Posted in Whathaveyou on March 27th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
In addition to the dates the Spokane, Washington-based trio Merlock will do in April — including a stopthrough at Rocky Mountain Riff Fest in Kalispell, Montana — this May tour sees them dig deeper into the Midwestern region and follows a West Coast tour last summer in support of their debut LP, Onward Strides Colossus (review here). They’re calling it the ‘Calamities Tour,’ and as they note below, it’s the longest stretch of road time they’ve yet undertaken. I’m pretty sure that’s how ‘touring bands’ happen — by bands touring — so right on.
The tour is 16 dates with two days off. I don’t know that they have any intention of doing so, but between this and the prior July excursion, they’ll have covered the West Coast and Midwest, which leaves the eastern portion of the US as the last region to cover — unless you want to count Texas as its own region, which I think at least Texas probably does — in heralding their first record. Not a minor trip for a DIY band, even after a tour like this, but if you’re wondering what’s next, that doesn’t seem the least likely among the infinite possibilities.
Their announcement follows, as seen on social media:
Tour Announcement!
Proud to announce our upcoming conquest: The Calamities Tour this May. We’ll be heading through the Mid-US and a bit of the Mountains on our biggest tour to date. We’re also proud to have the support of some of our favorite brands on this one — lots of love and prep went into this and we’re so excited to be venturing forth. Thanks to everyone who has helped get this tour put together and we can’t wait to get out and meet y’all.
We’ve also got some rad stuff in April you won’t wanna miss. We’ve got a weekend with the mighty @empress_bc and an appearance and @rockymtnrifffest
MERLOCK is: Taylor D. Waring – Guitar / Vox Andrew Backes – Bass Lucas Barrey – Drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 21st, 2023 by JJ Koczan
I guess if you don’t follow Merlock on the social medias — and I would encourage you to do so — you might look at the below all about ‘tru zoinked warriors’ and a crusade against ‘Big Riff,’ and have no idea what’s going on. The best advice I can give you is roll with it. The band, and particularly founding guitarist/vocalist Taylor D. Waring, have dug out a kind of niche-language about cranked mids — I actually had to look up what that means, it’s a guitar-recording thing — and I tried to join their Facebook group but I think they called me a cop, so I left because I’m insecure. Whatever ‘Big Riff’ is, I have no doubt I’m more part of the problem than the solution. So it goes.
But, Merlock released their debut album, Onward Strides Colossus (review here), earlier this year, and it remains among the best first-records I’ve heard in 2023, so their doing a West Coast tour to support it is right on, regardless of my constabular status (still testing negative for being a cop, by the way). If you didn’t hear that mids-cranked sludgebeast of a long-player, it’s down below because you can do that in the future — used to be way less of an option; ask me about it sometime and I’ll tell you a grandpa story about physical media — and because it’s worth hearing if you haven’t. If you can make it to a show, so much the better. They’ll be out with Robots of the Ancient World, who are also awesome.
From Facebook:
Tru Z0inked Warriors!!! Soon, we ride again to crank our mids and battle the sound-cops in YOUR town (assuming you live in one of nine West Coast locations).
But wait, there’s more! We’ll be joined by fellow warriors Robots of the Ancient World in our CRUSADE against Big Riff.
We trust we will see you there.
MERLOCK live: 07/15 Olympia WA Cryptatropa 07/16 Eureka CA Sirens Song 07/17 TBA 07/18 Las Vegas NV The Griffin 07/19 Tempe AZ Yucca Tap Room 07/20 Oceanside CA Pour House 07/21 San Francisco CA Thee Parkside 07/22 Crescent City CA Enoteca
MERLOCK is: Taylor D. Waring – Guitar / Vox Andrew Backes – Bass Lucas Barrey – Drums
Posted in Reviews on February 6th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Spokane, Washington’s Merlock tell the listener early to keep an open mind on “Sovereign Throne,” the opening track of their self-released debut album, Onward Strides Colossus. That four-and-a-half-minute leadoff is one of two songs under five minutes on the six-track/40-minute long-player, and it moves from dreamy guitar float and open crash into minimal vocals-and-bass verse lines before the swirl revives, solidifies, and moves into more fervent push in its midsection, solo layers spread overtop and feedback held as Lucas Barrey‘s drums shift into speedier, more particularly Sabbathian push. Founding guitarist/vocalist Taylor D. Waring gives hints of some of the post-Mike Scheidt soulful belting-out of vocals to come in the later reaches of second cut “Sunnbarrenn” (9:18) as well as in the penultimate “Somniloquy” (3:51) and the closing title-track (10:02), if not the harsher, sludgier barks that offset, and it’s in Andrew Backes‘ raw punch and rumble of low end on bass that the song’s weight comes from.
This is a kind of transposed take on classic power trio methodology that Merlock employ as they follow their two prior EPs, 2021’s You Cannot Be Saved EP (review here) and 2020’s That Which Speaks EP (review here), and set themselves to the task of crafting a style that is malleable enough to border on caustic at times while holding a steady commitment to atmosphere, Waring‘s guitar all the more able to work around and outside the Sleep-y march at the beginning of “Sunnbarrenn” for the strong foundation of groove in the drums and bass and the breadth that resides in the recording/mix by Nic Wilbur (indie weirdos Slashed Tires, moody punks Alien Boy, and so on), not necessarily playing to largesse as much as they could as it is creating the space in which immersion can happen and letting the layers captured ensure that it does. It’s almost not until the drums and bass drop out, the guitar sets up the next riff and Waring breaks into the album’s first real harsher post-metallic roar that one realizes just how successful they’ve been in that immersive task.
Rawness becomes an essential part of Onward Strides Colossus‘ character. As “Sunnbarrenn” proceeds with a chug like earliest High on Fire and an echoing mid-register growl from Waring to suit it, the nod shifts, flows from one part to the next with purposefully over-the-top squeals and crash, resolving in an especially stomping roll before beginning the cycle anew, clearing the air as it hits into its seventh minute and finding Backes‘ bass leading the transition into the more open payoff, Waring going back to cleaner singing before the upward swirl of the final solo, preceding an even more fervent delivery in the last verse and a few measures of comedown before a short wind-noise transition into “Behold! The Sword of Lock,” which is more immediately nasty and cavernous, clearly picking up the more aggressive aspects of “Sunnbarrenn” and pushing them further in its five-and-a-half minutes, the back and forth pattern of shorter and longer songs established for those listening digitally or on CD while the two-sided experience (currently tape, presumably modeled as well for vinyl at some point) finds the brashness of “Behold! The Sword of Lock” at the end of side A, lending it a personality perhaps more immediate than that of the second half of Onward Strides Colossus to come, although at a certain point it all might start to feel like being bashed over the head by fog, which I think is the point.
Nonetheless, “Behold! The Sword of Lock” twists and gnashes at its outset, darkly thrash but consistent with the ambience Merlock have thus far honed in the use of guitar and vocal effects, etc. At two minutes in, it slams on the brakes and nods out only to find itself winding and careening again as the vocals turn declarative over what in many contexts would be black metal, until the tension finally gives out after about another two minutes, vocals turning melodic, drums and bass stretching wider, the delay guitar casting itself into the open to close, pretty as it is punishing and delivering the listener directly into “Where No One Goes” (7:44), which is more directly post-metal and cosmic doom at once, layered vocals a part of the churning fray before the chug-march turns more brutal and makes its way toward and through the midsection.
Just past the five-minute mark, “Where No One Goes” finds its own release, echoing into the void it’s made with a return of melody as setup for a shining solo which in turn sets up the next verse lines of the payoff before the extended slowdown finish, like earliest YOB in its sheer revelry for that which is sonically massive and planetary. To complement, “Somniloquy” is more substantial than an interlude, but with the drums resting at the outset and a patient unfurling over its span, gives the listener a moment to breathe early before building into a more intense midsection with the vocals serene overhead, a wave cresting and soon enough to recede into more sublime guitar on its way out and a stretch of silence before the drone marks the turn into “Onward Strides Colossus” itself, the only piece of the record that shares its name to top 10 minutes and a song clearly positioned as a culmination of aural themes.
Like much of what precedes, the title-track feels nascent in terms of an overarching and hopefully ongoing progression, but is of marked depth, some low-register brooding vocals obscured by drones over the first couple minutes before more terrestrial guitar rises up and the slow roll begins in earnest. As with “Sunnbarrenn,” and to some extent “Behold! The Sword of Lock,” “Onward Strides Colossus” signals its changes in pace and is led by the guitar, but moves fluidly through a faster middle before at 5:40, it crashes to silence, guitar ambience and the bass once more tasked with holding it together, which it does ably. They’ll come back — they know it and you know it — but the build to get there is the point, and with a deep figurative inhale, “Onward Strides Colossus” rears up at 6:50 and transitions into its last wash of psychedelic sludge, almost encouraging the listener to dig through and find the different elements at play, whether it’s the layers of rhythm guitar under the solo or the somewhat buried tom runs from Barrey, and so on. The last procession is duly doomed, and even as “Onward Strides Colossus” ends in feedback and residual noise, the impression is both that it’s complete — nothing is missing — but that it still doesn’t necessarily want to go. It is the longest song Merlock have written to-date. Much as I hesitate at predictions, I do not think it will be their last time in the wilds north of the 10-minute mark.
And that they perhaps have more to say in “Onward Strides Colossus” is emblematic of the band on the whole at this point. As much as the soul of Onward Strides Colossus works to make the recording a part of its story, the underlying sound of Merlock is more nebulous, and that’s a big part of why it’s exciting since it seems to incorporate much without either pretense or self-ceremony. On their face, the six tracks here are as dense as they are willfully dissolute, and the impression they give is that as they continue to grow and move forward from prior lineup changes and so on, much of what’s contained in this material will be the foundation of their progress in a way not unlike how the drums and bass groove on the ground while the guitar soars over. It is a fascinating first chapter, reminiscent of much but not entirely loyal to any single microgenre, and the potential is there for Merlock over time to carve a niche of their own within the various strains of capital ‘h’ Heavy. If Onward Strides Colossus is a beginning for that process, so much the better.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 23rd, 2022 by JJ Koczan
The prospect of a solidified Merlock should only be concerning if you don’t like having your bones rattled. The Spokane, Washington, outfit led by guitarist/vocalist Taylor D. Waring — who writes expressively and efficiently and whose social media game is ever on point — have announced a Feb. 24 release date for Onward Strides Colossus, their awaited debut album following behind last year’s You Cannot Be Saved EP (review here) and 2020’s That Which Speaks EP (review here).
This material would seem to have been in the works for a while, since even before You Cannot Be Saved was released, the band had a live-ish video of a set (it’s at the bottom of this post) which included “Where No One Goes,” a lumbering psych-sludge rocker like YOB covered in mud and angry about it. That song — starting at 21:12 in the video, if you’re looking for it — will feature on Onward Strides Colossus, and I look forward to hearing the proper studio version of its duly soaring culmination and overarching chaotic vibe.
No audio yet, but here’s the album announce courtesy of the PR wire:
MERLOCK Announce New Album Onward Strives Colossus
Exploring gloomy realms, MERLOCK produce imposing soundscapes that embrace the murky depths. Seeing multiple genres converge, MERLOCK manifest a compelling doom, psychedelic and stoner mix in the new record Onward Strives Colossus.
“Onward Strides Colossus is a sort of “hero’s journey” set in a posthuman, postdoom atmosphere. Sonically and lyrically, it explores cycles of death and rebirth, notions of hell, and of self-actualization. Seeking truth is the primary urge of the album, and that urge becomes, at times, colossal, which is where the name comes from. Heady pretension aside, the album is also very much about the three of us building this monstrosity that is Merlock. Writing albums, touring, failure & victory — all of those intense experiences that continually shape and reshape us as people. We all had to grow into new, more powerful versions of ourselves to create this album. We know the colossus doesn’t stop here.” — Taylor D. Waring
Introducing the release is “Sovereign Throne”, a groove rhythm powered track with a bluesy side. Lead guitars emerge out of the shadows with bright intricate solos that interweave. An injection of energy sees the pace increase and elevates the music as the vocals soar above. “Behold the Sword of Lock” brings an aggressive onslaught seeing harsh vocals combined with noisy guitar tones to unleash a fully immersive sound. MERLOCK pull out all the stops with the album’s title track. Eerie, droning fuzz and wandering vocals evoke a haunting, otherworldly air. Playing with dynamics, the tracks builds up into explosive rhythmic guitars and percussion — “Onward Strides Colossus” delivers a powerful and impressive impact.
About MERLOCK:
Described by critics as “gloomy and semi-mystical”, “shadowy and mysterious”, and “epic and ever-climbing”, MERLOCK melds stoner doom with heavy psychedelic sounds to create heavy post-doom atmospheres. Formed in 2017 in Spokane, Washington, MERLOCK has self-released 2 EPs and toured the West Coast while continuously demonstrating their willingness to evolve a songwriters and performers. Having weathered line-up changes and the ever-evolving music scene in the post-COVID world, MERLOCK continues to look for new paths forward.
Tracklisting: 1. Sovereign Throne 2. Sunnbarren 3. Behold! The Sword of Lock 4. Where No One Goes 5. Somniloquy 6. Onward Strides Colossus
Album Credits: Album Art – Leoncio Harmr Album Layout – Taylor D. Waring Engineering and Mixing – Nic Wilbur Mastering – Adam Tucker
MERLOCK is: Taylor D. Waring – Guitar / Vox Andrew Backes – Bass Lucas Barrey – Drums
