This was a PostWax release. The vinyl subscription service put forth by Blues Funeral Recordings has produced a string of stellar, genuinely special records in its second volume — Acid King were my pick for album of the year this year, and Dozer and Dopelord, which were in my top 10, both came out in PostWax editions; deluxe vinyl, exclusive tracks, artwork and layout that’s so gorgeous I don’t even want to touch it with my greasy fingers, etc. — and as with all of them, I was fortunate enough to do liner notes for this special collaboration between Chicago fog rockers REZN and Mexico City conceptual plodders Vinnum Sabbathi, titled Silent Future.

I always feel a little weird when it comes to covering PostWax stuff here on the site, and that’s precisely because I also work behind the scenes (in a limited but capacity, of course) on the releases as well, and I was compensated monetarily for doing that writing. I say so every time, but even with full disclosure I’m not trying to give an impression I’m doing promo. It’s not my job to sell you records. But the stuff is undeniable at this point, and what, I’m going to let 2023 end without talking about the exploratory textures of Silent Future, the album’s narrative foundation and the meld of climate anxiety, cosmic pulse and futurism that makes it such a hypnotically immersive listening experience? Come on.

REZN also had their fourth long-player, Solace (review here), out this year, but Silent Future is its own thing and has its own intention. For the four-piece of guitarist/vocalist Rob McWilliams (also lyrics), synthesist/saxophonist/flutist Spencer Ouellette, bassist Phil Cangelosi and drummer Patrick Dunn (who also had the monumental task of mixing), it was a self-recorded affair, done late in 2021 DIY in their own spot, and their basic tracks were sent to Vinnum Sabbathi — the lineup of guitarist/synthesist Juan Tamayo, effects specialist Roman Tamayo, bassist Samuel Lopez and Gerardo Arias on drums and lead guitar, with more guitar from Victor “KB” Velazquez — who also wrote the script for the storytelling monologue in intro “Born into Catatonia” and the likewise keyboardy side B complement, “Clusters,” delivered by the voice of Manuel Wohlrab, also of Yanos and Zone Six in Germany.

So, multinational, multicontinental collaboration across seven songs and a somehow-digestible 32 minutes of progressive, soulful, and at times very, very heavy music. While the record is patient in the subdued flow it sets up as “Born into Catatonia” shifts into “Unknown Ancestor” (the continuing monologue also helps), the sense of texture is immediate and is a luminescent drone that hints at a feeling of discovery. On some level, that’s what’s happening throughout Silent Future as Vinnum Sabbathi and REZN reveal to themselves and to their respective audiences alike — and let’s assume there’s crossover there, because genre — what happens when they fuse their methodologies. I talked to both bands about this release (granted it was a while ago) to do the liner notes, and I’m still not sure anyone knew going into it what would come out, or how they possibly could, but that adventurous spirit is to be commended and I honestly believe the world is a better place with the crushing roll that emerges in “Unknown Ancestor” than without it, never mind the rest of the slow-swirling and entrancing sway that surrounds, periodically channeling high impact in low gravity.

If you’re a synthesist or keyboardist in a heavy band, there’s plenty to learn here in the work of Ouellette and the Tamayo brothers (who I met this year in Germany and are sweethearts), from the New Age-y throb in behind the deceptively catchy hook of “The Cultigen” meditating lyrically as it does on a black chrysanthemum before the lumber-chuck of centerpiece “Hypersurreal” brings back Wohlrab with talk about multisensory alien contact and a verse that’s quiet but tense in its rhythm in no small part because of the riff that just receded. It comes back, that riff, of course, as McWilliams swaps to a more projected voice for another memorable, this-time-belted-out chorus, “Parallel universe/Parallel universe/The eye reflects itself/Into another realm/Am I the writer or the character?” before the verse repeats in a building cycle.

And when that cycle hits its payoff, the synth/effects are right there as well, and so even at its apex-heaviest, Silent Future remains true to its mood. “Clusters” fades in from silence as a reset, but both “Morphing” and the finale “Obliterating Mists” dig into the procession, and whether or not it was intentional, the two become a representative mini-monolith for the LP as a whole, with earworms revealed through multiple visits to their temporal dimension and a culmination in the latter that rises and ebbs with a fluidity and poise that emphasizes the consciousness at the center of the haze. There’s an episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series where the cartoon-Enterprise gets trapped in a giant thinking cloud. Listening to Silent Future kind of feels like that, or at least one imagines.

But either angle you want to take it from — whether it’s the creative bravery and ego-eschew of the collaboration in the first place or the righteousness of the end result in the material itself — Silent Future is a standout release for 2023 (and beyond) and I didn’t want to let the year end without some proper recognition of that. It’s not the kind of offering every band or pairing of bands could make, and it’s not a pairing that is immediately intuitive because Vinnum Sabbathi and REZN have so much in common in sound, but what they do share is an openness to new ideas and ways of working, and the success of that in these songs I think is inarguable once you hear it.

Which I hope you do. Thanks for reading, and thanks to Jadd Shickler of Blues Funeral, Magnetic Eye Records, for making me a footnote part of the PostWax thing in the first place. Dude had the year of a lifetime between those two labels, and it was only because he made it happen.

Please enjoy, and once again, thank you for reading. I appreciate your time and attention. If you can go with this one, do. I admit it’s not the most intuitive of releases, but that’s also part of what makes it special. Might take a couple listens to sink in, but trust, and let it do its thing, and you’ll be set. Safe travels, wherever it takes you.

—

Monday is Xmas. Happy Xmas if you celebrate. We do, in our pointedly secular fashion, and accordingly I’m taking Monday (which is the weekend’s writing) and Tuesday (which is Monday’s writing) off. I’m going to do my damnedest not to post at all in that time, but if there’s something I feel warrants immediacy — and anything can happen, of course — I’ll roll with it. Let us not forget that Lemmy was born on Dec. 24, died Dec. 27 and that he, more than the favorite fanfic of hateful/genocidal psychopaths and state-sponsored rape cabals, is the true reason for the season.

When I pick up Wednesday, it’ll probably also be pretty mellow. The Pecan is off from school next week and I’m sure that’ll be busy because, well, yes. We’re about to undertake the process of remaking bedtime — current system’s effectiveness has expired; a necessary pivot — and I expect that will result in a few bumpy nights. Almost always the case when transitioning from one thing to the other. Certainly was the story of my summer and fall.

To that. While I am not thrilled to know that my six-year-old goes to school every day on medication, I cannot deny the clear shift said meds have wrought in her day-to-day. I would not call her ‘easy’ or ‘easygoing’ as a personality-type — there is much she has learned from me, including how to be a prick, and there are times where she’s a few grades ahead of kindergarten in that regard — but from what I think everybody who observes her has seen, and that’s the rest of our family, her teacher, aide, other aide at school and therapist, we’ve had movement in a better direction. Between the wreck that was this summer’s kicked-out-of-camp marathon, the stress of her transition (which also has allowed a flourishing not to be denied; I’ve heard reports of another trans kindergartener on the planet, but The Patient Mrs. and I are already joking about the book we’ll write some day), and getting her to a point of being able to get through a school day without hurting someone else or herself is progress visible even in the trenches. By which I mean her mother and I can see it. She remains willful, just flat out ignores me when I ask her to do something most of the time and is ready with an argument for why one should fuck off on a daily if not hourly basis — less when she’s hungry — but she’s growing and she’s strong, which is a thing she is going to very much need to be.

That progress doesn’t mean I didn’t basically chase her back to bed at 10PM last night, but as I said, different methods are being put in place. She might get to sleep with the puppy. We’ll see. The Patient Mrs. is the spearhead of that project; I’ll confess reticence and a general lack of desire to clean up dog piss in my kid’s bed, on her floor, or really anywhere else. We’ve got a good thing going with the crate at night, and the dog is only six months old. I could go on and logic logic logic myself through this. Build reasoned arguments to never say out loud. Lay out a grand case. Clutch once told us “you can’t stop progress,” and so here I am, rolling with it to the limited extent I am able, even as my brain has that catch-fire feeling thinking about getting up at 5AM or earlier, going upstairs to get the dog out of her room, waking her up and then having to both deal with the dog needing to go out and the kid who just might want to tag along with as little light on as possible, as quiet as possible, and then try to sit down and write. A million ways to go wrong, fewer to go right.

Whatever you’re feeling anxious about, I wish you relief. I hope you have a great and safe weekend, and I’ll be back on Wednesday (I can hold off! I can do it!) with maybe a Dr. Space review or something else fun and more of the ol’ blah blah blah. Thanks for reading it.

FRM.

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Based in Austin, Texas, and Mexico City, heavy rocking three-piece Demons My Friends make their full-length debut on Sept. 8 through Gravitoyd Heavy Music with Demons Seem to Gather. The band have been trickling out singles leading up to the release for nearly a year, and as a singe “Inner Slay” (premiering below) follows behind “Ghosts of You,” “Bring the Night,” the closer “We Are the Resistance” and the hooky side B leadoff “Make Them Pay,” so it’s probably safe to say they’re looking to grab attention of an underground listenership, otherwise maybe five singles (so far) from your first record probably isn’t the way you’re going to go.

Taking some cues in atmosphere on “We Are the Resistance,” the crunch of “Fire Mountain” and in the ’90s creep of guitar in verse of “Your Bones” prior from Alice in Chains, the trio bring ideas together from modern emotive doom à la Pallbearer on “Inner Slay,” a broad vocal hook assuring that the vocal stands up to the riffing on display throughout, opener “The Tower Falls” having started out on solid ground rhythm-wise but found room in the mix for an Elephant Tree-style harmony in opener “The Tower Falls” before the start-stop angularity of “Bring the Night” — the chorus delivering the album’s title line — hinting at the metallic underpinning of the project while also sounding more derived from ’00s era punk and post-hardcore. Thus it is that Demons My Friends — guitarist/vocalist Pablo Anton, bassist/vocalist Lu Salinas, drummer Tarro Martinez — stave off the threat of doing just one thing, and instead lay out a creative reach that one expects they’ll continue to refine as they move forward.

While the eight-song/36-minute offering is varied in its approach, the band are consistent in tone and their willingness to veer toward more doomed ends, “Inner Slay” serving as a ready example leading into “Ghosts of You,” which caps side A and pushes further along similar lines, with a central progression to its back half that touches almost on commercial hard rock without losing its foundation in heavy riffing. The production of Duel‘s Jeff Henson assures that fullness of sound and gives the melodic complexity of some of the arrangements — looking at you, chorus-over-solo in “Fire Mountain” — a dimensionality it would otherwise run the risk of lacking, but while Demons My Friends is a new exploration and Demons Seem to Gather is a debut album from a band who as the narrative tells us (blessings and peace upon it) jammed before they were really together, the experience of the players involved assures they’re not flailing in the end product.

Instead, songwriting is at the core of Demons My Friends‘ approach, and whatever original riff-blocks these pieces were carved from, they have been shaped with care and thought, which is something that even the lines topping the apex of “We Are the Resistance” bear out, the band purposefully meeting the largesse of that moment head-on, even as they’re still unfolding it. The proverbial encouraging beginning? Yeah, pretty much. The kind of record you might see five singles released from. It’ll be interesting to hear as Demons My Friends plunge further into the places between rock and doom, the classic and modern and in-between. But one of Demons Seem to Gather‘s strengths is that it knows the field is wide open and it stakes a number of stylistic claims. Maybe they’re settling in for a longer-term evolution, thinking ahead an album, two albums, three. Some bands do that, and if Demons My Friends go that route and build on this backdrop, they’re starting out working from a high standard of craft.

PR wire info follows the player below, on which “Inner Slay” premieres. Please enjoy:

Demons My Friends is an unlikely collaboration between members of Mexican alt-metal band QBO and Washington, DC desert rockers Fellowcraft. The stoner/doom metal trio — Lu Salinas (bass/vocals), Tarro Martinez (drums), Pablo Anton (guitar/vocals)—embarked on their creative endeavor via an impromptu recording session at the SXSW music festival in Austin, TX in 2022 and have consummated the relationship with an upcoming full-length titled Demons Seem to Gather.

Demons Seem to Gather was recorded, mixed and produced by Jeff Henson at Red Nova Ranch, Austin, TX. It was mastered by Alberto de Icaza. It’s set for release on September 8 on vinyl, CD and digitally via Gravitoyd Heavy Music. In the meantime you can stream the band’s singles on all digital platforms

Tracklisting:
01. The Tower Falls
02. Bring The Night
03. Inner Slay
04. Ghosts of You
05. Make Them Pay
06. Fire Mountain
07. Your Bones
08. We Are The Resistance

Shows coming up for Demons My Friends:
October 20th at Valhalla (Austin TX)
October 21st at Black Magic Social Club (Houston TX)

Demons My Friends is:
Pablo Anton – guitar/vox
Lu Salinas – Bass/vox
Tarro – Drums

Demons My Friends on Facebook

Demons My Friends on Instagram

Demons My Friends on Bandcamp

Demons My Friends Linktr.ee

Gravitoyd Heavy Music on Facebook

Gravitoyd Heavy Music on Instagram

Gravitoyd Heavy Music on Bandcamp

Okay, this is super-complicated, so stay with me. It’s REZN and Vinnum Sabbathi together.

Okay, so maybe not actually that complicated. One might throw darts at band names on a wall for eternity and never come up with pairing the Chicago and Mexico City-based outfits for a split, let alone a collaborative LP, both bands working together on a single batch of songs in a one-time megaband, but every now and then actual-reality has a way of offering surprises and this was one of those. I was fortunate enough to do the liner notes for the release, to talk to the bands and get the story behind what they’re going for, how it came together, and so on, and if you’re a PostWax subscriber and up for some reading, that’s a thing that exists. The downloads of the album, which is called Silent Future, have gone out to PostWax folks — I know because I got mine — and the keys to getting into it are atmosphere and expanse. Do not approach with set expectations, do open your mind to immersive heavy psychedelic possibilities.

The non-PostWax general release for Silent Future is Aug. 11 and they’re streaming the centerpiece “Hypersurreal” now. The PR wire has preorder links and more background:

REZN and VINNUM SABBATHI to release collaborative album “Silent Future” on August 11th via Blues Funeral Recordings; stream first single!

Blues Funeral Recordings present the next chapter of their acclaimed PostWax series, with a fully collaborative album between Chicago avant-garde doom outfit REZN and Mexico City instrumental cosmic metallers Vinnum Sabbathi. “Silent Future” will be released worldwide on August 11th, with preorders and the first single available right now!

Listen to REZN and Vinnum Sabbathi’s new track “Hypersurreal”: https://lnk.to/hypersurreal

On Silent Future, Chicago atmospheric psych-doom outfit REZN teams up with Mexico City cosmic conceptualists Vinnum Sabbathi for a true union of heavy exploration. Allowing themselves a fluid, open canvas to experiment, members of both bands contribute equally to create an album of lush, hypnotic and frequently megalithic ambiance, yielding an utterly cohesive trip into the riff-drenched astral reaches.

About this collaborative album, REZN comments: “Ever since we played a show in Mexico City with Vinnum Sabbathi, we knew we wanted to find an opportunity to incorporate their cinematic style within the REZN soundscape. The Postwax creative concept helped guide us into making an album that stands out from the rest of our catalog, which was a really refreshing challenge for us. After the songwriting flowed freely, we intentionally left space so we could collaborate together on each song and explore the many shades of psychological cosmic horror.”

Vinnum Sabbathi adds: “We feel honored to be part of the Postwax series with this special collaboration with our Friends Rezn, the creation of “Silent Future” gave us the opportunity of experimenting with new ways of composing and recording, but also adding our own touch to the concept with the use of samples and this is very well represented in the first single “Hypersurreal”.

The fluidity with which REZN and Vinnum Sabbathi collaborate is unlikely, yet inarguable. Strong nuclear forces conjoin sections as alternatingly ethereal as celestial light and dense as a black hole collapse. Ultimately, the endeavor is never limited to being one thing for long, any more than it is limited to being the work of a single band. More than a listening experience, Silent Future’s vitality extends beyond the aural. This is the work of two groups pushing themselves further than they’ve gone before, each answering the other’s question of how far they can ultimately go. As heavy as Silent Future gets, as distant as it may range, one cannot regard this righteously thick, molten-tempo journey into the unknown as anything but breathtaking.

“Silent Future” will be released worldwide on August 11th in various vinyl formats, limited digipak CD and digital. The ultra-limited deluxe vinyl edition will be shipped in June to PostWax Vol. II subscribers. Preorders are available now on Blues Funeral Recordings.

REZN & VINNUM SABBATHI “Silent Future”
Out August 11th on Blues Funeral Recordings
Preorder now on BFR website – https://www.bluesfuneral.com/search?q=silent+future
Bandcamp – https://rezzzn.bandcamp.com/album/silent-future
EU store – https://en.bluesfuneral.spkr.media/en/Artists/REZN-and-Vinnum-Sabbathi/REZN-and-Vinnum-Sabbathi-Silent-Future.html

TRACKLIST:
1. Born Into Catatonia
2. Unknown Ancestor
3. The Cultigen
4. Hypersurreal
5. Clusters
7. Morphing
8. Obliterating Mists

Album lineup:
Gerardo Arias: Drums, Percussion, Lead Guitars
Phil Cangelosi: Bass
Patrick Dunn: Drums
Samuel Lopez: Bass
Rob McWilliams: Guitars, Vocals
Spencer Ouellette: Synths, Sax, Flute
Juan Tamayo: Heavy guitars, Synths
Roman Tamayo: Additional FX
Victor “KB” Velazquez: Additional Guitars
Manuel Wohlrab: Spoken Word

facebook.com/reznhits
instagram.com/rezzzn
rezzzn.bandcamp.com

www.facebook.com/VinnumSabbathi/
https://www.instagram.com/vinnumsabbathiband/
https://vinnumsabbathi.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/bluesfuneral/
https://www.instagram.com/blues.funeral/
https://bluesfuneralrecordings.bandcamp.com/
bluesfuneral.com

REZN & Vinnum Sabbathi, Silent Future (2023)

Little bit of housekeeping here. One has been waiting not all that patiently for Mexico City heavy psych crunchers Vinnum Sabbathi — who’ll go in the esteemed company of Terror Cósmico — to announce the tour that will draw a line between their appearances at Astral Festival in Bristol, UK, Desertfest London 2023 and Sonic Whip 2023 in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. This is it as it stands now.

There are some TBA dates as you can see, and if you can help out, maybe in Germany or Austria, Belgium, etc., please take this as your personal invitation to do so, but in addition to the festival lineups — all three of which are beautiful, each in their own special way — the band(s) will meet up with Son of Boar and others in the UK and Little Lucid Moments in Belgium, with others to be announced. It’s a solid run, and should provide Vinnum Sabbathi ample ground to make rumble as they go. As I expect they did last time they were on European shores, they’re gonna make a lot of friends on this tour.

Dates follow as posted on social media:

Vinnum Sabbathi – EUROPEAN TOUR 2023

After 6 years from that memorable first landing, we’re finally coming back to the old continent, this time sharing the road with our brothers Terror Cósmico and playing 3 superb festivals: Astral Festival in our beloved Bristol, the legendary Desertfest London & Sonic Whip!

We can’t wait to see old friends and meet a lot of new ones on this tour, we really hope to see you in a nearby show, please help us spread the word!

Endless thanks to everyone involved on the tour so far and of course to everyone who has supported the band all these years, this is only possible because of you.

Poster artwork by @yasinviolet

Presented by Stolen Body Records LSDR Records Doomed and Stoned Latinoamérical Tamayo Amp

(We’ll share any show updates as soon as possible)

29 APR – BRISTOL, UK
INFO: Astral Festival VIII 2023
TICKETS: https://www.astralfestival.com/tickets

30 APR – LEEDS, UK
Wharf Chambers (INFO TBA)

02 MAY – SHEFFIELD, UK
INFO: VINNUM SABBATHI / TERROR CÓSMICO / SON OF BOAR / VOID MAW

03 MAY – HULL, UK
(INFO TBA)

05 MAY – LONDON, UK
INFO: Desertfest London 2023
TICKETS: https://www.desertfest.co.uk/

06 MAY – NIJMEGEN, NL
INFO: Sonic Whip 2023
TICKETS: https://www.doornroosje.nl/festival/sonic-whip/

07 MAY – GHENT, BE
Café Molotov (INFO TBA)

09 MAY – LIEGE, BE
INFO: Vinnum Sabbathi (MX) + Terror Cósmico (MX) + Little Lucid Moments @ La Zone

10 MAY – TBA

11 MAY – HAMBURG, DE
Bar 227 (INFO TBA)

12 MAY – TBA

13 MAY – BERLIN, DE
PUMPTRACK 52 eV (INFO TBA)

www.facebook.com/VinnumSabbathi/
https://www.instagram.com/vinnumsabbathiband/
https://vinnumsabbathi.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/lsdrrecords/
https://lsdr.bandcamp.com/
https://www.storenvy.com/stores/823500-lsdr-records-distro

Vinnum Sabbathi, Live at Channel 666 (2022)

The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Roman Tamayo of Vinnum Sabbathi, LSDR Records & Doomed and Stoned Latinoamerica

—

How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

Hola, my name is Roman Tamayo from Mexico.

I feel so honored to be here, I´m a big fan of The Obelisk, thanks JJ for all your support to the scene.

Well, I play synth and samples in the band Vinnum Sabbathi, I run the record label LSDR Records and I’m the main editor of Doomed and Stoned Latinoamerica (website, radio show, etc.).

My brother Juan (Vinnum Sabbathi & Fumata) and I grew up in the outskirts of Mexico, a place commonly charged with violence, poverty and lack of services. In this semi-urban area, most people listen rancheras (kind of tex-mex music), reggaeton and just a few classic rock.

Well, 15 years ago Stoner Rock was a very underground genre around here, even the people who listen rock didn´t have any clue about Kyuss, Nebula, or Monster Magnet. I discovered these sounds thanks to the journalist Iván Nieblas (Stoner Rock Mexico).
One day I bought a magazine and I saw names such as Los Natas, Kyuss, and Nebula. It took me some time with the prehistoric internet I had, but I found some songs from these bands and my world changed, I felt a strong connection, I knew that all these bands were special and I finally found part of my identity.

Describe your first musical memory.

Music was not a big deal at home, usually my parents and uncles listened to traditional racheras like Los Tigres del Norte (they are amazing btw). I got involved in rock when my mom bought me a rock compilation CD and I discovered Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, etc.

When I studied High School, my friends started to show me records and I discovered bands like Pantera, The Doors, Slayer and Judas Priest. Suddenly I started to buy more magazines and found tons of amazing bands. I became a music junkie, I quickly jumped from The Rolling Stones to NIN.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

Ohhh man, there is a lot, especially with Vinnum Sabbathi.

Touring over Europe for the very first time was a beautiful experience: we played at Sonic Blast in Portugal and met some of our heroes there. I remember that when we played, Philip from Colour Haze was there, I was in shock. Also, that year we went to Freak Valley which was the paradise.
Probably another special memory is when we received our first release on vinyl, for a small band from Mexico that was a big deal.
Finally, thanks to Doomed and Stoned I’ve had the chance to interview a lot of my favorite bands, that´s a blessing. I feel so honored and happy to live in this golden era of heavy rock.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

Well, as I said we have grown up in a violent area, walking during the night in the hood is a challenge, you don´t know if you will be back home safe. That kind of stuff makes you strong somehow.
As a band probably the major challenge has been when we started to live in different cities and realized that we don´t have the same chances to play and tour as in the past. I think at this point the best is to enjoy the shows and have fun with my friends.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

Art helps to heal and transform lives, if your work doesn´t have an effect on the people who follows you in a positive way, you are doing something wrong in my opinion.
I’m proud that with Vinnum Sabbathi we try to share, in a way, science topics to people through the music. I like stoner-doom clichés, but we need just one Electric Wizard.

How do you define success?

Success is not about money or fame; success is to know that your work can transform lives in a positive way. Is to realize that we are humans and if we support each other, we can create a community and be part of a positive chance to achieve a peaceful life.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
People killed by cartels and kidnappings.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

I love horror movies, so I would love to create a soundtrack for a fictional horror movie.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

Personally, art is the one of the purest things humans can create.

In this economical system, you can buy-sell anything, even paintings, music, poems, etc.

But, the way that each piece of art makes you feel, that does not have a price. Art is the way to express our feelings, beliefs and thoughts, if your work does not have these elements, it’s a completely different thing.

And as I said previously, I think art heals and transforms lives.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

I work in a NGO called Habitat for Humanity, that´s my real job.

We are focused to build homes and sustainable projects in indigenous communities, basically we work with disadvantaged families.

I would love to see my country with more equality, more emphatic.

I would love to see more and more people working together for a better world, people should stop being selfish and care more for others.

www.facebook.com/VinnumSabbathi/
https://www.instagram.com/vinnumsabbathiband/
https://vinnumsabbathi.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/lsdrrecords/
https://lsdr.bandcamp.com/
https://www.storenvy.com/stores/823500-lsdr-records-distro

Vinnum Sabbathi, Live at Channel 666 (2022)

Here’s mud in yer eye. How are you feeling so far into this Quarterly Review? The year? How are things generally? How’s your mom doing? Everybody good? Hope so. Odd as it is to think, I find music sounds better when you’re not distracted by everything else going to shit around you, so I hope you don’t currently find yourself in that situation.

Today’s 10 records are a bit of this, bit of that, bit of here, but of there, but I’ll note that we start and end in Greece, which wasn’t on purpose or anything but a fun happenstantial byproduct of slating things randomly. What can I say? There’s a lot of Greek heavy out there and the human brain forms patterns whether we want it to or not. Plenty of geographic diversity between, so let’s get to it, hmm?

Winter 2023 Quarterly Review #31-40:

The Temple, Of Solitude Triumphant

Though they trace their beginnings back to the mid-aughts, Of Solitude Triumphant (on the venerable I Hate Records) is only the second full-length from Thessaloniki doom metallers The Temple. With chanting vocals, perpetuated misery and oldschool-style traditionalism metered by modern production’s tonal density, the melodic reach of the band is as striking as profundity of their rhythmic drag, the righteousness of their craft being in how they’re able to take a riff, slog it out across five, seven, 10 minutes in the case of post-intro opener “The Foundations” and manage to be neither boring nor a drag themselves. There’s a bit of relative tempo kick in “A White Flame for the Fear of Death” and the tremolo guitar (kudos to the half-time drums behind; fucking a) at the outset of closer “The Lord of Light” speaks to some influence from more extreme metals, but The Temple are steady in their purpose, and that nine-minute finale riff-marches to its own death accordingly. Party-doom it isn’t, and neither is it trying to be. In mood and the ambience born out of the vocals as much as the instruments behind, The Temple‘s doom is for the doomly doomed among the doomed. I’ll rarely add extra letters to it, but I have to give credit where it’s due: This is dooom. Maybe even doooom. Take heed.

The Temple on Facebook

I Hate Records website

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Dead Man’s Dirt, Dead Man’s Dirt

Gothenburg heavy rockers Dead Man’s Dirt, with members of Bozeman Simplex, Bones of Freedom, Coaster of Souls and a host of others, offer their 2023 self-titled debut through Ozium Records in full-on 2LP fashion. It’s 13 songs, 75 minutes long. Not a minor undertaking. Those who stick with it are rewarded by nuances like the guitar solo atop the languid sway of “The Brew,” as well as the raucous start-stop riffing in “Icarus (Too Close to the Sun),” the catchy “Highway Driver” and the bassy looseness of vibe in the penultimate “River,” which heads toward eight minutes while subsequent endpoint “Asteroid” tops nine. It is to the band’s credit that they have both the material and the variety to pull off a record this packed and keep the songs united in their barroom-rocking spirit, though some attention spans just aren’t going to be up to the task in a single sitting. But that’s fine. If the last couple years have taught the human species anything, it’s that you never know what’s around the next corner, and if you’re going to go for it — whatever “it” is — go all-in, because it could evaporate the next day. Whether it’s the shuffle of “Queen of the Wood” or the raw, in-room sound of “Lost at Sea,” Dead Man’s Dirt deserve credit for leaving nothing behind.

Dead Man’s Dirt on Facebook

Ozium Records store

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Witchfinder, Forgotten Mansion

Big rolling riffs, lurching grooves, melodies strongly enough delivered to cut through the tonal morass surrounding — there’s plenty to dig for the converted on Witchfinder‘s Forgotten Mansion. The Clermont-Ferrand, France, stoner doomers follow earlier-2022’s Endless Garden EP (review here) and 2019’s Hazy Rites (review here) full-length with their third album and first since joining forces with keyboardist Kevyn Raecke, who aligns in the malevolent-but-rocking wall of sound with guitarist Stanislas Franczak, bassist Clément Mostefai (also vocals) and drummer Thomas Dupuy. Primarily, they are very, very heavy, and that is very much the apparent foremost concern — not arguing with it — but as the five-song/36-minute long-player rolls through “Marijauna” and on through the Raecke-forward Type O Negative-ity of “Lucid Forest,” there’s more to their approach than it might at first appear. Yes, the lumber is mighty. But the space is also broad, and the slow-swinging groove is always in danger of collapsing without ever doing so. And somehow there’s heavy metal in it as well. It’s almost a deeper dive than they want you to think. I like that about it.

Witchfinder on Facebook

Mrs Red Sound store

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Fumata, Días Aciagos

There’s some whiff of Conan‘s riffing in “Acompáñame Cuando Muero,” but on the whole, Mexico City sludge metallers Fumata are more about scathe than crush on the six tracks of their sophomore full-length, Días Aciagos (on LSDR Records). With ambient moments spread through the 35-minute beastwork and a bleak atmosphere put in place by eight-minute opener and longest track (immediate points) “Orgullo y Egoísmo,” with its loosely post-metallic march and raw, open sound, the four-piece of Javier Alejandre, Maximo Mateo, Leonardo Cardoso and Juan Tamayo are agonized and chaotic-sounding, but not haphazard in their delivery as they cross genre lines to work in some black metal extremity periodically, mine a bit of death-doom in “Anhelo,” foster the vicious culmination of the bookending seven-minute title-track, and so on. Tempo is likewise malleable, as “Seremos Olvidados” and that title-track show, as well as the blasting finish of “Orgullo y Egoísmo,” and only the penultimate “No Engendro” (also the shortest song at 4:15) really stays in one place for its duration, though as that place is in an unnamed region between atmosludge, doom and avant black metal, I’m not sure it counts. As exciting to hear as it is miserable in substance, Días Aciagos plunges where few dare to tread and bathes in its own pessimism.

Fumata on Facebook

LSDR Records on Bandcamp

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Sumerlands, Dreamkiller

Sumerlands‘ second album and Relapse debut, Dreamkiller finds Magic Circle‘s Brendan Radigan stepping in for original vocalist Phil Swanson (now in Solemn Lament), alongside Eternal Champion‘s Arthur Rizk, John Powers (both guitar), and Brad Raub (bass), and drummer Justin DeTore (also Solemn Lament, Dream Unending, several dozen others) for a traditional metal tour de force, reimagining New Wave of British Heavy Metal riffing with warmer tonality and an obviously schooled take on that moment at the end of the ’70s when metal emerged from heavy rock and punk and became its own thing. “Force of a Storm” careens Dio-style after the mid-tempo Scorpions-style start-stoppery of “Edge of the Knife,” and though I kept hoping the fadeout of closer “Death to Mercy” would come back up, as there’s about 30 seconds of silence at the finish, no such luck. There are theatrical touches to “Night Ride” — what, you didn’t think there’d be a song about the night? come on. — and “Heavens Above,” but that’s part of the character of the style Sumerlands are playing toward, and to their credit, they make it their own with vitality and what might emerge as a stately presence. I don’t know if it’s “true” or not and I don’t really give a shit. It’s a burner and it’s made with love. Everything else is gatekeeping nonsense.

Sumerlands on Facebook

Relapse Records store

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Expiatoria, Shadows

Shadows is the first full-length from Genoa, Italy’s Expiatoria — also stylized with a capital-‘a’: ExpiatoriA — and its Nov. 2022 release arrives some 35 years after the band’s first demo. The band originally called it quits in 1996, and there were reunion EPs along the way in 2010 and 2018, but the six songs and 45 minutes here represent something that no doubt even the band at times thought wouldn’t ever happen. The occasion is given due ceremony in the songs, which, in addition to being laden with guest appearances by members of Death SS, Il Segno del Comando, La Janera, and so on, boasts a sweeping sound drawing from the drama of gothic metal — loooking at you, church-organ-into-piano-outro in “Ombra (Tenebra Parte II),” low-register vocals in “The Wrong Side of Love” and flute-and-guitar interlude “The Asylum of the Damned” — traditional metal riffing and, particularly in “7 Chairs and a Portrait,” a Candlemassian bell-tolling doom. These elements come together with cohesion and fluidity, the five-piece working as veterans almost in spite of a relative lack of studio experience. If Shadows was their 17th, 12th, or even fifth album, one might expect some of its transitions to be smoothed out to a greater degree, but as it is, who’s gonna argue with a group finally putting out their debut LP after three and a half decades? Jerks, that’s who.

ExpiatoriA on Facebook

Black Widow Records store

Diamonds Prod. on Bandcamp

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Tobias Berblinger, The Luckiest Hippie Alive

Setting originals alongside vibe-enhancing covers of Blaze Foley and Commander Cody, Portland’s Tobias Berblinger (also of Roselit Bone) first issued The Luckiest Hippie Alive in 2018 and it arrives on vinyl through Ten Dollar Recording Co., shimmering in its ’70s ramble-country twang, vibrant with duets and acoustic balladeering. Berblinger‘s nostalgic take reminds of a time when country music could be viable and about more than active white supremacy and/or misappropriated hip-hop, and boozers like “My Boots Have Been Drinking” and the Hank Williams via Townes Van Zandt “Medicine Water” and “Heartaches, Hard Times, Hard Drinking”, and smokers like the title-track and “Stems and Seeds (Again)” reinforce the atmosphere of country on the other side of the culture war. Its choruses are telegraphed and ready to be committed to memory, and its understated sonic presence and the wistfulness of the two-minute “Crawl Back to You” — the backing vocals of Mariya May, Marisa Laurelle and Annie Perkins aren’t to be understated throughout, including in that short piece, along with Mo Douglas‘ various instrumental contributions — add a sweetness and humility that are no less essential to Americana than the pedal steel throughout.

Tobias Berblinger website

Ten Dollar Recording Co. store

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Grandier, The Scorn and Grace of Crows

Based in Norrköping, Sweden, the three-piece Grandier turn expectation on its head quickly with their debut album, The Scorn and Grace of Crows, starting opener/longest track (immediate points) “Sin World” with a sludgy, grit-coated lumber only to break after a minute in to a melodic verse. The ol’ switcheroo? Kind of, but in that moment and song, and indeed the rest of what follows on this first outing for Majestic Mountain, the band — guitarist Patrik Lidfors, bassist/many-layered-vocalist Lars Carlberg, (maybe, unless they’re programmed; then maybe programming) drummer Hampus Landin — carve their niche from out of a block of sonic largesse and melodic reach. Carlberg‘s voice is emotive over the open-feeling space of “Viper Soul” and sharing the mix with the more forward guitars of “Soma Goat,” and while in theory, there’s an edge of doomed melancholy to the 44-minute procession, the heft in “The Crows Will Following Us Down” is as much directed toward impact as mood. They really are melodic sludge metal, which is a hell of a thing to piece together on your first record as fluidly as they do here. “Smoke on the Bog” leans more into the Sabbathian roll with megafuzz tonality behind, and “Moth to the Flames” is faster, more brash, and a kind of dark heavy rock that, three albums from now, might be prog or might be ’90s lumber. Could go either way, especially with “My Church of Let it All Go” answering back with its own quizzical course. Will be very interested to hear where their next release takes them, since they’re onto something and, to their credit, it’s not immediately apparent what.

Grandier on Facebook

Majestic Mountain Records store

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Subsun, Parasite

Doomers will nod approvingly as Ottawa’s Subsun cap “Proliferation” by shifting into a Candlemassian creeper of a lead line, but that kind of doomly traditionalism is only one tool in their varied arsenal. Guitarist/vocalist/synthesist Jean-Michel Fortin, bassist/vocalist Simon Chartrand-Paquette and drummer Jérémy Blais go to that post-Edling well (of souls) again, but their work across their 2022 debut LP, Parasite, is more direct, more rock-based and at times more aggressive on the whole. Recorded at Apartment 2 by Topon Das (Fuck the Facts), the seven-songer grows punkish in the verse of “Mutation” and drops thrashy hints at the outset of “Fusion,” while closer “Mutualism” slams harder like noise rock and punches its bassline directly at the listener. Begun with the nodding lurch of “Parasitism” — which would seem as well to be at the thematic heart of the album in terms of lyrics and the descriptive approach thereof — the movement of one song to the next has its underlying ties in the vocals and overarching semi-metal tonality, but isn’t shy about messing with those either, as on the lands-even-harder “Evolution” or the thuds at the outset of “Adaptation,” the relative straightforwardness of the structures allowing the band to draw together different styles into a single, effective, individualized sound.

Subsun on Facebook

Subsun on Bandcamp

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Bazooka, Kapou Allou

The acoustic guitar of opener “Kata Vathos” transitions smoothly into the arrival-of-the-electrics on “Krifto,” as Athens’ Bazooka launch the first of the post-punk struts on Kapou Allou, their fourth full-length. Mediterranean folk and pop are factors throughout — as heard in the vocal melody of the title-track or the danceable “Pano Apo Ti Gi” — while closer “Veloudino Kako” reimagines Ween via Greece, “Proedriki Froura” traps early punk in a jar to see it light up, and “Dikia Mou Alithia” brings together edgy, loosely-proggy heavy rock in a standout near the album’s center. Wherever they go — yes, even on “Jazzooka” — Bazooka seem to have a plan in mind, some vision of where they want to end up, and Kapou Allou is accordingly gleeful in its purposed weirdoism. At 41 minutes, it’s neither too long nor too short, and vocalist/guitarist/synthesist Xanthos Papanikolaou, guitarist/backing vocalist Vassilis Tzelepis, bassist Aris Rammos and drummer/backing vocalist John Vulgaris cast themselves less as tricksters than simply a band working outside the expected confines of genre. In any language — as it happens, Greek — their material is expansive stylistically but tight in performance, and that tension adds to the delight of hearing something so gleefully its own.

Bazooka on Facebook

Inner Ear Records store

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Somewhat unbelievably, we’ve reached the penultimate day of the Summer 2022 Quarterly Review. I believe it because every time I blink my eyes, I can feel my body trying to fall asleep. Doesn’t matter. There’s rock and roll to be had — 10 records’ worth — so I’mma get on it. If you haven’t found anything yet that speaks to you this QR — first of all, really??? — maybe today will be the day. If you’re feeling any of it, I’d love to know in the comments. Otherwise, off into the ether it goes.

In any case, thanks for reading.

Quarterly Review #81-90:

Hemlock Branch, Hemlock Branch

[Note: art above (photo by Nikita Gross) is not final. Album is out in September. Give it time.] Those familiar with Ohio sludge metallers Beneath Oblivion might recognize Scotty T. Simpson (here also guitar, lap-steel and vocals) or keyboardist/synthesist Keith Messerle from that band, but Hemlock Branch‘s project is decisively different on their self-titled debut, however slow a song like “The Introvert” might be. With the echo-laden vocals of Amy Jo Combs floating and soaring above likewise big-sky riffs, the far-back crash of drummer David Howell (White Walls) and the it’s-in-there-somewhere bass of Derda Karakaya, atmosphere takes a central focus throughout the 10 tracks and 22 minutes of the release. Hints of black metal, post-metal, doom, heavy psychedelia, and noise-wash dirgemaking experimentalism pervade in minute-long cuts like “Incompatible,” the sample-topped “Temporal Vultures” and “Küfür,” which gives over to the closing duo “Lifelong Struggle” and “High Crimes & Misdemeanors.” As even the longest track, “Persona Non Grata,” runs just 4:24, the songs feel geared for modern attention spans and depart from commonplace structures in favor of their own ambient linearity. Not going to be for everyone, but Hemlock Branch‘s first offering shows an immediate drive toward individualism and is genuinely unpredictable, both of which already pay dividends.

Hemlock Branch on Facebook

Hemlock Branch on Bandcamp

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Știu Nu Știu, New Sun

In “Siren” and at the grand, swelling progression of “Zero Trust,” one is drawn back to The Devil’s Blood‘s off-kilter psychedelic occultism by Swedish five-piece Știu Nu Știu — also stylized all-caps: ŞTIU NU ŞTIU — and their fourth album, New Sun, but if there’s any such direct Luciferianism in the sprawling eight-song/47-minute long-player, I’ve yet to find it. Instead, the band’s first outing through respected purveyors Heavy Psych Sounds takes the stylistic trappings of psychedelic post-punk and what’s typically tagged as some kind of ‘gaze or other and toss them directly into the heart of the recently born star named in the title, their sound subtle in rhythmic push but lush, lush, lush in instrumental and vocal melody. “New Sun” itself is the longest piece at 8:17 and it closes side A, but the expanses crafted are hardly more tamed on side B’s “Nyx” or the get-your-goth-dance-shoes-on “Zero Trust,” which follows. Opening with the jangly “Styx” and capping with the also-relatively-extended “Dragon’s Lair” (7:57) — a noisy final solo takes them out — Știu Nu Știu bask in the vague and feel entirely at home in the aural mists they so readily conjure.

Știu Nu Știu on Facebook

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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Veljet, Emerger de la mentira llamada dios

The title of Veljet‘s debut LP, Emerger de la mentira llamada dios, translates from Spanish as, ‘Emerge from the lie called god.’ So yes, the point gets across. And Veljet hint toward metallism and an overarching darkness of purpose in “Estar vivo es nada,” “La construcción de los sentimientos negativos,” and the buzzing, bounce-bass-until-it-falls-apart “Arder al crecer,” despite being instrumental for the album’s half-hour duration save perhaps for some crowd noise filling out the acoustic “Mentir con tristeza” at the finish, people talking over acoustic guitar notes, as they almost invariably, infuriatingly will. That three-minute piece rounds out and is in form a far cry from the push of “Inundata” or the buzz-tone-click-into-airiness “Lucifer luz del mundo,” but there’s room for all of these things in what feels like Satanic escapism more than any occult trappings — that is to say, while it’s pretty safe to say Veljet aren’t religious types, I don’t think they’re rolling around holding devil-worship masses either — and the album as a whole is drawn together by this immersive, mood-altering slog, a sense of the day’s weight conveyed effectively in that of the guitars, bass and drums, making the acoustic finish, and the human shittiness of speaking over it, all the more of a poignant conclusion. If god’s a lie, people aren’t much better.

Veljet on Facebook

LSDR Records on Bandcamp

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Swamp Lantern, The Lord is With Us

Longform avant metal that draws on atmospheres from Pacific Northwestern blackened tropes without bowing completely to them or any other wholly rigid style, doom or otherwise. Some of the vocals in the more open moments of “Still Life” bring to mind Ealdor Bealu‘s latest in their declarative purpose, but Swamp Lantern‘s The Lord is With Us takes its own presumably-left-hand path toward aural identity, finding a sound in the process that is both ambient and obscure but still capable of deep heft when it’s called for — see “Still Life” again. That song is one of two to cross the 10-minute mark, along with closer “The Halo of Eternal Night,” though wholly immersive opener “Blood Oath (on Pebble Beach)” and “Graven Tide” aren’t far off, the latter nestling into a combination of groove-riding guitar and flourish lead notes intertwining on their way toward and through a well charred second half of the song, the way eventually given to the exploratory title-track, shorter but working off a similarly building structure. They cap vampiric with “The Halo of Eternal Night,” perhaps nodding subtly back to “Blood Oath (On Pebble Beach)” — at least the blood part — while likewise bookending with a guest vocal from Aimee Wright, who also contributed to the opener. Complex, beautiful and punishing, sometimes all at once, The Lord is With Us is a debut of immediate note and range. Who knows what it may herald, but definitely something.

Swamp Lantern on Instagram

Swamp Lantern on Bandcamp

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Terror Cósmico, Miasma

The hellscape in the Jason Barnett cover art for Mexico City duo Terror Cósmico‘s fourth full-length, Miasma, is a fair update for Hieronymus Bosch, and it’s way more Hell than The Garden of Earthly Delights, as suits the anxiety of the years since the band’s last album, 2018’s III (review here). The eight instrumental selections from guitarist Javier Alejandre and drummer Nicolás Detta is accordingly tense and brooding, with “En un Lugar Frio y Desolado” surging to life in weighted push after seeming to pick at its fingernails with nervousness. A decade on from their first EP, Terror Cósmico sound fiercer than they ever have on “Tonalpohualli” and the opener “Necromorfo” sets the album in motion with an intensity that reminds both of latter day High on Fire and the still-missed US sans-vocal duo Beast in the Field. That last is not a comparison I’ll make lightly, and it’s not that Miasma lacks atmosphere, just that the atmospherics in question are downtrodden, hard-hitting and frustrated. So yes, perfectly suited to the right-now in which they arrive.

Terror Cósmico on Instagram

LSDR Records on Bandcamp

Stolen Body Records store

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Urna, Urna

Somewhere between aggressive post-metal, post-hardcore, sludge and ambient heavy rock, Stockholm’s Urna find a niche for themselves thoroughly Swedish enough to make me wonder why their self-titled debut LP isn’t out through Suicide Records. In any case, they lead with “You Hide Behind,” a resonant sense of anger in the accusation that is held to somewhat even as clean vocals are introduced later in the track and pushed further on the subsequent “Shine,” guitarist Axel Ehrencrona (also synth) handling those duties while bassist William Riever (also also synth) and also-in-Ocean–Chief drummer Björn Andersson (somebody get him some synth!) offer a roll that feels no less noise-derived than Cities of Mars‘ latest and is no more noise rock than it either. “Revelations” fucking crushes, period. Song is almost seven minutes. If it was 20, that’d be fine. Centerpiece indeed. “Werewolf Tantrum” follows as the longest piece at 8:06, and is perhaps more ambitious in structure, but that force is still there, and though “Sleep Forever” (plenty of synth) has a different vibe, it comes across as something of a portrayed aftermath for the bludgeoning that just took place. They sound like they’re just getting started on a longer progression, but the teeth gnashing throughout pulls back to the very birthing of post-metal, and from there Urna can go just about wherever they want.

Urna on Facebook

Urna on Bandcamp

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Astral Magic, Magical Kingdom

Finnish songwriter, synthesist, vocalist, guitarist, bassist, etc. Santtu Laakso started Astral Magic as a solo-project, and he’s already got a follow-up out to Magical Kingdom called Alien Visitations that’s almost if not entirely synth-based and mostly instrumental, so he’s clearly not at all afraid to explore different vibes. On Magical Kingdom, he somewhat magically transports the listener back to a time when prog was for nerds. The leadoff title-track is filled with fantasy genre elements amid an instrumental spirit somewhere between Magma and Hawkwind, and it’s only the first of the eight explorations on the 42-minute offering. Keyboards are a strong presence throughout, whether a given song is vocalized or not, and as different international guest guitarists come and go, arrangements in “Dimension Link” and “Rainbow Butterfly” are further fleshed out with psychedelic sax. Side B opener “Lost Innocense” (sic) is a weirdo highlight among weirdo highlights, and after the spacious grandiosity of “The Hidden City” and the sitar-drone-reminiscent backing waveforms on “The Pale-Skinned Man,” closer “Seven Planes” finds resolution in classic krautrock shenanigans. If you’re the right kind of geek, this one’s gonna hit you hard.

Astral Magic on Facebook

Tonzonen Records website

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Grey Giant, Turn to Stone

The story of Turn to Stone seems to take place in opener “The Man, the Devil and the Grey Giant” in which a man sells his soul to the devil and is cursed and turned into a mountain for his apparent comeuppance. For a setting to that tale, Santander, Spain’s Grey Giant present a decidedly oldschool take on heavy rock, reminiscent there of European trailblazers like Lowrider and Dozer, but creeping on chunkier riffing in “Unwritten Letter,” which follows, bassist/vocalist Mario “Pitu” Hospital raw of throat but not by any means amelodic over the riffs of Ravi and Hugo Echeverria and the drums of Pablo Salmón and ready to meet the speedier turn when it comes. An EP running four songs and 26 minutes, Turn to Stone Sabbath start-stops in “Reverb Signals in Key F,” but brings about some of the thickest roll as well as a particularly righteous solo from one if not both of the Echeverrias and the Kyussy riff of closer “Last Bullet” is filled out with a grim outlook of Europe’s future in warfare; obviously not the most uplifting of endings, but the trippier instrumental build in the song’s final movement seems to hold onto some hope or at very least wishful thinking.

Grey Giant on Facebook

Grey Giant on Bandcamp

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Great Rift, Utopia

Symmetrically placed for vinyl listening, “The Return” and “Golden Skies” open sides A and B of Great Rift‘s second long-player, Utopia, with steady grooves, passionate vocals and a blend between psychedelic range and earthier tonal textures. I feel crazy even saying it since I doubt it’s what he’s going for, but Thomas Gulyas reminds a bit in his delivery of Messiah Marcolin (once of Candlemass) and his voice is strong enough to carry that across. He, fellow guitarist Andreas Lechner, bassist Peter Leitner and drummer Klaus Gulyas explore further reaches in subsequent cuts like “Space” and the soaringly out-there “Voyagers” as each half of the LP works shortest-to-longest so that the arrival of the warm heavy psych fuzz of “Beteigeuze” and minor-key otherworldly build-up of the closing title-track both feel plenty earned, and demonstrate plainly that Great Rift know the style they’re playing toward and what they’re doing with the personal spin they’re bringing to it. Four years after their debut, Vesta, Utopia presents its idealistic vision in what might just be a story about fleeing the Earth. Not gonna say I don’t get that.

Great Rift on Facebook

StoneFree Records website

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Torpedo Torpedo, The Kuiper Belt Mantras

Most prevalent complaint in my mind with Torpedo Torpedo‘s The Kuiper Belt Mantras is it’s an EP and not a full-length album, and thus has to go on the Best Short Releases of 2022 list instead of the Best Debut LPs list. One way or the other, the four-song first-outing from the Vienna psychedelonauts is patient and jammy, sounding open, lush and bright while retaining a heaviness that is neither directly shoegaze-based nor aping those who came before. The trio affect spacious vibes in the winding threads of lead guitar and half-hints at All Them Witches in “Cycling Lines,” and cast themselves in a nod for “Verge” at least until they pass that titular mark at around five and a half minutes in and pick up the pace. With “Black Horizon” the groove is stonerized, righteous and familiar, but the cosmic and heavy psych spirit brought forth has a nascent sense of character that the fuller fuzz in “Caspian Dust” answers without making its largesse the entire point of the song. Loaded with potential, dead-on right now, they make themselves the proverbial ‘band to watch’ in performance, underlying craft, production value and atmosphere. Takes off when it takes off, is languid without lulling you to sleep, and manages to bring in a hook just when it needs one. I don’t think it’s a listen you’ll regret, whatever list I end up putting it on.

Torpedo Torpedo on Facebook

Electric Fire Records website

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Week two, day one. Day six. However you look at it, it’s 10 more records for the Summer 2022 Quarterly Review, and that’s all it needs to be. I sincerely hope you had a good weekend and you arrive ready to dig into new music, most of which you’ve probably already encountered — because you’re cool like that and I know it — but maybe some you haven’t. In any case, there’s good stuff today and plenty more to come this week, so bloody hell, let’s get to it.

Quarterly Review #51-60:

Celestial Season, Mysterium I

After confirming their return via 2020’s striking The Secret Teachings (review here), Netherlands-based death-doom innovators Celestial Season embark on an ambitious trilogy of full-lengths with Mysterium I, which starts with its longest song (immediate points) in the heavy-hitting single “Black Water Rising,” but is more willing to offer string-laced beauty in darkness in songs like “The Golden Light of Late Day,” which transitions fluidly into “Sundown Transcends Us.” That latter cut, third of seven total on the 40-minute LP, provides some small hint of the band’s more rock-minded days, but the affair is plenty grim on the whole, whatever slightly-more-uptempo riffy nod might’ve slipped through. “This Glorious Summer” hits the brakes for a morose slog, while “Endgame” casts it lot in more aggressive speed at first, dropping to strings for much of its second half before returning to the deathly chug. The pair “All That is Known” and “Mysterium” close in massive and lurching form, and not that there was any doubt about this group 30 years on from the band’s founding, but yeah, they still got it. No worries. The next two parts are reportedly due before the end of next year, and one looks forward to knowing where the rest of the story-in-sound goes from here. If it’s down, they’re already there.

Celestial Season on Facebook

Burning World Records website

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Noorvik, Hamartia

Post. Metal. Also post-metal. The third full-length from Koln-based instrumental four-piece Noorvik, Hamartia, glides smoothly between atmosphere and aggression, the band’s purposes revealed as much in their quiet moments as in those where the guitar comes forward and present a more furious face. In the subdued reaches of “Ambrosia” (10:00) or even opener “Tantalos” (6:55), the feeling is still tense, to where over the course of the record’s 68 minutes, you’re almost waiting for the kick to come, which it reliably does, but the form that takes varies in subtle ways and the bleeding of songs into each other like “Omonoia” into “Ambrosia” — which crushes by the time it’s done — the delving into proggy astro-jazz on “Aeon” and the reaching heights of “Atreides” (which TV tells me is a Dune reference) assure that there’s more than one path that gets Noorvik to where they’re going. At 15:42, “The Feast” is arguably the most bombastic and the most ambient both, but if that’s top and bottom, the spaces in between are no less coursing, and in their willingness to be metal while also being post-metal, Noorvik bring excitement to a style that’s made a trope of its hyper-cerebral nature. This has that and might also wreck your house, and if you don’t think that’s a big difference, ask your house.

Noorvik on Facebook

Tonzonen Records website

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Doctors of Space, Mind Surgery

Wait. What? You mean to tell me that right now there are some people in the world who aren’t about to dig on 78 minutes’ worth of improvised psychedelic synth and guitar drones? Like, real people? In the world? What kind of terrible planet is this? Obviously, for Doctors of Space — Scott “Dr. Space” Heller (Øresund Space Collective) on synth, Martin Weaver (Wicked Lady) on guitar — this planet is nowhere near cool enough, and while it’s fortunate for the cosmos at large that once shared, these sounds have launched into the broader reaches of the solar system where they’ll travel as waves to be interpreted by some future civilization perhaps millions of years from now that evolved on a big silly rock a long, long way from here and those people will finally be the audience Doctors of Space richly deserve. But on Earth? Beyond a few loyal weirdos, I don’t know. And no, Doctors of Space aren’t shooting for mass appeal so much as interstellar manifestation through sound, but they do break out the drum machine on 23-minute closer “Titular Parody” to add a sense of ground amid all that antigravity float. Nonetheless, Mind Surgery is far out even for far out. If you think you’re up to it, get your head in the right mode first, because they might just open that thing up by the time they’re done.

Doctors of Space on Facebook

Space Rock Productions website

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Astral Pigs, Our Golden Twilight

Pull Astral Pigs‘ second album, Our Golden Twilight, out of the context of the band’s penchant for vintage exploitation horror and porn and the record’s actually pretty cool. The title-track and slower-rolling “Brass Skies/Funeral March” top seven minutes in succession following instrumental opener “Irina Karlstein,” and spend that time in nod-inducement that goes from catchy-and-kinda-slow to definitely-slow-and-catchy before the long stretch of organ starts the at least semi-acoustic “The Sigil” and “Dragonflies” renews the density of lumbering fuzz, the English-language lyrics from the Argentina-based four-piece giving a duly ceremonious feel to the doomly drama unfolding, but long song or shorter, their vibe is right on and well in league with DHU Records‘ ongoing fascination with aural cultistry. The Hammond provided by bassist/producer Fabricio Pieroni isn’t to be ignored for what it brings to the songs, but even just on the strength of their guitar and bass tones and the mood they conjure throughout, Our Golden Twilight, though just 25 minutes long, unquestionably flows like a full-length record.

Astral Pigs on Facebook

DHU Records store

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Carson, The Wilful Pursuit of Ignorance

No question, Carson have learned their lessons well, and I’ll admit, it’s been a while since a basically straightforward, desert-derived heavy rock record hit me with such an impression of songwriting as does their second full-length, The Wilful Pursuit of Ignorance. Issued through Sixteentimes Music, the eight-track/36-minute outing from the Lucerne-via-New-Zealand-based unit plays off influences like Kyuss, Helmet (looking at you, title-track), Dozer, Unida, and so on, and honest to goodness, it’s refreshing to hear a band so ready and willing to just kick ass musically. Not saying that an album with a title like this doesn’t have anything deeper to say, just that Carson make their offering without even a smidgeon of pretense about where they’re coming from, and from opener “Dirty Dream Maker” onward, their melody, their groove, their transitions and sharper turns are right on. It’s classic heavy rock, done impeccably well, made modern. A work of genre that argues in favor of itself and the style as a whole. If you were introducing someone to riff-based heavy, Carson would do the trick just fine.

Carson on Facebook

Sixteentimes Music website

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Isaurian, Deep Sleep Metaphysics

Comprised of vocalist Hoanna Aragão, guitarist/vocalist Jorge Rabelo (also keys, co-production, etc.), guitarist Guilerme Tanner, bassist Renata Marim and drummer Roberto Tavares, Brazil’s Isaurian adapt post-rock patience and atmospheric guitar methods to a melody-fueled heavy purpose. Production value is an asset working in their favor on their second full-length, Deep Sleep Metaphysics, and seems to be a consistent factor throughout their work since Matt Bayles and Rhys Fulber produced their first two EPs in 2017. Here it’s Muriel Curi (Labirinto) and Chris Common (Pelican, many others), who bring a decided sense of space that’s measurable from the locale difference in Aragão‘s and Rabelo‘s vocal levels from opener “Árida” onward. Their intensions vary throughout — “For Hypnos” has “everybody smokes pot”-esque gang chants near its finish, “The Dream to End All Dreams” is a piano-inclusive guitar-flourish instrumental, “Autumn Eyes” is duly mellow and brooding, “Hearts and Roads” delivers culmination in a brighter melodic wash ahead of a bonus Curi remix of the opener — but it’s the melodic nuance and the clarity of sound that pull the songs together and distinguish the band. They’ve been tagged as “heavygaze” and various other ‘-gaze’ whathaveyou, and they borrow from that, but their drive toward fidelity of sound makes them something else entirely. They should tour Europe asap.

Isaurian on Instagram

Isaurian on Bandcamp

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Kadavermarch, Into Oblivion

Hints of Kadavermarch‘s metallic origins — members having served in Helhorse, Illdisposed, as well as the Danish hip-hop group Tudsegammelt, and others — sneak into their songs both in the more upfront manner of harsher backing vocals on “The Eschaton” and the subsequent “Abyss,” and in some of the double-guitar work throughout, though their first album, Into Oblivion, sets their loyalties firmly in heavy rock. Uncle Acid may be an influence in terms of vocal melody, but the riffs throughout cuts like “Satanic” and “Reefer Madness” and the galloping “Flowering Death” are bigger and feel drawn in part from acts like The Sword and Baroness, delivered with a sharp edge. It’s a fascinating blend, and the recording on Into Oblivion lets it shine with a palpable band-in-the-room sensibility and stage-style energy, while still allowing enough breadth for a build like that in the finale “Beyond the End” to pay off the record as a whole. Capable craft, a sound on its way to being their own, a turquoise vinyl pressing, and a pedigree to boot — there’s nothing more I would ask of Into Oblivion. It feels like an opening salvo for a longer-term progression and I hope it is precisely that.

Kadavermarch on Facebook

Target Group on Bandcamp

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Büzêm, Here

The violence implied in the title “Regurgitated Ambition Consuming Itself” takes the form of a harsh wall of noise drone that, once it starts, continues to unfurl for the just-under-eight-minute duration of the first of two pieces on Büzêm‘s more simply named Here EP. The Portland, Maine, solo art project of bassist/anythingelse-ist Finn has issued a range of exploratory outings, mostly EPs and experiments put to tape, and that modus very much suits the avant vibe throughout Here, which is markedly less caustic in the more rumbling “In an Attempt to Become the Creator” — presumably about Jackson Roykirk — the 10 minutes of which are more clearly the work of a standalone bass guitar, but play out with a sense of the human presence behind, as perhaps was the intention. Here‘s stated purpose is meditative if disaffected, Finn turning mindfulness into an already-in-progress armageddon display, and fair enough, but the found recording at the end, or captured footsteps, whatever it is, relate intentions beyond the use of a single instrument. Not ever going to be universally accessible, nonetheless pushing the kind of boundaries of what’s-a-song that need to be pushed.

Büzêm on Facebook

BÜZÊM on Bandcamp

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Electric Mountain, Valley Giant

Can’t mess with this kind of heavy rock and roll. The fuzz runs thick, the groove is loose (not sloppy), and the action is go from start to finish. Electric Mountain‘s second LP, Valley Giant digs on classic desert-style heavy vibes, with “Vulgar Planet” riffing on Kyuss and Fu Manchu only after “Desert Ride” has dug headfirst into Nebula via Black Rainbows and cuts like “Outlanders” and the hell-yes-wah-bass of big-nodder “Morning Grace” have set the stage for stoner and rock, by, for and about being what it is. Picking highlights, it might be “A Fistful of Grass” for the angular twists of fuzz in the chorus, but “Vulgar Planet” and the penultimate acoustic cut “At Last Everything” both make a solid case ahead of the eight-plus-minute instrumental closing jam “A Thousand Miles High.” The band’s 2017 self-titled debut (also on Electric Valley Records) was a gem as well, and if they can get some forward momentum going on their side after Valley Giant, playing shows, etc., they’d be well placed at the head of the increasingly crowded Mexico City underground.

Electric Mountain on Facebook

Electric Valley Records website

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Hush, The Pornography of Ruin

Also stylized all-caps with punctuation — perhaps a voice commanding: HUSH. — Hudson, New York, five-piece Hush conjure seven songs and 56 minutes of alternately sprawling and oppressive atmospheric sludge on their third full-length, The Pornography of Ruin, and if you take that to mean the quiet parts are spaced and the heavy parts are crushing, well, that’s true too, but not exclusively the case. Amid lyrical poetry, melodic ranging, slamming rhythms — “There Can Be No Forgiveness Without the Shedding of Blood” walks by and waves, its hand bloody — and harsh shouts and screams, Hush shove, pull, bite and chew the consciousness of their listener, with the 12-minute “By This You Are Truly Known” pulling centerpiece duty with mostly whispers and ambience in a spread-out midsection, bookended by more slow-churning pummel. Followed by the shorter “And the Love of Possession is a Disease with Them,” the keyboard-as-strings “The Sound of Kindness in the Voice” and the likewise raging-till-it-isn’t-then-when-it-is-again closer “At Night We Dreamed of Those We Were Stolen From,” the consumption is complete, and The Pornography of Ruin challenges its audience with the weight of its implications and tones alike. And for whatever it’s worth, I saw these guys in Brooklyn a few years back and they fucking destroyed. They’ve expanded the sound a bit since then, but this record is a solid reminder of that force.

Hush on Instagram

Hush on Bandcamp

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