Posted in Whathaveyou on August 8th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
In case you’d like a concise summary of Europe’s October festival season — not entirely complete, but not far off — Memphis rockers The Heavy Eyes have made a convenient list for your perusal that also just happens to be the routing for their upcoming tour. They go, at last, in support of 2020’s Love Like Machines (review here), and like so much else this year, their run happens now after being delayed for two years owing to the pandemic. Glad they finally get to go.
When the tour got postponed the first time, the band said they were recording new music, and just because there hasn’t been a release doesn’t necessarily mean that it didn’t happen. In any case, Love Like Machines was a record that they intended to support, that sounded like it was ready for the support, so as they swing through Up in Smoke, Fuzztival in Denmark, Setalight Festival, Keep it Low, FreakOut Fest and Desertfest Belgium in Antwerp, their arrival should be duly anticipated.
They’ve got club shows besides, and that’s great too, but the point here is basically that they’re going and that’s a good thing. Slowly the world gets itself back together, just in time for who the hell knows what winter will bring.
Dates follow:
The Heavy Eyes – Euro Tour 2022
The Heavy Eyes are set to cross the pond this October and finally embark on their twice-delayed EU tour from 2020. With the release of Love Like Machines in April of ’20, they were eager to hit the road that fall, but as we all know things didn’t go as planned. Now, two years later, they’re set to play Switzerland, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, and Denmark on their two-week tour. Dates below.
-1.10 Paris, FR FR L’International -2.10 Basel, CH Up In Smoke Festival -3.10 Köln, DE MTC -5.10 Copenhagen, DK Fuzztival -6.10 Osnabrück, DE Bastard Club -7.10 Berlin, DE Setalight Festival -8.10 Munich, DE Keep It Low Festival -10.10 Chambéry, FR Brin du Zinc -11.10 Bologna, IT FreakOut Fest -13.10 Reigniers, FR Le Poulpe -14.10 Belgium, BE Desert Fest
THE HEAVY EYES are: Tripp Shumake Wally Anderson Matt Qualls Eric Garcia
As of two days ago, Memphis blues rockers Dirty Streets are on tour heralding the Sept. 29 arrival of their new album, Who’s Gonna Love You, through Blue Élan Records. They’re out supporting Radio Moscow-offshoot El Perro, and they’ve unveiled the second single from the upcoming record to further mark the occasion. “Get Out” appears in a live-in-studio video, as if to prove once and for all that Dirty Streets‘ mellow boogie isn’t the result of some studio chicanery, they’re actually just that sharp as players. The funk underlying “Get Out” is emblematic of a decent portion of Who’s Gonna Love You in songs like “Bitter End,” “Just for You” or the earlier “Blinded,” and it builds off the maddeningly catchy hook of album-leadoff/prior single “Alright” in hinting at some of the shifts throughout the 11-tracker as a whole.
To wit, “Who’s Gonna Love You” — the title-track quickly arriving behind “Alright” — meshes acoustic and electric guitars atop an ever-solid rhythmic foundation provided by bassist Thomas Storz and Andrew Denham dropping hints early of sweetening up the groove of “Helter Skelter” but taking its own direction ultimately. The subsequent “Poison” ups the bluesy quotient with a soulful underpinning in guitarist Justin Toland‘s vocals, which are always a strength for the band and help ease the dynamic shifts from “Poison” into “Blinded,” “Blinded” into the semi-twang ’90s ballad “Not That Man,” “Not That Man” into the soft-shoe reset of “Get Out” as the centerpiece, and so on. “Ghost” is as quiet as they get, approaching a minimal take on heavy blues, which fits the back and forth as “Bitter End” looses its strut to begin the closing salvo with “Just for You” and “Sunday” wrapping in likewise more rocking fashion, the latter pulling from Led Zeppelin similar to how the title-track worked off The Beatles. But let’s be honest. This is the sixth full-length from Dirty Streets. Their sound is nobody’s but their own.
I suppose if that seems incongruous for something that’s also so much steeped in classic styles and atmospheres, then yeah, you get the point of what Dirty Streets do. They make that not incongruous. More than a decade after their second album, Movements (review here), sent them out on the road in 2011/2012, and four years since 2018’s Distractions (discussed here), their latest LP with the 2020 live album Rough and Tumble (review here) notwithstanding, Dirty Streets are assured of who they are, set on their process in terms of crafting sweet, almost-humble-feeling songs that balance heavier and softer, louder and quieter impulses while remaining memorable unto themselves. Long and persistently underrated among heavy rockers, Dirty Streets reaffirm their essential character on Who’s Gonna Love You while finding new avenues of expression through songwriting. If you don’t know them, the only barrier to getting on board is hitting play. They could hardly be more welcoming.
The live clip for “Get Out” follows here. The “Alright” video is down near the bottom of this post. We’re still a while away from the release date, but if you’re the preorder type or just enjoy marking your calendar for things, maybe that’s a thing worth thinking about.
Oh yes, and the tour dates are below as well, while we’re thinking.
Enjoy:
Dirty Streets, “Get Out” live video
DIRTY STREETS are releasing more new music – second single, “Get Out,” is available now and a live video shot at Southern Grooves Studios, is premiering today. The trio also just hit the road with El Perro for a U.S. tour ending July 1st in Louisville, see below for full itinerary.
Dirty Streets spent the last two years of their pandemic-induced forced time off creating new music and finding a new home with the Los Angeles-based independent label, Blue Élan Records. Their seventh studio album, Who’s Gonna Love You, was produced by Grammy Award winner Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Margo Price, John Prine) and is set for release on September 29.
“Get Out” is a song about the illusion of escapism. As singer, Justin Toland explains it, “The first line refers to ‘moving out west to the rolling hills’ which is really just the concept of any place other than here. Moving around throughout my life and going on tour has really made me think more about how the idea of going to a new place can be so inspiring, but can also be a trap within itself. The song is really just about how there is no escape from life itself.”
DIRTY STREETS TOUR w/El Perro Wed 6/8 – Lafayette, LA – Freetown Boom Boom Room Thu 6/9 – Houston, TX – Black Magic Social Club Fri 6/10 – Dallas, TX – Three Links Deep Ellum Sat 6/11 – Tulsa, OK – The Whittier Bar Sun 6/12 – Colorado Springs, CO – Vultures Mon 6/13 – Denver, CO – HQ Wed 6/15 – SLC, UT – Garage on Beck Thurs 6/16 – Boise, ID – The Shredder Fri 6/17 – Seattle, WA – Funhouse Sat 6/18 – Tacoma, WA. – The Plaid Pig Live Music Lounge Sun 6/19 – Portland, OR – High Water Mark Mon 6/20 – Eugene, OR – Old Nick’s Pub Tue 6/21 – San Francisco, CA – Bottom of the Hill Wed 6/22 – Los Angeles, CA – Permanent Records Roadhouse Thu 6/23 – Palmdale, CA – Transplants Brewing Company Fri 6/24 – Las Vegas, NV – Count’s Vamp’d Rock Bar & Grill Sat 6/25 – Tempe, AZ – Yucca Tap Room Sun 6/26 – Albuquerque, NM – The Historic El Rey Theatre Tues 6/28 – Oklahoma City, OK. – Blue Note Lounge Wed 6/29 – Lawrence, KS – Replay Lounge Thurs 6/30 – Eureka Springs, AR – Chelsea’s Corner Cafe Fri 7/1 – Louisville, KY – fifteen TWELVE
DIRTY STREETS: Justin Toland – guitar/vocals Thomas Storz – bass Andrew Denham – drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 28th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
New song new song new song. Memphis blues rockers Dirty Streets got a new label — hi there, Blue Élan Records — a tour coming up, and a new record on the way. All of that’s great, but today they’ve also go a new song posted and that’s where it’s at. You might recall their last release was 2020’s live album Rough and Tumble (review here), and the Sept. 29 arrival of Who’s Gonna Love You will mark their first studio offering since 2018’s Distractions (discussed here) — a four-year break that’s the longest of the band’s career, though one could easily chalk that up to either the search for another label, the global pandemic, or, most likely, both and more besides.
Either way, as they look to get out again in June before the album’s release, they would seem to be full speed ahead, and that’s likely a steady, bluesy roll when it comes to them, thoughtful in melody, classically grooving in rhythm, and resting on the borderline between heavy rock, blues, Southern rock and any number of other microgenres. However you want to classify them, they’re killer and they’ve got new stuff coming. And a new song up.
So get on it:
Memphis-Based DIRTY STREETS Joins Blue Élan Records’ Eclectic Roster
New Album – Who’s Gonna Love You – Produced by Grammy award-winner Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Margo Price, John Prine) Due September 29, 2022
The Memphis-based rock band DIRTY STREETS spent the last two years of their pandemic-induced forced time off creating new music and finding a new home with the Los Angeles-based independent label, Blue Élan Records. The bluesy rock trio join an eclectic roster, which includes Soul Asylum, KT Tunstall, Liz Brasher, America’s Gerry Beckley, Grammy-Award winning guitarist Eric Johnson, and more. Their new album, Who’s Gonna Love You, is set for release on September 29 with the first musical taste, single “Alright,” out today – Listen HERE: https://dirtystreets.lnk.to/alright
In late 2019, when the band headed into the legendary Sam Phillips Recording studio to record Who’s Gonna Love You, with the Grammy-award winning Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Margo Price, John Prine) in the producer’s chair, the band immediately felt the connection. “Matt Ross-Spang is like nobody I’ve ever worked with,” recalls singer/guitarist Justin Toland. “Bringing the songs into the studio, he really listened and sat with them. Most of the time he would be laying on the floor with his eyes closed, or hunched in the corner on a chair, just fully open. He was really into us performing them in the room while he just concentrated and soaked it all in before making any swift judgements.”
Justin continues, “There is a knack some people have for sensing a feeling in one bone of a song and building a whole skeleton. Matt is one of those people. He works more like an artist than a producer, shaping sounds and guiding without effort. It was just such a natural relationship between us that I felt like he was in the band the entire time we were recording. Some of the songs took an entirely different direction from the original concepts we had, but we were able to trust his insights, because they seemed to have an essence of purity and true creativity.”
Writing the album went quickly for the band, using forced time off of the road and their life experiences to carve out most of the material. Says Justin, “Our first single, ‘Alright,’ originally came out of the pressures of everyday life. Working, deadlines, disasters and all the other things you have to fight through. Into the pandemic it seemed to become more of an anthem for the pressure that we feel every day. This all happens while telling ourselves that we are making it just fine. In the end, that’s an attitude I try to stick with. I’m not in denial about what’s going down, but I just think of hardships as a means to grow and learn. The song is sort of a one-two punch against the world falling apart around you. I wanted to create a picture of tenacity against relentless storms so that I could mirror it in myself.”
DIRTY STREETS TOUR w/El Perro Tue 6/7 – Memphis, TN – Growlers Wed 6/8 – Lafayette, LA – Freetown Boom Boom Room Thu 6/9 – Houston, TX – Black Magic Social Club Fri 6/10 – Dallas, TX – Three Links Deep Ellum Sat 6/11 – Tulsa, OK – The Whittier Bar Sun 6/12 – Colorado Springs, CO – Vultures Mon 6/13 – Denver, CO – HQ Wed 6/15 – SLC, UT – Garage on Beck Thurs 6/16 – Boise, ID – The Shredder Fri 6/17 – Seattle, WA – Funhouse Sat 6/18 – Tacoma, WA. – The Plaid Pig Live Music Lounge Sun 6/19 – Portland, OR – High Water Mark Mon 6/20 – Eugene, OR – Old Nick’s Pub Tue 6/21 – San Francisco, CA – Bottom of the Hill Wed 6/22 – Los Angeles, CA – Permanent Records Roadhouse Thu 6/23 – Palmdale, CA – Transplants Brewing Company Fri 6/24 – Las Vegas, NV – Count’s Vamp’d Rock Bar & Grill Sat 6/25 – Tempe, AZ – Yucca Tap Room Sun 6/26 – Albuquerque, NM – The Historic El Rey Theatre Tues 6/28 – Oklahoma City, OK. – Blue Note Lounge Wed 6/29 – Lawrence, KS – Replay Lounge Thurs 6/30 – Eureka Springs, AR – Chelsea’s Corner Cafe Fri 7/1 – Louisville, KY – fifteen TWELVE
Photo by @loudandclearphotography
DIRTY STREETS: Justin Toland – guitar/vocals Thomas Storz – bass Andrew Denham – drums
Dirty Streets and the parable of the band in-between. In the widely splintered umbrellar existence that is rock and roll, it happens a lot that bands, styles, sounds, get put into groups. One sees this all the time in arguments of genre: “Is this heavy,” “does it doom,” and so on. The truth of the matter is who cares if it’s good, but given the chance to do so, humanity has proved time and again to be ready and willing to separate itself into tribes and microcultures, even when the thing uniting people in doing so is the need to splinter off from the larger subset.
These are generalizations — it’s easy to imagine a sociologist with rolled eyes — but when I think of Memphis three-piece the Dirty Streets, they seem to fit that bill of the outlier act who’ve perhaps suffered by not being so neatly cast as one thing or another. Fronted by guitarist Justin Toland, with Thomas Storz on an ever-righteous bass and Andrew Denham offering a classic swing on drums, they’ve been at it for well over a decade at this point, releasing their first album, Portrait of a Man, in 2009 before following it with 2011’s Movements (review here) and getting signed for 2013’s Blades of Grass (review here) by Alive Naturalsound Records, which has backed their offerings ever since.
Now, that’s not inconsiderable backing to have, but as 2018’s Distractions readily demonstrates, the Dirty Streets are a better band than people know, and they have been all along. What do you do with the fuzzy opener “Loving Man” except groove? What about the heavy blues of the “The Sound” or the later “Take a Walk” — with its subtly trippy vocals and rhythm so set to move you it feels like it inspired the name of the song — or the acoustic-led, semi-twang vibing “On the Way” ahead of the rousing funk-riffed “Trying to Remember?” There’s 10 songs on this record, it’s 34 minutes long, and from the slide guitar in “Dream” to the trucker-blues of “Death’s Creep,” there really isn’t a dud in the bunch.
This is what the Dirty Streets have always done. They’ve put together a killer collection of killer songs. Classic sound that’s not too much tipped toward vintage stylization, organic performances from all three players — and all three players of a caliber that would be a standout in another band; a multifaceted power in the power trio — quality material, quality sound. Distractions works from a high standard, and it’s a standard that the Dirty Streets have seemed to have set for themselves all along. And they’ve still managed to grow as a unit over time, only developing more chemistry and nuance of arrangement while making their songs sound almost humble for how unindulgent they are. Like “oh nothing too fancy just a hook that’s gonna be in your head for the next three weeks.” If this was another group, there’d be keyboards and strings all over “On the Way” and it’d be eight minutes long, or “Can’t Go Back” would have a 10-minute jam in the middle.
And maybe that’d be awesome, but that’s the thing about Dirty Streets — it’s not their bag. For all the accolades one might shower on their performances or production, they’re a songwriting band. “Can’t Go Back” is damn near perfect. So’s “The Sound.” I mean, really, what more would you want rock and roll to be? But that’s part of it too, because while Dirty Streets have been doing this thing and doing it so well for so long now, they’ve never really been willing to either jump up and down for attention in the pandering way of modern social media — “hey everybody what’s your favorite song of ours?” blah blah “you want us to tour?” blah blah — or to pigeonhole themselves into a niche within their niche. On the broadest level, they’re a heavy rock band, but that doesn’t account for the blues, the country, the soul, the classic heavy (well maybe that) or even the sometimes-there edge of psychedelia in their sound.
I don’t know if it’s that Distractions is doing anything so different from, say, 2015’s White Horse (review here), which preceded, but it shows the trio going full-on with who they are. They’ve never sounded more efficient or refined than they do in these tracks, and maybe even the sheer level of class in what they do is part of what’s kept them so consistently underrated. “Riding High” is a party and if you’ve got a fuzz quota, they fill it early with “Loving Man.” Why isn’t this band on tour with Clutch? Why am I not getting vague, largely-info-less press releases about their records six months in advance to start building the hype?
The obvious answer is maybe that’s not what the band wants. Maybe they don’t want to be on the road all the time, or to have all the inflated hoopla surrounding their outings. Maybe their endgame is that the records do the talking for them, and frankly, that’s fair enough, because often in the parable of the band in-between, that’s exactly what happens. The Dirty Streets are underrated now. Maybe in 20 years, divorced from the context of the various genre-tribes as they are now — of course there’ll be different ones then, no worries, and they’ll probably call themselves the same things — someone steps up and reissues their catalog and they’re heralded as lost classics. The kind of records that, in hindsight, leave listeners scratching their heads like, “Why wasn’t this band huge?” like so many Akarma-unearthed ’70s LPs or any number of Euro treasures from the original ’90s stoner rock era waiting to be re-pressed. Email me for a list.
Seriously, I don’t know that that’s ever going to happen or it’s not, but it’s certainly possible. What I’d say instead of waiting around for that is that you take the time today — not even that much time, damnit! 34 minutes! — to put on Distractions and try to listen without them for a while. Put your head in the right space and go where the record takes you. I think you’ll find the Dirty Streets are worth appreciating in the here and now, and that whatever comes however many decades down the line or doesn’t, you’ll not regret having already been on board.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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I could detail you any number of mundane miseries from the week or tell you about feeling disconnected and wrong in my own body, wanting not to eat, eating, not sleeping, but I’m gonna go play with my kid in the snow. Great and safe weekend. Have fun, hydrate, watch your head. All that stuff.
Posted in Reviews on December 22nd, 2020 by JJ Koczan
I just decided how long this Quarterly Review is actually going to be. It’s seven days, then I’ll do my year-end list and the poll results on New Year’s Eve and Day, respectively. That’s the plan. Though honestly, I might pick up after that weekend and continue QR-style for that next week. There’s a lot more to cover, I think. The amount of releases this year has been pretty insane and completely overwhelming. I’ve tried to keep up as best I can and clearly have failed in that regard or I probably wouldn’t be so swamped now. So it goes. One way or the other, I don’t think a lot of emails are getting answered for the next two weeks, though I’ll try to keep up with that too.
But anyhow, that’s what’s up. Here’s Day II (because this is the QR where I do Roman numerals for absolutely no reason).
Quarterly Review #11-20:
16, Dream Squasher
The fourth long-player since 16‘s studio return with 2009’s Bridges to Burn, the 10-track Dream Squasher begins with tales of love for kid and dog, respectively. The latter might be the sweetest lyrics I’ve ever read for something that’s still bludgeoning sludge — said dog also gets a mention amid the ultra-lumbering chug and samples of “Acid Tongue” — and it’s worth mentioning that as the Cali intensity institution nears 30 years since their start in 1991, they’re branching out in theme and craft alike, as the melody of the organ-laced “Sadlands” shows. There’s even some harmonica in “Agora (Killed by a Mountain Lion),” though it’s soon enough swallowed by pummel and the violent punk of “Ride the Waves” follows. “Summer of ’96” plays off Bryan Adams for another bit of familial love, while closing duo “Screw Unto Others” and “Kissing the Choir Boy” indict capitalist and religious figureheads in succession amid weighted plod and seething anger, the band oddly in their element in this meld of ups, downs and slaughter.
Kalamazoo four-piece BoneHawk make an awaited follow-up to their 2014 debut, Albino Rhino (discussed here), in the form of Iron Mountain, thereby reminding listeners why it’s been awaited in the first place. Solid, dual-guitar, newer-school post-The Sword heavy rock. Second cut “Summit Fever” reminds a bit of Valley of the Sun and Freedom Hawk, but neither is a bad echelon of acts to stand among, and the open melodies of the subsequent title-track and the later “Fire Lake” do much to distinguish BoneHawk along the way. The winding lead lines of centerpiece “Wildfire” offer due drama in their apex, and “Thunder Child” and “Future Mind” are both catchy enough to keep momentum rolling into the eight-minute closer “Lake of the Clouds,” which caps with due breadth and, yes, is the second song on the record about a lake. That’s how they do in Michigan and that’s just fine.
DÖ follow the Valborg example of lumbering barking extremity into a cosmic abyss on their Black Hole Mass three-songer, emitting charred roll like it’s interstellar background radiation and still managing to give an underlying sense of structure to proceedings vast and encompassing. “Gravity Sacrifice” and “Plasma “Psalm” are right on in their teeth-grinding shove, but it’s the 10-minute finale “Radiation Blessing” that steals my heart with its trippy break in the middle, sample, drifting guitar and all, as the Finnish trio build gradually back up to a massive march all the more effective for the atmosphere they’ve constructed around it. Construction, as it happens, is the underlying strength of Black Hole Mass, since it’s the firm sense of structure beneath their songs that allows them to so ably engage their dark matter metal over the course of these 22 minutes, but it’s done so smoothly one hardly thinks about it while listening. Instead, the best thing to do is go along for the ride, brief as it is, or at least bow head in appreciation to the ceremony as it trods across rigid stylistic dogma.
Howling Giant & Sergeant Thunderhoof, Turned to Stone Chapter 2: Masamune & Muramasa
Let this be a lesson to, well, everyone. This is how you do a conceptual split. Two bands getting together around a central idea — in this case, Tennessee’s Howling Giant and UK’s Sergeant Thunderhoof — both composing single tracks long enough to consume a vinyl side and expanding their reach not only to work with each other but further their own progressive sonic ideologies. Ripple Music‘s Turned to Stone split series is going to have a tough one to top in Masamune & Muramasa, as Howling Giant utterly shine in “Masamune” and the rougher-hewn tonality of Sergeant Thunderhoof‘s “Maramasa” makes an exceptional complement. Running about 41 minutes, the release is a journey through dynamic, with each act pushing their songwriting beyond prior limits in order to meet the occasion head-on and in grand fashion. They do, and the split easily stands among the best of 2020’s short releases as a result. If you want to hear where heavy rock is going, look no further.
Punkish shouts over dense noise rock tones, New York trio Chimney Creeps make their full-length debut with Nosedive, which they’ve self-released on vinyl. The album runs through seven tracks, and once it gets through the straight-ahead heavy punk of “March of the Creeps” and “Head in the Sand” at the outset, the palette begins to broaden in the fuzzy and gruff “Unholy Cow,” with the deceptively catchy “Splinter” following. “Creeper” and “Satisfied” before it are longer and accordingly more atmospheric, with a truck-backing-up sample at the start of “Creeper” that would seem to remind listeners just where the band’s sound has put them: out back, around the loading dock. Fair enough as “Diving Line” wraps in accordingly workmanlike fashion, the vocals cutting through clearly as they have all the while, prominent in the mix in a way that asks for balance. “Bright” I believe is the word an engineer might use, but the vocals stand out, is the bottom line, and thereby assure that the aggressive stance of the band comes across as more than a put-on.
Kingnomad‘s third album, Sagan Om Rymden certainly wants nothing for scope or ambition, setting its progressive tone with still-hooky opener “Omniverse,” before unfurling the more patient chug in “Small Beginnings” and taking on such weighted (anti-)matter as “Multiverse” and “The Creation Hymn” and “The Unanswered Question” later on. Along the way, the Swedish troupe nod at Ghost-style melodicism, Graveyard-ish heavy blues boogie — in “The Omega Experiment,” no less — progressive, psychedelic and heavy rocks and no less than the cosmos itself, as the Carl Sagan reference in the record’s title seems to inform the space-based mythology expressed and solidified within the songs. Even the acoustic-led interlude-plus “The Fermi Paradox” finds room to harmonize vocals and prove a massive step forward for the band. 2018’s The Great Nothing (review here) and 2017’s debut, Mapping the Inner Void (review here), were each more accomplished than the last, but Sagan Om Rymden is just a different level. It puts Kingnomad in a different class of band.
Shores of Null, Beyond the Shores (On Death and Dying)
By the time Shores of Null are nine minutes into the single 38-minute track that makes up their third album, Beyond the Shores (On Death and Dying), they would seem to have unveiled at least four of the five vocalists who appear throughout the proceedings, with the band’s own Davide Straccione joined by Swallow the Sun‘s Mikko Kotamäki as well as Thomas A.G. Jensen (Saturnus), Martina Lesley Guidi (of Rome’s Traffic Club) and Elisabetta Marchetti (INNO). There are guests on violin, piano and double-bass as well, so the very least one might say is that Shores of Null aren’t kidding around when they’re talking about this record in a sense of being ‘beyond’ themselves. The journey isn’t hindered so much as bolstered by the ambition, however, and the core five-piece maintain a steady presence throughout, serving collectively as the uniting factor as “Beyond the Shores (On Death and Dying)” moves through its portrayal of the stages of grief in according movements of songcraft, gorgeously-arranged and richly composed as they are as they head toward the final storm. In what’s been an exceptional year for death-doom, Shores of Null still stand out for the work they’ve done.
Tectonic sludge has become a mainstay in Polish heavy, and The Device, about whom precious little is known other than they’re very, very, very heavy when they want to be, add welcome atmospherics to the lumbering weedian procession. “Rise of the Device” begins the 47-minute Tribute Album in crushing form, but “Ritual” and the first minute or so of “BongOver” space out with droney minimalism, before the latter track — the centerpiece of the five-songer and only cut under six minutes long at 2:42 — explodes in consuming lurch. “Indica” plays out this structure again over a longer stretch, capping with birdsong and whispers and noise after quiet guitar and hypnotic, weighted riffing have played back and forth, but it’s in the 23-minute closer “Exhale” that the band finds their purpose, a live-sounding final jam picking up after a long droning stretch to finish the record with a groove that, indeed, feels like a release in the playing and the hearing. Someone’s speaking at the end but the words are obscured by echo, and to be sure, The Device have gotten their point across by then anyhow. The stark divisions between loud and quiet on Tribute Album are interesting, as well as what the band might do to cover the in-between going forward.
Spanish progressive heavy psychedelic semi-instrumentalists Domo follow late-2019’s Domonautas Vol. 1 (review here) with a four-song second installment, and Domonautas Vol. 2 answers its predecessor back with the jazz-into-doom of “Avasaxa” (7:43) and the meditation in “Dolmen” (13:50) on side A, and the quick intro-to-the-intro “El Altar” (2:06) and the 15-minute “Vientohalcón” on side B, each piece working with its own sense of motion and its own feeling of progression from one movement to the next, never rushed, never overly patient, but smooth and organic in execution even in its most active or heaviest stretches. The two most extended pieces offer particular joys, but neither should one discount the quirky rhythm at the outset of “Avasaxa” or the dramatic turn it makes just before five minutes in from meandering guitar noodling to plodding riffery, if only because it sounds like Domo are having so much fun catching the listener off guard. Exactly as they should be.
Doom be thy name. Or, I guess Early Moods be thy name, but doom definitely be thy game. The Los Angeles four-piece make their debut with the 26-minute Spellbound, and I suppose it’s an EP, but the raw Pentagram worship on display in the opening title-track and the Sabbath-ism that ensues flows easy and comes through with enough sincerity of purpose that if the band wanted to call it a full-length, one could hardly argue. Guitar heads will note the unbridled scorch of the solos throughout — centerpiece “Isolated” moves from one into a slow-Slayer riff that’s somehow also Candlemass, which is a feat in itself — while “Desire” rumbles with low-end distortion that calls to mind Entombed even as the vocals over top are almost pure Witchcraft. They save the most engaging melody for the finale “Living Hell,” but even that’s plenty grim and suited to its accompanying dirt-caked feel. Rough in production, but not lacking clarity, Spellbound entices and hints at things to come, but has a barebones appeal all its own as well.
Posted in Reviews on August 14th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
The thing about Dirty Streets is they’re really, really good. This poses a peculiar kind of challenge when it comes to writing about the Memphis three-piece, because when it comes right down to it, what more do you really need? After some five studio albums, the heavy-blues-soul rockers present Rough and Tumble through Alive Naturalsound with 10 tracks and an unassuming sub-35-minute runtime, live-recorded for Ditty TV in Memphis, shot and recorded straight through as a set. And you know what? It’s really good. They’re a really good band. There you go.
One recalls being taken aback by the clearheaded professionalism of their second record, Movements (review here), in 2011, and the simple truth of the matter is they’ve never wavered from the standard they set there or even on 2009’s debut, Portrait of a Man. Founded by guitarist/vocalist Justin Toland and bassist Thomas Storz with Andrew Denham on drums before they even set about recording that first album — formative, grittier than they’d wind up, but still headed in the direction they went — the band seem to have always known their purpose in terms of writing classic heavy blues and soul songs, and Rough and Tumble highlights not just the chemistry that their maturity has wrought across the last decade-plus, but the effectiveness of the craft that’s driven them all along.
As players, there is not one single member of Dirty Streets — sometimes also The Dirty Streets — who, if you put them in another band, wouldn’t be very likely to be the best player in that band. Denham‘s strutting snare pops on “Take a Walk,” for example. The F-U-N-K funk in Storz‘s bassline on “Think Twice” from 2015’s White Horse (review here), and Toland‘s follow-the-guitar vocal melody at the outset on “Good Pills” from that same record, leading the shuffle and initial kick of energy to get things rolling — each one of them brings something special to what they do. Further, each one makes the band stronger. I won’t deny Toland is a significant presence here and throughout the band’s history — I said as much just the other day — but as Rough and Tumble plays out, it’s not just about him, or just about Storz, or Denham. It’s all three; how they communicate as players and how they convey the material that comprises this utter joy of a set.
Cuts come from as far back as the slide-infused “Itta Benna” off Portrait of a Man, and after “Good Pills,” the trio shift into two covers of ’70s Americana-ish singer-songwriter Joe South in “Tell the Truth” and the more twang-inflected “Walk a Mile in My Shoes,” the hooks of both tracks blending almost seamlessly with those of the original songs that follow as “Itta Benna” leads into “Can’t Go Back” from 2018’s Distractions, the band’s latest studio LP. That particular pairing highlights the point above — while Dirty Streets have certainly grown as a band and the sound of their records bears that out from one into the next, the underlying aesthetic mission has been steady all along. One way or the other, new material or old, originals or covers, Dirty Streets are locked in. That’s really all there is to it. They’ve never operated any other way. At this point, I don’t think they could if they wanted to.
Among their albums, Movements and 2013’s Blades of Grass (review here) — the latter of which was their first for Alive Naturalsound — are unrepresented, and the focus is rightly on Distractions as the most recent outing. “Can’t Go Back” leads into “Think Twice” smoothly, the start-stops of the latter’s verses opening into a fluid and memorable chorus, with Denham moving to the crash to drive a solo section ahead of a final runthrough of the hook later on. Structurally sound, perfectly paced, mellow but heavy, it’s nothing less than Dirty Streets at their best. By this point in the proceedings, the vibe is set and Toland, Storz and Denham are absolutely on a roll, which only makes the arrival of “Take a Walk” with its funky wah guitar and push of drums all the more welcome.
Understand, it’s not a flawless performance throughout Rough and Tumble in the sense of a live album that’s been overdubbed and worked on in the studio. But would you really want that? What Rough and Tumble presents instead is Dirty Streets as they are, and frankly, that’s plenty. I’m not sure either they or the record live up to moniker or title — they’re not particularly dirty and the songs are hardly rough — but there’s no question Dirty Streets are in their element performing live like this. It’s worth noting that the two longest tracks on Rough and Tumble are “Walk a Mile in My Shoes” (5:10) and “Itta Benna” (4:11). A cover and a song from their first LP. The rest of what surrounds is on either side of three minutes long.
That includes, tellingly, the closing salvo of “Trying to Remember,” “The Voices” and “On the Way.” The bookends come from Distractions, and “The Voices” from White Horse, but the meatier riff of “Trying to Remember” picks up from “Take a Walk” and carries that energy forward in more winding fashion in a transition to something of a comedown at the end of the set, as “The Voices” and “On the Way” are both acoustic. This was likely done with the video presentation in mind, but it works surprisingly well on the live album too, making it so that there’s not so much a big-rock-finish or blowout at the end, but a more pastoral feel in line with the country-soul they’ve shown elsewhere. Denham moves to a shaker rather than the full kit, and even though none of the final three tracks is over three minutes long, they still manage to make some of the most striking impressions of Rough and Tumble as a whole.
So you see the dilemma. It’s not that one would want to rag on Dirty Streets or offer some non-constructive critique of what they do. Far from it. However, “golly this band is good” doesn’t exactly cut it as hard analysis either. But they are, and what they do continues to defy the notion that stylistic achievement requires high-minded progressive genre blends — nothing against them — or anything more than an organic conversation between players. Dirty Streets have their roots and they know it, but they’re their own band and one can only be thankful for that.
Dirty Streets, “Walk a Mile in My Shoes” (Joe South cover)
Posted in Features on August 12th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
Bands and festivals have begun to announce 2021 dates and all that, but let’s be realistic: it’s going to be years before live music is what it once was. Especially in the United States, which is the country in the world hardest hit by the ol’ firelung in no small part because of the ineptitude of its federal leadership, an entire economic system of live music — not to mention the venues, promotions and other cultural institutions that support it on all levels — needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. It isn’t going to be just as simple as “social distancing is over and we can all crowd into the bar again.” Maybe not ever.
You’ve likely seen a band do a live stream at this point, even if after the fact, and I have too. Not the same as a real-life gig, duh, but if it helps raise some funds and keeps creative people working on something and gives an act a way to connect with its audience, you can’t call it bad. I’ve found, though, that with the dearth of live music happening and the nil potential that “going to a show” will happen anytime soon, I’ve been listening to more and more live albums.
This, in no small part, is because there are plenty to listen to. Some groups attempting to bring in cash either for themselves or relevant causes have put out live records in the last few months and made use of the downtime that would’ve otherwise been given to actually being on a stage or writing together in a room or whatever it might be. It’s been a way for a band to not just sit on its collective hands and wonder what the future will bring. When so much is out of your own control, you make the most of what you’ve got.
In that spirit, here’s a quick rundown of 10 recent live outings that I’ve been digging. If you’ve found you’re in the need of finding comfort in live music and whatever act you want to see isn’t doing a stream just this second, maybe you can put one of these on, close your eyes, and be affected a bit by the on-stage energy that comes through.
Thanks as always for reading, and thanks to Tim Burke, Vania Yosifova, and Chris Pojama Pearson for adding their suggestions when I asked on social media. Here we go, ordered by date of release:
Arcadian Child, From Far, for the Wild (Live in Linz)
Released Jan. 24.
Granted, this one came out before the real impact of COVID-19 was being felt worldwide, but with the recent announcement of Arcadian Child‘s next studio album coming out this Fall, including From Far, for the Wild (Live in Linz) (discussed here) on this list seems only fair. The Cyprus-based four-piece even went so far as to include a couple new songs in the set that’ll show up on Protopsycho as well this October, so it’s a chance to get a preview of that material as well. Bonus for a bonus. Take the win.
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Kadavar, Studio Live Session Vol. 1
Released March 25.
Germany began imposing curfews in six of its states on March 22. At that point, tours were already being canceled, including Kadavar‘s European run after two shows, and the band hit Blue Wall Studio in Berlin for a set that was streamed through Facebook and in no small part helped set the pattern of streams in motion. With shows canceled in Australia/New Zealand and North America as well, Kadavar were hoping to recover some of the momentum they’d lost, and their turning it into a live record is also a part of that, as is their upcoming studio release, The Isolation Tapes.
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Øresund Space Collective, Sonic Rock Solstice 2019
Released April 3.
Of course, I’m perfectly willing to grant that Sonic Rock Solstice 2019 (review here) wasn’t something Øresund Space Collective specifically put out because of the pandemic, but hell, it still exists and that enough, as far as I’m concerned. As ever, they proliferate top notch psychedelic improv, and though I’ve never seen them and it seems increasingly likely I won’t at the fest I was supposed to this year, their vitality is always infectious.
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Pelican, Live at the Grog Shop
Released April 15.
Let’s be frank — if you don’t love Pelican‘s music to a familial degree, it’s not that I think less of you as a person, but I definitely feel bad for you in a way that, if I told you face-to-face, you won’t find almost entirely condescending. The Chicago instrumentalists are high on my list of golly-I-wish-they’d-do-a-livestream, and if you need an argument to support that, this set from Ohio should do the trick nicely. It’s from September 2019, which was just nearly a year ago. If your mind isn’t blown by their chugging progressive riffs, certainly that thought should do the trick.
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SEA, Live at ONCE
Released June 19.
Also captured on video, this set from Boston’s SEA finds them supporting 2020’s debut album, Impermanence (review here) and pushing beyond at ONCE Ballroom in their hometown. The band’s blend of post-metallic atmosphere and spacious melody-making comes through as they alternate between lumbering riffs and more subdued ambience, and it makes a fitting complement to the record in underscoring their progressive potential. The sound is raw but I’d want nothing less.
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Sumac, St Vitus 09/07/2018
Released July 3.
Issued as a benefit to Black Lives Matter Seattle and a host of other causes, among them the Philadelphia Womanist Working Collective, this Sumac set is precisely what it promises in the title — a live show from 2018 at Brooklyn’s famed Saint Vitus Bar. I wasn’t at this show, but it does make me a little wistful to think of that particular venue in the current concert-less climate. Sumac aren’t big on healing when it comes to the raw sonics, but there’s certainly enough spaciousness here to get lost in should you wish to do so.
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YOB, Pickathon 2019 – Live From the Galaxy Barn
Released July 3.
They’ve since taken down the Bandcamp stream, but YOB’s Pickathon 2019 – Live From the Galaxy Barn (review here) was released as a benefit for Navajo Nation COVID-19 relief, and is an hour-long set that paired the restlessness of “The Lie that is Sin” next to the ever-resonant “Marrow.” Of all the live records on this list, this is probably the one that’s brought me the most joy, and it also inspired the most recent episode of The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal, which jumped headfirst into YOB‘s catalog. More YOB please. Also, if you haven’t seen the videos of Mike Scheidt playing his guitar around the house, you should probably hook into that too.
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Dirty Streets, Rough and Tumble
Released July 31.
If you’re not all the way down with the realization that Justin Toland is the man when it comes to heavy soul and blues guitar, Dirty Streets‘ new live record, Rough and Tumble, will set you straight, and it won’t even take that long. With the all-killer bass and drums of Thomas Storz and Andrew Denham behind, Toland reminds of what a true virtuoso player can accomplish when put in a room with a crowd to watch. That’s an important message for any time, let alone right now. These cats always deliver.
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Amenra, Mass VI Live
Released Aug. 7
Look, I’m not gonna sit here and pretend I’m the biggest Amenra fan in the world. I’m not. Sometimes I feel like they follow too many of their own rules for their own good, but there’s no question that live they’re well served by the spectacle they create, and their atmospherics are genuinely affecting. And I know that I’m in the minority in my position, so for anyone who digs them hard, they put up this stream-turned-record wherein they play a goodly portion of 2017’s Mass VI, and even as the self-professed not-biggest-fan-in-the-world, I can appreciate their effort and the screamy-scream-crushy-crush/open-spaced ambience that ensues.
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Electric Moon, Live at Freak Valley Festival 2019
Releasing Sept. 4.
Yeah, okay, this one’s not out yet, but sometimes I’m lucky enough to get things early for review and sometimes (on good days) those things happen to be new live records from Germany psychonauts Electric Moon. The Always-Out-There-Sula-Komets are in top form on Live at Freak Valley Festival 2019 as one would have to expect, and they’re streaming a 22-minute version of “777” now that rips so hard it sounds like it’s about to tear a hole into an alternate dimension where shows are still going on so yes please everyone go and listen to it and maybe we’ll get lucky and it’ll really happen. The magic was in you all along.
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 17th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
2020 has shit a lot of beds, but let us spare a moment’s sympathy for Memphis four-piece The Heavy Eyes, who spent half a decade making Love Like Machines (review here) the air-tight example of heavy rock songcraft done right that it became, only to release it on March 27 as the black hole was just opening wide to swallow everyone’s ambitions for the rest of the year. They’ll go back into the studio and make another recording, which presumably will also be released on Kozmik Artifactz at some point between now and then, and hopefully be able to fulfill what was to be their first European tour dates at a future time. Again, 2020 has been a bummer for many of us on many levels, but a band about to take off for a European tour supporting a killer record, really about to build some momentum behind them on a different level than they were before? Yeah, that’s a hard one to take.
The PR wire did its best to sound a hopeful note:
Heavy Psych Rockers THE HEAVY EYES Postpone European Tour | Enter Studio to Record New Material for 2021
In what was billed to be a stellar year for the US quartet; Memphis’ meanest psych band The Heavy Eyes have been forced to pull all dates on their 2020 European Tour due to increasing concerns around the COVID-19 outbreak.
In late March, just as the virus was beginning to take hold across the continent, the band released their first collection of new material in over five years with the brilliant and bold, Love Like Machines. A long overdue delivery of heady jams, big riffs and Southern soul the album sang of doomed armies, lost loves, meddling Wolfmen and in short, whet many a fan’s proverbial whistle for some much-needed beers and live music in cities where the band are both loved and lauded in equal measure.
“It is with great disappointment that we’ve had to postpone all of our live shows,” explains drummer, Eric Garcia. “But we’re doing our part to combat the virus and eventually, when it’s safe, we can’t wait to come back and perform. For now though, it make sense to pivot and use our time to record even more music this fall. We’re unsure if that’ll mean a full LP or an EP, but we’ve actively been sharing ideas and keen to create more music.”
While the prospect of hearing more new music from the band is an exciting one, be assured that The Heavy Eyes and their booking agents are currently in the process of rescheduling a new run of dates for next year.
THE HEAVY EYES are: Tripp Shumake Wally Anderson Matt Qualls Eric Garcia
