Posted in Whathaveyou on January 20th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
The dates here matter. First, it should be noted that Villagers of Ioannina City released the live album, Through Space and Time (Alive in Athens 2020), on their own in 2021. Second, any live record recorded in 2020 should probably raise eyebrows just on its face, and sure enough, this show — which sure looks like a good time in the video below — took place on Feb. 15, less than two weeks before the country reported its first case of covid-19 and a month before the lockdowns started and live music went away like so much else. Obviously nobody in the general public knew at the time the course the plague would take, but it does make this something of a poignant moment in the life of the band — really for the concert-going experience as a whole, but definitely for these guys — and though it wasn’t that long ago, there’s even more of a nostalgic aspect here than usual for live records. I’d imagine if you were there you already own it.
Villagers of Ioannina City‘s Age of Aquarius turns four later this year, so if the band are thinking about a follow-up, that would make sense. Given the scope of that record, I’m sure there’s no small amount of consideration into how their next studio offering should and will sound. Until then, this from the PR wire:
VILLAGERS OF IOANNINA CITY Announce New Live Album, ‘Through Space and Time (Alive in Athens 2020)’, Out March 3, 2023 via Napalm Records!
Official Live Video for Impressive First Single, “Father Sun”, Unveiled
Deeply influenced by Greek nature and cosmic phenomena, psychedelic stoner rockers VILLAGERS OF IOANNINA CITY take you to new atmospheres with their first live album, ‘Through Space and Time (Alive in Athens 2020)’, to be released physically for the first time via Napalm Records on March 3, 2023.
The album’s first single, “Father Sun”, arrives alongside a live video which will take the listener into unexplored universes via the catchy rhythm of the hypnotizing bagpipe and entrancing guitar riffs, rising up to an enormous storm. The powerful, rough voices praising Mother Earth entangle with the instruments, producing a homogeneous atmosphere.
VILLAGERS OF IOANNINA CITY gather their strengths from Greek nature and cosmic spirits, letting it flow right into their phenomenal psychedelic stoner rock. Delivering amazing performances, the band ascends forth to create their first live album, ‘Through Space and Time (Alive in Athens 2020)’.
With their short but very mesmerizing discography, the live show is centered around the band’s most recent studio album, ‘Age of Aquarius’ (2019), as they play the album in sequence and spice it up with songs from their debut album and singles.
Starting with the fascinating “Welcome”, “Age of Aquarius” and “Part V” all in sequence, VILLAGERS OF IOANNINA CITY represent their ability as great storytellers underlined by great visuals. The band then jumps straight into their debut album, ‘Riza’ (2014), playing “Nova”, “Perdikomata” and “Skaros”. Fans are blown away from the dedication of the clarinet, bagpipe, and guitar!
‘Through Space and Time (Alive in Athens 2020)’ presents the sextet’s attention to detail with great production, amazing musicianship, a bombastic live presence, and the yearning to play more amazing shows in the future. This won’t be the last time VILLAGERS OF IOANNINA CITY will transcend fans into the heavens of Mount Olympus – this is only just the beginning!
‘Through Space and Time (Alive in Athens 2020)’ Track List: CD 1: 1. Welcome (live) 2. Age of Aquarius (live) 3. Part V (live) 4. Nova (live) 5. Perdikomata (live) 6. Skaros (live) 7. Dance of Night (live) 8. Zvara (live)
CD 2: 1. Arrival (live) 2. Father Sun (live) 3. Millennium Blues (live) 4. Ti Kako (live) 5. Audience I (live) 6. Cosmic Soul (live) 7. For the Innocent (live) 8. Audience II (live) 9. Karakolia (live)
‘Through Space and Time (Alive in Athens 2020)’ will be available in the following formats: => 6 Page Digisleeve 2 CD Edition => Digisleeve & Shirt => 3LP Gatefold Black => 3LP Gatefold Marbled Orange/Black => 3LP Gatefold Gold
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 Reviews on January 3rd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
We roll on in this new-year-smelling 2023 with day two of the Quarterly Review. Yesterday was pretty easy, but the first day almost always is. Usually by Thursday I’m feeling it. Or the second Tuesday. It varies. In any case, as you know, this QR is a double, which means it’s going to include 100 albums total, written about between yesterday and next Friday. Ton of stuff, and most of it is 2022, but generally later in the year, so at least I’m only a couple months behind your no doubt on-the-ball listening schedule.
Look. I can’t pretend to keep up with a Spotify algorithm, I’m sorry. I do my best, but that’s essentially a program to throw bands in your face (while selling your data and not paying artists). My hope is that being able to offer a bit of context when I throw 100 bands in your face is enough of a difference to help you find something you dig. Some semblance of curation. Maybe I’m flattering myself. I’m pretty sure Spotify can inflate its own ego now too.
Winter 2023 Quarterly Review #11-20:
Antimatter, A Profusion of Thought
Project founder, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Mick Moss isn’t through opener “No Contact” — one of the 10 inclusions on Antimatter‘s 54-minute eighth LP, A Profusion of Thought — before he readily demonstrates he can carry the entire album himself if need be. Irish Cuyos offers vocals on the subsequent “Paranoid Carbon” and Liam Edwards plays live drums where applicable, but with a realigned focus on programmed elements, his own voice the constant that surrounds various changes in mood and purpose, and stretches of insularity even on the full-band-sounding “Fools Gold” later on, the self-released outing comes across as more inward than the bulk of 2018’s Black Market Enlightenment, though elements like the acoustic-led approach of “Breaking the Machine,” well-produced flourishes of layering and an almost progressive-goth (proggoth?) atmosphere carry over. “Redshift” balances these sides well, as does fold before it, and “Templates” before that, and “Fools Gold” after, as Antimatter thankfully continues to exist in a place of its own between melancholic heavy, synthesized singer-songwriterism and darker, doom-born-but-not-doom metal, all of which seem to be summarized in the closing salvo of “Entheogen,” “Breaking the Machine” and “Kick the Dog.” Moss is a master of his craft long-established, and a period of isolation has perhaps led to some of the shifting balance here, but neither the album nor its songs are done a disservice by that.
There was a point, maybe 15 years ago now give or take, when at least Manhattan and Brooklyn in New York City were awash in semi-retro, jangly-but-rough-edged-to-varying-degrees rock and roll bands. Some sounded like Joan Jett, some sounded like the Ramones, or The Strokes or whoever. On Salvation, their second LP, Mick’s Jaguar bring some chunky Judas Priest riffing, no shortage of attitude, and as the five-piece — they were six on 2018’s Fame and Fortune (review here) — rip into a proto-shredder like “Speed Dealer,” worship Thin Lizzy open string riffing on “Nothing to Lose” or bask in what would be sleaze were it not for the pandemic making any “Skin Contact” at all a serotonin spike, they effectively hop onto either side of the line where rock meets heavy. Also the longest track at 4:54, “Molotov Children” is a ’70s-burly highlight, and “Handshake Deals” is an early-arriving hook that seems to make everything after it all the more welcome. “Man Down” and “Free on the Street” likewise push their choruses toward anthemic barroom sing-alongs, and while I’m not sure those bars haven’t been priced out of the market and turned into unoccupied investment luxury condos by now, rock and roll’s been declared dead in New York at least 100,000 times and it obviously isn’t, so there.
Long live Finnish weird. More vintage in their mindset than overall presentation, Sammal return via the ever-reliable Svart Records with Aika Laulaa, the follow-up to 2018’s Suuliekki (review here) and their fourth album total, with eight songs and 43 minutes that swap languages lyrically between Finnish, Swedish and English as fluidly as they take progressive retroism and proto-metal to a place of their own that is neither, both, and more. From the languid lead guitar in “Returning Rivers” to the extended side-enders “On Aika Laulaa” with its pastoralized textures and “Katse Vuotaa” with its heavy blues foundation, willfully brash surge, and long fade, the band gracefully skip rocks across aesthetic waters, opening playful and Scandi-folk-derived on “På knivan” before going full fuzz in “Sehr Kryptisch,” turning the three-minute meander of “Jos ei pelaa” into a tonal highlight and resolving the instrumental “(Lamda)” (sorry, the character won’t show up) with a jammy soundscape that at least sounds like it’s filled out by organ if it isn’t. A band who can go wherever they want and just might actually dare to do so, Sammal reinforce the notion of their perpetual growth and Aika laulaa is a win on paper for that almost as much as for the piano notes cutting through the distortion on “Grym maskin.” Almost.
Former Hades guitarist Dan Lorenzo continues a personal riffy renaissance with Cassius King‘s Dread the Dawn, one of several current outlets among Vessel of Light and Patriarchs in Black. On Dread the Dawn, the New Jersey-based Lorenzo, bassist Jimmy Schulman (ex-Attacker) and drummer Ron Lipnicki (ex-Overkill) — the rhythm section also carried over from Vessel of Light — and vocalist Jason McMaster offer 11 songs and 49 minutes of resoundingly oldschool heavy, Dio Sabbath-doomed rock. Individual tracks vary in intent, but some of the faster moments on “Royal Blooded” or even the galloping opener “Abandon Paradise” remind of Candlemass tonally and even rockers like “How the West Was Won,” “Bad Man Down” and “Back From the Dead” hold an undercurrent of classic metal, never mind the creeper riff of the title-track or its eight-minute companion-piece, the suitably swinging “Doomsday.” Capping with a bonus take on Judas Priest‘s “Troubleshooter,” Dread the Dawn has long since by then gotten its point across but never failed to deliver in either songwriting or performance. They strut, and earn it.
Issued on tape through UK imprint Dub Cthonic, the four-extended-tracker Way of the Pilgrim is the second 2022 full-length from South African solo folk experimentalist Seven Rivers of Fire — aka William Randles — behind September’s Sanctuary (review here) and March’s Star Rise, and its mostly acoustic-based explorations are as immersive and hypnotic as ever as the journey from movement to movement in “They are Calling // Exodus” (11:16) sets up processions through the drone-minded “Awaken // The Passenger” (11:58), “From the Depths // Into the Woods” (12:00) and “Ascend // The Fall” (11:56), Randles continuing to dig into his own particular wavelength and daring to include some chanting and other vocalizations in the opener and “From the Depths // Into the Woods” and the piano-laced finale. Each piece has an aural theme of its own and sets out from there, feeling its way forward with what feels like a genuinely unplanned course. Way of the Pilgrim isn’t going to be for everybody, as with all of Seven Rivers of Fire‘s output, but those who can tune to its frequencies are going to find its resonance continual.
Leeds-based psychedelic doomers Amon Acid channel the grimmer reaches of the cosmic — and a bit of Cathedral in “Hyperion” — on their fifth full-length in four years, second of 2022, Cosmogony. The core duo of guitarist/vocalist/synthesist Sarantis Charvas and bassist/cellist Briony Charvas — joined on this nine-tracker by the singly-named Smith on drums — harness stately space presence and meditative vibes on “Death on the Altar,” the guitar ringing out vague Easternisms while the salvo that started with “Parallel Realm” seems only to plunge further and further into the lysergic unknown. Following the consuming culmination of “Demolition Wave” and the dissipation of the residual swirl there, the band embark on a series of shorter cuts with “Nag Hammandi,” the riff-roller “Mandragoras,” the gloriously-weird-but-still-somehow-accessible “Demon Rider” and the this-is-our-religion “Ethereal Mother” before the massive buildup of “The Purifier” begins, running 11 minutes, which isn’t that much longer than the likes of “Parallel Realm” or “Death on the Altar,” but rounds out the 63-minute procession with due galaxial churn just the same. Plodding and spacious, I can’t help but feel like if Amon Acid had a purposefully-dumber name they’d be more popular, but in the far, far out where they reside, these things matter less when there are dimensions to be warped.
The original plan from Germany’s Iron & Stone was that the four-song Mountains and Waters was going to be the first in a sequence of three EP releases. As it was recorded in Fall 2020 — a time, if you’ll recall, when any number of plans were shot to hell — and only released this past June, I don’t know if the band are still planning to follow it with another two short offerings or not, but for the bass in “Loose the Day” alone, never mind the well-crafted heavy fuzz rock that surrounds on all sides, I’m glad they finally got this one out. Opener “Cosmic Eye” is catchy and comfortable in its tempo, and “Loose the Day” answers with fuzz a-plenty while “Vultures” metes out swing and chug en route to an airy final wash that immediately bleeds into “Unbroken,” which is somewhat more raucous and urgent of riff, but still has room for a break before its and the EP’s final push. Iron & Stone are proven in my mind when it comes to heavy rock songwriting, and they seem to prefer short releases to full-lengths — arguments to be made on either side, as ever — but whether or not it’s the beginning of a series, Mountains and Waters reaffirms the band’s strengths, pushes their craft to the forefront, and celebrates genre even as it inhabits it. There’s nothing more one might ask.
To be sure, there shades of are discernible influences in DRÖÖG‘s self-titled Majestic Mountain Records first long-player, from fellow Swedes Graveyard, Greenleaf, maybe even some of earlier Abramis Brama‘s ’70s vibes, but these are only shades. Thus it is immediately refreshing how unwilling the self-recording core duo of Magnus Vestling and Daniel Engberg are to follow the rules of style, pushing the drums far back into the mix and giving the entire recording a kind of far-off feel, their classic and almost hypnotic, quintessentially Swedish (and in Swedish, lyrically-speaking) heavy blues offered with hints of psychedelic flourish and ready emergence. The way “Stormhatt” seems to rise in the space of its own making. The fuller fuzz of “Blodörn.” The subtle tension of the riff in the second half of “Nattfjärilar.” In songs mostly between six and about eight minutes long, DRÖÖG distinguish themselves in tone — bass and hard-strummed guitar out front in “Hamnskiftaren” along with the vocals — and melody, creating an earthy atmosphere that has elements of svensk folkmusik without sounding like a caricature of that or anything else. They’ve got me rewriting my list of 2022’s best debut albums, and already looking forward to how they grow this sound going on from here.
Rare is a record so thoroughly screamed that is also so enhanced by its lyrics. Hello, Remember the Earth but Never Come Back. Based in Montreal — home to any number of disaffected sludgy noisemakers — Grales turn apocalyptic dystopian visions into poetry on the likes of “All Things are Temporary,” and anti-capitalist screed on “From Sea to Empty Sea” and “Wretched and Low,” tying together anthropocene planet death with the drive of human greed in concise, sharp, and duly harsh fashion. Laced with noise, sludged to the gills it’s fortunate enough to have so it can breathe in the rising ocean waters, and pointed in its lurch, the five-song/43-minute outing takes the directionless fuckall of so many practitioners of its genre and sets itself apart by knowing and naming exactly what it’s mad about. It’s mad about wage theft, climate change, the hopelessness that surrounds most while a miserly few continue to rape and pillage what should belong to everybody. The question asked in “Agony” answers itself: “What is the world without our misery? We’ll never know.” With this perspective in mind and a hint of melody in the finale “Sic Transit Mundus,” Grales offer a two-sided tape through From the Urn Records that is gripping in its onslaught and stirring despite its outward misanthropy. It’s not that they don’t care; it’s that they want you to pick up a molotov cocktail and toss it at your nearest corporate headquarters. Call it relatable.
Energetic in its delivery and semi-progressive in its intentions, Half Gramme of Soma‘s second album, Slip Through the Cracks, arrives with the backing of Sound of Liberation Records, the label wing of one of Europe’s lead booking agencies for heavy rock. Not a minor endorsement, but it’s plain to hear in the eight-song/42-minute course the individualism and solidified craft that prompted the pickup: Half Gramme of Soma know what they’re doing, period. Working with producer George Leodis (1000mods, Godsleep, Last Rizla, etc.) in their native Athens, they’ve honed a sound that reaches deeper than the deceptively short runtimes of tracks like “Voyager” and “Sirens” or “Wounds” might lead you to believe, and the blend of patience and intensity on finale-and-longest-song “22:22” (actually 7:36) highlights their potential in both its languid overarching groove and the later guitar solos that cut through it en route to that long fade, without sacrificing the present for the sake of the future. That is, whatever Half Gramme of Soma might do on their third record, Slip Through the Cracks shouldn’t. Even in fest-ready riffers “High Heels” and “Mind Game,” they bleed personality and purpose.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 21st, 2022 by JJ Koczan
[PLEASE NOTE: This tour is canceled as of Feb. 13, 2023]
Greek heavy rock forerunners 1000mods are fresh off a run of European tour dates that took them as far north as Helsinki, and they’ve just announced that early next year they’ll travel to Australia and New Zealand for further touring. I find myself wondering if they might go to herald a new album release; it’s been two years and will be going on three since they issued 2020’s Youth of Dissent (review here), and that’s an awfully long way to go for a record that’s not new. But of course, the time since Youth of Dissent‘s Spring 2020 release hasn’t exactly been accommodating to album cycles, so if they’re looking to give that record its due before moving onto the next, one could hardly hold it against them. It was a better collection of songs than perhaps its clean production led listeners to believe, and I don’t have to imagine those tracks going over well live because there’s a Rockpalast video streaming below from this year that demonstrates it plainly. So there.
Whether or not they’ve got a studio release in the works — and if they do, great, and if not, it’s still 1000mods — they’ll hit Wollongong on Feb. 15 and wrap in Auckland on Feb. 27. There are a couple long drives here — Sunshine Coast to Adelaide is 23 hours by car, reportedly — but hell’s bells that’s a cool tour.
Here are the dates as posted on social media:
1000MODS – ***AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND TOUR 2023***
Dear friends,
we are extremely happy to be able to visit again Australia and for the first time ever New Zealand! Tour is presented by HEAVY Magazine and Foundry Touring
See you Down Under!
DATES: 15.02.23: Wollongong – La La La’s 16.02.23: Sydney – Lansdowne 17.02.23: Gold Coast – Vinnies Dive 18.02.23: Brisbane – The Zoo 19.02.23: Sunshine Coast – Kings Beach Tavern 22.02.23: Adelaide – Lion Arts Factory 23.02.23: Hobart – Altar 24.02.23: Melbourne – Corner Hotel 25.02.23: Wellington, NZ – Valhalla 26.02.23: Christchurch, NZ – 12 Bar 27.02.23: Auckland, NZ – Whammy!
Lotus Emperor release their awaited second album, Syneidesis on Nov. 25 through Sound Effect Records. The Athens-based four-piece made their self-titled debut in 2015, and they return now with vast distances measured across 47 minutes of dug in, hypnotic and meditative heavy psychedelia. The bulk of the offering takes place in three extended songs complemented by two shorter stretches that, to scale, could be called interludes, but nonetheless flesh out the atmosphere that is so much a focus throughout the entire proceedings. On the most basic level, it is a marked shift in songcraft from the first LP, which had more songs (14), ran 69 minutes, and touched the 10-minute mark only once.
As to what’s behind that shift, I couldn’t say — hey, a lot of things have changed in the last seven years — but it lends Syneidesis a thematic thread that pushes farther and farther out through its title-track with an epilogue in the three-minute closer “Synteleia” (they translate it as “continuity,” which I like; when I looked it was the somewhat less romantic “the end”; go figure). “Anemos” indeed is windblown throughout its coming together across its early minutes, and Lotus Emperor work with enticing quickness to establish key elements in their patience in how the song unfolds, their use of minimalism in the guitar to make each note seem to count double, their ambience, melody, and ability to fluidly transition into a harder-hitting rhythm as they move through the second minute before solidifying (relatively) at about 3:13 into the total 11:48 around a riff that presents itself like what might happen if Queens of the Stone Age‘s “I Think I Lost My Headache” fell into a black hole.
The groove they lock in at that moment is a telltale galactic rollout that serves as a beginning point for the whole record, opening up to a clear verse delivered by vocalist Konstantina Latzaki over cymbal washes and an eventual resurgence of a slower version of the central nod. By the song’s halfway point, Latzaki, guitarist Stasinos Papastathopoulos, bassist/synthesist Panos Dimopoulos and drummer Nikos Antzoulatos have worked their way into to the march that will define the song, but there’s still more spacing out to do in the back end, with guitar and bass underscoring a section of open, vocal-topped atmospherics that’s duly otherworldly and entrancing. The riff comes back, and Papasthathopoulos‘ guitar seems to rise in the mix to a dominant, triumphalist position.
Since the album was recorded live, between 2020 and 2021 at Room 59 by Haris Pitsinis — who also adds effects to “#59” and “Synteleia,” while drummer Greg from The Last Rizla joins in on the title-track and Nikos Antzoulatos adds backing vocals to “Petra” — it is that much easier to imagine it being relatively close to the stage experience of seeing the band live, and in that context, “Anemos” moving into the more actively riffy “Petra” makes even more sense. The nod of the opener is expanded on and the vocals echo out with held notes for the last lines of measures before dropping to whispers over bass punches just past the midpoint, but it’s a short break and the roll resumes, with synthesizer swirl added as a thanks-for-hanging-out-feeling bonus element. The ending of the song, which begins at about 8:47 into the 13-minutes-flat track, is righteous in its added push, the guitar leading the way through a noisy surge before breaking down to ambience and exploring that quiet space for a while until “#59” takes over with its own eerie psychedelic vibe, horror organ and willfully meandering guitar.
Fair to call it an interlude, but it’s not insubstantial even among the longer pieces surrounding. It serves to guide the listener through the middle of the tracklisting and bridge “Petra” and “Syneidesis” in a way that allows for a breath between them while staying consistent in terms of mood, which is paramount. Dimopoulos‘ bass work early adds progressive flair to “Syneidesis” as that title-track begins to unfurl, and the emergence of the march is gradual but palpable. An atmospheric vocal highlight, with Latzaki moving between croons and whispers in creepy but not necessarily witchy fashion, the platform is ready for the declarations that top the get-loud apex beginning at 7:51, soon enough swallowed by the dual-layered guitar solo.
They’ll recede and build back up before they’re done, and over a swirling riff with just an edge of Mediterranean folk influence, “Syneidesis” ends suddenly and cold in the way of, well, death. Dimopoulos shows some influence from John Carpenter in the synth-led finale, some vague samples and VHS-cinema swirl for the end credits of the long-player, with a sense perhaps of that being an aspect of their sound that will be utilized more in releases to come. That is to say, there’s room for more if they want to go that route over the longer term, but for a band who just took seven years to follow-up their debut — for whatever reason; again, I don’t know the circumstances behind the delay and I’m not about to guess — I’m not remotely comfortable trying to predict where the “next record” might go, whenever it should arrive.
Perhaps, then, the message should be to appreciate what’s happening in the moment. Those who caught onto the first record seven years ago — that’s not me; I suck at life — will no doubt rejoice at the something-of-a-comeback Syneidesis represents, but if they’re new to you as well here, the cohesiveness with which they undertake what’s actually a pretty stark change in approach remains striking. Syneidesis is an album that builds a world and a story of the self in the universe, a cosmic identity forged in a reach of unfathomable scope. Elements of what they do will be familiar, nestled as they are somewhere between psychedelic exploration, space-doom and atmospheric post-heavy, but the affective experience of Lotus Emperor is no less individual than what you bring to hearing it. So probably the thing to do, then, is hear it.
You can get a sample of the title-track in the video below for an edit of the song. I hope you enjoy:
Lotus Emperor, “Syneidesis” official video
Lotus Emperor on Syneidesis:
We open our sails for a second time! With aid from “Anemos” (Wind,) Lotus Emperor’s vessel travels again through the mysteries of life, using our sounds as a medium to carve the “Petra” (Stone) and, through our “#59” wormhole accelerator, shape the new collective “Syneidesis” (Consciousness) in order to get things done from the beginning to the “Synteleia” (The End).
7 years after their self-titled debut, and a minor classic among the international heavy-psych scene, Lotus Emperor are back with “Syneidesis”, their second and debut for Sound Effect Records! Led by Constantina Latzaki’s voice, Lotus Emperor have broaden their horizons, moving on to a mystical journey, an atmospheric mixture of fuzzed-out doom, shoegaze and post-punk, all part of a deeply ritualistic psychedelic concept! On “Syneidesis” Lotus Emperor go cinematic and turn the “difficult” sophomore album to their most compelling work so far.
Released on limited black and neon violet vinyl and CD, on November 25th 2022.
Posted in Questionnaire on November 4th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Dimos Ioannou of Khirki
—
How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I am a musician. I play guitar and I sing in a rock ‘n’ roll band called Khirki. We are from Athens, Greece.
I realized early on I have the gift of music and I have devoted my life to honor it.
Listening to Metallica’s “Kill ‘em All” at the age of 13 made me fall in love with the electric guitar, listening to Mastodon’s “Leviathan” taught me the power of the Riff, listening to Jethro Tull’s “Aqualung” showed me the elegance of folk music.
I am also a Ph.D. student in Physics, currently working on my thesis in the field of Nanotechnology.
Describe your first musical memory.
I remember Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” vinyl spinning and my mom explaining the concept to me. It was a thrilling experience that haunted me for the rest of my life. I was 5 years old.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Every time we play and I see people I’ve never met in my life singing my lyrics, dancing and enjoying themselves because of our music is a special moment I hold dear in my heart.
As a fan my best musical memory would have to be the very first time I listened to Mastodon’s “Crack the Skye”. Instant classic! My jaw dropped, my mind was blown and I was inspired beyond words.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
Standing in front of an audience for the first time at the age of 14, playing my first show and deciding to be myself however awkward or weird I might be. It was totally worth it.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
We chase something almost impossible to catch. The essence! We all have one magic song inside of us and all we play is variations of that one song. The more we dig, the faster we run, the harder we play we come closer and closer. If we are being honest and devoted we might get a true glimpse of it one day.
How do you define success?
To earn a decent living doing what you love without sacrificing yourself.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
Members of my family being really worried or sad.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I’d like to write a symphony for an orchestra one day. Something like “Tubular Bells” but with lyrics.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Communication. Art is expressing yourself and being felt rather than understood.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
I am looking forward to visiting some places of the world like southern Italy, Morocco, Jordan, Scotland and Sweden. I would love to see the Aurora Borealis! I would love to ride a camel through the desert and visit ancient sites to marvel at monuments.
Posted in Whathaveyou on October 19th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Long-running Greek doom metallers The Temple released their debut album, Forevermourn — get it? — in 2016 and followed that with a split single alongside Sweden’s Acolytes of Moros the next year. Of Solitude Triumphant is the first offering of any kind, then, in half a decade from the four-piece who released their first demo in 2007. They’re streaming the new song “A White Flame for the Fear of Death” now and if you’ve got a box for doom, said box will be thoroughly ticked, Gregorian-style chanting and classical-style grandiosity. If you’re coming back after five years, no reason not to go big, and The Temple do that with a resonant sense of intention.
The backing of label I Hate Records is noteworthy here as well. The imprint has a long history of releasing killer doom, and though in recent years they’ve branched out along other metallic traditionalisms, there’s no denying they know their stuff when it comes to slow riffs and grueling groove. It caught my eye, anyhow, and then my ear. Maybe it’ll do the same for you.
From the PR wire:
THE TEMPLE – “Of Solitude Triumphant”
Label: I Hate Records Release date: 9. Dec. 2022
I Hate Records proudly presents the new full-length album of Greek doom metallers THE TEMPLE!
The new temple pillar. Hear these words vilifiers and pretenders; the finest doom band from the Hellenic Republic has returned for their second outing in triumph! Building upon the foundations of their house of worship, their solemn threnodies of purest doom take the form of a concept album about a soul’s journey from coming into being, all the way through rebirth, loss, the fear of death and ending with it at peace in the Light.
Highly recommended to fans of Scald, Isole and While Heaven Wept!
A White Flame For The Fear Of Death” – Official Track Stream:
TRACKLIST 1. Me To Lichno Tou Astrou 2. The Foundations 3. Reborn In Virtue 4. Profound Loss 5. A White Flame For The Fear Of Death 6. Premonitions Of The Final Hour 7. The Lord Of Light (playing time: 49:54 min.)
LINE-UP Father Alex – Bass / Vocals Felipe – Guitar (Lead) Stefanos – Guitar (Rhythm) Paul – Drums
Posted in Reviews on September 22nd, 2022 by JJ Koczan
On occasion, throughout the last eight years or so that I’ve been doing this kind of Quarterly Review roundup thing, I’ve been asked how I do it. The answer is appallingly straightforward. I do it one record at a time, listening to as much music as possible and writing as much as I can. If you were curious, there you go.
If, more likely, you weren’t curious, now you know anyway. Shall we?
Quarterly Review #31-40:
Russian Circles, Gnosis
You wanna know how big a deal Russian Circles are? I didn’t even get a promo of this record. Granted, I’m nobody, but still. So anyway, here I am like a fucking sucker, about to tell you Gnosis is the heaviest and most intense thing Russian Circles — with whose catalog I’m just going to assume you’re familiar because they’re that big a deal and you’re pretty hip; bet you got a download to review, or at least an early stream — have ever done and it means literally nothing. Just makes me feel stupid and lame. I really want to like this album. That chug in “Conduit?” Fuck yeah. That wash in “Betrayal?” Even that little minimalist stretch of “Ó Braonáin.” The way “Tupilak” rumbles to life at the outset. That’s my shit right there. Chug chug crush crush, pretty part. So anyway, instead of sweating it forever, I’ll probably shut Gnosis off when I’m done here and never listen to it again. Thanks. Who gives a shit? Exactly. Means nothing to anyone. Tell me why I do this? Why even give it the space? Because they’re that big a deal and I’m the nerdy fat kid forever. Total fucking stooge. Fuck it and fuck you too.
Are not all gods mere substitutes for the power of human voices united in song? And why not tonight for finding the grace within us? As Brother Bill, Sister Caroline and their all-colours Septaphonic congregation of siblings tell us, we’re only one step away. I know you’ve been dragged down, wrung out, you’ve seen the valleys and hills, but now’s the time. Church of the Cosmic Skull come forward again with the message of galactic inner peace and confronting the unreality of reality through choral harmonies and progressive heavy rock and roll, and even the Cosmic Mother herself must give ear. Come, let us bask in the light of pure illumination and revolutionary suicide. Let us find what we lost somewhere. All gods die, but you and I can live forever and spread ourselves across the universe like so much dust from the Big Bang. We’ll feel the texture of the paper. We’ll be part of the team. Oh, fellow goers into the great Far Out, there’s reverence being sung from the hills with such spirit behind it. Can you hear? Will you? There’s nothing to fear here, nothing sinister. Nothing to be lost except that which has held you back all along. Let it all move, and go. Open your eyes to feel all seven rays, and stand peeled like an onion, naked, before the truth being told. Do this. Today.
Saarbrücken duo Pretty Lightning follow 2020’s stellar Jangle Bowls (review here) with a collection of 14 instrumental passages that, for all their willful meandering, never find themselves lost. Heady, Dead Meadowy vibes persist on ramblers like “Sediment Swing” and “Splinter Bowl,” but through spacious drone and the set-the-mood-for-whatever “Glide Gently (Into the Chasm),” which is both opener and the longest track (immediate points) at just over five minutes, the clear focus is on ambience. I wouldn’t be the first to liken some of Dust Moves to Morricone, and sure, “Powdermill” has some of that Dollars-style reverb and “The Secret is Locked Inside” lays out a subtle nighttime threat in its rattlesnake shaker, but these ideas are bent and shaped to Pretty Lightning‘s overarching purpose, and even with 14 songs, the fact that the album only runs 43 minutes should tell you that even as they seem to head right into the great unknown wilderness of intent, they never dwell in any single position for too long, and are in no danger of overstaying their welcome. Extra kudos for the weirdness of “Crystal Waltz” tucked right into the middle of the album next to “The Slow Grinder.” Sometimes experiments work.
Combining burly modern heavy riffage, progressive flourish and a liberal dose of chicanery, Montana’s Wizzerd end up in the realm of Howling Giant and a more structurally-straightforward Elder without sounding directly like either of them. Their Fuzzorama Records label debut, the quizzically punctuated Space‽: Issue No. 001 echoes its title’s obvious nods to comic book culture with a rush of energy in songs like “Super Nova” and “Attack of the Gargantuan Moon Spiders,” the swinging “Don’t Zorp ‘n’ Warp” space-progging out in its second half as though to emphasize the sheer delight on the part of the band doing something unexpected. So much the better if they’re having fun too. The back half of the outing after the duly careening “Space Chase” is blocked off by the noisy “Transmission” and the bleep-bloop “End Transmission” — which, if we’re being honest is a little long at just under five minutes — but finds the band establishing a firm presence of purpose in “Doom Machine Smoke Break” and the building “Diosa del Sol” ahead of the record’s true finishing moment, “Final Departure Part 1: The Intergalactic Keep of the Illustrious Cosmic Woman,” which is both an adventure in outer space and a melodic highlight. This one’s a party and you’re invited.
Desert 9 is one of several projects founded by synthesist Peter Bell through a collective/studio called Mutaform in the Brindisi region of Southern Italy (heel of the boot), and the seven-song/63-minute Explora II follows quickly behind June’s Explora I and works on a similar theme of songs named for different deserts around the world, be it “Dasht-e Margo,” “Mojave,” “Gobi” or “Arctic.” What unfolds in these pieces is mostly long-ish-form instrumental krautrock and psychedelic exploration — “Arctic” is an exception at a somewhat ironically scorching three and a half minutes; opener “Namib” is shorter, and jazzier, as well — likewise immersive and far-outbound, with Bell‘s own synth accompanied on its journeys by guitar, bass and drums, the former two with effects to spare. I won’t take away from the sunburn of “Sonoran” at the finish, but the clazzic-cool swing of “Chihuahuan” is a welcome respite from some of the more thrust-minded fare, at least until the next solo starts and eats the second half of the release. The mix is raw, but I think that’s part of the idea here, and however much of Explora II was improvised and/or recorded live, it sounds like the four-piece just rolled up, hit record and went for it. Not revolutionary in aesthetic terms, but inarguable in vitality.
Originally pressed to tape in 2019 through Fuzz Ink and brought to vinyl through Sound Effect Records, Greek sludgers Gagulta begin their self-titled debut with an evocation of the Old Ones before unfurling the 13-minute assault of “Dead Fiend/Devil’s Lettuce,” the second part of which is even slower than the first. Nods and screams, screams and nods, riffs and kicks and scratches. “Late Beer Cult” is no less brash or disaffected, the Galatsi-based trio of ‘vokillist’ Johny Oldboy, baritone bassist Xen and drummer Jason — no need for last names; we’re all friends here — likewise scathing and covered in crust. Side B wraps with the 10-minute eponymous “Gagulta” — circle pit into slowdown into even noisier fuckall — but not before “Long Live the Undead” has dirty-steamrolled through its four minutes and the penultimate “War” blasts off from its snare count-in on a punk-roots-revealing surge that plays back and forth with tortured, scream-topped slow-riff madness. I don’t know if the Old Ones would be pleased, but if at any point you see a Gagulta backpatch out in the wild, that person isn’t fucking around and neither is this band. Two years after its first release, it remains monstrous.
Some 20 years removed from their debut album, Accidentally Making Enemies, and 13 past their most recent, 2009’s Eye Tree Pi (review here), London’s Obiat return at the behest of guitarist/keyboardist Raf Reutt and drummer Neil Dawson with the duly massive Indian Ocean, an eight-song collection spanning an hour’s listening time that brings together metallic chug and heavy post-rock atmospherics, largesse of tone and melody central to the proceedings from opener “Ulysses” onward. Like its long-ago predecessor, Alex Nervo‘s bass (he also adds keys and guitar) is a major presence, and in addition to vocalist Sean Cooper, who shines emotively and in the force of his delivery throughout, there are an assortment of guests on “Eyes and Soul,” “Nothing Above,” “Sea Burial” and subdued closer “Lightness of Existence,” adding horns, vocals, flute, and so on to the wash of volume from the guitar, bass, drums, keys, and though parts were recorded in Wales, England, Australia, Sweden, Norway and Hungary, Indian Ocean is a cohesive, consuming totality of a record that does justice to the long wait for its arrival while also earning as much volume as you can give it through its immersive atmospherics and sheer aural heft that leads to the ambient finish. It is not a minor undertaking, but it walks the line between metal and post-metal and has a current of heavy rock beneath it in a way that is very much Obiat‘s, and if they’re really back to being a band again — that is, if it’s not another 13 years before their next record — watch out.
Vienna five-piece Maunra enter the fray of the harsher side of post-metal with Monarch, their self-released-for-now debut full-length. With throaty growling vocals at the forefront atop subtly nuanced double-guitars and bouts of all-out chugga-breakdown riffing like that in “Wuthering Seas,” they’re managing to dare to bring a bit of life and energy to the generally hyper-cerebral style, and that rule-breaking continues to suit them in the careening “Embers” and the lumbering stomp-mosh of the title-track such that even when the penultimate “Lightbreather” shifts into its whispery/wispy midsection — toms still thudding behind — there’s never any doubt of their bringing the shove back around. I haven’t seen a lyric sheet, so can’t say definitively whether or not opener “Between the Realms” is autobiographical in terms of the band describing their own aesthetic, but their blend of progressivism and raw impact is striking in that song and onward, and it’s interesting to hear an early ’00s metal influence creep into the interplay of lead and rhythm guitar on that opener and elsewhere. At seven tracks/41 minutes, Monarch proffers tonal weight and rhythmic force, hints toward more melodic development to come, and underscores its focus on movement by capping with the especially rousing “Windborne.” Reportedly the album was five years in the making. Time not wasted.
Still mostly instrumental, formerly just-Ohio-based progressive heavy rockers Brujas del Sol answer the steps they took in a vocalized direction on 2019’s II (review here) with the voice-as-part-of-the-atmosphere verses of “To Die on Planet Earth” and “Myrrors” on their third album, Deculter, but more importantly to the actual listening experience of the record is the fact that they’ve never sounded quite this heavy. Sure, guitarist Adrian Zambrano (also vocals) and bassist Derrick White still provide plenty of synth to fill out those instrumentalist spaces and up the general proggitude, and that’s a signal sent clearly with the outset “Intro,” but Joshua Oswald (drums/vocals) pounds his snare as “To Live and Die on Planet Earth” moves toward its midsection, and the aggression wrought there is answered in both the guitar and bass tones as 12-minute finishing move “Arcadia” stretches into its crescendo, more about impact than the rush of “Divided Divinity” earlier on, rawer emotionally than the keyboardier reaches of “Lenticular,” but no less thoughtful in its construction. Each piece (even that intro) has an identity of its own, and each one makes Deculter a stronger offering.
A definite 2LP at nine songs and 68 minutes, Sergeant Thunderhoof‘s fifth full-length, This Sceptred Veil, is indeed two albums’ worth of album, and the songs bear that out in their complexity and sense of purpose as well. Not to harp, but even the concluding two-parter “Avon/Avalon” is a lot to take in after what’s come before it, but what Bath, UK, troupe vary their songwriting and bring a genuine sense of presence to the material that even goes beyond the soaring vocals to the depth of the mix more generally. There’s heavy rock grit to “Devil’s Daughter” (lil eyeroll there) and progressive reach to the subsequent “Foreigner,” a lushness to “King Beyond the Gates” and twisting riffs that should earn pleased nods from anyone who’s been swept up in Green Lung‘s hooky pageantry, and opener “You’ve Stolen the Words” sets an expectation for atmosphere and a standard for directness of craft — as well as stellar production — that This Sceptred Veil seems only too happy to meet. A given listener’s reaction to the ’80s metal goofery of “Show Don’t Tell” will depend on said listener’s general tolerance for fun, but don’t let me spoil that for them or you. Yeah, it’s a substantial undertaking. Five records in, Sergeant Thunderhoof knew that when they made it, and if you’ve got the time, they’ve got the tunes. Album rocks front to back.
