Posted in Whathaveyou on September 13th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Reading, UK, heavy rockers Morass of Molasses released End All We Know (review here) earlier this year through Ripple Music and with it not only reaffirmed the trio as rock songwriters, but saw them expand their sound as well into psychedelic and progressive styles. Their third LP, the band — baritone guitarist/vocalist Bones Huse, bassist Phil Williams and drummer Raj Puni — took to the road for 11 dates in the UK this past Spring to support, and next month, they have three sets of weekender gigs booked to mark their 10th anniversary as a group.
Morass of Molasses signed to Ripple last year following the success of 2019’s The Ties That Bind (review here), and they returned to Desertfest London for the 2023 edition this past May, having played there previously in 2018. Their 2017 debut, These Paths We Tread, arrived after 2015’s So Flows Our Fate EP, and all the while — a couple years in there notwithstanding — they’ve kept a steady pace of live work, and they’re obviously set to keep that up. I don’t know what’s in the works for next year yet, but they’re a staple of the UK’s various heavyfests, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them listed on a few more bills as we head toward the New Year. A band driven by passion keeps going. It’s like the fourth law of motion.
Congrats to Morass of Molasses on 10 years. Nothing to sneeze at, especially in an underground as crowded as England’s. The band posted the following on their socials:
MORASS OF MOLASSES – **AUTUMN TOUR ANNOUNCEMENT**
A little over 10 years ago, three hairy blokes got together, and started making some pretty filthy riffs. One EP, and three albums later, we are still going strong, and continue to enjoy sharing our music with everyone. There have been ups and downs along the way, but ultimately we still love what we do, and want to keep pushing ourselves to create.
This short Autumn Tour honours that sentiment, and in a way is a commitment to keep on writing songs that both challenge us as musicians, and those who choose to come along for the ride.
Expect new material, but the same zest for Life we always have on stage. Come join us.
13/10 Fiddler’s Elbow London 20/10 The Facebar Reading 21/10 The Gryphon Bristol 22/10 The Deco Portsmouth 27/10 Ivory Blacks Glasgow 28/10 Percy’s Whitchurch 29/10 Duffy’s Leicester
Morass of Molasses: Vocals/Baritone – Bones Huse Lead Guitar – Phil Williams Drums/Vocals/Percussion – Raj Puni
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 12th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Well, to be honest, I was kind of thinking of Forming the Void‘s slot on this year’s Ripplefest Texas, which is next weekend in Austin, as proof-of-life for the band’s continued existence. So that the Lafayette, Louisiana-based progressive heavy rockers pulled out of that is somehow fitting. They had played in 2021 as well, which put them closer to the May 2020 release of their fourth album, Reverie (review here), though right around the turn of the decade time gets all wonky in my head. Can’t imagine why.
And while we’re alluding to the pandemic, I’ll count Forming the Void among the acts who got decisively screwed by covid. Where they’d been doing regular touring and increasing their fanbase, productively putting out full-lengths all the while — 2015’s Skyward (discussed here, review here), 2017’s Relic (review here) and 2018’s Rift (review here) before Reverie — to a steady stream of praise. If this is genuinely the end of the band, they get to say they went out doing their best work, which isn’t a claim everyone can make, and while I’m sorry Reverie apparently won’t get a follow-up, it felt like a culmination of their creative progression when it came out and now it will serve as just that.
They say it’s not how they wanted to go out. It’s not how I would’ve wanted them to go out either. At least a goodbye show. But sometimes you don’t have the ability to do something like that, especially with travel involved as there would’ve been for their TX trip, and I don’t think Forming the Void owe anybody anything, even if it feels like they had farther to go on the path they had carved out for themselves.
I got to see them a couple times, which was something I very much didn’t regret even before they posted the end of the band, and wish them the best as they move on either to other bands, or not, whatever the case may be. Thanks for all the nod and expanse.
From the band:
Well, folks, it’s not how we had hoped things would go, but the balance of life and time constraints has led us to make the difficult decision to embark on an indefinite hiatus.
We want to express our gratitude to everyone that has supported the band over the years. We had some really great times making music and are thankful for those who enjoyed it.
Regrettably, this means we will not be able to play RippleFest in Austin this year. Though we were hoping to make it happen, it doesn’t appear to be in the cards.
[Click play above to stream Fire Down Below’s Low Desert Surf Club in its entirety. Album is out tomorrow, Sept. 8, on Ripple Music.]
Immediate cowbell. On a song called “Cocaine Hippo,” no less. If you’re looking for a way to convey energy, movement, motivation for the listener to get of their ass, that’s a fitting way to go, and indeed how Ghent, Belgium’s Fire Down Below lead off their third album, with an intro that communes directly with Queens of the Stone Age‘s “Millionaire” and a hook that backs it with a rhythmic push that would make Fu Manchu smile. Along with that cowbell, then, is the immediacy of communion with California desert/heavy rock, and particularly that of the 1990s and the turn of the century, circa 2000-’03.
Comprised of guitarists Kevin Gernaey (lead) and Jeroen Van Troyen (also vocals), bassist Bert Wynsberghe and drummer Sam Nuytens, the band offer nine songs across 57 minutes of material, and even that feels like a reference to the CD era, and it’s nearly 15 minutes longer than was 2018’s Hymn of the Cosmic Man (review here), much of which can be accounted for in the 16:06 closer “Mantra.”
That’s the longest song the band have ever made — though both Hymn of the Cosmic Man and their 2017 debut, Viper Vixen Goddess Saint, passed 11 minutes in their respective finales — and in seven-minute cuts “Surf Queen” and the catchy-as-all-get-out “Here Comes the Flood,” and the six-minute heavy psych lean of “Hazy Snake” with some Elderian shimmer in its lead guitar that feels well placed since Nick DiSalvo (guitar/vocals in Elder, Delving, drums in Weite, etc.) produced with engineering by Richard Behrens (he’s the guy in Berlin; front-of-house for Kadavar, was in Samsara Blues Experiment, has recorded tons of bands, on and on), they explore outer reaches around the perimeter of the straightforward heavy rock and roll of songs like “Cocaine Hippo,” “California” and “Airwolf” in the initial salvo or “Dune Buggy” and “The Last Cowboy, which are positioned to offset the longer pieces.
All of this — the titular delve into surf for the first half of “Surf Queen” before it gets into a more open, jammier stretch and circles back to the hook, the pure desert worship and escapism of “California,” the ecological impossibility of lines like “Surfing through the desert, I ride a wave/There’s a lady dressed in white who knows my name” in “Cocaine Hippo,” and so on — results in a full-length of marked flow and varied sounds built around its central, heavily-fuzzed ideology. Most of all it feels like a celebration.
One that feels well earned, given the five years between Hymn of the Cosmic Man and Low Desert Surf Club. And if these songs are something of a breakout moment for Fire Down Below, a realization of who they are as a group and the things they want to honor in their music, then that’s the manifestation of a heart-on-sleeve approach they’ve had all along. Heavy rock by heavy rockers; Fire Down Below sound like fans of the style they’re playing.
The low-rolling post-Kyussism of “Airwolf” and the similarly sourced shove of “The Last Cowboy” in the penultimate spot — crucial there for regrounding from “Hazy Snake” and ending on a gentle fade in its solo ahead of the sprawling “Mantra” — and the fact that the centerpiece is the sand-boogie of “Dune Buggy,” named for vehicle that might cruise through the desert à la Truckfighters and serves as a getaway car here, makes forehead-slapping sense considering the return of the cowbell, the drive of the chorus and that last charge that pays off its mini-build. On a level of fans communicating their love for this specific thing to its specific community, the dogwhistles and references abound and converts will find themselves smiling in recognition as the funky swing in the first movement of “Mantra” unfolds with its Brant Bjork hat on, so much go-go-go throughout resolved inevitably, correctly, at an unshakable altar of cool.
If “Surf Queen” ends side A of the 2LP and “The Last Cowboy” wraps side B, and side D is etched, that leaves “Mantra” hanging alone on side C. Will listeners to the vinyl swap platters for one song, even one as substantial as that? Does anyone actually listen to vinyl other than to take pictures for social media? I don’t know. Depends on the listener, obviously, but “Mantra” earns its standalone place, feeling at least partially improvised around its central riff in the early going, digging into mellower Kyuss circa …And the Circus Leaves Town in its wavy-guitar structured midsection before the swinging, hot-shit strut verse riff kicks in and the festival set begins the trek to its peak.
At about 8:30, the vocals depart and the band smoothly — so, so smoothly; gracefully — begin to sidestep into another mostly-instrumental stretch, still holding some of the early funk and classic style, but seeming to inhale before they dive into Low Desert Surf Club‘s actual finish. I don’t know the process through which “Mantra” was made, whether it was different parts recorded and assembled after the fact, jammed-out live in the studio, or what, but I enjoy how little it seems to matter to the actual listening experience, which fulfills the immersion that “Here Comes the Flood” teased and is atmospheric without hyperintellectualizing aesthetic and thus undercutting the passion fueling it. It’s a win, is what I’m saying.
And its ending, for which the vocals briefly return, hits its mark and calms down, highlighting the intimacy between Fire Down Below and their subject matter. This is not desert rock by happenstance; it’s desert rock as a lifestyle. It’s tattooed desert rock. And I guess there are still people who think desert rock has to come from a desert. Okay. Does everyone who plays death metal have to die? Regardless of the absurdity of that position, Low Desert Surf Club basks in its all-in nature as regards genre, and a good portion of the character of the album comes from the obvious love and passion with which it was made. Also the riffs. And the songs. And the tone. And and and…
As they make ready for an apparent threepeat appearance at Ripplefest Texas next month, having also played in 2021 and 2022, San Antonio’s Thunder Horse are at about six weeks’ remove from the release of their third album, After the Fall (review here). My understanding is the weeks after release are something of a comedown for bands. You’ve put everything into making this work the best you can, from writing and arranging to recording, artwork, singles, videos, social media labor, on and on and on. Then it’s out, and release week is a big ‘hooray!’ leading to Friday’s release — in Thunder Horse‘s case, it was July 21 — and then the next week the fickle internet is on to that Friday’s thing and you’re suddenly in the position of trying to chase down distracted ears. Kind of sounds like a bummer, even with a fest to look forward to.
But as After the Fall demonstrated, Thunder Horse have no trouble translating downerism into heavy, semi-aggro vibes, and the band present a lyric video for side B opener “Apocalypse,” in which they do that very thing. Some of the lyrics lean toward right wing conspiracy theories — there’s a line about eating children, which it seems absurd to say but is a Republican talking point about Democrats being cannibalistic devil worshipers, and the lyrical perspective is christian — but I don’t know the political positions either of the band or anyone in it, so I won’t speculate whether it’s professing an ideology or critiquing a particularly ridiculous example of why America should pay teachers more.
I wouldn’t bring up the politics, if only because it’s so fucking exhausting and exhausted a subject, but, well, it’s a lyric video, and so one might consider the lyrics relevant to it. In any case, it’s kind of funny how the left and right in the US both think the world is ending, blame each other for it, and then change nothing. You’d almost swear the entire thing was rigged to make sure the same five people stay rich and the rest of humanity hates each other for no reason until we die and our kids learn in school that capitalism is the natural order like no animals ever teamed up. A pack of wolves awaits with counterpoint.
Whatever the band’s individual and collective politics may be, I’ll risk actual honesty and tell you it doesn’t matt, and talking about it either way will do nothing to upset the trajectory that both sides and those in between seem to think the country is on. But what caught me about After the Fall was the organic interpretation of rhythms born out of guitarist/vocalist StephenBishop‘s time in Pitbull Daycare, riffs that otherwise might be electronica turned to densely distorted guitar. It’s an interesting blend, and after you check out the video below, the other two they’ve done from the record are down near the bottom of the post, along with the album stream. Plenty to dig into if your interest is piqued.
PR wire info follows “Apocalypse” right here. Please enjoy:
Thunder Horse, “Apocalypse” lyric video
Texas-based doom metal foursome THUNDER HORSE release their brand new “Apocalypse” video today. The song is taken from their third studio album “After The Fall”, out now on Ripple Music.
Texas-based THUNDER HORSE has a genre that is hard to pin down, but there are definitely influences of doom, psych, occult, and a smattering of classic rock and NWOBHM. Their third studio album and second Ripple Music release “After The Fall” cements the band’s reputation of delivering titan-sized songs in the form of a refined formula: doomier, sharper, but also stronger. Finding the perfect balance between their timeless and masterful southern-baked heavy metal and a strongly emotion-driven purpose, “After The Fall” unwaveringly stands as THUNDER HORSE’s turning point and should drag more and more heavy music lovers in their path in their fierce conquest of the underground doom scene. Watch their latest videos “New Normal” and “After The Fall”!
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 29th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Life takes you strange places. I’m reporting live from a bench at what I grew up calling Hershey Park — it’s now known as “Hersheypark,” if current signage is to be believed — in not-much-else-here Hershey, Pennsylvania. My wife and kid are and have been for long enough for me to set up the entire back end of this post, maybe 25 minutes or so, waiting on line for a rollercoaster called The Comet. Park opened at 11 and is slammed.
We’re here, my little family unit, because it’s the end of summer. The Patient Mrs. starts a new semester teaching this week, The Pecan goes to school for full-day kindergarten Sept. 5, so this is pretty much it for summer. Why we’re here instead of something not two and a half hours from where we live is because about 25 minutes from here, at 2PM, we’re meeting with a dog breeder to see about maybe buying a three-month-old puppy. It’s a shichon, small, doesn’t shed much or make a lot of noise. A non-dog, by some standards. Fine. If it doesn’t immediately bite my kid, we’ll probably get it. This has emotional baggage for me — shocking, I know — but it’s time to get this kid a dog, so even if it’s not this one, we’ll keep looking.
What does any of this have to do with Ripplefest Germany 2023 announcing lineups for Cologne — Köln in German — and Berlin?
Just about nothing, actually, but it’s why I’m distracted from giving you the usual spiel: “here’s a cool fest I’ll never get to see but maybe you will and we can both daydream so here you go,” so at least that’s a connection. And please don’t take my inability to focus as somehow detracting from the work Max Röbel has done in assembling lineups both representative and forward thinking from Ripple and -adjacent acts. If you need more proof of his noble mission to shake heavy rock genre norms, go check out the new Plainride. Also, good for Crystal Spiders doing a bit of travel.
These reportedly are not the only acts that will be announced for these events, but it’s a start. Here’s what the PR wire has to say about it:
RIPPLEFEST GERMANY announces first names for 2023 edition in Berlin and Cologne this fall; tickets on sale now!
The international RIPPLEFEST festival series, organized by renowned California independent label Ripple Music, returns to Germany this fall with two unmissable events! Ripplefest Berlin and Ripplefest Cologne promise a musical experience of the highest caliber for fans of Stoner, Doom, and Heavy Psychedelic Rock.
Ripple Music, a label known for its specialization in heavy rock sounds, aims to promote emerging talents from the international heavy rock underground and bring together fans and bands from all over the globe. Dubbing their own festival series “Ripplefest”, the record label has been organizing showcase events for years, in cities such as Austin, San Francisco, London, Nantes, Stockholm, Cologne and Berlin.
The organizer of both Ripplefests is Max Röbel, frontman of Cologne’s heavy rock band Plainride and Head of A&R Europe for Ripple Music. About curating the festival, he says: “Creating a platform for music beyond the mainstream and being able to showcase it with such international lineups is a matter dear to my heart. These festivals are meant to be both a meeting place and a stepping stone for our acts, which is why I am particularly excited that with Kabbalah, Crystal Spiders, and Daevar, we once more have three bands with exceptionally strong frontwomen, on this year’s lineup.”
❱ MOTHER’S CAKE (DE) Stoner rock ❱ KABBALAH (SP) Occult rock ❱ FIRE DOWN BELOW (BE) Stoner rock ❱ CRYSTAL SPIDERS (USA) Doom rock ❱ APPALOOZA (FR) Heavy tribal rock ❱ CANNABINEROS (DE) Stoner rock ❱ DAEVAR (DE) Stoner doom
[Click play above to stream the premiere of Moon Coven’s Sun King. It’s out Friday, Aug. 25, on Ripple Music.]
Swedish four-piece Moon Coven return with their fourth full-length, Sun King, collecting nine songs and 46 minutes of material that continues the band’s progression into the niche between niches. Their third album, 2021’s Slumber Wood (review here), brought them to Ripple Music after their 2016 self-titled (review here) came out on Transubstans, and found them solidifying their approach between classic heavy grooves and psychedelic or jammy impulses. Sun King isn’t a complete departure from this method, but in the fuzzy tone of “Wicked Words in Gold They Wrote” and “Behold the Serpent,” or the centerpiece “Below the Black Grow” with its plotted guitar leads later on, “Guilded Apple” coming across with a rock that seems just to want to skate and is way more San Diego than Malmö, and the closer “The Lost Color” feedbacking into its heavy garage thrust, Moon Coven — David Regn Leban (guitar/vocals, also cover art, production, mix), Axel Ganhammar (guitar), Pontus Ekberg (bass) and Fredrik Dahlqvist (drums), plus Joona Hassinen, who mastered — put their focus on songwriting and let the rest shake out as it will.
In the case of the sunny cultism of “Seeing Stone,” that shake is palpable, Moon Coven coming off the Fu Manchu-style riffery and blown-out Fuzz-in-the-woods vocals of “Wicked Words in Gold They Wrote” with a more straight-ahead shove in one of Sun King‘s standout hooks and a cut that, along with side B’s “The Yawning Wild” at 4:24, is one of the shorter inclusions at 4:32, sounding like potential Euro tour partners for their labelmates in Sun Voyager as they careen and crash and ion-drive their way through good-time cosmism and heavy vibes for heavy times. And I don’t know if Leban is looking for production clients, but with as full and dense and professional (for what it is) as Sun King sounds, he’s going to have them lining up soon enough if he doesn’t already.
Yeah, the bridge from Black Sabbath‘s “Children of the Grave” is recognizable after the midpoint in “Wicked Words in Gold They Wrote” and something about the swing and holding-on-by-a-thread looseness of the penultimate interlude “Death Shine Light on Life,” maybe the lead guitar tone, brings to mind All Them Witches, but beyond these and other superficial comparison points — a riff here reminding of another riff there, and so on — Moon Coven‘s purposes are more intricate than they’ve ever been. The quiet opening of “Behold the Serpent” and the doomly unfolding of its crash-laced nod riff sprawling out give over to a march of a verse with a deceptively complex melody in its low-end fuzz complementing the vocals, a second voice layer kicking in for the chorus/title-line before they shift back to the verse.
These structures are traditional, and stylistically at least, one might call Moon Coven traditional as well, but while they’re obviously schooled on the aesthetic foundations from which they’re operating, at this point they’re also coming on a decade’s remove from their first LP, 2014’s Amanita Kingdom, and that they’d be mature in terms of craft as they are shouldn’t be a surprise. Part of why it is one is because they still sound like a young band.
To listen to “Sun King,” the song itself, its fuzzy cosmic biker boogie is executed with suitable, palpable live energy — which it needs; credit again to Leban as producer as well as player — and it moves into and through its bass-and-drums-hold-the-rhythm-while-the-guitars-line-up-for-slow-Thin-Lizzy-style-soloing, the magic of the two guitars working together highlighted briefly before a sudden and righteous return of the chorus. It is not impatient, nor wanting urgency, and its last lyric, “The turning of the tide if coming/Let’s behead the king,” feels like it’s speaking to real-world concerns through metaphor — though actually Louis XIV of France, aka the Sun King, died of gangrene — in a way that is neither overbearing in stating the obvious message that economic disparity is a bad thing, nor shying away from making the comment at all.
Like a lot of what Moon Coven do, it is a question of finding the place on the balance from which one might manipulate multiple sides. A bassy highlight in its early going, “Below the Black Grow” has a languid fuzzy rollout in its verses and a solo section answering back to the title-track in how it winds into the chorus and makes its way through to finish with a return of that easygoing-feeling fuzz, almost Brant Bjorkian for its just-right tempo and abidingly cool vibe. “Guilded Apple” tucks a dream-shimmer solo away in its second half as its ending, but its six minutes are more defined by thrust and the smoothness of the shuffle happening amid the momentum carrying Moon Coven into “The Yawning Wild,” which is all about the fuzz and the winding lead that cuts through it. They have the riff, they know they have the riff, you know they have the riff, so here it is. And when you have that kind of riff, you don’t need anything else. That they realized it is further evidence to support their maturity, but it’s not really in argument.
Feedback caps “The Yawning Wild,” as one would hope, and the instrumental “Death Shine Light on Life” picks up with a subtle push thanks largely to the drums, which assure that the spacey guitar that might just otherwise lie down and relax a while keeps moving toward “The Lost Color.” The finale echoes some of the Californian twist of “Wicked Words in Gold They Wrote” or “Seeing Stone,” but has its own gritted-out intention before its solo closes like “Guilded Apple” earlier on; an ending that one might call understated if not for the song in question. “The Lost Color” certainly has a crescendo, but its payoff is for itself rather than the whole of Sun King, and maybe that’s a fitting representation of the record too, since it’s the songs that have led the way all along.
An accomplished creative process wrought with discernible care, attention and a mind toward continued growth, Moon Coven‘s Sun King signals that the four-piece have no interest in settling into easy categorization or resting on past laurels. It is an immersive but not numbing listening experience, and moves with sneaky grace derived from the band’s collective persona. Perhaps most of all, it rocks, and maybe that’s enough to ask of it.
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 15th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
You would not accuse The Obsessed of skipping out on doing the work. The classic doomers and progenitors of Maryland doom — if you have The Obsessed and Pentagram, you’re off to a good start — will embark on their second European tour of 2023 next month, doing a stint that covers ground from Athens to Helsinki, diverting to the UK on the way and anchoring weekends with festivals like Up in Smoke, Demons Gate, and Keep it Low before wrapping at Desertfest Belgium in Antwerp. I’ve been waiting for a release announcement for their next album basically since seeing them in June at Freak Valley Festival in Germany (review here), and am sure it’ll show up on the PR wire probably five minutes after this goes live. Murphy’s law of doomblogging.
They’ve got dates with Eyehategod, which between Wino and Jimmy Bower is a meeting between two of the foremost US riffers of their generation — a feast of tone and disillusionment. Dates follow here, and when I get word of that record, I’ll post accordingly. Till then:
THE OBSESSED – European Tour 2023: Part Two
New countries and a run with our brothers EYEHATEGOD
28.09.2023 GER – Mannheim, 7er Club 29.09.2023 CH – Pratteln, Z7, UP IN SMOKE Festival 2023 30.09.2023 GR – Athens, Kyttaro Live Club, Demons Gate Festival 2023 01.10.2023 GR – Athens, Wino acoustic 03.10.2023 UK – London, The Underworld 04.10.2023 UK – Manchester, Rebellion 05.10.2023 UK – Bristol, The Fleece 07.10.2023 GER – Munich, Backstage, KEEP IT LOW Festival 2023 * with EYEHATEGOD 08.10.2023 GER – Berlin, SO36, * with EYEHATEGOD 09.10.2023 GER – Essen, Turock * with EYEHATEGOD 11.10.2023 SWE – Linköpping, The Crypt * with EYEHATEGOD 12.10.2023 SWE – Stockholm, Slaktkyrkan * with EYEHATEGOD 14.10.2023 FIN – Helsinki, Kuudes Linja (1st show) * with EYEHATEGOD 15.10.2023 FIN – Helsinki, Kuudes Linja (2nd show) * with EYEHATEGOD 16.10.2023 EST – Tallin, venue tba. 18.10.2023 PL – Warszawa, Hydrozagadka 19.10.2023 PL – Kraków, Zaścianek 21.10.2023 GER – Siegen, Vortex 22.10.2023 B – Antwerp, Trix, Desertfest 2023 * with EYEHATEGOD
Poster by Bill Kole
THE OBSESSED line-up: Chris Angleberger – bass and vocals Jason Taylor – guitar and vocals Brian Costantino – drums Scott “Wino” Weinrich – guitar and vocals
Posted in Reviews on August 9th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
It’s not that expectations weren’t high for Close Encounters. By virtue of their lineup’s pedigree, Kind‘s output has been anticipated since before their first release, and their two albums to-date, 2015’s Rocket Science (review here) and 2020’s Mental Nudge (review here), set and lived up to a high standard for craft and melody, gleefully, mischievously kicking ass all the while since first getting together a decade ago.
I won’t take away from either of the first two records. They’re both some of the most essential heavy rock that’s come out of Boston, Massachusetts, in the last eight years. Rocket Science showed that the chemical formula resulting from the combined elements of vocalist/synthesist Craig Riggs (also drums in Sasquatch, Roadsaw frontman, etc.), guitarist/synthesist Darryl Shepard (so many bands and more all the time; he’s also a brilliant conceptualist standup comedian), bassist Tom Corino of newer-school sludge metallers Rozamov, and drummer Matt Couto (ex-Elder, also Aural Hallucinations) could function as a group rather than just players culled from elsewhere, and Mental Nudge reaffirmed it.
Where Close Encounters — because it’s the thirdKind record; get it? — goes further is in extending a sense of progression to the individual sound of Kind. That is, with these nine songs and 48 minutes, Kind and returning producer Alec Rodriguez (who recorded at Mad Oak in Spring 2022 and also mixed) refine the identity of Kind as their own band, identifiable in their melodicism, psych-leaning groove and tonality, and not even through opener “Burn Scar” (premiered here) before they’re trying new ideas, crushing in tone and spacious in breadth, vocals delivered in layers as they draw the listener deeper into the album’s unfolding.
The pattern continues through rolling highlight cut “Favorite One,” which joins closer “Pacino” as the only other inclusion on Close Encounters to hit seven minutes. That’s a shift in approach from Mental Nudge, which worked back and forth between longer and shorter tracks, but the band want nothing for flow either way. “Favorite One” finds Riggs delving into a fairly spot on Jerry Cantrell-circa-Facelift-style hook, backed by the synchronicity of Couto‘s snare and the punch of Corino‘s bass, and a drifting vocal melody after Shepard‘s solo that reminds of Snail, but is recontextualized to suit Kind‘s purposes of structured exploration.
The point of “Black Yesterday” seems to be to capture a sense of vastness, as evidenced by the reverb soaking the midsection before it hands off to Shepard for a particularly fuzzed lead section, but it’s also the last part of a three-song opening salvo that builds up the momentum that will carry Kind through the remining six pieces. “Snag” is a big help in that regard, with a stripped-back runtime — at 3:58, it is one of three Kind pieces to clock in under four minutes; the still-to-come “Power Grab” is the shortest song they’ve written at 2:56 — and a chorus that stands up well to being leaned on as it is, heavy and atmospheric, with the vocals seeming to sort of surf the riff as the band move into the crescendo hook and subsequent ending section, some ‘additional percussion’ credited to Riggs marking the change.
‘Just a rock song’ — in quotes because I’m someone whose life has been changed and in many ways shaped by rock songs — on paper, “Snag” is given space, character and dimension through the guitar and bass tones, the mix, and the echo treatment on the drums and vocals. This is emblematic of Kind‘s approach generally, but captured with particular efficiency and accessibility. They follow it with the centerpiece, named “Massive” presumably in honor of Corino‘s bassline, and swinging with a thickened strut that is at once classic heavy rock and a stylistic signature from Couto. Marked by vital nod, “Massive” sits well between “Snag” and “Power Grab,” both of which are faster and the latter of which is Close Encounters‘ most fervent push.
I’m not sure where the vinyl sides split, but if either “Massive” (seems more likely timing-wise) or “Power Grab” starts side B, then fair enough as it leads into the last section of the record, which begins explosive as “Of the Ages” bursts to life from its standalone-riffed intro. Quick into the verse, quick into the chorus, it follows suit from “Snag” and even “Massive” in terms of structural traditionalism, and so does “What It Is to Be Free,” but each has its own persona, with “Of the Ages” seeing itself out with a multi-stage solo atop its swaying lumber, and “What It Is to Be Free” finding an especially brash groove and a guitar melody in its intro that meets bombast with due swagger. It is not the sort of tune Kind would or maybe could have written together in 2015, but they sure make it sound easy now (and for all I know the song was written in 2015).
“Pacino” rounds out with what seems to be shimmy in surplus — no complaints — and a tension resulting that’s balanced through complementary twists led by Shepard on guitar and a stretch in the second half of more forward push. The key word is ‘push,’ though. Shepard takes a lead before Riggs returns with a last verse and chorus, and as it comes apart, “Pacino” spends not quite its full last minute in a lightbath of melodic psych drone carved out of residual comedown noise. Where much of Close Encounters up to that point has been about movement between parts, the flow within and between songs, and expansion on Kind‘s prior modus of craft and performance, “Pacino” dwells more in that boogie, riding the central chug for the vast majority of the proceedings and wrapping the album so that still kinetic in nature, but changed in shape and underlying makeup.
And while it’s a sidestep from some of the other material, it is consistent in both sound and atmosphere and well within their style, so not awkward or out of place. It’s like the rest of Close Encounters: the work of a band who have built their identity from the ground up, who know who they are, and who are working actively to evolve their processes and sound. I said when it was announced that Close Encounters is the best offering from Kind. It is. It weaves smoothly through complex changes and is soothing even at its heaviest, accomplishing a rare malleability of stylistic balance. More than anything though, it is Kind, and it broadens the scope of what that means.
