Second week of the Fall 2024 Quarterly Review begins now. You stoked? Nah, probably not, but at least at the end of this week there will be another 50 records for you to check out, added to the 50 from last week to make 100 total releases covered. So, I mean, it’s not nothing. But I understand if it isn’t the make-or-break of your afternoon.

Last week was killer, and today gets us off to another good start. Crazy, it’s almost like I’m enjoying this. Who the hell ever heard of such a thing?

Quarterly Review #51-60:

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White Hills, Beyond This Fiction

New York’s own psychedelic heads on fire White Hills return with Beyond This Fiction, a collection of sounds so otherworldly and lysergic they can’t help but be real. Seven tracks range from the fluid “Throw it Up in the Air” to the bassy experimental new wave of “Clear as Day,” veering into gentle noise rock as it does before “Killing Crimson” issues its own marching orders, coming across like if you beamed Fu Manchu through the accretion disk of a black hole and the audio experienced gravitational lensing. “Fiend” brings the two sides together and dares to get a little dreamy while doing it, the interlude “Closer” is a wash of drone, and “The Awakening” is a good deal of drone itself, but topped with spoken word, and the closing title-track takes place light-years from here in a kind of time humans haven’t yet learned to measure. It’s okay. White Hills records will still be around decades from now, when humans finally catch up to them. I’m not holding my breath, though.

White Hills on Facebook

White Hills on Bandcamp

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Demon Head, Through Holes Shine the Stars

Five records deep into a tenure now more than a decade long, I feel like Demon Head are a band that are the answer to a lot of questions being asked. Oh, where’s the classic-style band doing something new? Who’s a band who can sound like The Cure playing black metal and be neither of those things? Where’s a band doing forward-thinking proto-doom, not at all hindered by the apparent temporal impossibility of looking ahead and back at the same time? Here they are. They’re called Demon Head. Their fifth album is called Through holes Shine the Stars, and its it’s-night-time-and-so-we-chug-different sax-afflicted ride in “Draw Down the Stars” is consuming as the band take the ’70s doomery of their beginnings to genuinely new and progressive places. The depth of vocal layering throughout — “The Chalice,” the atmo-doom sprawl of “Every Flatworm,” the rousing, swinging hook and ensuing gallop of “Frost,” and so on — adds drama and persona to the songs, and the songs aren’t wanting otherwise, with a dug-in intricacy of construction and malleable underlying groove. Seriously. Maybe Demon Head are the band you’re looking for.

Demon Head on Facebook

Svart Records website

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Earth Ship, Soar

You can call Earth Ship sludge metal, and you’re not really wrong, but you’re not the most right either. The Berlin-based trio founded by guitarist/vocalist Jan Oberg and bassist Sabine Oberg, plus André Klein on drums, offer enough crush to hit that mark for sure, but the tight, almost Ministry-esque vocals on the title-track, the way “Radiant” dips subtly toward psychedelia as a side-A-capping preface to the languid clean-sung nod of “Daze and Delights,” giving symmetry to what can feel chaotic as “Ethereal Limbo” builds into its crescendo, fuzzed but threatening aggression soon to manifest in “Acrid Haze,” give even the nastiest moments throughout a sense of creative reach. That is to say, Soar — which Jan Oberg also recorded, mixed and mastered at Hidden Planet Studio and which sees release through the band’s The Lasting Dose Records — resides in more than one style, with opener “Shallow” dropping some hints of what’s to come and a special lumber seeming to be dedicated to the penultimate “Bereft,” which proves to be a peak in its own right. The Obergs seem to split their time these days between Earth Ship and the somewhat more ferocious Grin. In neither outfit do they misspend it.

Earth Ship on Facebook

The Lasting Dose Records on Bandcamp

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Tommy Stewart’s Dyerwulf, Fyrewulf One

Bassist/vocalist Tommy Stewart (ex-Hallows Eve, owner of Black Doomba Records) once more sits in the driver’s seat of the project that shares his name, and with four new tracks Tommy Stewart’s Dyerwulf on Fyrewulf One — which I swear sounds like the name of a military helicopter or somesuch — offer what will reportedly be half of their third long-player with an intention toward delivering Fyrewulf Two next year. Fair enough. “Kept Pain Busy” is the longest and grooviest fare on offer, bolstered by the quirk of shorter opener “Me ‘n’ My Meds” and the somewhat more madcap “Zoomagazoo,” which touches on heavy rockabilly in its swing, with a duly feedback-inclusive cover of Bloodrock‘s “Melvin Laid an Egg” for good measure. The feeling of saunter is palpable there for the organ, but prevalent throughout the original songs as well, as Stewart and drummer Dennis Reid (Patrick Salerno guests on the cover) know what they’re about, whether it’s garage-punk-psych trip of “Me ‘n’ My Meds” the swing that ensues.

Tommy Stewart’s Dyerwulf on Facebook

Black Doomba Records store

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Smote, A Grand Stream

The narrative — blessings and peace upon it — presents A Grand Stream as the result of Smote guitarist Daniel Foggin and drummer Rob Law absconding to a cabin in the woods by a stream to write and record. There’s certainly escapism in it, and one might argue Smote‘s folk-tinged drone and atmospheric heavy meditations have always had an aspect of leaving the ol’ consciousness at the flung-open doors of perception, etc., but the 10-minute undulating-but-mostly-stationary noise in “Chantry” is still a lot to take. That it follows the 16-miinute “Coming Out of a Hedge Backwards,” laced with sitar and synth and other backing currents filling out the ambience, should be indicative of the sprawl of the over-70-minute LP to begin with. Smote aren’t strangers at this point to the expanse or to longform expression, but there still seems to be a sense of plunging into the unknown throughout A Grand Stream as they make their way deeper into the 18-minute “The Opinion of the Lamb Pt. 2,” and the rolling realization of “Sitting Stone Pt. 1” at the beginning resounds over all of it.

Smote on Instagram

Rocket Recordings website

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Mammoth Caravan, Frostbitten Galaxy

Hard to argue with Mammoth Caravan‘s bruising metallism, not the least because by the time you’d open your mouth to do so the Little Rock, Arkansas, trio have already run you under their aural steamroller and you’re too flat to get the words out. The six-song/36-minute Frostbitten Galaxy is the second record from the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Robert Warner, bassist/vocalist Brandon Ringo and drummer Khetner Howton, and in the willful meander of “Cosmic Clairvoyance,” in many of their intros, in the tradeoffs of the penultimate “Prehistoric Spacefarer” and in the clean-sung finale “Sky Burial,” they not only back the outright crush of “Tusks of Orion” and “Siege in the Stars,” as well as opener/longest track (immediate points) “Absolute Zero,” with atmospheric intention, but with a bit of dared melody that feels like a foretell of things to come from the band. On Frostbitten Galaxy and its correspondingly chilly 2023 predecessor Ice Cold Oblivion (review here), Mammoth Caravan have proven they can pummel. Here they begin the process of expanding their sound around that.

Mammoth Caravan on Facebook

Blade Setter Records store

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Harvestman, Triptych Part Two

If you caught Harvestman‘s psychedelic dub and guitar experimentalism on Triptych Part One (review here) earlier this year, perhaps it won’t come as a shock to find former Neurosis guitarist/vocalist Steve Von Till, aka Harvestman, working in a similar vein on Triptych Part Two. There’s more to it than just heady chill, but to be sure that’s part of what’s on offer too in the immersive drone of “The Falconer” or the 10-minute “The Hag of Beara vs. the Poet (Forest Dub),” which reinterprets and plays with the makeup of opener “The Hag of Beara vs. the Poet.” “Damascus” has a more outward-facing take and active percussive base, while “Vapour Phase” answers “The Falconer” with some later foreboding synthesis — closer “The Unjust Incarceration” adds guitar that I’ve been saying for years sounds like bagpipes and still does to this mix — while the penultimate “Galvanized and Torn Open,” despite the visceral title, brings smoother textures and a steady, calm rhythm. The story’s not finished yet, but Von Till has already covered a significant swath of ground.

Steve Von Till website

Neurot Recordings store

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Kurokuma, Of Amber and Sand

Following up on 2022’s successful debut full-length, Born of Obsidian, the 11-song/37-minute Of Amber and Sand highlights the UK outfit’s flexibility of approach as regards metal, sludge, post-heavy impulses, intricate arrangements and fullness of sound as conveyed through the production. So yes, it’s quite a thing. They quietly and perhaps wisely moved on from the bit of amateur anthropology that defined the MesoAmerican thematic of the first record, and as Of Amber and Sand complements the thrown elbows in the midsection of “Death No More” and the proggy rhythmmaking of “Fenjaan” with shorter interludes of various stripes, eventually and satisfyingly getting to a point in “Bell Tower,” “Neheh” and “Timekeeper” where the ambience and the heft become one thing for a few minutes — and that’s kind of a separate journey from the rest of the record, which turns back to its purposes with “Crux Ansata,” but it works — but the surrounding interludes give each song a chance to make its own impact, and Kurokuma take advantage every time.

Kurokuma on Facebook

Kurokuma on Bandcamp

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SlugWeed, The Mind’s Ability to Think Abstract Thoughts

Do you think a band called SlugWeed would be heavy and slow? If so, you’d be right. Would it help if I told you the last single was called “Bongcloud?” The instrumental New England solo-project — which, like anything else these days, might be AI — has an ecosystem’s worth of releases up on Bandcamp dating back to an apparent birth as a pandemic project with the long-player The Power of the Leaf, and the 11-minute single “The Mind’s Ability to Think Abstract Thoughts” follows the pattern in holding to the central ethic of lumbering instrumental riffage, all dank and probably knowing about trichomes and such. The song itself is a massive chug-and-groover, and gradually opens to a more atmospheric texture as it goes, but the central idea is in the going itself, which is slow, plodding, and returns from its drift around a fervent chug that reminds of a (slower) take on some of what Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol had on offer earlier in the year. It probably won’t be long before SlugWeed return with anther single or EP, so “The Mind’s Ability to Think Abstract Thoughts” may just be a step on the way. Fine for the size of the footprint in question.

SlugWeed on Instagram

SlugWeed on Bandcamp

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Man and Robot Society, Asteroid Lost

Dug-in solo krautistry from Tempe, Arizona’s Jeff Hopp, Man and Robot Society‘s Asteroid Lost comes steeped in science-fiction lore and mellow space-prog vibes. It’s immersive, and not a story without struggle or conflict as represented in the music — which is instrumental and doesn’t really want, need or have a ton of room for vocals, though there are spots where shoehorning could be done if Hopp was desperate — but if you take the trip just as it is, either put your own story to it or just go with the music, the music is enough to go on itself, and there’s more than one applicable thread of plot to be woven in “Nomads of the Sand” or the later “Man of Chrome,” which resonates a classic feel in the guitar ahead of the more vibrant space funk of “The Nekropol,” which stages a righteous keyboard takeover as it comes out of its midsection and into the theremin-sounding second half. You never quite know what’s coming next, but since it all flows as a single work, that becomes part of the experience Man and Robot Society offer, and is a strength as the closing title-track loses the asteroid but finds a bit of fuzzy twist to finish.

Man and Robot Society on Facebook

Sound Effect Records website

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The cool kids get to call them Pigsx7, but let’s face it, I’ve never been cool and I have the distinct feeling I’m not about to start, so it’s Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs and a decent amount of cut and paste for me. While we’re being both forthright with each other and sad, I’ll tell you true this band is way above my jurisdiction at this point. I’m pretty sure this album’s been announced for a while, and that in the hierarchy of cool I’m pretty low on the spreading-the-news totem, but whatever. The song? It’s a fucking burner. Tight in a way that’s counter to how I think of Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, which is jammy-hammy, and a ripper that’s mean-riffed like West Coast punk but still spaced out vocally. It’s called “Mr. Medicine,” you can stream it below.

The record it comes from is Land of Sleeper and Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs will come to the US to support its Jan. 29 release, playing SXSW, Zebulon in L.A. and Saint Vitus Bar in Brooklyn, all of which carry ‘showcase’ vibes via the grouping. Clearly they’re looking to make an impression.

I honestly don’t know if I’ll get a download of this record to review. I thought there was one with this PR but I was mistaken. Frowny face. If I do get it, I’ll probably review it. They’re a cool band on the way up and they’ve put and are putting their work in. Nothing but respect. I just kind of feel like I’m not who they need or probably even want press from. And that’s more about me knowing my place than it is about the band or their representation. In case anyone actually reads this, I’ll be sincere one last time (golly it’s exhausting) and say I’m not looking to stir shit. Either way, I’ll very much look forward to checking out Land of Sleeper whenever the chance comes.

From the PR wire. Video for “Mr. Medicine” is at the bottom:

PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS – Land of Sleeper

Order LP and CD, buy merch and up-and-coming gig tickets here:
https://pigsx7.ffm.to/landofsleeper

The Newcastle, UK-based group Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs has shared a new video for their single “Mr Medicine,” replete with maniacal visuals to match the song’s unhinged Sabbathian power. The group will release their new album Land of Sleeper on February 17th via Missing Piece Group Records. Land of Sleeper is available for preorder now: https://pigsx7.ffm.to/landofsleeper

The video comes courtesy of artist Wilm Danby, known for his paintings and video art for the likes of Palace, Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Bullion. “When I first heard the track, I immediately felt a kind of forward motion, like being pushed forward by an unknown force in a nightmare, toward an unknown thing/place, floating but with no control. Scary but fun…” says Danby. “On repeated listens, it became sort of a mantra with riffs, about transcending fear through some kind of ritual or rite of passage. I wanted to make that ritual happen, to see what it could look like, and if it would work!”

‘Mr Medicine’ is a “song written to be a sonic arrow, purposefully succinct with no fat and no detours,” writes guitarist and producer Sam Grant. The result is something as immediate, incessant and directed as Pigs have ever gotten – the audio equivalent of sticking a fork in plug socket.

“Music is a powerful medicine and it should be consumed daily for mental wellbeing. Mr Medicine’s faithful and highly regarded colleague is Doctor Gig, who we also have on speed dial,” vocalist and lyrics Matt Baty explains. “Lyrically I suppose the sentiment is not too dissimilar to Sister Sledge ‘Lost In Music’, only galvanized by heavy, heavy doses of distortion and really big drum fills.”

Last month Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs offered a first glimpse of the album in the form of a blistering live performance video of the track “Terror’s Pillow.”

The group has also announced two new U.S. tour dates, performing in Brooklyn on March 11th at Saint Vitus and Los Angeles on March 21st at Zebulon. Tickets are currently on sale here. They will also be performing in Austin at SXSW in 2023.

Land of Sleeper is the heavy-psych/garage-rock band’s fourth studio album and follows 2020’s Viscerals. Whether dwelling in the realm of dreams or nightmares, the primordial drive of the band is more powerful than ever. Land of Sleeper, their fourth record in a decade of riot and rancor, is testimony to this: the sound of a band not so much reinvigorated as channeling a furious energy, which only appears to gather momentum as the band’s surroundings spin on their axis.

“Shouting about themes of existential dread comes very naturally to me, and I think because I’m aware of that in the past I’ve tried to rein that in a little” reckons Matt. “There’s definitely moments on this album where I took my gloves off and surrendered to that urge.”

Whether this means Pigs, a band once associated with reckless excess, have taken a darker turn to match the dystopian realm of the 2022 everyday, is open to debate. The band themselves aren’t necessarily convinced; “Sobriety does funny things to a man” reckons guitarist Adam Ian Sykes wryly.

“I know from my perspective, I was trying to write some much heavier and darker music” says guitarist and producer Sam Grant. “But this was an aim more as a counterpoint to earlier material, as opposed to any sort of political or social commentary. I still very much see these heavier moments as musically euphoric, and emotionally cut loose or liberating.”

“For obvious reasons, the anticipation for the writing of Land of Sleeper was unlike anything we’d felt before” Adam adds. “These sessions were an almost religious experience for me. It felt like we were working in unison, connected to some unknowable hive mind.”

For all that, the last few years have seen Pigs’ stature rise in the wake of triumphant festival slots and sold-out venues alike, this remains a band, consummated by bassist John-Michael Hedley and returning drummer Ewan Mackenzie, who are fundamentally incapable of tailoring their sound to a prospective audience, instead standing alone and impervious as a monument of catharsis.

“Writing and playing music is often surprising and revealing, it can be like holding up a mirror and seeing things you didn’t expect to see” reckons Mackenzie. “For me, the darker tracks on the record hold in common a determination not to lose faith, despite the odds.”

The better to unite slumber and waking, Land Of Sleeper is no less than an act of transcendence for Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – new anthems to elucidate a world sleepwalking to oblivion.

Land of Sleeper Tracklist:
1. Ultimate Hammer
2. Terror’s Pillow
3. Big Rig
4. The Weatherman
5. Mr Medicine
6. Pipe Down!
7. Atlas Stone
8. Ball Lightning

https://www.instagram.com/Pigsx7/
https://www.facebook.com/PigsPigsPigsPigsPigsPigsPigs
https://pigspigspigspigspigspigspigs.bandcamp.com/
https://www.pigsx7.com/

https://www.instagram.com/missingpiecegroup/
https://www.facebook.com/MissingPieceGroup/
http://www.missingpiecegroup.com/

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, “Mr. Medicine” official video

If you, like me, drink coffee, then I hope that you, like me, have it ready to go. We enter day two of the Jan. 2022 Quarterly Review today in a continued effort to at least not start the year at an immediate deficit when it comes to keeping up with stuff. Will it work? I don’t know, to be honest. It seems like I could do one of these for a week every month and that might be enough? Probably not, honestly. The relative democratization of media and method has its ups and downs — social media is a cesspool, privacy is a relic of an erased age, and don’t get me started on self-as-brand fiefdoms (including my own) that permeate the digital sphere in sad, cloying cries for validation — but I’m sure glad recording equipment is cheap and easier to use than it once was. Creativity abounds. Which is good.

Lots to do today and it’s early so I might even have time to get some of it done before my morning goes completely off the rails. Only one way to find out, hmm?

Quarterly Review #11-20:

Emma Ruth Rundle, Engine of Hell

It’s not inconceivable that Emma Ruth Rundle captured a few new ears via her previous LP and EP collaborations with New Orleans art-sludgers Thou, and she answers the tonal wash of those offerings with bedroom folk, can-hear-fingers-moving-on-strings intimacy, some subtle layering of vocals and post-grunge hard-strumming of acoustic guitar, but ultimately a minimal-feeling procession through Engine of Hell, an eight-track collection that, at times, feels like it’s barely there, and in other stretches seems overwhelming in its emotional heft. Rundle‘s songwriting is a long-since-proven commodity among her fans, and the piano-led “In My Afterlife” closes out the record as if to obliterate any lingering doubt of her sincerity. Actually, Engine of Hell makes its challenge in the opposite: it comes across as so genuine that listening to it, the listener almost feels like they’re ogling Rundle‘s trauma, and whatever it’s-sad-so-it-must-be-meaningful cynicism one might want to saddle on Engine of Hell is quickly enough dispatched. Rundle was rude to me once at Roadburn, so screw her, but I won’t take away from the accomplishment here. Not everybody’s brave enough to make a record like this.

Emma Ruth Rundle website

Sargent House website

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T.G. Olson, Lost Horse Returns of its Own Accord

Released in November, Lost Horse Returns of its Own Accord isn’t even the latest full-length anymore from the creative ecosystem that is T.G. Olson, but it’s noteworthy just the same for its clarity of songwriting — “Like You Never Left” makes an early standout for its purposeful-feeling hook and the repeated verse of “Flowers of the End in Bloom” does likewise — and a breadth of production that captures the happening-now sense of trad-twang-folk performance one has come to expect and leaves room for layered in harmonica or backing vocals where they might apply. A completely solo endeavor, the 10-track outing finds the Across Tundras founder taking a relatively straightforward approach as opposed to some of his more experimentalist offerings, which makes touches like the layering in closer “Same Ol’ Blue” and the mourning of the redwoods in the prior “The Way it Used to Be” feel all the more vital to the proceedings. More contemplative than rambling, the way “Li’l Sandy” sets the record in motion is laden with melancholy and nostalgia, but somehow unforgiving of self as well, recognizing the rose tint through which one might see the past, unafraid to call it out. If you’ve never heard a T.G. Olson record before, this would be a good place to start.

Electric Relics Records on Bandcamp

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Haast, Made of Light

Formerly known as Haast’s Eagled, Welsh four-piece Haast make a strikingly progressive turn with Made of Light, what’s ostensibly a kind of second debut. And while they’ve carried over the chemistry and some of the tonal weight of their work under the prior moniker, the mission across the seven-track offering is more than divergent enough to justify that new beginning. Cuts like “A Myth to End All Myths” and the from-the-bottom-up-building “The Agulhas Current” might remind some of Forming the Void‘s take on prog-heavy or heavy-prog, but Haast willfully change up their songwriting and the execution of the album, bringing in vocalist Leanne Brookes on the title-track and Jams Thomas on nine-minute closer “Diweddglo,” which crushes as much as it soars. The central question that Made of Light needs to answer is whether Haast are better off having made the change. Hearing them rework the verse melody of Alice in Chains‘ “We Die Young” on “Psychophant,” the answer is yes. They’ve allowed themselves more reach and room to grow and gained far more than whatever they’ve lost.

Haast on Facebook

Haast on Bandcamp

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Dark Ocean Circle, Bottom of the Ocean

Have riffs, will groove. So it goes with the debut EP from Stockholm-based unit Dark Ocean Circle, who present four formative but cohesive tracks on Bottom of the Ocean, following the guitar in more of a Sabbathian tradition then one might expect from the current stoner-is-as-stoner-does hesher scene. To wit, the title-track’s starts-stops, bluesy soloing and percussive edge tap a distinctly ’70s vibe, if somewhat updated in the still-raw production value after the straight-ahead fuzz of “Battlesnake” hints toward lumber to come in its thickened tone. “Setting Sun” feels more spacious by the time it’s done, but makes solid use of the just over three minutes to get to that point — a short, but satisfying journey — and the closing “Oceans of Blood” speaks to a NWOBHM influence while pairing that with the underlying boogie-blues that seemed to surface in “Bottom of the Ocean” as well. A pandemic-born project, their sound is nascent here but for sure aware of its inspirations and what it wants to take from them. Sans nonsense heavy rock and roll is of perennial welcome.

Dark Ocean Circle on Facebook

Dark Ocean Circle on Bandcamp

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El Castillo, Derecho

Floridian three-piece El Castillo self-tag as “surf Western,” and yeah, that’s about right. Instrumental in its 19-minute entirety, Derecho is the first EP from the trio of guitarist Ben McLeod (also All Them Witches, Westing), bassist Jon Ward and drummer Michael Monahan, and with the participation of McLeod as a draw, the feeling of two sounds united by singularity of tone is palpable. Morricone-meets-slow-motion-Dick–Dale perhaps, though that doesn’t quite account for the subtle current of reggae in “Diddle Datil” or the somehow-fiesta-ready “Summer in Bavaria,” though “Double Tap” is just about ready for you to hang 10, even if closer “Hang 5” keeps to half that, likely in honor of its languid pace, which turns surf into psych as easily as “Wolf Moon” turns it toward the Spaghetti West. An unpretentious exploration, and more intricate than it lets on with “El Norte” bringing various sides together fluidly at the outset and the rest unfolding with similarly apparent ease.

El Castillo on Facebook

El Castillo on Bandcamp

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Tekarra, Kicking Horse

Listening to “Hunted,” the 22:53 leadoff from Tekarra‘s two-song long-player, Kicking Horse, it’s hard not to feel nostalgic for standing in a small room with speaker cabinets stacked to the ceiling and having your bones vibrate from the level of volume assaulting you. I’ve never seen the Edmonton, Alberta, three-piece live, but their rumble and the tension in their pacing is so. fucking. doomed. You just want to throw your head back and shout. Not even words, just primal noises, since that seems to be what’s coming through on their end, so laced with feedback as it is. Coupled with the likewise grueling “Crusade / Kicking Horse” (23:11), there’s some guttural vocals, some samples, but the overarching intention is so clearly in the tune-low-play-slow ethic that that’s what comes across most of all, regardless of what else is happening. I’d be tempted to call it misanthropic if it didn’t have me so much pining for the live experience, and whatever you want to call it there’s no way these dudes give a crap anyway. They’re on another wavelength entirely, sounding dropped out of life and encrusted with cruelty. Fuck you and fuck yes.

Tekarra on Facebook

LSDR Records on Bandcamp

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1782, From the Graveyard

It’s been the better part of a year since 1782 released From the Graveyard, and I could detail for you the mundane reason I didn’t review it before now, but there’s only so much room and I’d rather talk about the bass tone on “Bloodline” and the grimly fuzzed lumber of “Priestess of Death.” An uptick in production value from their 2019 self-titled debut (review here), the 43-minute/eight-song LP nonetheless maintains enough rawness to still be in the post-Electric Wizard vein of cultistry, but its blowout distortion is all the more satisfying for the fullness with which it’s presented. “Seven Priests” sounds like Cathedral played at half-speed (not a complaint) and with its stretch of church organ picking up after a drop to nothing but barely-there low end, “Black Void” lives up to its name while feeling experimental in structure. Familiar in scope, for sure, but a filthy and dark delight just the same. Give me the slow nod of “Inferno” anytime. Even months after the fact its righteousness holds true.

1782 on Facebook

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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Fever Dog, Alpha Waves

Alpha Waves is a sonic twist a few years in the making, as Fever Dog transcend the expectation of their prior classic desert boogie in favor of a glam-informed 10-track double-LP, impeccably arranged and unrepentantly pop-minded. A cut like the title-track or “Star Power” is still unafraid to veer into psychedelics, as Danny Graham and Joshua Adams, but the opener “Freewheelin'” and “Solid Ground” and the later “The Demon” are glam-shuffle ragers, high energy, thoughtfully executed, and clear in their purpose, with “King of the Street” tapping vibes from ELO and Bowie ahead of the shimmering funk-informed jam that is “Mystics of Zanadu” before it fades into a full-on synthesizer deep-dive. Does it come back? You know what, I’m not gonna tell you. Maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t. Definitely you should find out for yourself. Sharp in its craft and wholly realized, Alpha Waves is brought to bear with an individualized vision, and the payoff is right there in its blend of poise and push.

Fever Dog on Facebook

Fever Dog on Bandcamp

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Black Holes are Cannibals, Surfacer

Led by Chris Jude Watson, the dronadelic outfit Black Holes are Cannibals may just be one person, it may be 20, but it doesn’t matter when you’re dealing with a sense of space being manipulated and torn apart molecule by molecule, atom by atom. So it goes throughout the 19-minute “Surfacer,” the 19:07 title-track of the two-songer LP accompanied by “No Title” (20:01). At about eight minutes in, Watson‘s everything-is-throat-singing approach seems to find the event horizon and twists into an elongated freakout with swirls of echoing tones, what seem to be screams, crashing cymbals and a resonant chaotic feel taking hold and then building down instead of up, seeming to disappear into the comparatively minimal beginning of “No Title,” which holds its own payoff back for a broader but more linear progression, ending up in the same with-different-marketing-this-would-be-black-metal aural morass, willfully thrown into the chasm it has made. You ever have an out of body experience? Watson has. Even managed to get it on tape.

Black Holes are Cannibals on Facebook

Cardinal Fuzz store

Little Cloud Records store

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Sonic Wolves, It’s All a Game to Me

What is one supposed to say to paying tribute to Lemmy Kilmister and Cliff Burton? Careers have been made on far less original fare than the two homage tracks that comprise Sonic Wolves‘ It’s All a Game to Me EP, with “CCKL” setting the tempo for a Motörheaded sprint and “Thee Ace of Spades” digging into early-Metallica bombast in its first couple minutes, drifting out for a while after the halfway point, then thrashing its way back to the end. Obviously it’s not the same kind of stuff they were doing with their 2018 self-titled (review here), but neither is it worlds apart. The basic fact of the matter is bands pay tribute to Motörhead and Metallica, to Lemmy and Cliff Burton, all the time. They just don’t tell you they’re doing it. In that way, It’s All a Game to Me almost feels courteous as it elbows you in the gut.

Sonic Wolves on Facebook

Argonauta Records website

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The extensive back catalog of UK drone ritualists Bong can be as foggy as the band’s sound itself. Between studio full-lengths, they have a history of EPs, splits, periodic compilations of EPs and splits, and no fewer than 23 live albums that goes back over a decade. Still, they’ve been pretty quiet since issuing We Are, We Were and We Will Have Been in 2015, with just two live recordings that followed. All the more reason to approach their 2018 long-player, Thought and Existence (previously discussed here), with a marked curiosity. What have the trio been up in what one assumes is a bunker deep below the surface of their hometown in Newcastle? From whence does the new album, delivered appropriately through Ritual Productions — with whom the band has worked since 2011’s Beyond Ancient Space (review here) — arrive?

As ever, Bong present more questions than answers. With the lineup of guitarist Mike Vest, bassist/vocalist David Terry and drummer Mike Smith explore a textural range that spreads out across two massive, immersive, compulsive tracks in “The Golden Fields” (17:31) and “Tlön Uqbar Orbis Tertius” (19:01), emitting a slow moving swirl that draws the listener in with its well-honed patience and fluidity. You’re hypnotized. They’re hypnotized. That’s kind of the whole point. Not to say it isn’t expressing a sonic idea, but that idea is to get lost in it. That’s the interaction Bong are seeking with Thought and Existence. It’s a communion between performers, audience and sound. Take that how you will — and some simply won’t — but it’s a journey one refuses to their own detriment.

Having been fortunate enough to see Bong perform most recently at Oslo’s Høstsabbat in 2016 (review here), I can recall vividly (or, you know, vaguely) the fog-drenched drone they brought to life on that stage, with Terry gurgling out his vocal parts as Vest and fill-in drummer Rich Lewis went exploring by oozing forth in any number of directions at once, taking the room through a massive, voluminous plunge into brain-melting tonal resonance. It was astounding to watch, and in the chants of “The Golden Fields” and the far, far-gone “Tlön Uqbar Orbis Tertius,” Thought and Existence captures the same sensibility and feeling of journey. It’s not just a willful slog in the front-to-back listen — actually, at 36 minutes, it’s a quite-manageable single LP, as was their last one; 2014’s Stoner Rock was their last 2LP, sort of — turn it up and it’s a physical manifestation of a near-opaque ethereality. Their methods well set at this stage in their career, Bong continue to explore places that most bands dare not tread and atmospheres from whence many a lesser act simply would not return.

In the relatively brief interview that follows, the band talks about some of the makings, processes and concepts behind Thought and Existence. Since rhythm and flow play so much of a role in what Bong does, I’ve left the Q&A largely untouched, and you’ll find it below only really changed from how it came in in terms of format, putting titles in italics and that kind of thing. The rest is as it showed up to preserve the integrity of it, and I sincerely hope it does just that.

Please enjoy the following Six Dumb Questions:

Six Dumb Questions with Bong

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What is the interaction between volume and ritual for Bong at this point? Where does one end and the other begin?

Playing live. To create the great sustain live, everything must be cranked. Everything! This is a major part of the ritual. A forced meditation for the audience. Even when we are in the studio, this rule need to be enforced. Textures and tones are really important and can only be achieved through high volume. Capturing that in the studio is a challenge but can be ultimately rewarding.

Why Thought and Existence? What is the album exploring and what do you feel it says about the title ultimately? Is there a conclusion reached through the material?

Exploring metaphysical inner space, the past is a present memory and the possibility that all time has expired. The inward expansive nature of the mind and our senses. The brain is actually part of the external world, it is only through our senses that we can truly see or feel the mind. The title itself is expansive and cannot be summed up, but can be perceived in many different ways.

Tell me about writing “The Golden Fields” and “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.” When did you start putting them together and how did they begin to take shape?

“Tlön” was written over time, we played various different versions of this track over the shows we were at early last year. It formed over time, the main riff was then extended and tightened up at practice sessions before we went into the studio. “Golden Fields” was roughly planned, with certain stages. Lining up the vocals with the tempo, gaps in the percussion. All our tracks are formed over time, the more we play, the clearer the arrangement seems to be.

How malleable are Bong songs over time? If I went to a Bong show three years from now and heard “The Golden Fields,” would it be the same as on the album? How set are the movements of a given piece? How do you know when writing a song that it’s done?

The arrangements, if any, will stay the same.

When changes or intensities begin, they are totally improvised.

Lead or layered octave guitar harmonies will drift in and out of any track live. Wenever play the same track exact, however you can still distinguish between which track is actually being played.

Our songs are never finished, as long as we keep playing the song live it will always change. Tracks on our albums are recorded moments, they have no real set parameters.

Take me through the recording process for Thought and Existence. Of course you know what you want out a studio experience at this point, but how did these tracks come together during the recording? What’s most important for you to capture in a studio recording process?

It’s all about the initial live takes in the studio.

We play all together to set the right tempo, we try to use the second or third take of a track as a final version to keep the feel, playing a track over and over in the studio can bleed it dry. However, using the first take as a reference point it can make it easier to create dynamics, place vocals and possible arrangements. We spent a lot of time playing these tracks, so we knew the arrangements. So we allocated a lot of time for experimentation adding bowed cymbals, more stereo guitars and Harmonium/Melodeon drones.

Any plans or closing words you want to mention?

Thought and Existence is out on May 4th on Ritual Productions We are currently booking shows for Europe and UK right now, so get in touch with us, we want play more shows this year. We [played] London at the end of June. More are being confirmed.
Also thanks to everyone who has picked up an LP/Tape/CD/t-shirt or just came to one of our shows. Means a lot to us. We never thought we would get this far.

Bong, Thought and Existence (2018)

Bong on Thee Facebooks

Ritual Productions website

When it comes to Newcastle-based psychedelic drone lords Bong, the very, very least you can say about the band is they don’t do anything half-assed when it comes to approaching cosmic sonorities. The often-experimental trio led by guitarist Mike Vest are set to issue their latest full-length, Thought and Existence — not exactly tackling the small issues, philosophically speaking — on May 4 via Ritual Productions, and like its 2015 predecessor, We Are, We Were and We Will Have Been, it’s made up of two expanded-mind drone drifters, unfolding a cosmos in slow motion across its two sides, which seem as ever to work on a wavelength of their won when it comes to tonal and atmospheric proliferation.

That not-doing-anything-half-assed extends to the new trailer premiering today for Thought and Existence, which — where most tease about a vague minute or 50 seconds of new material from a band’s record, follows suit with Bong‘s overall methodology and tops five minutes, giving a substantial glimpse at both of the tracks on Thought and Existence, “The Golden Fields” (17:31) and “Tlön Uqbar Orbis Tertius” (19:01). The thing of it? It’s immersive. I mean, you get lost in it. The album, the full thing, is 36 minutes long between the two cuts, but I’ve yet to make it through the trailer that you can see below without feeling totally hypnotized. Even right now as I type this I’ve got the thing on and I feel like I’m clinging to consciousness with all I’ve got.

And there it goes…

Maybe I shouldn’t be so shocked at that — trance-inducing repetition is as much a key component of Bong‘s approach as volume or a darkened, ritualized atmosphere. They use it well throughout Thought and Existence, to be sure, and it’s perhaps in conveying that that the trailer is most effective, though that’s not to mention the visuals themselves included which are slowly manipulated and awesome in their own right. Still, while one so often thinks of Bong working in longer-form contexts as they generally do, it’s telling that they don’t actually need much more than five minutes to melt your brain down and drink it as it pours from your ears.

Behold:

Bong, Thought and Existence album trailer premiere

Bong ‘Thought and Existence’ album trailer edited by Sergio Angot and directed by Cristiane Richardson, featuring ‘The Golden Fields’ and ‘Tlön Uqbar Orbis Tertius’. Out Spring 2018 on Ritual Productions.

The cosmos has now aligned, and with great honour Ritual Productions announce BONG’s return after three years with a new and momentous rite. ‘Thought and Existence’ is their sixth album for Ritual Productions and will be unveiled in its entirety this May 4th.

A continuation of Bong’s metaphysical sounds, ‘Thought and Existence’ will take the listener on a spacious voyage that resonates with the works of the band’s past, yet this offering is especially striking and stunning. A resplendent and imposing craft, comprised of two tracks spanning just under 40 minutes, ‘Thought and Existence’ is remarkable in its ability to move the listener and transcend them to imaginative planes anew.

Bong feel ever so omnipresent on ‘Thought and Existence’, continuing their revered ability to transform time through their sublime sonic textures. As all listeners of this rite will attest, the band’s stellar meditative and mystical drone, amplified by the essential and ritualistic hue of the drums, permits our imagination to be heightened. New realms of perception and existence open up, even if only for the duration of the rite; the power of this listening experience subverting the laws of time and space itself.

BONG is:
Mike Vest – guitars
Mike Smith – drums
David Terry – bass & vocals

Bong’s ‘Thought and Existence’ was recorded and engineered by Mark Wood at The Soundroom, Gateshead during September 2017. The rite was mixed and mastered at XL Recordings Studio, London during December 2017, courtesy of John Foyle (Bobby Womack, Sampha, Damon Albarn) and Adam Richardson (11PARANOIAS, Ramesses, Ancient Lights).

Bong on Thee Facebooks

Ritual Productions website

I don’t know if it’s fair to call Haikai No Ku an offshoot of Bong or not, but they take their moniker from a Bong record and Mike Vest plays guitar, so if by some cosmic understanding of the way psychedelic drone works makes you think of Haikai No Ku as something I haven’t eaten enough mushrooms to understand that’s not a Bong offshoot, I apologize in advance for calling them that. What the hell was I talking about?

Right. The record. Haikai No Ku‘s third full-length, the awesomely-titled Temporary Infinity, will be out later this month via Box Records, and if you play your cards right — by which I mean scroll down to under the PR wire info where the YouTube embed is — you can hear the opening track “Saltes of Humane Dust” right now. Have at you:

Haikai No Ku – Temporary Infinity (Box Records) 12” Vinyl & Download – 25th January 2016

Box Records is proud to present the third full length album from Newcastle, UK noise-psych power trio Haikai No Ku.

‘Temporary Infinity’ continues the nightmarish bad trips that previous albums ‘Sick On My Journey’ (Burning World Records) and ‘Ultra High Dimensionality’ (Box Records) conjured. The patented Mike Vest (Bong, 11Paranoias, Blown Out) wall of gargantuan mild-altering damaged feedback is again present with the no nonsense power of Sam Booth (Foot Hair) and Jerome Smith (Female Borstal, Charles Dexter Ward).

Haikai No Ku take no prisoners and show no remorse with their latest offering. ‘Temporary Infinity’ is near 40 minutes of warped and disturbed hallucinogenic punishment. Their sound is not for the faint hearted but one that has seen them develop a cult following among those who enjoy their music twisted.

1. Saltes Of Humane Dust (09:56)
2. Temple Factory (06:58)
3. Blind Summit (02:40)
4. In Garden Of Sunken Eclipse (09:42)
5. Sea Of Blood (04:12)

For fans of Bong, Les Rallizes Denude, Mainliner etc. ‘Temporary Infinity’ is pressed on 180g wax with superb artwork and design by Pete Burn, printed on recycled card sleeve with download code.

Mike Vest – Guitar
Jerome Smith – Bass
Sam Booth – Drums

Recorded and Mixed by Mark Wood, The Soundroom, Gateshead
Mastered by Stephen Bishop
Artwork and Layout by Pete Burn

https://www.facebook.com/HaikaiNoKu/
https://arequestforvolume.wordpress.com/haikai-no-ku/
www.box-records.com

Haikai No Ku, “Saltes of Humane Dust” from Temporary Infinity

Bong‘s is a swirling cosmic atmosphere of psychedelic exploration and ritualistic drone. Among the countless live albums, splits, EPs and other limited releases, each time they coalesce in the form of a full-length, it’s more of an event than an album, and the fourth and latest, Mana-Yood-Sushai (out May 14 through Ritual Productions) is the grandest yet. Taking the Newcastle four-piece’s methods of crafting huge, expansive works of riff hypnosis and coupling them with a genuine studio production at the hands of Greg Chandler of Esoteric, the latest outing gives Bong a shape without limiting their movement into, through and around it.

It’s heady shit, in other words — and I absolutely mean that as a compliment. Comprised of just two tracks, Mana-Yood-Sushai is at once complex and minimalistic, its psych wash and chants dense, and there are times listening to the 27 minutes of “Dreams of Mana-Yood-Sushai” when you feel like there’s no path out of it, like Bong have locked you in the temple and the only option you have left is to join them in their worship. Doom by way of Stockholm Syndrome? Maybe, but it’s glorious, either way.

And yet there’s something blissful in “Dreams of Mana-Yood-Sushai” by the end of it, the gradual evolution of the guitar line leading to a sort of melodic hum underlying the weight of the ambience. Bong‘s prior LP outing, Beyond Ancient Space (review here), was nearly 80 minutes long, and at just over 46, Mana-Yood-Sushai isn’t so much a change in methodology as it is a charted course into the band’s peculiar and impeccably constructed tonal abyss.

I’m fortunate enough today to be able to stream “Dreams of Mana-Yood-Sushai” in its 27-minute entirety. Please find the track on the player below, followed by some info from the label, and enjoy:

[mp3player width=460 height=120 config=fmp_jw_widget_config.xml playlist=bong.xml]

Psyched-out, marvelously prolific doomlords Bong have returned once again from the outer limits of doom, drone, and Eastern melody to grace and glorify the riff upon their latest offering, a brand new album, Mana-Yood-Sushai. The album will be released on May 14 by England’s Ritual Productions, longtime supporters and purveyors of the doomed. The ethereal cover artwork is an image of a Nicolas Roerich painting titled “Mount of Five Treasures.”

Following last year’s masterpiece Beyond Ancient Space, this two-horned behemoth was recorded, mixed and mastered in just two days in December 2011, marking the first time Bong have ever entered a professional studio and recorded with an engineer. The esoteric outfit previously preferred to record live, and in shed, and in fields, and wherever the riff saw fit to lead them. 

At the helm was Greg Chandler of Esoteric, who had this to say about the experience: “It was really great to record an album live in the studio with Bong, whose heavy, droning, psychedelic improvisations unfolded like a lucid, transcendental journey. Great vibe to the session with these guys, and a real pleasure to work with. I really enjoyed the session, was cool to work with a band that can just get in and do their thing with a completely no nonsense approach!”

Bassist/vocalist Dave Terry commented, “Two tracks emerged from our battles with the unfamiliar disconnectedness of studio recording, inspired in turn by the stories of Lord Dunsany and the meandering psychedelic rock of Träd Gräs och Stenar. We hope you enjoy listening to them as much as we enjoy playing them.”

For more on Bong or to pre-order Mana-Yood-Sushai, hit up the Ritual Productions website.