This Friday, Dec. 15, Italian trio Warcoe will release their second full-length, A Place for Demons, through Regain Records imprint Helter Skelter Productions, with tapes on Morbid and Miserable Records. As with their likewise willfully barebones 2022 debut, The Giant’s Dream (review here), the new eight-songer brings a grim and metallic spirit, but it’s more metal-of-eld than anything modern, and they grow more doomed as they progress through the album’s second half, but there’s punk, classic heavy rock, and even some more extreme elements at play, though admittedly that’s mostly in the atmosphere.

But even a hooky post-grunge rocker like “Ishkur,” which opens side B, the heft of their tonality comes through, as well as the space for lead guitar near the halfway point there, and a production that’s clear but not clean across the span bolsters the underground feel. Obscurity becomes a character in the material.

The album opens with its tone-setting title-track, a clarion of guitar going out soon joined by drums, then bass as Warcoe rise toward the snare snap into the first verse. Vocalist Stefano Fiorelli makes his presence felt in double-tracked layers with instrumental stomp to complement, and they shift into and through a nodding change before a quick guitar lead signals the return to the verse.

As with many of the lyrics on A Place for Demons, the title-track tells a story, and by the time its four minutes are done, Warcoe have pushed the thickened procession to a point of genuine momentum, and feedback leads into the Sabbath galloper “Pyramid of Despair” (premiered here), which follows and unfolds quicker into its riff-fueled counterpoint, Fiorelli, bassist Carlo and drummer Francesco seeming to enjoy the bounce as they course through the second chorus around the three-minute mark ahead of a raucous finish and a stretch of silence before the start of “Rune Dweller.”

At just over three minutes long, the acoustic guitar instrumental piece “Rune Dweller” is more than an interlude while still departed from the band’s ‘regular’ methodology as demonstrated across the first two tracks, but its finger-plucked movement is easy to follow and rhythmically, it holds onto the tension the band amassed through “A Place for Demons” and “Pyramid of Despair.” One is reminded of something that might’ve been found on one of earlier Metallica‘s outings, pulling back from the pummel — or in this case, the riffery — to give listeners a breather and demonstrate a more classical influence.

When side A closer “Leaves” crashes in directly after, it seems to hit that much harder, but nestles into a verse made anxious by the tremolo lead guitar running alongside the central swing, which holds for the duration and is a rocker’s rocker, where side B’s first impression is doomier with “Ishkur,” which takes a darker tonal turn while staying comfortably uptempo. But the march has begun and the trajectory is set. If you believe in fatalism, then we’re all doomed.

Shades of Saint Vitus show up in “Boys Become Kings” but more at the outset of the penultimate “Wounds Too Deep to Heal,” and while each is thicker than it is slow — call it “doom rock” while emphasizing both words — the mood dims in “Ishkur” and “Boys Become Kings” as the trio set up the second half of A Place for Demons as a movement growing more and more doomed with each plod. “Wounds Too Deep to Heal” is so deep into the Vitus aspect that it’s punk rock — that’s fandom — and it also boasts perhaps the hookiest impression of the record with Fiorelli‘s delivery of the title lyric in the chorus. But at 3:44, “Wounds Too Deep to Heal” is the shortest song on A Place for Demons–, and it leaves a spot for the only natural place it could go to end and keep its acceleration into doom: Black Sabbath.

It’s not a cover, but it doesn’t feel out of line to cite Black Sabbath‘s “Black Sabbath” as a primary influence on Warcoe‘s “Buio,” which brings the slowdown that seems to have been held in reserve all along as the band has played back and forth in pacing. It doesn’t drop out in the verse, and if you’re waiting for an Ozzy-ish “What is this…,” well, I have no doubt that Fiorelli would nail it, but the nine-minute closer is instrumental, so really, they’re plunging to the heart of the thing in the riff itself. Considering the ethic they’ve proffered throughout of sticking to their roots, “Buio” makes an organic landing spot for A Place for Demons, and says a lot about who Warcoe are and where they’re coming from in a way that another cut — even one with vocals — might not have been able to do.

There is something intangible about this band. I can’t quite put my finger on it, and I like that. I don’t know if it’s a dirtied-up NWOBHM influence, or black metal, or crust punk, but they’ve got this blend of styles that is its own cohesive thing — see “doom rock,” above — but that is malleable in speed and its mix, and able to shift moods fluidly. I feel a strong compulsion to repeat the word “obscure” that I’m not going to ignore. Maybe they play “obscure doom rock.” And on the off chance someone in the band likes Emperor, I’ll add “exclusively” to that.

But, although when taken as a whole, A Place for Demons isn’t overly aggressive, it sounds like it thinks of itself as metal, and maybe that’s the difference. Whatever tag you might apply — I’ve been through a few — they have become more themselves in this material, and that only makes Warcoe a stronger band, now and moving forward.

You’ll find A Place for Demons streaming in its entirety on the player below, followed by more info from the PR wire.

Listen actively, and please enjoy:

HELTER SKELTER PRODUCTIONS (distributed & marketed by REGAIN RECORDS) is proud to present WARCOE’s highly anticipated second album, A Place for Demons, on CD and vinyl LP formats.

WARCO are a power-trio hailing from Italy, that land rich in doomed materials. Naturally, WARCOE honor their national identity with a ’70s-entrenched vision of pure DOOM METAL as first laid out by Ozzy-era Black Sabbath. In fact, in vocalist/guitarist Stefano Fiorelli, you will not find a more uncanny Ozzy doppelganger.

WARCOE began their journey in 2021, first with a couple digital singles and then an EP, all of which coalesced into their debut album, The Giant’s Dream. Likewise released digitally, The Giant’s Dream was also self-released on CDR and tape in true DIY fashion. So smitten with these authentically vintage vibes, HELTER SKELTER released The Giant’s Dream on CD and vinyl right before the summer, with hopes of spreading the WARCOE name far and wide.

Wasting no time – and, indeed, sure to spread that name further and wider – WARCOE return with their second full-length, A Place for Demons. Aptly titled, A Place for Demons is prime olde-world DOOM, steeped in Sabbathian tones and proto-metal vibes. Much like they did on its full-length predecessor, the power-trio manage to massage new sensations from that eternal archetype whilst staying reverent; if anything, there’s a pronounced swagger to A Place for Demons that suggests star-power in the making.

So, take WARCOE’s hand and enter A Place for Demons: your “new” old-doom trip continues here!

Music and lyrics by Stefano
Warcoe logo by Federico Pazzi Andreoli
Cover art by Shane Horror
Recorded at Avangarage Recording Studio in 2023
Mastered by Craig Thomas (Preyer, UK)

Lineup:
Stefano Fiorelli – guitars and vocals
Carlo – bass
Francesco – drums

Warcoe on Facebook

Warcoe on Instagram

Warcoe on Bandcamp

Helter Skelter Productions on Facebook

Helter Skelter Productions on Instagram

Helter Skelter Productions website

Regain Records on Bandcamp

Morbid and Miserable Records on Facebook

Morbid and Miserable Records on Instagram

Morbid and Miserable Records on Bandcamp

We roll on in this new-year-smelling 2023 with day two of the Quarterly Review. Yesterday was pretty easy, but the first day almost always is. Usually by Thursday I’m feeling it. Or the second Tuesday. It varies. In any case, as you know, this QR is a double, which means it’s going to include 100 albums total, written about between yesterday and next Friday. Ton of stuff, and most of it is 2022, but generally later in the year, so at least I’m only a couple months behind your no doubt on-the-ball listening schedule.

Look. I can’t pretend to keep up with a Spotify algorithm, I’m sorry. I do my best, but that’s essentially a program to throw bands in your face (while selling your data and not paying artists). My hope is that being able to offer a bit of context when I throw 100 bands in your face is enough of a difference to help you find something you dig. Some semblance of curation. Maybe I’m flattering myself. I’m pretty sure Spotify can inflate its own ego now too.

Winter 2023 Quarterly Review #11-20:

Antimatter, A Profusion of Thought

Project founder, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Mick Moss isn’t through opener “No Contact” — one of the 10 inclusions on Antimatter‘s 54-minute eighth LP, A Profusion of Thought — before he readily demonstrates he can carry the entire album himself if need be. Irish Cuyos offers vocals on the subsequent “Paranoid Carbon” and Liam Edwards plays live drums where applicable, but with a realigned focus on programmed elements, his own voice the constant that surrounds various changes in mood and purpose, and stretches of insularity even on the full-band-sounding “Fools Gold” later on, the self-released outing comes across as more inward than the bulk of 2018’s Black Market Enlightenment, though elements like the acoustic-led approach of “Breaking the Machine,” well-produced flourishes of layering and an almost progressive-goth (proggoth?) atmosphere carry over. “Redshift” balances these sides well, as does fold before it, and “Templates” before that, and “Fools Gold” after, as Antimatter thankfully continues to exist in a place of its own between melancholic heavy, synthesized singer-songwriterism and darker, doom-born-but-not-doom metal, all of which seem to be summarized in the closing salvo of “Entheogen,” “Breaking the Machine” and “Kick the Dog.” Moss is a master of his craft long-established, and a period of isolation has perhaps led to some of the shifting balance here, but neither the album nor its songs are done a disservice by that.

Antimatter on Facebook

Antimatter on Bandcamp

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Mick’s Jaguar, Salvation

There was a point, maybe 15 years ago now give or take, when at least Manhattan and Brooklyn in New York City were awash in semi-retro, jangly-but-rough-edged-to-varying-degrees rock and roll bands. Some sounded like Joan Jett, some sounded like the Ramones, or The Strokes or whoever. On Salvation, their second LP, Mick’s Jaguar bring some chunky Judas Priest riffing, no shortage of attitude, and as the five-piece — they were six on 2018’s Fame and Fortune (review here) — rip into a proto-shredder like “Speed Dealer,” worship Thin Lizzy open string riffing on “Nothing to Lose” or bask in what would be sleaze were it not for the pandemic making any “Skin Contact” at all a serotonin spike, they effectively hop onto either side of the line where rock meets heavy. Also the longest track at 4:54, “Molotov Children” is a ’70s-burly highlight, and “Handshake Deals” is an early-arriving hook that seems to make everything after it all the more welcome. “Man Down” and “Free on the Street” likewise push their choruses toward anthemic barroom sing-alongs, and while I’m not sure those bars haven’t been priced out of the market and turned into unoccupied investment luxury condos by now, rock and roll’s been declared dead in New York at least 100,000 times and it obviously isn’t, so there.

Mick’s Jaguar on Facebook

Tee Pee Records store

Totem Cat Records store

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Sammal, Aika laulaa

Long live Finnish weird. More vintage in their mindset than overall presentation, Sammal return via the ever-reliable Svart Records with Aika Laulaa, the follow-up to 2018’s Suuliekki (review here) and their fourth album total, with eight songs and 43 minutes that swap languages lyrically between Finnish, Swedish and English as fluidly as they take progressive retroism and proto-metal to a place of their own that is neither, both, and more. From the languid lead guitar in “Returning Rivers” to the extended side-enders “On Aika Laulaa” with its pastoralized textures and “Katse Vuotaa” with its heavy blues foundation, willfully brash surge, and long fade, the band gracefully skip rocks across aesthetic waters, opening playful and Scandi-folk-derived on “På knivan” before going full fuzz in “Sehr Kryptisch,” turning the three-minute meander of “Jos ei pelaa” into a tonal highlight and resolving the instrumental “(Lamda)” (sorry, the character won’t show up) with a jammy soundscape that at least sounds like it’s filled out by organ if it isn’t. A band who can go wherever they want and just might actually dare to do so, Sammal reinforce the notion of their perpetual growth and Aika laulaa is a win on paper for that almost as much as for the piano notes cutting through the distortion on “Grym maskin.” Almost.

Sammal on Facebook

Svart Records store

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Cassius King, Dread the Dawn

Former Hades guitarist Dan Lorenzo continues a personal riffy renaissance with Cassius King‘s Dread the Dawn, one of several current outlets among Vessel of Light and Patriarchs in Black. On Dread the Dawn, the New Jersey-based Lorenzo, bassist Jimmy Schulman (ex-Attacker) and drummer Ron Lipnicki (ex-Overkill) — the rhythm section also carried over from Vessel of Light — and vocalist Jason McMaster offer 11 songs and 49 minutes of resoundingly oldschool heavy, Dio Sabbath-doomed rock. Individual tracks vary in intent, but some of the faster moments on “Royal Blooded” or even the galloping opener “Abandon Paradise” remind of Candlemass tonally and even rockers like “How the West Was Won,” “Bad Man Down” and “Back From the Dead” hold an undercurrent of classic metal, never mind the creeper riff of the title-track or its eight-minute companion-piece, the suitably swinging “Doomsday.” Capping with a bonus take on Judas Priest‘s “Troubleshooter,” Dread the Dawn has long since by then gotten its point across but never failed to deliver in either songwriting or performance. They strut, and earn it.

Cassius King on Facebook

MDD Records store

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Seven Rivers of Fire, Way of the Pilgrim

Issued on tape through UK imprint Dub Cthonic, the four-extended-tracker Way of the Pilgrim is the second 2022 full-length from South African solo folk experimentalist Seven Rivers of Fire — aka William Randles — behind September’s Sanctuary (review here) and March’s Star Rise, and its mostly acoustic-based explorations are as immersive and hypnotic as ever as the journey from movement to movement in “They are Calling // Exodus” (11:16) sets up processions through the drone-minded “Awaken // The Passenger” (11:58), “From the Depths // Into the Woods” (12:00) and “Ascend // The Fall” (11:56), Randles continuing to dig into his own particular wavelength and daring to include some chanting and other vocalizations in the opener and “From the Depths // Into the Woods” and the piano-laced finale. Each piece has an aural theme of its own and sets out from there, feeling its way forward with what feels like a genuinely unplanned course. Way of the Pilgrim isn’t going to be for everybody, as with all of Seven Rivers of Fire‘s output, but those who can tune to its frequencies are going to find its resonance continual.

Seven Rivers of Fire on Facebook

Dub Cthonic on Bandcamp

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Amon Acid, Cosmogony

Leeds-based psychedelic doomers Amon Acid channel the grimmer reaches of the cosmic — and a bit of Cathedral in “Hyperion” — on their fifth full-length in four years, second of 2022, Cosmogony. The core duo of guitarist/vocalist/synthesist Sarantis Charvas and bassist/cellist Briony Charvas — joined on this nine-tracker by the singly-named Smith on drums — harness stately space presence and meditative vibes on “Death on the Altar,” the guitar ringing out vague Easternisms while the salvo that started with “Parallel Realm” seems only to plunge further and further into the lysergic unknown. Following the consuming culmination of “Demolition Wave” and the dissipation of the residual swirl there, the band embark on a series of shorter cuts with “Nag Hammandi,” the riff-roller “Mandragoras,” the gloriously-weird-but-still-somehow-accessible “Demon Rider” and the this-is-our-religion “Ethereal Mother” before the massive buildup of “The Purifier” begins, running 11 minutes, which isn’t that much longer than the likes of “Parallel Realm” or “Death on the Altar,” but rounds out the 63-minute procession with due galaxial churn just the same. Plodding and spacious, I can’t help but feel like if Amon Acid had a purposefully-dumber name they’d be more popular, but in the far, far out where they reside, these things matter less when there are dimensions to be warped.

Amon Acid on Facebook

Helter Skelter Productions website

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Iron & Stone, Mountains and Waters

The original plan from Germany’s Iron & Stone was that the four-song Mountains and Waters was going to be the first in a sequence of three EP releases. As it was recorded in Fall 2020 — a time, if you’ll recall, when any number of plans were shot to hell — and only released this past June, I don’t know if the band are still planning to follow it with another two short offerings or not, but for the bass in “Loose the Day” alone, never mind the well-crafted heavy fuzz rock that surrounds on all sides, I’m glad they finally got this one out. Opener “Cosmic Eye” is catchy and comfortable in its tempo, and “Loose the Day” answers with fuzz a-plenty while “Vultures” metes out swing and chug en route to an airy final wash that immediately bleeds into “Unbroken,” which is somewhat more raucous and urgent of riff, but still has room for a break before its and the EP’s final push. Iron & Stone are proven in my mind when it comes to heavy rock songwriting, and they seem to prefer short releases to full-lengths — arguments to be made on either side, as ever — but whether or not it’s the beginning of a series, Mountains and Waters reaffirms the band’s strengths, pushes their craft to the forefront, and celebrates genre even as it inhabits it. There’s nothing more one might ask.

Iron & Stone on Facebook

Iron & Stone on Bandcamp

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DR​Ö​Ö​G, DR​Ö​Ö​G

To be sure, there shades of are discernible influences in DR​Ö​Ö​G‘s self-titled Majestic Mountain Records first long-player, from fellow Swedes Graveyard, Greenleaf, maybe even some of earlier Abramis Brama‘s ’70s vibes, but these are only shades. Thus it is immediately refreshing how unwilling the self-recording core duo of Magnus Vestling and Daniel Engberg are to follow the rules of style, pushing the drums far back into the mix and giving the entire recording a kind of far-off feel, their classic and almost hypnotic, quintessentially Swedish (and in Swedish, lyrically-speaking) heavy blues offered with hints of psychedelic flourish and ready emergence. The way “Stormhatt” seems to rise in the space of its own making. The fuller fuzz of “Blodörn.” The subtle tension of the riff in the second half of “Nattfjärilar.” In songs mostly between six and about eight minutes long, DR​Ö​Ö​G distinguish themselves in tone — bass and hard-strummed guitar out front in “Hamnskiftaren” along with the vocals — and melody, creating an earthy atmosphere that has elements of svensk folkmusik without sounding like a caricature of that or anything else. They’ve got me rewriting my list of 2022’s best debut albums, and already looking forward to how they grow this sound going on from here.

DR​Ö​Ö​G on Facebook

Majestic Mountain Records store

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Grales, Remember the Earth but Never Come Back

Rare is a record so thoroughly screamed that is also so enhanced by its lyrics. Hello, Remember the Earth but Never Come Back. Based in Montreal — home to any number of disaffected sludgy noisemakers — Grales turn apocalyptic dystopian visions into poetry on the likes of “All Things are Temporary,” and anti-capitalist screed on “From Sea to Empty Sea” and “Wretched and Low,” tying together anthropocene planet death with the drive of human greed in concise, sharp, and duly harsh fashion. Laced with noise, sludged to the gills it’s fortunate enough to have so it can breathe in the rising ocean waters, and pointed in its lurch, the five-song/43-minute outing takes the directionless fuckall of so many practitioners of its genre and sets itself apart by knowing and naming exactly what it’s mad about. It’s mad about wage theft, climate change, the hopelessness that surrounds most while a miserly few continue to rape and pillage what should belong to everybody. The question asked in “Agony” answers itself: “What is the world without our misery? We’ll never know.” With this perspective in mind and a hint of melody in the finale “Sic Transit Mundus,” Grales offer a two-sided tape through From the Urn Records that is gripping in its onslaught and stirring despite its outward misanthropy. It’s not that they don’t care; it’s that they want you to pick up a molotov cocktail and toss it at your nearest corporate headquarters. Call it relatable.

Grales on Facebook

From the Urn Records on Bandcamp

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Half Gramme of Soma, Slip Through the Cracks

Energetic in its delivery and semi-progressive in its intentions, Half Gramme of Soma‘s second album, Slip Through the Cracks, arrives with the backing of Sound of Liberation Records, the label wing of one of Europe’s lead booking agencies for heavy rock. Not a minor endorsement, but it’s plain to hear in the eight-song/42-minute course the individualism and solidified craft that prompted the pickup: Half Gramme of Soma know what they’re doing, period. Working with producer George Leodis (1000mods, Godsleep, Last Rizla, etc.) in their native Athens, they’ve honed a sound that reaches deeper than the deceptively short runtimes of tracks like “Voyager” and “Sirens” or “Wounds” might lead you to believe, and the blend of patience and intensity on finale-and-longest-song “22:22” (actually 7:36) highlights their potential in both its languid overarching groove and the later guitar solos that cut through it en route to that long fade, without sacrificing the present for the sake of the future. That is, whatever Half Gramme of Soma might do on their third record, Slip Through the Cracks shouldn’t. Even in fest-ready riffers “High Heels” and “Mind Game,” they bleed personality and purpose.

Half Gramme of Soma on Facebook

Sound of Liberation Records store

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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.

Buddha Sentenza on Facebook

Pink Tank Records store

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Magma Haze, Magma Haze

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.

Magma Haze on Facebook

Sound Effect Records store

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Future Projektor, The Kybalion

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.

Future Projektor on Facebook

Future Projektor on Bandcamp

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Grin, Phantom Knocks

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.

Grin on Facebook

The Lasting Dose Records on Bandcamp

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Teverts, The Lifeblood

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.

Teverts on Facebook

Karma Conspiracy Records store

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Ggu:ll, Ex Est

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.

Ggu:ll on Facebook

Consouling Sounds store

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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.

Fulanno on Facebook

The Crooked Whispers on Facebook

Helter Skelter Productions site

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Mister Earthbound, Shadow Work

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.

Mister Earthbound on Facebook

Mister Earthbound on Bandcamp

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Castle Rat, Feed the Dream

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.

Castle Rat on Instagram

Castle Rat on Bandcamp

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Mountains, Tides End

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.

Mountains on Facebook

Mountains on Bandcamp

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When we’re keying down after an invariably long day at my house and it’s getting close to The Pecan’s bedtime, we often watch a “bonus-extra” video. Sometimes it’s “Yellow Submarine,” sometimes a Peep and the Big Wide World on YouTube, whatever. Point is, think of today like a bonus-extra for the Quarterly Review after last week. Sometimes we do an extra-bonus-extra too. That will not be happening here.

So, we wrap up today with this bonus-extra batch of 10 records, and yes, as always, I took it easy on myself in backloading the last day of the QR with stuff I knew I’d dig. It’s called self-care, people. I practice it in my own way, usually incorrectly. Nonetheless, here’s 10 more records and thanks for tuning in to the Quarterly Review if you did. Next one is probably early July.

Quarterly Review #51-60:

Crowbar, Zero and Below

Six years after The Serpent Only Lies (review here), New Orleans sludge metal progenitors Crowbar deliver Zero and Below, a dutiful 10-song and 42-minute collection that emphasizes the strength of the current lineup of the band. It should go without saying that more than 30 years on from Crowbar‘s founding, guitarist/vocalist Kirk Windstein knows exactly what he wants the band to be and how to manifest that in the studio and live, and he does that here. The real question is whether “The Fear that Binds You” or maybe even the later “Bleeding From Every Hole” will make it into the touring set, but those are just two of the candidates on a record that feels like it was expressly written for Crowbar fans with a suitably masterful hand, which of course it was. There’s only one Crowbar. Treasure them while you can. And hell’s bells, go see them on stage if you never have. Buy a shirt.

Crowbar on Facebook

MNRK Heavy website

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Eric Wagner, In the Lonely Light of Mourning

Joined by a litany of musicians and friends he at one point or another called bandmates in Blackfinger and Trouble, as well as Victor Griffin of Pentagram, Place of Skulls, etc., for a lead guitar spot, Eric Wagner‘s solo album, In the Lonely Light of Mourning, takes on an all-the-more-sorrowful context with Wagner‘s untimely death last year. And in many ways, the underlying message of In the Lonely Light of Mourning is the same message that Wagner‘s participation in The Skull for the better part of the last decade reinforced: he still had more to offer. He still had that voice, he still knew who he was as a singer and a songwriter. He still loved The Beatles and Black Sabbath and he was still one of the best frontmen after to do the job for a doom band. I don’t know what kind of archive exists of recordings he may have done before his death, but if In the Lonely Light of Mourning is the last release to bear his name, could there be a better note to close on than “Wish You Well” here?

Eric Wagner on Bandcamp

Cruz Del Sur Music website

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Ode and Elegy, Ode and Elegy

Recorded and seemingly layered together over a period of years between 2016 and 2020, Ode and Elegy‘s self-titled debut features only its 55-minute eponymous/title-track, and that’s more album conceptually and personnel-wise than most albums are anyway. There are guitar, bass, drums and vocals, and those recordings began in 2016 (vocals were done in 2018), but also a string quartet (recorded in Minneapolis, 2017), a brass section and full choir (recorded in Sofia, Bulgaria, 2020), flute (recorded in London, 2020) and harp (recorded in Manchester, UK, 2020). What the Parma, NY-based outfit make of all this is an organic, neoclassical and folk-informed complexity worthy of headphones for its texture and encompassing in both its heaviest and its most sweeping sections. There’s a vision at work across this span, and from the Behemoth-esque grandiosity of the horns about 33 minutes in to the final payoff and bookending subdued melody, the execution is no less impressive than the scope behind it. The years of effort in making it were not wasted. But how on earth do you write a follow-up for a debut like this?

Ode and Elegy on Instagram

Ode and Elegy website

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Burn the Sun, Le Roi Soleil

The thing about the jazzy break in the middle of second cut “A Fist for Crows” (as opposed to a feast?) is that it’s not at all out of place with the lumbering-but-moving heavy noise-rock-toned riffing or the big melodies that surround on Burn the Sun‘s first LP, Le Roi Soleil. After the relatively straightforward opener “Wolves Among Us,” it’s the beginning of the Athenian rockers showcasing their multi-tiered ambitions. “Fool’s Gold” is a short melodic heavy punk rocker, and those elements pop up again throughout, but “Severance” oozes into Deftones-y melody on vocals early and drifts out in psychedelia for much of its second half build, and there’s post-metal to be found in 12-minute closer “Torch the Skies,” but with ambient interludes in “Crawling Flame” and “The Calm Before,” even that’s not accounting for the whole breadth of the nine included pieces. Much to the band’s credit, they pull off their abrupt turns like that in “A Fist for Crows” and the later highlight “Tidal Waves,” while also keeping more charging aggression in their back pocket for the penultimate “Siren’s Call.” Some sorting out to do, but there’s a strong sense of identity in the songwriting.

Burn the Sun on Facebook

Burn the Sun on Bandcamp

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Amon Acid, Demon Rider

A two-songer being offered up as a 7″ sacrifice presumably to the antigods of riffy lysergic doom, while, yes, also heralding the Leeds trio’s forthcoming second LP, Cosmology, Amon Acid‘s Demon Rider may be a bite-size slab, but it’s a slab nonetheless of tripped out doom, drawing on Cathedral in the title-track and bringing some of Orange Goblin’s burl to the still-spacious and freaked “Incredible Melting Man” in a whopping 3:43, as the founding UK-via-Greece duo of Sarantis Charvas (guitar, synth, vocals) and Briony Charvas (bass, synth) — as well as singly-named drummer Smith — follow-up their 2020 debut, Paradigm Shift, with a fuller and more realized shove. The synth does more work in their sound than it first seems, and together with the echoing vocals, it brings “Demon Rider” to a darkly psychedelic place. If that’s where Cosmology is headed as well, I guess it’s time to get on your possessed motorcycle and ride it into interstellar oblivion. You knew this day would come. Come on now. Off you go.

Amon Acid on Facebook

Helter Skelter Productions website

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Mucho Mungo, Moth Bath

Those ever-reliable climbers of Weird Mountain at Forbidden Place Records snagged Mucho Mungo‘s gem of a 2020 debut EP, and with an extra track added, made a first full-length from Moth Bath that shimmers like a reinvented moment where classic prog and garage rock met. For a record that opens with a song called “Bear Attack,” the Madrid three-piece of guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Marco González, bassist/vocalist Adrien Elbaz and drummer/vocalist/keyboardist Santiago Aguilera take a wholly unaggressive approach, digging into psychedelia only so much as it suits their movement-based purpose. That is to say, “Sandworm I” boogies down, and even though “Sandworm II” is comparatively mellow, there’s a space rock shuffle happening beneath those echoing space-out vocals. “Pocket Rocket” devolves in its sub-four-minute stretch but features some choice drumming and Galaga-esque keyboard sounds for atmosphere, while “Blue Nectar” captures a brighter jamminess and “The Moth” signals more cosmic intentions for what’s to come. Sign me up. Familiar sounds that don’t quite sound like anything else.

Mucho Mungo on Facebook

Forbidden Place Records website

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Sum of R, Lahbryce

Bringing Swiss duo Sum of R into the realm of Finland’s weirdo-brilliant Waste of Space — Dark Buddha Rising, Atomikylä, Dust Mountain, a handful of other associated acts — by having founder Reto Mäder add vocalist Marko Neuman and drummer Jukka Rämänen from Dark Buddha Rising was not going to make Lahbryce any less devastating. And sure enough, “Sink as I” unfolds with a genuine sense of immersion-toward-drowning that the vague ambience of “Crown of Diseased” and the no-less-airy-for-being-crushing “Borderline” immediately expand. For its eight songs and 54 minutes, what was a tailor-made Roadburn lineup push deeper. Deeper than Sum of R‘s 2017 debut, Orga (review here), and deeper than many consciousnesses will want to go. The instrumental “The Problem” is actually less challenging, but “Hymn for the Formless” makes short work of the tropes of European post-metal while “Shimmering Sand” and the noise-laden “144th” once more spread out in terms of ambience, and closer “Lust” finally swallows us all and we die. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer species, and what a way to go.

Sum of R on Facebook

Consouling Sounds store

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Albatross Overdrive, Eye See Red

Albatross Overdrive‘s third full-length, Eye See Red, opens with a hearty invitation to “Get Fucked,” and that is but the first of a slew of catchy, hard-edged, punk-informed heavy rock kissoffs. “Eye See Red” is duly frustrated as well, but as “Coming Down” suitably mellows out and “Been to Space” redirects the energy behind the earlier cuts’ delivery, there’s a feeling of the palette broadening on the part of the California-based five-piece, leading to the centerpiece “Bring Love,” the chorus of which sounds aspirational in light of the leadoff, and “Sagittarius” and “Fuente del Fuego” skirt the line between classic punk and biker rock, Albatross Overdrive continue the gritty and brash style of 2019’s Ascendant (review here) but find new reaches to explore. To wit, the nine-minute closer “Shattered” here reaches farther into melody and instrumental dynamic, bringing the different sides together in a way that’s genuinely new for the band while still having their core of songcraft underneath. They’ve well established themselves as a nothin’-too-fancy heavy rock act, but that doesn’t seem to be an aversion to forward progression either. Best of both worlds, then.

Albatross Overdrive on Facebook

Albatross Overdrive on Bandcamp

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Guided Meditation Doomjazz, Summer Let Me Down

To a certain extent, what you see is what you get with Guided Meditation Doomjazz. The Austin-based outfit led by six-string bassist J. Blaise Gans aka Blaise the Seeker conjure a half-hour session, recorded mostly if not entirely live, with a direct intention toward high-order chill and musical adventuring. Across “Warm Me Up,” “Summer,” “Let Me,” “Down” and “It’s Winter Again,” the band — working as the trio of Gans, Greg Perlman and drummer Mathew Doeckel — are fully switched-on and exploratory, and the pieces carved from their jams are hypnotic and engaging. A check-in from a prolific outfit, but with the backing of The Swamp Records, Summer Let Me Down comes across as something of a moment’s realization, placing the listener in the room — all the more with the photography included in the download — with the band as the music happens. Immersion, trance, digging in, vibing, all that stuff applies, but it’s the hiccups and the letting-them-go that feel even more instructive. If you can remember to breathe, it’s just crazy enough to work. Made to be heard more than once, and serves that well.

Guided Meditation Doomjazz on Instagram

The Swamp Records on Bandcamp

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Darsombra, Fill Up the Glass

Everybody’s favorite drone freaks Darsombra — who just might play your house if you pay them, feed them, allow them enough electricity and/or maybe sex them up a little — released the 7:50 single “Fill Up the Glass” on the last Bandcamp Friday as a 24-hours-only offering that was there and gone before I could even grab the cover art to go with it. Rife with spacey, spicy sounds, their interweaving of synth and guitar sounds improvised if it isn’t, rumbling and oozing at the start and drifting joyously into the cosmos over its stretch. No clue whether the song will show up on their next album — as ever, Darsombra are on to the next thing, which is a tour that begins at Grim Reefer Fest in Baltimore and some kind of special offering, presumably a video, for April 20 — but like all their work, “Fill Up the Glass” is evocative and a revelry in creative spirit, and if seeing this gets you on board with checking out any of their more recent work, then I’ll consider it a win regardless of this song’s availability over the longer term. But it is a cool track.

Darsombra Linktree

Darsombra store

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Good band, good record, following on from prior reissues. It’s pretty easy to get on board with what Fulanno and Helter Skelter Productions have going, the cult-minded imprint of Regain Records having collaborated previously on a reissue for 2016’s Hash Negro en las Misas Funebres last year. Nadie Está a Salvo del Mal (review here). That leaves just 2018’s Velas Negras unaccounted for, but somehow I doubt that will remain the case for very long, and it’s worth noting that while broader distribution for these two-so-far records is certainly welcome, the Argentina-based outfit are also due a new album sometime soon.

But yeah, cool record. If you don’t own it — and I know you do, because you’re way cool and whatnot — the vinyl’s due back in July.

As per the PR wire:

FULANNO to have third album released worldwide via HELTER SKELTER – new video revealed

Today, Helter Skelter Productions (distributed & marketed by Regain Records) announces February 18th as the international release date for Fulanno’s cult third album, Nadie está a salvo del mal, on CD format. The vinyl LP and cassette tape versions will be released on July 5th.

Hailing from Argentina, Fulanno formed in 2010 and soon became a cult fixture on the stoner doom scene with their debut album, Hash Negro en las Misas Funebres, following its super-limited CD-R release in 2016. While Helter Skelter would later release a worldwide edition, even in its original super-limited guise, Fulanno’s debut stoked all those seeking strictly within-the-boundaries STONER DOOM.

Of course, what did Fulanno do to follow it up? Release another album just as within the boundaries: 2018’s Velas Negras, which saw the band garner even more of a cult name. And then, like clockwork, two years later came another album within those same boundaries but arguably more sulfurous: Nadie está a salvo del mal. The record would go through a number of pressings from a number of labels upon its original release in 2020, but now Helter Skelter arrives again to spread these sonic drugs where they need to go. No more but definitely no less, Nadie está a salvo del mal weaves a similarly intoxicating spell as its two not-inconsiderable predecessor, but it’s still stoner doom not for the faint of heart – nor for genre tourists. This is the Real Stuff, doled at 666% strength, and it’s fucking stultifying.

Following the album’s original release, Fulanno would firmly cement their name in the scene, no longer a “great secret” known only to the faithful. Get stuck in that cement again – or, likely, for the first time – with this worldwide edition of Nadie está a salvo del mal!

In the meantime, see the brand-new video “Los Colmillos De Satan” HERE at Regain Records’ official YouTube channel. Stream Nadie está a salvo del mal in its entirety HERE at Regain Records’ Bandcamp, where all formats of the album can also be preordered. Cover and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Fulanno’s Nadie está a salvo del mal
1. Fuego en la cruz
2. Los elegidos
3. Hombre Muerto
4. Los colmillos de Satan
5. Señores de la Necropolis
6. El decierto de los caidos
7. El libro de los Muertos

https://www.facebook.com/fulanno.doom
https://www.instagram.com/fulannodoom/
https://fulanno.bandcamp.com/
https://www.helterskelterproductions.se
https://www.facebook.com/helterskelterproductions
https://www.regainrecords.bandcamp.com

Fulanno, “Los Colmillos de Satan” official video

Hey, how was your weekend? You won’t be surprised to learn mine was full of tunes, which I mark as a win. While we’re marking wins, let’s put one down for wrapping up the longest Quarterly Review to-date in a full 11 days today. 110 releases. I started on July 5 — a lifetime ago. It’s now July 19, and I’ve encountered a sick kid and wife, busted laptop, oral surgery, and more riffs than I could ever hope to count along the way. Ups, downs, all-arounds. I hope you’ve enjoyed the ride.

This day was added kind of on an impulse, and the point I’m looking to emphasize is that you can spend two full weeks reviewing 10 albums a day and still there’s more to be had. I’ve learned over time you’re never going to hear everything — not even close — and that no matter how deep you dig, there’s more to find. I’m sure if I didn’t have other stuff scheduled I could fill out the entirety of this week and then some with 10 records a day. As it stands, let’s not have this Quarterly Review run into the next one at the end of September/beginning of October. Time to get my life back a little bit, such as it is.

Quarterly Review #101-110:

King Woman, Celestial Blues

After the (earned) fanfare surrounding King Woman‘s 2017 debut, Created in the Image of Suffering, expectations for the sophomore outing, Celestial Blues, are significant. Songwriter/vocalist Kris Esfandiari meets these head-on in heavy and atmospheric fashion on tracks like the opening title-cut and “Morning Star,” the more cacophonous “Coil” and duly punishing “Psychic Wound.” Blues? Yes, in places. Celestial? In theme, in its confrontation with dogma, sure. Even more than these, though, Celestial Blues taps into an affecting weight of ambience, such that even the broad string sounds of “Golgotha” feel heavy, and whether a given stretch is loud or quiet, subdued like the first half of “Entwined” or raging like the second, right into the minimalist “Paradise Lost” that finishes, the sense of burden being purposefully conveyed is palpable in the listening experience. No doubt the plaudits will be or are already manifold and superlative, but the work stands up.

King Woman on Facebook

Relapse Records website

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Mythic Sunship, Wildfire

Mythic Sunship are a hopeful vision for the future of progressive psychedelic music. Their fifth album and first for Tee Pee Records, Wildfire offers five tracks/45 minutes that alternates between ripping holes in the fabric of spacetime via emitted subspace wavelengths of shredding guitar, sax-led freakouts, shimmer to the point of blindness, peaceful drift and who the hell knows what else is going on en route from one to the other. Because as much as the Copenhagen outfit might jump from one stretch to the next, their fluidity is huge all along the course of Wildfire, which is fortunate because that’s probably the only thing stopping the record from actually melting. Instrumental as ever, I’m not sure if there’s a narrative arc playing out — certainly one can read one between “Maelstrom,” “Olympia,” “Landfall,” “Redwood Grove” and “Going Up” — and if that’s the intention, it maybe pulls back from that “hopeful vision” idea somewhat, at least in theme, if not aesthetic. In any case, the gorgeousness, the electrified vitality in what Mythic Sunship do, continues to distinguish them from their peers, which is a list that is only growing shorter with each passing LP.

Mythic Sunship on Facebook

Tee Pee Records website

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Morningstar Delirium, Morningstar Delirium

I said I was going to preorder this tape and I’m glad I did. Morningstar Delirium‘s half-hour/four-song debut offering is somewhere between an EP and an album — immersive enough to be the latter certainly in its soothing, brooding exploration of sonic textures, not at all tethered to a sonic weight in the dark industrial “Blood on the Fixture” and even less so in the initial minutes of “Silent Travelers,” but not entirely avoiding one either, as in the second half of that latter track some more sinister beats surface for a time. Comprised of multi-instrumentalists/vocalist Kelly Schilling (Dreadnought, BleakHeart) and Clayton Cushman (The Flight of Sleipnir), the isolation-era project feeds into that lockdown atmosphere in moments droning and surging, “Where Are You Going” giving an experimentalist edge with its early loops and later stretch of ethereal slide guitar (or what sounds like it), while closer “A Plea for the Stars” fulfills the promise of its vocalists with a doomed melody in its midsection that’s answered back late, topping an instrumental progression like the isolated weepy guitar of classic goth metal over patiently built layers of dark-tinted wash. Alternating between shorter and longer tracks, the promise in Morningstar Delirium resides in the hope they’ll continue to push farther and farther along these lines of emotional and aural resonance.

Morningstar Delirium on Instagram

Morningstar Delirium on Bandcamp

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Lunar Funeral, Road to Siberia

Somewhere between spacious goth and garage doom, Russia’s Lunar Funeral find their own stylistic ground to inhabit on their second album, Road to Siberia. The two-piece offer grim lysergics to start the affair on “Introduce” before plunging into “The Thrill,” which bookends with the also-11-minute closer “Don’t Send Me to Rehab” and gracefully avoids going full-freakout enough to bring back the verse progression near the end. Right on. Between the two extended pieces, the swinging progression of “25th Hour” trades brooding for strut — or at least brooding strut — with the snare doing its damnedest by the midsection to emulate handclaps could be there if they could find a way not to be fun. “25th Hour” hits into a wash late and “Black Bones” answers with dark boogie and a genuine nod later, finishing with noise en route to the spacious eight-minute “Silence,” which finds roll eventually, but holds to its engaging sense of depth in so doing, the abiding weirdness of the proceedings enhanced by the subtle masterplan behind it. Airy guitar work winding atop the bassline makes the penultimate “Your Fear is Giving Me Fear” a highlight, but the willful trudge of “Don’t Send Me to Rehab” is an all-too-suitable finish in style and atmosphere, not quite drawing it all together, but pushing it off a cliff instead.

Lunar Funeral on Facebook

Helter Skelter Productions / Regain Records on Bandcamp

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Satánico Pandemonium, Espectrofilia

Sludge and narcosadistic doom infest the six-track Espectrofilia from Mexico City four-piece Satánico Pandemonium, who call it an EP despite its topping 40 minutes in length. I don’t know, guys. Electric Wizard are a touchstone to the rollout of “Parábola del Juez Perverso,” which lumbers out behind opener “El Que Reside Dentro” and seems to come apart about two minutes in, only to pick up and keep going. Fucking a. Horror, exploitation, nodding riffs, raw vibes — Satánico Pandemonium have it all and then some, and if there’s any doubt Espectrofilia is worthy of pressing to a 12″ platter, like 2020’s Culto Suicida before it, whether they call it a full-length or not, the downward plunge of the title-track into the grim boogie of “Panteonera” and the consuming, bass-led closer “La Muerte del Sol” should put them to rest with due prejudice. The spirit of execution here is even meaner than the sound, and that malevolence of intent comes through front-to-back.

Satánico Pandemonium on Facebook

Satánico Pandemonium on Bandcamp

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Van Groover, Honk if Parts Fall Off

Kudos to Van Groover on their know-thyself tagline: “We’re not reinventing the wheel, but we let it roll.” The German trio’s 10-track/51-minute debut, Honk if Parts Fall Off, hits its marks in the post-Truckfighters sphere of uptempo heavy fuzz/stoner rock, injecting a heaping dose of smoke-scented burl from the outset with “Not Guilty” and keeping the push going through “Bison Blues” and “Streetfood” and “Jetstream” before “Godeater” takes a darker point of view and “Roadrunner” takes a moment to catch its breath before reigniting the forward motion. Sandwiched between that and the seven-minute “Bad Monkey” is an interlude of quieter bluesy strum called “Big Sucker” that ends with a rickity-sounding vehicle — something tells me it’s a van — starts and “Bad Monkey” kicks into its verse immediately, rolling stoned all the while even in its quiet middle stretch before “HeXXXenhammer” and the lull-you-into-a-false-sense-of-security-then-the-riff-hits “Quietness” finish out. Given the stated ambitions, it’s hard not to take Honk if Parts Fall Off as it comes. Van Groover aren’t hurting anybody except apparently one or two people in the opener and maybe elsewhere in the lyrics. Stoner rock for stoner rockers.

Van Groover on Facebook

Van Groover on Bandcamp

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Sergio Ch., Koi

There is not much to which Buenos Aires-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Sergio Chotsourian, aka Sergio Ch., is a stranger at this point. In a career that has spanned more than a quarter-century, he’s dipped hands in experimentalist folk and drone, rock, metal, punk, goth and more in varying prolific combinations of them. Koi, his latest full-length, still finds new ground to explore, however, in bringing not only the use of programmed drum beats behind some of the material, but collaborations with his own children, Isabel Ch., who contributes vocals on the closing Nine Inch Nails cover, “Hurt,” which was also previously released as a single, and Rafael “Raffa” Ch., who provides a brief but standout moment just before with a swirling, effects-laced rap tucked away at the end of the 11-minute “El Gran Chaparral.” If these are sentimental inclusions on Chotsourian‘s part, they’re a minor indulgence to make, and along with the English-language “NY City Blues,” the partial-translation of “Hurt” into Spanish is a welcome twist among others like “Tic Tac,” which blend electronic beats and spacious guitar in a way that feels like a foreshadow of burgeoning interests and things to come.

Sergio Ch. on Facebook

South American Sludge Records on Bandcamp

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Achachak, High Mountain

Less than a year removed from their debut full-length, At the Bottom of the Sea, Croatian five-piece Achachak return with the geological-opposite follow-up, High Mountain. With cuts like “Bong Goddess,” “Maui Waui,” they leave little to doubt as to where they’re coming from, but the stoner-for-stoners’-sake attitude doesn’t necessarily account either for the drifty psych of “Biggest Wave” or the earlier nod-out in “Lonewolf,” the screams in the opening title-track or the follow-that-riff iron-manliness of “”Mr. SM,” let alone the social bent to the lyrics in the QOTSA-style “Lesson” once it takes off — interesting to find them delving into the political given the somewhat regrettable inner-sleeve art — but the overarching vibe is still of a band not taking itself too seriously, and the songwriting is structured enough to support the shifts in style and mood. The fuzz is strong with them, and closer “Cozy Night” builds on the languid turn in “Biggest Wave” with an apparently self-aware moody turn. For having reportedly been at it since 1999, two full-lengths and a few others EPs isn’t a ton as regards discography, but maybe now they’re looking to make up for lost time.

Achachak on Facebook

Achachak on Bandcamp

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Rise Up, Dead Man, Rise Up, Dead Man

It’s almost counterintuitive to think so, but what you see is what you get with mostly-instrumentalist South African western/psych folk duo Rise Up, Dead Man‘s self-titled debut. To wit, the “Bells of Awakening” at the outset, indeed, are bells. “The Summoning,” which follows, hypnotizes with guitar and various other elements, and then, yes, the eponymous “Rise Up, Dead Man,” is a call to raise the departed. I don’t know if “Stolen Song” is stolen, but it sure is familiar. Things get more ethereal as multi-instrumentalists Duncan Park (guitar, vocals, pennywhistle, obraphone, bells, singing bowl) and William Randles (guitar, vocals, melodica, harmonium, violin, bells, singing bowl) through the serenity of “The Wind in the Well” and the summertime trip to Hobbiton that the pennywhistle in “Everything that Rises Must Converge” offers, which is complemented in suitably wistful fashion on closer “Sickly Meadow.” There’s some sorting out of aesthetic to be done here, but as the follow-up just to an improv demo released earlier this year, the drive and attention to detail in the arrangements makes their potential feel all the more significant, even before you get to the expressive nature of the songs or the nuanced style in which they so organically reside.

Rise Up, Dead Man on Facebook

Rise Up, Dead Man on Bandcamp

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Atomic Vulture , Moving Through Silence

Yeah, that whole “silence” thing doesn’t last too long on Moving Through Silence. The 51-minute debut long-player from Brugge, Belgium, instrumentalists Atomic Vulture isn’t through opener “Eclipse” before owing a significant sonic debt to Kyuss‘ “Thumb,” but given the way the record proceeds into “Mashika Deathride” and “Coaxium,” one suspects Karma to Burn are even more of an influence for guitarist Pascal David, bassist Kris Hoornaert and drummer Jens Van Hollebeke, and though they move through some slower, more atmospheric stretch on “Cosmic Dance” and later more extended pieces like “Spinning the Titans” (9:02) and closer “Astral Dream,” touching on prog particularly in the second half of the latter, they’re never completely removed from that abiding feel of get-down-to-business, as demonstrated on the roll of “Intergalactic Takeoff” and the willful landing on earth that the penultimate “Space Rat” brings in between “Spinning the Titans” and “Astral Dream,” emphasizing the sense of their being a mission underway, even if the mission is Atomic Vulture‘s discovery of place within genre.

Atomic Vulture on Facebook

Polderrecords on Bandcamp

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You know what? We’re through the first week of the Quarterly Review as of this post. Not too bad. I feel like it’s been smooth going so far to such a degree that I’m even thinking about adding an 11th day comprised purely of releases that came my way this week and will invariably come in next week too. Crazy, right? Bonus day QR. We’ll see if I get there, but I’m thinking about it. That alone should tell you something.

But let me not get ahead of myself. Day five commence.

Quarterly Review #41-50:

Howling Giant, Alteration

Let the story be that when the pandemic hit, Nashville’s Howling Giant took to the airwaves to provide comfort, character and a bit of ‘home’ — if one thinks of live performance as home — to their audience. With a steady schedule of various live streams on Twitch, some playing music, some playing D&D, the band engaged their listenership in a new and exciting way, finding a rare bright point in one of the darkest years of recent history. Alteration, a crisp four-song/20-minute EP, is born out of those streamed jams, with songs named by the band’s viewers/listeners — kudos to whoever came up with “Luring Alluring Rings” — and, being entirely instrumental from a band growing more and more focused on vocal arrangements, sound more like they’re on their way to being finished than are completely done. However, that’s also the point of the release, essentially to showcase unfinished works in progress that have emerged in a manner that nobody expected. It is another example from last year-plus that proves the persistence of creativity, and is all the more beautiful for that.

Howling Giant on Facebook

Blues Funeral Recordings website

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Rose City Band, Earth Trip

Vaguely lysergic, twanging with a non-chestbeating or jingoistic ’70s American singer-songwriter feel, Rose City Band‘s Earth Trip brings sentiment without bitterness in its songs, engaging as the title hints with nature in songs like “Silver Roses,” “In the Rain,” “Lonely Planes,” “Ramblin’ with the Day,” “Rabbit” and “Dawn Patrol.” An outlet for Ripley Johnson, also of Wooden Shjips and Moon Duo, the “band” isn’t so much in Rose City Band, but there is some collaboration — pedal steel here and there, as on “Ramblin’ with the Day” — though it’s very much Johnson‘s own craft and performance at the core of this eight-song set. This is the third Rose City Band long-player in three years, but quickly as it may have come about, the tracks never feel rushed — hushed, if anything — and Johnson effectively casts himself in among the organic throughout the proceedings, making the listener feel nothing if not welcome to join the ramble.

Rose City Band on Facebook

Thrill Jockey Records website

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The Tazers, Dream Machine

Johannesburg, South Africa’s The Tazers are suited to a short-release format, as their Dream Machine EP shows, bringing together four tracks with psychedelic precociousness and garage rock attitude to spare, with just an edge of classic heavy to keep things grooving. Their latest work opens with its languid and lysergic title-track, which sets up the shove of “Go Away” and the shuffle in “Lonely Road” — both under three and a half minutes long, with nary a wasted second in them, despite sounding purposefully like tossoffs — and the latter skirts the line of coming undone, but doesn’t, of course, but in the meantime sets up the almost proto-New Wave in the early going on “Around Town,” only later to give way to the band’s most engaging melody and a deceptively patient, gentle finish, which considering some of the brashness in the earlier tracks is a surprise. A pleasant one, though, and not the first the three-piece have brought forth by the time they get to the end of Dream Machine‘s ultra-listenable 16-minute run.

The Tazers on Facebook

The Tazers on Soundcloud

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Kavrila, Rituals III

Pressed in an ultra-limited edition of 34 tapes (the physical version also has a bonus track), Kavrila‘s Rituals III brings together about 16 minutes of heavy hardcore and post-hardcore, a thickened undertone giving something of a darker mood to the crunch of “Equality” as guitars are layered in subtly in a higher register, feeding into the urgency without competing with the drums or vocals. Opener “Sunday” works at more of a rush while “Longing” has more of a lurch at least to its outset before gradually elbowing its way into a more careening groove, but the bridge being built is between sludge and hardcore, and while the four-piece aren’t the first to build it, they do well here. If we’re picking highlights, closer “Elysium” has deft movement, intensity and atmosphere in kind, and still features a vocal rawness that pushes the emotional crux between the verses and choruses to make the transitions that much smoother. The ending fades out early behind those shouts, leaving the vocals stranded, calling out the song’s title into a stark emptiness.

Kavrila on Facebook

The Chinaskian Conspiracy on Bandcamp

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Gateway, Flesh Reborn

Brutal rebirth. Robin Van Oyen is the lone figure behind Bruges, Belgium-based death-doom outfit Gateway, and Flesh Reborn is his first EP in three years. Marked out with guest guitar solos by M., the four-track/25-minute offering keeps its concentration on atmosphere as much as raw punishment, and while one would be correct to call it ‘extreme’ in its purpose and execution, its deathliest aspects aren’t just the growling vocals or periods of intense blast, but the wash of distortion that lays over the offering as a whole, from “Hel” through “Slumbering Crevasses,” the suitably twisting, later lurching “Rack Crawler” and the grandeur-in-filth 12-minute closing title-track, at which point the fullness of the consumption is revealed at last. Unbridled as it seems, this material is not without purpose and is not haphazard. It is the statement it intends to be, and its depths are shown to be significant as Van Oyen pulls you further down into them with each passing moment, finally leaving you there amid residual drone.

Gateway on Facebook

Chaos Records website

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Bala, Maleza

Admirably punk in its dexterity, Bala‘s debut album, Maleza, arrives as a nine-track pummelfest from the Spanish duo of guitarist/vocalist Anx and drummer/vocalist V., thickened with sludgy intent and aggression to spare. The starts and stops of opener “Agitar” provide a noise-rock-style opening that hints at the tonal push to come throughout “Hoy No” — the verse melody of which seems to reinvent The Bangles — while the subsequent “X” reaches into greater breadth, vocals layered effectively as a preface perhaps to the later grunge of “Riuais,” which arrives ahead of the swaggering riff and harsh sneer of “Bessie” the lumbering finale “Una Silva.” Whether brooding in “Quieres Entrar” or explosive in its shove in “Cien Obstaculos,” Maleza offers stage-style energy with clarity of vision and enough chaos to make the anger feel genuine. There’s apparently some hype behind Bala, and fair enough, but this is legitimately one of the best debut albums I’ve heard in 2021.

Bala on Facebook

Century Media Records website

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Tremor Ama, Beneath

French prog-fuzz five-piece Tremor Ama make a coherent and engaging debut with Beneath, a first full-length following up a 2017 self-titled EP release. Spacious guitar leads the way through the three-minute intro “Ab Initio” and into the subsequent “Green Fire,” giving a patient launch to the outing, the ensuing four songs of which grow shorter as they go behind that nine-minute “Green Fire” stretch. There’s room for ambience and intensity both in centerpiece “Eclipse,” with vocals echoing out over the building second half, and both “Mirrors” and “Grey” offer their moments of surge as well, the latter tapping into a roll that should have fans of Forming the Void nodding both to the groove and in general approval. Effectively tipping the balance in their sound over the course of the album as a whole, Tremor Ama showcase an all-the-more thoughtful approach in this debut, and at 30 minutes, they still get out well ahead of feeling overly indulgent or losing sight of their overarching mission.

Tremor Ama on Facebook

Tremor Ama on Bandcamp

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The Crooked Whispers, Dead Moon Night

Delivered on multiple formats including as a 12″ vinyl through Regain Records offshoot Helter Skelter Productions, the bleary cultistry of The Crooked Whispers‘ two-songer Dead Moon Night also finds the Los Angeles-based outfit recently picked up by Ripple Music. If it seems everybody wants a piece of The Crooked Whispers, that’s fair enough for the blend of murk, sludge and charred devil worship the foursome offer with “Hail Darkness” and the even more gruesome “Galaxy of Terror,” taking the garage-doom rawness of Uncle Acid and setting against a less Beatlesian backdrop, trading pop hooks for classic doom riffing on the second track, flourishing in its misery as it is. At just 11 minutes long — that’s less than a minute for each inch of the vinyl! — Dead Moon Night is a grim forecast of things to come for the band’s deathly revelry, already showcased too on last year’s debut, Satanic Whispers (review here).

The Crooked Whispers on Facebook

Regain Records on Bandcamp

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No Stone, Road into the Darkness

Schooled, oldschool doom rock for denim-clad heads as foggy as the distortion they present, No Stone‘s debut album, Road into the Darkness, sounds like they already got there. The Rosario, Argentina, trio tap into some Uncle Acid-style garage doom vibes on “The Frayed Endings,” but the crash is harder, and the later 10-minute title-track delves deeper into psychedelia and grunge in kind, resulting in an overarching spirit that’s too weird to be anything but individual, however mmuch it might still firmly reside within the tenets of “cult.” If you were the type to chase down a patch, you might want to chase down a No Stone patch, as “Devil Behind” makes its barebones production feel like an aesthetic choice to offset the boogie to come in “Shadow No More,” and from post-intro opener “Bewitched” to the long fade of “The Sky is Burning,” No Stone balance atmosphere and songcraft in such a way as to herald future progress along this morose path. Maybe they are just getting on the road into the darkness, but they seem to be bringing that darkness with them on the way.

No Stone on Facebook

Ruidoteka Records on Bandcamp

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Firefriend, Dead Icons

Dead Icons is the sixth full-length from Brazilian psychedelic outfit Firefriend, and throughout its 10 songs and 44 minutes, the band proffer marked shoegaze-style chill and a sense of space, fuzzy and molten in “Hexagonal Mess,” more desert-hued in “Spin,” jangly and out for a march on “Ongoing Crash.” “Home or Exile” takes on that question with due reach, and “Waves” caps with organ alongside the languid guitar, but moments like “Tomorrow” are singular and gorgeous, and though “Three Dimensional Sound Glitch” and “666 Fifth Avenue” border on playful, there’s an overarching melancholy to the flow, as engaging as it is. In its longest pieces — “Tomorrow” (6:05) and “One Thousand Miles High” (5:08) — the “extra” time is well spent in extending the trio’s reach, and while it’s safe to assume that six self-recorded LPs later, Firefriend know what they want to do with their sound, that thing feels amorphous, fleeting, transient somehow here, like a moving target. That speaks to ongoing growth, and is just one of Dead Icons‘ many strengths.

Firefriend on Facebook

Cardinal Fuzz store

Little Cloud Records store

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Coronda, Argentina’s Fulanno released their debut album, Hash Negro en las Misas Funebres, in 2015 and followed it with Velas Negras in 2018 before last year brought their third long-player, Nadie Está a Salvo del Mal (review here), and all the while the cult-tinged murk doomers have been building a reputation for tape grit and lurching fuzz. But if you’re gonna start somewhere, the beginning’s a good place, and as Regain Records-offshoot Helter Skelter Productions explores its way through some of South America’s most righteous heavy — see also Mephistofeles, Sahara, among others — picking up Fulanno‘s first long-player shows a continued commitment to horror atmosphere and buried-alive Sabbath worship. Try as you might, you’re gonna nod to “Hordas.” It’s just gonna happen. You might as well not try to fight it.

Helter Skelter‘s release is set for June 25, as the PR wire informs:

FULANNO to have debut album released worldwide via HELTER SKELTER

Helter Skelter Productions (distributed & marketed by Regain Records) announces June 25th as the international release date for Fulanno’s cult debut album, Hash Negro en las Misas Funebres, on CD, vinyl LP, and cassette tape formats.

Hailing from Argentina, Fulanno formed in 2010 and soon became a cult fixture on the stoner doom scene with their debut album, Hash Negro en las Misas Funebres, following its super-limited CD-R release in 2016. A concise-yet-sprawling half-hour, it’s not difficult to discern why: translated into English as “Black Hash at Funeral Masses,” the album’s indeed an intoxicating spell. No more but definitely no less, the power-trio here pump out exceptionally sulfurous, strictly within-boundaries STONER DOOM that’s not for the faint of heart – nor for genre tourists. This is the Real Stuff, doled at 666% strength, and it’s fucking stultifying.

Thereafter, Fulanno would build their name further in the scene, but it’s the “great secret” of their Hash Negro en las Misas Funebres debut which casts the longest shadow – and the one which begs for a wide-scale release. Now Helter Skelter has been welcomed into Fulanno’s coven, and this cult record at long last gets the treatment it deserves!

Hear all of it for yourself HERE at Regain Records’ Bandcamp, where all formats of the album can also be preordered: https://regainrecords.bandcamp.com/album/hash-negro-en-las-misas-funebres

Cover and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Fulanno’s Hash Negro en las Misas Funebres
1. En Tu Nombre [7:50]
2. Hash negro en las misas Funebres [5:54]
3. Osciloscopio [7:04]
4. Hordas [5:13]
5. Perfume póstumo [5:43]

https://www.facebook.com/fulanno.doom
https://www.instagram.com/fulannodoom/
https://fulanno.bandcamp.com/
https://www.helterskelterproductions.se
https://www.facebook.com/helterskelterproductions
https://www.regainrecords.bandcamp.com

Fulanno, Hash Negro en las Misas Funebres (2015/2021)