Gothenburg, Sweden’s Homegrown release their second, self-titled album this Friday, Dec. 5, through Majestic Mountain Records. Note that the knight on the album cover is riding his horse backwards. These little clues divulge the persona of the instrumentalist four-piece, whose prog aspects feel ’70s-rooted without retroism and who on “Huldran” here use that progressive ideology to bask in a dub jam, so Homegrown‘s Homegrown, substantial-feeling at 10 tracks/51 minutes. They get low-slung and blues-jammy on “Adams Äpple” and find a tonal brightness in “Häxjakt i Snetakt” that is about more than just the shreddy solo that takes hold. There’s a sense of charge there, in contrast to the later “Gånglåt till Käringberget,” which is more outwardly serene and folk-informed. Is that an accordion I hear? It might be, but I’ve got a cold, so don’t quote me on it.
Folk becomes no less essential to the listening experience, and if one hears some likeness to Needlepoint in the ultra-organic “Mylingen” before the surging but still melodic payoff — nickelharpa? — I don’t think that’s necessarily out of line, though I’ll admit my knowledge of actual Swedefolk is pretty limited. Fortunately for me, Homegrown have more going on than just that. “Huldran” has a heavy psychedelic swirl, and “Den Hornkrönte” sounds like a lost ’60s surf instrumental. Closer “Talisman” has a mellotron. Clearly this is a band willing and ready to go where their songs are leading them, but one can’t listen to an arrangement like “Ringöpolskan,” when it brings in the acoustic strum late and say Homegrown aren’t minding the details here. They credit themselves with guitar, bass and drums, and I suppose it’s possible to make all these noises with those instruments, but the plainness of that does little to convey the actual adventure you’re about to embark on in listening.
Beginning with “Frihetsvisa i A-Moll” at the album’s outset, but true of “Huldran,” “Den Hornkrönte” and “Ringöpolskan” as well, Homegrown attempt to knock the listener off balance with a kind of false start. It sounds like they were making noise before ‘record’ was pressed, and feels specifically geared to give this impression, but the effect is to make their audience all the more open to what a song is doing by making them believe it’s already started. There are some stark turns from these intros as well, and part of what the album teaches is that Homegrown can be relied on to change up their approach and include the occasional misdirect. Light tricksterism. It feels consistent with the charm of their arrangements on the whole.
If your takeaway from the above is progressive instrumentalist heavy psychedelia with Swedish folk elements, that’s a decent start for knowing where Homegrown are coming from, but no doubt there’s still a surprise or two in store for you listening to the album, which you can do on the player below, with more PR wire info following.
Please enjoy:
Formed in 2018, Homegrown quickly earned attention with their fuzz-drenched sound, equal parts psychedelic exploration and hypnotic groove. Their early work, including the debut EP Berget Gråter (2023) and full-length Himalayaz (2024), showcased a raw, vocal-driven approach with guitarist Cedric Bergendal handling the mic. But for their new album, they’ve decided to ditch vocals entirely and quite honestly, they don’t need them.
After years of sweaty, high-energy shows across Sweden alongside acts like Endless Boogie and Öresund Space Collective, Homegrown have built a reputation for turning live stages into volcanic experiences. Now with their self-titled release, the band cements their status as one of Scandinavia’s most magnetic instrumental acts, no words, no filters, just waves of heavy sound rolling straight from amp to audience.
Tracklisting: 1. Frihetsvisa i A-Moll 2. Häxjakt i Snetakt 3. Huldran 4. Adams Äpple 5. Mylingen 6. Forséns öra 7. Den Hornkrönte 8. Gånglåt till Käringberget 9. Ringöpolskan 10. Talisman
Producer: Sebastian Darthsson & Homegrown Engineer: Sebastian Darthsson Mixing Engineer: Sebastian Darthsson Mastering: Per-Robin Eriksson
Homegrown: Cedric Bergendal: Guitar Marcus Bertilsson: Guitar Adam Jensen: Bass Oskar Brindmark : Drums
Posted in Reviews on November 17th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Happy Monday, and welcome to the Quarterly Review. Or welcome back, anyhow. I said last month that I might try to sneak another one of these weeks in before the end of November, and I’m honestly not prepared to say this’ll be it for the year. There’s a lot out there to keep up with, and this is the most efficient means I have for ‘keeping up,’ as best as I can do that anyhow. I don’t know, man. I’m just trying to get through the day.
This QR is 50 releases — I was slating them right up to yesterday, so some of it’s pretty fresh — and will go from today through Friday. It will be most, if not all, of what is posted this week. I hope you find something you enjoy. Let’s go.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
Beastwars, The Ship // The Sea
At nearly 15 years’ remove from their self-titled debut (review here), New Zealand’s Beastwars have been through ringers in life and music alike, but their sound on their sixth full-length, they’ve never sounded quite so refined. Understand, it’s Beastwars, so I still mean immersive and crushing riff-heavy rock, which the band have honed to a point of bordering on noise rock in pieces like “The Storm” or the later “You Know They’re Burning the Land.” “Rust” and “The Howling” maintain a sense of the epic with Matt Hyde‘s shouts alternately into and out from the abyss, but the band have grown in the six years since their last album of originals, 2019’s IV (review here), and for the blowout in “The Devil” and the weight of chug in “Guardian of Fire,” their impact feels all the more craterous for it.
I won’t take away from the shorter bangers here, whether it’s the wah-on immediacy of “Listen Close” or “Weird Scenes” with its stick-click immediacy, but each half(-ish) of Lacertilia‘s third LP (first for Majestic Mountain), Transcend, ends with a more extended cut, with “Nothing Sacred” (10:34) and “The Sun is the Key” (7:13) rounding out their respective sides, and the band are right to take the time when they take it. Of course, it’s symptomatic of the broader variety brought to the Cardiff five-piece’s craft, and they make Transcend a showcase of their reach, be it into acoustic strum and emergent bluesier scorch on “Over and Out,” the twisting lead guitar progressivism of “Deviate From the Plan,” which meets the grandeur halfway, or the percussion-laced instrumentalist build of the semi-title-track “Transcending.” They end up offering something different with each of the 10 songs, and balance raucousness and expressive purpose as they go in malleable and distinctive style.
With their debut album, Turin three-piece Dune Aurora draw together disparate ideas from across the modern riffy pastiche such that garage-style sway and more traditonalist stoner chug combine with at-times-ethereal melody, desert push, psychedelia and, in the case of “Trapdoor,” a poppier take entirely. There’s cohesion in the songwriting to match the aesthetic ambition, though, and Dune Aurora don’t come off as haphazard so much as multifaceted. The reworked prior single “Fire” demonstrates a fuzzy drive waiting in the wings as part of their approach, but the nod in “Burning Waters” is more dug in, and “Sunless Queen” reveals a patience underlying their builds that might come out more on subsequent outings, but the shove of “Crocodile” and that Nirvana riff in “Dune Chameleon” are vital to Ice Age Desert too, and it’s still just a sampling of the elements Dune Aurora use to ensnare the listener. As much as they have going on, that they don’t come across as confused seems to give them all the more potential.
Ghost Pain is the debut two-songer from Almeria, Spain, post-metallic four-piece Khayrava, who present “Red Hot Sun” (7:04) and “Ghost Pain” (10:32) with a marked sense of texture as part of their intention. Both tracks crush, but both also offer a moment of departure from that, and the latter plays off the impact of the former with a keyboardier air and its later divergence into floating melody and crash before, just past the eight-minute mark, they torch the whole thing with a worthy and minutes-long crescendo. “Red Hot Sun” is huge, but its midsection gives over to a break of Tool-y groove met with heavy post-rock flourish from the guitar. That also, of course, comes back around to the pummel, but it’s in the getting there that Khayrava begin to reveal the character of the band, and with the depth of mix they bring to Ghost Pain and the clear intent toward nuance of style, I’ll be on the lookout for where they go from here.
“Who invented 9-5,” River Cult ask on “Fast Crash.” “They should be shot dead,” is the answer the lyrics give. Fair. The third long-player from the heretofore undervalued New York-based disgruntled fuzzbringers manages to make a mental health crisis swing like desert rock on “Smoke Break,” the sixth of the seven inclusions on the 38-minute offering, seeming to answer the crash-in, warm tone and lyrical fuckall of the opening title-track in the process. They’re not wrong, and if you’re gonna say the world sucks, at least “Feels Good to Scream” has a density of distortion to hold up to the message, vocals biting through like early-metal’s cultist inheritor, cavernous and obscure ahead of centerpiece “Mind the Teeth” start-stop chugging as the lore of ‘The Wolf’ is cast. The trio of guitarist/vocalist Sean Forlenza, bassist Anthony Mendolia and drummer Eli Pizzuto (ex-Naam) find a niche for themselves in downtrodden fuzz, ending with “New Song,” which even having been tracked at Brooklyn’s Studio G sounds fresh off the stage.
In the soaring vocals of Kate Prokop and the riffs behind them chugging away at the verses of “The Dead Follow” and the moodier surge into the layered hook of “Witch Hunt,” Omaha, Nebraska’s Beast Eagle answer their 2024 self-titled debut EP with five more songs of metal-rooted heavy groove, clear and fluid in “Sharp Tongue” but not without aggression underlying. The bass in “The Dead Follow” is mixed the way I feel bass should always be — forward — and that gives even the mellower stretch as they move into the ending a different sense of presence than it might otherwise have, but in the galloping verse and sprawling chorus of “The Demonstration” and the rush of “Send Me Down,” the latter of which, admittedly, is more of a rocker, speaking to a burgeoning dynamic in their sound, they retain a feeling of charge, and that defines Sorceress‘ 19-minute run as much as the taut chug in “Sharp Tongue.”
Having relocated from Denver to Asbury Park, New Jersey, The Munsens are no less vicious or crushing on their second album, Degradation in the Hyperreal. “Eternal Grasp” starts the procession as much death metal as it is sludge, which is an ethic that “Supreme Death” will bring to gorgeously extreme fruition a short time later, while pieces like the melancholic, minimalist instrumental “Vesper” and the blistering megasludger “Sacred Ivory” and the outro “I Avow” offset the onslaught of “The Knife,” “Scaling Ceausescu’s Balcony” and the lumber-into-double-kick of “Drauga,” vocals offering precious little comfort for the downward journey of the record’s 46 minutes. That “The Knife” finishes, specifically, ahead of “I Avow,” stands as testament to just how far The Munsens have pushed into extremity over the course of their decade-plus, but they are not entirely unforgiving either, despite having grown only more gnashing over the course of their decade-plus tenure.
They’re not thrash, but thrash is part of what Dayton, Ohio’s Rattlesnake Venom Trip get up to on their new four-song EP, Eclipse the Sun, with a sharp edge to the riffing on lead cut “Hollowed Eyes” that tells the tale. The second half of that track subsides some in terms of forward thrust, setting up the still-chugging-but-slower “Ablaze Set I,” with a more resonant hook, and “Brushstrokes/Eclipse the Sun,” which in its first half is as far as Rattlesnake Venom Trip go in divergence from the burl and push, but in its second answers for the metal and the nod both that it seems to have inherited from the opener. Punchy bass’ed reinforcement takes place over the five minutes of “Cold Winds Blow,” and the four-piece maintain a clear-eyed sense of identity through whatever turns the material makes, somewhere between heavy rock, Southern metal, thrash and stoner idolatry. You could sit and parse it, but the band make it pretty easy to trust where they’re headed as they go.
For their third long-player, The Craft of Pain (on Glory or Death), Brazil’s Pesta offer a take on doom born of traditional metal. They’re not aggro, or outwardly depressive, but “Masters of the Craft of Pain” and the swinging “Marked by Hate” find a route from Sabbath and the NWOBHM to doom just the same. A guest appearance from Scott “Wino” Weinrich (The Obsessed, etc.) on vocals for “Mirror Maze” is a departure, but not so radical as to be out of place, especially backed by the depth of groove in the subsequent rocker “In the Drive’s End.” On side B, the pair of “The Inquisitor Pt. I” and the initially-acoustic-based “The Inquisitor Pt. II” provide a more theatrical reach, but the acoustic-and-key-strings “Canto XXI” brings in Rodrigo Garcia (Diffuse Reality) for another curve before “Shadows of a Desire” returns to ground to finish out not so far from where “Marked by Hate” left off. At no point do Pesta feel like they’ve diverged from where they want to be.
The lyrics posted with the cumbersomely-titled “J.I.B.B.E.R.I.S.H. (John Inflates Balloons Because Every Remote Island Starts Hallucinating)” are wrong, and the level of psychedelic tricksterism and playfulness across Atom Lux‘s debut, Voidgaze Dopamine Salad is such that I’m not sure if that’s on purpose or not. Rest assured, different references to “I Am the Walrus” are being made. The self-recording solo-project of Roman multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Lucio Filizola is a garden of weirdo delights, with the keyboardy bounce of “Death by Small Talk” giving away none of the subversively easy garage swing of “Spaghettification Apocalypse” and “Stoned Monkey Heritage” bashing away like it’s an alternate-reality 1964, which by the way I’m no longer convinced it isn’t. It’s from gleeful oddities like “Dance Plague Delirium” that progressive rock first emerged in the comedown era. The same trajectory may or may not be in store for Atom Lux long term, but right now any kind of ‘comedown’ still feels a good ways off.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on October 27th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Newcomer Swedish crushers Hexjakt will release their debut album, Blessing of the Damned, on Dec. 1 through Majestic Mountain and Burning Skull Records. It’s pointedly doomly fare for the latter, which is more in line with traditional metal, but heavy enough to be a 62-minute onslaught of all-in atmospheric sludge riffing; a lumbering and persistent heft of tone that pervades in the roll of opener “10,000 Crows” and the bassy, shouted-into-the-void early going of “Black Circle,” which follows, and is manifest throughout in various forms, whether it’s the all-out oppressive shove in the first half of “Void Throne” or the sparser landscaping of the later going in that same song.
Thirteen-minute closer “Cathedrals” might be named in honor of the English doom outfit who would seem to have inspired its central riff, while “The Act of Dying,” which follows “Wyrd” and is the shortest original selection on the 2LP at 5:27, brings High on Fire-esque gallop to the proceedings, departing from the norm established across the album to that point in terms of tempo, answering the stoner swing under the echoing shouts of “Void Throne” as well as the breakdown riff in the penultimate “Monolith,” as Blessing of the Damned reveals itself as something of a heavy underground melting pot while remaining consistent in terms of craft and willing to take the time to dig into the nine-minute “Black Circle” or bring a sense of individualism to the daring cover included, a take on Dio‘s “Don’t Talk to Strangers.”
Now, I don’t believe in sacred ground in terms of rock and roll. Songs are meant to be heard, played, lived with and lived in. But even a lesser track from Holy Diver — by which I mean “Don’t Talk to Strangers” isn’t “Rainbow in the Dark” or “Holy Diver” — is a risky one to take on, since invariably some portion of the listenership will have a strong association/expectation of what’s to come, and Hexjakt are very much not Dio stylistically. This turns out to make them all the more able to pull it off, since they’re not bending their aesthetic to suit the material, but reinterpreting the material through their own creative lens.
Following the pummel of “The Act of Dying,” which caps with a persistent, brutalist succession of crashes and stomping, “Don’t Talk to Strangers” is hardly recognizable if you have the original in mind, with a spoken verse and foreboding fuzz opening to a consuming sprawl of riff, more weighted than what will soon follow amid the airier leads of “Monolith,” but well in line with the oldschool-aware slog that “Cathedrals” willfully becomes in its first half, before breaking to minimalist strum to build back up to Blessing of the Damned‘s last march, vocals shouting upward from deep in the mix to push the crescendo over.
If you find yourself struck by the cohesion and scope with which Hexjakt, who’ve been a band all of a year and had a self-titled EP out before having their first album picked up for release by two labels, execute their debut full-length, and maybe you’re asking yourself “who the hell are these guys?,” guitarist/vocalist Hampus Henningsson was in Signo Rojo early on in their run, bassist/vocalist Toni Åkerman was in Demon Seizure and has the solo-project Cibola, while Dan Nordinhasn’t been in 35 bands already, which for a good drummer is an accomplishment in itself.
Rather than look to pedigree for answers, then, Blessing of the Damned‘s own declarations about who Hexjakt are turn out to be more revealing in terms of tonal character, the bourgeoning of divergent intent in songwriting, and generally being the work of a band who pretty clearly had an idea of what they wanted to be upon getting together, even if that idea was wrought out as being very, very heavy. Hexjakt are that, to be sure, but Blessing of the Damned plays out with more personality of its own the more you hear it, and by the time its substantial course is over, it’s not a surprise to look around and find yourself in the sometimes-severe world the songs have made.
It is full of purpose in sound and construction, and if Hexjakt are committed to forward creative growth — something one can’t really know until it shows up in their sound on future outings — look the frick out, because few starting points feel as willfully self-directed as Blessings of the Damned, and so few resonate with as much potential.
PR wire info follows the lyric video
Hexjakt, “The Act of Dying” lyric video premiere
Hexjakt on “The Act of Dying”:
“The Act of Dying” is a dark, heavy, and unrelenting track exploring themes of mortality and transcendence. It’s also the final glimpse of the upcoming album “Blessing of the Damned,” out December 1st.
Hexjakt is a heavy, brooding doom metal band from Västmanland, Sweden. Formed in 2024, the band forges crushing riffs, haunting soundscapes, and introspective lyrics into a sound rooted in the spirit of classic doom, yet unmistakably their own.
Their music is slow, monolithic, and emotionally charged, delving into themes of the occult, human frailty, and the vast unknown. Released earlier this year, Hexjakt’s debut EP drew glowing praise from both listeners and critics, celebrated for its depth, intensity, and suffocating atmosphere.
On stage, the band delivers performances as punishing as they are immersive, dragging audiences into a realm of gloom, weight, and revelation.
With an unyielding focus on mood, texture, and emotional resonance, Hexjakt invites listeners on a journey through despair, mystery, and the shadows beyond.
Now the band returns with their first full-length album, Blessing of the Damned, set to be released on December 1, 2025 via Majestic Mountain Records in collaboration with Burning Skull Records.
A collection of the darkest and most conceptually charged songs they’ve written to date, Blessing of the Damned explores the tension between damnation and redemption, light and darkness. The music unfolds in a soundscape of crushing, slow-paced riffs, murky atmospheres, and lyrics evoking ritual ecstasy, defiance, and resignation.
Blessing of the Damned is no salvation. It is a curse you choose to carry.
Tracklisting: 1. 10,000 Crows 2. Black Circle 3. Void Throne 4. Wyrd 5. The Act of Dying 6. Don’t Talk to Strangers 7. Monolith 8. Cathedrals
Line-Up: Hampus Henningsson – Guitar/Vocals Toni Åkerman – Bass/Vocals Dan Nordin – Drums
Norway’s Kal-El begin their tour of the US East Coast and Midwest tomorrow, Oct. 16. Today, they’re premiering their video for the new track “Juggernaut,” which heralds the coming in 2026 of their next full-length, Astral Voyager Vol. 2. If you’re not auto-stoked on that prospect by seeing the words alone, just hit up the video. Really. The best argument that anyone has ever made in favor of Kal-El has always been Kal-El songs. I could sit here for the next three hours trying to capture some aspect of the intangible righteousness of what the band does, and on a decent day, I might say something that someone hearing the song could relate to. Hypothetical cookie for me.
But even if that were to happen, there’s nothing I could say that’s going to convey the largesse of the roll that starts “Juggernaut,” or the way the five-piece seem to ‘go-big’ just as much on melody as impact. There is no revolution happening in Kal-El‘s music, and there never has been, and it’s never been about that. “Juggernaut,” in being the first audio from the follow-up to this year’s correspondingly banger Astral Voyager Vol. 1 (review here), is exciting regardless. It’s a celebration of heavy rock itself, of riffs, of volume, of the power of music to move you. I didn’t understand this about the band at first. But they’re songwriters, as they’ve proven over and again, and they prove once more with “Juggernaut.” I look forward to the next record and the many more steamroller grooves to follow.
Astral Voyager Vol. 2 will be out next year on Blues Funeral Recordings and Majestic Mountain Records. Some words on the single and the tour dates follow here, courtesy of the PR wire:
Kal-El, “Juggernaut” video premiere
Kal-El on “Juggernaut”:
“We are thrilled to finally unleash our next album “Astral Voyager Vol. 2” upon the world. “Vol. 2” is perhaps somewhat darker than Vol. 1, but everything is wrapped up in our style of playing and sound: expect heavy riffs, melodic vocals, and thunderous drums. “Juggernaut” is the first single, and it’s just that: a merciless juggernaut pounding every inch of your body with heavy, oh so heavy drums and riffs wrapped up in a wall of sound with the typical melodic KAL-EL vocals.”
Juggernaut is the lead single from the upcoming album ‘Astral Voyager Vol 2,’ set for release in February 2026. ‘Astral Voyager Vol 2 is a co-release by Majestic Mountain Records and Blues Funeral Recordings!
Kal-el will tour the US in October. Catch them on these dates October 16: The Odditorium – Asheville, NC October 17: The Pour House Music Hall – Raleigh, NC October 18: TV Eye – Queens, NY October 19: Sonia – Cambridge, MA October 21: MilkBoy Philly – Philadelphia, PA October 22: The Metro Gallery – Baltimore, MD October 23: Westside Bowl – Youngstown, OH October 24: The Sanctuary Detroit – Hamtramck, MI October 25: Reggie’s Rock Club – Chicago, IL October 26: X-Ray Arcade – Cudahy, WI October 28: Bottleneck – Lawrence, KS October 29: The Vanguard – Tulsa, OK October 30: The Lost Well – Austin, TX
Enjoy, and may the fuzz be with you!
Credits Video by Drain Hope ( / drainhope ) Written and performed by Kal-El Recorded at Bridge Burner Recording Engineered by Ørjan Kristoffersen Lund Produced by Kal-El Co-produced by Ørjan Kristoffersen Lund Mixed and mastered by Ruben Willem Copyright to Darkspace Music
Posted in Reviews on October 6th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Day two. Normally this is time for hubristic gibberish about how easy the QR will be, the overconfidence of one whose trees rarely appear as forests. But we persist anyhow, and today looks pretty good from where I’m sitting now, so despite the ‘Day 2 on a Monday’ weirdness, which I’m pretty sure makes no one other than myself even raise an eyebrow, things are rolling and one hopes will continue to be fluid. I wouldn’t say Day 1 came together easily, since it took me like two and a half days to get done, but neither was out unpleasant. Hoping for more of the same here, plus efficiency.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
Queens of the Stone Age, Alive in the Catacombs
Something of an identity crisis in Queens of the Stone Age perhaps that sees the long-running highest commercial export of desert rock shift from the cloying pop of their last two albums to a comparatively stripped down live recording in — you guessed it — catacombs, where apparently the acoustics are pretty sweet. Anybody remember when Tenacious D went into ‘the cave’ on the Tribute EP? No? Didn’t think so. Frontman Josh Homme, who carries the minimal arrangements on vocals largely with ease, and his ever-ace band filmed the whole thing; it’s all sepia, all very artsy, and they do “Kalopsia” and dip back 20 years to finish with “I Never Came” after “Suture Up Your Future,” which is the second inclusion by then from 2007’s Era Vulgaris. All told it’s five songs and 27 minutes, and whether you hear it as a cringe hyperindulgence of unaware self-parody or as an expression of human artistry in organic form surrounded by memento mori probably depends on how deep you run with the band. But they’re not hurting anybody either way.
Between recording and then remixing/remastering their 2021 debut Primeval Transmissions (review here) and signing to Argonauta Records, Portland meditative duo Breath, comprised of Ian Caton and Steven O’Kelly, expanded the lineup with Lauren Hatch on keys and their second album, Brahman, brings Rob Wrong (Witch Mountain) into the fold on guitar as well as helming the recording. The sense across the eight songs/42 minutes is still of exploring the reaches of consciousness, very post-Om in the foundational basslines and dry vocals, but having Wrong rip out a solo in each break of “Awen” sure doesn’t hurt, and hearing the full band come together around the culmination of “Hy-Brasil,” keys, guitar, bass, drums all-in tonally, is emblematic of their expanding horizons. As for those, “Sages” pushes toward its own vision of psych rock in conversation with the opener, and “Cedars of Lebanon” demonstrates malleability and balance that one hopes portend more to come as the band continues to grow and gel.
Johan Langquist The Castle, Johan Langquist The Castle
Kind of an awkward moniker grammatically for the solo-band fronted by original/once-again/maybe-erstwhile Candlemass vocalist Johan Langquist. Is it possessive? Is he The Castle? I don’t quite understand, but from the operatic complement of Emelie Lindquist‘s backing vocals on opener “Eye of Death” through the litany of compiled singles Johan Langquist The Castle dropped over the course of 2024, there’s no mistaking the classic nature of the doom. “Castle of My Dreams” flows keyboardier on balance, while “Where Are the Heroes” gives riffers shelter in its chug, while “Raw Energy” and “Revolution” toy with the balance between the two sides, with “Freedom” as a classic-metal epic and “Bird of Sadness” as the comedown epilogue. Langquist, absent decades between fronting the first Candlemass LP in 1986 and rejoining the band circa 2011, would seem to be making up for lost time, and the ideas he’s exploring here warrant the investigation. I’m curious where this leads, which I think I’m supposed to be, so right on.
From Joshua Tree, California, Maliciouz is the solo-outfit of Michael Muckow, who handles guitar, bass and drums for the molasses-thick instrumentalist proceedings. Tortoise arrives beating you over the head with its tone and metaphor alike; eight songs and 58 minutes of lumbering density wrought with dug-in purpose, harnessing heaviness-of-place as riffs and often melancholic drone metal crash. It’s an art project, but without pretense of being anything other than it is, and Muckow — who makes a point of noting his age (67) in the press material — composes for flow and immersion as each slow march gives way to the next, culminating in the semi-acoustic “The End,” which is no less on-the-nose than calling the album Tortoise to start with. No grand reflections, no sweeping statement. Tortoise lets the riffs do the talking and they say plenty about the grit and expanse Muckow is trying to conjure. Be careful out there. He makes it easy to get lost.
The former co-guitarist/vocalist of Neurosis has come a long way since his guy-and-guitar beginnings as a solo artist, and Alone in a World of Wounds reaps the textural fruit of Steve Von Till‘s willful artistic progression in a piece like the leadoff “The Corpse Road” or “Distance,” which caps side A fluidly with the only use of drums on the record, reminiscent of The Keening‘s awareness of sonic weight and atmospheric sidestep. The cello, synth and field recordings build out what would be minimalist arrangements without them and remain early-morning quiet, the piano on the spoken-word-topped “The Dawning of the Day (Insomnia)” and flirtations with lushness on “Horizons Undone” softly shaping the album’s world with the electronics of “Old Bent Pine” ahead of the guitar-based “River of No Return,” which closes with what feels like an updated take on Von Till‘s earlier woodsfolk craft, reminding that ‘heavy’ is just as much existential as it is aural.
Solitude Over Control is as much a confrontation as an album, and that’s very clearly the intention behind Glasgow’s Mrs Frighthouse for their Lay Bare-issued debut LP, Solitude Over Control. Its 11 songs foster a bleak gamut of industrial sounds, portraying dark and inflicted sexual violence as part of the band’s expression. Slaying rapists, then, and fair enough. Intertwining layers of vocals and experimentalist pieces like “Seagulls (Part 1)” give an avant-garde air to the crush of “DIY Exorcism” and the lurching, abrasive finish of “White Plaster Roses,” soprano vocals and electronic noise externalizing the unsettled in a way that can only really be thought of as ‘extreme’ in a musical sense. “My body has never been mine,” confess the lyrics of “Our Culture Without Autonomy” with horror-style keyboard behind them; there’s a show being put on here, but it’s visceral just the same, and the later “My Body is a Crime Scene” turns the accusation direct: “My body is a crime scene/He did this to me/My body is a crime scene/You did this to me” in a moment that lands powerfully unless you’re a fucking sociopath.
A joint release between Majestic Mountain and Copper Feast Records, Eroded Forms/Inertia presents as a double-EP split release between Melbourne, Australia, melodic heavy post-metallic rockers Droid, who dare toward aggression on “Reverence” and the sludgier shouts of “Ruin” after leading off with “Khaki” without giving away the plot such that the blastbeats of “Resonance” still hit as a surprise, and Sweden’s I Am Low, who answer the fullness of tone with careening on “Sweet M16” before the grunge melody of “Greed” makes that song a highlight, “Waves” flows with less emotional baggage and a subtle hook, and “Inertia” wraps as a landing point with duly vibrant crash. Grunge and a hairy kind of fuzz are shared between the bands, but each has their own purpose. I don’t know if it’s a release of convenience to make it a split, but it makes for an engaging showcase, and if you’ve never come across either of them, the best arguments for digging in are right there in the songs.
Portland five-piece doomly flamekeepers Tar Pit begin their second full-length (on Transylvanian) with the 10-minute three-parter “Dagon, Dark Lord Dwelling Beneath,” the longest inclusion (immediate points) at 10:15 and bookended with the title-cut at the record’s end. Between, from the more rocking aspects of “Coven Vespers” to the downtrodden roll of “Blessed King of Longing,” the five-piece remind of doom at the turn of the century, when ‘traditionalism’ in doom metal was something of a defiance against modernity instead of an aesthetic unto itself. More than 20 years, The Gates of Slumber, Reverend Bizarre, and what was then the Church of True Doom would seem to have evolved into Tar Pit‘s Eldritch Doom Syndicate, and that’s nothing to complain about as “Blue Light Cemetery” accounts for Candlemass and Cathedral after the dim-blues of “Jubilee” secures the band’s place in the heavy morose. If you were just getting into doom, this kind of thing might make you want to start a band, and yes, that’s a compliment.
Dirt-coated riffing leads the way on GRGL‘s Horror-Bloated Ouroboros six-song EP, as Jake‘s guitar, Hal‘s bass and Nick‘s drumming in the first-names-only Salt Lake City trio align around a chug in the opening “Horror-Bloated Ouroboros (An Overview),” that, despite the dry-throated barks that top it, remains among the more accessible moments of the churning sludge-doom outfit’s 23-minute outing. To wit, “Born Again” and the even more gurgley (hey wait a minute!) “My Skeleton” takes roughly the same elemental formula and slows it the frick down, thereby becoming immediately more tortured. The overarching impression is unipolar — raw, heavy, miserable — and the vocals are part of that, but the dynamic between those first two songs is answered for in the uptick of pace that arrives with “My Pie Hole” and the angularity of the shorter instrumental “Absorption/Secretion,” while the plodding reprise “Born Again (Again)” closes so as to make sure everybody ultimately gets where they need to be, i.e., hammered into the ground. Eat dust shit sludge. Hard to get away from thinking of this as the true sound of our times. Maybe it’s the title.
It’s a clear and classic style across Grusom‘s aptly-titled third album, III, which arrives some seven years after they were last heard from with 2018’s II (review here), the band who’ve become a low-key staple of the Kozmik Artifactz roster demonstrating in no uncertain terms what’s gotten them there. Vintage-heavy heads will find plenty to dig in the organ-laced flow of “Shadow Crawler,” “Hell Maker,” the later “Fatal Romance” and the more open finale “Mortal Desire,” and while “Le Voyage” has many of the same aspects at work, it shows the Danish six-piece as flexible enough in their approach to convey a range of emotions, ditto the wistful Graveyard-y “Memories” and the interlude “Euphoria,” making sure that among the places III might take a given listener, there’s nothing to remove them from the procession carried along by the band.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on September 23rd, 2025 by JJ Koczan
With the premiere of the video below for “Scent of Blood,” Sweden’s Electric Hydra officially begin the process of heralding their upcoming album, From the Fallen, which is set to release early next year through Majestic Mountain Records. And as regards the news here, that’s about the long and short of it, but that hardly accounts for the careening hook and vitality behind the push of “Scent of Blood,” the stage-ready affect of the five-piece, or anything else the right might have to offer. Fair enough since ‘early 2026’ could mean as many as six months from now, and rest assured, there’s enough attitude in “Scent of Blood” to hold you over should it actually go that long.
The band have had some lineup changes since 2023’s standalone single “Eyes of Time”(premiered here), as vocalist Sanne Karlsson, bassist Ellinor Andersson (also of Astroqueen) and drummer Dennis Åhman return and guitarists Adi Selimic and Emil Andersson will mark their first studio appearances with the band. It’s funny too, because in that linked post I said something about the band being a “Per Wiberg guest appearance away from taking over the world.” I’m not going to take credit for it, but I can’t help but notice the PR wire below revealing that Mr. Wiberg will indeed sit in on From the Fallen. Sometimes a thing just makes sense, and when you put on “Scent of Blood” and get an initial feel for the ’70s-derived-but-modern-in-approach craft of Electric Hydra, I think you’ll agree this is one of those cases.
I’d love to tell you all about it and how it all ties together when Karlsson‘s dad takes a guest spot too and such and sundry, but I haven’t heard the full album yet, and honestly I don’t even know if it’s done. We’ll find out in the New Year. It’s been half a decade since their 2020 self-titled debut (review here). You can wait a little longer. I’m interested though to note that “Scent of Blood” — you’ll see in the video Sanne Karlsson and Emil Andersson glamming out like Cyndi in the ’90s, as well as performance footage — was recorded twice.
According to Ellinor Andersson, it was done “two times in different studios with different band members.” I wonder if this is true of Electric Hydra‘s next album as a whole, if maybe they had an LP at some stage of completion and after either a lineup change or some other decision, scrapped it and went back to the start.
I’d be curious to know if that’s the case, and if so, how the two LPs — that is, the one to be released early next year and its hypothetical, maybe-partially-done preceding incarnation referenced in that 2022 post in much the same “new album next year” fashion as it is now three years later — might compare and contrast.
But I’m a nerd, so take that for what it’s worth. At its heart, “Scent of Blood” is a sans-BS, pretense-free heavy rock and roll song that, in terms of ambition, wants nothing more than to bring you along for its sub-five-minute ride. The video is entertaining and professional, and the song build momentum in way that one could easily imagine opening the band’s next record.
PR wire info follows. Please enjoy:
Electric Hydra, “Scent of Blood” video premiere
“Scent of Blood” is taken from the new album “From the Fallen” that will be released on Majestic Mountain Records early 2026. A high voltage hard rock song with a lot of fatal riffs.
If you cut off one of the eight heads of the mythological hydra monster, two new heads will grow back. Swedish Electric Hydra is no exception. After some years being (almost) quiet the heavy rock quintet are now returning with a new album consisting of 11 tracks. The symbolical title is “From the Fallen”.
“‘Scent of Blood’ is a song that has been with us for many years now. It has been recorded two times in different studios with different band members. And it has had no less than three titles… So, you can definitely say that it’s one of the first songs written on the album,” says bassist Ellinor Andersson.
“Dennis wrote it right after “Electric Hydra” was released in 2020. Maybe it’s a good thing to let a song live a life of it´s own before you release it, I don’t know, but anyhow we are really pleased with the way it turned out,” vocalist Sanne Karlsson adds.
“The video was recorded by Jacob Hellenrud (Children of the Sun, Nephilia + more) a friend of ours and it was fun to do,” Sanne Karlsson continues. “We wanted to give the viewers flames, fury and fashion! The main character is Carita, a fierce woman who doesn’t hesitate to shine. With Jacobs’ skills behind the camera the result turned out both great and hot in two senses. The lyrics are about the feeling you get when you take what you want in life – and take it with full force.”
As guitarist Emil Andersson explains: “I played with these guys for some years now and I am happy to have contributed to this new album! It is heavy but still has a lot of catchy hooks and raw energy.”
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They are known to be an energetic live act delivering high voltage rock with a lot of chunky guitar riffs, catchy vocal hooks and some retro vibes. Earlier years they played both smaller venues and festivals in Europe such as Sweden Rock Festival (SE), Fuzzfestival (SE), Malmöfestivalen (SE) and SWR Barroselas Metalfest (PT).
Their self-titled debut album “Electric Hydra” was released in 2020 on Majestic Mountain Records/Tee Pee Records and was well received by both critics and fans. Since then, the band has released yet another single “Eyes of Time” and has had some member shakeups and has also been writing songs and playing live. Two new guitarists have now been welcomed; Emil Andersson and Adi Selimic.
On the new album you can hear contributions from Per Wiberg (Spiritual Beggars, Opeth), Mateo von Bewitcher (Bewitcher) and last but not least Bo Karlsson, father of Sanne Karlsson.
Electric Hydra is: Sanne Karlsson – Vocals Emil Andersson – Guitar Adi Selimic – Guitar Ellinor Andersson – Bass Dennis Åhman – Drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 12th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
One thing leads to the next, I suppose, as the same week Majestic Mountain Records offers up the latest from Northern Irish crushers Slomatics, so too do they announce the next British-Isles-based release they’ll stand behind in the form of Lacertilia‘s Transcend. Anytime we’re talking just about anything Welsh and heavy, my mind goes to ’90s riffkings Acrimony, from Swansea, but Cardiff’s Lacertilia have a modern sense of atmosphere to the album’s first single and closing track, “The Sun is the Key,” calling to mind latter-day Steak with the bit of vocal burl atop instrumental outreach. It’s always a bold move for a band to give away how it all ends, but the seven-and-a-half-minute track has atmosphere and push alike, a grabber of a hook and a heavy groove underscoring the whole thing. I’m curious to find out how they get there.
Oct. 24 is the release date, as the PR wire informs. You can check out the semi-kaleidoscopic video for “The Sun is the Key” at the bottom of this post, with all its sun-baked yellow light and flowing riffery. Apparently that’s how they spent the solstice. Could do far, far worse, from the look of it:
UK heavy psychedelic rockers LACERTILIA to release new album “Transcend” on Majestic Mountain Records this fall; first single “The Sun Is The Key” streaming!
Cardiff-based heavy psych torchbearers LACERTILIA return after five years with their anticipated third studio album “Transcend”, due out on October 24th through Swedish powerhouse Majestic Mountain Records. Stream their brand new single and video for “The Sun Is The Key” now!
Lacertilia stand out as a fearless blend of psychedelic soul and heavy riff warfare, rooted in their Welsh stoner rock identity but unafraid to draw from cosmic textures, primal energy, and punk-inspired vigour. A powerhouse live act, they have leveled stages from Desertfest London to Hellfest in France, converting audiences at every stop.
Their sonic evolution culminates in their forthcoming third album and Majestic Mountain Records debut “Transcend”, which sees the five-piece refining their explosive sound, merging the massive riffs and spacey explorations they are revered for with darker, more intricate textures of folk, prog and post-rock. The result is a heavier, more dynamic listen that charts a course through themes of profound personal growth and transformation, grappling with the nature of reality, existential dread, the breakdown of relationships, and the future of mankind.
Their new single “The Sun Is The Key” is a pagan space rock epic that soars with cosmic energy, connecting themes of higher consciousness, mysticism and ancient spiritual practices. Lacertilia worked with filmmaker Ren Faulkner to capture a ritual sunrise performance in the Welsh Mountains during Summer Solstice ’25.
New album “Transcend” Out October 24th on Majestic Mountain Records (LP/CD/digital)
TRACKLIST: 1. Archaic Oscillations 2. We Go Here 3. Listen Close 4. Over & Out 5. Nothing’s Sacred 6. Transcending 7. Deviate From The Plan 8. Weird Scenes 9. Cerulean Sky 10. The Sun Is The Key
Lacertilia is Matt Fry – Acoustic Guitar, Vocals Lucas Zalunski – Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar Michael Young-Temple – Electric Guitar, Djembe Ed Hughes – Bass Carl Richards – Drums
Atomicult is the eighth full-length from Northern Ireland’s Slomatics, recorded as always by Rocky O’Reilly at Start Together Studio, mastered by James Plotkin with cover art by Ryan Lesser. The same team worked on 2023’s Strontium Fields (review here) and only one of the six records the sans-bass-who-needs-it three-piece have released since 2012 wasn’t produced by O’Reilly [trivia: it was 2016’s Future Echo Returns (review here), produced by Chris Fielding], so but for the fact that it’s their first time issuing through Majestic Mountain Records, one might be forgiven for getting an impression of Atomicult as continuing the thread. In some ways, that is actively the case. As with Strontium Fields, the familiar aspects become a backdrop against which to highlight sonic progression and risks being taken.
If you have followed that progression since, say, 2012’s breakout A Hocht (discussed here), or really from any step along the way — and if you haven’t, if Atomicult is your first go with the band; I’m not gatekeeping, I’m trying to provide context — then the songs will likely land as more mature. The runtimes are relatively short — side B leadoff “Physical Witching” runs 5:59 and is the longest inclusion — but as drummer/synthesist Marty Harvey‘s far-off vocals start “Obey Capricorn” at the album’s outset, the sense isn’t necessarily that the band are shooting for immediacy outright.
There’s a few seconds, in other words, before guitarists David Majury and Chris Couzens bludgeon the listener with their signature heft of tone. Over their last few outings, in Strontium Fields‘ and their 2022 Ascend/Descend split with Domkraft (review here), for example, the blend of keyboardy expanse and distorted crush, with the vocals cutting through to soar with increasing capacity, has emerged as the general direction. Where 11 years ago, Estron (review here) helped establish them among the heaviest of riffly purveyors the world over — something twice as impressive considering the lack of bass guitar — Atomicult inevitably pulls into emphasis just how much besides being really, really heavy Slomatics put into their craft.
As an example, “Auto-Skull.” At just under five minutes long, it follows “Obey Capricorn” and the hooky nodder “Phantom Castle Warning” at the start of the record, picking up the hints of harmonizing keys under Harvey‘s vocals and expanding the reach to coincide with the ultra-heavy impact of its central chug. As soulful as it is noisy and among the more memorable movements of Atomicult, it’s less sci-fi synth-based in its unfolding than “Physical Witching” later and not as outright neanderthalic in its riff as closer “To Ultramegaphonium,” and so finds a balance that typifies and summarizes a lot of what’s working throughout. The same might be said of “Chrome Sisters” on side B, and part of why is because these songs play to traditional strengths for the band in terms of their elemental blend and the delivery.
A broader reach is found in “Relics,” which follows “Auto-Skull” and turns from that familiar ground to letting the drums sit it out while the keys and guitars give an unrepentantly shimmering backdrop to the vocals, which accordingly are showcased in a different way than, to my admittedly flawed memory, they ever have been. Harvey, to his credit, carries the piece ably without being domineering in the mix. It is a difficult balance to strike, and very clearly a case of Slomatics doing something outside their wheelhouse. Eight albums in, I wouldn’t discount the possibility of that kind of self-awareness being a partial motivator in including “Relics” at all, but however it got there, it plays a large role in the ambience of this record and, perhaps more importantly, enables future expansion along the same lines. It’s something else for them to build on as they no doubt continue to build on everything else here moving forward, is what I mean.
The first two minutes of “Night Grief” renew the march, but the song drops to a baseline chug, drone, and still-tense drum thuds as the building foundation for the eventual slam back to final tonality, and the ensuing instrumental role is satisfying enough to warrant the build to it, so I’m not complaining. They’ve already broadened expectations for structure with “Relics.” Might as well use that to bury the audience alive with riffs. Blips and bloops commence “Physical Witching” and the showcase for expanded-definition Slomatics continues. Vocals in layers touch on harmony in the second half of the song, which makes the now-you-get-eaten lurch that ensues in “Chrome Sisters” a welcome return to ground. Slomatics gonna Slomatics? Yeah, but if not them, who?
And it’s not like they don’t keep the outward-looking trajectory alongside. “Biclops” floats in a way I’m not sure Slomatics ever have, and certainly not for any lack of weight in the distortion, but the balance of the mix puts the vocals forward, and as they move through the last key/chug chorus, the feel is lighter somehow as they move into the minute-long interlude “Summer Skeletons,” perhaps named for the wistfulness of its sound. If they’re longing for something, however, “To Ultramegaphonium” is a hell of a manifestation. The lyrics take a more spiritual cast, but the catharsis of the music itself remains physical around that, and I’m not sure the two need or actually have any distinguishing from one to the other.
As far out as Slomatics have reached here — maybe farther than they need to in terms of their audience’s expectation, but following their own whims as ever — at their core they remain engrossing in the depth of their tones, and their sound is no less identifiable now than it has been at any point in the better part of the last 15 years. But that doesn’t mean they’re not still growing, still learning, still exploring new ideas, either. Atomicult strikes a balance between these two sides, reinforcing what people know and seem to want from the band while satisfying impulses toward artistic progression and a maturity that to-date has only grown more dynamic with time. That they know who they want to collaborate with and why is part of knowing who they are and want to be as a band. On that level, Atomicult can only rightly be called the work of masters of the form.
that. “Huldran” has a heavy psychedelic swirl, and “Den Hornkrönte” sounds like a lost ’60s surf instrumental. Closer “Talisman” has a mellotron. Clearly this is a band willing and ready to go where their songs are leading them, but one can’t listen to an arrangement like “Ringöpolskan,” when it brings in the acoustic strum late and say Homegrown aren’t minding the details here. They credit themselves with guitar, bass and drums, and I suppose it’s possible to make all these noises with those instruments, but the plainness of that does little to convey the actual adventure you’re about to embark on in listening.
