Posted in Whathaveyou on July 9th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Founded in 1999 and helmed by Robert and Cheryl Levey, the Stoner Hands of Doom Festival was put to rest following its 2013 edition. A 20-year celebration took place as the pre-show for Maryland Doom Fest in 2019, which was a fitting time and place, and the city of Frederick — which hosted a few crucial years of SHoD at Krug’s Place — will likewise serve as the backdrop as the Leveys and a cast of festival-veteran players and bands mark the event’s 25th anniversary this August.
Cafe 611, which is also the main hub for the Maryland Doom Fest that has come to inherit a lot of the spirit of SHoD while forging its own place in the annals of the Chesapeake regional underground, will host the nine-band all-dayer on Aug. 17. No poster yet — hence the logo below — and no word on ticket price or on-sale date or anything like that, but I’m sure those details will surface in the weeks to come, and with Valkyrie and Solace topping the bill backed by Mythosphere and Indianapolis’ reignited Devil to Pay for a true then-and-now feel, there’s plenty of reason to keep an eye out. I don’t know that I’ll make it down for the show, but I have fond memories of SHoD (plus some embarrassing ones) and know damn well this will be a good day.
Cheryl Levey posted the following on social media:
Hey everyone we’ve got the lineup finalized finally
Saturday August 17th Club 611 Frederick Md
Stoner Hands of Doom 25th anniversary!
Valkyrie Solace Mythosphere Devil to Pay Hovel Spellbook After the sun Crows Eye Mangog
9 bands – all have members who have played at least one previous SHoD!
Many of you know that Robert Levey and I did the first SHoD Fest in 1999 – we plan to have a party on August 17 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of that first show.
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 21st, 2024 by JJ Koczan
A sorta-new two-songer from Baltimorean atmospheric heavy rockers Holy Fingers is welcome news from where I sit. The folk-informed, richly melodic and spacious four-piece wanted nothing for exploration on their aptly-titled third album, III (review here), and while the pieces that comprise Endless Light ∞ Infinite Presence — which I’d have listed a ssich in the headline above if I could get the little infinity character to show up in WordPress; not just being lazy — were recorded in 2018 during the sessions for the prior album, that same year’s II (discussed here), they nonetheless offer a convenient glimpse of the depth in the band’s sound and their ability to move between heavy vibes and post-rock float.
“Endless Light” starts out with amplified buzz and a quiet intro of guitar that reminds of King Buffalo and is duly tense as Tracey Buchanan arrives on vocals over the strum and begins the verse as the noise dissipates into a more fluid march. Layering in Buchanan‘s voice adds to the dimensionality building to the release of the chorus, and “Endless Light” hits a payoff that’s vibrant in chug without giving up the foggy swirl from which it emerges en route to the drums dropping out and the wash of noise capping for the last minute or so, hypnotic in the going. To follow, “Infinite Presence” calls to mind some of the sparse open spaces Ides of Gemini conjured, but is exploratory and folkish and feels intentionally searching. It becomes engrossing as it moves through the second half, and seems to be where the standout repetition of the title-line in “Hunted” from III sourced its delivery, and fair enough.
Loud, quiet, minimal or maximal, Endless Light ∞ Infinite Presence relates some of the patience and presence that makes Holy Fingers‘ work in general so striking to hear. I can think of at least three labels off the top of my head who should be putting it out on tape, but don’t let that stop you from getting the download if you’re feeling that. You’ll find it linked through the player at the bottom of this post, naturally.
Please enjoy:
A note on the text:
HOLY FINGERS – Endless Light ∞ Infinite Presence EP
Endless Light ∞ Infinite Presence EP – Very excited to share these songs, recorded back in the HF II sessions. Available now on Bandcamp, coming soon to Spotify, Apple Music, etc. Let us know what you think in the comments.
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 19th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
You would be hard pressed to find a better week for Spiral Grave to announce the release of their second album, Ill Repute, since this weekend their hometown of Frederick, Maryland, performs the annual rite of the Maryland Doom Fest, and, well, one more thing to celebrate there isn’t going to hurt. You may recall the four-piece earlier this year dropped the single “The Death of Ronnie M.” (posted here) as a soft-launch preface to revealing the actual details of the sophomore LP. Those are here — tracks and art, etc. — accompanied by another new song, “Lungful of Blood,” which the band deliver with their usual sunny disposition.
Release date is July 12, once again on Argonauta Records, and both videos can be found below. Dig in and doom on:
SPIRAL GRAVE Announce New Album; New Official Music Video Out Now
Spiral Grave, the esteemed US doom metal ensemble comprised of veterans from Iron Man and Lord, is set to unveil their highly anticipated new album ‘Ill Repute’ via Argonauta Records on July 12th.
Album tracklisting and cover art are as follows:
1. Watching From the Sky 2. Eulogy for Queen City (21502) 3. My Angel Comes Tonight 4. The Death of Ronnie M. 5. Lungful of Blood 6. Ill Repute 7. (Raising the) Chalice 8. To Stare Down God
“Many artists have their COVID album, and this is ours. Once lockdowns started we just hunkered down and started writing. The emotions that we were all feeling during that time are very evident in these songs. The legendary Frank Marchand was at the helm for recording, and brought the absolute best out in us.” – says the band
Additionally, the band is premiering their new official music video for ‘Lungful of Blood’ today, watch here: https://youtu.be/2tpM3aTL0Vc
Spiral Grave formed in late 2018 following the demise of two legendary mid-Atlantic bands, Iron Man and Lord. The band quickly hit the live circuit and recorded their debut album, Legacy of the Anointed (release delayed until 2021 due to COVID). Since that album’s release Spiral Grave has continued to tour, playing live dates and festivals in and around their home area of MD/VA, going as far west as Texas. In addition, the band has recorded their sophomore effort Ill Repute, which is scheduled for a 2024 release from Argonauta Records.
SPIRAL GRAVE: Screaming Mad Dee – voice Willy Rivera – guitar Louis Strachan – bass Jason “Mot” Waldmann – drums
Good morning and heavy riffs. Today is day 7 of the Quarterly Review. It’s already been a lot, but there are still 30 more releases to cover over the next three days, so I assure you at some point I’ll have that nervous breakdown that’s been ticking away in the back of my brain. A blast as always, which I mean both sincerely and sarcastically, somehow.
But when we’re done, 100 releases will have been covered, and I get a medal sent to me whenever that happens from the UN’s Stoner Rock Commission on Such Things, so I’ll look forward to that. In the meantime, we’re off.
Quarterly Review #61-70:
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Ufomammut, Hidden
Italian cosmic doomers Ufomammut celebrate their 25th anniversary in 2024, and as they always have, they do so by looking and moving forward. Hidden is the 10th LP in their catalog, the second to feature drummer Levre — who made his debut on 2022’s Fenice (review here) alongside bassist/vocalist Urlo and guitarist Poia (both also keyboards) — and it was preceded by last year’s Crookhead EP (review here), the 10-minute title-track of which is repurposed as the opener here. A singular, signature blend of heft and synth-based atmospherics, Ufomammut roll fluidly through the six-tracker check-in, and follow on from Fenice in sounding refreshed while digging into their core stylistic purposes. “Spidher” brings extra tonal crush around its open verse, and “Mausoleum” has plenty of that as well but is less condensed and hypnotic in its atmospheric midsection, Ufomammut paying attention to details while basking in an overarching largesse. The penultimate “Leeched” was the lead single for good reason, and the four-minute “Soulost” closes with a particularly psychedelic exploration of texture and drone with the drums keeping it moving. 25 years later and there’s still new things to discover. I hear the universe is like that.
Considering some of the places Dana Schechter has taken Insect Ark over the project’s to-date duration, most of Raw Blood Singing might at times feel daringly straightforward, but that’s hardly a detriment to the material itself. Songs like “The Hands” bring together rhythmic tension and melodic breadth, as soundscapes of drone, low end chug and the drumming of Tim Wyskida (also Khanate, Blind Idiot God) cast a morose, encompassing atmospheric vision. And rest assured, while “The Frozen Lake” lumbers through its seven minutes of depressive post-sludge — shades of The Book of Knots at their heaviest, but still darker — and “Psychological Jackal” grows likewise harsher and horrific, the experimentalist urge continues to resonate; the difference is it’s being set to serve the purposes of the songs themselves in “Youth Body Swayed” or “Cleaven Hearted,” which slogs like death-doom with a strum cutting through to replace vocals, whereas the outro “Ascension” highlights the noise on its own. It is a bleak, consuming course presented over Raw Blood Singing‘s 45 minutes, but there’s solace in the catharsis as well.
Laced through with harmonica and organic vibes, Netherlands-based five-piece Heath make their full-length debut with the four extended tracks of Isaak’s Marble, reveling in duly expansive jams keyed for vibrancy and a live sound. They are somewhat the band-between as regards microgenres, with a style that can be traced on the opening title-cut to heavy ’70s funk-boogie-via-prog-rock, and the harmonica plays a role there before spacing out with echo over top of the psychedelia beginning of “Wondrous Wetlands.” The wetlands in question, incidentally, might just be the guitar tone, but that haze clears a bit as the band saunters into a light shuffle jam before the harder-hitting build into a crescendo that sounds unhinged but is in fact quite under control as it turns back to a softshoe-ready groove with organ, keys, harmonica, guitar all twisting around with the bass and drums. Sitar and vocal harmonies give the shorter-at-six-minutes “Strawberry Girl” a ’60s psych-pop sunshine, but the undercurrent is consistent with the two songs before as Heath highlight the shroomier side of their pastoralism, ahead of side B capper “Valley of the Sun” transitioning out of that momentary soundscape with clear-eyed guitar and flute leading to an angular progression grounded by snare and a guitar solo after the verse that leads the shift into the final build. They’re not done, of course, as they bring it all to a rousing end and some leftover noise; subdued in the actual-departing, but still resonant in momentum and potential. These guys might just be onto something.
The Cosmic Dead, releasing through Heavy Psych Sounds, count Infinite Peaks as their ninth LP since 2011. I’ll take them at their word since between live offerings, splits, collections and whatnot, it’s hard sometimes to know what’s an album. Similarly, when immersed in the 23-minute cosmic sprawl of “Navigator #9,” it can become difficult to understand where you stop and the universe around you begins. Rising quickly to a steady, organ-inclusive roll, the Glaswegian instrumental psilocybinists conjure depth like few of their jam-prone ilk and remain entrancing as “Navigator #9” shifts into its more languid, less-consuming middle movement ahead of the resurgent finish. Over on side B, “Space Mountain” (20:02) is a bit more drastic in the ends it swaps between — a little noisier and faster up front, followed by a zazzy-jazzy push with fiddle and effects giving over to start-stop bass and due urgency in the drums complemented by fuzz like they just got in a room and this happened before the skronky apex and unearthly comedown resolve in a final stretch of drone. Ninth record or 15th, whatever. Their mastery of interstellar heavy exploration is palpable regardless of time, place or circumstance. Infinite Peaks glimpses at that dimensional makeup.
Perhaps telegraphing some of their second long-player’s darker intentions in the cover art and the title Nyctophilia — a condition whereby you’re happier and more comfortable in darkness — if not the choice of Max Norman (Ozzy Osbourne, Death Angel, etc.) to produce, San Francisco’s The Watchers are nonetheless a heavy rock and roll band. What’s shifted in relation to their 2018 debut, Black Abyss (review here), is the angle of approach they take in getting there. What hasn’t changed is the strength of songwriting at their foundation or the hitting-all-their-marks professionalism of their execution, whether it’s Tim Narducci bringing a classic reach to the vocals of “Garden Tomb” or the precise muting in his and Jeremy Von Epp‘s guitars and Chris Lombardo‘s bass on “Haunt You When I’m Dead” and Nick Benigno‘s declarative kickdrum stomping through the shred of “They Have No God.” The material lands harder without giving up its capital-‘h’ Heavy, which is an accomplishment in itself, but The Watchers set a high standard last time out and Nyctophilia lives up to that while pursuing its own semi-divergent ends.
Leipzig’s Juke Cove follow a progressive course across eight songs and 44 minutes of Tempest, between nodding riffs of marked density and varying degrees of immediacy, whether it’s the might-just-turn-around-on-you “Hypnosis” early on or the shove with which the duly brief penultimate piece “Burst” takes off after the weighted crash of and ending stoner-rock janga-janga riff of “Glow” and precedes the also-massive “Xanadu” in the closing position, capping with a fuzzy solo because why not. From opener “The Path” into the bombast of “Hypnosis” and the look-what-we-can-make-riffs-do “Wait,” the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Mateusz Pietrzela, bassist/vocalist Dima Ogorodnov and drummer Maxim Balobin mine aural individualism from familiar-enough genre elements, shaping material of character that benefits from the scope wrought in tone and production. Much to its credit, Tempest feels unforced in speaking to various sides of its persona, and no matter where a given song might go — the watery finish of “Wait” or the space-blues drift that emerges out of psych-leaning noise rock on “Confined,” for example — Juke Cove steer with care and heart alike and are all the more able to bring their audience with them as a result. Very cool, and no, I’m not calling them pricks when I say that.
A little more than a year out from their impressive self-titled debut LP (review here), Philly three-piece Laurel Canyon — guitarist/bassist/vocalist Nicholas Gillespie, guitarist/vocalist Serg Cereja, drummer Dylan DePice — offer the East Side three-songer to follow-up on the weighted proto-grunge vibes therein. “East Side” itself, at two and a half minutes, is a little more punk in that as it aligns for a forward push in the chorus between its swaggering verses, while “Garden of Eden” is more directly Nirvana-schooled in making its well-crafted melody sound like something that just tumbled out of somebody’s mouth, pure happenstance, and “Untitled” gets more aggressive in its second half, topping a momentary slowdown/nod with shouts before they let it fall apart at the end. This procession takes place in under 10 minutes and by the time you feel like you’ve got a handle on it, they’re done, which is probably how it should be. East Side isn’t Laurel Canyon‘s first short release, and they’re clearly comfortable in the format, bolstering the in-your-face-itude of their style with a get-in-and-get-out ethic correspondingly righteous in its rawness.
If you hadn’t yet come around to thinking of Poland among Europe’s prime underground hotspots, Tet offer their four-song/45-minute self-titled debut for your (re-)consideration. With its lyrics and titles in Polish, Tet draws on the modern heavy prog influence of Elder in some of the 12-minute opener/longest track (immediate points), “Srebro i antracyt,” but neither that nor “Dom w cieniu gruszy,” which follows, stays entirely in one place for the duration, and the lush melody that coincides with the unfolding of “Wiosna” is Tet‘s own in more than just language; that is to say, there’s more to distinguish them from their influences than the syllabic. Each inclusion adds complexity to the story their songs are telling, and as closer “Włóczykije” gradually moves from its dronescape by bringing in the drums unveiling the instrumentalist build already underway, Tet carve a niche for themselves in one of the continent’s most crowded scenes. I wonder if they’ve opened for Weedpecker. They could. Or Belzebong, for that matter. Either way, it will be worth looking out for how they expand on these ideas next time around.
Aidan Baker, Everything is Like Always Until it is Not
Aidan Baker, also of Nadja, aligns the eight pieces of what I think is still his newest outing — oh wait, nope; this came out in Feb. and in March he had an hour-long drone two-songer out; go figure/glad I checked — to represent the truism of the title Everything is Like Always Until it is Not, and arranges the tracks so that the earlier post-shoegaze in “Everything” or “Like” can be a preface for the more directly drone-based “It” “Is” later on. And yes, there are two songs called “Is.” Does it matter? Definitely not while Baker‘s evocations are actually being heard. Free-jazz drums — not generally known for a grounding effect — do some work in terms of giving all the float that surrounds them a terrestrial aspect, but if you know Baker‘s work either through his solo stuff, Nadja or sundry other collaborations, I probably don’t need to tell you that the 47 minutes of Everything is Like Always Until it is Not fall into the “not like always” category as a defining feature, whether it’s “Until” manifesting tonal heft in waves of static cut through by tom-to-snare-to-cymbal splashes or “Not” seeming unwilling to give itself over to its own flow. I imagine a certain restlessness is how Aidan Baker‘s music happens in the first place. You get smaller encapsulations of that here, if not more traditional accessibility.
Based in the arguable capitol of the Doom Capitol region — Frederick, Maryland — the three-piece Trap Ratt arrive in superbly raw style with the four-song/33-minute Tribus Rattus Mortuus, the last of which, aptly-titled “IV,” features Tim Otis (High Noon Kahuna, Admiral Browning, etc.), who also mixed and mastered, guesting on noise while Charlie Chaplin’s soliloquy from 1940’s The Dictator takes the place of the tortured barebones shouts that accompany the plod of 13-minute opener/longest track (immediate points) “The Sacred Skunk,” seemingly whenever they feel like it. That includes the chugging part before the feedback gets caustic near the song’s end, by the way. “Thieving From the Grieving” — which may or may not have been made up on the spot — repurposes Stooges-style riffing as the foundation for its own decay into noise, and if from anything I’ve said so far about the album you might expect “Take the Gun” to not be accordingly harsh, Trap Ratt have a word and eight minutes of disaffected exploration they’d like to share with you. It’s not every record you could say benefits aesthetically from being recorded live in the band’s rehearsal space, but yes, Tribus Rattus Mortuus most definitely does.
Maryland genre destroyers High Noon Kahuna will loose their second album, This Place is Haunted, on the unknowing ether May 17 with the 25-years-strong backing of Crucial Blast behind them. And as their debut, 2022’s Killing Spree (review here), willfully united the disparate worlds of black metal and surf rock, it seems only fitting that the 12-song/54-minute follow-up should go someplace else. Based in Maryland’s doom capitol, Frederick (home to Maryland Doom Fest, where the trio will celebrate this release on June 23) the pedigreed three-piece of vocalist/bass-VI-ist Paul Cogle, guitarist Tim Otis (also backing and other vocals throughout) and drummer Brian Goad present a sound that feels simultaneously broader and more solidified than on the first record, touching on a darker, heavier post-punk at the outset with “Atomic Sunset” that meets its semi-goth vibe and Otis‘ first lead vocal head-on with a wash of noise at the end, before “Lamborghini” — the first of three sub-three-minute instrumentals spread throughout the tracklisting, each with its own character, with the bassy stonerjazz meander of “The Devil’s Lettuce” and the thicker noise-rock riffing of “Midnight Moon” offsetting/bolstering some of the stylistic turns surrounding and giving preface to side B’s outward push in the drifting “Flaming Dagger” and the echoes emerging from the crashing void of seven-minute finale “Et Ita Factum Est” — redirects toward a more straight-ahead, riffer charge.
Returning producer Kevin Bernsten at Developing Nations Studio in Baltimore does well in not so much corralling High Noon Kahuna‘s various whims and impulses, but in highlighting the multifaceted dynamic and tonality that draws their material together. That is to say, while This Place is Haunted doesn’t linger in any particular aural locale for too long and with 12 cuts included there’s no shortage of jumping around from place to place — to wit, “Prehistoric Love Letter” picking up after “Lamborghini” with Torche-style uptempo heavy rock reimagined as Chesapeake emo/post-hardcore with shared vocals from Otis and Cogle and the subsequent “Good Night God Bless” (premiering below) burning the ground with feedback before slamming into its densely-weighted roll with shouts cutting through, angular twists of effects and whatever else that is, and a bombast that gives over to residual noise, drone and buried voice(s) to lead into the aforementioned addled sway of “The Devil’s Lettuce”; or, you know, the rest of the thing — when taken as a whole, in a single dose, the album’s cohesion comes in part from its willingness to be itself apart from outside expectation, the imaginary limits of style, and, in the true spirit of Maryland’s doom underground, the direction of trend.
“Brand New Day” finds a Josh Homme-style vocal topping more gothic-ish proceedings, this time led by Cogle‘s bass, and leads one to wonder if it and “Atomic Sunset” aren’t intended to be complements; i.e., the morning of the next day. Certainly “Good Night God Bless,” “Midnight Moon,” and “Tumbleweed Nightmare” could be read into this theme as well, and given the nature of the project, that they aren’t necessarily in linear go-to-bed-dream-and-wake-up order hardly matters. That doesn’t account for cuts like “Sidewalk Assassin” though, with its alarm of feedback screech and tense intro drumming unfolding into a barrage of low noise riffing and shouting that turns to more spacious and less voluminous fare before it’s done without letting go of that tension, or the amalgam of chug-punk and atmospherics that arrive with “Mystical Shit,” which follows.
The lesson there, perhaps, is that it’s a mistake in the first place to try and find rules where for the most part there aren’t any, and that High Noon Kahuna‘s sundry divergences throughout This Place is Haunted are most of all linked by the fact that it’s all part of the band’s overarching scope. And as in the best of scenarios, it works because they make it work in pieces that aren’t trying to be defined as weird or outside this or that common ‘heavy’ expectation so much as they are a realization of the personalities behind the songwriting. A good bit of instrumental chemistry and breadth of production don’t hurt either, and This Place is Haunted benefits from those as well.
Airy in the high end, storytelling in its lyric and dense in its bassy fluidity, “Tumbleweed Nightmare” comes apart at the crunching staticky finish to give a fresh start to “Flaming Dagger,” which feels at least part-improvised around its core bassline — Otis is on a journey here — before the wash of guitar gradually consumes the bass and drums in the mix, leading to another noisy end that lets “Et Ita Factum Est” stand on its own. Fair enough. The closer’s title translates from Latin as “And So it Was Done,” and it is correspondingly declarative in the execution, from the pattern-setting onset to the howls of guitars that bookend the cacophony and lost-in-space echoing voice calling out (in Latin, though it’s hard to tell) near the end of its middle third.
The drums are first to depart as Cogle holds to the progression he set at the beginning and Otis channels animalian feedback, but soon the bass is gone as well and High Noon Kahuna cap with a suitable wall of amplified residual drone. It’s not as harsh as it could be, in terms of the noise offered elsewhere on This Place is Haunted, but I wouldn’t call it a gentle goodbye either. Like the rest of what surrounds, it is a moment defined mostly by being the band’s own. This is doubly impressive when one considers that two years ago their debut set a largely different context for its own definition.
As to what that means for High Noon Kahuna going forward — the question being if they’ve found ‘their sound’ in the reaches here or if whatever they do next will embark on another stylistic course — it would be useless, stupid, and not the least in the spirit of This Place is Haunted to speculate. Given what they do here and what Killing Spree wrought, they’re somewhat less madcap than they were two years ago, but that has clearly allowed them to find poise in the control over what for many bands would be a chaos either too encompassing to wield or result in something outright unlistenable.
This Place is Haunted doesn’t bow to notions of accessibility, but it does leave room for the listener to find a place for themselves in the world the trio are making. Sometimes it even feels safe there after a while, in that maybe-ghost-ridden fray, which makes the procession across these songs all the more special to behold for those who can meet the band on their own, deeply individualized level.
“Good Night God Bless” premieres below, followed by more background, the invite to a Bandcamp listening party next week, live dates and such from the PR wire.
Please enjoy:
High Noon Kahuna, “Good Night God Bless” track premiere
High Noon Kahuna is a power trio of veteran heavy musicians from Frederick, Maryland, with Tim Otis on guitar (Admiral Browning), Brian Goad on Drums (Internal Void / The Larrys / Nagato), and Paul Cogle on Bass VI and Vocals (Black Blizzard / Vox Populi / Nagato / Slagstorm). These three gents have known each other for years and have always supported each other in their respective bands.
High Noon Kahuna is back in 2024 to present their second album, This Place is Haunted. This collection of songs captures the raw vibe of their last album, Killing Spree, while expanding on the band’s diverse corners of influence. Spanning the genre sphere across Surf, Western, Deathrock, Noiserock, Punk, and Psych, these songs show HNK at their most aggressive… as well as most ethereal, spacey, and gothic.
All the songs on the album came from unrestricted jamming over the last 20 months. In fact, the very first notes and beats the three members ever played together was an instantly exciting song that is captured on this album (Brand New Day). In that time, the band has toured and played many shows, continuing to hone their unhinged live performances. This Place is Haunted is an evolution of the unique HNK sound and sees them at new creative heights.
Before entering the studio, roughly 80% of the songs were solidified, and most were played out live; the other 20% were based on free-form jams in the HNK archive and re-created on-the-fly, pseudo improv style. The band partnered with Kevin Bernsten and Developing Nations for recording, as they did with Killing Spree. His studio provided a vibe that sparked their creativity and gave them freedom to work at another level. Working with Kevin on this album was a creatively liberating experience; his knowledge, gear, recording space, and ear allowed the band to get wild.
Final mastering for This Place Is Haunted was completed by the ever-inventive James Plotkin at Plotkin Works. The album’s stirring cover art was created by HNK’s own drummer, Brian Goad.
The album is set for release on May 17th, 2024, on CD, cassette, and digital (vinyl TBA).
This Place Is Haunted – Tracklist: 01. Atomic Sunset 02. Lamborghini 03. Prehistoric Love Letter 04. Good Night God Bless 05. The Devil’s Lettuce 06. Brand New Day 07. Midnight Moon 08. Sidewalk Assassin 09. Mystical Shit 10. Tumbleweed Nightmare 11. Flaming Dagger 12. Et Ita Factum Est
Crucial Blast just announced a listening party for This Place Is Haunted:
The event is scheduled for: Wednesday, May 15, 2024 at 7:00 PM EDT
Come and join Crucial Blast and the members of MD/WV noise rock / occult desert rock / phantasmagorical psychedelic punk power-trio HIGH NOON KAHUNA as we hang out next Wednesday (7pm EST) and listen to the upcoming full-length album “This Place Is Haunted”. We will all be in the chat, and would love to hear from you and blab with ya! We will also be doing an online raffle + trivia question for free HIGH NOON KAHUNA shirts and copies of the new album, only for participants in the listening party chat. Come and get it!
Upcoming Live Dates: May 23 – Asheville, NC @ The Odd May 24 – Richmond, VA @ Another Round May 25 – Staunton, VA @ The Brick May 26 – Lexington, KY @ Green Lantern May 28 – Washington, DC @ The Pie Shop Jun. 23 – Frederick, MD @ MARYLAND DOOM FEST (Local Release Party)
High Noon Kahuna: Tim Otis: Guitar / Vocals Brian Goad: Drums Paul Cogle: Bass / Vocals
Iron Man‘s fourth album, I Have Returned (review here), was released 15 years ago this week, on April 25, 2009. It came out through Shadow Kingdom Records, which over the next couple years would also stand behind reissues of the quintessential Maryland doomers’ LP catalog up to that point — namely 1993’s Black Night (discussed here; reissue review here), 1994’s The Passage (discussed here) and 1999’s Generation Void (reissue review here) — and its arrival was all the more ceremonious with the decade’s split between records.
Of course the truth is more complex than Iron Man returning and putting out a record called I Have Returned to mark the occasion — founding guitarist and principle songwriter “Iron” Alfred Morris III had brought the band back in the mid-aughts and released two live albums (both recorded in Cincinnati) and an EP, Submission, in 2007 — and though 10 years from one record to the next should be well long enough to build anticipation among fans, they were never a ‘hype’ kind of band.
I was about 12 at the time and can’t claim to have been aware/on board when their first two records landed through the venerable German label Hellhound Records, which dug into the Maryland doomsphere in the ’90s to unearth outfits like Unorthodox, The Obsessed, Iron Man, Wretched, Revelation, Internal Void and Vortex of Insanity — along with Count Raven, Pigmy Love Circus, Lost Breed, Saint Vitus and plenty of others from elsewhere; their catalog is a lost trove of doomers’ doom dying for loyalist reissue — but for me and I think a generation of underground-heavy heads who would come up in the next few years, I Have Returned marked a new beginning.
Perhaps it was less that for Morris. When I asked him in a 2009 interview here how things were different after 10 years, doing a new record and bringing out a revamped lineup with vocalist Joe Donnelly, bassist Louis Strachan (Life Beyond, Wretched, now Spiral Grave), and drummer Dex Dexter (who had played in Force with Morris, pre-Iron Man), he said simply: “Nothing has changed much.”
Fair enough, and on a few levels that was almost certainly true. Morris had started Force, from which Iron Man sprang initially as a Black Sabbath tribute act, in 1976, and he would continue with Iron Man for the rest of his life until his passing in 2018 at the age of 60, after a long decline in health that had left him legally blind and largely unable to tour. For him, maybe, it was so much a part of himself that it wasn’t a big deal, wasn’t a “comeback,” because as long as he existed so did the band, even if they hadn’t done an album in however long. To an extent, he was Iron Man.
And while I won’t discount the punch of Strachan‘s bass as “Burn the Sky” starts I Have Returned at a decent clip with Donnelly — a more technical Ozzy-style singer who had done Sabbath tributes as well, and something of a comedian on stage — riding the coursing groove in the verse, the coordinating efforts of their manager Michael Lindenauer (who gets an Executive Producer credit), or anyone else’s work throughout, Iron Man was forever rooted in the riffs. And in this regard, in his riffs, Morris was a poet. The production of Frank “The Punisher” Marchand (so many, from Unorthodox and Sixty Watt Shaman to Foghound and Borracho) gives each instrument its space, and while the ethic the band always followed was light on flourish in a way that became a tenet of ‘Maryland doom’ as a style, hooky second cut “Run From the Light” was damn near stately in its dense distortion as Morris‘ guitar set the pattern for the lyrics that turned Trouble on their head, and whether it’s the march of the memorable title-track or “Curse the Ages (Curse Me),” the speedier chug of “Blind-Sighted Forward Spiral” and the shredding finale “Among the Filth and Slime,” the dug-in lumber of “Sodden With Sin” or the standalone acoustic strum-and-pluck of the interlude “Days of Olde,” in tone, tempo and delivery, Morris‘ work distinguished Iron Man as ever sure of their purpose, never having forgotten where they were coming from.
It’s not a perfect record, even before you take on the sleazy lyrics of “Gomorrah Gold” — recommend you don’t, actually — but its love of classic metal and of course doom still resonate in the hard-hitting tension of “Among the Filth and Slime” as well as the more atmospheric nod of “Fallen Angel” just before it, and in “Run From the Light” and “I Have Returned,” “Burn the Sky” and “Curse the Ages (Curse Me),” etc., Iron Man declared themselves within and beyond the bounds of the fertile Maryland underground. Further, it was the point at which they started to get a modicum of the respect they’d long since deserved.
Strachan held the bassist position for the remainder of Iron Man‘s career, but Donnelly was out of the band and replaced by “Screaming Mad” Dee Calhoun (now Spiral Grave, solo, etc.) on vocals before 2011’s self-released 2011’s Dominance EP (review here), and Jason “Mot” Waldmann (also now Spiral Grave) would take over on drums circa 2012, in time to be part of the final Iron Man long-player, 2013’s South of the Earth (review here), also helmed by Marchand and issued via Rise Above Records in an era that saw Lee Dorrian (Cathedral, With the Dead, etc.) standing behind landmark albums from the likes of Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, Ghost, Blood Ceremony and others.
When Iron Man got picked up by Rise Above, it brought them to another level entirely. They would travel abroad to play a Rise Above anniversary party and other shows like the Castle of Doom Festival in Italy where the 2021 live album Hail to the Riff (on Argonauta) was recorded, and while they’ll probably always be undervalued to some degree, that it turned out to be their final run is bittersweet in hindsight because at least Morris had the chance to experience some of the impact of his work in and on the doom genre. I Have Returned set that in motion.
And in a move that remains both duly respectful and respectfully classy, after Morris‘ death, Calhoun, Strachan and Waldmann put the band to rest as well, moving on to Spiral Grave and carrying the legacy forward in new ways while telling their own story as well.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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Most of this week was dedicated in my head to returning from, processing and thinking through the trip to Roadburn last week and weekend, and that’s how it played out. Thanks to the unending kindness of The Patient Mrs., coming home wasn’t nearly as overwhelming as it might’ve been, and while I wouldn’t say The Pecan took it easy on me — she had darted in the parking lot of the airport and had to be picked up and put in the car to leave, at which point comes the hitting and biting; she wanted to keep riding the people-mover after however many laps back and forth; transitions are always her hardest moments — we’ve done a lot of good reading this week, both about Zelda and not, and I think maybe she missed me a little bit. Not that such a thing would ever be said outright, mind you.
Specifically in terms of The Obelisk, it was a catchup week in which I didn’t get caught up, so maybe not the most successful, but neither was it the most ambitious, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t drop the ball on anything I was actually on the hook to post. A couple album announcements — Lord Buffalo spring to mind first — and tours for Greenleaf/Slomosa and Dopelord/Red Sun should’ve gone up and didn’t, but hopefully I’ll get there. I’m surviving, in the meantime, and the world continues to spin.
Where I’ve really been lacking is in email. I’ve got a backlog from the contact form of things to check out in addition to relevant press releases and contacts about this and that. Messenger has been a bit better but I’m behind on that too (also less comes in). But I’ve found that with the limited time and brainpower I have in a given morning/early afternoon, I need to be writing if I want to get done what I want to get done. Not saying interpersonal communication isn’t part of that — I’m not on a total blackout or anything, just not keeping up the way I should — but if I have the time to write, then I’m going to do all I can to put myself in a position where I’m writing.
This thankfully also leaves me little time for questions like, “Is this crazy?” or “Does this matter to anyone but me?” or “Is this how I should be spending my days?,” which I’m not sure are any help in the asking. Being someone who writes about music, a reviewer or, in my loftiest of self-assessments, a critic, I’m used to a certain amount of condescension, generally from other creative-types based on their own insecurities. How much I want to feed into that cycle, I’ve never been sure. With the proliferation of other blogs and here-listen-to-this algorithms, what do I really add to anything by stressing out about news posts?
I’m not ready to hang up the site, emotionally or practically. I don’t have another outlet, for example. Nowhere to go at this point. But “I just want to write” has become only one of the processes involved in The Obelisk, and I need to look at that. I am not a content-provider. I do not want to pose out for social media, or do reaction videos instead of reviews. Does that make the work I do here out of date and/or irrelevant? Maybe.
These are vague thoughts presented in vague terms, so I’ll be concrete and say this: someday this will end. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. I’m 42 years old, and when The Obelisk started I wasn’t yet 30. I’ve dedicated 15 of the years of a life that in the best of cases is probably more than halfway over to this thing, and I’m comfortable thinking of it as my life’s work in terms of writing and reaching an audience. I’m happy with what it’s become, the generally respectful tone in which it’s spoken about, and that it’s spoken about at all. Every now and then, someone on the internet says something very nice about my work. I feel fortunate to have that as my situation. It is not something I take for granted. Thank you for reading, in other words. I’ll leave the discussion at that, which is what I most want to say anyhow.
This weekend we’re headed to Legoland, which I expect will be a total shitshow, but one of a familiar sort, and probably that will be the big event. I have two liner notes projects coming due at the same time, so my big plans to review Brume and DVNE and do three track/album premieres besides next week might prove too much, but I’ll do my best to dig into as much as I can, same as ever. Whatever you’re up to, I hope you enjoy the time. Have fun, be safe, hydrate and all that. It’s a hard world to live in, but there’s music too.
Darsombra released their plague-chronicle 2LP Dumesday Book (review here) last August — Crucial Blast has a double-tape out as of March — and, well, maybe it’s time to start thinking of the go-forth-from-Maryland two-piece as more of a longform art project than a band. If they were more pretentious, less inclined to roam and had more money, they’d probably be able to cast themselves as ‘arthouse,’ but the fact is their work isn’t really meant for gallery walls or any other kind. It’s too open in itself to be so contained. Free-drone.
From the sirens of “Call the Doctor (Pandemonium Mix)” and the chants of “Everything is Canceled,” from the drumless guitar prog and oddball vocals repeating the title of “Gibbet Lore” as it comes to a head to the serene reaches where the near-18 minutes of “Azimuth” end up, there’s not much that feels off limits to the duo of Ann Everton and Brian Daniloski. Synthesized, organic, programmed or pulsed, the material is defined in part by the whims it chooses to follow, and while that can at times lead to a kind of willful disjointedness — because not everything connects and not everything is supposed to; you’re not in an ’80s sitcom — Dumesday Book is an encompassing memoir of a time that at least many would rather forget than learn from. They’re not much for percussion and never have been, but neither do pieces like the empty-space strum and blown-out preach of “Plague Times” or the foreboding reprise “Still Canceled” lack movement. As they do, Darsombra are just tracing the patterns of their own math.
I won’t lie to you and say it isn’t helpful having a stated and discernible theme to latch onto in listening to Dumesday Book — the tracks themselves more ‘of the time’ than ‘about’ it — but their keys-and-guitar-based explorations have rarely been unwelcoming in the past, at least to those able to let go of expecting things like verses and choruses in their music. As regards the video premiering below for opening track “Shelter in Place,” the visual fluidity of movement of wind through the dark fabric that becomes ghostly, cosmic, colorized, and so on, is somewhat ironic given the title’s inherent stillness, but I’m not sure that isn’t the idea or that the spectral figure reminiscent of Death itself isn’t the story of the covid pandemic arriving at the shores of humanity’s collective helplessness at the outset of this downhill decade. And you know what? It’s Darsombra, so it’s also okay to not be sure. Not like they’re judging.
Everton and Daniloski begin their next European tour at Roadburn 2024 this Friday, and they’ll hook up with Stinking Lizaveta for the UK portion of the run to hit Desertfest London after playing the anniversary party for Exile on Mainstream in Germany. They’re abroad through the end of May and into June, and it likely won’t be long before they announce the next month-plus tour after this one because that’s how it goes with Darsombra‘s have-noise-will-travel nomadic tendencies. No coincidence that comes paired with such a resonant sense of sonic adventurousness.
“Shelter in Place,” at just three minutes, is the opening to the world portrayed throughout Dumesday Book. On its own, it provides a sample of Darsombra‘s aural dimensionality without necessarily encapsulating the whole. It leads you in, in other words.
Please enjoy:
Darsombra, “Shelter in Place” video premiere
Music by Darsombra Video directed and edited by Ann Everton Camera work by Brian Daniloski
“Shelter In Place” is the first track on Darsombra’s 2023 double album, “Dumesday Book”, available atdarsombra.com.
Shot on location at Assateague Island, USA. No ponies were harmed in the making of this film.
The latest video from Dumesday Book arrives with “Shelter In Place,” the album’s opening track. “Shelter In Place” is an ominous, majestic introduction to the album’s uncertain journey of the deep range of human emotions characteristic during plague times. The track is quaking, vast, and full of portent; the video, filmed and edited by Everton, gives the tsunami of precarious fear a doleful, baleful visage. Welcome to the trip.
Dumesday Book is available on CD, 2xLP, and digitally on DARSOMBRA’s Pnictogen Records. Physical formats include a twelve-page booklet, a sticker, and a download code with access to bonus material.
This week, DARSOMBRA will make their return to the Roadburn Festival alongside The Jesus And Mary Chain, Chelsea Wolfe, Khanate, Blood Incantation, and dozens more. Roadburn is followed by shows across Germany, Poland, Holland, and Belgium, on their way to play Exile On Mainstream 25 Festival dates in both Berlin and Leipzig – the 25th anniversary of the diverse label for which DARSOMBRA is an alumni act – with Ostinato, A Whisper In The Noise, Caspar Brötzmann Massaker, Conny Ochs, and many others also on the four-day/two-city bill.
In the wake of EOM25, they’ll join up with their allies Stinking Lizaveta for shows across the UK, including Desertfest London with Godflesh, Suicidal Tendencies, Ufomammut, Bongripper, Acid King, Monolord, and many more. DARSOMBRA will then make their live debut in Ireland, playing three shows across the country. See all confirmed dates below and watch for additional tour dates for the Summer and Fall months to be announced.
DARSOMBRA Tour Dates: 4/19/2024 Roadburn Festival – Tilburg, NL 4/24/2024 Kunstverein Hintere Cramergasse e.V – Nuremberg, DE 4/25/2024 Kalambur – Wroclaw, PL 4/26/2024 Lot Chmiela – Poznan, PL 4/27/2024 Awaria – Krakow, PL 4/28/2024 Mlodsza Siostra – Warsaw, PL 5/03/2024 Het Alternatief – Nijmegen, NL 5/05/2024 De Loft – Herent, BE 5/09/2024 Exile On Mainstream 25 Fest – Berlin, DE 5/10/2024 Exile On Mainstream 25 Fest – Leipzig, DE 5/14/2024 The Gryphon – Bristol, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta 5/16/2024 Puzzle Hall Inn – Sowerby Bridge, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta 5/17/2024 The Cellar – Cardigan, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta 5/19/2024 Desertfest – London, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta 5/22/2024 The Lubber Fiend – Newcastle, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta 5/23/2024 BLOC – Glasgow, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta 5/24/2024 St. Vincent’s Chapel – Edinburgh, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta 5/25/2024 Tooth & Claw – Inverness, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta 5/30/2024 Coughlan’s – Cork, IE 5/31/2024 Kasbah/Dolan’s – Limerick, IE 6/01/2024 Saturday Anseo – Dublin, IE
Posted in Questionnaire on April 12th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions inteded to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Tim Otis of High Noon Kahuna
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
Make sounds with the intention of accentuating, enhancing, or supporting other sounds around me. It all happened very organically. In high school I played guitar… a lot. Then I became very interested in drumming and started jamming on drums about 5 years later. It was a very organic transition from drumming by myself, to free-form jamming (mostly with Matt LeGrow and our brothers), then those free-form jams evolved into Admiral Browning.
About nine years ago I got back into guitar big time. Revisiting old riffs I had, learning new stuff. Exploring tones, pedals, amps, different pickups and stuff like that. Started jamming on guitar with a neighbor who drummed, shortly Paul joined us on Wednesday nights to jam. It was also very organic, we never “constructed” a song as much as we honed free-form jams into songs.
Describe your first musical memory.
My zeroth musical memory is piano lessons as a young kid, I remember not liking my piano teacher at all. Hahah! Beyond that, mom and dad played guitar, bass, banjo, piano and sang at church, so I had early access to instruments, PA systems and microphones. I have several memories of playing with this stuff, learning about it, and singing in musicals as a young person in church. However my favorite thing to do in those days was to hear Rick Dees weekly top forty. I would rush to the radio on Sunday nights when it
aired. It was the highlight of my week as a young kid. Not only tracking where my favorite artists were on the charts (Duran Duran) but I was equally fascinated by some of the side stories Rick would share when introducing a song or band.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
This is a recent one! Our latest High Noon Kahuna recording with Kevin Bernstein at Developing Nations! We went in with about 80% of the songs fully-baked, done, and dusted. We had sketches and rough drafts of the other 20 percent with enough time booked to fully explore and experiment in the studio. It was liberating and wonderful! Out of this freedom we created what I think is one of the coolest tracks on the new album, “Tumbleweed Nightmare.”
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
Drumming showed me my limits were mental. When I was at my physical limit, the riffs and music drove me to push past those limits. I can run or workout with weights or kickbox or kayak or ride uphill on a bike, but nothing on earth pushes me to my limit and enables me to break past my limits like drumming and more importantly, being a collaborator in the musical sounds of the band.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Betterment! With any form of art, it starts small, and sometimes it starts bad. As we learn and grow while practicing, our art becomes better. Every time we practice our art is a chance to improve.
How do you define success?
Success, to me, is being happy with yourself, your surroundings, the people in your life, and your work. Society always dangles the carrot in front of us, there will always be something we don’t have. Being motivated and driven enough to keep working hard every single day and on days when the motivation isn’t there, having resiliency to push through the items that need doing, that’s how I’m able to feel successful at the end of the day.
As far as a band setting goes, there are thousands of micro-to-macro successes. Celebrating each one of those can manifest more. Things like, inventing a new part for a song, having a good practice jam, playing a fun show, a successful recording session. Each of these are rewarding and should be seen as successes.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
The bathroom at the Springwater Supper Club & Lounge in Nashville Tennessee. Love that place, many of my good friends have worked there and booked shows there. Have played several amazing shows there and attended some awesome parties and shows there. But, wow that bathroom was bad! All the things you’d expect from a punk-rock bathroom. Few rival it, however the bathroom at the Meatlocker in Montclair New Jersey and the bathroom at the Milestone in Charlotte North Carolina were contenders.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I think everyone who is a true music fan/nerd has developing tastes. I’m thankful that I’ve never reached the end of my musical journey as a fan of music. I’m also thankful for my friends over the years who have showed me new music. As my tastes and preferences evolve I’m thankful that new ideas emerge regularly that challenge my own musical abilities and push me beyond my limits.
As far as non-musical creations, I’ve been getting back into drawing, lettering and calligraphy. There are a few ideas here that I’m working on creating.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Expression. Art allows us to convey our attitudes and emotions on different levels. Art can be beautiful, art can be brutal, art can be beautifully brutal or brutally beautiful. I’m thankful for the ability to express these emotions in ways that resonate in ways beyond just talking about them.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
I’ve been watching every werewolf movie I can find since last Halloween, there are roughly 70 on my list. I look forward to seeing them all. (Suggestions and recommendations welcome!) Some upcoming tattoo work I’m getting. Spending some fun summer time with my wife, hounds, and mother nature.
