Posted in Questionnaire on June 10th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended 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: Pierre from Atolah
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I define what I do as acting as the cement between various elements, whether it is between my band mates, my family or my colleagues. When talking specifically about Atolah, I like to see myself as a project manager. The interpretation and execution of ideas is definitely a collective endeavour.
Describe your first musical memory.
My first musical memory would be listening to Bleach – an album by a new smallish band called Nirvana – in the back seat of Ford Ecoline Cargo Van while driving through Northern Virginia in 1990.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
My best musical memory to date would either be my first gig (Immortal/Angel Corpse in the mid-90s) or catching Electric Wizard and Cathedral on the same bill. Both events were simply memorable.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
I had always thought that we would leave a safe place behind us…I am not so sure anymore. Time will tell.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Artistic progression means getting out of your comfort zone while still enjoying what you do. Progression to me does not necessarily lead to progression in the execution or evolution of your art solely but also to the evolution of the vision you have of yourself as an « artist » where you fit in the big picture, what you want to do and why you are doing it.
How do you define success?
Success from a musical point of view is having a post-gig chat with a punter, who genuinely enjoyed your show. Having an impact on one person is something extraordinary and something very humbling. Even better if the entire crowd enjoyed what you have just done.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
I am pretty curious by nature so I don’t think that there is anything I have seen I wish I would not. Even the most gruesome things I can think of. I am just glad I have kept my eyes open for all of it so far.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I don’t think I will ever create anything revolutionising… I will leave that to other people who unlike me, have the potential to do so.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Art enables us to shape what is real but might be unattainable. It gives our intuition the ability to access what is real in the Human mind and expand it.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
I look forward to going back home to France for a bit after six years away.
Ripple Music‘s split series continues Aug. 5 with Turned to Stone Chapter 5, pairing Australian heavy rockers Duneeater and Planet of the 8s. And while many splits set themselves up as a blank-vs.-blank scenario, like a (usually friendly) competition between the bands involved, the Victoria and Melbourne, respectively, outfits make sure everyone knows they’re both playing for Team Riff, setting up the tracklisting between the two so that the bands not only share the release, but indeed some of the music that makes it up. Duneeater, who released their No Gas No Good debut LP in 2019, begin side A with “Dusk Part 2.” Planet of the 8s, whose Lagrange Point Vol. 1 (review here) came out last year, end side B with “Dusk Part 1.” So immediately the vinyl has a wraparound effect from these two riff-led interludes.
They do something similar with the middle. Duneeater‘s “Devil Dodgers (Dawn Part 1)” caps their five-song portion by dedicating its last 50 seconds and fadeout to pulling off a quietly complex rhythmic turn into the riff that will also serve as the fading-in foundation of Planet of the 8s‘ minute-long “Dawn Part 2” — they also work some fun stops into the end of it before digging into their two main songs, which are longer than the two between which they’re sandwiched. There are stylistic similarities and differences between the bands. Duneeater are more straightforward, back to the roots of heavy, fuzzy, desert-style rock as shades of Kyuss, Fu Manchu, Mondo Generator, “Twin Voyager” nodding directly at the Californian desert while “Pleather Sex” (video premiering below) echoes Sungrazer‘s “Common Believer” in its riff and pairs that with a Valley of the Sun-style grit and Songs for the Deaf-style crunch that would make Ruff Majik blush.
Familiar terrain? Maybe, but Duneeater do well with it and know the style they’re playing toward. It might be splitting hairs to liken “C.O.B.R.A.” to Hermano for its mellower tempo and general tonal fullness, but they still have plenty of brashness to work with and “Devil Dodgers (Dawn Part 1)” jams more uptempo calling back to early Fu Manchu in its backing vocals and almost punkish approach to its own fuzz. One wonders a bit about the decision to keep “Dawn Part 1” in “Devil Dodgers” itself, rather than list it as its own track, but if you’re listening to the vinyl it doesn’t matter. Planet of the 8s fade in playing the same progression, putting their own spin on it while introducing the shift in production that side B brings, the tones hitting a little fuller than the pivot-ready desert looseness of Duneeater.
As they launch into “Raised by Night” and “Gravity,” it’s worth noting that neither Lagrange Point Vol. 1 or their prior two LPs only had one track over seven minutes long, which both of these are. Coming from the 2021 release, Planet of the 8s still embark on a fuzz-led journey including guest spots, but where on Lagrange Point Vol. 1 there was a different singer on each song — which were arranged around an intro and outro; not dissimilar from Turned to Stone Chapter 5 — the cuts here are inherently less disjointed in their presentation, and even more than 2019’s Tourist Season album, they seem to use their relatively extended length for more progressive shove, the melodies of “Raised by Night” met by fervent hits and a building tension as they move into the song’s back half, some of Elder‘s nuance meeting with a Forming the Void-ish nod. Tourist Season had some glimpses of Wo Fat influence as well, and that’s not necessarily absent from “Gravity,” but there’s more prog happening, more angularity, and the layered vocals add to that individual edge.
But here’s the thing: “Gravity” is still heavy, fuzzed, desert rock, it’s just got a different bent, so however much you want to dig into Turned to Stone Chapter 5, Duneeater and Planet of the 8s are ready for it. Ripple‘s series has felt decidedly curated in the past and does here as well in this pairing of countryman units by John Gist of Vegas Rock Revolution, as their complementary mission is brightly successful as “Gravity” prog-psych-embiggens its way into the count-in and bassy boogie of “Dusk Part 1,” which fades out hypnotically to let the rawer instrumental bite of Duneeater pick up with “Dusk Part 2” on the next spin. Before you know it, you’re back to “Twin Voyager.”
And that goes to underline the sheer listenability of Turned to Stone Chapter 5. It is the converted offering a righteous preach to the choir, and each side has a bit of sermon to it as well. If you’d worship an altar of fuzz, they’ve built one here.
The video for “Pleather Sex” is suitably sleazed-out, but Mr. Pleather gets his in the end to some extent, though he still spent the whole day getting laid, which I’m officially old enough to watch and think that seems exhausting. Alas, the things we do for riffs.
Enjoy:
Duneeater, “Pleather Sex” official video
Duneeater on “Pleather Sex”:
Pleather Sex is all about men and woman alike who love their muscle cars and rootin’ in the back of them. Mike Foxall was approached to do the animation for the clip (after seeing the work he’d done for Grindhouse, we knew he was the dude!)
The brief was, capture our passion for old School Aussie classic cars, take the piss, keep it humorous and throw the band and our own personal cars in the clip. Mike came up with the concept of Pleather man – a goofy 70s stud type, a mixture of Alvin Purple, Ron Jeremy, and Denis Lillie, who runs rampant like he’s back in the days of the sexual revolution. But it’s not just about blokes having all the fun. Collectively we came up with a way to make sure the ladies got their fix too.
Pleather Sex almost never happened, sitting on the cutting room floor for a long time. It was written before we had the full band line up, after a few jams it wasn’t working and therefore shelved. The years pass, Covid comes along and our time to work on new material is limited. So we start dredging through the DE vaults and stumble upon Pleather Sex. This time we had the vibe of the whole band. With Josh now on drums and Robs on lead guitar adding their flare, the song’s groove hit another level and… Voilà! Pleather Sex hits the streets, restored and ready to roll.
“Turned to Stone Chapter 5: Planet of the 8s & Duneeater” out August 5th on Ripple Music. Preorder: https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/
Tracklisting:
1. Duneeater – Dusk Part 2 2. Duneeater – Twin Voyager 3. Duneeater – Pleather Sex 4. Duneeater – C.O.B.R.A. 5. Duneeater – Devil Dodgers (Dawn Part 1) 6. Planet Of The 8s – Dawn Part 2 7. Planet Of The 8s – Raised By Night 8. Planet Of The 8s – Gravity 9. Planet Of The 8s – Dusk Part 1
Melbourne heavy rockers Foot release their fourth album, You Are Weightless, through Copper Feast Records on June 10. Given the time difference between here and Australia, the record’s probably already been out for a week, but in following-up 2020’s The Balance of Nature Shifted (review here), the project led by Paul Holden continues to push toward a full-band incarnation, incorporating guest players like returning backing vocalist James McGuffie who supports Holden on the opener “Bitter,” “I’ll Be Just Fine” — for which Dave Pemberton‘s guitar also sits in — and closer “Scared.” Still very much in Holden‘s wheelhouse writing-wise, You Are Weightless further branches out in “Bitter” working off lyrics by Mark Lanegan and making the Yeah Yeah Yeahs cover “Gold Lion” its centerpiece, seeing Jack Eddie guest on guitar for second cut “Caged Animal” — also the longest track at 6:45, but not by much — and Tom Thomas contribute keyboards to all save for “Gold Lion” and the subsequent get-laid exploration, “I’ll Be Just Fine.”
Thomas‘ keys are an obvious focal point for Holden this time around. You Are Weightless shares its well-structured songwriting foundation and penchant for hooks with its predecessor, certainly, but to listen to the midsection prog-out in the penultimate “Impossible” — right before it gets very, very heavy and then cruelly fades out, ne’er to return — the branching out into newer stylistic territory is palpable as well. “Bitter” starts You Are Weightless with Lanegan‘s lines turned catchy work to introduce the tones and scope of the album. There are hints toward desert rock, a little Hommeian twist in the bridge, but Foot are their own thing — at very least Holden‘s own thing — and the organ that runs along with the guitar and the layered vocal melody of “Bitter” reinforces that individuality. “Bitter” grows dreamier but never loses the solidity of the drums under its feet, and it’s those that drive the finish, Thomas‘ keyboard no less part of the swirl. “Caged Animal,” which follows, is more brooding and puts the keys to use conveying movement through the underlying tension that finally pays off right as the song enters its last minute.
Here too the keys are crucial, if not directly forward as part of the crescendo that ensues. Third cut “Fire Dance” starts out with a harder-edged groove — something that Holden seems organically to lean toward, though usually reserved for payoffs like “Caged Animal” or “Impossible” later on — and has a genuine impact to its crashes enough to speak to a vague ’90s influence that could be tracked to anyone from Life of Agony to Helmet to whatever more commercial band worked off that influence you might want to namedrop. “Fire Dance” follows behind “Caged Animal” figuratively as well as literally though for the push of keys in its second half, the lyric, “Watch me light a fire without a plan,” transitioning into a chugging section of guitar that becomes the bed for the keys and other whatnot overtop. There’s pretty clearly a plan at work, despite the line just before the departure, and the meatier tonality put behind “Gold Lion” brings it into the context of You Are Weightless and speaks again to how tight a rein Holden has on the sounds and structures of the band.
Is he letting go a little bit with Thomas on keys this time? That’s a convenient story if you’re into narrative — and I very much am — but it might just be how the balance of these songs worked out. The real tell in that regard will be what happens after You Are Weightless, but like Holden‘s central riffs, clear-headed choruses and ability to harness melodic complexity with a classically pop-ish apparent-ease, there’s plenty of fodder for speculation to enjoy in the meantime, “I’ll Be Just Fine” layering in a Mellotron-esque key alongside the more actively winding guitar, the self-titled-era Alice in Chains harmonies matching in their slower delivery before everything comes apart and then quickly returns around the guitar like the sudden start of another song in the final 30 seconds of this one. The drumming in the first half makes “Impossible” feel more urgent, but the midsection turn mellows out somewhat, Holden reminding of mid-period Katatonia with his vocals before the keys lead an at-first-understated solo that gives over to the aforementioned finish and fade.
As the auteur, Holden seems to emphasize the progressive underpinnings in closing with “Scared,” the arrangements this time putting him in conversation with Opeth or Porcupine Tree in ways that even The Balance of Nature Shifted weren’t in terms of being able to shift between one idea and the next. “Scared” plays it middle of the road during its verses but opens wide in the chorus and sets up a big, organ-topped instrumental finish, on which everything but the guitar fades out and that fades up, essentially consuming the song until it too cuts out, as though Holden wanted to finish by reminding his audience where it all comes from. So be it. As a composer and performer, Holden more than holds together Foot as a project harnessing full-band sounds — that is to say, he’s one person at the core of an accomplished act, not just doing it all himself which would be impressive on its own — and he shows distance from his own writing process in terms of arrangements and finding what best serves the songs themselves. You Are Weightless plays through its 40 minutes with a definite sense of his leading the procession, but the course he’s set is unwavering in its focus on the material, and that material is all the more appreciable in terms of craft and execution for that.
Below you can stream You Are Weightless in its entirety ahead of the release Friday. Preorder link and more on who does what where follow, courtesy of the PR wire.
Please enjoy:
Following on from their 2020 lockdown masterpiece, The Balance of Nature Shifted, the band return this June with the sonic equivalent of a heavily wrought, fuzz-lined straitjacket in new album, You Are Weightless. Channelling the dynamic spirit of acts like Queens of the Stone Age and Alice in Chains, they envelope their music with social commentary and grand visions that help tip the scales in favour of the heavier, more visceral cradle of rock ‘n’ roll. It’s a sight and sound to behold and make no mistake, Holden, along with his band of merry sessioners, have crafted their boldest and most revelatory album to date.
Teaming up once again with the Sydney-based Foot-Appreciation Society, Copper Feast Records, You Are Weightless will receive an official worldwide release on 10th June 2022 and can be pre-ordered HERE:https://copperfeastrecords.bandcamp.com/album/you-are-weightless
TRACK LISTING: 1. Bitter 2. Caged Animal 3. Fire Dance 4. Gold Lion 5. I’ll Be Just Fine 6. Impossible 7. Scared
Music & Lyrics written by Paul Holden except where noted: Track 4 written by Yeah Yeah Yeahs Additional Lyricists – Mark Lanegan (Track 1)
Music Performed by Paul Holden
Additional Musicians – Jack Eddie (Guitar – Track 2) Dave Pemberton (Guitar – Track 5) James McGuffie (Backing Vocals – Track 1, 5, 7), Tom Thomas (Keyboards – Track 1, 2, 3, 6, 7)
Mixing – Ryan Fallis at Inventions Studios Mastering – Forrester Savell
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 6th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
It was a chaotic time, so if you didn’t hear Foot’s 2020 third album, The Balance of Nature Shifted (review here), ain’t nobody gonna yell at you. Actually, nobody would yell at you even if there wasn’t a plague. It’s cool. Build bridges don’t keep gates. If this is your first time hearing this particular Melbourne-based psych-and-grunge-inflected heavy rock and roll band — mostly the solo-project of songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Paul Holden, but he’s keeping company as well as covering Yeah Yeah Yeahs, as you can see below — then that’s awesome too. You’ll find the melody of lead single “I’ll Be Just Fine” and the song’s kick into a second-half push to the finish no less engaging for that.
And after you check out the song and mark your calendar for the June 10 release of Foot‘s fourth LP, You Are Weightless (very much the opposite these days, but thanks), through Copper Feast Records — perhaps even placed a preorder — maybe you’ll be encouraged to dig back into the last album, which I’ve also included the stream of here, because it’s killer and bridges, not gates.
The PR wire sent album info:
Australian Desert Rockers FOOT Step Into the Void with Album #4 | Stream New Single ‘I’LL BE JUST FINE’
You Are Weightless will be released worldwide on 10th June via Copper Feast Records
For fans and followers firmly in the know, FOOT – the venerable and utterly spellbinding Melbourne-based stoner rock quartet – are back with their eagerly awaited fourth album; You Are Weightless, on Copper Feast Records.
Helmed by guitarist, vocalist and creative constant, Paul Holden, and backed by an ever-changing cast of close confidants, Foot has proven themselves time and time again to be an integral part of the burgeoning Oz psych/stoner rock scene, since the release of their debut in 2016.
Following on from their 2020 lockdown masterpiece, The Balance of Nature Shifted, the band return this June with the sonic equivalent of a heavily wrought, fuzz-lined straitjacket in new album, You Are Weightless. Channelling the dynamic spirit of acts like Queens of the Stone Age and Alice in Chains, they envelope their music with social commentary and grand visions that help tip the scales in favour of the heavier, more visceral cradle of rock ‘n’ roll. It’s a sight and sound to behold and make no mistake, Holden, along with his band of merry sessioners, have crafted their boldest and most revelatory album to date.
Teaming up once again with the Sydney-based Foot-Appreciation Society, Copper Feast Records, You Are Weightless will receive an official worldwide release on 10th June 2022 and can be pre-ordered HERE: https://copperfeastrecords.bandcamp.com/album/you-are-weightless
TRACK LISTING: 1. Bitter 2. Caged Animal 3. Fire Dance 4. Gold Lion 5. I’ll Be Just Fine 6. Impossible 7. Scared
Recorded at Inventions Studios, Footscray VIC, Australia & Catfish Studios, Buffalo River VIC, Australia
Music & Lyrics written by Paul Holden except where noted: Track 4 written by Yeah Yeah Yeahs Additional Lyricists – Mark Lanegan (Track 1)
Music Performed by Paul Holden
Additional Musicians – Jack Eddie (Guitar – Track 2) Dave Pemberton (Guitar – Track 5) James McGuffie (Backing Vocals – Track 1, 5, 7), Tom Thomas (Keyboards – Track 1, 2, 3, 6, 7)
Mixing – Ryan Fallis at Inventions Studios Mastering – Forrester Savell
Having offered their willfully double-slashed debut EP, Dogma//Clairvoyance (discussed here), in 2020 and signed to Copper Feast Records at the beginning of this year, Melbourne instrumentalist heavy psych trio Fuzz Meadows have set a May 6 release date for their first full-length, Orange Sunshine. If the title sounds familiar, you may be thinking of the underrated Dutch rockers of the same name, or indeed that it was the original moniker of Blue Cheer, taken for the name of another kind of LSD. Whatever the particular source, I think you get the idea. The title-track “Orange Sunshine” is streaming now, and hell’s bells if it doesn’t apply itself to that standard. In representing the three-piece of guitarist Domenic Evans, bassist Louis Smith and drummer Prince Jayasundera, it doesn’t quite speak to the full dynamic brought to bear across the entire album, but it certainly makes an impression, and that’s pretty clearly the idea.
Fuzz Meadows come across as schooled in the ways of sans-vocals heavy psychedelia, and where at the outset with “You Are the Void,” they seem to specifically exude a pastoral serenity born of Yawning Man-style jamming, by the time they get to “Benji” at the finish, it’s not a surprise to find them diving into the more weighted end of heavy post-rock, casting a spaciousness with guitar that feels all the more launched for the low end residing beneath. Shades of Russian Circles, Pelican, even Monolord show up in that 14-minute last cut by the time it’s halfway through, but even that doesn’t cover the sweeter drift in the back end of the song; an experiment that calls to mind what might’ve been had Sungrazer kept going but in context is still just a part of what Fuzz Meadows do, echoing the manipulated howls early in “Reach” and the build that ensues, willing to push into harder-hitting terrain than a lot of acts in the style — ready, in other words, to crush as well as space out.
And more, the shifts from one moment to the next are dizzying in light of the hypnosis the band cast. Orange Sunshine is not just a question of volume trades back and forth, but of graceful transitions that capture the listener’s attention on their own and then turn into something else, sometimes sweeping, sometimes gently letting go. As the title-track crashes in — one of the album’s most largesse-minded moments — the expanse that’s been set up through the first two pieces is brought to a new stage for the centerpiece, and they make it move. Again, some of the lead guitar rings out à la Yawning Man, but the rhythm that accompanies is more strictly progressive, like Colour Haze with more shimmer. Goes without saying this is all excellent stylistic company to keep for an act making heavy psychedelia, and just to emphasize the point, Fuzz Meadows never seem to fail to bring these influences and others into the breadth of their craft. “Orange Sunshine” becomes a head-all-the-way-under wash before setting itself to a final minute-plus of effects drone, and feels intended to complement the more straight-ahead riffing that emerges from the foreboding open of the subsequent “Death Echo.”
Even here, Fuzz Meadows find another level of heft, and in the case of “Death Echo,” pace, as the song hits into a thrust of groove that could be cast as a brief homage to Karma to Burn, but it’s just one more movement consumed by the overarching flow of Orange Sunshine in its entirety. And that’s seemingly how the album was intended to be heard — in full, its five songs and 41 minutes running one into the next, feeding and building off each other such that the momentum established by “Death Echo” en route to “Benji” is a payoff not only for itself or the title-track before it, but everything prior. True, on vinyl the last two tracks answer back as a side B unto themselves, but they remain in conversation with the first three, and “Orange Sunshine” resounds gracefully in letting its minimalism give way to the silence of a side split, something not quite echoed but not quite not by “Benji” at the culmination of side B. The closer is less patient in its final-final-final measures, but still adds plenty of scope to the procession of the record and its feeling of outward growth still to come.
Under the player below, you’ll find the release announcement, relatively fresh off the PR wire, as well as the all-important preorder link. The stream of the title-track is also available at the bottom of the post.
As always, I hope you enjoy:
Fuzz Meadows, “You Are the Void” track premiere
FUZZ MEADOWS /// Oz Rock’s Rising Psych Instrumentalists to Release Debut Album this May
Orange Sunshine, the debut album by Fuzz Meadows is released May 6th on Copper Feast Records
Primed and ready to breach the Northern Hemisphere, and to take on the world full tilt, Fuzz Meadows are a commanding psychedelic rock trio, and an act that has already made sizeable waves across the underground in recent years.
Hailing from Melbourne and featuring members of other local favourites The Black Heart Death Cult, Silurian and Ninety Ninety Hate, the band will release Orange Sunshine – their long-awaited debut album – on Sydney/London-based label Copper Feast Records, this May.
Having spent several years touring and honing their sound, the band put out a limited run of tapes for their debut Dogma//Clairvoyance EP in 2020, a release which quickly caught the attention of psych collectors across the US and Europe.
Drawing from a unique well of inspiration, Fuzz Meadow’s instrumental sound is one that’s embedded in the imposing and cinematic scope of post rock, the gorgeously crafted vistas of psychedelia and shoegaze, and the earth-shaking magnitude of metal. Heavy, beautiful, buzzing with energy; it’s the kind of devastating symphony that only truly comes alive, when played by three close friends exchanging riffs and ideas into the early hours.
TRACK LISTING: 1. You Are The Void 2. Reach 3. Orange Sunshine 4. Death Echo 5. Benji
Recorded at Vagabond Studios, June 2021 Produced by Fuzz Meadows, Engineered, mixed and mastered by Josh Bills Artwork by Louis Smith with waterfall photo taken by Niyanta Sharma in Kere Kere, New Zealand
FUZZ MEADOWS: Domenic Evans – Guitar Prince Jayasundera – Drums Louis Smith – Bass
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 26th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
I’m kind of on the fence about these guys. On the one hand, Melbourne’s Dr. Colossus are pretty straight-up novelty — a heavy rock band with songs about The Simpsons. And hey, I’m a dude of a certain age who remembers when that show was at its best and it seemed like it was a filter through which to understand not only one’s own dysfunctional family dynamic, but the world around it, but there’s a part of me that feels like a band playing off The Simpsons as a theme is almost too on-the-nose. Like, yes, obviously. Someone had to do it eventually. Inevitable.
At the same time, Dr. Colossus‘ wildly referential 2021 outing, I’m a Stupid Moron With an Ugly Face and a Big Butt and My Butt Smells and I Like to Kiss My Own Butt, is a really good record. It of course got a lot of hype last year because it was fun and everybody’s miserable, but it’s impeccably put together, the songs are tight, performances sharp, production right on. By all accounts, a killer album. Certainly deserves a vinyl pressing provided you can fit the title on the cover.
Is it me? Am I anti-fun? Probably. I feel like I’m missing the party and like my inability to get on board is less about what they’re doing than my own joyless experience of the universe. To put it in Simpsons terms, I’m like a broke version of Mr. Burns, still trying to block out the sun.
A vinyl release date for the album is still TBD, but here’s the signing announcement:
Greetings from the Farm!
So stoked and honoured to announce that Melbourne’s Simpsons-themed Doom Metal band (and Victoria’s best heavy act award winning band) Dr. Colossus has joined the Black Farm records roster!
Get psyched, as our collaboration will see the vinyl reissue of their long sold-out second album “I’m a Stupid Moron With an Ugly Face and a Big Butt and My Butt Smells and I Like to Kiss My Own Butt”.
Posted in Whathaveyou on October 12th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Melbourne’s Devil Electric earn immediate points in my book for opening their second album, Godless, with its longest track, “I Am.” The song, while not a Dehumanizer-era Sabbath cover, is a multi-movement journey that sets up a breadth in which the rest of the record inhabits, and even as it and the subsequent, mystique-laden “All My Friends Move Like the Night” take on a familiar riff here and there, they arrive as tools in the box rather than crutches leaned upon in the band’s songwriting. “Mindset” and “Your Guess is As Good As Mine” offer a touch of blues while the shorter “Take the Edge Off” swings speedier for its two minutes — touch of Uncle Acid-style garage-ism in its hook — arriving in a well-set pairing with the title-track before “I Will Be Forgotten” nods at trad-doom in its, well, nod, and “The Cave” builds from the ground up to offer a well earned grand finale. And that’s it. Next thing you know, 35 minutes and one really long sentence have passed and you had your face handed back to you.
In any case, after that trip, it’s all the more palpable how much they made the right choice to lead with “I Am.” That track’s not streaming yet, but there are three other songs up so you can get a feel of what they’re going for atmospherically. They’re all below and the release info follows here courtesy of the PR wire:
Oz rockers, Devil Electric, return with haunting second album, “Godless” out November 12th on Kozmik Artifactz
Godless is a collimation of ideas and experiences, bedded in what can only be described as “the next evolution” of Devil Electric’s sound.
While keeping true to the band’s DNA – you’ll still find the heavy grooves of 70’s inspired hard rock – Godless takes it one step further by peeling back to a more LoFi sound, a credit to producer Julian Schweitzer who worked with the band on Godless.
There is also a level of stylistic experimentation on the album, peppered through the familiar Devil Electric tones, that emerged in the freedom of the studio. You will be hit with these moments, unchained and lyrical, in songs like Your Guess Is As Good As Mine and I Will Be Forgotten. In others, like Take the Edge Off, there is the familiarity of Devil Electric’s debut album but progressed and twisted to new tonal shapes and raw melodic edges.
Lyrically, Godless took inspiration from Pierina’s bookshelf with songs All My Friends Move Like The Night, Mindset and The Cave paying homage to Plato, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joe Hill and Paul Tremblay.
She keeps pace with the band but never misses the chance to bring the signature big sweeping melodic vocals she has become known for.
Godless is not over-thought and at times it’s raw as hell – but that’s the point.
Godless will be released 12th November 2021 on Kozmik Artifactz, available on all formats, including digital download and Spotify.
Available as Limited Edition Vinyl
Release Date: 12th November 2021
VINYL FACTZ – Plated & pressed on high performance vinyl at Pallas/Germany – limited & coloured vinyl – 300gsm gatefold cover – special vinyl mastering
TRACKS 1. I Am 2. All My Friends Move Like The Night 3. Mindset 4. Your Guess Is As Good As Mine 5. Take The Edge Off 6. Godless 7. I Will Be Forgotten 8. The Cave
Devil Electric Are: Pierina O’Brien – Vocals Christos Athanasias – Guitars Tom Hulse – Bass Mark van de Beek – Drums
Posted in Reviews on October 4th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Hope you had a good weekend. Hope your bank account survived Bandcamp Friday. I gotta admit, I hit it a little hard, made four $10-plus purchases. A certain rainforest-named mega-corporate everything-distro site has me out of the habit of thinking of paying for shipping, but that comes back to bite you. And if there’s a tape or a CD and the download costs $7 and the tape costs $10 and comes with the download too, what would you have me do? Throw another five or six bucks in there for shipping and that adds up. Still, for a good cause, which is of course supporting bands nd labels who make and promote killer stuff. I don’t mind that.
We’ve arrived at the next to last day of the Fall 2021 Quarterly Review. It’s a cool one, I hope you’ll agree. If not, maybe tomorrow.
Quarterly Review #51-60:
Hour of 13, Black Magick Rites
The history of Hour of 13, 14 years on from their self-titled debut (discussed here) is complex and full of comings and goings. With Black Magick Rites — which was posted for a day in Nov. 2020 and then removed from the public sphere until this Shadow Kingdom release — founding multi-instrumentalist Chad Davis takes over vocal duties as well, charting the way forward for the band as a complete solo-project with seven songs and 43 minutes of lower-fi classic-style doom that bears in its title track some semblance of garage mentality but avoids most of the modern trappings such a designation implies. Satan features heavily, as one would expect. “House of Death” leans on its chorus hard, but opener “His Majesty of the Wood” and the eight-minute “Within the Pentagram,” as well as the payoff of closer “The Mystical Hall of Dreams” seem to show where the long-tumultuous outfit could be headed melodically and in grimly grandiose style if Davis — also of The Crooked Whispers, The Sabbathian, countless others in a variety of styles — wills it. Here’s hoping.
Graceful death. 30 years later, one might expect no less from Finnish funeral doom progenitors than that, and it’s exactly what they bring to the six-song/48-minute Companion. “Calla” sets the tempo for what follows at a dirge march with keyboard adding melodies to the procession as “The Intertwined” continues the slow roll, with drums and piano taking over in the midsection before the full brunt is borne again. “The March of the Four” follows with church organ running alongside the drawn-out guitar movement, each hit of the kick drum somehow forlorn beneath the overlaid growls. At least superficially, this is the Skepticism one imagines: slow, mournful, beauty-in-darkness, making dirty sounds but emerging without a stain on their formalwear. Closer “The Swan and the Raven” is a triumph in this, a revelry-that-isn’t, and “Passage” and even gives the tempo a relative kick, but that and the consuming drama of “The Inevitable” feel within the band’s aesthetic wheelhouse. Or their mortuary, anyhow. Honestly, they know what they’re doing, they’ve done it for a long time, and they don’t release records that often, so there’s an element of novelty just to the fact that the album exists, but if you put on Companion and listen to it, they also sound like they’re taking an entire genre to school. A genre they helped define, no less.
Long-running Swedish doom traditionalists Count Raven are in immediate conversation with their own classic era with the album title The Sixth Storm serving as a reference to their 1990 debut, Storm Warning. Indeed, it is their sixth full-length, and it makes up for the decade-plus it’s been since they were last heard from with a 73-minute, all-in nine-track assemblage of oldschool Sabbathian doom metal, tinged with classic heavy rock and a broader vision that picks up where 2009’s Mammons War left off in epics like “The Nephilims” and “Oden,” the latter the album’s apex ahead of the Ozzy-ish piano/keyboard ballad “Goodbye” following on from the earlier “Heaven’s Door.” Some contemplation of mortality perhaps from founding guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Dan “Fodde” Fondelius to go with the more socially themed “The Giver and the Taker,” “Baltic Storm,” opener “Blood Pope” or even “Oden,” which bases itself around Christianity’s destruction of pagan culture. Fair enough. Classic doom spearheaded by a guy who’s been at it for more than three decades. No revolution in style, but if you’d begrudge Count Raven their first album in 12 years, why?
Something for everyone in Owl Cave‘s Broken Speech, at least so long as your vision of “everyone” just includes fans of various extreme metallic styles. The Parisian one-man outfit’s debut release arrives as a single 43-minute track, led off by the sample “your silence speaks volumes.” What unfolds from there is a linear progression of movements through which S. — the lone party responsible for the guitar, bass, drum programming and other sampling, as there are obscure bits that might be manipulated voices and so on — weaves progressive black metal, doom, industrial churn, noise rock and other genre elements together with a willful sense of experimentalism and uniting heft. Some stretches are abrasive, some are nearly empty, some guitar-led, some more percussive, but even at its most raging, “Broken Speech” holds to its overarching atmosphere, grim as it is, and that allows it to ponder with scorn and melancholy alike before finishing out with a cacophony of blasts and wash leading to a last residual drone.
Sharply executed, uptempo heavy/desert-style rock in the Californian tradition as filtered through a European legacy of bands that spans no less an amount of time, Zeup‘s second EP, Blind, is an in-and-out kind of affair. Four songs, 17 minutes. They’re not looking to take up too much of your day. But the energy they bring to that time, whether it’s the swinging bassline in “Belief” or the initial jolt of “Illusions,” the rolling catchiness of “Who You Are” or the closing title-track’s more Sabbath-spirited stomp, is organic, full, and sincere. In terms of style, the Copenhagen three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Jakob Bach, bassist/backing vocalist Morten Rold and drummer Morten Barth aren’t trying to get away with convincing anybody they invented heavy rock and roll, but the stamp they put on their own songs is welcome right up to the capper solo on “Blind” itself. Familiar, but crisp and refreshing like cold beer on a hot day, if that’s your thing.
A drift calls you forward as Dark Bird‘s fourth album (amid many short releases and experimentalist whathaveyous), Out of Line, begins with “And it All Ends Well” and its title-track, the Toronto-based Roan Bateman pushing outward melodically before adding more fuzz to the shroom-folk of “Stranger,” an underlying sense of march telling of the made-in-dark-times spirit that so much of the record seems to actively work against. “Down With Love” is a dream given shimmer in its strum and no less ethereal when the maybe-programmed drums start, and “Undone” is the bummed-out-with-self ’90s-lysergic harmony that you never heard at the time but should have. So it goes en route to the buzzing finale “This is It,” with “Minefied” echoing “Out of Line” with a vibe like Masters of Reality at their most ethereal, “With You” making a late highlight of its underlying organ drone and the vocals that top it in the second half, and “The Ghost” somehow turning Western blues despite, no, not at all doing that thing. 43 minutes of a world I’d rather live in.
I’m not saying they don’t still have growing to do or work ahead of them in carving out their own approach from the elements their self-released debut album, Death Can Change, puts to work across its nine songs, but I am definitely saying that the Toledo, Ohio, duo of M.A. Snyder and Mike Mullholand, who’ve dubbed their project Hope Hole, are starting out in an admirable place. Throughout a vinyl-ready 37 minutes that makes a centerpiece of the roughed up The Cure cover “Kyoto Song,” the two-piece bridge sludged nod, classic heavy rock, progressive doom ambience, stonerly awareness — see “Cisneros’ Lament” — and a healthy dose of organ to result in a genre-blender sound that both chases individuality and manifests it in rudimentary form, perhaps arriving at some more melodic cohesion in the of-its-era closer “Burning Lungs” after rougher-edged processions, but even there not necessarily accounting for the full scope of the rest of the songs enough to be a full summary. The songs are there, though, and as Hope Hole continue to chase these demons, that will be the foundation of their progress.
Newcastle, UK, weirdo solo-outfit Smote released the two-part Drommon concurrent to March 2021’s Bodkin (review here), with tapes sold out from Base Materialism, and Rocket Recordings now steps in for a vinyl issue with two additional tracks splitting up the two-part title-cut, each piece of which runs just on either side of 16 minutes long. Drones and acid folk instrumentation, acoustics, sitars, electrified swirl — all of these come together in purposeful passion to create the textures of “Dommon (Part 1)” and “Drommon (Part 2),” and though it feels more directed with the complementary “Hauberk” and “Poleyn” included, the album’s experimental heart is well intact. Smote will make a stage debut next month, apparently as a four-piece around founder Daniel Foggin, so how that might play into the future of Smote as a full band in the studio remains to be seen. Drommon serves as argument heavily in favor of finding out.
East Coast dudes playing West Coast noise, it may well be that Gristmill deserve points right off the bat on their debut long-player, Heavy Everything, both for the title and for avoiding the trap of sounding like Unsane that defines so, so, so much of Atlantic Seaboard noise rock. They’re too aggro in their delivery to be straight-up doom, but the slower crawl of guitar in “Remains Nameless” and “Glass Door” adds depth to the pounding delivered by the initial salvo of “Mitch,” “Mute” and “Irony,” but the punch of the bass throughout is unmistakable, and though I can’t help be reminded in listening about that time Seattle’s Akimbo went and wrote a record based in my beloved Garden State, the drawn-out roll of “Stone Rodeo” and final nod-into-chug in “Loon” show readiness to encompass something beyond the raw scathe in their work. Yeah, if they wanted to put out like six or seven albums that sound just like this over the next 15 or so years, I’d probably be on board for that for the meanness and more of this debut.
This is a satisfying meat grinder in which to plunge one’s face for about an hour. A Buschemi-chipper. A powdering-of-bone that begins with the lurching of longest track (immediate points) “The Masque” — beginning with an acid-test sample, no less — and moving through “Gleancrawler” and the faster-for-a-while-but-still-probably-slower-than-you’re-thinking title-track, having just consumed half an hour of your life and a little of your soul. Hyperbole? Of course. But these are extreme sounds and extreme times, so fuck it. Melbourne duo Ivory Primarch, throughout As All Life Burns, demonstrate precious little regard for whatever standard of decency one might apply, and the deathly, fetid “Keeper of Secrets” and the keyboard-laced “Aetherbeast” — seeming to answer back to the opener — are self-aware enough to be willful in that, not to mention the fact that they top off with the noise-drone of “Aftermath,” as if to survey the devastation they just wrought, mangled and duly bludgeoned. Nothing sounds cruel enough? Try this.
