Well, this was a markedly joyous Quarterly Review. I know it’s been a good year already for music and there’s more coming, but it’s always something of a relief when I get to Wednesday or Thursday of one of these things and don’t want to bash my head into a wall until I lose consciousness. The horrors persist but so do the riffs. I am fortunate for that.

If we’re being honest, I do these for myself. I do it as a way to keep up with things that are coming out or are already out (sometimes for a while; I think there were two 2025 outings in here this week), but it’s also a different kind of challenge to get through so much, and I enjoy that probably more than I generally say. This week I added a bunch of stuff to my best-of-2026 lists, and that includes today as well.

But while it may be me being self-serving in terms of musical exposure, I always hope you’ve been able to find something in this mix that you hadn’t heard before that speaks to you. Or maybe you agree with something I said, or disagree, or whatever. Maybe some piece of cover art made you feel something. Maybe your day got a little better just for that. Whatever it is. Please know that if you’re taking part in this at all, on any level, it’s appreciated.

Back in Sept., maybe? I’ll see if I can make it through the summer. Depends in part on how much comes in, which is almost always a flood these days. Not mad about that, by the way.

Alright, here we go. Thanks again for reading.

Quarterly Review #41-50:

Restless Spirit, Restless Spirit

Fullness of push, vitality in delivery, a distinctive take on craft drawing from a range of intangible influences — if Restless Spirit‘s self-titled fourth album is the band declaring themselves, then they picked the right record to share their name. The Long Island-based Magnetic Eye Records trio have fostered a next-generational take on riff metal able to sound massive and to move, not necessarily drawing from Sleep, but rather tipping that foundational balance more toward metal’s traditionalism. But they’re not an overly aggressive band, and even in the faster stretches of “Desire Lines” or the subsequent galloper “Desolation’s Wake,” or the penultimate “Time and Distance” with its more angular groove, they avoid a dudely trap into which many others have fallen. Ultimately, that balance is the place where Restless Spirit dwell in terms of sound, and it’s become more their own over time. This album would seem to be not only them acknowledging that, but embracing it and owning it outright. It’s a strong statement for any band to make at any point in their career, and the material here makes it feel all the more earned.

Restless Spirit on Bandcamp

Magnetic Eye Records store

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Ryan Güt, The Shastafarian

If you saw Brant Bjork in any incarnation between 2015-2024, whether it was solo, with Stöner, the beginnings of Brant Bjork Trio or with Mario Lalli and the Rubber Snake Charmers, chances are it was Ryan Güt holding down the crucial groove on drums. His first solo album, The Shastafarian, finds him stepping forward as a multi-instrumentalist and producer, and across 37 minutes from the Funkadelic-style talk-over-it startoff in “Beggars and Choosers” to the Blue Öyster Cult cover “Veterans of the Psychic Wars” that closes, Güt offers a spread of classic influence manifest in individualized songs. “Basically Dead (This Town)” feels like Thin Lizzy revelry, “Song for G” keeps its singer-songwritery acoustic foundation despite a full arrangement, and the self-jam in “On the Up and Up” digs in with surprising aplomb for only being one person. There’s a synthier wash in “Sand to Snow,” and that’s telling for a more experimental second half with the dirty fuzz of “Crig Lord Archduke Earl of Montague (The Monkey)” and the dub instrumental “DHS (12th St. Remixes)” entrances ahead of the grounded finish with the already-noted cover. It will be a tragedy if Güt and Zack Oakley (ex-Joy, etc.) never work together, as they seem to share so much in basic intent and both are fully capable of building an album solo, but on his own Güt sets up a broad progression here and one hopes the exploration continues.

Ryan Güt website

Ryan Güt on Bandcamp

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Bismut, Matsutake

As opening cut “Alienation” drifts into its second half, the drums just barely holding onto ground to hint at the swing-around that’s coming, Dutch trio Bismut reaffirm their progressive purposes. Since their inception, the Nijmegen instrumentalist trio have been more about flow than structure, and Matsutake as their fourth full-length, continues the journey. Each piece has its own intention, be it the headspinning “Assemblage” or the tense-until-it-blows-out “Neugier” just before, or the two-and-a-half-minute kissoff “Salvage,” but no question they hit an apex of heft in the pairing of “Contamination” and “(Potentially) Immortal,” which are the two longest and most dug-in tracks, Bismut carrying a spirit of urgency as much as aftermath, with the latter hinting at techno before hitting into a payoff righteous enough to count for the whole record’s procession. The vibe is restless, which is to say Bismut aren’t sitting still, aren’t resting too long in a single part, but it’s the fluidity born out of their sheer chemistry that makes it all work.

Bismut website

Tonzonen website

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Crippled Black Phoenix, Sceaduhelm

Sceaduhelm might be the outright heaviest I’ve heard Crippled Black Phoenix sound in their 20-plus years — at least in parts; they’re never quite only doing one thing at a time — but that’s still only half the story when it comes to the atmosphere and the palpably gothy mood spread across the 66-minute 2LP. I know, it’s another brilliant CBP album? Ho-hum, business as usual. Maybe it’s true that the band will be more appreciated 40 years on than they are now, but as samples draw together the various sections/sides, vocalists swap out between “No Epitaph – The Precipice” and “Hollows End,” etc., the band remain unthethered to genre and unto themselves in the world they create. “Vampire Grave” is so ’90s goth kitsch you can smell its clove cigarettes, but neither “Colder and Colder” nor “Under the Eye,” which follow, want for resonance, and the penultimate “Tired to the Bone” provides a gorgeous comedown before they cap with the yes-it-was-all-real-you-weren’t-dreaming “Beautiful Destroyer,” rolling with marked largesse into a suitably beautiful finish. I guess it’s hard for a band who don’t tour super-often or hock records on social media like mini-infomercials to get hype in this age of horrors, but damn. Even if you’ve never heard Crippled Black Phoenix before — maybe especially? — Sceaduhelm is a clarion to be heeded.

Crippled Black Phoenix website

Season of Mist website

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Some Pills for Ayala, Incarnate

It’s been a productive half-decade for Néstor Ayala Cortés, whose solo-project Some Pills for Ayala began following the dissolution of his prior outfit, At Devil Dirt. Handling multiple instruments and samples, vocals and production, Some Pills for Ayala have been consistent in regards to exploring various facets of rolling heavy tonality, and the fuzz runs unsurprisingly strong in Incarnate as well, though the rawness of noise amid the stonerly swing of “I Can’t Lie” and the upped level of crush in “Until You Die” demonstrate some of the nuance Cortés has grown into as the band has moved forward. Grunge and aughts-era heavy melodymaking are still part of it, but Incarnate is a product of nothing so much as the artist who made it, and listening brings to light just how much Some Pills for Ayala stands willfully apart from the microgenred norm.

Some Pills for Ayala on Bandcamp

Some Pills for Ayala on Instagram

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Gnod, Chronicles of Gnowt Vol. 1

Admirably adventurous and consistently antifascist UK psychedelic rockers Gnod begin a stated trilogy with Chronicles of Gnowt Vol. 1, and obviously I haven’t heard the other two parts yet, but this six-track/42-minute outing taken on its own could hardly be said to feel incomplete. Side A is bookended by “Three Trees (Part 1)” and “Three Trees (Part 2),” comprised of drifting acoustics manipulated in the second installment by effects, and between them, “Shadow Mirror” heavy-ambles through a lysergic slog and “Neptune” indeed offers planetary distance in its far off rumble. That turns out to be prescient as “All Tunnel No Light” (9:56) and “Ekstasis” (10:32) comprise the entirety of side B, the former growing into a massive, slow lurch and the latter less structured-feeling in its makeup despite the drums holding on to the central groove as it makes its way toward the relatively quick comedown with residual effects churning thereafter. This entire triptych might just be a blip in the larger breadth of Gnod‘s catalog, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t significant either there or in the larger scope of heavy psych rock.

Gnod on Bandcamp

Rocket Recordings website

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Fuzzing Nation, Mothertruck

Mothertruck is the conceptualist debut album from Athenian trio Fuzzing Nation, who rally listeners to their tale with heaped-on hairy riffery and a fervent heavy rock execution. They’re not over-the-top fast, or making-a-point-of-it slow, but they find and inhabit a comfortable range in the middle, and in the dancey “The Elder’s Code” and the Kyussian shover “The Core Machine,” they present themselves as kin to desert-heavy, but have an underlying core of trad/classic metal, which can be heard in “Turn the Key” more than careening opener “Burning Roads,” which is a rocker through and through. Maybe it’s a fine line Fuzzing Nation gleefully tread. Fine. The narrative — pretty sure it involves a big truck; just a guess — settles into its own aftermath with “I Don’t Care at All,” capping with a last push a record that never compromises in its love of heavy rock and roll or the band’s narrative vision conveyed through it. I don’t know if they’ll keep telling the story, that happens sometimes, but if you can call your record Mothertruck and actually pull it off, you’re already on your way.

Fuzzing Nation website

Argonauta Records store

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Ak’Chamel, Spiritually Unemployed

Once upon a time there was a band way out west with the unfortunate moniker Master Musicians of Bukkake. Ak’Chamel, an apparent duo, costumed and anonymous, maybe/maybe not from Austin, Texas, feel similarly fascinated with transgressing the barriers between folk musics and psychedelic arrangements, such that Spiritually Unemployed, their second album, is as intimate as it is expansive. It speaks to places that probably don’t exist — at least not in the way they’re offered as realities in the songs — and keeps a thread of irreverence in songs like “The Cosmic Vulva vs. The Post-Enlightened Tongue” and the closing “My Little Pony Apocalypse Diorama Playset.” You’ll be hard pressed to find a collection of weirder sounds, and for sure experimentation is part of the point, but Spiritually Unemployed doesn’t come across as haphazard or disconnected so much as drawn together over its 10 relatively brief inclusions and soundtracky in ethereal occasionally ways. Get weirder. No, weirder than that. Keep going. You’re almost there…

Ak’Chamel on Bandcamp

Akuphone Records website

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Sonic Secrets, Diversions Vol. 1

To be honest, I kind of think Sonic Secrets, as the name for the instrumental solo-project of North Carolina’s Kevin Clark (ex-Black Skies), is emblematic of the intention for the music. Diversions Vol. 1, a 10-song/20-minute offering one might otherwise consider a debut album, doesn’t come across like it was made for press, or a response, or something like that. Starting with drum parts and building around them, Clark over the course of three days went from zero to has-a-record, and listening through, the sense I get is that the process was as much the reason behind it as the need for a creative splurge. Only “The Descent,” with Western-sprawl guitar over an keyboard beat, tops four minutes long, and it and everything that surrounds portrays itself as both proof-of-concept — i.e. demonstrating that Clark can function as a band on his own, which yes, it would seem so — and the result of a craft that’s insular despite drawing from an array of stylistic influences. And it does a little bit come across like something just made to be itself, a sonic secret. One wonders how long Clark will be able to keep it that way.

Sonic Secrets on Bandcamp

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Big Scenic Nowhere, Rehearsal 11.19.21

The key word is “rehearsal” with Rehearsal 11.19.21, limited to 100 LP copies and released independently by West Coast supergroup Big Scenic Nowhere. Offered as two full sides, the vinyl captures the band — Tony Reed (Mos Generator, etc.) on vocals/keys/bass, guitarists Gary Arce (Yawning Man, etc.) and Bob Balch (Fu Manchu, etc.) and drummer Bill Stinson (Yawning Man) — preparing for their first-ever live show. The difference is they’re playing songs they’d already written — “LeDu,” “Lavender Blues,” “Towards the Sun,” and so on — rather than jamming out the bones of what would become their next record. They still haven’t played live a ton, so hearing this material, with chatter among the members and a casual dipping into and out of the songs, brings a new dimension to their studio work up to this point, and presents listeners with another side than even a regular live album could provide. Maybe most of all, it argues in favor of them doing more with the band. Nobody involved is short on other things happening musically, but Big Scenic Nowhere‘s proggy desert heavy found a trajectory all its own. A platter such as this in raw celebration of that is most certainly welcome.

Big Scenic Nowhere on Instagram

HeavyHead Store

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Utrecht heavy rock five-piece Hell Valley High make their full-length debut this week with Welcome to Hell Valley, out Friday on Argonauta Records. The title, of course, refers the Kyuss ultra-classic Welcome to Sky Valley, but much to the band’s credit, they’re not necessarily limited to the desert when it comes to stylistic biomes. Riffing is the foundation, to be sure, but the urgency brought to the chorus of “To Each His Own” and the patterning of frontman Mark Mulders around the stop-prone guitar in side B leadoff “Blameless” feels born out of Lo-Pan‘s soulful playbook, at least in the verse. In addition to this, “Easy Rider” takes on broader expanses with an eight-minute runtime and engrossing build at the end of the album’s first half, and opener “Clean Slate” clues the listener contingent that already got the reference that as regards amenities, Hell Valley High — the lineup of Mulders, guitarists Eelco Klein Overmeen and Damir Čiček, bassist Niels Turk and drummer Wouter Dielesen – have to do than ape genre forebears.

And from “Clean Slate” onward, they don’t waste time getting to it. Second song “To Each His Own” has a standout chorus and a subtle flourish of lead guitar there that reminds of Bad Religion, and pairing the rush of “Future Nomads” — a fleet-footed highlight — with “Easy Rider” gives Welcome to Hell Valley‘s A side a more encompassing spirit while leaving side B, which rounds out cohesively with “The Grind” underscoring the crux of the 37-minute offering’s unpretentious rock mindset, room enough to throw a curve like the cover of “Send Me a Postcard,” the 1968 single by Dutch proto-heavy outfit Shocking Blue, which 56 years after its release fits pretty well alongside the catchy fare Hell Valley High have on offer, and the band get bonus points for keeping the line, “I wanna be your woman,” in the chorus. They back the cover with “One O One,” answering some of the two-guitar hard punk of “To Each His Own,” effective in the semi-redirect from ’60s-style to something more current — which of course was born 30 years ago; time is an illusion — in no small part because of Hell Valley High‘s songwriting, which is a strength throughout.

There’s little to hold them back as they celebrate the release this weekend as part of the stunning lineup for Desertfest Belgium 2024 — there are other Fall shows listed below — and the songs promise a charge from the stage in their studio versions; just hit up “Future Nomads” if you don’t believe it. Self-awareness is obviously a factor here, as the band know where they’re coming from or they wouldn’t have basically named their debut after someone else’s record, but if their intention in doing so is to put a spin of their own on what’s been done before, Welcome to Hell Valley succeeds in this and asks little of the listener in doing so. Indulgences are few if any, and the vitality of the material holds, bringing a playful sensibility to the cover and setting forth on the process of sculpting their take with these songs. I won’t predict where the future might take their sound, but if they want to expand on their accomplishments here, there are a swath of aesthetic avenues they might traverse through a longer-term progression. Or, more straightforwardly, there’s potential in what they’re doing.

Likely some of that is born out of the band members’ past experiences — the pedigree is listed in the PR wire info that follows in blue below; I don’t need to cut and paste — but the chemistry here, the meld of ideas that seem to be from different sources, and the clarity of structures and purposes serve them well, whatever reaches they may want to explore over time.

Welcome to Hell Valley streams on the player below. Please enjoy:

Hell Valley High, Welcome to Hell Valley album premiere

The pre-order with T-shirt/LP bundles is available at the band’s official webstore: https://hellvalleyhigh.nl/

The Netherlands-based, groove-driven heavy rock band HELL VALLEY HIGH is set to release its highly anticipated debut album, Welcome to Hell Valley, on October 18th, 2024, via Argonauta Records, on vinyl and digital formats.

“We are very excited to release our debut full-length Welcome To Hell Valley through Argonauta Records on October 18th. We’ve been working really hard on this album for the past year and we’re extremely proud of the final result. The album was recorded over two sessions at Big Dog Recordings, just outside of Antwerp, Belgium. All music was recorded live to capture Hell Valley High’s true energy. The title is a nod to the legendary 1994 Kyuss album. At the same time – like the band’s name – the title is an ode to our favorite movie Back To The Future.

Welcome To Hell Valley includes the groovy song Blameless and fiery rocker Future Nomads, that were both released earlier this year. It also features our latest single Clean Slate and the multifaceted Easy Rider, with its epic crescendo. The album even contains a cover of a song that was originally released in 1970 by a world famous Dutch band. Because every classic debut album needs a Shocking Blue cover, don’t you think?” – band comments on the album.

Album tracklisting:
1. Clean Slate
2. To Each His Own
3. Future Nomads
4. Easy Rider
5. Blameless
6. Send Me A Postcard
7. One O One
8. The Grind

HELL VALLEY HIGH live dates:
🇧🇪 18-10-24 Desertfest, Antwerp w/ Monster Magnet, Fu Manchu, Russian Circles & more
🇳🇱 25-10-24 Muziekgieterij, Maastricht w/ Fu Manchu
🇳🇱 15-11-24 Patronaat, Haarlem w/ Slower
🇳🇱 29-03-25 Interstaller Solar Fest, Leiden w/ Mars Red Sky, Iron Jinn & more

Line-up
Mark Mulders – vocals
Eelco Klein Overmeen – guitars
Damir Čiček – guitars
Niels Turk – bass
Wouter Dielesen – drums

Hell Valley High on Facebook

Hell Valley High on Instagram

Hell Valley High on Linktr.ee

Argonauta Records on Facebook

Argonauta Records on Instagram

Argonauta Records store

Okay, so the 12-minute single doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about Moan‘s self-titled debut and its improv-based heavy rock construction, but the fact that of the four songs, they picked “Nothing in Nature” in the first place tells you a lot. The looseness underpinning the four-track long-player reminds me a lot of older school stoner rock, and I can’t help accordingly but to wonder if over the course of the next year we’ll see more bands coming out like this, who maybe got their start either in the pandemic or adjacent to do it who’ve sort of gone to ground stylistically while bringing new creativity to established styles. In the world of sports, they follow ‘storylines’ for seasons. That’s one I’ve got my eye on, along with the rise of trad metal (similarly motivated in part, I think) and the ever-amorphous shifts in psychedelic trends between space this and acid that.

Moan are riffier and groovier, more about tone and progression than atmosphere, but they don’t lack that either, and “Nothing in Nature” most definitely proves that. The album is out Nov. 25 (I’ll be away that week or I’d have already asked to stream it), and you’ll find the release info and the clip for the extended lead single below. All comes courtesy of the PR wire:

MOAN are four dudes from Groningen, Netherlands. Guitarist Marcel and Bassist André have been making music together since forever. Two people in a room, hardly any lights and loads of weed. Sometimes other musicians came in, jammed, and went, not to return. Their music existed purely by means of making it. They hardly performed. Listeners at the door of that room, became long-time fans.

Ear-splitting hammer-like, the darkest of soundscapes. Singers and drummers came and went. “You can come in and join, but we are MOAN, deal with it”. How does one deal with MOAN? By becoming MOAN, not by being overambitious and wanting to change stuff. And stand firm because their black humour is all over the place.

In comes Drummer Reinee. A mammoth and that’s exactly what MOAN’s sound is like: a mammoth stompin’ about. Enter vocalist, Jurgen. He’s been listening at that door for ages, longing to become their singer. Once, he got a tape, tried to add his vocals, and failed miserably, nothing came up! Back to the door, listen, listen and listen again. How to deal with MOAN? Again, by becoming MOAN. So fuck the tape, he went in. MOAN improvised stuff that sounded like compositions. Almost all the material on their first album came to form during that first improvisation. MOAN is a four piece now…….

“We are MOAN. Our sound is massive, we feel it pressing on our chests. It is not doom, far from it. Our sound is sorrowful, not meant to kick your teeth in, but to drench your heart in melancholy and carry you. And yes, we like machinery, loud stomping machinery. We are mud, warm and damp. We are MOAN, our noise is stoner-like, the vocals tend to be melodic, our bass is a sledgehammer, and our drummer is a beast. MOAN is like black tourmaline and selenite: two stones that purify and cleanse…” –
MOAN

Track Listing:
1. Burning Man
2. Nothing in Nature
3. Learn to Bleed
4. Desert Island Drugs

Line Up:
Guitar – Marcel
Bass – André
Drums – Reinee
Vocals – Jurgen

facebook.com/Moansludge

https://www.instagram.com/AudioSportRecords
https://www.facebook.com/AudioSportRecords
https://audiosportrecords.bandcamp.com/
http://www.audiosportrecords.com/

Moan, “Nothing in Nature” official video

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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: Sander Haagmans of The Whims of the Great Magnet (ex-Sungrazer)

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

I make rock music, teach guitar and I’m a father. So basically that puts me in the dad rock corner. I got my first Steely Dan record last year. Countdown to Ecstasy. Pretty neat. The way I came to make music was just by making sounds and noise from an early age on, like everybody does actually. As a young kid I already felt the need to make songs, record them and make albums out of it. Those first albums, which are cassette tapes that we put in a cigar box and then decorate the outside and inside, are probably my most precious releases to date.

Describe your first musical memory.

My memory is terrible. But I do know I had a poster near my bed with children’s songs that I loved to sing before I went to bed. And later I remember dancing on the table with my best friend to “Walk of Life” from Dire Straits. Or singing with my dad in the car the string parts of “Strawberry Fields.” There’s too many good memories, but I can’t recall the first.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

Maybe that was listening to Nirvana as a teenager as loud as possible in a small bedroom with my best friend Willem. He also let me hear “Vortex Surfer” from Motorpsycho for the first time when we were, I don’t know, 20 or something. It was late at night and we had a big hifi soundsystem there. I once talked to a soundguy that used that song for soundchecking the P.A. at shows. Enough low end there, pfff.

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

A firmly held belief, eh? I think I first need to think about the answer to the question ‘when was the last time you had a firmly held belief’ or ‘did you ever have a firmly held belief’ or ‘did you ever believe in something’ or ‘did you ever held anything firmly’. Well that’s a lot to think about. Not really though. But let’s stick to your question. I could have skipped that first part of my answer that led to nothing but this. But this is also a way of just writing down words and getting into some really meaningless bullshit that could actually be something I believe in. Well there you go. I think I always believed in a lot of bullshit and now I realize it’s not bullshit, but the truth. No no no no, get that out. Ok, I always believed you should not make any corrections to what you just put down. But I’m seriously having second thoughts about that right now. No…wait… it’s gone. I still believe in it. Damn it.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

For me it leads to musical freedom, improvisation, magical unique moments in jams combined with that chorus or hook that will make you laugh and cry and stay with you till the end of time. In other words it’s just about having some fun and see what happens. These progressions always change and I guess I just try to go with that.

How do you define success?

When there’s a cool result when you tried something or even when you didn’t try.

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

You’re a father too. You know it’s the cartoons kids watch nowadays.

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

A monster.

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

Getting laid, getting high, getting rich, I can’t choose. Art made the world and everything. And everything is everything only if it’s not. But, man what a question. Good one. Really, this is not something you write down. This is bar talk. Or can bar talk be written down? Of course it can. If it can’t be written down it’s not writable on anything. I could dance you the answer.

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

Yes.

https://www.facebook.com/TheWhimsOfTheGreatMagnet
https://thewhimsofthegreatmagnet.bandcamp.com/

The Whims of the Great Magnet, “Share My Sun”

Friday morning and the Spring 2021 Quarterly Review draws to a close. It’s been a good one, and though there are probably enough albums on my desktop to make it go another few days, better to quit while I’m ahead in terms of not-being-so-tired-I’m-angry-at-everything-I’m-hearing. In any case, as always, I hope you found something here you enjoy. I have been pleasantly surprised on more than a few occasions, especially by debuts.

We wrap with more cool stuff today and since I’m on borrowed time as it is, let me not delay.

Quarterly Review #41-50:

Sonic Flower, Rides Again

Like Church of Misery‘s groove but feel kind of icky with all those songs about serial killers? Legit. Say hello to Tatsu Mikami‘s Sonic Flower. Once upon a 2003, the band brought all the boogie and none of the slaughter of Tatsu‘s now-legendary Sabbathian doom rock outfit to a self-titled debut (reissue review here), and Rides Again is the lost follow-up from 2005, unearthed like so many of the early ’70s forsaken classics that clearly inspired it. With covers of The Meters and Graham Central Station, Sonic Flower makes their funky intentions plain as day, and the blowout drums and full-on fuzz they bring to those cuts as well as the five originals on the short-but-satisfying 28-minute offering is a win academically and for casual fans alike. You ain’t gonna hear “Jungle Cruise” or their take on “Earthquake” and come out complaining, is what I’m saying. This is the kind of record that makes you buy more records.

Sonic Flower on Thee Facebooks

Heavy Psych Sounds on Bandcamp

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Demon Head, Viscera

With Viscera, Copenhagen’s Demon Head make their debut on Metal Blade Records. It is their fourth album overall, the follow-up to 2019’s Hellfire Ocean Void (review here), and it continues the five-piece’s enduring exploration of darker places. Dramatic vocals recount grim narratives over backing instrumentals that are less doom at the outset with “Tooth and Nail” and “The Feline Smile” than goth, and atmospheric pieces like “Arrows” and “The Lupine Choir” and “A Long, Groaning Descent” and “Wreath” and certainly the closer “The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony” further the impression that Viscera, though its title conjures raw guts, is instead an elaborate entirety — if perhaps one of raw guts — and meant to be taken in its 36-minute whole. Demon Head make that LP-friendly runtime a progression down into reaches they’d not until this point gone, tapping sadness for its inherent beauty.

Demon Head on Thee Facebooks

Metal Blade Records website

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Rakta & Deafkids, Live at Sesc Pompeia

Next time someone asks you what the future sounds like, you’ll have a good answer for them. Combined into a six-piece band, Brazilian outfits Rakta and Deafkids harness ambience and space-punk thrust into a sound that is born of a past that hasn’t yet happened. Their Live at Sesc Pompeia LP follows on from a 2019 two-songer, but it’s in the live performance that the spirit of this unity really shines through, and from opener/longest track (immediate points) “Miragem” through the semi-industrialized effects swirl of “Templo do Caos,” into the blower-noise dance party “Sigilo,” the weirdo-chug-jam of “Forma” and the space rock breakout “Flor de Pele” and the percussed buzz and echoing howls of “Espirais,” they are equal parts encompassing and singular. It is not to be ignored, and though there are moments that border on unlistenable, you can hear from the wailing crowd at the end that to be in that room was to witness something special. As a document of that, Live at Sesc Pompeia feels like history in the making.

Rakta on Thee Facebooks

Deafkids on Thee Facebooks

Rapid Eye Records website

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Timo Ellis, Death is Everywhere

A madcap, weighted-but-anti-genre sensibility comes to life in supernova-experimentalist fashion throughout the four songs of Timo Ellis‘ Death is Everywhere. The lockdown-era EP from Ellis (Netherlands, Yoko Ono, Cibo Matto, on and on) makes post-modern shenanigans out of apocalypses inner and outer, and from lines like “this bridal shower is bumming me out” in the unabashedly hooky “Vampire Rodeo” to “the earth will still breathe fire without you!” in “Left Without an Answer,” the stakes are high despite the flittering-in-appreciation-of-the-absurd mood of the tracks themselves. The title-track and “Evolve or Die” blend sonic heft and the experimental pop movement that “Vampire Rodeo” sets forth — the third cut is positively manic and maniacally positive — while “Left Without an Answer” almost can’t help but be consuming as it rolls into a long fade leaving intertwining vocals lines as the last to go, telling the listener to “learn to say goodbye” without making it easy. Won’t be for everyone, doesn’t want to be. Is expression for itself. Feels genuine in that, and admirable.

Timo Ellis on Thee Facebooks

Timo Ellis on Bandcamp

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Heavy Feather, Mountain of Sugar

With not-at-all-subtle nods to Humble Pie and Ennio Morricone in its opening tracks, Heavy Feather‘s second LP, Mountain of Sugar, has boogie to spare. No time is wasted on the 38-minute/11-track follow-up to 2019’s Débris & Rubble (review here), and true to the record’s title, it’s pretty sweet. The collection pits retro mindset against modern fullness in its harmonica-laced, duly-fuzzed title-track, and goes full-Fleetwood on “Come We Can Go” heading into a side B that brings a highlight in the soft-touch-stomp of “Rubble and Debris” and an earned bit of Southern-styled turn in “Sometimes I Feel” that makes a fitting companion to all the bluesy vibes throughout, particularly those of the mellow “Let it Shine” earlier. The Stockholm outfit knew what they were doing last time out too, but you can hear their process being refined throughout Mountain of Sugar, and even its most purposefully familiar aspects come across with a sense of will and playfulness.

Heavy Feather on Thee Facebooks

The Sign Records on Thee Facebooks

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Slow Draw, Yellow & Gray

Don’t tell him I told you so, but Slow Draw is starting to sound an awful lot like a band. What began as a drone/soundscaping project from Stone Machine Electric drummer/noisemaker Mark Kitchens has sprouted percussive roots of its own on Yellow & Gray, and as Kitchens explores textures of psychedelic funk, mellow heavy and even a bit of ’70s proggy homage in “Sylvia” ahead of the readily Beck-ian jam “Turntable” and acousti-drone closer “A Slow Move,” the band-vibe is rampant. I’m going to call Yellow & Gray a full-length despite the fact that it’s 24 minutes long because its eight songs inhabit so many different spaces between them, but however you want to tag it, it demonstrates the burgeoning depth of Kitchens‘ project and how it’s grown in perhaps unanticipated ways. If this is what he’s been doing in isolation — as much as Texas ever shuttered for the pandemic — his time has not been wasted.

Slow Draw on Thee Facebooks

Slow Draw on Bandcamp

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Pilot Voyager, Nuclear Candy Bar

Freak! Out! The 66-minute Nuclear Candy Bar from Hungarian psychedelicists Pilot Voyager might end mostly drifting with the 27-minute “23:61,” but much of the four tracks prior to that finale are fuzz-on-go-go-go-out-out-out heavy jams, full in tone and improv spirit however planned their course may or may not actually be. To say the least, “Fuzziness” lives up to its name, as guitarist/founder Ákos Karancz — joined by bassist Bence Ambrus (who also mastered) and drummers Krisztián Megyeri and István Baumgartner (the latter only on the closer) — uses a relatively earthbound chug as a launchpad for further space/krautrocking bliss, culminating in a scorching cacophony that’s the shortest piece on the record at just under seven minutes. If you make it past the molten heat of the penultimate title-track, there’s no turning away from “23:61,” as the first minute of that next day pulls you in from the outset, a full-length flow all unto itself. More more more, yes yes yes. Alright you get the point.

Pilot Voyager on Thee Facebooks

Psychedelic Source Records on Bandcamp

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The Ginger Faye Bakers, Camaro

Sit with The Ginger Faye Bakers‘ Camaro EP for a little bit. Don’t just listen to the first track, or even the second, third or fourth, on their own, but take a few minutes to put it all together. Won’t take long, the thing’s only 17 minutes long, and in so doing you’ll emerge with a more complex picture of who they are as a band. Yeah, you hear the opening title-cut and think early-Queens of the Stone Age-style desert riffing, maybe with a touch of we’re-actually-from-the-Northeast tonal thickness, but the garage-heavy of “The Creeps” feels self-aware in its Uncle Acid-style swing, and as the trio move through the swinging “The Master” and “Satan’s Helpers,” the last song drawing effectively from all sides, the totality of the release becomes all the more sinister for the relatively straight-ahead beginning just a short time earlier. Might be a listen or two before it sinks in, but they’ve found a niche for themselves here and one hopes they continue to follow where their impulses lead them.

The Ginger Faye Bakers on Thee Facebooks

The Ginger Faye Bakers on Bandcamp

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Neromega, Nero Omega

If you’re not yet keeping an eye on Regain Records offshoot Helter Skelter Productions, Rome’s Neromega are a fervent argument for doing so. The initials-only cultish five-piece are Italian as much in their style of doom as they are in geography, and across their four-song Nero Omega debut EP, they run horror organ and classic heavy rock grooves alongside each other while nodding subtly at more extreme fare like the death ‘n’ roll rumble in closer “Un Posto” or the dirt-coated low end that caps “Pugnale Ardore,” the drifting psych only moments ago quickly forgotten in favor of renewed shuffle. Eight-minute opener “Solitudine,” might be the highlight as well as the longest inclusion on the 24-minute first-showing, but it’s by no means the sum total of what the band have on offer, as they saunter through giallo, psychedelia, doom, heavy riffs and who knows what else to come, they strike an immediately individual atmospheric presence even while actively toying with familiar sounds. The EP is cohesive enough to make me wonder what their initials are.

Neromega on Thee Facebooks

Helter Skelter Productions website

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Tung, Bleak

Some of the made-even-bigger-by-echo vocals from guitarist Craig Kasamis might remind of Maurice Bryan Giles from Red Fang, but Ventura, California’s Tung are up chasing down a different kind of party on 2020’s Bleak, though Kasamis, guitarist David Briceno (since replaced by Bill Bensen), bassist Nick Minasian and drummer Rob Dean have a strong current of West Coast noise rock in what they’re doing as well in “Runaway,” a lurcher like “Spit” later on or the run-till-it-crashes finisher “Fallen Crown,” which the only song apart from the bookending opener “Succession Hand” to have a title longer than a single word. Still, Tung have their own, less pop-minded take on brashness, and this debut album leaves the bruises behind to demonstrate its born-from-hardcore lineage. Their according lack of frills makes Bleak all the more effective at getting its point across, and while they’d probably tell you their sound is nothing fancy, it’s fancy enough to stomp all over your ears for about half an hour, and that’s as fancy as it needs to be. Easy to dig even in its more aggressive moments.

Tung on Thee Facebooks

Plain Disguise Records website

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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: Timo Ellis

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

I define myself (not too hard!) as an artist, primarily as a musician/ composer/ producer, and then latently, but also sincerely in digital art, writing, poetry, and film/ video. I came to do it intuitively, as a means of transmuting (and frankly surviving) my various childhood psychic and emotional difficulties. + even that seems too narratively tidy?? I think I just did it because I had to, and I could.

Describe your first musical memory.

listening on repeat to the “Really, Rosie” LP by Carole King and Maurice Sendak, at home, in 1975.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

(does this mean a memory of music? or a memory of playing music??) my personal experiences playing music have been so hugely varied, not only musically but also emotionally/ psychologically in terms of my frame of (and clarity of!) mind, that I’m afraid I’d unwittingly sanitize/ edit for effect, or optics, even to myself. However I will say that going full acid/ punk rock drumming 200% balls out with Yoko Ono live across Europe was a peak (series of) moments; that band (with Yoko, Sean Lennon, and Andrew Weiss) was fucking monstrous.

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

my moral position on animal liberation regularly gets tested/ nuanced, and ultimately strengthened by the public, as well as by many of my friends and family…however my belief in not mindlessly exploiting/ murdering the Earth/ oceans/ air gets constantly challenged, and mostly complicated/ defeated, by my complicity in still using single use plastics/ buying new electronics/ driving/ flying/ uncritically relying on big oil for electricity, heat and AC.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

back to square one, to the beginning (+ hopefully to fiercer and better art!).

How do you define success?

doing consistently excellent work, and then having a good name/ reputation for decency and compassion (*and of course being able to break even doing it is nice, too.).

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
in 1980, when I was 10 years old, I saw The Shining in the theater when it came out, by myself, and I think I can safely say that I still haven’t fully recovered from this (hearing Wendy Carlos’s music from this film almost makes me nauseous, even now.).

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

a loving, supportive relationship with my own mind (I’m working on it though.)

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

to illuminate the glory and incomprehensible, ecstatic beauty of consciousness, and of life itself.

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

being able to go to the movies again!

https://www.timoellis.com
https://timoellis.bandcamp.com
https://www.instagram.com/timoellismusic
https://www.youtube.com/user/squenchy
https://www.facebook.com/timoellismusic
https://soundcloud.com/timoellismusic

Timo Ellis, Death is Everywhere (2021)

This looks like fun, simple as that. Well, maybe not three two-headed, four-armed, knife-and-pill-wielding snake beast on the poster. Though obviously cool looking too, that just kind of looks like it would kill you after opening your third eye. But the event itself, Sonic Whip 2020. That looks like a good time. It’s important to be specific about these things.

The Netherlands-based Spring festival to be held May 1 and 2 has completed its lineup, adding seven more names to an already impressive initial batch. Newcomers include Spaceslug, Big Business, and Greek heavy rock forerunners 1000mods, the latter whose addition to the bill makes me wonder if they’ll be on tour at the time, and if so, if their new album might be out to coincide. If that’s so, an announcement would be coming shortly, I’d think. An exciting prospect, whether it pans out that way or not.

You can see the full list of new adds and the complete final lineup below. Dig:

SONIC WHIP 2020 – NEW NAMES – LINE-UP COMPLETE

1000MODS (gr), Causa Sui (dk), Big Business (usa), Somali Yacht Club (ukr), Samavayo (ger), Netherlands (usa) and Spaceslug (pol) have been added to the line-up of Sonic Whip 2020.

With these last seven names the line-up is complete. We are proud to have been able to book these twenty artists for the upcoming edition. In our opinion a nice cross section of what the sonic and psychedelic -heavy rock- genre has to offer at the moment. From old heroes and established names to new artists who know how to push the boundaries again. Next to that also a number of special acts that can rarely be admired live in the Netherlands like Masters of Reality, Pissed Jeans, Causa Sui and Rotor. Look for the daily schedule on the website or event of Sonic Whip.

Day tickets: http://bit.ly/SonicWhip2020
Combi-tickets: http://bit.ly/SonicWhip2020Combi

Sonic Whip, the multi-headed rock monster that combines roaring guitars riffs with steaming bass lines, pounding drums and other sonic, psychedelic excesses, is preparing for the third edition. We kick off on May 1 with a pre-party deluxe in Doornroosje to completely unleash sonically on May 2 at the same location.

LINE-UP
MASTERS OF REALITY
KADAVAR
1000MODS
BRANT BJORK
CAUSA SUI
PISSED JEANS
BIG BUSINESS
ROTOR
SOMALI YACHT CLUB
MAIDAVALE
THE COSMIC DEAD
SAMAVAYO
SACRI MONTI
FORMING THE VOID
ACID ROOSTER
SPACESLUG
GUM TAKES TOOTH
NETHERLANDS
BONNACONS OF DOOM
DHIDALAH

https://www.facebook.com/events/427908701471605/
https://www.facebook.com/Sonicwhipfestival/
https://www.instagram.com/doornroosjenl/
https://www.doornroosje.nl/event/sonic-whip-2020/

[Click play above to stream The Whims of the Great Magnet’s Good Vibes & High Tides in Full. Album is out Dec. 1 with preorders direct from the band.]

Founded seven years ago by Sander Haagmans in Maastricht, the Netherlands, The Whims of the Great Magnet returns with a second full-length album in the self-released Good Vibes & High Tides. The follow-up to early 2017’s The Purple & Yellow Album (discussed here), it would seem to be in conversation with Haagmans‘ work as bassist/vocalist for the much-missed Sungrazer, whose 2013 disbanding was followed in 2015 by the death of guitarist/vocalist Rutger Smeets, thereby obviating an eventual reunion. As willfully as The Purple & Yellow Album pushed in alternate directions away from what Sungrazer was, the 10-track/44-minute Good Vibes & High Tides embraces it without necessarily trying to recapture that sound and moment entirely. Haagmans instead hones across the new album’s span a kind of summery grunge fuzz, occasionally given to psychedelic shimmer — some added pedal steel on “Simple” courtesy of Ingo Jetten at Trashed Attic Audio doesn’t hurt — and holding onto the intimacy of solo songwriting while adopting a more full-band feel with drummer Iwan Wijnen, even unto capturing a fluid, at-least-part-improv guitar-led jam on 11-minute closer “Roerloze Beweger.”

That in itself is an impressive feat, even for Haagmans, who’s had plenty of time in the studio over the course of the last decade and seems at this point to do most of his recording at home, but as the title of the record puts it first, the focus here indeed is on the vibe, and the vibe is good. Good Vibes & High Tides is marked by a welcome sense of tonal warmth that lo-fi neopsych has replaced with naked shimmer, and the depth that’s been forsaken by so much jammy psych is evident right from the opening roll of “Lose My Head,” which counts in on the hi-hat and then is on its way like it was never off. Haagmans‘ vocals are laid back in the verse and layered in the chorus, the bass tone is an early highlight — as it would almost have to be — and immediately the spirit is melodic, welcoming and engaging, continuing onto “Here to Party” as if to underscore its intent. Through up and down verse lines that shift quickly into the chorus, the 3:40 “Here to Party” is marked by its abiding lack of pretense.

I wouldn’t call it a party song in the “party rock” sense — the hook lines, after all, are, “We are only here to party/We are only here” — but its straightforward presentation is a fitting summary of the perspective from which Good Vibes & High Tides seems to be working in general in balancing personal expression and a complete-group sound. Even shorter at 3:19, “Guess it’s True” follows in subtly more patient fashion, alternative rock and fuzz melding without argument beneath layers of sweet-toned post-Cobain vocals and a third-in-a-row memorable chorus. Three makes a salvo, and there’s still the title-track to round out the opening movement, which would seem to be delineated from the rest of the LP by the 40-second interlude “Hay.”

That’s just a riff and the word repeated a couple times — a lost art of sneaky listener-disorientation that any number of in-some-ways-more-loyal ’90s preservationists have neglected — over in flash and maybe a vinyl-flip to bring on “Oew,” with a vocal drawl and particularly Sungrazer-style chorus sort of bounding through a thick and immersive fuzz after more of a strummed verse. Though it has the briefest runtime of Good Vibes & High Tides‘ non-interlude tracks at 2:23, it nonetheless keeps the underlying structure as barebones as possible, cutting off at the end and refusing a jam that might otherwise have taken hold in spite of itself in Haagmans‘ one-time four-piece incarnation of the band. I don’t think it would be missing if it wasn’t there, but the presence of pedal steel doesn’t take anything away from “Simple,” certainly, and it plays up the pastoralia-memory of the verse ahead of the crunchier chorus, just a touch of Brant–Bjork-at-the-beach coming through but ultimately establishing its own personality ahead of “Cocaine & Yoga,” the verse of which seems to have derived part of its structure directly from Nirvana‘s “School.”

There’s some slide in the chorus (I don’t think it’s more pedal steel?), but the song itself is a high point — “What the hell is going on today?/Cocaine and yoga all the way” is a hook that deserves to be delivered from a stage — and the noisy transitional mess and quiet guitar line that picks up to end the song is a surprising and, frankly, delightfully honest, moment put to tape. By then he’s well into the depths of side B, but the closing duo of “Wei Wu Wijnen” (6:01) and “Roerloze Beweger” (11:41) are a movement unto themselves just the same, the former establishing itself quietly with fading-in drum swing and a guitar/bass bed for soft, bluesy melodic vocals.

This too would seem to come from a similar place as some of the more atmospheric stretches of Sungrazer‘s second long-player, 2011’s Mirador (review here), hypnotic guitar noodling leading the way out and directly into the righteous opening strum of “Roerloze Beweger.” A well-placed tambourine shake signals the launch of the groove and the finale is underway, uptempo and exciting if still overridingly mellow of vibe. The push settles down for the verses but plays well back and forth, and the song pays off the layered vocal melodies heard prior, the forwardness of the rhythm of Good Vibes & High Tides‘ most rocking moments, and its hinted-at sense of nod, arriving at the latter circa three minutes in and taking spot-on ownership of it. An instrumental jam ensues from then on, moving through a plotted progression into more improvised-sounding fare in the basslines standing out around five minutes in and the guitar that takes the reins after the final builds and crashes of Wijnen‘s drums, a meandering line that recedes to silence gently to end the album.

While there’s no doubt Good Vibes & High Tides both lives up to its title and the legacy of Haagmans‘ former three-piece, it does leave one wondering what his plans ultimately are for the project. To wit, this material is really, really engaging, and where The Purple & Yellow Album seemed almost to be an act of expression-as-exorcism — a release in the truest sense — Good Vibes & High Tides has more of an outreach kind of feel, connecting to the listener with outwardly catchy songs meant to do precisely that. Will Haagmans put together another full lineup? Will he continue down this sonic path, or is it a directional one-off en route to the next thing? Would he combine this with some of the more bedroom-acoustic material he’s done before? As much as Hunter S. Thompson advised following the Great Magnet’s directives, Haagmans seems to-date to be charting his own course with The Whims of the Great Magnet, and as to where that will take him (rumor has it a trio incarnation is to debut live next month), we’ll just have to wait and see. This record is nothing less than a gift as a part of that process.

The Whims of the Great Magnet on Thee Facebooks

The Whims of the Great Magnet on Bandcamp