Posted in Whathaveyou on August 30th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Portland-based psych-turned-heavygaze outfit Blackwater Holylight will launch a month of European touring at Desertfest Belgium in the company of Amsterdam’s Iron Jinn. The band presented a comparatively grim thesis with 2021’s Silence/Motion (review here), taking the atmospheric penchant of their first two albums and, in part, using it as a means to explore the drear of its time, not that either the time or the drear are necessarily over.
I finally got to see the band after wanting to since their debut about a year ago at Psycho Las Vegas (review here), and they took to the main stage there with according mastery of their sound and approach. The latest album put them on their first US headlining tour, and they’re headliners internationally now too, their outward growth in sound greeted with a corresponding uptick in listenership. Well met, and all that.
If you didn’t hear it, Iron Jinn‘s 2023 self-titled debut (review here) is a dark-prog smorgasbord, which makes this a good pairing. Plus, Iron Jinn will have just been out in September supporting Alain Johannes and doubling as his backing band, so they should be plenty warmed up.
Blackwater Holylight posted the dates as follows:
BLACKWATER HOLYLIGHT- (#128165#)EUROPE(#128165#) WE COMING FOR YA(#128165#)
Cannot wait to return to so many countries and friends we’ve missed dearly. Please join us and @iron_jinn for a month a mayhem LETS GO!
@doomstarbookings and BWHL present CHAPEL OF ROSES TOUR: 20.10.23 Antwerpen (BE) – Trix / Desertfest 23.10.23 Paris (FR) – Supersonic 24.10.23 Nijmegen (NL) – Merleyn 25.10.23 Eindhoven (NL) – Stroomhuis 26.10.23 Bochum (DE) – Die Trompete 27.10.23 Dresden (DE) – Chemiefabrik / Heavy Psych Sounds Festival 28.10.23 Berlin (DE) – Urban Spree / Heavy Psych Sounds Festival 29.10.23 Malmö (SE) – Plan B 30.10.23 Gothenburg (SE) – Skeppet GBG 31.10.23 Stockholm (SE) – Bar Brooklyn 02.11.23 Helsinki (FI) – Kuudes Linja / Sonic Rites Fall Fest 03.11.23 Tallinn (EE) – Hungr 04.11.23 Riga (LV) – Vagonu Hall 05.11.23 Vilnius (LT) – Narauti 06.11.23 Warsaw (PL) – Chmury 07.11.23 Krakow (PL) – Zascianek 08.11.23 Prague (CZ) – Modra Vopice 09.11.23 Vienna (AT) – Arena 10.11.23 Budapest (HU) – Instant 11.11.23 Ljubljana (SI) – Channel Zero 13.11.23 Munich (DE) – Feierwerk 14.11.23 Zürich (CH) – Klub Komplex 15.11.23 Frankfurt (DE) – Nachtleben 16.11.23 Lille (FR) – La Bulle Café
* Ljubljana date has been changed to Channel Zero.
Welcome back to the Summer 2023 Quarterly Review. I hope you enjoyed the weekend. Today we dig in on the penultimate — somehow my using the word “penultimate” became a running gag for me in Quarterly Reviews; I don’t know how or why, but I think it’s funny — round of 10 albums and tomorrow we’ll close out as we hit the total of 70. Could easily have kept it going through the week, but so it goes. I’ll have more QR in September or October, I’m not sure yet which. It’s a pretty busy Fall.
Today’s a wild mix and that’s what I was hoping for. Let’s go.
Quarterly Review #51-60:
Weite, Assemblage
Founded by bassist Ingwer Boysen (also High Fighter) as an offshoot of the live incarnation of Delving, of which he’s part, Weite release the instrumental Assemblage as a semi-improv-sounding collection of marked progressive fluidity. With Delving and Elder‘s Nick DiSalvo and Mike Risberg in the lineup along with Ben Lubin (Lawns), the story goes that the four-piece got to the studio with nothing/very little, spent a few days writing and recording with the venerable Richard Behrens helming, and Assemblage‘s four component pieces are what came out of it. The album begins with the nine-minutes-each pair of the zazzy-jazzy mover “Neuland,” while “Entzündet” grows somewhat more open, a lead guitar refrain like built around drum-backed drone and keys, swelling in piano-inclusive volume like Crippled Black Phoenix, darker prog shifting into a wash and more freaked-out psych rock. I’m not sure those are real drums on “Rope,” or if they are I’d love to know how the snare was treated, but the song’s a groover just the same, and the 14-minute “Murmuration” is where the styles unite under an umbrella of warm tonality and low key but somehow cordial atmosphere. If these guys want to get together every couple years into perpetuity and bang out a record like this, that’d be fine.
The fourth album from Portland, Oregon’s Mizmor — the solo-project of multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer, vocalist, etc.-ist A.L.N. — arrives riding a tsunami of hype and delivers on the band’s long-stated promise of ‘wholly doomed black metal.’ With consuming distortion at its heart from opener/longest track (immediate points) “Only an Expanse” onward, the record recalls the promise of American black metal as looser in its to-tenet conformity than the bulk of Europe’s adherents — of course these are generalizations and I’m no expert — by contrasting it rhythmically with doom, which instead of fully releasing the tension amassed by the scream-topped tremolo riffing just makes it sound more miserable. Doom! “No Place to Arrive” is admirably thick, like noisy YOB on charred ambience, and “Anything But” draws those two sides together in more concise and driving style, vicious and brutal until it cuts in the last minute to quiet minimalism that makes the slam-in crush of 13-minute closer “Acceptance” all the more punishing, with plenty of time left for trades between all-out thrust and grueling plod. Hard to call which side wins the day — and that’s to Mizmor‘s credit, ultimately — but by the end of “Acceptance,” the raging gnash has collapsed into a caldera of harsh sludge, and it no longer matters. In context, that’s a success.
With a couple quick drum taps and a clearheaded strum that invokes the impossible nostalgia of Bruce Springsteen via ’90s alt rock, Netherlands-based The Whims of the Great Magnet strolls casually into “Same New,” the project’s first outing since 2021’s Share My Sun EP. Working in a post-grunge style seems to suit Sander Haagmans, formerly the bassist of Sungrazer and, for a bit, The Machine, as he single-track/double-tracks through the song’s initial verse and blossoms melodically in the chorus, dwelling in an atmosphere sun-coated enough that Haagmans‘ calls it “your new summer soundtrack.” Not arguing, if a one-track soundtrack is a little short. After a second verse/chorus trade, some acoustic weaves in at the end to underscore the laid back feel, and as it moves into the last minute, “Same New” brings back the hook not to drive it into your head — it’s catchy enough that such things aren’t necessary — but to speak to a traditional structure born out of classic rock. It does this organically, with moderate tempo and a warm, engaging spirit that, indeed, evokes the ideal images of the stated season and will no doubt prove comforting even removed from such long, hot and sunny days.
German instrumentalists Sarkh follow their 2020 full-length, Kaskade, with the four-song/31-minute Helios EP, issued through Worst Bassist Records. As with that album, the short-ish offering has a current of progressive metal to coincide with its heavier post-rock affect; “Zyklon” leading off with due charge before the title-track finds stretches of Yawning Man-esque drift, particularly as it builds toward a hard-hitting crescendo in its second half. Chiaroscuro, then. Working shortest to longest in runtime, the procession continues with “Kanagawa” making stark volume trades, growing ferocious but not uncontrolled in its louder moments, the late low end particularly satisfying as it plays off the guitar in the final push, a sudden stop giving 11-minute closer “Cape Wrath” due space to flesh out its middle-ground hypothesis after some initial intensity, the trio of guitarist Ralph Brachtendorf, bassist Falko Schneider and drummer Johannes Dose rearing back to let the EP end with a wash but dropping the payoff with about a minute left to let the guitar finish on its own. Germany, the world, and the universe: none of it is short on instrumental heavy bands, but the purposeful aesthetic mash of Sarkh‘s sound is distinguishing and Helios showcases it well to make the argument.
A 2LP second long-player from mostly-traditionalist doom metallers Spiritual Void, Wayfare seems immediately geared toward surpassing their 2017 debut, White Mountain, in opening with “Beyond the White Mountain.” With a stretch of harsher vocals to go along with the cleaner-sung verses through its 8:48 and the metal-of-eld wail that meets the crescendo before the nodding final verse, they might’ve done it. The subsequent “Die Alone” (11:48) recalls Candlemass and Death without losing the nod of its rhythm, and “Old” (12:33) reaffirms the position, taking Hellhound Records-style methodologies of European trad doom and pulling them across longer-form structures. Following “Dungeon of Nerthus” (10:24) the shorter “Wandering Doom” (5:31) chugs with a swing that feels schooled by Reverend Bizarre, while “Wandersmann” (13:11) tolls a mournful bell at its outset as though to let you know that the warm-up is over and now it’s time to really doom out. So be it. At a little over an hour long, Wayfare is no minor undertaking, but for what they’re doing stylistically, it shouldn’t be. Morose without melodrama, Wayfare sees Spiritual Void continuing to find their niche in doom, and rest assured, it’s on the doomier end. Of doom.
Even when The River make the trade of tossing out the aural weight of doom — the heavy guitar and bass, the expansive largesse, and so on — they keep the underlying structure. The nod. At least mostly. To explain: the long-running UK four-piece — vocalist Jenny Newton, guitarist Christian Leitch (formerly of 40 Watt Sun), bassist Stephen Morrissey and drummer Jason Ludwig — offer a folkish interpretation of doom and a doomed folk on their fourth long-player, the five-song/40-minute A Hollow Full of Hope taking the acoustic prioritizing of a song like “Open” from 2019’s Vessels into White Tides (review here) and bringing it to the stylistic fore on songs like the graceful opener “Fading,” the lightly electric “Tiny Ticking Clocks” rife with strings and gorgeous self-harmonizing from Newton set to an utterly doomed march, or the four-minute instrumental closer “Hollowful,” which is more than an outro if not a completely built song in relation to the preceding pieces. Melodic, flowing, intentional in arrangement, meter, melody. Sad. Beautiful. “Exits” (9:56) and “A Vignette” (10:26) — also the two longest cuts, though not by a ton — are where one finds that heft and the other side of the doom-folk/folk-doom divide, though it is admirable how thin they make that line. Marked progression. This album will take them past their 25th anniversary, and they greet it hitting a stride. That’s an occasion worth celebrating.
Sons of Froglord is the fourth full-length in three years from UK amphibian conceptualist storytellers Froglord, and there’s just about no way they’re not making fun of space rock on “Road Raisin.” “Collapse” grows burly in its hook in the vein of a more rumbling Clutch — and oh, the shenanigans abound! — and there’s a kind of ever-present undercurrent sludgy threat in the more forward push of the glorious anthem to the inanity of career life in “Wednesday” (it doesn’t materialize, but there is a tambourine on “A Swamp of My Own,” so that’s something), but the bulk of the latest chapter in the Froglord tale delivers ’70s-by-way-of-’10s classic heavy blues rock, distinct in its willingness to go elsewhere from and around the boogie swing of “Wizard Gonk” and the fuzzy shuffling foundation of “Garden” at the outset and pull from different eras and subsets of heavy to serve their purposes. “Froglady” is on that beat. On it. And the way “A Swamp of My Own” opens to its chorus is a stirring reminder of the difference drumming can make in elevating a band. After a quick “Closing Ceremony,” they tack on a presumably-not-narrative-related-but-fitting-anyway cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival‘s “Born on the Bayou,” which complements a crash-laced highlight like “The Sage” well and seems to say a bit about where Froglord are coming from as well, i.e., the swamp.
Released digitally with the backing of Abraxas and on CD through Smolder Brains Records, the Cult of Devil Sounds split EP offers two new tracks each from São Paulo, Brazil’s Weedevil and Veraruz, Mexico’s Electric Cult. The former take the A side and fade in on the guitar line “Darkness Inside” with due drama, gradually unfurling the seven-minute doom roller that’s ostensibly working around Electric Wizard-style riffing, but has its own persona in tone, atmosphere and the vocals of Maureen McGee, who makes her first appearance here with the band. The swagger of “Burn It” follows, somewhat speedier and sharper in delivery, with a scorcher solo in its back half, witchy proclamations and satisfying slowdown at the end. Weedevil. All boxes ticked, no question. Check. Electric Cult are rawer in production and revel in that, bringing “Rising From Hell” and “Esoteric Madness” with a more uptempo, rock-ish swing, but moving through sludge and doom by the time the seven minutes of the first of those is done. “Rising From Hell” finishes with ambient guitar, then feedback, which “Esoteric Madness” cuts off to begin with bass; a clever turn. Quickly “Esoteric Madness” grows dark from its outset, pushing into harsh vocals over a slogging march that turns harder-driving with ’70s-via-Church–of–Misery hard-boogie rounding out. That faster finish is a contrast to Weedevil‘s ending slow, and complements it accordingly. An enticing sampler from both.
When I read some article about how the James Webb Space Telescope has looked billions of years into the past chasing down ancient light and seen further toward the creation of the universe than humankind ever before has, I look at some video or other, I should be hearing Dr. Space. I don’t know if the Portugal-based solo artist, synthesist, bandleader, Renaissance man Scott “Dr. Space” Heller (also Øresund Space Collective, Black Moon Circle, etc.) has been in touch with the European Space Agency (ESA) or what their response has been, but even with its organ solo and stated watery purpose, amid sundry pulsations it’s safe to assume the 20-minute title-track “Suite for Orchestra of Marine Mammals” is happening with an orchestra of semi-robot aliens on, indeed, some impossibly distant exoplanet. Heller has long dwelt at the heart of psychedelic improv and the three pieces across the 39 minutes of Suite for Orchestra of Marine Mammals recall classic krautrock ambience while remaining purposefully exploratory. “Going for the Nun” pairs church organ with keyboard before shimmering into proto-techno blips and bloops recalling the Space Age that should’ve had humans on Mars by now, while the relatively brief capper “No Space for Time” — perhaps titled to note the limitations of the vinyl format — still finds room in its six minutes to work in two stages, with introductory chimes shifting toward more kosmiche synth travels yet farther out.
The debut from Santa Fe-based solo drone project Ruiner — aka Zac Hogan, also of Dysphotic, ex-Drought — is admirable in its commitment to itself. Hogan unveils the outfit with The Book of Patience (on Desert Records), an 80-minute, mostly-single-note piece called “Liber Patientiae,” which if you’re up on your Latin, you know is the title of the album as well. With a willfully glacial pace that could just as easily be a parody of the style — there is definitely an element of ‘is this for real?’ in the listening process, but yeah, it seems to be — “Liber Patientiae” evolves over its time, growing noisier as it approaches 55 or so minutes, the distortion growing more fervent over the better part of the final 25, the linear trajectory underscoring the idea that there’s a plan at work all along coinciding with the experimental nature of the work. What that plan might manifest from here is secondary to the “Liber Patientiae” as a meditative experience. On headphones, alone, it becomes an inward journey. In a crowded room, at least at the outset it’s almost a melodic white noise, maybe a little tense, but stretched out and changing but somehow still solid and singular, making the adage that ‘what you put into it is what you get out’ especially true in this case. And as it’s a giant wall of noise, it goes without saying that not everybody will be up for getting on board, but it’s difficult to imagine the opaque nature of the work is news to Hogan, who clearly is searching for resonance on his own wavelength.
Been a trip so far, has this Quarterly Review. It’s been fun to bounce from one thing to the next, drawing imaginary lines between releases that have nothing more to do with each other than being written up on the same day, and seeing the way the mind reels in adjusting from talking about one thing to the next. It’s a different kind of challenge to write 150-200 words (and often more than that; these reviews are getting too long) about a record than 1,000 words.
Less room to make your argument means you need to say what you want to say how you want to say it and punch out. If you’ve read this site with any regularity over the last however many years, or perhaps if you’re reading this very sentence right now, right here, you might guess that such efficiency isn’t a strong suit. This assessment would be correct. Fact is I suck at any number of things. A growing list.
But we’ve made it to Thursday anyhow and today this 70-record Quarterly Review passes its halfway point, and that’s always a fun thing to mark. If you’ve been digging it, I hope you continue to do so. If nothing’s hit, maybe today. If this is the first you’re seeing of any of it, well, that’s fine too. We’re all friends here. You can go back and dig in or not, as you prefer. I’ll keep going either way. Speaking of…
Quarterly Review #31-40:
The Howling Eye, List Do Borykan
I don’t often say things like this, but List Do Borykan is worth it for the opening jam of “Space Dwellers, Episode 1.” That does not mean that song’s languid flow, silly stoned space-adventure spoken word narrative, and flashes of dub and psych and so on, are all that Poland’s The Howling Eye have to offer on their third full-length. It’s not. The prior single “Medival” (sic) has a thoughtful arrangement led by post-Claypool funky bass and surf-style guitar, which are swapped out for hard-riff cacophony metal in the second half of the song’s 3:35 run. That pairing sets up a back and forth between longer jams and more structured material, but it’s all pretty out there when you hear the seven song/44 minutes of the entire record, as the 10-minute “Brothers” builds from silence to organ-laced classic rock testimony and then draws itself down to let the funkier/rolling (depending on which part you’re talking about) “Space Dwellers, Episode 2” provide a swaying melodic highlight, and “Caverns” drones into jazz minimalism for nine minutes before “Space Dwellers, Episode 3” goes full-on over-the-top 92-second dance party. Finally. That leaves the closer, “Johnny,” as the landing spot where the back and forth jams/songs trades end, and they’re due a jam and provide one, but “Johnny” also follows on theme from “Space Dwellers, Episode 3” and the start of “Medival” and other funk-psych stretches, so summarizes List Do Borykan well. Again, worth it for the first song, but is much more than just that as a listening experience.
Toronto-based folk experimentalist, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Avi C. Engel starts off the 10-song Sanguinaria with the first of its headphone-ready arrangements “Sing in Our Chains” assessing modernity and realizing, “We were better off in the trees.” In addition to Engel‘s actual voice, which is well capable of carrying records on its own, with a distinctive character, part soft and breathy in delivery but resilient with a kind of bruised grace and, as time goes on, grown more adventurous. In “Poisonous Fruit” and “The Snake in the Mirror,” folk, soul and organically-cast sprawl unfold, and where “A Silver Thread” brings in electric guitar and lap steel, “Deathless” — the longest cut at 6:33, arriving paired with the subsequent, textural “I Died Again” — is sparse at first but builds around whatever stringed instrument Engel (slow talharpa?) is playing and Paul Kolinski‘s banjo, standout vocal harmonies and a subdued keeping of rhythm. Along with Kolinski, Brad Deschamps adds lap steel to the opener and the more-forward-in-percussion “Extasis Boogie,” which is listed as an interlude but nearly five minutes long, and Lys Guillorn contributes lap steel to “A Silver Thread,” with all due landscape manifestation. Sad, complex, and beautiful, the 52-minute long-player isn’t a minor undertaking on any level, and “Personne” and the penultimate “Bridge Behind the Sun” emphasize the point of intricacy before the looping “Larvae” masterfully crafts its resonance across the last six minutes of the album.
Begun in 1993 as Peach, London heavy prog rockers Suns of the Tundra celebrate 30 years with the encompassing hour-long The Only Equation, their fifth album, which brings back past members of the band, has a few songs with two drummers, and is wildly sprawling across 10 still-accessible tracks that shimmer with purpose and melody. The title-track seems to harken to a ’90s push, but the twisting and volume-surging back half stave redundancy ahead of the patient drama in the 10-minute “The Rot,” which follows. On the other side of the metal-leaning “Run Boy Run,” with its big, open, floating, thudding finish representing something Suns of the Tundra do very well throughout, the three-part cycle of “Reach for the Inbetween” could probably just as easily have been one 15-minute cut, but is more palatable as three, and loses nothing of its fluidity for it, the build in the third piece giving due payoff before “The Window is Wide” caps in deceptively hooky style. Whether one approaches it with the context of their decades or not, The Only Equation is deeply welcoming. And no, its proggy prog progness won’t resonate universally, but nothing does, and that doesn’t matter anyhow. Without giving up who they are creatively, Suns of the Tundra have made it as easy as they can for one to get on board. The rest is on the listener.
Natskygge sneak a little “Paranoid” into “Delir,” the instrumental opener/longest track (immediate points) of their second album, Eskapisme, and that’s just fine as dogwhistles go. The Danish classic psych rockers made a well-received self-titled debut in 2020 and look to expand on that outing’s classic vibe with this 34-minute eight-tracker, which is rife with creative ambition in the slower “Lys på vej” and the piano-laced “Fjern planet,” which follows, as well as in a mover/shaker like “Titusind år,” the compact three-minute strutter “Frit fald” or what might be the side B leadoff “Feberdrøm” with its circa-1999 Brant Bjork casual groove and warm fuzz, purposefully veering into psychedelia in a way that feels like a preface for the closing duo “Livet brænder,” an organ/keyboard flourish, grounded verse and airy swirls over top leading smoothly into the likewise-peppered but acoustically-based “Den der sidst gik ud,” which conveys patience without giving up the momentum the band has amassed up to that point. I’ll note that my ignorance of the Danish language doesn’t feel like it’s holding me back as “Fjern planet” holds forth its lush melancholy or “Titusind år” signals the band’s affinity for krautrock. Not quite vintage in production, but not too far off, Eskapisme feels like it was made to be lived with, the songs engaged over a period of years, and I look forward to revisiting accordingly.
Portland’s Last Giant reportedly had a bit of a time recording their fourth long-player, Monuments, in a months-long process involving multiple studios and a handful of producers, among them Adam Pike (Holy Grove, Young Hunter, Red Fang, Mammoth Salmon, etc.) recording basic tracks, Paul Malinowski (Shiner, Open Hand) mixing and three different rounds of mastering. Complicated. Working as the three-piece of founder, principal songwriter, guitarist and vocalist RFK Heise (ex-System and Station), bassist Palmer Cloud and drummer Matt Wiles — it was just Heise and Wiles on 2020’s Let the End Begin (review here) — the band effectively fill in whatever cracks may have been apparent to them in the finished product, and the 10-track/39-minute offering is pop-informed as all their output to-date has been and loaded with heart. Also a bit of trumpet on “Saviors.” There’s swagger in “Blue” and “Hell on Burnside,” and “Feels Like Water” is about as weighted and brash as I’ve heard Last Giant get — a fun contrast to the acoustic “Lost and Losing,” which closes — but wherever a given track ends up, it is deftly guided there by Heise‘s sure hand. Sounds like it was much easier to make than apparently it was.
Growth is either the second or third full-length from Polish heavy psych doomers Moonstone depending on what you count, but by the time you’re about three minutes into the 7:47 of second cut “Bloom” after the gets-loud-at-the-end-anyway atmospheric intro “Harvest” — which establishes an undercurrent of metal that the rest of the six-song/36-minute LP holds even in its quietest parts — ordinal numbering won’t matter anyway. “Bloom” and “Sun” (8:02), which follows, are the longest pieces on Growth, and that in itself speaks to the band stripping back some of their jammier impulses as compared to, say, late 2021’s two-song 12″ 1904 (discussed here), but while the individual tracks may be shorter, they give up nothing as regards largesse of tone or the spaces the band inhabit in the material. Flowing and doomed, “Sun” ends side A and gives over to the extra-bass-punch meditativeness of “Night,” the guitar building in the second half to solo for the payoff, while the six-minutes-each “Lust” and “Emerald” filter Electric Wizard haze and the proggy volume trades of countrymen like Spaceslug, respectively, close with due affirmation of purpose in big tone, big groove, and a noteworthy dark streak that may yet come to the fore of their approach.
It’s not quite the centerpiece, but in terms of the general perspective on the world of the record from which it comes, there’s little arguing with Sonic Demon‘s “F.O.A.D.” as the declarative statement on Veterans of the Psychic War. As with Norway’s Darkthrone, who released an LP titled F.O.A.D. in 2007, Sonic Demon‘s “F.O.A.D.” stands for ‘fuck off and die,’ and that seems to be the central ethic they’re working from. Like most of what surrounds on the Italian duo’s follow-up to 2021’s Vendetta (review here), “F.O.A.D.” is coated in tonal dirt, a nastiness of buzz in line with the stated mentality making songs like swinging opener “Electric Demon” and “Lucifer’s the Light,” which follows, raw even by post-Uncle Acid garage doom standards. There are moments of letup, as in the wah-swirling second half of “The Black Pill,” a bit of psych bookending in “Wolfblood,” or the penultimate (probably thankfully) instrumental “Sexmagick Nights,” but the forward drive in “The Gates” highlights the point of Sonic Demon hand-drilling their riffs into the listener’s skull, and the actually-stoned-sounding groove of closer “To Hell and Back” seems pleased to bask in the filth the album has wrought.
If you’re taking on From the Ages‘ deceptively-titled first full-length, II — the trio of guitarist Paul Dudziak, bassist Sean Fredrich and drummer David Tucker issued their I EP in 2021, so this is their second release overall — it is perhaps useful to know that the only inclusion with vocals is opener/longest track (immediate points) “Harbinger.” An automatic focal point for that, for its transposed Sleep influence, and for being about four minutes longer than anything else on the album, it draws well together with the five sans-vox cuts that follow, with an exploratory sensibility in its jam that feels like it may be from whence a clearly-plotted song like “Maelstrom” or the lumbering volume trades of “Tenebrous” originate. Full in tone and present in the noisy slog and pre-midpoint drift of “Epoch” as well as Dudziak‘s verses in “Harbinger,” From the Ages seem willful in their intention to try out different ideas, whether that’s the winding woe of “Obsolescence” or the acoustilectric standalone guitar of closer “Providence,” and while that can make the listener less sure of where their development might take them in stylistic terms, that only results in their being more exciting to hear in the now.
Not only is Astral Magic‘s Cosmic Energy Flow — released in May of this year — not the first outing from the Finnish space rock outfit led by project founder and spearhead Santtu Laakso in 2023, it’s the eighth. And that doesn’t include the demo short release with a live band. It’s also not the latest Astral Magic about two months after the fact, as Laakso and company have put out two full-lengths since. Unrealistic as this level of productivity is — surely the work of dimensional timeporting — and already-out-of-date as the eight-song/42-minute LP might be, it also brings Laakso into collaboration with the late Nik Turner of Hawkwind, who plays sax on the opening title-track, as well as guitarists Ilya Lipkin of Russia’s The Re-Stoned and Stefan Olesinski (Nuns on Napalm), and vocalists Christina Poupoutsi (The Higher Craft, The Meads of Asphodel, etc.) and Kev Ellis (Dubbal, Heliotrope, etc.), and where one might think so many personnel shifts around Laakso‘s synth-forward basic tracks would result in a disjointed offering, well, anything can happen in space and when you throw open doors in such a way, expectations broaden accordingly. Maybe it’s just one thing on the way to the next, maybe it’s the record with Nik Turner. Either way, Astral Magic move inextricably deeper into the known and unknown cosmos.
Until the solo hits in the second half of “The Barrens,” you almost don’t realize how much space there is in the mix on Green Inferno‘s Trace the Veins. The New Jersey trio like it dank and deathly as they answer the rawness of their 2019 demo with the six Esben Willems-mastered tracks of their first album, porting over “Spellcaster” and “Unearth the Tombs” to rest in the same mud as malevolent plodders like “Carried to the Pit” and the penultimate “Vultures,” which adds higher-register screaming to the already-established low growls — I doubt it’s actually an influence, but I’m reminded of Amorphis circa Elegy — that give the whole outing such an extreme persona if the guitar and bass tones weren’t already taking care of it. The tortured feel there carries into closer “Crown the Virgin” as the three-piece attempt to stomp their own riffs into oblivion along with everything else, and one can only hope they get there. New songs or the two older tracks, doesn’t matter. At any angle you might choose, Green Inferno are slow-churned extreme sludge, death-sludge if you want, fully stoned, drenched in murk, disillusioned, misanthropic. It’s the sound of looking at the world around you and deciding it’s not worth saving. Did I mention stoned? Good.
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 14th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
More than half a decade after releasing 2017’s Chalice Hymnal (review here), Grails have announced they’ll offer Anches En Maat on Sept. 22 through Temporary Residence. The streaming track is the opener “Sad and Illegal,” and band-founder/multi-instrumentalist Emil Amos (also of Om and Holy Sons and so on) and it is lush in its cinematic-sans-cinema arrangement as the new, expanded incarnation of the long-running project would seem to be the most complete band Grails have been in memory. Though what’s a band, what’s complete, what’s expanded, blah blah blah. You know what I mean. For a band that was Amos on his own, it looks like there’s a bunch more people hanging around. That’s all.
Full on Euro tour scheduled to support Anches En Maat and you can see the dates along with the album info below. The track, of course, is at the bottom of the post. Dig in:
GRAILS Return with Anches En Maat, Their First Record in Six Years
The ever-evolving Grails are back with their first record in six years. Anches En Maat finds the band at their orchestral peak and further expand their lush universe with new members and new instrumentation.
Grails’ Statement (Emil Amos)
“After a band has existed for 20 years, there are things you’ve always wanted to try on the back burner that you’ve never had the room to approach. We all have a bizarre lust to try and not sound like ourselves at times… which is usually the first and last thing you fail at. But with ‘Sad & Illegal’ maybe Grails got a little closer to getting outside ourselves.
There are emotions represented in film music that just aren’t things one experiences in a normal day. Like the immense suspicion baked into music from a repelling scene in a diamond heist film… the way the hi-hat simmers, the filthy fretless bass and an out of tune piano that skitters around the beat. This is the dimension where Sad & Illegal was born in… out of a sense-memory we never got to experience, but that film music told us was real.”
GRAILS Anches En Maat September 22, 2023
Anches En Maat is the first new album from Grails in over a half-decade – following the masterful Chalice Hymnal in 2017 – and their first album recorded with all members in the studio together since Doomsdayer’s Holiday in 2008. With every Grails album released since Doomsdayer’s Holiday being a sprawling double-album endeavor, Anches En Maat was conceived as a return to the comparatively efficient single LP runtime. With that, Grails set out to craft the same sonically dense world that their longer albums showcased, while trading singular indulgences for live collaborative interplay.
The core group of founding members Alex Hall and Emil Amos (Om, Holy Sons) joined Jesse Bates, Ilyas Ahmed, and AE Paterra (Zombi, Majeure) in Atlanta, GA to record Anches En Maat together – a novel event for a band who had become so accustomed to recording separately and then laboring in post-production for months or even years on end. Frequent collaborator, Timba Harris (Secret Chiefs 3, SUNN O)))), provided stirring strings, and a bevy of guests filled out the lush landscape of Anches En Maat.
An improbable blend of melted 1980s softcore and daytime soap opera soundtracks, cosmic minimalism, aching Westerns, melancholy electronic pulses, and massive soul-disco strings, Anches En Maat is one of Grails’ most ambitious albums of their 20+ year career. Through continually refining and maturing their vision as a band, Grails have stumbled upon a reprogramming of their internal logic – and come out the other side with a new defining statement.
Tracklisting: 1. Sad & Illegal 2. Viktor’s Night Map 3. Sisters of Bilitis 4. Pool of Gems 5. Evening Song 6. Black Rain 7. Anches En Maat
TOUR DATES Oct 4 Stadwerkstatt, Linz, AT Oct 5 A38, Budapest, HU Oct 6 Pink Whale, Bratislava, SK Oct 7 Kabinet Muz, Brno, CZ Oct 8 Meet Factory, Prague, CZ Oct 9 Arena, Vienna, AT Oct 11 Roadrunners Rock & Motor Club, Berlin, DE Oct 12 BHF Langendreer, Bochum, DE Oct 13 Botanique, Brussels, BE Oct 14 Vera, Groningen, NL Oct 15 Hafenklang, Hamburg, DE Oct 16 Vega / Ideal Bar, Copenhagen, DK Oct 18 Kuudes Linja, Helsinki, FI Oct 19 Paavli Kultuurivabrik, Tallinn EE Oct 20 Zemlika Festival, Durbe LV Oct 21 Sodas2123 Vilnius, LT Oct 22 VooDoo Warsaw PL
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 12th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Been waiting for news about the next Hippie Death Cult record? Me too. The Portland, Oregon, trio will issue Helichrysum — which, trust me, you don’t want to forget that second ‘h’ and then have to go back and change not only all the front-end text, but the tags and such that I use for back-end navigation through the disorganized clusterscrew that is this site for a grand total of upwards of four minutes of self-embarrassed inconvenience; the title comes from a kind of plant, and no, I don’t know if it gets you high — on Oct. 20, and if you’ve kept up since the release of their 2021 album, Circle of Days (review here), you’re already aware that it was basically the work of a different band.
Since that outing, Laura Phillips has taken over lead vocals in addition to her prior bass duties, and Harry Silvers (who also plays in Robots of the Ancient World) has landed the drummer role, so as a three-piece with guitarist Eddie Brnabic‘s now-unaccompanied-by-organ riffs leading the way, it’s a rawer Hippie Death Cult in the new collection, but also a more forceful one. Phillips has an undercurrent of classic metal to her delivery that suits the Sab-worship grooves on opener/first single “Arise,” and Silvers proffers swing to spare. Not saying I’ve heard it or anything, but it’s a rager. You’re gonna want to see them live after you listen. How fortunate the band also recently announced a September tour with Spirit Mother. Those dates are below, along with the album announcement for Helichrysum.
The PR wire sent the following:
HIPPIE DEATH CULT to issue new album “Helichrysum” this fall on Heavy Psych Sounds; stream debut single “Arise”!
Portland’s most hybrid 70s heavy rockers HIPPIE DEATH CULT team up with Metal Injection to present their new single “Arise” today. Their third studio album “Helichrysum” is due for an October 20th release on Heavy Psych Sounds.
“Lyrically, “Arise” serves as a poignant reminder of the prevalence of grifters and self-proclaimed spiritual leaders who exploit vulnerable individuals searching for guidance, often leaving them even more disillusioned and adrift than before. The song narrates a tale of a devoted follower who finally sees through the charismatic manipulation and shatters the illusion. Another reminder to question everything and trust your own inner compass when navigating the path of truth,” says bassist and vocalist Laura Philips.
About the album, the band adds: “Helichrysum delves deep into the human experience, exploring the wounds we carry and the transformative power that lies within us. It serves as a culmination of the countless creative and personal choices we have made, leading us to a place of greater harmony within ourselves, with each other, and with our collective intentions. Musically speaking, the new album is a testament to our commitment to delivering a sonic experience that is unapologetically raw, adventurous, heavy, groovy and psychedelic. The choice to name the album after the Helichrysum plant holds significance as it symbolizes endurance, healing, immortality, and the power to overcome adversity, which mirror many of the themes throughout the record.”
“Helichrysum” was recorded and mixed by Eddie Brnabic, Ben Barnett and Jeremy Romagna at 8-4 Studios in Portland, Oregon. It was mastered by Maor Appelbaum at Maor Appelbaum Mastering in Los Angeles, California. Artwork illustrated by Greg Traw.
Tracklisting: 1. Arise 2. Shadows 3. Better Days 4. Red Giant 5. Toxic Annihilator 6. Nefelibata 7. Tomorrows Sky
To support the release of “Helichrysum,” Hippie Death Cult has planned full-blown North American and European tours. Fans can expect an immersive and powerful live experience as the band brings their high-energy performances to stages across the globe. With their unwavering dedication to their craft and their ability to push boundaries, Hippie Death Cult is poised to leave an indelible mark on the music scene for years to come.
HIPPIE DEATH CULT & SPIRIT MOTHER tour: 9/8 Portland, OR- Lose Yr Mind Fest 9/9 Seattle, WA – El Corazón 9/10 Vancouver, BC – The Wise 9/12 Calgary, AB – Palomino Smokehouse 9/15 Winnipeg, MB – Pyramid Cabaret 9/16 St Paul, MN – Turf Club 9/17 Madison, WI – High Noon Saloon Madison 9/18 Chicago, IL – Reggies 9/19 Memphis, TN – Growlers 9/20 Lafayette, LA – Freetown Boom Boom Room 9/21 Arlington, TX – Division Brewing 9/22 Austin, TX – Ripplefest 9/23 Houston, TX – Black Magic Social Club 9/24 El Paso, TX – TBA 9/26 Albuquerque, NM – Sister * 9/97 Tempe, AZ – Yucca Taproom * 9/28 Las Vegas, NV – The Usual Place * 9/29 Los Angeles, CA – Permanent Records 9/30 Albany, CA – Ivy Room 10/01 San Francisco, CA – Kilowatt Bar *w/ @brant_bjork
HIPPIE DEATH CULT is: Laura Phillips – Bass/Vocals Eddie Brnabic – Guitar Harry Silvers – Drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 11th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Bands change configuration all the time. Four-pieces lose a member to become a trio. A double-guitar five-piece wants Hammond. Whatever. What makes Breath bringing synthesist Lauren Hatch (also Greenseeker) on board as a full-time bandmate remarkable is how pointedly they were a duo before. Bassist/vocalist Steven O’Kelly and drummer/percussionist Ian Caton had flown the two-piece flag pretty high, but thinking back, even their 2021 debut, Primeval Transmissions (discussed here) tapped third-party participation, namely from guitarist Rob Wrong (Witch Mountain), who also recorded it. Last year’s reworking Primeval Transmissions (Remixed and Remastered) (review here) fostered an even richer sound, so maybe this isn’t actually so outlandish an expansion. Sometimes a band grows and wants something else. It’s not like they’re breaking up with you; they’re breaking up with being a duo.
Hatch plays her first show with the band tonight, July 11, and will play on their second record. Wrong will also reportedly feature on Breath‘s next LP as well, again on guitar, though I’ve no idea when such a thing might be coming. Hey man, I’m doing my best, alright?
I hit up O’Kelly and Hatch for comment and they offered the following to go with the original social post. Dig:
Greetings to you! Our flame burns brighter now with our new mate on Keys. We found kindred vision through collaboration and the steps ahead are now illuminated. Please welcome Lauren to Breath!
Says Steve O’Kelly: “Contemplative walks lead me to hear a third voice in Breath. In the throes of erratic thought when we were deep in the creative phase,, doors swung open to a new path that we gladly stride. Lauren brings thoughtful collaboration and energy to our music. We’re grateful to have her adept hand of Synthesizers pull us up into a new area.”
Says Lauren: “I started out as a fan of Breath. When Steven asked me to play on a song, I was surprised because the band is so strong as a two-piece. One song turned into three songs, which turned into live performances, and here we are. I’ve been having a blast coming up with synth parts to add a new element to these songs and am so excited to explore more sounds with these guys.”
Come see the new incarnation Live! 7 / 11 The Midnight Portland 7 / 14 M & J Tavern Bend 7 / 15 The WOW Hall Eugene
A new Abronia album barely over a year since they put out their triumphant third record, Map of Dawn (review here)? Sort of. The Portland, Oregon, heavy psych/dark Americana crew offered that under-heralded LP — and it was plenty heralded, just not as much as it deserved — through Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube Records, and The High Desert Sessions isn’t quite a proper follow-up. The clue is in ‘Sessions,’ in the title. Delivered through the same labels as its predecessor — it came out last Friday and I already missed getting one of the edition-of-80 CDRs; tape is still available as I write this — and what it hints toward is a familiar escapist narrative of a band absconding from real life and its sundry woes, secluding themselves in some remote location, a cabin in the woods or some such, and focusing on nothing but creating music for some given time.
It is an experiment many have undertaken, and Abronia — vocalist/tenor saxophonist Keelin Mayer, guitarists Paul Michael Schaefer and Eric Crespo (the latter also sometimes vocals), bassist Shaun Lyvers, Shaver on the big drum, and Rick Pedrosa on pedal steel — use the opportunity to conjure 12 tracks across a sometimes challenging but still manageable 37-minute LP that, really, you don’t have to worry that it sold out in like a day, because the music itself demands more to be made, let alone the buying public.
Headphones are just about mandatory for what might be Abronia‘s Walden, regardless of the volume or concentration one might otherwise give it. The material is too nuanced, too much going on in the percussion jam of “No Time for a Fire” with the repetitive curls of sax worked into the rhythm, and much of the atmospheric vocal work will simply fade into the background of the varied pieces in which it appears. And it doesn’t always. Most of The High Desert Sessions is instrumental. The album is deeply flowing through many shifts in arrangement, as though each of the 12 inclusions is a snippet of a longer improvisation or exploration, and they’ve been edited and aligned together, bleeding directly from one to the next except where the band has made the choice not to, as with “Rough Eyed J.E.R.K.S.” and “Open the Door for Water,” which follows and is where a vinyl side A and B would split.
Crespo mixed and mastered, and regardless of how much is going on at any given point, whether it’s a piece like “Liar,” which grows relatively minimal in its middle, or “Winged Seeds” with its central guitar conversation. Much of the material is pastoral even before the pedal steel comes in, and The High Desert Sessions, though it goes a number of places Abronia haven’t gone before in terms of actual sounds being made, is consistent atmospherically with Map of Dawn, 2020’s The Whole of Each Eye (review here) and 2017’s Obsidian Visions/Shadowed Lands (review here). The basic fact of the matter is that their style is open enough that they can go where they want and have it fit. If nothing else, The High Desert Sessions argues that decisively.
But there is, of course, more in the pieces themselves. The nine-minute opener/longest track (immediate points) “Moving Furniture” is an obvious standout and focal point. Where most of The High Desert Sessions could be called interlaced snippets, pieces of jams edited together to create a varied flow across the two sides of the whole work — semi-raga second track “Thrushes” drone-meditating its way into the start of “No Time for a Fire,” the many fadeouts and -ins of side B as “Target Practice” moves from its maybe-a-scream and percussive ritualizing to the mellower and post-rocky “Barely a Season,” which feels more like it could be built into a proper Abronia ‘song,’ with Morricone flourish in the guitar and solidified bass and percussion beneath — and that methodology comports with the off-to-where-people-aren’t narrative behind the record’s making. They may well have had to relocate a couch or two as they got started, and for sure “Open the Door for Water” is the kind of thing one might find on a note or a printed sheet at an AirBNB off in the high desert, but “Moving Furniture” also clues the listener into the personality of the release, which is fortunate since it comprises about a quarter of its runtime.
Listen hard (with those headphones on) and you might hear someone yell ‘stop!’ at 7:43 amid the low-key wash of drones and chimes and various obscure instrumentation — instrument-wise, there is a lot on The High Desert Sessions that could be one thing or could be another, the band employing the usual sax and pedal steel as well as berimbau, dobro, banjo, bowed dulcimer, acoustic and electric guitars, maybe a keyboard in there? — but the song brings itself down gradually in thick-sounding cymbals, maybe-vocal and other drones, and a final move into more urgent big-drum thud, and a couple vocalizations before the serenity of “Thrushes” takes hold.
The experimentalist ethos becomes part of The High Desert Sessions‘ appeal, and whether one sits and picks apart each individual movement, the two-minute “Artemesia” with its rhythmic-pause lyrics, wavy guitar and pedal steel flourish and sudden rise of tape hiss at the end, or the crash-start “Rolling Mass” likewise feeling more ‘song’-ish with a plotted-seeming guitar figure at its core following the drum march, or lets the procession from one to the next hypnotize and carry through the full LP stretch — if you listen digitally or got one of those CDRs, you don’t even have to flip sides; nothing against tapes or vinyl — Abronia reward the experience.
But as to what’s making the string-ish sound in “Rough Eyed J.E.R.K.S.,” for example, I have no idea, though if you took a bowed dulcimer or a berimbau — and ran it through some pedals and were recording it live to an 8-track tape along with some organ and cymbals and drone, it might indeed end up so folkish and biting in the finished product. One way or the other, the bottom line is The High Desert Sessions gives a showcase to the experimental side of what Abronia do, letting listeners perhaps have a deeper look at their process, or at least how they work together with a single creative goal in mind. That it stands so well on its own as a full-length outing and does so much to complement their other work should be taken as another sign of how singular this band is becoming. The kind of outfit who can make moving furniture sound good.
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 7th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Conan have signed with Swamp Booking for Euro representation, and how better to consummate the beginning of such a relationship than to announce a full round of European touring? Very good then. The UK allcrushers will head out starting Oct. 11 in the company of Portland, Oregon’s Lord Dying, who return to Europe for the first time since 2019 (of course). Their live lineup at the time was as listed below. I hope that if that’s no longer accurate, someone will fill me in. I did my best to find an updated one and couldn’t. I’m trying, you know.
They’ll be a fitting complement to Conan, whose 2022 LP, Evidence of Immortality (review here), found them growing more atmospheric with the inclusion of synth much as Lord Dying‘s 2019 outing, Mysterium Tremendum (review here), saw them building a bridge between their monstrous sludge and more progressive, angular metallurgy. Gonna be some killer shows here, I guess is the point. I hear that’s a thing people like.
Also can’t help but notice Lord Dying heading out for nearly a month on the road four years after their last record. If they’re giving Mysterium Tremendum its due, well, fair enough. The other possibility is they’ve got another release on the way that hasn’t been announced yet. If that’s so, I’d expect word sooner than later, since we’re already starting to see releases unveiled for October and after that things start to slow down toward the end of the year. Of course, records can happen anytime — right… now! — and my usual disclaimer that I know absolutely nothing definitely applies. Just saying it’s possible.
From Swamp Booking‘s socials:
Conan and Lord Dying will team up for 4 weeks around Europe to present their new albums.
CONAN have toured Worldwide to deliver heavy riffs . After returning to the USA in spring 23, they will finally tour Europe this fall to present their 6 th album EVIDENCE OF IMMORTALITY.
LORD DYING from the USA to grim and to crush your venues with heaviness and relentless, fuzz filled riffage.
11/10/2023 CZ Brno Fleda 12/10/2023 AT Linz Kapu 13/10/2023 CH Düdingen Bad Bonn 14/10/2023 CH Martigny Les Caves du Manoir 15/10/2023 IT Bologna Freakout Club 16/10/2023 SL Ljubljana Orto Bar 17/10/2023 HU Budapest Dürer Kert 18/10/2023 AT Vienna Arena 19/10/2023 PL Poznan Pod Minoga 20/10/2023 DE Dresden Chemiefabrik 21/10/2023 DK Copenhagen Råhuset (Only Lord Dying) 22/10/2023 NO Oslo Revolver 23/10/2023 SW Gothenburg The Abyss 25/10/2023 DE Hamburg Bahnhof Pauli 26/10/2023 DE Berlin Reset 27/10/2023 DE Hannover Cafe Glocksee 28/10/2023 NL Maastricht Samhain Festival 29/10/2023 BE Ghent Chinastraat 30/10/2023 DE Leipzig UT Connewitz 31/10/2023 DE Wiesbaden Schlachthof 01/11/2023 FR Dijon Les Tanneries 02/11/2023 SP Barcelona Salamandra 03/11/2023 SP Vitoria Jimmy Jazz 04/11/2023 FR Toulouse Connexion Live 05/11/2023 FR Colmar Le Grillen 06/11/2023 DE Munich Feierwerk
CONAN is: Jon Davis – Guitar, Vocals Chris Fielding – Bass Johnny King – Drums
LORD DYING: Chris Evans – Guitar Erik Olson – Guitar, Vocals Alyssa Maucere – Bass Kevin Swartz – Drums
