Posted in Whathaveyou on April 8th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
This is one of the best lineups I’ve seen for a US-based heavy fest in the 15-plus years I’ve been running this site. I don’t know what else to say about it, honestly. For the fact that Ripplefest Texas is bringing Dozer over alone, let alone any of the other Euro acts involved who have, say, been to North America in the last 20-plus years, it’s astonishing. And not just bigger bands like Dozer and Truckfighters or Mars Red Sky and Belzebong, but Domkraft and Kal-El, bands you know if you’re into this thing but that haven’t been around as long and aren’t as ‘huge’ in the whatever sense that applies in underground music.
And it’s not like they’re skimping on within-US geography either. Of course the desert is well represented, and Texas has a significant presence as it invariably would, but with Gozu and Leather Lung headed out from Boston, Borracho traveling from D.C., Temple of the Fuzz Witch from Michigan, Robots of the Ancient World from Portland, Oregon, and so on, they’ve got all the corners and between pretty well covered. La Chinga coming from Canada. Demons My Friends giving Mexico a nod. It is extensive.
And quality. I don’t know that I’ll be there to see it, but I’d imagine that for most who get to be, it’ll be the stuff of legend. Congrats to Ryan Garney and Lick of My Spoon for bringing it into the world, and safe travels to all involved:
Here it is! The lineup for RippleFest Texas and the amazing art by Simon Berndt @1horsetown 🤘🔥❤️
We still have a few surprises left but this roster is stacked! Don’t miss your chance to see the world’s best heavy music at the largest family reunion of the year. Plus this is the ONLY premier festival that has absolutely ZERO OVERLAPPING so you can see every second of every band! Get your tickets now and we will see you in September!
Tier 2 tickets are almost sold out and the price increases on Monday so get your tickets now:
DOZER TRUCKFIGHTERS BONGZILLA MARS RED SKY BELZEBONG DOMKRAFT LEGIONS OF DOOM FATSO JETSON GOZU HOWLING GIANT THE HEAVY EYES HIGH DESERT QUEEN KAL-EL 20 WATT TOMBSTONE THE OTOLITH TEMPLE OF THE FUZZ WITCH LEATHER LUNG THUNDER HORSE HASHTRONAUT BONE CHURCH BORRACHO SUN CROW CRYSTAL SPIDERS TIA CARRERA ROBOTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD MR. PLOW LA CHINGA FOSTERMOTHER BLUE HERON TEMPTRESS FORMULA 400 DEMONS MY FRIENDS VERMILION WHISKEY VIOLET RISING HUDU AKIL BUZZ ELECTRO SHADOW OF JUPITER
GRAND FINALE w/ MARIO LALLI & THE RUBBER SNAKE CHARMERS “Desert Jam Session”
Plus the best light show in the business by @themadalchemistliquidliteshow
Oh, alright, I guess we can talk again about how much Howling Giant outdid themselves with this past Fall’s Glass Future (review here). It’s been about 10 minutes. The Nashville-based outfit appear in the photo above in their recently-announced four-piece incarnation, making it official with James Sanderson on guitar and vocals, who has contributed to their records and songwriting before — as well as, apparently, DM’ing — but their new video for “Juggernaut” still features them as the trio of guitarist/vocalist Tom Polzine, drummer/vocalist Zach Wheeler and bassist/vocalist Sebastian Baltes, who it would appear is also in charge of the hot sauce.
And of course Howling Giant have hot sauce. They had coffee at one point too (review here), so it’s only fair game for a band who so obviously put hot sauce in their coffee in order to obtain their particular melodic consciousness, poppy in a get-off-your-ass kind of way, Glass Future retains substance even in its showy style, with hook after hook after hook and a momentum not at all undercut by the fact that they’re also dynamic and not just doing the same thing all the time. Really, give me two seconds to put the record on and we could take the whole afternoon to talk about it even before we get to the persona on display in the songs manifest in the video as an infomercial for, duh, the hot sauce.
Casting puts Wheeler and Polzine as the salesmen, and with performance footage interspliced, they send up outdated notions of advertising and maybe even a bit themselves. After all, they’re making a joke of selling the hot sauce on tv and joking about torturing Baltes as a captive chef to eventually make it from… his… life force?, but I bet if you put yourself in front of the merch table on the band’s upcoming tour with The Obsessed and Gozu — both also with new records out, the former the most recent of them — that hot sauce will be there waiting for you. Not sure they’ll push it quite as vigorously as they do in the video, but that’s probably fine too.
As for the track itself, it joins Glass Future‘s title-track and “Aluminum Crown,” the clips for which you can see below, and if Howling Giant wanted to bang out three or four more videos before they move on from the record to whatever’s next, I’ll gladly post those too. Few bands who can write songs at their level either do or put the work in afterward to let people know about it as well as Howling Giant — also on their side is the fact that they’re fun but not dicks about it — who also toured Europe this past Fall in the company of Philadelphian labelmates Heavy Temple and will no doubt be headed back that way before too long.
Video’s below, tour dates under that. You know the drill. PR wire and such:
Howling Giant, “Juggernaut” official video
HOWLING GIANT dish out a jar full of spicy news today. First helping is a hot sauce-filled video clip for the yummy track ‘Juggernaut’ taken from the band’s current album “Glass Future”, released in October 2023 through Magnetic Eye Records (order athttp://lnk.spkr.media/glass-future). Next on the menu is a tasty US tour in spring 2024 in support of THE OBSESSED, find all dates listed below!
HOWLING GIANT will embark on an extended US tour as direct support for THE OBSESSED in March and April this spring. The now quartet from Nashville, TN will hit the roads in support of their highly acclaimed current album “Glass Future”, which is also the official introductory round for new rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist James Sanderson.
HOWLING GIANT welcome their new member: “James started working with us while we were writing ‘Masamune’, helping break down lyrical barriers and working on song arrangements, and followers of our online shenanigans might recognize him as the Dungeon Master in our streamed D&D campaigns”, drummer and vocalist Zach Wheeler reveals. “We are stoked to welcome James officially into the Howling Giant fold, and can hardly wait to show off the four-piece fury that we’ll be bringing forth on our upcoming run with The Obsessed and Gozu. See you all on the road!”
HOWLING GIANT live US Spring 2024 + THE OBSESSED +GOZU 13 MAR 2024 Philadelphia, PA (US) Milk Boy 14 MAR 2024 Baltimore, MD (US) Metro Gallery 15 MAR 2024 Richmond, VA (US) Cobra Cabana 16 MAR 2024 Wilmington, NC (US) Reggie’s 42nd Street Tavern 17 MAR 2024 Asheville, NC (US) The Odd 19 MAR 2024 Atlanta, GA (US) Boggs Social & Supply 20 MAR 2024 New Orleans, LA (US) Siberia 22 MAR 2024 Fort Worth, TX (US) Tulips 23 MAR 2024 Austin, TX (US) The Lost Well 25 MAR 2024 Albuquerque, NM (US) Launchpad 26 MAR 2024 Mesa, AZ (US) The Nile Underground 27 MAR 2024 Los Angeles, CA (US) Resident 28 MAR 2024 Palmdale, CA (US) Transplants Brewing 29 MAR 2024 San Diego, CA (US) Brick By Brick 30 MAR 2024 Las Vegas, NV (US) The Usual Place 31 MAR 2024 Salt Lake City, UT (US) Aces High Saloon 01 APR 2024 Denver, CO (US) Hi-Dive 03 APR 2024 Chicago, IL (US) Reggies 04 APR 2024 Lakewood, OH (US) The Foundry 05 APR 2024 New Kensington, PA (US) Preserving Underground 06 APR 2024 Rochester, NY (US) Montage Music Hall 07 APR 2024 Brattleboro, VT (US) The Stone Church 09 APR 2024 Cambridge, MA (US) Sonia 10 APR 2024 Portland, ME (US) Geno’s Rock Club 11 APR 2024 Hamden, CT (US) Space Ballroom 12 APR 2024 Brooklyn, NY (US) The Meadows
Recording line-up Tom Polzine – guitar, vocals Zach Wheeler – drums, vocals Sebastian Baltes – bass, vocals
Guest musicians Drew David Harakal II – organ, piano, synths James Sanderson – additional vocals on ‘Siren Song’, ‘Hawk in a Hurricane’, and ‘There’s Time Now’
Current line-up Tom Polzine – guitar, vocals Zach Wheeler – drums, vocals Sebastian Baltes – bass, vocals James Sanderson – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 9th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
As ever fronted by founding guitarist/vocalist Scott ‘Wino’ Weinrich — who makes ready to embark on a stint of solo acoustic shows in Europe even as their announcement arrives — The Obsessed have announced the first US run of headlining touring they’ll undertake to support the Feb. 16 release of their first album in seven years and first with the current lineup, Gilded Sorrow. Joining the doom legends in the endeavor are Boston’s Gozu and Nashville’s Howling Giant, who both issued their own stellar LPs in 2023, be it the former’s Remedy (review here) or the latter’s breakout, Glass Future (review here), which they’ve newly revamped their own lineup to support, adding a second guitarist to play as a four-piece.
The Obsessed, who for most of their decades have been a trio, have also been working with two guitars the last couple years, and it doesn’t seem to have hurt them any. They note below they’re about to put out a new single from Gilded Sorrow later this week, so that’ll be something to look out for, and you can find their comment, what Gozu and Howling Giant also had to say about it, and the dates, below, along with far too many links and videos from all involved parties, cobbled together from hither and yon across various social media outlets and so on. Who the hell doesn’t like a package tour?
Have at it:
Says The Obsessed: “Hitting the American highways with our friends Howling Giant and GOZU this March/April. Let’s see y’all out there! We will have our new record, Gilded Sorrow, on the merch table at all these shows. Stay tuned for another new single THIS FRIDAY!!”
Says Gozu: “2024 looking good! Who will we see?”
Says Howling Giant: “Back on the road we go! Very excited to be heading out with The Obsessed and GOZU this March/April. We’ve got James locked and loaded for a set chock full of tunes from Glass Future, we can’t wait to see everyone!”
3/13 Philadelphia, PA – Milk Boy 3/14 Baltimore, MD – Metro Gallery 3/15 Richmond, VA – Cobra Cabana 3/16 Wilmington, NC – Reggie’s 42nd Street Tavern 3/17 Asheville, NC – The Odd 3/19 Atlanta, GA – Boggs Social & Supply 3/20 New Orleans, LA – Siberia 3/22 Fort Worth, TX – Tulips 3/23 Austin, TX – The Lost Well 3/25 Albuquerque, NM – Launchpad 3/26 Mesa, AZ – The Nile Underground 3/27 Los Angeles, CA – Resident 3/28 Palmdale, CA – Transplants Brewing 3/29 San Diego, CA – Brick By Brick 3/30 Las Vegas, NV – The Usual Place 3/31 Salt Lake City, UT – Aces High Saloon 4/1 Denver, CO – Hi-Dive 4/3 Chicago, IL – Reggies 4/4 Lakewood, OH – The Foundry 4/5 New Kensington, PA – Preserving Underground 4/6 Rochester, NY – Montage Music Hall 4/7 Brattleboro, VT – The Stone Church 4/9 Cambridge, MA – Sonia 4/10 Portland, ME – Geno’s Rock Club 4/11 Hamden, CT – Space Ballroom 4/12 Brooklyn, NY – The Meadows
THE OBSESSED line-up: Chris Angleberger – bass and vocals Jason Taylor – guitar and vocals Brian Costantino – drums Scott “Wino” Weinrich – guitar and vocals
GOZU is: Marc Gaffney – guitar and vocals Joe Grotto – bass Doug Sherman – lead guitar Seth Botos – drums
Howling Giant are: Tom Polzine – Guitar and Vocals Zach Wheeler – Drums and Vocals Sebastian Baltes – Bass and Vocals James Sanderson – Guitar and Vocals
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 4th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Of course there’s always the risk of a band trying to fix something that isn’t broken, and Howling Giant‘s dynamic and approach on 2023’s Glass Future (review here) had not-broken as a defining characteristic, but listening to the record, it doesn’t seem unreasonable that they’d look to bring in a second guitar for live shows. There’s enough depth of layering there, then you get into keys, which having another guitar adds more flexibility for, and it makes sense. Their sound is getting bigger and they’re nothing if not focused on how they present their material to an audience, so yeah, second guitar, more vocals to add to the mix for harmonies. No problem trusting this is a win.
And I guess that’s the power of what putting out one of the best albums of the year gets you: trust. What, you think Howling Giant — who just went to Europe for the first time in Heavy Temple this Fall and you know are looking to go back — are going to try to screw up the momentum they just spent four years working to build, half during a global lockdown? If they were that dumb they wouldn’t be where they are in the first place.
I hope I get to see them live soon. I’ve watched a bunch of videos and all that, but this set is something I want to be in a room with. Would also accept the out of doors, weather providing.
From their socials:
Happy New Year to all and thank you for an amazing 2023! Releasing Glass Future, touring with the likes of Elder, Ruby the Hatchet, Heavy Temple, and Restless Spirit, and finally getting over to Europe was a true pleasure.
We’ve got dates coming very soon for this spring to continue the Glass Future release tour, and we will also be bringing a familiar face into the HG fold as a full-fledged member of the band. Everyone welcome James Sanderson, guitarist/lyricist/merchboi to the stars! He had his first performance with us in town at the Glass Future release show and he passed his final exam with flying colors. See y’all out there
Howling Giant are: Tom Polzine – Guitar and Vocals Zach Wheeler – Drums and Vocals Sebastian Baltes – Bass and Vocals James Sanderson – Guitar and Vocals
Posted in Features on December 18th, 2023 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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It is encouraging in the extreme to see heavy music, as both concept and practical reality, growing more diverse. For all its rebellious airs, rock and roll has always been predominantly white and male, and its heavy underground form is no different. But for any artform to survive let alone evolve, it has to be open to new ideas and perspectives, and I firmly believe that the underground is becoming a more inclusive community. It has a distance to go that can only be measured in light years, but progress is progress.
2023 was a stunner from the start, with early highlights that stuck around and were joined by more as the months progressed. And while we’re speaking about it in past tense and it’s wrap-up time and so on, there are still new releases coming out every day and week. All over the planet, the heavy underground represents a vibrant subculture, rife with creativity and purpose, speaking inside genre and out, and all the time looking to grow artistically and in terms of listenership. As a result, the work being released holds itself to a high standard.
And yes, that’s true even if it’s about bongs.
Actually, that such willful primitivism is taking place at the same as doom forays into goth, psych forays into mania and tone-worshipping stoner rock seems intent to both double-down on simplicity while expanding into increasingly progressive territory is emblematic of that very standard and the diversity among practitioners of these styles in the current and up and coming generation.
One could go on here, speculate on future directions and so forth, but frankly there isn’t time just now. The list you see below is mine. I made it. It’s informed by my listening habits — what I had on most — by what I see as the greatest level of achievement by the band in question, and in some cases by critical import. It’s a weird mix, but let’s face it, you don’t care. The bottom line is all I’m claiming to represent here is myself and this site.
Accordingly, as with every year, I’ll ask you to please be mindful of the feelings and opinions and others if and as you proffer your own. I love comments here, I love discussions on this post most of any throughout any year, every year, but that can’t happen if somebody’s being a jerk, so don’t. If you disagree with me or someone else, I don’t care if you have a 40-page treatise on your opinion or if you just don’t dig a thing, but if you’re seeing these words, it is our responsibility to each other to be respectful and kind.
Beyond that, in advance of what’s about to unfurl below, please know that I thank you for reading.
**NOTE**: If you’re looking for something specific, try a text search.
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The Top 60 Albums of 2023
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For the last two years (2022 and 2021, linked for reference), I’ve done my own list as a countdown from 60, and since it feels both like way too much, over-the-top, totally unnecessary, and like a completely inadequate sampling of what was worth hearing this year, I guess it’s the way to go once again. Right now is the first of three times I’ll encourage you not to skip this list.
This is the second. Here we go:
60. Codex Serafini, The Imprecation of Anima (review here)
59. Strider, Midnight Zen (review here)
58. Black Helium, Um (review here)
57. Humulus, Flowers of Death (review here)
56. Fuzz Evil, New Blood (review here)
55. Blood Lightning, Blood Lightning (review here)
54. Rotor, Sieben (review here)
53. Cleõphüzz, Mystic Vulture (review here)
52. Black Sky Giant, Primigenian (review here)
51. Khan, Creatures (discussed here)
50. Slumbering Sun, The Ever-Living Fire (review here)
49. Massive Hassle, Number One (review here)
48. Búho Ermitaño, Implosiones (review here)
47. Black Moon Circle, Leave the Ghost Behind (review here)
46. Oldest Sea, A Birdsong, a Ghost (review here)
45. Edena Gardens, Dens (discussed here)
44. Merlock, Onward Strides Colossus (review here)
43. Obelyskkh, The Ultimate Grace of God (review here)
42. Lord Mountain, The Oath (review here)
41. Dorthia Cottrell, Death Folk Country (review here)
40. Yawning Balch, Volume One / Volume Two (reviews here and here)
39. The Golden Grass, Life is Much Stranger (review here)
38. Somnuri, Desiderium (review here)
37. Haurun, Wilting Within (review here)
36. Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree, Aion (review here)
35. Stinking Lizaveta, Anthems and Phantoms (review here)
34. Black Rainbows, Superskull (review here)
33. Polymoon, Chrysalis (review here)
32. Fuzz Sagrado, Luz e Sombra (review here)
31. Yawning Man, Long Walk of the Navajo (review here)
Notes:
This is the third time I’m telling you not to skip this list. Linking to more on these is new. I haven’t done that before for this part of the list, but I hope it helps if you want to dig in.
That Khan stands out to me as needing to be higher given the quality of the work itself, but I got there late. But if you sent this into the year-end poll as your top 30, I feel like you wouldn’t be ‘wrong’ with some of the showings here, whether that’s the blinding shimmerprog of Polymoon, Merlock’s axe-swing sludge or Dorthia Cottrell of Windhand’s acoustic-based solo work.
Strong debut full-lengths from Haurun, Oldest Sea, Boston supergroup Blood Lightning, Cleõphüzz who already broke up, the aforementioned Merlock, mega-weirdos Codex Serafini, Slumbering Sun (kin to Monte Luna and Destroyer of Light), Church of the Cosmic Skull offshoot Massive Hassle, Turkish heavy rockers Strider and Californian metal traditionalists Lord Mountain. Established outfits like Yawning Man, Stinking Lizaveta, Cottrell, Black Rainbows, The Golden Grass, and Rotor continue to explore new avenues of their sound.
In the meantime, the respective progressions displayed by the likes of Black Helium, Fuzz Sagrado, Somnuri and Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree, the e’er-listenable Fuzz Evil and Argentinian instrumentalists Black Sky Giant offered thrills anticipated and not. Humulus bringing in Stefan Koglek from Colour Haze was a nice touch, and though I haven’t even reviewed it yet, the third and maybe-last Edena Gardens LP completes that collaborative trilogy with members of Causa Sui and Papir as fluidly as one could ask, which is only saying something because of the personnel involved.
There are a ton of others I wanted to put on this list, but numbers are cruel and if I get into decimals or fractions or something like that I’m going to end up huddled in a ball crying. But please know that because something’s not here doesn’t mean it sucked even just in my own opinion or whatever. At the end of the list come the honorable mentions and rarely have they been so honorable.
Buenos Aires trio Moodoom nailed a classic, ’70s-style Sabbathian blues rock with a non-cornball vintage feel better than anyone else I heard who tried in 2023. Their Desde el Bosque didn’t top half an hour, but you can almost feel the heat from the tubes of the amplifiers behind it, and it’s such an organic flow that it’s undeniable as an LP. Dig that creeper riff in “El Ente,” man. Proh. Toh. Doom.
The eighth full-length in a career that goes back 33 years, Zero Minus Infinity is the second Negative Reaction album since guitarist/vocalist Kenny Bones moved himself and the band from Long Island to West Virginia and revamped the lineup, and it’s a beast. It’d be here for “I’ll Have Another” alone with that crush of distortion and Bones raw-throating “It’s you I need,” on repeat, perhaps to alcohol, but that’s just one example of the disaffected delights on offer from the kings of anxiety sludge.
Downpour is one of two 2023 outings from upstart progressive Norwegian instrumentalists Kanaan, as they answered its Spring release with the jammy Diversions Vol. 2: Enter the Astral Plane. Any way you go, composed or improvised, this is a band with a special chemistry. In addition to the nodder highlight “Amazon,” which brought a collaboration with Hedwig Mollestad and the dense boogie riff-push of “Black Time Fuzz” at the start, they proceeded on an evolutionary path that looks now like it will go as long as they do. For now, in its urgency and space both, Downpour is a pinnacle achievement. How long that lasts depends on what comes next.
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27. Mathew’s Hidden Museum, Mathew’s Hidden Museum
Some records make a world. Mathew Bethancourt of Josiah, Cherry Choke, etc., put at least a solar system into the self-titled debut from his solo-project Mathew’s Hidden Museum. Melding lysergic experimentalism and off-kilter vibing with classic boogie, acoustic grunge, the piano quirk of “Golden” and more, it drew lines connecting disparate ideas and ended up making its own kind of sense, with depth enough in its layers that when I close out a week with it half a decade from now (inshallah), I’ll probably still be talking about it. Go get swallowed.
Recorded in Winter 2021/2022, Borracho‘s Blurring the Lines of Reality carried its where-did-we-go-wrong head-scratching sensibility into 2023, where to be sure it remained relevant. The Washington D.C. riffer trio know who they are and what they’re about, and their songwriting, groove and total lack of pretense continue to satisfy five records later even as the band pushes themselves further in structure and craft. And if you’d hold the social comment of their lyrics against them, first, grow up, second, your loss. Give me that smooth jam at the end of “Burning the Goddess” every time.
It was a total shock when superlatively-filth-encrusted sludgers Khanate not only returned with the surprise release of their first LP in 14 years, but that they pulled off such a remarkable change of style, abandoning their former miseries in favor of a more upbeat, uptempo outlook and poppier structures. What’s that you say? That didn’t happen? The record was just so completely, engrossingly wretched that my unconscious mind actually replaced it with something more palatable because Khanate stretch the limits of what punishment human beings can absorb in sound? Well fucking right on. That sounds like Khanate.
Oslo-based doom rockers Saint Karloff harnessed an energy that 25 years ago or so propelled the very beginnings of modern Scandinavian heavy rock and roll, and they did it as a duo paying tribute to bassist Ole Sletner as well. Rife with familiar genre elements, stoner riffing, and band-in-room vibes, and even a little cosmic prog in closer “Supralux Voyager,” Paleolithic War Crimes had its emotional crux in its celebration of song and style, and so became the successful rebound after a terrible loss. If you call yourself a fan of heavy rock, chances are there’s something for you in it.
Though they released the single-song I EP (review here) in 2018, the severely-titled Soul Murder is their first full-length since late-2016’s Blueside (review here). It puts the heavy blues frontmanship of guitarist/vocalist Mathias Northway at the fore as he, bassist Danny Smith and drummer Michael Lowe offer the most live-sounding studio effort I heard this year. Even if you go beyond the songwriting, the soul in the performances, the emotionalism and the believability of their blues, the classic warmth in their tones, the epic oil painting from Nick Keller that adorns its cover, you still have vitality (yes, even in slow parts) and the instrumental conversation happening between the members of the band. The degree of that alone warrants inclusion here.
It can be a challenge to keep up with the ongoing progression of Bergen, Norway, progressive black metal innovators Enslaved, but these 32 years on from their founding it remains worth the effort. Heimdal followed tumultuous but busy years for the band, who mostly supported 2020’s Utgard (review here) digitally for obvious reasons, and was perhaps that much freer in its experimentation as a result of the period of less live activity. However they got to the keyboard part sticking out of “Congelia,” it is only fortunate that they did, since certainly in another couple decades the rest of us might actually be on Enslaved‘s wavelength, and we’ll be glad for it. Until then, they outclass just about everyone’s everything across the board. One of the world’s best bands, outdoing themselves as ever.
Mondo Drag‘s fourth album was also their first in eight years, and with it the Oakland outfit put the lie to the stereotype that prog music is staid. Indeed, the crux of Through the Hourglass came with the passing of founding keyboardist/vocalist John Gamiño mother, in whose honor the Days of Our Lives reference in the title was made. That personal exploration of loss became a classic melancholy progressive psychedelic rocK, bolstered by a partially revamped lineup that includes bassist Conor Riley (Birth, ex-Astra) and drummer Jimmy Perez alongside the established character in the guitars of Nolan Girard and Jake Sheley (both also founding members). Likewise beautiful and sad, songs like “Passages” and “Death in Spring” resonated with the universal experience of mourning as filtered through a rich breadth of influences, memorable movements and entrancing melody. One hopes it was a comfort to Gamiño as surely it has been to others.
With shorter, tightly composed songs, Northern Ireland trio Slomatics managed to make the most atmospheric record of their career to-date. Their seventh LP, it used its time in songs like “Time Capture” and “Zodiac Arts Lab” to underscore the melody that’s been in their sound all the while but has never as much been the focus when set next to the abiding crush of David Majury and Chris Couzens‘ guitars, and though he’s behind the kit, drummer/vocalist Marty Harvey seemed all the more a frontman as his voice soared when called upon to do so. Of course, there was still plenty of time in the 36-minute run for Slomatics‘ crushall in “Wooden Satellites,” “I, Neanderthal,” later in “Voidians,” and so on, but it’s clear their range and reach have grown and their gradual evolution has brought a new level of complexity to their approach. If they keep this up, they risk feeling compelled to stop calling themselves Neanderthals, and while that would be a bummer, one very much hopes they keep it up anyway.
A new solo incarnation of Hamilton, New Zealand’s Craig Williamson — who is best known for his other one-man operation, Lamp of the Universe — the full-band-style heavy roller riffs throughout Dead Shrine‘s The Eightfold Path scratched what must have been a pretty fervent itch for heavy groove, classic swing, and fuzz, fuzz, fuzz, which cuts like “The Formless Soul,” “As Pharaohs Rise,” and side-ending self-jammers “Enshrined” and “Incantation’s Call” fortunately also have a mix spacious enough to hold. Williamson has rocked plenty since the turn of the century when he was in the heavy rock trio Datura, and around 2010 when he had the trio Arc of Ascent going. That band and this one have a lot in common, but Williamson has proven his most sustainable and seemingly preferred way of working is solo, and as one, Dead Shrine stands alongside Lamp of the Universe (wait for it…) in a way that feels like it could be longer term, even as Williamson seemed to blur the lines between the two sides on Lamp of the Universe‘s own 2023 outing…
Although they’re certainly distinct enough to be separate from each other at this point, Dead Shrine and Lamp of the Universe obviously share a lot in common and it felt right to pair them like this. Every year I give myself one ‘#a’ pick, so this is it for 2023 and I’ll just use it to say how incredibly vast Lamp of the Universe has become. While remaining loyal to its beginnings in acid folk and meditative psychedelia, Williamson‘s multi-instrumentalism, the scope of his production, and the absolute care he puts into the project have brought it beyond what reasonable expectations might’ve been. And in part, by that I mean Kaleidoscope Mind rocks. That wah solo in “Golden Dawn?” The blowout drums behind nine-minute opener “Ritual of Innerlight?” Goodness gracious, yes. Even “Immortal Rites,” which is about as close as Williamson gets to Lamp‘s beginnings here, has evolved. But it’s also still the same thing in the root. I don’t know. If you don’t stretch reality to get there, try again later. The most honest thing I can say about it is I feel lucky to be a fan.
It was the feeling that at any given point they might just go anywhere that made Sherpa‘s Land of Corals a surprise as the Italian practitioners of the psychedelic arts have thrown open the doors of both perception and microgenre and come across as thoroughly willful in their krautrock-minded ethereality, and just because the listener doesn’t know what might be next doesn’t mean the band aren’t working with a plan regardless. The follow-up to 2018’s Tigris and Euphrates (review here), the six-song/39-minute collection seemed to be fearless in what it took on, and though much of it was less serene than either of their first two outings, the divergences and the complexities in mood, ambience and arrangement render Land of Corals unto itself. Are we post-heavy here? Maybe. Still heavy as the drums behind “High Walls” show, however, though Sherpa‘s take on what that means and how that manifests is no less individualized than anything else in these tracks. Not something everyone is going to get — I’m not convinced I get it myself at this point — but an act whose creativity has yet to get its due.
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17. Gozu, Remedy
Released by Blacklight Media / Metal Blade Records. Reviewed May 18.
The Boston riff factory known as Gozu have only gotten more vicious, more pointed with time, and yet, tucked at the end of their 2023 outing, Remedy, which has them as veterans at 14 years’ tenure, are “Ash” and “The Handler” and it just goes from sweet to sweeter. Yeah, it’s a ripper into its blood with “CLDZ,” “Tom Cruise Control,” and Gozu — Marc Gaffney (vocals/guitar), Doug Sherman (guitar), Joe Grotto (bass) and Seth Botos (drums), working with producer Dean Baltulonis for a threepeat — have a brand of melody in Gaffney‘s vocals that’s all their own, and fast or slow, loud or quiet, ’80s movie reference or ’70s movie reference, Gozu have been around long enough to know what they’re about. But, after 2018’s Equilibrium (review here) and 2016’s Revival (review here), Remedy feels one step heavier. Revivalwas a great sharpening of sound. Equilibrium brought refinement to that. Remedy comes across with a little of a sense of letting go, of the band digging in where it’s more about what they can do together than the response it’ll get afterward. It suits them.
Oh, The Machine. Seven records deep and still in your 30s. That’s the advantage of starting early, which the Netherlands-based trio most definitely did. Wave Cannon, accordingly, is both masterful in its conjurations of warm heavy psychedelic fuzz, and energetic in its delivery, with founding guitarist/vocalist David Eering bid welcome to bassist Chris Both and farewell to original drummer Davy Boogaard. And where 2018’s Faceshift (review here) tipped a balance in their style toward more of a punker push, Wave Cannon led off with “Reversion” and seemed all the more purposeful in its mature heavy psychedelic delve for that. It could be Wave Cannon will be the blueprint for a settled-in aesthetic the trio now more than ever driven by Eering, or it could be the beginning of a whole new evolution of sound from the revamped three-piece recommitted to trippy sounds and warm nod. Either way, it’s not that often you talk about a band’s forward potential after seven full-lengths, so The Machine are in a pretty special place circa 2023 and Wave Cannon, whatever it leads to, is a special moment of transition captured.
Similar to how trees live in an experience of time separate from ours and the way an earth year is laughably tiny set against the scale of the universe, Chicago heavy psych rockers REZN seem to operate on their own temporal wavelength throughout their fourth album, Solace. Able to crush at will, as at the end of “Possession,” or the early going of “Stasis,” in the trades of “Reversal,” et al, Solace found REZN more confident in their dives through melody and atmosphere than even they were on 2020’s Chaotic Divine (review here), they created a space and dimensionality of sound that belongs solely to them in the style. Quieter stretches in “Webbed Roots” enthralled with their depth, and the ethereal vocals brought human presence while furthering the smoke-swirls and incense mystique. On their own terms, and yes, very much at their own pace, REZN have made themselves one of America’s most essential heavy psych bands, and Solace — joined in 2023 by REZN‘s collaboration with Mexico’s Vinnum Sabbathi, Silent Future (discussed here) — crowns their to-date discography.
I’m not saying I think it’s cool to write songs about serial killers, but if you’re going to listen to a Church of Misery release almost 30 years after bassist Tatsu Mikami started the band, chances are you know their stated theme is nothing if not consistent. Born Under a Mad Sign delivered on its promise of memorable doom riffs, and as the songwriter and figurehead for arguably Japan’s most influential doom export, Mikami acted as ringmaster while returning vocalist Kazuhiro Asaeda brought mapcap intensity (and fun) to the grooves fostered through Yukito Okazaki‘s guitar, Tatsu‘s bass and Toshiaki Umemura‘s swinging drums. As ever, loyalty and reverence to Black Sabbath are at the core of Church of Misery‘s everything, and in that sphere, there are very, very few humans walking the planet who can do the thing as well as Tatsu. Like, maybe four going on five. As such, regardless of the subject matter (something I can say because I don’t know anyone who’s been murdered) and some eight years after their preceding long-player, Church of Misery are essential as the vehicle for that.
I’m not sure if in 2015 when Boston’s Kind released their first album, Rocket Science (review here), anyone would have guessed there would even be a third full-length from them, let alone one that so much typifies the personality the band has built for itself. Comprised of the otherwise-plenty-busy lineup of vocalist Craig Riggs (also Sasquatch‘s drummer and so constantly touring), guitarist Darryl Shepherd (ex-Milligram, Blackwolfgoat, Test Meat, scores of others), bassist Tom Corino (Rozamov) and drummer Matt Couto (Aural Hallucinations, ex-Elder), Kind have found a sound that is separate from what its component members have done on their own, and become a genuinely more-than-sum-of-parts grouping. Whether it’s the rush of “Power Grab” or the way the rhythm of “What it is to Be Free” seemed to gain so much extra punch, or “Massive” at the record’s center earning its name in tone and swing alike. The “whoa baby come on” at 1:56 into that song is of course the reason Close Encounters made this list, but rest assured that across the span Kind are at what is a thus-far peak of their powers.
Stay with me here, because as you scroll further down this post, you’re going to see that Iron Jinn‘s hour-long 2LP first offering, declaratively-titled Iron Jinn, is my pick for debut album of 2023. Born out of an initial onstage collaboration at Roadburn 2018 (review here), the Arnheim, Netherlands-based four-piece brings together guitarist/vocalists Oeds Beydals (Molassess, ex-Death Alley, ex-The Devil’s Blood) and Wout Kemkens (Shaking Godspeed) with the labyrinth-constructing rhythm section of bassist Gerben Bielderman (Pronk, etc.) and drummer Bob Hogenelst, and from the late pointed lead lines of “Truth is Your Dagger” acting in duly jabbing fashion to the heady ambient drama of “Bread and Games” and the dark-prog atmospheres fleshed out as a backdrop to the melodies of “Soft Healers” and “Blood Moon Horizon,” the all-corners turns of “Lick it or Kick It,” on and on and on, the album resounds with both scope and ambition. What the long-term story of this project will be, I have no idea, but Iron Jinn is a record that brings new ideas to a sphere that very much needs them, and if there’s any luck, it will prove influential in the coming years.
Let the record show that when tasked with the biggest moment of their career to this point, Green Lung absolutely stepped up to meet it. This Heathen Land, as their first full-length with Nuclear Blast‘s backing (and third overall), will be the point of introduction for what will gradually become the bulk of their audience, and in its occult lyrics, sweeping, unironic, all-in grandiosity, weight of tone and craft of hooks, it tells you everything you need to know about why and how Green Lung got to where they are (save perhaps touring). Their task from here will be to find and refine the balance between metal and rock in their sound, but for a band whose clear intention from the outset was to take on the world to bring themselves to a point where they’re arguably doing so at least as regards the heavy underground is an accomplishment in itself. Then you get to songs like “Maxine (Witch Queen)” and the over-the-top finale “Oceans of Time,” and if you can let yourself have a little fun every now and again with your doom and witches and whatnot, this one was just about irresistible.
The album that boldly asked if it needed to be a wizard to earn your love, the fifth long-player from volume/tone/devil-worshiping (and perhaps in that order) Polish doomcrafters Dopelord was not at all the first heavy record to use Satan as a political statement — specifically in this case about social oppression in their home country and the political power of the catholic church there — but they wielded their rebel-angel argument with already-in-your-head songs like “Night of the Witch,” “The Chosen One,” “One Billion Skulls,” “Evil Spell” and the upped nastiness of “Worms,” in other words each and every of the non-intro/outro tracks, with emergent mastery and a plod that was as clear and infectious a call to praise as I heard in 2023, no less for its melodicism than its heft or the crispness of its delivery, the guttural rasps of “Worms” aside, which swapped in vitriol at just the right time. Songs for Satan was a new level for Dopelord‘s approach and as much an epistemological fuckoff to fundamentalism as it was consuming nod, and there was none more righteous in their cause. At the risk of saying the quiet part loud, dudes are going to be copping riffs from it for years.
Returning with their fourth long-player, Swedish trio Domkraft have found the style they’ve been working toward all along. As with some of the others on this list, it’s not that Sonic Moons was such a radical departure. It wasn’t. They worked with the same production team that helmed their 2022 Ascend/Descend (review here) split with Slomatics as well as 2021’s Seeds (discussed here). Björn Atldax‘s cover art was on point and in keeping with their visual aesthetic. But there’s a spaciousness on Sonic Moons in “Downpour” and amid the intensity of crash in “Stellar Winds,” and their sound has grown to become dynamic enough that as nine-minute leadoff “Whispers” pushed through its crescendo it seemed to get more and more physically forceful as part of the process. Couple that with assured writing and performances from bassist/vocalist Martin Wegeland, guitarist Martin Widholm and drummer Anders Dahlgren, and Domkraft honed in on an evolved cosmic noise rock and were unafraid to incorporate elements of psychedelia, space and classic stoner riffing into a definitive statement of their purpose.
Ukrainian progressive heavy rockers Stoned Jesus released a career album this year. Did you catch it? Restricted from touring as their home country continues to struggle against a Russian invasion that’s been ongoing for, well, a decade, but more intensely for the better part of the last two years, Stoned Jesus offered something different across each of Father Light‘s six tracks. From the catchy strums of “CON” to the only-timely-but-written-earlier “Thoughts and Prayers” and the you-want-riff-here’s-your-riff 11-minute neckroll of “Season of the Witch,” they proved once again to be a more diverse and thoughtful act than they’re almost ever given credit for being. Expanded stylistically from 2018’s Pilgrims (review here), Stoned Jesus — guitarist/vocalist Igor Sydorenko, bassist/backing vocalist Sergii Sliusar and drummer Dmytro Zinchenko — toyed with retroism on “Thoughts and Prayers” while the late solo in “Get What You Deserve” underscores the sentiment in that climate-change-themed finisher, all the while standing astride their own material, solid, confident, still looking forward. It’s the world that’s the problem, not the band.
First of all, I stand by the review. To expand on that (and the review itself was expanded on here), it was the songwriting that kept me coming back to the second album from Washington trio Kadabra, who progressed on all fronts from their already-impressive 2021 debut, Ultra (review here). They made hooks like “The Serpent” and “The Devil” feel like landmarks in a record-long horror feature that’s told as much in riffs as lyrics, but at the same time there’s nothing fancy happening in terms of sound. Some organ in “Mountain Tamer,” plenty of fuzz throughout, and the songs. It’s the songs. The songs. The fucking songs. That uplift in “Midnight Hour.” The feeling of oh-shit-we’ve-arrived in “The Serpent.” Playing toward some of Uncle Acid‘s lyrical creep with tight-knit grooves and sharp turns, Umbra not only showed the preceding LP wasn’t a fluke, it conveyed mood and atmosphere without giving up momentum or structure, and every move it made, from the shimmer opening “White Willows” to the last strains underscoring the chorus of “The Serpent” in the concluding acoustic reprise “The Serpent II,” Kadabra‘s sophomore outing communed with genre with a perspective becoming increasingly its own. And again, the songs.
There was a while there where I honestly didn’t think Dozer were ever going to do another record, so Drifting in the Endless Void is a life event as far as I’m concerned. The trailblazing Swedish heavy rockers have been playing live periodically for the last decade, and word has been kicking around of studio work, new songs following what was until this year their most recent album in 2008’s Beyond Colossal (featured here), but to actually have such a thing manifest and take the form it did made it a reinvigoration of Dozer‘s sound and what seemed to be a chance to try both new and old methods of working. In the raging “Ex-Human, Now Beast” and the breadth of “Missing 13,” Dozer reminded older heads. and showed a generation that’s come up since, why they’ve had the influence they have over the last quarter-century, including in their absence. Realize you’re lucky to be on the planet with it.
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5. Mars Red Sky, Dawn of the Dusk
Released by Vicious Circle Records and Mrs Red Sound. Reviewed Dec. 7.
A fifth full-length brought fresh ideas and new perspectives to the established progressive, melodic heavy psychedelic rock methodology of Bordeaux’s Mars Red Sky, who’ve greeted their maturity as a band with creative openness rather than stagnation. To be sure, guitarist/vocalist Julien Pras, bassist Jimmy Kinast and drummer Mathieu “Matgaz” Gazeau — each crucial to the group as they are — have plenty of recognizable aspects for longtime fans. Indeed, their signature blend of warm but remarkably heavy tonality and floating melodic vocals remains unflinching, but what they do with it has changed. And that’s not just set up for mentioning the Queen of the Meadow collaboration either (more below), glorious as Helen Ferguson‘s contributions to “Maps of Inferno” are (she’s also on the closing reprise “Heavenly Bodies”), or that Jimmmy takes a lead vocal on “The Final Round.” You can hear the progression in “Break Even,” in the expanses of “Carnival Man,” that groove in “Slow Attack,” and even the spaciousness around the lurch of “A Choir of Ghosts.” Fast or slow, loud or quiet, even the interludes here shine with a sense of purpose, and if e’er forward is to be the course of Mars Red Sky for hopefully a long time to come, so much the better.
I will not mince words. This has been a difficult, taxing year for me personally and emotionally, and anytime I felt like I wanted to beat my head into the wall — which has been A LOT — Seattle bringers of chicanery-laced heavy punk-metal Sandrider were ready to go along for the ride. Working as ever with producer Matt Bayles (Mastodon, Isis, a small city’s worth of others), guitarist/vocalist Jon Weisnewski (who also released a killer record this year with his experimental grind/weirdo project Nuclear Dudes; don’t skip), bassist/vocalist Jesse Roberts and drummer Nat Damm wound at mostly high speed through energy summoned from a place I’ve clearly never been with songs that, while they were smashing all your favorite everything to tiny bits, left a memorable impression behind as bruises in the shape of themselves and ended up with enough bounce so that cuts like “Alia,” “Weasel” (the delivery of, “Here comes the mouth/Look at all its teeth”) the their-version-of-epic-and-that’s-pretty-epic “Ixion,” “Circles,” “Grouper,” the title-track, were fun in doing so. It’s their fourth record and I don’t know if there are a ton of surprises, but I sure was happy when it came along and kicked so much ass in such a specific and, for me, helpful way. A catharsis record, but don’t take that to mean it’s just angry. There’s a lot of humor here as well and the songs are a blast. Hard to imagine this isn’t what Sandrider had in mind when they set out over a decade ago.
A breakthrough in craft and style, and immaculate in its turns, tight-but-not-choked arrangements, and willingness to go and be in unexpected spaces, Elektrik Ram was for South African heavy rockers Ruff Majik — comprised of guitarist/vocalist Johni Holiday, bassist Jimmy Glass, guitarist/backing vocalist Cowboy Bez and drummer Steven Bosman — a rare realization of potential. I said as much in the review. Not every band gets to make a record like this. From the charge of its title-track and “Hillbilly Fight Song” and the unspeakable catchiness that begins there and threads throughout the stylistic shifts of “She’s Still a Goth,” “Cement Brain,” “Delirium Tremors” — on the 15th anniversary reissue, maybe bring the triangle down in the mix? (kidding; it’s painful and should be) — and into the broader grooves of its ending section with “A Song About Drugs (With a Clever Title),” “Shangrilah Inc.” and the raw-emotive “Chemically Humanized,” which when set against the oh-look-I-just-beat-your-ass thematic of “Hillbilly Fight Song” feels duly brought low. This is a great — yes, great — album, and I don’t think I listened to anything as much this year as I listened to it. They’ve already started work on their next LP, reportedly, and I worry it’s soon, but with the kind of control over their approach that they demonstrate here, there’s really no choice but to trust they know what they’re doing, since that is so much the underlying message in the material, even if its lyrical themes were by and large much darker.
It wasn’t exactly a secret that Howling Giant had momentum and progression on their side. They’ve toured hard the last couple years, offered the instrumental Alteration EP (review here) in 2021 following their oh-shit-these-guys-are-for-real split with Sergeant Thunderhoof, Masamune/Muramasa (review here), and back to their debut LP, 2019’s The Space Between Worlds (review here), and have worked so diligently to engage their audience that a sense of reachout has become part of their sound. You knew that when they next set themselves to making a long-player, there was a real chance for them to sculpt something special, but Glass Future was still a surprise. Unflinching in its construction, mixed for brightness as well as weight, and cutting through that with clearly-schooled harmonies between guitarist Tom Polzine, drummer Zach Wheeler and bassist Sebastian “Seabass” Baltes to give a pop-ish sensibility to progressive sounds that in other hands would serve far more self-indulgent ends. Received as a whole work with its timely endtimes lyrical foundation, it exuded welcome in the hooks of “Siren Song,” “Hawk in a Hurricane,” “Glass Future,” “Sunken City,” “Juggernaut” and the periodic slowdowns through “Aluminum Crown,” “Tempest, and the Liar’s Gateway” and the closer “There’s Time Now,” which called back to the Twilight Zone reference (Simpsons did it) in intro “Hourglass” while fleshing out a brilliantly melodic comedown for the human species. As with the finest of any year’s releases, it will hold its relevance far past the coming January, and for Howling Giant, it sets them on a path of fresh ideas and expansive sound, filtered through a cohesive process to be the engaging good-time apocalypse they’ve become. Glass Future makes Howling Giant one of America’s most essential heavy rock bands and figureheads for a generation still on the rise.
There was never another choice, and not much choice to start with. The manner in which founding guitarist/vocalist Lori S. revamped her band, bringing in bassist/synthesist Bryce Shelton (Nik Turner’s Hawkwind) and drummer Jason Willer (Jello Biafra’s Guantanamo School of Medicine) as the rhythm section supporting the band’s trademark rolling fuzz, and collaborating with Black Cobra‘s Jason Landrian, who added guitar and synth to the tracks, was an expansion and redirection of sound that simply wasn’t anticipated from a band closing in on three decades of activity. But after 2015’s still-undervalued Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everywhere (discussed here, review here), saw Lori and her then-lineup explore more heavy psychedelic sounds, Beyond Vision expanded on that with atmospheres never before conjured by any incarnation of Acid King, and Billy Anderson‘s production, as ever, allowed for scope and claustrophobia to exist in the same aural space. Hypnotic in the riffs of year-highlight “Mind’s Eye” and its penultimate title-track, Beyond Vision freely incorporated an influence from Author and Punisher into the slow plods of “Electro Magnetic” and the huge-in-a-new-way-for-them “90 Seconds,” tripped out easy on the roundly immersive opener “One Light Second Away” and galloped to a (again, surprisingly) rousing finish in “Color Trails.” A band you thought was a known quantity, whose sound you thought was set, showing that creativity doesn’t have to stop just because you have an established sound or are known for doing one thing. Acid King are still Acid King on Beyond Vision, but the boldness with which the album is realized and the sheer bravery of taking the risks it takes in pushing beyond (oh!) what were the parameters of Acid King‘s trailblazing, mellow-psych-informed stoner riffing — always possible it would fall flat in ways it obviously very much doesn’t — came together on a level that was simply unmatched in 2023. Acid King have perhaps never been more royal, more regal as they unfurl these seven cosmic triumphs, but somehow underneath they’re still punk rock. One way or the other, that the on-paper concept of Beyond Vision — all the changes, growth, shifts — winds up secondary to the strength and listening experience of the songs themselves makes it undeniable as the album of the year. It was a no-doubter.
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The Top 60 Albums of 2023: Honorable Mention
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I could very easily do another top 60 with these, and then some. Alphabetically:
1782, Abanamat, Acid Magus, Ahab, Albinö Rhino, Ananda Mida, Astral Sleep, Bell Witch, Benthic Realm, Bismut, Black Helium, Black Rainbows, Blood Ceremony, Blood Lightning, Bong Corleone, Bongzilla, Bridge Farmers, Cavern Deep, Cleõphüzz, Cloud Catcher, Clouds Taste Satanic, Danava, Darsombra, Dead Feathers, Deadpeach, Delco Detention, Desert Storm, Dommengang, Doom Lab, Dr. Space, Earthbong, Ecstatic Vision, David Eugene Edwards, End of Hope, Avi C. Engel, Fin del Mundo, Fire Down Below, The Fizz Fuzz, Formula 400, Fuzz Evil, Gévaudan, Ghorot, Giöbia, Godflesh, Godsleep, Graveyard, The Gray Goo, Green Yeti, Hail the Void, Haurun, Healthyliving, Hexvessel, Hope Hole, Humulus, IAH, Iron Void, JAAW, Jack Harlon & the Dead Crows, Katatonia, La Chinga, Lamassu, Larman Clamor, L’Ira del Baccano, Love Gang, Lucid Void, Maggot Heart, The Magpie, Mammatus, Mammoth Caravan, Mansion, Margarita Witch Cult, Masheena, Melody Fields, Melt Motif, Merlock, Minnesota Pete Campbell, Mizmor, Moon Coven, Moonstone, Morag Tong, Morass of Molasses, Morne, The Moth, Mountain of Misery, Mouth, Mudness, Mud Spencer, Los Mundos, Mutoid Man, Natskygge, Nebula Drag, Nuclear Dudes, Obelyskkh, Conny Ochs, Øresund Space Collective, Orsak:Oslo, Patriarchs in Black, Plainride, Primordial, Restless Spirit, Ritual King, The River, Robots of the Ancient World, Rocky’s Pride & Joy, Royal Thunder, Runway, Sadus The Smoking Community, SÂVER, Seum, Siena Root, Slowenya, Smokey Mirror, Evert Snyman, Sonic Moon, Sorcia, Spidergawd, Spotlights, Surya Kris Peters, Swan Valley Heights, These Beasts, Thousand Vision Mist, Thunder Horse, Tidal Wave, Tortuga, Travo, Treedeon, Trevor’s Head, Unsafe Space Garden, Vlimmer, Warp, Westing, Wet Cactus, Witch Ripper, WyndRider, Yakuza, Zone Six, and apparently frickin’ everything that Dr. Space touches.
Notes:
Certainly a landmark year for Blues Funeral and Magnetic Eye, while Ripple Music, Heavy Psych Sounds, Small Stone, Kozmik Artifactz, Napalm, Sound Effect, Spinda, Mongrel Records and Exile on Mainstream fostered a deeply admirable swath of sounds. If you’re not following these however you do your following — email lists, social media, Bandcamp, etc. — I suggest in a spirit of friendship that you consider doing so.
A couple thoughts before we wrap the big list. First, I harbor no delusions that it’s complete. There always are and always will be records that slip by me. I’m one person running this site. I’ll never be able to hear everything, appreciate everything I do hear to the utmost as everyone else might, or even want to. This is my list, my listening habits for the year and what I thought were 2023’s best full-length releases. If you’d put more in it than that, go look at the headline again. It’s a list. I take it seriously, of course, but if you had Swan Valley Heights or Godflesh or La Chinga at number three on your list — all of which are totally valid picks, just like the rest — and I didn’t, that’s okay.
In fact, it’s beautiful, but it doesn’t always come out that way in the discussion. I’m asking as I do every year to please keep opinions and conversations civil in their presentation. I know arguing on the internet is fun but I’d rather not have the drama and rest assured, I take it all personally.
So, about the honorable mentions: where do you even start? While the balance of the main list, the top 60, is toward established and even veteran acts, it’s encouraging to see so many up and coming groups forcing their way into consideration. From the ambient evocations of Orsak:Oslo to Sorcia’s thick sludge and Melt Motif’s sultry industrializations, Mountain of Misery branching off from Spaceslug, outfits like IAH and Swan Valley Heights finding new maturity, Mammoth Caravan bring aggro edge to huge tones, Healthyliving, Merlock, Morag Tong, Godsleep, These Beasts, Margarita Witch Cult, Warp, Earthbong, Abanamat, Runway, WyndRider, Trevor’s Head, Fire Down Below, High Priest, Nebula Drag, The Magpie, Love Gang, Jack Harlon and others, a slew of impressive debuts and second albums, the generational evolution of sound is ongoing, vibrant, bands establishing themselves and claiming their aesthetic place and respective audiences as we speak. I would urgently encourage you to engage with these artists now, both for immediate satisfaction and as investment in the shape of heavy music to come, which they will make.
The bottom line is this: I believe deeply in the power of art to affect your life, to make it richer, fuller, better. There are mornings when The Obelisk is the reason I’m getting out of bed, and I thank you for reading, for being a part of this. I’ll say more later. We still have a ways to go.
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Debut Album of the Year 2023
Iron Jinn, Iron Jinn
Other notable debuts (alphabetical):
Altered States, Survival
Astral Hand, Lords of Data
Benthic Realm, Vessel
Blood Lightning, Blood Lightning
Bog Monkey, Hollow
Bong Corleoone, Bong Corleone
Cleõphüzz, Dune Altar
Codex Serafini, The Imprecation of Anima
Daevar, Delirious Rights
Dead Shrine, The Eightfold Path
Deer Lord, Dark Matter Pt. 1
Dread Witch, Tower of the Severed Serpent
Ego Planet, Ego Planet
Embargo, High Seas
From the Ages, II
Fuzzy Grapes, Volume 1
Haurun, Wilting Within
Hibernaut, Ingress
HIGH LEAF, Vision Quest
High Priest, Invocation
Inherus, Beholden
JAAW, Supercluster
The Keening, Little Bird
King Potenaz, Goat Rider
Lord Mountain, The Oath
Margarita Witch Cult, Margarita Witch Cult
Massive Hassle, Massive Hassle
Mammoth Caravan, Ice Cold Oblivion
Medicine Horse, Medicine Horse
Merlock, Onward Strides Colossus
Milana, Milvus
Mountain of Misery, In Roundness
Ockra, Gratitude
Oldest Sea, A Birdsong, a Ghost
Pyre Fyre, Pyre Fyre
Runway, Runway
Slow Wake, Falling Fathoms
Strider, Midnight Zen
WyndRider, WyndRider
Slumbering Sun, The Ever-Living Fire
Sonic Moon, Return Without Any Memory
Tō Yō, Stray Birds From the Far East
Tribunal, The Weight of Remembrance
Weite, Assemblage
Notes:
Tell your friends. I think what I like most about that glut of names just above is that there’s a full spectrum of sounds there. Yeah, it’s all under an umbrella of expanded-definition heavy, but that’s the point too. A creative boom is happening that’s seeing the post-Gen X and the earlier end of the Millennials making room for newer acts with new ideas and perspectives.
Why did I pick Iron Jinn as debut of the year, when there was obviously so much otherwise to choose from? Easy. It was the most its own thing out of any of these releases. I love Dead Shrine, Blood Lightning’s intensity speaks to my brain in a way not everything can, Margarita Witch Cult have been building buzz all year. Oldest Sea’s debut is a melancholic declaration of arrival. I was not short on choices, and I’ll probably keep adding to this list as the next week or so goes on.
Dark, heavy, progressive in its approach and complex enough that I still feel like I’m getting to know it, Iron Jinn‘s self-titled so much brimmed with purpose that it seemed to go beyond a first record. My hope, honestly, is that Oeds Beydals and Wout Kemkens spend the next 30 years or so refining that collaboration and exploring where it can go, because if this is the starting point, it’s got enough to it to be the beginning of a lifetime’s exploring. One never knows how things will work out when songwriters work together, but clearly Iron Jinn drew from the strengths of all its members. Records like this, on the unlikely occasion they happen at all, don’t happen by accident.
And yes, Iron Jinn are a new band not necessarily comprised of inexperienced players, but most bands start from members of other bands. Blood Lightning, Slumbering Sun, Weite, Mountain of Misery, JAAW, Ego Planet, Massive Hassle, all the way back up to Benthic Realm and Altered States. New bands, new sounds, new ideas all coming to the fore. Couple that with acts like WyndRider, Daevar, Lord Mountain, Hibernaut, Oldest Sea, Mammoth Caravan, Sonic Moon, Tō Yō, Medicine Horse, High Priest and others here whose members haven’t necessarily appeared in an Obelisk year-end post before, and you get a more complete picture of the churning magma that is the potential for the heavy underground over the rest of the 2020s and hopefully beyond.
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Short Release of the Year 2023
Mars Red Sky & Queen of the Meadow, Mars Red Sky & Queen of the Meadow
Other notable EPs, Splits, Demos, Singles, etc.
Aawks, Luna EP
Aawks & Aiwass, The Eastern Scrolls Split LP
Apollo80 & Dimartis, Reverberations Vol. 1: Tales of Dust and Winds Split LP
Beastwars, Tyranny of Distance EP
Black Glow, Black Glow EP
Bloodsports, Bloodsports EP
Book of Wyrms, Storm Warning Single
Borracho, Kozmic Safari Single
The Bridesmaid, Come on People Now Smile on Your Brother
Burning Sister, Get Your Head Right EP
Cervus, Shifting Sands
Familiars, Keep the Good Times Rolling EP
The Freqs, Poacher
Grin, Black Nothingness EP
Guided Meditation Doomjazz, Expect EP
High Desert Queen & Blue Heron, Turned to Stone Ch. 8: The Wake Split LP
The Holy Nothing, Volume I: A Profound and Nameless Fear EP
Iress, Solace EP
Josiah, rehctaW EP
Kal-El, Moon People EP
Kombynat Robotron & DUNDDW, Split LP
Lammping, Better Know Better EP
Monolord, It’s All the Same EP
Mordor Truckers, Nowhere
Nerver & Chat Pile, Brothers in Christ Split
Night Fishing, Live Bait EP
Oxblood Forge, Cult of Oblivion
Zack Oakley, Demon Run / Funkier Than a Mosquito’s Tweeter EP
Severed Satellites, Aphelion EP
Space Queen, Nebula EP
Speck & Interkosmos, Split LP
Stöner, Boogie to Baja EP
Suspiriorium, Suspiriorum EP
Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships, Destination Ceres Station: Reefersleep EP
Ufomammut, Crookhead EP
Vokonis, Exist Within Light EP
Weedevil & Electric Cult, Cult of Devil Sounds Split LP
The Whims of the Great Magnet, Same New Single
Notes:
In keeping with their history of releasing EPs ahead of their LPs, Mars Red Sky this Spring offered the Mars Red Sky & Queen of the Meadow short outing as a preface to Dawn of the Dusk (number five on the big list), but with just three songs it became one of the releases I listened to most this year. I had “Maps of Inferno” on repeat to a degree that was kind of embarrassing to me even in front of family, and since the EP was basically that, the companion “Out at Large,” which isn’t on the full-length, and an edit that cuts out most of the trippy midsection of “Maps of Inferno” so that it all the more hammers groove into your head in what drummer Matgaz very kindly explained to me was 4/4 timing with three extra beats. Good luck following along to his kick on what seems like such a straightforward nod. What a band. I’m not doing a separate section for it, but “Maps of Inferno” was also hands-down my song of the year.
You can see above, it’s a pretty broad mix, both of release types, of new and older acts, and of styles. I’ve been hailing Vokonis’ better-future queer prog-doom on the regular, and Josiah, Monolord and Ufomammut’s EPs were nothing if not listenable. I dug the first outing from Suspiriorum (mems. Destroyer of Light and more) and hope they continue to flesh out their cult-horror ambience, and Severed Satellites’ (mems. Sixty Watt Shaman, etc.) jams set just right in their Marylander groove. Lammping will likely be on some list of mine until they break up — I’m hooked — and Zack Oakley’s funk also resonated. From the warm heavy psych of Cervus to The Bridesmaid’s all-in-on-far-out experimentalism, a victory lap from Stöner after two quality LPs and the High Desert Queen and Blue Heron split that’s another landmark in Ripple’s ongoing ‘Turned to Stone’ series, it’s been a good year if you’re willing to be distracted bouncing from one thing immediately to the next, which apparently I am.
It’s no coincidence Aawks are on the list twice, and I haven’t reviewed that Black Glow EP yet (it’s in the next Quarterly Review), but it’s a gem as well. Also very interested to see where The Freqs go as a new voice in heavy rock from Boston, and Night Fishing (mems. Abrams) feel like they’re just starting to find what they’re looking for, but this year was also their first and second releases, so they’re on their way. Grin’s assault was furious, and Beastwars always tick that box as well. I continue to dig the vibe of Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships and look forward to more from them, and same goes for both DUNDDW and Bloodsports here, as well as both Apollo80 and Dimartis on that split. Burning Sister took advantage of an opportunity to expand on their sound, and their take on Mudhoney’s “When Tomorrow Comes” was overflowing with love for the source material. If you can’t get behind a band being fans, I’m not sure what we’re doing here.
Because a ‘short release’ can be so much, I won’t call this list complete. If you have a single you loved, or an EP or split or anything else of the sort, and you don’t see it above, please just leave a comment. Maybe I left off something crucial. Maybe you can put me onto something awesome I didn’t hear. I’ll take it either way, and only ask again please be kind.
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Live Album of the Year
Ecstatic Vision, Live at Duna Jam
Other notable live albums:
The Atomic Bitchwax, Live at Freak Valley
Causa Sui, Loppen 2021
Dool, Visions of Summerland
Duel, Live at Hellfest
Edena Gardens, Live Momentum
King Buffalo, Live at Burning Man
Messa, Live at Roadburn
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, Live in NY
Rainbows Are Free, Heavy Petal Music
Sacri Monti, Live at Sonic Whip
Temple Fang, Live at Freak Valley
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, Slaughter on First Avenue
Villagers of Ioannina City, Through Space and Time
Notes:
This isn’t a huge list, but it’s burners front to back, and in that regard there’s little in the heavy underground, certainly toward the maddened-space-psych end of it, that can touch Ecstatic Vision’s intense performance ethic. If they’re not yet, I firmly believe the Philadelphia outfit led by guitarist/vocalist Doug Sabolick (also guitar for Author & Punisher) are on their way to having their reputation as a live band precede them, and Live at Duna Jam is further evidence that it should. Issued through Heavy Psych Sounds, it both captured the four-piece’s ultra-dead-on cosmic blast, but it paired that with the theatre-of-the-mind romance of Duna Jam itself; the best-kept-secret-in-heavy week-long unofficial festival held each year in Sardinia is the ultimate escapist daydream. That combination was just too powerful to ignore.
King Buffalo’s surprise Live at Burning Man release will do well to hold over till their next full-length, and I’ll just tell you flat out that no home should be without Causa Sui’s Loppen 2021. Uncle Acid’s first live outing was somewhat obligatory but welcome, and Messa’s Live at Roadburn celebrated the emergence of that genre-blending Italian unit as one of the most essential up and coming bands in Europe. They also made their first appearance on North American shores this year. One suspects it won’t be their last.
I’ll be very much anticipating what’s next from Sacri Monti, Duel, Causa Sui (of course), Temple Fang and actually the rest on this list, which leads us to…
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Looking Ahead to 2024
You’re almost there. Just keep going. Special thanks to the folks in The Obelisk Collective on Facebook for the help on rounding up this hopefully-alphabetized list of names:
10,000 Years, Acid Mammoth, Apostle of Solitude, Big Scenic Nowhere, Bismarck, Blue Heron, Castle Rat, Coogans Bluff, Crystal Spiders, Curse the Son, Deer Creek, DVNE, Foot, Full Earth, Fu Manchu, Greenleaf, Hashtronaut, Heavy Temple, High on Fire, Horseburner, Iota, Ironrat, King Buffalo, Kungens Män, Lamassu, Mammoth Caravan, Mammoth Volume, Maragda, Mario Lalli & The Rubber Snake Charmers, Monarch, Monkey3, Moura, My Diligence, The Obsessed, Orange Goblin, Psychlona, Red Mesa, Rhino, Ruff Majik, Sacri Monti, Sasquatch, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Slift, Slomosa, Spirit Mother, Stonebride, Troy the Band, Ufomammut, Unida, Vitskär Süden, Vokonis, Weedpecker, and just because they should probably be on this list every year until a new record comes out if one ever actually does: Om.
If you’ve got names here too, the more the merrier, comment button is below.
—
THANK YOU
This has not been a minor undertaking, whether or not you count the fact that I started keeping notes for 2023 in 2022, just like right now I’ve already got notes going for 2024. It never stops. But every year, I feel like this is among the most important things this site puts out and I use these lists all the time for reference, looking back on what was happening where and when, what came out when, etc. I hope you also find something useful here. I don’t have an exact count, but just by estimate there are at least somewhere between 200-300 bands talked above above. It’s a lot. It’s overwhelming. But I hope you can find something that sounds like it’s speaking directly to you, because I know that I have several times over. Any one of my top five picks I consider an ‘album of the year,’ if that’s a decent place to start.
Thank you to The Patient Mrs. for her support, love and inexplicable willingness to put up with my crap. Right this second, she is keeping our daughter hooked into a going-late morning loaf in bed I think specifically until I get up from the couch, go in the other room, and declare I’m about to start The Pecan’s breakfast, which I probably should’ve done like an hour ago. I am luckier than I am able most days to realize, and I’m working on that, and it is the beauty and flat-out amazing nature of the two people with whom I share our home that is the reason why it’s worth that effort.
I’m sure I said as much above, but I believe in art. I believe in creativity. I believe these things are a path to fulfillment that lives without them do not experience. There are ups and downs to everything, and any glorious creative individual is just as likely to be their own worst critic, but isn’t that still worth it too? Don’t we move forward anyway, because what’s the other choice?
I thank you for reading a lot. I’ll do it again now: Thanks for reading. Your support is the reason this site is still here. It’s why it’s worth it to me to take hours from days stretched across the better part of a week (I actually finished early, thanks again to The Patient Mrs.) to do this in the first place, let alone entertain the notion of doing so again next December and on into some unknown measure of perpetuity.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. If you’re seeing these words, I wish you and yours the best of everything for fucking ever, and cannot begin to tell you how much I value your time and willingness to spend it here.
Taking tomorrow off, but after that, we go as ever: onward.
Posted in Reviews on October 20th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Thoughtful and clever, Howling Giant‘s Glass Future demonstrates its consideration of craft even in its choice of samples, as intro “Hourglass” begins with a sample of Burgess Meredith in The Twilight Zone talking about how he has time to read because everyone else is dead — “there’s time enough at last” — and the 10-track/41-minute album closes with “There’s Time Now,” bookend-referencing the same soliloquy. The Nashville trio have put in as much work as possible over the years since their debut, 2019’s The Space Between Worlds (review here), and the songs of Glass Future would seem to reap the benefit of that experience in positioning the band to make a record that sets high goals for itself and meets them, not just tightening the melodies and harmonies of the vocals — to which guitarist Tom Polzine, drummer Zach Wheeler and bassist Sebastian “Seabass” Baltes all contribute — but enabling Howling Giant to hone a sound at once informed by progressive heavy rock and pop-punk.
“Siren Song” tells the tale. At five minutes, it’s longer than the brooding “Aluminum Crown” or the rush of sample-topped instrumental “First Blood of Melchior” — Frankenstein isn’t quite on theme with the apocalyptic sci-fi being engaged elsewhere in the lyrics (also debatable whether the apocalypse is fiction), but the dialog fits the mood and is timed well to the mosh riff in its second half — or the penultimate rush of “Juggernaut,” and “Siren Song” has a hook of the caliber of that song or “Glass Future” itself, or “Sunken City,” or even the suitably mournful and slow “There’s Time Now,” but its structure is different. Where even the verse of “Hawk in a Hurricane” is a hook, and “Sunken City” wants so badly to get to its next chorus that it barely ends the first, “Siren Song” holds back slightly, at least on relative terms. To be sure, the initial flurry of riff, Elderian verse/bridge spaciousness and even the earlier stage of the chorus make a positive impression, but they’re playing for the blindside when “Siren Song” opens up at 2:34 and unveils the first of Glass Future‘s made-for-the-stage megahooks. And the play works. All of a sudden, the end of the world is a party.
And one could rail on and on about the post-modernism of that point of view and I’m sure that that would be a whole lot of fun for my brain and typing fingers and for exactly nobody else. More important is that between “Hourglass” and “Siren Song,” Howling Giant are telling you much of what you need to know in terms of how to read Glass Future. Before the album hits six minutes, they’ve given a sense of atmosphere and dropped hints of melancholy that will flesh out further on “Aluminum Crown,” “Tempest and the Liar’s Gateway” and “There’s Time Now,” established the tones and the righteous punch of the Kim Wheeler production and mix, reminded handily of the difference talking out melodies and vocal arrangements can make, and began the impeccable construction of the whole album from the first of the songs around which its overarching flow is based. “Siren Song” represents multiple sides there as well, and it’s worth emphasizing that Howling Giant are not simply unipolar fast in “Hawk in a Hurricane” — its ambient finish is a purposeful comedown ahead of “First Blood of Melchior” — or slow in “Aluminum Crown,” which answers its more languid roll with later push, but that the material included here has functional intent behind it.
This dynamic extends to what each track brings to the record, and involves the interplay of one piece into the next. Side A builds momentum as “Aluminum Crown” gives over to “Hawk in a Hurricane,” which plays midtempo through tis chorus complemented as many of the songs are here by the organ of Drew David Harakal II (also synth/piano), who’s already bolstered “Siren Song” and “Aluminum Crown” and soon takes a solo on the title-track that reminds me of Amorphis and is thus endeared forever, the keys adding depth to the arrangements, variety to the sound and reach to the melodies. As Polzine and Wheeler‘s voices pair (JamesSanderson also contributes to “Siren Song,” “Hawk in a Hurricane” and “There’s Time Now), so too do Polzine‘s guitar and Harakal‘s keys, and the level of detail and consideration in those arrangements shouldn’t be understated. With “Glass Future” capping side A through a lyrical narrative around an asteroid smashing into the planet — the first verse begins with the image, ‘Flashing lights race on monitors lining the wall’; we’re already running, grounded in the human experience of watching a mass extinction not in slow motion — the speed and twisting course come around to preface the sharpening of focus across side B.
“Tempest and the Liar’s Gateway” begins a succession of four tracks of unflinching poise and mastery. Slow, Fast, Fast, Slow, if you want the basic pattern, with “Tempest and the Liar’s Gateway” expanding on the quieter delivery of “Aluminum Crown” and a hook about death waiting up ahead before “Sunken City” and “Juggernaut” comprise a one-two punch of two of the sharpest heavy rock songs one might hear in 2023. In their energy, lyrical themes, catchiness and the exquisiteness of the performances captured, “Sunken City” and “Juggernaut” feel like a realized version of the pop-heavy that was promised with Torche but which Torche never had much interest in being. Howling Giant could hardly make it easier for a heavy rock audience to get on board. After years of willful progression live and in the studio, they come bearing gifts, which are the songs themselves, and where the first half of Glass Future had “Hourglass” and “First Blood of Melchior” and the end of “Hawk in a Hurricane” for atmospheric sprawl, that side B’s softer or more contemplative moments occur within “Tempest and the Liar’s Gateway” and “There’s Time Now” lend an even more focused feel. “Sunken City” and “Juggernaut” would be frontloaded on a lot of records. Howling Giant are smarter than that.
On an album of lyrical highlights, “There’s Time Now” is nonetheless a standout, and its storyline of living in apocalyptic aftermath is well told, whether it’s the notion of “Walking on top of abandoned cars” or stars “blinking out one by one” before they at last lay it all on the proverbial table, “It’s the end of the world.” The second verse utilizes a favorite metaphor of nature’s persistence in “Green pushing through all the grey cement” as a reminder Earth will go on regardless of what happens to humans, and similar to the mirror of the title and the Twilight Zone sample earlier, in “There’s Time Now” they’ve arrived at a point where, “The siren’s still singing, there’s no one to hear,” harmonized for emphasis calling back of course to “Siren Song.” The first verse of “There’s Time Now” repeats as a third, with a key change that underscores the band’s background in theory as well as their knowledge of how to push emotion in a song; it’s one more level on which Glass Future is a model of what a modern heavy rock record can be. The kind of lessons that, especially backed by the efforts of Howling Giant on tour, lead an act to become influential.
Rife with personality, wit, care and heart, Glass Future lets the diverse aspects of Howling Giant‘s sound find coherent existence as a single thing — see “Howling Giant‘s sound” — as the band maintain the high level of craft they’ve fostered in The Space Between Worlds and codify the epic nature of their breakout contribution to the 2021 split with Sergeant Thunderhoof, Masamune/Muramasa (review here), while effectively translating it into shorter, tighter material. This they deliver with class and distinct vitality, everything symmetrical, in its place, serving a purpose, but not hackneyed or forced or cloying. It is an ambitious culmination of the work they’ve done to-date — they might need a full-time keyboardist/organist for live shows — and a step forward on a path they’ll continue to walk. I don’t think they’ve peaked or stopped growing, but they’re going to have a challenge in topping the defining statement they make here. One would hardly call it optimistic, but Glass Future holds nothing but promise to that end.
Posted in Whathaveyou on October 13th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
I’ve been back and forth with Howling Giant trying to set up an interview to talk about their stellar new record, Glass Future, and the tour in Europe they’re currently undertaking in the company of Philly’s Heavy Temple, and so yesterday caught word that the van the two acts were traveling in together had its window busted in broad daylight and the band lost laptops, merch, clothes, and so on. No gear seems to have been taken, so that’s one expense avoided, but travel documents and other items are gone. Of course there’s a GoFundMe. If you haven’t donated, I’m putting the link on its own line to make it stand out and guilt you into it:
Just looked and they passed their goal. It doesn’t matter. Give them your money. What were you going to do, pay bills with it?
The European run wraps up at Desertfest Belgium on Oct. 22, Glass Future drops Oct. 27 — good for me, casually using ‘drops’ like the kids do (or did, anyway) — and they’ve just announced two more weeks of touring in the Midwest and Southeastern US that will take them into mid-November. They might slow down for winter or they might not, but if you haven’t dug into any of the singles from the album yet, I’ll tell you outright that the onus is on you to see them now or regret it later.
Dates and info from the PR wire:
HOWLING GIANT announce US-Tour in Fall 2023
Hot on the heels of the release of their sophomore full-length “Glass Future” on October 27, HOWLING GIANT will hit the roads of North America again. Warming up for their headliner dates, the cosmic stoner metal trio from Nashville, Tennessee will support BLACK TUSK on the first three shows, before taking the helm themselves. After three more gigs, label mates RESTLESS SPIRIT will join the tour as special guests in support of their brand new album “Afterimage”.
Please see below for all confirmed HOWLING GIANT live dates.
HOWLING GIANT comment: “All systems go!”, singer and guitarist Tom Polzine enthuses. “We are stoked to unleash Glass Future on October 27th, and cannot wait to bring this album to life in November at a US dive bar near you. We’re pumped to share the stage with our buds in Black Tusk and Restless Spirit. Come hear the sounds of these new riffs as they plummet towards our fragile planet. We’ll have shirts for sale in the crater.”
On rather sad news, HOWLING GIANT got robbed while in the city of Milan during their ongoing European with label mates HEAVY TEMPLE, who are also affected. If you want to lend a helping hand, please feel free to contribute or spread this link:https://www.gofundme.com/f/howling-giant-heavy-temple-robbed-on-tour
Howling Giant supporting Black Tusk 03 NOV 2023 Atlanta, GA (US) The Earl 04 NOV 2023 Wilmington, NC (US) Reggie’s 42nd Street Tavern 05 NOV 2023 Asheville, NC (US) The Odd
Howling Giant headlining 07 NOV 2023 Louisville, KY (US) Portal 08 NOV 2023 Cleveland, OH (US) No Class 09 NOV 2023 Detroit, MI (US) Sanctuary 11 NOV 2023 Chicago, IL (US) Reggies, Music Joint
Howling Giant with support Restless Spirit 10 NOV 2023 Cudahy, WI (US) X-Ray Arcade 12 NOV 2023 St Louis, MO (US) Platypus Bar 14 NOV 2023 Dallas, TX (US) Club Dada 15 NOV 2023 Austin, TX (US) The Lost Well 17 NOV 2023 New Orleans, LA (US) Gasa Gasa
REMAINING EUROPEAN DATES: 13 OCT 2023 Roma (IT) RCCB 14 OCT 2023 Viareggio (IT) Circolo ARCI GoB 15 OCT 2023 Carmagnola (IT) Circolo ARCI Margot 18 OCT 2023 San Sebastian (ES) Dabadaba 19 OCT 2023 Barcelona (ES) Razz3 21 OCT 2023 Paris (FR) Glazart 22 OCT 2023 Antwerp (BE) Trix, Desertfest Belgium
HOWLING GIANT is Tom Polzine – Guitar and Vocals Zach Wheeler – Drums and Vocals Sebastian Baltes – Bass and Vocals
Posted in Bootleg Theater on September 7th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Later this month, Nashville heavy prog rock trio Howling Giant will head out on a European tour alongside their Philadelphia-based labelmates in Heavy Temple. The tour will precede Howling Giant‘s new album, Glass Future, by nearly a month, as that’s slated for Oct. 27, which both feels far away and will be here before you know it. That’s fortunate, because it’s a record that kind of needs to be heard.
GlassFuture is their second record, ostensibly the follow-up to 2019’s The Space Between Worlds (review here), but the richly melodic, sometimes propulsive three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Tom Polzine, drummer/vocalist Zach Wheeler and bassist/vocalist Sebastian Baltes are about more than just full-lengths. In 2020 they participated in Magnetic Eye‘s Dirt [Redux] tribute to Alice in Chains (review here), in 2021 they had the instrumental EP Alteration (review here), the material for which emerged from a series of livestreamed lockdown jams. Later 2021 brought another [Redux], this one for AC/DC, and last year they posted an entirely instrumental version of the first album, seemingly just for the hell of it. In an age of ‘content creation,’ they are not a band who wants for it.
And no question that’s an asset working in their favor. They bust their collective ass putting word out there about themselves. Every post on their Facebook page for the last however long, whatever it is, has their European tour dates with it. They could give lessons in that shit. And we could sit here and whine about why does a band need to do that crap in the first place and what does it have to do with music and blah blah blah Gen-X blah. Fortunately, it’s moot because the songs are there as well, and never more so than on Glass Future. Whether you’re showing up for the Torche-esque brightness of the melodies in the instruments and vocals, or the harmonies in the latter, or the way even a mellower piece like “Aluminum Crown” has some shove by the time it’s done, the progressive flourish and thoughtfulness of their craft, or the hooks — god damn, the hooks — of cuts like “Siren Song,” “Hawk in a Hurricane,” “Sunken City,” “Juggernaut,” the maybe-Twilight Zone referencing closer “There’s Time Now” (the repeated line: “It’s the end of the world” bringing Burgess Meredith’s glasses to mind). As an entire work, it is impeccably done but not porcelain or brittle. It both takes and provides bumps, movement. It runs from the outset of “Siren Song,” isn’t afraid of double-kick in “Hawk in a Hurricane” or the ambient drone that follows the ending of the song proper, and uses the sample in “First Blood of Melchor” to launch a metal-as-rock organ-laced instrumental crashfest.
It’s an adventure of an album, and one that, when I started this post, I didn’t want to review. So I guess I’d better leave it there, because I can see where this is going and Glass Future isn’t out for nearly another two months. But if you haven’t yet gotten on board for this one, the video for “Aluminum Crown” — reportedly filmed in a living room — is as good an occasion as any. You’ll find it accompanied by the above-mentioned tour dates, which include stops at Up in Smoke, Into the Void Leeuwarden, Keep it Low, and of course, Desertfest Belgium 2023. No doubt Howling Giant will win friends at all of them and more.
From social media:
Howling Giant, “Aluminum Crown” official video
3D and VFX by Polar Desert Studios YouTube, Instagram, Twitter: @thepolardesert
Aluminum Crown is out today on all streaming services! Smash the link in our down-yonder-ways to check out the accompanying music video by the powerful wizard Polar Desert Studios!
Osnabrück and Paris added to the EU tour with Heavy Temple! Dates below, check em out!
29 SEP 2023 Pratteln (CH) Z7, Up in Smoke Festival 30 SEP 2023 Leeuwarden (NL) Neushoorn, Into the Void Festival 01 OCT Osnabrück (DE) Bastard 02 OCT 2023 Siegen (DE) Vortex 03 OCT 2023 Hamburg (DE) Hafenklang 04 OCT 2023 Jena (DE) Rosenkeller 05 OCT 2023 Kassel (DE) Goldgrube 07 OCT 2023 Munich (DE) Backstage, Keep It Low Festival 2023 09 OCT 2023 Budapest (HU) Robot 10 OCT 2023 Vienna (AT) Arena 11 OCT 2023 Bologna (IT) Freak Out 12 OCT 2023 Milano (IT) Barrios 13 OCT 2023 Roma (IT) RCCB 14 OCT 2023 Viareggio (IT) Circolo ARCI GoB 15 OCT 2023 Carmagnola (IT) Circolo ARCI Margot 18 OCT 2023 San Sebastian (ES) Dabadaba 19 OCT 2023 Barcelona (ES) Razz3 20 OCT 2023 Paris (FR) Glazart 22 OCT 2023 Antwerp (BE) Trix, Desertfest Belgium
HOWLING GIANT is Tom Polzine – Guitar and Vocals Zach Wheeler – Drums and Vocals Sebastian Baltes – Bass and Vocals
