There is a brash grace to The Population‘s debut album, It’s Time To…, which plays out over a sharp, crisp 31 minutes and 11 songs, delving into proto-metal and punk born out of a foundation in rawer garage rock. The Swedish outfit made their debut in 2020’s Anthropocene/Anthropocide b/w Sacrifice two-songer 7″, with the notable duo lineup of guitarist/vocalist John Hoyles (Spiders, Troubled Horse, ex-Witchcraft, etc.) and drummer Axel Sjöberg (ex-Graveyard) seeming to branch off from the four-piece Big Kizz, which may or may not still be a band, but in which they featured together.
For It’s Time To… — the title hinting at the urgency of songs like “Watch You Go Wild” or “Dark Eyes” and some of the directionless anxiety of it being time for something and you don’t know what — they’ve brought in Niklas Gunnarson (also Dirty Burger and the exclamatory Oberheim!) to round out a power trio on bass, and together they give a resounding showcase of songwriting and close-to-no-frills performance,. Moments like the acoustic/electric blend of side-A-capping interlude “Änkasjön” and the layering of guitar parts in “Sacrifice” and various other flourishes keep it from being completely barebones in terms of presentation, but true to their pedigree in outfits that helped define vintage heavy rock as an aesthetic, Sjöberg and Hoyles aren’t trying to harness a massive, hyper-produced take.
Given the garage shove and shuffle of so much of the material throughout It’s Time To…, that makes sense. Starting off with “Anthropocene/Anthropocide,” the lyrics of which are a socially conscious socioeconomic assessment/analysis that results in the seemingly inevitable conclusion, “You know the rich/Will have to die,” citing climate change, proxy wars, and disparity of wealth on the way in making its argument in maddeningly hooky fashion in just over three minutes. This kind of efficiency of purpose and this level of songwriting are the crux of It’s Time To…, though they leave politics behind as “Dark Eyes” picks up with an initial sweep of the lead guitar that has proved to be the difference afterward in several of Hoyles‘ past bands, be it Troubled Horse or Witchcraft; a distinctive scream of bluesy lead notes that feels like the Rolling Stones at points here without actually going there.
One might hear hints of Pentagram‘s “Be Forewarned” in “Dark Eyes,” but the two-and-a-half-minute “Watch You Go Wild” is more dug into early Britpunk — Hoyles was born in the UK, though that’s by no means a requisite for the influence — prefacing some of the tense boogie in the verse of the later “Invisible Man,” which lets loose in its chorus as one would hope. With Sjöberg ready on snare rolls from the outset, there’s a lot of back and forth between build-ups and straight-ahead runs, but The Population could hardly be accused of overdoing it in that regard when “Walking to Our Grave” works so decisively in an earliest-doom context, a melancholy behind the lines, “What happened to the sky?/It once was so blue/The sun shined bright/And we didn’t have a clue,” calling to mind a young David Bowie fronting Witchcraft ahead of a tempo kick after the second chorus.
Hoyles and Sjöberg, between the two of them, have been through enough in other groups that those lyrics could be about any number of their former bandmates, or it could be a relationship completely unrelated to music for all I know, but Hoyles sounds sincere in the telling, which is what matters. “Änkasjön,” which translates to English as ‘Widow Lake,’ follows, with gentler toms and the aforementioned acoustic strum backing an electric lead, evocative but brief in setting up the turn to “Sacrifice” as it ends with waves gently lapping a shoreline, perhaps of the lake in question. The latter is a strong open to side B as “Anthropocene/Anthropocide” was to the album as a whole, with its sonic fullness, loose-feeling swing and fuzz overload backing the guitar singing out during the chorus.
The subsequent trilogy of songs, “Treat Me Like a Dog,” “Invisible Man” and “Drive My Blues Away,” pull back some from proto-doom but feel related in their dejected-in-relationship theme, “Treat Me Like a Dog” arriving in Beatlesy stops complemented by snare march and warm bass groove before its rousing finishing section, not so dissimilar structurally from “Walking to Our Grave,” and setting up the brazen punker shine of “Invisible Man,” the song’s outsider position staked in the lyrics. Among the most particularly MC5 of the jams being kicked out, “Invisible Man” puts emphasis on the momentum The Population have built to this point, the bang-bang-bang nature of the procession through the album, which comes close twice to the four-minute mark — “Walking to Our Grave” and the closing Stooges-style take on Hawkwind‘s “Urban Guerrilla,” delivered with a strut that makes me think Hoyles and Mathew Bethancourt of Josiah could probably have a long conversation about the music they dig — but doesn’t touch it, and movement through the songs is no less a factor in the listening experience than the movement in the songs as “Drive My Blues Away” pushes back on some of the melancholy of the two songs prior and is a thematic if less first-daze-here companion to “Dark Eyes.”
Something of a closer in itself, “Downtown” seems to find the release that much of It’s Time To… has been searching for. Filled out by an additional layer of backing vocals, it’s a satisfying breakout of a conclusion that keeps the push from “Drive My Blues Away” going while reveling in the naked appeal of its hook. It caps with an engine revving, and if that’s them driving off to some next adventure or other, fair enough since The Population have basically been going since the test-strums and vocal wail that began “Anthropocene/Anthropocide,” and have wanted nothing for a motoring sensibility even in their down or slower stretches. The inclusion of “Urban Guerrilla” is what puts the album over half an hour in terms of length, and I’d believe that filling out a 12″ LP runtime is part of why it’s there to begin with, but it’s in no way out of place, Sjöberg punctuating the stomp as Hoyles borders on frenetic in the shift from verse to chorus, taking off from there to a noisy solo section to finish out with consistency despite not having penned the piece originally.
When that band made their debut, Tee Pee Records got behind Big Kizz, and Hoyles‘ solo work has been through Bad Omen and Crusher Records, and given their pedigree, it’s easy to think The Population‘s first full-length could end up issued through any of them, but the self-release suits the purposefully-kept rougher edges of their approach, and while there are any number of avenues they might flesh out and continue to explore in terms of songwriting — aspects of garage, punk, doom, blues rock, and so on that might be fleshed out across future outings — what makes It’s Time To… work so well is the organic execution, the live energy, that comes through across the span. So long as they hold onto that, they can probably go wherever they want from here and not stumble in this past-born sound of now.
I’d take an album of this happily, and I don’t imagine it would be much more trouble than is apparent here to make one happen, which doesn’t look like much trouble at all, unless you count the cross-continental logistics. Willems Lilja Mann is an exploratory trio featuring in its ranks Gothenburg-based drummer Esben Willems of Monolord and Studio Berserk, synthesist Marcus Lilja of the experimentalist Eyemouth, who worked closely with Willems on February’s A Headlong Fall into the Vast Ocean of Anxiety and who shares space with the studio, and multi-instrumentalist Geoff Mann, known for his work in Los Angeles afrobeat-infused heavy rockers Here Lies Man, who reside on RidingEasy Records, which is the same label that put out the first three Monolord albums.
Thus the connections between the players are multidimensional, and hey, it’s cool the way connections can be made across borders and styles in the underground, and more generally speaking, I hear it’s really nice to have friends, but fun as it is to connect those dots, it’s “Transatlantic Explorations” itself that’s the focus here, Lilja hitting up his wall-sized, many-plugged synth while Willems and Mann frame either side of the video, the latter also filling out the arrangement with punches of doubly-layered flutes that offer melodic complement to the dual-drummer rhythm, all of it resulting in instrumentalist semi-psych jazz fluidity that’s fleshed out across the song’s four minutes, the ultimate sound lush and maybe a bit inherently indulgent if one takes it at face value, but immersive nonetheless and not leaving the listener behind as it embarks on the mini-journey.
Could be a one-off, could be a side-project, could be that the video doesn’t even exist and I’m living in an alternate reality where it does; the universe hosts infinite possibilities playing out in infinite succession. Entirely possible they made it as a means to promote their other work in the age of algorithmic content demand. One way or the other, Willems Lilja Mann‘s “Transatlantic Explorations” offers a reminder that what genuinely matters most is what’s happening now rather than what could or could not follow, and whether or not these three players do anything else in collaboration, the vibrancy of what they’ve created here is resonant and engaging. It’s a cool sound. I dig it. Maybe you will too if you’re up for giving it a shot.
To wit:
Willems Lilja Mann, “Transatlantic Explorations”
Esben Willems on “Transatlantic Explorations”:
This impromptu sudden collab stems from an amazing snippet of a pulsating modular synthesizer soundscape created by Marcus Lilja, the brilliant mind who’s permanently residing in one room in my studio. It sparked instant inspiration, I asked if I could add some drums and subsequently asked Geoff Mann if he’d like to add some of his magic to it all. And suddenly we apparently made this little laidback groove nugget. I love unexpected creations like this, it’s both heart and brain fuel.
Drums left: Esben Willems Modular synthesizers: Marcus Lilja Flutes and drums right: Geoff Mann
Mixed and mastered at Studio Berserk by Esben Willems.
With the advent of ‘Blood of the Lord’ — the audio of which was released last week and the purposefully grainy, narrative-plus-performance-footage video for which you can see premiering below — Swedish doom rockers Dun Ringill move one step further to their next full-length, Where the Old Gods Play Act 1. As the number in the title implies, it’s not the only ‘act’ to come, but part of a duology with Act 2 to follow the first installment sometime in between now and next Spring through The Sign Records. But that’s fine, since it seems like the Gothenburg outfit are giving plenty for listeners to dig into either way as they move forward, and maybe a bit of time to digest Act 1 is reasonable ahead of the conclusion.
To wit, “Blood of the Lord” is 4:46 in the video, but you’re probably going to want to hear the track two or three times before it really begins to sink in. There’s an immediate hook, which is helpful — a severe, pious melody behind the throaty incantations of vocalist Thomas Eriksson — but that melody is from an actual chorus, and thrice-over guitar only gives an even grander sensibility to the track. It’s not haphazard or kitchen-sink’ed for the sake of rudderless maximalism, but there’s a lot going on in sound over that solidified structure, and that’s before you even get to the actual themes of the album, song, video, etc.
You might recall way back in Nov. 2022, Dun Ringill put out “Awakening” (video premiere here) as the first A/V sign of Where the Old Gods Play Acts 1 & 2 to come. At that point, they gave a bit of background on the tale, saying, “The storyline is set in 1904 on the Isle of Skye in Scotland where Lucia, with low self-esteem from her troubled past, meets a local church group which is led by a strong, charismatic and manipulative individual.” She joins a cult, in other words. We’ve all been there, right? Maybe your cult is weed, maybe it’s riffs — mine is doom and StarTrek — maybe it’s playing squash on Thursdays, hell, maybe it’s your band, but as human I think we learn that the drive to belong to something bigger can be a treacherous impulse to follow. Maybe you find a home, maybe you find a trap. Maybe you find both.
Perhaps that’s a bit of what’s going on here in terms of plot as protagonist Lucia leaves behind her ‘mother church’ in favor of the new place she’s found in the Scottish Highlands, and fair enough. Dun Ringill are less dogma-takedown than they might otherwise be — at least here; recall there’s two LP’s worth of material still to come — and seem to prefer to serve the characters and action rather than the underlying message, which is how a project like this works without being crushed by its own ambitions. If you caught wind either of 2020’s Library of Death (review here) or 2019’s debut, Welcome (review here), the contextual backdrop of classic doom will feel consistent with what’s come before, but this isn’t the kind of thing a band takes on lightly, especially for a third (and fourth) record.
Much intrigue here. Four months after the first single (they’re going quarterly, which I can appreciate), Dun Ringill directly speak in sound to the ‘going-big’ implications in the concept behind Where the Old Gods Play Acts 1 & 2. And I won’t put too fine a point on it, but why the hell not? If we’ve learned anything since Library of Death it’s that life is too short to stifle yourself. Fucking a, Dun Ringill. All-in. Do it. It’ll be the better part of at least another year before this full story is told, but the plot thickens on multiple levels with “Blood of the Lord,” and one is eager to see where they go from here. I guess it’ll be a few more months, huh?
More background from the band (via the PR wire) follows the video itself on the player below.
Please enjoy:
Dun Ringill, “Blood of the Lord” video premiere
Dun Ringill returns with second single from double concept album!
Dun Ringill returns with the second single leading up to their double concept album ”Where the Old Gods Play Act 1 & 2”. ”Blood of the Lord” is an epic track by the Swedish 6-piece group on which Nordic folk influences are combined with doom and progressive metal to create huge, monumental soundscapes. The single tells the story about the concept album’s main character Lucia’s religious conversion from Catholicism to Protestantism.
Dun Ringill on ”Blood of the Lord”:
“A big meaning needs a big sound!!!
This song has one of the deepest meanings on this conceptual album and it inspired us to write one of our most epic tracks ever!
To bring the feeling of the lyrics alive, we used choirs for the first time ever and accompanies it with three-harmony guitars, playful drums and super heavy bass lines to give the song a larger-than-life presence.
The lyrics are about Lucia, who has to convert from Catholicism to Protestantism to take the communion in order to stay in the congregation where she has found peace.
But is there peace within this Parrish?
Note that the chants of Blood of the lord, Body of the lord take a sinister twist towards the end to become Blood for the lord, Body for the lord….”
”Blood of the Lord” (radio edit) is out on all streaming platforms from the 3rd of March. Dun Ringill’s double concept album will be released as two separate albums during 2023 and 2024 respectively via The Sign Records.
Upcoming gigs with Dun Ringill: 14/4 – Retro Bar, Raufoss, Norway 15/4 – Telerock, Notodden, Norway 19-20/5 – Kristiflax festivalen, Tjörn, Sweden
Dun Ringill is: Thomas Eriksson – Vocals (Also in Intoxicate and Ex-Grotesque and Doomdogs) Neil Grant – Drums (Ex- End Of Level Boss and RAAR) Patrik Andersson Winberg – Bass (Ex The Order of Israfel and Doomdogs) Jens Florén – Guitar ( Also in Lommi and ex live guitarist for Dark Tranquillity) Tommy Stegemann – Guitar ( Ex Silverhorse) Patric Grammann – Guitar ( Ex Southern Festival Train and Neon Leon)
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 8th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
With the caveat of more shows to come, Swedish heavy-nodder three-piece Cities of Mars have let it be known they’re headed out on a round of touring next month. They go in support of their Ripple-issued 2022 self-titled full-length (review here), which was both their most accomplished and broadest reaching album to-date. That’s cause enough to celebrate if you need it, and they’ll meet up with Dirt Forge along the way for an added bonus, but amid the crush of quality records that came out in 2022 — a genuine splurge post-covid — Cities of Mars managed to stand out through their use of space and the largesse with which they filled it, as well as the progressive spirit in which their heft was delivered, methodically, patiently.
They’ve always been dense when it comes to tone, but in the increase in melody and the continued scope of their narrative were brought to a different level of realization this time out and it felt like the arrival they’d been pushing toward all along. I am not sorry to have the excuse to revisit it that posting these tour dates represents, is what I’m trying in my roundabout-ass way to tell you.
The poster below isn’t final, as the Prague date got added after they first put out word of the shows — living up to that whole ‘TBA’ thing — but you get the idea anyway. If more gigs are announced or I get that poster, I’ll add it in accordingly.
From social media:
CITIES OF MARS – Spring Tour
Earthlings! The Cosmonauts of Doom are hitting the roads in April.
Together with our friends in the mighty Dirt Forge we’ll make #denmark dance again.
It’s been way to long since we hung out with our brethren so these shows will go down in history.
It’s happening.
Where will you be seeing us??
Cities of Mars live: 8 April Gloomy Easter Linköping SE 12 April Vaterland Oslo NO 13 April Basement Copenhagen DK 14 April Kontrast Herning DK* 15 April Headquarters Aarhus DK* 18 April Chemiefabrik Dresden DE 19 April Modra Vopice Prague CZ 21 April Reset Club Berlin DE 22 April Archiv Potsdam DE +more TBA * w/ Dirt Forge
Line-up: Danne Palm – lead vocals, bass, synths Christoffer Norén – lead vocals, guitar Johan Aronstedt – backing vocals, drums & percussion, sound FX
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 23rd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
There are a bunch of ticket links here, which, hey, if you happen to be in one of cities listed below and up for hitting the gig, might be helpful. I don’t know. It doesn’t make the post look any neater — and you know I’m all about aesthetics and visual presentation; hence the by-now-retro theme of this site — but I left them there just in case. If you click one and go to the show, fair enough.
Firebreather and The Well, aside from being labelmates on RidingEasy Records and under the general umbrella of ‘heavy music’, don’t have a ton in common sound-wise, and I think that’s a good thing. They’ll complement each other well, with the bombast of the former and the semi-cultish weirdo-heavy rawness of the latter, and while Firebreather‘s Dwell in the Fog (review here) will have been out for more than a year by the time this run starts, it’s still their first time supporting it in the States. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to expect some new material live from The Well, meanwhile, since their most recent album, Death and Consolation (review here), came out in 2019.
In any case, it’s a solid run little less than a month, and I’m curious to see where that TBA date puts them:
PREPARE THE FIRE !!! THE WELL x FIREBREATHER FULL US TOUR THIS SPRING!!
Tue 3/28 – San Diego Wed 3/29 – LA Thu 3/30 – Oakland Fri 3/31 – Portland Sat 4/1 – Seattle Mon 4/3 – Denver Tue 4/4 – Omaha Wed 4/5 – Chicago Thu 4/6 – Detroit Fri 4/7 – Buffalo Sat 4/8 – Providence Mon 4/10 – TBA Tue 4/11 – Brooklyn Wed 4/12 – Columbus Thu 4/13 – Louisville Fri 4/14 – Memphis Sat 4/15 – New Orleans Sun 4/16 – Houston Mon 4/17 – TBA Tue 4/18 – Austin Wed 4/19 – Dallas Thu 4/20 – El Paso (Firebreather only) Fri 4/21 – Albuquerque (Firebreather only) Sat 4/22 – Phoenix (Firebreather only)
——————– This list of ticket links will be updated:
Scottsdale http://bit.ly/thewellpub San Diego https://addmi.com/e/-NLwmHecNdzlxlyqKhGW NYC https://link.dice.fm/Xd95d40f17a7 Detroit https://www.ticketweb.com/event/the-well-firebreather-the-sanctuary-detroit-tickets/12852365?pl=sanctuary Seatlle https://wl.seetickets.us/event/The-WellFirebreather/528015?afflky=ElCorazon Buffalo https://aftr.dk/3iJ9HVY Columbus https://www.eventbrite.com/e/518740816747 Houston https://wl.seetickets.us/event/The-Well-Firebreather/528520?afflky=WhiteOakMusicHall Memphis https://wl.seetickets.us/event/The-Well-with-Firebreather-at-Growlers-Memphis-TN/528261?afflky=Growlers Portland https://www.treetix.com/198475/soundcontrol
Posted in Reviews on January 5th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Here’s mud in yer eye. How are you feeling so far into this Quarterly Review? The year? How are things generally? How’s your mom doing? Everybody good? Hope so. Odd as it is to think, I find music sounds better when you’re not distracted by everything else going to shit around you, so I hope you don’t currently find yourself in that situation.
Today’s 10 records are a bit of this, bit of that, bit of here, but of there, but I’ll note that we start and end in Greece, which wasn’t on purpose or anything but a fun happenstantial byproduct of slating things randomly. What can I say? There’s a lot of Greek heavy out there and the human brain forms patterns whether we want it to or not. Plenty of geographic diversity between, so let’s get to it, hmm?
Winter 2023 Quarterly Review #31-40:
The Temple, Of Solitude Triumphant
Though they trace their beginnings back to the mid-aughts, Of Solitude Triumphant (on the venerable I Hate Records) is only the second full-length from Thessaloniki doom metallers The Temple. With chanting vocals, perpetuated misery and oldschool-style traditionalism metered by modern production’s tonal density, the melodic reach of the band is as striking as profundity of their rhythmic drag, the righteousness of their craft being in how they’re able to take a riff, slog it out across five, seven, 10 minutes in the case of post-intro opener “The Foundations” and manage to be neither boring nor a drag themselves. There’s a bit of relative tempo kick in “A White Flame for the Fear of Death” and the tremolo guitar (kudos to the half-time drums behind; fucking a) at the outset of closer “The Lord of Light” speaks to some influence from more extreme metals, but The Temple are steady in their purpose, and that nine-minute finale riff-marches to its own death accordingly. Party-doom it isn’t, and neither is it trying to be. In mood and the ambience born out of the vocals as much as the instruments behind, The Temple‘s doom is for the doomly doomed among the doomed. I’ll rarely add extra letters to it, but I have to give credit where it’s due: This is dooom. Maybe even doooom. Take heed.
Gothenburg heavy rockers Dead Man’s Dirt, with members of Bozeman Simplex, Bones of Freedom, Coaster of Souls and a host of others, offer their 2023 self-titled debut through Ozium Records in full-on 2LP fashion. It’s 13 songs, 75 minutes long. Not a minor undertaking. Those who stick with it are rewarded by nuances like the guitar solo atop the languid sway of “The Brew,” as well as the raucous start-stop riffing in “Icarus (Too Close to the Sun),” the catchy “Highway Driver” and the bassy looseness of vibe in the penultimate “River,” which heads toward eight minutes while subsequent endpoint “Asteroid” tops nine. It is to the band’s credit that they have both the material and the variety to pull off a record this packed and keep the songs united in their barroom-rocking spirit, though some attention spans just aren’t going to be up to the task in a single sitting. But that’s fine. If the last couple years have taught the human species anything, it’s that you never know what’s around the next corner, and if you’re going to go for it — whatever “it” is — go all-in, because it could evaporate the next day. Whether it’s the shuffle of “Queen of the Wood” or the raw, in-room sound of “Lost at Sea,” Dead Man’s Dirt deserve credit for leaving nothing behind.
Big rolling riffs, lurching grooves, melodies strongly enough delivered to cut through the tonal morass surrounding — there’s plenty to dig for the converted on Witchfinder‘s Forgotten Mansion. The Clermont-Ferrand, France, stoner doomers follow earlier-2022’s Endless Garden EP (review here) and 2019’s Hazy Rites (review here) full-length with their third album and first since joining forces with keyboardist Kevyn Raecke, who aligns in the malevolent-but-rocking wall of sound with guitarist Stanislas Franczak, bassist Clément Mostefai (also vocals) and drummer Thomas Dupuy. Primarily, they are very, very heavy, and that is very much the apparent foremost concern — not arguing with it — but as the five-song/36-minute long-player rolls through “Marijauna” and on through the Raecke-forward Type O Negative-ity of “Lucid Forest,” there’s more to their approach than it might at first appear. Yes, the lumber is mighty. But the space is also broad, and the slow-swinging groove is always in danger of collapsing without ever doing so. And somehow there’s heavy metal in it as well. It’s almost a deeper dive than they want you to think. I like that about it.
There’s some whiff of Conan‘s riffing in “Acompáñame Cuando Muero,” but on the whole, Mexico City sludge metallers Fumata are more about scathe than crush on the six tracks of their sophomore full-length, Días Aciagos (on LSDR Records). With ambient moments spread through the 35-minute beastwork and a bleak atmosphere put in place by eight-minute opener and longest track (immediate points) “Orgullo y Egoísmo,” with its loosely post-metallic march and raw, open sound, the four-piece of Javier Alejandre, Maximo Mateo, Leonardo Cardoso and Juan Tamayo are agonized and chaotic-sounding, but not haphazard in their delivery as they cross genre lines to work in some black metal extremity periodically, mine a bit of death-doom in “Anhelo,” foster the vicious culmination of the bookending seven-minute title-track, and so on. Tempo is likewise malleable, as “Seremos Olvidados” and that title-track show, as well as the blasting finish of “Orgullo y Egoísmo,” and only the penultimate “No Engendro” (also the shortest song at 4:15) really stays in one place for its duration, though as that place is in an unnamed region between atmosludge, doom and avant black metal, I’m not sure it counts. As exciting to hear as it is miserable in substance, Días Aciagos plunges where few dare to tread and bathes in its own pessimism.
Sumerlands‘ second album and Relapse debut, Dreamkiller finds Magic Circle‘s Brendan Radigan stepping in for original vocalist Phil Swanson (now in Solemn Lament), alongside Eternal Champion‘s Arthur Rizk, John Powers (both guitar), and Brad Raub (bass), and drummer Justin DeTore (also Solemn Lament, Dream Unending, several dozen others) for a traditional metal tour de force, reimagining New Wave of British Heavy Metal riffing with warmer tonality and an obviously schooled take on that moment at the end of the ’70s when metal emerged from heavy rock and punk and became its own thing. “Force of a Storm” careens Dio-style after the mid-tempo Scorpions-style start-stoppery of “Edge of the Knife,” and though I kept hoping the fadeout of closer “Death to Mercy” would come back up, as there’s about 30 seconds of silence at the finish, no such luck. There are theatrical touches to “Night Ride” — what, you didn’t think there’d be a song about the night? come on. — and “Heavens Above,” but that’s part of the character of the style Sumerlands are playing toward, and to their credit, they make it their own with vitality and what might emerge as a stately presence. I don’t know if it’s “true” or not and I don’t really give a shit. It’s a burner and it’s made with love. Everything else is gatekeeping nonsense.
Shadows is the first full-length from Genoa, Italy’s Expiatoria — also stylized with a capital-‘a’: ExpiatoriA — and its Nov. 2022 release arrives some 35 years after the band’s first demo. The band originally called it quits in 1996, and there were reunion EPs along the way in 2010 and 2018, but the six songs and 45 minutes here represent something that no doubt even the band at times thought wouldn’t ever happen. The occasion is given due ceremony in the songs, which, in addition to being laden with guest appearances by members of Death SS, Il Segno del Comando, La Janera, and so on, boasts a sweeping sound drawing from the drama of gothic metal — loooking at you, church-organ-into-piano-outro in “Ombra (Tenebra Parte II),” low-register vocals in “The Wrong Side of Love” and flute-and-guitar interlude “The Asylum of the Damned” — traditional metal riffing and, particularly in “7 Chairs and a Portrait,” a Candlemassian bell-tolling doom. These elements come together with cohesion and fluidity, the five-piece working as veterans almost in spite of a relative lack of studio experience. If Shadows was their 17th, 12th, or even fifth album, one might expect some of its transitions to be smoothed out to a greater degree, but as it is, who’s gonna argue with a group finally putting out their debut LP after three and a half decades? Jerks, that’s who.
Setting originals alongside vibe-enhancing covers of Blaze Foley and Commander Cody, Portland’s Tobias Berblinger (also of Roselit Bone) first issued The Luckiest Hippie Alive in 2018 and it arrives on vinyl through Ten Dollar Recording Co., shimmering in its ’70s ramble-country twang, vibrant with duets and acoustic balladeering. Berblinger‘s nostalgic take reminds of a time when country music could be viable and about more than active white supremacy and/or misappropriated hip-hop, and boozers like “My Boots Have Been Drinking” and the Hank Williams via Townes Van Zandt “Medicine Water” and “Heartaches, Hard Times, Hard Drinking”, and smokers like the title-track and “Stems and Seeds (Again)” reinforce the atmosphere of country on the other side of the culture war. Its choruses are telegraphed and ready to be committed to memory, and its understated sonic presence and the wistfulness of the two-minute “Crawl Back to You” — the backing vocals of Mariya May, Marisa Laurelle and Annie Perkins aren’t to be understated throughout, including in that short piece, along with Mo Douglas‘ various instrumental contributions — add a sweetness and humility that are no less essential to Americana than the pedal steel throughout.
Based in Norrköping, Sweden, the three-piece Grandier turn expectation on its head quickly with their debut album, The Scorn and Grace of Crows, starting opener/longest track (immediate points) “Sin World” with a sludgy, grit-coated lumber only to break after a minute in to a melodic verse. The ol’ switcheroo? Kind of, but in that moment and song, and indeed the rest of what follows on this first outing for Majestic Mountain, the band — guitarist Patrik Lidfors, bassist/many-layered-vocalist Lars Carlberg, (maybe, unless they’re programmed; then maybe programming) drummer Hampus Landin — carve their niche from out of a block of sonic largesse and melodic reach. Carlberg‘s voice is emotive over the open-feeling space of “Viper Soul” and sharing the mix with the more forward guitars of “Soma Goat,” and while in theory, there’s an edge of doomed melancholy to the 44-minute procession, the heft in “The Crows Will Following Us Down” is as much directed toward impact as mood. They really are melodic sludge metal, which is a hell of a thing to piece together on your first record as fluidly as they do here. “Smoke on the Bog” leans more into the Sabbathian roll with megafuzz tonality behind, and “Moth to the Flames” is faster, more brash, and a kind of dark heavy rock that, three albums from now, might be prog or might be ’90s lumber. Could go either way, especially with “My Church of Let it All Go” answering back with its own quizzical course. Will be very interested to hear where their next release takes them, since they’re onto something and, to their credit, it’s not immediately apparent what.
Doomers will nod approvingly as Ottawa’s Subsun cap “Proliferation” by shifting into a Candlemassian creeper of a lead line, but that kind of doomly traditionalism is only one tool in their varied arsenal. Guitarist/vocalist/synthesist Jean-Michel Fortin, bassist/vocalist Simon Chartrand-Paquette and drummer Jérémy Blais go to that post-Edling well (of souls) again, but their work across their 2022 debut LP, Parasite, is more direct, more rock-based and at times more aggressive on the whole. Recorded at Apartment 2 by Topon Das (Fuck the Facts), the seven-songer grows punkish in the verse of “Mutation” and drops thrashy hints at the outset of “Fusion,” while closer “Mutualism” slams harder like noise rock and punches its bassline directly at the listener. Begun with the nodding lurch of “Parasitism” — which would seem as well to be at the thematic heart of the album in terms of lyrics and the descriptive approach thereof — the movement of one song to the next has its underlying ties in the vocals and overarching semi-metal tonality, but isn’t shy about messing with those either, as on the lands-even-harder “Evolution” or the thuds at the outset of “Adaptation,” the relative straightforwardness of the structures allowing the band to draw together different styles into a single, effective, individualized sound.
The acoustic guitar of opener “Kata Vathos” transitions smoothly into the arrival-of-the-electrics on “Krifto,” as Athens’ Bazooka launch the first of the post-punk struts on Kapou Allou, their fourth full-length. Mediterranean folk and pop are factors throughout — as heard in the vocal melody of the title-track or the danceable “Pano Apo Ti Gi” — while closer “Veloudino Kako” reimagines Ween via Greece, “Proedriki Froura” traps early punk in a jar to see it light up, and “Dikia Mou Alithia” brings together edgy, loosely-proggy heavy rock in a standout near the album’s center. Wherever they go — yes, even on “Jazzooka” — Bazooka seem to have a plan in mind, some vision of where they want to end up, and Kapou Allou is accordingly gleeful in its purposed weirdoism. At 41 minutes, it’s neither too long nor too short, and vocalist/guitarist/synthesist Xanthos Papanikolaou, guitarist/backing vocalist Vassilis Tzelepis, bassist Aris Rammos and drummer/backing vocalist John Vulgaris cast themselves less as tricksters than simply a band working outside the expected confines of genre. In any language — as it happens, Greek — their material is expansive stylistically but tight in performance, and that tension adds to the delight of hearing something so gleefully its own.
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 28th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
This past Spring, Ozium Records offered up God Damn Rare, collecting together demos and off-album pieces, outtakes and so on from long-defunct Swedish troupe The Awesome Machine. The Gothenburg-based band, who might be considered one of the multitudes whose work demonstrated the inevitable unreliability of corporate social media to archive with any sense of permanence — that is, when MySpace disappeared, so did much of their presence other than on the CD/LP racks of those who already owned their records; there’s a lesson in there somewhere but sometimes it feels like humanity is trapped in the current social media sphere even as it evolves, disintegrates in part — called it quits in 2006, and just the other day announced that the same label will stand behind a God Damn Rare Vol. 2 in 2023.
I’m not saying The Awesome Machine are back together, that they should get back together, or that I know anything in any regard about anything, ever, but two rare tracks collections shows an awful lot of contextual interest on the part of a group who aren’t looking to get back out again in any way, not to mention Ozium, and the hint dropped below with ‘In 2023 many great things will happen’ feels significant. These guys were ahead of the pack in the aughts, and it would be interesting to see how they fared in a return, if in fact the God Damn Rare offerings are a precursor to such a thing, but even if not, they’re worth investigating for the generation of listeners who’ve come up in heavy rock since they broke up. If these pique interest even just toward that, so much the better.
The band’s posting of the complementary cover art and quick announcement of the release follows from the aforementioned modern social media sphere. Preorders to follow:
So 2022 is almost to an end, a year that brought many surprises in The Awesome Machine bandcamp. And it’s not over yet. In 2023 many great things will happen, this being one of them. The great label @ozium_records will release God Damn Rare vol 2.
We dug out even more demo’s, outtakes and rare/unreleased stuff. Artwork is once again created by the fantastic Johan Anderberg.
Pre-orders will soon be available so keep an eye on Ozium records bandcamp website.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on November 17th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
A six-minute chug-riffer with burl to spare, Dun Ringill’s new single “Awakening” is the first herald of their upcoming two-part full-length release, Where the Old Gods Play, set to issue next Fall and in early 2024 as their first outings through The Sign Records. Early for a single, you say? Yeah, it is, but somehow with two record’s worth of material in their pocket I think the band aren’t in danger of running out of new material anytime soon.
And such productivity isn’t necessarily new for the Swedish six-piece, who got together in 2017 after bassist Patrik Winberg‘s prior outfit, The Order of Israfel, well, fell. In 2020, Dun Ringill brought forth Library of Death (review here) as the follow-up to 2019’s debut, Welcome (review here), so they’ve kept a pretty steady pace, perhaps making up for a bit of lost-to-the-void pandemic-time with these back-to-back LP offerings. But however they get it done, it’s emblematic of their style as well as work ethic that they’re as recognizable as they are, touting Nordic folk elements that, yeah, are there, while the band meanwhile completely manages to skirt actually being folk metal.
Where the Old Gods Play Acts 1 & 2, should they follow the pattern — and the expectation they will is born of the band’s reliable level of songwriting — will be doom rockers for the converted, but make no mistake, they’re metal-born. The same is true of “Awakening.” The medieval-style visuals, creepy-stuff-in-the-woods, and dudes playing on hillsides with amps to be found nowhere (I’m sorry, I love that shit; takes me right back to Headbanger’s Ball) could hardly be more appropriate for the song itself. If you want to think of “Awakening” as an early check-in from Dun Ringill, proof of life and announcement of good things to come, do that. But it’s also a righteous groove on its on with some wicked guttural vocals that, if you’ve got a quota for dudely in your afternoon, will almost surely meet it.
Further, if even just the word “Awakening” triggers religious associations in your mind — a spiritual awakening, in other words — that would seem to be no coincidence, since Where the Old Gods Play Acts 1 & 2 takes its narrative framework from a film script penned by Winberg. I’ve never made a movie and I’m not familiar with the process from start to finish — as opposed to, say, making a record by doing the drums/basic tracks first — but I’d imagine both Acts will be out before an actual cinematic manifestation of the story appears, but still, having a storyline reach across two full-length albums is not exactly lacking ambition as it stands.
I’ll hope to have more to come as we get closer to the release of Where the Old Gods Play Act 1, but for now, here’s “Awakening” followed by what details are available now for the album(s).
Enjoy:
Dun Ringill, “Awakening” official video
Dun Ringill on “Awakening”
”This is the Awakening……”
This opening song from the new album starts off with the sound of the waves breaking against the shore with distant bagpipes being heard, before the heavy folky-doom takes the listener on a menacing dance between light and darkness. The bruised and scarred Lucia (main character of this concept album), has just woken up on the sea-shore to start her unpredictable journey…
”The memories are frightening…”
The storyline is set in 1904 on the Isle of Skye in Scotland where Lucia, with low self-esteem from her troubled past, meets a local church group which is led by a strong, charismatic and manipulative individual.
”This is the day of reckoning…”
The music of the album carefully reflects the main story which unfolds. Behind the dramatic backdrop of the Scottish highlands, we follow Lucia’s dark inner journey which will form her personality and mind, leading to her Awakening.
Awakening is the first single taken from the forthcoming double concept album ”Where the Old Gods Play Acts 1 & 2”. The piece of work will be available over two single albums, released in Autumn 2023 & spring 2024.
WTOGP 1 & 2 is the follow up to their highly acclaimed albums “Welcome” and “Library of Death”. After the release of album No 2 ” Library of Death”, the band decided to challenge themselves further by writing an ambitious double concept album. To enhance the story, the band (now with a new drummer) choose to increase the intensity of their dark, progressive visions whilst still faithfully incorporating their native Nordic folk influences.
The release of their new album will be an adventurous double concept album, released as two single albums via The Sign records, is based on a movie script written by Patrik Andersson Winberg (bassist and main songwriter in DR) and Jonas Granath (teacher in religion and literature). Contact has been made with movie producers who have shown great interest in the script thus far. More info to follow later this year. The story (based in Scotland in early 1900) centers around the manipulation of the church with a priest whose secret agenda only reveals itself at the end.
Dun Ringill is: Thomas Eriksson – Vocals (Also in Intoxicate and Ex-Grotesque and Doomdogs) Neil Grant – Drums (Ex- End Of Level Boss and RAAR) Patrik Andersson Winberg – Bass (Ex The Order of Israfel and Doomdogs) Jens Florén – Guitar ( Also in Lommi and ex live guitarist for Dark Tranquillity) Tommy Stegemann – Guitar ( Ex Silverhorse) Patric Grammann – Guitar ( Ex Southern Festival Train and Neon Leon)
