Posted in Whathaveyou on May 19th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Note the butt-load of fests included in the upcoming round of European touring for Austin, Texas, heavy rollers High Desert Queen. As their recent-enough-to-call-it-new new video for “Time Waster” demonstrates, that’s par for the course for when they get out, and if you’ve seen them before, you know the good times that ensue from there. Big riffs, communal vibes, the whole nine. You get that in the video plus a bit of behind-the-scenes whathaveyou, light shenanigans and make-your-own-fun waiting around. Tour, in other words. It was shot on tour.
I know we’re just about at a year out from Palm Reader (review here), their second LP and first for Magnetic Eye, but I can’t help but be curious what their third album might tell in terms of their sound. Seems like a band who’ve hit every big ‘moment’ they’ve had to face thus far in their tenure absolutely head-on. So what’s that ‘next step’ like for that band? That’s what I’m wondering, despite the fact that I have no idea when we’ll find out. I wouldn’t expect a third LP in 2025, but they do seem to enjoy a bit of momentum.
As seen on socials, posted by Magnetic Eye:
You can take the Europeans out of Texas, but you can’t keep the Texans out of Europe! (Not our best, but might be a viable joke in there) Our own HIGH DESERT QUEEN will head back across the pond this summer for a massive run of club dates and festival appearances as they continue to spread their addictive 2024 slab of heaviness ‘Palm Reader’ to receptive minds and ears far and wide 🎸👍🔥 Celebrating the occasion, they’ve released a new tour footage video for the album track “Time Waster” which is live now on our YouTube 👀 Go check out the video featuring the legends in Faso Jetson and get your tickets now for High Desert Queen’s upcoming European dates:
HIGH DESERT QUEEN Europe Summer Tour 2025 25 JUL 2025 Karlsruhe (DE) Das Fest 26 JUL 2025 Gent (BE) Gent City Festival 27-31 JUL 2025 TO BE ANNOUNCED SOON 01 AUG 2025 Beelen (DE) Krach am Bach Fest 02 AUG 2025 Porta Westfalica (DE) Festivalkult 03 AUG 2025 Amsterdam (NL) De VerbroederIJ 05 AUG 2025 Bremen (DE) Meisenfrei Blues Club 06 AUG 2025 Recklinghausen (DE) Backyard Club 07 AUG 2025 Hannover (DE) Perle 08 AUG 2025 Sudwalde (DE) MuTaChi Fest 09 AUG 2025 Wedehorn (DE) Eekboom Open Air 10 AUG 2025 Dresden Chemiefabrik 11 AUG 2025 Bamberg (DE) Live Club 13 AUG 2025 Cham (DE) L.A. Club 14 AUG 2025 Kusel (DE) Kinett 15 AUG 2025 Stemwede (DE) Stemweder Open Air 16 AUG 2025 TO BE ANNOUNCED SOON Poster by @72826_
HIGH DESERT QUEEN are: Ryan Garney – vocals Phil Hook – drums Morgan Miller – bass Rusty Miller – guitar
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 23rd, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Not that I would expect news about record labels collaborating to ‘break the internet,’ as they used to say in the 2010s, but I’m a little surprised not to have seen more hullabaloo about this one as Nuclear Blast and Magnetic Eye Records are partnering up to release a new ‘mini-album’ — I assume like an EP-plus? — from Swedish ethereal heavy psych rockers Gaupa.
Of course, it’s to the band’s credit that imprints are lining up to work with them, but the real kicker here is that Gaupa are already a Nuclear Blast band. So it’s not that the bigger metal label is reaching down to the smaller underground heavy label and plucking a band to add to its roster. That happens sometimes, but not here. The alignment with Nuclear Blast and Magnetic Eye puts the two entities on a similar level. I don’t know if Magnetic Eye (which is part of the Spkr Media family of labels) is handling US distribution while Nuclear Blast does Europe or what the details are, but if this is going to be a thing, it will be interesting to see how it plays out over the next few years.
Or it could be a one-off and that’s it. Hell if I know. In any case, new Gaupa is nothing to sneeze at even amid springtime pollen, so by whatever angle, the news is good. Here it is from socials, sans hashtags:
Tremendous news: MER will be collaborating with Nuclear Blast Records to release a new mini-album from the singular GAUPA this summer 😳🎸🧚
We’re massively stoked to be involved in bringing forth a new record from this heavy and ethereal Swedish band whose music has been described as “Björk meets Soundgarden,” and we’re confident that many of our longtime listeners and supporters are already huge fans of what they do 🤘💚
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 16th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Yes, I know this was announced last week. I don’t care if it was announced last year — it’s friggin’ Domkraft and friggin’ Howling Giant touring together. Can you imagine the banger show that must be? Howling Giant, who I think will be playing as a four-piece again, hitting the road after recording their next full-length (oh I’m so nervous for it), and Domkraft making the most of the US visa that brought them Stateside this past Fall to be at Desertfest New York (review here), which they just about rolled into a little ball and tucked into their pocket to save for later. They were incredible.
Getting this post ready yesterday, I put on 2023’s Sonic Moons (review here) again and at the risk of spoiling your own revisit for you, yup, it still destroys. Their massive lurch and Howling Giant‘s careening, hooky uptempo shove should mesh well, and one hopes a second tour puts Domkraft somewhere in the realm of breaking even as regards the cost of artist visas. If you go, buy a shirt. Buy 10.
And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Howling Giant are in my neighborhood (literally) this week for a show. I can’t attend as I’m traveling, but I’m sending The Patient Mrs. for a rare guest review. I’ll post it next week probably. Will be fun. There’s precedent, but I’ll have more on that later.
Here are Domkraft and Howling Giant dates, as per the announcement on socials:
Here we go! The second and final leg of our US tour starts in June and we will be joined by none other than our ace label mates @howlinggiant. See you in the audiodomes!
Domkraft & Howling Giant West Coast USA tour: 6/26 San Diego, CA – Brick by Brick 6/27 Las Vegas, NV – The Griffin 6/28 Garden Grove, CA – The Locker Room 6/29 Palmdale, CA – Transplants Brewing 6/30 San Luis Obispo, CA – Dark Nectar 7/1 San Francisco, CA – Bottom of the Hill 7/2 Eureka, CA – Savage Henry Comedy Club 7/3 Eugene, OR – John Henry’s 7/4 Portland, OR – The High Water Mark 7/5 Vancouver, BC – Lanalou’s 7/6 Seattle, WA – The Funhouse
Line-up Martin Wegeland – vocals, bass Martin Widholm – guitars Anders Dahlgren – drums
Good first day yesterday. Good second day today. I’ve been doing Quarterly Reviews for over a decade now, and I’ve kind of learned over time the kind of thing I should be writing about. It might be a record that has a ton of hype or one that has none, and it might be any number of styles — I also like to sneak some stuff in here that doesn’t ‘fit’ once in a while — but in my mind the standard is, “is this something I’ll want to have heard and/or written about later?”
For all the terrors of our age, the glut of good music coming out means there’s more than ever I want to write about, and in a weird way, I look forward to Quarterly Reviews as a way for me to dig in and get caught up a bit. I’ve already been blindsided this QR and it’s the second day. I call that a win.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
Kal-El, Astral Voyager Vol. 1
There are few acts the world over who so succintly summarize so much of the appeal of modern heavy rock. Norway’s Kal-El offer big riffs, big hooks, big melodies, songwriting, and still manage heavy-mellow vibes thanks to an ongoing cosmic thematic that brings desert rock methods to more ethereal places. Is “Cloud Walker” the best song they’ve yet written? It’s on the list for sure, but don’t discount nine-minute opener/longest track (immediate points) “Astral Voyager” or the hey-that’s-a-Star-Trek-reference “Dilithium” with its dug-in low-distortion verses and the Captain‘s vocal outreach. All along, it’s never quite felt like Kal-El were reshaping heavy, but as time passes and they unveil Astral Voyager Vol. 1 with immediate promise of a follow-up, it’s curious how much Kal-El and notions of ‘peak genre’ align. Those of you who proselytize for riffs: even before you get to riding that groove in “Cosmic Sailor,” Kal-El are primed for ambassadorship.
North Carolinian sludgethrowers Bronco take their name from their bassist/vocalist, who also goes by Bronco, and who in the 2010s cut a tone-worshiping generational swath through the Southern wing of the style as a member of Toke, proffering heavy riffs, harsh-throat vocals, and a disaffection that can only be called classic. With eight songs rolling out over 45 minutes, Bronco‘s Bronco picks up the thread where Toke left off with pieces like “Ride Eternal,” which crawls, or the declarative riffing of “Legion” (eerie guest vocals included amid all the pummel), or the closer “TONS,” which I’m going to assume isn’t titled after the Italian sludge-band, though if those guys wanted to put out a song called “Bronco” on their next record, they’d be well within their rights. A remarkably cohesive debut for something that’s so loudly telling you to fuck yourself. These guys’ll be opening for High on Fire in no time.
Although one wouldn’t listen to Santiago, Chile’s Ocultum and be likely to have “refined” top the list of impressions given by the raw, rot-coated sludge of their third album and Heavy Psych Sounds debut, Buena Muerte, the grim-leaning atmosphere, charge later in the title-track, cultish presentation and the atmosphere emergent both from guitar-wail and yelling interlude “Fortunato’s Fortune” and from the material that surrounds, whether that’s the title-track or the just-under-12-minute “Last Weed on Earth.” The record finds the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Sebastián Bruna, bassist Pablo Cataldo and drummer Ricardo Robles dug in, stoned and malevolent. They’re not as over-the-top as many in cult rock, but one does get a sense of ceremony from “Last Weed on Earth” and subsequent capper “Emki’s Return” — the latter galloping in its first half and willfully devolved from there into avant noise — even if that’s more about the making of the songs than the performance of genre tropes.
The grunge crunch of “Running With Secrets” and the Cantrell-y acoustics of “Push” are barely the beginning of the story as regards Fidel A Go Go‘s meld of sounds, which ranges from the willfully desert rocking “Sandstorm” to the proggy “Lil Shit,” the transposed blues of “Rainy Days” and the penultimate “Psychedelicexistentialcrisisalidocious,” which is serene in its melody and troubling in the words, as one would hope, and while the moniker and the punny album title speak to shenanigans, the Brisbane four-piece offer a point of view both instrumentally and lyrically that is engaging and draws together the stylistic range. There’s little doubt left to whom “A Stench of Musk” and “Barely an Adversary” are about, but even that’s not the extent of the perspective resonant in these 11 songs. There’s enough fuzz here for desert heads, but Fidel A Go Go are broader in attitude and craft, and Diss Engaged makes a point of its artistic freedom.
Like their 2023 debut EP, Lady Cadaver, Tumble‘s second short offering, Lost in Light sees the trio of guitarist/vocalist Liam Deak, bassist Tarun Dawar and drummer Will Adams working with producer/engineer Ian Blurton (Ian Blurton’s Future Now, etc.) to hone and sharpen a classic, proto-metallic sound without seeing a dip in recording quality. As such, the five songs/20 minutes of Lost in Light are duly brash — looking at you, “Dead by Rumour” and the Radio Moscow-esque “The Less I Know” — but crisp in tone and execution. The mid-tempo “Sullen Slaves” picks up in its solo section later for a bit of boogie, and the slightly-slower metallic lurch of “Laid by Fear” sets up a contrast with the swinging closer “Wings of Gold” that makes the ending of the EP an absolute strut. They aren’t even asking a half-hour of your time, and the rewards are more than commensurate for getting down. They continue to be one to watch as they position themselves for a full-length debut in the next couple years.
Normally I might consider it a hindrance to have no clue what’s going on, but if you’ve never before encountered Italy/France semi-industrial duo Putan Club you might just find yourself in better position going into Filles d’Octobre as the avant garde radfem troupe unfurl a live set recorded at Portugal’s Amplifest, presumably in 2022. But if you don’t know it’s a live record, what’s coming musically, or that Filles d’Octobre is derived from their 2017 debut album, Filles de Mai, there’s a decent change your contextless self will be scrathing your head in wonder of just what’s going on with the bouncy lurch and maybe xylophone of “Filippino,” and that seems to suit Putan Club just fine. If you have to break something to remake it, Putan Club are set to the task of manifesting a rock and roll that is dangerous, new, unrepentantly socially critical, and ready to dance when you are. That they meet these significant ambitions head on shouldn’t be discounted. Not for everybody, but definitely for everybody who thinks they’ve heard it all.
The first live offering from Argentinian prog-heavy instrumentalists IAH follows behind the band’s most expansive studio LP to-date, 2023’s V (review here), and brings into emphasis the group’s dynamic. It’s not just about being able to make a part sound floaty or to make the part next to it crush, but the character of a piece like the 24-minute “Noboj pri Uaset” (which might be new) is as much about the journey undertaken in their builds and the smoothness of the shifts between parts. They dip back to their earlier going for “Sheut” at the start of the set and “Ourboros” and “Eclipsum” the latter of which closes, and the bass in “Sentado en el Borde de una Pregunta” is worth the price of admission alone, never mind as a complement to the extended progression of “Noboj pri Uaset,” which is something of the buried lede here. So be it. On stage or on record, IAH offer immersion unto themselves. A little more tonal edge as a result of the live recording doesn’t hurt that one bit.
Before the Dawn of Time is upwards of the seventh full-length from Swedish vintage-style heavy rockers Gin Lady, and in addition to seeing them make the jump from Kozmik Artifactz to Ripple Music, the sans-pretense 11-songer invents its own moment. It’s like the comedown era (from 1968-1974, roughly) happened, but happened differently. It’s another path to a heavy rock future. There’s ’70s vibes in “Tingens Sanna Natur” a-plenty, and if it’s boogie or push or hooky melodic wash you want, “Mulberry Bend” has you covered for that and then some, never mind the down-home strum of “Bliss on the Line” or the pastoral contemplation of “The Long Now,” as Gin Lady put a classy stamp of their own on classic aural ideologies, as what are no doubt hyperspecific keyboards make the production smooth and let “Ways to Cross the Sky” commune with Morricone while capper “You’re a Big Star” drops a melody that can really only be called “arena ready.” As it stands, it’ll probably go over killer at festivals across Europe.
Duly apocalyptic for being the band’s first full-length release since 2019, Adrift‘s fourth album, Dry Soil, elicits an overarching doom that makes its tonal claustrophobia all the more affecting. The long-running Madrid outfit offer six songs that veer between the contemplative and the caustic as throatrippers worthy of Enslaved add an element of the extreme to the post-metallic intensity of “Edge” and “Restart” in the record’s middle. There are heavy rock underpinnings — that is, somebody here still likes Sabbath — but Adrift are well at home in all the bludgeonry, and “Bonfire” finishes by tying black metal, sludge, noise and darkly thrashing metal together with a suitably severe ambience. Are they torching it at the end? Kind of, but just replace “it” with “everything” and you’ll have a better idea perhaps of where they’re coming from on the whole. But for regionalist discrimination, Adrift would’ve conquered Europe a long time ago.
Berlin trio Black Sadhu — guitarist/vocalist Max Lowry (also synth, effects), bassist Alex Glimm and drummer Martin Cederlund — employ atmosphere to a point of cinematics on their second full-length, Ashes of Aether, following up the post-doom wash of 2021 standalone single “Mindless Masses” with plays back and forth between full-heft nod and take-a-breather meanderings. This cuts momentum less than one might think as the keyboard and drone and sample of “Tumors of Light” lend experimentalist verve to “Descent,” the next of the nine-track outing’s more-complete-song songs, as the latter unfolds with a shine on the crash that continues to cut through the surrounding rumble as the procession unfurls. Patience, then. So long as you know the payoff is coming — and it is; looking at you, “Electric Death” — and don’t mind being stretched and contorted on a molecular level between here and there, you should be good to go.
Posted in Reviews on March 31st, 2025 by JJ Koczan
There’s a lot going on here as regards narrative, so bear with me. Get Well Soon is the sixth full-length release from Columbus, Ohio, heavy rock four-piece, as well as their label-debut through Magnetic Eye Records, to which the band signed this past December. It’s been six years since the band put out Subtle (review here) through Aqualamb, which is the longest break they’ve had between albums (caveat of the plague applies). This year also makes it 20 years since the band first got together, picking up from the turn-of-the-century era of capital-‘h’ Heavy and rolling forward with a new generation’s verve. Lyrically, the record touches on themes from religion, war, the politics of both, touring life and more, and with nine memorable cuts playing out across 45 minutes, the four-piece of vocalist Jeff Martin, bassist Scott Thompson, guitarist Chris Thompson (not related so far as I know) and drummer Jesse Bartz, whose cancer diagnosis in 2022 looms among the contexts in which the record arrives.
But Get Well Soon, despite the evocation of the title and the way it points out the emptiness of such a phrase, calling to mind the platitudes, thoughts and prayers sent out on social media, ultimately empty, isn’t about Bartz‘s struggle. Martin offered the following: “If there is a lyrical theme to the album at all I’d say the message is that the war for your heart and soul is over… and you lost. This record isn’t about what comes next. It’s about sitting in that loss and coming to terms with it.”
Fair enough. The band recorded in Columbus with Joe Viers at Sonic Lounge and Andrew Schneider mixed at ACRE Audio in New York — both familiar collaborators — while Carl Saff mastered, and as one would expect for Lo-Pan 20 years on, they leave no question as to what they’re about. From the opening duo of “The Good Fight” and “Northern Eyes” through “God’s Favorite Victim,” which is pointedly about the ongoing Palestinian genocide, and closer “Six Bells,” which approaches the eight-minute mark and is a quintessential Lo-Pan slowdown set to maritime lyric calling back to “The Good Fight” and its line, “I keep on sailing the endless sea,” as well as “Stay With the Boat” and other flashes of what may or may not be tour-as-voyage metaphor throughout, since they have so much going on besides, it’s fortunate for the listener that the songs are so directed, so linear and so well executed.
Thus, in confusing, troubling, stupid times, Get Well Soon becomes both a reality check and an empathetic presence. More than ever before, Martin is in layered harmony with himself, and in addition to making “Northern Eyes” a highlight, the shifting character of Martin‘s voice in “Wormwood” — a little distorted as he shouts out foul beasts of Babylon in the early verse — and the subsequent echo-out in “Ozymandias” bringing the song to a conclusion after a quintessentially Lo-Pan verse that builds tension in the chug and opens to the chorus. The last lines there, “Words that hang on the breeze/Calling out through the trees/Now they’re rotting away/Falling more everyday,” are broad enough to read just about anything into them, where in centerpiece “Rogue Wave” the punch of Thompson‘s bass and the ripper of a guitar solo that follows complement further references to the sea and a kind of hopelessness about making amends.
I don’t actually know this, but “Rogue Wave” is likely also where the vinyl split is — that puts five tracks on side A and four on side B, but with “Six Bells” as the longest, it makes sense — and so as Thompson‘s guitar starts off “Harper’s Ferry” and Bartz eases in with cymbal wash before they smoothly move into the verse of “Harpers Ferry” as Martin invokes fire-and-brimstone preaching to recount the 1859 anti-slavery revolt led by John Brown, a pre-Civil War action the relevance of which goes beyond the US’ original sin of slavery to apply to the current day. Maybe a little inspirational/aspirational? Maybe a self-directed pep talk? Could be.
But again, Get Well Soon isn’t a feelgood record. Make no mistake, Lo-Pan kill it across the board — “Harpers Ferry” could’ve opened the record — the energy is rife and the grooves are mighty, but it’s also heavy vibes in heavy times. “Stay With the Boat” distinguishes itself in both melody and rhythm and exciting turns met with something of a lyrical defeat — remember what Martin said; it’s not that place where you’re picking yourself up, fighting, moving on, etc.; the point of view of Get Well Soon is still very much “in the shit” as regards the stages of grief, and it feels emotionally braver for that — and feels like it came together smoothly, however it actually might have. Everything fits, and if you want a five-minute cut to emphasize Lo-Pan‘s strengths in songcraft or performance, it’s an easy pick.
One imagines “God’s Favorite Victim” is in the penultimate position on the record to be somewhat buried in the hope that the band don’t get disappeared in the night for criticizing Israel. In a country whose whole thing used to be free speech, assembly and whathaveyou, that’s a disappointing and more-than-a-little-horrifying reality to face (to say the least of it), but the band do not mince words in calling out villainy, repression and state-sponsored murder. They do so in a classic Lo-Pan crunch and pull, the verse tightening and the chorus letting loose. It’s nothing new for the band, mind you. Hence “classic.” They’ve done it on Get Well Soon a couple times already, and their 20-year history is replete with chorus aligning, turning, sometimes exploding out of dug-in verses. It is a part of their DNA as a group.
So too are pieces like “Six Bells.” As a fan, my mind immediately flashes to “Bird of Prey” from their 2011 Small Stone-delivered breakout, Salvador (review here) for an example, and that song would seem to get a namedrop in the second verse: “They’ll never understand the bird of prey.” If I’ve focused a lot on the lyrics in this review, and I think I have, it’s a result of the obvious thought and consideration that went into framing and telling the stories the band are telling. “Six Bells” manages to both reference William Blake and include plain-language lines like “You’ve never been my friend,” and “We’ve never been a team,” which feel honest and sincere and cutting. “Ozymandias” holds a warning from Percy Bysshe Shelley, and seems to capture a particular Summer-of-’24 electoral energy with, “Every day getting closer to the dying of the light/And if the fire doesn’t kill her then a new perspective might.” It’ll be something when the democrats run Harris again in the primary for 2028, assuming they haven’t all been gulagged by then.
But it’s the emotive cast of “Six Bells” as delivered through Martin‘s unmatched-in-the-heavy-underground soul, and the force of the full band, whether it’s Bartz‘s cyclical tom runs, Scott‘s crucial low end groove running around Chris‘ riffing and well-plotted leads or what — Get Well Soon emphasizes everything that has not only let Lo-Pan flourish for two decades, most of which they’ve spent as one of the US’ finest acts in underground heavy. And as the finale’s hook anchored is with, “Held down, surrounded by what’s drowning me/Six bells I’m never, ever sick at sea,” the band offer resolution without giving up the still-in-it crux of feeling and being defeated.
In no small part thanks to movement of the songs themselves, Get Well Soon doesn’t sound that way, i.e. defeated. What it seems to do instead is offer the band’s point of view not necessarily as a salve — there’s zero sugar-coating in the lyrics, zero pretense in the construction of the songs; Lo-Pan are not pretending this is something other than the album of songs that it is — but as an experience to which one might relate and feel a little less alone. It’s not for nazis even passively and that it’s willing to take a stand is one more thing to like about it as Lo-Pan remain grounded in a moment that seems to be calling for so much panic. Turns out there is strength to be found in being so thoroughly, existentially beaten.
Consider yourself lucky to be spared some flowery conclusion about Lo-Pan‘s 20 years and the work they’ve done in that time. The truth is they’ve had an influence, but Lo-Pan have never really had much interest in trying to carry the genre or the “scene” on their shoulders. They are who they are, and Get Well Soon doesn’t reinvent their approach, but it showcases the steady growth and identity that has emerged in their work over the amassed decades, countless tours and now-six full-lengths, each of which is a progressive step forward from the last. That’s a thing to celebrate in itself, busy as Lo-Pan might be otherwise.
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 19th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
The kind of midweek update that just might make the whole thing better, Howling Giant have posted word that they’ve finished recording their next album. Of course that doesn’t mean work on the yet-untitled LP — actually, it probably has a name and they just haven’t said what it is yet; fair enough — is done, as there’s likely still mixing and mastering to go, but the news is still good. Recording is done. On to the next thing.
That’s apparently a couple Twitch live streams before they take off on the East Coast run that will bring them to my hometown, Morris Plains, NJ (actually it’s the west side of Parsippany, but you know how it is with these post offices) as they make their way further north to Hopsmoker Fest in Braintree, MA. New material on the road? Crazier things have happened.
But when I see more on the next record — which has the monumental task of following 2023’s Glass Future (review here), but damn it, I believe in you, Howling Giant — I’ll say more. For now, they posted the following photo and update on socials:
Through flame and shadow, through fatigue and illness, through mountains of zebra cakes and pop tarts, we rise above the crucible of Neil.
Album 3 is tracked! We are beyond excited to show you what we have crafted and captured in just under 200 hours of recording time with the ever patient and wise Neil Tuuri at Amish Electric Chair Studios. Hoping that the stars align and we can share this record with you all later this year.
In the meantime, we’re back to road prep! How does a weekly stream until the April tour sound? See y’all every Thursday at 6PM Central on Twitch 👾
4/15 Louisville, KY – MagBar 4/16 New Kensington, PA – Preserving Underground 4/17 Morris Plains, NJ – Autodidact Beer (with Sun Voyager) 4/18 Braintree, MA – Hopsmoker Fest 4/19 Richmond, VA – Richmond Music Hall 4/20 Philadelphia, PA – Kung Fu Necktie 4/21 Durham, NC – The Pinhook 4/22 Charlotte, NC – The Milestone 4/23 Asheville, NC – Eulogy (with REZN)
Howling Giant are: Tom Polzine – Guitar and Vocals Zach Wheeler – Drums and Vocals Sebastian Baltes – Bass and Vocals
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 4th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
If you keep up with the Nashville trio via whichever social algorithm offends you least, you may have seen the picture above. Left to right, that’s bassist Sebastian Baltes, guitarist/vocalist Tom Polzine, and — oh, hello — Adrian Zambrano on guitar. The band have been in the studio lately, I think recording an album that I have no idea when they wrote because they haven’t stopped touring behind 2023’s so-rad-I’m-nervous-about-the-follow-up Glass Future (review here), and part of that process has apparently been bringing in a couple guests.
For those unfamiliar, Zambrano is known for his work in Ohio’s Brujas del Sol and a brief but memorable stint in Lo-Pan, and since moving to North Carolina last year released the Discomfort/Disorder EP (review here) with Shadowcloak. To all his work that I’ve heard, Zambrano brings a progressive mindset, technically proficient but not to the sacrifice of soul. He’s the kind of player who makes bands better, and the fact that he’s going to do this tour with Howling Giant on second guitar — not the first time the trio has become a four-piece; they spent much of 2024 on the road with James Sanderson on guitar and backing vocals — is only good news.
Except for the fact that I won’t see it. Check out the poster below — the tour starts April 15 in Louisville and is centered around the occasion of Hopsmoker Fest at Widowmaker Brewing in Braintree, MA (I happened to be there two weeks ago) — and you’ll note that on April 17, they’ll hit Autodidact Beer in Morris Plains, NJ. With New York’s Sun Voyager, no less. No shit, that’s like two minutes from my house. Inarguably the closest heavy rock show that’s ever taken place near where I live. Two traffic lights between here and there. It’s “around the corner,” as it were. I’ll be traveling April 17, and that’s not a hardship, considering, but still. New Kensington, PA, is five and a half hours from here, and I won’t be back by the time they’re in Philly. So I miss out on the closest show that’s ever happened to me. Go fucking figure.
I might send The Patient Mrs. to review the show, though. Fun fact: in 2012, she wrote up a show review for Mars Red Sky (with whom Howling Giant toured this past Fall) that was a hoot, and I already asked her to go to the venue and take the band baked goods — because in addition to all the other sundry ways she’s amazing, she bakes, and who doesn’t want a loaf of homemade sourdough on the road? — so we’ll see. Childcare is the question there, but it’s not like she has to go far to get to the venue. The Obelisk is presenting that Autodidact show, and god damn, I hope they do more in that spot.
From Howling Giant‘s socials:
Hitting the road around Hopsmoker Fest in April! Stoked to get back out and see all of ya as we emerge from our winter studio slumber. Who knows, we might even play a new song or two.
We’re also super excited to be bringing our buddy Adrian Lee Zambrano out for this run to shred dual guitars with us. You may have seen bits of him here already as he was laying down tracks with us at Amish Electric Chair Studios. Everyone wish Adrian a warm welcome to the HG Thunderdome!
4/15 Louisville, KY – MagBar 4/16 New Kensington, PA – Preserving Underground 4/17 Morris Plains, NJ – Autodidact Beer (with Sun Voyager) 4/18 Braintree, MA – Hopsmoker Fest 4/19 Richmond, VA – Richmond Music Hall 4/20 Philadelphia, PA – Kung Fu Necktie 4/21 Durham, NC – The Pinhook 4/22 Charlotte, NC – The Milestone 4/23 Asheville, NC – Eulogy (with REZN)
Howling Giant are: Tom Polzine – Guitar and Vocals Zach Wheeler – Drums and Vocals Sebastian Baltes – Bass and Vocals
Posted in Reviews on February 24th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Before Show
The ride up here was a breeze. It’s been a while since last I set foot in the Bay State, but the route I took — rt. 287 to 95 to 91 to 84 to the Masspike — is one I’ve been driving since my wife was undergrad at Brandeis in Waltham. So not without some element of nostalgia for times I drove north in high school and college to see her, in snow, the middle of the night, whatever other stupid situation.
But driving four-plus hours to see three bands isn’t so crazy in this day and age, right? I don’t know. If it is gonna take me two hours each way to see a show in New York, is two more hours up the coast for Worshipper’s 10th anniversary really that wild? They’ve got Roadsaw and Summoner on the bill, I have a place to crash (thank you to John and Kerry Pegoraro for the hospitality), and I’m able to drive. Seems like kind of a no-brainer to make it happen if you can get up the gumption, which I’ll note that I haven’t been able to do in the six years since we moved from Massachusetts back to New Jersey. Obviously that’s on me.
Worshipper released their first single, Black Corridor/High Above the Clouds (review here), early in 2015. I don’t know the exact date, but when they announced a 10-year show, I realized it’d been too long anyway since I saw them, and with the company they’re keeping it was an easy choice.
Like a lot of breweries, Widowmaker’s setup can by design easily accommodate a rock and roll show, and for sure it got one. Plus it’s in Braintree (which I’ll forever here in the guy’s voice announcing the T stop). If brewery shows are how heavy rock happens in the suburbs, I’ll take it.
Here’s notes on the night:
Summoner
The last Summoner album, Beyond the Realm of Light (review here), came out in 2017. Why lead with that factoid, I don’t know, but I’m trying to give myself some sense of scale for time. They were an easy band to like at the time, and before that as well — it was their third album — and they were an easy band to like going on eight years after the fact. Funny to feel nostalgic as they hit into “Phoenix” at the start of the set, but there it is. I don’t know how much they’re up to, but they were always super-tight and a ton of fun besides. Whatever else the intervening years have wrought, their time on stage was enough to have me wondering what a circa-2025 album might sound like from these guys. Full-blown prog metal? Maybe, but they always had that underlying impulse to ride a riff when it worked, so I’m not sure I’d want to predict. I wouldn’t mind finding out, of course, but there was no mention of working on anything new or anything like that from the stage. I’m not holding my breath, but still, never say never, and as packed as the room was, clearly I wasn’t the only one who’d be up for such a thing. Good band. It would be cool to see them get credit for being as ahead is the heavyprog curve as they were.
Roadsaw
I think maybe it’s been 11 years since the last time I saw Roadsaw, which seems impossible, but the links don’t lie. Their 2019 album, Tinnitus the Night (review here), was kinda-maybe-sorta their swansong — or at very least I’m not expecting a follow-up anytime soon — retained their signature charm and songwriting, throwing somehow-friendly elbows, and so on. But that wasn’t the focus here. With Darryl Shepard on guitar alongside a largely mustacheless Tim Catz, Craig Riggs and Mike LeFevre their drummer whose name I don’t know, the set was centered around their earlier work. First three albums. They had CDs of Nationwide for sale and I bet they sold a few, since I own the record and was thinking of picking up a copy just on moral grounds because they were so much fun to watch. Darryl, of Kind. Milligram, Hackman, Blackwolfgoat, indeed Roadsaw, and I honestly don’t know how many others, is always a thrill to watch on stage, and Tim Catz remains a punker with classic heavy tone. His and Riggs’ energy, chemistry, was a familiar (if long ago) dynamic, and Riggs teased the prospect of doing more from the stage, so I’ll just for the announcement to come through that they’ve been added to Ripplefest Texas or some such. I wasn’t the only one feeling nostalgic — the older material made sure of that — but after 11 long years, to get to see them again was humbling. Let this be signs of life.
Worshipper
Happy 10th anniversary to Worshipper. This was my first time seeing the band as a three-piece, as they bid farewell to lead guitarist Alejandro Necochea right around the release of their third album, One Way Trip (review here), which to put it bluntly took some of the wind out of the sails of the band’s best work to-date. Worshipper were actually the band I’ve seen most recently in this show, and it’s been since 2019. I was glad to have come north before they were done playing songs from 2016’s Shadow Hymns (review here), their first LP and thus the beginning of their chronologically-arranged set. Widowmaker was packed out, and I can’t speak to the experience, but if I was in a band for a decade and we pulled like 200 on a Saturday night in our hometown, I feel like that would be pretty satisfying, and indeed, guitarist/vocalist John Brookhouse (who handled the solos), bassist Bob Maloney and drummer Dave Jarvis looked pretty stoked on how it all turned out. Me too. They didn’t make it easy on themselves in setting up the night to follow Roadsaw, but there was no doubt whose party is was when they got going and they held it down until the venue had to cut them off for time, losing out on some of the material from One Way Trip in the chronological running, but throwing in their take on Uriah Heep’s “Easy Livin'” as appeared on their 2018 Mirage Daze EP (review here) to finish with a blowout, and to be sure that worked just fine.
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Thank you to The Patient Mrs. for making this quick trip north possible. Thank you to John Pegoraro and Kerry Pegoraro for letting me crash at their house and do a little writing on their couch. And thanks to John Brookhouse for making sure I was okay bringing my camera through the door. I saw some old friends at this one, and that made the night even more special. More pics are after the jump, as usual.
