Posted in Whathaveyou on October 26th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
The first Isaak release of the decade will be a new full-length album set to arrive next year on a yet-to-be-announced label. The Genova, Italy, four-piece were last heard from with a 2019 split they shared with Chron Goblin (review here), and their most recent album is 2015’s Sermonize (review here), which was issued on Heavy Psych Sounds.
There’s no audio or anything like that at this point — one assumes there will be announcements of announcements before we get there; such is the way of things in the world of need-to-make-content-to-exist, not that I’d know — but the band posted an update saying they’d finished the mastering and I chased them down for a little bit more of what they can say at this point, so at least we know there’s a cover that’s longer than “Yeah” by Kyuss, which leaves it pretty open, and the album was done with Fabio Palombi in Genoa. And they took a snazzy picture.
As to what it might sound like, you’d be forgiven for needing a refresher since it’s been seven years at this point — might be eight before the next record’s out — since Sermonize was released. If you’d like to know how they do, both of the above-mentioned outings are streaming at the bottom of this post.
Here’s what they had to say:
HEY
Album rec. done!
Mastering done!
High fashion photoshoot 2022/2023 by @davide_colombino done!
Now it’s the turn for the IRREPLACEABLE master of ceremonies @solomacello (#128420#) Can’t wait!
The new album will consist of 10 tracks + one cover, ok not funny like the last one (we had covered “YEAH” by KYUSS if you remember) but certainly longer ahahah. It’s been 7 years more or less since our last work and like many other bands these have been really difficult years, surely the lyrics and the “intensity” of the songs have been influenced a lot by these past years.
We are very happy about what we have done, this new collaboration with Fabio Palombi (Blackwave studio in Genoa Italy) has given us the new energy we were looking for.
Will it be a purely stoner record? will it be metal? will it be rock? will it be POP? Who knows? ahahahha
For sure it will be our usual sound or “soul” that someone once defined: Riffalicious fastforward Stoner Rock
We really can’t wait to share it!
The album will be out in the first half of 2023 for sure but we cannot give further details yet :(
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 8th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Good for these dudes, and yeah, I mean that. Since the release late last year of their 20-minute single-song debut EP, Twenty-Twenty (review here), Genova-based three-piece Ikitan have busted their collective hump to spread the word about their doings. In 2020-’21, that has meant a lot of social media efforts, but dig too the fact that they lugged all their stuff out to Forte Geremia — there’s a visitor’s center there; I wonder if they needed a permit to record — and pro-filmed a video of themselves playing the piece live on what looked like a pretty chilly day up on that hill, releasing both the audio and the clip of that earlier this summer with the straightforward title Twenty-Twenty Live at Forte Geremia. It’s not like they’re just sharing memes of themselves or asking what your favorite OJM album is, is what I’m saying.
So their pickup by Taxi Driver Records? Good news as far as I’m concerned. You know, in the announcement below, they talk about Ikitan socks. Haha, right? Yeah, sure. But in the YouTube video description for the Forte Geremia thing, I noticed they have a credit for “IKITAN’s socks: Napit.it” listed as well, so if you’re thinking they might not be serious about custom socks, don’t write off the idea entirely yet. Teacups either, I guess. Gotta keep warm when you’re out there playing in open spaces.
Here’s looking forward to what’s coming, whatever it might be:
IKITAN joins forces with Taxi Driver Records
We’re proud to announce the partnership with Massimo Perasso and Taxi Driver Records for IKITAN’s upcoming project.
What is that going to be? A new collection of t-shirts? Some Orazio-branded teacups? The original and second-foot IKITAN socks? It’s a secret for now… but it won’t be for long.
Watch this space! And since we have your attention: take a look at our Bandcamp shop: https://ikitan.bandcamp.com/
Posted in Reviews on March 31st, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Third day, and you know what that means. Today we hit and pass the halfway mark of this Quarterly Review. I won’t say it hasn’t been work, but it seems like every time I do one of these lately I continue to be astounded by how much easier writing about good stuff makes it. I must’ve done a real clunker like two years ago or something. Can’t think of one, but wow, it’s way more fun when the tunes are killer.
To that end we start with Dopelord today, haha. Have fun digging through if you do.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
Dopelord, Reality Dagger
They put it in a 12″, and that’s cool, but in addition to the fact that it’s about 22 minutes long, something about Reality Dagger, the latest EP from Poland’s Dopelord, strikes me as being really 10″ worthy. I know 10″ is the bastard son of vinyl pressings — doesn’t fit with your LPs and doesn’t fit with your 7″s. They’re a nuisance. Do they get their own shelf? Mixed in throughout? Well, however you organize them, I think a limited 10″ of Reality Dagger would be perfect, because from the melodies strewn throughout “Dark Coils” and the wildly catchy “Your Blood” — maybe the most complex vocal arrangement I’ve yet heard from the band — to the ultra-sludge interplay with screams on the 10-minute closing title-track, it sounds to me like standing out from the crowd is exactly what Dopelord want to do. They want to be that band that doesn’t fit your preconceptions of stoner-doom, or sludge, or modern heavy largesse in the post-Monolord vein. Why not match that admirable drive in format? Oh hell, you know what? I’ll just by the CD and have done with it. One of the best EPs I’ve heard this year.
Don’t be surprised when you see Kozmik Artifactz, Nasoni Records, or some other respected probably-European purveyor of heavy coming through with an announcement they’ve picked up Scorched Oak. The Dortmund, Germany, trio seem to have taken the last few years to figure out where they were headed — they pared down from a five-piece, for example — and their rolling tides of fuzz on late-2020’s debut LP Withering Earth bears the fruit of those efforts. Aesthetically and structurally sound, it’s able to touch on heavy blues, metal and drifting psychedelia all within the span of a seven-minute track like “Swamp,” and in its five-songs running shortest to longest, it effectively draws the listener deeper into the world the band are creating through dual vocals, patient craft and spacious production. If I was a label, I’d sign them for the bass tone on 14-minute closer “Desert” alone, never mind any of the other natural phenomena they portray throughout the record, which is perhaps grim in theme but nonetheless brimming with potential. Some cool riffs on this dying planet.
A scorching set culled from two nights of performances in their native Nashville, what’s essentially serving as Kings of the Fucking Sea‘s debut long-player, In Concert, is a paean to raw psychedelic power trio worship. High order ripper groove pervades “Witch Mountain” and the wasn’t-yet-named “Hiding No More” — which was introduced tentatively as “Death Dealer,” which the following track is actually titled. Disorienting? Shit yeah it is. And shove all the poignancy of making a live album in Feb. 2020 ahead of the pandemic blah blah. That’s not what’s happening here. This is all about blow-the-door-so-we-can-escape psychedelic pull and thrust. One gets the sense that Kings of the Fucking Sea are more in control than they let on, but they play it fast and loose and slow and loose throughout In Concert and by the time the mellower jam in “I Walk Alone” opens up to the garage-style wash of crash cymbal ahead of closer “The Nile Song,” the swirling fuckall that ensues is rampant with noise-coated fire. A show that might make you look up from your phone. So cool it might be jazz. I gotta think about it.
They bill themselves as ‘Mantarraya – power trío,’ and guitarist/vocalist Herman Robles Montero, drummer/maybe-harmonica-ist Kelvin Sifuentes Pérez and bassist/vocalist Enzo Silva Agurto certainly live up to that standard on their late-2020 self-titled debut full-length. The vibe is classic heavy ’70s through and through, and the Peruvian three-piece roll and boogie through the 11 assembled tracks with fervent bluesy swing on “En el Fondo” and no shortage of shuffle throughout the nine-minute “120 Años (Color),” which comes paired with the trippier “Almendrados” in what seems like a purposeful nod to the more out-there among the out there, bringing things back around to finish swinging and bouncing on the eponymous closer. I’ll take the classic boogie as it comes, and Mantarraya do it well, basking in a natural but not too purposefully so sense of underproduction while getting their point across in encouraging-first-record fashion. At over an hour long, it’s too much for a single LP, but plenty of time for them to get their bearings as they begin their creative journey.
At the risk of repeating myself, someone’s gonna sign Häxmästaren. You can just tell. The Swedish five-piece’s second album, Sol i Exil (“sun in exile,” in English), is a mélange of heavy rock and classic doom influences, blurring the lines between microgenres en route to an individual approach that’s still accessible enough in a riffer like “Millennium Phenomenon” or “Dödskult Ritual” to be immediately familiar and telegraph to the converted where the band are coming from. Vocalist Niklas Ekwall — any relation to Magnus from The Quill? — mixes in some screams and growls to his melodic style, further broadening the palette and adding an edge of extremity to “Children of the Mountain,” while “Growing Horns” and the capper title-track vibe out with with a more classic feel, whatever gutturalisms happen along the way, the latter feeling like a bonus for being in Swedish. In the ever-fertile creative ground that is Gothenburg, it should be no surprise to find a band like this flourishing, but fortunately Sol i Exil doesn’t have to be a surprise to kick ass.
Launching with the nine-minute instrumental “Benares” is a telling way for Kyiv’s Shiva the Destructor to begin their debut LP, since it immediately sets listener immersion as their priority. The five-track/44-minute album isn’t short on it, either, and with the band’s progressive, meditative psychedelic style, each song unfolds in its own way and in its own time, drawn together through warmth of tone and periods of heft and spaciousness on “Hydronaut” and a bit of playful bounce on “Summer of Love” (someone in this band likes reggae) and a Middle Eastern turn on “Ishtar” before “Nirvana Beach” seems to use the lyrics to describe what’s happening in the music itself before cutting off suddenly at the end. Vocals stand alone or in harmony and the double-guitar four-piece bask in a sunshine-coated sound that’s inviting and hypnotic in kind, offering turns enough to keep their audience following along and undulations that are duly a clarion to the ‘others’ referenced in the title. It’s like a call to prayer for weirdo psych heads. I’ll take that and hope for more to come.
The first and only lyric in “Heal” — the opening track of Sydney, Australia, trio Amammoth‘s debut album, The Fire Above — is the word “marijuana.” It doesn’t get any less stoned from there. Riffs come in massive waves, and even as “The Sun” digs into a bit of sludge, the largesse and crash remains thoroughly weedian, with the lumbering “Shadows” closing out the first half of the LP with particularly Sleep-y nod. Rawer shouted vocals also recall earlier Sleep, but something in Amammoth‘s sound hints toward a more metallic background than just pure Sabbath worship, and “Rise” brings that forward even as it pushes into slow-wah psychedelics, letting “Blade Runner” mirror “The Sun” in its sludgy push before closer “Walk Towards What Blinds You (Blood Bong)” introduces some backing vocals that fit surprisingly well even they kind of feel like a goof on the part of the band. Amammoth, as a word, would seem to be something not-mammoth. In sound, Amammoth are the opposite.
With emotional stakes sufficiently high throughout, MCMXIII is urgent enough to be post-hardcore, but there’s an underpinning of progressive heavy rock even in the mellower stretch of the eight-minute “Dogfight” that complements the noisier and more angular aspects on display elsewhere. Opener “Post Blue Collar Blues” sets the plotline for the newcomer Dayton, Ohio, four-piece, with thoughtful lyrics and a cerebral-but-not-dead-of-spirit instrumental style made full and spacious through the production. Melodies flesh out in “Cripple John” and “Old Face on the Wall,” brooding and surging in children-of-the-’90s fashion, but I hear a bit of Wovenhand in that finale as well — though maybe the one doesn’t exclude the other — so clearly Nineteen Thirteen are just beginning this obviously-passion-fueled exploration of sound aesthetic with these songs, but the debut EP they comprise cuts a wide swath with marked confidence and deceptive memorability. A new turn on Rust Belt heavy.
Hey, you process trauma from living through the last year your way and Genova, Italy’s Ikitan will process it theirs. In their case, that means the writing, recording and self-release of their 20-minute single-song EP, Twenty-Twenty, a sprawling work of instrumentalist heavy post-rock rife with spacious, airy lead guitar and a solid rhythmic foundation. Movements occur in waves and layers, but there is a definite thread being woven throughout the outing from one part to the next, held together alternately by the bass or drums or even guitar, though it’s the latter that seems to be leading those changes as well. The shifts are fluid in any case, and Ikitan grow Twenty-Twenty‘s lone, titular piece to a satisfyingly heft as they move through, harnessing atmosphere as well as weight even before they lower volume for stretches in the second half. There’s a quick surge at the end, but “Twenty-Twenty” is more about journey than destination, and Ikitan make the voyage enticing.
Loops, far-out spaces and a generally experimentalist feel ooze outward like Icelandic lava from Bodkin, the five-song debut LP from UK-based solo-outfit Smote. The gentleman behind the flow is Newcastle upon Tyne’s Daniel Foggin, and this is one of three releases he has out so far in 2021, along with a prior drone collaboration tape with Forest Mourning and a subsequent EP made of two tracks at around 15 minutes each. Clearly a project that can be done indoors during pandemic lockdown, Smote‘s material is wide-ranging just the same, bringing Eastern multi-instrumentalism and traditionalist UK psych together on “Fohrt” and “Moninna,” which would border on folk but for all that buzz in the background. The 11-minute “Motte” is a highlight of acid ritualizing, but the droning title-track that rounds out makes each crash count all the more for the spaces that separate them. I dig this a lot, between you and me. I get vibes like Lamp of the Universe here in terms of sonic ambition and resultant presence. That’s not a comparison I make lightly, and this is a project I will be following.
Posted in Questionnaire on March 8th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Enrico Meloni of IKITAN and The Healing Process
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I am the drummer of IKITAN and have been into music since my early teen years. Being self-taught and having been into bands at different times and with varying intensity in many parts of my life, I can’t say “I’m a musician” as there was never the drive to make it a profession or something too professional (as in, studying for hours a day), but I do love playing and experimenting with music.
It was easy for me to listen to albums back to back and try and reproduce them when I first picked up drums (around 11-12 y-o), and then go and play with my bands and do the same without too much study, so I guess I’ve been lucky I can express myself to an acceptable degree without having to invest too much time or energy.
IKITAN came about in just the right moment in my life: I had recently moved back to Italy (in Genoa) after 5 years in London and, having explored a lot of different kinds of music, it was time to do something different, whatever that means. Which for me means: not having a “musical” plan and going with the flow, without being afraid of crossing barriers and mixing things up. Try and do something original, and never be afraid. Also, don’t get too much in love with something as “a better idea” might be around the corner.
After some not-too-successful experiences, I met Luca (guitar) and Frik Et (bass) thanks to an adv on a local FB page for musicians, we met and started jamming from day one. Thanks to them I learned about the existence of the world of instrumental music in the form of post-rock and the likes. This is how IKITAN was born: a jam session-driven band wanting to play instrumental music, and heavily influenced by post-rock, stoner and prog.
We’ve been playing together for over a year now, released one EP called Twenty-Twenty (one only song which lasts 20 minutes and 20 seconds, released on 20th November 2020) and this is the result of our personalities meeting and creating music. We call it heavy post-rock but there’s a lot more into it. Sounds cliché, I know, but this is what it is.
Like in my original plan of not having a plan, this whole thing took me somewhere unexpected, and I’m very happy about it.
On top of this, last Summer I got in touch with The Healing Process, a Milan-based one-man technical thrash metal band who was looking for a session drummer to record their upcoming album. I met with Carlo and we’ve started working on a killer 7-track album that will take you back to the sound of bands such as Heathen, And Justice for All-era Metallica, and Toxik.
I’ve always wanted to play thrash metal, probably my fav type of metal, and this is the perfect opportunity to do it.
Describe your first musical memory.
Watching my dad and sister play guitar together. She’s a great classical guitar player and my dad, who knew the basics of guitar, was very much into the Italian songwriters of the ’70s and ’80s, De André mainly (which, ironically, was from the city I now live in, and where IKITAN happens to operate), and with my mom singing all types of tunes as all the time, there was always music in the house.
All I could do was call for attention by thrashing pans and spoons while they gently and mindfully played their strings. I was doomed from that early age, yes.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
My first ever gig, when I was 12 and we just went on stage with my elder cousin and a couple of other guys and played two songs we never actually rehearsed before (from Italian rock band Elio e Le Storie Tese: “John Holmes” and “Catalogna”).
Back then it looked like every single teenager in the town I’m from was playing music, so little festivals and concerts were literally all over the place. You could just ask people “do you know this and that song?” go on stage and have the time of your life.
On that very day I was also challenged by some stranger who said I was too young to play Iron Maiden, so I went on stage and started playing “Be Quick or Be Dead,” completely random, between bands.
This was my initiation!
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
In all fairness, I’ve never been a fond fan of instrumental music, but now I feel very comfortable playing it with IKITAN. I’ve discovered a whole new world and I love it. Not having a vocalist gives us the flexibility we need to be fully driven by the music, without having to worry if this or that part of the song has to be aggressive or sweet vocally.
Some of the bands I like the most, even though it did take me a while to fully appreciate them, are As I Watch You From Afar, Pelican, Long Distance Calling, Russian Circles and If These Trees Could Talk.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
You gotta be happy and proud of what you do at all points of your career. I’m not in this for the money (I guess I’m a bit late for it lol) so I feel that artistic progression and what one creates have to make oneself happy in the first place.
What do I mean by happy? Satisfied with the music, with the people you share the journey with, and content with what is being reached with hard work on a daily basis.
If you’re not satisfied by your passion, what’s the point? To keep this feeling consistent is not easy, of course, and I’m not even talking about the music per se here, but more about the experience of being in a band as a whole.
Too many times, when looking for a band playing “that” genre, I met people who had a very precise idea of where they wanted to go and how they wanted to appear etc. This often didn’t coincide with my idea (which, in a way, is “I have no idea where I am going, let’s start and see where we can get together”), and now I feel with IKITAN we’re more or less on the same wavelength, which makes the project interesting and relevant every day, both musically and as human beings.
How do you define success?
This kind of links back to the previous question. If that could be summarized as “wake up every day and not be ashamed of what you see in the mirror,” I’d go for that.
Success means peace of mind, having the time and opportunities to experiment and be well with the people you like.
In my and our case, with IKITAN, our first success was to stick to our plan to actually release an EP even though the band was less than one year old, no social media presence, no concerts, but a lot of playing together, jamming around and the right mentality to make things happen.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
The movie of IT when I was six years old. It was a game-changer and one of the first, real “fears” I’ve ever had when I was a kid. Little did I know the book is even scarier when I read it a few years later.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I can’t wait for IKITAN’s upcoming album to take shape and be released to the world. We will want to do a proper PR campaign and let the world know about it. I feel we’re where we want to be with this band, everyone is contributing in a relevant and tangible way to the project and we’re playing with the music a lot. It looks like after years of purposeless projects we’re finally in a stage in our lives where we can and want to invest in this project and we’re doing whatever we like to do.
So yes, creating a real full length album and releasing it would do for now.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Enrico: to lift your spirit, whatever that means for each one of us. Some might “get high” by giving art a political connotation, some others might only be interested in the music, some others use it to convey a spiritual message… whatever that is, get lifted.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
As non-original as it sounds (I suspect everyone’s said this lately lol), I can’t wait to go back to concerts and life to stop being about wearing a mask. And visit my family in Sardinia, it’s been so annoying not being able to travel, whether it’s for work, for leisure or to visit your family. I really hope personal liberty will go back to where it was very quickly. I wasn’t particularly affected on a mental level by the restrictions but after one year… hard not to be!
As IKITAN, we’d like to do our first concert, for example, as we started playing together in November 2019 and then shit hit the fan big time.
Stay tuned as some cool surprises will be unveiled to the world in the next few weeks.
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 17th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
Let’s make a couple assumptions here. First of all, let’s assume that at some point, Varego will note what happened with their lineup to go from a four-piece to a power trio, and that at some point they’ll announce that their fourth album — yet untitled — is set to come out through Argonauta Records, since guitarist Gerolamo Lucisano doubles as the lead vibe-bringer for the label. As for Varego‘s music, last heard from in 2019’s I, Prophetic (review here), the band dig into post-metal-style quirk with a good flair for the adventure tossed in along the way. They’ve yet to offer up a record not progressed from the one before it, and with plenty of time this year to sit and write material, it’s easy to imagine their new stuff will follow suit.
And I am just imagining that for now since there’s no audio yet. One assumes we’ll get there sooner or later.
See what I did there?
From the PR wire:
VAREGO complete recordings for forthcoming album!
A new chapter begins for Italian post prog band VAREGO. Today, the renewed trio announced that they finished recording their new studio album, which will see the light in 2021.
“We went into the studio very prepared, with the intention of recording in real time,” says the band. “We were confident and excited to collaborate once again with the producer and dear friend Mattia Cominotto, who welcomed us with willingness, professionalism and enthusiasm. We recorded everything in three days in which we really let ourselves go and gave vent to all our passion with a smile on our lips and having fun. Mattia took care of the rest with a mixing and mastering of the highest level, in our opinion. We are enormously satisfied with the product that came out and we can’t wait for you to listen to it”.
VAREGO’s sound has found a new energy and it is distinctly more powerful, a rash with grunge echoes, stoner rock riffs, post-metal and prog rock nuances that pushes the band’s evolution a step further. It is the manifest result of the band’s creative peak and, in the meantime, a point of arrival and a new start.
Their fourth studio album was recorded in a few days almost entirely in real time at Greenfog Studio in Genoa, with producer Mattia Cominotto (Meganoidi, Tre Allegri ragazzi Morti, Punkreas) who also did the mixing and mastering.
Stay tuned, more details will be announced shortly.
Posted in audiObelisk on September 6th, 2019 by JJ Koczan
Today, Sept. 6, marks the arrival of the new split tape from Canadian and Italian outfits Chron Goblin and Isaak. Issued name-your-price through Spikerot Records in a soon-to-be-gone limited edition of only 100 tapes, the offering features one track from each band, each representing something different from them. To wit, Chron Goblin are about to put out their fourth album, Here Before (track premiere here), on Sept. 27 through Grand Hand Records. Isaak, meanwhile, were last heard from with 2015’s Sermonize (review here) on Heavy Psych Sounds. The Chron Goblin track, “Signs,” however, was recorded in 2015 at the same session as their third album, Backwater (review here). The Isaak song, “Taste,” was tracked at the end of last year. So the split arises from some pretty complex circumstances. For one band, it represents a chance to showcase something older as they move onto something newer, and for the other, it marks a return after a few years’ absence from the studio, a kind of refresher for their audience and a reminder of what they do as a group. It’s a fair amount of context to pack into an eight-minute release.
Fortunately, in listening to “Signs” and “Taste,” there’s plenty to dig into for those who’d otherwise, you know, just want to listen to some previously unheard material. Chron Goblin begin with a bit of amp noise and are all-go, soon enough launching into a Roadsaw-style verse that careens through a gang-shout hook en route to a winding slowdown and bluesy solo in the second half. The key moment is when everything but the bass drops out and the nod takes full shape before dropping out to complete the efficient 4:25. Done. Flip tape. Chron Goblin are in and out of “Signs” with an assurance of songwriting that leaves little to wonder why they’d dig up the track four years after the fact and still find it relevant enough to release: because quality songcraft is always relevant.
Isaak‘s answer back in “Taste” by building up over the first minute-plus to finally unleashing a forceful pummel of a riff met with likewise burly vocals. They’ve never wanted for brashness, and “Taste” is no exception to this as the low-end takes central position tonally and they cycle through the verse again as though coming back out of the corner for round two. The tension they manifest turns in the third minute to a more straightforward pop of snare and seems to run a little more forward rather than circular, but the let’s-kick-ass-and-worry-about-the-rest-later vibe remains consistent. They too finish clean. Surprisingly so for having seemed to throw so much sonic mud around, but maybe after a few years it’s just a sense of relief to be back with new material at all. I won’t speculate as to what their plans are without knowing, but Isaak certainly sound like they still have plenty more to say, as they did on their last record too.
And for Chron Goblin, there’s already the advantage of knowing the direction they’d take after recording “Signs,” so yeah, it’s a bit of a different situation from one band to the other, but the bottom line is it’s two tracks of hard-edged heavy rock and roll marked out by zero pretense and an efficient delivery, pressed up to a limited tape that will likely sell out before it even lands on the merch table, so yeah, there’s really no way to lose here. Bonus to anyone who listens to the stream on a Walkman.
Chron Goblin – Signs Recorded and mixed by Adam Pike at Toadhouse Studios in Portland, OR in February, 2015 Mastered by Stephan Hawkes at Interlace Audio
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 2nd, 2019 by JJ Koczan
So Isaak haven’t released anything since 2015’s Sermonize (review here) and Chron Goblin are putting out their new record, Here Before (discussed here) at the end of September. Isaak are in Italy. Chron Goblin in Canada. These seem like two bands in very different situations, and yet this week they’ll team up for a cassette split that’s also the first tape ever to come out through Spikerot Records. You know what? I’d check that out. I like a tape, I like a split, and I’d like to know how these two bands got hooked up in the first place, so yeah, I’ll give this one a listen when the time comes. Why the hell not? Do the circumstances even matter? Of course not. The riffs matter.
Release is coming up quick, so keep an eye out for it. I’ll also be interested to see if it leads to more from Isaak anytime soon, as their last outing was a banger.
Here’s Spikerot‘s post about the tape:
Chron Goblin Vs Isaak. Split Tape through Spikerot Records
Spikerot has been all about Vinyls and CDs so far, but cassettes have dignity too, so why not?
We’re proud to be releasing our first tape ever under the banner of international Stoner Rock with two previously unreleased tracks from Canadian boogie facepunchers Chron Goblin and Italian riffalicious gang Isaak. Those who know each band’s signature sound will not be disappointed, both tracks are sheer energy, pairing melody with groove and distortion for a fresh interpretation of heavy music.
RELEASE DATE: September 6th
TRACKLIST SIDE A: Chron Goblin – Signs SIDE B: Isaak – Taste
[Click play above to stream I Prophetic by Varego in full. It’s out Feb. 15 on Argonauta Records.]
Sure, Varego have the piano intro. Sure, they have all kinds of progressive nuance. They’ve got the six-and-a-half-minute title-track full of Voivodian sci-fi weirdo crunch. They’ve got the off-in-the-distance, spaciously-mixed vocals of bassist Davide Marcenaro. But you know, listen to the start of that title-track, or to the central riff from Alberto Pozzo and Gerolamo Lucisano of “When the Wolves,” or the intensity of Simon Lepore‘s drum changes in closer “Zodiac,” and Varego are still very much a metal band. Shades of Judas Priest can be heard throughout in Pozzo‘s and Lucisano‘s guitars, and while they’re definitely just shades — since it’s not like Varego are carbon-copying, well, anyone — that gives the clean 36-minute run of I Prophetic a foundation from which it’s working its way out. I don’t think they’d call it space metal or cosmic metal — the latter somehow would imply less psychedelia, so might fit as a tag, though “Zodiac” and others do touch on the ethereal as well — but it’s definitely in that nebulous region where “progressive” becomes a catchall standing in for saying the band are conscious of what they’re doing as songwriters.
There are eight tracks on the Argonauta-released I Prophetic, counting the aforementioned piano intro “Origin,” and while they open with the catchiest of them in “The Abstract Corpse” and thereby answer the question of what might’ve been if Primordial had been from Mars instead of Ireland with a fervent forward drive that stands tall among any of those to follow — at least before they hit the brakes — the Italian four-piece subsequently find themselves expanding parameters of structure and sound alike on the title-track and only continue to go further out from there. Regardless of genre, one might read I Prophetic as a kind of linear path. Following the brooding “Silent Giants,” which opens the second half, “When the Wolves” provides some measure of grounding, but still, it’s clear by that point that there’s really no coming back, and the closing wallop of “Duelist” and “Zodiac” bear that out.
So what is it? It can’t just be the echo on Marcenaro‘s vocals. Looking back to 2016’s Epoch (review here), their second album, it seems like I Prophetic has a tighter, sharper overall approach. Its songs are more sure of their purpose, and that underlying foundation of metal weaves itself like a thread throughout the tracklisting. One can hear that even on side A capper “Of Dust,” which moves from its initial progression toward more expansive fare while still holding to a core groove in the drums and bass. The interplay of the two guitars is definitely part of it, and the breadth of the mix is definitely part of it, but as “Of Dust” ends with a guitar solo, there’s still something so intentionally traditional-metal about the proceedings. Craft has definitely become more of a factor for Varego, though, and as the abiding buzz of the guitars work alongside the drifting bassline at the mellow-but-tense outset of “Silent Giants,” the sense of atmosphere becomes all the more prevalent.
After “When the Wolves,” which at 3:03 is the shortest non-intro inclusion here, that continues into “Duelist” as well, and the more Varego depart from their sludgy beginnings, the more they seem to find themselves out there in the cosmos, frozen like in some lump of comet ice charting an irregular orbit all their own. Individualism suits them, unsurprisingly, but one doesn’t necessarily get the feeling they’re done growing. “The Abstract Corpse” howls into its barrage after its quick drum-fill introduction, and together with “I Prophetic” itself, it forms a statement of purpose that’s varied and rich, not without melody, but coated in effects — the title-track will earn them some Monolord comparisons, particularly as it moves into a bigger riff after the verse around the two-minute mark — and working on its own level. The end stemming from their means isn’t entirely clear yet, but the unsettling element of I Prophetic — its refusal to simply be one thing; metal or sludge, progressive or traditional — is part of its appeal and in the end, the basis for its success.
With Epoch, Varego made the transition from a five- to a four-piece lineup. With I Prophetic, they refine their approach to a striking degree, making it all the more their own and all the more intricate. Even “When the Wolves,” which is the most willfully straightforward thrasher included, has a level of sonic detail that begs for multiple listens and a kind of mental dissection: “What are they doing here?” The answer to that question, though, requires stepping back and taking the album in its entirety. What they’re doing is melding heavy metal to their own purposes. It’s not about homage to the past so much as building off the past, their own as well as that of others. It takes time for a band to discover who they really are in terms of sound — and, I suppose, everything else — but it feels like Varego have found themselves here, and like I Prophetic works so fluidly across its span to move outward from where it begins, one would expect the band to do no less their next time out in continuing to progress along the line they’re drawing.
A key, perhaps telling moment is shortly before three minutes into “Zodiac,” when the song hangs a left and slows down in the guitar, vocals layering over what’s clearly the final march. They ring out for a while to end it, but before that, they stake their claim on a marked distance from where they started out in “The Abstract Corpse,” and the spectrum they’ve run in that time — still an utterly manageable 36 minutes — is an accomplishment unto itself. Do I think they’re done growing? No. This kind of progressive songwriting rarely stagnates. But I Prophetic serves a crucial function as that moment of arrival for them, and of course thereby sets up the inevitable departure to follow. Varego have come into their own. What they do now is entirely up to them.
