Quarterly Review: Restless Spirit, Ryan Güt, Bismut, Crippled Black Phoenix, Some Pills for Ayala, Gnod, Fuzzing Nation, Ak’Chamel, Sonic Secrets, Big Scenic Nowhere
Posted in Reviews on May 22nd, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Well, this was a markedly joyous Quarterly Review. I know it’s been a good year already for music and there’s more coming, but it’s always something of a relief when I get to Wednesday or Thursday of one of these things and don’t want to bash my head into a wall until I lose consciousness. The horrors persist but so do the riffs. I am fortunate for that.
If we’re being honest, I do these for myself. I do it as a way to keep up with things that are coming out or are already out (sometimes for a while; I think there were two 2025 outings in here this week), but it’s also a different kind of challenge to get through so much, and I enjoy that probably more than I generally say. This week I added a bunch of stuff to my best-of-2026 lists, and that includes today as well.
But while it may be me being self-serving in terms of musical exposure, I always hope you’ve been able to find something in this mix that you hadn’t heard before that speaks to you. Or maybe you agree with something I said, or disagree, or whatever. Maybe some piece of cover art made you feel something. Maybe your day got a little better just for that. Whatever it is. Please know that if you’re taking part in this at all, on any level, it’s appreciated.
Back in Sept., maybe? I’ll see if I can make it through the summer. Depends in part on how much comes in, which is almost always a flood these days. Not mad about that, by the way.
Alright, here we go. Thanks again for reading.
Quarterly Review #41-50:
Restless Spirit, Restless Spirit
Fullness of push, vitality in delivery, a distinctive take on craft drawing from a range of intangible influences — if Restless Spirit‘s self-titled fourth album is the band declaring themselves, then they picked the right record to share their name. The Long Island-based Magnetic Eye Records trio have fostered a next-generational take on riff metal able to sound massive and to move, not necessarily drawing from Sleep, but rather tipping that foundational balance more toward metal’s traditionalism. But they’re not an overly aggressive band, and even in the faster stretches of “Desire Lines” or the subsequent galloper “Desolation’s Wake,” or the penultimate “Time and Distance” with its more angular groove, they avoid a dudely trap into which many others have fallen. Ultimately, that balance is the place where Restless Spirit dwell in terms of sound, and it’s become more their own over time. This album would seem to be not only them acknowledging that, but embracing it and owning it outright. It’s a strong statement for any band to make at any point in their career, and the material here makes it feel all the more earned.
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Ryan Güt, The Shastafarian
If you saw Brant Bjork in any incarnation between 2015-2024, whether it was solo, with Stöner, the beginnings of Brant Bjork Trio or with Mario Lalli and the Rubber Snake Charmers, chances are it was Ryan Güt holding down the crucial groove on drums. His first solo album, The Shastafarian, finds him stepping forward as a multi-instrumentalist and producer, and across 37 minutes from the Funkadelic-style talk-over-it startoff in “Beggars and Choosers” to the Blue Öyster Cult cover “Veterans of the Psychic Wars” that closes, Güt offers a spread of classic influence manifest in individualized songs. “Basically Dead (This Town)” feels like Thin Lizzy revelry, “Song for G” keeps its singer-songwritery acoustic foundation despite a full arrangement, and the self-jam in “On the Up and Up” digs in with surprising aplomb for only being one person. There’s a synthier wash in “Sand to Snow,” and that’s telling for a more experimental second half with the dirty fuzz of “Crig Lord Archduke Earl of Montague (The Monkey)” and the dub instrumental “DHS (12th St. Remixes)” entrances ahead of the grounded finish with the already-noted cover. It will be a tragedy if Güt and Zack Oakley (ex-Joy, etc.) never work together, as they seem to share so much in basic intent and both are fully capable of building an album solo, but on his own Güt sets up a broad progression here and one hopes the exploration continues.
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Bismut, Matsutake
As opening cut “Alienation” drifts into its second half, the drums just barely holding onto ground to hint at the swing-around that’s coming, Dutch trio Bismut reaffirm their progressive purposes. Since their inception, the Nijmegen instrumentalist trio have been more about flow than structure, and Matsutake as their fourth full-length, continues the journey. Each piece has its own intention, be it the headspinning “Assemblage” or the tense-until-it-blows-out “Neugier” just before, or the two-and-a-half-minute kissoff “Salvage,” but no question they hit an apex of heft in the pairing of “Contamination” and “(Potentially) Immortal,” which are the two longest and most dug-in tracks, Bismut carrying a spirit of urgency as much as aftermath, with the latter hinting at techno before hitting into a payoff righteous enough to count for the whole record’s procession. The vibe is restless, which is to say Bismut aren’t sitting still, aren’t resting too long in a single part, but it’s the fluidity born out of their sheer chemistry that makes it all work.
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Crippled Black Phoenix, Sceaduhelm
Sceaduhelm might be the outright heaviest I’ve heard Crippled Black Phoenix sound in their 20-plus years — at least in parts; they’re never quite only doing one thing at a time — but that’s still only half the story when it comes to the atmosphere and the palpably gothy mood spread across the 66-minute 2LP. I know, it’s another brilliant CBP album? Ho-hum, business as usual. Maybe it’s true that the band will be more appreciated 40 years on than they are now, but as samples draw together the various sections/sides, vocalists swap out between “No Epitaph – The Precipice” and “Hollows End,” etc., the band remain unthethered to genre and unto themselves in the world they create. “Vampire Grave” is so ’90s goth kitsch you can smell its clove cigarettes, but neither “Colder and Colder” nor “Under the Eye,” which follow, want for resonance, and the penultimate “Tired to the Bone” provides a gorgeous comedown before they cap with the yes-it-was-all-real-you-weren’t-dreaming “Beautiful Destroyer,” rolling with marked largesse into a suitably beautiful finish. I guess it’s hard for a band who don’t tour super-often or hock records on social media like mini-infomercials to get hype in this age of horrors, but damn. Even if you’ve never heard Crippled Black Phoenix before — maybe especially? — Sceaduhelm is a clarion to be heeded.
Crippled Black Phoenix website
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Some Pills for Ayala, Incarnate
It’s been a productive half-decade for Néstor Ayala Cortés, whose solo-project Some Pills for Ayala began following the dissolution of his prior outfit, At Devil Dirt. Handling multiple instruments and samples, vocals and production, Some Pills for Ayala have been consistent in regards to exploring various facets of rolling heavy tonality, and the fuzz runs unsurprisingly strong in Incarnate as well, though the rawness of noise amid the stonerly swing of “I Can’t Lie” and the upped level of crush in “Until You Die” demonstrate some of the nuance Cortés has grown into as the band has moved forward. Grunge and aughts-era heavy melodymaking are still part of it, but Incarnate is a product of nothing so much as the artist who made it, and listening brings to light just how much Some Pills for Ayala stands willfully apart from the microgenred norm.
Some Pills for Ayala on Bandcamp
Some Pills for Ayala on Instagram
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Gnod, Chronicles of Gnowt Vol. 1
Admirably adventurous and consistently antifascist UK psychedelic rockers Gnod begin a stated trilogy with Chronicles of Gnowt Vol. 1, and obviously I haven’t heard the other two parts yet, but this six-track/42-minute outing taken on its own could hardly be said to feel incomplete. Side A is bookended by “Three Trees (Part 1)” and “Three Trees (Part 2),” comprised of drifting acoustics manipulated in the second installment by effects, and between them, “Shadow Mirror” heavy-ambles through a lysergic slog and “Neptune” indeed offers planetary distance in its far off rumble. That turns out to be prescient as “All Tunnel No Light” (9:56) and “Ekstasis” (10:32) comprise the entirety of side B, the former growing into a massive, slow lurch and the latter less structured-feeling in its makeup despite the drums holding on to the central groove as it makes its way toward the relatively quick comedown with residual effects churning thereafter. This entire triptych might just be a blip in the larger breadth of Gnod‘s catalog, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t significant either there or in the larger scope of heavy psych rock.
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Fuzzing Nation, Mothertruck
Mothertruck is the conceptualist debut album from Athenian trio Fuzzing Nation, who rally listeners to their tale with heaped-on hairy riffery and a fervent heavy rock execution. They’re not over-the-top fast, or making-a-point-of-it slow, but they find and inhabit a comfortable range in the middle, and in the dancey “The Elder’s Code” and the Kyussian shover “The Core Machine,” they present themselves as kin to desert-heavy, but have an underlying core of trad/classic metal, which can be heard in “Turn the Key” more than careening opener “Burning Roads,” which is a rocker through and through. Maybe it’s a fine line Fuzzing Nation gleefully tread. Fine. The narrative — pretty sure it involves a big truck; just a guess — settles into its own aftermath with “I Don’t Care at All,” capping with a last push a record that never compromises in its love of heavy rock and roll or the band’s narrative vision conveyed through it. I don’t know if they’ll keep telling the story, that happens sometimes, but if you can call your record Mothertruck and actually pull it off, you’re already on your way.
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Ak’Chamel, Spiritually Unemployed
Once upon a time there was a band way out west with the unfortunate moniker Master Musicians of Bukkake. Ak’Chamel, an apparent duo, costumed and anonymous, maybe/maybe not from Austin, Texas, feel similarly fascinated with transgressing the barriers between folk musics and psychedelic arrangements, such that Spiritually Unemployed, their second album, is as intimate as it is expansive. It speaks to places that probably don’t exist — at least not in the way they’re offered as realities in the songs — and keeps a thread of irreverence in songs like “The Cosmic Vulva vs. The Post-Enlightened Tongue” and the closing “My Little Pony Apocalypse Diorama Playset.” You’ll be hard pressed to find a collection of weirder sounds, and for sure experimentation is part of the point, but Spiritually Unemployed doesn’t come across as haphazard or disconnected so much as drawn together over its 10 relatively brief inclusions and soundtracky in ethereal occasionally ways. Get weirder. No, weirder than that. Keep going. You’re almost there…
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Sonic Secrets, Diversions Vol. 1
To be honest, I kind of think Sonic Secrets, as the name for the instrumental solo-project of North Carolina’s Kevin Clark (ex-Black Skies), is emblematic of the intention for the music. Diversions Vol. 1, a 10-song/20-minute offering one might otherwise consider a debut album, doesn’t come across like it was made for press, or a response, or something like that. Starting with drum parts and building around them, Clark over the course of three days went from zero to has-a-record, and listening through, the sense I get is that the process was as much the reason behind it as the need for a creative splurge. Only “The Descent,” with Western-sprawl guitar over an keyboard beat, tops four minutes long, and it and everything that surrounds portrays itself as both proof-of-concept — i.e. demonstrating that Clark can function as a band on his own, which yes, it would seem so — and the result of a craft that’s insular despite drawing from an array of stylistic influences. And it does a little bit come across like something just made to be itself, a sonic secret. One wonders how long Clark will be able to keep it that way.
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Big Scenic Nowhere, Rehearsal 11.19.21
The key word is “rehearsal” with Rehearsal 11.19.21, limited to 100 LP copies and released independently by West Coast supergroup Big Scenic Nowhere. Offered as two full sides, the vinyl captures the band — Tony Reed (Mos Generator, etc.) on vocals/keys/bass, guitarists Gary Arce (Yawning Man, etc.) and Bob Balch (Fu Manchu, etc.) and drummer Bill Stinson (Yawning Man) — preparing for their first-ever live show. The difference is they’re playing songs they’d already written — “LeDu,” “Lavender Blues,” “Towards the Sun,” and so on — rather than jamming out the bones of what would become their next record. They still haven’t played live a ton, so hearing this material, with chatter among the members and a casual dipping into and out of the songs, brings a new dimension to their studio work up to this point, and presents listeners with another side than even a regular live album could provide. Maybe most of all, it argues in favor of them doing more with the band. Nobody involved is short on other things happening musically, but Big Scenic Nowhere‘s proggy desert heavy found a trajectory all its own. A platter such as this in raw celebration of that is most certainly welcome.
Big Scenic Nowhere on Instagram
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