Welcome to day three of the Spring 2023 Quarterly Review. Traditionally, this is where the halfway point is hit, like that spot on the wall in the Lincoln Tunnel where it says New York on the one side and New Jersey on the other. That’s not the case today — though it still applies as far as this week goes — since this particular QR runs seven days, but one way or the other, I’m glad you’re here. There’s been an absolutely overwhelming amount of stuff so far and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon, so don’t let me keep you, except maybe to say that if you’re actually reading as well as browsing Bandcamp (or whoever) players, it is appreciated. Thanks for reading, to put it another way.

Quarterly Review #21-30:

Signo Rojo, There Was a Hole Here

As lead/longest track — yes, immediate points — “Enough Rope” shifts between modern semi-melodic heavy burl post-Baroness to acoustic-tinged flourish to rolling shout-topped post-hardcore on the way back to its soaring chorus, yes, it’s fair to say Sweden’s Signo Rojo establish a broad swath of sounds on their third full-length, There Was a Hole Here. Later they grow more massive and twisting on “What Love is There,” while “Also-Ran” finds the bass managing to punch through the wall of guitar around it (not complaining) and the concluding “BotFly” lets its lead guitar soar over a crescendo that’s almost post-metal, so they want nothing for variety, but whether it’s “The World Inside” with its progressive chug or the more swaying title-track, the songs are united by tone in the guitars of Elias Mellberg and Ola Bäckström, the shouty vocals of bassist Jonas Nilsson adding aggressive edge, and the drums of Pontus Svensson reinforcing the underlying structures and movements. Self-recorded, mixed by Johan Blomström and mastered by Jack Endino for name-brand recognition, There Was a Hole Here is angles and thrown-elbows, but not disjointed. Tumultuous, they power through and find themselves unbruised while having left a few behind them.

Signo Rojo on Facebook

Majestic Mountain Records store

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Tribunal, The Weight of Remembrance

Stunning first album. Vancouver’s Tribunal — the core duo of cellist/bassist/vocalist Soren Mourne and guitarist/vocalist Etienne Flinn, working on their first record, The Weight of Remembrance, with Julia Geaman on drums on the seven-song/47-minute sprawl of bleak, goth-informed death-doom — resound with purpose between the atmosphere and the dramaturge of their material. “Apathy’s Keep” (Magdalena Wienski on additional drums) alone would tell you they’re a band with a keen sense of what they want to accomplish stylistically, but the patience in execution necessary from the My Dying Bride-esque back and forth shifts between harsh and clean vocals on opener “Initiation” to the grim, full-toned breadth of the 12-minute finale “The Path,” on which Mourne‘s severity reminds of Finland’s Mansion, and yes that’s a compliment, while Flinn finds new depths from which to gurgle out his harsh screaming. The semi-titular piano interlude “Remembrance” is well-placed at the end of side A to make one nostalgic for some lost romance that never happened, and the stop-chug of “A World Beyond Shadow” seem to speak to SubRosa‘s declarative majesty as well as the more extreme spirit of Paradise Lost circa ’91-’92, Tribunal crossing eras and intentions with an organic meld that hints there and in “Without Answer” or the airy cello of “Of Creeping Moss and Crumbled Stone” earlier at even grander and perhaps more orchestral things to come while serving as one of 2023’s best debuts in the interim. Like finding your great grandmother’s wedding dress, picking it up out of the box and having the dried-out fabric and lace crumble in your hands. Sad and necessary.

Tribunal on Facebook

20 Buck Spin website

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Bong Corleone, Bong Corleone

From whence came Finland’s Bong Corleone? Well, from Finland, I guess, but that hardly answers the question on planetary terms. Information is sparse and social media presence is nil from the psychedelic-stoner-doom explorers, who string synth lines through four mostly-extended pieces on this self-titled, self-released, seemingly self-actualized argument for dropping out of life and you know the rest. Second cut “Gathering” (8:34) sees lead guitar step in for where vocals might otherwise be, but there and in the prior leadoff “Chemical Messenger” (9:15), synthesizer plays a prominent role that’s been compared rightly to Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard, though “Gathering” departs in for a midsection meander-jam that lets itself have and be more fun before crashing back around to the roll. As it invariably would, “Astrovan” (6:18) shoves faster, but the synth stays overtop along with some floating guitar, and the sense of control remains strong even in the second half’s splurge and slowdown, shifting with ambient drone and residual amp hum into 11-minute closer “Offering,” which rounds out with a sample, what might be a bong rip, and a density of fuzz that apparently Bong Corleone have been keeping in their collective pocket all the while, crushing and stomping before turning to more progressive exploration later. It’s a substantial enough release at 35 minutes that the band might — like MWWB before them — regret the silly name, but even if they never follow it with anything, the immersion factor in these four songs shouldn’t be discounted. May they (if in fact it’s more than one person) never reveal a lineup.

Bong Corleone on Bandcamp

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Old Spirit, Burning in Heaven

This second full-length from Wisconsin-based solo-project Old Spirit — formed and executed at the behest of Jason Hartman (Vanishing Kids, sometimes Jex Thoth) — Burning in Heaven feels at home in contradictions, whether it’s the image provoked by the title or in the songs themselves, be it the Celtic–Frost-on-Monster–Magnet‘s-pills “Dim Aura” or the electro Queens of the Stone Age shuffle in “Ash,” or the Candlemass-meets-Chrome succession of “Fallacy,” or the keyboard and guitar interlude “When the Spirit Slips Away.” The title-track opens and has an oldschool ripper solo late, but there’s so much going on at any given moment that it’s one more element thrown in the mix as much as a precursor to the later reaches of “Angel Blood” — a Slayer nod, or two, perhaps? — which precedes the emergent wash of “Bleak Chapel” and the devolution undertaken from song to drone that gives over to closer “In Dismay,” which seems all set in its garage-goth doom rollout until the tempo kick brings it and the record to a place of duly dug-in progressive psych-metal oddness. Fitting end to a record clearly meant to go wherever the hell it wants and on which the rawness of the production becomes a uniting factor across otherwise willfully disparate material, skirting the danger that it all might collapse on itself while proselytizing individualist fuckall; Luciferian without being outright Satanic.

Old Spirit on Bandcamp

Bright as Night Records on Facebook

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Los Acidos, Stereolalo

Argentina’s Los Acidos return after reissuing 2016’s self-titled debut (review here) in 2020 through Necio Records with Stereolalo, putting emphasis on welcoming listeners from the outset with the opening title-track and “Ascensor,” which are the two longest cuts on the record (double points) and function as world-builders in terms of establishing the acoustic/electric blend and melodic flourish with which much of the 50-minute outing functions. Like everything, the blend is molten and malleable, as shorter pieces like “Atardecer” or side B’s build-to-boogie “Madre” and the keyboard-backed psych-funk verses of “Atenas” show, and they resist the temptation to really blow it out as they otherwise might even in those first two tracks; the church organ seeming to keep the penultimate “Interior” in line before “Buscando el Mar” calls out ’60s psych on guitar with a slow-careening progression from whatever kind of keyboard that is, ending almost folkish, having said what they want to say in the way they want to say it. Light in atmosphere, there nonetheless are deceptive depths from which the songs seem to swim upward.

Los Acidos on Facebook

Los Acidos on Bandcamp

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JAGGU, Rites for the Damned

Rites for the Damned offers the kind of aesthetic sprawl that can only be summarized in vague catchall tags like ‘progressive,’ with the adventurous and ambitious Norwegian outfit JAGGU threatening extremity on “Carnage” at the beginning of the eight-song/40-minute LP while instead taking the angularity and thrust and through “Earth Murder” fostering an element of noise rock that feeds its aggression into “Mindgap” before the six-minutes-each pair of “Electric Blood” and “Lenina Ave.” further reveal the breadth, hooks permeating the amalgam of heavy styles being bent and reshaped to suit the band’s expressive will, the latter building from acoustic-inclusive post-metallic balladry into a solo that seems to spread far and wide as it draws the listener deeper into side B’s reaches, the dizzying start of “Enthralled,” post-black-metal-but-still-metal “Marching Stride” — more of a run, actually — and the prog-thrash finale “God to be Through” that caps not to bring it all together, but to celebrate the variations encountered along the course and highlight the skill with which JAGGU have been guiding the proceedings all along, unsettled in their approach on this second record in such a way as to speak to perpetual growth rather than their being the kind of band who’ll find a niche and stagnate.

JAGGU on Facebook

Evil Noise Recordings store

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Falling Floors, Falling Floors

Escapist and jam-based-but-not-just-jamming psychedelia pervades the self-titled debut from UK trio Falling Floors, who add variety amid the already-varied krautrock in the later reaches of opener “Infinite Switch,” the lockdown slog of “Flawed Theme,” the tambourine-infused hard strums of “Ridiculous Man” and the 18-minute side-B-consuming “Elusive and Unstable Nature of Truth,” which is organ-inclusive bombast early and drone later, with three numbered interludes, furthering the notion of these works being carved out of experiments. A malleable songwriting process and a raw, seemingly live recording make Falling Floors‘ seven-song run come across as formative, but the rougher edges are part of the aesthetic, and ultimately bolster the overarching impression that the band — guitarist/vocalist Rob Herian, bassist/organist Harry Wheeler and drummer/percussionist Colin Greenwood — can and just might go wherever the hell they want. And they do, in that extended finisher and elsewhere throughout, capturing an exploratory moment of creation in willfully unrefined fashion, loose but not unhinged and seemingly as curious in the making as in the result. I don’t know that a band can do this kind of adventuring twice — invariably any second album is informed by the experience of making the first — but Falling Floors make a resounding argument for wanting to find out in these shared discoveries.

Falling Floors on Instagram

Riot Season Records store

Echodelick Records on Bandcamp

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Warp, Bound by Gravity

Spacing out from a fuzzy foundation like Earthless taking on The Sword — with a bit of Tool in the second-half leads of eight-minute second track “The Hunger” — Israeli trio Warp make their Nasoni Records label debut with their sophomore full-length, Bound by Gravity, putting due languid slog into “Your Fascist Pigs are Back” while finding stonerized salvation in “Dirigibles” ahead of the more melodic and more doomed title-track, which Sabbath-blues-boogies right into its shout-topped sludge slowdown before the bounce and swing of “Impeachment Abdication” readily counteracts. “The Present” unfolds with hints of Melvins while “Head of the Eye” rides a linear groove into a winding midsection that resolves in a standout chorus and capper “I Don’t Want to Be Remembered” is a vocal highlight — guitarist Itai Alzaradel, bassist Sefi Akrish and drummer Mor Harpazi all contribute in that regard at some juncture or another — and a reaffirmation of the gonna-roll-until-we-don’t mindset on the part of the band, ending cold after shifting into a faster chug like the song’s about to take off again. That’d be a hell of a way to start their next record and we’ll see if they get there. Pointedly of-genre, Warp bring exploratory craft to a foundation of tonal heft and ask few indulgences on the listener’s part. Big fuzz gonna make some friends among the converted.

Warp on Facebook

Nasoni Records store

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Halo Noose, Magical Flight

Leading off with its spacebound title-track, Halo Noose‘s debut album, Magical Flight, finds the Scottish solo-outfit plumbing the outer reaches of fuzz-drenched acid rock, coming through like an actually-produced version of Monster Magnet‘s demo era in its roughed-up Hawkwind-via-Stooges pastiche, “Cinnamon Garden” edging toward Eastern idolatry without going full-sitar while “Fire” engages with a stretched-out feel over its slow, maybe-programmed drums and centerpiece “When You Feel it Babe” tops near-motorik push with watery vocals like a less punk Nebula or some of what Black Rainbows might conjure. “Kaliedoscopica” is based largely around a single riff and it’s a masterclass in wah at its 4:20 runtime, leading into the last outward leaps of “Rollercoasting Your Mind” and the forward-and-backwards “Slow Motion” which isn’t actually much slower than anything else here and thus reminds that time is a construct easily subverted by lysergics, fading out with surprising gentleness to return the listener to a crueler reality after a consuming half-hour’s escape. Right on.

Halo Noose on Facebook

Ramble Records store

Echodelick Records on Bandcamp

The Acid Test Recordings store

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Dope Skum, Gutter South

If you’d look at the name and the fact that the trio hail from Tennessee and think you’re probably in for some caustic Southern sludge, you’re part right. Dope Skum on their second EP, the 17-minute Gutter South, embrace the tonal heft and chugging approach of the harder end of sludge riffing, but rather than weedian throatrippers, a cleaner vocal style pervades from guitarist Cody Landress-Gibson across opener “Folk Magic,” the banjo-laced “Interlude,” “Feast of Snakes,” “Belly Lint” and the punkier-until-its-slowdown finish of “The Cycle,” and the difference between a shout and a scream is considerable in the impressions made throughout. Bassist Todd Garrett and drummer Scott Keil complete the three-piece and together they harness a feel that’s true to that nasty aural history while branching into something different therefrom, genuinely sounding like a new generation’s interpretation of what Southern heavy was 15-20 years ago. More over, they would seem to be conscious of doing it. Their first EP, 2021’s Tanasi, was more barebones in its production, and there’s still development to be done, but it will be interesting to hear how they manifest across a first long-player when the time comes, as Gutter South underscores potential in its songwriting and persona as well as defiance of aesthetic expectation.

Dope Skum on Facebook

Dope Skum on Bandcamp

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This past week, I traveled to Sweden for the first and hopefully not the last time, and accordingly, I put forth the question in the Obelisk Facebook group wondering what were people’s picks for the best Swedish heavy rock album ever. Siena Root‘s 2004 debut, A New Day Dawning, was floated among many, many others, and as it had been a while, it seemed like a prime opportunity for a revisit.

Issued through Rage of Achilles and Nasoni Records, the 13-track/68-minute A New Day Dawning followed about half a decade’s worth of demos and EPs, and very much benefits from the time the four-piece at that point put into building their sound. It is not a minor undertaking now — and somehow putting out a debut 2LP in 2004, well before the resurgence of vinyl as the predominant format for heavy rock, seems especially bold — but it is resoundingly cohesive across its span, and each of its four sides presents something of a different look from Siena Root stylistically. At the time, the band was comprised of vocalist/organist Oskar Lundström, guitarist/vocalist KG West, and the rhythm section of bassist/vocalist Sam Riffer and drummer/vocalist Love H. Forsberg, the latter two of whom remain the founding principals of the group today.

Like much of what was happening in Sweden at the time, Siena Root were informed by the classic heavy rock of the 1970s, and A New Day Dawning bears that out at various points, whether it’s the Mk. II Deep Purple-style groove-hump of “What Can I Do” or the flute-laced jam so gracefully emphasizing the pastoral and telling of future arrangement adventures to come in closer “Into the Woods.” The beginning of Sweden’s retro movement is commonly credited to the band Norrsken, whose members went on to form bands like Witchcraft — who also debuted in 2004 — and Graveyard, but Siena Root were concurrent at least to the wave that took hold and continues to flourish as its own vintage-minded niche. To Siena Root‘s credit, however, A New Day Dawning does not sacrifice audio fidelity for aesthetic. The production on these songs is organic, to be sure, and I don’t know whether it was done live, to tape, etc., or any of those other things that dogwhistle a retro mindset — Per Ängkvist engineered, Christofer Stannow mastered — but the tones they conjure are full as well as warm, and from the fade-in of opener “Coming Home” onward, they make it clear to the listener that it’s okay to trust where the band are leading. You’re in good hands from the outset, and for the duration.

“Coming Home” is an energetic, classic-vibing and subtly complex roller with boogie intentions and a bluesy spirit that comes to be what Siena Root most lean toward on side A. Followed by the hooky shuffle “Just Another Day,” the quick-but-funky “Shine” and the all-in blues rocker “Fever,” it’s a fluid and welcoming start to the record, immediately dynamic, immediately engaging on a level of songwriting and performance. Their sound would grow more expansive with this lineup in time — and as noted, A New Day Dawning provides hints of that later on — but the leadoff stretch is all about bringing the audience in, and as side B launches with “Above the Trees” and the aforementioned, organ-emphasized “What Can I Do,” the record cleverly shifts from the blues to a more definitively ’70s-inspired take, with the catchy start-stops of “Little Man” and the mostly mellow “Roots” underlining the point. To this day, Siena Root call themselves ‘roots rock.’ Listening again to the actual roots of the band, it’s hard to argue.

As A New Day Dawning works toward side D’s more extended closing duo — “Rasayana” (9:06) and “Into the Woods” (8:19) — the loosely proggy jammer “Trippin'” and the suitably molten follow-up “Until Time Leaves Us Again,” with its drum solo and all, begin that process of expansion. The organ in the latter makes it a highlight if the guitar already didn’t, and as they transition into the shorter, touch-ground-early-then-take-off “Words,” the depth of consideration on the part of the band in structuring the record becomes clearer. Each side has not only its own personality, but its own progression as well, and after casting more ethereal vibes in “Trippin'” and “Until Time Leaves Us Again,” “Words” gives an on-stage-circa-1974 culmination to that linear voyage, allowing “Rasayana” and “Into the Woods” to flourish almost as an entity unto themselves.

The former, “Rasayana,” finds West beginning what would become a lifetime’s exploration of South Asian classical music on veena and Greek tzouras, while Riffer adds percussion to his double-bass and sintir. They resolve ultimately in a combination of rock and folk styles, trading back and forth and bringing the ideas together throughout before ending with a quick da-dum that almost has one’s ears hearing “War Pigs” hi-hat in the fadeout. “Into the Woods,” with the already-noted flute, a guest appearance by Anna Sandström, as well as hurdy-gurdy credited to Tängman starts at a slower nod and works into a vital shuffle by its halfway point, but mellows out again for a grand and abidingly natural-sounding finish. It’s not overdone, it’s not underdone, and its sweep at the end — in hindsight — feels like it’s carrying you into what was then the band’s own bright future.

Just yesterday, I posted news of the Feb. 24 release date of Siena Root‘s upcoming eighth album, Revelation (info here), through Atomic Fire Records. The lineup is different, as noted, with Forsberg and Riffer now joined by vocalist/keyboardist Zubaida Solid and guitarist Johan Borgström as veterans of the scene they helped to create, but much of the soul that one finds so resonant in A New Day Dawning — never mind the boogie — remains in the band to this day. From this first (2)LP, they went on to offer a stretch of classics in their own right in 2006’s Kaleidoscope (discussed here), 2008’s Far From the Sun and 2009’s Different Realities (discussed here), and their sound has continued to grow despite personnel shifts and a generation’s worth of acts digging into retroism as a stylistic movement. One only looks forward to what’s to come, and looking back across this initial offering, it’s been a hell of a day up to now.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

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Got back on Monday from the aforementioned Sweden trip, have been sick since Tuesday. Wednesday I had a follow-up with my neurologist to discuss what I’ve come to playfully call my abby-normal brain, and she put me on Adderall in addition to Wellbutrin and told me to take a small fortune’s worth of vitamins and go swimming if I want to, well, get old, I guess. Fair enough. Gonna wait for the snot to stop leaking out of my face before I hit the pool. Might be a few more days.

Tough week with/for the kid, who’s ready in his bones for the holiday break. I can’t even argue.

I’m going to see Sunn O))) on Saturday in Brooklyn with a friend I haven’t seen in a long time. Should be interesting, and I managed to get a photo pass, so will review as well. Beyond that, next week is clear to give me time to work in the Best of 2022 post, which I hope to have done either Wednesday or Thursday. To give you some hint of where I’m at with it, my list isn’t actually done yet. So let’s say probably Thursday it’ll go up.

Also need to do a Gimme Metal playlist for next Friday, so that’s where I’m headed for the rest of today, then grocery shopping and hopefully a bit of fuckoff time, which I could very much use after a busy few weeks. I tend to catch my breath when I can. That’s of course harder to do when you can’t breathe through your nose, but one endeavors just the same.

I hope you have a great and safe weekend. I have a follow-up with my orthopedic surgeon about my knee this morning, but I don’t expect much exciting to come out of it. I’m still healing, still sore at the end of the day from various bendings and so on, but I think I’m getting to where I need to be. It might just hurt now. Like, until I eventually get my knees replaced — which I fully expect I’ll have to do at some point; my mother is headed that way now — and then probably for the rest of my life after that. Which I hear won’t be that long if I don’t get like $200 worth of vitamins in my body stat. Life is strange and mostly stupid. Periodically glorious.

Which I suppose is what makes the rest worth it.

Agaun, great and safe weekend. Stay warm and hydrated, and I’ll have that year-end stuff up as soon as possible, to be followed in short order by a Quarterly Review with 100 more records covered. So there.

FRM.

The Obelisk Collective on Facebook

The Obelisk Radio

The Obelisk merch

Oh hello. I didn’t see you there. What, this? Oh, this is just me hanging out about to review 100 records in 10 days’ time. Yup, it’s another double-wide Quarterly Review, and I’m telling myself that no, this isn’t just how life is now, that two full weeks of 10 reviews per day isn’t business as usual, but there’s an exceptional amount of music out there right now, and no, this isn’t even close to all of it. But I’m doing my best to keep up and this is what that looks like.

The bottom line is the same as always and I’ll give it to you up front and waste no more time: I hope you enjoy the music here and find something to love.

So let’s go.

Quarterly Review #01-10:

Yatra, Born into Chaos

The partnership between Chesapeake extremists Yatra and producer Noel Mueller continues to bear fruit on the band’s fourth album and first for Prosthetic Records. Their descent from thick, nasty sludge into death metal is complete, and songs like “Terminate by the Sword” and “Terrorizer” have enough force behind them to become signature pieces. The trio of Dana Helmuth (guitar/vocals), Maria Geisbert (bass) and Sean Lafferty (drums, also Grave Bathers) have yet to sound so utterly ferocious, and as each of their offerings has pushed further into the tearing-flesh-like-paper and rot-stenched realms of metal, Born into Chaos brings the maddening intensity of “Wrath of the Warmaster” and the Incantation-worthy chug of closer “Tormentation,” with massive chug, twisting angularity and brain-melting blasts amid the unipolar throatripper screams from Helmuth (reminds at times of Grutle Kjellson from Enslaved), by now a familiar rasp that underscores the various violences taking place within the eight included tracks. I bet they get even meaner next time,. That’s just how Yatra do. But it’ll be a challenge.

Yatra on Facebook

Prosthetic Records store

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Sula Bassana, Nostalgia

Part of the fun of a new Sula Bassana release is not knowing what you’re going to get, and Nostalgia, which is built from material recorded between 2013-’18 and finished between 2019-’21, is full of surprises. The heavy space grunge of lead cut “Real Life,” which along with its side A companion “We Will Make It” actually features vocals from Dave “Sula Bassana” Schmidt himself (!), is the first here but not the last. That song beefs up early Radiohead drudgery, and “We Will Make It” is like what happens when space rock actually gets to space, dark in a way but expansive and gorgeous. Side B is instrumental, but the mellotron in “Nostalgia” — how could a track called “Nostalgia” not have mellotron? — goes a long way in terms of atmosphere, and the 10-minute “Wurmloch” puts its well-schooled krautrockism to use amid melodic drone before the one-man-jam turns into a freakout rager (again: !), and the outright beautiful finisher “Mellotraum” turns modern heavy post-rock on its head, stays cohesive despite all the noise and haze and underscores the mastery Schmidt has developed in his last two decades of aural exploration. One wonders to what this sonic turn might lead timed so close to his departure from Electric Moon and building a Sula live band, but either way, more of this, please. Please.

Sula Bassana on Facebook

Sulatron Records store

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Garden of Worm, Endless Garden

Continuing a streak of working with highly-respected imprints, Finland’s Garden of Worm release their third album, the eight-song/43-minute Endless Garden, through Nasoni Records after two prior LPs through Shadow Kingdom and Svart, respectively. There have been lineup changes since 2015’s Idle Stones (review here), but the band’s classically progressive aspects have never shone through more. The patient unfolding of “White Ship” alone is evidence for this, never mind everything else that surrounds, and though the earlier “Name of Lost Love” and the closer “In the Absence of Memory” nod to vintage doom and the nine-minute penultimate “Sleepy Trees” basks in a raw, mellow Floydian melody, the core of the Tampere outfit remains their unpredictability and the fact that you never quite know where you’re going until you’re there. Looking at you, “Autumn Song,” with that extended flute-or-what-ever-it-is intro before the multi-layered folk-doom vocal kicks in. For over a decade now, Garden of Worm have been a well kept secret, and honestly, that kind of works for the vibe they cast here; like you were walking through the forest and stumbled into another world. Good luck getting back.

Garden of Worm on Facebook

Nasoni Records site

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Orthodox, Proceed

Untethered by genre and as unorthodox as ever, Sevilla, Spain, weirdo doom heroes Orthodox return with Proceed after four years in the ether, and the output is duly dug into its own reality of ritualism born more of creation than horror-worship across the six included songs. “Arendrot” carries some shade from past dronings, and certainly the opener before it is oddball enough, with its angular riffing and later, Iberian-folk-derived solo, but there’s a straigter-forward aspect to Proceed as well, the vocals lending a character of noise rock and less outwardly experimentalist fare. “Rabid God” brings that forward with due intensity before the hi-hat-shimmy-meets-cave-lumber-doom “Starve” and the lurching/ambient doomjazz “The Son, the Sword, the Bread” set up the 10-minute closer “The Long Defeat,” which assures the discomforted that at least at some point when they were kids Orthodox listened to metal. Righteously individual, their work isn’t for everyone, and it’s by no means free of indulgence, but in 42 minutes, Orthodox once again stretch the limits of what doom means in a way that most bands wouldn’t dare even if they wanted to, and if you can’t respect that, then I’ve got nothing for you.

Orthodox on Facebook

Alone Records store

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Matus, Espejismos II

Fifty years from now, some brave archivalist soul is going to reissue the entire catalog of Lima, Peru’s Matus and blow minds far and wide. A follow-up to 2013’s Espejismos (review here), Espejismos II brings theremin-laced vintage Sabbath rock vibes across its early movements, going so far as to present “Umbral / Niebla de Neón” in mono, while the minute-and-a-half-long “Los Ojos de Vermargar (Early Version)” is pure fuzz and the organ-laced “Hada Morgana (Early Instrumental Mix)” — that and “Umbra; / Niebla de Neón” appeared in ‘finished versions on 2015’s Claroscuro (review here); “Summerland” dates back to 2010’s M​á​s Allá Del Sol Poniente (review here), so yes, time has lost all meaning — moves into the handclap-and-maybe-farfisa-organ “Canción para Nuada,” one of several remixes with rerecorded drums. “Rocky Black” is an experiment in sound collage, and “Misquamacus” blends acoustic intricacy and distorted threat, while capper “Adiós Afallenau (Version)” returns the theremin for a two-minute walk before letting go to a long stretch of silence and some secret-track-style closing cymbals. The best thing you can do with Matus is just listen. It’s its own thing, it always has been, and the experimental edge brought to classic heavy rock is best taken on with as open a mind as possible. Let it go where it wants to go and the rewards will be plenty. And maybe in another five decades everyone will get it.

Matus on Facebook

Espíritus Inmundos on Facebook

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Shrooms Circle, The Constant Descent

Offset by interludes like the classical-minded “Aversion” or the bass-led “Reprobation,” or even the build-up intro “S.Z.,” the ritual doom nod of Swiss five-piece Shrooms Circle‘s The Constant Descent is made all the more vital through the various keys at work across its span, whether it’s organ or mellotron amid the lumbering weight of the riffs. “Perpetual Decay” and its companion interlude “Amorphous” dare a bit of beauty, and that goes far in adding context and scope to the already massive sounding “The Unreachable Spiral” and the subtle vocal layering in “The Constant Descent.” Someone in this band likes early Type O Negative, and that’s just fine. Perhaps most of all, the 11-song/48-minute The Constant Descent is dynamic enough so that no matter where a given song starts, the listener doesn’t immediately know where it’s going to end up, and taking that in combination with the command shown throughout “Demotion,” “Perpetual Decay,” the eight-minute “Core Breakdown” and the another-step-huger finale “Stagnant Tide,” Shrooms Circle‘s second album offers atmosphere and craft not geared toward hooking the audience with catchy songwriting so much as immersing them in the mood and murk in which the band seem to reside. If Coven happened for the first time today, they might sound like this.

Shrooms Circle on Facebook

DHU Records store

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Goatriders, Traveler

I’m gonna tell you straight out: Don’t write this shit off because Goatriders is a goofy band name or because the cover art for their second album, Traveler, is #vanlife carrot gnomes listening to a tape player on a hillside (which is awesome, by the way). There’s more going on with the Linköping four-piece than the superficialities make it seem. “Unscathed” imagines what might have happened if Stubb and Hexvssel crossed paths on that same hill, and the album careens back and forth smoothly between longer and shorter pieces across 50 engrossing minutes; nature-worshiping, low-key dooming and subtly genre-melding all the while. Then they go garage on “The Garden,” the album seeming to get rawer in tone as it proceeds toward “Witches Walk” and the a capella finish in “Coven,” which even that they can’t resist blowing out at the end. With the hypnotic tom work and repeat riffing of the instrumental “Elephant Bird” at its center and the shouted culminations of “Goat Head Nebula” and “Unscathed,” the urgent ritualizing of “Snakemother” and the deceptive poise at the outset with “Atomic Sunlight,” Traveler finds truth in its off-kilter presentation. You don’t get Ozium, Majestic Mountain and Evil Noise on board by accident. Familiar as it is and drawing from multiple sides, I’m hard-pressed to think of someone doing exactly what Goatriders do, and that should be taken as a compliment.

Goatriders on Facebook

Majestic Mountain Records store

Evil Noise Recordings store

Ozium Records store

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Arthur Brown, Long Long Road

At the tender age of 80, bizarrist legend Arthur Brown — the god of hellfire, as the cover art immediately reminds — presents Long Long Road to a new generation of listeners. His first album under his own name in a decade — The Crazy World of Arthur Brown released Gypsy Voodoo (can you still say that?) in 2019 — and written and performed in collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Rik Patten, songs like “Going Down” revisit classic pageantry in organ and horns and the righteous lyrical proclamations of the man himself, while “I Like Games” toys with blues vibes in slide acoustic, kick drum thud and harmonica sleazenanigans, while the organ-and-electric “The Blues and Messing Round” studs with class and “Long Long Road” reminds that “The future’s open/The past is due/In this moment/Where everything that comes is new,” a hopeful message before “Once I Had Illusions (Part 2)” picks up where its earlier companion-piece left off in a manner that’s both lush and contemplative, more than a showpiece for Brown‘s storytelling and still somehow that. His legacy will forever be tied to The Crazy World of Arthur Brown‘s late-1960s freakery, but Long Long Road is the work of an undimmed creative spirit and still bolder than 90 percent of rock bands will ever dare to be.

Arthur Brown on Facebook

Magnetic Eye Records store

Prophecy Productions store

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Green Sky Accident, Daytime TV

Ultimately, whether one ends up calling Green Sky Accident‘s Daytime TV progressive psychedelia, heavier post-rock or some other carved-out microgenre, the reality of the 10-song/50-minute Apollon Records release is intricate enough to justify the designation. Richly melodic and unafraid to shimmer brightly, cuts like “Point of No Return” and the later dancer “Finding Failure” are sweet in mood and free largely of the pretense of indie rock, though “Insert Coin” and the penultimate piano interlude “Lid” are certainly well dug-in, but “Sensible Scenes,” opener “Faded Memories,” closer “While We Lasted” and the ending of “Screams at Night” aren’t lacking either for movement or tonal presence, and that results in an impression more about range underscored by songwriting and melody than any kind of tonal or stylistic showcase. The Bergen, Norway, four-piece are, in other words, on their own trip. And as much float as they bring forth, “In Vain” reimagines heavy metal as a brightly expressive terrestrial entity, a thing to be made and remade according to the band’s own purpose for it, and the title-track similarly balances intensity with a soothing affect. I guess this is what alt rock sounds like in 2022. Could be far worse, and indeed, it presents an ‘other’ vision from the bulk of what surrounds it even in an underground milieu. On a personal level, I can’t decide if I like it, and I kind of like that about it.

Green Sky Accident on Facebook

Apollon Records store

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Pure Land Stars, Trembling Under the Spectral Bodies

With members of Cali psych-of-all explorers White Manna at their core, Pure Land Stars begin a series called ‘Altered States’ that’s a collaboration between Centripetal Force and Cardinal Fuzz Records, and if you’re thinking that that’s going to mean it’s way far out there, you’re probably not thinking far enough. Kosmiche drones and ambient foreboding in “Flotsam” and “3rd Grace” make the acoustic strum of “Mountains are Mountains” seem like a terrestrial touch-down, while “Chime the Kettle” portrays a semi-industrial nature-worship jazz, and “Jetsam” unfolds like a sunrise but if the sun suddenly came up one day and was blue. “Lavendar Crowd” (sic) turns the experimentalism percussive, but it’s that experimentalism at the project’s core, whether that’s manifest in the nigh-on-cinematic “Dr. Hillarious” (sic) or the engulf-you-now eight-minute closer “Eyes Like a Green Ceiling,” which is about as far from the keyboardy kratrock of “Flotsam” as the guitar effects and improvised sounding soloing of “Jetsam” a few tracks earlier. Cohesive? Sure. But in its own dimension. I don’t know if Pure Land Stars is a ‘band’ or a one-off, but they give ‘Altered States’ a rousing start that more than lives up to the name. Take a breath first. Maybe a drink of water. Then dive in.

Pure Land Stars on Bandcamp

Centripetal Force Records store

Cardinal Fuzz Records store

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This is a band who will probably be more missed than they know. Spanish heavy psychedelic rockers Arenna formed in 2005 in Vitoria-Gasteiz, part of Basque Country in Spain, and have announced that they’re done and that their impending third full-length is called off. Whatever stage of making it they might have been in, be it writing, recording or piecing together material in some other way, the prospect of being denied a follow-up to 2015’s Given to Emptiness (review here) and their 2011 debut album, Beats of Olarizu (discussed here; review here) — both issued through the esteemed Nasoni Records — is a sincere loss for the listeners who’ve been waiting for its arrival, and I count myself among that number.

Immediately my head goes three different places upon seeing their short mic-drop of a breakup announcement — literally, “Arenna is over and the new album won’t see the light.” First, as noted, bummer. Second, never say never. If we have to used the past tense about them, Arenna were a band that still had a lot to offer their audience, in the progressive breadth of their material, the warmth of their heavy psychedelic tonality and the serene pastoralism of their atmospheres. Maybe they’ll never be convinced to get back together and finish off what could’ve been, or maybe they will. This is rock and roll and even the most shut of doors can potentially reopen. History teaches us this again and again.

But for now at the very least, Arenna are done. Their final recording was the single “Οιδίπους 70º30´S (Cuidaos del Enigma)” that was included as part of Spinda Records’ sprawling Grados. Minutos. Segundos. split 7″ compilation (featured here) encompassing some of the Spanish underground’s finest acts. Arenna certainly deserved to be featured there as they were, and if indeed their third LP never surfaces, their capstone track is both a promise unfulfilled and well placed in the company it’s keeping among acts who no doubt have taken cues from them along the way. Their Bandcamp lists a show in October, but Bandcamp has its own mind about these things. The last show Arenna played was July 7 at the local festival Korterraza in Vitoria-Gasteiz.

The yet-unmentioned third place my head goes with this announcement is to wonder what happened to make them want to stop at all. This was a vibrant, creative band, who seemed to have more in the works and more to say. Whatever their reason for cutting their tenure short — and calling it “short” is saying something for a band who were together for 17 years — they will always have left an ellipses where that record could have been.

Their brief post follows, as seen on socials:

R.I.P.

2005-2022

Arenna is over and the new album won’t see the light.

Thank you to everyone who has been a part, helped and/or supported.

https://www.facebook.com/arennarock
https://www.instagram.com/arennarock/
https://arenna.bandcamp.com/
https://arenna.bigcartel.com/

Arenna, “Cuidaos del Enigma”

Arenna, Given to Emptiness (2015)

Arenna, Beats of Olarizu (2011)

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

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

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Giovanni Giovannini of Deadpeach

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

we play for expressive necessity, we started to give out our emotions

Describe your first musical memory.

my mom making me breakfast before I go to school while listening to the radio

Describe your best musical memory to date.

bad brains live in a small club, in the mid ’90s

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

honestly don’t remember , but touring together can test you

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

to a kind of religion that leads to the truth if followed objectively and not subjectively

How do you define success?

money and stress

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

addiction

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

a country house with a rehearsal room and lots of free time

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

set yourself free and wake up from the sleep in which man lives

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

a long surf vacation

https://www.facebook.com/Deadpeachrock
https://twitter.com/DEADPEACH_gio
https://deadpeach-rock.bandcamp.com/
http://www.deadpeach.com/

Deadpeach, Live at Sidro Club (2022)

Based in Vitoria-Gasteiz, which is the capital of Northern Spain’s autonomous Basque Country — if you’re American and you know the word ‘Basque,’ there’s a decent chance it’s followed by ‘separatist’ in your consciousness, since the movement there was years in bringing autonomy to fruition — Arenna issued their first demo in 2007 and followed it with their debut album, Beats of Olarizu (review here), in 2011. The Basque distinction is important to note, since Olárizu refers to a specific place as well: a meadow area, lake and hillside on the outskirts of Vitoria-Gasteiz that was a village centuries ago and now seems to serve mostly as parkland. A pastoral setting is likewise crucial toward understanding where Arenna were coming from with this album.

In terms of sheer style, Arenna — comprised then of drummer Guille, bassist Javi, vocalist Txus, and guitarists Kiké and R. Ruiz, plus guests on the album like Jony Moreno of The Soulbreaker Company on backing vocals for four of the six tracks and co-producer José López Gil on Hammond for “Eclipse,” plus Jaime Zuasti (Electric Riders) on keys for the second half of the tracklisting — were at the vanguard of a next generation of heavy psychedelic rock in Europe. One thinks of a band like Sungrazer in the Netherlands, who made their debut the year before, or then-Nasoni Records labelmates like Electric Moon and even Stoned Jesus — acts who began to flourish at the start of the 2010s and would begin to define heavy psych as a style in the wake of progenitors like Colour Haze or Spanish spearheads Viaje a 800.

The difference between Arenna and some of the biggest names of this generation of bands is productivity more than quality. Beats of Olarizu sounds raw these nine years later, and particularly in comparison to its more lush, proggier 2015 follow-up, Given to Emptiness (review here), but the roots of what they’d become are in the first record to be sure, and from the is-it-actually-playing-oh-okay-there-it-is patient start of opener “Morning Light,” Arenna made it clear they were working on no one’s time but their own. Fluid tempos, melodic reach, a rolling crunch to their tonality that would soften on some of the extended and jammier stretches in “Eclipse” (11:42) and closer “Metamorphosis in Ic [0,9168 g/cm³]” (19:08), there was still an edge of grunge to Txus‘ vocals and verses, but as “Morning Light” gave way to “Receiving the Liquid Writings,” it was clear that Arenna were onto a vibe that went beyond straightforward stoner/desert rock idolatry.

In addition to its quiet start, “Morning Light” — though packed lyrically — doesn’t ever feel rushed in terms of its instrumental elements, and its last couple minutes take off into an airy concluding solo that sets a more open mood for everything that follows, so that even as “Receiving the Liquid Writings” starts out with an earthy shuffle its more spacious, layered-vocal midsection and jam-into-push-into-jam finish make sense. Likewise the boogie that defines “Fall of the Crosses,” which is the shortest cut on Beats of Olarizu at 5:09. It stays straightforward in its structure without even the partial departure of the song before it, but still carries that atmosphere set forth by the opener, and as Arenna shift to side B with “Eclipse,” that subtle establishing of psychedelic underpinnings comes to fruition in satisfying and decidedly switched-on ways.

Already noted, the guest Hammond from José López Gil does much to complement the acoustic guitar in the extended intro of “Eclipse,” and as the song makes its way into its full tonal launch, it does so with a readiness to shift back and forth in spirit and energy. This is essentially Arenna discovering the heavy psychedelia within their sound. It is a languid, flowing progression that is warm sounding and grooving in a way that builds toward an apex, is not still by any means, but neither gives any ground in terms of patience in its delivery. That is, Arenna are putting forth the vision that the first three tracks on Beats of Olarizu were driving toward, and it’s the impression that would come to define the album as a whole, and indeed, the band’s style as well.

“The Strangest of Lives,” beginning with wind and far-back drums, has the task of providing separation between “Eclipse” and “Metamorphosis in Ic [0,9168 g/cm³],” and as one might expect, it returns somewhat to ground in its basic composition. But note that the central riff still carries a swirl, as though residual from the song before, and that as the track moves through its second half, it ends up pushing even further into drift than “Eclipse” actually managed to go, essentially pulling itself down to rebuild along a course of hypnotic liquefaction. The big surprise is when it turns out to be a linear movement with its own payoff, but that advent is only welcome ahead of what’s to come in the side C-consuming “Metamorphosis in Ic [0,9168 g/cm³].”

Running 30:48 on the CD version of Beats of Olarizu and edited to the 19-plus of the digital/LP — still plenty — “Metamorphosis in Ic [0,9168 g/cm³]” is every bit the complex mathematical epic its title hints toward. Is this humanity becoming light? Is that the ‘c’ we’re talking about? If so, fair enough. The song never actually hits that kind of speed or space-rocking motorik-ness, but is plenty cosmic just the same, with an exploratory feel that only becomes more prevalent the longer it goes. A jam, in other words. It’s a jam. But with a resonance that extends beyond the instrumental chemistry on which it’s based, effects creating an atmosphere that continues as the longform drone at the finish takes hold, concluding at around 15 minutes.

Where you go from there depends on your format. The vinyl’s side D has the two tracks from Arenna‘s 2007 demo — “Pilgrimage” and “Yeah Man!” — and the meditative instrumental psych-piece “Pain Eraser.” The latter is included in the Bandcamp digital edition as well as a separate track, but on the CD it follows a few minutes of silence, bringing the total runtime of “Metamorphosis in Ic [0,9168 g/cm³]” to 30:48 and the whole of Beats of Olarizu to 68 minutes. Significant, particularly for a debut.

But one could say the same of Beats of Olarizu on the whole. As much of Spain’s heavy rock and psych legacy stems from the southern region of the country, in Algeciras, as well as in hotspots like Madrid, or Barcelona in the northeast, Arenna‘s take was immediately their own and distinct for its progressive flourish and prescient-in-hindsight nuance. The band hasn’t been heard from much since Given to Emptiness, but Txus released the solo album Ellis (review here) in 2019 under the moniker Doctor Sax, so there’s life out there somewhere.

As always, I hope you enjoy.

Thanks for reading.

—

These days are long. After the collective exhale that was the final (depends on whom you ask, apparently) result of the presidential election last week, an uptick in COVID-19 cases — over 160,000 new cases yesterday, according to the New York Times — has ensured that anxiety remains the defining feature of general existence. We’ve been back on self-imposed mostly-lockdown for the last two weeks or so. Minimal outings even to the grocery store — I’ve started getting stuff delivered — minimal interaction outside the immediate bubble. The Patient Mrs.’ family had a birthday party last weekend for her grandmother, who turned 94. There were eight people there including the three children — The Pecan and two older cousins — and it felt like an extravagance.

The Patient Mrs. still has to go to campus a couple days a week, but she reports no one really shows up to class and she rarely sees anyone around the office. We’re trying our best.

The Pecan still goes to preschool. I have to wonder how much longer that’s going to last.

That will be a whole new list of concerns, but either way, long days. With the last few weeks of the semester playing out toward an early end circa Thanksgiving, I haven’t seen much of The Patient Mrs. in the last month or so as she’s been working constantly, even at home, and I’ve had The Pecan. Omi, the dog, has largely been staying with my family, which seems to be to the benefit of all, including them and especially the dog herself, who hangs out and snuggles and plays with the dogs there and oddly enough seems much happier there than she is being stuck in the kitchen, getting smacked by The Pecan or yelled at by me for biting or pissing on the floor as she is/was here. She’s still “our dog” in the sense of being registered at this address, and I’m fairly certain we’ll be paying to have her spayed, but she’s been lodging up with my mother and sister and that’s been just fine all around.

New Gimme Metal show today at 5PM: http://gimmemetal.com

You know the drill there. Thanks for listening if you do. I didn’t talk this episode because I’m tired of saying the same shit and listening to myself drone on about how this or that band is awesome. Blah blah blah. My voice.

Next week… starts with a Samsara Blues Experiment premiere. That’ll be good. Then some Cloud Catcher, Grayceon, Morpholith, Vessel of Light. Should be fun. Busy, like always.

Speaking of, I might need to sneak in an extra Quarterly Review before December. My desktop is getting pretty full of records needing writeups and, well, might as well make the most of it.

Also considering doing an end-of-2020 questionnaire along the lines of the Days of Rona series earlier this year. Still putting together questions for it before I send them out. If you have any suggestions, please drop a comment here.

Beyond that, I wish you a great and safe weekend. Have fun, hydrate, be safe, be safe, be safe, wear a mask, eat some leafy greens, do good work and try to be nice. If you need anything from my end, you know where to find me.

Thanks for reading.

FRM.

The Obelisk Forum

The Obelisk Radio

The Obelisk merch

Well, I’m starting an hour later than I did yesterday, so that’s maybe not the most encouraging beginning I could think of, but screw it, I’m here, got music on, got fingers on keys, so I guess we’re underway. Yesterday was remarkably easy, even by Quarterly Review standards. I’ve been doing this long enough at this point — five-plus years — that I approach it with a reasonable amount of confidence it’ll get done barring some unforeseen disaster.

But yesterday was a breeze. What does today hold? In the words of Mrs. Wagner from fourth grade homeroom, “see me after.”

Ready, set, go.

Quarterly Review #11-20:

Horisont, Sudden Death

With a hefty dose of piano up front and keys throughout, Gothenburg traditionalist heavy rockers Horisont push retro-ism into full-on arena status. Moving past some of the sci-fi aspects of 2017’s About Time, Sudden Death comprises 13 tracks and an hour’s runtime, so rest assured, there’s room for everything, including the sax on “Into the Night,” the circa-’77 rock drama in the midsection of the eight-minute “Archeopteryx in Flight,” and the comparatively straightforward seeming bounce of “Sail On.” With cocaine-era production style, Sudden Death is beyond the earlier-’70s vintage mindset of the band’s earliest work, and songs like “Standing Here” and the penultimate proto-metaller “Reign of Madness” stake a claim on the later era, but the post-Queen melody of “Revolution” at the outset and the acoustic swing in “Free Riding” that follows set a lighthearted tone, and as always seems to be the case with Horisont, there’s nothing that comes across as more important than the songwriting.

Horisont on Thee Facebooks

Century Media website

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Ahab, Live Prey

Scourge of the seven seas that German nautically-themed funeral doomers Ahab are, Live Prey is their first live album and it finds them some five years removed from their last studio LP, The Boats of the Glen Carrig (review here). For a band who in the past has worked at a steady three-year pace, maybe it was time for something, anything to make its way to public ears. Fair enough, and in five tracks and 63 minutes, Live Prey spans all the way back to 2006’s Call of the Wretched Sea with “Ahab’s Oath” and presents all but two of that debut’s songs, beginning with the trilogy “Below the Sun,” “The Pacific” and “Old Thunder” and switching the order of “Ahab’s Oath” and “The Hunt” from how they originally appeared on the first record to end with the foreboding sounds of waves rolling accompanied by minimal keyboards. It’s massively heavy, of course — so was Call of the Wretched Sea — and whatever their reason for not including any other album’s material, at least they’ve included anything.

Ahab on Thee Facebooks

Napalm Records website

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Rrrags, High Protein

Let’s assume the title High Protein might refer to the fact that Dutch/Belgian power trio Rrrags have ‘trimmed the fat’ from the eight songs that comprise their 33-minute sophomore LP. It’s easy enough to believe listening to a cut like “Messin'” or the subsequent “Sad Sanity,” which between the two of them are about as long as the 5:14 opener “The Fridge” just before. But while High Protein has movers and groovers galore in those tracks and the fuzzier “Sugarcube” — the tone of which might remind that guitarist Ron Van Herpen is in Astrosoniq — the stomping “Demons Dancing” and the strutter “Hellfire,” there’s live-Deep–Purple-style breadth on the eight-minute “Dark is the Day” and closer “Window” bookends “The Fridge” in length while mellowing out and giving drummer/vocalist Rob Martin a rest (he’s earned it by then) while bassist Rob Zim and Van Herpen carry the finale. If thinking of it as a sleeper hit helps you get on board, so be it, but Rrrags‘ second album is of unmitigated class and straight-up killer performance. It is not one to be overlooked.

Rrrags on Thee Facebooks

Lay Bare Recordings website

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Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, Viscerals

There’s stoner roll and doomed crash in “New Body,” drone-laced spoken-word experimentalism in “Blood and Butter,” and post-punk angular whathaveyou as “Halloween Bolson” plays out its nine-minute stretch, but Viscerals — the third or fourth Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs album, depending on what you count — seems to be at its most satisfying in blowout freak-psych moments like opener “Reducer” and “Rubbernecker,” which follows, while the kinda-metal of “World Crust”‘s central riff stumbles willfully and teases coming apart before circling back, and “Crazy in Blood” and closer “Hell’s Teeth” are more straight-up heavy rock. It’s a fairly wide arc the UK outfit spread from one end of the record to the other — and they’re brash enough to pull it off, to be sure — but with the hype machine so fervently behind them, I have a hard time knowing whether I’m actually just left flat by the record itself or all the hyperbole-set-on-fire that’s surrounded the band for the last couple years. Viscerals gets to the heart of the matter, sure enough, but then what?

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs on Thee Facebooks

Rocket Recordings on Bandcamp

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Earthbong, Bong Rites

Kiel, Germany’s Earthbong answer the stoner-sludge extremity of their 2018 debut, One Earth One Bong (review here), with, well, more stoner-sludge extremity. What, you thought they’d go prog? Forget it. You get three songs. Opener “Goddamn High” and “Weedcult Today” top 15 minutes each, and closer “Monk’s Blood” hits half an hour. Do the quick math yourself on that and you’ll understand just how much Earthbong have been looking forward to bashing you over the head with riffs. “Weedcult Today” is more agonizingly slow than “Goddamn High,” at least at the beginning, but it builds up and rolls into a pace that, come to think of it, is still probably slower than most, and of course “Monk’s Blood” is an epic undertaking right up to its last five minutes of noise. It could’ve been an album on its own. But seriously, if you think Earthbong give a shit, you’re way off base. This is tone, riff and weed worship and everything else is at best a secondary concern. Spend an hour at mass and see if you don’t come out converted.

Earthbong on Thee Facebooks

Earthbong on Bandcamp

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Rito Verdugo, Post-Primatus

No doubt that at some future time shortly after the entire world has moved on from the COVID-19 pandemic, there will be a glut of releases comprised of material written during the lockdown. Peruvian four-piece Rito Verdugo are ahead of the game, then, with their Post-Primatus four-song EP. Issued digitally as the name-your-price follow-up to their also-name-your-price 2018 debut, Cosmos, it sets a 14-minute run from its shortest cut to its longest, shifting from the trippy “Misterio” into fuzz rockers “Monte Gorila” (which distills Earthless vibes to just over three minutes) and “Lo Subnormal” en route to the rawer garage psychedelia of “Inhumación,” which replaces its vocals with stretches of lead guitar that do more than just fill the spaces verses might otherwise be and instead add to the breadth of the release as a whole. Safe to assume Rito Verdugo didn’t plan on spending any amount of time this year staying home to avoid getting a plague, but at least they were able to use the time productively to give listeners a quick sample of where they’re at sound-wise coming off the first album. Whenever and however it shows up, I’ll look forward to what they do next.

Rito Verdugo on Thee Facebooks

Rito Verdugo on Bandcamp

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Death the Leveller, II

Signed to Cruz Del Sur Music as part of that label’s expanding foray into traditionalist doom (see also: Pale Divine, The Wizar’d, Apostle of Solitude, etc.), Dublin’s Death the Leveller present an emotionally driven four tracks on their 38-minute label debut, the counterintuitively titled II. Listed as their first full-length, it’s about the same length as their debut “EP,” 2017’s I, but more important is the comfort and patience the band shows with working in longer-form material, opener “The Hunt Eternal,” “The Golden Bough” and closer “The Crossing” making an impression at over nine minutes apiece — “The Golden Bough” tops 12 — while “So They May Face the Sun” runs a mere 7:37 and is perhaps the most unhurried of the bunch, playing out with a cinematic sweep of guitar melody and another showcase for the significant presence of frontman Denis Dowling, who’s high in the mix at times but earns that forward position with a suitably standout performance across the record’s span.

Death the Leveller on Thee Facebooks

Cruz Del Sur Music website

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Marrowfields, Metamorphoses

It isn’t surprising to learn that the members of Fall River, Massachusetts, five-piece Marrowfields come from something of an array of underground styles, some of them pushing into more extreme terrain, because the five songs of their debut full-length, Metamorphoses, do likewise. With founding guitarist/main-songwriter Brandon Green at the helm as producer as well, there’s a suitably inward-looking feel to the material, but coinciding with its rich atmospheres are flashes of blastbeats, death metal chug, double-kick and backing growls behind the cleaner melodic vocals that keep Marrowfields distinct from entirely traditionalist doom. It is a niche into which they fit well on this first long-player, and across the five songs/52 minutes of Metamorphoses, they indeed shapeshift between genre elements in order to best serve the purposes of the material, calling to mind Argus in the progressive early stretch of centerpiece “Birth of the Liberator” while tapping Paradise Lost chug and ambience before the blasts kick in on closer “Dragged to the World Below.” Will be interesting to see which way their — or Green‘s, as it were — focus ultimately lies, but there isn’t one aesthetic nuance misused here.

Marrowfields on Thee Facebooks

Black Lion Records on Bandcamp

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Dätcha Mandala, Hara

Dätcha Mandala present a strong opening salvo of rockers on Hara, their second album for MRS Red Sound, before turning over to all-out tambourine-and-harp blues on “Missing Blues.” From there, they could go basically anywhere they want, and they do, leading with piano on “Morning Song,” doing wrist-cramp-chug-into-disco-hop in “Sick Machine” and meeting hand-percussion with space rocking vibes on “Moha.” They’ve already come a long way from the somewhat misleading ’70s heavy of opener “Stick it Out,” “Mother God” and “Who You Are,” but the sonic turns that continue with the harder-edged “Eht Bup,” the ’70s balladry of “Tit’s,” an unabashed bit o’ twang on “On the Road” and full-on fuzz into a noise freakout on closer “Pavot.” Just what the hell is going on with Hara? Anything Dätcha Mandala so desire, it would seem. They have the energy to back it up, but if you see them labeled as any one microgenre or another, keep in mind that inevitably that’s only part of the story and the whole thing is much weirder than they might be letting on. No complaints with that.

Dätcha Mandala on Thee Facebooks

MRS Red Sound

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Numidia, Numidia

If you’ve got voices in your band that can harmonize like guitarists James Draper, Shane Linfoot and Mike Zoias, I’m not entirely sure what would lead you to start your debut record with a four-minute instrumental, but one way or another, Sydney, Australia’s Numidia — completed by bassist/keyboardist Alex Raffaelli and drummer Nathan McMahon — find worthy manners in which to spend their time. Their first collection takes an exploratory approach to progressive heavy rock, seeming to feel its way through components strung together effectively while staying centered around the guitars. Yes, three of them. Psychedelia plays a strong role in later pieces “Red Hymn” and the folky “Te Waka,” but if the eponymous “Numidia” is a mission statement on the part of the five-piece, it’s one cast in a prog mentality pushed forward with poise to suit. Side A capper “A Million Martyrs” would seem to draw the different sides together, but it’s no minor task for it to do so, and there’s little sign in these songs that Numidia won’t grow more expansive as time goes on.

Numidia on Thee Facebooks

Nasoni Records website

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Lammping will release their debut album, Bad Boys of Comedy, July 21 through Nasoni Records. The unpretentious eight-song/36-minute jaunt makes itself comfortable amid a lush sunshine of melodic vibe, the Toronto-based duo of multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Mikhail Galkin and drummer Jay Anderson (Stonegrass, Comet Control) taking advantage of the studio setting to do the work of at least four players between layers of guitar, synth, bass and drums. Effects ebb and flow in a wash that reminds at times of the ’90s revivalist psych that ultimately spawned shoegaze, but there’s something classically playful about the insistent rhymes of the lyrics in opener “Forest for the Trees” and the subsequent “Soakin'” as well that seems to offer a kind of garage-rocking wink to the listener, as if to say, “S’all a joke, innit?” and already know the answer.

All around, languid instrumental flow taps varied realizations of psych — some poppy, some not — and meandering excursions that resonate with an improvised feel if not actual improvisation. Galkin and Anderson may be crafting a full-band sound, but the sense of space in the recording also becomes a presence as the echoes stretch out, coming and going to allow for the Hawkwind-via-Monster–Magnet crunch of “Lightheaded” and the Dead Meadow buzztone boogie in “Greater Good” to shine though no less awash in purpose than they are in reverb.

Let’s get personal for a minute. This is about where my head’s at these days. That’s as honest as I can be with you. I put this record on for the first time a couple weeks ago and it was an utter relief to hear it. “Oh good,” I said. Really. Sweetly melodic, heavy enough to have a presence and some physicality behind the psychedelia, and given some structure of songwriting to complement the fluid rhythms that persist throughout. It’s not in a rush, it’s not trying to blow you away with how aggressive, or progressive, or regressive it is. It’s just two players collaborating on songs that they obviously dig. No doubt there’s some Beatles-awareness happening as they don Middle Eastern scales in “Within You,” but the dream-toned gorgeousness that rolls out with Anderson‘s cymbal crashes is righteously their own. I dig the hell out of this record. It’s not going to be the biggest release of the year. The hype machine probably won’t be about it. It won’t be “of the moment” or whatever we’re valuing right now. All it is is everything it needs to be.

“Within You” swirls into a fade ahead of the more percussively intense “Eater” but laid back vocals bring to mind some of The Heads‘ freakouts even as some of Anderson‘s tom sounds feel recognizable from his work in Comet Control. Another jam fades into the tambourine-included “Tumble,” which might be named for something falling over at the end, but uses a steady beat during its four minutes to keep the drift in check as much as possible, or at very least as much as it wants to. Side B is more hypnotic than not, which serves the album well as it moves toward “Closer to the Sun” at the finish. My only complaint with the finale, which tops six minutes, is that it isn’t longer, as I have no trouble imagining Galkin and Anderson diving headfirst into longer-form rehearsal-room improvisations, following the whims of one or the other of them wherever they might go. Particularly interesting in the closer is that the bass seems to come into the forward position where so much of Bad Boys of Comedy to that point is led by the guitar.

Again, I’ll take it either way — if I haven’t gotten the point across yet, I’m on board for what Lammping are doing here — but putting the low-end fuzz up front allows the guitar to jam out overtop all the more at the outset of the track, and that is immersive and satisfying, making the two minutes before the first verse that much more evidence of the natural chemistry between Galkin and Anderson. That, of course, is the foundation of everything that plays out across Bad Boys of Comedy, and it remains a palpable unifying factor in the material.

With the release still a month-plus off, Nasoni are taking preorders on their site, and the band has elected to premiere “Greater Good” and “Within You.” The two songs appear in succession on Bad Boys of Comedy and I’m thrilled to host them here for the reach they represent as a whole.

I hope you dig them half as much as I do:

‘Greater Good’ is the second single off Lammping’s debut LP ‘Bad Boys of Comedy’, out July 2020 on Nasoni Records. The drum heavy, riff driven exploration of working class paranoia is side A of this release, with the introspective, psychedelic “Within You” on side B.

Lammping is a new psych-rock outfit from Toronto, formed by multi-instrumentalist Mikhail Galkin and drummer Jay Anderson. The album incorporates a wide range of influences that Jay and Mikhail bonded over, from Tropicalia and Turkish psych to classic NY boom-bap drum patterns and CSNY-style vocal harmonies.

While rooted in riffs and heavy drumming, the debut LP showcases a fresh, eclectic approach to modern psychedelia, eschewing cliched musical categorizations.

Lammping is:
Mikhail Galkin: Guitar, bass, vocals, etc.
Jay Anderson: Drums

Lammping on Instagram

Lammping on Bandcamp

Nasoni Records website