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Album Review: Gozu, Remedy

Posted in Reviews on May 18th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

GOZU REMEDY

The first 10 seconds of “Tom Cruise Control” are pretty telling in that they remind the listener just how little Gozu actually need to make a hook. It’s just the guitar, then the bass and drums pick up and are swept along with the immediate momentum garnered. This has been Gozu‘s method for seven years now, to take the tones, grooves and, particularly in the vocals of guitarist Marc “Gaff” Gaffney, the soul of heavy rock and recontextualize them with a force of impact born of heavy metal. As the Boston four-piece offer the nine songs and 48 minutes of Remedy as their first studio LP since 2018’s Equilibrium (review here), they not only welcome drummer Seth Botos to the lineup alongside Gaffney, lead guitarist Doug Sherman and bassist Joe Grotto, but they reaffirm and refine the aesthetic stance they initially took on Equilibrium‘s predecessor, 2016’s Revival (review here).

That record, issued in a stopover through Ripple Music before they were picked up by Metal Blade imprint Blacklight Media, first united Gozu with producer Dean Baltulonis at Wild Arctic Studios in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. None of their work before that — 2013’s The Fury of a Patient Man (review here), 2010’s Locust Season (discussed here; review here), or their 2008 self-titled demo — had the same purposeful, directed punch. Make no mistake, Gozu always hit hard, but rounded edges turned into sharp corners right around the middle of the last decade and they’ve been riding those crisp orange lines ever since. Their collaboration with Baltulonis — who has produced records for Primitive WeaponsSick of it AllHatebreed, and it’s safe to say is no stranger to the aurally aggro — is part of what lets them so quickly establish themselves on Remedy. They are as sure in their method of delivery as they are in their songwriting, and they’re not wrong about either one.

But of course, there’s more to any Gozu record than just the shove, though it’s somewhat comforting to know that five years and two drummers after their last record the shove is still ready to go. Second cut “CLDZ” takes its name from a cannabis-infused beverage company part-owned by Baltulonis, so one imagines the recording was a good time, but it’s also the longest inclusion save for nine-minute closer “The Handler,” its two halves split by a solo united by a richly layered melodic chorus from Gaffney, a casually shredded solo from Sherman providing the transition as Grotto — who would be a secret weapon were it not for the consuming thickness of the bass running alongside the guitars; not a new aspect of Gozu‘s sound but universally effective — blends intricacy and fluidity to complement the riffy core of the material, there and in the dare-you-rockers-to-mosh procession of the subsequent “Rambo 2” and side B’s penultimate “Ash,” the latter a declarative stomp that can’t help but feel like Boston hardcore.

Between those two songs, a forward sprint like the three-minute “Joe Don Baker” or even the verses of “Tom Cruise Control,” the spirit of Remedy is charged and metallic, but that isn’t all it is. In doubling as the first single, “Tom Cruise Control” and its standout chorus did more than hint at a career performance vocally from Gaffney, and the rest of the album bears that out in striking fashion. A scream sneaks into the end of the verse in “Rambo 2.” The effects-laced layers backing “The Magnificent Muraco” add to the confident and soulful presence of the can-sing-lead-singerism happening at the forefront — that Gaffney holds it down live while playing rhythm guitar is not a minor achievement, either — which gives over to falsetto soon enough. And amid the open strumming of “The Handler,” which crushes with repetition in a way that reminds of The Fury of a Patient Man capper “The Ceaseless Thunder of Surf,” Gaffney goes there again as the lumbering nod moves through its middle.

gozu

Even in the dual-personality of “Ben Gazzara Loves No One,” with a penetrating build of feedback at its start, a thud of kickdrum and a dust-covered tone of riff that reminds of Author & Punisher more than Fu Manchu that turns very much toward boogie after three minutes into its total five and a half, Gaffney is there to emphasize the dance after Sherman‘s solo reorients the song to its second movement. One could just as easily cite the way “Ash” opens up from its crunch in the verse and sweeps through its own chorus, or any number of other examples in the material to make the point. The overarching message there applies to the band as a whole as well. Some 15 years past their first release, Gozu sound comfortable in their skin as a group, like they know who they are and what they want their sound to be, but have not given up pushing themselves creatively, or — as comes across in the brash start of “CLDZ,” the intensity of “Joe Don Baker” imagining what would happen if ‘thrash rock’ existed, or the largesse in the rollout of “Ben Gazzara Loves No One” — physically.

Part of that might be due to the shift in dynamic that comes from bringing in Botos on drums, but Gozu have been delving further into kinetic surge for the last decade or more. And while Remedy can be read as the deepest they’ve gone in that regard, it might just as easily be noted for the hypnotic melody and nod at the end of “CLDZ” or the dreamy fade in “Rambo 2,” “The Magnificent Muraco,” or even the ‘ooh-aah’ stretch in “Ben Gazzara Loves No One,” or the consuming atmospherics of the last stretch in “The Handler.” The truth is that Gozu are a more complex group than can be summarized through one person, performance, or song, and Remedy is a reminder of the greater strength that arises as the sum of its parts.

It is not a revolution in sound for them, but it is theirs entirely — one does not hear it and mistake it for somebody else — and if they’re offering it as a cure either for modern ills, a statement that the band itself is the cure for the members, or something else related to either the pandemic years or whathaveyou, their catharsis is easy (and fun!) to internalize as a listener. That roll at the end of “The Handler” sure feels like a big exhale, and that’s suitable after some of the clenched-teeth surges that Remedy has presented. If one wants to extrapolate from that to the rest of what surrounds, then the album title makes sense. The song titles, well, that’s always been a thing for Gozu and if you can’t Google the references or don’t care or think the songs are a joke because they’re named that way, maybe you’re the one with the problem. Sorry. If you want to talk about it, I’m available and have been where you are.

For the rest, Gozu‘s steady growth along their charted path should serve as comfort enough, let alone the character of these songs, which can be propulsive or meditative without losing either their expressive intent or underlying structures and are drawn together as a group through tone without leaning on that same tone as a stylistic crutch. They are, in concept and execution, all in. On RemedyGozu come across like they’re holding nothing back, like each song, each part, each contribution is there for a reason in service to the LP as a whole and the individual pieces, and like they’re putting everything they have into these tracks and recordings. That’s not really anything new for them either, but five records deep, the dedication to the cause feels all the more noteworthy for the lack of stagnation that accompanies.

Arriving as veterans, they use their fifth album to reaffirm the progression they’ve taken on over their time and to demonstrate clearly their commitment to it as an ongoing factor in their makeup. That Remedy is an utter triumph for them in this should be no surprise to those who’ve heard them before, and for new listeners, these songs should serve as prime immersion. All these guys do, have ever done, is kick ass. Kudos to them on the consistency here.

Gozu, Remedy (2023)

Gozu, “CLDZ” visualizer

Gozu, “Tom Cruise Control” official video

Gozu on Facebook

Gozu on Bandcamp

Gozu on Instagram

Blacklight Media website

Blacklight Media on Facebook

Blacklight Media on Instagram

Metal Blade Records website

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Gozu Announce New Album Remedy Out May 19; Video for “Tom Cruise Control” Posted; Touring in May and June

Posted in Whathaveyou on March 22nd, 2023 by JJ Koczan

GOZU 2023

Would it be funny if I said I didn’t get the reference in ‘Tom Cruise Control?’ Probably not. “What’s a ‘danger zone’?,” and so on. Meh.

The news is still good, as Boston heavy rockers Gozu send first word of their upcoming album, Remedy, which will be out May 19 through Blacklight Media. It is their second full-length for the label — which is an imprint of Metal Blade Records — behind 2018’s Equilibrium (review here), as well as their third to be recorded with Dean Baltulonis, who also helmed 2016’s Revival (review here). The PR wire has it as their fifth long-player overall, and my count is six, but I guess it depends on how you situate their 2008 self-titled. Well, I just checked the band’s Bandcamp and they call it a demo, so there you go. Remedy is number five.

In case you’re looking at the tracklisting and curious, I looked up “CLDZ” and it’s a cannabis-infused drink company — whose beverages look lovely — owned in part by Baltulonis. I bet that’s a good-ass song. Sadly, I haven’t heard the record yet to confirm for myself. There’s time.

And until then, the four-piece have a video up for Remedy‘s first single, the aforementioned “Tom Cruise Control,” and it’s a riffer for all seasons, topped with a career performance from Marc Gaffney on vocals. The chorus hits with harmonies that are a technology I don’t understand and so can only think of as magic, the kick is heavy and aggro in the verses, and Doug‘s fuck-it noise shred is on point, while Joe Grotto joegrottos it on bass, holding the nod as they build toward the finish past the four-minute mark. Hot shit. It’s a fuckin’ burner. Sign me up.

Today started out pretty rough. This made it better:

GOZU REMEDY

GOZU ANNOUNCE FIFTH ALBUM ‘REMEDY’ OUT MAY 19 BLACK LIGHT MEDIA/METAL BLADE

BAND SHARES “TOM CRUISE CONTROL” VIDEO

Boston’s GOZU — Marc Gaffney (vocals and guitar); Joseph Grotto (bass); Doug Sherman (lead guitar); and Seth Botos (drums) — return riffing and screaming with their fifth full-length Remedy.

It arrives via Black Light Media/Metal Blade on May 19. Pre-order it here: blacklightmediarecords.com/gozu

Today, the band has shared the video for “Tom Cruise Control.” Watch it here.

“‘Tom Cruise Control’ will take you riding into the danger zone,” the band shares. “It will take you right into the danger zone! Turn ‘n Burn.”

The record was engineered, mixed, and mastered by Dean Baltulonis (Death Ray Vision, The Hope Conspiracy) at Wild Arctic studios in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The album will be available via Digital/Streaming, CD, and vinyl. The U.S. vinyl variant will be Blue/White Melt, while the European vinyl variant will be Red/Black Melt.

About the album Gozu says, “A wise man said, ‘To rock is human, to roll is divine. Gozu’s Remedy should be cranked at full volume, all the time.”

REMEDY TRACK LISTING:
“Tom Cruise Control”
“CLDZ”
“Rambo 2”
“Joe Don Baker”
“Pillow Talk”
“The Magnificent Muraco”
“Ben Gazzara Loves No One”
“Ash”
“The Handler”

Gozu will also hit the road this May. “On May 19, Gozu hit the road with some serious BGVs. Get ready to stop, drop, and open up shop! See you all at a club near you. Woooo.”

GOZU ON TOUR:
5/19 — Brooklyn, NY — Saint Vitus
5/20 — Philadelphia, PA — Kung Fu Necktie
5/21 — Pittsburgh, PA — Green Beacon Gallery
5/23 — Indianapolis, IN — Black Circle *
5/24 — Columbus, OH — Ace of Cups *
5/25 — Newport, KY — Southgate House/Revival Room *
5/26 — Chicago, IL — Reggies / Music Joint *
5/27 — Lincoln, NE — Cosmic Eye Brewery
5/28 — Denver, CO —The Crypt
5/30 — Houston, TX — Black Magic Social Club
5/31 — Austin, TX — The Lost Well
6/1 — Arlington, TX — Division
6/2 — New Orleans, LA — Gasa Gasa
6/3 — Nashville, TN — Springwater *
6/4 — Atlanta, GA — Boggs Social & Supply *
6/5 — West Columbia, SC — New Brookland Tavern *
6/7 — Raleigh, NC — The Pour House *
*With Ancient Days

VIDEO CREDITS:
Director, Editor, Animation & VFX: Shawn Reilly
PunchDance Studios
Studio Manager- Frank Pino JR
Grip: Alex Fiorentino

GOZU is:
Marc Gaffney – guitar and vocals
Joe Grotto – bass
Doug Sherman – lead guitar
Seth Botos – drums

https://www.facebook.com/GOZU666
http://gozu.bandcamp.com
instagram.com/gozu666

https://www.instagram.com/blacklightmediaofficial/
https://www.facebook.com/BlacklightMediaOfficial/
http://www.blacklightmediarecords.com/

Gozu, “Tom Cruise Control” official video

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Morne Sign to Metal Blade; New Album Later This Year

Posted in Whathaveyou on February 22nd, 2023 by JJ Koczan

In the ever-present question of “crunch or crush,” Boston’s Morne realize that it in no way needs to be one or the other. The doom-tinged aggressors have signed to Metal Blade Records — congrats on that, by the way; pretty much the dream — and are currently dig into the recording process for their next full-length, to be released hopefully sometime before the end of the year. Honestly, if it’s November or even early December, I think that makes sense for Morne‘s sound, which to me speaks of cold Massachusetts winters where the sky is just grey from late Fall until, oh, May or so, and you never see the sun and everybody gets even angrier at each other and the only thing stopping the masses from rioting at any given moment is the continued success of the local sports franchises. It’s an intense season, the northern winter. I’m surprised everybody doesn’t play black metal up there, but I suppose that’s a different conversation. In any case, in 2015, Morne put out The Coming of Winter, so they would seem to know it as well.

I was fortunate enough to catch Morne at the 2019 Roadburn Festival (review here) as they supported their 2018 LP, To the Night Unknown, which was released by the band in collaboration with Armageddon Shop. Their next outing is being recorded with the esteemed Kurt Ballou, a parenthetical snippet of whose pedigree you can see below, which is no doubt a promise of continued bludgeonry. So much the better. The four-piece will also travel to Germany for Hell Over Hammaburg, where they’ll play with the likes of SanhedrinThe Ruins of BeverastHigh Spirits and others. Good fun.

The PR wire tells the tale:

morne (Photo by Hillarie Jason)

Metal Blade Records Announce the Signing of Morne

Metal Blade Records is proud to announce the signing of Boston, Massachusetts’ MORNE who are adding their brand of crusty and ethereal doom to the label’s celebrated roster. The band is currently recording a new album with Kurt Ballou (Converge, Cave In, High On Fire) for release in late 2023.

“We are wrapping up the recording session at GodCity Studio with Kurt Ballou in Salem, Massachusetts. This will be our fifth studio album and we are very excited that a legendary label like Metal Blade is releasing it to the universe.” comments MORNE vocalist Milosz adding that “music and words for this album were written during stressful and challenging times and life changing moments and I hope people will find something for themselves in this album and enjoy it. I’m very grateful that Metal Blade helped us put it all together.”

Metal Blade GmbH Label Manager, Markus Grasseck, had this to say about the signing: “We’re very excited to welcome MORNE to our Metal Blade family. Being a fan of the band since their Demo 2008, it’s a great honor to finally work together for the years to come. The band’s unique blend of atmospheric Doom with Crust attitude is unparalleled and we can’t wait to get this out to as many people as possible. Brace yourself for their new album due out this fall!”

In other news, MORNE will be heading over to Hamburg, Germany to perform at this year’s Hell Over Hammaburg Festival in March. More festival details can be found here: helloverhammaburg.blogspot.com

MORNE is:
Miłosz Gassan – vocals, guitars
Paul Rajpal – guitars
Morgan Coe – bass
Billy Knockenhauer – drums

About the band:
Formed in 2005, MORNE blends doom metal and classic British crust but stretches beyond those boundaries, combining a bleak lyrical style with driving riffs. Four studio albums have been released to date with the band currently recording material for their 5th studio album. Their first, Untold Wait, was on Feral Ward Records in 2009 then in 2011, the band signed with Profound Lore Records and released Asylum that same year, followed by Shadows, in 2013. Their latest, To the Night Unknown, was released in September of 2018 on Armageddon Label and the band’s own Morne Records. The band has toured the US, Canada and Europe, where they have been part of large festivals such as Roadburn, Hellfest, Quebec Deathfest, Psycho Las Vegas, Into the Void and Blow Up the Gramaphone.

https://www.facebook.com/mornecrust
https://www.instagram.com/morneband
https://twitter.com/morneband
https://morneband.bandcamp.com

https://www.facebook.com/metalbladerecords
https://www.instagram.com/metalbladerecords/
https://www.metalblade.com/

Morne, Live at Roadburn 2019 (2020)

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DVNE Announce Spring 2023 UK Tour

Posted in Whathaveyou on December 13th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

Edinburgh-based heavy progressive metallers DVNE are set to hit the road across the UK next April as a precursor to appearing at Resurrection Fest in Spain and ArcTanGent in England. They go ostensibly as they continue to support 2021’s Etemen Ænka (review here), which will be two years old by the time these shows start, but is a cause worth supporting nonetheless. And for the merch table, they did issue a live album earlier this year. Actually, I wouldn’t necessarily be surprised if they put together an EP or something ahead of next Spring and Summer and hit the road harder again, but if this is it, then at least they’re getting out. Certainly right around March 2021 there wasn’t a lot of that happening, UK or elsewhere.

I was fortunate enough to catch DVNE for the second time this past summer as they appeared at Freak Valley Festival (review here), and hearing the complex structures and melodies from Etemen Ænka come through with no letup on impact — that blend of progressivism and heft — was only reassuring when it comes to their presentation of the work live. I guess that’s my way of saying if you dug the record — stream is below for a refresher — you won’t be disappointed by how they present it live, as sharply-produced as that album is.

Shows shows shows. You like shows, right? Cool:

Dvne uk tour 2023

DVNE 2023 UK tour kicking off in April!

We’ll be playing 6 headlining shows with a beautiful tour support (soon to be revealed). Tickets info at:
https://www.songsofarrakis.com/pages/tour

TUE 11 APRIL Stereo Glasgow, UK
WED 12 APRIL Nottingham Bodega Nottingham, UK
THU 13 APRIL The Corporation Sheffield, UK
FRI 14 APRIL Crofters Rights Bristol Bristol, UK
SAT 15 APRIL Oslo Hackney London, UK
SUN 16 APRIL Soup Manchester, UK
WED 28 JUNE – SAT 1 JULY Resurrection Fest 2023 Viveiro, Spain
WED 16 AUGUST ArcTanGent 2023 Compton Martin, UK

Excited to get back on the road.

Art by Chris J Alliston

Dvne line-up:
Victor Vicart – guitar, vocals, keys
Dudley Tait – drums
Daniel Barter – guitar, vocals
Allan Paterson – bass
Maxime Keller – keys

https://www.facebook.com/DvneUK
https://twitter.com/SongsOfArrakis
https://www.instagram.com/dvne_uk/
https://songs-of-arrakis.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/metalbladerecords
https://www.instagram.com/metalbladerecords/
https://www.metalblade.com/

DVNE, Etemen Ænka (2021)

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DVNE Announce Fall European Tour Dates

Posted in Whathaveyou on July 1st, 2021 by JJ Koczan

dvne (Photo by Alan Swan)

Check out DVNE with a full Fall of touring. Europe and UK and Damnation Festival to boot. I kind of feel like everybody’s waiting to see what’s going to happen with that pesky Delta Variant — which is SUCH a cooler name than either “coronavirus” or “COVID-19”; I’m not glad the pandemic is ongoing, I am glad it finally hired someone to handle branding — playing havoc in various places around the world, but even if the Edinburgh five-piece can squeeze in a little road time to support this year’s Etemen Ænka (review here), that’s a worthy cause. The release was a highlight of early 2021 and while some of the hype has subsided, the stylistic reach of the album itself has not dulled in the slightest. Getting out and pressing more vinyl, as they are, would be a boon toward forward momentum.

And forward momentum is itself a novelty at this point.

The PR wire has this:

dvne tour

Dvne announces European tour with labelmates Déluge; new Bandcamp exclusive vinyl for ‘Etemen Ænka’ now available!

After releasing their sophomore album, Etemen Ænka, earlier this year – and landing on the worldwide charts for their efforts (#43 in Germany, #65 on the UK Indie Charts!) – Dvne has now announced a European co-headlining tour with labelmates Déluge. Kicking off in September, this will be the first run of shows in support of Etemen Ænka, before the band heads to the UK for an appearance at Damnation Fest, followed by a trek with Bossk in the winter.

See below for all dates! Purchase your tickets now at: https://www.songsofarrakis.com/tour/

Dvne + Déluge 2021 tour dates
Presented by The Link Productions
Sept. 15 – Nijmegen, Netherlands – Merleyn
Sept. 16 – Brussels, Belgium – La Botanique
Sept. 17 – Paris, France – Petit Bain
Sept. 19 – Nantes, France – Le Ferrailleur
Sept. 22 – Toulouse, France – Le Rex
Sept. 23 – Madrid, Spain – Caracol
Sept. 24 – Barcelona, Spain – Razz3
Sept. 25 – Bilbao, Spain – Groove
Sept. 26 – Black Sheep, France – Montepellier
Sept. 28 – Lyon, France – Rock N Eat
Sept. 29 – Strasbourg, France – La Maison Bleue
Sept. 30 – Martigny, Switzerland – Les Caves Du Manoir
Oct. 1 – Berlin, Germany – Zukunft am Ostkreuz
Oct. 2 – Poznan, Poland – Pod Minoga
Oct. 3 – Leipzig, Germany – Bandhaus

Dvne live 2021
Nov. 6 – Leeds, UK – Damnation Festival @ Leeds University Union

Dvne 2021 tour dates
w/ Bossk
Dec. 12 – Nottingham, UK – Bodega
https://www.alttickets.com/bossk-tickets
Dec. 13 – Bristol, UK – The Exchange
https://www.seetickets.com/event/bossk/exchange/1816003
Dec. 14 – Birmingham, UK – Mama Roux’s
https://www.seetickets.com/event/bossk/mama-roux-s/1817854
Dec. 15 – London, UK – The Garage
https://formpresents.seetickets.com/event/bossk/the-garage/1817728
Dec. 16 – Leeds, UK – Brudenell Social Club
https://brudenellsocialclub.seetickets.com/event/bossk/brudenell-social-club/1815299
Dec. 17 – Manchester, UK – Deaf Institute
https://formpresents.seetickets.com/event/bossk/the-deaf-institute/1817729
Dec. 18 – Glasgow, UK – Ivory Blacks
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bossk-dvne-glasgow-tickets-148572489315

A new Bandcamp exclusive vinyl edition of Etemen Ænka – white with black dust (featuring a gatefold jacket, 2-sided insert, and poster) – can be pre-ordered now at: https://songs-of-arrakis.bandcamp.com. Limited to 200 copies, this vinyl will be released on August 13th, 2021 – reserve your copy now!

Dvne line-up:
Victor Vicart – guitar, vocals, keys
Dudley Tait – drums
Daniel Barter – guitar, vocals
Allan Paterson – bass
Evelyn May – keys

https://www.facebook.com/DvneUK
https://twitter.com/SongsOfArrakis
https://www.instagram.com/dvne_uk/
https://songs-of-arrakis.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/metalbladerecords
https://www.instagram.com/metalbladerecords/
https://www.metalblade.com/

DVNE, “Sì-XIV” official video

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Friday Full-Length: Pilgrim, Misery Wizard

Posted in Bootleg Theater on May 14th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

There can be no doubt youth was a factor on Pilgrim‘s side when they made their debut with 2012’s Misery Wizard. Their first long-player was released in January of that year through Metal Blade following a just a demo and a 2011 split with fellow New Englanders Ice Dragon, and from the opening strains of “Astaroth” across the album’s willfully cumbersome 55-minute span, it was pure doom traditionalism with the kind of refresh that only a new generation could provide. Pilgrim — then the trio of guitarist/vocalist Jon “The Wizard” Rossi, bassist Eric “Count Elric the Soothsayer” Dietrich and drummer Nick “Krolg, Slayer of Men” Nosach — were kids and they looked like kids, but with Rossi‘s skullet and mournful voice, the band’s downcast image, depressive tonality, slow-rolling tempos and spacious mix, they tapped into the spirit of earliest The Gates of Slumber in their “true doom” sensibility. Misery Wizard was both the altar of worship and the paean itself when it came to doom for doomers by doomers.

So much of what you need to know is in the slowdown at the end of “Astaroth.” At six and a half minutes, the opener is among the shortest tracks on Misery Wizard — only the brazen, galloping penultimate cut, “Adventurer,” is shorter at 4:29 — and it’s a slog already by the time they’re five minutes in, but as the procession continues toward its inevitable conclusion, the trio bring it slower, slower, and slower until finally it crashes out. It’s not that they were the first doom band ever to stick a slowdown at the finish of a given track, but Pilgrim execute that moment with rare grace from one measure to the next, so that it happens gradually, not in jumps, and lets itself go into the fading feedback ahead of Misery Wizard‘s 10-minute title-track as if it’s opening a gate to the record itself. And, of course, it is.

“Misery Wizard” leads even further down into the D&D-pit-of-despair that Pilgrim craft atmospherically — so much fog and lurk and rolling-of-ones to be had — and arrives as the first of three more extended tracks that comprise the meat of the album, along with “Quest” (9:52) and “Masters of the Sky.” By the time it’s done, “Misery Wizard” is righteously torturous, and “Quest” at first continues the thread, but picks up the tempo shortly before the halfway point, feeling like something of a lifeline thrown to the listener making their way through the dense humidity of the record as a whole, and though it doesn’t last but for a few minutes and the song ends with the album’s loudest ring of feedback, that stretch serves its purpose well. I’ll take “Masters of the Sky” as the highlight of the album, Rossi‘s voice reaching desperately upward through the mix in the early going, layered in the second half and more forward, but still morose and placed well in the raw crash that surrounds ahead of another noisy finish.

Given its speedier shift, there’s really nowhere else to stick “Adventurer” but ahead of 12-minute closer “Forsaken Man.” It never gets quite to High on Fire-level brash, but it’s not far off, and in a different pilgrim misery wizardcontext — and a much smoother production — that main riff wouldn’t have been out of place on a record by The Sword. In Pilgrim‘s hands, the groove is fervent but the tailspin is more dangerous, and the cymbal wash and noise that consumes the better part of the last 40 seconds feels earned in a ringing-out kind of fuckall topped with more feedback.

And speaking of feedback — have I mentioned feedback? — the launch of “Forsaken Man” is like slamming headfirst into a wall of it before the band enact their lurchiest of lurches. The culmination of Misery Wizard hits into another level of grueling, cracking itself open after seven minutes to obscure gurgling, chanting or whatever it is before surging back somewhat to its zombified post-Saint Vitus march, which caps of course in suitably miserable fashion and yet more feedback. Pilgrim having established the method and unfurled their aural punishment at will throughout, it’s only fair they should underscore the point in the album’s final seconds. You wouldn’t call it brutal in the death metal sense, but it’s far from friendly.

I was lucky enough to see Pilgrim three times during this era. The first time was at a show in Brooklyn with Windhand and Magic Circle (review here) and the second time was Stoner Hands of Doom XII in Connecticut (review here), where they were slotted among the headliners and indeed pulled one of the weekend’s best crowds as I recall, and the third time was again in Brooklyn (review here). For such sonically downtrodden fare, the excited vibe around their set at the latter venue was palpable. People were into it. The hype was real and justified. They seemed like a band ready to hit the road, and they were, and they did, touring with Windhand, Heavy TempleAge of Taurus and Spirit Caravan, among others during their time.

A follow-up to Misery Wizard arrived in March 2014’s II: Void Worship (review here), which found Rossi all the more stepped into his role as frontman as the band tightened their songwriting and explored new reaches of melody that they would seem to have discovered on tour. They’d been to Roadburn 2013 (review here) by then and were no longer kids getting their feet under them as a touring band or playing to genre so much as looking to make their mark on it. One recalls their video for “The Paladin” (posted here) as being particularly emblematic of their aesthetic and putting Rossi at the fore.

His death on Oct. 26, 2017, was the end of the band. By then, Pilgrim was him, Dietrich and Brad “Bradoc the Thunderer” Richardson on drums, and though he was only 26 years old, he’d already had significant impact on the doom underground and an influence on how the up and coming generation of riffers interacted with what had come before them. In my experience with him, he was a shy but friendly enough guy. His loss was deeply felt.

And that’s a sad note to end on, but I can’t help think of the potential Pilgrim had for a longer-term progression that never got to play out. Nine years after their debut, who knows what they might’ve accomplished by this time. Maybe nothing else. Maybe they would’ve broken up — their long tour with Spirit Caravan was a big disillusion moment for them, as well as a fiscal drain — or maybe their third album would’ve been their best yet. We’ll never get to know. What’s important to keep in mind with that is that not knowing doesn’t undercut the value or achievement that was either Misery Wizard or the sophomore outing, and that just because the potential didn’t have the chance to be fulfilled doesn’t mean it wasn’t there in the first place.

This was a good band.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

Another week.

This week I got to live one of my true parenting nightmares: poop in the bathtub. I’ve been in charge of The Pecan’s bathtime since before he could sit up. Three and a half years and counting, bathtime has been my purview. He’s always hated the bath, even though he’s got toys galore that live in the tub, bubblebath, the whole nine. He doesn’t want water in his face and I do my best to see that he doesn’t get it.

Because he’s so miserable going in his diaper at this point and yet terrified of the toilet because he’s not already completely mastered using it — or, in fact, using it at all — he holds in his poop. For, like, two days before he can’t anymore. That moment came yesterday while he was taking a bath. He was duly horrified. I had to dig through bubbles to find poop nuggets, staying calm and saying it was okay, it was an accident, accidents happen, and all that. I’d always dreaded poop in the tub. I guess it says something about the mundane horrors of parenting that by the time it actually happened, all that shit wasn’t shit, as it were.

Our next door neighbors have a newborn. You can see the drawn look in their faces. I think the guy’s a cop? I don’t know. We’re wave-to-each-other cordial. Every now and again The Patient Mrs. has a conversation. We went out when they brought the kid home. He was squidgy as newborns are. I like that age well enough. They just need you and sleep intermittently. I’ve been thinking about that time — end of 2017 — a lot as a result. I was pretty much dying. I found a picture of myself the other day from a month before he was born. I look sick and I was. Full on bulimic. What’re you gonna do. There’s a big part of me that misses that. The feeling of control. Shrug. Xanax to shut the ol’ brain up.

The weekends are hard lately, no break. I don’t remember what’s up for Monday but I know the week is full. Hang on. Yeah. Yo No Se video premiere Monday. Tuesday Mourn the Light. Wednesday Melissa. Thursday Wytch and Bottomless. Friday I’m gonna review something. Maybe Heavy Temple or Stöner, depending on my mood. Shrug again.

Alright, I think we’re all caught up. New Gimme show today, 5PM, and I still don’t know if I’m posting this before or after the Jack Harlon thing. I think before, because technically in Australia that post will be for Saturday morning? I don’t know. I’ll think about it while I dick around at Wegmans and look at food I’m not gonna let myself eat. It goes like that sometimes.

Thanks for reading. Great and safe weekend. Hydrate. Watch your head. Do what you need to do to get through the day. Go buy some Obelisk shorts from David at MIBK. He’s a great guy.

FRM.

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Quarterly Review: Sonic Flower, Demon Head, Rakta & Deafkids, Timo Ellis, Heavy Feather, Slow Draw, Pilot Voyager, The Ginger Faye Bakers, Neromega, Tung

Posted in Reviews on April 2nd, 2021 by JJ Koczan

quarterly-review-spring-2019

Friday morning and the Spring 2021 Quarterly Review draws to a close. It’s been a good one, and though there are probably enough albums on my desktop to make it go another few days, better to quit while I’m ahead in terms of not-being-so-tired-I’m-angry-at-everything-I’m-hearing. In any case, as always, I hope you found something here you enjoy. I have been pleasantly surprised on more than a few occasions, especially by debuts.

We wrap with more cool stuff today and since I’m on borrowed time as it is, let me not delay.

Quarterly Review #41-50:

Sonic Flower, Rides Again

sonic flower rides again

Like Church of Misery‘s groove but feel kind of icky with all those songs about serial killers? Legit. Say hello to Tatsu Mikami‘s Sonic Flower. Once upon a 2003, the band brought all the boogie and none of the slaughter of Tatsu‘s now-legendary Sabbathian doom rock outfit to a self-titled debut (reissue review here), and Rides Again is the lost follow-up from 2005, unearthed like so many of the early ’70s forsaken classics that clearly inspired it. With covers of The Meters and Graham Central Station, Sonic Flower makes their funky intentions plain as day, and the blowout drums and full-on fuzz they bring to those cuts as well as the five originals on the short-but-satisfying 28-minute offering is a win academically and for casual fans alike. You ain’t gonna hear “Jungle Cruise” or their take on “Earthquake” and come out complaining, is what I’m saying. This is the kind of record that makes you buy more records.

Sonic Flower on Thee Facebooks

Heavy Psych Sounds on Bandcamp

 

Demon Head, Viscera

demon head viscera

With Viscera, Copenhagen’s Demon Head make their debut on Metal Blade Records. It is their fourth album overall, the follow-up to 2019’s Hellfire Ocean Void (review here), and it continues the five-piece’s enduring exploration of darker places. Dramatic vocals recount grim narratives over backing instrumentals that are less doom at the outset with “Tooth and Nail” and “The Feline Smile” than goth, and atmospheric pieces like “Arrows” and “The Lupine Choir” and “A Long, Groaning Descent” and “Wreath” and certainly the closer “The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony” further the impression that Viscera, though its title conjures raw guts, is instead an elaborate entirety — if perhaps one of raw guts — and meant to be taken in its 36-minute whole. Demon Head make that LP-friendly runtime a progression down into reaches they’d not until this point gone, tapping sadness for its inherent beauty.

Demon Head on Thee Facebooks

Metal Blade Records website

 

Rakta & Deafkids, Live at Sesc Pompeia

Rakta Deafkids Live at Sesc Pompeia

Next time someone asks you what the future sounds like, you’ll have a good answer for them. Combined into a six-piece band, Brazilian outfits Rakta and Deafkids harness ambience and space-punk thrust into a sound that is born of a past that hasn’t yet happened. Their Live at Sesc Pompeia LP follows on from a 2019 two-songer, but it’s in the live performance that the spirit of this unity really shines through, and from opener/longest track (immediate points) “Miragem” through the semi-industrialized effects swirl of “Templo do Caos,” into the blower-noise dance party “Sigilo,” the weirdo-chug-jam of “Forma” and the space rock breakout “Flor de Pele” and the percussed buzz and echoing howls of “Espirais,” they are equal parts encompassing and singular. It is not to be ignored, and though there are moments that border on unlistenable, you can hear from the wailing crowd at the end that to be in that room was to witness something special. As a document of that, Live at Sesc Pompeia feels like history in the making.

Rakta on Thee Facebooks

Deafkids on Thee Facebooks

Rapid Eye Records website

 

Timo Ellis, Death is Everywhere

Timo Ellis Death is Everywhere

A madcap, weighted-but-anti-genre sensibility comes to life in supernova-experimentalist fashion throughout the four songs of Timo EllisDeath is Everywhere. The lockdown-era EP from Ellis (Netherlands, Yoko Ono, Cibo Matto, on and on) makes post-modern shenanigans out of apocalypses inner and outer, and from lines like “this bridal shower is bumming me out” in the unabashedly hooky “Vampire Rodeo” to “the earth will still breathe fire without you!” in “Left Without an Answer,” the stakes are high despite the flittering-in-appreciation-of-the-absurd mood of the tracks themselves. The title-track and “Evolve or Die” blend sonic heft and the experimental pop movement that “Vampire Rodeo” sets forth — the third cut is positively manic and maniacally positive — while “Left Without an Answer” almost can’t help but be consuming as it rolls into a long fade leaving intertwining vocals lines as the last to go, telling the listener to “learn to say goodbye” without making it easy. Won’t be for everyone, doesn’t want to be. Is expression for itself. Feels genuine in that, and admirable.

Timo Ellis on Thee Facebooks

Timo Ellis on Bandcamp

 

Heavy Feather, Mountain of Sugar

heavy feather mountain of sugar

With not-at-all-subtle nods to Humble Pie and Ennio Morricone in its opening tracks, Heavy Feather‘s second LP, Mountain of Sugar, has boogie to spare. No time is wasted on the 38-minute/11-track follow-up to 2019’s Débris & Rubble (review here), and true to the record’s title, it’s pretty sweet. The collection pits retro mindset against modern fullness in its harmonica-laced, duly-fuzzed title-track, and goes full-Fleetwood on “Come We Can Go” heading into a side B that brings a highlight in the soft-touch-stomp of “Rubble and Debris” and an earned bit of Southern-styled turn in “Sometimes I Feel” that makes a fitting companion to all the bluesy vibes throughout, particularly those of the mellow “Let it Shine” earlier. The Stockholm outfit knew what they were doing last time out too, but you can hear their process being refined throughout Mountain of Sugar, and even its most purposefully familiar aspects come across with a sense of will and playfulness.

Heavy Feather on Thee Facebooks

The Sign Records on Thee Facebooks

 

Slow Draw, Yellow & Gray

slow draw yellow and gray

Don’t tell him I told you so, but Slow Draw is starting to sound an awful lot like a band. What began as a drone/soundscaping project from Stone Machine Electric drummer/noisemaker Mark Kitchens has sprouted percussive roots of its own on Yellow & Gray, and as Kitchens explores textures of psychedelic funk, mellow heavy and even a bit of ’70s proggy homage in “Sylvia” ahead of the readily Beck-ian jam “Turntable” and acousti-drone closer “A Slow Move,” the band-vibe is rampant. I’m going to call Yellow & Gray a full-length despite the fact that it’s 24 minutes long because its eight songs inhabit so many different spaces between them, but however you want to tag it, it demonstrates the burgeoning depth of Kitchens‘ project and how it’s grown in perhaps unanticipated ways. If this is what he’s been doing in isolation — as much as Texas ever shuttered for the pandemic — his time has not been wasted.

Slow Draw on Thee Facebooks

Slow Draw on Bandcamp

 

Pilot Voyager, Nuclear Candy Bar

plot voyager nuclear candy bar

Freak! Out! The 66-minute Nuclear Candy Bar from Hungarian psychedelicists Pilot Voyager might end mostly drifting with the 27-minute “23:61,” but much of the four tracks prior to that finale are fuzz-on-go-go-go-out-out-out heavy jams, full in tone and improv spirit however planned their course may or may not actually be. To say the least, “Fuzziness” lives up to its name, as guitarist/founder Ákos Karancz — joined by bassist Bence Ambrus (who also mastered) and drummers Krisztián Megyeri and István Baumgartner (the latter only on the closer) — uses a relatively earthbound chug as a launchpad for further space/krautrocking bliss, culminating in a scorching cacophony that’s the shortest piece on the record at just under seven minutes. If you make it past the molten heat of the penultimate title-track, there’s no turning away from “23:61,” as the first minute of that next day pulls you in from the outset, a full-length flow all unto itself. More more more, yes yes yes. Alright you get the point.

Pilot Voyager on Thee Facebooks

Psychedelic Source Records on Bandcamp

 

The Ginger Faye Bakers, Camaro

the ginger faye bakers camaro

Sit with The Ginger Faye BakersCamaro EP for a little bit. Don’t just listen to the first track, or even the second, third or fourth, on their own, but take a few minutes to put it all together. Won’t take long, the thing’s only 17 minutes long, and in so doing you’ll emerge with a more complex picture of who they are as a band. Yeah, you hear the opening title-cut and think early-Queens of the Stone Age-style desert riffing, maybe with a touch of we’re-actually-from-the-Northeast tonal thickness, but the garage-heavy of “The Creeps” feels self-aware in its Uncle Acid-style swing, and as the trio move through the swinging “The Master” and “Satan’s Helpers,” the last song drawing effectively from all sides, the totality of the release becomes all the more sinister for the relatively straight-ahead beginning just a short time earlier. Might be a listen or two before it sinks in, but they’ve found a niche for themselves here and one hopes they continue to follow where their impulses lead them.

The Ginger Faye Bakers on Thee Facebooks

The Ginger Faye Bakers on Bandcamp

 

Neromega, Nero Omega

Neromega Nero Omega

If you’re not yet keeping an eye on Regain Records offshoot Helter Skelter Productions, Rome’s Neromega are a fervent argument for doing so. The initials-only cultish five-piece are Italian as much in their style of doom as they are in geography, and across their four-song Nero Omega debut EP, they run horror organ and classic heavy rock grooves alongside each other while nodding subtly at more extreme fare like the death ‘n’ roll rumble in closer “Un Posto” or the dirt-coated low end that caps “Pugnale Ardore,” the drifting psych only moments ago quickly forgotten in favor of renewed shuffle. Eight-minute opener “Solitudine,” might be the highlight as well as the longest inclusion on the 24-minute first-showing, but it’s by no means the sum total of what the band have on offer, as they saunter through giallo, psychedelia, doom, heavy riffs and who knows what else to come, they strike an immediately individual atmospheric presence even while actively toying with familiar sounds. The EP is cohesive enough to make me wonder what their initials are.

Neromega on Thee Facebooks

Helter Skelter Productions website

 

Tung, Bleak

TUNG BLEAK

Some of the made-even-bigger-by-echo vocals from guitarist Craig Kasamis might remind of Maurice Bryan Giles from Red Fang, but Ventura, California’s Tung are up chasing down a different kind of party on 2020’s Bleak, though Kasamis, guitarist David Briceno (since replaced by Bill Bensen), bassist Nick Minasian and drummer Rob Dean have a strong current of West Coast noise rock in what they’re doing as well in “Runaway,” a lurcher like “Spit” later on or the run-till-it-crashes finisher “Fallen Crown,” which the only song apart from the bookending opener “Succession Hand” to have a title longer than a single word. Still, Tung have their own, less pop-minded take on brashness, and this debut album leaves the bruises behind to demonstrate its born-from-hardcore lineage. Their according lack of frills makes Bleak all the more effective at getting its point across, and while they’d probably tell you their sound is nothing fancy, it’s fancy enough to stomp all over your ears for about half an hour, and that’s as fancy as it needs to be. Easy to dig even in its more aggressive moments.

Tung on Thee Facebooks

Plain Disguise Records website

 

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Quarterly Review: DVNE, Wowod, Trace Amount, Fuzzcrafter, Pine Ridge, Watchman, Bomg, White Void, Day of the Jackal, Green Druid

Posted in Reviews on April 1st, 2021 by JJ Koczan

quarterly-review-spring-2019

Oh, hello there. Don’t mind me. I’m just here, reviewing another 10 records today. I did it yesterday too. I’ll do it again tomorrow. No big deal. It’s Quarterly Review time. You know how it goes.

Crazy day yesterday, crazy day today, but I’m in that mode where I kind of feel like I can make this go as long as I want. Next Monday? Why not? Other than the fact that I have something else slated, I can’t think of a reason. Fortunately, having something else slated is enough of one. Ha. Let’s go.

Quarterly Review #31-40:

DVNE, Etemen Ænka

dvne Etemen Ænka

It’s like Scotland’s DVNE threw all of modern heavy metal into a blender and hit “cohesive.” Etemen Ænka‘s lofty ambitions are matched indeed by the cohesion of the band’s craft, the professionalism of their presentation, and the scope of their second album’s 10 component tracks, whether that’s in the use of synth throughout “Towers” or the dreamy post-rock aside in “Omega Severer,” the massive riffing used as a tool not a crutch in “Court of the Matriarch,” closer “Satuya” and elsewhere, and even the interlude-y pieces “Weighing of the Heart,” “Adraeden” and the folkish “Asphodel” that leads into the finale. DVNE have made themselves into the band you wish Isis became. Also the band you wish Mastodon became. And probably six or seven others. And while Etemen Ænka is certainly not without prog-styled indulgence, there is no taking away from the significant accomplishment these songs represent for them as a group putting out their first release on Metal Blade. It’ll be too clean for some ears, but the tradeoff for that is the abiding sense of poise with which DVNE deliver the songs. This will be on my year-end list, and I won’t be the only one.

DVNE on Thee Facebooks

Metal Blade Records website

 

Wowod, Yarost’ I Proshchenie

Wowod Yarost I Proshchenie

Beginning with its longest track (immediate points) in the 11-minute “Rekviem,” Yarost’ I Proshchenie is the third full-length from St. Petersburg’s Wowod, and its sudden surge from ‘unfold’ to ‘onslaught’ is a legitimate blindside. They hypnotize you then push you down a flight of stairs as death growls, echoing guitar lines and steady post-metallic drum and bass hold the line rhythmically. This sense of disconnect, ultimately, leads to a place of soaring melody and wash, but that feeling of moving from one place to another is very much the core of what Wowod do throughout the rest of the album that follows. “Tanec Yarosti” is a sub-three-minute blaster, while “Proshschenie” lumbers and crashes through its first half en route to a lush soundscape in its second, rounding out side A. I don’t care what genre “Zhazhda” is, it rules, and launches side B with rampaging momentum, leading to the slow, semi-industrial drag of “Chornaya Zemlya,” the harsh thrust of “Zov Tysyachi Nozhey” and, finally, dizzyingly, the six-minute closer “Top’,” which echoes cavernous and could just as easily have been called “Bottom.” Beautiful brutality.

Wowod on Thee Facebooks

Church Road Records on Bandcamp

 

Trace Amount, Endless Render

trace amount endless render

The chaos of last year is writ large in the late-2020 Endless Render EP from Brooklyn-based solo industrial outfit Trace Amount. The project headed by Brandon Gallagher (ex-Old Wounds) engages with harsh noise and heavy beatmaking, injecting short pieces like “Pop Up Morgues” with a duly dystopian atmosphere. Billy Rymer (The Dillinger Escape Plan, etc.) guests on drums for opener “Processed Violence (in 480P)” and the mminute-long “Seance Stimulant,” but it’s in the procession of the final three tracks — the aforementioned “Pop Up Morgues,” as well as “S.U.R.V.I.V.A.L.” and “Easter Sunday” — that Gallagher makes his most vivid portrayals. His work is evocative and resonant in its isolated feel, opaque like staring into an uncertain future but not without some semblance of hope in its resolution. Or maybe that’s the dream and the dance-party decay of “Dreaming in Displacement” is the reality. One way or the other, I’m looking forward to what Trace Amount does when it comes to a debut album.

Trace Amount on Thee Facebooks

Trace Amount on Bandcamp

 

Fuzzcrafter, C-D

Fuzzcrafter C D

French instrumentalists Fuzzcrafter issued C-D in October 2020 as a clear answer/complement to 2016’s A-B, even unto its Jo Riou cover art, which replaces the desert-and-fuzz-pedal of the first offering with a forest-and-pedal here. The six works that make up the 41-minute affair are likewise grown, able to affect a sense of lushness around the leading-the-way riffage in extended cuts “C2” (13:13) and the psychedelic back half of “D2” (13:18), working in funk-via-prog basslines (see also the wah guitar starting “D1” for more funk) over solid drums without getting any more lost than they want to be in any particular movement. In those songs and elsewhere, Fuzzcrafter make no attempt to hide the fact that they’re a riff-based band, but the acoustic side-finales in “C3” (which also features Rhodes piano) and “D3,” though shorter, reinforce both the structural symmetry of the mirrored sides as a whole and a feeling of breadth that is injected elsewhere in likewise organic fashion. They’re not changing the world and they’re not trying to, but there’s a mark being left here sound-wise and it’s enough to wonder what might be in store for the inevitable E-F.

Fuzzcrafter on Thee Facebooks

Fuzzcrafter on Bandcamp

 

Pine Ridge, Can’t Deny

Pine Ridge Can't Deny

Pine Ridge‘s second album, Can’t Deny, finds the Russian four/five-piece working in textures of keys and organ for a bluesier feel to tracks like the post-intro opening title-cut and the classic feeling later “Genesis.” Songwriting is straightforward, vocals gritty but well attended with backing arrangements, and the take on “Wayfaring Stranger” that ends the record’s first half conjures enough of a revivalist spirit to add to the atmosphere overall. The four tracks that follow — “Genesis,” “Runaway,” “Sons of Nothing” and “Those Days” — featured as well on 2019’s Sons of Nothing EP, but are consistent in groove and “Sons of Nothing” proves well placed to serve as an energetic apex of Can’t Deny ahead of “Those Days,” which starts quiet before bursting to life with last-minute electricity. A clear production emphasizes hooks and craft, and though I’ll grant I don’t know much about Siberia’s heavy rock scene, Pine Ridge ably work within the tenets of style while offering marked quality of songwriting and performance. That’s enough to ask from anywhere.

Pine Ridge on Thee Facebooks

Karma Conspiracy website

 

Watchman, Behold a Pale Horse

watchman behold a pale horse

Plain in its love for Sabbath-minded riffing and heavy Americana roll, “Bowls of Wrath” opens the three-song Dec. 2020 debut EP, Behold a Pale Horse, from Indiana-based solo-project Watchman, and the impression is immediate. With well-mixed cascades of organ and steadily nodding guitar, bass, drums and distorted, howling vocals, there is both a lack of pretense and an individualized take on genre happening at once. The EP works longest to shortest, with “Wormwood” building up from sparse guitar to far-back groove using negative space in the sound to bolster “Planet Caravan”-ish watery verses and emphasize the relative largesse of the track preceding as well as “The Second Death,” which follows. That closer is a quick four minutes that’s slow in tempo, but the lead-line cast overtop the mega-fuzzed central riff is effective in creating a current to carry the listener from one bank of the lake of fire to the other. In 15 minutes, multi-instrumentalist/vocalist/producer Roy Waterford serves notice of intention for a forthcoming debut LP to be titled Doom of Babylon, and it is notice worth heeding.

Watchman on Instagram

Watchman on Bandcamp

 

Bomg, Peregrination

bomg peregrination

Bomg‘s Peregrination isn’t necessarily extreme the way one thinks of death or black metal as extreme styles of heavy metal, but is extreme just the same in terms of pushing to the outer limits of the aesthetics involved. The album’s four track, “Electron” (38:12), “Perpetuum” (39:10), “Paradigm” (37:17) and “Emanation” (37:49), could each consume a full 12″ LP on their own, and presented digitally one into the next, they are a tremendous, willfully unmanageable two-and-a-half-hour deep-dive into raw blowout dark psychedelic doom. The harsh rumble and noise in “Perpetuum” some 28 minutes on sounds as though the Ukrainian outfit have climbed the mountains of madness, and there is precious little clarity to be found in “Paradigm” or “Emanation” subsequent as they continue to hammer the spike of their manifestations deeper into the consciousness of the listener. From “Electron” onward, the self-recording Kyiv trio embark on this overwhelming journey into the unknown, and they don’t so much invite you along as unveil the devastating consequences of having made the trip. Righteously off-putting.

Bomg on Thee Facebooks

Robustfellow Productions on Bandcamp

 

White Void, Anti

white void anti

As much as something can fly under the radar and be a Nuclear Blast release, I’m more surprised by the hype I haven’t heard surrounding White Void‘s debut album, Anti. Pulling together influences from progressive European-style heavy rock, classic metal, cult organ, New Wave melodies and a generally against-grain individualism, it is striking in its execution and the clear purpose behind what it’s doing. It’s metal and it’s not. It’s rock and it’s pop and it’s heavy and it’s light and floating. And its songs have substance as well as style. With Borknagar‘s Lars Nedland as the founding principal of the project, the potential in Anti‘s eight component tracks is huge, and if one winds up thinking of this as post-black metal, it’s a staggeringly complex iteration of it to which this and any other description I’ve seen does little justice. It’s going to get called “prog” a lot because of the considered nature of its composition, but that’s barely scratching the surface of what’s happening here.

White Void on Thee Facebooks

Nuclear Blast Records store

 

Day of the Jackal, Day Zero

Day of the Jackal Day Zero

Leeds, UK, four-piece Day of the Jackal bring straight-ahead hard rock songwriting and performance with an edge of classic heavy. There’s a Guns ‘n’ Roses reference in “Belief in a Lie” if you’re up for catching it, and later cuts like “Riskin’ it All” and “‘Til the Devil” have like-minded dudes-just-hit-on-your-girlfriend-and-you’re-standing-right-there vibes. They’re a rock band and they know it, and while I was a little bummed out “Rotten to the Core” wasn’t an Overkill cover, the 10 songs of love and death that pervade this debut long-player are notably hooky from “On Your Own” to “Deadfall” and “Rock ‘n’ Roll Deathride,” which casually inhabits biker riffing with no less ease of movement than the band would seem to do anything else. Production by James “Atko” Atkinson of Gentlemans Pistols highlights the clarity of the performance rather than giving a rawer glimpse at who Day of the Jackal might be on stage, but there’s plenty of vitality to go around in any case, and it’s headed your way from the moment you start the record.

Day of the Jackal on Thee Facebooks

Day of the Jackal on Bandcamp

 

Green Druid, At the Maw of Ruin

green druid at the maw of ruin

Following their 2018 debut, Ashen Blood (review here), Denver heavy lifters Green Druid give due breadth to their closing take on Portishead‘s “Threads,” but the truth is that cover is set up by the prior five tracks of huge-sounding riffery, basking in the varying glories of stoner doom throughout opener “The Forest Dark” while keeping an eye toward atmospheric reach all the while. It is not just nod and crush, in other words, in Green Druid‘s arsenal throughout At the Maw of Ruin, and indeed, “End of Men” and “Haunted Memories” bridge sludge and black metal screaming as “A Throne Abandoned” offers surprising emotional urgency over its ready plod, and the long spoken section in “Desert of Fury/Ocean of Despair” eventually gives way not only to the most weighted slamming on offer, but a stretch of noise to lead into the closer. All along the way, Green Druid mark themselves out as a more complex outfit than their first record showed them to be, and their reach shows no sign of stopping here either.

Green Druid on Thee Facebooks

Earache Records website

 

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