Posted in Whathaveyou on January 23rd, 2024 by JJ Koczan
I like it when cool things happen to good bands generally, but specifically in this case I’m glad that Child‘s 2023 heavy-blues delve, Soul Murder (review here), is getting another look with the backing of Heavy Psych Sounds — from whom I’m almost an hour removed from discussing as one of the premier heavy labels in the world, so I must be due — since the Melbourne trio basically opened their veins and bled onto the tape, at least if the audio was anything to go by, and at least in the narrative I have of last year in my mind, the corresponding response was not what the record had earned. A Heavy Psych Sounds reissue, which is a first proper physical pressing, will fix that. The concept of one kind of already does.
That Soul Murder will feature alongside reissues for the band’s other releases — 2018’s I EP (review here), 2016’s Blueside (review here) and 2013’s self-titled debut (discussed here) — should hopefully bring more validation the band’s way for what they’ve done over the last decade-plus, and that’s super too, but getting the material out for international distribution is where it’s at here, and preorders for everything go up early next month. If you need more info than that, well, stick around because I’m sure it’s coming.
What I’ve got for now follows here, courtesy of the PR wire:
*** CHILD *** repressing the australian band catalogue with 2023 album Soul Murder for the first time on VINYL and CD
We’re incredibly stoked to announce that the australian psychedelic hard rockerz CHILD are now part of the Heavy Psych Sounds Family !!!
Heavy Psych Sounds Records will release the band’s highly acclaimed 2023 album SOUL MURDER for the very first time on VINYL and CD + repress the first two albums Child and Blueside and the EP I
FOUR ALBUMs PRESALE STARTs: February 7th
BIOGRAPHY
Combine the heavy emotion of the blues, the tone and raw power of hard rock, the finesse of soul and a twist of 60’s psychedelia. It will give you a visceral musical experience that plays directly to your being. That is CHILD. Living for their art, the pubs, the booze, the endless highways and the blues is what makes this band who they are. Child are a must see for those who are worshippers at “the electric church”. The freedom and power of a live performance is important to CHILD in their approach to music, endeavouring to never perform the same way twice. They look forward to once again bringing this to the world on their continued search for sonic paradise.
Since the release of their runaway self-titled debut in 2014, Child have continued to develop their unique brand of heavy blues through constant writing and extensive national/international touring. The band released the follow-up ‘Blueside’ in December 2016, which builds on this foundation to deliver a disc of pure sonic expression whilst following in the long tradition of the blues. 2018 saw the release of Child’s first EP, simply titled ‘I’. Recorded live to tape, ‘I’ is a glimpse into the boundless directions that could be taken on upcoming releases.
CHILD is Mathias Northway – guitar/vocals Michael Lowe – drums Rhys Kelly – bass
Posted in Reviews on October 3rd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
I broke my wife’s phone yesterday. What a mess. I was cleaning the counter or doing some shit and our spare butter dish — as opposed to the regular one, which was already out — was sitting near the edge of the top of the microwave, from where I bumped it so that the ceramic corner apparently went right through the screen hard enough that in addition to shattering it there’s a big black spot and yes a new phone has been ordered. In the meantime, she can’t type the letter ‘e’ and, well, I have to hand it to Le Creuset on the sturdy construction of their butter dishes. Technology succumbing to the brute force of a harder blunt object and gravity.
Certainly do wish that hadn’t happened. What does it have to do with riffs, or music at all, or really anything? Who cares. I’m about to review 10 records today. I can talk about whatever the hell I want.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
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Samsara Blues Experiment, Rock Hard in Concert
10 years after releasing 2013’s Live at Rockpalast (review here), and nearly three after they put out their 2021 swansong studio LP, End of Forever (review here), German heavy psych rockers Samsara Blues Experiment offer the 80-minute live 2LP Rock Hard in Concert, and while it’s not their first live album, it gives a broader overview of the band from front to (apparent) back during their time together, as songs opening salvo of “Center of the Sun,” “Singata Mystic Queen” and “For the Lost Souls” from 2010’s debut, Long-Distance Trip (review here), melds in the set with “One With the Universe” and “Vipassana” from 2017’s One With the Universe (review here), End of Forever‘s own title-track and “Massive Passive,” and “Hangin’ on a Wire” from 2013’s Waiting for the Flood (review here) to become a fan-piece that nonetheless engages in sound and presentation. If you were there, it’s likely must-own. For the rest of us, who maybe did or didn’t see the band during their time — glad to say I did — it’s a reminder of how immersive they could be, especially in longer-form material, and how much influence they had on the last decade-plus of jam-based heavy psych in Europe. Recorded in 2018 at a special gig for Germany’s Rock Hard magazine, Rock Hard in Concert follows behind 2022’s Demos & Rarities (review here) in the band’s posthumous catalog, and it may or may not be Samsara Blues Experiment‘s final non-reissue release. Whether it is or not, it summarizes their run gorgeously and puts a light on the chemistry of the trio that led them through so many winding aural paths.
Sounding modern and full and in opening cut “Marrow” almost like the fuzz is about to swallow the rest of the song, Restless Spirit step forward with their third long-player, Afterimage, and establish a new level of craft for themselves. In 2021, the Long Island heavy/doom rock trio offered Blood of the Old Gods (review here), and their guitar-led energetic surges continue here in Afterimage riffers like the chug-nod “Shadow Command” and “Of Spirit and Form,” which seems to account for the underlying metallic edge of the band’s execution with its sharper turns. Their first album for Magnetic Eye Records, its eight tracks fit smoothly into the label’s roster, which at its baseline might be said to foster modern heavy styles with a particular ear for songwriting and melody, and Restless Spirit dig into “All Furies” like High on Fire galloping into a wall of Slayer records, only to follow with the 1:45 instrumental reset “Brutalized,” which is somehow weightier. They touch on the ethereal with the guitar in “The Fatalist,” but the vocals are more post-hardcore and have a grounding effect, and after starting with outright crush, “Hell’s Grasp” offers respite in progressive flourish and midtempo meandering before resuming the double-plus-huge roll and pointed riff and noodly offsets, the huge hook coming back in a way that makes me miss doing a radio show. “Hell’s Grasp” is the longest piece on the collection at 6:25, but “From the Dust Returned” closes, mindful of the atmospherics that have been at work all along and no less huge, but clearly saving a last push for, well, last. I’ll be interested in how it holds up over the long term, but Magnetic Eye has become one of the US’ most essential labels in heavy music and releases like this are exactly why.
When did Graham Clise from WitchLecherous Gaze, etc. — dude used to be in Uphill Battle; I remember that band — move to Australia? Doesn’t matter. It happened and Stepmother is the raw, garage-ish fuzz rock outfit the now-Melbourne-residing Clise has established, with Rob Muinos on bass and vocals and Sam Rains on drums. With Clise on guitar/vocals peppering hard-strummed riffs with bouts of shred and various dirtier coatings, the 12-tracker goes north of four minutes one time for “Do You Believe,” already by then having found its proto-Misfits bent in the catchy “Scream for Death.” But whether they’re buzz-overdosing “Waiting for the Axe” or digging into the comedown in “Signed DC” ahead of the surf-informed rager of a finale “Gusano,” Planet Brutalicon is a debut that presents fresh ideas taking on known stylistic elements. And it’s not a showcase for Clise‘s instrumental prowess on a technical level or anything — he’s not trying to put on a clinic — but from the sound of his guitar to the noises he gets from it in “The Game” (that middle part, ultra-fuzz) and at the end of “Stalingrad,” it is very much a guitar-centered offering. No complaints there whatsoever.
Pilot Voyager, The Structure is Still Under Construction
WARNING: Users who take even a small dose of Pilot Voyager‘s The Structure is Still Under Construction may find themselves experiencing euphoria, or adrift, as though on some serene ocean under the warm green sky of impossibly refracted light. The ethereal drones and melodic textures of the 46-minute single-song LP may cause side effects like: momentary flashes of inner peace, the quieting of your brain that you’ve been seeking your whole life without knowing it, calm. Also nausea, but that’s probably just something you ate. Talk to your doctor about whether this extended work from the Hungarian collective Psychedelic Source Records (szia!) is right for you, and if it is, make sure to consume responsibly. Headphones required (not included or covered by insurance). Do not be afraid as “The Structure is Still Under Construction” leaves the water behind to float upward in its midsection, finally resolving in intertwining drones, vague sampled speech echoing far off somewhere — ugh, the real world — and birdsong someplace in the mix. Go with it. This is why you got the prescription in the first place. Decades of aural research and artistic movement and progression have led you and the Budapesti outfit to this moment. Do not operate heavy machinery. Ever. In fact, find an empty field, take off your pants and run around for a while until you get out of breath. Then drink cool water and giggle. This could be you. Your life.
Philadelphia has become the East Coast US’ hotbed for heavy psychedelia, which must be interesting for Northern Liberties, who started out more than two decades ago. The trio’s self-released, 10-song/41-minute Self-Dissolving Abandoned Universe — maybe their eighth album, if my count is right — with venerated producer Steve Albini, so one might count ‘instant-Gen-X-cred’ and ‘recognizably-muddy-toms’ among their goals. I wasn’t completely sold on the offering until “Infusorian Hymnal” started to dig a little further into the genuinely weird after opener “The Plot Thickens” and the subsequent “Drowned Out” laid forth the crunch of the tones and gave hints of the structures beneath the noise. “Crucible” follows up the raw shove of “Star Spangled Corpse” by expanding the palette toward space rock and an unhinged psych-noise shove that the somehow-still-Hawkwindian volatility of “The Awaited” moves away from while the finale “Song of the Sole Survivor” calls back to the folkish vocal melody in “Ghosts of Ghosts,” if in echoing and particularly addled fashion. Momentum serves the three-piece well throughout, though they seem to have no trouble interrupting themselves (can relate), and turning to follow a disparate impulse. Distractable heavy? Yeah, except bands like that usually don’t last two decades. Let’s say maybe their own kind of oddball, semi-spaced band who aren’t afraid to screw around in the studio, find what they like, and keep it. And whatever else you want to say about Albini-tracked drums, “Hold on to the Darkness” has a heavier tone to its snare than most guitars do to whole LPs. Whatever works, and it does.
“Good Night, Ophelia” is the first single from the forthcoming debut full-length from semi-goth Portland, Oregon, heavy rock four-piece Nyxora. There are worse opening shots to fire than a Hamlet reference, I suppose, and if one regards Ophelia’s character as an innocent driven to suicide by gender-based oppression, then her lack of agency is nothing if not continually relevant. Nonetheless, for Nyxora — Vox on, well, vox, guitarist E.Wrath, bassist Luke and drummer Weatherman — she pairs with dark-boogie riff recorded for edge with Witch Mountain‘s Rob Wrong at his Wrong Way Studio. There are some similarities between Nyxora and Wrong‘s own outfit — I double-checked it wasn’t Uta Plotkin singing some of the higher-reaching lines of “Good Night, Ophelia,” which is a definite compliment — but I get the sense that fuller atmosphere of Nyxora‘s first LP isn’t necessarily encapsulated in this one three-and-a-half-minute song. That is, I’m thinking at some point on the album, Nyxora will get more morose than they are here. Or maybe not. Either way, “Good Night, Ophelia” is an enticing teaser from a group who seem ready to dig their niche when the album is released, I’ll assume in 2024 though one never knows.
I hate to do it, but I’m calling bullshit right now on Sydney, Australia’s Old Goat Smoke. Sorry gents. To be sure, your Bongzilla-crusty, ultra-stoned, Church of Misery-esque-in-its-madcap-vocal-wails, goat weed metal is only a pleasure to behold. But that’s the problem. How’re you gonna write a song called “Old Goat Smoke” and not post the lyrics? I shudder to think of the weed puns I’m missing. Fortunately, it’s not too late for the newcomer band to correct the mistake before the entire project is derailed. In that eponymous one of three total tracks included, Old Goat Smoke cast themselves in the mold of the despondent and disaffected. “Return to Dirt” shifts fluidly in and out of screams and harsher fare while radioactive-dirt tonality infects the guitar and bass that have already challenged the drums to cut through their morass. So that there’s no risk of the point not being made, they cap this initial public offering with “The Great Hate,” and eight-and-a-half-minute treatise on feedback and raw scathe that’s likewise a show of future nastiness to manifest. Quit your job, do all the drugs you can find, engage the permanent fuck-off. Old Goat Smoke may not have ‘bong’ in their moniker, but that’s about all they’re missing. And those lyrics, I guess, though by the time the 20 minutes of Demo have expired, they’ve made their caustic point regardless.
German transport-themed heavy rock and rollers Van Groover — as in, one who grooves in or with vans — made a charming debut with 2021’s Honk if Parts Fall Off (review here), and the follow-up five-song EP, Back From the Shop, makes no attempt to fix what isn’t broken. That would seem to put it at odds with the mechanic speaking in the intro “Hill Willy’s Chop Shop,” who runs through a litany of issues fixed, goes on long enough to hypnotize and then swaps in body parts and so on. From there, the motor works, and Van Groover hit the gas through 21 minutes of smells-like-octane riffing and storytelling. In “A-38″ — the reference being to the size of a sheet of paper in Europe; equivalent but not the same as the US’ 8.5″ x 11” — they either get arrested, which would seem to be the ending of “The Bandit” just before,” or are at the DMV, I can’t quite tell, but it doesn’t matter one you meet “The Grizz.” The closer has an urgency to its push that doesn’t quite sound like I’d imagine being torn apart by a bear to feel, but the Lebowski-paraphrased penultimate line, “Some days you get eaten by the bear, some days the bear eats you,” underscores Van Groover‘s for-the-converted approach, speaking to the subculture from within. Possibly while driving. Does look like a nice van, though. The kind you might write a song or two about.
Facts-wise, there’s not much more I can tell you about Hotel Lucifer than you might glean from looking at the New York four-piece’s Bandcamp page. Their self-released and self-titled debut runs 43 minutes and eight tracks, and its somewhat bleak, not-obligated-to-heavy-tonalism course takes several violent thematic turns, including (I think.) in opener “Room 222,” where Katie‘s vocals seem to talk about raping god. This, “Murderer,” “Torquemada,” “The Ultimate Price,” “Picking Your Eyes Out” and 12-minute horror noisefest closer “Beheaded” — only the classic metaller “Training the Beast” and the three-minute acoustic-backed psychedelic voice showcase “Echidna” seem to restrain the brutaller impulses, and I’m not sure about that either. With Jimmy on guitar, Muriel playing bass and Ed on drums, Hotel Lucifer are defined in no small part by the whispers, rasps and croons that mark their verses and choruses, but that becomes an effective means to convey character and mood along with the instrumental ambience behind, and so Hotel Lucifer find this strange, almost willfully off-putting cultish individualism, and it’s not hooks keeping your attention so much as the desire to figure it out, to learn more about just what the hell is going on on this record. I’ll wish you good luck with that as I continue my efforts along similar lines.
Its five songs broken into two sections along lines of “Obscure Fire” pairing with “Of Silence” and “Descending” leading to “Into the Depths” with “Of Eternal Doom” answering the question that didn’t even really need to be asked about which depths the Russian stoner sludge rollers were talking about. The Sleep-worshiping three-piece of guitarist/vocalist SAA, bassist KKV and drummer PAN — whose credits are worth reading in the band’s own words — lumber with purpose as they make that final statement, each side of Obscure Fire working shortest to longest beginning with the howling guitar and drum thud of the title-track at nine minutes as opposed to the 10 of “Of Silence.” At two minutes, “Descending” is barely more than feedback and tortured gurgles, so yes, very much a fit with the concrete-toned plod of the subsequent “Into the Depths” as the band skirt the line between ultra-stoner metal and cavernous atmospheric sludge without necessarily committing to one or the other. That position favors them, but after a certain point of being bludgeoned with huge riffs and slow-nodding, deeply-weighted churn, your skull is going to be goo either way. The route Megalith Levitation take to get you there is where the weed is, aurally speaking.
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 27th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
I have spent a decent portion of this year marveling at the small fortune Melbourne’s Khan would seem to have spent on social media promotion. They haven’t been in my feed every single day, but it’s been regular enough since before they released their Creatures album this past February that I feel way more familiar with the band than I am. Oh, Josh recorded the album? That’s nice.
Much of these months of content-creation has been heralding a European tour to come this Fall. Khan were among the early principals announced for Truckfighters Fuzz Festival #4 back in May, and pretty much since then the tour dates have been coming soon.
I’m not knocking this method of spreading the word about your work, mind you. Money where your mouth is. And it got me to finally listen to the record, which is of course killer enough to make me wish I’d bothered seven months ago. Never too late, though, and if you’re at Desertfest Belgium or wherever, you can succeed where I’ve failed in terms of seeing Khan live, which I now want to do, because I heard the record. Funny how that works.
But it does work. I’m a big believer in PR and all that, but a push like this can do a lot for a band. I can’t imagine I’m the only one who feels like they’ve spent a good amount of time this year keeping up with Khan. Otherwise they probably wouldn’t be touring Europe in the first place.
From socials, of course:
KHAN – EUROPEAN DATES!!
Here it is kids! Behold, the long awaited list of locations, dates and venues!!
We’ve been working really hard for the last 7 months to put this together and are very excited to finally share with you the full list of dates for our second European tour!
We know we’ve already announced the Australian dates and that most of them have already happened, but we wanted to include them because it looks way more impressive on a poster (#129464#)♂️ Plus we still have our final show of the Australian leg with Lucid Planet coming up (#129395#)
Please note, there were definitely other cities/countries that we really tried to book shows in but despite our best efforts approaching multiple promoters and venues, we were unable to get dates that worked with the rest of our tour.
Having said that, we do still have a few gaps in the tour schedule, so if you’re a promoter, venue booker or in a band and want to book us or add us to an existing show on one of our free dates, please send us a DM.
Event Details (will be updated with more event links shortly).
Axl Entertainment & Full Contact Safari Records presents:
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 4th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Melbourne, Australia-based raw heavy rockers Stepmother will release their first full-length, Planet Brutalicon, through Tee Pee Records on Sept. 29. The label has preorders up and that’s probably fair enough as they also unveil the song “Do You Believe,” the apparent side A closer with its languid hook and disaffected slow-garage tonality. You’ll note the involvement of Graham Clise, whom one might recognize from Witch or Annihilation Time or Lecherous Gaze, and so on, and that the trio also issued their self-titled debut EP last year.
That outing (also streaming below, along with the title-track of the LP) had three songs: “Fade Away,” “Here Comes the End” and “Stalingrad.” All of them feature on the 12-cut long-player, so if you hear “Do You Believe” and decide you want to dig further — and you well might; I certainly did — those are available at least in an earlier form to give some basic idea. Sept. 29 is the release date, as the PR wire confirms:
Australian Power Trio STEPMOTHER to Unleash Debut Album PLANET BRUTALICON on TEE PEE RECORDS
Steam new single ‘Do You Believe’ now! | Prepare for a sonic assault like no other with the release of Planet Brutalicon on 29th September 2023
Spearheaded by legendary underground guitarist Graham Clise (Witch, Annihilation Time, Lecherous Gaze, Rot TV), Tee Pee Records is thrilled to announce the release of Planet Brutalicon, the debut album by Oz–based outliers, Stepmother.
Channelling raw rock ‘n’ roll energy into anthems that resonate with the poor, depraved and miscreant sickos of society, the trio concoct an aural speedball of motor city proto-punk cut with power lines of fedback-fuzz and electric psychedelia.
Influenced by the likes of Blue Cheer, The Pink Fairies, Nervous Eaters, and The Damned, the band weave together a spellbinding tapestry of hardened punk rage and nefarious nihilism, no better exemplified than on their storming debut single, ‘Do you Believe’:
“Just think of it as a fairy-tale hellscape of children being dragged into the woods and eaten alive by goblins and trolls,” explains Clise. “It sounds like a proto-punk fuzzed out crazy horse… don’t forget to check under the bed.”
Recorded at Rat Shack by Robert Muinos (Saskwatch) and mastered by John Davis (The Damned) at Metropolis Mastering, there’s no doubt that Stepmother are set to carve a mark in the annals of rock history with Planet Brutalicon. The question is will you be joining them for the ride?
TRACK LISTING: 1. Fade Away 2. Settle Down 3. Scream for Death 4. The Game 5. One Way Out 6. Do You Believe 7. Dead and Gone 8. Here Comes the End 9. Waiting for the Axe 10. Stalingrad 11. Signed DC 12. El Gusano
STEPMOTHER: Graham Clise – Guitar, Vocals Rob Muinos – Bass, Vocals Sam Rains – Drums
Melbourne, Australia’s The World at a Glance will release their third album, The Longest Shadow Can Only Recede, through Crucible on Sept. 1. I’ll confess outright it’s my first exposure to the band, whose style is an engrossing meld of post-hardcore, sludge, art rock and various extreme metals, and that’s before you get into the ambient synth textures, the violin, the multiple guest singers showing up, etc., across the seven included tracks on the circa-40-minute outing. As cuts like “Moth,” “The Longest Shadow Can Only Recede” and “See” demonstrate, the band — listed here as Scott Mclatchie (guitar/vocals/synth/some bass), Claire Westover (vocals, violin, some bass), and Jack Naughton (vocals/drums/percussion/synth/some other bass); and yes, I know that’s three people and there are four pictured above; you use what you’ve got — do not at all shy away from a heavy barrage when it’s called for, and there are moments where they have just as much in common with an act like Darkest Hour as with whatever barky, weighted avant garde comparison you’d like to pull out of your ass while also positioning themselves as kin to the floaty post-rock of Sleepmakeswaves, We Lost the Sea, maybe some Swans if you want to count influences of influences, and so on, flashing instrumental hints of SubRosa-style string-laced crush with Westover‘s violin featuring at the forefront of a mix running deep enough to account for the spaciousness in the final fade of closer “Endlessly.” There is, to put it another way, a lot going on.
Opener “Moth” (video premiering below) helps shape the proceedings with a minute of patient drone at the start met by tense strummed guitar and violin, drums, and clean-sung vocals with backing layers pulling you in. Each changing note of the violin is a sway, each pull of the bow counts, and highlights the other elements at play as a heavier guitar pushes in with plenty of room and the track moves into an outwardly heavier stage, the vocals turning to throaty rasps (it’s not quite a scream, comes from the top of the back of the throat) before Naughton locks into tom runs and the band steers through a quiet break into the blazing, part-black metal finish. This is one song. It’s got more breadth and stylistic reach than the entire careers of many other bands, but seems like business as usual for The World at a Glance, who build the subsequent “Leering Birch” with a similar, subtly linear, onward-to-slaughter trajectory and follow with the full-bore distorted sway of “Circles in Sand,” like if death-doom had been invented by ’90s emo kids, and pulled by a thread of violin into a staticky droning midsection before building into a multi-vocal (clean and harsh) payoff that’s almost folkish until the airy squibble-solo takes charge, and turns back to a kind of pastoralia to finish such that the birdsong ending side A is right at home.
Such a multifaceted take can be a trap for an act who, like The World at a Glance, feel inclined to make their own aural context, but their individualism doesn’t feel like a put-on, and while The Longest Shadow Can Only Recede is a demanding listen, its scope has plenty to bring the audience in. Starting side B, the title-cut is also the centerpiece of the tracklisting, and it is unfurled with patience and grace in its willfully-sad first 90-plus seconds as it unhurries into consuming, lumbering sludge, ending a first movement that gives over to a particularly satisfying post-metallic middle marked by strikes of piano that seem almost beaten down by the intensity of the drums, violin in the background, bringing dimension to the considered cacophony. They break again and finish “The Longest Shadow Can Only Recede” with a pick-up-and-go crescendo that, yes, feels part-born from the nod-inducing school of Neurosis‘ “Stones From the Sky,” but is admirably the band’s own. Guitar starts “See” with some proggier noodling and a comedown feel in its initial stretch, but grows furious and then more furious before its seven minutes are done, still atmospheric like an open-air pummeling or a bonfire shooting sparks at the night sky.
The strings and peaceful guitar of the penultimate instrumental “On Some Distant Shore” — you can call it an interlude, I guess, but it’s far from no-effort filler in its wistful melody — are a well-placed recall to that brief serenity at the end of “Circles in Sand,” minus the actual chirping, before “Endlessly” takes off at a dust-thrash gallop. One might not realize it at first, but the entire five minutes of the song are the ending. It’s more than one part, but the spirit even as they work through the circular pattern of chugs around the three-minute mark, is epilogue, and if that’s the longest shadow itself receding in the aforementioned last fadeout, it is evocatively portrayed. One might say the same of the album as an entirety, which might dizzy at first with its turns from one part to the next in “Leering Birch” or “See,” or even the forward-sweep motion wrought in “Endlessly,” but The World at a Glance are never more out of control than they want to be, and in addition to being distinguished in sound, the presence and depth of mood they bring to The Longest Shadow Can Only Recede manifests as the troubled complexity and anxious twisting that feel both of the moment existentially and are still only a fraction of the band’s total expressive pastiche.
You can see the video for “Moth” below, followed by more details from the PR wire and the all-important preorder link.
Hope you enjoy:
The World at a Glance, “Moth” video premiere
CRUCIBLE is proud to release the new album from The World At A Glance, The Longest Shadow Can Only Recede – a trek through reverie, presented on classic black vinyl as a 12” LP, limited to 200. The Longest Shadow Can Only Recede releases September 1, 2023; 12” black vinyl & merch pre-orders available now via crucibleart.com.
CRU006 // The World At A Glance – The Longest Shadow Can Only Recede A 1. Moth [07:30] 2. Leering Birch [05:56] 3. Circles In Sand [05:36] B 4. The Longest Shadow Can Only Recede [06:21] 5. See [07:12] 6. On Some Distant Shore [02:48] 7. Endlessly [05:37]
Recorded, Mixed and Mastered by Liam Kriz at his studio on Yugambeh land in so-called Queensland from the 10th – 18th of May, 2022, Additional Recording also by Claire Westover
Lyrics written by Scott Mclatchie and Liam Phillips Music written by Jack Naughton, Claire Westover, Scott Mclatchie and Liam Phillips Album cover and back cover photo by Ben Westover Graphic Design and arrangement by Claire Westover Cover Model is Jemimah Laine Robe/Clothing Designed and manufactured/created by Jemimah Laine
Indigenous sovereignty was never ceded. This record was created on stolen land.
The World At A Glance – The Longest Shadow Can Only Recede releases via CRUCIBLE, Friday September 1.
Guest Vocals by: Sharni Brouwer on tracks 1 and 4 Adam McArthur on track 2 Mark Grant on track 5 Liam Phillips on track 5
The World At A Glance on this recording is: Scott Mclatchie – Vocals, Guitar, Synth, Piano, Bass on tracks 2, 5 and 7 Claire Westover – Vocals, Violin, Bass on track 6 Jack Naughton – Vocals, Drums, Synth, Percussion, Bass on tracks 1, 3 and 4
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 27th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
So much the better if it gives the album another look. Melbourne’s Treebeard issued their debut full-length, Nostalgia (review here), during the covid-lockdown days of 2021, and having now signed to Bird’s Robe Records, will offer it again with the label’s backing. The record was comprised of tracks re-recorded and in part rearranged from their first two EPs, so as that makes some of its material upwards of half a decade old, it’s not a surprise to hear them discussing moving forward with new material as well. They call it “very much on the way,” but leave further specifics to guesses at this point.
Fair enough. They list some of the artists who release/have released through Bird’s Robe — We Lost the Sea, Sleepmakeswaves, etc. — and being in a heavy post-rock vein, they’re a solid fit among on a roster that’s obviously curated with care and a precise idea of what it’s looking for. If you didn’t catch Nostalgia, it’s of course streaming below. If you did catch it, well, maybe catch it again, I don’t know. Or maybe just drop the band a comment and say congrats. They seem pretty stoked on it, and reasonably so.
Their announcement follows:
Treebeard joins Bird’s Robe
We are thrilled to announce that Treebeard is now joining Sydney-based record label and promoter Bird’s Robe!
We are so excited and humbled to be on a roster featuring many of Australia’s finest post / prog artists, including many of our peers as well as some of our biggest influences such as We Lost The Sea, Sleepmakeswaves, Solkyri, Mushroom Giant and many more!
We have always considered Bird’s Robe and Mike Solo to be at the forefront of our scene and are so thankful for his endorsement of our band. We appreciate his support of our music both old and new which, yes, is very much on the way.
With our debut album ‘Nostalgia’ having come out during lockdown, it was always felt that its potential was never fully realised post release. Mike after hearing the album agreed, and therefore we are also happy to announce we are rereleasing ‘Nostalgia’, with more details to come soon.
Many thanks to Bird’s Robe for welcoming us, and to all our supporters for getting us to this point!
We’re only just getting started…
Treebeard is: Guitar & Vocals – Patrick Cooke Bass – Rhys Brennan Drums – Beau Heffernan Guitar & Vocals – Josh Bills
[Click play above to stream the premiere of Lamassu’s Made of Dust in its entirety. Album is out Wednesday, June 21, and can be preordered through Bandcamp here.]
It’s true though, about the dust. You, me, the planets, the moons, the stars, the sun, almost all astronomical phenomena that’s not dark matter or dark energy — and for all we know, them too — either is now dust, or at one point was dust drawn together by gravity, or is a remnant from that process of galaxy and star formation, as Melbourne’s Lamassu asserts with their gatefold 2LP second long-player Made of Dust. It’s pretty dramatic to think ‘we are star stuff’ in your best Neil DeGrasse-Tyson voice, quite something else to think of it in the context of how we end up at the end of our particular ride through existence. Less than the blink of a cosmic eyelid we are, then, again, dust.
Themes of dirt and being buried in it. Contemplations of death and rebirth. Water. Seeking. Exploitation of the earth and people on it. A troubled planet and time. Amid the breadth of echo in the vocals and plus-sized, crunch-toned and declarative riffing, and the post-Jerry Cantrell vocal style of guitarist Chris Fisher, Lamassu unfold an unmanageable 11 songs and 68 minutes of heavy soul-searching, accompanied by complex structures and pieces like “Washed Away” with its standout hook and the later nine-minute centerpiece “Sorrow of the Children,” which is slow and patient like doom and still has some classic metal ballad resonance in its midsection as Fisher‘s vocals prove up to the task of carrying the song melodically.
Fisher, guitarist/backing vocalist Matt Dawkins — also the Mellotron on “Something Else,” Rhodes, etc. — bassist Al Cooke and drummer Nick Rad remind a bit in that middle cut of Apostle of Solitude, but the fervency of chug in the title-track and the grand places explored in the slow-motion angularity of “The Fog” are individualized factors, and even at their most doomed, Lamassu skirt the lines both of traditionalism and of metal without committing outright to the genre rigidity of either. They are stronger for that.
Begun in 2021, Made of Dust is at least two years in the making in following Lamassu‘s 2019 debut, Into the Empty, recorded and mixed by Mike Deslandes, Dawkins helming additional recording in Fall 2022, with Paul Fox at Indie Masters mastering. As the tracks vary in runtime and somewhat in mood, they are drawn together by a general largesse conveyed in a sense of space, be it echo on the vocals or reverb on the guitar — the recording sounds at least as vast the the guitars, bass and drums sound ‘big’ — with two interludes breaking up the procession across each intended LP, and diversity in tempo and mood more than actual arrangement. But the material doesn’t sound staid, however dug in it gets.
Third track “Shit Town, Misery” answers back to “Washed Away” near the beginning of the record; a relatively quicker pace distinguishing both songs from the stately lumber of opener “Battle Cry” or the 10-minute finale “Tin Man,” which meets the demand of its closing position in reach as well as runtime, offering summary of Made of Dust‘s scope and putting emphasis on what has most worked for it in terms of the performances captured, whether that’s the tension in the emotive rolling verse early or the furious drumming — somehow subtle beneath the soaring vocals of the moment — near the sudden-stop crescendo.
Like “Battle Cry” (7:56), “The Fog” (8:18), and “Sorrow of the Children” (9:29) — the contingent of longer material, though the line isn’t so clear with the title-track at 7:07 or both “Washed Away” and the Pallbearer-esque riffing of the penultimate “White Pills” at 6:30; it’s not such a strict divide between short-songs/long-songs in terms of craft and modus — “Tin Man” uses the space created in the mix to meditate on mortality lyrically in the chorus, “Clock struck, time is running/Clock struck, time’s no friend/Clock struck, time is running/Clock struck, time’s no friend of mine,” the title seeming to question what’s important in life even as the actual song reminds of its fleeting nature, time as a linear, one-way experience. If time is running, inherently then, time is running out. “In our final days, our final hours, we live.” It is the fact that they’ve built such vivid worlds across Made of Dust that allows Lamassu to unmake one so effectively at the end.
In terms of melody and presence, much of the album rests on Fisher‘s vocal delivery, and he answers the call in lyrics and arrangements that feel no less marked in their intent than the riffs and nod surrounding. He is not just following his own guitar, as the verses of “Battle Cry” and “Washed Away” demonstrate early on, and whether it’s the Dawkins-penned lyrics to “Something Else” — hearing it, you can almost tell the difference in Fisher‘s patterning of “I, I sense there’s something else to this, something else to this” — or the calling out from beneath the more intense bursts of “Shit Town, Misery,” or the open reaches in the quiet but spacious intro to “The Fog,” the vocals are a unifying factor in the material, part of the atmosphere even as they are distinct from it, and essential to the proceedings front to back. Answering the doom of “White Pills,” “Sorrow for the Children” is dynamic in its execution, swelling at the outset to a mournful roll, spreading wide in the middle and turning back to the heft in resolute, solo-topped fashion before residual amp noise fades to close. Fisher‘s voice is a vital component of that charge, and malleable to where the song — any of them, really — is going in a given part.
At nearly 70 minutes, Made of Dust is no minor undertaking, and when one factors in that its exploration is internal as well as external — that is, it’s not only seeking the next version of the band’s approach instrumentally, it’s also thoughtful in its lyrical journey — the substance on offer would seem to meet the high standard it’s holding for itself. Doing so assures that Lamassu make an impression of their own, whatever elements might be familiar throughout, and gives them ground on which to build their next work, which is exactly what they most sound like they want to do: move forward.
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 30th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Tracked by Dave Catching in the Cali desert, the new single from mostly-Australia’s Full Tone Generator, titled “Juan Carlos,” is the first audio to come from the formerly-Brant Bjork-inclusive trio’s next album, Refuge for Sinners, which is set to release later this year. Heads up, in other words. And actually, since the song isn’t out yet — June 9, which feels like forever at this point but all that ‘pre-save’ stuff is available now if you’re on Spotify, Apple Music, whathaveyou — this is a heads up of the heads up. Track is full-desert in tone, shades of classic ’90s style, like Kyuss riffs meeting with modern nod, and catchy to boot.
Full Tone Generator‘s debut LP, Valley of the Universe (review here), arrived in 2018 through Hurricane Music. “Juan Carlos” and Refuge for Sinners are set to issue through Iron Head Records (see also: Motherslug, Beastwood, Mezzoa, Stone Deaf, Near Dusk, and so on) under the umbrella of Golden Robot Records. Info came down the PR wire:
FULL TONE GENERATOR ANNOUNCE NEW SINGLE “JUAN CARLOS” – AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER/ADD/SAVE NOW!
Melbourne stoner/desert rockers Full Tone Generator have announced their latest single “Juan Carlos”, which is dropping on June 9 via Iron Head Records. It’s the lead single of their upcoming album ‘Refuge for Sinners’, which is expected later this year.
Recorded at the renowned Rancho de la Luna, in Joshua Tree, California by Dave Catching (Earthlings?, Queens of the Stone Age, Eagles of Death Metal) – “Juan Carlos” is a groovy desert rock banger that delves into sacrifice, heartbreak, and resilience set upon the backdrop of Anaheim, California.
Full Tone Generator are an Australian-Californian stoner rock band, emerged from an idea conceived by Andy Fernando on the beaches of Australia and brought to life in the Californian Desert with the help of Brant Bjork and Brad Young.
After connecting with Brant Bjork, Full Tone Generator embarked on recording their new songs in the desert, with Brant playing drums and co-producing alongside Bubba Dupree. The debut album, “Valley Of The Universe” garnered global acclaim upon its release in late 2018, prompting the band to expand by adding Ben Hall and Mat Evans for live performances.
‘Juan Carlos’ is hitting the digital airwaves on the June 9th via Iron Head Records.
