Posted in Whathaveyou on May 7th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Last summer, Boozewa released their most albumy album to-date, Bon Vivant. I whiffed on reviewing it. Why? I have no idea. A lot of travel last year, some shit just gets by. I don’t know. The record is at the bottom of this post and it sounds great. By all means, partake, though I’m sure you already have, because you’re better at this and cooler than I am.
Nonetheless, I’m happy to put up word of Boozewa taking the road on the show or some such as they head out on tour this summer. They tour anyhow, but the impetus here would seem to be a stop through the Asheville Doomed & Stoned fest, which looks rad, and after that, they’ve got club shows with Godzillionaire (I seem to recall Mike Cummings is a big Paw fan, so that should be a moment), Husband Lost at Sea and a slew of others. It starts the 9th, ends the 26th, and they’ve got three days off. Imagine my relief to see that, in fact, some of us are getting younger.
I’m gonna go listen to that record. Here’s dates from social media:
All these random show announcements we guess it’s time to show the BIG LEAGUE CHEW!
Summer tour kicks off July 9th and it’s LOADED with bangers in amazing cities with even more amazing bands and some NEW BALLPARKS we haven’t seen yet!
JULY 9 – Pie Shop – Washington DC w/ GUHTS 10 – Monstercade – Winston Salem NC w/ GUHTS 11 – Asheville NC – Doomed and Stoned Festival 12 – Blackstrap – Gainesville GA w/ Armazilla, Husband Lost At Sea 13 – Cobra – Nashville TN w/ Serrotonin 14 – MagBar – Louisville KY w/ Mound Builders 16 – Heavy Anchor – St Louis MO w/ ComaHawk, Nothing People 17 – Replay Lounge – Lawrence KS w/ Godzillionaire 18 – Leftys – De Moines IA w/ Worst Impressions, Look At Me 19 – Zhora – Minneapolis MN w/ Husband Lost At Sea 21 – Reggies – Chiago IL w/ Displacer, Jesus Coyote 22 – Lucky Fox – Paw Paw MI w/ RTRN, Archaea 24 – Spacebar – Columbus OH w/ Server, Disnerver, Husband Lost at Sea 25 – 123 Pleasant St – Morgantown WV w/ Grey Harbinger, Hovel, Husband Lost At Sea 26 – Gem Speakeasy – Spring City PA w/ Hover, Oven, Husband Lost At Sea
Posted in Reviews on April 15th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
I won’t keep you long here. Today is the last day of this Quarterly Review. It’ll return in July, if all goes according to my plans. I hope in the last seven days of posts you’ve been able to find a release, a band, a song, that’s hit you hard and made your day better. Ultimately that’s why we’re here.
No grand reflections — this is business-as-usual by now for me — but I’ll say that most of this QR was a pleasure to mine through and I’ve added a few releases to my notes for the Best of 2025 come December. If you have too, awesome. If not, there’s still one more chance.
Quarterly Review #61-70:
Daevar, Sub Rosa
While Sub Rosa still basks in the murky sound with which Köln-based doomers Daevar set forth not actually all that long ago — they’re barely an earth-year removed from their second LP, Amber Eyes (review here), and just two from their debut, 2023’s Delirious Rites (review here) — there’s an unquestionable sense of refinement to its procession. “Wishing Well” moves but isn’t rushed. Opener “Catcher in the Rye” feels expansive but is four minutes long. It goes like this. Through most of the 31-minute seven-songer, including the “Hey Bacchus” strum at the start of “Siren Song,” Daevar seem to be working to strip their approach to its most crucial elements, and when they arrive at the seven-minute finale “FDSMD,” there’s a purposeful shift to a more patient roll. But the flow within and between tracks is still very much an asset for Daevar as they take full ownership of their sound. This is not a minor moment for this band, and feels indicative of future direction. Something tells me it won’t be that long before we find out if it is.
The follow-up to Rainbows Are Free‘s impressive 2023 outing, Heavy Petal Music (review here), Silver and Gold is the Norman, Oklahoma, six-piece’s fifth album since 2010 and second through Ripple Music. With nine songs that foster psychedelic breadth and tonal largesse alike, the album still has room for frontman Brandon Kistler to lend due persona, and in pairing sharp-cornered progressive lead work on guitar with lower-frequency grooves, Rainbows Are Free feel ‘classic’ in a very modern way. They remain capable of being very, very heavy, as crescendos like “Sleep” and “Hide” reaffirm near the record’s middle, but emphasize aural diversity whether it’s the garage march of “Fadeaway,” the barer thrust of “Dirty” or “Runnin’ With a Friend of the Devil” earlier on, of which the reference is only part of the charm being displayed. Rarely does a band so obviously mature in their craft still sound so hungry to find new ideas in their music.
The pedigreed spacefaring trio Minerall — guitarist Marcel Cultrera (Speck), bassist/synthesist Dave “Sula Bassana” Schmidt (Sula Bassana, Zone Six, etc.), and drummer Tommy Handschick (Kombynat Robotron, Earthbong) — return with two more side-long jams on Strömung, captured at the same two-day 2023 session that produced their early-2024 debut, Bügeln (review here). If you find yourself clenching your stomach in the first half of “Strömung” (19:35) on side A, don’t forget to breathe, and don’t worry, opportunity to do so is coming as the three-piece deconstruct and rebuild the jam toward a fuzzy payoff, only to raise “Welle” (20:24) from its minimalist outset to what seems like the apex at the midpoint only to blow it out the airlock in the song’s back half. That must have been one hell of a 48 hours.
By the time its five minutes are up, “Resources 2.0” has taken its title word and turned it into an insistent, chunky, noise-rocking sneer, still adjacent to the chicanery-laced psych of the song’s earlier going, but a definite fuck-you to modernity, evoking ideas of exploitation of people, places and everything. Philadelphia duo Deathbird Earth — first names only: BJ (Dangerbird, Hulk Smash) and Dave (Psychic Teens, etc.) — offer three songs on Mission, which has the honesty to bill itself as a demo, and from “Resources 2.0” they move into the sub-two-minute “Mission 1.0,” more ambient and laced with samples. The only song without a version number in its title, “Dead Hands” finds the duo likewise indebted to Chrome and Nirvana for a burst-prone, keyboardier vision of gritty spacepunk, vocal bite and all, but honestly, Mission feels like the tip of an experimentalism only beginning to reveal its destructive tendencies. Looking forward to more.
Approaching the 20th anniversary of the band next year, now-more-upstate New York heavy rockers Thinning the Herd return after 12 years with Cull, their third album. Guitarist/vocalist Gavin Spielman in 2023 recruited drummer Rob Sefcik (Begotten, Kings Destroy, Electric Frankenstein, etc.), and as a trio-sounding duo with Spielman adding bass, they dig into 11 raw, DIY rockers that, as one makes their way through the opening title-track, “Monopolist” and “Heady Yeti” and “Burn Ban” — themes from not-in-the-city-anymore prevalent throughout, alongside weed, beer, life, getting screwed over, and so on — play out in fuzzbuzz-grooving succession. Two late instrumentals, “Electric Lizard of Gloom” and the lush, unplugged “Acustank,” provide a breather from the riffs and gruff vibes, the latter with a pickin’-on-doom kind of feel, but across the whole it’s striking how atmospheric Cull is while presenting itself as straightforward as possible.
Let The Edge of Oblivion stand for the righteousness of anti-trend doom. You know what I’m talking about. Not the friendly doom that’s out there weed-worshiping and making friends, but the crunching doom metal proffered by the likes of Cathedral and Saint Vitus. Doom that wore is Sabbathianism as a badge of honor all the more for the fact that, at the time they were doing it, it was so much against the status quo of cool. Phantom Druid‘s fourth album is similarly strident and sure of its approach, and yeah, if you want to say some of the chug in “The 5th Mystical Assignment” sounds like Sleep, I won’t argue. Sleep liked Sabbath too. But the crawl in “Realms of the Unreal” and the dirge in instrumental “The Silent Observer” tell it. This is doom that knows and believes in this form, and is strident and reverential in its making. That “Admiration of the Abyss” caps could hardly be more appropriate. Hail the new truth.
Some context may apply. Kodok is the third long-player from adventurous Cambridge, UK, heavy post-rock/metallers The Grey, as well as their first outing through Majestic Mountain Records, and though much of what the band has done to this point is instrumental and that’s still a big part of who they are as 11:45 opener/longest track (immediate points) “Painted Lady” readily demonstrates, there’s a clear-eyed partial divergence from the norm as guitarist Charlie Gration, bassist Andy Price and drummer Steve Moore welcome guests throughout like Grady Avenell, who adds post-hardcore scathe to “Sharpen the Knife” ahead of the crushing “CHVRCH,” also released as a single, or fattybassman and Ace Skunk Anasie, who appear on the duly textural “AFG,” which also rounds out with a dARKMODE remix. Not a typical release, maybe, but not not either as the band do more than haphazardly insert these guests into their songs; there is a full-length album flow from front to back here, and while they purposefully push limits, the underlying three-piece serve as the unifying factor for the material as perhaps they inevitably would.
With a forward lumber marked by rigorous crash and suitably dense tone, Sun Below‘s apparently-standalone 12-minute single Mammoth’s Tundra tells the story of a wooly mammoth being reborn — I think not through techbro genetic dickery, unlike that dire-wolf story that was going around last week — and laying waste to the ecosystem of the tundra, remaking the food change in its aggro image. Fair enough. The Toronto trio likely recorded “Mammoth’s Tundra” at the same Jan. 2023 sessions that produced their Sept. 2023 split, Inter Terra Solis (review here), and whether you’re here for the immersive groove that rises from the gradual outset, the shred emerging in the second half, or that last meme-ready return of the riff at the end, complete with final slowdown — what? you thought they’d leave you hanging? — they leave the Gods of Stone and Riff smiling. Worship via volume, distortion, and nod.
It’s been nine years since Montreal’s Tumbleweed Dealer released their third album, but as the fourth, Dark Green offers instrumentalist narrative and a range of outside contributions to expand the sound and maybe make up for lost time. Across 10 tracks and 39 minutes, bassist/guitarist Seb Painchaud, synthesist/producer Jean-Baptiste Joubaud and drummer Angelo Fata broaden their arrangements to include Mellotron, Hammond, Wurlitzer, Rhodes and other keys as well as what basically amounts to a horn section on several tracks, the first blares in “Becoming One with the Bayou” somewhat jarring but coming to make their own kind of sense there and in the subsequent “Dragged Across the Wetlands,” the sax in “Body of the Bog,” and so on. These elements seem to be built around the core performances of the trio, but the going is remarkably fluid despite the range, and though it seems counterintuitive to think of a band who might end a record with a song called “A Soul Made of Sludge” as being progressive and considered in their craft, that’s very clearly what’s happening here.
Electronic dub, pop, death metal, glitchy electronics, krautrock synth, malevolent distortion, some far-off falsetto and some throatgurgling crust — it can only be the always-busy anti-genre activist Collyn McCoy (Unida, High Priestess, Circle of Sighs, etc.) mashing together ideas and making it work. To wit, “Alkahest” (17:36) and “Witchchrist” (16:03) both engage in sound design and worldmaking, take on pop, industrial and metallic aspects, and are an album unto themselves, hypnotic and experimental, the latter marked by a darker underlying drone that lasts until the whole song dissipates. “Necrotic Prayer” (7:28) feels more like collage by the time it gets to its surprise-here’s-a-ripper-guitar-solo-over-that-circa-’92-industrial-beat, but it still has a groove, and “Plutonic” (8:30) moves through static drone and seen-on-TV sampling through death-techno (god I love death techno) to croon, churn out with a sci-fi overlord, and finish with piano and voice; a misdirected contemplative turn worthy of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. McCoy is a genius and the world will never be ready for these sounds. That’s as plain as I can say it.
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 27th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Pittsburgh-based underground festival Descendants of Crom has announced its first annual rRitual showcase for April 5. The night will feature six acts — three locals, three out-of-towners — and will get a still-probably-gonna-finish-late early start at 7:30.
If you saw that post a little over a week ago about the Temptress and Thunderchief tour, yeah, this is a stop on it and an occasion for the tour itself. The darkly progressive Axioma from Cleveland are the third import outfit, while the hometeam will be represented by Funerals, with former members of Horehound, as well as Altar and the Bull and Gloom Doom.
Yes, I realize this is next week. No, I’m not necessarily thinking everyone who sees this is going to drop whatever they’re doing and fly to Western PA next weekend. But maybe you are going there, or maybe someone you know is, or maybe you haven’t heard these bands before and it’s a name to chase down next time you’re bored. I don’t know, but it’s a thing that’s happening and apparently the intent is to make it an annual event to complement Descendants of Crom, which is Blackseed Services‘ prior-established festival offering. This may then be the first — I can’t help but roll the ‘r’ — rRitual of many to come.
Maybe I’m just happy I get to spend my days sitting at the computer listening to music and writing about it and so something like this comes along and I’m like “Oh so that wasn’t a spelling mistake in that Thunderchief post” and then one post leads to another leads to another and all of a sudden it’s been like 16 years and here you are. I had a friend send me a letter the other day. He signed it, “keep writing.” Shit, man. I can’t seem to stop.
If you do go, I hope it’s a blast. Here’s the info, ticket link and such:
rRitual: First Annual Descendants of Crom Showcase
Presented by Blackseed Services, this special event will be an annual showcase mixer, focusing on the darker, atmospheric styles. Doom/Stoner/Sludge/Blackened.
Featuring: Temptress (NC/TX) Thunderchief (Richmond) Axioma (Cleveland) with local support: Funerals Altar and the Bull Gloom Doom
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 12th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
In the spirit of the album’s honesty, I’ll tell you flat-out I love Clamfight. I’ve known them as people and as a group for nigh on 20 years, and from doing shows together in the long-long ago to joining Steve Murphy of Kings Destroy in doing guest vocals for the eponymous “Clamfight” on this record and editing the bio, there are few acts out there to whom I feel closer. Maybe none.
So I’m not going to feign impartiality here or whatever. I’ve followed along as the band started putting this record together, through covid, losing engineer Steve Poponi after they were done, and I’ve seen and heard how they’ve pushed themselves, dug deeper into what they do, and come up with the best material they’ve ever written. And I say that as a dude who helped put out one of their record. Clamfight‘s Clamfight is the kind of record you make after you realize how lucky you are to still be making records at all, let alone with people you love. It is the truest declaration of self Clamfight have ever made.
I also can’t help but love the fact that their first single has been up since the end of January, is 11 minutes long and it’s four minutes in before you hear the first vocals — that Clamfight music industry acumen strikes again! In all seriousness, “The Oar” is at the bottom of this post and is obviously more about immersion more than trying to beat you over the head with an immediate chorus. The rest of the album follows suit in variable mood and intensity, but remains affected by the atmosphere of “The Oar,” so it’s a good place to start before you push further.
It was an honor to be involved in this in the small way I was.
From the PR wire:
CLAMFIGHT: New Jersey Sludge/Doom Metal Quartet Prepares To Release Eponymous Fourth LP On May 16th; “The Oar” Streaming + Preorders Posted
New Jersey/Philly sludge beasts CLAMFIGHT are prepared to self-release their eponymous fourth full-length release this Spring, unveiling the cover art, track listing, preorders, and lead single, “The Oar.”
The members of CLAMFIGHT are childhood friends who played their first show together in the Fall of 2005. The band’s lineup has remained the same ever since, with bassist Louis Koble, guitarists Joel Harris and Sean McKee, and drummer/vocalist Andy Martin. Over the past twenty years, the band has played shows along the entire East Coast and beyond, having shared a lot of laughs and shenanigans as well as loss and heartache together along the way. Having released three albums to date – Vol. I in 2010, I vs. The Glacier in 2013, and III in 2018 – the band now presents their most somber yet victorious record yet with Clamfight.
CLAMFIGHT began work on album number four right as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. With only drum tracks finished the weekend before the lockdowns began, the sudden downtime gave the band the opportunity to broaden their sound. With their longtime friend, mentor, and producer Steve Poponi, the band expanded the sonic range of the new material and brought more dynamics and intricacy to the seven new songs.
The pandemic also changed the record lyrically and thematically. Lyrically, Clamfight became a sort of diary or memoir, but not about masks and temperature checks at the grocery store, but about how the love and friendship between the band helped get them all through those dark times. If there’s a central theme to Clamfight it’s that life is short and precious, but that the people around you – the people that you love and that love you back – are the ones that make it worth savoring.
Now, Clamfight is ready to see the light of the day. “To us, this is easily the most personal and important record that we’ve ever done. It was part of why we wanted to self-release it. We didn’t want to be beholden to anyone else on this one, and we wanted to push it as much or as little as we pleased without feeling like we were letting anyone down. We’ve got all the respect for Argonauta and some of the other folks we talked to about this one, but for a record that was so personal going at it alone felt right.”
Clamfight was recorded by Steve Poponi and Matt Weber at The Gradwell House in Haddon Heights, New Jersey where it was also mixed by Steve Poponi and Dave Downham and mastered by Dave Downham, and the album’s cover art and layout was handled by Morgan E Russell. The record features guest vocals on “Brodgar” by Sam Marandola and on “Clamfight” by Stephen Murphy and JJ Koczan.
The lead single from Clamfight arrives with the album’s opening track, “The Oar.” Andy Martin reveals with the song, “In making this record we leaned on each other and our collaborators more than ever before. I never write lyrics until we’re in the studio, and as recording was happening, I found myself writing about where we were in our lives, the people we loved, the mistakes we made, and about how much I love these guys, so when it came time to name the record, the choice was obvious. This is the last record we were privileged to make with our brother Steve Poponi. You’ll hear him at the end of the track. Words fall short when it comes to expressing how much we miss him, so for and now always, we’ll just say Poponi Forever. Take care of yourselves gang.”
CLAMFIGHT is also booking regional tour dates and live events supporting the new album. They will play Brooklyn on June 20th and a benefit show for their late friend Steve Poponi in Philadelphia on June 21st. A record release show and additional dates are also in the works. Watch for updates to post alongside additional previews of the album over the weeks ahead.
CLAMFIGHT Live: 5/31/2025 Kung Fu Necktie – Philadelphia, PA *record release show 6/20/2025 Goldsounds – Brooklyn, NY w/ Hollow Leg, Florist, End Of Hope 6/21/2025 Poponipalooza ’25: D.I.L.F.@ Underground Arts – Philadelphia, PA
CLAMFIGHT: Louis Koble – bass Joel Harris – guitar Sean McKee – guitar Andy Martin – drums/vocals
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 10th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Guitarist Shane Trimble of High Reeper has produced all three of the band’s albums to-date, so if you want an example of his work, you don’t have to look farther than the bottom of this post for their most recent outing, 2024’s metal-tinged rager Renewed by Death (review here), released in continued alliance with Heavy Psych Sounds. As High Reeper have been around for a bit — and Trimble‘s production/engineering isn’t limited to his own projects, as you can see below — I think what makes this a “launch” for Sletner Sound is the fact that now there’s a physical, dedicated recording studio, instead of helming recordings in the DIY/homemade style.
Wilmington, Delaware, is where the spot is located, so adjacent to any number of metropolitan areas. I know a fair amount of the people who might visit this site on a day-to-day are artists as well as fans. In a literal sense, it might be news you actually can use. There are equipment lists and such on the studio’s site, should you want to investigate further.
From the PR wire:
Shane Trimble of High Reeper Launches New Recording Studio, Sletner Sound, in Wilmington, DE
After nearly 30 years in the audio industry, producer and engineer Shane Trimble — guitarist of High Reeper — has officially opened Sletner Sound, a new recording studio in Wilmington, Delaware.
Trimble, who worked closely with legendary engineer and mentor Mike Tarsia, carries forward the Sigma Sound legacy, honoring Tarsia’s influence following his passing. With an extensive portfolio that includes mixing records for Bongzilla, Black Rainbows, The Pilgrim, High Reeper, and more, Trimble has cultivated a sound that blends classic techniques with modern production.
“I wanted to create a space that continues the tradition of the studios I grew up working in — where artists can push creative boundaries while getting the best possible sound,” says Trimble.
Sletner Sound is now booking for 2025. Artists and producers looking for a professional recording and mixing environment can visitwww.sletnersound.comfor more details.
For media inquiries, interviews, or studio bookings, please contact: Shane Trimble shane@sletnersound.com
About Sletner Sound
Founded by Shane Trimble, Sletner Sound is a professional recording studio in Wilmington, DE, dedicated to high-quality audio production. With decades of experience in engineering, mixing, and recording, Sletner Sound provides a space where artists can create music with expert guidance and top-tier sound.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on February 26th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
It happens maybe once, maybe twice a year that a video will come along and some switch will flip in my sillybrain and I’ll put it on the tv to enjoy in its entirety. You see where this is going, of course. It’s been a crappy morning, and you should note that I say “morning” at like 1:30 in the afternoon. Yeah, I’ve done some laundry and wrote a review, got the kid out to school and this and that, but productivity on all fronts has been like pulling teeth and I’ve got way more to do at this point than I have time to do it. Sad to say the difference is today I answered email.
Anyhow, the point. With overwhelm looming, a full 40-minute Stinking Lizaveta concert set — captured at Milkboy in the long-running instrumentalist trio’s Philadelphia hometown and set to release on SRA Records as a live album on March 7 along with a host of catalog reissues — is a welcome excuse for escape. I’m not gonna pretend this is a review of the live album or anything more than me sitting in front of my tv enjoying Stinking Lizaveta instead of being stressed out about not getting shit done I was hoping to. Cheshire getting on mic after “The Heart” tells me I was right.
And as regards heart, there’s plenty of it there and in the subsequent “Sherman’s March,” which Yanni shouts out in the memory of Dave Sherman — a labelmate to Stinking Lizaveta when Spirit Caravan released their first album through Tolotta Records — to go along with the charm and chicanery that begins the set in “Serpent Underfoot” and “Electric Future,” a joy no less resonant than the wistful soloing of “Sherman’s March,” with Alexei’s bass locked in step with the drums for the sans-vocal chorus that follows.
Oh man, that sounds an awful lot like a review.
I’ll allow for the fact that if Stinking Lizaveta are inspiring, it’s not the first time. This clip landed in my email (also my DMs, also my social timelines, etc.) at a particularly welcome moment. I’ll get the laundry changed over. I’ll get the rest of the day done. And maybe tomorrow will be easier for the time I took to share the obvious delight Stinking Lizaveta bring to the breakdown in “L.B.J.” — Yanni laughing before they start about how it’s the “extended version” — with Alexei free-jazzing it on the electric standup; a definition of cool that didn’t exist until he made it — and a bit of freakout to boot before they charge, stop, goof off for a minute and then make a rocking return. Fucking hell this is a great band.
The latest-I’ve-seen confirmations for Stinking Lizaveta‘s upcoming European tour with Darsombra are included with the video info and live-album/reissues preorder link below, and if that all seems like a lot and you just want to put on the video and chill out for a little bit with it, I can tell you it definitely worked for making my day better.
Please enjoy:
Stinking Lizaveta, Live 2023 concert video
Stinking Lizaveta “Live 2023” full concert movie streaming now
Limited vinyl available in the pre-order packages for the Stinking Lizaveta reissues
Tracklisting: 1. Serpent Underfoot 2. Electric Future 3. Daily Madness 4. Nomen Est Omen 5. Shock 6. The Heart 7. Sherman’s March 8. L.B.J. 9. Let Live
Recorded August 31st 2023 at Milkboy in Philadelphia Live sound by Mike Moffitt Recording by Joe Smiley Mixed and Mastered at Red Planet by Joe Smiley Video by Mark @trimungus8653 Thanks Dysrythmia and Countdown From Ten
STINKING LIZAVETA / DARSOMBRA SUMMER EU TOUR 2025 updates here: DARSOMBRA.COM 23 – 24 May – GERMANY/CZECH REPUBLIC/POLAND 25 May – Berlin GERMANY @ Desertfest Berlin CONFIRMED *26 – 27 May – CZECH REPUBLIC/POLAND/GERMANY 28 May – Warsaw POLAND @ Mlodsza Siostra CONFIRMED 29 May – Wroclaw POLAND @ Kalambur CONFIRMED 30 May – Krakow POLAND CONFIRMED 31 May – Kosice SLOVAKIA @ Collosseum CONFIRMED 1 June – Budapest HUNGARY @ Auróra CONFIRMED *2 June – SLOVAKIA/HUNGARY 3 June – Vienna AUSTRIA @ Arena CONFIRMED 4 June – Linz AUSTRIA @ Kapu CONFIRMED 5 June – Nuremberg GERMANY @ Kunstverein Hintere Cramergasse e.V. CONFIRMED 6 June – Potsdam GERMANY @ Archiv CONFIRMED 7 June – Dresden GERMANY @ Veränderbar CONFIRMED *8 June – CZECH REPUBLIC/GERMANY 9 June – Prague CZECH REPUBLIC @ Eternia CONFIRMED *10 June – CZECH REPUBLIC 11 June – Brno CZECH REPUBLIC @ Kabinet Muz CONFIRMED 12 June – Berlin GERMANY @ Schokoladen CONFIRMED 13 June – Brandenburg GERMANY CONFIRMED *14 – 19 June – WEST GERMANY/BELGIUM/NETHERLANDS 20 June – Herzberg GERMANY CONFIRMED *21- 24 June – GERMANY/DENMARK/BELGIUM/NETHERLANDS 25-29 June – Lärz GERMANY CONFIRMED *to be confirmed
Stinking Lizaveta is Yanni Papadopoulos on guitar, Alexi Papadopoulos on upright electric bass, and Cheshire Agusta on drums.
Posted in Reviews on February 26th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Comprised of 10 tracks that bring harmony-topped not-quite-gazing grunge contemplations, deep running tonal heft and an abiding sense of quirk that makes the material all the more expansive and multifaceted, inMake Money From Home‘s self-recorded, self-released and self-titled debut — in addition to sounding huge; Will Mellor (Heavy Temple) mixed at Red Water Recording — is nothing if not dug in. Running a total of 53 minutes, the album signals its course early in the moody and subdued verses of “Lumber,” carried by James Udinski‘s ride cymbal, light strum of bass from Emily Brown (also vocals and cover design) and the guitar and vocals of Bill O’Sullivan.
One might recall O’Sullivan from his prior band, the Brooklyn-based Eggnogg, who also had a penchant for gosh-darn-heavy riffing, the occasional cosmos-scorching blues solo, and personality. Based in Philadelphia, Make Money From Home are distinguished certainly in atmosphere from O’Sullivan‘s previous outfit, and the vocal interplay with Brown on pieces like “Frozen Over,” the brief and semi-twanged “The Evening Ball,” “Stable,” the chorus of “What is it For,” and so on, is a noteworthy strength that’s apparently at root in the band; Make Money From Home seems to have started out acoustically circa 2020 with O’Sullivan and Brown singing together.
A certain folkishness persists in what they do now — certainly in the wit of the lyrics and the occasionally lush vocal melodies — but Make Money From Home sound intentional in their weighted distortion. Accordingly, folk is only part of it, alongside grunge, classic mid-paced stonerly roll and even a bit of Electric Wizard as second/longest cut “Alarum” (8:34) reinvents the riff to “The Chosen Few” toward its own ends in languid post-Nirvana drawl.
“Alarum” is one of two songs over eight minutes, and the other, “Pistols at Dawn” manifests the Western edge hinted at in its title, serving as one of several diversions around the heavy-grunge crux of Make Money From Home, the movement changing from a ‘lumber’ — derp see what I did there? — to a sway in “Pistols at Dawn,” a rockabilly-style swing in “Ever and More” and ’90s-nerd-rock bounce in “Flew the Coop.”
These shifts in intent, coupled with the consistency of performance from O’Sullivan and Brown — whose basslines make “Ever and More” one of the best examples of a heavy jazz-swing I’ve come across; it’s a tough balance to strike — result in a record that sounds like it knows where it wants to be and how it wants to explore around that. That this isn’t O’Sullivan‘s first time leading a band on guitar and lead vocals is apparent in the confidence of his voice throughout; a bluesy, low register that’s able to slip into more guttural but still clean delivery as called for in a given song.
And the album very much plays out as a collection of songs. Flow between them, with methodical tempos from the outset in “Lumber” and “Alarum,” rampant melody and varied structures from one piece to the next assuring that the trio don’t seem to linger anywhere for longer than they want to. True, the listening experience isn’t a minor investment — a runtime north of the 50-minute line feeling in itself like a reference to the 1990s; but who knows if or when Make Money From Home will do anything else, so I’m not holding it against them — but the rewards are there for repeat listens, as a lyric like, “Some sleep afloat, I’ll drown awake” belted out at the end of “Lumber” or the sheepishness in O’Sullivan‘s voice as he stops all that shouting in “Flew the Coop” and apologizes in the verse croon, “Pardon me, I didn’t mean to raise my voice so loud/Threw back a bunch of meds floating on a cloud/Gotta hand it to you, doc, it really shuts it out/I really shouldn’t talk so proud/Should’ve shut my mouth…” and continues a balladeering-type story of what might’ve been a mental health invervention and in any case is way more fun as a song than it probably was to live through. So it goes. “Flew the Coop” is a standout, and so is “Stable” and “Frozen Over” (that layered shred! for ambience no less!), “Lumber,” “The Evening Ball,” “What is it For,” “Alarum,” “New Clown,” “Pistols at Dawn,” and “Ever and More.” That’s the whole record, in no particular order.
It’s telling that some of the most resonant stretches are the quietest. Maybe that’s Brown and O’Sullivan in the hook of “What is it For,” a sleek groove there that “Flew the Coop” of all songs will answer back to later, vulnerable and trying to be silly to cover it, or maybe it’s O’Sullivan laying out oddball connections in “Pistols at Dawn,” the bridge lines, “I’m content with four blank walls/What’s a reader to do?” prompting any number of potential answers. Read? I don’t know. In any case, while there’s no doubt Make Money From Home revel in the outright crush of “Lumber” when it kicks in, even as a first record, these songs offer more realization than a single idea or genre designation wants to convey.
There’s an adventurousness of songwriting that O’Sullivan has to some degree carried over from his last band, but Make Money From Home sounds more like a beginning than a continued thread, and the direction the material takes is its own thing, rooted in a bluesy style that still somehow lets the solo later in “Pistols at Dawn” sound like Jerry Cantrell as the jam starts to come apart, only to have “Ever and More” sweep in, not quite as manic as “Flew the Coop,” where ‘manic’ is the point, but a toe tapper just the same. And in “Flew the Coop,” like “The Evening Ball,” “Stable” and even arguably the develops-more-each-time hook of “Frozen Over,” storytelling lets the band make an impression in persona and craft alike.
I could sit here and bloviate uninformed on where Make Money From Home‘s progression might take them in the future — it might even be fun — but I don’t know anything, wouldn’t want to hazard a prediction when diversity of songwriting is so much at play, and generally feel like these pieces and the front-to-back entirety merit consideration on their own terms in the now. This is one of the best debut albums I’ve heard thus far into 2025, and one of the best albums, period, and I look forward to hearing how its character develops over the rest of this year and beyond.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on February 13th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
This is some nasty, nasty shit. I wouldn’t lie to you. Bottom line, top line and all lines in between — nasty.
Based in Pittsburgh and having just last month put up their two initial singles — “Hollow Eyes,” for which a lyric video premieres below, and the concurrent “The Burden We Have Become” — Passing Bell are a new band that pulls together members of Horehound, The Long Hunt and others and who have set themselves immediately to the work of vicious stylization. The harsh, largely indecipherable barks of vocalist Kevin Tuite — good thing it’s a lyric video — are the flay to coincide with the bludgeon of riff in “Hollow Eyes,” and though it and its companion piece are relatively short at under five minutes, that’s plenty of time for Tuite, guitarist/engineer Trevor Richards, bassist Russ Johnson and drummer Christian Dean to affect a mood (by souring it) and entrench themselves onto the brain of the listener, there to fester.
The lyrics for “Hollow Eyes” are below — why not? I never include lyrics but probably should — and surely lines like “Hollow eyes reflect across darkened water under starless skies” give some impression on their own of where Passing Bell are coming from. “Fester” is in there too, as part of a litany of grim descriptives to go along with the biting instrumentation behind. So is this the part where I say that given the extreme nature of the music, listeners should be advised before taking it on that it’s not going to be for everybody? You bet your ass it is. While “Hollow Eyes” and “The Burden We Have Become” both have one foot in a rock-based groove, the other has a boot on your larynx, and admittedly, that’s not something universally accessible. If you can get on board with the rawer side of Passing Bell as they present themselves here, so much the better. Go see them live. Be a fan. Caustic bands need love too, mate. Get in there with hugs and enjoy.
Lovey dovey. If you can’t hear that here, in the overarching catharsis if nowhere else in the four and a half-ish minutes, that’s okay. Some bands make it a challenge.
Please enjoy:
Passing Bell, “Hollow Eyes” lyric video premiere
From Crevices so dark the moon dare not spare light Hollow eyes reflect across darkened water under starless skies
An abhorrent wind does spring forth Driven forward, reins held by the cursed whispers gasped from a mouth of multiple tongues
Hollow eyes reflect across darkened water under starless skies a lasso cast by the (sinister) Advancing in violent bursts etching beauty to jagged stone.
A scorched and tarred trail of festering slime is what’s left behind A mother of amphibious plains beckons A corrupt summons an invitation utterly blasphemous
Hollow eyes reflect across darkened water under starless skies
Embark into the wild under the distant darkened sky Join her scaled womb draped in moss Marinate in the fetid waters of the desolate marsh
released January 10, 2025
Passing Bell are: Kevin Tuite : Vocals & Lyrics Christian Dean: Drums Russ Johnson: Bass Trevor Richards: Guitar
Album photography by Russ Johnson. Recording and mixing by Trevor Richards.
