Posted in Whathaveyou on August 18th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
It’s kind of astonishing how identifiable Domkraft‘s sound has become over the last decade. There’s no doubt who you’re listening to in the new single “Void Runner,” even as the Swedish trio lean into atmospherics, adjusting the balance of impact and ambience that has made their records to-date so spaciously crushing while furthering the songwriting that has made their records so memorable. Last year when the band canceled their West Coast US tour on account of health issues, it didn’t seem reasonable to worry if they were done. They answer that question with their fifth album, Night Songs, which is out Nov. 20 with preorders up now from Magnetic Eye.
And if you need a spoiler, that means very much ‘not done.’ If you heard 2023’s Sonic Moons (review here), you already know Night Songs is a thing to very much look forward to, and “Void Runner” only ups that level of anticipation. With that unspecified medical trauma apparently feeding into the experience of writing the album, the inherent uncertainty of the process of healing, I’m curious how it will manifest in the songs, but one way or the other, you know you’re hearing Domkraft. “Void Runner” is a welcome refresher ahead of the album.
Fresh off the PR wire:
DOMKRAFT reveal music video ‘Void Runner’ & details of forthcoming new album “Night Songs”!
DOMKRAFT present the first advance single, ‘Void Runner’, taken from their forthcoming new full-length “Night Songs”. The fifth album from the heavy psychedelic rockers from Sweden is slated for release on November 20, 2026, via Magnetic Eye Records. The album is available for pre-order at THIS LOCATION:https://spkr.store/collections/domkraft
DOMKRAFT comment: “You know the feeling when you think that from here on things can only get better?”, vocalist and bass player Martin Wegeland asks rhetorically. “The idea that you’ve finally reached rock bottom? Well, the state of the world always proves you wrong. This song is basically saying: ‘give us your best shot, fuckers!’ At this stage, we are prepared for almost everything. We are done believing and have fully switched to brace yourself mode. Yet, this song is definitely not about resigning or giving up. In fact, it rather deals with amassing enough power to cope without cracking, and possibly even dance while doing so.”
Tracklist 1. Unnamed 2. Lights On 3. Aurora 4. Void Runner 5. Eclipse (Outlast the Night) 6. Dead Rocket 7. Tunnels
Personal experience of any kind has always inspired artists. It is therefore hardly surprising that the traumatic medical crisis which DOMKRAFT guitarist Martin Widholm faced in 2025 has found an echo on the Swedes’ fifth album “Night Songs”. Although his band mates didn’t have to undergo several complicated surgeries as he did, they were of course also affected as bystanders in less threatening but nonetheless meaningful ways.
Their collective outlook on life and what is truly important shifted during this period of terror. When the band started working on new songs during Widholm’s long phase of recovery, many contradictory feelings surfaced in both the music and the lyrics. From fear bordering on panic, the pendulum swung to cautious relief. And through sadness and joy, hope and despair, they went all the way to finally arrive at the humbling realisation that they were still able to do what they dearly love: creating music.
The album title, “Night Songs”, partly stems from the Swedes’ experiences during the past year, but also crosses into the broad idea of darkness versus light. This can mean personal hardships, the present state of the world, or the concept of actual night itself. The night may turn into a time of regret, solitude and insomnia but also into the opposite, as a calm phase of relief, relaxation, and even debauchery. All of this happens at night. And just maybe, these “Night Songs” could foremost deal with resilience.
“Night Songs” was recorded at the renowned Studio Gröndahl in Stockholm by David Castillo (OPETH, CANDLEMASS, KATATONIA et al.). Karl Daniel Lidén (GREENLEAF, LOWRIDER, BREACH) was asked to maintain DOMKRAFT’s sonic identity by again mixing and mastering the album.
“Night Songs” should be enjoyed like a feverish, dream-like cocktail that is expertly mixed from equal parts deafening quiet and soothing loud noises, then sprinkled with insomnia, relief, contemplation, and a dash of red-hot anger for raw spice.
Live: 23/24 OCT 2026 Oslo (NO) Kulturkirken Jakob, Høstsabbat 8-10 JUL 2027 Erfurt (DE) Stoned from the Underground Fest
Recording by David Castillo at Studio Gröndahl, Stockholm (SE) Mix & mastering by Karl Daniel Lidén Artwork & layout by Björn Atldax
Line-up: Martin Wegeland – vocals, bass Martin Widholm – guitars Anders Dahlgren – drums
Posted in Reviews on August 11th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
I don’t know how many Quarterly Reviews I’ve done at this point, but aside making my wife avoid me for a week, they’re always their own, probably-doesn’t-make-sense-to-anyone-else kind of fun, and it’s an engagement with music that I don’t get in any other way, even doing this site. Some of it feels like the old days in print, with the pile of CDs on my desk waiting to be reviewed for that week’s column, maybe 100 words per (I try to keep it to 150-200 here), with half the challenge going from one thing to the next and not repeating myself. But I don’t really expect anyone to get that. It’s work, but I enjoy it.
Yesterday was killer like Phyllis Diller. If nothing hit you, I hope today’s more your speed. If not, check back tomorrow. I’ll still be here, doing the thing.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
Edena Gardens, Quintessence
The fifth album from the instrumentalist amalgam of Causa Sui and Papir, Edena Gardens‘ Quintessence not only references the ordinal relevance but embodies the title’s implication of getting to the very root purpose of the project. Spread across four sides of a 2LP, the 80-minute six-songer is the band’s most open and rawest-feeling outing to-date, and for a project that was ‘supposed’ to produce a trilogy and then everybody goes home, they continue to bring a sense of vibrancy and exploration to their jams. The difference is that here, the songs are longer, there’s less editing involved, and the production, while clear enough to convey the spirit of what they’re doing, feels pointedly straightforward in doing so. And from the willfully, surprisingly Sabbathian “Nigredo” onward, the titles give hints toward their evocations of ground and color, be it “Earth Blemish” or the 22-minute finale “The Vermillion Quintessence.” Maybe not the best place to start with the band, but on the other hand, maybe it absolutely is.
“You Already Know” is the fourth studio single from New Zealand four-piece Stone Clones, founded in 2021 by the brotherly pair of guitarists Seager and Calum Ray, the former of whom also serves as lead vocalist in harmony with bassist Juan Los B while Dylan Byrne holds the alt-rock-informed-desert push through the chorus toward the particularly post-Homme solo that follows. The lyrics are something of an assessment of modernity and the “you” in question becomes a stand-in for the greed that exploits and ruins the polis of our day. The song runs 6:20 and captures a mood without giving entirely over to it even in that final verse where some of the purported Radiohead influence comes out, and as they continue to grow and work toward a somewhat inevitable debut album, the place they’re making for themselves between styles will continue to hone its own identity through the songcraft they demonstrate here, making heavy sounds and ideas feel light and able to sway the balance in whatever direction they want.
Comprised of just the two songs “Lever” (7:49) and “Capra” (5:42), this second EP offering from psychedelic depthmakers Os Solair doesn’t shy away from heft just because it’s also creating a sense of space or wash of effects. “Lever” grows more fervent as it goes and “Capra” picks up where it left off, but the Darmstadt, Germany, four-piece are mindful of dynamic and melodicism as well, and apparently recording live in their rehearsal space with vocal overdubs after, they come across as atmospheric and bit noisy but not really chaotic in the sense of not knowing where they’re headed. That is to say there’s a plan at work on Lever/Capra, and that can be heard as the latter cut moves into its more subdued, psych-adventuring midsection, tense enough in the drums to convey the explosion that’s coming but nonetheless a turn from the lower-end weight of the song’s beginning. Molten in its use of effects on guitar and vocals, it’s almost subversively grounded in the rhythm section, but the two sides work together with a fluidity that’s where the band’s real potential lies. I will look forward to what they do next.
The Nothing is the first solo album from former Midnight Whiskey Massacre guitarist Darren Ironside, and perhaps unsurprisingly the guitar leads the way for most of the nine-song offering. Based in the UK, Ironside blends throaty vocals that at times cross over to the metallic over a succession of riffs informed by doom rock, thrash, classic heavy, etc., over what I’m fairly sure are programmed drum progression, and though the mix is raw and pushes the vocals forward, songs like “To the Gallows” carry across a sense of brooding as the shred pervades, complementing the lyrical disaffection of “Forgotten Dream” — a familiar Charlie Chaplin sample there as well — and, on the other side of the noisy interlude “Nebula Rising,” “Overwatch and Control.” The bottom line is Ironside, who also self-produced, is figuring out where he wants his songs to go — or where they want to go, if you’d rather personify — and beginning to shape his own sound separate from his prior outfit and has something to say about the world around him. It’s raw and will come off abrasive at first to the unacclimated, but there’s groove to be had.
The ad astra per aspera narrative of New York’s Sun Voyager continues with their latest standalone single, “Coming Down,” which arrives scorching as if they knew the summer would be too damn hot and required something duly humid to coincide. No surprise though it’s a burner, and in the ascendance of guitarist Christian “Shaman Smoke” Lopez as a lead vocalist joined by bassist Stefan Mersch — the band is completed by drummer Kyle Beach, reliable and not to be discounted in holding their songs together — here manifests a sense of breakout that is wrought in the reptitions of the title line, sneering with attitude and righteously cosmic. It’s been nearly four years since Lopez joined Sun Voyager after they lost their prior guitarist/vocalist, and the time the band spent woodshedding and nailing down their chemistry is audible on “Coming Down” as well as the prior serve-notice single “Running Hot” (premiered here). I don’t know what it’s leading toward beyond probably an LP sooner or later, but Sun Voyager sound increasingly ready for whatever’s coming. East Coast psych gnarl. Get it.
Cultish and telegraphing their Iommi worship in their presentation — they’re certainly not hiding it in the music either — Athenian trio Oath reportedly recorded their first full-length Unteach live, and while I don’t know how that accounts for the doubled solos, with one foot in the Hammer Horror of “Alucarda ’77,” and the other in the pastoral “Orchid”ness of “Through the Evergreen Fields,” the band carve a place for themselves in “My Second Life” with a sound that’s as much proto-doom as it is punk as it is metal, and the place it winds up is crushingly heavy in “Soviet Invasion” and the penultimate “Dies Capri” and still plenty heavy but more playful in “Fur, Claws and Leather,” taking influence maybe from earliest Electric Wizard, is satisfyingly individual. That is to say, while you can pinpoint the roots of where they’re coming from, the actual material of the album, raw as it is, is not at all without stylistic nuance. They let the slower tempos manifest foreboding rather than occult theatrics, and that suits the buzz-tone riffs as well. It’s a weird one, but full of purpose in that, and so appreciable.
Somewhere in the gray ether that exists between post- and black metals, Greek unit Automaton harness a grim spaciousness as their Sound Effect Records-delivered third album Labyrinth, retelling the titular mythology in impressionist lyrics throughout as the six-song/46-minute sprawl varies from ripping to crushing and back again. “Ariadne” and the prior “Minotaur” hone a thickened viciousness, while the 12-minute “Black Sails” is a more ambient delve, building in its second half to a march ahead of the cavernous interlude “Your Bull Nature Clouds Your Human Self” — perhaps a thesis for the record — before the blastbeats resume in closer “Battle in the Labyrinth.” The story is allegorical (duh) and the telling is relevant in theme as well as aesthetic, but the gnash stands on its own as well in its fury and satisfies in terms of the plot as well as in execution. Much to its credit, even as it follows a linear narrative, at no point does Labyrinth feel like it’s subsumed songwriting to that, and each piece fleshes out with a patience correspondant to mastery.
Ultimately, it’s the poise here that makes Witch Ripper‘s third album so lethal, and if you’ve seen the band likened to Mastodon somewhere along the way, the Matt Bayles production probably has something to do with that, but the Seattle progressive riff metallers conjure their own feeling of space across the seven included songs. I’ve said on multiple occasions that part of what’s kept me from being a fan of this band is the kind of unthinking misogynist implication of their moniker, but there’s no denying either the growth they’ve undertake between albums or the sense of accomplishment overarching Through the Hourglass as a manifestation of their approach that they’ve been working toward all the while. Alternating between shorter and longer songs highlights the structural variety on display, and the shifts between clean-sung and harsher vocal styles gives purpose and drama to the procession from one piece to the next, with closer “The Spiral Eye” seeming to take cues from the likes of Blood Incantation in its leads while providing due culmination to the encompassing entirety prior. They’ve always meant business and they still do.
Self-releasing UK apparent-newcomers Hostile Tides offer their first EP in the five-song/17-minute Dead Man Talking, taking a double-guitar approach to heavy instrumentalism that’s pretty clearly in the process of shaking out where they’re headed in terms of style but that just the same conveys their setting forth on that progression. Chunky-style riffing in the centerpiece “Adrift” feels like it’s got some ’90s crunch, but it’s kind of hard to tell if that’s the rougher edges of the recording showing through an initial outing or something purposeful on the part of the band, or both, considering the way the song turns to a dreamier midsection with the bass holding to ground while the guitars branch out into atmospherics. Tonally more Karma to Burn than Russian Circles, they make the divergences a strength and a distinguishing factor, and the five-minute capper (the EP works shortest to longest) “Peaks” hints toward a burgeoning patience of craft. They could go just about anywhere from here.
Johnny Tirade and The Circle of Futures Past, What is at the Beginning of Eternity, the End of Time, the Beginning of Every End, and the End of Every Place
When Dublin’s Johnny Tirade and The Circle of Futures Past labels themselves as “stoner industrial-tinged,” I think they’re talking about the Ministry-esque push of opener “Hey Man” and the overarching tonal crunch (maybe also the drum machine) more than the acoustic guitar in near-17-minute centerpiece “Memory Hole” (also sax) and the concluding “Improv,” but one way or the other, that self-applied tag hardly encapsulates the weirdo gamut of the band’s cumbersomely-named 31-minute debut album, What is at the Beginning of Eternity, the End of Time, the Beginning of Every End, and the End of Every Place. But it’s part of it. There’s an earnest experimentalism at play in the songs as each of the five tracks wants to and does head to its own destination, but the more you hear “Lizard Johnny” or the samples and spoken verses of “American Dream” (prececed by “Fuck the…” in the chorus; fair enough), the more they make their own kind of linear sense, and as a showcase for what the band/project might become, the plunge undertaken in these tracks is an encouragingly odd fit for any number of square-hole genres in which one might try to shove them.
Posted in Reviews on August 10th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Hi and welcome to the Summer 2026 Quarterly Review. Every day this week I’ll be posting a round of 10 reviews to total 50 by Friday, rounding up recent releases, stuff I’ve missed, etc. There are a few things in the mix that aren’t out yet that I’m going to sneak in (shh…), but it’s entirely possible I’ll be doing this again next month or in October, so, you know, sit tight. My hope is that you find something to hear you haven’t heard before, or at very least have your opinions validated on whatever it might be.
Without further ado, we roll.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
Goddess, Ritual of the Cloven Hoof
Based in Sweden and signed to Majestic Mountain Records, Goddess are an offshoot of 2010s-era doomers Goatess and feature guitarist/vocalist Karl-Martin Buhre and drummer Kenta Karlbom from that band alongside guitarist Anders Martinsgård (Black Solstice) and bassist John Jansson in the revamped, renamed four-piece on their six-track/37-minute doom-chugging debut album, Ritual of the Cloven Hoof. Sort-of-debut album? I don’t know how you want to classify it, but either way the point is doom, and Goddess inherit a penchant for massive riffs and forlorn spaces as songs like “To Be King” and the eight-and-a-half-minute “Born Again Heathen” begin to define a character that is their own within the genre, the latter leaning a bit into doomedelic jamming ahead of the closer “Devil’s Reef,” which returns to ground in reliable fashion with deceptive vitality in its push. It’s no coincidence they sound like they know what they’re doing, because they do, but their Ritual is also the beginning of a new exploration, and holds all the more potential for that.
A new Irata album isn’t something that happens all the time, and fair enough. Some bands need to live before they write songs about it, and that’s not sarcasm or criticism for how much heart the North Carolinian trio put into their music. Human, while only their fourth LP since 2007, comes seven years after 2019’s Tower (review here) and starts out duly moody to suit the times in “Altar” and the bassy “Confessions,” but the swaying highlight “Seeds” finds a way to inject more energy into the delivery without sacrificing atmosphere, and though they hit into speedier fare in “Mirrors” or the penultimate “Goodside,” they do so while maintaining a patient progressivism, which leads to the masterful unfolding of capper “Daystar” across two linear builds, the latter of which ends the Human on a fading rumble. While maintaining a current of raw expression, Irata are able to conjure expanses in their sound. A J. Robbins mix doesn’t hurt in that effort, but it wouldn’t work if the songs didn’t run as deep as they do.
Oh hell yes. Indonesian stoner doomers Gutward bring about a lumber that’s a sure reminder of what dragged me onto this wretched lifepath to start with. Huge, immersive grooves, airy but discernible vocals — that actually have something to say about the world around them; bonus — and a sense of space and outreach that is at once free and encompassing. I is their first release following the 2024 single “Mauna Vedanā,” and its five-track/35-minute course is less about innovation than celebration, reveling in the largesse of march at the end of “What’s With the Rush?” or the addled vastness in “Mass Delusion” and hopefully-foretelling-of-things-to-come melodic showcase “Rot Alone” ahead of 12-minute capper “The Messages,” which is heavy enough for whatever you need flattened but holds firm to its tempo gruel and the melody established by the song prior. My only problem with the record is I can’t figure out which label I want them to sign to most, but either way, I is easily among the best debut albums I’ve heard this year. I look forward to hearing where they go from here.
A six-years-later follow-up for the potential wrought in their 2020 self-titled debut (review here), Smokemaster‘s In the Temple is in coversation with the breadth of modern psychedelia and the friendly melodies of ’60s pop-psych alike, and the Cologne outfit manage to make even a mover like “Do it Again” feel like a quiet, intimate moment, while pieces like the title-track and “Electromagnetic” feel less concerned with heft than float, and “Down in the Salt Mines” hones a wash that turns the extended solo in its back half to an utter triumph brought to heel in favor of a quiet last verse. Acoustic guitar, organ, effects, breathy vocals, clever layering — all of these elements serve the needs of the songs, and the songs have more range for them, but the underlying structures are a strength as the harmonies in “Citrus Leaves” demonstrate before they bring the album to an effectively stirring resolution. It’s the kind of record that might make your day better.
At the core of Bantoriak is Izio Orsini from Rancho Bizzarro, who in 2015 debuted the project with Weedoism (review here) and all its attendant weirdness. Vol. II follows suit 11 years later — what is time? — but finds Orsini working with a range of guests, from Sergio Chotsourian (ex-Los Natas, etc.) on the lumbering post-intro plunge “Blu Bus,” to members of Vesta, Supernaughty and Zen Circus, resulting in a could-go-anywhere vision of meditative heavy psychedelia. There’s throat singing on “La Muerte del Sitar,” while “Ritualism” finds the sitar very much alive and droning, “Kairot” lets the guitar scorch a bit, and “Liquid Brain” feels like a lost jam from The Heads. The last four minutes are dedicated to the ethereal noise of “Karpura,” with the later reaches lost to distant shouts and a consuming sound that might be running water. A lesson in how to be in-genre and still totally on your own wavelength.
While I don’t envy any band the task of distinguishing themselves in London’s underground scene, which is arguably the most packed-with-riffs of anywhere the world over and has been at this point for some time, the manner in which Troy the Band meet the challenge head on with their second album (Des), following on from 2024’s debut, Cataclysm (review here), with a collection that finds the trio of guitarist Sean Burn, bassist Sean Durbin and drummer Jack Revans answering the departure of vocalist Craig Newman by including a breadth of guest appearances. The penultimate “Adoration of Ill Luck” features Ana-Maria Terr Bordei, whom they’ve since welcomed as their new permanent singer, and her command over the massive groove there honed is enough reason why, but only one among a slew of highlights that include the immediately preceding “Memory Glowing,” with Peter Holland (Elephant Tree, etc.) and Kay Elizabeth (Black Orchids), and the screaming volatility of “Nothing” or “Choke.” There’s a lot happening in any individual cut, but the root instrumentals tie it all together and make (Des) an engrossing journey of a listen.
I know the focus on the new Burning Sister two-songer, Plunge b/w Fadeout (Live), is supposed to be the A-side, the new studio track and the ‘gaze vibes therefrom, the steady roll brought to bear for just under six minutes, hypnotic and full in its unrolling, hinting toward psych but staying true to the band’s stated intention of being ‘Mile High Downer Rock,’ bassist/vocalist Steve Miller and drummer Alison Salutz exploring and finding a plane between atmosphere and impact, but don’t sleep on the B-side either. This live interpretation of “Fadeout,” which opened the band’s 2023 Get Your Head Right EP (review here) when they were a trio but here becomes a showcase of fuzz density, nod and ’90s druggery. I suppose there’s no wrong answer between the two cuts, but “Fadeout (Live)” makes an easy comparison point for the Denver two-piece’s continuing excursion into the outer bounds of heavy weirdness, and even better, I suspect that’s why it’s included in the first place. For more, see their 2025 LP Ghosts (review here), and yeah, I really mean that you should.
Focus is an aptly-titled six-years-later return and fifth album overall from Memphis heavy rockers The Heavy Eyes. Issued through Magnetic Eye and Kozmik Artifactz — the latter of long association — the 11-song collection swings and reaches out and puts its focus on the songs themselves, which are taut, well composed, and able to make a four-minute slab like “It’s All Simone” feel like an epic reach even as it takes its place in the overarching flow of the material. That might be experience or maturity coming through — they hit 15 years since their debut in 2026 — but with shades of All Them Witches in the vocals, a gleeful tonal swamp in “Corporal Upham” ahead of the fuzz-bluesy “That Cold Goliath (Might Return),” and hooks to spare throughout, The Heavy Eyes remind that so much of the appeal in the first place was their ability to cohesively take on a range of elements and fuse them into a single stylistic statement. The self-awareness with which Focus would seem to have been made hinders this not in the slightest. Heads up, rockers.
Atmospheric heavy psychedelia presented across five duly broad tracks comprises this impressive debut full-length from Vienna-based trio For Eons, and Collide both has intricacy in the now and speaks promises of things to come in its sprawling sound, patient in centerpiece “Depths of Time,” excitingly prog-fuzzed in opener “Old Friend,” and righteous in the payoff of the eight-and-half-minute “Echoes of the Past,” the vocal melody in the latter putting the band in league with the likes of The Machine or the still-missed Sungrazer while the clearheaded tones in the start-stops of “Million Voices” and the will to drift in closer “From the Jungles to the Cities” (which has its own start-stops toward the finish) harness a sense of progressivism without feeling overly indulgent so much as engaging the listener on more than one level. The title speaks of smashing things together, and maybe that’s how the band experiences their music, I don’t know, but from the listener’s standpoint their songs are more fluid than they might at first seem.
Classic Swedish hard/heavy rock from the second Rödtjut full-length, Framtiden var bättre förr, with a songwriting that pushes toward the proto-metallic in “Rödögd blåtira” (and elsewhere) but balances that out with, say, the flute in “Vår tid” or the organ-inclusive mellowprog fluidity of eight-minute instrumental closer “Efter stormen.” It’s in Swedish, obviously, and I’m ignorant of the language, but the chug of “VMA” transcends gerunds, and as they demonstrate with the leadoff title-track, a hook is a hook regardless of what the syllables actually mean. The lead guitar in “En plats som vi inte förstår” has a bit of fuzzy stank on it, but by and large the intention is toward straight-up hard rock of the later-’70s variety, though somebody in this band likes Judas Priest, and that’s reasonable. This is my first exposure to Rödtjut, who have apparently been through some lineup changes since their debut in 2023, but the straightforward approach suits them and the songs hit a stylistic sweetspot, so you won’t hear me complain.
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 7th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Okay, so. In addition to these freshly-announced, fishing-themed-because-they’re-hooky-get-it tour dates in Dec., Greenleaf will be at FuriousFest this month in France, have their first-ever US tour lined up for Sept./Oct. which will take them from Ripplefest Texas to In the Key of Doom, and then they’ll be back in Stockholm in Nov. for Truckfighters Fuzz Fest ahead of returning to the US at the end of Jan. for Planet Desert Rock Weekend, and I don’t know anything about anything, so don’t quote me, but I’d imagine there will be a West Coast run around that fest appearance as well, with the tour still TBA.
It’s a pretty packed schedule for a band who don’t have an album out, but I have to acknowledge that at one point in my life, I thought I’d never see Greenleaf, ever. Now, not only have I seen them multiple times with different lineups in various settings, big stages and small, but they’re coming to the States. I mean, short of playing North Jersey, they could hardly make it easier. Sometimes, when I think about how generally awful the world is, I remind myself of thing like this and life doesn’t seem quite so oppressive. No, I won’t be in Dresden or at the Freak Valley Xmas show (though that would be fun), but it’s still relevant to me because someone else will and maybe they’ll feel the same way about it I do.
10.12 Jena KuBa 11.12 Dresden Beatpol 12.12 Siegen Freak Valley Xmas 14.12 Paris Backstage By The Mill 15.12 Dortmund Junkyard 16.12 Münster Rare Guitar 17.12 Groningen Vera 18.12 Bielefeld Forum 19.12 Hamburg Knust
GREENLEAF North American Fall Tour 2026: 20 SEP 2026 Austin, TX (US) Ripplefest Texas 21 SEP 2026 Houston, TX (US) The End 22 SEP 2026 New Orleans, LA (US) Broadside 23 SEP 2026 Atlanta, GA (US) The Earl 24 SEP 2026 Asheville, NC (US) Eulogy 25 SEP 2026 Lexington, KY (US) Al’s Bar 26 SEP 2026 Chicago, IL (US) Reggies 27 SEP 2026 Milwaukee, WI (US) X-Ray Arcade 29 SEP 2026 Detroit, MI (US) Sanctuary 30 SEP 2026 Toronto, ON (CA) Monarch Tavern 01 OCT 2026 Montreal, QC (CA) Piranha Bar 02 OCT 2026 Braintree, MA (US) Widowmaker Brewing 03 OCT 2026 Brooklyn, NY (US) The Meadows (…In the Key of Doom)
GREENLEAF is: Arvid Hällagård – vocals Tommi Holappa – guitars Sebastian Olsson – drums Hans Fröhlich – bass
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 23rd, 2026 by JJ Koczan
So yes, Heavy Temple and Crystal Spiders hitting the road together, with the latter playing …In the Key of Doom in Brooklyn and both bands appearing at Grand Rapids Doomfest is killer, right? Two rad bands, marauding through the Fall-season countryside of the Northeast and Midwest for nine shows in nine days — very cool. It’s a no-brainer.
But putting that aside for a second, look at the bottom of the post. You’ve got links and players, as usual for a news piece, but I feel like when I’m talking about something two bands are undertaking together — like this tour — I never know how to organize that part of the thing. Do I put the band links together, then label links? Do I do one band’s links (including label) and player together? Cut out the labels entirely to avoid confusion?
I know nobody thinks about this crap except me, and that’s my point. I’ve been harping on this for years now. Imagine being so hung up on that kind of thing. Imagine that’s your life.
I still don’t have the answer. It never looks ‘right’ no matter how I put it.
But it’s a good tour, so even without a go-to answer for formatting outbound linkery, here it is:
TOUR ANNOUNCEMENT!
We are stoked to announce that Heavy Temple and CRYSTAL SPIDERS are hitting the road together in October 2026 !! Nine cities, two weird basses, one riff-worshipping party from Philly to Chicago. LET’S GOOOOOO
📅 OCTOBER 2026 Oct 2 – Nikki Lopez – Philadelphia, PA Oct 3 – In the Key of Doom Fest, The Meadows – Brooklyn, NY (Crystal Spiders Only) Oct 3 – Counterweight Brewing 7 – Cheshire, CT (Heavy Temple Only) Oct 4 – Middle East Upstairs – Cambridge, MA Oct 6 – Pie Shop – Washington, DC Oct 7 – No Class – Cleveland, OH Oct 8 – Al’s Bar – Lexington, KY Oct 9 – The 808 at Indy CD & Vinyl – Indianapolis, IN Oct 10 – Grand Rapids Doomfest, The Pyramid Scheme – Grand Rapids, MI Oct 11 – Reggie’s – Chicago, IL
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 13th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
The emotive melody comes forward on “Drifters on a Quiet Stream,” which is the second single from Besvärjelsen‘s out-next-month new album, Till Glömskan Ad Oblivionem, and a classic-style heavy now-we’re-talking-about-feelings ballad. Messy as that can be — feelings, that is — the Swedish atmospheric heavy rockers bring clarity amid the slow roll and evocative piano. Drummer Erik Bäckwall cites Elton John as an influence in the PR wire info below, and yeah, fair enough, but there’s no question Besvärjelsen are working in their own context, and Lea Amling Alazam‘s contemplative vocal highlights the human element amid the lush arrangement.
If you never believed there could be more than one kind of ‘heavy,’ “Drifters on a Quiet Stream” argues effectively otherwise. It and the first single “Didn’t Come to Party” are down at the bottom of this post. Have at it:
BESVÄRJELSEN reveal lyric video power ballad ‘Drifters on a Quiet Stream’ taken from forthcoming new album “Till Glömskan Ad Oblivionem”!
Swedish forest rockers BESVÄRJELSEN unveil the beautiful lyric video ‘Drifters on a Quiet Stream’. This power ballad comes in watercolour style with images bearing strange fruit as inspired by the album cover of their forthcoming third full-length “Till Glömskan Ad Oblivionem” (Swedish and Latin for: “Into Oblivion”).
“Till Glömskan Ad Oblivionem” is scheduled for release on August 28, 2026, via Magnetic Eye Records. The album is available for pre-order here: https://spkr.store/collections/besvarjelsen
BESVÄRJELSEN comment: “‘Drifters on a Quiet Stream’ had the working title ‘Elton’ as Elton John was one of the musical inspirations for this song”, drummer Erik Bäckwall reveals. “The intro and main riff was originally intended to be a part of another song. When I got our former bass player Johan to listen to the riff, he rather advised me to create a completely new song from this part. I am really glad now that I did that.”
Lea Amling Alazam adds: “This track explores the ever-present companion of the self – the voice that follows you through life, both to comfort and to critique”, the vocalist explains. “It is the quiet presence on your shoulder. When writing those lyrics, I revisited an old notebook and found a phrase I had once scribbled down: ‘…my ghost and I’. I’m not sure where I first came across this idea, but it stayed with me. It felt like a beautiful and honest way to describe living alongside your own anxiety, and I knew from the start that I wanted to build something around it.”
Recorded by Andreas Baier & Marcus Lindqvist at Glashuset, Ludvika (SE) Mix & mastering by Karl Daniel Lidén at Tri-Lamb Audio Studios, Solna (SE) Cover art by Björn Olars Layout by Erik Bäckwall
Guest musicians Fred Burman (SATAN TAKES A HOLIDAY) – lead & backing vocals on ‘Accelerating Hearts’ & backing vocals on ‘Didn’t Come to Party’ Pelle Andersson (LOWRIDER) – organ on ‘Black Wave’
Line-up Lea Amling Alazam – vocals Staffan Vinrot – guitars, vocals (& accordion, violin, keys, keyed fiddle) Andreas Bajer – guitars, vocals Erik Bäckwall – drums Marcus Lindqvist – bass
[Click play above to stream the premiere of Solace’s Fading Failing Ruin in its entirety. Album is out this Friday, July 3, on Magnetic Eye Records.]
A new Solace record doesn’t happen every year. It’s been seven since the New Jersey-based riff metallers ‘returned’ with 2019’s The Brink (review here), and that wasn’t the longest stretch of their 30 years as a band. The arriving-this-week Fading Failing Ruin is their fifth full-length, their first for Magnetic Eye, and their second to feature drummer Tim Schoenleber, vocalist/sometimes-keyboardist Justin Goins and bassist Mike Sica alongside co-lead guitarists Justin Daniels and band-founder Tommy Southard.
As with The Brink, the cover is by Paul Vismara (Deer Creek) and the production, mix and master for these nine songs was done by Eric Rachel (of Trax East fame), and from the 14-minute highlight “Wrath’s Object/The Big Fall” to the two-minute “Culling the Herd” — and yes, they do appear back-to-back in the tracklisting, but I’m talking about the divide in terms of methodology — through “Beyond Below,” which has a riff Southard and Schoenleber apparently jammed on as teenagers before they were in Godspeed together in the ’90s, and the tense crunch of (most of) the penultimate “Every Day is a Loaded Gun,” it is as guitar-fueled as Solace have ever sounded. They are all-in and uncompromising in a way that — as a fan of the band, and someone who is in no way impartial about their work — I can only consider purely their own.
Accordingly, Fading Failing Ruin runs 67 minutes, and while I haven’t sat with a stopwatch and clocked how much of that hour-plus is spent on solos, solos behind choruses, solos leading to other solos, and/or solos on top of other solos, the answer is ‘plenty’ regardless. But if there’s a message to the dreamy six-minute intro of “Wrath’s Object/The Big Fall,” based around far-off swirling lead lines, acoustic guitar and keys for which I believe Lowrider‘s Pelle Andersson sat in remotely or Rachel provided, it’s that Solace aren’t going to be rushed unless they want to.
Chaos is still a close friend of the band, and from the opening “Spiral Will” onward, they bring an energetic sweep that carries the listener across the four sides on offer. The first of those, with “Spiral Will” — keys there as well — “Fettered to a Stone” and “A God Changes His Plans,” feels like immersion. There’s nothing tentative about it, but “Spiral Will” and “A God Changes His Plans” are shorter and in the case of the latter, punchier, and while “Fettered to a Stone” runs nearly eight minutes and features a twist-and-chug that’s classic Solace, smoothing out in midsection before Goins‘ shouts top the shred-fueled crescendo; in their wheelhouse, but with a self-awareness and sense of composition emblematic of both the band’s status as veteran songwriters and of their intention to kick as much ass as possible where and when they can.
“A God Changes His Plans” is the only inclusion besides the aforementioned “Culling the Herd” under four minutes long and is a preface to the hardcore lean of that song as well as “Every Day is a Loaded Gun” — lest the listener forget Southard‘s punker roots in Social Decay, Robot Dicks, etc. — but an early lyrical highlight with a standout line like “A future born of a dopesick mother,” showcasing another aspect of what Goins brings to the proceedings. He is bolder in his contributions here and more declarative of self than on The Brink, and it is only to this album’s benefit. It’s not quite “Like a rorschach butterfly of terror inked in blood and ashen rain” from the subsequent “Wrath’s Object/The Big Fall,” but you get the idea.
There’s a depth of purpose throughout Fading Failing Ruin that reveals itself beneath the in-your-faceness of the guitar work and the general thrust of groove, helping to create a flow across the entire span of the 2LP. And about format, as much as “Wrath’s Object/The Big Fall” earns its place as the lone denizen of side B, in a linear setting, the lead-in from “A God Changes His Plans” and the lead into “Culling the Herd” (which on vinyl starts side C) is a thing to be appreciated. Brash as they are and always have been, Solace are not unconsidered here. The push, the union of classic metal(s) and hardcore punk, sludge, doom riffing, and so on, all comes together as a single dynamic reach on the part of the band, and the album is a ride from start to finish. It does not sit still, it does not feel any need to capitulate to expectation, but it and the band that made it know what they’re about, and on a craft level, it’s a work of mastery.
This might be shown in the hypnotic draw-in of the long intro changing over to the immediate verse of “Wrath’s Object/The Big Fall,” but that’s hardly the only example present. The longest song on Fading Failing Ruin is a triumph unto itself and suitably on Solace‘s own terms, the strained whisper about kissing “the feet of a whore in the hate of a moment” — presented as a kind of hitting-bottom — notwithstanding, and represents well the range of mood they’re able to harness. Side C’s “Culling the Herd,” “Beyond Below” and “Malengine (The Scaffold)” might be considered the ‘meat’ of the album, were the whole thing not so meaty. The decades-ago origin of “Beyond Below” is noted above, but clearly the track has been fleshed out from whatever might’ve been on that rehearsal tape. It’s a highlight (there’s that word again) for the early vocal harmonies as well as the Slayery midsection that follows and the arrival of a doomier organ line, and “Malengine (The Scaffold)” is no less catchy or arranged-feeling, but more urgent in tempo. In its second half, it breaks to a stretch of dual-leads twice, and that becomes a complement to the chorus en route to the rousing finish.
If you’ve made it this far without any bruises — and if you’re paying attention, you likely haven’t — then side D’s pairing of “Every Day is a Loaded Gun” and the 10-minute “Ridden” should do the trick. Goins sneaks some welcome backing harmony in amid the shove of the former, but it’s the chug and the shout running headfirst into a wall of a mosh riff and organ-backed solos and the build that ensues before the comedown and arrival of a layer of acoustic guitar near the end, still leaving time for some gallop before they’re done, that makes it.
The already-started-where-you-been beginning of “Ridden” does little to communicate the ground the closer actually covers, but as regards Solace making something cohesive out of decades of influences across and beyond heavy subgenres, soloing the crap out of it, and refusing to follow any rules other than their own, it would be difficult to find a more appropriate sendoff. Another choice lyric in the second half “What hell would you crawl through if you thought you could trade/That broken part of you for something even you could not degrade?” becomes repeated as the final challenge the band issue moving toward the fadeout, and in what should by that point be no surprise, the guitars continue to rip even into that departure.
I’ll admit to some temptation to call Fading Failing Ruin stately, because in those moments like at the end of “Ridden,” they’re cognizant of what they’re doing, of the atmosphere they’ve created, but as a word, it’s not punk enough. They remain unto themselves in sound and celebration of what in many contexts would be excess, and at this point, for a fan, everything they do is like a bonus. I don’t think you can talk about the best heavy underground bands from my beloved Garden State without their name featuring prominently in the conversation, and with nothing to prove, they prove it here anyway.
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 1st, 2026 by JJ Koczan
I don’t imagine much of anybody who spent time with Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree‘s 2023 album, Aion (review here), will need much convincing to get on board with the follow-up — titled In Between Strides and set to release Sept. 18 on Magnetic Eye — but as immersive as that record was/remains, the Stuttgart-based worldmakers are moving forward just as they did to get to the point they were at three years ago. I’m curious to hear how their focus on melody and use of acoustics plays out in the post-heavy context of what they have wrought to-date, and if you’re like me, the first single and opening track “Departure,” is streaming now at the bottom of this post.
Note that on the tracklisting, “Departure” is bookended by “Return, Precipice” at the finish. One wonders if the title isn’t meant to be read literally, if the whole album — however long it is in actual human minutes — isn’t intended to convey the nuance of a few seconds; one step into the next, and so on. Though of course the title In Between Strides also evokes notions of forward movement, which has been a consistent factor for Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree since their outset.
I snagged the following from Bandcamp:
When German four-piece BEES MADE HONEY IN THE VEIN TREE began to find their bearings on where to go next from the success of their previous full-length, “Aion” (2023), the core idea for the fourth album, “In Between Strides”, was to take a more melodic approach. All else, they would leave to the creative process and somewhat to chance. BEES MADE HONEY recorded every other song on “In Between Strides” in various settings that were available to them at the time of creation: a cavernous cellar, a concert stage, an indoor balcony, a living room, their rehearsal space, even returning to the studio where their first album “Medicine” was tracked.
Through this spontaneous and shifting approach, BEES MADE HONEY began to move texturally and stylistically from ambient and drone toward shoegaze along with more acoustic elements. According to their original plan, “In Between Strides” stepped into more melodic territory, with each song representing a different aspect of the band’s musical vocabulary.
BEES MADE HONEY IN THE VEIN TREE originate from the Swabian capital and German city of Stuttgart. All four members grew up together, eventually forming the band in 2014. Their musical template of ambient psychedelic doom was established with the debut album “Medicine” in 2017, and their sound has continued to evolve ever since. With “In Between Strides”, BEES MADE HONEY have turned rage into reflection by developing a more organic and spontaneous approach to their songs, opening up wide spaces and letting the melodies flow freely. This musical honey tastes simply delicious.
