Posted in Whathaveyou on August 13th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Already this year, Montreal Dune-themed progressive melodic heavy rockers Sons of Arrakis have hit the West and East Coasts of the US, playing Planet Desert Rock Weekend and (the last) Maryland Doom Fest both, and been to the UK for an appearance at StoomFest. They’ve got festivals as part of this upcoming on-the-continent European run as well, as they’ll hit Into the Void Leeuwarden in the Netherlands and Up in Smoke in Switzerland, both at the behest of Sound of Liberation, which booked the tour.
The ascendant Canucks have been and will be out in support of their 2024 sophomore LP, Volume II (review here), which was released by Black Throne Productions and which, if you’d like a refresher, is streaming in full at the bottom of this post. Yup, under the links. You got the idea.
Interesting to note: it probably isn’t the first time they’ve used it, but this is the first I’ve seen the band self-apply the tag “melange rock.” The word, suitably rooted in French, means a mixture or a somewhat slapdash assortment. As the comments point out, it’s also of course a Dune reference. It’s an okay bit of branding, if not necessarily encompassing or descriptive. It’s a thing they can call themselves, which I imagine answers a fair number of the “what do you call this sound” questions they’ve been receiving. The first two things I think of when I think of them “progressive” and “melodic,” so I went with that. Admittedly, way less catchy.
Dates came from this or that social media:
🌌 UPDATES! SHAI-HÜLÜD ODYSSEY 2025 – EUROPE 🌌
We’re beyond stoked to bring the Melange Rock to Europe this fall! Massive thanks to Sound of Liberation and our label at Black Throne Productions for making this run possible. 🙏🔥
From the Netherlands to Switzerland, with stops in Belgium and Germany, we’re bringing the spice to some of our favorite venues and festivals — see you on the road!
Alright, day two. Here we go. I never really know how a given day of the Quarterly Review is going to flow until I get there. The hope is that in slating releases for a given day — which I mostly do randomly over time, though I generally like to lead with something ‘bigger’ — I’ve considered things like not putting too much that sounds the same together, geographic variability, and so on. Sometimes that plan works, and I get a day like yesterday, which was pretty close to ideal. If that was the pattern for this entire QR, I’d be just fine with that, but I know better. One day at a time, as all the inspirational tchotchkes say.
Feeling good though headed into day two, so I’ll take it.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
Blackwater Holylight, If You Only Knew
The narrative around L.A.-by-way-of-Portland’s Blackwater Holylight at this point is one of growth, and well it should be. At seven years’ remove from their self-titled debut (review here), the four-piece offer the four-song If You Only Knew — three originals and a take on Radiohead‘s “All I Need” — as something of a stopgap four years after their third LP, Silence/Motion (review here). And like that 2021 album, “Wandering Lost,” “Torn Reckless” and “Fate is Forward” see the band working to expand their sound. They’re not upstarts anymore, and the marriage of dream-pop and crush on “Wandering Lost” alone is worth the price of admission, never mind the downward swirl of “Torn Reckless” the melodic burst-through and quiet space of “Fate is Forward” or the explosion in the back half of the Radiohead tune. Pro shop, all the way.
There’s a deep current of Melvinsian quirk in Spider Kitten‘s thickly-riffed slog, and it’s in the creeper-into-noiseburst of “Revelation #1” with its later rawest-Alice in Chains harmonies as much as the false start on “Febrile and Taciturn” and a chugblaster like “Wretched Evergreen” which is just one of the six songs in the 14-song tracklisting under two minutes long. Throughout the 37 minutes, shit gets weird. Then it gets weirder. Then they do folk balladeering in “Sueño” for a minimal-Western divergence prefacing the later soundtrackery of “Woe Betide Me.” Then they’re back to bashing away — but at what? Themselves? Their instruments certainly. Maybe a bit of shaking genre convention if not outright, all-the-time defiance. The key blend is ultimately of the crunch in their guitar and bass tones and the melodies that come to top it — not that all the vocals are melodic, mind you — with a kind of creative restlessness that makes each cut find its own way through, some at a decent clip, to leave a dent right in the middle of your forehead.
Montreal three-piece Mooch align with Black Throne Productions for their fourth album release. The band, comprised of guitarist/bassist/vocalist Ben Cornel, guitarist/vocalist/bassist/keyboardist Julian Iac and drummer/vocalist Alex Segreti, have run a thread of quick, purposeful growth through the last several years, with 2024’s Visions (review here) following 2023’s Wherever it Goes following their 2020 debut, Hounds, and other singles and such besides. At their hookiest, in a piece like “Hang Me Out (False Sun),” they remind some of At Devil Dirt‘s heavy-fuzz poppy plays, but one knows better than to expect Mooch to be singleminded on an LP, and Kin plays out with according complexity, finding a particularly satisfying resolution in “Prominence” before hitting successive, different crescendos in “Lightning Rod,” “Gemini” and the eight-minute “Zenith” to end the record. A band who genuinely seem to follow where the material takes them while refusing to get lost on the way.
I’m not a punker. I was never cool enough to listen to punk rock. Generally when I hear something that’s rooted in punk and it lands with me, I assume that means the band are doing punk wrong. If so, I like the way Snakes & Pyramids do punk wrong on Disappearer. The tonal presence, their willingness to make not-everything be exactly on-the-beat, the liberal doses of wah treatment on the lead guitar to give a psychedelic edge, the effects on the vocals helping that as well, plus the flexibility to roll out a heavy riff. There’s not a whole lot to not like as they push genre limits across 38 minutes and eight songs, finding space for post-punk in “Disappearer” or “All the Same” before they really dig in on the near-eight-minute closer “Seven Gods.” For future reference, the band is the doubly-Brian’ed three-piece of Brian Hammond (ex-The Curses), Brian Connor (ex-Motherboar) and Cavan Bligh. Psychedelic punk, even more than punk-metal or any other way you might want to try to blend it, is incredibly difficult to pull off well. That seems much less the case here.
Unbelievable Lake, I Have No Mouth and Yet I Must Scream
There is only one song on I Have No Mouth and Yet I Must Scream, and it’s the title-track. At 41 minutes long, that’s all you need, and Northern Irish psych-drone experimentalists Unbelievable Lake — think Queen Elephantine, but longer-form, more effects on the guitar, and dramatic in the ebbs and flows — the first 10 minutes are a movement unto themselves, with a linear build into a consuming payoff; due comedown provided. Those comparatively still stretches can be some of the most difficult for a band who’ve just blown it out to dwell in, but Unbelievable Lake use negative-space as much as crush to make their way toward the next culmination, which sort of gradually devolves instrumentally but makes its way along the path of residual noise toward one last round of pummel. You bet your ass they make it count. This is a significant accomplishment, and enough on its own wavelength that most ears will glaze over to hear it. But there’s just the right kind of brain out there for it, as well. Maybe that’s you.
Krautfuzz scorch the ground on the 23-minute “Live at the Church A” to such a degree that I’m surprised there was anything left to plug in for when they bring out J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. and Witch to take part in “Live at the Church B,” let alone a full album-unto-itself 39 minutes’ worth of go. Rest assured, there’s plenty of noiseshove in “Live at the Church B” as well, and it arrives quicker than in the preceding slab, guitar running forward and back in loops even before the swirl cuts through the fuller distortion surrounding at about seven minutes in, howls and wails and wormholes and spacetime bend inward, flex outward, breathe like the cosmic microwave background, and the exploration continues after the rumble (mostly) subsides, getting ready to sneak in one more mini-freakout before they’re done. Damn, Krautfuzz. Save some lysergic push for the rest of the class. Or better, don’t. Clearly they were rolling out the ‘red carpet’ for Mr. Mascis. It just happened to be red from all the plasma churning thereupon.
Even before they get to the six-and-a-half-minute “The Door” or the dreamy midsection of closer “Medusa,” London’s Sleeping Mountain demonstrate patience in their delivery early on with the instrumental-save-for-the-sample leadoff “Humans” and “Walls of Shadows,” which leads with guest vocals before the full tonal crux of the riff is unveiled, and continues in methodical, doom-leaning fashion. That’s a vibe that doesn’t necessarily persist as the later “Akelarre” puts the cymbals out front and pushes a more uptempo finish ahead of the closer “Medusa,” but the dude-twang “Alibi” and the all-in nod of “Tennessee Walking Horse” underscore the message of dynamic, and while this self-titled may be the first album from Sleeping Mountain, it portrays the three-piece as confident in their approach and sure of their direction, even if they’re not 100 percent on where that direction is going. Nor should they be. They should be writing the songs and letting the rest work itself out over time, which is what you get here. They sound like a band I’ll still be writing about in a decade, so I guess we’ll see how it goes.
Behold the awaited first album from Durham, UK, sludge-doom, put-a-pillow-over-your-face-and-it’s-made-of-riffs betrayers Goblinsmoker. Dubbed The King’s Eternal Throne and indeed capping with the three-minute minimalist homage “Toad King (Forest Synth Offering),” the preceding title-track works its way from its more poised opening into an engrossing meganod of hairy-ass distortion, with the later-arriving throatripper screams ready for whatever Dopethrone comparison you want to make, and no less sharp in the biting. Of course, by the time they get to that third-of-four inclusions, this has already been well proven on side A’s “Shamanic Rites” and “Burn Him,” the leadoff holding to a steady and malevolent lumber while the follow-up takes a faster swing to upending witchy convention as the vocals offer the most vicious devourment I’ve heard from an English band since Dopefight roamed the earth. Down with humans. Up with toads. Familiar enough in its sludgy roots, The King’s Eternal Throne makes its own trouble like dog food makes gravy (with added liquid, in other words), and basks in heaps of shenanigans besides. The songs are like slow-motion razor juggling.
The three-song sophomore full-length, Shrine, from Italian heavy progressives Onioroshi is the band’s first outing since 2019’s debut, Beyond These Mountains (review here), and is duly adventurous for that. Set up across “Pyramid” (18:18), “Laborintus” (15:35) and “Egg” (20:31), the album feels cohesive in refusing to be anything other than one it is. Its psychedelia is met with fervent terrestrial groove, and “Laborintus” spends most of its 15 minutes sounding like it’s about to fall apart, but never does. Duh, should I call it expansive? The truth is at 54 minutes, it’s a significant undertaking, but “Laborintus” ends up thrilling for the element of danger, and though raw in the production, “Egg” builds its own world in atmospherics, pushing further in the ebbs and flows of “Pyramid,” which itself takes loud/quiet trades to a less-predictable place. Some of Shrine feels insular, but that seems to be the point. A creative call to worship, and maybe worshiping the creativity itself.
Whoa. First of all, with Tempus Deorum, you’ve got L’Ira del Baccano. The Roman psychedelic explorers follow 2023’s Cosmic Evoked Potentials (review here) with the 19-minute piece “Tempus 25,” an ether-bound reach that hypnotizes well ahead of unveiling its full tonal breadth and even crushes a bit before receding ahead of the next go. With synth cascading through the midsection and a duly expansive build that hits two more climaxes before it’s through, “Tempus 25” sets itself up in contrast to Tilburg, the Netherlands’ Yama, whose 2014 debut, Ananta (review here), is well remembered as they offer three songs “Wish to Go Under,” “The Absolute” and “Naraka,” that feel more solidified in their structure but that offer complement to “Tempus 25” for that. Not short on scope themselves, Yama let the chug patterning and vocal soar of “The Absolute” stand in evidence of their progressivism, and after 11 years, they sound like they have more to say. One only hopes that’s the case all around on this somehow-tidy, 35-minute split LP.
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 9th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Out one week from today timed to a show June 16 in Paris ahead of Seum‘s June 18 appearance at Hellfest Open Air — which I’m assuming is a warm-up of some sort since the fest lists its dates as June 19-22 — the new track “Sad Labatt” is also the first audio the band has unveiled from the follow-up to 2023’s Double Double (review here), which doesn’t seem to have a release date as yet but will surely be along sooner or later. Not like they’re lacking in goings-on besides, what with Hellfest and all.
Seum earlier this year also released a split with rising Detroit conjurors Temple of the Fuzz Witch (review here) that was a good time in that nasty slash-with-audio kind of way. That and the album both stream below, in lieu of audio for the song not out yet.
Have at it:
SEUM (bass-only sludge from Montreal): “Sad Labatt” New single out on June 16th
After releasing two albums, Winterized in June 2021, DOUBLE DOUBLE in February 2023 and multiple EPs among which Conjuring, a split EP with Temple of the Fuzz Witch in February 2025, Seum is about to release Sad Labatt on June 16th, the first single of their upcoming third album, supporting their upcoming show at the Hellfest Open Air Festival on June 18th.
Sad Labatt will be out and available on all streaming platforms on June 16th just in time for their two shows in Europe this summer:
June 16th: Paris – Le Klub June 18th: Hellfest Open Air Festival
From the band:
“Sad is the mood, Labatt is the drink, this one is for all the broken hearts looking too deep in their glass, still finding solace in music. We love to try new stuff and Sad Labatt is our first song with clean vocals. It is also the first single of our upcoming third album… We hope you will love us when we are smooth as much as when we are rough.”
SEUM is a bass-only sludge band from Montreal (Canada) formed by 3 doom veterans formerly in Lord Humungus (Gaspard – vocals), Mlah! (Piotr – bass), and Uluun (Fred – drums). Adding a ferocious punk energy to their New Orleans inspired sludge, the band is known for its intense live performances, workaholic attitude and nihilistic, tongue-in-cheek lyrics.
SEUM means Venom in Arabic and is French slang for disappointment and frustration: No guitars.
Seum is: Fred – Drums Gaspard – Vocals Piotr – Bass
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 2nd, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Little did I know that by the time I posted about Alexander Julien ending his solo drone project, Vision Eternel, on May 16, he had already passed away. The email, apparently something of a final act, had come in on May 14, and as per Julien’s wife, Rain Frances, the Montreal-based Julien died the same day. He was 37 years old. Six years younger than me.
I liked Julien, and that was basically why I wrote about his music. He was a sensitive, poetic, old-soul nerd. Someone who might just get that reference to The Donna Reed Show. Vision Eternel never caught on, and that’s fine. It was in the project’s nature to not. Expressive drone was never going to be for everybody. I always knew a post about Vision Eternel would largely get crickets in terms of response, but I could hear the heart in what Julien was doing, and I thought he had something to offer atmospherically and emotionally that a lot of drone didn’t. In that post on the 16th, I was trying to push optimism in saying I hoped he had something new in the works. Now, in context, it’s just sad.
Frances, who also did graphic work for Vision Eternel, sent the following brief obituary and link to her reflection down the PR wire. I’ll miss hearing from Julien next Valentine’s Day with some exclusive to offer listeners in honor of romance itself, or a new video or whatnot. He was always very kind to me and said nice things about this site and even tried to make a Wikipedia page for it but it turns out I’m not relevant enough. But he tried and he didn’t need to do that. He was like that.
I will remember him fondly, and I hope he found the peace he felt was missing from his life. Thanks for reading.
Vision Eternel’s Alexander Julien passed away on May 14, 2025. Those who are familiar with Vision Eternel, know that Alex’s music is based on nostalgia, emotion and heartbreak. He experienced a lot of anguish in his short 37 years and was often overcome by it. He translated this pain beautifully into his music. His idea of making concept albums showed his talent as well as his dedication to leaving a legacy of music that told the story of love and heartache. He will be missed by all those who loved him.
His other bands were Vision Lunar and Soufferance.
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 21st, 2025 by JJ Koczan
The real kicker here is that even as The Hazytones guitarist/vocalist Mick Martel announces the band are done, people are still just discovering them. Based in Montreal, The Hazytones released their gruff third long-player, Wild Fever (review here), last Spring and were just this month on the road in Europe to support it.
That tour seems to have been their undoing. Specifically Desertfest London — there’s a joke in there about how good the fest was; so good it broke bands, etc. — is noted as the catalyst, as it seems here was some disconnect between Martel, bassist Caleb Sanders, drummer Gabriel Prieur and guitarist John Choffel, with substance use, hard-drinking, and lack of sleep sure to make any situation easier to deal with and/or work out in a positive manner for everyone.
Sad to say, not so much. The wheels came off for The Hazytones in London and they’ve called it quits on the rest of the tour and the band in general, at least for the time being. I’d be surprised if Martel is actually done musically — ending the band seems somewhat impulsive, but sometimes you need to walk away from a thing and say that’s it you’re done forever whether or not that’s how it pans out over time — but the tour seems to be finished at the very least.
As someone who dug their records and didn’t get to see them, I hope The Hazytones keep going in some form or other, but if not, at least they got to live through the blowout. The following is from socials and was posted as one big paragraph that I’ve broken into smaller sections for readability, which feels hypocritical considering some of the reviews around here:
During the UK tour I, Mick Martel, had an epiphany, it’s hard to believe but my third eye opened! In the myst of the most rock n roll tour you can possibly imagine, the demons got to us. Between our daily fist fights with each other, we were drinking alcohol like water. At the height of it all we played Desertfest London.
Our performance was hailed as the highlight of the festival by many. Personally I was 100% possessed that night and I hope everyone who came to witness got chills down their spine! It all came crashing down Monday night when our bass player, Caleb, went missing for 8 hours and ended in the Lyon river. I finished my night locked in a bathroom with my drummer Gabriel with about 50 hours without sleep.
It was time to call it quit someone was going to die. I went through a separation with my misses yesterday and I’m gonna focus on my daughter. I told her just before Desertfest (Yes we had a 6 years old with us) Nina you will finally have a Daddy! The Hazytones are done and buried in Camden. I’m slowing down my drinking and I will now focus on my daughter.
I want to apologize to all the promoters who trusted me in booking an Hazytones show, I was just trying to avoid death and destruction. Maybe we start the band again when everyone is clean. I’m on my way to Montreal and I’ll see you all at the church! This is Mick your captain speaking, we are approaching final destination, sunny skies ahead, logging off.
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 16th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
If you’ve followed this site for a while or found yourself going down a specific rabbit hole, you might know I’ve covered Montréal’s Vision Eternel a fair amount. The solo drone project of Alexander Julien, mostly through a series of short releases and explorations, honed a specifically evocative, cinematic sound, and consistently stood in ready demonstration of the point that just because something is ethereal, that does not need to preclude it from also being emotional.
Most of the sounds were vague, impressionistic, but it was always fun to see where Julien‘s whims and cinephile noir vibes were taking him. Vision Eternel was never super-hyped as far as bands go, but I enjoyed writing about the music and could hear in it a resounding commitment to growth and human expression. The songs were never overly accessible nor overly harsh, but set themselves more to worldbuilding and immersing the listener in texture, soft melody, and transient frequencies.
Julien‘s farewell is typically vague. There’s no grand explanation of self or reasoning, just a couple namedrops — Brandi Rayne Hoke was an ex-girlfriend who helped inspired the initial Vision Eternel music; Rain Frances has directed videos and shot photos along the way — and references. No mention of future intention, but one doubts Julien will actually stop making music, even if he does stop doing it under this name. Whatever form his next work, musical or not, takes, I wish him luck and thanks for the sounds. Seems like something of an irony to feel nostalgic about it.
From the PR wire:
Vision Eternel has completed its purpose. From Brandi Rayne Hoke to Rain Frances. This is the end.
I always did prefer Rainy afternoons. So thanks for the memories; the wonderful and the miserable. Now good-bye.
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 13th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
New Mooch tune is a banger. It’s called “Sunburner,” like the headline said, and it’ll be released on June 20 through Black Throne Productions along with the rest of the Canadian riffers’ new long-player, Kin. Coming out in June puts it at 13 months’ remove from the band’s last outing, 2024’s Visions (review here), but if you think that’s me complaining you’re reading it wrong.
The three-piece — who I don’t think have always been partly-based in Yellowknife (Northwest Territories) in addition to Montreal, but are now — will play Rhüne Mountain Fest (June 26-28) to celebrate the release, and they are already confirmed to appear at 2026’s Planet Desert Rock Weekend VI in Las Vegas (info here). The announcement below comes from social media and the album credits and such are from Bandcamp. I snagged the top line from the preorder page. Just trying to pack as much information in as I can. Have I told you I’ve started to think of these things as archival? At very least centralized info I’ll probably want later.
Here you go:
“KIN” is MOOCH’s desert-rock odyssey – their fourth studio album, and is available on 180g fireburst swirl vinyl and CD format – due for release on June 20.
The record’s first single “SUNBURNER” dropped this week. Go give it a listen and tell us what you think. Lots of really good stuff in the works for MOOCH and we have another big announcement for Monday- stay tuned! 🤘
KIN’ is the fourth full length LP by heavy psych band MOOCH. It is the first album to be released in collaboration with Canadian Indie label, Black Throne Productions.
Tracklisting: 1. YR4 2. Meteor 3. Sunburner 4. Hang Me Out (False Sun) 5. Prominence 6. Lightning Rod 7. Gemini 8. Zenith
Produced By MOOCH Mixing: Julian Iac Mastering: Richard Addison At Trillium Mastering Recorded By: Julian Iac At Icebox Studio And Clayton Dupuis At Holy Mountain Studio Vocal Coach, Vocal Arrangement, Slide Guitar On Gemini : Joe Segreti Additional Arrangement: Clove Lombardi Album Artwork: Deliriavision
KIN Canadian Tour 2025 🌑
We’re proud to present the summer tour for our upcoming album KIN.
June 11 – Kingston June 12 – Ottawa June 19 – Kitchener June 20 – Toronto June 21 – Barrie June 27 – Oshawa June 28 – Dunnville
July 4 – Montreal July 5 – Quebec City July 19/20 – Yellowknife July 23 – Lethbridge July 24 – Edmonton July 25 – Red Deer July 26 – Calgary
We’re lucky to be sharing the road with friends old and new.
See y’all on the road ✌️
*ticket links will be rolling out this week for various legs of the tour. By the end of the week you should be able to find your city in our Linktree ✅
Poster: @deliriavision
Mooch are: Ben Cornel (Guitar, Bass, Vocals) Julian Iac (Guitar, Bass, Vocals, Keys, Percussion) Alex Segreti (Drums, Percussion, Vocals)
Posted in Reviews on April 15th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
I won’t keep you long here. Today is the last day of this Quarterly Review. It’ll return in July, if all goes according to my plans. I hope in the last seven days of posts you’ve been able to find a release, a band, a song, that’s hit you hard and made your day better. Ultimately that’s why we’re here.
No grand reflections — this is business-as-usual by now for me — but I’ll say that most of this QR was a pleasure to mine through and I’ve added a few releases to my notes for the Best of 2025 come December. If you have too, awesome. If not, there’s still one more chance.
Quarterly Review #61-70:
Daevar, Sub Rosa
While Sub Rosa still basks in the murky sound with which Köln-based doomers Daevar set forth not actually all that long ago — they’re barely an earth-year removed from their second LP, Amber Eyes (review here), and just two from their debut, 2023’s Delirious Rites (review here) — there’s an unquestionable sense of refinement to its procession. “Wishing Well” moves but isn’t rushed. Opener “Catcher in the Rye” feels expansive but is four minutes long. It goes like this. Through most of the 31-minute seven-songer, including the “Hey Bacchus” strum at the start of “Siren Song,” Daevar seem to be working to strip their approach to its most crucial elements, and when they arrive at the seven-minute finale “FDSMD,” there’s a purposeful shift to a more patient roll. But the flow within and between tracks is still very much an asset for Daevar as they take full ownership of their sound. This is not a minor moment for this band, and feels indicative of future direction. Something tells me it won’t be that long before we find out if it is.
The follow-up to Rainbows Are Free‘s impressive 2023 outing, Heavy Petal Music (review here), Silver and Gold is the Norman, Oklahoma, six-piece’s fifth album since 2010 and second through Ripple Music. With nine songs that foster psychedelic breadth and tonal largesse alike, the album still has room for frontman Brandon Kistler to lend due persona, and in pairing sharp-cornered progressive lead work on guitar with lower-frequency grooves, Rainbows Are Free feel ‘classic’ in a very modern way. They remain capable of being very, very heavy, as crescendos like “Sleep” and “Hide” reaffirm near the record’s middle, but emphasize aural diversity whether it’s the garage march of “Fadeaway,” the barer thrust of “Dirty” or “Runnin’ With a Friend of the Devil” earlier on, of which the reference is only part of the charm being displayed. Rarely does a band so obviously mature in their craft still sound so hungry to find new ideas in their music.
The pedigreed spacefaring trio Minerall — guitarist Marcel Cultrera (Speck), bassist/synthesist Dave “Sula Bassana” Schmidt (Sula Bassana, Zone Six, etc.), and drummer Tommy Handschick (Kombynat Robotron, Earthbong) — return with two more side-long jams on Strömung, captured at the same two-day 2023 session that produced their early-2024 debut, Bügeln (review here). If you find yourself clenching your stomach in the first half of “Strömung” (19:35) on side A, don’t forget to breathe, and don’t worry, opportunity to do so is coming as the three-piece deconstruct and rebuild the jam toward a fuzzy payoff, only to raise “Welle” (20:24) from its minimalist outset to what seems like the apex at the midpoint only to blow it out the airlock in the song’s back half. That must have been one hell of a 48 hours.
By the time its five minutes are up, “Resources 2.0” has taken its title word and turned it into an insistent, chunky, noise-rocking sneer, still adjacent to the chicanery-laced psych of the song’s earlier going, but a definite fuck-you to modernity, evoking ideas of exploitation of people, places and everything. Philadelphia duo Deathbird Earth — first names only: BJ (Dangerbird, Hulk Smash) and Dave (Psychic Teens, etc.) — offer three songs on Mission, which has the honesty to bill itself as a demo, and from “Resources 2.0” they move into the sub-two-minute “Mission 1.0,” more ambient and laced with samples. The only song without a version number in its title, “Dead Hands” finds the duo likewise indebted to Chrome and Nirvana for a burst-prone, keyboardier vision of gritty spacepunk, vocal bite and all, but honestly, Mission feels like the tip of an experimentalism only beginning to reveal its destructive tendencies. Looking forward to more.
Approaching the 20th anniversary of the band next year, now-more-upstate New York heavy rockers Thinning the Herd return after 12 years with Cull, their third album. Guitarist/vocalist Gavin Spielman in 2023 recruited drummer Rob Sefcik (Begotten, Kings Destroy, Electric Frankenstein, etc.), and as a trio-sounding duo with Spielman adding bass, they dig into 11 raw, DIY rockers that, as one makes their way through the opening title-track, “Monopolist” and “Heady Yeti” and “Burn Ban” — themes from not-in-the-city-anymore prevalent throughout, alongside weed, beer, life, getting screwed over, and so on — play out in fuzzbuzz-grooving succession. Two late instrumentals, “Electric Lizard of Gloom” and the lush, unplugged “Acustank,” provide a breather from the riffs and gruff vibes, the latter with a pickin’-on-doom kind of feel, but across the whole it’s striking how atmospheric Cull is while presenting itself as straightforward as possible.
Let The Edge of Oblivion stand for the righteousness of anti-trend doom. You know what I’m talking about. Not the friendly doom that’s out there weed-worshiping and making friends, but the crunching doom metal proffered by the likes of Cathedral and Saint Vitus. Doom that wore is Sabbathianism as a badge of honor all the more for the fact that, at the time they were doing it, it was so much against the status quo of cool. Phantom Druid‘s fourth album is similarly strident and sure of its approach, and yeah, if you want to say some of the chug in “The 5th Mystical Assignment” sounds like Sleep, I won’t argue. Sleep liked Sabbath too. But the crawl in “Realms of the Unreal” and the dirge in instrumental “The Silent Observer” tell it. This is doom that knows and believes in this form, and is strident and reverential in its making. That “Admiration of the Abyss” caps could hardly be more appropriate. Hail the new truth.
Some context may apply. Kodok is the third long-player from adventurous Cambridge, UK, heavy post-rock/metallers The Grey, as well as their first outing through Majestic Mountain Records, and though much of what the band has done to this point is instrumental and that’s still a big part of who they are as 11:45 opener/longest track (immediate points) “Painted Lady” readily demonstrates, there’s a clear-eyed partial divergence from the norm as guitarist Charlie Gration, bassist Andy Price and drummer Steve Moore welcome guests throughout like Grady Avenell, who adds post-hardcore scathe to “Sharpen the Knife” ahead of the crushing “CHVRCH,” also released as a single, or fattybassman and Ace Skunk Anasie, who appear on the duly textural “AFG,” which also rounds out with a dARKMODE remix. Not a typical release, maybe, but not not either as the band do more than haphazardly insert these guests into their songs; there is a full-length album flow from front to back here, and while they purposefully push limits, the underlying three-piece serve as the unifying factor for the material as perhaps they inevitably would.
With a forward lumber marked by rigorous crash and suitably dense tone, Sun Below‘s apparently-standalone 12-minute single Mammoth’s Tundra tells the story of a wooly mammoth being reborn — I think not through techbro genetic dickery, unlike that dire-wolf story that was going around last week — and laying waste to the ecosystem of the tundra, remaking the food change in its aggro image. Fair enough. The Toronto trio likely recorded “Mammoth’s Tundra” at the same Jan. 2023 sessions that produced their Sept. 2023 split, Inter Terra Solis (review here), and whether you’re here for the immersive groove that rises from the gradual outset, the shred emerging in the second half, or that last meme-ready return of the riff at the end, complete with final slowdown — what? you thought they’d leave you hanging? — they leave the Gods of Stone and Riff smiling. Worship via volume, distortion, and nod.
It’s been nine years since Montreal’s Tumbleweed Dealer released their third album, but as the fourth, Dark Green offers instrumentalist narrative and a range of outside contributions to expand the sound and maybe make up for lost time. Across 10 tracks and 39 minutes, bassist/guitarist Seb Painchaud, synthesist/producer Jean-Baptiste Joubaud and drummer Angelo Fata broaden their arrangements to include Mellotron, Hammond, Wurlitzer, Rhodes and other keys as well as what basically amounts to a horn section on several tracks, the first blares in “Becoming One with the Bayou” somewhat jarring but coming to make their own kind of sense there and in the subsequent “Dragged Across the Wetlands,” the sax in “Body of the Bog,” and so on. These elements seem to be built around the core performances of the trio, but the going is remarkably fluid despite the range, and though it seems counterintuitive to think of a band who might end a record with a song called “A Soul Made of Sludge” as being progressive and considered in their craft, that’s very clearly what’s happening here.
Electronic dub, pop, death metal, glitchy electronics, krautrock synth, malevolent distortion, some far-off falsetto and some throatgurgling crust — it can only be the always-busy anti-genre activist Collyn McCoy (Unida, High Priestess, Circle of Sighs, etc.) mashing together ideas and making it work. To wit, “Alkahest” (17:36) and “Witchchrist” (16:03) both engage in sound design and worldmaking, take on pop, industrial and metallic aspects, and are an album unto themselves, hypnotic and experimental, the latter marked by a darker underlying drone that lasts until the whole song dissipates. “Necrotic Prayer” (7:28) feels more like collage by the time it gets to its surprise-here’s-a-ripper-guitar-solo-over-that-circa-’92-industrial-beat, but it still has a groove, and “Plutonic” (8:30) moves through static drone and seen-on-TV sampling through death-techno (god I love death techno) to croon, churn out with a sci-fi overlord, and finish with piano and voice; a misdirecting contemplative turn worthy of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. McCoy is a genius and the world will never be ready for these sounds. That’s as plain as I can say it.
