Posted in Whathaveyou on March 8th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Earlier this week, Edinburgh classic-style heavy rockers Hair of the Dog announced they were done, and it’s worth noting that their announcement came some four years after they actually marked the end of the band. Fair enough. They are not the only ones for whom life has taken unexpected directions in the 2020s, and what it turns out has happened is that the trio — who released their third album, It’s Just a Ride (discussed here), early in 2020 — came back together and enough had changed that they’re becoming a new band.
So it’s Hair of the Dog out and Elmsrow in, though how that shift will play out sound-wise is still to be heard. After reading the band’s post that you can see in the image below dutifully hoisted from their social media, I asked guitarist/vocalist Adam Holt — joined in either outfit by drummer Jon Holt and bassist Iain Thomson — for some more details about the transition from one to the next and where he thinks it might be leading. His answers are what you’ll find in the blue text below.
In a spirit of looking forward, dig:
So as our post says, we felt like we were on a bit of a roll on the lead up to “It’s Just a Ride”, we had just lined up a host of spring and summer festivals and were busy marking out a tour between them all – with a particular focus on spending time in Germany where a majority of our fan base is located. We were super stoked on the new record, really proud of it and just bursting to get it out and hit the road…
Then BOOM literally over night, Scotland and the entire UK is put into a lockdown that just went on and on, month to month until basically two years of our lives were gone along with 80% of my livelihood, out with the band.
That first lockdown also coincided nicely with the birth of my first child. So yeah, rough times. Showing your parents their grandson through the patio door as they sit on deckchairs on your lawn X amount of distance away in masks…my son was 3 months old by the time lockdown restrictions had eased enough for his grandparents to hold him for the first time.
I just fell out of love with music and quite frankly life.
I’m prone to bouts of depression, so I wallowed in that for months and then one day picked the guitar up and 1..2…3…..4……out came a succession of song ideas. But they weren’t Hair of the Dog.
I’d felt it for months but knew then that Hair of the Dog was done.
That chapter just felt done. I don’t think it would even feel right singing and playing those songs now, I don’t feel like that person anymore. The pandemic killed the momentum, killed the vibe, and ultimately killed the band we knew as Hair of the Dog.
So the only clear thing to do was to start a fresh…with a new name. We are so early in the process that we only finalised the name this week, Elmsrow.
How do the two bands compare? Well, it’s still myself, my brother Jon and our lifelong friend Iain. Musically though, the only similarity will be the odd lean towards the blues… but other influences include, Tool, Deftones, Kal-El (been really digging Kal-El of late), Dozer, Red Fang… yeah, far removed. It certainly fills a gap in what I personally would want to hear, which is usually a good sign. You got to be into the music you make.
I’d been getting really bad cramps in both my hands during HOTD last run of shows. To the point that my pick would just fall out my fingers because I couldn’t feel or move my hands. It’s been utterly devastating to have developed this, but as a result I’m going to be pulling back on the guitar work and focusing more on my love of unusual and challenging chords and chord sequences. There’s a lot of melody and harmony to be found under the heaviness. Iain really takes centre stage in Elmsrow, and gets an opportunity to show why he’s the best bass player in the underground, maybe even world…. in my opinion. And drummers will rejoice, as Jon too shines through on this new material.
It’s exciting, it will probably divide HOTD fans, but music needs to come from the heart and sadly, post-pandemic, my heart personally, was no longer in that band.
All we have at present is the name, the music (minus any lyrics) and a lot of exciting plans. One of these is a feature length documentary about the creation of our first new EP, but more specifically a look at what it’s like to be a band in the underground, what goes into being a band and why? Haha why do middle-aged men such as ourselves around the world NEED this in their life?
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 3rd, 2024 by JJ Koczan
In a week that’s pretty light on announcements, be it for tours or new releases or whathaveyou, Italy’s Humulus shine through with live plans for the early part of this New Year, with one TBA still saddled in a stretch of 10 days and more listed as being in the offing. The occasion of the trio’s going is 2023’s Flowers of Death (review here), which was the first outing from the band to feature guitarist/vocalist Thomas Mascheroni after a lineup shift that saw him step in after 2020’s The Deep (review here).
Their fourth full-length overall, it also featured a collaboration with Colour Haze guitarist/vocalist Stefan Koglek, whose presence and influence certainly doesn’t hurt, and in part with that laid out a progressive and psychedelic course for their work to follow going forward. If you didn’t hear it — and if you didn’t, it’s okay, I don’t hear everything either — it’s at the bottom of this post and since it came out in September and 2024 is only two days old, it’s still a new release, so have at it. The dates were posted on social media as follows:
Flowers of Death Tour 2024 💥 here’s the first part of the tour dates confirmed for the next year…Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and for the first time Denmark 🔥 We wish you all the best for the new year and we hope to see you in front of the stage…and don’t forget to drink good beers 🍺 cheeeers
07.03 Gerwerk Winterthur CH 08.03 Freiburg Im Breisgau DE 09.03 Sas Delemont CH 10.03 Rockhaus Salzburg AT 11.03 Kopi Keller Berlin DE 12.03 TBA 13.03 Lygtens Kro Copenhagen DK 14.03 Pogo Retroquitaten Telgte DE 15.03 Vortex Siegen DE 16.03 Bandhaus Erfurt DE 17.03 Live Bar Sölden AT more TBA
Humulus: Thomas Mascheroni – Guitar and Voice Massimiliano Boventi – Drums Giorgio Bonacorsi – Bass
Posted in Reviews on December 1st, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Well, this is it. I still haven’t decided if I’m going to do Monday and Tuesday, or just Monday, or Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or the whole week next week or what. I don’t know. But while I figure it out — and not having this planned is kind of a novelty for me; something against my nature that I’m kind of forcing I think just to make myself uncomfortable — there are 10 more records to dig through today and it’s been a killer week. Yeah, that’s the other thing. Maybe it’s better to quit while I’m ahead.
I’ll kick it back and forth while writing today and getting the last of what I’d originally slated covered, then see how much I still have waiting to be covered. You can’t ever get everything. I keep learning that every year. But if I don’t do it Monday and Tuesday, it’ll either be last week of December or maybe second week of January, so it’s not long until the next one. Never is, I guess.
If this is it for now or not, thanks for reading. I hope you found music that has touched your life and/or made your day better.
Quarterly Review #41-50:
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David Eugene Edwards, Hyacinth
There are not a ton of surprises to behold in what’s positioned as a first solo studio offering from David Eugene Edwards, whose pedigree would be impressive enough if it only included either 16 Horsepower or Wovenhand but of course is singular in including both. But you don’t need surprises. Titled Hyacinth and issued through Sargent House, the voice, the presence, the sense of intimacy and grandiosity both accounted for as Edwards taps acoustic simplicity in “Bright Boy,” though even that is accompanied by the programmed electronics that provides backing through much of the included 11 tracks. Atop and within these expanses, Edwards broods poetic and explores atmospheres that are heavy in a different way from what Wovenhand has become, chasing tone or intensity. On Hyacinth, it’s more about the impact of the slow-rolling beat in “Celeste” and the blend of organic/inorganic than just how loud a part is or isn’t. Whether a solo career under his name will take the place of Wovenhand or coincide, I don’t know.
Whatever led Beastwars to decide it was time to do a covers EP, fine. No, really, it’s fine. It’s fine that it’s 32 minutes long. It’s fine that I’ve never heard The Gordons, or Julia Deans, or Superette, or The 3Ds or any of the other New Zealand-based artists the Wellington bashers are covering. It’s fine. It’s fine that it sounds different than 2019’s IV (review here). It should. It’s been nearly five years and Beastwars didn’t write these eight songs, though it seems safe to assume they did a fair bit of rearranging since it all sounds so much like Beastwars. But the reason it’s all fine is that when it’s over, whether I know the original version of “Waves” or the blues-turns-crushing “High and Lonely” originally by Nadia Reid, or not, when it’s all over, I’ve got over half an hour more recorded Beastwars music than I had before Tyranny of Distance showed up, and if you don’t consider that a win, you probably already stopped reading. That’s fine too. A sidestep for them in not being an epic landmark LP, and a chance for new ideas to flourish.
Because Messages From the Mothership stacks its longer songs (six-seven minutes) in the back half of its tracklisting, one might be tempted to say Sun Dial push further out as they go, but the truth is that ’60s pop-inflected three-minute opener “Echoes All Around” is pretty out there, and the penultimate “Saucer Noise” — the longest inclusion at 7:47 — is no less melodically present than the more structure-forward leadoff. The difference, principally, is a long stretch of keyboard, but that’s well within the UK outfit’s vintage-synth wheelhouse, and anyway, “Demagnitized” is essentially seven minutes of wobbly drone at the end of the record, so they get weirder, as prefaced in the early going by, well, the early going itself, but also “New Day,” which is more exploratory than the radio-friendly-but-won’t-be-on-the-radio harmonies of “Living for Today” and the duly shimmering strum of “Burning Bright.” This is familiar terrain for Sun Dial, but they approach it with a perspective that’s fresh and, in the title-track, a little bit funky to boot.
With rampant heavy blues and a Mk II Deep Purple boogie bent, Toulouse, France’s Fuzzy Grass present The Revenge of the Blue Nut, and there’s a story there but to be honest I’m not sure I want to know. The heavy ’70s persist as an influence — no surprise for a group who named their 2018 debut 1971 — and pieces like “I’m Alright” and “The Dreamer” feel at least in part informed by Graveyard‘s slow-soul-to-boogie-blowout methodology. Raw fuzz rolls out in 11-minute capper “Moonlight Shades” with a swinging nod that’s a highlight even after “Why You Stop Me” just before, and grows noisy, expansive, eventually furious as it approaches the end, coherent in the verse and cacophonous in just about everything else. But the rawness bolsters the character of the album in ways beyond enhancing the vintage-ist impression, and Fuzzy Grass unite decades of influences with vibrant shred and groove that’s welcoming even at its bluest.
If you go by the current of sizzling electronic pops deeper in the mix, even the outwardly quiet intro to Morne‘s Engraved with Pain is intense. The Boston-based crush-metallers have examined the world around them thoroughly ahead of this fifth full-length, and their disappointment is brutally brought to realization across four songs — “Engraved with Pain” (10:42), “Memories Like Stone” (10:48), “Wretched Empire” (7:45) and “Fire and Dust” (11:40) — written and executed with a dark mastery that goes beyond the weight of the guitar and bass and drums and gutturally shouted vocals to the aura around the music itself. Engraved with Pain makes the air around it feel heavier, basking in an individualized vision of metal that’s part Ministry, part Gojira, lots of Celtic Frost, progressive and bleak in kind — the kind of superlative and consuming listening experience that makes you wonder why you ever listen to anything else except that you’re also exhausted from it because Morne just gave you an existential flaying the likes of which you’ve not had in some time. Artistry. Don’t be shocked when it’s on my ‘best of the year’ list in a couple weeks. I might just go to a store and buy the CD.
Don’t tell the swingin’-dick Western swag of “Wounded,” but Appalooza are a metal band. To wit, The Shining Son, their very-dudely follow-up to 2021’s The Holy of Holies (review here) and second outing for Ripple Music. Opener “Pelican” has more in common with Sepultura than Kyuss, or Pelican for that matter. “Unbreakable” and “Wasted Land” both boast screams worthy of Devin Townsend, while the acoustic/electric urgency in “Wasted Land” and the tumultuous scope of the seven-plus-minute track recall some of Primordial‘s battle-aftermath mourning. “Groundhog Days” has an airy melody and is more decisively heavy rock, and the hypnotic post-doom apparent-murder-balladry of “Killing Maria” answers that at the album’s close, and “Framed” hits heavy blues à la a missed outfit like Dwellers, but even in “Sunburn” there’s an immediacy to the rhythm between the guitar and percussion, and though they’re not necessarily always aggressive in their delivery, nor do they want to be. Metal they are, if only under the surface, and that, coupled with the care they put into their songwriting, makes The Shining Son stand out all the more in an ever-crowded Euro underground.
An invitation to chill the beans delivered to your ears courtesy of Irish cosmic jammers Space Shepherds as two longform jams. “Wading Through the Infinite Sea” nestles into a funky groove and spends who-even-cares-how-much-time of its total 27 minutes vibing out with noodling guitar and a steady, languid, periodically funk-leaning flow. I don’t know if it was made up on the spot, but it sure sounds like it was, and though the drums get a little restless as keys and guitar keep dreaming, the elements gradually align and push toward and through denser clouds of dust and gas on their way to being suns, a returning lick at the end looking slightly in the direction of Elder but after nearly half an hour it belongs to no one so much as Space Shepherds themselves. ‘Side B,’ as it were, is “Void Hurler” (18:41), which is more active early around circles being drawn on the snare, and it has a crescendo and a synthy finish, but is ultimately more about the exploration and little moments along the way like the drums decided to add a bit of push to what might’ve otherwise been the comedown, or the fuzz buzzing amid the drone circa 10 minutes in. You can sit and listen and follow each waveform on its journey or you can relax and let the whole thing carry you. No wrong answer for jams this engaging.
Young Chilean four-piece Rey Mosca — the lineup of Josué Campos, Valentín Pérez, Damián Arros and Rafael Álvarez — hold a spaciousness in reserve for the midsection of teh seven-minute “Sol del Tiempo,” which is the third of the three songs included in their live-recorded Volumen! Sesion AMB EP. A ready hint is dropped of a switch in methodology since both “Psychodoom” and ” Perdiendo el Control” are under two minutes long. Crust around the edge of the riff greets the listener with “Psychodoom,” which spends about a third of its 90 seconds on its intro and so is barely started by the time it’s over. Awesome. “Perdiendo el Control” is quicker into its verse and quicker generally and gets brasher in its second half with some hardcore shout-alongs, but it too is there and gone, where “Sol del Tiempo” is more patient from the outset, flirting with ’90s noise crunch in its finish but finding a path through a developing interpretation of psychedelic doom en route. I don’t know if “Sol del Tiempo” would fit on a 7″, but it might be worth a shot as Rey Mosca serve notice of their potential hopefully to flourish.
Principally engaged in the consumption and expulsion of expectations, Fawn Limbs and Nadja — experimentalists from Finland and Germany-via-Canada, respectively — drone as one might think in opener “Isomerich,” and in the subsequent “Black Body Radiation” and “Cascading Entropy,” they give Primitive Man, The Body or any other extremely violent, doom-derived bludgeoners you want to name a run for their money in terms of sheer noisy assault. Somebody’s been reading about exoplanets, as the drone/harsh noise pairing “Redshifted” and “Blueshifted” (look it up, it’s super cool) reset the aural trebuchet for its next launch, the latter growing caustic on the way, ahead of “Distilled in Observance” renewing the punishment in earnest. And it is earnest. They mean every second of it as Fawn Limbs and Nadja grind souls to powder with all-or-nothing fury, dropping overwhelming drive to round out “Distilled in Observance” before the 11-minute “Metastable Ion Decay” bursts out from the chest of its intro drone to devour everybody on the ship except Sigourney Weaver. I’m not lying to you — this is ferocious. You might think you’re up for it. One sure way to find out, but you should know you’re being tested.
Do they pilot, a-pilot, do they the dune? Probably. Regardless, German heavy rockers Dune Pilot offer their third full-length and first for Argonauta Records in the 11-song Magnetic, taking cues from modern fuzz in the vein of Truckfighters for “Visions” after the opening title-track sets the mood and establishes the mostly-dry sound of the vocals as they cut through the guitar and bass tones. A push of voice becomes a defining feature of Magnetic, which isn’t such a departure from 2018’s Lucy, though the rush of “Next to the Liquor Store” and the breadth in the fuzz of “Highest Bid” and the largesse of the nod in “Let You Down” assure that Dune Pilot don’t come close to wearing down their welcome in the 46 minutes, cuts like the bluesy “So Mad” and the big-chorus ideology of “Heap of Shards” coexisting drawn together by the vitality of the performances behind them as well as the surety of their craft. It is heavy rock that feels specifically geared toward the lovers thereof.
Posted in Reviews on November 28th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Day two and no looking back. Yesterday was Monday and it was pretty tripped out. There’s some psych stuff here too, but we start out by digging deep into metal-rooted doom and it doesn’t get any less dudely through the first three records, let’s put it that way. But there’s more here than one style, microgengre, or gender expression can contain, and I invite you as you make your way through to approach not from a place of redundant chestbeating, but of celebrating a moment captured. In the cases of some of these releases, it’s a pretty special moment we’re talking about.
Places to go, things to hear. We march.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
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Primordial, How it Ends
Excuse me, ma’am. Do you have 66 minutes to talk about the end of the world? No? Nobody does? Well that’s kind of sad.
At 28 years’ remove from their first record, 1995’s Imrama, and now on their 10th full-length, Dublin’s Primordial are duly mournful across the 10 songs of How it Ends, which boasts the staring-at-a-bloodied-hillside-full-of-bodies after-battle mourning and oppression-defying lyricism and a style rooted in black metal and grown beyond it informed by Irish folk progressions but open enough to make a highlight of the build in “Death Holy Death” here. A more aggressive lean shows itself in “All Against All” just prior while “Pilgrimage to the World’s End” is brought to a wash of an apex with a high reach from vocalist Alan “A.A. Nemtheanga” Averill, who should be counted among metal’s all-time frontmen, ahead of the tension chugging in the beginning of “Nothing New Under the Sun.” And you know, for the most part, there isn’t. Most of what Primordial do on How it Ends, they’ve done before, and their central innovation in bridging extreme metal with folk traditionalism, is long behind them. How it Ends seems to dwell in some parts and be roiling in its immediacy elsewhere, and its grandiosities inherently will put some off just as they will bring some on, but Primordial continue to find clever ways to develop around their core approach, and How it Ends — if it is the end or it isn’t, for them or the world — harnesses that while also serving as a reminder of how much they own their sound.
With a partner in drummer Johnny Kelly (Type O Negative, Danzig, etc.), guitarist/songwriter Dan Lorenzo (Hades, Vessel of Light, Cassius King, etc.) has found an outlet open to various ideas within the sphere of doom metal/rock in Patriarchs in Black, whose second LP, My Veneration, brings a cohort of guests on vocals and bass alongside the band’s core duo. Some, like Karl Agell (C.O.C. Blind) and bassist Dave Neabore (Dog Eat Dog), are returning parties from the project’s 2022 debut, Reach for the Scars, while Unida vocalist Mark Sunshine makes a highlight of “Show Them Your Power” early on. Sunshine appears on “Veneration” as well alongside DMC from Run DMC, which, if you’re going to do a rap-rock crossover, it probably makes sense to get a guy who was there the first time it happened. Elsewhere, “Non Defectum” toys with layering with Kelly Abe of Sicks Deep adding screams, and Paul Stanley impersonator Bob Jensen steps in for the KISS cover “I Stole Your Love” and the originals “Dead and Gone” and “Hallowed Be Her Name” so indeed, no shortage of variety. Tying it together? The riffs, of course. Lorenzo has shown an as-yet inexhaustible supply thereof. Here, they seem to power multiple bands all on one album.
Just because it wasn’t a surprise doesn’t mean it’s not one of the best debut albums of 2023. Bringing together known parties from Boston’s heavy underground Jim Healey (We’re All Gonna Die, etc.), Doug Sherman (Gozu), Bob Maloney (Worshipper) and J.R. Roach (Sam Black Church), Blood Lightning want nothing for pedigree, and their Ripple-issued self-titled debut meets high expectations with vigor and thrash-born purpose. Sherman‘s style of riffing and Healey‘s soulful, belted-out vocals are both identifiable factors in cuts like “The Dying Starts” and the charging “Face Eater,” which works to find a bridge between heavy rock and classic, soaring metal. Their cover of Black Sabbath‘s “Disturbing the Priest,” included here as the last of the six songs on the 27-minute album, I seem to recall being at least part of the impetus for the band, but frankly, however they got there, I’m glad the project has been preserved. I don’t know if they will or won’t do anything else, but there’s potential in their metal/rock blend, which positions itself as oldschool but is more forward thinking than either genre can be on its own.
Based in Oakland and making their debut with the significant endorsement of Small Stone Records and Kozmik Artifactz behind them, atmospheric post-heavy rock five-piece Haurun tap into ethereal ambience and weighted fuzz in such a way as to raise memories of the time Black Math Horseman got picked up by Tee Pee. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. With notions of Acid King in the nodding, undulating riffs of “Abyss” and the later reaches of “Lost and Found,” but two guitars are a distinguishing factor, and Haurun come across as primarily concerned with mood, although the post-grunge ’90s alt hooks of “Flying Low” and “Lunar” ahead of 11-minute closer “Soil,” which uses its longform breadth to cast as vivid a soundscape as possible. Fast, slow, minimalist or at a full wash of noise, Haurun‘s Wilting Within has its foundation in heavy rock groove and riffy repetition, but does something with that that goes beyond microniche confines. Very much looking forward to more from this band.
Its point of view long established by the time they get around to the filthy lurch of “Hesher” — track three of seven — Cabin Fever is the first full-length from cultish doomers Wicked Trip. The Tennessee outfit revel in Electric Wizard-style fuckall on “Cabin Fever” after the warning in the spoken “Intro,” and the 11-minute sample-topped “Night of Pan” is a psych-doom jam that’s hypnotic right unto its keyboard-drone finish giving over to the sampled smooth sounds of the ’70s at the start of “Black Valentine,” which feels all the more dirt-coated when it actually kicks in, though “Evils of the Night” is no less threatening of purpose in its garage-doom swing, crash-out and cacophonous payoff, and I’m pretty sure if you played “No Longer Human” at double the speed, well, it might be human again. All of these grim, bleak, scorching, nodding, gnashing pieces come together to craft Cabin Fever as one consuming, lo-fi entirety, raw both because the recording sounds harsh and because the band itself eschew any frills not in service to their disillusioned atmosphere.
There’s an awful lot of sex going on in Splinter‘s Role Models, as the Amsterdam glam-minded heavy rockers follow their 2021 debut, Filthy Pleasures (review here), with cuts like “Soviet Schoolgirl,” “Bottom,” “Opposite Sex” and the poppy post-punk “Velvet Scam” early on. It’s not all sleaze — though even “The Carpet Makes Me Sad” is trying to get you in bed — and the piano and boozy harmonies of “Computer Screen” are a fun departure ahead of the also-acoustic finish in closer “It Should Have Been Over,” while “Every Circus Needs a Clown” feels hell-bent on remaking Queen‘s “Stone Cold Crazy” and “Medicine Man” and “Forbidden Kicks” find a place where garage rock meets heavier riffing, while “Children” gets its complaints registered efficiently in just over two boogie-push minutes. A touch of Sabbath here, some Queens of the Stone Age chic disco there, and Splinter are happy to find a place for themselves adjacent to both without aping either. One would not accuse them of subtlety as regards theme, but there’s something to be said for saying what you want up front.
Beginning with its longest component track (immediate points) in “Asteroid,” Terra Black‘s All Descend is a downward-directed slab of doomed nod, so doubled-down on its own slog that “Black Flames of Funeral Fire” doesn’t even start its first verse until the song is more than half over. Languid tempos play up the largesse of “Ashes and Dust,” and “Divinest Sin” borders on Eurometal, but if you need to know what’s in Terra Black‘s heart, look no further than the guitar, bass, drum and vocal lumber — all-lumber — of “Spawn of Lyssa” and find that it’s doom pumping blood around the band’s collective body. While avoiding sounding like Electric Wizard, the Gothenburg, Sweden, unit crawl through that penultimate duet track with all ready despondency, and resolve “Slumber Grove” with agonized final lub-dub heartbeats of kick drum and guitar drawl after a vivid and especially doomed wash drops out to vocals before rearing back and plodding forward once more, doomed, gorgeous, immersive, and so, so heavy. They’re not finished growing yet — nor should they be on this first album — but they’re on the path.
Sometimes the name of a thing can tell you about the thing. So enters Musing, a contemplative solo outfit from Devin “Darty” Purdy, also known for his work in Calgary-based bands Gone Cosmic and Chron Goblin, with the eight-song/42-minute Somewhen and a flowing instrumental narrative that borders on heavy post-rock and psychedelia, but is clearheaded ultimately in its course and not slapdash enough to be purely experimental. That is, though intended to be instrumental works outside the norm of his songcraft, tracks like “Flight to Forever” and the delightfully bassy “Frontal Robotomy” are songs, have been carved out of inspired and improvised parts to be what they are. “Hurry Wait” revamps post-metal standalone guitar to be the basis of a fuzzy exploration, while “Reality Merchants” hones a sense of space that will be welcome in ears that embrace the likes of Yawning Sons or Big Scenic Nowhere. Somewhen has a story behind it — there’s narrative; blessings and peace upon it — but the actual music is open enough to translate to any number of personal interpretations. A ‘see where it takes you’ attitude is called for, then. Maybe on Purdy‘s part as well.
A heavy and Sabbathian rock forms the underlying foundation of Spiral Shades‘ sound, and the returning two-piece of vocalist Khushal R. Bhadra and guitarist/bassist/drummer Filip Petersen have obviously spent the nine years since 2014’s debut, Hypnosis Sessions (review here), enrolled in post-doctoral Iommic studies. Revival, after so long, is not unwelcome in the least. Doom happens in its own time, and with seven songs and 38 minutes of new material, plus bonus tracks, they make up for lost time with classic groove and tone loyal to the blueprint once put forth while reserving a place for itself in itself. That is, there’s more to Spiral Shades and to Revival than Sabbath worship, even if that’s a lot of the point. I won’t take away from the metal-leaning chug of “Witchy Eyes” near the end of the album, but “Foggy Mist” reminds of The Obsessed‘s particular crunch and “Chapter Zero” rolls like Spirit Caravan, find a foothold between rock and doom, and it turns out riffs are welcome on both sides.
The closing “Sex on a Grave” reminds of the slurring bluesy lasciviousness of Nick Cave‘s Grinderman, and that should in part be taken as a compliment to the setup through “Black Cat” — which toys with 12-bar structure and is somewhere between urbane cool and cabaret nerdery — and the centerpiece “Bad Day,” which follows a classic downer chord progression through its apex with the rawness of Backwoods Payback at their most emotive and a greater melodic reach only after swaying through its willful bummer of an intro. Last-minute psych flourish in the guitar threatens to make “Bad Day” a party, but the Louisville outfit find their way around to their own kind of fun, which since the release is only three songs long just happens to be “Sex on a Grave.” Fair enough. Rife with attitude and an emergent dynamic that’s complementary to the persona of the vocals rather than trying to keep up with them, the counterintuitively-titled second short release (yes, I know the cover is a Zeppelin reference; settle down) from Bandshee lays out an individual approach to heavy songwriting and a swing that goes back further in time than most.
Posted in Reviews on November 20th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Digitally released by the Argentina trio and due for a vinyl issue in early 2024 through Kozmik Artifactz, the fifth release from IAH, titled simply V, finds the band recommitting to their core approach while at the same time expanding their reach. The instrumentalist outfit with the returning lineup of guitarist/synthesist Mauricio Condon, bassist Juan Pablo Lucco Borlera and drummer José Landín have both pulled back into themselves as compares to 2021’s Omines (review here), which boasted collaborations with members of Poland’s Spaceslug and guest strings and was over an hour long. Two years later, IAH are able to transpose progressive textures onto their heavy riffing roots as 10-minute opener/longest track (immediate points) “Kutno” makes its impression with sharp snaps of snare and guitar/bass chug after the synthy drone intro and moves in its second half to a hypnotic and languid stretch of psychedelic contemplation before reality interrupts at 8:21 and they bookend with heavier chugging topped with a solo.
Precision and looseness. Tension and release. Severity and soothing. The band, who once again worked with co-producer Mario Carnerero at Gran Rosa Estudio, have made these essential components since their 2017 self-titled debut EP (review here), and V recalls that dynamic early, with hints dropped toward progressive metal but an offsetting circle around in the central riff of “Kutno” that keeps the groove rolling. To leadoff your record with a song that takes up nearly a quarter of its 41-minute runtime is no minor choice, but IAH have a history in that regard, though “Kutno” stands out for being more relatively extended than, say, closer “Las Palabras y el Mar” at 8:45, than some other long-openers have been in the past.
What does song length tell you in this case? Primarily how long the song is. To find out just about anything else requires hearing. “Madre de los Suspiros” follows “Kutno” with a creeper line of guitar and vague whispers of noise, cymbal crashes and an emergent movement at about a minute in that is both densely weighted and hypnotic. A threatening chug is complemented by higher plucked lead notes, but those soon are swallowed by the maw of the riff brought by the next change; a declining lumber that opens to a more hopeful sans-vocal hook that it makes positively swaggering by second time through, thud of drums and echoing tones giving spaciousness that feels well earned, another late solo taking hold to sort of expand the back half as they wind down what feels like a statement of who they are as a band made to themselves as well as their audience.
A little Karma to Burn in that midsection’s willfully straightforward riffing? Maybe. But by digging as deeply as they are into their style — by doubling-down as they are, particularly after the branching out of Omines — they own it. Listening to V, IAH sound poised and confident in what they’re doing. It’s their fourth LP, and as they shift from “Madre de los Suspiros” into the quiet outset of the eight-minute “Yaldabaoth,” which follows a similar structure to “Kutno” with grounded chug shifting into a calmer middle building to an apex, but in “Yaldabaoth,” that crescendo takes the form of post-rock shimmer-sprawl, evocative even as the drums beneath keep a decent clip, and ending to fit easily with the standalone echoing guitar piece “Sono io!” (1:44), an interlude and presumed side B intro that offers emotional presence and a breather moment before the blindside punch of chug from “Sentado en el Borde de una Pregunta.”
The penultimate cut on the six-tracker brings together the chug that’s been there all the while with a more insistent thrust in the drums, feeling urgent in its first half as it touches on proggier rhythmmaking without giving up the heavy nod, until at 2:46 a crash and stop brings standalone bass deep in the mix, soon enough joined by the drums and atmospheric guitar drawn overtop. While striking on paper, the suddenness of that change when one is actually hearing the album is hardly jarring. IAH simply going from one place to another. They’ve done it several times throughout V by “Sentado en el Borde de una Pregunta,” and the intensity of their return — the album’s genuine breakout-and-run moment — is a payoff serving for more than just the lone track in question. They carry it into a long fade and synth arrives to guide the transition into “Las Palabras y el Mar,” which resets to softer guitar at its beginning.
In the incorporation of synthesizer here, IAH highlight the ambience of V and their style generally while finding a new outlet for it. “Las Palabras y el Mar” plays with the underlying structure of the tracks a bit, with a flowing start shifting into heavier guitar before three minutes in, and even as it solidifies into a chug, much of the (relative) shove behind “Sentado en el Borde de una Pregunta” has dissipated, and a meta-echo — also some real echo — of the post-rock vibe in “Yaldabaoth” reinforces the idea of cognizance on the part of the band. Which is to say, they know what they’re doing. V‘s finale drops the heft in its second half, brings some back for a not-overblown epilogue, and end with melancholy standalone guitar, resonant with effects or synth behind it and consistent in terms of mood with much of what precedes.
This is a band who have found their sound, who know it, and who have purposefully set themselves to refining it and exploring around it while holding to the sphere they’ve marked as their own. One of V‘s greatest appeals is that it paints a sustainable portrait of what they do. With five offerings in six years, IAH have worked at a prolific pace up to now and there’s nothing to say that won’t continue, but V is mature and set in itself in a way that a first or second, even a third record generally can’t be, and that maturity includes the sense of ongoing creative evolution. The synth here is an easy example, and it might be that synth becomes more of a factor in the future and it might not, but that sensibility extends to the dynamic and chemistry between the members of IAH as well as to the places their material is willing to go and the textures being explored. They have never yet been so much their own thing as they are here.
Portland heavy rockers Robots of the Ancient World will release their second album for Small Stone Records, 3737, on Nov. 17. The five-piece issued their first record for the label, Mystic Goddess (review here), in 2021, and have gone from tracking with Jack Endino to producing themselves with Billy Anderson as an engineer, so pretty clearly they’re not looking to waste time in the recording process. Their actual-debut was 2019’s Cosmic Riders, and especially considering the years between, they’ve managed productivity where others have stagnated or disappeared altogether, which is something to be commended.
As one would hope, one of the aspects carried over from Mystic Goddess to the newer six-tracker is a lack of pretense. Dudes aren’t trying to be anything other than the fuzz-toned weirdos they are, and with the returning lineup of vocalist Caleb Weidenbach, guitarists Nico Schmutz and Justin Laubscher, bassist Trevor Berecek and drummer Harry Silvers (now also in Hippie Death Cult), that particular brand of quirk is all the more identifiable as the band swings, sways and swaggers toward and through the organ-laced culmination of 10-minute apex finale “Silver Cloud,” which ends the procession with all due ceremony without losing sight of the fact that even in those last moments, they’re headed somewhere.
Lest you doubt their stonerly bona fides, “Hindu Kush” leads off with a rising buzz of amp noise that becomes the riff — feedback still there until the crash-in — and proceeds to unveil the roll. Mellow, not hitting too hard and certainly not quiet, the two guitars, bass and drums leave room for Weidenbach‘s vocals, though honestly he sounds like he wouldn’t necessarily have trouble cutting through anyhow. Circa-’75 Ozzy and first-two-LPs Danzig might be touchstones there, but one way or the other, Weidenbach is the source of a lot of the attitude of 3737, and with “Hindu Kush,” the record gets a classic-feeling (those backing vocals in the chorus) fuzz rocker that leans into doom and psych in the spirit of the modern underground.
Opening catchy was clearly a priority between “Hindu Kush,” which is the shortest of the non-interludes at 4:45, and “Creature,” which follows, and after its own quiet guitar intro sweeps into full-brunt tonality chugs into its verse with subtle pace and genuinely seems to shove its chorus forward through the speakers. They throw some jabs in the bridge in the second half, and rally around that one more time after the last hook, and then they’re quickly onto the “Children of the Grave”-esque start of “Holy Ghost.” Feels like fair enough use of that chug. I’m pretty sure everyone on the planet who didn’t wishes they wrote that song.
“Holy Ghost” takes off with due thrust and a sharper edge to its riff. The guitars split in the verse, one channel chugging, the other strumming, but they align in the chorus to emphasize the message being sent about songwriting — namely that Robots of the Ancient World are on it — and find their way back with renewed vigor, Silvers in back pushing the entire thing forward. While maybe not as outwardly catchy as “Hindu Kush” or “Creature,” “Holy Ghost” pulls the listener deeper into 3737 and maintains the standard of craft, the mix of influences at work showing metallic flashes in the solo, some maybe-organ in there maybe-prefacing the closer, scorch and toms building to a head, pushing, pushing, finally crashing. Side A over.
The personality shifts somewhat as they move into “Moustache” — a love song? for a moustache? I haven’t seen lyrics, so I’m going with ‘yes’ with lines like “I miss you so bad,” and so on — and top the seven-minute mark for the first time, some of that additional minute-ish as compared to “Creature” or “Holy Ghost” no doubt due to the trippy outro that bookends with the subdued beginning. The methodology would seem to be ‘hypnotize, punch, hypnotize again’ for “Moustache,” but it’s also got a hook as the guitars wait then don’t to solo, and when it shifts back to the intro part to finish, they just kind of drop everything, which one can appreciate. “Screw it, we’re doing this now.” Right on.
Turn up the volume near the end and you can hear a TV in the penultimate acoustic interlude “Apollo,” which for sure gives a recorded-at-home vibe, whether or not it was. But while the 2:26 purposeful-meander is intended to lead into the direct-to-riff start of “Silver Cloud,” which is a crescendo even before the already-noted big finish. What might be an extra, semi-backward cymbal is worked into the mix after about two minutes in, both adding psychedelic flair and grounding the march for a few measures as a precursor to the classic-style dual soloing that Robots of the Ancient World have been apparently holding in reserve.
That looseness of swing is a misdirect — “Silver Cloud” would come apart were it not so sharply performed — but the 10:49 cut begins its build by going to ground at around four minutes in. Some Doors-y ranting in a sparsely-guitared midsection jam — somewhat ironically it’s the bass that holds it together — carries them through the next stage, and then it’s all-in, all-go, where’s-the-tambourine-oh-good-I-think-it’s-in-there-somewhere until the last strains of keys fade out. In 37 minutes, 3737 has come farther than it might at-first seem, and the level of control and balance in Robots of the Ancient World‘s approach makes difficult moments in songcraft sound easy.
Being their third album overall, one expects a certain level of realization to take place. It’s reasonable to think that nearly five years after their first record, the band collectively has an idea of their sound and what they want their songs to do. If that’s not the case, and the actual-math of 3737 is these dudes rolled out of bed and these jams just magically happened, well, I’m glad someone got it on a hard drive because that’s a pretty special moment right there. But more likely is this material has been worked on and thought through, and in that, the organic nature of its presentation is doubly striking.
“Holy Ghost” premieres on the player below, and more info follows from the PR wire.
Please enjoy:
Portland psychedelic stoner doom outfit ROBOTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD will release their 3737 full-length via Small Stone Recordings on November 17th.
ROBOTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD released their Mystic Goddess full-length in 2021. The high-octane recording offered up a hallucinatory sound excursion through a wide range of styles that kept listeners engaged while never losing focus or sacrificing flow.
Two years later, the band is back and more potent than ever. With the assistance of renowned engineer, Billy Anderson, ROBOTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD delivers a relentless rock ‘n’ roll album spanning thirty-seven minutes and thirty-seven seconds. But the title is more than just the duration of the recording, and the band took notice of the number’s significance. There exists a theory in numerology that guardian angels attempt to communicate through divine numbers – specifically the repetition in numbers, and this one specifically is to remind us that, “magic and manifestation are knocking at your door,” and that, “you are about to attract your inner most desires.” Emerging from the pandemic and coping with the loss of loved ones, heartache, and mental anguish, the band decided to harness this energy and pour it into 3737.
As a result, we are left with an album rich with addictively heavy riffing complemented by pummeling drums, groovy bass lines, and Caleb Weidenbach’s raw and commanding vocals. ROBOTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD intended to deliver something meaningful, not only to the band but to the world. 3737 is the answer.
3737 was written and recorded by the band, mastered by Justin Weis, and comes wrapped in the cover art of Zaiusart.
The record will be released on CD and digital formats via Small Stone Recordings and on limited edition vinyl by Kozmik Artifactz. For preorders, visit THIS LOCATION: https://smallstone.bandcamp.com/album/3737
3737 Track Listing: 1. Hindu Kush 2. Creature 3. Holy Ghost 4. Moustache 5. Apollo 6. Silver Cloud
ROBOTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD: Caleb Weidenbach – vocals Nico Schmutz – guitar Justin Laubscher – guitar Trevor Berecek – bass Harry Silvers – drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on October 17th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
After seeing release on cassette earlier this year through Saturn Eye Records, the debut album from Tennessee cult doom rockers Sign of the Sorcerer, Obsessions of the Vile, has now been given a vinyl issue through Saturn Eye with distribution in Europe through Kozmik Artifactz. Is that news? I think once you click play on “Necropsychodelia” and hear the kind of tone we’re talking about. The PR wire gives it a three-‘f’ alliteration — “fuzzy, filthy and fried” — and with its post-Electric Wizard draw both vocally and in terms of the overarching groove, Sign of the Sorcerer dig into weedian worship with markedly ill intention and, well, if these songs aren’t about killing women, and they don’t seem to be though I haven’t found lyrics, I’m on board.
I’d say follow the bouncing ball on this one, but listening, it’s really more like ‘nod along to the rolling boulder.’ In any case, consider yourself invited to have at it. Stonedest thing you’ll hear today, in all likelihood:
SIGN OF THE SORCERER – Obsessions of the Vile LP
Now on vinyl: ‘Obsessions Of The Vile’ from @sign.of.the.sorcerer is back for more blood. We never announced this format after releasing on cassette back in March, but know some of ya have been waiting patiently even still… well the wait is finally over!
Oh and to celebrate both this release and our favorite time of year (and since we’re literally running out of storage room) everything in the online shop is discounted.
Huge thanks to Kozmik Artifactz for their guidance and distribution. If you’re in Europe, getting your ‘Vile’ fix just got a lot cheaper…
Other PR from Kozmik Artifactz:
Sign Of The Sorcerer’s debut full length album is finally here for the first time on wax! Nobody thought it was possible, but ‘Obsessions Of The Vile’ sounds even more fuzzy, filthy, and absolutely fried on this format.
Saturn Eye Records is thrilled to ruin your trips with their latest… vinyl release!
Originally released earlier in the year on cassette, Sign Of The Sorcerer’s debut full length album is finally here for the first time on wax! Nobody thought it was possible, but ‘Obsessions Of The Vile’ sounds even more fuzzy, filthy, and absolutely fried on this format. Make the choice even Satan would approve of and grab a copy.
TRACKS 1. Necropsychodelia 06:42 2. Satan’s Choice 03:24 3. Black Night 04:27 4. Meth Queen 05:35 5. Nosferatu 06:31
Sign of the Sorcerer: Guitars/Vocals: Sky Brooks Bass: Justin Hembree Percussion: Josh Watts
[Click play above to stream Borracho’s Blurring the Lines of Reality in full. Album is out tomorrow through Kozmik Artifactz.]
Borracho have never been a band with grandiose stylistic ambitions. They didn’t come out of the gate trying to blend math rock and Kyuss-influenced Polka. The mission has always been to play riff rock. They’re a riff rock band. They have riffs, those riffs rock, ergo riff rock. It is an admirable mission, and to-date has produced some righteous riff rock. And if I can add to that? Riff rock.
Blurring the Lines of Reality is the fifth full-length from the Washington D.C.-based trio — who’ve operated for the last decade-plus with the lineup of guitarist/vocalist Steve Fisher, bassist/backing vocalist Tim Martin, and drummer Mario Trubiano; one might argue producer Frank Marchand as a fourth member given how many of their recordings he’s helmed and/or mixed — and it complicates the above narrative from the outset of “Architects of Chaos I,” the first of a three-part side-consuming statement that starts with percussion, chimes, drums, and Eastern-tinged psychedelic fuzz guitar like some of the more recent Monster Magnet forays into grounded lysergics. It it not what somebody who knows the band might expect going in. The band, however, offer reassurance in the first lyrics: “Sit back, relax/We got you covered.”
What unfolds from there solidifies around a verse and chorus with a thoughtful political perspective — it might be summed up as ‘what the fuck?’ — that has been developing over time as an occasional thematic, as with “Holy Roller” from 2021’s Pound of Flesh (review here), “Overload” from 2016’s Atacama (review here), and so on, a punchy bridge and a return to the psych intro to lead fluidly into the gradually unfolding jam of layered guitar and mellow groove that starts the 11-minute “Architects of Chaos II.” The first of two inclusions over 10 minutes — the other is closer “Burning the Goddess” at 13:16 — continues the thread of Borracho finding new territory, as I don’t think they’ve ever sounded so patient on record before.
The build happens as they head toward four and a half minutes and they move into a fervent nod, crashes and a scorching, channel-swapping solo from Fisher that subsequently opens into a groove that would make Sasquatch proud and a first verse which begins past the halfway point of the song — I didn’t even know I gave bonus points for that, but I apparently do — and a continuation of the discourse from the track prior. There’s a riff thrown in around eight and a half minutes deep that’s a standout flash of Sabbathian swing, and from there, they roll it out with signature Borracho roll — the kind of groove you feel like could just go and go and go; it is a specialty of the house in their case — and an answer to that riff at the outset of “Architects II” with the opening of “Architects of Chaos III” and a cleaner, less throaty style of vocal than the band has ever had, echoing and riding that open-crashing progression, striking in the depth of atmosphere built up through the layers of guitar and bass, the steady push of the drums, a bit of throat-singing for good measure.
“Architects of Chaos III” cycles through again, with its twisting verse punctuated by the kick as it turns and seems to rear back and launch forward toward its sharp finish, concluding the first half of the six-song/45-minute album and letting the relatively brief instrumental jam “Loaded” take hold from scratch. An easy swing topped at first with languid lead lines turning to a solo in earnest, “Loaded” serves as a transition from one side of the LP to the next, with “This Great War” rolling from its first measure on a thickened, compressed-sounding riff that snaps on a snare hit to its nodder verse, bringing to mind Wo Fat with some cowbell from Trubiano as Fisher returns to the standard vocal style for the verse and chorus, an instrumental stretch under the solo rich in its fuzz and a welcoming rhythm that smooths back to a reprise of the first verse and a chorus to finish.
Both “This Great War” and “Burning the Goddess,” which follows with its own undulating movement and a deeper, harder shout from Fisher in the chorus, are less directly sociopolitical, but the latter uses its titular metaphor as an examination of human involvement in climate change — “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust/In the blink of an eye it all turns to rust” — and jams out a suitably bluesy solo to match — finishing with a return to the root structure of the song before breaking just before 11 minutes in to paired acoustic and electric guitar strum, the bass and drums kicking in shortly as a bed for a wistful, plotted lead that rides the fadeout into silence, Borracho having taken their methodology and applied it across the longest single track they’ve recorded to-date. Reaching new heights on several levels, then.
Of course, while Borracho are reaching out beyond where their past efforts have taken them, Blurring the Lines of Reality holds fast to much of what has always appealed about the band: the tones, the groove that emerges from their style of riffs, the songs and the sense that, of all the bands one might go see on a given evening, Borracho would be the one whose members most genuinely enjoy each other’s company. More than most acts, the members of Borracho come across as friends, and as locked in as they are here, the chemistry between Martin, Trubiano and Fisher is classic power trio and the band’s own, emergent from their years together and status as a veteran outfit.
But while one will recognize them through these songs and performances, the according truth is that Borracho have pushed the limits of their creative reach with these songs, in a variety of ways, while maintaining the crucial lack of pretense that has always typified their output. I’m not sure I agree with it all the way politically — I’m not sure I don’t — but there is an earnestness of purpose that underlies everything Borracho have done over the last 15 or so years, and fortunately that also shows up in Blurring the Lines of Reality. Not every band is interested in new ideas on their fifth record. That is a thing to be commended, even before you get to the actual accomplishments of the songwriting on display.
Borracho, “Architects of Reality I” official video
