Quarterly Review: Blackwater Holylight, Spider Kitten, Mooch, Snakes & Pyramids, Unbelievable Lake, Krautfuzz, Sleeping Mountain, Goblinsmoker, Onioroshi, L’Ira del Baccano & Yama
Posted in Reviews on July 1st, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Alright, day two. Here we go. I never really know how a given day of the Quarterly Review is going to flow until I get there. The hope is that in slating releases for a given day — which I mostly do randomly over time, though I generally like to lead with something ‘bigger’ — I’ve considered things like not putting too much that sounds the same together, geographic variability, and so on. Sometimes that plan works, and I get a day like yesterday, which was pretty close to ideal. If that was the pattern for this entire QR, I’d be just fine with that, but I know better. One day at a time, as all the inspirational tchotchkes say.
Feeling good though headed into day two, so I’ll take it.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
Blackwater Holylight, If You Only Knew
The narrative around L.A.-by-way-of-Portland’s Blackwater Holylight at this point is one of growth, and well it should be. At seven years’ remove from their self-titled debut (review here), the four-piece offer the four-song If You Only Knew — three originals and a take on Radiohead‘s “All I Need” — as something of a stopgap four years after their third LP, Silence/Motion (review here). And like that 2021 album, “Wandering Lost,” “Torn Reckless” and “Fate is Forward” see the band working to expand their sound. They’re not upstarts anymore, and the marriage of dream-pop and crush on “Wandering Lost” alone is worth the price of admission, never mind the downward swirl of “Torn Reckless” the melodic burst-through and quiet space of “Fate is Forward” or the explosion in the back half of the Radiohead tune. Pro shop, all the way.
Suicide Squeeze Records website
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Spider Kitten, The Truth is Caustic to Love
There’s a deep current of Melvinsian quirk in Spider Kitten‘s thickly-riffed slog, and it’s in the creeper-into-noiseburst of “Revelation #1” with its later rawest-Alice in Chains harmonies as much as the false start on “Febrile and Taciturn” and a chugblaster like “Wretched Evergreen” which is just one of the six songs in the 14-song tracklisting under two minutes long. Throughout the 37 minutes, shit gets weird. Then it gets weirder. Then they do folk balladeering in “Sueño” for a minimal-Western divergence prefacing the later soundtrackery of “Woe Betide Me.” Then they’re back to bashing away — but at what? Themselves? Their instruments certainly. Maybe a bit of shaking genre convention if not outright, all-the-time defiance. The key blend is ultimately of the crunch in their guitar and bass tones and the melodies that come to top it — not that all the vocals are melodic, mind you — with a kind of creative restlessness that makes each cut find its own way through, some at a decent clip, to leave a dent right in the middle of your forehead.
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Mooch, Kin
Montreal three-piece Mooch align with Black Throne Productions for their fourth album release. The band, comprised of guitarist/bassist/vocalist Ben Cornel, guitarist/vocalist/bassist/keyboardist Julian Iac and drummer/vocalist Alex Segreti, have run a thread of quick, purposeful growth through the last several years, with 2024’s Visions (review here) following 2023’s Wherever it Goes following their 2020 debut, Hounds, and other singles and such besides. At their hookiest, in a piece like “Hang Me Out (False Sun),” they remind some of At Devil Dirt‘s heavy-fuzz poppy plays, but one knows better than to expect Mooch to be singleminded on an LP, and Kin plays out with according complexity, finding a particularly satisfying resolution in “Prominence” before hitting successive, different crescendos in “Lightning Rod,” “Gemini” and the eight-minute “Zenith” to end the record. A band who genuinely seem to follow where the material takes them while refusing to get lost on the way.
Black Throne Productions website
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Snakes & Pyramids, Disappearer
I’m not a punker. I was never cool enough to listen to punk rock. Generally when I hear something that’s rooted in punk and it lands with me, I assume that means the band are doing punk wrong. If so, I like the way Snakes & Pyramids do punk wrong on Disappearer. The tonal presence, their willingness to make not-everything be exactly on-the-beat, the liberal doses of wah treatment on the lead guitar to give a psychedelic edge, the effects on the vocals helping that as well, plus the flexibility to roll out a heavy riff. There’s not a whole lot to not like as they push genre limits across 38 minutes and eight songs, finding space for post-punk in “Disappearer” or “All the Same” before they really dig in on the near-eight-minute closer “Seven Gods.” For future reference, the band is the doubly-Brian’ed three-piece of Brian Hammond (ex-The Curses), Brian Connor (ex-Motherboar) and Cavan Bligh. Psychedelic punk, even more than punk-metal or any other way you might want to try to blend it, is incredibly difficult to pull off well. That seems much less the case here.
Snakes & Pyramids on Instagram
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Unbelievable Lake, I Have No Mouth and Yet I Must Scream
There is only one song on I Have No Mouth and Yet I Must Scream, and it’s the title-track. At 41 minutes long, that’s all you need, and Northern Irish psych-drone experimentalists Unbelievable Lake — think Queen Elephantine, but longer-form, more effects on the guitar, and dramatic in the ebbs and flows — the first 10 minutes are a movement unto themselves, with a linear build into a consuming payoff; due comedown provided. Those comparatively still stretches can be some of the most difficult for a band who’ve just blown it out to dwell in, but Unbelievable Lake use negative-space as much as crush to make their way toward the next culmination, which sort of gradually devolves instrumentally but makes its way along the path of residual noise toward one last round of pummel. You bet your ass they make it count. This is a significant accomplishment, and enough on its own wavelength that most ears will glaze over to hear it. But there’s just the right kind of brain out there for it, as well. Maybe that’s you.
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Krautfuzz, Live at the Church
Krautfuzz scorch the ground on the 23-minute “Live at the Church A” to such a degree that I’m surprised there was anything left to plug in for when they bring out J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. and Witch to take part in “Live at the Church B,” let alone a full album-unto-itself 39 minutes’ worth of go. Rest assured, there’s plenty of noiseshove in “Live at the Church B” as well, and it arrives quicker than in the preceding slab, guitar running forward and back in loops even before the swirl cuts through the fuller distortion surrounding at about seven minutes in, howls and wails and wormholes and spacetime bend inward, flex outward, breathe like the cosmic microwave background, and the exploration continues after the rumble (mostly) subsides, getting ready to sneak in one more mini-freakout before they’re done. Damn, Krautfuzz. Save some lysergic push for the rest of the class. Or better, don’t. Clearly they were rolling out the ‘red carpet’ for Mr. Mascis. It just happened to be red from all the plasma churning thereupon.
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Sleeping Mountain, Sleeping Mountain
Even before they get to the six-and-a-half-minute “The Door” or the dreamy midsection of closer “Medusa,” London’s Sleeping Mountain demonstrate patience in their delivery early on with the instrumental-save-for-the-sample leadoff “Humans” and “Walls of Shadows,” which leads with guest vocals before the full tonal crux of the riff is unveiled, and continues in methodical, doom-leaning fashion. That’s a vibe that doesn’t necessarily persist as the later “Akelarre” puts the cymbals out front and pushes a more uptempo finish ahead of the closer “Medusa,” but the dude-twang “Alibi” and the all-in nod of “Tennessee Walking Horse” underscore the message of dynamic, and while this self-titled may be the first album from Sleeping Mountain, it portrays the three-piece as confident in their approach and sure of their direction, even if they’re not 100 percent on where that direction is going. Nor should they be. They should be writing the songs and letting the rest work itself out over time, which is what you get here. They sound like a band I’ll still be writing about in a decade, so I guess we’ll see how it goes.
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Goblinsmoker, The King’s Eternal Throne
Behold the awaited first album from Durham, UK, sludge-doom, put-a-pillow-over-your-face-and-it’s-made-of-riffs betrayers Goblinsmoker. Dubbed The King’s Eternal Throne and indeed capping with the three-minute minimalist homage “Toad King (Forest Synth Offering),” the preceding title-track works its way from its more poised opening into an engrossing meganod of hairy-ass distortion, with the later-arriving throatripper screams ready for whatever Dopethrone comparison you want to make, and no less sharp in the biting. Of course, by the time they get to that third-of-four inclusions, this has already been well proven on side A’s “Shamanic Rites” and “Burn Him,” the leadoff holding to a steady and malevolent lumber while the follow-up takes a faster swing to upending witchy convention as the vocals offer the most vicious devourment I’ve heard from an English band since Dopefight roamed the earth. Down with humans. Up with toads. Familiar enough in its sludgy roots, The King’s Eternal Throne makes its own trouble like dog food makes gravy (with added liquid, in other words), and basks in heaps of shenanigans besides. The songs are like slow-motion razor juggling.
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Onioroshi, Shrine
The three-song sophomore full-length, Shrine, from Italian heavy progressives Onioroshi is the band’s first outing since 2019’s debut, Beyond These Mountains (review here), and is duly adventurous for that. Set up across “Pyramid” (18:18), “Laborintus” (15:35) and “Egg” (20:31), the album feels cohesive in refusing to be anything other than one it is. Its psychedelia is met with fervent terrestrial groove, and “Laborintus” spends most of its 15 minutes sounding like it’s about to fall apart, but never does. Duh, should I call it expansive? The truth is at 54 minutes, it’s a significant undertaking, but “Laborintus” ends up thrilling for the element of danger, and though raw in the production, “Egg” builds its own world in atmospherics, pushing further in the ebbs and flows of “Pyramid,” which itself takes loud/quiet trades to a less-predictable place. Some of Shrine feels insular, but that seems to be the point. A creative call to worship, and maybe worshiping the creativity itself.
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L’Ira del Baccano & Yama, Tempus Deorum
Whoa. First of all, with Tempus Deorum, you’ve got L’Ira del Baccano. The Roman psychedelic explorers follow 2023’s Cosmic Evoked Potentials (review here) with the 19-minute piece “Tempus 25,” an ether-bound reach that hypnotizes well ahead of unveiling its full tonal breadth and even crushes a bit before receding ahead of the next go. With synth cascading through the midsection and a duly expansive build that hits two more climaxes before it’s through, “Tempus 25” sets itself up in contrast to Tilburg, the Netherlands’ Yama, whose 2014 debut, Ananta (review here), is well remembered as they offer three songs “Wish to Go Under,” “The Absolute” and “Naraka,” that feel more solidified in their structure but that offer complement to “Tempus 25” for that. Not short on scope themselves, Yama let the chug patterning and vocal soar of “The Absolute” stand in evidence of their progressivism, and after 11 years, they sound like they have more to say. One only hopes that’s the case all around on this somehow-tidy, 35-minute split LP.
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