For being 11 years old, if you’d expect the self-recorded debut full-length from Glaswegian duo Lucid Sins to sound out of date, well, that was kind of the whole idea in the first place. Occultation runs all of 28 minutes and is comprised of six songs, one of which is a cover, so it’s probably fair to call it unassuming — as opposed to grandiose — as a first statement, and that becomes part of the personality of the outing.

It’s organic to a smell-dirt degree, and traditional in its approach to heavy rock, incorporating elements of British folk that the two-piece of Andreas Jönsson (guitar, lead vocals, keys, etc.), and Ruaraidh Sanachan (drums, backing vocals, bass, guitar, maybe more keys, etc.) would go on to flesh out over subsequent releases, and short enough to leave the listener feeling like they just listened to some lost private-press LP known only to the most diligent of cultist crate-hunters, while at the same time being unmistakably of its retroist moment. If you hear shades of earliest Kadavar, Graveyard, Witchcraft, and so on — the heavy ’10s picking up from the heavy ’70s — that’s a factor in the presentation here as well, production-wise and in terms of the structure of the songs.

But, mostly, Occultation is chasing its own ends, and the Britfolk aspects of their sound are a distinguishing feature even in this comparatively nascent state. Swinging second cut “Hidden in the Dark” has some of that vibe, as does “Reason for My Living,” but especially at the outset, the album is about movement. Lead track “The Witcher” (it was a book before it was a game before it was a tv series) has a sleek, classic-style shuffler of a groove that immediately makes itself familiar to the listener if it isn’t to start with, and a hook that speaks to the more modern impulse that, in terms of sequencing, takes care of business up front so the back end can party. I’ve called it a mullet sequence on many occasions. Here’s another, though it’s not like “Wasting Time,” their take on Medusa‘s “Black Wizard” and the subsequent closer “Reason for My Living” are so far out and distant from where they set out with “The Witcher.” I’ll gladly argue, however, they dig in deeper as they go, and on the most superficial level of consideration, I’ll note that “Reason for My Living” is the longest inclusion at 5:40.

At the time, there was a generational blossoming of sound in what became known as garage-doom. Raw, often cult or exploitation-leaning (not really in this case) songs with stripped-down structures and proto-metallic nod of the sort that Lucid Sins take up so naturally. The elephant in the room as regards “Wasting Time” or even some of the later reaches in “Hidden in the Dark” is Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, who would seem to be an influence in terms of the layered vocals, but that isn’t the extent either of what Lucid Sins get up to on the short album, but rather a piece of their subtly complicated sound made accessible through craft.

The fact that they did it DIY in terms of the recording is another distinguishing consideration, if mostly on paper, but it speaks to the sense of purpose behind the record and the component material. That they kept it comparatively brief as well feels like an aesthetic choice, and while I don’t know that it was and it may be that they just didn’t have or didn’t want to write another piece as filler, it becomes a part of the persona just the same. It’s a quick glimpse of another time or place, but too grounded in the songwriting to really be escapist or psychedelic, though there are certainly flashes of trippier takes, including the vocal arrangement that caps “Reason for My Living” and the quiet break in “Hidden in the Dark.” But a relative straightforwardness of intent doesn’t negate the progressive aspects of their sound either, and Lucid Sins are as likely to be found in the pastoral, maybe-Mellotron-infused flow in the back half of “Wasting Time” as they are doing an aural softshoe at the start of “The Witcher.”

Wherever the album goes, it maintains its character of tone and melody, and as one would expect, that draws a thread through the material, uniting it — not that, working with just 28 minutes of your busy day, Lucid Sins are in danger of veering too far off course. But this too is a strength that makes the production relevant, and Jönsson and Sanachan have continued to record Lucid Sins outings as time has gone on. Their exclamatory second album, Cursed! (review here), would arrive in 2021, issued like Occultation through Totem Cat Records, and a third LP, Dancing in the Dark (review here), followed on a notably quicker turnaround in 2023. Both are longer, cleaner in the recording, and have further developed the folk and progressive elements on display throughout Occultation, showcasing a growth that one dares to presume is ongoing in the band and greater ambition in terms of style, though if you want to take it all at its root, it’s still an individual perspective on genre, just a broader perspective in the first place.

This isn’t a band that’s ever been super-hyped so far as I know, but in my mind they’re an example of an act who came into making this first album with a definite idea of what they wanted to do, then learned from that and continued to move forward. Perhaps their goals have become more amorphous with time, or perhaps not — I don’t know them personally, so it’s hard to say — and from their point of view the trajectory has always been the same. In either case, Occultation marks a vivid outset, and for all its hyper-unpretentiousness, it stands apart from both the vintage stylizations of the era in which it landed and the crux of indie-style proto-doom for its intelligence, cohesion and poise. As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

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Okay. I didn’t close out last week, though by Friday morning I’d already long since started this post. The Pecan started school after Labor Day and it’s been mostly a wreck since. We’ve had a ton of meetings with the school, and I’m back and forth to that building three times a day minimum anyhow — that’s drop-off, lunchtime meds boost, and pickup — and they seem to be largely out of ideas and/or the will to try new things at out suggestion. In addition, a bunch of the I-think-eight evaluations we had done over the course of July/August for various hearing/seeing deficiencies have turned up relevant data, resulting in even more suggestions for how to support this kid in getting through her day.

Last Friday we had a call with her teacher, who was like, “She gets a three-minute break and then doesn’t want to do her work,” and the answer there is that then she’s not ready to be doing the work and don’t force it or she’ll melt down. What she needs there is likely what she’s telling you: a longer break and less demands on her. That’s a lot to ask of a young woman leading a class of 27 students, however, even when The Pecan has a para assigned to help her stay on task and regulated throughout her day. Bottom line, though, ‘her day’ as a thing that happens, isn’t working. She’s stressed, sad, and on-edge all the time. It is no way to live and certainly not the kind of experience of school or of fucking anything that I want her to have.

We’ve begun to consider advocating for out-of-district placement and I have the name of a volunteer lawyer to reach out to who will hopefully be able either to help us with that or point us in the direction of someone who can. The school she’s at did right a decade ago by my nephew, who’s deeper on the autism spectrum and will require assistance and care his whole life, but it was largely a different team at that point, and little I’ve seen over the last two years — apart from her relationship with her first-grade teacher last year, which was special in itself — has given me confidence they can or are willing to support her in the ways she needs throughout the day/week/year. Mostly they seem either to be out of ideas or just generally done with her, and that’s also sad. That’s not to say there aren’t also members of the team who care. We had a full-team bring-in on Wednesday, however, and the fact that I had to leave and actually take The Pecan home because she saw us there, burst in on the meeting, and then wouldn’t go back to class, says to me that they either can’t handle her or they’re finished trying.

There’s a school nearby that specializes in twice-exceptional kids — that is smart-but-complicated — and I don’t know how long a process that even is, but it seems worth it to me to get the ball rolling, even if just to pursue the idea of putting her in a smaller classroom, let alone whatever else a program like that might offer.

In any case, I gave her the day off today. She’s been invited to a birthday party this evening — the mom in question is friendly with The Patient Mrs. and it feels like that’s a factor since the kids aren’t in the same class this year, but I’ll take it however it comes — and is going to that at the same time I have a different familial obligation for the other side of the family (my sister’s husband’s sister’s kid kind of thing), so that will be the lead-in to our weekend, and hopefully we can find something fun and not-stressful that doesn’t cost $300 to do. I don’t think those things exist anymore either.

But hey, at least there’s one fewer willfully ignorant nazi motherfucker still walking the planet making it less safe for my family and families like mine. I’d call it a decent start, and I hope they find the person who did it only so I can spend the rest of my life praising their name.

If you’re not a fascist, I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Next two weeks are slammed, but I’m prioritizing review-writing, so if there’s less news or three posts a day instead of four, I’m doing my best with the time and brainpower I have. I appreciate your understanding.

FRM. Heads up, Facebook is run by a bootlicking oligarch, there’s no Obelisk merch and I’m pretty sure the Radio stream is still broken. Nonetheless…

The Obelisk Collective on Facebook

The Obelisk Radio

The Obelisk merch

 

Glasgow duo Lucid Sins — joined in the cause by a host of friends and collaborators — release their third album, Dancing in the Dark, this week through Totem Cat Records. Deeply informed by classic progressive rock, with more than a flash of Canterbury folk in “Sanctuary Stone” but a broad enough scope that when the two-piece of multi-instrumentalists Andreas Jönsson (lead vocals, guitar bass, organ, synth) and Ruaraidh Sanachan (backing vocals, drums, bass, recorder and so on) jam out with returning collaborator Stuart Coleman on sax at the end of closer “Catch the Wild,” indeed they seem to have done just that, but more to the point it’s not out of place. The record begins with “Jack of Diamonds” and within two minutes is basking in dappled sunshine through leaves of classic, organic melody.

Through the entirety of its 10 songs and 37 minutes — which you can and probably should hear premiering on the player below — Lucid Sins‘ Dancing in the Dark unfurls (sometimes not) subtle breadth and craft a sound that’s heavy at its root but that can grow expansive enough to account for the harpsichord of “In the Woods (The Drifter),” which follows the storytelling of “Jack of Diamonds” with an outright promotion of a naturalist ethos; the character of The Drifter is, you guessed it, in the woods. “Some call him crazy and some call him weird/But his is a life without burden or fear/So spare him your pity, for he carries no shame/And who is the lord of his own domain if not he who lives free as the wind and the rain?” And the lines in the fadeout, “In the woods/Life is good,” reinforce the message. Still light-touch and ’70s warm in tone, “The Dance” blends acoustic and electric guitar, leaving room for handclap flourish in its shuffle, lush vocals over top, and the party continues in “Take Me With You,” which brings Dunbarrow‘s Espen Anderson in for a duet and Coleman again on organ.

Shifts in arrangement and guests coming and going are part of the personality of Dancing in the Dark, but by no means are they the substance of it. The above-quoted lyrics from “In the Woods (The Drifter)” lay out a position and perspective against modernity, and the aesthetic follows through on that, but somehow Lucid Sins aren’t retro. Production might have something to do with that, but what they seem to envision across Dancing in the Dark is a malleable heavy folk, inherently progressive rather than consciously showy in terms of technique, and in “Take Me With You” they push about as far into rhythmic urgency as they’ll go, and it’s not so much that it’s faster than “The Dance” just before — “The Dance,” by the way, is the best gothic post-punk boogie I’ve ever heard from an ostensibly psychedelic folk-prog Scottish two-piece; admittedly not a lot of competition, and yes, that’s a compliment — which makes it exceptionally well positioned to lead into the soft guitar harmonies and all-in folk cultism of presumed side A capper “Sanctuary Stone.”

Multi-media artist and experimentalist Hanna Tuulikki contributes the first of two guest vocal spots to “Sanctuary Stone,” taking on the lead role with backing from Jönsson to mark Dancing in the Dark‘s turning point. On the most basic, superficial level, at this point the listener has had “The Dance,” and side B will bring “A Call in the Dark” to fulfill the title’s promise. While remaining consistent in tone — in other words, it’s still the same record — Lucid Sins lean into proto-doom through “A Call in the Dark” while nonetheless bouncing almost maddeningly through repetitions of “A call in the dark/A call in the darkness” like some woodland satyr about to cast a spell to make your face fall off.

A brooding, creeping riff matches the lyrical narrative, and the song almost seems to be teasing as it moves through the catchy-if-intentionally-disorienting hook. Though it has plenty of stops as it loops around, “A Call in the Dark” gives over to the organ melancholy and watery verse vocals of “The Toll,” a quiet dirge that rises in the chorus and recedes again from there. “The Toll” is the shortest cut on Dancing in the Dark at 2:55, and one can’t help but wonder if we’re meeting the same character from “In the Woods (The Drifter),” whose potential unceremonious end is marked by, yes, a bell, and the final lines, “He’s frozen and his eyes are turning blind/He starts to stumble and he falls/The final words that no one will recall/Now lying still without the strength to crawl.”

It’s not a minor jump from there to the handclaps in the second half of “From the Bough,” but side B centerpiece is a masterclass in how to sound angular without being inaccessible, proto-doom in form and progressive in construction. With shades of some of earlier Hexvessel‘s stately delivery and folkish base, organ or synth runs alongside the guitar and gives some melodic shimmer to the distortion, mixed for complement rather than contrast. When that song — which is kind of a dance, if we’re being honest — finishes, the penultimate “The Raven’s Eye” marks the return of Tuulikki, this time sharing a duet with Jönsson over a languid procession of contemplative heavy folk. With the relative blowout still to come in “Catch the Wild,” Lucid Sins can afford to really dig into “The Raven’s Eye,” and they seem to do just that, with what starts as a richly arranged waltz shifting toward chime-inclusive soothing psych-rock. They drop out for a last verse, Jönsson alone at first, then with Tuulikki and organ as they gently let go.

As they have been all along, the band remains clever, classy and thoughtful in “Catch the Wild,” setting out with an acoustic/electric guitar blend and cycles through medieval-ish intro twists before smoothing out and suggesting someone open a window. Like in “From the Bough,” there’s tension in the groove of “Catch the Wild” pulling the listener forward through the measures of the verse, and there’s a chorus that takes hold just once before they’re into the instrumental ending, sax and all, but the entire five-minute span (the longest inclusion here) is about the linear trajectory more than anything, and Lucid Sins seem to be finding their way back to the bit of swagger in “Jack of Diamonds” as they wrap “Catch the Wild.” Fitting somehow for the record to follow a full-circle trajectory as so much of it feels rounded at the edges and it derives the bulk of its heaviness not from tonal manipulation, but atmosphere, then mood, and yes, the lyrics throughout, which should be considered an essential facet of engaging the whole of Dancing in the Dark‘s almost counterintuitively vibrant realization. The album is gorgeous the way moss on wood can be art.

Please enjoy:

LUCID SINS “Dancing In The Dark” Out October 27th on Totem Cat Records

The story goes as follows… You stumble through the forest. Alone and far from home. All paths have returned you to this place. Lost in a world of green. Hidden in the dark. As the light fades you glimpse flickering flame and catch the scent of smoke. In a tiny clearing, shadows cast by a dying fire take human-esque forms. Leaning in for warmth, they share ten tales of hope and betrayal, magic and madness, love and death. Whispered words mingle with distant memories, and as the fire grows higher, your sense of self is scorched and burned. One by one now, the figures begin to dance and spin as occult psychedelic sounds drift through the trees. Caught in the maelstrom, suspended high in a swirling mesh of leaves and perception, you release your grip on space and time… On the forest floor, stirred by dawn, you try to make sense of the mist within your mind. To recall where you have been. To know who you once were. Around a glowing fire, deep in the woods, LUCID SINS are Dancing In The Dark… Will you dance with them?

TRACKLIST:
1. Jack Of Diamonds
2. In The Woods (The Drifter)
3. The Dance
4. Take Me With You
5. Sanctuary Stone
6. A Call In The Dark
7. The Toll
8. From The Bough
9. The Raven’s Eye
10. Catch The Wild

LUCID SINS on “Dancing in the Dark”
Andreas Jönsson – Vocals, guitars, bass, organ, synthesizer
Ruaraidh Sanachan – Drums, bass, percussion, organ, mellotron, recorder, backing vocals

with guests
Espen Andersen, Vocals (track 3)
Stuart Coleman, Hammond Organ (track 3)
Hanna Tuulikki, Vocals (tracks 5 & 9)
Alex Ward, Clarinet (track 10)
+++ Cover art by David V. D’Andrea

Lucid Sins, “Jack of Diamonds” official video

Lucid Sins on Facebook

Lucid Sins on Instagram

Lucid Sins on Bandcamp

Totem Cat Records on Facebook

Totem Cat Records on Instagram

Totem Cat Records store

Inherently classy but admirably unpretentious for what could easily fall down a stone staircase of self-indulgence, Lucid Sins have posted the opening track from their new album, Dancing in the Dark, bringing together vintage heavy and progressive rock sounds with an underlying folk influence. The Glasgow duo issued their second LP, Cursed! (review here), in 2021, and like that album, the Oct. 27 release will arrive with the backing of Totem Cat Records. You can hear the lush melody and almost soothing groove of “Jack of Diamonds” in the video below.

The PR wire sent the album art — by David V. D’Andrea, no less; speaking of classy — and info along, including dates for a UK tour that Lucid Sins will undertake starting Oct. 14 in Aberdeen.

Arcane knowledge follows:

Glasgow 70s psych rockers LUCID SINS share debut single off new album “Dancing in the Dark” on Totem Cat Records; UK shows announced!

Scotland’s 70s occult rock goldsmiths LUCID SINS return with their third full-length “Dancing In the Dark” this October 27th on Totem Cat Records with a first single premiering exclusively on It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine. The band also just announced a string of UK fall dates including shows with Nebula and Hey Colossus.

From the moment Glasgow’s own 70s rock masters LUCID SINS catch your ear, you know you are in for a long-haul adventure: driven by their own wizardry and prodigious mastery of all instruments, the duo of Ruaraidh Sanachan and Andreas Johnsson bewitches you from the get-go. While their 2021 sophomore album “Cursed” presented an intoxicating and unwaveringly prog-oriented brew of proto-rock that sat firmly between Blue Öyster Cult and The Doors, their third album flips a brand new page of their sonic grimoire.

A collaborative effort of interconnected souls, “Dancing In The Dark” summons the talents of various guest musicians to form a fluid and melody-driven story where occult rock meets folk and proto-doom in a hypnotic swirl of riffs and keys carried by Jonsson’s compelling poetry. Firmly rooted in the 60s and 70s sound, LUCID SINS manages to uplift spirits while dragging you once again in the occult, meeting the boundary-free creativity of their contemporaries Witchcraft, Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats to the more seamless lightheartedness of Fairport Convention.

The story goes as follows… You stumble through the forest. Alone and far from home. All paths have returned you to this place. Lost in a world of green. Hidden in the dark. As the light fades you glimpse flickering flame and catch the scent of smoke. In a tiny clearing, shadows cast by a dying fire take human-esque forms. Leaning in for warmth, they share ten tales of hope and betrayal, magic and madness, love and death. Whispered words mingle with distant memories, and as the fire grows higher, your sense of self is scorched and burned. One by one now, the figures begin to dance and spin as occult psychedelic sounds drift through the trees. Caught in the maelstrom, suspended high in a swirling mesh of leaves and perception, you release your grip on space and time… On the forest floor, stirred by dawn, you try to make sense of the mist within your mind. To recall where you have been. To know who you once were. Around a glowing fire, deep in the woods, LUCID SINS are Dancing In The Dark… Will you dance with them?

LUCID SINS on tour:
October 14th – Aberdeen, The Rusty Nail
October 15th – Glasgow, Ivory Blacks (w/ Nebula)
October 18th – Leeds, Fox and Newt
October 19th – London, Helgi’s
October 20th – Sheffield, Lughole (w/ Heavy Sentence, Parish)
October 21st – Newcastle, Lubber Fiend (w/ Hey Colossus)

LUCID SINS “Dancing In The Dark”
Out October 27th on Totem Cat Records

LUCID SINS is
Andreas Jonsson – Vocals, guitars, bass, organ, synthesizer
Ruaraidh Sanachan – Drums, bass, percussion, organ, mellotron, recorder, backing vocals
+++ Album guests: Espen Andersen, Stuart Coleman, Hanna Tuulikki, Alex Ward
+++ Cover art by David V. D’Andrea

LUCID SINS is
Andreas Jonsson & Ruaraidh Sanachan

https://www.facebook.com/Lucid-Sins-101576834992445
https://www.instagram.com/lucid.sins/
https://lucidsins.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/totemcatrecords/
https://www.instagram.com/totemcatrecords/
http://totemcatrecords.bigcartel.com/

Lucid Sins, “Jack of Diamonds” official video

Lucid Sins, Cursed! (2021)

This will be a two-week Quarterly Review. That means this Monday to Friday and next Monday to Friday, 10 releases per day, totaling 100 by the time it’s done.

Me? I’m taking it one week, one day, one album at a time. It’s the only way to go and not have it seem completely insurmountable. But we’ll get through it all. I started out with the usual five days, and then I went to seven, then eight, and at that point I felt like I had a pretty good idea where things were headed. The last two days I filled up just at the end of last week. Some of it is I think a result of quarantine productivity, but there’s a glut of relevant stuff out now and some of it I’m catching up on, true, but some of it isn’t out yet either, so it’s a balance as ever. I keep telling myself I’m done with 2020 releases, but there’s one in here today. You know how it goes.

And since you do, I won’t delay further. Thanks in advance for reading if you do.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

Carlton Melton, Night Pillers

Rangey mellow psych collected together with the natural shimmer of a Phil Manley (Trans Am) recording and a John McBain master, the new mini-LP from Mendocino medicine makers Carlton Melton is a 31-minute, five-song meditative joy. To wit, “Safe Place?” Is. “Morning Warmth?” Is, even with the foreboding march of drums behind it. And “Striatum,” which closes with interplay of keys and fuzzy leads and effects, giving a culminating seven-minute wash that doesn’t feel like it’s pushing far out so much as already gone upon arrival, indeed seems like a reward for any head or brain that’s managed to make it so far. Opener “Resemblance” brings four minutes of gentle drone to set the mood ahead of “Morning Warmth” — it might be sunrise, if we’re thinking of it that way — and centerpiece “High Noon Thirty” bridges krauty electronic beats and organic ceremony that feels both familiar and like the band’s own. They may pill at night, but Carlton Melton have a hell of a day here.

Carlton Melton on Facebook

Agitated Records website

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Crown, The End of All Things

Weaving in and around genres with fluidity that’s tied together through dark industrial foundations, Crown are as much black metal as they are post-heavy, cinematic or danceable. “Gallow” or the earlier “Neverland” call to mind mid-period, electronica-fascinated Katatonia, but “Extinction” pairs this with a more experimental feel, opening in its midsection to more unsettling spaces ahead of the dance-ready finish. There’s nothing cartoonish or vamp about The End of All Things, which is the French outfit’s fourth album in 10 years, and it’s as likely to embrace pop (closer “Utopia”) as extremity (“Firebearer” just before), grim atmospherics (“Nails”) or textured acoustics (“Fleuve”), feeling remarkably unconcerned with genre across its 45 entrancing minutes, and remarkably even in its approach for a sound that’s still so varied. It’s not an easy listen front to back, but the challenge feels intentional and is emotional as much as cerebral in the craft and performance.

Crown on Facebook

Pelagic Records on Bandcamp

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Noêta, Elm

Swedish duo Noêta offer their second record for Prophecy Productions in Elm, comprising a deceptively efficient eight songs and 38 minutes that work in atmospheres of darker but not grim or cultish folk. Vocalist Êlea is very much a focal point in terms of performance, with Andris‘ instrumentals forming a backdrop that’s mournful on “Above and Below” while shimmering enough to bring affirmation to “As We Are Gone” a short while later ahead of the electrified layering in “Elm” and the particularly haunted-feeling closer “Elm II.” “As I Fall Silent” is a singularly spacious moment, but not the only one, as “Fade” complements with strings and outward-sounding guitar, and some of Elm‘s most affecting moments are its quietest stretches, as “Dawn Falls” proves at the outset and the whispers of “Elm” reaffirm on side B. Subdued but not lacking complexity, Noêta‘s songs make an instrument of mood itself and are pointedly graceful in doing so.

Noêta on Facebook

Prophecy Productions website

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Polymerase, Unostentatious

Unostentatious, which is presumably not to say “humble,” may or may not be Polymerase‘s debut release, but it follows on from several years of inactivity on the part of the Philippines-based mostly-instrumentalist heavy psych trio. The band present four duly engaging and somewhat raw feeling jams, with a jump in volume as “Lightbringer//Lightgiver” picks up from “A Night with a Succubus” and opener “The Traveler” and a final touch of thickened, fuzzy sludge in the rolling “Green is the Color of Evil,” which closes at a lurch that comes across at significant remove from the title-hinted brightness of the song just before it. Uneven? Maybe, but not egregiously so, and if Polymerase are looking to give listeners an impression of their having a multifaceted sound, they most assuredly do. My question is over what span of time these tracks were recorded and what the group will do in moving forward from them, but I take the fact that I’m curious to find out at all as a positive sign of having interest piqued. Will hope for more.

Polymerase on Facebook

Polymerase on Bandcamp

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Lucid Sins, Cursed!

Lucid indeed. The band’s self-applied genre tag of “adult AOR” is more efficient a descriptor of their sound than anything I might come up with. Glasgow’s Lucid Sins released their acclaimed debut, Occultation, in 2014, and Cursed! is the exclamatory seven-years-later follow-up, bringing together classic progressive rock and modern cult heavy sensibilities with a focus on songwriting that’s the undercurrent from “Joker’s Dance” onward and which, as deep as “The Serpentine Path” or the title-track or “The Forest” might go, is never forgotten. To wit, the penultimate “By Your Hand” is a proto-everything highlight, stomping compared to the organ-prog “Sun and the Moon” earlier, but ultimately just as melodic and of enviable tonal warmth. Seven years is a long time between records, and maybe this material just took that long to put together, I don’t know, but I had no idea “cult xylophone” was a possibility until “The Devil’s Sign” came along, and now I’m not sure how I ever lived without it.

Lucid Sins on Facebook

Totem Cat Records store

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Hekate, Sermons to the Black Owl

Australia’s history in heavy rock and roll is as long as that of heavy rock and roll itself and need not be recounted here, except to say that Hekate, from Canberra and Sydney, draw from multiple eras of it with their debut long-player, Sermons to the Black Owl, pushing ’70s boogie over the top with solos on “Carpathian Eagle” only after “Winter Void” and “Child of Black Magick” have seen the double-guitar-and-let’s-use-both four-piece update nascent doom vibes and “Burning Mask” has brought a more severe chug to the increasingly intense procession. A full production sound refuses to let the quick eight-tracker be anything other than modern, and though it’s only 28 minutes long, the aptly-titled “Acoustic Outro” feels earned atmospherically, even down to the early-feeling cold finish of “Cassowary Dreaming.” The balance may be then, then, then, and now, but the sense of shove that Hekate foster in their songs gives fresh urgency to the tenets of genre they seem to have adopted at will.

Hekate on Facebook

Black Farm Records store

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Abel Blood, Keeping Pace with the Elephants

One does not evoke elephantine images on a heavy record, even on a debut release, if aural largesse isn’t a factor. New Hampshire trio Abel Blood — guitarist/vocalist Adam Joslyn, bassist Ben Cook, drummer Jim DeLuca — are raw in sound on their first EP, Keeping Pace with the Elephants, but the impact with which they land “The Day that Moby Died” at the outset is only encouraging, and to be sure, it’s not the thickest of their wares either. “Enemies” already pushes further, and as centerpiece “UnKnown Variant” would seem to date the effort in advance, it also serves the vital function of moving the EP in a different, more jangly, grungier direction, which is a valuable move with the title cut following behind, its massive cymbals and distorted wash building to a head in time for the nine-minute finale “Fire on the Hillside” to draw together both sides of the approach shown throughout into a parabolically structured jam the middle-placed surge of which passes quickly enough to leave the listener unsure whether it ever happened. They’re messing with you. Dig that.

Abel Blood on Facebook

Abel Blood on Bandcamp

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Suffer Yourself, Rip Tide

Begun in 2011 by guitarist/vocalist Stanislav Govorukha and based in Sweden by way of Poland and the Ukraine, death-doom lurchbringers Suffer Yourself are not strangers to longer-form material, but to my knowledge, “Spit in the Chasm” — the opening and longest track (immediate points) on their third record, Rip Tide — is the first time they’ve crossed the 20-minute mark. Time well spent, and by that I mean “brutally spent,” whether its the speedier chug that emerges from the willful slog of the extended piece’s first half or the viciously progressive lead work that tops the precise, cold end of the song that brings final ambience. Side B offers two shorter pieces in “Désir de Trépas Maritime (Au Bord de la Mer Je Veux Mourir),” laced with suitably mournful strings and a fair enough maritime sense of gothic drama emphasized by later spoken word and piano, and the brief, mostly-drone “Submerging,” which one assumes is the end of that plotline playing out. The main consumption though is in “Spit in the Chasm,” and the dimensions of that fissure are significant, figuratively and literally.

Suffer Yourself on Facebook

Aesthetic Death website

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Green Dragon, Dead of the Night

High order Sabbathian doom rock from my own beloved Garden State, there’s very little chance I’m not going to dig Green Dragon‘s Dead of the Night, and true to type, I do. Presented by the band on limited vinyl after digital release late in 2020, the four-song, 24-minute outing brings guitarist/vocalists Zach Kurland and Ryan Lipynsky (the latter also adding keys and known for his work in Unearthly Trance, etc.), bassist Jennifer Klein and drummer Herbert Wiley to a place so dug into its groove it almost feels inappropriate to think of it as a peak in terms of their work to-date. They go high by going low, then. Fair enough. “Altered States” opens with a rollout of fuzz that miraculously avoids the trap sounding like Electric Wizard, while “Burning Bridges” murks out, “The Sad King” pushes speed a bit will still holding firm to nod and echo alike, and “Book of Shadows” plunges into effects-drenched noise like it was one of the two waterslides at the Maplewood community pool in summertime.

Green Dragon on Facebook

Green Dragon on Bandcamp

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ÂGE TOTAL, ÂGE TOTAL

The kind of record that probably won’t be heard by enough people but will inspire visceral loyalty in many of those who encounter it, the self-titled debut from French collaborative outfit Age Total — bringing together members from Endless Floods out of Bordeaux and Rouen’s Greyfell — is a grand and engrossing work that pushes the outer limits of doom and post-metal. Bookending opener “Amure” (14:28) and closer “The Songbird” (16:45) around the experimentalist “Carré” (4:06) and rumbling melodic death-doom of “Metal,” the album harnesses grandiosity and nuance to spare, with each piece feeling independently conceived and enlightening to musician and audience alike. It sounds like the kind of material they didn’t know they were going to come up with until they actually got together — whatever the circumstances of “together” might’ve looked like at the time — and the bridges they build between progressive metal and sheer weight of intention are staggering. However much hype it does or doesn’t have behind it, Age Total‘s Age Total is one of 2021’s best debut albums.

Endless Floods on Facebook

Greyfell on Facebook

Soza Label on Bandcamp

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An awaited and exclamatory sophomore release from Glasgow two-piece Lucid Sins arrives May 3 in the form of Cursed! with the not-insignificant backing of Totem Cat Records. The label’s reputation for taste has earned it trust as far as I’m concerned, and if that’s what it takes to get you to click play on “Joker’s Dance,” which is the opening track and lead single from the album, then fine. Or maybe you just get excited about punctuated album titles. Really, whatever does the trick. The band released their first LP, Occultation, in late 2014, and they’re joined by a range of guests throughout the new one, which tells me that the classic ’70s proggy leanings of “Joker’s Dance” are perhaps just the beginning of what unfolds throughout the rest of what follows.

I remain a sucker for well executed retro heavy. Don’t care if you think it’s played out, don’t care if you think it sounds like Ghost. Whatever. Life is short. Take cool songs as they come.

From the PR wire:

LUCID SINS to release new album ‘Cursed!’ this May 3rd on Totem Cat Records; first track streaming now

Seven years after their masterful debut album ‘Occultation’, Scottish 70s psychedelic and progressive rockers LUCID SINS are finally ready to deliver their new studio full-length ‘Cursed!’, due out May 3rd on Totem Cat Records. Stream their stomping first single “Joker’s Dance” now on Bandcamp!

From the riff-centric and silky 70s occult and psychedelic hymns of their impressive 2015 debut full-length ‘Occultation’, the Glasgow-based duo has morphed into a bigger and more ambitious beast to craft their sophomore album ‘Cursed!’. Inviting various musicians from their entourage to hop on the LUCID SINS train, the group delivers an organic and intrinsically more progressive 8-track, fueled by an intoxicating dose of keys and violins, liquid-fingered and at time jazz-tinged riffage and Andreas Jonsson’s overdubbed vocals, harking back to the likes of Wishbone Ash, Blue Öyster Cult or even The Doors in their more entrancing meanderings. With a surrealistic artwork from Britain’s early 20th century illustrator Alan Odle, ‘Cursed!’ makes for a must-have piece of 70s progressive rock.

‘Cursed!’ will be issued on May 3rd worldwide on vinyl, CD and digital through Totem Cat Records, with preorder starting on April 5th.

LUCID SINS New album ‘Cursed!’
Out May 3rd on Totem Cat Records
Preorder from April 5th at this location: https://totemcatrecords.bigcartel.com/

TRACK LISTING:
1. Joker’s Dance
2. The Serpentine Path
3. Sun and the Moon
4. The Devil’s Sign
5. Cursed
6. Snake Eyes
7. By Your Hand
8. The Forest

LUCID SINS ‘Cursed!’ Lineup
Andreas Jonsson — Vocals & Guitar
Joe Gallagher — Guitar
Martin « Eggy Beard » McKenna — Violin
Ruaraidh Sanachan — Guitar, Bass, Keys and Percussion
Sondre Berge Endegal — Bass
Stuart Coleman — Keys
Additional recording by Clark Neville

LUCID SINS is
Andreas Jonsson & Ruaraidh Sanachan

https://www.facebook.com/Lucid-Sins-101576834992445
https://www.instagram.com/lucid.sins/
https://lucidsins.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/totemcatrecords/
https://www.instagram.com/totemcatrecords/
http://totemcatrecords.bigcartel.com/

Lucid Sins, Cursed! (2021)