Jam in the Psych Castle won’t be the first music festival hosted at the Öreg Tölgy Kastély-Fogadó, an estate-turned-event-space in Pusztazámor, Hungary. Earlier this year, the grounds hosted a punk and hardcore barbecue that went on for two days, so yes, don’t break a window because the place has weddings in — don’t break a window anyway; don’t be a dick — but there is experience on-site for running sound, lights, and all that other festival-type stuff. The partnership between Para Hobo and Psychedelic Source Records — which will also host a jam session the second day — has put together a lineup that runs a gamut through European heavy psych, with Speck and Obsidian Sea, MR.BISON, the proggy Daliborovo Granje and Poland’s Weedpecker in the headlining spot. By next September, they’ll likely have spent much of 2026 on the road for their impending album, V, due in February.
I’ll make no bones about my interest in Hungary. I’m of Hungarian origin and have been taking language lessons with an eye toward acquiring citizenship through my ancestry. My family and I spent four weeks in Budapest last year and I’ve been trying to figure out how to get back since. I’m proud to have The Obelisk’s logo (especially the metal one!) in good company on the poster above, and while I doubt I’ll be there to see it next year, I hope to be able to watch Jam in the Psych Castle grow in the years to come, as well as to be a part of it physically eventually.
Please keep in mind that this is a small gathering at a very special venue. Our capacity is limited to only 500 people per day. You should buy your ticket as soon as possible if you want to participate!
Shows: Weedpecker / POL Daliborovo Granje / HR Karkara / FR The Qualitons / HUN (special set) Mr. Bison / IT Roadkillsoda / RO Giöbia / IT Speck / AT Supernaughty / IT Obsidian Sea / BG Da Captain Trips / IT Psychedelic Source Records / HUN (with special guests) Band in the Pit / HUN Endre / HUN Azutmaga / HUN Alas! / HUN Deley / HUN (Sound System special)
Posted in Reviews on November 20th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
It’s all over now, I’ve got momentum on my side. This is day four of the Quarterly Review. The first three days have been nothing but a pleasure on my end, putting them together, and with just today and tomorrow left, I’m feeling pretty good about the entire endeavor. I’m not sure yet if this will be the end of the year as regards QRs, but if it is, it’s a good one to go out on.
And basically to make that determination, I need to look at next month’s schedule and see what’s coming when, when I’ll do things like the year-end poll and my own big end-of-year post. No idea on any of that yet, but I’ll get there. Getting this done in relatively smooth fashion is a help. Thanks for reading and I hope it’s been a good one for you as well.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
Psychedelic Source Records, The Initiation Outlaws
Set to release through Echodelick in the US and Weird Beard Records in the UK, in addition to Psychedelic Source Records‘ own distribution, The Initiation Outlaws brings eight pieces and a full 98-minute double-LP’s worth of cosmic improvised jamming, with a cast of regulars from the Hungarian collective — Bence Ambrus, Máté Varga, Róbert Kránitz, Krisztina Benus, Gergely Szabó — taking part in collaborative exploration with Go Kurosawa of Kikagaku Moyo, who goes from drums to bass to guitar as the release progresses, sliding right into the amorphous methodology of Psychedelic Source Records while distinguishing the heavier push in “Three Golds Reward II” or the snare work on “The King of Magic Colts and Wands I” earlier. Trance-inducing as ever, these captured moments are gorgeously fluid and immersive, active enough in parts like “The King of Magic Colts and Wands II” to defy mellowpsych-improv expectation, but abiding just the same. If you’re not there yet, it’s time to start thinking of Psychedelic Source among Europe’s finest purveyors of heavy psychedelia.
The forlorn folkishness in the midsection of “Waves Become the Sky” bring to mind an extrapolation of emotive doom from the likes of Warning, but that’s understandable with Aerial Ruin and Bell Witch renewing their collaboration for Stygian Bough Vol. II, following on from a first volume (review here) in 2020. The album takes place over four extended tracks from the rolling density of the aforementioned opener through the minimalist-till-it-isn’t “King of the Wood” and the longform folk-death-doom of “From Dominion Let Them Bleed” and the melancholy triumph of heft wrought in 19-minute finale “The Told and the Leadened,” which dwells in spaces empty and full and remains conscious enough to end with tense noise and drumming. This is artistry on its own wavelength, working in its own time, and patient to a point of extremity. But they do it to offer comfort, make no mistake. There’s consolation in these songs, in addition to all the mourning.
Unrepentantly cosmic Italian outfit Giöbia are like a fresh coat of antimatter for space rock. The four-piece obviously hunkered down in their secret lab after 2023’s Acid Disorder (review here) and worked hard to refine their chemical compositions, such that “Voodoo Experience” nods grounded even as its synth and guitars surge beyond the thermosphere. The results show everywhere throughout X-ÆON in their outsider cohesion of classic and neo-space rocks, heavy psychedelia and oddball synthscaping, whether you’re doing the sensory thing with the dream-jam “1976” or embroiled in the four-part side B concept piece, “La Mort de la Terre,” which draws a cinematic curtain for life as we know it in “Dans la Nuit Éternelle,” a wordless epilogue that feels half a world removed from the stomp-and-verse of “The Death of the Crows,” but of course, that’s the whole idea.
The included acoustic guitar, organ and FM-radio classic rock vibes in the eight-and-a-half-minute closing title-track aren’t a coincidence. They’re part of a stated intention the band had in taking on more of a traditional sound, coming down from some of the harder-hitting doom of 2020’s Acid Communion and working in more of a ’70s-inspired style. That manifests to varying degrees throughout, as leadoff “Electric Execution” feels like it’s working in the vein of “Neon Knights” or “Turn Up the Night” in Dio Sabbathian raucousness (I know that was 1980-81, don’t @ me), and while “Lucifer Rising” has a weighted march, it’s more Scorpions than Sleep, and “Goin’ to Texas” brings in the organ to emphasize the Southern geography of the album’s centerpiece. It’s a striking turn but they pull it off for sure. “Muchachos Muchachin'” has mid-’70s charm to spare, and “Bone Boys Ride Out” seems to bridge the more modern attack of Bone Church-prior with who they are today. Not every progression plays out like you think it will, and if this is the band Bone Church have wanted to be all along, they sound accordingly right to have made the redirect.
The ‘soft scream’ vocals give Js Donny‘s Death Folk an immediate sense of extremity, but it’s a quiet extremity. The French solo artist — who also plays bass in adventurous Marseilles sludgers Donna Candy — released an EP with a full lineup in 2023, but this six-song/33-minute offering is more intimate. Js Donny dwells in the quiet, creepy spaces the songs create, the vocal gurgle giving shades of otherworldliness and malevolence alike. It’s called Death Folk, but especially with the electrified/distorted wash that takes hold in “Not Like That” and again at the outset of closer “Black Heart” — a biting tone, like harsher blackgaze — I can’t help but wonder if Js Donny isn’t working in a kind of post-death-metallic framing. There are no drums, which is a fair trade for what’s gained in grim ambience, but even without, the album is clear in manifesting both sides of its title, and while Js Donny isn’t the only one laying claim to death-folk as a style, how it happens here sure feels like an act of genre creation.
In some distant future, when the history is written of our idiotic, persistently awful time, no one will ever say, “and the right-thinking people of the day had no choice but to seek refuge in avant garde cybergrind,” and that’s why history is bullshit. Skeletal Blasphemy is the third album from Nuclear Dudes and second of 2025 behind September’s Truth Paste (review here) — keep ’em coming — and is the solo-project’s most vicious and realized offering to-date. Spearhead Jon Weisnewski (Sandrider, ex-Akimbo) brings powerviolent catharsis on “Victory Pants,” the title-track and assorted others, working in collaboration with guest drummer Coady Willis (High on Fire, Big Business, Melvins), and whether it’s the punker push in “Bad Body” or the slow, undulations of the closing “The Octopus” and the burgeoning thread of progressive melody throughout these songs, it’s exactly the sort of self-bludgeoning that being alive right now requires. Album of the year? Fuck you, fuck the year, and fuck capitalism.
With an instrumentalist foot in progressive, horn-inclusive jazz, heavy psychedelic fluidity and a resonant warmth of tone alongside a will to meander, Kronstad 23 feel tailor-made for El Paraiso Records, run by members of Denmark’s Causa Sui. Sommermørket is the Norwegian outfit’s debut album and without sounding consumed by its own ambition to do so, it organically nestles the band in a stylistic niche that allows for the explorations in “Caesar” and “Astralreiser,” the latter of which will seem barely there in its early going at low volumes, to exist along the daring-toward-dancey opener “Dølgsmål” and building a kind of dreamy tension between the guitar and drums on “Trosten,” with none of it feeling out of place. They’ll invariably get comparisons to Kanaan, but the foundation is different and the delivery gentler, with “Helgen” finding its way on drum rolls and key/guitar drift into a classic-prog horn section in a payoff that’s somewhat understated until you look back across the five and a half minutes and see how far you’ve come. I can’t wait to hear how they grow.
“Love of Driving” is the debut single from newcomer New Jersey-based krautrock-minded two-piece Rolls the River. The band brings together Dan Kirwan of Pyre Fyre on bass, guitar and vocals, and Victor Marinelli on guitar, synth, drums and vocals for a sub-five-minute cosmic reachout, obviously schooled in where it’s coming from — that is to say, one doesn’t krautrock by accident; it is a form to adopt and refine — but still feeling like an initial exploration of both style and composition. Fading in on an initial keyboardy drone, the guitar and drums come in together and the neospace shuffle is mellow as layers are added, guitar, keys, but the sense of movement brought to “Love of Driving” is enough to explain the title, whatever you might think of the Garden State’s highway system. Rather than get caught up in jughandles, though, Rolls the River harness tonal presence and linear development and still find room to include voice as part of the atmosphere. Formative, and an encouraging start.
Belgium’s Psychonaut may yet teach progressive metal a lesson or two. The post-metal three-piece reach what sure feels in “Endless Currents” like a new level of expression and craft, and while at 11 songs and 60 minutes, World Maker isn’t a minor undertaking — one could easily argue making a world takes time — the utter consumption achieved in “All in Time,” which I won’t spoil any further, the blissful wash of “…Everything Else is Just the Weather” are not to be missed, and worth whatever minor investment of attention span might be required. Exciting as the intermittent metallic surges are, “Endless Erosion” caps in a quiet place, and the atmospherics across the first two and a half minutes of “Origins,” just as one example, help to bring a feeling of place (of ‘world’) to the procession. It is a vivid place Psychonaut have made, and there are listeners for whom the melodies of World Maker will be transcendental.
Following an apparent 2024 EP called Anachronist that is below because this debut album isn’t streaming yet that I can find, The Sea Between Stars — a suitably romantic framing of what you might otherwise call ‘the void’ — brings a progressive take to classic-style doom rock. The Oregonian five-piece roll out a genuine feeling of dynamic across the album’s 10 tracks, from the proto-metal shove of “Knightrider” at the outset to the later rush and wail of “Sky Sized Heart,” to the doom-epic ballad reach of “Bridge of Irreconcilable Sorrow” to the acoustic turn in the last movement of “The Words We Don’t Speak” and variable but unifyingly soulful vocal arrangements throughout, up to the minimal voice-and-piano closer “Ghost Notes” or the duet in the crescendo of “Still Breathing.” Ambition set in balance with organic production and songwriting. I don’t know when The Sea Between Stars is coming out, if it’s now-ish, early 2026 or what, but if you want to take this as an early heads up, do.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on October 17th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
The story being told in music throughout the seven tracks of Diablo in Alpujarras‘ self-titled LP — part of the Psychedelic Source Records collective in Hungary — is presumably the same story told by Bence Ambrus in the liner notes for the release. I’ll present them here to save you my paraphrasing:
About ten years ago in Spain I had a crazy experience in the Granada night with a Colombian coke-guy who held a knife in his hand. All I had with me was my backpack, its contents: some water and clothes. No map, no phone either.
I decided to escape the knife-police-situation and the city itself, so I decided to walk all the way down to the coast… The only problem was I hadn’t realized that the highest mountain range of Spain would be in the way between Granada and the coast.
So I walked “down” into the Alpujarras, then on towards the Almijaras, then down to Almunécar. The trek took a few days, during which all I had to eat were almonds and pomegranates.
In this release, I’d like the listeners to accompany me on my trip: washing your underwear in mountain springs, scavenging for edible seeds and fruit, having to keep on going all night because there are only cliffs both left and right, with not a single flat place to lie down to sleep at. Not to mention nights being cold as hell, of course.
When you finally reach the coast, buying a few beers and drinking them by the sea is a definite must.
Ambrus, who is at the center of Psychedelic Source and organizes many of the get-together-type jams that result in the releases on the label, has also released solo outings under his own name, and Diablo in Alpujarras is close to that in terms of what he’s playing. But it’s also a band name. Band and self-titled album, in the vein of Psychedelic Source Records offerings like River Flows Reverse, :Nepaal, and so on. And Ambrus is joined on the 45-minute (not days-long) outing by Sándor Nagy, who solidifies the ethereal guitar and bass at the foundation of the material, while Mátè Varga adds further percussion hither and yon along the way.
In telling his tale — whether it’s true or not, I don’t know and it doesn’t really matter; given the proclivity for improv, I tend to believe it — Ambrus goes on to say that the guitar parts across Diablo in Alpujarras, whether it’s the wistful meandering of “Consolamentum” or the cool night air wrought in “Solanaceaes,” were recorded at home in August, following the birth of his (I think second) child. Nagy‘s drum parts had already been tracked, and one assumes those became the backbeats around which the atmospheric, psychedelic meander takes place. I don’t know how much editing was or wasn’t involved, but the clever play between rainsticks in the penultimate “Sleeprain” and actual rain in the subsequent “Sleeprain Pt. II,” Ambrus finds a balance between droning minimalism and intimacy.
Especially as “Sleeprain” has no drums to speak of and “Sleeprain Pt. II” dials them way back from the level of activity, say, on opener “Diablo Oscuro” — still plenty mellow, by the way — or the 11-minute “Beneficio,” where after seven minutes into the total 11 the drums allow the listener to stay grounded as the guitar prefaces the float one finds in the “Sleeprain” duology, the balance between Diablo in Alpujarras seems to be between solo-album-type expression and a fuller-band presence.
There’s a whole other layer to the release when one considers the narrative unfurled above next to the birth of a child, and whether it’s escapist nostalgia from an overloaded brain — if you don’t have a kid, I’m sorry but I can’t think of a situation to compare it to in terms of what’s happening in your body chemically and emotionally; its like crazymaniajoypanichorrorreliefplusnosleep — or just thinking of new life and the ways one has spent one’s own, the fact of putting the listener in a different space by going there musically makes for a fascinating aspect of the material’s persona. Sometimes I think about driving out 12-15 hours to go to a doom fest in the Midwest like 15 years ago, or that time The Patient Mrs. and I got lost in Rome on our honeymoon (20 years ago and then some) and wandered along the side of a highway for however many kilometers it was before we gave up. Never did make it to the catacombs. Alas. On the most basic level, it’s not the kind of decision you would undertake if you had a kid with you.
I think a lot about family, about music, about what it means to be a ‘lifer’ in some form of creative existence. There are always balances to strike, to adjust, work and rework, and in my experience over the last eight years as a parent, there’s nothing more consuming or difficult that parenting. Nobody likes to talk about that aspect of it — I can’t speak for everywhere, but where I live the broader cultural expectation is that you should be like an advertisement for parenting while doing so; “isn’t this great and rewarding and something you’d definitely want to do even if you weren’t genetically compelled to do so?”– but most of parenting is a job. It’s work. I’ve had more hard days than easy ones, and part of that is my personality and mode of parenting and part of it is just the nature of the thing. Unless your idea of ‘raisin’ ’em right’ involves putting them in a basket and floating it down the river, sooner or later you’re going to have to put some effort in.
Maybe that means less time for other things just then, and it can be hard to keep the broad-view in mind when it’s seven-plus years later and all of a sudden you’re not allowed to sleep through the night again and you have no idea why, but when something is a part of you, whether that’s art, music, woodworking, whatever, you find ways to do it and maybe even share it that, hopefully, you can appreciate as refreshing and a new kind of experience unto themselves. I don’t know that that’s what’s happening here or not, but at the very least Diablo in Alpujarras is evocative, and that’s where my head went with it. This world is mostly garbage. Find your satisfaction where, when and how you can.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
—
I don’t have a ton to say here. The Pecan has strung together a few good days at school — we see the updates on an app they update in the classroom; I both hate it and it’s pretty convenient at tracking basic compliance with what’s happening in the class — and that feels good in the cautious way of having seen the rug pulled out from under such things before. But the point is she’s working hard and I respect the shit out of that. They’ve got her trying to ‘earn points’ to get to play on an iPad at the free period at the end of the day. All carrots at the ends of all sticks rot eventually, so I’ll be curious what the next thing will be when this wears itself out.
Next week, as much as I can review, I will review. That’s my plan. I was honestly thinking of doing another 50-release Quarterly Review, but no. No. Not yet. November, maybe, or early December ahead of year-end-list time. It’s too soon, having just finished one on Monday.
That made the week kind of weird, but so it goes. I’m glad the week is over. The Pecan’s birthday party is this weekend (her actual birthday is next weekend) and we’ve invited like 20-something kids to go ice skating at Mennen Arena — a North Jersey staple — for it. I don’t skate. Or party. That’ll be Sunday. Saturday night I’m going to see Kal-El in Brooklyn. I’ve been dreading the drive for two months. Not even kidding. That’s what it’s like to be in my head at this point. Once the music starts, it’ll be fine.
Have a great and safe weekend. Hydrate. Fuck fascism, free Palestine, death to the corporate overlords. Never forget who the assholes are now so you can hold it in front of their faces later at fantasy tribunals that’ll never happen.
The Answer Lies in the Black Void release their third album, Transcendental, on Sept. 26 through Lay Bare Recordings. And for something so inwardly metal, something that is as much about looking inside as out — realizing the only dividing line between the two is the self, also largely imaginary — the temptation is toward a kind of formality, but there is something deeply human about the work together of the partnered duo of Hungarian-born vocalist Martina Horváth and multi-instrumentalist Jason Köhnen.
You can see their respective pedigrees below, so I’ll spare you the cut-and-paste, but the two make up the whole of The Answer Lies in the Black Void as regards the studio incarnation, and from the lush break in opener “Deniers” where the walls of aural crush seem to be building up all around, waiting to crash in, to the march at the end of “Senkim” (is that ‘my nobody’ with the magyarul first-person possessive suffix at the end?) which would be death-doom were there not such a gorgeous melody floating over it, they blend poised instrumental aggression and doomed groove while portraying an ideology of discovery via craft.
Understand, I didn’t brush past the past bands and such in the paragraph above because I think Thy Catafalque and earliest Celestial Season aren’t worthy or relevant touchstones, but because the eight songs that comprise the 46-minute run of Transcendental isn’t about that. Its sound has its roots in doom and there are definite riffs at the roots of the songs, but electronic elements and keys add gothic flair to the nod in “Sine Morbo” (video premiering below) just ahead of Köhnen‘s guitar solo, and the purpose behind each change, subtle arrangement shift, or movement between parts is right there to be heard.
As they shift into the Bukowski-referencing “Love is a Dog From Hell,” both Horváth and Köhnen seem to revel in the quiet before the surge of the second half, double-kick, solo shred, soaring vocals and all for a payoff worthy of one of the best single lines of poetry the 20th century produced. “Senkim” follows and is the longest inclusion at seven-minutes, with a wispy keyboard line atop a slamming, weighted march. It feels very much like a moment of arrival for being at the presumed end of side A, and as with all of the component tracks, whatever the expanse is meant to convey, it comes with a corresponding emotional expressiveness.
And yes, dear regular reader who knows my sentence patterns, this is absolutely the part where I emphasize it’s also heavy as hell. Because it is, tonally, atmospherically, and by all accounts that I can tell, in the lyrics too. “The Summoning,” which starts side B and is the shortest cut at 4:59, marks a point of departure with a harsh vocal rasp that gives the backing roll a particularly sludgy bent, though the space is no less consuming than that of “Love is a Dog From Hell,” and the melody — indeed, layered harmony — isn’t far off in offering contrast.
But they wield extremity with the righteousness of experience, and “The Summoning” is well placed as both an indicator of an expanded mindset for the back of the album — that is, they’re telling the listener they have more to say than they’ve yet said on the record — and as a partial departure from the ground they’ve thus-far covered. The subsequent “Shattered by Wisdom,” which is only two seconds longer than “The Summoning,” pairs fluidly as a return to ground in terms of methodology. I wouldn’t say they sound comfortable, but like “Sine Morbo” or “Deniers,” “Shattered by Wisdom” feels like it’s drawing the listener deeper into the clear-eyed-through-the-fog murk of the band’s making.
Ambience comes further forward in the outset of “Deconstructed,” as Köhnen and Horváth take the time to dwell in the quieter beginning of the song before, as they approach the four-minute mark, a thicker chug of guitar enters the conversation and brings even gothier resonance with it. If Transcendental has a moment of transcendence, “Deconstructed” might be it, but in its solidified riffing and downer march, “Mists of Krakatoa” is more than an epilogue finale.
Horváth pushes her vocal range complemented by string sounds and the ensuing lumber, and the effect is near-operatic as they plunge into the slowdown and, via pickslide, the guitar disappears to let voice and strings carry a bridge to a lurching finale worthy of the procession before it. I haven’t broken out the scale to measure, but the ending of “Mists of Krakatoa” gets at least as heavy as any of the record’s heaviest moments, and still manages to keep its head and sense of reason going into the dropout that caps the album with just enough residual noise that, if you turn it back around to the start with the almost-whispered line “nothing will die” that precedes the crash-in of “Deniers,” the transition is smooth. Full circle, in other words, either intentionally or not.
There’s something extra-satisfying about that aspect, and for an album that expresses its intentions so clearly throughout, both in terms of how it’s communing with genre and how it’s breaking those rules, all the more fitting. “Sine Morbo,” just below, follows “The Summoning” (near the bottom of the post) as a single, and before I turn you over to the premiere you unquestionably clicked the link for in the first place, I’ll note that The Answer Lies in the Black Void take part Sept. 27 in the first-ever Lay Bare Fest in London (more info here).
Words from the band, album preorders and more a/v follow, courtesy of the PR wire:
The Answer Lies in the Black Void, “Sine Morbo” video premiere
The Answer Lies in the Black Void on “Sine Morbo”:
Sine Morbo [Latin / medical: “without disease”] reflects on how our society still tends to see an individual only as a physical form. Sine Morbo written on the paper, while the soul is ill. It is time to condition ourselves to treat the whole — mind, body, and spirit.
THE ANSWER LIES IN THE BLACK VOID, the alchemical collaboration between vocalist Martina Horváth (Thy Catafalque) and composer/multiinstrumentalist Jason Köhnen (Celestial Season, Bong-Ra, The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble), will release their third full-length album, “Transcendental”, on September 26, 2025 via Lay Bare Recordings.
Rooted in their shared passion for doom in all its forms, Horváth and Köhnen formed THE ANSWER LIES IN THE BLACK VOID to explore the genre’s emotional and existential depths. Their self-styled Transcendental Metal blends doom’s crushing gravity with elements of folk, ambient and electronica – casting a wide, atmospheric net that captures both sonic weight and spiritual introspection.
Lyrically, the band dives deep into the complexities of the human psyche. Themes of inner struggle, psychological transformation, and the hidden architecture of the soul permeate their songs, giving their music a haunting emotional resonance that moves beyond the typical boundaries of metal. The result is a sound that is both soulcrushing and soul-searching.
Following their critically praised debut, “Forlorn” (2021), and the equally compelling “Thou Shalt” (2023), with their new album THE ANSWER LIES IN THE BLACK VOID continue to explore the depths of the human psyche, captivating listeners far beyond the typical boundaries of metal.
Promising another chapter of introspective heaviness and sonic exploration, “Transcendental” is set for release on September 26 via Lay Bare Recordings.
Release: 26.09.2025, Lay Bare Recordings
Tracklist: 01. Deniers 02. Sine Morbo 03. Love Is A Dog From Hell 04. Senkim 05. The Summoning 06. Shattered By Wisdom 07. Deconstructed 08. Mists Of Krakatoa
Line-up: Martina Horváth Jason Köhnen
The Answer Lies in the Black Void, Transcendental (2025)
The Answer Lies in the Black Void, “The Summoning” official video
Posted in Reviews on September 3rd, 2025 by JJ Koczan
The Tail, the Head and the Snake Itself is the second vinyl to be pressed by the Páty, Hungary, collective Psychedelic Source Records, and while it keeps with the label/group’s common modus of improvisation and exploration, the four-song procession feels carved out with specific intent all the more because they’re telling a story with it. To wit, from the album info on Bandcamp:
Cause we are strong. We are creating what we see.
We are creating through our thoughts, as we destroy through our emotions, and it makes up the endless circle. The roundabout is not evil, it just exists. The evil is the faceless, the unreal, the monster, the fake glitter, the wheel, the rush and it is the SNAKE.
The snake which bites on its own tail, symbolising the circle which misleads all humans, makes life worthless, to make you begin its path again and again and again.
Be aware of the impersonal.
Be aware of the wheel. BE AWARE OF THE SNAKE.
The soul mirrors through the voice, the life mirrors through the rhythm, but its true self could be manifested only through improvisation, a wave-like motion instead of spinning. You cannot access reality through impersonal monotony, or sticking to habits.
It reads almost like they’re building their own modern ouroboros mythology, though certainly that’s not the only instance of snakes as malevolent actors in folklore — from Eden to the Hungarian folktale of Snake Johnny, European culture is replete — and if the cycles of our age are to be represented by the snake continually eating itself, well, fair enough. If you’ve ever been in a car crash and you could extrapolate into an entire year that slow-motion millisecond just before impact where your body goes preemptively into shock to lizard-brain prepare for the impact, that would be 2025. It’s to Psychedelic Source Records‘ credit that there’s more to the movement in these songs than escapism, though invariably that’s something the listener will bring to their own listening experience anyhow.
The session took place earlier this year at some unspecified time, and despite the story-enhancing, packed-in layers of iconography in Toth Tamas‘ (that’s family-name first, which is how it goes in Hungary) artwork and the scenes there of death, life and rebirth in a cycle that might be hopeful — arrow in the eye notwithstanding — were it not for the tail, head and snake itself (hey, that’s the name of the album!) surrounding, the flow within and between the songs is unmistakable. I’ve said this before with PSR outings — the latest prior to this Aug. 31 release was Flaming Hurricane (review here) from July, and that is indicative of the pace they keep — but despite the fact that the lineup for any given session can consist of different players, there has grown to be a collective chemistry between them such that the four songs and 46 minutes of The Tail, the Head and the Snake Itself can emerge carved via editing from the jams at their foundation and feel, if not directed, then certainly aware of themselves in time and space in a way that connects with the audience to build trust.
That is to say, performing as the instrumentalist five-piece of drummer Megyeri Krisztian, bassist Kranitz Robert, guitarists Ambrus Bence (who also mixed and helmed the digital master; Debreczi Akos did the vinyl master) and Karancz Akos and keyboardist Benus Krisztina, none of the parties involved here are strangers to each other, and the sound they’re able to hone, especially in the two extended pieces “The Snake Itself Pt. 1” (19:02) and “The Snake Itself Pt. 2” (14:06) respectively closing side A and opening side B, bears out that chemistry in a surge of cosmic push and scorch that’s both thrilling and atmospheric. With a clear divide between them — that is, it’s not the same jam continuing one into the next, but two distinct beginnings and endings — these pieces of course characterize The Tail, the Head and the Snake Itself by the sheer fact of their taking up more than half an hour of its runtime. And no, I assure you, that is not a complaint.
But whether it’s the subtly funky start given to the LP by the four-minute leadoff “The Tail” (it’s got some wag, that tail) or the serene post-rock that grows thicker, denser and noisier as its sub-nine-minute run plays out with its comedown preserved in the fade, these shorter cuts are not incidental or haphazard either. They obviously don’t have the same gravitational pull as the “The Snake Itself” two-parter, but a body is most of a thing compared to a head and tail, so this too seems like part of the plan and the story being described through printed words, art and music. It’s worth emphasizing this because “The Tail” demonstrates that in order to immerse the listener, the crew from Psychedelic Source Records — and again, who’s in that crew can vary from jam to jam — can enact that level of engagement without leaning on temporal sprawl as a crutch. I’m saying don’t discount the effect the short jam up front has on the mood of what follows.
A vinyl outing from Psychedelic Source Records is rare. There have been various band releases through the label-arm, for When River Flows Reverse, Black Batik, Protoaeolianism and others, but Psychedelic Source Records operating under its own moniker is a mostly-digital endeavor to-date. The Tail, the Head and the Snake Itself, by virtue of the concept applied, feels all the more tied together and solidified as an LP. Certainly there’s no lack of fluidity, as one would expect from these players at this point, and they highlight a sense of craft-in-the-immediate — everybody realizing they’re part of the build and the direction they’re headed; Megyeri is crucial in this — that still feels like it’s only beginning to unfold in terms of possibilities. Further, that they not only take the opportunity to unite their material in a concept, but then to use that concept as a chance for social commentary, speaks not only to classic outsider-art of the ilk to which PSR belongs, but again to the continued forward potential in the various incarnations they take. On practical, musical and organic levels, they have more to say now than they have yet said.
Psychedelic Source Records, The Tail, the Head and the Snake Itself (2025)
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 22nd, 2025 by JJ Koczan
This band is ready for you. The question is are you ready for them. And the answer is… maybe?, because The Answer Lies in the Black Void are out here on some ultra-churning post-metallic wavelength that makes most doom sound like the product of cave drawings, and on the just-sub-five-minute “The Summoning” — the first single from third LP Transcendental, out Sept. 26 as their first for Lay Bare — they unveil a litany of sounds horrifying, melodic, and sometimes both. If you can get to it, you’re probably already there.
The new album comes almost four years to the day after their debut, 2021’s Forlorn, as the Hungarian/Dutch outfit has expanded beyond the root duo of Horváth Martina and Jason Köhnen, and “The Summoning” is the track out today, but non-cornball/near-operatic closer “Mists of Krakatoa” was already streaming with its folkish strings and Horváth‘s soaring vocal, and that’s below as well. Stick around for the last march.
Note the Bukowski reference (“Love is a Dog From Hell”) as you make your way through the PR wire info below. Anybody remember books? When the printed word was a thing?:
THE ANSWER LIES IN THE BLACK VOID Announce New Album ‘Transcendental’ and Unveil Video for First Single ‘The Summoning’!
THE ANSWER LIES IN THE BLACK VOID, the alchemical collaboration between vocalist Martina Horváth (Thy Catafalque) and composer/multi-instrumentalist Jason Köhnen (Celestial Season, Bong-Ra, The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble), have announced their third full-length album, “Transcendental”, set for release on September 26, 2025 via Lay Bare Recordings.
With the track “The Summoning”, the band has unleashed the first single today. The song is released alongside a brand new video, which you can watch here.
“‘The Summoning’ is the first single from our upcoming album – a bold introduction to the different visions we’re creating. We chose to surprise listeners with an experimental track that sets the tone for how we intend to reshape doom on our own terms, featuring the fierce screams of guest vocalist Laura Brat (Tragic)”, the band comments. “The state of ‘Unus Mundus’-to be one through space and time seems to stay only a fantasy. How could we have a unified reality through cosmos if our society can barely recognise oneself?”
Tracklist: 01. Deniers 02. Sine Morbo 03. Love Is A Dog From Hell 04. Senkim 05. The Summoning 06. Shattered By Wisdom 07. Deconstructed 08. Mists Of Krakatoa
Rooted in their shared passion for doom in all its forms, Horváth and Köhnen formed THE ANSWER LIES IN THE BLACK VOID to explore the genre’s emotional and existential depths. Their self-styled Transcendental Metal blends doom’s crushing gravity with elements of folk, ambient and electronica – casting a wide, atmospheric net that captures both sonic weight and spiritual introspection.
Lyrically, the band dives deep into the complexities of the human psyche. Themes of inner struggle, psychological transformation, and the hidden architecture of the soul permeate their songs, giving their music a haunting emotional resonance that moves beyond the typical boundaries of metal. The result is a sound that is both soul-crushing and soul-searching.
Following their critically praised debut, “Forlorn” (2021), and the equally compelling “Thou Shalt” (2023), with their new album THE ANSWER LIES IN THE BLACK VOID continue to explore the depths of the human psyche, captivating listeners far beyond the typical boundaries of metal.
Promising another chapter of introspective heaviness and sonic exploration, “Transcendental” is set for release on September 26 via Lay Bare Recordings and is now available for pre-order at THIS LOCATION: https://laybarerecordings.com/release/transcendental-lbr067
It’s been a minute, so a bit of context to welcome the uninitiated (and that’s no judgment; good on you for checking out something you’ve never heard before): Hungary’s Psychedelic Source Records, despite the name, isn’t a record label in the traditional sense. Though it’s also that sometimes, pressing and releasing LPs or, occasionally, CDs, in limited batches. Mostly, Psychedelic Source Records is a collective of players and bands operating under the banner. These players, sometimes whole or parts of other bands, come and go throughout different improvisational jam sessions recorded sometimes in a special place (there was that time on the goat farm, for example) or with an outside collaborator, as last month’s Sokkyō (with LP pending) teamed a group of players in the collective’s stable with Go Kurosawa of Kikagaku Moyo.
These sessions are taken home and edited down, generally by Bence Ambrus, who plays guitar and bass and starts the recorder and so is about as close to a top-banana as Psychedelic Source has, but if it’s a hierarchy, it’s the most casual of them. To wit, Flaming Hurricane is the latest offering from the prolific, semi-amorphous group. It is the 10th release Psychedelic Source has had in the seven months of 2025 so far, and it brings two-thirds of Budapest’s Band in the Pit — guitarist Szabolcs Kesmarky and bassist Vilmos Schneider — into the fold with regulars like Ambrus (on guitar), guitarists Ákos Karancz (aka Pilot Voyager) and drummer Krisz Megyeri, the latter of whom proves to be the glue holding it all together as the three guitars go wandering through an expanse of psych drift, dynamic fuzz and at least partially improv processions.
Flaming Hurricane runs nine tracks and is two hours and 21 minutes long (2:21:34), so it’s probably safe to call it a productive day. In the spirit of past Psychedelic Source outings, it is presented in as organic a manner as possible, to the point that, on the Bandcamp release page, Ambrus posted the timeline of the day. Here it is for posterity:
The chronological order of the session: 11am: Bence arrived at the place, set the studio up. 12pm: Szabolcs and Vili arrived from Dunaujvaros, Krisz appeared too. 13pm: Session started, first five songs played in order, nothing weeded out. 15pm: Bence left the room. Around 17pm Akos arrived. second four songs played in order, nothing weeded out except a final one. Later some drunker mates arrived (David, Pali), all the rest of the songs weeded out. Enjoy
Note that in that, it’s stated that there was more, maybe a lot more, put to tape that day — presumably just weeks or maybe a month ago — but the jams didn’t work so they were “weeded out.” Flaming Hurricane, then, brings the best takes of the day. There are no overdubs, and right from opener/longest track (immediate points) “Glyphosate on Socials” (29:59), the troupe on tape dig into the moment with suitable gusto, Megyeri‘s drums — look out for “The Less We Speak the Better” (11:58) later on if you’re keying in on his performance — provide the backbone for movement through mellow dream-tones and the ebbs and flows around them. Schneider acquits himself well on bass late in the opener, and in the early going of “Self-Burial” (17:23), underscoring a skronk that builds through the song’s midsection and devolves nearly to complete silence before an epilogue of quiet standalone guitar leads the way out.
It’s more than a listener would probably be able to engage with in one sitting, because who the hell has two hours-plus to sit and actively vibe with heavy jams, but certainly “Glyphosate on Socials,” “Subliminal” (18:15), the fuzzblast-then-post-fuzzblast “Mahakala” (15:35), “Self-Burial,” and the finale “Robot Influences” (20:58), which meanders through a long drone and lead guitar only to be given shape in its second half by — you guessed it — the arrival of the drums, present the audience hearing them with broad soundscapes in which to immerse, get lost, dwell, really whatever you want to do with them. “Robot Influences” and “Glyphosate on Socials,” though the latter would need editing, could be a single LP on their own, and would satisfy as one, but “The Less We Speak the Better” — a fun title from a generally-instrumentalist outfit — and sub-10-minute pieces like “Throbbing Pulse” (9:28) and its apparent companion, the later “Pulsing Throttle” (8:40), as well as the penultimate, howling, heavy tube-blower “Atman Versus Brahman Cagefight” (9:17) extend the atmospheric reach of Flaming Hurricane such that, if you do sit down to give the album its requisite front-to-back time, the journey undertaken will be that much richer, even as the recording remains fairly raw.
Like a lot of what Psychedelic Source Records does under its own name — as opposed to putting out albums from Pilot Voyager, Band in the Pit, River Flows Reverse, Satorinaut, etc. — Flaming Hurricane offers documentary value as well as an engaging listen, and for those who’ve followed the imprint/group for some measure of time, there is perhaps extra satisfaction in the listening experience in terms of the chemistry and musical interaction between stable players. That is, while Schneider and Kesmarky are new, Ambrus, Megyeri and Karancz have done a career’s worth of jamming together at this point, and through the changes of “Self-Burial” the mellow desert-jazz of “Pulsing Throttle” and the hypnotic working-the-long-game build of “Robot Influences,” the instrumental conversation is happening at a level that, even just three years ago, wouldn’t have been possible.
If that sounds like I’m slagging off the older Psychedelic Source outings, I’m not. Sticking to their root methodology has given this collective their own kind of nascent maturity that one can hear throughout Flaming Hurricane, whether it’s in the smoothness of the changes from one part to another — not that all transitions are so smooth, as is natural — and that can’t replace the freshness or spontaneity of past sessions, even if it means their work has become more complex and farther ranging over time. Pastoralia continues to be a major factor in what they do, but the evocations of Flaming Hurricane — something that this climate-wrecked century seems likely manifest in a literal sense before it’s over — are limited only by the imagination that the listener brings to it. You could spend the rest of 2025 with these jams, but given that it’s Psychedelic Source Records and there are more sessions happening all the time, you probably won’t have to.
Posted in Reviews on April 14th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Welcome back to the Quarterly Review. Just because it’s a new week, I’ll say again the idea here is to review 10 releases — albums, EPs, the odd single if I feel like there’s enough to say about it — per day across some span of days. In this case, the Quarterly Review goes to 70. Across Monday to Friday last week, 50 new, older and upcoming offerings were written up and today and tomorrow it’s time to wrap it up. I fly out to Roadburn on Wednesday.
Accordingly, you’ll pardon if I spare the “how was your weekend?”-type filler and jump right in instead. Let’s. Go.
Quarterly Review #51-60:
Megaritual, Recursion
Last heard from in 2017, exploratory Australian psychedelic solo outfit Megaritual — most often styled all-lowercase: megaritual — returns with the aptly-titled Recursion, as multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and producer Dale Paul Walker taps expansive kosmiche progressivisim across nine songs and 42 minutes. If you told me these tracks, which feel streamlined compared to the longer-form work Walker was doing circa 2017, had been coming together since that time, the depth of the arrangements and the way each cut comes across as its own microcosm within the greater whole bears that out, be it the winding wisps of “Tres Son Multitud” or the swaying echoey bliss of later highlight “The Jantar Mantar.” I don’t know if that’s the case or it isn’t, but the color in this music alone makes it one of the best records I’ve heard in 2025, and I can’t get away from thinking some of the melody and progressive aspects comes from metal like Opeth, so yeah. Basically, it’s all over the place and wonderful. Thanks for reading.
Slab-heavy riffage from Andalusian three-piece Red Eye‘s III spreads itself across a densely-weighted but not monolithic — or at least not un-dynamic or unipolar — eight songs, as a switch between shouted and more melodic vocals early on between the Ufomammut-esque “Sagittarius A*” (named for the black hole at the Milky Way’s center; it follows the subdued intro “Ad Infinitum”) and the subsequent, doomier in a Pallbearer kind of way “See Yourself” gives listeners an almost-immediate sense of variety around the wall-o’-tone lumbering fuzz that unites those two and so much else throughout as guitarist/vocalist Antonio Campos del Pino, bassist/synthesist Antonio Pérez Muriel and drummer/synthesist/vocalist Pablo Terol Rosado veer between more and less aggressive takes. “No Morning After” renews the bash, “Beyond” makes it a party, “Stardust” uses that momentum to push the tempo faster and “Nebula” makes it swing into the Great Far Out before “The Nine Billion Names of God” builds to a flattening crescendo. Intricate in terms of style and crushingly heavy. Easy win.
Even by the respective standards of the bands involved — and considering the output of Detroit grit-doomers Temple of the Fuzz Witch and Montreal sans-guitar scathemakers Seum to this point, it’s a significant standard — Conjuring is some nasty, nasty shit. Presented through Black Throne Productions with manic hand-drawn cover art that reminds of Midwestern pillsludge circa 2008, the 27-minute split outing brings three songs from each outfit, and maybe it’s the complementary way Seum‘s low-end picks up from the grueling, chugging, and finally rolling fare Temple of the Fuzz Witch provide, but both acts come through as resoundingly, willfully, righteously bleak. You know how at the dentist they let you pick your flavor of toothpaste? This is like that except surprise you just had all your teeth pulled. It only took half-an-hour, but now you need to figure out what to do with your dazed, gummy self. Good luck.
Uncle Woe offer two eight-minutes-each tracks on the new EP, Folded in Smoke, Soaked and Bound, as project founder/spearhead Rain Fice (in Canada) and collaborator Marc Whitworth (in Australia) bring atmosphere and grace to underlying plod. It’s something of a surprise when “One is Obliged” relatively-speaking solidifies at about five minutes in around vocal soar, which is an effective, emotional moment in a song that seems to be mourning even as it grows broader moving toward the finish. “Of Symptoms and Waves” impresses vocally as well, deep in the mix as the vocals are, but feels more about the darker prog metal-type stretch that unfolds from about the halfway point on. But what’s important to note is these plays on genre are filtered through Uncle Woe‘s own aesthetic vision, and so this short outing becomes both lush and raw for the obvious attention to its sonic details and the overarching melancholy that belongs so much to the band. A well-appreciated check-in.
I would not attempt to nor belittle the band’s accomplishments by trying to summarize 35 years of Negative Reaction in this space, but as the West-Virginia-by-way-of-Long-Island unit led by its inimitable principal/guitarist/vocalist Ken-E Bones mark this significant occasion, the collection Salvaged From the Kuiper Belt provides 16 decades-spanning tracks covering sundry eras of the band. I haven’t seen a liner, so I don’t even know the number of players involved here, but Bones has been through several incarnations of Negative Reaction at this point, so when “NOD” steamrollers and later pieces like “Mercy Killing” and the four-second highlight “Stick o’ Gum” are more barebones in their punksludge, it makes sense in context. Punk, psych, sludge, raw vocals — these have always been key ingredients to Negative Reaction‘s often-harsh take, and it’s a blend that’s let them endure beyond trend, reason, or human kindness. Congrats to Bones, whom I consider a friend of long-standing, and many more.
Given how many different looks Fomies present on Liminality, and how movement-based so much of it is between the uptempo proto-punk, krauty shuffle and general sense of push — not out of line with the psych of the modern age, but too weird not to be its own spin — it feels like mellower opener “The Onion Man” is its own thing at the front of the album; a mellower lead-in to put the listener in a more preferred mindset (on the band’s part) to enjoy what follows. This is artfully done, as is the aforementioned “what follows,” as the band thoughtfully boogie through the three-part “Colossus,” find a moment for frenetic fuzz via Gary Numan in “Neon Gloom,” make even the two-and-a-half-minute “Happiness Relay” a show of chemistry, finish in a like-minded tonal fullness with “Upheaval,” and engage with decades of motorik worship without losing themselves more than they want to in the going. At 51 minutes, Liminality is somewhat heady, but that’s inherent to the style as well, and the band’s penchant for adventure comes through smoothly alongside all that super-dug-in vibing.
Classic Boston DGAF heavy riff rock, and if you hear a good dose of hardcore in amid the swing and shove, The Long Wait‘s self-titled debut comes by it honestly. The five-piece of vocalist Glen Dudley (Wrecking Crew), guitarist Darryl Shepard (Kind, Milligram, Slapshot, etc.) and Steven Risteen (Slapshot), bassist Jaime Sciarappa (SSD, Slapshot) and drummer Mark McKay (Slapshot) plunder through nine cuts. Certainly elbows are out, but considering where they’re coming from, it’s not an overly aggressive sound. Hardcore dudes have been veering into heavier riffing à la “Uncharted Greed” or “FWM” for the last 35 years, so The Long Wait feels well in line with a tradition that some of these guys helped set in the first place as it revisits songs from 2023’s demo and expands outward from there, searching for and beginning to find its own interpretation of what “bullshit-free” means in terms of the band’s craft.
Since 2020, Miskolc, Hungary-based solo-band Babona have released three EPs, a couple singles and now two full-lengths, with Az Utolsó Választás Kora (‘the age of the last choice’) as the second album from multi-instrumentalist and producer Tamás Rózsa. Those with an appreciation for the particular kind of crunch Eastern Europe brings to heavy rock will find the eight-tracker a delight in the start-stops of “2/3” and the vocals-are-sampled-crying-and-laughing “A Rendszer Rothadása,” which digs into its central riff with suitable verve. The later “Kormányalakítás” hints at psych — something Rózsa has fostered going back to 2020 with Ottlakán, from whom Babona seems to have sprung — and the album isn’t without humor as a crowing rooster snaps the listener out of that song’s trance in the transition to the ambient post-rocker “Frakció,” but when it’s time to get to business, Rózsa caps with “Pártatlan” as a grim, sludgy lumber that holds its foreboding mood even into its own comedown. That’s not the first time Az Utolsó Választás Kora proves deceptively immersive.
Sit tight, because it’s about to get pretty genre-nerdy. Sutras, the Washington D.C.-based two-piece of Tristan Welch (vocals/guitar) and Frederick Ashworth (drums/bass) play music that is psychedelic and heavy, but with a strong foundation specifically in post-hardcore. Their term for it is ‘Dharma punk,’ which is enough to make me wonder if there’s a krishna-core root here, but either way, The Crisis of Existence feels both emotive and ethereal as the duo bring together airy guitar and rhythmic urgency, raw, sometimes gang-shouted vocals, and arrangements that feel fluid whether it’s the rushing post-punk (yeah, I know: so much ‘post-‘; I told you to sit tight) of “Racing Sundown” or the denser push of “Bloom Watch” or the swing brought to that march in “Working Class Devotion.” They cap the 19-minute EP with posi-vibes in “Being Nobody, Going Nowhere,” which provides one last chance for their head-scratching-on-paper sound to absolutely, totally work, as it does. The real triumph here, fists in the air and all that, is that it sounds organic.
The story of Sleeping in Samsara‘s self-titled two-songer as per Christian Peters (formerly Samsara Blues Experiment, currently Fuzz Sagrado, etc.) is that in 2023, My Sleeping Karma drummer Steffen Weigand reached out with an interest in collaborating as part of a solo-project Weigand was developing. Weigandpassed away in June 2023, and “Twilight Again” and “Downtime,” with underlying basic tracks from Weigand in drums, keys/synth, and rhythm guitar, and Peters adding lead guitar, vocals, bass in the latter, the songs are unsurprising in their cohesion only when one considers the fluidity wrought by both parties in their respective outfits, and though the loss of Weigand of course lends a bittersweet cast, that this material has seen the light of day at all feels like a tribute to his life and cretive drive.
