Posted in Questionnaire on March 19th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Constantine Grim of The Electric Mud
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I’d say pretty definitively I have the best job in the world. I get to write and play music that means the world to me with three dudes that mean the world to me. I picked up a guitar early in my teens as a lot of kids do, as a means of self expression at an age when it’s tough to do that on your own, and it’s been really good to me as an art and a discipline.
Describe your first musical memory.
My earliest memory in general that I can recall is riding around with my mom while she listened to the Graceland album by Paul Simon. She emigrated to the states from east Africa in the mid ’80s, and even though the musicians on that album are predominantly South African, it was an album she really connected with, and to this day it’s what I throw on if I’m trying to really check in with myself and relax. My dad is also a monster steering wheel drummer, so watching him thump out all of Led Zeppelin 1 and At Fillmore East by The Allman Brothers from the car seat really drilled into me how much fun rock and roll is.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
That first tour is the dragon I’m still chasing haha. I love it, the traveling, the bonds you build not just amongst the guys in the van but the bands you meet and the folks that show up in some dive on a Tuesday on faith that you’re gonna bring the goods.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
You really don’t have to look farther than the last year to find that answer. To be coming off signing to a label you really dig and have a record coming out that you’re excited about, to be geared up and rehearsed and ready to play SXSW for the first time as an official act and have that all get iced overnight, frankly was fucking gnarly.
We’ve got the motor idling, and when we get the green light we’re gonna come out swinging with a ton of new tunes spread out over a couple releases, but yeah I mean you don’t go through something so jarring with such an open ended timeline for a return to normalcy without some serious gut check moments with the dude in the mirror.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
It’s a very liberating experience, for me personally. I love the process of writing a record, doing the best you can, putting it out, and then turning that page and sitting down and trying to top it. It’s this cross section of art and effort and holding yourself accountable to really get the most out of yourself both as one of the writers but also as a bandmate whose vision is a piece of a larger thing we’re all trying to realize together.
How do you define success?
Payin the light bill doing something that makes you happy.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
I have seen a Buffalo chicken gyro, and as a Greek boy that is something that is an unholy creation that needs to go back to whatever circle of hell created it.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
A perfect album.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
It’s a way for me to reach out and connect with people in a universal language, but also on my terms. I love the ambiguity of being a guitar player who writes music and plays lead but doesn’t have to mess with lyrics or singing. I can say whatever I want, about whatever I want, without saying anything specific that I’ll be poked and prodded about. I live just to the left of the spotlight, and I love it.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
The birth of my daughter! MaryAnn Emmanuel Grim, comin July 2021.
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 1st, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Hey, that’s awesome. Good for you, Somali Yacht Club. Along with Stoned Jesus being on Napalm, the Lviv trio’s signing to Season of Mist is the biggest heavy-underground inking I can think of — please correct me if I’m wrong. It’s good news in any case, and all the more so since it comes with word of a new album on the horizon. That’ll be fun, especially as it coincides with reissues for 2018’s The Sea (review here) and 2014’s The Sun (discussed here). Sign me up for new stuff for sure.
I’m normally in favor of get-it-all-out-there-as-fast-as-possible-or-at-least-send-it-to-me-early, but in Somali Yacht Club‘s case, if the new record doesn’t show up for a bit, I think that might be okay and give people a chance to get caught up. The Sea and The Sun both resonate on a frequency ill-suited to a quick superficial listen. These are records worth diving into. If a reissue gets an opportunity to do that before being overshadowed by a new album, I think that’d be fine.
On the other hand, new stuff please.
It’s an ongoing debate. With myself. Because I don’t have friends.
Anyhow, congrats to the band and cheers to Season of Mist on the ace pickup:
SOMALI YACHT CLUB Signs to Season of Mist
Season of Mist are proud to announce the signing of psychedelic stoner rock trio SOMALI YACHT CLUB! The band will be releasing a brand new album as well as their back catalogue via Season of Mist in the near future. Stay tuned!
The band comments: “We’re proud to announce that our new album will be released on the Season of Mist. It’s an honor to be part of their roster, featuring many bands that are significant to us. We’re very excited and hope that this cooperation will be fruitful! “
For a glimpse of what to expect, check out SOMALI YACHT CLUB on Bandcamp!
SOMALI YACHT CLUB is a psychedelic stoner rock trio from Lviv, Ukraine. It started out as a jam session between band members from different Lviv groups, but soon turned into the main act for each of them.
The trio self-released the demo EP called ‘Sandsongs’ in 2011. After this, they played numerous shows in Ukraine and shared the stage with bands like ELDER, KADAVER, RED FANG and others. The first album “The Sun” was released on September 11, 2014 (Robustfellow). After the 2015 release of LP “The Sun” (Bilocation Records) the band went on their first European tour with ETHEREAL RIFFIAN (UA).
In 2018, SOMALI YACHT CLUB released the second album “The Sea” (Robustfellow, Bilocation Records) and toured with STRAYTONES (UA) and STONED JESUS Jesus (UA). The stoner rockers have played at festivals like Void, Swamp, Keep It Low and several Garmonbozia festivals.
Posted in Questionnaire on March 1st, 2021 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Johnny Lee of Miss Lava
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
My first art expression and my first roots were drawing. Since forever, I remember drawing and trying to replicate everything all the time. The more realistic or the closest to the original the best.
But as I grew up, I became a huge music fan and music turns out to be my favorite type of art, especially metal and rock music. I’ve learned most of my English by reading metal bands’ lyrics. I developed my drawing skills by drawing, countless times, all of Iron Maiden’s album covers, and by drawing every band logo I could.
Since a very early age, I sang along with all of my favorite metal bands of the ’80s and I started to sing and write lyrics on top of instrumental songs as well.
That was the starting point of everything, but in one-way or another, I’ve always wanted to become a singer and wanted to do something art related. And that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.
Nowadays, I work as a Creative Director in an advertising agency and I’m the singer of a Stoner Rock Band. I guess I could say “Mission accomplished”.
Describe your first musical memory.
When I was four or five years old, around 1980/81, I remember grabbing one of my mother’s tapes and playing it over and over. Side A – Pink Floyd “Dark Side of the Moon” and side B – Supertramp “Crime of The Century”. I guess that first impact of reproducing some music made me feel very powerful, like I had a superpower or something. In a way I think that feeling still lasts as I have become a music collector. I own more than 1,000 records and almost 1,500 CDs.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
In 1995 Megadeth and Corrosion of Conformity played in my hometown, Cascais in Lisbon, Portugal.
I was a big C.O.C. fan, I am still, and me and K. Rafaah (Miss Lava’s Guitarist) found Pepper Keenan and Woody Weatherman drinking some wine in a terrace in Cascais the night before the show. We invited them to a pool house bar where we used to hang.
Turns out we spent that night partying with Corrosion’s Pepper, Woody and Reed Mullin and Megadeth’s late Nick Menza. We drank, played some pool, talked about music all night and by the time we were so drunk, me and Pepper sang together, in the middle of the street, the song “Shelter” from the album Deliverance that they were promoting at the time.
On the next day, during the show, Reed pulled me from the crowd onto the stage to sing with them “Rather See You Dead” (Legionaire’s Disease Band cover) and before playing “Vote with a Bullet,” Pepper dedicated the song to us, me and Raffah.
I was 19 years old at the time, and I think nothing will ever top that for as long as I live. Epic!
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
That is a tough one. I guess all the time. I try to be as straightforward, true and honest as I can, but honesty and truth most of the times are too hard to handle by others. Certainly, I compromise more than I should or want. I guess it’s a learning process.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Hopefully will lead to better places, better times, freedom and deeper emotions.
For me, Art is a constant, shifting universe that stimulates my very own space and time.
It’s the way that I chose to live my life, to challenge my boundaries and I hope that I’ll continue to make something meaningful and different each time.
How do you define success?
I guess success is: to look back and being able to understand and appreciate how far we’ve come. Have no regrets. Feel good with the choices we’ve made and to be proud of our achievements. Success should put us in a good place and make us feel happy about the journey. But the most important thing about success is being able to share it with your friends, family and keep them all around you.
We can’t be successful all alone.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
Back in 1996 I went to a soccer match in Lisbon, Portugal. It was the Cup Final between my team, Sporting Portugal and our main rivals Benfica. During Benfica’s first goal celebration, one of Benfica’s supporters fired a rocket flare towards Sporting fans. I saw the rocket speeding my way, crossing from one point of the stadium to another, only a few meters above the players’ heads, when suddenly it changed direction and hits a peaceful man, next to me, in the throat and kills him on the spot (he was the father of two small children). I was just a few meters away. I remember seeing all the blood splashing from the man’s throat as the rocket was still burning inside him and I remember thinking that could have happened to me. Very sad memory.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I would like to direct a music video for our band.
And I’ve never tried doing a sculpture. I think I would like to make a realistic one someday. Maybe an Ozzy or a Lemmy bust or even a Cristiano Ronaldo’s, to see if I can top the ridiculous one hahaha.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Establishing communication with our emotions.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Like I said before, I like do draw as realistic as I can. In the near future, I want to make a full detailed gigantic realistic painting of a foot plant, hahaha. Don’t know why? Probably it’s going to be the unfinished work at the end of my life.
Portuguese heavy rockers Miss Lava release their new album, Doom Machine, Jan. 15 on Small Stone and Kozmik Artifactz. The band’s fourth long-player and second through Small Stone behind 2016’s Sonic Debris (review here), it is an explosion of well-crafted, professional-sounding material that feels built for European heavy-fest stages. Your Desertfests, certainly SonicBlast, they’re already booked for a festival in Spain this March (which seems ambitious), and so on. It was, appropriately enough, recorded live, with Miguel “Veg” Marques at the helm of Generator Music Studios in Sintra. The energy with which the songs are delivered is only part of the album’s personality though, because the CD version comes with a whopping 15 tracks running a total of 56 minutes, as the returning four-piece of vocalist Johnny Lee, guitarist K. Raffah, bassist Ricardo Ferreira and drummer J. Garcia tear into one hook after the other, careening with desert-inspired purpose through “Fourth Dimension” and “In the Mire” at the outset like an all-grown-up Kyuss with the rest of the album that follows working in different stages set off by interludes, groups of one or two songs complemented by short pieces of varied atmosphere that lend breadth to the proceedings as a whole.
Most of those spacers are quick instrumentals. Guitar, bass, drums. “Magma,” the first of them, and “Karma” follow that pattern, while “Alpha” adopts a more mellow spirit and the last, “Terra” captures wave sounds and guitar noise ahead of the closing title-track, which is also the longest song on the outing at 6:58. The interludes bolster Doom Machine‘s flow and make it all the more immersive despite being largely based around straightforward craft of high grade verses and choruses, though certainly longer stretches like “Brotherhood of Eternal Love” (5;46), the Alice in Chains-style harmonized “The Fall” (6:31) and “Doom Machine” itself want nothing for atmosphere. “The Fall” is a highlight in that regard, but it contends with single-worthy cuts like the maddeningly catchy “Sleepy Warm” and the slower, more spacious “The Great Divide” nearby for that title, with the latter as the assumed end of the vinyl’s side A and, indeed, the split between the first half of the album and the second — not counting the bonus tracks. That’s not to mention a cut like “The Oracle,” later on, which singlehandedly shows how Miss Lava take cues from classic desert rock and turn them into something of their own all across Doom Machine as a whole. Maybe it’s safer not to talk about highlights.
Amid the many hooks, interludes and spot-on moves made throughout Doom Machine is the narrative of K. Raffah having lost a child after only a month and a half from birth. That brutal context underpins even the most uptempo of Miss Lava‘s songs here, and adds weight to already impactful pieces like “The Fall” and “In the Mire” earlier on, the melodies and momentum betraying little of what’s actually going on but remaining expressive nonetheless. One doesn’t want to call it a disconnect, but Doom Machine hardly sounds dragged down by grief or anything else as Miss Lava courses through. Even the bonus tracks, “God Feeds the Swine,” ‘Feel Surrea” and “Red Atlantis,” boast quality hooks — the last one of them especially so — so there is a balance of elements and themes at play throughout, and the band aren’t necessarily beholden to one or the other of them, as impossible as that might seem.
To wit, the video premiering below for “The Great Divide” takes a post-apocalyptic environmentalist stance, looking out at the world and seeing it being used and torn down by humanity as a whole. The clip was directly by José Dinis, who offers some comment on it below, along with that of Johnny Lee.
As always, I hope you enjoy:
Miss Lava, “The Great Divide” official video premiere
According to singer Johnny Lee, “‘The Great Divide’ is a euphemism for death, an apocalyptic vision for mankind. We keep destroying our planet and forgetting that when this ends, it ends for everyone.”
Director José Dinis reflects that this is “A concept story about an apocalyptic world, where an unhopeful man just tries to survive. As in real life, there is always a way out, a solution, a chance to live a more colourful life, no matter what.”
“The Great Divide” was filmed at Mina de São Domingos, a deserted open-pit mine in Alentejo, Portugal. The site is one of the volcanogenic massive sulfide ore deposits in the Iberian Pyrite Belt, which extends from the southern Portugal into Spain. It was the first place in Portugal to have electric lighting.
Posted in Reviews on December 16th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
With their third album, Protopsycho, Cypriot four-piece Arcadian Child enter a new stage of realization. Their progression has been quick in terms of productive turnaround from one album to the next, with 2017’s Afterglow (review here) getting picked up by Ripple Music‘s imprint Rebel Waves for release in 2018 ahead of the band’s second album, Superfonica (review here), that same year. Lockdown 2020 brought the live album From Far, For the Wild (review here) and word of Protopsycho in the making, and its arrival through Ripple, Kozmik Artifactz and the band’s own Bitter Tea Records finds Arcadian Child at a pivotal moment of their progression in terms of finding their sound. As in, they have.
They do so amid a swath of cultural and aesthetic influences. Cyprus’ position as an island nation finds it situated near the Middle East, Mediterranean Europe and Northern Africa, and Arcadian Child dig into melodies and rhythmic progressions endemic to the region. Early on Protopsycho, the second half of opener “Snakecharm” unfolds a groove that feels born of classic Greek psychedelia, and the winding melody of the subsequent “Wave High” builds on that feel in terms of style, as guitarists StathisHadjicharalambous and Panagiotis Georgiou (the latter also vocals), bassist/backing vocalist Andreas Kerveros and newly-arrived drummer Constantinos Pavlides purposefully bring together such traditionalism with a modern edge, not just as regards their own tonality or the production — the album was recorded, mixed and co-produced with Andreas Trachonitis in Nicosia — but on a deeper level of composition as well.
Perhaps most of all, Protopsycho is conscious of what it’s doing sound-wise without necessarily being restrained by that. It is the tightest core of songwriting Arcadian Child has yet brought to bear — which is saying something — and its eight tracks and 37 minutes play through with an unhurried but consistent motion, heavy but fluid thanks in no small part to the intricacy of their rhythms throughout and the apparent ease with which they tie together their verses and choruses. “Snakecharm” and “Wave High” are joined on side A by the more lumbering “Sour Grapes” and the apropos finale “The Well,” which begins at a drift and solidifies in its second half around a classic fuzz rock riff transmuted tonally and in tuning to suit the band’s purposes. In both, there is an emerging current of modern heavy influence, particularly centered around Nashville heavy psych/blues rockers All Them Witches.
It is telling that Mikey Allred at Dark Art Studio mastered Protopsycho, as the former member of Across Tundras has also worked engineering and mastering several All Them Witches albums. Something about the shimmer in the guitar on “The Well” and in “Bitter Tea,” which follows, leading off side B, speaks directly to that. There’s a blend of meditative spaciousness and creative spark that comes to bear feeling like a signature. And yet there’s no denying Arcadian Child make this their own as well, and in purposeful form as “Bitter Tea” begins with a Dying Surfer Meets His Maker-style guitar progression and unfolds with a fuzzy gracefulness and confidence born of a mature band who know what they’re doing. Again, this is Arcadian Child being aware of their choices as a group but not held back by that conscious.
“Bitter Tea” and the subsequent “Bodies of Men” are the two shortest cuts on Protopsycho at a respective 3:52 and 3:38, but the tone they set for the second half of the tracklisting isn’t to be understated, as the latter cut picks up with Dead Meadow-style roll in its brief excursion of verse and hook, letting the fuzzy tones of the two guitars lead the way as the vocals push further out in echo, bass and drums providing the solid foundation on which the quirky but structurally sound bounce takes place. The penultimate “Raising Fire” is something of a slower and more ritualized psych burn, vocals following the guitar pattern before fuller tonality kicks in as part of the call-and-response chorus’ thrust. All the while, the abiding atmosphere of “Raising Fire” is patient and built around a tempo that refuses to move at anything other than its own pace for the first four minutes of the track’s 5:35, drums signaling the shift thereafter into a more uptempo instrumental progression that carries the song to its finish.
The splashing crash cymbal deep in the mix of the title-track signals some of the tension Arcadian Child are building as the finale plays out, but though they hit a payoff sure enough, “Protopsycho” never takes off to such a degree as to feel cheap or especially predictable. Rather, it emphasizes just how much the band have been able to set a mood throughout Protopsycho and how far especially side B has worked to bring together the different sides of their sound, the varied folk and psychedelic and heavy influences, not forsaking one for the other, but creating something fresh from pieces of all of them. This is, as noted above, the work Arcadian Child has undertaken in answering the potential of Superfonica and Afterglow, finding both a niche for themselves sound-wise that listeners can hear and readily identify, but pairing that with memorable and well-composed songs.
In essence, this is what Arcadian Child have been building toward for the last three-plus years, and as such it is all the more an injustice they can’t get out and support Protopsycho live, as it represents a special moment for the band. However, what’s perhaps most comforting in terms of listening to these songs and understanding their place in Arcadian Child‘s overarching progression is that there’s still plenty of forward potential on display. How might they move the impulses driving “Snakecharm” forward next time out? Or “Bitter Tea?” Or “Raising Fire?” What shifts might they undertake to continue to bring ideas from multiple sources together under their own banner, while also still pushing themselves on the root levels of performance and craft? As much as Protopsycho manifests Arcadian Child‘s mission up to this point, and achieves what seem to be its goals, it could just as easily be another step in their ongoing evolution.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 23rd, 2020 by JJ Koczan
I may be 60 years old by the time I get there, but some day I will go to Australia. When I do, I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for whatever in the water it might be in the ecosystem that has currently caused so much quality and so much varied quantity of heavy to come from the country and Melbourne in particular. Could it be an interaction somehow between the Outback and the Coral Reef? If so, yet another reason to protect these threatened areas.
While I put the finishing touches on my research grant application, I humbly submit the following ellpee by Honeybone. Titled Spheres, it’s being released by Kozmik Artifactz and is a gem. What more do you need to know?
Dig:
Oz-Based Psych-Rockers, Honeybone, Release Brand New Album “Spheres” On Kozmik Artifactz This November 27th.
We couldn’t be more excited to welcome Oz psych-rockers, Honeybone, to the Kozmik fold. Honeybone are a three-piece psychedelic/garage rock band based in Melbourne, Australia, and hail from the city of Dunedin, in the deep south of New Zealand. Featuring drummer and vocalist Rachel Trainor, guitarist/vocalist Drew Handcock, and bass player Peter Jermakoff.
Honeybone has previously released one full-length album and two EPs since their formation in 2009, which caught the eye, or ears, of renowned Berlin based record label, Kozmik Artifactz. Having gigged and toured with the likes of Beastwars, Wo-Fat, The Datsuns, Dragon, and Luger Boa, the band have gradually built up a strong fanbase across Australia & New Zealand. Now with a Kozmik release imminent, they have set their sights on breaking through into European territory.
Spheres will be released on limited edition heavyweight vinyl on the 27th November on Kozmik Artifactz.
VINYL FACTZ – Plated & pressed on high performance vinyl at Pallas/Germany – limited & coloured vinyl – 300gsm gatefold cover – special vinyl mastering
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 13th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
Issuing through Kozmik Artifactz and Small Stone, the impending Doom Machine full-length from Miss Lava will be the band’s first since 2016’s Sonic Debris (review here). The title, Doom Machine, doesn’t inspire much in considerations of individuality — it’s kind of a generic name for a record, band, song, riff, amp, heavy thing, etc. — but the album actually deals with some hard-hitting emotional content on the part of the group, and as one expects from Miss Lava well more than a decade into their tenure, they know exactly what they’re doing when it comes to songwriting and capturing a stage-ready energy in the studio.
Will there be stages for Miss Lava to support the record once it’s out? Hell if I know. Seems unlikely in January, but you know, maybe at some point, ever, they’ll get to tour again.
To preface Doom Machine‘s arrival, Miss Lava have a video up now for the opening track “Fourth Dimension,” and you can see that at the bottom of this post, following the PR wire info and this kickass cover art right here:
MISS LAVA: Lisbon Heavy Rock Unit To Release Doom Machine This January Via Small Stone / Kozmik Artifactz; “Fourth Dimension” Video Now Playing + Preorders Available
Lisbon’s premier heavy rockers MISS LAVA will release their long-awaited new full-length, Doom Machine, this January via Small stone.
The perfect soundtrack for the post-lockdown world, the band’s fourth album and follow-up to 2017’s Dominant Rush EP stands as their densest output to date doused in kaleidoscopic riff explorations and hypnotic interludes; a multi-textured sonic journey that’s at once deep, heavy, mesmerizing, and cathartic. Captured live at Generator Music Studios in Sintra, Portugal by Miguel “Veg” Marques, the record carries with it the warmth and soul of a band full of fresh vigor and perhaps the demons of these tumultuous times.
The record is loosely focused on the tragic death of guitarist K. Raffah’s baby son and the other members’ children born during the creative process. “Doom Machine is a very emotional experience for us…,” Raffah shares. “[My son] was only here for a month and a half, but his light was very bright. We feel his presence every time.” Thematically vocalist Johnny Lee adds, “This album reflects on how each one of us can breed and unleash our own self-destructive force, assembled to be part of a giant ‘Doom Machine.'”
In advance of the record’s release, today the band is pleased to unveil a video for first single, “Fourth Dimension,” noting, “this is a riff raff explosion that urges people to get out of the cave allegory they live in.”
Directed by José Dinis, view MISS LAVA’s “Fourth Dimension.”
Doom Machine will be released on CD and digitally via Small Stone with Kozmik Artifactz handling a limited vinyl edition. Find preorders atTHIS LOCATION.
Doom Machine Track Listing: 1. Fourth Dimension 2. In The Mire 3. Magma 4. Brotherhood Of Eternal Love 5. Sleepy Warm 6. The Great Divide 7. Karma 8. The Fall 9. Alpha 10. The Oracle 11. Terra 12. Doom Machine 13. God Feeds The Swine * 14. Feel Surreal * 15. Red Atlantis * ** Bonus tracks on CD and digital only
Doom Machine is the successor to MISS LAVA’s Dominant Rush EP (2017), Sonic Debris (2016), Red Supergiant (2013), and Blues For The Dangerous Miles (2009), as well as a limited edition self-titled blood red vinyl EP (2008).
Posted in Reviews on October 8th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
We’ve reached the portion of the Quarterly Review wherein I would no longer know what day it is if I didn’t have my notes to help me keep track. I suppose it doesn’t matter — the day, that is — since it’s 10 records either way, but I’d hate to review the same albums two days in a row or something. Though, come to think of it, that might be a fun experiment sometime.
Not today. Today is another fresh batch of 10 on the way to 60 by next Monday. We’ll get there. Always do. And if you’re wondering, today’s Thursday. At least that’s what I have in my notes.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
Bell Witch & Aerial Ruin, Stygian Bough Vol. I
The collaborative effort Bell Witch & Aerial Ruin and their 64-minute full-length, Stygian Bough Vol. I — the intention toward future output together hinted at in the title already confirmed by the group(s) — is a direct extension of what Aerial Ruin, aka Erik Moggridge, brought to the last Bell Witch album, 2017’s Mirror Reaper (review here), in terms of complementing the crushing, emotionally resonant death-doom of the Washington duo with morose folk vocal melody. Stygian Bough Vol. I is distinguished by having been written by the two-plus-one-equals-three-piece as a group, and accordingly, it more fluidly weaves Moggridge‘s contributions into those of Bell Witch‘s Dylan Desmond and Jesse Shreibman, resulting in an approach like if Patrick Walker from Warning had joined Thergothon. It’s prevailing spirit is deep melancholy in longer pieces like “The Bastard Wind” and “The Unbodied Air,” both over 19 minutes, while it might be in “Heaven Torn Low I (The Passage)” and “Heaven Torn Low II (The Toll)” that the trio most effectively bring their intent to life. Either way, if you’re in, be ready to go all the way in, but know that it’s well worth doing so.
Traditional doom with flourish both of noise and NWOBHM guitars — that turn in the second half of opener “Transformation” is like a dogwhistle for Iron Maiden fans — I hear Cruthu‘s second album, Athrú Crutha, and all I can think of are label recommendations. The Michigan outfit’s 2017 debut, The Angle of Eternity (review here), was eventually issued on The Church Within, and that’d certainly work, but also Ván Records, Shadow Kingdom, and even Cruz Del Sur seem like fitting potential homes for the righteousness on display across the vinyl-ready six-song/39-minute outing, frontman Ryan Evans commanding in presence over the reverb-loaded classic-style riffs of guitarist Dan McCormick and the accompanying gallop in Matt Fry‘s drums given heft by Derek Kasperlik‘s bass. Like the opener, “Necromancy” and “Dimensional Collide” move at a good clip, but side B’s “The Outsider” and closer “Crown of Horns” slow things down following the surprisingly rough-edged “Beyond the Pale.” One way or the other, it’s all doomed and so are we.
Whereas 2017’s Berdreyminn (review here) existed in the shadow of 2014’s Ótta (review here), Endless Twilight of Codependent Love brings Iceland’s Sólstafir to a new place in terms of their longer-term progression. It is their first album with an English title since 2005’s Masterpiece of Bitterness, and though they’ve had English-language songs since then, the mellow “Her Fall From Grace” is obviously intended to be a standout here, and it is. On the nine-song/62-minute course of the album, however, it is one impression of many, and in the raging “Dionysus” and post-blackened “Drýsill,” 10-minute opener and longest track (immediate points) “Akkeri,” richly atmospheric “Rökkur,” goth-lounging “Or” and worthy finale “Úlfur,” Sólstafir remind of the richly individual nature of their approach. The language swaps could be reaching out to a broader, non-Icelandic-speaking audience. If so, it’s only in the interest of that audience to take note if they haven’t already.
Curse is the first long-player from Portland, Oregon’s ILS, and it’s a rager in the PNW noise tradition, with uptempo, gonna-throw-a-punch-and-then-apologize riffs and basslines and swaps between semi-spoken shouts and vicious screams from Tom Glose (ex-Black Elk) that are precisely as jarring as they’re meant to be. I don’t think Curse is anyone’s first time at the dance — Glose, guitarist Nate Abner, bassist Adam Pike or drummer Tim Steiner — but it only benefits across its sans-bullshit 28-minute run by knowing what it wants to do. Its longest material, like the title-track or “Don’t Hurt Me,” which follows, or closer “For the Shame I Bring,” rests on either side of three and a half minutes, but some of the most brutal impressions are made in cuts like “It’s Not Lard but it’s a Cyst” or leadoff “Bad Parts,” which have even less time to waste but are no less consuming, particularly at high volume. The kind of record for when you want to assault yourself. And hey, that happens.
Apart from the consciously-titled three-minute noiseblaster finale “Antithesis” that’s clearly intended to contrast with what comes before it, Bismut‘s second LP for Lay Bare, Retrocausality, is made up of five extended instrumental pieces the shortest of which is just under 13 minutes long. The Nijmegen-based trio — guitarist Nik Linders, bassist Huibert der Weduwen, drummer Peter Dragt — build these semi-improvisational pieces on the foundation they set with 2018’s Schwerpunkt (review here), and their explorations through heavy rock, metal and psychedelia feel all the more cohesive as a song like “Vergangenheit” is nonetheless able to blindside with the heavy riff toward which it’s been moving for its entire first half. At 71 minutes total, it’s a purposefully unmanageable runtime, but as “Predvídanie” imagines a psych-thrash and “Oscuramento” drones to its crashing finish, Bismut seem to be working on their own temporal accord anyhow. For those stuck on linear time, that means repeat listens may be necessary to fully digest, but that’s nothing to complain about either.
UK instrumentalists Cracked Machine have worked relatively quickly over the course of their now-three albums to bring a sense of their own perspective to the tropes of heavy psychedelic rock. Alongside the warmth of tone in the guitar and bass, feeling drawn from the My Sleeping Karma/Colour Haze pastiche of progressive meditations, there is a coinciding edge of English heavy rock and roll that one can hear not so much in the drift of “Temple of Zaum” as in the push of “Black Square Icon,” which follows, as well as the subtle impatience of the drums on “October Dawn.” “Move 37,” on the other hand, is willfully speedier and more upbeat than much of what surrounds, but though opener/longest track (immediate points) “Cold Iron Light” hits 7:26, nothing on Gates of Keras sticks around long enough to overstay its welcome, and even in their deepest contemplations, the feeling of motion carries them and the listener effectively through the album’s span. They sound like a band realizing what they want to do with all the potential they’ve built up.
From cinematic paranoia to consuming and ultra-slow rollout of massive tonality, the debut offering from Megadrone — the one-man outfit of former Bevar Sea vocalist Ganesh Krishnaswamy — stretches across 53 minutes of unmitigated sonic consumption. If nothing else, Krishnaswamy chose the right moniker for the project. The Bandcamp version is spread across two parts — “Transmission A” (21:45) and “Transmission B” (32:09) — and any vinyl release would require significant editing as well, but the version I have is one huge, extended track, and that feels like exactly how Transmissions From the Jovian Antennae was composed and is supposed to be heard. Its mind-numbing repetitions lead the listener on a subtle forward march — there are drums back in that morass somewhere, I know it — and the piece follows an arc that begins relatively quiet, swells in its midsection and gradually recedes again over its final 10 minutes or so. It goes without saying that a 53-minute work of experimentalist drone crushscaping isn’t going to be for the faint of heart. Bold favors bold.
Sax-laced noise rock psychedelic freakouts, blown-out drums and shouts and drones, cacophonous stomp and chaotic sprawl, and a finale that holds back its payoff so long it feels cruel, KLÄMP‘s second album, Hate You, arrives less than a year after their self-titled debut, and perhaps there’s some clue as to why in the sheer mania of their execution. Hate You launches with the angularity of its 1:47 title-track and rolls out a nodding groove on top of that, but it’s movement from one part to another, one piece to another, is frenetic, regardless of the actual tempo, and the songs just sound like they were recorded to be played loud. Second cut “Arise” is the longest at 7:35 and it plays back and forth between two main parts before seeming to explode at the end, and by the time that’s done, you’re pretty much KLÄMPed into place waiting to see where the Utrecht trio go next. Oblivion wash on “An Orb,” the drum-led start-stops of “Big Bad Heart,” psych-smash “TJ” and that awaited end in “No Nerves” later, I’m not sure I have any better idea where that might be. That’s also what makes it work.
Preceded by two singles, Heni is the debut EP from Rio de Janeiro psychedelic tonal worshipers Mábura, and its three component tracks, “Anhangá,” “III/IV” and “Bong of God” are intended to portray a lysergic experience through their according ambience and the sheer depth of the riffs they bring. “Anhangá” has vocals following the extended feedback and drone opening of its first half, but they unfold as a part of the general ambience, along with the drums that arrive late, are maybe sampler/programmed, and finish by leading directly into the crash/fuzz launch of “III/IV,” which just before it hits the two-minute mark unfurls into a watershed of effects and nod, crashing and stomping all the while until everything drops out but the bass only to return a short time later with the Riff in tow. Rumbling into a quick fade brings about the toking intro of “Bong of God,” which unfolds accordingly into a riff-led noisefest that makes its point seemingly without saying a word. I wouldn’t call it groundbreaking, but it’s a first EP. What it shows is that Mábura have some significant presence of tone and purpose. Don’t be surprised when someone picks them up for a release.
It’s still possible to hear some of Astral Sleep‘s death-doom roots in their third album, Astral Doom Musick, but the truth is they’ve become a more expansive unit than that (relatively) simple classification than describe. They’re doom, to be sure, but there are progressive, psychedelic and even traditional doom elements at work across the record’s four-song/43-minute push, with a sense of conceptual composition coming through in “Vril” and “Inegration” in the first half of the proceedings while the nine-and-a-half-minute “Schwerbelastungskörper” pushes into the darkest reaches and closer “Aurinko ja Kuu” harnesses a swirling progressive spread that’s dramatic unto its last outward procession and suitably large-sound in its production and tone. For a band who took eight years to issue a follow-up to their last full-length, Astral Sleep certainly have plenty to offer in aesthetic and craft. If it took them so long to put this record together, their time wasn’t wasted, but it’s hard to listen and not wonder where their next step might take them.
