Quarterly Review: Castle, Waingro, Kungens Män, Caffeine, The Mountain King, Kant, Sandveiss, Plant, Tommy and The Teleboys, MEDB
Posted in Reviews on October 17th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Writing this intro from a bench near the playground at my daughter’s grade school. It was different equipment at the time — made of unrecycled tires, because it was the ’80s — but I used to play here when I was her age too. The Pecan’s day ended about 10 minutes ago and after-school go-time has become part of the routine when we don’t have to be elsewhere. It’s chilly today — I have my hat on for the first time since winter, but if I was more used to the cold, I wouldn’t need it. If it was April, I’d be in shorts celebrating the arrival of spring. All depends on which way the planet is tipped, I guess.
Pretty sure I mentioned this at some point, but in part because the Quarterly Review is going well, I’m adding an 11th day. That brings it up to 110 releases, which, frankly, is just stupid. I don’t really have a reason I’m doing any of it except that I am. I feel the same about a lot of this lately.
As happens with any decent QR more than a week long, I’m behind on news. I don’t really have anything to say about a new Dax Riggs song or an Acid Bath reunion without any context, and I’m not cool enough to be in the know on any of it, but Roadburn has done a lineup announcement that I’d like to post and Uncle Acid announced a US tour, so there’s stuff to catch up on. Tuesday and on, I suppose. Good thing the internet exists or disseminating any of this information might have any stakes to it whatsoever.
Quarterly Review #81-90:
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Castle, Evil Remains
Hammerheart Records steps forth to issue the masterful metallurgy of Castle‘s Evil Remains. The duo of bassist/vocalist Liz Blackwell and guitarist/vocalist Mat Davis work with drummer Mike Cotton on the 37-minute eight-tracker that’s the first new Castle LP since 2018’s Deal Thy Fate (review here), and their take on dark heavy rock meeting in a pocketknife alley with doom, thrash and classic metal continues to be utterly their own. “Queen of Death,” “Nosferatu Nights,” the swaggering “Evil Remains” itself, all the way down to the twisting leads, dual-vocals and hard-chug of “Cold Grave” — the message of the album is glaring across its span in how undervalued Castle are and have been over their 15 years, but even that can’t top the vibrancy of the songs themselves, which have long given up genre concerns in pursuit of the individualism they’ve found.
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Waingro, Sports
Clearly, Vancouver’s Waingro titled their new release Sports in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Huey Lewis album of the same name. It’s hard to find the influence of the 1980s pop superstar — who, with Sports, really came into his own, commercially and artistically, according to American Psycho — in the band’s ripper heavy hardcore punk, but they’ve got five tracks in 11 minutes, so there’s no risk of overstaying their welcome with the likes of the minute-long fuzz instrumental “Masonic Falls” or the apocalyptic post-hardcore of centerpiece “Brougham,” which follows the opening pair of “Fuel for Vomit” and “Sports,” which don’t seem to have been put together accidentally as the EP closes with its two shortest pieces in “Masonic Falls” and the subsequent “Pray for Blackout.” Both are under two minutes long, and while the former is something of a breather after the assault of “Brougham,” “Pray for Blackout” is vicious and pummeling, leaving on an intense, raw note in which Waingro bask.
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Kungens Män, För Samtida Djur 2
15-minute opener “Dåderman Renoverar” jams its way into a sax-topped ’50 bop and swing, like you’re down at the soda shop getting a pull of root beer and here come these crazy Swedish psychedelic jammers to get the hula-hoops spinning, so yes, För Samtida Djur 2 is very much a Kungens Män release. As well it should be, following just months behind the preceding För Samtida Djur 1 (review here) with four more pieces piped in from the greater distances of Out There in improv rock-as-jazz psychedelic fashion. “Dåderman Renoverar” is leadoff and longest (immediate points), while “Väntar På Zonen” (8:28) is less of a build than a mellow dwell, “Skör Lugg” (11:43) hypnotizes with guitar before unfurling a pastoralism worthy of Sweden’s history of progressive psych-folk and “Gubbar Reser Sig” (8:36) ends with a bit of bounce and build amid brighter jangle that they let unwind at the finish, completing the cycle in duly eccentric fashion. This band is a treasure, make no mistake. Every time they step in a room, someone should be recording.
Majestic Mountain Records store
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Caffeine, The Threshold
Maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that Caffeine‘s The Threshold feels so tense and taut since it executes its eight songs in 29 minutes — 10 of which are dedicated to “Ghost Town” and “The Agency” on side B — but as its two sides play out, the Hanover, Germany-based trio of vocalist/bassist Denis Radoncic, guitarist Andre Werk and drummer/vocalist Enrico “Rocko” Winkler, plus Sebi on keys and guitar, find a progressive heavy thrust that’s informed by early Mastodon in its crunch and the rearing-up of riffs on “Last Train” and the twisting rhythms of the title-track, but from a post-hardcore rush in “The THreshold” to the humming tones of the penultimate interlude “Citadel” — which has a more percussive counterpart in side A’s “Rorschach’s Waltz” to the pro-shop heavy metal of “Dead End,” Caffeine‘s material sounds thoughtful in its construction without being a gimme in terms of influence or losing itself in the intensity as it unfolds. This is the band’s second record. It’s a fucking beast.
The Lasting Dose Records on Bandcamp
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The Mountain King, Stoma
They’re delivered in a deathly rasp, as perhaps it would need to be, before the clean vocals arrive, but the lyrics in “Space is Now Tainted” from The Mountain King‘s 13th album in 10 years, Stoma, are among the most fitting encapsulations of life under apocalypse-capitalism that I’ve seen. The whole song is brilliant, and it’s one of eight on the 48-minute LP, so I’m not trying to neglect anything else, but when I see lines like, “And when the last tree is down/You will climb the bodies of the ones who didn’t drown,” it’s hard not to be taken aback. The later “Dripping Bats” offers thoughts and prayers for the death of god, so the righteousness is by no means isolated as The Mountain King find a version of doom metal the chug of which has learned at least as much from Carcass‘ Heartwork as anything Black Sabbath ever did, and pushes into avant miserablism in “Twomb” or the intermittently volatile/gorgeous “To the Caves!,” which would seem to be the end The Mountain King see for human decline. Back to the caves. At least the end of the world turned up some good art. I wish more bands would dare to have an opinion.
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Kant, Paranoia Pilgrimage
Time will tell how the balance of NWOBHM grandstanding and from-farther-back boogie shakes out in the sound of German newcomers Kant, but for now, it’s an intriguing blend on the Aschaffenburg-based four-piece’s debut album, Paranoia Pilgrimage, and with the backing of Sound of Liberation Records, one might take the cavernous vocals, cultish melodies and declarative guitar work as part of the needed injection of fresh perspectives that the European heavy underground has been receiving the last few years in generational turnover. That is to say, there’s potential in the nuance of a song like “Traitors Lair,” which injects from flute-prog into the proceedings, and even as Kant search for ‘their sound,’ what they’re finding is likewise varied and exciting, if not blindingly original. The sharper corners of “Dark Procession” and the atmospheric depth offered in opener “The Great Serpent” both find an underpinning of darker, more cultish sounds — unsurprisingly, “Occult Worship” bears that out as well — but when the lead cut launches into its solo late in its five-minute going, Kant revel in the freedom of that breakout. Wherever time and their exploration takes them, Paranoia Pilgrimage is the foundation on which they’ll build.
Sound of Liberation Records store
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Sandveiss, Standing in the Fire
With a mix and master by Karl Daniel Lidén (Katatonia, Dozer, Greenleaf, Vaka, Demon Cleaner, etc.) building on the production helmed by guitarist/vocalist Luc Bourgeois and guitarist Shawn Rice, it’s little wonder Sandveiss‘ third full-length, Standing in the Fire, sounds as full and charged as it does, from the first tones of “I’ll Be Rising” through drummer Dominic Gaumond‘s clinic in “Bleed Me Dry.” Completed by bassist Maxime Moisan, who is the force behind the propulsive “Wait and See” and the later, more expansive “These Cold Hands,” Sandveiss present Standing in the Fire as a showcase of multifaceted songwriting intent. The title-track, opener “I’ll Be Rising,” and the careening “Fade (Into the Night)” are catchy uptempo fuzzers kin to the ethic of Valley of the Sun, but “No Love Here” and the ensuing huge roll of “Bleed Me Dry” bring a stately cast and highlight some of the variety of mood and purpose amid all the heft and professional-grade craft throughout.
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Plant, Cosmic Phytophthora
If you like your sludge noisy — or your noise sludged — aggressive and pummeling, Plant signal from Madison, Wisconsin, with their first album, Cosmic Phytophthora, a gnashing and duly punishing 44-minute/six-song assault that hits a particularly escape-proof crescendo in side B’s “Envenoming the Carrion” (11:59) and “Skyburial” (11:04) before closing with the harsh tumult of “Wolf Plague.” Once upon a time bands like Axehandle and The Mighty Nimbus walked the earth. Plant would stand well alongside either, with leadoff “Until it Dies” cracking open a can — I’ll assume lime seltzer? — before the drums kick in on what’s basically a spoken-word-topped riff introducing the seethe and tones that define what’s to come, screaming by the time its three minutes are up. “Anthracnos Stalk Rot” and the outright brutality of “Root Worm” follow and underscore the impression of a horticultural thematic, but whether you’re digging on plant parts or reeling from the various punches the band throw along the way, it’s hard not to be moved by a debut that has such a clear idea of what it’s about. Make it loud, make it caustic, make it hurt. Riffs to break oneself upon.
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Tommy and the Teleboys, Gods, Used, in Great Condition
There are threads of punk and classic rock running through Tommy and the Teleboys‘ dance-ready debut long-player, Gods, Used in Great Condition, but ultimately the album is neither of them. United under a scope that includes psychedelia, proggy-jazz and maybe a bit of heavy blues, the post-modern nine-song outing has a depth of mix all the more emphasized through the band’s stylistic range, but it’s a feeling of brashness that seems most to bring the songs together and the vital sense of command in the tracks themselves. Each follows its own plot, whether it’s the willfully off-kilter “Loverboy” or textured pieces like “Seninle” and “Srevokk” later on, but “Gib Mir” and “Jesus Crowd” at the start — shades of Bowie Ameriphobia in the latter — give Gods, Used in Great Condition quirk to coincide with all its hey-we’re-not-40-yet urgency, and while the band range hither and yon in terms of style, there’s nowhere the melodic wash of “Jeffrey 3000” or the otherworldly wistful strum of “Night at the Junkyard” go that feels out of place in the surrounding context, and Tommy and the Teleboys seem to be serving notice to anyone clued in of intention to disrupt. One hopes they do.
Tommy and the Teleboys on Facebook
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MEDB, MEDB (Demo)
MEDB is a new solo-project by Rodger Boyle, who also runs Cursed Monk Records and features in bands like Noosed, ÚATH and Stonecarver, among others, and this first demo unveils four songs working under the stated concept of conveying the landscape/ambience of Boyle‘s home in Waterford, Ireland. Certainly the ambience of “Returning Home” is darker than the photos from the Port Láirge tourism committee, but while MEDB lays claim to a drumless drone on that nine-and-a-half-minute opener, “Glasha,” “Mahon Falls” and “The Wild Deer of Sillaheen” conjure a more full-band impression, plodding in “Glasha” before “Mahon Falls” digs into a more open and meditative feel in one guitar layer while lower distortion holds sway beneath, and “The Wild Deer of Sillaheen” earns its post-metallic antlers at the finish. So you’re saying there’s more than one thing going on in Waterford? Reasonable to expect for the oldest city in the Republic of Ireland, and all the better for inspiring future manifestation from MEDB, whatever form that might take. You could do worse than learning about a place through audio.
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