Posted in Whathaveyou on February 14th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
As Ripple Music continues its ‘Beneath the Desert Floor’ series exploring the heavy underground of the turn of the century era, let’s say roughly ’97-’05, that New Orleans Suplecs would end up included feels inevitable. Still absolute killers on stage as the attendees of Ripplefest Texas 2025 will find out thanks to a recent confirmation, their 14-years-running studio absence, and the fact that 2011’s Mad Oak Redoux (review here) was comprised of tracks being re-recorded, while the album prior, 2005’s Powtin’ on the Outside Pawty on the Inside landed concurrent to Hurricane Katrina, and yeah let’s say it’s been a long time since Suplecs were last on track to get their due for being so gosh darn kickass.
A new record, a real Suplecs studio album with heart, groove and fuzz poured into it in like measure, would surely go a long way to alleviating that, and you can see the phrase below: “new music.” It’s right there. That’s not the same as a date, however, and I’ll note that even last Spring the band let it be known they were writing. I’ve no word on whether or not recording has happened or if and when it might. But those first two records, 2000’s Wrestlin’ With My Lady Friend and 2001’s Sad Songs… Better Days (discussed here), are classics by now and should be back out there, however terrible the band’s luck has been for the last quarter-century.
When I see more on either the reissue or reissues, or a fifth Suplecs album, I’ll say something:
Last week we had some great announcements for Ripple family, so let’s keep the love flowing. How’s this? Please welcome the one and only SUPLECS to the Ripple family! Look for reissues of their past Man’s Ruin catalog and, damn straight, new music. Psyched!!
Posted in Reviews on December 11th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Wow. This is a pretty good day. I mean, I knew that coming into it — I’m the one slating the reviews — but looking up there at the names in the header, that’s a pretty killer assemblage. Maybe I’m making it easy for myself and loading up the QR with stuff I like and want to write about. Fine. Sometimes I need to remind myself that’s the point of this project in the first place.
Hope you’re having an awesome week. I am.
Quarterly Review #21-30
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Thou, Umbilical
Even knowing that the creation of a sense of overwhelm is on purpose and is part of the artistry of what Thou do, Thou are overwhelming. The stated purpose behind Umbilical is an embrace of their collective inner hardcore kid. Fine. Slow down hardcore and you pretty much get sludge metal one way or the other and Thou‘s take on it is undeniably vicious and has a character that is its own. Songs like “I Feel Nothing When You Cry” and “The Promise” envision dark futures from a bleak present, and the poetry from which the lyrics get their shape is as despondent and cynical as one could ever ask, waiting to be dug into and interpreted by the listener. Let’s be honest. I have always had a hard time buying into the hype on Thou. I’ve seen them live and enjoyed it and you can’t hear them on record and say they aren’t good at what they do, but their kind of extremity isn’t what I’m reaching for most days when I’m trying to not be in the exact hopeless mindset the band are aiming for. Umbilical isn’t the record to change my mind and it doesn’t need to be. It’s precisely what it’s going for. Caustic.
The fourth full-length from Boston’s Cortez sets a tone with opener “Gimme Danger (On My Stereo)” (premiered here) for straight-ahead, tightly-composed, uptempo heavy rock, and sure enough that would put Thieves and Charlatans — recorded by Benny Grotto at Mad Oak Studios — in line with Cortez‘s work to-date. What unfolds from the seven-minute “Leaders of Nobody” onward is a statement of expanded boundaries in what Cortez‘s sound can encompass. The organ-laced jamitude of “Levels” or the doom rock largesse of “Liminal Spaces” that doesn’t clash with the prior swing of “Stove Up” mostly because the band know how to write songs; across eight songs and 51 minutes, the five-piece of vocalist Matt Harrington, guitarists Scott O’Dowd and Alasdair Swan, bassist Jay Furlo and sitting-in drummer Alexei Rodriguez (plus a couple other guests from Boston’s heavy underground) reaffirm their level of craft, unite disparate material through performance and present a more varied and progressive take than they’ve ever had. They’re past 25 years at this point and still growing in sound. They may be underrated forever, but that’s a special band.
Writing a catchy song is not easy. Writing a song so catchy it’s still catchy even though you don’t speak the language is the provenance of the likes of Uffe Lorenzen. The founding frontman of in-the-ether-for-now Copenhagen heavy/garage psych pioneers Baby Woodrose digs into more straightforward fare on the second full-length from his new trio Lydsyn, putting a long-established Stooges influence to good use in “Hejremanden” after establishing at the outset that “Musik Er Nummer 1” (‘music is number one’) and before the subsequent slowdown into harmony blues with “UFO.” “Nørrebro” has what would seem to be intentional cool-neighborhood strut, and those seeking more of a garage-type energy might find it in “Du Vil Have Mere” or “Opråb” earlier on, and closer “Den Døde By” has a scorch that feels loyal to Baby Woodrose‘s style of psych, but whatever ties there are to Lorenzen‘s contributions over the last 20-plus years, Lydsyn stand out for the resultant quality of songwriting and for having their own dynamic building on Lorenzen‘s solo work and post-Baby Woodrose arc.
The popular wisdom has had it for a few years now that retroism is out. Hearing Baltimorean power trio Magick Potion vibe their way into swaying ’70s-style heavy blues on “Empress,” smoothly avoiding the trap of sounding like Graveyard and spacing out more over the dramatic first two minutes of “Wizard” and the proto-doomly rhythmic jabs that follow. Guitarist/vocalist/organist Dresden Boulden, bassist/vocalist Triston Grove and drummer Jason Geezus Kendall capture a sound that’s as fresh as it is familiar, and while there’s no question that the aesthetic behind the big-swing “Never Change” and the drawling, sunshine-stoned “Pagan” is rooted in the ’68-’74 “comedown era” — as their label, RidingEasy Records has put it in the past — classic heavy rock has become a genre unto itself over the last 25-plus years, and Magick Potion present a strong, next-generation take on the style that’s brash without being willfully ridiculous and that has the chops to back up its sonic callouts. The potential for growth is significant, as it would be with any band starting out with as much chemistry as they have, but don’t take that as a backhanded way of saying the self-titled is somehow lacking. To be sure, they nail it.
Oase is the second full-length from Berlin’s Weite behind 2023’s Assemblage (review here), also on Stickman, and it’s their first with keyboardist Fabien deMenou in the lineup with bassist Ingwer Boysen (Delving), guitarists Michael Risberg (Delving, Elder) and Ben Lubin (Lawns), and drummer Nick DiSalvo (Delving, Elder), and it unfurls across as pointedly atmospheric 53 minutes, honed from classic progressive rock but by the time they get to “(einschlafphase)” expanded into a cosmic, almost new age drone. Longer pieces like “Roter Traum” (10:55), “Eigengrau” (12:41) or even the opening “Versteinert” (9:36) offer impact as well as mood, maybe even a little boogie, “Woodbury Hollow” is more pastoral but no less affecting. The same goes for “Time Will Paint Another Picture,” which seems to emphasize modernity in the clarity of its production even amid vintage influences. Capping with the journey-to-freakout “The Slow Wave,” Oase pushes the scope of Weite‘s sound farther out while hitting harder than their first record, adding to the arrangements, and embracing new ideas. Unless you have a moral aversion to prog for some reason, there’s no angle from which this one doesn’t make itself a must-hear.
Big on tone and melody in a way that feels inspired by the modern sphere of heavy — thinking that Hum record, Elephant Tree, Magnetic Eye-type stuff — Florida’s Orbiter set forth across vast reaches in Distorted Folklore, a song like “Lightning Miles” growing more expansive even as it follows a stoner-bouncing drum pattern. Layering is a big factor, but it doesn’t feel like trickery or the band trying to sound like anything or anyone in particular so much as they’re trying to serve their songs — Jonathan Nunez (ex-Torche, etc.) produced; plenty of room in the mix for however big Orbiter want to get — as they shift from the rush that typified stretches of their 2019 debut, Southern Failures, to a generally more lumbering approach. The slowdown suits them here, though fast or slow, the procession of their work is as much about breadth as impact. Whatever direction they take as they move into their second decade, that foundation is crucial.
As regards genre: “dark arts?” Taking into account the 44 minutes of Vlimmer‘s fourth LP, which is post-industrial as much as it’s post-punk, with plenty of goth, some metal, some doom, some dance music, and so on factored in, there’s not a lot else that might encompass the divergent intentions of “Endpuzzle” or “Überrennen” as the Berlin solo-project of Alexander Donat harnesses ethereal urbanity in the brooding-till-it-bursts “Sinkopf” or the manic pulses under the vocal longing of closer “Fadenverlust.” To Donat‘s credit, from the depth of the setup given by longest/opening track (immediate points) “2025” to the goth-coated keyboard throb in “Mondläufer,” Bodenhex never goes anywhere it isn’t meant to go, and unto the finest details of its mix and arrangements, Vlimmer‘s work exudes expressive purpose. It is a record that has been hammered out over a period of time to be what it is, and that has lost none of the immediacy that likely birthed it in that process.
Indianapolis four-piece Moon Goons cut an immediately individual impression on their third album, Lady of Many Faces. The album, which often presents itself as a chaotic mash of ideas, is in fact not that thing. The band is well in control, just able and/or wanting to do more with their sound than most. They are also mindfully, pointedly weird. If you ever believed space rock could have been invented in an alternate reality 1990s and run through filters of lysergism and Devin Townsend-style progressive metal, you might take the time now to book the tattoo of the cover of Lady of Many Faces you’re about to want. Shenanigans abound in the eight songs, if I haven’t made that clear, and even the nod of “Doom Tomb Giant” feels like a freakout given the treatment put on by Moon Goons, but the thing about the album is that as frenetic as the four-piece of lead vocalist/guitarist Corey Standifer, keyboardist/vocalist Brooke Rice, bassist Devin Kearns and drummer Jacob Kozlowski get on their way to the doped epic finisher title-track, the danger of it coming apart is a well constructed, skillfully executed illusion. And what a show it is.
Although it opens up with some element of foreboding by transposing the progression of AC/DC‘s “Hells Bells” onto its own purposes in heavy Canadiana rock, and it gets a bit shouty/sludgy in the lyrical crescendo of “What a Dummy,” which seems to be about getting pulled over on a DUI, or the later “The Castle of White Lake,” much of Familiars‘ Easy Does It lives up to its name. Far from inactive, the band are never in any particular rush, and while a piece like “Golden Season,” with its singer-songwriter vocal, acoustic guitar and backing string sounds, carries a sense of melancholy — certainly more than the mellow groover swing and highlight bass lumber of “Gustin Grove,” say — the band never lay it on so thick as to disrupt their own momentum more than they want to. Working as a five-piece with pedal steel, piano and other keys alongside the core guitar, bass and drums, Easy Does It finds a balance of accessibility and deeper-engaging fare combined with twists of the unexpected.
Progressive stoner psych rockers The Fërtility Cült unveil their fifth album, A Song of Anger, awash in otherworldly soul music vibes, sax and fuzz and roll in conjunction with carefully arranged harmonies and melodic and rhythmic turns. There’s a lot of heavy prog around — I don’t even know how many times I’ve used the word today and frankly I’m scared to check — and admittedly part of that is how open that designation can feel, but The Fërtility Cült seem to take an especially fervent delight in their slow, molten, flowing chicanery on “The Duel” and elsewhere, and the abiding sense is that part of it is a joke, but part of everything is a joke and also the universe is out there and we should go are you ready? A Song of Anger is billed as a prequel, and perhaps “The Curse of the Atreides” gives some thematic hint as well, but whether you’ve been with them all along or this is the first you’ve heard, the 12-minute closing title-track is its own world. If you think you’re ready — and good on you for that — the dive is waiting for your immersion.
Fair to call Crowbar‘s self-titled sophomore LP a classic, I’d think. The album was released in 1993 through Pavement Music as the follow-up to the New Orleans-based band’s 1991 debut, Obedience Thru Suffering, and was notable at the time for being produced by Pantera‘s Philip Anselmo, but it’s the songs that have stood the test of time, in no small part because Crowbar still plays them. I can’t remember seeing the band live that they didn’t play at least “High Rate Extinction” or “All I Had I Gave,” if not “Fixation,” “Self-Inflicted,” “Existence is Punishment” or “I Have Failed,” and that’s more than half the record’s 10-song tracklist some fraction of which might feature in a given night’s setlist. The songs are still relevant for the band, is what I’m saying, before you get to the genre-defining influence Crowbar have had on sludge metal — they and Eyehategod should feature in New Orleans tourism ads — and their impact remains visceral.
“High Rate Extinction” sets the chug, and the chug is a vital part of what Crowbar is about. Topped with guitarist Kirk Windstein‘s clenched-stomach barks switching from channel to channel, before smoothing out for a rolling chorus, Windstein and Matt Thomas‘ guitars are immediately central to the proceedings, and while the world outside was consumed by grunge and the beginnings of ‘heavy’ as something distinct from metal — even if the language for it wasn’t there yet — Crowbar seemed to exist in both worlds, and their aggression was as much about the inward searching of their lyrics as the impact of the instrumental lurch that often but not always accompanied, but generally seemed to because the tones were so goddamned heavy.
Like perhaps some others of a certain age, I found Crowbar on Beavis and Butt-Head. I would’ve been maybe 11 or 12 at the time, and Beavis’ approval carried weight as regards opinion leadership. Crowbar at that point featured Todd Strange on bass and Craig Nunenmacher on drums alongside Windstein and Thomas, and while it would be years before I eventually picked up the album, there was always an awareness of who Crowbar were and what they were about. When I finally got there, it was like they’d been waiting for me all along, brooding and volatile, the very epitome of ‘crunch’ in their sound. I had a friend at WSOU who was so into them that the association still lingers these 20-plus years after the fact. I guess what I’m saying is Crowbar‘s Crowbar is an album you can live with, grow with. It’s not perfect. The production is raw compared to subsequent efforts in the band’s 12-LP catalog, and its dudely contemplations operate from a gender framework that feels dated, but again, the songs are undeniable.
Whether it’s the landmark from-the-depths rumble of “All I Had (I Gave)” or the even-harder-landing “Will That Never Dies” right after, the dare of melody throughout that comes to the forefront on the nodding cover of Led Zeppelin‘s “No Quarter” — which I’ll take over the original every single time — or the fact that “Holding Nothing” is three minutes and 11 seconds long and is so heavy it seems to take at least twice that, the material on Crowbar is varied in approach and dynamic in tempo, but informed by a sound so distinctive that it draws together as one 35-minute entirety. Gritty and tumultuous, “Negative Pollution” or “Will That Never Dies” might be called proto-crushing, but the two cuts on either end of the LP each have their own purpose, and as rough as they are, there’s no lack of expressiveness or emotionality to them. There’s more than chestbeating going on, and even that level of emotional complexity was a reach for something so metal at the time, however hyper-masculine it might seem in hindsight.
A not-insignificant portion of Crowbar‘s legacy comes from this record, and it set a template for methodology that one could argue they’ve been working from ever since — which isn’t to accuse them of trying to do the same thing over and over, necessarily; they have a defined sound, know it, and have been able to deliver it for more than three decades; this is commendable, not the least because they kick ass — to some degree or other. But you can also hear the underpinnings of hardcore punk in Crowbar‘s early sludge, and while their primary impact would be on the next generation of metalcore purveyors — close associations with Jamey Jasta of Hatebreed, and so on — Crowbar never really have gotten the credit they’ve deserved for the intricacies of their approach, perhaps as a result of being so outwardly bludgeoning. Can’t have everything, I suppose.
But the self-titled is something of a given in my mind. A record I take and have taken for granted for years — it’s always there, waiting, but I’ve heard the songs live more than on the CD in the last decade — its solidity is unflinching, and it shouldn’t be seen as a coincidence that so many of their covers feature classic-style art and architectural elements, in addition to often representing their New Orleans roots. They’re speaking to that same carved-in-marble, painted-in-oil sensibility in their music. Anachronistic in terms of what was the trend in both pop-rock and the metallic underground of its day, Crowbar sounds like it was made to stand the test of time, and it has. Never pretentious despite the philosophizing, and never so deep in its own head as to lose sight of the song in question, it’s the kind of tape you’d buy and perhaps be surprised to find how much it informed your taste going forward.
It would be a couple years after this that Windstein (whose work has held up) and Anselmo (whose yarl and white-supremacist-adjacent antics are distinctly less appealing) would take part in Down with Pepper Keenan from C.O.C. and Jimmy Bower from the already-mentioned Eyehategod, and I won’t deny that band’s effect in terms of leading listeners from more mainstream metal into the heavy underground, but Crowbar‘s Crowbar is like the treasure there for that audience to discover as they made their way deeper into the cavernous world of sludge and doom. For me, it’s among the reasons I’m most glad to have been a part of Generation Beavis.
As always, I hope you enjoy. If you want something more recent from Crowbar, their latest outing is 2022’s Thanks for reading.
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Limping to the finish this week, I admit. I had intended to have a Mammoth Volume review up today — release day for them, also Delving and some other cool stuff — but I got no time to write yesterday beyond an initial four sentences, and that was it. I ended up putting together today’s Howling Giant and Ken Wohlrob posts stoned on the couch later in the evening, largely braindead just from the drain of the day (if not the gummy), and that was it. I did my best. The Mammoth Volume might get reviewed Monday or might get stuck in the next Quarterly Review.
That, I was hoping would be early September, but looking at the calendar this week I realized that was both dumb and impossible. The kid goes back to school day after Labor Day, so that week is out because it will be insane — she’s starting first grade, and if it’s anything like the start of kindergarten, which I very much hope it isn’t, my attention will be needed in supporting that — and then you get into Desertfest New York and other things I’ve already committed to. I’ve currently got two weeks slated for the next QR; the week starting Sept. 30 and the week starting Oct. 7, and it’s mostly full. If that’s when it ends up being, fine. I could maybe do the week before? I don’t know. I’ll look at it again today if I have two fucking seconds and any energy whatsoever. Which is a maybe.
All of that has inevitably led me to the question of how much I still need to be doing this, how much I need to dedicate the time I have to The Obelisk as opposed to, say, being a more engaged parent right at this very moment I’m typing, or doing or thinking about any number of other things throughout the course of a day. I know for a fact that I could very easily go the rest of my life without ever looking at my email again. I don’t think I’d mind that. But I’m still here, and I think if I didn’t feel like I needed to be here, I wouldn’t be so bummed out about not having the time in the first place. Maybe it was my own navelgazing that put Crowbar’s “weak man weak mind” in my head this week. Or maybe I just thought about what to close the week with yesterday at the playground with The Pecan and decided to roll with it since I hadn’t done it before. You decide.
It’s starting to be cold at night and in the early mornings as of this week. Fall is coming. Sending The Patient Mrs. off to a new semester and The Pecan, as noted, off to first grade will alleviate some of my temporal concerns — not that I sit around all day on the laptop, but when I’m home alone for upwards of six or eight hours, somehow writing time comes more easily; go figure — but there’s another week before that happens, and The Patient Mrs. was out every night this week between Board of Education meetings, her own work, and social obligation. I don’t know what’s on for next week — for her, anyhow; here I’ve got premieres for Vast Pyre, Wall, maybe-Stöner and Free Ride slated, and I’m going to try to review either that Mammoth Volume or some Psychedelic Source Records jams for Monday — but as always I’ll do my best to do as much as possible, even if I find the results of that effort disappointing by my own, probably unreasonable standard. I wish I wrote more. Tattoo it on my fucking forehead. Or maybe wrap it around my mostly-bare skull since I did manage to get the clippers out last week and tame the mess on my dome that, sad to say, is the only part of me doing anything closely resembling ‘thinning’ at this point in my life. Don’t get me started.
I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Drink water, find solace, whatever you need to do, do it as best you can. I’ll be writing and trying to catch up on email, feigning relevance for anyone other than myself as I do. Thanks for reading.
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 3rd, 2024 by JJ Koczan
The information in the headline above I offer to you today with nothing more behind it than being happy about the idea of a thing. There’s no hype push behind the thing — not the least because it doesn’t exist yet. It’s not something I’m putting here in some vain attempt to either make hype happen or generate some kind of controversy — I don’t see a scenario where there’d be any, the less drama the better, and anyway, fuck the internet. Suplecs said they’re writing a new album, and I’m repeating what the wretched social media algorithm made me feel like it was doing me a favor as it put before my eyes. It made my day better, even apart from the silly photo they overlaced with the minimal text they had to offer on the subject, and I hope it makes your day better as well. As regards agenda, that’s the beginning and end of it.
Predating even the emergent internet ubiquity of the turn-of-the-century stoner rock underground — an era no less classic for the fact that describing it as such makes me old — by a couple crucial years, the New Orleans power trio have spent much more time over the better part of the last three decades not releasing albums than padding out their discography, and have counted bummer luck among their defining characteristics since probably even before Man’s Ruin Records — which put out 2000’s Wrestlin’ With My Lady Friend and 2001’s Sad Songs… Better Days (discussed here) — collapsed, right alongside fuzz, groove, and a party vibe that was certainly still resonant when I was lucky enough to see them at a rare-enough not-hometown show or Mardi Gras jam in late-2022.
Accordingly, I don’t know when or if what would be their fifth long-player and first since 2010’s Small Stone-issued Mad Oak Redoux (review here) — which even as a ‘redoux’ of earlier sessions wasn’t perfect and knew it — will be recorded, let alone released to some kind of public audience. But I do know that if such a thing were to happen, I’d want to be in that audience, so again, here we are, heralding a possibility. One among an infinity of infinite potentials. Gosh, the universe is big.
Would be cool to get another long-player from Suplecs though. Did you hear they’re writing a new record?
Posted in Questionnaire on November 6th, 2023 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: Stephen Sheppert of Radiant Knife
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I’d describe our music as prog influenced sludge with some sci-fi and possibly dark wave elements. Prog in the sense of math-rock/noise rock influence akin to Don Caballero, Dazzling Killmen, Breadwinner, Loincloth, and not necessarily tech-metal wankery.
Describe your first musical memory.
One that has stood the test of time is many mornings my father would play the record “The Wall” by Pink Floyd. I distinctly remember the song “Another Brick in the Wall” playing as I got ready for school. He had a music room full of vinyl and a decent sound system that would fill the house. “Hey teacher, leave those kids alone” as I walked out the door.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Any time I’ve made connections with other musicians via the riff without speaking. It feels like a form of telepathy that everyone should experience. It’s one of the unique things creating music can provide through making art with others.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
These days overt self promotion has become the norm, fueled by a fake it till you make it mentality. Being bombarded with that mentality through modern media is a test.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
In some ways it can result in more technically proficient and developed song structure, but in some cases regression can be progression as well. In many cases stripped back roots of music in its rudimentary form can more effectively convey a message or connect with listeners. Really depends on how you define progression.
How do you define success?
Created unabated art walled off from influence of outsiders, metrics, and all things business.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
The daily news, any day of the week or anything spewed from mainstream media.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
Possibly a blues influenced album that embraces time signature changes and off timings. An off timed vibe based in pentatonics.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
To the artist the essential function is release and realization of something tangible, formed from emotions, moods, etc. To the person, aesthete, etc. experiencing the art it could be a connection through a similar way of thinking, or lasting impression from a different way of thinking.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
These days I look forward to family time and time spent with lifelong friends. The reality that life is fleeting becomes more evident the older we get. The Beatles weren’t wrong with “All you need is love”.
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 12th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Well, to be honest, I was kind of thinking of Forming the Void‘s slot on this year’s Ripplefest Texas, which is next weekend in Austin, as proof-of-life for the band’s continued existence. So that the Lafayette, Louisiana-based progressive heavy rockers pulled out of that is somehow fitting. They had played in 2021 as well, which put them closer to the May 2020 release of their fourth album, Reverie (review here), though right around the turn of the decade time gets all wonky in my head. Can’t imagine why.
And while we’re alluding to the pandemic, I’ll count Forming the Void among the acts who got decisively screwed by covid. Where they’d been doing regular touring and increasing their fanbase, productively putting out full-lengths all the while — 2015’s Skyward (discussed here, review here), 2017’s Relic (review here) and 2018’s Rift (review here) before Reverie — to a steady stream of praise. If this is genuinely the end of the band, they get to say they went out doing their best work, which isn’t a claim everyone can make, and while I’m sorry Reverie apparently won’t get a follow-up, it felt like a culmination of their creative progression when it came out and now it will serve as just that.
They say it’s not how they wanted to go out. It’s not how I would’ve wanted them to go out either. At least a goodbye show. But sometimes you don’t have the ability to do something like that, especially with travel involved as there would’ve been for their TX trip, and I don’t think Forming the Void owe anybody anything, even if it feels like they had farther to go on the path they had carved out for themselves.
I got to see them a couple times, which was something I very much didn’t regret even before they posted the end of the band, and wish them the best as they move on either to other bands, or not, whatever the case may be. Thanks for all the nod and expanse.
From the band:
Well, folks, it’s not how we had hoped things would go, but the balance of life and time constraints has led us to make the difficult decision to embark on an indefinite hiatus.
We want to express our gratitude to everyone that has supported the band over the years. We had some really great times making music and are thankful for those who enjoyed it.
Regrettably, this means we will not be able to play RippleFest in Austin this year. Though we were hoping to make it happen, it doesn’t appear to be in the cards.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on September 1st, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Released by the band in 2015, Forming the Void‘s debut full-length, Skyward (review here), was warmly greeted on its arrival. It was kind of the dawn of the Bandcamp era, such as it is, and the Lafayette, Louisiana-based four-piece of guitarist/vocalist James Marshall, guitarist Shadi Omar Al Khansa, bassist Luke Baker and drummer Jordan Boyd showed up with just the right kind of rolling grooves to start mouths wording.
There are only five songs — “Skyward” (6:12), “Three Eyed Gazelle” (7:39), “Saber” (7:58), “Return Again” (6:18) and “Sleepwalker” (6:32) — and the album takes place over a readily-digested 34 minutes, beginning with the atmospheric intro provided by the first two minutes of “Skyward” before its central riff sweeps into the record’s first verse. I’ll admit it’s been a while since I last visited, but the title-track is an insistent nod there and shifts at 2:40 into a section of chug to remind that Forming the Void‘s prog-metal elements were part of what helped them stand out from the cadre of other outfits taking shape at the time, as well as the atmospheric lead put over that chug.
Even with “Skyward” dropping the first hints of the deeper-diving into Middle Eastern scales and melodies that would flourish through the band’s three subsequent LPs to-date, 2017’s Relic (review here), 2018’s Rift (review here) and 2020’s Reverie (review here), Ripple Music being the perfect label to issue the latter not the least for Forming the Void‘s emergent ‘r’ theme in record titles. In the car, “Skyward” is raw and some of the ambience is given up to the bare crunch of the riff, but on headphones the deeper reaches come through clearer. ‘Listen without distraction,’ the saying goes.
And no question, Skyward is a case-in-point for creative evolution. Forming the Void‘s sound has grown bigger, more progressive, and boldly heavier throughout their time, and as the foundation of their development as a group — Thomas Colley would replace Jordan Boyd on drums — in the vocals of Marshall, in the guitar of Al Khansa, and in the sheer aural largesse amassed in records two, three and four, it feels a little bit like the spark before the Big Bang. In part just for the relative dryness of the vocals. And if they had never done anything else, it would still be a killer record, but I don’t think I’m giving away state secrets when I say they’d soon enough blow themselves out of the water in terms of complexity, clarity of vision and ongoing refinement.
So again, evolution. Things starting as one thing and becoming something else over time. A single cell as life form. Skyward is nowhere near that basic, and the brooding, lurching, churning groove of “Three-Eyed Gazelle” (video here) expands the ambience of the title-track with an early roller verse — a Forming the Void specialty, stylistically-speaking — and soon breaks to an ambient section anchored by Baker‘s bass and again peppered with leads before surging back to pay off the tension built. They nod back into the verse, hints of doom in the solo as they approach the seven-minute mark, and course through with a stateliness that the more uptempo rock almost-boogie of the intro to “Saber” intentionally contradicts.
Harmonies in the verse — is it Marshall and Al Khansa, or maybe Marshall in layers? — mark “Saber” as a highlight, along with the ’90s-style groove that takes hold, not quite grunge, but pre-turn of the century at heart. “Saber” also doubles as a construction project for the big ol’ wall of noise and crash at its finish, the apex riff and shouted vocals overtop met by a rising movement on guitar that could be higher in the mix for extra adrenaline push. Residual noise finishes and “Return Again” answers by pairing soothing quiet sections with contrasting comedowns — heavy, quiet, heavy, quiet, heavy, if you’re curious — bordering on aggressive in its heavier parts, and is psychedelic in its mellower stretches, if still rhythmically tense.
“Sleepwalker” caps and is effective in finding a middle ground. More melodically-centered in its verse than, say, “Three Eyed Gazelle,” the gradual build and harder kick-in at 3:05 are confidently executed in a way that doesn’t want to catch the listener off guard so much as bring them along. Even when they’re about to get loud, you can almost hear them rearing back to do so, as if just checking to make sure everybody is on board. Please keep your hands and feet and phones and whatevers in the car at all times.
By the time it’s finished, “Sleepwalker” has portrayed the multi-tiered potential of the band and given hints at how they might grow. The fact that listeners now know the answers to the questions inherently raised by that makes the culmination of Skyward no less satisfying, especially since so much of Forming the Void‘s evolution as a group happened on tour.
As you can see above, three years is the longest break the band — who are still active and booked to appear at Ripplefest Texas this month — have had between albums, and one assumes that the plague upheaval surrounding the time of Reverie‘s release is at least partially to blame for that. I don’t know anybody’s life or work situation or anything like that, but if shit got complicated during covid for Forming the Void, they’d hardly be the only ones for whom that’s the case.
And for what it’s worth — plenty — they’ve dropped hints of new stuff coming soon, so maybe next year we’ll get there. Until then (or not), any excuse to revisit is welcome, both to remember this initial display of their songwriting and to appreciate it and the forward-thinking style they’ve made their own.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading and have a great weekend.
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I have too much going on to talk about it. This week was insane. We got a puppy. Her name is Tilly. Here’s the picture. The Patient Mrs. started a new semester. The Pecan starts kindergarten on Tuesday. I was watching three kids on Wednesday (5, 7, 10) and it was nuts. I spent so much time writing on my phone, completely overwhelmed, chasing. Trying to squeeze in as much as I could. That would be what I signed up for, it seems.
I talked about it a little bit earlier this week — and yes, that link is there because I don’t expect you to have read it or remember — but we drove out to Pennsylvania to get the dog, way out. The place was far enough that it made sense somehow to stop through Hersheypark on our way to the 2PM meeting with the breeder, who was a Mennonite farmer with an expansive operation — fields, cattle, chickens, etc. — and thankfully not a puppy mill. The place was clean and obviously not just because someone was showing up that day, and the litter was kept together and she got 10 full weeks with her bothers and sisters and seems to have benefited from that. Eight, which is the standard, is not enough. Also, she’s clearly been handled, including by kids, who we met, can fetch, sometimes comes when she’s called, and she responds well to positive reinforcement, so that’s been a plus.
The pressure was on me. It wasn’t spoken so much, but The Patient Mrs. very clearly took the ‘I got the last dog and you made us get rid of it so this is your show, champ’ position, and fairly so. I’m glad Omi likes living at my mother’s house. I hope our experience with this puppy continues on the track of this past week.
We took the one from the selection of five who hung back and who looked confused in the videos I was sent. So far she’s been very good. She has peed in the house once. I caught her in time on a pee this morning and on a poop the other evening, whenever it was, so I’m not calling her housebroken at all — she was born in June 12; we have a ways to go on all fronts, including teaching her the difference between dog toys and just about everything else when it comes to chewing — but we’re off to an encouraging start. I like carrying her in the crook of my arm and reveling in the dopamine drip.
But it’s time now to feed The Pecan her breakfast, so hey, have a great and safe weekend. Have fun, watch your head, see you at the kindergarten ice cream social at 1PM! Don’t be late or you won’t get into college!
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 31st, 2023 by JJ Koczan
A brand you can trust, Crowbar will head out on the next leg of their forever-tour on Sept. 7, spending just about a month on the road joined by the noise-as-weapon felony-level assault of Primitive Man, which is a hell of a pairing. And they’re playing Dingbatz. Oh, I love it when bands come to New Jersey. It doesn’t happen all the time, but Crowbar have hit my beloved Garden State on the regular for years, decades now. They’re touring ostensibly in support of 2022’s Zero and Below (review here), but also because they’re Crowbar and that’s what they do. And by now, if you don’t know you’re getting a pro-shop top-tier sludge metal show when they arrive, well, now you do. They are the very definition of reliable.
Bodybox join the tour starting on Sept. 12, and as the PR wire informs, they’ll be rolling over/through the following:
CROWBAR Announces US Headlining Tour; Tickets On Sale Now!
CROWBAR today announces a US headlining tour! The twenty-four-date journey begins September 7th in Fort Walton Beach, Florida and runs through October 5th in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Support will be provided by Primitive Man as well as Bodybox, on select dates. Additionally, the band will play a special show with Venom Inc. on October 1st in Iowa City, Iowa. Tickets are on sale TODAY! See all confirmed dates below.
CROWBAR w/ Primitive Man: 9/07/2023 Downtown Music Hall – Fort Walton Beach, FL 9/08/2023 Conduit – Orlando, FL 9/09/2023 The Orpheum – Tampa, FL 9/10/2023 Gramps – Miami, FL w/ Primitive Man, Bodybox: 9/12/2023 Masquerade – Atlanta, GA 9/13/2023 New Brookland Tavern – Columbia, SC 9/14/2023 Asheville Music Hall – Asheville, NC 9/15/2023 The Camel – Richmond, VA 9/17/2023 Broken Goblet – Bensalem, PA 9/19/2023 Dingbatz – Clifton, NJ 9/20/2023 Song & Dance – Syracuse, NY 9/21/2023 Palladium – Worcester, MA 9/22/2023 Saint Vitus Bar – Brooklyn, NY 9/23/2023 Angel City Music Hall – Manchester, NH 9/24/2023 Space Ballroom – Hamden, CT 9/26/2023 Crafthouse – Pittsburgh, PA 9/27/2023 Hobart Art Theater – Hobart, IN 9/28/2023 Reggie’s – Chicago, IL 9/29/2023 Grog Shop – Cleveland, OH 9/30/2023 Pyramid Scheme – Grand Rapids, MI 10/01/2023 Wildwood – Iowa City, IA w/ Venom Inc # 10/02/2023 Red Flag – St Louis, MO 10/04/2023 Cobra – Nashville, TN 10/05/2023 George’s Majestic – Fayetteville, AR # = No Support
CROWBAR released their critically-adored Zero And Below full-length last year on MNRK Heavy. Produced, mixed, and mastered by Duane Simoneaux at OCD Recording And Production in Metairie, Louisiana, Zero And Below is the band’s most unforgivably doom-driven record since their 1998 landmark effort, Odd Fellows Rest. Led by Windstein, with guitarist Matt Brunson, bassist Shane Wesley, and drummer Tommy Buckley, songs like “Chemical Godz,” “It’s Always Worth The Gain,” and “Bleeding From Every Hole” are unapologetic emotional outpourings, with a bare-knuckle resolve alongside its soul-searching vulnerability, reliably delivered with crushing heaviness.
