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

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

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

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

Alright, here we go. Thanks again for reading.

Quarterly Review #41-50:

Restless Spirit, Restless Spirit

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

Restless Spirit on Bandcamp

Magnetic Eye Records store

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Ryan Güt, The Shastafarian

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

Ryan Güt website

Ryan Güt on Bandcamp

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Bismut, Matsutake

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

Bismut website

Tonzonen website

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Crippled Black Phoenix, Sceaduhelm

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

Crippled Black Phoenix website

Season of Mist website

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Some Pills for Ayala, Incarnate

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

Some Pills for Ayala on Bandcamp

Some Pills for Ayala on Instagram

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Gnod, Chronicles of Gnowt Vol. 1

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

Gnod on Bandcamp

Rocket Recordings website

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Fuzzing Nation, Mothertruck

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

Fuzzing Nation website

Argonauta Records store

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Ak’Chamel, Spiritually Unemployed

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

Ak’Chamel on Bandcamp

Akuphone Records website

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Sonic Secrets, Diversions Vol. 1

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

Sonic Secrets on Bandcamp

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Big Scenic Nowhere, Rehearsal 11.19.21

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

Big Scenic Nowhere on Instagram

HeavyHead Store

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DUNDDW release their new album, Okukulukuta, this Friday, Jan. 30. It’s comprised of 11 tracks and runs 59 minutes, and its title and as I understand it the titles of all the songs translate to “flow,” though I’ll admit to trying to run the tracklisting through a major internet company’s translation matrix and not being able to source languages for all the words, while others were Indonesian, Spanish, Afrikaans, Tswanan, and so on. The Nijmegen-based improv psychedelia trio are no strangers to reaching beyond themselves musically. They would seem to have put that to use this time linguistically as well.

The unity of titles speaks broadly of intent on the part of guitarist Gerben Elburg, bassist Huibert der Weduwen and drummer Peter Dragt, who were last heard from in 2024, collaborating with Dr. Space on a live release (review here), but everything’s a live release when you make it up on the spot, so the lines become blurred. In any case, Okukulukuta (‘flow’ in Luganda, a Bantu language in Uganda) does more than just flow. Sure each piece hits a groove — even the 85-second “Mili IX III” with its sweet-toned, soft guitar is moving to the sway of the quiet drums — but if you look at the titles in the tracklisting below, you’ll start to see a pattern emerge in the Roman numerals.

On DUNDDW‘s 2023 split with Kombynat Robotron (review here), the trio featured the 20-minute jam “VIII.” Here, they pick up right where they left off, with “Vloei IX I” presumably being the ninth on-an-album jam they’ve done — one assumes there are many more jams that don’t make the cut — and while 2022’s Flux (review here) was comprised of parts edited down from longer dig-ins, with Okukulukuta, they take the approach further, carving jams ‘IX,’ ‘X’ and ‘XI’ into shorter individual tracks. That’s less the case with the 11-minute finale “Stroom XI I,” but even that has three other parts of the same jam included earlier on. It’s not a standalone. Nothing here is.

The message, perhaps, is that flow can happen anytime, and it happens everywhere. It’s not just about the linear direction “Stroom XI I” plays out, but that’s an important piece just the same. It’s possible for an adventurous or curious digital listener to rearrange the tracklisting so that it’s executed in jam-order. It’s not the way the band are choosing to present their work, so I’m not going to advocate for doing so as optimal, but it does provide some insight as “Elela IX II” picks up pretty much where the opener left off while “Agayus XI II” starts from the post-crescendo comedown’s silence with a quick bit of effects and then a turnaround to dive right back into the procession, meandering a bit before coming to a stop to give “Kuyenda XI III” a fresh start, etc. Again, I won’t tell how to hear a thing, and I’m not looking to mess with anybody’s art, but even though ‘X I’ is missing from the outing (perhaps to show up later, perhaps not), a sequential approach adds another dimension to the experience, and though the album is still about an hour long, the shorter individual sections make that feel more doable and more engaging on a puzzle level when you find how they all do and don’t fit together.

But from the prog-metal chug of “Mengalir IX IV” to the nod and angular strut of “Mikoriana X II” and the serene wanderings of “Kwarara XI IV,” the concept of ‘flow’ is met no matter how one listens, and in the tracklisting as presented, this is highlighted all the more by some of the starker turns from one inclusion to the next as DUNDDW reorient in terms of mood and execution with efficiency that feels sneaky but is really just manifest chemistry and knowing where each other are in the room at any given moment. That is, what you get, however you choose to listen, is the instrumental conversation between Elburg, der Weduwen and Dragt, resonating with an open creativity and a will to plunge into the aural unknown while keeping a foot in what, for them, is a heavy psychedelic foundation.

One thing I will recommend: Approach with an open mind and try to find that balance between hearing a thing and listening to it. I’m not saying you need to sit and analyze every turn and skronky jazz flourish or whathaveyou, but neither is a full zoneout the way to go. A couple deep breaths and I expect you’ll be fine, especially if you’re still reading, and thanks if you are.

PR wire info follows in blue text. Thanks for reading:

DUNDDW, Okukulukuta album premiere

DUNDDW is a 100% improvising, instrumental spacerock/krautrock trio from The Netherlands, with members from Bismut and Mt. Echo. Their first full length album Flux was released in November 2022. In June 2023 they released a split vinyl LP with German krautrock band Kombynat Robotron. February 2024 marked the release of a live jam they played in 2023, with Dr. Space from Øresund Space Collective, Black Moon Circle a.o. joining in. DUNDDW shared the stage with bands like Kanaan, Electric Moon and My Sleeping Karma.

The album artwork is made by Phosphor visuals.

Tracklisting:
1. Vloei IX I 7:02
2. Mengalir IX IV 2:33
3. Fluir IX V 8:03
4. Elela IX II 3:51
5. Mikoriana X II 7:03
6. Flyde X III 4:48
7. Agayus XI II 3:20
8. Kuyenda XI III 4:32
9. Mili IX III 1:25
10. Kwarara XI IV 5:40
11. Stroom XI I 11:17

DUNDDW:
Peter Dragt – Drums
Huibert der Weduwen – Bass
Gerben Elburg – Guitars

DUNDDW on Bandcamp

DUNDDW on Instagram

DUNDDW on Facebook

All three of these bands had releases out in 2024. In the case of London heavypunkers Thee Alcoholics, they had two. Poland’s Sunnata released Chasing Shadows (review here) and Scottish psychfreaks The Cosmic Dead proffered Infinite Peaks (review here) last Spring, and both have set about supporting the records ever since. The three bands join the lineup for Nijmegen’s Sonic Whip Festival alongside a righteous host of acts from various genres, from Frankie and the Witch Fingers‘ heady garage-psych-punk to Temple Fang‘s farthest-out soulful prog, to Orsak:Oslo‘s Scandidrone and Osees‘ how-do-they-do-it-oh-yeah-cocaine-and-ADHD chicanery, among others.

Two days, all killer. Elder, Slomosa and The Devil and the Almighty Blues sharing the stage with Graveyard. Khan and Dutch prog-boogie upstarts Heath holding it down next to Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol and Lord Buffalo. Whether it’s those two from the US, Khan from Australia or others from around Europe, there’s 23 acts on this bill and each one brings something different to the proceedings than the others. Yeah, there are elements shared — it’s a genre-based heavy fest; not a new concept — but if you get a sense of personality looking at the assembled names of the final Sonic Whip 2025 lineup below, I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

There have been a few ‘Live at Sonic Whip’-type releases the past few years as well. If anybody wanted to get that The Devil and the Almighty Blues set on tape, I’m pretty sure a live album from those guys would make the world a better place. See also everybody.

From social media:

LINE-UP SONIC WHIP 2025 COMPLETE

With the addition of the exploratory Scottish spacerockers The Cosmic Dead, ritualistic Polish doomsters SUNNATA and raunchy noise UK five piece Thee Alcoholics the line-up for this year is now complete. Three killer bands next to twenty other amazing acts making the 2025 edition surely one not to be missed!

Tickets & info: https://bit.ly/Sonic-Whip-2025

https://www.facebook.com/Sonicwhipfestival
https://www.instagram.com/sonic_whip/
https://www.doornroosje.nl/festival/sonic-whip/

Sunnata, Chasing Shadows (2024)

The Cosmic Dead, Infinite Peaks (2024)

Thee Alcoholics, Bear Bites Horse Sessions (2024)

If this week has felt like little more than catching up with fest announcements and doing-myself-a-favor heavy psych reviews, yeah, I think you’ve basically got the picture of what’s been going on. Of course the holidays are a factor, but even in the quietest of weeks — and this and next are the quietest weeks, traditionally, though the music industry used to shut down from December through February when it ruled the world and anyone could afford an off-season — there’s stuff happening for me to be behind on, and so here we are with Sonic Whip 2025 in Nijmegen bringing on Slomosa, Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol, Help and The Janitors.

Going by the results so far to the Year-End Poll, people are ready for Slomosa to have as busy a year as they apparently will in 2025, and Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol‘s European Not-Vacation has been teased for a few months. That they’d be anchoring club shows at fests makes sense; it’s how things are done these days and I honestly don’t know how much time they’ve spent in Europe at this point. And Khan coming from Australia is incredible, no less because the Melbourne, Australia, psychcrushers are also slated to appear at Hoflärm 2025 in August, which means they could be in Europe for much of the summer. That would be a hell of a trip.

All that’s very exciting, but The Janitors are my real lesson here, as I hadn’t heard them before and they’ve been around for a long time and the record they put out this year, An Error Has Occurred, streaming below, rules. Enjoy it along with this from social media:

NEW NAMES SONIC WHIP 2025

All ready and set for the holidays? We for sure are, but not before adding some truly fine gems to the Sonic Whip 2025 line-up; Slomosa, The Janitors, Help, Khan and Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol!

Slomosa can’t wait to make their appearance again with their hard hitting Norwegian tundra rock. As are The Janitors who will conjure their heavy fuzzed out drones, a truly Swedish psychedelic aural wormhole, cool and mega-trippy. Which is nothing like Help, these guys from Portland bring throat-shredding, veins-bulging, shirt-soaking hardcore noise punk. The Aussies from Khan on the other hand deliver evocative, hazy psychedelica with intricate stoner riffs. And last but not least Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol. This trio from Texas create the most brilliant doom sludge pop psych combination you propably will hear this year… It’s big, it’s dumb, it’s fucking rifftastic!

That’s not all, daytickets are available now as well at a reduced price, available until January 12th. Snag these while they are still hot. The new year will also bring more cool names including the second headliner!

Tickets & info: https://bit.ly/Sonic-Whip-2025

https://www.facebook.com/Sonicwhipfestival
https://www.instagram.com/sonic_whip/
https://www.doornroosje.nl/festival/sonic-whip/

The Janitors, An Error Has Occurred (2024)

A lot to like in the batch of new names added to Sonic Whip in the Netherlands this coming May. The 2025 Nijmegen edition of the festival has announced Dutch upstarts Heath will play — reasonable — and brought on Graveyard, who immediately go to the top of the bill and are playing for the first time — and punctuated noise rock masters Whores., the ambient Orsak:Oslo, as well as Utrecht heavy punkers Rats and Daggers and Los Angeles’ own Frankie and the Witch Fingers for those who’d dare a little fun while they have a good time.

As Lord Buffalo are also added, I can’t help but wonder if the Austin-based outfit won’t do a tour around this appearance, and if so, I believe that’s their first European jaunt. Don’t quote me on that, I could be wrong. Either way, I’ll try to keep an eye for dates and, if they’re going to make a run of it, with whom.

The announcement was short and sweet, the lineup is righteous and by all accounts I’ve heard, Sonic Whip is an amazing time. Barring some never-gonna-happen fiscal miracle, I won’t be there to see it, but if you get to go, enjoy. Tickets are available. Here’s what they had to say on socials:

NEW NAMES SONIC WHIP 2025

We’re thrilled to announce Graveyard for Sonic Whip 2025! The appearance of the Swedish band will mark their debut at our festival. Judging by their blistering performances lately they are on fire! Also present on 16 & 17 May; US garage psychrockers Frankie And The Witch Fingers, noise-punk-sludge juggernauts Whores., Norwegian atmospheric kraut-jazz-psychrockers Orsak:Oslo, cinematic & melancholic rockers Lord Buffalo from the US, Dutch psych revelation Heath and upcoming sonic punkrockers of Rats and Daggers.

The line-up is shaping up nicely with Elder, The Devil and the Almighty Blues, Temple Fang and Karkara being announced earlier on and there’s still more to follow! Keep your eyes peeled.

Get your tickets for Sonic Whip 2025 via https://bit.ly/Sonic-Whip-2025

https://www.facebook.com/Sonicwhipfestival
https://www.instagram.com/sonic_whip/
https://www.doornroosje.nl/festival/sonic-whip/

Graveyard, 6 (2023)

The Nijmegen-based Sonic Whip Festival has unveiled the first five acts for its 2025 edition. Elder are all over the place — here, Desertfest in London, Berlin and Oslo, plus club shows — and The Devil and the Almighty Blues will be making the rounds. If you’ve never seen them, just know that they deliver a lot of both devilry and blues from the stage. It’s early to get a sense of the full shape of the thing, but with Temple Fang, Karkara and Den Der Hale rounding out, Sonic Whip 2025 presents a varied face within the realms of that which is heavy and psychedelic. I look forward to finding out who else is taking part, as the Spring European touring circuit begins to take shape months before the year has even started.

Also, as Burning World Records recently announced it was restructuring business to lean more into the distro side of things rather than new releases — fair enough — it specifically noted that the label would continue to release live outings captured at Sonic Whip, so it’ll be fun to see what if anything emerges from next May’s fest. For those of us who’ve never been, such things are only fuel for daydreams.

From the PR wire:

FIRST NAMES SONIC WHIP 2025 AND START TICKETSALE

Two days full of roaring guitars with steaming bass lines, pounding drums and other sonic, psychedelic excesses. That’s what you can expect during Sonic Whip 2025 on Friday 16 May and Saturday 17 May.

We are delighted to share the first few names; Elder, The Devil And The Almighty Blues, Temple Fang, Karkara and Den Der Hale will hit the stage for next year’s edition. There are many more artists to be announced. Join us on this sonic journey, because it’s going to be a killer party again!

A limited amount of early bird weekend tickets is available now. Get yours when you can. Day tickets will be available on a later date.

Tickets & info: https://bit.ly/Sonic-Whip-2025

https://www.facebook.com/Sonicwhipfestival
https://www.instagram.com/sonic_whip/
https://www.doornroosje.nl/festival/sonic-whip/

The Devil and the Almighty Blues, “These Are Old Hands” live at Desertfest Oslo 2024

Legend has it that a long time ago, thousands of years ago, before even the founding of the Kingdom of New Jersey itself, there was a man who attempted a two-week, 100-album Quarterly Review. He truly believed and was known to say to his goodlady wife, “Sure, I can do 100 releases in 10 days. That should be fine,” but lo, the gods did smite him for his hubris.

His punishment? That very same Quarterly Review.

Like the best of mythology, the lesson here is don’t be a dumbass and do things like 100-record Quarterly Reviews. Clearly this is a lesson I haven’t learned. Welcome to the next two weeks. Sorry for the typos. Let’s roll.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

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Nebula, Livewired in Europe

A busy 2023 continued on from a busy 2022 for SoCal heavy rockers Nebula as they supported their seventh album, Transmission From Mothership Earth (review here), and as filthy as was founding guitarist Eddie Glass‘ fuzz on that record, the nine-track (12 on the CD) Livewired in Europe pushes even further into the rawer stoner punk that’s always been at root in their sound. They hit Europe twice in 2023, in Spring and Fall, and in the lumbering sway of “Giant,” the drawl of “Messiah,” the Luciferian wink of that song and “Man’s Best Friend” earlier in the set, and the righteous urgency of what’s listed in the promo as “Down the Mother Fuckin’ Highway” or the shred-charged roll of “Warzone Speedwolf” in the bonus cuts, with bassist Ranch Sironi backing Glass on vocals and Mike Amster wailing away on drums — he’s the glue that never sounds stuck — they document the mania of post-rebirth Nebula as chaotic and forceful in kind, which is precisely what one would most hope for at the start of the gig. It’s not their first live outing, and hopefully it’s not the last either.

Nebula on Facebook

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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Mountain of Misery, The Land

The self-recording/self-releasing Kamil Ziółkowski offers his second solo LP with The Land, following in short order from last Fall’s In Roundness (review here) and the two-songer issued a month after. At six songs and 35 minutes, The Land further distinguishes Mountain of Misery stylistically from Ziółkowski‘s main outfit, Spaceslug. Yes, the two bands share a penchant for textured tones and depth of mix (Haldor Grunberg at Satanic Audio mixed and mastered), and the slow-delivered melodic ‘gaze-style vocals are recognizable, but “The ’90s” puts Nirvana through this somewhat murky, hypnotic filter, and before its shimmering drone caps the album, on closer “Back Again,” the multi-instrumentalist/vocalist reminds a bit of Eddie Vedder. Seekers of nod will find plenty in “Awesome Burn” and the slightly harder-hitting “High Above the Mount” — desert rock in its second half, but on another planet’s desert — while the succession of “Path of Sound” and “Come on Down” feel specifically set to more post-rocking objectives; the plot and riffs likewise thickened. Most of all, it sounds like Mountain of Misery is digging in for a longer-term songwriting exploration, and quickly, and The Land only makes me more excited to find out where it’s headed.

Mountain of Misery on Facebook

Electric Witch Mountain Recordings on Facebook

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Page Williams Turner, Page Williams Turner

The named-for-their-names trio Page Williams Turner is comprised of electronicist/mixer Michael Page (Sky Burial, many others), drummer/percussionist Robert Williams (of the harshly brilliant Nightstick) and saxophonist Nik Turner (formerly Hawkwind, et al), and the single piece broken into two sides on their Opposite Records self-titled debut is a duly experimentalist, mic-up-and-go extreme take on free psychedelic jazz, drone, industrial noisemaking, and time-what-is-time-signature manipulation. “Rorrim I” is drawn cinematically into an unstable wormhole circa its 14th minute, and teases serenity before the listener is eaten by a giant spider in some kind of unknowable ritual, and while “Rorrim II” feels less manic on average, its cycles, ebbs and flows remain wildly unpredictable. That’s the point, of course. If the combination of personnel and/or elements seems really, really weird on paper, you’re on the right track. This kind of thing will never be for everybody, but those who can get on its level will find it transportive. If that’s you, safe travels.

Page Williams Turner at Opposite Records Bandcamp

Opposite Records website

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Almost Honest, The Hex of Penn’s Woods

The spoken intro welcoming the listener to “the greatest and last show of your lives” at the head of the chugging “Mortician Magician” is a little over the top considering the straightforward vibe of much of what follows on the 10 tracks of 2023’s The Hex of Penn’s Woods from Pennsylvania-based heavy rockers Almost Honest, but whether it’s the banjo early or the cowbell later in “Haunted Hunter,” the post-Fu Manchu riffing and gang shouts of “Alien Spiders,” “Ballad of a Mayfly”‘s whistling, the organ in “Amish Hex” (video premiere here), the harmonies of “Colony of Fire,” a bit of sax on “Where the Quakers Dwell,” that quirk in the opener, the funk wrought throughout by Garrett Spangler‘s bass and Quinten Spangler‘s drumming, the metal-rooted intertwining of Shayne Reed and David Kopp‘s guitars or the structural solidity beneath all of it, the band give aural character to coincide with the regionalist themes based on their Pennsylvania Dutch, foothill-Appalachian surroundings, and they dare to make their third album’s 44 minutes fun in addition to thoughtful in its craft.

Almost Honest on Facebook

Argonauta Records website

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Buzzard, Doom Folk

Based in Western Massachusetts, Buzzard is the solo-project of Christopher Thomas Elliott, and the title of his debut album, Doom Folk, describes his particular intention. As the 12-song/44-minute outing unfolds from the eponymous “Buzzard” at its outset (even that feels like a Sabbathian dogwhistle), the blend of acoustic and electric guitar forms the heart of the arrangements, but more than that, it’s doom and folk, stylistically, that are coming together. What makes it work is that Elliott avoids the trap of 2010s-ish neo-folk posturing as a songwriter, and while there’s a ready supply of apocalyptic mood in the lyrical storytelling and abundant amplified distortion put to dynamic use, the folk he’s speaking to is more traditional. Not lacking intricacy in their percussion, arrangements or melodies, you could nonetheless learn these songs and sing them. “Death Metal in America” alone makes it worth the price of admission, let alone the stellar “Lucifer Rise,” but the sweet foreboding and build of the subsequent “Harvester of Souls” gets even closer to Buzzard‘s intention in bringing together the two sides to manifest a kind of heavy that is immediately and impressively its own. Doom Folk on.

Buzzard on Facebook

Buzzard on Bandcamp

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Mt. Echo, Cometh

Mt. Echo begin their third full-length primed for resonance with the expansive, patiently wrought “Veil of Unhunger,” leading with their longest track (immediate points) as a way of bringing the listener into the record’s mostly instrumental course with a shimmer of post-rock and later-emerging density of tone. The Nijmegen trio’s follow-up to 2022’s Electric Empire (review here) plays out across a breadth that extends beyond the 44-minute runtime and does more in its pieces than flow smoothly between its loud/quiet tradeoffs. “Round and Round Goes the Crown” brings a guest appearance from Oh Hazar guitarist/vocalist Stefan Kollee that pushes the band into a kind of darker, thoroughly Dutch heavy prog, but even that shift is made smoother by the spoken part on “Brutiful Your Heart” just before, and not necessarily out of line with how “Set at Rest” answers the opener, or the rumble, nod and wash that cap with “If I May.” The overarching sense of growth is palpable, but the songs express more atmospherically than just the band pushing themselves.

Mt. Echo on Facebook

Mt. Echo on Bandcamp

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Friends of Hell, God Damned You to Hell

They’re probably to raw and dug into Satanic cultistry to agree, but with Per “Hellbutcher” Gustavsson (Nifelheim) on vocals, guitarists Beelzeebubth (Mystifier, etc.) and Nikolas “Sprits” Moutafis (Mirror, etc.), bassist Taneli Jarva (Impaled Nazarene, etc.) and drummer Tasos Danazoglou (Mirror, ex-Electric Wizard, etc.) in the lineup for second LP God Damned You to Hell, it’s probably safe to call Friends of Hell a supergroup. Such considerations ultimately have little to do with how the rolling proto-NWOBHM triumphs of “Bringer of Evil” and “Arcane Macabre” play out, but it explains the current of extremity in their purposes that comes through at the start with the title-track and the severity that surrounds in the layering of “Ave Satanatas” as they journey into the underworld to finish with the eight-minute “All the Colors of the Dark.” You’re either going to buy the backpatch or shrug and not get it, and that seems like it’s probably fine with them.

Friends of Hell on Instagram

Rise Above Records website

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Red Sun, From Sunset to Dawn

Not to be confused with France’s Red Sun Atacama, Italian prog-heavy psych instrumentalists Red Sun mark their 10th anniversary with the release of their third album, From Sunset to Dawn, and run a thread of doom through the keyboardy “The Sunset Turns Purple” and “The Shape of Night” on side A to manifest ‘sunset’ while side B unfolds with airier guitar in “The Coldness of the New Moon” and “Towards the End of Darkness” en route to the raga-leaning “The New Sun,” but as much as there is to be said for the power of suggestion and narrative titling, it’s the music itself that realizes the progression described in the name of the album. With a clear influence from My Sleeping Karma in “The Coldness of the New Moon” and the blend of organic hand-percussion and digitized melody in “The New Sun,” Red Sun immerse the listener in the procession from the intro “Where Once Was Light” (mirrored by “Intempesto” at the start of side B) onward, with each song serving as a chapter in the linear concept and story.

Red Sun on Facebook

Subsound Records website

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Wolff & Borgaard, Destroyer

Cinematic enough in sheer sound and the corresponding intensity of mood to warrant the visual collaboration with Kai Lietzke that accompanies the audio release, the collaboration between Hamburg electronic experimentalist Peter Wolff (Downfall of Gaia) and vocalist Jens Borgaard (Knifefight!, solo) moves between minimalist soundscaping and more consuming, weighted purposes. Moments like the beginning of “Transmit” might leave one waiting for when the Katatonia song is going to kick in, but Wolff & Borgaard engage on their own level as each of the nine pieces follows its own poetic course, able to be caustic like the culmination of “Observe” or to bring the penultimate “Extol” to silence gradually before “Reaper” bursts to life with clearly intentional contrast. I heard this or that streaming service is making a Blade Runner 2099 tv series. Sounds like a terrible idea, but it might just be watchable if Wolff & Borgaard get to do the score with a similar evocations of software and soul.

Peter Wolff on Facebook

My Proud Mountain website

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Semuta, Glacial Erratic

The Portland, Oregon, two-piece of guitarist/bassist/vocalist Benjamin Caragol (ex-Burials) and drummer Ben Stoller (currently also Simple Forms, Dark Numbers, ex-Vanishing Kids) do much to ingratiate themselves both to the crowded underground of which their hometown is an epicenter, and to the broader sphere of heavy-progressivism in modern doom and sludge. Across the five tracks of their self-released for now debut full-length, Glacial Erratic, the pair offer a panacea of heavy sounds, angular in the urgency of “Toeing the Line,” which opens, or the later thud of “Selective Memory” (the latter of which also appeared on their 2020 self-titled EP), which seem more kin to Baroness or Elder crashes and twists of “A Distant Light” or the interplay of ambience, roll, and sharpness of execution that’s been held in reserve for the nine-minute “Wounds at the Stem” as they leave off. Melody, particularly in Caragol‘s vocals, is crucial in tying the material together, and part of what gives Semuta such apparent potential, but they seem already to have figured out a lot about who they want to be musically. All of which is to say don’t be surprised when this one shows up on the list of 2024’s best debut albums come December.

Semuta on Facebook

Semuta on Bandcamp

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It doesn’t take long on Live @ Club Void Effenaar 23-3-23 before you’re in the room. You can hear voices in the crowd as Dutch instrumental improvisationalists DUNDDW begin to unfold their set, soon enough to be joined by Scott “Dr. Space” Heller (Øresund Space Collective, Doctors of Space, Black Moon Circle, solo work, etc.) expanding the trio as a four-piece with a guest spot on synth after about 12 minutes in, some comment and a chuckle as things mellow and space way, way out thereafter in the jam’s dreamier midsection, and so on.

The LP-length single-song set is out today as an independent release from DUNDDW, for whom it follows a 2023 split with Kombynat Robotron (review here) and their 2022 debut, Flux (review here), and the occasion that brought Heller from Portugal to the Netherlands was Black Moon Circle touring to support their 2023 LP, the expansive Leave the Ghost Behind (review here). Held weekly in the smaller room at the legendary Effenaar in Eindhoven (and no, it’s not just legendary because I saw Motorpsycho there one time, though that’d be enough in my head), ‘Club Void’ is a series of shows put together by the venue’s Robert Schaeffer as well as Paul van Berlo of the Into the Void Festival (also Loud Noise Booking) and Peter van Elderen, formerly the vocalist of Peter Pan Speedrock. All of these are endorsements that, existentially speaking, are good to have.

But DUNDDW have been pretty well encouraged since their outset bringing bassist Huibert der Weduwen and drummer Peter Dragt of Bismut together with Mt. Echo‘s Gerben Elburg on guitar for pointedly exploratory purposes, and the flow they conjure throughout Live @ Club Void Effenaar 23-3-23 presents a vivid picture of why for listeners who haven’t had the chance to actually see them. The cosmic adventure is mellow in spirit on the whole, but communal in a way that feels active, and inviting in tone and groove. Dropping nearly to silence at times, it represents well the conversation happening on stage as the sounds were being made, while allowing the audience and the LP-listener space to put themselves in the moment. In the initial build-up, DUNDDW work their way into a voluminous build, guitar signaling volume changes as they ooze past nine minutes, and when Dr. Space hops on board after (or maybe during) the ensuing wash a short time later, the proceedings get duly hyperspatial.

They drift and reorient, finding a new path with the four of them on the stage, and gradually the float becomes more driving, pushing into intense space rock before noising out behind the waves of Heller‘s synth with Dragt‘s crash and tom fills marking the end of that movement circa 26:30 and the beginning of the final cycle of ebbs and flows, more solidified in their purpose than they were only minutes before, but clearly having learned from the second part of the jam. Keep an ear out for bells, which you might just hear in that last stretch if they, it, or anything actually exists, and know that DUNDDW save their most fervent push for the crescendo, and that the experience of getting there is as much the point as the big finish and ringout itself.

Live @ Club Void Effenaar 23-3-23 isn’t intended to be some grand statement. At its heart, it’s a bootleg-style outing that captures one night among many DUNDDW went on stage and did what they do. This, coupled with the Heller collaboration that stands it out among other gigs, is the appeal. It would be ridiculous if DUNDDW did some hyper-produced live record. They might as well go to a studio and jam out an new LP if they’re going to spend the time and money. But here, they express the sense of journey from one end of this massive piece to the other, while also conveying their root ethic of commitment to organically capturing the creative moment as it happens. For that, Live @ Club Void Effenaar 23-3-23 offers resonance even beyond that of its echoing final tones.

Again, it’s out today, so by all means, dig in below and enjoy. Some PR wire-type info follows:

Friday, February 23rd, we (Dutch improv instrumental spacerock band DUNDDW) will digitally release a 40 minute jam we played last year at Club Void in The Netherlands. Around 17 minutes in Dr. Space – aka Scott Heller from Øresund Space Collective, Black Moon Circle a.o. – joins in on the jam.

Order link: https://dunddw.bandcamp.com/album/dunddw-dr-space-live-club-void-effenaar-23-03-2023

Says DUNDDW: ” We really felt the flow during this jam. It builds up in three waves, with Dr. Space joining in about halfway through with some great synths, bells and spacy genius.”

Says Dr. Space: “I’ve been friends with the guys in Bismut, and DUNDDW invited me to jam with them and it was fun. Sure we will do it again. Great guys.”

DUNDDW is a 100% improvising, instrumental spacerock/krautrock trio from The Netherlands, with members from Bismut and Mt. Echo. Their first full length album Flux was released in November 2022. In June 2023 they released a split vinyl LP with German krautrock band Kombynat Robotron. February 2024 marks the release of a live jam they played in 2023, with Dr. Space joining in.

DUNDDW =
Peter Dragt – Drums
Huibert der Weduwen – Bass
Gerben Elburg – Guitars

DUNDDW on Facebook

DUNDDW on Instagram

DUNDDW on Bandcamp

Øresund Space Collective website

Øresund Space Collective on Bandcamp