Posted in Whathaveyou on November 14th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Some crossover here, admittedly, in acts like Messa, Amenra, Blackwater Holylight, the Giant Squid reunion (nice), Mother of Graves, Body Void, and so on. Immortal Bird, whom I’ve spent the last 15 years feeling like I should be writing about, etc., alongside the extremity of grindcore pioneers Repulsion and plenty of other noise of varying harshnesses. I’ve covered the fest before, but if you’ll note the first word of the post, it’s “some” crossover, and that’s true here too. Even some bands, like Sumerlands or Mother of Graves, I can’t decide if they fit here or not. I like that about them, and I like that about Northwest Terror Fest 2024, which has early bird tickets on sale as of 1PM Eastern yesterda.
But while there’s badassery in the bill and that’s not at all a surprise, the dual-prong motive for posting is sharing the GoFundMe link for Northwest Terror Fest (and Southwest Terror Fest) founder David Rodgers, who has a rare form of cancer detailed below. I remember working with David about a decade ago when he had his band Godhunter (still ahead of their time) going and his label Battleground Records, both of which seem to take a back seat ultimately to the success of the festivals, and fair enough. He’s someone who’s done excellent work to move aesthetic forward, in his own artistic output and in terms of supporting the work of others, and if you can help, you should. This country has shit for medicine and doesn’t care if you live or die. Would in many ways prefer you dead. All we as humans have is each other. No one’s coming to save us.
From the PR wire:
Northwest Terror Fest Announces 2024 Line-up; Early Bird Tickets On Sale Monday November 13, 10am PST
NORTHWEST TERROR FEST, the Pacific Northwest’s only destination extreme music festival, will make its triumphant return for its 6th year, in Seattle, WA.
A limited number of early-bird tickets go on sale Monday, November 13, 2023 at 10am PST.
The inclusive extreme music festival will take place over three days – May 9th to May 11th – at two of Seattle’s premier music venues, Neumos and Barboza, located in Seattle’s historical Capital Hill neighborhood.
Over three days of NORTHWEST TERROR FEST – which is sponsored by the highly revered heavy metal site NO CLEAN SINGING, – the festival will showcase extreme metal, hardcore punk, and experimental music from 36 acts from the heavy metal underground and beyond. The festival packs a powerful lineup with Washington/Oregon exclusive performances by Daeva, Eternal Champion, Forbidden, Giant Squid (reunion performing Metridium Fields), Repulsion, Spiritual Poison, Sumerlands, and Weekend Nachos!
About the festival, The Northwest Terror Fest Planning Committee shares:
“We’re excited to once again bring three days of diverse and devastating music to Seattle in May, 2024. This year’s lineup features many of the most exciting new bands in metal, a handful of long-awaited reunions, excursions into industrial and darkwave, and a showcase of young and ambitious bands keeping underground music alive in the Pacific Northwest. Team NWTF is eternally grateful for the support of Washington and Oregon’s extreme music community – Northwest Terror Fest will always be for you. We’re looking forward to seeing you all in the pit. Until then, leave no cross unturned!”
Northwest Terror Fest VI 2024 Full Line-up May 9-11 2024 | Seattle, WA Neumos & Barboza
David, a founder of Southwest Terror Fest and Northwest Terror Fest, has unfortunately been diagnosed with an incurable form of cancer called Multiple Myeloma cancer. The cancer can only be treated, with the goal of entering a remission state that will allow David to live longer. Without treatment, his life expectancy would be two years, at most. The end of his life would be on a dialysis machine. David’s family has decided to throw everything they have at this and fight it with chemotherapy and stem cell replacement therapy. His doctors are hopeful that these treatments will push the cancer into a dormant state. They believe that this will give David nine years, or more.
Anything that you can give will help David and his family greatly. If you are unable to financially support the fundraiser, simply sharing the Gofundme page on the internet would be immensely appreciated:https://www.gofundme.com/f/xuvgvh-davids-cancer-fund.
Posted in Reviews on January 10th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Oh, hello. I didn’t see you come in. What’s going on? Not much. You? Well, you see, it’s just another 10 records for the Quarterly Review, you know how it goes. Yup, day seven. That’s up to 70 records, and it’ll keep going for the rest of this week. Have I mentioned yet I was thinking about adding an 11th day? What can I say, some cool stuff has come along this last week and a half since I’ve been doing this. Better now than in a couple months, maybe. Anyway, make yourself comfortable. Hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading.
Winter 2023 Quarterly Review #61-70:
Jason Simon, Hindsight 2020
What this sweetly melodic and delicately arranged 2022 collection lacks in marketing — the title Hindsight 2020 is accurate in that that’s when it was mostly recorded, but ‘let’s remember an awful time’ is hardly a way to pitch an audience on a vinyl — but as Jason Simon (also Dead Meadow) languidly meanders through covers of Tom Petty (“Crawling Back to You” becomes ethereal post-rock), Jody Reynolds & Bobbie Gentry, The Gun Club, Jackson C. Frank, Bert Jansch and John Prine, the latter of whom passed away after contracting covid-19, without the lockdown from which this record probably wouldn’t exist as it does. Probably not a coincidence. On banjo for three peppered-in originals starting with a relaxed mood-setting intro, as well as guitar, vocals, Moog, bass, Juno-60, and mandolin throughout, Simon and a few companions dig into these folk roots, making them his own and creating a whole-album flow for what might in less capable hands be a hodgepodge of competing influences. As it stands, by the time the melancholy strum of “October” takes hold, Simon has long since succeeded in creating a vibe that rightly has “Ghosts Gather Now” as its centerpiece, pulling as it does from these spirits to make something of its own. 2020 sucked; nobody’s arguing. But at least in hindsight something beautiful can come out of it.
Virginian trio Smoke cast an eye toward the trailblazing heavy psych of Sungrazer on “Temple” from their early 2022 debut album, guitarist Dalton handling the melodic vocals that will soon enough grow throatier in their passionate delivery, but even more than this, Groupthink sees the band — Dalton, guitarist Ben and drummer Alex; first names only — digging full-on into turn-of-the-century-style nodding heavy, shades of Man’s Ruin-era classics from the likes of Acid King, maybe even some of Sons of Otis‘ bombed-out largesse, showing themselves filtered through a next-generational execution, varied enough so as not to be single-minded in idolatry as “Davidian” picks up energy in its late solo, the 18-minute “One Eyed King” earns its lumbering payoff and lines of floating guitar, “The Supplication of Flame” arrives based around acoustic guitar forward in the mix ahead of the electrics (at least at first) and closer “Telah” basks in a righteous stomp that underscores the point. At 58 minutes, Groupthink isn’t a minor undertaking, but it is one of 2022’s most impressive debut albums and laced with potential for what may develop in their sound. It is stronger in craft than one might initially think, and has to be to hold up all that heft in its fuzz.
Not so much ’70s-style retroism as tapping into a kind of raw, ’90s heavy rock vision — Nebula, Monster Magnet, as well as Peru and greater South America’s own storied history of fuzzmaking — Rifle‘s Repossessed is relatively rough in its production, but as in the best of cases, that becomes a part of its appeal as the Lima-based three-piece of guitarist/bassist/vocalist Alejandro Suni, guitarist Magno Mendoza and drummer Cesar Araujo ride their riffs down the highway and into a fog of tonal buzz, fervent, butt-sized low end and druggy, outsider vibes. “The Thrill is Back” struts coated in road dirt as it is, and that thrill is found likewise in the scorch-psych of “Demon Djinn” and the earlier blowout “Fiend” that follows opener “Seven Thousand Demons” and sets a bluesy lyrical foundation so that six-minute finale “Spirit Rise” seems to offer some sense of realization or, if not that, then at least acceptance of this well-baked way of life. As the band’s first release, this late-2022 seven-song/32-minute offering feels ready to be pressed up on vinyl by some discerning purveyor, if not for the underlying desert rock drive of “Madness” then surely for the swing in “Sonic Rage,” and it’s one of those records that isn’t going to speak to everyone, but is going to hit just right for some others, dug as it is into a niche between what’s come before and its own encapsulation of a red-eyed stoner future.
If there should be any doubt that Indianapolis’ Mother of Graves are schooled in the sound they’re shooting for, let the fact that Dan Swanö (Katatonia, Opeth, on into infinity) mastered the recording/mix by the band’s own Ben Sandman make it clear where their particular angle on melancholic death-doom is coming from in its grim, wintry soul-dance. Where the Shadows Adorn follows 2020’s likewise-dead-on debut, In Somber Dreams (discussed here), but the stately, poised rollout of a song like “Rain” and the subdued sections before “Of Solitude and Stone” enters its last push, has all the hallmarks of forward growth in songwriting as well as in confidence on the part of the band. Front to back, Where the Shadows Adorn is deathly in its consumption, a fresh interpretation of a moment in history when the likes of Katatonia especially but also acts like My Dying Bride and others of the Peaceville ilk were considered on the extreme end of metal despite their sometimes-grueling tempos. The question remains whether this is where Mother of Graves will reside for the duration or if, like their influences, their depressive streak will grow more melodic with age. As it stands, adorned in shadow, their emotional and atmospheric weight is darkly majestic.
This self-titled four-songer is the first release from Helsinki, Finland’s Swarm, and though it’s billed as an EP, its 28 minutes are wrought with a substantial flow and unifying melodic complexity due both to the depth of vocal complementary arrangements between singer Hilja Vedenpää and guitarist Panu Willman, as well as the intertwining of Willman and Einari Toiviainen‘s guitars atop the rolling grooves of Leo Lehtonen‘s bass and Dani Paajanen‘s drumming; the whole band operating together with a sense of purpose that goes beyond the standard ‘riff out and see what happens’ beginning of so many bands. A line of rhythmic notes atop the riff in “Nevermore” around five minutes is emblematic of the flourish the band brings to the release, and one would note the grungier float in “There Again,” and the moodier acoustics of “Frail” and the more full-on duet in the verses of closer “We Should Know” — never mind the pre-fade chug that caps or the consuming heft offsetting those verses — as further distinguishing factors. Self-released in June 2022, Swarm‘s Swarm carries the air of a precursor, and though it’s not known yet to precisely what, the note to keep eyes and ears open is well received. To put it another way, they sound very much like they know what they want to be and to accomplish as a group. If they’re heading into a debut album next, they’re ready to take on the task.
The self-titled-era Alice in Chains-style vocals on Baardvader‘s second LP, Foolish Fires, make them a ready standout from the slew of up and coming European heavy rollers, but the Den Haag trio have a distinct blend of crunch in their tone and atmosphere surrounding that make a song such as “Understand” memorable for more than just the pleading repetitions of its title in the hook. Opener “Pray” sets a hard-hitting fluidity in motion and “Illuminate” answers back as it caps side A with (dat) bass and airy guitar in an open soundscape soon to be filled with a wall o’ fuzz and more dug-in grunge spirit. As they make their way toward the louder, vocally-layered, highlight-solo finish that the 10-minutes “Echoes” provides, there’s some trace of The Machine‘s noisier affinity in their tones on “Blinded Out,” including the solo, and “Prolong Eternity” culminates with intensity leading into the already-noted closer, but “Echoes” has the throatier shouts — like “Illuminate” before it — to back its case as the destination for where they’ve been headed all along, and works to send Foolish Fires out as a triumphant demonstration of Baardvader‘s appeal, which is relatively straightforward considering how much they nod along the way, their sound sharing grunge’s ability to be aggressive without being metal, heavy without being aggressive, and something of their own that still rings familiar. They’re just beginning to realize their potential, and this record is an important step in that process.
Rest easy, you’re in capable hands. And even if you didn’t hear Love Gang‘s 2020 debut, Dead Man’s Game (review here), the fact that the Denver four-piece went down to Austin, Texas, to record with Gian Ortiz of Amplified Heat producing tells you what you need to know about their boogie on Meanstreak. And what you need to know is largely that you want to hear it. As one might expect, ’70s vibes pervade the eight-tracker, which puts the guitars forward and de-emphasizes some of the organ and flute one might’ve encountered on their first LP, saving it for side B’s “Shake This Feelin’,” the six-minute stretchout “Headed Down to Mexico,” and the closing “Fade Away,” where it ties together with the thrust of earlier cuts like the circuitous “Blinded by Fear” (not an At the Gates cover, though that would be fun), or “Deathride” and the title-track, which shove shove shove as the opening pair so “Bad News” can complete the barnburning salvo. Tucked away before the finale is “Same Ol’ Blues,” a harmonica-laced acoustic cut dug out of your cool uncle’s record collection so that some day, if you’re lucky, some shitbird younger relation of yours may come along and find it here in your own record collection, thus perpetuating the cycle of boogie into perpetuity. Humanity should be so lucky.
The first and probably not last Astral Magic release of 2023, We Are Stardust, finds project-spearhead Santtu Laakso — songwriting, synth, bass, vocals, mixing, cover art, etc. — working mostly in solo fashion. Jonathan Segel of Camper Van Beethoven/Øresund Space Collective adds guitar and violin (he also mastered the recording), and Samuli Sailo plays guitar on “Drop It,” but the 11-song/60-minute space rocker bears the hallmarks of Laakso‘s Hawkwindian craft, the songs rife with layers of synth and effects behind the forward vocals, programmed drums behind bolstering the krautrock feel. There’s a mellower jam like “Bottled Up Inside,” which puts the guitar solo where voice(s) might otherwise be, and “Out in the Cold” touches loosely on Pink Floyd without giving over entirely to that impulse or meandering too far from its central progression, letting the swirling “Lost Planet” and “Violet Sky” finish with a return to the kosmiche of the opening title-track and “The Simulacra,” which feels almost like a return to ground after the proto-New Wave-y “They Walk Among Us,” though “ground” should be considered on relative terms there because by most standards, Astral Magic start, end, and remain sonically in the farther far out.
Thank You Lord for Satan, Thank You Lord for Satan
Self-recorded exploratory songcraft is writ large across the Buh Records self-titled debut from Thank You Lord for Satan — the Lima, Peru, two-piece of Paloma La Hoz (ex-Mitad Humana) and Henry Gates (Resplandor) — and the effect throughout the born-during-pandemic-lockdown eight-song offering is a kind of poised intimacy, artsy and performative as La Hoz handles most of but not all the lead vocals with Gates joining in, as on the moody shoegazer “Wet Morning” ahead of the pointedly Badalamenti-esque “Before EQ1.” Opener “A Million Songs Ago” is a rocker, and “Wet Morning” too in at least its including drums, but that’s only a piece of what Thank You Lord for Satan are digging into, as “Isolation” feels duly empty and religious and “Conversations al Amanecer” and “When We Dance” has a kind of electronic-inflected pop-psych at its core, willfully contrasting the folkish “Sad Song” (with Gates‘ lead vocal) and “Devine Destiny,” a side B counterpart to “Isolation” that reveals the hidden structure beneath all this go-wherever-ism, or at very least ends the album on a suitably contemplative note, some electronic snare-ish sound there rising in the mix before being cast off into the ether with the rest of everything.
Consider this less a review of The Corpse Vanishes, which is but a single Dec. 2022 three-songer among a glut of releases — including at least one more recent — from Herndon, Virginia’s Druid Stone available through their Bandcamp. The ethic of the band, as led by guitarist Demeter Capsalis, would seem to be as bootleg as possible. Shows are recorded and presented barebones. Rehearsal room demos like “The Corpse Vanishes” and “Night of the Living Dead” — which jams its way into “What Child is This” — here are as raw as raw gets, and in the 20-minute included jam on Electric Wizard‘s “Mother of Serpents,” which was recorded live on Dec. 2 and issued four days later, the power goes out for about three of the first five minutes and Capsalis, who has already explained that most of the band had other stuff to do and that’s why he’s jamming with two friends for the full set, has to keep it going on stage banter alone. Most bands would never release that kind of thing. I respect the shit out of it. Not just because I dig bootlegs — though I do — but because in this age of infinite everything, why not release everything? Don’t you know the fucking planet’s dying? Why the hell would you keep secrets? Who has time for that? Fuck it. Put it all out there. Absolutely. Whether you dig into The Corpse Vanishes or any other of the slew, you might just find that whatever you listen to afterward seems unnecessarily polished. And maybe it is.
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 8th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Simple motivations here. I dug the last Mother of Graves album, In Somber Dreams (discussed here), and so want to keep an eye out for the next one from the Indianapolis-based death-doomers. What follows isn’t really a release announcement for Where the Shadows Adorn, the band’s impending second outing through Wise Blood Records, so the details are fairly light, but I’ll take an artwork-reveal as a heads up that the record is happening, even without the corresponding info that might otherwise accompany such a thing.
Especially since the art rules. I didn’t have anything against the last album’s cover, but this is definitely an upgrade. Album’s out in October and preorders start Aug. 15, which is either this week or so far in the future my mind can’t comprehend it. I’m not sure which.
From the PR wire via Bandcamp, or the other way around:
Today we reveal the artwork for the upcoming Mother of Graves LP, “Where the Shadows Adorn.” This cover is just half of the amazing gatefold painting commissioned from the extraordinarily talented Paolo Girardi. You have seen his work on the cover of Power Trip’s “Nightmare Logic.” I also love his covers for recent albums by Bewitcher, Runemagick, and Yatra. This artwork is a perfect glimpse into the mood and atmosphere of the coming record. We will share the first track and launch pre-orders in 2 weeks, on August 15th. “Where the Shadows Adorn” will emerge from the crypt on October 14th.
Vocalist Brandon Howe on the artwork: “I had a bit on an existing idea when I first approached Paolo, but I didn’t want to strain his creativity and not let him express himself in his own manner. First I had sent him a couple of the songs with lyrics attached as a mood setter. I had found a cool, random piece of abstract art online while surfing that was exactly that and nothing more. It gave me a vision in the way it was done. It reminded me of some sort of really distorted waterfall that had shadow figures in it, almost as if they blended in and were a part of the descending stream. He added his wildly surreal and dreamy touch to it, and we couldn’t be happier with how it turned out! The deep blue colors, the mood, all top notch and perfectly fitting for this record.”
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 5th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
This has been a really awful year for a lot of things and a really good year for death-doom. Tomorrow, preorders go live for the debut EP from Mother of Graves, titled In Somber Dreams, and even though it’s set to release in January, the four-song offering is prefaced by the streaming track “The Urn” that you can hear now at the bottom of this post, and, well, it’s a pretty efficient mood-capture when it comes to the general state of restless melancholia that has complemented the enduring, teeth-grind of anxiety that has me so badly needing to go to the dentist. Also I have a headache.
Anyone wanna talk about politics? The pandemic? The politics of the pandemic? No? Me neither.
Anyone want to check out some cool new tunes? That’s more like it.
Wise Blood Records sent the following down the PR wire, but before I turn it over to the blue text, I just want to say I remember fondly guitarist Chris Morrison‘s former outfit, Bulletwolf, and still have the pint glass they were kind enough to send me with their logo on it. R.I.P. Worm. He was a nice guy in all my dealings with him.
Okay, here goes:
MOTHER OF GRAVES – In Somber Dreams – Wise Blood Records
Melodic death/doom necromancers Mother of Graves conjure old school gloom from their haunting grounds in Indianapolis, IN. Fans of early Katatonia, Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride, Cloak, and Khemmis will make life-long blood-pacts with Mother of Graves’ bleak atmosphere and pitch-black Gothicism. Originally conceived in 2016 by founding guitarist Chris Morrison (Harakiri, Bulletwolf), Mother of Graves was spawned from tragedy as a cathartic outlet.
“The initial inspiration followed the passing of one of my best friends and bandmates in the spring of 2016,” Morrison shares. “I was just in a really dark place for a while after he died and there were certain bands and albums that really hit home at that time and musically captured the grief I was feeling. One album specifically was Katatonia’s Sounds of Decay EP. I always liked that EP, but the way I heard it changed after that. I knew my next musical project had to be something that had a similar vibe. I wanted Mother of Graves to sound like loss and despair.”
Named after a mythological Latvian protector of cemeteries (Kapu m?te), Mother of Graves honors the fallen with poignant heaviness. Morrison’s moving riffs are barbed with thorns and painted with dried blood. Vocalist Brandon Howe (Obscene, Summon the Destroyer) pens gripping lyrics delivered with some of the genre’s most evocative gutturals. Bassist/guitarist Ben Sandman (Harakiri) recorded the album with the deft hand of a mortician preserving beauty. While Morrison acknowledges aesthetic nods to the pioneering Peaceville Records sound, Mother of Graves are far from an easily-defined homage act.
“I basically just tell people we play sad, bleak, melodic, death/doom metal that probably doesn’t sound how you think it is going to sound if you haven’t heard us,” Morrison offers.
It was Mother of Graves’ authenticity and coffin-velvet melodies that first caught the ear of Wise Blood Records. The label eagerly signed the band to release their debut EP, In Somber Dreams. You can also add iconic Swedeath musician and engineer Dan Swanö (Edge of Sanity, Bloodbath) to the litany of the band’s ever-growing supporters. Swanö mastered In Somber Dreams and was immediately entranced by their tomb-dwelling ambience and memorable songwriting. The band’s lyrical focus and vision elevates their stirring compositions even further.
“The most prevalent themes would be the human condition, grief, and loss—whether it be personal or just an overall feeling towards the state in which we exist amplified and twisted into wild fictions,” Howe reveals. “I like to paint really bleak pictures with words, almost like telling a short story,” Howe continues. “Something to invoke the feelings one would get when they’re really immersed in a well-written book. The instruments alone already paint such a monolithic picture of sorrow and despair, so the lyrics flow pretty naturally once I’ve settled into that zone.”
Mother of Graves crawled from sealed sepulchers to share their first songs during the global wreckage of a pandemic. But just like the bittersweet tone of their songs, Morrison offers a glimmer of hope beyond the bleak horizon: More songs are on the way, with a full-length record planned. Until then, enter the somber dreamscape of Mother of Graves and meet the new guardians of old school Melodic Death/Doom.
Tracklisting: 1. In Somber Dreams 2. Nameless Burial 3. The Urn 4. Deliverance
Mother of Graves is: Brandon Howe – Vocals Chris Morrison – Guitars Ben Sandman – Guitars TJ Hunt – Bass Don Curtis – Drums
All music by Chris Morrison and Ben Sandman All lyrics by Brandon Howe Produced, recorded, and mixed by Ben Sandman Mastered by Dan Swanö at Unisound Album cover artwork, design, and layout by Magnus LeGrand
