Melbourne heavy blues three-piece Child left little doubt to their boogie allegiance with their 2014 self-titled debut. So much so that respected German purveyor Kozmik Artifactz picked up the record for release early last year. Tracked live in its entirety and showcasing due vibrancy as a result, the follow-up is called Blueside, and it arrives via the same label on Dec. 2. You probably caught wind of the first record, because you’re hip like that, and I’d have sworn I reviewed it at some point but can’t find the link — hey, I’m human; sometimes a cool album falls through the cracks — but Blueside rolls out five new languid, jammy rockers marked out by the vocal performance of guitarist Mathias Northway and the rhythmic fluidity of bassist Danny Smith and drummer Michael Lowe in a manner no less grand than the Nick Keller (see also: Beastwars) cover art would suggest.

Shit is right on, is my point, and whether they’ve gone a-wonderin’ in a song like “It’s Cruel to be Kind” or the 11-minute closer “The Man” or get down on more straightforward vibes with centerpiece “Blue Side of the Collar” — for which you can see a newly-posted video at the bottom of this post — the flow holds up front to back for the 39-minute span. I’ll have a review up in the weeks to come, but preorders are up now through Kozmik Artifactz, and the short version is you might want to get on that.

Dig:

CHILD ‘Blueside’ LP/CD out December 2nd

CHILD is a trio of jam-obsessed first-class musicians, who met in 2012 in the rock underground of Melbourne. Between the three working class Australians Mathias (guitar/vocals), Michael (drums) and Jayden (bass), who can best be described as a blues fanatic with liquid steel as blood, grew as strong a musical band as a group of Musicians can only cultivate and nurture themselves by the unabated urge for intense jam.

It quickly became clear that songs here would not be created simply as architectural objects on the drawing board, but as a result of a deep dialogue between three conspiratorial individuals who have given their instruments speech.

From this dialogue, the self-titled debut resulted in the winter of 2014, which, in addition to the CD, also received a top-notch vinyl copy of the well-known cult label Kozmik Artifactz. On the bandcamp page of the band, this blues-doom hammer has since then entered the hearts of the buyers, which is evidenced by a steadily growing number of supporter reviews.

The enthusiasm for CHILD became so international in a short time that the band escaped the red continent in 2014 and 2015 and also crashed European clubs and festivals with their brutal sound. In these few but very busy years, CHILD have already contested 145 shows, among others. Also a tour of Indonesia. There they appeared in some places as the first internationally active band at all, which led to partly adventurous events.

In April 2017 it will be time again, and this time especially the German-speaking area will pay a lot of attention.

The “Blueside”

In the spring of 2016 CHILD’s dialogue was resumed, but with a new bassist, Danny Smith, also recruited from the circle of friends.

On the self-imposed goal of the band, nothing had changed: the magical intensity of the CHILD-Liveshows was to be transferred intimally and unbuilt to the new recordings, and a sluggish, sonorous power that made the good old Doom Metal pale was a perfect protoplasm, which Mathias was able to inoculate many very lively blues cells with his singing and guitar playing after black swamp blues…

The two-month recording process, a liverecording with just enough space for bluestypic improvisations, resulted in a refreshing contrast to the currently booming heavy blues rock, because, irrishingly, “Blueside” creates a very primordial blues full of expressive power even more strongly in the foreground and still to speak also of true doomfans, which the underlying cause of all instruments plays directly into the entrails.
Available as CD & limited vinyl

VINYL FACTZ
– Plated & pressed on high performance vinyl at Pallas/Germany
– limited 180g vinyl
– 166x marbled (exclusive mailorder edition)
– blue & black editions
– 300gsm gatefold cover
– special vinyl mastering

TRACKS
1. Nailed to the Ceiling
2. It’s Cruel to be Kind
3. Blue Side of the Collar
4. Dirty Woman
5. The Man

Child is:
Mathias Northway – Guitars, Vocals
Michael Lowe – Drums, Percussion
Danny Smith – Bass Guitar

Recorded live at Iridium Audio and TVOG by Dav Byrne
Mixed and mastered by Dav Byrne
Produced by CHILD and Dav Byrne
All songs written by CHILD

Original oil painting by Nick Keller
Photography by Stephen Boxshall

Backing vocals by Harmony Byrne and Neil Wilkinson
Organs by Joe Cope
Layout by James Tom

https://www.facebook.com/childtheband/
https://childtheband.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/childtheband
http://www.childtheband.com/
http://shop.bilocationrecords.com/index.php?k=986
https://www.facebook.com/kozmikartifactz/

Child, “Blueside of the Collar” official video

[Click play above to stream Borracho’s Atacama in its entirety. Album is out Dec. 2 on Kozmik Artifactz.]

When Washington D.C.’s Borracho released their second album, Oculus (review here), in 2013, it was also the first time they’d put together a record as a three-piece. After their 2011 debut, Splitting Sky (review here), guitarist Steve Fisher also took over vocal duties — they did a few shows as an instrumental act first — to fill the vacated role, and with the sophomore LP, he, drummer Mario Trubiano and bassist Tim Martin established themselves as hard-hitting riff-rollers not only capable of recreating the heft of Splitting Sky, but of moving forward with it in a progression that was still only at its starting point. In 2014 and 2015, a series of split releases alongside Boston’s Cortez (review here), Brooklyn’s Eggnogg (review here) and New York’s Geezer (review here) provided encouraging glimpses of where Borracho were headed with their signature “repetitive heavy grooves” — a sort of band slogan — but it’s with their third full-length and Kozmik Artifactz debut, Atacama, that the vision of what they can accomplish as a trio is realized.

Across eight songs and an at-times sprawling 51 minutes engineered and mixed by none other than Frank “The Punisher” Marchand (The Obsessed, many more), Borracho arrive at full thrust on “Gold from Sand,” go out with a whisper (actually the sound of dripping water) on “Last Song” and in between ignite a stylistic swath that Oculus and Splitting Sky and their various short releases could only have guessed at. Be it the sample-laden 10-minute jam “Overload,” which careens and swings and swells and recedes in a successful effort to convey a state of media/cultural/existential saturation or side B’s “Flower,” which brings in Erin Snedecor on guest cello to accompany gentle guitar in sandwiching a section of heavier riffing before rounding out with a memorial prayer, Atacama displays range and command that only prove more unflinching the further out they go.

They’ve also, in Marchand, found an understanding partner in production and mixing. On the faster stretches of “Gold from Sand” — the shortest cut on Atacama at 3:38 and an opener clearly geared toward establishing early momentum before the band digs into “Overload,” which follows immediately and is the longest at 10:44 — or third track “Lost in Time,” or the penultimate bombast of “Shot down, Banged up, Fade Away,” which seems to settle into a nod just in time to, indeed, fade out, only after a near-frenetic lesson in how to use riffs as catharsis, Borracho never lose their sense of atmosphere.

Fisher‘s vocal style — to hear him on studio material is to imagine him on stage, his head craned up at an overhead microphone à la Lemmy, his voice clean but guttural in a post-Hetfield belted-out shout — is largely unipolar, but by pushing it back and coating it in echo and bringing it forward again on “Last Song,” just as by playing it front and center on “Gold from Sand,” it becomes no less a factor in Atacama‘s overarching ambience than Snedecor‘s cello on “Flower.” That’s key evidence of Borracho‘s growth even since Oculus, and a welcome expansion of their take since it makes them a richer band, but one doesn’t even need to go that far to hear the evolution in sound the band has clearly, admirably, undertaken in these tracks.

By the time the all-out fuzz thrust of “Lost in Time” is underway, Fisher‘s guitar scorching out a multi-layer lead over the East-Coast-does-Fu–Manchu rush from Martin and Trubiano before the first verse, they’ve already toyed with structure — “Gold from Sand” is straightforward, where after its long intro, “Overload” has a couple verse/chorus switchoffs early before departing into a more extended jam after six minutes, daring to indulge some psychedelic six-string wash perhaps in an ethic picked up from their splitmates in Geezer — and they only continue to show stylistic and sonic depth as Atacama continues to play out. “Overload” dives back into vocal-topped nod in its final movement and swirls into the buildup start of “Lost in Time,” but even the change in tempo between “Lost in Time” and the subsequent instrumental “Descent,” pulled off via a stretch of feedback and amp noise at the end of the earlier track, is more fluid than it possibly could’ve been three years ago, and it’s still only one sliver of the total flow conjured throughout.

And that’s to say nothing of elements like the flourish bell sounds that come with “Descent”‘s slower roll, the samples in “Overload” and “Flower” — clearly a remembrance — the cello or the tripped-out vibe they hone in the 8:37 “Drifted away from the Sun,” which feeds immediately from “Descent” but might also be where the vinyl side B starts. No less than “Flower” or “Last Song,” though it’s outwardly heavier, “Drifted away from the Sun” presents a bolder, broader Borracho. They’ve never lacked for patience or a willingness to ride a riff, but it’s how they execute that across “Drifted away from the Sun,” with Fisher trading between spoken verses and shouted hooks en route from the initial languid feel toward later, throttled payoff that underscores the point once again, let alone the sudden turn to birdsong that signals the shift into “Flower.” It would be short-selling it to say the range suits them or that they wield it ably. Rather, Atacama — soaking wet despite being named for the driest of deserts — becomes the manifestation of the potential Borracho have shown for the last five years.

The back and forth in “Drifted away from the Sun,” “Flower,” “Shot down, Banged up, Fade Away” and “Last Song” — and indeed within those songs as well at times — brings vibrancy and dynamic to their sound, and they never lose control of it, whether they’re digging into the return-to-earth groove of “Shot down, Banged up, Fade Away” or tossing in Alice in Chains, Sap-style percussion and acoustics on “Last Song.” There isn’t a moment on Atacama on which Borracho haven’t moved forward from where they were three years ago, and the sense of completion that comes with “Last Song” — their evident mindfulness of the album’s construction and execution — is as fitting an end as one could ask. It was fair to expect Borracho‘s third to land with an impact, especially after the formidable achievements of Oculus, but the varied form of that impact on Atacama is more than it would’ve been reasonable to see coming.

They may be beginning to move past the “repetitive heavy grooves” ethic, but in that, they’re also placing themselves in an entirely different league of bands, and while I’d feel even less comfortable predicting where they might go next, I know damn well that it’s worth looking forward to finding out. Their best yet, and one of 2016’s finest in heavy rock and roll.

Borracho on Thee Facebooks

Borracho on Twitter

Borracho on Bandcamp

Borracho website

Borracho at Kozmik Artifactz

Kozmik Artifactz on Thee Facebooks

Half a decade in the making, the self-titled debut from Joshua Tree’s Of the Horizon will see release through Kozmik Artifactz on Nov. 18. The band has a decent portion of the material streaming now, though whether those are the final versions or if something’s changed in the last five years is anyone’s guess, but either way, their blend of heavy desert psych and crunching, Sleep-style riffing on “3 Feet,” which you can hear below, should give you some general idea what they’re getting up to. Or what they got up to circa 2011, anyhow. I suppose they could pretty much be doing anything at this point, including not being a band since last I heard, bassist Kayt Vigil was in Italy and playing in Sonic Wolves.

So yeah, maybe not too sure on the status of Of the Horizon, but at least the record is coming out. If you’re the gotta-preorder-it type, Kozmik Artifactz has it up for sale now, and they posted the following announcement with the Kyle Stratton cover art:

Of The Horizon – s/t full length now on pre-sale!

More than 4 years after the final recording of Los Angeles/Joshua Tree, CA’s …Of The Horizon, the long awaited self-titled full length album is on the way – on wax!

The three piece brings the listener crushing low end, heavily fuzzed out guitar, precise and intense drumming and melodically droning vocals. The album transports you straight into the soul-warming freeness of the California high desert while taking you on a sonic journey through the soundscape of open valleys and high mountains – complete with fuzzed-out grooves, massive and sonorous riffs finely detailed with swells of volume and feeling …and all with a trance-inducing psychedelic edge!

Recorded in November of 2011 in Joshua Tree, CA by Tony Mason. Cover art by Caveman Kyle Stratton of the amazing band, Atala. Mixed and Mastered by Brian Zee and drummer Shig and later on by Lorenzo Stecconi (Ufomammut’s “sound lord”).

VINYL FACTZ
– Plated & pressed on high performance 180g vinyl by PALLAS in Germany
– 100x orange black marbled (Exclusive mailorder edition, handnumbered)
– 200x black
– matt laquered 300gsm gatefold Cover
– special vinyl mastering

TRACKS
A1. 3 Feet
A2. Caravan
A3. Unknown
B1. Gladhander
B2. Hall of the Drunken King

Of the Horizon is:
Mike Hanne – Guitars/Vocals
Shig – Drums/Cymbals/Gong
Kayt Vigil – Bass

https://www.facebook.com/kozmikartifactz/
www.kozmik-artifacts.com/artist/ofthehorizon/
https://soundcloud.com/ofthehorizon
https://www.facebook.com/Of-The-Horizon-119745221373471/

Of the Horizon, “3 Feet”

Good news today out of the nation’s capitol in that burl-rocking trio Borracho will issue their third full-length, Atacama, on Dec. 2 as their label debut through respected German purveyor Kozmik Artifactz. One might recall the album’s recording took place this past Spring, when the title was also announced, and found the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Steve Fisher, bassist Tim Martin and drummer Mario Trubiano working alongside producer Frank “The Punisher” Marchand (The Obsessed, many more in the Chesapeake region), in following up their 2013 sophomore outing, Oculus (review here), and their split LP with Geezer (review here) that kicked off Ripple Music‘s The Second Coming of Heavy series last year.

CD and DL will be out Dec. 2, with vinyl to follow early in 2017, and you can stream the encouraging opener “Gold from Sand” below. Atacama marks their second album as a three-piece, and especially after that Geezer split I’m intrigued to hear where they go with it. Stay tuned for more to come as we get closer to the release date. Here’s info fresh from the PR wire in the meantime:

BORRACHO releasing new album ‘ATACAMA’ December 2nd!

Kozmik Artifactz is very happy to announce that Washington/DC’s finest powertrio Borracho signed for their new full length Atacama. Borracho is a three piece heavy rock band from Washington, DC. In the five years since releasing their 2011 debut Splitting Sky, they have become a staple of the Mid-Atlantic — and US — stoner rock scene. 2013’s follow up Oculus highlighted a band in metamorphosis, moving the band forward sonically with a leaner lineup, but continuing their emphasis on song construction and memorable melodies.

Atacama is the driest place on earth. A vast wasteland, to pass through it inevitably affects the traveler in profound ways. As the body crosses miles of barren landscape, the mind looks inward, examining itself, unsure of what is there and unprepared for what it will find. With time and distance, the harsh conditions conspire with the traveler’s distracted subconscious to present a reality very different than it is. How this new reality is interpreted can be a dangerous and powerful journey. This is the soundtrack to that journey.

Releases December 2, 2016.

Atacama was produced, recorded and mixed by Frank “The Punisher” Marchand. Tracking completed at the House of Rock in Crofton, Maryland in February and March, 2016, and mixing at Waterford Digital, in Millersville, Maryland, in March and April 2016. Mastered by Mike Monseur at Bias Studios, Springfield, Virginia.

Cello on “Flower” performed by Erin Snedecor.

Borracho, Atacama tracklisting:
1. Gold From Sand
2. Overload
3. Lost In Time
4. Descent
5. Drifted Away From the Sun
6. Flower
7. Shot Down, Banged Up, Fade Away
8. Last Song

Catch Borracho live at:
Thursday, December 15 Slash Run Washington, DC w/ Freedom Hawk
Friday, December 16 1984 Wilmington, DE w/ Freedom Hawk, Kingsnake & Worth
Saturday, December 17 Brad Pearre/Dustin Davis Birthday Extravaganza Frederick, MD w/ Freedom Hawk, Clamfight, Toke & more TBA

https://www.facebook.com/pg/BorrachoDC/
http://twitter.com/borracho_DC
https://borracho.bandcamp.com/
http://www.borrachomusic.com/
http://kozmik-artifactz.com/
https://www.facebook.com/kozmikartifactz/
http://shop.bilocationrecords.com/

Borracho, “Gold from Sand”

Michigan heavy rockers Bison Machine are reportedly — and it’s their report, so, you’d have to figure they know what they’re talking about — getting ready to hit the studio to record their second full-length. Before they go, the four-piece, who recently welcomed back guitarist Dusty Jones, who had gone on to play with SLO, with whom Bison Machine also released a split (review here) early this year, will complete one final round of Midwestern tour dates, hitting Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Chicago and Detroit next month.

I don’t have any title or recording info on the new album yet, but I’ll be keeping an eye and an ear out for sure, having dug their debut full-length, Hoarfrost (review here), which Kozmik Artifactz released in 2015, and the teaser for new material they gave in their video for “Cloak and Bones” (posted here) over this past summer.

In addition to the tour, which launches on Nov. 11, Bison Machine will join Mondo Drag and Crypt Trip in Detroit on Oct. 9. Info on all of the above and a tour trailer follow, courtesy of the PR wire:

Bison Machine – November tour

Bison Machine will be hitting the midwest one last time before they hunker down to work on the follow up LP to ‘Hoarfrost’. The band will also be introducing back into their lineup Dusty Jones of SLO as a second guitarist. There are some serious touring plans for early next year including a full run out West.

Bison Machine have one show before hitting the road in November.

Oct 9th at El Club in Detroit with Mondo Drag, The Well and Crypt Trip.

The night also includes DJs Heavy and Beyond as well as Tarot readings.

Stay tuned to our Facebook and Instagram (@bisonmachine) pages for new tour news and a special announcement regarding our end-of-tour hometown show on Nov. 25th.

November Tour Dates
11/11 – Ann Arbor MI – 3rd Death Star
11/12 – Toledo OH – Culture Clash Records
11/13 – Logansport IN – The Record Farm
11/14 – Chicago IL – TBA
11/15 – Chicago IL – Live Wire Lounge
11/17 – Green Bay WI – Lyric Room w/ US Bastards and Against the Grain
11/18 – Milwaukee WI – Cactus Club w/ label mates Moon Curse, also with ATTALLA
11/19 – Fort Wayne IN – The Brass Rail w/ US Bastards and Against the Grain
11/25 – Detroit MI – Loving Touch

https://www.facebook.com/americanbison
https://www.instagram.com/bisonmachine/
https://bisonmachine.bandcamp.com/
https://twitter.com/bisonmachine
http://shop.bilocationrecords.com/

Bison Machine show trailer

The interwebs went ape this summer for Mountain Dust‘s debut full-length, Nine Years, and I’m not inclined to argue. Based out of Montreal, the band successfully bring classic sounds forward a few decades, establishing a full sound on cuts like “Running Fool,” which you can hear below. I don’t love the artwork, but cartoon tits are getting on my nerves these days — can’t that shit just be over? — but the successful execution of the tracks brooks no disagreement, as further evidenced by the fact that respected German purveyor Kozmik Artifactz has picked up Nine Years for an early 2017 vinyl release.

They sent the following announcement down the PR wire:

MOUNTAIN DUST Signs With KOZMIK ARTIFACTZ Records

Canadian stoner/psych-blues rockers Mountain Dust have penned a European deal with German label Kozmik Artifactz.

The Montreal based band released their debut full length record titled “Nine Years” independently over the summer, but only online and with an extremely limited pressing of CDs. Since its release, “Nine Years” has been making the rounds in stoner rock circles online, and the international orders have become overwhelming for the band.

“None of us were expecting this type of response when we set out to make this record,” said Mountain Dust frontman Brendan Mainville. “After we put the record online we started getting messages from people all over the world asking how they can get our music on vinyl. Who knew the internet was such a powerful place?” joked Mainville. “Being an independent band, we aren’t equipped to handle the demand we’ve been experiencing, so teaming up with Kozmik Artifactz is exciting, and also a bit of a relief.”

When asked about the signing, the folks at Kozmik Artifactz had this to say about the newest addition to their roster, “Looking for a band that will catch your attention in the first 10 seconds? Here you go! This is exactly what happened when we were surfing Bandcamp for good music one day. The voice, the mood, the feeling, the overall sound … Mountain Dust simply blew us away.”

Following an official release in early 2017, Mountain Dust is planning plenty of live performances support their new record. “Running Fool”, the first single from “Nine Years”, can be heard below.

Tracklisting:
1. Evil Deeds 04:26
2. Aveline 04:36
3. Running Fool 04:26
4. Tale of The Red Rain 06:07
5. Dead Queen 08:53
6. Lonely War 04:11
7. Nine Years 07:33

http://www.mountaindustofficial.com/
http://www.facebook.com/mountaindust
http://www.twitter.com/mountaindusty
http://www.instagram.com/mountaindust
http://www.mountaindust.bandcamp.com/
http://kozmik-artifactz.com/
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Mountain Dust, “Running Fool”

Each of Wight‘s albums has represented a significant jump in sound from the one before it. At this point, they have a decent track record going of shifting sonically from release to release. Their first outing, Wight Weedy Wight (review here), lived up to its name in 2011 with fuzzy groove and stonerized riffing. The 2012 follow-up, Through the Woods into Deep Water (review here), found the Darmstadt trio working quickly on a path of progression, greatly expanding their scope and psychedelic undertones with a natural, jammy vibe.

Their awaited third full-length, Love is Not Only What You Know (on Fat and Holy Records, Kozmik Artifactz, Import Export Music and SPV), may have been much slower in arriving, but brings with it no less a sense of departure from its predecessor(s).

First of all, it marks the introduction of percussionist Steffen Kirchpfening to the lineup with guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist/producer René Hofmann, bassist Peter-Philipp Schierhorn and drummer Thomas Kurek, making it Wight‘s first record as a four-piece, but it also brazenly incorporates elements of classic funk and soul in songs like opener “Helicopter Mama,” “The Muse and the Mule,” “Kelele” and the 11-minute closer “The Love for Life Leads to Reincarnation” that are at once the band’s most clearheaded work to-date but also their most outwardly grooving.

No doubt the inclusion of Kirchpfening plays a role in this — percussion certainly gets its say throughout, right from the bouncing start of “Helicopter Mama,” which was also released as a 7″ single (review here) last year — but as each Wight full-length has moved past the one before it, it has also brought choice elements along for that trip. Through the Woods into Deep Water held to the tonal largesse and fluid spirit of Wight Weedy Wight, and similarly, the seven tracks/46 minutes of Love is Not Only What You Know carry forward the second album’s graceful flow, memorable songwriting, and for the most part, its looser feel and swing.

It’s the context in which those elements arrive that has shifted. Conveniently, the liner notes to the CD version list the band’s influences for each track, and they range from James Brown and Stevie Wonder on “Helicopter Mama,” to broken hearts, David Gilmour and Jack Bruce on “The Muse and the Mule,” to traveling, cultures and chaos on the Eastern-inflected interlude “Three Quarters.” Through the longer stretches in “The Muse and the Mule” (10:10) and “Kelele” (9:29) which follows to round out side A, Hofmann seems to play the role of bandleader.

“Helicopter Mama” was more straightforward, and it gets a complement on side B’s “I Wanna Know What You Feel,” but particularly in the more fleshed out pieces — it goes for “The Love for Life Leads to Reincarnation” (11:47) as well — Hofmann shines vocally, on guitar played through a range of effects, and in adding keyboard flourish. That’s not to say the rest of the band doesn’t make pivotal contributions as well. As with Through the Woods into Deep Water, it’s Schierhorn‘s bass keeping the material grounded, and “The Muse and the Mule” would simply fall flat without him.

Ditto that for “Kelele” and really the record as a whole, including the more subdued penultimate cut “Biophilia Intermezzo,” shorter at three minutes than everything but “Three Quarters,” which is two, but still soulful enough to make an impression. After a dreamier departure in the second half of “The Muse and the Mule,” “Kelele” starts with funky thrust and delivers its hook sans pretense, Kurek holding down the march while Kirchpfening fills the spaces between beats with shekere and djembe.

Just past four minutes in, the song comes to a halt and they launch into a guitar-led heavy psych jam, Hofmann taking an extended solo as the band pushes further and further out, eventually bringing back to the initial progression and the repetitions of the title that seem to beg for a sing-along without actually begging for it, bookending the track excellently and underscoring the sense of control with which Wight execute their material at this stage.

Their stylistic fusion extends even more on “Three Quarters,” which plays up Mideastern drones and chanting for a quick but hypnotic psychedelic centerpiece effect to transition into side B, which comes back to classic funk-infused rock on “I Wanna Know What You Feel,” reminiscent of Humble Pie or early John Mayall if they decided to incorporate sitar accent.

Both “I Wanna Know What You Feel” and “Biophilia Intermezzo” are shorter than anything on side A, including “Helicopter Mama,” but the groove of one and the key-laced soul explosiveness of the other make them standouts nonetheless and though the sound varies widely throughout side B, basically from one song into the next, by the time “The Love for Life Leads to Reincarnation” comes on to close out with a return to the funkier, jammy feel of “The Muse and the Mule,” it all makes an odd kind of sense within the sphere in which Wight seem to be operating.

With Hofmann doing a more than capable Chris Cornell on vocals, the finale opens patiently with a key-solo jam before unfolding its first verse and moving into its chorus, and the difference turns out to be that when the band launches into the last jam this time, there’s no coming back, unlike, say, “Kelele.”

Keys, claves, temple blocks, drums, bass, guitar — all of it creates a fitting swirl to end the expansive feel of the record as a whole, but it’s important to note that the more pervasive vibe comes from the live feel of the song itself, and that’s also a consistent thread tying Love is Not Only What You Know together even as it continues to introduce new ways of working in its final moments. It is unquestionably Wight‘s most vibrant release, and to listen to it and Wight Weedy Wight next to each other, one would hardly even recognize it’s the same band. Because it’s not.

I said their last time out that I wouldn’t want to predict where they head next, and while they seem to have found a niche for themselves otherwise largely unoccupied in European heavy rock, the same applies here. Wight have shown time and again that their commitment is to following their creative will rather than a predetermined “sound,” and on their third album, that will has produced an accomplished collection of intricate but vital songs that redefine the band’s scope entirely.

What that might mean for the future, who knows? Who cares? It’s a party. Groove out and rock on.

Wight, “The Love for Life Leads to Reincarnation” official video

Wight on Thee Facebooks

Wight on Bandcamp

Wight on Twitter

Wight preorder at Kozmik Artifactz

Long live the Kings! UK heavy psych rockers The Kings of Frog Island have secured an awaited vinyl release for their 2013 album, IV (review here), through Bilocation Records, and preorders are up now. This will mark the first time IV has received a physical pressing, and to be frank I’ll say it’s one well earned for the flowing psychedelia the band brought to it, as you can hear in the video for album highlight “Long Live the King” below. Some records are just a joy. This is one of those.

The Kings of Frog Island followed IV in 2014 with V (review here), another self-release, but this one pressed to a platter on their own. If the photos and vague posts on Thee Facebooks are anything to go by, work may or may not be underway on what I assume will be called VI when it’s done (if, you know, it exists), so I’ll be interested to find out in the weeks and months ahead what might be up in Amphibia these days.

For now, here’s the new cover for the record, the info on the vinyl and that video, ready for the digging:

IV now available on vinyl. Exclusive.

THE KINGS OF FROG ISLAND draw on a collective passion for cult movie soundtracks, mammoth riffs and high times. Stashed full of heavy psych rock and fragile laments to love, life and the eternal sleep. Journey across the mountains of madness, beyond the big black to the shores of Frog Island and on to the gates of Amphibia. Come take a trip …

After three successful releases on Elektrohasch Records The Kings Of Frog Island from Leicester, UK recorded their fourth effort – but unfortunately never released it until this day. The album shows the band in best form: tight stoner rock combined with amazing psychedelic touches, but never loosing their unique tone and style. A great blend, very refreshing in these days.

VINYL FACTZ
– Plated & pressed on high performance vinyl in Germany
– 111x green black white marbled (Exclusive mailorder edition, hand numbered)
– 200x transparent green
– 100x black
– matte laquered 300gsm gatefold cover
– special vinyl mastering

https://www.facebook.com/The-Kings-Of-Frog-Island-123205451039992/
http://shop.bilocationrecords.com/index.php?a=56923&lang=eng

The Kings of Frog Island, “Long Live the King” official video