Posted in Whathaveyou on April 16th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
No shortage of crush in the post-metallic take of Burial Clouds as the Portland outfit unveil the new single “Be Not Afraid” and announce the May 22 release of their second album, Burn Holy, but melody and texture aren’t far behind the sheer impact when it comes to the ultimate impression made. I didn’t hear the first record — I know you did; you’ve always been cooler than me — so this is my first exposure to the band, but you can hear the depth of purpose in what they’re doing and the feeling of exploration that coincides.
They’ve got preorders up and the video for “Be Not Afraid” is down at the bottom of this post. Maybe a bit of note-to-self here to keep an eye out for the promo of the album when it comes in, but I figure while I’m noting, sharing’s good too. Thus to the PR wire we go:
BURIAL CLOUDS: Portland Post-Doom Metal Collective To Release Burn Holy Full-Length May 22nd; New Video/Single Now Playing + Preorders Available
Portland post-doom metal collective BURIAL CLOUDS will release their stunning new full-length, Burn Holy, on May 22nd.
BURIAL CLOUDS’ music lives in constant tension between beauty and rage, crushing riffs and intricate expanses walking the lines between inner and outer worlds, healing ritual and seditious fire. Every song is a meditation on what it means to live with a gentle, livid heart in an inhuman age.
The band’s debut album – 2023’s Last Days Of A Dying World released via Church Road Records – was met with praise from both fans and critics alike.
Subsequently, they embarked on a successful run through their home turf of the Pacific Northwest, followed by a UK tour, culminating in an appearance at the renowned Arctangent Fest. The following year saw significant lineup changes. Founders Matt Mitchell and Flynn Hargreaves remain on guitar and bass respectively. Marina Lavelle, who was the central figure in the video for “Beirut Shores,” makes her debut with vocals that range from searing, unhinged hostility to delicate vulnerability and soaring expressiveness. Her introduction brings a new and enthralling dynamic to both the sound and perspective of BURIAL CLOUDS music. Bryce Ramsey, previously of Trials, a juggernaut of a player whose approach is as soulful as it is technical, has been recruited on guitar. The multi-talented Tim Iserman, of Salo and Beguile and formerly of Ritual Veil, brings their ferocious, feral energy to the drums. From the crucible of songwriting and DIY recording and production, a newly reformed BURIAL CLOUDS emerged with their best work to date: Burn Holy.
Elaborates Mitchell on the creation of Burn Holy, “We set out to make this record more intense in every direction than Last Days… Prettier and heavier, more gentle, vicious, intense, technically challenging, you name it. Having Marina on vocals has allowed us to highlight aspects of the music that might have otherwise been missed. She’s able to access dimensions of expression the rest of us just can’t. The depth that Bryce’s killer backups bring can’t go unmentioned either; the combination of the two creates greater than the sum of its parts. Burn Holy took more or less a year for us to write, starting about three months after the first record came out. There was no regular process. Some songs had the instrumental written first, vocals later. Some were all at once, some were a back-and-forth iterative process of rearranging, rewriting, rinse and repeat. As they developed, each song developed its own voice. We tried above all else to listen to what they told us was needed, and far more often than not, we all heard the same thing. Some songs went through upwards of 10 or 12 versions. It was a very intense process, and I think we all feel, because of that, that this is literally the best record we were capable of making at that point.”
In advance of the release, today the band unveils first single, “Be Not Afraid.” Offers Mitchell, “‘Be Not Afraid’ is ultimately about fear and awe and the consequences of their manipulation. We wanted to express our resistance to that, in the dynamics of the music, with a feeling of relentlessness and spiritual inevitability. Like erosive crashing waves or the fury of a mother protecting her young… You use whatever tools you have to rebalance the scales.”
Burn Holy was written, engineered, recorded, and mixed by BURIAL CLOUDS, and mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege. The record will be released on CD, LP, and digital formats.
Burn Holy Track Listing [Digital]: 1. Burning The Olive Tree 2. Windflower 3. Ashen Altar 4. Negations 5. Be Not Afraid 6. Screaming, Drowning Pacified 7. Forget Me Not 8. Eyes Without Light
Burn Holy Track Listing [Vinyl]: A Side: 1. Burning the Olive Tree 2. Windflower 3. Be Not Afraid 4. Negations B Side: 1. Ashen Altar 2. Screaming, Drowning Pacified 3. Forget Me Not 4. Eyes Without Light
Posted in Reviews on March 19th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Feeling dug in, which I take as a good sign. There’s been a decent portion of this QR that’s catching up from last Fall onward, and I would’ve liked to cover some of that sooner, but honestly I struggled to find a week-plus to do this and lost an additional month by the time I did. So if you’re like ‘duh this is old’ to some of it — there are also releases that aren’t out yet — I apologize. In 10 years it won’t matter that whatever it was came out last October.
On that happy note, back to it.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
Witchcraft, A Sinner’s Child
Sweden’s Witchcraft follow their 2025 full-length, Idag (review here), with the five-song EP A Sinner’s Child, which runs a similar, if condensed, gamut, from founding frontman Magnus Pelander‘s solo acoustic folk to lumbering, heavy doom and points between. Pelander plays all the instruments on rolling opener “Drömmen Om Död Och Förruttnelse,” the minimal guy-and-guitar “Even Darker Days,” and the morosely weighted “Själen Reser Sig,” while the full-band title-track “A Sinner’s Child” and its closing alternate-lyrics companion-piece “Sinner’s Clear Confusion” are defined as much by the emotive blues of the vocals as by the wistfully strummed electric guitar that accompanies. “A Sinner’s Child” is between the two sides of “Själen Reser Sig” and “Even Darker Days,” sound-wise (it’s before them in the tracklisting) and underscores that it’s not just the extremes that Pelander/Witchcraft inhabit, but the intricate places between as well. I don’t know if it’s leftovers from the record or filler or what, and I don’t care. Just happy it exists and the band are making music, thanks.
Well, Portland and post-punk, so yes, Dead Moon are a factor, but PDX trio Perfect Buzz keep the songwriting tight and headed in their own, vividly rocking direction. The punk roots come out in “Here Come the Cowgirls,” with a shimmer in the guitar that’s unexpected, particularly after “You’re Wrong” was so sure of itself pounding its titular chorus into your head, but the heavier opener “Mess Around” sets a heavy-alternative expectation, and even the proto-grunge riffing of “Gonna Make U Sweat” is drawn under that umbrella. If you see them compared to Mudhoney, that’s probably why. But “Gonna Make U Sweat” is also the longest song at 3:28, and nothing else tops three minutes, so it’s not like Happy Trails is wasting anyone’s time. Instead, Perfect Buzz‘s debut EP showcases varied intent brought together by sharp, clearly-nobody’s-first-time-at-the-dance craft. Each of the four tracks sets out to do, and does, something different, while adding depth to the persona of the band, still being shaped but already a good time.
Raw sludge metallers Smoke Rites offer visceral and disaffected doom on their second full-length, Eager Eyes of Talion, marked by the forward-in-the-mix gritty vocals of Tomasz Mielnik, whose harsh-throated shouts, growls and divergences into clearer singing top the weighted, rolling processions of guitarist Łukasz Borawski, bassist Adam Ziółkowski and drummer Michał Kamiński, resulting in a suitably filthy sound. It’s dark-themes-for-dark-times in “Golden Road,” the title-track and the chugging “Nothing Never,” and certainly “Death is a Five Letter Word” and “Wind of Most Cruel Kind” aren’t offering much in terms of comfort. Even the interlude “Charas Drift” is brought to a harsh place, but Eager Eyes of Talion stays grounded in the muddy shove of “10ft. Dread” and the comparative loll of “Devil’s Advocate,” and doesn’t feel like it’s hading out any more punishment than is due. In a mad world, madness feels reasonable. Here we are.
Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean, Let Us Not Speak of Them But Look and Pass On
Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean uphold a long Massachusetts legacy of extreme sludge, and the four-song EP, Let Us Not Speak of Them But Look and Pass On, is duly facepeeling. Obviously “An Abundance of Mercy,” the nine-minute opener, is ironically titled. Mercy doesn’t really apply in the post-deity gnashing void the band portray, abrasive and churning. The lead cut is a slower assault where “Upheaval” is faster and more outwardly violent. “An Adornment of Light” might take home the prize for the lyric “I can show you/Just how broken/A wing can be,” if not for its seven-minute succession of massive lumber and throatripping screams or the ping ride in the last minute, like it’s marking the steps to where you jump in the volcano. Speaking of, “Execution” closes with a summary made more volatile for smashing elements together, but across the board, it’s a litmus test for how much noise you can take, which, since you’re alive today, is obviously more than any people at any other time in history could, so yes, have at it.
This might be genius. Hurst, Texas, solo experimentalist Mark Kitchens (also Stone Machine Electric) offers 11 sub-minute-long — the longest track is Hugging Curbs at 41 seconds — snippets, song ideas, root melodies, and tossoffs on Is it Death Metal or Sadness. Most are voice-based, but like opener “Big Dipper Little Dipper,” “Lynda and Her Celery,” “Almonds and Pistachios” and “Steven Lee Hall Junior” and “In the Pharmacy,” most have some synth or percussive accompaniment, and for most the lyrics are basically the titles. Maybe the most telling of all, centerpiece “Banana Time” — the lyric, “It’s banana time in the kitchen” — sounds like it was probably thought up while Kitchens was getting a banana. Five-second closer “Season My Eggs” — “I forgot to season my eggs, yeah-heah,” in a rocker voice — is likewise true to life. The reason this might be genius is because it reflects the ways music interacts with your daily life. Maybe you do sing a little song while you’re getting a banana, or get a hook in your head like the multi-layered “3 and 7” out of nowhere. It’s the sense of spontaneity captured. It turns out neither to be death metal nor sadness, and that could hardly be more fitting for the project.
Once they start rolling out that fuzz, there’s little stopping (and why would you?) German heavy rockers Capacopter who, working under influence from early Queens of the Stone Age via modern forerunners Slomosa, present their self-titled first LP with all due electricity and grooving intent. Hooks abound as in opener “600 Years” and the desert-airy “Caravan,” and they keep structures pretty straightforward for the eight-song duration — has Noisolution heard this? — but there’s some branching out in “Half’n Inch” at the start of side B, and “JP’s Horse” and closer “Wandering Stones” take time for atmospherics as well, while “Kings and Crowds” and “Temple Son” are, on balance, more direct, though songwriting is a factor front-to-back. The album ends up being a mix, and there are highlight stretches in the quieter moments as well, but as a statement of intent, Capacopter posits them as rockers, and fair enough. An encouraging and promising debut album. There’s growing into themselves to do, but there’s also time to do it.
Dense to a point of opaqueness at its heaviest, but able as well to shift into and through ambient passages, Monovoth‘s To Live in the Breath of Worship feels emotive without words and finds the despondent post-metallic Buenos Aires solo-project exploring tense and grimly progressive reaches. The third LP in five years from multi-instrumentalist Lucas Wyssbrod, it doesn’t shy from extremity in “Crimson Red Wound” or the blastbeaten-until-it-drones-in-apology 16-minute closer “To Drown in the Tears of God” (there is a human voice there), but is no more defined by that than the subdued bleakness of its stillest moments, nor is it overly predictable in the movements between those two sides, or unipolar in how it executes one or the other. This variability, flexibility, allows “Cosmically Orphaned” and earlier opener “From a Dying Star” to tell a similar story in different ways, and makes the album as a whole a more complete, immersive experience. It’s also noisy as hell, and that helps too.
Opening cut “Kronologia” (8:32) is the shortest of the three inclusions on Pimeyden Harha‘s severe-cast, wholly-doomed full-length debut, Aika, by about half. The subsequent “Rauha” (16:01) and “Entisöijä” (19:27) render the opener as lead-single fare, but rest assured, the solo outfit has plenty of doom to go around, whether it’s longform or, you know, sorta-longform. Lyrics, and somehow also the instruments, are in Finnish, and most of what keeps Aika from being death-doom is the melodic chant of sole-denizen/multi-instrumentalist J. LaCoin‘s vocals. Tempos are mostly a crawl, but “Rauha” lets you know up front it’s going to thrash out at the finish, and yes, it does, and there’s a bit of pickup in the later reaches of “Entisöijä” as well, but the bulk of the record is willed as a morose plod, and the atmosphere is accordingly grey. To its credit, however, Aika holds firm to its intent and doesn’t veer from its path as the songs play out; the most divergence happens in “Koronologia,” and it’s brief. That’s not to say Pimeyden Harha comes across as unipolar, just that it’s a sound crafted with a goal in mind. As a debut, one might call it foreboding.
The only real question going into this debut album by Spain’s Wild Fuzz Trip is whether or not the five tracks on Fuzz Transmissions live up to the billing. Are they, in fact, a wild fuzz trip? Well, yes. Whether you’re dug into the mellow midsection of “Big Grey” or the more uptempo boogie into meatier riffing that happens over the course of centerpiece “Galactican Twilight,” the double-guitar troupe — here guitarists Miguel A. Marañón and Diego López (also keys), bassist Andy Shardlow (Josiah) and drummer Suso Valcárcel and Martin Ludl on the sax in closer “Nebula Groove” — are right there with you, and though they’ve been a band for eight years and this is apparently their first LP, the surety of their going speaks to the slew of EPs and single releases leading up to it. They neither wasted their time nor waste yours as the listener, bringing their ambition to life in an expansive sound one hopes will continue to flesh out.
Breadth and crush, expressive human intimacy and instrumental expanse, post-metallic chiaroscuro, etc., however you want to frame Gavran‘s The One Who Propels, the Rotterdam four-piece find their niche in style with a sound that basks in its multifaceted nature across five longer-form cuts, each of which plays out with a balance between two-plus sides, melodically sung here and abrasively screamed there, conveying emotion in the lulls of “Brod” as much as the next-level-obliteration that kicks in for (about) the final minute of “Okreni.” “Zora” and “Pogon” both start very, very heavy, but even there, a change in the vocals provides distinction amid tonal consistency, and Gavran are served across the 59-minute span by their attention to detail in terms of arrangement as well as the depth of mix which sometimes they seem to occupy to a point of spilling out, only to recede again and let the next melodic contemplation hold sway. The resulting entirety is viciously affirming as it leads to 16-minute capper “Plutaju,” which methodically encapsulates the course of the album while continuing to carve its own place.
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 6th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Spirit Mother were in Europe last summer to tour, and that stint included shows with the likes of King Buffalo and Colour Haze. They released Songs From the Basin (review here) as a brief glimpse at their capacity for reinterpreting material as well as demonstrating the root from which at least some of their songs spring — acoustic strum and melodymaking. After putting out their second album, Trails (review here), through Heavy Psych Sounds in Fall 2024, the band announced this past December they’d signed to Sound of Liberation Records for their third LP, which is apparently called Thistle and will be released sometime later this year.
The band posted some shots from recording — you can see one below (credit to David Jacob) — and you’ll note Chase Howard joining the lineup. You might know Howard from playing with Kadabra in Washington, but that band just a couple weeks ago announced he was leaving. I’m not sure if he’s permanently in Spirit Mother or was doing it as a session thing, but he’s a killer drummer anyhow and isn’t somebody likely to make your band worse. They thank him for “stepping in,” which says not-permanent to me, but I don’t want to read too much into it and feel dumb later, so there you go.
I have no word on a release date or the tour plans and obviously those would be the two foremost questions in mind, apart from “can I hear it yet?,” which I guess is obvious. The rest, when I see, I’ll say.
Have at it:
Hello friends! Our 3rd album “Thistle” will be out this Fall with @soundofliberationrecords 🥀 recorded at SJ and Armand’s home in the High Desert of Eastern Oregon. The band came out for a week of tracking and it was one for the damn 📚 S/o to @drumsplaychase for stepping in for these sessions and CRUSHING the drums! Here’s a few shots from our week of recording, more soon.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on February 26th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
The track “Monastery of the Seven Sages” opens Breath‘s Fall 2025 Argonauta-released sophomore LP, Brahman (review here), and its opening riff is a fittingly Sabbathian call to prayer. The nod that ensues is meditative in style, and the Portland outfit — who were joined by Rob Wrong of Witch Mountain for the album — continue to delve into Cisnernos-esque fluidity, but if Om‘s vaguely spiritual communion is a factor here, it’s not the sum total of what either the song in question or the record it comes from have to offer. It is a beginning, in other words. A shocking observation for the start of an album, right? Stay tuned to The Obelisk for more hard-hitting, in-depth insights like this.
My point — I know I had one when I started — is that Breath are distinguished by what they build around this recognizable core. Their first full-length, 2021’s subsequently-revamped Primeval Transmissions (review here; discussed here), was rawer in its construction even after the 2023 remix/remaster, and I wouldn’t exactly call Brahman lush with the way the band use negative space in the mix to create a sense of humility that one finds visualized in the pilgrimage portrayed in the video below, but no question they’re exploring and fleshing out their sound with synth, guitar and so on. That’s a process one hopes will continue, because it distinguishes Breath from other practitioners and because the further out they go the more they seem to discover is within their creative reach.
It’s obviously early to talk ‘next record.’ It’s only been months since Brahman came out — it’s relevant enough that they just made a video for it, you could say — but to my ears, “Monastery of the Seven Sages” emphasizes the intentional growth on the part of the band, their willingness to push their own for-the-moment limits, and since that inherently leads to the question of where they’re headed and how they might get there, one can’t help but think of them even five years on from their debut as still just beginning to tap into the potential of their sound. I don’t mean to make it seem like they’re in pursuit of a thing, which goes against the whole Buddhist aesthetic overlay, but however you want to frame it, their songwriting is so forward-thinking, so here’s me, accordingly looking forward to what might come.
The clip below came down the PR wire:
Breath, “Monastery of the Seven Sages” official video
Portland’s meditative doom collective BREATH unveil the official music video for “Monastery of the Seven Sages”, a standout track from their critically acclaimed album Brahman, released via Argonauta Records. The song and video exemplify the band’s signature blend of atmospheric doom, post-metal depth and psychedelic heaviness, combining massive riffs, hypnotic basslines, ritualistic rhythms and textured cinematic layers that draw the listener into a meditative sonic journey.
The band comments:
“Monastery of the Seven Sages peers into a distant proto-bronze age landscape obscured by the fog of time. The power and bond of ‘as above so below’ is conveyed through filmmaker Erik Meharry’s vision. His inspiration from the song birthed a whole outline of Lynchian depth that made us all too eager for him to be at the helm. A song following steps like Oannes, looking to the wild horizon of space and Earth and finding connection.”
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 25th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Medford, Oregon’s Elk Witch have a West Coast run coming up in April/May, bookended on either side by — guess what — more shows. The get-out-of-town stint begins March 25 in Eureka, California, before the tour actually starts more than a month later at the end of April, and when they’re done fuzzplundering along the Cali coastline and have hit up Vegas and Reno for more inland adventuring, they’ll finish out their Spring May 16 at Portland’s famed High Water Mark.
The band were last heard from with 2024’s Azimuth, which was engineered and mixed by guitarist Deven Andersen and can be streamed below. I apparently whiffed on reviewing the album (some punk rock guilt there, of course, but this ain’t Pokemon and I can’t catch ’em all; some day in the next three years it will close out a week and all wrongs will be righted), but I’m sure you caught onto it because you’re cooler than I am. In any case, it’s there if you’d like a refresher. I’ve got it on now and it’s pretty rad, a little post-Sword but with more depth of riff. Kind of reminds me of Lords of the North back whenever that was, and that’s a compliment in my brain. Lucky me, I learned a thing today.
To the matter at hand, the dates from the PR wire:
ELK WITCH Announces “From Dust to Moss” West Coast Tour
Elk Witch will be hitting the road this spring for the From Dust to Moss West Coast Tour, bringing their heavy, fuzz-drenched riffs across the western U.S.
The tour will mark the first run of shows with new drummer Kenneth Snyder, whose addition signals a new chapter for Elk Witch. These shows will also serve as a proving ground for new material as the band prepares to enter production on their third full-length album later this year. Together, these performances represent a pivotal moment of transition and momentum as Elk Witch continues to expand its reach to new audiences. The band will be sharing the stage with an incredible lineup of heavy bands across the tour, with full lineups to be announced soon.
From Dust to Moss West Coast Tour: 3/25 Eureka, CA – Sirens Song Tavern 4/29 Pacifica, CA – Winters Tavern 4/30 Palmdale, CA – Transplants Brewing 5/1 Las Vegas, NV – Red Dwarf 5/2 Twentynine Palms, CA – Out There Bar 5/3 Los Angeles, CA – Redwood Bar 5/4 San Diego, CA – Til Two 5/6 Reno, NV – Cellar Stage/Alturas Bar 5/7 Eugene, OR – John Henry’s 5/16 Portland, OR – High Water Mark
Poster Art by Pablo Rdz – Instagram @72826_
Elk Witch: Deven Andersen – Guitar / Vocals Darren Wostenberg – Bass Joe Coitus – Drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 25th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Portland heavy Americana psych rockers Abronia set out this weekend in support of their new album, Shapes Unravel (review here), which is out on Cardinal Fuzz/Feeding Tube Records, playing in Oregon and Washington ahead of more shows next month in Oregon and California. It’s not a weeks-long tour, but they’re hitting their spots nonetheless, and the record makes a worthy cause for the going. No idea if more dates will follow, if anything’s planned for the East Coast or the Midwest, or what. All I know is these shows came through the PR wire and it was an excuse to put the record on while I was writing about them, and I was happy for that.
If you’ve not yet heard it, you’ll find it streaming at the bottom of this post and can discover for yourself why I’d be glad for that excuse:
Abronia Announce West Coast Tour
Shapes Unravel LP Out Now via Cardinal Fuzz & Feeding Tube Records
Portland based band Abronia have announced a February/March 2026 West Coast tour. The run includes dates at Portland, OR’s Mississippi Studios (2/26), Cottage Grove, OR’s Axe & Fiddle (3/24), Oakland, CA’s Thee Stork Club (3/26), Chico, CA’s Naked Lounge (3/27), and more. Full routing and select ticket links can be found below. The tour is in support of their recently released album, Shapes Unravel.
Abronia Live 2/26 – Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios 2/27 – Seattle, WA – Add-A-Ball 2/28 – Bellingham, WA – Makeshift 3/7 – Eugene, OR – Art House 3/24 – Cottage Grove, OR – Axe & Fiddle w/ McKenzie & the Last Responders 3/25 – Hayfork, CA – Northern Delights w/ The Glow Twins 3/26 – Oakland, CA – Thee Stork Club 3/27 – Chico, CA – Naked Lounge 3/28 – Arcata, CA – The Miniplex
Shapes Unravel is Abronia’s most ambitious and compositionally daring record to date—the album moves with a strange gravitational pull, layering grief, haunted memory, and flashes of transcendence into something emotionally expansive and structurally bold. Moments of crushing weight give way to eerie stillness, held together by an urgency that feels vital, not calculated. It’s a record that doesn’t politely wait for your attention; it pulls you into its orbit whether you’re ready or not.
Over the past decade, Abronia has been refining their singular blend of widescreen psychedelia, desert noir, Eastern drone, avant-jazz, doom, post-punk, and acid-folk—channeling something that feels at once ritualistic and cinematic. From the first thud of their 32-inch bass drum to the coil of pedal steel winding through the haze, the sound of this Portland-based six-piece is unmistakable.
Shapes Unravel is out now via Cardinal Fuzz & Feeding Tube Records.
Abronia is – Keelin Mayer: Vocals, Tenor Saxophone, Flute Rick Pedrosa: Pedal Steel, Percussion Robert Grubaugh: Big Drum, Percussion, Melodica Danny Metcalfe: Bass James Shaver: Guitar Eric Crespo: Guitar, Backing Vocals
Posted in Reviews on February 13th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Resonance and texture are not new elements in the work of Oregonian heavy psychedelic Americana explorers Abronia. Indeed, one could argue their principal stylistic declarations were made nine years ago on their first album, Obsidian Visions / Shadowed Lands (review here), at least as regards arrangements centered around the ‘big drum’ rather than a traditional kit — and yes, it is a large bass drum being hit, complemented by cymbals, shakers and various other now-you-have-to-be-creative-type percussion — with pedal steel guitar used for place-setting (‘vibes’ they call it now; everything is vibes) and lysergic flourish. And I’ll point out that I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Abronia showed up nearly a decade ago with a clear idea of what they wanted to do, and as they’ve refined their approach, their music to-date has painted pictures accordingly. Never with so purposeful a hand and never quite so vividly as on Shapes Unravel, their fourth full-length.
The guitars of James Shaver (who was originally on the drum) and Eric Crespo (also backing vocals) are recognizable in style and tone and breath, and Keelin Mayer remains of marked vocal presence and command, be it the primal scream therapy taking place at the end of opening track “New Imposition,” which holds a grandeur that makes it feel broader than its four-and-a-half-minute runtime, or the confident staccato delivery alongside Mayer‘s own flute in “Gemini” regrounding with a hook after the expansive “Walker’s Dead Birds,” which isn’t to mention the tenor sax in the latter track with which she seems to be in a nonlingual conversation. Rick Pedrosa‘s pedal steel can add twang or mood, depending on the need, and Danny Metcalfe‘s bass is given all the more room for the compared-to-a-full-kit stripped-down nature of the drum, handled by Robert Grubaugh. But as second cut “Mirrored Ends of Light” eschews the rawer payoff of “New Imposition” and moves from its earlier ’60s-ish shuffle in favor of a more poised-feeling, Morricone-cinematic crescendo (not their first time in the Spaghetti West), Shaver‘s arrangements of viola and violin (played by Miles Wierer-Huling) and trumpets (played/recorded by Cory Gray) bring the procession to another level. It is not bombastically heavy and it doesn’t need to be. It carries a sunbeaten weight of centuries in its atmosphere.
In addition to this, there is a maturity in the songwriting across Shapes Unravel that gives a greater sense of flow between tracks even as each one adds something different to that mix. At seven songs/35 minutes, it’s not by any means an unmanageable listen, but in part not being overloaded in terms of runtime is emblematic of how Shapes Unravel makes its every decision count. The way that crescendo in “Mirrored Ends of Light” builds up around Mayer‘s vocalizing. The way “Weapons Against Progress” conveys a forward movement in its rhythm and puts a bluesier twist on the guitar, or the matched step of the lyric “I’m all over your cold shoulder” with the light-footed instrumental march of “Petals and Sand.” Shapes Unravel makes highlights of its details, and it’s not about one instrument or the other being pushed higher in the mix to get a showcase, but instead about where a song is going and what most serves it.
“Walker’s Dead Birds” is the longest inclusion at 6:35 and starts with a prairie raga pedal-steel daybreak, shifting smoothly into its verse before introducing the crashes that hint at a volume surge to come. The verses are declarative, the execution patient and confident because they know where they’re going and why, even as the second half lets loose into a drift of intertwining layers of guitar, saxophone and a mounting swell of distortion, but when the peak has been reached, it’s the central, quiet verse progression that remains, and they push through a return from whence they came before the song is done, tying it together fluidly and leaving little question as to how “Walker’s Dead Birds” wound up as the centerpiece that it is.
Abronia‘s last outing was the 2023 live-in-a-cabin release The High Desert Sessions (review here), which came just a year out from 2022’s third album, Map of Dawn (review here). There have been some lineup changes around Crespo, Mayer, Pedrosa and Shaver, as Grubaugh and Metcalfe are making their respective first appearances with the band, but the freshness of the rhythm section certainly doesn’t hurt, as both the steady roll of “Weapons Against Progress” and the subtle motion of the penultimate “Petals and Sand” — which feels almost minimalist at its outset but grows organically to a wash by its finish without losing control of the melody so central to its effect on the listener. Preceded by a return of strings on “Gemini” (this time played by Kate Kilbourne), ” along with the already-noted flute and I’ll just call it grace, “Petals and Sand” is melancholic triumph of a manner that emphasizes the care put into the craft across the board, and closer “Asleep in the Porcelain House” offers a tasteful linear build that, to the last, brings to light just how many routes Abronia have to get their material where it’s going, seeming to push beyond “Petals and Sand” to a next stage, Mayer‘s screams recalling “New Imposition” or the ending of “Walker’s Dead Birds,” other moments where the restraint gives way.
Shapes Unravel was recorded by Evan Mersky, with additional recording by Crespo, TJ Thompson and Cory Gray, and mixed by Larry Crane. And even before you get to the strings or the trumpets or Mayer‘s sax or Grubaugh‘s melodica, there’s a lot put into even its most subdued-feeling moments. Ultimately, though, the balance Abronia strike in these songs demonstrates not only complexity, but the reasoning behind it, and whether one wants to sit and peruse the ambient details of “Weapons Against Progress” or let the whole album play out as one longer, cohesive mass, it works, and the title repetitions in “Gemini” are as much a part of why as the illustrated scope of “Mirrored Ends of Light.” It is an accomplishment that could only have come by the manner it did — something a band pursued as they pushed themselves creatively on ground new and familiar — and so feels all the more masterful.
Posted in Reviews on November 20th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
It’s all over now, I’ve got momentum on my side. This is day four of the Quarterly Review. The first three days have been nothing but a pleasure on my end, putting them together, and with just today and tomorrow left, I’m feeling pretty good about the entire endeavor. I’m not sure yet if this will be the end of the year as regards QRs, but if it is, it’s a good one to go out on.
And basically to make that determination, I need to look at next month’s schedule and see what’s coming when, when I’ll do things like the year-end poll and my own big end-of-year post. No idea on any of that yet, but I’ll get there. Getting this done in relatively smooth fashion is a help. Thanks for reading and I hope it’s been a good one for you as well.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
Psychedelic Source Records, The Initiation Outlaws
Set to release through Echodelick in the US and Weird Beard Records in the UK, in addition to Psychedelic Source Records‘ own distribution, The Initiation Outlaws brings eight pieces and a full 98-minute double-LP’s worth of cosmic improvised jamming, with a cast of regulars from the Hungarian collective — Bence Ambrus, Máté Varga, Róbert Kránitz, Krisztina Benus, Gergely Szabó — taking part in collaborative exploration with Go Kurosawa of Kikagaku Moyo, who goes from drums to bass to guitar as the release progresses, sliding right into the amorphous methodology of Psychedelic Source Records while distinguishing the heavier push in “Three Golds Reward II” or the snare work on “The King of Magic Colts and Wands I” earlier. Trance-inducing as ever, these captured moments are gorgeously fluid and immersive, active enough in parts like “The King of Magic Colts and Wands II” to defy mellowpsych-improv expectation, but abiding just the same. If you’re not there yet, it’s time to start thinking of Psychedelic Source among Europe’s finest purveyors of heavy psychedelia.
The forlorn folkishness in the midsection of “Waves Become the Sky” bring to mind an extrapolation of emotive doom from the likes of Warning, but that’s understandable with Aerial Ruin and Bell Witch renewing their collaboration for Stygian Bough Vol. II, following on from a first volume (review here) in 2020. The album takes place over four extended tracks from the rolling density of the aforementioned opener through the minimalist-till-it-isn’t “King of the Wood” and the longform folk-death-doom of “From Dominion Let Them Bleed” and the melancholy triumph of heft wrought in 19-minute finale “The Told and the Leadened,” which dwells in spaces empty and full and remains conscious enough to end with tense noise and drumming. This is artistry on its own wavelength, working in its own time, and patient to a point of extremity. But they do it to offer comfort, make no mistake. There’s consolation in these songs, in addition to all the mourning.
Unrepentantly cosmic Italian outfit Giöbia are like a fresh coat of antimatter for space rock. The four-piece obviously hunkered down in their secret lab after 2023’s Acid Disorder (review here) and worked hard to refine their chemical compositions, such that “Voodoo Experience” nods grounded even as its synth and guitars surge beyond the thermosphere. The results show everywhere throughout X-ÆON in their outsider cohesion of classic and neo-space rocks, heavy psychedelia and oddball synthscaping, whether you’re doing the sensory thing with the dream-jam “1976” or embroiled in the four-part side B concept piece, “La Mort de la Terre,” which draws a cinematic curtain for life as we know it in “Dans la Nuit Éternelle,” a wordless epilogue that feels half a world removed from the stomp-and-verse of “The Death of the Crows,” but of course, that’s the whole idea.
The included acoustic guitar, organ and FM-radio classic rock vibes in the eight-and-a-half-minute closing title-track aren’t a coincidence. They’re part of a stated intention the band had in taking on more of a traditional sound, coming down from some of the harder-hitting doom of 2020’s Acid Communion and working in more of a ’70s-inspired style. That manifests to varying degrees throughout, as leadoff “Electric Execution” feels like it’s working in the vein of “Neon Knights” or “Turn Up the Night” in Dio Sabbathian raucousness (I know that was 1980-81, don’t @ me), and while “Lucifer Rising” has a weighted march, it’s more Scorpions than Sleep, and “Goin’ to Texas” brings in the organ to emphasize the Southern geography of the album’s centerpiece. It’s a striking turn but they pull it off for sure. “Muchachos Muchachin'” has mid-’70s charm to spare, and “Bone Boys Ride Out” seems to bridge the more modern attack of Bone Church-prior with who they are today. Not every progression plays out like you think it will, and if this is the band Bone Church have wanted to be all along, they sound accordingly right to have made the redirect.
The ‘soft scream’ vocals give Js Donny‘s Death Folk an immediate sense of extremity, but it’s a quiet extremity. The French solo artist — who also plays bass in adventurous Marseilles sludgers Donna Candy — released an EP with a full lineup in 2023, but this six-song/33-minute offering is more intimate. Js Donny dwells in the quiet, creepy spaces the songs create, the vocal gurgle giving shades of otherworldliness and malevolence alike. It’s called Death Folk, but especially with the electrified/distorted wash that takes hold in “Not Like That” and again at the outset of closer “Black Heart” — a biting tone, like harsher blackgaze — I can’t help but wonder if Js Donny isn’t working in a kind of post-death-metallic framing. There are no drums, which is a fair trade for what’s gained in grim ambience, but even without, the album is clear in manifesting both sides of its title, and while Js Donny isn’t the only one laying claim to death-folk as a style, how it happens here sure feels like an act of genre creation.
In some distant future, when the history is written of our idiotic, persistently awful time, no one will ever say, “and the right-thinking people of the day had no choice but to seek refuge in avant garde cybergrind,” and that’s why history is bullshit. Skeletal Blasphemy is the third album from Nuclear Dudes and second of 2025 behind September’s Truth Paste (review here) — keep ’em coming — and is the solo-project’s most vicious and realized offering to-date. Spearhead Jon Weisnewski (Sandrider, ex-Akimbo) brings powerviolent catharsis on “Victory Pants,” the title-track and assorted others, working in collaboration with guest drummer Coady Willis (High on Fire, Big Business, Melvins), and whether it’s the punker push in “Bad Body” or the slow, undulations of the closing “The Octopus” and the burgeoning thread of progressive melody throughout these songs, it’s exactly the sort of self-bludgeoning that being alive right now requires. Album of the year? Fuck you, fuck the year, and fuck capitalism.
With an instrumentalist foot in progressive, horn-inclusive jazz, heavy psychedelic fluidity and a resonant warmth of tone alongside a will to meander, Kronstad 23 feel tailor-made for El Paraiso Records, run by members of Denmark’s Causa Sui. Sommermørket is the Norwegian outfit’s debut album and without sounding consumed by its own ambition to do so, it organically nestles the band in a stylistic niche that allows for the explorations in “Caesar” and “Astralreiser,” the latter of which will seem barely there in its early going at low volumes, to exist along the daring-toward-dancey opener “Dølgsmål” and building a kind of dreamy tension between the guitar and drums on “Trosten,” with none of it feeling out of place. They’ll invariably get comparisons to Kanaan, but the foundation is different and the delivery gentler, with “Helgen” finding its way on drum rolls and key/guitar drift into a classic-prog horn section in a payoff that’s somewhat understated until you look back across the five and a half minutes and see how far you’ve come. I can’t wait to hear how they grow.
“Love of Driving” is the debut single from newcomer New Jersey-based krautrock-minded two-piece Rolls the River. The band brings together Dan Kirwan of Pyre Fyre on bass, guitar and vocals, and Victor Marinelli on guitar, synth, drums and vocals for a sub-five-minute cosmic reachout, obviously schooled in where it’s coming from — that is to say, one doesn’t krautrock by accident; it is a form to adopt and refine — but still feeling like an initial exploration of both style and composition. Fading in on an initial keyboardy drone, the guitar and drums come in together and the neospace shuffle is mellow as layers are added, guitar, keys, but the sense of movement brought to “Love of Driving” is enough to explain the title, whatever you might think of the Garden State’s highway system. Rather than get caught up in jughandles, though, Rolls the River harness tonal presence and linear development and still find room to include voice as part of the atmosphere. Formative, and an encouraging start.
Belgium’s Psychonaut may yet teach progressive metal a lesson or two. The post-metal three-piece reach what sure feels in “Endless Currents” like a new level of expression and craft, and while at 11 songs and 60 minutes, World Maker isn’t a minor undertaking — one could easily argue making a world takes time — the utter consumption achieved in “All in Time,” which I won’t spoil any further, the blissful wash of “…Everything Else is Just the Weather” are not to be missed, and worth whatever minor investment of attention span might be required. Exciting as the intermittent metallic surges are, “Endless Erosion” caps in a quiet place, and the atmospherics across the first two and a half minutes of “Origins,” just as one example, help to bring a feeling of place (of ‘world’) to the procession. It is a vivid place Psychonaut have made, and there are listeners for whom the melodies of World Maker will be transcendental.
Following an apparent 2024 EP called Anachronist that is below because this debut album isn’t streaming yet that I can find, The Sea Between Stars — a suitably romantic framing of what you might otherwise call ‘the void’ — brings a progressive take to classic-style doom rock. The Oregonian five-piece roll out a genuine feeling of dynamic across the album’s 10 tracks, from the proto-metal shove of “Knightrider” at the outset to the later rush and wail of “Sky Sized Heart,” to the doom-epic ballad reach of “Bridge of Irreconcilable Sorrow” to the acoustic turn in the last movement of “The Words We Don’t Speak” and variable but unifyingly soulful vocal arrangements throughout, up to the minimal voice-and-piano closer “Ghost Notes” or the duet in the crescendo of “Still Breathing.” Ambition set in balance with organic production and songwriting. I don’t know when The Sea Between Stars is coming out, if it’s now-ish, early 2026 or what, but if you want to take this as an early heads up, do.
