Freelance article writing services at Copify. Hundreds of approved UK Lesley University Mfa Creative Writing, SEO & website friendly, 48 hour turnaround! Last Giant will release their third album, Looking for cheap, high-quality content writers? Das Writing Services, a professional Buy A Research Paper Uk or agency in India provides engaging web Let the End Begin, on Oct. 2. The band, now a guitar/drum duo with Effective I Need To Buy A College Essays writing help is a type of education service offered plentifully around the internet. Finding websites with such an offer takes little time. Just start googling �college essay writer for pay� � voile, one has hundreds of sites to choose from. Not all those sites are legitimate, trustworthy. RFK Heise on the former and Morpheus truly is the Michael Vick of programming. just http://blog.cbipsi.com/pearl-harbor-paper/; Let the Michael Vick of Programming Do Your Matt Wiles the latter, have been talked about sporadically here over the course of their two prior outings, 2015’s  http://www.tgdrives.cz/?can-siri-do-your-homework writing from our online writing service. Our essays are of top-notch quality and have affordable prices. Heavy Habitat (discussed here and here) and 2017’s  Title: Blog Writing Service Subject: free ebooks get paid to write essays and user guide get paid to write essays download as reference instruction get Memory of the World (discussed here), and the new collection continues several threads of style and substance from its predecessors. Comprised of a tidy 10 tracks running 39 minutes,  Sales CV example, IT sales CV example. Also retail, sales executive, field sales, IT CV, sales manager. Curriculum Vitae, Anne Frank Paper. Let the End Begin furthers the punker-grown-up vibe of the earlier records, and songs like “Edge of Town” and the uptempo boogie “Sunset Queen” and “Dead Shore” remind of the songwriting prowess that is the source of so much of their power as a group, but even unto the (gorgeous) artwork which sees a collision between the animal and human worlds and the lyrical themes that don’t shy away from the amorphous-glob-of-fucked-ness that is the current sociopolitical climate,  Dissertation Help from UKWritings.com. Welcome to UKWritings.com, the home of Is Custom Essay Meister Legit. Read on for more details about we can help you to Let the End Begin is a push ahead for  I Cant Write My Literature Review - Best HQ academic writings provided by top professionals. Proofreading and proofediting help from best professionals. Let us Last Giant‘s established processes. Ain’t broken, and so on.

Arbitersports Assigning airport! Homework help in science | Notizie | 1 minuto fa. Can i write my essay on why liam payne is so perfect and Heise is at the center of the songs in post- Essay Customs And Courtesies offers you a wide range of academic writing services. We have only pro writers in our team. High quality guaranteed. Josh Homme fashion. A telltale “oh…” in “Edge of Town” says a lot, though cuts like opener “Kill Your Memory” and “Radio Swell” marry that radio-friendly sensibility to an undertone of pop-punk, and the melodic bursts in the cleverly-titled “Idiology,” the almost-title-track “The End Will Begin” and the starts-quiet-but-don’t-be-fooled closer “Followers” stake a claim to a more individual approach, whatever familiar elements might persist. “Burn the Wall” would seem to have its origins in obvious real-world lunacy, but is nonetheless clean and in control as  You no longer need to search to the end of the Internet, or essay on law and order in delhi through a stack of glencoe custom thesis page textbooks. Heise and http://www.infotel.cz/?global-topics-for-research-papers online safe at our cheap college paper service. BuyEssaySafe.com provides professional academic writing help. Place an order and get your essay! Wiles remain throughout.

That in itself is something of an accomplishment — I certainly know every time I try to engage with the “current moment” as they call it, I feel either unspeakable sadness or skin-peeling rage — so hey, way to keep it together, guys. I suppose, then, this is the part of the post where I tell you that politics as they’re presented throughout  Best professional Order English Essay company is at your service. We help students write academic essays and papers from scratch in just a few clicks Let the End Begin don’t come at the expense of songwriting. We’ve done this dance before, and it’s true, but seriously, if you can’t handle a band writing tunes in an honest way about the world around them and the time in which they’re creating, what the fuck are you doing listening to music in the first place?

The only really sad thing about  At ScriptieMaster, we will match you with one of our professional How To Write An Essay On Dreamss with experience in your field of study. This assures that you are provided Let the End Begin is that it’s too late. All that “the end is near” shit? Tell it to the wildfires. Tell it to the hurricanes. Tell it to 130 degrees in Death Valley. Tell it to the nazis next door. Tell it to the plague. Tell it to the election about to be stolen. Tell it to Roe. I tend to count World War I as the end of what was up to that point civilization, but a century-plus later, it sure feels like the end of something. I’ve comforted myself in the past with the notion that my generation isn’t so important to live through that kind of history; that does precious little when the word “unprecedented” seems to have become so much a part of the daily lexicon.

Screw it and rock out? Yeah, that’s a way to go. What I take comfort in these days is less abstract. It’s music. I don’t think songs like those brought to bear by Last Giant are looking to change minds, like someone’s gonna go from watching Tucker Carlson to hearing “Dead Shore” and see the errors of their ways, but in an era that makes one feel all the more screwed minute-by-minute, yes, there is something reassuring to be derived from material as crafted as that on Let the End Begin. The album isn’t staid by any means, or monochrome, but you know from the outset that the band are capable of steering their course and they don’t do anything to betray that trust along the way.

Alright. Enough of my blah blah. “Radio Swell” is premiering below. Go listen to it. Find your joy. Maybe it’s there.

PR wire info and preorder link follow.

Enjoy:

The album can be pre-ordered at: https://lastgiantband.com/

Comprised of RFK Heise (System & Station) on vocals/guitar and Matt Wiles on drums, the two deliver a 70s rock sound with progressive embellishments along the way, +obliterating the pretty confines of everyday rock, preferring to not treat rock as a sedentary form. Let the End Begin finds the band bolder, evolving from their 2015 debut Heavy Habitat (a record in which Heise played every instrument) and 2017’s Memory of the World.

Written and recorded in isolation, RFK Heise and Matt Wiles spent months honing and capturing the essence of now as seen through their eyes. Lyrically the album touches on politics, sex, isolation, love, and loss, all a reflection of the times we collectively find ourselves in.

Last Giant on Thee Facebooks

Last Giant on Spotify

Last Giant on Bandcamp

Last Giant website

[Click play above to stream Somnus Throne’s Somnus Throne in full. Album is out Sept. 24 on Burning World Records.]

Gutter riffs. Riffs to turn your soul green. The narrative — blessings and peace upon it — has it that Somnus Throne‘s self-titled debut was realized after years spent on the part of guitarist/vocalist Evan hobo’ing around the country, living in flops and finding himself in that very lost, druggy, American vastness, all the while accompanied by a latent urge for volume satisfied only upon discovery of amp-worshiping doom, sludge and stoner idolatry. As narratives go, it’s a pretty good one, and though one has learned over time to approach such things with a healthy raised eyebrow of curiosity if not outright skepticism, the fact that Evan, bassist Haley and drummer Luke — everyone in the trio seems to have lost their surname along the way — all hail from different cities would seem to speak to a certain transient nature behind their work.

Congregation, as it were, happened in Los Angeles to record the album, and Evan credits Luke for having it together enough to corral the band and make Somnus Throne happen, and if that’s the case, then those seeking immersive nod and back-to-zero distorted lumber will want to send a thank-you card — address it to “Luke in L.A.” and I’m sure it’ll get there — since the three-piece manifest four rolling, downer-vibing, what’s-this-again-oh-well-shrug-and-inhale subfloor slabs of weighted groove. Apart from the 47-second intro “Caliphate Obeisance,” there is nothing on Somnus Throne‘s first album under 10 minutes long — a statement in itself — and throughout “Sadomancer,” “Shadow Heathen,” “Receptor Antagonist” and the 14-minute finale “Aetheronaut – Permadose,” they bask in darkly-lysergic disaffection and a sense of abiding fuckall as few in the post-Electric Wizard strain of anti-artisans have been able to conjure. It is noteworthy that their first outing comes courtesy of Burning World Records, which was once responsible for unleashing Conan‘s early work, but what Somnus Throne represent is the stylistic going to ground of a new generation, digging to find the roots of what heavy has become over the last 20 years.

That has led Somnus Throne to a style that wouldn’t have been at all be out of place on Man’s Ruin Records during that era, with a sense of overarching fog that reminds of a more aggro Sons of Otis — so, say, earlier Sons of Otis — even when “Receptor Antagonist” kicks into its speedier second half. It wouldn’t be appropriate to call it a “fresh” take on that style, because sounding “fresh” is far from the intent of these songs — fetid, more like — but the energy they bring to the material is unmistakably that of a group who are excited about what they’re playing as they’re playing it, who are realizing something new for them even if the aesthetic scope is playing toward genre. Throughout “Sadomancer” and “Shadow Heathen” especially, this happens with a palpable sense of will behind it. Somnus Throne are letting their audience know that their mission is to harness the primitive.

Think of how the first Monolord record seemed so simple on its surface that one could almost miss its innovation, or even earlier Conan to some degree. Somnus Throne operate in a similar fashion, but are rawer in their substance and still manage to offer hints of variety in the changes in vocal approach from Evan. There are moments that sound like call and response as his voice shifts from one line to the next. If indeed that is all him and not, say, Luke, taking on a backing role — information is purposefully sparse in this regard — then that malleability is an asset already working in the band’s favor that one can only expect to do so even more as they move forward. As it stands, the plodding wash in “Shadow Heathen” is enhanced, and the rough edge that emerges circa nine minutes into “Aetheronaut – Permadose” and directly winks at ’90s-era Sleep being a further sense of character to the songs, and however barebones the offering may feel as a whole, there’s no taking away either from the effectiveness of those changes or the fullness of tone in the mix that surrounds them. Somnus Throne, in short, know their shit.

And to take it back for a second to the narrative, to the context of the album’s making, one can hear the disillusion. They’re not hiding it. Even in “Sadomancer” with all the discussion of witches and spells and samples about the devil and other trappings of turn-of-the-century sludge-doom, the atmosphere feels genuine, and being aware of that background changes the listening experience, making Somnus Throne all the more relevant as a record of a particular On the Road American experience set to task by and for a generation who came of age in a time of rampant corruption, economic collapse, climate change and endless war. Throw in governmental collapse and a global pandemic for the next album, and how else should it sound? Somnus Throne don’t tackle these issues directly — again, witches, spells, monsters, etc. — but their material feels affected and influenced by the moment of its creation in an intangible drudgery throughout. Plod born of turmoil. So be it.

Even the use of the word “caliphate” in the title of the intro — which is a sample offering young people an experience of a quaint, gourmet drug culture that gives way to noise — speaks to the time in which the album was made and the generation of its makers. The question is what Somnus Throne might do next. If this album represents a turn toward stability and sustainability as a band, despite the members living in different places between Portland, Oregon, Los Angeles and San Antonio — if they can find a way to operate — they’ve given themselves a crucial first outing from which to progress; and should that progression keep or enhance the rawness here, that’s still progression, not regression, in aesthetic terms. Even if they can’t or don’t, or whatever, and Somnus Throne becomes a one-off, what-could’ve-been footnote of a heavy release in arguably the worst year to put out an album in the last half-century, it does its part to capture the wretchedness of the time and turn it back on itself with disgust that is righteous and heavy in kind.

Somnus Throne on Thee Facebooks

Somnus Throne on Instagram

Somnus Throne on Bandcamp

Burning World Records website

Burning World Records on Bandcamp

Burning World Records on Thee Facebooks

When Burning World Records takes notice of a new band, your ears should perk up. Somnus Throne would seem to be a project for an era of working remotely, with members spread throughout multiple cities, and though their origins are murky, that’s nothing compared to their riffs. They come big and slow on the band’s self-titled debut, which will be out Oct. 9, topped with samples and a free-your-mind lumber that’s thoroughly genre-based and it knows it.

Digging it as I am, I sent an email about doing a premiere since I guess the digital release is Sept. 23 and I’ve got this coming Monday open as of now. I haven’t heard back about that, but maybe it’ll come together and maybe it won’t. If it does, it’ll be a little bit of double coverage with this news post in such close proximity, but I sincerely doubt anyone cares half as much as I do about that kind of thing. In case that doesn’t happen — there’s no audio out from it yet — I wanted to post this just as a heads up that the record is a good time and coming out to the few people who might see this post and get turned onto it. New band, new record. You like new bands and new records, right? Me too.

Here’s one:

With members spread out across New Orleans, Los Angeles, Portland and San Antonio, Somnus Throne is a new heavy and psychedelic doom band that pays homage to legends such as Sleep, High On Fire and Pentagram.

The band’s self-titled debut album is now set for release on October 9 via Burning World Records and sees Somnus Throne playing some Sabbath-tinged, mammoth-size and hypnotic doom riffs across five epic tracks. Each riff is so spine-asphyxiating heavy as if they possess the power to create a seismic tremor in the walls of your houses.

Somnus Throne proves that the music Black Sabbath birthed decades ago can still hit hard and sound engaging after all these years.

Tracklisting:
1. Caliphate Obeisance 0:45
2. Sadomancer 10:17
3. Shadow Heathen 10:13
4. Receptor Antagonist 10:15
5. Aetheronaut – Permadose 14:30

https://www.facebook.com/TrueSomnist
https://www.instagram.com/somnus__throne/
https://somnusthrone.bandcamp.com/
https://www.burningworldrecords.com
https://burningworldrecords.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/burningworldrecords

Kind of astonishing how much Emil Amos‘ work remains his own. That is to say, he’s known for Grails and for playing drums in Om, but Holy Sons is his in a way that neither of those outfits could be, and his utter mastery of songwriting is on display throughout the forthcoming Raw and Disfigured — due Oct. 30 on Thrill Jockey. You can hear it in “Lady of the Hour,” streaming below. Sure, he gets adventurous with arrangements a but — it’s a double-album, you’d better hope he does — and he has a few friends helping out along the way, but it’s right there. It’s the song. The song is the primary factor in what’s happening. It’s a song by a songwriter who sat down to write a song. If you think that notion is either simple or not beautiful, you are mistaken.

The album details are copious, but at its heart, Raw and Disfigured is a collection of these songs, with both an intimacy and a breadth that is the mark of what Amos brings to this outlet.

From the PR wire:

Holy Sons announces panoramic new double album Raw and Disfigured Out on Oct. 30th, 2020

Listen to single “Lady of the Hour”:
https://holysons.bandcamp.com/track/lady-of-the-hour

Holy Sons, the project of multi-instrumentalist and singer Emil Amos, has announced the ambitious, panoramic double album Raw and Disfigured, out Oct. 30th. Along with the announcement, Holy Sons has shared the album’s first single “Lady of the Hour”, a vista of sweeping pastoral layers and melodies that grasp towards hope rather than resignation.

Under the name Holy Sons, as well as with bands Om, Grails, and Lilacs and Champagne, Amos harnesses boundless sonic textures to embellish delicately crafted songs. His music balances cues from classic and indie rock traditions with a tenderness and sense of foreboding through unparalleled artistry. Raw and Disfigured showcases Amos’ mastery of songcraft through a seemingly impossible combination of subtle yet potent gestures, bold arrangements and resolute vulnerability resulting in songs as beautiful as they are crushing.

The recording of Raw and Disfigured took place largely at Sonic Youth’s studio Echo Canyon West. Amos, who plays the bulk of the instruments and sings the majority of the vocals throughout the album, is joined on a few pieces by drummer Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), as well as album and WFMU in-house engineer Ernie Indradat.

The album draws thematically from the archetypal tale of Quasimodo and classic ghost story imagery to illustrate the “hero’s journey” in the time of a coming apocalypse. From the opening swells, Amos creates a sense of mystery and tension. Melodic sections pierce through the thick fogs of unease with gliding choral harmonies and guitar lines. Rich vocals draw you into an exotic atmosphere of mystical musical sounds, while classic lilting guitar lines entice you further. Raw and Disfigured proves the enduring power of the rock ballad without dwelling on the nostalgic tropes. The ballads of Holy Sons are ballads for these dark times.

Raw & Disfigured tracklist:
1. The Loser that Always Wins
2. Lady of the Hour
3. Cast Bound King
4. Hand that Feeds
5. Permanent Things
6. Four Walls
7. Held the Hand
8. Lost in the Fire
9. Transformation
10. Slow to Run
11. Reach Out and Touch Something
12. Cóiste Bodhar
13. Nights Like This
14. Up on that Hill
15. Backslider’s Wine
16. Bloody Strings

Pre-order Holy Sons’ Raw and Disfigured: http://thrilljockey.com/products/raw-and-disfigured

https://www.facebook.com/HolySons
https://www.instagram.com/holy_sons/
http://www.thrilljockey.com/artists/holy-sons
http://www.facebook.com/thrilljockey
http://www.instagram.com/thrilljockey

Holy Sons, “Lady of the Hour”

Last I looked there were 58 copies of Doomtopia left available for preorder ahead of the album’s upcoming official vinyl release. They will, one assumes, be gone in short order if they aren’t already. The second full-length from Portland, Oregon’s The Misery Men is seeing issue through Desert Records, which, yes, is well aware that Portland is nowhere near the desert. Some things transcend landscape, and you know Desert Records is all about the expanded definition anyway, so the four-song long-player — which earns through vibe its “Type O Negative green” vinyl coloration — is plenty at home one way or the other.

The band self-released Doomtopia digitally on April 20, because of course, so you can stream the full thing now at the bottom of this post. Seems only to be an enticement to order the vinyl version, if the green itself wasn’t.

The label posted the following:

The Misery Men – Doomtopia – Desert Records

Desert Records has teamed up with The Misery Men for a very special VINYL LP release.

The alliance with the Pacific Northwest has been forged.

Hailing from Portland, OR and led by my longtime friend Corey G Lewis, THE MISERY MEN are a very unique band with some badass personnel.

“Doomtopia” the 2nd album by the Doom/Grunge band was recorded by ROB WRONG of Witch Mountain and was mastered by BILLY ANDERSON, the legendary engineer for such bands as Sleep, (the) Melvins, High On Fire, Neurosis, Witch Mountain, Acid King.

100 extremely Limited Edition Vinyl LP’s will be pressed in “Type O Negative Green”!

Click this link to listen to the album, see the vinyl photos, and pre-order your copy: https://www.diggersfactory.com/vinyl/230729/the-misery-men-doomtopia

Catalog number: DSRT420

Tracklisting:
1. Lion’s Head 11:34
2. Houdini’s Eyes 08:52
3. Meg Mucklebones 10:32
4. Vampires 05:21

The Misery Men:
Rhythm Guitar Vocals: Corey G Lewis
Bass: Steven O’Kelly
Drums: Ian Caton
Lead: Rob Wrong (Lion’s Head, Houdini’s Eyes, Meg Mucklebones)
Bass: Billy Anderson (Lion’s Head, 2nd half of Houdini’s Eyes)

https://www.facebook.com/themiserymen
https://www.instagram.com/themiserymen/
https://themiserymen.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/desertrecordslabel/
https://desertrecords.bandcamp.com/
https://desertrecords.bigcartel.com/

The Misery Men, Doomtopia (2020)

West Coast noise has a long history of brash intensity, and Portland, Oregon’s Sheenjek would seem to be well aware of it. The four-piece is comprised of bassist/vocalist Dave Becker, guitarists Spencer Davis and Scott Flaster and drummer Joe Geist, and they’ll release their debut full-length, Unclever, through the venerable Seventh Rule Recordings at the end of next week. There are a few songs from the record available publicly already, among them the catchy highlights “Lazy Boy” and the uptempo “If Not Why Not If So How,” which would seem to be an indictment of the self-as-celebrity age of social media “stardom,”  but as the eight-song/41-minute offering wrenches out heavy noise rock metered with sludgy tones, there’s a surrounding atmosphere that’s more than just bouncing-off-the-walls riffing or social disaffection.

That comes into play less on the four-minute opening title-track than the seven-and-a-half-minute “Monkey Brains,” which follows. Admittedly, the launch of Unclever is more about angularity, impact, and sheer physical push. Its starts and stops are precise enough but still loose in tone, the work of a band focused as much on groove as on technicality, it’s 90 seconds before they finally release some of the tension they build up, Davis and Flaster‘s guitars establishing a pattern of subtle variation in their play that will become a theme throughout the record. In tone and that particular spaciousness, I can’t help but be reminded a bit of Seattle’s Akimbo, but that’s only one of Sheenjek‘s touchstones across the release. “Monkey Brains” taps Black Flag sludge and laces it with samples and the Magazine cover “The Light Pours Out of Me” slows the pace ever so slightly from the 1978 original — Ministry also covered it on Animositisomina — to emphasize the weight underlying the post-punk vibe, and the steady snare hits there set up “If Not Why Not If So How” with a final stomp to round out side A in we-also-listened-to-hardcore-but-are-too-weird-for-it fashion.

“Lazy Boy” stands at the outset of the second half of the tracklist and is placed well there, executed with due spikiness of approach by a band who are sure they’re right in their defiance of genre standard. Grown-up West Coast post-hardcore meets sludge and heavy rock? Maybe, but the story doesn’t get any less complicated when “Oceans” taps metal and grunge as well as the already well established rhythmic insistence, and Sheenjek seem to save their most outwardly weighted tones for “Damocles.” Airiness in lead guitar lines speaks to a depth and reach of mix that stretches broader than it has up to then — suited to their style, they’ve brought plenty of crunch, but even the spaciousness shown has been pointed — but “Damocles” still sets its priorities in pummel and swagger. No complaints, as Unclever has long since proven such as a wheelhouse. It seems silly to think of 41 minutes as long for a record like this, but it kind of is these days. If, however, the difference would’ve been leaving off the five-minute finale “Bootlikker,” which not only broadens the scope of the release overall but also summarizes its punkish foundations, then the “extra” time taken to cross the 40-minute line is well worth it, opening sparse and moving into nodding crashes before the verse/chorus take hold, then returning to the crashes to finish out. It seems like simple enough changes on paper, but they do a lot of work in finishing Unclever with an uptick in atmospheric fashion.

The effect that has is to underscore the variety of influences under which Sheenjek are operating, putting it into a single track that, again, well earns its place as the closer. Back at the beginning of the LP, however, such concerns are a ways off, and that’s where “Unclever” itself brings us. The lead cut grunts and gnashes and has all its Pacific gnarl credits in order — and I don’t know, maybe four or five other words that start with ‘g’? — but especially taken in combination with the other tracks already out there, it gives a sense of that which unfolds across Unclever in a fashion that, if it needs to be said, runs in direct contrast to its own title.

Enjoy:

Dave Becker on “Unclever”: “Musically, ‘Unclever’ has a very linear feel so we wanted the same thing from the lyrics. I started writing and I had some fun with the template ‘all this ____ with no ____,’ so I put a bunch of those together and then built the song around them. It came out weird and abstract, which was exactly correct.”

Scott Flaster adds: “I was listening to a lot of Prong when I wrote this one.”

The band Sheenjek started as a simple book club, with wine and cheese and light banter about families and good books. This quickly dissolved, during the first meeting, into a demonstration, or clinic, of self-defense knife handling skills, and joint rolling technique. Booze, weed, books and punching each other, soon lead to a drum solo that lasted 9 nights and became the first ever live performance of the Sheenjek band.

The “unclever” path for the band took longer than expected as the band embarked on their venture of fitting in with other Portland bands with many left turns and constant room clearings. Not metal enough to play metal shows, not punk enough to play punk shows, and not “post” enough to win over any of those shows. Yet being the odd band out in any genre is never a bad thing and in the end the consciousness came. There was indeed no value in fitting in and the band turned up the volumes on their Hiwatts and Marshalls, and started to write the songs they wanted to write. Borrowing from the decades of riffs that had influenced them, Hooks that were ingrained in their DNA, whether they had originated from 80’s TV theme songs, Iommi scriptures, or Post Punk anthems.

“Unclever” will be released Digitally and Limited Edition Vinyl via Seventh Rule Recordings.

Preorder: https://sheenjek.bandcamp.com/album/unclever

Tracklisting:
1. Unclever
2. Monkey Brains
3. The Light Pours Out Of Me (originally by Magazine)
4. If Not Why Not If So How
5. Lazy Boy
6. Oceans
7. Damocles
8. Bootlikker

Joe Geist plays drums, Spencer Davis plays guitar, Scott Flaster plays guitar and Dave Becker plays bass and sings.

Sheenjek, Unclever (2020)

Sheenjek on Thee Facebooks

Sheenjek on Instagram

Sheenjek on Bandcamp

Seventh Rule Recordings on Thee Facebooks

Seventh Rule Recordings on Bandcamp

Bands and festivals have begun to announce 2021 dates and all that, but let’s be realistic: it’s going to be years before live music is what it once was. Especially in the United States, which is the country in the world hardest hit by the ol’ firelung in no small part because of the ineptitude of its federal leadership, an entire economic system of live music — not to mention the venues, promotions and other cultural institutions that support it on all levels — needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. It isn’t going to be just as simple as “social distancing is over and we can all crowd into the bar again.” Maybe not ever.

You’ve likely seen a band do a live stream at this point, even if after the fact, and I have too. Not the same as a real-life gig, duh, but if it helps raise some funds and keeps creative people working on something and gives an act a way to connect with its audience, you can’t call it bad. I’ve found, though, that with the dearth of live music happening and the nil potential that “going to a show” will happen anytime soon, I’ve been listening to more and more live albums.

This, in no small part, is because there are plenty to listen to. Some groups attempting to bring in cash either for themselves or relevant causes have put out live records in the last few months and made use of the downtime that would’ve otherwise been given to actually being on a stage or writing together in a room or whatever it might be. It’s been a way for a band to not just sit on its collective hands and wonder what the future will bring. When so much is out of your own control, you make the most of what you’ve got.

In that spirit, here’s a quick rundown of 10 recent live outings that I’ve been digging. If you’ve found you’re in the need of finding comfort in live music and whatever act you want to see isn’t doing a stream just this second, maybe you can put one of these on, close your eyes, and be affected a bit by the on-stage energy that comes through.

Thanks as always for reading, and thanks to Tim Burke, Vania Yosifova, and Chris Pojama Pearson for adding their suggestions when I asked on social media. Here we go, ordered by date of release:

Arcadian Child, From Far, for the Wild (Live in Linz)

Released Jan. 24.

Granted, this one came out before the real impact of COVID-19 was being felt worldwide, but with the recent announcement of Arcadian Child‘s next studio album coming out this Fall, including From Far, for the Wild (Live in Linz) (discussed here) on this list seems only fair. The Cyprus-based four-piece even went so far as to include a couple new songs in the set that’ll show up on Protopsycho as well this October, so it’s a chance to get a preview of that material as well. Bonus for a bonus. Take the win.

—

Kadavar, Studio Live Session Vol. 1

Released March 25.

Germany began imposing curfews in six of its states on March 22. At that point, tours were already being canceled, including Kadavar‘s European run after two shows, and the band hit Blue Wall Studio in Berlin for a set that was streamed through Facebook and in no small part helped set the pattern of streams in motion. With shows canceled in Australia/New Zealand and North America as well, Kadavar were hoping to recover some of the momentum they’d lost, and their turning it into a live record is also a part of that, as is their upcoming studio release, The Isolation Tapes.

—

Øresund Space Collective, Sonic Rock Solstice 2019

Released April 3.

Of course, I’m perfectly willing to grant that Sonic Rock Solstice 2019 (review here) wasn’t something Øresund Space Collective specifically put out because of the pandemic, but hell, it still exists and that enough, as far as I’m concerned. As ever, they proliferate top notch psychedelic improv, and though I’ve never seen them and it seems increasingly likely I won’t at the fest I was supposed to this year, their vitality is always infectious.

—

Pelican, Live at the Grog Shop

Released April 15.

Let’s be frank — if you don’t love Pelican‘s music to a familial degree, it’s not that I think less of you as a person, but I definitely feel bad for you in a way that, if I told you face-to-face, you won’t find almost entirely condescending. The Chicago instrumentalists are high on my list of golly-I-wish-they’d-do-a-livestream, and if you need an argument to support that, this set from Ohio should do the trick nicely. It’s from September 2019, which was just nearly a year ago. If your mind isn’t blown by their chugging progressive riffs, certainly that thought should do the trick.

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SEA, Live at ONCE

Released June 19.

Also captured on video, this set from Boston’s SEA finds them supporting 2020’s debut album, Impermanence (review here) and pushing beyond at ONCE Ballroom in their hometown. The band’s blend of post-metallic atmosphere and spacious melody-making comes through as they alternate between lumbering riffs and more subdued ambience, and it makes a fitting complement to the record in underscoring their progressive potential. The sound is raw but I’d want nothing less.

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Sumac, St Vitus 09/07/2018

Released July 3.

Issued as a benefit to Black Lives Matter Seattle and a host of other causes, among them the Philadelphia Womanist Working Collective, this Sumac set is precisely what it promises in the title — a live show from 2018 at Brooklyn’s famed Saint Vitus Bar. I wasn’t at this show, but it does make me a little wistful to think of that particular venue in the current concert-less climate. Sumac aren’t big on healing when it comes to the raw sonics, but there’s certainly enough spaciousness here to get lost in should you wish to do so.

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YOB, Pickathon 2019 – Live From the Galaxy Barn

Released July 3.

They’ve since taken down the Bandcamp stream, but YOB’s Pickathon 2019 – Live From the Galaxy Barn (review here) was released as a benefit for Navajo Nation COVID-19 relief, and is an hour-long set that paired the restlessness of “The Lie that is Sin” next to the ever-resonant “Marrow.” Of all the live records on this list, this is probably the one that’s brought me the most joy, and it also inspired the most recent episode of The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal, which jumped headfirst into YOB‘s catalog. More YOB please. Also, if you haven’t seen the videos of Mike Scheidt playing his guitar around the house, you should probably hook into that too.

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Dirty Streets, Rough and Tumble

Released July 31.

If you’re not all the way down with the realization that Justin Toland is the man when it comes to heavy soul and blues guitar, Dirty Streets‘ new live record, Rough and Tumble, will set you straight, and it won’t even take that long. With the all-killer bass and drums of Thomas Storz and Andrew Denham behind, Toland reminds of what a true virtuoso player can accomplish when put in a room with a crowd to watch. That’s an important message for any time, let alone right now. These cats always deliver.

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Amenra, Mass VI Live

Released Aug. 7

Look, I’m not gonna sit here and pretend I’m the biggest Amenra fan in the world. I’m not. Sometimes I feel like they follow too many of their own rules for their own good, but there’s no question that live they’re well served by the spectacle they create, and their atmospherics are genuinely affecting. And I know that I’m in the minority in my position, so for anyone who digs them hard, they put up this stream-turned-record wherein they play a goodly portion of 2017’s Mass VI, and even as the self-professed not-biggest-fan-in-the-world, I can appreciate their effort and the screamy-scream-crushy-crush/open-spaced ambience that ensues.

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Electric Moon, Live at Freak Valley Festival 2019

Releasing Sept. 4.

Yeah, okay, this one’s not out yet, but sometimes I’m lucky enough to get things early for review and sometimes (on good days) those things happen to be new live records from Germany psychonauts Electric Moon. The Always-Out-There-Sula-Komets are in top form on Live at Freak Valley Festival 2019 as one would have to expect, and they’re streaming a 22-minute version of “777” now that rips so hard it sounds like it’s about to tear a hole into an alternate dimension where shows are still going on so yes please everyone go and listen to it and maybe we’ll get lucky and it’ll really happen. The magic was in you all along.

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You think Red Fang will put out another album? I mean, maybe, right? Nothing to say they couldn’t, and as strong as they are in songwriting and performance, it’s not like I’d count them out or anything, but the vibe I got with 2016’s Only Ghosts (review here) was that they’d pushed their sound as far as they thought they could, and that they were perhaps starting to feel the residual burn from so many years of hard touring. I saw them in 2018 in Massachusetts (review here), and they certainly put on a Red Fang show, which is saying something, but they seem to have been waiting for the time to take that next step to headlining on the scale of bands former labelmates like High on Fire or even Mastodon, and it just hasn’t come together.

Both of those bands are, admittedly, more metal in their presentation, so maybe that’s it. Maybe Red Fang, despite the outward accessibility of what they do — their hooks, their funny videos, etc. — are too in-between to catch on at that level. I wonder what would happen if they put out a hyper-aggro album? Or a hyper-melodic one? Or one at all, as it’s now been four years.

Relapse, which sent the press release below, hints at new music to come in 2021. Worth keeping an eye on, as always. “Stereo Nucleosis,” the new single, is out through Adult Swim. “Betty Betty hook up” and all that:

RED FANG: Share Adult Swim Single “Stereo Nucleosis”

Adult Swim Singles have shared a new song by Portland’s RED FANG as the forty-third entry in the 2019-2020 program. “Stereo Nucleosis” is the quartet’s first release since last year’s standalone single/ video “Antidote” (which came paired with a headbang-powered app/game by Weiden Kennedy), and stands as a sterling exemplar of their trademark mix of compelling songwriting and heavy anthemic euphoria that speaks to the headbanger, the hesher, and the music student alike. The band, whose last full length was 2016’s Only Ghosts, have an eye towards the future with exciting news about more new music forthcoming as 2021 inches closer.

LISTEN TO “STEREO NUCLEOSIS”
https://www.adultswim.com/music/singles

RED FANG’s latest album Only Ghosts is out now on CD/LP/Digital via Relapse Records. Physical packages and digital orders are available via Relapse.com HERE and Bandcamp HERE.

RED FANG is:
John Sherman – Drums
Aaron Beam – Bass, Vocals
David Sullivan – Guitar
Maurice Bryan Giles – Guitar, Vocals

www.redfang.net
www.facebook.com/redfangband
www.instagram.com/redfangband
http://redfang.bandcamp.com
http://relapse.com/