Album Review: 16, Guides for the Misguided

Posted in Reviews on January 28th, 2025 by JJ Koczan

16 GUIDES FOR THE MISGUIDED

Guides for the Misguided is the 10th 16 full-length, and at least on paper, there are few mysteries about it. 16, as a group, have more than 30 years under their belt, and their sound is well established someplace between sludge, hardcore and metal, a malleable balance more often than not set to bludgeon. And the thing about the band at this point is if every couple years they wanted to churn out a collection of hard-hitting, probably-fast, probably-aggressive riffs and shouts, it would most likely be fine. The band would go through the motions, the fans who dig it would dig it, and the planet keeps spinning.

Fronted by founding guitarist Bobby Ferry, who assumed the mantle of lead vocalist for 2022’s Into Dust (review here) after Cris Jerue‘s departure following 2020’s Dream Squasher (review here), with lead guitarist/producer Alex Shuster, bassist Barney Firks and drummer Dion Thurman16 walk a harder line. Since coming back from a break between 2002 and 2009 with their first album for Relapse Records, 2009’s Bridges to Burn (discussed here), the band have not only been productive, but have charted a course of incremental, regular growth and progression that Guides for the Misguided puts into emphasis as the revamped dynamic of the band continues to shake out.

The core approach hasn’t changed. “Resurrection Day” gets very, very, very heavy by the time its five minutes are up, and the subsequent Bad Brains cover “Give Thanks and Praises” is only too happy to mop up what’s left afterward with punkish fervor. But for the first time, 16 feature some cleaner singing alongside the more familiar shouts, growls and rasps, and as ferocious as opening duo “After All” and “Hat on a Bed” are, the textures brought to pieces like “Blood Atonement Blues,” which follows, touches on horror cinema atmosphere and boasts a standout hook in the line “The dead’ll claim you,” as well as “Proudly Damned,” “Desperation Angel” and “Kick Out the Chair,” which is the only song on Guides for the Misguided over six minutes long and precedes a bonus Superchunk cover “The Tower,” are new for them.

Traditionally speaking, this is dangerous ground. A band who’ve been around for a long time, who are known for doing things a certain way, and so on. The truth is 16 have never been so pigeonholed, and even in their ’90s pill-popper sludgepunk yore, they were a tough act to pin down, and “Fortress of Hate” doesn’t make it any easier with its layering of clean and harsh takes, amid a telltale chug that is as characteristic an element as 16‘s sound has beyond the fact that so often their delivery is unified in having the force of a facebound hammer. I honestly don’t know if metal bands getting crap for trying to sing is a thing anymore, but it used to be.

A generation ago, people talked about bands selling out when stuff like that happened, but 16 aren’t stupid and if you hear Guides for the Misguided and think it’s the sound of a band who’ve ‘gone commercial’ — whatever that would even mean for heavy music in 2025 — then it’s a question of perspective. Who would 16 be selling out to? And for what? You think someone’s just waiting with a pile of cash to trade to a band of dudes in their 40s and 50s for their integrity as represented by harsh vocals?

Wouldn’t that be nice.

16 (Photo by Chad Kelco)

Instead, united around a familiar-enough anti-religious lyrical theme, 16‘s songs are simply able to do more than they were before. That’s true in the likes of “Proudly Damned,” which opens from its lumbering verse into a more open hook, setting up intertwining solos with harmonized dramatic melody as a preface for what’s to come in “Kick Out the Chair,” as well as in the plod-into-chug-charge in the unrepentantly catchy “Fire and Brimstone Inc.” — the chorus, “I came here believing in nothing/You reaffirmed my faith…” arriving a second time only after a suitable build is laid out, only to come back around again on the quick after the solo as the push to the finish. “Desperation Angel,” which is the shortest song at 2:40, is suitably frenetic but in-part melodic, and it’s probably the most efficient encapsulation on Guides for the Misguided of what the clean vocals add to the mix in terms of letting the band do new things, explore new sounds, and incorporate these ideas into their songwriting modus.

So, before you get to the actual particulars of 16, of Guides for the Misguided, what the album does and adds to the pantheon of the band’s catalog, on the most superficial level you have a band who’ve been around for 34 years who not only haven’t ‘settled’ in terms of their sound, but are actively pursuing new avenues of expression. It’s an admirable enough concept to be noteworthy, but that shouldn’t take away from the effectiveness of the material throughout. “Resurrection Day” — did I mention it gets very, very, very heavy? — gives over to the Bad Brains tune.

Following that rush, “Kick Out the Chair” — the guitar imagining a meeting between Scorpions and Crowbar that, sadly, never happened in our shithole timeline — gives about as much of a summary as Guides for the Misguided could ask, the doomed sensibility of the first several minutes holding firm in terms of atmosphere even as the riffs takeoff not to return, given a thick-rock epilogue in “The Tower,” which isn’t anything outlandish in terms of sound but is probably a song the band decided to do because they like it. 10 records in, one would not fault them digging a thing, even if it’s the likes of “Proudly Damned” and “Resurrection Day” and “Blood Atonement Blues” that’s most likely to result in repeat listens.

The word I haven’t said yet that I’m inevitably going to say is “underrated.” And yeah, part of what’s not being given its due here is the above — that 16 have been at this a long time and have never put out the same LP twice, never stopped looking forward, and never stopped being bold enough to actually try something after thinking of it — but whether you’re engaging from the point of view of the lyrics, the heft and impact of their tones, or the sort of nastyface epic groove they have a tendency to unfold at will, there’s really no getting around 16 as undervalued. Guides for the Misguided, with a familiar aggressive underpinning and a fresh sense of exploration and purpose, marks a step along a vibrant-if-destructive creative path. If you can get to it, it’ll bring you along. If not, it’ll be there waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.

16, “Proudly Damned” official video

16, Guides for the Misguided (2025)

16 on Facebook

16 on Instagram

16 on Bandcamp

Relapse Records website

Relapse Records on Instagram

Relapse Records on Facebook

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Rwake Announce The Return of Magik Out March 14; Title-Track Video Posted

Posted in Whathaveyou on January 28th, 2025 by JJ Koczan

rwake (Photo by Jonathon Oudthone)

Don’t get so lost in the 12 minutes of Rwake‘s new single that you don’t realize the act of world-creation happening around you atmospherically, because The Return of Magik — which is the Little Rock, Arkansas, outfit’s first long-player since 2011’s Rest (review here) dwells in the sinister spirituality one can hear manifest in the title-track. The interweaving of vocalists CT and Brittany remains singularly vicious, and the former’s semi-spoken litany in the midsection of “The Return of Magik” is righteously weird and correspondingly from the heart. Rwake have never been about catchy hooks or fodder for light-listening. “The Return of Magik” asks you to immerse accordingly.

I was fortunate enough in December to do some bio writing for the album. Some of that appears below — “Years have now…,” the part about Austin Sublett and the paragraph after — which is neat if you happen to be me, but the real crux here is the song itself, which lays out a scope and vibe that really is Rwake‘s own, however one might align them to post-sludge or another niche of the like. Extreme swamp doom mysticism? Eventually, you keep paring down elements, and Rwake are just Rwake.

The PR wire gives it back thusly:

rwake the return of magik

RWAKE To Release First New Album In Over 13 Years, The Return Of Magik, On March 14th Via Relapse Records; New Video/Single Now Playing + Preorders Available

Watch/stream RWAKE’s “The Return Of Magik” HERE: https://orcd.co/rwake

After thirteen years of silence, an unsettling sound that is strangely familiar yet somehow even more haunted re-emerges from the Arkansas depths. There is no mistake as to what this is. RWAKE has released a new transmission. The Return Of Magik, set for release on March 14th via Relapse Records, has arrived.

Years have now fed into an album that reaches into a swirling, cosmic unknown – RWAKE has grown, and the perspective of the material has shifted accordingly. Overwhelming at its peak and haunting during moments of respite, The Return Of Magik is undeniably RWAKE. Every movement feels like an emotionally engrossing journey. Arrangements carefully and thoughtfully built in layers over a period of years lend mystique and a feeling of building toward a cathartic release. There is no box into which the material might fit other than one with the band’s name on it.

Today, the band shares the official video for the album’s title track.

Watch RWAKE’s “The Return Of Magik” video, directed by Nouvel Photo & Film, on YouTube HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2_UhRDLZRI Stream the track HERE: https://orcd.co/rwake

The Return Of Magik will be released on CD, LP, and digital formats. Find preorders at Relapse.com HERE.

The Return Of Magik Track Listing:
1. You Swore We’d Always Be Together
2. The Return Of Magik
3. With Stardust Flowers
4. Distant Constellations And The Psychedelic Incarceration
5. In After Reverse
6. Φ

Additionally, RWAKE has announced their first shows of 2025 around the release of The Return Of Magik including a hometown release show on March 15th.

RWAKE Live:
3/14/2025 Eastside Bowl – Nashville, TN
3/15/2025 Rev Room – Little Rock, AR * Record Release Show
4/11/2025 Bear’s – Shreveport, LA
4/12/2025 Siberia – New Orleans, LA

Recorded in early 2024 at East End Sounds in Hensley, Arkansas, The Return Of Magik introduces RWAKE’s new lead guitarist Austin Sublett with a barrage of shredded solos suited to the angular, progressive metal riffing of the album’s most jaw-clenching moments, while presenting a through-line of molten, immersive ambience. The opener “You Swore We’d Always Be Together” – already a fixture of live sets – and the expansive sprawl of “Distant Constellations And The Psychedelic Incarceration” move with cruelty and grace alike. Foreboding, syncopated riffs sway against Moog-driven space and guttural bellows. The Return Of Magik’s songs stand alone as individualized post-metallic blends of genres.

RWAKE remains dually fronted; Chris Terry’s powerful vocals lay against Brittany Fugate’s visceral screams. Jeff Morgan returns to the drum kit, in addition to acoustic guitar and 12-string bass. Bassist/noisemaker Reid Raley, Sublett, and fellow guitarist John Judkins set an instrumental backdrop that is vast and engrossing in itself – quiet, contemplative passages often explode into gut-wrenching, doomed out distortions. The Return Of Magik, which features artwork by Loni Gillum of Minerva’s Menagerie and RWAKE, burns brighter and beyond the ferocity of the band’s already storied catalog.

Although the Magik may be bleak, the manner in which RWAKE revels in it can only be called a celebration.

RWAKE:
C.T. – vocals, words, theme
Reid – bass guitars, distortion
John – guitars, lap + pedal steel, 12-string bass
Austin – guitars
Brittany – energy peddler, keys and a microphone
Jeff – drums, acoustic guitar, 12-string bass

* “…Psychedelic Incarceration” written and spoken by Jim “Dandy” Mangrum, February 17th, 2024 in Black Oak, Arkansas.

https://facebook.com/rwakeband
https://www.instagram.com/rwakeband/
https://rwake.bandcamp.com/

http://www.relapse.com
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http://www.facebook.com/RelapseRecords
https://relapserecords.bandcamp.com/

Rwake, “The Return of Magik” official video

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Inter Arma Announce May/June US Tour

Posted in Whathaveyou on January 20th, 2025 by JJ Koczan

Inter Arma (Photo by JJ Koczan)

This is old news at this point. Don’t care. I kind of like that. Nobody out there on the internet is going, “hey everybody, here’s some shit from last week.” I’ll be that guy. It’s not like the tour has started. It’s May and June.

Tell you how up on my metal I am, I just assumed that Virginia’s Inter Arma were headlining this tour. I’m sure Rivers of Nihil are great, that’s a name I’ve seen before in press releases, but neither them nor Holy Fawn can I say I’ve ever really dug into. Glacial Tomb I’ve heard, so I’m not completely ignorant here.

Wherever they are on the bill — and mind you, they could do a headlining tour too, and they could just as easy be playing with stoner or psych bands as purveyors of more extreme and aggressive fare; part of their thing is malleability — Inter Arma sally forth heralding 2024’s New Heaven (review here), which is the kind of record dudes are gonna spend years picking apart and still find shit to steal decades from now. A cause worth putting in people’s faces, and the band are devastating on stage. They don’t need me to sell it, so I won’t.

From the PR wire, again, like a week ago at this point:

Inter arma tour

INTER ARMA ANNOUNCE MAY/JUNE NORTH AMERICA TOUR WITH RIVERS OF NIHIL AND HOLY FAWN

NEW HEAVEN FULL-LENGTH OUT NOW

INTER ARMA announce their first tour of 2025 supporting Rivers of Nihil & Holy Fawn throughout North America in May/June! The tour comes on the heels of INTER ARMA releasing the New Heaven full-length in 2024 + touring throughout the US & EU.

A full list of tour dates is available below & tickets are on sale now at https://www.interarmamusic.com/events

INTER ARMA Frontman Mike Paparo Comments:

“To say we’re really fucking hyped to head out on this North American voyage with Rivers of Nihil, Holy Fawn and Glacial Tomb is an understatement. We’re chomping at the bit to hit the road and bring New Heaven (and some classic heaters) to all of you beautiful lunatics, familiar faces and new converts. We hope to see y’all out there!”

Order / Listen to New Heaven: orcd.co/interarma-newheaven

INTER ARMA LIVE:

5/22 – Philadelphia, PA @ Underground Arts
5/23 – Worcester, MA @ The Palladium
5/24 – Buffalo, NY @ Rec Room
5/25 – Columbus, OH @ The King of Clubs
5/27 – Pontiac, MI @ Pike Room at Crofoot
5/28 – Chicago, IL @ Reggies
5/29 – Minneapolis, MN @ The Cabooze
5/30 – Lincoln, NE @ Bourbon Theater
5/31 – Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater
6/01 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Metro Music Hall
6/03 – Vancouver, BC @ Rickshaw Theatre
6/04 – Seattle, WA @ El Corazon
6/05 – Portland, OR @ Dante’s
6/06 – Roseville, CA @ Goldfield Trading Post
6/07 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom
6/08 – San Diego, CA @ Brick By Brick
6/10 – Mesa, AZ @ Nile
6/11 – Albuquerque, NM @ Launchpad
6/12 – Lubbock, TX @ Jake’s
6/13 – Ft. Worth, TX @ The Rail
6/14 – Austin, TX @ Come and Take It Live
6/15 – Houston, TX @ Scout Bar
6/17 – Nashville, TN @ Basement East
6/18 – Asheville, NC @ Eulogy
6/19 – Richmond, VA @ The Canal Club
6/20 – Brooklyn, NY @ The Meadows
6/21 – Montreal, QC @ Fairmount Theatre
6/22 – Toronto, ON @ Lees Palace

Inter Arma is:
T.J. Childers – Drums, Percussion, guitars, lap steel, piano, noise
Trey Dalton – Guitar, synthesizers, mellotron, vocals
Joel Moore – Bass, synthesizers, tape loops, samples, and noise
Mike Paparo – Vocals
Steven Russell – Guitars

https://www.facebook.com/INTERARMA/
https://www.instagram.com/interarmamusic/
http://interarma.bandcamp.com/

http://www.relapse.com
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http://www.facebook.com/RelapseRecords
https://relapserecords.bandcamp.com/

Inter Arma, New Heaven (2024)

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16 to Release Guides for the Misguided Feb. 7; “Proudly Damned” Video Posted

Posted in Whathaveyou on January 7th, 2025 by JJ Koczan

Okay, no surprise I’m like, “DERP NEW 16 OMG COOL,” because I’m a dork like that. I was lucky enough to be asked to do some bio writing for 16’s upcoming onslaught, Guides for the Misguided, some of which is kind of interspliced with the promotional text below, the quotes and such. I assume the rest sucked. Fine. I hadn’t interviewed Bobby Ferry before, but dude was a sans-bullshit riot as I kind of expected, and was thankfully amenable to letting me rant about how fucking undervalued I think his band is. Because they are.

Having served in a backing capacity for decades in addition to playing guitar, Ferry took over on lead vocals for 16‘s last album, 2022’s Into Dust (review here), and while much of the story since the now-San Diego-based band began their second run with Bridges to Burn (discussed here) has been about the incremental progression they’ve undertaken in that time — also dat chug! — Guides for the Misguided includes clean, melodic singing in a way Into Dust didn’t, and is so purposeful in the doing that, more than three decades from their outset, one can only stand, point a finger at 16 and accuse the band of trying new things. Perish the thought.

Don’t worry. It’s not too pretty. Actually, from where I sit, the cleaner vocals make 16 a stronger band, without question. Another tool in the shed, sure, but the expansion of their dynamic results in richer songs, in material that can cover more ground from its brutalist foundations, and in the case of Guides for the Misguided, it feels like a conscious change, but an organic one helping them to make the album what they want it to be.

You get a preview in the first single “Proudly Damned,” for which a video is streaming below. Don’t be scared. You can handle it. And if you don’t come out the other end looking forward to this record… well, that’s a position with which I respectfully disagree and I think it might be advisable for you to revisit it. Sorry to be so harsh.

More to come, but that’s enough for now. You get the idea. Here’s word from the PR wire. Video’s at the bottom. Don’t skip this band or be put off if you don’t know their work. I’m not fucking around when I tell you this will be on my year-end list for 2025. Yeah, I know January is a week old. See “dork like that” above.

Go:

16 GUIDES FOR THE MISGUIDED

-(16)- To Release Guides For The Misguided Full-Length February 7th Via Relapse Records; “Proudly Damned” Video/Single Now Playing + Preorders Available

Nearly thirty-five years on, -(16)- remains one of the most enduring, hardest sounding rock and metal entities from North America. The San Diego band redefines heavy on their new album, Guides For The Misguided, set for release on February 7th via Relapse Records!

Bobby Ferry returns at the helm as the band’s visceral vocalist and guitarist, and in true -(16)- fashion, belts out stories of pain and unhinged anguish. Standout tracks like “Proudly Damned” see the band playing at the crowd while Ferry shares tales of personal strife and depression: “To defile and offend/These are the demons found within/The sullen face of communion’s alarm/It’s an incentive to do more harm.” Ferry is absolutely seething while the band plows through a virulent mix of rock, metal, and sludge. Dion Thurman’s pounding drum set, Ferry and Alex Shuster’s heavier-than-anything-else guitars, and the lowest low end from bassist Barney Firks herald tones so low they’re nearly apocalyptic.

Stream “Proudly Damned”: https://orcd.co/16-guidesforthemisguided

Guides For The Misguided will be released on CD, LP, and digital formats. Find preorders at Relapse.com HERE: https://www.relapse.com/pages/16-guides-for-the-misguided

Guides For The Misguided Track Listing:

1. After All
2. Hat On A Bed
3. Blood Atonement Blues
4. Fortress Of Hate
5. Proudly Damned
6. Fire And Brimstone Inc
7. Desperation Angel
8. Resurrection Day
9. Give Thanks And Praises (Bad Brains cover)
10. Kick Out The Chair
11. The Tower (Bonus Track – Superchunk cover)

-(16)- frontman Bobby Ferry comments on Guides For The Misguided, “The album came together after we wrapped the final mix of our last one, Into Dust. It’s all about harnessing creative momentum when it strikes and we’ve been in a kind of creative autopilot for about a decade. When inspiration is there, the rest seems to fall into place effortlessly. Thankfully, we’re still driven to write and perform even after all these years. There’s no grander meaning behind it than simply following that primal urge to create — put your head down and just make something.

“Age has of course given us a fresh perspective,” he continues. “In the eight years since Lifespan Of A Moth, our lineup has shifted. We lost a singer, gained Alex Shuster on lead guitar/producer, and I slid into the lead vocalist rhythm guitarist spot. Lyrically, we’ve moved beyond the personal and inward grievances of our earlier work and embraced broader themes of conflict, like the hypocrisy of religion and its negative effects on the psyche.

“There’s a song called ‘Blood Atonement Blues’ that delves into the story of Ervil LeBaron, often referred to as the ‘Mormon Manson,’ while ‘Proudly Damned’ explores addiction and how it turns into a Pagan Ritual with a witch-like character posing as the opiate – both in substance abuse and the spiritual realm – in parallel. In many ways, this album might be the closest we’ve come to creating a concept record. Including the two covers on the album is meant to lessen this heavy hand and lighten the focus.

“Musically, we are still grasping for the perfect riffs married to the most ideal arrangements. We’re not afraid to lean into the stuff we love: noise, classic rock, hardcore, doom metal, and thrash. We are well aware we are not reinventing the wheel but lovingly fashioning something from us and basically for us, first and foremost.”

Guides For The Misguided closes with the soberingly titled “Kick Out The Chair.” While the track sounds like a culmination of a thirty-five-year career, the band shows no signs of stopping; although the road ahead looks bleak, -(16)-‘s unrelenting trajectory continues upward.

-(16)- Live:
1/31/2025 Scumm – Pescara, IT
2/01/2025 Pippo Stage – Bolzano, IT
2/02/2025 Freakout – Bologna, IT
2/03/2025 Altroquando – Zero Branco, IT
2/04/2025 Vintage Industrial – Zagreb, HR
2/05/2025 Explosiv – Graz, AT
2/06/2025 Kabinet Muz – Bmo, CZ
2/07/2025 Liverpool Club – Wroclaw, PL
2/08/2025 Rockhouse – Salzburg, AT
2/09/2025 7er Club – Mannheim, DE
2/10/2025 V11 – Rotterdam, NL
2/11/2025 Gasttatte Ziller – Goppingen, DE
2/13/2025 Kuudes Linja – Helsinki, FI
2/14/2025 Raindogs House – Savona, IT
2/15/2025 Blah Blah – Torino, IT

– 16 – is:
Bobby Ferry: Guitar, Vocals
Alex Shuster: Lead Guitar
Barney Firks: Bass
Dion Thurman: Drums

http://www.facebook.com/16theband
http://www.instagram.com/16theband
http://www.16theband.bandcamp.com

http://www.relapse.com
http://www.instagram.com/relapserecords
http://www.facebook.com/RelapseRecords
https://relapserecords.bandcamp.com/

16, “Proudly Damned” official video

16, Guides for the Misguided (2025)

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Author & Punisher Posts “The Speaker is Systematically Blown” Live Video

Posted in Bootleg Theater on September 30th, 2024 by JJ Koczan

author and punisher

By myself, in my car, tensely driving to go anywhere during plague-lockdown, this song, as high up as the volume goes. I won’t say much for the sound system of the Chevy Malibu doomboat I’ve been driving these last several turns, but “The Speaker is Systematically Blown” and the rest of Author & Punisher‘s 2018 album, Beastland (discussed here) were a big part of my soundtrack to the end of the world. Om were also on it. If I was better at “content providing,” I’d have made a playlist. Thankfully, the moment has passed. The association remains strong in my head with that particular time and setting, but also thankfully, the song remains badass four years after I was trying to pound myself into dust with it and six years after its initial release. Violent resonance.

As to what might’ve prompted Author & Punisher — founded by and largely comprised of vocalist/programmer/machinist Tristan Shone (sweaty hoodie above), with Ecstatic Vision‘s Doug Sabolick (rad sunglasses above) on guitar — to put up a video now for a song from six years ago when the band has released an album in between, which is 2022’s Krüller (review here), it’s a fair question, and Shone addresses it in the note that was sent along with the link to the clip in the Bandcamp update/social post/wherever I get these things who can remember. It’s the Author & Punisher track that has the most Spotify plays and the footage was there from when the song was new, again, in 2018. Maybe it took a while to put together — that shit happens, you know — or maybe they’ve had it in-pocket for a while, holding off for when there wasn’t a ton else going on. I have no clue. But the video shows Shone at work with the machine-triggers and righteous metallurgical whathaveyou of his own design, and the esteemed Frank Huang (who, thankfully, documented so much of life at the now-gone Saint Vitus Bar) had a hand in editing, and since I dig it anyway, I’m less inclined to question.

Ultimately, I failed to see Author & Punisher in the album cycle for Krüller, and that’s on me; there was no lack of opportunity. As I nonetheless look forward to the possibility of a new release next year — Shone has said elsewhere that material is in the works, though of course that’s nebulous — the chance to revisit “The Speaker is Systematically Blown” is appreciated, even if I show that appreciation by putting my headphones in and smashing my face into the wall. “Canyons of falling gods,” and all that.

Enjoy:

Author & Punisher, “The Speaker is Systematically Blown”

“The Speaker is Systematically Blown”

Video by Augie Arredondo from 2018 at Cold Waves Festival Los Angeles at 1720. Additional editing by Frank Huang at Relapse Records.

This one was an interesting show because the songs were brand new and it was a festival. Phil Sgrosso, Otto Valentine (rip❤️) and I drove up together and Augie met us there to shoot the performance for a music video but I think the audio from the board was poor quality so we used the album version. Somehow this video got lost in the shuffle and we never used it but I always thought the energy and shots were rad. I don’t play this song that much because it’s non stop vocals for 4 minutes in a range that is very strenuous on my voice. I love the track and it still gives me goose bumps when the toms come in midway through. Maybe we’ll try to add it as a regular for touring.

Coincidentally the most listens on Spotify over any other track ever. I think I wrote this song in an hour.

Author & Punisher, Krüller (2022)

Author & Punisher on Facebook

Author & Punisher on Instagram

Author & Punisher on Bandcamp

Author & Punisher website

Relapse Records website

Relapse Records on Facebook

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Friday Full-Length: -(16)-, Bridges to Burn

Posted in Bootleg Theater on August 30th, 2024 by JJ Koczan

The first thing the record tells you to do is quit. “Throw in the towel/Wait for the sequel” is the hook and title line for “Throw in the Towel,” and lyrics so efficiently encapsulating a perspective aren’t easy to come by. It’s not about fighting back, or overcoming a thing, or manufacturing triumph from failure by learning a lesson or whatever. Fucking quit. At least they say there’ll be a sequel. That’s more than you get in “Me and My Shadow.”

By 2009, when they released Bridges to Burn at the dawn of their ongoing collaboration with Relapse Records, then-Los-Angeles-now-San-Diego-based sludgecore slammers 16 had already quit once. Founded in 1991, the band honed their disaffection to an ever-sharper point across four full-lengths and more than a handful of shorter releases; singles, splits and EPs. They called it a day after 2002’s Zoloft Smile, but came back ahead of their 12-track fifth full-length with the lineup of vocalist Cris Jerue, guitarist Bobby Ferry, bassist Tony Baumeister and drummer Jason Corley.

Of those, only Ferry still remains in the band. Corley (also Fistula, King Travolta, Scumchrist, etc.) was gone in summer ’09. Baumeister (also The Cutthroats 9, Æges) had joined in 1993 and after 2012’s Deep Cuts From Dark Clouds was replaced by Barney Firks. Jerue made it to 2020’s Dream Squasher (review here) before taking his rasp, seethe, bellow and screams and going home. Trading out members of the rhythm section and even the odd second guitarist along the way was nothing new for 16 by then, but the band has persisted, much to the aggro-benefit of those fortunate enough to have been crushed by the riffage since.

Meeting cynicism and disillusion with hardcore-born chug and charge like that of “Monday, Bloody Monday” (“It’s the worst day of my life/I fucked up again”) and burning the ground with feedback before “So Broken Down” (“Suicidal deathwish/All because of you”) unveils its almost thrashy tension, the inward and outward trajectories of 16‘s loathing end up in a kind of balance — they hate themselves as much as they hate you as much as they hate everything — but the punk/core spirit underlying never lets them dwell too long in one place. “Me and My Shadow,” with its massive breakdown in the middle, is the longest song at just over five minutes, and they back it with the all-go pummel of “Man, Interrupted” (As I sharpen the blade now/I think of you”) at 2:41.

What comes through, then, is an immediacy that’s still resonant 15 years later, and a sound that for the band was the heaviest-landing production they’d ever had. It was recorded and mixed by Jeff Forrest (Scott Hull mastered), who has16 bridges to burn helmed everything the band has done, and in comparison to Zoloft Smile, it trades out rawness for impact, fuller in the low end (aren’t we all?) but still able to move on a track like “Permanent Good One” through the rhythmic punches and caustic distorted vocals. Raging on “What Went Wrong?” and “You Let Me Down (Again),” Bridges to Burn grants no boons and offers only the shortest moments of respite before the next attack. It is cognizant of its harshness, and the lack of letup across its span is as purposeful as the circle-pit shove of “So Broken Down.”

It’s a special kind of fuckall, and Bridges to Burn was the beginning of a new era for 16. Signing to Relapse and a studio comeback — even one just a few years after they stopped playing shows and extended the omnidirectional middle finger that defined their ethic as a band to the band itself; it’s not like they were gone for decades — was a big deal, and the band delivered a work that has in some ways helped shape everything they’ve done since. They were more metal than they’d been before, but still linked in style to both sludge and hardcore, and tighter in terms of the performances captured in a way that allowed both the storytelling of the lyrics and the outright bludgeon of the instruments behind Jerue‘s gutted-out vocals to be focal points for the listener in a mix with broader dimensionality. Always heavy, always mean, they got heavier and meaner, and while Bridges to Burn wasn’t a radical departure from Zoloft Smile, it felt like declarative in stepping up to meet the moment of its arrival.

16 have had four albums since Bridges to Burn — the aforementioned Deep Cuts From Dark Clouds, 2016’s Lifespan of a Moth (review here), and in this decade, Dream Squasher and 2022’s Into Dust (review here), the latter of which made the pivotal change of Ferry taking over on vocals feel like just another day in Doomtown — and they had four albums before it. It won’t be the case whenever they eventually follow-up Into Dust, if they do — one never knows — but Bridges to Burn is the centerpiece right now of their nine-full-length-deep discography, and it makes sense in that position. It’s where they left behind the band they’d been and started to evolve into the band they’ve become.

And I guess in some ways, it’s the lack of platitudes that seems to refreshing about Bridges to Burn. Yeah, you wait for the sequel in “Throw in the Towel,” but there’s no guarantee you aren’t gonna get your ass kicked again when that sequel comes. Listening now, 16 feel like a bomb dropped on toxic positivity — the kind of self-congratulations and empty affirmations you buy on t-shirts at Target and Wal-Mart; “I’m trying my best” and “Kindness matters” sloganeering as if to highlight the unspoken messaging, “I’m feeling crushed by life” and “Everyone is an asshole” — saying the quiet part out loud when the quiet part is “fuck everything.” It’s not the kind of record you reach for every day, but when the drums go half-time in “Me and My Shadow” and the chug gets stately, there’s no denying the righteousness of 16‘s assault. A decade and a half later, it still resonates in worldview, groove and abrasion.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Which I say knowing that’s like enjoying being punched in the face. Either way, thanks for reading.

The Patient Mrs. began her Fall teaching semester yesterday and The Pecan starts first grade on Tuesday following the Labor Day holiday, so a long and busy summer is coming to an end. The start of school isn’t without some anxiety after the sheer clusterfuck that was Sept.-Dec. 2023 in that regard, but the sincere hope is that the momentum that she had by June — all that not-hitting she was doing — can continue into the new year. We’ll see how it goes.

I’ll be home alone, then. Me and the dog, anyhow. In two weeks I’ll be devastatingly lonely, but especially after The Patient Mrs. spent the bulk of this week at her office after being out every night last week for social or professional obligations, it’ll be a welcome break to have some restorative-boredom alone time. I’ll write. I’ll play Zelda. I’ll smoke a pre-noon bowl and take a 90-minute shower. And I’ll breathe a bit in a way that is possible when one isn’t doing the cruise-activity-directorship that is modern parenting.

I have reviews slated all next week starting with Delving on Monday, but we’ll see how it goes. Until then, my time is up and I am not in a position to argue for more. I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Thanks again for reading.

FRM.

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The Obelisk merch

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Quarterly Review: Lamp of the Universe Meets Dr. Space, Inter Arma, Sunnata, The Sonic Dawn, Rifflord, Mothman and the Thunderbirds, The Lunar Effect, Danava, Moonlit, Doom Lab

Posted in Reviews on May 24th, 2024 by JJ Koczan

The-Obelisk-Quarterly-Review

This is it. This one’s for all the marbles. Well, actually there are no marbles involved, but if you remember way back like two weeks ago when this started out, I told you the tale of a hubristic 40-something dickweed blogger who thought he could review 100 albums in 10 days, and assuming I make it through the below without having an aneurysm — because, hey, you never know — today I get to live that particular fairy tale.

If you’ve kept up, and I hope you have, thanks. If not, click here to see all the posts in this Quarterly Review. Either way, I appreciate your time.

Quarterly Review #91-100:

Lamp of the Universe Meets Dr. Space, Enters Your Somas

Lamp of the universe meets dr space Enter Your Somas

Who’s ready to get blasted out the airlock? New Zealand solo-outfit Lamp of the Universe, aka multi-instrumentalist Craig Williamson (also Dead Shrine, ex-Datura, etc.), and Portugal-residing synth master Dr. Space, aka Scott Heller of Øresund Space Collective, Black Moon Circle, and so on, come together to remind us all we’re nothing more than semi-sentient cosmic dust. Enters Your Somas is comprised of two extended pieces, “Enters Your Somas” (18:39) and “Infiltrates Your Mind” (19:07), and both resonate space/soul frequencies while each finds its own path. The title-track is more languid on average, where “Infiltrates Your Mind” reroutes auxiliary power to the percussive thrusters in its first half before drifting into drone communion and hearing a voice — vague, but definitely human speech — before surging back to its course via Williamson‘s drums, which play a large role in giving the material its shape. But with synthy sweeps from Heller, Mellotron and guitar coming and going, and a steady groove across both inclusions, Lamp of the Universe Meets Dr. Space offer galactic adventure limited only by where your imagination puts you while you listen.

Lamp of the Universe on Facebook

Dr. Space on Facebook

Sound Effect Records website

Inter Arma, New Heaven

inter arma new heaven

Richmond, Virginia’s Inter Arma had no small task before them in following 2019’s Sulphur English (review here), but from the tech-death boops and bops and twists of New Heaven‘s leadoff title-track through the gothic textures of “Gardens in the Dark,” self-aware without satire, slow-flowing and dramatic, this fifth full-length finds them continuing to expand their creative reach, and at this point, whatever genre you might want to cast them in, they stand out. To wit, the blackdeath onslaught of “Violet Seizures” that’s also space rock, backed in that by the subsequent “Desolation’s Harp” with its classically grandiose solo, or the post-doom lumber of “Concrete Cliffs” that calls out its expanse after the seven-minute drum-playthrough-fodder extremity of “The Children the Bombs Overlooked,” or the mournful march of “Endless Grey” and the acoustic-led Nick Cavey epilogue “Forest Service Road Blues.” Few bands embrace a full spectrum of metallic sounds without coming across as either disjointed or like they’re just mashing styles together for the hell of it. Inter Arma bleed purpose in every turn, and as they inch closer to their 20th year as a band, they are masters unto themselves of this form they’ve created.

Inter Arma on Facebook

Relapse Records website

Sunnata, Chasing Shadows

sunnata chasing shadows

The opening “Chimera” puts Chasing Shadows quickly into a ritualized mindset, all the more as Warsaw meditative doomers Sunnata lace it and a decent portion of their 11-track/62-minute fifth album with an arrangement of vocals from guitarists Szymon Ewertowski and Adrian Gadomski and bassist/synthesist Michal Dobrzanski as drummer/percussionist Robert Ruszczyk punctuates on snare as they head toward a culmination. Individual pieces have their own purposes, whether it’s the momentary float of “Torn” or the post-Alice in Chains harmonies offset by Twin Peaks-y creep in “Saviours Raft,” or the way “Hunger” gradually moves from light to dark with rolling immersion, or the dancier feel with which “Like Cogs in a Wheel” gives an instrumental finish. It’s not a minor undertaking and it’s not meant to be one, but mood and atmosphere do a lot of work in uniting the songs, and the low-in-the-mouth vocal melodies become a part of that as the record unfolds. Their range has never felt broader, but there’s a plot being followed as well, an idea behind each turn in “Wishbone” and the sprawl is justified by the dug-in worldmaking taking place across the whole-LP progression, darkly psychedelic and engrossing as it is.

Sunnata on Facebook

Sunnata on Bandcamp

The Sonic Dawn, Phantom

The Sonic Dawn Phantom

Among the most vital classic elements of The Sonic Dawn‘s style is their ability to take spacious ideas and encapsulate them with a pop efficiency that doesn’t feel dumbed down. That is to say, they’re not capitulating to fickle attention spans with short songs so much as they’re able to get in, say what they want to say with a given track, and get out. Phantom is their fifth album, and while the title may allude to a certain ghostliness coinciding with the melancholy vibe overarching through the bulk of its component material, the Copenhagen-based trio are mature enough at this stage to know what they’re about. And while Phantom has its urgent stretches in the early going of “Iron Bird” or the rousing “Think it Over,” the handclap-laced “Pan AM,” and the solo-topped apex of “Micro Cosmos in a Drop,” most of what they’re about here harnesses a mellower atmosphere. It doesn’t need to hurry, baby. Isn’t there enough rush in life with all these “21st Century Blues?” With no lack of movement throughout, some of The Sonic Dawn‘s finest stretches here are in low-key interpretations of funk (“Dreams of Change,” “Think it Over,” “Transatlantique,” etc.) or prog-boogie (“Scorpio,” “Nothing Can Live Here” before the noisier crescendo) drawn together by organ, subdued, thoughtful vocal melodies and craft to suit the organic production. This isn’t the first The Sonic Dawn LP to benefit from the band knowing who they are as a group, but golly it sure is stronger for that.

The Sonic Dawn on Facebook

Heavy Psych Sounds website

Rifflord, 39 Serpent Power

RIFFLORD 39 Serpent Power

It’s not until the hook of second cut “Ohm Ripper” hits that Rifflord let go of the tension built up through the opening semi-title-track “Serpent Power,” which in its thickened thrashy charge feels like a specific callout to High on Fire but as I understand it is just about doing hard drugs. Fair enough. The South Dakota-based five-piece of bassist/vocalist Wyatt Bronc Bartlett, guitarists Samuel Hayes and Dustin Vano, keyboardist Tory Jean Stoddard and drummer Douglas Jennings Barrett will echo that intensity later in “Church Keys” and “Tumbleweed,” but that’s still only one place the 38-minute eight-track LP goes, and whether it’s the vocals calling out through the largesse and breadth of “Blessed Life” or the ensuing crush that follows in “LM308,” the addled Alice in Chains swagger in the lumber of “Grim Creeper” or the righteously catchy bombast of “Hoof,” they reach further than they ever have in terms of sound and remain coherent despite the inherently chaotic nature of their purported theme, the sheer heft of the tonality wielded and the fact that 39 Serpent Power has apparently been waiting some number of years to see release. Worth the wait? Shit, I’m surprised the album didn’t put itself out, it sounds so ready to go.

Rifflord on Facebook

Ripple Music website

Mothman and the Thunderbirds, Portal Hopper

Mothman and the Thunderbirds Portal Hopper

At the core of Mothman and the Thunderbirds is multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Alex Parkinson, and on the band’s second album, Portal Hopper, he’s not completely on his own — Egor Lappo programmed the drums, mixed, and plays a guitar solo on “Fractals,” Joe Sobieski guests on vocals for a couple tracks, Sam Parkinson donates a pair of solos to the cause — but it’s still very much his telling of the charmingly meandering sci-fi/fantasy plot taking place across the 12 included progressive metal mini-epics, which he presents with an energy and clarity of purpose that for sure graduated from Devin Townsend‘s school of making a song with 40 layers sound immediate but pulls as well from psychedelia and pop-punk vocals for an all the more emphatic scope. This backdrop lets “Fractals” get funky or “Escape From Flatwoods” hold its metallic chicanery with its soaring melody while “Squonk Kingdom” is duly over-the-top in its second-half chase soon enough fleshed out by “So Long (Portal Hopper)” ahead of the lightly-plucked finale “Attic.” The specificity of influence throughout Portal Hopper can be striking as clean/harsh vocals blend, etc., but given the narrative and the relative brevity of the songs complementing the whims explored within them, there’s no lack of character in the album’s oft-careening 38-minute course.

Mothman and the Thunderbirds on Instagram

Mothman and the Thunderbirds on Bandcamp

The Lunar Effect, Sounds of Green and Blue

The Lunar Effect Sounds of Green & Blue

Given its pro-shop nature in production and performance, the ability of The Lunar Effect to grasp a heavy blues sound as part of what they do while avoiding either the trap of hyper-dudely navelgazing or cultural appropriation — no minor feat — and the fluidity of one piece into the next across the 40-minute LP’s two sides, I’m a little surprised not to have been sick of the band’s second album, Sounds of Green and Blue before I put it on. Maybe since it’s on Svart everyone just assumed it’s Finnish experimentalist drone? Maybe everybody’s burnt out on a seemingly endless stream of bands from London’s underground? I don’t know, but by the time The Lunar Effect make their way to the piano-laden centerpiece “Middle of the End” — expanding on the unhurried mood of “In Grey,” preceding the heavy blues return of “Pulling Daisies” at the start of side B that mirrors album opener “Ocean Queen” and explodes into a roll that feels like it was made to be the best thing you play at your DJ night — that confusion is a defining aspect of the listening experience. “Fear Before the Fall” picks on Beethoven, for crying out loud. High class and low groove. Believe me, I know there’s a lot of good stuff out already in 2024, but what the hell more could you want? Where is everybody?

The Lunar Effect on Facebook

Svart Records website

Danava, Live

danava live

Even if I were generally inclined to do so — read: I’m not — it would be hard to begrudge Portland heavy rock institution Danava wanting to do a live record after their 2023’s Nothing But Nothing (review here) found them in such raucous form. But the aptly-titled Live is more than just a post-studio-LP check-in to remind you they kick ass on stage, as side A’s space, classic, boogie, heavy rocking “Introduction/Spinning Temple” and “Maudie Shook” were recorded in 2008, while the four cuts on side B — “Shoot Straight with a Crooked Gun,” “Nothing but Nothing,” “Longdance,” “Let the Good Times Kill” and “Last Goodbye” — came from the European tour undertaken in Fall 2023 to support Nothing But Nothing. Is the underlying message that Danava are still rad 15 years later? Maybe. That certainly comes through by the time the solo in “Shoot Straight with a Crooked Gun” hits, but that also feels like reading too much into it. Maybe it’s just about representing different sides of who Danava are, and if so, fine. Then or now, psych or proto-thrashing, they lay waste.

Danava on Instagram

Heavy Psych Sounds website

Moonlit, Be Not Afraid

moonlit be not afraid

A free three-songer from Varese, Italy’s Moonlit, Be Not Afraid welcomes the listener to “Death to the World” with (presumably sampled) chanting before unfurling a loose, somewhat morose-feeling nighttime-desert psych sway before “Fort Rachiffe” howls tonally across its own four minutes in more heavy post-rock style, still languid in tempo but encompassing in its wash and the amp-hum-and-percussion blend on the shorter “Le Conseguenze Della Libertà” (1:57) gives yet another look, albeit briefly. In about 11 minutes, Moonlit — whose last studio offering was 2021’s So Bless Us Now (review here) — never quite occupy the same space twice, and despite the compact presentation, the range from mid-period-QOTSA-gone-shoegaze (plus chanting! don’t forget the chanting!) to the hypnotic Isis-doing-space-push that follows with the closer as a but-wait-there’s-more/not-just-an-afterthought epilogue is palpable. I don’t know when or how Be Not Afraid was recorded, whether it’s portentous of anything other than itself or what, but there’s a lot happening under its surface, and while you can’t beat the price, don’t be surprised if you end up throwing a couple bucks Moonlit‘s way anyhow.

Moonlit on Instagram

Moonlit on Bandcamp

Doom Lab, Northern Lights

Doom Lab Northern Lights

Much of Northern Lights is instrumental, but whether or not Leo Scheben is barking out the endtimes storyline of “Darkhammer” — stylized all-caps in the tracklisting — or “Night Terrors,” or just digging into a 24-second progression of lo-fi riffing of “Paranoid Isolation” and the Casio-type beats that back his guitar there and across the project’s 16-track latest offering, the reminder Doom Lab give is that the need to create takes many forms. From the winding scales of “Locrian’s Run” to “Twisted Logic” with its plotted solo lines, pieces are often just that — pieces of what might otherwise be a fleshed-out song — and Doom Lab‘s experimentalism feels paramount in terms of aural priorities. Impulse in excelsis. It might be for the best that the back-to-back pair “Nice ‘n’ Curvy” and “Let ’em Bounce” are both instrumental, but as madcap as Scheben is, he’s able to bring Northern Lights to a close with resonant homage in its title-track, and cuts like “Too Much Sauce on New Year’s Eve” and “Dark Matter” are emblematic of his open-minded approach overall, working in different styles sometimes united most by their rawness and uncompromising persona. This is number 100 of 100 records covered in this Quarterly Review, and nothing included up to now sounds like Doom Lab. A total win for radical individualism.

Doom Lab on YouTube

Doom Lab on Bandcamp

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Inter Arma Releasing New Heaven April 26; Title-Track Streaming

Posted in Whathaveyou on March 7th, 2024 by JJ Koczan

 inter arma (photo by Jonah Livingston)

There isn’t a doubt in my mind you’ve seen the below announcement, or at least the gist thereof, around by this point. I was fully embroiled in the Quarterly Review when word came through of Richmond, Virginia’s Inter Arma setting an April 26 release for their awaited new album, titled New Heaven and led off by its discordant and deathly not the least for its cohesiveness title-track, which is streaming now. I’m playing catchup, I guess, but as this is a record I’ll probably write about at some point, I want the info here. Is it weird that I’ve started to think of this kind of thing as archival? I guess spending the last 15 years going back to chase down old links will do that.

I’m sure there’s a story behind “Forest Service Road Blues” and one could only call “The Children the Bombs Overlooked” relevant, what with the US’ ongoing material and moral support for genocide in the Middle East, but as a first impression, “New Heaven” finds Inter Arma stately at the center of the seven-and-a-half-minute tumultuous progression. The band made their 2019 release, Sulphur English (review here), a statement of intent in terms of extremity and atmosphere, and discuss below how the last several years have factored into their work this time around.

Here’s how the PR wire put it, along with the preorder link and the single for good measure. As noted, they were confirmed to play the album in full at Roadburn in the Netherlands even before the title was officially announced:

inter arma new heaven

INTER ARMA RETURN WITH NEW HEAVEN FULL-LENGTH OUT APRIL 26

SHARE TITLE-TRACK ON ALL STREAMING SERVICES

PERFORMING NEW HEAVEN IN FULL AT ROADBURN FESTIVAL

PRE-ORDER/LISTEN:
https://orcd.co/interarma-newheaven

New Heaven, Inter Arma’s anticipated new album, is a compelling testament to perseverance, top to bottom. Its thicket of ever-dense layers of doom, death, and black metal occasionally let bits of light slip in, fleeting reminders to keep going amid the tumult. The record marks a sharp turn for Inter Arma, showcasing some of the most extreme and angular songwriting the band has ever laid bare. Known for their cinematic take on sludgy, extremely cavernous and borderline psychedelic Metal, the Richmond band broadens their dynamics by seesawing between piledriving momentum and swirling oblivion. New Heaven crushes and conquers, and illustrates what Inter Arma can truly be.

Take the title track— which premieres today— with its hair-raising lead riff stemming from drummer/songwriter TJ Childers’ challenge to himself to write a nonsensically dissonant part that he ended up loving. Meanwhile, vocalist Mike Paparo’s enraptured earsplitting bellows bludgeon above an impossibly complicated web of riffs and rhythms. From the get go, New Heaven and the opening title track eschews any restraint; Inter Arma is completely unchained.

Though New Heaven is indeed another triumph for the band, it is not a triumphant album, meant to offer some glib or naïve assurance that everything will be fine.

They call it the ‘Inter Arma Curse’: for nearly two decades, the band has emerged as one of the most inspired and fearless acts in or around American metal. They’ve also endured an endless parade of complications, hurdles, and slights: visa problems in Russia, stolen passports in Europe, unexpected member turmoil in their ranks, accidents and near death experiences, and a pervasive paradoxical sense that they have either been too metal or not metal enough. It’s been forever Sisyphean, except that Inter Arma has sporadically crested the hill to make a series of visionary albums.

As New Heaven started to take shape, the curse roared to life. Worldwide pandemic that squashed tours and writing sessions aside, Inter Arma churned through four bassists before finding salvation in Joel Moore, a guitar-and-engineering whiz who had never before played bass in a band. With the addition of Moore, drummer T.J. Childers admits that New Heaven features some of the kind of music Inter Arma could have never executed. Listen for the uncanny keyboards wedged between Paparo and the band, for the ways Steven Russell and Trey Dalton coil and collide with Moore, for Childers’ way of slipping some Southern soul into what borders on truly brutal prog. Paparo’s keen and empathetic lyrics explore arduous facets of the human experience, from innocent victims of war, to addiction, and social apathy. New Heaven is a record about enduring brambles and curses and lasting long enough to make something profound, honest, and even affirming about it all every now and again..

Childers comments, “New Heaven is the culmination of four years worth of adversity ranging from near death experiences, multiple member changes and of course a global pandemic. It marks a new chapter for us musically as we feel we’ve taken our songwriting to places we’ve never explored before. We’re excited to have come out of the madness relatively unscathed and feel as though we’ve created something completely unique that will stand apart in the sometimes homogenous extreme music community.” Guitarist Trey Dalton continues, “This record, maybe more than our previous efforts, more fully represents what we’re trying to accomplish. It’s still very much us – you know, music made by dudes coming from disparate musical backgrounds and perspectives, but with a more collective and defined sense of purpose. Clarity in direction, maybe. Your mileage may vary, but we like it a lot, and we hope you do too.”

Catch Inter Arma at this year’s Roadburn Festival on April 18th performing New Heaven in its entirety. Pre-order New Heaven here: https://orcd.co/interarma-newheaven
or direct from Relapse Records here: https://www.relapse.com/pages/inter-arma-new-heaven
and look for more news from Inter Arma to surface in the near future.

New Heaven, track listing:
1. New Heaven
2. Violet Seizures
3. Desolation’s Harp
4. Endless Grey
5. Gardens in the Dark
6. The Children the Bombs Overlooked
7. Concrete Cliffs
8. Forest Service Road Blues

Inter Arma is:
T.J. Childers – Drums, Percussion, guitars, lap steel, piano, noise
Trey Dalton – Guitar, synthesizers, mellotron, vocals
Joel Moore – Bass, synthesizers, tape loops, samples, and noise
Mike Paparo – Vocals
Steven Russell – Guitars

https://www.facebook.com/INTERARMA/
https://www.instagram.com/interarmamusic/
http://interarma.bandcamp.com/

http://www.relapse.com
http://www.instagram.com/relapserecords
http://www.facebook.com/RelapseRecords
https://relapserecords.bandcamp.com/

Inter Arma, New Heaven (2024)

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