Posted in Questionnaire on October 19th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Ricardo Jimenez Gómez of Pylar and Orthodox
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
What I do is try to give back to metal music a part of what it has contributed to my life. Since the first meeting, the obsession has only increased. That obsession is what makes me continue exploring and traveling paths not yet traveled.
Describe your first musical memory.
Seeing my father watching Pink Floyd concerts sitting in the dark in the living room. Watching my father shave in the bathroom while he hummed Beatles songs. My mom singing to me while she was cooking. Playing Christmas carols with my Casio SA-20.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
When nothing was expected and everything seemed static, the hands of Hasjarl and Horror Illogium suddenly appeared to show that there were still unexplored regions in metal. That hierophany, which lasted for months, made me regain the desire to continue searching, to cause my own cracks in the limits of metal.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
On a musical level I have not experienced that. In the rest of the areas, I do it daily.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
To mix everything over and over again until civilizational decay returns us to the regional.
How do you define success?
Being able to capture an artistic work with the same ease as Mozart or Cartarescu. Destroy existing paradigms through works that transcend the limits of the imagination.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
The whiteness of the leviathan, the non-Euclidean geometries of R’lyeh, the conjunction of the mirror and the encyclopedia that led to the discovery of Uqbar, the depths of the desert of Sonora while searching for Cesárea Tinajero, the heart of the heart of Grothendieck, the paintings in Roderick Usher’s house, the island of Tsalal, those tears…
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
A hyperstitional entity.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Make us contemplate that blinding place that Mircea Cartarescu describes.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Posted in Reviews on September 19th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Oh hello. I didn’t see you there. What, this? Oh, this is just me hanging out about to review 100 records in 10 days’ time. Yup, it’s another double-wide Quarterly Review, and I’m telling myself that no, this isn’t just how life is now, that two full weeks of 10 reviews per day isn’t business as usual, but there’s an exceptional amount of music out there right now, and no, this isn’t even close to all of it. But I’m doing my best to keep up and this is what that looks like.
The bottom line is the same as always and I’ll give it to you up front and waste no more time: I hope you enjoy the music here and find something to love.
So let’s go.
Quarterly Review #01-10:
Yatra, Born into Chaos
The partnership between Chesapeake extremists Yatra and producer Noel Mueller continues to bear fruit on the band’s fourth album and first for Prosthetic Records. Their descent from thick, nasty sludge into death metal is complete, and songs like “Terminate by the Sword” and “Terrorizer” have enough force behind them to become signature pieces. The trio of Dana Helmuth (guitar/vocals), Maria Geisbert (bass) and Sean Lafferty (drums, also Grave Bathers) have yet to sound so utterly ferocious, and as each of their offerings has pushed further into the tearing-flesh-like-paper and rot-stenched realms of metal, Born into Chaos brings the maddening intensity of “Wrath of the Warmaster” and the Incantation-worthy chug of closer “Tormentation,” with massive chug, twisting angularity and brain-melting blasts amid the unipolar throatripper screams from Helmuth (reminds at times of Grutle Kjellson from Enslaved), by now a familiar rasp that underscores the various violences taking place within the eight included tracks. I bet they get even meaner next time,. That’s just how Yatra do. But it’ll be a challenge.
Part of the fun of a new Sula Bassana release is not knowing what you’re going to get, and Nostalgia, which is built from material recorded between 2013-’18 and finished between 2019-’21, is full of surprises. The heavy space grunge of lead cut “Real Life,” which along with its side A companion “We Will Make It” actually features vocals from Dave “Sula Bassana” Schmidt himself (!), is the first here but not the last. That song beefs up early Radiohead drudgery, and “We Will Make It” is like what happens when space rock actually gets to space, dark in a way but expansive and gorgeous. Side B is instrumental, but the mellotron in “Nostalgia” — how could a track called “Nostalgia” not have mellotron? — goes a long way in terms of atmosphere, and the 10-minute “Wurmloch” puts its well-schooled krautrockism to use amid melodic drone before the one-man-jam turns into a freakout rager (again: !), and the outright beautiful finisher “Mellotraum” turns modern heavy post-rock on its head, stays cohesive despite all the noise and haze and underscores the mastery Schmidt has developed in his last two decades of aural exploration. One wonders to what this sonic turn might lead timed so close to his departure from Electric Moon and building a Sula live band, but either way, more of this, please. Please.
Continuing a streak of working with highly-respected imprints, Finland’s Garden of Worm release their third album, the eight-song/43-minute Endless Garden, through Nasoni Records after two prior LPs through Shadow Kingdom and Svart, respectively. There have been lineup changes since 2015’s Idle Stones (review here), but the band’s classically progressive aspects have never shone through more. The patient unfolding of “White Ship” alone is evidence for this, never mind everything else that surrounds, and though the earlier “Name of Lost Love” and the closer “In the Absence of Memory” nod to vintage doom and the nine-minute penultimate “Sleepy Trees” basks in a raw, mellow Floydian melody, the core of the Tampere outfit remains their unpredictability and the fact that you never quite know where you’re going until you’re there. Looking at you, “Autumn Song,” with that extended flute-or-what-ever-it-is intro before the multi-layered folk-doom vocal kicks in. For over a decade now, Garden of Worm have been a well kept secret, and honestly, that kind of works for the vibe they cast here; like you were walking through the forest and stumbled into another world. Good luck getting back.
Untethered by genre and as unorthodox as ever, Sevilla, Spain, weirdo doom heroes Orthodox return with Proceed after four years in the ether, and the output is duly dug into its own reality of ritualism born more of creation than horror-worship across the six included songs. “Arendrot” carries some shade from past dronings, and certainly the opener before it is oddball enough, with its angular riffing and later, Iberian-folk-derived solo, but there’s a straigter-forward aspect to Proceed as well, the vocals lending a character of noise rock and less outwardly experimentalist fare. “Rabid God” brings that forward with due intensity before the hi-hat-shimmy-meets-cave-lumber-doom “Starve” and the lurching/ambient doomjazz “The Son, the Sword, the Bread” set up the 10-minute closer “The Long Defeat,” which assures the discomforted that at least at some point when they were kids Orthodox listened to metal. Righteously individual, their work isn’t for everyone, and it’s by no means free of indulgence, but in 42 minutes, Orthodox once again stretch the limits of what doom means in a way that most bands wouldn’t dare even if they wanted to, and if you can’t respect that, then I’ve got nothing for you.
Fifty years from now, some brave archivalist soul is going to reissue the entire catalog of Lima, Peru’s Matus and blow minds far and wide. A follow-up to 2013’s Espejismos (review here), Espejismos II brings theremin-laced vintage Sabbath rock vibes across its early movements, going so far as to present “Umbral / Niebla de Neón” in mono, while the minute-and-a-half-long “Los Ojos de Vermargar (Early Version)” is pure fuzz and the organ-laced “Hada Morgana (Early Instrumental Mix)” — that and “Umbra; / Niebla de Neón” appeared in ‘finished versions on 2015’s Claroscuro (review here); “Summerland” dates back to 2010’s Más Allá Del Sol Poniente (review here), so yes, time has lost all meaning — moves into the handclap-and-maybe-farfisa-organ “Canción para Nuada,” one of several remixes with rerecorded drums. “Rocky Black” is an experiment in sound collage, and “Misquamacus” blends acoustic intricacy and distorted threat, while capper “Adiós Afallenau (Version)” returns the theremin for a two-minute walk before letting go to a long stretch of silence and some secret-track-style closing cymbals. The best thing you can do with Matus is just listen. It’s its own thing, it always has been, and the experimental edge brought to classic heavy rock is best taken on with as open a mind as possible. Let it go where it wants to go and the rewards will be plenty. And maybe in another five decades everyone will get it.
Offset by interludes like the classical-minded “Aversion” or the bass-led “Reprobation,” or even the build-up intro “S.Z.,” the ritual doom nod of Swiss five-piece Shrooms Circle‘s The Constant Descent is made all the more vital through the various keys at work across its span, whether it’s organ or mellotron amid the lumbering weight of the riffs. “Perpetual Decay” and its companion interlude “Amorphous” dare a bit of beauty, and that goes far in adding context and scope to the already massive sounding “The Unreachable Spiral” and the subtle vocal layering in “The Constant Descent.” Someone in this band likes early Type O Negative, and that’s just fine. Perhaps most of all, the 11-song/48-minute The Constant Descent is dynamic enough so that no matter where a given song starts, the listener doesn’t immediately know where it’s going to end up, and taking that in combination with the command shown throughout “Demotion,” “Perpetual Decay,” the eight-minute “Core Breakdown” and the another-step-huger finale “Stagnant Tide,” Shrooms Circle‘s second album offers atmosphere and craft not geared toward hooking the audience with catchy songwriting so much as immersing them in the mood and murk in which the band seem to reside. If Coven happened for the first time today, they might sound like this.
I’m gonna tell you straight out: Don’t write this shit off because Goatriders is a goofy band name or because the cover art for their second album, Traveler, is #vanlife carrot gnomes listening to a tape player on a hillside (which is awesome, by the way). There’s more going on with the Linköping four-piece than the superficialities make it seem. “Unscathed” imagines what might have happened if Stubb and Hexvssel crossed paths on that same hill, and the album careens back and forth smoothly between longer and shorter pieces across 50 engrossing minutes; nature-worshiping, low-key dooming and subtly genre-melding all the while. Then they go garage on “The Garden,” the album seeming to get rawer in tone as it proceeds toward “Witches Walk” and the a capella finish in “Coven,” which even that they can’t resist blowing out at the end. With the hypnotic tom work and repeat riffing of the instrumental “Elephant Bird” at its center and the shouted culminations of “Goat Head Nebula” and “Unscathed,” the urgent ritualizing of “Snakemother” and the deceptive poise at the outset with “Atomic Sunlight,” Traveler finds truth in its off-kilter presentation. You don’t get Ozium, Majestic Mountain and Evil Noise on board by accident. Familiar as it is and drawing from multiple sides, I’m hard-pressed to think of someone doing exactly what Goatriders do, and that should be taken as a compliment.
At the tender age of 80, bizarrist legend Arthur Brown — the god of hellfire, as the cover art immediately reminds — presents Long Long Road to a new generation of listeners. His first album under his own name in a decade — The Crazy World of Arthur Brown released Gypsy Voodoo (can you still say that?) in 2019 — and written and performed in collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Rik Patten, songs like “Going Down” revisit classic pageantry in organ and horns and the righteous lyrical proclamations of the man himself, while “I Like Games” toys with blues vibes in slide acoustic, kick drum thud and harmonica sleazenanigans, while the organ-and-electric “The Blues and Messing Round” studs with class and “Long Long Road” reminds that “The future’s open/The past is due/In this moment/Where everything that comes is new,” a hopeful message before “Once I Had Illusions (Part 2)” picks up where its earlier companion-piece left off in a manner that’s both lush and contemplative, more than a showpiece for Brown‘s storytelling and still somehow that. His legacy will forever be tied to The Crazy World of Arthur Brown‘s late-1960s freakery, but Long Long Road is the work of an undimmed creative spirit and still bolder than 90 percent of rock bands will ever dare to be.
Ultimately, whether one ends up calling Green Sky Accident‘s Daytime TV progressive psychedelia, heavier post-rock or some other carved-out microgenre, the reality of the 10-song/50-minute Apollon Records release is intricate enough to justify the designation. Richly melodic and unafraid to shimmer brightly, cuts like “Point of No Return” and the later dancer “Finding Failure” are sweet in mood and free largely of the pretense of indie rock, though “Insert Coin” and the penultimate piano interlude “Lid” are certainly well dug-in, but “Sensible Scenes,” opener “Faded Memories,” closer “While We Lasted” and the ending of “Screams at Night” aren’t lacking either for movement or tonal presence, and that results in an impression more about range underscored by songwriting and melody than any kind of tonal or stylistic showcase. The Bergen, Norway, four-piece are, in other words, on their own trip. And as much float as they bring forth, “In Vain” reimagines heavy metal as a brightly expressive terrestrial entity, a thing to be made and remade according to the band’s own purpose for it, and the title-track similarly balances intensity with a soothing affect. I guess this is what alt rock sounds like in 2022. Could be far worse, and indeed, it presents an ‘other’ vision from the bulk of what surrounds it even in an underground milieu. On a personal level, I can’t decide if I like it, and I kind of like that about it.
Pure Land Stars, Trembling Under the Spectral Bodies
With members of Cali psych-of-all explorers White Manna at their core, Pure Land Stars begin a series called ‘Altered States’ that’s a collaboration between Centripetal Force and Cardinal Fuzz Records, and if you’re thinking that that’s going to mean it’s way far out there, you’re probably not thinking far enough. Kosmiche drones and ambient foreboding in “Flotsam” and “3rd Grace” make the acoustic strum of “Mountains are Mountains” seem like a terrestrial touch-down, while “Chime the Kettle” portrays a semi-industrial nature-worship jazz, and “Jetsam” unfolds like a sunrise but if the sun suddenly came up one day and was blue. “Lavendar Crowd” (sic) turns the experimentalism percussive, but it’s that experimentalism at the project’s core, whether that’s manifest in the nigh-on-cinematic “Dr. Hillarious” (sic) or the engulf-you-now eight-minute closer “Eyes Like a Green Ceiling,” which is about as far from the keyboardy kratrock of “Flotsam” as the guitar effects and improvised sounding soloing of “Jetsam” a few tracks earlier. Cohesive? Sure. But in its own dimension. I don’t know if Pure Land Stars is a ‘band’ or a one-off, but they give ‘Altered States’ a rousing start that more than lives up to the name. Take a breath first. Maybe a drink of water. Then dive in.
Posted in Questionnaire on April 20th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Ricardo Jimenez Gómez of Pylar and Orthodox
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
Metal as a style has given me countless moments of satisfaction and happiness since it crossed my life almost 30 years ago. In each of my projects as a musician, my goal is to give back to the style some of that fun. To do this, I try to expand its language and expand its limits, with the aim of taking metal to unexplored regions, what I call speculative metal.
Describe your first musical memory.
I have two early memories, though I don’t know which came first: seeing my father sit in the dark at the living room watching a Pink Floyd show, or hearing my father humming Beatles songs over the radio while he was shaving.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Working with Billy Anderson and having him appreciate and enjoy my playing and compositions.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
I’ve never had to put anything on the line at that level as a musician. I have always acted with personal enjoyment as the main objective.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Progression is a western concept that refers to linear time and that there is always a place to reach. I prefer to see the matter in such a way that artistic manifestations are portals or thresholds and that if you always open or pass through the same ones, the enjoyment decreases.
Walking through a familiar place where you feel good is nice, but for me nothing beats the feeling of stepping into the unknown: following the distant sounds of the white whale’s hunt described by Melville, imagining what those insane sounds described by Lovecraft sound like, trying to perceive the electromagnetic crackles described by Reza Negarestani in the Cyclonopedia, trying to mix the sound of Manowar with Black Flag…
How do you define success?
Penetrate the dark dreamlike complexities of time to search for the abyssal sediments of the meaning matter.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
Jaws, the movie, when I was a boy. Since then I have thalassophobia.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
Music created only with synthesizers.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Opening cracks in our minds.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Posted in Reviews on December 5th, 2018 by JJ Koczan
Good morning from the kitchen table. It’s a couple minutes before 4AM as I get this post started. I’ve got my coffee, my iced tea in the same cup I’ve been using for the last three days, and I’m ready to roll through the next 10 records in this massive, frankly silly, Quarterly Review. Yesterday went well enough and I’m three days into the total 10 and I don’t feel like my head is going to explode, so I’ll just say so far so good.
As ever, there’s a lot to get through, so I won’t delay. I hope you find something here you dig. I certainly have.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
Sandrider, Armada
Armada is the third full-length from Seattle noiseblasters Sandrider, and at this point I’m starting to wonder what it’s going to take for this band to get their due. Produced by Matt Bayles and released through Good to Die Records, the album is an absolute monster front to back. Scathing. Beastly. And yet the songs have character. It’s the trio’s first outing since 2015’s split with Kinski (review here) and follows 2013’s Godhead (review here) and 2011’s self-titled debut (review here) in melding the band’s West Coast noise superiority with a sense of melody and depth as the trio of guitarist/vocalist Jon Weisnewski, bassist/vocalist Jesse Roberts, and omegadrummer Nat Damm course and wind their way through intense but varied material. “Banger” has been tapped for its grunge influence. Eh. Maybe in the riff, but who cares when there’s so much more going on with it? “Brambles” is out and out brutal but still has a hook, and cuts like “Industry” and the closing “Dogwater” remind of just how skilled Sandrider are at making that brutality fun. If the record was six minutes long and just had “Hollowed” on it, you’d still call it a win.
Goodness gracious. Cavernous echo accompanies the roars of guitarist Scott Prater that are offset by the more subdued melodies of drummer Amber Burns, but even in the most spacious reaches of 11-minute second cut “Blind Faith,” Witchkiss are fucking massive-sounding. Their debut album, The Austere Curtains of Our Eyes, presents an especially crushing take on ritualistic volume, sounding its catharsis in a song like “Spirits of the Dirt” and sounding natural as it trades between a rolling assault and the atmospheres of its quieter moments. With the departure since the recording of bassist Anthony DiBlasi, the New York-based outfit will invariably shift in dynamic somewhat coming out of this record, but with such an obvious clarity of mission, I honestly doubt their core approach will change all that much. A band doesn’t make a record like this without direct intention. They may evolve, and one hopes they do just because one always hopes for that, but this isn’t a band feeling their way through their first record. This is a band who know exactly the kind of ferocity they want to conjure, and who conjure it without regret.
Argentinian instrumentalist trio Satta Caveira make a point of saying they recorded MMI, their second or third album depending on what you count, live in their home studio without edits or overdubs, click tracks or anything else. Clearly the intention then is to capture the raw spirit of the material as it’s happening. The eight songs that make up the unmanageable 62-minute listen of MMI — to be fair, 14 of those minutes are opener “Kundalini” and 23 are the sludge-into-jam-into-sludge riffer “T.H.C.” — are accordingly raw, but that in itself becomes a component of their aesthetic. Whether it’s the volume swell that seems to consume “Don Santos” in its second half, the funk of closer “Afrovoid” or the drift in “Kalifornia,” Satta Caveira manage to hone a sense of range amid all the naturalism, and with the gritty and more aggressive riffing of the title-track and the rush of the penultimate “Router,” their sound might actually work with a more elaborate production, but they’ve got a thing, it works well, and I’m not inclined to argue.
Vocalized only by spoken samples of astronauts, the thrice-exclamatory Lizard! Lizard! Lizard! is the debut EP from Perth, Australia, three-piece Apollo80, who are given mostly to exploring an outpouring of heavy molten vibes but still able to hone a bit of cacophony following the “godspeed, John Glenn” sample in second cut “FFH.” There are four songs on the 26-minute offering, and its spaciousness is brought to earth somewhat by the dirt in which the guitar and bass tones are caked, but it’s more the red dust of Mars than anything one might find kicking around a Terran desert. Unsurprisingly, the high point of the outing is the 10:46 title-track, where guitarist Luke, bassist Brano and drummer Shane push farthest into the cosmos — though that’s debatable with the interstellar drone of closer “Good Night” — but even in the impact of “Apollo” at the outset, there’s a feeling of low-oxygen in the atmosphere, and if you get lightheaded, that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be.
The prevailing influence throughout the untitled debut EP from Minnesota’s The Great Unwilling is Queens of the Stone Age, but listening to the layer of wah intertwine with the solo on “Sanguine,” there’s more to their approach than just that, however dreamy the vocal melodies from guitarist Jesse Hoheisel might be. Hoheisel, bassist Joe Ulvi and Mark Messina present a clean four tracks and 20 minutes on their first outing, and for having been together for about 18 months, their songwriting seems to have a firm grasp on what they want to do. “If 3 was 7” rolls along at a heavy clip into an effectively drifting midsection and second half jam before returning to the initial riff, while “Current” leads off with a particularly Hommeian construction, and soon gives way to the flowing pace and apparent lyrical references of the aforementioned “Sanguine.” They finish with the dirtier tonality of “Apostasy” and cap with no more pretense than they started, bringing the short release to a close with a chorus that seems to finish with more to say. No doubt they’ll get there.
A prominent current of organ alongside the guitars gives Grusom‘s aptly-titled second album on Kozmik Artifactz, II, a willfully classic feel, and even the lyrics of “Peace of Mind” play into that with the opening lines, “I always said I was born too late/This future is not for me,” but the presentation from the Svendborg six-piece isn’t actually all that retro-fied. Rather, the two guitars and organ work in tandem to showcase a modern take on those classic ideas, as the back and forth conversation between them in the extended jam of “Skeletons” demonstrates, and with a steady rhythmic foundation and soulful vocals overtop, Grusom‘s craft doesn’t need the superficial trappings of a ’70s influence to convey those roots in their sound. Songs like “Dead End Valley” and “Embers” have a bloozy swing as they head toward the melancholy closer “Cursed from Birth,” but even there, the proceedings are light on pretense and the atmosphere is more concerned with a natural vibe rather than pretending it’s half a century ago.
Having originated as Träd Gräs och Stenar, the group now known as Träden is the product of a psychedelic legacy spanning generations. Founder Jakob Sjöholm has joined forces with Hanna Östergren of Hills, Reine Fiske of Dungen and Sigge Krantz of Archimedes Badkar to create a kind of supergroup of serenity, and their self-titled is blissful enough not only to life up to Träd Gräs och Stenar‘s cult status, but to capture one of its own. It’s gorgeous. Presumably the painting used on the cover is the cabin where it was recorded, and its eight tracks — sometimes mellow, sometimes more weighted, always hypnotic — are a naturalist blueprint that only make the world a better place. That sounds ridiculous, I know. But the truth is that for all the terrible, horrifying shit humanity does on a daily basis, to know that there are people on the planet making music like this with such a genuine spirit behind it is enough to instill a bit of hope for the species. This is what it’s all about. I couldn’t even make it through the Bandcamp stream without buying the CD. That never happens.
Last year, Spanish experimentalists Orthodox released Supreme and turned their free-jazz meets low-doom into a 36-minute fracas of happening-right-now creativity. Krèas, a lone, 27-minute track with the core duo of bassist Marco Serrato and drummer Borja Díaz joined by saxophonist Achilleas Polychronidis, was recorded in the same session but somehow seems even more freaked-out. I mean, it’s gone. Gone to a degree that even the hepcats who claim to appreciate free-jazz on anything more than a theoretical level (that is, those who actually listen to it) will have their hair blown back. The rest of the universe? Well, they’ll probably continue on, blissfully unaware that Orthodox are out there smashing comets together like they are, but wow. Challenging the listener is one thing. Krèas is the stuff of dissertations. One only hopes Orthodox aren’t holding their breath waiting for humanity to catch up to what they’re doing, because, yeah, it’s gonna be a while.
Danish bruisers Disrule run a brash gamut with their second album, Sleep in Your Honour (on Seeing Red). Leading off with the earworm hook of the title-track (premiered here), the album puts a charge into C.O.C.-style riffing and classic heavy rock, but shades of Clutch-y funk in “Going Wrong” and a lumbering bottom end in “Occult Razor” assure there’s no single angle from which they strike. “(Gotta Get Me Some) Control” elicits a blues-via-Sabbath vibe, but the drums seem to make sure Disrule are never really at rest, and so there’s a strong sense of momentum throughout the eight-song/29-minute EP, perhaps best emphasized by two-minute second cut “Death on My Mind,” which seems to throw elbows as it sprints past, though even shouted-chorus closer “Enter the Void” has an infectious energy about it. If you think something can’t be heavy and move, Disrule have a shove with your name on it.
First clue that all is not what it seems? The artwork. Definitely not a picture of cake on the cover of Ozymandias‘ debut album, Cake!, and accordingly, things don’t take long before they get too weird. “Jelly Beans” hits on harshest Nirvana — before it goes into blastbeats. “Mason Jar” scathes out organ-laced doom and vicious screaming, before “Hangman” gets all danceable like “All Pigs Must Die” earlier in the record. The wacky quotient is high, and the keyboards do a lot to add to that, but one can’t really call “Doom I – The Daisies” or the later “Doom II – The Lilies” anything but progressive in the Devin Townsend-shenanigans-metal sense of the word, and as wild as some stretches of Cake! are, the trio from Linz, Austria, are never out of control, and they never give a sense that what they’re doing is an accident. They’re just working on their own stylistic level, and to a degree that’s almost scary considering it’s their first record. I won’t claim to know where they might be headed, but it seems likely they have a plan.
Posted in Whathaveyou on October 26th, 2015 by JJ Koczan
Change has been one of very few constants in the career thus far of Spanish experimental doomers Orthodox. After releasing a 7″ this summer for the track “Crown for a Mole” that also marked their debut as a two-piece while coinciding with a handful of tour dates alongside High on Fire, the Sevilla outfit have made their new long-player available to preorder through Alone Records. It will be their first full-length release since Baal (review here) came out in 2011, the band having offered up a few demos and a B-sides collection in addition to the single in the interim.
When it comes to Orthodox, one never really knows what to expect, so I won’t speculate as to whether or not “Crown for a Mole” speaks to the entirety of Axis, which will be the title of their fifth record, but the album is available to preorder now, so we’ll all find out sooner or later anyway. Info came down the PR wire thusly:
ORTHODOX. New album ‘Axis’ – PRE-ORDER now!
Recently reformed as duo, with Marco Serrato (bass, vocals) and Borja Díaz (Drums), ORTHODOX are coming back with a new studio album.
The duo emerges now performing with different guests musicians on studio sessions, developing a new form of contemporary heavy metal meets extreme jazz meets doom, like no one. New tracks show more ‘straight forward’ concept on composing process. But this is just NOW, as ORTHODOX never compromises with certain sound or ‘song concept’ for so long.
So ‘Axis’ came from such different studio sessions, with a more straight and focus punch of avant-garde approach mixed through heavy metal as only Orthodox are re-doing in every new album.
‘Crown for a Mole’ is the first single, taken from the new album.
BIO: Orthodox is a duo from Seville, Spain playing experimental doom metal inspired by religious folklore and even jazz. A music based on hypnotic repetitions of quasi-mystical intensity and slow, torpid rhythms befitting people from a city of crushing summer heat. Musical influences from Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd or Melvins mixed with their peculiar perception of Southern Spain folklore.
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 30th, 2015 by JJ Koczan
Always fascinating, always experimental doomers Orthodox are now a duo and will release a new single, Crown for a Mole, in June via Alone Records as a herald for their upcoming full-length, Axis, which is due out later this year. Also in June, Orthodox will take the stage alongsideHigh on Fire for three shows on the latter’s upcoming European run, which, if you’re going to put out a new 7″ is probably a good way to make sure copies of the thing go.
The PR wire tells the tale and has the preorder link for the single, of which you can also hear the titular cut below:
ORTHODOX. New album & New 7″ available on pre-order.
Recently reformed as duo, with Marco Serrato (bass, vocals) and Borja Díaz (Drums), ORTHODOX are coming back.
The duo now emerges performing with different guests musicians on studio sessions, developing a new form of contemporary heavy metal meets extreme jazz meets doom, like no one. New tracks show more ‘straight forward’ concept on composing process. But this is just NOW, as ORTHODOX never compromises with certain sound or ‘song concept’ for so long. ‘Crown for a Mole’ is the first single, taken from the new album called ‘Axis’. Band is currently busy on recording sessions. A tentative release date for ‘Axis’ is planned for late September this year.
There´s a pre-order already available for the ‘Crown for a Mole’ 2-track 7″ (one time pressing of 300 units, 200 black and 100 colour vinyl), including bundle offers for an excellent price of 14,99 eur. Very limited bundle offer up to 50 pieces. Check out our mail order store for more info and direct purchase. This single will be officially released on June 29th, and available on the upcoming spanish tour with High on Fire. Visit Alone Records site for further info.
Alone Records is now celebrating 15 years of stoner, rock, doom… and whatever you want to call it which give us full pleasure now and then. Join us!
Orthodox Tour Dates: 25/6 – Málaga 26/6 – Alicante 27/6 – Jaén (TBC) 28/6 – Bilbao w/ High on Fire 29/6 – Madrid w/ High on Fire 30/6 – BCN w/ High on Fire
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 30th, 2014 by JJ Koczan
Spanish avant doom duo Orthodox are preparing to start 2015 by hitting the road in their native country and Portugal with UK/Netherlands-based Dead Neanderthals, who’ve already followed up their 2014 single-song long-player, Prime, with an EP charmingly titled Random Acts of Nuclear Devastation. The two will kick off the five-date run on Jan. 27 and finish in Sevilla right before Feb. hits.
The PR wire affirms the stint and offers background:
ORTHODOX / DEAD NEANDERTHALS – Spain/Portugal Tour 2015
Orthodox was born as a trio in Seville (Spain) in 2004. Their music, initially framed in the so called “doom metal”, incorporates elements of drone, jazz or stoner rock. They’ve played at international festivals such as Hellfest, Roadburn, Supersonic or Primavera Sound and they have collaborated with artists such as the musician and writer Julian Cope or flamenco artists like Israel Galván, Terremoto or Inés Bacán.
Orthodox accumulate an extensive discography with four albums and other ep’s, cassettes, etc… Their last edition, “Conoce los caminos”, is a compilation of rare material from 2005 to 2010. They’re currently working as a duo open to all kinds of collaborations and experiments following the eclectic and unpredictable nature that has always been part of the band’s idiosyncrasy.
Dead Neanderthals is a Dutch/UK based double sax & drums trio incorporating elements from jazz, grindcore, drone and noise culminating in a pummeling sound that has been described as Painkiller meets Brötzmann.
Dead Neanderthals just released their new album PRIME, heralded as their “ultimate statement” and “a wake-up call to anyone who thought free jazz was a dying art”. PRIME is a single, unrelenting 40-minute piece, with no “solos” or soothing interludes. Dead Neanderthals will perform the album in its entirety.
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 13th, 2012 by JJ Koczan
Card-carrying lifers in doom’s avant garde, Spanish outfit Orthodox will issue Conoce los Caminos on Jan. 28 through Alone Records. Orthodox already re-released their 2005 demo earlier this year on tape, but the pressing was limited to 152 copies and presumably they’ll make more than that of Conoce los Caminos. Hopefully, anyhow. Either way, the new collection is up for pre-order now, as the PR wire informs:
Orthodox is set to launch their new B-sides and rarities compilation “Conoce los Caminos: 2005-2010? [translation: Know the Paths] due on January 28th 2013.
For limited time and onlythrough our website you can PRE-ORDERthis 2CD + official release T-shirt. This compilation shows the band’s amazing ability to build bridges and overcome genre barriers from metal to post rock to avant garde with firm hand towards an “uber-doom” with the unmistakable stamp of Orthodox.
Songs composed over five years, from their beginnings to 2010, which include: four previously unreleased tracks, demos from Gran Poder and Sentencia, Venom and Black Sabbath covers released at the time by Southern Lord in the U.S. and two songs taken from their 7 ” released by Doomentia.
Borja, the drummer, states about this work “it´s a sample of topics and ideas that we have done in the past and keep haunting us for the future … all the stories are closed in themselves; with this 2CD we seek to give a little more meaning to ours and see if we can expand Orthodox´s circle of sound …”.
