Posted in Whathaveyou on January 23rd, 2025 by JJ Koczan
As they did around their appearance last year at Roadburn Festival (review here) in the Netherlands, the somewhat-reunited alldoomers Khanate have announced a couple — literally two — shows taking place on either side of their slot at Prepare the Ground in Toronto, which looks pretty sweet either way. It’s Chicago and New York for the other locales. One is the home city, the other the next-biggest metropolitan center that doesn’t require flying to the West Coast to play.
So, three shows, one fest. You could not accuse them of favoring one market over the other, I guess, but whatever wherever, the fact of the matter is that when you see Khanate, first of all they should have counselors on hand for after, and second, it’s a thing you might never see again. A band people will travel for, and rightly so.
Of course, Khanate are still ostensibly supporting their surprise 2013 return, To Be Cruel (review here), but really it’s probably safer to say they’ll be out heralding the endtimes through which we’re living, giving cathartic voice to the harshest and darkest aspects of our hateful selves. You know, being Khanate.
This came from the PR wire:
Khanate Announce First U.S. Tour Dates Since 2005
Khanate play their first North American shows in 20 years this spring, with a trio of rare live dates, including headlining performances in Chicago and New York, as well as a featured spot at the Prepare The Ground festival in Toronto.
Khanate tour dates:
May 30 Chicago, IL Thalia Hall (Jon Mueller opens) June 1 Toronto, ON Prepare The Ground June 3 New York, NY (Le) Poisson Rouge (Mick Barr opens)
Tickets are on-sale this Friday, Jan. 24, at 10 am CT/11 am ET via this link: https://bnds.us/lcb8ux.
Posted in Reviews on December 11th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Wow. This is a pretty good day. I mean, I knew that coming into it — I’m the one slating the reviews — but looking up there at the names in the header, that’s a pretty killer assemblage. Maybe I’m making it easy for myself and loading up the QR with stuff I like and want to write about. Fine. Sometimes I need to remind myself that’s the point of this project in the first place.
Hope you’re having an awesome week. I am.
Quarterly Review #21-30
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Thou, Umbilical
Even knowing that the creation of a sense of overwhelm is on purpose and is part of the artistry of what Thou do, Thou are overwhelming. The stated purpose behind Umbilical is an embrace of their collective inner hardcore kid. Fine. Slow down hardcore and you pretty much get sludge metal one way or the other and Thou‘s take on it is undeniably vicious and has a character that is its own. Songs like “I Feel Nothing When You Cry” and “The Promise” envision dark futures from a bleak present, and the poetry from which the lyrics get their shape is as despondent and cynical as one could ever ask, waiting to be dug into and interpreted by the listener. Let’s be honest. I have always had a hard time buying into the hype on Thou. I’ve seen them live and enjoyed it and you can’t hear them on record and say they aren’t good at what they do, but their kind of extremity isn’t what I’m reaching for most days when I’m trying to not be in the exact hopeless mindset the band are aiming for. Umbilical isn’t the record to change my mind and it doesn’t need to be. It’s precisely what it’s going for. Caustic.
The fourth full-length from Boston’s Cortez sets a tone with opener “Gimme Danger (On My Stereo)” (premiered here) for straight-ahead, tightly-composed, uptempo heavy rock, and sure enough that would put Thieves and Charlatans — recorded by Benny Grotto at Mad Oak Studios — in line with Cortez‘s work to-date. What unfolds from the seven-minute “Leaders of Nobody” onward is a statement of expanded boundaries in what Cortez‘s sound can encompass. The organ-laced jamitude of “Levels” or the doom rock largesse of “Liminal Spaces” that doesn’t clash with the prior swing of “Stove Up” mostly because the band know how to write songs; across eight songs and 51 minutes, the five-piece of vocalist Matt Harrington, guitarists Scott O’Dowd and Alasdair Swan, bassist Jay Furlo and sitting-in drummer Alexei Rodriguez (plus a couple other guests from Boston’s heavy underground) reaffirm their level of craft, unite disparate material through performance and present a more varied and progressive take than they’ve ever had. They’re past 25 years at this point and still growing in sound. They may be underrated forever, but that’s a special band.
Writing a catchy song is not easy. Writing a song so catchy it’s still catchy even though you don’t speak the language is the provenance of the likes of Uffe Lorenzen. The founding frontman of in-the-ether-for-now Copenhagen heavy/garage psych pioneers Baby Woodrose digs into more straightforward fare on the second full-length from his new trio Lydsyn, putting a long-established Stooges influence to good use in “Hejremanden” after establishing at the outset that “Musik Er Nummer 1” (‘music is number one’) and before the subsequent slowdown into harmony blues with “UFO.” “Nørrebro” has what would seem to be intentional cool-neighborhood strut, and those seeking more of a garage-type energy might find it in “Du Vil Have Mere” or “Opråb” earlier on, and closer “Den Døde By” has a scorch that feels loyal to Baby Woodrose‘s style of psych, but whatever ties there are to Lorenzen‘s contributions over the last 20-plus years, Lydsyn stand out for the resultant quality of songwriting and for having their own dynamic building on Lorenzen‘s solo work and post-Baby Woodrose arc.
The popular wisdom has had it for a few years now that retroism is out. Hearing Baltimorean power trio Magick Potion vibe their way into swaying ’70s-style heavy blues on “Empress,” smoothly avoiding the trap of sounding like Graveyard and spacing out more over the dramatic first two minutes of “Wizard” and the proto-doomly rhythmic jabs that follow. Guitarist/vocalist/organist Dresden Boulden, bassist/vocalist Triston Grove and drummer Jason Geezus Kendall capture a sound that’s as fresh as it is familiar, and while there’s no question that the aesthetic behind the big-swing “Never Change” and the drawling, sunshine-stoned “Pagan” is rooted in the ’68-’74 “comedown era” — as their label, RidingEasy Records has put it in the past — classic heavy rock has become a genre unto itself over the last 25-plus years, and Magick Potion present a strong, next-generation take on the style that’s brash without being willfully ridiculous and that has the chops to back up its sonic callouts. The potential for growth is significant, as it would be with any band starting out with as much chemistry as they have, but don’t take that as a backhanded way of saying the self-titled is somehow lacking. To be sure, they nail it.
Oase is the second full-length from Berlin’s Weite behind 2023’s Assemblage (review here), also on Stickman, and it’s their first with keyboardist Fabien deMenou in the lineup with bassist Ingwer Boysen (Delving), guitarists Michael Risberg (Delving, Elder) and Ben Lubin (Lawns), and drummer Nick DiSalvo (Delving, Elder), and it unfurls across as pointedly atmospheric 53 minutes, honed from classic progressive rock but by the time they get to “(einschlafphase)” expanded into a cosmic, almost new age drone. Longer pieces like “Roter Traum” (10:55), “Eigengrau” (12:41) or even the opening “Versteinert” (9:36) offer impact as well as mood, maybe even a little boogie, “Woodbury Hollow” is more pastoral but no less affecting. The same goes for “Time Will Paint Another Picture,” which seems to emphasize modernity in the clarity of its production even amid vintage influences. Capping with the journey-to-freakout “The Slow Wave,” Oase pushes the scope of Weite‘s sound farther out while hitting harder than their first record, adding to the arrangements, and embracing new ideas. Unless you have a moral aversion to prog for some reason, there’s no angle from which this one doesn’t make itself a must-hear.
Big on tone and melody in a way that feels inspired by the modern sphere of heavy — thinking that Hum record, Elephant Tree, Magnetic Eye-type stuff — Florida’s Orbiter set forth across vast reaches in Distorted Folklore, a song like “Lightning Miles” growing more expansive even as it follows a stoner-bouncing drum pattern. Layering is a big factor, but it doesn’t feel like trickery or the band trying to sound like anything or anyone in particular so much as they’re trying to serve their songs — Jonathan Nunez (ex-Torche, etc.) produced; plenty of room in the mix for however big Orbiter want to get — as they shift from the rush that typified stretches of their 2019 debut, Southern Failures, to a generally more lumbering approach. The slowdown suits them here, though fast or slow, the procession of their work is as much about breadth as impact. Whatever direction they take as they move into their second decade, that foundation is crucial.
As regards genre: “dark arts?” Taking into account the 44 minutes of Vlimmer‘s fourth LP, which is post-industrial as much as it’s post-punk, with plenty of goth, some metal, some doom, some dance music, and so on factored in, there’s not a lot else that might encompass the divergent intentions of “Endpuzzle” or “Überrennen” as the Berlin solo-project of Alexander Donat harnesses ethereal urbanity in the brooding-till-it-bursts “Sinkopf” or the manic pulses under the vocal longing of closer “Fadenverlust.” To Donat‘s credit, from the depth of the setup given by longest/opening track (immediate points) “2025” to the goth-coated keyboard throb in “Mondläufer,” Bodenhex never goes anywhere it isn’t meant to go, and unto the finest details of its mix and arrangements, Vlimmer‘s work exudes expressive purpose. It is a record that has been hammered out over a period of time to be what it is, and that has lost none of the immediacy that likely birthed it in that process.
Indianapolis four-piece Moon Goons cut an immediately individual impression on their third album, Lady of Many Faces. The album, which often presents itself as a chaotic mash of ideas, is in fact not that thing. The band is well in control, just able and/or wanting to do more with their sound than most. They are also mindfully, pointedly weird. If you ever believed space rock could have been invented in an alternate reality 1990s and run through filters of lysergism and Devin Townsend-style progressive metal, you might take the time now to book the tattoo of the cover of Lady of Many Faces you’re about to want. Shenanigans abound in the eight songs, if I haven’t made that clear, and even the nod of “Doom Tomb Giant” feels like a freakout given the treatment put on by Moon Goons, but the thing about the album is that as frenetic as the four-piece of lead vocalist/guitarist Corey Standifer, keyboardist/vocalist Brooke Rice, bassist Devin Kearns and drummer Jacob Kozlowski get on their way to the doped epic finisher title-track, the danger of it coming apart is a well constructed, skillfully executed illusion. And what a show it is.
Although it opens up with some element of foreboding by transposing the progression of AC/DC‘s “Hells Bells” onto its own purposes in heavy Canadiana rock, and it gets a bit shouty/sludgy in the lyrical crescendo of “What a Dummy,” which seems to be about getting pulled over on a DUI, or the later “The Castle of White Lake,” much of Familiars‘ Easy Does It lives up to its name. Far from inactive, the band are never in any particular rush, and while a piece like “Golden Season,” with its singer-songwriter vocal, acoustic guitar and backing string sounds, carries a sense of melancholy — certainly more than the mellow groover swing and highlight bass lumber of “Gustin Grove,” say — the band never lay it on so thick as to disrupt their own momentum more than they want to. Working as a five-piece with pedal steel, piano and other keys alongside the core guitar, bass and drums, Easy Does It finds a balance of accessibility and deeper-engaging fare combined with twists of the unexpected.
Progressive stoner psych rockers The Fërtility Cült unveil their fifth album, A Song of Anger, awash in otherworldly soul music vibes, sax and fuzz and roll in conjunction with carefully arranged harmonies and melodic and rhythmic turns. There’s a lot of heavy prog around — I don’t even know how many times I’ve used the word today and frankly I’m scared to check — and admittedly part of that is how open that designation can feel, but The Fërtility Cült seem to take an especially fervent delight in their slow, molten, flowing chicanery on “The Duel” and elsewhere, and the abiding sense is that part of it is a joke, but part of everything is a joke and also the universe is out there and we should go are you ready? A Song of Anger is billed as a prequel, and perhaps “The Curse of the Atreides” gives some thematic hint as well, but whether you’ve been with them all along or this is the first you’ve heard, the 12-minute closing title-track is its own world. If you think you’re ready — and good on you for that — the dive is waiting for your immersion.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 10th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Okay. I mean, when Roadburn announced Khanate, it was billed as exclusive, but two additional shows in Copenhagen and Berlin isn’t exactly a six-week tour, so whatever. More live Khanate means more corrupted souls. Fair enough. [EDIT: It was the first show that Roadburn has, not exclusive. My mistake. — ed.]
The earth-spoiling extreme drone-sludge outfit darkened skies earlier this year with their first album in more than a decade, To Be Cruel (review here), thereby pissing over every bought-at-Target t-shirt with a saccharine positive message on it — “Good vibes all the time!” and so on — with a sort of hatefulness that can only be called signature, and their return to the stage is an organic outgrowth from that. I don’t think I’ll be at Roadburn — you may (not) be shocked to know festivals aren’t lining up to fly my irrelevant ass out to various locales — but I haven’t seen Khanate in a long, long time and if my psyche could handle it I think it might do me some good. Like electro shock treatment, but in reverse where it makes you more miserable. And that’s definitely something I need. Not enough feeling-bad-for-myself around here lately.
Come on, Khanate. Let’s go be wretched today:
KHANATE ANNOUNCE LIVE SHOWS IN COPENHAGEN AND BERLIN IN APRIL 2024
SHARE LIVE FOOTAGE
PHYSICAL REISSUES OF KHANATE AND THINGS VIRAL ARRIVE 1ST DECEMBER VIA SACRED BONES RECORDS.
On the heels of their first confirmed performance in nearly two decades, as part of Roadburn 2024, Khanate have announced two additional shows; Copenhagen on April 22nd at Basement and Berlin on April 23rd at Berghain, giving fans further unique opportunities to experience the band live. Tickets for all shows can be purchased here https://khanateofficial.com/liveaktions.
Alongside this announcement, Khanate shares a compilation of live footage, with clips taken from the Dead & Live Aktions DVD released in 2005.
Reissues of Khanate (2001) and Things Viral (2003) come via Sacred Bones on 1st December. Pre-orders for Khanate can be found here https://lnk.to/KhanateST and Things Viral https://lnk.to/ThingsViral here. Capture & Release and Clean Hands Go Foul reissues are forthcoming.
Ah, a Quarterly Review Wednesday. Always a special occasion. Monday starts out with a daunting look at the task ahead. Tuesday is all digging in and just not trying to repeat myself too much. Wednesday, traditionally, is where we hit the halfway point. The top of the hill.
Not the case this time since I’ll have 10 records each written up next Monday and Tuesday, but crossing the midpoint of this week alone feels like an accomplishment and you’ll pardon me if I mark it as such. If you’re wondering how the rest of the week will go, tomorrow is all-business and Friday’s usually a party one way or the other. My head gets so in it by the middle of next week I’ll be surprised not to be doing this anymore. So it goes.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
Khanate, To Be Cruel
Who among mortals could hope to capture the horrors of Khanate in simple words? The once-New York-based avant sludge ultragroup end a 14-year hiatus with To Be Cruel, a fourth album, comprising three songs running between 19-21 minutes each that breed superlative hatefulness. At once overwhelming and minimalist, with opener “Like a Poisoned Dog” placing the listener in a homemade basement dungeon with the sharp, disaffection-incarnate bark of Alan Dubin (also Gnaw) cutting through the weighted slog in the guitar of Stephen O’Malley (also SunnO))), et al), the bass of James Plotkin (more than one can count, and he probably also mastered your band’s record) and the noise free-jazz drumming of Tim Wyskida (Blind Idiot God, etc.), they retain the disturbing brilliance last heard from in 2009’s Clean Hands Go Foul (discussed here) and are no less caustic for the intervening years. “It Wants to Fly” is expansive and wretched death poetry set to drone doom, a ritual made of its own misery, and the concluding title-track goes quiet in its midsection as though to let every wrenching anguish have its own space in the song. There is no one like them, though many have tried to convey some of what apparently only Khanate can. As our plague-infested, world-burning, war-making, fear-driven species plunges further into this terrible century, Khanate is the soundtrack we earn. We are all complicit. All guilty.
Though plenty atmospheric besides, Vancouver heavy fuzz rockers Space Queen add atmosphere to their nine-song/26-minute Nebula EP through a series of four interludes: the a capella three-part harmonies of “Deluge,” the acoustic-strummed “Veil” and “Sun Interlude,” and the finishing manipulated space-command sample in “End Transmission” after the richly melodic doom rock of “Transmission/Lost Causemonaut.” That penultimate inclusion is the longest at 6:14 and tells a story in a way that feels informed by the three-piece of drummer/vocalist Karli MacIntosh, guitarist/vocalist Jenna Earle and bassist/keyboardist/vocalist Seah Maister‘s past in the folk outfit Sound of the Sun, but transposes its melodic sensibility into a heavier context. It and the prior garage-psych highlight “When it Gets Light” — a lighter initial electric strum that arrives in willful-seeming contrast to “Darkest Part” immediately preceding — depart from the more straight-ahead push of opener “Battle Cry” and the guitar-screamer “Demon Queen” separated from it by the first interlude. Where those two come across as working with Alice in Chains as a defining influence — something the folk elements don’t necessarily argue against — the Nebula EP grows broader as it moves through its brief course, and flows throughout with its veering into and out of songs and short pieces. This is Space Queen‘s second EP, and if they’re interested in making a full-length next, they sound ready.
Fasano, Italy’s King Potenaz debut on Argonauta Records with Goat Rider, which conjures raw fuzz, garage-doom atmospherics, and vocals that edge toward aggression and classic cave metal, early Venom or Celtic Frost having a role to play even alongside the transposition of Kyuss riffing taking place in the title-track, which follows “Among Ruins” and “Pyramids Planet,” both of which featured on the trio’s 2022 Demo 6:66, and which set a tone of riff-led revelry here with a sound that reminds of turn-of-the-century era stoner explorations, but grows richer as it moves into “Pazuzu (3:33)” — it’s actually 5:18 — with guest vocals from Sabilla and the quiet three-minute instrumental “Cosmic Voyager” planet-caravanning into the 51-minute album’s second half, where “Moriendoom (La Ballata di Ippolita Oderisi)” and the even doomier “Monolithic” dig into cultish vibes and set up the bleak shuffle of nine-minute closer “Dancing Plague,” departing from its central ’90s-heavy riff into a mellow-psych movement and then returning from that outward stretch to end. Even at its most familiar, Goat Rider finds some way to harness an individual edge, cleverly using the mix itself as an instrument to create the space in which the songs dwell. It may take a few listens to sink in, but there’s real potential in what they’re doing.
With the release of their third album, New World Hoarder, German art-sludgers Treedeon celebrate their first decade as a band. The combined vinyl-with-CD follows 2018’s Under the Manchineel (review here) and proffers raw cosmic doom in “Omega Time Bomb,” crossing the 10-minute line for the first time after the particularly-agonized opener “Nutcrème Superspreader” and before the title-track’s nodding riff brings bassist Yvonne Ducksworth to the fore vocally, trading off with guitarist Arne Heesch as drummer Andy Schünemann crashes cyclically behind. “New World Hoarder” gives over to side B opener “Viking Meditation Song,” which rolls like an evil-er version of Goatsnake, and “RHV1,” on which Heesch and Ducksworth share vocal duties, as they also do in 12-minute closer “Läderlappen” — a shouting duet in the first half feels long in arriving, but that’s how you know the album works — as the band cap with more massive chug following an interplay of melody and throatier fare. They’re right to ride that groove, as they’re right about so much else on the record. Like much of what Exile on Mainstream puts out, Treedeon are stylistically intricate and underrated in kind.
There are a couple different angles of approach one might take in hearing Orsak:Oslo‘s In Irons full-length. The Norway/Sweden-based instrumental troupe have been heretofore lumped in with heavy post-rock and ambient soundscaping, which is fair enough, but what they actually unveil in “068 The Swell” (premiered here), is a calming interpretation of space rock. With experimentalism on display in its late atmospheric drone comedown, “068 The Swell” moves directly into the more physical “079 Dutchman’s Wake (Part I),” the languid boogie feeling modern in presentation and classic in construction and the chemistry between the members of the band. The drums sit out much of the first half of “069 In What Way Are You Different,” giving a sense of stillness to the drone there, but the song embraces a bigger feel toward its finish, and that sets up the feedback intro to “078 The Mute (Part II),” which veers dreamily between amplifier drone and complementary melodic guitar flourish. Taking 17 minutes to do it, they close with “074 Hadal Blue,” which more broadly applies the space-chill of “068 The Swell” and emphasizes flow and organic changes from one part to the next. Immersive, it would be one to get lost in if it weren’t so satisfying to pay attention.
Fuck. Yes. As much grind as sludge as electronics-infused hardcore as it is furious, unadulterated noise, the 12-song/50-minute onslaught that is Boss Blades arrives via Modern Grievance at the behest of Jon Weisnewski, also of Sandrider, formerly of Akimbo. If Weisnewski‘s name alone and the fact that Matt Bayles mixed the self-recorded debut LP aren’t enough to pull you into the tornado of violence and maddening brood that opener “Boss Blades” uses to open — extra force provided by one of two guest vocal spots from Dave Verellen of Botch; the other is on “Lasers in the Jungle” later on — then perhaps the seven-minute semi-industrial march of “Obsolete Food” or the bruising intensity of “Poorly Made Pots” or the minute and a half of sample-topped drone psych in “Guitart,” the extreme prog metal of “Eat Meth” or “Manifest Piss Tape” will do the trick, or the nine-minute near-centerpiece “Many Knives” (which, if there’s a Genghis Tron influence here generally — and there might be — is more the last record than the older stuff) with its slow keyboard unfolding as a backdrop for Dust Moth‘s Irene Barber to make her own guest appearance, plenty of post-everything cacophony mounting by the end, grandiose and consuming. I could go on — every track is a new way to die — but suffice it to say that this is what my brain sounds like when my kid and my wife are talking to me about different things at the same time and it feels like my skull is on fire and I have an aneurysm and keel over. Good wins.
Sometimes harsh but always free, 2022’s Chapter 4 from Croatian instrumentalist double-guitar five-piece Mycena — guitarists Marin Mitić and Pavle Bojanić, bassist Karlo Cmrk, drummer Igor Vidaković and synthesist/noisemaker Aleksandar Vrhovec — brings three tracks that are distinct unto themselves but listed as part of the same entirety, dubbed “Dissolution” and divided into “Dissolution Part 1” (17:49), “Dissolution Part 2” (3:03), and “Dissolution Part 3” (18:11), and it may well be that what’s being dissolved is the notion that rock and roll must be confined to verse/chorus structuring. Invariably, Earthless are a comparison point for longform instrumental heavy anything, and given the shred in “Dissolution Part 1” around five minutes deep and the torrent rockblast in the first half of “Dissolution Part 3” before it melts to near-silence and quietly noodles its way through its somehow-dub-informed last 11 or so minutes, building in presence but not actually blowing up to full volume as it caps. While totaling a manageable 39 minutes, Chapter 4 is a journey nonetheless, with a scope that comes through even in “Dissolution Part 2,” which may just be an interlude but still carries a steady rhythm that seems to reorient the band ahead of their diving into the extended final part, the band sounding natural in making changes that would undo acts with less chemistry.
Filthy tone. Just absolutely nasty. Atlanta’s Bog Monkey tracked Hollow, their self-released debut LP, with Jay Matheson at The Jam Room in South Carolina, and if they ever go anywhere else to try to capture their sound I’d have to ask why. With seven cuts totaling 33 minutes play-time and fuzz-sludge blowouts a-plenty in “Facemint,” the blastbeaten “Blister” and the heads-down largesse-minded shove-off-the-cliff that is “Slither” at a whopping 2:48, Hollow transposes Conan-style shouted vocals on brash, thickened heavy, the bass in “Tunnel” and forward-charging leadoff “Crow” with its thrash-riffing hook is the source of the heft, but it’s not alone. Spacious thanks to echoes on the vocals, Hollow crushes just the same, and as the trio plunder toward the eight-minute “Soma” at the end, growing intense quickly out of a calmer intro jam and slamming their message home circa 3:40 with crashes that break to bass and guitar noise to establish the nod around which the ending will be based, all you can really do is look forward to the bludgeoning to come and be glad when it arrives. Don’t be fooled by their generic name, or the silly stoner rock art (which I’m not knocking; it being silly is part of the point). Bog Monkey bring together different styles in a way that’s thoughtful and make songs that sound like they just rose out of the water to fucking obliterate you. So go on. Be obliterated.
Punkish in its choruses like the title-track or opener “Sports,” the four-song Dead Nature EP from South Africa’s The Man Motels is the latest in a string of short releases and singles going back to their 2018 full-length, Quit Looking at Me!, and they temper the urgency of their speediest parts with grunge-style melody and instrumental twists. Bass and drums at the base of “Young Father” set up the sub-three-minute closer as purely punk, but sure enough the guitar kicks in coming out of the verse and one can hear the Nirvana effect before it drops out again. Whether it’s a common older-school hardcore influence, I don’t know, but “Sports” and “Young Father” remind of a rawer Fu Manchu with their focus on structure, but “The Fever” is heavier indie rock and culminates in a tonally satisfying apex before cutting back to the main riff that’s led the way for… oh, about three minutes or so. All told, The Man Motels are done in 15 minutes, but they pack a fair amount into that time and they named the release after its catchiest installment, so there. Maybe not the kind of thing I’d always reach for in my own listening habits, but I’m not about to rag on a band for being good at what they do or showcasing their material with the kind of energy The Man Motels put into Dead Nature.
With a couple short(er) outings to their credit, Bayonne, New Jersey, three-piece Pyre Fyre present seven songs in the 18 minutes of their self-titled, which just might be enough to make it a full-length. Hear me out. They start raw with “Hypnotize,” more of a song than an intro, punkish and the shortest piece at 1:22. From there, the Melvins meet Earthride on “Flood Zone” and the range of shenanigans is unveiled. Produced by drummer/noisemaker Mike Montemarano, with Dylan Wheeler on guitar, Dan Kirwan on bass and vocals from all three in its hithers and yons, it is a barebones sound across the board, but Pyre Fyre give a sense of digging in despite that, with the echo-laced “Wyld Ryde” doled out like garage thrash, while “Dungeon Duster/Ice Storm” sounds like it was recorded in two different sessions and maybe it was and screw you if that matters, “Don’t Drink the Water” hits the brakes and dooms out with stoner-drawl vocals later, “Arachnophobia” dips into a darker, somehow more metal, mood, and the fuzzy “Cordyceps” ends with swagger and noise alike in just under two and a half minutes. All of this is done without pretense, without the band pausing to celebrate themselves or what they just accomplished. They get in, kick ass, get out again. You don’t want to call it an album? Fine. I respectfully disagree, but we can still be friends. What, you thought because it was the internet I was going to tell you to screw off? Come on now.
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 19th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
I’m not sure there was ever a band who could make silence so agonizing. An unexpected return from Khanate, whose legacy among the most caustic of drone-doom acts does little to capture the misanthropic, curdled-blood poetry of their actual sound, brings three new tracks and an hour of distraught hermit gruel in the form of To Be Cruel, on Sacred Bones Records.
The songs sound like Khanate, which is both a general warning to humanity and the highest compliment I can think of to give them. Funny how it’s been since 2009 and their original configuration is only more a supergroup, with drummer Tim Wyskida having served in Blind Idiot God, in addition to vocalist Alan Dubin having formed Gnaw since Khanate’s dissolution after 2009’s Clean Hands Go Foul, guitarist Stephen O’Malley in Sunn O))), bassist James Plotkin mastering everybody’s everything, and so on. But as you take it on — and good luck with that — you should know this is not some haphazard assemblage or ‘comeback’ event, it’s Khanate, with all the scathe and skin-peeling that designation implies.
Streaming in full now and available on CD from Sacred Bones. Vinyl to follow. Here’s Bandcamp info and player, plus the announcement from the label:
We have been biting our tongue for months in anticipation of today’s mammoth announce: Khanate, the experimental doom outfit featuring members of Sunn O))), OLD, and Blind Idiot God, have returned after a self-imposed, fourteen year hiatus. The band surprise released their fifth album, To Be Cruel, overnight, with the 3-track, 60 minute album available to stream now! You can also pre-order the album on various physical formats including the Sacred Bones mail-order exclusive metallic bronze vinyl, while supplies last. The album comes out physically on June 30th, pre-order here!
The highly influential KHANATE (Alan Dubin, Stephen O’Malley, James Plotkin & Tim Wyskida) dimmed the lights fifteen years ago. Now it turns out those muted years were but a foreboding prelude to an abrupt awakening – the era of TO BE CRUEL. Three songs newly shining light on distinct, destitute, clinging terrors. Khanate’s slow dimensions have been amplified horrifically. Personal grievances have become generational vendettas.
Music composed & produced by Khanate
Lyrics by Alan Dubin
Tracklisting: 1. Like a Poisoned Dog 19:20 2. It Wants to Fly 21:43 3. To Be Cruel 20:09
Guitar & drums recorded at Orgone Studios, Woburn, UK by Jaime Gomez Arellano assisted by Christian Jameson.
Bass, vocals & percussion recorded at Thousand Caves Studio, Queens, NY by Colin Marston.
Synthesis recorded at Plotkinworks by James Plotkin.
Mixed at Circular Ruin Studio, Brooklyn, NY by Randall Dunn, James Plotkin & Stephen O’Malley.
Mastered at West Side Music, Cornwall on Hudson, NY by Alan Douches & James Plotkin.
Art direction by Stephen O’Malley
Painted film stills by Karl Lemieux
Portrait photography by Ebru Yildiz
Khanate: Alan Dubin (Vocals) Stephen O’Malley (Guitar, feedback) James Plotkin (Bass guitar, synthesis) Tim Wyskida (Drums, percussion)
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 1st, 2021 by JJ Koczan
A new Boris record with Wata taking lead vocals on all the songs? Well that should go over pretty well with the universe. Boris follow-up last year’s self-issued No (discussed here) by aligning with Sacred Bones Records for what’s simply been called W, though whether that’s because of Wata — and if so, are A and T soon to follow? — or if they’ll get distracted by a thing and go off and be brilliant in some other completely different direction is anyone’s best guess. But good for the perpetually-on-their-own-wavelength Japanese post-universe trio on picking up where they left off before continuing to do whatever the hell they want. It’ll still be a century or two before humanity has caught up to them, but one assumes by then we’ll have some AI specializing in WTF to help us mortals with the task.
Oh, and preorders are up. And a video. So there.
Sacred Bones Records sent word down the PR wire:
New Boris album W up for pre-order!
Huge announcement today: The legendary experimental band Boris, one of the heaviest bands ever to come out of Japan, has joined the Sacred Bones family! In their nearly three decades together, Boris has infused doom, hardcore, thrash, noise-core, ambient, free improv, drone, psychedelia, and more into their extensive discography and have earned legions of zealous fans along the way. We feel honored to be working with them and are excited to announce their forthcoming record W with an incredible video for the standout track “Drowning by Numbers.”
In an effort to sublimate the negative energy surrounding everyone in 2020, legendary Japanese heavy rock band Boris focused all of their energy creatively and turned out the most extreme album of their long and widely celebrated career, “NO.” The band self-released the album, desiring to get it out as quickly as possible but intentionally called the final track on the album “Interlude” while planning its follow-up.
The follow-up comes with “W”, the band’s debut album for Sacred Bones Records. The record opens with the same melody as “Interlude” in a piece titled “I want to go to the side where you can touch…” and in contrast to the extreme sounds found on “NO”, this new album whispers into the listener’s ear with a trembling hazy sound meant to awaken sensation.
On all of “W” Wata carries the lead vocal duties. In general the styles on the album range from noise to new age, as is typical with one of our generation’s most dynamic and adventurous bands, but there is a thread of melodic deliberation through each song that successfully accomplishes the band’s goal of eliciting deep sensation. Be it through epic sludgey riffs, angelic vocal reverberations or the seduction of their off-kilter percussion, Boris will have you fully under their spell. This languid and liquifying sound is perfectly represented in the beautiful Kotao Tomozawa cover art and in suGar yoshinaga’s sound production.
“NO” and “W” weave together to form NOW, a duo of releases that respond to one another. In following their hardest album with this sensuous thundering masterpiece they are creating a continuous circle of harshness and healing, one that seems more relevant now than ever and shows the band operating at an apex of their musical career.
Posted in Reviews on December 28th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
New week, same Quarterly Review. Today is the next-to-last round for this time, though once again, I look at the folders of albums on my desktop and the CDs and LPs that have come in and I realize it could easily go longer. I never really caught up from the last QR. I guess it’s been that kind of year. In any case, more good stuff today, so sit tight and enjoy. If you didn’t find anything last week that stuck out to you, maybe today’s your day.
Quarterly Review #51-60:
Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou, May Our Chambers Be Full
Sure, there’s poise and plunder amid torrents of emotion and weighted tonality, but what’s really astonishing about May Our Chambers Be Full, the first collaboration between Louisville’s Emma Ruth Rundle (Red Sparowes‘ third LP, the Nocturnes, Marriages, etc.) and New Orleans’ sludgers Thou is that it feels so much more substantial than its 36 minutes. That’s not to say it drags, though it does when it wants to in terms of tempo, but just that its impact both in songs where Rundle and Thou‘s Bryan Funck trade off like “Ancestral Recall” or when they come together as on opener “Killing Floor” is such that it feels longer. Atmosphere is certainly a factor, but May Our Chambers Be Full is so striking because of its blend of extremity and melody, emotion and sheer catharsis, and the breadth that seems to accompany its consuming crush. In a couple years, there are going to be an awful lot of bands putting out debut albums that sound very much like this. Follow-up EP out soon.
Produced by the band and Piotr Grzegorowski — who also guests on synth and guitar — during the plague-addled Spring of 2020, Spaceslug‘s Leftovers EP represents a branching out in terms of style to incorporate a sense of melancholy alongside their established sprawling psychedelics. The 21-minute five-tracker is less a follow-up to 2019’s Reign of the Orion (review here) than a standalone sidestep, but in the acoustic/synth rollout of “From Behind the Glass” and in the especially-stripped-down-feeling centerpiece “The Birds are Loudest in May” it lives up to the challenge of blending an organic atmosphere with the otherworldly sensibilities Spaceslug have honed so well throughout their tenure. Having started with its longest and synthiest track in “Wasted Illusion,” Leftovers caps with the shorter and more active “Place to Turn” and its title-track, which adds a spindly layer of electric guitar (or something that sounds like it) for an experimentalist vibe. Very 2020, but no less welcome for that. The question is whether these impulses show up in Spaceslug‘s work from here on out, and if so, how.
Malmö-based four-piece Malsten make their full-length debut on Interstellar Smoke Records with the four-song/44-minute The Haunting of Silvåkra Mill, and in so doing show an immediate command of post-Pallbearer spaciousness and melodic-doom traditionalism. Their lumber is prevalent and engrossing tonally on opener “Torsion” (10:36), uses silence effectively on “Immolation” (10:24), and seems to find a place between Warning and Lord Vicar on “Grinder” (9:02) ahead of the epic-on-top-of-epics summary in closer “Compunction” (13:54), which finds Malsten having reserved another level of heavy to keep as their final statement. So be it. Very heavy and worthy of as much volume as you can give it, The Haunting of Silvåkra Mill is an accomplished beginning and heralds significant potential on the part of what’s to come from Malsten. I’d watch this band do a live stream playing this record front-to-back. Just saying.
A significant undertaking of progressive heavy and noise rock, Sun Crow‘s Quest for Oblivion is among the most ambitious debut albums I’ve heard in 2020, but there’s nothing it sets for itself in terms of goals that it doesn’t accomplish, as vocalist Charles Wilson flips between clean melodies and effective screams atop the riffs of guitarist Ben Nechanicky, the bass of Brian Steel and Keith Hastreiter‘s drums. Somebody’s gonna sign these guys. Even at 70 minutes, Quest for Oblivion, from its post-apocalyptic standpoint, aesthetic cohesion, fluid songcraft and accomplished performance, is simply too good to leave without a proper 2LP release. Individualized in atmosphere though working with familiar-enough elements, it is an album that makes it joyously difficult to pick apart influences, unleashing an initial burst of four longer tracks before giving way (albeit momentarily) to “Fear” and the outlying, brazenly Motörheady “Nothing Behind” before returning to cosmic heavy in “Hypersonic” and the 11-minute “Titans,” which uses its time just as well as everything else that surrounds. Ironic that a record that seems to be about a wasteland should bring so much hope for the future.
It doesn’t take Honeybadger long to land their first effective punch on their debut LP, Pleasure Delayer, as the hook of opener/longest track (immediate points) “The Wolf” hits square on the jaw and precedes an atmospheric guitar outro that leads into the rest of the album as a closer might otherwise lead the way out. A product of Athens’ heavy rock boom, the four-piece distinguish themselves in fuzzy tones and an approach that comes right to the edge of burl and doesn’t quite tip over, thankfully and gracefully staving off chestbeating in favor of quality songcraft on “The Well” and the engagingly bass-led “Crazy Ride,” from which the initially slower, bluesier “Good for Nothing” picks up with some Truckfighters, some 1000mods and a whole lot of fun. Side B’s hooks are no less satisfyingly straightforward. “That Feel” feels born for the stage, while “Laura Palmer” makes a memorable chorus out of that Twin Peaks character’s slaying, the penultimate “Holler” feels indeed like the work of a band trying to stand themselves out from a crowded pack and “Truth in the Lie” caps mirroring the energy of “Good for Nothing” but resounding in a cold finish. Efficient, hooky, smoothly executed. There’s nothing one might reasonably ask of Pleasure Delayer that it doesn’t deliver.
Released name-your-price as a benefit for the venue The Lost Well in Monte Luna‘s hometown of Austin and derived from a CvltNation-sponsored livestream, the three-song Mind Control Broadcast follows 2019’s Drowners’ Wives (review here) and is intended as a glimpse at their impending third LP, likely due in 2021. That record will be one to look forward to, but it’ll be hard to trade out the raw bludgeon of “Blackstar” — the leadoff here — for another, maybe-not-live-recorded version. True, the setting doesn’t necessarily allow for the band to bring in guests like they did last time around or to flesh out melodies in the same way, but the sound is brash and thrilling and lets “Rust Goliath” live up to its name in largesse, while saving its nastiest for last in “Fear the Sun,” the glorious bassline of which it feels like a spoiler even mentioning for someone who hasn’t heard it yet. 22 of the sludgiest minutes you’re likely to spend today.
As satisfying as the laid-back-heavy desert rock flow of “Rolito” is, and as well done as what surrounds on Hombrehumano‘s 2019 debut album, Crepuscular, turns out to be in its 53-minute run, it’s in the longer pieces like the Western “Puerto Gris” or the post-Brant Bjork “Metamorfosis” that they really shine. That’s not to take away from the opening instrumental “Nomada” that establishes the tones and sets the atmosphere in which the rest of the record takes place, or the nod of “Primaveras de Olvido,” and certainly the fuzz-boogie and percussion of “Ouroboro” shine in a manner worthy of being depicted on the cover, but the Argentinian four-piece do well with the extra time to flesh out their material. But, either way you go, you go. Hombrehumano craft sweet fuzz and spaciousness on “Puerto Gris” and answer it back later in “Zombakice” and add twists of percussion and acoustics and vocal effects — never mind the birdsong — on closer “Del Ensueño.” Es un ejemplo más de lo que le falta a la cultura gringo al no adorar fuertemente a los sudamericanos.
Even my non-Spanish-speaking ass can translate Viva el Diablo, the title of Mexican instrumentalist three-piece Veljet‘s debut album. Initially released by the band in March 2020, it was subsequently reissued for physical pressing with a seventh track, “Leviatan,” added, bringing the runtime to a vinyl-ready 37 minutes. The apparently-devil-worshiping title-cut is still the longest at a doomly eight minutes, but though the production is fairly raw, Veljet‘s material taps into a few different impulses within the heavy rock sphere, offsetting willfully repetitive riffing in “El Día de las Manos” with scorching solo work while “Jay Adams” — presumably named in homage to the Dogtown skater — pulls some trad-metal riffing into its second half. “Cutlass” is short at 2:36, but makes the record as a whole feel less predictable for that, and the add-on “Leviatan” embodies its great sea beast with a nod up front that opens to later cacophony. The vibe throughout is you’re-in-the-room live jams, and Veljet have well enough chemistry to carry the songs across in that setting.
Smoothly produced and executed, not lacking energy but produced for a very studio-style fullness, Witchrider‘s second LP arrives via Fuzzorama Records in answer to 2014’s Unmountable Stairs with a pro-shop feel for its 50-minute duration. Songs are sharply hooked and energetic, beefing up Queens of the Stone Age-style desert rock early on “Shadows” and “You Lied” before the guitars introduce a broader palette with the title-track. The chorus of “Mess Creator” and the big finish in closer “The Weatherman” are highlights, but songs like “Keep Me out of It” and “Come Back” feel built for a commercial infrastructure that — at least in radio-free America — doesn’t exist anymore. I’m not sure what it takes to attract the attention of picky algorithms, but if it’s grounded songwriting, varied material and crisp performance like it was when there was a cable channel playing music videos, then Witchrider are ready to roll. As it stands, the Austrian outfit seem underserved by the inability to even get on a festival stage and play this material live to win converts in that manner. They’re hardly alone in that, but with material that seems so poised specifically toward audience engagement, it comes through all the more, which of course is a testament to the quality of the work itself.
Opening with its longest track (immediate points) in the 10-minute “Silver Dagger” and presented with the burning red eyes of Christopher Lee’s Dracula on the front, the 33-minute 3 tape from Seattle’s Devil Worshipper maintains the weirdo-experimental spirit of the outfit’s 2015 self-titled debut (review here), finding a kind of Butthole Surfers-into-a-cassette-recorder, anything-goes-until-it-sucks, dark ’90s psychedelia they call “garage metal.” Fair enough. Apparently more efficient than anything I can come up with for it, though what doesn’t necessarily account for is the way the 3 challenges the listener, the remastered versions of “Into Radiation Wave” and “Chem Rails” from the first album, or the horror atmospherics of “Drinking Blood.” It’s like it’s too weird for this planet so it finally made one for itself. Well earned.
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 21st, 2020 by JJ Koczan
Hard to hold back the anticipatory eye-roll for all the hyperbolic praise the heavy literati is bound to heap upon a collaboration between Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou, but I actually took the four minutes to listen to “Ancestral Recall” and the bridge between Rundle‘s melodic vocals and the harsh bite of Thou‘s screams works well together. These two collaborated on stage at Roadburn, so an LP together isn’t such a huge surprise, but I’ve no doubt that May Our Chambers Be Full — preorders up now through Sacred Bones — is going to be the kind of offering people swear by for some time to come.
You can hear the track at the bottom of this post, or probably anywhere in your social media feed. Or at least in mine. Hype or no, it’s worth hearing, even if only to say you heard it.
Dig:
THOU ANNOUNCE COLLABORATIVE ALBUM WITH EMMA RUTH RUNDLE: MAY OUR CHAMBERS BE FULL OUT OCTOBER 30TH ON SACRED BONES
LEAD SINGLE “ANCESTRAL RECALL”
Today, Thou have announced their collaborative album with Emma Ruth Rundle (appearing courtesy of Sargent House), May Our Chambers Be Full which sees its release October 30 via Sacred Bones. Its monolithic lead single, “Ancestral Recall” exemplifies the spirit of the collaboration. “It’s an easy marriage of our styles that was truly enhanced by everyone’s input during the arrangement process.” Thou’s guitarist Andy Gibbs explains. “When I first wrote the main two riffs (the first one being an homage to A Perfect Circle’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’), I didn’t know if it would fit with the vibe we were pursuing because it didn’t sound “Thou-y” enough nor did it sound like something Emma would normally put on a record. Ultimately, I realised how important that trait is; this record is all about exploring territory we wouldn’t usually explore with our own records.”
Emma adds, “Andy originally wrote the riffs and I believe I referred to it as the ‘Guitar Hero’ jam — it was hard for me to keep up and I felt like I was doing an obstacle course (in the best way). Because of the differences in our guitar tunings, it was difficult for me to match the rest exactly and I ended up coming with a single note passage to play over the most difficult section. For me this was a good example of the collaboration and that I was able to express my style despite my limitations in a way that added to Andy’s riff. Working with him on guitars was a challenge, but most rewarding, and I feel proud of our child.”
While their solo material seems on its face to be quite disparate, both prolific groups have spent their lauded careers lurking at the outer boundaries of heavy scenes, each having more in common with DIY punk and its spiritual successor, grunge. The debut straddles a similar, very fine line both musically and thematically. While Emma’s standard fare is a blend of post-rock-infused folk music, and Thou is typically known for its downtuned, doomy sludge, the conjoining of the two artists has created a record more in the vein of the early ’90s Seattle sound and later ’90s episodes of Alternative Nation, while still retaining much of the artists’ core identities.
Lyrically, May Our Chambers Be Full is a marriage of mental trauma, existential crises, and the ecstatic tradition of the expressionist dance movement. “Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps.” Melodic, melancholic, heavy, visceral.
The visual art accompanying this work was created in collaboration with preeminent New Orleans photographer Craig Mulcahy. The faceless, genderless models are meant to emphasise this pervasive state of ambiguity and emotional vacillation, the images falling somewhere between modern high fashion and classical Renaissance.
May Our Chambers Be Full is out October 30th as part of Sacred Bones’ Alliance Series of collaborative releases which includes recent works from Uniform & The Body and Marissa Nadler & Stephen Brodsky. To pre-order go here.
May Our Chambers Be Full Track Listing: 1 – Killing Floor 2 – Monolith 3 – Out of Existence 4 – Ancestral Recall 5 – Magickal Cost 6 – Into Being 7 – The Valley
