Whatever your angle of approach, the story of AANK is the songs. Because there are songs. Eight of them, in fact, on the seventh Kombynat Robotron record in seven years, running 41 minutes long. AANK is the band’s label debut on Fuzz Club Records, and with it, the Kiel, Germany, three-piece of guitarist Jannes Ihnen, bassist Claas Ogorek and drummer Thomas Handschick don’t necessarily reinvent cosmic rock as a genre, but for sure they revamp their take thereupon. To wit, the album they released in Dec. 2024, West Mata (review here), was comprised of three songs running between 11 and 21 minutes long, and worked from an entirely jammier foundation. The songs on AANK, whether blending dream and shove on “Morast” early on or having a crash-happy echoing blowout in “Sauerstoff” later on before capping with the solidified neospace shuffle of “Finsternis,” vocalized or instrumental, keep roughly between three and six minutes each, and have more defined structures.

Kombynat Robotron are by no means the first band to graduate from all-out jamming to a more refined writing style as part of their progression. This past Spring saw Amsterdam’s Temple Fang shift in a not dissimilar fashion toward verse/chorus patterning, albeit still longform, and Greece’s Naxatras have continued to evolve as they’ve found an otherworldly prog on the other side of their years of improv. One might consider since-modernized, once-retroist acts like Graveyard or Kadavar as well (not as a sonic comparison), though I don’t think Ihnen, Ogorek and Handschick are entirely done harnessing a jammy spirit in their material — not the least because that happens all across AANK — but in this collection, it is a drastic enough change from the band’s own prior-established norms that it almost feels like a second debut, though I’ll acknowledge feeling somewhat silly noting that about a band with a seven LP-strong discography. Nonetheless, the freshness of Kombynat Robotron‘s approach to this material resonates in the listening experience. It is new and it sounds new. It sounds like it’s new to them too, and the range and discovery that a short time ago were about what was coming after the next measure, part, etc., has changed to what can be found on the other end of a crafting process and what kinds of evocations can occur there.

And that is wherein the excitement lies, because Kombynat Robotron unfurl their own take on modern heavy space rock, informed in opener “Staub” by the traditions of the genre but with a next-generational point of view, daring a bit of cosmic boogie and still having room for an improv-sounding solo in the six-minute track before they bring back the hook for a noisy finish. Noise, whether it’s distortion or effects or just a crunchier riff like that of the post-something-and-I’m-not-sure-what-maybe-human “Unbehagen,” is a major factor in the proceedings. Still recording live and benefitting from that particular energy-conveyance — Felix Margraf, who mixed and mastered West Mata, helmed the recording for AANK, and they tracked in a venue space — the band remain dynamic in the roilingly heavy “Ikarus” (also the longest cut at 6:51), and are dynamic in the groove beneath the forward wash the song posits. Compared to the defined strum of “Staub” at the outset or even the likewise krautified urging of “Finsternis” — though both of those are noisy by some measure as well — “Ikarus” is way, way out, and situated at the presumed start of side B, it gives AANK a delightfully dug-in launch to the second half.

But the album is less about the vinyl split than some, and listening in a linear format, “Ikarus” is cleverly informed by the divergence before it of the title-track. “AANK” is three and a half minutes of softly picked acoustic guitar notes built out with some probably highly specific synth or effects. Either way, it is peaceful, serene, folkish, and gorgeous in a way one wishes more bands would dare to be, and it bolsters the atmosphere not only of “Ikarus” after it or “Schnee” before, but of AANK more broadly in a way that answers how it got to be the song the album was named after. Kombynat Robotron may not be a band known for subtlety, but whether it’s the interaction between the songs or the way the builds take place within them and the verses unfold across the span, there is likewise depth of mix and character for the listener to engage with, and the album becomes one where the person hearing it decides their own course and just how immersed they want to be. Can you hear the noise rock beneath all the noise in “Sauerstoff?” Do you want to? And so on. Wherever you want to meet it, AANK is there waiting.

Maybe that’s the underlying change, too. I won’t say that Kombynat Robotron‘s prior work wasn’t engaging, having enjoyed engaging with it on however many occasions I have, but the level of that engagement has changed in accord with their methodology. With AANK, the trio begin to realize the power their songs have to affect the audience, and it may well be that subsequent releases will see the band continue to develop along these lines, writing songs to put their listeners where they want them to be in place, time or mood. It’s an awfully neat story for some blogger like me to make palpable for the one or two people on the planet who might be reading, but real life is rarely so orderly. The truth of what Kombynat Robotron do on AANK is that it makes them a less, not more, predictable band, and there’s zero reason they need to choose one or the other between outright jamming and building structured material from out of those jams.

AANK may be the setting of a new pattern, and if it is, and if the band want to take these songs on the road and become a touring act of broader reach throughout Europe, you’ll certainly get no argument from me. There’s big potential here in terms of reach, and having Fuzz Club on their side won’t hurt the hype factor that’s already given them momentum. But if you’re looking for the experimentalist aspect, zoom out a level. It’s the entire album that’s the experiment this time, and the band’s success in their endeavor calls out to an international underground that may or may not know it’s been waiting for the call, but surely has been.

Kombynat Robotron, AANK (2025)

Kombynat Robotron on Bandcamp

Kombynat Robotron on Instagram

Kombynat Robotron on Facebook

Fuzz Club Records website

Fuzz Club Records on Bandcamp

Fuzz Club Records on Instagram

Now signed to Fuzz Club Records, Kiel, Germany, cosmic rockers Kombynat Robotron give a rather terrestrial look on the first single from their new album, AANK, riding a noisy riff and blown-out vocals for three minutes where six months ago on Dec. 2024’s West Mata (review here), they could be heard space-kraut jamming through three extended tracks, the shortest of which was 11 minutes long. There are eight tunes on AANK, and I’m willing to bet they’re not all so brief, but change is the order of the universe, and that would seem to apply here as well, as otherworldly as Kombynat Robotron sometimes are.

So, intrigue. Hooray. One is reminded of Dutch heavy psych rockers The Machine, who in the 2010s brought noise rock influences to their riffier context. It doesn’t seem like a huge bridge to cross from one to the other, between noise riffs and heavy riffs — at a certain point, riffs is riffs; and if I can add to that: riff riff riff — but either way, it’s cool to hear their exploration taking on new dimensions.

From the PR wire:

Kombynat Robotron – AANK
FUZZ CLUB RECORDS
Release: 18.07.2025

Stream / Pre-Order here: kombynatrobotron.lnk.to/aank

With driving rhythms, repetitive riffs and spherical soundscapes, Kombynat Robotron create a hypnotic sound that blurs the boundaries between krautrock, psychedelic and noise rock. The Kiel-based trio has been an integral part of the European psychedelic rock scene since its formation in 2018 and stands for raw energy, musical freedom and rampant improvisation.

With six studio albums acclaimed by fans and critics on labels such as Tonzonen Records, Cardinal Fuzz Records, Clostridium Records and Little Cloud Records, as well as various tape and split releases and shows with bands such as Elder, Verstärker and Kungens Män, Kombynat Robotron has made a name for itself as an uncompromising (live) band that carries the spirit of Krautrock into the present day. Whether at international festivals or the stages of small clubs – their live shows are regarded as energetic sound trips where every performance is unique. Kombynat Robotron is not a retrospective – they are pulsating proof that psychedelic rock can still be bold, loud and boundless today.

Now in their seventh year, Kombynat Robotron are back with their seventh studio album. AANK will be released on July 18 via the London-based label FUZZ CLUB RECORDS (home of A Place To Bury Strangers, The Black Angels, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and many more), which became aware of the band through a Kombynat show in London in the summer of 2024 and signed the band shortly after.

On AANK, Kombynat Robotron work with vocals and song structures for the first time, moving away from their musical beginnings as an instrumental jam band. Kraut and psychedelic rock can still be found on AANK, but more focused and with more heaviness than in the past. The flowing psychedelic soundscapes of the bands previous records give way to the asphalt of the sound Autobahn. Between Staub and Finsternis, the Kombynat races, noises and rages on a total of eight songs. Heavy noisy walls of sound are build on top of repetitive bass grooves, distant vocals emerge from a sonic landscape that lies between chaos and control.

The Kombynat flies to the stars and presents itself on AANK louder, faster and harder, but also quieter and more thoughtful than ever before. AANK is not an optimistic album, but rather a realistic one. The lyrics revolve around topics such as decay and disintegration, loss (of control) and the eternal struggle with the world.

Recording a whole album with actual songs and vocals might sound strange for a band that has released six albums with instrumental jams before that, but it is the result of a natural development. The songs were mostly formed out of recorded jams that felt too good to let them go and never play them again, and after all songs are just recognized and reproduceable jams.

The band spent about two years of constant work on their new approach towards creating structures and writing songs and did lots of live experiments with the new material. While the songs took some time to take their final form, once they were ready the recording of AANK only took one weekend. The band set up their equipment at Kulturzentrum Karnak, a small venue in Kassel in the middle of Germany. Together with recording engineer Felix Margraf they managed to capture the spirit of their raw live energy by recording everything live, together in one room.

AANK reflects the musical development on Kombynat Robotron from hippie-esque psychedelic space music to fuzzed-out noise krautrock and embraces its influences by creating something new. Musik für das Ohr der Zukunft. Robotron over.

Tracklisting:
1. Staub
2. Morast
3. Schnee
4. Aank
5. Ikarus
6. Unbehagen
7. Sauerstoff
8. Finsternis

Kombynat Robotron is:
Jannes Ihnen – guitar
Claas Ogorek – bass
Thomas Handschick – drums

https://www.facebook.com/KombynatRobotron
https://www.instagram.com/kombynat_robotron
https://kombynatrobotron.bandcamp.com/

http://fuzzclub.com
http://fuzzclub.bandcamp.com
http://instagram.com/fuzzclubrecord

Kombynat Robotron, AANK (2025)

Kombynat Robotron, West Mata (2024)

This week, on Jan. 31, Kiel, Germany’s Earthbong will take part in Sloth-Fest in Erfurt, and I’ve seen them confirmed for Blue Moon Festival in July as well, so no, the April dates below and the prior stop the bong metal three-piece will make in Iceland for ReykjaDoom 2025 aren’t the sum-total of their current and upcoming live plans. And yes, I’m well aware these shows were posted in November. I know.

As to why they’re here again, well, on the most basic level, it’s killer that a band like Earthbong, who are on the more extreme end of a heavy aesthetic and about as dug in as you get to longform, weighted, generally pretty slow riffs, are undertaking something like scooting to the other side of the planet just days after swinging through Iceland and doing a round of shows. If you get to see them in whatever part of the world, that’s awesome. But it’s also probably a landmark for the band members themselves, like, as human beings. I know I’d mark something like this down as a ‘life event,’ anyhow, and I don’t think that’s any less valid because I do the same for grocery shopping.

Album this year? Didn’t I hear something about that? I can never remember, so put it down as a maybe. Don’t worry though. If one happens, you’ll hear it coming long before it actually gets here.

Tour dates and the ReykjaDoom poster. You could see Earthbong and Ufomammut on the same day if you live right:

ReykjaDoom 2025 takes place from April 4-5 at Gaukurinn Reykjavik and the australia tour dates are:

April 11 Geelong The Vault
April 12 Adelaide Crown & Anchor
April 17 Wollongong La La La’s
April 18 Canberra Pot Belly
April 19 Stoned To Death Fest Sydney
April 24 Melbourne Gaso
April 26 SunBurn 6 Festival Frankston

Tour artwork by Nils Sackewitz

Earthbong is:
Mersel (Selly) Nuhiji: bass + vocals
Claas (Ogo) Ogorek: guitar
Thomas (Tommy) Handschick: drums

https://www.facebook.com/earthbong
https://www.instagram.com/earthbong_doom
https://earthbong.bandcamp.com/

blackfarmrecords.bigcartel.com
instagram.com/blackfarmrecords
facebook.com/blackfarmrec

Earthbong, Church of Bong (2024)

The album sets its theme around the sea, which is fair enough, but if you find yourself drawn toward the sky, cosmos or some kind of other otherworldly landscape during the 40 minutes of West Mata, one could hardly blame Kombynat Robotron. At a certain point, expanse is expanse. Recorded in Spring 2023 at ZFML with Kio Krabbenhöft helming (Felix Margraf mixed and mastered), West Mata takes place over three extended tracks, beginning with the longest (immediate points) “Jason II” (21:54) on side A before “Vasa” (6:57) and “Trieste” (11:36) take hold across side B and setting out on a textured course of mindful drift in its initial going. Guitarist Jannes Ihnen echoes out across mellowpsych reaches, a tonal shimmer having emerged from a cocoon of drone gradually in the first couple minutes, and bassist Claas Ogorek and drummer Thomas Handschick — both also of the more crush-minded Earthbong — give the groove cohesion without taking away from the fluidity, which is an obvious priority for an album that, at some point or other, the band decided was about water.

As much fun as it can be and often is to accede to the whims of an album like West Mata, with a stated expressive purpose, the fact of the matter is that the subject being instrumentally explored can’t be effectively conveyed without real world chemistry underlying. That is to say, it wouldn’t matter what the songs were about if the songs didn’t take the listener anywhere. However, West Mata is duly transportive. “Jason II” doesn’t ever have the outward arrogance to be sweeping, but the howling guitar and residual distorted rumblings, the casual tap of the ride and snare acting as aural emulsifier, are so smooth that by the time Kombynat Robotron are eight minutes in, the pictures are vivid. A re-mellowing brings warmth of low end beneath a sparser lead layer, and though the song is only half over circa 10:45, what’s been laid out at that point is a single procession of slow movement. If you told me it was about the galaxial orbit or the superposition of quantum states, I don’t think I’d be able to fight you and say, “No way, boss! It’s the ocean!” with more than their say-so to back me up. Granted that’s not nothing, but six LPs and however-many whatever-elses later — earlier in 2024, they took part in a four-way split (review here) for Worst Bassist Records, for example — Kombynat Robotron aren’t so closed in the evocations on a sheer sonic level.

This sounds like a critique of the band, or like I’m saying they didn’t accomplish their goal in basing West Mata around the sea. I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying that whether you think “Jason II” is about horror flicks or Argonauts, there’s room in the material itself for your interpretation. Kombynat Robotron have an open, jam-based approach to psychedelia, and West Mata is rich in atmosphere as well as tone. If you didn’t know “Vasa” was named for a 17th century Swedish shipwreck or “Trieste” for the first vessel to submerge into the Mariana Trench, or indeed that the album itself is named for a chain of active volcanoes near the Pacific Island of Tonga, you can probably still appreciate the serenity with which “Jason II” (perhaps named for a model of submersible) contemplates its back half, or the transition to a more physical rhythm in “Vasa,” or the noisier crux of “Trieste.”

This is not a weakness. West Mata is what it was intended to be, and more. A given listener’s choice whether or not to engage with the thematic will invariably play into how they hear the material — the power of suggestion is always a factor, but on general principle, you won’t hear me rag on a band for the decision to apply narrative to their work — and however they go, the point is that Kombynat Robotron are headed out.

With a progression between its songs that moves from the least to arguably the most active material — if you want to quibble on “active” between the boogie of “Vasa” and the scorch of “Trieste,” I’ll cite the careening, daring-toward-abrasive finish of the latter as the noisiest and busiest stretch included among the three cuts — there is a strong sense of a plan at work, but at no point in West Mata are Kombynat Robotron too heavy-handed in it. There are changes, of course, as one part evolves into the next and the personality of a work begins to take shape, and each piece seems to reset before it begins its own plunge, but movement overarching is from a minimal sound to a wash (you bet your ass I intended that pun), and that linearity lends a distinctive set of purpose to the proceedings, heady though it is. But it’s okay. Somehow I think if you can put up with reading this review up to this point, ‘heady’ won’t be too much of a threat to keep you from enjoying a 40-minute long-player. Just speculating.

In the interest of honesty, and maybe this came through in the discussion above whether I wanted it to or not, I let go of the watery foundation pretty quickly with West Mata. I tend to think of a style like Kombynat Robotron‘s on more cosmic terms — and for sure the band are no stranger to those — and that’s where my head went, with “Trieste” boasting a somewhat darker ambience as it departs the cacophony to leave residual drone and amplifier hum. Whether that’s the last thing you hear before you fall in the singularity or come up to the surface with the ocean on all sides, the album holds up. That isn’t necessarily a surprise for Kombynat Robotron, who’ve been at it with all due proficiency to suit a genre existing well outside of normal spacetime for eight years or so, but it does account for the surehanded guidance they provide to the mediation in sound happening here. And if you take that mediation in a different direction, I can’t imagine anybody’s gonna yell at you. No one is going to say you’re wrong. Have your own experience. I got away with it so far.

Kombynat Robotron, West Mata (2024)

Kombynat Robotron on Facebook

Kombynat Robotron on Instagram

Kombynat Robotron on Bandcamp

Clostridium Records on Facebook

Clostridium Records on Instagram

Clostridium Records website

Cardinal Fuzz on Facebook

Cardinal Fuzz on Instagram

Cardinal Fuzz store

Little Cloud Records on Facebook

Little Cloud Records on Instagram

Little Cloud Records website

You ever put on the wrong record? Well, yesterday, I had the wrong record on, and it wasn’t until I stopped it and put on Kombynat Robotron‘s upcoming three-song LP West Mata instead that I realized it. The German cosmic-jam expeditionists — who share members with the more plundering but also longform-prone Earthbong — will release the album Dec. 6 through a multinational consortium that includes Cardinal Fuzz, Little Cloud Records and Clostridium Records. It’s not an insignificant amount of support for an instrumental improv-based space rock outfit, but I mean, I get it. Maybe West Mata was the right record for all of them too.

No public audio yet, but the release date’s Dec. 6, so coming around quick. Preorders are up from everybody, and the links are below. The PR wire brings more about the record’s aquatic theme:

Kombynat Robotron – West Mata – Release: Dec 6th 2024

West Mata is the 6th studio record by Kiel/Germany based Psych/Krautrockband Kombynat Robotron. The release of this album is the result of a cooperation between Clostridium Records (Germany), Cardinal Fuzz Records (UK) and Little Cloud Records (USA).

After their space-themed record -270°C (2021) and the following, earth-themed record Frohe Zukunft (2023) Kombynat Robotron are closing the circle with the waterthemed West Mata.

With a total length of about 50 minutes split in three tracks the band returns to their long-form jam-based approach to songwriting on West Mata.

For thousands of years, the sea has been both a place of longing and an antagonist for mankind and, despite being fully explored, it still resists all of mankind’s efforts and technical sophistications. The eternal continuity of the sea is taken up as a musical motif by all three tracks on West Mata. Seemingly stoic and unchanging, the rhythm undulates in the depths and yet every moment is full of change and movement on the surface.

In 21 minutes, Jason 2 unfolds it’s wings like a manta ray and takes us from Greek mythology to modern satellite technology: silvery sound surfaces that merge in silent agreement, come together to form the same and yet always different shapes, disappear and emerge again.

A look into the depths belies the impression of timelessness, because the history of exploring and mastering the seas is always also a history of hubris and failure. The wreck of the Vasa, which sank on its maiden voyage almost 400 years ago due to a design flaw, had not yet been recovered when the Titanic sank in 1912 after colliding with an iceberg. A story, a motif, told in ever-changing variations. It has always been the same, same old story.

With Trieste the album finally plunges into the endless depths of the ocean. The movement forward is a movement downwards, driven by the belief that there is something to be discovered and understood even in the most hostile environment. We can just hope that the steel shell can withstand the pressure that increases with every meter and hope we can catch a glimpse of the abyss before the abyss looks back in us. Get in and look into the depths.

Das Album will be released in three different vinyl editions:

Clostridium Records edition limited to 250 copies: https://www.clostridiumrecords.com/epages/es140532.mobile/de_DE/?ObjectPath=/Shops/es140532/Products/CR100

Cardinal Fuzz Records/Little Cloud Records edition limited to 160 copies: https://littlecloudrecords.com/products/kombynat-robotron-west-mata-pre-order & https://cardinalfuzz.bigcartel.com/product/kombynat-robotron-west-mata

Kombynat Robotron edition limited to 250 copies: https://www.kombynatrobotron.de/shop/music/west-mata-kr-edition-preorder/

West Mata was recorded in May 2023 at ZFML by Kio Krabbenhöft.
Mix and Master: Felix Margraf
Artwork: Anton Ohlow

Kombynat Robotron is:
Jannes Ihnen – guitar
Claas Ogorek – bass
Thomas Handschick – drums

https://www.facebook.com/KombynatRobotron
https://www.instagram.com/kombynat_robotron
https://kombynatrobotron.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/clostridiumrecords/
https://www.instagram.com/clostridiumrecords
http://www.clostridiumrecords.com/

https://www.facebook.com/CardinalFuzz/
https://www.instagram.com/cardinalfuzzrecords
cardinalfuzz.bigcartel.com/

https://www.instagram.com/littlecloudrecords/
https://www.facebook.com/littlecloudrecords/
http://littlecloudrec.com/

Kombynat Robotron, Frohe Zukunft (2023)

German bong/tone worshipers Earthbong will travel to Australia to tour next April. They’ll be in the company of Oz natives Lucifungus for the going, and the run will encompass seven shows across 15 days, assuring that there’s due travel time and maybe even room for a bit of exist-in-a-place instead of the usual show-up-and-wait-for-the-show. In any case, it’s the trip of a lifetime for a band, and Earthbong will go supporting last year’s Church of Bong (review here), which was released through Black Farm Records and Evil Noise Recordings. I don’t know any of these places — can’t help but note the Sydney stop shares its name with the venerable OG German heavyfest Stoned From the Underground — but I know that if you get the chance to go to Australia, you go. Maybe it’s less of a thing from Europe, but from my view it’s awesome that Earthbong get to do this at all. If I was in a band and we toured Australia, I’d have a hard time ever thinking of the project as less than successful again. It’s that kind of thing.

Lucifungus released their Lucifungus 4 album last year and are also signed to Black Farm. The shows are sure to be very, very heavy and correspondingly dank. Australia’s reputation for hospitality means I don’t feel like I need to remind anyone to give welcome to a traveling underground band, but if you’re in the path, I can only urge you to consider it as a way to obliterate a night.

From socials:

Bonglings! We still can’t believe that it’s happening but it is happening: We’re touring Australia in April 2025 with our BLACK FARM Records labelmates Lucifungus!

GET READY GET DOOMED

Apr 11 Geelong The Vault
Apr 12 Adelaide Crown & Anchor
Apr 17 Wollongong La La La’s
Apr 18 Canberra Pot Belly
Apr 19 Sydney Stoned From the Underground
Apr 24 Melbourne Gaso
Apr 26 Frankston SunBurn6

Tour artwork by Nils Sackewitz

Earthbong is:
Mersel (Selly) Nuhiji: bass + vocals
Claas (Ogo) Ogorek: guitar
Thomas (Tommy) Handschick: drums

https://www.facebook.com/earthbong
https://www.instagram.com/earthbong_doom
https://earthbong.bandcamp.com/

blackfarmrecords.bigcartel.com
instagram.com/blackfarmrecords
facebook.com/blackfarmrec

Earthbong, Church of Bong (2024)

Legend has it that among the peoples of the Weedia there is a technique known as the ‘earthbong’ whereby a young one coming of age ascends to the top of Trichome Mountain, presents the sacred terpene relics to the goddess, and learns how to get high off the very air itself. Science calls it a ‘breathing technique,’ but you, me and the Weedia know it’s fucking magic, no question.

Kiel, Germany’s Earthbong made their full-length debut in 2018 with the hour-long One Earth One Bong — the title perhaps suggesting that all bongs are a part of the greater Earthbong, connected somehow by cannabinoid quantum entanglement — comprising four songs that have become among the defining releases for a niche known as bong metal. Repetitive, usually longform riffing, a doomed, sludgy cast, roaring vocals and more tonal heft than a Trichome Mountain avalanche; these are some of the characteristics on offer born out of the sludge wrought by the likes of Weedeater or Bongzilla, Bongripper, of course Sleep‘s Dopesmoker LP, Sabbath, Electric Wizard, and so forth. But through the work of Earthbong and acolytes of their ilk — arguable forerunners Belzebong, as well as Bongfoot, Bonginator, BongBongBeerWizards, among others — a microgenre has grown where once there was only hyperweedism and a lot of volume. Magic again, I know.

The consuming, duly musty-smelling 62 minutes of One Earth One Bong are a masterclass in aural dankness presented over four obviously extended pieces: “Drop Dead” (17:47), “Maze Crawler” (13:39), “Stash” (14:58) and “Gathering” (16:29), and in true punk rock fashion, the music invites the listener to take it more seriously than it seems to take itself. Even the fast parts are slow, and as the opener and longest track (immediate points) looks to make its first statement, the band six years ago following up on their Demo 2018 (review here) that offered proof-of-concept and included a shorter version of “Drop Dead,” indeed it’s a bong hit. They leave little doubt this sample was recorded organically in the as-yet-mellow lumber takes hold to establish the riff for a few minutes before they hit it full-volume. First the trance, then the tonal roundhouse kick to the head. Classic stuff.

Outwardly, the impression is raw. Even after “Drop Dead” clicks on its fuck-you pedal and begins the churn in earnest, Earthbong maintain the march as the first vocal bellows arrive, circa eight minutes in. “Maze Crawler” is a few minutes shorter and more active in the early going, topped with a harsher scream in alongside the lower gutturalism, but part of what “Drop Dead” is doing at the start of the record — aside from taking rips — is setting the mood, and the patience with which it does so is an essential element of the proceedings that follow. The arrangements are straightforward — guitar, bass, drums, nasty vocals, some samples — and while not without dynamic, the manner in which the songs hammer home their parts and ride the slow grooves they conjure is essential to what works so well throughout One Earth One Bong. It wouldn’t work if each song had 15 parts and jumped from one to the next in proggy style. Even as “Maze Crawler” layers its solo as it nods past the midsection and deeper into the second half, the vibe stays thick, plodding and mellow.

This of course builds to a roaring payoff, righteously punctuated by crash and pummeling noisily before the droning comedown that leads into the single note of guitar and declarative drumming that open “Stash.” Like most of what surrounds, it’s mostly instrumental — if they were yelling for all 15 minutes of the song, it would be a lot, mind you — but throaty shouts appear early before being subsumed into the undulating riff. There are ebbs and flows as the penultimate plodder oozes along, a quiet stretch in the middle before a resurgence no less satisfyingly awesome for being completely expected uses first a solo and then extra-biting vocals to convey a crescendo, bringing to light — such as it is light at all — the dynamic happening throughout One Earth One Bong.

It’s a strength that, given the extremity on display throughout and the general beat-you-over-the-head-with-this-riff nature of the work as a whole, I’m not sure it would be appropriate to call subtle, but at very least it’s not something they’re consciously playing toward — dynamics, that is — but the trio manage to convey the album as a singular construction without actually being the same thing for an hour. Consistency of tone and general atmospheric disposition around the brutalist impulse are of course part of what draws the material together — and the songs to a degree are supposed to be alike — but Earthbong‘s triumph is reaped through sounding monolithic without monotony, and there’s more flexibility in One Earth One Bong than one might at first realize as the band buries the listener’s head in dirt-coated distortion.

Closer “Gathering” bookends with “Drop Dead” and unfolds over two central movements, the first built to a head across the first seven minutes that comes through like High on Fire played at half-speed. This devolves by the time they reach the eight-minute mark into feedback that’s the better part of caustic, and there are a few seconds there where it seems like they’re just going to let it go for the entire second half of the song, but, somewhat mercifully, the guitar turns around to introduce another procession, creeping at the beginning of One Earth One Bong‘s last build and rising, gradually, into a Sabbathian celebration of roll that is massive, cavernous, and basking in stoner metal glory. More feedback ends it, but by then it might as well be church organs singing the praises of addled bliss.

The warriors of Weedia would be proud.

I suppose there’s room to quibble about genre at this point, where the divide between stoner metal and bong metal is, if one exists at all, but somehow that feels like missing the point. If it’s solely about generational turnover — and I’m not convinced it is, but one could argue that; my counterpoint is that two generations of stoner-everything tried to get away from being tagged as ‘stoner’; this revels in it while drawing influence from multiple sides of stoner rock, stoner metal, doom and sludge — then fine, but One Earth One Bong casts its depths as a line in the sand between those who can get on board and everyone else, with the latter probably a much higher percentage than the former. Not for everyone? Yeah, that’s the idea, chief.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

—

It wasn’t my intention when I mapped out today’s posts that all the subjects covered would be German — that’s Deaf Lizard, Mount Hush, Earthbong and Desertfest Berlin — but I got there either way. Sometimes it happens that a day is all-American bands or all-European. I’m sure this isn’t the first time that all-German has happened, and I’m pretty sure I’ve done all-Swedish and all-UK at some point in the last decade and a half, even if I can’t recall the specific instance. I post a lot of stuff. Sometimes these things just happen.

Speaking of posting a lot of stuff, as I reminded the always-a-little-sad-about-it The Patient Mrs. just a while ago, the next two weeks — and maybe the Monday after; I have to see how it goes — will be the Fall Quarterly Review. 100 releases covered, at least. I thought about breaking it up over a month or so, doing a week here, a week there — that happened in Spring and it wasn’t the worst thing ever, but I’ve got more going on in October than that can accommodate, my original plan had been to do the QR in early September — the start of school made that significantly less realistic — and I’m doubled up for a couple days in there as it is. It needs to be done, so it will, and the next two weeks is how it’s being done.

The Pecan had off from school yesterday for Rosh Hashanah — happy new year if you were celebrating — and The Patient Mrs. didn’t, so she and I had pretty much the whole day together while her mom worked. We hit the playground in the morning and the library after, then came home and she continued with a knockoff-Lego my mother brought her the other night that she’s been working on the last few days — the instructions aren’t as good on the cheap ones, so it turns out to be a little more of a challenge; we got her the $300 Lego Deku Tree set, because Zelda, which has like 2,500 pieces and is recommended for 18+ and she finished it in two days — and I got the Sonolith review done in time to post the premiere before the album actually came out today and she got a bath before going back to school today, which was very much needed, so I’ll call the day an unmitigated win. We had a nice time.

Zelda is a big one in the house right now. We did Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom all together, family-style, and now she’s watching Zelda-theory videos on YouTube and has played A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, The Minish Cap (which I finished last week and is fun), the Link’s Awakening Switch remake and The Wind Waker (which I just put on my phone; it lags a bit but not too badly) to one level or another, and in addition to all that, we’ve read through the Hyrule Historia, the Zelda Encyclopedia and the strategy guides for Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom more times than I can count. One of those you’re-a-fan-of-this-thing-so-here’s-content-about-it specialty magazines came out around the release last week of Echoes of Wisdom — where you get to be Zelda herself for the first time (on a console; there was a PC game in the ’90s which I know about from… wait for it… reading a shit-ton about the series) — and we’ve read through that and we’re playing through the new game as well, though admittedly, that’s mostly her holding the controller until a boss fight, when she gives it to me, or a puzzle, when she gives it to her mother and then yells at her to do it right the first time. Turns out Zelda is some high-stakes shit when you’re six going on seven. Did I mention we’re putting together a giant birthday party for the 19th? Should make that second week of the Quarterly Review even more fun.

This weekend is a different birthday party (not hers) and then Sunday work on the QR and recovery from the day before. These things take a lot out of everybody, her not the least of all, so might try to get some movement in early in the day and then chill out. She’s best if you can get her out in the AM, but her sensory needs and her movement needs are so high — you should’ve seen her in the fastest spinny thing at the playground yesterday; I would have vomited and then died, even at her age — as she embodies the ADHD diagnosis questionnaire’s line about “Driven, as if by a motor” so much that some day I tell her to get it tattooed on her person, that she can’t really even out if she doesn’t get over that hurdle. School knows it too; it’s why she has the wobble-chair written into her 504 education plan. Between this and meds, she is thriving in Hyrule as well as actual reality. Some days it’s harder to see that in the big picture, but it’s true nonetheless. She’ll be a weirdo forever though, and she comes by it honestly enough.

I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Have fun out there, whatever you’re up to, and don’t forget to hydrate as we move into Fall. This month the leaves in New Jersey start change, and I’m looking forward to that, not the least because it will probably start right around the time the QR is done. Ha. In any case, thanks again for reading.

FRM.

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German megasludgers Earthbong are set to issue their third album, Church of Bong, Aug. 25 on tape via Evil Noise Recordings, with Black Farm Records vinyl to follow shortly thereafter. The Kiel-based three-piece issued their Proceed as One EP earlier this year, and have been basking in dense, low, 100MG-per-gummy riffing since their first demo in 2018 (review here), plunging deeper into resinous muck with their 2018 debut album, One Earth One Bong, and 2020’s Bong Rites (review here), the abiding idolatry amid all the rumble and semi-caustic noise being directed to the ultra-dug-in heavy likes of Bongzilla and a tonal attack that should remind of Conan, volume begetting volume in duly excessive proportion. Riffs piled on riffs piled on you, that kind of thing.

Church of Bong — perhaps a play on Belgian post-metallers Amenra‘s self-proclaimed ‘church of Ra?’; part of me hopes so — is two tracks and 39 minutes long, which considering the first two records both topped an hour feels like a direct choice of a single LP format. With it, the three-piece of bassist/vocalist Mersel “Selly” Nuhiji, guitarist Claas “Ogo” Ogorek and drummer Tommy Handschick offer the on-theme “Bong Aeterna” (18:59) and “Dies Bongrae” (20:36; video premiering below) as respective A and B sides, putting ars gratia artis to a test against purposefully wretched tectonic largesse. “Smoke weed until you fucking die,” chants the second cut in repetitions as the back half unfolds, answering the destructive lurch of its predecessor with a likeminded swallowing-whole vibe, even if for being so cannabinoid Earthbong don’t forget to make friends with some fungus either. The doom of shroom, perhaps, sneaking its way into the band’s sonic lair, which one imagines as a cavern filled with grow lights, meticulously arranged rows of pointy leaves sticking into the makeshift aisles; no pesticides, no actual sunlight, and life blossoming just the same. Chlorophyll is some magical shit.

And on the walls of that cavern, a lysergic fungus grows that manifests itself fluidly in both “Bong Aeterna” and “Dies Bongrae.” Look. I know there’s a whole league of bands around with ‘bong’ in their name, and for-stoner-by-stoner riff worship isn’t necessarily new, but if you let Earthbong go as a result of prejudice against either, you miss out. Not just on the onslaught. Building off of where they were  Bong Rites, Nuhiji, Ogorek and Handschick bring a jammy chemistry to the procession of Church of Bong, resulting in pieces that are laid back even as they seem to be gnashing very large and monstrously sharp teeth. “Bong Aeterna,” after about seven minutes of extreme sludge lumber and death-stench zombie march, uses feedback and downwardly cascading tom hits to shift smoothly and gradually into a bassy exploration that still holds some residual threat — make no mistake, they come back huge after the 12-minute mark — but is much more subdued in its actual form, ambient guitar flourish joining the rhythm section’s steady flow.

If you’ve already been hypnotized or made swollen to the point of numbness by the first section of the song, it would be easy to miss, but that relatively brief jam is a part of the growth that Earthbong have undertaken over the last half-decade. In an aesthetic — they call it ‘bong metal,’ which I guess is fair enough; you could go with ‘bong doom’ to emphasize the riffs, but that’s splitting hairs — that seems to tout willful regression among its tenets in fostering big riffs played loudly, shouted over if possible and glacial in tempo, such divergence is notable, and “Dies Bongrae” follows suit structurally, fading in on biting feedback for its first minute before even thinking about introducing a riff, plunging into an abyss of sludgy nod and periodic bellowing. There are definitely lyrics to “Dies Bongrae” beyond the above-noted “Smoke weed till you fucking die,” but the last time that line is delivered as the song moves past its own 12th minute is especially punishing with an additional layer of shout joining the rasping growl. The turn happens there, and the included jam feels daringly mellow before it builds to layers of psych-tinged guitar shred, comes back screaming and giant-sloths its way to a sensory overload of a finish, feedback, soloing, throatrippers, crash, the whole deal. It’s like Earthbong decided to finish Church of Bong by razing the building, and maybe that’s the right idea.

With monolithic realization, Earthbong stand astride their third record with a sure notion of themselves as a group and a sense of spontaneity if not improvisation that complements the ur-stone doom revelry. The trio performed “Dies Bongrae” (a somewhat shorter version at just under 17 minutes) in January for a livestream event, and you can see the result premiering below. In a word, you would call it ‘heavy.’

Please enjoy:

Earthbong, “Dies Bongrae” video premiere

Earthbong on “Dies Bongrae”:

Dies Bongrae is the second song of our new album Church Of Bong. The title is a bongification of the roman rite requiem dies irae (day of wrath), which is also cited musically in the middle of the song. The message of the song is this: SMOKE WEED UNTIL YOU FUCKING DIE!

The live video is part of a video live session that was recorded on January 14th 2023 in Lübeck as a part of the localconcerts.stream-project.

ONE EARTH ONE BONG

Dies Bongrae is the second song of Earthbong’s new album CHURCH OF BONG that will be out on August 25th 2023 through Black Farm Records and Evil Noise Recordings.

Church Of Bong was written over the course of the past three years. The final form of the album was recorded live at Dickfehler Studio / East Frisia in August 2022 by Hanno Janssen and Johnny Röhl. The cover artwork was once again made by Rino Pelli who is the artist behind all album covers of the band. The album will be released on vinyl through Black Farm Records (France) and tape through Evil Noise Recordings (Norway).

Digital and tape release is set for August 25th 2023. On this day pre-order for the vinyl edition starts, too. Vinyl release of Church Of Bong is scheduled for November 2023.

A repress of their sold-out 2nd album Bong Rites and a vinyl release of their first album One Earth One Bong which was only released on tape so far are both scheduled for November 2023, too. Both albums will be released as double LP through Black Farm Records.

Earthbong is:
Mersel (Selly) Nuhiji: bass + vocals
Claas (Ogo) Ogorek: guitar
Thomas (Tommy) Handschick: drums

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