Day three marks the halfway point of this Quarterly Review, unless I decide to sneak in an extra day next Monday. We’ll see on that, but things are moving pretty well so far, so I might just be content to take the win and start slating the next one. Always a choice to be made there.

I hope you’ve found something that hits you thus far, and if not, check the below, because there’s a pretty wide variety of styles under the ‘heavy underground’ umbrella here. Hope one or a few or everything clicks.

We proceed.

Quarterly Review #21-30:

Randall Huth, Torched and Coasting

Though he’s probably best known at this point for playing bass in Pissed Jeans for the last 17 years, Pennsylvania’s Randall Huth once-upon-the-aughts played guitar and handled vocals in still-missed pastoral heavy rockers Pearls and Brass, and the new solo EP under his own name will likely be more than enough to trigger nostalgia in remembering that. Torched and Coasting is somewhere between an EP and a follow-up to Huth‘s 2007 solo album as Randall of Nazareth on Drag City, and the self-released tape is clear in its intention, conveying sketches like the finger-plucked movements of “Emptied/Rarified” and “Bursting Smile” and 15-minute closer plunge “Torched and Coasting,” which tube-screams late so stick with it, alongside the drone-meets-zither “The Blind Whale,” and more terrestrial, guitar-and-vocals pieces like opener “Lost in Your Eyes” and the penultimate “Beats Dying,” which — you guessed it — is about getting old. Huth‘s echoing and soft delivery, wit in the lyrics and humble acoustic presentation make that a highlight, but this years-in-the-making offering walks more than a single expressive path. More songs, whatever ‘songs’ means, please. Thanks.

Randall Huth on Bandcamp

Pearls and Brass on Bandcamp

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HolyRoller, Rat King

North Carolinian four-piece HolyRoller make their label-debut on Ripple Music with the eight-song Rat King, which puts modern heavy in a blender such that an early piece like “Crunch Riff Supreme” finds its place in sludge rock and heralds screamy things to come but by the time they’ve gotten to “Buried Alone” at the presumed outset of side B, the flow has more in common with Pallbearer than Weedeater or Sleep, who are another key underlying influence. But the emphasis there should be on ‘underlying’ as HolyRoller step beyond the bands that inspired them in fostering progressive songwriting throughout these 35 minutes, with a richly flexible sound — “Heave Ho” sounds like slower Howling Giant, “Forbidden Things” like Spaceslug — and a push into the ether in “Radiating Sacred Light” before they round out with the Clutch-y bounce of “Drift Into the Sun” to highlight the individuality in where they take their approach. The organic production helps it feel like they’re really digging in, but also they are.

HolyRoller on Bandcamp

Ripple Music website

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Black Mynah, Worried ‘Bout Madame

Worried ‘Bout Madame is the third long-player from Polish heavy post-rock/psych-gaze outfit Black Mynah, and it would seem to be the first since founding vocalist, bassist and baritone guitarist Joanna Kucharska assembled a full-band lineup around herself and drummer Paweł Rucki, who also appeared on 2020’s II. Vocalist/synthesist Aleksandra Joryn and guitarist Marcin Lawendowski join the stylistically subversive proceedings here, with the garage jangle of “Colleen” at the outset pushed into the frenetic shuffle and hard distortion of “Damaged Goods” ahead of the sweet post-punk verse of “Float,” which has its own grungey volatility. The tonal weight thrown around in closer “Looking at You, Kid,” — not to mention the vocal layering — isn’t unprecedented on the album that comes before it, but “Blue Moon” is more about catching up with the insistence of its snare drum and “The Rite” has its own thing going too with the quieter creeper swing and satisfying wash that pays it off. It won’t be for everybody, but who the hell ever wanted to be?

Black Mynah on Bandcamp

Black Mynah streaming links

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Coltsblood, Obscured Into Nebulous Dusk

Last heard from with their before-times 2019 split LP with Un, English death-doom churners Coltsblood make a welcome return with the four-song Obscured Into Nebulous Dusk, their third album overall, first for Translation Loss Records and first in eight years. The years have not been wasted in the sound of bassist/vocalist John McNulty (also keys), guitarist Jemma McNulty and drummer Jay Plested, who foster a ‘beauty in darkness’ sensibility on opener/longest track (immediate points) “Until the Eidolon Falls” before the outright slaughter of “Waning of the Wolf Moon” pushes death metal tempo off a cliff of feedback and raw scathe. “Transcending the Immortal Gateway” makes its presence felt with the mournful lead line topping its later reaches, and “Obscured into Nebulous Dusk” bids farewell in a not-dissimilar fashion, but the particularly agonized vocals prior are a distinguishing feature. Time would seem to have done little to dull the band’s overarching extremity, and so much the better for that.

Coltsblood on Bandcamp

Translation Loss Records website

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Void King, The Hidden Hymnal: Chapter II

The two-years-later follow-up to Indianapolis doom rockers Void King‘s 2023 long-player, The Hidden Hymnal (review here), the seven-song The Hidden Hymnal: Chapter II indeed seems to dig into its own kind of storytelling. The proceedings make for a rousing flow, with the two longest tracks, “The Birth of All Things” (8:49) and “A Union of Expired Souls” (9:34) paired at the outset for a duly epic opening statement. I don’t know if they’re a vinyl side on their own or not, but their separation from the rest of the LP is underscored by the remaining three tracks being sandwiched by a “Prologue” and “Epilogue,” so that the burly progressive metal and heavy rock of “Attrition,” “Convalescence” and “Expiration” feel like their own mini-album on the second side. If this wraps up the The Hidden Hymnal cycle for Void King, then the structural nuance here is fair enough, but the real story of the record is the progression of the band itself, which is ongoing.

Void King on Bandcamp

Argonauta Records website

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Bifter, First Impressions of Hell

Harnessing stoner metal largesse, doomed thematics and an aggro posture for the delivery that adds to the gnashing feel of the material overall, Bifter‘s debut album, First Impressions of Hell, is a torrential, ferocious offering that hits you on multiple levels before you even realize what’s happened. Interludes, the album intro “Enter Hell” and “Lover’s Quarrel,” the sample in “Mercy” and the post-script “Time to Kill” after “Ball of Burning Snakes” and the seven-minute “Belly of the Beast” give an atmospheric feel, but part of what makes “Doom Shroom” and “March of the Imp” so effective is their directness, so First Impressions of Hell, among the impressions made, can count face-punch in its number. The foundation is metal, but the affect is a party, and however weighted the material gets throughout the 36 minutes of its 12 tracks, Bifter are consistently able to convey a feeling of movement and forward momentum along with all their destructive intent.

Bifter links

Bifter on Bandcamp

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Fish Basket, And His Second Album

Write off Poland’s Fish Basket at your own peril. Yeah, they’ve got the cartoonish art and the silly vibe and the sense of rampant chicanery of sound and nonsense, but check out the proggy push of “Robots” on Fish Basket and His Second Album and the way they suddenly pull the plug on the whole thing and drop to deep-breathing, or the shouts worked into opener “NA-HU-HA-NE” and the birdsong in the psych-drifting “Farewells and Returns,” gorgeous as it is before it looses a bit of crush and winds up in classic heavy psych to end. These and myriad other moments throughout — the folkish strum of “Imaginarium” from some unknown tradition, maybe the band’s own, brought to the head of a linear build with a comedown to finish — work on the Frank Zappa model of progressive rock, which is to say that while shenanigans abound, the trio have the technical chops to back up everything they’re doing, and whether it’s the fuzzblaster of “Cardboard Racer” or the sub-nine-minute meander of “Stray in Chill,” Fish Basket carry the listener from one end of the album to another with deceptive ease. Warning: it might be genius.

Fish Basket on Bandcamp

Interstellar Smoke Records store

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Woodhawk, Love Finds a Way

Calgary-based trio Woodhawk — guitarist/vocalist Turner Midzain, bassist/vocalist Mike Badmington and drummer Kevin Nelson — offer a sharply-constructed, professional-grade nine songs across the 53 minutes of their third full-length, the encouragingly-titled Love Finds a Way. The organ adds a classic feel to “Strangers Ever After” early in the going, and the fullness and clarity of the surrounding production only increases the trust in the band’s songwriting, which isn’t without aesthetic ambitions despite the straightforward tack, cuts like “Truth Be Told,” “White Crosses” and the dares-to-shimmy-in-the-middle title-track have as solid an underpinning of groove as one could ever reasonably ask. The melody over top in the vocals and guitar shines through accordingly. They’re plenty dug-in, of course, and any record that’s going to push past the 50-minute mark in 2025 better have some perspective to offer, but Woodhawk do. I don’t know if it’ll be enough to save the world, but at least somebody out there is putting love out front with their riffage, duly engaging as that is.

Woodhawk website

Woodhawk on Bandcamp

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Liminal Spirit, Pathways

Pathways is a single-song, just-under-14-minute EP from Milwaukee’s Liminal Spirit, the darkly progressive apparent-solo-project of Jerry Hauppa, who embodies a number of characters in the narrative throughout. Presented on a quick turnaround from the band’s late-2024 self-titled debut LP, the one-tracker nonetheless reaffirms the ambitions of the album before it, while also reinforcing the idea of Liminal Spirit as a still-growing, still-discovering-its-sound outfit. The vocals here, intended to embody multiple archetypal characters like The Patriarch, The Child, The Artisan, The Elder and The Apprentice, come through a vocoder-type treatment, and so where multiple points of view might otherwise be fleshed out and conveyed, the voice remains singular. This is the tradeoff for the intimacy of solo creativity, but one gets the sense from “Pathways” and the self-titled that Liminal Spirit is just beginning to explore the stylistic territory the band will ultimately cover.

Liminal Spirit on Bandcamp

Liminal Spirit on Facebook

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Clarity Vision, Deep Ocean

To follow their 2023 self-titled debut EP (on Addicted Label), Moscow-based doom rocker four-piece Clarity Vision present “Deep Ocean” (or, in Cyrillic:
“Глубокий океан”), a six-minute standalone single that soon makes its way via cymbal-wash from its beginning waves and quiet guitar into a procession of stately classic doom metal, big on swing and bigger on impact. The kind of riff that would make Leif Edling smile. Galina Shpakovskaya‘s voice is suited to the movement of the riffs, floating over with melodic echo but keeping a mystique that reminds of mid-period The Wounded Kings, when all was dark and mystery. Guitarist Alexey Roslyakov, bassist Alexey Roslyakov and drummer Mikhail Markelov hold the march steady for the duration, and although I’ve never come close to knowing even the slightest bit of Russian, Clarity Vision remind that we all speak the same language when it comes to being completely and utterly doomed.

Clarity Vision links

Addicted Label links

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Pearls and Brass, The Indian Tower (2006)

Through what seems in hindsight like some miracle of interwebular happenstance — and by that I mean it likely happened through StonerRock.com or the All That is Heavy store — I managed to catch wind of the self-titled debut from Nazareth, Pennsylvania, trio Pearls and Brass around the time of its release through Doppelganger Records in 2003. That record was killer, and I’ll admit that if anyone had put it up on YouTube in its front-to-back entirety, I’d probably be closing out the week with it instead of its 2006 follow-up, The Indian Tower, which came out on Drag City, but the second outing was more fully developed in its approach, bringing together the bounce and desert-perfection thrust of Queens of the Stone Age‘s Songs for the Deaf with rolling Pennsylvania hillsides on cuts like opener “The Tower” and the subsequent “No Stone” while saving room for acoustic blues on “I Learn the Hard Way” and closer “Away the Mirrors,” and ’70s-style boogie that seems absolutely prescient in hindsight on “Pray for Sound” and only gets more manic with the kick into next gear on “The Boy of the Willow Tree.” First record or second, you don’t really lose either way, is my point. While keeping to organic undertones and the occasional flourish of pastoralia, Pearls and Brass could absolutely scorch the earth when they chose to do so — see “The Mirror” here — but they’d ultimately be no less defined by that than the heavy blues vibe of “Wake in the Morning.” Dudes were just awesome.

Last time I saw Pearls and Brass was in 2011 (review here). It was my first experience ever going to Saint Vitus Bar — I appreciated the fact that it wasn’t in Williamsburg but had little forethought as to the institution it would and has become — and the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Randy Huth, bassist/backing vocalist Joel Winter, and drummer Josh Martin still brought it. By then, they were already overdue for a third full-length, but watching them live gave some measure of hope they’d be able to get something going again. Four years earlier, in 2007 Huth had also released a solo album of unplugged Americana folk blues, also via Drag City, under the moniker of Randall of Nazareth. Copies still exist for purchase on the interwebs if you’re interested in hunting it down, which if either “I Learn the Hard Way” or “Away the Mirrors” pique your interest as a complement to the rush of “The Face of God” here build on that nicely. Intimate vibe, like a bluesier take on some of Ben Chasny‘s stuff, but unpretentious to the point of recorded-in-the-living-room humility. Some five years after that record came out, I was fortunate enough to catch Huth — who had been playing for years with aggro punkers Pissed Jeans already — do a Randall of Nazareth set in Philly opening a show for EYE and Serpent Throne at Johnny Brenda’s (review here). I felt like I was getting away with something, and given how much he and/or Pearls and Brass have done since — not much — I probably was.

I don’t know what Winter or Martin have been up to, but Pissed Jeans have kept Huth busy. They have a new album, titled Why Love Now, out in two weeks on Sub Pop, for example, and they’ll tour to support it, so while Pearls and Brass are very likely tabled for good — as much as anything is ever permanent in rock and roll; never say never, never say die, always say “hiatus” — at least Huth has managed to find success elsewhere. It’s not really my thing compared to the pull and shove of “Black Rock Man” on The Indian Tower, but good on him anyhow. The self-titled Pearls and Brass, its follow-up and the Randall of Nazareth outing can remain as ripe-for-reissue fodder for the time being, like so many righteous offerings of the pre-Facebook oughts era.

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

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Sort of a procedural note here — some bookkeeping, if you will — but at the end of last week I changed the name I post under from from H.P. Taskmaster to JJ Koczan, which if you didn’t know is my real name. It wasn’t a secret or anything. It’s what I post as on Thee Facebooks and I think Twitter and Instagram as well, but I’d been using H.P. Taskmaster for years here basically because it felt self-serving to see “published by JJ Koczan” on every post. Still kind of does.

It’s a weird name, not particularly attractive to the eye, so I avoided looking at it for a long time. I guess I finally decided I didn’t give a shit anymore. It’s not anything that has a bearing on what I’ll cover or how I’ll cover it — like I said, just bookkeeping — but it was a change I made and I thought I’d mention it, if only so I could go back later, search for “when I started posting under my real name” and find the date. I had decided not to mention it on social media and see if anyone even noticed. If they did, nobody mentioned it. Fair enough.

We got a decent-sized snowstorm yesterday on the Eastern Seaboard, and I was given the day off work as a result. Back at work today, but the bonus day was a welcome gimme and I was glad to take it. My commute is an hour each way — not nearly as bad as the last one, and neither is the job itself, but still, it’s not nothing — and it’s started to wear on me a bit, particularly in the winter evenings. I leave in the morning, it’s dark. I come home at night, it’s dark. I don’t think I saw the sun at all in January. Hello, Norway. It’s started to get lighter earlier and stay lighter later, but I find myself looking forward to summer in a way that can only mean I’ve forgotten how unpleasant life is when it’s 100 degrees out. Humans are simple creatures. Whatever I qualify as, it’s even simpler.

Next week (and actually the week after, too) is already packed. Here’s what’s in my notes:

Mon.: Six Organs of Admittance review (doing myself a favor there) and Dot Legacy video premiere.
Tue.: Full album stream/review of the new Thera Roya, video from Deep Space Destructors.
Wed.: Track premiere from the new Sweat Lodge EP, video from Lung Flower.
Thu.: Track premiere from the new Libido Fuzz album.
Fri.: Full album stream/review from Deep Space Destructors.

Yeah, it’s gonna get pretty far out by the time we hit Friday next week, and that’s definitely okay by me.

The Patient Mrs.‘ birthday is this weekend, and while the snowstorm curtailed my prior present-picking-up intentions yesterday, we’ll nonetheless be celebrating with family on Saturday and likely eating homemade jalapeno poppers on Sunday, which is the day itself, so I expect that will be good. Whatever you’re up to, I wish you a joyous time, relaxing if that’s what you’re looking for, or otherwise action-packed and suspenseful, if that’s more your speed.

Have fun, be safe, thanks again for reading, and please check out the forum and radio stream.

The Obelisk Forum

The Obelisk Radio

Parisian heavy rockers Abrahma remain among my most positive impressions from last year’s Roadburn festival. I mean, I dug the band before, but their set (review here) last April put that in a new light, and what was so doubly engaging about it was that not only were they heavy — hell, everybody’s heavy, right? — but they were able to really bring to life the atmospheres and open spaces of their second album, Reflections in the Bowels of a Bird (review here), in a manner that made their sound all the more immersive. And to go with that, they had scope, a melodic presence that stayed through the set even in its most aggressive moments. Heavy rock bands sometimes cast all that off in favor of an all-out assault live. I won’t take anything away from that approach when it works, but Abrahma‘s style was right not to sacrifice its dynamic moodiness for impact.

The Nazareth cover “Witchdoctor Woman” was put to tape last July and is set to be included on the Go Down Fighting tribute that’s been in the works for a while now from Underdogma Records (info here). I’m not sure what led to Abrahma posting it on their own, whether or not it’s in advance of a release for the compilation that will also include Calamus, Långfinger and Against the Grain, but having enjoyed the excuse to revisit how much ass they kicked when I was fortunate enough to see them last Spring, I’ll take what I can get. You’ll hear pretty quickly that Abrahma manage to make the song their own, lending a deep-toned psychedelia to the original, which opened Nazareth‘s 1971 self-titled debut.

Enjoy:

Abrahma, “Witchdoctor Woman” (Nazareth cover)

Discover our cover track of “WITCHDOCTOR WOMAN” from NAZARETH

Soon to be released on “Go Down Fighting” a riff rock tribute to Nazareth!

Song recorded in 2015 by Benjamin Colin at HAKESOUND STUDIO (Romainville, FR)
Produced by ABRAHMA
Mixed by Benjamin Colin
Mastered by James Plotkin @ PLOTKINWORKS

Coming soon
“Go Down Fighting” – a riff rock tribute to Nazareth!
Limited Edition Colored Vinyl.

Track List:
“Miss Misery” – The Rubes
“Sunshine” – Calamus
“Razamataz” – The Humanoids
“Changing Times” – The Heave-Ho
“Please Don’t Judas Me” – Argus
“Whiskey Drinking Woman” – Shatner
“Witchdoctor Woman” – Abrahma
“Expect No Mercy” – Against The Grain
“Empty Arms, Empty Heart” – Resande Man
“Alcatraz” – Wild Eyes
“Light My Way” – Långfinger
“Beggar’s Day” – Bozeman’s Simplex

Also possible contributions from RAGING SLAB, Left Lane Cruiser, Solace, Daniel Davies, Gideon Smith, Contra, Mothership, Magic Jove, and surprise special guests!

Abrahma on Thee Facebooks

Abrahma website

Underdogma Records on Thee Facebooks

Underdogma Records website

It’s been a minute, but there was a time when Underdogma Records proliferated a brand of heavy rock that stood right in line with their contemporaries in the likes of Small Stone and Tee Pee. Between about 2000 and 2009, Underdogma belted out killer offerings from bands like Sunnshine, The Rubes, Ironboss, Gate 9, Crom, Throttlerod and We’re all Gonna Die, spanning a genre range of heaviness that had its underlying identity in a running theme of grit and aggression. Tee Pee went psych, Small Stone got fuzzier, but Underdogma‘s trade was generally in dirtier, meaner fare.

Their Judge Not compilation from 2000 is still worth tracking down if you can find it, boasting cuts from Solace, Solarized, Calamus, The Quill, Satellite Circle, Raging Slab, Pale Divine and many, many others, and knowing that is part of why the announcement of Underdogma‘s return with the Go Down Fighting heavy rock tribute to Nazareth caught my attention. No release date has been named yet — and I wouldn’t want to try to pin something like that down — but a partial tracklisting has been posted, and with the likes of Abrahma, Against the Grain, Shatner and Argus involved, among many others of course, and more to come, it seems like they could come back with plenty of wallop.

That tracklisting follows here. Note the prospect of Solace recording a new track for the tribute. Makes one wonder just how much of a return to activity theirs might be:

Underdogma, brain step-child of Grant Williams and Carlton Duff, started out as a high school science project and has remained that way ever since…

Coming soon
“Go Down Fighting”
a riff rock tribute to Nazareth!

Limited Edition Colored Vinyl.
Track List:
“Miss Misery” – The Rubes
“Sunshine” – Calamus
“Razamataz” – The Humanoids
“Changing Times” – The Heave-Ho
“Love Hurts” – Easy Jesus Coe
“Please Don’t Judas Me” – Argus
“Whiskey Drinking Woman” – Shatner
“Witchdoctor Woman” – Abrahma
“Expect No Mercy” – Against The Grain
“The Ballad Of Hollis Brown” – Lifetime Shitlist

Also possible contributions from
RAGING SLAB, Left Lane Cruiser, Solace, Daniel Davies, Gideon Smith, Contra, Mothership, Magic Jove, and surprise special guests!

https://www.facebook.com/Underdogma
https://twitter.com/carlton_duff

The Rubes, “Wonder Why”