Philadelphia heavy rockers Thunderbird Divine recorded their new three-song Live, Loud and Lucky EP in Brooklyn this past June, playing at the venerable Lucky 13 Saloon. They’ll release it tomorrow, Sept. 26, and it’s their first outing since last year’s Black Doomba Records-issued Little Wars (review here) — from whence “Times Gone Bad” and “These Eyes” come — and their first since the passing this April of keyboardist Jack Falkenbach at age 44, which as one might expect sent the band reeling.
This show with the remaining three members of the group — pictured left to right on the cover: guitarist/vocalist/thereminist Erik Caplan, drummer Michael Stuart and bassist Joshua Adam Solomon, with Falkenbach‘s sunglasses as the ‘i’ in ‘live’ — was June 20, not quite two full months after suffering that loss, and in the three songs/15 minutes they present with Live, Loud and Lucky, the primary impression is one of rawness. Thunderbird Divine‘s studio work isn’t hyper-polished or anything like that, but “Times Gone Bad” hits sludgy and then slides on its verse riff, the band able to create movement around the impact, and the slowdown for Caplan‘s lead remains righteous.
That must have felt — or at least hopefully it did — reassuring to the band onstage, knowing that, having already made the decision to continue on in part to pay homage to Falkenbach and his work in this material, they could still sound like themselves. Keyboards have not played a minor role to-date in Thunderbird Divine‘s work, whether it’s a classic organ line or something weirder, but the riffing here is indelible as “These Eyes” pick up with burner fuzz set to march by the drums. Like “Times Gone Bad,” “These Eyes” finishes with flourish in its solo section, classy in a roughed-up kind of way with some “nah, nah-nah” vocals capping, which lets “Bummer Bridge” land all the more lumbering.
Culled from 2019’s Magnasonic (review here), “Bummer Bridge” as presented on Live, Loud and Lucky is enough to remind you that when magazines were looking for a word to call what Grand Funk Railroad were doing, they called it “sludge.” Thunderbird Divine move in this space, that they can make heavy tones and heavy vibes boogie, might be the most reassuring aspect of the release. “Bummer Bridge” is gleefully filthy. There’s a bit of warts-‘n’-all to it, but that just adds to the sense of the band letting loose, and the effect is cathartic. It’s easy to imagine it was on stage as well.
I do not know what the future holds for Thunderbird Divine, whether they’ll continue forward and see if the right fit comes along on keys or eventually pursue new material as a trio. It’s probably not even the year to start answering that question, if I’m honest, but however things shake out long-term, the feeling of tribute to Falkenbach is palpable in this short release, and it’s a clear demonstration of the band finding solace and comfort in the music they’re making. Whatever follows or doesn’t, that’s a beautiful thing.
As always, I hope you enjoy:
Erik Caplan on Live, Loud and Lucky:
“Losing Jack was like losing our collective right arm — we’re alive, but it’s hard to function without him. He was a very special, wonderful, talented and unique man, and nobody can replace a person like that. We like to say we’ll get another keys player (or some other player) if Jack sends them to us. For now, “Live, Loud and Lucky” shows who we are.”
THUNDERBIRD DIVINE returns with Live, Loud and Lucky, a collection of three live tracks recorded at Lucky 13 in Brooklyn on June 20, 2025. The recording captures the band during their first extended run of shows after the passing of keyboardist and friend Jack Falkenbach. It marks a transitional period for the band, performing as a trio and confronting both emotional and technical challenges on stage.
The lineup for the recording includes Erik Caplan on guitar, vocals, and theremin, Joshua Adam Solomon on bass, and Michael Stuart on drums. The set was recorded by Kyle Hodgkin, mixed by Solomon and Caplan, and mastered by Stephen Angello. Stuart also created the album’s cover art.
THUNDERBIRD DIVINE formed in Philadelphia in 2017. Their current sound draws influence from bands like FLOWER TRAVELLIN’ BAND, HAWKWIND, MONSTER MAGNET, and BLUE CHEER. Their style combines heavy riffing with psychedelic textures, experimental instruments, and unusual structures.
Live, Loud and Lucky reflects THUNDERBIRD DIVINE in motion. The performances are raw and unpolished. They show a band adjusting to change while holding on to the core elements of their sound. The album is available digitally starting September 26, 2025.
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 27th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
While the heavy metal underground continues to reel from Crypt Sermon‘s 2024 album, The Stygian Rose (review here) — the band were confirmed for Descendants of Crom in Pittsburgh the other day and are not lacking for goings-on besides — the Philadelphia-based classic/epic doom metallers are moving forward with a new four-song EP comprised of tracks from the album’s sessions.
Ah, the leftovers, right? Yeah, I expect that’s how you think about it sometimes until you’ve made a record and come up against killing your babies because you can only fit 45 minutes on a 12″ platter. The first single from the upcoming Saturnian Appendices EP is called “Only Ash and Dust,” it’s just a bit under eight minutes long and it’s shredded enough that it could probably put ‘influencer’ on its business card. Headbangers, former headbangers, prospective headbangers and others who might be headbanging but for the pinched nerves from all the headbanging they’ve already done will want to take note.
The PR wire has the relevant details, and I snuck in the stream of The Stygian Rose, in case you want to dive in there too:
On the heels of an album widely considered to be one of 2024’s best releases, Philadelphia’s Crypt Sermon return with a new EP: Saturnian Appendices. A collection of B-sides taken from The Stygian Rose album sessions, this new EP offers a deeper look into the psyche behind the story, extending the arc of its predecessor with a darker, more introspective lens.
“Conceptually, the new tracks ‘Only Ash and Dust’ and ‘A Fool to a Believe’ illuminate the shadowed thoughts of the narrator from ‘The Stygian Rose,’ expanding on the tensions that arise as one confronts the conflicts between orthodoxy and occult,” offers vocalist Brooks Wilson.
Sonically, Saturnian Appendices is firmly rooted in the band’s signature doom-laden dark heavy metal sound. Grandiose melodies wrap around a crushing volley of monolithic riffs for a commanding and epic performance.
Featuring three, brand-new, original tracks and a transcendental revisioning of Mayhem’s “De Mysteriis Doom Sathanas” (first heard as part of Decibel Magazine’s flexi-disc series), Saturnian Appendices offers fans a compelling experience steeped in grandeur and philosophical unrest.
Saturnian Appendices tracklist: 1. Only Ash and Dust 2. A Fool to Believe 3. Lachrymose 4. De Mysteriis Doom Sathanas
Crypt Sermon, live: Aug 07 Brutal Assault Festvial (CZ) Aug 08 Party San (GER) Aug 09 Alcatraz (BE) Aug 10 London, UK — The Black Heart w/ Horrendous Aug 28 Madison, WI — Blades of Steel Fest Sep 26 New York, NY — Gold Sounds Sep 27 Pittsburgh, PA — Descendants of Crom Fest Sep 28 Philadelphia, PA — Johnny Brenda’s w/ Sonja
Lineup: Brooks Wilson (Vocals) Steve Jannson (Lead Guitar) Frank Chin (Rhythm Guitar) Matt Knox (Bass Guitar) Tanner Anderson (Synths) Enrique Sagarnaga (Drums)
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 12th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
I like this band. In another timeline somewhere 20-25 years ago, one might’ve heard a band like this, signed them to Atlantic or some other major label with money to spend and a residual sense of rock music as something worth making a new investment in, and set them touring for the next decade or three, just to see what sticks. I liked the band’s 2023 self-titled debut (review here) and the follow-up 2024 EP, East Side (review here), and the upcoming single “Stranger” keeps the thread going by showcasing inheritances from grunge without being beholden to them, finding a youthful brooding that’s aware enough of its own craft not to get lost in navelgazing. Unlike fucking everybody, it sometimes feels like.
In case you, like me, have no idea when June 20 is, it’s next Friday. My suggestion is you just follow Laurel Canyon on Bandcamp/wherever and then you won’t miss it, because no, I’m not so full of myself as to think you’ll remember some song from a news post here more than a week earlier just on my say-so. Set an alarm or some such. Write it in pen on your wall calendar. Mine still says May, it turns out; though in my defense the baby-goats-calendar picture for May was extra adorable.
The mind wanders. The PR wire, however, stays on task with vigilence:
Noise punk outfit Laurel Canyon announce new single ‘Stranger’ out 20th June via Agitated Records
Recorded live to tape in London after an early morning drive from Liverpool during their first European tour, the track was laid down in just a few takes with Mercury Prize-winning producer Shuta Shinoda. What you will hear is exactly what echoed through sixteen sweaty clubs across Europe, raw and unfiltered. “Stranger” delves into themes of identity and transformation, propelled by explosive, fuzzed-out guitars, pounding drums, a hypnotic bassline and pristine vocal harmonies.
The single will be available on all major streaming platforms.
Laurel Canyon’s three-track 2024 EP East Side was the follow up to their self-titled debut album. The songs – ‘East Side’, ‘Garden of Eden’, and ‘Untitled’ – expand on their feedback-laden, amphetamine-fueled garage rock sound with sharper focus and tenacity. The cover art (by photographer Alec Ilstrup) shows a stark found object style photograph of Laurel Canyon-branded naloxone spray – which is used to reverse or reduce the effects of opioids – representing the music within as a shot-to-the-heart of rock ‘n’ roll.
This is out today. It is Clamfight’s fourth full-length and very much a self-titled in the tradition of a band declaring themselves as a group. It’s self-released, and it comes seven years after their last record, III. I reviewed that album. I could probably review this one too, and talk about the tones in Sean McKee’s and Joel Harris’ guitars or the former’s e’er vigilant shred, the punch Louis Koble brings to “Dragonhead,” drummer/vocalist Andy Martin’s duet with Oldest Sea’s Samantha Marandola in “Brodgar,” or the fact that across seven songs and 43 minutes the band manage to turn riffy burl-rock into a platform for a mostly-not-toxic expression of masculine love — that is, their love for each other — with an emotional honesty that resonates even beyond the heartstring-pull of the eponymous “Clamfight”‘s guest vocal spot from Steve Murphy of Kings Destroy.
I’m also on that track, on “Clamfight,” screaming like a jerk, but even more than that — I was fortunate enough to meet engineer Steve Poponi, who recorded this and helmed everything else Clamfight has released to-date, before he passed away in 2023 — it’s the emotional honesty of the thing I want to highlight. Why on earth, in talking about an album that so much wears its heart on its sleeve, would I pretend that, say, I haven’t known Clamfight for two decades, or pretend that I don’t consider them friends, that I wasn’t honored to be included in not only what’s their best album (and I say that as somebody who helped release one of them) but in what’s so clearly intended as an all-in culmination of their time together, made in the precious knowledge that all is fleeting. It’s been seven real years since their last record and the spirit of Clamfight, the urgency from the sprawl of 11-minute opener “The Oar” onward, comes in part from that. Love, loss, growth, life, death — Clamfight are celebrating as much as they’re mourning here, but the point is they’re doing it all together and realizing how lucky they are to have the chance to do that as part of their lives for so long. They’re right, and it’s a beautiful, if very adult, realization to witness.
It comes with a corresponding sincerity of form. Don’t tell this to “Drinking Tooth” on here, but Clamfight are not a stoner band and they never were, however large their tones may grow or how weighted their grooves can get or how informed they may be by things like fishing and obscure historical lore. Okay, maybe a little. But they’ve never been about chasing fuzz, or about playing to ideas of genre, and part of the honesty throughout Clamfight is in just how much they push against that. It’s ’90s thrash and hardcore gang shouts. It’s the acoustics and string sounds on “FRH.” The unrepentantly epic ground-scorch before “Redtail” is even halfway over (also after), setting up a punch-drunk roll as the band ride their own groove into the sunset, aware that any time could be the last time. It’s not social media content. It’s not trying to get on the cool playlist. It’s its own thing because they made it true to who they are as people and who they’ve grown to be as they’ve come into adulthood together. “Clamfight” itself is very much about that, but it’s all over the rest of the songs as well, and if you’d tell me you can’t understand how outwardly aggressive or loud or harsh music can be used to express love or gratitude, the only reply I really have for you is I’m sorry.
The line is right there in the galloping part of “Clamfight” — “Same four dudes/All this time” — and the song itself asks how long it can last. I don’t have an answer for that, but the band does. The answer is in cherishing what you have, whether that’s a band, a family, your life, a dumpy blog or some other outlet, for the time you have it. That’s what makes Clamfight a mature Clamfight album, and I don’t think I have to say that these aren’t the kinds of self-manifestations one would generally get from dudes in their 20s — not to disparage the songs Clamfight were writing at the time; I still love 2010’s Volume I (review here) and remember nostalgically seeing them on stage before then as well — but accepting being grown up and knowing a little more about who you are is a part of moving into middle age. There’s no attempt to hide that in these songs. No attempt to hide the fun. It’s as open a record as Clamfight could ever have hoped to make, and I love it for that. You can hear each one of them putting everything they have into it. Not every band gets to make an album like that, let alone to realize they’re doing it at the time and value it accordingly.
So they’re lucky to have each other and they know it. In uncertain times and facing an unknowable future ahead where little seems bright, that warmth is a saving grace. If the lesson of the pandemic was to teach the value of being together by keeping us apart, Clamfight embrace this as sweeping personal growth and depth of craft. These songs, this album taken as a whole, is a ready example of why you would be in a band for 20 years without care for ‘making it big’ or financial profit. It’s because you love it and you love the people you do it with. Such a simple answer and in no small part because men are raised to be emotional cripples it’s such a rare thing to see outside of violent and/or misogynist contexts. That is to say, it’s socially acceptable for men to bond so long as they’re hating women or killing somebody. But sounds so heavy with love so clearly at their foundation are rare and special and that’s exactly what Clamfight’s Clamfight is. The declaration it makes is no less than the band bearing their heart in portraying the family they’ve become over the last two decades. It’s brash and gorgeous and special and I’m very, very happy for my friends.
Also, Andy got married last week and Sean’s family recently welcomed a new member, so congrats all around.
As always, I hope you enjoy.
—
Why not bold the proper names above? I don’t know. It didn’t feel right. Too review-y, maybe. I’m still just finishing my coffee at 9AM, so bear with me.
My alarm was set for 6:30 but the kid was pounding on the wall before that. We had a late night. The Patient Mrs. was out and The Pecan and I were on our own for the evening, which was fine. Bedtime started after nine and went until a bit before 10PM, which is already long, and she was out her bedroom door before I was downstairs long enough to take a sip of water. Back up like four more times before I made it to bed, then she came down two more times, finally decided she needed to poop, and did that I guess around an hour after she first came down, making it about 11PM. I took her back upstairs and fell asleep in her bed, where thankfully she also fell asleep at long last, and made it back downstairs sometime shortly after midnight. The Patient Mrs. was home by then, so I got to say goodnight in my barely-conscious ‘you wanna watch a Star Trek?’ state. TOS it is.
The kid had had a rough day at school, missing behavior targets and such, and The Patient Mrs. didn’t want to risk derailing recent forward progress — because this week has been better until yesterday, and three incident-free days, one of them a field trip, isn’t nothing to us at this point — so we’re keeping her home today. I’ll take her to the arcade or something since the weather sucks. I asked for and received the time to write this while they watch videos in the living room, and I am grateful for it.
Getting home from Oslo on Sunday was fine. It was a typical landing in Newark, which means the plane was tossed from side to side like a Micro Machines in a vortex and the line at customs took 40 minutes. My bad was out when I got out, so I didn’t wait there. In Europe, you wait for the bag. In the US, you wait to find out if you’re going to be let in the country.
I could go on about that or the Lord Buffalo thing this week with the drummer being detained and then it comes out he’s got warrants or somesuch. Like that makes it better. People being perfectly happy to miss the point is precisely why I said I was worried the US will learn nothing from the dark moment in history it’s inhabiting. We dismantled education. On purpose. First you need a cultural recommitment, and that also means money. Then you need to raise a generation of teachers. Then you need to raise a generation of educated kids. If you say it’s been since Nixon the right wing has been trying to privatize schooling, then the damage that’s been done to-date will need at least that long to undo, again, if the commitment to undo it was made, which given the track the country is on now there’s about zero chance of happening. I wonder if public schooling will exist by the time my daughter is my age. They want to privatize garbage collection in my town. There’s 50,000 people here. How fucking stupid do you need to be?
As noted, I could go on.
Next week I’ve got premieres for Electric Citizen, The Lotus Matter, and Entheomorphosis, and I’m going to review the new Turtle Skull, which will feel like exorcising a demon as I finally get all the laudatory blah blah blah out of my brain that I’ve been writing there for the last however-many weeks. Like a top-three of the year for me, that one.
I wish you a great and safe weekend. Drink water. Watch your head. Tell someone you love them. Listen to good music. I’m back Monday.
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 misdirecting 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 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.
