Posted in Questionnaire on April 6th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Cornelius Althammer of Ahab
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
Well, I am a rocker and I was born that way. There is even a picture if me as an embryo raising my fist, haha! I impossibly could think of anything else because I have no other interests than music. If I am not playing drums or thinking about riffs, breaks, grooves or similar it’s very likely I order microphone stands, cables or cymbals. I am a nerd within my very own world and it feels totally natural.
As a band we play nautik doom. Daniel’s and Christian’s shared vision led us where we are now. I was just lucky being asked, if I’d like to join.
Describe your first musical memory.
That was probably my mother singing. But I am not sure about that.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
All the times I did something for the first time. First time of listening to Iron Maiden. Finally managing how to play blastbeats.
First time playing abroad. All the times writing an album with the boys or being in the studio and having this magic going on. …first time listening to the finished mix of an album.
But there is nothing as “that one experience”.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
Oh, my beliefs are being tested every single day. It may be the conflict between what I’d love to do with all my bands and everyday life that constantly shrinks these dreams to tiny versions of themselves. Or the belief in myself and my competence versus very slow progress when practising.
The key is to cling to these beliefs, because in the end they’re the only things that keep me going.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
This is not easy to answer. In the first place it should lead to fulfillment of ones artistical dreams. Like “I always dreamt of making an album like this and finally I can play and compose the way I need to do so”. So if everything works out artistic progression leads to better music and therefore is the best thing in the world. So the worst thing that could happen may be people are not ready for your music, yet.
If things go wrong you just fuck it up and compose rubbish that results from being burnt out by a merciless album-tour-album-tour-album-tour schedule and a desperate need for a break. Lucky you, if you realize that you should in fact take a break and leave the demos for that “emancipative” album what they are…
How do you define success?
Being able to to what I want, getting better at it and not starving while doing so.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
The news, every fucking time I incidentally switch on the TV.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
My next song, haha!
Or, to become very unrealistic here, a space where artists can do their stuff without being in constant fear of getting kicked out of their place due to gentrification. But for this I would need to become a billionaire and learn how to manage things. Or probably first learn management and then become rich…
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Enhancing consciousness. Art doesn’t have borders. Being the counterpart of the rational, scientific side of life, it adds the soul to the mind. It is the fantastic, creative part that makes us human.
Thinking about this, the artwork of Black Sabbath’s “Dehumanizer” comes to my mind. This is the very scenery that happens, if you take art away from mankind.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
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 Reviews on December 30th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
What might legitimately be called a ‘return’ since it’s their first studio album in eight years, Ahab‘s The Coral Tombs (on Napalm Records) brings the perhaps-inevitable meeting between the nautically-themed Heidelberg, Germany, death-doom metallers and the subject matter of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. That rare bit of sci-fi that’s become part of the literary canon, the tale of Captain Nemo, Professor Pierre Arronax, and the undersea vessel Nautilus is a story that’s been told and retold, adapted across media that didn’t even exist when it was written, and interpreted by the public domain since its first serialized publication in 1869-1870, the story and the band — whose most recent studio album was 2015’s The Boats of the Glen Carrig, also based on a 1907 novel by William Hope Hodgson; does nobody write about the ocean anymore? — are well suited to each other.
Here, the sound is bleak, extreme, and duly funereal for an offering with ‘tombs’ in its title, and in the mournful severity of a song like “Mobilis in Mobilii,” which is third in the seven-song sequence after “Prof. Arronax’s Descent Into the Vast Oceans,” featuring a guest vocal contribution from Chris Dark of Köln’s Ultha, and “Colossus of the Liquid Graves,” which is the shortest inclusion at 6:25 and a work of lurching, consuming death resolved in its own dirge march in its second half, The Coral Tombs brings an inescapable sense of all-sides crushing pressure. Both because of the band’s stated theme, their obvious awareness of their own intentions five albums and 18 years into their tenure, and the general nature of doom itself — they are by no means the only ones to relate slow, undulating riffs to salty waves — it’s somewhat hard to get away from watery metaphors, but even in its quietest, creepier stretches, the purposefully overwhelming 66 minutes of The Coral Tombs is farther down than the sun goes, atmospherically speaking, and monstrous like the unknown.
A return to producer/engineer Jens Siefert at RAMA Studios in Mannheim assures that the four-piece — founding guitarists Daniel Droste (also vocals and keys) and Christian Hector, as well as bassist Stephan Wandernoth and drummer Cornelius Althammer, who, yes, has the most righteous name a drummer could possibly ask for; I do not know if he was born with it, but kudos either way — sound duly masterful in their approach, and, on the most basic level, huge. One cannot manifest the impossible reaches and deadly wondrousness of the Earth’s waters, which threaten to drown even as they hypnotize with its beauty, in minor fashion, and Ahab have been at this a while now, so it should be no surprise they know what they’re doing. The Coral Tombs‘ songs are shorter on average than were those of The Boats of the Glen Carrig — the band also released Live Prey (review here) in 2020; they have not been absent these last eight years — as that album had one of six pieces under 10 minutes long and this one has three of seven and nothing that reaches longer than 12, but long or short, it is the ambience and the willful slog that make the most resonant impression, such that the sheer heft of their tonality, tectonically significant as it might be, is only part of their aesthetic.
The mood of centerpiece “The Sea as a Desert,” for example, feels even more crucial than the impact, particularly as Droste departs from low death metal growling in favor of a wistful clean-sung midsection and ending that is worthy of comparison to Warning. That’s not his first trade between harshness and melody on The Coral Tombs, but it is one that works particularly well amid the swaying progression that backs it, and as “The Sea as a Desert” is the first of four cuts all of which top 10 minutes — a monolith that comprises the bulk of the record that would be a full-length unto itself, if incomplete in narrative — it also draws the listener deeper into the grim grandeur that continues to unfold across “A Coral Tomb,” “Ægri Somnia” and closer “The Mælstrom,” which bookends Chris Dark‘s guest appearance on “Prof. Arronax’s Descent Into the Vast Oceans” by welcoming Greg Chandler of experimentalist doom extremists Esoteric for a corresponding vocal spot.
While the ocean teems with life — less so thanks to humans and our collective affinity for habitat destruction, but still — “A Coral Tomb” is relatively minimal, holding a persistent threat across its first eight minutes that even when it surges to full crescendo remains consistent in its atmospheric lean, and “Ægri Somnia” follows suit with a beginning of softly meandering guitar that seems to grow more mysterious and sinister as it develops toward the eventual crash and growls, which, as with the song before, give way to melodic singing that is sustained through the ending. One wonders if Droste needs to growl at all at this point, but the honest answer is probably yes. With a feedback ending awaiting, “Ægri Somnia” arrives at a viciously heavy apex, and lets “The Mælstrom” with its more immediate and clean-vocals-up-front start serve as the capstone for The Coral Tombs‘ entire procession.
The feeling is duly ceremonial for being both the summary of the record and the end of the story being related, and with Chandler‘s vocals placed near the ending, Ahab effectively cast the finish as something bigger than themselves, a kind of bowing to the immensity that, indeed, they’ve made all along, but is that much truer to what they’re portraying for the choice. It is not a decision one would expect from a new band, but though they haven’t had a studio LP (or 2LP, or 3LP, etc.) in some time, Ahab are nonetheless veterans, with an established aural persona the parameters of which serve as a guide for their ongoing creative development. By its very character, let alone the contextual sphere in which it resides, The Coral Tombs will likely not be universal in its appeal, but while some listeners won’t be able to reach it, others will dive that much deeper for the cold siren calls ringing out from this material.
Well, I’m starting an hour later than I did yesterday, so that’s maybe not the most encouraging beginning I could think of, but screw it, I’m here, got music on, got fingers on keys, so I guess we’re underway. Yesterday was remarkably easy, even by Quarterly Review standards. I’ve been doing this long enough at this point — five-plus years — that I approach it with a reasonable amount of confidence it’ll get done barring some unforeseen disaster.
But yesterday was a breeze. What does today hold? In the words of Mrs. Wagner from fourth grade homeroom, “see me after.”
Ready, set, go.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
Horisont, Sudden Death
With a hefty dose of piano up front and keys throughout, Gothenburg traditionalist heavy rockers Horisont push retro-ism into full-on arena status. Moving past some of the sci-fi aspects of 2017’s About Time, Sudden Death comprises 13 tracks and an hour’s runtime, so rest assured, there’s room for everything, including the sax on “Into the Night,” the circa-’77 rock drama in the midsection of the eight-minute “Archeopteryx in Flight,” and the comparatively straightforward seeming bounce of “Sail On.” With cocaine-era production style, Sudden Death is beyond the earlier-’70s vintage mindset of the band’s earliest work, and songs like “Standing Here” and the penultimate proto-metaller “Reign of Madness” stake a claim on the later era, but the post-Queen melody of “Revolution” at the outset and the acoustic swing in “Free Riding” that follows set a lighthearted tone, and as always seems to be the case with Horisont, there’s nothing that comes across as more important than the songwriting.
Scourge of the seven seas that German nautically-themed funeral doomers Ahab are, Live Prey is their first live album and it finds them some five years removed from their last studio LP, The Boats of the Glen Carrig (review here). For a band who in the past has worked at a steady three-year pace, maybe it was time for something, anything to make its way to public ears. Fair enough, and in five tracks and 63 minutes, Live Prey spans all the way back to 2006’s Call of the Wretched Sea with “Ahab’s Oath” and presents all but two of that debut’s songs, beginning with the trilogy “Below the Sun,” “The Pacific” and “Old Thunder” and switching the order of “Ahab’s Oath” and “The Hunt” from how they originally appeared on the first record to end with the foreboding sounds of waves rolling accompanied by minimal keyboards. It’s massively heavy, of course — so was Call of the Wretched Sea — and whatever their reason for not including any other album’s material, at least they’ve included anything.
Let’s assume the title High Protein might refer to the fact that Dutch/Belgian power trio Rrrags have ‘trimmed the fat’ from the eight songs that comprise their 33-minute sophomore LP. It’s easy enough to believe listening to a cut like “Messin'” or the subsequent “Sad Sanity,” which between the two of them are about as long as the 5:14 opener “The Fridge” just before. But while High Protein has movers and groovers galore in those tracks and the fuzzier “Sugarcube” — the tone of which might remind that guitarist Ron Van Herpen is in Astrosoniq — the stomping “Demons Dancing” and the strutter “Hellfire,” there’s live-Deep–Purple-style breadth on the eight-minute “Dark is the Day” and closer “Window” bookends “The Fridge” in length while mellowing out and giving drummer/vocalist Rob Martin a rest (he’s earned it by then) while bassist Rob Zim and Van Herpen carry the finale. If thinking of it as a sleeper hit helps you get on board, so be it, but Rrrags‘ second album is of unmitigated class and straight-up killer performance. It is not one to be overlooked.
There’s stoner roll and doomed crash in “New Body,” drone-laced spoken-word experimentalism in “Blood and Butter,” and post-punk angular whathaveyou as “Halloween Bolson” plays out its nine-minute stretch, but Viscerals — the third or fourth Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs album, depending on what you count — seems to be at its most satisfying in blowout freak-psych moments like opener “Reducer” and “Rubbernecker,” which follows, while the kinda-metal of “World Crust”‘s central riff stumbles willfully and teases coming apart before circling back, and “Crazy in Blood” and closer “Hell’s Teeth” are more straight-up heavy rock. It’s a fairly wide arc the UK outfit spread from one end of the record to the other — and they’re brash enough to pull it off, to be sure — but with the hype machine so fervently behind them, I have a hard time knowing whether I’m actually just left flat by the record itself or all the hyperbole-set-on-fire that’s surrounded the band for the last couple years. Viscerals gets to the heart of the matter, sure enough, but then what?
Kiel, Germany’s Earthbong answer the stoner-sludge extremity of their 2018 debut, One Earth One Bong (review here), with, well, more stoner-sludge extremity. What, you thought they’d go prog? Forget it. You get three songs. Opener “Goddamn High” and “Weedcult Today” top 15 minutes each, and closer “Monk’s Blood” hits half an hour. Do the quick math yourself on that and you’ll understand just how much Earthbong have been looking forward to bashing you over the head with riffs. “Weedcult Today” is more agonizingly slow than “Goddamn High,” at least at the beginning, but it builds up and rolls into a pace that, come to think of it, is still probably slower than most, and of course “Monk’s Blood” is an epic undertaking right up to its last five minutes of noise. It could’ve been an album on its own. But seriously, if you think Earthbong give a shit, you’re way off base. This is tone, riff and weed worship and everything else is at best a secondary concern. Spend an hour at mass and see if you don’t come out converted.
No doubt that at some future time shortly after the entire world has moved on from the COVID-19 pandemic, there will be a glut of releases comprised of material written during the lockdown. Peruvian four-piece Rito Verdugo are ahead of the game, then, with their Post-Primatus four-song EP. Issued digitally as the name-your-price follow-up to their also-name-your-price 2018 debut, Cosmos, it sets a 14-minute run from its shortest cut to its longest, shifting from the trippy “Misterio” into fuzz rockers “Monte Gorila” (which distills Earthless vibes to just over three minutes) and “Lo Subnormal” en route to the rawer garage psychedelia of “Inhumación,” which replaces its vocals with stretches of lead guitar that do more than just fill the spaces verses might otherwise be and instead add to the breadth of the release as a whole. Safe to assume Rito Verdugo didn’t plan on spending any amount of time this year staying home to avoid getting a plague, but at least they were able to use the time productively to give listeners a quick sample of where they’re at sound-wise coming off the first album. Whenever and however it shows up, I’ll look forward to what they do next.
Signed to Cruz Del Sur Music as part of that label’s expanding foray into traditionalist doom (see also: Pale Divine, The Wizar’d, Apostle of Solitude, etc.), Dublin’s Death the Leveller present an emotionally driven four tracks on their 38-minute label debut, the counterintuitively titled II. Listed as their first full-length, it’s about the same length as their debut “EP,” 2017’s I, but more important is the comfort and patience the band shows with working in longer-form material, opener “The Hunt Eternal,” “The Golden Bough” and closer “The Crossing” making an impression at over nine minutes apiece — “The Golden Bough” tops 12 — while “So They May Face the Sun” runs a mere 7:37 and is perhaps the most unhurried of the bunch, playing out with a cinematic sweep of guitar melody and another showcase for the significant presence of frontman Denis Dowling, who’s high in the mix at times but earns that forward position with a suitably standout performance across the record’s span.
It isn’t surprising to learn that the members of Fall River, Massachusetts, five-piece Marrowfields come from something of an array of underground styles, some of them pushing into more extreme terrain, because the five songs of their debut full-length, Metamorphoses, do likewise. With founding guitarist/main-songwriter Brandon Green at the helm as producer as well, there’s a suitably inward-looking feel to the material, but coinciding with its rich atmospheres are flashes of blastbeats, death metal chug, double-kick and backing growls behind the cleaner melodic vocals that keep Marrowfields distinct from entirely traditionalist doom. It is a niche into which they fit well on this first long-player, and across the five songs/52 minutes of Metamorphoses, they indeed shapeshift between genre elements in order to best serve the purposes of the material, calling to mind Argus in the progressive early stretch of centerpiece “Birth of the Liberator” while tapping Paradise Lost chug and ambience before the blasts kick in on closer “Dragged to the World Below.” Will be interesting to see which way their — or Green‘s, as it were — focus ultimately lies, but there isn’t one aesthetic nuance misused here.
Dätcha Mandala present a strong opening salvo of rockers on Hara, their second album for MRS Red Sound, before turning over to all-out tambourine-and-harp blues on “Missing Blues.” From there, they could go basically anywhere they want, and they do, leading with piano on “Morning Song,” doing wrist-cramp-chug-into-disco-hop in “Sick Machine” and meeting hand-percussion with space rocking vibes on “Moha.” They’ve already come a long way from the somewhat misleading ’70s heavy of opener “Stick it Out,” “Mother God” and “Who You Are,” but the sonic turns that continue with the harder-edged “Eht Bup,” the ’70s balladry of “Tit’s,” an unabashed bit o’ twang on “On the Road” and full-on fuzz into a noise freakout on closer “Pavot.” Just what the hell is going on with Hara? Anything Dätcha Mandala so desire, it would seem. They have the energy to back it up, but if you see them labeled as any one microgenre or another, keep in mind that inevitably that’s only part of the story and the whole thing is much weirder than they might be letting on. No complaints with that.
If you’ve got voices in your band that can harmonize like guitarists James Draper, Shane Linfoot and Mike Zoias, I’m not entirely sure what would lead you to start your debut record with a four-minute instrumental, but one way or another, Sydney, Australia’s Numidia — completed by bassist/keyboardist Alex Raffaelli and drummer Nathan McMahon — find worthy manners in which to spend their time. Their first collection takes an exploratory approach to progressive heavy rock, seeming to feel its way through components strung together effectively while staying centered around the guitars. Yes, three of them. Psychedelia plays a strong role in later pieces “Red Hymn” and the folky “Te Waka,” but if the eponymous “Numidia” is a mission statement on the part of the five-piece, it’s one cast in a prog mentality pushed forward with poise to suit. Side A capper “A Million Martyrs” would seem to draw the different sides together, but it’s no minor task for it to do so, and there’s little sign in these songs that Numidia won’t grow more expansive as time goes on.
I will by no means ever declare myself an expert on krautrock. In fact, if you ever hear me do such a thing, that’s how you know it’s not really me and my brain has been taken over by aliens or tiny cyborg infiltrators. Or both! And that’s not for lack of interest — as recently as this morning I was comparing modern sounds to those of the classic age of German prog pioneered by bands like Guru Guru, Amon Düül II, Ash Ra Tempel, Can, Popol Vuh — not to mention Magma, Comus and an entire world of others from elsewhere. Mostly it’s for lack of time. As in “a lifetime,” which is what it would take by my estimate in terms of dedication to really, really become an expert on the style. It’s easy enough to identify when you hear it, whether that’s in the synth experimentalism of Tangerine Dream or the acidic freakout of Brainticket‘s 1971 debut, Cottonwoodhill (discussed here), but to truly understand the origins, multifaceted directions and intentions of the style? Yeah, sorry. You could get three Ph.D.s in that shit and still only half know what you’re talking about. Thus the disclaimer: I’m no expert.
Is that about to stop me from enjoying the view as the ooze lurches from my speakers while Guru Guru‘s “Stone In” begins to unfold its ultra-lysergic flow? Not a chance. Guru Guru came into being circa 1968 at the behest of drummer/vocalist Mani Neumeier, who still helms the band. They’ve put out over 40 albums in their near-half-century of history (hence “a lifetime” above), and 1970’s UFO carries the distinction of being the first of them. Comprised of five songs — three on side A, two longer ones for side B — it’s only about 37 minutes in its original, non-reissue form, and with the acknowledgement that ’70 was early in the development of krautrock as a style (an “expert” would know exactly when the term came about) compared to three or four years later, when the progressive sonic ideology had further sprouted from its roots, it’s not the most krautrock of krautrock releases. That is, what Neumeier was up to at the turn of that decade had more in common with jazz-infused kosmiche psychedelia, as one can hear in the sprawling jams of “Girl Call” or the exploratory 10-minute side-B opening title-track. Less progressive, more acid. That’s not a complaint. And one can hear the experimentalist bent in and between the songs on UFO that would over the next few years take the shape it did, “Girl Call” bleeding right into the electronics-bolstered jazzy skronk of “Next Time You See the Dalai Lama,” as Neumeier, bassist/noisemaker Uli Trepte and guitarist Ax Genrich find a place between all-out improvisational bliss and freakish stomps and crashes. UFO would mark the beginning point of the group’s development, and by no means the end, but as they feel their way through the strange swath of ground these tracks cover, one can hear, particularly with five decades of context behind it, the foundation of a lot of what they’d go on to accomplish over the subsequent years.
To wit, the atmospheric world-making of “UFO” and “Der LSD / Marsch” on side B. From an exploration of noise to ritualized psychedelic oddity, the second half of UFO is weird enough to make what Guru Guru were doing on side A seem straightforward in comparison. And clearly that’s the point. The jazz gets freer, the hair gets hairier, the push gets harder to resist. “UFO” itself is hypnotic in its way, but the eight-minute finale of “Der LSD / Marsch” is the moment at which freakism as an aesthetic statement really seems to codify. In the bass, maddening crash of cymbals and off-time pluck of guitar notes, it knows no bounds but still moves ahead in a linear progression toward a palpable apex, once more drenched in the most bizarre of the preceding years’ psych impulses, but clearly on its own “marsch” to someplace else.
Again, that’s easy to say with 40 records to back it up, and not something that probably anyone would’ve figured circa 1970. Intimidating and seemingly impenetrable though it may be, the discography of Guru Guru is nonetheless home to a universe of such delights, and as noted, Neumeier continues to create under the same banner to this day, whether it’s solo releases, collaborations with Acid Mothers Temple — you’ve probably heard of the Acid Mothers Guru Guru offshoot — or just touring as Guru Guru. He’s got dates this month and throughout the summer posted on his website, mostly in Japan with a couple fests in Europe as well. Some impulses simply will not be stopped.
As always, I hope you enjoy.
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Ups and downs today, huh? Turned into an eight-post day between this, the review earlier, the news about the Tour of the Doomed and Hans-Georg Bier passing away — both of which I saw just this morning — and the rest. Ups and downs. The whole week has been like that.
If you follow this site and in particular these Friday Full-Length posts and the kind of “how ya doin'” updates after the album rants, you’ll know I’ve been fretting for the last however long that my year-long work contract at Hasbro wouldn’t be picked up and I’d be once more relegated to unemployment. Well, that shoe dropped this week. I’m done in June.
This job has been far from perfect. Far from it. Perfect is you-stay-home-and-write-about-music-all-day-and-money-shows-up-in-your-bank-account. This hasn’t been that. It has, however, easily been the best gig I’ve ever had, and though I’ve had days here when I wanted to force a screwdriver into my eyeball owing either to the strains of corporate culture or the commute or my own apparently natural and inescapable propensity for being a miserable bastard, I’m sorry to see it come to an end. I’m part of a team of decent, mostly well-meaning people here, the work I do isn’t awful, and I’ve learned a lot over the last 10 months that I’ve been doing it, about the process, about myself and about what I want my life to be and what I don’t want it to be.
For example, I don’t want to work anymore, but I do need to earn some money. Protein powder might be 60 percent of what I consume in a given week at this point, but that shit ain’t cheap.
I don’t know how it’s all going to shake out — there are other contingency factors at play as well that I’ll talk about some other time — but finding that out on Wednesday morning sucked considerably.
A low point that made me even gladder next week is Roadburn. I fly out on Tuesday and have all the more reason to look forward to getting out of my own head for a few days, experiencing great music, great people and an environment that I’ve come over the last nine years to think of as kind of a second home. I’ll be covering it in the usual manner starting Wednesday. I do not expect to sleep much, eat much or do much beyond fold issues of Weirdo Canyon Dispatch, write and take pictures, and that’s gonna be just fine for a few days.
That’s the plan, anyhow. Still, because I’m compulsive, there’s a lot to cram in before I go. Here’s how it looks in the notes:
MON.: L’Ira del Baccano review/stream; Atala track premiere; Rattlesnake news (who’s Rattlesnake? Find out Monday).
TUE.: Sasquatch track premiere; Six Sigma review; The Obsessed interview (that interview might get moved to Wednesday).
WED.: ROADBURN 2017 COVERAGE.
THU.: ROADBURN 2017 COVERAGE.
FRI.: ROADBURN 2017 COVERAGE.
SAT.: ROADBURN 2017 COVERAGE.
SUN.: ROADBURN 2017 COVERAGE.
There’s always something that comes up while I’m at Roadburn, be it big-type news that can’t be put off — i.e. Electric Wizard announces their new record or some shit like that — or whatever it might be, but with the caveat of any such wrenches in the gears, I can’t wait to get to Tilburg and get my brain melted. Crippled Black Phoenix and SubRosa open the Main Stage on Thursday. I’ll be there. If you’re going to be there, please say hi.
Like I said, ups and downs. Some you win, some you lose.
Thanks to everyone for reading this week. I hope you’re doing well and I hope you have a great and safe weekend ahead. If you get the chance, please check out the forum and the radio stream.
Posted in Reviews on January 19th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
Feels like it’s been a while in the making, but Buddha Sentenza‘s second album justifies the wait in a significant push forward from where 2013’s debut, South Western Lower Valley Rock (review here), found them. Still working through World in Sound, 2016’s Semaphora hits with the pastoral feel that’s been present in the German five-piece’s sound since their 2009 demo, Mode 0909 (review here), and if one is so inclined, one might still pick up shades of My Sleeping Karma in their sound, but there’s a progressive tinge to the winding guitar and keys in opener “Jet,” and the subsequent “Greek Ancestry” goes farther in fitting its arrangement to its title.
Ultimately, the playfully named Heidelberg-based lineup of guitarist/violinist B.B. Blacksheep, guitarist Major Mayhem, bassist Amnesio Bodega, keyboardist Pontifex Maximus and drummer Jesus Malverde end up as much in the sphere of progressive rock as that of heavy psych, and Semaphora has a refreshing cohesion of purpose and focus that distinguishes it from the hordes of instrumental jammers populating Europe’s heavy rock underground. The shift is visible even unto the photorealism of Semaphora‘s cover art, which finds a hand reaching across the shards of a shattered mirror backed by cloud and blue sky — reminiscent of some lost ’70s prog LP — where South Western Lower Valley Rock, while staking a claim on naming Buddha Sentenza‘s sound perhaps in a tongue-in-cheek manner, featured line drawings of fractals and other psychedelic imagery. I might be interested to know if the band, who split the six-track/48-minute Semaphora into two sides, each with an extended closer, still consider the title of their debut to be the style of music they play.
Could be that designation is nebulous enough to continue to fit, and if “south western lower valley rock” is whatever Buddha Sentenza make it, then all the better that Semaphora finds them so willfully exploring that freedom. As progressive as it gets, and as much as that colors the impression of everything that follows, the first thing one hears on “Jet” is a fuzzed-out guitar. It’s not long though before the organ, drums and bass have joined in and the arrangement thereof spun off into what feels like multiple directions, like beams of light splitting apart and coming back together in cycles. The second half, following some midsection chugging, drops to ambient spaciousness for a time, highlighting the keys and the overall textural feel, but the push resumes in the last minute and cuts off to let the strumming at the start of “Greek Ancestry” speak immediately to the name of the track.
More subdued than the opener on the whole, it demonstrates a patience that suits its bounce well but is hardly inactive, with lead guitar driving more weighted sections and switches back and forth around that initial strummed line, joined the second time around by violin, guitar and keys for a more lush take. By the time it’s done, “Greek Ancestry” has staked its claim in gorgeousness, but the 10-minute “Kréèn (Patagonian Lights),” which follows and closes out Semaphora‘s first half, is the highlight, with a meandering countrified fuzz starting off topped by sampled chanting that unfurls to summarize the patience and the spirit of the first two tracks while expanding the sonic foundation on the whole in a satisfying and immersive way. It never loses its sentimental feel in the guitar or organ line, and bookends with more sampled chanting at the end, making “Kréèn (Patagonian Lights)” almost an album unto itself.
Further sampling starts side B’s opener, “Laika,” but it’s direct speech, almost sounding like an advertisement or newscast, but the song itself begins soon and thrusts quickly into wah and a more active feel, particularly in the keys and perhaps in conversation with “Jet.” The symmetry of Semaphora‘s two sides is evidence of the consciousness at work on Buddha Sentenza‘s part, and that may or may not bleed into the tracks themselves, but it’s worth noting that nowhere on the album do they actually seem to repeat moves. “Laika,” for example, shifts into a chugging march with theremin behind it, farther-back lead guitar and synth swirl, and though it’s the shortest cut at 5:22, it still has time to cap with a quiet movement of piano before it transitions into the foreboding standalone chord that launches “Blood Rust,” the eight-minute penultimate piece that follows and seems to work most directly in stages.
The first builds from that initial guitar line, then it moves into synth-led atmospherics for its middle third, and from there, it emerges once again on a less threatening push toward an apex that, but for closer “The End is Coming, We’ll Take it from Here” behind it, could just as easily have been the payoff for the record as a whole. That closer, however, immediately marks itself out as the grand finale. Sampled lines from 1984 move into faster guitar that in turn shifts toward piano and guitar interplay and a rolling forward groove of riff, keys, synth and theremin — all hands on deck — before a sudden stop and chug announces the arrival of the next movement shortly before the four-minute mark. A wash of keyboard tops the roll, but there’s more intense drum and guitar chugging to be found as well as “The End is Coming, We’ll Take it from Here” plays out, and the feel is suitably chaotic as Buddha Sentenza pass the halfway point, break and return to launch Semaphora‘s final build from the ground up.
As noted, “Blood Rust” could have been the payoff for the album’s entirety, but there’s no question that the finish they give with “The End is Coming, We’ll Take it from Here” could hardly be placed anywhere else and still work as well, and though the song borders on overwhelming in its turns from one part to the next, that only underscores the progressive mentality of the band, since they never seem to be out of control or to lose track of the direction they’re headed. That may be the underlying message of Semaphora, all told, and if Buddha Sentenza have worked the last several years coming together to craft it, then their time was not misspent. As far as Semaphora ranges, it never fails to bring their audience along for the ride, and the breadth it unveils makes it all the more difficult to predict how they might progress from here, only adding to the satisfaction of the listening experience.
Posted in Reviews on February 4th, 2014 by JJ Koczan
Second week in a row I’m trying this, since the universe didn’t seem to collapse on itself after the first one — unless you count how bad I fucked up lineups; they’re fixed now. Once again we cover some pretty wide ground geographically and stylistically (also alphabetically!), so let’s get to it:
Buddha Sentenza, South Western Lower Valley Rock
Released last year as their debut on World in Sound Records, the 14-track full-length South Western Lower Valley Rock is Buddha Sentenza‘s follow-up to 2009’s exploratory Mode 0909 (review here). The 46-minute outing from the German instrumental fivesome pairs longer pieces like the classic rocking “Arrested Development” (5:04) and prog-jamming “The Monkey Stealing the Peaches” (2:49) off of brief transitional interludes taking their name from letters in the Greek alphabet. I’m not sure what “A-B-G-D-E-Z-I” is meant to indicate — the tracks being “Alpha,” “Beta,” “Gamma” and so on — but they pair remarkably well with the other pieces, and the emergent feel is not unlike that of My Sleeping Karma‘s 2012 outing, Soma, methodologically as well as aesthetically. Perhaps the highlight of South Western Lower Valley Rockis its longest component, “Debris Moon,” which in just under nine minutes weaves nighttime atmospherics and heavy psych ambience into what’s still a subdued track, never quite paying off the tension it creates until the subsequent “Epsilon” shifts into the aforementioned “The Monkey Stealing the Peaches,” giving even more of a clue that Buddha Sentenza are working in a whole-album mindset, rather than thinking of South Western Lower Valley Rockin terms of its individual tracks. The album makes sense on this level, and on CD presents an immersive, linear listening experience that casts a deceptively wide stylistic berth between keyboard-infused krautrock worship, heavy rock and psychedelia, offering fluid motion from in less skilled hands could easily come across as disjointed elements. They make that My Sleeping Karma comparison almost too easy, but the interludes are ultimately essential in creating the flow, as the ease of movement between the desert crunch of “Tzameti,” “Eta” and Eastern-vibing closer “Psychonaut” underscores. Some of Buddha Sentenza‘s best moments are in playing styles off each other.
Chrome, Half Machine from the Sun: The Lost Tracks from ’79-’80
While the liner notes tell of their having been designated “too accessible” at the time, the 18 songs on Chrome‘s Half Machine from the Sun are still plenty weird. As the title indicates, the release is a compilation of yet-unissued cuts from 1979-1980, the era of Half Machine Lip Moves and Red Exposure for Chrome‘s key collaboration between guitarist/vocalist Helios Creed and drummer/vocalist Damon Edge and arguably the point at which that incarnation of the band’s far-out blend of proto-punk, New Wave, psychedelic rock and experimental pop was at its most potent. Sure enough, Half Machine from the Sun crisscrosses genres on an almost per-track basis, be it the weirdo electro stomp of “Looking for Your Door,” the space rock noise wash of “Morrison” or “Sub Machine,” which turns an almost manic drum beat into the foundation of an otherworldly guitar and vocal exploration. They can and will go anywhere, as “Charlie’s Little Problem” and the creeper keyboards of “Ghost” showcase, but if there’s anything tying Half Machine from the Sun(which is out through King of Spades Records following a successful crowdfunding campaign to have it pressed to CD) together, it’s the fact that nothing is tying it together. Tape loops, analog synth, bizarre vocals, structure out the window — and yes, this is still the “accessible” side of Chrome — these songs nonetheless leave any number of memorable impressions, even if that impression winds up in an overarching sense of “God damn this band was weird.” Gloriously so. Chrome, under the direction of Helios Creed, have reportedly been at work on new material, so maybe all the better to give fans advance notice via this collection, which provides 73 minutes of alternate universe brainfodder to sate the curious and the passionate alike. A fan piece, but a welcome one.
The self-released debut EP from New Jersey-based progressive black metallers Hercyn, Magda, arrives in a full jewel case — the pressing is limited to 100 copies — wrapped in twine. I guess that’s meant to take the place of shrinkwrap, and in that, it’s certainly a more natural-feeling option. Magda‘s namesake track is a 24-minute blend of Euro-doom melancholy, blackened gurgles, grand riffing and ambient weight from the Jersey City trio of guitarist Michael DiCiania, guitarist/vocalist Ernest Wawiorko and bassist Tony Stanziano. About the only thing holding back the EP’s organic vibe is the fact that the drums are programmed, which gives the complex, ambitious “Magda” a mechanical base for what’s otherwise a relatively human sound; the guitars are buzzsaw sharp, but not necessarily without tonal warmth, and particularly in blastbeaten stretches, one almost wants something less precise to go along with the rawness in those guitars, as well as in the bass and Wawiorko‘s vocals. Nonetheless, as lead and rhythm layers intertwine past “Magda”‘s midpoint, there’s beauty in the dismal and a sense of the potential in Hercyn to fluidly cross genre boundaries even more than they already are. That lead is well plotted and sustained, and tempo and chug vary as the song reaches and moves beyond its apex in the second half, with the band offering a bit of Enslaved and Woods of Ypres influence in the interplay of keys and strings. I don’t know if they’ll try to find an actual drummer — for a first release, Magdahardly seems half-assed in its presentation, so maybe this is it; I hear industrial is on its way back — but Hercyn have started with a work of striking intricacy, and prove wholly comfortable in the longer form. An impressive and hopefully portentous debut.
Acid fuzz like a field you could lay down and lose an afternoon in is the contraband trafficked by L.A. freakouts The Warlocks, whose amorphous sonic ooze is every bit in mirror to their lineup, which has seen no fewer than 20 cats come and go and stick around over the course of the last decade and a half. With guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist/bassist Bobby Hecksher as the core around which the eight tracks of the 40-minute Skull Worship swirl, the oft-shoegazing psychedelia isn’t given to complete chaos, but man, The Warlocks go way, way out and don’t seem overly concerned with how they’re getting back. Joining Hecksher for the adventure are guitarist JC Rees, guitarist Earl V. Miller, bassist Chris DiPino and drummer George Serrano, as well as Tanya Hayden, who stops by to add some cello to “Silver and Plastic,” which sounds like what I always secretly hoped Radiohead would deliver instead of the pretentious mopey schlock they put out until they decided they were too smart for albums or whatever. The Warlocks, who had a couple records out on Tee Pee before jumping to Zap Banana/Cargo Records for Skull Worship, at times call to mind the very, very British moments of Crippled Black Phoenix, but then the psychedelic wash of “Chameleon” or “It’s a Hard Fall” takes hold and the whole vibe is groovier, thicker, more multi-colored molasses, whatever other attitude it might convey. The album hits its stride just when you think it might start to drag, and the closing “Eyes Jam” sounds like its backwards cymbals, feedback and drones could just go on into perpetuity, like if the record never returned and the loop kept repeating. Some heady moments, but should be right on the level for those properly tuned in.
Immediately and throughout much of the duration of Polish psychedelic pop rockers The White Kites‘ debut LP, Missing (out on Deep Field Records), the vibe is Beatles. Lots and lots of Beatles, from the Sgt. Pepper-style organ circus swirl of opener “Arrival” on through the McCartney piano bounce of the penultimate “The Missing.” It is a 50-minute album, and much of the lighthearted atmosphere it creates stems from its modern interpretation of the legendary Liverpudlians in their psych era. Hard to rag on a band for digging The Beatles — it’s like yelling at a fish for breathing underwater. And as a seven-piece that includes flute, recorders, keyboards, citole, a variety of percussion, clarinet, ukulele and so on, The White Kites aren’t lacking for sonic diversity — vocalist Sean Palmer has quite a task in tying the album together — but as intricate and progressive as Missing gets, it’s still taking the Lennon/McCartney byway to get there. The corresponding songwriting team for The White Kites seems to be Palmer and bassist/keyboardist Jakub Lenarczyk (presented as Lenarczyk/Palmer), and they’re more than capable in their charge, but hints of early Pink Floyd and King Crimson seem to be waiting to emerge from “Turtle’s Back” and “Beyond the Furthest Star,” like they’re trying to get out and be more prominent in the band’s sound but are overpowered by the traceable poppiness. That doesn’t stop Missing from being enjoyable — unless you’ve never liked The Beatles, maybe — or “Beyond the Furthest Star” from being the highlight, it just means that The White Kites have room to shift the sonic balance should they choose to do so their next time around. Until then, impeccable production and imaginative arrangements throughout give an impression of a band just beginning their discovery.
