Portuguese heavy rock duo Her Name Was Fire release their new EP, the five-song Obsidian Light, this Friday, May 8. The 20-minute outing is the first new release from João Campos and Tiago Lopes since their second full-length, Decadent Movement, arrived in 2020, and seems to have come after one or the other of the two relocated to Finland? The geography isn’t exactly clear, but listening to the songs, the intention is.
From “Electrify” onward, Her Name is Fire offer crisp songwriting and, while not void of emotional expression by any means, the songs feel specifically geared to capture an audience. For being a duo, their sound is full and vocal arrangments border on lush with layering and harmony parts, and so on, and are a clear focal point as songs like “Better Days” and the centerpiece “Head on the Wall” reveal more about the fuzzy, Cave In-via-Valley of the Sun crux, the shove of “Facekicker” enacting a sweeping careen in the tradition of desert rock, but veering into a bridge with “Sticks and stones may break my bones…” repeated poppishly joined by low-mixed, layered-in screams, making a delightful contrast of impulses.
Queens of the Stone Age are relevant as an influence, but no more than Museas the dug-in shuffle of “Better Days” reaffirms, going to ground from some of the more soaring aspects of “Electrify” or the megahook of “Facekicker,” but there remains swagger in bulk in the bassy second half. Her Name Was Fire keep hold of their momentum and guide it masterfully, and their material resonates a band-on-stage energy without giving up their depth of arrangement. This isn’t sitting-in-your-room-writing-poetry-to-yourself. It’s songs written to be performed for an audience, meant to commune with and engage that audience. Obsidian Light isn’t stylistically revolutionary, but neither is it easily pigeonholed, and the shove it fosters is its own.
If in your head you can’t hear the outreach of “Head on a Wall,” I’m not sure what to tell you, and “Electrify” lives up to the billing at the start of the EP, while still being complex enough to route the listener through a succession of changes. Of course, those being heavy bounces from one part to the next topped with rich melody and fuzz makes that process somewhat easier as well. They sound ready for whatever festival slot you’ve got, and they neither get bogged down in formulaic craft nor get caught up in forcing their own accessibility. The songs sound natural as they are for what they are, in other words, and Campos and Lopes unite the material across divergent moods through performance, which even in layers comes through with a sense of to-stage authenticity.
No idea what the band’s plans are, but they sound ready to tour and not look back, however it might actually turn out. Today it’s my pleasure to host the full stream of Obsidian Light, which you’ll find in its entirety on the player below, followed by some comment from the band and more info from the PR wire.
Please enjoy:
Her Name Was Fire on Obsidian Light:
Obsidian Light feels like us cutting through all the noise and getting back to what matters: heavy grooves, big low-end, melody, and doing this thing on our own terms. No apologies, no trying to please everyone, just making the songs hit as hard as they can. After years of distance, silence and trying to keep the fire alive across countries, this EP feels like the moment where it all locks back in.
HER NAME WAS FIRE are a heavy rock duo from Lisbon, built around baritone guitar, drums and a massive low-end sound.
Obsidian Light is the latest EP from Lisbon heavy rock duo Her Name Was Fire. Built between Lisbon and Helsinki, the record distills ten years of working as a two-piece into five songs driven by heavy grooves, massive low-end and direct, melodic hooks. Moving between slow-burning heaviness, more physical, almost dance-driven moments and occasional strange left turns, the EP captures a band coming back sharper, louder and fully on their own terms.
Tracklisting: 1. Electrify 2. Facekicker 3. Head on a Wall 4. Better Days 5. Steamed
Posted in Reviews on March 16th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Day 1 of the Spring 2026 Quarterly Review starts now. I know you’ve had it on your calendar just like I’ve had it on mine, and I’ll just say that if you’re new to the process or don’t know what this thing is all about, that’s cool too. A Quarterly Review, or QR if I’m feeling saucy, is a review roundup I do every few months for however long, always with 10 releases covered per day. The bare minimum for a QR is 50, and sometimes that actually happens. More often these days, it’s more than a five-day run, and that’s true this time as well.
This Quarterly Review will go seven days and cover a total of 70 works from bands and artists all over the world. It’s always a little nervewracking to start one of these, but it’s a special kind of deluge of music for me and I’ve been looking forward to it. Accordingly, it’s time to get this show on the road, as my dear wife might say.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
The Cosmic Dead, Beyond the Beyond
Four one-word titles on what I read somewhere is The Cosmic Dead‘s 10th album since 2010? That’s not even ridiculous. In any case, Beyond the Beyond strikes as advertised — the Glasgow-based heavy cosmic rockers are indeed far, far out. The 16-minute longest-track “Further” opens (immediate points), and even though the last song is called “Aether” (it bookends at 12 minutes), they’re pretty ethereal across the board as Luigi Pasquini‘s synth and Calum Calderwood‘s effects-laden fiddle lead the way into an obscure, semi-Eastern-scaled modern psychedelic krautrock, Omar Aborida‘s guitar (he also plays bass, mixed, and did the cover art) running deep in wah in shorter second cut “Stronger” as Tommy Duffin‘s drums both ground the procession and help push — wait for it — further. The immersion factor is high, and when “Aurora” gives over to “Aether,” there is a sense of having now arrived at the place you’ve been going all along, the long drone intro seeing a jangly movement rise up and recede again before it’s done, righteously imperfect and expanded of mind. If you could do this kind of thing all the time maybe you’d have 10 albums too.
If you might hear opening cut “Pagan Woman” and think The Cult, SÖNUS drive the point home by covering “Phoenix” penultimate to the closing title-track of Planes of Torment, so yes. Elsewhere on the David Wachsman-led heavy rock/classic metal trio’s third LP, “Heart of Stone” touches on Danzig and the flute-inclusive “Scorpio” touches on Middle Eastern-influenced progressivism and “Sisyphus Stomp” enacts a bluesier course. The seven-song release is tied together by Wachsman‘s vocals and the apparently-at-least-mostly-live-recorded energy of the performances around them, and though the prevailing atmosphere even in the classic rocking “Saturation Driver” is moody, by the time they come around to the grandiosity of “Planes of Torment”‘s 10-minute sequence, the stage has been duly set for such a dramatic finish. They are no strangers to the perils of living between styles, but the songwriting remains firm and SÖNUS are sure in their purposes across Planes of Torment, which pushes them forward in sound and construction and continues to refine the persona, craft and intent behind the project.
A hard-hitting Dec. 2025 self-released and self-titled full-length debut from this Richmond, Virginia, trio, Uzio‘s Uzio hits with force from the outset as they open up the groove in “And When it Doesn’t Break Your Fall” before giving burlier ’90s vibes in “Lantern Fly” — somewhere between C.O.C. and Ugly-era Life of Agony (see also “Wandering Eye”), with Chris Sundstrom‘s guitar and vocals leading the way with Ed Fierro on bass and Erik Larson (Thunderchief, ATP, Avail, etc.) drumming. They find a noteworthy fervency of chug in “Katabasis” and loose a “Hole in the Sky” of swing in “No One Sacred” before “Leeches” thrashes out and “Dissolve” throws big-riff elbows and “Dark Empath” caps with a more metallic crux, distant from the punk of “Familiars” earlier but subtly so with a continuity of structure throughout. One to watch if you feel like getting roughed up, as everybody does from time to time.
There is a strong meditative current built up around the apparent root jams of Finland’s Mount Palatine. The Helsinki outfit’s six-song/53-minute debut on Argonauta imprint Octopus Rising, Wormholy World is rife with texture and expanse as 10-minute opener “The Sands” casts a vast landscape of intertwining guitar lines and a slow march through the desert hinted at by its title. “Whispers of the Holy Land” grows more aggressive in its midsection, preceding a solidification of groove in the back end of the song that’s both satisfying and consistent in ambience with the opener. That crunch proves essential to “The Dreaming” and “Panther Eyes” as well, and the balance and blend of urgency and warmth keeps Wormholy World united but not staid in approach as their pilgrimage takes them through the outreach of lead guitar in “Ethereal” and into “Newborn Sun,” which closes out as less an arrival than a next departure point. So one hopes, anyhow. They’re not the first to work in this style, but there’s burgeoning perspective to be found here.
Smooth boogie alert as Perth, Australia’s Death of Manfish — who accrue weirdo points before you even get to the shufflefunk of “Sync” just based on the name — unfurl the five-track/16-minute Desert Cuttlefish with “Brunt,” a rollout that would make Brant Bjork smile and a hint of intent at things to come. “Sync” makes a rousing centerpiece to the short instrumental outing, which is furthers its outsiderism with “Manfish Folk 4” and “Manfish Folk 2,” the first of which is wistful with accordion sounds and the latter of which has acoustic guitar at its core but is more urbane, preceding the space-jammier finish in “Fritz.” So what you get is five instrumentalist pieces, each kind of operating in a different style, drawn together by rhythmic fluidity but more celebrating their differences than trying to convince you it’s all part of the same thing, which it is anyhow. Good fun, purposefully and effectively oddball, and backed up by chops and groove to spare. There’s more going on here than the 16 minutes imply, but the brevity of the format suits the showcase aspect of Death of Manfish‘s sound.
Ralph Penegun ask and waste precious little time answering the operative question on their apparent debut, Who the Fuck is Ralph Penegun?, released in early January. The answer is they’re a band, not a person, and with the record, they offer a driving and aggressive heavy-hardcore punk sound. “Choose Your Poison” feels positively expansive at 3:54, and that’s as close as the Turin, Italy, unit come to expanse, as most of the album is given to the shove of cuts like “Epitaph” or “Working Class Idiot,” the latter of which follows the title-track intro and feels complemented by the head-down, fist-throwing “New Level Slave,” which closes, though those are hardly the only two on a sociopolitical bent. The earlier “Sickness” brings up tonal largesse and pays off its push with a nodder of a groove, and “Caught in a Trap” ends with a sample of Elvis Presley‘s “Suspicious Minds,” so there’s some deviation from the genre norm happening, but know that if you’re going to take it on, you should be ready to keep up. That’s who Ralph Penegun are.
Longtime stoner rockers will recall Winds of Neptune bassist/vocalist Ross Westerbur from 500 Ft. of Pipe. He, guitarist Kevin Roberts (The Meatmen) and drummer Mike Alonso (Flogging Molly) foster an expansive take on classic heavy rock with Winds of Neptune‘s Small Stone-issued self-titled debut, bringing what began as a pandemic project to a place of embodying post-grunge heavy rock with an even deeper classic sense of reach. There’s some psychedelia to be had in the first half of “The Fitz,” where “Temporal Mutant” is more boogie, and the eight-song/hour-long album welcomes listners with a bright sensibility on “The Faun’s Rhyme,” but make no mistake, once they dig in, they stay dug. “La Cacciata” shimmies like Scorpions while “U.S.L.” gives breadth to grounded roll, but the real deal is the closing trilogy of “So Sayeth the Mouth of the Void” (9:09) “The Fitz” (9:02) and “Queen of Sumatra” (10:21), which are basically a record unto themselves. Bluesier Roadsaw-style heavy with just an edge of spaceblast? Ready for it.
Let’s pretend you were raised to believe in god. Doesn’t matter which one or denomination; any world-creating, all-powerful/wise/comforting/afterlife-bringing deity will do. Nero Kane‘s third (maybe fourth?) album, For the Love, the Death and the Poetry, hits like the moment you realized that god you were brought up to trust and put faith in isn’t real, and that out there in the void, there is neither guiding hand nor salvation. That is to say, it might make you feel empty and crushed, but it has the unmistakable ring of truth about it. The Italian songwriter makes use of empty space in the mix and darker neofolk mystique, working with producer Matt Bordin and collaborator Samantha Stella to craft a sound that is organic, mostly sad, indebted to Americana without being Americana, and encompassing in mood. The organ drones of “Land of Noting” are full and the strum and intertwining voices of “The World Heedless of Our Pain” feed into the melancholic ambience, and the closer “Until the Light of Heaven Comes” has the smack of ritual as it closes. That light is never coming.
Can’t help but feel like Augsburg, Germany’s Giant Lungs are selling themselves short by calling their debut full-length Praise the Laze, particularly since there’s very little lazy about it in either craft or presentation. Taking influence from the likes of Lowrider, Truckfighters, and the shoegazier end of modern heavy melodymaking, in neither tempo nor tone are they lax, and, what, you’re gonna tell me that “Crab Riders” doesn’t move? The artwork is somewhat severe for the sound, which is fuzzier in its riffing than one might be led to believe and marked by the breathy vocal delivery, but the vibe is right on, and as they make their way toward the big-rolling 11-minute capper “Tourists,” they hone a depth and appeal that the finale effectively and purposefully encapsulates. I’m trying to figure out where “laze” comes in, unless they all quit their dayjobs to hang out and follow fuzzriffs, in which case, double kudos.
A creative and cohesive follow-up to the Tübingen-based five-piece’s debut, Sleaze, the 10-song/34-minute Bad Milk never stays in one place too long, but finds its path in thickened desert-style heavy songwriting, a strong current of Queens of the Stone Age present in the style of riffing early, though again, Yeast Machine find distinction in tone, as well as in their vocals. The acoustic-led (at least most of it) “Dust on the Radio” precedes the atmospheric heft of “Feeding Poison to the Spiders Was Never Really My Thing,” and the emotive wisp in the penultimate “Wobbly Wizard” puts me in mind of forgotten Eurodesert rockers Elvis Deluxe, and that’s a comparison I very much intend as a compliment to the song. They finish with largesse in “The Golden Cage,” but there too are mindful of the mood they’re fostering as they go. Bad Milk is my introduction to the band, and it is an intriguing one.
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 29th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
You may recall Helsinki doom bastards Cardinals Folly made the trek to slum it on the road in the US in 2024. I’ll assume these dates — including a TBA somewhere between Philly and Rochester; come on NJ/NYC — are on the same visa as it’s been just about a year, but either way, that they’re getting to make the trip twice as an independent entity reads to me as a passion project, something that went well the first time and that they’ll revisit places they went last year in order to hopefully capture a bit of that magic. Popping over for a stint on the East Coast isn’t something a band like Cardinals Folly does for money, is what I’m saying. Because they probably won’t make any and they probably know it.
So why do it? The experience. Meeting new and old friends, playing with killer bands on the way, on and on. The world’s ending. The real question is what are you doing at work?
Nah, I’m not trying to come down on you for making ends meet, but the answer is that Cardinals Folly are coming back to the US because they can and because apparently something went right the last time they were here. I’m glad somebody can still get a decent first impression of the land where I was born.
Note the two weeks between the fest in Chicago and Wisconsin show and their picking up in Maryland. Vacation? Fly-home-fly-back? Just being nosey, I guess.
From socials:
CARDINALS FOLLY to tour USA again next month!
CARDINALS FOLLY’S “LUCIFERIAN CALL UPON AMERICA 2025” now has 10 shows! PDM, Columbia, MO added for MAY 23! Another Missouri mayhem! Now only looking for MAY 19 ANYWHERE on the EAST COAST! Come on, drop your contacts!
2.5 – Legions Of Metal Festival, Reggie’s, Chicago, IL
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 7th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Olli-Peka “Oppu” Laine has a vision. Since the days of turn-of-the-century Amorphis, and before, Laine has posited a kind of psychedelic heavy rock that unites the ultra-grounded style of classic death metal with 1970s progressive rock, psychedelia and riffing in a way that feels classic in the songs. As an outlet for these ideas, the 2024 debut album from Octoploid, Beyond the Aeons (review here), felt like it was years and years in the making; an explosive outlet for songwriting energies. The fact that we’re less than a year removed from the release and Octoploid are back with a new single supports this reading.
Because if I have it right, “Siren’s Lament” isn’t a holdover from the recordings for Beyond the Aeons as one might expect, but a first showing for a new round of songs and a new incarnation of the band as Marko Neuman steps in on vocals and Antti Myllynen rounds out on keys.
As a five-piece Octoploid have already begun their round of Finnish live shows for this Spring, and for what’s clearly a passion-driven project, the more they get out the better.
Looking forward to more, here’s this from the PR wire:
OCTOPLOID (AMORPHIS/BARREN EARTH) Launch “Siren’s Lament” Single & Lyric video; 2025 Finland Headline Tour Kicking Off
OCTOPLOID, a Finnish 70s death prog outfit led by Olli-Pekka “Oppu” Laine, are about to embark on their 2025 Finland tour in support of their debut album Beyond The Aeons, which saw the light of day on July 5, 2024 through Reigning Phoenix Music. In their excitement for these nine headline dates, the group have now premiered a single titled “Siren’s Lament,” which is accompanied by a brand new lyric video.
After the enormously well reception of Beyond The Aeons, Oppu continued writing material for its follow-up what – mercifully for all of us – resulted in this early new tune, showcasing the heavier aspects of OCTOPLOID’s heavenly varied soundscape. The song was recorded by bass player Laine alongside known band members Peter Salonen (guitars) and Mikko Pietinen (drums), who mixed the single before it was sent off to receive its mastering treatment by prestigious engineer Jacob Hansen at Hansen Studios, Denmark (AMORPHIS, VOLBEAT, PRIMAL FEAR, AMARANTHE etc.). Lead vocal duties were taken over by Marko Neuman (CONVOCATION, SUM OF R) for the first time in OCTOPLOID’s history; rounding off “Siren’s Lament” is keyboard wizardry by Antti Myllynen (a BARREN EARTH mate of Laine), who’s also a part of the group’s current touring line-up and skilfully complements Salonen’s solo parts.
“‘Siren’s Lament’ tells of a chaotic mind, isolation and loneliness. Despite its dark theme, the subject is viewed in a positive light: grief may linger, but it also allows space for acceptance and growth, offering hope that from a new beginning can rise from despair. Musically, the song incorporates influences from death metal, stoner rock, and even big arena rock choruses. It’s a groovy song with a lot of vibe, that’s why I can’t wait for us to play the song live!” states Oppu.
“Beyond The Aeons” Tour – Finland 2025 Presented by Fullsteam Agency 04.04.2025 FI Lahti – Ravintola Torvi 05.04.2025 FI Espoo – Kannusali 25.04.2025 FI Tampere – Olympia-kortteli 26.04.2025 FI Kouvola – House Of Rock Bar 01.05.2025 FI Helsinki – On the Rocks *LOW TICKETS* 02.05.2025 FI Jyväskylä – Lutakko 03.05.2025 FI Turku – Apollo Live Club 09.05.2025 FI Kuopio – Sawohouse Underground 10.05.2025 FI Oulu – 45 Special 29.06.2025 FI Helsinki – Tuska Festival *NEW*
Finnish heavy rockers Kaiser are set to release their sophomore LP, the aptly-titled 2nd Sound, through Majestic Mountain Records on March 7. And that’s a little ways off, but if you hear a rumble on the horizon, there’s a decent chance (1:) it’s the end of the world, or (2:) that’s just the crawlingly doomed nod in the midsection of 10-minute album-closer “Aftershock.” Either way, the ground shakes beneath the Helsinki trio’s feet, and if there’s any rust as a result of it going on seven years since their wholesomely fuzzed, classically stoner-rocking 1st Sound (discussed here) debut LP came out in 2018 (on Oak Island), you would not know it in the build of tension in “Brotha” at the record’s outset, the consuming roll of “Oversized Load” — perhaps titled for the tonality in which it intermittently basks — or the general uptick in the production level between the two releases that results in a more dynamic, individual and modern sound from Kaiser, with guitarist/vocalist Olli “Otu” Suurmunne (Headless Monarch, Altar of Betelgeuze, etc.), bassist Pekka “Pex” Sauvolainen (ex-Ajattara, Amputory) and drummer Riku “RiQ” Syrjä able to offer an aggressive, noisy charge like “1,5 Dozen” or capture such crunching swagger in “Meteorhead,” dig into more twisting revelry in “Awaken Monster,” conversing with the progressive wing of the current Scandi heavy underground — names like Skraeckoedlan, Vokonis, Craneium, and so on — while undeniably bringing something of themselves to it.
The first record was raw, but held definite potential, and for those who caught it, Kaiser‘s 2022 split with Norway’s Captain Caravan, Turned to Stone Chapter 6 (review here), part of Ripple Music‘s ongoing series serves in hindsight as a rousing preface to the grit in Suurmunne‘s vocals and the breadth that might accompany at any given point, but as “Stood Still” follows “Oversized Load” with a divergence into acoustic strum and hand-percussion, letting the vocals carry the song a little more with psychedelic ambience surrounding in a tidy four-minute package, the band are practically beating you over the head with their growth.
A short while later, “Aftershock” builds on the expanses wrought by “Oversized Load” and its setting of high and low volume markers, but Kaiser aren’t so simple as to be a one-or-the-other kind of band, and 2nd Sound is a richer listening experience than a quickie back and forth can convey. “Brotha,” “Meteorhead” — watch out for the layered shred in the second half — the samples, big hook and shimmering lead work of “Awaken Monster” or the catchy “A Clockwork Green,” which encourages the listener to stick around for when they take the boogie for a walk at the end, Kaiser weave between heavy styles and soundscapes, taking cues from classic desert rock and using that foundation to elbow their way into a niche of their own. As regards progression either of band or the genre they celebrate, you can only really call it a win.
2nd Sound isn’t a revolution and it isn’t trying to be, but its eight songs and 45 minutes present a winding course of satisfying, engaging heavycraft, feeling and being spacious without getting lost in its own reaches. The vocal melodies, shouts, and so on, are a unifying factor, as Suurmunne conjures a real sense of soul in “1,5 Dozen” or the culmination of “Awaken Monster,” which is hypnotic despite also kicking ass en route to “A Clockwork Green” with a flow no less immersive than anything that surrounds, the latter — premiering below, as it happens — blossoming its chorus all the more on repeat visits and emphasizing the balance of loose vibe and taut structure that “Aftershock” soon enough bowls over with its slow Sabbathian march, with Suurmunne‘s blues-via-Mike–Patton harmony in the second verse making for a highlight no less resonant than the rush of “Brother” half a lightyear distant.
Front-to-back, Kaiser execute with distinction more than poise, which is to say the material has heart behind it, and although 2nd Sound has been a while in the making, it sounds focused, directed, and purposeful in accomplishing what it sets out to do. That’s a little dry in terms of description for something as engrossing as “Oversized Load” when they decide to blow it out or the interplay of that same adrenaline with a looser Sleep groove on “A Clockwork Green,” but true just the same. The album isn’t quite a blindside, with Kaiser having made such a statement on the split three years ago, but for many who take it on having not heard the band before, it should serve as a compelling introduction.
In March. Yeah, I know. Stupid early for a review. But you’re savvy and you know how preorders work, so I’m not gonna worry too much about it. “A Clockwork Green” is the second single from the record, behind “Brotha,” and you can hear that one too near the bottom of the post. Between them, you don’t quite get the full picture of everything Kaiser have going on with 2nd Sound, but it’s a start and that’s the point. The band and PR wire offer comment below.
Please enjoy:
Kaiser on “A Clockwork Green”:
This song is about seeing the wholeness after devastation and how things should be in order. What’s useless, what’s important and how everything works like clockwork when you build the puzzle back to the clear green line.
Kaiser, the Finnish stoner rock band that could’ve been named after a particularly enthusiastic emperor of riffs, are set to return with their second album “2nd Sound,” due out on March 7 next year via Majestic Mountain Records.
Formed in the late summer of 2013 when Otu (guitar/vocals) and RiQ (drums) met online, discovered their mutual love for heavy, fuzz-drenched tunes, and decided to make some noise together. They soon roped in Pex, who’d previously played bass with RiQ in another band, and the chemistry was undeniable—let’s just say, it was “outstanding supreme,” as they’d say in Finland.
Kaiser’s sound is a powerful blend of stoner rock, doom, and fuzz. If you imagine the heavy riffs of Black Sabbath meeting the raw intensity of Finnish grit, you’re close. Influenced by Kyuss, Sleep, and a touch of High on Fire, Kaiser has carved out their own path in the Finnish rock scene, bringing a fresh take on the genre.
Their self-titled EP in 2014 was the band’s introduction, a statement saying, “We’re here, and we’re heavy.” Followed by their debut album “1st Sound” in 2018, Kaiser proved they were more than a one-off act—they could deliver a full-length journey of unrelenting power and intensity.
Tracklisting: 1. Brotha 2. 1,5 Dozen 3. Meteorhead 4. Oversized Load 5. Stood Still 6. Awaken Monster 7. A Clockwork Green 8. Aftershock
Kaiser are: Olli “Otu” Suurmunne – guitar/vocals Pekka “Pex” Sauvolainen – bass Riku “RiQ” Syrjä – drums
Posted in Reviews on October 16th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
I’m pretty sure this is day eight. Like, not 100 percent or anything, but without looking I feel pretty good about saying that today would be the day we hit three-quarters of the way through the Fall 2024 Quarterly Review — if it was actually going to end on Friday. Yeah, turns out I have enough stuff I want to write about to add an 11th day, so it’s going to go to 110 releases instead of 100 and end Monday instead. It’s gotta stop at some point and I have a premiere set for next Tuesday, so that’s as good a time as any, but while I can sneak the extra QR day in, it makes sense to do so on any level except the practical, on which none of it makes any sense so that doesn’t do us any good anyway.
We — you and I — march on.
Quarterly Review #71-80:
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Trigona & IO Audio Recordings, Split LP
Doing a shortform review of a split sometimes works out to have all the depth of insight of “Hey this thing exists,” but hey, this thing exists. Bringing together California’s IO Audio Recordings and Australia’s Trigona — both solo outfits with their controls set for the heart of the heretofore sonically unknown; they collaborate on a vinyl-only bonus track called “Space Sickness” — the 39-minute digital form of the release further breaks down to three Trigona tracks in the first half and two from IO Audio Recordings (whose moniker is also styled all-lowercase: io audio recordings), and any way you go at any given point throughout, it’s pretty gone. Trigona‘s “Spectra,” “Andaman Sky” and “Vespicula” have a full-band heavy psych shimmer and a thread of drone that works well to transition into IO Audio Recordings‘ “Paranormal Champion” and “Ascend and Return,” the former of which pushes into a wash in its middle that seems to be in the spirit of Sonic Youth, getting duly noisy at the long-fading end, and the latter moving from a darker industrial rock into hypnotic ambience to round out. Both of these entities have other fairly recent releases out — to say nothing of the labels standing behind them — but so much the better for those who find this split to bask in the warmth of “Andaman Sky” and find a personal space within the sounds. If it’s obscure, so be it. It exists.
Aussie rockers Emu promise on the opening track of their self-titled debut that, “A new age is coming,” and they sound like they’re trying to push it along all by themselves. Like much of what follows on the six-track/41-minute long-player, “New Age” offers a blend of in-your-face classic-style heavy rock and roll — not quite boogie, but they’re not opposed to it as the ZZ Toppish middle of “Desert Phoenix” shows — and raucous jamming. “Sittin’ Here Thinkin'” is a couple minutes shorter and thus more direct feeling, while apparent side B opener “The Hatching” is a three-minute acoustic-led interlude before the solidifying-from-the-ether “Once Were Gums” and the bigger-swinging “Will We Ever Learn?” renew the dig-in, the latter diverging near its halfway point to a finishing build that serves the entire record well. The Sunshine Coast trio’s energy and modernized ’70s-isms call to mind some of what was coming from San Diego starting about a decade ago, but ambition is plain to hear in the longer tracks and the material wants neither for expanse or movement. The very definition of an encouraging start.
Multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Phil Howlett (Lucifer’s Fall, Rote Mare, etc.) is the driving force behind Adelaide’s Solemn Ceremony, and on Chapter III, he and lead guitarist Kieran Provis capture a rare spirit of raw 1980s doom with a glee that, thankfully, doesn’t undercut all the misery on display in the songs themselves. Howlett also plays guitar, bass and drums, and seems to have engineered at least part of the recording, and his vocals are a big part of what so much characterizes the doom Solemn Ceremony proffer. In his throatier moments, he has a push that reminds distinctively of Scott Reagers from Saint Vitus, and while the music is by no means limited to this influence — “Chapter III” is more morose emotionally and the uptempo movements of “The King of Slaves” and “Skull Smasher” clearly have broader tape collections — it is the rawer side of traditionalist doom that Howlett is harnessing, and since he wields it less like a precious thing than the anti-punk lifeblood it was at the time, it works. Doom from doom, by doom, for doom.
As was the case with their 2019 outing, No Light Ever (review here), Boston post-metallic instrumentalists Glacier make a priority of immersing the lister in the proceedings of their five-track/46-minute A Distant, Violent Shudder. Five years later, they continue to take some influence from Red Sparowes in terms of presentation and how the songs are titled, etc., but as the full crux of second cut “‘The Old Timers Said They’d Never Seen Nothin’ Like That'” comes forward at around three minutes in, Glacier are outright heavier, and they go on to prove it again and again as the album plays out. Fair enough. From “Grief Rolled in Like a Storm” to “Sand Bitten Lungs,” which seems to be making its way back to its start the whole time but ends up in an even heftier churning repetition, Glacier remain poised as they sculpt the pieces that comprise the record, the semi-title-track “Distant/Violent” doing much to build and tear down the world it makes. Heavy existentialism.
Like a reminder that the cosmos is both impossibly cold and hot enough to fuse hydrogen atoms, the third full-length from Finnish progressive blackened sludge rockers DÖ sets its own frame of reference in “Call of the Supervoid.” That lead cut doesn’t lay out everywhere Unversum goes throughout its contemplative eight songs and 45 minutes, but it does establish the tonal reach, the vocal rasp and the heft the trio foster throughout, so that by the time they’re nestled into the nodding second half of “Melting Gaze of the Origin,” en route to the explosive and suitably gravitational roll that would seem to begin side B in “Ode to the Dark Matter,” they’ve laid out the tenets by which Unversum operates and can proceed to add to that context. That they’re flexible enough to spend the early going of “Faster Than Light” in a psychedelic holding pattern should be seen as emblematic of their breadth on the whole, never mind the crush and seethe of “Nuclear Emperor” or “Moldy Moon,” but their extremity is tempered cleverly by their slower pacing, and that lets their individualized craft come across organically as Unversum carries the listener deeper into its expanse.
In 2022, when Raf Ruett (guitar, keys), Alex Nervo (bass, keys) and Neil Dawson (drums) were part of what might’ve been the final Obiat album, Indian Ocean (review here), it was an expansive, years-in-the-making culmination of that band’s time together, with recordings taking place across continents, guest vocals and arrangements for horns. As Ruett, Nervo and Dawson reemerge in Aeternal Chambers, there have clearly been a few aspects redirected. For starters, the band’s first four songs to be made public on their self-titled debut EP are instrumental, and so are able to breathe and develop differently. Each half of the 30-minute EP is comprised of a nine-minute and a six-minute track, and even the shorter ones clue the listener into the intense focus on ambience, hitting harder à la post-metal in “Drive Me to Ruin” but keeping a brighter tone in the lead guitar to contrast any sense of plunge, saving the biggest for last in “Glitch in the Mist.” More of this will do just fine, thanks.
From the non-cartoon butt on the front cover to quoting Lord of the Rings at the end of the album-intro “The Pact,” to catchy hooks throughout “Spells,” “Tungs” and the speedier “My Coven,” OmenBringer would seem to have a firm grasp on the audience demographic they’re aiming for, but there’s more happening in the tracks than plying the male gaze as the Nasheville four-piece make their self-released full-length debut. And that’s fortunate, because the record is 53 minutes long. I’m sorry, nobody needs to be putting out a 53-minute album in 2024 (I get it, first album, self-release, you might never get another chance; I’ve been there), but vocalist Molly Kent, guitarists Cory Cline (lead, also bass) and Spookie Rollings and drummer Tyler Boydstun mitigate this by making the late-arriving title-track an empowerment anthem — plus banjo? is that a banjo? — and fostering keyboardy drama in the hypnotic interlude “The Long Walk,” which follows. Ups and downs throughout, but a solid underpinning of metal gives the songs a foundation on which to build, and the penultimate “Stake” even hints at cinematic growth to come.
The declarative, 16-worthy sludge-metal chug of closer “Thera II (Embers of Descent)” is honestly worth the price of admission alone here, if you’re desperate for impetus, and Bristol’s Urzah bring the earlier “Of Decay” to a head like Amenra at their undulating finest, and The Scorching Gaze, which is the band’s first album, resounds with scope. Bolstered by guest vocal appearances by Eleanor Tinlin spread across opening duo “I, Empyrean” and “Lacrimare (Misery’s Shadow)” as well as the subdued “The Aesthetic” after the appropriately tumultuous “A Storm is Ever Approaching,” Urzah are able to foster aural textures that are about more than just the physicality of the music itself, correspondingly spacious and complex, but never lack immediacy, not the least for the post-hardcore shouts from guitarist Ed Fairman, who’s joined in the band by drummer James Brown, bassist Les Grodek and guitarist Tom McElveen. It doesn’t feel like Urzah‘s style is a settled issue — it’s their first LP; that’s not at all a dig on the band — and as the march of “Thera II (Embers of Descent)” gives way to its fade, one can only hope they stay so open-minded in their craft.
Whatever the narrative you want to put to Goat Generator‘s self-titled debut, whether you want to hone in on the cultish doom-prog boogie of “Black Magik,” the more modern synthy prog-psych of “Waving Around” and “Dreamt by the Sea,” the four-minute desert-rocking homage to wildlife in “Honey Badger” or the tambourine-inclusive spoken-word verses build of “Everyday Apocalypse Blues” or the way they take 11 minutes well spent to tie it all together in the subsequent closer “Far From Divine/Kingdom Gone” — whatever your angle of approach — there’s no getting around the story of the band being how much better they are than their name. The Leipzig-based four-piece offer songs varied in purpose and mood, speaking to genre from within and showcasing the vocals of Tag Hell without shortchanging the instrumental impact of Patrick Thiele‘s guitar, Martin Schubert‘s bass and Götz Götzelmann‘s drums, and they called it Goat Generator, which isn’t quite over-the-top enough to be righteously ridiculous as a moniker and reminds of nothing so much of the Stoner Rock Band Name Generator, feeling bland in a way that the music very much is not. It’s their first LP after a 2022 demo, and I’m not gonna sit here and tell a band to change their name, so I’ll tell you instead that if you’re put off by that kind of thing in this case, it’s to your own detriment to let it keep you from hearing the songs.
Rife with a languid pastoralism and threads of traditionalist folk guitar (not entirely acoustic), synth enough to make the procession that emerges behind the finishing “Candlelight Vigil” no more out of place than it wants to be in its casual, snap-along, out-for-a-walk vibe soon met with low end fuzz and a wash of keyboard melody, Head Shoppe‘s self-titled debut lets each of its six component pieces find its own way, and the result is a malleability that extends less to form — these are guitar and synth-based instrumental works of sometimes weighted psychedelia — than to the intangible nature of the creative spirit being manifest. I know nothing in terms of the process through which Head Shoppe‘s Eric Von Harding composes, but his style is able to incorporate field recordings that are emotionally evocative while also giving the otherwise sprawling “Saunders Meadow” the conceptualist ground above which it drifts. The also-eight-minute “Gracias a la Vida” uses cymbals and even manipulated voice to conjure memory before delving into flamenco stylizations, and is as much about the transition from one to the other as just what might’ve brought them together in the first place. An escape, maybe.
Posted in Reviews on October 7th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Oh hi, I didn’t see you there. Me? Oh, you know. Nothing much. Staring off a cliffside about to jump headfirst into a pool of 100 records. The usual.
I’m pretty sure this is the second time this year that a single Quarterly Review has needed to be two weeks long. It’s been a busy year, granted, but still. I keep waiting for the tide to ebb, but it hasn’t really at all. Older bands keep going, or a lot of them do, anyhow — or they come back — and new bands come up. But for all the war, famine, plague and strife and crisis and such, it’s a golden age.
But hey, don’t let me keep you. I’ve apparently been doing QRs since 2013, and I remember trying to find a way to squeeze together similar roundups before it. I have no insight to add about that, it’s just something I dug back to find out the other day and was surprised because 11 years of this kind of thing is a really long gosh darn time.
On that note, let’s go.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
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Agusa, Noir
The included bits of Swedish dialogue from the short film for which Agusa‘s Noir was written to serve as a soundtrack would probably ground the proceedings some if I spoke Swedish, admittedly. As it is, those voices become part of the dream world the Malmö-based otherwise-instrumentalist adventurers conjure across 15 at times wildly divergent pieces. In arrangement and resultant mood, from the ’70s piano sentimentality of “Ljusglimtar” to the darker church organ and flute workings of “Stad i mörker,” which is reprised as a dirge at the end, the tracks are evocative across a swath of atmospheres, and it’s not all drones or background noise. They get their rock in, and if you stick around for “Kalkbrottets hemlighet,” you get to have the extra pleasure of hearing the guitar eat the rest of the song. You could say that’s not a thing you care about hearing but I know it’d be a lie, so don’t bother. If you’ve hesitated to take on Agusa in the past because sometimes generally-longform instrumental progressive psychedelic heavy rock can be a lot when you’re trying to get to know it, consider Noir‘s shorter inclusions a decent entry point to the band. Each one is like a brief snippet serving as another demonstration of the kind of immersion they can bring to what they play.
With an assembled cast of singers that includes Mikko Kotamäki (Swallow the Sun), his Amorphis bandmates Tomi Koivusaari and Tomi Joutsen, Petri Eskelinen of Rapture, and Barren Earth bandmate Jón Aldará, and guests on lead guitar and a drummer from the underappreciated Mannhai, and Barren Earth‘s keyboardist sitting in for good measure, bassist Olli Pekka-Laine harnesses a spectacularly Finnish take on proggy death-psych metal for Octoploid‘s first long-player, Beyond the Aeons. The songs feel extrapolated from Amorphis circa Elegy, putting guttural vocals to folk inspired guitar twists and prog-rock grooves, but aren’t trying to be that at all, and as ferocious as it gets, there’s always some brighter element happening, something cosmic or folkish or on the title-track both, and Octoploid feels like an expression of creative freedom based on a vision of a kind of music Pekka-Laine wanted to hear. I want to hear it too.
The Obscure River Experiment, as a group collected together for the live performance from which The Ore has been culled, may or may not be a band. It is comprised of players from the sphere of Psychedelic Source Records, and so as members of River Flows Reverse, Obscure Supersession Collective, Los Tayos and others collaborate here in these four periodically scorching jams — looking at you, middle of “Soul’s Shiver Pt. 2” — it could be something that’ll happen again next week or next never. Not knowing is part of the fun, because as far out as something like The Obscure River Experiment might and in fact does go, there’s chemistry enough between all of these players to hold it together. “Soul Shiver Pt. 1” wakes up and introduces the band, “Pt. 2” blows it out for a while, “I See Horses” gets funky and then blows it out, and “The Moon in Flesh and Bone” feels immediately ceremonial with its sustained organ notes, but becomes a cosmic boogie ripper, complete with a welcome return of vocals. Was it all made up on the spot? Was it all a dream? Maybe both?
Way underhyped South Carolinian progressive heavy rockers Shun arrive at the sound of their second LP, Dismantle, able to conjure elements of The Cure and Katatonia alongside Cave In-style punk-born groove, but in Shun‘s case, the underlying foundation is noise rock, so when “Aviator” opens up to its hook or “NRNS” is suddenly careening pummel or “Drawing Names” half-times the drums to get bigger behind the forward/obvious-focal-point vocal melodies of Matt Whitehead (ex-Throttlerod), there’s reach and impact working in conjunction with a thoughtful songwriting process pushed forward from where on their 2021 self-titled debut (review here) but that still seems to be actively working to engage the listener. That’s not a complaint, mind you, especially since Dismantle succeeds to vividly in doing so, and continues to offer nuance and twists on the plot right up to the willful slog ending with (most of) “Interstellar.”
No Man’s Valley, Chrononaut Cocktail Bar/Flight of the Sloths
Whether it’s the brooding Nick Cave-style cabaret minimalism of “Creepoid Blues,” the ’60s psych of “Love” or the lush progressivism that emerges in “Seeing Things,” the hook of “Shapeshifter” or “Orange Juice” coming in with shaker at the end to keep things from finishing too melancholy, the first half of No Man’s Valley‘s Chrononaut Cocktail Bar/Flight of the Sloths still can only account for part of the scope as they set forth the pastoralist launch of the 18-minute “Flight of the Sloths” on side B, moving from acoustic strum and a repeating title line into a gradual build effective enough so that when Jasper Hesselink returns on vocals 13 minutes later in the spaced-out payoff — because yes, the sloths are flying between planets; was there any doubt? — it makes you want to believe the sloths are out there working hard to stay in the air. The real kicker? No Man’s Valley are no less considered in how they bring “Flight of the Sloths” up and down across its span than they are “Love” or “Shapeshifter” early on, both under three minutes long. And that’s what maturing as songwriters can do for you, though No Man’s Valley have always had a leg up in that regard.
Dallas’ Land Mammal defy expectation a few times over on their second full-length, with the songwriting of Will Weise and Kinsley August turning toward greater depth of arrangement and more meditative atmospheres across the nine songs/34 minutes of Emergence, which even in a rolling groove like “Divide” has room for flute and strings. Elsewhere, sitar and tanpura meet with lap steel and keyboard as Land Mammal search for an individual approach to modern progressive heavy. There’s some shades of Elder in August‘s approach on “I Am” or the earlier “Tear You Down,” but the instrumental contexts surrounding are wildly different, and Land Mammal thrive in the details, be it the hand-percussion and far-back fuzz colliding on “The Circle,” or the tabla and sitar, drums and keys as “Transcendence (Part I)” and “Transcendence (Part II)” finish, the latter with the sounds of getting out of the car and walking in the house for epilogue. Yeah, I guess after shifting the entire stylistic scope of your band you’d probably want to go inside and rest for a bit. Well earned.
Released through Majestic Mountain Records, the debut full-length from Forgotten King, The Seeker, would seem to have been composed and recorded entirely by Azul Josh Bisama, also guitarist in Kal-El, though a full lineup has since formed. That happens. Just means the second album will have a different dynamic than the first, and there are some parts as in the early cut “Lost” where that will be a benefit as Azul Josh refines the work laying out a largesse-minded, emotively-evocative approach on these six cuts, likewise weighted and soaring. The album is nothing if not aptly-named, though, as Forgotten King lumber through “Drag” and march across 10 minutes of stately atmospheric doom, eventually seeing the melodic vocals give way to harsher fare in the second half, what’s being sought seems to have been found at least on a conceptual level, and one might say the same of “Around the Corner” or “The Sun” taking familiar-leaning desert rock progressions and doing something decisively ‘else’ with them. Very much feels like the encouraging beginning of a longer exploration.
Branched off from drummer/synthesist Paul Williams‘ intermittent work over the decades with Quarkspace, the mostly-solo-project Church of Hed explores progressive, kraut and space rock in a way one expects far more from Denmark than Columbus, Ohio — to wit, Jonathan Segel (Øresund Space Collective, Camper Van Beethoven) guests on violin, bass and guitar at various points throughout the nine-tracker, which indeed is about an hour long at 57 minutes. Church of Hed‘s last outing, 2022’s The Father Road, was an audio travelogue crossing the United States from one coast to the other. The Fifth Hour is rarely so concerned with terrestrial impressionism, and especially in its longer-form pieces “Pleiades Waypoint” (13:50), “Son of a Silicon Rogue” (14:59) or “The Fifth Hour” (8:43), it digs into sci-fi prog impulses that even in the weird blips and robot twists of the interlude “Aniluminescence 2” or the misshapen techno in the closing semi-reprise “Bastard Son of The Fifth Hour” never quite feels as dystopian as some other futures in the multiverse, and that becomes a strength.
Like the Melvins on an AC/DC kick or what you might get if you took ’70s arena rock, put it in a can and shook it really, really hard, Italian duo Zolle are a burst of weirdo sensation on their fifth full-length, Rosa. The songs are ready for whatever football match stadium P.A. you might want to put them on — hugely, straight-ahead, uptempo, catchy, fun in pieces like “Pepe” and “Lana” at the outset, “Merda,” “Pompon,” “Confetto” and “Fiocco” later on, likewise huge and silly in “Pois” or closer “Maialini e Maialine,” and almost grounded on “Toffolette e Zuccherini” at the start but off and running again soon enough — if you can keep up with guitarist/vocalist Marcello and drummer Stefano, for sure they make it worth the effort, and capture some of the intensity of purpose they bring to the stage in the studio and at the same time highlighting the shenanigans writ large throughout in their riffs and the cheeky bit of pop grandiosity that’s such a toy in their hands. You would not call it light on persona.
Thicker in tone than much of modern black metal, and willing toward the organic in a way that feels born of Cascadia a little more to the northwest as they blast away in “Era of Ash,” Boise, Idaho’s Shadow and Claw nonetheless execute moody rippers across the five songs/41 minute of their debut, Whereabouts Unknown. Known for his work in Ealdor Bealu and the solo-project Sawtooth Monk, guitarist/vocalist Travis Abbott showcases a rasp worthy of Enslaved‘s Grutle Kjellson on the 10-minute “Wrath of Thunder,” so while there are wolves amid the trio’s better chairs, to be sure, Shadow and Claw aren’t necessarily working from any single influence in or out of char-prone extreme metals, and as the centerpiece gives over to the eponymous “Shadow and Claw,” those progressive aspirations are reaffirmed as Abbott, drummer/backing vocalist Aaron Bossart (also samples) and bassist/backing vocalist Geno Lopez find room for a running-water-backed acoustic epilogue to “Scouring the Plane of Existence” and the album as a whole. Easy to imagine them casting these songs into the sunset on the side of some pointy Rocky Mountain or other, shadows cast and claws raised.
Posted in Questionnaire on July 2nd, 2024 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: Olli-Pekka Laine of Octoploid, Amorphis, Barren Earth, and More
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How do you define what you do, and how did you come to do it?
With Octoploid, I mainly try to express myself during this period of my life. I also try to do a bit of experimentation. Why I did it is that I’ve had it in my mind for a long time already, and now I had the time, resources, and skills to do it.
Describe your first musical memory.
It must be a Finnish tango singer from the ’50s called Olavi Virta, whom my mother used to listen to. He is hands down the best singer from Finland of all time.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Lenny Kravitz at Hamburg’s Grosse Freiheit in 1995 was a pretty rad show.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
In 1997, when I read Peter Singer’s book “Animal Liberation.”
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
It depends on the artist. For some, it could be, for example, technical perfection. For me, it is total honesty and authenticity.
How do you define success?
Being able to do what you want in your life. Looking forward to that, ha ha!
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
We lived in a seedy neighborhood when I was a kid, and I saw a lot of violence. Also, in the ’90s, we visited a slaughterhouse and saw animals having their throats slit and being thrown into boiling water.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I would like to come up with a non-metal album with psychedelic prog rock and southern rock influences. But it should happen naturally, not forced.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Art provides an opportunity for self-expression. On the other hand, its function is to entertain and alleviate boredom.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Someday, I’d just like to chill on the beach, hike in nature, and avoid music in all its forms. Even for a couple of weeks, huh!
as the dug-in shuffle of “Better Days” reaffirms, going to ground from some of the more soaring aspects of “Electrify” or the megahook of “Facekicker,” but there remains swagger in bulk in the bassy second half. Her Name Was Fire keep hold of their momentum and guide it masterfully, and their material resonates a band-on-stage energy without giving up their depth of arrangement. This isn’t sitting-in-your-room-writing-poetry-to-yourself. It’s songs written to be performed for an audience, meant to commune with and engage that audience. Obsidian Light isn’t stylistically revolutionary, but neither is it easily pigeonholed, and the shove it fosters is its own.
