Didn’t we just do this? Yeah, kind of. It’s been a weird season, but I knew last month when I launched the Spring 2023 Quarterly Review that it needed to be more than two full weeks and given the timing of everything else slated around then and now, this is what worked to make it happen. For what it’s worth, I have QRs scheduled for July and early October, subject to change, of course.

The bottom line either way is it’s another batch of 50 reviews this week and then that’s a wrap for Spring. It’s a constant barrage of music these days anyhow, and I’m forever behind on everything, but I hope at least you can find something here you dig, whether previously familiar or not. We go.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

HIGH LEAF, Vision Quest

An awaited debut from this Philadelphia heavy rock scene outfit, HIGH LEAF‘s Vision Quest makes its home among heavy tropes (also some minute cultural appropriation in the title) with unabashed glee and deceptively sharp songwriting. Certainly opener “Green Rider” is perfectly willing to beat you over the head with its chorus — and rightly so, you have it coming — but the spacious title-track that follows stretches over eight minutes and seamlessly works through drift and heavy psych impulses to get to the post-grunge roll that makes its increasingly aggro presence known past six minutes in, and that’s by no means the final bit of sludge to be had as the later “Hard to Find” leans toward nastiness only to be offset by the funky outset of “Painted Desert,” having pushed deeper from the Kyussery of “Dead Eye” and a swagger in “Subversive” worthy of comparison to Earthride. This lineup of the band has already split (there’s a new one, no worries), and how that reboot will affect HIGH LEAF going forward obviously remains to be seen, but this is a ‘serving notice’-type debut, doubling down on that in closing duo “March to the Grave” and “The Rot,” and the eight songs and 38 minutes commune with groove and riffs like they’ve been speaking the language the whole time. There’s definitely a vision at work. Let’s see where the quest takes them.

HIGH LEAF on Facebook

HIGH LEAF on Bandcamp

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JAAW, Supercluster

Fucking hell I wish this was what the future sounded like. It rocks. It’s interesting. It’s driven to be its own thing despite traceable roots. It’s got edge but it’s not hackneyed. It’s the tomorrow we were promised when industrial rock and metal became a thing in the 1990s and that corporate alt-everything and pop-punk usurped. I knew I wanted to write about it now, because it’s coming out now, but I’ll tell you honestly, I’ve barely scratched the surface of JAAW‘s Svart-issued debut, Supercluster — recorded at Bear Bites Horse in London by Wayne Adams, who’s also in the band alongside Andy Cairns of Therapy?, Mugstar‘s Jason Stoll and Adam Betts (of Squarepusher and others) — and this is the kind of album that’s going to be years in revealing itself. How about this? Sometime in 2028, if this site is still here, I’ll follow-up and let you know what I’ve found digging into the sinister groove of “Rot” or the shout-kraut rumble and noise of “Bring Home the Motherlode, Barry,” “The Dead Drop” going from minimalism to full heavy New Wave wash in five minutes’ time, and so on, but for right now, let it serve as the cannonball to be lobbed at anyone who says there aren’t any acts out there doing new things or pushing different styles forward, because hell’s bells, that’s the only place this goes even as it also seems to go everywhere at the same time, unto closing out with a Björk cover “Army of Me” as imagined by Ministry doing ’90s drum ‘n’ bass. Some things are just bigger than the year of their release, and I look forward to living with this record.

JAAW on Facebook

Svart Records website

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The Bridesmaid, Come on People Now, Smile on Your Brother

From the opening drone-and-toy-chime-forward over industrial black metal of “Leytonstone: Eat Your Landlord” through the sample-fed machine sludge-turned-psych experimentalism that gives way to a shimmering haze of jazz metal in “Cleveland: And the Rain Came Down” and the can’t-fool-me-by-now acoustic strum at the start of “Summerland: A Long, Maintenance-Free Life” that runs a current of cello under its aural collage and low-end lumber early only to bask in news-and-drone departure with percussion later on the way to what post-hardcore could still someday be, the name of the EP is Come on People Now, Smile on Your Brother and The Bridesmaid deliver the proceedings in a manner more suited to Kurt Cobain‘s fuckall rasp of that line rather than the Youngbloods original. So it’s probably the latter. In any case, the UK solo-plus-friends outfit helmed and steered by JJ Saddington are an aural barrage, and while the temptation is to think of the three-song/21-minute offering as a blender on liquefy, the truth is the material is more thought out, more considerately mixed, and more engaging, than that kind of spastic randomness implies. If you can keep up with the changes, the adventure of listening is well worth the ankles sprained in its twists, but you should go into it knowing that the challenge is part of the appeal.

The Bridesmaid on Facebook

The Bridesmaid on Bandcamp

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Milana, Milvus

If the hard push and tonal burl of comparatively straight-ahead opener “The Last Witch” aren’t convincing, stick around through “Celestial Bird Spirit” and “Impermanence” on the rest of side A before you resolve one way or the other as regards Milana‘s debut album, Milvus. The Mallorca-based four-piece are for sure in conversation with fest-ready modern European heavy rock, and that’s the thread that weaves throughout the album, but in the 11-minute “Impermanance,” they build on the more temperate rollout of “Celestial Bird Spirit” and find an intriguing blend of atmosphere and dense fuzz, more moody than psychedelic, but smart to hold back its weightiest tonality for the rolling end. Appropriately enough, “Lucid Reality” brings them back to ground at the start of side B, but still has an atmospheric effect in its verse, with vocal layering over open-spaced guitar and an alt-rock pickup as they move toward the chorus, and Howling Wolf gives a class-conscious definition of the blues, in the long intro of “Gray City Lights,” setting a difficult standard for the rest of the song to match, but the organ helps. And all seems well and fine for “Whispering Wind” to wrap up mirroring the rocker “The Last Witch” at the start until the song breaks, the harmony starts, and then the growls and massive fuzz start in the last minute and it turns out they were metal all along. Go figure. There’s growing to do, but there’s more happening on Milvus than one listen will tell you, and that in itself is a good sign.

Milana on Instagram

Milana on Spotify

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New Mexican Doom Cult, Necropolis

Swedish upstart four-piece New Mexican Doom Cult offer a distinctly Monolordian weep of lead guitar on “Seven Spirits,” but even that is filtered through the band’s own take, and that’s true of their first full-length, Necropolis more generally, as the Gävle outfit now comprised of guitarist/vocalist/principal songwriter Nils Ahnland, guitarist Johan Klyven Kvastegård, bassist Emil Alstermark and drummer Jonathan Ekvall present seven songs and 48 minutes of dug-in rockers, distortion keyed to its fuzziest degree as Ahnland hints vocally on “Underground” toward a root in darker and more metallic fare ahead of the chugging build that rounds out the eight-minute centerpiece title-track and the make-doom-swing ethic being followed in closer “Worship the Sun.” “Vortex” is a highlight for the melody as much as the double-dose of nodfuzz guitar work, and opener “Architect” sets an atmospheric course but assures that the sense of movement is never really gone, something that’s a benefit even to the righteous Sabbath blowout verse in the penultimate “Archangel.” Much of what they’re doing will be familiar to experienced heads, but not unwelcome for that.

New Mexican Doom Cult on Facebook

Ozium Records on Bandcamp

Olde Magick Records on Bandcamp

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Gentle Beast, Gentle Beast

Capable double-guitar heavy rock pervades the 43-minute Gentle Beast by the Swiss five-piece of the same name. Mixed by Jeff Henson of Duel and issued through Sixteentimes Music, the eight-song run is defined by knowing itself as stoner rock, and that remains true as “Super Sapiens” departs into its post-midsection jam, eventually returning to the chorus, which is almost unfortunately hooky. “Greedy Man” is almost purely Kyuss in its constructed pairing of protest and riff, but the “Caterpillar” shows a different side of the band’s character in its smooth volume shifts, winding leads and understated finish, leading into the sharper-edged outset of closer “Toxic Times.” In the forward thrust of “Joint Venture,” the opener “Asteroid Miner” with its gruff presentation, and the speedier swing of “Headcage” reinforcing the vocal reference to Samsara Blues Experiment in the leadoff, Gentle Beast tick all the boxes they need to tick for this debut long-player some four years after the band’s initial 7″ single, setting up multiple avenues of possible and hopeful progression while proving dexterous songwriters in the now. Won’t change your life, but isn’t trying to convince you it will, either.

Gentle Beast on Facebook

Sixteentimes Music store

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Bloodsports, Bloodsports

Denver four-piece Bloodsports — also stylized all-lowercase: bloodsports — give a heavygaze impression with “Sky Mall” at the launch of their self-titled debut EP that the subsequent “Crimp” gleefully pulls the rug right from under with a solo section like All Them Witches grew up listening to The Cure after its Weezery verse, and the proceedings only gets grungier from there with the low-key Nirvana brooding of “Sustain” (also issued in 2022 as a standalone single) and its larger-scale, scorch-topped distorted finish and the shaker-inclusive indie ritual that is “Carnival” until it explodes into a blowout ending like the release of tension everyone always wanted but never actually got from Violent Femmes. Some noisy skronk guitar finishes over the hungover fuzz, which is emblematic of the way the entire release — only 11 minutes long, mind you — derives its character from the negative space, from its smaller moments of nuance, as well as from its fuller-sounding stretches. They’re young and they sound it, but there’s a sonic ideal being chased through the material and Bloodsports may yet carve their aural persona from that chase. As it is, the emotive aspects on display in “Sustain” and the volatility shown in the roll of “Sky Mall” make in plain that this project has places it wants to go and areas to explore, and one hopes Bloodsports continue to bring their ideas together with such fluidity.

Bloodsports on Instagram

Candlepin Records on Bandcamp

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Night Fishing, Live Bait

Recorded seemingly almost entirely live on audio and video, vibrancy would seem to be the underpinning that draws Night Fishing‘s Live Bait together, if fishing isn’t. The Denver four-piece are a relatively new formation, with guitarists Graham Zander (also Green Druid) and Zach Amster (Abrams), bassist Justin Sanderson (Muscle Beach) and drummer Gordon Koch (Call of the Void) all coming together from their sundry other projects to explore a space between the kosmiche, heavy rock and semi-improv jamming. The turns and fills and crashes that round out the second of three cuts, “No Services,” for example, feel off-the-cuff, but throughout most of “Alone With My Thoughts” and at least in the initial Slift-like shuffle at the start of “Slapback Twister,” there’s a plan at work. At 25 minutes, they’re only about a song shy of making Live Bait a full-length — though another track might mess up the shortest-to-longest and alphabetical ordering Live Bait has now, which are fun — but the instrumentalist exploration is suited to the nascent feel of the outfit, and while I don’t think Night Fishing is anybody’s only band here, if they can build on the sense of purpose they give to the jangly rhythm and airy solo of “Slapback Twister” and the right-on push of “Alone With My Thoughts,” they can make their records as long or as short as they want and they’re still bound to catch ears.

Night Fishing on Instagram

Brutal Panda Records website

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Wizard Tattoo, Fables of the Damned

Following last year’s self-titled debut EP, Indianapolis solo-project Wizard Tattoo cuts itself open and bleeds DIY on the seven songs and 40 minutes of the self-recorded, self-released Fables of the Damned, beginning with distinct moments of departure in opener “Wizard Van” and “The Black Mountain Pass,” the latter of which returns to its gutted-out chorus with maestro Bram the Bard (who also did the cover) cutting through the tonescape of his own creation to underscore the structure at work. There are stories to be told in “The Vengeful Thulsa Dan” and the folkish “Any Which Way but Tuned,” which brings together acoustics and chanting like a gamer version of Wovenhand, deep-mixed tom thud peppered throughout while the chimes are more forward, while the seven-minute “The Ghost of Doctor Beast” picks up with the slowest and most doomed of the included rollouts, “God Damn This Wizard Tattoo” ups the tempo with a catchy chorus, a little bit of mania in the hi-hat under the guitar solo, and hints dropped in the bassline of the grunge aspects soon to be highlighted in instrumental closer “Abendrote.” The sense of character is bigger than the production, and that balance is something that will need to be ironed out over time, but the dug-in curio aspects of Fables of the Damned make it engaging, whatever it may or may not lead toward.

Wizard Tattoo on Facebook

Wizard Tattoo on Bandcamp

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Nerver & Chat Pile, Brothers in Christ Split

I’ll never claim to be anything more than a dilettante when it comes to noise rock, and I’ll tell you outright that Kansas City’s Nerver are new to me as of this Brothers in Christ split with Oklahoma City’s Chat Pile, but both acts are coming from a strong Midwestern tradition of post-industrial (talking economy not genre) disaffection and building on momentum from strong 2022 releases, those being Nerver‘s even-the-CD-sold-out (aha! but not from the label! got it!) sophomore full-length CASH and Chat Pile‘s much-lauded debut, God’s Country (review here), and the scream-topped bombast of the one and volatile emotive antipoetry of the other make fitting companions across the included four songs, as Nerver‘s “Kicks in the Sky” underscores its jabs with deep low rumble as a bed for the harshly delivered verse and “The Nerve” shoves itself faceward in faster and less angular fashion, consuming like Chicago post-metal but pissed off like Midwestern hardcore while Chat Pile build through “King” en route to the panicked slaughter of “Cut,” which is sure enough to trigger fight-or-flight in your brain before its sub-five-minute run is up. Neither arrives at this point without hype behind them, both would seem to have earned it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go put on that Nerver album and play a bit of catchup.

Chat Pile on Instagram

Nerver on Facebook

Reptilian Records website

The Ghost is Clear Records website

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Here’s mud in yer eye. How are you feeling so far into this Quarterly Review? The year? How are things generally? How’s your mom doing? Everybody good? Hope so. Odd as it is to think, I find music sounds better when you’re not distracted by everything else going to shit around you, so I hope you don’t currently find yourself in that situation.

Today’s 10 records are a bit of this, bit of that, bit of here, but of there, but I’ll note that we start and end in Greece, which wasn’t on purpose or anything but a fun happenstantial byproduct of slating things randomly. What can I say? There’s a lot of Greek heavy out there and the human brain forms patterns whether we want it to or not. Plenty of geographic diversity between, so let’s get to it, hmm?

Winter 2023 Quarterly Review #31-40:

The Temple, Of Solitude Triumphant

Though they trace their beginnings back to the mid-aughts, Of Solitude Triumphant (on the venerable I Hate Records) is only the second full-length from Thessaloniki doom metallers The Temple. With chanting vocals, perpetuated misery and oldschool-style traditionalism metered by modern production’s tonal density, the melodic reach of the band is as striking as profundity of their rhythmic drag, the righteousness of their craft being in how they’re able to take a riff, slog it out across five, seven, 10 minutes in the case of post-intro opener “The Foundations” and manage to be neither boring nor a drag themselves. There’s a bit of relative tempo kick in “A White Flame for the Fear of Death” and the tremolo guitar (kudos to the half-time drums behind; fucking a) at the outset of closer “The Lord of Light” speaks to some influence from more extreme metals, but The Temple are steady in their purpose, and that nine-minute finale riff-marches to its own death accordingly. Party-doom it isn’t, and neither is it trying to be. In mood and the ambience born out of the vocals as much as the instruments behind, The Temple‘s doom is for the doomly doomed among the doomed. I’ll rarely add extra letters to it, but I have to give credit where it’s due: This is dooom. Maybe even doooom. Take heed.

The Temple on Facebook

I Hate Records website

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Dead Man’s Dirt, Dead Man’s Dirt

Gothenburg heavy rockers Dead Man’s Dirt, with members of Bozeman Simplex, Bones of Freedom, Coaster of Souls and a host of others, offer their 2023 self-titled debut through Ozium Records in full-on 2LP fashion. It’s 13 songs, 75 minutes long. Not a minor undertaking. Those who stick with it are rewarded by nuances like the guitar solo atop the languid sway of “The Brew,” as well as the raucous start-stop riffing in “Icarus (Too Close to the Sun),” the catchy “Highway Driver” and the bassy looseness of vibe in the penultimate “River,” which heads toward eight minutes while subsequent endpoint “Asteroid” tops nine. It is to the band’s credit that they have both the material and the variety to pull off a record this packed and keep the songs united in their barroom-rocking spirit, though some attention spans just aren’t going to be up to the task in a single sitting. But that’s fine. If the last couple years have taught the human species anything, it’s that you never know what’s around the next corner, and if you’re going to go for it — whatever “it” is — go all-in, because it could evaporate the next day. Whether it’s the shuffle of “Queen of the Wood” or the raw, in-room sound of “Lost at Sea,” Dead Man’s Dirt deserve credit for leaving nothing behind.

Dead Man’s Dirt on Facebook

Ozium Records store

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Witchfinder, Forgotten Mansion

Big rolling riffs, lurching grooves, melodies strongly enough delivered to cut through the tonal morass surrounding — there’s plenty to dig for the converted on Witchfinder‘s Forgotten Mansion. The Clermont-Ferrand, France, stoner doomers follow earlier-2022’s Endless Garden EP (review here) and 2019’s Hazy Rites (review here) full-length with their third album and first since joining forces with keyboardist Kevyn Raecke, who aligns in the malevolent-but-rocking wall of sound with guitarist Stanislas Franczak, bassist Clément Mostefai (also vocals) and drummer Thomas Dupuy. Primarily, they are very, very heavy, and that is very much the apparent foremost concern — not arguing with it — but as the five-song/36-minute long-player rolls through “Marijauna” and on through the Raecke-forward Type O Negative-ity of “Lucid Forest,” there’s more to their approach than it might at first appear. Yes, the lumber is mighty. But the space is also broad, and the slow-swinging groove is always in danger of collapsing without ever doing so. And somehow there’s heavy metal in it as well. It’s almost a deeper dive than they want you to think. I like that about it.

Witchfinder on Facebook

Mrs Red Sound store

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Fumata, Días Aciagos

There’s some whiff of Conan‘s riffing in “Acompáñame Cuando Muero,” but on the whole, Mexico City sludge metallers Fumata are more about scathe than crush on the six tracks of their sophomore full-length, Días Aciagos (on LSDR Records). With ambient moments spread through the 35-minute beastwork and a bleak atmosphere put in place by eight-minute opener and longest track (immediate points) “Orgullo y Egoísmo,” with its loosely post-metallic march and raw, open sound, the four-piece of Javier Alejandre, Maximo Mateo, Leonardo Cardoso and Juan Tamayo are agonized and chaotic-sounding, but not haphazard in their delivery as they cross genre lines to work in some black metal extremity periodically, mine a bit of death-doom in “Anhelo,” foster the vicious culmination of the bookending seven-minute title-track, and so on. Tempo is likewise malleable, as “Seremos Olvidados” and that title-track show, as well as the blasting finish of “Orgullo y Egoísmo,” and only the penultimate “No Engendro” (also the shortest song at 4:15) really stays in one place for its duration, though as that place is in an unnamed region between atmosludge, doom and avant black metal, I’m not sure it counts. As exciting to hear as it is miserable in substance, Días Aciagos plunges where few dare to tread and bathes in its own pessimism.

Fumata on Facebook

LSDR Records on Bandcamp

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Sumerlands, Dreamkiller

Sumerlands‘ second album and Relapse debut, Dreamkiller finds Magic Circle‘s Brendan Radigan stepping in for original vocalist Phil Swanson (now in Solemn Lament), alongside Eternal Champion‘s Arthur Rizk, John Powers (both guitar), and Brad Raub (bass), and drummer Justin DeTore (also Solemn Lament, Dream Unending, several dozen others) for a traditional metal tour de force, reimagining New Wave of British Heavy Metal riffing with warmer tonality and an obviously schooled take on that moment at the end of the ’70s when metal emerged from heavy rock and punk and became its own thing. “Force of a Storm” careens Dio-style after the mid-tempo Scorpions-style start-stoppery of “Edge of the Knife,” and though I kept hoping the fadeout of closer “Death to Mercy” would come back up, as there’s about 30 seconds of silence at the finish, no such luck. There are theatrical touches to “Night Ride” — what, you didn’t think there’d be a song about the night? come on. — and “Heavens Above,” but that’s part of the character of the style Sumerlands are playing toward, and to their credit, they make it their own with vitality and what might emerge as a stately presence. I don’t know if it’s “true” or not and I don’t really give a shit. It’s a burner and it’s made with love. Everything else is gatekeeping nonsense.

Sumerlands on Facebook

Relapse Records store

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Expiatoria, Shadows

Shadows is the first full-length from Genoa, Italy’s Expiatoria — also stylized with a capital-‘a’: ExpiatoriA — and its Nov. 2022 release arrives some 35 years after the band’s first demo. The band originally called it quits in 1996, and there were reunion EPs along the way in 2010 and 2018, but the six songs and 45 minutes here represent something that no doubt even the band at times thought wouldn’t ever happen. The occasion is given due ceremony in the songs, which, in addition to being laden with guest appearances by members of Death SS, Il Segno del Comando, La Janera, and so on, boasts a sweeping sound drawing from the drama of gothic metal — loooking at you, church-organ-into-piano-outro in “Ombra (Tenebra Parte II),” low-register vocals in “The Wrong Side of Love” and flute-and-guitar interlude “The Asylum of the Damned” — traditional metal riffing and, particularly in “7 Chairs and a Portrait,” a Candlemassian bell-tolling doom. These elements come together with cohesion and fluidity, the five-piece working as veterans almost in spite of a relative lack of studio experience. If Shadows was their 17th, 12th, or even fifth album, one might expect some of its transitions to be smoothed out to a greater degree, but as it is, who’s gonna argue with a group finally putting out their debut LP after three and a half decades? Jerks, that’s who.

ExpiatoriA on Facebook

Black Widow Records store

Diamonds Prod. on Bandcamp

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Tobias Berblinger, The Luckiest Hippie Alive

Setting originals alongside vibe-enhancing covers of Blaze Foley and Commander Cody, Portland’s Tobias Berblinger (also of Roselit Bone) first issued The Luckiest Hippie Alive in 2018 and it arrives on vinyl through Ten Dollar Recording Co., shimmering in its ’70s ramble-country twang, vibrant with duets and acoustic balladeering. Berblinger‘s nostalgic take reminds of a time when country music could be viable and about more than active white supremacy and/or misappropriated hip-hop, and boozers like “My Boots Have Been Drinking” and the Hank Williams via Townes Van Zandt “Medicine Water” and “Heartaches, Hard Times, Hard Drinking”, and smokers like the title-track and “Stems and Seeds (Again)” reinforce the atmosphere of country on the other side of the culture war. Its choruses are telegraphed and ready to be committed to memory, and its understated sonic presence and the wistfulness of the two-minute “Crawl Back to You” — the backing vocals of Mariya May, Marisa Laurelle and Annie Perkins aren’t to be understated throughout, including in that short piece, along with Mo Douglas‘ various instrumental contributions — add a sweetness and humility that are no less essential to Americana than the pedal steel throughout.

Tobias Berblinger website

Ten Dollar Recording Co. store

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Grandier, The Scorn and Grace of Crows

Based in Norrköping, Sweden, the three-piece Grandier turn expectation on its head quickly with their debut album, The Scorn and Grace of Crows, starting opener/longest track (immediate points) “Sin World” with a sludgy, grit-coated lumber only to break after a minute in to a melodic verse. The ol’ switcheroo? Kind of, but in that moment and song, and indeed the rest of what follows on this first outing for Majestic Mountain, the band — guitarist Patrik Lidfors, bassist/many-layered-vocalist Lars Carlberg, (maybe, unless they’re programmed; then maybe programming) drummer Hampus Landin — carve their niche from out of a block of sonic largesse and melodic reach. Carlberg‘s voice is emotive over the open-feeling space of “Viper Soul” and sharing the mix with the more forward guitars of “Soma Goat,” and while in theory, there’s an edge of doomed melancholy to the 44-minute procession, the heft in “The Crows Will Following Us Down” is as much directed toward impact as mood. They really are melodic sludge metal, which is a hell of a thing to piece together on your first record as fluidly as they do here. “Smoke on the Bog” leans more into the Sabbathian roll with megafuzz tonality behind, and “Moth to the Flames” is faster, more brash, and a kind of dark heavy rock that, three albums from now, might be prog or might be ’90s lumber. Could go either way, especially with “My Church of Let it All Go” answering back with its own quizzical course. Will be very interested to hear where their next release takes them, since they’re onto something and, to their credit, it’s not immediately apparent what.

Grandier on Facebook

Majestic Mountain Records store

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Subsun, Parasite

Doomers will nod approvingly as Ottawa’s Subsun cap “Proliferation” by shifting into a Candlemassian creeper of a lead line, but that kind of doomly traditionalism is only one tool in their varied arsenal. Guitarist/vocalist/synthesist Jean-Michel Fortin, bassist/vocalist Simon Chartrand-Paquette and drummer Jérémy Blais go to that post-Edling well (of souls) again, but their work across their 2022 debut LP, Parasite, is more direct, more rock-based and at times more aggressive on the whole. Recorded at Apartment 2 by Topon Das (Fuck the Facts), the seven-songer grows punkish in the verse of “Mutation” and drops thrashy hints at the outset of “Fusion,” while closer “Mutualism” slams harder like noise rock and punches its bassline directly at the listener. Begun with the nodding lurch of “Parasitism” — which would seem as well to be at the thematic heart of the album in terms of lyrics and the descriptive approach thereof — the movement of one song to the next has its underlying ties in the vocals and overarching semi-metal tonality, but isn’t shy about messing with those either, as on the lands-even-harder “Evolution” or the thuds at the outset of “Adaptation,” the relative straightforwardness of the structures allowing the band to draw together different styles into a single, effective, individualized sound.

Subsun on Facebook

Subsun on Bandcamp

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Bazooka, Kapou Allou

The acoustic guitar of opener “Kata Vathos” transitions smoothly into the arrival-of-the-electrics on “Krifto,” as Athens’ Bazooka launch the first of the post-punk struts on Kapou Allou, their fourth full-length. Mediterranean folk and pop are factors throughout — as heard in the vocal melody of the title-track or the danceable “Pano Apo Ti Gi” — while closer “Veloudino Kako” reimagines Ween via Greece, “Proedriki Froura” traps early punk in a jar to see it light up, and “Dikia Mou Alithia” brings together edgy, loosely-proggy heavy rock in a standout near the album’s center. Wherever they go — yes, even on “Jazzooka” — Bazooka seem to have a plan in mind, some vision of where they want to end up, and Kapou Allou is accordingly gleeful in its purposed weirdoism. At 41 minutes, it’s neither too long nor too short, and vocalist/guitarist/synthesist Xanthos Papanikolaou, guitarist/backing vocalist Vassilis Tzelepis, bassist Aris Rammos and drummer/backing vocalist John Vulgaris cast themselves less as tricksters than simply a band working outside the expected confines of genre. In any language — as it happens, Greek — their material is expansive stylistically but tight in performance, and that tension adds to the delight of hearing something so gleefully its own.

Bazooka on Facebook

Inner Ear Records store

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This past Spring, Ozium Records offered up God Damn Rare, collecting together demos and off-album pieces, outtakes and so on from long-defunct Swedish troupe The Awesome Machine. The Gothenburg-based band, who might be considered one of the multitudes whose work demonstrated the inevitable unreliability of corporate social media to archive with any sense of permanence — that is, when MySpace disappeared, so did much of their presence other than on the CD/LP racks of those who already owned their records; there’s a lesson in there somewhere but sometimes it feels like humanity is trapped in the current social media sphere even as it evolves, disintegrates in part — called it quits in 2006, and just the other day announced that the same label will stand behind a God Damn Rare Vol. 2 in 2023.

I’m not saying The Awesome Machine are back together, that they should get back together, or that I know anything in any regard about anything, ever, but two rare tracks collections shows an awful lot of contextual interest on the part of a group who aren’t looking to get back out again in any way, not to mention Ozium, and the hint dropped below with ‘In 2023 many great things will happen’ feels significant. These guys were ahead of the pack in the aughts, and it would be interesting to see how they fared in a return, if in fact the God Damn Rare offerings are a precursor to such a thing, but even if not, they’re worth investigating for the generation of listeners who’ve come up in heavy rock since they broke up. If these pique interest even just toward that, so much the better.

The band’s posting of the complementary cover art and quick announcement of the release follows from the aforementioned modern social media sphere. Preorders to follow:

So 2022 is almost to an end, a year that brought many surprises in The Awesome Machine bandcamp. And it’s not over yet. In 2023 many great things will happen, this being one of them. The great label @ozium_records will release God Damn Rare vol 2.

We dug out even more demo’s, outtakes and rare/unreleased stuff. Artwork is once again created by the fantastic Johan Anderberg.

Pre-orders will soon be available so keep an eye on Ozium records bandcamp website.

https://www.facebook.com/awesomemachinetheband

https://www.facebook.com/oziumrecords
https://www.instagram.com/ozium_records/
https://oziumrecords.bandcamp.com/
https://oziumrecords.com/

The Awesome Machine, God Damn Rare (2022)

Somewhere between and EP, an LP, and who-cares-lighten-up is the 29-minute self-titled debut from Icelandic fuzz riffers Black Desert Sun, as the Reykjavik four-piece offer clues to their sound right in the name. The intention of the seven-songer, which was originally released by the band in 2016 and sees its first vinyl issue in 2022 through Sweden’s Ozium Records, can be derived from ‘black desert sun’ itself, the first two words possibly a reference to Iceland’s abundance of igneous, volcanic rock, much of it dried lava that has turned black. And yes, there are black sand dunes and beaches, and yes, the sun shines on them, so a ‘black desert sun’ — if it wasn’t actually their intention, it at least is easy to read that way — is the band’s way of conveying their goal of bringing California-style desert rock into their own place, time and songwriting.

The use of ‘sun’ in particular brings to mind Blues for the Red Sun by Kyuss, which is a strong reference point for Black Desert Sun‘s Black Desert Sun from second track “Spliff Sucker” (as opposed, one assumes, to bong ripper or hookah huffer, etc.) onward through “Pharoas Serpents” (sic) and the lumbering centerpiece “Psycho Wizard.” Comprised of vocalist Björg Amalía Hraunfjörð Ívarsdóttir, currently of Chernobyl Jazz Club, drummer Brynjar Ólafsson, and guitarist Víðir Örn Gunnarsson and bassist Stefán Gestur Stefánsson, both of whom were already getting their next band, the more crush-minded Morpholith, going by the time this record first came out, Black Desert Sun would only release this one collection during their tenure, and six years after the fact — which isn’t that long in the context of the expanding universe — it sounds more like a stoner relic from Europe circa 1995 than something that came along more than 20 years later. That, of course, is no accident.

It’s been a few years now, and these things are cyclical as new listeners come, go, stay or don’t in a given microgenre’s aesthetic terrain, but the whole Kyuss-worship thing has kind of receded. Black Desert Sun having come out in 2016 tracks with the four-piece’s origins circa 2013, which is just about in line with a generational shift (see also right now) happening in heavy music listenership as the heavy underground community took to social networks, found each other, and flourished for a time in its revelry for, among other things, the aforementioned Californian desert rock progenitors. I don’t know how Black Desert Sun came together, but the willing-to-be-silly careening groove of “Sparkle Juice” and the instrumental opener “Echobrain” (anyone remember that band Jason Newsted was in when he left Metallica?), the sense of revival they bring, speak to that particular moment in time, younger players adopting the influence and tenets of a particular style and invariably bringing something of themselves to it.

Ívarsdóttir, who seems to nod more directly at Unida in “Pharoas Serpents” and sits out the closer “Psychedelic Soundscape Part III” — is malleable as a singer and she brings a throatier edge to “Spliff Sucker” as a first impression following on from the intended hypnosis of “Echobrain” at the outset, which is the second longest track at 4:57 and obviously something with more depth than just an intro riff or some such. “Pharoas Serpents” opens up a bit in the hook, is more swinging and less tense, but still ultimately in the same vein as the song before it, and the penultimate “Sparkle Juice” operates similarly in its sub-four-minute hook-based thrust, the band relying on tone and groove to bring out the atmosphere of the pieces and succeeding in making them do precisely that. Slower in its unfolding, “Psycho Wizard” is a highlight in no small part because of the layering Ívarsdóttir does with her lines, but if one is looking for a point on Black Desert Sun at which a nascent hint of Morpholith‘s cosmic-doom largesse can be found, there’s no question that’s it as Gunnarsson and Stefánsson unfurl a nod topped with a spacious echoing solo in the back half of the track, leaving room for a sample to answer back to the beginning of the song as well.

“Psycho Wizard” is the longest inclusion, and might be the broadest reaching, but the album’s starting with “Echobrain” and finishing with “Psychedelic Soundscape Part III” — which at 3:35 is more of a rocker than one might expect given the title — gives a firm sense of structure at the same time it opens the audience’s mind from outset for whatever’s coming. Mostly that’s riffs, and that’s just fine. Sometimes straight-up, go-to-ground, desert-style heavy roll is just the thing, and whatever else “Echobrain” tells you at the beginning, it tells you you’re certainly in for some of that. And while the core of the album is what the band themselves bring to it, guest vocals from Jens Ólafsson of Icelandic heavy rock royalty Brain Police on “Monster in Haze” and guest guitar from Gunnar Örn Sigurðsson of Orn Custom Guitars on “Monster in Haze” and “Psychedelic Soundscape Part III” speak immediately to the band’s desire to position themselves among their country’s vibrant heavy underground.

In 2016, supporting this album, Black Desert Sun played the renowned Eisnaflug Festival — they covered Kyuss‘ “Molten Universe” live regularly at the time, had a new song called “White Widow” in that set — and while it’s been Morpholith who have become the priority on something of a different stylistic track in the years since, there’s no real question that Black Desert Sun had potential of their own. As to what happened to end the band, or if they might not show up tomorrow with a new album announcement, I don’t know, but Ozium‘s reissue is a chance for a listener like me who missed it the first time to get on board while also giving some context to where Morpholith — who have two EPs out and whose debut full-length is eagerly anticipated — come from beyond their own influences. If that makes it a footnote, fine, but it’s one that rocks. Not changing the world or reinventing heavy rock, but a celebration of genre, by genre, for genre. If you can’t dig that, pick a different genre.

Black Desert Sun, Black Desert Sun (2016/2022)

Black Desert Sun on Facebook

Black Desert Sun on Bandcamp

Ozium Records on Instagram

Ozium Records on Facebook

Ozium Records on Bandcamp

Ozium Records store

The email came in via Bandcamp and was simple enough, advising in no uncertain terms I take a peak at the new Void Commander video for the track “Shroom Bloody Shroom” from the band’s 2021 sophomore LP, River Lord. Well, alright. I do what I’m told.

It was a note from Olde Magick Records, which released the tape version of River Lord, while the LP was on Majestic Mountain and Ozium Records, with the latter also handling the CD edition. I missed the seven-songer when it came out, so took the serendipitously-timed video as a cue that I should dig in.

No regrets upon doing so — I even bought the tape from Olde Magick, so I guess email marketing still works sometimes — and finding the band’s pastoralist Sabbathian heavy blues rock stretched across the 37 minutes of River Lord. Each piece of the entirety offers something to differentiate it from the others, be it the bluesed-out solo in opening title-track, the tempo kick amid the Kings of Frog Island-esque lazy-day swing in “Stoner Eyes,” more harmonica in the shorter roller “Worship Midnight,” the more open psychedelic drift solidifying around the call and response chorus of “AGN,” sludgy screams and shouts showing up in the second half of “Fucked Up,” the stoner-is-as-stoner-does-so-get-stoned mentality and All Them Witches-style blues melody at the start of “I’m Drowning,” a flourish of Asteroid-style vocals later as the song sweetly rounds out, or just some cowbell in “Shroom Bloody Shroom” to set the swing, post-“Snowblind” lyrics, returning harmonica, and slumber-lumber groove.

These varied aspects are tied together through a feeling of live performance and the abiding undercurrent drawn from earliest Black Sabbath. Those are the centers around which the trio rally and from out of which they expand their sound and cast their identity on this second full-length to come across as unassuming and unpretentious but forming an individualized approach within the frame of modern stoner-style idolatry. That is, I do believe they’re worshiping the riffs they’re following, and I even more sincerely believe they’re having a lot of fun doing so.

The clip accompanying “Shroom Bloody Shroom” is more of a visualizer, but it’s got plenty o’ mushrooms and you wouldn’t accuse it of not getting its point across. The full stream of River Lord is down near the links, via Bandcamp.

Please enjoy:

Void Commander, “Shroom Bloody Shroom” official video

Check out the new video for Void Commander – Shroom Bloody Shroom

Premiering Now on YouTube!

Void Commander, River Lord (2021)

Void Commander on Instagram

Void Commander on Facebook

Void Commander on Bandcamp

Majestic Mountain Records on Instagram

Majestic Mountain Records on Facebook

Majestic Mountain Records store

Olde Magick Records on Instagram

Olde Magick Records on Facebook

Olde Magick Records on Bandcamp

Ozium Records on Instagram

Ozium Records on Facebook

Ozium Records on Bandcamp

Ozium Records store

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.

Yatra on Facebook

Prosthetic Records store

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Sula Bassana, Nostalgia

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.

Sula Bassana on Facebook

Sulatron Records store

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Garden of Worm, Endless Garden

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.

Garden of Worm on Facebook

Nasoni Records site

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Orthodox, Proceed

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.

Orthodox on Facebook

Alone Records store

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Matus, Espejismos II

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 M​á​s 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.

Matus on Facebook

Espíritus Inmundos on Facebook

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Shrooms Circle, The Constant Descent

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.

Shrooms Circle on Facebook

DHU Records store

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Goatriders, Traveler

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.

Goatriders on Facebook

Majestic Mountain Records store

Evil Noise Recordings store

Ozium Records store

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Arthur Brown, Long Long Road

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.

Arthur Brown on Facebook

Magnetic Eye Records store

Prophecy Productions store

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Green Sky Accident, Daytime TV

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.

Green Sky Accident on Facebook

Apollon Records store

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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.

Pure Land Stars on Bandcamp

Centripetal Force Records store

Cardinal Fuzz Records store

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This post started out as a pretty standard band-signs-to-label thing, and nothing wrong with that at all. Majestic Mountain Records put out work that it had picked up Sweden’s Goatriders to release their upcoming second album, Traveler — something announced on its own before a single premiere and preorders go live, in much the same way Heavy Psych Sounds handles these things; an announcement of the coming announcement — and I’m perfectly happy to get that together as news. Easy peasy, especially as they’re relatively fresh in mind since Stoffe recently took The Obelisk Questionnaire.

The plot thickens, however, as Majestic Mountain Records will handle the vinyl along with Ozium Records, also doing the CD, and Evil Noise Recordings the cassette, making the impending release triply-backed and available on any format save for that one T-Bone Burnett claims to have invented, though I’m sure if it comes to it they’ll do a reissue should that actually become a thing. Point? Album happening, and not one, not two, but three imprints are willing to back it. Most bands are lucky if they can get one.

First single later this week, as MMR told it on social media:

Majestic Mountain Records – Goatriders

In 2020, a motley group of fuzz laden, distortion drenched goats magically appeared from the blues-rock, desert jam pastures of Linköping Sweden, capturing our hearts and minds with their debut album ‘The Magician’s Keep.’

The album garnered massive praise from notable review platforms reaching repeat play status at HQ and beyond. Ranked amongst the top 100 albums of 2020 from The Doom Charts, ‘The Magician’s Keep’ promptly sold out and the rumblings for a follow up have been rowdy.

We are pleased to answer those raucous calls for more and announce that in cooperation with Ozium Records, MMR will be giving Goatriders sophomore release, ‘Traveler’ the full Majestic Treatment this spring.

Presale information to come very soon and look out for their first video and single ‘Witches’ Walk’ next week on Friday the 13th!

Stoffe (Christofer Johansen/Vox) explains that “‘Traveler’ is the continuation of the journey started on our debut into the vast deserts of space; a deep dive into both the infinity of the universe and the shallowness of man. It’s a paradox of metaphor with inspirations split between interstellar space travel and witches gathering for black mass. The result being an explorative sonic experience drawing from the jam-rock vibes of 70’s prog and the harder riffs of modern stoner. To do this part of the journey with our friends at Majestic Mountain record feels great. MMR has grown to be a real powerhouse within the stoner and doom community, and to be picked up into their roster for this release means a lot. With Majestic on the road ahead, we hope to lure more souls into damnation trough our noisy jam-rock. Long story short- Grab your coven, let’s ride.

“After all this time Traveler is finally happening. And to be doing this together with not one, not two but three great friends is truly humbling. With a vinyl release by Majestic Mountain and Ozium, a Cd release by Ozium and a cassette release by Evil Noise. A lot more news, release dates and fun stuff will come in the coming weeks. It will be one hell of a trip.”

We’re thrilled to be collaborating with Ozium on this stellar release and to have Goatriders amongst the MMR crew. Unapologetically serving up their very own, special tincture of desert rock and space worship with a fierce DIY spirit and noisy jam-rock energy, the bluesy, desert fuzz vibe is strong with these guys and we’re pleased to announce the second coming of Goatriders with ‘Traveler.’

Thanks for reading, Majestic People!

https://www.facebook.com/goatriders
https://instagram.com/goatridersinspace
https://goatriders.bandcamp.com/

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Goatriders, “Goat Head Nebula” official video

After their 2021 EP that was called — wait for it — 2021 (review here), it’s not a huge surprise to hear more from reignited German heavy rockers Duster 69, who if you can’t trace their sound back to turn-of-the-century-era nascent European stonerrockness, then certainly the star on their logo should speak to the era. Still, the more you know the better off you are, so in addition to that new release testing the waters for a proper return, the band has now moved forward with a gathering of some 13 tracks (11 on vinyl) from their first run in the form of With Best Regards, a new LP/CD/DL collection that spans 1999-2008 and has had its material completely remastered for this new release.

It’s not a complete stretch of catalog reissues, but neither is it unjustified. There were a slew of bands like this at the time, laying the groundwork for what became the vital creativity of the German underground — to say nothing of greater Europe — so to have them back is a boon even if this will be the first time many listeners who’ve gotten into the style since encounter them. There are three labels involved here in Savage Magic, Ozium and Daredevil Records, with a total of 200 CDs and 200 LPs pressed. Seems like maybe an argument in favor of checking it out while the checking’s good.

From the PR wire:

Duster 69 With Best Regards LP/CD (SM-059)

Between 1999 and 2007, German stoner rockers Duster 69 released four full length albums, a handful of split EPs and singles with bands like Calamus, The Awesome Machine, Rickshaw, and House Of Broken Promises, and one final EP before splitting up. A collection of rare and unreleased stuff came out in 2008 and capped off the band’s initial run.

After 14 years, the band’s original lineup got together and recorded two new songs for a very limited single on No Balls Records appropriately titled 2021.

Knowing that all the original releases are long sold out and out of print, the band wanted to put together a career spanning collection. Here we have 13 tracks carefully selected from all those albums, EPs, and singles remastered just for this release.

This will be a limited pressing of only 200 LPs. 100 will be pressed on beige vinyl and available only here through Savage Magic Records. 100 will be pressed on red vinyl and available through Ozium Records in Sweden and Daredevil Records in Germany. 200 digipak CDs containing two bonus tracks will also be pressed and be available in limited amounts from each label.

Keep an eye out for updates as we get closer to the release date. We’re shooting for June/July.

As always, thanks for your support!

~ Carey/SMR

Tracklist:

Side A:
1. Remember
2. Oppose
3. Upcoming
4. 50 Miles
5. Schoolbus

Side B:
6. Going Into Red (featuring John Hermansen)
7. Red Goat
8. Tornado
9. Pride
10. Bad Luck
11. Dust Crusher

CD Bonus Tracks:
12. A Triangle In An Empty Room Without Any Windows
13. Calling

LP – $20 + postage
CD – $10 + postage

200 LPs to be pressed
100 beige through Savage Magic for North America
100 red through Ozium (Sweden) and Daredevil (Germany) for Europe
200 CDs to be pressed

Release Date: June 2022

Members:
Lucki – vocals
Jochen – guitar
Matthias – bass
Peter – drums

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Duster 69, With Best Regards (2022)

Duster 69, “Remember” lyric video