Posted in Whathaveyou on February 9th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
The forthcoming debut full-length from Cesena, Italy’s Desert Collider, titled with the narrative-implying Generation Ship: Endless Drift Through Infinity, will be released March 6 through Small Stone Records (US) and Kozmik Artifactz (EU). For the band, it follows their 2024 EP, Sonic Carver, from which several of the tracks appear here. I’m not sure if they were re-recorded or just repurposed, but it ultimately matters little as the band have built out around them to create the LP. Note mastering by Karl Daniel Lidén, whose involvement in anything on just about any level is bound to make it kick even more ass, and note that if you dig the single “Floating Space Hand” (like in Super Smash Bros.?), you can investigate further at the band’s Bandcamp, while album preorders are up available from either label.
What follows came from the PR wire. Goes like this:
DESERT COLLIDER: Italian Psychedelic Desert Rock Alchemists To Release Debut Full-Length On March 6th Via Small Stone Recordings; New Track Streaming + Preorders Available
DESERT COLLIDER will unveil their debut full-length Generation Ship: Endless Drift Through Infinity on March 6th via Small Stone Recordings.
Drawing inspiration from the hypnotic grooves of the ’90s desert rock scene, the Italian four-piece blends elements of stoner, metal, space rock, and progressive rock with subtle psychedelic undertones to forge an expansive and immersive sound. Echoes of Kyuss, Lowrider, Monster Magnet, and Yawning Man give rise to a compact and determined sound that evolves into a loud stoner style that is at once both raw and sophisticated, balancing monolithic riffs with deep, atmospheric textures and a sense of cosmic storytelling.
After a year of relentless experimentation, DESERT COLLIDER entered Stone Bridge Studios to lay down their debut full-length, Generation Ship: Endless Drift Through Infinity. Produced and mixed by Andrea Cola and mastered by Karl Daniel Lidén (Lowrider, Dozer), the album features eight tracks that revolve around themes of self-loss and rediscovery, a yearning for the primordial, and the inner journey as the sole mission and pathway to redemption. Shifting between heaviness and atmospheric passages, the album adds to the modern psych-stoner rock arrangements with intricate soundscapes through the use of synths and acoustic interludes. Additionally, the album draws conceptual inspiration from the themes and ideas explored by [science fiction novelist] Robert A. Heinlein in “Orphans Of The Sky.”
Comments the band on first single, “Floating Space Hand,” “In ‘Floating Space Hand,’ the music pushes forward with a mid-to-fast pulse, a swirling, fuzzy propulsion hurtling through cosmic dust and starlit voids. A token is given to the cosmic void. It becomes a quiet emblem of what ambition takes from the inner self, adrift in the void, uncertain if it will ever return. Even if reaching for the stars, fragments linger in the void, a haunting reminder that to soar is to sacrifice, and to dream is to wonder if what is scattered can ever find its way home.”
DESERT COLLIDER’s Generation Ship: Endless Drift Through Infinity features additional strings and string arrangements on “ThumpeRRR” and “Far Centaurus: Drifting Without Guidance Through Interstellar Space” by Andrea Cola, artwork and design by Francesca Santini, and layout by Alexander von Wieding. The record will be released on CD and digital formats as well as limited 180g vinyl (200 units on Amber Sandstorm).
Generation Ship: Endless Drift Through Infinity CD/Digital Track Listing: 1. Orphans Of The Sky Part I: Generation Ship 2. Floating Space Hand 3. Sonic Carver 4. Orphans Of The Sky Part II: Disembark 5. Thumperrr 6. Nomads Of The Red Sun 7. Far Centaurus Drifting Without Guidance Through Interstellar Space 8. Nebuchadnezzar
Generation Ship: Endless Drift Through Infinity Vinyl Track Listing: Side 1: 1. Orphans Of The Sky Part I: Generation Ship 2. Floating Space Hand 3. Sonic Carver 4. Nomads Of The Red Sun Side 2: 5. Orphans Of The Sky Part II: Disembark 6. ThumpeRRR 7. Nebuchadnezzar
Posted in Reviews on October 6th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Day two. Normally this is time for hubristic gibberish about how easy the QR will be, the overconfidence of one whose trees rarely appear as forests. But we persist anyhow, and today looks pretty good from where I’m sitting now, so despite the ‘Day 2 on a Monday’ weirdness, which I’m pretty sure makes no one other than myself even raise an eyebrow, things are rolling and one hopes will continue to be fluid. I wouldn’t say Day 1 came together easily, since it took me like two and a half days to get done, but neither was out unpleasant. Hoping for more of the same here, plus efficiency.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
Queens of the Stone Age, Alive in the Catacombs
Something of an identity crisis in Queens of the Stone Age perhaps that sees the long-running highest commercial export of desert rock shift from the cloying pop of their last two albums to a comparatively stripped down live recording in — you guessed it — catacombs, where apparently the acoustics are pretty sweet. Anybody remember when Tenacious D went into ‘the cave’ on the Tribute EP? No? Didn’t think so. Frontman Josh Homme, who carries the minimal arrangements on vocals largely with ease, and his ever-ace band filmed the whole thing; it’s all sepia, all very artsy, and they do “Kalopsia” and dip back 20 years to finish with “I Never Came” after “Suture Up Your Future,” which is the second inclusion by then from 2007’s Era Vulgaris. All told it’s five songs and 27 minutes, and whether you hear it as a cringe hyperindulgence of unaware self-parody or as an expression of human artistry in organic form surrounded by memento mori probably depends on how deep you run with the band. But they’re not hurting anybody either way.
Between recording and then remixing/remastering their 2021 debut Primeval Transmissions (review here) and signing to Argonauta Records, Portland meditative duo Breath, comprised of Ian Caton and Steven O’Kelly, expanded the lineup with Lauren Hatch on keys and their second album, Brahman, brings Rob Wrong (Witch Mountain) into the fold on guitar as well as helming the recording. The sense across the eight songs/42 minutes is still of exploring the reaches of consciousness, very post-Om in the foundational basslines and dry vocals, but having Wrong rip out a solo in each break of “Awen” sure doesn’t hurt, and hearing the full band come together around the culmination of “Hy-Brasil,” keys, guitar, bass, drums all-in tonally, is emblematic of their expanding horizons. As for those, “Sages” pushes toward its own vision of psych rock in conversation with the opener, and “Cedars of Lebanon” demonstrates malleability and balance that one hopes portend more to come as the band continues to grow and gel.
Johan Langquist The Castle, Johan Langquist The Castle
Kind of an awkward moniker grammatically for the solo-band fronted by original/once-again/maybe-erstwhile Candlemass vocalist Johan Langquist. Is it possessive? Is he The Castle? I don’t quite understand, but from the operatic complement of Emelie Lindquist‘s backing vocals on opener “Eye of Death” through the litany of compiled singles Johan Langquist The Castle dropped over the course of 2024, there’s no mistaking the classic nature of the doom. “Castle of My Dreams” flows keyboardier on balance, while “Where Are the Heroes” gives riffers shelter in its chug, while “Raw Energy” and “Revolution” toy with the balance between the two sides, with “Freedom” as a classic-metal epic and “Bird of Sadness” as the comedown epilogue. Langquist, absent decades between fronting the first Candlemass LP in 1986 and rejoining the band circa 2011, would seem to be making up for lost time, and the ideas he’s exploring here warrant the investigation. I’m curious where this leads, which I think I’m supposed to be, so right on.
From Joshua Tree, California, Maliciouz is the solo-outfit of Michael Muckow, who handles guitar, bass and drums for the molasses-thick instrumentalist proceedings. Tortoise arrives beating you over the head with its tone and metaphor alike; eight songs and 58 minutes of lumbering density wrought with dug-in purpose, harnessing heaviness-of-place as riffs and often melancholic drone metal crash. It’s an art project, but without pretense of being anything other than it is, and Muckow — who makes a point of noting his age (67) in the press material — composes for flow and immersion as each slow march gives way to the next, culminating in the semi-acoustic “The End,” which is no less on-the-nose than calling the album Tortoise to start with. No grand reflections, no sweeping statement. Tortoise lets the riffs do the talking and they say plenty about the grit and expanse Muckow is trying to conjure. Be careful out there. He makes it easy to get lost.
The former co-guitarist/vocalist of Neurosis has come a long way since his guy-and-guitar beginnings as a solo artist, and Alone in a World of Wounds reaps the textural fruit of Steve Von Till‘s willful artistic progression in a piece like the leadoff “The Corpse Road” or “Distance,” which caps side A fluidly with the only use of drums on the record, reminiscent of The Keening‘s awareness of sonic weight and atmospheric sidestep. The cello, synth and field recordings build out what would be minimalist arrangements without them and remain early-morning quiet, the piano on the spoken-word-topped “The Dawning of the Day (Insomnia)” and flirtations with lushness on “Horizons Undone” softly shaping the album’s world with the electronics of “Old Bent Pine” ahead of the guitar-based “River of No Return,” which closes with what feels like an updated take on Von Till‘s earlier woodsfolk craft, reminding that ‘heavy’ is just as much existential as it is aural.
Solitude Over Control is as much a confrontation as an album, and that’s very clearly the intention behind Glasgow’s Mrs Frighthouse for their Lay Bare-issued debut LP, Solitude Over Control. Its 11 songs foster a bleak gamut of industrial sounds, portraying dark and inflicted sexual violence as part of the band’s expression. Slaying rapists, then, and fair enough. Intertwining layers of vocals and experimentalist pieces like “Seagulls (Part 1)” give an avant-garde air to the crush of “DIY Exorcism” and the lurching, abrasive finish of “White Plaster Roses,” soprano vocals and electronic noise externalizing the unsettled in a way that can only really be thought of as ‘extreme’ in a musical sense. “My body has never been mine,” confess the lyrics of “Our Culture Without Autonomy” with horror-style keyboard behind them; there’s a show being put on here, but it’s visceral just the same, and the later “My Body is a Crime Scene” turns the accusation direct: “My body is a crime scene/He did this to me/My body is a crime scene/You did this to me” in a moment that lands powerfully unless you’re a fucking sociopath.
A joint release between Majestic Mountain and Copper Feast Records, Eroded Forms/Inertia presents as a double-EP split release between Melbourne, Australia, melodic heavy post-metallic rockers Droid, who dare toward aggression on “Reverence” and the sludgier shouts of “Ruin” after leading off with “Khaki” without giving away the plot such that the blastbeats of “Resonance” still hit as a surprise, and Sweden’s I Am Low, who answer the fullness of tone with careening on “Sweet M16” before the grunge melody of “Greed” makes that song a highlight, “Waves” flows with less emotional baggage and a subtle hook, and “Inertia” wraps as a landing point with duly vibrant crash. Grunge and a hairy kind of fuzz are shared between the bands, but each has their own purpose. I don’t know if it’s a release of convenience to make it a split, but it makes for an engaging showcase, and if you’ve never come across either of them, the best arguments for digging in are right there in the songs.
Portland five-piece doomly flamekeepers Tar Pit begin their second full-length (on Transylvanian) with the 10-minute three-parter “Dagon, Dark Lord Dwelling Beneath,” the longest inclusion (immediate points) at 10:15 and bookended with the title-cut at the record’s end. Between, from the more rocking aspects of “Coven Vespers” to the downtrodden roll of “Blessed King of Longing,” the five-piece remind of doom at the turn of the century, when ‘traditionalism’ in doom metal was something of a defiance against modernity instead of an aesthetic unto itself. More than 20 years, The Gates of Slumber, Reverend Bizarre, and what was then the Church of True Doom would seem to have evolved into Tar Pit‘s Eldritch Doom Syndicate, and that’s nothing to complain about as “Blue Light Cemetery” accounts for Candlemass and Cathedral after the dim-blues of “Jubilee” secures the band’s place in the heavy morose. If you were just getting into doom, this kind of thing might make you want to start a band, and yes, that’s a compliment.
Dirt-coated riffing leads the way on GRGL‘s Horror-Bloated Ouroboros six-song EP, as Jake‘s guitar, Hal‘s bass and Nick‘s drumming in the first-names-only Salt Lake City trio align around a chug in the opening “Horror-Bloated Ouroboros (An Overview),” that, despite the dry-throated barks that top it, remains among the more accessible moments of the churning sludge-doom outfit’s 23-minute outing. To wit, “Born Again” and the even more gurgley (hey wait a minute!) “My Skeleton” takes roughly the same elemental formula and slows it the frick down, thereby becoming immediately more tortured. The overarching impression is unipolar — raw, heavy, miserable — and the vocals are part of that, but the dynamic between those first two songs is answered for in the uptick of pace that arrives with “My Pie Hole” and the angularity of the shorter instrumental “Absorption/Secretion,” while the plodding reprise “Born Again (Again)” closes so as to make sure everybody ultimately gets where they need to be, i.e., hammered into the ground. Eat dust shit sludge. Hard to get away from thinking of this as the true sound of our times. Maybe it’s the title.
It’s a clear and classic style across Grusom‘s aptly-titled third album, III, which arrives some seven years after they were last heard from with 2018’s II (review here), the band who’ve become a low-key staple of the Kozmik Artifactz roster demonstrating in no uncertain terms what’s gotten them there. Vintage-heavy heads will find plenty to dig in the organ-laced flow of “Shadow Crawler,” “Hell Maker,” the later “Fatal Romance” and the more open finale “Mortal Desire,” and while “Le Voyage” has many of the same aspects at work, it shows the Danish six-piece as flexible enough in their approach to convey a range of emotions, ditto the wistful Graveyard-y “Memories” and the interlude “Euphoria,” making sure that among the places III might take a given listener, there’s nothing to remove them from the procession carried along by the band.
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 9th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
I’ll readily admit it’s been a while since I last checked in with Russian heavy psych explorers The Re-Stoned, enough so that their new album, fully-titled Dreams From the Outside – Stories of the Astral Lizard Vol. 3, is my first encounter with the saga in-progress. This ain’t Pokemon and you can’t catch ’em all, but in their R.A.I.G.-label days, llya Lipkin and company were consistently on the cutting edge of heavy psych-prog, and their outwardly-directed verve seems to have stayed with them for the duration.
To wit, the released-as-a-single-earlier-this-year “The Loom,” which you can stream at the bottom of this post. All the more cause to be glad to be reintroduced. There’s mellow fluidity and directed jamminess, a core chug and expansion therearound. It is contemplative in an expanse, and if you worry that, oh hey, this is part-three of a story and you’re just stepping in, the band are instrumental. If you have ears and can groove, you’ll be able to keep up.
The PR wire brought the following:
The Re-Stoned – The Astral Lizard Saga Continues with Their Twelfth Album
“Dreams From The Outside – Stories Of The Astral Lizard Vol. 3” is the twelfth studio album by The Re-Stoned, continuing the saga of “Stories Of The Astral Lizard”.
Out October 17th (Vinyl+CD, Digital)
This time, the band pushed further by blending electroacoustic experiments with their signature electric sound, slightly less heavy yet retaining its power. The album unveils new psychedelic landscapes, cosmic jams, powerful riffs, and cryptic revelations from the Astral Ally.
The recording process took a year and a half: from a bold initial idea to its final realization. Some tracks existed as demos for years, while others emerged spontaneously during improvisational sessions. It was a fascinating journey: searching for fresh textures, unexpected collaborations, and moments of pure creative inspiration.
THE RE-STONED is an instrumental power trio, which is generally considered by many as a ‘psychedelic stoner rock’ underground act because of the band’s remarkable heavily fuzzed guitar sound, that is empowered by confident old-school muscular riffing with strong psychedelic vibes.
The band was founded in 2008 by Ilya Lipkin, a composer and a guitarist. Since 2021, he has been an ambassador of Orange Amplification.
‘It was sort of a deliberate Re-turn of myself to the music I’d always loved to play and listen to’ – that’s how Ilya clarified his motives behind starting the band, which quickly became rather well-known worldwide and noted by many listeners with various music tastes.
Since the sound of The Re-Stoned was initially inspired by hard rock classics without any strong style bias, the band could soon acquire sincere attention of many classic rock, acid folk, psychedelic rock, traditional doom, stoner enthusiasts and many of those, who just sympathized with the old-school-revivalist’s spirit of The Re-Stoned.
A strictly limited vinyl edition of only 300 copies is available on multicolour splattered wax and includes a CD version of the full 12 track album! Details here:https://kozmik-shop.com/search/?qs=re-stoned
Tracklist (CD & digital): 1 Sleeping on the Emerald Throne 2 Lotos 3 Spiral Jam 4 Saikhshya Sakhyash 5 Elliptic Flowers * 6 The Loom 7 Ostara 8 Stellar Kaleidoskope * 9 Bad Stone 10 Myth * 11 Prizmatic Snowflake 12 Lizard Footprint #2 *
* these tracks are not available on the vinyl record, but all vinyl copies include a CD version of the full 12 track album!
THE RE-STONED are: llya Lipkin – guitars, effects Vladimir Kislyakov – bass Eugeniy Kudryashov – drum
Heavy psych rockers Madmess release their new LP, The Third Coming, on May 9, through an international consortium of independent labels including gig.Rocks! in their native Portugal, Kozmik Artifactz throughout Germany and the rest of Europe, and Glory or Death Records, based in the US. Their bases thusly covered, the Porto three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Ricardo Sampaio, bassist Vasco Vasconcelos and drummer Pedro Cruz are free to explore and refine their partially-instrumental crux, taking and adapting what came together on 2021’s Rebirth (review here) and their prior 2019 self-titled debut to retain its spaciousness and partially-improvised spirit while at the same time taking on a more direct delivery.
What on earth does that mean? For one thing, the longest song on The Third Coming, “Widowmaker” (7:17), is roughly equal in runtime to the two shortest cuts on Rebirth, which was filled out otherwise by three nine-minute jaunts. But fear not. The Third Coming retains its jammy sensibility, and if it’s expanse you seek, “Widowmaker” picks up from the wah-fuzz burner opening given through “Death by Astonishment,” and begins a stretch through “Velvet Nebula” — second best song title I’ve seen in the last 12 months — and the album’s most hypnotic, immersive unfolding, “Endless Cycles,” that should tick any quota you’ve got for ‘getweird.’ And if not, the motorik pulse behind closer “Sauerkraut” still manages to speak to classic space rock trance-induction while not actually taking up any more than three and a half minutes of Earth time. This kind of efficiency is usually a showcase in itself. For Madmess, the focus is so much more on the impression the music makes than the intent behind it. That is, they’re not showing off or simply indulging in craft. They made the record for you, the listener.
Actually, “Death by Astonishment” reinforces that idea well, while “Endless Cycles” contrasts those grounded aspects at the start of the vinyl’s side B. This comes ahead of the exclamatory “Burnt!,” the second half which precedes the proto-metallic shove of “Hazy Morning” with a particularly resonant shimmer in Sampaio‘s guitar and the roll and pull and tonal wobble that hits a serene moment in the heavy psych tradition. Earthless are a factor in that, and in some of the grit of “Hazy Morning,” one can hear aspects of the ’70s-minded riffage that took hold in San Diego circa 2015-2020, in no small part inspired by the aforementioned. In such a way, The Third Coming is fluid in its movement without being static in terms of style, and it doesn’t ultimately end up anywhere one would come close to calling lost. Indeed, “Hazy Morning” and “Sauerkraut,” paired at the end as they are, only seem to herald further stylistic adventures to follow. Or at least that’s the hope in hearing it.
Whatever instigated this readjustment of balances in Madmess‘ sound to bring about songs that can be shorter and more direct, it feels like a realization on the part of the band as The Third Coming plays less to genre while remaining organically aligned to it. To say the very minimum, it is a record that understands, appreciates and makes solid use of its creative freedom, and if you heard either of their first two and thought the band had potential, these songs both answer that and leave the same impression afterward. Madmess continue to sound like they’re just getting started, and that vibrancy is becoming a key part of what they have to offer.
Album streams in full below, followed by more from the PR wire, including live dates announced the other day.
Please enjoy.
Always dynamic, always electrifying, and as powerful as ever, Portuguese powerhouse trio Madmess is gearing up to release their latest LP, “The Third Coming,” on May 9th via Glory or Death (USA), Kozmik Artifactz (EU), and gig.ROCKS! (PT).
Once a well-kept secret in Europe’s psychedelic music scene, their anonymity may soon fade. The single “Velvet Nebula,” the first preview of Madmess’ forthcoming third album, offered a taste of what’s ahead, following a year filled with touring highlights, including performances at Krach am Bach (Germany), ArcTanGent (UK), Freak Valley Xmas (DE), and Sonic Blast (PT).
Previously under the radar but with a devoted fanbase eagerly awaiting new songs, the album leans into a more classic sound, merging Bonham-inspired drumming with contemporary psychedelic melodies across seven mesmerizing tracks. These riffs are destined for live stages across Europe and beyond, where they truly come alive.
Announcing our next run of shows presenting “The Third Coming” in Europe, with dates in Portugal, Spain & France 💫
10.05 – Socorro, Porto 🇵🇹 20.05 – Wurlitzer, Madrid 🇪🇸 21.05 – El Bunker, Alicante 🇪🇸 23.05 – Sideral Fest, Capbreton 🇫🇷 24.05 – La grange Baffignac, Castres 🇫🇷 27.05 – La Ley Seca, Zaragoza 🇪🇸 28.05 – Dio Bar, Barcelona 🇪🇸 29.05 – La Rayuela, Miranda de Ebro 🇪🇸 30.05 – Rock dos Romanos, Coimbra 🇵🇹
Recorded at Hertzcontrol Studio by Marco Lima in Caminha, Portugal Produced/Mixed by Marco Lima Mastered by Alvaro Galego Artwork by Lory Cervi
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 28th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
The upcoming Volume tour in support of the band’s 2024 return EP, Joy of Navigation, will take off in less than a month’s time. I don’t know when the last time the California-based band hit the Eastern Seaboard, but from Boston down through Baltimore — not total coverage, but not nothing — they’ll swing all the way out before looping back west to finish, suitably enough, in the desert.
It’s a substantial tour, and you’ll note there’s 17 shows listed and I don’t see a day off among them. One would not accuse Volume of going easy on themselves as they make ready to head out, but sometimes that’s part of the idea. You’ll find the dates and such for the tour below, courtesy of the PR wire:
VOLUME announce full US tour starting in May
29 Palms, CA Desert/Stoner Rock supergroup led by Patrick Brink (Fu Manchu), Ed Mundell (Monster Magnet), Mike Amster (Nebula, Spoon Benders), Dave Catching
Twentynine Palms, CA band VOLUME announce full US tour dates today supporting their new album Joy of Navigation (A Trip Through the Eternal Unknown). Please see all dates below.
Joy of Navigation (A Trip Through the Eternal Unknown) is available for download/streaming, released on November 1st, 2024 via Golden Robot Recordings, and on LP via Kozmik Artifactz. Order HERE:https://album.link/Volume-JoyofNavigation
VOLUME LIVE 2025: 05/16 Las Vegas, NV – Dive Bar 05/17 Salt Lake City, UT – DLC 05/18 Denver, CO – The Crypt 05/19 Kansas City, KS – Mini Bar 05/20 Des Moines, IA – Lefty’s 05/21 Chicago, IL – Reggies 05/22 Detroit, MI – the Sanctuary 05/23 Lakewood, OH – 5 O’Clock Lounge 05/24 New York, NY – Lucky 13 05/25 Boston, MA – Mid East Upstairs 05/26 Philadelphia, PA – Animated Brewing 05/27 Baltimore, MD – the Metro 05/28 Louisville, KY – Mag Bar 05/29 St Louis, MO – Red Flag 05/30 Tulsa, OK – Whittier Bar 05/31 Albuquerque, NM – Echoes 06/01 Phoenix, AZ – Yucca Tap Room
Posted in Reviews on April 24th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
[Click play below to stream Dead Shrine’s Cydonia Mensa in full. Album is out tomorrow through Kozmik Artifactz and can be ordered here: https://kozmik-shop.com/search/?qs=dead+shrine.]
Prolific songwriter Craig Williamson offers Cydonia Mensa as the second full-length from the heavy-swinging, psych-rocking Dead Shrine, his third solo-project. It follows behind the project’s 2023 debut, The Eightfold Path (review here), and the 2024 collaboration Lamp of the Universe Meets Dr. Space (review here), for which the Hamilton, New Zealand-based composer, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist donned his long-running acid-folk band persona shortly after reissuing the debut album from his turn-of-the-century-era heavy rock outfit, Datura, on Ripple Music. One could go further back — Lamp of the Universe‘s second LP has a reissue out on Sound Effect Records, and that project’s last album, Kaleidoscope Mind (review here), came out later in 2023 after The Eightfold Path — but to place Cydonia Mensa in Williamson‘s oeuvre, it’s not difficult to hear the love of heavy psychedelic forms driving the material.
That is to say, Williamson sounds like he’s having a blast across the eight songs and 42 minutes that comprise the album. Despite the full-band sound, the committed DIYer is able to hone a sense of intimacy in the penultimate “Evolution Garden” that harkens back to earlier Lamp-style acoustic-based fare while also reinterpreting at its root the strum from Alice in Chains‘ “Rooster.” That’s a dig-in unto itself on the album, but by no means does it take that long for the fun to make itself known.
The opening cut, “Serpents of the Sun” is a hooky blowout that introduces itself with a crash-in and almost immediate movement into the verse. Big swing, big tones, and plenty of space in the mix for all of it. It’s a rocker and he knows it and there’s more to come. Some bawdiness in the vocals, a little burl tossed in, perhaps, adds to the song’s encouraging push, and soon, “Cydonia Mensa” picks up with its lower-ended, slower roll, with choice backing vocals and time kept on the bell of the ride.
It’s a sleek, grooving classic stoner boogie, and it speaks to genre in a way that Williamson‘s last outwardly heavy-rocking project, the trio Arc of Ascent, wasn’t necessarily willing to do. And where Lamp of the Universe explores spiritual ideas through music drawing from folk traditions, space experimentalism, melted-cortex psych, and so on, Dead Shrine expresses itself in the motion of its riff worship.
I’ll say as well I can’t remember the last time I heard a drummer have as much fun as Williamson sounds like he’s having wailing on his snare coming out of the first verse of “Sacred Light.” It’s a short stretch on the cowbell-infused third cut, from a couple seconds before it hits the one-minute mark until about 1:10 when the next verse starts, but that pop-pop-pop surrounded by the crashing of cymbals and the kick beneath, to me, is exactly what Dead Shrine is all about in terms of Williamson‘s raw enjoyment.
The end-product is different enough to be a different band, but the joy of exploration is the same. It’s there in “Sacred Light,” as well as in the “Yeah, baby!” of the title-cut, the way “Monuments” subtly brings in sitar drone and a synthier psychedelia — it might be mellotron behind the more forward instrumentation of the mix, but if not, it’s some other kind of vintage whathaveyou leading into the appropriately wah-drenched solo — expanding the relatively straight-ahead scope up to that point ahead of pushing further out on side B, swaggering in “Temple of Saturn” with a shove in the chorus rawer vocal.
The vocals feel like a standout. Not so much because they’re radically changed from what Williamson has done before in Dead Shrine or Arc of Ascent or even latter-day Lamp of the Universe, but as someone constantly redrawing the lines and adjusting the balances between the various intentions of his craft, the vocal performance here is striking in its confidence, and while he’s long since been able in the studio to do the work of a complete band one layer at a time and mix it together to get a players-in-room feel, I don’t know if Williamson has ever sounded as much like a frontman as he does on Cydonia Mensa.
Returning in “Redeemer,” the backing vocals of the title-track highlight just how forward the leads are and how much of Cydonia Mensa‘s personality derives from the attitude on display and the strut that coincides with the rampant swing in these songs. For that alone, the impression is that Williamson has figured out something about what he wants Dead Shrine to be in terms of method, and while it’s ultimately well within the reach of his songwriting as demonstrated up to this point — that is, he’s not taking on an entirely new stylistic approach to writing heavy music — it’s emblematic of what drives him that after more than a quarter-century of banging away at various ideas and projects and directions, he’s able to create a piece like the near-eight-minute capper “Illumination Through Knowledge,” which makes a point of uniting all the sides for one final outbound march into the noise and hand-percussion that ends the album.
In the interest of honesty, you should know that I approach this second Dead Shrine album as a fan, but given the reception of the debut, I don’t think I’m alone in that. The fact that Williamson is still exploring and still finding new ways to write and arrange songs that are both fresh and so distinctively his own underscores in my mind his singular contributions to the heavy underground, and the resonant joy of some of Cydonia Mensa‘s heaviest moments — I’m not taking away from “Evolution Garden” there; the penultimate track is essential to the flow for side B and putting the listener in the proper headspace for the closer — adds a feeling of serenity that not even the most blissed-out effects could hope to hone. Whether you’ve followed Dead Shrine since its inception or you’ve never heard of Williamson, this or any of his other projects, it doesn’t matter. The album will still grab you if you let it. I advise you do.
Posted in Reviews on October 15th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
I’ll be honest, I don’t even want to talk about how well this Quarterly Review is going because I worry about screwing it up. It’s always a lot of work to round up 10 records per day, even if there’s a single or and EP snuck in there, but it’s been a long time now that I’ve been doing things this way — sometimes as a means of keeping up, sometimes to herald things to come, usually just a way to write about things I want to write about regardless of timeliness — and it’s always worth it. I’ve had a couple genuinely easy days here. Easier than expected. Obviously that’s a win.
So while I wait for the other shoe to drop, let’s keep the momentum going.
Quarterly Review #61-70:
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Massive Hassle, Unreal Damage
Brotherly two-piece Massive Hassle, comprised of brothers Bill Fisher and Marty Fisher — who played together in Mammothwing and now both feature in Church of the Cosmic Skull — get down with another incredibly complex set of harmonized ’70s-style soul-groovers, nailing it as regards tone and tempo from the big riff that eats “Lost in the Changes” to the strums and croons early in the penultimate “Tenspot,” hitting a high note together in that song that gives over to stark and wistful standalone guitar meander that with barely a minute ago gorgeously becomes a bittersweet triumph of nostalgic fuzz reminiscent of Colour Haze‘s “Fire” and having the sheer unmitigated gall to tell the world around them it’s no big deal by naming the band Massive Hassle and stating that as the thing they most want to avoid. When they did Number One (review here) in 2023, it felt like they were proving the concept. With Unreal Damage, they’re quietly pushing limits.
Iress are the Los Angeles-based four-piece of Michelle Malley (vocals), Michael Maldonado (bass), Glenn Chu (drums) and Graham Walker (guitar). Sleep Now, In Reverse is their fourth full-length in nearly 15 years of existence. As a record, it accomplishes a lot of things, but what you need to understand is that where it most succeeds and stands itself out is in bringing together a heavy post-rock sound — heavygaze, as the kids don’t say because they don’t know what it is — with emotive expression on vocals, a blending of ethereal and the most human and affecting, and when Malley lets loose in the payoff of “Mercy,” it’s an early highlight with plenty more to follow. It’s not that Iress are reinventing genre — evolving, maybe? — but what they’re doing with it is an ideal unto itself, taking those aspects from across an aesthetic range and incorporating them into a whole, at times defiantly cohesive sound, lush but clearheaded front to back.
When the band put the shimmying “Apocalypse Babes” up as a standalone single last year, it was some five years after their debut full-length, 2018’s Mindtripper (review here) — though there was a split between — so not an insignificant amount of time for Norway’s Magmakammer to expand on their methods and dig into the songs. To be sure, “Doom Jive” and “Zimbardo” still have that big-hook, Uncle Acid-style dirty garage buzz that lends itself so well to cultish themes but thankfully here is about more than murder. And indeed, the band seems to have branched out a bit, and the eight-song/43-minute Before I Burn is well served by divergences like the closing “I Will Guide Your Hand” or the way “Cult of Misanthropy” sounds like a studio outtake on a bootleg from 1969 until they kick it open around a build of marching guitar, even as it stays loyal to Magmakammer‘s core stylistic purposes. A welcome return.
The kind of sludge rock Ohio’s Evel play, informed by Mondo Generator‘s druggy, volatile heavy punk and C.O.C.‘s Southern metal nod, maybe a bit of High on Fire in “Alaska,” with a particularly Midwestern disappointment-in-everything that would’ve gone over well at Emissions From the Monolith circa 2003, isn’t what’s trendy. It’s not the cool thing. It doesn’t care about that, or about this review, or about providing social media content to maximize its algorithmic exposure. I’m not knocking any of that — especially the review, which is going swimmingly; I promise a point is coming — but if Evel‘s six-songer debut EP, Omen, is a foretell of things to come, the intention behind it is more about the catharsis of the writing/performance than trying to play to ‘scene’-type expectations. It is a pissed-off fuckall around which the band — which features guitarist/vocalist Alex Perekrest, also of Red Giant — will continue to build as “Dust Angel” and the swinging “Dawn Patrol” already find them doing. The going will likely be noisy, and that’s just fine.
Some six years and one reunion after their fourth album, 2018’s The Lucky Ones (review here), Virginia-born classic heavy barnburners Satan’s Satyrs are back with a fifth collection beating around riffs from Sabbath and the primordial ooze of heavy that birthed them, duly brash and infectious in their energy. Founding bassist/vocalist Clayton Burgess and guitarist Jarrett Nettnin are joined in the new incarnation of the band by guitarist Morgan McDaniel (also Mirror Queen) and drummer Russ Yusuf — though Sean Saley has been with them for recent live shows — and as they strut and swing through “Saltair Burns” like Pentagram if they’d known how to play jazz but were still doom, or the buzzy demo-style experimentation of “Genuine Turquoise,” which I’m just going to guess came together differently than was first expected. So much the better. They’ve never been hugely innovative, but Satan’s Satyrs have consistently delivered at this point across a span of more than a decade and they have their own spin on the style. They may always be a live band, but at least in my mind, there’s not much more one would ask that After Dark doesn’t deliver.
Delivered through Kozmik Artifactz, Weight in Gold is the second long-player from Melbourne, Australia’s Whoopie Cat, and it meets the listener at the intersection of classic, ’70s-style heavy blues rock and prog. Making dynamic use of a dual-vocal approach in “Pretty Baby” after establishing tone, presence and craft as assets with the seven-minute opening title-track, the band are unflinchingly modern in production even as they lean toward vintage-style song construction, and that meld of intention results in an organic sound that’s not restricted by the recording. Plus it’s louder, which doesn’t hurt most of the time. In any case, as Whoopie Cat follow-up their 2018 debut, Illusion of Choice, they do so with distinction and the ability to convey a firm grasp on their songwriting and convey a depth of intention from the what-if-Queen-but-blues “Icarus” or the consuming Hammondery of closer “Oh My Love.” Listening, I can’t help but wonder how far into prog they might ultimately go, but they’ve found a sweetspot in these songs that’s between styles, and they fit right in it.
Cheeky, heavy garage punk surely will not be enough to save the immortal souls of Earth Tongue from all their devil worship and intricate vocal patterning. And honestly the New Zealand two-piece — I could’ve sworn I saw something about them moving to Germany, but maybe they just had a really good Berlin show? — sound fine with that. Guitarist Gussie Larkin and drummer Ezra Simons benefit from the straightforward outward nature of their songs. That is, “Out of This Hell,” “The Mirror,” “Bodies Dissolve Tonight!” and any of the other nine inclusions on the record that either were or could’ve been singles, are catchy and tightly written. They’re not overplayed or underplayed, and they have enough tonal force in Larkin‘s guitar that the harder churn of closer “The Reluctant Host” can leave its own impression and still feel fluid alongside some of Great Haunting‘s sweeter psych-punk. Wherever they live, the two-piece make toys out of pop and praise music so that even “Miraculous Death” sounds like, and is, fun.
The collection House of Pain (Demos) takes its title from the place where guitarist/vocalist Tomas Iramain recorded them alongside bassist Matias Maltratador and drummer Jorge Iramain, though whether it’s a studio, rehearsal space, or an actual house, I won’t profess to know. Tomas is the lone remaining member carried over from the band’s 2020 self-titled LP, and the other part of what you need to know about House of Pain (Demos) can also be found in the title: it’s demos. Do not expect a studio sound full of flourish and nuance. Reportedly most of the songs were tracked with two Shure SM57s (the standard vocal mic), save for “Nomad” and “The Way I Am,” I guess because one broke? The point is, as raw as they are — and they are raw — these demos want nothing for appeal. The bounce in the bonus-track-type “Mountain (Take 1)” feels like a Dead Meadowy saunter, and for all of its one-mic-ness, “Nomad” gives a twist on ’50s and early ’60s guitar instrumentals that’s only bolstered by the recording. I’m not saying Las Historias should press up 10,000 LPs immediately or anything, but if this was the record, or maybe an EP and positioned as more substantial than the demos, aside from a couple repeated tracks, you could do far worse. “Hell Bird” howls, man. Twice over.
Certainly “Come With Me” and others on Aquanaut‘s self-titled debut have their desert rocking aspects, but there’s at least as much The Sword as Kyuss in what the Trondheim, Norway, newcomers unfurl on their self-titled, self-released debut, and when you can careen like in “Gamma Rays,” maybe sometimes you don’t need anything else. The seven-track/35-minute outing gets off to a bluesy, boozy start with “Lenéa,” and from there, Aquanaut are able to hone an approach that has its sludgier side in some of the Eyehategod bark of “Morality” but that comes to push increasingly far out as it plays through, so that “Living Memories” soars as the finale after the mid-tempo fuzzmaking of “Ivory,” and so Aquanaut seem to have a nascent breadth working for them in addition to the vigor of a young band shaping a collective persona. The generational turnover in Norway is prevalent right now with a number of promising debuts and breakouts in the last couple years. Aquanaut have a traditionalism at their core but feel like they want to break it as much as celebrate it, and if you’re the type to look for ‘bands to watch,’ that’s a reason to watch. Or even listen, if you’re feeling especially risk-friendly.
While I would be glad to be writing about Ghost Frog‘s quirky heavy-Weezerism and psychedelic chicanery even if their third album, Galactic Mini Golf didn’t have a song called “Deep Space Nine Iron” on it, I can’t lie and say that doesn’t make the prospect a little sweeter. It’s an interlude and I don’t even care — they made it and it’s real. The Portland, Oregon, four-piece of guitarist/vocalist Quinn Schwartz, guitarist/synthesist Karl Beheim, bassist Archie Heald and drummer Vincent LiRocchi (the latter making his first appearance) keep somewhat to a golfy theme, find another layer’s worth of heavy on “Shadow Club,” declare themselves weird before you even press play and reinforce the claim in both righteous post-grunge roll of “Burden of Proof” and the new wave rock of “Bubble Guns” before the big ol’ stompy riff in “Black Hole in One’ leads to a purposeful whole-album finish. Some things don’t have to make the regular kind of sense, because they make their own kind. Absurd as the revelry gets, Ghost Frog make their own kind of sense. Maybe you’ll find it’s also your kind of sense and that’s how we learn things about ourselves from art. Have a great rest of your day.
Posted in Reviews on October 11th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
I got a note from the contact form a bit ago in my email, which happens enough that it’s not really news, except that it wasn’t addressed to me. That happens sometimes too. A band has a form letter they send out with info — it’s not the most personal touch, but has a purpose and doesn’t preclude following-up individually — or just wants to say the same thing to however many outlets. Fair game. This was specifically addressed to somebody else. And it kind of ends with the band saying to send a donation link, like, “Wink wink we donate and you post our stuff.”
Well shit. You mean I coulda been making fat stacks off these stoner bands all the while? Living in my dream house with C.O.C. on the outdoor speakers just by exploiting a couple acts trying to get their riffs heard? Well I’ll be damned. Yeah man, here’s my donation link. Daddy needs a new pair of orthopedic flip-flops. I’ma never pay taxes again.
Life, sometimes.
Quarterly Review #41-50:
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Alunah, Fever Dream
The seventh full-length from UK outfit Alunah, Fever Dream, will be immediately noteworthy for being the band’s last (though one never knows) with vocalist Siân Greenaway fronting the band, presiding over an era of transition when they had to find a new identity for themselves. Fever Dream is the third Alunah LP with Greenaway, and its nine songs show plainly how far the band has come in the six-plus years of her tenure. “Never Too Late” kicks off with both feet at the intersection of heavy rock and classic metal, with a hook besides, and “Trickster of Time” follows up with boogie and flute, because you’re special and deserve nice things. The four-piece as they are here — Greenaway on vocals (and flute), guitarist Matt Noble, bassist Dan Burchmore and founding drummer Jake Mason — are able to bring some drama in “Fever Dream,” to imagine lone-guitar metal Thin Lizzy in the solo of the swaggering “Hazy Jane,” go from pastoral to crushing in “Celestial” and touch on prog in “The Odyssey.” The finale “I’ve Paid the Price” tips into piano grandiosity, but by the time they get there, it feels earned. A worthy culmination for this version of this band.
Swiss heavy post-hardcore unit Coilguns‘ fourth LP and the first in five years, though they’ve had EPs and splits in that time, Odd Love offers 11 songs across an adventurous 48 minutes, alternately raw or lush, hitting hard with a slamming impact or careening or twisting around, mathy and angular. In “Generic Skincare,” it’s both and a jet-engine riff to boot. Atmosphere comes to the fore on “Caravel,” the early going of “Featherweight” and the later “The Wind to Wash the Pain,” but even the most straight-ahead moments of charge have some richer context around them, whether that’s the monstrous tension and release of capper “Bunker Vaults” or, well, the monstrous tension and release of “Black Chyme” earlier on. It’s not the kind of thing I always reach for, but Coilguns make post-hardcore disaffection sound like a good time, with intensity and spaciousness interwoven in their style and a vicious streak that comes out on the regular. Four records deep, the band know what they’re about but are still exploring.
Subconscious Awakening is Robot God‘s second album of 2024 and works in a similar two-sides/four-songs structure as the preceding Portal Within, released this past Spring, where each half of the record is subdivided into one longer and shorter song. It feels even more purposeful on Subconscious Awakening since both “Mandatory Remedy” and “Sonic Crucifixion” both hover around eight and a half minutes while side A opens with the 13-minute “Blind Serpent” and side B with the 11-minute title-track. Rife with textured effects, some samples, and thoughtful melodic vocals, Subconscious Awakening of course shares some similarity of purpose with Portal Within, which was also recorded at the same time, but a song like “Sonic Crucifixion” creates its own sprawl, and the outward movement between that closer and the title-track before it underscores the progressivism at work in the band’s sound amid tonal heft and complex, sometimes linear structures. Takes some concentration to wield that kind of groove.
Especially for an experimentalist, drone-based act who relies on audience theater-of-the-mind as a necessary component of appreciating its output, Pittsburgh solo outfit Fuzznaut — aka guitarist Emilio Rizzo — makes narrative a part of what the band does. Earlier this year, Fuzznaut‘s “Space Rock” single reaped wide praise for its cosmic aspects. “Wind Doula” specifically cites Neil Young‘s soundtrack for the film Dead Man as an influence, and thus brings four minutes more closely tied to empty spread of prairie, perhaps with some filtering being done through Earth‘s own take on the style as heard in 2005’s seminal Hex: Or Printing in the Infernal Method. One has to wonder if, had Rizzo issued “Wind Doula” with a picture of an astronaut floating free on its cover, it would be the cosmic microwave background present in the track instead of stark wind across the Great Plains, but there’s much more to Fuzznaut than self-awareness and the power of suggestion. Chalk up another aesthetic tryout that works.
Trad metal enthusiasts will delight at the specificity of the moment in the history of the style Void Moon interpret on their fourth album, Dreams Inside the Sun. It’s not that they’re pretending outright that it’s 1986, like the Swedish two-piece of guitarist/bassist Peter Svensson and drummer/vocalist Marcus Rosenqvist are wearing hightops and trying to convince you they’re Candlemass, but that era is present in the songwriting and production throughout Dreams Inside the Sun, even if the sound of the record is less directly anachronistic and their metallurgical underpinnings aren’t limited to doom between slowed down thrash riffs, power-metal-style vocalizing and the consuming Iommic nod of “East of the Sun” meeting with a Solitude Aeturnus-style chug, all the more righteous for being brought in to serve the song rather than to simply demonstrate craft. That is to say, the relative barn-burner “Broken Skies” and the all-in eight-minute closer “The Wolf (At the End of the World,” which has some folk in its verse as well, use a purposefully familiar foundation as a starting point for the band to carve their own niche, and it very much works.
Best known for slinging his six-string alongside brother Kyle Juett in Texas rockers Mothership, Kelley Juett‘s debut solo offering, Wandering West pulls far away from that classic power trio in intention while still keeping Juett‘s primary instrument as the focus. Some loops and layering don’t quite bring Wandering West the same kind of experimental feel as, say, Blackwolfgoat or a similar guitarist-gonna-guitar exploratory project, but they sit well nonetheless alongside the fluid noodling of Juett‘s drumless self-jams. He backs his own solo in centerpiece “Breezin’,” and the subsequent “Electric Dreamland” seems to use the empty space as much as the notes being cast out into it to create its sense of ambience, so if part of what Juett is doing on Wandering West is beginning the process of figuring out who he is as a solo artist, he’s someone who can turn a seven-minute meander like “Lonely One” (playing off Mos Generator?) into a bluesy contemplation of evolving reach, the guitar perfectly content to talk to itself if there’s nobody else around. Time may show it to be formative, but let the future worry about the future. There’s a lot to dig into, here and now.
With vocalists Kristian Eivind Espedal (Gaahls Wyrd, Trelldom, ex-Gorgoroth, etc.) and Lindy-Fay Hella (Wardruna, solo, etc.), guitarist Ronny “Valgard” Stavestrand (Trelldom) and drummer/bassist/keyboardist/producer Iver Sandøy (Enslaved, Relentless Agression, etc.), who also helmed (most of) the recording and mixed and mastered, Whispering Void easily could have fallen into the trap of being no more than the sum of its pedigree. Instead, the seven songs on debut album At the Sound of the Heart harness aspects of Norwegian folk for a rock sound that’s dark enough for the lower semi-growls in the eponymous “Whispering Void” to feel like they’re playing toward a gothic sentiment that’s not out of character when there’s so much melancholy around generally. Mid-period Anathema feel like a reference point for “Lauvvind” and the surging “We Are Here” later on, and by that I mean the album is intricately textured and absolutely gorgeous and you’ll be lucky if you take this as your cue to hear it.
You know how sometimes in a workplace where there’s a Boss With Personality™, there might be a novelty sign or a desk tchotchke that says, “The beatings will continue until morale improves?” Like, haha, in addition to wage theft you might get smacked if you get uppity about, say, wage theft? Fine. Orme sound like what happens when morale doesn’t improve. The 24-minute single-song No Serpents, No Saviours EP comes a little more than a year after the band’s two-song/double-vinyl self-titled debut (review here) and finds them likewise at home in longform songwriting. There are elements of death-doom, but Orme are sludgier in their presentation, and so wind up able to be morose and filthy in kind, moving from the opening crush through a quiet stretch after six minutes in that builds into persistent thuds before dropping out again, a sample helping mark the transitions between movements, and a succession of massive lumbering parts trading off leading into a final march that feels as tall as it is wide. I like that, in a time where the trend is so geared toward lush melody, Orme are unrepentantly nasty.
Budapest instrumentalist duo Azutmaga make their full-length debut with the aptly-titled Offering, compiling nine single-word-title pieces that reside stylistically somewhere between sludge metal and doom. Self-recorded by guitarist Patrik Veréb (who also mixed and mastered at Terem Studio) and self-released by Veréb and drummer Martin Várszegi, it’s a relatively stripped-down procession, but not lacking breadth as the longer “Aura” builds up to its full roll or the minute-long “Orca” provides an acoustic break ahead of the languid big-swing semi-psychedelia of “Mirror,” informed by Eastern European folk melodies but ready to depart into less terrestrial spheres. It should come as no surprise that “Portal” follows. Offering might at first give something of a monolithic impression as “Purge” calls to mind Earth‘s steady drone rock, but Azutmaga have a whole other level of volume to unfurl. Just so happens their dynamic goes from loud to louder.
After trickling out singles for over a year, including the title-track of the album and, in 2022, an early version of the instrumental “The Freaks Come Out at Night” that may or may not have been from before vocalist Virginie D. joined the band, the hashtag-named #chaleurhumaine delights in shirking heavy rock conventions, whether it’s the French-language lyrics or divergences into punk and harder fare, but nothing here — regardless of one’s linguistic background — is so challenging as to be inaccessible. Catchy songs are catchy, whether that’s “Fada Fighters” or “La Diable au Corps,” which dares a bit of harmonica along with its full-toned blues rock riffing. Likewise, nowhere the album goes feels beyond the band’s reach, and while “La Ligne” doesn’t sound especially daring as it plays up the brighter pop in its verse and shove of a chorus, well made songs never have any trouble finding welcome. I’m not sure why it’s a hashtag, but #chaleurhumaine feels complete and engaging, at once familiar and nothing so much as itself.
