Posted in Whathaveyou on December 5th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Fucking hell, I hope I get to go to Desertfest Oslo. Conan and Dopelord and 16 on top of the likes of Dozer, King Buffalo and Pelican. Even down to Astralplane — their new record is badass, I have it pending for a review — and White Tundra (please don’t put them in the tiny room!), there’s no real letup. Howling Giant, Bottenhavet, Moonstone, Daevar, High Desert Queen. It’s just killer.
I write about a lot of festivals. Feels like especially in the last couple weeks, the Spring season in Europe has really taken shape. Desertfest Oslo 2026 has an essential role in that, as it feeds into the subsequent Desertfest Berlin and Desertfest London, as well as other festivals happening throughout May and into June. And that’s always cool, and I’ll look forward to those tour announcements as well, but my principal insight here is what I said in the first sentence. I was lucky enough to get to Oslo for Desertfest this year, and I very, very much want to go again in ’26.
The now-complete lineup, of course, is a significant part of why. From socials:
DESERTFEST OSLO 2026 – FINAL LINEUP ANNOUNCEMENT
Oh hey, here we are already!
Things have been cooking intensely over the last couple of weeks, and we are finally ready to announce the complete lineup for Desertfest Oslo.
No matter how grey, moist and rainy it feels these days, the sun will soon be turning, and its beams set on Oslo, to light this city of Satan completely on fire May 8th and 9th, 2026.
The lineup is hotter than hell, and we hope it will add some sparkle to your holiday preparations.
Consider it a RIFFmas gift 🔥
A glimpse of light and fuzz. A state of mind to look forward to. Beyond the X-mas buzz. From all of us, to all of you.
Lots of love from your Desertfest Oslo crew!
Please welcome:
🏜️ UK´s doom lords CONAN.
🏜️ Norwegian stoner rock legends THULSA DOOM.
🏜️ Polish fuzz maestros DOPELORD.
🏜️ American sludge beast -16-,
🏜️ Italian stallions MR.BISON.
🏜️ Norwegian cosmonauts ASTRALPLANE.
🏜️ The new HEAVY from Sweden HEXJAKT
🏜️ Rising Italian psych masters GIOBIA.
🏜️ Local Norwegian powerhouses WHITE TUNDRA and BIG RIP.
Jam in the Psych Castle won’t be the first music festival hosted at the Öreg Tölgy Kastély-Fogadó, an estate-turned-event-space in Pusztazámor, Hungary. Earlier this year, the grounds hosted a punk and hardcore barbecue that went on for two days, so yes, don’t break a window because the place has weddings in — don’t break a window anyway; don’t be a dick — but there is experience on-site for running sound, lights, and all that other festival-type stuff. The partnership between Para Hobo and Psychedelic Source Records — which will also host a jam session the second day — has put together a lineup that runs a gamut through European heavy psych, with Speck and Obsidian Sea, MR.BISON, the proggy Daliborovo Granje and Poland’s Weedpecker in the headlining spot. By next September, they’ll likely have spent much of 2026 on the road for their impending album, V, due in February.
I’ll make no bones about my interest in Hungary. I’m of Hungarian origin and have been taking language lessons with an eye toward acquiring citizenship through my ancestry. My family and I spent four weeks in Budapest last year and I’ve been trying to figure out how to get back since. I’m proud to have The Obelisk’s logo (especially the metal one!) in good company on the poster above, and while I doubt I’ll be there to see it next year, I hope to be able to watch Jam in the Psych Castle grow in the years to come, as well as to be a part of it physically eventually.
Please keep in mind that this is a small gathering at a very special venue. Our capacity is limited to only 500 people per day. You should buy your ticket as soon as possible if you want to participate!
Shows: Weedpecker / POL Daliborovo Granje / HR Karkara / FR The Qualitons / HUN (special set) Mr. Bison / IT Roadkillsoda / RO Giöbia / IT Speck / AT Supernaughty / IT Obsidian Sea / BG Da Captain Trips / IT Psychedelic Source Records / HUN (with special guests) Band in the Pit / HUN Endre / HUN Azutmaga / HUN Alas! / HUN Deley / HUN (Sound System special)
Posted in Reviews on November 20th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
It’s all over now, I’ve got momentum on my side. This is day four of the Quarterly Review. The first three days have been nothing but a pleasure on my end, putting them together, and with just today and tomorrow left, I’m feeling pretty good about the entire endeavor. I’m not sure yet if this will be the end of the year as regards QRs, but if it is, it’s a good one to go out on.
And basically to make that determination, I need to look at next month’s schedule and see what’s coming when, when I’ll do things like the year-end poll and my own big end-of-year post. No idea on any of that yet, but I’ll get there. Getting this done in relatively smooth fashion is a help. Thanks for reading and I hope it’s been a good one for you as well.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
Psychedelic Source Records, The Initiation Outlaws
Set to release through Echodelick in the US and Weird Beard Records in the UK, in addition to Psychedelic Source Records‘ own distribution, The Initiation Outlaws brings eight pieces and a full 98-minute double-LP’s worth of cosmic improvised jamming, with a cast of regulars from the Hungarian collective — Bence Ambrus, Máté Varga, Róbert Kránitz, Krisztina Benus, Gergely Szabó — taking part in collaborative exploration with Go Kurosawa of Kikagaku Moyo, who goes from drums to bass to guitar as the release progresses, sliding right into the amorphous methodology of Psychedelic Source Records while distinguishing the heavier push in “Three Golds Reward II” or the snare work on “The King of Magic Colts and Wands I” earlier. Trance-inducing as ever, these captured moments are gorgeously fluid and immersive, active enough in parts like “The King of Magic Colts and Wands II” to defy mellowpsych-improv expectation, but abiding just the same. If you’re not there yet, it’s time to start thinking of Psychedelic Source among Europe’s finest purveyors of heavy psychedelia.
The forlorn folkishness in the midsection of “Waves Become the Sky” bring to mind an extrapolation of emotive doom from the likes of Warning, but that’s understandable with Aerial Ruin and Bell Witch renewing their collaboration for Stygian Bough Vol. II, following on from a first volume (review here) in 2020. The album takes place over four extended tracks from the rolling density of the aforementioned opener through the minimalist-till-it-isn’t “King of the Wood” and the longform folk-death-doom of “From Dominion Let Them Bleed” and the melancholy triumph of heft wrought in 19-minute finale “The Told and the Leadened,” which dwells in spaces empty and full and remains conscious enough to end with tense noise and drumming. This is artistry on its own wavelength, working in its own time, and patient to a point of extremity. But they do it to offer comfort, make no mistake. There’s consolation in these songs, in addition to all the mourning.
Unrepentantly cosmic Italian outfit Giöbia are like a fresh coat of antimatter for space rock. The four-piece obviously hunkered down in their secret lab after 2023’s Acid Disorder (review here) and worked hard to refine their chemical compositions, such that “Voodoo Experience” nods grounded even as its synth and guitars surge beyond the thermosphere. The results show everywhere throughout X-ÆON in their outsider cohesion of classic and neo-space rocks, heavy psychedelia and oddball synthscaping, whether you’re doing the sensory thing with the dream-jam “1976” or embroiled in the four-part side B concept piece, “La Mort de la Terre,” which draws a cinematic curtain for life as we know it in “Dans la Nuit Éternelle,” a wordless epilogue that feels half a world removed from the stomp-and-verse of “The Death of the Crows,” but of course, that’s the whole idea.
The included acoustic guitar, organ and FM-radio classic rock vibes in the eight-and-a-half-minute closing title-track aren’t a coincidence. They’re part of a stated intention the band had in taking on more of a traditional sound, coming down from some of the harder-hitting doom of 2020’s Acid Communion and working in more of a ’70s-inspired style. That manifests to varying degrees throughout, as leadoff “Electric Execution” feels like it’s working in the vein of “Neon Knights” or “Turn Up the Night” in Dio Sabbathian raucousness (I know that was 1980-81, don’t @ me), and while “Lucifer Rising” has a weighted march, it’s more Scorpions than Sleep, and “Goin’ to Texas” brings in the organ to emphasize the Southern geography of the album’s centerpiece. It’s a striking turn but they pull it off for sure. “Muchachos Muchachin'” has mid-’70s charm to spare, and “Bone Boys Ride Out” seems to bridge the more modern attack of Bone Church-prior with who they are today. Not every progression plays out like you think it will, and if this is the band Bone Church have wanted to be all along, they sound accordingly right to have made the redirect.
The ‘soft scream’ vocals give Js Donny‘s Death Folk an immediate sense of extremity, but it’s a quiet extremity. The French solo artist — who also plays bass in adventurous Marseilles sludgers Donna Candy — released an EP with a full lineup in 2023, but this six-song/33-minute offering is more intimate. Js Donny dwells in the quiet, creepy spaces the songs create, the vocal gurgle giving shades of otherworldliness and malevolence alike. It’s called Death Folk, but especially with the electrified/distorted wash that takes hold in “Not Like That” and again at the outset of closer “Black Heart” — a biting tone, like harsher blackgaze — I can’t help but wonder if Js Donny isn’t working in a kind of post-death-metallic framing. There are no drums, which is a fair trade for what’s gained in grim ambience, but even without, the album is clear in manifesting both sides of its title, and while Js Donny isn’t the only one laying claim to death-folk as a style, how it happens here sure feels like an act of genre creation.
In some distant future, when the history is written of our idiotic, persistently awful time, no one will ever say, “and the right-thinking people of the day had no choice but to seek refuge in avant garde cybergrind,” and that’s why history is bullshit. Skeletal Blasphemy is the third album from Nuclear Dudes and second of 2025 behind September’s Truth Paste (review here) — keep ’em coming — and is the solo-project’s most vicious and realized offering to-date. Spearhead Jon Weisnewski (Sandrider, ex-Akimbo) brings powerviolent catharsis on “Victory Pants,” the title-track and assorted others, working in collaboration with guest drummer Coady Willis (High on Fire, Big Business, Melvins), and whether it’s the punker push in “Bad Body” or the slow, undulations of the closing “The Octopus” and the burgeoning thread of progressive melody throughout these songs, it’s exactly the sort of self-bludgeoning that being alive right now requires. Album of the year? Fuck you, fuck the year, and fuck capitalism.
With an instrumentalist foot in progressive, horn-inclusive jazz, heavy psychedelic fluidity and a resonant warmth of tone alongside a will to meander, Kronstad 23 feel tailor-made for El Paraiso Records, run by members of Denmark’s Causa Sui. Sommermørket is the Norwegian outfit’s debut album and without sounding consumed by its own ambition to do so, it organically nestles the band in a stylistic niche that allows for the explorations in “Caesar” and “Astralreiser,” the latter of which will seem barely there in its early going at low volumes, to exist along the daring-toward-dancey opener “Dølgsmål” and building a kind of dreamy tension between the guitar and drums on “Trosten,” with none of it feeling out of place. They’ll invariably get comparisons to Kanaan, but the foundation is different and the delivery gentler, with “Helgen” finding its way on drum rolls and key/guitar drift into a classic-prog horn section in a payoff that’s somewhat understated until you look back across the five and a half minutes and see how far you’ve come. I can’t wait to hear how they grow.
“Love of Driving” is the debut single from newcomer New Jersey-based krautrock-minded two-piece Rolls the River. The band brings together Dan Kirwan of Pyre Fyre on bass, guitar and vocals, and Victor Marinelli on guitar, synth, drums and vocals for a sub-five-minute cosmic reachout, obviously schooled in where it’s coming from — that is to say, one doesn’t krautrock by accident; it is a form to adopt and refine — but still feeling like an initial exploration of both style and composition. Fading in on an initial keyboardy drone, the guitar and drums come in together and the neospace shuffle is mellow as layers are added, guitar, keys, but the sense of movement brought to “Love of Driving” is enough to explain the title, whatever you might think of the Garden State’s highway system. Rather than get caught up in jughandles, though, Rolls the River harness tonal presence and linear development and still find room to include voice as part of the atmosphere. Formative, and an encouraging start.
Belgium’s Psychonaut may yet teach progressive metal a lesson or two. The post-metal three-piece reach what sure feels in “Endless Currents” like a new level of expression and craft, and while at 11 songs and 60 minutes, World Maker isn’t a minor undertaking — one could easily argue making a world takes time — the utter consumption achieved in “All in Time,” which I won’t spoil any further, the blissful wash of “…Everything Else is Just the Weather” are not to be missed, and worth whatever minor investment of attention span might be required. Exciting as the intermittent metallic surges are, “Endless Erosion” caps in a quiet place, and the atmospherics across the first two and a half minutes of “Origins,” just as one example, help to bring a feeling of place (of ‘world’) to the procession. It is a vivid place Psychonaut have made, and there are listeners for whom the melodies of World Maker will be transcendental.
Following an apparent 2024 EP called Anachronist that is below because this debut album isn’t streaming yet that I can find, The Sea Between Stars — a suitably romantic framing of what you might otherwise call ‘the void’ — brings a progressive take to classic-style doom rock. The Oregonian five-piece roll out a genuine feeling of dynamic across the album’s 10 tracks, from the proto-metal shove of “Knightrider” at the outset to the later rush and wail of “Sky Sized Heart,” to the doom-epic ballad reach of “Bridge of Irreconcilable Sorrow” to the acoustic turn in the last movement of “The Words We Don’t Speak” and variable but unifyingly soulful vocal arrangements throughout, up to the minimal voice-and-piano closer “Ghost Notes” or the duet in the crescendo of “Still Breathing.” Ambition set in balance with organic production and songwriting. I don’t know when The Sea Between Stars is coming out, if it’s now-ish, early 2026 or what, but if you want to take this as an early heads up, do.
One looks forward to the arrival of a new album from Italy’s Giöbia — also stylized all-caps: GIÖBIA — the way one looks forward to an adventure into the unknown. There’s some trepidation, of course, because the risk is inherent, but that anxiety is part of the general molecular excitement. From X-ÆON, which I believe is their sixth album (?), the Milano-based oddballs unfurl “Fractal Haze” as a lead single, and it’s premiering-below six-plus minutes of post-cosmic exploration, shimmering like new science in a paper magazine reflecting light from a drop ceiling in 1975, delightfully headspinning while also familiar in its intent to plunge.
Giöbia‘s most recent LP was 2023’s Acid Disorder (review here), and from the progressive trail of their discography to-date, one might infer that “Fractal Haze” likely isn’t a representation of all the sounds on X-ÆON — the biggest expectation I have for the record is they’ll pursue their own ends, if you’re curious — but it has the decided advantage of being rad as hell, and if you’re picking a first single to go with the launch of preorders for your new album, that’s certainly not the kind of thing you want to keep a secret.
The song and PR wire background follow. Please enjoy:
GIÖBIA, “Fractal Haze” track premiere
FRACTAL HAZE is GIÖBIA brand new single, taken from the upcoming new album X-ÆON.
The release will see the light on October 17th via Heavy Psych Sounds.
With X-ÆON, Giöbia push their signature blend of mesmerizing neo-psychedelia and space rock into uncharted territory. Echoes of the ’70s meet a bold, forward-looking vision, shaping an album that feels timeless. Each track offers a glimpse into a parallel reality, a plunge into a new era brimming with tension and mystery.
As the band puts it: “This album is everything we’ve lived and learned, captured in the moment we’re in now.”
All songs written, arranged and performed by Giöbia Recorded at Elfo Studio in Piacenza between March and December 2024 Engineered and mixed by Dan1ele Mandelli, final mixing and mastering by Andrea Tripodi at Studio 7, London, UK Cover artwork by Jo Riou Layout by Francesca Papi In loving memory of Paola Di Francesco
1. Voodoo Experience 2. Fractal Haze 3. The Death of The Crows 4. 1976 5. Vers les Terres-Rouges (La Mort de la Terre) 6. Les Ferromagnétaux (La Mort de la Terre) 7. L’Eau Fugitive (La Mort de la Terre) 8. Dans la Nuit Éternelle (La Mort de la Terre)
The mystical day 60s rock met neopsychedelic rock mixing up to the point of losing consciousness of their own essence, that’s when Giöbia’s acid psychedelic rock was born, in an overwhelming and incessant soundtrack with an unmistakable Italian taste. In a vortex that leaves no way out, the unique melodies of this quartet take the listener into a world where the boundaries of reality are no longer defined and anything can ever happen.
After their debut in 2009 with ‘Hard Stories’, Giöbia firmly established themselves in 2013 with ‘Introducing Night Sounds’, which suddenly brought them to the most important stages of Europe, until in 2016 the milestone ‘The Magnifier’ assigned them a place among the most influential bands of the scene.
Giöbia went on astonishing their audience by forging ‘Plasmatic Idol’, which saw the light in 2020 via Heavy Psych Sounds and reconfirmed them as the forefathers of a genre that fascinates and amazes anyone who dare to leave themselves behind without fear of never returning. In 2021 Giöbia released their split album with The Cosmic Dead “The Intergalactic Connection – Exploring The Sideral Remote Hyperspace”, a must-have for every space traveler.
Unable to stop in front of any challenge, the quartet released ‘Acid Disorder’ in 2023 on Heavy Psych Sounds, which expertly refines the band’s psychedelic rock attitude alongside a wide spectrum of intriguing sounds and textures. Now after two years it’s time for another brand new album – the release will see the light in October via Heavy Psych Sounds. Stay tuned!
GIÖBIA is: Stefano ‘Bazu’ Basurto – guitar, vocals Paolo ‘Detrji’ Basurto – bass Melissa Crema – organs, synthesizers Pietro D’Ambrosio – drums
Posted in Reviews on April 13th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Oh hi, I’m pretending I didn’t see you there. Today the Spring 2023 Quarterly Review hits and — if Apollo is willing — passes the halfway point en route to 70 total records to be covered by the end of next Tuesday. Then there’s another 50 at least to come next month, so I don’t know what ‘quarter’ that’s gonna be but I don’t really have another name for this kind of roundup just sitting in my back pocket, so if we have to fudge one or expand Spring in such a way, I sincerely doubt anyone but me actually cares that it’s a little weird this time through. And I’m not even sure I care, to be honest. Surely “notice” would be a better word.
Either way, thanks for reading. Hope you’ve found something cool thus far and hope you find more today. Let’s roll.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
Rotor, Sieben
Seven full-lengths and a quarter-century later, it’s nigh on impossible to argue with Berlin instrumentalists Rotor. Sieben — or simply 7, depending on where you look — is their latest offering, and in addition to embracing heavy psychedelia with enough tonal warmth on “Aller Tage Abend” to remind that they’re contemporaries to Colour Haze, the seven-song/38-minute LP has room for the jazzy classic prog flashes of “Mäander” later on and the more straight-ahead fuzzy crunch of “Reibach,” which opens, and the contrast offered by the acoustic guitar and friendly roll that emerges on the closing title-track. Dug into the groove and Euro-size XXL (that’s XL to Americans) riffing of “Kahlschlag,” there’s never a doubt that it’s Rotor you’re hearing, and the same is true of “Aller Tage Abend,” the easy-nodding second half and desert-style chop of “Schabracke,” and everything else; the simple fact is that Rotor these 25 years on can be and in fact are all of these things and more besides while also being a band who have absolutely nothing to prove. Sieben celebrates their progression, the riffs at their roots, the old and new in their makeup and the mastery with which they’ve made the notion of ‘instrumental heavy rock’ so much their own. It’s a lesson gladly learned again, and 2023 is a better year with Sieben in it.
Athens-based sludge-and-then-some rockers Seer of the Void follow their successful 2020 debut, Revenant, with the more expansive Mantra Monolith, enacting growth on multiple levels, be it the production and general largesse of their sound, the songs becoming a bit longer (on average) or the ability to shift tempos smoothly between “Electric Father” and “Death is My Name” without giving up either momentum or the attitude as emphasized in the gritty vocals of bassist Greg “Maddog” Konstantaras. Side B’s “Demon’s Hand” offers a standout moment of greater intensity, but Seer of the Void are hardly staid elsewhere, whether it’s the swinging verse of “Hex” that emerges from the massive intro, or the punkish vibe underscoring the nonetheless-metal head-down chug in the eponymous “Seer of the Void.” They cap with a clearheaded fuzzy solo in “Necromancer,” seeming to answer the earlier “Seventh Son,” and thereby highlight the diversity manifest from their evolution in progress, but if one enjoyed the rougher shoves of Revenant (or didn’t; prior experience isn’t a barrier to entry), there remains plenty of that kind of tonal and rhythmic physicality in Mantra Monolith.
Organic roots doom from the trio Moodoom — guitarist/vocalist Cristian Marchesi, bassist/vocalist Jonathan Callejas and drummer Javier Cervetti — captured en vivo in the band’s native Buenos Aires, Desde el Bosque is the trio’s second LP and is comprised of five gorgeous tracks of Sabbath-worshiping heavy blues boogie, marked by standout performances from Marchesi and Callejas often together on vocals, and the sleek Iommic riffing that accounts as well for the solos layered across channels in the penultimate “Nadie Bajará,” which is just three minutes long but speaks volumes on what the band are all about, which is keep-it-casual mellow-mover heavy, the six-minute titular opening/longest track (immediate points) swaggering to its own swing as meted out by Cervetti with a proto-doomly slowdown right in the middle before the lightly-funked solo comes in, and the finale “Las Maravillas de Estar Loco” (‘the wonders of being crazy,’ in English) rides the line between heavy rock and doom with no less grace, introducing a line of organ or maybe guitar effects along with the flawless groove proffered by Callejas and Cervetti. It’s only 23 minutes long, but definitely an album, and exactly the way a classic-style power trio is supposed to work. Gorgeously done, and near-infinite in its listenability.
The second release and debut full-length from New Jersey-based trio Altered States runs seven tracks and 34 minutes and finds individualism in running a thread through influences from doom and heavy rock, elder hardcore and metal, resulting in the synth-laced stylistic intangibility of “A Murder of Crows” on side A and the smoothly-delivered proportion of riff in the eponymous “Altered States” later on, bassist Zack Kurland (Green Dragon, ex-Sweet Diesel, etc.) taking over lead vocals in the verse to let guitarist/synthesist Ryan Lipynsky (Unearthly Trance, Serpentine Path, The Howling Wind, etc.) take the chorus, while drummer Chris Daly (Texas is the Reason, Resurrection, 108, etc.) punctuates the urgency in opener “The Crossing” and reinforces the nod of “Cerberus.” There’s an exploration of dynamic underway on multiple levels throughout, whether it’s the guitar and keys each feeling out their space in the mix, or the guitar and bass, vocal arrangements, and so on, but with the atmospheric centerpiece “Hurt” — plus that fuzz right around the 2:30 mark before the build around the album’s title line — just two songs past the Motörheaded “Mycelium,” it’s clear that however in-development their sound may be, Altered States already want for nothing as regards reaching out from their doom rocking center, which is that much richer with multiple songwriters behind it.
Opener and longest track (immediate points) “Queen of Wands” is so hypnotic you almost don’t expect its seven minutes to end, but of course they do, and Italian strange-psych whatevernauts Giöbia proceed from there to float guitar over and vocals over the crunched-down “The Sweetest Nightmare” before the breadth of “Consciousness Equals Energy” and “Screaming Souls” melds outer-rim-of-the-galaxy space prog with persistently-tripped Europsych lushness, heavy in its underpinnings but largely unrestrained by gravity or concerns for genre. Acid Disorder is the maybe-fifth long-player from the Italian cosmic rocking aural outsiders, and their willingness to dive into the unknown is writ large through the synth and organ layers and prominent strum of “Blood is Gone,” the mix itself becoming no less an instrument in the band’s collective hand than the guitar, bass, drums, vocals, etc. Ultra-fluid throughout (duh), the eight-songer tops out around 44 minutes and is an adventure for the duration, the drift of side B’s instrumental “Circo Galattico” reveling in experimentalism over a somehow-solidified rhythm while “In Line” complements in answer to “The Sweetest Nightmare” picking up from “Queen of Wands” at the outset, leaving the closing title-track on its own, which seems to fit its synth-and-sitar-laced serenity just fine. Band sounds like everything and nobody but themselves, reliably.
Like everything, Milwaukee heavy psychedelia purveyors Astral Hand were born out of destruction. In this case, it’s the four-piece’s former outfit Calliope that went nova, resulting in the recycling of cosmic gasses and gravitational ignition wrought in the debut album Lords of Data‘s eight songs, the re-ish-born new band benefitting from the experience of the old as evidenced by the patient unfolding of side A capper “Psychedelicide,” the defining hook in “Universe Machine” and the shove-then-drone-then-shove in “End of Man” and the immersive heft in opener “Not Alone” that brings the listener deep into the nod from the very start of the first organ notes so that by the time they’ve gone as far out as the open spaces of “Navigator” and the concluding “God Emperor,” their emergent command of the ethereal is unquestionable. They work a little shuffle into that finale, which is an engaging touch, but Lords of Data — a thoroughly modern idea — isn’t limited to that any more than it is the atmospheric grandiosity and lumber of “Crystal Gate” that launches side B. One way or the other, these dudes have been at it for more than a decade going back to the start of Calliope, but Astral Hand is a stirring refresh of purpose on their part and one hopes their lordship continues to flourish. I don’t know that they’re interested in such terrestrial concerns, but they’d be a great pickup for some discerning label.
Slow-churning intensity is the order of the day on Scatter Yr Darkness, the eight-song sophomore LP from now-Italy-based solo-outfit Golden Bats, aka Geordie Stafford, who sure enough sprinkles death, rot and no shortage of darkness across the album’s 41-minute span, telling tales through metaphor in poetic lyrics of pandemic-era miseries; civic unrest and disaffection running like a needle through split skin to join the various pieces together. Echoing shouts give emphasis to the rawness of the sludge in “Holographic Stench” and “Erbgrind,” but in that eight-minute cut there’s a drop to cinematic, not-actually-minimalist-but-low-volume string sounds, and “Breathe Misery” begins with Mellotron-ish melancholy that hints toward the synth at the culmination of “A Savage Dod” and in the middle of “Malingering,” so nothing is actually so simple as the caustic surface makes it appear. Drums are programmed and the organ in “Bravo Sinkhole” and other keys may be as well, I don’t know, but as Stafford digs into Golden Bats sonically and conceptually — be it the bareknuckle “Riding in the Captain’s Skull” at the start or the raw-throated vocal echo spread over “The Gold Standard of Suffering,” which closes — the harshness of expression goes beyond the aural. It’s been a difficult few years, admittedly.
Straightforward in a way that feels oldschool in speaking to turn-of-the-century era heavy rock influences — big Karma to Burn vibe in the riffs of “Hollow,” and not by any means only there — the debut album Mammals from Danish trio Zeup benefits from decades of history in metal and rock on the part of drummer Morten Barth (ex-Wasted) and bassist/producer Morten Rold (ex-Beyond Serenity), and with non-Morten guitarist Jakob Bach Kristensen (also production) sharing vocals with Rold, they bring a down-to-business sensibility to their eight component tracks that can’t be faked. That’s consistent with 2020’s Blind EP (review here) and a fitting demonstration for any who’d take it on that sometimes you don’t need anything more than the basic guitar, bass, drums, vocals when the songs are there. Sure, they take some time to explore in the seven-minute instrumental “Escape” before hitting ground again in the aptly-titled slow post-hardcore-informed closer “In Real Life,” but even that is executed with clear intention and purpose beyond jamming. I’ll go with “Rising” as a highlight, but it’s a pick-your-poison kind of record, and there’s an awful lot that’s going to sound needlessly complicated in comparison.
Grounded to the Sky is the third LP from Germany’s Giant Sleep, and with it the band hones a deceptively complex scope drawn together in part by vocalist Thomas Rosenmerkel, who earns the showcase position with rousing blues-informed performances on the otherwise Tool-ish prog metal title-track and the later-Soundgardening leadoff before it, “Silent Field.” On CD and digital, the record sprawls across nearly an hour, but the vinyl edition is somewhat tighter, leaving off “Shadow Walker” and “The Elixir” in favor of a 43-minute run that puts the 4:43 rocker “Sour Milk” in the closer position, not insubstantially changing the personality of the record. Founded by guitarist Patrick Hagmann, with Rosenmerkel in the lineup as well as guitarist/backing vocalist Tobias Glanzmann (presumably that’ll be him in the under-layer of “Siren Song”), bassist Radek Stecki and drummer Manuel Spänhauer, they sound full as a five-piece and are crisp in their production and delivery even in the atmospherically minded “Davos,” which dares some float and drift along with a political commentary and feels like it’s taking no fewer chances in doing so, and generally come across as knowing who they are as a band and what they want to do with their sound, then doing it. In fact, they sound so sure, I’m not even certain why they sent the record out for review. They very obviously know they nailed what they were going for, and yes, they did.
It’s telling that even the CD version of Green Yeti‘s Necropolitan breaks its seven tracks down across two sides. The Athens trio of guitarist/vocalist Michael Andresakis, bassist Dani Avramidis and drummer Giannis Koutroumpis touch on psychedelic groove in the album-intro “Syracuse” before turning over to the pure post-Kyuss rocker “Witch Dive,” which Andresakis doing an admirable John Garcia in the process, before the instrumental “Jupiter 362” builds tension for five minutes without ever exploding, instead giving out to the quiet start of side A’s finish in “Golgotha,” which likewise builds but turns to harsher sludge rock topped by shouts and screams in the midsection en route to an outright cacophonous second half. That unexpected turn — really, the series of them — makes it such that as the bass-swinging “Dirty Lung” starts its rollout on side B, you don’t know what’s coming. The answer is half-Sleepy ultra-burl, but still. “Kerosene” stretches out the desert vibe somewhat, but holds a nasty edge to it, and the nine-minute “One More Bite,” which closes the record, has a central nod but feels at any moment like it might swap it for further assault. Does it? It’s worth listening to the record front to back to find out. Hail Greek heavy, and Green Yeti‘s willingness to pluck from microgenre at will is a good reason why.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 13th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
This is gonna sound like I’m kissing ass, but Heavy Psych Sounds is real-deal upping its festival game this year. From the stellar California lineup to Italy to this, it’s been fun to watch as the shows get bigger and more plentiful. El Perro and maybe Acid Mammoth/1782 (?) had this fest in their latest tour dates, so the existence of Heavy Psych Sounds Fest Switzerland isn’t exactly news — and they’re both booked by HPS, so if it was a leak, it wasn’t done without the label knowing it since the bookers and the label are the same people — but the lineup is right on with Truckfighters in the headline slot, the aforementioned El Perro, Acid Mammoth and 1782, Giöbia and Oreyeon ticking any boxes you have for weird, and Deadsmoke for a bit of something nastier. I’ll be interested to see who else gets added — certainly there are plenty of acts on tour in May and with so many festivals happening around then — but if this was it I’d still say it’s a good one. And the poster alone is giving the lineup alone a run for its money.
Shows are in Martigny and Winterthur, and if you need me to say any more about Heavy Psych Sounds, I’m done here, but I’m pretty sure there will be more news from them in about five minutes, so just sit tight.
From the PR wire:
First names and tickets for HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST SWITZERLAND available; May 26-27th on Winterthur and Martigny!
Today, Heavy Psych Sounds Records unveil the first names for the 2023 edition of HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST SWITZERLAND, the stoner, doom and psych rock mini-festival taking place simultaneously on May 26-27th in Winterthur and Martigny. Two days, two cities, same lineup: all the fuzz!
Following on from the recent HPS Fest Italy and HPS Fest California announcements, it’s now time to get ready for the summer season with the yearly Swiss gathering of all things heavy and fuzzy-sounding! As always with Heavy Psych Sounds, some of the finest bands of their label roster will hit the festival’s stage, joined by one or two cornerstone acts of the international heavy rock scene: on this special occasion, Swedish stoner rock icons Truckfighters are confirmed as headliners for this 2023 edition!
All bands announced are set to play both in Winterthur and Martigny across the weekend of April 26-27h of April. Day splits and timetables to be unveiled soon!
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 6th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Is consciousness energy? If, on the most basic level, the human brain operates through a series of chemical reactions and electrical impulses, then yeah, maybe like fire itself, the non-physical portion of who we think we are is just energy created through these reactions. This seems like a pretty mundane idea, vaguely scientific as it is, at least as compared to the notion of a soul as it appears in any amount of religious doctrine, but if you think about it, it’s still a kind of magic, and all the more so since it relates to how the thing — in this case, consciousness — actually works. Cheers to Giöbia for the provocative thought.
The persistently and delightfully oddball Italian psych outfit will release their new album, Acid Disorder, in the early flower of Spring on April 28. “Consciousness Equals Energy” is the first single from the offering, following on from their 2021 split with The Cosmic Dead (review here) and 2020’s Plasmatic Idol LP, which, indeed was a mighty trip to take. One expects no less this time around, as Giöbia have really only ever gone in one direction, and that’s farther and farther out.
From the PR wire:
Italy’s psychedelic rock pillars GIÖBIA share intoxicating first track off new album “Acid Disorder”, out April 28th on Heavy Psych Sounds.
Italian psychedelic and acid rock stalwarts GIÖBIA announce the release of their sixth album “Acid Disorted” this April 28th on Heavy Psych Sounds. Listen to the infectious and cosmic first single “Consciousness Equals Energy.”
GIÖBIA comments: “‘Consciousness Equals Energy’ is inspired to Ram Dass’ mind-expanding masterpiece ‘Be Here Now’ spiritual journey. We have always been fascinated by Dass’ study of drugs and the mystical experience, thus this song is our personal tribute to his genius and his courage to swim against the tide, as well as a kind of mantra, “a bridge on which you stand, looking down into the water in which you see your own life going by. It’s a training device to break you out of your attachments.”
“Acid Disorder” is the latest astonishing work of neo-psych acid-rock riffers GIÖBIA. With this surprising album, the four-piece invite us to enter their realm, that hidden place in the depths of their mind where anything can happen. Once again we abandon ourselves to altered states of consciousness, enchanted by the lysergic side of music that is both familiar and new. “Acid Disorder” was recorded at Elfo Studio in Piacenza, Italy, between March and October 2022, engineered and mixed by Daniele Mandelli and Bazu and mastered by Giovanni Versari at La Maestà Studio. The artwork was designed by Trevor Tipton.
TRACKLIST: 1. Queen Of Wands 2. The Sweetest Nightmare 3. Consciousness Equals Energy 4. Screaming Souls 5. Blood Is Gone 6. Circo Galattico 7. In Line 8. Acid Disorder
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 14th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Do not expect this to be the last Heavy Psych Sounds Fest announcement. The Italian label/booking empire gas over the last several years turned its various festivals into celebrations that each even beyond its own significant associated roster, and in this first reveal for Bologna and Torino fests, we see that happening exactly. Look for tours to emerge around this and other HPS fests to come in Europe (maybe US too), as end-of-April/beginning-of-May is kind of the culmination of the Spring festival season over there.
As someone born, raised and living in the US, I can only marvel at such a thing. I came up in the days of Lollapalooza roaming around bringing bands from town to town in a big traveling festival, but imagine multiple separate tours converging and separating across state lines in one spot, then roving around for club shows until the next one. What an amazing course of live performance and art and craft that is. I know we’re talking about rock shows and that’s generally considered lowbrow fare, but god damn, isn’t that how culture happens? These two dates encapsulate some of that same idea, and Heavy Psych Sounds did similar in California earlier in 2022, so maybe someday they’ll get there. I don’t know, but they make it easy to dig in the meantime.
Lineups follow:
HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST ITALY 2023
BOLOGNA & TORINO
Heavy Psych Sounds Records & Booking is proud to announce *** HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST ITALY 2023 – BOLOGNA & TORINO ***
first bands announcement
Heavy Psych Sounds Records & Booking will smash Bologna and Torino with their highly acclaimed mini festival-series, the HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST!
In cooperation with Freakout Club, Mkno, Blah Blah and Last One To Die, today Heavy Psych Sounds has revealed the first bands for the upcoming HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST ITALY !!!
The HPS Fest Italy will be taking place 29th and 30th of April 2023 at the TPO Club in Bologna and Last One To Die in Caramagna Piemonte (Torino) !!!
