Posted in Whathaveyou on February 1st, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Staring at the poster of the finished lineup, there’s nothing more to do than congratulate the Desertscene crew on Desertfest London 2023. You could spend an entire day at any single stage in any single venue and call it front-to-back a good time. I’ve been posting festival lineups for Desertfest since it started in 2012 and this is the biggest and best it’s ever been. If you’re going, I’ll tell you flat out I’m jealous. It looks like it will be an amazing experience, and right up to the last lineup announcement, it’s quality as much as quantity when it comes to who is playing, on what stage, and when. It is the heavy festival ideal; a lineup that crosses generations and geographies to give those fortunate enough to be there something they’ll never forget.
So that’s it. Go if you can. Here’s the reportedly final update:
Desertfest London announces final bands and day splits for 2023, including Nebula, Dozer, Fatso Jetson + more
Desertfest London have announced the final bands and day-splits for 2023’s line-up, which will be taking place across Camden from Friday 5th to Sunday 7th May and promises to be heavier than the King’s coronation crown.
The final few bands to join the already stellar line-up includes the heavy groove rocking trio Nebula, Sweden’s stalwarts of stoner Dozer and the godfathers of the Desert Fatso Jetson. French post-metallers Year Of No Light will also be playing their first London show since 2013.
Also joining the line-up is Antwerp’s Gnome who will bring their dirty riffs, anarcho-punks Bad Breeding to get everyone fired up and acclaimed virtuoso Cellist Jo Quail to bring another dynamic to proceedings.
Electric Funeral will also be keeping the party going with a Sabbath covers set at Friday night’s after party and the festival is completed with Elder Druid, Kurokuma, Firebreather, Earth Moves, Untitled With Drums, Graywave, Mountains, Rosy Finch, Lowen, Homecoming, Wall and Death Wvrm.
The final additions join festival headliners and cult heroes Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats who will be playing the Roundhouse for the very first time. As one of the most widely-requested bands in the Desertfest-sphere, Uncle Acid’s trippy and melodic riff-driven hard-rock is uniquely original, yet an utterly timeless beast and will close Desertfest 2023 in a mystical cloud of doom and awe.
Friday’s headliners are none other than Swedish heavy-blues maestros Graveyard who will draw out raw emotion with their lyrical prowess & introspective compositions whilst Saturday welcomes back Corrosion of Conformity who have not been on UK soil since 2018 so expect big, loud and memorable things from their appearance at the festival!
Full Line-Up for Desertfest London 2023:
FRIDAY 5TH MAY ELECTRIC BALLROOM GRAVEYARD KADAVAR CHURCH OF MISERY VALLEY OF THE SUN SPACESLUG ELECTRIC FUNERAL (AFTER PARTY)
UNDERWORLD DISCHARGE BAD BREEDING DAWN RAY’D KUROKUMA TERROR COSMICO
POWERHAUS YEAR OF NO LIGHT SUM OF R EARTH MOVES WYATT E IRON JINN
Posted in Reviews on January 2nd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Here we are. Welcome to 2023 and to both the first Quarterly Review of this year and the kind of unofficial closeout of 2022. These probably won’t be the last writeups for releases from the year just finished — if past is prologue, I’ll remain months if not years behind in some cases; you do what you can — but from here on out it’s more about this year than last in the general balance of what’s covered. That’s the hope, anyway. Talk to me in April to see how it’s going.
I won’t delay further except to remind that we’ll do 10 reviews per day between now and next Friday for a total of 100 covered, and to say thanks if you keep up with it at all. I hope you find something that resonates with you, otherwise there’s not much point in the endeavor at all. So here we go.
Winter 2023 Quarterly Review #1-10:
Buddha Sentenza, High Tech Low Life
With a foundation in instrumental meditative heavy psychedelia, Heidelberg, Germany’s Buddha Sentenza push outward along a number of different paths across their third album, High Tech Low Life, as in the second of five cuts, “Anabranch,” which builds on the mood-setting linear build and faster payoff of opener “Oars” and adds both acoustic guitar, metal-impact kick drum and thrash-born (but definitely still not entirely thrash) riffing, and later, heavier post-rock nod in the vein of Russian Circles, but topped with willfully grandiose keyboard. Kitchensinkenalia, then! “Ricochet” ups the light to a blinding degree by the time it’s two and a half minutes in, then punks up the bass before ending up in a chill sample-topped stretch of noodle-prog, “Afterglow” answers that with careening space metal, likewise progressive comedown, keyboard shred, some organ and hand-percussion behind Eastern-inflected guitar, and a satisfyingly sweeping apex, and 12-minute finale “Shapeshifters” starts with a classic drum-fueled buildup, takes a victory lap in heavy prog shove, spends a few minutes in dynamic volume trades, gets funky behind a another shreddy solo, peaks, sprints, crashes, and lumbers confidently to its finish, as if to underscore the point that whatever Buddha Sentenza want to make happen, they’re going to. So be it. High Tech Low Life may be their first record since Semaphora (review here) some seven years ago, but it feels no less masterful for the time between.
Captured raw in self-produced fashion, the Sept. 2022 debut album from Magma Haze sees the four-piece embark on an atmospheric and bluesy take on heavy rock, weaving through grunge and loosely-psychedelic flourish as they begin to shape what will become the textures of their sound across six songs and 42 minutes that are patiently offered but still carry a newer band’s sense of urgency. Beginning with “Will the Wise,” the Bologna, Italy, outfit remind somewhat of Salt Lake City’s Dwellers with the vocals of Alessandro D’Arcangeli in throaty post-earlier-Alice in Chains style, but as they move through “Stonering” and the looser-swinging, drenched-in-wah “Chroma,” their blend becomes more apparent, the ‘stoner’ influence showing up in the general languidity of vibe that persists regardless of a given track’s tempo. To wit, “Volcanic Hill” with its bass-led sway at the start, or the wah behind the resultant shove, building up and breaking down again only to end on the run in a fadeout. The penultimate “Circles” grows more spacious in its back half with what might be organ but I’m pretty sure is still guitar behind purposefully drawn-out vocals, and closer “Moon” grows more distorted and encouragingly fuzzed in its midsection en route to a wisely understated payoff and resonant end. There’s potential here.
Instrumental in its entirety and offered with a companion visual component on Blu-ray with different cover art, The Kybalion is the ambitious, 40-minute single-song debut long-player from Richmond, Virginia’s Future Projektor. With guitarist/vocalist Adam Kravitz and drummer Kevin White — both formerly of sludgesters Gritter; White is also ex-Throttlerod — and Sean Plunkett on bass, the band present an impressive breadth of scope and a sense of cared-for craft throughout their immersive course, and with guitar and sometimes keys from Kravitz leading the way as one movement flows into the next, the procession feels not only smooth, but genuinely progressive in its reach. It’s not that they’re putting on a showcase for technique, but the sense of “The Kybalion” as built up around its stated expressive themes — have fun going down a Wikipedia hole reading about hermeticism — is palpable and the piece grows more daring the deeper it goes, touching on cinematic around 27 minutes in but still keeping a percussive basis for when the heavier roll kicks in a short time later. Culminating in low distortion that shifts into keyboard revelation, The Kybalion is an adventure open to any number of narrative interpretations even beyond the band’s own, and that only makes it a more effective listen.
Berlin duo Grin — one of the several incarnations of DIY-prone power couple Jan (drums, guitar, vocals, production) and Sabine Oberg (bass) alongside EarthShip and Slowshine — grow ever more spacious and melodic on Oct. 2022’s Phantom Knocks, their third full-length released on their own imprint, The Lasting Dose Records. Comprised of eight songs running a tight and composed but purposefully ambient 33 minutes with Sabine‘s bass at the core of airy progressions like that of “Shiver” or the rolling, harsh-vocalized, puts-the-sludge-in-post-sludge “Apex,” Phantom Knocks follows the path laid out on 2019’s Translucent Blades (review here) and blends in more extreme ideas on “Aporia” and the airy pre-finisher “Servants,” but is neither beholden to its float nor its crush; both are tools used in service to the moment’s expression. Because of that, Grin move fluidly through the entirety of Phantom Knocks, intermittently growing monstrous to fill the spaces they’ve created, but mindful as well of keeping those spaces intact. Inarguably the work of a band with a firm sense of its own identity, it nonetheless seems to reach out and pull the listener into its depths.
Though clearly part of Teverts‘ focus on The Lifeblood is toward atmosphere and giving its audience a sense of mood that is maintained throughout its six tracks, a vigorousness reminiscent of later Dozer offsets the post-rocking elements from the Benevento, Italy, three-piece. They are not the first to bring together earthy bass with exploratory guitar overtop and a solid drum underpinning, but after the deceptively raucous one-two of the leadoff title-track and “Draining My Skin,” the more patient unfurling of instrumental side A finale “Under Antares Light” — which boasts a chugging march in its midsection and later reaches that is especially righteous — clues that the full-fuzz stoner rock starting side B with the desert-swinging-into-the-massive-slowdown “UVB-76” is only part of the appeal rather than the sum of it. “Road to Awareness” portrays a metallic current (post-metal, maybe?) in its shouty post-intro vocals and general largesse, but wraps with an engaging and relatively spontaneous-sounding lead before “Comin’ Home” answers back to “The Lifeblood” and that slowdown in “UVB-76” in summarizing the stage-style energy and the vast soundscape it has inhabited all the while. They end catchy, but the final crescendo is instrumental, a big end of the show complete with cymbal wash and drawn solo notes. Bravo.
An engrossing amalgam of lurching extreme doom and blackened metal, the second long-player, Ex Est, by Tilburg, Netherlands’ Ggu:ll is likewise bludgeoning, cruel and grim in its catharsis. The agonies on display seem to come to a sort of wailing head in “Stuip” later on, but that’s well after the ultra-depressive course has been set by “Falter” and “Enkel Achterland.” In terms of style, “Hoisting Ruined Sails” moves through slow death and post-sludge, but the tonal onslaught is only part of the weight on offer, and indeed, Ggu:ll bring dark grey and strobe-afflicted fog to the forward, downward march of “Falter” and the especially raw centerpiece “Samt-al-ras,” setting up a contrast with the speedier guitar in the beginning minutes of closer “Voertuig der Verlorenen” that feels intentional even as the latter decays into churning, harsh noise. There’s a spiritual aspect of the work, but the shadow that’s cast in Ex Est defines it, and the four-piece bring precious little hope amid the swirling and destructive antilife. Because this is so clearly their mission, Ex Est is a triumph almost in spite of itself, but it’s a triumph just the same, even at its moments of most vigorous, slow, skin-peeling crawl.
Fulanno & The Crooked Whispers, Last Call From Hell
While one wouldn’t necessarily call it balanced in runtime with Argentina’s Fulanno offering about 19 minutes of material with Los Angeles’ The Crooked Whispers answering with about 11, their Last Call From Hell split nonetheless presents a two-track sampler of both groups’ cultish doom wares. Fulanno lumber through “Erotic Pleasures in the Catacombs” and “The Cycle of Death” with dark-toned Sabbath-worship-plus-horror-obsession-stoned-fuckall, riding central riffs into a seemingly violent but nodding oblivion, while The Crooked Whispers plod sharply in the scream-topped six minutes of “Bloody Revenge,” giving a tempo kick later on, and follow a steadier dirge pace with “Dig Your Own Grave” while veering into a cleaner, nasal vocal style from Anthony Gaglia (also of LáGoon). Uniting the two bands disparate in geography and general intent is the dug-in vibe that draws out over both, their readiness to celebrate a death-stench vision of riff-led doom that, while, again, differently interpreted by each, sticks in the nose just the same. Nothing else smells like death. You know it immediately, and it’s all over Last Call From Hell.
Not all is as it seems as Mister Earthbound‘s debut album, Shadow Work, gets underway with the hooky “Not to Know” and a riff that reminds of nothing so much as Valley of the Sun, but the key there is in the swing, since that’s what will carry over from the lead track to the remaining six on the 36-minute LP, which turns quickly on the mellow guitar strum of “So Many Ways” to an approach that feels directly drawn from Hisingen Blues-era Graveyard. The wistful bursts of “Coffin Callin'” and the later garage-doomed “Wicked John” follow suit in mood, while “Hot Foot Powder” is more party than pout once it gets going, and the penultimate “Weighed” has more burl to its vocal drawl and an edge of Southern rock to its pre-payoff verses, while the subsequent closer “No Telling” feels like a take on Chris Goss fronting Queens of the Stone Age for “Mosquito Song” on Songs for the Deaf, and yes, that is a compliment. The jury may be out on Mister Earthbound‘s ultimate aesthetic — that is, where they’re headed, they might not be yet — but Shadow Work has songwriting enough at its root that I wouldn’t mind if that jury doesn’t come back. Time will tell, but “multifaceted” is a good place to start when you’ve got your ducks in a row behind you as Mister Earthbound seem to here.
Surely retro sword-bearing theatrics are part of the appeal when it comes to Brooklyn’s potential-rife, signed-in-three-two-one-go doom rockers Castle Rat‘s live presentation, but as they make their studio debut with the four-and-a-half-minute single “Feed the Dream,” that’s not necessarily going to come across to all who take the track on. Fortunately for the band, then, the song is no less thought out. A mid-paced groove that puts the guitar out before the ensuing march and makes way purposefully for the vocals of Riley “The Rat Queen” Pinkerton — who also plays rhythm guitar, while Henry “The Count” Black plays lead, Ronnie “The Plague Doctor” Lanzilotta is on bass and Joshua “The Druid” Strmic drums — to arrive with due presence. With a capital-‘h’ Heavy groove underlying, they bask in classic metal vibes and display a rare willingness to pretend the ’90s never happened. This is to their credit. The sundry boroughs of New York City have had bands playing dress-up with various levels of goofball sex, violence and excess since before the days of Twisted Sister — to be fair, this is glam via anti-glam — but the point with Castle Rat isn’t so much that the idea is new but the interpretation of it is. On the level of the song itself, “Feed the Dream” sounds like a candle being lit. Get your fire emojis ready, if that’s still a thing.
Immediate impact. Mountains‘ Tides End is the London trio’s second long-player behind 2017’s Dust in the Glare (discussed here), and though overall it makes a point of its range, the first impression in opener “Moonchild” is that the band are already on their way and it’s on the listener to keep up. Life and death pervade “Moonchild” and the more intense “Lepa Radić,” which follows, but it’s hard to listen to those two at the beginning, the breakout in “Birds on a Wire,” the heavy roll of “Hiraeth” and the rumble at the core of “Pilgrim” without waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Mountains to more completely unveil their metallic side. It’s there in the guitar solos, the drums, even as “Pilgrim” reminds of somewhat of Green Lung in its clarity of vision, but to their credit, the trio get through “Empire” and “Under the Eaves” and most of “Tides End” itself before the chug swallows them — and the album, it seems — whole. A curious blend of styles, wholly modern, Tides End feels more aggressive in its purposes than did the debut, but that doesn’t at all hurt it as the band journey to that massive finish.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 19th, 2019 by JJ Koczan
Desertscene in London — the same good people who put together Desertfest there and have worked to bring it to New York as well — have paired up with the country/Americana/blues Black Deer Festival to present a stage called The Roadhouse that’ll have custom motorcycles hanging around, camping and a lineup that’s pretty kickass front to back. It’s not exactly like they’re sneaking into the bill, but you’ve got Yawning Man, Asteroid, Brant Bjork and Groundhogs and King Buffalo and Radio Moscow and Duel and Steak and Child and so on bringing their wares to Edridge Park in Kent and it seems to me you could do a hell of a lot worse than kind of having a mini-Desertfest built into another festival. That’s how you reach a broader audience, by playing for people who maybe haven’t already heard you. Seems likely a few heads will be turned across the three-day event.
The PR wire has info:
BLACK DEER FESTIVAL REVEAL MORE NAMES FOR 2019
Another round of carefully curated names have been added to the Black Deer Festival lineup today, making for an impressive second year for the award-winning new event. The three-day celebration of Americana and Country, set in the beautiful Eridge Park in Kent, presents a unique experience combining music, food and Americana culture that can’t be found anywhere else in the UK.
Brant Bjork, the member of two of the most influential 90’s stoner rock bands Kyuss and Fu Manchu, whose desert rock and roots style will resonate from The Roadhouse stage in June. Brant Bjork joins the all American heavy blues contingent of previously announced Left Lane Cruiser, Radio Moscow and The Roadhouse ‘house band’ Steak – all curated by Desertscene for Black Deer.
Completing today’s line up is British blues rock band Groundhogs, who are best known for their 70’s single Cherry Red – a name adopted by one of Britain’s longest standing independent record labels – as well as heavy psych-blues trio King Buffalo, Australian blues-rockers Child, 60’s psychedelic songwriter Roxanne De Bastion, California’s experimental rockers Yawning Man, Country preacher Paul Cauthen, larger than life boatman and bluesman Sonic Gypsy and Hertfordshire’s rock band Redwood.
ARTISTS ANNOUNCED TO DATE (A-Z) Asteroid, Band of Horses, Brant Bjork, Chance McCoy, Child, Daniel Antopolsky, Duel, Fantastic Negrito, Ferris & Sylvester, Gordie MacKeeman and His Rhythm Boys, Groundhogs, Hayseed Dixie, Irish Mythen, Jerron Blind Boy Paxton, John Butler Trio, John Smith, Justin Townes Earle, King Buffalo, Kris Kristofferson & The Strangers, Larkin Poe, Left Lane Cruiser, Lucero, Martin Harley, Morganway, Mountains, Neko Case, Paul Cauthen, Radio Moscow, Redwood, Roxanne De Bastion, Ryan Bingham, Sonic Gypsy, Steak, Stubb, The Black Wizards, The Dead South, The Marcus King Band, The Mavericks, The Sheepdogs, The Staves, The Vintage Caravan, The Wandering Hearts, The Trials of Cato, William Crighton, Worry Dolls, Yawning Man.
TICKET INFORMATION Tier 1 tickets on sale now and are available from https://blackdeerfestival.com/tickets/ Ticket prices from £105 – subject to booking fees.
Tier 2 tickets will be on sale from 26th February.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 13th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
Hey, look, don’t get me wrong. It was pretty impressive when Desertfest London 2018 came out of the gate in September and confirmed Monster Magnet, Eyehategod and Nebula in its first round of announcements. That was badass — no doubt about it. But it seems like with this next batch of acts confirmed, we’re starting to see more of the shape the festival will take. Weedeater will make a return that will no doubt be welcome, and likewise Graveyard have been confirmed as headliners, and Zeke will bring their inimitable speed rock to the proceedings as well.
Portugal’s Miss Lava hit the UK for the first time, Freedom Hawk head across the Atlantic from their Virginia home, Elder return as conquering heroes, and locals Mountains and Trevor’s Head give London a chance to get to know some of its own. If that already looks righteous to you, and it should, there’s a payment plan available. Might want to hit it up.
Here’s details from the PR wire:
DESERTFEST LONDON adds Graveyard and seven more bands to the 2018 lineup; tickets on sale now!
DESERTFEST LONDON are thrilled to reveal the next 8 acts for the 2018 edition of the festival, who will be joining the likes of MONSTER MAGNET, EYEHATEGOD, NEBULA & JEX THOTH to bring a battering ram of riffs down upon Camden next May.
If any band can claim responsibility for the surge of retro-infused, blues-stuffed rock n roll seeping through the underground over the past decade, it has to be GRAVEYARD. We are delighted to announce that following their brief hiatus, the band will make their long awaited UK return in the most deserving form – a headline set at Desertfest 2018. Rising to the top of the fertile Swedish (and indeed European) fuzz-drenched scene thanks to four immaculate albums, Graveyard quickly mastered their straight-down-the-middle rock foundation and built outwards. Effortlessly creating mind invading hooks just waiting to rattle around your brain for weeks and peppering them with doses of heavy psych, subdued moments and the soulful vocals of Joakim Nilsson, it isn’t hard to see why Graveyard are one of the best bands on the planet.
Goliathan sludge shovelers WEEDEATER, who are no strangers to the Desertfest, are finally returning to their spiritual home. Each time these stoner titans have played, the queues have been round the block. Their legendary status precedes them, and for good reason – as frontman Dave ‘Dixie’ Collins revels in stories to punters at the bar of shooting off his own big toe, they are a true DF family band and one of the most “please book them every year” acts in our remit. Weedeater are simply not to be missed this May – it’s going to be sweaty, loud and most importantly, smoky.
We’re pleased once again to be bringing ELDER back to London, hot on the heels of yet another mesmerising album in Reflections of a Floating World. There was no question that the trio had their work cut out in following-up 2015’s epic Lore. Evolving over the past five years, from one of heavy riffing’s most potential-filled practitioners to a progressive scope entirely of their own, each time they take the stage the crowd are undoubtedly blown away by their sheer musical talent.
Also on the bill are Seattle underground legends ZEKE, a band sandwiched somewhere between the rapid-fire, speed-guzzling lunacy of punk and the distinctly bourbon-scented outright abandon of heavy rock n’ roll. Zeke are finally upon our shores and we’re thrilled to announce they’ll be joining us in Camden next May.
We’ve also added the fuzz filled frenzy that is FREEDOM HAWK, Portugal’s stoner-grunge quartet MISS LAVA (making their first UK appearance), proggy Londoners MOUNTAINS and the chunky stoner riffs of TREVOR’S HEAD all lined up for the 2018 proceedings. This is just the tip of the iceberg – stay tuned for the next offering!
Desertfest London 2018 4th-6th May in Camden Town, London 3-day pass (£115) now on sale AT THIS LOCATION
Our special split payment plan is available until December 12th! Pay half of your ticket now and the other half in January. Find more info HERE.
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 16th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
Though it starts off showcasing some thickened All Them Witches-style psych-blues influence in its opening cut, what unfurls from there on Mountains‘ debut album, Dust in the Glare, digs into a crisp and progressive take on heavy rock by the time its gone from “Everglades” to “Towards the Woods.” An efficient delivery throughout veers toward the aggressive on “Fortess” and the closing title-track — also the only cut to cross the other side of the four-minute mark — but there’s a steady sense of atmosphere as a complement, and Dust in the Glare thereby avoids the chestbeating that so much of London’s underground can’t seem to escape.
The short full-length was originally released in March as a digital offering direct from the band — you can stream it via their Bandcamp on the player at the bottom of this post — and has been newly picked up by the Freak Valley fest-associated Rock Freaks Records for a vinyl pressing this Fall, which will also find Mountains playing shows around town with Green Lung and Wychhound.
As the PR wire confirms:
From the ale-swamps of the South come London based heavy-trio Mountains. Comprising of David Jupp (guitar/vocals), Chris Randall (bass) and Josh Hussey (drums), the band finalised their line-up in 2015 and began work on their debut album. In the summer of 2016 Mountains entered Rogue Studios in London to record the eight songs that would make up ‘Dust in the Glare.’
Mastered by Ed Woods (The Who, Ghost of a Thousand, Reuben) and released digitally on March 24th 2017, the record garnered great reviews from some of the big names in the scene. This momentum culminated in August 2017 with Mountains signing to German label Rock Freaks Records (Freak Valley Festival) for a run of heavyweight vinyl across white, marble and splatter variants. The release will be issued in the autumn to coincide with Mountains fall tour with Wychhound and Green Lung.
Tracklisting: 1. Everglades 03:13 2. Lonely Cities 03:59 3. Towards the Woods 02:57 4. Ten Paces 03:42 5. Keep Watch 03:04 6. Fortress 02:43 7. Ithaca 02:03 8. Dust In The Glare 04:24
Mountains live: Sat Sept 30th – The Devonshire Arms – Camden / London Sat Nov 11th – The Big Red – Holloway / London Sat Nov 18th – Scream Lounge – Croydon / London Thu Dec 14th – The Black Heart – Camden / London
Mountains are: David Jupp – Guitar/Vocals Chris Randall – Bass Josh Hussey – Drums
Visalia, California, four-piece Slow Season made their debut on RidingEasy Records late last year with their second album, Mountains (review here), and they’ve been hitting it ever since. Earlier this month, they were out with labelmates The Well and made a stop at SXSW, and in April they’ll be playing with Joy for Record Store Day before launching a US tour in May that starts with Grizzly Fest — held at the Fresno Grizzlies minor league stadium — alongside Fuzz, and a slot the next day at Psycho California with Pentagram, Sleep and about a million others. Not a bad way to launch a tour, and they’ll play with the likes of Mothership, Blackout, Zed, Goya, Hot Lunch and Sons of Huns on the road as well, so it’s not like it’s a letdown after the first two nights either.
There’s a reason I start with touring, and it’s because on tour is also where Slow Season filmed their new video for the song “Wasted Years” from Mountains. You’ll see banners for The Grotto in Fort Worth and The Lost Well in Austin as the four-piece of Hayden Doyel (bass), Daniel Rice (vocals/guitar), Cody Tarbell (drums) and David Kent (guitar) switch between one show and another the song, suitably enough, remaining the same all the while. The clip has a humble, DIY vibe — no computer graphics, no fancy production other than some snappy editing — but it fits with the natural vibe of the track itself, with its catchy but not beat-you-over-the-head-with-the-chorus hook and steady, welcoming roll. As vibes go, Slow Season‘s is an easy one to dig into, organic but unpretentious, and mindful of songwriting even more than aesthetic.
They were recently in the studio again, though I’m not sure to what end, but if I hear of a new release I’ll let you know. In the meantime, enjoy the clip for “Wasted Years” below, followed by the dates for Slow Season‘s upcoming tour:
Slow Season, “Wasted Years” official video
**STARS & BARS TOUR 2015** 5/16 – Grizzly Fest, Fresno w/ FUZZ 5/17 – Psycho CA, Santa Ana w/ Om, Sleep, Pentagram, Earthless, Pallbearer, BANG!, Radio Moscow, and more! 5/18 – Sweet Springs, Los Osos •¥ 5/19 – Blue Lagoon, Santa Cruz •¥ 5/20 – El Rio, San Francisco w/ Hot Lunch • 5/21 – Rock Bar, w/ Zed •¥ 5/22 – The Know, Portland w/ Sons of Huns • 5/23 – Christo’s, Salem w/ Sons of Huns • 5/25 – Urban Lounge, Salt Lake City w/ Red Telephone 5/26 – Three Kings Tavern, Denver w/ Cloud Catcher 5/27 – Foam, Kansas City 5/28 – The Scene, St. Louis + 5/29 – Cobra Lounge, Chicago +* 5/30 – Louie’s, Kalamazoo +* 5/31 – TBA, Columbus ¥ 6/1 – TBA, Nashville ¥ 6/2 – TBA, Birmingham ¥ 6/3 – TBA, Memphis ¥ 6/4 – The Blue Note, OKC ¥ 6/5 – Double Wide, Dallas ¥ 6/6 – The Lost Well, Austin ¥ 6/8 – TBA, Santa Fe 6/9 – TBA, Phoenix w/ Goya 6/10 – Brick by Brick w/ Great Electric Quest, Red Wizard, LOOM •w/ Blackout +w/ Dead Feathers *w/ Bone Hawk ¥ w/ Mothership
Posted in audiObelisk on October 15th, 2014 by JJ Koczan
Short of slicing a piece of tree trunk and putting that on your turntable, vinyl is widely regarded as about as natural-sounding as you can get. We’ve seen a lot of analog worship over the last several years as a result, fed into by a movement of ’70s-minded retroists, and while Slow Season definitely have some of those elements at play, what’s more striking about their RidingEasy Records debut and second album overall, Mountains (review here), is the spaciousness of the recording. Particularly as the record was put together without digital means, without hand-picking their reverb from a thousands-long list of plugins, the breadth of their mix lives up to the aspiration of the LP’s title — something large, immobile, and seemingly removed from time.
I said when I reviewed Mountains that Slow Season possess a strong current of Led Zeppelin fetishism, and that’s true of the track “Endless Mountain” as much as the bulk of the rest of the album. You can hear it in the echoing harmonica and in Cody Tarbell‘s stomping, swinging approach to the drums, which lead the march alongside Hayden Doyel‘s bass and the guitars of David Kent and Daniel Rice, the latter of whom is also responsible for the vocals, somewhere between a rawer take on Graveyard and of course the early, riff-riding work of Robert Plant. As a demonstration of the movement and bounce that Slow Season enact over the course of Mountains, “Endless Mountain” is a prime example, the band easing into a swaggering shuffle that starts and stops in the verse and opens well in the chorus without losing its jammy sensibility.
Mountains will be out Nov. 11 on RidingEasy Records (preorder from the label here), and you can check out “Endless Mountain” on the YouTube player below, followed by more info on the release with some comment from Slow Season. Please enjoy:
Slow Season, “Endless Mountain”
SLOW SEASON to release new album via RIDINGEASY RECORDS on 11th November 2014
Press “play” on Slow Season’s second full-length album Mountains (RidingEasy Records), and you might just forget what era you’re in. It could very well be the sixties, seventies, or now. It almost doesn’t matter though because this is hypnotic, heavy, and howling rock ‘n’ roll that defies both musical and temporal categorization.
The Central California quartet – Daniel Rice (vocals, guitar), David Kent (guitar), Hayden Doyel (bass), and Cody Tarbell (drums) – scale new heights, while recognising where it all began.
“I’d love for people to wonder if this record is actually from 1969,” grins Cody. “We wanted to capture that spirit. That was the goal.”
In order to do so, the musicians holed up in Cody’s home studio, which actually doubles as his parents’ garage, and cut Mountain’s ten tracks throughout the course of early 2014. Hayden had just returned home from a short detour at college in Idaho before recognizing he belonged jamming with his brothers. Officially back in the fold, excitement to record proved pervasive. Moving when inspiration struck, they actually recorded the songs live on reel-to-reel tape. Eschewing the digital mindset of today and not even uttering the words “Pro Tools”, everything was caught on analog, giving the music a crackling kinetic energy.
“I like everything associated with reel-to-reel,” Cody goes on. “I love the sound. I like the mojo that comes along with it.”
“Working with the limitations of tape really pushed us to play our best,” adds Daniel. “You have to prioritize your ideas. You can’t layer too much on there. You also have to nail the takes. You don’t get to go back and cut paste. You have to feel it when you’re playing it. When everything comes together, it really shines because we’re all playing together on tape.”
They lock in during the album opener and first single, ‘Sixty-Eight’. It snaps into a bluesy riff and bombastic beat before Daniel lets out a soaring refrain and a screeching solo roars. “We wanted to nod back to Led Zeppelin,” the vocalist says. “We managed to get this really big sound in the garage. It’s very organic and natural. The subject matter is pretty gnarly, and I’d encourage everyone to take a close listen to the lyrics.”
That mystique carries over to the hazy ‘Synanon’, which details the exploits of a mountain cult nearby where the boys reside. Meanwhile, ‘Endless Mountain’ drives forward on robust guitars and propulsive drums. It also reflects the overarching theme inherent within the title.
“Mountains embody a few things,” explains Daniel. “They’re difficult, seemingly insurmountable, and bigger than us. They’re both foreboding and beautiful at the same time. I had been doing a lot of hiking and backpacking in the higher Sierra Nevada. It all fit together. We live right next to Sequoia National Park, and we go up there all the time. We connect with the idea of man versus nature.”
Slow Season first emerged in 2012 with their self-titled debut. Supported by shows throughout California and nationally, they began to garner palpable buzz. Now, Mountains kicks off their next chapter. However, they’ll continue to exist within an epoch of their own.
Daniel leaves off, “I want people to walk away knowing there’s integrity behind the music, the process, the words being sung, and the notes being played. We love what we do, and we hope that listeners do too.”
Yeah, it’s been a couple weeks since I added records to The Obelisk Radio playlist, mostly because these posts are a pain to set up, but once again, I’ve been keeping track of stuff to go up and this time around we’ve got 24 new albums joining the ranks. Some of it is stuff recently covered — 35007, Ice Dragon, Truckfighters — and some has yet to be — Nick Oliveri, Brant Bjork — but as ever, it’s a lot of good stuff, so if you get the chance to hit up the playlist and updates page, you should find plenty there for your perusal, in addition to the running tab of the playlist, which from where I sit puts the whole stream in a different league of enjoyable. Hope you agree.
A lot to cover, so let’s get to it.
The Obelisk Radio Adds for Oct. 3, 2014:
The Melvins, Hold it In
Sometimes I have to wonder how it is that for a band who are so off the wall and experimental one can still basically approach any Melvins record no matter who’s involved in making it and have a decent idea of what to expect. Yeah, guitarist/vocalist King Buzzo and drummer Dale Crover have hooked up with JD Pinkus and Paul Leary of Butthole Surfers, and yeah, “You Can Make Me Wait” sounds like it would play over alternate universe credits to The Breakfast Club, but a lot of Hold it In (released by Ipecac) — “Bride of Crankenstein,” “Onions Make the Milk Taste Bad,” “Sesame Street Meat,” “Nine Yards” — is pretty much in the Melvins wheelhouse. It’s in moments like the jangly “Eyes on You,” trucker rocking “Piss Pisstoferson,” spacious seven-minute jammer “The Bunk Up” and sprawling noise finish “House of Gasoline” that Hold it In really distinguishes itself, but there are stretches even in those where the Melvins just continue to sound like the Melvins. I know they’ve got a fanbase that will eagerly snap up everything they do, and after 30 years of busting their collective ass on tour and in the studio without major commercial success, I’ll far from begrudge them their following, it just seems like for as much praise is heaped in the direction of every new Melvins release, there’s not nearly as much genuinely new ground being broken as time goes on and that even the gleefully weird territory Hold it In covers is starting to feel an awful lot like a comfort zone. The Melvins on Thee Facebooks, Ipecac Recordings.
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Slow Season, Mountains
Whichever of Cali four-piece Slow Season‘s parents introduced them to Led Zeppelin, thanks. The Visalia outfit will release their second album, Mountains, this November on RidingEasy Records, following-up a 2012 self-titled, and by way of advance notice, the thing’s a ripper, echoing out Plant-style vocals and Bonham stomp with an underlying skater-rock groove that fits well with the label’s output in bands like The Well, Electric Citizen, and so on. Of course, there’s more than thatat play — second cut “Synanon” reminds of some of The Flying Eyes‘ heavy psych rollout — but from the oohing and ahhing that cap “Damo’s Days” to the bombast that comes to the fore in “Wasted Years,” Zeppelin are a central influence, bolstered throughout by touches of early Soundgarden and forays into mega-swagger for “King City” and acoustic psychedelia in “Apparition.” Mountains‘ bread and butter, though, is the meaty riffer fare of “Shake” and closer “The Defector,” the sheer arrogance of which impresses, let alone the fluidity of the riff or the obvious aesthetic drive of the production. Slow Season on Thee Facebooks, RidingEasy Records.
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Beak, Let Time Begin
Not to be confused with Beak>, who are a different band entirely, post-metal four-piece Beak are based in Chicago and Let Time Begin (released by Someoddpilot Records) is their chugging, growling, atmospherically ranging debut full-length. Chicago has proven a hotbed for the genre, and Beak seem well aware of the tenets, trading off crushing riffs for atmospheric post-rock airiness, the lineup of Chris Eichenseer, Jason Goldberg, Andy Bosnak and Jon Slusher taking an Isis influence to unexpected synthy weirdness on “The Breath of Universe” — a vocoder early bringing to mind some of Cynic‘s post-reunion proggism — after the lumbering of “Light Outside.” Longer songs like “Into the Light” and “Carry a Fire” flow well, incorporating some blackened guitar squibblies and echoing screams between them, and the penultimate “Over the Shelter, the Morning” moves from abrasive feedback to contemplative ambience ahead of “Fiery They Rose,” which meters out weighty pummel but ultimately caps Let Time Begin on a subdued note that’s both satisfying and emblematic of a burgeoning will toward individuality. Beak on Thee Facebooks, Someoddpilot Records.
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GravelRoad, El Scuerpo
Seattle blues rockers GravelRoad get the vibe just right on “Waiting for Nothing,” which opens their fifth album, El Scuerpo (Knick Knack Records), rocking out quiet, unpostured blues to lead the way into the record’s varied takes, from the boogie-woogie shuffle of “40 Miles” to the psychedelic fluidity of “Green Grass,” straight-up heavy rock of “DD Amin,” languid roll of “Asteroid” and upbeat finish of “Flesh and Bone,” which is among the happiest songs I’ve ever heard about cannibalism. My chief issue with some of their past work has been a tendency toward disjointedness and a modern blues production style that hones in on clarity and the brightness of the guitar and gives up some of the malevolence of the low end — something more related to my own perspective listening than the actual mission of the band — but El Scuerpo flows well and a mix by Jack “Yes, That Jack Endino” Endino treats eight-minute heavy jam rocker “Asteroid” with its due reverence, and the more I hear it, the more I want to hear it. GravelRoad on Thee Facebooks, Knick Knack Records.
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Lords of Beacon House, Lords of Beacon House
Los Angeles heavy rockers Lords of Beacon House serve notice of their arrival this fall via a three-song EP on Homhomhom that takes loose, Graveyard-style ’70s worship and adds a touch of Western flair in the snare march of “Seven Days” and Sabbathian string pull on “Cool Water Blues.” The EP (they call it an album, it’s really more of a demo, but whatever you want to call it) runs shortest to longest, and opener “Distant Thunder” is the most straightforward of the bunch accordingly, but even in its 8-track chug, Lords of Beacon House showcase natural tones and a penchant for writing strong hooks that continues right through until the last repeat of the line “I asked for water/She gave me gasoline” in “Cool Water Blues,” which rounds out with familiar if welcome nod. They’re a new band and so far as I can tell, this self-titled is the first audio they’ve made public, but they seem to have a handle on what they want to do, and that’s never a bad place to start working from. More to come, I’m sure, and thanks to Bill Goodman for steering me their way. Lords of Beacon House on Thee Facebooks, Homhomhom.
