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

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

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Adam Kravitz of Future Projektor (ex-Gritter)

—

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

I consider the music we (Future Projektor) play to be Instrumental Ambient Metal, almost soundtrack material. Very heavy, atmospheric. We play to custom made videos, like we are the soundtrack. Encourage edibles, or mushrooms. After playing in many bands over the years, I kept finding myself drawn to instrumental music. No frontman/woman, no screaming, no singing, nothing. Like Pink Floyd, not so much as a jam band, or riff salad, just really wanting to create a mood. Very low tuned, vibes that you can feel in your bones, it is therapeutic to me.

We just started jamming after my last band broke up and it went from there. Seth Harris (Kepone, Honor Role) and Brian Metz(Bowlethereal) filled out the group. Recorded our first release TERMA, one nonstop 30-minute piece in six parts. Was a lot of fun to create. Played shows.

Then came the pandemic. We had just opened for Weedeater and they literally shut down the country the following week. Just like that No more shows. The other two members quit. Then I had a heart attack! Still keeping the project alive, still paying for a rehearsal space, I befriended Jimmy Bower (EyehHateGod, Down, etc.).

We started jamming, he was going to be the new drummer, so we created the heart attack jams. Was pivotal in my rehabilitation to getting stronger. Found a new bass player, Sean Plunkett, and we were off to the races. Then Jimmy had to move back to Nola, so we reached out to our old drummer Kevin White (Gritter, Throttlerod, Sunnshine), and we were a whole band again.

Fast forward a year later and we are finishing up our new 40-minute release called The Kybalion. An even better concept piece. Very excited.

Describe your first musical memory.

Playing saxophone in my 4th grade orchestra. Was given a guitar at six, didn’t take to it. Liked paying the sax. Ended up playing the alto, tenor, and baritone. Learned song structure and tones. Learned how to listen to other instruments and how they played off each other.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

Was 1984, was a huge Van Halen fan. My father surprised me and took me to see them play on that tour. Had never been to a concert before. Was amazing. Everyone smoking cigs or joints. After seeing the opening band, which was Autograph, the lights went out, the announcer screamed are you ready for Van Halen and boom, the curtains dropped, and it was a full-on music assault.

After seeing the concert, I begged to get a guitar, where it sat for a year, because I didn’t understand it. Until one day my friend down the street who was a little older came over and showed me how to play “Rock You Like a Hurricane!” I was hooked ever since, couldn’t stop smiling from ear to ear. Was amazed that you could recreate a song I loved to hear on this instrument right in front of me. Been that way for 37 years now.

Side note, I got to meet Eddie Van Halen years later and telling him this story was truly a once in a lifetime experience.

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

Interesting question, I feel that life is a constant test and it’s how we react to a situation, that either makes it ok, or go not ok. I give even the ickiest individuals the benefit of the doubt most the time. I do remember a party we had years ago a house I lived in, we were kicking everyone out. Heard some moaning from a back bathroom. Knocked on the door, and a dude said come back later.

We said open because everyone must go home. He said no, so we kicked in the door, and he was having his way with a passed-out girl. Let’s just say that he got the ever-lasting piss kicked out of him. It was on the second floor; he never touched the stairs to the first floor. That was an unsettling moment.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

Hopefully to a newer and deeper searching of oneself expressions. It’s always interesting to me to think a certain idea can start one way and be completely different by the end. For myself, it’s what makes playing music and the creation of nothing into something, enjoyable.

How do you define success?

Being happy with and complete with things you have done in life. The good, the bad, the amazing, the scary. It all makes you who you are. All of it. Can’t have one without the other. Some define it by money, possessions, friends, etc. That can be one way, but that’s all materialistic. You can’t take any of that with you. Leaving behind music or art, last longer than the human form. To me that is success. Having the ability to leave behind something for someone else to enjoy, or hate?

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

A Serbian Film. Some things you just don’t need to see ya know. I love horror films, and thrillers, and shockers, but that one was just too much.

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

I would love to be able to create a full animation video. I’m fascinated by animation and the creation process. Just haven’t been able to completely wrap my head around it. Esp. since our Project is based around playing to customized trippy videos. Like we are the soundtrack. Would make it that much more personal.

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

Self-expression. We are all influenced by someone or something, but really trying to figure out your own version is what makes it yours. Your flavor to it, your take, your vison. It’s what makes [being an] artist so fascinating, or boring haha.

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

The future. Haha. I’m always intrigued by what is to come. The unknown. We always feel that we have seen it all, until one day another thing pops up, and you say to yourself, “I didn’t expect that!” I like little or big things like that. Could be a new soda flavor. Could be new tech. Could be political. Could be personal. It’s just the unknown, or a new twist on the familiar which makes it unfamiliar. Like being able to take this questionnaire. Its random, fun, and unexpected and for that I thank you.

https://www.facebook.com/futureprojektor
https://futureprojektor.bandcamp.com/

Future Projektor, Terma (2019)

Thunderchief have been dropping cover songs on a one-per-month basis since I don’t even know when, but it’s pretty clear that by the time they’re through they’ll have a good collection behind them ready for vinyl, CD or tape, and maybe that’s the endgame and maybe it isn’t. While we’re on the subject of their studio work, last year’s Synanthrope (review here) was an especially nasty bit of business, and that’s just what they seemed to be shooting for, an definitively East Coast confrontationalist sludge that should go over like gangbusters on their July stretch of live shows.

I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing them live — my prevailing association with the band is when I tried to get in to see them at Maryland Doom Fest a few years back and couldn’t because my graybeard ass couldn’t find proper ID; how about I’m at Doom Fest not with a parent as proof of being over 21? — and there’s no New York or New Jersey (laughs at the idea of North Jersey shows) date here, but they’re still doing the thing in style, and Connecticut to Philly isn’t a terrible ride, depending on how you go.

Sit tight, won’t be long before they’ve got something new coming. Till then, this from the PR wire:

THUNDERCHIEF announces 10-day Summer Fling

Richmond, VA’s notorious 2-piece Sludge ‘n’ Roll duo hit the road for 10 days of volume, sweat and gear–and lots of it. Alabama Thunderpussy founder Erik Larson and his guitar-playing chum Rik Surly are heading to the Northeast US, while simultaneously releasing their latest effort, “Synanthrope” on CD format for the first time ever.

This round of shows kicks off in Charlottesville, VA with Telekinetic Yeti and will feature the band showcasing tracks from “Synanthrope”, along with deep cuts, select singles and fan favorites. Known for their uncompromising live sets, the THUNDERCHIEF experience is one that you should judge that is for yourself. At a show. In July. Please.

“We’re especially excited for this run,” says Rik Surly. “The sheer power of this record (“Synanthrope”) really comes across well onstage. Mike Dean and Mark Miley did a great job and I can’t wait for everyone to see and he

Jul, 21 Roanoke, VA @ Flying Panther
Jul, 22 Cincinnati, OH @ MOTR
Jul, 23 Akron, OH @ Musica
Jul, 24 Youngstown, OH @ Westside Bowl
Jul, 25 Buffalo, NY @ Mohawk Place
Jul, 26 Burlington, VT @ Swan Dojo
Jul, 27 Portland, ME @ Urban Farm Fermatory
Jul, 28 Boston, MA @ Middle East-Upstairs
Jul, 29 New Haven, CT @ Cherry Street Station
Jul, 30 Philadelphia, PA @ The Pharmacy
Jul, 31 Washington, DC @ The Pocket

Thunderchief are:
Rik Surly – Guitar/vocals
Erik Larson – Drums

www.thethunderchief.com
www.thethunderchief.bandcamp.com
www.instagram.com/thunderchiefofficial
www.facebook.com/thunderchiefrva

Thunderchief, Synanthrope (2021)

The story of Richmond, Virginia’s Alabama Thunderpussy — whose moniker has not aged well but could definitely be worse — is long and has enough struggle and triumph, ups, downs, comings, goings, etc., to be fully human. Their last album was 2007’s Open Fire, which introduced their third frontman, Kyle Thomas, known for his work in Exhorder and as of 2012, vocalist for Chicago doom legends Trouble for the second time. Prior to that album’s sharper, more metallic take (which seemed at the time like a new start rather than the swansong it became), ATP helped define a path for post-C.O.C. Southern heavy rock, records like 1998’s Rise Again and 1999’s River City Revival — and I’ll add 2000’s Constellation to the list, just because I’ve always dug it — basking in a burl that bands still emulate and putting the double-guitar outfit in league with the stoner rock of the day through releasing on Frank Kozik‘s Man’s Ruin imprint.

You can read as much below, but you should know that there’s more to ATP‘s journey, their time on tour, signing to Relapse, and so on, than just this, just like there was always more to their songs than rough riffs and Dixie chestbeating. Like few before or since, they were able to convey a sense of heart that made their work more than a put-on.

What I’m getting to is that I’m thrilled to be presenting the band’s announced reunion show on Dec. 3 at Richmond Music Hall. They were a righteous live act, and I say that as someone who saw them at venues large and small, and as founding members Erik Larson (guitar) and Bryan Cox (drums) reignite the band with Ryan Lake on guitar as he was during their run in the aughts, Thomas back on vocals, and bassist Sam Krivanec, the prospect of this reunion stands as a potential introduction to an entire generation of listeners. 2007 was 15 years ago, just to remind you. 1998 was 24. An entire wave of heavy rock, as well as fans, has risen up in those years — and ATP could stand some catalog reissues in they’re going to keep this thing going — but for now it’s just one show, this first show, and I’m humbled to have The Obelisk involved in presenting it in this tiny way.

Tickets go on sale June 24 at the link below, and no less than friggin’ Suplecs are coming up from New Orleans to support, along with Richmond’s Loud Night. I can’t imagine it won’t sell out, and if you are making travel plans, as I am, you should have plenty of time to get it all sorted. Again, this might be a one-off, and it might not be a chance that comes again. I’m not trying to FOMO you out or talk it up without reason, but this strikes me as an evening that could be pretty special.

Info follows:

Alabama Thunderpussy – Live Dec. 3

Tickets On Sale: June 24 at 12pm

Ticket Link: https://bit.ly/AlabamaThunderpussy12-3

Broadberry Entertainment Group presents Alabama Thunderpussy at Richmond Music Hall on December 3, 2022. This will be the first time the band has performed in 14 years!

In 1996, on a dirt floor basement in Richmond Virginia’s Oregon Hill neighborhood, Alabama Thunderpussy (ATP) first emerged in a detuned feedback laden assault. Putting into song the members’ love for Southern Rock, Heavy metal, Sludge-core and Punk, they got-busy-getting-busy right from the very beginning.

Within a few years, ATP was at the vanguard of the new Southern Heavy/Stoner Rock scene — releasing 3 albums (Rise Again-1998, River City Revival-1999, and Constellation-2000) on famed poster artist Frank Kozik’s Man’s Ruin Records and already touring internationally before signing with metal juggernaut, Relapse Records, in 2001. The band continued their Road-Dog work ethic matched with a prolific and unique musical crusade for an additional 4 albums (Staring at the Divine-2002, Fulton Hill-2004, Open Fire-2007, and Live at the Contamination Festival-2008) before they disbanded in 2008, leaving a legacy that continues to influence countless artists and musicians to this day.

Now, for the first time in 14 years, the band has resurfaced for an exclusive hometown performance on Saturday December 3rd at Richmond Music Hall. Embracing a selection of songs from their entire catalog, the show will be a celebration of loud Heavy Rock in that distinctive Alabama Thunderpussy flair. Support will be provided by New Orleans underground legends, Suplecs, and local Motorriffic Kings, Loud Night.

Poster by Bryan Cox.

Ticket Link: https://bit.ly/AlabamaThunderpussy12-3

Alabama Thunderpussy:
Bryan Cox-Drums
Sam Krivanec- Bass
Ryan Lake- Guitar
Erik Larson- Guitar
Kyle Thomas- Vocals

Alabama Thunderpussy, Open Fire (2007)

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

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

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Greg Branch, Bryan Conner & Tim Madison of Cut the Architect’s Hand

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

Greg Branch: I don’t define it. I constantly create. It pours out of me I just funnel it in different directions. Different musical projects, writing, painting, etc…

Bryan Conner: I would say drumming and music keep me sane. My Father raised me on ’70s rock with the speakers maxed, growing up in the house and he played drums, that in turn were accessible to me. Then when I was around age 15, I picked up the sticks and rolled with it and drumming became one of my favorite thing to date.

Tim Madison: The eternal battle/struggle for attention mixed with the lack of intelligence and better judgement to do something more productive with my time, loudly.

Describe your first musical memory.

G: My mom playing Al Green & Otis Redding records when I was very small.

B: Watching My Father and his friends jamming in the garage.

T: Listening to the black album nonstop on a beach vacation when it was new.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

G: The first time I played solo. It was my birthday and so many people important to me came to support and I was touched.

B: So far the most powerful musical memory I have experienced was in Washington D.C. seeing Pearl Jam play and hearing the arena singing in unison. Over powering the band and PA.

T: Still waiting for one to happen.

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

G: I welcome it daily. Being closed minded and not open to change is the death of growth.

B: Being a parent with two teenage kids.

T: Present.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

G: A better ability to express yourself.

B: In a perfect world happiness, but depends on the person, I am often satisfied with everything we do. Overtime it has earned the title “Fucking Diamonds (#128142#) ” A sign of my personal approval, For what it’s worth. Lol. But there are many people who can be crippled and weighed down by the act of musical and artistic creations.

T: Pain/suicide/depression/debt. Artists tend to feel more and more intensely.

How do you define success?

G: Being able to create and perform on a regular basis.

B: That’s an eye of the beholder question. everyone will be different. Me and the guys have kept the band functional in one way or another since 2002, Put together a massive amount of material in that time, successfully get together and practice almost weekly. And have played countless shows. All while holding down jobs, work, and family. Feels like success to me.

T: Achieving levels of happiness through non shady means.

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

G: The suffering of any animal.

B: That shitty American Godzilla movie with Matthew Broderick.

T: The truth.

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

G: I’ve written the first paragraph of a book. I am not rushing it and letting it come to me a sentence at a time.

B: A small restaurant/bar with some kinda stage , Richmond, VA, needs more music venues.

T: Travel rig. IEM unit. Guitar brand, amplifier brand, maybe one good song.

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

G: Release and appreciation of seeing how someone different than yourself interprets things.

B: The ability to express yourself and let others see how you feel, and or how your art invokes feelings in others.

T: Expression, creation and unity through non verbal means. As people we are desperately seeking to reconnect with our souls, and art is essentially what we are here to create and connect with each other. But instead we invented credit scores and taxes.

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

G: Visiting Gettysburg. I am interested in history and visiting the places it happened.

B: All future Star Wars and Marvel movie/ comic content. It’s all Fucking Diamonds(#128142#).

T: Watching my son grow up.

https://www.facebook.com/Cutthearchitectshand
https://www.instagram.com/cutthearchitectshand/
http://www.cutthearchitectshand1.bandcamp.com/
https://linktr.ee/CTAH

Cut the Architect’s Hand, The Eternity Box (2022)

Druglord‘s sound was truly monstrous, in the actual sense of a huge, fur-covered, lumbering beast with six-inch Tyrannosaur teeth razor-sharpened on the bones of any meat and bone so unfortunate as to be in its path finding you, stalking you, and at last, devouring you entirely. All things considered, the Richmond-based trio had a decent run, starting out in 2010 with a self-titled demo (review here) before 2012’s Motherfucker Rising (review here) paved the way for guitarist/vocalist Tommy Hamilton, bassist Greta Brinkman (ex-L7) and drummer Bobby “HufKnell” Hufnell (Unseen Force) to align with STB Records for the crucial follow-up you see above.

I know for a sciency-fact that I already had 2013’s Enter Venus on tape (review here) and vinyl (review here), but in preparing to write this piece, I hit up the band’s Bandcamp to grab the embed code for the player above and saw that both Motherfucker Rising and Enter Venus were still available on CD for what, with domestic shipping, worked out to be $7. Seven dollars? For the disc with art and all the rest, and got the download of Enter Venus with that? Those are some get-this-shit-out-of-my-house prices on the part of whoever will be sending them to me, presumably Hamilton. In any case, I’m also pretty sure I already have both albums on CD, but hell’s bells, the one download is worth seven bucks, never mind the physical product.

Revisiting Enter Venus, hearing the opaque, organ-laced murk of “Feast on the Eye,” the Conan-worthy heft and crush of “Grievous Heaving,” the gut-wrenching crawl in the title-track and the lumbering misery of closer “Let Us Bleed,” its noisy back-half solo cutting through the surrounding filth-nod only to be subsumed by it as the next verse takes hold, I regret shelling the seven dollars even less. A decade later, looking back on the rise of this band, it was a particular moment of generational awakening. 2012. Special-edition vinyl was not nearly as ubiquitous 10 or eight years ago as it is now, and the work STB Records did to change that is somewhat under-discussed at this point — not that stoner metal historians are out there chasing down these events, mind you, or, you know, existing — but Enter Venus remains one of the most gorgeous LPs I own. The multi-textured art, from gloss to matte, and the artwork by W. Ralph Walters that offers a three-dimensional pop all the more for its detail, is likewise beautiful and unsettling. The record’s only 27 minutes long, but I swear by the end of that time, there’s no question Druglord have gotten the point across. Anything more would be superfluous, and to call it anything less than a full-length isn’t doing justice to the wretchedness on display.

The recording job by Garrett Morris has to be mentioned as a factor in harnessing those depths. His work as a founding member of Windhand on guitar and production for some of their earlier work results in some similarity of the rolling fog that is Druglord‘s riffing, but the willfully excruciating dynamic of Druglord makes the trio altogether a harsher listening experience despite the fact that there’s still a sense of atmosphere to the material. It just happens to be that the atmosphere is made of sulfuric acid and is currently bubbling away your flesh. Sulfuric acid rock. Definitely corrosive. Use with caution. If poured in eyes, seek immediate medical treatment.

But consider how many acts came out around the same time and have continued (or not) to push boundaries in varying directions for the sundry heavy microgenres. Druglord offered a particularly extreme take on sludge that remains relevant and punishing now. There’s a sample at the outset of “Grievous Heaving” that puts the album in a kind of Southern Baptist context, and if one digs hard enough, there’s elements of guitar progressions that feel born out of impulses pioneered by the likes of Jimmy Bower or Buzzov*en or any number of ’90s-era Southern riffers, but Druglord are a perfect example of a band taking what was done before them and crafting something new from it. There’s little sense of showmanship throughout; the plod is genuine, the misanthropic sensibility unmistakable. It is brutal, a hyperbole-ready litmus for nasty stoner sludge that, these years after the fact, feels emblematic of the moment of its creation without sounding dated either in method or production. Again, whether I’ve got another copy floating around here or in a box in the storage unit, I don’t regret making the purchase.

Maybe they were too volatile for the long-term. Druglord offered up the Deepest Regrets EP (review here) in 2015 and 2018’s third long-player, New Day Dying (review here), which introduced new bassist Julian Cook to the fold. Issued through Sludgelord Records on tape, it continued the collaboration with Morris (who also produced the EP) and seemed to assure that the sort of lurking march of “Enter Venus” would continue unabated despite the lineup change. They continued to do shows up to celebrating their 10th anniversary in March 2020 — that might’ve happened, might not — and as late as Sept. of that year they were reportedly working on new material, but nothing has yet surfaced. Maybe next week. Maybe two weeks. Maybe never. If you could predict everything, it wouldn’t be as much fun.

One way or the other — if Druglord ever return from the grim ether of their own making or they don’t — Enter Venus stands as a particularly devastating proof-of-life from the band they were at the time, and it retains its make-your-skin-crawl vibe perhaps even more for the spiderwebs in which time has covered it. If it’s their destiny to be a cult act, known to those whose consciousness may be suitably warped in order to process what they’re actually doing, I have to imagine that’s fine by them. Otherwise why bother being who they are in the first place. Among STB‘s roster at the time and in the context of the greater movement of bands of which they were undeniably a part, they are still dug into a muddy pit all their own. Fucking a.

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

—

I could use a shower. Desperately. Maybe I’ll go do that and come back. Hang on…

There. 20 minutes well spent. It’s a gorgeous spring day in New Jersey where I live, perhaps not at all captured by the death-stench of Druglord, but there’s only so many times one can go to the well of Amorphis’ Tuonela for such seasonal appropriation. Rest assured, I’ll have it on at some point this weekend nonetheless.

But sitting in the sunshine waiting for The Pecan’s bus to bring him home is no hardship, and I seriously doubt the idea would’ve even occurred to me if not for the shower, so yeah. Maybe that’s where the Druglord thing came from. I was duly gross before.

Errands to run this afternoon, including to the dentist with the kid, but he’s pretty good about that. I’ll speak to him in calm tones, remind him of the things we talked about, and hopefully the dentist or hygienist will be patient. He’s four, so you expect some tumult. First time he was great, last time less so. Would be nice to have him back on track. He’s eaten a lot of sugary shit though in all of our please-pee-in-the-toilet bribes, none of which have been effective. Costco and grocery shopping after that, The Patient Mrs.’ Family down later this evening, and then family day tomorrow. It’ll be a good time even if it’s supposed to rain. Whatever.

Anyone see the Star Trek: Discovery season finale last night? I did. What fun. Not the show’s best season so far — hate to say it but I think that prize might go to all the Spock stuff — but they wrapped it beautifully and in very Trek fashion. High-minded optimistic speeches and Stacey Abrams? Sign me up for that shit.

Anyhoozle, bus should be here soon, so time to punch out/in. Thanks for reading this week. Next week is jammed as well, so stay tuned. Have fun, stay safe, hydrate, watch your head. Back Monday with more.

FRM.

The Obelisk Forum

The Obelisk Radio

The Obelisk merch

 

 

Welcome to Day Four of the Jan. 2022 Quarterly Review. Or maybe it’s the other half of the Dec. 2021 Quarterly Review. Or maybe I overthink these things. The latter feels most likely. Inanycase, welcome. If you’ve been keeping up with the records as they’ve been coming in 10-per-day batches over the course of this week, thanks. If not, well, if you’re interested, it’s not like the posts disappeared. Just keep scrolling, then I think click through. One of these days I’ll get an infinite scroll plug-in. Those are for the cool kids.

Also, ‘Infinite Scroll’ is, as of right now, the name of my ’90s-style pixel-art role playing game. Ask me about the plot when these reviews are done.

For now…

Quarterly Review #31-40:

SOM, The Shape of Everything

Working from a foundation in heavy post-rock, Connecticut’s SOM soar and float like so many shoreline seagulls over the Long Island Sound on the eight-song/34-minute The Shape of Everything, which would call to mind the melancholy of Katatoniia were its sadness not even more shimmering. Early pieces “Moment” and “Animals” build a depth of modern progressive metal riffing beneath only the airiest of guitar leads, a wash of distortion meeting a wash of melody, and with guitarist/vocalist/producer Will Benoit helming, his voice rings through clear in melody and still somewhat ethereal, calling to mind a more organically-constructed Jesu in poppier as well as some heavier stretches. The penultimate “Heart Attack” tips into heavier fare with a steady bassline and bursts of crunching guitar, and the finale “Son of Winter” answers back with a (snow)blinding spaciousness and an entrancing last buildup. There’s enough room here to really get lost, and SOM are too mindful of their craft to let it happen.

SOM website

Pelagic Records webstore

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Dr. Space, Muzik 2 Loze Yr Mynd Inn

Alright, I admit it. I went to “Icy Flatulence” first. Even before “Cyborgian Burger Hut” or “Euphoric Nostril.” Scott Heller, otherwise known as Dr. Space of Øresund Space Collective and any number of other outfits on a given day, is as-ever exploring on Muzik 2 Loze Yr Mynd Inn, and the results are hypnotic enough that they might leave you using the kind of spelling on the album’s title, but even in the relatively serene “Garden of Rainbow Unicorns” there’s a forward keyline — and actually, in that song, an undercurrent of horror soundtracking that makes me think the unicorn is about to eat me; could happen — and the extended pair of “T-E-T” and “Ribbons in Time” are marked by ’80s sci-fi beeps and boops and a kind of electronic shuffle, respectively, though the latter is probably as close as the 54-minute six-songer comes to soundscaping. Which is like landscaping only, in this case, happening in another galaxy somewhere. And there they call it jazz as they should and all is well. In all seriousness, I keep a running list in my brain of bands who should ask Dr. Space to guest on their records. Your band is probably on it. It’s pretty much everybody.

Dr. Space on Bandcamp

Space Rock Productions website

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Beastwars, Cold Wind / When I’m King

Here’s some context you probably don’t need: “Cold Wind” and “When I’m King” were written around the time of Wellington, New Zealand’s Beastwars‘ 2011 self-titled debut (review here). They may even have been recorded — I could’ve sworn “When I’m King” popped up somewhere at some point — but they’ve now been redone from the ground up and they’re pressed to a limited 7″ as part of the 10th anniversary celebration that also saw the self-titled get a new vinyl issue. Now, is it helpful knowing that? Yeah, sure. If I came at you instead and said, “Hey, new Beastwars!” though, it’d probably be more of a draw, and whatever gets Beastwars in as many ears as possible is what should invariably be done. “When I’m King” is a banger (bonus points for gang shouts), “Cold Wind” a little more seething, but both tracks harness that peculiarly sludged tonality that the band has owned for more than a decade now, and the guttural delivery of Matthew Hyde is only more resonant for the years between the writing and the execution of these songs. That execution is beheading by riffs, by the way.

Beastwars on Facebook

Beastwars on Bandcamp

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Deathbell, A Nocturnal Crossing

A Nocturnal Crossing, the second album from Toulouse, France’s Deathbell and their first for Svart Records, can come at you from any number of angles seemingly at any point. Which thread are you following? Is it the soaring, classic-feeling occult rock melodies of Lauren Gaynor, or her organ work that, at the same time, adds gothic drama to so much of the material on the six-songer? Is it the lumbering groove of “Shifting Sands” and the doomed fuzz of “Devoured on the Peak” earlier, speaking to entirely different traditions? Or maybe the atmosphere in “Silent She Comes,” which is almost post-metallic in its shining lead guitar? Or perhaps, and hopefully I think, it’s all of these things as skillfully woven together as they are in these tracks. Opener “The Stronghold and the Archer” and the closing title-track mirror each other in their underlying metallic influence, but that too becomes one more texture at Deathbell‘s disposal, brought forward in such a way as to emphasize the unity of the whole work as much as the individual progressions.

Deathbell on Facebook

Svart Records website

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Malady, Ainavihantaa

After debuting on Svart with 2018’s Toinen Toista (review here), sax-laced Helskini classic prog pastoralists Malady offer Ainavihantaa (‘all the time’) across a lush and welcoming six tracks and 37 minutes. The flow is immediate and paramount on opener “Alava Vaara” and through the flute/sax tradeoff in “Vapaa Ja Autio,” which follows, and though it’s heady fare, somehow the “Foxy-Lady”-if-King–Crimson-wrote-it strut-into-meander of “Sisävesien Rannat” skirts a line of indulgence without fully toppling over. Side B is jazzy and winding across “Dyadi” and “Haavan Väri” ahead of the title-track, but the human presence of vocals, even in a language I don’t speak, does wonders in keeping the proceedings grounded, right up to the Beatlesian finish of “Ainavihantaa” itself. This was on a lot of best-of-2021 lists and it’s not a challenge to see why.

Malady on Facebook

Svart Records website

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Wormsand, Shapeless Mass

The Earth, ecologically devastated by industrialization and the wastefulness of humans — capitalism, in other words — becomes a wasteland. A few billionaires, who’ve been playing around with laughably-phallic rockets anyway, decide they’re going to escape out into space and leave the rest of the species, which they’ve destroyed, to suffer. It would be — and used to be — the stuff of decent science fiction were it not basically what homo sapiens are living through right now. A mass extinction owing to climate change the roots of which are in anthropocene action and inaction alike. French outfit Wormsand tell this utterly-plausible story in cascading doom riffs that reminds at once of Pallbearer and Forming the Void, keeping an edge of modern heavy prog to their plodding and accompanying with clean vocals and some more gutty shouts. As one might expect, things get pretty grim by the time they’re down to “Carrions,” “Collapsing” and “Shapeless Mass” near the album’s end, but the trio get big, big points for not trying to offer some placating “you can avoid this future” message of hope at the end, instead highlighting the final message, “The oracles warned us long ago/That a huge mass would swallow us all.” Ambitious in narrative concept, expertly conveyed.

Wormsand on Facebook

Stellar Frequencies on Bandcamp

Saka Čost on Bandcamp

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Thunderchief, Synanthrope

I hate to call out a falsehood, but Virginia duo Thunderchief‘s claim that, “No fucks were used, or given, on this recording,” just isn’t the case. I’m sorry. You don’t rip the fuck out of your throat like Rik Surly does on “Aiboh/Phobia” without a clear intent. That intent might be — and would seem to be — fuckall, but fuckall’s way different from ‘no fucks.’ If they didn’t give a fuck, Synanthrope could hardly come across as furious as it does in these seven tracks, totaling a consuming, gruff, sludged 39 minutes, marked out by centerpiece “King of the Pleistocene” fucking with your conception of desert rock, the second part of “Aiboh/Phobia” — the part named after a grind band, oddly enough — and “Toss Me a Crumb” fucking around with some grind, and closer “Paw” trodding out its feedback-laden course with Erik Larson‘s drums marching in crash with Surly‘s riffs. Hell, you got Mike Dean to record the thing. That’s giving a fuck all by itself. This kind of heavy and righteous, purposeful aural cruelty doesn’t happen by mistake. It’s too good to be fuckless. Sorry.

Thunderchief on Facebook

Thunderchief on Bandcamp

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Turkey Vulture, Twist the Knife

No lyric sheet necessary to get that the longest song on Turkey Vulture‘s Twist the Knife EP, the three-minute “Livestock on Our Way to Slaughter,” is based lyrically on the ever-relevant film They Live. The married Connecticut duo of guitarist/bassist/vocalist Jessie May and drummer Jim Clegg (also in charge of visuals), find thrashy release on the four-song release, which totals about eight minutes and in opener “Fiji,” “Where the Truth Dwells,” as well as “Livestock on Our Way to Slaughter,” they rip with surprising metallic thrust. The closing “She’s Married (But Not to Me)” is something of a further shift, and had me searching for an original version out there somewhere thinking it was a cover either of Buddy Holly or some wistful punk band, but no, seems to be an original. So be it. Clearly, at this point, May and Clegg are finding new modes of sonic catharsis that even a couple years ago they likely wouldn’t have dared. They’re a stronger band for their readiness to follow such whims.

Turkey Vulture on Facebook

Turkey Vultre on Bandcamp

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Stargo, Dammbruch

In Stargo‘s Dammbruch, I hear a signal back to European heavy rock’s prior instrumentalist generation, the Dortmunder three-piece not completely divorced from the riffy progressions that drove the warmth creating heavy psychedelia in the first place, even as the four-part, 14-minute title-track of the EP shifts between those impulses and more progressive, weighted, extreme or airy movements before its eerily peaceful conclusion. “Copter,” which could be titled after its wub-wub-wub effect early and the guitar chug that takes hold of it, and the closer “Bathysphere,” with its outward reach of guitar telegraphed in the first half but still resonant at the end, bring likeminded breadth in shorter bursts, but the abiding story of the EP is what the band — who made their full-length debut with 2020’s Parasight — might continue to offer as their style continues to develop. 35007, My Sleeping Karma, The Ocean, Pelican and Russian Circles — Stargo‘s sound is a melting pot of ideas. They only need to keep exploring.

Stargo on Facebook

Stargo on Bandcamp

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Ascia, Volume II

Fabrizio Monni, also of Black Capricorn, issues a second EP from the solo-project Ascia following up on Sept. 2021’s Volume I (review here) with the marauding lumber of Dec. 2021’s Volume II, bringing his axe down across five tracks in a sub-20-minute run that’s been compiled onto a limited CD with the first release. Makes sense. The two outings share an affinity for the running megafuzz of earliest High on Fire and showcase the emerging personality of the new outfit in the melodies of “The Will of Gods” and the untempered doom of the later slowdown in “Thousands of Ghosts.” The instrumental “A Night with Shahrazad” closes, and feels a bit like a piece of a song — it crashes out just when you think the vocals might kick in — but if Monni‘s leaving his audience wanting more, well, he also seems quick enough to provide. “Eternal Glory” and “Ruins of War” will remind you what you liked about the first EP, and the rest will remind you why you’re looking forward to the next one. Mark it a win.

Ascia on Bandcamp

Black Capricorn on Facebook

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but Larson‘s gonna Larson. The admirably, persistently busy Richmond,  Virginia-based multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and sometimes one-man-band released two full-lengths and an EP on one day last year and he’s got a bunch more in the hopper for 2022, including a record with nine different drummers, a collab with “Minnesota Pete” Campbell, an ongoing series of covers with Thunderchief and a new band with former Alabama Thunderpussy bandmate Asechiah Bogdan, and more. And I mean that, there really is more. Even more than he talks about here.

So yes, clearly Larson — seen in the photo below pushing back presumably against the pressure to use social media as a promotional vehicle for his various projects — is gonna Larson. It’s who he is and what he does. It’s for to the rest of us to keep up as best we can.

The following came with seeming reluctance in a Bandcamp update and is preserved here PR wire style for the sheer impressive amount of information it contains:

Hey y’all. Forgive the awkwardness of this message. I’ve never sent out a blank news thing. Not really sure how this works. I’m not a social media person AT ALL, so it’s amazing to me that anyone’s paying attention here. I do sincerely appreciate it.

The reason I’m writing this is to let y’all know that I’m going to have 2 more Solo full lengths going up very soon.

The first is titled “Everything Breaks”. I’ve got 9 different friends of mine playing drums on it. They’re all Richmond peops, some you may recognize, others maybe not so much. Working on getting that up here on the Bandcampage early February.

The 2nd will be another full length titled “Red Lines”. That one features Minnesota Pete Campbell on drums for 9 songs. Finishing up the mixing in the coming weeks w/Mark Miley on that album.

Still very busy playing drums with Thunderchief (new album Synanthrope out now!), Omen Stones (new album coming soon!) and the AVAIL dudes. Be on the look out for new music from the newer band I’m doing w/ Asechiah Bogdan (ex-ATP/Windhand) and Buddy Bryant (Paper Trail/Dirt Merchant) called Sunyears.

There’s also more solo shit in the works… always more songs.

Thanx for giving a shit y’all
Erik

https://eriklarson.bandcamp.com/

www.thethunderchief.com
www.thethunderchief.bandcamp.com
www.instagram.com/thunderchiefofficial
www.facebook.com/thunderchiefrva

Erik Larson, Favorite Iron (2021)

Thunderchief, Synanthrope (2021)

Okay. Day Three. The halfway point. Or the quarter point if you count the week to come in January. Which I don’t. Feeling dug in. Ready to roll. Today’s a busy day, stylistically speaking, and there’s two wolf bands in there too. Better get moving.

Quarterly Review #21-30:

Duel, In Carne Persona

Duel seem to be on a mission with In Carne Persona to remind all in their path that rock and roll is supposed to be dangerous. Their fourth album and the follow-up to 2019’s Valley of Shadows (review here) finds the Austin four-piece in a between place on songs like “Children of the Fire” (premiered here) and “Anchor” and the especially charged gang-shout-chorus “Bite Back,” proffering memorable songwriting while edging from boogie to shove, rock to metal. They’ve never sounded more dynamic than on the organ-inclusive “Behind the Sound” or the tense finale “Blood on the Claw,” and cuts like “The Veil” and the particularly gritty “Dead Eyes” affirm their in-a-dark-place songwriting prowess. They’re not uneven in their approach. They’re sure of it. They turn songs on either side of four minutes long into anthems, and they seem to be completely at home in their sound. They’re not as ‘big’ as they should be by rights of their work, but Duel serve their reminder well and pack nine killer tunes into 38 minutes. Only a fool would ask more.

Duel on Facebook

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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Mastiff, Leave Me the Ashes of the Earth

Fading in like the advent of something wicked this way coming until “The Hiss” explodes into “Fail,” Hull exports Mastiff tap chug from early ’00s metalcore en route to various forms of extreme bludgeonry, whether that’s blackened push in “Beige Sabbath,” grind in “Midnight Creeper” or the slow skin-crawling riffage that follows in “Futile.” This blender runs at multiple speeds, slices, dices, pummels and purees, reminding here of Blood Has Been Shed, there of Napalm Death, on “Endless” of Aborted. Any way you go, it is a bleak cacophony to be discovered, purposefully tectonic in its weight and intense in its conveyed violence. Barely topping half an hour, Leave Me the Ashes of the Earth knows precisely the fury it manifests, and the scariest thing about it is the thought that the band are in even the vaguest amount of control of all this chaos, as even the devolution-to-blowout in “Lung Rust” seems to have intent behind it. They should play this in art galleries.

Mastiff on Facebook

MNRK Heavy website

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Wolftooth, Blood & Iron

Melody and a flair for the grandeur of classic NWOBHM-style metal take prominence on Wolftooth‘s Blood & Iron, the follow-up to the Indiana-based four-piece’s 2020 outing, Valhalla (review here), third album overall and first for Napalm Records. As regards trajectory, one is reminded of the manner in which Sweden’s Grand Magus donned the mantle of epic metal, but Wolftooth aren’t completely to that point yet. Riffs still very much lead the battle’s charge — pointedly so, as regards the album’s far-back-drums mix — with consuming solos as complement to the vocals’ tales of fantastical journeys, kings, swords and so on. The test of this kind of metal should ALWAYS be whether or not you’d scribble their logo on the front of your notebook after listening to the record on your shitty Walkman headphones, and yes, Wolftooth earn that honor among their other spoils of the fight, and Blood & Iron winds up the kind of tape you’d feel cool telling your friends about in that certain bygone age.

Wolftooth on Facebook

Napalm Records on Bandcamp

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Illudium, Ash of the Womb

Another argument to chase down every release Prophecy Productions puts out arrives in the form of Illudium‘s second long-player, Ash of the Womb, the NorCal project spearheaded by Shantel Amundson vibing with emotional and tonal heft in kind on an immersive mourning-for-everything six tracks/47 minutes. Gorgeous, sad and heavy in kind “Aster” opens and unfolds into the fingers-sliding-on-strings of “Sempervirens,” which gallops furiously for a moment in its second half like a fever dream before passing to wistfully strummed minimalism, which is a pattern that holds in “Soma Sema” and “Atopa” as well, as Amundson brings volatility without notice, songs exploding and receding, madness and fury and then gone again in a sort of purposeful bipolar onslaught. Following “Madrigal,” the closing “Where Death and Dreams Do Manifest” finds an evenness of tempo and approach, not quite veering into heavygaze, but gloriously pulling together the various strands laid out across the songs prior, providing a fitting end to the story told in sound and lyric.

Illudium on Facebook

Prophecy Productions store

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Ascia, Volume 1

Ascia takes its name from the Italian word for ‘axe,’ and as a solo-project from Fabrizio Monni, also of Black Capricorn, the 20-minute demo Volume 1 lives up to its implied threat. Launched with the instrumental riff-workout “At the Gates of Ishtar,” the five-tracker introduces Monni‘s vocals on the subsequent “Blood Axes,” and is all the more reminiscent of earliest High on Fire for the approach he takes, drums marauding behind a galloping verse that nonetheless finds an overarching groove. “Duhl Qarnayn” follows in straight-ahead fashion while “The Great Iskandar” settles some in tempo and opens up melodically in its second half, the vocals taking on an almost chanting quality, before switching back to finish with more thud and plunder ahead of the finale “Up the Irons,” which brings two-plus minutes of cathartic speed and demo-blast that I’d like to think was the first song Monni put together for the band if only for its metal-loving-metal charm. I don’t know that it is or isn’t, but it’s a welcome cap to this deceptively varied initial public offering.

Ascia on Bandcamp

Black Capricorn on Facebook

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Stone From the Sky, Songs From the Deepwater

France’s Stone From the Sky, as a band named after a Neurosis singularized song might, dig into heavy post-rock aplenty on Songs From the Deepwater, their fourth full-length, and they meet floating tones with stretches of more densely-hefted groove like the Pelican-style nod of “Karoshi.” Still, however satisfying the ensuing back and forth is, some of their most effective moments are in the ambient stretches, as on “The Annapurna Healer” or even the patient opening of “Godspeed” at the record’s outset, which draws the listener in across its first three minutes before unveiling its full breadth. Likewise, “City/Angst” surges and recedes and surges again, but it’s in the contemplative moments that it’s most immersive, though I won’t take away from the appeal of the impact either. The winding “49.3 Nuances de Fuzz” precedes the subdued/vocalized closer “Talweg,” which departs in form while staying consistent in atmosphere, which proves paramount to the proceedings as a whole.

Stone From the Sky on Facebook

More Fuzz Records on Bandcamp

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The Brackish, Atlas Day

Whenever you’re ready to get weird, The Brackish will meet you there. The Bristol troupe’s fourth album, Atlas Day brings six songs and 38 minutes of ungrandiose artsy exploration, veering into dreamtone noodling on “Dust Off Reaper” only after hinting in that direction on the jazzier “Pretty Ugly” previous. Sure, there’s moments of crunch, like the garage-grunge in the second half of “Pam’s Chalice” or the almost-motorik thrust that tops opener “Deliverance,” but The Brackish aren’t looking to pay homage to genre or post-thisorthat so much as to seemingly shut down their brains and see where the songs lead them. That’s a quiet but not still pastoralia on “Leftbank” and a more skronky shuffle-jazz on “Mr. Universe,” and one suspects that, if there were more songs on Atlas Day, they too would go just about wherever the hell they wanted. Not without its self-indulgent aspects by its very nature, Atlas Day succeeds by inviting the audience along its intentionally meandering course. Something something “not all who wander” something something.

The Brackish on Facebook

Halfmeltedbrain Records on Bandcamp

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Wolfnaut, III

Formerly known as Wolfgang, Elverum, Norway’s Wolfnaut offer sharp, crisp modern heavy rock with the Karl Daniel Lidén mixed/mastered III, the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Kjetil Sæter (also percussion), bassist Tor Erik Hagen and drummer Ronny “Ronster” Kristiansen readily tapping Motörhead swagger in “Raise the Dead” after establishing a clarity of structure and a penchant for chorus largesse that reminds of Norse countrymen Spidergawd on “Swing Ride” and the Scorpions-tinged “Feed Your Dragon.” They are weighted in tone but emerge clean through the slower “Race to the Bottom” and “Gesell Kid.” I’m going to presume that “Taste My Brew” is about making one’s own beer — please don’t tell me otherwise — and with the push of “Catching Thunder” ahead of the eight-minute, willfully spacious “Wolfnaut” at the end, the trio’s heavy rock traditionalism is given an edge of reach to coincide with its vitality and electrified delivery of the songs.

Wolfnaut on Facebook

Wolfnaut on Bandcamp

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Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships, Rosalee EP

Having released their debut full-length, TTBS, earlier in 2021 as their first outing, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Lincoln, Nebraska’s Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships still seem to be getting their feet under them in terms of sound and who they are as a band, but as the 34-minute-long Rosalee EP demonstrates, in terms of tone and general approach, they know what they’re looking for. After the thud and “whoa-oh” of “Core Fragment,” “Destroyer Heart” pushes a little more into aggression in its back end riffs and drumming, and the chugging, lurching motion of “URTH Anachoic” brings a fullness of distortion that the two prior songs seemed just to be hinting toward. It’s worth noting that the 16-minute title-track, which closes, is instrumental, and it may be that the band are more comfortable operating in that manner for the time being, but if there’s a confidence issue, no doubt it can be worked out on stage (circumstances permitting) or in further studio work. That is, it’s not actually a problem, even at this formative stage of the project. Quick turnaround for this second collection, but definitely welcome.

Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships on Facebook

Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships on Bandcamp

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Closet Disco Queen, Stadium Rock for Punk Bums

Their persistently irreverent spirit notwithstanding, Closet Disco Queen — at some point in the process, ever — take their work pretty seriously. That is to say, they’re not nearly as much of a goof as they’d have you believe, and on the quickie 16-minute Stadium Rock for Punk Bums, the Swiss two-piece-plus, their open creative sensibility results in surprisingly filled-out tracks that aren’t quite stadium, aren’t quite punk, definitely rock, and would probably alienate the bum crowd not willing to put the effort into actively engaging them. So the title (which, I know, is a reference to another release; calm down) may or may not fit, but from “Michel-Jacques Sonne” onward, bring switched-on heavy that’s not so much experimentalist in the fuck-around-and-find-out definition as ready to follow its own ideas to fruition, whether that’s the rush of “Pascal à la Plage” or the barely-there drone of “Lalalalala Reverb,” which immediately follows and gives way to the building-despite-itself finisher “Le Soucieux Toucan.” If these guys aren’t careful they’re gonna have to start taking themselves seriously. …Nah.

Closet Disco Queen on Facebook

Hummus Records website

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