Quarterly Review: Child, Dr. Space, Shadow of Jupiter, Psychedelic Source Records, Fangus, Hollow Drifter, Veilcaste, Robot God, Mothertomb, Producer
Posted in Reviews on August 13th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Some off-laptop bumps and unpleasantness yesterday, but nothing to actually derail this process, just to make it both less efficient and less pleasant. I’m grateful for that. Life happens, and what I’ve learned is that there are two ways to be a “lifer” in music or any kind of anything, and the easier and often more celebrated one is to not have a life. “Oh so and so is such a lifer they’ve toured for 30 years and never got famous.” Cool bro. Go coregulate an hour-long throw-furniture tantrum, still manage to handle your business on your own terms, and then call me. The harder-core lifer has a life beyond the work they’re doing, whatever that may be and whatever Gen-X ‘punk legends’ might tell you otherwise.
Today is the penultimate day of the Quarterly Review, bringing us — you, cool, serene, the picture of grace, and me, a sweaty cavetroll of middle age — closer to the stated goal of 50 releases covered by tomorrow. At this point, I like our chances, but you never know what’s coming until you get there. So let’s get there before declaring victory.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
Child, Rebirth
I’m not sure there’s anybody out there right now who does heavy blues as bluesy as Melbourne, Australia’s Child, and even as their fourth full-length, Rebirth, shifts the balance the ‘rock’ end of blues rock, the emphasis on soul remains strong and central in their work. The album runs 35 minutes and six songs, and with no small task in following up 2023’s Soul Murder (review here), the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Mathias Northway, bassist Rhys Kelly and drummer Michael Lowe bring clarity of purpose to material like “Forgot How to Love,” which takes a desert rock riff to the mud, or the catchy four-minute “Heavy Load.” Working in slow tempos isn’t new for Child — they cook, and good cooking takes time — but they’re still able to make “I Tried (Newy)” move under its fuzzy-as-hell solo, while opener/longest track (immediate points) “Woman Like You” sets the stage for tales of heartbreak, boozehounding and other vaguely self-destructive whathaveyou. Northway is an ace on guitar and carries the vocals well, but I’ll put this rhythm section up against just about anybody out there when it comes to sleek, gradual groove. Not a ton of surprises, but still satisfying.
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Dr. Space, Dr. Space’s Wicked Sonic Bulls
Regular collaborator Martin Weaver (Wicked Lady, etc.) handles bass while Tom Ashurst (ex-Hawklords) steps in on guitar and Darren Butler takes up drum duties — all of a sudden, opening track “Shouldn’t You Do It?” (18:24) makes it seem like synthmaster and Øresund Space Collective bandleader/producer Scott “Dr. Space” Heller has a whole band together for Dr. Space’s Wicked Sonic Bulls, the four-song/70-miinute outing that isn’t even his latest at this point but is an immersive joy just the same. The drums bring flow to the float, and Heller‘s e’er-molten synthery is sit-and-take-it-all-in hypnotic, weaving drones behind the dream-tone of Ashurst‘s guitar as the band dynamic takes shape. Of course, the fades-in, goes-everywhere, comes-apart-at-the-end closer “The Underside of Your Tongue” (29:56) is a focal point, and feels daring in terms of tempo even with “Splasing, Lashing, Flashing” (10:43) as preface, but the mood across the almost-certainly-entirely-improvisational outing is, duh, exploratory, and nothing in the resultant material takes away from that. Comforting and rad in kind. Put headphones on and get yourself lost.
Space Rock Productions website
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Shadow of Jupiter, Bones
The largesse in “Bones” and the dudely swagger of “Rumblestrip” puts Bones squarely in the realm of modern capital-‘h’ Heavy, and Chicagoan four-piece Shadow of Jupiter revel in it accordingly. “Riot Dogs” is cavernous and crushing, while “Whatever God You Fear” moves faster like a beefed-up High Desert Queen but holds to the thickness overarching the seven-song entirety here as the band play to multiple sides here, and while I’m not sure what role faith actually plays in their craft, closer “For Heaven Above” feels duly downtrodden and tired of humanity and is Sabbath-rooted beneath all its tonal hugeness, through which the melodic vocals cut smoothly as they have all along. Burl is a factor, but the songwriting is there beneath the well-produced bluster, and though the prevailing impression is in its sheer heft, Shadow of Jupiter hone a sense of dynamic as they plunge into their own distortion and gravitational nod. Bones is their first album for Ripple Music and second overall, and it sure feels like they nailed it in terms of stepping up to the moment.
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Psychedelic Source Records, Pseudopredestinated
Three jams, each hovering on either side of 20 minutes, contemplative and following the stated narrative of casting off mundane woes — busted cars, jobs, etc. — to escape for a bit into the ether. Pseudopredestinated is day-in-the-life psychedelic improvisation, featuring familiar players from the Psychedelic Source Records stable in Bence Ambrus on guitar, Gergely Szabó and David Strausz splitting bass duties and Máte Varga on drums, coming together to headfirst-dive into the aural unknown and see where they end up. In “Protoplanetarian,” that’s a noisier and more active space to answer the graceful build of opener “Precambriality,” and closer “Postpurposes” builds on the low-key shred and pushes further into the far-out. It’s emblematic fare for the Psychedelic Source Records collective, thematically and musically — yes, that is a compliment — and if you find yourself looking also to indulge a bit of escapism from your own mind, immersion awaits. Part of the joy here is never knowing quite where you’ll end up but going, going, going.
Psychedelic Source Records on Bandcamp
Psychedelic Source Records on Spotify
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Fangus, Emerald Dream
Well, you’re a ’70s-sounding heavy rock band with a strong emphasis on Hammond organ, so yes, people are going to say you sound like Deep Purple. The good news is that swinging Montreal five-piece Fangus are too busy dug into their own might-pivot-to-the-next-boogie-at-any-moment, vibe-dense sound to show they care much at all, and a ripper like “Pyre of Love” stands as evidence of this. Keys are a big part of what they do — that Mellotron on the title-track, the organ taking the fore on “Psychoid Telepath,” and so on — but the crunching tone of the guitar and the gutted-out vocals are no less vintage in their mindset, and while I don’t know that it was all recorded live, the band-in-the-room feel is palpable, ditto the chemistry, and that suits them both in the shove of “Time Gambler” and the burgeoning progressivism of “Quest for Fire,” the album as a whole rarely diverting from its sense of movement. Once “Howling Hammer” picks up from establishing its riff, they’re on their way and show little interest in looking back, refusing to be beholden even to the reverence in their sound as they convey freedom and breakout.
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Hollow Drifter, Colours in Time
With two full-lengths and numerous singles/two-songers to their credit since 2019, Amsterdam psychedelic progressive rockers Hollow Drifter sound duly comfortable dwelling somewhere between the two on Colours in Time, on which the first and last tracks — “Morning Fog” (2:27) and “Cradlesong” (1:48) — complement and enhance the atmosphere of the 14-minute centerpiece, “Seasons, Ages, Legends…,” which tinges toward alt rock momentarily but feels warm and organic in its acoustic-guitar foundations even as it grows more lush with the introduction of electrics. The extended piece ebbs and flows but remains purposeful for the duration, and after the first, willfully gorgeous build ends after six minutes, they remain in control in terms of the direction they’re headed, subtly building again toward repetitions of the EP’s title-lyric over nuanced noodling and steady, tense drums that give hints of the unfolding about to take place as they move into the solo. The harmonized folk of “Morning Fog” and acoustic strum/keys of “Cradlesong” fit and flesh out the atmosphere, and as this is my first experience with the band, the message of homework to do is almost as clear as the evocations of the music itself. Get pastoral.
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Veilcaste, Hellward
Keyed for onslaught, Hellward is the fourth full-length from Indianapolis veteran heavymakers Veilcaste, who bring together doom, sludge and post-metallic atmospheres to create a style that’s almost universally oppressive, even in its moments of foreboding quiet, and able to harness an intensity that extends to the “You don’t belong here” lyrical reptitions of the title-track. How they transposed my inner monologue to fit the song, I don’t know, but kudos. The bellowing “Chains” and worldcrumbling “Worn in Stone” show some influence from ’90s metal, whether that’s Sepultura‘s slowdowns or Godflesh, but at this point Veilcaste have found their niche in consuming aggression, and from the outset-descent of “Embedded” to the oblivion-march into the subdued acoustic finish of “I Am the Guillotine,” they punish aurally and conjure depths of mix in which there’s still intricacy and humanity to be found. I’ve had days that sound exactly like “Anchored.” Maybe you have too, if you’re reading this.
Third House Communications on Bandcamp
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Robot God, Onto the Afterlife
Onto the Afterlife makes itself a journey, and maybe that’s not such a deep insight since the title itself does more than hint at it, but the way Sydney heavy rockers Robot God take their fifth album from its relatively straight-ahead beginnings to a gradually broader-reaching mindset across the longer final three tracks — the penultimate “I Am the Night” becoming both a celebration of Sabbathianism and an expansive psychedelic jaunt in its 11 minutes — feels purposeful on the part of the prolific trio, and the procession is all the more a joy to follow after the wakeup crashes of “Soldier of Love” and the semiprog chug of the title-track at the outset, atmosphere being the key to tying it all together. Centerpiece “Cerebral Annihilation” marks the turn, instrumental save for its sample, and the builds of “Long Goodbye” are suited to round out, but it’s the fluidity of the changes within and between the songs and the obvious care put into their craft that lets Onto the Afterlife carry the listener across its 41-minute duration. Without sounding morbid, it’s a trip very much worth taking.
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Mothertomb, Dying to Live
The debut full-length from North Michigan atmospheric doom four-piece Mothertomb, Dying to Live, brims with purpose from the three-minute mood-setting intro “The Summoning” onward. And indeed, mood becomes integral throughout the five-track/39-minute stretch as “Cythraul” picks up from the intro with a 10-minute croon-doom build, unshy in its metal but not anymore beholden to the double-kick than it needs to be to get the point across. The four-piece of vocalist/cover artist Alice Gawlinski, guitarist Chance Gawlinski, bassist Alton Minor and drummer Mike Benitez remind atmospherically of dark-arts practicioners like Second Grave in their ambient take on doom metal — emphasis on both the doom and the metal — in “Beware,” but “Mountain Hag” is more stoned in its first-half roll before the operatics and screams and crush, so I’m not prepared to say the book is closed on what they’re going for sound-wise. Nonetheless, as they end with the also-hard-hitting title-track’s apex screams, the potential for forward growth is easy to hear. Won’t be for everyone, but will land hard with those who can get to its level.
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Producer, Three
With two members of Alabama Thunderpussy in the lineup — guitarist Ryan Lake and drummer Bryan Cox — and Fire Faithful‘s Jon Bone on bass, it shouldn’t really come as a surprise that Richmond, Virginia’s Producer have more than a tinge of Southern heavy to their sound, but the band completed by guitarist Mike Jarvis and vocalist Kenny Ball run that through a thread of classic heavy metal and find clarity in the slowdown of “The Climb” and the harder push of “The Upper East Side Sadists,” with the two-minute “A Natural Death” fostering swing to follow the AC/DC-ism of opening cut “Nailed to the Cross” before closer/still-under-five-minute longest track “Vengeful God Complex” seems to pull the various sides together. Three takes its title from the fact that it’s the band’s third EP, which I chalk up to a conscious choice because there’s no way they’re not ready for an album if they don’t want to be. I’ll take 18 minutes in the swamp though, to be sure.
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