Posted in Whathaveyou on June 17th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Mind you, it’s not like Travo‘s 2023 sophomore long-player, Astromorph God (review here), was lacking in cosmic intensity, but even from this, their new video for “Burial” seems to have upped the shove. A couple times in the PR wire info below, they speak of it as metal-adjacent, and I guess that accounts for the rush in new track “Burial,” but they’re not chestbeating in a way I think of metal as being, and they make it easy to be grateful for that. Their third album, Wasteland, will be out Oct. 2 on Fuzz Club Records, with Spinda Records also behind the release in some way.
Before the album’s release, they’ll feature at this year’s Bear Stone Festival in Croatia next month and are likely to have a tour announcement coming either around that or near the release in the Fall. They hit the road pretty hard in Europe while supporting Astromorph God. I see no reason to expect different for Wasteland.
To the PR wire:
TRAVO announce new album ‘WASTELAND’ and release first single ‘BURIAL’
Braga, Portugal-based psych-rock four-piece TRAVO announce new album ‘WASTELAND’, their heaviest and most metallic album to date and first on their new label home Fuzz Club. Alongside news of the album, out October 2nd 2026, the band are also unleashing the first single and video ‘BURIAL’, out everywhere today.
Recorded in early 2026 at ARDA Recorders in Porto and produced, mixed, and mastered by Jaime Arellano (Ghost, Ulver, Behemoth), TRAVO’s newly-announced third studio album marks a shift away from the fantasy themes of the band’s previous record, 2023’s ‘Astromorph God’, into something much more personal, palpable, and grounded in the anxieties of the present time.
New single ‘BURIAL’ opens the album and sets the tone for the rest of the journey. With dark, anxiety-inducing riffs, hypnotic vocals, insane guitar solos, and a fast-paced rhythm section, the song delivers 4 minutes and 41 seconds of pure suffocation, culminating in a catchy guitar lead that will stay stuck in your head for days.
– – – – – – – –
‘WASTELAND’ arrives off the back of three years spent touring heavily around Europe, with their notoriously face-melting live show captured on a blazing KEXP session filmed whilst on the road. Looking to keep riding that high, the band took advantage of a rare break in their touring schedule and headed straight for the studio with a newfound intensity and urgency: “The recording session was booked without any composed material, and the whole album ended up being written in a little over one intense month of rehearsals. The pressure of wanting to take a step forward with the next album started to creep in and caused some internal friction. This feeling of urgency naturally carried over into the songs and gave them a character they likely wouldn’t have had in a more relaxed writing environment.”
Across its seven tracks, ‘WASTELAND’ explores themes of “techno-anxiety, disconnection, dystopia, love, death, rebirth, and the search for collective spirituality”, note the band. Each song is loosely inspired by a different section of T.S. Eliot’s poem ‘The Waste Land’, “whose themes and motifs feel especially relevant today.” Musically, the album incorporates dark psychedelic and industrial influences, fusing them with the band’s more familiar elements: loud and corrosive fast-paced songs intertwined with crushing, slow-burning epics. The vocals range from catchy falsetto melodies to full-on growls and screams. The guitars interplay with each other, producing either beautiful harmonies or uncanny dissonances. The rhythm section is tight, potent, and hypnotic. It is also the band’s most synth-heavy album to date.
Altogether, TRAVO’s ‘WASTELAND’ is an aggressive, genre-bending rock record knocking on metal’s door while still managing to breathe through the chaos. It’s an intense headbanging journey between fast, bad-trip-inducing jams and contemplative ambient passages.
Produced, recorded, mixed and mastered by Jaime Gomez Arellano Recorded at ARDA Recorders Mixed and Mastered at Orgone Studios
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 27th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
I consider myself exceedingly fortunate to have been able to see Kombynat Robotron at Freak Valley Festival (review here) last June, so a live album recorded about a month before I had that pleasure is an enticing prospect. Live at Fuzz Club Festival 2025 will be out April 17, indeed through Fuzz Club Records which also released the Kiel, Germany, trio’s first song-based (as opposed to jam-based, although the songs were jam-based; you know what I’m just gonna keep going) LP, the stellar-and-I-do-mean-that-in-the-burning-plasma-sense AANK (review here). Hearing the live version of “Staub” streaming at the bottom of the post only reaffirms the excitement.
The following came from the PR wire, but only because I signed up for their Bandcamp email list. You might consider giving a follow, if that’s your thing.
Dig it:
KOMBYNAT ROBOTRON – Live At Fuzz Club Festival ’25 – April 17
Kombynat Robotron’s set at the 2025 Fuzz Club Festival is being immortalised on wax with this super-limited live album release. The Kiel, Germany-based trio delivered a late-night assault of feedback-blasted kraut-punk and expansive psychedelic space-rock. Kombynat Robotron’s appearance at the festival landed just ahead of the release of their 2025 studio album and Fuzz Club debut ‘AANK’ and was the first glimpse of what was in store, pulling heavily from ‘AANK’ album tracks (‘Ikarus’, Staub’, ‘Sauerstoff’, ‘Finsternis’, ‘Schnee’) plus two cuts from their 2024 ‘West Mata’ LP (‘Jason II’, ‘Vasa’)
The resulting ‘Live At Fuzz Club Festival 2025’ album was recorded straight from the sound desk and mixed and mastered for this release by Bob De Wit, with artwork by Olya Dyer incorporating Innerstrings and Dwavehed’s stage visuals. The vinyl release is limited to /250 hand-numbered copies.
Tracklisting: 1. Ikarus 2. Staub 3. Vasa 4. Jason II 5. Sauerstoff 6. Schnee 7. Finsternis
KOMBYNAT ROBOTRON – OHNE LICHT – Tour April 2026 15.04. – DE – Jena, KuBa 16.04. – CH – Basel, Quarterdeck 17.04. – FR – Marseille, L’Intermédiaire 19.04. – FR – Arthez de Bearn, Le Pingouin Alternatif 22.04. – FR – Rouen, Le 3 Pièces 23.04. – FR – Paris, Le Chinois 25.04. – BE – Diest, Trekstaal 28.04. – DE – Leipzig, Moritzbastei 29.04. – DE – Berlin, Neue Zukunft 30.04. – DE – Hamburg, Elbdeich Studio 01.05. – DE – Lübeck, Maifest 02.05. – NL – Eindhoven, FuzzClub Festival presented by pøjpøj and FUZZ CLUB RECORDS!
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 29th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
German space noisemakers Kombynat Robotron will take to the road in April as they continue to support their 2025 album, AANK (review here), that saw them streamline their songwriting process for their most direct batch of material to-date. The festival around which they’re building the run — and increasingly this is how independent tours happen; around festivals, or at least one as is the case here — is that of their label, Fuzz Club Records which will be held at The Effenaar in Eindhoven, which at least the last time I was there was a rad spot indeed.
So much the better for Kombynat Robotron, with according radness. I was lucky enough to see the trio at last year’s Freak Valley Festival (review here) in Germany, and that was a blast even before I’d dug into the record for review. If they’re not coming where you are now, keep an eye out, as the band were also in the first batch of confirmations for Keep it Low in Munich this coming October. I wouldn’t in the slightest be surprised if another tour was in the works for that time. New album? Well, with a band so unpredictable I wouldn’t hazard a guess, but maybe.
If you make it out, enjoy:
KOMBYNAT ROBOTRON – OHNE LICHT – Tour April 2026!
15.04. – DE – Jena, KuBa 16.04. – CH – Basel, Quarterdeck 17.04. – FR – Marseille, L’Intermédiaire 19.04. – FR – Arthez de Bearn, Le Pingouin Alternatif 22.04. – FR – Rouen, Le 3 Pièces 23.04. – FR – Paris, Le Chinois 25.04. – BE – Diest, Trekstaal 28.04. – DE – Leipzig, Moritzbastei 29.04. – DE – Berlin, Neue Zukunft 30.04. – DE – Hamburg, Elbdeich Studio 01.05. – DE – Lübeck, Maifest 02.05. – NL – Eindhoven, FuzzClub Festival
Whatever your angle of approach, the story of AANK is the songs. Because there are songs. Eight of them, in fact, on the seventh Kombynat Robotron record in seven years, running 41 minutes long. AANK is the band’s label debut on Fuzz Club Records, and with it, the Kiel, Germany, three-piece of guitarist Jannes Ihnen, bassist Claas Ogorek and drummer Thomas Handschick don’t necessarily reinvent cosmic rock as a genre, but for sure they revamp their take thereupon. To wit, the album they released in Dec. 2024, West Mata (review here), was comprised of three songs running between 11 and 21 minutes long, and worked from an entirely jammier foundation. The songs on AANK, whether blending dream and shove on “Morast” early on or having a crash-happy echoing blowout in “Sauerstoff” later on before capping with the solidified neospace shuffle of “Finsternis,” vocalized or instrumental, keep roughly between three and six minutes each, and have more defined structures.
Kombynat Robotron are by no means the first band to graduate from all-out jamming to a more refined writing style as part of their progression. This past Spring saw Amsterdam’s Temple Fang shift in a not dissimilar fashion toward verse/chorus patterning, albeit still longform, and Greece’s Naxatras have continued to evolve as they’ve found an otherworldly prog on the other side of their years of improv. One might consider since-modernized, once-retroist acts like Graveyard or Kadavar as well (not as a sonic comparison), though I don’t think Ihnen, Ogorek and Handschick are entirely done harnessing a jammy spirit in their material — not the least because that happens all across AANK — but in this collection, it is a drastic enough change from the band’s own prior-established norms that it almost feels like a second debut, though I’ll acknowledge feeling somewhat silly noting that about a band with a seven LP-strong discography. Nonetheless, the freshness of Kombynat Robotron‘s approach to this material resonates in the listening experience. It is new and it sounds new. It sounds like it’s new to them too, and the range and discovery that a short time ago were about what was coming after the next measure, part, etc., has changed to what can be found on the other end of a crafting process and what kinds of evocations can occur there.
And that is wherein the excitement lies, because Kombynat Robotron unfurl their own take on modern heavy space rock, informed in opener “Staub” by the traditions of the genre but with a next-generational point of view, daring a bit of cosmic boogie and still having room for an improv-sounding solo in the six-minute track before they bring back the hook for a noisy finish. Noise, whether it’s distortion or effects or just a crunchier riff like that of the post-something-and-I’m-not-sure-what-maybe-human “Unbehagen,” is a major factor in the proceedings. Still recording live and benefitting from that particular energy-conveyance — Felix Margraf, who mixed and mastered West Mata, helmed the recording for AANK, and they tracked in a venue space — the band remain dynamic in the roilingly heavy “Ikarus” (also the longest cut at 6:51), and are dynamic in the groove beneath the forward wash the song posits. Compared to the defined strum of “Staub” at the outset or even the likewise krautified urging of “Finsternis” — though both of those are noisy by some measure as well — “Ikarus” is way, way out, and situated at the presumed start of side B, it gives AANK a delightfully dug-in launch to the second half.
But the album is less about the vinyl split than some, and listening in a linear format, “Ikarus” is cleverly informed by the divergence before it of the title-track. “AANK” is three and a half minutes of softly picked acoustic guitar notes built out with some probably highly specific synth or effects. Either way, it is peaceful, serene, folkish, and gorgeous in a way one wishes more bands would dare to be, and it bolsters the atmosphere not only of “Ikarus” after it or “Schnee” before, but of AANK more broadly in a way that answers how it got to be the song the album was named after. Kombynat Robotron may not be a band known for subtlety, but whether it’s the interaction between the songs or the way the builds take place within them and the verses unfold across the span, there is likewise depth of mix and character for the listener to engage with, and the album becomes one where the person hearing it decides their own course and just how immersed they want to be. Can you hear the noise rock beneath all the noise in “Sauerstoff?” Do you want to? And so on. Wherever you want to meet it, AANK is there waiting.
Maybe that’s the underlying change, too. I won’t say that Kombynat Robotron‘s prior work wasn’t engaging, having enjoyed engaging with it on however many occasions I have, but the level of that engagement has changed in accord with their methodology. With AANK, the trio begin to realize the power their songs have to affect the audience, and it may well be that subsequent releases will see the band continue to develop along these lines, writing songs to put their listeners where they want them to be in place, time or mood. It’s an awfully neat story for some blogger like me to make palpable for the one or two people on the planet who might be reading, but real life is rarely so orderly. The truth of what Kombynat Robotron do on AANK is that it makes them a less, not more, predictable band, and there’s zero reason they need to choose one or the other between outright jamming and building structured material from out of those jams.
AANK may be the setting of a new pattern, and if it is, and if the band want to take these songs on the road and become a touring act of broader reach throughout Europe, you’ll certainly get no argument from me. There’s big potential here in terms of reach, and having Fuzz Club on their side won’t hurt the hype factor that’s already given them momentum. But if you’re looking for the experimentalist aspect, zoom out a level. It’s the entire album that’s the experiment this time, and the band’s success in their endeavor calls out to an international underground that may or may not know it’s been waiting for the call, but surely has been.
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 28th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Now signed to Fuzz Club Records, Kiel, Germany, cosmic rockers Kombynat Robotron give a rather terrestrial look on the first single from their new album, AANK, riding a noisy riff and blown-out vocals for three minutes where six months ago on Dec. 2024’s West Mata (review here), they could be heard space-kraut jamming through three extended tracks, the shortest of which was 11 minutes long. There are eight tunes on AANK, and I’m willing to bet they’re not all so brief, but change is the order of the universe, and that would seem to apply here as well, as otherworldly as Kombynat Robotron sometimes are.
So, intrigue. Hooray. One is reminded of Dutch heavy psych rockers The Machine, who in the 2010s brought noise rock influences to their riffier context. It doesn’t seem like a huge bridge to cross from one to the other, between noise riffs and heavy riffs — at a certain point, riffs is riffs; and if I can add to that: riff riff riff — but either way, it’s cool to hear their exploration taking on new dimensions.
From the PR wire:
Kombynat Robotron – AANK
FUZZ CLUB RECORDS
Release: 18.07.2025
With driving rhythms, repetitive riffs and spherical soundscapes, Kombynat Robotron create a hypnotic sound that blurs the boundaries between krautrock, psychedelic and noise rock. The Kiel-based trio has been an integral part of the European psychedelic rock scene since its formation in 2018 and stands for raw energy, musical freedom and rampant improvisation.
With six studio albums acclaimed by fans and critics on labels such as Tonzonen Records, Cardinal Fuzz Records, Clostridium Records and Little Cloud Records, as well as various tape and split releases and shows with bands such as Elder, Verstärker and Kungens Män, Kombynat Robotron has made a name for itself as an uncompromising (live) band that carries the spirit of Krautrock into the present day. Whether at international festivals or the stages of small clubs – their live shows are regarded as energetic sound trips where every performance is unique. Kombynat Robotron is not a retrospective – they are pulsating proof that psychedelic rock can still be bold, loud and boundless today.
Now in their seventh year, Kombynat Robotron are back with their seventh studio album. AANK will be released on July 18 via the London-based label FUZZ CLUB RECORDS (home of A Place To Bury Strangers, The Black Angels, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and many more), which became aware of the band through a Kombynat show in London in the summer of 2024 and signed the band shortly after.
On AANK, Kombynat Robotron work with vocals and song structures for the first time, moving away from their musical beginnings as an instrumental jam band. Kraut and psychedelic rock can still be found on AANK, but more focused and with more heaviness than in the past. The flowing psychedelic soundscapes of the bands previous records give way to the asphalt of the sound Autobahn. Between Staub and Finsternis, the Kombynat races, noises and rages on a total of eight songs. Heavy noisy walls of sound are build on top of repetitive bass grooves, distant vocals emerge from a sonic landscape that lies between chaos and control.
The Kombynat flies to the stars and presents itself on AANK louder, faster and harder, but also quieter and more thoughtful than ever before. AANK is not an optimistic album, but rather a realistic one. The lyrics revolve around topics such as decay and disintegration, loss (of control) and the eternal struggle with the world.
Recording a whole album with actual songs and vocals might sound strange for a band that has released six albums with instrumental jams before that, but it is the result of a natural development. The songs were mostly formed out of recorded jams that felt too good to let them go and never play them again, and after all songs are just recognized and reproduceable jams.
The band spent about two years of constant work on their new approach towards creating structures and writing songs and did lots of live experiments with the new material. While the songs took some time to take their final form, once they were ready the recording of AANK only took one weekend. The band set up their equipment at Kulturzentrum Karnak, a small venue in Kassel in the middle of Germany. Together with recording engineer Felix Margraf they managed to capture the spirit of their raw live energy by recording everything live, together in one room.
AANK reflects the musical development on Kombynat Robotron from hippie-esque psychedelic space music to fuzzed-out noise krautrock and embraces its influences by creating something new. Musik für das Ohr der Zukunft. Robotron over.
Welcome to the Spring 2025 Quarterly Review. If you’re unfamiliar with the format or how this goes, the quick version is each day brings 10 new releases — albums, EPs, even a single every now and again — that are reviewed at at the end of it everybody has a ton of new music to listen to and I’m a little closer to being caught up to what’s coming out after spending about a season falling behind on coverage. Everybody wins, mostly.
It’s a seven-day QR. As always, some of what will be covered is older and some is new. There are a couple 2024 releases. The 10,000 Years record, for example, I should’ve reviewed five times over by now, but life happens. There’s also stuff that isn’t released yet, so it all averages out to some approximation of relevance. Hopefully.
In any case, we proceed. Thanks if you keep up this week and into next.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
Pagan Altar, Never Quite Dead
Classic metal par excellence pervades the first Pagan Altar album since 2017 and the first to feature vocalist Brendan Radigan (Magic Circle) in place of founding singer Terry Jones, who passed away in 2015 and whose son, guitarist Alan Jones, is the sole remaining founding member of the band, which started in 1978. Never Quite Dead collects eight varied tracks, some further evidence for the line of NWOBHM extending out of the dual-guitar pioneering of Thin Lizzy, plenty of overarching melancholy, and it honors the idea of the band having a classic sound without sacrificing modern impact in the recording. The subdued “Liston Church,” the later doomly sprawl of “The Dead’s Last March” and the willful grandiosity of the nine-minute finale “Kismet” assure that Never Quite Dead indeed resonates vibrant with a heart made of denim.
Somewhere between proto-punk and 1990s alt-rock come Designer with the three-song demo Weekend at Brian’s. Based in Asheville, the band have an edge of danger to their tones, but the outward face is catchy and quirky, a little Blondie but with deceptively heavy riffing in “Magic Memory” and extra-satisfyingly farty bass in “Midnight Waltz” as the band engage Blue Öyster Cult in a conversation of fears, the band wind up somewhere between heavy modern indie and retro-minded fare. “Ugly in the Streets” moves like a Ramones song and I’ve got no problem with that. However they go, the songs are pointedly straightforward, and they kind of need to be for the stripped-down style to work. Nothing’s over three minutes long, the songs are tight, and it’s got style without overloading on the pretense, which especially for a new outfit is an excellent place to start.
The hopeful keyboard of album intro “Orbital Decay” gradually devolves into noise, and from there, Swedish crash-and-bash specialists 10,000 Years show you what it’s all about — gutted-out heavy riffing, ace swing in “The Experiment” and a whole lot of head-down forward shove. The Västerås-based trio have yet to put out a record that wasn’t a step forward from the one before it, and this late-2024 third full-length feels duly realized in how it incorporates the psychedelic aspects of “Ablaze in the Now” with the physical intensity of “The Weight of a Feather” or closer “Down the Heavy Path.” But they’re more dynamic on the whole, as “Death Valley Ritual” dares a bit of spoken drama, and “High Noon in Sword City” reminds that there’s a good dose of noise rock underpinning what 10,000 Years do, and that cacophony still suits them even as they’ve expanded around that foundation over the last five years.
Amber Asylum are a San Francisco arthouse institution, and from its outset with the five-minute instrumental “Secrets,” the band’s 10th album, Ruby Red, counsels patience in mournful, often softspoken chamber doom. The use of space as the title-track unfolds with founding violinist/vocalist Kris Force‘s voice over minimalist bass, encompassing and sad as the song plays out with an emergent dirge of strings and percussion, where the subsequent “Demagogue” is more actively drummed, the band having already drawn the listener deeper into the record’s seven-song cycle. The cello of Jackie Perez-Gratz (also Grayceon, Brume) gives centerpiece “The Morrigan” extra character later on, and it’s there in “Azure” as well, though the context shifts with foreboding drones of various wavelengths behind the vocals. Ambience plus bite. “Weaver” rolls through its first half instrumentally, realigning around the strings and steady movement; its back half is reverently sung without lyrics. And when they get to closer “A Call on the Wind,” the sense of unease in the violin is met with banging-on-a-spring-style experimentalist noise, just to underscore the sense of things being wrong as far as realities go. It’s not a minor undertaking as regards atmospheric or emotional weight, but empathy resounds.
With Fu Manchu as a defining influence, Greek heavy rockers Weevil set forth with Easy Way, their 10-song/42-minute self-released debut album. They pay homage to Lemmy with the cleverly-titled “Rickenbästard” — you know I’m a sucker for charm — and diverge from the straight-ahead heavy thrust on the mellower, longer “The Old Man Lied” and “Insomnia,” but by and large, the five-piece are here to throw down riffy groove and have a good time, and they do just that. The title-track, “Wake the Dead” and “Headache” provide a charged beginning, and even by the time the crunch of “Gonna Fall” slides casually into the nodder hook of closer “Last Night a Zombie” (“…ate my brain” is the rest of the line), they’ve still got enough energy to make it feel like the party could easily continue. It just might. There’s perspective in this material that feels like it might take shape over time, and in my mind, Weevil get immediate credit for being upfront in their homage and wearing their own heavy fandom on their sleeves. You can hear their love for it.
Adventurous and forward-thinking post-metal pervades Swedish trio Kazea‘s debut album, and the sound is flexible enough in their craft to let “Whispering Hand” careen like neo-psych after the screams and lurch of “Trenches” provide one of the record’s most extreme moments, bolstered by guest vocals. Indeed, “Whispering Hand” is a rocker and something of an outlier for that, as Pale City Skin draws a downerist line between Crippled Black Phoenix and circa-’04 Neurosis, “Wailing Blood” finds a way to meld driving rhythm and atmospheric heft, and the seven-minute “Seamlessly Woven” caps with suitable depth of wash, following the lushness of the penultimate “The North Passage” in its howling, growl-topped chorus with another expression of the ethereal. I haven’t heard a ton of hype about I, Ancestral, but regardless, this is one of the best debut albums I’ve heard so far this year for sure. Post-metal needs bands willing to push its limits.
Hard not to think of the 14-minute weirdo-psych jam “Mycelium” as the highlight of Dyp Tid, but one shouldn’t discount the lead-you-in warmth and serenity of opener “Pendelen Svinger,” or the bit of dub in the drumming of “Clock of the Long Now,” and so on as Norway’s Electric Eye — which is a pretty straightforward name, considering the sound — vibe blissful for the duration. The drone “Den Første Lysstråle” is hypnotic, and though the vocals in “Mycelium” are a sample, the human presence periodically sprinkled throughout the album feels like it’s adding comfort amid what might be an anxious plunge into the cosmos. They finish with “Hvit Lotus,” which marries together various kinds of synth over a deceptively casual beat, capping light with vocals or synth-vocals in a bright chorus over chime sounds and drifting guitar. You made it to the island. You’re safe. Gentle fade out.
Multi-instrumentalist and producer Guglielmo Allegro is the sole denizen behind Void Sinker, and while I know full well we live in an age of technological wonders/horrors, that one person could conjure up such encompassing heavy sounds — the way 14-minute opener “Satellite” just swallows you whole — is impressive. Oxygen is the Salerno, Italy, DIY project’s fourth full-length in two years, and its intent to crush is plain from the outset. “Satellite” has its own summary progression of what the rest of the album does, and then “Oxygen” (9:45), “Collision” (15:23) and “Abyss” (13:32) play through increasingly noisy slab-riff distribution. This is done methodically, at mostly slow tempos, with tonal depth and an obvious awareness of where it’s coming from. Presumably that, and a lack of argument from anyone else when he wants to ride a groove for 15 minutes, is why Void Sinker is a solo outfit. One of distinctive bludgeon, it turns out. Like big riffs pushing the air out of your lungs? Here you go.
Draken drummer André Drage leads the group that shares his name from behind the kit, it would seem, but even if only one name gets to be in the moniker, make no mistake, the entire band is present and accounted for. Challenging each other in jazz-prog fashion, Wolves is the second album from the Group in as many months. It leads off with its longest track (immediate points) “Brainsoup,” and by the time they’re through with it, it is. We’re talking ace prog boogie, funky like El Perro might do it, but looser and more improv feeling in the solo of “Potent Elixirs,” giving a spontaneous impression even in the studio, ebbing and flowing in the runs of “Tigerboy” while “Wind in Their Sails” is both more King Crimson and more shuffling-Rhodes-jam, which is the kind of party you want to be at whether you know it or not. The penultimate “Fire” gets lit by the guitar, and they round out with “Nesodden,” a sweet comedown from some of Wolves‘ more frenetic movements. Like a supernova, but not uncontained. This is a band ready to drop jaws.
The Sept. 2024 third album from NYC-based vintage rockers The Mystery Lights skillfully weaves together garage rock and ’60s pop theatrics, giving the bounce and sway of the title-track an immediately nostalgic impression that the jangly “In the Streets” is probably about a ahead from in terms of influence, but the blend is the thing. Regardless of how developed the punk is or isn’t in a given track — I dig the shaker in “Trouble” and it manages a sense of ‘island’ without being racist, so bonus points for that — or how “Cerebral Crack” brings flute in with its extra-fuzzed guitar later on or “Memories” and “Automatic Response” feel more soul than rock in both intent and manifestation, The Mystery Lights benefit from pairing stylistic complexity with structural simplicity, and the 12 songs of Purgatory find a niche outside genre norms and time all the more for the fact that the band don’t seem concerned with anything so much as writing songs that sound like home the first time you hear them.
Posted in Reviews on September 22nd, 2022 by JJ Koczan
On occasion, throughout the last eight years or so that I’ve been doing this kind of Quarterly Review roundup thing, I’ve been asked how I do it. The answer is appallingly straightforward. I do it one record at a time, listening to as much music as possible and writing as much as I can. If you were curious, there you go.
If, more likely, you weren’t curious, now you know anyway. Shall we?
Quarterly Review #31-40:
Russian Circles, Gnosis
You wanna know how big a deal Russian Circles are? I didn’t even get a promo of this record. Granted, I’m nobody, but still. So anyway, here I am like a fucking sucker, about to tell you Gnosis is the heaviest and most intense thing Russian Circles — with whose catalog I’m just going to assume you’re familiar because they’re that big a deal and you’re pretty hip; bet you got a download to review, or at least an early stream — have ever done and it means literally nothing. Just makes me feel stupid and lame. I really want to like this album. That chug in “Conduit?” Fuck yeah. That wash in “Betrayal?” Even that little minimalist stretch of “Ó Braonáin.” The way “Tupilak” rumbles to life at the outset. That’s my shit right there. Chug chug crush crush, pretty part. So anyway, instead of sweating it forever, I’ll probably shut Gnosis off when I’m done here and never listen to it again. Thanks. Who gives a shit? Exactly. Means nothing to anyone. Tell me why I do this? Why even give it the space? Because they’re that big a deal and I’m the nerdy fat kid forever. Total fucking stooge. Fuck it and fuck you too.
Are not all gods mere substitutes for the power of human voices united in song? And why not tonight for finding the grace within us? As Brother Bill, Sister Caroline and their all-colours Septaphonic congregation of siblings tell us, we’re only one step away. I know you’ve been dragged down, wrung out, you’ve seen the valleys and hills, but now’s the time. Church of the Cosmic Skull come forward again with the message of galactic inner peace and confronting the unreality of reality through choral harmonies and progressive heavy rock and roll, and even the Cosmic Mother herself must give ear. Come, let us bask in the light of pure illumination and revolutionary suicide. Let us find what we lost somewhere. All gods die, but you and I can live forever and spread ourselves across the universe like so much dust from the Big Bang. We’ll feel the texture of the paper. We’ll be part of the team. Oh, fellow goers into the great Far Out, there’s reverence being sung from the hills with such spirit behind it. Can you hear? Will you? There’s nothing to fear here, nothing sinister. Nothing to be lost except that which has held you back all along. Let it all move, and go. Open your eyes to feel all seven rays, and stand peeled like an onion, naked, before the truth being told. Do this. Today.
Saarbrücken duo Pretty Lightning follow 2020’s stellar Jangle Bowls (review here) with a collection of 14 instrumental passages that, for all their willful meandering, never find themselves lost. Heady, Dead Meadowy vibes persist on ramblers like “Sediment Swing” and “Splinter Bowl,” but through spacious drone and the set-the-mood-for-whatever “Glide Gently (Into the Chasm),” which is both opener and the longest track (immediate points) at just over five minutes, the clear focus is on ambience. I wouldn’t be the first to liken some of Dust Moves to Morricone, and sure, “Powdermill” has some of that Dollars-style reverb and “The Secret is Locked Inside” lays out a subtle nighttime threat in its rattlesnake shaker, but these ideas are bent and shaped to Pretty Lightning‘s overarching purpose, and even with 14 songs, the fact that the album only runs 43 minutes should tell you that even as they seem to head right into the great unknown wilderness of intent, they never dwell in any single position for too long, and are in no danger of overstaying their welcome. Extra kudos for the weirdness of “Crystal Waltz” tucked right into the middle of the album next to “The Slow Grinder.” Sometimes experiments work.
Combining burly modern heavy riffage, progressive flourish and a liberal dose of chicanery, Montana’s Wizzerd end up in the realm of Howling Giant and a more structurally-straightforward Elder without sounding directly like either of them. Their Fuzzorama Records label debut, the quizzically punctuated Space‽: Issue No. 001 echoes its title’s obvious nods to comic book culture with a rush of energy in songs like “Super Nova” and “Attack of the Gargantuan Moon Spiders,” the swinging “Don’t Zorp ‘n’ Warp” space-progging out in its second half as though to emphasize the sheer delight on the part of the band doing something unexpected. So much the better if they’re having fun too. The back half of the outing after the duly careening “Space Chase” is blocked off by the noisy “Transmission” and the bleep-bloop “End Transmission” — which, if we’re being honest is a little long at just under five minutes — but finds the band establishing a firm presence of purpose in “Doom Machine Smoke Break” and the building “Diosa del Sol” ahead of the record’s true finishing moment, “Final Departure Part 1: The Intergalactic Keep of the Illustrious Cosmic Woman,” which is both an adventure in outer space and a melodic highlight. This one’s a party and you’re invited.
Desert 9 is one of several projects founded by synthesist Peter Bell through a collective/studio called Mutaform in the Brindisi region of Southern Italy (heel of the boot), and the seven-song/63-minute Explora II follows quickly behind June’s Explora I and works on a similar theme of songs named for different deserts around the world, be it “Dasht-e Margo,” “Mojave,” “Gobi” or “Arctic.” What unfolds in these pieces is mostly long-ish-form instrumental krautrock and psychedelic exploration — “Arctic” is an exception at a somewhat ironically scorching three and a half minutes; opener “Namib” is shorter, and jazzier, as well — likewise immersive and far-outbound, with Bell‘s own synth accompanied on its journeys by guitar, bass and drums, the former two with effects to spare. I won’t take away from the sunburn of “Sonoran” at the finish, but the clazzic-cool swing of “Chihuahuan” is a welcome respite from some of the more thrust-minded fare, at least until the next solo starts and eats the second half of the release. The mix is raw, but I think that’s part of the idea here, and however much of Explora II was improvised and/or recorded live, it sounds like the four-piece just rolled up, hit record and went for it. Not revolutionary in aesthetic terms, but inarguable in vitality.
Originally pressed to tape in 2019 through Fuzz Ink and brought to vinyl through Sound Effect Records, Greek sludgers Gagulta begin their self-titled debut with an evocation of the Old Ones before unfurling the 13-minute assault of “Dead Fiend/Devil’s Lettuce,” the second part of which is even slower than the first. Nods and screams, screams and nods, riffs and kicks and scratches. “Late Beer Cult” is no less brash or disaffected, the Galatsi-based trio of ‘vokillist’ Johny Oldboy, baritone bassist Xen and drummer Jason — no need for last names; we’re all friends here — likewise scathing and covered in crust. Side B wraps with the 10-minute eponymous “Gagulta” — circle pit into slowdown into even noisier fuckall — but not before “Long Live the Undead” has dirty-steamrolled through its four minutes and the penultimate “War” blasts off from its snare count-in on a punk-roots-revealing surge that plays back and forth with tortured, scream-topped slow-riff madness. I don’t know if the Old Ones would be pleased, but if at any point you see a Gagulta backpatch out in the wild, that person isn’t fucking around and neither is this band. Two years after its first release, it remains monstrous.
Some 20 years removed from their debut album, Accidentally Making Enemies, and 13 past their most recent, 2009’s Eye Tree Pi (review here), London’s Obiat return at the behest of guitarist/keyboardist Raf Reutt and drummer Neil Dawson with the duly massive Indian Ocean, an eight-song collection spanning an hour’s listening time that brings together metallic chug and heavy post-rock atmospherics, largesse of tone and melody central to the proceedings from opener “Ulysses” onward. Like its long-ago predecessor, Alex Nervo‘s bass (he also adds keys and guitar) is a major presence, and in addition to vocalist Sean Cooper, who shines emotively and in the force of his delivery throughout, there are an assortment of guests on “Eyes and Soul,” “Nothing Above,” “Sea Burial” and subdued closer “Lightness of Existence,” adding horns, vocals, flute, and so on to the wash of volume from the guitar, bass, drums, keys, and though parts were recorded in Wales, England, Australia, Sweden, Norway and Hungary, Indian Ocean is a cohesive, consuming totality of a record that does justice to the long wait for its arrival while also earning as much volume as you can give it through its immersive atmospherics and sheer aural heft that leads to the ambient finish. It is not a minor undertaking, but it walks the line between metal and post-metal and has a current of heavy rock beneath it in a way that is very much Obiat‘s, and if they’re really back to being a band again — that is, if it’s not another 13 years before their next record — watch out.
Vienna five-piece Maunra enter the fray of the harsher side of post-metal with Monarch, their self-released-for-now debut full-length. With throaty growling vocals at the forefront atop subtly nuanced double-guitars and bouts of all-out chugga-breakdown riffing like that in “Wuthering Seas,” they’re managing to dare to bring a bit of life and energy to the generally hyper-cerebral style, and that rule-breaking continues to suit them in the careening “Embers” and the lumbering stomp-mosh of the title-track such that even when the penultimate “Lightbreather” shifts into its whispery/wispy midsection — toms still thudding behind — there’s never any doubt of their bringing the shove back around. I haven’t seen a lyric sheet, so can’t say definitively whether or not opener “Between the Realms” is autobiographical in terms of the band describing their own aesthetic, but their blend of progressivism and raw impact is striking in that song and onward, and it’s interesting to hear an early ’00s metal influence creep into the interplay of lead and rhythm guitar on that opener and elsewhere. At seven tracks/41 minutes, Monarch proffers tonal weight and rhythmic force, hints toward more melodic development to come, and underscores its focus on movement by capping with the especially rousing “Windborne.” Reportedly the album was five years in the making. Time not wasted.
Still mostly instrumental, formerly just-Ohio-based progressive heavy rockers Brujas del Sol answer the steps they took in a vocalized direction on 2019’s II (review here) with the voice-as-part-of-the-atmosphere verses of “To Die on Planet Earth” and “Myrrors” on their third album, Deculter, but more importantly to the actual listening experience of the record is the fact that they’ve never sounded quite this heavy. Sure, guitarist Adrian Zambrano (also vocals) and bassist Derrick White still provide plenty of synth to fill out those instrumentalist spaces and up the general proggitude, and that’s a signal sent clearly with the outset “Intro,” but Joshua Oswald (drums/vocals) pounds his snare as “To Live and Die on Planet Earth” moves toward its midsection, and the aggression wrought there is answered in both the guitar and bass tones as 12-minute finishing move “Arcadia” stretches into its crescendo, more about impact than the rush of “Divided Divinity” earlier on, rawer emotionally than the keyboardier reaches of “Lenticular,” but no less thoughtful in its construction. Each piece (even that intro) has an identity of its own, and each one makes Deculter a stronger offering.
A definite 2LP at nine songs and 68 minutes, Sergeant Thunderhoof‘s fifth full-length, This Sceptred Veil, is indeed two albums’ worth of album, and the songs bear that out in their complexity and sense of purpose as well. Not to harp, but even the concluding two-parter “Avon/Avalon” is a lot to take in after what’s come before it, but what Bath, UK, troupe vary their songwriting and bring a genuine sense of presence to the material that even goes beyond the soaring vocals to the depth of the mix more generally. There’s heavy rock grit to “Devil’s Daughter” (lil eyeroll there) and progressive reach to the subsequent “Foreigner,” a lushness to “King Beyond the Gates” and twisting riffs that should earn pleased nods from anyone who’s been swept up in Green Lung‘s hooky pageantry, and opener “You’ve Stolen the Words” sets an expectation for atmosphere and a standard for directness of craft — as well as stellar production — that This Sceptred Veil seems only too happy to meet. A given listener’s reaction to the ’80s metal goofery of “Show Don’t Tell” will depend on said listener’s general tolerance for fun, but don’t let me spoil that for them or you. Yeah, it’s a substantial undertaking. Five records in, Sergeant Thunderhoof knew that when they made it, and if you’ve got the time, they’ve got the tunes. Album rocks front to back.
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 25th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Yes I’m stoked there’s a new Cult of Dom Keller and that part of you that’s an unrepentant weirdo should be as well, but I can’t help but look at the title of said album, They Carried the Dead in a U.F.O, and want to put a period after the ‘o’ in UFO or otherwise forget the punctuation altogether. I know that’s a dopey thing to hone in on when I should probably be hyping up the album — because, yes, a fifth Cult of Dom Keller LP is an exciting prospect and I can only wonder at the marvels they might’ve conjured up last year when they were writing in pandemic-mandated isolation — but I’m an editor by trade and my eye goes right there every time.
Does it ultimately matter? Nah. Might be a UK English convention for all I know. What matters is the record, which is up for preorder now from Fuzz Club and Levitation in the US, and the fact that they’re streaming the tumultuous album closer “Last King of Hell” now ahead of the release. As a next step in the four-piece’s continual anti-genre becoming, it holds much promise in its build and stately-if-the-state-is-in-another-dimension payoff.
Art, info, audio. You know how this goes:
CULT OF DOM KELLER – “THEY CARRIED THE DEAD IN A U.F.O”
Cult of Dom Keller will release their fifth album, ‘They Carried The Dead In A U.F.O’, on May 21st via Fuzz Club Records. Since 2007 the British band have been leaving a trail of sonic fever dreams, dark psychedelia and experimentalism that beats with a heavy industrial heart and the forthcoming LP sees them conjuring their heaviest and most adventurous work to date.
Channelling recent limitations and turning them to their advantage, Cult of Dom Keller found themselves radically altering their creative approach and morphing their sound into a whole new beast.
Detailing the ‘They Carried The Dead In A U.F.O’ LP, the band said: “We managed to create our most experimental and exciting album to date without being in the same room together. U.F.O. was recorded, mixed and produced by ourselves, meaning we had total control over every noise on the record. This was the exact record we wanted to make: Experimental and playful; moments of light and pure dark… we wanted to f*ck with the listener and pull them in with moments of beauty and chaos.”
Opening track ‘Run From The Gullskinna’ demonstrates this duality straight off the bat. It contrasts bittersweet shoegaze melodies with a motorik rhythm section that drives the song into a nightmarish finale at a breakneck pace. There’s also the abrasive psychedelia of ‘Infernal Heads’ (which the band describe as a “twisted pop song” at heart) and the more cinematic and slow-burning ‘Cage The Masters’, an engrossing track which feels as cathartic as the title imagines.
‘They Carried The Dead In The U.F.O’ is littered with the band’s heaviest work to date and it’s here where we really see them throw themselves into their new direction with unapologetic intent. Taking its name from the Greek goddess of rage, ‘Lyssa’ is an outpouring of discordant, industrial noise-rock that’s centred around dissonant guitars, explosive walls of sound and unsettling electronics: “With ‘Lyssa’ we wanted to make a track that channelled that discontent currently being felt across the world. It’s about dissonance, anger and how misdirection and misinformation is used to control and weaponise people against their own interests.”
Cult of Dom Keller have long been at the forefront of the contemporary British psych scene but their notorious reputation also extends much further afield too. They’ve done several tours around the UK, Europe and US and shared the stage with greats like Roky Erickson, Spectrum, Silver Apples and The Sisters of Mercy, as well as contemporaries like The Black Angels, Fat White Family and Temples (they even had fellow Nottingham troublemakers Sleaford Mods support them in the early days.)
‘They Carried The Dead In A U.F.O’ arrives off the back of last year’s mostly-instrumental ‘Ascend!’ LP and their third full-length ‘Goodbye To The Light’, released back in 2016. Fierce experimentalists, no Cult of Dom Keller record has ever sounded the same (to quote the band: “Who wants to make the same record twice? We just do what the f*ck we feel like making”) and the forthcoming ‘They Carried The Dead In A U.F.O’ is by no different. Here, the experimental onslaught that ensues is not only another new direction but their best one yet.
