This is me feeling like I can’t keep up, I suppose. Even in like the week, two weeks?, since the Quarterly Review ended, I’ve basically got another one full, and I’ve been feeling suitably overwhelmed as we move into Fall. The releases keep coming, keep being announced, and it’s just so much. I’m doing my best, and a lot of this stuff will be covered hopefully before December comes around, but I can’t promise that at this point. It would matter way less if records like Sky Pig, Smokes of Krakatau, Teverts, Deadly Vipers, Tons and Witchfinder, Grin, Grandier, Giant Mammoth weren’t as cool as they are.

I should’ve called the show ‘Punk Rock Guilt,’ but no one would get it anyway. I’m not sure anyone gets it now. I’m not sure why Gimme Metal continues to let me do this, but I’m happy they do. Anyway, for me personally this one’s all about the moment when it hits into Caustic Casanova’s “Bull Moose Against the Sky” from their just-released Glass Enclosed Nerve Center (review here) album, but I’m also reminding myself how much I dug that Ufomammut album and how just because Scott Kelly turned out to be a phony and a shit it doesn’t mean everything Neurot Recordings ever put out should be shunned like a mouthy Amish person. Also threw in some Kyuss, to remind myself I like them. Like, oh yeah, Kyuss. That’s a thing the internet and I agree on.

Bottom line is it’s a show with music I think will help your day, from All Souls and Sasquatch to Faith in Jane and the new Papir/Causa Sui collaboration Edena Gardens. If I’m going to take up two hours of Gimme Metal’s precious airtime — space on the internet may be unlimited and ever expanding, but time is still time — the least I can do is play good shit. So that’s what I’m doing.

Thanks if you listen and thanks for reading.

The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.

Full playlist:

The Obelisk Show – 10.14.22 (VT = voice track)

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Oct. 28 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.

Gimme Metal website

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Last time Sabine and Jan Oberg were heard from, it was under the guise of Slowshine, and frankly, it wasn’t all that long ago. Slowshine‘s debut album, Living Light (review here), came out in Oct. 2021, and it’s possible that some of that record’s spacious psychedelia has come into play for their generally-sludgier outfit together Grin, at least if the new song/visualizer for the track “Transcendence” from their upcoming Phantom Knocks LP is anything to go by. Does this mean EarthShip will release an album in 2023? Are they going to rotate through projects? That could be kind of fun.

The DIY duo will issue Phantom Knocks through their own The Lasting Dose Records on Oct. 14, and you can dig into “Transcendence” at the bottom of this post. I don’t know if you will or won’t. Depends on how much you realize you have nothing to lose by doing so and perhaps another preorder to gain. So there.

This info came down the PR wire a bit ago, so I’m behind as usual, but unless they drop a second single like… now… I’m not going to worry about it. Still current till it’s not.

Dig:

Heavy Psych-Doom Couple GRIN Announces New Album “Phantom Knocks” And Shares Colossal, First Song “Transcendence”!

Nothing has changed yet everything is different when it comes to Phantom Knocks, the third full-length album of heavy psych-doom outfit GRIN. October 14, 2022 will see the Berlin-based duo consisting of the unshakeable power couple Jan and Sabine Oberg (Earth Ship, Slowshine) return with a collection of eight shamanic desert rituals that emanate from the mysterious space between the supernatural and the extraterrestrial.

The manic tribal beat of album opener “Transcendence” comes rolling in like a psychic thunderstorm, extrapolating the collision of millions of tiny aqueous ions to the mighty thunder of Sabine Oberg’s bass, which continues to send seismic shockwaves throughout the rest of the album to leave you shaking on your feet. Meanwhile Jan Oberg’s clean voice and spectral grunts create a haze through which high pitched droning guitars fade in and out, like tones of supernatural frequencies cutting through the haze of reality. Phantom Knocks takes you on a rocking ride across shifting extraterrestrial desertscapes, while your spirit flies high above in a mystic transportation through the astral plane.

The groundwork of GRIN’s trademark heavy drum and bass sound was already laid as early as their 2018 debut album Revenant, which is no surprise, since Jan and Sabine have been actively making heavy riff-laden tunes for over ten years. Their second album Translucent Blades (2020) further solidified GRIN’s brand of sludgy psychedelic doom metal with the addition of high pitched guitar drones and eerie soundscapes. Again recorded in Jan Oberg’s own Hidden Planet Studio, Phantom Knocks has the same earth-shattering qualities as its predecessors, but is in every way more vivid and more powerful, aptly demonstrating how the Berliners have perfected their chemistry.

Phantom Knocks is slated for a CD, Tape Cassette and Digital release on October 14, 2022, with a Vinyl release to follow in the Spring of 2023. The album will be issued by the band’s own label imprint The Lasting Dose Records, pre-save your copy at THIS LOCATION: https://thelastingdoserecords.bandcamp.com/

(Album Artwork by Manuel Lambertz)

Phantom Knocks track listing:

01. Transcendence
02. Shiver
03. Aporia
04. Arcane
05. Apex
06. Rivulets
07. Servants
08. Spectral

GRIN Line-Up:
Sabine Oberg – Bass Guitar
Jan Oberg – Drums, Vocals, Guitars, Soundscapes
Additional Musician: René Noçon – Hammond Organ on ARCANE

http://www.facebook.com/GRINCULT
https://www.instagram.com/grincult
https://www.grincult.bandcamp.com

https://www.facebook.com/thelastingdoserecords/
https://thelastingdoserecords.bandcamp.com/

Grin, “Transcendence” visualizer

Grin, Phantom Knocks (2022)

It’s been forever since there was an episode of The Obelisk Show on Gimme Radio, but I’m glad to say that there was never any chance of it not continuing eventually. At least not one that I was told about — ha. Gimme had a bunch of specials booked, and well, if it’s me or the dude from Enslaved, or really anybody, I can’t really put up much of a fight that I should be given preference. I’m the dude who plays heavy rock on a metal station, and I’ve got a pretty good timeslot to do it. Yeah, I’m gonna get picked off in favor of special episodes. No worries. I kind of needed a break anyway.

So maybe think of this as the start of Season 2 of The Obelisk Show. I know that all the The Next Generation-era Star Trek shows operated with 24-episode seasons, but I don’t think anyone will begrudge me one fewer. Enterprise might’ve had a 23-episode season somewhere in there. I’d have to check. Either way, Season 2 picks up pretty much where Season 1 left off: a butt-load of new music and me nerding out about Colour Haze.

I talk a bit about the Høstsabbat fest in Norway that I went to last month, give the Brume record a plug and am a total geek for Al Cisneros’ bass tone on that new Om live release, so yes, pretty much the show is getting caught up with what’s been going on around here while it was off the air. A bit of shaking off the rust, but the playlist rules and I tried not to screw it all up too badly on mic. I haven’t heard the finished product yet, so we’ll see if it was a success. In any case, I hope you dig it.

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Radio airs at 1PM Eastern today.

Listen at: http://www.gimmeradio.com

Here’s the full playlist:

The Obelisk Show – 11.08.19

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Radio airs every other Friday at 1PM Eastern, with replays every Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next show is Nov. 22. Thanks for listening if you do.

Gimme Radio website

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[Click play above to stream ‘Helix’ from Grin’s second album, Translucent Blades. Album is out Jan. 17, 2020, on Crazysane Records with preorders available here.]

Both Jan Oberg and Sabine Oberg, who together comprise the Berlin-based duo Grin, also double in Earth Ship. Though the origins are murky, it would seem Grin formed as a side-project of that outfit sometime ahead of recording and releasing their debut full-length, Revenant, last year, with Jan overseeing the recording and mixing at his own Hidden Planet studio in Berlin in addition to drumming, noisemaking and singing. He and Sabine, who also plays bass, would seem to have a hand vocally in Translucent Blades, the early 2020 Crazysane Records follow-up to that debut, but the process from which the second album emerges would seem to be somewhat similar — done at home, so to speak, with just the two of them involved.

It is a relatively quick eight-track/36-minute LP, and yet, the level of stylistic exploration and the sheer aesthetic ground covered on Translucent Blades is somewhat staggering, and while there’s little doubt that the material benefits from the players’ prior familiarity with each other — I don’t think it’s a coincidence they have the same last name; i.e., they’re married — but in concert with that is a clear will shown on a per-song basis to tread onto some new ground, try some new thing, and incorporate it into a whole that takes shape as being their own. Though quick, it is also a heady project, to be sure, but these are heady times, and one tends to think the general listenership is schooled in and out of genre in such a way as to appreciate the progressive aspects of what Grin build toward in cuts like “Husk” as well as the impact of the payoffs in “Orbital Grace,” “Electric Eye,” “Holy Grief” and the finale “Reviver,” which is aptly named for the blackened aspects it reignites from opener “Helix,” giving a symmetrical closing to the record that only underscores the notion of a masterplan at work on the part of the two-piece. And masters they just might be.

To wit, there’s no ground they touch on Translucent Blades that they don’t conquer. “Helix” begins with a push of low end and spacious crash cymbal, a swirl backing that’s either guitar effects or some kind of synthesizer noise as the first black metal-style cavern screams start — an immediate defiance of expectation that Grin wear exceedingly well. The overarching stylistic affect is psychedelic, and all the more so when a clean-sung chorus takes hold with even more delay/echo in the midsection, Jan and Sabine seeming to come together on vocals before a drop to standalone bass leads to a semi-spoken section with far-back shouts behind, the final stage of the first of eight tracks, summarized there in some ways but still with plenty of ground to boldly cover. “Orbital Grace” brings in Jesu-style post-all, while the title-track rolls out more severe plod with more semi-spoken lines atop a wide open atmosphere and a finish that — I don’t know if Grin are able to play live or if there’s just too much going on with layering to make it happen — but deserves to come from a stage somehow some way.

They again toy with black metal on “Husk,” but in squibbly guitar, not vocals, and push it so deep in the mix as to have almost an ambient effect alongside the galloping drums, playing out behind an airier lead and lyrics that are so drenched as to become part of the wash, an instrument unto themselves, as is clearly the intent. The risk any such release runs is in putting its aesthetic ambitions ahead of the songs, but Grin seem to pivot around this trap by making each piece on Translucent Blades stand out in some way while feeding into the complete flow of the record in its entirety. “Husk” rounds out side A and side B begins with the meditative-heavy-Om-via-Zaum unfurling of “Electric Eye,” a rollout more about hypnosis than build, even when an additional layer of fuzz joins the proceedings late in their march.

One might think that by the time they get through the first half of Translucent Blades that the course would be set, but the Obergs continue to broaden the scope as they move forward, first with “Electric Eye” and then with the plunder-in-space of “Holy Grief,” which brings together a cosmic doom via Ufomammut spirit with a forward thrust of snare in its verses that seems pulled from High on Fire‘s rhythmic fervency. Perhaps most importantly, the song seems to dissolve into noise, cutting off at the end, but prior to that, letting itself get lost in the wash of its own making in an effective moment of inward and outward trance induction. That is, they seem just as affected by it. A quiet two-and-a-half-minute instrumental “Antares” serves as the penultimate inclusion, bringing in flute — or flute sounds — with an echo-soaked spoken sample or verse (it’s hard to tell) and stark guitar resolution that gives way to silence ahead of “Reviver,” the very title of which lets the listener know that Grin aren’t letting go without a fight, whatever shape that might ultimately take.

“This is how everything ends” is the first line of the song, and though Jan would seem to be describing an apocalyptic landscape — fair enough — the fact that “Reviver” is where it is would seem to clue one into its having been written as an intended finale. It grows in intensity across its five-plus minutes, making its way toward a last march that shuts down cold on snare hits but still brings out a sense of drift before it does. Grin are of course not the first act in the universe to blend sonic heft and atmospheric breadth, but the reach with which they do so is noteworthy, and the feeling of intent behind their finished product only makes its execution more appreciable. Their experiments work, and further, they’re not just experiments. There’s an expressive aspect to Translucent Blades that unites the material regardless of where an individual track is headed, and while Grin might demand multiple listens to let the record properly sink in, each airing provides more than enough satisfaction to earn the next.

Grin on Thee Facebooks

Grin on Instagram

Grin on Bandcamp

Crazysane Records webstore

Crazysane Records on Thee Facebooks