And so we reach the penultimate day of this Quarterly Review; whichever quarter it is, I neither know nor particularly care, I’m just happy to be writing.

It’s been solid days so far. Yesterday was a little harried on timing, but that’s as close to an actual snag as I’ve gotten, which I’m happy to say. The music’s been good, the images and embeds have either been there already or have been easy to find, and there were only one or two things I had to replace along the way because they weren’t coming out for like another couple months. I’ve never been able to keep track of release dates.

I thought about putting a thing in the sidebar so people could list stuff and each week there would be a list, but I feel like I’d be the only one doing it and that’s not how I want to spend my limited time. I want to spend it writing, so I do. And no, it’s not even a little lost on me what a gift that is. It’s why I keep telling you my wife is so amazing. Part of why, anyhow.

We wrap tomorrow, so here’s today.

Quarterly Review #31-40:

Ruff Majik, Tan Halen

The central thesis of Ruff Majik‘s recent single “Tan Halen”, that “Sundays are for surfing,” becomes the hook and foundation of this four-song EP of the same name that’s the band’s most substantial offering since they ended a relatively brief hiatus at the start of this year. On the four-track outing, “Tan Halen” is accompanied by “Tvn Hvlen (Tvpe Mix),” which sounds more compressed and vocals-forward, the haggardly swaggering prior single “For the Life of Me,” here presented in an alternate mix that in its maddening chorus brings up the snare and feels more chaotic at the end, and lastly, “Tan Halen (Too Much Fuzz, Not Enough Drums),” which is true more on the second account than the first — how much fuzz is too much for Ruff Majik? is that a pinnacle that’s yet been reached? — but with the drums lower in the mix and the filthy tones surrounding has kind of a garage rock feel, which again, is fair enough for a song about surfing. Only missing here is their first 2026 single, “Can of Wyrms” (posted here), but you can’t have everything. I’m just glad they’re putting out new music.

Ruff Majik website

Sound of Liberation Records store

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Green Desert Water, Eerie Meadows

Releasing through Small Stone Records (US) and Kozmik Artifactz (EU), Spanish classic heavy rockers Green Desert Water bring warmth to boogie and once again distill decades of influence into a cohesive, movement-minded, dynamic package. Eerie Meadows is their third album and in pieces like “The Blacksmith” near the outset or the sweeping “Wolfhound” and shuffling “Bos Primigenius” ahead of the finale “Meteora” on side B, they make it all sound easy, natural, like it couldn’t be any other way. The way that happens is through command of craft, and Green Desert Water are there too in the push of fuzz that emerges at the end of soulful leadoff “Northern Lights,” the bluesier “Holy Ground” and the big crashes/softshoe of the title-track, the trio having constructed songs that can have been worked on but don’t feel like, that engage without cloying, and which thrill in their sundry twists and redirects. I’m not sure what more one could ask of them.

Green Desert Water website

Small Stone Records website

Kozmik Artifactz website

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Go Mahhh, Doppelgänger

No, I don’t think Berlin newcomers Go Mahhh are the first to posit themselves as being “as high as the mountain,” as they do on opener “High Mountain,” in the stonerly genres, but their tight and heavy psychedelic rock comes through as inherited, and songs like “Happy Satan’s Reign” and the proto-chugging “BBSBBQ,” the kraut-dancey “Anatoliosis” and the percussively shuffling “The Sun King” offer variety united by an underlying current of weirdness. Perhaps it’s all leading to the seven-minute finale “Mind Aussalt” (sic), with its drift and drone and ’60s guitar earlier on, but the band never rest too long in one place, be it the buzzing roll of “Blood Transfusion” or the interlude “MSAZ-20,” with intertwining lines of standalone guitar. Part of me wants to talk about the potential for growth here and the idea that Go Mahhh are debuting with significant range on Doppelgänger, but honestly, the spirit of the album is so much more about the joy of exploration that pulling myself out of the moment feels inappropriate. Some records, you just want to go where they take you.

Go Mahh on Instagram

Noisolution store

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Heath, Murmurations

Heath‘s 2024 debut, Isaak’s Marble (review here) offered hints of progressivism to come, but Murmurations goes to another level, digging in across three tracks to recharacterize their sound from boogie traditionalism to something more expansive and their own. The two-minute mostly-vocals intro “Exordium in D Minor” leads into two 15-minutes-each cuts “Murmurations” and “Nosedive,” and while clearly jam-based, the two songs follow plotted, sometimes winding courses, still keeping a classic feel but lighting a fire under it by the time the title-track is through. Comprising what I assume is the entirety of side B, “Nosedive” unfolds patiently with Rhodes ambience and a gradual build of guitar, working its way to and through a build that hits into surprising heft before its done but makes its core impression in its burner midsection, because nothing tops a crescendo like another, slower, crashing crescendo. It’s like the chemistry here is slapping you in the face, and with the growth they show in this material, Heath‘s limits feel far off on the horizon.

Heath website

Suburban Records website

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The Crooked Skulls, Midnight Sun

There’s no obfuscation on The Crooked Skulls‘ debut full-length, Midnight Sun. The New Jersey crunch-riffers come right at you with it: thick tones, gravel-throated vocals, and an overarching groove somewhere between slower Orange Goblin and classic Corrosion of Conformity, leaving room for a bit of shove in “Skull Bong” and “Broken” while the mostly-instrumental “Slowsteal” cuts the pace and unfolds with an airier solo in its second half as part of a righteously nodding culmination. Elsewhere, the urgency of centerpiece “Let Me Out” reminds of The Obsessed riding the line between rock and doom, and the penultimate “Iron Smile” brings no less than Fu Manchu‘s Bob Balch in for an expectedly shredding guest guitar spot. Even there, The Crooked Skulls aren’t up to anything too fancy. They’re not looking to dizzy you with complexity so much as dizzy you with a fist upside the head, and that edge of East Coast confrontationalism becomes part of what makes their material feel so immediate in its execution right unto closer “Judgement Day,” which holds its burl through the finish. No tricks, but songs.

The Crooked Skulls website

Electric Desert Records website

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Broadslab, The Fifth Essence

A healthy dose of Pentagram-style doom boogie pervades Broadslab‘s The Fifth Essence, and reasonably so as the Mike Dean-produced, Raleigh, North Carolina-based four-piece make their way to the nine-minute organ-laced capper “Constellations” through the classic swing of “Animal Divinity” and “Leslie” at the outset, setting an energetic and stage-ready tone for what follows, the interlude “Alienation” ahead of the all-in shred and burl of side A closer/centerpiece “Shameful Reality,” a more aggressive take than either of the first two cuts, but the beginning rather than the end of their branching out therefrom. The seven-minute “Keep on Rollin'” (not a Samavayo cover) and “Constellations” comprise most of side B, with the longer interlude “Quintessence” between, duly subdued to lead the way from the dual-vocal-style shove of the song before into the immediate kick the band deliver on their way to the extended jamming that carries them out. This might be their first record in 12 years? All the more of an occasion, then.

Broadslab on Bandcamp

Electric Desert Records website

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Purple Skies, A Million Years

Bergen, Norway’s Purple Skies make their long-play debut with A Million Years, and thereby foster a sound that’s informed by retroism without actually sounding like it was recorded on vintage gear. That is, as “Haven” and “Too Worn to Tell” demonstrate, they aren’t beholden to a vintage aesthetic, despite influence by bands like Witchcraft (which you can hear in the vocals as well as the guitar progressions they follow) and whichever of their acolytes you’d prefer to namedrop. That doesn’t account for everything on the nine-song A Million Years — to wit, the harmonies on the title-track — but it’s a start and so is the record. They seem to find another layer of tonal depth for “Worthless Men,” and it’s perhaps telling that both of the closing duo of “Archaic Freeway” and “Red Road” are in some way about transportation, because movement is an important factor the whole way through. I wouldn’t say it’s all forward-thinking — having a song called “Bitchcraft” in 2026 is a downer — but they give themselves something to work from in these songs and one will be curious to hear how they refine over time what this material lays out so organically.

Purple Skies on Bandcamp

Apollon Records website

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Red Beard Wall, F.T.W.

The verses are a little more opaque in their biting, harsh-throated sludgecore screams — Ken-E Bones of Negative Reaction comes to mind — but there’s no mistaking the point of view in the hook of “F.T.W.”: “Fuck the world/Fuck AI/Realize the billionaires want us all to die,” and so on. Kudos to Texas’ Red Beard Wall for having a not-shitty opinion. “F.T.W.,” which indeed is restored to its pre-Millennial acronymic purpose (this is not “For the Win,” it’s “Fuck the World”), is joined by the likewise structured “W.A.N.T.S.” (“We Are Not the Same”), and in neither case is Red Beard Wall mainman Aaron “He of the Red Beard” Wall fucking around. “W.A.N.T.S.” uses meme culture to convey no less disaffection than the song before it, and is accordingly castigating as it shifts into a chug worthy of Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol before its sub-four-minutes are up. The above-noted hook of “F.T.W.” is the frame for the short offering and maybe the most fitting summary of Wall‘s lyrical point of view, but shit, it’s not like he’s wrong, politically or in the riffs. It might not change the world, but it’s a well earned lashing out thereupon.

Red Beard Wall on Bandcamp

Red Beard Wall on Instagram

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White Tundra, Stories From the Dark

Trondheim’s White Tundra debuted in 2023 with their self-titled LP (review here) on Apollon Records before aligning with Argonauta imprint Octopus Rising for the six-song/37-minute follow-up full-length, Stories From the Dark. The second offering demonstrates more than a handful of positive lessons from the first, including the uptempo swing at the start of “Healer” and the symmetry across the album’s two sides, each of which works from its shortest to its longest inclusion. Fortunately, to coincide with this, their niche feels even more dug out as their own here, with deep fuzz and gravelly vocals as mainstay elements uniting the material, be it the spacious, eponymous closer “White Tundra” or the extra-dense-seeming nod of “The Lake” just before it. There’s more to discover in their songwriting — that is, I don’t think they’re done growing — but their ideas are surpassing their influences now in a way they weren’t three years ago, and for sure it’ll be a third record I’m going to watch for. Incremental, natural growth underway.

White Tundra on Bandcamp

Argonauta Records store

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Past the Light, EP

Titled simply EP, this three-song/15-minute pummeler draws together aspects of war/death metal and sets them in a context led by riffs, so that the battle-themed horrors of “Trench Division” and the roll of “Bog Bodies” and the lurch early in “Venomous Trait” balance extremity and accessibility in a way that feels like someone should probably send it to Fenriz. Has Fenriz heard this yet? It’s the band’s first release — the lineup includes Jason Brackin, Chad Remains (Ghorot, ex-Uzala), Jacob Depolitte and Marco Gonzalez, or so I’m told — and somewhat indistinguishable from a demo for that, but the fact is that while they might be outwardly basking in a kind of metallic primitivism, knuckle-dragging their and your way to oblivion with only gutturalisms for comfort, there’s no time wasted on EP in informing the listener who Past the Light are and what are their intentions in grim bludgeonry. Telling of things to come? I know better than to predict, but there’s intricacy amid the slaughter if you’re willing to hear it. The test is on you as the listener, whether and for how long you can hang in.

Past the Light on Bandcamp

Past the Light on Instagram

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A lot to like in the batch of new names added to Sonic Whip in the Netherlands this coming May. The 2025 Nijmegen edition of the festival has announced Dutch upstarts Heath will play — reasonable — and brought on Graveyard, who immediately go to the top of the bill and are playing for the first time — and punctuated noise rock masters Whores., the ambient Orsak:Oslo, as well as Utrecht heavy punkers Rats and Daggers and Los Angeles’ own Frankie and the Witch Fingers for those who’d dare a little fun while they have a good time.

As Lord Buffalo are also added, I can’t help but wonder if the Austin-based outfit won’t do a tour around this appearance, and if so, I believe that’s their first European jaunt. Don’t quote me on that, I could be wrong. Either way, I’ll try to keep an eye for dates and, if they’re going to make a run of it, with whom.

The announcement was short and sweet, the lineup is righteous and by all accounts I’ve heard, Sonic Whip is an amazing time. Barring some never-gonna-happen fiscal miracle, I won’t be there to see it, but if you get to go, enjoy. Tickets are available. Here’s what they had to say on socials:

NEW NAMES SONIC WHIP 2025

We’re thrilled to announce Graveyard for Sonic Whip 2025! The appearance of the Swedish band will mark their debut at our festival. Judging by their blistering performances lately they are on fire! Also present on 16 & 17 May; US garage psychrockers Frankie And The Witch Fingers, noise-punk-sludge juggernauts Whores., Norwegian atmospheric kraut-jazz-psychrockers Orsak:Oslo, cinematic & melancholic rockers Lord Buffalo from the US, Dutch psych revelation Heath and upcoming sonic punkrockers of Rats and Daggers.

The line-up is shaping up nicely with Elder, The Devil and the Almighty Blues, Temple Fang and Karkara being announced earlier on and there’s still more to follow! Keep your eyes peeled.

Get your tickets for Sonic Whip 2025 via https://bit.ly/Sonic-Whip-2025

https://www.facebook.com/Sonicwhipfestival
https://www.instagram.com/sonic_whip/
https://www.doornroosje.nl/festival/sonic-whip/

Graveyard, 6 (2023)

Good morning and heavy riffs. Today is day 7 of the Quarterly Review. It’s already been a lot, but there are still 30 more releases to cover over the next three days, so I assure you at some point I’ll have that nervous breakdown that’s been ticking away in the back of my brain. A blast as always, which I mean both sincerely and sarcastically, somehow.

But when we’re done, 100 releases will have been covered, and I get a medal sent to me whenever that happens from the UN’s Stoner Rock Commission on Such Things, so I’ll look forward to that. In the meantime, we’re off.

Quarterly Review #61-70:

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Ufomammut, Hidden

Italian cosmic doomers Ufomammut celebrate their 25th anniversary in 2024, and as they always have, they do so by looking and moving forward. Hidden is the 10th LP in their catalog, the second to feature drummer Levre — who made his debut on 2022’s Fenice (review here) alongside bassist/vocalist Urlo and guitarist Poia (both also keyboards) — and it was preceded by last year’s Crookhead EP (review here), the 10-minute title-track of which is repurposed as the opener here. A singular, signature blend of heft and synth-based atmospherics, Ufomammut roll fluidly through the six-tracker check-in, and follow on from Fenice in sounding refreshed while digging into their core stylistic purposes. “Spidher” brings extra tonal crush around its open verse, and “Mausoleum” has plenty of that as well but is less condensed and hypnotic in its atmospheric midsection, Ufomammut paying attention to details while basking in an overarching largesse. The penultimate “Leeched” was the lead single for good reason, and the four-minute “Soulost” closes with a particularly psychedelic exploration of texture and drone with the drums keeping it moving. 25 years later and there’s still new things to discover. I hear the universe is like that.

Ufomammut website

Supernatural Cat website

Neurot Recordings website

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Insect Ark, Raw Blood Singing

Considering some of the places Dana Schechter has taken Insect Ark over the project’s to-date duration, most of Raw Blood Singing might at times feel daringly straightforward, but that’s hardly a detriment to the material itself. Songs like “The Hands” bring together rhythmic tension and melodic breadth, as soundscapes of drone, low end chug and the drumming of Tim Wyskida (also Khanate, Blind Idiot God) cast a morose, encompassing atmospheric vision. And rest assured, while “The Frozen Lake” lumbers through its seven minutes of depressive post-sludge — shades of The Book of Knots at their heaviest, but still darker — and “Psychological Jackal” grows likewise harsher and horrific, the experimentalist urge continues to resonate; the difference is it’s being set to serve the purposes of the songs themselves in “Youth Body Swayed” or “Cleaven Hearted,” which slogs like death-doom with a strum cutting through to replace vocals, whereas the outro “Ascension” highlights the noise on its own. It is a bleak, consuming course presented over Raw Blood Singing‘s 45 minutes, but there’s solace in the catharsis as well.

Insect Ark website

Debemur Murti Productions website

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Heath, Isaak’s Marble

Laced through with harmonica and organic vibes, Netherlands-based five-piece Heath make their full-length debut with the four extended tracks of Isaak’s Marble, reveling in duly expansive jams keyed for vibrancy and a live sound. They are somewhat the band-between as regards microgenres, with a style that can be traced on the opening title-cut to heavy ’70s funk-boogie-via-prog-rock, and the harmonica plays a role there before spacing out with echo over top of the psychedelia beginning of “Wondrous Wetlands.” The wetlands in question, incidentally, might just be the guitar tone, but that haze clears a bit as the band saunters into a light shuffle jam before the harder-hitting build into a crescendo that sounds unhinged but is in fact quite under control as it turns back to a softshoe-ready groove with organ, keys, harmonica, guitar all twisting around with the bass and drums. Sitar and vocal harmonies give the shorter-at-six-minutes “Strawberry Girl” a ’60s psych-pop sunshine, but the undercurrent is consistent with the two songs before as Heath highlight the shroomier side of their pastoralism, ahead of side B capper “Valley of the Sun” transitioning out of that momentary soundscape with clear-eyed guitar and flute leading to an angular progression grounded by snare and a guitar solo after the verse that leads the shift into the final build. They’re not done, of course, as they bring it all to a rousing end and some leftover noise; subdued in the actual-departing, but still resonant in momentum and potential. These guys might just be onto something.

Heath website

Suburban Records store

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The Cosmic Dead, Infinite Peaks

The Cosmic Dead, releasing through Heavy Psych Sounds, count Infinite Peaks as their ninth LP since 2011. I’ll take them at their word since between live offerings, splits, collections and whatnot, it’s hard sometimes to know what’s an album. Similarly, when immersed in the 23-minute cosmic sprawl of “Navigator #9,” it can become difficult to understand where you stop and the universe around you begins. Rising quickly to a steady, organ-inclusive roll, the Glaswegian instrumental psilocybinists conjure depth like few of their jam-prone ilk and remain entrancing as “Navigator #9” shifts into its more languid, less-consuming middle movement ahead of the resurgent finish. Over on side B, “Space Mountain” (20:02) is a bit more drastic in the ends it swaps between — a little noisier and faster up front, followed by a zazzy-jazzy push with fiddle and effects giving over to start-stop bass and due urgency in the drums complemented by fuzz like they just got in a room and this happened before the skronky apex and unearthly comedown resolve in a final stretch of drone. Ninth record or 15th, whatever. Their mastery of interstellar heavy exploration is palpable regardless of time, place or circumstance. Infinite Peaks glimpses at that dimensional makeup.

The Cosmic Dead website

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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The Watchers, Nyctophilia

Perhaps telegraphing some of their second long-player’s darker intentions in the cover art and the title Nyctophilia — a condition whereby you’re happier and more comfortable in darkness — if not the choice of Max Norman (Ozzy Osbourne, Death Angel, etc.) to produce, San Francisco’s The Watchers are nonetheless a heavy rock and roll band. What’s shifted in relation to their 2018 debut, Black Abyss (review here), is the angle of approach they take in getting there. What hasn’t changed is the strength of songwriting at their foundation or the hitting-all-their-marks professionalism of their execution, whether it’s Tim Narducci bringing a classic reach to the vocals of “Garden Tomb” or the precise muting in his and Jeremy Von Epp‘s guitars and Chris Lombardo‘s bass on “Haunt You When I’m Dead” and Nick Benigno‘s declarative kickdrum stomping through the shred of “They Have No God.” The material lands harder without giving up its capital-‘h’ Heavy, which is an accomplishment in itself, but The Watchers set a high standard last time out and Nyctophilia lives up to that while pursuing its own semi-divergent ends.

The Watchers on Facebook

Ripple Music website

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Juke Cove, Tempest

Leipzig’s Juke Cove follow a progressive course across eight songs and 44 minutes of Tempest, between nodding riffs of marked density and varying degrees of immediacy, whether it’s the might-just-turn-around-on-you “Hypnosis” early on or the shove with which the duly brief penultimate piece “Burst” takes off after the weighted crash of and ending stoner-rock janga-janga riff of “Glow” and precedes the also-massive “Xanadu” in the closing position, capping with a fuzzy solo because why not. From opener “The Path” into the bombast of “Hypnosis” and the look-what-we-can-make-riffs-do “Wait,” the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Mateusz Pietrzela, bassist/vocalist Dima Ogorodnov and drummer Maxim Balobin mine aural individualism from familiar-enough genre elements, shaping material of character that benefits from the scope wrought in tone and production. Much to its credit, Tempest feels unforced in speaking to various sides of its persona, and no matter where a given song might go — the watery finish of “Wait” or the space-blues drift that emerges out of psych-leaning noise rock on “Confined,” for example — Juke Cove steer with care and heart alike and are all the more able to bring their audience with them as a result. Very cool, and no, I’m not calling them pricks when I say that.

Juke Cove on Facebook

Juke Cove on Bandcamp

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Laurel Canyon, East Side EP

A little more than a year out from their impressive self-titled debut LP (review here), Philly three-piece Laurel Canyon — guitarist/bassist/vocalist Nicholas Gillespie, guitarist/vocalist Serg Cereja, drummer Dylan DePice — offer the East Side three-songer to follow-up on the weighted proto-grunge vibes therein. “East Side” itself, at two and a half minutes, is a little more punk in that as it aligns for a forward push in the chorus between its swaggering verses, while “Garden of Eden” is more directly Nirvana-schooled in making its well-crafted melody sound like something that just tumbled out of somebody’s mouth, pure happenstance, and “Untitled” gets more aggressive in its second half, topping a momentary slowdown/nod with shouts before they let it fall apart at the end. This procession takes place in under 10 minutes and by the time you feel like you’ve got a handle on it, they’re done, which is probably how it should be. East Side isn’t Laurel Canyon‘s first short release, and they’re clearly comfortable in the format, bolstering the in-your-face-itude of their style with a get-in-and-get-out ethic correspondingly righteous in its rawness.

Laurel Canyon on Facebook

Agitated Records website

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Tet, Tet

If you hadn’t yet come around to thinking of Poland among Europe’s prime underground hotspots, Tet offer their four-song/45-minute self-titled debut for your (re-)consideration. With its lyrics and titles in Polish, Tet draws on the modern heavy prog influence of Elder in some of the 12-minute opener/longest track (immediate points), “Srebro i antracyt,” but neither that nor “Dom w cieniu gruszy,” which follows, stays entirely in one place for the duration, and the lush melody that coincides with the unfolding of “Wiosna” is Tet‘s own in more than just language; that is to say, there’s more to distinguish them from their influences than the syllabic. Each inclusion adds complexity to the story their songs are telling, and as closer “Włóczykije” gradually moves from its dronescape by bringing in the drums unveiling the instrumentalist build already underway, Tet carve a niche for themselves in one of the continent’s most crowded scenes. I wonder if they’ve opened for Weedpecker. They could. Or Belzebong, for that matter. Either way, it will be worth looking out for how they expand on these ideas next time around.

Tet linktr.ee

Tet on Bandcamp

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Aidan Baker, Everything is Like Always Until it is Not

Aidan Baker, also of Nadja, aligns the eight pieces of what I think is still his newest outing — oh wait, nope; this came out in Feb. and in March he had an hour-long drone two-songer out; go figure/glad I checked — to represent the truism of the title Everything is Like Always Until it is Not, and arranges the tracks so that the earlier post-shoegaze in “Everything” or “Like” can be a preface for the more directly drone-based “It” “Is” later on. And yes, there are two songs called “Is.” Does it matter? Definitely not while Baker‘s evocations are actually being heard. Free-jazz drums — not generally known for a grounding effect — do some work in terms of giving all the float that surrounds them a terrestrial aspect, but if you know Baker‘s work either through his solo stuff, Nadja or sundry other collaborations, I probably don’t need to tell you that the 47 minutes of Everything is Like Always Until it is Not fall into the “not like always” category as a defining feature, whether it’s “Until” manifesting tonal heft in waves of static cut through by tom-to-snare-to-cymbal splashes or “Not” seeming unwilling to give itself over to its own flow. I imagine a certain restlessness is how Aidan Baker‘s music happens in the first place. You get smaller encapsulations of that here, if not more traditional accessibility.

Aidan Baker on Facebook

Cruel Nature Recordings on Bandcamp

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Trap Ratt, Tribus Rattus Mortuus

Based in the arguable capitol of the Doom Capitol region — Frederick, Maryland — the three-piece Trap Ratt arrive in superbly raw style with the four-song/33-minute Tribus Rattus Mortuus, the last of which, aptly-titled “IV,” features Tim Otis (High Noon Kahuna, Admiral Browning, etc.), who also mixed and mastered, guesting on noise while Charlie Chaplin’s soliloquy from 1940’s The Dictator takes the place of the tortured barebones shouts that accompany the plod of 13-minute opener/longest track (immediate points) “The Sacred Skunk,” seemingly whenever they feel like it. That includes the chugging part before the feedback gets caustic near the song’s end, by the way. “Thieving From the Grieving” — which may or may not have been made up on the spot — repurposes Stooges-style riffing as the foundation for its own decay into noise, and if from anything I’ve said so far about the album you might expect “Take the Gun” to not be accordingly harsh, Trap Ratt have a word and eight minutes of disaffected exploration they’d like to share with you. It’s not every record you could say benefits aesthetically from being recorded live in the band’s rehearsal space, but yes, Tribus Rattus Mortuus most definitely does.

Trap Ratt on Facebook

Trap Ratt on Bandcamp

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Before 2PM writing start. Check-in at the 013, easy, the ideal. Head up to the office, coffee, a bit of sitting around, loosely productive chatting. Some quick writing that hopefully turned out to be complete sentences. Nice to feel helpful.

Merch opened at noon. I arrived at Koepelhal about 20 minutes after and it was crammed as expected. Inching forward and imagining the shirts selling out, more urgent in my head than in real life, to be sure. I don’t even know how many lines — more of a congregation. Label stalls over there, band merch, etc. Soundcheck wubbing through from wherever. Come on, man. Live a little.

Back to the hotel after to drop off purchases — tote and hoodie for The Patient Mrs. acquired as requested, along with a tshirt for myself — and charge the phone for a few minutes, then up to Koepelhal again in time for The Terminal stage to open. The sign above, “Roadburn welcomes you,” outside as you walk up to the building. Trying to breathe that in slowly.

I haven’t decided yet how I’m going to format the next few days of writing. Might just make words? Crazy thought, I know. The festival starts in about 15 minutes and I can feel it in my nervous blood. Slow down the brain, remember where you are. This used to be easier. Was never as easy as the check-in this morning. I’ll get the camera out in a bit. Fidget fidget. Are the batteries in of course the batteries are in. That kind of thing.

Lights come down, room fills up. The space is set up differently than last time I was here. I like that as a running theme. For what it’s worth — and in my estimation, that’s just about everything — I do feel welcome, and have since the moment I ran into Walter yesterday n the hotel lobby and ended up sitting down to the end of breakfast. I like that as a running theme as well.

Okay, Roadburn. Let’s see how this goes.

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Hexvessel are a quintessential Roadburn band in my mind, and yes that’s a compliment. They were doing last year’s black-metal-adjacent Polar Veil (review here) in full, and thinking about past times I’ve seen them here, it brings to mind how broad their scope has been but how each whim they follow is wrapped around an organic core of craft whether it’s woods-worship folk mourning, dark post-punk, psych-pop experimentalism or the blend of melody and char of this latest work. The fact that you don’t know what’s coming next until it’s happened, and the way they bring everything they do into their sphere rather than playing to style — whatever style — makes them a fitting lead-in for who knows what the next few days will bring. I watched the whole set.

Sunrise Patriot Motion were going on 10 minutes later in the Engine Room, which is right next door to the Terminal, so I sauntered over, casual-like, to check out an act I knew nothing about but had heard were cool. Not quite as sad as Crippled Black Phoenix, but a not-dissimilar feel in their post-everything-but-not-too-cool-for-their-owm-songs approach, the keyboard probably more prominent for where I was standing and the vocals blown out to add some rawness to the gothy vibe. I don’t know where they’re from but their music is English as fuck. Beacon, New York. The lineup is half of Yellow Eyes, I’m told. Fair enough. Knowing the actual geography, I couldn’t help but hear some Type O in their slower parts, but I admit that’s more in my head than in their sound.

Some quickly fixed technical hiccup and they were back at it with little actual momentum disruption. Apparently it was their first show ever. Hope the second one lives up. They finished 37 minutes into a 40-minute slot and with a half-hour before Body Void back over in The Terminal — which is the bigger of the two connected Koepelhal spaces — I sat in back and purposefully let myself be in no rush to anywhere. Someone offered me beer as they were walking by — I guess I happened to be in the path of their generosity — but I don’t drink, so politely declined. When I was just about the last one in the Engine Room who wasn’t breaking down the stage, I decided to go find some water. I don’t know if it’ll last, but I like my low key approach so far. In my head, I’m calling it Freeburn as of like 30 seconds ago.

Emphasis on ‘burn’ there as regards Body Void, who in performing their Atrocity Machine LP in full set alight grind and caustic sludge for a feedback and noise-drenched onslaught of extreme, churning disaffection. Harsh harsh harsh, but, you know, they’re probably super-nice people. I didn’t get mean vibes certainly as their bassist took a couple selfies during one of the breaks in the songs. Laced with synth for further noise drench, thudding with a pulse you could feel in the side of your head, and with screams cutting through to offer no comfort whatsoever, they were brutally life-affirming, a wave of self-declarative volume, music wielded as expression of self coincidental to self-expression. To call it inviting would be to undercut just how far they were pushing limits, so I’ll say that there was room for everybody in that slaughterhouse of sound.

A quick stop to see Andreas Kohl at his Exile on Mainstream both, big hugs, then walked back behind the warded off doings of the Koepelhal, took a cup from an errant pot of coffee, heard something like somebody sawing through metal — no competition for Body Void — and ended up by the art show space and re-met Maarten Donders, bought a couple prints from Vince “Cavum” Trommel, who had an 1860s printing press ready for a workshop tomorrow. Outside briefly and over to Hall of Fame for the start of Seán Mulrooney, 5:10PM in a deceptively quick passage of time for the day. People, places, music. Vibe is on. It’s one to the next, but the resonance of Mulrooney intoning “Slow down, do what you want” from Tau and the Drones of Praise’s “The Sixth Sun” might just be the key to my time here. I know enough now to know this might not come again. I never took Roadburn for granted, but I’ve missed it more than I understood, and maybe more than I wanted to understand.

I damn near wept as Mulrooney — who’s the type of hippie folk troubadour that just might make a chorus out of the single word “osmosis” — brought out “Seanóirí Naofa” and “Ceol ón Chré,” fronting a four-piece solo-band built up around the initial duo of himself switching between guitar and piano with a stompbox for percussion along with standup bass. He’d get get to electric guitar in his time, but it was a quiet start that grew more outwardly vibrant, as he said it would. But while he wasn’t onstage alone by any means, it was his first solo show performed under his own name, and I sincerely doubt it will be the last. The crowd knew the Tau stuff, as they would given that the band played here, did the Roadburn Redux thing that non-year, etc., but if it seems like a stark contrast going from Body Void to Seán Mulrooney, he was no less a realization than they were, just working from a different point of view. Maybe I don’t have to tell you that.

Was hit by the old you-need-to-go-write itch as I stood there on front of the Hall of Fame stage, and I almost heeded it, but stopped myself before actually leaving my spot. That’s not how we’re doing Freeburn. Me and that bird that pecks at my compulsive brain with its gotta-remove-myself-from-a-thing-before-I-actually-start-enjoying-it beak go back a long way, but I’m glad it’s a habit I’m trying to break. If I only succeed in doing so one time this weekend, I’m glad it was for Mulrooney’s set, but his was the third full set of the day I saw, and that’s more than I’ve done in entire years at Roadburn.

A few more hellos en route to the fourth, which was Inter Arma back at The Terminator — that’s an autocorrect typo, but I’m leaving it because Inter Arma are nothing if not cybernetic organisms from the future sent to undo history by killing us all — as they presented their yet-unreleased New Heaven LP, which is out next week on Relapse. I’ve heard the record, in all its sweltering progressive death metal dissonance and encompassing crush, but they are a particular beast live and I’ve put off really digging in until I saw it in-person. They should be playing art galleries, and not just for the theremin, but close enough at Koepelhal.

Every now and then they still lock in a doom groove, but they’ve been in obvious pursuit of their own thing as they’ve grown darker, more vicious and experimental in terms of their willingness to fuck around stylistically. Their last record was 2019’s Sulphur English (review here), and between you and me, I thought that was as far as they could go, but I’d sat down along the wall to write and stood back up when the harmonized leads and cleaner vocals — later on, they’d get Nick Cavey with voice and piano — started. So is New Heaven it? Maybe. Hell if I know, but I can’t think of anyone else who does what they do better, in, out or around progressive death metal, though I acknowledge I’m no expert. At the very least, it’s a new mark on their forward path, another reach into the threatening, staring-back void, and definitely enough to flatten an audience in the Netherlands most of whom haven’t heard it yet, so take it as you will.

I ate before the day started, finishing off the last of a half-pint of home-ground almond and pecan butter I brought with me, but hydrating had been trickier. I ran into Dennis and Jevin from Temple Fang, as well as Rolf from Stickman Records, saw Désirée from Lay Bare and chatted briefly, said hi to Jurgen from Burning World, hugged Amy Johnson, all of whom are very kind, nice people I’m glad to know. It had been posted on social media as well, but the Temple Fang guys let me know that Heath were doing a secret show at the skate park at 9:40, and my night got immediately more complex. They were on their way here or there, to piss first, I believe, so I hung back and by 8PM I could feel myself needing water if not more calorically complex sustenance. The line at the bar in the Engine Room meant it would have to wait until after I got whatever photos of White Ward I could and their set was properly underway. The Ukrainian black metallers have been four years in the making for Roadburn between the plague and the Russian invasion, and I didn’t want to miss it. I took my pictures, got two waters from the bar — however much they cost it was worth it — and was in much better spirits after for the scathing black metal catharsis that ensued, like tearing off your flesh to let your soul go. All that tension and release. Next time they’re here, and I have to imagine there will be one, they’ll probably play the main stage.

They took the stage as a four-piece and mentioned it was because one of their members had joined the military. I don’t know if that was voluntary or conscription, but it brought the ongoing conflict in and for White Ward’s home country into the room — it was there anyway — and showed it’s real for them in a way war never has been for me as an American. War is a thing that happens elsewhere, exclusively, though there’s never a lack of random violence, whether repressive in nature or the woefully normalized mass shootings. In any case, despite being down a member, White Ward shredded the Engine Room into little tiny pieces with glorious intensity that extended even to the sampled sax over some of the songs, the piano, spoken sampling and such and sundry added to their core fury. Once again, I watched the full fucking set. I hope I do this all weekend.

It wasn’t an easy decision, but my heart said that going to see Heath at the skate park was a probably-once-in-a-lifetime chance and that even though I’d miss Chelsea Wolfe to do it — Roadburn means hard choices — I’d already had my one-per with Chelsea Wolfe, albeit brief, watching her and the band rehearse the night before in a group of five people in a room that holds well over a thousand, all that empty space filled with sound. So when White Ward finished, I made a right turn out of Koepelhal to get to the Hall of Fame, and from there, asked a helpful security guy where to go. Sure enough, the skatepark was closed but the doors had ‘there’s something secret happening here’ printed on them. A small group of people had gathered, and a couple minutes later we were let inside.

Secret shows have become a Roadburn tradition, like commissioned pieces, the side programme, full-album sets. It’s part of the thing. There were three tonight, between Backxwash on the main stage at the 013 — a big deal — and Heath and Ontaard at the skate park. Like everything, there are arguments for and against the notion, but they add a chance for intimacy at an event where every room you stand in is most likely to be slammed with people, so I’ll take it when I can get it. And bonus, Heath were a hoot.

Some shuffle here, some grassy, pastoral psychedelia there, and a lot of classic prog rhythms topped off with in-on-the-jams harmonica from their frontman, who can both sing and keep up with the twisting riffs throughout their songs. Their debut album, Isaak’s Marble, is out next month. I’ll be interested to see how it’s received, but the songs, energy and spirit are there, and they looked like they were having fun playing the material live, whether it was breaking out the mallets for the drums, putting effects on the harmonica for the psych parts, trading solos between the two guitars or the builds and runs on bass. Fiery at their most upbeat, trance-inducing in their atmospheric stretches; I found myself recognizing parts from the record, which was even more encouraging, and digging the fact that they had more going for them as regards character than being young. Potential for growth and more than a little boogie to boot. There weren’t 100 people in the room, and I was very, very glad to be one of them.

They’re a band to tell your friends about, so here’s me telling you about them. None of the singles on their Bandcamp are on the album, which is on Suburban Records, but the title-track is on YouTube here. Happy travels.

I could’ve kept going after they finished — say it with me now: “I watched the whole set” — but it would’ve been an uphill push and that’s not the Freeburn way. I got back to the hotel a bit before 11, a little over 12 hours from when I left in the morning. Roadburn day one was a reminder of how special this time is to me, and I’m thankful to be here to be reminded. Thank you for reading. Sorry for the writing-on-my-phone typos.

More photos after the jump.

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I had already nestled into my not-going-to-Roadburn-this-year melancholy, but a couple weeks ago, I actually got invited to go. And I’m going. It’ll be my first time in Tilburg since 2019, my first Roadburn of the post-pandemic heaviness-redefining era, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. Not knowing most of the artists isn’t a big deal — Roadburn delights in ground-floor introductions and is happy to make them without judgement — but I’ll be in a place that I used to very much think of as a kind of home for the first time in five years. What if it doesn’t feel like home anymore?

I have no logical answer for why it wouldn’t — usually an invitation is a decent sign you’re wanted somewhere, and I’ll say outright that neither the Roadburn Festival as an entity nor any individual or group involved with it has any need of me there — I edited the daily fest ‘zine for years with Lee from The Sleeping Shaman, but that’s long gone and I figured I was with it. Even having that as a place to contribute felt pretty tertiary to the experience of being there, but it was part of the thing. Do you think they’d still let me in the 013 office at 10AM each morning to drink coffee and shoot the shit? Yeah, probably not.

It will be an adventure in where-to-put-myself, but Roadburn‘s got pockets for even the most misanthropic of us to dwell for a few days, and I know once I get there and the music starts everything will be okay. I very much look forward to that. Thank you Roadburn for having me.

Their latest announcement follows. Also note that Inter Arma, whose New Heaven LP was announced today, were already confirmed to play the album in full at Roadburn 2024:

Roadburn adds 16 new names to the 2024 lineup including King Yosef, Lord Spikeheart, HIDE, Brigid Mae Power, Hilary Woods and more

Roadburn has today announced the final names for the main musical programme of the 2024 edition of the festival. The festival’s side programme, art exhibitions and Paradox jazz club artists are still to be announced for the festival, which will take place between 18-21 April in Tilburg, The Netherlands.

Roadburn’s artistic director, Walter Hoeijmakers, comments:
The line-up for Roadburn 2024 is finally complete. We are immensely proud of the diverse array of artists that we have gathered, and we feel that we are channeling past, present and future artistically, musically and spiritually. We can’t wait to explore and discover everything that is in store and celebrate our beloved underground together with all of you.

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Brigid Mae Power will deliver alchemical incantations and dreamy folk-pop melodies.

Channeling intensity and vulnerability, deathcrash’s slowcore will be a welcome addition.

Fear Falls Burning will premiere new music in the form of their new album, The Principle Flaw.

Gros Coeur are set to bring a psychedelic rainbow of sound to Roadburn.

With a new album on the way, Habitants will make their Roadburn debut this year.

Den Haag’s Heath promise “odd time signatures, blazing harmonica and hypnotic guitars” and more!

HIDE will bring their uncompromising live performance to Roadburn for the first time.

Fresh from the success of her latest release, Acts of Light, Hilary Woods will perform at Roadburn 2024.

Bringing a heady blend of industrial noise, hip hop to Roadburn is King Yosef.

Lord Spikeheart will make his Roadburn debut as a solo artist, performing music from his brand new album.

Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys have been highly praised for their live show which will make its way to Roadburn this April.

Tilburg’s own Mirusi Mergina will present an experimental mix of whispers and soundscapes.

Neptunian Maximalism will present their ambitious and expansive new album Le Sacre Du Soleil Invaincu.

Having previously performed at Roadburn with his band, Tau and the Drones of Praise, Seán Mulrooney will return for a solo performance.

The Infinity Ring will head to Europe for the first time and perform at Roadburn 2024.

Throwing Bricks seek to find joy in heaviness and combine elements of punk, black metal, screamo and sludge.

The Spark, Roadburn’s Wednesday night pre-festival party, was recently announced featuring performances from Final Gasp, Sonja, and Riot City.

The above artists join a line-up that includes The Jesus And Mary Chain, Khanate, Chelsea Wolfe, Lankum, Clipping., Blood Incantation, Health, Royal Thunder, Hexvessel, Dool, Inter Arma, Agriculture, Fluisteraars, and many, many more. More artists will be announced in the coming weeks. For all information including tickets, please visit www.roadburn.com

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Gros Coeur, Gros Disque (2023)