Posted in Whathaveyou on April 7th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Olli-Peka “Oppu” Laine has a vision. Since the days of turn-of-the-century Amorphis, and before, Laine has posited a kind of psychedelic heavy rock that unites the ultra-grounded style of classic death metal with 1970s progressive rock, psychedelia and riffing in a way that feels classic in the songs. As an outlet for these ideas, the 2024 debut album from Octoploid, Beyond the Aeons (review here), felt like it was years and years in the making; an explosive outlet for songwriting energies. The fact that we’re less than a year removed from the release and Octoploid are back with a new single supports this reading.
Because if I have it right, “Siren’s Lament” isn’t a holdover from the recordings for Beyond the Aeons as one might expect, but a first showing for a new round of songs and a new incarnation of the band as Marko Neuman steps in on vocals and Antti Myllynen rounds out on keys.
As a five-piece Octoploid have already begun their round of Finnish live shows for this Spring, and for what’s clearly a passion-driven project, the more they get out the better.
Looking forward to more, here’s this from the PR wire:
OCTOPLOID (AMORPHIS/BARREN EARTH) Launch “Siren’s Lament” Single & Lyric video; 2025 Finland Headline Tour Kicking Off
OCTOPLOID, a Finnish 70s death prog outfit led by Olli-Pekka “Oppu” Laine, are about to embark on their 2025 Finland tour in support of their debut album Beyond The Aeons, which saw the light of day on July 5, 2024 through Reigning Phoenix Music. In their excitement for these nine headline dates, the group have now premiered a single titled “Siren’s Lament,” which is accompanied by a brand new lyric video.
After the enormously well reception of Beyond The Aeons, Oppu continued writing material for its follow-up what – mercifully for all of us – resulted in this early new tune, showcasing the heavier aspects of OCTOPLOID’s heavenly varied soundscape. The song was recorded by bass player Laine alongside known band members Peter Salonen (guitars) and Mikko Pietinen (drums), who mixed the single before it was sent off to receive its mastering treatment by prestigious engineer Jacob Hansen at Hansen Studios, Denmark (AMORPHIS, VOLBEAT, PRIMAL FEAR, AMARANTHE etc.). Lead vocal duties were taken over by Marko Neuman (CONVOCATION, SUM OF R) for the first time in OCTOPLOID’s history; rounding off “Siren’s Lament” is keyboard wizardry by Antti Myllynen (a BARREN EARTH mate of Laine), who’s also a part of the group’s current touring line-up and skilfully complements Salonen’s solo parts.
“‘Siren’s Lament’ tells of a chaotic mind, isolation and loneliness. Despite its dark theme, the subject is viewed in a positive light: grief may linger, but it also allows space for acceptance and growth, offering hope that from a new beginning can rise from despair. Musically, the song incorporates influences from death metal, stoner rock, and even big arena rock choruses. It’s a groovy song with a lot of vibe, that’s why I can’t wait for us to play the song live!” states Oppu.
“Beyond The Aeons” Tour – Finland 2025 Presented by Fullsteam Agency 04.04.2025 FI Lahti – Ravintola Torvi 05.04.2025 FI Espoo – Kannusali 25.04.2025 FI Tampere – Olympia-kortteli 26.04.2025 FI Kouvola – House Of Rock Bar 01.05.2025 FI Helsinki – On the Rocks *LOW TICKETS* 02.05.2025 FI Jyväskylä – Lutakko 03.05.2025 FI Turku – Apollo Live Club 09.05.2025 FI Kuopio – Sawohouse Underground 10.05.2025 FI Oulu – 45 Special 29.06.2025 FI Helsinki – Tuska Festival *NEW*
Posted in Reviews on October 7th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Oh hi, I didn’t see you there. Me? Oh, you know. Nothing much. Staring off a cliffside about to jump headfirst into a pool of 100 records. The usual.
I’m pretty sure this is the second time this year that a single Quarterly Review has needed to be two weeks long. It’s been a busy year, granted, but still. I keep waiting for the tide to ebb, but it hasn’t really at all. Older bands keep going, or a lot of them do, anyhow — or they come back — and new bands come up. But for all the war, famine, plague and strife and crisis and such, it’s a golden age.
But hey, don’t let me keep you. I’ve apparently been doing QRs since 2013, and I remember trying to find a way to squeeze together similar roundups before it. I have no insight to add about that, it’s just something I dug back to find out the other day and was surprised because 11 years of this kind of thing is a really long gosh darn time.
On that note, let’s go.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
—
Agusa, Noir
The included bits of Swedish dialogue from the short film for which Agusa‘s Noir was written to serve as a soundtrack would probably ground the proceedings some if I spoke Swedish, admittedly. As it is, those voices become part of the dream world the Malmö-based otherwise-instrumentalist adventurers conjure across 15 at times wildly divergent pieces. In arrangement and resultant mood, from the ’70s piano sentimentality of “Ljusglimtar” to the darker church organ and flute workings of “Stad i mörker,” which is reprised as a dirge at the end, the tracks are evocative across a swath of atmospheres, and it’s not all drones or background noise. They get their rock in, and if you stick around for “Kalkbrottets hemlighet,” you get to have the extra pleasure of hearing the guitar eat the rest of the song. You could say that’s not a thing you care about hearing but I know it’d be a lie, so don’t bother. If you’ve hesitated to take on Agusa in the past because sometimes generally-longform instrumental progressive psychedelic heavy rock can be a lot when you’re trying to get to know it, consider Noir‘s shorter inclusions a decent entry point to the band. Each one is like a brief snippet serving as another demonstration of the kind of immersion they can bring to what they play.
With an assembled cast of singers that includes Mikko Kotamäki (Swallow the Sun), his Amorphis bandmates Tomi Koivusaari and Tomi Joutsen, Petri Eskelinen of Rapture, and Barren Earth bandmate Jón Aldará, and guests on lead guitar and a drummer from the underappreciated Mannhai, and Barren Earth‘s keyboardist sitting in for good measure, bassist Olli Pekka-Laine harnesses a spectacularly Finnish take on proggy death-psych metal for Octoploid‘s first long-player, Beyond the Aeons. The songs feel extrapolated from Amorphis circa Elegy, putting guttural vocals to folk inspired guitar twists and prog-rock grooves, but aren’t trying to be that at all, and as ferocious as it gets, there’s always some brighter element happening, something cosmic or folkish or on the title-track both, and Octoploid feels like an expression of creative freedom based on a vision of a kind of music Pekka-Laine wanted to hear. I want to hear it too.
The Obscure River Experiment, as a group collected together for the live performance from which The Ore has been culled, may or may not be a band. It is comprised of players from the sphere of Psychedelic Source Records, and so as members of River Flows Reverse, Obscure Supersession Collective, Los Tayos and others collaborate here in these four periodically scorching jams — looking at you, middle of “Soul’s Shiver Pt. 2” — it could be something that’ll happen again next week or next never. Not knowing is part of the fun, because as far out as something like The Obscure River Experiment might and in fact does go, there’s chemistry enough between all of these players to hold it together. “Soul Shiver Pt. 1” wakes up and introduces the band, “Pt. 2” blows it out for a while, “I See Horses” gets funky and then blows it out, and “The Moon in Flesh and Bone” feels immediately ceremonial with its sustained organ notes, but becomes a cosmic boogie ripper, complete with a welcome return of vocals. Was it all made up on the spot? Was it all a dream? Maybe both?
Way underhyped South Carolinian progressive heavy rockers Shun arrive at the sound of their second LP, Dismantle, able to conjure elements of The Cure and Katatonia alongside Cave In-style punk-born groove, but in Shun‘s case, the underlying foundation is noise rock, so when “Aviator” opens up to its hook or “NRNS” is suddenly careening pummel or “Drawing Names” half-times the drums to get bigger behind the forward/obvious-focal-point vocal melodies of Matt Whitehead (ex-Throttlerod), there’s reach and impact working in conjunction with a thoughtful songwriting process pushed forward from where on their 2021 self-titled debut (review here) but that still seems to be actively working to engage the listener. That’s not a complaint, mind you, especially since Dismantle succeeds to vividly in doing so, and continues to offer nuance and twists on the plot right up to the willful slog ending with (most of) “Interstellar.”
No Man’s Valley, Chrononaut Cocktail Bar/Flight of the Sloths
Whether it’s the brooding Nick Cave-style cabaret minimalism of “Creepoid Blues,” the ’60s psych of “Love” or the lush progressivism that emerges in “Seeing Things,” the hook of “Shapeshifter” or “Orange Juice” coming in with shaker at the end to keep things from finishing too melancholy, the first half of No Man’s Valley‘s Chrononaut Cocktail Bar/Flight of the Sloths still can only account for part of the scope as they set forth the pastoralist launch of the 18-minute “Flight of the Sloths” on side B, moving from acoustic strum and a repeating title line into a gradual build effective enough so that when Jasper Hesselink returns on vocals 13 minutes later in the spaced-out payoff — because yes, the sloths are flying between planets; was there any doubt? — it makes you want to believe the sloths are out there working hard to stay in the air. The real kicker? No Man’s Valley are no less considered in how they bring “Flight of the Sloths” up and down across its span than they are “Love” or “Shapeshifter” early on, both under three minutes long. And that’s what maturing as songwriters can do for you, though No Man’s Valley have always had a leg up in that regard.
Dallas’ Land Mammal defy expectation a few times over on their second full-length, with the songwriting of Will Weise and Kinsley August turning toward greater depth of arrangement and more meditative atmospheres across the nine songs/34 minutes of Emergence, which even in a rolling groove like “Divide” has room for flute and strings. Elsewhere, sitar and tanpura meet with lap steel and keyboard as Land Mammal search for an individual approach to modern progressive heavy. There’s some shades of Elder in August‘s approach on “I Am” or the earlier “Tear You Down,” but the instrumental contexts surrounding are wildly different, and Land Mammal thrive in the details, be it the hand-percussion and far-back fuzz colliding on “The Circle,” or the tabla and sitar, drums and keys as “Transcendence (Part I)” and “Transcendence (Part II)” finish, the latter with the sounds of getting out of the car and walking in the house for epilogue. Yeah, I guess after shifting the entire stylistic scope of your band you’d probably want to go inside and rest for a bit. Well earned.
Released through Majestic Mountain Records, the debut full-length from Forgotten King, The Seeker, would seem to have been composed and recorded entirely by Azul Josh Bisama, also guitarist in Kal-El, though a full lineup has since formed. That happens. Just means the second album will have a different dynamic than the first, and there are some parts as in the early cut “Lost” where that will be a benefit as Azul Josh refines the work laying out a largesse-minded, emotively-evocative approach on these six cuts, likewise weighted and soaring. The album is nothing if not aptly-named, though, as Forgotten King lumber through “Drag” and march across 10 minutes of stately atmospheric doom, eventually seeing the melodic vocals give way to harsher fare in the second half, what’s being sought seems to have been found at least on a conceptual level, and one might say the same of “Around the Corner” or “The Sun” taking familiar-leaning desert rock progressions and doing something decisively ‘else’ with them. Very much feels like the encouraging beginning of a longer exploration.
Branched off from drummer/synthesist Paul Williams‘ intermittent work over the decades with Quarkspace, the mostly-solo-project Church of Hed explores progressive, kraut and space rock in a way one expects far more from Denmark than Columbus, Ohio — to wit, Jonathan Segel (Øresund Space Collective, Camper Van Beethoven) guests on violin, bass and guitar at various points throughout the nine-tracker, which indeed is about an hour long at 57 minutes. Church of Hed‘s last outing, 2022’s The Father Road, was an audio travelogue crossing the United States from one coast to the other. The Fifth Hour is rarely so concerned with terrestrial impressionism, and especially in its longer-form pieces “Pleiades Waypoint” (13:50), “Son of a Silicon Rogue” (14:59) or “The Fifth Hour” (8:43), it digs into sci-fi prog impulses that even in the weird blips and robot twists of the interlude “Aniluminescence 2” or the misshapen techno in the closing semi-reprise “Bastard Son of The Fifth Hour” never quite feels as dystopian as some other futures in the multiverse, and that becomes a strength.
Like the Melvins on an AC/DC kick or what you might get if you took ’70s arena rock, put it in a can and shook it really, really hard, Italian duo Zolle are a burst of weirdo sensation on their fifth full-length, Rosa. The songs are ready for whatever football match stadium P.A. you might want to put them on — hugely, straight-ahead, uptempo, catchy, fun in pieces like “Pepe” and “Lana” at the outset, “Merda,” “Pompon,” “Confetto” and “Fiocco” later on, likewise huge and silly in “Pois” or closer “Maialini e Maialine,” and almost grounded on “Toffolette e Zuccherini” at the start but off and running again soon enough — if you can keep up with guitarist/vocalist Marcello and drummer Stefano, for sure they make it worth the effort, and capture some of the intensity of purpose they bring to the stage in the studio and at the same time highlighting the shenanigans writ large throughout in their riffs and the cheeky bit of pop grandiosity that’s such a toy in their hands. You would not call it light on persona.
Thicker in tone than much of modern black metal, and willing toward the organic in a way that feels born of Cascadia a little more to the northwest as they blast away in “Era of Ash,” Boise, Idaho’s Shadow and Claw nonetheless execute moody rippers across the five songs/41 minute of their debut, Whereabouts Unknown. Known for his work in Ealdor Bealu and the solo-project Sawtooth Monk, guitarist/vocalist Travis Abbott showcases a rasp worthy of Enslaved‘s Grutle Kjellson on the 10-minute “Wrath of Thunder,” so while there are wolves amid the trio’s better chairs, to be sure, Shadow and Claw aren’t necessarily working from any single influence in or out of char-prone extreme metals, and as the centerpiece gives over to the eponymous “Shadow and Claw,” those progressive aspirations are reaffirmed as Abbott, drummer/backing vocalist Aaron Bossart (also samples) and bassist/backing vocalist Geno Lopez find room for a running-water-backed acoustic epilogue to “Scouring the Plane of Existence” and the album as a whole. Easy to imagine them casting these songs into the sunset on the side of some pointy Rocky Mountain or other, shadows cast and claws raised.
Posted in Questionnaire on July 2nd, 2024 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Olli-Pekka Laine of Octoploid, Amorphis, Barren Earth, and More
—
How do you define what you do, and how did you come to do it?
With Octoploid, I mainly try to express myself during this period of my life. I also try to do a bit of experimentation. Why I did it is that I’ve had it in my mind for a long time already, and now I had the time, resources, and skills to do it.
Describe your first musical memory.
It must be a Finnish tango singer from the ’50s called Olavi Virta, whom my mother used to listen to. He is hands down the best singer from Finland of all time.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Lenny Kravitz at Hamburg’s Grosse Freiheit in 1995 was a pretty rad show.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
In 1997, when I read Peter Singer’s book “Animal Liberation.”
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
It depends on the artist. For some, it could be, for example, technical perfection. For me, it is total honesty and authenticity.
How do you define success?
Being able to do what you want in your life. Looking forward to that, ha ha!
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
We lived in a seedy neighborhood when I was a kid, and I saw a lot of violence. Also, in the ’90s, we visited a slaughterhouse and saw animals having their throats slit and being thrown into boiling water.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I would like to come up with a non-metal album with psychedelic prog rock and southern rock influences. But it should happen naturally, not forced.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Art provides an opportunity for self-expression. On the other hand, its function is to entertain and alleviate boredom.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Someday, I’d just like to chill on the beach, hike in nature, and avoid music in all its forms. Even for a couple of weeks, huh!
