer Juuso Valli / Bass
Posted in Reviews on January 24th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Returning after four-plus years presumably spent repenting for how good their first record was, Finnish heavy cultists Mansion offer Second Death as the follow-up to 2018’s First Death of the Lutheran (review here) and bring even more sinister atmospheres and religious authoritarianism to bear across seven songs and 49 minutes of unrelenting commitment to aesthetic and presentation, sex and death. They remain true to their founding basis in exploring the ideas and practices of the Kartanoist sect in the first half of the 20th century led by Alma Kartano, a role played with if not exactly fully embodied by the band’s own Alma, who is introduced with due theatricality by fellow vocalist Osmo on opener “Sword of God,” full of warnings to the righteous and sinners alike of deathly penance to be paid.
The eight-piece band — Alma and Osmo singing, Jaakob and Samuel on guitar, Immanuel on bass, Matti-Juhani on the crucial organ, Aatami on drums (also guitar) and Mikael with lyrics — are malevolent in spirit and patient in the delivery of their material, as demonstrated early with the choral intro “Procession” before “Sword of God” begins its rollout, in the buildup of the second half of layered vocal highlight “No Funeral,” in the ambient transitions between songs throughout seemingly contributed by Juhana that make the record so effective in never quite letting you go until entire mass has ended, or in the chugging low end and semi-industrial wash that serves as the payoff for centerpiece “Heathen Hole,” that song something of an encapsulation of Mansion‘s take on making doctrine out of kink and vice versa.
As lush in its production — recording, mixing and mastering took place at Noise for Fiction in Turku and was helmed by Joona Lukala — as it is resonant in its darkness, Second Death answers back to the realizations of Mansion‘s first album with the increased dramaturge of “In the Court of the Sorrowless,” which moves from its slowly unfolding hook into an actual trial in its second half backed with chastising and foreboding lines of keyboard, far away percussion and rumbling bass that gradually give over to the transition to “Second Death” itself, the march of which is immediate and answers back to “First Death” from the debut in its emphasis on songwriting. Like “Sword of God” — which boasts the chorus, “Don’t break the rules, little boys and girls/There’s nothing out there for you in the world” in a tidy summary of the cult’s self-imposed misanthropy as led by Kartano — and “No Funeral,” “You Are Suspicious” still to come and “Heathen Hole,” the title-track is thoughtfully composed and engaging, mixed for depth and wholly immersive even as it willfully slogs (flogs?) in tempo and declares a soul-death in a swirl of howls and consuming doom that would be ecstatic were it not so menacing and implicitly violent.
This is the balance Mansion ultimately cast with Second Death, between individual songs standing themselves out from the collection — “In the Court of the Sorrowless” has its hook as well, but is more distinguished by the aforementioned trial, which, by way of a spoiler: divorce not granted — even as they place emphasis on drawing them together through theme, of course, and with the atmospheric stretches that lead from one piece to the next. Also there’s just more sex. First Death of the Lutheran wasn’t lacking, by any means, but Mansion more fully convey the bound-for-hypocrisy tenet of celibacy and theorize Alma‘s various punishments — “I shall whip you good,” she croons before the chorus on “You Are Suspicious” — as about domination as much as contrition before one’s god. As the leader of the movement, she is the god and her will, thematically speaking, is cast across the entire record. They end side A with “Heathen Hole.” How much clearer could they possibly make it?
And maybe there’s a winking sensibility behind some of that, but what matters most is that Mansion are completely without irony in their presentation. Straight-faced. I’m pretty sure putting your tongue even in your own cheek is a sin in Kartanoism. But that is the way it has to be, because the group simply wouldn’t work otherwise. Mansion would be another cult doom band, if one with a gimmick. And no, I’m not saying that Osmo actually lives in fear of Alma or that the band are practicing Kartanoists in their private lives, but like good theatre, they’re able to transport their listeners into a world where that is the case, and to tell their stories in such a way that the backdrop of fanaticism is unflinching, unquestioned. It doesn’t matter if you’re actually being hunted in “Sword of God,” because the song, like the rest of the album that follows, is so well crafted that its, ahem, procession, is followable without having to continually suspend disbelief.
Right into the riffy turn that marks the crescendo of “You Are Suspicious” with the arrival of the buzzsaw guitar solo at 6:33 into its total 9:27 — an extended edition features as a bonus track on the CD with additional ambience at the beginning and guitar by Henrik — departing from the earlier organ-inclusive death-doom-worthy plod into a faster moment of tension-release, Mansion keep hold of the consciousness, and with intricate arrangements of vocals, guitar and bass and keys, they’re able to portray ascetism without any actual aural drudgery, or at least no more than is intended. They are punishing sinners, after all.
Be it the duet undertaken by Osmo and Alma on “Heathen Hole” or the severity of the lumber behind them in “Second Death” itself, the melody that seems to break through the early going of “In the Court of the Sorrowless” or the build back to full-volume crux with the above-quoted admonition in “Sword of God,” Second Death is disturbing in its beauty in exactly the way it’s supposed to be. It solidifies some aspects of the first record while progressing in sound and scope overall, and weaves its holy retribution with purpose and mystique, of and at once outside genre for residing on its own level of execution. Sex, death, violence, mystique and control. Mansion bask in these notions and, centering their theme as they do, use them to manifest the puritanical ideal of who they are as a band, conceptually and practically.
Posted in Reviews on January 13th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
So here we are. On the verge of two weeks, 100 records later. My message here is the same as ever: I’m tired and I hope you found something worthwhile. A lot of this was catchup for me — still is, see Gaupa below — but maybe something slipped through the cracks for you in 2022 that got a look here, or maybe not and you’re not even seeing this and it doesn’t matter anyway and what even is music, etc., etc. I don’t know.
A couple bands were stoked along the way. That’s fun, I guess. Mostly I’ve been trying to keep in mind that I’m doing this for myself, because, yeah, there’s probably no other way I was going to get to cover these 100 albums, and I feel like the site is stronger for having done so, at least mostly. I guess shrug and move on. Next week is back to normal reviews, premieres and all that. I think March we’ll do this again, maybe try to keep it to five or six days. Two 100-record QRs in a row has been a lot.
But again, thanks if you’ve kept up at all. I’m gonna soak my head in these and then cover it with a pillow for a couple days to keep the riffs out. Just kidding, I’ll be up tomorrow morning writing. Like a sucker.
Winter 2023 Quarterly Review #91-100:
Gaupa, Myriad
Beginning with the hooky “Exoskeleton” and “Diametrical Enchantress,” Myriad is the second full-length from Sweden’s Gaupa (their first for Nuclear Blast), and a bringing together of terrestrial and ethereal heavy elements. Even at its most raucous, Gaupa‘s material floats, and even at its most floating, there is a plan at work, a story unfolding, and an underlying structure to support them. From the minimalist start of “Moloken” to the boogie rampage of “My Sister is a Very Angry Man,” the Swedefolk of “Sömnen,” the tension and explosions of “RA,” with the theatrical-but-can-also-really-sing, soulful vocals of Emma Näslund at the forefront, a proggy and atmospheric cut like “Elden” — which becomes an intense battery by the time it hits its apex; I’ve heard that about aging — retains a distinct human presence, and the guitar work of Daniel Nygren and David Rosberg, Erik Sävström‘s bass and Jimmy Hurtig‘s drums are sharp in their turns and warm in their tones, creating a fluidity that carries the five-piece to the heavy immersion of “Mammon,” where Näslund seems to find another, almost Bjork-ish level of command in her voice before, at 5:27 into the song’s 7:36, the band behind her kicks into the heaviest roll of the album; a shove by the time they’re done. Can’t ask for more. Some records just have everything.
Six albums in, let’s just all take a minute to be glad Orango are still at it. The Oslo-based harmonybringers are wildly undervalued, now over 20 years into their tenure, and their eighth album, Mohican (which I’m not sure is appropriate to take as an album title unless you’re, say, a member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Community) is a pleasure cruise through classic heavy rock styles. From opener/longest track (immediate points) “The Creek” twisting through harder riffing and more melodic range than most acts have in their entire career, through the memorable swagger in the organ-laced “Fryin’,” the stadium-ready “Running Out of Reasons,” the later boogie of “War Camp” and shuffle in “Dust & Dirt” (presumably titled for what’s kicked up by said shuffle) and the softer-delivered complementary pair “Cold Wind” and “Ain’t No Road” ending each side of the LP with a mellow but still engaging wistfulness, nobody does the smooth sounds of the ’70s better, and Mohican is a triumph in showcasing what they do, songs like “Bring You Back Home” and the bluesier “Wild River Song” gorgeous and lush in their arrangements while holding onto a corresponding human sensibility, ever organic. There is little to do with Orango except be wowed and, again, be thankful they’ve got another collection of songs to bask in and singalong to. It’s cool if you’re off-key; nobody’s judging.
You never really know when a flute, a choir, or a digeridoo might show up, and that’s part of the fun with Onségen Ensemble‘s six-track Realms LP, which goes full-Morricone in “Naked Sky” only after digging into the ambient prog of “The Sleeping Lion” and en route to the cinematic keys and half-speed King Crimson riffing of “Abysmal Sun,” which becomes a righteous melodic wash. The Finnish natives’ fourth LP, its vinyl pressing was crowdfunded through Bandcamp for independent release, and while the guitar in “Collapsing Star” calls back to “Naked Sky” and the later declarations roll out grandiose crashes, the horns of “The Ground of Being” set up a minimalist midsection only to return in even more choral form, and “I’m Here No Matter What” resolves in both epic keys/voices and a clear, hard-strummed guitar riff, the name Realms feels not at all coincidental. This is worldbuilding, setting a full three-dimensional sphere in which these six pieces flow together to make the 40-minute entirety of the album. The outright care put into making them, the sense of purpose, and the individualized success of the results, shouldn’t be understated. Onségen Ensemble are becoming, and so have become, a treasure of heavy, enveloping progressive sounds, and without coming across as contrived, Realms has a painterly sensibility that resonates joy.
Chad Heille (ex-Egypt, currently also El Supremo) drums in this Fargo, North Dakota, three-piece completed by guitarist/vocalist/engineer Chris Ellingson and bassist/vocalist Mitch Martin, and the heavy bluesy groove they emit as they unfurl “Witch Lung,” their self-titled debut’s 10-minute opener and longest track (immediate points), is likewise righteous and hypnotic. Even as “Paranoid Humanoid” kicks into its chorus on Heille‘s steady thud and a winding lead from Ellingson, one wouldn’t call their pace hurried, and while I’d like to shake everyone in the band’s hand for having come up with the song title “Yeti Davis Eyes” — wow; nicely done — the wandering jam itself is even more satisfying, arriving along its instrumental course at a purely stoner rock janga-janga before it’s finished and turns over to the final two tracks, “The Good Ride” and “Stoned Age,” both shorter, with the former also following an instrumental path, classically informed but modern in its surge, and the latter seeming to find all the gallop and shove that was held back from elsewhere and loosing it in one showstopping six-minute burst. I’d watch this live set, happily. Reminds a bit of Geezer on paper but has its own identity. Their sound isn’t necessarily innovative or trying to be, but their debut nonetheless establishes a heavy dynamic, shows their chemistry across a varied collection of songs, and offers a take on genre that’s welcome in the present and raises optimism for what they’ll do from here. It’s easy to dig, and I dig it.
Blake Hornsby, A Collection of Traditional Folk Songs & Tunes Vol. 1
It’s not quite as stark a contrast as one might think to hear Asheville, North Carolina’s Blake Hornsby go from banjo instrumentalism to more lush, sitar-infused arrangements for the final three songs on his A Collection of Traditional Folk Songs & Tunes Vol. 1, as bridging sounds across continents would seem to come organically to his style of folk. And while perhaps “Old Joe Clark” wasn’t written as a raga to start with, it certainly works as one here, answering the barebones runs of “John Brown’s Dream” with a fluidity that carries into the more meditative “Cruel Sister” and a drone-laced 13-minute take on the Appalachian traditional song “House Carpenter” (also done in various forms by Pentangle, Joan Baez, Myrkur, and a slew of others), obscure like a George Harrison home-recorded experiment circa Sgt. Pepper but sincere in its expression and cross-cultural scope. Thinking of the eight-tracker as an LP with two sides — one mostly if not entirely banjo tunes between one and two minutes long, the other an outward-expanding journey using side A as its foundation — might help, but the key word here is ‘collection,’ and part of Hornsby‘s art is bringing these pieces into his oeuvre, which he does regardless of the form they actually take. That is a credit to him and so is this album.
Oof that’s heavy. Produced by guitarist/vocalist Nick Forkel, who’s joined in the band by bassist Chris O’Toole (also Unearth) and drummer John “Jono” Garrett (also Mos Generator), Turbid North‘s The Decline is just as likely to be grind as doom at any given moment, as “Life Over Death” emphasizes before “Patients” goes full-on into brutality, and is the band’s fourth full-length and first since 2015. The 2023 release brings together 10 songs for 43 minutes that seem to grow more aggressive as they go, with “Eternal Dying” and “The Oppressor” serving as the opening statement with a lumber that will be held largely but not completely in check until the chugging, slamming plod of closer “Time” — which still manages to rage at its apex — while the likes of “Slaves,” “Drown in Agony” and “The Old Ones” dive into more extreme metallic fare. No complaints, except maybe for the bruises, but as “The Road” sneaks a stoner rock riff in early and some cleaner shouts in late amid Mastodonny noodling, there’s a playfulness that hints toward the trio enjoying themselves while doling out such punishment, and that gives added context and humanity to the likes of “A Dying Earth,” which is severe both in its ambient and more outright violent stretches. Not for everybody, but if you’re pissed off and feel like your brain’s on fire, they have your back with ready and waiting catharsis. Sometimes you just want to punch yourself in the face.
A third full-length in as many years from Roman four-piece Modern Stars — vocalist/guitarist/synthesist Andrea Merolle (also sitar and mandolin), vocalist Barbara Margani, bassist/mixer Filippo Strang and drummer Andrea Sperduti — Space Trips for the Masses is maybe less directly space rock in its makeup than one might think. The band’s heavy psychedelia is hardly earthbound, but more ambience than fiery thrust or motorik, and Merolle‘s vocals have a distinctly Mark Lanegan-esque smokiness to which Margani adds bolstering backing presence on the deceptively urbane “No Fuss,” after the opening drift of “Starlight” — loosely post-rock, but too active to be that entirely either, and that’s a compliment — and the echoing “Monkey Blues” first draw the listener in. Margani provides the only voice on centerpiece “My Messiah Left Me Behind,” but that shift is just one example of Modern Stars‘ clear intent to offer something different on every song, be it the shimmer of “Everyday” or the keyboard sounds filling the open spaces early in the eight-minute “Drowning,” which later takes up a march punctuated by, drums and tambourine, devolving on a long synth/noise-topped fade into the six-minute liquid cohesion that is “Ninna Nanna,” a capstone summary of the fascinating sprawl Modern Stars have crafted. One could live here a while, in this ‘space.’
Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships, Destination Ceres Station: Reefersleep EP
Those who’ve been following the progression of Nebraska’s Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships will find Destination Ceres Station: Reefersleep — their second offering in 2022 behind the sophomore full-length Consensus Trance (review here) — accordingly dense in tone and steady in roll as the three-piece of Jeremy Warner, Karlin Warner and Justin Kamal offer two more tracks that would seem to have been recorded in the full-length session. As “Destination Ceres Station: Reefersleep” open-spaces and chugs across an instrumental-save-for-samples 12:31 and the subsequent “Ice Hauler” lumbers noddily to its 10:52 with vocals incorporated, the extended length of each track gives the listener plenty to groove on, classically stonerized in the post-Sleep tradition, but becoming increasingly individual. These two songs, with the title-track hypnotizing so that the start of the first verse in “Ice Hauler” is something of a surprise, pair well, and Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships add a taste of slow-boogie to lead them out in the slow fade of the latter, highlighting the riff worship at the heart of their increasingly confident approach. One continues to look forward to what’s to come from them, feeling somewhat greedy for doing so given the substance they’ve already delivered.
The current of feedback or drone noise beneath the rolling motion of Borehead‘s “Phantasm (A Prequel)” — before the sample brings the change into the solo section; anybody know the name of that rabbit? — is indeed a precursor to the textured, open-spaced heavy progressive instrumentalism London trio have on offer with their aptly-titled second EP, 0002. Produced by Wayne Adams at the London-underground go-to Bear Bites Horse Studio, the three-song outing is led by riffs on that opener, patient in its execution and best consumed at high volume so that the intricacy of the bass in “Lost in Waters Deep,” the gentle ghost snare hits in the jazzy first-half break of “Mariana’s Lament” after the ticking clock and birdsong intro, and the start-stop declarative riff that lands so heavy before they quickly turn to the next solo, or, yes, those hidden melodies in “Phantasm (A Prequel)” aren’t lost. These aspects add identity to coincide with the richness of tone and the semi-psychedelic outreach of 0002‘s overarching allure, definitely in-genre, but in a way that seems contingent largely on the band’s interests not taking them elsewhere over time, or at least expanding in multiple directions on what’s happening here. Because there’s a pull in these songs, and I think it’s the band being active in their own development, though four years from their first EP and with nothing else to go on, it’s hard to know where they’ll head or how they’ll get there based on these three tracks. Somehow that makes it more exciting.
With song titles and lyrical themes based around Soviet space exploration, Kosmodrom is the ninth full-length from Parisian death-doomers Monolithe. The band are 20 years removed from their debut album, have never had a real break, and offer up 67 minutes’ worth of gorgeously textured, infinitely patient and serenely immersive death, crossing into synth and sampling as they move toward and through the 26-minute finale “Kosmonavt,” something of a victory lap for the album itself, even if sympathy for anything Russian is at a low at this point in Europe, given the invasion of Ukraine. That’s not Monolithe‘s fault, however, and really at this point there’s maybe less to say about it than there would’ve been last year, but the reason I wanted to write about Kosmodrom, and about Monolithe particularly isn’t just that they’re good at what they do, but because they’ve been going so long, they’re still finding ways to keep themselves interested in their project, and their work remains at an as-high-if-not-higher level than it was when I first heard the 50-minute single-song Monolithe II in 2005. They’ve never been huge, never had the hype machine behind them, and they keep doing what they do anyway, because fuck it, it’s art and if you’re not doing it for yourself, what’s the point? In addition to the adventure each of the five songs on Kosmodrom represents, some moments soaring, some dug so low as to be subterranean, both lush, weighted and beautiful, their ethic and the path they’ve walked deserves nothing but respect, so here’s me giving it.
