Quarterly Review: Tortuga, Spidergawd, Morag Tong, Conny Ochs, Ritual King, Oldest Sea, Dim Electrics, Mountain of Misery, Aawks, Kaliyuga Express

Posted in Reviews on November 30th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

The-Obelisk-Quarterly-Review

Generally I think of Thursday as the penultimate day of a given Quarterly Review. This one I was thinking of adding more days to get more stuff in ahead of year-end coverage coming up in December. I don’t know what that would do to my weekend — actually, yes I do — but sometimes it’s worth it. I’m yet undecided. Will let you know tomorrow, or perhaps not. Dork of mystery, I am.

Today is PACKED with cool sounds. If you haven’t found something yet that’s really hit you, it might be your day.

Quarterly Review #31-40:

Tortuga, Iterations

TORTUGA Iterations

From traditionalist proto-doom and keyboard-inflected prog to psychedelic jamming and the Mountain-style start-stop riff on “Lilith,” Poznań, Poland’s Tortuga follow 2020’s Deities (discussed here) with seven tracks and 45 minutes that come across as simple and barebones in the distortion of the guitar and the light reverb on the vocals, but the doom rock doesn’t carry from “Lilith” into “Laspes,” which has more of a ’60s psych crux, a mellow but not unjoyful meander in its first half turning to a massive lumber in the second, all the more elephantine with a solo overtop. They continue throughout to cross the lines between niches — “Quaus” has some dungeon growls, “Epitaph” slogs emotive like Pallbearer, etc. — and offer finely detailed performances in a sound malleable to suit the purposes of their songs. Polish heavy doesn’t screw around. Well, at least not any more than it wants to. Tortuga‘s creative reach becomes part of the character of the album.

Tortuga on Facebook

Napalm Records website

Spidergawd, VII

spidergawd vii

I’m sorry, I gotta ask: What’s the point of anything when Spidergawd can put out a record like VII and it’s business as usual? Like, the world doesn’t stop for a collective “holy shit” moment. Even in the heavy underground, never mind general population. These are the kinds of songs that could save lives if properly employed to do so, and for the Norwegian outfit, it’s just what they do. The careening hooks of “Sands of Time” and “The Tower” at the start, the melodies across the span. The energy. I guess this is dad rock? Shit man, I’m a dad. I’m not this cool. Spidergawd have seven records out and I feel like Metallica should’ve been opening for them at stadiums this past summer, but they remain criminally underrated and perhaps use that as flexibility around their pop-heavy foundation to explore new ideas. The last three songs on VII — “Afterburner,” “Your Heritage” and “…And Nothing But the Truth” — are among the strongest and broadest Spidergawd have ever done, and “Dinosaur” and the classic-metal ripper “Bored to Death” give them due preface. One of the best active heavy rock bands, living up to and surpassing their own high standards.

Spidergawd on Facebook

Stickman Records website

Crispin Glover Records website

Morag Tong, Grieve

Morag Tong Grieve

Rumbling low end and spacious guitar, slow flowing drums and contemplative vocals, and some charred sludge for good measure, mark out the procession of “At First Light” on Morag Tong‘s third album and first for Majestic Mountain Records, the four-song Grieve. Moving from that initial encapsulation through the raw-throat sludge thud of most of “Passages,” they crash out and give over to quiet guitar at about four minutes in and set up the transition to the low-end groove-cool of “A Stem’s Embrace,” a sleepy fluidity hitting its full voluminous crux after three minutes in, crushing from there en route to its noisy finish at just over nine minutes long. That would be the epic finisher of most records, but Morag Tong‘s grievances extend to the 20-minute “No Sun, No Moon,” which at 20 minutes is a full-length’s progression on its own. At very least the entirety of side B, but more than the actual runtime is the theoretical amount of space covered as the four-piece shift from ambient drone through huge plod and resolve the skyless closer with a crushing delve into post-sludge atmospherics. That’s as fitting an end as one could ask for an offering that so brazenly refuses to follow impulses other than its own.

Morag Tong on Facebook

Majestic Mountain Records store

Conny Ochs, Wahn Und Sinn

Conny Ochs Wahn Und Sinn

The nine-song Wahn Und Sinn carries the distinction of being the first full-length from German singer-songwriter Conny Ochs — also known for his work in Ananda Mida and his collaboration with Wino — to be sung in his own language. As a non-German speaker, I won’t pretend that doesn’t change the listening experience, but that’s the idea. Words and melodies in different languages take on corresponding differences in character, and so in addition to appreciating the strings, pianos, acoustic and electric guitars, and, in the case of “Welle,” a bit of static noise in a relatively brief electronic soundscape, hearing Ochs‘ delivery no less emotive for switching languages on the cinematic “Grimassen,” or the lounge drama of “Ding” earlier on, it’s a new side from a veteran figure whose “experimentalism” — and no, I’m not talking about singing in your own language as experimental, I’m talking about Trialogos there — is backburnered in favor of more traditional, still rampantly melancholy pop arrangements. It sounds like someone who’s decided they can do whatever the hell they feel like their songs should making that a reality. Only an asshole would hold not speaking the language against that.

Conny Ochs on Facebook

Exile on Mainstream website/a>

Ritual King, The Infinite Mirror

ritual king the infinite mirror

I’m going to write this review as though I’m speaking directly to Ritual King because, well, I am. Hey guys. Congrats on the record. I can hear a ton going on with it. Some of Elder‘s bright atmospherics and rhythmic twists, some more familiar stoner riffage repurposed to suit a song like “Worlds Divide” after “Flow State” calls Truckfighters to mind, the songs progressive and melodic. The way you keep that nod in reserve for “Landmass?” That’s what I’m talking about. Here’s some advice you didn’t ask for: Keep going. I’m sure you have big plans for next year, and that’s great, and one thing leads to the next. You’re gonna have people for the next however long telling you what you need to do. Do what feels right to you, and keep in mind the decisions that led you to where you are, because you’re right there, headed to the heart of this thing you’re discovering. Two records deep there’s still a lot of potential in your sound, but I think you know a track like “Tethered” is a victory on its own, and that as big as “The Infinite Mirror” gets at the end, the real chance it takes is in the earlier vocal melody. You’re a better band than people know. Just keep going. Thanks.

Ritual King on Facebook

Ripple Music website

Oldest Sea, A Birdsong, A Ghost

oldest sea a birdsong a ghost cropped

Inhabiting the sort of alternately engulfing and minimal spaces generally occupied by the likes of Bell Witch, New Jersey’s Oldest Sea make their full-length debut with A Birdsong, A Ghost and realize a bleakness of mood that is affecting even in its tempo, seeming to slow the world around it to its own crawl. The duo of Samantha Marandola and Andrew Marandola, who brought forth their Strange and Eternal EP (review here) in 2022, find emotive resonance in a death-doom build through the later reaches of “Untracing,” but the subsequent three-minute-piece-for-chorus-and-distorted-drone “Astronomical Twilight” and the similarly barely-there-until-it-very-much-is closer “Metamorphose” mark out either end of the extremes while “The Machines That Made Us Old” echoes Godflesh in its later riffing as Samantha‘s voice works through screams en route to a daringly hopeful drone. Volatile but controlled, it is a debut of note for its patience and vulnerability as well as its deep-impact crash and consuming tone.

Oldest Sea on Facebook

Darkest Records on Bandcamp

Dim Electrics, Dim Electrics

dim electrics dim electrics

Each track on Dim Electrics‘ self-titled five-songer LP becomes a place to rest for a while. No individual piece is lacking activity, but each cut has room for the listener to get inside and either follow the interweaving aural patterns or zone out as they will. Founded by Mahk Rumbae, the Vienna-based project is meditative in the sense of basking in repetition, but flashes like the organ in the middle of “Saint” or the shimmy that takes hold in 18-minute closer “Dream Reaction” assure it doesn’t reside in one place for too much actual realtime, of which it’s easy to lose track when so much krautgazey flow is at hand. Beginning with ambience, “Ways of Seeing” leads the listener deeper into the aural chasm it seems to have opened, and the swirling echoes around take on a life of their own in the ecosystem of some vision of space rock that’s also happening under the ground — past and future merging as in the mellotron techno of “Memory Cage” — which any fool can tell you is where the good mushrooms grow. Dug-in, immersive, engaging if you let it be; Dim Electrics feels somewhat insular in its mind-expansion, but there’s plenty to go around if you can put yourself in the direction it’s headed.

Dim Electrics on Facebook

Sulatron Records webstore

Mountain of Misery, In Roundness

Mountain of Misery In Roundness

A newcomer project from Kamil Ziółkowski, also known for his contributions as part of Polish heavy forerunners Spaceslug, the tone-forward approach of Mountain of Misery might be said to be informed by Ziółkowski‘s other project in opener “Not Away” or the penultimate “Climb by the Sundown,” with their languid vocals and slow-rolling tsunami fuzz in the spirit of heavy psych purveyors Colour Haze and even more to the point Sungrazer, but the howling guitar in the crescendo of closer “The Misery” and the all-out assault of “Hang So Low” distinguish the band all around. “The Rain is My Love” sways in the album’s middle, but it’s in “Circle in Roundness” that the 36-minute LP has its most subdued stretch, letting the spaces filled with fuzz elsewhere remain open as the verse builds atop the for-now-drumless expanse. Whatever familiar aspects persist, Mountain of Misery is its own band, and In Roundness is the exciting beginning of a new creative evolution.

Mountain of Misery on Facebook

Electric Witch Mountain Recordings on Facebook

Aawks, Luna

aawks luna

The featured new single, “The Figure,” finds Barrie, Ontario’s Aawks somewhere between Canadian tonal lords Sons of Otis and the dense heavy psych riffing and melodic vocals of an act like Snail, and if you think I’m about to complain about that, you’ve very clearly never been to this site before. So hi, and welcome. The four-song Luna EP is Aawks‘ second short release of 2023 behind a split with Aiwass (review here), and the trio take on Flock of Seagulls and Pink Floyd for covers of the new wave radio hit “I Ran” and the psychedelic ur-classic “Julia Dream” before a live track, “All is Fine,” rounds out. As someone who’s never seen the band live, the additional crunch falls organic, and brings into relief the diversity Aawks show in and between these four songs, each of which inhabits a place in the emerging whole of the band’s persona. I don’t know if we’ll get there, but sign me up for the Canadian heavy revolution if this is the form it’s going to take.

Aawks on Facebook

Black Throne Productions website

Kaliyuga Express, Warriors & Masters

Kaliyuga Express Warriors and Masters

The collaborative oeuvre of UK doomsperimental guitarist Mike Vest (Bong, Blown Out, Ozo, 11Paranoias, etc.) grows richer as he joins forces with Finnish trio Nolla to produce Kaliyuga ExpressWarriors & Masters, which results in three tracks across two sides of far-out cosmic fuzz, shades of classic kraut and space rocks are wrought with jammy intention; the goal seeming to be the going more than the being gone as Vest and company burn through “Nightmare Dimensions” and the shoegazing “Behind the Veil” — the presence of vocals throughout is a distinguishing feature — hums in high and low frequencies in a repetitive inhale of stellar gases on side A while the 18:58 side B showdown “Endless Black Space” misdirects with a minute of cosmic background noise before unfurling itself across an exoplanet’s vision of cool and returning, wait for it, back to the drone from whence it came. Did you know stars are recycled all the time? Did you know that if you drop acid and peel your face off there’s another face underneath? Your third eye is googly. You can hear voices in the drones. Let me know what they tell you.

Kaliyuga Express on Facebook

Riot Season Records store

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Tortuga to Release Iterations Oct. 27; “Lilith” Video Posted

Posted in Whathaveyou on September 19th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

tortuga (photo by Wojciech Kasprzak)

Swirling around the thickened fuzz at its center are vibes out of both vintage heavy rock and cavern-dwelling proto-metal, but Poznań, Poland’s Tortuga aren’t really either of those things on their new single “Lilith.” The song runs six minutes and comes from the band’s inbound Napalm Records label-debut, Iterations. They liken some of it to a Type O Negative influence, and you can hear some of that in the wisps strung through the second half the song, the added spooky ambience and a quick count-in like they’re about to start playing “Kill All the White People” or some such, as well as the later solo’s soaring tone.

As one would have to expect, I was late to the party on their 2020 debut, Deities (discussed here), but it was cool, and from what I’ve heard of Iterations thus far — listening for the first time now; I’m at the pretty psych and quiet melancholy guitar that opens the nine-minute “Laspes” — forward progression is evident top to bottom in the mix, which by the way is a not insignificant range.

The video for “Lilith” is at the bottom of this post, as well as the stream of Deities from Tortuga‘s Bandcamp. The info comes from the PR wire:

tortuga iterations

Polish Psych Doom/Progressive Stoner Act TORTUGA Reveals Album Details & Music Video for First Single “Lilith”!

New Album, ‘Iterations’ – a Haunting Trip Through Time and Space – Out October 27, 2023 via Napalm Records

Pre-Order HERE! https://www.napalmrecordsamerica.com/tortuga

With their 2017 self-titled debut, TORTUGA took the heavy stoner and psychedelic doom metal scene by storm. Following their sophomore offering, ‘Deities’ (2020), and a worldwide record deal with rock and metal empire Napalm Records, October 27, 2023 will see the Polish four-piece unleash their third studio album, ‘Iterations’!

A music video for their first single, “Lilith”, is now premiering below.

TORTUGA comments:

“‘Lilith’ is a song full of emotions, an evocative journey through love and hate for humanity, a tale that embodies its own time paradox. While crafting this song, we aimed to vividly convey the interplay of these contrasting emotions, not just through lyrics, but also through the very essence of the music.

“The song takes our familiar stoner/doom sound and gives it a fresh twist. You’ll catch hints of Type O Negative in there; we’re just big fans! We’ve always been drawn to the raw emotion in their music—the delicate balance between happiness and sadness. With ‘Lilith’, we aimed to capture and reflect that same emotional depth without losing our own style.

“We can’t wait to share it with you live!”

Compared to its predecessors, TORTUGA’s forthcoming album ‘Iterations’ moves from monolithic stoner-doom to progressive and experimental facettes, enriching its listeners’ auditory experience while managing to mature the band’s epic doom and stoner trademarks. Anyone who may have previously mistook TORTUGA as a Lovecraftian themed band should make no mistake – they are storytellers, and ‘Iterations’ proves the Poznan-based outfit puts as much effort into said storytelling as their songwriting.

This time, the band digs deep and delivers a concept album about the whole history of the universe (from beginning to the end), which is also applicable, metaphorically, to the history of a person’s lifetime. Each of the seven new tracks are related in context to the theme of the entire record, but every one of them is a standalone story.

Songs such as today’s premiering first single, “Lilith”, showcase the authentic sound and unconventional songwriting of TORTUGA. In a world of over-polished studio productions, it’s even more exhilarating to discover ‘Iterations’. It’s a haunting trip through time and space, full of light and shadow. With ‘Iterations’, TORTUGA has passed the challenge of album number three with a grade A: The album is a thrilling, free-spirited, deep and enthralling ride, and one that will ultimately establish the band at the top of the current stoner doom and progressive psych rock Olympus!

‘Iterations’ Track List:
1. Init
2. Lilith
3. Laspes
4. Interlude
5. MALACA
6. Quaus
7. Epitaph

TORTUGA are:
Pablo- Guitar, Vocals, Sampler
Krzysiu – Guitar, Synth, Vocoder
Heszu – Bass
Marcin – Drums

https://www.facebook.com/tortugapl
https://www.instagram.com/tortuga_band/
https://tortugapl.bandcamp.com/

www.facebook.com/napalmrecords
https://www.instagram.com/napalmrecordsofficial/
www.napalmrecords.com

Tortuga, “Lilith” official video

Tortuga, Deities (2020)

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Friday Full-Length: Tortuga, Deities

Posted in Bootleg Theater on January 27th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

Poznań, Poland’s Tortuga released their second album, Deities, early in 2020 on vinyl through Greece’s Made of Stone Recordings. The follow-up to their 2017 self-titled debut, it runs seven songs and 53 minutes — one assumes the vinyl is edited, or otherwise that the grooves are packed very, very tightly together — and is a pure example of what I mean when I employ the oft-used phrase ‘dug in.’ With production, guitars and vocals from Bablo (who softened his first consonant; it was previously Pablo), guitar, synth and vocals from Kłosu (who also mixed and recorded, with Achim), bass from Heszu and the steady rolling drums of Marmur, Tortuga languidly lumber through the culmination of “Esoteric Order” like they just invented wah, and it’s precisely that sense of the band being right there with the listener at the moment of righteousness, that kind of feeling that one might share in-person at a show, when they know it’s going good and you know it’s going good and that feeling of electricity and communion circles through the crowd. They’re into it as much as you are. You can feel them in the rehearsal space thinking, ‘Yeah, this is gonna be great,’ when they were writing, imagine the same conversation in the studio and then hear it in how they actually play the song.

That kind of feeling is writ large across Deities. It is a major unifying factor of the songs, which take a loosely Lovecraftian lyrical thematic and basically just play with it. The source of so much ultra-serious heavy metal, things dark, grim and tentacled, is on Deities boiled down to a kind of stoned brain-meander in which Yig, H.P. Lovecraft’s the lord of the Lizards, a god, is jealous of all the attention Godzilla gets in movies and so on. “Black Pharaoh II” is also Lovecraft-based and in complement to “Esoteric Order,” which puts the audience in this land of monsters following the instrumental intro “Shining Sphere” — which makes plenty of declarations of its own as regards the tonality with which Tortuga will convey their plod — the penultimate “Trip” is a lyrical moment of clarity in which the character making their way through this hellscape realizes that it’s all the result of having dropped too much acid. The lyrics, by Bablo and Anakolut — last names need not apply; they keep it casual — are a particular point of charm, but it’s really that ‘dug in’ sensibility that most comes through the listening experience. The distinct feeling that they’re having a good time too, that they know their music taps into a very specific kind of fun — a very specific kind of humor, though I wouldn’t call their material a joke on any level, even on “For Elizard” where the chorus is, “Yig hates Godzilla/Fuck you Godzilla” — and that not everybody is going to understand. They’re dug in. They’re riding the grooves of their own making. They’ve worked to craft their tones, their riffs, their songs, into either these hugely weighted slumps or the kind of rocking pushes one finds in the early going of the instrumental “Defective Mind Transfer” or the more atmospheric beginning of “Shining Sphere” from whence the full breadth of their distortion emerges like a tentacled god-beast from the more ethereal waters. It’s at 1:12 in the intro. You can’t miss it.

Tortuga DeitiesAnd if you’re listening at all, you won’t miss it, which is even more important. Because part of the communication that’s coming through Deities, and part of its being so dug in, stems from the fact that Tortuga clearly know who their audience is, because they’re it. Even as closer “Galeón de Manila” swaps out English lyrics for Spanish and moves with deceptive smoothness between elden doom and bell-of-ride, heads-down, forward-surge black metal before dissolving to nearly eight minutes of feedback, residual coming-apart and drone — this is in the digital version, not necessarily the LP — finishing the record with an unexpected twist, that change isn’t out of line for the kind of heavy that Tortuga play, and so it doesn’t feel out of place. If they started singing in Polish, I don’t think it would hurt the experience either. By the time they get there, you’ve already been up, down and around the mountains of madness, past the fields of wah in “Esoteric Order,” into the explosive, revelry-plod of “For Elizard,” through the semi-psych sample-topped musings of “Defective Mind Transfer,” the slam-that-fuzz-home midsection of “Black Pharaoh II” — you want to hear ‘dug in’ made manifest; cue up “Black Pharaoh II” at 2:30 into its total 6:10 and let it ride until the vocals come back at the very end, which is exactly what they do — the jaunty bounce that starts “Trip,” and far back at the start, the little flourish of synth that maybe marked the transfer from one world to another, so that they decide to turn all that dense fuzz to more ripper purposes for a stretch, well, you’ve already been steamrolled so why not?

No, Deities isn’t revolutionary. It’s not shaping genre in its own image either in the stoned or other heavy styles. It has a presence and a personality of its own, to be sure, but that comes well within the borders of genre, and the sense one gets from Tortuga is that they know it, they celebrate it, they want to celebrate it with their audience, as if to say, ‘Come check out this very, very large sound we have made.’ Or perhaps alternately, ‘Come dig in with us.’ Thus Deities, like religious dogma, offers an inherent feeling of community for those who listen and ‘get it.’ It’s not going to be everybody, but if you can hear the fun in “Esoteric Order” and “For Elizard,” then that invite to dig in should be a simple enough RSVP. Tortuga are the converted, holding a mass for the converted, and as much as their theme on Deities is hyper-specific, that ethic is mirrored in their instrumental bent. They know what they want to sound like because they know what they like. They are well and truly dug in, and unto its last drone, Deities is that much stronger an offering because of it. I don’t know if the Great Old Ones dig riffs or not, but if not, they’re missing out here.

As always, thanks for reading. I hope you enjoy.

Already this morning, the kid’s up. 5:06AM he came downstairs the first time. I was about two and a half paragraphs into the above. I put him back to bed — because, well, that’s too fucking early for him to be up — told him I’d set a timer for an hour and to go back to sleep. It’s 5:35AM right now and he’s come out of his room twice since, so really I’m just delaying the inevitable trying to get him some more rest which he’ll need so that at 2PM he doesn’t collapse into being a complete bastard because he’s too tired, and allow myself some time to work. I expect and know this effort will fail.

He just opened the bedroom door and said he has to pee; his ultimate not-going-back-to-bed weapon. Like a limit break in Final Fantasy VIII. I am defeated. It would really be something to be able to finish one of these posts on my laptop instead of my phone for a change one of these weeks. Feels like it’s been a very long time. I also wouldn’t mind going a day without having to mop up piss from all over the bathroom floor because, while gender is a complex issue in our house — I actually had another aside here explaining that but it was too long; bottom line is maybe trans? which presents all kinds of dangers in this hateful-ass country — he still wants to pee standing up and also holds it in for too long and then sprays the bathroom like he’s fucking powerwashing it. But these are apparently pretty big asks of life right now. And I work to remind myself that things will not always be as they are right now. Daily. Also I get high. Mostly in the afternoons and evenings. It is a wellness thing for me. I’ve been swimming every other morning at the gym near the house. The Patient Mrs. and I have been doing yoga videos. All of these things connect in my mind.

This weekend is family time. My oldest nephew turns 15 on Monday, so we’re having that whole crew over for dinner tomorrow, then brunch with Slevin and his fiancée on Sunday. Somewhere in there I’m supposed to do a sticker-quote for a Blood Lightning album and liner notes for PostWax. It’ll be a fucking miracle if I can get to the one-or-two-sentence thing there, let alone dig into the REZN/Vinnum Sabbathi collaboration and give it its descriptive due for a sheet that will be included with the release. I feel stupid and useless, even sitting here giving a shit about that stuff while my kid counts the seconds on the timer I set until we can turn on Sesame Street. He got a little music player this week that plays the theme. He sings along to it. It’s the kind of future-memory I should treasure for the rest of my life an example of what a sweet, wonderful person he is. But because I’m a narcissistic ogre, all I can think about is getting ‘work’ done for which I’m neither compensated nor ever truly able to finish.

So there you have it. Next week is a premiere from the new Stöner EP, a review of Strider, a premiere for Blackwülf, a full stream for Soothsayer Orchestra, and a review for Mathew’s Hidden Museum. That’s where the week is at now. Looking at it, it seems kind of ambitious. If I still have it in me by next Thursday to review that Mathew’s Hidden Museum and give it its due, I will. Otherwise I’ll push it back. I doubt Mr. Bethancourt is holding his breath for that, in any case. Really, I’m just ready to check out now and maybe spend the rest of the day just listening to music instead of thinking about it. Probably not going to happen.

A little discouraged, maybe, but persistent. Put it on my tombstone.

Have a great and safe weekend. Have fun, watch your head, hydrate. I’m punching out to go do domestic whathaveyou, which probably means dishes, laundry or both.

FRM.

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Quarterly Review: White Hills, Dystopian Future Movies, Basalt Shrine, Psychonaut, Robot God, Aawks, Smokes of Krakatau, Carrier Wave, Stash, Lightsucker

Posted in Reviews on January 4th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

quarterly-review-winter 2023

In many ways, this is my favorite kind of Quarterly Review day. I always place things more or less as I get them, and let the days fill up randomly, but there are different types that come out of that. Some are heavier on riffs, some (looking at you, Monday) are more about atmosphere, and some are all over the place. That’s this. There’s no getting in a word rut — “what’s another way to say ‘loud and fuzzy?'” — when the releases in question don’t sound like each other.

As we move past the halfway point of the first week of this double-wide Quarterly Review, 100 total acts/offerings to be covered, that kind of thing is much appreciated on my end. Keeps the mind limber, as it were. Let’s roll.

Winter 2023 Quarterly Review #21-30:

White Hills, The Revenge of Heads on Fire

white hills the revenge of heads on fire

The narrative — blessings and peace upon it — goes that White Hills stumbled on an old hard drive with 2007’s Heads on Fire‘s recording files on it, recovered them, and decided it was time to flesh out the original album some 15 years after the fact, releasing The Revenge of Heads on Fire through their own Heads on Fire Records imprint in fashion truer to the record’s original concept. Who would argue? Long-established freaks as they are, can’t White Hills basically do whatever the hell they want and it’ll be at the very least interesting? Sure enough, the 11-song starburster they’ve summoned out of the ether of memory is lysergic and druggy and sprawling through Dave W. and Ego Sensation‘s particular corner of heavy psychedelia and space rocks, “Visions of the Past, Present and Future” sounding no less vital for the passing of years as they’re still on a high temporal shift, riding a cosmic ribbon that puts “Speed Toilet” where “Revenge of Speed Toilet” once was in reverse sequeling and is satisfyingly head-spinning whether or not you ever heard the original. That is to say, context is nifty, but having your brain melted is better, and White Hills might screw around an awful lot, but they’re definitely not screwing around. You heard me.

White Hills on Facebook

White Hills on Bandcamp

 

Dystopian Future Movies, War of the Ether

dystopian future movies war of the ether

Weaving into and out of spoken word storytelling and lumbering riffy largesse, nine-minute opener and longest track (immediate points) “She Up From the Drombán Hill” has a richly atmospheric impact on what follows throughout Dystopian Future Movies‘ self-issued third album, War of the Ether, the residual feedback cutting to silence ahead of a soft beginning for “Critical Mass” as guitarist/vocalist Caroline Cawley pairs foreboding ambience with noise rocking payoffs, joined by her Church of the Cosmic Skull bandmate Bill Fisher on bass/drums and Rafe Dunn on guitar for eight songs that owe some of their root to ’90s-era alt heavy but have grown into something of their own, as demonstrated in the willfully overwhelming apex of “The Walls of Filth and Toil” or the dare-a-hook ending of the probably-about-social-media “The Veneer” just prior. The LP runs deeper as it unfurls, each song setting forth on its own quiet start save for the more direct “License of Their Lies” and offering grim but thoughtful craft for a vision of dark heavy rock true both to the band’s mission and the album’s troubled spirit. Closer “A Decent Class of Girl” rolls through volume swells in what feels like a complement to “She Up From the Drombán Hill,” but its bookending wash only highlights the distance the audience has traveled alongside Cawley and company. Engrossing.

Dystopian Future Movies on Facebook

Dystopian Future Movies store

 

Basalt Shrine, From Fiery Tongues

Basalt Shrine From Fiery Tongues

Though in part defined by the tectonic megasludge of “In the Dirt’s Embrace,” Filipino four-piece Basalt Shrine are no more beholden to that on From Fiery Tongues than they are the prior opening drone “Thawed Slag Blood,” the post-metallic soundscaping of the title-track, the open-spaced minimalism of closer “The Barren Aftermath” or the angular chug at the finish of centerpiece “Adorned for Loathing Pigs.” Through these five songs, the Manila-based outfit plunge into the darker, denser and more extreme regions of sludgy stylizations, and as they’ve apparently drawn the notice of US-based Electric Talon Records and sundry Euro imprints, safe to say the secret is out. Fair enough. The band guide “From Fiery Tongues,” song and album, with an entrancing churn that is as much about expression as impact, and the care they take in doing so — even at their heaviest and nastiest — isn’t to be understated, and especially as their debut, their ambition manifests itself in varied ways nearly all of which bode well for coming together as the crux of an innovative style. Not predicting anything, but while From Fiery Tongues doesn’t necessarily ring out with a hopeful viewpoint for the world at large, one can only listen to it and be optimistic about the prospects for the band themselves.

Basalt Shrine on Facebook

Electric Talon Records store

 

Psychonaut, Violate Consensus Reality

Psychonaut Violate Consensus Reality

Post-metallic in its atmosphere, there’s no discounting the intensity Belgium trio Psychonaut radiate on their second album, Violate Consensus Reality (on Pelagic). The prog-metal noodling of “All Your Gods Have Gone” and the singing-turns-to-screaming methodology on the prior opener “A Storm Approaching” begin the 52-minute eight-tracker with a fervency that affects everything that comes after, and as “Age of Separation” builds into its full push ahead of the title-track, which holds tension in its first half and shows why in its second, a halfway-there culmination before the ambient and melodic “Hope” turns momentarily from some of the harsher insistence before it, a summary/epilogue for the first platter of the 2LP release. The subsequent “Interbeing” is black metal reimagined as modern prog — flashes of Enslaved or Amorphis more than The Ocean or Mastodon, and no complaints — and the procession from “Hope” through “Interbeing” means that the onslaught of “A Pacifist’s Guide to Violence,” all slam and controlled plunder, is an apex of its own before the more sprawling, 12-minute capper “Towards the Edge,” which brings guest appearances from BrutusStefanie Mannaerts and the most esteemed frontman in European post-metal, Colin H. van Eeckhout of Amenra, whose band Psychonaut admirably avoid sounding just like. That’s not often the case these days.

Psychonaut on Facebook

Pelagic Records on Bandcamp

 

Robot God, Worlds Collide

robot god worlds collide

If you’re making your way through this post, skimming for something that looks interesting, don’t discount Sydney, Australia’s Robot God on account of their kinda-generic moniker. After solidifying — moltenifying? — their approach to longform-fuzz on their 2020 debut, Silver Buddha Dreaming, the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Raff Iacurto, bassist/vocalist Matt Allen and drummer Tim Pritchard offer the four tracks of their sophomore LP, Worlds Collide, through Kozmik Artifactz in an apparent spirit of resonance, drawing familiar aspects of desert-style heavy rock out over songs that feel exploratory even as they’re born of recognizable elements. “Sleepwalking” (11:25) sets a broad landscape and the melody over the chugger riff in the second half of “Ready to Launch” (the shortest inclusion at 7:03) floats above it smoothly, while “Boogie Man” (11:24) pushes over the edge of the world and proceeds to (purposefully) tumble loosely downward in tempo from there, and the closing title-track (11:00) departs from its early verses along a jammier course, still plotted, but clearly open to the odd bit of happy-accidentalism. It’s a niche that seems difficult to occupy, and a difficult balance to strike between hooking the listener with a riff and spacing out, but Robot God mostly avoid the one-or-the-other trap and create something of their own from both sides; reminiscent of… wait for it… worlds colliding. Don’t skip it.

Robot God on Facebook

Kozmik Artifactz store

 

AAWKS, Heavy on the Cosmic

AAWKS Heavy on the Cosmic

Released in June 2022 and given a late-in-the-year vinyl issue seemingly on the strength of popular demand alone, AAWKS‘ debut full-length, Heavy on the Cosmic sets itself forth with the immersive, densely-fuzzed nodder riff and stoned vocal of longest track (immediate points) “Beyond the Sun,” which finds start-with-longest-song complement on side B’s “Electric Traveller” (rare double points). Indeed there’s plenty to dig about the eight-song outing, from the boogie in “Sunshine Apparitions,” the abiding vibe of languid grunge and effects-laced chicanery that pervade the crashouts of “The Woods” to the memorable, slow hook-craft of “All is Fine.” Over on side B, the momentum early in “Electric Traveller” rams headfirst into its own slowdown, while “Space City” reinforces the no-joke tonality and Elephant Tree-style heavy/melodic blend before the penultimate mostly-instrumental “Star Collider” resolves itself like Floor at half-speed and closer “Peeling Away” lives up to its title with a departure of psychedelic soloing and final off-we-go loops. The word-of-mouth hype around AAWKS was and is significant, and the Ontario-based four-piece tender three-dimensional sound to justify it, the record too brief at 39 minutes to actually let the listener get lost while providing multiple opportunities for headphone escapism. A significant first LP.

AAWKS on Facebook

AAWKS on Bandcamp

 

Smokes of Krakatau, Smokes of Krakatau

Smokes of Krakatau Smokes of Krakatau

The core methodology of Polish trio Smokes of Krakatau across their self-titled debut seems to be to entrance their audience and then blindside them with a riffy punch upside the head. Can’t argue if it works, which it does, right from the gradual unfurling of 10-minute instrumental opener “Absence of Light” before the chunky-style riff of “GrassHopper” lumbers into the album’s first vocals, delivered with a burl that reminds of earlier Clutch. There are two more extended tracks tucked away at the end — “Septic” (10:07) and “Kombajn Bizon” (11:37) — but before they get there, “GrassHopper” begins a movement across four songs that brings the band to arguably their most straightforward piece of all, the four-minute “Carousel,” as though the ambient side of their persona was being drained out only to return amid the monolithic lumber that pays off the build in “Septic.” It’s a fascinating whole-album progression, but it works and it flows right unto the bluesy reach of “Kombajn Bizon,” which coalesces around a duly massive lurch in its last minutes. It’s a simplification to call them ‘stoner doom,’ but that’s what they are nonetheless, though the manner in which they present their material is as distinguishing a factor as that material itself in the listening experience. The band are not done growing, but if you let their songs carry you, you won’t regret going where they lead.

Smokes of Krakatau on Facebook

Smokes of Krakatau on Bandcamp

 

Carrier Wave, Carrier Wave

Carrier Wave self-titled

Is it the riff-filled land that awaits, or the outer arms of the galaxy itself? Maybe a bit of both on Bellingham, Washington-based trio Carrier Wave‘s four-song self-titled debut, which operates with a reverence for the heft of its own making that reminds of early YOB without trying to ape either Mike Scheidt‘s vocal or riffing style. That works greatly to the benefit of three-piece — guitarist/vocalist James Myers, bassist/vocalist Taber Wilmot, drummer Joe Rude — who allow some raucousness to transfuse in “Skyhammer” (shortest song at 6:53) while surrounding that still-consuming breadth with opener “Cosmic Man” (14:01), “Monolithic Memories” (11:19) and the subsequent finale “Evening Star” (10:38), a quiet guitar start to the lead-and-longest track (immediate points) barely hinting at the deep tonal dive about to take place. Tempo? Mostly slow. Space? Mostly dark and vast. Ritual? Vital, loud and awaiting your attendance. There’s crush and presence and open space, surges, ebbs, flows and ties between earth and ether that not every band can or would be willing to make, and much to Carrier Wave‘s credit, at 42 minutes, they engage a kind of worldmaking through sound that’s psychedelic even as it builds solid walls of repetitive riffing. Not nasty. Welcoming, and welcome in itself accordingly.

Carrier Wave on Facebook

Carrier Wave on Bandcamp

 

Stash, Through Rose Coloured Glasses

Stash Through Rose Coloured Glasses

With mixing/mastering by Chris Fielding (Conan, etc.), the self-released first full-length from Tel Aviv’s Stash wants nothing for a hard-landing thud of a sound across its nine songs/45 minutes. Through Rose Coloured Glasses has a kind of inherent cynicism about it, thanks to the title and corresponding David Paul Seymour cover art, and its burl — which goes over the top in centerpiece “No Real” — is palpable to a defining degree. There’s a sense of what might’ve happened if C.O.C. had come from metal instead of punk rock, but one way or the other, Stash‘s grooves remain mostly throttled save for the early going of the penultimate “Rebirth.” The shove is marked and physical, and the tonal purpose isn’t so much to engulf the listener with weight as to act as the force pushing through from one song to the next, each one — “Suits and Ties,” “Lie” and certainly the opener “Invite the Devil for a Drink” — inciting a sense of movement, speaking to American Southern heavy without becoming entirely adherent to it, finding its own expression through roiling, chugging brashness. But there’s little happenstance in it — another byproduct of a metallic foundation — and Stash stay almost wholly clearheaded while they crash through your wall and proceed to break all the shit in your house, sonically speaking.

Stash on Facebook

Stash on Bandcamp

 

Lightsucker, Stonemoon

Lightsucker Stonemoon

Though it opens serene enough with birdsong and acoustic guitar on “Intro(vert,” the bulk of Lightsucker‘s second LP, Stonemoon is more given to a tumult of heavy motion, drawing together elements of atmospheric sludge and doom with shifts between heavy rock groove and harder-landing heft. And in “Pick Your God,” a little bit of death metal. An amalgam, then. So be it. The current that unites the Finnish four-piece’s material across Stonemoon is unhinged sludge rock that, in “Lie,” “Land of the Dead” and the swinging “Mob Psychosis” reminds of some of Church of Misery‘s shotgun-blues chaos, but as the careening “Guayota” and the deceptively steady push of “Justify” behind the madman vocals demonstrate, Lightsucker‘s ambitions aren’t so simply encapsulated. So much the better for the listening experience of the 35-minute/eight-song entirety, as from “Intro(vert)” through the suitably pointy snare hits of instrumental closer “Stalagmites,” Lightsucker remain notably unpredictable as they throw elbows and wreak havoc from one song to the next, the ruined debris of genre strewn about behind as if to leave a trail for you to follow after, which, if you can actually keep up with their changes, you might just do.

Lightsucker on Facebook

Lightsucker on Bandcamp

 

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The Obelisk Presents: Tortuga Eastern European Tour Dates

Posted in Whathaveyou on September 1st, 2022 by JJ Koczan

Boogie fuzz, heavy doom, meet the road. Poland’s Tortuga, for not the first time ever but for the first time in a while, are headed out on a tour of Eastern Europe. They’ll leave home in Poland ahead of an Oct. 13 start and head into Slovakia, Hungary (I recently saw pictures of the village outside Budapest where my family emigrated from; some green grass on those hills), Slovenia, Bulgaria, Greece, and so on.

When it comes to this kind of thing, an ‘Obelisk Presents’ situation, I always feel like I need to justify presenting the shows even though I won’t be there to see any of them. You know what? Screw that. I support, wholeheartedly, good bands getting out and bringing their wares to the masses, and with this stupid, increasingly-awful timeline we live in, all the more so. Tortuga‘s 2020 album, Deities, rules. I missed it when it came out — see “2020” and “awful timeline” earlier in this sentence — but will close out a week with it eventually, and it was on the strength of that album and the band’s touring that the band signed to Napalm Records last year.

What that means is, hopefully, this won’t be the last you hear from them and this won’t be the last time they get out. Awesome. New release in 2023? Maybe. They hint at new material in the tour announcement below, and if that’s a thing that happens, I’ll do all I can not to miss out. If you’re in an area where these shows are happening, or within a reasonable or unreasonable traveling distance, I hope you’ll do the same.

Dig:

tortuga tour dates

TORTUGA – EASTERN EUROPEAN TOUR 2022

Dear occult doom worshipers, Mammoth supporters and heavy rock enthusiasts, the time have come to finally take Tortuga on the road!

It is with great pleasure that we are embarking along our favorite Polish doom lords on a tour, crossing all of Eastern Europe, for a series of killer shows.

Tortuga will present a mix of older and new material, celebrating the success of “Deities” and getting ready for their upcoming album.

Pick your closest stop out of the dates below and witness history in the making.

TORTUGA live:
13.10 Kulturak Klub Bratislava SK
14.10 Szabadkikoto Pecs HU
15.10 Channel Zero Ljubljana SL
16.10 Vintage Bar Zagreb HR
18.10 Singles Bar Sofia BG
19.10 Rover Bar Thessaloniki GR
20.10 Death Disco Athens GR
21.10 Mandrakoukos Ptolemaida GR
22.10 Nostos Live Xanthi, GR
23.10 Download Bar Plovdic BG
25.10 Expirat Bucharest RO
26.10 Flying Circus Cluj Napoca RO
27.10 Aurora Budapest HU
28.10 Colloseum Club Kosice SK

TORTUGA are:
Marmur – Drums
Heszu – Bass
Pablo – Guitars, Vocals
Kłosu – Guitars, Synths, Vocals

https://www.facebook.com/tortugapl
https://www.instagram.com/tortuga_band/
https://tortugapl.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/napalmrecords
http://label.napalmrecords.com/

Tortuga, Deities (2020)

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Tortuga Sign to Napalm Records

Posted in Whathaveyou on March 26th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

Promising ‘heavy rock ‘n’ cock,’ and I suppose delivering that in their burly riffing, Poland’s Tortuga have inked a deal to release their next album through Napalm Records. I’m always fascinated when Napalm picks up a heavy band, whether it’s Tortuga, Villagers of Ioannina City or The Midnight Ghost Train a few years back. The label had a heavy rock spinoff for a while called Spinning Goblin that was subsumed into the mothership, but among all the various types of metal it seems like there are probably one or two heads in Napalm‘s offices that dig riffs. That’s usually how metal labels end up signing heavy rock bands, frankly. See also: Melvins on Atlantic, Clutch on Columbia, and so on.

With Napalm though, I’m never able to predict who or what next, and more often than not, I’m surprised. Sure, Napalm would release Monster Magnet and Greenleaf. Those are bigger bands. Established. Tortuga have two records out and another reportedly coming in 2022. Their sound is huge, as you can hear in the stream of last year’s Deities, below, so maybe it’s just that and the right combination of plans, perspective, accumulated YouTube streams and groove. Kudos to the band either way. The tacit hat-tip here from the Austrian label to the vibrant Polish underground isn’t to be overlooked.

From the PR wire:

tortuga

Psychedelic Stoner/Doom Metal Upstarts TORTUGA Sign Worldwide Record Deal with Napalm Records

The four piece from Poland is working on new music for 2022

Napalm Records is proud to announce the signing of Psychedelic Stoner and Doom Metal outfit TORTUGA from Poland! After making a giant impact on the scene in 2017 with their self-titled EP, followed by their H.P. Lovecraft inspired album Deities (2020) that gathered hundreds of thousands of streams across all streaming platforms, TORTUGA is ready to dive into the next chapter of their career!

TORTUGA are currently working on new music, set for release via Napalm Records in 2022.

TORTUGA about signing to Napalm Records:
“We weren’t very respectful towards the Lovecraftian Deities on our second LP, so they punished mankind with a pandemic and made it impossible for us to tour with our album. Gladly, they are merciful, and they gave us a second chance in the form of a pretty awesome collaboration with Napalm Records. We are already working on our third album and rest assured that this time we won’t mock any deities. We learned our lesson.”

TORTUGA are:
Marmur – Drums
Heszu – Bass
Pablo – Guitars, Vocals
K?osu – Guitars, Synths, Vocals

https://www.facebook.com/tortugapl
https://www.instagram.com/tortuga_band/
https://tortugapl.bandcamp.com/
www.napalmrecords.com

Tortuga, Deities (2020)

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The Obelisk Radio Add of the Week: Bitchcraft, Bitchcraft

Posted in Radio on February 5th, 2014 by JJ Koczan

Stoner riffs and doomed vibes. Blown out amps and follow-the-nod vocals. A sample from Alucarda. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think Polish five-piece Bitchcraft are doing much that’s never been done before, but sometimes in this age of microgenre you just want something that shirks off the complexity in favor of beating you over the head with the things that made you love the style in the first place. Bitchcraft‘s self-titled is little concerned with nuance, but takes post-Electric Wizard unbridled Sabbath riff worship almost too the bone over the course of its four tracks and 32 minutes. Songs roll out in doomy lurch topped with Julia Konieczna‘s vocals in straightforward verses and choruses, and they never really get above what most would probably consider a crawl throughout “Not the One,” “Mouth of a Cave,” “Acid Dream” and “Stoned One” (spoiler alert: they’re all the stoned one), but they don’t need to. The two guitars offer some lead/riff interplay, but really, the crux of Bitchcraft‘s Bitchcraft is in the thick grooves and the hazy vibes derived therefrom.

“Not the One” is probably the catchiest of the bunch, but Konieczna‘s voice offers more variety on “Mouth of a Cave,” touching on some of the same early-Acid King melodicism that Alunah has so skillfully made their own. The production surrounding the vocals is rough, but no more than it should be. The bass still has plenty of thickness distinct from that of the guitar on “Mouth of a Cave” and the subsequent “Acid Dream” — the middle pair being shorter than the bookends at 7:43 and 7:18, respectively — though the fuzz in the two guitars seems to get even hairier on the third cut, which is consistent in pace but so sonically dense that at any speed it would still sound slow. It’s the kind of tone that, if you had to pee in a cup after hearing it, you’d fail the drug test. Later on, the roll gets bigger and badder on the way to smoked-out leads that set up “Acid Dream” as the high point (ha!) of Bitchcraft, but the fivesome rounds out with the nine-minute “Stoned One,” which earns its way through channel-panning feedback that soon enough looses a riff worthy of as much of the song as it consumes. Righteously stoned.

Bitchcraft get better and more consuming the more volume is added, and as their self-titled comes on the heels of a 2012’s Evil Thing, which was of similar length — I’d call Bitchcraft a 32-minute LP, two songs on two sides — they may well still be feeling out their sound, but if it’s a wall of rumble they’re looking to create, they’ve got that more or less set. Not a bad place to start if they want to kick into creative expansion, though when it comes to what they do here, there’s nothing that seems to be crying out to be fixed.

Check out Bitchcraft‘s Bitchcraft now as part of the 24/7 stream on The Obelisk Radio and get a taste on the Bandcamp player below:

Bitchcraft, Bitchcraft (Dec. 2013)

Bitchcraft on Thee Facebooks

Bitchcraft on Bandcamp

[Please Note: This was the Add of the Week, but more than 15 records joined The Obelisk Radio today. See the full list here.]

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