Posted in Reviews on December 19th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
I guess sometimes you get told at the door the venue doesn’t allow outside photographers. My honest first thought: yeah but I’m here to shoot inside. Alas, idiot. Now you feel outré and not in a good way for lugging your backpack from New Jersey. Not that I walked or anything.
Last time I saw SunnO))) was at Psycho Las Vegas in 2018 (review here), and I’m willing to wager that if I didn’t tell you right now that’s where and when the photo above was from, you’d never know. Band makes a point to bury themselves in smoke at every gig. I was not necessarily heartbroken not to be able to take pictures, though like everyone else, I had my phone anyhow.
Solo drone cellist Leila Bordreuil opened in suitably noisy fashion. I knew nothing about her work going into her set, but could a appreciate a bit of sonic deconstruction or I wouldn’t have been at the show in the first place. My touchstone for cello experimentalism is Helen Money, and Bordreuil seemed less based in traditional composition than Allison Chesley or, say, Jo Quail, but the feedback and loops and crushing distortion grew more intense as she went on, so for sure there was a plan at work even if the opacity was part of it.
Frequency manipulation, willful aural fuckery, sounds alternately harsh and immersive, low hums and high squeals, the lights red, yellow, blue, red, Bordreuil admirably calm at the set’s most tempestuous. Maybe she went to college for it. Fucking a. She was followed by the ur-dude early-Metallica-riffs-plus-screamy-vocals of High Command, who are on Southern Lord. The crowd, half-artouse at least, dutifully raised its fucking horns when instructed to do so. Mask on in the circle pit. These are strange times. I can’t imagine a SunnO))) audience is easy to play to if you’re a metal band, let alone a young one, seething even at the stillest slow-Slayer parts, but credit where it’s due: they sold it well. The kind of stuff they play, they might need to do it for another 10-15 years before anyone realizes they’re awesome, but they seemed up to it.
Speed riffa, chain mic stand, came out with a sword, ’80s visor shades on the guitarist, good fun all. A new generation of metallers creating their future nostalgia. Come on, man, shit’ll never be like it was in the ’20s again. Those were the days. And so on. They weren’t ‘my thing’ at all, but I kind of had to love it anyway. And they’re from Worcester, Mass! They probably grew up in the shadow of the New England Metal and Hardcore Festival. Makes total sense. And they’ve got the right drummer. Fucking rad. Fucking metal.
SunnO))) — Greg “The Lord” Anderson (who also runs Southern Lord Recordings) amd Stephen O’Malley — billed this tour as the ‘Shoshin (初心) Duo,’ in reference to the fact that, where the band has expanded its lineup in various ways and incarnations over the last two decades, this is the thing in its barest form. So be it. Both Anderson and O’Malley were out to check their guitars and it was long enough before they went on that even standing in the back it was crowded enough to make me even less sad about not taking pictures, not that the ensuimg fart cloud was any great treat, but you know. I had wondered if maybe they wouldn’t play in the robes, raw form and all that, but indeed, the fog, the robes, the rumble, all of that.
For being essentially a rectangle box with a high ceiling and exposed brick from when the building was whatever it invariably was before it was this, the structural integrity of the venue stood up well to the assault of volume it received, and the undulating waveforms of guitar were by no means merciful. SunnO))) have been doom, black metal, white metal, death and life, dark neoclassical and more, and having never seen the core of thee project — the original best-stoned-band-idea ever — there was something of value to the experience. I imagined seeing it in 1998 and not getting it, or seeing it in 1999 amd maybe getting it. I remember seeing them in 2005 and worshiping it. This wasn’t that show or any of the others, and if it was a novelty that it was just the two of them, well, novelty has always been part of SunnO))), however otherwise branded they might be for a given record. Dudes, amps, robes, fog. You could feel it in the floor, in your chest. The venue was selling earplugs outside. They should’ve been giving them away.
I brought my own anyhow, stood in back and watched their shadows play slowly between the monolithic full stacks behind them. Tone henge. Fair enough. From there on in, it was all watch-the-smoke and endurance to see who could stand with them. People began to subconsciously or not step backward in front of me, pushed away by it, even as others stepped forward, and that’s what good art does. The lights brightened, dimmed, the air smelled like dry ice and gentrified beer burps. The amps did the singing in bleak chorus, and all was crushed as advertised. I thought suddenly, standing there, about a Tiffany show I’d been invited to that was probably happening at the same time, and what a big, weird planet this is.
Tell you what, I’d had a cold all week and SunnO))) were at least as effective a treatment for my sinuses as anything else I’d ingested, if harder on the ears. Folks started to get antsy about 40 minutes into the set, which is reasonable, and for a band whose entire concept is to be overwhelming, SunnO))) delivered on that particular promise even in this supposedly minimal manifestation. An hour would’ve been plenty, so they played for 90 minutes and gravity smooshed all our faces against unbreaking plexiglass while the riffs promulgated through the swirling fog. Breezy in that rectangle, but they got their point across for sure. I caught myself grinding my teeth. Lightning strobe and rising mist monsters. It was a grand sonic squashing.
Then, right at the end, just as the strobe headache was really settling in and they were feedbacking like they meant it, I found a dollar on the floor. Shit. A buck! Ultimate win. I may not have been allowed to use my fancy camera, but I rolled out of that show a richer man than I walked in. Not too shabby, all told.
Special thanks to Earle Connelly for the ticket and getting me out of the house, and thank you for reading.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 29th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Raise some money, give it away, rock and roll. With assorted players from likewise assorted bands, the ‘Something I Learned Today’ tribute to Hüsker Dü on Dec. 10 at Union Pool in Brooklyn will benefit the community-response charity New York Cares, which has its volunteer hands in a pretty vast swath of programs across the boroughs of New York, kind of going where and when it’s needed to do what’s needed. In December, in addition to whatever else they’ve got going, they run a program giving out toys. They do SAT prep. All kinds of stuff that if capitalism were dismantled probably wouldn’t be necessary in the first place. Nonetheless.
This is one show, happening one night, and it’s for a decent cause, but it’s probably not the kind of thing I’d usually write about. Just being honest. Benefit shows happen a lot. If I covered all of them, I wouldn’t have time for anything else. What’s different here is primarily that Ben Smith from The Brought Low is involved — anytime that dude picks up a guitar is a positive for the world — and he’s joined by the likes of Erica Stolz of Sanhedrin and Jason Alexander Byers of Disengage/Black Black Black, among the various others you can see below. Smith will be part of a backing trio with Jeff Kaplan and Aaron Pagdon, who also play together in the hockey-themed six-piece Two Man Advantage.
Maybe that gets you out of the house and maybe not, but it sounds like a cool night to me and you can’t argue with the cause or the tunes. Info follows here, as snagged from the Facebook event page (also linked):
Something I Learned Today: An All-Star Tribute To Hüsker Dü to benefit New York Cares
Dead Flowers Productions proudly presents Something I Learned Today: An All-Star Tribute To Hüsker Dü to benefit New York Cares.
Guest singers include Mick Collins (The Dirtbombs), Erica Stolz (Sanhedrin), Joey Plunket (Country Westerns), Anthony Roman (Radio 4), Eric Davidson (New Bomb Turks), Kevin Egan (Beyond), Sohrab Habibion (Obits/Savak), Michael Jaworski (Savak), Leah Beth Fishman (PMS & The Mood Swings/Habibi), Jason Byers (Disengage), Zach Lipez (Publicist UK), Zohra Atash (Azar Swan), Vinny Carriero (Action Park), and others TBA.
The band: Jeff Kaplan (Two Man Advantage/Too Many Voices), Aaron Pagdon (Two Man Advantage/Action Park/Federale) and Benjamin Howard Smith (The Brought Low/Sweet Diesel).
Posted in Questionnaire on October 21st, 2022 by JJ Koczan
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: Gregory March of False Gods
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I play guitar and write songs for False Gods. I don’t really know how it happened, to be honest. Myself and Mike, our singer, were in another band called “skeletondealer” but I was playing drums at that time still. That band dissolved and there was a guitar still at our old rehearsal space so I wrote some songs and the rest, as they say, is history.
Describe your first musical memory.
I honestly don’t know. There was always music in the house when I was a kid. My mother would do local theater while we were growing up so it’s probably something related to that. Having her learning songs for whatever show she was involved in.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
My best musical memory was writing and recording our last record entitled “Neurotopia” which should drop this summer on Seeing Red Records. I’m very proud of this one. We upped the ante on this record, bigly.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
During the lockdown.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
To the poorhouse.
How do you define success?
Having the freedom to do as you please, whenever.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
The Sisters of Mercy in NYC about 10-15 years ago, although I still love them dearly.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
A living.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Communication of ideas and feelings. Connecting with an audience.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Posted in Whathaveyou on October 12th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
I bet White Hills kill it in Europe, and tonight’s the night they get started. The New York-based heavy psych veterans begin their latest European stint this evening in support of their The Revenge of Heads on Fire album, which is the first release on their new imprint, Heads on Fire Industries. Expect copious and well-justified reissues to come, but in the meantime, something new from White Hills is nothing to complain about. And if it was, you know I’d be complaining. Never miss a chance.
Anyhoozle, true to form, White Hills will spend more than a month abroad, kicking through Europe before rounding out in the UK, taking few days off and skipping the brunt of festivals in favor of club shows and doing their own thing, which if you know anything at all about White Hills, you probably know that’s what they do. Their own thing. Perennially. They may be underrated forever, but it certainly won’t be from lack of work on their part.
But again, I bet they do well on the Euro circuit. Safe travels, White Hills. America doesn’t deserve you anyhow.
From the PR wire:
WHITE HILLS: New York City Psychedelic Fuzz Rock Duo To Kick Off EU/UK Tour This Week; The Revenge Of Heads On Fire Full-Length Out Now
New York City fuzz rock duo WHITE HILLS will kick off their EU/UK tour this week! The journey begins October 12th in Berlin and runs through November 15th in London.
Comments the band’s Dave W. (guitar, vocals, synth), “Europe and the UK have always felt like home to us. We’re looking forward to unleashing the beast of The Revenge Of Heads On Fire upon a rabid public seeking a transcendent experience.” See all confirmed dates below.
WHITE HILLS EU/UK Fall Tour: 10/12/2022 Urban Spree – Berlin, DE 10/13/2022 Sonic Ballroom – Cologne, DE 10/14/2022 Foyer Culturel Saint-Ghislain – Mons, BE 10/15/2022 Magasin 4 – Brussels, BE 10/16/2022 Trauma – Marburg, DE 10/17/2022 Brandherd @ Altes Volksbad – Mannheim, DE 10/18/2022 Rote Sonne – Munchen, DE 10/19/2022 Between – Bregenz, AT 10/20/2022 Blah Blah – Turin, IT 10/21/2022 Bronson – Ravenna, IT 10/22/2022 Dong – Macerata, IT 10/23/2022 Fat Art – Terni, IT 10/24/2022 GCCB – Roma, IT 10/25/2022 Raindogs – Savona, IT 10/27/2022 Paral-lel 62 (Sala Club) – Barcelona, ES 10/28/2022 Wurlitzer Ballroom – Madrid, ES 10/29/2022 Tizon Sound – Gijon, ES 11/02/2022 Sonic Club – Lyon, FR 11/04/2022 Supersonic – Paris, FR 11/05/2022 Bistrot St. So – Lille, FR 11/06/2022 The Pit’s – Kortrijk, DE 11/07/2022 Green Door Store – Brighton, FR 11/08/2022 District – Liverpool, UK 11/09/2022 Headrow House – Leeds, UK 11/10/2022 Audio – Glasgow, UK 11/11/2022 Zerox – Newcastle, UK 11/13/2022 The Asylum – Birmingham, UK 11/14/2022 Le Pub – Newport, UK 11/15/2022 Peckham Audio – London, UK
WHITE HILLS released their The Revenge Of Heads On Fire full-length last month via their own Heads On Fire Industries. Harnessing the energy of ferocious, hedonistic rock with blissful passages of dark ambience, The Revenge Of Heads On Fire explores themes of mortality, transformation, and rebirth. Together, the duo reveals a spiritual depth unparalleled in previous works. The roar of fire, swirling of oceans, and hallucinogenic visions can be heard throughout the seventy-five-minute journey.
The record consummates Dave W.’s prototype for the 2007’s Heads On Fire, released on Rocket Recordings and later picked up by Thrill Jockey. Six rediscovered songs accompany re-mixed versions of the original material, fulfilling the master arch of the pyre lit long ago. Recorded during the band’s tumultuous early years, the music vibrates with the energy and volatility of a sonic boom.
WHITE HILLS: Dave W. – guitar, vocals, synth Ego Sensation – drums, bass, vocals
Find Mick’s Jaguar nestled into the joint between the moment when classic heavy rock became punk. No, they’re not alone in there, but they’ve got their own little spot for sure. Decent spread, actually.
The New York (where?) based five-piece offer Salvation on Dec. 2 through Tee Pee Records and Totem Cat Records as their follow-up to 2018’s Fame and Fortune (review here), and in cuts like “Man Down” (which is premiering below) and “Free on the Street,” “Nothing to Lose” and the somehow-proto-metal “Hell’s Gate,” they put so much love of classic styles, attitude and warmth that it’s difficult not to smile while listening. Nah, I don’t think they really believe it’s 1974, or even 1975, and I like that they’re not trying to pretend otherwise. They’re a rock band. With Salvation, they’re a rock band with a niche within a niche, able to remind of many while staying themselves most of all.
They’re in and gone in 32 minutes, strutting all the while. Good record. I have to think there’s some kid out there whose life that channel-spanning dual-guitar solo in “Nothing to Lose” could change for the better, never mind the chanting sing-along that follows.
Enjoy the track. Album art and PR wire info after that:
Hard Rockin’ NYC Reprobates MICK’S JAGUAR Make a Riotous Return | Stream New Single ‘MAN DOWN’
Born in the wild, alive to stalk death, and destined to make noise through the destruction of shit rock, Mick’s Jaguar is a hard rock force to behold.
Initially formed in Brooklyn many moons ago, as a one-off Stones’ covers band for an impromptu New Year’s Eve party, the NYC collective is the bastard son of an unholy union between Judas Priest and Guns N’ Roses.
Their debut album – 2018’s Fame and Fortune – received praise from both American and British press alike, with Classic Rock Magazine noting that the only way to describe Mick’s Jaguar is, “If Ace Frehley was in Thin Lizzy and it was the summer of 1977… and they were all really into the Sex Pistols… and AC/DC…”
Close enough.
Since 2018, the band has toured nationwide, making appearances at the inaugural Psycho Smokeout in Los Angeles and Desertfest New York, as well as opening for legendary punk and hard rock acts like Airborne, The Adicts, and Turbonegro’s late, great Hank von Hell.
After losing their original bassist amidst the dense jungle boughs of Thailand, Mick’s Jaguar have since enlisted close friends Jack Ridley (Drowners) and Aaron Roche (Wye Oak, Anhoni, Tōth) to record another round of ten, bar fighting rock tracks at Brooklyn’s Figure 8 Recording with engineer Philip Weinrobe (Adrianne Lenker, Alanis Morissette). The result? Their killer new record, Salvation, which once again finds the band living too late, bound for hell and quite possibly, the last great rock and roll band on the planet.
“Like every band says at every show these days, it feels incredible to be back,” says vocalist John Martin. “And after the last three years of bullshit, this is the music you need to hear. Having both Tee Pee and Totem Cat in our corner is huge. We’re stoked to see there’s a new wave of rock bands coming up that are making music for rock fans like us.”
Salvation by Mick’s Jaguar is released 2nd December on Tee Pee Records/Totem Cat and can be pre-ordered here:https://orcd.co/micks_jaguar
LIVE DATES: 10/6 – Providence – TBD w. Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol, Coma Hands 10/7 – Boston – Zuzu at The Middle East w. Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol, Baabes
TRACK LISTING: 1. Skin Contact 2. Handshake Deals 3. Man Down 4. Free on the Street 5. Molotov Children 6. Speed Dealer 7. Nothing to Lose 8. 5am Somewhere 9. Hell’s Gate 10. Georgian Pine
MICK’S JAGUAR Sam Cooper – Drums Alex Forbes – Guitar Grace Hollaender – Guitar, Vocals John Martin – Vocals Don Chino – Guitar
Posted in Reviews on September 30th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Guess this is it, huh? Always bittersweet, the end of a Quarterly Review. Bitter, because there’s still a ton of albums waiting on my desktop to be reviewed, and certainly more that have come along over the course of the last two weeks looking for coverage. Sweet because when I finish here I’ll have written about 100 albums, added a bunch of stuff to my year-end lists, and managed to keep the remaining vestiges of my sanity. If you’ve kept up, I hope you’ve enjoyed doing so. And if you haven’t, all 10 of the posts are here.
Thanks for reading.
Quarterly Review #91-100:
Hazemaze, Blinded by the Wicked
This is one of 2022’s best records cast in dark-riffed, heavy garage-style doom rock. I admit I’m late to the party for Hazemaze‘s third album and Heavy Psych Sounds label debut, Blinded by the Wicked, but what a party it is. The Swedish three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Ludvig Andersson, bassist Estefan Carrillo and drummer Nils Eineus position themselves as a lumbering forerunner of modern cultist heavy, presenting the post-“In-a-Gadda-da-Vida” lumber of “In the Night of the Light, for the Dark” and “Ethereal Disillusion” (bassline in the latter) with a clarity of purpose and sureness that builds even on what the trio accomplished with 2019’s Hymns for the Damned (review here), opening with the longest track (immediate points) “Malevolent Inveigler” and setting up a devil-as-metaphor-for-now lyrical bent alongside the roll of “In the Night of the Light, for the Dark” and the chugging-through-mud “Devil’s Spawn.” Separated by the “Planet Caravan”-y instrumental “Sectatores et Principes,” the final three tracks are relatively shorter than the first four, but there’s still space for a bass-backed organ solo in “Ceremonial Aspersion,” and the particularly Electric Wizardian “Divine Harlotry” leads effectively into the closer “Lucifierian Rite,” which caps with surprising bounce in its apex and underscores the level of songwriting throughout. Just a band nailing their sound, that’s all. Seems like maybe the kind of party you’d want to be on time for.
Released as a name-your-price benefit EP in July to help raise funds for the Ukrainian war effort, Track by Track is two songs London’s Elephant Tree recorded at the Netherlands’ Sonic Whip Festival in May of this year, “Sails” and “The Fall Chorus” — here just “Fall Chorus” — from 2020’s Habits (review here), on which the four-piece is joined by cellist Joe Butler and violinst Charlie Davis, fleshing out especially the quieter “Fall Chorus,” but definitely making their presence felt on “Sails” as well in accompanying what was one of Habits‘ strongest hooks. And the strings are all well and good, but the live harmonies on “Sails” between guitarist Jack Townley, bassist Peter Holland and guitarist/keyboardist John Slattery — arriving atop the e’er-reliable fluidity of Sam Hart‘s drumming — are perhaps even more of a highlight. Was the whole set recorded? If so, where’s that? “Fall Chorus” is more subdued and atmospheric, but likewise gorgeous, the cello and violin lending an almost Americana feel to the now-lush second-half bridge of the acoustic track. Special band, moment worth capturing, cause worth supporting. The classic no-brainer purchase.
Between Telekinetic Yeti, Mythic Sunship and Limousine Beach (not to mention Comet Control last year), Tee Pee Records has continued to offer distinct and righteous incarnations of heavy rock, and Mirror Queen‘s classic-prog-influenced strutter riffs on Inviolate fit right in. The long-running project led by guitarist/vocalist Kenny Kreisor (also the head of Tee Pee) and drummer Jeremy O’Brien is bolstered through the lead guitar work of Morgan McDaniel (ex-The Golden Grass) and the smooth low end of bassist James Corallo, and five years after 2017’s Verdigris (review here), their flowing heavy progressive rock nudges into the occult on “The Devil Seeks Control” while maintaining its ’70s-rock-meets-’80s-metal gallop, and hard-boogies in the duly shredded “A Rider on the Rain,” where experiments both in vocal effects and Mellotron sounds work well next to proto-thrash urgency. Proggers like “Inside an Icy Light,” “Sea of Tranquility” and the penultimate “Coming Round with Second Sight” show the band in top form, comfortable in tempo but still exploring, and they finish with the title-track’s highlight chorus and a well-layered, deceptively immersive wash of melody. Can’t and wouldn’t ask for more than they give here; Inviolate is a tour de force for Mirror Queen, demonstrating plainly what NYC club shows have known since the days when Aytobach Kreisor roamed the earth two decades ago.
Los Angeles-based four-piece Faetooth — guitarist/vocalist Ashla Chavez Razzano, bassist/vocalist Jenna Garcia, guitarist/vocalist Ari May, drummer Rah Kanan — make their full-length debut through Dune Altar with the atmospheric sludge doom of Remnants of the Vessel, meeting post-apocalyptic vibes as intro “(i) Naissance” leads into initial single “Echolalia,” the more spaced-out “La Sorcie|Cre” (or something like that; I think my filename got messed up) and the yet-harsher doom of “She Cast a Shadow” before the feedback-soaked interlude “(ii) Limbo” unfurls its tortured course. Blending clean croons and more biting screams assures a lack of predictability as they roll through “Remains,” the black metal-style cave echo there adding to the extremity in a way that the subsequent “Discarnate” pushes even further ahead of the nodding, you’re-still-doomed heavy-gaze of “Strange Ways.” They save the epic for last, however, with “(iii) Moribund” a minute-long organ piece leading directly into “Saturn Devouring His Son,” a nine-and-a-half-minute willful lurch toward an apex that has the majesty of death-doom and a crux of melody that doesn’t just shout out Faetooth‘s forward potential but also points to what they’ve already accomplished on Remnants of the Vessel. If this band tours, look out.
Ferocious and weighted in kind, Behold! The Monolith‘s fourth full-length and first for Ripple Music, From the Fathomless Deep finds the Los Angeles trio taking cues from progressive death metal and riff-based sludge in with a modern severity of purpose that is unmistakably heavy. Bookended by opener “Crown/The Immeasurable Void” (9:31) and closer “Stormbreaker Suite” (11:35), the six-track/45-minute offering — the band’s first since 2015’s Architects of the Void (review here) — brims with extremity and is no less intense in the crawling “Psychlopean Dread” than on the subsequent ripper “Spirit Taker” or its deathsludge-rocking companion “This Wailing Blade,” calling to mind some of what Yatra have been pushing on the opposite coast until the solo hits. The trades between onslaughts and acoustic parts are there but neither overdone nor overly telegraphed, and “The Seams of Pangea” (8:56) pairs evocative ambience with crushing volume and comes out sounding neither hackneyed nor overly poised. Extreme times call for extreme riffs? Maybe, but the bludgeoning on offer in From the Fathomless Deep speaks to a push into darkness that’s been going on over a longer term. Consuming.
The second album from Nashville’s The Swell Fellas — who I’m sure are great guys — the five-song/32-minute Novaturia encapsulates an otherworldly atmosphere laced with patient effects soundscapes, echo and moody presence, but is undeniably heavy, the opener “Something’s There…” drawing the listener deeper into “High Lightsolate,” the eight-plus minutes of which roll out with technical intricacy bent toward an outward impression of depth, a solo in the midsection carrying enough scorch for the LP as a whole but still just part of the song’s greater procession, which ends with percussive nuance and vocal melody before giving way to the acoustic interlude “Caesura,” a direct lead-in for the noisy arrival of the okay-now-we-riff “Wet Cement.” The single-ready penultimate cut is a purposeful banger, going big at its finish only after topping its immediate rhythmic momentum with ethereal vocals for a progressive effect, and as elliptically-bookending finisher “…Another Realm” nears 11 minutes, its course is its own in manifesting prior shadows of progressive and atmospheric heavy rock into concrete, crafted realizations. There’s even some more shred for good measure, brought to bear with due spaciousness through Mikey Allred‘s production. It’s a quick offering, but offers substance and reach beyond its actual runtime. They’re onto something, and I think they know it, too.
Stockhausen & the Amplified Riot, Era of the Inauthentic
For years, it has seemed Houston-based guitarist/songwriter Paul Chavez (Funeral Horse, Cactus Flowers, Baby Birds, Art Institute) has searched for a project able to contain his weirdo impulses. Stockhausen & the Amplified Riot — begun with Era of the Inauthentic as a solo-project plus — is the latest incarnation of this effort, and its krautrock-meets-hooky-proto-punk vibe indeed wants nothing for weird. “Adolescent Lightning” and “Hunky Punk” are a catchy opening salvo, and “What if it Never Ends” provokes a smile by garage-rock riffing over a ’90s dance beat to a howling finish, while the 11-minute “Tilde Mae” turns early-aughts indie jangle into a maddeningly repetitive mindfuck for its first nine minutes, mercifully shifting into a less stomach-clenching groove for the remainder before closer “Intubation Blues” melds more dance beats with harmonica and last sweep. Will the band, such as it is, at last be a home for Chavez over the longer term, or is it merely another stop on the way? I don’t know. But there’s no one else doing what he does here, and since the goal seems to be individualism and experimentalism, both those ideals are upheld to an oddly charming degree. Approach without expectations.
Nothing is Real stand ready to turn mundane miseries into darkly ethereal noise, drawing from sludge and an indefinable litany of extreme metals. The End is Near is both the Los Angeles unit’s most cohesive work to-date and its most accomplished, building on the ambient mire of earlier offerings with a down-into-the-ground churn on lead single “THE (Pt. 2).” All of the songs, incidentally, comprise the title of the album, with four of “THE” followed by two “END” pieces, two “IS”es and three “NEAR”s to close. An maybe-unhealthy dose of sample-laced interlude-type works — each section has an intro, and so on — assure that Nothing is Real‘s penchant for atmospheric crush isn’t misplaced, and the band’s uptick in production value means that the vastness and blackened psychedelia of 10-minute centerpiece “END” shows the abyssal depths being plunged in their starkest light. Capping with “NEAR (Pt. 1),” jazzy metal into freneticism, back to jazzy metal, and “NEAR (Pt. 2),” epic shred emerging from hypnotic ambience, like Jeff Hanneman ripping open YOB, The End is Near resonates with a sickened intensity that, again, it shares in common with the band’s past work, but is operating at a new level of complexity across its intentionally unmanageable 63 minutes. Nothing is Real is on their own wavelength and it is a place of horror.
Copenhagen heavy psych collective Red Lama — and I’m sorry, but if you’ve got more than five people in your band, you’re a collective — brim with pastoral escapism throughout Memory Terrain, their third album and the follow-up to 2018’s Motions (discussed here) and its companion EP, Dogma (review here). Progressive in texture but with an open sensibility at their core, pieces like the title-track unfold long-song breadth in accessible spans, the earlier “Airborne” moving from the jazzy beginning of “Gentleman” into a more tripped-out All Them Witches vein. Elsewhere, “Someone” explores krautrock intricacies before synthing toward its last lines, and “Paint a Picture” exudes pop urgency before washing it away on a repeating, sweeping tide. Range and dynamic aren’t new for Red Lama, but I’m hard-pressed to think of as dramatic a one-two turn as the psych-wash-into-electro-informed-dance-brood that takes place between “Shaking My Bones” and “Chaos is the Plan” — lest one neglect the urbane shuffle of “Justified” prior — though by that point Red Lama have made it apparent they’re ready to lead the listener wherever whims may dictate. That’s a significant amount of ground to cover, but they do it.
Existing in multiple avenues of progressive heavy rock and extreme metal, Echolot‘s Curatio only has four tracks, but each of those tracks has more range than the career arcs of most bands. Beginning with two 10-minute tracks in “Burden of Sorrows” (video premiered here) and “Countess of Ice,” they set a pattern of moving between melancholic heavy prog and black metal, the latter piece clearer in telegraphing its intentions after the opener, and introducing its “heavy part” to come with clean vocals overtop in the middle of the song, dramatic and fiery as it is. “Resilience of Floating Forms” (a mere 8:55) begins quiet and works into a post-black metal wash of melody before the double-kick and screams take hold, announcing a coming attack that — wait for it — doesn’t actually come, the band instead moving into falsetto and a more weighted but still clean verse before peeling back the curtain on the death growls and throatrippers, cymbals threatening to engulf all but still letting everything else cut through. Also eight minutes, “Wildfire” closes by flipping the structure of the opening salvo, putting the nastiness at the fore while progging out later, in this case closing Curatio with a winding movement of keys and an overarching groove that is only punishing for the fact that it’s the end. If you ever read a Quarterly Review around here, you know I like to do myself favors on the last day in choosing what to cover. It is no coincidence that Curatio is included. Not every record could be #100 and still make you excited to hear it.
Posted in Reviews on September 28th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
I’m in it. The only reason I even know what day it is is because I keep notes and I set up the back end of these posts ahead of time. They tell me what number I’m on. As for the rest, it’s blinders and music, all all all. Go. Go. Go. I honestly don’t even know why I still write these intro paragraphs. I just do. You know the deal, right? 10 records yesterday, 10 today, 10 more tomorrow. At some point it ends. At some point it begins again. Presumably before then I’ll figure out what day it is.
Quarterly Review #71-80:
James Romig & Mike Scheidt, The Complexity of Distance
James Romig is a Pulitzer-finalist composer, and Mike Scheidt is the founding guitarist/vocalist of YOB. I refuse to cut-and-paste-pretend at understanding all the theory put into the purported ’13:14:15′ ratio of beat cycles throughout The Complexity of Distance — or, say, just about any of it — but the resulting piece is about 57 minutes of Scheidt‘s guitar work, as recorded by Billy Barnett (YOB‘s regular producer). It is presented as a single track, and with the (obviously intentional) chord progressions in Romig‘s piece, “The Complexity of Distance” is a huge drone. If you ever wanted to hear Scheidt do earlier-style Earth guitar work — yes, duh — then this might satisfy that curiosity. There’s high-culture intersecting with low here in a way that takes Scheidt out of it creatively — that is to say, Romig did the composing — but I won’t take away from the work in concept or performance, or even the result. Hell, I’ll listen to Mike Scheidt riff around for 57 minutes. It’ll be the best 57 minutes of my god damned day. Perhaps that’s not universal, but I don’t think Romig‘s looking for radio hits. Whether you approach it on that theory level or as a sonic meditation, the depths welcome you. I’d take another Scheidt solo record someday too, though. Just saying.
Copenhagen’s Mythic Sunship turned Light/Flux around so quick after 2021’s Wildfire (review here) they didn’t even have time to take a new promo photo. There is no question the Danish five-piece have been on a tear for a few years now, and their ascent into the psych-jazz fusion ether continues with Light/Flux, marrying its gotta-happen-right-this-second urgency to a patience in the actual unfolding of songs like the sax’ed out “Aurora” and the more guitar-led “Blood Moon” at the outset — light — with the cosmic triumphalist horn and crashes of “Decomposition” leading off side B and moving into the hey-where’d-you-come-from boogie of “Tempest,” presumably flux. Each half of the record ends with a standout, as “Equinox” follows “Blood Moon” with a more space rock-feeling takeoff pulse, right up to the synth sweep that starts at about 2:50, and “First Frost” gives high and low float gracefully over steady toms like different dreams happening at the same time and then merging in purpose as the not-overblown crescendo locks in. May their momentum carry them ever forward if they’re going to produce at this level.
What a fascinating direction the progression of Sweden’s Deville has taken these 15 years after Come Heavy Sleep. Heavy Lies the Crown finds the Swedish journeymen aligned to Sixteentimes Music for the follow-up to 2018’s Pigs With Gods (review here), and is through its eight tracks in a dense-toned, impact-minded 33 minutes with nary a second to spare in cuts like “Killing Time” and “Unlike You” and “A Devil Around Your Neck.” Their push and aggressive edge reminds of turn-of-the-century Swedish heavy rockers like Mustasch or Mother Misery, and even in “Hands Tied” and “Serpent Days” — the two longest cuts on Heavy Lies the Crown, appearing in succession on side A — they maintain an energy level fostered by propulsive drums and a rampant drive toward immediacy rather than flourish, but neither does the material feel rushed or unconsidered right up to the final surprising bit of spaciousness in “Pray for More,” which loosens up the throttle a bit while still holding onto an underlying chug, some last progressive angularity perhaps to hint at another stage to come. One way or the other, in craft and delivery, Deville remain reliable without necessarily being predictable, which is a rare balance to strike, particularly for a band who’ve never made the same record twice.
Guitarist/vocalist Bill Jenkins and bassist Matthew Kahn hail from Kingsnake (begat by Sugar Daddie in days of yore), drummer Michael Scarpone played in Wizard Eye, and guitarist Christopher Wojcik made a splash a few years back in King Bison, so yes, dudes have been around. Accordingly, Superdeluxe know off the bat where their grooves are headed on this five-song self-titled EP, with centerpiece “Earth” nodding toward a somewhat inevitable Clutch influence — thinking “Red Horse Rainbow” specifically — and seeming to acknowledge lyrically this as the project’s beginning point in “Popular Mechanix,” driving somewhat in the vein of Freedom Hawk but comfortably paced as “Destructo Facto” and “Severed Hand” are at the outset of the 19-minute run. “Ride” finishes out with a lead line coursing over its central figure before a stop brings the chorus, swing and swagger and a classic take on that riff — Sabbath‘s “Hole in the Sky,” Goatsnake‘s “Trower”; everybody deserves a crack at it at least once — familiar and weighted, but raw enough in the production to still essentially be a demo. Nonetheless, veteran players, new venture, fun to be had and hopefully more to come.
Based in Berlin and featuring bassist Cozza, formerly of Melbourne, Australia’s Riff Fist, alongside guitarist Moseph and drummer 666tin, Esel are an instrumentalist three-piece making their full-length debut with the live-recorded and self-produced Asinus. An eight-tracker spanning 38 minutes, it’s rough around the edges in terms of sound, but that only seems to suit the fuzz in both the guitar and bass, adding a current of noise alongside the low end being pushed through both as well as the thud of 666tin‘s toms and kick. They play fast, they play slow, they roll the wheel rather than reinvent it, but there’s charm here amid the doomier “Donkey Business” — they’ve got a lot of ‘ass’ stuff going on, including the opener “Ass” and the fact that their moniker translates from German as “donkey” — and the sprawling into maddening crashes “A Biss” later on, which precedes the minute-long finale “The Esel Way Out.” Want to guess what it is? Did you guess noise and feedback? If you did, your prize is to go back to the start and hear the crow-call letters of the band’s name and the initial slow nod of “Ass” all over again. I’m going to do my best not to make a pun about getting into it, but, well, I’ve already failed.
With riffs to spare and spacious vibes besides, London instrumentalists Blue Tree Monitor offer Cryptids, working in a vein that feels specifically born out of their hometown’s current sphere of heavy. Across the sprawl of “Siberian Sand” at the beginning of the five-song/38-minute debut album, one can hear shades of some of the Desertscene-style riffing for which Steak has been an ambassador, and certainly there’s no shortage of psych and noise around to draw from either, as the cacophonous finish manifests. But big is the idea as much as broad, and sample-topped centerpiece “Sasquatch” (also the longest cut at 8:41) is a fine example of how to do both, complete with fuzzy largesse and a succession of duly plodding-through-the-woods riffs. “Antlion” feels laid back in the guitar but contrasts with the drums, and the closer “Seven” is more straight-ahead heavy rock riffing until its second half gets a little more into noise rock before its final hits, so maybe the book isn’t entirely closed on where they’ll go sound-wise, but so much the better for listening to something with multifaceted potential in the present. To put it another way, they sound like a new band feeling their way forward through their songs, and that’s precisely what one would hope for as they move forward from here.
Vigilant in conveying the Brooklynite unit’s progressive intentions, from the synthy-sounding freakout at the end of “Wavelength Synchronizer” to the angular beginning of “Conglobulations,” Incubation is the first two-songer offering from Astrometer, who boast in their ranks members of Hull, Meek is Murder and Bangladeafy. The marriage of sometimes manically tense riffing and a more open keyboard line overhead works well on the latter track, but one would at no point accuse Astrometer of not getting their point across, and with ready-for-a-7″ efficiency, since the whole thing takes just about seven and a half minutes out of your busy day. I’m fairly sure they’ve had some lineup jumbling since this was recorded — there may be up to three former members of Hull there now, and that’s a hoot also audible in the guitars — but notice is served in any case, and the way the ascending frenetic chug of the guitar gives way to the keyboard solo in “Wavelength Synchronizer” is almost enough on its own to let you know that there’s a plan at work. See also the melodic, almost post-rock-ish floating notes above the fray at the start of “Conglobulations.” I bought the download. I’d buy a tape. You guys got tapes? Shirts?
Somewhere between a solo-project and an actual band is Oldest Sea. Led by songwriter, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and recording engineer Sam Marandola — joined throughout the four tracks of debut EP Strange and Eternal by lead guitarist/drummer Andrew Marandola and on 10-minute closer “The Whales” by bassist Jay Mazzillo — the endeavor is atmospherically weighted and given a death-doom-ish severity through the echoing snare on “Consecration,” only after opener “Final Girl” swells in distortion and melody alike until receding for string-style ambience, which might be keyboard, might be guitar, might be cello, I don’t know. Marandola also performs as a solo folk artist and one can hear that in her approach to the penultimate “I’ll Take What’s Mine,” but in the focus on atmosphere here, as well as the patience of craft across differing methodologies in what’s still essentially an initial release — if nothing before it proves the argument, certainly “The Whales” does — one hears shades of the power SubRosa once wielded in bringing together mournful melody and doomed tradition to suit purposes drawing from American folk and post-metallic weight. At 25 minutes, I’m tempted to call it an album for its sheer substance. Instead I’ll hang back and just wait and get my hopes up for when that moment actually comes.
Based in Austria with roots in Canada, Spain and Sweden, Weddings are vocalist/guitarist Jay Brown, vocalist/drummer Elena Rodriguez and bassist Phil Nordling, and whether it’s the grunge turnaround on second cut “Hunter” or the later threatening-to-be-goth-rock of “Running Away” — paired well with “Talk is Cheap” — the trio are defined in no small part by the duet-style singing of Brown and Rodriguez. The truly fortunate part of listening to their sophomore LP, Book of Spells, is that they can also write a song. Opener “Hexenhaus” signals a willful depth of atmosphere that comes through on “Sleep” and the acoustic-led gorgeousness of “Tundra,” and so on, but they’re not shy about a hook either, as in “Greek Fire,” “Hunter,” “Running Away” and closer “Into the Night” demonstrate. Mood and texture are huge throughout Book of Spells, but the effect of the whole is duly entrancing, and the prevailing sense from their individual parts is that either Brown or Rodriguez could probably front the band on their own, but Weddings are a more powerful and entrancing listen for the work they do together throughout. Take a deep breath before you jump in here.
A classic rock spirit persists across the nine songs of The Heavy Crawls‘ sophomore full-length, Searching for the Sun, as the Kyiv-based trio of guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Max Tovstyi, bassist/backing vocalist Serj Manernyi and drummer/backing vocalist Tobi Samuel offer nods to the likes of the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix, among others, with a healthy dose of their own fuzz to coincide. The organ-laced title-track sounds like it was recorded on a stage, if it wasn’t, and no matter where the trio end up — looking at you, Sabbath-riffed “Stoner Song” — the material is tied together through the unflinchingly organic nature of their presentation. They’re not hiding anything here. No tricks. No BS. They’re writing their own songs, to be sure, but whether it’s the funky “I Don’t Know” or the languid psych rollout of “Take Me Higher” (it picks up in the second half) that immediately follows, they put everything they’ve got right up front for the listener to take in, make of it what they will, and rock out accordingly, be it to the mellow “Out of My Head” or the stomping “Evil Side (Of Rock ‘n’ Roll) or the sweet, sweet guitar-solo-plus-organ culmination of “1,000 Problems.” Take your pick, really. You’re in good hands no matter what.
Posted in Reviews on September 26th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Welcome back to the Fall 2022 Quarterly Review. It’s not quite the same as the Mountain of Madness, but there are definitely days where it feels like they’re pretty closely related. Just the same, we, you and I, persist through like digging a tunnel sans dynamite, and I hope you had a great and safe weekend (also sans dynamite) and that you find something in this batch of releases that you truly enjoy. Not really much point to the thing otherwise, I guess, though it does tend to clear some folders off the desktop. Like, 100 of them in this case. That in itself isn’t nothing.
Time’s a wastin’. Let’s roll.
Quarterly Review #51-60:
Boris, Heavy Rocks
One can’t help but wonder if Boris aren’t making some kind of comment on the franchise-ification of what sometimes feels like every damn thing by releasing a third Heavy Rocks album, as though perhaps it’s become their brand label for this particular kind of raucousness, much as their logo in capital letters or lowercase used to let you know what kind of noise you were getting. Either way, in 10 tracks and 41 minutes that mostly leave scorch marks when they’re done — they space out a bit on “Question 1” but elsewhere in the song pull from black metal and layer in lead guitar triumph — and along the way give plenty more thick toned, sometimes-sax-inclusive on-brand chicanery to dive into. “She is Burning,” “Cramper” and “My Name is Blank” are rippers before the willfully noisy relative slowdown “Blah Blah Blah,” and Japanese heavy institution are at their most Melvinsian with the experiment “Nosferatou,” ahead of the party metal “Ruins” and semi-industrial blowout “Ghostly Imagination,” the would-be-airy-were-it-not-crushing “Chained” and the concluding “(Not) Last Song,” which feeds the central query above in asking if there’s another sequel coming, piano, feedback, and finally, vocals ending what’s been colloquially dubbed Heavy Rocks (2022) with an end-credits scene like something truly Marvelized. Could be worse if that’s the way it’s going. People tend to treat each Boris album as a landmark. I’m not sure this one is, but sometimes that’s part of what happens with sequels too.
Along with the depth of tone and general breadth of the mix, one of the aspects most enjoyable about Mother Bear‘s debut album, Zamonian Occultism, is how it seems to refuse to commit to one side or the other. They call themselves doom and maybe they are in movements here like the title-track, but the mostly-instrumental six-track/41-minute long-player — which opens and closes with lyrics and has “Sultan Abu” in the middle for a kind of human-voice trailmarker along the way — draws more from heavy psychedelia and languid groove on “Anagrom Ataf,” and if “Blue Bears and Silver Spliffs” isn’t stoner riffed, nothing ever has been. At the same time, the penultimate title-track slows way down, pulls the curtains closed, and offers a more massive nod, and the 10-minute closer “The Wizaaard” (just when you thought there were no more ways to spell it) answers that sense of foreboding in its own declining groove and echo-laced verses, but puts the fuzz at the forefront of the mix, letting the listener decide ultimately where they’re at. Tell you where I am at least: On board. Guitarist/vocalist Jonas Wenz, bassist Kevin Krenczer and drummer Florian Grass lock in hypnotic groove early and use it to tie together almost everything they do here, and while they’re obviously schooled in the styles they’re touching on, they present with an individual intent and leave room to grow. Will look forward to more.
After being kicked out of black metallers Absu for coming out as trans, Melissa Moore founded Sonja in Philadelphia with Grzesiek Czapla on drums and Ben Brand on bass, digging into a ‘true metal’ aesthetic with ferocity enough that Loud Arriver is probably the best thing they could’ve called their first record. Issued through Cruz Del Sur — so you know their ’80s-ism is class — the 37-minute eight-tracker vibes nighttime and draws on Moore‘s experience thematically, or so the narrative has it (I haven’t seen a lyric sheet), with energetic shove in “Nylon Nights” and “Daughter of the Morning Star,” growing duly melancholy in “Wanting Me Dead” before finding its victorious moment in the closing title-track. Cuts like “Pink Fog,” “Fuck, Then Die” and opener “When the Candle Burns Low…” feel specifically born of a blend of 1979-ish NWOBHM, but there’s a current of rock and roll here as well in the penultimate “Moans From the Chapel,” a sub-three-minute shove that’s classic in theme as much as riff and the most concise but by no means the only epic here. Hard not to read in catharsis on the part of Moore given how the band reportedly came about, but Loud Arriver serves notice one way or the other of a significant presence in the underground’s new heavy metal surge. Sonja have no time to waste. There are asses to kick.
Seven-minute opener ends in a War of the Worlds-style radio announcement of an alien invasion underway after the initial fuzzed rollout of the song fades, and between that and the subsequent interlude “Funeral March,” Reverend Mother‘s intent on Damned Blessing seems to be to throw off expectation. The Brooklynite outfit led by guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Jackie Green (also violin) find even footing on rockers like “Locomotive” or the driving-until-it-hits-that-slowdown-wall-and-hey-cool-layering “Reverend Mother,” and the strings on the instrumental “L.V.B.,” which boasts a cello guest spot by High Priestess Nighthawk of Heavy Temple, who also returns on the closing Britney Spears cover “Toxic,” a riffed-up bent that demonstrates once again the universal applicability of pop as Reverend Mother tuck it away after the eight-minute “The Masochist Tie,” a sneering roll and chugger that finds the trio of Green, bassist Matt Cincotta and drummer Gabe Katz wholly dug into heavy rock tropes while nonetheless sounding refreshing in their craft. That song and “Shame” before it encapsulate the veer-into-doom-ness of Reverend Mother‘s hard-deliver’d fuzz, but Damned Blessing comes across like the beginning of a new exploration of style as only a next-generation-up take can and heralds change to come. I would not expect their second record to sound the same, but it will be one to watch for. So is this.
The pedigree here is notable as Umbilicus features founding Cannibal Corpse drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz and guitarist/engineer Taylor Nordberg (also visuals), who’s played with Deicide, The Absence and a host of others, but with the soar-prone vocals of Brian Stephenson out front and the warm tonality of bassist Vernon Blake, Umbilicus‘ 10-song/45-minute first full-length, Path of 1000 Suns is a willful deep-dive into modernly-produced-and-presented ’70s-style heavy rock. Largely straightforward in structure, there’s room for proto-metallurgy on “Gates of Neptune” after the swinging “Umbilicus,” and the later melodic highlight “My Own Tide” throws a pure stoner riff into its second half, while the concluding “Gathering at the Kuiper Belt” hints at more progressive underpinnings, it still struts and the swing there is no less defining than in the solo section of “Stump Sponge” back on side A. Hooks abound, and I suppose in some of the drum fills, if you know what you’re listening for, you can hear shades of more extreme aural ideologies, but the prevailing spirit is born of an obvious love of classic heavy rock and roll, and Umbilicus play it with due heart and swagger. Not revolutionary, and actively not trying to be, but definitely the good time it promises.
Not as frenetic as some out there of a similar technically-proficient ilk, Lawrence, Kansas, double-guitar instrumental four-piece After Nations feel as much jazz on “Féin” or “Cae” as they do progressive metal, djent, experimental, or any other tag with which one might want to saddle the resoundingly complex Buddhism-based concept album, The Endless Mountain — the Bandcamp page for which features something of a recommended reading list as well as background on the themes reportedly being explored in the material — which is fluid in composition and finds each of its seven more substantial inclusions accompanied by a transitional interlude that might be a drone, near-silence, a foreboding line of keys, whathaveyou. The later “Širdis” — penultimate to the suitably enlightened “Jūra,” if one doesn’t count the interlude between (not saying you shouldn’t) — is more of a direct linear build, but the 40-minute entirety of The Endless Mountain feels like a steep cerebral climb. Not everyone is going to be up for making it, frankly, but in “}}}” and its punctuationally-named companions there’s some respite from the head-spinning turns that surround, and that furthers both the dynamic at play overall and the accessibility of the songs. Whatever else it might be, it’s immaculately produced and every single second, from “Mons” and “Aon” to “))” and “(),” feels purposeful.
With the over-the-top Danzig-ian vocals coming through high in the mix, the drums sounding intentionally blown out and the fuzz of bass and guitar arriving in tidal riffs, Denmark’s Holy Dragon for sure seem to be shooting for memorability on their second album, Mordjylland. “Hell and Gold” pulls back somewhat from the in-your-face immediacy of opener “Bong” — and yet it’s faster; go figure — and the especially brash “War” is likewise timely and dug in. Centerpiece “Nightwatch” feels especially yarling with its more open riff and far-back echoing drums — those drums are heavy in tone in a way most are not, and it is appreciated — and gives over to the Judas Priestly riff of “Dunder,” which sounds like it’s being swallowed by the bass even as the concluding solo slices through. They cap with “Egypt” in classic-metal, minor-key-sounds-Middle-Eastern fashion, but they’re never far from the burly heft with which they started, and even the mellower finish of “Travel to Kill” feels drawn from it. The album’s title is a play on ‘Nordjylland’ — the region of Denmark where they’re from — and if they’re saying it’s dead, then their efforts to shake it back to life are palpable in these seven songs, even if the end front-to-back result of the album is going to be hit or miss with most listeners. Still, they are markedly individual, and the fact that you could pick them out of the crowd of Europe’s e’er-packed heavy underground is admirable in itself.
Lincoln, Nebraska, trio Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships are right there. Right on the edge. You can hear it in the way “Beg Your Pardon” unfolds its lumbering tonality, riff-riding vocals and fervency of groove at the outset of their second album, Consensus Trance. They’re figuring it out. And they’re working quickly. Their first record, 2021’s TTBS, and the subsequent Rosalee EP (review here) were strong signals of intention on the part of guitarist/vocalist Jeremy Warner, bassist Karlin Warner and drummer Justin Kamal, and there is realization to be had throughout Consensus Trance in the noisy lead of “Mystical Consumer,” the quiet instrumental “Distalgia for Infinity” and the mostly-huge-chugged 11-minute highlight “Weeping Beast” to which it leads. But they’re also still developing their craft, as opener “Beg Your Pardon” demonstrates amid one of the record’s most vibrant hooks, and exploring spaciousness like that in the back half of the penultimate “Silo,” and the sense that emerges from that kind of reach and the YOB-ish ending of capper “I.H.” is that there’s more story to be told as to what Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships have to offer in style and substance. So much the better since Consensus Trance has such superlative heft at its foundation.
Kind of funny to think of Menticide as a debut LP from Deer Creek, who’ve been around for 20 years — one fondly recalls their mid-aughts splits with Church of Misery and Raw Radar War — but one might consider that emblematic of the punk underpinning the sludgy heavy roll of “(It Had Neither Fins Nor Wings) Nor Did it Writhe,” along with the attitude of fuckall that joins hands with resoundingly dense tonality to create the atmosphere of the five originals and the cover medley closer “The Working Man is a Dead Pig,” which draws on Rush, Bauhaus and Black Sabbath classics as a sort of partially explanatory appendix to the tracks preceding. Of those, the impression left is duly craterous, and Deer Creek, with Paul Vismara‘s mostly-clean vocals riding a succession of his own monolithic riffs, a bit of march thrown into “The Utter Absence of Hope” amid the breath of tone from his and Conan Hultgren‘s guitars and Stephanie Hopper‘s bass atop the drumming of Marc Brooks. One is somewhat curious as to what drives a band after two full-length-less decades to make a definitive first album — at least beyond “hey a lot of things have changed in the last couple years” anyhow — but the results here are inarguable in their weight and the spaces they create and fill, with disaffection and onward and outward-looking angst as much as volume. That is to say, as much as Menticide nods, it’s more unsettling the more attention you actually pay to what’s going on. But if you wanted to space out instead, I doubt they’d hold it any more against you than was going to happen anyway. Band who owes nothing to anyone overdelivers. There.
Following the mid-’90s C.O.C. tone and semi-Electric Wizard shouts of “Black Lotus Trance,” “Detroit Demons” calls out Stooges references while burl-riffing around Pantera‘s “I’m Broken,” and “Loose” manifests sleaze to coincide with the exploitation of the Never Sleep at Night EP’s cover art. All of this results in zero-doubt assurance that the Brazilian trio have their bona fides in place when it comes to dudely riffs and an at least partially metal approach; stylistically-speaking, it’s like metal dudes got too drunk to remember what they were angry at and decided to have a party instead. I don’t have much encouraging to say at this juncture about the use of vintage porn as a likely cheap cover option, but no one seems to give a shit about moving past that kind of misogyny, and I guess as regards gender-based discrimination and playing to the male gaze and so on, it’s small stakes. I bet they get signed off the EP anyway, so what’s the point? The point I guess is that the broad universe of those who’d build altars to riffs, Riffcoven are at very least up front with what they’re about and who their target audience is.
SunnO))) — Greg “The Lord” Anderson (who also runs Southern Lord Recordings) amd Stephen O’Malley — billed this tour as the ‘Shoshin (初心) Duo,’ in reference to the fact that, where the band has expanded its lineup in various ways and incarnations over the last two decades, this is the thing in its barest form. So be it. Both Anderson and O’Malley were out to check their guitars and it was long enough before they went on that even standing in the back it was crowded enough to make me even less sad about not taking pictures, not that the ensuimg fart cloud was any great treat, but you know. I had wondered if maybe they wouldn’t play in the robes, raw form and all that, but indeed, the fog, the robes, the rumble, all of that.
