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Album Review: Rito Verdugo, Kamikaze Boom

Posted in Reviews on August 24th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

rito verdugo kamikaze boom

Between scorched-earth boogie and classic heavy rock, just the tiniest undercurrent of sludge-punk impulse, and South American folk-prog — and that’s just on “Ritual por la Eternidad” — Rito Verdugo‘s second full-length, Kamikaze Boom, lives up to its title when it comes to intensity. Much of the eight-song/34-minute Necio Records long-player finds the Peruvian four-piece bashing away with speed and impressive control, following their four-song 2020 EP, Post-Primatus (review here), and 2018’s Cosmos long-player with a collection that’s no less about breadth than rush when taken in balance.

Songs like the opener “El Despertar,” “Apocalyptus” and the later “Viento Divino” careen around deceptively thick riffing, the middle of them head-spinning in the vein of modern prog metal, but as the title-track departs its sprint in favor of a jazzier buildup, twists and turns with purpose while helping to build the momentum that carries Rito Verdugo from one end of the outing to the other, it is brash in the doing but backed by enough chops in terms of technique to pull it off. They’re the kind of band other bands watch on stage and either hate or admit to being impressed by.

Comprised of guitarists Rodrigo Chávez (also vocals) and Alvaro Gonzales del Valle, bassist Carlos del Castillo and drummer Luis Rodríguez, they aren’t rushed so much in the execution — that is, the album doesn’t sound cheap or unconsidered — but in the tempos of the material itself, they play heavy and they play fast. Particularly coming after the EP, which was made during covid lockdown, it is a full-sounding, linear listening experience. Each song will leave individual bruises, sure, but the album is meant to be taken as a whole, front to back, as presented.

And realizing that underscores the intention behind the entire affair, which in combination with the roughness of some of the fuzz — as “El Despertar” bulls in the china shop of riff rock at the start of the record, it does so with a tonal thickness and character that wouldn’t have been out of place coming from mid-’90s C.O.C. — and while Peru and greater South America generally have a rich history of heavy and underground music scenes, doom, stoner, psych, garage and the like, Rito Verdugo seem to be going too fast to care one way or the other about where they fit stylistically. That suits the songs well too, as “Kamikaze Boom” almost can’t help take some influence from surf in its lead guitar spacing out circa three minutes — just before the break — and noodling in that break with vocals overtop like ‘here’s this peaceful moment isn’t it nice’ with only the drums foretelling the slam back to speed that’s about to take place.

rito verdugo

The title-track and others benefit widely from what comes through as a relatively open creative process, not just to weirdo sounds outside the heavy norm — there actually isn’t a lot of experimentalism as regards arrangements; guitars, bass, drums, vocals; there aren’t even keyboards — but to exploring where a given part actually wants to go, as in the galloping verse of “Ataque Shimpu,” with the falsetto vocal from Chávez like his voice is trying to dance on top of the angular progression it’s topping. Fuzzy, hooky, all-go, “Ataque Shimpu” picks up from the still-rousing but slower “Apocalyptus,” which puts the vocals forward in its first half amid dizzying turns that would make The Atomic Bitchwax proud and ends with a crash sample that might be from Contra or something else of the 8-bit era, maybe Atari rather than NES. I don’t know, but that brief split lets “Ataque Shimpu” begin its shuffle with a clear head and chorus push, fading at its conclusion into “Ritual por la Eternidad,” which is the longest inclusion at 5:36, the fifth of eight tracks, and the first time Rito Verdugo genuinely slow down on the record.

Airy notes of guitar strum out beneath an initial layered verse, the nod rising in volume behind as the open verse solidifies into the chorus — in Spanish like the rest but easier to follow when it’s slower — turning back to make a melodic highlight of the second verse before a shout marks the transition into the gallop that takes hold for the remainder of the track. It was not quite half a song, then, that the speed was set aside. It’s not much, but it’s enough to call it dynamic, especially — again — when taking on the album in its entirety. “Viento Divino” breezes in with hints of NWOBHM in its guitar intro that stretches into a nod before sprawling out echoing layers of verse lyrics, bursting, bouncing and pivoting to a degree that must have been overwhelming even in the making since they shift into a quieter midsection before the shout-topped onslaught in the second half leads to the quiet finish, which feels long on a song that’s under four minutes, but is important in what it brings to the atmosphere of Kamikaze Boom, so much emphasis otherwise placed on the explosiveness of the songs.

To wit, the penultimate “Vagabundo” answers “Viento Divino” with gusto and full fuzz, nestling into a comfortable groove that on many albums would still count as fast, and injecting a bit more fun into the proceedings ahead of the bikerism that closes with “Aplastando a las Ratas,” one last barnburner to get the point across that Rito Verdugo really hate that barn. Where “Vagabundo” had shades of cosmic acceleration commonly attributed to an influence from Slift or King Gizzard, the finale makes that charge more terrestrial, building up to its speed-at-night verse riff with classic metal poise and riding that riff headfirst (helmet on; please listen responsibly) into a section of last solo shred that caps with a sudden stop.

Because I guess when you’ve torn ass around for the last half-hour plus, maybe the big rock finish becomes superfluous. Fair enough as Rito Verdugo leave nothing unsaid or wanting by the time they’re done, letting the physicality of spirit of their work stand for itself. Which it does. And then it runs around in circles for a few minutes — purposefully, mind you — because it needs the sensory engagement. They’re not speed rock, that’s a different thing. But speed is a major asset across Kamikaze Boom, and put to riotous use.

Rito Verdugo, Kamikaze Boom (2023)

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Quarterly Review: Horisont, Ahab, Rrrags, Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, Earthbong, Rito Verdugo, Death the Leveller, Marrowfields, Dätcha Mandala, Numidia

Posted in Reviews on July 7th, 2020 by JJ Koczan

the-obelisk-qr-summer-2020

Well, I’m starting an hour later than I did yesterday, so that’s maybe not the most encouraging beginning I could think of, but screw it, I’m here, got music on, got fingers on keys, so I guess we’re underway. Yesterday was remarkably easy, even by Quarterly Review standards. I’ve been doing this long enough at this point — five-plus years — that I approach it with a reasonable amount of confidence it’ll get done barring some unforeseen disaster.

But yesterday was a breeze. What does today hold? In the words of Mrs. Wagner from fourth grade homeroom, “see me after.”

Ready, set, go.

Quarterly Review #11-20:

Horisont, Sudden Death

horisont sudden death

With a hefty dose of piano up front and keys throughout, Gothenburg traditionalist heavy rockers Horisont push retro-ism into full-on arena status. Moving past some of the sci-fi aspects of 2017’s About Time, Sudden Death comprises 13 tracks and an hour’s runtime, so rest assured, there’s room for everything, including the sax on “Into the Night,” the circa-’77 rock drama in the midsection of the eight-minute “Archeopteryx in Flight,” and the comparatively straightforward seeming bounce of “Sail On.” With cocaine-era production style, Sudden Death is beyond the earlier-’70s vintage mindset of the band’s earliest work, and songs like “Standing Here” and the penultimate proto-metaller “Reign of Madness” stake a claim on the later era, but the post-Queen melody of “Revolution” at the outset and the acoustic swing in “Free Riding” that follows set a lighthearted tone, and as always seems to be the case with Horisont, there’s nothing that comes across as more important than the songwriting.

Horisont on Thee Facebooks

Century Media website

 

Ahab, Live Prey

ahab live prey

Scourge of the seven seas that German nautically-themed funeral doomers Ahab are, Live Prey is their first live album and it finds them some five years removed from their last studio LP, The Boats of the Glen Carrig (review here). For a band who in the past has worked at a steady three-year pace, maybe it was time for something, anything to make its way to public ears. Fair enough, and in five tracks and 63 minutes, Live Prey spans all the way back to 2006’s Call of the Wretched Sea with “Ahab’s Oath” and presents all but two of that debut’s songs, beginning with the trilogy “Below the Sun,” “The Pacific” and “Old Thunder” and switching the order of “Ahab’s Oath” and “The Hunt” from how they originally appeared on the first record to end with the foreboding sounds of waves rolling accompanied by minimal keyboards. It’s massively heavy, of course — so was Call of the Wretched Sea — and whatever their reason for not including any other album’s material, at least they’ve included anything.

Ahab on Thee Facebooks

Napalm Records website

 

Rrrags, High Protein

rrrags high protein

Let’s assume the title High Protein might refer to the fact that Dutch/Belgian power trio Rrrags have ‘trimmed the fat’ from the eight songs that comprise their 33-minute sophomore LP. It’s easy enough to believe listening to a cut like “Messin'” or the subsequent “Sad Sanity,” which between the two of them are about as long as the 5:14 opener “The Fridge” just before. But while High Protein has movers and groovers galore in those tracks and the fuzzier “Sugarcube” — the tone of which might remind that guitarist Ron Van Herpen is in Astrosoniq — the stomping “Demons Dancing” and the strutter “Hellfire,” there’s live-DeepPurple-style breadth on the eight-minute “Dark is the Day” and closer “Window” bookends “The Fridge” in length while mellowing out and giving drummer/vocalist Rob Martin a rest (he’s earned it by then) while bassist Rob Zim and Van Herpen carry the finale. If thinking of it as a sleeper hit helps you get on board, so be it, but Rrrags‘ second album is of unmitigated class and straight-up killer performance. It is not one to be overlooked.

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Lay Bare Recordings website

 

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, Viscerals

pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs viscerals

There’s stoner roll and doomed crash in “New Body,” drone-laced spoken-word experimentalism in “Blood and Butter,” and post-punk angular whathaveyou as “Halloween Bolson” plays out its nine-minute stretch, but Viscerals — the third or fourth Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs album, depending on what you count — seems to be at its most satisfying in blowout freak-psych moments like opener “Reducer” and “Rubbernecker,” which follows, while the kinda-metal of “World Crust”‘s central riff stumbles willfully and teases coming apart before circling back, and “Crazy in Blood” and closer “Hell’s Teeth” are more straight-up heavy rock. It’s a fairly wide arc the UK outfit spread from one end of the record to the other — and they’re brash enough to pull it off, to be sure — but with the hype machine so fervently behind them, I have a hard time knowing whether I’m actually just left flat by the record itself or all the hyperbole-set-on-fire that’s surrounded the band for the last couple years. Viscerals gets to the heart of the matter, sure enough, but then what?

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs on Thee Facebooks

Rocket Recordings on Bandcamp

 

Earthbong, Bong Rites

Earthbong Bong Rites

Kiel, Germany’s Earthbong answer the stoner-sludge extremity of their 2018 debut, One Earth One Bong (review here), with, well, more stoner-sludge extremity. What, you thought they’d go prog? Forget it. You get three songs. Opener “Goddamn High” and “Weedcult Today” top 15 minutes each, and closer “Monk’s Blood” hits half an hour. Do the quick math yourself on that and you’ll understand just how much Earthbong have been looking forward to bashing you over the head with riffs. “Weedcult Today” is more agonizingly slow than “Goddamn High,” at least at the beginning, but it builds up and rolls into a pace that, come to think of it, is still probably slower than most, and of course “Monk’s Blood” is an epic undertaking right up to its last five minutes of noise. It could’ve been an album on its own. But seriously, if you think Earthbong give a shit, you’re way off base. This is tone, riff and weed worship and everything else is at best a secondary concern. Spend an hour at mass and see if you don’t come out converted.

Earthbong on Thee Facebooks

Earthbong on Bandcamp

 

Rito Verdugo, Post-Primatus

rito verdugo post-primatus

No doubt that at some future time shortly after the entire world has moved on from the COVID-19 pandemic, there will be a glut of releases comprised of material written during the lockdown. Peruvian four-piece Rito Verdugo are ahead of the game, then, with their Post-Primatus four-song EP. Issued digitally as the name-your-price follow-up to their also-name-your-price 2018 debut, Cosmos, it sets a 14-minute run from its shortest cut to its longest, shifting from the trippy “Misterio” into fuzz rockers “Monte Gorila” (which distills Earthless vibes to just over three minutes) and “Lo Subnormal” en route to the rawer garage psychedelia of “Inhumación,” which replaces its vocals with stretches of lead guitar that do more than just fill the spaces verses might otherwise be and instead add to the breadth of the release as a whole. Safe to assume Rito Verdugo didn’t plan on spending any amount of time this year staying home to avoid getting a plague, but at least they were able to use the time productively to give listeners a quick sample of where they’re at sound-wise coming off the first album. Whenever and however it shows up, I’ll look forward to what they do next.

Rito Verdugo on Thee Facebooks

Rito Verdugo on Bandcamp

 

Death the Leveller, II

Death the Leveller II

Signed to Cruz Del Sur Music as part of that label’s expanding foray into traditionalist doom (see also: Pale Divine, The Wizar’d, Apostle of Solitude, etc.), Dublin’s Death the Leveller present an emotionally driven four tracks on their 38-minute label debut, the counterintuitively titled II. Listed as their first full-length, it’s about the same length as their debut “EP,” 2017’s I, but more important is the comfort and patience the band shows with working in longer-form material, opener “The Hunt Eternal,” “The Golden Bough” and closer “The Crossing” making an impression at over nine minutes apiece — “The Golden Bough” tops 12 — while “So They May Face the Sun” runs a mere 7:37 and is perhaps the most unhurried of the bunch, playing out with a cinematic sweep of guitar melody and another showcase for the significant presence of frontman Denis Dowling, who’s high in the mix at times but earns that forward position with a suitably standout performance across the record’s span.

Death the Leveller on Thee Facebooks

Cruz Del Sur Music website

 

Marrowfields, Metamorphoses

marrowfields metamorphoses

It isn’t surprising to learn that the members of Fall River, Massachusetts, five-piece Marrowfields come from something of an array of underground styles, some of them pushing into more extreme terrain, because the five songs of their debut full-length, Metamorphoses, do likewise. With founding guitarist/main-songwriter Brandon Green at the helm as producer as well, there’s a suitably inward-looking feel to the material, but coinciding with its rich atmospheres are flashes of blastbeats, death metal chug, double-kick and backing growls behind the cleaner melodic vocals that keep Marrowfields distinct from entirely traditionalist doom. It is a niche into which they fit well on this first long-player, and across the five songs/52 minutes of Metamorphoses, they indeed shapeshift between genre elements in order to best serve the purposes of the material, calling to mind Argus in the progressive early stretch of centerpiece “Birth of the Liberator” while tapping Paradise Lost chug and ambience before the blasts kick in on closer “Dragged to the World Below.” Will be interesting to see which way their — or Green‘s, as it were — focus ultimately lies, but there isn’t one aesthetic nuance misused here.

Marrowfields on Thee Facebooks

Black Lion Records on Bandcamp

 

Dätcha Mandala, Hara

datcha mandala hara

Dätcha Mandala present a strong opening salvo of rockers on Hara, their second album for MRS Red Sound, before turning over to all-out tambourine-and-harp blues on “Missing Blues.” From there, they could go basically anywhere they want, and they do, leading with piano on “Morning Song,” doing wrist-cramp-chug-into-disco-hop in “Sick Machine” and meeting hand-percussion with space rocking vibes on “Moha.” They’ve already come a long way from the somewhat misleading ’70s heavy of opener “Stick it Out,” “Mother God” and “Who You Are,” but the sonic turns that continue with the harder-edged “Eht Bup,” the ’70s balladry of “Tit’s,” an unabashed bit o’ twang on “On the Road” and full-on fuzz into a noise freakout on closer “Pavot.” Just what the hell is going on with Hara? Anything Dätcha Mandala so desire, it would seem. They have the energy to back it up, but if you see them labeled as any one microgenre or another, keep in mind that inevitably that’s only part of the story and the whole thing is much weirder than they might be letting on. No complaints with that.

Dätcha Mandala on Thee Facebooks

MRS Red Sound

 

Numidia, Numidia

Numidia Numidia

If you’ve got voices in your band that can harmonize like guitarists James Draper, Shane Linfoot and Mike Zoias, I’m not entirely sure what would lead you to start your debut record with a four-minute instrumental, but one way or another, Sydney, Australia’s Numidia — completed by bassist/keyboardist Alex Raffaelli and drummer Nathan McMahon — find worthy manners in which to spend their time. Their first collection takes an exploratory approach to progressive heavy rock, seeming to feel its way through components strung together effectively while staying centered around the guitars. Yes, three of them. Psychedelia plays a strong role in later pieces “Red Hymn” and the folky “Te Waka,” but if the eponymous “Numidia” is a mission statement on the part of the five-piece, it’s one cast in a prog mentality pushed forward with poise to suit. Side A capper “A Million Martyrs” would seem to draw the different sides together, but it’s no minor task for it to do so, and there’s little sign in these songs that Numidia won’t grow more expansive as time goes on.

Numidia on Thee Facebooks

Nasoni Records website

 

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