Floridian heavy rockers The Electric Mud will release their new album, Ashes and Bone, on Oct. 4 through Small Stone Records. Named of course after the classic Muddy Waters album, Electric Mud (discussed here), the band made their Small Stone debut with 2020’s Burn the Ships (review here) and there and on the subsequent Black Wool EP (review here), they fostered a markedly bluesy heavy rock sound. That’s still definitely a factor on Ashes and Bone‘s 10-track/43-minute span, most notably in the vocals of guitarist Peter Kolter — joined in the band by guitarist Constantine Grim, bassist Tommy Scott and drummer Pierson Whicker — but change is clearly afoot in their sound.
In the twisting lead riffing of “The Crown That Eats the Head’ or the rhythmically tense chug behind “The Old Ways” and “Manmade Weather” later on, The Electric Mud transpose an early-Mastodon influence into a more aggressive form of their own heavy blues. This, coupled with a sharper attack in the grooves of pieces like opener “Silent Gods” and the careening “Top of the Tree” in the album’s initial salvo, changes the scope of Ashes and Bone coming off of Burn the Ships, and while that record wanted nothing for energy, the direction in which that manifests is notably shifted from where it was. Whether that was conscious or not as the band set themselves to the task of writing, I don’t know, but they’re at least aware of it after the fact as a characteristic of the album — the PR wire info below attests — and even as they make their way from the taut craft of “Manmade Weather” and the angularity of the penultimate “Pillars” into the nine-minute progressively-structured semi-metallized “Ace” to round out, they seem to revel in the new without entirely letting go of who they were last time around.
“Ashes and Bone,” the title-track with a lyric video premiering below, is somewhat anomalous in its construction. It follows the organ-laced meld of presumed side-A capper “Wrath of the Mighty,” which brings in a bit of dogmatic fire and brimstone, and brings together fluid melody and more complex rhythms, and keeps the organ behind a brooding verse en route to building to a chorus delivering the album’s titular line. It is bluesier than some of the album that shares its name, but its ebbs and flows resolve in a solo-topped crescendo that’s precise enough to tie it to the surrounding pieces. It’s a somewhat mournful lyrical perspective — fair enough — shared with the likes of “The Old Ways” and “Gone Are the Days,” but “Ashes and Bone” is a standout for highlighting both how anchored in roll The Electric Mud are and how much they are able to work around that solid center.
Moreover, Ashes and Bone serves as a reminder that the lines between microgenres are imaginary in the first place, that music is music, and that part of the function of art is to be a showcase for new ideas and interpretations. For someone like me, sitting at a keyboard after the fact of the album’s making and trying to convey some of its intent to anyone who might take it on, this notion is crucial to keeping an open mind. It may be that The Electric Mud are in a transitional moment on their way to become a metal band. If so, all the better that they’ve managed to capture that process as it’s happening rather than simply showing up next time around as basically a different band. Whether that’s the case or not, I obviously have no idea, but with as much motion as there is throughout Ashes and Bone, however post-apocalyptic it may be, it’s hard to think of The Electric Mud resting on these laurels any more than they did after Burn the Ships.
If it needs to be said, that’s a good thing. As a niche, blues rock could use a kick in the ass and a refreshed perspective. The Electric Mud would seem to be providing both.
Enjoy the video:
The Electric Mud, “Ashes and Bone” video premiere
It’s been three years since the release of THE ELECTRIC MUD’s Black Wool EP and, encouraged by friends, family, and the brass at Small Stone, the band is excited to announce their return. They believed they had more to say, and that their best music was still in front of them. They believed the ideas and creative philosophy that brought the band to life and to the precipice of so many exciting things just a few short years ago had to be carried to the next point in their evolution. A new full-length album, it was decided, was the best way to make that statement.
During the writing sessions, a theme emerged: Mankind’s obsession with its own destruction. Where did it come from, and where will it take us? THE ELECTRIC MUD intended to examine some of the darker angels of our nature, and set it to a heavy, post-apocalyptic soundtrack. Decamping to Juniper Recordings in Cape Coral, Florida, and bringing Caleb Neff aboard not just to engineer the record but produce it created an open and creative environment in the studio that’s integral to the sound. There is a deep collaborative bond stitched into the fabric of the record, a collection of heavy sounds and ideas that are truly egalitarian in nature. The point is emphatically driven home with a fantastic mix by Ben McLeod, studio wiz by day, guitar demigod for All Them Witches by night. The resulting record, Ashes And Bone, has been a labor of love, and a reminder of what they love about music and each other.
Boasting a heavier, more aggressive sound that owes as much to the sludgy, prog inflected ferocity of Soundgarden or Mastodon as it does the eerie proto-metal riffing of Black Sabbath and soulful energy of Graveyard, Ashes And Bone is a firmly taken musical step forward into the future as much as it is the sound of a band taking care of unfinished business.
Ashes And Bone, which features album artwork and design by Alexander von Wieding, will be released on CD, LP and digital formats.
Ashes And Bone Track Listing: 1. Silent Gods 2. Top Of The Tree 3. The Crown That Eats The Head 4. Gone Are The Days 5. Wrath Of The Mighty 6. Ashes And Bone 7. The Old Ways 8. Manmade Weather 9. Pillars 10. Ace
THE ELECTRIC MUD: Constantine Grim – guitar Pierson Whicker – drums, percussion Peter Kolter – vocals, guitar Tommy Scott – bass
Special Guests: Joe Reppert – organ and keys on “Wrath Of The Mighty” Jon Meek – synths on “Wrath Of The Mighty” and “Ace”
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 30th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
By my count, Ashes and Bone will be the second full-length Floridian heavy blues rockers The Electric Mud — named of course after the landmark electrified Muddy Waters album released in 1968 — have issued through Small Stone Records, coming some four years after 2020’s Burn the Ships (review here) with 2021’s Black Wool EP(review here) in between. That makes the thanatos-themed offering due Oct. 4 the band’s third long-player overall, as they got their start with 2018’s Bull Gator, and if the lead single “Top of the Tree” is anything to go by, they haven’t forgotten where they come from in terms of vibe or the purposeful style of their songwriting. To wit, “Top of the Tree” is three minutes long, builds up to a central charge and still manages to underscore that with a bluesy, classic-heavy character.
That blend of urgency and swing serves well in the short sample, and a hook with some melodic flourish doesn’t hurt either, and I’m curious if the rest of the record bears out its relative immediacy. When I find out I’ll let you know, but in the meantime, if you’ve got three minutes to dedicate to no-nonsense heavy rock and roll — and I believe you do — the track’s down at the bottom, under the info sent by the PR wire. Note I’m not sure if Kozmik Artifactz is co-releasing this one or not. They did for Burn the Ships and have had a bunch of joint releases with Small Stone handling Europe, but yeah, that’s a thing I don’t know yet. I’ll try to find out by the time I review.
Here’s that info:
THE ELECTRIC MUD To Release Ashes And Bone Full-Length October 4th Via Small Stone Recordings; New Track Streaming + Preorders Available
Florida-based heavy rock unit THE ELECTRIC MUD will release their Ashes And Bone full-length on October 4th via Small Stone Recordings!
It’s been three years since the release of THE ELECTRIC MUD’s Black Wool EP and, encouraged by friends, family, and the brass at Small Stone, the band is excited to announce their return. They believed they had more to say, and that their best music was still in front of them. They believed the ideas and creative philosophy that brought the band to life and to the precipice of so many exciting things just a few short years ago had to be carried to the next point in their evolution. A new full-length album, it was decided, was the best way to make that statement.
During the writing sessions, a theme emerged: Mankind’s obsession with its own destruction. Where did it come from, and where will it take us? THE ELECTRIC MUD intended to examine some of the darker angels of our nature, and set it to a heavy, post-apocalyptic soundtrack. Decamping to Juniper Recordings in Cape Coral, Florida, and bringing Caleb Neff aboard not just to engineer the record but produce it created an open and creative environment in the studio that’s integral to the sound. There is a deep collaborative bond stitched into the fabric of the record, a collection of heavy sounds and ideas that are truly egalitarian in nature. The point is emphatically driven home with a fantastic mix by Ben McLeod, studio wiz by day, guitar demigod for All Them Witches by night. The resulting record, Ashes And Bone, has been a labor of love, and a reminder of what they love about music and each other.
Boasting a heavier, more aggressive sound that owes as much to the sludgy, prog inflected ferocity of Soundgarden or Mastodon as it does the eerie proto-metal riffing of Black Sabbath and soulful energy of Graveyard, Ashes And Bone is a firmly taken musical step forward into the future as much as it is the sound of a band taking care of unfinished business.
In advance of the record’s release, today THE ELECTRIC MUD unveils their first single, “Top Of The Tree.” Comments Constantine Grim, “‘Top Of The Tree’ was chosen for its pace, energy, and because it serves as connective tissue for the theme of the record: a look into humanity’s obsession with its own destruction through varying perspectives through our history. ‘Top Of The Tree’ is a look in on the end of the world from a position of plenty and privilege, set to an apocalyptic soundtrack for the ages.”
Ashes And Bone, which features album artwork and design by Alexander von Wieding, will be released on CD, LP and digital formats.
Ashes And Bone Track Listing: 1. Silent Gods 2. Top Of The Tree 3. The Crown That Eats The Head 4. Gone Are The Days 5. Wrath Of The Mighty 6. Ashes And Bone 7. The Old Ways 8. Manmade Weather 9. Pillars 10. Ace
THE ELECTRIC MUD: Constantine Grim – guitar Pierson Whicker – drums, percussion Peter Kolter – vocals, guitar Tommy Scott – bass
Special Guests: Joe Reppert – organ and keys on “Wrath Of The Mighty” Jon Meek – synths on “Wrath Of The Mighty” and “Ace”
Floridian sludge metal mainstays Hollow Leg are set to self-release their new EP, Dust, this Friday, May 3, and with just 21 minutes at their disposal, there’s a palpable no-time-to-waste vibe as the four-piece dig into “Poison Bite” (video premiere here) in a tight encapsulation of the willful stylistic growth the band have undertaken since 2019’s Civilizations (review here), their most recent LP. Like a lot of what Hollow Leg have done since the tail end of the MySpace era, “Poison Bite” is a ripper.
It’s got a massive, rolling grove led by Brent Lynch‘s guitar, with due weight pushed through Tom Crowther‘s bass and the nod punctuated by John Stewart‘s drumming, and with vocalist Scott Angelacos finding a Matt Pike-y delivery somewhere between a shout and cleaner singing, with effects-laced backing in the chorus presumably from Lynch, as well as the condensed runtime, it also defies expectation in how it digs in. For a sound that remains plenty filthy, one hesitates to use words like “refined,” but on their own terms, Hollow Leg very much are that on Dust.
“Poison Bite” begins a salvo of three sub-four-minute cuts, with “Sick Days” adding a thrashier shove to its abiding nastiness, bringing the not-screamed backing vocals in the chorus closer to the front of the mix alongside Angelacos‘ harsh-throated gnashing, and EP centerpiece “Funeral Storms” hints toward patience as it moves toward its later solo and in its relatively restrained earlier verses. These aren’t the first short songs Hollow Leg have offered, by any means, but they’re presented with a maturity and confidence coinciding with an evolutionary drive that can’t be faked.
That is, they’ve always grown from one release to the next, and they still are, but that growth feels more directed toward specific ideas on Dust than it has in the past, and that’s part of how they’re developing at this point. While “Another Day Dying” feels sharp in its early riffing, the back end with sitar-sounding effects and a muddied-up kind of psychedelic flourish is a purposeful contrast and expansion of scope, and yeah, the brooding, mostly-clean-sung Southern heavy swamp atmosphere of closer “Holy Water” hits into heavier riffing at around two and a half minutes in, but it still carries the initial mood forward, pairing its partial departure with a consistency unto itself that underscores the crafted feel of the EP as a whole.
The notion of Dust as another step in Hollow Leg‘s ongoing progression undercuts some of how that manifests throughout the five songs included, but while they remain in no small part defined by the crash-and-bash aspects of their approach, it’s worth considering just how much they’ve found their place in sludge over their years, and how their balance between extremity and accessibility plays out in this material. Its malleable nature alone, the band’s emergent considerations of ambience alongside their entrenched rawness, would be enough even if the songs themselves didn’t remain so intentionally kickass as they do.
But among the messages Dust most clearly sends is that Hollow Leg aren’t done exploring this path they’re on, and one hopes that, whatever form their next round of discoveries might take upon release, they find ways to continue forward in melding influences from within and beyond their genre. Keep getting weirder, dudes. I don’t think you’ll regret it.
Enjoy the full EP stream below, followed by some perspective from the band courtesy of the PR wire and that “Poison Bite” video, links and the rest:
In the band’s own words: “We’re always writing and playing and working on new music is just what we do, always trying to build on our sound and make the next piece a more clearly defined vision than the last. We have such a wide range of musical and artistic influences that it’s challenging to wrangle them, but we try our best to work within the ‘Hollow Leg’ mainframe and pump out something different than what we’ve done before, but also something that’s still obviously Hollow Leg. Hollow Leg is about freedom though. That’s been the mantra since the first record and we’ve always stuck to that! It’s about pushing ourselves and finding ways to simultaneously party with Metallica, Steely Dan, EyeHateGod, Wu Tang Clan, Stevie Wonder, and Pink Floyd and it somehow makes sense to us!”
Tracklisting: 1. Poison Bite (3:34) 2. Sick Days (3:59) 3. Funeral Storms (3:47) 4. Another Day Dying (4:51) 5. Holy Water (5:46)
Hollow Leg is: Scott Angelacos – vocals Brent Lynch – guitar/backing vocals Tom Crowther – bass John Stewart – drums
Hollow Leg hit me up a couple months back and asked if I could write them an intro to the press kit going out to media for their new EP, Dust. That release is coming up May 3 and where I’ve struggled in the task is getting over the initial question of why the hell do I need to introduce Hollow Leg in the first place? Rooted in Jacksonville and based in Orlando, Florida, they’ve been at it for 16 years and have produced four full-lengths in that time, the latest of them being Civilizations (review here) in 2019, each of which has brought a new stage of an ongoing progression around a defined sound of hard-landing tonal weight, undulating sludge grooves led by Brent Lynch‘s riffs backed by Tom Crowther‘s bass and John Stewart‘s drums, and more than an edge of metal in the vocals of Scott Angelacos that cut through the distortion and establish their own aggressive stance.
Do I have to tell you any of this? I don’t think so. If you’ve ever heard them, their consistency of volume hardly seems to be trying to keep their sound a secret. They’ve never been overly hyped, and while they’ve toured their share in the last decade-and-a-half-plus, including along the Eastern Seaboard in 2023 around a third appearance at Maryland Doom Fest, their sound isn’t friendly and I think they’ve been both taken for granted and underappreciated. Civilizations marked a noted progression in their sound — every one of their releases has been a step forward from the one before it — and Dust continues the thread in an emergent lean toward melodic vocals, reminding on the advance single “Poison Bite” that Angelacos was among the small number of singers enlisted to pay homage to Earthride‘s Dave Sherman at that same Maryland Doom Fest last year, and a tunnel-bore nod stately enough to conjure High on Fire‘s slowdown moments, bolstered by a production that allows it all to coexist fluidly for its 3:34.
That’s right. Frickin’ three and a half minutes. Not a major ask. And for a band who’ve plugged away in the heavy underground long enough to be called legit veterans of it and perhaps afforded some semblance of the respect they’ve earned, it feels like even less of a favor. Hollow Leg do more to represent themselves with the feedback, thuds, crash and burst into the verse of “Poison Bite” than I could ever hope to by telling you you should already know them like some jerkwad gatekeeper. So maybe that’s been my problem all along. This shit speaks for itself, and it’s not about some social-media-FOMO urgency of ‘get the new thing while it’s new and move on a week later.’ It’s about the heart so clearly driving the band and the creative pursuit that’ll go as long as it’s gonna go regardless of scene or trend, fire, flood, plague or hyperbole. That’s who Hollow Leg are, if you needed the introduction.
Dust arrives May 3. It’s on the calendar to stream here in full on May 1, so keep an eye out. It’s a two-parter and as of last week, the band was back in the studio to work on the follow-up installment. More on that when we get there.
Here’s the video for “Poison Bite” to tide you over until then, followed by info from the PR wire.
Please enjoy:
Hollow Leg, “Poison Bite” video premiere
Hollow Leg are here for the long haul. The sludge and doom veterans have been crushing skulls and blowing eardrums since 2010, and continue their scorched-earth quest to evolve and eviscerate in 2024.
Legends of the scene, the quartet are four LPs and an EP strong, with their latest album “Civilizations” released in 2019 on Argonauta Records to critical acclaim. Criss-crossing the US to spread their heavy gospel of groove, they brutalized the stage of Psycho Las Vegas in 2017, and are three-time champions of the revered Maryland Doom Fest.
This year, Hollow Leg take another earth-shaking step in their sonic journey with new EP “Dust” out May 3, part one of a two-part EP series.
Coalescing their wide range of musical influences while still maintaining the unmistakable Hollow Leg sound, the band invite you to raise hell and headbang along to the EP’s battering ram of a single “Poison Bite” and its accompanying music video.
Relentless is the name of the game. From the opening sledgehammer of the kickdrum, “Poison Bite” takes no prisoners. The mid-tempo groove is locked-in and rock steady, inevitable in its forward momentum and ceaseless, grinding pummel. True to form, Scott Angelacos’ growling vocals roar over the noise, spitting fire and brimstone. Hollow Leg is back, and it hurts so good.
In the band’s own words: “We’re always writing and playing and working on new music is just what we do, always trying to build on our sound and make the next piece a more clearly defined vision than the last. We have such a wide range of musical and artistic influences that it’s challenging to wrangle them, but we try our best to work within the ‘Hollow Leg’ mainframe and pump out something different than what we’ve done before, but also something that’s still obviously Hollow Leg. Hollow Leg is about freedom though. That’s been the mantra since the first record and we’ve always stuck to that! It’s about pushing ourselves and finding ways to simultaneously party with Metallica, Steely Dan, EyeHateGod, Wu Tang Clan, Stevie Wonder, and Pink Floyd and it somehow makes sense to us!”
Hollow Leg is: Scott Angelacos – vocals Brent Lynch – guitar/backing vocals Tom Crowther – bass John Stewart – drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 16th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Though Florida is probably more known in terms of music geography for its death metal legacy than its contributions to doom or its sundry related genres, the truth is that the state has never wanted in that regard. Having produced Floor would be enough for me as regards namedrops, honestly, but consider the totality of the Cavity family tree or acts like Hollow Leg, Smoke Mountain, and it’s by no means the least doomed state in the union, if not a hotbed the way one thinks of California, Texas or Oregon. Nobody talks about New Jersey heavy either, but it exists.
Born to Burn Fest is a new-this-year all-dayer set to take place on April 20 at The Handlebar in Pensacola. An eight-band bill is headed by ASG from North Carolina and Red Beard Wall making the trip from Texas, while Smoke (from Louisiana? there was a Smoke in Virginia as well, though I’ve no doubt there’s room on earth for two acts with the moniker), Year of the Vulture, and Giger rounding out the non-Floridian portion of the bill, while Heavae Mundi, Gnarled and Slugger represent the more local sphere. And if you, like me, don’t know those bands, that’s exactly why I’m posting about the fest.
Cheers to Born to Burn on its first edition and its showcasing FL’s own among its import acts.
Details follow as posted on socials:
BORN TO BURN FEST – 04/20/2024
Pensacola has been steadily building its stoner rock/doom metal scene for the past few years and we decided it was time to celebrate on our most sacred of holidays. Join us for a night of talented bands from 6 different states. Follow the smoke towards the riff filled land!
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 10th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Good people playing cool shows. Hollow Leg head out to Maryland Doom Fest in June, and as will happen in the event of such things, they’re making a tour of it. In the South, they’ll team for a few dates with Clamfight — sure to result in a bevvy of sweaty hugs — and they’ll go as far north as Portland, Maine, in pursuit of Eastern Seaboard sludge metal glory that they’ll almost certainly find if history is anything to go by, partnering with Guhts and False Gods on that portion of the trek. The festival of course is the occasion, but as Hollow Leg note in the update below, they never got to tour for their 2019 album, Civilizations (review here), which came out on Argonauta Records, and they are perhaps that much itchier to get out these years later as a result.
Also note some Guhts and False Gods dates on their own — not often found in another band’s tour announcement, but hey, community — and that Hollow Leg vocalist Scott Angelacos will take part at MDDF in a tribute to Earthride frontman Dave Sherman, whose death last September shocked both the Maryland doom underground and fans worldwide.
Dates and some word from Hollow Leg follow here, as sent by the band down the PR wire:
Hollow Leg are going to do our first touring since 2017 in June and we’re looking to get the word out!
It’s been several years since we last hit the road as a band and four years since we last put out a record (a record we never toured) so this is long overdue!
Lucky for us the Maryland Doom Fest have always been great supporters and friends to us and we will always jump at the chance to go back there to play cause it’s just such a great event every time! This run will be especially fun also cause we’re kicking it off with 3 nights with our Philly brothers Clamfight!
And then meeting up to Guhts and False gods for a few up in the NorthEast before all three bands rock MDDF that Friday… we are really excited about the run, we’ve got a couple new tunes we will be jamming as well as older tunes and Civilizations songs we never got to play live before…
The Maryland Doomfest show will be the show to beat for sure, but if you can’t make it to Frederick hope y’all can make it out to one or another date, playing some awesome cities/venues so let’s jam!
Hollow Leg “Another Day Dying” June 2023 tour Friday June 16- Orlando Fl Wills Pub w/ Clamfight, Moat Cobra, the Dark Arctic Sat June 17- Savannah GA El Rocko w/ Space Coke and Clamfight Sun June 18- Asheville NC Fleetwoods w/ Clamfight and more Tuesday June 20- Portland ME the Cavern w/ False Gods and Guhts Wed June 21- Allston MA Middle East w/ Guhts and False Gods Thursday June 22- Brooklyn NY Lucky 13 w/ EAT and False Gods Friday June 23-Frederick MD The Maryland Doom Fest! (Guhts and False Gods also to perform) *Sat June 24 Scott will perform at MD doomfest w/ surviving members of Earthride in tribute to Dave Sherman Sun June 25- Atlanta GA Dobbs Social
Guhts and False Gods only Monday June 19- Saratoga NY Desperate Annie’s Sat June 24- Richmond VA Cobra cabana Sun June 25- Philadelphia PA Kung Fu Necktie
Posted in Reviews on January 12th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
We press on, until the end, though tired and long since out of adjectival alternatives to ‘heavy.’ The only way out is through, or so I’m told. Therefore, we go through.
Morale? Low. Brain, exhausted. The shit? Hit the fan like three days ago. The walls, existentially speaking, are a mess. Still, we go through.
Two more days to go. Thanks for reading.
Winter 2023 Quarterly Review #81-90:
Farflung, Like Drones in Honey
No question Farflung are space rock. It’s not up for debate. They are who they are and on their 10th full-length, Like Drones in Honey (on Sulatron, which suits both them and label), they remain Farflung. But whether it’s the sweet ending of the “Baile an Doire” or the fuzz riffing beneath the sneer of “King Fright” and the careening garage strum of “Earthmen Look Alike to Me,” the album offers a slew of reminders that as far out as Farflung get — and oh my goodness, they go — the long-running Los Angeles outfit were also there in the mid and late ’90s as heavy rock and, in California particularly, desert rock took shape. Of course, opener “Acid Drain” weaves itself into the fabric of the universe via effects blowout and impulse-engine chug, and after that finish in “Baile an Doire,” they keep the experimentalism going on the backwards/forwards piano/violin of “Touch of the Lemmings Kiss” and the whispers and underwater rhythm of closer “A Year in Japan,” but even in the middle of the pastoral “Tiny Cities Made of Broken Teeth” or in the second half of the drifting “Dludgemasterpoede,” they’re space and rock, and it’s worth not forgetting about the latter even as you blast off with weirdo rocket fuel. Like their genre overall, like Sulatron, Farflung are underrated. It is lucky that doesn’t slow their outbound trip in the slightest.
Whether you want to namedrop one or another Coltrane or the likes of Amon Düül or Magma or whoever else, the point is the same: Neptunian Maximalism are not making conventional music. Yeah, there’s rhythm, meter, even some melody, but the 66-minute run of the recorded-on-stage Finis Gloriae Mundi isn’t defined by songs so much as the pieces that make up its consuming entirety. As a group, the Belgians’ project isn’t to write songs to much as to manifest an expression of an idea; in this case, apparently, the end of the world. A given stretch might drone or shred, meditate in avant-jazz or move-move-move-baby in heavy kosmiche push, but as they make their way to the two-part culmination “The Conference of the Stars,” the sense of bringing-it-all-down is palpable, and so fair enough for their staying on theme and offering “Neptunian’s Raga Marwa” as a hint toward the cycle of ending and new beginnings, bright sitar rising out of low, droning, presented-as-empty space. For most, their extreme take on prog and psych will simply be too dug in, too far from the norm, and that’s okay. Neptunian Maximalism aren’t so much trying to be universal as to try to commune with the universe itself, wherever that might exist if it does at all. End of the world? Fine. Let it go. Another one will come along eventually.
Four years after their 2018 self-titled debut (review here), Denver heavy rock and rollers Near Dusk gather eight songs across and smooth-rolling, vinyl-minded 37 minutes for Through the Cosmic Fog, which takes its title from the seven-and-a-half-minute penultimate instrumental “Cosmic Fog,” a languid but not inactive jam that feels especially vital for the character it adds among the more straightforward songs earlier in the record — the rockers, as it were — that comprise side A: “The Way it Goes,” “Spliff ’em All,” and so on. “Cosmic Fog” isn’t side B’s only moment of departure, as the drumless guitar-exploration-into-acoustic “Roses of Durban” and the slower rolling finisher “Slab City” fill out the expansion set forth with the bluesy solo in the back end of “EMFD,” but the strength of craft they show on the first four songs isn’t to be discounted either for the fullness or the competence of their approach. The three-piece of Matthew Orloff, Jon Orloff and Kellen McInerney know where they’re coming from in West Coast-style heavy, not-quite-party, rock, and it’s the strength of the foundation they build early in the opening duo and “The Damned” and “Blood for Money,” that lets them reach outward late, allowing Through the Cosmic Fog to claim its space as a classically structured, immediately welcome heavy rock LP.
The 2023 self-titled debut EP from Portland, Oregon’s Simple Forms collects four prior singles issued over the course of 2021 and 2022 into one convenient package, and even if you’ve been keeping up with the trickle of material from the band that boasts members of YOB, (now) Hot Victory, Dark Castle and Norska, hearing the tracks right next to each other does change the context somewhat, as with the darker turn of “From Weathered Hand” after “Reaching for the Shadow” or the way that leadoff and “Together We Will Rest” seem to complement each other in the brightness of the forward guitar, a kind of Euro-style proggy noodling that reminds of The Devil’s Blood or something more goth, transposed onto a forward-pushing Pacific Northwestern crunch. The hints of black metal in the riffing of “The Void Beneath” highlight the point that this is just the start for guitarists Rob Shaffer and Dustin Rieseberg, bassist Aaron Rieseberg and grunge-informed frontman Jason Oswald (who also played drums and synth here), but already their sprawl is nuanced and directed toward individualism. I don’t know what their plans might be moving forward, but if the single releases didn’t highlight their potential, certainly the four songs all together does. A 19-minute sampler of what might be, if it will be.
Probably safe to call Lybica a side-project for Justin Foley, since it seems unlikely to start taking priority over his position as drummer in metalcore mainstays Killswitch Engage anytime soon, but the band’s self-titled debut offers a glimpse of some other influences at work. Instrumental in its entirety, it comes together with Foley leading on guitar joined by bassist Doug French and guitarist Joey Johnson (both of Gravel Kings) and drummer Chris Lane (A Brilliant Lie), and sure, there’s some pretty flourish of guitar, and some heavier, more direct chugging crunch — “Palatial” in another context might have a breakdown riff, and the subsequent “Oktavist” is more directly instru-metal — but even in the weighted stretch at the culmination of “Ferment,” and in the tense impression at the beginning of seven-minute closer “Charyou,” the vibe is more in line with Russian Circles than Foley‘s main outfit, and clearly that’s the point. “Ascend” and “Resonance” open the album with pointedly non-metallic atmospheres, and they, along with the harder-hitting cuts and “Manifest,” “Voltaic” and “Charyou,” which bring the two sides together, set up a dynamic that, while familiar in this initial stage, is both satisfying in impact and more aggressive moments while immersive in scope.
Just as their moniker might belong to some lost-classic heavy band from 1972 one happens upon in a record store, buys for the cover, and subsequently loves, so too does Naples four-piece Bird tap into proto-metal vibes on their latest single Walpurgis. And that’s not happenstance. While their production isn’t quite tipped over into pure vintage-ism, it’s definitely organic, and they’ve covered the likes of Rainbow, Uriah Heep and Deep Purple, so while “Walpurgis” itself leans toward doom in its catchy and utterly reasonable three-plus minutes, there’s no doubt Bird know where their nest is, stylistically speaking. Given a boost through release by Olde Magick Records, the single-songer follows 2021’s The Great Beast From the Sea EP, which proffered a bit more burl and modern style in its overarching sound, so it could be that as they continue to grow they’re learning a bit more patience in their approach, as “Walpurgis” is nestled right into a tempo that, while active enough to still swing, is languid just the same in its flow, with maybe a bit more rawness in the separation of the guitar, bass, drums and organ. Most importantly, it suits the song, and piques curiosity as to where Bird go next, as any decent single should.
Without getting into which of them does what where — because they switch, and it’s complicated, and there’s only so much room — the core of the sound for Melbourne-based four-piece Pseudo Mind Hive is in has-chops boogie rock, but that’s a beginning descriptor, not an end. It doesn’t account for the psych-surf-fuzz in two-minute instrumental opener “Hot Tooth” on their Eclectica EP, for example, or the what-if-Queens–of–the–Stone–Age-kept-going-like-the-self-titled “Moon Boots” that follows on the five-song offering. “You Can Run” has a fuzzy shuffle and up-strummed chug that earns the accompanying handclaps like Joan Jett, while “This Old Tree” dares past the four-minute mark with its scorching jive, born out of a smoother start-stop fuzz verse with its own sort of guitar antics, and “Coming Down,” well, doesn’t at first, but does give way soon enough to a dreamier psychedelic cast and some highlight vocal melody before it finds itself awake again and already running, tense in its builds and overlaid high-register noises, which stand out even in the long fade. Blink and you’ll miss it as it dashes by, all momentum and high-grade songcraft, but that’s alright. It does fine on repeat listens as well, which obviously is no coincidence.
On. Slaught. Call it atmospheric sludge, call it post-metal; I sincerely doubt Philadelphia’s Oktas give a shit. Across the four songs and 36 minutes of the two-bass-no-guitar band’s utterly bludgeoning debut album, The Finite and the Infinite, the band — bassist/vocalist Bob Stokes, cellist Agnes Kline, bassist Carl Whitlock and drummer Ron Macauley — capture a severity of tone and a range that goes beyond loud/quiet tradeoffs into the making of songs that are memorable while not necessarily delivering hooks in the traditional verse/chorus manner. It’s the cello that stands out as opener “Collateral Damage” plods to its finish — though Macauley‘s drum fills deserve special mention — and even as “Epicyon” introduces the first of the record’s softer breaks, it is contrasted in doing so by a section of outright death metal onslaught so that the two play back and forth before eventually joining forces in another dynamic and crushing finish. Tempo kick is what’s missing thus far and “Light in the Suffering” hits that mark immediately, finding blackened tremolo on the other side of its own extended cello-led subdued stretch, coming to a head just before the ending so that finale “A Long, Dreamless Sleep” can start with its Carl Sagan sample about how horrible humans are (correct), and build gracefully over the next few minutes before saying screw it and diving headfirst into cyclical chug and sprinting extremity. Somebody sign this band and press this shit up already.
This is a rock and roll band, make no mistake. Berlin’s Scream of the Butterfly draw across decades of influence, from ’60s pop and ’70s heavy to ’90s grunge, ’00s garage and whatever the hell’s been going on the last 10-plus years to craft an amalgamated sound that is cohesive thanks largely to the tightness of their performances — energetic, sure, but they make it sound easy — the overarching gotta-get-up urgency of their push and groove, and the current of craft that draws it all together. They’ve got 10 songs on The Grand Stadium, which is their third album, and they all seem to be trying to outdo each other in terms of hooks, electricity, vibe, and so on. Even the acoustic-led atmosphere-piece “Now, Then and Nowhere” leaves a mark, to say nothing of the much, much heavier “Sweet Adeleine” or the sunshine in “Dead End Land” or the bluesy shove of “Ain’t No Living.” Imagine time as a malleable thing and some understanding of how the two-minute “Say Your Name to Me” can exist in different styles simultaneously, be classic and forward thinking, spare and spacious. And I don’t know what’s going on with all the people talking in “Hallway of a Thousand Eyes,” but Scream of the Butterfly make it easy to dig anyway and remind throughout of the power that can be realized when a band is both genuinely multifaceted and talented songwriters. Scary stuff, that.
Based in Kassel with lyrics in their native German, Holz are vocalist/guitarist Leonard Riegel, bassist Maik Blümke and drummer Martin Nickel, and on their self-titled debut (released by Tonzonen), they tear with vigor into a style that’s somewhere between noise rock, stoner heavy and rawer punk, finding a niche for themselves that feels barebones with the dry — that is, little to no effects — vocal treatment and a drum sound that cuts through the fuzz that surrounds on early highlight “Bitte” and the later, more noisily swaying “Nichts.” The eight-minute “Garten” is a departure from its surroundings with a lengthy fuzz jam in its midsection — not as mellow as you’re thinking; the drums remain restless and hint toward the resurgence to come — while “Zerstören” reignites desert rock riffing to its own in-the-rehearsal-room-feeling purposes. Intensity is an asset there and at various other points throughout, but there’s more to Holz than ‘go’ as the rolling “50 Meilen Geradeaus” and the swing-happy, bit-o’-melody-and-all “Dämon” showcase, but when they want to, they’re ready and willing to stomp into heavier tones, impatient thrust, or as in the penultimate “Warten,” a little bit of both. Not everybody goes on a rampage their first time out, but it definitely suits Holz to wreck shit in such a fashion.
Posted in Reviews on September 26th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Welcome back to the Fall 2022 Quarterly Review. It’s not quite the same as the Mountain of Madness, but there are definitely days where it feels like they’re pretty closely related. Just the same, we, you and I, persist through like digging a tunnel sans dynamite, and I hope you had a great and safe weekend (also sans dynamite) and that you find something in this batch of releases that you truly enjoy. Not really much point to the thing otherwise, I guess, though it does tend to clear some folders off the desktop. Like, 100 of them in this case. That in itself isn’t nothing.
Time’s a wastin’. Let’s roll.
Quarterly Review #51-60:
Boris, Heavy Rocks
One can’t help but wonder if Boris aren’t making some kind of comment on the franchise-ification of what sometimes feels like every damn thing by releasing a third Heavy Rocks album, as though perhaps it’s become their brand label for this particular kind of raucousness, much as their logo in capital letters or lowercase used to let you know what kind of noise you were getting. Either way, in 10 tracks and 41 minutes that mostly leave scorch marks when they’re done — they space out a bit on “Question 1” but elsewhere in the song pull from black metal and layer in lead guitar triumph — and along the way give plenty more thick toned, sometimes-sax-inclusive on-brand chicanery to dive into. “She is Burning,” “Cramper” and “My Name is Blank” are rippers before the willfully noisy relative slowdown “Blah Blah Blah,” and Japanese heavy institution are at their most Melvinsian with the experiment “Nosferatou,” ahead of the party metal “Ruins” and semi-industrial blowout “Ghostly Imagination,” the would-be-airy-were-it-not-crushing “Chained” and the concluding “(Not) Last Song,” which feeds the central query above in asking if there’s another sequel coming, piano, feedback, and finally, vocals ending what’s been colloquially dubbed Heavy Rocks (2022) with an end-credits scene like something truly Marvelized. Could be worse if that’s the way it’s going. People tend to treat each Boris album as a landmark. I’m not sure this one is, but sometimes that’s part of what happens with sequels too.
Along with the depth of tone and general breadth of the mix, one of the aspects most enjoyable about Mother Bear‘s debut album, Zamonian Occultism, is how it seems to refuse to commit to one side or the other. They call themselves doom and maybe they are in movements here like the title-track, but the mostly-instrumental six-track/41-minute long-player — which opens and closes with lyrics and has “Sultan Abu” in the middle for a kind of human-voice trailmarker along the way — draws more from heavy psychedelia and languid groove on “Anagrom Ataf,” and if “Blue Bears and Silver Spliffs” isn’t stoner riffed, nothing ever has been. At the same time, the penultimate title-track slows way down, pulls the curtains closed, and offers a more massive nod, and the 10-minute closer “The Wizaaard” (just when you thought there were no more ways to spell it) answers that sense of foreboding in its own declining groove and echo-laced verses, but puts the fuzz at the forefront of the mix, letting the listener decide ultimately where they’re at. Tell you where I am at least: On board. Guitarist/vocalist Jonas Wenz, bassist Kevin Krenczer and drummer Florian Grass lock in hypnotic groove early and use it to tie together almost everything they do here, and while they’re obviously schooled in the styles they’re touching on, they present with an individual intent and leave room to grow. Will look forward to more.
After being kicked out of black metallers Absu for coming out as trans, Melissa Moore founded Sonja in Philadelphia with Grzesiek Czapla on drums and Ben Brand on bass, digging into a ‘true metal’ aesthetic with ferocity enough that Loud Arriver is probably the best thing they could’ve called their first record. Issued through Cruz Del Sur — so you know their ’80s-ism is class — the 37-minute eight-tracker vibes nighttime and draws on Moore‘s experience thematically, or so the narrative has it (I haven’t seen a lyric sheet), with energetic shove in “Nylon Nights” and “Daughter of the Morning Star,” growing duly melancholy in “Wanting Me Dead” before finding its victorious moment in the closing title-track. Cuts like “Pink Fog,” “Fuck, Then Die” and opener “When the Candle Burns Low…” feel specifically born of a blend of 1979-ish NWOBHM, but there’s a current of rock and roll here as well in the penultimate “Moans From the Chapel,” a sub-three-minute shove that’s classic in theme as much as riff and the most concise but by no means the only epic here. Hard not to read in catharsis on the part of Moore given how the band reportedly came about, but Loud Arriver serves notice one way or the other of a significant presence in the underground’s new heavy metal surge. Sonja have no time to waste. There are asses to kick.
Seven-minute opener ends in a War of the Worlds-style radio announcement of an alien invasion underway after the initial fuzzed rollout of the song fades, and between that and the subsequent interlude “Funeral March,” Reverend Mother‘s intent on Damned Blessing seems to be to throw off expectation. The Brooklynite outfit led by guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Jackie Green (also violin) find even footing on rockers like “Locomotive” or the driving-until-it-hits-that-slowdown-wall-and-hey-cool-layering “Reverend Mother,” and the strings on the instrumental “L.V.B.,” which boasts a cello guest spot by High Priestess Nighthawk of Heavy Temple, who also returns on the closing Britney Spears cover “Toxic,” a riffed-up bent that demonstrates once again the universal applicability of pop as Reverend Mother tuck it away after the eight-minute “The Masochist Tie,” a sneering roll and chugger that finds the trio of Green, bassist Matt Cincotta and drummer Gabe Katz wholly dug into heavy rock tropes while nonetheless sounding refreshing in their craft. That song and “Shame” before it encapsulate the veer-into-doom-ness of Reverend Mother‘s hard-deliver’d fuzz, but Damned Blessing comes across like the beginning of a new exploration of style as only a next-generation-up take can and heralds change to come. I would not expect their second record to sound the same, but it will be one to watch for. So is this.
The pedigree here is notable as Umbilicus features founding Cannibal Corpse drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz and guitarist/engineer Taylor Nordberg (also visuals), who’s played with Deicide, The Absence and a host of others, but with the soar-prone vocals of Brian Stephenson out front and the warm tonality of bassist Vernon Blake, Umbilicus‘ 10-song/45-minute first full-length, Path of 1000 Suns is a willful deep-dive into modernly-produced-and-presented ’70s-style heavy rock. Largely straightforward in structure, there’s room for proto-metallurgy on “Gates of Neptune” after the swinging “Umbilicus,” and the later melodic highlight “My Own Tide” throws a pure stoner riff into its second half, while the concluding “Gathering at the Kuiper Belt” hints at more progressive underpinnings, it still struts and the swing there is no less defining than in the solo section of “Stump Sponge” back on side A. Hooks abound, and I suppose in some of the drum fills, if you know what you’re listening for, you can hear shades of more extreme aural ideologies, but the prevailing spirit is born of an obvious love of classic heavy rock and roll, and Umbilicus play it with due heart and swagger. Not revolutionary, and actively not trying to be, but definitely the good time it promises.
Not as frenetic as some out there of a similar technically-proficient ilk, Lawrence, Kansas, double-guitar instrumental four-piece After Nations feel as much jazz on “Féin” or “Cae” as they do progressive metal, djent, experimental, or any other tag with which one might want to saddle the resoundingly complex Buddhism-based concept album, The Endless Mountain — the Bandcamp page for which features something of a recommended reading list as well as background on the themes reportedly being explored in the material — which is fluid in composition and finds each of its seven more substantial inclusions accompanied by a transitional interlude that might be a drone, near-silence, a foreboding line of keys, whathaveyou. The later “Širdis” — penultimate to the suitably enlightened “Jūra,” if one doesn’t count the interlude between (not saying you shouldn’t) — is more of a direct linear build, but the 40-minute entirety of The Endless Mountain feels like a steep cerebral climb. Not everyone is going to be up for making it, frankly, but in “}}}” and its punctuationally-named companions there’s some respite from the head-spinning turns that surround, and that furthers both the dynamic at play overall and the accessibility of the songs. Whatever else it might be, it’s immaculately produced and every single second, from “Mons” and “Aon” to “))” and “(),” feels purposeful.
With the over-the-top Danzig-ian vocals coming through high in the mix, the drums sounding intentionally blown out and the fuzz of bass and guitar arriving in tidal riffs, Denmark’s Holy Dragon for sure seem to be shooting for memorability on their second album, Mordjylland. “Hell and Gold” pulls back somewhat from the in-your-face immediacy of opener “Bong” — and yet it’s faster; go figure — and the especially brash “War” is likewise timely and dug in. Centerpiece “Nightwatch” feels especially yarling with its more open riff and far-back echoing drums — those drums are heavy in tone in a way most are not, and it is appreciated — and gives over to the Judas Priestly riff of “Dunder,” which sounds like it’s being swallowed by the bass even as the concluding solo slices through. They cap with “Egypt” in classic-metal, minor-key-sounds-Middle-Eastern fashion, but they’re never far from the burly heft with which they started, and even the mellower finish of “Travel to Kill” feels drawn from it. The album’s title is a play on ‘Nordjylland’ — the region of Denmark where they’re from — and if they’re saying it’s dead, then their efforts to shake it back to life are palpable in these seven songs, even if the end front-to-back result of the album is going to be hit or miss with most listeners. Still, they are markedly individual, and the fact that you could pick them out of the crowd of Europe’s e’er-packed heavy underground is admirable in itself.
Lincoln, Nebraska, trio Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships are right there. Right on the edge. You can hear it in the way “Beg Your Pardon” unfolds its lumbering tonality, riff-riding vocals and fervency of groove at the outset of their second album, Consensus Trance. They’re figuring it out. And they’re working quickly. Their first record, 2021’s TTBS, and the subsequent Rosalee EP (review here) were strong signals of intention on the part of guitarist/vocalist Jeremy Warner, bassist Karlin Warner and drummer Justin Kamal, and there is realization to be had throughout Consensus Trance in the noisy lead of “Mystical Consumer,” the quiet instrumental “Distalgia for Infinity” and the mostly-huge-chugged 11-minute highlight “Weeping Beast” to which it leads. But they’re also still developing their craft, as opener “Beg Your Pardon” demonstrates amid one of the record’s most vibrant hooks, and exploring spaciousness like that in the back half of the penultimate “Silo,” and the sense that emerges from that kind of reach and the YOB-ish ending of capper “I.H.” is that there’s more story to be told as to what Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships have to offer in style and substance. So much the better since Consensus Trance has such superlative heft at its foundation.
Kind of funny to think of Menticide as a debut LP from Deer Creek, who’ve been around for 20 years — one fondly recalls their mid-aughts splits with Church of Misery and Raw Radar War — but one might consider that emblematic of the punk underpinning the sludgy heavy roll of “(It Had Neither Fins Nor Wings) Nor Did it Writhe,” along with the attitude of fuckall that joins hands with resoundingly dense tonality to create the atmosphere of the five originals and the cover medley closer “The Working Man is a Dead Pig,” which draws on Rush, Bauhaus and Black Sabbath classics as a sort of partially explanatory appendix to the tracks preceding. Of those, the impression left is duly craterous, and Deer Creek, with Paul Vismara‘s mostly-clean vocals riding a succession of his own monolithic riffs, a bit of march thrown into “The Utter Absence of Hope” amid the breath of tone from his and Conan Hultgren‘s guitars and Stephanie Hopper‘s bass atop the drumming of Marc Brooks. One is somewhat curious as to what drives a band after two full-length-less decades to make a definitive first album — at least beyond “hey a lot of things have changed in the last couple years” anyhow — but the results here are inarguable in their weight and the spaces they create and fill, with disaffection and onward and outward-looking angst as much as volume. That is to say, as much as Menticide nods, it’s more unsettling the more attention you actually pay to what’s going on. But if you wanted to space out instead, I doubt they’d hold it any more against you than was going to happen anyway. Band who owes nothing to anyone overdelivers. There.
Following the mid-’90s C.O.C. tone and semi-Electric Wizard shouts of “Black Lotus Trance,” “Detroit Demons” calls out Stooges references while burl-riffing around Pantera‘s “I’m Broken,” and “Loose” manifests sleaze to coincide with the exploitation of the Never Sleep at Night EP’s cover art. All of this results in zero-doubt assurance that the Brazilian trio have their bona fides in place when it comes to dudely riffs and an at least partially metal approach; stylistically-speaking, it’s like metal dudes got too drunk to remember what they were angry at and decided to have a party instead. I don’t have much encouraging to say at this juncture about the use of vintage porn as a likely cheap cover option, but no one seems to give a shit about moving past that kind of misogyny, and I guess as regards gender-based discrimination and playing to the male gaze and so on, it’s small stakes. I bet they get signed off the EP anyway, so what’s the point? The point I guess is that the broad universe of those who’d build altars to riffs, Riffcoven are at very least up front with what they’re about and who their target audience is.
album — the PR wire info below attests — and even as they make their way from the taut craft of “Manmade Weather” and the angularity of the penultimate “Pillars” into the nine-minute progressively-structured semi-metallized “Ace” to round out, they seem to revel in the new without entirely letting go of who they were last time around.
