Madrid-based instrumentalists Deriva will release their new four-song EP, Nona/Décima/Morta, on March 13 through LaRubia Producciones. The video for the previously-issued single “Aqua Vitae” premieres below, and as its low-lighting balletic undulations unfold amid ambient guitar ahead of the band diving into the 28-minute outing’s most outwardly crushing procession, so too there arrives a poem to set the mood. I’ve included it under hte video player in the original Spanish, and if you have the captions on as I always do because I’m old, you can see the English translation, which relates to the notion of sleep as a kind of death and dreams as visions we forget much as humans live entire lives in denial of mortality. As the band play through the song amid stark spotlights, a ceremonial-feeling cutting of ties, some light fetishism and arthouse mosh from dancer Miroslava Fernández, and so on, these ideas linger like a guided meditation and the music grows correspondingly more intense, the push that takes over following the midsection atmospheric break peppered with double-kick to add physicality to the surge.

Over the course of the outing, Deriva — who made their self-titled full-length debut in 2016, followed with the three-songers Haiku I and Haiku II in 2019 and 2021, respectively, and have apparently had this EP in the works for a while as opener “Ignis ex Cinere” was issued as a single in 2022 — apply metallic precision and progressivism to an atmospheric backdrop. “Ignis ex Cinere” gathers itself over its first minute-plus around jazzy drums from Rory Reagan and bass punch from Javier Justo before evening out to let the intertwining guitars of Javier “Muñi” Muñoz and Daniel “Minchi” Garea lead with tricky up-front float toward the next volume surge, which by the time they’re three minutes into the seven-and-a-half-minute cut, has peaked again in consuming style and dropped to guitar soon joined by violin in a momentarily serene, pastoral stretch, Reagan‘s toms returning to mark the beginning of the build in earnest, and they don’t tease the last payoff long before they’re in it because they don’t need to. A wailing solo over an intentionally angular, choppy closing section cuts out and “Aqua Vitae” arrives with a switch back to post-rocky airiness.

But again, the inevitable burst isn’t far off. Deriva work in volume trades throughout Nona/Décima/Morta — the title with similar flex in having multiple potential translations; I don’t know which is correct and I’d rather not embarrass myself by getting it wrong — but “Aqua Vitae” is both the shorted inclusion on the EP and the most metal, the clear, full production of Alex Cappa at Metropol Studios in Madrid allowing the impact of the kick drum to coexist with the guitar in the midsection break, which is also shorter than that of “Ignis ex Ciniere” and slams starkly at 3:10 into a hard-riffed wall of distortion. Establishing itself with declarative hits before shifting into the actual march that defines the procession for its remainder, “Aqua Vitae” turns corners you didn’t realize were there, a twist of lead guitar and emergent soloing matching the adrenaline of the drums, dark and majestic but not hopeless. It comes to a head and ends, Russian Circles-style, bringing the synthier landscape of “Lux Aeris” — Julio Martin is credited with contributing the synth — as a plotted line of guitar smooths the shift into the next heavy section.

The structural pattern becomes familiar, but Deriva do well in giving each of these four pieces its own character, whether that’s the headbang-fodder bounce of “Aqua Vitae” or the way each song has its movement from a subdued intro to a push of heavy progressive metal but does it a bit differently. Where “Aqua Vitae” can’t wait to dig into its crunch, “Lux Aeris” spreads out over the course of its start. There’s room — it’s the longest track at 8:29 — and they use it. The first two and a half minutes or so build up patiently and don’t so much suddenly ignite in full, distorted tone as draw a more complete line from one end to the other in that time, handing one part to the next, almost seamless. Intricate rhythmic jumps and tremolo guitar, so much organized chaos, persist over a central pattern of groove, and as with “Ignis ex Ciniere” and “Aqua Vitae,” they’ll finish loud, but getting there routes through a resonant, bright clearing, as the more all-at-once shove back to full-impact lurks in the background, never quite gone. In a suitable-enough meta-level manifestation of their aural back and forth, Nona/Décima/Morta also shifts between longer and shorter pieces in succession, “Mortuus Terra” rounds out by finding something of a middle ground between the two extremes of Deriva‘s sound.

I’m not sure if they intentionally paired “Lux Aeris” (‘the light of the air’) and “Mortuus Terra” (‘dead earth’) next to each other for any reason more than the fluidity with which the finale takes hold from the song before it, but given the level of consideration throughout in sound and presentation, I’d be willing to believe it. And “Mortuus Terra” is a build as well — ebbs and flows; that’s life — though it holds back its flood for longer than did “Lux Aeris,” and while it moves into cycles of guitar chug and low-end punctuating, tom runs and snare adding to the round-we-go vibe, lead guitar releases that tension in a way that’s about more than just clicking on this or that pedal, and once they hit thar stride, there’s no real going back. The single movement at the end feels like it’s underscoring the point, and all the more because its execution stands out from its three companions while being rooted in similar tones and atmospherics. A concept, extrapolated, that is emblematic of the sculptor’s care put into Deriva‘s craft and the effectiveness with which they immerse the listener in their dynamic.

It will ring familiar enough on first blush, but the deeper you go, the more you’ll find. I don’t know if the video is NSFW or not. Depends on where you work, I guess. Either way, if you need to click off the tab, the song is still there, and the Bandcamp player that will hold the full release is at the bottom by the links. I know you know. I kept the poem and recording info in Spanish. Minimal language barrier, appropriate to aesthetic and the band’s intent. You’ll be fine.

Enjoy:

Deriva, “Aqua Vitae” video premiere

“Los sueños son pequeñas muertes,
tramoyas, anticipos, simulacros de muerte,
el despertar en cambio nos parece,
una resurrección y por las dudas,
olvidamos cuanto antes lo soñado.
A pesar de sus fuegos, sus cavernas,
sus orgasmos, sus glorias, sus espantos.
Tal vez quiera decir que lo que ansiamos,
es olvidar la muerte,
apenas eso.”

“Aqua Vitae” Grabado en Metropol Studios con Alex Cappa 2023, en colaboración de Julio Martin a los sintetizadores.
Video producido por David AJ y protagonizado por Miroslava Fernández.

Grabado en Metropol Estudios Madrid por Alex Cappa

Deriva is an instrumental cinematic post-metal machine from Madrid, Spain. Deriva creates “movies for your ears” that encompass raw emotion ranging from melancholy and contemplation to rage and explosivity. From beginning to end of each composition, each note and phrase is meticulously rendered to perfection to create an emotive effect that draws attention and tells a story throughout the music. Each instrument weaves a delicate tapestry and is highly conversational amongst the instruments. As if in a heavy discussion, the guitars converse in a way that is both supportive and opposing of each other throughout the story. Like the microscopic intermingling layers of carbon fiber, the bass and drums create a rhythmically robust foundation that is both lightweight and extremely strong in which the guitars can float upon. Deriva is the Ennio Morricone, Danny Elfman, and Hans Zimmer of post-metal.

Tracklisting:
1. Ignis ex Ciniere (7:37)
2. Aqua Vitae (5:44)
3. Lux Aeris (8:29)
4. Mortuus Terra (6:30)

Deriva live:
Mar 21 Moby Dick Club Madrid, Spain
Mar 26 Bloc Glasgow, UK
Mar 27 Retro Manchester, UK
Mar 28 Little Buildings Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK
Mar 30 The Dev, Camden London, UK

Deriva are:
Javier Muñoz (Muñi) – Guitar
Rory Reagan – Drumms
Javier Justo – Bass
Daniel Garea (Minchi) – Guitar

Plus:
Alicia Nurho – Violin
Julio Martin – Synth

Deriva, NONA/DÉCIMA/MORTA EP (2024)

Deriva on Instagram

Deriva on Facebook

Deriva on Bandcamp

Deriva on Spotify

Deriva on YouTube

LaRubia Producciones on Instagram

LaRubia Producciones on Facebook

LaRubia Producciones on Bandcamp

LaRubia Producciones website

Tomorrow, Jan. 26, is the arrival of Greengoat‘s conceptual debut album, A.I., which is out through Argonauta Records. The Madrid two-piece formed in 2021 and have been working their way toward this release since then, dropping hints in singles “The Seed” and “A.I.,” which appear in succession following the ambience-backed spoken recitation of Isaac Asimov’s ‘Three Laws of Robotics’ in the intro “Void,” along with the late-2022 EP Unleash the Fire and initial single “The Mist” the prior May. For drummer/lyricist Ruth “Kalypso” Moya and guitarist/vocalist Ivan Flores it is a moment of realization and still the beginning stages of a longer-term exploration. Having begun as a trio, the guitar-and-drums ethic brings rawness to elements wrought from progressive metal, grunge and ’90s alternative.

The eight-song/37-minute outing centers on the singularity — the theoretical moment at which a programmed artificial intelligence becomes sentient, conscious — and the fallout therefrom, and pairs that with an instrumental scope tied together in part through the spaces left open where bass, keys, etc., might otherwise dwell, emerging with a more distinct presentation as a result. A Down-y verse riff in “A.I.” and the Sabbath chug of finale “Burn the End” have no trouble coexisting, as one would expect, and with some of Helmet‘s discordance, “Human” contrasts the pointedly YOB-style guitar that begins “Naraka II,” while a strong undercurrent drawn from Tool pulls the material together and sometimes harsh (though I don’t fully trust the speakers I’m hearing it through because of a busted laptop; bear with me) wah lead-layer injections that remind of Jerry Cantrell circa Dirt are peppered through the span, coupled with a vocal melody in “The Seed” that brings to mind Stoned Jesus.

As a record with a story would and probably should, A.I. ends up in a different place than it starts, but Moya and Flores establish their own tonal presence and intricacies in the drumming, extra hits around the snare here and there or the creation of a roll like that in “Naraka I,” further solidify their individuality. Of course, one would be remiss not to note the boom in heavy and particularly progressive heavy happening today on the Iberian Peninsula, and Greengoat strike as being aware of the modern heavy sphere — I think you probably name your band something else if you’re not — but on their own course, and while the subject matter is oft-discussed, at a certain point, hooks are hooks, and “Human,” the atmospheric “The Seed,” “Awake” and “A.I.” demonstrate a purposeful songwriting modus beyond just telling or describing the narrative of this LP. That is to say, as they move forward, that sense of craft will move with them.

I won’t pretend to understand how A.I. works beyond ‘computer eats data and tells you about it,’ which is a modern kind of technological corpse-puppetry. But I use it and would love to be able to tell a robot “go find me all of Greengoat‘s album info and social media links and lay them out in a post so I can write their album premiere” and have it happen. For now that kind of thing is still a manual operation.

PR wire info follows said premiere on the player below. Please enjoy:

Greengoat, A.I. album premiere

Spanish Psychedelic Stoner/Doom band GREENGOAT is pleased to unveil long-awaited details about their upcoming album “A.I.,” scheduled for release on January 26th, 2024, through Argonauta Records.

The band says, “Hey, friends! Brace yourselves for the rollercoaster of emotions we’ve poured into our new album “A.I.,” which will finally be available on the 26th of January 2024. It’s not just music; it’s a piece of our hearts, a ride through our dreams about Humanity’s relationship with artificial intelligence. From the depths of its first tune “Void,” this album tells a story where AI takes consciousness with “The Seed,” meets its creator in “A.I.,” the creator claims its control in “Human,” goes through the dilemma of “Awake” to the outcome of “Naraka I and II” and “Burn the End.” We hope you feel every note as we did creating it.”

“A.I.” tracklisting:
01 Void
02 The Seed
03 A.I.
04 Human
05 Awake
06 Naraka I
07 Naraka II
08 Burn The End

Formed in 2021, the band goes through changes in their ensemble until it consolidates as a duo with guitarist/singer Ivan Flores (Dsgarre, Magnus Ficus) and drummer/lyricist Ruth “Kalypso” Moya (Suevicha, Dashara, Magnus Ficus).

Greengoat on Facebook

Greengoat on Instagram

Greengoat on Bandcamp

Greengoat Linktree

Argonauta Records on Instagram

Argonauta Records on Facebook

Argonauta Records store

I hadn’t listened (at least consciously; there’s a lot that comes and goes through my ears in a given day) to Bones of Minerva‘s 2022 Embers album, but if there was one band who didn’t actually play the thing about whom I heard a lot at SonicBlast Fest in Portugal last month, it was this Madrid-based four-piece, whose stylistic gamut runs between ambient drone, crushing sludge and teeth-gnashing ‘core of this or that variety. Melodic when they’re not furious, quiet when they’re not loud, the four-piece would seem to have earned that word-of-mouth, and it’s sounding more and more like I’m about to earn paying eight euro for the download. So it goes.

Lesson learned on my part, I guess. Iberian heavy doesn’t screw around. They’ll play France and Germany for the first time next month, and while I know there’s a good deal of tribalism in the Euro heavy underground — nobody talks about it, but each region has its regionalism — the fact that they’ll be out with Svalbard from the UK should help bring soon-to-be-crunched skulls to the room. For the rest of us, if you can get down with volatility, the Embers stream is down there at the bottom of the post, and now you too get to tell someone you heard about this band from word of mouth. Isn’t it amazing how that works.

From the PR wire:

Bones of Minerva Join Svalbard for German and French Tour Dates

Following their UK tour, including a performance at Bristol’s esteemed ArcTanGent festival, Madrid-based post-rock/metal band Bones of Minerva will be joining the British post-metal outfit Svalbard on their upcoming October tour. The Spanish quartet will be supporting Svalbard during their shows in Germany and France, making their debut appearances in both countries.

States Bones of Minerva:
“We just can’t wait to play these shows with Svalbard. They are an incredible band, and we are so grateful and excited to be joining them on the road.”

Bones of Minerva in Germany & France in October:
10/15: Cologne, DE @Helios 37
10/16: Berlin, DE @Urban Spree
10/17: Dresden, DE @Chemiefabrik
10/18: Neunkirchen, DE @Strummsche Reithalle
10/19: Paris, FR @Backstage By The Mill

Since the release of their sophomore album, EMBERS, last year, Bones of Minerva has been on a busy ride. In June 2023, they performed at Azkena Rock in the Basque Country, sharing the stage with legendary acts like Melvins and Iggy Pop. And recently, after completing their August UK tour successfully, they played an intense gig with fellow Spanish grungy noise rockers Rosy Finch. Additionally, they are lined up for a series of other shows across Europe.

Stream/Download the latest album, EMBERS, on your preferred digital platforms HERE: https://linktr.ee/bonesofminerva
Purchase CD/Vinyl/merch HERE (Store): https://bonesofminerva.com/merch
or HERE (Bandcamp): https://bonesofminerva.bandcamp.com/album/embers

Long-time friends Chloé (bass), Eustaquia (vocals), and Ruth (guitar) started Bones of Minerva in 2013, with Nerea joining on drums in early 2018. Like a chimera, their music is a menagerie of sound: the vocalist Eustaquia shifts from hypnotic melodies to savage growls, pairing introspective lyrics with dreamy landscapes whilst Nerea is a powerhouse of crashing progressive rhythms that pairs with the band’s heavy riffs and swirling basslines to brutal effect.

Their debut, Blue Mountains (2017), was initially self-released, with a reissue through Nooirax and La Rubia Producciones the following year. Two years of nonstop activities saw them play festivals like Download Madrid and Resurrection Fest and dates all over Spain, Sweden, and the UK.

In early 2022, the band announced their signing with Spanish label Aloud Music (Toundra, Viva Belgrado) alongside La Rubia Producciones once more to release their second full-length. A new single, “Swamp,” was released soon after as a 7″ to mark the beginning of this new chapter, and on 16 September of the year, their second album, EMBERS, was released in full.

The band opted for a live recording at Metropol Studios (Madrid) with producer Alex Cappa, a process that has seen the band hone their sound and expand into progressive and post-rock territory on tracks like “Merula or Silence.” EMBERS is a journey that takes the listeners through smoke, across forests and swamps, to the very roots of mother earth herself. It is the remnants of fire ready to surge at any moment as a roaring force.

Track Listing:
01. Forest
02. Swamp
03. Cuna
04. Dream
05. Fuego
06. Merula
07. Claws
08. Silence
09. Flood
10. Madre
11. Hands

https://bonesofminerva.com
https://linktr.ee/bonesofminerva
https://www.facebook.com/bonesofminerva
https://www.instagram.com/bonesofminerva

https://linktr.ee/larubiaproducciones
https://www.larubiaproducciones.com

https://aloudmusic.com

Bones of Minerva, Embers (2022)

Madrid-based four-piece Loma Baja encompass a complex psychedelia throughout their debut album, Piscinas Verticales, which is set to release this week through the significant label consortium of Spinda Records, Lay Bare Recordings, Clostridium Records and Echodelick Records. To wit, amid the hypnotic post-psych rollout of opening track “V70,” guitars all bendy around the central march, vocals present and melodic but still obscure, some element of Pixies in there somewhere, an ambulance drives by periodically. It happens four or five times as the malleable mix demonstrates early the sort of experimental tinge to the band’s songcraft.

But as with much of what follows, the interplay of that drone (synth? sample?) and the guitar solo isn’t just about the group — guitarist/synthesist/vocalist/sampler Jorge García (Adrift, Gentemayor and formerly El Páramo), guitarist Victor Teixeira, bassist/keyboardist/vocalist Pacomoto (G.A.S. Drummers) and drummer Raúl Lorenzo (who also works with Toundra) — being able to make a sound, but also what they do with that in terms of songwriting. Shades of shoegaze-era Sonic Youth are cast under the sample and before the emergent cymbal wash of “La Emboscada,” the bass thick underneath the various noises and guitar lines going in and out as the low end and drums guide the procession into a melodic bridge and back through where it came from, that original sample continuing, like a news reading or an airport announcement, vague for being in another language that maybe you know and maybe you don’t.

One in each channel, García and Teixeira seem to be having a conversation on guitar early in “Canción de Manuel” that reminds a bit of the most out-there Fatso Jetson ever gets, but is tinted atmospherically darker and is more progressive in its presentation, but it’s Lorenzo moving to toms that signals the shift into classic prog stateliness, like something out of a sci-fi soundtrack transposed onto a space rock arrangement, severe with the synth lines and thud after that transition, working into and through a build as the keyboard melody holds, vocals or a sample echoing over the final moments as you realize the payoff isn’t coming and the song stops, letting the longer “Crónica Negra” (7:08) take its time waking up with feedback as the end of side A, mirrored later by the 10-minute “Hierros Viejos” in a show of structure that’s further evidence for a masterplan at work behind the material as opposed to it being a hodgepodge of ideas rather than songs.

It is not that. The brooding unfurl of “Crónica Negra” is mellower and feels like it’s raining outside, but there’s threat of breakout in the lightly-slogging lead guitar, synth in the left channel winding through frequency manipulation before a quick stop brings the next stage, with the drums louder and more forward, the guitar and keys swelling to a wash of fuzz, voices singing out — maybe a sample, maybe Pacomoto and García; hopefully they wrote down somewhere what they did — and a convergence around a dramatic-feeling crescendo that drops at 6:22 to the bassline, guitar skronk and repeat swells either of synth or manipulated feedback, probably both.

It’s not gonna get less weird in the vertical pools. Side B, which features a corresponding four pieces, starts with “Invocación,” which meanders before landing after about a minute in a Melvinsian repetitive nod that’s rich in tone and all the more righteous when the left-side guitar spaces out and the drums open up in the second half. All of a sudden, Loma Baja are instrumental heavy post-rock — except there might be vocals; ha — but dug into a purposeful melodic riff like those in the second halves of “La Emboscada” or “Canción de Manuel,” toying with cinematic grandiosity but never losing their ultimate direction, ending again with a return to the central march.

What was the album’s lead single, “Boda Final / Velorio” is more indie rock at the start, and the as-yet-most-definitely-vocalized inclusion on the record — hence single — but holds to the intention toward breadth in the material that surrounds, the keys in the left channel and the lead guitar in the right again working to surround the listener as the vocals reinforce notions of otherplanetary classic prog before the jabbing kinda-waltz resumes, makes a riffy turn, then rights itself to finish, shifting immediately into the underlying buzz and quiet interplay of guitars in the intro of the penultimate “Hierros Viejos,” making the bed for a robot-voice verse that will stay for the song’s four-minute duration, threatening heft and volume while, like “Canción de Manuel” before it, making a point of defying expectation and giving over to the drone at the end, the ambient stage set for “AAAAA” to cap.

And “AAAAA” is itself the awaited riffout. At 10 minutes long, it is a substantial portion of Piscinas Verticales, and its echoing vocals remind a bit of Ufomammut‘s earlier kosmic heavy, but the line of guitar introduced at the outset holds through the volume surge and comes back that much stronger for it. It is a solid one, two, three, four, count, and made to be repetitive, but the progression morphs subtly as time goes on, the next verse leading to another chorus-ish push carrying through the midpoint before the keys take a solo and the guitars seem to melt to feedback. Vocals — not a focal point for most of the record — announce the arrival at the next stage of the march, the volume seeming to get deeper as well as louder and noisier.

By the time they’re in the seventh minute, “AAAAA” has been stripped to a wall of feedback and noise, rumble beneath and scorch above, and somewhere in there the drums turned backwards but are largely gone as Loma Baja let that moment evolve, play out, and die on its own terms. They make a point of noting that Piscinas Verticales was recorded live. Fair enough, but it must have been a hell of a mixing process, though one can’t argue with the results as each consecutive part, track, side, feels rife with purpose even when that purpose is counterintuitive to the expectation of heavy rock/psych/prog songwriting. Those, in fact, are some of the record’s highlight stretches — it’s not every band willing to challenge the listener on their first long-player.

To coincide with that challenge that the material offers, Loma Baja accomplish a feat of world-building across Piscinas Verticales such that the context of the songs becomes their own regardless of names dropped above or other influences at work. Pieces like “Crónica Negra,” “Boda Final / Velorio” and “Hierros Viejos” working toward divergent ends at different angles from the same foundation. In this way, Loma Baja convey breadth while keeping their tones and melodic reach consistent, so that the album comes through as a complete statement that deserves to be heard.

So here we are. I’m excited to host the premiere of Piscinas Verticales on the player below. You’ll find it followed by the album particulars courtesy of Spinda Records via the PR wire, the video for “Boda Final / Velorio” and the many links from which the album can be ordered.

Please enjoy:

Loma Baja, Piscinas Verticales album premiere

Produced by Rafa Camisón and Loma Baja. Recorded in a live session at Metropol Studios (Madrid, Spain) by Rafa Camisón, with the assistance of Arturo Rebollo, between 27th and 29th July 2022. Mixed by Rafa Camisón at Estudio Setentaynueve (Jerez, Spain). Mastered by Víctor García at Ultramarinos Mastering (Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Spain). Artwork by Bol Estudio (Jorge García). Idea album title by Diana Calabaza Cósmica.

The album is coming out on 26th May 2023 through the collaboration between indie labels Spinda Records (SP), Lay Bare Recordings (NL), Clostridium Records (GE) and Echodelick Records (US). Album pre-order available at label sites from 21st April.

200x STANDARD BLACK VINYL
200x ELECTRIC BLUE VINYL
DIGITAL / STREAMING

1. V70
2. La Emboscada
3. Canción de Manuel
4. Crónica Negra
5. Invocación
6. Boda Final / Velorio
7. Hierros Viejos

LOMA BAJA:
Víctor Teixeira: guitars
Pacomoto: bass, keyboard, vocals
Jorge García: synths, samplers, guitars, vocals
Raúl Lorenzo: drums

Loma Baja, “Boda Final / Velorio” official video

Loma Baja on Instagram

Loma Baja on Bandcamp

Spinda Records on Facebook

Spinda Records on Instagram

Spinda Records on Bandcamp

Spinda Records website

Lay Bare Recordings website

Lay Bare Recordings on Facebook

Lay Bare Recordings on Instagram

Lay Bare Recordings on Bandcamp

Clostridium Records on Facebook

Clostridium Records website

Echodelick Records on Facebook

Echodelick Records on Instagram

Echodelick Records on Bandcamp

Echodelick Records website

Based in Madrid, Loma Baja will make their full-length debut through Spinda Records — whose announcement appears below — Lay Bare Recordings in the Netherlands, Clostridium Records in Germany and Echodelick Records in the US, and the multinational synergy of its backing should tell you something about the record. Namely that it makes people want to be involved. Honestly, they had me here at the involvement of Jorge García, formerly of Adrift and El Páramo, but I did bother to go as far as to listen to the demos they put up last year on Bandcamp, and the warm-psych bass is only part of the appeal, as there’s proggy movement and ambience to coincide and the songs feel like nothing so much as blueprints from which to expand their sound. I hope they do just that when the record arrives.

I’ve done a few of these announcements now, and I remain on board. Think it’s a coincidence that everyone can do more through collective action? Hell no. Riffers Union Now! Rising tide of fuzz lifts all amps. Then probably blows a tube or something and has to stop the show for a little bit.

From the PR wire:

SPINDA RECORDS NEW BAND ANNOUNCEMENT: LOMA BAJA

Can you imagine a band featuring members of Adrift, El Páramo, G.A.S. Drummers, Giganto, Another Kind Of Dead and Sou Edipo? Well, that band already exists and it’s called LOMA BAJA.

In our family we didn’t think twice and we opened our doors to them a few months ago when they presented us their debut album ‘Piscinas verticales‘ (vertical pools), about which they tell you this:

“[…] it’s about nightmares, places that generate strange feelings and about the hidden side of things. The songs seek to generate that feeling that stays with you after having seen something weird. This album is the result of the search for a common point between four guys who come from different places and who found a place in the darkness. We like “trial and error” and this is the way we wrote ‘Piscinas verticales’, mixing elements from kraut-rock, post-punk, alt-rock, post-rock and other exotic music […]”

The album will be out this Spring thanks to a collaboration between Spinda Records (ES), Lay Bare Recordings (NT), Clostridium Records (GE) and Echodelick Records (US). But do not worry as a first single is coming out very soon.

They’ll be playing on May 26 in Madrid at Sound Isidro Fest.

Loma Baja is:
Victor Teixeira – Guitarra
Jorge García – Teclado/Guitarra/Voz
Paco Moto – Bajo/Teclado/Voz
Raúl Lorenzo – Batería

https://www.instagram.com/loma____baja/
https://lomabaja1.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/SpindaRecords
https://www.instagram.com/spindarecords
https://spindarecords.bandcamp.com/
https://www.spindarecords.com/

https://laybarerecordings.com/
https://www.facebook.com/laybarerecordings/
https://www.instagram.com/laybarerecordings/
https://laybarerecordings.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/clostridiumrecords/
http://www.clostridiumrecords.com/

https://www.facebook.com/ERECORDSATL
https://www.instagram.com/echodelickrecords/
https://echodelickrecords.bandcamp.com/
https://www.echodelickrecords.com/

Loma Baja, Demos (2022)

When asked if I wanted a logo for The Obelisk to appear on the poster for Kristonfest 2023 — to be held next May 27 in Madrid, Spain — I knew the answer was yes even before I was aware of who’d be playing. The festival is celebrating its 10th anniversary in the coming year, and with Graveyard, The Obsessed, Inter Arma and Mars Red Sky in the first lineup announcement, they’re wanting for nothing in terms of reach or scope. This does make me think maybe Inter Arma will be on tour with The Obsessed, but I don’t know that so don’t go spreading it or anything, but regardless, from the heavy blues and classic doom at the top of the bill through the sheer visceral extremity and ever-proggier melodic songcraft that follows here, they’re four-for-four in my mind. And now that I’ve seen the announcement, maybe instead of congratulating myself in “I called it” fashion, I’ll say that I’m humbled they asked about that silly logo in the first place.

Also, that’s the first I’m hearing of a new Graveyard album. So that’s a thing ot watch for.

Expect more to come probably in the New Year, but for now here’s the poster and what Kristonfest has to say about it:

ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE COMPLETE POSTER FOR THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE KRISTONFEST

This new edition will take place on Saturday, May 27, 2023 in the central La Paqui room (Former BUT room) in Madrid and tickets are now available at www.kristonfest.com

After many turbulent months and full of uncertainty, the Kristonfest is back with a bang and presents itself with a lineup full of quality, variety and that picks up the gauntlet thrown by the fans who, year after year, show their support and encouragement for a self-managed event and focused on rock in its most extensive color palette. Maintaining the philosophy of giving space to different styles and prominence to the participating bands, the 2023 line-up is made up of four bands that perfectly represent what Kristonfest is and wants to be:

The titanic GRAVEYARD will visit the festival for the first time, a double joy since they will be presenting their new studio album, the sixth in their career since their formation in 2005. Entangled in an amalgamation of blues-rock, psychedelia and mesmerizing compositions, accompanied by a voice and lyrics loaded with feeling, make this Swedish quartet a benchmark. They will be accompanied by the historic THE OBSESSED, formed at the end of the ’70s and led by the charismatic Scott “WINO” Weinrich, for many one of the fathers of doom-metal and who treasures an endless career (The Obsessed, Saint Vitus, Spirit Caravan , The Hidden Hand, Wino, Probot, etc…) and that has served as a reference for hundreds of bands that have emerged in recent decades! For this occasion, the band adds a second guitarist to its classic trio format, which will give more strength and power to the show of those from Maryland-USA!.

The INTER ARMA quintet has carved out a well-deserved reputation as a live band, largely due to such majestic songs that act as a facilitating element to offer a brutal and uncompromising set list in which they leave no puppet with a head. Richmond’s quintet outdoes itself on each album it publishes, mixing sludge with black and even post-metal with majestic and apparent ease. We don’t usually see such wild bands at Kristonfest, don’t miss them! To close this vicious circle, some old acquaintances from the underground circuit, the French MARS RED SKY, who have had hundreds of concerts around the world behind them and appearances as significant as those they offered at important festivals such as Hellfest, Motocultor or the homeland Resurrection Fest. Leaders of rock psychedelia in Europe together with contemporaries such as Colour Haze, Causa Sui or Siena Root, the Bordeaux trio is loaded with fuzz, groove and stoner-rock, pure dynamite to round off a night that seems special and worth remembering. THIS IS KRISTONFEST!

Poster by Raul Viana / @backtotheprimitive

http://www.facebook.com/kristonfest
http://www.instagram.com/kristonfest/
https://www.kristonfest.com/

Graveyard, Live on Rockpalast 2018

When we’re keying down after an invariably long day at my house and it’s getting close to The Pecan’s bedtime, we often watch a “bonus-extra” video. Sometimes it’s “Yellow Submarine,” sometimes a Peep and the Big Wide World on YouTube, whatever. Point is, think of today like a bonus-extra for the Quarterly Review after last week. Sometimes we do an extra-bonus-extra too. That will not be happening here.

So, we wrap up today with this bonus-extra batch of 10 records, and yes, as always, I took it easy on myself in backloading the last day of the QR with stuff I knew I’d dig. It’s called self-care, people. I practice it in my own way, usually incorrectly. Nonetheless, here’s 10 more records and thanks for tuning in to the Quarterly Review if you did. Next one is probably early July.

Quarterly Review #51-60:

Crowbar, Zero and Below

Six years after The Serpent Only Lies (review here), New Orleans sludge metal progenitors Crowbar deliver Zero and Below, a dutiful 10-song and 42-minute collection that emphasizes the strength of the current lineup of the band. It should go without saying that more than 30 years on from Crowbar‘s founding, guitarist/vocalist Kirk Windstein knows exactly what he wants the band to be and how to manifest that in the studio and live, and he does that here. The real question is whether “The Fear that Binds You” or maybe even the later “Bleeding From Every Hole” will make it into the touring set, but those are just two of the candidates on a record that feels like it was expressly written for Crowbar fans with a suitably masterful hand, which of course it was. There’s only one Crowbar. Treasure them while you can. And hell’s bells, go see them on stage if you never have. Buy a shirt.

Crowbar on Facebook

MNRK Heavy website

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Eric Wagner, In the Lonely Light of Mourning

Joined by a litany of musicians and friends he at one point or another called bandmates in Blackfinger and Trouble, as well as Victor Griffin of Pentagram, Place of Skulls, etc., for a lead guitar spot, Eric Wagner‘s solo album, In the Lonely Light of Mourning, takes on an all-the-more-sorrowful context with Wagner‘s untimely death last year. And in many ways, the underlying message of In the Lonely Light of Mourning is the same message that Wagner‘s participation in The Skull for the better part of the last decade reinforced: he still had more to offer. He still had that voice, he still knew who he was as a singer and a songwriter. He still loved The Beatles and Black Sabbath and he was still one of the best frontmen after to do the job for a doom band. I don’t know what kind of archive exists of recordings he may have done before his death, but if In the Lonely Light of Mourning is the last release to bear his name, could there be a better note to close on than “Wish You Well” here?

Eric Wagner on Bandcamp

Cruz Del Sur Music website

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Ode and Elegy, Ode and Elegy

Recorded and seemingly layered together over a period of years between 2016 and 2020, Ode and Elegy‘s self-titled debut features only its 55-minute eponymous/title-track, and that’s more album conceptually and personnel-wise than most albums are anyway. There are guitar, bass, drums and vocals, and those recordings began in 2016 (vocals were done in 2018), but also a string quartet (recorded in Minneapolis, 2017), a brass section and full choir (recorded in Sofia, Bulgaria, 2020), flute (recorded in London, 2020) and harp (recorded in Manchester, UK, 2020). What the Parma, NY-based outfit make of all this is an organic, neoclassical and folk-informed complexity worthy of headphones for its texture and encompassing in both its heaviest and its most sweeping sections. There’s a vision at work across this span, and from the Behemoth-esque grandiosity of the horns about 33 minutes in to the final payoff and bookending subdued melody, the execution is no less impressive than the scope behind it. The years of effort in making it were not wasted. But how on earth do you write a follow-up for a debut like this?

Ode and Elegy on Instagram

Ode and Elegy website

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Burn the Sun, Le Roi Soleil

The thing about the jazzy break in the middle of second cut “A Fist for Crows” (as opposed to a feast?) is that it’s not at all out of place with the lumbering-but-moving heavy noise-rock-toned riffing or the big melodies that surround on Burn the Sun‘s first LP, Le Roi Soleil. After the relatively straightforward opener “Wolves Among Us,” it’s the beginning of the Athenian rockers showcasing their multi-tiered ambitions. “Fool’s Gold” is a short melodic heavy punk rocker, and those elements pop up again throughout, but “Severance” oozes into Deftones-y melody on vocals early and drifts out in psychedelia for much of its second half build, and there’s post-metal to be found in 12-minute closer “Torch the Skies,” but with ambient interludes in “Crawling Flame” and “The Calm Before,” even that’s not accounting for the whole breadth of the nine included pieces. Much to the band’s credit, they pull off their abrupt turns like that in “A Fist for Crows” and the later highlight “Tidal Waves,” while also keeping more charging aggression in their back pocket for the penultimate “Siren’s Call.” Some sorting out to do, but there’s a strong sense of identity in the songwriting.

Burn the Sun on Facebook

Burn the Sun on Bandcamp

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Amon Acid, Demon Rider

A two-songer being offered up as a 7″ sacrifice presumably to the antigods of riffy lysergic doom, while, yes, also heralding the Leeds trio’s forthcoming second LP, Cosmology, Amon Acid‘s Demon Rider may be a bite-size slab, but it’s a slab nonetheless of tripped out doom, drawing on Cathedral in the title-track and bringing some of Orange Goblin’s burl to the still-spacious and freaked “Incredible Melting Man” in a whopping 3:43, as the founding UK-via-Greece duo of Sarantis Charvas (guitar, synth, vocals) and Briony Charvas (bass, synth) — as well as singly-named drummer Smith — follow-up their 2020 debut, Paradigm Shift, with a fuller and more realized shove. The synth does more work in their sound than it first seems, and together with the echoing vocals, it brings “Demon Rider” to a darkly psychedelic place. If that’s where Cosmology is headed as well, I guess it’s time to get on your possessed motorcycle and ride it into interstellar oblivion. You knew this day would come. Come on now. Off you go.

Amon Acid on Facebook

Helter Skelter Productions website

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Mucho Mungo, Moth Bath

Those ever-reliable climbers of Weird Mountain at Forbidden Place Records snagged Mucho Mungo‘s gem of a 2020 debut EP, and with an extra track added, made a first full-length from Moth Bath that shimmers like a reinvented moment where classic prog and garage rock met. For a record that opens with a song called “Bear Attack,” the Madrid three-piece of guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Marco González, bassist/vocalist Adrien Elbaz and drummer/vocalist/keyboardist Santiago Aguilera take a wholly unaggressive approach, digging into psychedelia only so much as it suits their movement-based purpose. That is to say, “Sandworm I” boogies down, and even though “Sandworm II” is comparatively mellow, there’s a space rock shuffle happening beneath those echoing space-out vocals. “Pocket Rocket” devolves in its sub-four-minute stretch but features some choice drumming and Galaga-esque keyboard sounds for atmosphere, while “Blue Nectar” captures a brighter jamminess and “The Moth” signals more cosmic intentions for what’s to come. Sign me up. Familiar sounds that don’t quite sound like anything else.

Mucho Mungo on Facebook

Forbidden Place Records website

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Sum of R, Lahbryce

Bringing Swiss duo Sum of R into the realm of Finland’s weirdo-brilliant Waste of Space — Dark Buddha Rising, Atomikylä, Dust Mountain, a handful of other associated acts — by having founder Reto Mäder add vocalist Marko Neuman and drummer Jukka Rämänen from Dark Buddha Rising was not going to make Lahbryce any less devastating. And sure enough, “Sink as I” unfolds with a genuine sense of immersion-toward-drowning that the vague ambience of “Crown of Diseased” and the no-less-airy-for-being-crushing “Borderline” immediately expand. For its eight songs and 54 minutes, what was a tailor-made Roadburn lineup push deeper. Deeper than Sum of R‘s 2017 debut, Orga (review here), and deeper than many consciousnesses will want to go. The instrumental “The Problem” is actually less challenging, but “Hymn for the Formless” makes short work of the tropes of European post-metal while “Shimmering Sand” and the noise-laden “144th” once more spread out in terms of ambience, and closer “Lust” finally swallows us all and we die. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer species, and what a way to go.

Sum of R on Facebook

Consouling Sounds store

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Albatross Overdrive, Eye See Red

Albatross Overdrive‘s third full-length, Eye See Red, opens with a hearty invitation to “Get Fucked,” and that is but the first of a slew of catchy, hard-edged, punk-informed heavy rock kissoffs. “Eye See Red” is duly frustrated as well, but as “Coming Down” suitably mellows out and “Been to Space” redirects the energy behind the earlier cuts’ delivery, there’s a feeling of the palette broadening on the part of the California-based five-piece, leading to the centerpiece “Bring Love,” the chorus of which sounds aspirational in light of the leadoff, and “Sagittarius” and “Fuente del Fuego” skirt the line between classic punk and biker rock, Albatross Overdrive continue the gritty and brash style of 2019’s Ascendant (review here) but find new reaches to explore. To wit, the nine-minute closer “Shattered” here reaches farther into melody and instrumental dynamic, bringing the different sides together in a way that’s genuinely new for the band while still having their core of songcraft underneath. They’ve well established themselves as a nothin’-too-fancy heavy rock act, but that doesn’t seem to be an aversion to forward progression either. Best of both worlds, then.

Albatross Overdrive on Facebook

Albatross Overdrive on Bandcamp

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Guided Meditation Doomjazz, Summer Let Me Down

To a certain extent, what you see is what you get with Guided Meditation Doomjazz. The Austin-based outfit led by six-string bassist J. Blaise Gans aka Blaise the Seeker conjure a half-hour session, recorded mostly if not entirely live, with a direct intention toward high-order chill and musical adventuring. Across “Warm Me Up,” “Summer,” “Let Me,” “Down” and “It’s Winter Again,” the band — working as the trio of Gans, Greg Perlman and drummer Mathew Doeckel — are fully switched-on and exploratory, and the pieces carved from their jams are hypnotic and engaging. A check-in from a prolific outfit, but with the backing of The Swamp Records, Summer Let Me Down comes across as something of a moment’s realization, placing the listener in the room — all the more with the photography included in the download — with the band as the music happens. Immersion, trance, digging in, vibing, all that stuff applies, but it’s the hiccups and the letting-them-go that feel even more instructive. If you can remember to breathe, it’s just crazy enough to work. Made to be heard more than once, and serves that well.

Guided Meditation Doomjazz on Instagram

The Swamp Records on Bandcamp

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Darsombra, Fill Up the Glass

Everybody’s favorite drone freaks Darsombra — who just might play your house if you pay them, feed them, allow them enough electricity and/or maybe sex them up a little — released the 7:50 single “Fill Up the Glass” on the last Bandcamp Friday as a 24-hours-only offering that was there and gone before I could even grab the cover art to go with it. Rife with spacey, spicy sounds, their interweaving of synth and guitar sounds improvised if it isn’t, rumbling and oozing at the start and drifting joyously into the cosmos over its stretch. No clue whether the song will show up on their next album — as ever, Darsombra are on to the next thing, which is a tour that begins at Grim Reefer Fest in Baltimore and some kind of special offering, presumably a video, for April 20 — but like all their work, “Fill Up the Glass” is evocative and a revelry in creative spirit, and if seeing this gets you on board with checking out any of their more recent work, then I’ll consider it a win regardless of this song’s availability over the longer term. But it is a cool track.

Darsombra Linktree

Darsombra store

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Two shows on successive Saturdays in May will comprise Kristonfest 2022 in Madrid, Spain, and it’s a to-the-heart-of-it lineup that nods at the country’s own ultra-fertile underground in including progressive heavy psych forerunners Atavismo — new record not nearly soon enough — while also bringing on board heavy-hitting headliners like Witchcraft and Earthless, both of whom look set to make the rounds in a significant way next year. One can also expect to see much of Slift and Stöner and Slomosa, and while they’re due for an album, MaidaVale‘s classic take on heavy is nothing but welcome anytime that Swedish outfit happen to be in the neighborhood. Very much down to business. “All killer,” and so on.

Of course, there was no Kristonfest in 2020 — Masters of Reality, Brant Bjork (who’ll be at 2022 with Stöner), Swans and MaidaVale had been set for that, among others — and there was an edition scheduled for 2021 that doesn’t seem to have taken place either, but with the shape the universe seems to be taking, people seem just fed up enough to leave the house again. Can’t argue.

Tickets are on sale, and the festival’s announcement follows, including the buy link.

As per the social media:

First of all, we would like to thank you for the patience that you have shown during all these months, a time that has meant a before and after and that has especially punished our sector, leaving many friends and colleagues on the road with no option of return.

That is why we are especially proud to continue standing and to be able to launch a statement in which 7 artists that we are passionate about will form the line up for the next edition of Kristonfest 2022, which will take place in the Mon venue in Madrid on Saturdays 7 and May 14, 2022. Tickets are already on sale through the festival website: www.kristonfest.com

The first day will be headlined by the Swedish WITCHCRAFT, probably one of the most desired and longed-for bands to see right now. We already had them confirmed for the 2020 and 2021 editions but for reasons that we all know it was completely impossible to enjoy them … it is said that the third time is the charm and we hope so.

Stay with this name, SLIFT, a three-headed sonic whirlwind propelled by The Stooges, Hawkwind, MC5, Kyuss or Can and that looks more contemporary bands like King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Wooden Shijps or Moon Duo in the face. They will come to present their huge “Ummon” that everyone is talking about.

To close the first day we will have ATAVISMO from Algeciras, national pride and band with which any lover of sound exploration, psychedelia and improvisation will enjoy an incomparable cosmic journey.

The second day will feature 4 artists who will offer diversity and enjoyment in equal parts. The legendary EARTHLESS will arrive from San Diego to lead the day and our pulse does not shake when confirming that it is one of the best psychedelic rock bands in the world. We already had them in a last edition in which they left everyone with their mouths open and wanting more. Now Isaiah also plays guitar in The Black Crowes but that didn’t complicate it when we asked them to go back to Kristonfest.

From Palm Springs (USA) another of the highlights will be to see the staging of STÖNER, commanded by two godfathers of desert rock such as Brant Bjork and Nick Oliveri, both founders of Kyuss, also Mondo Generator, Ché, Fu Manchu, Bloodcot, etc … and Ryan Gut (drums) from the band Brant Bjork & The Bros. You don’t call your band Stöner if you’ve never heard the word before and, as their track record attests, it’s not the first time these three musicians have embarked on a project of this caliber.

MAIDAVALE were confirmed in the edition that we had to cancel due to the health crisis, so we had a debt with them that we can finally pay off! This quartet from Sweden shines like few others in the psychedelic-rock and heavy-blues skies of the last decade. They drink from the influences that the 1960s left for history, contributing to their set list a more direct, atmospheric and forceful sound.

To complete the line-up, nothing better than new blood, the Norwegians SLOMOSA burst onto the scene with a most interesting and appetizing cover letter: Riffs that take you to the frozen dunes of the Scandinavian tundra, muscular and greasy rock on the path of classics like Fu Manchu and the early Queens Of The Stone Age. A good new generation onslaught that confirms the good health of the European desert-rock scene.

http://www.facebook.com/kristonfest
http://www.instagram.com/kristonfest/
https://www.kristonfest.com/

Stöner, “Own Yer Blues” from ‘Live in the Mojave Desert’