Posted in Whathaveyou on January 30th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
Cheers to Norwegian doomers Saint Karloff on making a studio documentary and avoiding having it basically be fodder for comparison to Spinal Tap. A rare dodge on the part of any band. The Oslo-based three-piece will begin a round of shows in February supporting their 2019 sophomore full-length, Interstellar Voodoo (review here), and they’ll be joined in the endeavor by countrymen garage heavies Magmakammer, making for a two-band complement that I have no doubt will be received with approving nods by all in their presence. This brand of riffing will do that, and each act has their own spin.
I was kind of hoping for some video interview footage in the documentary, and it’s the album playing (in full) over studio clips with info and background spliced in, making for an interesting, cool and not-at-all Tap excuse to revisit the record. You think that’d be easy but it’s not if you’ve ever done an interview.
Dates and that video follow, as per the PR wire:
Norwegian Occult Rockers SAINT KARLOFF announce European Tour with Magmakammer | Share Recording Session Documentary for INTERSTELLAR VOODOO
In association with The Doomsday Agency and hot on the heels of an impressive 2019, Doom Rock’s rising superpower, Saint Karloff, take to the road next month for a European tour with fellow Norwegians, Magmakammer.
Having made their mark on the international heavy music scene in 2018 with the release of their debut album, All Heed the Black God, the band continued to raise their game with newer, heavier and more complexly psychedelic material on last year’s Interstellar Voodoo, their follow-up album released on Majestic Mountain Records.
To showcase exactly what went into the recording, the trio have released a unique video documenting and detailing the very recording session that produced the album’s epic one-track conclusion. Soundtracked in full of course, by the album itself.
“This is a music video and documentary hybrid of our time recording our second album,” explains guitarist/vocalist, Mads Melvold. “It was recorded Easter 2019 and released in the autumn of that same year. People have reached out to us and asked us about the making of Interstellar Voodoo, and with this video we try to answer these questions. What you see is the actual recording. The whole thing was filmed and edited and it contains information and anecdotes on the whole process from start to finish.”
Released last year on Majestic Mountain Records, copies of Interstellar Voodoo are now sold out but you can purchase the album digitally, directly from the band (here) ahead of their tour, which kicks off in Norway next month. For the full list of dates and venues see list and tour poster below:
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 6th, 2019 by JJ Koczan
I feel like, among the phrases a band might use to promote themselves, something along the lines of “expect more lo-fi grit” is particularly aware of the audience to whom it’s speaking. Norwegian three-piece Magmakammer released their debut album, Mindtripper (review here), last year on Kozmik Artifactz, last year through Kozmik Artifactz, and it likewise showed some pretty consistent self-awareness in terms of the style it was playing toward and the heads it was looking to turn.
Garage doom is, at this point, almost singly attributable to an Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats influence, and Magmakammer had that working for them in spades on the debut, but the test of a band in that case isn’t necessarily how they come out of the gate, but how they continue to build their own identity as they go forward. Consider how much more Monolord sounded like Electric Wizard when they got their start.
Likewise, Magmakammer‘s sound was readily familiar to the converted upon first listen, but in cuts like the title-track and closer “Cosmic Dancers,” the band began to show their personality as well and what they could bring to that foundation of influence. I would expect and certainly hope that will continue on Bloody Diamond. And certainly, a little more lo-fi grit isn’t going to hurt.
They announced the EP thusly:
The upcoming EP is called Bloody Diamond and is set to release the 12th of May.
Here is the artwork for the EP which takes a stab at imitating an 80s thriller movie. Like last time, this one is also recorded in a not-at-all-suitable recording space. So expect more lofi grit.
Get hyped as we’re very excited to share this with you!! And make sure you’re following us on Bandcamp and Spotify so you’ll get reminded when the EP drops.
There is also a short video tease coming up, so keep your eyes peeled.
Love, Magmakammer
Magmakammer is: Guitar & Vocals: Ulrik Jacobsen Bass: Stian Solberg Drums: Lasse Røed
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 28th, 2019 by JJ Koczan
Since its first iteration, the Oslo-based fest Høstsabbat has made a point to be supportive of the native-Norwegian underground. This coming October, they’ll up the stakes in that regard by adding a whole new stage and venue to the proceedings. For a show that takes place in a spot that already has two stages and, well, there just happens to be a third right across the street that has another one, it’s a natural kind of growth to happen. Barren Womb, Golden Core, Superlynx, Magmakammer, Orsak:Oslo, Acârash, Kanaan, Astrosaur and Subnoir will hold sway over the new stage and in addition being a badass homage to the festival’s home city and country — though I wouldn’t have minded seeing SÂVER added again now that their record will be out — and while I’m not sure how the timing will work out with the two stages back at the Kulturkirken Jakob, that’s a chance for someone like me coming from outside or even for someone from Norway unfamiliar, to get a lesson in what the scene there is all about. It’s an opportunity.
Announcement from the fest follows:
As Høstsabbat has been growing over the years, since our humble start in 2013, our intentional focus on showcasing the Norwegian underground has lost turf to bigger acts from foreign countries. It’s been super fun to be able to book top shelf bands from different corners of the world, but it’s no secret that our focus on the always brimming scene in our native country has lost ground.
Fear no more!
Høstsabbat 2019 will include a third stage, at the awesome bar and stage at Verkstedet Bar, literally a 30-second walk from the church. This stage will consist of Norwegian bands ONLY. After months of planning, we feel we have captured the essence of bands, set to break through to the next level. It’s hard to describe the quality and diverse impact of this stage, and we would like to thank all the bands for making this vision become reality.
It’s a tremendous joy to welcome these nine acts to Høstsabbat 2019, illustrated on a stunning poster by the incredibly talented Trine Grimm (Trine Grimm Tattoo), who is also set to curate the art program this year, alongside our long-time companion Linda K Røed!
There you go, Boom!
Bands: Barren Womb Golden Core Aca?rash Superlynx Magmakammer Astrosaur Orsak:Oslo SUBNOIR Kanaan – Band
Posted in Reviews on December 4th, 2018 by JJ Koczan
Day Two of the Quarterly-Review-Mega-Super-Ultra-Year-End-Wrap-Up-Spectacular-Gnarly-Edition — name in progress — begins now. First day? Smooth. Wrote it over the weekend to get a jump on the week, cruised through a morning and into baby-naps, finished with time left over to still go and read the Star Trek novel I’m currently making my way through. Easy. Also peasy.
Today? Well, apparently I turned off my alarm in my sleep because I rolled over 40 minutes later and certainly didn’t remember it going off. Whoops. Not a great start, but there is a lot of cool stuff in this batch, so we’ll get through it, even if it’s awfully early in the week to be sleeping in. Ha.
Have a great day everybody. Here are 10 more records for the QRMSUYEWUSGE. Rolls right off the tongue.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
A Storm of Light, Anthroscene
“America the sick and crumbling/Liberty she’s weeping/The tired and poor are huddled and dying/As the wretched ones are touched aside.” The lines, from A Storm of Light‘s “Blackout” — the second cut from their fifth LP, Anthroscene (on Translation Loss) — lead to the inevitable question: “What the fuck is wrong with us?,” and thereby summarize the central sociopolitical framework of the record. A dystopian thematic suits the band’s aesthetic, and there’s certainly no shortage of material to work from between current events and future outlook. Guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist/graphic artist Josh Graham, bassist Domenic Seita and guitarist/keyboardist Dan Hawkins are five years removed from the band’s last outing, however, so their post-apocalyptic post-metal is welcome either way, and Anthroscene taps a Killing Joke influence and turns it to its dark and churning purposes over the course of its eight tracks/51 minutes, delving into harsh shouts on “Short Term Feedback” and capping with the resistance-filled “Rosebud,” which surges forth from ambience like the anti-facist/anti-capitalist critique that it is, ending with the lyric, “When you die, we will spit on your grave,” which could hardly be more appropriate.
Massachusetts’ Z28 — also stylized as Z/28 and Z-28; I don’t think they care so long as you get the point they’re named after the Camaro — make their full-length debut with Nobody Rides for Free on Fuzzdoom Records, and with the occasional bit of organ on songs like “Touch of Evil” and “Angst III (I Don’t Want to Die),” they nonetheless give a raw take on heavy rock laced with that particularly Northeastern aggression. Guitarist Jeff Hayward (also organ), bassist/acoustic guitarist/engineer Jason Negro and drummer Breaux Silcio all contribute vocals to the outing, and yet the minute-long instrumental intro tells much of the story of what it’s about in terms of the chemistry between them. Impressive guitar solos are rampant throughout, and the rhythm section carries over a weighted groove through cuts like “Wandering” that’s fluid in tempo but still able to create an overarching flow between the tracks. I’ll give bonus points for the Black Sabbath nods in the multi-layered lead work toward the end of “Spirit Elk (Lord of the Hunt)” as well as the title “Keep on Rockin’ (In the Invisible World),” and Z28 have something to build on here in terms of songwriting and that chemistry. It’s raw-sounding, but that doesn’t necessarily hurt it.
Granted, Forrest telegraph some measure of quirk by naming their debut EP Kickball with Russians, but the four-piece from Lexington, Kentucky, still seem to be rolling along in a straightforward-enough manner on six-minute instrumental opener and longest track (immediate points) “(I Dream of) Kickball with Russians,” until the keyboards start in. That turn gives their EP an edge of the unexpected that continues to inform “DAN,” “Deew” and the closing “My Son Looks Just Like Me,” and “DAN” continues the thread with gang shouts popping up over its chugging progression and receding again after about two words to let the track get quiet and build back up. And is that a velociraptor at the start of “Deew?” Either way, that song’s Mr. Bungle-style angularity, a return of the keys and intermittent heavy nod work to underscore the willful weirdness that’s very much at play in the four-piece’s work, and the closer adds Ween-style effects work into the mix while still keeping a heavy presence in tone and lumber. They’ll get weirder with time, but this is a good start toward that goal.
Coastal melancholy and a pervasive sense of atmosphere seem to unite the varied tracks on 1476‘s 2017 Prophecy release, Our Season Draws Near, which otherwise draw across their span from goth rock, punk, doom and extreme metal, able to blur the line especially between punk and black metal on songs like “Ettins” while acoustics pervade “Solitude (Exterior)” en route to the Anathema-gone-char rasps of “Solitude (Interior)” a short time later. I know I’m late to the party on the Salem, MA, duo, and likewise late on this record, but from opener “Our Silver Age” to closer “Our Ice Age” to the “Solitude” pairing to “Winter of Winds” — finally: David Bowie fronts Joy Division — and “Winter of Wolves,” there’s so much of Our Season Draws Near that has a bigger-picture thought process behind its construction that its impact is multi-tiered. And it’s not just that they pit genres against each other in their sound, it’s that their sound brings them together toward something new and malleable to the purposes of their songwriting. Not to be missed, so this is me, not missing it. Even though I kind of missed it.
Joined on Nights in Distortion by bassist René Marquis as well as longtime drummer Patrick Schroeder, guitarist/vocalist/synthesist Christian Kolf (also Valborg) greatly expands his former solo-ish-project Owl with their second release of 2018 behind March’s Orion Fenix EP (review here), bringing together elements of post-metal churn with deeply atmospheric sensibilities, cuts like “Transparent Moment” churning as much as they are surprising with their underlying melody. A Type O Negative influence continues to be worked into their sometimes grueling context, but it’s hard to listen to the keyboard-laced “Inanna in Isolation” and hear Owl being anything other than who they’ve become, and their third album is the most distinct statement of that yet, airy lead guitars floating over a still-fervent, industrial-style chug amid vocals veering from barking shouts to quiet, low-register semi-spoken fare and cleaner singing. Nights in Distortion is the evolving work of a mastermind, captured in progress.
Synth-laden heavy horror garage dance rock could probably use a more succinct genre name, but while those in charge of such things sit and scratch their butts, Boston’s Brass Hearse carve out a niche unto themselves with their second EP, Hollow on the Surface. The five-track offering is in and out in 14 minutes but wants nothing for either a show of craft or arrangement, tapping into psych-folk in the strummy interlude “Dwellers in the Static Valley” after the hook-led “Death by Candlelight” and before the John Carpenter-style pulsations that underscore “The Thing from Another World.” Opener “Fading” is the only song to top four minutes and has a distinctly progressive take, but while it and the organ-ic closer “Headaches & Heartbreaks” has a theatricality to it, Brass Hearse are too cohesive to charge with being weird for weirdness’ sake, and their experimentation is presented in complete, engaging songs, rather than self-indulgent collections of parts mashed together. Would love to hear what they do over the course of a full-length.
Different missions from Finland’s Craneium and Switzerland’s Black Willows on their BloodRock Records split. Craneium nod through “Your Law” and mark their second inclusion, “Try, Fail, Repeat,” with a Sabbathian swing that only kicks up in tempo as it moves through its five minutes. Black Willows, on the other hand, present a single track in the 19-minute, noise-soaked post-everything “Bliss,” which trades back and forth between minimalism and crushing riffs en route to a consuming wash and long, long, long fadeout. Released in March, the outing showcases both bands well, but one is left wondering where the connection is between the two of them that they’d come together for a joint vinyl release. Either way, I won’t detract from what they do individually, whether it’s the catchiness of “Your Law” and the jam in its second half or “Bliss” with its frost-covered expanse of tonality, it’s just a marked leap from side A to side B. Maybe that was the idea all along, and if that’s the case, then one can only say they succeeded.
Following a 2015 self-titled debut EP, Oslo trio Magmakammer align with Kozmik Artifactz for their first long-player, Mindtripper, and so effect a garage doom sound that’s quickly relatable to Uncle Acid on songs like “Fat Saturn” and the chug-shuffling “Along the Crooked Roads.” Where they distinguish themselves from this core influence, though, is in the density of their tones, as opener “Druggernaut” and the rolling “Acid Times” prove thicker in their charge. Still, there’s no mistaking that swing and the blown-out sound of the vocals. Closer “Cosmic Dancers,” which is one of two tracks over seven minutes long, shows more dynamic in its loud/quiet tradeoffs, and resolves itself in a righteous nodder of a riff. It’s essentially in the same vein, but still displaying some emerging personality of Magmakammer‘s own that one hopes they continue to develop. And in the meantime, the foundation of craft and stylistic awareness they hone is still welcome, familiar or not.
Mystique isn’t easy to come by in this Age of Access, but the anonymous London-dwelling duo Falun Gong have succeeded in piquing interest with their two-to-date singles, “Figure 1” (review here), and the eight-minute “Figure 2,” which like its predecessor is raw in the recording, sounds like it was performed live, and follows a trance-inducing course of riffing. The central groove is a slow march that makes its way through obscure voices delivered in buried fashion — the whole thing may or may not be mastered; somehow I’m thinking not, but I’ve been wrong before — through a self-aware drift that rounds out following a soulful culmination fitting the song’s lyrical theme, which would seem to be tied to the cover art about baptism in a river’s waters. There’s just something off-kilter about Falun Gong to this point, and while it’s still early going for them, they bring an eerie persona to their work that feels less performative than it so often does.
Though he’s had a slew of live outings out with the Max Tovstyi Blues Band and the Max Tovstyi Blues Association, Mesmerize (LP on Nasoni) is the Ukrainian heavy blues rocker’s first solo studio outing since 2014. He’s credited with all the instruments on the 10- or 12-track offering save for a couple arrangement-flourish guest appearances, and he pulls in a classic spirit and full-band sound without any trouble on a moody piece like “World of Sin” or the bonus track “Show Me the Way,” which isn’t a Peter Frampton cover so far as I can tell but still has plenty of guitar scorch to go around. “From the Blues to the Funk” jams its way along its stated trajectory, and “Feel Like Dying Now” brings together organ and keys in a fashion far less dramatized than one might initially think. With a clean production, Tovstyi — also known for his work in The Heavy Crawls, Lucifer Rising, and others — carries through his sentimentality for blues rock’s past and finds himself well at home leading the pack of guest vocalists on “Make Up Your Mind,” which closes the album proper with a semi-country twang and sweet melody.
