Tomorrow, Jan. 3, is the release date of the second Pontiac EP, Night Tripper and a UFO. If it’s not already marked on your calendar, it’s cool, I know everybody gets busy around the holidays, etc., but if you caught wind of the duo’s debut release, Hard Knox (review here), back in early 2024 and had your interest piqued, the four-songer follow-up digs deeper into the nuance of influence and into the songs themselves for a more expanded but cohesive feel. At the center of the project is guitarist/vocalist/bassist Dave Cotton, also known for his work in the likewise intricate progressive metal outfit Seven Nines and Tens, and with these songs, he and drummer Drew Christie explore ground around psychedelic indie, post-hardcore, shifting with heavy fluidity through parts and melodies pulling from different sides, veering into and out of wash and shimmer, the crash and ringout vibrant before the title line is delivered, again, to round out “Night Tripper and the UFO.” The abiding vibe is weird, the music a 17-minute (and some of that is silence after the title-track in my version) call to the open-minded and aurally curious: come hear something you might not’ve heard before.

That call remains the same, mind you, even for those who took on Hard Knox from out of the glut of the digital ether. Pontiac‘s initial public offering traded on its ability to pivot, to bounce between one idea and the next, and to make it flow except where the interruption was the point. Night Tripper and a UFO operates similarly, and sometimes it’s still Cotton‘s voice wrangling disparate ideas into a single song, but “Death Valley” unfurls with layered harmony, hints a record scratch in its ’90s-strut midsection if doesn’t actually have one, and works to and through a bright-toned and still angular nod to cap with the line “No better time than the nighttime” amid a fading rollout into the more garage “Night Tripper and a UFO,” taking the emo at root in Cotton‘s vocal style and giving it a pastoral chorus backdrop early before adding backing vocals by Sara Wazani. A penchant for throwing open doors, aurally, shows itself in both “Death Valley” and “Night Tripper and a UFO” as it moves in its second half back to the hook to close, the standout line somehow Beatlesian, “Headmistress will perform/Night tripper and a UFO,” in the tradition of Mr. Kite’s Benefit happening in a world the listener can’t and doesn’t need to fully see to appreciate.

“Bible of the Roaring Twenties” calls back to some of the oldie-born realizations of the first EP, which I’m pretty sure I called an album last year — it doesn’t matter, it’s all made up and I’m willing to argue my point — but takes on a twang in its electric guitar before shifting into pastoral, gentle-snare surf shuffle shove. If the first two of its three minutes seem brazen in their straightforwardness, just before three minutes in, organ arrives to hold your hand as you leap off the cliff into the ending procession of decades, and the capper “Cut the Competition to Shreds” follows with mid-’60s shine resonating from its guitar. The narrative, loaded with place-names, including prisons, speaks to the Americana life-on-road ideal — you can read below of Cotton‘s inspiration from Kerouac — presented in snippets complemented by jangly alt rock guitar and music that feels built around the words but that serves its own purposes as well. “Cut the Competition to Shreds,” which in its title highlights a kind of capitalistic cruelty and the violence of exploitation so often framed as part of the natural order, is a fitting ending for Night Tripper and a UFO, for its ensuing quirk, sure, but also for the outward-looking perspective of the song itself.

Like the rest of the short release that surrounds, it confirms the experimentalist crux underlying Pontiac‘s craft and the individual poise of Cotton‘s songwriting in collaboration with Christie. I don’t know that Pontiac are or aren’t working their way toward a full-length — aren’t we all, on some level? — but Night Tripper and a UFO asserts/affirms a progression underway in the craft, and a distinct creative voice coming into focus. Not everyone who hears it will be able to get on board, but Pontiac is likely to land in craterous fashion with the right kind of oddball ears. Take a breath before you dive in.

For further background, Cotton was kind enough to present a track-by-track look at where the material is coming from, going into detail on some of the meld of influence and such. There’s a lot more substance to what’s going on here than the 17 minutes really hints. I encourage you in a spirit of friendship to dig in.

And please, enjoy:

Night Tripper and a UFO Track-by-Track with Dave Cotton

My drummer Drew and I had a really enjoyable time making the first Pontiac release “Hard Knox” in 2023 at Little Red Sound in New Westminster with Felix Fung. When we recorded the first tune “Ether” for the session, Felix asked us to come into the control room and listen to the take. He pointed to the screen with the soundwave of our performance and said “you guys could have recorded this to tape.” What he was referring to was the old recording technique of recording to two inch tape, where the performance had to be flawless. Personally, I was excited to hear that. Especially coming from Felix who is as savvy a musician as anyone you will meet.

The new record Night Tripper and UFO was less easy to record. I wrote the songs in half the time and we weren’t as well rehearsed. We finished the session feeling humbled which was the polar opposite of the Hard Knox sessions. Despite this it was still enjoyable and I think the sounds we got the 2nd time are seemingly higher quality.

As well this was my first time working with Noah Mintz at the Lacquer Channel based in Toronto. Noah is a bit of a Canadian musician legend. It’s pretty exciting as a songwriter to finally work with him and as a result I feel like I have a batch of some of my best tunes in this release.

“Death Valley”

I really wanted to write a song that sounded like the band Cactus and their cover of Bukka White’s blues classic “Parchman Farm Blues.” For those having heard the Cactus version, it’s very busy complex drumming, with really busy guitar playing over top. Cactus were being championed as “The American Led Zeppelin” during that era. I think they only put out two records, maybe three, before they split, but if you listen to the performance on their tune, it’s pretty incredible. Aside from that I was also trying to capture the spirit of 70s hard rock like Montrose, Budgie, Bloodrock, Groundhogs, Blue Cheer, and Bubble Puppy.

Death Valley’s working title was “Hobby Farm.” In writing it, it was a literal riff farm of ideas. When I edited them altogether finally, it was tricky to keep the busy spirit of the arrangement but also make it sort of linear in a traditional song context.

“Night Tripper and a UFO”

This tune’s working title for a long time was “Shake Dope” as I was trying to write a song like “Shake the Dope Out” by Warlocks from LA. Sara Wazani of Vancouver group “The Brahmankind” stopped by the studio the day we tracked vocals. She contributed some amazing singing to the track.

“Bible of the Roaring Twenties”

Part of my intention with Pontiac is to create a sort of subversive take on late 80s and early 90s Canadian Content groups like The Northern Pikes, Skydiggers, Glass Tiger, Frozen Ghost, and The Pursuit of Happiness. I can hear me going for that on this track. My love of John Squire from the Stone Roses is on full display as well with the guitar phrases, especially the pull off lead lines.

This song also sounds like the Eagles on acid to my ears. I was definitely influenced by the group the Four Freshmen with all the vocal harmonies. This song started out as me trying to write something “surfy” like Link Wray. Funny how songs rarely sound like the original intention.

“Cut the Competition to Shreds”

I read “On the Road Again” by Jack Kerouc this year. The book’s themes of manic wanderlust, and road trip adventures were an influence on the lyrics for this tune. I started out trying to write something like Atlanta band Deerhunter but as usual, it ends up sounding completely different than intended.

Recorded at Little Red Sound
Engineered and mixed by Felix Fung
Mastered by Noah Mintz at Lacquer Channel
Additional vocals on title track Sara Wazani

Pontiac:
Guitars, bass, vocals David Cotton
Drums Drew Christie

Pontiac on Facebook

Pontiac on Bandcamp

Coup Sur Coup Records on Bandcamp

Admittedly, there’s some ambition in my mind calling this the ‘Spring 2024 Quarterly Review.’ I’m done with winter and March starts on Friday, so yeah, it’s kind of a reach as regards the traditional seasonal patterns of Northern New Jersey where I live, but hell, these things actually get decided here by pissing off a rodent. Maybe it doesn’t need to be so rigidly defined after all.

After doing QRs for I guess about nine years now, I finally made myself a template for the back-end layout. It’s not a huge leap, but will mean about five more minutes I can dedicate to listening, and when you’re trying to touch on 50 records in the span of a work week and attempt some semblance of representing what they’re about, five minutes can help. Still, it’s a new thing, and if you see ‘ARTIST’ listed where a band’s name should be or LINK where ‘So and So on Facebook’ goes, a friendly comment letting me know would be helpful.

Thanks in advance and I hope you find something in all of this to come that speaks to you. I’ll try to come up for air at some point.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

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Slift, Ilion

One of the few non-billionaire groups of people who might be able to say they had a good year in 2020, Toulouse, France, spaceblasters Slift signed to Sub Pop on the strength of that wretched year’s Ummon (review here) and the spectacle-laced live shows with which they present their material. Their ideology is cosmic, their delivery markedly epic, and Ilion pushes the blinding light and the rhythmic force directly at you, creating a sweeping momentum contrasted by ambient stretches like that tucked at the end of 12-minute hypnotic planetmaker “The Words That Have Never Been Heard,” the drone finale “Enter the Loop” or any number of spots between along the record’s repetition-churning, willfully-overblown 79-minute course of builds and surging payoffs. A cynic might tell you it’s not anything Hawkwind didn’t do in 1974 offered with modern effects and beefier tones, but, uh, is that really something to complain about? The hype around Ilion hasn’t been as fervent as was for Ummon — it’s a different moment — but Slift have set themselves on a progressive course and in the years to come, this may indeed become their most influential work. For that alone it’s among 2024’s most essential heavy albums, never mind the actual journey of listening. Bands like this don’t happen every day.

Slift on Facebook

Sub Pop Records website

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Grin, Hush

The only thing keeping Grin from being punk rock is the fact that they don’t play punk. Otherwise, the self-recording, self-releasing (on The Lasting Dose Records) Berlin metal-sludge slingers tick no shortage of boxes as regards ethic, commitment to an uncompromised vision of their sound, and on Hush, their fourth long-player which features tracks from 2023’s Black Nothingness (review here), they sharpen their attack to a point that reminds of dug-in Swedish death metal on “Pyramid” with a winding lead line threaded across, find post-metallic ambience in “Neon Skies,” steamroll with the groove of the penultimate “The Tempest of Time,” and manage to make even the crushing “Midnight Blue Sorrow” — which arrives after the powerful opening statement of “Hush” “Calice” and “Gatekeeper” — have a sense of creative reach. With Sabine Oberg on bass and Jan Oberg handling drums, guitar, vocals, noise and production, they’ve become flexible enough in their craft to harness raw charge or atmospheric sprawl at will, and through 16 songs and 40 minutes (“Portal” is the longest track at 3:45), their intensity is multifaceted, multi-angular, and downright ripping. Aggression suits this project, but that’s never all that’s happening in Grin, and they’re stronger for that.

Grin on Facebook

The Lasting Dose Records on Bandcamp

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Pontiac, Hard Knox

A debut solo-band outing from guitarist, bassist, vocalist and songwriter Dave Cotton, also of Seven Nines and Tens, Pontiac‘s Hard Knox lands on strictly limited tape through Coup Sur Coup Records and is only 16 minutes long, but that’s time enough for its six songs to find connections in harmony to Beach Boys and The Beatles while sometimes dropping to a singular, semi-spoken verse in opener/longest track (immediate points, even though four minutes isn’t that long) “Glory Ragged,” which moves in one direction, stops, reorients, and shifts between genres with pastoralism and purpose. Cotton handles six-string and 12-string, but isn’t alone in Pontiac, as his Seven Nines and Tens bandmate Drew Thomas Christie handles drums, Adam Vee adds guitar, drums, a Coke bottle and a Brita filter, and CJ Wallis contributes piano to the drifty textures of “Road High” before “Exotic Tattoos of the Millennias” answers the pre-christofascism country influence shown on “Counterculture Millionaire” with an oldies swing ramble-rolling to a catchy finish. For fun I’ll dare a wild guess that Cotton‘s dad played that stuff when he was a kid, as it feels learned through osmosis, but I have no confirmation of that. It is its own kind of interpretation of progressive music, and as the beginning of a new exploration, Cotton opens doors to a swath of styles that cross genres in ways few are able to do and remain so coherent. Quick listen, and it dares you to keep up with its changes and patterns, but among its principal accomplishments is to make itself organic in scope, with Cotton cast as the weirdo mastermind in the center. They’ll reportedly play live, so heads up.

Pontiac on Bandcamp

Coup Sur Coup Records on Bandcamp

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The Polvos!, Floating

Already fluid as they open with the rocker “Into the Space,” exclamatory Chilean five-piece The Polvos! delve into more psychedelic reaches in “Fire Dance” and the jammy and (appropriately) floaty midsection of “Going Down,” the centerpiece of their 35-minute sophomore LP, Floating. That song bursts to life a short time later and isn’t quite as immediate as the charge of “Into the Space,” but serves as a landmark just the same as “Acid Waterfall” and “The Anubis Death” hold their tension in the drums and let the guitars go adventuring as they will. There’s maybe some aspect of Earthless influence happening, but The Polvos! meld that make-it-bigger mentality with traditional verse/chorus structures and are more grounded for it even as the spaces created in the songs give listeners an opportunity for immersion. It may not be a revolution in terms of style, but there is a conversation happening here with modern heavy psych from Europe as well that adds intrigue, and the band never go so far into their own ether so as to actually disappear. Even after the shreddy finish of “The Anubis Death,” it kind of feels like they might come back out for an encore, and you know, that’d be just fine.

The Polvos! on Facebook

Surpop Records website

Smolder Brains Records on Bandcamp

Clostridium Records store

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The Cosmic Gospel, Cosmic Songs for Reptiles in Love

With a current of buzz-fuzz drawn across its eight component tracks that allow seemingly disparate moves like the Blondie disco keys in “Hot Car Song” to emerge from the acoustic “Core Memory Unlocked” before giving over to the weirdo Casio-beat bounce of “Psychrolutes Marcidus Man,” a kind of ’60s character reimagined as heavy bedroom indie, The Cosmic Gospel‘s Cosmic Songs for Reptiles in Love isn’t without its resentments, but the almost-entirely-solo-project of Mercata, Italy-based multi-instrumentalist Gabriel Medina is more defined by its sweetness of melody and gentle delivery on the whole. An experiment like the penultimate “Wrath and Gods” carries some “Revolution 9” feel, but Medina does well earlier to set a broad context amid the hook of opener “It’s Forever Midnight” and the subsequent, lightly dub beat and keyboard focus on “The Richest Guy on the Planet is My Best Friend,” such that when closer “I Sew Your Eyes So You Don’t See How I Eat Your Heart” pairs the malevolent intent of its title with light fuzzy soloing atop an easy flowing, summery flow, the album has come to make its own kind of sense and define its path. This is exactly what one would most hope for it, and as reptiles are cold-blooded, they should be used to shifts in temperature like those presented throughout. Most humans won’t get it, but you’ve never been ‘most humans,’ have you?

The Cosmic Gospel on Facebook

Bloody Sound website

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Grave Speaker, Grave Speaker

Massachusetts garage doomers Grave Speaker‘s self-titled debut was issued digitally by the band this past Fall and was snagged by Electric Valley Records for a vinyl release. The Mellotron melancholia that pervades the midsection of the eponymous “Grave Speaker” justifies the wax, but the cult-leaning-in-sound-if-not-theme outfit that marks a new beginning for ex-High n’ Heavy guitarist John Steele unfurl a righteously dirty fuzz over the march of “Blood of Old” at the outset and then immediately up themselves in the riffy stoner delve of “Earth and Mud.” The blown-out vocals on the latter, as well as the far-off-mic rawness of “The Bard’s Theme” that surrounds its Hendrixian solo, remind of a time when Ice Dragon roamed New England’s troubled woods, and if Grave Speaker will look to take on a similar trajectory of scope, they do more than drop hints of psychedelia here, in “Grave Speaker” and elsewhere, but they’re no more beholden to that than the Sabbathism of capper “Make Me Crawl” or the cavernous echo of “Earthbound.” It’s an initial collection, so one expects they’ll range some either way with time, but the way the production becomes part of the character of the songs speaks to a strong idea of aesthetic coming through, and the songwriting holds up to that.

Grave Speaker on Instagram

Electric Valley Records website

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Surya Kris Peters, There’s Light in the Distance

While at the same time proffering his most expansive vision yet of a progressive psychedelia weighted in tone, emotionally expressive and able to move its focus fluidly between its layers of keyboard, synth and guitar such that the mix feels all the more dynamic and the material all the more alive (there’s an entire sub-plot here about the growth in self-production; a discussion for another time), Surya Kris Peters‘ 10-song/46-minute There’s Light in the Distance also brings the former Samsara Blues Experiment guitarist/vocalist closer to uniting his current projects than he’s yet been, the distant light here blurring the line where Surya Kris Peters ends and the emergently-rocking Fuzz Sagrado begins. This process has been going on for the last few years following the end of his former outfit and a relocation from Germany to Brazil, but in its spacious second half as well as the push of its first, a song like “Mode Azul” feels like there’s nothing stopping it from being played on stage beyond personnel. Coinciding with that are arrangement details like the piano at the start of “Life is Just a Dream” or the synth that gives so much movement under the echoing lead in “Let’s Wait Out the Storm,” as Peters seems to find new avenues even as he works his way home to his own vision of what heavy rock can be.

Fuzz Sagrado on Facebook

Electric Magic Records on Bandcamp

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Gozd, Unilateralis

Unilateralis is the four-song follow-up EP to Polish heavydelvers Gozd‘s late-2023 debut album, This is Not the End, and its 20-plus minutes find a place for themselves in a doom that feels both traditional and forward thinking across eight-minute opener and longest track (immediate points, even for an EP) “Somewhere in Between” before the charge of “Rotten Humanity” answers with brasher thrust and aggressive-undercurrent stoner rock with an airy post-metallic break in the middle and rolling ending. From there, “Thanatophobia” picks up the energy from its ambient intro and explodes into its for-the-converted nod, setting up a linear build after its initial verses and seeing it through with due diligence in noise, and closer “Tentative Minds” purposefully hypnotizes with its vague-speech in the intro and casual bassline and drum swing before the riff kicks in for the finale. The largesse of its loudest moments bolster the overarching atmosphere no less than the softest standalone guitar parts, and Gozd seem wholly comfortable in the spaces between microgenres. A niche among niches, but that’s also how individuality happens, and it’s happening here.

Gozd on Facebook

BSFD Records on Facebook

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Sativa Root, Kings of the Weed Age

You wouldn’t accuse Austria’s Sativa Root of thematic subtlety on their third album, Kings of the Weed Age, which broadcasts a stoner worship in offerings like “Megalobong” and “Weedotaur” and probably whatever “F.A.T.” stands for, but that’s not what they’re going for anyway. With its titular intro starting off, spoken voices vague in the ambience, “Weedotaur”‘s 11 minutes lumber with all due bong-metallian slog, and the crush becomes central to the proceedings if not necessarily unipolar in terms of the band’s approach. That is to say, amid the onslaught of volume and tonal density in “Green Smegma” and the spin-your-head soloing in “Assassins Weed” (think Assassins Creed), the instrumentalist course undertaken may be willfully monolithic, but they’re not playing the same song five times on six tracks and calling it new. “F.A.T.” begins on a quiet stretch of guitar that recalls some of YOB‘s epics, complementing both the intro and “Weedotaur,” before bringing its full weight down on the listener again as if to underscore the message of its stoned instrumental catharsis on its way out the door. They sound like they could do this all day. It can be overwhelming at times, but that’s not really a complaint.

Sativa Root on Facebook

Sativa Root on Bandcamp

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Volt Ritual, Return to Jupiter

Comprised of guitarist/vocalist Mateusz, bassist Michał and drummer Tomek, Polish riffcrafters Volt Ritual are appealingly light on pretense as they offer Return to Jupiter‘s four tracks, and though as a Star Trek fan I can’t get behind their lyrical impugning of Starfleet as they imagine what Earth colonialism would look like to a somehow-populated Jupiter, they’re not short on reasons to be cynical, if in fact that’s what’s happening in the song. “Ghostpolis” follows the sample-laced instrumental opener “Heavy Metal is Good for You” and rolls loose but accessible even in its later shouts before the more uptempo “Gwiazdolot” swaps English lyrics for Polish (casting off another cultural colonialization, arguably) and providing a break ahead of the closing title-track, which is longer at 7:37 and a clear focal point for more than just bearing the name of the EP, summarizing as it does the course of the cuts before it and even bringing a last scream as if to say “Ghostpolis” wasn’t a fluke. Their 2022 debut album began with “Approaching Jupiter,” and this Return feels organically built off that while trying some new ideas in its effects and general structure. One hopes the plot continues in some way next time along this course.

Volt Ritual on Facebook

Volt Ritual on Bandcamp

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