Posted in Whathaveyou on March 30th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
The forthcoming six-songer from Berlin-based sludge-plus aficionados Grin — here pared down to just the core duo of Sabine and Jan Oberg — puts down the guitar in favor of a purely low end assault, and remains atmospheric despite dedicating itself largely to pummel across its span of just 10 minutes. That it follows on in such raw fashion from last year’s more expansive Phantom Knocks (review here) feels like a willful contrast, but following that impulse is well in line with Grin‘s broader methodology, never mind that the band is one of three ongoing projects from the Obergs alongside Slowshine and EarthShip, each with a distinct sound and style.
Self-recording as always and self-releasing through their The Lasting Dose Records imprint, Grin will issue Black Nothingness on April 7, and if you’ll allow the plug, I’ll be playing the lead track on the big Gimme Metal show this Friday, though of course it’s also streaming below, should you not want to wait that long.
By all means, have at it:
Dive into the Psychedelic Abyss with GRIN’s “Black Nothingness”
Experience the Heavy Psych-Doom Odyssey with GRIN’s Upcoming Album “Black Nothingness”
Immersed in an atmospheric haze of intensely amplified bass drones and haunting, layered vocals, heavy psych-doom outfit GRIN ventures deeper into their psychedelic mythology with a concise display of sheer heaviness and DIY ethos in their latest release, ‘Black Nothingness’.
Comprising six compact compositions, ‘Black Nothingness’ departs from the duo’s signature use of guitar flourishes, opting instead to focus on their distinctive and powerful drum and bass sound. By returning to the core of their sonic identity, GRIN unveils the ecstatic essence of their music, inviting listeners to join them on a mesmerizing journey through the astral plane and beyond.
The foundations of GRIN’s iconic heavy drum and bass sound can be traced back to their 2018 debut album ‘Revenant’. It comes as no surprise that the power couple, Jan and Sabine (Earth Ship / Slowshine), have been crafting riff-heavy tunes for over a decade. Their sophomore album, ‘Translucent Blades’ (2020), further reinforced GRIN’s sludgy psychedelic doom metal sound by incorporating high-pitched guitar drones and eerie soundscapes. Recorded once again at Jan Oberg’s Hidden Planet Studio, ‘Phantom Knocks’ (2022) retained the earth-shattering intensity of its predecessors while showcasing even greater vividness and power, aptly demonstrating the Berlin-based duo’s refined chemistry.
Through ‘Black Nothingness’, GRIN persistently unravels the intricate threads of their psychedelic mythos with a focused exploration of overwhelming heaviness and DIY principles.
Artist: Grin Release Title: Black Nothingness Label: The Lasting Dose Records Release Date: April 7th, 2023 Formats: Digital, CD
Tracklist: 1. Nothingness 2. Gatekeeper 3. Midnight Blue Sorrow 4. The Tempest Of Time 5. Talons 6. Deathbringers
Recording Info: Produced, mixed & mastered by Jan Oberg at Hidden Planet Studio. Berlin Artwork by Doomolith.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 6th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Based in Seelbach, Germany, the Hoflärm Festival will host its fifth edition this August, as seemingly every weekend of Europe’s Spring and Summer fest season seems to increasingly have something going on somewhere at sometime. A glut of cool events is nothing to complain about for anyone who remembers a couple years back when there was nothing — which, as much as one tries to repress those particular memories, I still do — and the lineup here is right on in terms of vibe with Acid King, Mars Red Sky, Messa and Elephant Tree so far at the top of the bill with Rotor, Swan Valley Heights, Mondo Generator, Grin, Black Lung, Eremit, Madmess, Old Horn Tooth and Kvinna rounding out and a few black boxes on the poster like the rest of the lineup has been redacted for the purposes of protecting classified information.
And I won’t argue with Hoflärm adding another six or seven bands, but, I mean, this is already pretty killer on first blush. You’ll note this takes place over three days, so spreading the 20 bands out over that long, it seems like a pretty laid back kind of deal — at least until Mondo Generator starts ripping into Kyuss tunes, but that’s fun too — and not necessarily as overwhelming as some multi-stage fests in Europe and elsewhere. This is the five-year anniversary of the fest, and to see Acid King and Mars Red Sky alone, it’s already got me daydreaming, so I take that as a win.
Details follow as per Hoflärm‘s socials:
Hoflärm – 5th Anniversary – GO FOR THE RIDE
Join us this year for the 5th stony ride to Hoflärm 2023! We are very happy to announce the first bands of the line-up today! We also announce the start of the presale for 05.02.2023 at 5 pm!
Started in 1993, we are more than proud to welcome Acid King! The band around Lori S. looks back on 30 years of band history and will bring their new Album to Marienthal in August.
Mars Red Sky and Elephant Tree will drive you into the sunset with their all time classics like Strong Reflection or Wither! We’re already feeling the vibe around the yard!
A very special highlight we are looking forward to is Messa. The Italian doom band combines the raw and rough sides of doom with the warm summer evenings of the Hoflärm.
Just last year, stoner legend Nick Oliveri visited us with his band Stöner. Nick liked it and had reason enough to come knocking on our door again in 2023. We are looking forward to Mondo Generator, Mr. Oliveri!
We also have visitors from Berlin again, on the one hand we are happy to welcome Rotor, our tractors are running at Vollast! But on the other hand also Grin! We can’t imagine a Hoflärm without Jan, Sabine and Andre! In 2021 the three played with Earth Ship, in 2022 with Slowshine. This year, however, only Sabine and Jan will be on stage, Andre will mingle with the audience while Grin plays their crushing riffs.
Black Lung and Madmess will bring you through our hot afternoons with their heavy psych rock!
Doom over Marienthal: Eremit and Old Horn Tooth will be blasting the darkest riffs into your ears! Live Slow Die Old!
Last but not least, we are happy to welcome 2 bands that have played at the Hof in the past! Swan Valley Heights and Kvinna! Kvinna was the band that opened the first Hoflärm, who of you was there and can remember?
Stay tuned for even more announcements! We have more Bands, as well another Headliner & Co Headliner to announce!
Posted in Radio on January 20th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
If you missed the entire Quarterly Review, first of all, that’s okay. You’re not obligated. I only bring it up because it’s from that glut of 100 records that this playlist (and part of the last one) derives. It’s a good show, with a couple decent twists. I almost played the 18-minute Smoke song. Thought about it, but it gets a little droney and I worry about stuff like that getting lost in people’s audio feeds. You know, if they’ve got the thing streaming in the background or some such. I’m not fooling myself into thinking that, however many people are listening, they’re all paying the strictest attention to every minute of every song.
So it’s the seven-minute Smoke song, and the 14-minute Carrier Wave one. It was pretty easy to go and pick through the QR for stuff, to be honest. And there was enough that, even having done some last time, I might still be able to get more from it that would work for the show. That’s pretty killer, because unless I’m giving myself an excuse to get to know it, I don’t play stuff on here if I don’t think it’s at least worth hearing. In the meantime, this playlist rules. I can’t wait to hear what engineer Dean Rispler (he’s also in Mighty High and 70 or 80 other bands) does with the transition from Gaupa to Onségen Ensemble.
Thanks for listening if you listen. Thanks for reading either way.
The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.
Full playlist:
The Obelisk Show – 01.20.23 (VT = voice track)
Oktas
Collateral Damage
The Finite and the Infinite
Gaupa
RA
Myriad
Onségen Ensemble
Naked Sky
Realms
VT
Simple Forms
Reaching for the Shadow
Simple Forms
Farflung
Dludgemasterpoede
Like Drones in Honey
Smoke
The Son of Man
Groupthink
Chrome Ghost
Where Black Dogs Dream
House of Falling Ash
Onhou
Null
Monument
Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol
Jesus Was an Alien
Doom Wop
Alconaut
Slugs
Slugs
Daevar
Leila
Delirious Rites
Astrosaur
The Deluge
Portals
Grin
Aporia
Phantom Knocks
Mister Earthbound
Not to Know
Shadow Work
VT
Carrier Wave
Cosmic Man
Carrier Wave
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Feb. 3 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.
Posted in Reviews on January 2nd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Here we are. Welcome to 2023 and to both the first Quarterly Review of this year and the kind of unofficial closeout of 2022. These probably won’t be the last writeups for releases from the year just finished — if past is prologue, I’ll remain months if not years behind in some cases; you do what you can — but from here on out it’s more about this year than last in the general balance of what’s covered. That’s the hope, anyway. Talk to me in April to see how it’s going.
I won’t delay further except to remind that we’ll do 10 reviews per day between now and next Friday for a total of 100 covered, and to say thanks if you keep up with it at all. I hope you find something that resonates with you, otherwise there’s not much point in the endeavor at all. So here we go.
Winter 2023 Quarterly Review #1-10:
Buddha Sentenza, High Tech Low Life
With a foundation in instrumental meditative heavy psychedelia, Heidelberg, Germany’s Buddha Sentenza push outward along a number of different paths across their third album, High Tech Low Life, as in the second of five cuts, “Anabranch,” which builds on the mood-setting linear build and faster payoff of opener “Oars” and adds both acoustic guitar, metal-impact kick drum and thrash-born (but definitely still not entirely thrash) riffing, and later, heavier post-rock nod in the vein of Russian Circles, but topped with willfully grandiose keyboard. Kitchensinkenalia, then! “Ricochet” ups the light to a blinding degree by the time it’s two and a half minutes in, then punks up the bass before ending up in a chill sample-topped stretch of noodle-prog, “Afterglow” answers that with careening space metal, likewise progressive comedown, keyboard shred, some organ and hand-percussion behind Eastern-inflected guitar, and a satisfyingly sweeping apex, and 12-minute finale “Shapeshifters” starts with a classic drum-fueled buildup, takes a victory lap in heavy prog shove, spends a few minutes in dynamic volume trades, gets funky behind a another shreddy solo, peaks, sprints, crashes, and lumbers confidently to its finish, as if to underscore the point that whatever Buddha Sentenza want to make happen, they’re going to. So be it. High Tech Low Life may be their first record since Semaphora (review here) some seven years ago, but it feels no less masterful for the time between.
Captured raw in self-produced fashion, the Sept. 2022 debut album from Magma Haze sees the four-piece embark on an atmospheric and bluesy take on heavy rock, weaving through grunge and loosely-psychedelic flourish as they begin to shape what will become the textures of their sound across six songs and 42 minutes that are patiently offered but still carry a newer band’s sense of urgency. Beginning with “Will the Wise,” the Bologna, Italy, outfit remind somewhat of Salt Lake City’s Dwellers with the vocals of Alessandro D’Arcangeli in throaty post-earlier-Alice in Chains style, but as they move through “Stonering” and the looser-swinging, drenched-in-wah “Chroma,” their blend becomes more apparent, the ‘stoner’ influence showing up in the general languidity of vibe that persists regardless of a given track’s tempo. To wit, “Volcanic Hill” with its bass-led sway at the start, or the wah behind the resultant shove, building up and breaking down again only to end on the run in a fadeout. The penultimate “Circles” grows more spacious in its back half with what might be organ but I’m pretty sure is still guitar behind purposefully drawn-out vocals, and closer “Moon” grows more distorted and encouragingly fuzzed in its midsection en route to a wisely understated payoff and resonant end. There’s potential here.
Instrumental in its entirety and offered with a companion visual component on Blu-ray with different cover art, The Kybalion is the ambitious, 40-minute single-song debut long-player from Richmond, Virginia’s Future Projektor. With guitarist/vocalist Adam Kravitz and drummer Kevin White — both formerly of sludgesters Gritter; White is also ex-Throttlerod — and Sean Plunkett on bass, the band present an impressive breadth of scope and a sense of cared-for craft throughout their immersive course, and with guitar and sometimes keys from Kravitz leading the way as one movement flows into the next, the procession feels not only smooth, but genuinely progressive in its reach. It’s not that they’re putting on a showcase for technique, but the sense of “The Kybalion” as built up around its stated expressive themes — have fun going down a Wikipedia hole reading about hermeticism — is palpable and the piece grows more daring the deeper it goes, touching on cinematic around 27 minutes in but still keeping a percussive basis for when the heavier roll kicks in a short time later. Culminating in low distortion that shifts into keyboard revelation, The Kybalion is an adventure open to any number of narrative interpretations even beyond the band’s own, and that only makes it a more effective listen.
Berlin duo Grin — one of the several incarnations of DIY-prone power couple Jan (drums, guitar, vocals, production) and Sabine Oberg (bass) alongside EarthShip and Slowshine — grow ever more spacious and melodic on Oct. 2022’s Phantom Knocks, their third full-length released on their own imprint, The Lasting Dose Records. Comprised of eight songs running a tight and composed but purposefully ambient 33 minutes with Sabine‘s bass at the core of airy progressions like that of “Shiver” or the rolling, harsh-vocalized, puts-the-sludge-in-post-sludge “Apex,” Phantom Knocks follows the path laid out on 2019’s Translucent Blades (review here) and blends in more extreme ideas on “Aporia” and the airy pre-finisher “Servants,” but is neither beholden to its float nor its crush; both are tools used in service to the moment’s expression. Because of that, Grin move fluidly through the entirety of Phantom Knocks, intermittently growing monstrous to fill the spaces they’ve created, but mindful as well of keeping those spaces intact. Inarguably the work of a band with a firm sense of its own identity, it nonetheless seems to reach out and pull the listener into its depths.
Though clearly part of Teverts‘ focus on The Lifeblood is toward atmosphere and giving its audience a sense of mood that is maintained throughout its six tracks, a vigorousness reminiscent of later Dozer offsets the post-rocking elements from the Benevento, Italy, three-piece. They are not the first to bring together earthy bass with exploratory guitar overtop and a solid drum underpinning, but after the deceptively raucous one-two of the leadoff title-track and “Draining My Skin,” the more patient unfurling of instrumental side A finale “Under Antares Light” — which boasts a chugging march in its midsection and later reaches that is especially righteous — clues that the full-fuzz stoner rock starting side B with the desert-swinging-into-the-massive-slowdown “UVB-76” is only part of the appeal rather than the sum of it. “Road to Awareness” portrays a metallic current (post-metal, maybe?) in its shouty post-intro vocals and general largesse, but wraps with an engaging and relatively spontaneous-sounding lead before “Comin’ Home” answers back to “The Lifeblood” and that slowdown in “UVB-76” in summarizing the stage-style energy and the vast soundscape it has inhabited all the while. They end catchy, but the final crescendo is instrumental, a big end of the show complete with cymbal wash and drawn solo notes. Bravo.
An engrossing amalgam of lurching extreme doom and blackened metal, the second long-player, Ex Est, by Tilburg, Netherlands’ Ggu:ll is likewise bludgeoning, cruel and grim in its catharsis. The agonies on display seem to come to a sort of wailing head in “Stuip” later on, but that’s well after the ultra-depressive course has been set by “Falter” and “Enkel Achterland.” In terms of style, “Hoisting Ruined Sails” moves through slow death and post-sludge, but the tonal onslaught is only part of the weight on offer, and indeed, Ggu:ll bring dark grey and strobe-afflicted fog to the forward, downward march of “Falter” and the especially raw centerpiece “Samt-al-ras,” setting up a contrast with the speedier guitar in the beginning minutes of closer “Voertuig der Verlorenen” that feels intentional even as the latter decays into churning, harsh noise. There’s a spiritual aspect of the work, but the shadow that’s cast in Ex Est defines it, and the four-piece bring precious little hope amid the swirling and destructive antilife. Because this is so clearly their mission, Ex Est is a triumph almost in spite of itself, but it’s a triumph just the same, even at its moments of most vigorous, slow, skin-peeling crawl.
Fulanno & The Crooked Whispers, Last Call From Hell
While one wouldn’t necessarily call it balanced in runtime with Argentina’s Fulanno offering about 19 minutes of material with Los Angeles’ The Crooked Whispers answering with about 11, their Last Call From Hell split nonetheless presents a two-track sampler of both groups’ cultish doom wares. Fulanno lumber through “Erotic Pleasures in the Catacombs” and “The Cycle of Death” with dark-toned Sabbath-worship-plus-horror-obsession-stoned-fuckall, riding central riffs into a seemingly violent but nodding oblivion, while The Crooked Whispers plod sharply in the scream-topped six minutes of “Bloody Revenge,” giving a tempo kick later on, and follow a steadier dirge pace with “Dig Your Own Grave” while veering into a cleaner, nasal vocal style from Anthony Gaglia (also of LáGoon). Uniting the two bands disparate in geography and general intent is the dug-in vibe that draws out over both, their readiness to celebrate a death-stench vision of riff-led doom that, while, again, differently interpreted by each, sticks in the nose just the same. Nothing else smells like death. You know it immediately, and it’s all over Last Call From Hell.
Not all is as it seems as Mister Earthbound‘s debut album, Shadow Work, gets underway with the hooky “Not to Know” and a riff that reminds of nothing so much as Valley of the Sun, but the key there is in the swing, since that’s what will carry over from the lead track to the remaining six on the 36-minute LP, which turns quickly on the mellow guitar strum of “So Many Ways” to an approach that feels directly drawn from Hisingen Blues-era Graveyard. The wistful bursts of “Coffin Callin'” and the later garage-doomed “Wicked John” follow suit in mood, while “Hot Foot Powder” is more party than pout once it gets going, and the penultimate “Weighed” has more burl to its vocal drawl and an edge of Southern rock to its pre-payoff verses, while the subsequent closer “No Telling” feels like a take on Chris Goss fronting Queens of the Stone Age for “Mosquito Song” on Songs for the Deaf, and yes, that is a compliment. The jury may be out on Mister Earthbound‘s ultimate aesthetic — that is, where they’re headed, they might not be yet — but Shadow Work has songwriting enough at its root that I wouldn’t mind if that jury doesn’t come back. Time will tell, but “multifaceted” is a good place to start when you’ve got your ducks in a row behind you as Mister Earthbound seem to here.
Surely retro sword-bearing theatrics are part of the appeal when it comes to Brooklyn’s potential-rife, signed-in-three-two-one-go doom rockers Castle Rat‘s live presentation, but as they make their studio debut with the four-and-a-half-minute single “Feed the Dream,” that’s not necessarily going to come across to all who take the track on. Fortunately for the band, then, the song is no less thought out. A mid-paced groove that puts the guitar out before the ensuing march and makes way purposefully for the vocals of Riley “The Rat Queen” Pinkerton — who also plays rhythm guitar, while Henry “The Count” Black plays lead, Ronnie “The Plague Doctor” Lanzilotta is on bass and Joshua “The Druid” Strmic drums — to arrive with due presence. With a capital-‘h’ Heavy groove underlying, they bask in classic metal vibes and display a rare willingness to pretend the ’90s never happened. This is to their credit. The sundry boroughs of New York City have had bands playing dress-up with various levels of goofball sex, violence and excess since before the days of Twisted Sister — to be fair, this is glam via anti-glam — but the point with Castle Rat isn’t so much that the idea is new but the interpretation of it is. On the level of the song itself, “Feed the Dream” sounds like a candle being lit. Get your fire emojis ready, if that’s still a thing.
Immediate impact. Mountains‘ Tides End is the London trio’s second long-player behind 2017’s Dust in the Glare (discussed here), and though overall it makes a point of its range, the first impression in opener “Moonchild” is that the band are already on their way and it’s on the listener to keep up. Life and death pervade “Moonchild” and the more intense “Lepa Radić,” which follows, but it’s hard to listen to those two at the beginning, the breakout in “Birds on a Wire,” the heavy roll of “Hiraeth” and the rumble at the core of “Pilgrim” without waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Mountains to more completely unveil their metallic side. It’s there in the guitar solos, the drums, even as “Pilgrim” reminds of somewhat of Green Lung in its clarity of vision, but to their credit, the trio get through “Empire” and “Under the Eaves” and most of “Tides End” itself before the chug swallows them — and the album, it seems — whole. A curious blend of styles, wholly modern, Tides End feels more aggressive in its purposes than did the debut, but that doesn’t at all hurt it as the band journey to that massive finish.
Posted in Radio on October 14th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
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)
Deadly Vipers
Welli Welloo
Low City Drone
Smokes of Krakatau
Septic
Smokes of Krakatau
Sky Pig
Motionless
It Thrives in Darkness
VT
Sasquatch
Live Snakes
Fever Fantasy
Ufomammut
Psychostasia
Fenice
Giant Mammoth
Circle
Holy Sounds
Teverts
Road to Awareness
The Lifeblood
Kyuss
100 Degrees
Welcome to Sky Valley
Grin
Transcendence
Phantom Knocks
Tons
A Hash Day’s Night
Hashension
Grandier
Viper Soul
The Scorn and Grace of Crows
All Souls
Roam
Ghosts Among Us
Witchfinder
Ghosts Happen to Fade
Forgotten Mansion
Edena Gardens
Hidebound
Edena Gardens
Faith in Jane
The Seeker
Axe to Oak
VT
Caustic Casanova
Bull Moose Against the Sky
Glass Enclosed Nerve Center
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.
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 19th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
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/
Posted in Radio on November 8th, 2019 by JJ Koczan
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.
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.
[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.
