Posted in Whathaveyou on January 15th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Colorado classic heavy rockers Love Gang are set to head back to Europe this Spring as they continue to support their early-2023 album Meanstreak (review here). That record was issued by Heavy Psych Sounds, who also brought the band over to Europe last summer for a round of dates in July and August. They’d put domestic live action between, coming to the Eastern Seaboard this Fall and keeping momentum on their side as they continued to explore and cover new territories, seeming to dig in their heels for a longer stretch of road time. That is, I think they’re going to be a touring band — you might say they already are, what with all the touring — so expect more of this kind of thing as they move forward and become more established over the next few years.
I typed out these dates from the poster, so if they’re written wrong compared to that poster, the poster is correct. Look, I do my best, but I wake up very early and the AI that can type out tour dates with the proper accents hasn’t been made yet, apparently, though I do hope someone will let me know when such a thing comes along.
Dates were posted on the ol’ timey social media that my mother keeps needing new debit cards because she clicks ads on, and here they are. Festivals in those open slots? Certainly possible:
Yerrrrup we’re cummin back 🛫 Hit up HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS (info@heavypsychsounds.com) to book us on any open dates.
28.03 IT Bologna Freakout 29.03 IT Torino Blah Blah 30.03 FR La Clusaz Namass Pamouss 31.03 IT Verona Fine di Mondo 01.04 IT Zero Branco Maximum Festival 02.04 OPEN 03.04 OPEN 04.04 OPEN 05.04 DE Tubingen Null8-15 06.04 OPEN 07.04 DE Dresden Chemiefabrik 08.04 CZ Bilina Rock Pub Moskva 09.04 OPEN 10.04 SK Bratislava Garaze 11.04 SL Ljubljana Channel Zero 12.04 SL Ilrska Bistrica Mknz 13.04 IT Genova Trinita
LOVE GANG is Kam Wentworth – Guitar & Vocals Leo Muñoz – Organ Grady O’Donnell – Bass Shaun Goodwin – Drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 14th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Heavy Denver’s Love Gang wrapped up their European tour last month at SonicBlast Fest in Portugal, and I’m sorry to report that I missed them there. I dig their early 2023 album, Meanstreak (review here), plenty, and I’ve got no problem with them otherwise, but it was like two in the morning or something and I’m lame. I felt bad, making the trip and all, but at some point I need to go back to the room and sort photos or I’m not going to get the review done in time for the next day to start. Fests mean hard choices.
But in light of that guilt gnawing the back of my amygdala, I figured I’d put up their first East Coast shows, which are set to take place for four nights next month. They’re playing Brooklyn, Philly, TBA and Asbury Park, and I don’t know what brings them to the Eastern Seaboard other than the general demands of touring and supporting the record, but no doubt their classic style will find warm reception when they arrive. The four-piece also have a show in Denver before they head out, so whether that’s travel time and they’re driving east or flying and figuring out the rest when they get there, I have no idea. But good for them touching new ground, and if you’re on the East Coast and mad they’re not coming to you, I get that, but there’s always next time and maybe on the internet we can be happy a thing’s happening at all even if it’s not happening to ourselves. Maybe.
Dates follow, posted with minimal comment on social media:
Playing our first ever shows on the East Coast next month. Tickets on sale now.
10.14 Denver, CO – @lostlakedenver 10.18 Brooklyn, NY – @saintvitusbar 10.19 Philadelphia, PA – @ortliebsphilly 10.20 TBA (lovegangco@gmail.com to book) 10.21 Asbury Park, NJ – @houseofindependents
Fliers by @shit_leopard
LOVE GANG is Kam Wentworth – Guitar & Vocals Leo Muñoz – Organ Grady O’Donnell – Bass Shaun Goodwin – Drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 2nd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
In the grim early winter hours of 2023, Denver, Colorado, classic heavy rockers Love Gang offered their Meanstreak (review here) LP as a salve for January’s inherent woes. The album was like the party you think you’re not cool enough to be at, but then you go and it turns out you were and you had a bunch of friends all along and the magic was in you the whole time and something something E.T.’s light-up finger. For a record titled as it was and that started with a song called “Deathride,” it was deceptively good fun. And whether you got there or not, you were invited.
And as Love Gang announce a European incursion that will take them across two-plus weeks on their way to SonicBlast Fest in Portugal, they’ve still got some open slots, so not only is it not too late for you to check out the album — it’s streaming at the bottom of the post, of course — but if you happen to live, say, between Zero Branco in Italy and Bratislava in Slovakia, or somewhere else close by, you can be the hero who picks up on of the TBAs here and turns it into a night you at very least won’t regret having put together. It could be you. At that party.
Go for it:
LOVE GANG – Euro Tour 2023
We are stoked to announce the LOVE GANG Euro Tour 2023 !!
Our US rockenrollerz LOVE GANG will smash Europe this Summer including the mighties Kommz Festival and Sonic Blast!! The band will present the latest album MEANSTREAK !!!
Still few open slots
*** LOVE GANG *** EURO TOUR 2023 WE 26/07/2023 *** OPEN SLOT *** TH 27/07/2023 IT LECCO – CIRCOLO LIBERO PENSIERO FR 28/07/2023 IT ALESSANDRIA-CASCINA BELLARIA SA 29/07/2023 IT TORINO – BLAH BLAH SU 30/07/2023 IT PISA – PONTILE 102 MO 31/07/2023 IT ZERO BRANCO – ALTROQUANDO TU 01/08/2023 *** OPEN SLOT WE 02/08/2023 SK BRATISLAVA – KONCERTY NA GARAŽACH TH 03/08/2023 *** OPEN SLOT *** FR 04/08/2023 DE SAARBRUCKEN – HORST SA 05/08/2023 DE ASCHAFFENBURG – KOMMZ FESTIVAL SU 06/08/2023 CZ BILINA – ROCK PUB MOSKVA MO 07/08/2023 CZ PRAGUE – CROSS CLUB TU 08/08/2023 *** OPEN SLOT *** WE 09/08/2023 DE MANNHEIM – ALTER TH 10/08/2023 CH BASEL – QUARTERDECK SA 12/08/2023 PL ANCORA – SONIC BLAST
Love Gang is a rock ‘n roll band based out of Denver, Colorado. Formed in 2015, Love Gang is a throwback to the golden days of rock ‘n roll when the amps were loud, the hair was long and the drugs were cheap. Influenced by the obscure and underground rock of the 70s, they manage to keep their sound classic and true while also creating original, compelling songs that don’t grow tired or sound as if you’ve heard it all before. Love Gang likes to play fast, high energy songs full of driving blues boogie, wailing psychedelic guitar solos and crunchy hammond organ.
LOVE GANG is Kam Wentworth – Guitar & Vocals Leo Muñoz – Organ Grady O’Donnell – Bass Shaun Goodwin – Drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 29th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
I’m not going to pretend to have heard every band in this 16-strong announcement from Portugal’s SonicBlast Fest 2023, and honestly, that’s part of the appeal as far as I’m concerned. And if you’re looking for bigger names, certainly bringing in The Black Angels and Thuston Moore of Sonic Youth ought to qualify. But check out Mythic Sunship being confirmed, Mirror Queen heading abroad once again from their home in New York, Dozer supporting their first album in 15 years, Crippled Black Phoenix bringing their thoroughly English gloom to the otherwise sunshiny proceedings, Sasquatch pushing their forever-tour further presumably after completing the recording of their next LP, Danava and Love Gang both supporting new releases, on and on.
Is this the part where I tell you how killer the lineup looks and perhaps list off the various parts of my body I’d cut off in order to attend? Yeah, probably. But my own escapism aside, you can see for yourself what SonicBlast has put together in terms of a diverse range of sounds based around a unifying heavy ideal, and between the new names and those previously confirmed, it seems like it’s going to be a special couple days for those attending as well as the bands actually playing the thing. Maybe that could be you too.
Here’s the latest from social media:
We’re so proud and honored to announce 16 more bands that’ll blow our minds this summer, at SonicBlast Fest 2023 — The Black Angels, Thurston Moore Group, Bombino, Dozer, CRIPPLED BLACK PHOENIX (official), Imarhan, Hällas, Scowl, SPY, Sasquatch, LOVE GANG, Mythic Sunship, Etran de L’Aïr, DANAVA, Mirror Queen and scatterbrainiac!!
Join us in this crazy heavy psychedelic weekend by the ocean at Praia da Duna dos Caldeirões, Âncora, Portugal!
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 23rd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Park myself in Joshua Tree for a weekend just as the winter is turning to spring, catch a ton of awesome bands from and beyond the desert? Yeah, that sounds pretty magical, to be honest. Nothing against San Francisco. I’ve seen videos from outside at Thee Parkside and it looks like an incredible place to see a gig, but if I’m making the trip from the other side of the country — and unless there’s a sudden fiscal windfall in my favor, I’m not, sadly — it’s the desert calling, all the more with All Souls and BigPig and Third Ear Experience on that bill. That’s a memorable weekend in the making.
The 2023 lineups for Heavy Psych Sounds Fest in California are finished, and with the two posters next to each other you can see some of the differences from one to the other, but they’re mostly the same as artists will play in one city one night, the other the other, and as someone who remembers seeing Yawning Man and Fatso Jetson together a decade ago at Desertfest London 2013 (review here), I’d offer up a kidney to do so again if I thought I could be healed in time to actually enjoy the show in March.
Anybody want to buy some… shit I have nothing of value. Alright then.
Here’s the bill:
Heavy Psych Sounds Records & Booking is proud to announce *** HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST CALIFORNIA 2023 JOSHUA TREE & SAN FRANCISCO ***
full lineup announcement
Heavy Psych Sounds together with Plastic Cactus Productions and Subliminal SF presents the full lineup of the Heavy Psych Sounds Fest California 2023 !!!
HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST ***CALIFORNIA 2023*** MARCH 25 & 26
SAN FRANCISCO @ OPEN AIR AT THEE PARKSIDE
JOSHUA TREE @ HI DESERT CULTURAL CENTER
JOSHUA TREE HI DESERT CULTURAL CENTER MARCH 25th and 26th
WINDHAND WEEDEATER BRANT BJORK NEBULA THE ATOMIC BITCHWAX YAWNING MAN FATSO JETSON DUEL HIPPIE DEATH CULT GEEZER KADABRA WARLUNG LOVE GANG WITCHPIT COSMIC REAPER ALL SOULS BIG PIG THIRD EAR EXPERIENCE DEATHCHANT WHISKEY AND KNIVES HIGH TONE SON OF A BITCH
SAN FRANCISCO OPEN AIR AT THEE PARKSIDE MARCH 25th and 26th
WINDHAND WEEDEATER MONDO GENERATOR NEBULA THE ATOMIC BITCHWAX DUEL HIPPIE DEATH CULT GEEZER KADABRA WARLUNG LOVE GANG COSMIC REAPER WITCHPIT DEATHCHANT HIGH TONE SON OF A BITCH DISASTROID
Posted in Reviews on January 10th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Oh, hello. I didn’t see you come in. What’s going on? Not much. You? Well, you see, it’s just another 10 records for the Quarterly Review, you know how it goes. Yup, day seven. That’s up to 70 records, and it’ll keep going for the rest of this week. Have I mentioned yet I was thinking about adding an 11th day? What can I say, some cool stuff has come along this last week and a half since I’ve been doing this. Better now than in a couple months, maybe. Anyway, make yourself comfortable. Hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading.
Winter 2023 Quarterly Review #61-70:
Jason Simon, Hindsight 2020
What this sweetly melodic and delicately arranged 2022 collection lacks in marketing — the title Hindsight 2020 is accurate in that that’s when it was mostly recorded, but ‘let’s remember an awful time’ is hardly a way to pitch an audience on a vinyl — but as Jason Simon (also Dead Meadow) languidly meanders through covers of Tom Petty (“Crawling Back to You” becomes ethereal post-rock), Jody Reynolds & Bobbie Gentry, The Gun Club, Jackson C. Frank, Bert Jansch and John Prine, the latter of whom passed away after contracting covid-19, without the lockdown from which this record probably wouldn’t exist as it does. Probably not a coincidence. On banjo for three peppered-in originals starting with a relaxed mood-setting intro, as well as guitar, vocals, Moog, bass, Juno-60, and mandolin throughout, Simon and a few companions dig into these folk roots, making them his own and creating a whole-album flow for what might in less capable hands be a hodgepodge of competing influences. As it stands, by the time the melancholy strum of “October” takes hold, Simon has long since succeeded in creating a vibe that rightly has “Ghosts Gather Now” as its centerpiece, pulling as it does from these spirits to make something of its own. 2020 sucked; nobody’s arguing. But at least in hindsight something beautiful can come out of it.
Virginian trio Smoke cast an eye toward the trailblazing heavy psych of Sungrazer on “Temple” from their early 2022 debut album, guitarist Dalton handling the melodic vocals that will soon enough grow throatier in their passionate delivery, but even more than this, Groupthink sees the band — Dalton, guitarist Ben and drummer Alex; first names only — digging full-on into turn-of-the-century-style nodding heavy, shades of Man’s Ruin-era classics from the likes of Acid King, maybe even some of Sons of Otis‘ bombed-out largesse, showing themselves filtered through a next-generational execution, varied enough so as not to be single-minded in idolatry as “Davidian” picks up energy in its late solo, the 18-minute “One Eyed King” earns its lumbering payoff and lines of floating guitar, “The Supplication of Flame” arrives based around acoustic guitar forward in the mix ahead of the electrics (at least at first) and closer “Telah” basks in a righteous stomp that underscores the point. At 58 minutes, Groupthink isn’t a minor undertaking, but it is one of 2022’s most impressive debut albums and laced with potential for what may develop in their sound. It is stronger in craft than one might initially think, and has to be to hold up all that heft in its fuzz.
Not so much ’70s-style retroism as tapping into a kind of raw, ’90s heavy rock vision — Nebula, Monster Magnet, as well as Peru and greater South America’s own storied history of fuzzmaking — Rifle‘s Repossessed is relatively rough in its production, but as in the best of cases, that becomes a part of its appeal as the Lima-based three-piece of guitarist/bassist/vocalist Alejandro Suni, guitarist Magno Mendoza and drummer Cesar Araujo ride their riffs down the highway and into a fog of tonal buzz, fervent, butt-sized low end and druggy, outsider vibes. “The Thrill is Back” struts coated in road dirt as it is, and that thrill is found likewise in the scorch-psych of “Demon Djinn” and the earlier blowout “Fiend” that follows opener “Seven Thousand Demons” and sets a bluesy lyrical foundation so that six-minute finale “Spirit Rise” seems to offer some sense of realization or, if not that, then at least acceptance of this well-baked way of life. As the band’s first release, this late-2022 seven-song/32-minute offering feels ready to be pressed up on vinyl by some discerning purveyor, if not for the underlying desert rock drive of “Madness” then surely for the swing in “Sonic Rage,” and it’s one of those records that isn’t going to speak to everyone, but is going to hit just right for some others, dug as it is into a niche between what’s come before and its own encapsulation of a red-eyed stoner future.
If there should be any doubt that Indianapolis’ Mother of Graves are schooled in the sound they’re shooting for, let the fact that Dan Swanö (Katatonia, Opeth, on into infinity) mastered the recording/mix by the band’s own Ben Sandman make it clear where their particular angle on melancholic death-doom is coming from in its grim, wintry soul-dance. Where the Shadows Adorn follows 2020’s likewise-dead-on debut, In Somber Dreams (discussed here), but the stately, poised rollout of a song like “Rain” and the subdued sections before “Of Solitude and Stone” enters its last push, has all the hallmarks of forward growth in songwriting as well as in confidence on the part of the band. Front to back, Where the Shadows Adorn is deathly in its consumption, a fresh interpretation of a moment in history when the likes of Katatonia especially but also acts like My Dying Bride and others of the Peaceville ilk were considered on the extreme end of metal despite their sometimes-grueling tempos. The question remains whether this is where Mother of Graves will reside for the duration or if, like their influences, their depressive streak will grow more melodic with age. As it stands, adorned in shadow, their emotional and atmospheric weight is darkly majestic.
This self-titled four-songer is the first release from Helsinki, Finland’s Swarm, and though it’s billed as an EP, its 28 minutes are wrought with a substantial flow and unifying melodic complexity due both to the depth of vocal complementary arrangements between singer Hilja Vedenpää and guitarist Panu Willman, as well as the intertwining of Willman and Einari Toiviainen‘s guitars atop the rolling grooves of Leo Lehtonen‘s bass and Dani Paajanen‘s drumming; the whole band operating together with a sense of purpose that goes beyond the standard ‘riff out and see what happens’ beginning of so many bands. A line of rhythmic notes atop the riff in “Nevermore” around five minutes is emblematic of the flourish the band brings to the release, and one would note the grungier float in “There Again,” and the moodier acoustics of “Frail” and the more full-on duet in the verses of closer “We Should Know” — never mind the pre-fade chug that caps or the consuming heft offsetting those verses — as further distinguishing factors. Self-released in June 2022, Swarm‘s Swarm carries the air of a precursor, and though it’s not known yet to precisely what, the note to keep eyes and ears open is well received. To put it another way, they sound very much like they know what they want to be and to accomplish as a group. If they’re heading into a debut album next, they’re ready to take on the task.
The self-titled-era Alice in Chains-style vocals on Baardvader‘s second LP, Foolish Fires, make them a ready standout from the slew of up and coming European heavy rollers, but the Den Haag trio have a distinct blend of crunch in their tone and atmosphere surrounding that make a song such as “Understand” memorable for more than just the pleading repetitions of its title in the hook. Opener “Pray” sets a hard-hitting fluidity in motion and “Illuminate” answers back as it caps side A with (dat) bass and airy guitar in an open soundscape soon to be filled with a wall o’ fuzz and more dug-in grunge spirit. As they make their way toward the louder, vocally-layered, highlight-solo finish that the 10-minutes “Echoes” provides, there’s some trace of The Machine‘s noisier affinity in their tones on “Blinded Out,” including the solo, and “Prolong Eternity” culminates with intensity leading into the already-noted closer, but “Echoes” has the throatier shouts — like “Illuminate” before it — to back its case as the destination for where they’ve been headed all along, and works to send Foolish Fires out as a triumphant demonstration of Baardvader‘s appeal, which is relatively straightforward considering how much they nod along the way, their sound sharing grunge’s ability to be aggressive without being metal, heavy without being aggressive, and something of their own that still rings familiar. They’re just beginning to realize their potential, and this record is an important step in that process.
Rest easy, you’re in capable hands. And even if you didn’t hear Love Gang‘s 2020 debut, Dead Man’s Game (review here), the fact that the Denver four-piece went down to Austin, Texas, to record with Gian Ortiz of Amplified Heat producing tells you what you need to know about their boogie on Meanstreak. And what you need to know is largely that you want to hear it. As one might expect, ’70s vibes pervade the eight-tracker, which puts the guitars forward and de-emphasizes some of the organ and flute one might’ve encountered on their first LP, saving it for side B’s “Shake This Feelin’,” the six-minute stretchout “Headed Down to Mexico,” and the closing “Fade Away,” where it ties together with the thrust of earlier cuts like the circuitous “Blinded by Fear” (not an At the Gates cover, though that would be fun), or “Deathride” and the title-track, which shove shove shove as the opening pair so “Bad News” can complete the barnburning salvo. Tucked away before the finale is “Same Ol’ Blues,” a harmonica-laced acoustic cut dug out of your cool uncle’s record collection so that some day, if you’re lucky, some shitbird younger relation of yours may come along and find it here in your own record collection, thus perpetuating the cycle of boogie into perpetuity. Humanity should be so lucky.
The first and probably not last Astral Magic release of 2023, We Are Stardust, finds project-spearhead Santtu Laakso — songwriting, synth, bass, vocals, mixing, cover art, etc. — working mostly in solo fashion. Jonathan Segel of Camper Van Beethoven/Øresund Space Collective adds guitar and violin (he also mastered the recording), and Samuli Sailo plays guitar on “Drop It,” but the 11-song/60-minute space rocker bears the hallmarks of Laakso‘s Hawkwindian craft, the songs rife with layers of synth and effects behind the forward vocals, programmed drums behind bolstering the krautrock feel. There’s a mellower jam like “Bottled Up Inside,” which puts the guitar solo where voice(s) might otherwise be, and “Out in the Cold” touches loosely on Pink Floyd without giving over entirely to that impulse or meandering too far from its central progression, letting the swirling “Lost Planet” and “Violet Sky” finish with a return to the kosmiche of the opening title-track and “The Simulacra,” which feels almost like a return to ground after the proto-New Wave-y “They Walk Among Us,” though “ground” should be considered on relative terms there because by most standards, Astral Magic start, end, and remain sonically in the farther far out.
Thank You Lord for Satan, Thank You Lord for Satan
Self-recorded exploratory songcraft is writ large across the Buh Records self-titled debut from Thank You Lord for Satan — the Lima, Peru, two-piece of Paloma La Hoz (ex-Mitad Humana) and Henry Gates (Resplandor) — and the effect throughout the born-during-pandemic-lockdown eight-song offering is a kind of poised intimacy, artsy and performative as La Hoz handles most of but not all the lead vocals with Gates joining in, as on the moody shoegazer “Wet Morning” ahead of the pointedly Badalamenti-esque “Before EQ1.” Opener “A Million Songs Ago” is a rocker, and “Wet Morning” too in at least its including drums, but that’s only a piece of what Thank You Lord for Satan are digging into, as “Isolation” feels duly empty and religious and “Conversations al Amanecer” and “When We Dance” has a kind of electronic-inflected pop-psych at its core, willfully contrasting the folkish “Sad Song” (with Gates‘ lead vocal) and “Devine Destiny,” a side B counterpart to “Isolation” that reveals the hidden structure beneath all this go-wherever-ism, or at very least ends the album on a suitably contemplative note, some electronic snare-ish sound there rising in the mix before being cast off into the ether with the rest of everything.
Consider this less a review of The Corpse Vanishes, which is but a single Dec. 2022 three-songer among a glut of releases — including at least one more recent — from Herndon, Virginia’s Druid Stone available through their Bandcamp. The ethic of the band, as led by guitarist Demeter Capsalis, would seem to be as bootleg as possible. Shows are recorded and presented barebones. Rehearsal room demos like “The Corpse Vanishes” and “Night of the Living Dead” — which jams its way into “What Child is This” — here are as raw as raw gets, and in the 20-minute included jam on Electric Wizard‘s “Mother of Serpents,” which was recorded live on Dec. 2 and issued four days later, the power goes out for about three of the first five minutes and Capsalis, who has already explained that most of the band had other stuff to do and that’s why he’s jamming with two friends for the full set, has to keep it going on stage banter alone. Most bands would never release that kind of thing. I respect the shit out of it. Not just because I dig bootlegs — though I do — but because in this age of infinite everything, why not release everything? Don’t you know the fucking planet’s dying? Why the hell would you keep secrets? Who has time for that? Fuck it. Put it all out there. Absolutely. Whether you dig into The Corpse Vanishes or any other of the slew, you might just find that whatever you listen to afterward seems unnecessarily polished. And maybe it is.
Posted in Radio on October 28th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Good show. Gets heavy. I started thinking about how my knee hurt and that reminded me of Høstsabbat (where I hurt it) earlier this month and I decided to dedicate the second hour-ish of the program to celebrating that lineup. And, well, that lineup was really god damned heavy — though, I say in the voice tracks too, it was way more sonically diverse a proceeding than it appears on the playlist below. So it goes. I’ll plead guilty on that.
Before that though, each one of the first three tracks is something I genuinely hope people will check out. Brant Bjork because he’s Brant Bjork and 14 records in he’s still trying new stuff. UWUW because Ian Blurton is a master and psychedelic heavy soul rock needed to happen. Dead Shrine because it’s new stuff from Craig Williamson (also of Lamp of the Universe) in a heavy style like Arc of Ascent, but with some different kinds of spaces thrown in. Dude just riffs and riffs and riffs. Yes.
Not saying the rest isn’t worth checking out in Ruby the Hatchet, Love Gang, or The Otolith, which is really the rest of the new stuff. The Otolith I’ve been listening to all week to review it and it’s bludgeoningly beautiful and has me wondering how to add a sixth inclusion to my top five for the year. Ruby the Hatchet are like if 1971 happened in 1981, and Love Gang are like if Motörhead were from Southern California or, in other words, from Denver. I certainly thought that song was killer when I premiered it. And a couple classics, some recent Enslaved, Orange Goblin, then the turn up to Norway for the fest-homage. As I said at the top, good show.
Thanks if you listen and thanks for reading.
The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.
Full playlist:
The Obelisk Show – 10.28.22 (VT = voice track)
Brant Bjork
Bread for Butter
Bougainvillea Suite
UWUW
Staircase to the End of the Night
UWUW
Dead Shrine
The Formless Soul
The Eightfold Path
VT
Ruby the Hatchet
Deceiver
Fear is a Cruel Master
Love Gang
Meanstreak
Meanstreak
The Otolith
Ekpyrotic
Folium Limina
Saint Vitus
The Psychopath
Saint Vitus
Enslaved
Kingdom
Kingdom
Orange Goblin
Cozmo Bozo
The Big Black
VT
Norna
The Perfect Dark
Star is Way Way is Eye
Bismarck
The Seer
Oneiromancer
The Moth Gatherer
The Drone Kingdom
Esoteric Oppression
Dopelord
Your Blood
Reality Dagger`
Graveyard
Please Don’t
Peace
Indian
Directional
From All Purity
VT
Slomatics
Buried Axes on Regulus Minor
Ascend/Descend
Kanaan
Return to the Tundrasphere
Earthbound
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Nov. 11 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.
A mean streak, huh? Yeah, they found it. Somewhere between the Iommian leads of “Deathride,” the Motörhead-via-West-Coast-mellow of the title-track’s bluesy not-asking-for-much (premiering below), the fiercer Duel-style post-Dust brashness of “Bad News,” the I-think-they-mean-it “let’s boogie!” before they jam out in “Headed Down to Mexico” and the last ripper solo and acoustic playoff of “Fly Away,” Love Gang‘s impending second album, Meanstreak, has no trouble living up to the name it’s been given. Produced in Austin, Texas, by Gian Ortiz of that city’s massively-underrated torrential rockers Amplified Heat — whose guitarist, Jim Ortiz, also adds a guest solo to the penultimate “Same Ol’ Blues” — the eight-songer brings headspinner riffs to bear in a way that feels born out of 2019’s Dead Man’s Game (review here) but is even rawer in its approach. As they would seem to be aware of, they’re becoming a meaner band.
And Meanstreak is all about the energy they bring; like a (rather effective) call to see them live. There’s scorch to be found on organ or guitar, shuffle in the bass and push in the drums, but it’s movement and momentum one way or the other. United in style and mission, Love Gang‘s songs are a sampler of vintage delights put forward with a modern intensity. That is, it’s ’70s rock, but more about taking the natural production style and bringing it into the 2020s than trying to pretend the last half-century of rock and roll never happened. Can you dig it? Oh, I think so. They make doing so fun.
You can check out “Meanstreak” on the embed below. As one might hope for a title-track, it gives a pretty solid idea of where they’re coming from on the whole.
Album art and PR wire info follow the player. Please enjoy:
Love Gang, “Meanstreak” track premiere
LOVE GANG: New album “Meanstreak” out January 27th on Heavy Psych Sounds
Hailing from Denver, Colorado, LOVE GANG is a throwback to the golden days of rock ’n roll, when the amps were loud, the hair was long, and the drugs were cheap. Influenced by the obscure and underground rock of the 70s, they manage to keep their sound classic and true while also creating original compelling songs that don’t grow tired or sound as if you’ve heard it all before. Love Gang likes to play fast high energy songs full of driving blues boogie, wailing psychedelic guitar solos and crunchy hammond organ. They formed in late 2015 with Kam Wentworth on guitar/vocals, Grady O’Donnell on bass guitar, Leo Muñoz on organ/flute, and Shaun Goodwin on drums. Following a 10-show tour supporting Wolfmother in 2018, Love Gang self-released their debut LP ‘Dead Man’s Game’ in October 2019 under the moniker Colfax Records.
Their sophomore album “Meanstreak” was recorded in Austin, TX by Gian Ortiz at his home studio. The recordings were done full analog to tape and capture a pure raw sound. The lyrical content involves relevant topics in the band’s life ranging from women political unrest in the U.S. depression, drugs motorcycles, and wild nights in Juarez Mexico.
TRACKLIST 1. Deathride 2. Meanstreak 3. Bad News 4. Blinded by Fear 5. Shake This Feelin’ 6. Headed Down to Mexico 7. Same ‘ol Blues 8. Fly Away
CREDITS All music written by Love Gang Guest lead guitar by Jim Ortiz on “Same Ol’Blues” Recorded and mixed in Austin TX by Gian Ortiz on analog equipment Mastered by Nico Leophonte at Alnico Studios Photography by Travis Heacock Album design byHeavy & Beyond Studios
LOVE GANG is Kam Wentworth – Guitar & Vocals Leo Muñoz – Organ Grady O’Donnell – Bass Shaun Goodwin – Drums
