[Click play above to stream the premier of the video for ‘Fibonacci Numbers.’ Saturnia release their new album, Stranded in the Green, March 26 on Sulatron Records.]

This year marks the 25th anniversary of Lisboa-based multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Having blogs as your provider of expert-written college papers, you�re always at an advantage. LOCAL UK AUTHORS � All your essays are fulfilled by proper British writers, meaning correct grammar, style, syntax, and punctuation. ORIGINAL PAPERS � Every expert does every essay they got to work on from scratch. We respect your academic integrity and thus provide you only with Luís Simões founding  How to select a company Creative Writing Courses Surrey college . Now you can observe a wide range of companies, which provide college and University papers. Saturnia, and the Portuguese institution of psychedelia marks the occasion with the release of its seventh full-length,  http://www.enkirch.de/?do-my-online-homework, Los Angeles, California: Rated 5 of 5, check 10 Reviews of Writer For Hire, Business Consultant Stranded in the Green, through  Barn Burner William Faulkner :: Order history papers The biggest advantage of research papers with those option. Academic papers models, writing buy dissertation paper which doesnt to fit any instruction academic future that. While skillfully following the academic standards for buy dissertation paper money back. Benefits of Using our. The website of our paper writing service, or something is not clear to find out some always welcomed! Internet, as the writing of a a piece of cake. It provides Sulatron Records. A veteran of  � Every dissertation is followed with a referencing. Most of the students are unaware of the referencing styles such as Harvard, Chicago, MLA and APA. Pay To Have Essay Written from a reputed dissertation service provider is the ideal destination for them. � The university professors and evaluators have high expectations from the dissertations. Top quality dissertations can only score high in the final evaluation. Unable to meet their expectations, most of the students go to a custom Elektrohasch Schallplatten and When you Custom Dissertation Writing Service English to be written, you need to tell the company about your deadline. At BestEssay, you can order weeks ahead, even months for complex assignments like a dissertation. Or, you can order hours ahead. Our company gives you the opportunity to order the majority of products within just 3 hours. Cranium Music, Dissertation editing can help in aspects of writing from the writing style to the apparatus of documentation to the inclusion of support material. An overview of valuable Reserach Papers includes the following: Format and layout of the body of the dissertation Simões has always kept  Become a published ebook author to leverage the viral power of the web and boost your online lead generation with RightlyWritten's Heading Of An Essay. Saturnia pretty close to himself in terms of lineup, going back 20 years to the band’s debut,  There are numerous benefits that students can avail from EduGeeksClub try here. Main of them listed here: Custom dissertation writing; 100% plagiarism-free; Qualified professional writers with PhD and Master's degrees; Additional services like Proofreading and Editing, Vip Support; These mentioned points ensure that students get the best dissertation help. This is made The Glitter Odd, and sure enough, in addition to producing/recording here over a period of two years between 2018-2020 and mixing last August, he handles vocals, electric, acoustic and 12-string guitar as well as a swath of other instruments — Hammond, Philicorda, Rhodes, piano, synthesizer, gong, chimes, drums, bass, various effects, keyboard samples, tampura and acoustic sitar among them. In terms of other personnel throughout the nine-song/56-minute offering, If you hesitate to http://vivabeauty.ee/?buyessaywriting=homework-help-with-metric-conversions projects online, you should get more information about the advantages that you can get this way. Simões welcomes only two others:  business plan writing services durban - We Offer Affordable Essay Writing. If you are a scholar or a student, then writing an essay is definitely no news for you. Being known as one of the most common academic tasks, an essay can be personal, persuasive, analytical, expository, argumentative, and so on. Ana Vitorino speaking on the intro “Pan Arrives,” and best college admission essays harvard Dissertation Faute Responsabilit Fait Personnel homework help for biology dissertation university of california los angeles Winga bringing djembe to the subsequent “Keep it Long.” Certainly any number of solo albums have involved more players. types of masters degrees thesis Law And Order Situation In Karachi Essay Numbering assignment law college admission essays community service Simões even designed the cover art, with his own pictures as well as those by Here is an outstanding http://fizmatika.lt/help-me-write-a-term-paper/ available around the clock! Efficient specialists, easy ordering procedure, secure payment methods João Bordeira. So yes, a personal feel is somewhat inevitable.

Dissertation Baudelaire Fleurs Mal - Fast international delivery and reasonably-priced medications with no rx. Cheap medications with fast delivery. Convenient and safe shopping for drugs. Cheap medications with fast delivery. Stranded in the Green, though, is as much about breadth and atmosphere as it is personal expression. It is not bedroom psychedelia, and those familiar with  Saturnia — Simões‘ most recent prior outing was 2018’s The Seance Tapes (review here), which reworked older material — shouldn’t expect it to be. Rather, despite quiet moments like the beginning of the near-14-minute centerpiece “Super Natural,” Simões uses the album in semi-narrative fashion to portray a communion with nature. The pagan representation of Pan in “Pan Arrives” is fair enough ground for the beginning of the record, and while sitar rock and uptempo ’60s-fashioned heavy psych are the initial impressions in “Keep it Long,” the subsequent “Fibonacci Numbers,” with its vague keyboard impressionism, quieter melody and patient execution kept to an underlying movement with a simple tom progression during the verse, and the drift-dream-int0-mellotron that is “Smoking in the Sun” — which admittedly may well be the very core of the record’s functioning storyline, further tying in with “Super Natural” and second-half-of-album cuts like “When I’m High” and the closer “Just Let Yourself Go” — soon show that the beginning is only the beginning, as it were, and that Saturnia are undertaking the songwriting, the showcase of craft and melody and rhythm, even the arrangements, as a kind of ritual in nature. Stranded in the Green, with all its expanse and atmosphere, is effective in maintaining this overarching purpose.

And with the word “stranded” in the title, there is a modern, COVID-era sense of isolation as well. After “Super Natural” has swelled and receded and one-man-jammed its lush and gorgeous landscape directly into the clearer piano line laced with synth and sitar drone that comes with “When I’m High,” the pairing of “Perfectly Lonely” and “Butterfly Collector” recedes into minimalist backwards guitar and subdued cymbal wash in the former track. It’s more substantial than an interlude at nearly four and a half minutes, but if one was to place a bet as to which portion of Stranded in the Green was conceived and executed under quarantine — a kind of willfully meandering experimentalism that’s deeply personal despite the lack of vocals — “Perfectly Lonely” would be a solid pick. Whether or not that’s actually the case, I don’t know, but that’s how it reads, and with a return of birdsong accompanied by chimes leading to Rhodes (I think), rolling drums and a fluid synthy vibe, “Butterfly Collector” expands on that ambience with 7:45 of escapist immersion. As so many people did for so many months, it seems simply to explore the space around it, going for a walk, reengaging with the colors that go so often taken for granted.

By the time “Butterfly Collector” comes around, Stranded in the Green has already pushed the boundaries of a single LP — it’s worth noting that the Sulatron LP version omits “Perfectly Lonely” and “Just Let Yourself Go,” which appear on the CD — but the journey is the point, and certainly the shifts in arrangement and general mood are enough to hold more fickle attention spans. “Butterfly Collector” is the closer of the vinyl, and its concluding wash and minor-key mystique in the parting lines serves that function well, but “Just Let Yourself Go” manages to do well in summarizing the outing just the same, with a nodding rhythm beneath returned sitar drone and a bluesy lead line at the outset, synth/effects swirl peppering in, and more of the unmitigated instrumental flow that has served Simões so well throughout. It wouldn’t be fair to call the album incomplete without it, but it is one more example of Simões‘ ability to pull together a full-band atmosphere and still maintain the intimacy of a solo affair; the central dynamic around which the album is based. That is to say, it can sound “Perfectly Lonely” while still creating its own special kind of wash.

A quarter-century after its founding, maybe it shouldn’t be such a surprise that Simões is capable of engineering that balance, but that doesn’t make the listening experience any less satisfying, and for sure there is an aspect of refinement and continued growth in the processes on display throughout. It’s possible that engaging with older songs helped inspire Saturnia to move forward with these tracks, or that lockdown played a role there as well, but Stranded in the Green is that much stronger for it in manifesting its expressive purpose. There is an element of escapism — or at very least there can be — in terms of hearing it. One might be tempted to turn off one’s mind, relax, and float downstream. But Simões isn’t so much dropping out here as tuning in to the world around him, and that sense of interaction is as infectious as any chorus contained within the songs themselves. Thus, when met with its due consideration, Stranded in the Green is the kind of album that might make colors seem brighter afterward.

Saturnia on Thee Facebooks

Saturnia website

Sulatron Records on Thee Facebooks

Sulatron Records website

The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Scott “Dr. Space” Heller of Øresund Space Collective & Aural Hallucinations

—

How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

I make space sounds using mostly analog synthesizers. Magnus Hannibal from Mantric Muse was the first one to encourage me to experiment with synthesizers. If it was not for him, I probably never would have played synthesizers. My friend Doug Walter (RIP) from Alien Planetscapes was a huge musical inspiration towards exploring and making unusual music.

Describe your first musical memory.

Listening to Chuck Berry with my dad. Later taking the records into my room and trying to transcribe the lyrics. I recently found the book that I wrote them down in (see picture).

Describe your best musical memory to date.

This is a very hard question and a bit vague. When I played with Gas Giant in a small concrete bunker club in Leipzig Germany in 2003. The band was on fire, the audience was so intense and into it. I had never experienced anything like that. The power of live music and looking out and seeing these people moving to the sound and we would space out and jam and they were there for every last second and the way the place would erupt when we ended a song or a jam. I was totally blown away. It is hard to describe. I felt like I was levitating! Another was when Øresund Space Collective played the Freak Stage at Burg Herzberg Festival at 23 and just looking out and seeing a solid sea of people as far as I could see. Wow. We played til 3 am with a short break!!

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

Well, quite recently, when I signed a contract to build my music studio and after 8 months, the builder had not worked one day but only provided excuse after excuse for months on end. I always want to give people the benefit of the doubt and believe that they will do what they said they would, especially when you sign a contract. Anyway, I was hugely let down and delayed but this. So not, all people are good to their word, this is for sure, sometimes you can be too trusting of people.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

It hopefully leads to one feeling good about oneself and to unique musical creation. I have always been involved with bands that it is important to make music for the moment. I would not last long in a band that played the songs the exact same every night, as most bands do. I need that feeling of danger, excitement, that you get when you improvise and try new things and experiment with sound. This is progression for me. The same song can progress to something new each night, like with Black Moon Circle!!

How do you define success?

Can I still listen to it and say, “hell yeah, that is cool?” Then I succeeded. If you are speaking in a bit more generic terms, then I would say, “Am I happy, do I make other people happy, am I contributing to try to make the world a better place?” If so, then I have succeeded in life.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

Tommy TuTone playing between Rose Tattoo and ZZ Top in 1981. Terrible ’80s pop music after rocking out with Rose Tattoo and waiting for ZZ Top. Totally ruined our mood. That should never have happened.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

My music studio. I hope it will be created this year and I can go on to record so many of the cool bands that I know like Papir, Syreregn, Øresund Space Collective, Elder, Black Moon Circle, White Hills, and more.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

Art should take you away from the current reality you are in. Be it a painting that you can look into and disappear or a song that just transports you away. A ballet, theatre, anything where you can forget the fucked up world we have and disappear into it. Then it has served its function.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

Starting my new garden this year and seeing if have good success with some new varieties of chilis I have never grown before!!!

http://oresundspacecollective.com
http://oresundspacecollective.bandcamp.com
http://doctorsofspace.bandcamp.com
http://writingaboutmusic.blogspot.com
http://www.spacerockproductions.com
http://blackmooncircle.bandcamp.com
http://auralhallucinations.bandcamp.com

Øresund Space Collective, Four Riders Take Space Mountain (2020)

The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Johnny Lee of Miss Lava

—

How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

My first art expression and my first roots were drawing. Since forever, I remember drawing and trying to replicate everything all the time. The more realistic or the closest to the original the best.

But as I grew up, I became a huge music fan and music turns out to be my favorite type of art, especially metal and rock music. I’ve learned most of my English by reading metal bands’ lyrics. I developed my drawing skills by drawing, countless times, all of Iron Maiden’s album covers, and by drawing every band logo I could.

Since a very early age, I sang along with all of my favorite metal bands of the ’80s and I started to sing and write lyrics on top of instrumental songs as well.

That was the starting point of everything, but in one-way or another, I’ve always wanted to become a singer and wanted to do something art related. And that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.

Nowadays, I work as a Creative Director in an advertising agency and I’m the singer of a Stoner Rock Band. I guess I could say “Mission accomplished”.

Describe your first musical memory.

When I was four or five years old, around 1980/81, I remember grabbing one of my mother’s tapes and playing it over and over. Side A – Pink Floyd “Dark Side of the Moon” and side B – Supertramp “Crime of The Century”. I guess that first impact of reproducing some music made me feel very powerful, like I had a superpower or something. In a way I think that feeling still lasts as I have become a music collector. I own more than 1,000 records and almost 1,500 CDs.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

In 1995 Megadeth and Corrosion of Conformity played in my hometown, Cascais in Lisbon, Portugal.

I was a big C.O.C. fan, I am still, and me and K. Rafaah (Miss Lava’s Guitarist) found Pepper Keenan and Woody Weatherman drinking some wine in a terrace in Cascais the night before the show. We invited them to a pool house bar where we used to hang.

Turns out we spent that night partying with Corrosion’s Pepper, Woody and Reed Mullin and Megadeth’s late Nick Menza. We drank, played some pool, talked about music all night and by the time we were so drunk, me and Pepper sang together, in the middle of the street, the song “Shelter” from the album Deliverance that they were promoting at the time.

On the next day, during the show, Reed pulled me from the crowd onto the stage to sing with them “Rather See You Dead” (Legionaire’s Disease Band cover) and before playing “Vote with a Bullet,” Pepper dedicated the song to us, me and Raffah.

I was 19 years old at the time, and I think nothing will ever top that for as long as I live. Epic!

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

That is a tough one. I guess all the time. I try to be as straightforward, true and honest as I can, but honesty and truth most of the times are too hard to handle by others. Certainly, I compromise more than I should or want. I guess it’s a learning process.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

Hopefully will lead to better places, better times, freedom and deeper emotions.

For me, Art is a constant, shifting universe that stimulates my very own space and time.

It’s the way that I chose to live my life, to challenge my boundaries and I hope that I’ll continue to make something meaningful and different each time.

How do you define success?

I guess success is: to look back and being able to understand and appreciate how far we’ve come. Have no regrets. Feel good with the choices we’ve made and to be proud of our achievements. Success should put us in a good place and make us feel happy about the journey. But the most important thing about success is being able to share it with your friends, family and keep them all around you.

We can’t be successful all alone.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

Back in 1996 I went to a soccer match in Lisbon, Portugal. It was the Cup Final between my team, Sporting Portugal and our main rivals Benfica. During Benfica’s first goal celebration, one of Benfica’s supporters fired a rocket flare towards Sporting fans. I saw the rocket speeding my way, crossing from one point of the stadium to another, only a few meters above the players’ heads, when suddenly it changed direction and hits a peaceful man, next to me, in the throat and kills him on the spot (he was the father of two small children). I was just a few meters away. I remember seeing all the blood splashing from the man’s throat as the rocket was still burning inside him and I remember thinking that could have happened to me. Very sad memory.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

I would like to direct a music video for our band.

And I’ve never tried doing a sculpture. I think I would like to make a realistic one someday. Maybe an Ozzy or a Lemmy bust or even a Cristiano Ronaldo’s, to see if I can top the ridiculous one hahaha.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

Establishing communication with our emotions.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

Like I said before, I like do draw as realistic as I can. In the near future, I want to make a full detailed gigantic realistic painting of a foot plant, hahaha. Don’t know why? Probably it’s going to be the unfinished work at the end of my life.

https://www.facebook.com/MissLavaOfficial/
http://www.instagram.com/miss.lava/
http://www.smallstone.com
http://www.facebook.com/smallstonerecords
http://www.smallstone.bandcamp.com
http://kozmik-artifactz.com/
https://www.facebook.com/kozmikartifactz

Miss Lava, Doom Machine (2021)

Miss Lava, “The Great Divide” official video

Portuguese heavy rockers Miss Lava release their new album, Doom Machine, Jan. 15 on Small Stone and Kozmik Artifactz. The band’s fourth long-player and second through Small Stone behind 2016’s Sonic Debris (review here), it is an explosion of well-crafted, professional-sounding material that feels built for European heavy-fest stages. Your Desertfests, certainly SonicBlast, they’re already booked for a festival in Spain this March (which seems ambitious), and so on. It was, appropriately enough, recorded live, with Miguel “Veg” Marques at the helm of Generator Music Studios in Sintra. The energy with which the songs are delivered is only part of the album’s personality though, because the CD version comes with a whopping 15 tracks running a total of 56 minutes, as the returning four-piece of vocalist Johnny Lee, guitarist K. Raffah, bassist Ricardo Ferreira and drummer J. Garcia tear into one hook after the other, careening with desert-inspired purpose through “Fourth Dimension” and “In the Mire” at the outset like an all-grown-up Kyuss with the rest of the album that follows working in different stages set off by interludes, groups of one or two songs complemented by short pieces of varied atmosphere that lend breadth to the proceedings as a whole.

Most of those spacers are quick instrumentals. Guitar, bass, drums. “Magma,” the first of them, and “Karma” follow that pattern, while “Alpha” adopts a more mellow spirit and the last, “Terra” captures wave sounds and guitar noise ahead of the closing title-track, which is also the longest song on the outing at 6:58. The interludes bolster Doom Machine‘s flow and make it all the more immersive despite being largely based around straightforward craft of high grade verses and choruses, though certainly longer stretches like “Brotherhood of Eternal Love” (5;46), the Alice in Chains-style harmonized “The Fall” (6:31) and “Doom Machine” itself want nothing for atmosphere. “The Fall” is a highlight in that regard, but it contends with single-worthy cuts like the maddeningly catchy “Sleepy Warm” and the slower, more spacious “The Great Divide” nearby for that title, with the latter as the assumed end of the vinyl’s side A and, indeed, the split between the first half of the album and the second — not counting the bonus tracks. That’s not to mention a cut like “The Oracle,” later on, which singlehandedly shows how Miss Lava take cues from classic desert rock and turn them into something of their own all across Doom Machine as a whole. Maybe it’s safer not to talk about highlights.

Amid the many hooks, interludes and spot-on moves made throughout Doom Machine is the narrative of K. Raffah having lost a child after only a month and a half from birth. That brutal context underpins even the most uptempo of Miss Lava‘s songs here, and adds weight to already impactful pieces like “The Fall” and “In the Mire” earlier on, the melodies and momentum betraying little of what’s actually going on but remaining expressive nonetheless. One doesn’t want to call it a disconnect, but Doom Machine hardly sounds dragged down by grief or anything else as Miss Lava courses through. Even the bonus tracks, “God Feeds the Swine,” ‘Feel Surrea” and “Red Atlantis,” boast quality hooks — the last one of them especially so — so there is a balance of elements and themes at play throughout, and the band aren’t necessarily beholden to one or the other of them, as impossible as that might seem.

To wit, the video premiering below for “The Great Divide” takes a post-apocalyptic environmentalist stance, looking out at the world and seeing it being used and torn down by humanity as a whole. The clip was directly by José Dinis, who offers some comment on it below, along with that of Johnny Lee.

As always, I hope you enjoy:

Miss Lava, “The Great Divide” official video premiere

According to singer Johnny Lee, “‘The Great Divide’ is a euphemism for death, an apocalyptic vision for mankind. We keep destroying our planet and forgetting that when this ends, it ends for everyone.”

Director José Dinis reflects that this is “A concept story about an apocalyptic world, where an unhopeful man just tries to survive. As in real life, there is always a way out, a solution, a chance to live a more colourful life, no matter what.”

“The Great Divide” was filmed at Mina de São Domingos, a deserted open-pit mine in Alentejo, Portugal. The site is one of the volcanogenic massive sulfide ore deposits in the Iberian Pyrite Belt, which extends from the southern Portugal into Spain. It was the first place in Portugal to have electric lighting.

Miss Lava on Thee Facebooks

Miss Lava on Bandcamp

Sonic Debris at Small Stone’s Bandcamp

Small Stone Records

Kozmik Artifactz on Thee Facebooks

Kozmik Artifactz website

Hey, it could happen. The vaccines could work and be properly distributed, and with social-distancing guidelines still in place and accounted for in the festival’s venue choice, SonicBlast Fest 2021 could very well take place next August. I think we all know the first lineup announcement comes with a big ol’ asterisk in terms of “well this is how it’s gonna go if the plague hasn’t swallowed us whole by then,” but with that caveat, it’s awfully nice to see a lineup announcement from a festival at all, let alone one that already has a bunch of cool bands set to play. Maybe Europe’s borders will be open to Americans next August. That’d be a dream come true.

SonicBlast of course did the virtual thing this year, as many other fests have done, and the fest’s YouTube still has a few killer performances up, including the one from South Africa’s Ruff Majik that you can see at the bottom of this post.

Tickets are available and I have to believe it’ll sell out:

SonicBlast Fest 2021: Aug 12-14

SonicBlast Fest is back!

We are so happy to welcome John Garcia & The Band of Gold and Psychlona among many others to announce soon

In 2021 we celebrated the 10th edition in a new enclosure, with a strong poster and we couldn’t be more satisfied!

Months and months of work arduous and several contradictions along the way, our priority was always to try to secure a good poster for this special edition and find an enclosure with the characteristics needed for this great celebration. And we did it!

The 10th edition of 10 takes place at Praia da Dune do Cauldron in Anchor (Walk), in a dream framing and in a compound that will have the same capacity but features a much greater area, ensuring your comfort and safety when travelling in August 2021 to the Anchor region for this celebration. Thank you in advance to Caminha Município for your help in finding the new location keeping it in our county, and Junta de Freguesia de Âncora and Âncora Praia Futebol Clube for the enthusiasm and availability to welcome SonicBlast Fest.

Line up, so far:
John Garcia and the Band of Gold (usa)
All Them Witches (usa)
Brant Bjork (usa)
Witch (usa)
Causa Sui (dnk)
Bala (sp)
Psychlona (uk)
… and many more to be announced

Info Tickets:
(Portugal) Os bilhetes já estão à venda em toda a rede BOL (Lojas Fnac, Worten, Ctt’s…)
To buy your ticket online:
https://garboyl.bol.pt/Comprar/Bilhetes/92523-sonicblast_festival_2021_full_festival_ticket-garboyl_lives/Sessoes
e www.masqueticket.com

Full festival ticket:
– 50€ from 23 to 30 November
– 65€ from 1st of December to 31st of May
– 75€ from 1st of June

https://www.facebook.com/events/193315945704188/
https://www.facebook.com/sonicblastmoledo/
https://www.instagram.com/sonicblast_fest

Ruff Majik, Live at SonicBlast Online 2020

https://sonicblastmoledo.com/

Issuing through Kozmik Artifactz and Small Stone, the impending Doom Machine full-length from Miss Lava will be the band’s first since 2016’s Sonic Debris (review here). The title, Doom Machine, doesn’t inspire much in considerations of individuality — it’s kind of a generic name for a record, band, song, riff, amp, heavy thing, etc. — but the album actually deals with some hard-hitting emotional content on the part of the group, and as one expects from Miss Lava well more than a decade into their tenure, they know exactly what they’re doing when it comes to songwriting and capturing a stage-ready energy in the studio.

Will there be stages for Miss Lava to support the record once it’s out? Hell if I know. Seems unlikely in January, but you know, maybe at some point, ever, they’ll get to tour again.

To preface Doom Machine‘s arrival, Miss Lava have a video up now for the opening track “Fourth Dimension,” and you can see that at the bottom of this post, following the PR wire info and this kickass cover art right here:

MISS LAVA: Lisbon Heavy Rock Unit To Release Doom Machine This January Via Small Stone / Kozmik Artifactz; “Fourth Dimension” Video Now Playing + Preorders Available

Lisbon’s premier heavy rockers MISS LAVA will release their long-awaited new full-length, Doom Machine, this January via Small stone.

The perfect soundtrack for the post-lockdown world, the band’s fourth album and follow-up to 2017’s Dominant Rush EP stands as their densest output to date doused in kaleidoscopic riff explorations and hypnotic interludes; a multi-textured sonic journey that’s at once deep, heavy, mesmerizing, and cathartic. Captured live at Generator Music Studios in Sintra, Portugal by Miguel “Veg” Marques, the record carries with it the warmth and soul of a band full of fresh vigor and perhaps the demons of these tumultuous times.

The record is loosely focused on the tragic death of guitarist K. Raffah’s baby son and the other members’ children born during the creative process. “Doom Machine is a very emotional experience for us…,” Raffah shares. “[My son] was only here for a month and a half, but his light was very bright. We feel his presence every time.” Thematically vocalist Johnny Lee adds, “This album reflects on how each one of us can breed and unleash our own self-destructive force, assembled to be part of a giant ‘Doom Machine.'”

In advance of the record’s release, today the band is pleased to unveil a video for first single, “Fourth Dimension,” noting, “this is a riff raff explosion that urges people to get out of the cave allegory they live in.”

Directed by José Dinis, view MISS LAVA’s “Fourth Dimension.”

Doom Machine will be released on CD and digitally via Small Stone with Kozmik Artifactz handling a limited vinyl edition. Find preorders at THIS LOCATION.

Doom Machine Track Listing:
1. Fourth Dimension
2. In The Mire
3. Magma
4. Brotherhood Of Eternal Love
5. Sleepy Warm
6. The Great Divide
7. Karma
8. The Fall
9. Alpha
10. The Oracle
11. Terra
12. Doom Machine
13. God Feeds The Swine *
14. Feel Surreal *
15. Red Atlantis *
** Bonus tracks on CD and digital only

Doom Machine is the successor to MISS LAVA’s Dominant Rush EP (2017), Sonic Debris (2016), Red Supergiant (2013), and Blues For The Dangerous Miles (2009), as well as a limited edition self-titled blood red vinyl EP (2008).

https://www.facebook.com/MissLavaOfficial/
http://www.instagram.com/miss.lava/
http://www.smallstone.com
http://www.facebook.com/smallstonerecords
http://www.smallstone.bandcamp.com
http://kozmik-artifactz.com/
https://www.facebook.com/kozmikartifactz

Miss Lava, “Fourth Dimension” official video

Miss Lava, Doom Machine (2021)

Well, the weekend’s over and it’s time to wrap up the Quarterly Review. Rest assured, I wrote the following during my copious weekend leisure time, resting on the side of a heated Olympic-size pool with a beverage nearby. It definitely wasn’t four in the morning on a Sunday or anything. If I haven’t gotten the point across yet, I hope you’ve found something amid this massive swath of records that has resonated with you. By way of a cheap plug, I’ll be featuring audio from a lot of these bands on the Gimme Metal show this Friday, 5PM Eastern, if you’re up for tuning in.

Either way, thanks for reading and for being a part of the whole thing. Let’s wrap it up.

Quarterly Review #51-60:

The Pilgrim, …From the Earth to the Sky and Back

Lest he be accused of laziness, Gabriele Fiori — also of Black Rainbows, Killer Boogie and the head of the Heavy Psych Sounds label, booking agency and festival series — made his solo debut as The Pilgrim with Spring 2019’s Walking into the Forest (review here). Joined by Black Rainbows drummer Filippo Ragazzoni, Fiori ups the scale of the journey with the second The Pilgrim LP, …From the Earth to the Sky and Back. Richer in arrangement, bolder in craft and more confident in performance, the album runs 14 songs and 50 minutes still largely based around an acoustic acid rock foundation, but with a song like “Riding the Horse” tapping ’70s singer-songwriter vibes while “Cuba” touches on Latin percussion and guitar and “Space and Time” journeying out near the record’s end with waves of synthesizer, it seems The Pilgrim isn’t so willing to be pigeonholed. So much the better.

The Pilgrim on Thee Facebooks

Heavy Psych Sounds website

—

 

Polymoon, Caterpillars of Creation

There is an undercurrent of extremity to the debut release from Polymoon, who hail from the psychedelic hotbed that is Tampere, Finland. The six-song/42-minute Caterpillars of Creation turns in opener “Silver Mt.” to fervent guitar push or from freaked-out cosmic prog into drifting post-universe exploration, setting the stage for the dynamic that unfolds throughout. The wash early in the second half of “Lazaward” is glorious, and it’s not the first or the last time Polymoon go to that adrenaline-pumping well, but the serenity that caps that song and seems to continue into “Malamalama” in closing side A is no less effective. “Helicaling” mounts tension in its early drumming but finally releases it later, and “Neitherworld” gives Caterpillars of Creation‘s most fervent thrust while closer “Metempsychosis” rounds out with a fitting sense of dissipation. As a first album/first release, it is particularly stunning, and to make it as plain as possible, I will think less of any list of 2020’s best debut albums that leaves out Polymoon.

Polymoon on Thee Facebooks

Svart Records website

—

 

Doctors of Space, First Treatment

The two-piece comprised of Martin Weaver (ex-Wicked Lady) and synthesist Scott “Dr. Space” Heller (Øresund Space Collective, Black Moon Circle, etc.) position First Treatment as their proper studio debut, and it certainly hits its marks in galaxial adventuring well enough to qualify as such, but the duo have been on a creative splurge throughout this year — even in lockdown — and so the six songs here are also born out of the work they’ve been doing since releasing their debut single “Ghouls ‘n’ Shit” (video premiere here) late last year. The album launches with “Journey to Enceladus,” which boasts drum programming by Weaver and though one of the movements in the 21-minute “Into the Oort Cloud” is based around beats, the bulk of First Treatment is purely a work of guitar and synth, and it basks in the freedom that being so untethered inherently brings. Running an hour long, it’s improvisational nature isn’t going to be for everyone, but Heller and Weaver make a strong argument that maybe it should be.

Doctors of Space on Thee Facebooks

Space Rock Productions website

—

 

Merlock, That Which Speaks

Who’s ready for a New Wave of PNW Fuckery? That’s right folks, the NWOPNWF has arrived and it’s Spokane, Washington’s Merlock leading the sometimes-awfully-punk-sometimes-awfully-metal-but-somehow-also-always-sludge charge. Aggressive and damning in lyrics, swapping between raw screams, grows, shouts and cleaner vocals and unhinged in terms of its genre loyalties, That Which Speaks seems to find the “melt faces” setting wherever it goes, and though there’s a sense of the four-piece feeling out what works best for them stylistically, the sometimes frantic, sometimes willfully awkward transitions — as in second cut “Prolapse” — serve the overall purpose of undercutting predictability. Eight-minute opener/longest track (immediate points) “Idolon” stomps and shoves and gnashes and nasties its way through, and that’s the modus across what follows, though the scream-along headbanger “Vessel” somehow seems even rawer, and though it ends by floating into oblivion, the start of “Condemnation” heavy fuckin’ metal to me. You never know quite where Merlock are going to hit next, and that’s the joy of the thing. May they remain so cacophonous.

Merlock on Thee Facebooks

Merlock on Bandcamp

—

 

Sun Dial, Mind Control: The Ultimate Edition

Long-running UK psychedelic rockers Sun Dial — led by founding guitarist/vocalist Gary Ramon — released Mind Control in 2012. Sulatron Records picked it up in 2015, and now, five years after that, the same label presents Mind Control: The Ultimate Edition, a 2CD version of the original LP-plus-bonus-tracks reissue that brings the total runtime of the release to a well-beyond-manageable 98 minutes of lysergic experimentation. A full 20 tracks are included in the comprehensive-feeling offering, and from early mixes to alternative takes and lost tracks, and if this isn’t the ‘ultimate’ version of Mind Control, I’m not sure what could be, notwithstanding a complete-studio-sessions box set. Perhaps as a step toward that, Mind Control: The Ultimate Edition gives an in-depth look at a vastly underappreciated outfit and is obviously put together as much for the label as by it. That is to say, you don’t put out a reissue like this unless you really love the original record, and if Sulatron loving a record isn’t enough endorsement for you, please turn in your mushrooms on your way out the door.

Sun Dial on Thee Facebooks

Sulatron Records webstore

—

 

Saturn’s Husk, The Conduit

Immersion is the goal of Saturn’s Husk‘s third long-player, The Conduit, and the Riga, Latvia, instrumentalist trio accomplish it quickly with the fluid riffs that emerge from the drone-based intro “Death of Imaginary Lights” and the subsequent 10-minute opener “Black Nebula.” At nine songs and 63 minutes, the album is consuming through the welcome nodder “The Heavenly Ape,” the especially-doomed “The Ritual” and the more mellow-float centerpiece “Spectral Haze,” while “Mycelium Messiah” brings more straight-ahead fuzz (for a time) and drones on either side surround the 10:35 “Sand Barrows,” the latter serving as the finale “A Shattered Visage” quoting Percy Bysshe Shelley and the former “City of the Djinn” running just a minute-plus but still doing enough to reset the brain from where “Mycelium Messiah” left it. Almost functioning as two albums side-by-side with “Spectral Haze” as the dividing point, The Conduit indeed seems to join various sides together, with a depth to coincide that invites the listener to explore along with it.

Saturn’s Husk on Thee Facebooks

Saturn’s Husk on Bandcamp

—

 

Diggeth, Gringos Galacticos

Landing a punch of classic metal to go along with its heavy-bottomed groove, Diggeth‘s Gringos Galacticos — one supposes the title ‘Spacecrackers’ was taken — was released by the Dutch trio in 2019 and receives a US limited vinyl edition thanks to Qumran Records. One finds some similar guitar heroics to those of Astrosoniq‘s more straightforward moments, but Diggeth‘s focus remains on hookmaking for the duration, offering hints of twang and acoustics in “In the Wake of Giants” and tipping a hat southwestward in “Three Gringos,” but “Straight-Shooter” is willfully breaks out its inner Hetfield and even as the penultimate “Unshackled” departs for a quieter break, it makes its way back in time for the big finish chorus, adding just a touch of Candlemass grandiosity for good measure before the harmonica-laced closing title-track rounds out with its dynamic spacey weirdness, the name of the album repeating itself in an answer to the Stephen Hawking sample that started the voyage on its way.

Diggeth on Thee Facebooks

Qumran Records website

—

 

Horizon, The White Planet Patrol

Cursed Tongue Records has the vinyl here, and Three Moons the tape, and the CD will arrive through Aladeriva Records, La Rubia Producciones, Aneurisma Records, Surnia Records and Violence in the Veins — so yes, Horizon‘s third album, The White Planet Patrol is well backed. Fair enough for the Kyuss-via-Black–Rainbows vibes of “End of Utopia” or the initial charge and flow of “The Backyard” that sets the Alicante, Spain, trio on their way. “King Serpent” and “Death & Teddies” bring well-crafted fuzz to bear, and “Blind World” effectively layers vocals in its chorus to coincide, but the more laid back roll of the title-cut is an unmistakable highlight. Shades of mid-paced Nebula surface in “Meet the Forest” later on, but Horizon are part of a tradition of heavy bands in Alicante and they know it. The smoothness of their tone and delivery speaks volumes on its own in that regard, never mind the actual songwriting, which also leaves nothing to be desired.

Horizon on Thee Facebooks

Cursed Tongue Records webstore

—

 

Limousine Beach, Stealin’ Wine + 2

Debut EP from Limousine Beach out of Pittsburgh, and if the three guitars involved don’t push it over the top, certainly the vocal harmonies get that particular job done. You got six minutes for three songs? Yeah, obviously. They scorch through “Tiny Hunter” to close out, but it’s in the leadoff title-track that Stealin’ Wine + 2 sees the Dave Wheeler-fronted outfit land its most outrageous chorus, just before they go on to find a middle-ground between KISS and Thin Lizzy on “Hear You Calling.” The harmonies open and are striking from the outset, but it’s in how they’re arranged around the standalone parts from Wheeler (also Outsideinside, ex-Carousel) that the outfit’s truest potential is shown. Issued through Tee Pee Records, Stealin’ Wine + 2 is the kind of thing you’d pick up at a show in a normal year and then feel way ahead of everyone else when the LP finally hits. Not a normal year, obviously, but Limousine Beach are serving due notice just the same. In six minutes, no less.

Limousine Beach on Thee Facebooks

Tee Pee Records website

—

 

The Crooked Whispers, Satanic Melodies

I’m sure a lot of records show up at Satan’s door with notes, like, “Dear sir, please find the enclosed submitted for your approval,” but it’s not hard to imagine Beelzebub himself getting down with the filth-coated sludge and rolling doom unfurled across The Crooked Whispers‘ debut offering, Satanic Melodies, marked by hateful, near-blackened screams from Anthony Gaglia and the plodding riffs of Chad Davis (Hour of 13, et al). The title-track is longest at 8:23 and in addition to featuring Ignacio De Tommaso‘s right-on bass tone in its midsection, it plays out early like Weedeater sold their collective soul, and drifts out where earlier pieces “Sacrifice” and “Evil Tribute” and “Profane Pleasure” held their roll for the duration. Stretches of clean-vocal cultistry add to the doomier aspects, but The Crooked Whispers seem to care way less about genre than they do about worshiping the devil, and that unshakable faith behind them, the rest seems to fall into place in accordingly biting fashion.

The Crooked Whispers on Thee Facebooks

The Crooked Whispers on Bandcamp

—

 

Given the context of what was going on in the world back in March, one might be forgiven for letting the release of Helix Nebula, the second album from Montijo, Portugal-based atmospheric heavy four-piece Earth Drive, slip through the cracks. Issued through Raging Planet, the record dropped on March 13, which was one day after the Portuguese government put the country into emergency lockdown because of the pandemic. So, granted, there would’ve been plenty of time for one to encounter the album and listen, but let’s say that maybe the terror of not being able to leave one’s home for fear of contracting firelung might have been a distraction. Fair enough.

All the better, then, that Earth Drive — fronted by the significant vocal presence of Sara Antunes, with Hermano Marques backing her and playing guitar, Luis Silva on bass and Sebastião Santos on drums — have a new video out for “Axial View” from the album, so that one might rectify the crack-slippery and get on board with Helix Nebula before it’s too late. A worthy endeavor it would be, as well, since the band so seamlessly bring together ambient drone, cosmic doom and a psychedelic range that is underscored and perhaps a bit grounded by post-grunge hooks like those in “Axial View,” as well as “Sience of Pranayama” (sic) and the early-arriving title-track, surrounded on either side by an interlude at the album’s outset in a way that sets up the pattern the rest of the record proceeds to following, weaving into and out of solidified structures and more fluid tonal excursion with apparent and resonant ease.

It’s not all so straightforward back-and-forth as the first couple cuts, but as the album proceeds, it plays heft and breadth off each other effectively to give Helix Nebula a duly spacious and immersive feel, something of a cosmic dive-in for the listener to experience that works best as a whole but is readily accessible in its individual parts. You’ll find “Axial View” a suitable entry point, appearing as it does between the airier “Spectra” and the heavy-post-rock vibing “Dharma Throne,” but definitely take it as one, and as Europe and much of the world continues to recover from the trauma that’s beset it, finding new ways to move forward, Earth Drive‘s tonality offers if not direct escapism, then at very least the comfort of a sure guiding hand in terms of crafting songs and an ensuing atmosphere.

The video for “Axial View” adopts a more terrestrial perspective, basically taking performance footage of the band and bleeding from one shot to the next, etc., as it does — though again, in context, it’s somehow a novelty to think of a band getting together in a rehearsal space to jam. Something precious to enjoy then.

So please enjoy:

Earth Drive, “Axial View” official video

Powered by Earth Drive & Hermano Marques
(Produced and Edited by Hermano Marques @ Earth Drive studios Aka A.R.M.A
Song AXIAL VIEW by Earth Drive (Mix and Master by Fernando Matias @ The pentagon audio manufacturers
Released by Raging Planet

Portuguese heavy psych rock unit EARTH DRIVE release their sophomore, stellar album titled Helix Nebula via Raging Planet. The four-piece, who is characterized by a dense, melodic, visceral, cathartic and heavy sound, has created their most ritualistic and meditative record to date. While the power of distortion and loud amps still lead you in front of a massive sound wall, EARTH DRIVE manage to combine all that is heavy with yet spatial effects, catchy hooklines by vocalist Sara Antunes and a hazy, mesmerizing atmosphere.

EARTH DRIVE, who burst into the underground scene in 2007, left their heavy stamp with a first EP, Planet Mantra, followed by their highly acclaimed debut album, Stellar Drone. In addition to the band’s traditional cosmic and psychedelic influences, their new album Helix Nebula explores the potential of raw and powerful tunes with a warm, saturated and ambient sound in a more refined way.

EARTH DRIVE is:
Luis Silva – Bass
Sebastião Santos – Drums
Sara Antunes – Vocals
Hermano Marques – Vocals and guitar

Earth Drive, Helix Nebula (2020)

Earth Drive on Thee Facebooks

Earth Drive on Bandcamp

Raging Planet website