Posted in Whathaveyou on February 21st, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Being at just a couple weeks’ remove from this year’s Planet Desert Rock Weekend, I can tell you outright that the comedown is real. Even putting aside mindboggling performances from the likes of Iota, Luna Sol, Solace, Valley of the Sun and a host of others, the people and place, the vibe and heart of the event, and the sense of curation were excellent. It was a great, great time, and it was accordingly something of a challenge to get back to regular life.
The good news as regards daydreaming is that the first lineup reveals for Planet Desert Rock Weekend VI are happening today. The Atomic Bitchwax and Freedom Hawk top the thus-far bill, with The Heavy Eyes and High Desert Queen also making return appearances and Throttlerod traveling the farthest I’ve seen them go for a show since Small Stone was at SXSW. Also, Montreal’s Mooch, Sweden’s Huanastone, Saturna from Spain and Italian heavy rockers Isaak are slated to appear as imports, all apparently coming to the US for the first time.
Already the specificity of the picks — these aren’t just bands who’ll be on tour for new records stopping through town, I mean — speaks to the depth brought to putting together Planet Desert Rock Weekend by curator John Gist who heads the promotional company Vegas RockRevolution, and I look forward to learning more about the stories these nights will tell over the better part of the nex year, in addition to hoping I make it back to Vegas next January.
From the PR wire:
This year’s Planet Desert Rock Weekend V was an amazing success as we had outstanding performances from all 20 of the bands who came to play. This included a rare performance from Fireball Ministry at the Ripple Music Showcase along with ripping sets by legacy bands like Unida, Mos Generator and Solace as well as 8 international groups came out that included Sergeant Thunderhoof, JIRM, Sons of Arrakis, Mr. Bison, Samavayo, Fire Down Below, Omega Sun and Green Desert Water. Our turnout was simply a magnificent set of fans who love the heavy underground, enjoy the killer party & music each evening and want to give all the positive energy into the experience. PDRW does not exist without the feedback and love that our fans give.
So PDRW VI has its work cut out as the curation of the event’s bar has been set high. Happy to announce 10 bands to get the lineup rolling. Speaking of legacy bands, we are super excited to have The Atomic Bitchwax coming to Sin City! This New Jersey band has been rocking since 1992 and always delivers a massive energy to their presence. The band features two active members of Monster Magnet.
We return 4 PDRW players that have put on top notch performances and are super cool people. We have Freedom Hawk flying back to Sin City to rock the stage. They performed not only PDRW IV but also the 1st PDRW back in 2018. They are one of the best bands musically in the scene. The Heavy Eyes returns to PDRW after playing the debut of Planet Desert Rock. This Memphis band knows how to get the crowd moving! High Desert Queen who played a high octane set at PDRW III which was our basic reboot of PDRW. Vocalist Ryan Garney is a great friend to Vegas Rock Revolution and of course the man with the plan behind our other favorite fest Ripplefest. High Desert Queen’s 2024 album “Palm Reader” landed #2 for May on the Doom Charts. Spain’s Saturna returns to PDRW after playing at PDRW v2 and we can’t wait to hear some of the tracks of their highly regarded album “The Reset” that was Vegas Rock Revolution’s #4 album of 2023. They create songs so good that if rock radio was an actual thing still they would be on it. Vocalist James Vieco is one of the top singers in the scene.
Three more international bands from three more countries are next as each of the bands will be playing their USA debuts. Italy’s Isaak who is on the well-respected Heavy Psych Sounds label cruises out to pummel concert goers. They have been rocking the European stages since 2011 and are a high energy band sure to get your blood pumping! This will make 3 years in a row of Italian bands following in the footsteps of Black Elephant and Mr. Bison. From Sweden we have one of the best kept secrets in the scene Huanastone. Many in the know are very familiar with them due to their last two releases that includes 2024 release “Son of Juno” that landed #9 on the Doom Charts for June. They have a silky smooth style and sound that will be cool to hear live. From Montreal Canada as we continue the legacy of 3 straight French Canadian bands(Sandveiss+Sons of Arrakis) we have Mooch. Likely the most unknown of this batch of bands but we have had our eye and ears on them since their 2020 releases Hounds which was produced by Brant Bjork. Their style harkens back to some classic rock influences and a dash of Masters of Reality. Mooch is a younger band and all 3 members sing. Their tracks can stick in your ears for days at a time. Their 2024 release Visions landed #14 on the Doom Charts for June.
Lastly we got a righteous legacy band and a newer band. Throttlerod has been pretty dormant for a bit but they will be firing on all cylinders at PDRW VI . They started blazing stages back in 1999. Frontman Matt Whitehead has been busy with another stellar band Shun which is on Small Stone Records. The band’s sound has wide ranging influences sure to keep us on our toes! Oakland’s Phantom Hound rounds out the announcements for this grouping. VRR has been a big champion of them since the beginning and their recent album “From Boomtown to Ghost Town” on Glory or Death Records landed #5 on the Doom Charts. This power trio has lots of bluesy elements and stroytelling in their stuff.
Already in chats with 10 other very good bands and will release the names as we gather commitments. The list of who we are targeting is close to done and now it’s a matter of who gets the spots. We will have a Last Call Show again and will get a ticket link out for that soon! Some of these bands will be playing that night.
Thanks so much to everyone who has been amazing in their support and love for Planet Desert Rock Weekend. We can’t wait to see you again and party! We won’t let you down.
New York’s Geezer and Genoa, Italy’s Isaak are set to issue their split LP, Interstellar Cosmic Blues & The Riffalicious Stoner Dudes, on May 17. As labelmates on Heavy Psych Sounds, they are united in dedication to groove and weighted tones, and they’re certainly both acts you’d call ‘heavy,’ but from one side of the platter to the other, there’s no question they each stand on their own as well.
Geezer open side A with “Acid Veins” (lyric video premiering below) as one the first of four characteristically grooving inclusions. It and the capping “Oneirophrenia” were recorded with David Andersen at The Artfarm, while the middle two, “Little Voices” and “Mercury Rising,” were tracked during the sessions for the band’s most recent album, 2022’s Stoned Blues Machine (review here), which were helmed by Chris Bittner at Applehead Recording in Woodstock, NY, near the band’s hometown of Kingston. I’m not sure when “Acid Veins” and “Oneirophrenia” were tracked, but they fit well in bookending the Interstellar Cosmic Blues portion of this split, with “Acid Veins” sweeping in on a quick rush of noise and digging almost immediately into its verse riff in an easy nod and swing from guitarist/vocalist Pat Harrington, bassist Richie Touseull and drummer Steve Markota that holds for the duration through the first of their four choice hooks and into the fuzz-drenched twister solo section that carries them out in classic stoner rock style.
Perhaps in comparison to Isaak, whose stated purpose here is to branch out in sound and personnel alike (give me a minute, we’ll get there), Geezer‘s four cuts might not come off as outwardly pushing boundaries in the same way, but in “Acid Veins,” “Little Voices,” which might be about depression or might be about having kids — take your pick; either way, “sometimes it gets dark” — and “Mercury Rising” they bring to emphasis the more straight-ahead songwriting that on their albums has done so much to complement and sometimes ground their jammier and more psychedelic material.
“Mercury Rising” is a little longer and starts out with a mellow jam for its first minute-plus, but picks up from there around a rolling riff and verse/chorus trades. It’s a hook I remembered instantly from being in the studio when Stoned Blues Machine‘s basic tracks were put down, and it’s a highlight here as well. Rounding out, “Oneirophrenia” — the title in reference to the semi-hallucinatory dream-state between being awake and asleep; you know, brain stuff — grows insistent in its shove as it moves through its halfway point, but closes Geezer‘s stretch with a condensed exploration of low-key spacey vibing, giving some representation to the reach that might show up near the end of an LP. Hypnotic by the end of its six minutes, it’s the proverbial ‘big finish’ perfectly scaled-down to suit the context in which it arrives. Sometimes a song just finds its place. That happens four times on the first half of Interstellar Cosmic Blues & The Riffalicious Stoner Dudes.
The plot thickens with the start of Isaak‘s “The Whale,” as the core four-piece of the band — vocalist Giacomo Boeddu, guitarist Francesco Raimondi, bassist Gabriele Carta and drummer Davide Foccis — waste not a second of their circa-15-minutes and transfigure the crunch of a song like “OBG” from last year’s Hey (review here) long-player onto a careening gallop that, particularly with the bellow that tops it, feels more born of the Baroness school of riffing. Welcoming the first of three guests in Fabio Cuomo (Gotho, Liquido di Morte), they calm it down somewhat momentarily in the bridge before building up to a charged finish, but are very obviously working to expand the perception of the band as The Riffalicious Stoner Dudes, and both “Crisis” and “Flat Earth” follow suit in methodology and the shirking of expectation.
As to how recent Isaak‘s tracks are, I don’t know that either, but as vocalist Fabio Palombi (Burn the Ocean, Nerve) joins in for “Crisis” and Ufomammut drummer Alessandro “Levre” Levrero guests on “Flat Earth,” they both help the cause. “Crisis” sets out on an initially angular course of riffing before settling into the verse with Foccis on the bell of the ride, Mastodonic in thickness of tone in a way that feels not so far removed from what Hey wrought and daring a bit of shuffle in its chorus. The twist comes with the departure first into acoustic-inclusive heavy, almost-folkish push before they surge forward with the post-hardcore shouts of Palombi overtop, which give an intensity that Isaak answer by shifting back to the verse and chorus to round out. The sense of their trying new ideas, branching out in terms of sound, is palpable, but they’ve neither dropped their lead-with-riffs modus or the momentum of “The Whale” just before, and as Boeddu‘s own vocals have always had a bit of burl to them and certainly do here as well, it’s not too much of a leap to Palombi‘s part that it derails the song. It works, in other words.
They crash into the start of “Flat Earth” and set out across the split’s final track with a marked tension in the guitar. The pace isn’t quite as thrust-minded as “The Whale,” but the first of Isaak‘s three songs still affects the momentum of the last, and while they’re a bit more in line with what they’ve done before, when the chorus hits, what in many contexts would be a desert rock riff takes on a new persona and energy. It is both a blast and wall-‘o-tone heavy; the snare punctuating turns in the guitar and bass at the end of bellowing measures. Right at three minutes in, the guitar solo starts and the rhythmic pattern follows, but they’re back in the chorus soon enough and build from there into the ending section — which I’m pretty sure is where Levrero joins Boeddu — which both answers back to Geezer‘s ceremonious closeout and underscores the vibrancy behind the surprises from The Riffalicious Stoner Dudes, who just might need to add a ‘+’ to their side B descriptor.
The bottom line for Interstellar Cosmic Blues & The Riffalicious Stoner Dudesas a whole is quality work from established acts each with their own chemistry and intent for the release. They are nowhere near close enough in style to be competing with each other, but if you put one on loud, certainly the next will benefit from that same volume. Kind of a no-brainer for those who know the bands, maybe, and for those who don’t — that’s not a judgment on my part, ever; I’m not talking down to anyone — in Geezer‘s display of craft and Isaak‘s willful progression of style, they both play to strengths in an engaging summary of what they do. Yeah, the split’s got a long title, but hell, it also covers a lot of ground.
Enjoy “Acid Veins” below, followed by more info from the PR wire:
ACID VEINS is the third GEEZER single taken from the split album Interstellar Cosmic Blues & The Riffalicious Stoner Dudes. The release features Geezer and Isaak and will see the light on May 17th via Heavy Psych Sounds.
SAYS THE BAND: “Acid Veins is about life on the road. The good, the bad and the ugly side of touring in an underground rock band. While it is (in many ways) the best experience in the world, it ain’t for the faint of heart and it sure as hell ain’t always fun and games. We love what we do and we don’t take anything for granted. This one’s for the road dogs, for the lifers. Much love and safe travels!”
TRACKLIST SIDE A Acid Veins (Geezer) Little Voices (Geezer) Mercury Rising (Geezer) Oneirophrenia (Geezer)
SIDE B The Whale (Isaak feat Fabio Cuomo from Gotho & Liquido di Morte) Crisis (Isaak feat. Fabio Palombi from Nerve & Burn the Ocean) Flat Earth (Isaak feat. Levre from Ufomammut)
GEEZER are: Pat Harrington – vocals/guitar Richie Touseull – bass Steve Markota – drums
ISAAK is Giacomo Boeddu – vocals Francesco Raimondi – guitars Gabriele Carta – bass Davide Foccis – drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 22nd, 2024 by JJ Koczan
A Geezer and Isaak split LP is an easy win for the universe. It’s out May 17, and I feel like that’s probably all I need to say, except to point out that I’m glad Geezer‘s “Little Voices” is coming out. That song was recorded when the Kingston, New York, trio were in Woodstock to track their 2022 album, Stoned Blues Machine (review here). On side B, Genoa, Italy’s Isaak — who were all-caps on their 2023 album, Hey (review here), which was their first full-length in eight years — have three tracks featuring collaborations with members of Liquido di Morte, Nerve and Ufomammut and they specifically promise an experimentalist ethic that is sure to expand their own sonic palette. Given the righteously cumbersome title Interstellar Cosmic Blues and the Riffalicious Stoner Dudes, the split already carries a lighthearted and unpretentious vibe that should fit nicely in the respective catalogs of both outfits.
First word came down the PR wire a bit ago, and you can stream “Little Voices” down at the bottom. Preorders and whatnot included:
Heavy Psych Sounds to announce split album GEEZER // ISAAK – Interstellar Cosmic Blues & The Riffalicious Stoner Dudes – presale starts TODAY !!!
Today we are stoked to start the presale of a brand new split album featuring the US blues rockers GEEZER and the Italian heavy stoners ISAAK.
The release is called INTERSTELLAR COSMIC BLUES & THE RIFFALICIOUS STONER DUDES !!!
RELEASED IN 10 ULTRA LTD TEST PRESS VINYL 100 ULTRA LTD COLOR IN COLOR TRANSP. BACK. RED/SPLATTER BLUE VINYL 350 LTD BLUE VINYL BLACK VINYL DIGIPAK DIGITAL
TRACKLIST SIDE A Acid Veins (Geezer) Little Voices (Geezer) Mercury Rising (Geezer) Oneirophrenia (Geezer)
SIDE B The Whale (Isaak) Crisis (Isaak) Flat Earth (Isaak)
ALBUM DESCRIPTION
GEEZER
As the “Interstellar Cosmic Blues” half of this EP, we consider these songs to be some of the best that we’ve produced. Songs that could all be “singles” all on their own. And they better be because “The Riffalicious Stoner Dudes” brought some savage riffage of their own! Put it all together with amazing artwork by Mirkow Gastow and release it on Heavy Psych Sounds, the BEST record label on the planet… and you’ve got all the makings of a great record! A modern classic right out of the box. Dig it!
Songs 1 & 4 Recorded and Mixed by David Andersen at the Artfarm (Accord, New York) Songs 2 & 3 Recorded and Mixed by Chris Bittner at the Applehead Recording (Woodstock, New York) All Songs Mastered by Scott Craggs
GEEZER are: Pat Harrington – vocals/guitar Richie Touseull – bass Steve Markota – drums
ISAAK
Art comes from change and experimentation. These three songs are exactly that. Three songs, three different souls.
This recording session is born from the collaboration of some friends invited by the band, and these are:
Fabio Cuomo from Gotho & Liquido di Morte – THE WHALE Fabio Palombi from Nerve & Burn the Ocean – CRISIS And last but not the least, Levre from Ufomammut – FLAT EARTH
ISAAK is Giacomo Boeddu – vocals Francesco Raimondi – guitars Gabriele Carta – bass Davide Foccis – drums
Posted in Reviews on April 10th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Welcome to the Spring 2023 Quarterly Review. Between today and next Tuesday, a total of 70 records will be covered with a follow-up week slated for May bringing that to 120. Rest assured, it’ll be plenty. If you’re reading this, I feel safe assuming you know the deal: 10 albums per day from front to back, ranging in style, geography, type of release — album, EP, singles even, etc. — and the level of hype and profile surrounding. The Quarterly Review is always a massive undertaking, but I’ve never done one and regretted it later, and looking at what’s coming up across the next seven days, there are more than few records featured that are already on my ongoing best of 2023 list. So please, keep an eye and ear out, and hopefully you’ll also find something new that speaks to you.
We begin.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
ISAAK, Hey
Last heard from as regards LPs with 2015’s Serominize (review here) and marking 10 years since their 2013 debut under the name, The Longer the Beard the Harder the Sound (review here), Genoa-based heavy rockers ISAAK return with the simply-titled Hey and encapsulate the heads-up fuzz energy that’s always been at the core of their approach. Vocalist Giacomo H. Boeddu has hints of Danzig in “OBG” and the swing-shoving “Sleepwalker” later on, but whether it’s the centerpiece Wipers cover “Over the Edge,” the rolling “Dormhouse” that follows, or the melodic highlight “Rotten” that precedes, the entire band feel cohesive and mature in their purposeful songwriting. They’re labelmates and sonic kin to Texas’ Duel, but less bombastic, with a knife infomercial opening their awaited third record before the title-track and “OBG” begin to build the momentum that carries the band through their varied material, spacious on “Except,” consuming in the apex of “Fake it Till You Make It,” but engaging throughout in groove and structure.
With doom in their collective heart and riffs to spare, UK doom metal traditionalists Iron Void roll out a weighted 44 minutes across the nine songs of their fourth full-length, IV, seeming to rail against pandemic-era restrictions in “Grave Dance” and tech culture in “Slave One” while “Pandora’s Box” rocks out Sabbathian amid the sundry anxieties of our age. Iron Void have been around for 25 years as of 2023 — like a British Orodruin or trad-doom more generally, they’ve been undervalued for most of that time — and their songwriting earns the judgmental crankiness of its perspective, but each half of the LP gets a rousing closer in “Blind Dead” and “Last Rites,” and Iron Void doom out like there’s no tomorrow even on the airier “She” because, as we’ve seen in the varying apocalypses since the band put out 2018’s Excalibur (review here), there might not be. So much the better to dive into the hook of “Living on the Earth” or the grittier “Lords of the Wasteland,” the metal-of-yore sensibility tapping into early NWOBHM without going full-Maiden. Kind of a mixed bag, it might take a few listens to sink in, but IV shows the enduring strengths of Iron Void and is clearly meant more for those repeat visits than some kind of cloying immediacy. An album to be lived with and doomed with.
An offering of thickened, massive lava-flow sludge, plodding doom and atmospheric severity, Dread Witch‘s self-released (not for long, one suspects) first long-player, Tower of the Severed Serpent, announces a significant arrival on the part of the onslaught-prone Danish outfit, who recorded as a trio, play live as a five-piece and likely need at least that many people to convey the density of a song like the opener/longest track (immediate points) “The Tower,” the eight minutes of which are emblematic of the force of execution with which the band delivers the rest of what follows, runtimes situated longest to shortest across the near-caustic chug of “Serpent God,” the Celtic Frost-y declarations and mega-riff ethos of “Leech,” the play between key-led minimalism and all-out stomp on “Wormtongue” and the earlier-feeling noise intensity of “Into the Crypt” before the more purely ambient but still heavy instrumental “Severed” wraps, conveying weight of emotion to complement the tonal tectonics prior. Bordering on the extreme and clearly enjoying the crush that doing so affords them, Dread Witch make more of a crater than an impression and would be outright barbaric were their sound not so methodical in immersing the audience. Pro sound, loaded with potential, heavy as shit; these are the makings of a welcome debut.
Next-generation heavy fuzz purveyed with particular glee, Tidal Wave seem to explore the very reaches they conjure through verses and choruses on their eight-song Ripple Music label debut (second LP overall behind 2019’s Blueberry Muffin), The Lord Knows, and they make the going fun throughout the 41-minute outing, finding the shuffle in the shove of “Robbero Bobbero” while honing classic desert idolatry on “Lizard King” and “End of the Line” at the outset. What a relief it is to know that heavy rock and roll won’t die with the aging-out of so many of its Gen-X and Millennial purveyors, and as Tidal Wave step forward with the low-end semi-metal roll of “Pentagram” and the grander spaces of “By Order of the King” before “Purple Bird” returns to the sands and “Thorsakir” meets that on an open field of battle, it seems the last word has not been said on Tidal Wave in terms of aesthetic. They’ve got time to continue to push deeper into their craft — and maybe that will or won’t result in their settling on one path or another — but the range of moods on The Lord Knows suits them well, and without pretense or overblown ceremony the Sundsvall four-piece bring together elements of classic heavy rock and metal while claiming a persona that can move back and forth between them. Kind of the ideal for a younger band.
Persistently weird in the mold of Arthur Brown with unpredictability as a defining feature, Guided Meditation Doomjazz may mostly be a cathartic salve for founding bassist, vocalist, experimentalist, etc.-ist Blaise the Seeker, but that hardly makes the expression any less valid. Expect arrives as a five-song EP, ready to meander in the take-the-moniker-literally “Collapse in Dignity” and the fuzz-drenched slow-plod finisher “Sit in Surrender” — watery psychedelic guitar weaving overhead like a cloud you can reshape with your mind — that devolves into drone and noise, but not unstructured and not without intention behind even its most out-there moments. The bluesy sway of “The Mind is Divided” follows the howling scene-setting of the titular opener, while “Stream of Crystal Water” narrates its verse over crunchier riffing before the sung chorus-of-sorts, the overarching dug-in sensibility conveying some essence of what seems despite a prolific spate of releases to be an experience intended for a live setting, with all the one-on-one mind-expansion and arthouse performance that inevitably coincides with it. Still, with a rough-feeling production, Expect carries a breadth that makes communing with it that much easier. Go on, dare to get lost for a little while. See where you end up.
II is the vocalized follow-up to Cancervo‘s 2021 debut, 1 (review here), and finds the formerly-instrumental Lombardy, Italy, three-piece delving further into the doomed aspects of the initial offering with a greater clarity on “Arera,” “Herdsman of Grem” and “The Cult of Armentarga,” letting some of the psychedelia of the first record go while maintaining enough of an atmosphere to be hypnotic as the vocals follow the marching rhythm as the latter track moves into its midsection or the rhythmic chains in the subsequent “Devil’s Coffin” (an instrumental) lock step with the snare in a floating, loosely-Eastern-scaled break before the bigger-sounding end. Between “Devil’s Coffin” and the feedback-prone also-instrumental “Zambla” ahead of 8:43 closer “Zambel’s Goat” — on which the vocals return in a first-half of subdued guitar-led doomjamming prior to the burst moment at 4:49 — II goes deeper as it plays through and is made whole by its meditative feel, some semblance of head-trip cult doom running alongside, but if it’s a cult it’s one with its own mythology. Not where one expected them to go after 1, but that’s what makes it exciting, and that they lay claim to arrangement flourish, chanting vocals and slogging tempos as they do bodes well for future exploration.
So heavy it crashed my laptop. Twice. The second full-length from Mumbai post-metallers Dirge is a self-titled four-songer that culls psychedelia from tonal tectonics, not contrasting the two but finding depth in the ways they can interact. Mixed by Sanford Parker, the longer-form pieces comprise a single entirety without seeming to have been written as one long track, the harsh vocals of Tabish Khidir adding urgency to the guitar work of Ashish Dharkar and Varun Patil (the latter also backing vocals) as bassist Harshad Bhagwat and drummer Aryaman Chatterji underscore and punctuate the chugging procession of opener “Condemned” that’s offset if not countermanded by its quieter stretch. If you’re looking for your “Stones From the Sky”-moment as regards riffing, it’s in the 12-minute second cut, “Malignant,” the bleak triumph of which spills over in scream-topped angularity into “Grief” (despite a stop) while the latter feels all the more massive for its comedown moments. In another context, closer “Hollow” might be funeral doom, but it’s gorgeous either way, and it fits with the other three tracks in terms of its interior claustrophobia and thoughtful aggression. They’re largely playing toward genre tenets, but Dirge‘s gravity in doing so is undeniable, and the space they create is likewise dark and inviting, if not for my own tech.
Witch Ripper‘s sophomore LP and Magnetic Eye label-debut, The Flight After the Fall, touches on anthemic prog rock and metal with heavy-toned flourish and plenty of righteous burl in cuts like “Madness and Ritual Solitude” and the early verses of “The Obsidian Forge,” though the can-sing vocals of guitarists Chad Fox and Curtis Parker and bassist Brian Kim — drummer Joe Eck doesn’t get a mic but has plenty to do anyhow — are able to push that centerpiece and the rest of what surrounds over into the epic at a measure’s notice. Or not, which only makes Witch Ripper more dynamic en route to the 16:45 sprawling finish of “Everlasting in Retrograde Parts 1 and 2,” picking up from the lyrics of the leadoff “Enter the Loop” to put emphasis on the considered nature of the release as a whole, which is a showcase of ambition in songwriting as much as performance of said songs, conceptual reach and moments of sheer pummel. It’s been well hyped, and by the time “Icarus Equation” soars into its last chorus without its wings melting, it’s easy to hear why in the fullness of its progressive heft and melodic theatricality. It’s not a minor undertaking at 47 minutes, but it wouldn’t be a minor undertaking if it was half that, given the vastness of Witch Ripper‘s sound. Be ready to travel with it.
In stated narrative conversation with the Arabic influence on Spanish and greater Western European (read: white) culture, specifically in this case as regards the work of Persian philosopher Ibn Sina, Parisian self-releasing three-piece Pelegrin follow-up 2019’s Al-Mahruqa (review here) with the expansive six songs of Ways of Avicenna, with guitarist/vocalist François Roze de Gracia, bassist/backing vocalist Jason Recoing and drummer/percussionist Antoine Ebel working decisively to create a feeling of space not so much in terms of the actual band in the room, but of an ancient night sky on songs like “Madrassa” and the rolling heavy prog solo drama of the later “Mystical Appear,” shades of doom and psychedelia pervasive around the central riff-led constructions, the folkish middles of “Thunderstorm” and “Reach for the Sun” and the acoustic two-minute “Disgrace” a preface to the patient manner in which the trio feel their way into the final build of closer “Forsaken Land.” I’m neither a historical scholar nor a philosopher, and thankfully the album doesn’t require you to be, but Pelegrin could so easily tip over into the kind of cartoonish cultural appropriation that one finds among certain other sects of European psychedelia, and they simply don’t. Whether the music speaks to you or not, appreciate that.
Lush but not overblown, Argentinian instrumentalists Black Sky Giant fluidly and gorgeously bring together psychedelia and post-rock on their third album, Primigenian, distinguishing their six-song/31-minute brevity with an overarching progressive style that brings an evocative feel whether it’s to the guitar solos in “At the Gates” or the subsequent kick propulsion of “Stardust” — which does seem to have singing, though one can barely make out what if anything is actually being said — as from the denser tonality of the opening title-track, they go on to unfurl the spiritual-uplift of “The Great Hall,” fading into a cosmic boogie on the relatively brief “Sonic Thoughts” as they, like so many, would seem to have encountered SLIFT‘s Ummon sometime in the last two years. Doesn’t matter; it’s just a piece of the puzzle here and the shortest track, sitting as it does on the precipice of capper “The Foundational Found Tapes,” which plays out like amalgamated parts of what might’ve been other works, intermittently drummed and universally ambient, as though to point out the inherently incomplete nature of human-written histories. They fade out that last piece after seeming to put said tapes into a player of some sort (vague samples surrounding) and ending with an especially dream-toned movement. I wouldn’t dare speculate what it all means, but I think we might be the ancient progenitors in question. Fair enough. If this is what’s found by whatever species is next dominant on this planet — I hope they do better at it than humans have — we could do far worse for representation.
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 14th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Do not expect this to be the last Heavy Psych Sounds Fest announcement. The Italian label/booking empire gas over the last several years turned its various festivals into celebrations that each even beyond its own significant associated roster, and in this first reveal for Bologna and Torino fests, we see that happening exactly. Look for tours to emerge around this and other HPS fests to come in Europe (maybe US too), as end-of-April/beginning-of-May is kind of the culmination of the Spring festival season over there.
As someone born, raised and living in the US, I can only marvel at such a thing. I came up in the days of Lollapalooza roaming around bringing bands from town to town in a big traveling festival, but imagine multiple separate tours converging and separating across state lines in one spot, then roving around for club shows until the next one. What an amazing course of live performance and art and craft that is. I know we’re talking about rock shows and that’s generally considered lowbrow fare, but god damn, isn’t that how culture happens? These two dates encapsulate some of that same idea, and Heavy Psych Sounds did similar in California earlier in 2022, so maybe someday they’ll get there. I don’t know, but they make it easy to dig in the meantime.
Lineups follow:
HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST ITALY 2023
BOLOGNA & TORINO
Heavy Psych Sounds Records & Booking is proud to announce *** HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST ITALY 2023 – BOLOGNA & TORINO ***
first bands announcement
Heavy Psych Sounds Records & Booking will smash Bologna and Torino with their highly acclaimed mini festival-series, the HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST!
In cooperation with Freakout Club, Mkno, Blah Blah and Last One To Die, today Heavy Psych Sounds has revealed the first bands for the upcoming HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST ITALY !!!
The HPS Fest Italy will be taking place 29th and 30th of April 2023 at the TPO Club in Bologna and Last One To Die in Caramagna Piemonte (Torino) !!!
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 8th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
It was not so long ago when near the end of October, Genoa-based heavy rockers Isaak put forth word that they’d finished recording their next album. Good news all around. It’s been a minute. True, they had the split with Alberta’s Chron Goblin (review here) in 2019, but their last full-length was 2015’s Sermonize, so yeah. If you’re ever going to do it, figure it’s probably time.
Fair enough. You’ll note the not-at-all-curious lack of details below. Next week, when preorders launch and the first track is unveiled, we’ll get stuff like the album cover, the tracklisting, more background on what they were going for with it and so on. With a release set probably for next Spring at the earliest, there’s plenty of time for all of this, one or two more tracks leaked ahead of the actual arrival of the record, etc. You know the drill. So yeah, I’ll probably post again next week, and as ever, I feel a little bit like a sucker posting what’s essentially an announcement of an announcement, but life’s short and we all have to take our joy where we can and I like posting about bands, so here we are.
And to answer the next question that nobody actually asked, yes, Sermonize also came out on Heavy Psych Sounds, so this is technically a re-signing. There you have it:
Heavy Psych Sounds Records &Booking is really proud to present a new band signing *** ISAAK ***
We are so stoked to announce that the heavy stoner riffers ISAAK has signed a worldwide deal with Heavy Psych Sounds for their new album !!!
PRESALE + first track premiere: DECEMBER 12th
Isaak, a piece of history in the Italian Stoner Rock Music scene, are back after 7 years with a new album. Active since 2011, born from the ashes of Ghandhi’s Gunn, the quartet from Genoa is finally back on track, having started with purely Stoner rock sounds, now they like to define themselves as a Riffalicious Fast Forward Stoner Rock Band.
ISAAK is Giacomo Boeddu – vocals Francesco Raimondi – guitars Gabriele Carta – bass Davide Foccis – drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on October 26th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
The first Isaak release of the decade will be a new full-length album set to arrive next year on a yet-to-be-announced label. The Genova, Italy, four-piece were last heard from with a 2019 split they shared with Chron Goblin (review here), and their most recent album is 2015’s Sermonize (review here), which was issued on Heavy Psych Sounds.
There’s no audio or anything like that at this point — one assumes there will be announcements of announcements before we get there; such is the way of things in the world of need-to-make-content-to-exist, not that I’d know — but the band posted an update saying they’d finished the mastering and I chased them down for a little bit more of what they can say at this point, so at least we know there’s a cover that’s longer than “Yeah” by Kyuss, which leaves it pretty open, and the album was done with Fabio Palombi in Genoa. And they took a snazzy picture.
As to what it might sound like, you’d be forgiven for needing a refresher since it’s been seven years at this point — might be eight before the next record’s out — since Sermonize was released. If you’d like to know how they do, both of the above-mentioned outings are streaming at the bottom of this post.
Here’s what they had to say:
HEY
Album rec. done!
Mastering done!
High fashion photoshoot 2022/2023 by @davide_colombino done!
Now it’s the turn for the IRREPLACEABLE master of ceremonies @solomacello (#128420#) Can’t wait!
The new album will consist of 10 tracks + one cover, ok not funny like the last one (we had covered “YEAH” by KYUSS if you remember) but certainly longer ahahah. It’s been 7 years more or less since our last work and like many other bands these have been really difficult years, surely the lyrics and the “intensity” of the songs have been influenced a lot by these past years.
We are very happy about what we have done, this new collaboration with Fabio Palombi (Blackwave studio in Genoa Italy) has given us the new energy we were looking for.
Will it be a purely stoner record? will it be metal? will it be rock? will it be POP? Who knows? ahahahha
For sure it will be our usual sound or “soul” that someone once defined: Riffalicious fastforward Stoner Rock
We really can’t wait to share it!
The album will be out in the first half of 2023 for sure but we cannot give further details yet :(
Posted in audiObelisk on September 6th, 2019 by JJ Koczan
Today, Sept. 6, marks the arrival of the new split tape from Canadian and Italian outfits Chron Goblin and Isaak. Issued name-your-price through Spikerot Records in a soon-to-be-gone limited edition of only 100 tapes, the offering features one track from each band, each representing something different from them. To wit, Chron Goblin are about to put out their fourth album, Here Before (track premiere here), on Sept. 27 through Grand Hand Records. Isaak, meanwhile, were last heard from with 2015’s Sermonize (review here) on Heavy Psych Sounds. The Chron Goblin track, “Signs,” however, was recorded in 2015 at the same session as their third album, Backwater (review here). The Isaak song, “Taste,” was tracked at the end of last year. So the split arises from some pretty complex circumstances. For one band, it represents a chance to showcase something older as they move onto something newer, and for the other, it marks a return after a few years’ absence from the studio, a kind of refresher for their audience and a reminder of what they do as a group. It’s a fair amount of context to pack into an eight-minute release.
Fortunately, in listening to “Signs” and “Taste,” there’s plenty to dig into for those who’d otherwise, you know, just want to listen to some previously unheard material. Chron Goblin begin with a bit of amp noise and are all-go, soon enough launching into a Roadsaw-style verse that careens through a gang-shout hook en route to a winding slowdown and bluesy solo in the second half. The key moment is when everything but the bass drops out and the nod takes full shape before dropping out to complete the efficient 4:25. Done. Flip tape. Chron Goblin are in and out of “Signs” with an assurance of songwriting that leaves little to wonder why they’d dig up the track four years after the fact and still find it relevant enough to release: because quality songcraft is always relevant.
Isaak‘s answer back in “Taste” by building up over the first minute-plus to finally unleashing a forceful pummel of a riff met with likewise burly vocals. They’ve never wanted for brashness, and “Taste” is no exception to this as the low-end takes central position tonally and they cycle through the verse again as though coming back out of the corner for round two. The tension they manifest turns in the third minute to a more straightforward pop of snare and seems to run a little more forward rather than circular, but the let’s-kick-ass-and-worry-about-the-rest-later vibe remains consistent. They too finish clean. Surprisingly so for having seemed to throw so much sonic mud around, but maybe after a few years it’s just a sense of relief to be back with new material at all. I won’t speculate as to what their plans are without knowing, but Isaak certainly sound like they still have plenty more to say, as they did on their last record too.
And for Chron Goblin, there’s already the advantage of knowing the direction they’d take after recording “Signs,” so yeah, it’s a bit of a different situation from one band to the other, but the bottom line is it’s two tracks of hard-edged heavy rock and roll marked out by zero pretense and an efficient delivery, pressed up to a limited tape that will likely sell out before it even lands on the merch table, so yeah, there’s really no way to lose here. Bonus to anyone who listens to the stream on a Walkman.
Chron Goblin – Signs Recorded and mixed by Adam Pike at Toadhouse Studios in Portland, OR in February, 2015 Mastered by Stephan Hawkes at Interlace Audio
