Quarterly Review: Melody Fields, La Chinga, Massive Hassle, Sherpa, Acid Throne, The Holy Nothing, Runway, Wet Cactus, MC MYASNOI, Cinder Well

Posted in Reviews on November 29th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

The-Obelisk-Quarterly-Review

Day three of the Quarterly Review is always a good time. Passing the halfway point for the week isn’t nothing, and I take comfort in knowing there’s another 25 to come after the first 25 are down. Sometimes it’s the little things.

But let’s not waste the few moments we have. I hope you find something you dig.

Quarterly Review #21-30:

Melody Fields, 1901

Melody Fields 1901

Though it starts out firmly entrenched in ’60s psychedelia in “Going Back,” Melody Fields1901 is less genre-adherent and/or retroist than one might expect. “Jesus” borrows from ’70s soul, but is languid in its rollout with horn-esque sounds for a Morricone-ish vibe, while “Rave On” makes a hook of its folkish and noodly bridge. Keyboards bring a krautrock spirit to “Mellanväsen,” which is fair as “Transatlantic” blisses out ’90s electro-rock, and “Home at Last” prog-shuffles in its own swirl — a masterclass in whatever kind of psych you want to call it — as “Indian MC” has an acoustic strum that reminds of some of Lamp of the Universe‘s recent urgings, and “Void” offers 53 seconds of drone before the stomp of the catchy “In Love” and the keyboard-dreamy “Mayday” ends side B with a departure to match “Transatlantic” capping side A. Unexpectedly, 1901, which is the Swedish outfit’s second LP behind their 2018 self-titled debut (review here), is one of two albums they have for Fall 2023, with 1991 a seeming companion piece. Here’s looking forward.

Melody Fields on Facebook

Melody Fields on Bandcamp

La Chinga, Primal Forces

la chinga primal forces

La Chinga don’t have time for bullshit. They’re going right to the source. Black Sabbath. Motörhead. Enough Judas Priest in “Electric Eliminator” for the whole class and a riffy swagger, loosely Southern in “Stars Fall From the Sky,” and elsewhere, that reminds of Dixie Witch or Halfway to Gone, and that aughts era of heavy generally. “Backs to the Wall” careens with such a love of ’80s metal it reminds of Bible of the Devil — while cuts like “Bolt of Lightning,” “Rings of Power” and smash-then-run opener “Light it Up” immediately positions the trio between ’70s heavy rock and the more aggressive fare it helped produce. Throughout, La Chinga are poised but not so much so as to take away from the energy of their songs, which are impeccably written, varied in energy, and drawn together through the vitality of their delivery. Here’s a kickass rock band, kicking ass. It might be a little too over-the-top for some listeners, but over-the-top is a target unto itself. La Chinga hit it like oldschool masters.

La Chinga on Facebook

Ripple Music website

Massive Hassle, Number One

MASSIVE HASSLE - NUMBER ONE

Best known for their work together in Mammothwing and now also both members of Church of the Cosmic Skull as well, brothers Bill Fisher and Marty Fisher make a point of stripping back as much as possible with Massive Hassle, scaling down the complex arrangements of what’s now their main outfit but leaving room for harmonies, on-sleeve Thin Lizzy love and massive fuzz in cuts like “Lane,” “Drifter,” the speedier penultimate “Drink” and the slow-nod payoff of “Fibber,” which closes. That attitude — which one might see developing in response to years spend plugging away in a group with seven people and everyone wears matching suits — assures a song like “Kneel” fits, with its restless twists feeling born organically out of teenage frustrations, but many of Number One‘s strongest moments are in its quieter, bluesy explorations. The guitar holds a note, just long enough that it feels like it might miss the beat on the turnaround, then there’s the snare. With soul in the vocals to spare and a tension you go for every time, if Massive Hassle keep this up they’re going to have to be a real band, and ugh, what a pain in the ass that is.

Massive Hassle on Facebook

Massive Hassle website

Sherpa, Land of Corals

sherpa land of corals

One of the best albums of 2023, and not near the bottom of the list. Italy’s Sherpa demonstrated their adventurous side with 2018’s Tigris & Euphrates (review here), but the six-song/39-minute Land of Corals is in a class of its own as regards their work. Breaking down genre barriers between industrial/dance, psychedelia, doom, and prog, Sherpa keep a special level of tonal heft in reserve that’s revealed near the end of opener “Silt” and is worthy — yes I mean this — of countrymen Ufomammut in its cosmic impact. “High Walls” is more of a techno throb with a languid melodic vocal, but the two-part, eight-minute “Priest of Corals” begins a thread of Ulverian atmospherics that continues not so much in the second half of the song itself, which brings back the heavy from “Silt” and rolls back and forth over the skull, but in the subsequent “Arousal,” which has an experimental edge in its later reaches and backs its beat with a resonant sprawl of drone. This is so much setup for the apex in “Coward/Pilgrimage to the Sun,” which is the kind of wash that will make you wonder if we’re all just chemicals, and closer “Path/Mud/Barn,” which feels well within its rights to take its central piano line for a walk. I haven’t seen a ton of hype for it, which tracks, but this feels like a record that’s getting to know you while you’re getting to know it.

Sherpa on Facebook

Subsound Records store

Acid Throne, Kingdom’s Death

acid throne kingdom's death

A sludge metal of marked ferocity and brand-name largesse, Acid Throne‘s debut album, Kingdom’s Death sets out with destructive and atmospheric purpose alike, and while it’s vocals are largely grunts in “River (Bare My Bones)” and the straight-up deathly “Hallowed Ground,” if there’s primitivism at work in the 43-minute six-songer, it’s neither in the character of their tones or what they’re playing. Like a rockslide in a cavern, “Death is Not the End” is the beginning, with melodic flourish in the lead guitar as it passes the halfway point and enough crush generally to force your blood through your pores. It moves slower than “River (Bare My Bones),” but the Norwich, UK, trio are dug in regardless of tempo, with “King Slayer” unfolding like Entombed before revealing itself as more in line with a doomed take on Nile or Morbid Angel. Both it and “War Torn” grow huge by their finish, and the same is true of “Hallowed Ground,” though if you go from after the intro it also started out that way, and the 11-minute closer “Last Will & Testament” is engrossing enough that its last drones give seamlessly over to falling rain almost before you know it. There are days like this. Believe it.

Acid Throne on Facebook

Acid Throne on Bandcamp

The Holy Nothing, Vol. 1: A Profound and Nameless Fear

the holy nothing vol 1 a profound and nameless fear

With an intensity thrust forth from decades of Midwestern post-hardcore disaffection, Indiana trio The Holy Nothing make their presence felt with Vol. 1: A Profound and Nameless Fear, a five-song/17-minute EP that’s weighted and barking in its onslaught and pivots almost frenetically from part to part, but that nonetheless has an overarching groove that’s pure Sabbath boogie in centerpiece “Unending Death,” and opener “Bathe Me” sets the pummeling course with noise rock and nu metal chicanery, while “Bliss Trench” raw-throats its punkish first half en route to a slowdown that knows it’s hot shit. Bass leads the way into “Mondegreen,” with a threatening chug and post-hardcore boogie, just an edge of grunge to its later hook to go with the last screams, and feedback as it inevitably would, leads the way into “Doom Church,” with a more melodic and spacious echoing vocal and a riff that seems to kind of eat the rest of the song surrounding. I’ll be curious how the quirk extrapolates over a full-length’s runtime, but they sound like they’re ready to get weird and they’re from Fort Wayne, which is where Charlton Heston was from in Planet of the Apes, and I’m sorry, but that’s just too on-the-nose to be a coincidence.

The Holy Nothing on Facebook

The Holy Nothing on Bandcamp

Runway, Runway

RUNWAY RUNWAY

Runway may be making their self-titled debut with this eight-song/31-minute blowout LP delivered through Cardinal Fuzz, Echodelick and We, Here & Now as a triumvirate of lysergic righteousness, but the band is made up of five former members of Saskatoon instrumentalists Shooting Guns so it’s not exactly their first time at the dance of wavy lines and chambered echo that make even the two-minute “No Witnesses” feel broad, and the crunch-fuzz of “Attempted Mordor,” the double-time hi-hat on “Franchy Cordero” that vibes with all the casual saunter of Endless Boogie but in a shorter package as the song’s only four minutes long. “Banderas” follows a chugging tack and doesn’t seem to release its tension even in the payoff, but “Crosshairs” is all freedom-rock, baby, with a riff like they put the good version of America in can, and the seven-minute capper “Mailman” reminds that our destination was the cosmos all along. Jam on, you glorious Canadian freaks. By this moniker or any other, your repetitive excavations are always welcome on these shores.

Runway on Facebook

Echodelick Records website

Cardinal Fuzz store

https://wehereandnow.bandcamp.com/music

Wet Cactus, Magma Tres

wet cactus magma tres

Spanish heavy rockers Wet Cactus look to position themselves at the forefront of a regional blossoming with their third album, the 12-track Magma Tres. Issued through Electric Valley Records, the 45-minute long-player follows 2018’s Dust, Hunger and Gloom (review here) and sees the band tying together straightforward, desert-style heavy rock with a bit of grunge sway in “Profound Dream” before it twists around to heavy-footed QOTSA start-stops ahead of the fuzzy trash-boogie of “Mirage” and the duly headspinning guitar work of “My Gaze is Fixed Ahead.” The second half of the LP has interludes between sets of two tracks — the album begins with “I. The Long Escape…” as the first of them — but the careening “Self Bitten Snake” and the tense toms under the psych guitar before that big last hook in “Solar Prominence” want nothing for immediacy, and even “IV. …Of His Musical Ashes!,” which closes, becomes a charge with the band’s collective force behind it. There’s more to what they do than people know, but you could easily say the same thing about the entire Iberian Peninsula’s heavy underground.

Wet Cactus on Facebook

Electric Valley Records website

MC MYASNOI, Falling Lower Than You Expected

MC MYASNOI Falling Lower Than You Expected

All-caps Icelandic troupe MC MYASNOI telegraph their experimentalism early in the drone of “Liquid Lung [Nucomp]” and let some of the noise around the electronic nod in “Antenula [OEBT]” grow caustic in the first half before first bliss then horror build around a progression of drums, ending with sax and feedback and noise and where were the lines between them anyway. The delve into the unknown threads more feedback through “Slug Paradox,” which has a vocal line somewhere not terribly far off from shoegaze, but is itself nothing so pedestrian, while “Kuroki” sounds like it could’ve been recorded at rehearsal, possibly on the other side of the wall. The go-wherever-you-end-up penchant holds in “Bleach in Eye,” and when “Xcomputer must dieX” clicks on, it brings about the rumble MC MYASNOI seem to have been threatening all along without giving up the abidingly oddball stance, what with the keyboard and sax and noise, noise, noise, plus whispers at the end. I’m sure that in the vast multiverse there’s a plenet that’s ready for the kind of off-kilter-everythingism wrought by MC MYASNOI, but you can bet your ass this ain’t it. And if you’re too weird for earth, you’re alright by me.

MC MYASNOI on Facebook

MC MYASNOI on Bandcamp

Cinder Well, Cadence

cinder well cadence

The 2020 album from transient folk singer-songwriter Cinder Well, No Summer (review here), landed with palpable empathy in a troubled July, and Cadence has a similar minimalist place to dwell in “Overgrown” or finale “I Will Close in the Moonlight,” but by and large the arrangements are more lush throughout the nine songs of the latest work. Naturally, Amelia Baker‘s voice remains a focal point for the material, but organ, viola and fiddle, drums and bass, etc., bring variety to the gentle delivery of “Gone the Holding,” the later reaches of “Crow” and allow for the build of elements in “A Scorched Lament” that make that song’s swaying crescendo such a high point. And having high points is somewhat striking, in context, but Cinder Well‘s range as shown throughout Cadence is beholden to no single emotional or even stylistic expression. If you’d read this and gripe that the record isn’t heavy — shit. Listen again.

Cinder Well on Facebook

Free Dirt Records on Bandcamp

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Massive Hassle to Release Number One LP Oct. 27

Posted in Whathaveyou on September 1st, 2023 by JJ Koczan

Comprised of brothers Bill Fisher and Marty Fisher — who played together in Mammothwing and now collaborate in Church of the Cosmic Skull and apparently Dystopian Future Movies as well — the two-piece Massive Hassle was named in honor of the thing they wanted to avoid. Fair. Church of the Cosmic Skull requires no little amount of commitment to aesthetic, and an outlet for songs not in their bright-harmonized cultish theme makes sense. They’re brothers. In a band together. They’ve been playing since probably they were younger than they are in the picture that adorns the cover of Number One, their debut LP out Oct. 27. Familial relation makes for vibrant dynamic, and sure enough that’s the case here too.

The resulting album is purposefully raw in form, performed and recorded live, and Massive Hassle have been posting videos for the tracks — well made performance clips; I’m pretty sure they just taped themselves making the record, which would be convenient in a way that, once it was done, would be less of a hassle than doing videos after — and the latest of them is “Knife,” which you can see and hear below, multisensory being that you are. Please do enjoy.

Info and the always crucial preorder link, courtesy of the PR wire:

MASSIVE HASSLE - NUMBER ONE

MASSIVE HASSLE – Number One – Oct. 27

Great news to all lovers of real music – large numbers of people still get it.

An experiment has been conducted: via the new two-piece project, MASSIVE HASSLE, brothers Bill and Marty Fisher (Mammothwing, Church of the Cosmic Skull, Dystopian Future Movies) have been releasing all of their new garage-rock / jazz-blues / punk / country / doom-metal inspired hit songs on video, recorded and filmed live in single studio takes, you know, like the Whistle Test.

The results have been most triumphant – in the first two months, our new favourite harmony-singing bearded brethren have surpassed 50,000 youtube views, 50,000 spotify streams, pissed off a ton of internet users with their logo and genre claims, and are on the verge of selling out of the first edition vinyl on preorder – all with 3 more songs yet to be released for your listening pleasure.

Today they announce the release date of the much-anticipated debut album ‘Number One’ – out Fri 27th Oct 2023 on Septaphonic Records.

No longer must music be over-produced, sample-replaced, multi-tracked to high heaven and generally lacking in good vibrations – MASSIVE HASSLE are here to take you into a new epoch where music is played with instruments and songs are sung into microphones for real.

Check out the videos and preorder the new album ‘Number One’ on vinyl, CD and digital here: massivehassle.tv

https://www.facebook.com/massivehassleofficial
https://www.instagram.com/massivehassle/
https://massivehassle.tv/

Massive Hassle, “Knife” official video

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Massive Hassle Announce Debut Album Number One; Post “Lane” Video

Posted in Whathaveyou on June 19th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

massive hassle

Massive Hassle, you say? Well that’s family, innit? I like the subtle humor there, and I like the semi-alliterative way the name of the project rolls out of the mouth, curling the lip under for the hard ‘v’ and spreading wide to account for the double ‘s’ in ‘hassle,’ and more important, I like the song. The first track from the brothers-only-allowed Massive Hassle — whose fraternal components, guitarist/vocalist Marty Fisher and drummer/vocalist Bill Fisher, used to play together in Mammothwing and currently both feature in Church of the Cosmic Skull, which the latter founded — flows like mellow psych blues early and gets a heavier stretch going later but is still way-soulful in vibe and works as fluidly as one might expect from two dudes who actually grew up together.

“Lane” is available to check out in a live video below, and apparently that’s going to be the Massive Hassle method throughout, releasing each song from the album to lead up to the album’s actual release. Preorders are coming in about 10 days — I accidentally spent my Obelisk merch Paypal credit on a seat upgrade for my flight home from Freak Valley, gotta sell some more shirts; $25 for a jewel case CD is jarring until you get to the part where it says free shipping — and I wonder if creating and taking on another band has become or will become a pain in the ass, or if the Fishers can avoid that particular trap. If so, they should remember to write a book about that and share the secret with the universe.

I don’t see an exact release date for Massive Hassle‘s debut full-length, Number One, on the preorder page, but it says it’ll ship in Nov.-Dec., so the two-piece have plenty of time to do more video reveals and trickle out information about the band and album, and that’s frankly a lot more fun. Here’s looking forward.

Second single drops this Friday at 7PM BST. The following came down the PR wire:

massive hassle number one

‘Brothers Bill Fisher and Marty Fisher (Mammothwing, Church of the Cosmic Skull, Dystopian Future Movies) announce new duo project MASSIVE HASSLE, with their debut album ‘Number One’ coming later this year on Septaphonic Records, and the first of many video singles premiering this Friday.

– With Bill on drums, Marty on guitar, both singing, the project started at the end of 2022 in Nottingham, England, with a number of directives in mind:

– Everything is to be recorded live and filmed in singular takes

– All songs and lyrics are written collaboratively in the studio

– Both brothers will sing in harmony or unison throughout

– Every track will be released as a live video building up to the album launch

– Don’t let it become a Massive Hassle

To date, the results of this experiment are a number of astoundingly smooth, thick, wide and deeply moving tracks which straddle a variety of influences including garage-rock, jazz, blues, punk, country, doom-metal, and no other two-piece bands that have come before…’

The countdown to preorders for vinyl, CD and merch has begun – check out the teaser video and subscribe here: MASSIVEHASSLE.TV

https://www.facebook.com/massivehassleofficial
https://www.instagram.com/massivehassle/
https://massivehassle.tv/

Massive Hassle, “Lane” official video

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Kozmik Artifactz Streams New Label Compilation Home of the Good Sounds Vol. 2; Free Download Available

Posted in audiObelisk on June 9th, 2015 by JJ Koczan

home of the good sounds vol 2 front

Over the last couple years, Kozmik Artifactz and its close cohort, Bilocation Records, have assembled one of the most enviable label rosters in the world for heavy rock and roll and psychedelia. Their commitment is to vinyl releases in limited quantities, and their stuff usually goes. It’s harder to get in the States with import prices, but their reach includes American acts like Ruby the HatchetBison MachineValley of the SunSpace God Ritual and The Dirty Streets, all of whom are featured alongside European groups Somali Yacht Club (Ukraine), Earthmass (UK), Sonora Ritual (Germany) and Domadora (France) as well as Australia’s Child on the new 18-track Home of the Good Sounds Vol. 2 label sampler, which is out today.

With new music from The Heavy Eyes — “Somniloquy” is the first I’ve heard of their upcoming third LP, He Dreams of Lions — as well as Buzzard, the new project from Place of Skulls and Pentagram drummer “Minnesota” Pete Campbell, and home of the good sounds vol 2 backUK trio Mammothwing, the sampler should have no trouble piquing interest among the converted while more familiar cuts from The Kings of Frog Island and Valley of the Sun reinforce a solid mixtape feel. I won’t belabor the point that you’re probably about to spend a decent portion of your afternoon head-to-head with these songs — it’s 18 tracks, after all — but there’s a decent flow from one to the next and it’s clear the label was looking to do more than just toss together something haphazardly. Anyone who’s ever held a piece of their vinyl can probably tell you that’s not how they roll.

Plenty of variety, plenty of heavy, and some brand new stuff to preview what they have coming hopefully before the end of 2015, there’s really no way to lose. If nothing else, you can’t beat the price. Kozmik Artifactz was kind enough to let me announce the comp’s arrival, and you’ll find it on the player below, courtesy of their Bandcamp, followed by their official word on today’s release.

Please enjoy:

Kozmik Artifactz and Bilocation Records are very proud to offer to their new and old followers the second label compilation ‘Home of the good sounds – Vol. 2’. The sampler features 18 bands from all over the planet including 12 tracks that are not published on vinyl yet, three of them are exclusively to be heard here: new stuff from The Heavy Eyes from their forthcoming third album ‘He dreams of lions’, mighty Buzzard (featuring Pete Campbell from Pentagram) with ‘Is you Is’ and Mammothwing with a new track from their upcoming epic album ‘Morning light’.

For further informations to bands and releases visit our website www.kozmik-artifactz.com and our shop at http://shop.bilocationrecords.com/.

Thanks to our artist for creating so exciting music and to our customers and friends for their endless support – It is the music that matters!

The Kozmik Crew.

Kozmik Artifactz on Bandcamp

Kozmik Artifactz on Thee Facebooks

Kozmik Artifactz website

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Bilocation Records to Release Albums from Ruby the Hatchet, Mammothwing and Child

Posted in Whathaveyou on September 2nd, 2014 by JJ Koczan

Ruby the Hatchet will also release a new album on Tee Pee Records, and I’m not too familiar with Mammothwing as yet, but I’ve been looking for an excuse to post about Aussie blues rockers Child, and their self-titled receiving an issue through Bilocation Records seems a more than fitting occasion. The classic-minded trio self-released the album earlier this year, and like everything else it does, Bilocation will do it up on limited vinyl, thick platter, fancy stock, hand-numbered and so on. No word on preorders yet, if that’s your thing, but if you haven’t heard them yet, I’ve included the Bandcamp stream of the album below and it’s worth keeping an eye out.

News news news:

bilocation records

Bilocation Records announces new signings!

ruby the hatchet

Ruby The Hatchet (USA)

Born in a New Jersey basement, the five-piece boasts a riff-centered, hard hitting rock sound that has infected the Philadelphia music scene with a unique blend of psychedelic undertones, wailing vocal melodies and raw-power energy. RUBY THE HATCHET‘s psychedelia-laced power-rock conjures visions of midnight councils and sinister sorcery, appropriating a storm of distorted axe-wielding as a vehicle of enchantment, with seductive songstress Jillian Taylor overlaying a series of bewitching spellbound poetics. In 2012, the band released their debut full length, OUROBOROS, a record that oozed dark and unresolved mystique. RUBY followed up with an ominous two-song EP the following year entitled, THE ELIMINATOR.

We will release the band’s 2012 offering “OUROBOROS” added with the fantastic tracks from their recent 7″ “The Eliminator”.

mammothwing

Mammothwing (UK)

Mammothwing were formed under the blood red moon of summer solstice 2013. Coming from a blues/doom/psych background, the strange sounds of brothers Marty Fisher (guitar + vocals) and Billy Fisher (bass + vocals) melded perfectly with the trancelike grooves of Kev Richardson Jr (drums). In the centre of Nottingham, England, their self built studio ‘The Room of Doom’ was to be home to sonic experimentation and debauchery. Improvised jams flowed into full tilt rock. No two shows were the same. People listened, people cried.

With their first album due for release on Bilocation this year, MAMMOTHWING continue to produce a unique sound which is at once dynamic, moving and crushingly heavy.

‘A cosmic mind voyage from doom valley to blues mountain’

More dudes. (Photo by Gil)

Child (AUS)

Three piece Stoner Blues outfit from Melbourne, Australia. Child have been spraying their fuzz across the countryside since late 2012. Some say they were born from Jackals, others say they are the result of the Institution. The truth is they are a bunch of long haired scallywags who have a fetish for perforated eardrums!
We will release their eponymous full length debut filled with bluesy heavyrock to blow you away!

As always every album will be specially mastered for vinyl for maximum listening pleasure and pressed on 180g vinyl housed in handnumbered heavy gatefold-sleeves.

https://www.facebook.com/rubythehatchet
http://rubythehatchet.tumblr.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Mammothwing
https://www.youtube.com/user/MAMMOTHWING
https://www.facebook.com/childtheband
http://childtheband.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/bilocationrecordsberlin

Child, Child (2014)

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