Posted in Whathaveyou on March 18th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Five more names for the 11th edition of Munich’s Keep it Low Festival, set for this Oct. 10-11 as part of an always-busy Fall fest season in Europe. You can see the full lineup as it stands on the poster below — pretty gosh-darn sweet; good to see Colour Haze making their regularly scheduled hometown appearance at the fest; they’re kind of the unofficial house band, which is a major part of the reason I’ve always sweated attending this one — and the latest to be added to the mix are Lowrider, Bongripper, High Desert Queen, Blue Heron and Kanaan.
It’s ultimately a small contingent of the larger lineup, but a lot of fun to consider on its own, from a veteran act like Lowrider who don’t really tour at this point to the delightful contrast between Bongripper‘s malevolent crush and High Desert Queen‘s posi-outreach vibes, the jazzy instrumental prog of Kanaan and Blue Heron‘s imported-from-New-Mexico heavy desert vibes. Again, it’s part of the greater story of the diverse sounds Keep it Low has on offer for 2025, between Graveyard and The Obsessed and Siena Root and Conan, on and on, but emblematic of the whole just the same.
Confirmation came via the PR wire:
KEEP IT LOW FESTIVAL announces HIGH DESERT QUEEN, LOWRIDER, BONGRIPPER & more new band names for 2025!
Keep It Low – THE annual stoner, psych, rock, doom and sludge metal event in the heart of Munich, Germany, has announced new band names for its exciting, 10th anniversary edition in 2025!
High Desert Queen, Lowrider, Bongripper, Blue Heron and Kanaan will be joining previously-announced acts such as Graveyard, Masters Of Reality, Conan, Colour Haze, The Obsessed, Siena Root, Vintage Caravan and many more!
Hosted by Sound Of Liberation (Desertfest Berlin, Up In Smoke, Lazy Bones Fest a.o.), Keep It Low will be taking place between 10. – 11. October 2025 at Backstage.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 21st, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Being at just a couple weeks’ remove from this year’s Planet Desert Rock Weekend, I can tell you outright that the comedown is real. Even putting aside mindboggling performances from the likes of Iota, Luna Sol, Solace, Valley of the Sun and a host of others, the people and place, the vibe and heart of the event, and the sense of curation were excellent. It was a great, great time, and it was accordingly something of a challenge to get back to regular life.
The good news as regards daydreaming is that the first lineup reveals for Planet Desert Rock Weekend VI are happening today. The Atomic Bitchwax and Freedom Hawk top the thus-far bill, with The Heavy Eyes and High Desert Queen also making return appearances and Throttlerod traveling the farthest I’ve seen them go for a show since Small Stone was at SXSW. Also, Montreal’s Mooch, Sweden’s Huanastone, Saturna from Spain and Italian heavy rockers Isaak are slated to appear as imports, all apparently coming to the US for the first time.
Already the specificity of the picks — these aren’t just bands who’ll be on tour for new records stopping through town, I mean — speaks to the depth brought to putting together Planet Desert Rock Weekend by curator John Gist who heads the promotional company Vegas RockRevolution, and I look forward to learning more about the stories these nights will tell over the better part of the nex year, in addition to hoping I make it back to Vegas next January.
From the PR wire:
This year’s Planet Desert Rock Weekend V was an amazing success as we had outstanding performances from all 20 of the bands who came to play. This included a rare performance from Fireball Ministry at the Ripple Music Showcase along with ripping sets by legacy bands like Unida, Mos Generator and Solace as well as 8 international groups came out that included Sergeant Thunderhoof, JIRM, Sons of Arrakis, Mr. Bison, Samavayo, Fire Down Below, Omega Sun and Green Desert Water. Our turnout was simply a magnificent set of fans who love the heavy underground, enjoy the killer party & music each evening and want to give all the positive energy into the experience. PDRW does not exist without the feedback and love that our fans give.
So PDRW VI has its work cut out as the curation of the event’s bar has been set high. Happy to announce 10 bands to get the lineup rolling. Speaking of legacy bands, we are super excited to have The Atomic Bitchwax coming to Sin City! This New Jersey band has been rocking since 1992 and always delivers a massive energy to their presence. The band features two active members of Monster Magnet.
We return 4 PDRW players that have put on top notch performances and are super cool people. We have Freedom Hawk flying back to Sin City to rock the stage. They performed not only PDRW IV but also the 1st PDRW back in 2018. They are one of the best bands musically in the scene. The Heavy Eyes returns to PDRW after playing the debut of Planet Desert Rock. This Memphis band knows how to get the crowd moving! High Desert Queen who played a high octane set at PDRW III which was our basic reboot of PDRW. Vocalist Ryan Garney is a great friend to Vegas Rock Revolution and of course the man with the plan behind our other favorite fest Ripplefest. High Desert Queen’s 2024 album “Palm Reader” landed #2 for May on the Doom Charts. Spain’s Saturna returns to PDRW after playing at PDRW v2 and we can’t wait to hear some of the tracks of their highly regarded album “The Reset” that was Vegas Rock Revolution’s #4 album of 2023. They create songs so good that if rock radio was an actual thing still they would be on it. Vocalist James Vieco is one of the top singers in the scene.
Three more international bands from three more countries are next as each of the bands will be playing their USA debuts. Italy’s Isaak who is on the well-respected Heavy Psych Sounds label cruises out to pummel concert goers. They have been rocking the European stages since 2011 and are a high energy band sure to get your blood pumping! This will make 3 years in a row of Italian bands following in the footsteps of Black Elephant and Mr. Bison. From Sweden we have one of the best kept secrets in the scene Huanastone. Many in the know are very familiar with them due to their last two releases that includes 2024 release “Son of Juno” that landed #9 on the Doom Charts for June. They have a silky smooth style and sound that will be cool to hear live. From Montreal Canada as we continue the legacy of 3 straight French Canadian bands(Sandveiss+Sons of Arrakis) we have Mooch. Likely the most unknown of this batch of bands but we have had our eye and ears on them since their 2020 releases Hounds which was produced by Brant Bjork. Their style harkens back to some classic rock influences and a dash of Masters of Reality. Mooch is a younger band and all 3 members sing. Their tracks can stick in your ears for days at a time. Their 2024 release Visions landed #14 on the Doom Charts for June.
Lastly we got a righteous legacy band and a newer band. Throttlerod has been pretty dormant for a bit but they will be firing on all cylinders at PDRW VI . They started blazing stages back in 1999. Frontman Matt Whitehead has been busy with another stellar band Shun which is on Small Stone Records. The band’s sound has wide ranging influences sure to keep us on our toes! Oakland’s Phantom Hound rounds out the announcements for this grouping. VRR has been a big champion of them since the beginning and their recent album “From Boomtown to Ghost Town” on Glory or Death Records landed #5 on the Doom Charts. This power trio has lots of bluesy elements and stroytelling in their stuff.
Already in chats with 10 other very good bands and will release the names as we gather commitments. The list of who we are targeting is close to done and now it’s a matter of who gets the spots. We will have a Last Call Show again and will get a ticket link out for that soon! Some of these bands will be playing that night.
Thanks so much to everyone who has been amazing in their support and love for Planet Desert Rock Weekend. We can’t wait to see you again and party! We won’t let you down.
Posted in Features on December 19th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
[PLEASE NOTE: These are not the results of the year-end poll, which ends in January. If you haven’t contributed your picks yet, please do so here.]
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Hi, and welcome to The Obelisk’s year in review for 2024. This is a thing that’s kind of developed over the 15-plus years the site’s been in operation, and it’s something that people sometimes tell me has been a help when it comes to finding new music. I know for myself as well, I’ve referred back to these lists a lot in subsequent years, to see where bands were and where my head was, and so on. Are best-of lists meaningful, at all, in any way? Probably to the person making them, and that’s me, so I’ll proceed.
I thought the format last year worked pretty well, so I’ve hijacked it for use here. Not something I expect anyone to notice, but I did want to mention it on the off-chance. I don’t have a best live album of the year, but there are a few worth talking about, surely.
It’s been a busy, fast year. The barrage of music is overwhelming — and as problems go, that’s among the best ones to have — but I do think we’re seeing some tapering off. Generational turnover is, in fact, a constant, but the 2020s are taking shape now with bands who started making their name around the mid-2010s shifting into headliner status, new bands coming up beneath, more diverse in sound and construction, and with new ideas. This isn’t universal, but it is the ideal vision of the thing. Circle of life and such.
But it’s a lot. Including the 50-releases-strong Quarterly Review last week, I’m well north of having reviewed 400 total different mostly-full-lengths since January. That’s insane. The math is obvious, but I’ll point out anyhow that you could buy an album for every day of the year and have enough for an extra month-plus afterward. An astonishing amount of music, and I’m by no means reviewing everything.
Which brings me to the inevitable last point. I haven’t reviewed everything. If you’re here wondering where Opeth and Blood Incantation are landing on my list, they aren’t. Nothing against either of them, I just haven’t dug into the records since I knew I wouldn’t be reviewing them. The regular standard of doing as much as I can, when I can, about as much as I can, applies.
Please if you disagree with some pick below or other — and if you do, that’s healthy — I kindly ask you to keep things civil in the comments. I’m not here to call people out on enjoying things I don’t — fascism aside — and I know it makes me sad when I break my ass for days to put this together and the first comment is, “NO [WHOEVER]. LIST SUCKS. NEVER READING THIS FILTH AGAIN,” etc. Before you comment, please take a second to read what you put back to yourself for kindness. That’s good for spelling too, not that I’d know.
That’s all the stalling I can do. Time to dive in. Happy holidays.
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The Top 60 Albums of 2024
**NOTE**: If you’re looking for something specific, try a text search.
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60-31
60. Psychlona, Warped Vision
59. Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships, The Mind Like Fire Unbound
58. Massive Hassle, Unreal Damage
57. Temple of the Fuzz Witch, Apotheosis
56. Space Shepherds, Cycler
55. Abrams, Blue City
54. Castle Rat, Into the Realm
53. Heath, Isaak’s Marble
52. Weite, Oase
51. Cosmic Fall, Back Where the Fire Flows
50. Troy the Band, Cataclysm
49. Sunnata, Chasing Shadows
48. Skraeckoedlan, Vermillion Sky
47. Acid Mammoth, Supersonic Megafauna Collision
46. Deer Creek, The Hiraeth Pit
45. Big Scenic Nowhere, The Waydown
44. Grin, Hush
43. The Swell Fellas, Residuum Unknown
42. The Gates of Slumber, The Gates of Slumber
41. Coltaine, Forgotten Ways
40. Mountain of Misery, The Land
39. Mammoth Volume, Raised Up by Witches
38. Delving, All Paths Diverge
37. High on Fire, Cometh the Storm
36. Thou, Umbilical
35. The Giraffes, Cigarette
34. Fu Manchu, The Return of Tomorrow
33. Full Earth, Cloud Sculptors
32. Daevar, Amber Eyes
31. Causa Sui, From the Source
Notes:
Just in case you’re the type of person who’d say, “Oh how could you have a top 60? after a certain number it’s all the same,” I’ll admit that’s true, but 60 is apparently nowhere near the ‘certain number’ in question for me this year. I agonized over this part of the list. More than the top 30, and more than picking a best short release, best debut, or anything else. I wanted basically a second top 30, and I feel like if I saw this as that, as 30-1, I’d congratulate whoever submitted it on their taste. But maybe that’s just me agreeing with myself.
I like the mix of up and comers and established acts here. Sunnata and Skraeckoedlan, The Giraffes, of course High on Fire, Deer Creek and so on, mixing with up and comers like Full Earth, Daevar, Acid Mammoth, Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships, Heath, Troy the Band and Weite. I feel somewhat compelled to justify my High on Fire placement, especially looking at the results so far of the year-end poll. They’re amazing, they’re devastating, they’re a singular live act, but I just didn’t listen to the record that much. There. A big part of me feels like it should be top 10 just by virtue of who the band are, but if I did that for everybody who deserved it, I wouldn’t have room for anything new. All I can do is be honest to my own listening habits and opinions. I know High on Fire are really, really good. I know this album is really, really good. That’s why it’s on this list. Should it be higher? Probably. I’m doing my best.
Thank you for your kind attention in this matter. Also, listen to The Giraffes.
You won’t hear me say a downer word about An Earlier Time‘s quieter stretches, but it’s the sweeping moments like “Limitless” that find Boston’s Sundrifter making the most resonant impression. Their third full-length and the follow-up to 2018’s Visitations (review here), it was a strong declaration of who Sundrifter want to be as they continue to grow, and deserved more love than I saw that it got.
Oh, look out for Mr. Blogosphere. He’s out here taking a real risk putting Tranquonauts on the year-end list, like the combining of forces between Melbourne, Australia, heavy psych blues rockers Seedy Jeezus and guitarist Isaiah Mitchell wasn’t gonna work the second time around? Wow, Mitchell‘s and Lex Waterreus‘ guitars sure do sound awesome together. Oh — it’s a hot-take! Better get your react videos ready. The internet is terrible. This album offers escape from it.
At the risk of having to give back my Music-Journalism-Level membership to the Sycophant Society, I’ll dare to point out that Chat Pile are way, way hyped. That happens sometimes. It’s not like they’re out there being like, “Hey we’re the noise rock white dudes shifting paradigms for noise rock white dudes, best in a generation.” It’s people like me with all the hyperbole and comma splicing. I get that too. It’s a sound geared toward inciting a strong reaction, from the sneering sarcasm of the title down. By the way, am I the only one who looks at the title Cool World and thinks of the 1992 semi-animated film of the same name? I kind of hope so. See? Big feelings all around.
Rest assured, I don’t, but if I had any friends, I’d be like, “Hey, you should check out this band Gnome from Belgium. They’ve got fun riffs and they beat you over the head with them until you remember them by heart.” And these ‘friends’ would be all, “Wow man, that sounds definitely like something I would ever want to introduce to the scope of my life experiences! Thank you! I’m so glad to be your friend and the world is definitely a better place with you in it.” And then everybody’s day is better, all because of sharing and the shenanigans-laced riff metal proffered by these three behatted miscreants from Antwerpen.
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26. Brant Bjork Trio, Once Upon a Time in the Desert
Brant Bjork‘s solo band begat Stöner, and Stöner begat Brant Bjork Trio as Bjork, drummer Ryan Güt and bassist Mario Lalli (Fatso Jetson, Mario Lalli and the Rubber Snake Charmers, Yawning Man, etc.). I’ll cop to being a nerd for Brant Bjork‘s output generally — it’s a kind of cool so definitively Californian, my NJ-ass self can’t help but admire it — but the chemistry in Once Upon a Time in the Desert is on point to an undeniable degree, and the songs are a reminder of how the back catalog got so strong in the first place. What else could you want?
Five albums in, a post-arrival Sergeant Thunderhoof stand ready. They know who they are, what they want their songs to do, why and how to make it happen. The Ghost of Badon Hill gives a conceptual focus to unite material intentionally sprawling, and lets listeners immerse in a narrative all the more easily for the quality of its songcraft. Self-recorded, it is masterful in performance and assured of its execution, pored over but not overworked; the happy accidents might have been left in on purpose, but they still sound like accidents. And Sergeant Thunderhoof still sound like a band driving themselves toward the unknown.
Doom metal is lucky to have Early Moods laying out a template for the next generation to hopefully follow. The Los Angeles five-piece’s second full-length, A Sinner’s Past, refined the lurch of their 2022 self-titled (review here), and the combination of hard touring and progressive craft continues to bode well as they look toward their next offering. They’ve put in their work, however swift their ascent to this point might feel, and they’re about one great record away from standing among the best doom of the 21st century. You could easily argue they’re already there. Every reason is accounted for on A Sinner’s Past.
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23. Morpholith, Dystopian Distributions of Mass Produced Narcotics
Iceland’s Morpholith enter the conversation with Dystopian Distributions of Mass Produced Narcotics, which has cosmic-doom breadth and bong-metal crush to spare in the first four minutes of “Psychophere” alone, never mind anything that surrounds. The band’s debut is a bombastic plodder, beating out the march to a futuristic — and cold — vision of the riff-filled land that may or may not be Reykjavik in the wintertime while simultaneously being both very much of weed and not outwardly about it, seeming to have much more than addled, Mid Atlantic Ridge-heavy riff worship because — look out! — they do. If cosmic doom is ever going to be more than a loose thread connecting YOB and Ufomammut, bands like Morpholith need to keep pushing it forward like this. “Dismalium.” I dare you.
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22. Lamp of the Universe Meets Dr. Space, Enters Your Somas
Lamp of the Universe is multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer and vocalist Craig Williamson, based in New Zealand. Dr. Space is synthesist, keyboardist, producer, bootlegger and bandleader Scott Heller. The ‘meeting’ of these two expanded minds takes place over two extended tracks, one vinyl side per, of lush psychedelic and multi-tiered drones, absolutely perfect for the zone-out hypnosis you’ve been trying to put yourself in all day but for that pesky consciousness. I wish I could come up with some kind of ritual awesome enough for the keyboard textures in “Enters Your Somas” or the propulsive space rock thuddenchug of “Infiltrates Your Mind,” but some sounds are just too cool for the planet. Come see how the freaks get down.
I spent some significant time with Dool‘s The Shape of Fluidity this Spring, before and after seeing them at Roadburn (review here), which was another highlight of the year. The album’s triumph, in songwriting, in transcending genre bounds and in conveying its theme of breaking loose from the gender binary, gave my parent-of-a-trans-kid self a hopeful vision of a future beyond dark, hateful rhetoric or implied/real violence. It showed me a possible path to victory on what will be and already is a hard road. It was there when I needed it, which is a specific ideal of art providing care. I’ll never forget that.
Granted the Western soundscaping at the outset of the eponymous “Buzzard” lays it on thick, but it’s supposed to! We’re talking fire-and-brimstone earthbound Americana folk with a doomly rhythmic cast, given the self-aware title of Doom Folk by the solo artist Buzzard, aka Christopher Thomas Elliott, laying it on thick is the point. Elliott has a follow-up out soon already. Thinking of Doom Folk as the beginning of a creative progression makes its nuance and individualist drive even more exciting, but the rawness of this debut, the straightforwardness of its structures and the resulting memorability are part of the appeal for sure.
Seven bangers. Not a dud in the bunch. Two nine-minute songs and you still couldn’t say a moment of High Desert Queen‘s rightly anticipated sophomore LP is wasted. Not when you’re building up to the roll of “Head Honcho,” certainly. The Texas outfit built on the good-time largesse and party-but-not-a-party-so-cool-you-don’t-feel-welcome vibing of 2021’s Secrets of the Black Moon (review here) and set themselves vociferously to the task of being the change in heavy rock that they wanted to hear. Palm Reader‘s infectiousness is a strength, both in terms of a catchy piece like “Ancient Aliens” or “Time Waster,” and also in the overarching positive-framed mood and heart so clearly put into the material.
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18. Ufomammut, Hidden
Released by Supernatural Cat and Neurot Recordings. Reviewed May 21.
Now a quarter-century on from their start, Italian trio Ufomammut have yet to put out a record that didn’t sound like a forward step from the one before it. And Hidden is their 10th album. The band are progenitors and refiners of a cosmic doom sound that is unto itself, and cuts like “Kismet” and “Leeched” manage to be both lumbering in their massive-tone grooves and sprawling with a synthy ambience that, though certainly influential, is immediately recognizable as Ufomammut. Hidden is part of a creative trajectory, to be sure, and the arc is ongoing, but there’s more than enough substance here to leave a crater behind in the listener’s brain.
In its arrangement as five separate dreams taking place over its component tracks, the only thing Pentasomnia doesn’t take into account is that another Iota LP was a dream all on its own even before music actually happened. A full 16 years after shaking the galaxy’s core with their 2008 debut, Tales (discussed here, and here), the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Joey Toscano (Dwellers, Hibernaut), drummer/producer Andy Patterson (The Otolith, ex-SubRosa, etc.) and bassist Oz Yasri (ex-Bird Eater) making a comeback — let alone it actually being good — was nigh on unthinkable. Then you heard “The Intruder” and reality shifted just a bit. Pretty sweet.
Few albums in 2024 were as entrancing as Langt, Langt Vekk, the hopefully-not-a-one-off collaboration between Norwegian progressive heavy instrumentalists Kanaan and neofolk contemporaries Ævestaden. Both adventurous outfits in their own right, the combination of elements, from live drums and synth to traditional plucked strings and Norwegian-language vocal choruses, works stunningly well. That little bit of fuzz in “Habbor og Signe,” or the cymbal wash behind “Dalebu Jonsson” — the songs are full of these little nuances or flourishes waiting to be found, but even with the most superficial of listens, the achievement resounds, whether one approaches from a viewpoint of heavy rock, prog, folk or psychedelia.
You know, I’ve kind of dug DVNE records all along, and I can’t really call Voidkind a surprise after 2021’s Etemen Ænka (review here), but these songs — “Eleonora,” “Sarmatae,” “Abode of the Perfect Soul,” among others — hit me much harder than I had expected, and the more I listened to try to twist my head around “Reliquary,” the more the album as a whole revealed of its character and detail. I review a lot of stuff, and I hear more than I review, so I don’t always get pulled back by every record, but Voidkind kept calling for return visits.
Look. If you’re reading this, I know I don’t have to tell you about Orange Goblin. Even if you don’t already have a soft spot for the long-running UK doom rockers, they’re perfectly happy to pummel one into you with Science, Not Fiction, their first album since 2018 and a realignment toward a harder-edged heavy rock sound, where the last, say, two records had leaned more metal. I heard some griping about the production not helping, but I heard absolutely nothing to complain about here. The band are on fire and the recording shows it, the songs aren’t necessarily any great progressive leap but for sure they’re Orange Goblin songs, and for a band who owes nobody proof of anything, they set a high standard and deliver accordingly, like god damned professionals should.
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13. Spaceslug, Out of Water
Released by Electric Witch Mountain Recordings. Reviewed May 14.
What I didn’t get about Spaceslug until I finally saw them live at Desertfest New York (review here) was just how metal the impact of their songs can get. It’s not necessarily that they’ve grown more aggressive, unless you want to incorporate harsh vocals or shouting — “Tears of Antimatter” also has gently-delivered barely-there spoken word, so it depends on the story you want to tell — but the blend of melancholic doom, heavy psychedelia and melodic fluidity that has become Spaceslug‘s stylistic wheelhouse is not to be missed. Out of Water finds them at their broadest and least concerned with genre, and brings into relief how special a band they’ve become. Also it rocks.
No secret how Craneium are doing it on Point of No Return; it’s right there in the songs. All of them. “One Thousand Sighs,” “The Sun,” “A Distant Shore,” “…Of Laughter and Cries,” “Things Have Changed” and “Search Eternal.” Texture and hooks, heft and scope and melody and crash and shove, classy progressive execution and swaggering conjurations. Most of all, songs that stay with you. Chances are, if you heard this record and gave it its due attention at some point in your time with it, you didn’t have to do much more than read the titles to have the tracks playing in your head. That’s not a coincidence. It’s craft. It’s a willful outreach on the part of the band and material. It’s what makes you want to sing along. And why would you not?
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11. Guhts, Regeneration
Released by Seeing Red Records and New Heavy Sounds. Reviewed Feb. 5.
More on it below, but for the moment, suffice it to say that the bludgeoning and/or scathe of Regeneration at its most intense and the depths its mix seemed to find, the debut full-length from New York post-metallers Guhts dared visceral emotionality in a way few records so heavy could or would hope to. The willing-to-break-her-voice-if-necessary performance of Amber Gardner and the weighted undulations surrounding from guitarist Scott Prater, bassist Daniel Martinez and drummer Brian Clemens, the open sway, unfettered crush, and quiet spaces offsetting all that bombast result in both a chaotic feel and an applicable world. Therefore it must be modern. Fine. It sounds like the future.
As to how Philadelphia’s Heavy Temple managed to fit so much swagger onto a single platter, you’d have to ask them, but their second album, Garden of Heathens, landed hard in tone and attitude alike. Songs like “Extreme Indifference to Life,” “House of Warship” and the galloping payoff of “Jesus Wept” ahead of the thrashy finale “Psychomanteum” affirmed what was set out in 2021’s Lupi Amoris (review here) and their earlier short releases while marking out and conquering decisively new territory in their sound. I know it was recorded two years ago or something like that, but it’s still a band beginning to realize their potential in craft and performance, and if a third LP happens sooner than later, so much the better.
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9. 1000mods, Cheat Death
Released by Ouga Booga and the Mighty Oug and Ripple Music. Reviewed Nov. 11.
Whether one embraces Cheat Death because the songs kick ass or because 1000mods are so vivid and uncompromising in pushing themselves forward from release to release, I don’t think you’re wrong. The forerunners of their generation in Greek heavy rock remain among the finest Europe’s heavy underground have to offer, and the atmosphere they’re able to conjure alongside the straight-ahead Matt Bayles-produced punk-metal hooks of these songs is emblematic of why. Without ever giving up their foundation in heavy rock, 1000mods have consistently refined their processes and grown as songwriters. The joke of Cheat Death is how alive the material feels.
Faced with the considerable task of following up the to-date album of their career, Elektrik Ram (review here), just one year later, South African heavy rockers Ruff Majik did not flinch. Instead, Moth Eater takes the outright charge and sharpness-minded efficiency of its predecessor in a stated trilogy that began with 2020’s The Devil’s Cattle (review here) and sets it as the foundation for a confident, creative growth and sustainable expansion of sound. They’re a little more willing to dwell in parts, and they’re well aware of how catchy they can be, but also, they know the power of momentum and they’re fully in control of the narratives they’re telling. As Moth Eater readily demonstrates, it’s hard to know which of that it is that makes them most dangerous.
It’s hard to overstate the accomplishment of Nell’ Ora Blu, and I’m well aware that the critical sphere is full of plenty who’ve spent the better part of 2024 trying. Reasonable. The completeness of the world Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats built in the work based around the concept of soundtracking a giallo film that didn’t exist was singularly evocative. With original dialogue recorded (in Italian) specifically for ‘movie’ ambience, Uncle Acid took what had always been an influence on the band’s sound within genre-cinema and its methods of storytelling, and flipped the process on its head by creating its own story. Their influence is already well spread throughout the heavy underground, for sure, but in bringing a vision to life, this might be the album Uncle Acid have been working toward all along.
A forward-thinking masterwork from even before “Deadname” sneaks a layer of acoustic guitar under the mountain of distortion in the verse lines and “Arrival” and “Transitions” give evocative chronicle to the album’s trans-experiential theme — it is the band’s first since guitarist/vocalist Simona Ohlsson transitioned, and admirable for both its projected triumph and vulnerability around that — the fifth full-length from Vokonis continues the progressive path they have walked for the last decade-plus. A lineup change has brought some shift in dynamic, but a new strength of voice behind the material that makes “Phantom Carriage,” “Chrysalis,” and, suitably enough, “Arrival,” feel like a declarative pinnacle, and having something to say makes the raw impact of its heaviest moments all the more powerful.
There’s little funnier to me about heavy rock as it exists in 2024 than the idea that Greenleaf would be a band people take for granted. “Oh, Tommi Holappa and Company putting out another collection of classic-heavy and blues-rocking bangers? Business as usual, I guess.” Until you listen to the album, maybe. Then you get the tumble of “Avalanche,” the hooks in “Breathe, Breathe Out,” and “A Wolf in My Mind,” the subdued-bluesy pair “That Obsidian Grin” and “An Alabastrine Smile” to remind how you much this band has been able to grow since Arvid Hällagård made his first appearance with them a decade ago, the way they’re able to move through a jam and land in a groove as solid as “Oh Dandelion,” reminiscent of Clutch in its start-stop funk but defined by its own persona. Every Greenleaf record is a gift. If feeling that way means I’m not impartial, good. We understand each other.
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4. Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol, Big Dumb Riffs
Promises made, promises kept. Austin-based crunch purveyors Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol stripped any and all excess out of their approach on Big Dumb Riffs, resulting in a quick-feeling collection of memorable, heavy tracks that, whether fast like “1800EATSHIT” or slow like “In a Jar,” are united in the album’s central stated purpose. Already an established brand of heavy revelry, the three-piece didn’t change anything radically in aesthetic terms, but the songs found their target one after the other, front to back, and were clever and well composed, however willfully lunkheaded the central riffery might have been. They’re headed to Europe in Spring, and I’m already hearing rumors of a next record, so keep an eye out in 2025.
Slomosa‘s released-in-2020 self-titled debut (review here) was a salve to many in troubled times, representing a next-generation hope for underground heavy in energetically-delivered, classic-feeling songs. Tundra Rock, which gives a name to the band’s style seemingly in direct answer to anyone who might class them as ‘desert,’ confirms the Norwegian four-piece at the forefront of an up and coming cohort of younger acts beginning to find their expressive modus and step beyond their root influences. Tundra Rock finds Slomosa doing this while giving their dual-vocal live dynamic vibrant studio representation and growing their material in character and melody alike. Heavy rock and roll is Slomosa‘s for the taking.
A record that didn’t need to be loud to be heavy, Brume‘s Marten is without question my most-listened-to album of 2024. That needs no qualifying. I had high expectations going into it after seeing the San Francisco band at Desertfest New York 2022 (review here), and Marten surpassed every hope I might’ve been able to harness for it and then some. The collective voice of the band incorporating multiple viewpoints from bassist/vocalist/keyboardist Susie McMullan, guitarist/vocalist Jamie McCathie, drummer Jordan Perkins Lewis, and in her first appearance as a full-on member of the band, cellist/vocalist Jackie Perez Gratz (Grayceon, Amber Asylum, etc.), resulted in a fluid but deeply divergent collection, comprised of songs that went where they wanted to go — or didn’t, thank you very much — according to their own whims and purposes. It is a landmark for Brume and, if any number of subgenres are lucky, a blueprint from which others will hopefully learn.
I acknowledge breaking my own rules here — splits are always, until and including this year, categorized as short releases in these lists — but when it came to it, the thought of putting Elephant Tree and Lowrider‘s The Long Forever anywhere else, considering it as anything else, seemed ridiculous. Especially if you count writing the liner notes for it, I’ve gone on at length about the release as an intersection of crucial moments for the respective bands, with Lowrider following their first album in 20 years, Refractions (review here), and Elephant Tree answering the progressive statement of their own second LP, Habits (review here), both released in 2020. The storyline gets deeper as Elephant Tree also look to reestablish themselves following a near-fatal accident suffered by guitarist/vocalist Jack Townley, melding rawness of tone with lush vocal harmonies, and Lowrider drag fuzz-rock traditionalism kicking and screaming into a reality of being both fun and intelligent. There ultimately was nothing else to call The Long Forever than the album of the year. If that comes with an asterisk because it’s a split, it doesn’t lessen the effect of hearing it at all. So yeah, I’m breaking the rules of the game. I’m inconsistent. Unprofessional. Biased. I don’t know what to tell you except love makes you do crazy things. In these songs themselves — do I even need to talk about the collaboration — and in the drive behind them, that’s what most resonates here.
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The Top 60 Albums of 2024: Honorable Mention
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If the 60 above wasn’t enough, here are more leads to chase down, alphabetical but in kind of a hyper-specific, ass-backwards-seeming way:
Acid Rooster, Alber Jupiter, Altareth, Alunah, Astrometer, Bismarck, Black Capricorn, Blasting Rod, BleakHeart, Blue Heron, Bongripper, Boozewa, Caffeine, Carpet, Castle, Cleen, Clouds Taste Satanic, Codex Serafini, Cold in Berlin, Cortez, The Cosmic Dead, Crypt Sermon, Daily Thompson, Deadpeach, Deaf Wolf, Demon Head, Destroyer of Light, Dopethrone, Duel, Earth Ship, Elephant Tree, Emu, Familiars, Bill Fisher, 40 Watt Sun, Ghost Frog, Goat Major, Guenna, Heath, High Reeper, Hijss, Horseburner, Ian Blurton’s Future Now, Insect Ark, Inter Arma, Kelley Juett, Juke Cove, Kalgon, Kandodo, Kant, Kariti, Kungens Män (x2), Kurokuma, Leather Lung, Legions of Doom, Lord Buffalo, Magic Fig, Magick Brother & Mystic Sister, Magick Potion, Magmakammer, Mammoth Caravan, Massive Hassle, MC MYASNOI, Merlin, Methadone Skies, Monkey3, Morag Tong, The Mountain King, Mount Hush, MR.BISON, My Dying Bride, Myriad’s Veil, No Man’s Valley, Norna, The Obsessed, Oryx, Pallbearer, Patriarchs in Black, Pia Isa, Planet of Zeus, Red Mesa, Rezn, Rifflord, Sacri Monti, Sandveiss, Satan’s Satyrs, Saturnalia Temple, Scorched Oak, Sheepfucker & Kraut, Slift, Slower, Slow Green Thing, SoftSun, The Sonic Dawn, SONS OF ZÖKU, Spacedrifter, Spiral Grave, Spirit Mother, Stonebride, Sun Blood Stories, Sunface, Sun Moon Holy Cult, Swallow the Sun, The Swell Fellas, Swell O, Temple Fang, 10,000 Years, Thomas Greenwood and the Talismans, Thunderbird Divine, Tigers on Opium, Traum, 24/7 Diva Heaven, Valley of the Sun, Vlimmer, Void Commander, Weather Systems, The Whims of the Great Magnet, Whispering Void, White Hills, Per Wiberg, Esben Willems, Worshipper, WyndRider…
Notes:
With the eternal caveat that I’ll be adding to the honorable mentions for the next few days as people drop names they remembered and I forgot, I’ll say I can live with the list as it is now. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m happy with it, but I’ll live. I felt like there was just too much good stuff in the 60-30, stuff that deserved a better look, and god damn, look at the honorable mentions. You’re gonna tell me Rezn wasn’t top 30 material? Or Inter Arma, or 10,000 Years (who I still need to review), or Kandodo or Cortez, or Bongripper, Blue Heron, Merlin, Slower? Mount Hush, Vlimmer, Destroyer of Light — I could do this all day. That Carpet record. That MR.BISON record. Valley of the Sun. I see these names and want to punch myself. Then I see the names in the top 30 and I go, “Well…” and kind of have to hold off. I guess that means it turned out to be a pretty fantastic year.
I know for a fact I didn’t hear everything that came out, and I’m willing to bet that any number of people who see this will have their own opinions on the best albums of 2024 from top to bottom. I celebrate this difference and look forward to being exposed to new sounds because of it. Let comments fly, please. Once again, my only ask is that you keep it kind as relates to my own list(s) and any other picks someone might offer. If I’ve got facts wrong, something was a Dec. 2023 release instead of Jan. 2024, whatever, by all means, let me know. But we’re all friends here and being a jerk about it solves nothing.
And yes, I’ll admit to projecting some self-criticism in the Elephant Tree/Lowrider selection for album of the year. All I can tell you is I stand by that pick. It’s that because when I was putting together the list, it couldn’t have been anywhere else. I don’t love breaking my own arbitrary rules nearly as much as I love imposing those arbitrary rules in the first place, but sometimes apparently one is forced from one’s comfort zone to their own general betterment. Who knew?
Of course we’re not done yet.
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Debut Album of the Year 2024
Guhts, Regeneration
Other notable debuts (alphabetical):
Azutmaga, Offering
Buzzard, Doom Folk
Castle Rat, Into the Realm
Cleen, Excursion
Coltaine, Forgotten Ways
Full Earth, Cloud Sculptors
Goat Generator, Goat Generator
Goat Major, Ritual
Grave Speaker, Grave Speaker
Guenna, Peak of Jin’Arrah
Hashtronaut, No Return
Heath, Isaak’s Marble
Hijss, Stuck on Common Ground
Kalgon, Kalgon
Kant, Paranoia Pilgrimage
Kitsa, Dead by Dawn
Leather Lung, Graveside Grin
Legions of Doom, The Skull 3
Magic Fig, Magic Fig
Magick Potion, Magick Potion
Morpholith, Dystopian Distributions of Mass Produced Narcotics
Myriad’s Veil, Pendant
Neon Nightmare, Faded Dream
Plant, Cosmic Phytophthora
Rabid Children, Does the Heartbeat
Saltpig, Saltpig
Semuta, Glacial Erratic
SoftSun, Daylight in the Dark
Spacedrifter, When the Colors Fade
Sun Moon Holy Cult, Sun Moon Holy Cult
Ten Ton Slug, Colossal Oppressor
Tet, Tet
Tigers on Opium, Psychodrama
Tommy and the Teleboys, Gods Used in Great Condition
Troy the Band, Cataclysm
Weather Systems, Ocean Without a Shore
Esben Willems, Glowing Darkness
Young Acid, Murder at Maple Mountain
Notes:
First about Guhts: From the Andy Patterson recording and parts of the songs themselves, Guhts weren’t hiding influence from the likes of SubRosa or Julie Christmas, Made Out of Babies, etc., but what Regeneration did so well — and what I was trying to convey above — was take those recognizable elements and redirect them toward an expressive individuality. That album could be punishingly heavy or sweet and soothing and the fact that you never quite knew which was coming next was a major asset working in the band’s favor. There are a lot of killer debuts on this list, and plenty I’m sure that I’ve left off because, well, I’m inept, but Regeneration was so sure of what it was about and so crisp in making that real through sound that it’s still stunning.
A lot to celebrate on this list. Full Earth at the outset of a hopefully long-term progression. Tigers on Opium with attitude and craft. Castle Rat giving stage drama studio life. Weather Systems picking up where Anathema left off. Promising starts for Pontiac, Hashtronaut, Neon Nightmare, Cleen, Coltaine, Troy the Band, Buzzard, Magic Fig, Legions of Doom, and Heath, among others. If you’re worried about the state of underground heavy music, you don’t need to be. Granted the future of anything is unknowable even before you apply “uncertain times” caveats and all the rest, but bands are stepping up to carry the torch of established sounds and pushing themselves to realize new ideas — whether that’s Guhts and Magic Fig or Tigers on Opium, or Legions of Doom, Ten Ton Slug, Weather Systems and Monolord’s Esben Willems, new players or ones who’ve been around for decades.
If you want a top ten — and who doesn’t? — in addition to Guhts, make your way through Full Earth, Sun Moon Holy Cult, Morpholith, Guenna, Coltaine, Troy the Band, Young Acid, Emu, Buzzard and Kant to start, and you can dig deeper from there. That’s actually 11, but I don’t care. More new music won’t hurt you.
We press on.
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Short Release of the Year 2024
Moura, Fume Santo de Loureiro
Other notable EPs, Splits, Demos, Singles, etc.
Aktopasa, Ultrawest
Alreckque, 6PM
Bog Wizard, Journey Through the Dying Lands
Conan, DIY Series Issue 1
Cortége, Under the Endless Sky
Cult of Dom Keller, Extinction EP
Michael Rudolph Cummings, Money EP
Deer Lord, Dark Matter Pt. 2
Eagle Twin & The Otolith, Legends of the Desert Vol. 4
Fuzznaut, Wind Doula
Fuzzter, Pandemonium EP
Geezer & Isaak, Interstellar Cosmic Blues and the Riffalicious Stoner Dudes
Harvestman, Triptych EP(s)
Hermano, When the Moon Was High
Hollow Leg, Dust & Echoes
Holy Fingers, Endless Light Infinite Presence
King Buffalo, Balrog
Lurcher, Breathe EP
Okkoto, All is Light
Ord Cannon, Foreshots EP
Orme, No Serpents No Saviours
Pelican, Adrift/Tending the Embers
Pontiac, Hard Knox EP
Rope Trick, Red Tide EP
Sacred Buzz, Radio Radiation
Smoke & Doomsday Profit, Split
Spiral Guru, Silenced Voices EP
Toad Venom, Jag har inga problen osv...
Trigona & IO Audio Recordings, Split
Various Artists, International Space Station Vol. 2
Notes:
This category includes so much and can range so vastly between an EP that’s about 30 seconds short of being a full album to a standalone single released just for the hell of it to a band’s first rehearsal room demo. “Short releases” encompasses a lot, and as noted above, I’ve already broken my rules about where splits go. What about The Otolith and Eagle Twin? Geezer and Isaak? Smoke and Doomsday Profit? Trigona and IO Audio Recordings? The International Space Station four-wayer? If I’m crossing lines, don’t these also need to be considered as full-lengths?
You know what really sucks about it? This is an argument I’m going to have with myself for probably the next year. An existential crisis playing out in the back of my mind. More important? The Moura EP. The soundtracky textures the Spanish folk-informed progressive psychedelic rockers brought to the follow-up for their second album were both otherworldly and ground-born, and the material put emphasis on how much care and craft goes into their work while retaining the organic core against the threat of pretense. It was my most listened to short release of 2024, followed by Pelican, Holy Fingers, Pontiac, Toad Venom, Hollow Leg (x2), and Sacred Buzz. A new King Buffalo single was a late-year boon, that Hermano was worth it for the previously-unreleased studio track alone, and strong showings from Michael Rudolph Cummings, Deer Lord, Conan and Cortége, along with the aforementioned splits, assured that through the entire year, attention spans would receive consistent challenge in the movement from one thing to the next.
By way of a familiar confession, my list of short releases is nowhere near complete. It never is, and it never really could be. I’m sure there will be some I left out that I’ll add in for honorable mentions, etc., but I stand by the Moura pick for best short outing. They brought a soul to it that put the lie to the notion of EPs as between-album gap-fillers, and in a year that didn’t lack substance among its brevity-focused options, Fume Santo de Loureiro stood out in character, aesthetic and songwriting. Nobody else is making music quite like Moura.
If you have more to add here, by all means, please and thank you. Comments are below.
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Live Albums
Live Album of the Year 2024
Temple Fang, Live at Krach Am Bach
Castle, One Knight Stands: Live in NY
Danava, Live
Elder, Live at Maida Vale
Snail, Thou Art There
Stöner, Hittin’ the Bitchin’ Switch
Sula Bassana & Skyjoggers, Split
The Whims of the Great Magnet, Live at Bankastudios Maastricht 22-12-2023
Notes:
Fewer releases listed here than last year, but some killer ones for that. I put Temple Fang out there as live album of the year, and since we’re late in the post I’ll tell you honestly that it probably could be any of these on a given day. Danava’s live record crossed decades in badassery, the Sula/Skyjoggers split captured the vibe of a club night in Germany, the Whims of the Great Magnet’s live release made an excellent predecessor to their out-this-month studio album, Snail recorded theirs at a show I put on, Stöner capture the end of their two-album cycle with an awesome set, and Elder are Elder. The Maida Vale recording is short, and their songs are long, or you probably would’ve heard a lot more about that this year. If/when they do a proper live album, it will be a no-brainer.
But the Temple Fang has it all in molten progressivism, heavy tones, immersive psychedelia and outright soul, and of the bands I’ve managed to list here — if you want to add to the list, please do — there’s nobody who so much defines what they do by its live incarnation. Temple Fang’s music changes every night. They follow where it leads in a different way, and the ritualization of their performance comes through in Live at Krach Am Bach resoundingly. I’m not saying a bad word about their studio work to this point, but their heart manifests in a different way and at a different level onstage. They’re a great band and this shows a big part of why.
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Looking Ahead to 2025
Names, right? This one’s all about the names? Get to the names, jack? Okay, calm down.
With eternal appreciation to the folks of fine, upstanding moral character in the ‘The Obelisk Collective’ group on Facebook for the assistance, here’s a smattering of what one might look forward to in 2025:
Aawks, After Nations, All Them Witches, Amber Asylum, Author & Punisher, Bandshee, Black Spirit Crown, Bog Wizard, Bone Church, Borracho, Bronco, Buzzard, Dee Calhoun, Causa Sui, The Cimmerian, Clutch, Conan, Corrosion of Conformity, Daevar, Dead Meadow, Dead Shrine, Demons My Friends, Dream Unending, DUNDDW, Dunes, Flummox, Fuzz Sagrado, FVZZ POPVLI, Gaytheist, Gin Lady, Gnarled, Gnod & White Hills, Gods and Punks, Godzillionaire, Haze Mage, Kaiser, Kal-El, King Buffalo, Lamassu, Lo-Pan, Madmess, Mantar, Masters of Reality, Messa, Seán Mulrooney, Mouth., New Dawn Fades, Nightstalker, Øresund Space Collective, Pentagram, Pesta, Pothamus, Dax Riggs, Seedy Jeezus, Slomatics, Slow Wake, Stoned Jesus, Stone Machine Electric, Temple Fang, 3rd Ear Experience, Triptykon, Trouble, Turtle Skull, Warlung, Weedpecker, Yawning Balch, Year of the Cobra, YOB… and because it still hasn’t happened and someone invariably calls me out if they’re not listed: Om.
If you have names to add, “smash that comment button,” in the parlance of our times. Only don’t really smash it because you might hurt your hand or break your phone with your awesome strength.
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THANK YOU
It was among my primary goals for this post that it should be shorter than last year’s, and it looks like I’ll achieve that with room to spare, so I’m glad. Sometimes I get carried away, I think I probably don’t need to tell you.
Before I let go of 2024 — actually I still want to review that The Whims of the Great Magnet studio release and I’ve got a Darsombra video premiere set before the end of the year, news to catch up on from like the last two weeks and a whole lot more to cover — I’d like to take a moment to thank you one more time for reading and for being part of this project this year and each year it’s been ongoing. Your support is absolutely what keeps this site going and it means more to me than I can ever hope to comprehend.
Thank you to The Patient Mrs., who in the course of a given week let alone year puts up with more of my bullshit than any human being should ever have to. “Yes, love, the world’s ending and we have no money and the house is falling down around us and the dog needs to pee, but I just need two or three hours to go sit and write about riffs — is that cool?” Or better, when I’m pissy about it. The “my wife is a saint” routine is pretty played out as far as dudely excuses for being selfish, lazy and/or dumb go, but well, I am all of those things on the extreme regular and she hasn’t booted my ass to the curb yet. I find this to be a reason to celebrate and a thing to appreciate. I am loved and cared for in ways I could never hope to earn.
Thank you to my family for their support, year in and year out. They’ve all got Obelisk shirts and they all wear them, and while I’m not sure they understand the true depths of egoistic depravity involved in this project, they’ve been on board with it since the start, and this includes my wife’s side of the family as well. I am incredibly lucky to have the life I have.
I’m going to keep listening to music, keep writing about it as much as I can. I’m not quite as generally panicked about it as I used to be — older, busier in different ways, over the FOMO, maybe a little more discerning in terms of taste? — and I’m significantly less likely to break my brain answering email, but I’m doing my best.
The Obelisk presses on into what will be a busy 2025. I’ve got trips slated to Planet Desert Rock Weekend in Las Vegas this January, Desertfest Oslo in May, Freak Valley in Germany in June, Bear Stone in Croatia in July, and Desertfest New York in September, with more hopefully to come. I look forward to these adventures and to doing the writing that will happen as part of them, and one more time, I thank you for your time and attention in reading, in the past, now, and in the future. I’m taking tomorrow off. All the way off. Back on Monday for more.
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 17th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Granted, Truckfighters are pretty fresh in the ol’ brain after seeing them this past weekend, but while ‘always deliver live’ is an essential part of their ethic as a band, the Swedish troupe behind this fifth edition of the aptly-named Truckfighters Fuzz Festival are hardly the only appeal here. 1000mods will have just released their new album a couple weeks before Fuzz Festival #5 gets underway, and Slomosa and Bottenhavet, Daevar, High Desert Queen and 10,000 Years have or will have 2024 releases under their belt as well. Not to harp on it, but I also saw Domkraft this past weekend, and they don’t have a 2024 record but would nonetheless be a significant draw in this two-nighter’s favor if I happened to live in Stockholm.
Grand Atomic, Steak, Witchrider, Goddess (who I don’t know at all, but am inclined to check out based solely on their inclusion here), Siena Root, Håndgemeng and the ever-fluid Besvärjelsen complete a strong bill for the Debaser and adjacent Bar Brooklyn, and you’ll find the full lineup and ticket link, courtesy of the band’s socials and website:
The Truckfighters Fuzz Festival is back! For the 5th time, there will be riffing in the name of fuzz at Debaser Strand and Bar Brooklyn, this year on the weekend of November 22-23! One could say that the festival has become Sweden’s answer to a company party but here it’s all about fuzz, swing, and a damn good mood. All spread across 2 stages as we combine Debaser and Bar Brooklyn into a single festival frenzy over 2 days. You will be treated to great music from 6:15 pm to midnight on 2 stages, and the evening is not over there as DJs extend the nights with cool music and we hope for a great hangout.
The Venue is located on the island of Södermalm, in Stockholm. This is a very nice area in the central parts of town. Get there with subway or bus to “Hornstull” station.
The bands on the bill are hand picked by us to ensure a great evening! All bands are good! All bands play some kind of heavy groovy rock music with a fuzzy sound! We hope to see you. Keep the fuzz burning! / Truckfighters
Stockholm! Debases & Bar Brooklyn = Fuzz Festival #5 November 22nd & 23rd! 🔥🔥🔥
The lineup is nailed, one day tickets are released now so now we go!
Lineup: Truckfighters 1000mods Siena Root Slomosa Domkraft Witchrider Steak 10,000 Years Besvärjelsen Håndgemeng High Desert Queen Grand Atomic Bottenhavet Daevar Goddess
Posted in Reviews on September 15th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Before Show
Truckfighters soundchecking outside with “Desert Cruiser.” There’s a concrete rise in back of the Knockdown Center, up to a train platform presumably leftover from when whatever what manufactured here, and last year it was open for people to go up like a balcony and watch the bands on the outside stage. It would be hot up there today with the sun beating down, but it doesn’t matter since it’s closed off. So it goes.
Today is the last day of Desertfest New York 2024, and it brings that third, outside stage, where yesterday alternated between the two in the building itself. There are picnic tables out here, corners you can put yourself in if you want, and I appreciate that kind of thing, especially on a day with a crunch of bands. The most brutal schedule conflict? High Desert Queen playing in the Texas room during Truckfighters. Hard choices will be made. I don’t know that I’ll get to take pictures of both, but I plan to watch at least part of each set since it’s not like you have to go down the block to see one or the other. We’ll see how it goes.
Got back and crashed out last night around 1AM. It’s the last day here, so of course one’s head drifts to thoughts of returning to real life after this relatively brief but certainly welcome sidestep. I started packing that glut of stuff I brought with me. I was thinking of driving home tonight, maybe splitting out during Russian Circles, throwing my bags in the car and letting out for Jersey, but I don’t actually expect to be in any shape to do such a thing by then, and Saturday night traffic in New York is like Thursday afternoon. By the time I got home, any favors I’d have done myself by leaving early would have evaporated. That’s me, talking myself out of a thing.
Doors are in four minutes, reportedly. People were waiting out in the sun when I got here. I don’t have an AAA pass or anything because I’ve never been cool, ever, but I do like getting j and sitting a bit before the show starts, writing and whatever else. Calm before the storm? Maybe. Some quiet for the subsequent volume to contrast once the day actually starts. Light tension in the air. You know how it goes.
Like this:
Kadabra
There’s a lot to look forward to today, front to back, but Kadabra must definitely aren’t to be left out of that consideration. The Spokane, Washington-based trio played Desertfest London earlier this year as well and are a better band than the general underground consensus seems to know, though they drew a decent crowd for being the first band on, so maybe I’m wrong on the hype level. Fine. They’re here supporting their 2023 album, Umbra (discussed here, review here), and I very clearly was not the only one who thought to get to Knockdown Center early. The groove and sinister vibe came quick like the haze from the fog machine, only not so quickly breezed away. “The Serpent” and “The Devil” from the latest album featured, and if you wanted to call either a highlight, I won’t fight you. The sound came through clear enough to do justice to the vocal melodies, and their swing was the start today needed.
Gozu
I don’t know how long it’s been and I don’t feel like looking, but it’s too long, in any case. Soul and hard-hitting groove, fury (of the markedly impatient) and craft underneath it all. And every now and again, Gaff might do a softshoe. Well earned. I was watching them play and trying to write, but couldn’t get out of my head, and in what might be the best decision I make today, I stopped trying to write. I put my phone in my pocket and let Gozu bowl me over with their particularly classy roll. It was the right choice, and after half a decade — I felt guilty and looked; last time I saw Gozu was before the pandemic; too long — they both played songs I’d never heard live before and, as of course they would, nailed new material and old. Never a doubt in my mind. Honestly, I was just happy to see them, let alone see them kill it. Not going to pretend to be the impartial observer. I missed Gozu.
Spaceslug
You know that feeling when you’ve dug a band for a while and you see them live for the first time and you dig it and it’s a relief? Seeing Spaceslug for the first time was like that for me. Because it was that, exactly. It was also good to finally see for myself how the live show and the sound of their albums — a consistently evolving thing, definitely on a path — intertwine in terms of presenting the material. The division of duties on vocals and the arrangements have gotten more complex with time, and while you might put on their 2016 debut, Lemanis (discussed here), and 2024’s Out of Water (review here) in succession and know it’s the same band, their breath changes what they mean, and on stage, they can lean into different sides at different times, dynamic without being hurried about it. I don’t know that I’d ever get to see Spaceslug if this wasn’t happening — though I’d certainly make it happen if I could — so thank you Desertfest, and thanks Spaceslug for making the trip and for the show.
Hippie Death Cult
Hippie Death Cult and Kadabra have been out on a tour since last week and were in Rhode Island last night. Meanwhile, Boston got a dose of High Desert Queen, Gozu and Dozer. It’s a good weekend to be on the Eastern Seaboard. Last time I saw the band was at Psycho in 2022 (review here), and that was before basisst Laura Phillips took over on lead vocals. Last Fall brought the release of their first album with Harry Silvers on drums and Phillips on vocals, and with a foundation in Eddie Brnabic’s fluid riffing, they were a Hippie Death Cult able to bring more of an aggressive roll to bear with intermittent harsher vocals; something of a sludgier potential that may or may not be explored over time as they continue to grow. But they were rad when they had Ben Jackson singing and they’re rad now. Hypnotic enough that I forgot to be anxious about missing the start of Eagle Twin, which was nice for a couple minutes to get out of my own head. Twice today. I’m coming dangerously close to letting myself enjoy a thing.
Eagle Twin
Doom with antlers, but not literally, because that also exists. They’re not a band who comes to the East Coast every day, or year, and though I imagine a specific ideal is seeing Eagle Twin out in the woods someplace, they brought a more than solid main stage crowd. I was thinking it hadn’t been that long since I saw them but it turns out it was six years ago at Høstsabbat (review here), where they made a specifically bluesy impression. Go figure. Their sound feels no less born of bigger, more ancient forests than one finds here, but on a level even just of performance and the aforementioned tone, they brought it. There’s a lot to dig about them, I’m just out of metaphors. I took a peak in the Texas stage at Trace Amount, then found a spot at a table with some friends and planted there until a bit before Dozer went on. Eagle Twin were cool, but until I looked just a bit ago I thought I’d seen them in the last few years, and I don’t get a lot of nice, human conversation with people I like in my day-to-day.
Dozer
Powerhouse set, and Dozer’s first time in the States in at least two decades. The urgency of last year’s Drifting Through the Endless Void (review here) speaks for itself, and I’m not here to sell records anyway. But I’m lucky enough that this is my third Dozer show in the last three years after seeing them on what was then a one-off at Desertfest London 2013 (review here), and as classic as their early work is, they’re vital, moving forward in sound from where they left off after 2008’s Beyond Colossal (featured here), coming back after a stretch of time that in hindsight they made short. Propulsive unto themselves in the sphere of heavy rock, people clapping along to Sebastian Olsson’s drums. Their show with High Desert Queen and Gozu in Boston last night precedes them much as it did Gozu, put there were clearly people in the crowd who’ve never seen Dozer before, one can only hope they come back again. Bonus, the train platform was open, so I got to watch from there for a minute too. Enough to witness a light mosh taking shape for the last song.
Green Lung
I wouldn’t hazard to predict the future, but Green Lung look like they’re in it for the long haul. Stage presence enough that I don’t feel ridiculous imagining them playing festivals like this 20 years from now. They could probably play “Mountain Throne” then too. Their organic cultistry, nature-worship and on-stage harmonies were on point, and though I knew all of that would be the case going into the set, it was exciting to see them play songs from last Fall’s This Heathen Land (review here) and take advantage of the full breadth of their sound and a reach that only seems to be expanding. Part of the appeal is that they’re over the top, and they are, but there’s so much raw talent on stage when they play, and they’re clearly learning how to wield it. This is their first US tour. I have a hard time imagining it will be their last. “Maxine (Witch Queen),” “Old Gods,” “Hunters in the Sky,” “Graveyard Sun.” Fucking “Let the Devil In.” Everything they played sounded like it could’ve been on a greatest hits collection. Hooks and performance. They made it a show. It was a spectacle, classic metal in many ways, some of them theatrical, but brought to life with its own take on both conceptual and stylistic traditions.
Truckfighters
This was my moment to both have and eat cake. Truckfighters went on five whole minutes before High Desert Queen. The Ruins (outside) stage is about a minute’s walk from the Texas room, so I watched the start of Truckfighters and then went back and forth for the duration. Acid King was getting started soon enough as well, so it’s probably the most ‘go’ moment of the fest, at least for me, but those are three different parties you want to be at. Truckfighters aren’t the only band this weekend whose reputation precedes them, and they had the biggest crowd of the night outside — also at some point it became night; when may or may not be clear in the photos — and another mosh. Surprising amount of mish this year. It’s like New York is extra antsy since the Saint Vitus Bar closed, which is reasonable, frankly. I got to see Truckfighters do “The Chairman,” and that was justification enough for the back and forth, a mellower vibe in the buildup to the payoff, as opposed to some of their stuff, which is more pure shove and roll. A reputation well and continually earned. Weren’t they recording an album? Or is that just me hoping for a thing?
High Desert Queen
Just a blast of a band. For a good time, call. Up from Austin, they’re on the already noted tour with Dozer and Gozu, playing in support of this Spring’s Palm Reader (review here), their second album and first for Magnetic Eye. Those songs rightly featured heavily in the set, which started 30 seconds after I walked into the Texas room like it was on cue. Tight, heavy groove, nothing too fancy stylistically — I always hear some C.O.C. in their sound, one way or the other, and that was true tonight, but not the end of the story as regards their sound either. You can hear the influence of pre- and turn of the century heavy — if I held up Dozer and Acid King as examples, I’m not discounting the relevance of either’s present work in doing that; I’m just thinking of when they got going — and you can tell watching them that they’re into it. Not everybody on stage is dancing around like vocalist Ryan Garney might be to a given riff from guitarist Rusty Miller, but he, bassist Morgan Miller and drummer Phil Hook were right there too in the moment on stage. It was great to see, and even against Truckfighters on the bill, the room filled up.
Acid King
Fair to say Acid King remain at a crucial moment about a year and a half out from Beyond Vision (review here), which was my pick for album of the year last December — not just me, they topped the year-end poll as well. I’m not worried they’re about to immediately do another record right away — you never know, but Beyond Vision was eight years after 2015’s Middle of Nowhere Center of Everywhere (discussed here, review here), and that was down from 10. But the reason I’m saying see Acid King now isn’t just that Lori S. is a hero and bassist/synthesist Bryce Shelton and drummer Jason Willer are so dead on in the nod, but it’s the songs they’re playing from Beyond Vision. The material itself. “Mind’s Eye” and “Destination Psych.” Closing with that insane build from “Color Trails?” Come on. Any chance you’re afforded, see this band.
Russian Circles
Chicago instrumentalist forerunners Russian Circles came out with a burst, hitting hard in the spirit of 2022’s Gnosis (review here) and building outward from there in multiple directions. Post-hardcore is part of it, but so is psychedelic rock and the occasional time-to-crush bit of riffery, and they’ve found a way to keep structured songs from falling into a verse/chorus trap. They genuinely sound like a band who listen to more kinds of music than the kind they make, amd benefit from it in being able not just to pay loud or quiet, but evoke a different feel from song to song. A lot of anything would have been a comedown after Acid King, but Russian Circles in the headlining spot had a level of volume that was their own as much as their sound, and as it had been a while, I was glad to watch them, or at least listen in a spot where the strobe wasn’t quite so fast. Even as Desertfest draws down, it delivers. There were even more bubbles.
—
It was good to see old friends, new friends, and Desertfest friends, since as the years have gone on I’ve found there are people I see here and that’s it. I take that as a good sign — though I suspect I’d see more people if I went out more — since it means people are coming back, which is the ideal. Desertfest delivered a show to New York a show and a lineup worthy of the Desertfest brand, and I hope it continues to bring European acts over each year as it did in 2024 with Dozer, Spaceslug, Green Lung, Domkraft, Truckfighters, Belzebong, even Amenra. They’ve been working to build a sense of community since the inception, and between killer shows and returning patrons, I’d say they’re on their way.
A note about the Texas stage today before I leave off. I only got (some) photos of High Desert Queen, but I did get to pop in for some of Beinn and Trace Amount as well. I’d never seen either, so at least a few songs. Beinn were a pleasant surprise, kind of a heavy-ended post-hardcore thing, I heard some noise rock and some Cave In, and they went for it on stage, as did Brooklyn industrialist Trace Amount, whose studio work I’ve dug in a kind of machine-misanthropic vibe. On stage, it’s just Brandon Gallagher, and he was all-in, pacing back and forth and throwing himself around, screaming and in the crowd headbanging. It was by no means packed, but I respect the one-man show for sure. Not easy to keep up energy when you’re by yourself. Ask a standup comedian. Tower headlined the room and they continue to make a party out of trad metal in a way that is only endearing.
Thank you to Reece, Sarika, and the Desertfest crew. Thank you to Tim Bugbee, Dante Torrieri, the Great Tomoko, and Sean in the photo pit, and I’m sorry for taking up space. Thanks to everybody who said hi or something nice about the site — or both — and I can’t tell you how warm and welcoming it felt to be in a place where I felt like what I do matters to someone, even just a little bit. Thank you. Thank you for reading. And thanks, as always and most of all, to The Patient Mrs., though whom all things are possible.
More pics after the jump. And I’m mostly taking tomorrow (Monday) off to catch up on writing. Back Tuesday. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go take a 90-minute shower.
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 19th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Since July 11, a little over a week ago, Texas feelgood heavy rockers High Desert Queen have been on a European tour that’s included a stop at Stoned From the Underground and numerous other shows in and around Germany. The tour wraps up Aug. 3 and I assume they’ll fly home out of Schiphol in Amsterdam back to the US. Their arrival on US shores will give them about a month’s time to prepare to hit the road again, this time looping up the East Coast and into the Midwest for club shows and slots at Desertfest New York and the band-affiliated Ripplefest Texas, dates with Dozer and Gozu, Valley of the Sun and more. You would not accuse them of not putting in their time on the road. Or you could, I guess, but you’d be dumb and wrong to do so.
They go (and go, and go) in support of their second full-length, Palm Reader (review here), which came out in May as their first outing for Magnetic Eye Records, and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if they managed to sneak in a West Coast run over the coming winter as well. That’s how they do, and by any and all outward indications from the band, they actually enjoy it. Imagine that for a minute.
Then imagine that joy being shared from the stage, via riffs. Here are the dates:
FALL USA TOUR! This September we will be playing in cities we’ve never played in! Plus for the last half of the tour we will be supporting the legendary (and our good friends) Dozer. Check your local venues for tickets as these will go fast!
Which show will we see you at? 🤘🔥❤️
Sept. 5 Dallas, TX Three Links Sept. 6 New Orleans, LA Santos Bar Sept. 7 Chattanooga, TN The Dragon’s Roast Sept. 8 Asheville, NC. The Odd+ Sept. 9 Richmond, VA Another Round Sept. 10 Erie, PA Hippie and the Hound Sept. 11 Youngstown, OH Westside Bowl Sept. 12 Buffalo, NY Bugjar Sept. 13 Braintree, MA Widowmaker Brewing* Sept. 14 Queens, NY DesertFest NYC Sept. 15 Montreal, QC Piranha Bar* Sept. 16 Toronto, ON Garrison* Sept. 17 Grand Rapids, MI Pyramid Scheme* Sept. 18 Chicago, IL Reggie’s* Sept. 19 Lincoln, NB Reverb Lounge* Sept. 20 Oklahoma City, OK Resonant Head* Sept. 21 Austin, TX RippleFest Texas
Poster Art by f1ca_studio
Remaining European tour dates:
19/7 Leipzig, DE Kulturlounge 20/7 Munster, DE Rare Guitar 22/7 Bamberg, DE Live Club Bamberg 24/7 Göppingen, DE Gaststätte Zille 25/7 Karlshrue, DE Alte Hackerei 26/7 Neuensee, DE Rock im Wald Festival 27/7 Ulm, DE Hexenhaus 28/7 Cham, DE L.A. Club 29/7 Munich, DE Unter Deck 31/7 Ljubljana, SL Channel Zero 3/8 Amsterdam, NE De Tanker In Noord
HIGH DESERT QUEEN are: Ryan Garney – vocals Phil Hook – drums Morgan Miller – bass Rusty Miller – guitar
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 4th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
I’m not at all at a place in my life where I could even if I was ever to be invited — which, in a conservative estimate I’ll say is struck-by-lightning-and-live-level unlikely — but man, I’d love to go on this tour. Imagine following Dozer, Gozu and High Desert Queen as they traipse across the US colluding on the delivery of ultra-fine heavy rock and roll for nine days, including stops at Desertfest New York and Ripplefest Texas both. Damn that’d be fun. Also tiring. And my wife would have my ass, if my entering-first-grade daughter didn’t get to kicking it first. Nonetheless, even the daydream of hurry-up-and-wait tour existence is fun in this case.
I think the last time Dozer were in the US was 2000? Something like that. I seem to recall they played the Brighton Bar in my beloved Garden State, but I could be wrong about that. They return Stateside in 2024 riding the utter triumph of their 2023 return LP, Drifting in the Endless Void (review here), which indeed is a cause worth heralding. I was lucky enough to catch Dozer last summer supporting the album (review here) and even luckier that it wasn’t my first time seeing the band, but to have them hit the US (and a lil bit of Canada!) alongside Gozu — their 2023 album, Remedy (review here), remains a standout — and High Desert Queen, who issued their widely anticipated second album, Palm Reader (review here) in May, is even better.
Mark it a win, kids. Poster and such from the ol’ social media:
USA! Endless void tour is coming for you this September…are you ready? 🤘 Support by @highdesertqueen and @gozu_band_boston
DOZER – Endless Void US Tour 2024 feat. Gozu & High Desert Queen 09.13 Braintree MA Widowmaker Brewing 09.14 Queens NY Desertfest NYC 09.15 Montreal QC Piranha Bar 09.16 Toronto ON The Garrison 09.17 Grand Rapids MI Pyramid Scheme 09.18 Chicago IL Reggies Rock Club 09.19 Omaha NE Reverb Lounge 09.20 Oklahoma City OK Resonant Head 09.21 Austin TX Ripplefest Texas
DOZER is: Tommi Holappa – Guitar Fredrik Nordin – Guitar/Vox Johan Rockner – Bass Sebastian Olsson – Drums
The anticipated sophomore full-length from big-swing Austin, Texas, heavy rockers High Desert Queen, Palm Reader, is set to release May 31 through Magnetic Eye Records. And as the follow-up to 2021’s well-received Secrets of the Black Moon (review here) and the four-piece’s 2023 split with Albuquerque’s Blue Heron, Turned to Stone Ch. 8: The Wake (review here) — both on Ripple Music — it answers the high expectations placed on it with organic craft and a focus on largesse that would seem to put the ‘Texas’ in the self-applied tag ‘Texas desert rock.’
That is to say, with Palm Reader, High Desert Queen are all in. There’s no sneering irony or pretense in the seven included cuts, and as heavy as they are, the vibe is positive even in the mellow first half of the penultimate “Tuesday Night Blues,” which is about as close to a comedown as the band — vocalist Ryan Garney (also of Lick of My Spoon Productions and the ‘head honcho’ of Ripplefest Texas), guitarist Rusty Miller, bassist Morgan Miller, drummer Phil Hook — get, and the collective pursuit of bigger riffs and nods comes through fluidly with an engrossing and reportedly live-performance-centered production by Casey Johns at Yellow Dog Studios in Wimberley, TX, and the subsequent mix/master at Tri-Lamb in Sweden by Karl Daniel Lidén (Greenleaf, Dozer, Katatonia, on and on) highlighting space and impact alike.
With “Ancient Aliens” and “Death Perception” — the latter featuring a duet with guest vocalist Emma Näslund of Gaupa, whom the band met in Stockholm at Truckfighters Fuzz Fest in late-2022 (review here) — at the outset, Palm Reader welcomes the listener into the set, digs in for the first of two nine-minute jammers without losing sight of the hook in “Head Honcho,” and never diverts from its central goals of conveying the band’s onstage energy and penchant for turning choice riffs into good times. If you come out the other side of the massive, increasingly-shoving chug that closes the album in “Solar Rain” — the other nine-minute jam — and say to yourself that High Desert Queen are a band you need to see live, then Palm Reader will likely have fulfilled the band’s mission for it.
It’s not that they’re reinventing their genre or enacting some kind of stylistic insurgency, but High Desert Queen came out of the gate knowing what they were about, and Palm Reader refines their songwriting while staying true to the core purpose. They’re not fixing what wasn’t broken, and the album isn’t just a succession of comfortably-paced lumbering nods and catchy rhymes — as the centerpiece title-track demonstrates with its funkier strut to finish side A with a kick of momentum picking up from the scorching last chorus of “Head Honcho” — but while their material is more about audience-communion than trying to convince anyone within earshot how clever or progressive or even original they are, the sincerity of their delivery and the natural flow that emerges within and between the songs make long-established methods feel fresh, vibrant.
Secrets of the Black Moon did this as well, and the difference might just be the result of High Desert Queen having spent so much of the time between their two-to-date LPs on various stages in various countries, but whether it’s the still-grounded, semi-psych delve in the build toward that climax in “Head Honcho” or the drums setting the start-stop-and-twist pattern for the thickened boogie of “Time Waster” at the start of side B, the songs come across as thoughtful without being overwrought and arranged in such a way as to carry the listener from one end to the other with an overarching movement that doesn’t undercut the impact of the individual pieces comprising it. There’s a sweet-spot for this in heavy rock and roll. High Desert Queen follow the riff to get to it and reside there for the duration.
And nothing they do throughout, from their most mountainous stretches to the screams capping “Solar Rain,” from the declarative nod and post-C.O.C. burl of “Ancient Aliens” to the way “Palm Reader” provides enough of a shift in method that they don’t need an interlude to break up the proceedings, takes away from the heart behind it. I wasn’t kidding above when I said “all in.” Whatever else it might accomplish in songwriting, performance or reach, Palm Reader sounds like nothing so much as a band giving everything they have to each moment of its making. That’s evident in Garney‘s echoing bellows and Miller‘s deceptively-classy soloing on “Time Waster” as well as the point where “Tuesday Night Blues” kicks in from its quieter, spoken-word-topped intro to set its course of fluid loud/quiet trades in motion, and comes to feel like no less of a priority than the heaviest of riffs at the album’s foundation. While certainly self-aware in the sense of knowing what it’s doing, where it’s going and how it’s getting there, Palm Reader is most of all driven by passion.
Of course, chemistry also helps, and even putting aside the fact that Rusty and MorganMiller are related by blood, High Desert Queen have plenty of it on offer as they align around this or that movement, shifting smoothly whether it’s from the verse to the chorus of “Ancient Aliens” or bringing the midsection cacophony of “Solar Rain” to a stop to let the guitar lay down the riff anchoring the mounting intensity of the record’s finish. Front to back, High Desert Queen neither overshoot nor undersell their marks, and Palm Reader is the kind of outing you could play for someone with no prior familiarity or association with underground heavy music as ready argument in favor of conversion. It’s kind of a party, and without seeming like dumbed-down-for-accessibility caricature, it works on its own level to assure that all who might hear it invited. Give it the proper volume and you might just end up making friends.
The e’er-crucial preorder link, live dates and more info follow the premiere of the lyric video for “Death Perception” in the embed below, courtesy of the PR wire.
Please enjoy:
High Desert Queen, “Death Perception” (feat. Emma Näslund) lyric video premiere
HIGH DESERT QUEEN’s sophomore full-length “Palm Reader” is bursting with raw energy and radiates the feeling of 666 diesel horses thundering loud. The album is crammed with cool vibes, ripping leads, and a ton of desert fuzz with a focus on great songs rather than trying to stay confined within a corral of a particular style.
HIGH DESERT QUEEN had what it takes to kick the scene into gear again. Their vast musical influences ranging from grunge to funk, old school metal to doom and much more provide an ideal foundation for new ideas and a rejuvenating approach to the genre. Their thunderous, fuzz-drenched anthems are delivered with a healthy dose of groove and catchy melodies, and get a massive boost from an emotional intelligence in their music that’s hard to find. The newly-minted sound is linked to the rich heritage of their environs, inspiring the style tag ‘Texas desert rock’.
Answering the exponentially multiplying requests for new material from their steadily growing following, HIGH DESERT QUEEN flanked their live activities with the “Turned to Stone Ch. 8” split release with BLUE HERON, and contributed a track to “Best of Soundgarden Redux”, the latest instalment of the bestselling Magnetic Eye Records Redux series.
With “Palm Reader”, HIGH DESERT QUEEN have made a quantum leap in their evolution as the Texans found the perfect balance between the well-loved legacy of the desert rock genre and carving out their very own path. Fueled by the power and spirit of live music, this album rocks as hard and honest as can be done.
HIGH DESERT QUEEN live: 24 MAY 2024 Lafayette, LA (US) Freetown Boom Boom Room 25 MAY 2024 Houston, TX (US) White Oak Music Hall 26 MAY 2024 Arlington, TX (US) Division Brewery 30 MAY 2024 Austin, TX (US) The Far Out Lounge 31 MAY 2024 Bryan, TX (US) The 101 01 JUN 2024 San Antonio, TX (US) The Amp Room 02 JUN 2024 New Braunfels, TX (US) Guadalupe Brewery 13 JUL 2024 Erfurt (DE) Stoned from the Underground Festival 26 JUL 2024 Neuensee (DE) Rock im Wald Festival 21 SEP 2024 Austin, TX (US) Far Out Lounge, RippleFest Texas
Line-up Ryan Garney – vocals Phil Hook – drums Morgan Miller – bass Rusty Miller – guitar
High Desert Queen, “Ancient Aliens” official video
