Posted in Whathaveyou on May 4th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Classic boogie, psych rock, darker tinges of doom, riffs and melody a-plenty pervade Slow Goat‘s debut LP, Where the Wisest Fear to Tread, is set to self-release on July 10. They’ve got enough groove to share, whatever microgenre they might ultimately reside in, and it’s a bummer there isn’t a song streaming yet from the eight-songer recorded and mixed by Eddie Brnabic of Hippie Death Cult and mastered by Jack Endino, because it’s pretty rad. Definitely a PNW record, strident in its riffing and intangibly classic-feeling, but they have some reach in addition to tighter, shorter pieces peppered throughout, and the lumber of “Sisyphus” makes its title fair enough. I guess they’ll get there when they get there. To be fair, I don’t even know when July is.
The PR wire sent album info and Adam Burke art and such:
Portland, OR heavy psych rockers Slow Goat announce debut album “Where the Wisest Fear to Tread”, out July 10th
Gamy riffs cut from the flank of the Pacific Northwest. Portland, Oregon’s Slow Goat peddles in the heavy and the psychedelic, with fuzzed-out jams thick enough to chew on, all anchored by clear and commanding vocals that drift between ethereal and feral.
Debut album Where the Wisest Fear to Tread took shape over nearly four years, growing with us as we pushed and refined the ideas behind it. The music is close to our hearts, and we’re excited to share it with listeners.
There are no heroes or triumphant victories in these songs. Yet there is persistence in the face of inevitability, endurance throughfutility, and an embrace of that which evokes suffering. Where the Wisest Fear to Tread explores darkness and realms beyond, from the terror within waking nightmare, to the stark reality reflected back in the mirror. The album title itself, a line from the track “Fell Ritual,” serves equally as a warning and invitation to bear anguish. And while many of the album’s themes draw on personal experience and a compulsion to look inward, we encourage the listener to derive their own meaning, or simply none at all. The record does not offer resolution so much as it documents the act of pressing forward despite it.
Sonically, we wanted the album to have real weight and gravity without sacrificing the raw edge of our live experience. One of our main songwriting philosophies is to approach the music live-first; It needs to feel full and complete on stage as one vocalist, guitarist, bassist, and drummer. To that end, we didn’t rely heavily on studio magic to make the music something it’s not, rather, we used things like overdubs or effects to embellish on an already-strong core. Anecdotally, at least one of the long guitar solos on the record came from an early scratch take during the first session.
Where the Wisest Fear to Tread drops July 10th.
Self-released (Digital, Vinyl) Portland, Oregon, US Engineered & mixed by Eddie Brnabic (Hippie Death Cult) Mastered by Jack Endino Cover Art by Adam Burke Additional Art by Harold Cuffe Photo & Layout by Eddie Brnabic
Tracklist: 1. Downward (0:57) 2. Fallen Child (4:23) 3. Visions / Fell Ritual (10:52) 4. Love Like Water (4:21) 5. Dark Procession (7:42) 6. Wilting (6:40) 7. Sisyphus (4:43) 8. Under the Glass (6:38)
Slow Goat is: Rosie Peterson – Vocals Danel Black – Guitar Adam Carter – Bass Eric Bloombaum – Drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 23rd, 2026 by JJ Koczan
No, it’s not the most high-profile reunion of the year, but I’m glad to see Mount Saturn back at it. Relocated from Bellingham, Washington, to Portland, Oregon, the band called it a day after releasing their full-length debut, O, Great Moon (review here), which I somewhat ironically said sounded like they wanted to push further. Well, they may yet get there, but there’s been a couple years’ hiatus in between. I think it’s still Josh Rudolph drumming, but either way, guitarist Ray Blum and vocalist Violet Vasquez have brought in new bassist Trevor Berecek to round out the current lineup, and as they say below, they’ve started writing for their next LP and are playing their first show back this weekend.
Obviously there’s a lot to shake out between here and Mount Saturn‘s first new release since 2022, but this was a band staking out their place in a crowded Pacific Northwest heavy underground, and I’m glad to see them getting back to that work one way or the other. I’ve included the stream of O, Great Moon at the bottom of this post. Granted, I have no clue how relevant it is to the work they’re doing now or the record they’re beginning to put together, but it’s good and whether you’ve heard it before or not, I think it’s worth some of your valuable time.
I signed up for the email list and have included the address below in case you’d like to do the same:
We’re back!
After a long year away, we’re finally back to it. With Trevor Berecek (Robots of the Ancient World, former Asteroid Witch) now on bass, we’ve begun writing our next album and have started booking shows in our new hometown, Portland, Oregon.
If you’d like to stay up-to-date on local and regional shows (we’ll save this awesome Bandcamp feature for merch and music releases from here on out), send us an email!
Just drop us a line at mountsaturnband@gmail.com with the subject line “mailing list” and we’ll get you added.
Upcoming Shows
Catch us at our first show back Sunday April 26th at The Coffin with Dry Wedding and Royal Thunder. Advance tickets are on sale now.
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 16th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
No shortage of crush in the post-metallic take of Burial Clouds as the Portland outfit unveil the new single “Be Not Afraid” and announce the May 22 release of their second album, Burn Holy, but melody and texture aren’t far behind the sheer impact when it comes to the ultimate impression made. I didn’t hear the first record — I know you did; you’ve always been cooler than me — so this is my first exposure to the band, but you can hear the depth of purpose in what they’re doing and the feeling of exploration that coincides.
They’ve got preorders up and the video for “Be Not Afraid” is down at the bottom of this post. Maybe a bit of note-to-self here to keep an eye out for the promo of the album when it comes in, but I figure while I’m noting, sharing’s good too. Thus to the PR wire we go:
BURIAL CLOUDS: Portland Post-Doom Metal Collective To Release Burn Holy Full-Length May 22nd; New Video/Single Now Playing + Preorders Available
Portland post-doom metal collective BURIAL CLOUDS will release their stunning new full-length, Burn Holy, on May 22nd.
BURIAL CLOUDS’ music lives in constant tension between beauty and rage, crushing riffs and intricate expanses walking the lines between inner and outer worlds, healing ritual and seditious fire. Every song is a meditation on what it means to live with a gentle, livid heart in an inhuman age.
The band’s debut album – 2023’s Last Days Of A Dying World released via Church Road Records – was met with praise from both fans and critics alike.
Subsequently, they embarked on a successful run through their home turf of the Pacific Northwest, followed by a UK tour, culminating in an appearance at the renowned Arctangent Fest. The following year saw significant lineup changes. Founders Matt Mitchell and Flynn Hargreaves remain on guitar and bass respectively. Marina Lavelle, who was the central figure in the video for “Beirut Shores,” makes her debut with vocals that range from searing, unhinged hostility to delicate vulnerability and soaring expressiveness. Her introduction brings a new and enthralling dynamic to both the sound and perspective of BURIAL CLOUDS music. Bryce Ramsey, previously of Trials, a juggernaut of a player whose approach is as soulful as it is technical, has been recruited on guitar. The multi-talented Tim Iserman, of Salo and Beguile and formerly of Ritual Veil, brings their ferocious, feral energy to the drums. From the crucible of songwriting and DIY recording and production, a newly reformed BURIAL CLOUDS emerged with their best work to date: Burn Holy.
Elaborates Mitchell on the creation of Burn Holy, “We set out to make this record more intense in every direction than Last Days… Prettier and heavier, more gentle, vicious, intense, technically challenging, you name it. Having Marina on vocals has allowed us to highlight aspects of the music that might have otherwise been missed. She’s able to access dimensions of expression the rest of us just can’t. The depth that Bryce’s killer backups bring can’t go unmentioned either; the combination of the two creates greater than the sum of its parts. Burn Holy took more or less a year for us to write, starting about three months after the first record came out. There was no regular process. Some songs had the instrumental written first, vocals later. Some were all at once, some were a back-and-forth iterative process of rearranging, rewriting, rinse and repeat. As they developed, each song developed its own voice. We tried above all else to listen to what they told us was needed, and far more often than not, we all heard the same thing. Some songs went through upwards of 10 or 12 versions. It was a very intense process, and I think we all feel, because of that, that this is literally the best record we were capable of making at that point.”
In advance of the release, today the band unveils first single, “Be Not Afraid.” Offers Mitchell, “‘Be Not Afraid’ is ultimately about fear and awe and the consequences of their manipulation. We wanted to express our resistance to that, in the dynamics of the music, with a feeling of relentlessness and spiritual inevitability. Like erosive crashing waves or the fury of a mother protecting her young… You use whatever tools you have to rebalance the scales.”
Burn Holy was written, engineered, recorded, and mixed by BURIAL CLOUDS, and mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege. The record will be released on CD, LP, and digital formats.
Burn Holy Track Listing [Digital]: 1. Burning The Olive Tree 2. Windflower 3. Ashen Altar 4. Negations 5. Be Not Afraid 6. Screaming, Drowning Pacified 7. Forget Me Not 8. Eyes Without Light
Burn Holy Track Listing [Vinyl]: A Side: 1. Burning the Olive Tree 2. Windflower 3. Be Not Afraid 4. Negations B Side: 1. Ashen Altar 2. Screaming, Drowning Pacified 3. Forget Me Not 4. Eyes Without Light
Posted in Reviews on March 19th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Feeling dug in, which I take as a good sign. There’s been a decent portion of this QR that’s catching up from last Fall onward, and I would’ve liked to cover some of that sooner, but honestly I struggled to find a week-plus to do this and lost an additional month by the time I did. So if you’re like ‘duh this is old’ to some of it — there are also releases that aren’t out yet — I apologize. In 10 years it won’t matter that whatever it was came out last October.
On that happy note, back to it.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
Witchcraft, A Sinner’s Child
Sweden’s Witchcraft follow their 2025 full-length, Idag (review here), with the five-song EP A Sinner’s Child, which runs a similar, if condensed, gamut, from founding frontman Magnus Pelander‘s solo acoustic folk to lumbering, heavy doom and points between. Pelander plays all the instruments on rolling opener “Drömmen Om Död Och Förruttnelse,” the minimal guy-and-guitar “Even Darker Days,” and the morosely weighted “Själen Reser Sig,” while the full-band title-track “A Sinner’s Child” and its closing alternate-lyrics companion-piece “Sinner’s Clear Confusion” are defined as much by the emotive blues of the vocals as by the wistfully strummed electric guitar that accompanies. “A Sinner’s Child” is between the two sides of “Själen Reser Sig” and “Even Darker Days,” sound-wise (it’s before them in the tracklisting) and underscores that it’s not just the extremes that Pelander/Witchcraft inhabit, but the intricate places between as well. I don’t know if it’s leftovers from the record or filler or what, and I don’t care. Just happy it exists and the band are making music, thanks.
Well, Portland and post-punk, so yes, Dead Moon are a factor, but PDX trio Perfect Buzz keep the songwriting tight and headed in their own, vividly rocking direction. The punk roots come out in “Here Come the Cowgirls,” with a shimmer in the guitar that’s unexpected, particularly after “You’re Wrong” was so sure of itself pounding its titular chorus into your head, but the heavier opener “Mess Around” sets a heavy-alternative expectation, and even the proto-grunge riffing of “Gonna Make U Sweat” is drawn under that umbrella. If you see them compared to Mudhoney, that’s probably why. But “Gonna Make U Sweat” is also the longest song at 3:28, and nothing else tops three minutes, so it’s not like Happy Trails is wasting anyone’s time. Instead, Perfect Buzz‘s debut EP showcases varied intent brought together by sharp, clearly-nobody’s-first-time-at-the-dance craft. Each of the four tracks sets out to do, and does, something different, while adding depth to the persona of the band, still being shaped but already a good time.
Raw sludge metallers Smoke Rites offer visceral and disaffected doom on their second full-length, Eager Eyes of Talion, marked by the forward-in-the-mix gritty vocals of Tomasz Mielnik, whose harsh-throated shouts, growls and divergences into clearer singing top the weighted, rolling processions of guitarist Łukasz Borawski, bassist Adam Ziółkowski and drummer Michał Kamiński, resulting in a suitably filthy sound. It’s dark-themes-for-dark-times in “Golden Road,” the title-track and the chugging “Nothing Never,” and certainly “Death is a Five Letter Word” and “Wind of Most Cruel Kind” aren’t offering much in terms of comfort. Even the interlude “Charas Drift” is brought to a harsh place, but Eager Eyes of Talion stays grounded in the muddy shove of “10ft. Dread” and the comparative loll of “Devil’s Advocate,” and doesn’t feel like it’s hading out any more punishment than is due. In a mad world, madness feels reasonable. Here we are.
Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean, Let Us Not Speak of Them But Look and Pass On
Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean uphold a long Massachusetts legacy of extreme sludge, and the four-song EP, Let Us Not Speak of Them But Look and Pass On, is duly facepeeling. Obviously “An Abundance of Mercy,” the nine-minute opener, is ironically titled. Mercy doesn’t really apply in the post-deity gnashing void the band portray, abrasive and churning. The lead cut is a slower assault where “Upheaval” is faster and more outwardly violent. “An Adornment of Light” might take home the prize for the lyric “I can show you/Just how broken/A wing can be,” if not for its seven-minute succession of massive lumber and throatripping screams or the ping ride in the last minute, like it’s marking the steps to where you jump in the volcano. Speaking of, “Execution” closes with a summary made more volatile for smashing elements together, but across the board, it’s a litmus test for how much noise you can take, which, since you’re alive today, is obviously more than any people at any other time in history could, so yes, have at it.
This might be genius. Hurst, Texas, solo experimentalist Mark Kitchens (also Stone Machine Electric) offers 11 sub-minute-long — the longest track is Hugging Curbs at 41 seconds — snippets, song ideas, root melodies, and tossoffs on Is it Death Metal or Sadness. Most are voice-based, but like opener “Big Dipper Little Dipper,” “Lynda and Her Celery,” “Almonds and Pistachios” and “Steven Lee Hall Junior” and “In the Pharmacy,” most have some synth or percussive accompaniment, and for most the lyrics are basically the titles. Maybe the most telling of all, centerpiece “Banana Time” — the lyric, “It’s banana time in the kitchen” — sounds like it was probably thought up while Kitchens was getting a banana. Five-second closer “Season My Eggs” — “I forgot to season my eggs, yeah-heah,” in a rocker voice — is likewise true to life. The reason this might be genius is because it reflects the ways music interacts with your daily life. Maybe you do sing a little song while you’re getting a banana, or get a hook in your head like the multi-layered “3 and 7” out of nowhere. It’s the sense of spontaneity captured. It turns out neither to be death metal nor sadness, and that could hardly be more fitting for the project.
Once they start rolling out that fuzz, there’s little stopping (and why would you?) German heavy rockers Capacopter who, working under influence from early Queens of the Stone Age via modern forerunners Slomosa, present their self-titled first LP with all due electricity and grooving intent. Hooks abound as in opener “600 Years” and the desert-airy “Caravan,” and they keep structures pretty straightforward for the eight-song duration — has Noisolution heard this? — but there’s some branching out in “Half’n Inch” at the start of side B, and “JP’s Horse” and closer “Wandering Stones” take time for atmospherics as well, while “Kings and Crowds” and “Temple Son” are, on balance, more direct, though songwriting is a factor front-to-back. The album ends up being a mix, and there are highlight stretches in the quieter moments as well, but as a statement of intent, Capacopter posits them as rockers, and fair enough. An encouraging and promising debut album. There’s growing into themselves to do, but there’s also time to do it.
Dense to a point of opaqueness at its heaviest, but able as well to shift into and through ambient passages, Monovoth‘s To Live in the Breath of Worship feels emotive without words and finds the despondent post-metallic Buenos Aires solo-project exploring tense and grimly progressive reaches. The third LP in five years from multi-instrumentalist Lucas Wyssbrod, it doesn’t shy from extremity in “Crimson Red Wound” or the blastbeaten-until-it-drones-in-apology 16-minute closer “To Drown in the Tears of God” (there is a human voice there), but is no more defined by that than the subdued bleakness of its stillest moments, nor is it overly predictable in the movements between those two sides, or unipolar in how it executes one or the other. This variability, flexibility, allows “Cosmically Orphaned” and earlier opener “From a Dying Star” to tell a similar story in different ways, and makes the album as a whole a more complete, immersive experience. It’s also noisy as hell, and that helps too.
Opening cut “Kronologia” (8:32) is the shortest of the three inclusions on Pimeyden Harha‘s severe-cast, wholly-doomed full-length debut, Aika, by about half. The subsequent “Rauha” (16:01) and “Entisöijä” (19:27) render the opener as lead-single fare, but rest assured, the solo outfit has plenty of doom to go around, whether it’s longform or, you know, sorta-longform. Lyrics, and somehow also the instruments, are in Finnish, and most of what keeps Aika from being death-doom is the melodic chant of sole-denizen/multi-instrumentalist J. LaCoin‘s vocals. Tempos are mostly a crawl, but “Rauha” lets you know up front it’s going to thrash out at the finish, and yes, it does, and there’s a bit of pickup in the later reaches of “Entisöijä” as well, but the bulk of the record is willed as a morose plod, and the atmosphere is accordingly grey. To its credit, however, Aika holds firm to its intent and doesn’t veer from its path as the songs play out; the most divergence happens in “Koronologia,” and it’s brief. That’s not to say Pimeyden Harha comes across as unipolar, just that it’s a sound crafted with a goal in mind. As a debut, one might call it foreboding.
The only real question going into this debut album by Spain’s Wild Fuzz Trip is whether or not the five tracks on Fuzz Transmissions live up to the billing. Are they, in fact, a wild fuzz trip? Well, yes. Whether you’re dug into the mellow midsection of “Big Grey” or the more uptempo boogie into meatier riffing that happens over the course of centerpiece “Galactican Twilight,” the double-guitar troupe — here guitarists Miguel A. Marañón and Diego López (also keys), bassist Andy Shardlow (Josiah) and drummer Suso Valcárcel and Martin Ludl on the sax in closer “Nebula Groove” — are right there with you, and though they’ve been a band for eight years and this is apparently their first LP, the surety of their going speaks to the slew of EPs and single releases leading up to it. They neither wasted their time nor waste yours as the listener, bringing their ambition to life in an expansive sound one hopes will continue to flesh out.
Breadth and crush, expressive human intimacy and instrumental expanse, post-metallic chiaroscuro, etc., however you want to frame Gavran‘s The One Who Propels, the Rotterdam four-piece find their niche in style with a sound that basks in its multifaceted nature across five longer-form cuts, each of which plays out with a balance between two-plus sides, melodically sung here and abrasively screamed there, conveying emotion in the lulls of “Brod” as much as the next-level-obliteration that kicks in for (about) the final minute of “Okreni.” “Zora” and “Pogon” both start very, very heavy, but even there, a change in the vocals provides distinction amid tonal consistency, and Gavran are served across the 59-minute span by their attention to detail in terms of arrangement as well as the depth of mix which sometimes they seem to occupy to a point of spilling out, only to recede again and let the next melodic contemplation hold sway. The resulting entirety is viciously affirming as it leads to 16-minute capper “Plutaju,” which methodically encapsulates the course of the album while continuing to carve its own place.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on February 26th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
The track “Monastery of the Seven Sages” opens Breath‘s Fall 2025 Argonauta-released sophomore LP, Brahman (review here), and its opening riff is a fittingly Sabbathian call to prayer. The nod that ensues is meditative in style, and the Portland outfit — who were joined by Rob Wrong of Witch Mountain for the album — continue to delve into Cisnernos-esque fluidity, but if Om‘s vaguely spiritual communion is a factor here, it’s not the sum total of what either the song in question or the record it comes from have to offer. It is a beginning, in other words. A shocking observation for the start of an album, right? Stay tuned to The Obelisk for more hard-hitting, in-depth insights like this.
My point — I know I had one when I started — is that Breath are distinguished by what they build around this recognizable core. Their first full-length, 2021’s subsequently-revamped Primeval Transmissions (review here; discussed here), was rawer in its construction even after the 2023 remix/remaster, and I wouldn’t exactly call Brahman lush with the way the band use negative space in the mix to create a sense of humility that one finds visualized in the pilgrimage portrayed in the video below, but no question they’re exploring and fleshing out their sound with synth, guitar and so on. That’s a process one hopes will continue, because it distinguishes Breath from other practitioners and because the further out they go the more they seem to discover is within their creative reach.
It’s obviously early to talk ‘next record.’ It’s only been months since Brahman came out — it’s relevant enough that they just made a video for it, you could say — but to my ears, “Monastery of the Seven Sages” emphasizes the intentional growth on the part of the band, their willingness to push their own for-the-moment limits, and since that inherently leads to the question of where they’re headed and how they might get there, one can’t help but think of them even five years on from their debut as still just beginning to tap into the potential of their sound. I don’t mean to make it seem like they’re in pursuit of a thing, which goes against the whole Buddhist aesthetic overlay, but however you want to frame it, their songwriting is so forward-thinking, so here’s me, accordingly looking forward to what might come.
The clip below came down the PR wire:
Breath, “Monastery of the Seven Sages” official video
Portland’s meditative doom collective BREATH unveil the official music video for “Monastery of the Seven Sages”, a standout track from their critically acclaimed album Brahman, released via Argonauta Records. The song and video exemplify the band’s signature blend of atmospheric doom, post-metal depth and psychedelic heaviness, combining massive riffs, hypnotic basslines, ritualistic rhythms and textured cinematic layers that draw the listener into a meditative sonic journey.
The band comments:
“Monastery of the Seven Sages peers into a distant proto-bronze age landscape obscured by the fog of time. The power and bond of ‘as above so below’ is conveyed through filmmaker Erik Meharry’s vision. His inspiration from the song birthed a whole outline of Lynchian depth that made us all too eager for him to be at the helm. A song following steps like Oannes, looking to the wild horizon of space and Earth and finding connection.”
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 25th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Portland heavy Americana psych rockers Abronia set out this weekend in support of their new album, Shapes Unravel (review here), which is out on Cardinal Fuzz/Feeding Tube Records, playing in Oregon and Washington ahead of more shows next month in Oregon and California. It’s not a weeks-long tour, but they’re hitting their spots nonetheless, and the record makes a worthy cause for the going. No idea if more dates will follow, if anything’s planned for the East Coast or the Midwest, or what. All I know is these shows came through the PR wire and it was an excuse to put the record on while I was writing about them, and I was happy for that.
If you’ve not yet heard it, you’ll find it streaming at the bottom of this post and can discover for yourself why I’d be glad for that excuse:
Abronia Announce West Coast Tour
Shapes Unravel LP Out Now via Cardinal Fuzz & Feeding Tube Records
Portland based band Abronia have announced a February/March 2026 West Coast tour. The run includes dates at Portland, OR’s Mississippi Studios (2/26), Cottage Grove, OR’s Axe & Fiddle (3/24), Oakland, CA’s Thee Stork Club (3/26), Chico, CA’s Naked Lounge (3/27), and more. Full routing and select ticket links can be found below. The tour is in support of their recently released album, Shapes Unravel.
Abronia Live 2/26 – Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios 2/27 – Seattle, WA – Add-A-Ball 2/28 – Bellingham, WA – Makeshift 3/7 – Eugene, OR – Art House 3/24 – Cottage Grove, OR – Axe & Fiddle w/ McKenzie & the Last Responders 3/25 – Hayfork, CA – Northern Delights w/ The Glow Twins 3/26 – Oakland, CA – Thee Stork Club 3/27 – Chico, CA – Naked Lounge 3/28 – Arcata, CA – The Miniplex
Shapes Unravel is Abronia’s most ambitious and compositionally daring record to date—the album moves with a strange gravitational pull, layering grief, haunted memory, and flashes of transcendence into something emotionally expansive and structurally bold. Moments of crushing weight give way to eerie stillness, held together by an urgency that feels vital, not calculated. It’s a record that doesn’t politely wait for your attention; it pulls you into its orbit whether you’re ready or not.
Over the past decade, Abronia has been refining their singular blend of widescreen psychedelia, desert noir, Eastern drone, avant-jazz, doom, post-punk, and acid-folk—channeling something that feels at once ritualistic and cinematic. From the first thud of their 32-inch bass drum to the coil of pedal steel winding through the haze, the sound of this Portland-based six-piece is unmistakable.
Shapes Unravel is out now via Cardinal Fuzz & Feeding Tube Records.
Abronia is – Keelin Mayer: Vocals, Tenor Saxophone, Flute Rick Pedrosa: Pedal Steel, Percussion Robert Grubaugh: Big Drum, Percussion, Melodica Danny Metcalfe: Bass James Shaver: Guitar Eric Crespo: Guitar, Backing Vocals
Posted in Reviews on February 13th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Resonance and texture are not new elements in the work of Oregonian heavy psychedelic Americana explorers Abronia. Indeed, one could argue their principal stylistic declarations were made nine years ago on their first album, Obsidian Visions / Shadowed Lands (review here), at least as regards arrangements centered around the ‘big drum’ rather than a traditional kit — and yes, it is a large bass drum being hit, complemented by cymbals, shakers and various other now-you-have-to-be-creative-type percussion — with pedal steel guitar used for place-setting (‘vibes’ they call it now; everything is vibes) and lysergic flourish. And I’ll point out that I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Abronia showed up nearly a decade ago with a clear idea of what they wanted to do, and as they’ve refined their approach, their music to-date has painted pictures accordingly. Never with so purposeful a hand and never quite so vividly as on Shapes Unravel, their fourth full-length.
The guitars of James Shaver (who was originally on the drum) and Eric Crespo (also backing vocals) are recognizable in style and tone and breath, and Keelin Mayer remains of marked vocal presence and command, be it the primal scream therapy taking place at the end of opening track “New Imposition,” which holds a grandeur that makes it feel broader than its four-and-a-half-minute runtime, or the confident staccato delivery alongside Mayer‘s own flute in “Gemini” regrounding with a hook after the expansive “Walker’s Dead Birds,” which isn’t to mention the tenor sax in the latter track with which she seems to be in a nonlingual conversation. Rick Pedrosa‘s pedal steel can add twang or mood, depending on the need, and Danny Metcalfe‘s bass is given all the more room for the compared-to-a-full-kit stripped-down nature of the drum, handled by Robert Grubaugh. But as second cut “Mirrored Ends of Light” eschews the rawer payoff of “New Imposition” and moves from its earlier ’60s-ish shuffle in favor of a more poised-feeling, Morricone-cinematic crescendo (not their first time in the Spaghetti West), Shaver‘s arrangements of viola and violin (played by Miles Wierer-Huling) and trumpets (played/recorded by Cory Gray) bring the procession to another level. It is not bombastically heavy and it doesn’t need to be. It carries a sunbeaten weight of centuries in its atmosphere.
In addition to this, there is a maturity in the songwriting across Shapes Unravel that gives a greater sense of flow between tracks even as each one adds something different to that mix. At seven songs/35 minutes, it’s not by any means an unmanageable listen, but in part not being overloaded in terms of runtime is emblematic of how Shapes Unravel makes its every decision count. The way that crescendo in “Mirrored Ends of Light” builds up around Mayer‘s vocalizing. The way “Weapons Against Progress” conveys a forward movement in its rhythm and puts a bluesier twist on the guitar, or the matched step of the lyric “I’m all over your cold shoulder” with the light-footed instrumental march of “Petals and Sand.” Shapes Unravel makes highlights of its details, and it’s not about one instrument or the other being pushed higher in the mix to get a showcase, but instead about where a song is going and what most serves it.
“Walker’s Dead Birds” is the longest inclusion at 6:35 and starts with a prairie raga pedal-steel daybreak, shifting smoothly into its verse before introducing the crashes that hint at a volume surge to come. The verses are declarative, the execution patient and confident because they know where they’re going and why, even as the second half lets loose into a drift of intertwining layers of guitar, saxophone and a mounting swell of distortion, but when the peak has been reached, it’s the central, quiet verse progression that remains, and they push through a return from whence they came before the song is done, tying it together fluidly and leaving little question as to how “Walker’s Dead Birds” wound up as the centerpiece that it is.
Abronia‘s last outing was the 2023 live-in-a-cabin release The High Desert Sessions (review here), which came just a year out from 2022’s third album, Map of Dawn (review here). There have been some lineup changes around Crespo, Mayer, Pedrosa and Shaver, as Grubaugh and Metcalfe are making their respective first appearances with the band, but the freshness of the rhythm section certainly doesn’t hurt, as both the steady roll of “Weapons Against Progress” and the subtle motion of the penultimate “Petals and Sand” — which feels almost minimalist at its outset but grows organically to a wash by its finish without losing control of the melody so central to its effect on the listener. Preceded by a return of strings on “Gemini” (this time played by Kate Kilbourne), ” along with the already-noted flute and I’ll just call it grace, “Petals and Sand” is melancholic triumph of a manner that emphasizes the care put into the craft across the board, and closer “Asleep in the Porcelain House” offers a tasteful linear build that, to the last, brings to light just how many routes Abronia have to get their material where it’s going, seeming to push beyond “Petals and Sand” to a next stage, Mayer‘s screams recalling “New Imposition” or the ending of “Walker’s Dead Birds,” other moments where the restraint gives way.
Shapes Unravel was recorded by Evan Mersky, with additional recording by Crespo, TJ Thompson and Cory Gray, and mixed by Larry Crane. And even before you get to the strings or the trumpets or Mayer‘s sax or Grubaugh‘s melodica, there’s a lot put into even its most subdued-feeling moments. Ultimately, though, the balance Abronia strike in these songs demonstrates not only complexity, but the reasoning behind it, and whether one wants to sit and peruse the ambient details of “Weapons Against Progress” or let the whole album play out as one longer, cohesive mass, it works, and the title repetitions in “Gemini” are as much a part of why as the illustrated scope of “Mirrored Ends of Light.” It is an accomplishment that could only have come by the manner it did — something a band pursued as they pushed themselves creatively on ground new and familiar — and so feels all the more masterful.
Posted in Reviews on November 19th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
I was gonna do this whole week, happy Monday, happy Tuesday, happy Wednesday, but I happen to feel like an asshole typing the words “happy Wednesday,” so I’m going to refrain. Hope your week isn’t awful, in any case.
Or if it is, I hope music can help make it better. This Quarterly Review has been a breeze thus far and looking at the lineup for today I expect the trend to continue. Thanks for hanging in with it. We pass the halfway mark today and will wrap up on Friday, with 50 releases covered throughout the week.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
Amorphis, Borderland
Yeah, okay, you can go ahead and cancel the rest of the review. Yup, I know. I’d love to sit here and talk about how Finland’s Amorphis, some 35 years and upwards of 16 full-lengths later, are still refining their processes, conjuring melodic intricacy, and celebrating death metal in kind. I’d love to talk about the progressive strains in Borderland, or about how as recognizable as Amorphis are, they’re still able to find new ways to balance the keys and guitar, or to switch up the vocals, or even just to chug proggier on “Light and Shadow” and “Fog to Fod,” whatever it might be. I’d love to talk about all of that, but you see, the thing is… “Bones.” Specifically, the riff thereof, swept into with crushing majesty and rolled forth with knows-what-it-has certainty of the type one would expect from a long-established pro-shop genre-innovating band like Amorphis. I could go on about all the other stuff, but that riff is gonna be all you need to know ahead of time. I’ll hope to have it in my head for the next year or so.
One could spend the rest of this space recounting Joe Hasselvander‘s pedigree, from Death Row to Pentagram to Raven to The Hounds of Haseelvander, with stints in countless others including Blue Cheer besides, but that doesn’t tell you much about the doom of Fire on the Mountain. Hasselvander‘s third solo outing under his name and first in 25 years follows a traditional pattern of Doom Capitol blue-collar riffing that, it has to be acknowledged, Hasselvander had a part in establishing, while the man himself plays all instruments and handles vocals, at time with a bit of a lounge-singer edge with spoken lines, but when he reaches for the higher note in third cut “Holy Water,” a big moment in the song, it’s there for him. “Prodigal Sun” is one of several images taken from the bible and would seem to be autobiographical, and he ends with a fitting apex of nod and shred in “Darkest Before the Dawn.” He’s said he has plans for more, and indeed, Fire on the Mountain sounds more like a beginning than an end.
A current of crackling, tube-heating distortion begins in “Spine,” which introduces Kariti‘s third album, Still Life, and indeed even amid the The Keening-esque piano of “Nothing” and the title-track a short time later, that hard-toned drone becomes a backbone for the material. It’s not always there — arrangements are fluid around the central guitar/keys/voice — but for an artist working in a style so intentionally mindful of aesthetic, the My Bloody Valentine-esque noise swell of “Suicide by a Thousand Cuts,” the emergence of the static in “Naiznanku” and the rumble behind the closing prayer “Baptism” bring dark avant garde experimentalism to traditionalist melodies. This is what Kariti has been developing since 2020’s Covered Mirrors (review here), working with guitarist Marco Matta on a deepening collaboration. While retaining folkish intimacy thanks to the quiet stretches around this distorted crunch (looking at you, “Purge”), Kariti has never sounded farther-reaching.
They don’t make ’em like Burning Sister anymore, and listening to Ghosts, I’m less sure they ever did. Because as much as the Colorado now-twosome of bassist/vocalist/synthesist Steve Miller and drummer Alison Salutz continue to foster a druggy ’90s-type slackerism amid all the crash in opener “Brokedick Icarus” and the drawling march of “No Space or Time,” they’ve also never quite sounded as much themselves. There’s psychedelic shimmer in the noise swirling in the later reaches of “Stellar Ghost,” and “Lethe//Oblivion” (premiered here) is made all the more a ceremony with the thread of synth and/or amplifier hum. Meanwhile, “Swerve (Dead Stars)” would work as a new wave arrangement, I can feel it, and the longest-song-by-a-second “Dead Love” (7:20) closes with a thrilling roll and languid procession, reinforcing the downerism that’s been essential to Burning Sister since their outset. Whatever comes in the future, being a duo suits these songs.
A quick turnaround third full-length from London’s The Lunar Effect will be nothing to complain about for those who (like me) got on board with the London heavy rock outfit via last year’s Sounds of Green and Blue (review here). Also on Svart, the follow-up brims with cohesion in its songwriting and purpose in its twists, with the opener “Feed the Hand” establishing the command that proves unwavering through “Watchful Eye,” the brash speed-shuffler “Five and Two” and the lonely sway of “My Blue Veins” before “Stay With Me” modernizes Graveyardian soul en route to the grunge-riffed centerpiece “Settle Down.” The dynamic continues to expand with the piano-led “I Disappear” speaking to a burgeoning reach in songwriting, while “A New Moon Rises” regrounds and “Scotoma” smoothly finds a niche in desert rock that probably hundreds of bands wish they could make their own, and “Nailed to the Sky” rounds out by going big on tone and emotionality alike. So far, these guys are a better band than people know. They inject a little drama to these proceedings, and it sounds like there’s more to come.
While the closing title-track has a thread of prog metal that reminds of mid-period Devin Townsend, Auckland, New Zealand’s King Cruel back their 2023 Creeper three-song EP with a marked sense of atmosphere, the melodies of careening lead track “Haunting Time” calling to mind Boston’s Worshipper in their metallic underpinnings, shred and thoughtful melody. Sky Eater is my first exposure to the band, whose style balances mood and impact smoothly, and whose hooks are inviting without being cloying, as in “Diamond Darya,” which digs in and rides its central riff with a stoner rocker’s dedication and a poise that comes from knowing why they’re doing it. The aforementioned capper is the catchiest of the bunch, but King Cruel, goal-wise, have more in their sights than catchiness, and given the sprawl they lay out here, one can’t help but wonder if a debut album won’t be next.
I won’t claim to know how it was made, between what’s improvised, layered in, overdubbed, conjured from ethereal planes beyond the limits of understanding, and so on, but Angad Berar‘s eight-track/50-minute Sundae is indeed a sweet dish of psychedelic immersion. The Berlin-based solo artist made it in collaboration with guitarist/synthesist/bassist Kartik Pillai, while drummer Siddharth Kaushik sits in on the 10-minute penultimate cut and vocalist Chrisrah guests on the only song that isn’t a numbered jam, the moody mellow liquefier “Driving With You” before “Jam #3” and the horn sounds of “Jam #4” re-immerse the listener in slow-churning fluidity. “Jam #6,” with the live drums and extended runtime, is pointedly hypnotic in its first half, but has some Endless Boogie-type rock angularity later that makes it fun, while the closing “Jam #7” offers a seven-minute drone meditation before handing the listener back over to reality. Serenity abounds if you know where to find it.
Trevor’s Head, Fall Toward the Sun // Majesty and Harmony
Admirably celebrating their 15th anniversary in 2025 with touring and new music, UK melodic heavy rockers Trevor’s Head bring the Abbey Road-recorded “Fall Toward the Sun” and “Majesty and Harmony” together, not quite to encapsulate their sound or everything they’ve accomplished in their time, but to typify the ethic of marking the occasion by doing the thing itself; that is, they’re writing music because it’s what they love to do. “Fall Toward the Sun” and “Majesty and Harmony” both have an edge of aired-out ’90s-type noise rock — nothing new for Trevor’s Head in terms of style — but where they hit you with it up front in the first song, the latter holds its payoff in reserve for when they depart the titular harmonies and get to the surge of crunch in the midsection. Running seven minutes total, you wouldn’t accuse Trevor’s Head of overindulging, but instead, they give their fans and followers something new to dig into that in ethic and realization can only serve as a reminder of their appeal in the first place.
Burl, crunch, lumber, crush, groove and sprawl — the Rob Wrong (Witch Mountain)-recorded debut full-length from Portland, Oregon, riffchucking five-piece Ravine knows from whence it hails. There are some flashes of cosmic intention, but sludgier, earthbound nods pervade the five-track/47-minute outing, which holds its ambition not in a performative stylistic overreach — that is to say, Ravine are who they are musically; there’s no pretense here as they hit you with it straight forward — but in the course each of these tracks takes. Their heaviest onslaught might be in the willfully, almost gleefully grueling “Ennui,” of course the centerpiece, but even there Ravine aren’t content just to doom, or rock, or sludge out, etc., instead working to create a sense of momentum within the songs as each follows its own path, marking out its own place while adding to the whole. They’re not done growing, and I don’t think the balance of their approach is settled, but given what they already lay out, that’s a strength in their favor. This is the kind of debut that makes friends.
Sweden’s Malgomaj aren’t through the opening title-track (a bookending two-parter) of Valfiskens Buk before they’ve put forth primo hard boogie and inventive Sabbathry, classic in influence, modern in production/execution, and continuing to brim with movement as “Rembrants Skugga” and the softshow-ready “Hej Hej Malgomaj” back it. I suppose the elephant in the room here is Graveyard, but “Värddjur” has more Motörheaded foundations, and the instrumental “Itera Mot Solnedgången” hints toward Westernism before the seven-minute “Cyklopisk Betong” flattens with its early riff only to redirect to ’60s-ish garage jangle, so one wouldn’t accuse Malgomaj on this apparent debut of being singleminded, but neither are they lacking cohesion or flow between songs. “Stöttingfjället Rämnar” answers the heft of the track prior and “Det Är Nåt Fel På Solen” sets a languid march before “Valfiskens Buk Del 2” reprises the opener to make the album sound all the more complete, whether you speak the language or not.
