Oviedo, Spain, heavy rockers Green Desert Water released their third album, Black Harvest, last month on Small Stone Records and Kozmik Artifactz, celebrating fuzzy songcraft and a vision of groove that manages to sound like “nothin’ too fancy” while bridging decades of influence as only quality heavy can. In their ’70s-meets’90s riff-driven heavy blues vibe, they are the quintessential Small Stone act; it is an international stock and trade the label has engaged since Halfway to Gone and Dixie Witch roamed the land — not to mention Kozmik Artifactz with more than a decade under its belt in Europe — and certainly Green Desert Water‘s 2018 offering, The Deepest Sea (review here), fit that bill as well. If anything, the steady AC/DC roll of “The Whale” and the catchier hook of “Too Many Wizards” (video premiering below) and the too-clearheaded-in-structure-to-be-psychedelic-but-still-kind-of-trippy pairing of “Sacred Tree” and “Dead Sacred Tree” at the record’s outset only show the trip of guitarist/vocalist Kike Sanchís, bassist Juan Arias García and drummer Dani Barcena as having refined their approach and songwriting.

That’s true of Black Harvest‘s shorter and longer songs alike. In total, the album runs seven tracks and 38 minutes — a tidy LP length — but it divides that almost on a per-track basis between longer and shorter pieces, gradually evening out as side B closes. “Sacred Tree” and “Dead Sacred Tree” — which run directly one into the other — are both about four minutes long, but if one takes them as a single entity as they’d essentially be on vinyl, then the shift to “Too Many Wizards” becomes even more striking, even though “Dead Sacred Tree” works just fine on its own anyhow, bringing its weighted riff to a post-Sabbath shuffle with organic ’70s shove. “Too Many Wizards” is the shortest inclusion at 3:36, but has fuzz and swagger both in supply to last much longer, and gives itself over to the more methodical title-track, which tops seven minutes and caps side A with due ebbs and flows, a guest-spot on guitar from Wo Fat‘s Kent Stump doing nothing to hurt their deceptively patient cause.

“The Whale,” “Shelter of Guru” and “Soul Blind” — five, eight and six minutes long, respectively — continue the pattern somewhat, but by the time the first of them picks up from the drop at the end of “Black Harvest,” Green Desert Water are long since locked into the full-album flow that carries them through the remainder of the outing. Without making a show of largesse, “The Whale” brings a plodding first half into a shuffling second marked by highlight basswork from García beneath Sanchís‘ guitar and a quick flash of cowbell from Barcena snuck in there as well. The drums begin “Shelter of Guru” as well, but it’s the riff that ultimately leads the procession into its nod and extended solo section, finding gallop late but making the speed count for something in selling the energy built up over the course of the song prior, leaving “Soul Blind” a natural place to start mellow and work its way into its own thrusts of volume, one, then another, before closing out the proceedings with a last lick of guitar and some residual lower hum.

Which is as fitting as anything, because like the rest of Black Harvest before it, “Soul Blind” makes complex songwriting ideas sound easy. Some bands just know how to put together a record. Green Desert Water sound utterly natural doing so, as if it could not and would not be something other than it is. All the more fortunate, then, for anyone who’d take the record on.

The clip for “Too Many Wizards” premieres below, and the full album stream for Black Harvest is down near the bottom of the post. You’ll find it above all the copious links. You know the way.

Enjoy:

Green Desert Water, “Too Many Wizards” video premiere

“Too Many Wizards” is the third track from Green Desert Water’s 2021 LP called Black Harvest.

Black Harvest is available on CD and digital formats via Small Stone and limited edition LP (deluxe gatefold) via Kozmik Artifactz. Find ordering options HERE where the record can be streamed in full: https://smallstone.bandcamp.com/album/black-harvest

GREEN DESERT WATER:
Juan Arias García – fuzz bass
Dani Barcena – drums, percussion
Kike Sanchís – guitars, vocals

Guests:
Kent Stump – additional guitar on “Black Harvest”
Alvaro Barcena – backing vocals

Green Desert Water, Black Harvest (2021)

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At just 14 months removed from their second full-length, III (review here), Córdoba, Argentina, trio IAH return with their third album, Omines. It is the instrumentalists’ most evocative outing to-date, their 2017 self-titled debut EP (review here) and 2018’s II (review here) having preceded III on a steady forward progression of sound. As they step away from their numbering system — admittedly counterintuitive, since III was the sophomore LP, etc. — Omines brings an expansive collection of eight songs that runs 64 minutes and finds guitarist Mauricio Condon, bassist Juan Pablo Lucco Borlera and drummer José Landín deeply entrenched in a range of atmospheres, weighted and wistful in kind in some stretches, more brazenly heavy in others.

Their established methodology of recording live at 440 Estudio alongside producer Mario Carnerero on the recording and mix means there’s a consistency of tone and general sound between the 2020 and 2021 releases, to be sure, but there can be no question that IAH are trying new things in these tracks.

Maybe that’s most exemplified by “Brilo” and “Omines,” which would presumably end LP1 and LP2 of a double-vinyl release; tracks four and eight of eight, in any case. The former introduces Federico Dávila Kurbán on cello in its second half, having to that point dedicated itself to sampling that sounds like found audio from some dug-out playful memory — people laughing, talking, existing in a space together, which seems like a novelty given the era through which humanity has just lived and is still living — and minimal, appropriately melancholy guitar.

There are no drums, but the cello weaves around the guitar line in a way that feels especially lush despite a general lack of effects accompanying, and it sets up Kurbán‘s return on cello and piano in Omines‘ title-track, also the longest inclusion at 13:57 and bound to be a focal point of the album that bears its name for the further collaboration it brings with Jan Rutka and Kamil Ziółkowski of Poland’s Spaceslug, who both contribute the first vocals that have appeared on an IAH record, their echoing, melodic, mellow drawl fitting smoothly over the forward march of the song’s first six minutes before a stop — or at least a drop-everything-but-the-bass — brings about the next movement of the piece, which invites the cello back before proceeding to a crash to quiet, a surge to loudness, and a drift of guitar/wash of cymbal before Kurbán gives the epilogue on piano, seeming to nod at the “Moonlight Sonata” in so doing.

In such a way, “Omines” almost functions as three different songs, or at least two with the transitional piece between, but by the time it arrives, the listener has already followed IAH‘s turns and moods for an hour, and “Omines” by no means feels like too much of a leap to take all the more for the preface they give it with “Brilo.” Omines also brings a notable shift in structure, moving off from pairing longer songs with shorter ones in favor of opening with “Cernunnos” (11:19), “L’Esprit de L’Escalier” (9:09) and “Sunon” (8:07) before moving into the midsection trio of “Brilo” (4:13), “Luno” (5:41) and “Arce” (3:00), the last of which is the briefest work they’ve yet put on an album and is named presumably for Yawning Man guitarist Gary Arce, whose influence seems to be heard in the ringing resonant guitar line. With “Naga” (9:22) ahead of “Omines” (again, nearly 14 minutes), the bookended makeup of Omines is complete, and the effect of being wholly immersed in the ambience IAH have crafted is not to be understated. “Cernunnos” builds up to a heavy and ultimately defining riff, but it takes four minutes-plus to do so and it returns to that more open-feeling atmosphere after the riff cuts back out, the toms and subdued guitar and bass feeling more post-rock than anything IAH have done before.

The band’s growth in patience has been gradual from the self-titled on, and Omines is another forward step. As satisfying as it is to have the memorable central riff of “Cernunnos” kick in — starts and stops, universally well timed, feature throughout the album — “L’Esprit de L’Escalier” is a highlight because it feels more even in its procession, at least until the later slowdown transitions back to the beginning ambience as if to remind you of how far you’ve come. And as the third in the extended salvo, “Sunon” calls to mind Neurosis‘ “Reach” in the quieter guitar line that emerges about four and a half minutes in, while using that figure as a launch point for its own progressive exploration coming off the song’s still-relatively-serene midsection and transitioning fluidly into “Brilo,” which acts as a complement in terms of mood.

“Luno” begins with a stretch of soft ambience before bursting out with its heavier push, redirecting the course of Omines as a whole such that even as it shifts into, out of, and back into its own drift, it resets the listener’s position in a way that feels like a callback to “Cernunnos” without actually being one, particularly as “Arce” follows with its featured (maybe improvised?) lead line over a drone and bassline that holds its place well in the spaciousness the band create. That leaves only “Naga” ahead of “Omines,” and it becomes clear just how much of an outlier the title-track is — clever of the band to name the record after it, automatically making it crucial rather than seeming like a bonus cut tagged on the end — since it’s “Naga” that draws the front and back halves of Omines together, answering back the catchy groove of “Cernunnos” with one of its own, a chug and stretch that feels like the band filtering Karma to Burn through their own impulses. They depart following that main riff for a time, but ultimately come back around and close out with sudden snare hits, leaving the creeping guitar of “Omines” to pick up from the silence.

Which it does with a quick turn to its first verse, wasting no time in marking its place both on Omines and in IAH‘s (and Spaceslug‘s) pantheon. How that collaboration with Rutka and Ziółkowski came about, I have no idea, but “Omines” argues in favor of pushing further into that particular unknown as IAH tread their own path from release to release. Omines sees them continuing to flourish in sound, finding ways to make their airiest moments land with no less resonance than their densest-seeming. They remain likewise reliable in the quality of their craft and unpredictable as to just what they’ll do with it next.

IAH, Omines (2021)

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Melbourne’s Devil Electric earn immediate points in my book for opening their second album, Godless, with its longest track, “I Am.” The song, while not a Dehumanizer-era Sabbath cover, is a multi-movement journey that sets up a breadth in which the rest of the record inhabits, and even as it and the subsequent, mystique-laden “All My Friends Move Like the Night” take on a familiar riff here and there, they arrive as tools in the box rather than crutches leaned upon in the band’s songwriting. “Mindset” and “Your Guess is As Good As Mine” offer a touch of blues while the shorter “Take the Edge Off” swings speedier for its two minutes — touch of Uncle Acid-style garage-ism in its hook — arriving in a well-set pairing with the title-track before “I Will Be Forgotten” nods at trad-doom in its, well, nod, and “The Cave” builds from the ground up to offer a well earned grand finale. And that’s it. Next thing you know, 35 minutes and one really long sentence have passed and you had your face handed back to you.

In any case, after that trip, it’s all the more palpable how much they made the right choice to lead with “I Am.” That track’s not streaming yet, but there are three other songs up so you can get a feel of what they’re going for atmospherically. They’re all below and the release info follows here courtesy of the PR wire:

Oz rockers, Devil Electric, return with haunting second album, “Godless” out November 12th on Kozmik Artifactz

Godless is a collimation of ideas and experiences, bedded in what can only be described as “the next evolution” of Devil Electric’s sound.

While keeping true to the band’s DNA – you’ll still find the heavy grooves of 70’s inspired hard rock – Godless takes it one step further by peeling back to a more LoFi sound, a credit to producer Julian Schweitzer who worked with the band on Godless.

There is also a level of stylistic experimentation on the album, peppered through the familiar Devil Electric tones, that emerged in the freedom of the studio. You will be hit with these moments, unchained and lyrical, in songs like Your Guess Is As Good As Mine and I Will Be Forgotten. In others, like Take the Edge Off, there is the familiarity of Devil Electric’s debut album but progressed and twisted to new tonal shapes and raw melodic edges.

Lyrically, Godless took inspiration from Pierina’s bookshelf with songs All My Friends Move Like The Night, Mindset and The Cave paying homage to Plato, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joe Hill and Paul Tremblay.

She keeps pace with the band but never misses the chance to bring the signature big sweeping melodic vocals she has become known for.

Godless is not over-thought and at times it’s raw as hell – but that’s the point.

Godless will be released 12th November 2021 on Kozmik Artifactz, available on all formats, including digital download and Spotify.

Available as Limited Edition Vinyl

Release Date: 12th November 2021

VINYL FACTZ
– Plated & pressed on high
performance vinyl at
Pallas/Germany
– limited & coloured vinyl
– 300gsm gatefold cover
– special vinyl mastering

TRACKS
1. I Am
2. All My Friends Move Like The Night
3. Mindset
4. Your Guess Is As Good As Mine
5. Take The Edge Off
6. Godless
7. I Will Be Forgotten
8. The Cave

Devil Electric Are:
Pierina O’Brien – Vocals
Christos Athanasias – Guitars
Tom Hulse – Bass
Mark van de Beek – Drums

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Devil Electric, Godless (2021)

Portuguese heavy rockers Miss Lava today premiere their new live outing, DeLores Session. Earlier this year, the Lisboa mainstays offered up Doom Machine (review here) through Small Stone Records and Kozmik Artifactz and thereby pushed their own creative limits and songwriting processes — neither of which one would call lacking previously — to newfound heights, turning tragic personal circumstance into triumph of expressive craft.

And yeah, that’s all well and good, but how about some damn shows? You know the story there, sadly enough. I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing Miss Lava live, let alone for their new album, but damn, they bring it. With crisp audio production and a multi-camera shoot, the four-piece who after this said goodbye to drummer J. Garcia tear into tracks taken almost entirely from Doom Machine — “I’m the Asteroid” comes from 2016’s Sonic Debris (review here). It’s a killer set, and if they had any pandemic-era dust to kick off, I certainly couldn’t tell.

It’s the kind of performance that a band might ultimately decide to put out as a live album, and wouldn’t you know it, in between my booking this premiere and today, that actually happened. The ‘DeLores Session,’ which you can watch in its entirety below, is out today for Bandcamp Friday. More info and the always important purchase link follows the clip below.

Please enjoy:

Miss Lava, ‘DeLores Session’ video premiere

Miss Lava on ‘DeLores Session’:

When Portugal opened after COVID we just wanted to get out there and play. The guys from Psychedelic Film Festival reached out to ask if we could do a performance of two to three songs for their online festival Rock Against PTSD. We really love playing these songs. So we just went ahead, called our friends from The Quartet of Woah! and took our gear to their place at Casa DeLores. Then we rocked out these songs, way more than originally planned, with the help of our mutual friend and producer Fernando Matias (he did “Sonic Debris” with us and all of TQOW! albums).

All in all we had a great day among friends, drank a few beers and had some pizza. It turned out this is J. Garcia’s last recording with the band. It feels great to have it documented like this and to release it as a freebie!

We really like listening to the raw approach on the songs, with all the fucks up and everything. It’s honest rawk. Hope you all dig it.

Purchase link: https://smallstone.bandcamp.com/album/delores-session

Tracklist:
1 – Feel Surreal – Live
2 – I’m the Asteroid – Live
3 – Sleepy Warm – Live
4 – Brotherhood of Eternal Love – Live
5 – The Oracle – Live
6 – The Great Divide – Live
7 – The Fall – Live
8 – Fourth Dimension – Live
9 – In the Mire – Live
10 – Magma – Live
11 – Doom Machine – Live

Recorded May 1st, 2021 at “Casa DeLores” in Lisbon, Portugal. Produced by WH!, Pentagon Audio Manufacturers and Miss Lava. Recorded, engineered, mixed and mastered by Fernando Matias.

Special thanks to “The Quartet of Woah!”

Miss Lava:
Johnny Lee – Vocals
Ricardo Ferreira – Bass and Vocals
K. Raffah – Guitars
J. Garcia – Drums

Miss Lava, Doom Machine (2021)

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Spanish heavy psych blues rockers Green Desert Water have set a Nov. 5 release for their new album, Black Harvest. To herald the opening of preorders, Small Stone is streaming “Too Many Wizards” from the record now, which will also see vinyl release in Kozmik Artifactz in the continuing partnership between the two labels. Not to be confused with the Green Lung record of the same name due in October on Svart, this Black Harvest is the follow-up to the band’s 2018 offering, Solar Plexus (review here), and rocks in an entirely different way.

“Too Many Wizards” has more in common sonically with All Them Witches, for example, and you know there’s nothing wrong with that either, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you. Note also the guest appearance on the record from Kent Stump of Small Stone alums Wo Fat, should you require further enticement.

The PR wire sent the following the other day and I’m late on it because I suck at this, even though I did the update for the band’s bio:

GREEN DESERT WATER: Black Harvest Full-Length From Spanish Psychedelic Blues Rock Trio To See Release November 5th Via Small Stone Records; “Too Many Wizards” Now Playing + Preorders Available

Oviedo, Spain-based psychedelic blues rock trio GREEN DESERT WATER will release their third full-length, Black Harvest, on November 5th via Small Stone Records!

Black Harvest is inarguably the band’s most cohesive, classic, and vibe-ready work yet. With the introduction of new drummer Dani Barcena, guitarist/vocalist Kike Sanchís and bassist Juan Arias García unite in classic power trio fashion, building upon the significant accomplishments of 2018’s Solar Plexus with even more flash of heavy blues, psychedelia, and weighted riffery. Can you hang? Of course you can!

Wo Fat’s own Kent Stump sits in on the title-track, which is a fitting centerpiece rife with AC/DC-vs.- Sabbath vitality, following behind the opening salvo of “Sacred Tree” and “Dead Sacred Tree,” which set a tone figuratively and literally for what follows with a focus on melody and songwriting – the catchy “Too Many Wizards” could easily be a state-of-the-union for the heavy rock underground – tempos no less comfortable careening than they are crashing, and a classic sensibility filtered through modern production that leaves the songs full and engaging for the most fickle of attention spans. Later, to be snared by “Shelter Of Guru” is to take a ride in a traditionalist caravan, and both journey and destination satisfy ahead of the capper boogie in “Soul Blind.” Rest assured, you’re about to spend 38 minutes in the presence of masters. Roll with it and be glad you did.

In advance of the release of Black Harvest, GREEN DESERT WATER is streaming “Too Many Wizards” noting, “when the old masters speak, the apprentice wizards must shup up, close their eyes, and open their minds…”

Black Harvest will be available on CD and digital formats via Small Stone and limited edition LP (deluxe gatefold) via Kozmik Artifactz.

Find preorders HERE: https://smallstone.bandcamp.com/album/black-harvest

Black Harvest Track Listing:
1. Sacred Tree
2. Dead Sacred Tree
3. Too Many Wizards
4. Black Harvest
5. The Whale
6. Shelter Of Guru
7. Soul Blind

GREEN DESERT WATER:
Juan Arias García – fuzz bass
Dani Barcena – drums, percussion
Kike Sanchís – guitars, vocals

Guests:
Kent Stump – additional guitar
Alvaro Barcena – backing vocals

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Green Desert Water, Black Harvest (2021)

There is an ancient Mesopotamian dictum that says, ‘Arguing with catchy songs is the provenance of jerks.’ And I’m nothing if not an adherent to ancient Mesopotamian dictums, thus you’ll not find me debating against Land Mammal‘s “Psychedelic Hand” or the accompanying video below. The song leads off the Dallas-based duo’s impending debut album, Slow Your Mind, which is set to release Sept. 24 through Kozmik Artifactz, and makes a strong statement of intent for the 10-tracker that follows, fostering traditionally-structured heavy rock and roll that touches on modern-style garage doom even as it plays to classic forms.

A guest solo from Earthless‘ Isaiah Mitchell doesn’t hurt — he posted a few I think for general use? not sure if this is one of them or what but who’s gonna say no to him anyway? — and neither does the organ from True Turner, but the core duo of singer Kinsley August and guitarist Will Weise (Bryan David plays drums and bass and co-produced the record) offer weighted-Blind Melon vibes on “Ring the Bell” and a due sense of strut to go with the slide guitar on “Fuzzy Purple Jacket,” so there’s more happening across Slow Your Mind‘s 35 minutes than hooks. But yes, those too, and that’s just fine thank you very much.

With a style that’s way more SoCal sunshine than Texas roughneck, Land Mammal continue the procession of straight-ahead, thoughtfully arranged tracks in the mellower “One Woman to Love” and “Grow,” which presumably rounds out side A, organ — handled by Jake Dexter on most of the record, save the opener and “One Woman to Love,” where it’s Adam Pickrell — again a factor in the latter cut as August‘s vocals are highlighted. It would come as no surprise that the subsequent title-track (presumed side B leadoff) would be more rocking, and it is, but the vibe remains semi-psychedelic, a little more patient in tempo, and that works just as well to expand Slow Your Mind‘s dynamic.

Ultimately, Weise and August are more clearheaded in their intention than most current psych, which resides either on the jammier or drifitier end of that colorful spectrum, but grounded though their craft may be, they’re still able to bring a sense of atmosphere to “Right From the Start” or the sitar-meets-hard-riffs “Full Ascension” and bluesy “Sing Me a Song,” which follows in the penultimate spot. The shaker that accompanies acoustic closer “Better Days” reinforces the earlier Blind Melon comparison — an inherent compliment to August‘s performance as well, as far as I’m concerned — and wraps the album on a less wistful note than “Sing Me a Song,” but with a movement that feels natural from one track to the next, even if it’s a revisit from the band’s 2019 self-titled EP.

Slow Your Mind is well put together and makes few demands of its listenership. The songs are accessible and immediate but mostly not overbearing, and Land Mammal make their mission clear at the outset and then fulfill that through songwriting, their own playing, and the album’s clarity of production. As a first full-length, it is strikingly cohesive. They sound like a band with plans, and leave one wondering only what those might include going forward.

Video and preorder links, etc., follow here.

Please enjoy:

Land Mammal, “Psychedelic Hand” official video

Pre-order the Debut Album from Land Mammal. Available as a limited edition vinyl record (two different colors) and a digital format: https://landmammal.bandcamp.com/album/slow-your-mind

Vinyl records are courtesy of Kozmik Artifactz (Artifact 129). You can also order directly from the record label:
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Full album release on September 24th.

Song written by Kinsley August and Will Weise, Produced by Land Mammal and Bryan David.

Vocals: Kinsley August, Guitar: Will Weise, Drums/bass: Bryan David, Guitar solo: Isaiah Mitchell, Organ: True Turner.

Land Mammal, Slow Your Mind (2021)

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[Click play above to stream Borracho’s Pound of Flesh in its entirety. Album is out Friday, Aug. 6 on Kozmik Artifactz.]

Though the band has been around longer, this year is a decade since the first Borracho full-length, Splitting Sky (review here), came out from D.C. to lobby listeners in favor of their particular take on heavy roll, marked out by a distinctive feel of riding their own grooves and doing so on a conveyance of dense-packed fuzz tone. Pound of Flesh follows a collaborative 2020 single with vocalist Jake Starr, formerly of Adam West — of which Borracho drummer Mario Trubiano was also a member — and is comprised of material and recordings dating back to late 2019, recorded and mixed as ever by Frank “The Punisher” Marchand (Foghound, Iron Man, Life Beyond, so many others) across three sessions then and across subsequent months (Tony Reed mastered). Trubiano, guitarist/vocalist Steve Fisher — who also adds keys on three of the nine tracks — and bassist/backing vocalist Tim Martin (who also painted the album’s cover) work within a style and elements that should be well familiar to their established audience base.

They’ve never been a band to radically shift approach from one outing to the next, but it’s also been half a decade since 2016’s Atacama (review here) — the band also celebrated their 10-year anniversary with the collection Riffography (review here) in 2017 — and a significant half-decade at that, and that time has wrought some shifts in their approach, whether it’s that flourish of keyboard/organ sounds introduced on opener “Holy Roller” and spread throughout “Caravan” and the 11-minute pre-outro finale “Burn it Down,” wherein Floyd-via-YOB contemplative guitar also pervades early with proggy melancholy as a precedent to the combination of aggression, breadth and thematic summary that follows, or the use of transitional samples like those between “Judgement Day” and “Dirty Money,” or those that conclude the album in “Foaming at the Mouth,” some spoken word in the second half of “Caravan,” or even just the blatant focus on social and political issues, which one imagines have been nigh on impossible to avoid in the US capitol throughout the years since Atacama, since they’ve certainly been impossible to avoid everywhere else.

Borracho tackle the subject with characteristic boldness and bruiser riffing across three vinyl sides — side D of the 2LP is an etching — as Fisher‘s vocals working with a well-established burl that’s been their hallmark since he took over those duties on 2013’s Oculus (review here). His easing into more of a frontman role is a big part of the narrative arc of the band’s career to-date, and the launch of Pound of Flesh in “Holy Roller” and the more melodically fluid “It Came From the Sky” (premiered here) is crucial in marking out the ground that the rest of what follows will cover; strong hooks, weighted groove, and the by-now-a-given chemistry in the performance of the trio as a whole that underscores the more complex structure presented in “Caravan.” It’s hard to think of a band who’ve spent the past 14 years actively working to foster a lack of pretense as being atmospheric, but Borracho are that on “Caravan,” and certainly too on the acoustic “Dreamer” that follows, serving as an interlude before “Judgement Day,” “Dirty Money” and “Year of the Swine” push further into the heart of the matter in their construction and lyrical schematic, which isn’t so much partisan as roundly disgusted.

Following the open keys, shouts, and fuzzy careening that marks the peak of “Caravan” and the stretch of Eastern-tinged noodling and percussion that follows to end the song, and the plucked acoustic strings of “Dreamer,” “Judgement Day” slams in to crack the hypnosis in half, with a riff and rhythm that is definitively Borrachoan, and a hook less immediate than “Holy Roller” or “It Came From the Sky,” but still a notable presence, and a surge of momentum that “Dirty Money” continues at a faster tempo, repeating the pattern of the opening duo but, instead of turning right away into the longer reach that showed itself on “Caravan,” the path twists and brings about “Year of the Swine,” which is willfully lumbering and gnashing in its frustration, bolstered in that regard by a guest solo from Scott “Wino” Weinrich.

It is the peak the three-piece hit before they hit before that frustration boils into what emerges on “Burn it Down,” the tension in the beginning building over the first 3:44 of the song’s total 11:24 in order to set up the first verse, which only ups the stakes further en route to gang-style shouts of “rise up!” and “tear down!” offsetting the chorus lines “Rise up and fight” and “Burn it to the ground.”

Well, okay. One has to note, of course, that “Burn it Down” was written and recorded prior to this past Jan. 6, when an attempted putsch in Washington, D.C., tried in its way to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. I’ll add as well that I haven’t had the benefit of a lyric sheet, but it’s hard not to place “Burn it Down” in that context. And no, I don’t think Fisher is calling for insurrection — or at least not that particular insurrection. Lines like, “Time to settle debts/We’re taking a pound of flesh,” certainly have an aspect of threat, never mind that they serve as the inspiration for the title, but the message, again, never comes through in favor of one side over the other so much as disaffected with a corrupted entirety. And fair enough. Twice through the chorus again, and “Burn it Down” jams out a solo en route to its bookending more subdued guitar, crying baby and evil cackle samples starting “Foaming at the Mouth” in beginning a sample onslaught — “Here comes the money!” from the beginning of “Dirty Money” makes a return — and the feeling of being overwhelmed is palpable.

Conspiracy theories, chemtrails, that crying baby and of course a riff-led groove all come to a finish just after two minutes in, and Pound of Flesh concludes with a sampling of the apex speech of Charlie Chaplin’s 1940 anti-fascist “talkie” film The Great Dictator, wrapping with the repositioned line that begins that famous monologue: “I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business.” The message is clear and relevant and gives depth and context not only to the purposefully overwhelming barrage meant to represent the overwhelming barrage of noise one faces in any given day, but also to “Burn it Down,” to “Judgement Day,” “It Came From the Sky” and the rest of what surrounds. Borracho could hardly have picked a more suitable or relevant capstone for the album they made.

And what impresses about Pound of Flesh on the whole isn’t just that Fisher, Martin and Trubiano made it, but that they pulled it off while still holding to that central sans-pretense ethic. Remember, this is the band whose slogan has only ever been ‘Repetitive Heavy Grooves,’ and yet they dig deeper here to offer much more than that on every level, from shifts in structure and tempo to new arrangement elements. In the span of the last decade, all Borracho have ever done is exceed expectation. It is the manner in which they are most reliable, and on Pound of Flesh, they deliver once more.

Borracho, “Holy Roller” official video

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[Click play above to stream the premiere of The Kings of Frog Island’s video for ‘Beyond the Void.’ New album VII is out July 30 on Kozmik Artifactz.]

It was some 13 standard earth years ago that The Kings of Frog Island issued their “Welcome to the Void” on their second album, 2008’s II (discussed here), and now, with VII, they willfully go beyond. “Beyond the Void” leads off the Leicester, UK, outfit’s new collection, VII, a stirring 10-track offering that seems to make the listener the beneficiary of a surge in productivity on the part of the band. That is to say, it was six years between 2014’s V (review here) and the release of VI (review here) in 2020, and now, less than a year later, guitarist Mark Buteux, vocalist Gavin Searle, bassist Lee Madel-Toner, drummer Roger “Dodge” Watson — plus Gavin William Wright, Tony Heslop and Neve Buteux — have turned around a follow-up, comprising 47 minutes of sungazing, mellow-heavy psychedelia and fuzz, melodic, unpretentious, dug in and of a style the band have now worked over the last few years to establish as their own that pulls together the various sides of their now 18-year trajectory.

The key seems to have been the band launching their own studio in Amphibia Sound Studios IV, which not only has allowed them to record more, since they’re the ones doing it and thus less subject to schedules, etc., but also to build their songs in a different way. No doubt this process was upset by the covid-19 pandemic in some way over the course of the last 15 months — easy to speculate, since everything was — but The Kings of Frog Island still sound very much like themselves, and that distinction is important because it encompasses both the catchy, straightforward underlying structure of “Blackened Soul,” the drifting post-grunge of “Dopamine” and the psych blues minimalist try-it-and-see-how-it-goes experimentalism of “SuperEgo.” Though not without a darker moment in “Empire” on side B, VII speaks of the sunshine on three tracks in a row with “Blackened Soul,” “Summer Sun” and “Dopamine,” and even “Rain” talks about stepping into the light — its hook line being, “So get out of the rain.” The penultimate “Five Hours” does its part to “hold onto the summer” as well and assures, “it’ll be alright.”

In context, it’s easy to read this as psychedelic escapism on the part of the band, and if that’s the case, it works just as fluidly for the listener. While “Beyond the Void” sets up elements like the backing vocals behind Searle and the Revolver-in-an-alternate-reality-dance-hall groove that accompanies, it’s the interplay between that track and “All the King’s Horses” immediately following that gives the audience more of a clue as to the scope of The Kings of Frog Island at this stage in their career. For the better part of two decades and across seven records of various shifts in personnel and craft, the band has worked to find a way to carry those hearing their songs along the current of the material in the manner they make sound so natural here, blending the ethereality of “All the King’s Horses” with the harder fuzz of “The Silver Arrow” while retaining a consistent identity between them. This isn’t just about tones or melodies, but the production style and the manner in which parts are layered as well. This development of the studio space as a part of the character of the group as a whole, it comes through in the material in a way that it couldn’t have before Amphibia Sound IV, and it’s helped The Kings of Frog Island to find their multi-pronged path and to walk it in kind.

“Beyond the Void” (6:12), “Empire” (5:36) and “SuperEgo” (7:43) are the only tracks on VII that top five minutes long — though “All the King’s Horses” and “Blackened Soul” come close — and though that’s more than appeared on VI, that prior album also had 10 tracks and three of them under four minutes, where VII has four. Does that speak of a burgeoning divergence between longer songs and shorter in The Kings of Frog Island‘s approach? I’ve no idea, and I don’t think it’s a question that can be answered at this point. VI was put together over a series of years, and for all I know, VII might have been sculpted out of the same ongoing sessions, but as an album, it presents as being markedly cogent in its purposes, whether a given song works fast or slow, loud or quiet. The atmosphere and mood of “Empire,” or how the song descends into its fade ahead of the burst-to-life at the start of “The Silver Arrow,” isn’t to be taken for granted. They are far from the ’90s-style, handclap-inclusive Britpsych of “Summer Sun” at that point, or even the warm rumble of “Blackened Soul,” but the easy sway of “Five Hours” helps ease the transition into “SuperEgo,” and the breadth and subtlety of that final build is a marked achievement that underlines the songwriting at work throughout the album preceding it.

I see no reason to mince words or deny that I have been and remain a fan of The Kings of Frog Island‘s output over the better part of the last two decades. What VII does is add to their list of accomplishments, push further their creative style and make it that much easier for the listener — whether a fan of long-standing or not — to roll where they roll. You don’t have to know “Welcome to the Void” to go “Beyond the Void,” and through “Blackened Soul” and “Summer Sun” and “Dopamine” and “Rain” and “Five Hours” and really the whole thing, the prevalence of vibe in their material not only stems from the depth of the mix — the way the vocals are blown out on top of “Blackened Soul” or the slow-motion scorch of the lead guitar in “Empire” — but from the essence of the songs themselves. I’m not sure “exciting” is the right thing to call a release that spends so much of its time basking in psychedelic serenity, but VII is that, just the same, and each song is an invitation to the audience to join the band on this journey into the moment. They make it a pleasure to go.

The Kings of Frog Island, “Summer Sun” official video

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