Oh hi, I didn’t see you there. Me? Oh, you know. Nothing much. Staring off a cliffside about to jump headfirst into a pool of 100 records. The usual.

I’m pretty sure this is the second time this year that a single Quarterly Review has needed to be two weeks long. It’s been a busy year, granted, but still. I keep waiting for the tide to ebb, but it hasn’t really at all. Older bands keep going, or a lot of them do, anyhow — or they come back — and new bands come up. But for all the war, famine, plague and strife and crisis and such, it’s a golden age.

But hey, don’t let me keep you. I’ve apparently been doing QRs since 2013, and I remember trying to find a way to squeeze together similar roundups before it. I have no insight to add about that, it’s just something I dug back to find out the other day and was surprised because 11 years of this kind of thing is a really long gosh darn time.

On that note, let’s go.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

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Agusa, Noir

The included bits of Swedish dialogue from the short film for which Agusa‘s Noir was written to serve as a soundtrack would probably ground the proceedings some if I spoke Swedish, admittedly. As it is, those voices become part of the dream world the Malmö-based otherwise-instrumentalist adventurers conjure across 15 at times wildly divergent pieces. In arrangement and resultant mood, from the ’70s piano sentimentality of “Ljusglimtar” to the darker church organ and flute workings of “Stad i mörker,” which is reprised as a dirge at the end, the tracks are evocative across a swath of atmospheres, and it’s not all drones or background noise. They get their rock in, and if you stick around for “Kalkbrottets hemlighet,” you get to have the extra pleasure of hearing the guitar eat the rest of the song. You could say that’s not a thing you care about hearing but I know it’d be a lie, so don’t bother. If you’ve hesitated to take on Agusa in the past because sometimes generally-longform instrumental progressive psychedelic heavy rock can be a lot when you’re trying to get to know it, consider Noir‘s shorter inclusions a decent entry point to the band. Each one is like a brief snippet serving as another demonstration of the kind of immersion they can bring to what they play.

Agusa on Facebook

Kommun 2 website

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Octoploid, Beyond the Aeons

With an assembled cast of singers that includes Mikko Kotamäki (Swallow the Sun), his Amorphis bandmates Tomi Koivusaari and Tomi Joutsen, Petri Eskelinen of Rapture, and Barren Earth bandmate Jón Aldará, and guests on lead guitar and a drummer from the underappreciated Mannhai, and Barren Earth‘s keyboardist sitting in for good measure, bassist Olli Pekka-Laine harnesses a spectacularly Finnish take on proggy death-psych metal for Octoploid‘s first long-player, Beyond the Aeons. The songs feel extrapolated from Amorphis circa Elegy, putting guttural vocals to folk inspired guitar twists and prog-rock grooves, but aren’t trying to be that at all, and as ferocious as it gets, there’s always some brighter element happening, something cosmic or folkish or on the title-track both, and Octoploid feels like an expression of creative freedom based on a vision of a kind of music Pekka-Laine wanted to hear. I want to hear it too.

Octoploid on Facebook

Reigning Phoenix Music website

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The Obscure River Experiment, The Ore

The Obscure River Experiment, as a group collected together for the live performance from which The Ore has been culled, may or may not be a band. It is comprised of players from the sphere of Psychedelic Source Records, and so as members of River Flows Reverse, Obscure Supersession Collective, Los Tayos and others collaborate here in these four periodically scorching jams — looking at you, middle of “Soul’s Shiver Pt. 2” — it could be something that’ll happen again next week or next never. Not knowing is part of the fun, because as far out as something like The Obscure River Experiment might and in fact does go, there’s chemistry enough between all of these players to hold it together. “Soul Shiver Pt. 1” wakes up and introduces the band, “Pt. 2” blows it out for a while, “I See Horses” gets funky and then blows it out, and “The Moon in Flesh and Bone” feels immediately ceremonial with its sustained organ notes, but becomes a cosmic boogie ripper, complete with a welcome return of vocals. Was it all made up on the spot? Was it all a dream? Maybe both?

Psychedelic Source Records on Spotify

Psychedelic Source Records on Bandcamp

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Shun, Dismantle

Way underhyped South Carolinian progressive heavy rockers Shun arrive at the sound of their second LP, Dismantle, able to conjure elements of The Cure and Katatonia alongside Cave In-style punk-born groove, but in Shun‘s case, the underlying foundation is noise rock, so when “Aviator” opens up to its hook or “NRNS” is suddenly careening pummel or “Drawing Names” half-times the drums to get bigger behind the forward/obvious-focal-point vocal melodies of Matt Whitehead (ex-Throttlerod), there’s reach and impact working in conjunction with a thoughtful songwriting process pushed forward from where on their 2021 self-titled debut (review here) but that still seems to be actively working to engage the listener. That’s not a complaint, mind you, especially since Dismantle succeeds to vividly in doing so, and continues to offer nuance and twists on the plot right up to the willful slog ending with (most of) “Interstellar.”

Shun on Facebook

Small Stone Records website

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No Man’s Valley, Chrononaut Cocktail Bar/Flight of the Sloths

Whether it’s the brooding Nick Cave-style cabaret minimalism of “Creepoid Blues,” the ’60s psych of “Love” or the lush progressivism that emerges in “Seeing Things,” the hook of “Shapeshifter” or “Orange Juice” coming in with shaker at the end to keep things from finishing too melancholy, the first half of No Man’s Valley‘s Chrononaut Cocktail Bar/Flight of the Sloths still can only account for part of the scope as they set forth the pastoralist launch of the 18-minute “Flight of the Sloths” on side B, moving from acoustic strum and a repeating title line into a gradual build effective enough so that when Jasper Hesselink returns on vocals 13 minutes later in the spaced-out payoff — because yes, the sloths are flying between planets; was there any doubt? — it makes you want to believe the sloths are out there working hard to stay in the air. The real kicker? No Man’s Valley are no less considered in how they bring “Flight of the Sloths” up and down across its span than they are “Love” or “Shapeshifter” early on, both under three minutes long. And that’s what maturing as songwriters can do for you, though No Man’s Valley have always had a leg up in that regard.

No Man’s Valley on Facebook

No Man’s Valley on Bandcamp

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Land Mammal, Emergence

Dallas’ Land Mammal defy expectation a few times over on their second full-length, with the songwriting of Will Weise and Kinsley August turning toward greater depth of arrangement and more meditative atmospheres across the nine songs/34 minutes of Emergence, which even in a rolling groove like “Divide” has room for flute and strings. Elsewhere, sitar and tanpura meet with lap steel and keyboard as Land Mammal search for an individual approach to modern progressive heavy. There’s some shades of Elder in August‘s approach on “I Am” or the earlier “Tear You Down,” but the instrumental contexts surrounding are wildly different, and Land Mammal thrive in the details, be it the hand-percussion and far-back fuzz colliding on “The Circle,” or the tabla and sitar, drums and keys as “Transcendence (Part I)” and “Transcendence (Part II)” finish, the latter with the sounds of getting out of the car and walking in the house for epilogue. Yeah, I guess after shifting the entire stylistic scope of your band you’d probably want to go inside and rest for a bit. Well earned.

Land Mammal on Facebook

Kozmik Artifactz store

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Forgotten King, The Seeker

Released through Majestic Mountain Records, the debut full-length from Forgotten King, The Seeker, would seem to have been composed and recorded entirely by Azul Josh Bisama, also guitarist in Kal-El, though a full lineup has since formed. That happens. Just means the second album will have a different dynamic than the first, and there are some parts as in the early cut “Lost” where that will be a benefit as Azul Josh refines the work laying out a largesse-minded, emotively-evocative approach on these six cuts, likewise weighted and soaring. The album is nothing if not aptly-named, though, as Forgotten King lumber through “Drag” and march across 10 minutes of stately atmospheric doom, eventually seeing the melodic vocals give way to harsher fare in the second half, what’s being sought seems to have been found at least on a conceptual level, and one might say the same of “Around the Corner” or “The Sun” taking familiar-leaning desert rock progressions and doing something decisively ‘else’ with them. Very much feels like the encouraging beginning of a longer exploration.

Forgotten King on Facebook

Majestic Mountain Records store

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Church of Hed, The Fifth Hour

Branched off from drummer/synthesist Paul Williams‘ intermittent work over the decades with Quarkspace, the mostly-solo-project Church of Hed explores progressive, kraut and space rock in a way one expects far more from Denmark than Columbus, Ohio — to wit, Jonathan Segel (Øresund Space Collective, Camper Van Beethoven) guests on violin, bass and guitar at various points throughout the nine-tracker, which indeed is about an hour long at 57 minutes. Church of Hed‘s last outing, 2022’s The Father Road, was an audio travelogue crossing the United States from one coast to the other. The Fifth Hour is rarely so concerned with terrestrial impressionism, and especially in its longer-form pieces “Pleiades Waypoint” (13:50), “Son of a Silicon Rogue” (14:59) or “The Fifth Hour” (8:43), it digs into sci-fi prog impulses that even in the weird blips and robot twists of the interlude “Aniluminescence 2” or the misshapen techno in the closing semi-reprise “Bastard Son of The Fifth Hour” never quite feels as dystopian as some other futures in the multiverse, and that becomes a strength.

Church of Hed on Facebook

Church of Hed website

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Zolle, Rosa

Like the Melvins on an AC/DC kick or what you might get if you took ’70s arena rock, put it in a can and shook it really, really hard, Italian duo Zolle are a burst of weirdo sensation on their fifth full-length, Rosa. The songs are ready for whatever football match stadium P.A. you might want to put them on — hugely, straight-ahead, uptempo, catchy, fun in pieces like “Pepe” and “Lana” at the outset, “Merda,” “Pompon,” “Confetto” and “Fiocco” later on, likewise huge and silly in “Pois” or closer “Maialini e Maialine,” and almost grounded on “Toffolette e Zuccherini” at the start but off and running again soon enough — if you can keep up with guitarist/vocalist Marcello and drummer Stefano, for sure they make it worth the effort, and capture some of the intensity of purpose they bring to the stage in the studio and at the same time highlighting the shenanigans writ large throughout in their riffs and the cheeky bit of pop grandiosity that’s such a toy in their hands. You would not call it light on persona.

Zolle on Facebook

Subsound Records website

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Shadow and Claw, Whereabouts Unknown

Thicker in tone than much of modern black metal, and willing toward the organic in a way that feels born of Cascadia a little more to the northwest as they blast away in “Era of Ash,” Boise, Idaho’s Shadow and Claw nonetheless execute moody rippers across the five songs/41 minute of their debut, Whereabouts Unknown. Known for his work in Ealdor Bealu and the solo-project Sawtooth Monk, guitarist/vocalist Travis Abbott showcases a rasp worthy of Enslaved‘s Grutle Kjellson on the 10-minute “Wrath of Thunder,” so while there are wolves amid the trio’s better chairs, to be sure, Shadow and Claw aren’t necessarily working from any single influence in or out of char-prone extreme metals, and as the centerpiece gives over to the eponymous “Shadow and Claw,” those progressive aspirations are reaffirmed as Abbott, drummer/backing vocalist Aaron Bossart (also samples) and bassist/backing vocalist Geno Lopez find room for a running-water-backed acoustic epilogue to “Scouring the Plane of Existence” and the album as a whole. Easy to imagine them casting these songs into the sunset on the side of some pointy Rocky Mountain or other, shadows cast and claws raised.

Shadow and Claw on Facebook

Shadow and Claw on Bandcamp

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[Click play above to see the premiere of Yuri Gagarin’s new video for ‘QSO.’ The Outskirts of Reality is out Jan. 31 on Kommun 2 and Sound Effect Records.]

One tends to think of the motorik beat and the notion of the kosmiche in terms of kraut- and progressive space rock as being ideas drawing from influences half a century ago, but Yuri Gagarin readily demonstrate that it doesn’t have to be so. The Gothenburg-based troupe realize a modernist vision of krautrocketing hypnosis on their third long-player, The Outskirts of Reality, and drill to the molten core of a planetoid all their own with an approach that, far from reckless, approaches grandeur as though wielding a cosmic hammer, ready to smash the last vestiges of the reality in its title to shards floating in the sonic ether. Instrumental and running over a stretch of 44 minutes that begins with the ultra-fueled 10-minute blaster “QSO” and follows immediately with the 13-minute dimension-bending immersion of “Oneironaut,” resulting in a side A that seeks to pummel brain cells through the subspace barrier, never to be seen or heard from again. But the important thing to remember amid all this we’re-all-star-stuff-so-let’s-start-acting-like-it aural going-boldly is that Yuri Gagarin, in following up late-2015’s sophomore LP, At the Center of All Infinity — which was also recorded with Linus Andersson — is that Yuri Gagarin manage to pull together this sound of such a vast range and atmospheric willfulness without simply repeating the past. The Outskirts of Reality isn’t classic space rock. At least not yet. It’s forward thinking. It’s urgent and it’s energetic and it’s not just about who plays to what time or what stylistic rules are being followed. It’s about rewriting those rules to suit its own purposes.

And what are those purposes? What is it that Yuri Gagarin seek there in the outskirts? If the synth-laden closing title-track — which follows the delightfully airy “Crystal Dunes” and the even-more-experimentalist “Laboratory 1” on side B — has secrets to unveil, it’s doing so in the wash of guitar and keyboard creating melodic instrumentalist surges setting themselves to convey a feeling of “The Outskirts of Reality” as a point of arrival rather than a place of departure. That is, if we’re buying into the cliché of the album as a journey — and hell yes, we most certainly are — then ‘the outskirts’ is clearly the place we’re headed. The positioning of the title-track last speaks to this, as does the progression of the song itself, which one might think of as answering the liftoff-ignition-blast of “QSO” with a last, consuming wash of noise. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I don’t think so, because while Yuri Gagarin are jamming here in the sense of following instrumental paths of their songs to the places they might naturally lead — linear builds, ebbs and flows, and so on — the dynamic the Swedish outfit bring to space rock has so much intentionality behind it that to give anything less than full consideration to its complexity feels half-assed. Even as the push-push-push of “QSO” departs and the song’s last two minutes or so are given to a stretch of quiet guitar fade that lead directly into “Oneironaut,” there’s a plan at work, if not a direct narrative. This isn’t just about self-indulgence or a showcase of effects wash. There’s more to it.

Certainly Yuri Gagarin are aware of space rock’s past glories. Almost 50 years later, Hawkwind looms over the entire genre as much as ever, but there’s a significant difference between being aware of something and beholden to it and it seems to be the latter where the band draw the line. It isn’t just a question of having modern production or a sleek gatefold by Påhl Sundström — though neither hurts in terms of presentation — but about the forward push in the material itself. To wit, the winding guitar of “Crystal Dunes” and how that song touches on Middle Easternism or Mediterranean folk without fully abandoning the overarching outward thrust of The Outskirts of Reality‘s entirety, instead bringing those elements into the context of the song and the record as it moves ahead toward the track’s emergent wash and eventual dissolution around a final resonant hum and strum. That this happens en route to the time-warp manipulations of “Laboratory 1” likewise isn’t a coincidence. Aside from being a fit in terms of runtime, the otherwise-interlude is a readjustment of mentality that sets up and reinforces the spirit of arrival at “The Outskirts of Reality” itself. And while the title-track doesn’t hit 13 minutes like “Oneironaut” or even the 10 of “QSO” back on side A, it doesn’t need to.

Rather, the point comes across in the encompassing effects and keys and the scorching guitar soloing, as undulations and surges of melodies take hold and recede and return in nigh-on-maddening fashion. They’re five minutes in before you realize what’s happened, and by then, you couldn’t get out if you wanted to. The shift to the final progression is subtle, but there, and soon Yuri Gagarin are engulfed in a last wash of noise that takes hold despite the ongoing and adjoining loops. If you’re wondering who wins, the answer is noise. Noise wins. The band doesn’t so much deconstruct the piece as let it drift off into the crushing vacuum, and as harsh as the noise is, it fades out in surprisingly gentle fashion. Perhaps there’s room for sentiment in the cosmos after all. One way or the other, Yuri Gagarin‘s The Outskirts of Reality portrays space rock as a reinvigorated aesthetic in such a way as to make it exciting not just to established fans of the style, but those who might be taking it on for the first time. It’s a rare sense of outreach in terms of audience-building, and thus something of a gamble on the part of the band, but in terms of world-building and making its own impression, it is likewise resonant and organic: An ultrasonic blowout for all tomorrow’s todays. Sometimes with records that see envelopes as things to push there is purist backlash as a result, and maybe Yuri Gagarin are at least potentially exposing themselves to that, but there’s much work being done on The Outskirts of Reality to open the minds of those who take it on, and those willing to meet the band on their level will find doing so all the more rewarding.

Yuri Gagarin on Thee Facebooks

Yuri Gagarin on Instagram

Yuri Gagarin on Bandcamp

Yuri Gagarin BigCartel store

Kommun 2 Records website

Sound Effect Records website

Blastoff is pretty immediate in the teaser for Swedish space rock demons Yuri Gagarin‘s new album, The Outskirts of Reality, which is due out Jan. 31 through Sound Effect Records in Greece and Kommun 2 in Sweden itself. Some teasers, they give you a minute of a single song, or maybe even less than that. Some have 30 seconds of ambient nothing and kind of leave you feeling like a sucker for hoping for some substance. Yuri Gagarin, on the other hand, present nearly five minutes of an album that as far as I’m concerned can go on as long as it likes given what I’m hearing so far.

The Outskirts of Reality will comprise five tracks — one fewer than its predecessor, 2015’s At the Center of All Infinity — and I don’t hear a bummer note at all in the teaser as it gives a sampling of each of those pieces. I’m assuming “Laboratory 1” is the drone-sounding piece, if only because its title sounds like something a band might call an experimental track like that, but otherwise, Yuri Gagarin sound like they’ve got their intermix chamber aligned to the proper matter/antimatter ratios and are ready to punch it to warp seven the second they leave drydock. You got a list of albums you’re looking forward to in 2020? I do. Yuri Gagarin are on it.

Info about the record is pretty minimal at this point, apart from the tracklisting, the audio in the teaser, and the righteous gatefold cover art by Påhl Sundström — so not nothing, I guess — but I’d keep an eye out for perhaps more details to come later this week as they launch preorders on Dec. 13. If I was gonna, say, put out a whole track and the full album details to follow-up the teaser, that’d probably be the day to do it. Not trying to tell anyone to run their publicity campaign or anything.

Here’s what’s out there so far:

Yuri Gagarin – The Outskirts of Reality

Here’s a teaser for our new full length album: The Outskirts Of Reality. The artwork is made by Swedish artist Påhl Sundström.

It will be available on LP and CD on Kommun 2 Records and Sound-Effect Records January 31.

Pre-sales will be available December 13. More info coming soon.

Tracks:
QSO
Oneironaut
Crystal Dunes
Laboratory 1
The Outskirts Of Reality

https://www.facebook.com/yurigagarinspacerock/
https://www.instagram.com/yurigagarinband/
https://yurigagarinswe.bandcamp.com/
http://yurigagarin.bigcartel.com/
http://www.motljud.com/
https://www.soundeffect-records.gr/

Yuri Gagarin, The Outskirts of Reality album teaser