Quarterly Review: Monkey3, The Quill, Nebula Drag, LLNN & Sugar Horse, Fuzzter, Cold in Berlin, The Mountain King, Witchorious, Skull Servant, Lord Velvet

Posted in Reviews on February 29th, 2024 by JJ Koczan

The-Obelisk-Quarterly-Review

Day four of five puts the end of this Quarterly Review in sight, as will inevitably happen. We passed the halfway point yesterday and by the time today’s done it’s the home stretch. I hope you’ve had a good week. It’s been a lot — and in terms of the general work level of the day, today’s my busiest day; I’ve got Hungarian class later and homework to do for that, and two announcements to write in addition to this, one for today one for tomorrow, and I need to set up the back end of another announcement for Friday if I can. The good news is that my daughter seems to be over the explosive-vomit-time stomach bug that had her out of school on Monday. The better news is I’ve yet to get that.

But if I’m scatterbrained generally and sort of flailing, well, as I was recently told after I did a video interview and followed up with the artist to apologize for my terribleness at it, at least it’s honest. I am who I am, and I think that there are places where people go and things people do that sometimes I have a hard time with. Like leaving the house. And parenting. And interviewing bands, I guess. Needing to plow through 10 reviews today and tomorrow should be a good exercise in focusing energy, even if that isn’t necessarily getting the homework done faster. And yeah, it’s weird to be in your 40s and think about homework. Everything’s weird in your 40s.

Quarterly Review #31-40:

Monkey3, Welcome to the Machine

monkey3 welcome to the machine

What are Monkey3 circa 2024 if not a name you can trust? The Swiss instrumental four-piece are now more than 20 years removed from their 2003 self-titled debut, and Welcome to the Machine — their seventh album and fourth release on Napalm Records (three studio, one live) — brings five new songs across 46 minutes of stately progressive heavy craft, with the lead cut “Ignition” working into an early gallop before cutting to ambience presumably as a manifestation of hitting escape velocity and leaving the planetary atmosphere, and trading from there between longer (10-plus-minute) and shorter (six- and seven-minute) pieces that are able to hit with a surprising impact when they so choose. Second track “Collision” comes to crush in a way that even 2019’s Sphere (review here) didn’t, and to go with its methodical groove, heavy post-rock airiness and layered-in acoustic guitar, “Kali Yuga” (10:01) is tethered by a thud of drums that feels no less the point of the thing than the mood-aura in the largesse that surrounds. Putting “Rackman” (7:13, with hints of voice or keyboard that sounds like it), which ends furiously, and notably cinematic closer “Collapse” (12:51) together on side B is a distinct immersion, and the latter places Monkey3 in a prog-metal context that defies stylistic expectation even as it lives up to the promise of the band’s oeuvre. Seven records and more than two decades on, and Monkey3 are still evolving. This is a special band, and in a Europe currently awash in heavy instrumentalism of varying degrees of psychedelia, it’s hard to think of Monkey3 as anything other than aesthetic pioneers.

Monkey3 on Facebook

Napalm Records website

The Quill, Wheel of Illusion

the quill wheel of illusion

With its Sabbath-born chug and bluesy initial groove opening to NWOBHM grandeur at the solo, the opening title-track is quick to reassure that Sweden’s The Quill are themselves on Wheel of Illusion, even if the corresponding classic metal elements there a standout from the more traditional rock of “Elephant Head” with its tambourine, or the doomier roll in “Sweet Mass Confusion,” also pointedly Sabbathian and thus well within the wheelhouse of guitarist Christian Carlsson, vocalist Magnus Ekwall, bassist Roger Nilsson and drummer Jolle Atlagic. While most of Wheel of Illusion is charged in its delivery, the still-upbeat “Rainmaker” feels like a shift in atmosphere after the leadoff and “We Burn,” and atmospherics come more into focus as the drums thud and the strings echo out in layers as “Hawks and Hounds” builds to its ending. While “The Last Thing” works keyboard into its all-go transition into nodding capper “Wild Mustang,” it’s the way the closer seems to encapsulate the album as a whole and the perspective brought to heavy rock’s founding tenets that make The Quill such reliable purveyors, and Wheel of Illusion comes across like special attention was given to the arrangements and the tightness of the songwriting. If you can’t appreciate kickass rock and roll, keep moving. Otherwise, whether it’s your first time hearing The Quill or you go back through all 10 of their albums, they make it a pleasure to get on board.

The Quill on Facebook

Metalville Records website

Nebula Drag, Western Death

Nebula Drag Western Death

Equal parts brash and disillusioned, Nebula Drag‘s Dec. 2023 LP, Western Death, is a ripper whether you’re dug into side ‘Western’ or side ‘Death.’ The first half of the psych-leaning-but-more-about-chemistry-than-effects San Diego trio’s third album offers the kind of declarative statement one might hope, with particular scorch in the guitar of Corey Quintana, sway and ride in Stephen Varns‘ drums and Garrett Gallagher‘s Sabbathian penchant for working around the riffs. The choruses of “Sleazy Tapestry,” “Kneecap,” “Side by Side,” “Tell No One” and the closing title-track speak directly to the listener, with the last of them resolved, “Look inside/See the signs/Take what you can,” and “Side by Side” a call to group action, “We don’t care how it gets done/Helpless is the one,” but there’s storytelling here too as “Tell No One” turns the sold-your-soul-to-play-music trope and turns it on its head by (in the narrative, anyhow) keeping the secret. Pairing these ideas with Nebula Drag‘s raw-but-not-sloppy heavy grunge, able to grunge-crunch on “Tell No One” even as the vocals take on more melodic breadth, and willing to let it burn as “Western Death” departs its deceptively angular riffing to cap the 34-minute LP with the noisy finish it has by then well earned.

Nebula Drag on Facebook

Desert Records store

LLNN & Sugar Horse, The Horror bw Sleep Paralysis Demon

LLNN Sugar Horse The Horror Sleep Paralysis Demon

Brought together for a round of tour dates that took place earlier this month, Pelagic Records labelmates LLNN (from Copenhagen) and Sugar Horse (from Bristol, UK) each get one track on a 7″ side for a showcase. Both use it toward obliterating ends. LLNN, who are one of the heaviest bands I’ve ever seen live and I’m incredibly grateful for having seen them live, dig into neo-industrial churn on “The Horror,” with stabbing synth later in the procession that underscores the point and less reliance on tonal onslaught than the foreboding violence of the atmosphere they create. In response, Sugar Horse manage to hold back their screams and lurching full-bore bludgeonry for nearly the first minute of “Sleep Paralysis Demon” and even after digging into it dare a return to cleaner singing, admirable in their restraint and more effectively tense for it when they push into caustic sludge churn and extremity, space in the guitar keeping it firmly in the post-metal sphere even as they aim their intent at rawer flesh. All told, the platter is nine of probably and hopefully-for-your-sake the most brutal minutes you might experience today, and thus can only be said to accomplish what it set out to do as the end product sounds like two studios would’ve needed rebuilding afterward.

LLNN on Facebook

Sugar Horse on Facebook

Pelagic Records website

Fuzzter, Pandemonium

fuzzter pandemonium

Fuzzter aren’t necessarily noisy in terms of playing noise rock on Pandemonium, but from the first cymbal crashes after the Oppenheimer sample at the start of “Extinción,” the Peruvian outfit engage an uptempo heavy psych thrust that, though directed, retains a chaotic aspect through the band’s willingness to be sound if not actually be reckless, to gang shout before the guitars drift off in “Thanatos,” to be unafraid of being eaten by their own swirl in “Caja de Pandora” or to chug with a thrashy intensity at the start of closer “Tercer Ojo,” doom out massive in the song’s middle, and float through jazzy minimalism at the finish. But even in that, there are flashes, bursts that emphasize the unpredictability of the songs, which is an asset throughout what’s listed as the Lima trio’s third EP but clocks in at 36 minutes with the instrumental “Purgatorio,” which starts off like it might be an interlude but grows more furious as its five minutes play out, tucked into its center. If it’s a short release, it is substantial. If it’s an album, it’s substantial despite a not unreasonable runtime. Ultimately, whatever they call it is secondary to the space-metal reach and the momentum fostered across its span, which just might carry you with it whether or not you thought you were ready to go.

Fuzzter on Facebook

Fuzzter on Instagram

Cold in Berlin, The Body is the Wound

cold in berlin the body is the wound

The listed representation of dreams in “Dream One” adds to the concrete severity of Cold in Berlin‘s dark, keyboard-laced post-metallic sound, but London-based four-piece temper that impact with the post-punk ambience around the shove of the later “Found Out” on their The Body is the Wound 19-minute four-songer, and build on the goth-ish sway even as “Spotlight” fosters a heavier, more doomed mindset behind vocalist Maya, whose verses in “When Did You See Her Last” are complemented by dramatic lines of keyboard and who can’t help but soar even as the overarching direction is down, down, down into either the subconscious referenced in “Dream One” or some other abyss probably of the listener’s own making. Five years and one actual-plague after their fourth full-length, 2019’s Rituals of Surrender, bordering on 15 since the band got their start, they cast resonance in mood as well as impact (the latter bolstered by Wayne Adams‘ production), and are dynamic in style as well as volume, with each piece on The Body is the Wound working toward its own ends while the EP’s entirety flows with the strength of its performances. They’re in multiple worlds, and it works.

Cold in Berlin on Facebook

Cold in Berlin website

The Mountain King, Apostasyn

the mountain king apostasyn

With the expansive songwriting of multi-instrumentalist/sometimes-vocalist Eric McQueen at its core, The Mountain King issue Apostasyn as possibly their 10th full-length in 10 years and harness a majestic, progressive doom metal that doesn’t skimp either on the doom or the metal, whether that takes the form of the Type O Negative-style keys in “The White Noise From God’s Radio” or the tremolo guitar in the apex of closer “Axolotl Messiah.” The title-track is a standout for more than just being 15 minutes long, with its death-doom crux and shifts between minimal and maximal volumes, and the opening “Dødo” just before fosters immersion after its maybe-banging-on-stuff-maybe-it’s-programmed intro, with a hard chug answered in melody by guest singer Julia Gusso, who joins McQueen and the returning Frank Grimbarth (also guitar) on vocals, while Robert Bished adds synth to McQueen‘s own. Through the personnel changes and in each piece’s individual procession, The Mountain King are patient, waiting in the dark for you to join them. They’ll probably just keep basking in all that misery until you get there, no worries. Oh, and I’ll note that the download version of Apostasyn comes with instrumental versions of the four tracks, in case you’d really like to lose yourself in ruminating.

The Mountain King on Facebook

The Mountain King on Bandcamp

Witchorious, Witchorious

WITCHORIOUS SELF TITLED

The self-titled debut from Parisian doomers Witchorious is distinguished by its moments of sludgier aggression — the burly barks in “Monster” at the outset, and so on — but the chorus of “Catharsis” that rises from the march of the verse offers a more melodic vision, and the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Antoine Auclair, bassist/vocalist Lucie Gaget and drummer Paul Gaget, continue to play to multiple sides of a modern metal and doom blend, while “The Witch” adds vastness and roll to its creeper-riff foundation. The guitar-piece “Amnesia” serves as an interlude ahead of “Watch Me Die” as Witchorious dig into the second half of the album, and as hard has that song comes to hit — plenty — the character of the band is correspondingly deepened by the breadth of “To the Grave,” which follows before the bonus track “Why” nod-dirges the album’s last hook. There’s clarity in the craft throughout, and Witchorious seem aware of themselves in stylistic terms if not necessarily writing to style, and noteworthy as it is for being their first record, I look forward to hearing how they refine and sharpen the methods laid out in these songs. The already-apparent command with which they direct the course here isn’t to be ignored.

Witchorious on Facebook

Argonauta Records website

Skull Servant, Traditional Black Magicks II

skull servant traditional black magicks ii

Though their penchant for cult positioning and exploitation-horror imagery might lead expectations elsewhere, North Carolinian trio Skull Servant present a raw, sludge-rocking take on their second LP, Traditional Black Magicks II, with bassist Noah Terrell and guitarist Calvin Bauer reportedly swapping vocal duties per song across the five tracks while drummer Ryland Dreibelbis gives fluidity to the current of distortion threaded into “Absinthe Dreams,” which is instrumental on the album but newly released as a standalone single with vocals. I don’t know if the wrong version got uploaded or what — Bauer ends up credited with vocals that aren’t there — but fair enough. A meaner, punkier stonerism shows itself as “Poison the Unwell” hints at facets of post-hardcore and “Pergamos,” the two shortest pieces placed in front of the strutting “Lucifer’s Reefer” and between that cut and the Goatsnake-via-Sabbath riffing of “Satan’s Broomstick.” So it could be that Skull Servant, who released the six-song outing on Halloween 2023, are still sorting through where they want to be sound-wise, or it could be they don’t give a fuck about genre convention and are gonna do whatever they please going forward. I won’t predict and I’m not sure either answer is wrong.

Skull Servant on Facebook

Skull Servant on Bandcamp

Lord Velvet, Astral Lady

lord velvet astral lady

Notice of arrival is served as Lord Velvet dig into classic vibes and modern heft on their late 2023 debut EP, Astral Lady, to such a degree that I actually just checked their social media to see if they’d been signed yet before I started writing about them. Could happen, and probably will if they want it to, considering the weight of low end and the flowing, it’s-a-vibe-man vibe, plus shred, in “Lament of Io” and the way they make that lumber boogie through (most of) “Snakebite Fever.” Appearing in succession, “Night Terrors” and “From the Deep” channel stoned Iommic revelry amid their dynamic-in-tempo doomed intent, and while “Black Beam of Gemini” rounds out with a shove, Lord Velvet retain the tonal presence on the other end of that quick, quiet break, ready to go when needed for the crescendo. They’re not reinventing stoner rock and probably shouldn’t be trying to on this first EP, but they feel like they’re engaging with some of the newer styles being proffered by Magnetic Eye or sometimes Ripple Music, and if they end up there or elsewhere before they get around to making a full-length, don’t be surprised. If they plan to tour, so much the better for everybody.

Lord Velvet on Facebook

Lord Velvet website

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Quarterly Review: Slift, Grin, Pontiac, The Polvos, The Cosmic Gospel, Grave Speaker, Surya Kris Peters, GOZD, Sativa Root, Volt Ritual

Posted in Reviews on February 26th, 2024 by JJ Koczan

The-Obelisk-Quarterly-Review

Admittedly, there’s some ambition in my mind calling this the ‘Spring 2024 Quarterly Review.’ I’m done with winter and March starts on Friday, so yeah, it’s kind of a reach as regards the traditional seasonal patterns of Northern New Jersey where I live, but hell, these things actually get decided here by pissing off a rodent. Maybe it doesn’t need to be so rigidly defined after all.

After doing QRs for I guess about nine years now, I finally made myself a template for the back-end layout. It’s not a huge leap, but will mean about five more minutes I can dedicate to listening, and when you’re trying to touch on 50 records in the span of a work week and attempt some semblance of representing what they’re about, five minutes can help. Still, it’s a new thing, and if you see ‘ARTIST’ listed where a band’s name should be or LINK where ‘So and So on Facebook’ goes, a friendly comment letting me know would be helpful.

Thanks in advance and I hope you find something in all of this to come that speaks to you. I’ll try to come up for air at some point.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

Slift, Ilion

Slift Ilion

One of the few non-billionaire groups of people who might be able to say they had a good year in 2020, Toulouse, France, spaceblasters Slift signed to Sub Pop on the strength of that wretched year’s Ummon (review here) and the spectacle-laced live shows with which they present their material. Their ideology is cosmic, their delivery markedly epic, and Ilion pushes the blinding light and the rhythmic force directly at you, creating a sweeping momentum contrasted by ambient stretches like that tucked at the end of 12-minute hypnotic planetmaker “The Words That Have Never Been Heard,” the drone finale “Enter the Loop” or any number of spots between along the record’s repetition-churning, willfully-overblown 79-minute course of builds and surging payoffs. A cynic might tell you it’s not anything Hawkwind didn’t do in 1974 offered with modern effects and beefier tones, but, uh, is that really something to complain about? The hype around Ilion hasn’t been as fervent as was for Ummon — it’s a different moment — but Slift have set themselves on a progressive course and in the years to come, this may indeed become their most influential work. For that alone it’s among 2024’s most essential heavy albums, never mind the actual journey of listening. Bands like this don’t happen every day.

Slift on Facebook

Sub Pop Records website

Grin, Hush

grin hush

The only thing keeping Grin from being punk rock is the fact that they don’t play punk. Otherwise, the self-recording, self-releasing (on The Lasting Dose Records) Berlin metal-sludge slingers tick no shortage of boxes as regards ethic, commitment to an uncompromised vision of their sound, and on Hush, their fourth long-player which features tracks from 2023’s Black Nothingness (review here), they sharpen their attack to a point that reminds of dug-in Swedish death metal on “Pyramid” with a winding lead line threaded across, find post-metallic ambience in “Neon Skies,” steamroll with the groove of the penultimate “The Tempest of Time,” and manage to make even the crushing “Midnight Blue Sorrow” — which arrives after the powerful opening statement of “Hush” “Calice” and “Gatekeeper” — have a sense of creative reach. With Sabine Oberg on bass and Jan Oberg handling drums, guitar, vocals, noise and production, they’ve become flexible enough in their craft to harness raw charge or atmospheric sprawl at will, and through 16 songs and 40 minutes (“Portal” is the longest track at 3:45), their intensity is multifaceted, multi-angular, and downright ripping. Aggression suits this project, but that’s never all that’s happening in Grin, and they’re stronger for that.

Grin on Facebook

The Lasting Dose Records on Bandcamp

Pontiac, Hard Knox

pontiac hard knox

A debut solo-band outing from guitarist, bassist, vocalist and songwriter Dave Cotton, also of Seven Nines and Tens, Pontiac‘s Hard Knox lands on strictly limited tape through Coup Sur Coup Records and is only 16 minutes long, but that’s time enough for its six songs to find connections in harmony to Beach Boys and The Beatles while sometimes dropping to a singular, semi-spoken verse in opener/longest track (immediate points, even though four minutes isn’t that long) “Glory Ragged,” which moves in one direction, stops, reorients, and shifts between genres with pastoralism and purpose. Cotton handles six-string and 12-string, but isn’t alone in Pontiac, as his Seven Nines and Tens bandmate Drew Thomas Christie handles drums, Adam Vee adds guitar, drums, a Coke bottle and a Brita filter, and CJ Wallis contributes piano to the drifty textures of “Road High” before “Exotic Tattoos of the Millennias” answers the pre-christofascism country influence shown on “Counterculture Millionaire” with an oldies swing ramble-rolling to a catchy finish. For fun I’ll dare a wild guess that Cotton‘s dad played that stuff when he was a kid, as it feels learned through osmosis, but I have no confirmation of that. It is its own kind of interpretation of progressive music, and as the beginning of a new exploration, Cotton opens doors to a swath of styles that cross genres in ways few are able to do and remain so coherent. Quick listen, and it dares you to keep up with its changes and patterns, but among its principal accomplishments is to make itself organic in scope, with Cotton cast as the weirdo mastermind in the center. They’ll reportedly play live, so heads up.

Pontiac on Bandcamp

Coup Sur Coup Records on Bandcamp

The Polvos!, Floating

the polvos floating

Already fluid as they open with the rocker “Into the Space,” exclamatory Chilean five-piece The Polvos! delve into more psychedelic reaches in “Fire Dance” and the jammy and (appropriately) floaty midsection of “Going Down,” the centerpiece of their 35-minute sophomore LP, Floating. That song bursts to life a short time later and isn’t quite as immediate as the charge of “Into the Space,” but serves as a landmark just the same as “Acid Waterfall” and “The Anubis Death” hold their tension in the drums and let the guitars go adventuring as they will. There’s maybe some aspect of Earthless influence happening, but The Polvos! meld that make-it-bigger mentality with traditional verse/chorus structures and are more grounded for it even as the spaces created in the songs give listeners an opportunity for immersion. It may not be a revolution in terms of style, but there is a conversation happening here with modern heavy psych from Europe as well that adds intrigue, and the band never go so far into their own ether so as to actually disappear. Even after the shreddy finish of “The Anubis Death,” it kind of feels like they might come back out for an encore, and you know, that’d be just fine.

The Polvos! on Facebook

Surpop Records website

Smolder Brains Records on Bandcamp

Clostridium Records store

The Cosmic Gospel, Cosmic Songs for Reptiles in Love

The Cosmic Gospel Cosmic Songs for Reptiles in Love

With a current of buzz-fuzz drawn across its eight component tracks that allow seemingly disparate moves like the Blondie disco keys in “Hot Car Song” to emerge from the acoustic “Core Memory Unlocked” before giving over to the weirdo Casio-beat bounce of “Psychrolutes Marcidus Man,” a kind of ’60s character reimagined as heavy bedroom indie, The Cosmic Gospel‘s Cosmic Songs for Reptiles in Love isn’t without its resentments, but the almost-entirely-solo-project of Mercata, Italy-based multi-instrumentalist Gabriel Medina is more defined by its sweetness of melody and gentle delivery on the whole. An experiment like the penultimate “Wrath and Gods” carries some “Revolution 9” feel, but Medina does well earlier to set a broad context amid the hook of opener “It’s Forever Midnight” and the subsequent, lightly dub beat and keyboard focus on “The Richest Guy on the Planet is My Best Friend,” such that when closer “I Sew Your Eyes So You Don’t See How I Eat Your Heart” pairs the malevolent intent of its title with light fuzzy soloing atop an easy flowing, summery flow, the album has come to make its own kind of sense and define its path. This is exactly what one would most hope for it, and as reptiles are cold-blooded, they should be used to shifts in temperature like those presented throughout. Most humans won’t get it, but you’ve never been ‘most humans,’ have you?

The Cosmic Gospel on Facebook

Bloody Sound website

Grave Speaker, Grave Speaker

grave speaker grave speaker

Massachusetts garage doomers Grave Speaker‘s self-titled debut was issued digitally by the band this past Fall and was snagged by Electric Valley Records for a vinyl release. The Mellotron melancholia that pervades the midsection of the eponymous “Grave Speaker” justifies the wax, but the cult-leaning-in-sound-if-not-theme outfit that marks a new beginning for ex-High n’ Heavy guitarist John Steele unfurl a righteously dirty fuzz over the march of “Blood of Old” at the outset and then immediately up themselves in the riffy stoner delve of “Earth and Mud.” The blown-out vocals on the latter, as well as the far-off-mic rawness of “The Bard’s Theme” that surrounds its Hendrixian solo, remind of a time when Ice Dragon roamed New England’s troubled woods, and if Grave Speaker will look to take on a similar trajectory of scope, they do more than drop hints of psychedelia here, in “Grave Speaker” and elsewhere, but they’re no more beholden to that than the Sabbathism of capper “Make Me Crawl” or the cavernous echo of “Earthbound.” It’s an initial collection, so one expects they’ll range some either way with time, but the way the production becomes part of the character of the songs speaks to a strong idea of aesthetic coming through, and the songwriting holds up to that.

Grave Speaker on Instagram

Electric Valley Records website

Surya Kris Peters, There’s Light in the Distance

Surya Kris Peters There's Light in the Distance

While at the same time proffering his most expansive vision yet of a progressive psychedelia weighted in tone, emotionally expressive and able to move its focus fluidly between its layers of keyboard, synth and guitar such that the mix feels all the more dynamic and the material all the more alive (there’s an entire sub-plot here about the growth in self-production; a discussion for another time), Surya Kris Peters‘ 10-song/46-minute There’s Light in the Distance also brings the former Samsara Blues Experiment guitarist/vocalist closer to uniting his current projects than he’s yet been, the distant light here blurring the line where Surya Kris Peters ends and the emergently-rocking Fuzz Sagrado begins. This process has been going on for the last few years following the end of his former outfit and a relocation from Germany to Brazil, but in its spacious second half as well as the push of its first, a song like “Mode Azul” feels like there’s nothing stopping it from being played on stage beyond personnel. Coinciding with that are arrangement details like the piano at the start of “Life is Just a Dream” or the synth that gives so much movement under the echoing lead in “Let’s Wait Out the Storm,” as Peters seems to find new avenues even as he works his way home to his own vision of what heavy rock can be.

Fuzz Sagrado on Facebook

Electric Magic Records on Bandcamp

Gozd, Unilateralis

gozd unilateralis

Unilateralis is the four-song follow-up EP to Polish heavydelvers Gozd‘s late-2023 debut album, This is Not the End, and its 20-plus minutes find a place for themselves in a doom that feels both traditional and forward thinking across eight-minute opener and longest track (immediate points, even for an EP) “Somewhere in Between” before the charge of “Rotten Humanity” answers with brasher thrust and aggressive-undercurrent stoner rock with an airy post-metallic break in the middle and rolling ending. From there, “Thanatophobia” picks up the energy from its ambient intro and explodes into its for-the-converted nod, setting up a linear build after its initial verses and seeing it through with due diligence in noise, and closer “Tentative Minds” purposefully hypnotizes with its vague-speech in the intro and casual bassline and drum swing before the riff kicks in for the finale. The largesse of its loudest moments bolster the overarching atmosphere no less than the softest standalone guitar parts, and Gozd seem wholly comfortable in the spaces between microgenres. A niche among niches, but that’s also how individuality happens, and it’s happening here.

Gozd on Facebook

BSFD Records on Facebook

Sativa Root, Kings of the Weed Age

Sativa Root Kings of the Weed Age

You wouldn’t accuse Austria’s Sativa Root of thematic subtlety on their third album, Kings of the Weed Age, which broadcasts a stoner worship in offerings like “Megalobong” and “Weedotaur” and probably whatever “F.A.T.” stands for, but that’s not what they’re going for anyway. With its titular intro starting off, spoken voices vague in the ambience, “Weedotaur”‘s 11 minutes lumber with all due bong-metallian slog, and the crush becomes central to the proceedings if not necessarily unipolar in terms of the band’s approach. That is to say, amid the onslaught of volume and tonal density in “Green Smegma” and the spin-your-head soloing in “Assassins Weed” (think Assassins Creed), the instrumentalist course undertaken may be willfully monolithic, but they’re not playing the same song five times on six tracks and calling it new. “F.A.T.” begins on a quiet stretch of guitar that recalls some of YOB‘s epics, complementing both the intro and “Weedotaur,” before bringing its full weight down on the listener again as if to underscore the message of its stoned instrumental catharsis on its way out the door. They sound like they could do this all day. It can be overwhelming at times, but that’s not really a complaint.

Sativa Root on Facebook

Sativa Root on Bandcamp

Volt Ritual, Return to Jupiter

volt ritual return to jupiter

Comprised of guitarist/vocalist Mateusz, bassist Michał and drummer Tomek, Polish riffcrafters Volt Ritual are appealingly light on pretense as they offer Return to Jupiter‘s four tracks, and though as a Star Trek fan I can’t get behind their lyrical impugning of Starfleet as they imagine what Earth colonialism would look like to a somehow-populated Jupiter, they’re not short on reasons to be cynical, if in fact that’s what’s happening in the song. “Ghostpolis” follows the sample-laced instrumental opener “Heavy Metal is Good for You” and rolls loose but accessible even in its later shouts before the more uptempo “Gwiazdolot” swaps English lyrics for Polish (casting off another cultural colonialization, arguably) and providing a break ahead of the closing title-track, which is longer at 7:37 and a clear focal point for more than just bearing the name of the EP, summarizing as it does the course of the cuts before it and even bringing a last scream as if to say “Ghostpolis” wasn’t a fluke. Their 2022 debut album began with “Approaching Jupiter,” and this Return feels organically built off that while trying some new ideas in its effects and general structure. One hopes the plot continues in some way next time along this course.

Volt Ritual on Facebook

Volt Ritual on Bandcamp

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Karkara Announce Spring Tour Plans; All is Dust Out March 22

Posted in Whathaveyou on February 21st, 2024 by JJ Koczan

Heading out from their home in Toulouse, France, on March 13 puts Karkara a little more than a week ahead of the arrival of their new album, All is Dust, which is out March 22. The record brings together heavy psych rock and classic impulses born of kraut and space rock(s) that feels current-gen in its expanded mindset, digging less into Easternism in terms of balance than did 2020’s Nowhere Land (review here), but still showing that dug-in side somewhat on the advance track “Anthropia” that you can stream below. Progressive in its texturing, it is nonetheless an easy, and pleasurable, ride to take into a communal unconscious.

Though some of the shows are split up — that is, the chunk of dates below isn’t all concurrent — gives a chance to see further ahead to the band’s summer plans, as they’ll make stops at Rabastock in July and Krach am Bach in August. They call this ‘the first round,’ so it wouldn’t be a surprise if a second one followed in summer, or certainly a stint through sundry Fall fests would be a possibility and will be all the more after the record, which is Karkara‘s third overall, lands next month. In the meantime, intermittent teaming with spacey spearheads Slift feels appropriate. You’ll find those dates noted below among the others in Europe and the UK.

Right under the poster, in blue. Can’t miss ’em:

Karkara tour

Hello friends 🖤

We’re thrilled to announce the first round of the ALL IS DUST tour.

We’re sharing gigs with SLIFT on this so dig in 🖖✨

Can’t wait to see you all 👇

🇫🇷 13.03 – Toulouse, Le Bikini | w/ SLIFT
🇫🇷 29.03 – Ventabren, Secret Place
🇫🇷 30.30 – Marseille, L’Intermediaire Live
🇫🇷 31.03 – Chambery, Brin de Zinc
🇫🇷 02.04 – Dijon, Singe en Hiver Asso Mondofuzz
🇳🇱 03.04 – Luxembourg, Rockhal | w/ SLIFT
🇨🇭 04.04 – Zurich, Mascotte Club Zürich | w/ SLIFT
🇫🇷 05 .04 – Lyon, L’Épicerie Moderne / salle musiques actuelles | w/ SLIFT
🇫🇷 06.04 – Paris, La Mécanique Ondulatoire
🇫🇷 10.04 – Rouen, Le 3 Pièces Muzik’Club
🇫🇷 11.04 – Lille, La Bulle Café – Maison Folie Moulins
🇫🇷 12.04 – Ardres, Le saxhorn
🇧🇪 13.04 – Bruxelles, Cheval Marin Brussels
🇫🇷 15.04 – Vannes, Le barailleur
🇬🇧 16.05 – London, Strongroom
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 17.05 – Edinburgh, Bannermans Live
🇬🇧 19.05 – Newcastle, Star and Shadow. Wandering Oak
🇬🇧 21.05 – Leicester, The Musician
🇬🇧 23.05 – Lancaster, The kanteena
🇬🇧 24.05 – Bristol, The Lanes
🇬🇧 25.05 – Cambridge, TBA
🇧🇪 22.06 – Namur, Ramd’Âm
🇫🇷 20.07 – Rabastock Festival
🇩🇪 02.08 – Krach am Bach

Stolen Body Records | EXAG’ Records | Le Cèpe Records | Bullet Seed | NRV Promotion

LINE UP :
Karim Rihani – Guitar , Vocals , Didgeridoo
Hugo Olive – Bass
Maxime Marouani – Drums , Vocals

https://www.facebook.com/karkararock/
https://www.instagram.com/karkara_band/
https://karkara.bandcamp.com/

https://stolenbodyrecords.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/stolenbodyrecords/
https://www.instagram.com/stolenbodyrecords/

Karkara, All is Dust (2024)

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Mars Red Sky Announce More Touring for Spring

Posted in Whathaveyou on February 8th, 2024 by JJ Koczan

Pardon me for just a minute as I once again go look at flight prices from Newark, NJ, to Austin, TX, where this September, Mars Red Sky (along with Dozer and literally dozens of others) will take part in Ripplefest Texas 2024 from Sept. 19-22, unquestionably the largest of the various city-based Ripplefest franchises. My motivation in doing so comes from putting on Mars Red Sky‘s Dec. 2023 album, Dawn of the Dusk (review here) and imagining a world in which basically I don’t fly to Texas to see them play live. I don’t want to live in that world. It’s $297 on United right now. That doesn’t seem so bad, but then you get into lodging.

Ripplefest is but one stop the Bordeaux trio will make as they support Dawn of the Dusk over the course of this year, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some other US shows were announced as well. Ditto that for the UK the month after. Australia? South America? Japan? Not a lot of places I can imagine they wouldn’t find welcome.

Fests and club shows and dates with Stoned Jesus; oh my. From social media:

mars red sky new shows spring 2024

MARS RED SKY – TOUR ANNOUNCEMENT

Stoked to unveil a bunch of new gigs in Germany, Denmark, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, France and the UK! Can’t wait to see your faces!! Game plan below, presales links here: https://marsredsky.rocks/tour

07.02.2024 LYON (FR) Marché Gare
10.02.2024 CAEN (FR) BIG BAND CAFE **
17.02.2024 PAU (FR) La Ferronnerie
22.02.2024 DIJON (FR) Consortium Museum
23.02.2024 MONDORF LES BAINS (LU) Casino 2000 Mondorf-les-Bains
24.02.2024 EINDHOVEN (NL) Into The Void
21.03.2024 ANGERS (FR) Le Chabada – Angers (club et salle de concerts)
22.03.2024 SAINT-BRIEUC (FR) DRAKK METAL FEST officiel
23.03.2024 AMIENS(FR) 1001 Bières Amiens
03.04.2024 PARIS (FR) Le Trabendo **
04.04.2024 BREST (FR) Cabaret Vauban
20.04.2024 HONDARRIBIA (SP) Psylocibenea *
21.04.2024 PORTO (PT) Hard Club *
22.04.2024 LISBON (PT) LAV – Lisboa ao Vivo *
23.04.2024 MADRID (SP) nazcacluboficial *
24.04.2024 BARCELONA (SP) Razzmatazz (Sala 3) *
25.04.2024 TOULOUSE (FR) ) Le Rex de Toulouse *
26.04.2024 TOULON(FR) Omega Live *
24.05.2024 LE GRAND-PRESSIGNY (FR) JURASSIC FEST 2024
28.05.2024 KARLSHRUE (DE) Alte Hackerei
29.05.2024 MUNICH (DE) Feierwerk
30.05.2024 WIESBADEN (DE) Schlachthof Wiesbaden
01.06.2024 ESBJERG (DK) Esbjerg Fuzztival
02.06.2024 HAMBURG (DE) Hafenklang Hamburg
04.06.2024 LEIPZIG (DE) Soltmann
05.06.2024 BRAUNSCHWEIG (DE) B58 – Braunschweigs behänder Live-Club!
06.06.2024 BOCHUNM (DE) Die Trompete
07.06.2024 LEEUWARDEN (NL) Metalfestival Into The Grave
08.06.2024 CAMBRAI (FR) BetiZFest
14.06.2024 LA ROCHE SUR YON (FR) QUAI M
23.06.2024 LA SARRAZ (CH) Humus & Wine
19.09.2024 AUSTIN (USA) RippleFest Texas
19.10.2024 GLASGOW (UK) Sword of Damocles Festival
* with Stoned Jesus
** with HINT

MARS RED SKY are:
Julien Pras : guitar, vocals
Jimmy Kinast : bass, vocals
Mathieu “Matgaz” Gazeau : drums, vocals

http://www.facebook.com/marsredskyband/
https://marsredsky.bigcartel.com/
http://www.marsredsky.net
https://mrsredsound.com/

https://www.facebook.com/mrsredsound33
https://www.instagram.com/mrsredsound/
https://mrsredsound.com/

https://www.facebook.com/viciouscirclerec
https://www.instagram.com/vicious_circle_records
https://viciouscircle.bandcamp.com/
https://www.viciouscircle.fr/

Mars Red Sky, Dawn of the Dusk (2023)

Mars Red Sky, “The Final Round” official video

Mars Red Sky, “Break Even” official video

Mars Red Sky, “Maps of Inferno” official video

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Homecoming Premiere “Gift of Eyes”; Those We Knew Due April 19

Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on January 23rd, 2024 by JJ Koczan

HOMECOMING (Photo by Fab William Alexander)

Homecoming, whose very moniker speaks to their desire to evoke an emotional response in their listener — no matter who you are or what it is, you feel some way about the notion of going home — will release their second album this Spring. Titled Those We Knew as if to underscore the evocative point, the six-song outing follows late-2019’s LP01 (review here) and is the band’s first for UK imprint Copper Feast Records, which snagged the band this past summer following their appearance at Desertfest London 2023.

The Parisian four-piece draw as much from progressive metal as progressive heavy rock, and they meet the nine-minute urgency-parade of “Tell Me Something” at the album’s outset with the slower creep into volume of the subsequent “Red Rose,” which begins acoustic and follows a linear course of emotive heavy focused more in the melodic flow where the song prior spun heads on the way to, well, spinning more. Elements recognizable from the likes of Mastodon, Neurosis, maybe even Paris’ own Abrahma or similarly textured units given to shimmering guitars like those heard in “Gift of Eyes,” which premieres below and closes the record.

It’s not a minor journey to get there as regards acquiring bumps and bruises,Homecoming Those We Knew but Homecoming offer encouragement along the way and the scope of “Tell Me Something,” the smoothness with which it departs its earlier aggro-isms for more atmospheric fare before building back up around blackened squigglies and a chugging rush, sets up (and fulfills) any expectation or anticipation for breadth one might have. Like the music propelling them, the vocals are dynamic, switching between lower-register cleans and harsher growls. By the time “Gift of Eyes” lays out its headspinning course, Homecoming have already brought that melodic style into focus on “Red Rose,” set up the bright-toned intertwining leads of “Blood of My Blood” as well as its screaming payoff, subtly reaffirmed their penchant for ironic titles with “Interlude II” at 9:02 (though some days we all need a nine-minute interlude), and landed in the 11-minute “Shores.”

The latter pushes guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Théo Alves Guiter, guitarist/backing vocalist Renaud Fumey-Seguy, bassist Basile Chevalier and drummer Theo Giotti about as far they go, but there’s another level of intensity reserved for “Gift of Eyes,” the position of which as the closer after “Shores” would make it an epilogue were it not so forcefully delivered. Pairing the melodic singing and contorting riffery gives the track a particularly progressive feel even among its compatriots, and with lyrical mention of symmetry to boot, Homecoming tie that proggy urgency back to the start of Those We Knew before dropping everything.

Minimalism and consumption follow, in that order, to end the record. Homecoming let go of the angularity that brought them through the first half of “Gift of Eyes” and dig into quiet standalone guitar, but the explosion is coming and they rightly saved the more extreme barks for the second half. Speaking of epilogues, though, “Gift of Eyes” has its own in the subdued, sweetly contemplative guitar that ends after the assault has subsided. Like “Tell Me Something New,” or “Shores,” or hell, even “Interlude II,” it’s kind of an album unto itself.

So much the better that you can hear it here. Comment from the band and info from the PR wire follows.

Please enjoy:

Théo Guiter on “Gift of Eyes”:

This tune is a treatise of the hubris of which man is capable, the folly of attempting to grasp the infinite and the possibility of stumbling upon something far greater, as incomprehensible in its immensity as in its designs. Each glance demands a sacrifice, a gift.

Lyrics:
Light, filtered through bars
Can’t conceal the stars
Demented by the erudite scroll I correlate it all

Halls carved in strange stone, The symmetry is wrong
Thrown into this cell
Entombed in waking hell
Demented by the effort of it all
Don’t let me fall asleep

Halls hewn in strange stone, The symmetry is gone

Now the walls they grow and writhe
I hear the wails of thousand lives
Calling me there
Anywhere’s better than here

Now they seem to carry on
To conclude their fateful song
Calling me home
Take my eyes for your throne

Wrenching the macula brings no anguish
Keeping these is all but useless
Adorn the vitreous wreath with this gift of eyes

Light
Eyes on the inside
This my gift to you
Borne to spy the space between the veil and and all that we were meant to see

New album ‘Those We Knew’
Out April 19th 2024 on Copper Feast Records
LP, CD, download and streaming

The album reveals the band’s well-honed personality, fusing grunge, 90s rock and progressive metal. “Those We Knew” showcases remarkable vocal work that guides the listener through various musical tableaux. The vocals adapt to the moods and unite the tracks, tying together the influences. The gloomy, heavy, sometimes hushed 90s tones collide with endless imagination, peppered by ethereal atmospheres, enticing introspection.

TRACK LISTING ‘THOSE WE KNEW’
1. Tell Me Something
2. Red Rose
3. Blood Of My Blood
4. Interlude II
5. Shores
6. Gift Of Eyes

Lyrics composed by Theo Alves Guiter
Mixed and mastered by Francis Caste at Sainte-Marthe Studios, Paris.
Artwork by Vaderetro Studios

Produced by Noon Brings The Fire
Distributed by Copper Feast Records
Promoted by Shake Promotion

Homecoming are:
Voices : Théo Alves Guiter
Backing vocals : Théo Alves Guiter, Renaud Fumey-Seguy
Guitars : Théo Alves Guiter, Renaud Fumey-Seguy
Bass : Basile Chevalier
Drums : Theo Giotti (“Atc De Giotto”)

Homecoming on Instagram

Homecoming on Facebook

Homecoming on Bandcamp

Copper Feast Records on Facebook

Copper Feast Records on Instagram

Copper Feast Records on Bandcamp

Copper Feast Records BigCartel store

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Empty Full Space Sign to Spinda Records; Debut Album From the Limbo Out March 20

Posted in Whathaveyou on January 17th, 2024 by JJ Koczan

empty full space

Powerblaster space rock from France, you say? Seems fair to expect a lot of that kind of thing over the next few years, so it’s so much the better that Empty Full Space are working quickly to get their debut LP out. March 20 will be the release date, Spinda Records has gotten behind the offering as part of an ongoing expansion of geography and sound for the Spanish imprint, and the band had a teaser on socials that you can see at the bottom of this post. I guess that’s everything you need to know, so I’ll just add that, yeah, I was being a little glib in that first sentence about cosmic heavy taking off in France in the wake of Slift‘s ascent, but it’s pretty obvious Empty Full Space are on their own kind of trip.

If you’re feeling adventurous, that teaser is down there, and the PR wire has more on From the Limbo, which is the offering to come. Dig:

empty full space from the limbo

EMPTY FULL SPACE joins Spinda Records

Here at Spinda Records we proudly welcome to our family the young French band Empty Full Space, formed by Nico (guitars, lead vocals), Flo (drums, backing vocals), Edgar (synths, percussions), Antoine (bass) y Max (guitars).

Inspired by legendary bands such as Hawkwind and Can, as well as contemporaries like King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard and Osees, these five musicians from the heart of Paris bring to our label a fusion of psychedelia, krautrock, postpunk, and shoegaze.

Only 6 months after we received an email introducing them as a band, we are thrilled to announce that on March 20, we will release their debut album titled ‘From The Limbo’. Prior to that, on January 25, we’ll be launching a first single for you to try this first offering from Empty Full Space. Digital, compact disc and vinyl editions will be available. Stay tuned for a musical journey that promises to captivate your senses!

What Empty Full Space says: “We feel grateful and proud to release our debut album with Spinda Records. It’s truly meaningful for us to spread our music the way we love. We’ve been working on this record for over a year, and we’re thrilled that it’s about to see the light very soon.

TRACK-LIST
1. From The Limbo
2. Morphogen
3. The Wheel
4. Amnesia
5. Have you seen the witch?
6. 2C

First single: Jan 25
Release: March 20

Formats:
* digital
* compact disc
* vinyl

https://www.facebook.com/emptyfullspace/
https://www.instagram.com/emptyfullspace/
https://emptyfullspace.bandcamp.com/
https://www.emptyfull.space/

https://www.facebook.com/SpindaRecords
https://www.instagram.com/spindarecords
https://spindarecords.bandcamp.com/
https://www.spindarecords.com/

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Album Premiere, Review & Interview: Mars Red Sky, Dawn of the Dusk

Posted in audiObelisk, Features, Reviews on December 7th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

Mars Red Sky Dawn of the Dusk

Tomorrow, Dec. 7, is the release date for Dawn of the Dusk, the fifth full-length from Bordeaux, France, progressive heavy psychedelic rockers Mars Red Sky. Issuing through Vicious Circle Records and the band’s own Mrs Red Sound, it is their first LP since 2019’s The Task Eternal (review here), and it comes preceded by the earlier-2023 EP, Mars Red Sky & Queen of the Meadow (review here), which paired the trio of guitarist/vocalist Julian Pras, bassist/occasional-vocalist Jimmy Kinast and drummer Mathieu “Matgaz” Gazeau with folk singer Helen Ferguson, otherwise known as Queen of the Meadow. A past and present collaborator with Pras in his and her solo work, she both fit with the band and delivered a standout lead vocal performance with Pras backing. “Maps of Inferno” — which along with an edit of itself and the B-side “Out at Large” completed the EP’s tracklisting — reappears on Dawn of the Dusk as well, as part of a multi-tiered opening salvo that feels like nothing so much as the band purposefully pushing themselves in different directions.

To wit, “Break Even” which was the first single from the album-proper, opens and leads into the aforementioned “Maps of Inferno,” which all the more threatens to dominate the record due its prior release on the EP — threading short- and long-players is a standing tradition for Mars Red Sky — and “The Final Round,” and each of those three songs has a different lead singer. And even in “Break Even,” which unfurls itself with a roll very much characteristic of Mars Red Sky‘s style, melding languidity and tonal heft, breadth in the mix with forward rhythmic turnings and a lyrical message that feels like perhaps it’s earned some of its cynicism in the Frank Sinatra-referencing lyrics “If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere/Just what you’d be making exactly is anyone’s guess,” reassuring the listener that the band hasn’t ‘gone disco’ or some such while laying out the expanse of atmosphere in which the rest of the changes throughout the record will take place.

And it’s not just the first three songs that make up the vinyl’s A-side; it’s everything, but those first three songs are a clear example of Mars Red Sky‘s active participation in their creative growth. Pras takes “Break Even,” and while that’s the standard for the band, you can still hear them itching to try new ideas. The sweep into the chorus. The floating lead guitar near the end. Next, Ferguson steps in for “Maps of Inferno,” which is a landmark — as on Mars Red Sky & Queen of the Meadow, the collaboration cries out here for a full-length — and Kinast has a turn on “The Final Round.”

It’s not the first time he’s sung lead on a Mars Red Sky track, as one might recall “Marble Sky” from their 2011 self-titled debut (discussed herereview here), but if you’d like a convenient analogue for how much the band have grown in the 12 years since, a side-by-side of the two isn’t a terrible way to go. Here, Kinast is more confident. The construction of the song is broader. Its layers are dynamic. Its flow is psychedelic without losing its place or purpose. It goes somewhere. Not that these things weren’t true of “Marble Sky” — you will not hear me shit-talk that record, ever — but in concept and execution, Mars Red Sky‘s maturity has seen them become masters of a heavy, immersive rock that’s progressive not because it’s putting on a show of technique, though Matgaz patterns “Maps of Inferno” with subtle math, but because they build an instrumental like side B opener “A Choir of Ghosts” layer by layer with care and detail, mindful of their audience and how material might be perceived by their listenership, but always driving to balance that with an internal artistic chase — running, or rolling as with the riffs, after some idealized version of the thing, the sound, the song that’s perfect and always just ahead.

mars red sky (Photo by Jessica Calvo)

Side B has its own structure. The instrumental “A Choir of Ghosts”  leads into “Carnival Man,” which is the longest inclusion at 7:42 and downtrodden in its storytelling as it moves through the chorus toward the halfway point at about three minutes deep, the break to a long stretch of serene psych meandering taking hold for the next two-plus minutes. That’s step one.

Step two, “Trap Door” sets up “Slow Attack.”  The former is 46 seconds long and an acoustic intro for “Slow Attack” playing the next song’s central riff, quiet and unplugged, but they’re not kidding (though no doubt they’re having a bit of fun) when they call it “Trap Door” because it does feel very much like you’re being dropped into the penultimate cut as it bursts in at the start of a new measure and proceeds onward from there with stately march. Step three, the bottom drops out.

While not as much of a spectacle as “Maps of Inferno” or “The Final Round,” “Slow Attack” is quintessential Mars Red Sky. Again, Matgaz makes an intricate riff accessible through the drums. Kinast‘s bass winds beneath the chorus with an uptick in low end compared to the verse riff, which is more of a bounce as Pras delivers the title-line after the first chorus. And for step four, they finish with a wash that cuts back to the acoustic guitar, perhaps to shut the “Trap Door” behind them as they move on to the end of the record, but also to shift directly into “Heavenly Bodies,” which closes.

In a subdued reprise of “Slow Attack” on guitar and an arrangement that, while quiet and minimal-feeling is not at all the latter with Rhodes and maybe a broken piano, Ferguson returning to join Pras on ethereal vocals to enhance the ambient impression of “Heavenly Bodies” overall, which begins like a lullaby and comes to be consumed by static noise. Surprisingly harsh, almost machine-like, the noise swallows the melody and then settles itself into quick-fading static, like it was barely there to begin with. It’s not out of place, necessarily, and it’s fair enough that after spending the prior 39 minutes building a world of such vivid light and solidified ground and textures, they should be able to wipe the slate of Dawn of the Dusk and perhaps signal the arrival of nightfall.

Hopefully not. I’ve expressed a few times by now a concern that Dawn of the Dusk will be the last album from Mars Red Sky, a band I believe have more to say. Call me superstitious, but I believe in the subconscious, and when a group starts talking about endings, about circuses leaving town, about letting it be, “The Final Round” and so on, I get nervous. If this does end up being their last studio LP and touring cycle — and I don’t know that it is and I sincerely hope it isn’t — then Dawn of the Dusk serves as both a measure of how much the band have grown and flourished in their time together and of their desire to keep developing and trying new paths.

Both the familiar and not are reinforced, and even the curious structure of the two sides, the way each half develops its own personality, Dawn of the Dusk is a realized vision of Mars Red Sky‘s fluid chemistry, dynamic, malleable approach and psychedelic vision. They are a special, singular band.

[I was fortunate enough this week to talk to Pras, Gazeau and Kinast for a bit before a show in Germany on their current tour. The signal was spotty but the video of the interview follows here. Thanks if you check it out. The band’s remaining tour dates on this run (they’ll have more in 2024 and are confirmed for Ripplefest Texas in August), and other videos for the record follow as well.]

Mars Red Sky, Dawn of the Dusk interview, Dec. 5, 2023

Mars Red Sky on tour (remaining shows, more TBA):

mars red sky dawn of the dusk tour

Tickets: https://marsredsky.rocks/tour

07.12.2023 DE – DRESDEN, Chemiefabrik
08.12.2023 DE – JENA, KuBa
09.12.2023 DE – SIEGEN, Freak Valley Festival Winter Edition
19.01.2024 FR – AMIENS, 1001 Bières
20.01.2024 FR – ISSY-LES-MOULINEAUX, Le Réacteur
02.02.2024 FR – CHALON-SUR-SAÔNE, LaPéniche
03.02.2024 FR – STRASBOURG, La Laiterie
07.02.2024 FR – LYON, Marché Gare
10.02.2024 FR – CAEN, Big Band Café
17.02.2024 FR – PAU, La Ferronnerie
22.02.2024 FR – DIJON, Consortium Museum
23.02.2024 LU – MONDORF-LES-BAINS, Casino 2000
24.02.2024 NL – EINDHOVEN, Into The Void Festival
21.03.2024 FR – ANGERS, Le Chabada
22.03.2024 FR – SAINT-BRIEUC, Drakk Metal Fest
03.04.2024 FR – PARIS, Trabendo
01.06.2024 DK – ESBJERG, Esbjerg Fuzztival
07.06.2024 NL – LEEUWARDEN, Into The Grave Festival
14.06.2024 FR – LA ROCHE- SUR-YON, Quai M
19.09.2024 US – AUSTIN, Ripple Fest

Mars Red Sky, Dawn of the Dusk (2023)

Mars Red Sky, “The Final Round” official video

Mars Red Sky, “Break Even” official video

Mars Red Sky, “Maps of Inferno” official video

Mars Red Sky on Facebook

Mars Red Sky on Instagram

Mars Red Sky on Bandcamp

Mars Red Sky merch store

Mars Red Sky website

Mrs Red Sound on Facebook

Mrs Red Sound on Twitter

Mrs Red Sound on Instagram

Mrs Red Sound website

Vicious Circle Records on Facebook

Vicious Circle Records on Instagram

Vicious Circle Records on Bandcamp

Vicious Circle Records website

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Quarterly Review: David Eugene Edwards, Beastwars, Sun Dial, Fuzzy Grass, Morne, Appalooza, Space Shepherds, Rey Mosca, Fawn Limbs & Nadja, Dune Pilot

Posted in Reviews on December 1st, 2023 by JJ Koczan

The-Obelisk-Quarterly-Review

Well, this is it. I still haven’t decided if I’m going to do Monday and Tuesday, or just Monday, or Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or the whole week next week or what. I don’t know. But while I figure it out — and not having this planned is kind of a novelty for me; something against my nature that I’m kind of forcing I think just to make myself uncomfortable — there are 10 more records to dig through today and it’s been a killer week. Yeah, that’s the other thing. Maybe it’s better to quit while I’m ahead.

I’ll kick it back and forth while writing today and getting the last of what I’d originally slated covered, then see how much I still have waiting to be covered. You can’t ever get everything. I keep learning that every year. But if I don’t do it Monday and Tuesday, it’ll either be last week of December or maybe second week of January, so it’s not long until the next one. Never is, I guess.

If this is it for now or not, thanks for reading. I hope you found music that has touched your life and/or made your day better.

Quarterly Review #41-50:

David Eugene Edwards, Hyacinth

David Eugene Edwards Hyacinth

There are not a ton of surprises to behold in what’s positioned as a first solo studio offering from David Eugene Edwards, whose pedigree would be impressive enough if it only included either 16 Horsepower or Wovenhand but of course is singular in including both. But you don’t need surprises. Titled Hyacinth and issued through Sargent House, the voice, the presence, the sense of intimacy and grandiosity both accounted for as Edwards taps acoustic simplicity in “Bright Boy,” though even that is accompanied by the programmed electronics that provides backing through much of the included 11 tracks. Atop and within these expanses, Edwards broods poetic and explores atmospheres that are heavy in a different way from what Wovenhand has become, chasing tone or intensity. On Hyacinth, it’s more about the impact of the slow-rolling beat in “Celeste” and the blend of organic/inorganic than just how loud a part is or isn’t. Whether a solo career under his name will take the place of Wovenhand or coincide, I don’t know.

David Eugene Edwards on Instagram

Sargent House website

Beastwars, Tyranny of Distance

beastwars tyranny of distance

Whatever led Beastwars to decide it was time to do a covers EP, fine. No, really, it’s fine. It’s fine that it’s 32 minutes long. It’s fine that I’ve never heard The Gordons, or Julia Deans, or Superette, or The 3Ds or any of the other New Zealand-based artists the Wellington bashers are covering. It’s fine. It’s fine that it sounds different than 2019’s IV (review here). It should. It’s been nearly five years and Beastwars didn’t write these eight songs, though it seems safe to assume they did a fair bit of rearranging since it all sounds so much like Beastwars. But the reason it’s all fine is that when it’s over, whether I know the original version of “Waves” or the blues-turns-crushing “High and Lonely” originally by Nadia Reid, or not, when it’s all over, I’ve got over half an hour more recorded Beastwars music than I had before Tyranny of Distance showed up, and if you don’t consider that a win, you probably already stopped reading. That’s fine too. A sidestep for them in not being an epic landmark LP, and a chance for new ideas to flourish.

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Sun Dial, Messages From the Mothership

sun dial messages from the mothership

Because Messages From the Mothership stacks its longer songs (six-seven minutes) in the back half of its tracklisting, one might be tempted to say Sun Dial push further out as they go, but the truth is that ’60s pop-inflected three-minute opener “Echoes All Around” is pretty out there, and the penultimate “Saucer Noise” — the longest inclusion at 7:47 — is no less melodically present than the more structure-forward leadoff. The difference, principally, is a long stretch of keyboard, but that’s well within the UK outfit’s vintage-synth wheelhouse, and anyway, “Demagnitized” is essentially seven minutes of wobbly drone at the end of the record, so they get weirder, as prefaced in the early going by, well, the early going itself, but also “New Day,” which is more exploratory than the radio-friendly-but-won’t-be-on-the-radio harmonies of “Living for Today” and the duly shimmering strum of “Burning Bright.” This is familiar terrain for Sun Dial, but they approach it with a perspective that’s fresh and, in the title-track, a little bit funky to boot.

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Echodelick Records website

Fuzzy Grass, The Revenge of the Blue Nut

Fuzzy Grass The Revenge of the Blue Nut

With rampant heavy blues and a Mk II Deep Purple boogie bent, Toulouse, France’s Fuzzy Grass present The Revenge of the Blue Nut, and there’s a story there but to be honest I’m not sure I want to know. The heavy ’70s persist as an influence — no surprise for a group who named their 2018 debut 1971 — and pieces like “I’m Alright” and “The Dreamer” feel at least in part informed by Graveyard‘s slow-soul-to-boogie-blowout methodology. Raw fuzz rolls out in 11-minute capper “Moonlight Shades” with a swinging nod that’s a highlight even after “Why You Stop Me” just before, and grows noisy, expansive, eventually furious as it approaches the end, coherent in the verse and cacophonous in just about everything else. But the rawness bolsters the character of the album in ways beyond enhancing the vintage-ist impression, and Fuzzy Grass unite decades of influences with vibrant shred and groove that’s welcoming even at its bluest.

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Morne, Engraved with Pain

Morne Engraved With Pain

If you go by the current of sizzling electronic pops deeper in the mix, even the outwardly quiet intro to Morne‘s Engraved with Pain is intense. The Boston-based crush-metallers have examined the world around them thoroughly ahead of this fifth full-length, and their disappointment is brutally brought to realization across four songs — “Engraved with Pain” (10:42), “Memories Like Stone” (10:48), “Wretched Empire” (7:45) and “Fire and Dust” (11:40) — written and executed with a dark mastery that goes beyond the weight of the guitar and bass and drums and gutturally shouted vocals to the aura around the music itself. Engraved with Pain makes the air around it feel heavier, basking in an individualized vision of metal that’s part Ministry, part Gojira, lots of Celtic Frost, progressive and bleak in kind — the kind of superlative and consuming listening experience that makes you wonder why you ever listen to anything else except that you’re also exhausted from it because Morne just gave you an existential flaying the likes of which you’ve not had in some time. Artistry. Don’t be shocked when it’s on my ‘best of the year’ list in a couple weeks. I might just go to a store and buy the CD.

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Metal Blade Records website

Appalooza, The Shining Son

appalooza the shining son

Don’t tell the swingin’-dick Western swag of “Wounded,” but Appalooza are a metal band. To wit, The Shining Son, their very-dudely follow-up to 2021’s The Holy of Holies (review here) and second outing for Ripple Music. Opener “Pelican” has more in common with Sepultura than Kyuss, or Pelican for that matter. “Unbreakable” and “Wasted Land” both boast screams worthy of Devin Townsend, while the acoustic/electric urgency in “Wasted Land” and the tumultuous scope of the seven-plus-minute track recall some of Primordial‘s battle-aftermath mourning. “Groundhog Days” has an airy melody and is more decisively heavy rock, and the hypnotic post-doom apparent-murder-balladry of “Killing Maria” answers that at the album’s close, and “Framed” hits heavy blues à la a missed outfit like Dwellers, but even in “Sunburn” there’s an immediacy to the rhythm between the guitar and percussion, and though they’re not necessarily always aggressive in their delivery, nor do they want to be. Metal they are, if only under the surface, and that, coupled with the care they put into their songwriting, makes The Shining Son stand out all the more in an ever-crowded Euro underground.

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Ripple Music website

Space Shepherds, Washed Up on a Shore of Stars

Space Shepherds Washed Up on a Shore of Stars

An invitation to chill the beans delivered to your ears courtesy of Irish cosmic jammers Space Shepherds as two longform jams. “Wading Through the Infinite Sea” nestles into a funky groove and spends who-even-cares-how-much-time of its total 27 minutes vibing out with noodling guitar and a steady, languid, periodically funk-leaning flow. I don’t know if it was made up on the spot, but it sure sounds like it was, and though the drums get a little restless as keys and guitar keep dreaming, the elements gradually align and push toward and through denser clouds of dust and gas on their way to being suns, a returning lick at the end looking slightly in the direction of Elder but after nearly half an hour it belongs to no one so much as Space Shepherds themselves. ‘Side B,’ as it were, is “Void Hurler” (18:41), which is more active early around circles being drawn on the snare, and it has a crescendo and a synthy finish, but is ultimately more about the exploration and little moments along the way like the drums decided to add a bit of push to what might’ve otherwise been the comedown, or the fuzz buzzing amid the drone circa 10 minutes in. You can sit and listen and follow each waveform on its journey or you can relax and let the whole thing carry you. No wrong answer for jams this engaging.

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Rey Mosca, Volumen! Sesion AMB

rey mosca volumen sesiones amb

Young Chilean four-piece Rey Mosca — the lineup of Josué Campos, Valentín Pérez, Damián Arros and Rafael Álvarez — hold a spaciousness in reserve for the midsection of teh seven-minute “Sol del Tiempo,” which is the third of the three songs included in their live-recorded Volumen! Sesion AMB EP. A ready hint is dropped of a switch in methodology since both “Psychodoom” and ” Perdiendo el Control” are under two minutes long. Crust around the edge of the riff greets the listener with “Psychodoom,” which spends about a third of its 90 seconds on its intro and so is barely started by the time it’s over. Awesome. “Perdiendo el Control” is quicker into its verse and quicker generally and gets brasher in its second half with some hardcore shout-alongs, but it too is there and gone, where “Sol del Tiempo” is more patient from the outset, flirting with ’90s noise crunch in its finish but finding a path through a developing interpretation of psychedelic doom en route. I don’t know if “Sol del Tiempo” would fit on a 7″, but it might be worth a shot as Rey Mosca serve notice of their potential hopefully to flourish.

LINK

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Fawn Limbs & Nadja, Vestigial Spectra

Fawn Limbs & Nadja Vestigial Spectra

Principally engaged in the consumption and expulsion of expectations, Fawn Limbs and Nadja — experimentalists from Finland and Germany-via-Canada, respectively — drone as one might think in opener “Isomerich,” and in the subsequent “Black Body Radiation” and “Cascading Entropy,” they give Primitive Man, The Body or any other extremely violent, doom-derived bludgeoners you want to name a run for their money in terms of sheer noisy assault. Somebody’s been reading about exoplanets, as the drone/harsh noise pairing “Redshifted” and “Blueshifted” (look it up, it’s super cool) reset the aural trebuchet for its next launch, the latter growing caustic on the way, ahead of “Distilled in Observance” renewing the punishment in earnest. And it is earnest. They mean every second of it as Fawn Limbs and Nadja grind souls to powder with all-or-nothing fury, dropping overwhelming drive to round out “Distilled in Observance” before the 11-minute “Metastable Ion Decay” bursts out from the chest of its intro drone to devour everybody on the ship except Sigourney Weaver. I’m not lying to you — this is ferocious. You might think you’re up for it. One sure way to find out, but you should know you’re being tested.

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Sludgelord Records on Facebook

Dune Pilot, Magnetic

dune pilot magnetic

Do they pilot, a-pilot, do they the dune? Probably. Regardless, German heavy rockers Dune Pilot offer their third full-length and first for Argonauta Records in the 11-song Magnetic, taking cues from modern fuzz in the vein of Truckfighters for “Visions” after the opening title-track sets the mood and establishes the mostly-dry sound of the vocals as they cut through the guitar and bass tones. A push of voice becomes a defining feature of Magnetic, which isn’t such a departure from 2018’s Lucy, though the rush of “Next to the Liquor Store” and the breadth in the fuzz of “Highest Bid” and the largesse of the nod in “Let You Down” assure that Dune Pilot don’t come close to wearing down their welcome in the 46 minutes, cuts like the bluesy “So Mad” and the big-chorus ideology of “Heap of Shards” coexisting drawn together by the vitality of the performances behind them as well as the surety of their craft. It is heavy rock that feels specifically geared toward the lovers thereof.

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Argonauta Records website

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