Welcome to the second week of the Quarterly Review. Last week there were 50 records covered between Monday and Friday, and barring disaster, the same thing will happen this week too. I wish I could say I was caught up after this, but yeah, no. As always, I’m hearing stuff right and left that I wish I’d had the chance to dig into sooner, but as the platitude says, you can only be in so many places at one time. I’m doing my best. If you’ve already heard all this stuff, sorry. Maybe if you keep reading you’ll find a mistake to correct. I’m sure there’s one in there somewhere.

Winter 2023 Quarterly Review #51-60:

Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol, Doom Wop

Powered by eight-string-guitar and bass chug, Austin heavy party rockers Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol offer markedly heavy, Steve Brooks-style weight on “Doom Wop,” the title-track of their second album, and prove themselves catchy through a swath of hooks, be it opener “Heel,” “Chew” or “I’m the Fucking Man,” which, if the finale “Jesus Was an Alien” — perhaps the best, also the only, ‘Jesus doing stuff’ song I’ve heard since Ministry‘s “Jesus Built My Hotrod”; extra kudos to the band for making it about screwing — didn’t let you know the band didn’t take themselves too seriously, and their moniker didn’t even before you hit play, then there you go. Comprised of guitarist Leo Lydon, bassist Aaron Metzdorf and drummer Sean St. Germain, they’re able to tap into that extra-dense tone at will, but their songs build momentum and keep it, not really even being slowed by their own massive feel, as heard on “Chew” or “The Bog” once it kicks in, and the vocals remind a bit of South Africa’s Ruff Majik without quite going that far over the top; I’d also believe it’s pop-punk influence. Since making their debut in 2020 with Burger Babes… From Outer Space!, they’ve stripped down their songwriting approach somewhat, and that tightness works well in emphasizing the ’90s alt rock vibe of “The Room” or the chug-fuzzer “Fly Super Glide.” They had a good amount of hype leading up to the Sept. 2022 release. I’m not without questions, but I can’t argue on the level of craft or the energy of their delivery.

Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol on Facebook

Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol on Bandcamp

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DoctoR DooM, A Shadow Called Danger

French heavy rock traditionalists DoctoR DooM return following a seven-year drought with A Shadow Called Danger, their late 2022/early 2023 follow-up to 2015’s debut, This Seed We Have Sown (review here). After unveiling the single “What They Are Trying to Sell” (premiered here) as proof-of-life in 2021, the three-piece ’70s-swing their way through eight tracks and 45 minutes of vintage-mindset stylizations, touching on moody Graveyardian blues in “Ride On” and the more uptempo rocker “The Rich and the Poor” while going more directly proto-metallic on galloping opener “Come Back to Yourself and the later “Connected by the Worst.” Organ enhances the sway of the penultimate “In This Town” as part of a side B expansion that starts with tense rhythmic underlayer before the stride of “Hollow” and, because obviously, an epilogue take on Händel‘s “Sarabande” that closes. That’ll happen? In any case, DoctoR DooM — guitarist/vocalist Jean-Laurent Pasquet, guitarist Bertrand Legrand, bassist Sébastien Boutin Blomfield and drummer Michel Marcq — don’t stray too far from their central purpose, even there, and their ability to guide the listener through winding progressions is bolstered by the warmth of their tones and Pasquet‘s sometimes gruff but still melodic vocals, allowing some of the longer tracks like “Come Back to Yourself,” “Hollow” and “In This Town” to explore that entirely imaginary border where ’70s-style heavy rock and classic metal meet and intertwine.

DoctoR DooM on Facebook

Ripple Music website

Black Farm Records store

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Stones of Babylon, Ishtar Gate

Clearly when you start out with a direct invocation of epic tales like “Gilgamesh (…and Enkidu’s Demise),” you’re going big. Portugal’s Stones of Babylon answer 2019’s Hanging Gardens (review here) with Ishtar Gate, still staying in Babylon as “Annunaki,” “Pazuzu,” the title-track, “The Fall of Ur,” and “Tigris and Euphrates” roll out instrumental embodiment of these historical places, ideas, and myths. There is some Middle Eastern flourish in quieter stretches of guitar in “Anunnaki,” “Pazuzu,” “The Fall of Ur,” etc., but it’s the general largesse of tone, the big riffs that the trio of guitarist Alexandre Mendes, bassist João Medeiros and drummer Pedro Branco foster and roll out one after the other, that give the sense of scale coinciding with their apparent themes. And loud or quiet, big and rolling or softer and more winding, they touch on some of My Sleeping Karma‘s meditative aspects without giving up a harder-hitting edge, so that when Ur falls, the ground seems to be given a due shake, and “Tigris and Euphrates,” as one of the cradles of civilization, caps the record with a fervency that seems reserved specifically for that crescendo. A few samples, including one at the very end, add to the atmosphere, but the band’s heart is in the heavy and that comes through regardless of a given moment’s volume.

Stones of Babylon on Facebook

Raging Planet website

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Alconaut, Slugs

Released on Halloween 2022, Alconaut‘s “Slugs” is a six-minute roller single following-up their 2019 debut album, Sand Turns to Tide, and it finds the Corsican trio fuzz-grooving their way through a moderate tempo, easy-to-dig procession that’s not nearly as slime-trail-leaving as its title implies. A stretch building up the start-stop central riff has a subtle edge of funk, but then the pedal clicks on and a fuller tone is revealed, drums still holding the same snare punctuation behind. They ride that stretch out for a reasonably unreasonable amount of measures before shifting toward the verse shortly before two minutes in — classic stoner rock — backing the first vocals with either organ or guitar effects that sound like one (nobody is credited for keys; accept the mystery) and a quick flash of angularity between lines of the chorus are likewise bolstered. They make their way back through the verse and then shift into tense chugging that’s more straight-ahead push than swinging, but still friendly in terms of pace, and after five minutes in, they stop, the guitar pans channels in re-establishing the riff, and they finish it big before just a flash of feedback cuts to silence. Way more rock and way less sludge than either their moniker or the song’s title implies, their style nonetheless hints toward emergent dynamic in its tonal changes even as the guitar sets forth its own hooks.

Alconaut on Facebook

Alconaut on Bandcamp

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Maybe Human, Ape Law

Instrumental save for the liberally distributed samples from Planet of the Apes, including Charlton Heston’s naming of Nova in “Nova” presented as a kind of semi-organic alt-techno with winding psychedelic guitar over a programmed beat, Maybe Human‘s Ape Law is the second long-player from the Los Angeles-based probably-solo outfit, and it arrives as part of a glut of releases — singles, EPs, one prior album — issued over the last two years or so. The 47-minute 10-songer makes its point in the opening title-track, and uses dialogue from the Apes franchise — nothing from the reboots, and fair enough — to fill out pieces that vary in their overarching impression from the heavy prog of “Bright Eyes” and the closing “The Killer Ape Theory” to the experimentalist psych of “Heresy.” If you’re looking to be damned to hell by the aforementioned Heston, check out “The Forbidden Zone,” but Ape Law seems to be on its most solid footing — not always where it wants to be, mind you — in a more metal-leaning guitar-led stretch like that in the second half of “Infinite Regression” where the guitar solo takes the forward role over a bed that seems to have been made just for it. The intent here is more to explore and the sound is rawer than Maybe Human‘s self-applied post-rock or pop tags might necessarily imply, but the deeper you go there more there is to hear. Unless you hate those movies, in which case you might want to try something else.

Maybe Human on Facebook

Maybe Human on Bandcamp

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Heron, Empires of Ash

Beginning with its longest track (immediate points) in the nine-minute “Rust and Rot,” the third full-length from Vancouver’s Heron, Empires of Ash, offers significant abrasive sludge heft from its lurching outset, and continues to sound slow even in the comparatively furious “Hungry Ghosts,” vocalist/noisemaker Jamie having a rasp to his screams that calls to mind Yatra over the dense-if-spacious riffing of Ross and Scott and Bina‘s fluid drumming. Ambient sections and buildups like that in centerpiece “Hauntology” allow some measure of respite from all the gnashing elsewhere, assuring there’s more to the four-piece than apparently-sans-bass-but-still-plenty-heavy caustic sludge metal, but in their nastiest moments they readily veer into territory commonly considered extreme, and the pairing of screams and backing growls over the brooding but mellower progression on closer “With Dead Eyes” is almost post-hardcore in its melding aggression with atmosphere. Still, it is inevitably the bite that defines it, and Heron‘s collective teeth are razor-sharp whether put to speedier or more methodical use, and the contrast in their sound, the either/or nature, is blurred somewhat by their willingness to do more than slaughter. This being their third album and my first exposure to them, I’m late to the party, but fine. Empires of Ash is perfectly willing to brutalize newcomers too, and the only barrier to entry is your own threshold for pain.

Heron links

Heron on Bandcamp

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My Octopus Mind, Faulty at Source (Bonus Edition)

A reissue of their 2020 second LP, My Octopus Mind‘s Faulty at Source (Bonus Edition) adds two tracks — “Here My Rawr,” also released as a single, and “No Way Outta Here Alive” — for a CD release. Whichever edition one chooses to take on, the range of the Bristol-based psych trio of guitarist/vocalist/pianist Liam O’Connell, bassist Isaac Ellis and drummer Oliver Cocup (the latter two also credited with “rawrs,” which one assumes means backing vocals) is presented with all due absurdity but a strongly progressive presence, so that while “The Greatest Escape” works in its violin and viola guest appearances from Rebecca Shelley and Rowan Elliot as one of several tracks to do the same, the feeling isn’t superfluous where it otherwise might be. Traditional notions of aural heft come and go — the riffier and delightfully bass-fuzzed “No Way Outta Here Alive” has plenty — while “Buy My Book” and the later “Hindenburg” envision psychedelic noise rock and “Wandering Eye” (with Shelley on duet vocals as well) adds mathy quirk to the proceedings, making them that march harder to classify, that much more on-point as regards the apparent mission of the band, and that much more satisfying a listen. If you’re willing to get weird, My Octopus Mind are already there. For at least over two years now, it would seem.

My Octopus Mind on Facebook

My Octopus Mind on Bandcamp

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Et Mors, Lifeless Grey

Having become a duo since their debut, 2019’s Lux in Morte (review here), was released, Et Mors are no less dirgey or misery-laden across Lifeless Grey for halving their lineup. Wretched, sometimes melodic and almost universally deathly doom gruels out across the three extended originals following the shorter intro “Drastic Side Effects” — that’s the near-goth plod of “The Coffin of Regrets” (9:45), “Tritsch” (16:13), which surprises by growing into an atmosludge take on The Doors at their most minimalist and spacious before its own consumption resumes, and “Old Wizard of Odd” (10:29), which revels in extremity before its noisy finish and is the ‘heaviest’ inclusion for that — and a concluding cover of Bonnie “Prince” Billy‘s “I See a Darkness,” the title embodied in the open space within the sound of the song itself while showcasing a soulful clean vocal style that feels like an emerging distinguishing factor in the band’s sound. That is, a point of growth that will continue to grow and make them a stronger, more diverse band as it already does in their material here. I’d be interested to hear guitarist/vocalist Zakir Suleri and drummer/vocalist Albert Alisaug with an expansive production able to lean more into the emotive aspects of their songwriting, but as it is on Lifeless Grey, their sound is contrastingly vital despite the mostly crawling tempos and the unifying rawness of the aural setting in which these songs take place.

Et Mors on Facebook

Et Mors on Bandcamp

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The Atomic Bomb Audition, Future Mirror

Future Mirror is The Atomic Bomb Audition‘s first release since 2014 and their first studio album since 2011’s Roots into the See (review here), the returning Oakland-based four-piece of guitarist/vocalist Alee Karin, bassist/vocalist Jason Hoopes, drummer Brian Gleeson and synthesist/engineer The Norman Conquest reigniting their take on pop-informed heavy, sometimes leaning toward post-rock float, sometimes offering a driving hook like in “Night Vision,” sometimes alternating between spacious and crushing as on “Haunted Houses,” which is as much Type O Negative and Katatonia darkness as the opener “Render” was blinding with its sweet falsetto melodies and crashing grandeur. Two interludes, “WNGTIROTSCHDB” and “…Spells” surround “Golden States, Pt. 1” — note there is no second part here — a brief-at-three-minutes-but-multi-movement instrumental, and the linear effect in hearing the album as whole is to create an ambient space between the three earlier shorter tracks and the two longer ones at the finish, and where “Dream Flood” might otherwise be a bridge between the two, the listening experience is only enhanced for the flourish. Future Mirror won’t be for everybody, as its nuance makes it harder to categorize and they wouldn’t be the first to suffer perils of the ‘band in-between,’ but by the time they get the payoff of closer “More Light,” tying the heft and melody together, The Atomic Bomb Audition have provided enough context to make their own kind of sense. Thus, a win.

The Atomic Bomb Audition on Facebook

The Atomic Bomb Audition on Bandcamp

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Maharaja, Aviarium

Maharaja‘s new EP, Aviarium (on Seeing Red), might be post-metal if one were to distill that microgenre away from its ultra-cerebral self-indulgence and keep only the parts of it most crushing. The downer perspective of the Ohio trio — guitarist Angus Burkhart, bassist Eric Bluebaum, drummer Zack Mangold, all of whom add vocals, as demonstrated in the shouty-then-noisy-then-both second track — is confirmed in the use of the suffix ‘-less’ in each of the four songs on the 24-minute outing, from opener “Hopeless” through “Soulless,” into the shorter, faster and more percussively intense “Lifeless” and at last arriving in the open with the engrossing roll of 10-minute finisher “Ballad of the Flightless Bird,” which makes a home for itself in more stoner-metal riffing and cleaner vocals but maintains the poise of execution that even the many and righteous drum fills of “Hopeless” couldn’t shake loose. It is not an easy or a smooth listen, but neither is it meant to be, and the ambience that comes out of the raw weight of Maharaja‘s tones as well as their subtle variation in style should be enough to bring on board those who’d dare take it on in the first place. Can be mean, but isn’t universally one thing or the other, and as a sampler of Maharaja‘s work it’s got me wanting to dig back to their 2017 Kali Yuga and find out what I missed.

Maharaja on Facebook

Seeing Red Records store

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I think a lot about the distant future, if humans have another few thousand years living in organized societies such as we do, and what that time will know about this one. That’s not just me saying I think we’re all savage idiots and the future will look upon us with condescension as primitives, but yeah, I do basically believe that. Stones of Babylon, obviously, look to the past from a distant future as well, but there’s a bit of respect in the largesse of tone from the Lisbon-based outfit, who released their debut, Hanging Gardens (review here), in 2019. That is, when I listen to “Pazuzu,” I don’t get the sense that the three-piece are infantilizing or dehumanizing the past in their slow-wah riffy rollout. I’m not sure what the Exorcist movies have to do with any of it, but sometimes a thing fits and you use it anyway.

The PR wire brings album info and the stream of “Pazuzu,” which is the first single. Dig in below:

Stones Of Babylon – Ishtar Gate

Release: 21 November 2022

Somewhere in Babylon, in a space almost lost in time, the eighth gate of the city was erected. Like any door, the Ishtar Gate symbolizes access to coded worlds, the closing of crossroads, or simply the thunderous force of power.

Traveling back in time to the ancient history and myths of Mesopotamia and the fertile crescent, Stones of Babylon continue where they left off with their 2019 debut album “Hanging Gardens”: they start from song titles with the aim that the listener can embark on a journey and, somehow, be taken to the places of an always mysterious past that fills the lines of history.

With the entry of Alexandre Mendes on the guitar, there is an evolution in continuity, where, without losing the thread of the path followed previously, they intend not only to cement the concept of the project but also to expand it either through the composition or through the loudness.

In this way, the six thick tracks that make up “Ishtar Gate”, intend to take the listener to feel an approach to the sounds of the Middle East in fusion with the densest and most massive riffs of the West, something like sonic mantras alternating between weight and subtlety and culminating in a psychedelic and travel atmosphere.

Recorded by Paulo Vieira at Brugo Studio, Lisbon, Portugal in August and September 2021
Mixed and Mastered by Paulo Vieira, October 2021
Artwork “Ishtar Gate” by Soares Artwork
Thanks to Pawel Nowak, Pedro Lima and Rui Belchior, previous band members, for participation in the creation of “Anunnaki” (only available on CD and Digital versions)., “The Gate of Ishtar” and “Gilgamesh (…and Enkidu´s Demise)” tracks.
All intros by Stones of Babylon, except Pazuzu´s intro taken from “Exorcist II: The Heretic”.

Tracklisting:
1. Gilgamesh (…and Enkidu’s demise)
2. Anunnaki
3. Pazuzu
4. The Gate of Ishtar
5. The Fall of Ur
6. Tigris & Euphrates

Stones Of Babylon are:
Guitar – Alexandre Mendes
Bass – João Medeiros
Drums – Pedro Branco

https://www.instagram.com/stonesofbabylon/
https://www.facebook.com/stonesofbabylon
https://stonesofbabylon.bandcamp.com

https://ragingplanet.bandcamp.com
http://www.ragingplanet.pt/

Stones of Babylon, Ishtar Gate (2022)

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

The statistics of COVID-19 change with every news cycle, and with growing numbers, stay-at-home isolation and a near-universal disruption to society on a global scale, it is ever more important to consider the human aspect of this coronavirus. Amid the sad surrealism of living through social distancing, quarantines and bans on gatherings of groups of any size, creative professionals — artists, musicians, promoters, club owners, techs, producers, and more — are seeing an effect like nothing witnessed in the last century, and as humanity as a whole deals with this calamity, some perspective on who, what, where, when and how we’re all getting through is a needed reminder of why we’re doing so in the first place.

Thus, Days of Rona, in some attempt to help document the state of things as they are now, both so help can be asked for and given where needed, and so that when this is over it can be remembered.

Thanks to all who participate. To read all the Days of Rona coverage, click here. — JJ Koczan

Days of Rona: Earth Drive (Montijo, Portugal)

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How are you dealing with this crisis as a band? Have you had to rework plans at all? How is everyone’s health so far?

So far everyone is healthy in the band and we are taking good care of ourselves and family the way is possible. Due to this COVID-19 complex situation in the world we had to cancel our new album kick of tour show´s and this had a huge impact in the band emotional and financial investments. But we are coping the best we can with this and for now we need to wait to see how long this will last and if we need to postpone more show´s and reschedule all things again. It’s hard all this uncertainty but we will get through this for sure.

What are the quarantine/isolation rules where you are?

We are now in a state of emergency.

This more radical measure covers patients with COVID-19 and the rest of population who must remain in hospital or in a health facility or be closed at home. The measure will also cover those who are under active surveillance, determined by health authorities due to the risk of having contracted the disease.

For those who are in compulsory confinement, the violation of this rule constitutes a crime of disobedience. To prevent this, the authorities of the place of residence will have a list of people in these circumstances, provided by the health authorities. For the time being, a sanctioning framework has not been created, but this is expected to happen if it proves necessary.

Those over 70 years of age have a special duty of protection, which means that they will only be able to leave home in the cases provided by law: go shopping; the doctor or the pharmacy; the bank, post office, or insurance company; going to the street to walk the dog or for some physical exercise, and collective activities are prohibited. The same rules apply to immunocompromised patients and those with chronic disease who should be considered at risk: hypertensive patients, diabetics, cardiovascular patients, patients with chronic respiratory disease and cancer patients.

This special duty of protection does not cover anyone, who is not on leave, maintains his professional activity; health professionals and civil protection agents; and also the politicians, magistrates and leaders of the social partners.
To citizens in general who, despite everything, have a wide range of exceptions that allow them to travel on the public road, namely: go shopping; moving to work or responding to a job offer; go to the pharmacy, the doctor or give blood; giving help to parents, children, people with disabilities or in some way vulnerable; to go to school (only for the children of health personnel or security forces); social volunteering; for a brief individual physical activity; to walk the dog or any animal to the vet; or for any case of force majeure. Journalists can also travel, in the exercise of freedom of the press.

How have you seen the virus affecting the community around you and in music?

We feel that this is affecting in a deep way the community. We feel some anxiety and fear and this grows along the bad news that TV constantly shows to the people. There is a lot of hope thou that this will bring a huge transformation for the humanity and for the world if people understand this as an opportunity to change and to push governments to start making the right decisions for the planet. There are a lot of professionals working hard to save lives and a lot of other people working hard to transmute people fears into light and hope to balance the world energy. We feel that artists are dealing with a lot of frustration right now but there are a lot of us doing things to comfort people doing stream shows and other initiatives in order to not lose their purpose and to keep fighting to prevent that humanity lose their identity. The humanity without culture is a humanity without identity. So let’s rock even harder together!

What is the one thing you want people to know about your situation, either as a band, or personally, or anything?

Well we just want people to know that we are all in this together and in this moment is the perfect situation to start to let our egos out of the way and work as ONE to save humanity and to reconnect us to mother nature. She will always prevail and we are the ones who need to learn how to get along with her. We just want people to know that we will be here in the music scene to honor the privilege to do this and try to respect all of you and nature with our honest music, art and attitude. We are in a very delicate situation like a lot of people, bands, promoters, PR agencies, sound engineers, labels, specialized press and a lot of other music agents working on music but together we will learn and get through this rocking.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to express our feelings and thoughts about this crisis.

A big hug for everyone and please be safe! The best version of ourselves is yet to come. Peace!

www.facebook.com/earthdrivesound
www.earthdrive.bandcamp.com
www.ragingplanet.pt

Somewhere between progressive metal and heavy psychedelic rock, Portugal’s Earth Drive dig out the immersive, atmospheric niche in which their new album, Helix Nebula, resides. The record comprises 12 tracks and runs about 40 minutes, and as they show with the unveiled single “Dharma Throne” — one of the longest inclusions at 5:25 — it’s a full and deep-running sound but still capable of moving at a fair clip when they want it to do so. Melody rules the day, but impact isn’t forgotten along with that, and the band shift back and forth between different ends of their sound with a marked fluidity only enhanced by variations in their songwriting, drones, and other experiments throughout Helix Nebula. From “Cosmic Eye” to “Space God,” it’s clearly meant to be a journey, and so it is. One of deceptive efficiency.

Anyone else notice Portugal in general and Raging Planet in particular killing it lately? Something to keep an eye on.

From the PR wire:

EARTH DRIVE Return With Brand New Album, Helix Nebula, and Release First Single!

March 13th 2020 will see 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. Just recently, the band shared a first appetizer taken from Helix Nebula – join the trip and dive into EARTH DRIVE’s brand new single for Dharma Throne HERE!

Helix Nebula – Tracklisting:
1. Cosmic Eye
2. Helix Nebula
3. Holy Drone
4. Spectra
5. Axial View
6. Dharma Throne
7. Nagarjuna
8. Anulom Vilom
9. Sciene of Pranayama
10. Amazon
11. Phantalien
12. Space God

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.

Among numerous festival appearances, EARTH DRIVE have shared the stages with bands alike Sasquatch, Steak, Crippled Black Phoenix, Glowsun, Isaak, Radar Man from the Moon, Planet of Zeus, Spectral Haze, Ecstatic Vision, The Black Wizards and many more to date – but one is sure, with the release of their upcoming album, Helix Nebula, they will be no longer Portugal’s best kept heavy psych rock- secret!

Helix Nebula will be available as LP, CD and in Digital formats on March 13th 2020 via Raging Planet.

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

www.facebook.com/earthdrivesound
www.earthdrive.bandcamp.com
www.ragingplanet.pt

Earth Drive, “Dharma Throne”

Welcome to Day Three of The Obelisk’s Winter 2020 Quarterly Review. It’s gonna be kind of a wild one. There’s a lot going on across this batch of 10 records, and it gets kind of weird — also, it doesn’t — so sit tight. It’ll be fun either way. At least I hope so. I’ll let you know when I’m finished writing. Ha.

Today we pass the halfway point on the road to 50 reviews by Friday. I think I’m feeling alright up to this point. It’s been a crunch behind the scenes, but it usually is and I’ve done this plenty of times now, so it’s not so bad. I always hold my breath before getting started, but once I’m in it, I rarely feel anymore overwhelmed than I might on any other given day. Which is still plenty, but you know, you make it work.

So let’s do that.

Quarterly Review #21-30:

Alcest, Spiritual Instinct

Perhaps unsurprisingly given the label’s modus in this regard as it’s picked up bands from the heavy underground over the last eight to 10 years — arguably a movement that began with Graveyard in 2012 — but Parisian post-black metal innovators Alcest make something of an aesthetic shift with their first outing for Nuclear Blast, Spiritual Instinct. Melody, of course, remains central to their purposes, but in the nine-minute side B opener “L’Île des Morts” as in its side A counterpart “Les Jardins de Minuit,” the subsequent “Protection” and “Sapphire” and even in the crescendo — glorious wash as it is — of the closing title-track, one can hear a sharper, decidedly metallic edge to the guitar and impact of the drums. That’s a turn from 2016’s Kodama (review here), which offered more of a conceptual progressivism, and of course the prior 2014 LP, Shelter (review here), which cast of metallic trappings almost entirely. Why the change? Who cares, it works, and they still have room for the cinematic keyboard-led drama of “Le Miroir” and plenty of the wistful emotionalism that’s been their hallmark since their debut in 2007. They’ve long since mastered their approach and Spiritual Instinct serves as another example of their being able to make their sound do whatever they want.

Alcest on Thee Facebooks

Nuclear Blast webstore

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Superchief, Moontower

Four records and just about a decade deep into a tenure that began with the 2010 Rock Music EP (review here), Iowa heavy rockers Superchief have found ways to bring an inventiveness to what’s still an ostensibly straightforward approach. Moontower, named for a lookout point where — at least presuming from the album’s artwork — people tailgate and get drunk, finds the dudely five-piece no less embroiled in burl than they’ve ever been, but using samples and other elements in interesting ways as with the revving motor matching step with the drums at the start of “Barking Out at the Blood Moon” or keyboards in “Rock ‘n’ Roll War” filling out the breaks where the riffs take a step back. Handclaps early in “Beer Me Motherfucker” — as much post-“Introduction” mission statement for the LP as a whole as anything — set the party tone, and from the shaker on “The Approach” to the Southern tinged shred and organ on closer “Priority of the Summer,” a car speeding by at the finish, Superchief find ways to make each of their songs stand out from its surroundings. Then they pair that with choice riffery, pro-shop sound and hooks. Sure enough, it’s once again a winning formula and a distinct showing of personality and craft that still comports with classic heavy style.

Superchief website

Superchief on Bandcamp

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Test Meat, Enjoy

Boston duo Test Meat are so utterly bullshit-free as to be almost intimidating. Guitarist/vocalist Darryl Shepard (Kind, Blackwolfgoat, Hackman, Milligram, etc.) and drummer Michael Nashawaty (Planetoid) dig into heavy grunge and noise rock influences across a 10-track/27-minute full-length that resounds with punker roots and an ethic of willful straightforwardness. It’s not that the music is so intense there would be no room for frills, it’s that the structures are so tight and so purposefully barebones that they’d be incongruous. And it’s not that Test Meat are writing half-hearted songs, either. Frankly, neither the quality of their material nor the sharpness of the sound they captured at New Alliance Studio with Alec Rodriguez would remotely lead one to believe so, and nothing with such stylistic clarity happens by mistake. This is a band with a mission, and Enjoy finds them bringing that mission to life with a complete lack of pretense. It’s a reminder of what made grunge so appealing in the first place some 30 years and an entire internet ago. Songs and performance. Yes.

Test Meat on Thee Facebooks

Test Meat on Bandcamp

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Stones of Babylon, Hanging Gardens

Following a 2018 live demo, Portuguese instrumental three-piece Stones of Babylon — guitarist Rui Belchior, bassist João Medeiros, drummer Pedro Branco — embark with a conceptualist intent on their debut full-length, Hanging Gardens, issued through Raging Planet. An opening sample in the leadoff title-track describing the hanging gardens of Babylon sets the stage for what the band goes on to describe with wordless atmospheres over the five-song/47-minute long-player, their vision of heavy psychedelia touched with a suitable Middle Eastern/North African influence in the initial unfolding of the meditative 11-minute “Coffea Arabica” or the winding lead work over the punchy low end of “Black Pig’s Secret Megalith.” But Hanging Gardens is still very much a heavy rock release, and its material showcases that in tone and mood, with volume changes and builds taking hold like that in centerpiece “Ziggurat,” which in its second half sets a march of distorted largesse nodding forth until its final crashout. They save the most drift for “Babylonia (The Deluge),” and if they’re finishing with the story of the flood, one can’t help but wonder what narrative course they might follow in a second record. On the other hand, if one comes out of Hanging Gardens trying to envision Stones of Babylon‘s future, then the debut would seem to have done its job, and so it has. There’s stylistic and tonal promise, and with the edge of storytelling, an opportunity for development of which one hopes they avail themselves.

Stones of Babylon on Thee Facebooks

Raging Planet website

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Nightstalker, Great Hallucinations

Frontman Argy and Greek heavy rock institution Nightstalker return with their eighth album in a quarter-century run, Great Hallucinations. Also their first LP for Heavy Psych Sounds after issuing 2016’s As Above So Below (review here) on Oak Island Records, it’s an up-to-par eight-track collection of catchy tracks marked out by psychedelic elements but underpinned by traditionalist structures, Argy‘s distinctive frontman presence, and an all-around unforced feeling of a mature, established band doing what they do. Not going through the motions in the sense of fulfilling some perceived obligation to stay on the road, but creating the songs they want to create in nothing less than the manner they want to create them. I won’t take away from the roll of “Seven out of Ten,” but as “Cursed” taps into a legacy of European heavy rock that runs from Dozer‘s turn of the century work — not to mention Nightstalker‘s own — to outfits today, it’s hard not to appreciate an act being so assured in what they do in terms of execution while actually doing it. In that way, Great Hallucinations is as refreshing as it is familiar.

Nighstalker on Thee Facebooks

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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Lewis and the Strange Magics, Melvin’s Holiday

From their beginnings in garage doom and subsequent dive into exploitation/vamp psych, Barcelona’s Lewis and the Strange Magics put themselves in even weirder territory on their third album, Melvin’s Holiday, centering a story around the titular character whose life is in turmoil and so he goes on vacation. The sound of the band seems to do likewise, veering into ’70s lounge sleaze and island influences, toying with funky rhythms and keyboards amid catchy choruses across what still would have to be called an experimental 34-minute run. It is a concept album, to be sure, and one that comes through in its stylistic choices like the dreamy keyboards of the centerpiece “Carpet Sun” or the fuzzy stomp in “Sad in Paradise” and the percussion amid the Ween-sounding lead guitar buzz of “Lounge Decadence.” This could be Lewis and the Strange Magics working purposefully to cast off any and all expectation that might be placed on them, or it could just be a one-off whim, but there’s no question they pull off an impressive turn and carry the concept through in story and substance. When it comes to what they might do next time, the payoff of closer “Afternoon on the Sand” serves as one more demonstration that the band can do whatever the hell they want with their sound, so I’d expect them to do no less than precisely that.

Lewis and the Strange Magics on Thee Facebooks

Lewis and the Strange Magics on Bandcamp

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Room 101, The Burden

The debut EP from Lansing, Michigan, four-piece Room 101, called simply The Burden, would seem to take a scorched-earth approach to atmospheric sludge, setting their balance to exploring ambient textures and samples in pieces like “You Will Never Know Security” — which, sure enough, samples 1984 to recount the origin of the band’s name — and the brief “A Place to Bury Strangers,” while the churning “As the Crow Flies” and “Missing Rope” present an outright extremity that comes through in post-Godflesh vocal barks and a Through Silver in Blood-style intensity of churn and general approach. Yet I wouldn’t necessarily call Room 101 post-metal — at least not here. The solo on “Missing Rope” seems to draw from more traditional sources, and the manner in which the chugging in “Plague Dogs” caps with a sudden quick series of hits recalls grindcore’s pivoting brutality. One might hope all of these elements get fleshed out more over subsequent releases, but as a first outing, part of The Burden‘s promise is also drawn from the sheer rawness of its impact and the lack of compromise in its wrench of gut.

Room 101 on Thee Facebooks

Room 101 on Bandcamp

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Abatross Overdrive, Ascendant

Albatross Overdrive‘s 2016 LP, Keep it Running (review here), ran 31 minutes. Their follow-up, Ascendant, reaches to 33, but loses two tracks in the doing. Clearly, one way or the other, this is a conscious ethic on the band’s part, and it tells you something about their approach to heavy rock as well. There’s nothing too fancy about it — even in “Come Get Some,” which is the longest song the band have ever written at 6:40 — and they are not an outfit to waste their time. Structures run from verse to chorus to verse to chorus led through by guitarists Andrew Luddy and Derek Phillips and Art Campos‘ gritty delivery with an expectedly solid underpinning from bassist Mark Abshire (ex-Fu Manchu) and drummer Rodney Peralta and songs like the careening title-track and the blues-licked shover “Undecided” are enough to give the impression that anything else would be superfluous. They’re not lacking style — because ’70s-meets-’90s-straight-ahead-heavy is, indeed, a style — but it’s the level of their craft that stands them out.

Albatross Overdrive on Thee Facebooks

Albatross Overdrive on Bandcamp

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Cloud Cruiser, I: Capacity

Kyuss-style riffing takes a beating at the hands of Chicago newcomers Cloud Cruiser — who are not to be confused with Denver’s Cloud Catcher — who make their debut on vinyl through Shuga Records with I: Capacity, giving an aggressive push to what’s commonly considered a more laid back sound. In tone and rhythm and general gruffness, they are a deceptively pointed outfit, with turns of broader groove like that at the outset of “575” that speak to more influences than simply those of the Cali desert. They start off catchy and familiar-if-reshaped, though, on “Transmission” and “Glow,” letting their tale of alien abduction unfold across the lyrics while setting up the shifts that “Gone” and “575” and the thick-boogie of “Orbitalclast” will make before the EP’s would-be-clean-but-for-all-that-dirt-it’s-kicked-up 23-minute run is through. The balance they present speaks to a background in metal, though if they’re fresh arrivals in this realm of heavy, you’d never know it from the lumbering finish they present. Sometimes you just gotta get mean to get your point across. It suits

Cloud Cruiser on Thee Facebooks

Shuga Records website

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The Spiral Electric, The Spiral Electric

It is a progressive interpretation of fuzz ‘n’ buzz that San Francisco four-piece The Spiral Electric realize on their self-titled, self-released debut long-player, with recording and mixing by Dead Meadow‘s Steve Kille, the band — vocalist/synthesist/noisemaker/guitarist/percussionist/co-producer Clay Andrews, lead guitarist/backing vocalist Nicolas Percey, bassist Michael Summers and drummer Matias Drago — bridge the generally disparate realms of heavy psych and riffer heavy rock, giving a dreamy sensibility to “Marbles” with no less an organic vibe than they brought to the howling, attitudinal push of “No Bridge Left Unburned” earlier. They skillfully mess with the scale across the lengthy 14-track span, and thereby hold their audience for the duration in longer pieces like “The True Nature of Sacrifice” (8:24) as easily as they do in a series of three episodic interludes of noise, field recordings, synth, etc. This is a band ready, willing and able to space. the hell. out., and after listening to the record, you’d be a fool if you wanted to try. Not that they don’t have aspects to shore up or shifts that could be tightened and so on, but from ambition to fruition, it’s the kind of first record bands should aspire to make.

The Spiral Electric on Thee Facebooks

The Spiral Electric on Bandcamp

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Let’s just say outright that if you want to get people to notice, releasing a debut album the week between Xmas and New Year’s is probably not the best marketing decision one might undertake. I’m glad to learn, therefore, that Stones of Babylon‘s debut offering, Hanging Gardens — an instrumentalist five-songer working on that Babylonian theme from its opening sample onward through the Eastern-inflected guitar tones — will see a wider release in 2020 through Raging Planet. I don’t have an exact release date for it, but figure if it’s anything other than New Year’s Day, it’ll probably catch more ears than otherwise. The CD is available or preorder or order now from Bandcamp, but the release show is Jan. 10 in Lisboa at the Sabotage Rock and Roll Club. Event page for that is here, should you happen to be in town.

Here’s the album info and the stream though:

Stones Of Babylon: Hanging Gardens

In this era of total globalization, under the sign of music, two Portuguese and one Polish allied in the 21st century Lisbon, an eternal city, historical and open to the world.

Thus were born the Stones Of Babylon that began their path in the last quarter of 2017, and from these initial stones were carved the first EP / Demo of 2018 “In Portuguese We Say Padrada”.

Pawel on guitar, Branco on drums and Medeiros on bass continued to refine their musicality and this sonic mass culminated in a second work recorded during the year 2019 and will appear on the dawn of 2020 in the form of this debut LP “Hanging Gardens” under the auspices of Raging Planet Records.

As a result of a line-up change due to personal circumstances, Pawel has since been replaced by Rui Belchior on guitar, but the concept and ideas remain unchanged just like the Babylonian stones that have managed to remain “alive” to this day with so much to tell us still.

With references to the distant past, among what lasted on the sands of time, the stones of memory and the imagination of what could have been, the Stones Of Babylon presents in their first LP five new instrumental sculptures, between sandy, atmospheric textures, in a surrounding of sonic mantras that invoke melodies from the near east with influences from heavier psychedelism and western doom, where their own originality merges with the inevitable influences of musical megaliths such as Black Sabbath, OM, Sleep, among others.

No need for seat belts just listen and travel!

Tracklisting:
1. Hanging Gardens 07:56
2. Coffea Arabica 11:09
3. Ziggurat 09:35
4. Black Pig’s Secret Megalith 08:31
5. Babylonia (The Deluge) 10:28

Stones of Babylon are:
Rui Belchior: Guitars
Pedro Branco: Drums
João Medeiros: Bass

https://www.facebook.com/Stones-Of-Babylon-411506462652704/
https://www.instagram.com/stonesofbabylon/
https://stonesofbabylon.bandcamp.com/
https://ragingplanet.bandcamp.com/
http://www.ragingplanet.pt/

Stones of Babylon, Hanging Gardens (2019)

The first thing you see in the new video from Lisboa-based heavy psych rockers Desert’Smoke is a warning that the clip contains flashing lights that might cause a seizure. Well, okay. If you have photosensitive epilepsy, you might then want to change your viewing plans, but even if you go right to the Bandcamp stream of Karakum, the debut long-player from the four-piece outfit, you’d only be doing yourself a favor. Elements of meditative heavy psych show up amid a telegraphed desert rock influence, bits here and there of post-Earthless careening making themselves felt in “Mystic Lunar Ship” — the track with the video in question — and others across the five-track LP such as the 12-minute centerpiece “Solar Jam,” which is nothing if not aptly named for the vibe it elicits.

Can you dig it? Yeah, probably. There’s no real pretense in Karakum about where Desert’Smoke are coming from, and as the band follow-up their early-2018 Hidden Mirage EP, they unfold the debut with a careful patience that offsets some of the inevitable shred that emerges. Issued by Raging Planet, the album starts with a 39-second intro “Smoke One” — I hope their follow-up starts with “Smoke Two” — and then is off quickly into the winding “Darvaz,” named for a burning crater of natural gas that’s been on fire in Turkmenistan since the early ’70s. Because, heavy. That’s fun, and the vibe is pretty quickly set by “Darvaz” for “Solar Jam,” “Mystic Lunar Ship” and the righteous-wash-of-layered-solos finale “Gate of Karakum” to continue to push outward, working with consistency of mood even as each piece represents its own sonic excursion, based in jams but not simply meandering without purpose.

They’ve done SonicBlast, they’ll do Cartaxo Sessions in February, and I’m sure there’s more to come in 2020, but until then, if you can watch it without getting a headache, the video for “Mystic Lunar Ship” is below and, again, if you can watch it, it’s kind of awesome.

Hope you enjoy, or if you go straight to the audio below, hope you enjoy that:

Desert’Smoke, “Mystic Lunar Ship” official video

‘Mystic Lunar Ship’ from Karakum album – out now! – https://desert-smoke.bandcamp.com/album/karakum

Video and artwork by Senhor & Warini

Exploring the world of stoner and psychedelic rock, Desert’Smoke presents an instrumental show which blends the power of rock and the contemplative psychedelia with the beats of a symbiotic rhythm section. A trip in this desert created by André Pedroso ROCHA on guitar, João ROMÃO on guitar, João NOGUEIRA on bass and CLÁUDIO ‘Pidgeon’ Aurélio on drums.

‘Karakum’ means black sand and it’s the name of Turkemenistan’s desert. There you can find the Darvaz gas crater, a crater of natural gas that has been burning since 1971.

From Lisboa, Portugal
Recorded, Mixed and Mastered at Lemon Drops Media by André Eusébio.
Record Label: Raging Planet

Desert’Smoke are:
André Pedroso Rocha (Guitarra)
Cláudio Aurélio (Bateria)
João Nogueira (Baixo)
João Romão (Guitarra)

Desert’Smoke, Karakum (2019)

Desert’Smoke on Thee Facebooks

Desert’Smoke on Instagram

Desert’Smoke on Bandcamp

Raging Planet on Bandcamp