Posted in Whathaveyou on November 20th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
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:
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 12th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
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
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.
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
Well, I’m starting an hour later than I did yesterday, so that’s maybe not the most encouraging beginning I could think of, but screw it, I’m here, got music on, got fingers on keys, so I guess we’re underway. Yesterday was remarkably easy, even by Quarterly Review standards. I’ve been doing this long enough at this point — five-plus years — that I approach it with a reasonable amount of confidence it’ll get done barring some unforeseen disaster.
But yesterday was a breeze. What does today hold? In the words of Mrs. Wagner from fourth grade homeroom, “see me after.”
Ready, set, go.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
Horisont, Sudden Death
With a hefty dose of piano up front and keys throughout, Gothenburg traditionalist heavy rockers Horisont push retro-ism into full-on arena status. Moving past some of the sci-fi aspects of 2017’s About Time, Sudden Death comprises 13 tracks and an hour’s runtime, so rest assured, there’s room for everything, including the sax on “Into the Night,” the circa-’77 rock drama in the midsection of the eight-minute “Archeopteryx in Flight,” and the comparatively straightforward seeming bounce of “Sail On.” With cocaine-era production style, Sudden Death is beyond the earlier-’70s vintage mindset of the band’s earliest work, and songs like “Standing Here” and the penultimate proto-metaller “Reign of Madness” stake a claim on the later era, but the post-Queen melody of “Revolution” at the outset and the acoustic swing in “Free Riding” that follows set a lighthearted tone, and as always seems to be the case with Horisont, there’s nothing that comes across as more important than the songwriting.
Scourge of the seven seas that German nautically-themed funeral doomers Ahab are, Live Prey is their first live album and it finds them some five years removed from their last studio LP, The Boats of the Glen Carrig (review here). For a band who in the past has worked at a steady three-year pace, maybe it was time for something, anything to make its way to public ears. Fair enough, and in five tracks and 63 minutes, Live Prey spans all the way back to 2006’s Call of the Wretched Sea with “Ahab’s Oath” and presents all but two of that debut’s songs, beginning with the trilogy “Below the Sun,” “The Pacific” and “Old Thunder” and switching the order of “Ahab’s Oath” and “The Hunt” from how they originally appeared on the first record to end with the foreboding sounds of waves rolling accompanied by minimal keyboards. It’s massively heavy, of course — so was Call of the Wretched Sea — and whatever their reason for not including any other album’s material, at least they’ve included anything.
Let’s assume the title High Protein might refer to the fact that Dutch/Belgian power trio Rrrags have ‘trimmed the fat’ from the eight songs that comprise their 33-minute sophomore LP. It’s easy enough to believe listening to a cut like “Messin'” or the subsequent “Sad Sanity,” which between the two of them are about as long as the 5:14 opener “The Fridge” just before. But while High Protein has movers and groovers galore in those tracks and the fuzzier “Sugarcube” — the tone of which might remind that guitarist Ron Van Herpen is in Astrosoniq — the stomping “Demons Dancing” and the strutter “Hellfire,” there’s live-Deep–Purple-style breadth on the eight-minute “Dark is the Day” and closer “Window” bookends “The Fridge” in length while mellowing out and giving drummer/vocalist Rob Martin a rest (he’s earned it by then) while bassist Rob Zim and Van Herpen carry the finale. If thinking of it as a sleeper hit helps you get on board, so be it, but Rrrags‘ second album is of unmitigated class and straight-up killer performance. It is not one to be overlooked.
There’s stoner roll and doomed crash in “New Body,” drone-laced spoken-word experimentalism in “Blood and Butter,” and post-punk angular whathaveyou as “Halloween Bolson” plays out its nine-minute stretch, but Viscerals — the third or fourth Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs album, depending on what you count — seems to be at its most satisfying in blowout freak-psych moments like opener “Reducer” and “Rubbernecker,” which follows, while the kinda-metal of “World Crust”‘s central riff stumbles willfully and teases coming apart before circling back, and “Crazy in Blood” and closer “Hell’s Teeth” are more straight-up heavy rock. It’s a fairly wide arc the UK outfit spread from one end of the record to the other — and they’re brash enough to pull it off, to be sure — but with the hype machine so fervently behind them, I have a hard time knowing whether I’m actually just left flat by the record itself or all the hyperbole-set-on-fire that’s surrounded the band for the last couple years. Viscerals gets to the heart of the matter, sure enough, but then what?
Kiel, Germany’s Earthbong answer the stoner-sludge extremity of their 2018 debut, One Earth One Bong (review here), with, well, more stoner-sludge extremity. What, you thought they’d go prog? Forget it. You get three songs. Opener “Goddamn High” and “Weedcult Today” top 15 minutes each, and closer “Monk’s Blood” hits half an hour. Do the quick math yourself on that and you’ll understand just how much Earthbong have been looking forward to bashing you over the head with riffs. “Weedcult Today” is more agonizingly slow than “Goddamn High,” at least at the beginning, but it builds up and rolls into a pace that, come to think of it, is still probably slower than most, and of course “Monk’s Blood” is an epic undertaking right up to its last five minutes of noise. It could’ve been an album on its own. But seriously, if you think Earthbong give a shit, you’re way off base. This is tone, riff and weed worship and everything else is at best a secondary concern. Spend an hour at mass and see if you don’t come out converted.
No doubt that at some future time shortly after the entire world has moved on from the COVID-19 pandemic, there will be a glut of releases comprised of material written during the lockdown. Peruvian four-piece Rito Verdugo are ahead of the game, then, with their Post-Primatus four-song EP. Issued digitally as the name-your-price follow-up to their also-name-your-price 2018 debut, Cosmos, it sets a 14-minute run from its shortest cut to its longest, shifting from the trippy “Misterio” into fuzz rockers “Monte Gorila” (which distills Earthless vibes to just over three minutes) and “Lo Subnormal” en route to the rawer garage psychedelia of “Inhumación,” which replaces its vocals with stretches of lead guitar that do more than just fill the spaces verses might otherwise be and instead add to the breadth of the release as a whole. Safe to assume Rito Verdugo didn’t plan on spending any amount of time this year staying home to avoid getting a plague, but at least they were able to use the time productively to give listeners a quick sample of where they’re at sound-wise coming off the first album. Whenever and however it shows up, I’ll look forward to what they do next.
Signed to Cruz Del Sur Music as part of that label’s expanding foray into traditionalist doom (see also: Pale Divine, The Wizar’d, Apostle of Solitude, etc.), Dublin’s Death the Leveller present an emotionally driven four tracks on their 38-minute label debut, the counterintuitively titled II. Listed as their first full-length, it’s about the same length as their debut “EP,” 2017’s I, but more important is the comfort and patience the band shows with working in longer-form material, opener “The Hunt Eternal,” “The Golden Bough” and closer “The Crossing” making an impression at over nine minutes apiece — “The Golden Bough” tops 12 — while “So They May Face the Sun” runs a mere 7:37 and is perhaps the most unhurried of the bunch, playing out with a cinematic sweep of guitar melody and another showcase for the significant presence of frontman Denis Dowling, who’s high in the mix at times but earns that forward position with a suitably standout performance across the record’s span.
It isn’t surprising to learn that the members of Fall River, Massachusetts, five-piece Marrowfields come from something of an array of underground styles, some of them pushing into more extreme terrain, because the five songs of their debut full-length, Metamorphoses, do likewise. With founding guitarist/main-songwriter Brandon Green at the helm as producer as well, there’s a suitably inward-looking feel to the material, but coinciding with its rich atmospheres are flashes of blastbeats, death metal chug, double-kick and backing growls behind the cleaner melodic vocals that keep Marrowfields distinct from entirely traditionalist doom. It is a niche into which they fit well on this first long-player, and across the five songs/52 minutes of Metamorphoses, they indeed shapeshift between genre elements in order to best serve the purposes of the material, calling to mind Argus in the progressive early stretch of centerpiece “Birth of the Liberator” while tapping Paradise Lost chug and ambience before the blasts kick in on closer “Dragged to the World Below.” Will be interesting to see which way their — or Green‘s, as it were — focus ultimately lies, but there isn’t one aesthetic nuance misused here.
Dätcha Mandala present a strong opening salvo of rockers on Hara, their second album for MRS Red Sound, before turning over to all-out tambourine-and-harp blues on “Missing Blues.” From there, they could go basically anywhere they want, and they do, leading with piano on “Morning Song,” doing wrist-cramp-chug-into-disco-hop in “Sick Machine” and meeting hand-percussion with space rocking vibes on “Moha.” They’ve already come a long way from the somewhat misleading ’70s heavy of opener “Stick it Out,” “Mother God” and “Who You Are,” but the sonic turns that continue with the harder-edged “Eht Bup,” the ’70s balladry of “Tit’s,” an unabashed bit o’ twang on “On the Road” and full-on fuzz into a noise freakout on closer “Pavot.” Just what the hell is going on with Hara? Anything Dätcha Mandala so desire, it would seem. They have the energy to back it up, but if you see them labeled as any one microgenre or another, keep in mind that inevitably that’s only part of the story and the whole thing is much weirder than they might be letting on. No complaints with that.
If you’ve got voices in your band that can harmonize like guitarists James Draper, Shane Linfoot and Mike Zoias, I’m not entirely sure what would lead you to start your debut record with a four-minute instrumental, but one way or another, Sydney, Australia’s Numidia — completed by bassist/keyboardist Alex Raffaelli and drummer Nathan McMahon — find worthy manners in which to spend their time. Their first collection takes an exploratory approach to progressive heavy rock, seeming to feel its way through components strung together effectively while staying centered around the guitars. Yes, three of them. Psychedelia plays a strong role in later pieces “Red Hymn” and the folky “Te Waka,” but if the eponymous “Numidia” is a mission statement on the part of the five-piece, it’s one cast in a prog mentality pushed forward with poise to suit. Side A capper “A Million Martyrs” would seem to draw the different sides together, but it’s no minor task for it to do so, and there’s little sign in these songs that Numidia won’t grow more expansive as time goes on.
Posted in Reviews on March 19th, 2019 by JJ Koczan
I used to be pretty artsy and write poetry. Let’s give it a shot:
There was an old man who wore no-toe shoes.
He said, I’mma go do 60 reviews.
He was out of his head,
Should’ve gone back to bed,
But he loves him some dirty psych blues.
Years from now, when I link back to this post for a “(review here)”-type scenario, I’m going to see that and I’ll still think it’s funny. The planet’s dying. I’d say a bit of silly is more than called for.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
Kungens Män, Chef
Krautrockers, assemble! Or, you know, whatever krautrockers do — I assume it involves homemade spacecraft that, yes, absolutely fly. Perhaps one of these days I’ll ask Stockholm’s Kungens Män, whose latest outing for Riot Season, simply titled Chef, is an outbound delight of psych-infused progressivism. Beginning with the opening throb of “Fyrkantig Böjelse” and moving into the volume swells, steady drum line and wandering guitar that starts “Öppen För Stängda Dörrar” on side A, its four extended tracks craft otherworldly textures through a meld of organic instrumental flow and waves of synth, the second cut building to a tense wash of distortion all the while keeping that hypnotic march. The two corresponding 10-minute-plus cuts on side B waste no time in offering cosmic boogie in “Män Med Medel” with a more active rhythmic flow, and closer “Eftertankens Blanka Krankhet” — longer than the opener by one second at 11:24 — fades in on meditative guitar and explores a serene minimalism that only underscores the all around joy of the album.
The self-titled, self-released debut full-length from Kiel, Germany’s PFUND arrives and departs with a guesting horn section, and while that inevitably adds a bit of grandeur to the proceedings, the bulk of the outing is dedicated to straightforward, semi-metallic heavy rock, held to ground even in the seven-minute “Spaceman” by a considered sense of structure and an earthy drum sound that draws the songs together, whether it’s the classic riff rock in “Sea of Life” or the moodier sway in the earlier “Lost in Rome.” Dual guitars effectively multiply the impact, and the vocals showcase a nascent sense of melody that one imagines will only continue to grow as the band moves forward. At nine songs and 44 minutes, it shows some breadth and nuance in “Exhaustion” and “Paranoia,” the former tapping into an edge of progressive metal, but the primary impact comes from PFUND‘s heft of groove and how it blends with a rawer edge to their production. The Kyuss-referencing centerpiece here might be called “Imbalance,” but that’s hardly representative of what surrounds, horns and all.
Three songs, 11 minutes and three distinct vibes from the aptly-titled Demo demo of North Carolinian three-piece Crystal Spiders. On “Tigerlily,” “Flamethrower” and “Devil’s Resolve,” the trio of bassist/vocalist Brenna Leath (also Lightning Born), guitarist/vocalist Mike Deloatch and drummer/backing vocalist Tradd Yancey careen from bluesy spaciousness to hard-driving catchiness and end up — because why not? — in repeating cult-sludge chants, “Come to the devil’s resolve!” like Black Widow trying to lure people to the sabbat, except shouting. If the purpose of a demo is for a new band to try different methods of working and thereby take a first step in discovering their sound, Crystal Spiders are well on their way, and for what it’s worth, there isn’t anything within their scope as they present it that doesn’t work for them. There are edges to smooth out, of course, but that too is a part of the process starting here.
If you’d asked, depending on which part of Deathspiration was on, I’d probably have called The Misery Men a bass/drum duo, but nope, that’s guitar. Tonally one is reminded of At Devil Dirt from Chile, but the Portland, Oregon, two-piece of vocalist/guitarist Corey G. Lewis and drummer Steve Jones are entirely more barebones in their craft, eschewing digital involvement of any sort in the recording or mixing process and sounding duly raw as a result throughout the subtle earworm of “C.W. Sughrue” and the lumbering “Harness the Darkness.” The subsequent “Night Creeps In” brings a Northwestern noise payoff to quiet/loud trades and the near-10-minute closer “Stoned to Death,” well, it seems to meet an end befitting its title, to say the least. As their stated intent was to capture the most organic version of their sound possible, and made a point of working toward that ideal in their recording, one could hardly fault them for the results of that process. They wanted something human-sounding. They got it.
Some — not all — of what one needs to know about Hubris‘ EP #II Live is right there in the title. Indeed, it’s their second EP. Indeed, it was recorded live. And indeed, like using a ‘#’ sign with a Roman numeral, there’s something about the way the three included songs from the Toulouse, France-based outfit sound that’s just a little bit off-kilter from what you might expect. “Zugzwang” (7:19), “Tergo” (19:58) and “Biotilus” (27:04) are arranged shortest to longest, and while the opener starts off like Queens of the Stone Age on an Eastern-tinged psychedelic bender, the lengthy jams that follow — the first of them with a fervent drum punctuation, the second a gradual intertwining of synth and guitar with hardly any percussion at all until after its 22nd minute. The instrumental flow that ensues from there is almost like a hidden bonus track, at least until they Hubris get to minute 26 and the whole thing explodes in crash and plod. The underlying message, of course, is that if you think you’re safe at any point, you’re not.
Lumbering fuckall pervades the debut full-length, Slake, from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, sludgers Woorms — also stylized all-caps — which incorporates past singles “Find a Meal Find a Bed Find a God” and “Mouth is a Wound” amid the sample/noise barrage of “Our Lady of Perpetually Shitfaced” and the willfully brash “Racist Kevin” that follows. There’s an edge of Melvinsian chug to the proceedings, but Woorms‘ take, though presented in finished compositions, comes across as almost nihilistic rather than making a show of its experimentalism. That is, they’re trying to say they don’t give a fuck, and in listening, they make it kind of easy to believe, but there’s still something about the cohesiveness of “Veni Vidi Fucki” and “Rice Crispy” and the saved-the-best-nod-for-last finale “Sore Afraid” that undercuts the notion even while making the listening experience all the more pummeling, and from the intro “Corpse Corps” through “Urine Trouble Now”‘s echoing shouts and the closer’s unmitigated stomp, there’s still plenty of exploration being done.
Rebranded since their 2016 debut, Builders of Cosmos (discussed here), from their more phonetically intuitive original moniker, Orion, Italy’s Oreyeon issue a cosmically expansive spacescape follow-up in their six-song/40-minute sophomore outing, Ode to Oblivion, also their first release through Heavy Psych Sounds. Echoing vocals pervade “Big Surprise” after the introductory “T.I.O.” and “Trudging to Vacuity” establish the wide-cast mix and anti-grav rhythmic density, and the nine-minute side A finale title-track runs mostly-instrumental circles around most of what I’d usually call “prog” only after it lays down a sleek hook in the first couple minutes. After “Big Surprise,” the 8:45 “The Ones” trades volume back and forth but finds its breadth at about the sixth minute as the dramatic lead turns on a dime to desert rock thrust en route to wherever the hell it goes next. Honestly, after that moment, everything’s gravy, but Oreyeon lay it on thick with closer “Starship Pusher” and never neglect melody in the face of nod. Worth a deeper dig if you get the chance.
Sometimes you hear a record and it’s like the band is doing you a favor by existing. To that, thanks Melody Fields. The Gothenburg psych troupe lace their lysergic flow with folkish harmonies and an open sensibility on their self-titled debut that comes coupled with enough tonal presence to still consider them heavy not that it matters. They break out the sax on “Morning Sun” to welcome effect, and the sun continues to shine through “Liberty” and the garage-buzzing “Run” before “Rain Man” turns water droplets into keyboard notes and Beatlesian — think “Rain” — voice arrangements atop soothing instrumental drift, every bit the centerpiece and an excellent precursor to the acoustic-based “Fire” and the 10-minute “Trädgränsen,” which is the crowning achievement of this self-titled debut, which, if I’d been hip to it in time, would’ve made both the 2018 best albums and best debuts list. They cap with a reprise of “Morning Sun” and underscore the solid foundation beneath the molten beauty of their work throughout. To ask for another album seems greedy, but I will anyway. More, please.
Okay, look, enough screwing around. It’s time for someone to sign Mammoth Grove. The Calgary natives have been putting out quality heavy psych rock since their 2011 self-titled debut (review here), and their latest long-player, the four-song Slow Burn is a righteous amalgam of peace-thru-rock that lives up to its freewheeling vibes in “Seasons” after the methodical opener “Valleys” and rolls out a bit of melodic ’70s biker rock bliss in “Black Meadow” before the side-B-consuming “Gloria” (18:42) asks early if you’re ready to go and then goes like gone, gone, gone, and gone further. Given the analog mindset involved and the heart on display throughout, there’s something fitting about it being pressed up in an edition of 100 hand-screenprinted LPs and 100 CDs likewise, but the more people who could hear it, the merrier, so yeah, some label or other needs to step up and make that happen, and I dare you to listen to the solo that hits past the 14-minute mark in “Gloria” and tell me otherwise. Dare you.
Since pared down to a trio from the four-piece incarnation they present here, Austin’s Crimson Devils first released their debut, A Taste for Blood, in 2017, but gave it a vinyl revisit last year and it’s little mystery why. The record comprises 11 sharply-composed tracks of Small Stone-style heavy rock, taking cues from Sasquatch in modern-via-classic modus, picking and choosing elements of ’70s and ’90s rock to conjure formidable groove and engaging hooks. There’s considerable swagger and weight in “They Get It,” and while opener “Dead and Gone” seems to show an influence in its vocal patterning from Elder, as the album unfolds, it’s more about the blast of “Captain Walker” or the penultimate “Nothing to Claim” and the straight-ahead vibes of “Bad News Blues” and “No Action” than anything so outwardly prog. There’s plenty to dig in the rock-for-rockers mindset, and it’s the kind of offering that should probably come with an octane rating. However such things are measured, safe to say it would not be low.
Posted in Reviews on December 12th, 2018 by JJ Koczan
Not to get off topic here, but it’s December, and god damn, I hate the fucking holidays. Christmas, even if you believe in the religious significance of the day, is pure garbage. I like giving presents well enough, don’t particularly enjoy receiving them, but even if you put aside the whole “oh it’s so commercial ‘now'” thing, like there was a time anyone now living ever saw when it wasn’t, it isn’t fun. The meal sucks. It’s dark. It’s cold. The songs are fucking endless and terrible — yes, all of them — and the whole experience is just a bummer the whole way through. If there was actually a war on it, I wish they’d drop the bomb and incinerate the entire thing.
Take Thanksgiving, make it start in November and end in December. A month-long festival for the season. You can even give gifts at the end, if you want. It could be like Ramadan, or, probably more likely and much on the opposite end of the spectrum, Oktoberfest.
There. Problem solved. Have a great day, everyone. Let’s do some reviews.
Quarterly Review #71-80:
BongCauldron, Tyke
Biscuit, Corky and Jay of BongCauldron return less than 12 months out from their Binge LP (review here) with Tyke (on APF), three more cuts of weed-eating, dirt-worshiping, weed-worshiping, dirt-eating sludge, fueled as ever by fuckall and booze and banger riffs — and yes, I mean “banger” as in “bangers and mash.” There’s a lead that shows up in closer “Jezus Throat Horns” and some vocal melody that follows behind the throaty barks, but for the bulk of the three-tracker, it’s down to the business of conveying dense-toned disaffection and rolling nod. “Pisshead on the Moon” opens with a sample about alcohol killing you and works from its lumber into a bit of a shuffle for its midsection before hitting a wall in the last minute or so in order to make room for the punker blast of “Back up Bog Roll,” which tears ass and is gone as soon as it’s there, dropping some gang vocals on the way, because really, when you think about it, screw everything. Right? “Jezus Throat Horns” might be offering a bit of creative progression in closing out, but the heart of BongCauldron remains stained of finger and stank of breath — just the way it should be.
Oh yes. Most definitely. From the Sabbath swing behind the chugging “Love the Drugs” and the march of “Wicked Witch” through the what-would-happen-if-Danzig-was-interesting “Summer Spells” and fuzzed-out post-punk shouts of “Videodrone” en route to the nine-minute “Curtains at the Mausoleum,” London four-piece Black Helium make heavy psychedelic songcraft into something as malleable as it should be on their Riot Season debut, Primitive Fuck, holding to underlying structures when it suits them and touching on drone bliss without ever really completely letting go. Opener “Drowsy Shores” is hypnotic. The aforementioned “Curtains at the Mausoleum” is hypnotic. Even the chug-meets-effects-blowout closing title-track is hypnotic, but on the handclap-laced “Do You Wanna Come Out Tonight?” or “Videodrone,” or even “Summer Spells,” there are hooks for the listener to latch onto, life-rafts floating in the swirling tonal abyss. The truth? There isn’t a primitive thing about it. They’re not so much lizard-brained as astral-planed, and if you want a summation of their sound, look no further than their name. It’ll make even more sense when you listen. Which you should do.
The immediate association in terms of riff is going to be Sleep. “Drop Dead,” the 10-minute first of two songs on Earthbong‘s debut Demo 2018, rolls out with pure Dopesmoker-ism and follows the model of gradual unfolding of its weedian sludge riffery. No complaints. The Kiel, Germany, trio are obviously just getting their start, and since it’s a demo and not the “debut EP” that so many otherwise demos try to position themselves as, I’ll take it. And to boot, “Drop Dead” ultimately departs its Sleepy environs for altogether more abrasive fare, with Bongzilla-style screams and an increasingly aggressive shove, the drums crashing like the cymbals did something wrong, and feedback capping into the start of “Wanderer,” which is shorter at seven minutes and opens its assault earlier, the vocals no less distorted than the guitar or bass. There’s some space in a solo in the second half, but Earthbong again twist into harsh, crusty doom before letting feedback carry them out to the demo’s finish. Growing to do, but already their violence seethes.
Grunge, noise rock and Queens of the Stone Age-style melody-making collide on Walk to the Moon, the debut full-length from German four-piece Sir Collapse, sometimes on disparate cuts, like the noisy intro given to the album by “Lower Principles,” and sometimes within the same song, as in the later “Like Me.” A jangly swing in “Mono Mantra” and the Nirvana-esque hook there soon gives way to the desert-hued thrust of “One Man Show” and the early ’90s fuzz of “Happy Planet Celebration,” while “The Great Escape” leads the way into some measure of evening out the approach in “Like Me,” “Too Late,” “Hey Ben” and “The Family,” unless that’s just the band acclimating the listener to their style. Fair enough either way. Sir Collapse round out with a return to the uptempo push shown earlier, giving their first LP an impressive sense of symmetry and whole-work presentation as layers of vocals intertwine with melody alternately lush and raw, sounding very much like a band who know the parameters in which they want to work going forward. So be it.
Organ-soaked Baltimorean garage doomers Alms enter the conversation of 2018’s best debut albums with Act One on Shadow Kingdom, a collection rife with choice riffing, dynamic vocals and a nuanced blend of heft and drama. That a song like “The Toll” could be both as traditional sounding as it is and still modern enough to be called forward-thinking is nothing short of a triumph, and in the stomping “The Offering,” Alms cast forth a signature chorus that stands out from the tracks surrounding without departing the atmosphere so prevalent in their work. “Dead Water” at the outset and “For Shame” build a momentum through side A that the five-piece of keyboardist/vocalist Jess Kamen guitarists Bob Sweeney (also vocals) and Derrick Hans, bassist Andrew Harris and drummer Derrick Hans expand in the second half of the record, winding up in the early gruel of “Hollowed” only to resolve the album with speedier swing and as sure a hand as they’ve guided it all along. At six songs and 33 minutes, Act One unmistakably leaves the audience wanting more, and indeed, the plot may just be starting to unfold.
It is a sharp, biting 27-minute run, but Swamp Mama isn’t just thrown together haphazardly. Alberta-based sludge metallers Haaze build a song like “35 Indians” to a head over the course of a deceptively efficient 4:44, following opening track “Beast of the Bog” with a developed sense of craft underlying the outward negativity of their sound. I’ll give the band bonus points for finishing side A with a song called “Stereotypically Doomed,” but more for the crash cymbal that seems to devour the mix. There’s a trashy undercurrent to the subsequent title-track, and as it finishes its pummel, it relinquishes ground to the acoustic interlude, “The Mechanic,” which I’m just going to assume is named for the Charles Bronson movie. That of course sets up the most extreme cut included in closer “AL,” which layers fierce growls and screams atop a rhythm clearly designed for maximum assault factor. A little more metal than sludge, it nonetheless remains tonally consistent with what comes before it, giving Swamp Mama a vicious ending and a feel that’s all the more lethal for it.
Copenhagen four-piece The Sledge boasts the three former members of heavy rockers Hjortene in guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Palle, drummer/vocalist Kim and bassist Claus, so while they’ve revamped their identity and gone on to add vocalist Magnus Risby — who appears here on “179 Liars” and “Yet Untitled” — perhaps its somewhat disingenuous to consider their first album under the new moniker, On the Verge of Nothing, a debut. Issued through Kozmik Artifactz, the record collects eight tracks produced by Anders Hansen (who also worked with Hjortene) and mixed by Matt Bayles, and in listening to the cuts with Risby in the lead spot, the vibe taps into a thicker take on late-era Dozer with no less righteous melodicism. That, however, is just a fraction of the total story of On the Verge of Nothing, which taps earlier desert idolatry on “Death Drome Doline” and brings in none other than Lorenzo Woodrose himself for guest spots elsewhere. People in and out of the lineup through different tracks should make the LP disjointed, but as ever, it’s the songwriting that holds it together, and one can’t discount the core band’s experience playing together as a part of that either. Debut or not, it’s an impressive offering.
One tends to think of serenity and peaceful drift when it comes to Danish heavy psych rockers Red Lama, but as the seven-piece band quickly turn around follow-up to their 2018 sophomore LP, Motions (discussed here), cuts like opener “Time” and “RLP” unfold with a particular sense of urgency, the former seeming to showcase an acknowledgement of sociopolitical circumstances in Europe and beyond in a way that seems to readjust their focus. That’s a tidy narrative, but if it’s a case of priorities being rebalanced, it’s striking nonetheless. To coincide, “RLP” has a heavier roll in its second half, and while second cut “State of the Art” and closer “Tearing up the Snow” both make their way past the five-minute mark with post-rocking pastoralia and dreamy melodies, there remains a feeling of a tighter focus in the tracks that could portend a new stage of the band’s development or could simply be a circumstance of what’s included here. The next album will tell the tale.
Fronted by Andy Fernando of Don Fernando, Full Tone Generator‘s debut long-player, Valley of the Universe, nonetheless bears the unmistakable hallmark of the Californian desert — in no small part because that’s where it was recorded. Fernando and guitarist/bassist/backing vocalist Brad Young traveled to that famed landscape to record with Bubba DuPree and Brant Bjork at Zainaland Studios, only to have the latter end up playing drums and contributing backing vocals as well to the eight-tracker. Not a bad deal, frankly. The key reference sound-wise throughout Valley of the Universe is Kyuss, particularly because of Bjork‘s involvement and Fernando‘s vocal style, but the slow-rolling “I Only Love You When I’m Loaded,” 59-second blaster “No Future” and the ending jam duo of “Preacher Man” and “Never to Return” make the ground their own, the latter with some surprise screams before it bounces its way into oblivion as though nothing ever happened. They’ve got the vibe down pat, but Full Tone Generator do more as well than simply retread desert rock’s founding principles.
Keys give Montreal four-piece Mountain Dust a tie to classic heavy blues and they use that element well to cast their identity in the spirit of a post-retro modern feel, details like the backing vocals of “White Bluffs” and the waltzing rhythm held by the snare on “Witness Marks” doing much to add complexity to the persona of the band. “You Could” goes over the top in its boozy regrets, but the dramas of “Old Chills” are full in sound and satisfyingly wistful, while closer “Stop Screaming” offers a bit of twang and slide guitar to go along with its sense of threat and consuming seven-minute finish. Tight songwriting and clean production do a lot to give Seven Storms a professional presentation, but ultimately it’s the band itself that shines through in terms of performance and as Mountain Dust follow-up their well-received 2016 debut, Nine Years, they sound confident in their approach and ready to flesh out in multiple directions while maintaining a central character to their sound that will be familiar to the converted enough to be a work of genre while setting the stage to become all the more their own as well.
Posted in audiObelisk on October 4th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
German heavy progressive rockers Aux will release their second album, Troubadour, in December via Pink Tank Records. Following up their 2012 debut, Pursuit of Progress, the Kiel-based five-piece explore a stylistically varied corresponding five tracks, ranging in impression from the post-grunge hookmaking of “Fives” through bluesy classicism of “Deadly Rage” and into the garage foreboding moodiness of centerpiece “Filter” before the pair of 10-minute cuts, “Geocentric” and “Phantom,” comprise a second half for Troubadour that finds itself equally comfortable nodding toward King Crimson and Radiohead. Fed by a constant stream of jazzy basslines and fluid guitar work, the 40-minute long-player avoids pretense while remaining thoughtful in its construction, and as the lineup of vocalist Paul, guitarists Richi (rhythm) and Micha (lead), bassist Jannis and drummer Ole make their way through, they follow a clearly-set linear path that gracefully executes an overarching master plan.
In other words, even as they dig into the grit that builds over the alternately airy and earthbound guitar work in the choruses of “Fives” — and again, the bass that holds it all together — they’re aware of the moves they’re making, and Troubadour at no point feels like a record of happenstance. Parts may well have been born in jams or fleshed out that way among all members — it’s hard to imagine such creative and adaptable rhythms coming forth in any other manner from Ole, though I suppose it’s possible with an exchange of files or some such other method — but as “Deadly Rage” pushes into its gracefully flowing apex, the balance of rustic feel and sonic fluidity it creates isn’t to be understated. Aux enact a kind of humble hypnosis through their songwriting, and that continues into “Filter” and, perhaps unsurprisingly, into “Geocentric” and “Phantom” as well, but on repeat listens, it’s the melding of different styles and the creation of an organic chemistry from them that makes Troubadour so effective in the first place. Like the idea of the traveling player from which the record takes its name, so too does the album itself go wherever it wants, freely and by its own discretion.
If there’s a downside to an outing of such varied persona, it’s perhaps that it makes it harder to find one single track to represent it as a complete entity — and I fear in my description I haven’t properly emphasized the patience at work in “Geocentric” or the insistence that takes hold in the second half push of “Fives,” so rest assured, there’s a lot going on with Troubadour even though it results in a pretty steady, consistent vibe — but as a basic introduction to the spirit of the release and the natural feel of the production, “Deadly Rage” works well particularly in emphasizing the interplay between the guitars and the rhythm section, drawing out a meandering sensibility that doesn’t necessarily hit as being self-indulgent even when if it came from a band with a more overblown recording, it otherwise might.
That’s a victory in itself, and it comes through on “Deadly Rage,” so as you make your way through the track, it’s something to keep in mind. Troubadour is listed for a Dec. 1 release via Pink Tank, with preorders coming soon.
A quote from the band about “Deadly Rage” and more background from the PR wire follows the song below. Please enjoy:
Aux on “Deadly Rage”:
The song has quite a history to us as it went through several transformations. We wanted to reflect the shifting moods that a person’s mind is undergoing which is shown by the different instrumental vibes. It’s probably the most catchy song on the album and tells what would happen if an ancient deity was expelled to present age, viewing humankind as puppets and playing tricks and games on them.
AUX is a quintet from Kiel, Germany, that has shown its versatility ever since it has been founded back in 2008. Their first album ‘Pursuit of Progress‘ (2012) marks the cornerstone of their sound which is influenced by progressive, art and psychedelic rock.
If there is one constant that can be found within AUX’s music, it is contrasts: While they are nothing else but their musics blueprint, they unleash a swirling maelstrom that swallows the audience into the tension between harmony and disruption.There is a good case to believe that their upcoming second album ‘Troubadour‘ will again reveal another facet of the band. You don‘t want to miss December 2017 as the record will be issued on vinyl, CD and digital via Pink Tank Records!
About Troubadour:
limited to 300 copies 100 copies harmony orange wax / hand numbered (exclusive Pink Tank Records Edition) 100 copies hope green wax / hand numbered (exclusive Band Edition) 100 copies standard black wax (wholesale Edition) all on 180g heavyweight vinyl 300g heavyweight gatefold cover poly lined inner sleeve incl. download code
