Posted in Whathaveyou on August 3rd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
The play-whatever-the-hell-they-want Athenian heavy troupe Godsleep released their latest album, Lies to Survive (review here) earlier in 2023 through Ouga Booga and the Mighty Oug and Threechords Records, and when they did so in Spring, they undertook a pretty significant tour to support it. That makes the upcoming ‘Permanent Vacation’ run — which takes its name from one of the songs on the record; I doubt they’re huge Aerosmith fans, but you never know — their second such stint of the year, and I think it’s even bigger. Starting in September, it carries them into December with a steady amount of live activity, and the band assures below that there’s more to come. It says it right there on the poster.
And about the poster. Usually it’s my modus to transcribe tour dates from a poster so that I can have the shows searchable by text. You never know when, eight years from now, you might need to know what date Godsleep hit Mixtape 5 in Sofia, Bulgaria, for whatever reason. I would do that here, but the wretched truth is I’m pressed for time and I wanted to post about the tour, so in the balance of writing out this entire covers-three-months list or posting about it at all, I went with the latter. I do hope that you’ll forgive me for skipping this usual step that I have absolutely no doubt you wouldn’t have noticed was missing at all if I didn’t mention it because, and here’s another wretched truth, I remain the only one who gives a crap about that kind of thing. So be it.
If you click the poster, the image gets big enough to read. If you click it again — or just give it a nudge with your finger if you’re on your fancyphone — it’ll go away. I promise I’m doing my best.
Their announcement on socials was short and appears below:
GODSLEEP – Permanent Vacation European Tour 2023
We are really happy to be back on the road this Fall to visit old friends but also excited to meet some of you for the first time!
These are the first dates of our “Permanent Vacation” tour and we will announce more dates shortly!
Let us know if we missed anything !
Powdered by: Ouga Booga and the Mighty Oug / Tuned Tools Guitar Lab
Athens-based progressive heavy rockers Godsleep will release their new full-length, Lies to Survive, on April 7 through Ouga Booga and the Mighty Oug Recordings and Threechords Records. It is their third album overall and second to be fronted by Amie Makris behind 2018’s Coming of Age (review here), which set a more varied course from the fuzz that launched them with 2015’s Thousand Suns of Sleep (review here) — it’s also their first for the 1000mods-adjacent label, if you want to do the full three-two-one — and it argues quickly that perhaps half a decade ago the band hadn’t really come of age as much as that title indicated.
With Lies to Survive, Makris, guitarist Johnny Tsoumas, bassist Fedonas Ktenas and (making his first appearance) drummer Dennis Panagiotidis, answer the expansion that Coming of Age brought in exponential style, breaking out of genre confines to bring in elements of pop, hip-hop, electronic music, space rock, noise, punk, sociopolitical themes all drawn together by a prevalence of attitude that pushes over to righteous arrogance across 11 songs and a CD-era-reminiscent 56-minute runtime somehow squashed onto a single LP (I actually don’t know that all songs are on the vinyl, but it looks like there are 11 listed in the gatefold lyrics of the mockup from their Bandcamp, as shown here; maybe some tracks are edited?).
But if Godsleep are pushing the limits of format, that’s just one on the longer list of limitations being exceeded. Fuzz riffing is still at least a definite part of their foundation, and plays a significant role in songs like the punker “Pots of Hell” (video premiering below), “Room 404,” the careening “Cracks,” or “Egonation” a short time later, as well as the penultimate “Permanent Vacation,” but in each of those songs, the job of the guitar goes further than ‘establish riff, play riff, repeat riff’ by a broad margin. To wit, “Pots of Hell” greets its rhythmic shove with rants and raps and resolves in an intensity that leaves Makris no choice but to let out a scream and drop the mic before it gets to its willfully choppy but immersive finish, while “Room 404,” which follows immediately, is an even more expansive nod, interrupting itself early with timely hits on snare and guitar that come across like they’re meant to be intrusive before opening to a vaster fuzz in the hook.
Yeah, sure, then they introduce the keyboard at about three minutes in and by the time they’re done, they’re in a psych-guitar-topped dub jam. Meanwhile, “Cracks” leans aggro in its hook in paying off the hint dropped by the punch of Ktenas‘ bass in the verse, dropping to stick clicks after its second chorus only to tear itself open and let the fuzz back out at a run before it’s three minutes into its grand total of four, “Egonation” uses up-strummed twanger fuzz at its outset but becomes a lesson in how to build tension and bring it to a point of explosion, and “Permanent Vacation” goes prog metal in its construction, vaguely Tool-ish but more restless (not a complaint) until maybe-probably-electronic percussion beats begin a midsection shift that grows larger until it opens to a triumphant play on Sabbath‘s “Hole in the Sky” before slipping back into the verse with a nigh-on-motorik thrust and more hypnosis that seems somehow also to answer the trance resulting from the dug-in ending of “Pots of Hell,” demonstrating the lethal consciousness at work behind Lies to Survive‘s sometimes manic procession.
And if it seems like I’m bouncing around the tracklisting here (you can see it listed below in order for reference), that’s not a coincidence. The songs are in part united by the tour de force performance put on by Makris, whose anarchist declarations in the initially-keyboard-backed leadoff “Booster” — “You won’t find an apologist here” among them — work to quickly establish a defiant tone that Godsleep reinforce by shifting within that three-and-a-half-minute cut to a crunch born of noise rock executed around the first but by no means last pattern of circular guitar from Tsoumas — see also “Pavement,” “Breakfast,” and the aptly-titled capper “Last Song,” where every now and then a little flourish is thrown in to remind that no, it’s not a loop — before “Pots of Hell” takes this cue and runs with it, the drums, bass and accent guitar backing Makris for the forceful, semi-spoken verse before the next bombastic hook.
It is by no means the last surprise in store on Lies to Survive, with “Saturday” dropping ’90s alt rock references lyrical and instrumental, delving into Soundgarden-ism in layered vocal harmonies before riding a suitably long guitar solo but shifting back to its chorus before it’s done, or the toying with pop and techno in the outset of “Better Days” prior to its own introduction of the guitar, a mini-epic for side B that feels at distant remove from, say, “Breakfast,” with its good-fun Casio-style backbeat and a rare fadeout to transition into “Pavement,” which ends its first verse with the line “Now it’s time to party” and seems very much to mean it if the brash and funky groove that ensues is anything to go by, topped with another impressive rant in the spirit of “Pots of Hell.”
In addition to Makris‘ standout work and the marked increase in stylistic range throughout, Lies to Survive is also the first Godsleep album not to be recorded by George Leodis (also of 1000mods), as the band partnered with John Sotiropoulos on production (John Fuho also co-engineered) and mixing at Wreck it Sound Studios in Corinth, and that choice very much becomes a part of the character of the whole work, whether it’s the bass emphasis in the last build of “Booster” or the forward vocal layers at the start of “Better Days” or even the ambient stretch that caps the record after the end of “Last Song,” where Makris enters at 6:45 into an otherwise instrumental eight-minute stretch to deliver a resonant epilogue to the proceedings. The production is another tie bringing the songs together, but that proves ultimately to be as much about consciousness of the choices being made as the tones or overarching flow, each song feeling thought-out and considered, getting what it needs in terms of arrangement while mainlining far too much adrenaline to be anything close to staid.
Lies to Survive is not a record one would have predicted eight years ago that Godsleep would ever release, even before changes in lineup are considered. Still audible are the riffy roots and a current of Mediterranean roil, even as “Last Song” begins its long adventure through keyboard storytelling and proggy stomp, but the most powerful impression Godsleep make on third full-length is of having the ability to be genuinely untethered by genre considerations, to be free to go where the tracks — and, deeper, the parts of those tracks — take them, and to know when indeed to let the songs lead themselves. They do not sound at all like they’re finished exploring, but no question Lies to Survive is a landmark for them in unveiling the scope of their intent as it is today, pairing awareness of that with the knowledge born of experience that not all of their audience is going to be on board for the sundry turns in the material. The album is bolder for that, and its boldness might be the greatest unifier of all.
The video for “Pots of Hell” premieres below, followed by more from the PR wire.
Please enjoy:
Godsleep, “Pots of Hell” official video premiere
Formed in 2010, Godsleep have been working relentlessly since then, walking their way to entering the heavy rock pantheon. Having been described as one of the most promising bands of the heavy/psychedelic rock sound, from their very beginning, the Athenian heavy rock roller-coaster based its very existence on powerful live appearances, including the participation in high profile rock festivals all around Europe and a full European tour in support of their critically acclaimed debut album “Thousand Sons of Sleep” (Rock Freaks Records, 2015).
2018 welcomes the release of “Coming of Age”, Godsleep’s sophomore full length album, which was released by legendary Greek underground rock record label The Lab Records and garnered strong reactions from both press and fans. Having kept the core ingredients of their sound intact: heavy/fuzzy guitars, thick bass lines and powerful groovy drumming, Godsleep enriched their songwriting with uniquely addictive female vocals which vary from psychedelic howls and haunting melodies to throat-ripping edgy screams.
Now five years later, Godsleep return with their third album “Lies to Survive” to be released by “Ouga Booga and the Mighty Oug” Records in April 2023. This new effort showcases the band’s penchant for layering fuzzy, infectious riffs with engaging melodies, yet time is also shows their eagerness to branch out into other areas bringing in elements of noise-rock and even punk-rock elements like on the raucous “Pots of Hell”.
Tracklisting: 1. Booster 2. Pots of Hell 3. Room 404 4. Saturday 5. Cracks 6. Breakfast 7. Pavement 8. Better Days 9. Egonation 10. Permanent Vacation 11. Last Song
All music written, arranged and performed by Godsleep Produced by John Sotiropoulos & Godsleep Mixed by John Sotiropoulos Engineered by John Sotiropoulos & John Fuho Recorded at Wreck it Sound Studios, Corinth, GR Mixed at Wreck it Sound Studios, Corinth, GR Mastered by John Sotiropoulos at Wreck it Sound Studios, Corinth, GR
