When we’re keying down after an invariably long day at my house and it’s getting close to The Pecan’s bedtime, we often watch a “bonus-extra” video. Sometimes it’s “Yellow Submarine,” sometimes a Peep and the Big Wide World on YouTube, whatever. Point is, think of today like a bonus-extra for the Quarterly Review after last week. Sometimes we do an extra-bonus-extra too. That will not be happening here.

So, we wrap up today with this bonus-extra batch of 10 records, and yes, as always, I took it easy on myself in backloading the last day of the QR with stuff I knew I’d dig. It’s called self-care, people. I practice it in my own way, usually incorrectly. Nonetheless, here’s 10 more records and thanks for tuning in to the Quarterly Review if you did. Next one is probably early July.

Quarterly Review #51-60:

Crowbar, Zero and Below

Six years after The Serpent Only Lies (review here), New Orleans sludge metal progenitors Crowbar deliver Zero and Below, a dutiful 10-song and 42-minute collection that emphasizes the strength of the current lineup of the band. It should go without saying that more than 30 years on from Crowbar‘s founding, guitarist/vocalist Kirk Windstein knows exactly what he wants the band to be and how to manifest that in the studio and live, and he does that here. The real question is whether “The Fear that Binds You” or maybe even the later “Bleeding From Every Hole” will make it into the touring set, but those are just two of the candidates on a record that feels like it was expressly written for Crowbar fans with a suitably masterful hand, which of course it was. There’s only one Crowbar. Treasure them while you can. And hell’s bells, go see them on stage if you never have. Buy a shirt.

Crowbar on Facebook

MNRK Heavy website

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Eric Wagner, In the Lonely Light of Mourning

Joined by a litany of musicians and friends he at one point or another called bandmates in Blackfinger and Trouble, as well as Victor Griffin of Pentagram, Place of Skulls, etc., for a lead guitar spot, Eric Wagner‘s solo album, In the Lonely Light of Mourning, takes on an all-the-more-sorrowful context with Wagner‘s untimely death last year. And in many ways, the underlying message of In the Lonely Light of Mourning is the same message that Wagner‘s participation in The Skull for the better part of the last decade reinforced: he still had more to offer. He still had that voice, he still knew who he was as a singer and a songwriter. He still loved The Beatles and Black Sabbath and he was still one of the best frontmen after to do the job for a doom band. I don’t know what kind of archive exists of recordings he may have done before his death, but if In the Lonely Light of Mourning is the last release to bear his name, could there be a better note to close on than “Wish You Well” here?

Eric Wagner on Bandcamp

Cruz Del Sur Music website

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Ode and Elegy, Ode and Elegy

Recorded and seemingly layered together over a period of years between 2016 and 2020, Ode and Elegy‘s self-titled debut features only its 55-minute eponymous/title-track, and that’s more album conceptually and personnel-wise than most albums are anyway. There are guitar, bass, drums and vocals, and those recordings began in 2016 (vocals were done in 2018), but also a string quartet (recorded in Minneapolis, 2017), a brass section and full choir (recorded in Sofia, Bulgaria, 2020), flute (recorded in London, 2020) and harp (recorded in Manchester, UK, 2020). What the Parma, NY-based outfit make of all this is an organic, neoclassical and folk-informed complexity worthy of headphones for its texture and encompassing in both its heaviest and its most sweeping sections. There’s a vision at work across this span, and from the Behemoth-esque grandiosity of the horns about 33 minutes in to the final payoff and bookending subdued melody, the execution is no less impressive than the scope behind it. The years of effort in making it were not wasted. But how on earth do you write a follow-up for a debut like this?

Ode and Elegy on Instagram

Ode and Elegy website

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Burn the Sun, Le Roi Soleil

The thing about the jazzy break in the middle of second cut “A Fist for Crows” (as opposed to a feast?) is that it’s not at all out of place with the lumbering-but-moving heavy noise-rock-toned riffing or the big melodies that surround on Burn the Sun‘s first LP, Le Roi Soleil. After the relatively straightforward opener “Wolves Among Us,” it’s the beginning of the Athenian rockers showcasing their multi-tiered ambitions. “Fool’s Gold” is a short melodic heavy punk rocker, and those elements pop up again throughout, but “Severance” oozes into Deftones-y melody on vocals early and drifts out in psychedelia for much of its second half build, and there’s post-metal to be found in 12-minute closer “Torch the Skies,” but with ambient interludes in “Crawling Flame” and “The Calm Before,” even that’s not accounting for the whole breadth of the nine included pieces. Much to the band’s credit, they pull off their abrupt turns like that in “A Fist for Crows” and the later highlight “Tidal Waves,” while also keeping more charging aggression in their back pocket for the penultimate “Siren’s Call.” Some sorting out to do, but there’s a strong sense of identity in the songwriting.

Burn the Sun on Facebook

Burn the Sun on Bandcamp

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Amon Acid, Demon Rider

A two-songer being offered up as a 7″ sacrifice presumably to the antigods of riffy lysergic doom, while, yes, also heralding the Leeds trio’s forthcoming second LP, Cosmology, Amon Acid‘s Demon Rider may be a bite-size slab, but it’s a slab nonetheless of tripped out doom, drawing on Cathedral in the title-track and bringing some of Orange Goblin’s burl to the still-spacious and freaked “Incredible Melting Man” in a whopping 3:43, as the founding UK-via-Greece duo of Sarantis Charvas (guitar, synth, vocals) and Briony Charvas (bass, synth) — as well as singly-named drummer Smith — follow-up their 2020 debut, Paradigm Shift, with a fuller and more realized shove. The synth does more work in their sound than it first seems, and together with the echoing vocals, it brings “Demon Rider” to a darkly psychedelic place. If that’s where Cosmology is headed as well, I guess it’s time to get on your possessed motorcycle and ride it into interstellar oblivion. You knew this day would come. Come on now. Off you go.

Amon Acid on Facebook

Helter Skelter Productions website

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Mucho Mungo, Moth Bath

Those ever-reliable climbers of Weird Mountain at Forbidden Place Records snagged Mucho Mungo‘s gem of a 2020 debut EP, and with an extra track added, made a first full-length from Moth Bath that shimmers like a reinvented moment where classic prog and garage rock met. For a record that opens with a song called “Bear Attack,” the Madrid three-piece of guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Marco González, bassist/vocalist Adrien Elbaz and drummer/vocalist/keyboardist Santiago Aguilera take a wholly unaggressive approach, digging into psychedelia only so much as it suits their movement-based purpose. That is to say, “Sandworm I” boogies down, and even though “Sandworm II” is comparatively mellow, there’s a space rock shuffle happening beneath those echoing space-out vocals. “Pocket Rocket” devolves in its sub-four-minute stretch but features some choice drumming and Galaga-esque keyboard sounds for atmosphere, while “Blue Nectar” captures a brighter jamminess and “The Moth” signals more cosmic intentions for what’s to come. Sign me up. Familiar sounds that don’t quite sound like anything else.

Mucho Mungo on Facebook

Forbidden Place Records website

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Sum of R, Lahbryce

Bringing Swiss duo Sum of R into the realm of Finland’s weirdo-brilliant Waste of Space — Dark Buddha Rising, Atomikylä, Dust Mountain, a handful of other associated acts — by having founder Reto Mäder add vocalist Marko Neuman and drummer Jukka Rämänen from Dark Buddha Rising was not going to make Lahbryce any less devastating. And sure enough, “Sink as I” unfolds with a genuine sense of immersion-toward-drowning that the vague ambience of “Crown of Diseased” and the no-less-airy-for-being-crushing “Borderline” immediately expand. For its eight songs and 54 minutes, what was a tailor-made Roadburn lineup push deeper. Deeper than Sum of R‘s 2017 debut, Orga (review here), and deeper than many consciousnesses will want to go. The instrumental “The Problem” is actually less challenging, but “Hymn for the Formless” makes short work of the tropes of European post-metal while “Shimmering Sand” and the noise-laden “144th” once more spread out in terms of ambience, and closer “Lust” finally swallows us all and we die. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer species, and what a way to go.

Sum of R on Facebook

Consouling Sounds store

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Albatross Overdrive, Eye See Red

Albatross Overdrive‘s third full-length, Eye See Red, opens with a hearty invitation to “Get Fucked,” and that is but the first of a slew of catchy, hard-edged, punk-informed heavy rock kissoffs. “Eye See Red” is duly frustrated as well, but as “Coming Down” suitably mellows out and “Been to Space” redirects the energy behind the earlier cuts’ delivery, there’s a feeling of the palette broadening on the part of the California-based five-piece, leading to the centerpiece “Bring Love,” the chorus of which sounds aspirational in light of the leadoff, and “Sagittarius” and “Fuente del Fuego” skirt the line between classic punk and biker rock, Albatross Overdrive continue the gritty and brash style of 2019’s Ascendant (review here) but find new reaches to explore. To wit, the nine-minute closer “Shattered” here reaches farther into melody and instrumental dynamic, bringing the different sides together in a way that’s genuinely new for the band while still having their core of songcraft underneath. They’ve well established themselves as a nothin’-too-fancy heavy rock act, but that doesn’t seem to be an aversion to forward progression either. Best of both worlds, then.

Albatross Overdrive on Facebook

Albatross Overdrive on Bandcamp

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Guided Meditation Doomjazz, Summer Let Me Down

To a certain extent, what you see is what you get with Guided Meditation Doomjazz. The Austin-based outfit led by six-string bassist J. Blaise Gans aka Blaise the Seeker conjure a half-hour session, recorded mostly if not entirely live, with a direct intention toward high-order chill and musical adventuring. Across “Warm Me Up,” “Summer,” “Let Me,” “Down” and “It’s Winter Again,” the band — working as the trio of Gans, Greg Perlman and drummer Mathew Doeckel — are fully switched-on and exploratory, and the pieces carved from their jams are hypnotic and engaging. A check-in from a prolific outfit, but with the backing of The Swamp Records, Summer Let Me Down comes across as something of a moment’s realization, placing the listener in the room — all the more with the photography included in the download — with the band as the music happens. Immersion, trance, digging in, vibing, all that stuff applies, but it’s the hiccups and the letting-them-go that feel even more instructive. If you can remember to breathe, it’s just crazy enough to work. Made to be heard more than once, and serves that well.

Guided Meditation Doomjazz on Instagram

The Swamp Records on Bandcamp

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Darsombra, Fill Up the Glass

Everybody’s favorite drone freaks Darsombra — who just might play your house if you pay them, feed them, allow them enough electricity and/or maybe sex them up a little — released the 7:50 single “Fill Up the Glass” on the last Bandcamp Friday as a 24-hours-only offering that was there and gone before I could even grab the cover art to go with it. Rife with spacey, spicy sounds, their interweaving of synth and guitar sounds improvised if it isn’t, rumbling and oozing at the start and drifting joyously into the cosmos over its stretch. No clue whether the song will show up on their next album — as ever, Darsombra are on to the next thing, which is a tour that begins at Grim Reefer Fest in Baltimore and some kind of special offering, presumably a video, for April 20 — but like all their work, “Fill Up the Glass” is evocative and a revelry in creative spirit, and if seeing this gets you on board with checking out any of their more recent work, then I’ll consider it a win regardless of this song’s availability over the longer term. But it is a cool track.

Darsombra Linktree

Darsombra store

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Day Three of the Spring 2022 Quarterly Review — commence! As you well know because I’m quite certain you’re the type of person to sit around and think about these things and I’m in no way the only human who gives enough of a crap to notice, today we hit the halfway point of this particular QR, not in the middle, but at the end, as today will culminate with review number 30 of the total 60 to come by the end of the day next Monday. Is it cheating to get a full weekend to do the last installment? Depends entirely on the weekend. In any case, starting tomorrow we go downhill, numerically, not in terms of the quality of what’s covered.

Until then.

Quarterly Review #21-30:

Ruby the Hatchet, Live at Earthquaker

While on tour with Kadavar in late-2019, New Jersey heavy psych rockers Ruby the Hatchet swung through Earthquaker Devices in Ohio and put these three songs to tape. In addition to being the band’s first release for Magnetic Eye Records, the EP serves these years after the fact as a still-foreshadowing glimpse at their next full-length, the follow-up to 2017’s Planetary Space Child (review here), which but for plague probably would be on its third pressing by now. At least it would be if the rolling riffs and organ shimmer of “1,000 Years” and the bluesier what-I’ll-just-assume-is-an-homage-to-the-band-of-the-same-name “Primitive Man” are anything to go by. Paired with Ruby the Hatchet‘s take on Uriah Heep‘s “Easy Livin’,” the new songs herald the awaited album in a way that seems to justify their having been kept in-pocket for just the right moment. I’m glad that moment is now, and I also kind of feel like Ruby the Hatchet need to start recording more shows and putting out their own soundboard bootlegs. This is clearly mixed, pro-mastered and all that, but still. They make every second of these 14 minutes count.

Ruby the Hatchet links

Magnetic Eye Records store

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Wyatt E., āl bēlūti dārû

Anonymous Belgian outfit Wyatt E. return five years after their debut with āl bēlūti dārû, comprising two tracks of all-in Mesopotamian-themed drone ritualizing. The robed outfit top 18 minutes with “Mušhuššu” and “Šarru Rabu” both, and their intention toward immersing the audience in a whole-side experience isn’t misplaced as their arrangements branch beyond genre typicality in service of the Middle Easternism around which much of what they do is based. More than cinematically wrought, the two pieces here are striking in moving from the crescendos of their respective builds into richly conjured explorations, the former of saz and other instruments, the latter of percussion and voice. Likewise, with two drumkits, they want nothing for rhythmic urgency, despite the open structures of the actual material. One wonders at the Orientalism on display throughout as potentially a kind of minstrelsy, particularly with the hooded unknown figures casting themselves as decidedly ‘other’ from a European mainstream, but the same anonymity guards against the notion since it’s unclear just who these people are. I’m not sure I’m all the way on board, but they effectively convey spectacle without losing artistic presence. And if you spend the rest of your day reading about the Akkadian Empire, I’m sure worse things have happened.

Wyatt E. on Facebook

Stolen Body Records website

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Famyne, II: The Ground Below

My impression of Canterbury, UK, doomers Famyne‘s 2016 self-titled debut (review here) were of a band burgeoning in atmosphere anchored by strong songwriting and melodic vocals with periodic likeness to Alice in Chains and The Wounded Kings. Arriving through Svart Records, the eight-song/45-minute II: The Ground Below doesn’t do much to detract from that core impression, but the ambient “A Submarine” and the mean chug in the back half of the later “The Ai” take them to new places and demonstrate the individualization of genre tropes underway in their sound. “Once More” taps a more NWOBHM style, while “Babylon” touches on Candlemassian grandiosity, and “Gone” fluidly begins to transition from the crush of opening duo “Defeated” and “Solid Earth” before “A Submarine” takes hold, which is only further evidence they know what they’re doing.

LINK

LINK

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Humanotone, A Flourishing Fall in a Grain of Sand

Evidently a number of years in the making from front-to-back, Humanotone‘s second full-length, A Flourishing Fall in a Grain of Sand, finds the solo-project spearheaded by Jorge Cisternas Monsalves, aka Jorge Cist, working once more completely on his own save for some saxophone on 12-minute closer “Even Though.” Given the lush, progressive, and thoughtful execution of progressive heavy rock the Chile-based Cist manifests throughout cuts like “Light Antilogies” and “Ephemeral” prior — taking lessons from Elder‘s Dead Roots Stirring and applying them well for his own purposes — it wouldn’t have been surprising if he picked up the sax himself, frankly. He proves visionary throughout the proceedings one way or the other, and atop a bed of his own drumming is able to cast deep landscapes of keys and guitar and bass in “A Flourishing Fall” and a build and payoff in “Scrolls for the Blind” before the 3:45 “Beyond the Machine” goes straightforward in a way that feels like a gift ahead of the closer, while still retaining its proggy vibe vocally, melodically and rhythmically. There’s been some word-of-mouth hype around this one. Not unwarranted.

Humanotone on Facebook

Humanotone on Bandcamp

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Madmess, Rebirth

Big on vibe, crunches when it wants, spaces out with broader jams, takes its time, flows as it will but still hits with an impact — yeah, there’s no shortage of things to like about Madmess‘ Hassle Records-issued second full-length, Rebirth. If you, yourself, have been born-again semi-instrumentalist psych-prog, then no doubt you’ll relate to the careening and twisting path that the five mostly-extended tracks take, unfolding with a focus on liquefied echo on “Albatross” before the companioning “Mind Collapse” introduces the vocals that will show up again on closer “Stargazer” (not a Rainbow cover). Between those two, the title-cut and “Shapeshifter” back-to-back build on some of the mellower stretches prior at least before locking into their own heavier parts, but by then you’re long since hypnotized anyway, and the drift that serves to transition into “Stargazer” is only pushing further out as it goes. I’m not sure who in the Portugese trio (if anyone) is the vocalist, but the voice suits the songs well, even if they’re plainly comfortable going without, and reasonably so.

Madmess on Facebook

Hassle Records website

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Eaters of the Soil, EP II

Mostly instrumental, the aptly-titled EP II — the second short release from Utrecht, the Netherlands, trombone-inclusive experimentalist doomers Eaters of the Soil — runs four tracks and 35 minutes and, early on, uses spoken samples from this or that serial killer about putting plastic bags over women’s heads to suffocate them. Through “V – Point of Capture” and even into “VI – Untouched, Unspoken To” (the Roman numeral numbering system continued from their pandemic-minded 2021 first EP), a somewhat slowed down version of whoever it is goes on about killing women and this and that. The second half of the release with “VII – Burrowing, Feasting” and “VIII – Subcurrent,” are both dark enough to be considered affected by the same atmosphere — “VI – Untouched, Unspoken To” has a bit of float to it, so it’s not all grim — churning, meandering and freaking out in at-least-partially improv-jazz style, but Eaters of the Soil cast a grim vision of humanity and that impression stays resonant even as “VIII – Subcurrent” lumbers into its wash of a finish. Is extreme jazz a thing? Turns out maybe.

Eaters of the Soil on Facebook

Forbidden Place Records website

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NYOS, Celebration

With its just-slightly-off-beat drum loop, “Light” seems to build into a wash until even the song can’t take anymore and needs to drop out. It’s not the first take on NYOS‘ second offering for Pelagic Records, Celebration — that would be the improvised opener “First Take” — but it and the serene hum that emerges in the subsequent “Something Good” and even the shimming almost steel-drum sounds of “Tucano” demonstrate the Finland-based instrumentalist duo’s stated intentions toward dance music. The later “Gold Vulcan,” the first single, gets into some noisier fare as if to remind that guitarist Tom Brooke (also recording) and drummer Tuomas Kainulainen are coming from a harder-hitting place, but in the also-improv “Cloudberry” just before and particularly the willfully gorgeous “Rosario” (Dawson?) after, the intentions are gentler and more welcoming, and that continues into the final drone stretch and far, far back drumming that consumes most of closer “Surface” before it ultimately explodes in resonant light, reinforcing the notion of joy inherent in the album’s title, feeling like a grand finale to an aural fireworks display.

NYOS on Facebook

Pelagic Records store

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Endtime, Impending Doom

Making their debut on Heavy Psych Sounds with Impending Doom, Sweden’s Endtime are not shy about their influence from horror cinema. Their sound blends sludge and classic doom together such that opener “Harbinger of Disease” comes through like Mike IX Williams of Eyehategod stepping in to front Cathedral, and his harsh wails echo out a tolling (for thee, make no mistake) bell to foretell the harsh terrors soon to unfold. “ICBM” kills quick and lets its church organ mourn later, and the centerpiece “They Live” (a classic) adjusts the balance such that the cinematic, post-Uncle Acid vibe comes to the front still with the barking vocals overtop; a blend I can’t think of anyone else pulling off as well as Endtime do. The longer “Cities on Fire with the Burning Flesh of Men” follows and is more purely about the crunch at least until the sitar shows up — a nice curve to throw — ahead of its severe closing section, and closer “Living Graves” wraps the 28-minute LP by pushing the organ forward again and dissolving into a wash of noise before the feed seems to cut out like channel 11 just stopped broadcasting in the middle of the night. Hey man, I was watching that. Not quite revolutionary, but onto something. Impending, if you will.

Endtime on Facebook

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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Bloodshot Buffalo, Light EP

By my count, Bloodshot Buffalo — the solo-project of Santa Rosa, California’s Sheafer McOmber — has put out no fewer than four full-lengths since 2019. Accordingly, the two-song Light EP is most likely a stopgap en route to the next one, but “Light” and “Don’t Follow Me” make an enticing sampler of the band’s wares all the same, digging into an energetic heavy progressive rock like a less-low-end-focused Forming the Void in the title-track as McOmber carefully weaves in a multi-layered guitar solo panning channels from one to the other and “Don’t Follow Me” reaffirms the groove on which that happens while sorting out its own languid flow. The shorter of the two, “Don’t Follow Me” doesn’t feature the same kind of midsection break as “Light” itself, and once it heads out, it doesn’t come back, unlike “Light,” which returns to the hook at the finish. Some structural play as enticement to dig further into the Bloodshot Buffalo catalog while waiting for the seemingly inevitable next thing. This being my first exposure to McOmber‘s work, I hope to do exactly that.

Bloodshot Buffalo on Facebook

Bloodshot Buffalo on Bandcamp

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Oh Hiroshima, Myriad

Swedish now-duo Oh Hiroshima present their fourth album, Myriad, as a collection of weighted, spacious and emotive contemplations. Their heavy post-rock is stylized to be patient and broad-reaching, and in pieces like “All Things Pass” and “Veil of Certainty” early on, they find a niche for themselves between harder-hitting atmospheric material marked out by droning horn arrangements and more straight-ahead melodic verses, the ambience open enough to pull the focus away from underlying structures. It’s an immersive-if-somewhat-familiar modern take, but the two-piece of guitarist/bassist/vocalist Jakob Hemström and drummer Oskar Nilsson stem into moodier vibes on “Tundra” and closer “Hidden Chamber” takes a less effects-centered, more organic-sounding approach, emphasizing the strings for its build while staying earthbound in the drums, bass and guitars beneath. Some will pass Myriad up entirely, others will worship its depth. Either way, the pair seem like they’ll keep moving forward in their well-crafted, considered approach.

Oh Hiroshima on Facebook

Napalm Records website

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Portland, Oregon’s Charley No Face — named for a Pennsylvanian urban legend about someone who was not actually called Charley — made a well regarded debut with 2020’s The Green Man (discussed here), issued first as a three-song EP and subsequently a full-length with the backing of Forbidden Place Records. The four-piece have undergone some reconstruction in the time since, with guitarist/vocalist Nick Wulforst, bassist Brad Larson and drummer Tim Abel parting ways with guitarist/vocalist Stephen Cameron and bringing aboard keyboardist/vocalist Carina Hartley, whose contributions are an immediate boon to second album, Eleven Thousand Volts, feeding into and expanding on the lush melodies of the previous LP so that the sound grows more expansive even as the songwriting feels tighter. From opening cut “Eyes” through the immersive closing pair of “Satan’s Hands” and “Death Mask,” this incarnation of Charley No Face — as well as producer Cameron Spies at Trash Treasury Studios and Mike Nolte, who mastered — unite subtly varied songs through an abiding psychedelic warmth, pulling the listener deeper into the resultant atmosphere as the seven-song/41-minute procession unfurls.

This journey, which leaves a path behind it laden with fuzz overgrown like so much moss in the woods, is all the more satisfying for the manner in which the tracks work together to create the overarching impression of the whole. That is to say, it’s a high level of craft being engaged, and “Eyes” quickly establishes a depth of arrangement that that is effectively toyed with throughout, Wulforst and Hartley‘s voices languidly chanting together in a way that reminds of Quest for Fire in the early going of second cut “Mosaic Sky” and the later “Big Sleep” (that is not a compliment I hand out lightly), seems to be working directly off Witch‘s “Seer” in the central riff for “Melted Sun” — something that Abel‘s drums readily acknowledge in the transitional snare pops — and finally shifting into a post-Sabbath-and-grunge heavy cultism by the time “Death Mask” hits, outwardly serene at the start, but using the darker thematic current to add context to Eleven Thousand Volts‘ final payoff, itself hinted at in the swaggering solo that ends “Mosaic Sky” as well as the lurching, willfully repetitive final hook of “Satan’s Hands” prior.

Swing abounds, and Wulforst‘s guitar and Larson‘s bass bring together tones of marked richness that, in dynamic fashion, work together with Hartley‘s keys so that “Flat Circle” can move from its tense initial push — a cowbell from Abel in the chorus tap-tap-tapping as though to tell the audience’s attention to snap to because something cool is happening — into its spacier final minute and a half, the keyboard not quite touching on sci-fi or a sense of the otherworldly, but taking the forward position just the same and deepening the vibe in a way that would be distinctly absent were it not there. “Mosaic Sky,” as well as being particularly memorable in the shimmer of its harmonies against a quieter backdrop post-midpoint, is the first of three longer, seven-to-eight-minute inclusions on Eleven Thousand Volts, and comes across as though it was placed just after “Eyes” to give a hint at what follows later in “Satan’s Hands” and “Death Mask.” The three songs together are the only ones over five minutes long, so are all the more differentiated from the surrounding four pieces, “Eyes,” “Flat Circle,” “Melted Sun” and “Big Sleep,” the last of which drawls to an especially righteous finish, a stretch of residual feedback — not overly harsh — and a final tape-wind and crash serving as the transition from which the acoustic guitar at the outset of “Satan’s Hands” picks up.

Eleven Thousand Volts is full of these little-seeming moments of gorgeous or otherwise appreciable nuance. The cowbell in “Flat Circle.” The dream-echo on the vocals as they repeat the title line of “Eyes.” The more weighted chug that underscores the solo in the back half of that song. The layers building up in the midsection of “Melted Sun” and the way everything but the vocals drops out to finish with the lines “Planetary forces upon us” at what I’ll assume is the ending of side A before the keyboard hum and drone of “Big Sleep” begins side B. The edge of classic metal drama brought into “Death Mask,” Hartley‘s keys and Wulforst‘s guitar bringing the closer to a rousing conclusion after the Snail-esque forward vocal melody in the song’s previous verses. And as many of these moments as there are, they stand out even more for occurring in outright service to the tracks and to the album in its entirety. Everything Charley No Face do on Eleven Thousand Volts, indulgent as some of it may seem on at first glance, is geared toward making the songs and the record more complete. One of their greater accomplishments throughout is that the end product doesn’t sound overblown or staid.

It’s worth saying, then, that while it may turn out ultimately to very much be a transitional outing for Charley No Face in terms of lineup and the chemistry that will hopefully continue to develop therebetween, Eleven Thousand Volts is not at all to be discounted for the progression of songwriting throughout or the clarity of purpose that comes through its ultra-hazy tones. Short songs or longer, it doesn’t matter. “Satan’s Hands” is no less catchy than “Flat Circle,” and both are clearly intended to do more than function as earworms. Like the entirety of Eleven Thousand Volts, those tracks create a world that perhaps doesn’t get enough credit for color in the nonetheless striking cover art, appropriately grainy and stark as it is. This atmosphere, as noted above, is what draws the audience closer to the material and puts them in step with the groove even as they might seem to float with each ensuing verse and/or chorus. It is easy to get lost in, but of a significant quality worth both regular revisits and conscious attention in the moment. Serenity in and through doom.

Charley No Face, Eleven Thousand Volts (2022)

Charley No Face website

Charley No Face on Bandcamp

Charley No Face on Instagram

Forbidden Place Records website

Forbidden Place Records on Bandcamp

Forbidden Place Records on Facebook

Forbidden Place Records on Twitter

Someone’s gonna need a new band photo now that he’s got a band. Still fresh off the release earlier this month of the second album, Usurper of the Universe (review here), through Forbidden Place Records, San Francisco’s SÖNUS have announced a new lineup. Or maybe I should say a lineup at all, since it was formerly a solo-project wielded at the behest of multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, songwriter, etc. David Wachsman. As of today, right now, here, this sentence, SÖNUS are a four-piece, and not to point out the obvious, but it seems highly unlikely Wachsman would bother forming a band if the intention was not to bring SÖNUS to a stage as a live act sometime in the presumably near future.

It’s cool watching projects take shape. This may have been Wachsman‘s plan all along, and I’ve no doubt SÖNUS as a unit will benefit from playing live as nearly every band does, but it’s important to consider as well that additional members will invariably have an effect on the studio dynamic as well. He wasn’t entirely alone on Usurper of the Universe — you can see the credits for the album below — and through layering, the recording lacked nothing for a full sound, but when you put someone new in a group, that group is inevitably changed as a result. I’ll be interested to find out how SÖNUS‘s next work plays out and what differences will result from the shift in construction. I assume we have some time before we get there.

In the meantime, the clip for “Nuclear God,” which opens Usurper of the Universe, is full of suitably apocalyptic imagery. There’s kids getting under their desks for a nuclear bomb drill — which my mother did and still remembers — clips from They Live, Dr. Strangelove, the public domain (obviously) and other choice sources, and plenty of mushroom clouds to spare as Wachsman, speaking for Planet Earth itself, lets humanity know just how the world feels about them. I won’t spoil it for you.

Physical versions of Usurper of the Universe will be out April 20 — because duh — and you’ll find more from Wachsman after the video below about the new lineup.

Enjoy:

SÖNUS, “Nuclear God” video premiere

The CDs and Cassettes should be available on 4/20, naturally (barring any plant delays or shipping mishaps).

About the new members:

Seated atop the drum throne is Colin Drake Jaramillo, my best friend and fellow archaeologist- we’ve travelled the world together for years working on Archaeological sites, I was his best man in his wedding, and now I’m delighted to welcome him aboard and confident knowing he has my back on the Drums.

Filling out the rhythm section, on the Bass, we welcome groove master and bringer of thunder, Dave Reno.

Sharing (and shredding) Guitar duties with me is the venerable Vishwam Aggarwal. And with that, SÖNUS is a one-man-band no longer! I am beyond-delighted to welcome these talented people to the group, and to hear what they bring to these songs. We are working hard to bring our brand of sensational space rock to you as soon as we can!

SÖNUS are:
David Wachsman: guitar/vocals
Vishwam Aggarwal: guitar
Dave Reno: bass
Colin Drake Jaramillo: drums

SÖNUS on ‘Usurper of the Universe’:
David Wachsman (Composition/Lyrics/Rhythm Guitar/Lead Guitar/Bass/Synths/Vocals/General Mania and Questionable Sanity)
with;
Tyler Hovestadt (Tracks 3 & 6: Additional Synths, Piano, and SFX; Track 5: Drums),
Eduardo Salazar (Drums, except for track 5), and
Jaymi McGinn (backing vocals on track 6)

SÖNUS, Usurper of the Universe (2022)

SÖNUS on Facebook

SÖNUS on Instagram

SÖNUS on Bandcamp

Forbidden Place Records on Facebook

Forbidden Place Records on Instagram

Forbidden Place Records on Bandcamp

Portland, Oregon, heavy rockers Tigers on Opium release their new single The Perfect Cocktail on Jan. 15 through Forbidden Place Records. The song runs under three minutes and is perhaps best summarized by its final line: “Fuck yeah,” delivered with due self-agreement by Juan Carlos Caceres. The four-piece are headed toward a new EP release called 503.420.6669 Vol. 2 — the first volume came out last year — and while I don’t know if “The Perfect Cocktail” will feature there, it certainly does just fine as a standalone banger, lyrics of coked-up excess and post-QOTSA compressed-feeling fuzz — compliments of the recording job by Jeanot Lewis-Rolland — careening through a sans-nonsense-yet-somehow-all-nonsense progression, tight in structure but ready to throw down with whatever you’ve got. For a track that’s actually so short, it sounds like the party’s going to run late.

Tigers on Opium would seem to have been busy in the great no-shows expanse of time that was 2020 and 2021 — oh but things are really turning around now, right death counts? — writing, writing, writing. I know the feeling. Their uptempo crotchal thrust is n full display in “The Perfect Cocktail,” and if you’re feeling like you’re not necessarily on board with all the druggy hoopla, well, I’ve never done cocaine either — and I don’t really have a squad to rally — but a catchy song is a catchy song and this is that. Some things you don’t fuck with. Other things fuck regardless.

There’s an album to come as well as the next EP, which is further encouraging news, so as a heads up for stuff-to-be, I’m much more excited about hosting this track than my dry-as-hell prose would lead you to believe. Cocaine and propane is the recipe, if you’re wondering.

The perfect cocktail:

Juan Carlos Caceres on “The Perfect Cocktail”:

We’ve all had that time in life where ya feel invincible despite what gets thrown your way. There was a time in by life where I turned to some not so healthy indulgences to distract me from my problems but I came to realize, there’s always a silver lining… So rally the squad, get lit, and take the bull by the horns! This song’s basically an anthem about seeing the silver lining in tough situations, and having a good time regardless of it all.

Get it: https://tigersonopium.bandcamp.com/track/the-perfect-cocktail

Tigers spent 2020-2021 writing and recording two EP’s, a full length concept album, and another group of songs for a follow up, totaling 28 songs. The first EP 503.420.6669.vol_one was released on January 22, 2021 by Forbidden Place Records. They are partnering with FPR again and preparing to release the next installment in the 503 series, vol_two. Drawing inspiration from Portland’s gritty underground culture, the pair of EP’s dives into what life is like living in a city that has a dark shrouded past.
They self engineer all their sessions, with guitarist Jeanot Lewis-Rolland at the helm as the lead engineer, and have partnered up again with Adam Pike of Red Fang to mix the EP. Rounding out the production team is mastering engineer Ryan “Freq” Foster and producer TRIANGLES.

The quartet consists of members Juan Carlos Caceres, Nate Wright, Charles Hodge, and Jeanot Lewis-Rolland. The roots of Tigers On Opium go back to 2015 when Juan Carlos began the idea for the band and proposed it to his good friend Nate Wright. It wasn’t until 2018 that the perfect lineup had come together and the stoner rocking could truly begin.

MUSIC by Juan Carlos Caceres, Charles Hodge, Jeanot Lewis- Rolland, Nate Wright
Lyrics by Juan Carlos Caceres
Engineered by Jeanot Lewis-Rolland
Tracked at JLR Audio Productions – Dream Awake Studio
Mixed by Adam Bradley Pike at Toadhouse Recording
Mastered by Ryan “FREQ” Foster
Produced by Triangles Around Us
Art by Triangles Around Us

Tigers on Opium website

Tigers on Opium on Instagram

Tigers on Opium on Facebook

Tigers on Opium on Twitter

Tigers on Opium on Bandcamp

Forbidden Place Records on Facebook

Forbidden Place Records on Instagram

Forbidden Place Records on Bandcamp

San Francisco-based mostly-solo-project SÖNUS will release their second album, Usurper of the Universe, on Feb. 5 through Forbidden Place Records. Thus it is that multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, songwriter and co-producer David Wachsman and drummer Eddie Salazar follow-up late 2020’s well-received Worlds Undreamed Of and arrive at a form of sometimes-psychedelic heavy rock that at points signals a metallic underpinning, as in Wachsman‘s gutted-out vocal delivery on “The Golden Path.” All told, the collection amasses six tracks for a deceptively-sharp 35 minutes, working from a masterplan on Wachsman‘s part that — particularly as he crowns himself as the titular usurper of the universe in the track that shares the album’s name — brings to mind mid-’90s Monster Magnet, though that doesn’t account necessarily for the spaced-out penultimate instrumental “Amáranthine,” so take it for what it’s worth. Grains of salt the size of asteroids making tidal waves of dug-in riffs when they crash into tonal oceans undulating the grand universal nod. Or some such.

“Pay Me Your Mind” (video premiering below) is the second single from Usurper of the Universe behind the hooky prior-alluded title-cut, and it serves as the middle piece of what might be side A’s three-song salvo, with opener “Nuclear God” laying out the foundation in its thick riffing and lines like “You know the whole damn thing feels like a sick joke/The human race has all gone insane/Nothing left to do but take a big toke/And dive into the right side of my brain.” Soon enough, “Usurper of the Universe” will follow by standing astride the throne of god having slain titans, and that may well be a reference out of sci-fi/fantasy — closer “Tanelorn,” for example, draws from the work of Michael Moorcock; Blind Guardian also wrote a song about “Tanelorn” one time that was pretty darn catchy, though they and SÖNUS are by no means the only two to visit that continuity — and while I don’t know where/if Wachsman might have a vinyl split in mind, the three shorter opening tracks hit an especially resonant mania on “Pay Me Your Mind.”

It’s a rocker, to be sure, and with its repetitions of the title and verses like “Now you’re looking to your leaders for some hope to survive/As they stare into the blazing sun/Well you’ve been pulling all nighters at the charnel house/And now your nose is starting to run,” the relevance is unquestionable and the spirit of delivery is heavy punk. This too could be likened to Monster Magnet if you really want, but Wachsman and Salazar bring an energy of their own to it, including in the furious guitar solo that underscores much of the second half of the song, where the overwhelming repeating lines become so purposefully overwhelming. In the parlance of our times, “it do be like that,” and one can hardly argue with Wachsman when, at the end, he says “There ain’t shit.” That “Usurper of the Universe” opens with a bong rip and synth from Tyler Hovestadt (who appears throughout the album and drums on “Amáranthine”) before its grandiose riff kicks in feels like, well, of course. That, in itself, is a kind of social critique.

There is a shift between “Usurper of the Universe” and “The Golden Path,” which opens up with a layer of hard-strummed guitar and a forward, space-rock-derived progression met with barked vocals that are contrasted and complemented in kind by “Amáranthine” subsequent, which lets “Tanelorn” close out on a shorter linear build that moves into a wash of guitar, synth and vocal melody that fades into the album’s finish, leaving the resonant impression of Usurper of the Universe as a clean, considered and mindful execution, bordering on the progressive at its most over-the-top, but not in the end pretentious enough to be off-putting. It feels like SÖNUS and Wachsman are doing the initial explorations of world-building, and the overarching atmosphere of Usurper of the Universe may well lead to further development of storytelling in lyrics/music to come. Maybe, maybe not. When you’ve taken over the universe, you can pretty much do what you will. I look forward accordingly to see where Wachsman and company go next.

You’ll find suitably spastic video for “Pay Me Your Mind” below.

Please enjoy:

SÖNUS, “Pay Me Your Mind” video premiere

David Wachsman on “Pay Me Your Mind”:

Written in December of 2020, “Pay Me Your Mind” is my ’70s proto-punk-inspired rebuke of the utter insanity of our times- from ineffectual to downright stupid, corrupt politicians and world leaders; bloated, propped up systems teetering on the verge of collapse; the world’s climate in total upheaval; people in the throes of complete mental and economic despair; chaos, death, and violence are a blasé everyday occurrence as a nation grows ever-more desensitized to the brutality it abides in its own culture; an unending plague combined with utterly batshit conspiracy theories perpetuated by social media conglomerates who evade responsibility and propagate relentless stupidity.

Now, a little over a year after the January 6th insurrection, I feel the song is more relevant than ever. Accompanying it is an absolutely brutal and intense visual interpretation from Darksprite Videos that I believe perfectly captures the chaotic energy and the themes of the song wrapped together with references to some of the horror movies I love that helped keep me sane over the past couple years.

From The album “Usurper of the Universe” coming February 5th from SÖNUS and Forbidden Place Records. Music and Lyrics by David Wachsman, with Eddie Salazar on Drums. Produced by David Wachsman, with Tyler Hovestadt. Mixed and Mastered by Simon Jameson at Black Art Audio. Video made by Darksprite videos:
https://www.instagram.com/darkspritevideos/

Album available for digital pre-order now! https://sonusrocks.bandcamp.com/

CDs, Cassettes, and Merch coming February 5th to Forbidden Place Records:
https://forbiddenplacerecords.bandcamp.com/

SÖNUS on ‘Usurper of the Universe’:
David Wachsman (Composition/Lyrics/Rhythm Guitar/Lead Guitar/Bass/Synths/Vocals/General Mania and Questionable Sanity)
with;
Tyler Hovestadt (Tracks 3 & 6: Additional Synths, Piano, and SFX; Track 5: Drums),
Eduardo Salazar (Drums, except for track 5), and
Jaymi McGinn (backing vocals on track 6)

SÖNUS on Facebook

SÖNUS on Instagram

SÖNUS on Bandcamp

Forbidden Place Records on Facebook

Forbidden Place Records on Instagram

Forbidden Place Records on Bandcamp

You’ll have to forgive me, what the hell day is it? The url says this is day eight, so I guess that’s Wednesday. Fine. That’s as good as any. It’s all just 10 more records to my brain at this point, and that’s fine. I’ve got it all lined up. As of me writing this, I still haven’t heard about my busted-ass laptop that went in for repair last Saturday, and that’s a bummer, but I’m hoping that any minute now the phone is going to show the call coming in and I’ll just keep staring at it until that happens and I’m sure that will be awesome for my already brutalized productivity.

My backup laptop — because yes, I have one and will gladly argue with you that it’s necessary citing this week as an example — is a cheapie Chromebook. The nicest thing I can say about it is it’s red. The meanest thing I can say about it is that I had to change the search button to a caps lock and even that doesn’t respond fast enough to my typing, so I’m constantly capitalizing the wrong letters. If you don’t think that’s infuriating, congratulations on whatever existence has allowed you to live this long without ever needing to use a keyboard. “Hello computer,” and all that.

Enough kvetching. Too much to do.

Quarterly Review #71-80:

Amenra, De Doorn

I’ve made no secret over the last however long of not being the biggest Amenra fan in the universe. Honestly, it’s not even about the Belgian band themseves — live, they’re undeniable — but the plaudits around them are no less suffocating than their crushing riffs at their heaviest moments. Still, as De Doorn marks their first offering through Relapse Records, finds them departing from their Mass numbered series of albums and working in their native Flemish for the first time, and brings Caro Tanghe of Oathbreaker into the songs to offer melodic counterpoint to Colin H. van Eeckhout‘s nothing-if-not-identifiable screams, the invitations to get on board are manifold. This is a band with rules. They have set their own rules, and even in pushing outside them as they do here, much of their ideology and sonic persona is maintained. Part of that identity is being forward thinking, and that surfaces on De Doorn in parts ambient and quiet, but there’s always a part of me that feels like Amenra are playing it safe, even as they’re working within parameters they’ve helped define for a generation of European post-metal working directly in their wake. The post-apocalyptic breadth they harness in these tracks will only continue to win them converts. Maybe I’ll be one of them. That would be fun. It’s nice to belong, you know?

Amenra on Facebook

Relapse Records website

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Liquid Sound Company, Psychoactive Songs for the Psoul

A quarter-century after their founding, Arlington, Texas, heavy psych rockers Liquid Sound Company still burn and melt along the lysergic path of classic ’60s acid rock, beefier in tone but no less purposeful in their drift on Psychoactive Songs for the Psoul. They’re turning into custard on “Blacklight Corridor” and they can tell you don’t understand on “Who Put All of Those Things in Your Hair?,” and all the while their psych rock digs deeper into the cosmic pulse, founding guitarist John Perez (also Solitude Aeturnus) unable to resist bringing a bit of shred to “And to Your Left… Neptune” — unless that’s Mark Cook‘s warr guitar — even as “Mahayuga” answers back to the Middle Eastern inflection of “Blacklight Corridor” earlier on. Capping with the mellow jam “Laila Was Here,” Psychoactive Songs for the Psoul is a loving paean to the resonant energies of expanded minds and flowing effects, but “Cosmic Liquid Love” is still a heavy rollout, and even the shimmering “I Feel You” is informed by that underlying sense of heft. Nonetheless, it’s an acid invitation worth the RSVP.

Liquid Sound Company on Facebook

Liquid Sound Company on Bandcamp

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Iceburn, Asclepius

Flying snakes, crawling birds, two tracks each over 17 minutes long, the first Iceburn release in 20 years is an all-in affair from the outset. As someone coming to the band via Gentry Densley‘s work in Eagle Twin, there are recognizable elements in tone, themes and vocals, but with fellow founders Joseph “Chubba” Smith on drums and James Holder on guitar, as well as bassist Cache Tolman (who’s Johnny Comelately since he originally joined in 1991, I guess), the atmosphere conjured by the four-piece is consuming and spacious in its own way, and their willingness to go where the song guides them on side A’s “Healing the Ouroboros,” right up to the long-fading drone end after so much lumbering skronk and incantations before, and side B’s “Dahlia Rides the Firebird,” with its pervasive soloing, gallop and veer into earth-as-cosmos terradelia, the return of Iceburn — if in fact that’s what this is — makes its own ceremony across Asclepius, sounding newly inspired rather than like a rehash.

Iceburn on Facebook

Southern Lord Recordings website

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Gods & Punks, The Sounds of the Universe

As regards ambition, Gods & Punks‘ fourth LP, The Sounds of the Universe, wants for nothing. The Rio De Janeiro heavy psych rockers herein wrap what they’ve dubbed their ‘Voyager’ series, culminating the work they’ve done since their first EP — album opener “Eye in the Sky” is a remake — while tying together the progressive, heavy and cosmic aspects of their sound in a single collection of songs. In context, it’s a fair amount to take in, but a track like “Black Apples” has a riffy standout appeal regardless of its place in the band’s canon, and whether it’s the classic punch of “The TUSK” or the suitably patient expansion of “Universe,” the five-piece don’t neglect songwriting for narrative purpose. That is to say, whether or not you’ve heard 2019’s And the Celestial Ascension (discussed here) or any of their other prior material, you’re still likely to be pulled in by “Gravity” and “Dimensionaut” and the rest of what surrounds. The only question is where do they go from here? What’s outside the universe?

Gods & Punks on Facebok

Abraxas on Facebook

Forbidden Place Records website

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Vouna, Atropos

Released (appropriately) by Profound Lore, Vouna‘s second full-length Atropos is a work of marked depth and unforced grandeur. After nine-minute opener “Highest Mountain” establishes to emotional/aural tone, Atropos is comprised mostly of three extended pieces in “Vanish” (15:34), “Grey Sky” (14:08) and closer “What Once Was” (15:11) with the two-minute “What Once Was (Reprise)” leading into the final duo. “Vanish” finds Vouna — aka Olympia, Washington-based Yianna Bekris — bringing in textures of harp and violin to answer the lap steel and harp on “Highest Mountain,” and features a harsh guest vocal from Wolves in the Throne Room‘s Nathan Weaver, but it’s in the consuming wash at the finish of “Grey Sky” and in the melodic vocal layers cutting through as the first half of “What Once Was” culminates ahead of the break into mournful doom and synth that Vouna most shines, bridging styles in a way so organic as to be utterly consuming and keeping resonance as the most sought target, right unto the piano line that tops the last crescend, answering back the very beginning of “Highest Mountain.” Not a record that comes along every day.

Vouna on Facebook

Profound Lore website

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Heathen Rites, Heritage

One gets the sense in listening that for Mikael Monks, the Burning Saviours founder working under the moniker of Heathen Rites for the first time, the idea of Heritage for which the album is titled is as much about doom itself as the Scandinavian folk elements that surface in “Gleipner” or in the brief, bird-song and mountain-echo-laced finish “Kulning,” not to mention the Judas Priest-style triumphalism of the penultimate “The Sons of the North” just before. Classic doom is writ large across Heritage, from the bassline of “Autumn” tapping into “Heaven and Hell” to the flowing culmination of “Midnight Sun” and the soaring guitar apex in “Here Comes the Night.” In the US, many of these ideas of “northern” heritage, runes, or even heathenism have been coopted as expressions of white supremacy. It’s worth remembering that for some people it’s actually culture. Monks pairs that with his chosen culture — i.e. doom — in intriguing ways here that one hopes he’ll continue to explore.

Heathen Rites on Facebook

Svart Records website

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Unimother 27, Presente Incoerente

Some things in life you just have to accept that you’re never going to fully understand. The mostly-solo-project Unimother 27 from Italy’s Piero Ranalli is one of those things. Ranalli has been riding his own wavelength in krautrock and classic progressive stylizations mixed with psychedelic freakout weirdness going on 15 years now, experimenting all the while, and you don’t have to fully comprehend the hey-man-is-this-jazz bass bouncing under “L’incontro tra Phallos e Mater Coelestis” to just roll with it, so just roll with it and know that wherever you’re heading, there’s a plan at work, even if the plan is to not have a plan. Mr. Fist‘s drums tether the synth and drifting initial guitar of “Abraxas…il Dio Difficile da Conoscere” and serve a function as much necessary as grooving, but one way or the other, you’re headed to “Systema Munditotius,” where forward and backward are the same thing and the only trajectory discernible is “out there.” So go. Just go. You won’t regret it.

Unimother 27 on Facebook

Pineal Gland Lab website

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Oxblood Forge, Decimator

Not, not, not a coincidence that Massachusetts four-piece Oxblood Forge — vocalist Ken Mackay, guitarist Robb Lioy, bassist Greg Dellaria and drummer/keyboardist Erik Fraünfeltër — include an Angel Witch cover on their third long-player, Decimator, as even before they get around to the penultimate “Sorcerers,” the NWOBHM is a defining influence throughout the proceedings, be it the “hey hey hey!” chanting of “Mortal Salience” or the death riders owning the night on opener “Into the Abyss” or the sheer Maidenry met with doom tinge on “Screams From Silence.” Mackay‘s voice, high in the mix, adds a tinge of grit, but Decimator isn’t trying to get one over on anyone. This blue collar worship for classic metal presented in a manner that could only be as full-on as it is for it to work at all. No irony, no khakis, no bullshit.

Oxblood Forge on Facebook

Oxblood Forge on Bandcamp

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Wall, Vol. 2

They keep this up, they’re going to have a real band on their hands. Desert Storm/The Grand Mal bandmates and twin brothers Ryan Cole (guitar/bass) and Elliot Cole (drums) began Wall as a largely-instrumental quarantine project in 2020, issuing a self-titled EP (review here) on APF Records. Vol. 2 follows on the quick with five more cuts of unbridled groove, including a take on Karma to Burn‘s “Nineteen” that, if it needs to be said, serves as homage to Will Mecum, who passed away earlier this year. That song fits right in with a cruncher like “Avalanche” or “Speed Freak,” or even “The Tusk,” which also boasts a bit of layered guitar harmonies, feeling out new ground there and in the acousti-handclap-blues of “Falling From the Edge of Nowhere.” The fact that Wall have live dates booked — alongside The Grand Mal, no less — speaks further to their real-bandness, but Vol. 2 hardly leaves any doubt as it is.

Wall on Facebook

APF Records website

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Boozewa, Deb

The second self-recorded outing from Pennsylvania trio Boozewa, Deb, offers two songs to follow-up on Feb. 2021’s First Contact (review here) demo, keeping an abidingly raw, we-did-this-at-home feel — this time they sent the results to Tad Doyle for mastering — while pushing their sound demonstrably forward with “Deb” bringing bassist Jessica Baker to the fore vocally alongside drummer Mike Cummings. Guitarist Rylan Caspar contributes in that regard as well, and the results are admirably grunge-coated heavy rock and roll that let enough clarity through to establish a hook, while the shorter “Now. Stop.” edges toward a bit more lumber in its groove, at least until they punk it out with some shouts at the finish. Splitting hairs? You betcha. Maybe they’re just writing songs. The results are there waiting to be dug either way.

Boozewa on Instagram

Boozewa on Bandcamp

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Oh my breaking heart as we move into day seven of the Summer 2021 Quarterly Review and I am reminded that the wages of hubris are feeling like a dumbass later. I was loading up my laptop on Saturday — so pleased with how ahead-of-the-game I was able to stay all last week — when the thing decided it was gonna give itself some time off one way or the other.

I dropped it for repair about 20 minutes before the guy I’ve come to trust was closing shop. He said he’d be in touch on Monday. Needless to say, I’m on my backup cheapie Chromebook, reviewing off Bandcamp streams, eagerly awaiting that call which I can only hope has come in by the time this is posted. I’ll keep you in the loop, of course, but putting together the reviews for yesterday? That was not pretty.

I expressly thank The Patient Mrs., through whom all things are possible.

Onward.

Quarterly Review #61-70:

Geezer, Solstice

Geezer‘s ambition could hardly be clearer in their 17-minute “Solstice” jam. It was the Solstice — Winter 2020, to be specific — and the Kingston, New York, trio jammed. Guitarist/vocalist Pat Harrington (who doesn’t sing on the track) added some dreamy synth after the fact, and the affect is all the more hypnotic for it. Harrington, bassist Richie Touseull and drummer Steve Markota are no strangers to exploratory fare, as they showed on 2020’s righteous Groovy (review here), and as a Bandcamp Friday-era stopgap offering, “Solstice” brings a sampling of who they are in the rehearsal space, willing to be heavy, willing to not, ready to go where the music leads them. If Geezer wanted to do a whole full-length like this, I wouldn’t fight them, so you most definitely will not find me arguing against a digital single either. With jams this tasty, you take what you can get.

Geezer on Facebook

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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Spaceslug, The Event Horizon

Issued less as a stopgap, which a digital-only single might normally be, than as a response to the band having lost gear in a practice space flood, the 8:52 single-song outing The Event Horizon was recorded at the same time as Spaceslug‘s late 2020 EP The Leftovers (review here) and in a way acts to bridge the melancholy beyond-genre push of that release with the more weighted, spacious roll that has typified the Polish outfit’s work to-date — their latest full-length was 2019’s Reign of the Orion (review here), and they recently finished a new one. So perhaps “The Event Horizon,” with its hypnotically languid rhythm and concluding drift, is a stopgap after all, but between helping the band recoup their losses and thinking of what might be coming next, it’s an exciting if not-unalloyed listening experience, and the three-piece move deeper into a signature sound even as they continue to bring the definition of what that means to new places.

Spaceslug on Thee Facebooks

Spaceslug on Bandcamp

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Expo Seventy, Evolution

Creating sometimes-scorching, droning psychedelic soundtracks to all your favorite classic sci-fi films that never existed, Kansas City’s Expo Seventy offer a call to worship for freaks and converted heads on their new album, Evolution. Still headed by guitarist James Wright as on late-2016’s America Here and Now Sessions (review here), the band offer new glories celestial and terrestrial instrumental chemistry throughout the six tracks (seven on the CD) of Evolution, lumbering away on “Echoes of Ether” only after floating in brass-section antigrav conditions on “The Slow Death of Tomorrow.” Can you hang? You’ll know one way or the other as the culminating duo “Second Vision, First Sight” and “First Vision, Second Sight” are done with you, having altered dimensions so thoroughly that the ethereal will either come to feel like home or you will simply have melted. In any case, lash yourself to it. Own that shit.

Expo Seventy on Facebook

Essence Music on Bandcamp

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Boss Keloid, Family the Smiling Thrush

Peak-era Faith No More reborn in progressive heavy fuzz? What stoner rock might’ve been if it went to college instead of spending all that time hanging around talking about old cars? I don’t know where UK four-piece Boss Keloid ultimately stand on their admirable fifth LP, Family the Smiling Thrush — the follow-up to 2018’s also-well-received Melted on the Inch (review here) — but they most certainly stand on their own. Across seven tracks, the band careen, crash, lumber, rush and ponder — lyrics no less worth a close read than any other component — and from opener/longest track (immediate points) “Orang of Noyn” on, they make it abundantly clear that their style’s unpredictability is an asset, and that just because you might not know where they’re going next doesn’t mean they don’t. Melodic, complex and cerebral, there’s still a human presence here, a sense of a plan unfolding, that makes the album seem all the more masterful.

Boss Keloid on Facebook

Ripple Music on Bandcamp

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Bong-Ra, Antediluvian

Though it’s ultimately less electric-kool-aid than endless-churning-abyss-with-psychdelic-saxophone-screaming-up-at-you-like-free-jazz-trapped-in-the-downward-tonal-spiral, Bong-Ra‘s four-tracker Antediluvian is duly experimentalist in being born out of the mind of Jason Köhnen, whose work on this project not only extends more than 20 years, but who has been a part of landmark Dutch outfits like Celestial Season, The Kilmanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble and The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation, among scores of others. The procession on this full-length, originally released in 2018 through Svart Lava, is wild times indeed, but immersive despite feeling at times like a litmus for how much you can take, with Köhnen‘s bass/keys/etc. and Balazs Pandi‘s drums meeting with Colin Webster‘s saxophone and Chloe Herrington‘s bassoon, willfully plodding through long-ish form improv-seeming movements of atmospheric heft creation.

Jason Köhnen website

Tartarus Records store

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Zebu, Reek of the Parvenu

A coherent and forceful debut full-length, Reek of the Parvenu quickly shows the metallic undercurrent from Athens-based four-piece Zebu on opener “The Setting Dust,” and pushes from there in groove metal fashion, taking some impulses from heavy rock but holding largely to a central aggressive stance and tension in the rhythm that is a backdrop even as the later “Nature of Failure” breaks from its chugging shove for a quieter stretch. That is to say, the next punch is always coming, and Zebu‘s blows are effectively delivered — looking at you, “Burden” — though some of the slower, sludgier cuts like “Our Shame” or the doomier finale “The City” bring a welcome atmosphere to go with the coinciding burl. I’m not sure if “People Under the Stairs” wants to kick my ass or crack a beer, but the songwriting is air tight and the thrashy threat only contributes to the immediacy of the release on the whole. They’re not screwing around.

Zebu on Facebook

Zebu on Bandcamp

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Los Disidentes del Sucio Motel, Polaris

It’s been 11 years since France’s Los Disidentes del Sucio Motel debuted with Soundtrack From the Motion Picture (review here), an engaging, kind of silly play on stoner rock and B-movie tropes. Beneath that, however, it was also a concept album, and the band — who now seem to prefer LDDSM for a moniker — still work from that foundation on their fourth full-length, Polaris. The difference scope and sonic maturity. Rife with vocal harmonies and progressive flourish, the 10-track answer to 2016’s Human Collapse (review here) smoothly shifts between the patient and the urgent, the intimate and the grand — and that’s in the first two minutes of “Blue Giant” alone — finding their way into a proggy post-heavy rock that’s too clearheaded to be psychedelic, but that balances the crunch of “Horizon” with a sense of the otherworldly just the same.

Los Disidentes del Sucio Motel on Facebook

Klonosphere Records website

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LáGoon, Skullactic Visions

With their fourth long-player, guitarist/vocalist Anthony Gaglia and drummer Brady Maurer of Portland, Oregon’s LáGoon welcome bassist Kenny Combs to the fold and dive as a trio — their first three-piece outing was last year’s Father of Death EP — headfirst into murky riffing and heady heavy rock, made all the more spacious through cavern echo and the garage doom vocals Gaglia brings on the title-track, as well as the synth that surfaces on the subsequent interlude “Buried” and elsewhere throughout. The earlier “Beyond the Trees” is particularly bleak and otherworldly, but I won’t take away from the further-down procession of “Hill Bomb” and “The Slow Down” into “Final Ride,” the last of which closes out with scummer doom that’s familiar but distinct enough to be their own. There are moments on Skullactic Visions where, for as much as they could sound like Electric Wizard given the ingredients, I’m all the gladder they don’t.

LaGoon on Facebook

Interstellar Smoke Records webstore

Forbidden Place Records on Bandcamp

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Maha Sohona, Endless Searcher

Maha Sohona‘s second album comes some seven years after their self-titled debut, but who cares about time when you’ve got your headphones on and you’re surrounded by the richness of tone on offer throughout Endless Searcher‘s five rolling tracks? Heavy and laid back, the trio of guitarist/vocalist Johan Bernhardtson, bassist Thomas Hedlund and drummer David Lundsten finding some kinship with Polish three-piece Spaceslug in their post-Sungrazer blend of weight and flow, a jam like “Luftslot” nodding and conjuring depth even as it soars. Can’t argue with the quicker push of “A Black Star” or the purposefully straightforward “Scavengers” (where the title-line is delivered) but some of the mellow moments in opener “Leaves” and especially the building instrumental finisher “Orbit X” are even more satisfying for how effectively they move you place to place almost without your realizing it. I’ve got nothing for you if you can’t dig this vibe.

Maha Sohona on Facebook

Made of Stone Recordings on Bandcamp

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The Bad Sugar Rush, Liar/Push Me

Keen observers will recognize The Bad Sugar Rush vocalist René Hofmann from his work with Wight, but the work here alongside guitarist Josko Joke-Tovic, bassist Minyeong Fischer and drummer Peter Zettl is distinct from that other unit here, even as the Humble Pie-esque “Push Me” and semi-sleeze “Liar” both have some shade of funk to their procession. Both cuts circa four minutes makes for a suitable debut 7″ with respected purveyor H42 Records doing the honors, and the results are an encouragingly catchy display of what a first full-length might accomplish when and however such a thing emerges. There’s classic heavy rock as the foundation, but more than outright ’70s worship — though some of that too — it’s the organic feel of the songs that leaves an impression on the listener, though the background singers on “Push Me” don’t hurt in that regard, certainly. An auspicious and intriguind first showing.

The Bad Sugar Rush on Facebook

H42 Records website

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