So this is it for the second of two Quarterly Review weeks around here, bringing the total to 100 releases covered since last Monday, with 10 more still to come next Monday.

110 releases, mostly (not all) from about April through November.

That’s insane. More, I’m not in any way prepared to call it or any other Quarterly Review comprehensive. It’s nowhere near everything that’s come out or is coming out. It’s a fraction at best. There’s just so much.

I’m not going to attach a value judgment to that. It’s not good, it’s not bad; it simply is. My processes remain largely unchanged, and whether it’s a net positive that the underground is either sparse and fractured or flooded with bands to such a point that Gen-X reunions underwhelm in the face of so much good, new music being made, I’ll be here regardless. And even if there were a fifth as many bands out there as there are right now, no doubt I still couldn’t keep up.

See you Monday.

Quarterly Review #91-100:

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Elder, Live at BBC Maida Vale Studios

While it’s by no means Elder‘s first captured-live release, as they’ve put out festival sets from Roadburn and Sonic Whip in years past, Live at BBC Maida Vale Studios answers any what’s-all-this-about questions with the sound of the performances themselves. It’s a single LP, somewhere about 40 minutes long, and in Elder terms that translates to three songs — “Merged in Dreams/Ne Plus Ultra” (15:33), “Lore” (13:54) and “Thousand Hands” (9:21) — so by no means is it expansive, or comprehensive in representing this era of Elder‘s presence on stage or scope in songwriting. Why put it out instead of some recorded tour night or a compilation of songs from different shows? Same answer as before: the sound of the performances. For sure Live at BBC Maida Vale Studios is a fan-piece, but it is live, and Elder sound fantastic — and it’s probably a pretty decent memory for the band to celebrate — so you’re not at all going to hear me argue.

Elder on Facebook

Stickman Records website

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Kandodo, theendisinpsych

Simon Price, now formerly of UK heavy psych forebears The Heads, returns with the first Kandodo outing since 2019’s K3 (review here) and a reoriented focus on intimacy rather than operating in a full-band style. That is to say, the five-track/44-minute release sounds like the solo album it is. That, however, doesn’t stop “Fuzzyoceans” from casting an expanse in its just-under-11 minutes, with a central rhythmic bounce around which layers of synth and guitar conjure a wash of experimentalist flourish. Lo-fi beatmaking starts in “Chamba7,” the opener, and sounds higher budget as “Theendisinpsych Pt. 1” borders on psych techno — “Theendisinpsych Pt. 2” follows immediately and moves from sustained keyboard notes and a sampled David Bowie radio interview to an evocative, shimmering drone; it isn’t arhythmic, but it doens’t have a ‘beat’ per se — and becomes part of the avant garde soundscape (the lightning part) in closer “Freefalling,” which unfolds in stages of variable volume and hum with some howling leads snuck in near the end. It’s a deep dive and at times a challenging listen. So yes, exactly what one would hope.

Kandodo on Facebook

Kandodo on Bandcamp

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High Reeper, Renewed by Death

When High Reeper‘s third LP, Renewed by Death, was announced back in July, it was notable how much the album’s narrative seemed to position them as a metal band rather than heavy/doom rock, which even though 2019’s Higher Reeper (review here) had its harder-hitting moments, is kind of how I’d come to think of them. The eight songs of Renewed by Death aren’t hyper-aggressive — though you wouldn’t call “Torn from Within” ‘chill’ by any means — but they feel sharper in their composition than the last record, and if High Reeper want to say that “Lamentations of the Pale” and “Jaws of Darkness” are their take on doom metal, I’d only emphasize how much that take feels like High Reeper‘s own in being cognizant of the traditional metal and doom aspects of their sound and making them groove as fervently as they do. The Eastern Seaboard is lucky to have them.

High Reeper on Facebook

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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Kanaan & Ævestaden, Langt, Langt Vekk

A low-key highlight of 2024, the collaboration between Norwegian neofolkers Ævestaden and heavy progressive instrumentalists Kanaan — titled Langt, Langt Vekk and comprising nine songs of varied intent, arrangement and origin — resounds with creative depth. It’s in Norwegian, and plays a lot off of traditional folk instrumentation and vocal styles — not to mention the songs themselves, which are also traditionals — but as the two sides come together even just on a three-minute instrumental piece like “Fiskaren,” there’s an organic forested space rock to be found, and whether it’s the somehow-catchy “Farvel” or “Habbor og Signe,” the cosmic-leaning “Vallåt efter C.G. Färje” or the wistful progeadelia that resolves in “Vardtjenn,” the reverence for the material is palpable, and also the reverence for the process itself, for each of these two entities contributing to something grander than either might be able or inclined to conjure on their own. That the collection worked out to be gorgeous, both worldly and otherworldly, and to cast such a breadth while remaining cohesive in mood is a credit to all involved. It could’ve been an absolute mess. It very much is not.

Kanaan on Instagram

Ævestaden on Instagram

Jansen Records website

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MC MYASNOI, Slugs are Legal Now

Slugs are Legal Now contains two live sets from experimental doomers MC MYASNOI, one from Harpa and one from R6013, both venues in the band’s hometown of Reykjavík, Iceland. The setlists are identical at six-per, but the performances are varied in a way that becomes part of the personality of the whole, which is immersive in its droning stretches, sometimes harsher in the noise being made particularly on the rougher R6013 songs, but still able to be heavy in a piece like “Step on Ur Neck” in a way that feels conversant with the likes of Ufomammut or Boris, and neither the moody post-darkjazz of “Nytrogen” nor the drums-and-rumble-do-a-minute-or-two-of-free-psych “lea%rdi%rdx2%rcx” a short time later (watch out for your speakers with that one), do anything to dissuade that impression. “Terror Serpentine” finishes both halves of Slugs are Legal Now with 11 minutes of grim sprawl, and in the culmination, that it’s the keyboard that’s shredding instead of one or the other of the guitars feels suitable to the weirdo nuance MC MYASNOI seem to come by so naturally and pair with a progressive will to grow by screwing with convention. Not going to be for everybody, but those ready to take a risk might find the reward waiting.

MC MYASNOI on Instagram

MC MYASNOI on Bandcamp

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Turkey Vulture, On the List

Back after two years with further affirmation of their comfort with the EP format, Connecticut two-piece Turkey Vulture run a condensed gamut in the six songs and 12 minutes of On the List, with the duo of vocalist/guitarist/bassist Jessie May and drummer/backing vocalist Jim Clegg giving specifically Misfits-y early punk impressions on “Fiends Like Us,” which “Untitled” takes more of a garage angle on in following before they metal-up for “Dollhouse” and the 48-second grind-punker “Adults Destroy,” which leads to thrashing in “Harvest Moon” offset by doomly swing, and the closing “Jill the Ripper,” going out on a note that toys with goth Americana in the vein of The Bad Seeds and boasts banjo, guitar, percussion and, crucially, accordion from Steve Rodgers in a multifaceted guest spot. The accordion makes it. Turkey Vulture‘s output is generally pretty raw and that’s true with On the List as well, but there’s character in them coinciding with the flow from one aspect of their sound to the next between the songs, and the EP ends up conveying a lot about what works in the band for something that’s 12 minutes long.

Turkey Vulture on Facebook

Turkey Vulture on Bandcamp

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Ghost:Whale, Dive:Two

Doubly-bassed Brussels longform doom explorers Ghost:Whale certainly don’t get any less consciousness melting on the second disc of Dive:Two, which manifests its plunge across three extended pieces each given the title “Dub:Whale” and assigned a Roman numeral, but by then the five songs of the album’s first 67 minutes (as opposed to the 57 of the concluding trilogy) have already passed in the hypnotic, cosmic-doom push of “Under Pressure” and the synth-laced chug nod in the second half of “Les Danses des Sorcieres” that seems to come to a head in the speedier “Ultimas Palabras.” The shortest inclusion at nine minutes and by its finish spending some time cruising around a Truckfightersian desert, “Ultimas Palabras” gives over to “Godzilla” and “Eye of the Storm,” a kind of second LP within the first CD, led into by the synth of “Godzilla” — not a cover — and arriving at the farthest reach in the electronics-infused expanses of “Eye of the Storm,” for which the drums mostly sit out and the noise spends 21 minutes venturing into the unknown. Ghost:Whale are not fucking around. And obviously the “Dub:Whale” tracks are a divergence in intention, harnessing the power of repetition in a different way, but either it’s a logical extension or my brain has just gone numb from the low-end. Fine in any case, honestly.

Ghost:Whale on Facebook

Forbidden Place Records store

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Sheepfucker and Kraut, Bring Your Sheep

Do I really need to tell you these guys are up to some shenanigans? They called the band Sheepfucker and Kraut, for crying out loud. Heavy rock chicanery ensues over eight tracks rife with willful misbehavior, culminating with “Broner” after turning the album’s progression into a kind of playground running between heavy rock, classic and psychedelic instrumentalism, metal and jams. It’s not a little, and I guess a namedrop for Mr. Bungle is somewhat obligatory, but the Bulgarian outfit make themselves welcome in the swath of ground they cover, punkish in their glee on top of everything else in “Bobanei” and the pop-adjacent “Look at Me,” which would seem to have some satire behind its chorus but is a standout hook just the same. They’re not all nonsense, or at least not at the expense of their songwriting in “Rich Man” and “Jolly Roger,” or “Did You Know” mirroring “Look at Me” in the penultimate spot on side B, but if people having fun while making music is a problem for you, I mean, really, you might want to have a good long think on what that’s all about. Yeah, it’s over-the-top. That’s the idea.

Sheepfucker and Kraut on Facebook

Threechords Records on Instagram

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LungBurner, Natura Duale

In some ways, LungBurner‘s second LP of 2024, Natura Duale, reminds of earliest Yatra in bringing together vicious sludge metal and a breadth of atmosphere, but the Atlanta outfit have more of a post-metallic bent as the solo of “Barren” nonetheless dares to soar, and opener/longest track (immediate points) “Requiem” establishes the first of the album’s nods in a build of standalone guitar in the spirit of YOB, and in combination with a churn that wouldn’t feel out of place on Neurot and a crush in centerpiece “(Prey) Job” that opens to a classic stoner metal swagger in its verse, the righteousness here takes many forms, most of them dark, grueling and heavy — this definitely applies to the Celtic Frosting put on the proceedings by the finale “Astral Projection” — but not without a corresponding reach or purpose. LungBurner are served by the complexity of character, and Natura Duale grows more vivid as it goes.

LungBurner on Facebook

Electric Desert Records on Bandcamp

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Bog Wizard, Journey Through the Dying Lands

With their material steeped in fantasy and horror/sci-fi lore, a goodly portion of it being of their own making, Michigan’s Bog Wizard continue to find the thread between tabletop gaming and sometimes monolithic sludge. The bulk of Journey Through the Dying Lands, which is their second release in a row done in collaboration with a game company, is dedicated to opener “I, Mycelium,” which stretches across 19:50 and unfolds in stages that don’t bother to choose between being brutal or fluid, the band winding up coming across as dug-in as one might expect Bog Wizard to be in the endeavor. There are two more studio tracks, in “Dodz Bringare,” which is black metal until it slams into the doom wall, and “Hagfish Dinner,” on which they depart for two minutes of harmonized chant-like vocals over resonant acoustic guitar. They’re not done yet as Ben Lombard (guitar/vocals), bassist Colby Lowman and drummer/vocalist Harlen Linke offer a glimpse at some live-on-stage banter before tearing into the thrasher “Stuck in the Muck” and backing it with another live track, this one a take on “Barbaria” from 2021’s Miasmic Purple Smoke (review here) that by the time it builds to its galloping finish has already long since demanded every bit of volume you can give it.

Bog Wizard on Facebook

Bog Wizard on Bandcamp

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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:

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Melody Fields, 1901

Though it starts out firmly entrenched in ’60s psychedelia in “Going Back,” Melody Fields‘ 1901 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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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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