Posted in Whathaveyou on January 31st, 2023 by JJ Koczan
A note to anyone who’s perhaps gone numb with the glut of tour announcements — not to mention Heavy Psych Sounds news — these last couple weeks as the year has begun to unfurl: This tour is happening sooner than most. A lot of what’s come down the PR wire of late has been stuff for Spring, or at least March. One struggles to keep up. This is for February, and it starts this week because — holy shit — so does February. There are still a couple dates TBA, which, hey, happens, and I’ve no doubt Kadabra and WarLung can happen into a gig somewhere between Germany and France over the course of those three days, but if you’ve got access to a show and can help, of course you’re encouraged to do so.
Kadabra will also play Heavy Psych Sounds Fest in California this March (WarLung played last year), and they head abroad supporting their a-little-under-the-radar-but-so-damn-good 2021 debut album, Ultra (review here), a follow-up to which would likely be impending sooner or later because if the band didn’t have any interest in continuing they probably wouldn’t bother going to Europe in the first place. WarLung in 2022 released Vulture’s Paradise (review here), their fourth album and a marked step forward in their blend of immersive breadth and structured, forward-delivered heavy. The two acts will complement each other well on stage. Safe travels to all.
From the PR wire:
Heavy Psych Sounds Records & Booking is proud to announce *** KADABRA + WARLUNG European Tour ***
– a massive heavy fuzz experience –
03.02.2023 IT Torino-Blah Blah 04.02.2023 IT Trieste-Kulturni Doom Prosek 05.02.2023 IT Bologna-Freakout 06.02.2023 HR Pula-Monte Paradiso 07.02.2023 TBA 08.02.2023 SL Ilirska Bistrica-MKNŽ 09.02.2023 AT Wien-Arena Beisl 10.02.2023 AT Ebensee-Kino 11.02.2023 DE Jena-KuBa 12.02.2023 TBA 13.02.2023 TBA 14.02.2023 TBA 15.02.2023 FR La Clusaz-Namass Pamouss x Le Lion d’Or 16.02.2023 FR Montpellier-Secret Place 17.02.2023 IT Parma-Splinter Club 18.02.2023 TBA 19.02.2023 IT Pescara-Scumm
KADABRA is Garrett Zanol (Vocals/Guitar) Ian Nelson (Bass) Chase Howard (Drums)
WARLUNG is George Baba: Guitar/Vocals Philip Bennett: Guitar/Vocals Chris Tamez: Bass Ethan Tamez: Drums
Posted in Bootleg Theater on November 1st, 2022 by JJ Koczan
These guys were a highlight of my addled Psycho Las Vegas 2022 experience back in August and their new video for “Graveyard” is a further reminder of the wholesome-toned earliest-Mars Red Sky vibes that persist across their 2021 debut album, Ultra (review here). The timing on the new clip is somewhat unexpected, since that record came out last Sept., but there are any number of reasons why Kadabra might put it out now. Maybe it took a year to make. That shit certainly happens with these things. Or maybe they just wanted to give an extra push after a while to move some records, which getting more people to hear this song is bound to do. Or maybe it might be a way to herald something new, either a preface for a tour or a new studio work, album, etc., to be announced in the coming weeks. Or something else entirely. I simply don’t know, and this just kind of showed up in my recommendations and I saw it was listed as new. For all I know the band posted it last year and the label, Heavy Psych Sounds, just put it up under their own account.
In any case, it hasn’t been posted here before, so I’m glad to get it up now, purely because the track is awesome and the record remains killer, whether the Spokane, Washington, three-piece are about to do another one or not. Among the reasons to be excited at the prospect that they are is that it would mean the band thought enough of the response to the first putting to keep the band going as more than a one-off — because I don’t think Kadabra is anyone in Kadabra’s only band — and given the strength of their material on Ultra, they showed some serious potential for growth that it would be cool to see (hear) realized. I didn’t think Ultra got the attention it deserved, but that’s no reason for the band not to make a follow-up if they’re even remotely inclined toward doing so.
We’ll find out, I suppose, and if I see word of their doing something new in 2023, or touring, or whatever, I’ll post when I see it. You know how it goes.
Enjoy the clip:
Kadabra, “Graveyard” official video
GRAVEYARD is KADABRA first single taken from the band’s latest album ULTRA. Out September 2021 via Heavy Psych Sounds.
Written throughout the 2020 global pandemic, Kadabra’s debut album “Ultra” presents an aesthetic that nears that “classic rock” charm and energy. The group has meshed together the droned flow of psychedelic clamor with an abrasive fuzzed riff drive. The sound is a mixture of psychedelic rock and hard rock riffing, vocals are choral and magnetic. In the fall of 2020, KADABRA enter the studio to record “Ultra” with producer Dawson Scholz : 7 brand new tracks for a fresh debut album: ULTRA keep the listener awake until the last minute of the album, with a variety of chill atmospheres. You can listen strong influences of Dead Meadow, Pentagram.
KADABRA is: Garrett Zanol (Vocals/Guitar) Ian Nelson (Bass) Chase Howard (Drums)
Newcomer trio Kadabra make their debut on Sept. 17 with Ultra, on Heavy Psych Sounds. The Spokane, Washington — not actively burning at the moment but maybe blanketed in not-the-good-kind smoke? — unit of course bear some moniker resemblance to Kadavar, and hey, that’s fine, but if we’re talking early ’10s heavy as comparison points Ultra vibes way more like first-record-era Mars Red Sky and Asteroid jamming in a massive temple carved out of an underground cavern, and if you can’t get down with that, you need to move on with your life. Comprised of guitarist/vocalist Garrett Zanol (Blackwater Prophet, Indian Goat), bassist Ian Nelson (Bad Motivator) and drummer Chase Howard (Vanna Oh), the crux of Kadabra lies in the blend of tonal weight, melodic float and hazy atmosphere, but that doesn’t mean Ultra centerpiece/highlight hook “Bean King” doesn’t move or that closer “Settle Me” (video premiering below) can’t reinvent “The Zoo” by Scorpions into a languid flow while the band stands around and maybe has a smoke in the clip. Have vibe, will travel hopefully travel when the restrictions lift. You get a seven-track/44-minute showing on Ultra, howling and nodding from the outset on “Graveyard,” but not dumb, not retread and not just riffs. There’s melody here, and depth, and roll. It won’t be unfamiliar to many who take it on, but hell’s bells it’s a good time.
“Graveyard” begins the procession of heavy chill hitting its stride in shimmering melody at its midpoint before tapping the wah and making it count and shifting into an airier jam underscored by Nelson‘s bass. If that’s gonna be a pattern, right on. Both “Faded Black” and “Eagle 20’s,” which follow immediately, top seven minutes, and the former unfolds mellow and languid enough to single-handedly justify the PR wire’s comparison to Dead Meadow below, but there’s more than sleepy sungazing going on too as it trips out, grounded by its heft but still psychedelic, picking up speed late and feedbacking into a fade ahead of the companionably bright start of “Eagle 20’s.” The momentum from the finish of “Faded Black” is held up, but the abiding spirit is still liquefied, the boogie warm as “Eagle 20’s” stretches out over the 7:47 that makes it the longest track on Ultra and the assumed cap for side A, a showcase for Howard on drums, and the warmth in the sounds there, as well as Zanol‘s repeated lines, but really a whole-band feel, since Nelson‘s low end is a steady presence. The aforementioned “Bean King,” then, (presumably) opens side B, with vocals in layers and a post-Sleep cadence recounting stonerized narrative over insistent start-stop heavy push in the verse, a straightforward structure playing well to make it a quirky highlight, veering off for a solo, coming back around, playful and heavy in kind.
The plunge has been taken, the vibe set by the early subdued pacing, and so as “Death” builds on the starts and stops of “Bean King” with a meatier stomp, bringing that noted Asteroidian melody to the fore, Kadabra have already won. Penultimate cut “Coyote” offers due spaciousness and a kick of swagger, some shuffle in answer to its open verse lines, and goes psych in its layered solo later, straightening out for a clean-then-noisy finish that emphasizes the point of side B of Ultra as a victory lap. It’s ineresting that the band notes below “Settle Me” was the last song they wrote for the record. It’s the richest in terms of harmony, and it carries that swing and swagger of “Coyote” before it. It’s abundantly clear Kadabra wrote it after they had a good idea of what they were doing — and also after they decided what they were doing was some hot shit, which, granted, it is — and it ties together the relaxed groove of the first half of the record with the speedier push of the second, wrapping the whole thing around a mega-fuzz guitar line that, again, kind of brings Scorps to mind, and in no way is that a complaint. They fade out at the end, and stay that way — part of me was hoping it was a false ending; would be classic — and the message sent is received: more to come. Here’s hoping, anyhow.
Easily digable for the converted, and one of the best debuts I’ve heard this year — a lot of killer first records in 2021; here’s to pandemic productivity — Kadabra shouldn’t be tossed off because their name reminds you of someone else, and among the ever-packed roster of Heavy Psych Sounds, they legitimately bring something of their own to the label and to the style of molten riffery they play. Can you get to this? Yes, and you should. If you want a bottom line, that’s it.
Enjoy the video:
Kadabra, “Settle Me” official video premiere
Kadabra on “Settle Me”:
“Settle Me” is the last song we wrote for the album ULTRA. The song rides the steady swampy flow of psychedelia while racing into a heavy, fuzzed turbulence.
Settle Me is the second single taken from the KADABRA debut album ULTRA.
The release will see the light September 17th via Heavy Psych Sounds.
Kadabra from Spokane, Washington U.S., delivers the eerie psyche crawl of acts like Dead Meadow and the heavy fuzzed riff grime of Black Sabbath. In fall the of 2020, they tracked their debut album with Dawson Scholz, and it is set to release this fall on Heavy Psych Sounds Records.
Written throughout the 2020 global pandemic, Kadabra’s debut album “Ultra” presents an aesthetic that nears that “classic rock” charm and energy. The group has meshed together the droned flow of psychedelic clamor with an abrasive fuzzed riff drive. In the fall of 2020, they tracked “Ultra” with a friend, Dawson Scholz, and it is set to release this fall on Heavy Psych Sounds Records.
TRACKLIST: Graveyard Faded Black Eagle 20’s Bean King Death Coyote Settle Me
KADABRA is: Garrett Zanol (Vocals/Guitar) Ian Nelson (Bass) Chase Howard (Drums)
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 18th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Well, now I get it. Sept. 17 is three months from yesterday, so there’s still a bit of time for the plot to unfold, but Kadabra make a bold first showing in the initial single from their upcoming debut album, Ultra. Set to issue through Heavy Psych Sounds, the record is up for preorder now and is led off by “Graveyard,” which one can hear below in its post-Mars Red Sky melody ‘n’ wah weighted roll coupled with a spaciousness that’s pure Pacific Northwestern mountaintop all the way. I dig it, man. I dig it. The label’s earned a lot of trust with international pickups over the last few years, so I was expecting to dig it when the signing was announced last week, but that doesn’t make doing so any less satisfying now that there’s some audio to accompany.
Three months is a long time.
Preorders are up now though, if you’re the type to take care of things early, and I dig the album art with the stained glass and all that. I’ll hope to have more to come on Ultra once, you know, I hear it and so on.
The PR wire has this:
KADABRA share first single off upcoming debut album ‘Ultra’ on Heavy Psych Sounds; preorder available now!
Spokane, Washington stoner rockers KADABRA sign to Heavy Psych Sounds for the release of their debut album ‘Ultra’ on September 17th, and premiere the first single “Graveyard”.
Written throughout the 2020 global pandemic, KADABRA’s debut album presents an aesthetic that nears that “classic rock” charm and energy. The group has meshed together the droned flow of psychedelic clamor with an abrasive fuzzed riff drive. In the fall of 2020, they tracked their debut album with their friend Dawson Scholz, and it is set to release this fall on Heavy Psych Sounds Records. ‘Ultra’ will be released on September 17th, 2021 through Heavy Psych Sounds, and available to preorder now on various vinyl formats, CD and digital.
TRACKLIST: 1. Graveyard 2. Faded Black 3. Eagle 20’s 4. Bean King 5. Death 6. Coyote 7. Settle Me
In 2020, a year wrecked with cultural dissent and a global pandemic, fellow musicians and long-time friends Garrett Zanol (Blackwater Prophet) and Ian Nelson decided to start their own band. After retaining the talents of their favorite local drummer Chase Howard, the group got to work on writing an album that illustrates their current climate. KADABRA delivers the eerie psyche crawl of acts like Dead Meadow and the heavy fuzzed riff grime of Black Sabbath. In the fall of 2020, they tracked their debut album with Dawson Scholz, for a release this fall on Heavy Psych Sounds.
KADABRA is: Garrett Zanol (Vocals/Guitar) Ian Nelson (Bass) Chase Howard (Drums)
