Posted in Whathaveyou on April 16th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Is it Høstsabbat announcement season already? Awesome. The rightly-lauded Oslo festival takes place every October, and I’ve been lucky enough to go a handful or so of times. This year, like last, they’ve nestled themselves into the weekend of Oct. 25, which is my daughter’s birthday, so that pretty much settles the issue for me.
That said, it’s still fun to keep up with who will be able to make the trip to Norway this Fall, and Høstsabbat is opening strong. The yet-unannouced YOB European tour that I’m hoping against hope coincides with a new album release either this summer or September (mind you, I know nothing) will make a stop through, and Swedish psych-noise riff masters Domkraft, as well as the nautically-themed death-doom extremists Ahab and, in keeping with the festival’s continued affinity, some hardcore-tinged whathaveyou from Denmark’s New Money.
That’s the first four and you get a decent sense of variety, which will of course increase as more acts are added. It’s been a few years since I’ve seen YOB, and it’s been seven years since they put out a record, so with the increase in fest activity for the Fall, it makes me think maybe they’re doing it up for an occasion. They don’t need the excuse, and if they did, it’s 25 years since the demo — they have a tape of it out for that — but still, playing a bunch of Eurofests seems like a long way to go for a tape reissue of your demo. Fingers crossed.
Hopefully by the time Høstsabbat takes place, we’ll know more about that, and obviously the rest of the lineup. You keep an eye and I’ll do the same. Here’s how it starts:
Sabbathians! ⛪️🔥
Easter is upon us, and we have a special easter egg to share with you all.
We are beyond excited to share the first four bands for Høstsabbat 2025!
Please welcome the doom-legends from Eugene, Oregon, the magic powertrio that is Yob!
Also, the hard hitting, whale-hunting trailblazers from the coral tombs, AHAB comes to rattle the Church!
Danish dynamite from the underground Copenhagen scene, mixing Hardcore and Noise Rock, 𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐘!
And lastly, the hashtronauts from outer space, the sonic jackhammer that is Domkraft!
Posted in Reviews on April 11th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
A friendly reminder that the end of the week is not, in fact, the end of the Quarterly Review, which will continue through Monday and Tuesday. That brings the number of releases covered to 70 total, which feels like plenty, and should hopefully carry us through a busy Spring release season. I’m thinking June for the next QR now but don’t be surprised if that turns into July as we get closer. All I know is I wanna do it before it’s two full weeks again.
As always, I hope you’ve found something that speaks to you in all this 10-per-day nonsense. If not, first, wow, really? Second, it ain’t over yet. Maybe today’s your day. One way to know.
Quarterly Review #41-50:
Dead Meadow, Voyager to Voyager
You may be mellow-vibes, but unless you’re “Not the Season,” Dead Meadow have one up on you forever. While Voyager to Voyager, which is the L.A. band’s eighth or ninth LP depending on what you count, comes with the tragic real-world context of bassist Steve Kille‘s 2024 passing, he does feature on the long-running trio’s first offering through Heavy Psych Sounds, and whether it’s “The Space Between” or the shuffle-stepping “The Unhounded Now” or the pastoral “A Question of Will” and the jangly strum of “Small Acts of Kindness” later on, guitarist/vocalist Jason Simon, Kille and drummer Mark Laughlin celebrate the ultra-languid take on heavy, psychedelic and shoegazing rock that’s made Dead Meadow a household name for weirdos. Not that they’re not prone to a certain wistfulness, but Voyager to Voyager is vibrant rather than mournful, and the title-track is an album flow unto itself in just eight minutes. If you can slow your manic-ass brain long enough to sit and hear it front-to-back, you’re in for a treat.
There is a sense of stepping out as Irish troubadour Seán Mulrooney makes his full-length solo debut with This is My Prayer on Ómós Records. Mulrooney is best known for residing at the core of Tau and the Drones of Praise, and for sure, pieces of This is My Prayer are coming from a similar place, but where there was psychedelic meander for the band, under his own moniker, Mulrooney brings a clarity of tone and presence to lyrics ranging from spiritual seeking to what seems to have been an unceremonious breakup. With character and emotion in his voice and range in his craft, Mulrooney sees a better world on “Ag Múscliaghacht” and posits a new masculinity — totally needed; trainwreck gender — in “Walking With the Wind,” meets indie simplicity with lap steel in “Jaguar Dreams” and, in closer “The Pufferfish,” pens a fun McCartney-style bouncer about tripping sea life. These are slivers of the adventures undertaken in singer-songwriter style as Mulrooney hones this solo identity. Very curious to see where the adventure might take him.
Issued in 2024, Sun Dog is the third MaidaVale long-player, and with it, the Swedish heavy psychedelic rockers showcase six years’ worth of growth from their second album. Melancholic of mood in “Fools” and “Control” and the folkish “Alla Dagar” and “Vultures,” Sun Dog starts uptempo with the Afrobeat-influenced “Faces,” drifts, shreds, then drifts again in “Give Me Your Attention,” dares toward pop in “Daybreak” and fosters a sense of the ironic in “Wide Smile is Fine” and “Pretty Places,” the latter of which, with a keyboardier arrangement, could’ve been the kind of New Wave hit that would still be in your head 40 years later. The nine-songer (10 if you get “Perplexity,” which was previously only on the vinyl) doesn’t dwell in any single space for too long — only “Wide Smile is Fine” and “Vultures” are over four minutes, though others are close — and that lets them balance the downer aspects with forward momentum. MaidaVale are no strangers to that kind of movement, of course, but Sun Dog‘s mature realization of their sound feels so much more vast in range.
Here come Causa Sui with another live album. And I’m not saying the only reason the thankfully-prolific Danish psychedelic treasures, heavyjazz innovators and El Paraiso label honchos are only releasing a complement to 2023’s Loppen 2021 (review here) to rub in the fact that I’ve never been lucky enough to catch them on a stage — any stage — but I am starting to take it personally. Call me sensitive. In any case, despite feeling existentially mocked by their chemistry and the fluidity of “Sorcerer’s Disciple” or the 22-minute “Visions of a New Horizon,” the hour-long set is glorious as one would expect, and though Loppen 2024 is a blip on the way to Causa Sui‘s forthcoming studio album, In Flux, especially when set alongside their previous outing from the same Christiania-based venue, it highlights the variable persona of the band and the reach of their material. Someday I’ll see this goddamn band.
Underlying the grit and stoner drawl of “El Rey del Mundo de los Muertos” is the lurching progression of Black Sabbath‘s “Sweet Leaf,” and that reinterprative ethic comes to the strutting Pentagrammery of “La Verdad es Tu Ataud” as well, but in the tonal density and the way their groove snails its way into your ear canal, the vibe Fulanno bring to Nosotros Somos el Fin del Mundo is in line with stoner doom traditionalism, and the revelry is palbale in the slow nod of the title-track or the horror samples sprinkled throughout or the earlier Electric Wizard-style languidity of “El Nacimiento de la Muerte.” They save an acoustic stretch in reserve to wrap “Desde las Tinieblas,” but if you think that’s going to clean your soul by that point then you haven’t been paying attention. Unrepentantly dark, stoned and laced with devil-, death-and riff-worship, Nosotros Somos el Fin del Mundo further distinguishes Fulanno in an always crowded Argentinian underground, and dooms like a bastard besides.
Because the age we live in permits such a thing and it tells you something about the music, I’m going to cut and paste the credits for Israeli duo Ze Stoner‘s debut EP/demo, Desert Buddhist. Dor Sarussi is credited with “bass guitar, spaceships, vocals,” while Alexander Krivinski handles “didgeridoo, spaceships, drums, and percussion.” How tripped out does a band need to be to have two members credited with “spaceships,” you ask? Quite tripped out indeed. Across the 12:09 “Part I – The Awakness” (sic) and the 11:41 “Part II – The Trip,” and the much-shorter 1:41 finale “Part III – The Enlightenment,” Ze Stoner take the meditative doom of Om or an outfit like Zaum and extrapolate from it a drone-based approach that retains a meditative character. It is extreme in its capacity to induce a trance, and as Desert Buddhist unfolds, it plays as longer movements tied together as a single work. There is massive potential here. One hopes Sarussi, Krivinski, their spaceships and didgeridoo are just beginning their adventures in the cosmos.
Oslo-based newcomers Arv aren’t shy about what their sound is trying to do. Their debut album, Curse & Courage, arrives via the wheelhouse of Vinter Records and brings together noise-laced and at-times-caustic hardcore with the atmospherics, echoing tremolo and churning intensity of post-metal. They lean to one side or the other throughout, and “Wrath” seems to get a bit of everything, but it’s a harder line to draw than one might think because hardcore as a style is all urgency and post-metal very often brings a more patient take. Being able to find a place in songwriting between the two, well, Arv aren’t the first to do it, but they are impressively cohesive for Curse & Courage being their first record, and the likes of “Victim,” the overwhelming rush of “Forsaken” earlier on and the more-ambient-but-still-vocally-harsh closing title-track set up multiple avenues for future evolution of the ideas they present here. Too aggressive to be universal in its appeal, but makes undeniable use of its scathe.
I’m not sure what’s going on in “Erotik Fvel P.I.M.P.,” but there’s chicanery a-plenty throughout Fvzz Popvli‘s fourth full-length, Melting Pop, which is released in renewed cooperation with Heavy Psych Sounds. Hooks, fuzz, and the notion that anything else would be superfluous pervade the Indiana Jones-referencing “Temple of Doom” and “Telephone” at the outset, the latter with some choice backing vocals, and they kick the fuzz into overdrive on “Salty Biscvits” with room besides for a jangly verse. Running an ultra-manageable 30 minutes, the album breaks in half with four songs on each side. “Kommando” leads off the second half with dirtier low end tone ahead of the slower-rolling “Ovija,” which shouts and howls and is all kinds of righteously unruly, where “Cop Sacher” punks at the start and has both gang vocals and a saxophone, which I can say with confidence nothing else among the 70 records in this Quarterly Review even tried let alone pulled off, and they close with due swagger and surprising class in “The Knight.” Part of Fvzz Popvli‘s persona to this point has been based in rawness, so it’s interesting to hear them fleshing out more complex arrangments, but at heart they remain very much stoner rock for the glory of stoner rock.
The tone worship is there, the working-class-dude stoner swing is there, and the humor that might result in a song like “Hypertension” — for which no less than Bob Balch of Fu Manchu sits in — so when I compare Rust Bucket to Maryland’s lost sons Earthride, please know that I’m not talking out of my ass. The Minnesota-based double-guitar five-piece revel in low end buzz-tone, and with no-pretense groove, throaty vocals and big personality, that spirit is there. Doesn’t account for the boogie of “Keep Us Down,” but everybody’s gotta throw down now and then. They shift into a sludgier mood by the time they get around to “The Darkness” and “Watch Your Back,” but the idea behind this first Rust Bucket feels much more like a bunch of guys getting together to hammer out some cool songs, maybe play some shows, do a record and see how it goes. On paper, that makes Rust Bucket an unassuming start, but its anti-bullshit stance, steady roll and addled swing make it a gem of the oldschool variety. Much to their credit, they call the style, “fuzzy caveman dad rock.” They forgot ‘bearded,’ but otherwise that about sums it up. Maybe the beard is implied?
It is appropriate that Mountain Dust named their third LP after themselves, since it finds them transcending their influences and honing a cross-genre approach that’s never sounded more their own than it does in these nine songs. From the densely-weighted misdirect of “Reap” with its Earth-sounding drone riff through the boogieing en route to the mellower and more open soul-showcase “Waiting for Days to End” — backing vocals included, see also “It’s Already Done” on side B — and the organ in “Vengeance,” the dynamic between the Graveyard-style ballad “This is It” and the keyboard/synth-fueled instrumental outro “All Eyes But Two,” Mountain Dust gracefullly subverts retroist expectations with individualized songwriting, performance and production, and this material solidifies the Montreal four-piece among the more flexible acts doing anything in the sphere of 1970s-style heavy rock. That’s still there, understand, but like the genre itself, Mountain Dust have very clearly grown outward from their foundations.
Welcome to the Spring 2025 Quarterly Review. If you’re unfamiliar with the format or how this goes, the quick version is each day brings 10 new releases — albums, EPs, even a single every now and again — that are reviewed at at the end of it everybody has a ton of new music to listen to and I’m a little closer to being caught up to what’s coming out after spending about a season falling behind on coverage. Everybody wins, mostly.
It’s a seven-day QR. As always, some of what will be covered is older and some is new. There are a couple 2024 releases. The 10,000 Years record, for example, I should’ve reviewed five times over by now, but life happens. There’s also stuff that isn’t released yet, so it all averages out to some approximation of relevance. Hopefully.
In any case, we proceed. Thanks if you keep up this week and into next.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
Pagan Altar, Never Quite Dead
Classic metal par excellence pervades the first Pagan Altar album since 2017 and the first to feature vocalist Brendan Radigan (Magic Circle) in place of founding singer Terry Jones, who passed away in 2015 and whose son, guitarist Alan Jones, is the sole remaining founding member of the band, which started in 1978. Never Quite Dead collects eight varied tracks, some further evidence for the line of NWOBHM extending out of the dual-guitar pioneering of Thin Lizzy, plenty of overarching melancholy, and it honors the idea of the band having a classic sound without sacrificing modern impact in the recording. The subdued “Liston Church,” the later doomly sprawl of “The Dead’s Last March” and the willful grandiosity of the nine-minute finale “Kismet” assure that Never Quite Dead indeed resonates vibrant with a heart made of denim.
Somewhere between proto-punk and 1990s alt-rock come Designer with the three-song demo Weekend at Brian’s. Based in Asheville, the band have an edge of danger to their tones, but the outward face is catchy and quirky, a little Blondie but with deceptively heavy riffing in “Magic Memory” and extra-satisfyingly farty bass in “Midnight Waltz” as the band engage Blue Öyster Cult in a conversation of fears, the band wind up somewhere between heavy modern indie and retro-minded fare. “Ugly in the Streets” moves like a Ramones song and I’ve got no problem with that. However they go, the songs are pointedly straightforward, and they kind of need to be for the stripped-down style to work. Nothing’s over three minutes long, the songs are tight, and it’s got style without overloading on the pretense, which especially for a new outfit is an excellent place to start.
The hopeful keyboard of album intro “Orbital Decay” gradually devolves into noise, and from there, Swedish crash-and-bash specialists 10,000 Years show you what it’s all about — gutted-out heavy riffing, ace swing in “The Experiment” and a whole lot of head-down forward shove. The Västerås-based trio have yet to put out a record that wasn’t a step forward from the one before it, and this late-2024 third full-length feels duly realized in how it incorporates the psychedelic aspects of “Ablaze in the Now” with the physical intensity of “The Weight of a Feather” or closer “Down the Heavy Path.” But they’re more dynamic on the whole, as “Death Valley Ritual” dares a bit of spoken drama, and “High Noon in Sword City” reminds that there’s a good dose of noise rock underpinning what 10,000 Years do, and that cacophony still suits them even as they’ve expanded around that foundation over the last five years.
Amber Asylum are a San Francisco arthouse institution, and from its outset with the five-minute instrumental “Secrets,” the band’s 10th album, Ruby Red, counsels patience in mournful, often softspoken chamber doom. The use of space as the title-track unfolds with founding violinist/vocalist Kris Force‘s voice over minimalist bass, encompassing and sad as the song plays out with an emergent dirge of strings and percussion, where the subsequent “Demagogue” is more actively drummed, the band having already drawn the listener deeper into the record’s seven-song cycle. The cello of Jackie Perez-Gratz (also Grayceon, Brume) gives centerpiece “The Morrigan” extra character later on, and it’s there in “Azure” as well, though the context shifts with foreboding drones of various wavelengths behind the vocals. Ambience plus bite. “Weaver” rolls through its first half instrumentally, realigning around the strings and steady movement; its back half is reverently sung without lyrics. And when they get to closer “A Call on the Wind,” the sense of unease in the violin is met with banging-on-a-spring-style experimentalist noise, just to underscore the sense of things being wrong as far as realities go. It’s not a minor undertaking as regards atmospheric or emotional weight, but empathy resounds.
With Fu Manchu as a defining influence, Greek heavy rockers Weevil set forth with Easy Way, their 10-song/42-minute self-released debut album. They pay homage to Lemmy with the cleverly-titled “Rickenbästard” — you know I’m a sucker for charm — and diverge from the straight-ahead heavy thrust on the mellower, longer “The Old Man Lied” and “Insomnia,” but by and large, the five-piece are here to throw down riffy groove and have a good time, and they do just that. The title-track, “Wake the Dead” and “Headache” provide a charged beginning, and even by the time the crunch of “Gonna Fall” slides casually into the nodder hook of closer “Last Night a Zombie” (“…ate my brain” is the rest of the line), they’ve still got enough energy to make it feel like the party could easily continue. It just might. There’s perspective in this material that feels like it might take shape over time, and in my mind, Weevil get immediate credit for being upfront in their homage and wearing their own heavy fandom on their sleeves. You can hear their love for it.
Adventurous and forward-thinking post-metal pervades Swedish trio Kazea‘s debut album, and the sound is flexible enough in their craft to let “Whispering Hand” careen like neo-psych after the screams and lurch of “Trenches” provide one of the record’s most extreme moments, bolstered by guest vocals. Indeed, “Whispering Hand” is a rocker and something of an outlier for that, as Pale City Skin draws a downerist line between Crippled Black Phoenix and circa-’04 Neurosis, “Wailing Blood” finds a way to meld driving rhythm and atmospheric heft, and the seven-minute “Seamlessly Woven” caps with suitable depth of wash, following the lushness of the penultimate “The North Passage” in its howling, growl-topped chorus with another expression of the ethereal. I haven’t heard a ton of hype about I, Ancestral, but regardless, this is one of the best debut albums I’ve heard so far this year for sure. Post-metal needs bands willing to push its limits.
Hard not to think of the 14-minute weirdo-psych jam “Mycelium” as the highlight of Dyp Tid, but one shouldn’t discount the lead-you-in warmth and serenity of opener “Pendelen Svinger,” or the bit of dub in the drumming of “Clock of the Long Now,” and so on as Norway’s Electric Eye — which is a pretty straightforward name, considering the sound — vibe blissful for the duration. The drone “Den Første Lysstråle” is hypnotic, and though the vocals in “Mycelium” are a sample, the human presence periodically sprinkled throughout the album feels like it’s adding comfort amid what might be an anxious plunge into the cosmos. They finish with “Hvit Lotus,” which marries together various kinds of synth over a deceptively casual beat, capping light with vocals or synth-vocals in a bright chorus over chime sounds and drifting guitar. You made it to the island. You’re safe. Gentle fade out.
Multi-instrumentalist and producer Guglielmo Allegro is the sole denizen behind Void Sinker, and while I know full well we live in an age of technological wonders/horrors, that one person could conjure up such encompassing heavy sounds — the way 14-minute opener “Satellite” just swallows you whole — is impressive. Oxygen is the Salerno, Italy, DIY project’s fourth full-length in two years, and its intent to crush is plain from the outset. “Satellite” has its own summary progression of what the rest of the album does, and then “Oxygen” (9:45), “Collision” (15:23) and “Abyss” (13:32) play through increasingly noisy slab-riff distribution. This is done methodically, at mostly slow tempos, with tonal depth and an obvious awareness of where it’s coming from. Presumably that, and a lack of argument from anyone else when he wants to ride a groove for 15 minutes, is why Void Sinker is a solo outfit. One of distinctive bludgeon, it turns out. Like big riffs pushing the air out of your lungs? Here you go.
Draken drummer André Drage leads the group that shares his name from behind the kit, it would seem, but even if only one name gets to be in the moniker, make no mistake, the entire band is present and accounted for. Challenging each other in jazz-prog fashion, Wolves is the second album from the Group in as many months. It leads off with its longest track (immediate points) “Brainsoup,” and by the time they’re through with it, it is. We’re talking ace prog boogie, funky like El Perro might do it, but looser and more improv feeling in the solo of “Potent Elixirs,” giving a spontaneous impression even in the studio, ebbing and flowing in the runs of “Tigerboy” while “Wind in Their Sails” is both more King Crimson and more shuffling-Rhodes-jam, which is the kind of party you want to be at whether you know it or not. The penultimate “Fire” gets lit by the guitar, and they round out with “Nesodden,” a sweet comedown from some of Wolves‘ more frenetic movements. Like a supernova, but not uncontained. This is a band ready to drop jaws.
The Sept. 2024 third album from NYC-based vintage rockers The Mystery Lights skillfully weaves together garage rock and ’60s pop theatrics, giving the bounce and sway of the title-track an immediately nostalgic impression that the jangly “In the Streets” is probably about a ahead from in terms of influence, but the blend is the thing. Regardless of how developed the punk is or isn’t in a given track — I dig the shaker in “Trouble” and it manages a sense of ‘island’ without being racist, so bonus points for that — or how “Cerebral Crack” brings flute in with its extra-fuzzed guitar later on or “Memories” and “Automatic Response” feel more soul than rock in both intent and manifestation, The Mystery Lights benefit from pairing stylistic complexity with structural simplicity, and the 12 songs of Purgatory find a niche outside genre norms and time all the more for the fact that the band don’t seem concerned with anything so much as writing songs that sound like home the first time you hear them.
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 26th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
This post has been in the works for like a fricking week and a half, which has been plenty of time for Desertfest Oslo to put out the fourth of their four pre-holiday advent-Sunday announcements, completing the lineup for next May 9-10. The last two rounds are humdingers, with Lowrider, Slift, Dunbarrow, Årabrot, Gjenferd, Feral Nature, Akersborg, Wolfnaut and Villjuvet between them joining a bill that already includes Elder, Graveyard, Chat Pile, Elephant Tree, MessaTruckfighters, DVNE and more. For a two-dayer, it’s turned out to be pretty packed. Day splits are out probably like seven minutes after I post this, if I’m not already late on it.
Checking…
Not yet. Okay, I’d better post this as soon as I’m done typing then because I don’t want to already be late on something else. The following comes from two social media posts. I’ve been invited to this one. I’m going to do everything I can to be there. You should come too.
Here’s good reason why:
Desert Cruisers and Santa Clausers! 🌵🎅
Thank you so much for the support of our previous advent announcements.
It’s a trve holiday booster to see the shared excitement for Desertfest Oslo 2025 🪐✨💫
Today sees the third Sunday of advent, and we have four incredible acts for you.
Many of you have asked for them, and we can’t do anything but agree. Lowrider are making the short trip from Karlstad to Oslo to give us their soft lesson in flawless, melodic and dreamy stoner rock. This band have existed for what feels like forever. Maybe cause they have that rare ability to always seem current? As the stellar split release with their peers in Elephant Tree clearly showed. We’re stoked to have both bands coming to Oslo in May. Harmonies anyone?
Dunbarrow is coming. These local proto-legends have been a pivotal part of the Norwegian underground from their get-go, and they just keep on delivering. Tasty, riffy old school doom with a timeless sense for melody and aesthetics. Dunbarrow will do a VERY special show during Desertfest Oslo. We can’t wait to share more details around this at a later time. What we CAN share, however, is that you do. not. want to miss it.
On the other side of the musical spectrum, we are psyched to welcome Akersborg. As purveyors of anything cutting edge Akersborg fire on all guns, always, with their new skool, out of the box-leaning hardcore potpourri. They made their Desertfest debut in London last year, and we’re determined of their demolition of Oslo as well.
Last band out this Sunday is the blueprint template of what a new band with the right skill-set can accomplish in a very short period of time. Feral Nature, as well as Barren Womb, played our sister festival Høstsabbat in October, and holy motherfn’ shit. What happened? They deliver the kind of show impossible to ignore. The kind of show EVERYONE needs to see at some point. They basically seem like the future of rock, and we are stoked to show you what the fuzz is all about.
That’s it for now, folks, keep your eyes peeled next Sunday ☄️
Your merry Desertfest Oslo team 🎄
—
From all of us, to all of you! 🎅
It is with joyful excitement we can announce the last batch of artists for Desertfest Oslo 2025.
The full lineup for next year is all we could hope for and then some. What a weekend to look forward to! 🪐
Please welcome French psych sensation SLIFT to Oslo. What they have accomplished in their bare 8 years of existence is unparalleled. Every show as good or better than the previous. SLIFT is a fierce, burning flame of excellence, and we are dead proud to host them. 🇫🇷
Also, Årabrot is joining us.
This is a one-of-a-kind band, with a solid foot in every edgy subgenre there is.
With an Amish-erotic flavor to all their endeavors, they are a spellbinding spectacle to witness on stage. It’s delightful when a band knows how to put on a show.
We simply can’t wait to see what they’re bringing, alongside their upcoming album in May. 🎸
Wolfnaut
Sometimes, experience is palpable. Like on the latest albums III and Return Of The Asteroid, which sounds absolutely massive, and definitely have that zonked stoner feel in every wah, in every twang, and at every turn. It makes the fact that they record the albums live in studio even more impressive.
Do yourself a favor and check out My Orbit Is Mine and Raise The Dead to tap into some of that Elverum stoner sorcery!☄️
Gjenferd
Get lost in this proto-maze of amps and Hammond organs! It’s the classic 70’s psych dish, made extra spicy with a guitar virtuous, seared to perfection with haunting vocals, and beautifully tied together with harmonies. Another speck on the starry Norwegian musical sky is created, and it will grow brighter and brighter. 👻
VILLJUVET will be there, and he’ll conjure up a special show just for Desertfest. Ethereal, mystical and haunting, a sole guitar accompanied by a plethora of pedals will paint a dark and supernatural picture well worth beholding. 🛸
What a bangin’, absolutely slaughter of a lineup! 🔥🪐
Keep your eyes peeled through the Christmas days, as the daysplit is ready to go as well
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 10th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
This is the second of two-so-far updates that Desertfest Oslo has posted over the weekend for its 2025 edition. Last week brought Graveyard, Eagle Twin, Cult Member and Slor to the bill, and this past weekend, it was Pallbearer, Messa, Barren Womb and Grand Atomic. These are not minor considerations on a lineup that already included Elder, Oranssi Pazuzu, Elephant Tree, Truckfighters, DVNE and others, and if I have my understanding of the advent calendar right, there should be two more such announcements still to come. Whether the lineup is complete at that point or not, I have no idea, but the poster’s starting to look pretty packed, for whatever that’s worth.
The announcement this time around is pretty minimal — just the names — which is fair enough. I’ve written a fair amount of festival-announcement text in my time, and for sure have wondered on more than one occasion if anyone ever bothered to read any of it while presuming the negative. Sometimes I actually do read it, because you usually get a pretty tight encapsulation of what a band you don’t know might sound like, but I have to acknowledge that that habit is based on the writing, which isn’t going to be everybody’s experience. The names were linked to social media pages when the fest posted them, so it wasn’t like they were giving you nothing to go on, in any case. Leads were provided. It’s more than you get from me. I just ramble on.
Here’s this week looking forward to next week. See how this works? Weekly. It’s called “weekly.” Here we go:
Second Sunday of advent is here. 🎄
BOOM! 💥☄️
Pallbearer (US) MESSA (IT) Barren Womb (NO) Grand Atomic (NO)
Make sure to get your tickets – you don’t wanna miss Desertfest Oslo 2025!
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 3rd, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Well damn, I guess Desertfest Oslo is going big for year two. And no, I’m not just talking about the dirty distorted longform doom riffing and echoes of Slor‘s debut album, Journey to the Space Temple, released earlier this year. This third announcement not only puts Sweden’s Graveyard at the top of the bill alongside the previously-confirmed Elder and gives the noted Icelandic newcomers a showcase to grab ears and eyes, but brings dudely doom-blues crushers Eagle Twin and Norway’s own Cult Member to the proceedings as well. Four bands, each offering something different from the others. If you’d expect less from Desertfest Oslo because it’s just the sophomore edition, all I can say is that’s Desertfest.
Part of the team behind this one is also responsible for Høstsabbat, held each October in Oslo, and both Graveyard and Eagle Twin have featured there in the past, and I’m pretty sure Cult Member played in 2023 or somewhere thereabouts. This announcement begins a series of weekly reveals for Desertfest Oslo aligned to advent Sundays leading up to the Xmas holiday, so look out for three more to come. I don’t know whether or not that will be the full bill — the fest takes place across three venues, Rockefeller, John Dee and Revolver, so there’s plenty of room — or if there’s more to come in 2025, but I’m curious to find out and not just because I’m hoping to make the trip to be there for this one. As the fest notes below, “May can’t come soon enough.”
For your early-winter blues, daydreams of Spring (though actually I bet Norway’s still chilly in May):
Desertfest Oslo 2025 is gonna be total mayhem, and we welcome Swedish legends, and one of the best live bands there is, Graveyard, to town to sweep us into their lush heaven of brilliant, blues laden, proto rock extraordinaire.
Following them, we almost can’t believe we managed to put Eagle Twin on next years bill!
The heaviest and most influential two piece there is. Eagle Twin will leave you speechless and numb. Jaw-drop guaranteed.
Norwegian north pole hardcore can never go wrong.
The marvelous, ridiculous and mind bending chug-o-rama from Cult Member, will surely put the perfect tongue-in-cheek-grin on everyone’s face. You may need to pack an extra t-shirt for this concert.
May can’t come soon enough.
The last band of today is a band for tomorrow. Slor brings the Dorset-doom to Oslo, with their very own Icelandic twist to their downtuned, bottomless heaviness.
Slor might be a new name for many of you, but we know you’re gonna ramble about them after Desertfest.
Make sure to get your tickets – you don’t wanna miss Desertfest Oslo 2025!
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 11th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
After unveiling an initial lineup featuring Chat Pile, Oranssi Pazuzu, Hippie Death Cult, Elder, Whores., Help, Agriculture, Magmakammer and others, the 2025 edition of Desertfest Oslo — just the second one behind the first earlier this year — has brought four more acts on board to entice those thinking about digging into the next bunch of early-bird tickets, also just released to follow, as I understand it, a more-than-handful that already sold out. Good for them, making a thing work.
Elephant Tree and Truckfighters might be the marquee names here, Truckfighters because they’re Truckfighters and they’re going to make an impression every time they touch a stage, and Elephant Tree owing to the recently-issued split with Lowrider that’s being roundly hailed as album of the year despite kind of being two mini-albums, but don’t neglect DVNE or Håndgemeng here. Thus far, Håndgemeng are the first repeat act of Desertfest Oslo‘s relatively brief history — house band? — and DVNE are still at just a few months’ remove from their Voidkind LP, likewise soaring and stunning. It’s just four bands, but it’s quality over quantity here, is what I’m saying.
The fest is set for May 9 and 10 in Oslo at Revolver, John Dee and Rockefeller, and of course there will be more to come probably ahead of as well as in the New Year, so keep an eye out. We saw this year already Desertfest Oslo became an anchor for many Spring tours in Europe. I would expect that trend to continue unabated, and reasonably so.
From the PR wire, or socials, or somewhere on the internet:
Desert Cruisers and Scandi Stoners, Heavy Rockers and Angry Loners!
Buckle up hard, we have a new batch of bands dropping for you, followed by a new batch of early bird tickets! Secure your entrance, you DO NOT want to miss out on Desertfest Oslo 2025🔥
🪐 Elephant Tree 🪐 Masterful Londoners who somehow mix a retro psychedelic sound with the more modern stonerrock vibe. They are effortlessly creating one of the most unique and uplifting sounds out there, with their stellar harmonies as a bulletproof signature, easily separating them from most of their peers. Elephant Tree manage to refine some of the best elements coming out from Seattle in the nineties, owning it, and creating their own legacy around it. What a bunch of lads.
Their sound sweeps you of your feet, throws you in a sonic vortex, and spits you out on to a solitary astral plane of dreamy soundwaves.
🪐 Truckfighters 🪐 Few other bands can boast this level of energy and tightness along a library of absolute banging hits. Sweden is ripe with stonerrock, but Truckfighters may just be the beefiest wrestler in the ring. They have been around for what seems like forever, but never resting of old endevours. Always a must-see live! Truckfighters are in it with their hearts and souls, and we cant wait to welcome them to Oslo in May.
🪐 DVNE 🪐 The Scottish highlanders creates a supernova of sludge and progressive metal, with doomy post metal aesthetics. With complete darkness as their canvas, they paint a surreal, dreamy, cosmic landscape as a backdrop for their harsh vocals. Their ebb&flow and ever evolving sound will keep you on your toes at all time. Andy yes, you should pay attention!
🪐 Håndgemeng 🪐
The local heroes with flared jeans, cowboy boots and more fuzz than rubber slippers on a wall-to-wall carpet are returning! It is the perfect opener. The ideal palate cleanser. The ultimate in-your-face desert rock blast off for Desertfest Oslo 2025.
Posted in Reviews on October 21st, 2024 by JJ Koczan
This is the last day of the Fall 2024 Quarterly Review. Day 11 of 10, as it were. Bonus-extra, as we say at home. 10 more releases of various kinds to underscore the point of the infinite creative sphere. Before we dive in, I want to make a note about the header above. It’s the same one I used a couple times during the pandemic, with the four horseman of the apocalypse riding, and I put it in place of the AI art I’d been using because that seems to be a trigger for so many people.
In my head, I did that to avoid the conversation, to avoid dealing with someone who might be like, “Ugh, AI art” and then a conversation that deteriorates in the way of people talking at each other on the internet. This saves me the trouble. I’ll note the irony that swiping an old etching out of the public domain and slapping an Obelisk logo on it is arguably less creative than feeding a prompt into a generative whathaveyou, but at least this way I don’t have to hear the underground’s moral panic that AI is coming for stoner rock.
Quarterly Review #101-110:
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Chat Pile, Cool World
Chat Pile are two-for-two on living up to the hype in my mind as Cool World follows the band’s 2022 debut, God’s Country (review here), with a darker, more metal take on that record’s trauma-poetic and nihilistic noise rock. Some of the bassy jabs in songs like “Camcorder” and “Frownland” remind of Korn circa their self-titled, but I’m not sure Chat Pile were born when that record came out, and that harder, fuller-sounding impact comes in a context with “Tape” following “Camcorder” in bringing together Meshuggah and post-punk, so take it as you will. Based in Oklahoma City, Chat Pile are officially A Big Deal With Dudes™, but in a style that’s not exactly known for reinvention — i.e. noise rock — they are legitimately a breath of air that would be ‘fresh’ if it weren’t so desolate and remains innovative regardless. There’s gonna be a lot of mediocre riffs and shitty poetry written in an attempt to capture a fraction of what this record does.
I guess the anonymous project Neon Nightamre — who sound and aesthetic-wise are straight-up October Rust-and-later Type O Negative; the reason the album caught my eye was the framing of the letters around the corners — have gotten some harsh response to their debut, Faded Dream. Critic-type dudes pearl-clutching a band’s open unoriginality. Because to be sure, beyond dedicating the album to Peter Steele — and maybe they did, I haven’t seen the full artwork — Neon Nightmare could hardly do more in naked homage to the semi-goth Brooklyn legends and their distinctive Beatles/Sabbath worship. But I mean, that’s the point. It’s not like this band is saying they’re the first ones doing any of this, and in a world where AI could scrape every Type O record and pump out some half-assed interpretation in five minutes, isn’t something that attempts to demonstrate actual human love for the source material as it builds on it worth at least acknowledging as creative? I like Type O Negative a lot. The existence of Neon Nightmare doesn’t lessen that at all, and there are individual flashes of style in “Lost Silver” — the keyboard line feels like an easter egg from “Anesthesia”; I wondered if the title was in honor of Josh Silver — and the guitar work of “She’s Drowning” that make me even more curious to see where this goes.
Brooklyn-based instrumentalist five-piece Astrometer present their full-length debut after releasing their first demo, Incubation (review here), in 2022. The double-guitar pairing of Carmine Laietta V and Drew Mack and the drumming of Jeff Stieber at times will put you in mind of their collective past playing together in Hull, but the keys of Jon Ehlers (Bangladeafy) and the basswork of Sam Brodsky (Meek is Murder) assure that the newer collective have a persona and direction of their own, so that while the soaring solo in “Power Vulture” or the crashes of “Blood Wedding” might ring familiar, the context has shifted, so that those crashes come accompanied by sax and there’s room for a song like “Conglobulations” with its quirk, rush and crunching bounce to feel cosmic with the keyboard, and that blend of crush and reach extends into the march of closer “Do I Know How to Party…” which feels like a preface for things to come in its progressive punch.
An annual check-in from universe-and-chill molten and mellow heavy psych explorers Acid Rooster. It’s only been a year since the band unfurled Flowers and Dead Souls, but Hall of Mirrors offers another chance to be hypnotized by the band’s consuming fluidity, the 39-minute four-songer coming across as focused on listener immersion in no small part as a result of Acid Rooster‘s own. That is, it’s not like you’re swimming around the bassline and residual synth and guitar effects noise in the middle of the 14-minute “Chandelier Arp” and the band are standing calm and dry back on the beach. No way. They’re right in it. I don’t know if they were closed-eyes entranced while the recording was taking place, but if you want a definition of ‘dug in,’ Hall of Mirrors has four, and Acid Rooster‘s capacity for conveying purpose as they plunge into a jam-born piece like “Confidence of Ignorance” sets them apart from much of Europe’s psychedelic underground in establishing a meditative atmosphere. They are unafraid of the serene, and not boring. This is an achievement.
Giants Dawrfs and Black Holes, Echo on Death of Narcissus
Five years on from their start, Germany’s Giants Dwarfs and Black Holes present Echo on Death of Narcissus as their third full-length and the follow-up to 2023’s In a Sandbox Full of Suns (review here) as the four-piece bring in new guitarist Caio Puttini Chaves alongside vocalist Christiane Thomaßen, guitarist Tomasz Riedel (also bass and keys) and drummer Carsten Freckmann for a five-track collection that has another album’s worth of knows-what-it’s-about behind it. Opener “Again,” long enough at eight minutes to be a bookend with the finale “Take Me Down” (13:23) but not so long as to undercut that expanse, leads into three competent showings of classic progressive/psychedelic rock, casual in the flow between “Soul Trip” and the foreboding strums of centerpiece “Flowers of Evil” ahead of the also-languid “December Bloom.” And when they get there, “Take Me Down” has a jammy breadth all its own that shimmers in the back half soloing, which kind of devolves at the end, but resounds all the more as organic for that.
Oryx‘s Primordial Sky threads a stylistic needle across its four songs. Delivered through Translation Loss, the 41-minute follow-up to the Denver trio’s 2021 offering, Lamenting a Dead World (discussed here), is no less extreme than one would expect, but to listen to 13-minute opener/longest track (immediate points), 13-minute capper “Look Upon the Earth,” or either of the seven-minute cuts between, it’s plain to both hear and see that there’s more to Oryx atmospherically than onslaught, however low guitarist Thomas Davis (also synth) pushes his growls amid the lurching grooves of bassist Joshua Kauffman and drummer Abigail Davis. This is something that five records and more than a decade on from their start their listeners know well, but as they refine their processes, even the outright sharp-toothed consumption of “Ephemeral” has some element of outreach.
Heads up on this record for those who dig the mellower end of heavy psych, plus intricacy of arrangement, which is a number in which I very much count myself. By that I mean don’t be surprised when Sunface‘s Cloud Castles shows up on my year-end list. It’s less outwardly traditionalist than some of the heavy rock coming out of Norway at this point in history, but showcasing a richer underground only makes Cloud Castles more vital in my mind, and as even a shorter song like “Thunder Era” includes an open-enough sensibility to let a shoegazier sway enter the proceedings in “Violet Ponds” without seeming incongruous for the post-All Them Witches bluesy sway that underlies it. Innovative for the percussion in “Tall Trees” alone, Sunface are weighted in tone but able to move in a way that feels like their own, and to convey that movement without upsetting the full-album flow across the 10 songs and 44 minutes with radical changes in meter, while at the same time not dwelling too long in any single stretch or atmosphere.
While consistent with their two prior LPs in the general modus of unmitigated aural heft and oppressive, extreme sludge, Fórn declare themselves on broader aesthetic ground in incorporating electronic elements courtesy of guitarist Joey Gonzalez and Andrew Nault, as well as newcomer synthesist Lane Shi Otayonii, whose clean vocals also provide a sense of space to 11-minute post-intro plunge “Soul Shadow.” If it’s the difference between all-crush and mostly-crush, that’s not nothing, and “Anamnesis” can be that much noisier for the band’s exploring a more encompassing sound. Live drums are handled in a guest capacity by Ilsa‘s Josh Brettell, and that band’s Orion Peter also sits in alongside Fórn‘s Chris Pinto and Otayonii, and with Danny Boyd on guitar and Brian Barbaruolo on bass, the sound is duly massive, tectonic and three-dimensional; the work of a band following a linear progression toward new ideas and balancing that against the devastation laid forth in their songs. Repercussions of the Self does not want for challenge directed toward the listener, but the crux is catharsis more than navelgazing, and the intensity here is no less crucial to Fórn‘s post-metallic scene-setting than it has been to this point in their tenure. Good band actively making themselves better.
Big-riffed heavy fuzz rock from Northern Ireland as the Belfast-based self-releasing-for-now four-piece of vocalist/synthesist Fionnuala McGlinchy, guitarist Tom Finney, bassist Michael McFarlane and drummer Ciaran O’Kane touch on vibes reminiscent of some of Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard‘s synth-fused sci-fi doom roil while keeping the material more earthbound in terms of tone and structure, so that the seven-minute “The Abstract” isn’t quite all-in on living up to the title, plenty liquefied, but still aware of itself and where it’s going. This mitigated terrestrialism — think Middle of Nowhere-era Acid King — is the source of a balance to which Negative Space, the band’s second album, is able to reshape as required by a given song — “Burning Gaze” has its far-out elements, they’re there for a reason — and thereby portray a range of moods rather than dwelling in the same emotional or atmospheric space for the duration. Bookending intro “As Above” and the closer “So Below” further the impression of the album as a single work/journey to undertake, and indeed that seems to be how the character of “The Forest,” “Delirium” and the rest of the material flourishes.
Romanian instrumentalist heavy psych purveyors Methadone Skies sent word of the follow-up to 2021’s Retrofuture Caveman (review here) last month and said that the six-songer Spectres at Dawn was the heaviest work they’d done in their now-six-album tenure. Well they’re right. Taking cues from Russian Circles and various others in the post-heavy sphere, guitarists Alexandru Wehry and Casian Stanciu, bassist Mihai Guta and drummer Flavius Retea (also keyboards, of increasing prominence in the sound), are still able to dive into a passage and carry across a feeling of openness and expanse, but on “Mano Cornetto” here that becomes just part of a surprisingly stately rush of space metal, and 10-minute closer “Use the Excessive Force” seems to be laying out its intention right there in the title. Whether the ensuing blastbeats are, in fact, excessive, will be up to the individual listener, but either way, Methadone Skies have done their diligence in letting listeners know where they’re headed, and Spectres at Dawn embodies that forwardness of ethic on multiple levels.
