Posted in Reviews on October 3rd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
I broke my wife’s phone yesterday. What a mess. I was cleaning the counter or doing some shit and our spare butter dish — as opposed to the regular one, which was already out — was sitting near the edge of the top of the microwave, from where I bumped it so that the ceramic corner apparently went right through the screen hard enough that in addition to shattering it there’s a big black spot and yes a new phone has been ordered. In the meantime, she can’t type the letter ‘e’ and, well, I have to hand it to Le Creuset on the sturdy construction of their butter dishes. Technology succumbing to the brute force of a harder blunt object and gravity.
Certainly do wish that hadn’t happened. What does it have to do with riffs, or music at all, or really anything? Who cares. I’m about to review 10 records today. I can talk about whatever the hell I want.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
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Samsara Blues Experiment, Rock Hard in Concert
10 years after releasing 2013’s Live at Rockpalast (review here), and nearly three after they put out their 2021 swansong studio LP, End of Forever (review here), German heavy psych rockers Samsara Blues Experiment offer the 80-minute live 2LP Rock Hard in Concert, and while it’s not their first live album, it gives a broader overview of the band from front to (apparent) back during their time together, as songs opening salvo of “Center of the Sun,” “Singata Mystic Queen” and “For the Lost Souls” from 2010’s debut, Long-Distance Trip (review here), melds in the set with “One With the Universe” and “Vipassana” from 2017’s One With the Universe (review here), End of Forever‘s own title-track and “Massive Passive,” and “Hangin’ on a Wire” from 2013’s Waiting for the Flood (review here) to become a fan-piece that nonetheless engages in sound and presentation. If you were there, it’s likely must-own. For the rest of us, who maybe did or didn’t see the band during their time — glad to say I did — it’s a reminder of how immersive they could be, especially in longer-form material, and how much influence they had on the last decade-plus of jam-based heavy psych in Europe. Recorded in 2018 at a special gig for Germany’s Rock Hard magazine, Rock Hard in Concert follows behind 2022’s Demos & Rarities (review here) in the band’s posthumous catalog, and it may or may not be Samsara Blues Experiment‘s final non-reissue release. Whether it is or not, it summarizes their run gorgeously and puts a light on the chemistry of the trio that led them through so many winding aural paths.
Sounding modern and full and in opening cut “Marrow” almost like the fuzz is about to swallow the rest of the song, Restless Spirit step forward with their third long-player, Afterimage, and establish a new level of craft for themselves. In 2021, the Long Island heavy/doom rock trio offered Blood of the Old Gods (review here), and their guitar-led energetic surges continue here in Afterimage riffers like the chug-nod “Shadow Command” and “Of Spirit and Form,” which seems to account for the underlying metallic edge of the band’s execution with its sharper turns. Their first album for Magnetic Eye Records, its eight tracks fit smoothly into the label’s roster, which at its baseline might be said to foster modern heavy styles with a particular ear for songwriting and melody, and Restless Spirit dig into “All Furies” like High on Fire galloping into a wall of Slayer records, only to follow with the 1:45 instrumental reset “Brutalized,” which is somehow weightier. They touch on the ethereal with the guitar in “The Fatalist,” but the vocals are more post-hardcore and have a grounding effect, and after starting with outright crush, “Hell’s Grasp” offers respite in progressive flourish and midtempo meandering before resuming the double-plus-huge roll and pointed riff and noodly offsets, the huge hook coming back in a way that makes me miss doing a radio show. “Hell’s Grasp” is the longest piece on the collection at 6:25, but “From the Dust Returned” closes, mindful of the atmospherics that have been at work all along and no less huge, but clearly saving a last push for, well, last. I’ll be interested in how it holds up over the long term, but Magnetic Eye has become one of the US’ most essential labels in heavy music and releases like this are exactly why.
When did Graham Clise from WitchLecherous Gaze, etc. — dude used to be in Uphill Battle; I remember that band — move to Australia? Doesn’t matter. It happened and Stepmother is the raw, garage-ish fuzz rock outfit the now-Melbourne-residing Clise has established, with Rob Muinos on bass and vocals and Sam Rains on drums. With Clise on guitar/vocals peppering hard-strummed riffs with bouts of shred and various dirtier coatings, the 12-tracker goes north of four minutes one time for “Do You Believe,” already by then having found its proto-Misfits bent in the catchy “Scream for Death.” But whether they’re buzz-overdosing “Waiting for the Axe” or digging into the comedown in “Signed DC” ahead of the surf-informed rager of a finale “Gusano,” Planet Brutalicon is a debut that presents fresh ideas taking on known stylistic elements. And it’s not a showcase for Clise‘s instrumental prowess on a technical level or anything — he’s not trying to put on a clinic — but from the sound of his guitar to the noises he gets from it in “The Game” (that middle part, ultra-fuzz) and at the end of “Stalingrad,” it is very much a guitar-centered offering. No complaints there whatsoever.
Pilot Voyager, The Structure is Still Under Construction
WARNING: Users who take even a small dose of Pilot Voyager‘s The Structure is Still Under Construction may find themselves experiencing euphoria, or adrift, as though on some serene ocean under the warm green sky of impossibly refracted light. The ethereal drones and melodic textures of the 46-minute single-song LP may cause side effects like: momentary flashes of inner peace, the quieting of your brain that you’ve been seeking your whole life without knowing it, calm. Also nausea, but that’s probably just something you ate. Talk to your doctor about whether this extended work from the Hungarian collective Psychedelic Source Records (szia!) is right for you, and if it is, make sure to consume responsibly. Headphones required (not included or covered by insurance). Do not be afraid as “The Structure is Still Under Construction” leaves the water behind to float upward in its midsection, finally resolving in intertwining drones, vague sampled speech echoing far off somewhere — ugh, the real world — and birdsong someplace in the mix. Go with it. This is why you got the prescription in the first place. Decades of aural research and artistic movement and progression have led you and the Budapesti outfit to this moment. Do not operate heavy machinery. Ever. In fact, find an empty field, take off your pants and run around for a while until you get out of breath. Then drink cool water and giggle. This could be you. Your life.
Philadelphia has become the East Coast US’ hotbed for heavy psychedelia, which must be interesting for Northern Liberties, who started out more than two decades ago. The trio’s self-released, 10-song/41-minute Self-Dissolving Abandoned Universe — maybe their eighth album, if my count is right — with venerated producer Steve Albini, so one might count ‘instant-Gen-X-cred’ and ‘recognizably-muddy-toms’ among their goals. I wasn’t completely sold on the offering until “Infusorian Hymnal” started to dig a little further into the genuinely weird after opener “The Plot Thickens” and the subsequent “Drowned Out” laid forth the crunch of the tones and gave hints of the structures beneath the noise. “Crucible” follows up the raw shove of “Star Spangled Corpse” by expanding the palette toward space rock and an unhinged psych-noise shove that the somehow-still-Hawkwindian volatility of “The Awaited” moves away from while the finale “Song of the Sole Survivor” calls back to the folkish vocal melody in “Ghosts of Ghosts,” if in echoing and particularly addled fashion. Momentum serves the three-piece well throughout, though they seem to have no trouble interrupting themselves (can relate), and turning to follow a disparate impulse. Distractable heavy? Yeah, except bands like that usually don’t last two decades. Let’s say maybe their own kind of oddball, semi-spaced band who aren’t afraid to screw around in the studio, find what they like, and keep it. And whatever else you want to say about Albini-tracked drums, “Hold on to the Darkness” has a heavier tone to its snare than most guitars do to whole LPs. Whatever works, and it does.
“Good Night, Ophelia” is the first single from the forthcoming debut full-length from semi-goth Portland, Oregon, heavy rock four-piece Nyxora. There are worse opening shots to fire than a Hamlet reference, I suppose, and if one regards Ophelia’s character as an innocent driven to suicide by gender-based oppression, then her lack of agency is nothing if not continually relevant. Nonetheless, for Nyxora — Vox on, well, vox, guitarist E.Wrath, bassist Luke and drummer Weatherman — she pairs with dark-boogie riff recorded for edge with Witch Mountain‘s Rob Wrong at his Wrong Way Studio. There are some similarities between Nyxora and Wrong‘s own outfit — I double-checked it wasn’t Uta Plotkin singing some of the higher-reaching lines of “Good Night, Ophelia,” which is a definite compliment — but I get the sense that fuller atmosphere of Nyxora‘s first LP isn’t necessarily encapsulated in this one three-and-a-half-minute song. That is, I’m thinking at some point on the album, Nyxora will get more morose than they are here. Or maybe not. Either way, “Good Night, Ophelia” is an enticing teaser from a group who seem ready to dig their niche when the album is released, I’ll assume in 2024 though one never knows.
I hate to do it, but I’m calling bullshit right now on Sydney, Australia’s Old Goat Smoke. Sorry gents. To be sure, your Bongzilla-crusty, ultra-stoned, Church of Misery-esque-in-its-madcap-vocal-wails, goat weed metal is only a pleasure to behold. But that’s the problem. How’re you gonna write a song called “Old Goat Smoke” and not post the lyrics? I shudder to think of the weed puns I’m missing. Fortunately, it’s not too late for the newcomer band to correct the mistake before the entire project is derailed. In that eponymous one of three total tracks included, Old Goat Smoke cast themselves in the mold of the despondent and disaffected. “Return to Dirt” shifts fluidly in and out of screams and harsher fare while radioactive-dirt tonality infects the guitar and bass that have already challenged the drums to cut through their morass. So that there’s no risk of the point not being made, they cap this initial public offering with “The Great Hate,” and eight-and-a-half-minute treatise on feedback and raw scathe that’s likewise a show of future nastiness to manifest. Quit your job, do all the drugs you can find, engage the permanent fuck-off. Old Goat Smoke may not have ‘bong’ in their moniker, but that’s about all they’re missing. And those lyrics, I guess, though by the time the 20 minutes of Demo have expired, they’ve made their caustic point regardless.
German transport-themed heavy rock and rollers Van Groover — as in, one who grooves in or with vans — made a charming debut with 2021’s Honk if Parts Fall Off (review here), and the follow-up five-song EP, Back From the Shop, makes no attempt to fix what isn’t broken. That would seem to put it at odds with the mechanic speaking in the intro “Hill Willy’s Chop Shop,” who runs through a litany of issues fixed, goes on long enough to hypnotize and then swaps in body parts and so on. From there, the motor works, and Van Groover hit the gas through 21 minutes of smells-like-octane riffing and storytelling. In “A-38″ — the reference being to the size of a sheet of paper in Europe; equivalent but not the same as the US’ 8.5″ x 11” — they either get arrested, which would seem to be the ending of “The Bandit” just before,” or are at the DMV, I can’t quite tell, but it doesn’t matter one you meet “The Grizz.” The closer has an urgency to its push that doesn’t quite sound like I’d imagine being torn apart by a bear to feel, but the Lebowski-paraphrased penultimate line, “Some days you get eaten by the bear, some days the bear eats you,” underscores Van Groover‘s for-the-converted approach, speaking to the subculture from within. Possibly while driving. Does look like a nice van, though. The kind you might write a song or two about.
Facts-wise, there’s not much more I can tell you about Hotel Lucifer than you might glean from looking at the New York four-piece’s Bandcamp page. Their self-released and self-titled debut runs 43 minutes and eight tracks, and its somewhat bleak, not-obligated-to-heavy-tonalism course takes several violent thematic turns, including (I think.) in opener “Room 222,” where Katie‘s vocals seem to talk about raping god. This, “Murderer,” “Torquemada,” “The Ultimate Price,” “Picking Your Eyes Out” and 12-minute horror noisefest closer “Beheaded” — only the classic metaller “Training the Beast” and the three-minute acoustic-backed psychedelic voice showcase “Echidna” seem to restrain the brutaller impulses, and I’m not sure about that either. With Jimmy on guitar, Muriel playing bass and Ed on drums, Hotel Lucifer are defined in no small part by the whispers, rasps and croons that mark their verses and choruses, but that becomes an effective means to convey character and mood along with the instrumental ambience behind, and so Hotel Lucifer find this strange, almost willfully off-putting cultish individualism, and it’s not hooks keeping your attention so much as the desire to figure it out, to learn more about just what the hell is going on on this record. I’ll wish you good luck with that as I continue my efforts along similar lines.
Its five songs broken into two sections along lines of “Obscure Fire” pairing with “Of Silence” and “Descending” leading to “Into the Depths” with “Of Eternal Doom” answering the question that didn’t even really need to be asked about which depths the Russian stoner sludge rollers were talking about. The Sleep-worshiping three-piece of guitarist/vocalist SAA, bassist KKV and drummer PAN — whose credits are worth reading in the band’s own words — lumber with purpose as they make that final statement, each side of Obscure Fire working shortest to longest beginning with the howling guitar and drum thud of the title-track at nine minutes as opposed to the 10 of “Of Silence.” At two minutes, “Descending” is barely more than feedback and tortured gurgles, so yes, very much a fit with the concrete-toned plod of the subsequent “Into the Depths” as the band skirt the line between ultra-stoner metal and cavernous atmospheric sludge without necessarily committing to one or the other. That position favors them, but after a certain point of being bludgeoned with huge riffs and slow-nodding, deeply-weighted churn, your skull is going to be goo either way. The route Megalith Levitation take to get you there is where the weed is, aurally speaking.
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 19th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Recorded in 2018 at a gig put together by respected German print magazine Rock Hard — for whom I’d write in a second if they’d have me, and they likely wouldn’t — the forthcoming Rock Hard in Concert live album from Samsara Blues Experiment is set to release this Fall. No, the band aren’t back together, and if they ever do reunite, I think we’ve got years before we get there, but they do remain active. You might recall earlier this year they offered Demos & Rarities (review here) to sate fans and completists, and, well, it’s been a decade since they put out 2013’s Live at Rockpalast (review here), and that could hardly be said to be comprehensive since they put out one full-length concurrent to it and two after. So yeah, fair enough.
At the same time, guitarist/vocalist Chris Peters continues to explore new and familiar ground in Fuzz Sagrado, whose Luz e Sombra (review here), was released in May, also through World in Sound, and not to talk out of turn but I hear there’s more stuff from Peters in the works as we move toward Fall and the release of this live record.
Here’s the announcement, as posted on social media:
New live album coming: SBE “Rock Hard In Concert”
Finally, after the long sold out Rockpalast CD, we have a new live album coming out in OCTOBER 2023 via @world_in_sound with a full set of SBE classics and even a few songs from the final studio album, two years before they’ve been recorded.
This very special event took place in November 2018 in Dortmund after being invited by Germany’s leading Hard and Heavy @rockhardmagazin and it was also their boss Holger Stratmann who recorded and mixed our show. The mastering has been done by legendary Krautrocker @erke_eroc
So, this is probably the last ultimate offering from our collective, about 80 minutes of wicked heavy music on 2LP, CD and digital as usual. LP will also include the gig poster from this event. Fans of the band mark your calendars, more news soon …
[Click play above to stream ‘There’s No Escape’ from Fuzz Sagrado’s Luz e Sombra, out May 19 through World in Sound and available to preorder here from the label and here from the band.]
At very least, a reconciliation. Luz e Sombra is the second full-length from Fuzz Sagrado, the as-yet solo-project of multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Christian Peters. Having moved from Berlin, Germany, to more rural Brazil at the dawn of the decade, Peters‘ former outfit Samsara Blues Experiment made their farewell with End of Forever (review here) in 2021, and that July brought the first, self-titled EP (review here) from the new outfit, taking lessons Peters learned after more than a decade in Samsara Blues Experiment and through his own solo work under the moniker Surya Kris Peters — less directly relevant in sound, he also had a solo-outfit called Soulitude circa 2008, which would’ve made it concurrent to the drawdown of prior band Terraplane — and bringing them together for a new, partially synth-driven exploration of style and melody. Fuzz Sagrado would follow its self-titled with another EP, Vida Pura, in 2021 and in 2022 released A New Dimension (review here) via World in Sound in an ongoing collaboration, and Luz e Sombra‘s nine songs and 43 minutes continue this new exploration of solo work.
But where Surya Kris Peters was more of a vehicle for key and electronic experimentation, a put-down-the-guitar kind of project, Fuzz Sagrado to-date has been a willful step back toward rock music, and Luz e Sombra — ‘light and dark’ in Portuguese, and a title emblematic of the record’s duly chiaroscuro dynamic — is cast in that spirit as well. Those expecting the longform heavy psychedelic jamming for which Samsara Blues Experiment were somewhat reluctantly known will mostly not find them in Fuzz Sagrado. It is very pointedly a different band, but it is a band, even if there’s just one person behind it.
The first sounds one hears on Luz e Sombra opener “There’s No Escape” (premiering above) are keyboard and insects; the natural world meeting purposeful creation, and that tells you a goodly portion of what you need to know about what follows. Peters sweeps in an echoing guitar solo spacious over programmed beats — they’re more drum-sounding soon enough, but at least initially it’s more electronica — and a subdued verse solidifies around a progressive and atmospherically foreboding chorus: the second time through, “We are/Human/Obsessed with useless things/Deluded.”
Critique, philosophy, confession and storytelling are nothing new lyrically for Peters, who in Luz e Sombra offers particular vocal command in his distinctive approach — dropping hints of working out harmonies on side B’s “Love in Progress” after the more familiar layering of “Leaving Samsara” — and while side A songs like “There’s No Escape,” the subsequent “Wake Them Up” and the lush-enough-to-justify-the-Mellotron title-track take a conversational perspective in directly addressing the listener as “you,” much of what features throughout comes through as personal on Peters‘ part.
Leading off the second half of the record and the centerpiece of the tracklisting, “Leaving Samsara” tells the story in lines like about living in “a strange new world,” “Was looking for some peace/Or finally some freedom/Same as you,” and recounts highs and lows of that band, bringing it around to the conclusion, “I’m still here/Alone/Staring at the face of the world/In all its beauty and disgust…” before shifting into a moodier kind of fuzz and unfolding from it a resonant and spacious bridge back to the chorus. Ahead of the instrumental finish “Broken Earth,” “Learning to Live, and Live Again” feels of its time and place, a moment in transition personal and global, looming chaos met with clearheaded psychedelic rock, keyboard, bass and drum-sounds as the foundation for the layers of guitar and vocals, perpetually seeking.
Each of the three longer songs — that’s “There’s No Escape” (6:02), “Luz e Sombra” (7:55) and “Leaving Samsara” (7:08); nothing else is longer than the 4:12 “Wake Them Up” — feeds the reconciliation narrative posited at the outset in some way. There aren’t jams necessarily, as the nature of solo recording, programming drums, etc., inherently makes band-in-room improv impossible since parts have to be layered on each other one at a time, but in instrumental stretches, one can hear Peters working toward acceptance of the more psychedelic aspect of his aural persona. He is not begrudging, and if he was, Luz e Sombra would fall flat in its expression.
“There’s No Escape” and the title cut are both on side A, and side B, which again, starts with “Leaving Samsara,” flows smoothly with its two instrumental pieces, “Memories of a Future Past” and the aforementioned “Broken Earth” that ends the record, momentum built through compositional fluidity more than the intensity of execution throughout. “Memories of a Future Past” would sound nostalgic even if Peters had called it “Eating a Peanut Butter Sandwich,” but some shaker sounds reinforce the burgeoning percussive complexity in the second half of “Wake Them Up” and still to come in “Broken Earth” with its hand-drums, while maintaining a mellow drift to a final gong hit that gives over to the proggrunge of “Love in Progress.”
Kin to side A closer “One Endless Summer” in its brevity, “Love in Progress” is more active until it cuts to a drone at three minutes to transition into the acoustic/electric blend of “Learning to Live, and Live Again,” the breadth of which makes one wonder if Luz e Sombra, for all its various organ, keyboard and synth sounds, for all its accomplished vocals and for the catchy hooks of “Wake Them Up” and “One Endless Summer,” hasn’t been a sneaky love letter to the guitar all along, though it’s the totality of the experience — never staid even when close to still — that defines it. Light or dark, loud or quiet, acoustic or electric or electronic, Fuzz Sagrado makes a point to lay claim to all of these aesthetic elements with mindfulness and purpose, and if some moments are rougher edged and some are lush and smooth, well, that’s life, isn’t it?
And to be sure, some of the frustrations and disillusion that’s been in Peters‘ lyrics all along is certainly present here — see “Leaving Samsara” for sure, as well as “There’s No Escape,” “Learning to Live, and Live Again,” etc. — but part of what’s being reconciled here is the grand-picture ‘everything’ of living. You get the light and the dark, the positive and negative, sometimes side-by-side, sometimes mashed together into a single part or concept, and part of Luz e Sombra‘s depth comes from that as well as from however many layers of guitar and keyboard are on “Memories of a Future Past.”
It is worth reiterating that Fuzz Sagrado is not trying to remake Samsara Blues Experiment as a one-man-band on a new continent, but part of what Peters crucially acknowledges in this material is that for better or worse, what he achieved in that outfit’s decade-plus run is a part of his experience that carries over into at least some aspects of these songs, even when not actually the subject at hand (that is, not just on “Leaving Samsara” or the other longer inclusions). That the stated reconciliation would be no less multifaceted than the resultant music across Luz e Sombra itself underscores Peters‘ maturity of craft and performance, but more over, it highlights the sincerity with which each of these songs is wrought. At this point it’s hard to say where it might all end up, but isn’t that life too?
Posted in Reviews on January 16th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Issued both as a standalone and as a bonus CD with the 2LP special edition reissue of 2010’s Long-Distance Trip (review here), the 10-song 68-minute Demos and Rarities is a collection clearly intended for Samsara Blues Experiment fans, if it needs to be said. However, I’ll also note that I am a fan, have been since I first heard the 2008 demo (discussed here, review here) the two songs of which, “Singata (Mystic Queen)” and “Double Freedom,” would become such staples for the Berlin-based outfit throughout their tenure. And perhaps since that tenure came to a close in 2021 with End of Forever (review here), something like this feels more sentimental; the ‘posthumous’ release, capturing mostly the earlier days of the band, when they were the four-piece of guitarist/vocalist/sitarist/keyboardist Christian Peters (who had previously been in Terraplane), bassist/engineer Richard Behrens (who recorded those two demo tracks and others here), guitarist/percussionist Hans Eiselt and drummer Thomas Vedder, and when they were just setting out on their exploration of heavy psychedelia that would grow increasingly sure and progressive as it went. It was, in so many ways, a simpler time.
As far as I’m concerned, the presence of those demo versions of “Singata (Mystic Queen)” and “Double Freedom” are more than enough to justify the CD’s existence. Samsara Blues Experiment aren’t out here trying to cash-grab — because who’s got cash? — but I think part of who the band was all along was to make an effort to take stock of where they were at, to be cognizant of their own progression, where they were moving forward from across each release, and so looking back after it’s over feels pretty consistent in terms of their general mission. The latest inclusion here is a 2013 acoustic version of “Singata (Mystic Queen),” recorded by Behrens around the time he left the band — his last LP with them was 2013’s Waiting for the Flood (review here), though he also appeared on that year’s Rockpalast (review here) live album, on which the acoustic “Singata (Mystic Queen)” first appeared as a bonus track — and the quick rocker “Back to Life” that showed up on the 2011 compilation Cowbells & Cobwebs (review here) was tracked in 2010, but everything else here is before that, with the possible exception of the 56-second finale “Singata Retro Queen,” undated with its “Strawberry Fields Forever” organ — what might be an interlude but makes a fitting reprise here in complement to the 2008 and 2013 versions of the song.
With that outro/interlude/not-quite-a-song-more-of-a-moment-that-happened-to-be-recorded, the way the tracklisting is laid out, “Singata (Mystic Queen)” opens, is the centerpiece, and closes Demos & Rarities, and fairly enough so. It and “Double Freedom,” which follows twice — the second time is a corresponding-but-recorded-much-earlier acoustic 2007 Peters home demo, layered with sitar, keyboard and hand percussion and a meditative vocal — were and remain signature pieces. But there are other, dug-out-from-deeper inclusions as well, like the 2008 home demo “Wheel of Life,” a later version of which would show up on Long-Distance Trip, the aforementioned “Back to Life,” a nine-minute demo of “For the Lost Souls” from the same record with an especially warm and complete feel, and the 2008 home-recorded “All is One” sitar piece that runs over 12 minutes and, but for “Singata Retro Queen,” caps the offering. As the CD liner note says, it is “not to be confused with real Indian raga,” but its jammy, exploratory feel captures something about the ethic of the band in their early stages, who they were and where they were coming from. They were by no means the first heavy psych band, but they always had a personality of their own and pushed against the confines of genre more as time went on. Demos & Rarities shows the roots of that ethic.
And really, that’s about all I’d ask it to do. If these are the odds and ends from that era of their time, from before and around the 2008 demo release and that of the 2009 USA Tour EP that had the two demo tracks as well as “Red Rooster Jam (Live),” which was recorded in Berlin at their second show, and the acoustic version of “Double Freedom” that’s also here. That’s what this release is. It’s the place where you, as the curious Samsara Blues Experiment fan present or future, can find that material compiled. This seems like a no-brainer, but even in an age of infinite information thrown at you with infinite intensity, so much is regularly lost, and Demos & Rarities works against that, toward its own purpose of preservation. I don’t know if it will be the absolute last Samsara Blues Experiment release or not — no doubt there are other live recordings, demos, alternate versions, remixes, etc., that Peters and company could mine as they see fit — but it’s a particularly nostalgic look back. Even the cover. Just look at that picture. They were kids. And it would, inherently could, never be like this again.
The depth of fuzz in the “Double Freedom” and “Singata (Mystic Queen)” demos was an announcement to the converted, and those tones, those jams, still resonate, even raw as they sound now looking back. Not everybody is going to get that, and so I’ll go back to noting Demos & Rarities as a fan-piece, whether it’s encountered digitally, as an added incentive for the Long-Distance Trip reissue or with the digipak on its own, but the sweetness of melody in the acoustic “Double Freedom,” the rolling, heavy-hitting shuffle of “Back to Life” — they never had another song like that — and the nascent vibes in “Wheel of Life” and “All is One” as they’re presented here are engrossing. On an academic level, this is a band who had a significant impact early in a generational wave of European heavy psychedelic rock, and worth appreciating as such, but I’ll readily admit that as I listen through, my primary experience isn’t academic so much as enjoying the glance at the beginnings of the band and the work they did at the time as they felt their way toward what would develop over time as their sound. From an act who spent so much of their time ardently thinking and moving forward, and who may well be done ‘for good’ as they were, the unreluctant look back is a thing to be valued. It feels rare, and indeed, Samsara Blues Experiment were a rare band.
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 12th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
To answer your first question, no, Samsara Blues Experiment aren’t getting back together. Guitarist/vocalist Christian Peters — soon to release Fuzz Sagrado‘s debut album on Kozmik Artifactz — lives in Brazil while Thomas Vedder and Hans Eiselt remain in Germany, and they’ve never struck me as the types to want to be a virtual-collaboration kind of band, even if they wanted to. However, Demos and Rarities is a CD collection coming out through World in Sound/Electric Magic Records next month that, at least according to what Peters sent down the PR wire below, is nearly 70 minutes long and pulls together their first demo and other pieces from that nascent era of the band.
Revisiting Samsara Blues Experiment‘s original demo is an impulse I can certainly understand, and I’ll look forward to doing so again with the new disc, but noteworthy as well are the reissues slated for 2020’s final LP, End of Forever (review here), 2011’s Revelation and Mystery (review here) and 2010’s landmark debut, Long-Distance Trip (review here), the latter of which is set to arrive in deluxe fashion with Demos and Rarities included. Completists, those who have sought to chase down those albums on a secondary market, and any fan of heavy psychedelic warmth should probably already be down reading the blue text, so I’ll just say it’s cool to see those records getting back in print and it seems well deserved. And if there’s more unearthed in Demos and Rarities from that era that I haven’t heard before, well, naturally I’m gonna be stoked for that too.
There you have it. From Peters:
So here’s the news…
1) There will be a new Samsara Blues Experiment CD-release in October with partially never before released demos from the early times of the band (around 2008). This will be called “Demos & Rarities” in a total of ten tracks, including the original 2008 demo, and runs up to almost 70 minutes in total!
2) Then we will have a third re-release of the last album “End Of Forever” on black and coloured vinyl, also in October this year. CDs are still available from assorted mail orders, and will be reprinted if necessary. Please note: Samsara Blues Experiment records shall remain available! There is no need for overpriced discogs offers.
3) The debut album “Long Distance Trip” has been over due for an anniversary package, which will be really cool, in a new layout, with black and colored 2LP with a big foldout inlay with rare photos and liner notes (btw including parts of an early interview with THE OBELISK!), and also including the aforementioned “Demos & Rarities” CD, stickers and all wrapped in a tote bag.
4) The second album “Revelation & Mystery” vinyl has also been out of print and is coming back as well. This and the “Long Distance Trip”-special release can be expected for December 2022. All the Samsara Blues Experiment reissues are being handled by World In Sound records, in cooperation with Electric Magic.
And maybe on a sidenote: SBE will remain inactive as a band. Singer/guitarist and main songwriter Christian Peters will continue his music with the new project Fuzz Sagrado (Rock/Psych – sometimes very similar to SBE), and also Surya Kris Peters (Krautrock/Electronica). The Fuzz Sagrado debut album is being released in September via Kozmik Artifactz. SBE bassist Hans Eiselt and drummer Thomas Vedder are still active in their former bands Rodeo Drive and Ewok – without any recent news.
Posted in Radio on December 24th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Some extenuating circumstances here leading to a repeat posting of this playlist. What does that mean? Fair question!
This show was originally supposed to air on Dec. 10, but there were some last-minute technical difficulties — the nature of which I don’t even know, so it’s not like I’m keeping secrets — and it didn’t happen. Hey, I’ve done (apparently) 74 episodes of this show and that’s never happened before, so I consider that a pretty impressive run.
And obviously the world has continued along its chaotic, dizzying spin, so no real harm done. In the voice breaks here I talk about the next episode being on Xmas Eve and this being part one of two before the end of the year — which obviously won’t happen — but to be honest with you, I’ll be fucking astounded if anyone even notices, let alone calls it out. It is what it is. I’m lucky Gimme lets my weird, often-doesn’t-play-metal ass do a show at all.
So hey, thanks for listening if you do. And Happy Xmas if that’s your thing.
The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.
Full playlist:
The Obelisk Show – 12.24.21
Green Lung
Leaders of the Blind
Black Harvest
Monolord
I’ll Be Damned
Your Time to Shine
Greenleaf
Bury Me My Son
Echoes From a Mass
VT
Heavy Temple
The Maiden
Lupi Amoris
Maha Sohona
Leaves
Endless Searcher
Domkraft
Into Orbit
Seeds
Spelljammer
Among the Holy
Abyssal Trip
Samsara Blues Experiment
Massive Passive
End of Forever
IAH
Arce
Omines
Genghis Tron
Alone in the Heart of the Light
Dream Weapon
Spidergawd
Black Moon Rising
VI: At Rainbows End
Thunderchief
King of the Pleistocene
Synanthrope
Spaceslug
Follow This Land
Memorial
King Buffalo
Acheron
Acheron
Weedpecker
Fire Far Away
IV: The Stream of Forgotten Thoughts
VT
Temple Fang
Let it Go/When We Pray
Fang Temple
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Dec. 24 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.
Posted in Features on December 22nd, 2021 by JJ Koczan
[PLEASE NOTE: These are not the results of the year-end poll, which is ongoing. If you haven’t contributed your picks yet, please do so here.]
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Maybe 2021 was your breakout, or your hunker-down. Your recovery from trauma or more of the same. Maybe you got six shots, maybe you didn’t get any. Maybe you got sick or lost somebody. I don’t know. Whatever else this year was, though, and whatever else it continues to be, it was busy.
In terms of the heavy underground, the ‘aftermath’ of the covid-19 pandemic resulted in a creative movement that will continue to pan out for years to come. Bands, locked down in 2020, found new directions, new sounds, sometimes new projects or collaborators. Some dug deep into their root influences, others explored new ground entirely.
One way or the other, the result across this year was a lot of really, really good music, and in uncertain times, the comfort it provided and provides shouldn’t be understated. The Obelisk Questionnaire asks what is the primary function of art. I think we learned in 2021 that art is home when you need it.
I say this every year, but please, if you leave a comment on this post — if there’s something you want to suggest I left out (as I’m sure there is; always) or you’re responding to someone else’s comment — please, please be respectful. Please be kind. To me, because I’ve worked hard on this and I don’t mind saying that, and to anyone else offering their picks or suggestions or just words of response. Let’s not fight, or do that “unthinking internet meanness” thing. I’m a human being and so are you. That’s reason enough to make an effort toward kindness. Thank you for that effort and for reading, as always.
Here we go:
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The Top 60 Albums of 2021? Really? 60?
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Yeah, really 60. I was gonna do 30 and then 50 and I was having trouble narrowing it down and it was my sister who very concisely said, “Who cares? Do what you want,” and it turned out that was precisely what I needed to hear. So if there are complaints about doing a top 60, to them I might just point out that more music is not a hardship. Maybe instead look at the swath of amazing music being made and be glad to have been born? And I’m doing what feels right, if also a little over-the-top. Maybe next year it’ll be 100, or 1,000. To quote my sister, “Who cares?”
The more the merrier.
Alors:
#31-60
31. 3rd Ear Experience, Danny Frankel’s 3rd Ear Experience
32. Slowshine, Living Light
33. LLNN, Unmaker
34. Low Orbit, Crater Creator
35. Somnuri, Nefarious Wave
36. Delving, Hirschbrunnen
37. Kal-El, Dark Majesty
38. Hippie Death Cult, Circle of Days
39. Plaindrifter, Echo Therapy
40. Motorpsycho, Kingdom of Oblivion
41. IAH, Omines
42. Here Lies Man, Ritual Divination
43. The Kings of Frog Island, VII
44. Old Man Wizard, Kill Your Servants Quietly
45. Weedpecker, IV: The Stream of Forgotten Thoughts
46. High Desert Queen, Secrets of the Black Moon
47. Kadabra, Ultra
48. Sleep Moscow, Of the Sun
49. Terry Gross, Soft Opening
50. Cavern Deep, Cavern Deep
51. 10,000 Years, II
52. Rebreather, The Line, its Width and the War Drone
53. Spiral Grave, Legacy of the Anointed
54. LáGoon, Skullactic Visions
55. Jack Harlon & the Dead Crows, The Magnetic Ridge
56. Boss Keloid, Family the Smiling Thrush
57. Shun, Shun
58. Black Willows, Shemurah
59. Expo Seventy, Evolution
60. Year of Taurus, Topsoils
Notes:
The best advice I can give you is DON’T IGNORE THIS LIST. From 3rd Ear Experience’s righteous jams to Kadabra’s and Slowshine’s debuts and 10,000 Years’ hard riffing and Old Man Wizard’s melo-prog swansong and Jack Harlon’s otherworldly West, and Cavern Deep’s conceptual darkness, and Black Willows’ consuming tones and Sleep Moscow’s emotive downerism and Weedpecker progging out and Here Lies Man still being in an league entirely their own, and that Plaindrifter record and Shun and Spiral Grave and Rebreather and The Kings of Frog Island. That Terry Gross’ sheer West Coastness and Somnuri’s Northeastern intensity. Kal-El’s pulp riffage bigger than ever. Motorpsycho being Motorpsycho. IAH collaborating with Spaceslug. Boss Keloid’s prog-metal shenanigans. Hippie Death Cult’s mellow heavy. LLNN utterly killing everything. Damn this is good.
If this was a year-end top 30 in itself, I’d be like, yeah that’s a solid list, and I don’t mean that as a platitude. So please don’t ignore it. If there’s something here you haven’t heard, I can only advise you chase it down. Any one of these could be higher or lower in your own consideration, but I dug all of them, and yeah, by the time you get up to 40 or so the numbering gets pretty arbitrary, but whatever. It’s a list of stuff I think you should check out. Releases that made the year better, all of them one way or the other.
New Jersey stalwarts Monster Magnet taking on obscure and semi-obscure covers out of the heavy ’70s is pretty high on the list of ‘ultimate no-brainers.’ One might’ve preferred an album of originals, but even in a stopgap, Dave Wyndorf and company found ways to be creative with the material, and this belongs here for their take on Dust‘s “Learning to Die” (video here) alone.
Domkraft‘s third album arrived in so-you-think-you-know-what-we’re-about fashion, building out the heavy noise rock of 2018’s Flood (review here) and 2016’s The End of Electricity (review here), leaning into more textured material executed with a burgeoning patience of approach, while still keeping impact central. They’ve come into their own and one expects they’ll continue to reshape what that means over time.
Consuming and shamanic. A record that really took the time to construct its own world for the listener to inhabit in its songs. Sunnata‘s fourth full-length, Burning in Heaven, Melting on Earth brought together six tracks that resonated with purposeful depth and a cold-psych ambience that allowed space for minimalism and movements of blistering heavy in kind. Not for everyone, maybe, but each piece truly added to the flowing progression of the whole, showing the conceptual, ritualized strengths of the band.
Five years after their debut, Sins of the Elders (review here), Massachusetts sludge-of-death metallers Conclave — now with a second guitarist — brought forth epic punishment and bleakness befitting our age. A willful, harsh slog, Dawn of Days had few comforts to offer in “Death Blows Cold” or “Haggard,” and the mourning finale “Suicide Funeral,” while allowed to be flourish in its way, found a means to express its grief while staying honest to underpinnings of extreme metal. Not an easy listen, not supposed to be.
Some records you just can’t fight. And why would you? Quick turnaround for North Carolina’s Crystal Spiders after their Sept. 2020 debut, Molt (review here), but the three-piece of bassist/vocalist Brenna Leath (also Lightning Born and The Hell-No), drummer/vocalist Tradd Yancey (also Doomsday Profit) and guitarist/producer Mike Dean (also of C.O.C.) demonstrated a range the first record only hinted at, touching on earthy psych, dirty punk, classic heavy and more with evident ease and a marked sense of craft.
Hungarian collective River Flows Reverse brought lysergic healing as part of the Psychedelic Source Records milieu, with a particularly folkish and exploratory vibe branching out across pieces like the serene “At the Gates of the Perennial” or the acoustic-led “Rain it Rages,” creating gorgeous atmospheres from existential dread and a sheer need for outlet. Spontaneous in its spirit but with a thoughtful undercurrent, it’s by no means the highest-profile release on this list, but it also offered something nothing else did in quite the same way. Pastoralia for another world.
A decade on from their debut and five years after their last album, Washington D.C. roll-prone trio Borracho came back not only with terrifying cover art, but also an unabashed look at the world around them, socially conscious lyrics topping their hallmark heavy riffage in a way that their prior work had yet to engage. Pound of Flesh was an organic step forward for the band in sound and songwriting, and their perspective of wondering what the hell happened to pretty much everything was relatable, to say the least, but the nuances of arrangement and vibe went a long way too in changing things up around their classic-style sound.
Larson‘s gonna Larson. As to what that might mean on a given release, that’s harder to say. Drawing from a decades-long background in punk and hardcore, heavy Southern and acoustic songwriting, as well as a pedigree long enough to take up the rest of this post, Favorite Iron was one of three outings issued on the same day in September in a creative splurge and found him playing all instruments himself (horns on opener “Backpage” notwithstanding) and imbuing each piece with its own purpose in feeding the richness of the entire work. And somehow, was humble in it, putting it out on Bandcamp, no PR, no fanfare. Just wasn’t there, then was. Very Larson.
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22. Spaceslug, Memorial
Self-released. Review pending.
Issued just on Dec. 10, Memorial arrives from Poland’s Spaceslug in suitably mournful fashion and with it, the trio seem to dive into more personal, human issues than ever before. Loss, uncertainty. It’s certainly a record for the time in which it’s made, but neither do the band neglect their own growth as they continue to incorporate blackened screams along with their more grunge-derived clean vocals, a blend of mellow heavy psych and harsher presence coinciding. After a productive few years with the 2020 Leftovers EP (review here) and 2019’s Reign of the Orion (review here), Spaceslug have managed to push even deeper into their sound. They do so with an increasing sense of mastery.
Unexpected and appreciated in kind. I wouldn’t have bet that Poughkeepsie, New York, glitch-grind innovators Genghis Tron would return with a new record after 13 years, and I wouldn’t have guessed either that Dream Weapon would bring both the revamped lineup and the refined focus on melody that it did. Live drums gave new heart to the songs, and thoughtfully layered washes of keys and guitar brought a sense of worldbuilding that, while in contrast to the freneticism of the band’s past work, was refreshing in its honesty and refusal to be anything other than what they wanted it to be. Caught a bunch of hype early and then disappeared, but the songs will hold up long after this year is over. If you get it, you get it.
The story of Sweden’s Vokonis isn’t too dissimilar from that of Spaceslug above in that the band set its foundation in a certain kind of heavy worship and have moved outward from there over time. For the Borås trio, their latest outing expanded on their progressive ideology, taking the heavy riffs of their earliest work and setting them to a winding course while also incorporating a rawer vocal along with the cleaner shouting. In addition to being topped off by the best album cover I saw all year, Odyssey proved to be a journey of mind for those ready to take it, and showed that Vokonis‘ maturity, their finding themselves, is likely to be an ongoing process. And if they want to keep bringing Per Wiberg in on keys, that’ll be fine too.
What a blast this record is. Warm tones, classic vibes, ’90s alt weirdness given a little extra push into heavy. I didn’t even care that half of the thing had been released as an EP prior, putting on Lammping‘s Flashjacks was and very much still is a joy. No pretense, no bullshit, just songs, songs, songs. Give me “Intercessor” and “Jaws of Life” and “Lammping” any day of the week as the Toronto outfit hold down both attitude and humor while inviting you in on their good time. 10 tracks/33 minutes — they weren’t even trying to take up too much of your day. Just a short and sweet set on an LP and then they roll out until the next one. May it arrive sooner rather than later. I’m not a party guy, but this is my kind of party.
The opening duo “Mission From God” and “Nothing Left for You” gave Fractal Altar an initial thrust that the heavy grunge of “Not Two” complemented with darker edge before the swinging “Hold On” tipped back toward forward momentum. “The False Lack,” a highlight, found some middle ground en route to a back half of the LP that culminated with the sub-nine-minute title-track, psychedelic ritualization coming to a head with spaced-out vocals over a black hole of low end. The weirder Snail get, the better they get in my mind, and more than half a decade after Feral (review here), they were ready to get plenty weird here. Wouldn’t trade that for the world.
Aggro-edged Philly heavy rock and roll, pulling influence not only from its own backdrop but from heavy modern and old, perhaps the best thing one can say about Resolute was that it lived up to the lofty declaration in the title The Age of Truth gave it. Whether they were playing to more atmospheric ideas on “Palace of Rain” and “Return to Ships” or digging into classic heavy blues on “Salome” or finding new levels of intensity on “Horsewhip,” it was clear The Age of Truth consciously set a high standard for themselves and put the effort in to meet it every step of the way. Clear and sharp in its production, it’s still a record you can put on and be blown away by each individual performance, as well as how they come together. Dudes only put the bar higher.
It was not an easy task for Norway’s Jointhugger to follow either their 2021 single-song EP Reaper Season (review here) or 2020’s debut, I Am No One (review here), but even amid a still-solidifying lineup, the band conjured listenability and weight in post-Monolordian fashion without either aping that band’s methodology or ignoring their own nascent sonic identity. There’s more growing to do, and one hopes that as they go they’ll hold at least somewhat to the pace of releases thus far established, but there was no getting past the accomplishments of Surrounded by Vultures, not the least because of the 700-foot ice wall of tone the band built along the path. Potential and achievement stomping hand-in-hand into an unknown heavy future.
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15. Temple Fang, Fang Temple
Released by Right on Mountain & Electric Spark. Reviewed Nov. 23.
I’ll be honest, I was a little bummed when Fang Temple got released and I didn’t even know it was coming. I got over the ego bruise quick with the help of the record itself, however, the Amsterdam-based psychedelic spiritualists taking the live-album method from 2020’s Live at Merleyn (review here) and using an on-stage performance as the basic tracks around which the rest of Fang Temple was constructed. The result was a resonant joy in heavy psych; a record as satisfying to lose yourself in as to consciously follow along its charted but spontaneous-feeling path. They’ve had some lineup shifts too, but gosh I hope there’s more to come, whether I get an early heads up or not.
Would you have bet there’d be a second Yawning Sons album, more than 10 years after 2009’s Ceremony to the Sunset (review here; reissue review here)? I might not have, but the collaboration between UK instrumentalists Sons of Alpha Centauri and Yawning Man guitarist and desert rock figurehead Gary Arce brought a slew of memorable moments, including guest spots from Fatso Jetson/Yawning Man‘s Mario Lalli and Hermano‘s Dandy Brown, and return appearances from Scott Reeder and Wendy Rae Fowler. It’s still impossible to know if Yawning Sons will be a band or a once-every-decade happening, but Sky Island proved they were more than a cult one-off. A third outing would only be welcome.
Careening back and forth between its space rock and more drifting psychedelic impulses, Comet Control‘s Inside the Sun brought varied pleasures of craft and melody, saving its more contemplative stretches for the peaceful immersion of “The Afterlife” or “Heavy Moments” and “The Deserter” later on after the duly cosmic launch of “Keep on Spinnin'” and the buzzing “Secret Life” established the pattern of movement under the drift. Whichever way a given track went — and it was by no means limited to one or the other with “Good Day to Say Goodbye” and “Inside the Sun” in the album’s midsection — the Toronto-based outfit worked mostly as a two-piece in putting it together, but the lushness of the ensuing work took what the band had accomplished on 2016’s Center of the Maze (review here) and added even more dimension.
They should’ve called it “endless repeat.” The mellow heft of Swedish unit Maha Sohona‘s sophomore full-length is one that I just kept going back to, time and time again, and the appeal of doing so only grew with more listening. Melodically capable but not overblown, songs like “Luftslott” and “Orbit X” brought to mind Sungrazer and earlier Spaceslug with a bittersweet nostalgia (in the case of the former, certainly) even as Maha Sohona used them to chart their own stylistic course. It was seven years between their first and second records, so I’m not going to predict when/if a follow-up will come, but Endless Searcher made my 2021 better to the point that I just put on “Leaves” and can feel the serotonin being released. It feels only right to honor that by having them here.
With a permanent-seeming dissolution as context for its arrival, End of Forever wrapped a run for Samsara Blues Experiment that could only really be called successful in terms of what they accomplished during their time, but moreover, it underscored what made them such a special group to start with, its progressive psychedelia still developing in persona as the band was coming to a close. Guitarist/vocalist Christian Peters, having spent the prior few years in various solo explorations, brought increased use of keys and synth, and in combination with the organic fluidity of the rhythm section of bassist/backing vocalist Hans Eiselt and drummer Thomas Vedder, that let Samsara Blues Experiment say something new even as they were also saying goodbye. If they’re truly done for good, they’ll be missed.
An awaited debut from this Philadelphia trio, Lupi Amoris confronted high expectations and surpassed them with a complexity of atmosphere that was surprising even after seeing them live multiple times, taking the oft-psychedelic fuzz of Heavy Temple‘s previous output and setting it to a more rigid focus and a daring sense of intent. This was a record that came about after years of lineup changes and tumult, but made cohesion from chaos, and there was not one second of its stretch that didn’t serve the album as a whole. Even more than 2016’s Chassit EP (review here), which I’d previously counted as their first long-player, Lupi Amoris showed toward what Heavy Temple‘s potential had been driving all along, and its realization was stunning. Whatever they do next, whenever they do it, will also be confronting high expectations.
At this point, I feel ready to posit Indianapolis four-piece Apostle of Solitude as the best doom band in America. I know that’s a loaded statement because there are as many kinds of doom as there are of heavy metal itself, but if you look at a group bringing new ideas to the established traditions and tenets of the style Apostle of Solitude have put themselves in the uppermost of the upper echelon. At just 36 minutes, Until the Darkness Goes feels likewise concise and engaging, its songs holding the emotive thread that has always typified the band’s work, but engaging more vocal harmonies between guitarists Chuck Brown and Steve Janiak (now both also in The Gates of Slumber) atop the densely weighted impact from bassist Mike Naish (also Shroud of Vulture) and drummer Corey Webb. Don’t think they’re the best US doom band right now? Find me someone better.
With a wholesale invite to either take the heat or remove your ass from the kitchen, Greenleaf tossed out Echoes From a Mass as their eighth LP some 20 years after their first, 2001’s Revolution Rock (discussed here), and reminded their listenership of the songwriting chemistry that’s emerged over the better part of the last decade between founding guitarist Tommi Holappa — and yes, I’ve heard rumors he’s got new Dozer in progress as well; we’ll see in 2022 — and vocalist Arvid Hällagård, whose work here outshone even 2018’s Hear the Rivers (review here), establishing the conversation between instruments and voice as the crucial element in Greenleaf circa 2021. A heavy blues shuffle from bassist Hans Frölich and drummer Sebastian Olsson and production by Karl Daniel Lidén only up the asset count working in the band’s favor, and on any given day I might still be walking around with “Bury Me My Son” on repeat in my brain. No complaints.
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7. Blackwater Holylight, Silence/Motion
Released by RidingEasy Records. Reviewed Oct. 18.
At a pivotal moment, Blackwater Holylight pivoted. The Portland-based outfit’s third full-length found them pressing outward from their heavy psychedelic and dream-pop foundations into bleaker atmospheres, using Silence/Motion as a means for processing trauma and perhaps to revamp their audience’s expectations of the kind of band they want to be. 2019’s Veils of Winter (review here) and 2018’s self-titled debut (review here) brought marked progress from one to the next, but bassist/vocalist/guitarist Allison “Sunny” Faris, guitarist/bassist Mikayla Mayhew, synthesist Sarah McKenna, and drummer Eliese Dorsay (Erika Osterhout now plays guitar but isn’t on the record) brought on board producer A.L.N. of Mizmor, and the record’s guest vocals from Thou‘s Bryan Funck and Mike Paparo of Inter Arma brought flourish of more extreme metals than anything the band had done before. As a result, their next outing could go pretty much anywhere, so mission likely accomplished for this one.
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6. Kadavar & Elder, Eldovar – A Story in Darkness and Light
Answering the call of being unable to tour and presumably tired of sitting on their hands as a result, Berlin-based outfits Kadavar and Elder (minus the latter’s bassist Jack Donovan, who lives in the US and was under travel restriction) hit the studio together earlier this year to piece together jams and, reportedly, take a “see what happens” approach. What happened was a sound that belonged solely to neither band and drew enough from both to legitimately earn the title Eldovar. Rife with melody brought to bear amid a threat of the breakout that arrived in “Blood Moon Night” — which, while the most uptempo, was not necessarily the highlight of the record — it was an album perhaps carved from experiments, but one that seemed to brim with a sense of underlying direction, even after the fact. Its shimmer felt like a light being cast through a dark year, defiant and peaceful. That two of the current generation’s leaders in heavy rock could come together in such brazen fashion was a noteworthy novelty, but it was the way that Eldovar stood on its own that made it so special.
Gonna get this off my chest while I can. After this one came out, I saw on the vast sphere of social media some disappointed response, like what was up with Stöner being so stripped down and just rocking riffs and all that? Okay. The hell did you expect? That’s the point of the band! It’s Brant Bjork and Nick Oliveri — and Ryan Güt, also of Bjork‘s solo band — purposefully digging back to their roots, playing the simplest form possible of the low desert punk they helped create together in Kyuss. It wasn’t about “let’s innovate,” it was about “I dig the Ramones and Fatso Jetson so let’s have a good time.” You got the ultra-grooves of “Own Yer Blues” and “Tribe/Fly Girl,” the Oliveri-fronted punk of “Evel Never Dies,” and the bluesman’s telling-it-like-it-is of “The Older Kids” and “Rad Stays Rad,” “Nothin'” and “Stand Down.” They were in, done, and out. I chalked some of the “meh” up to the studio album arriving so soon after their Live in the Mojave Desert stream (review here) and live album (review here), but even so, damn, be thankful these songs got made in the first place. With yer spoiled ass.
Word to anyone who’s managed to read this far: I hear King Buffalo might have an Xmas surprise in store as relates to this album, so heads up. Acheron — filmed as well as audio-recorded — was the second in an intended series of three yet to be completed of albums Rochester, NY, trio King Buffalo composed during the pandemic lockdown. Like so many, their inability to tour resulted in a need for another outlet. Following The Burden of Restlessness (review here) would be a challenge, but the band shifted focus in sound toward four extended pieces of heavy psychedelia — not completely escapist from the reality surrounding them, but attempting for sure to shift the mindset through which they (and the listener) were experiencing it. Traveling to record in the remote location of Howe Caverns, guitarist/vocalist/synthesist Sean McVay, bassist/keyboardist Dan Reynolds and drummer Scott Donaldson found a way to immediately differentiate their second album of 2021 from the first while offering a shift in sound that leaned less into darkness — ironic, maybe considering it was tracked underground — than its predecessor while retaining the band’s ever-forward progression of sound.
One would be hard-pressed to find a more suitable Halloween release. London-based heavy rockers Green Lung brought together a collection of songs that, yes, were duly autumnal in their spirit, but also refreshing in their sound, unashamed in their readiness to engage their audience, and in cuts like “Old Gods,” “Reaper’s Scythe,” “You Bear the Mark” and “Graveyard Sun” tapped into a cross-genre appeal that was brought together with impeccable quality of craft and production. Classic and new at the same time. Thoughtful in arrangement, Black Harvest nonetheless skirted pretense and kept to a basic verse/chorus appeal that felt easy to get into, and the complexity held in the material only revealed itself more with time. It is an album in which something new will be heard for years, and it not only answered the call to step up after 2019’s Woodland Rites (review here), but put Green Lung in a different echelon of bands entirely. They are an act whose influence will be felt, and not that the world needs another reason to hope for a “return” for live music, but Black Harvest is one for sure. Its songs deserve to be heard by however many ears they can reach.
Monolord are the most essential band in heavy music. Whatever qualifier you want to put on that in terms of style, go ahead, it’s still true. The Gothenburg trio’s fifth album doubled as an anticipated follow-up to No Comfort (review here), which was 2019’s album of the year, and brought no dip in the quality of their craft, the breadth of their style or the force of their execution. In addition to having already ignited a generation’s worth of riffers in their wake, Monolord have steadily progressed in their own approach, and Your Time to Shine skillfully mirrored the structure of No Comfort before it while pushing ahead of where the band were two years ago. Someone needs to build a statue in honor of Mika Häkki‘s bass tone, let alone the riffs of guitarist/vocalist Thomas V. Jäger and the stomp/production of drummer Esben Willems, but with cuts like “The Weary,” “Your Time to Shine,” “I’ll Be Damned,” “To Each Their Own” and “The Sirens of Yersinia” — oh wait, that’s all of them — it was the entire band shining, a plural “your” that was realized in the work. The superficial bleakness of the cover art spoke to the death perhaps of an entire world, but also the new growth and life to inevitably emerge therefrom. The songs did no less.
A record for the times. The record for the times. There are a few reasons King Buffalo‘s third full-length and first in the pandemic-born series, The Burden of Restlessness, deserves to be the album of the year. There’s no reasonably denying the level of songwriting or the move into hard-edged progressive rock and metal of its songs, or the boldness of the manner in which the Rochester trio — again, Sean McVay, Dan Reynolds and Scott Donaldson — made that move, or the resonance of the finished product. It’s a very, very, very good album. Fine. What stands out to me though in thinking of The Burden of Restlessness in context of the addled period between 2020 and 2021 is the fact that it is completely unflinching. From the striking depiction of decay in the front visuals by Zdzisław Beksiński to the personal-seeming nature of songs like “The Knocks,” “Burning” — the opening lyric, “I turn my head from the stars” a direct contrast to “Orion can you hear me?” from the band’s 2016 debut, Orion (review here) — “Silverfish” and “Hebetation” and the speaking to the outside world of “Locusts,” “Grifter” and the maybe-daring-t0-hope-for-something-better conclusion in “Loam,” The Burden of Restlessness gave comfort to its listenership through shared experience rather than platitude. It didn’t tell you it was going to get better. It shared the space you were in, and acknowledged all the unknown corners of that space. This spirit, coupled with the outright sonic achievement on the part of the band, made the album a statement poised to ring out as a document of its weighted era and a standard for the expressive depth of its creativity.
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The Top 60 Albums of 2021: Honorable Mention
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Sit tight, we’ve got a ways to go here.
Acid Magus, Wyrd Syster
Acid Mammoth, Caravan
Age Total, Age Total
Alastor, Onwards and Downwards
Amenra, De Doorn
The Angelus, Why We Never Die
The Answer Lies in the Black Void, Forlorn
Apollo80, Beautiful, Beautiful Desolation
Arlekin, The Secret Garden
Bog Wizard, Miasmic Purple Smoke
Book of Wyrms, Occult New Age
Bongzilla, Weedsconsin
Canyyn, Canyyn
Craneium, Unknown Heights
Delco Detention, It Came From the Basement
Demon Head, Viscera
Doctor Smoke, Dreamers and the Dead
Dread Sovereign, Alchemical Warfare
Dream Unending, Tide Turns Eternal
Duel, In Carne Persona
Dunbarrow, III
DVNE, Etemen Ænka
Eyehategod, A History of Nomadic Behavior
Bill Fisher, Hallucinations of a Higher Truth
Funeral, Praesentalis in Aeternum
Fuzzy Lights, Burials
Holy Death Trio, Introducing…
Iceburn, Asclepius
Jakethehawk, Hinterlands
Kanaan, Earthbound
Khemmis, Deceiver
King Woman, Celestial Blues
Kvasir, 4
Lingua Ignota, Sinner Get Ready
Los Disidentes del Sucio Motel, Polaris
Low Flying Hawks, Fuyu
Low Orbit, Crater Creator
Malady, Ainavahantaa
Mastiff, Leave Me the Ashes of the Earth
Mythic Sunship, Wildfire
Zack Oakley, Badlands
Octopus Ride, II
Øresund Space Collective, Universal Travels
Red Beard Wall, 3
Robots of the Ancient World, Mystic Goddess
Emma Ruth Rundle, Engine of Hell
Saturnia, Stranded in the Green
Savanah, Olympus Mons
Sergio Ch., La Danza de los Toxicos
Shiva the Destructor, Find the Others
Smote, Bodkin
Snake Mountain Revival, Everything in Sight
Snowy Dunes, Sastrugi
Sonic Demon, Vendetta
The Spacelords, False Dawn
Spelljammer, Abyssal Trip
Spidergawd, VI
Swallow the Sun, Moonflowers
Thunderchief, Synanthrope
Thunder Horse, Chosen One
Ultra Void, Ultra Void
Vouna, Atropos
WEEED, Do You Fall?
When the Deadbolt Breaks, As Hope Valley Burns
Witchcryer, When Their Gods Come for You
Witchrot, Hollow
Wolftooth, Blood & Iron
Wowod, Yarost’ I Proshchenie
Notes:
I feel immediately defensive here, and that kind of sucks, to be honest. Here’s the basic truth: I know people like different things. I know people think different things are important, that everybody works hard making records, that lists are bullshit and that people go back to listen to different things more over time.
What I’d ask is that after 60 records in the list proper and another 60-plus here, you please give me a break. I’ve reviewed well over 250 releases this year, so neither is this everything, nor is it nothing. I’ve done my best. And if one of these records is your album of the year? Awesome! I’m so, so glad for that. I can’t and won’t argue. I’m sure this list is incomplete and I’m sure I’ll add more to it over the next couple days — always do — but if you didn’t hear anything this year and you take this list and you take the other 60 records, listen to one per week, you’ll have enough new music to carry you into 2023, and I feel pretty good about that.
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Debut Album of the Year 2021
Heavy Temple, Lupi Amoris
Other notable debuts (alphabetically):
Acid’s Trip, Strings of Soul
Age Total, Age Total
Bala, Maleza
Bog Wizard, Miasmic Purple Smoke
Bottomless, Bottomless
Cancervo, 1
Cave of Swimmers, Aurora
Cavern Deep, Cavern Deep
Chamán, Maleza
Cosmic Reaper, Cosmic Reaper
DayGlo Mourning, Dead Star
Delving, Hirschbrunnen
Den Der Hale, Harsyra
Dome Runner, Conflict State Design
Draken, Draken
Gangrened, Deadly Algorithm
Gristmill, Heavy Everything
High Desert Queen, Secrets of the Black Moon
Holy Death Trio, Introducing…
The Judas Knife, Death is the Thing With Feathers
Kadabra, Ultra
Kadavar & Elder, Eldovar – A Story of Darkness and Light
Kvasir, 4
Plaindrifter, Echo Therapy
Shiva the Destructor, Find the Others
Slowshine, Living Light
Smote, Bodkin
Snake Mountain Revival, Everything in Sight
Sonic Demon, Vendetta
Sow Discord, Quiet Earth
Stöner, Stoners Rule
Suncraft, Flat Earth Rider
Terry Gross, Soft Opening
Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships, TTBS
Vestamaran, Bungalow Rex
White Void, Anti
Witchrot, Hollow
Wooden Fields, Wooden Fields
Wytch, Exordium
Year of Taurus, Topsoils
Notes:
Yes, technically the Stöner record was higher than Heavy Temple on the top 60. I took into account the fact that Brant Bjork and Nick Oliveri have worked together on and off for 30-plus years in my final assessment and decided Lupi Amoris, as a debut album, deserved the top spot. I actually had a numbered list going — Stöner were two, Delving was three — but decided to just let the Heavy Temple stand on its own instead, which it certainly earned.
One could see the pandemic shuffle of creativity peaking out though. Kadavar & Elder’s collaboration was a debut as well, but it was just one of the new projects or collaborations to surface this year. Note Slowshine is Earthship by another name (and purpose) and so are Dome Runner. There was a wash of diggable debuts, loaded with potential, and again, I don’t think this list is exhaustive so much as it’s a primer for some of the best stuff out there as I see/hear it. I’ll spare you wax poetry about the forward movement of genre overall, but suffice to say that in acts like Plaindrifter, Shiva the Destructor, Witchrot, Age Total and High Desert Queen, among others here, such things were readily apparent.
Your time would not be wasted with any of these, I just thought that Heavy Temple, as a first album, was a special achievement and deserved its place as debut of the year.
Short Release of the Year 2021
Jointhugger, Reaper Season
Other notable EPs, Splits, Demos, etc.:
Aiwass & ASTRAL CONstruct, Solis in Stellis
All Are to Return, II
Birth, Birth
Blackwolfgoat, (In) Control / Tired of Dying
Bog Wizard/Dust Lord, Split
Boozewa, First Contact
Carlton Melton, Night Pillers
Cerbère, Cerbère
Cortége, Chasing Daylight
The Crooked Whispers, Dead Moon Night
Doomsday Profit, In Idle Orbit
Dopelord, Reality Dagger
EMBR, 1021
Enslaved, Caravans to the Outer Worlds
Fuzz Sagrado, Fuzz Sagrado
Guhts, Blood Feather
Howling Giant, Alteration
Ikitan, Darvaza y Brinicle
Insect Ark, Future Fossils
Erik Larson, Measwe
Lurcher, Coma
Merlock, You Cannot Be Saved
Moonstone, 1904
Morningstar Delirium, Morningstar Delirium
Mos Generator, The Lantern
Nineteen Thirteen, MCMXIII
Old Horn Tooth, True Death
Planet of the 8s, Lagrange Point Vol.1
Psychonaut/SÂVER, Emerald
Solemn Lament, Solemn Lament
Sorcia, Death by Design
Spaceslug, The Event Horizon
Spawn, Live at Moonah Arts Collective
Stonus, Séance
Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships, Rosalee
Ultra Void, Ultra Void
Ungraven/Slomatics, Split
Wall, II
Weedevil, The Death is Coming
The Whims of the Great Magnet, Share the Sun
Per Wiberg, All is Well in the Land of the Living But for the Rest of Us… Lights Out
Notes:
Again, look at the amazing swath of new creativity happening. Guhts, Boozewa, Aiwass & ASTRAL CONstruct — even Wall with their second EP — Morningstar Delirium, Fuzz Sagrado, Doomsday Profit, Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships: these are new bands and projects coming together, some from established artists and some not, but the shuffling of sound and priorities is a hallmark of the last year-plus’ output, and it can be seen here for sure. Yeah, bands like Enslaved and Dopelord put out killer EPs, but it’s acts like Moonstone — with just one prior release behind them — or Howling Giant working instrumentally for the first time, that struck me even harder.
As regards Jointhugger in the top pick, I took into account the “oh shit this band isn’t fucking around” factor. Coming off their first record and headed into their second in quick succession, the single-song “Reaper Season” served due notice that the debut was no fluke and that the Norwegian outfit had no interest in resting on riffy laurels. This section is always tough since it encompasses different kinds of releases — singles, EPs, whatnot — but in terms of serving the band’s overarching progression, Jointhugger made a difficult choice markedly easier for me.
I won’t take away from the accomplishments of anyone on the list above — or the inevitable ones I forgot, either. Enslaved’s ever-outbound growth is worth a significant mention, and arrivals like Lurcher and Old Horn Tooth kept were undeniable. I’ll nod here too to Psychonaut/SÂVER and Ungraven/Slomatics’ split releases and that The Whims of the Great Magnet. And, and, and…
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Late Releases
Partially affected by the Covid-19 pandemic — like everybody’s everything — vinyl pressing delays meant that many albums have come out in the last month or two that were intended to be earlier. I tried to account for these in the lists above, but thinking about November and December specifically, records by Low Orbit, Spidergawd, Weedpecker, King Buffalo, Spaceslug, Bog Wizard, Raibard, Funeral, Temple Fang, Kadavar & Elder, and Wolftooth can’t be left out as part of the larger narrative of 2021 in music.
I can’t say I’ve listened to, as an example, Spidergawd, as much as to Greenleaf or any number of things that were released in the beginning of the year, but neither do I feel like the lack relative passage of time since something came out should be held against it, especially given the circumstances. As much as the ‘music industry’ shuts down at the end of any given year, 2021 seems to have plowed straight through to the finish.
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Live in the Mojave Desert
While we’re marking the highlights of 2021, it’s impossible not to note the continued proliferation of livestreaming as a (woefully inadequate but take what you can get) substitute experience for show-going and touring. In the case of director Ryan Jones’ Live in the Mojave Desert series, it was an opportunity to turn lemons into concert films of true measure, as well as live albums for Earthless, Stöner, Nebula, Spirit Mother and Mountain Tamer that held their own merit.
There have been a few noteworthy streams over the last year-plus issued in pay-per-view fashion, but in terms of the scale of the presentation, few have held a candle to what Live in the Mojave Desert accomplished — only Enslaved’s ‘Cinematic Tour’ comes close in my mind, and that’s a different animal entirely, ditto Roadburn Redux — or have managed to capture an atmosphere in the same way that not only gives a setting for the music, but adds to the experience of the viewer. It’s not just a show that otherwise would happen in a venue; it’s a show that would happen once in a lifetime.
Whatever context brings that about, it is something to celebrate.
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Looking Ahead to 2022
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I love looking forward to new music. I love it. In a spirit of anticipation and friendship and righteous tunes to come, here’s a list of bands who’ve either confirmed new stuff in the works or are recording or have preorders up or are subject to rampant speculation. In no order whatsoever:
Elder, Toad Venom, Torche, King Buffalo, High on Fire, El Perro, Yatra, Bevar Sea, Birth, Pia Isa, Colour Haze, JIRM, Samavayo, Tortuga, El Supremo, Ruby the Hatchet, MNRVA, Buss, White Ward, Dreadnought, Merlock, Gozu, Westing, Eric Wagner, Stöner, Blue Heron, All Souls, Arekin, 40 Watt Sun, Caustic Casanova, Deathwhite, Freedom Hawk, Hazemaze, Stoned Jesus, Mothership, Desert Storm, Poseidótica, Sasquatch, Conan, Seremonia, Långfinger, Wo Fat, Earthless, Dozer, Red Sun Atacama, REZN, No Man’s Valley, Ufomammut, Geezer, Messa, Clutch, Abronia, Somali Yacht Club, Sun Voyager, Atavismo, Some Pills for Ayala, Eight Bells, Stinking Lizaveta, Borracho, The Crooked Whispers, Naxatras, Rotor, Mos Generator, Big Scenic Nowhere, Righteous Fool, High Priest, High Priestess, Loop, Elliott’s Keep, Fostermother, Valley of the Sun, Boris, Deathbell, Siena Root, My Sleeping Karma, Firebreather, Matt Pike, Mythosphere, Crowbar, JIRM, Mount Saturn, Supersonic Blues, Wizzerd, 10,000 Years…
If any names are repeated there, consider it a sign that I’m looking forward to that record twice. And if you’ve got a name to add to that list, I’m all for it. As I said, I love looking forward to new music.
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Thank You
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Well, I guess that’s it. I’m not anymore done with 2021 than it’s done with itself — some of the releases featured above have yet to be reviewed; looking at you, Spaceslug — and there’s always catching up to do. No coincidence January will feature the second part of the Quarterly Review that began this month.
But while I’ve got you, if I still do, I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you as always for your continued support of The Obelisk, this site, in the various ways it is shown, whether that’s liking a post, sharing a link, leaving a (hopefully kind) comment or buying some sweatpants. More than a decade after the fact, I cannot hope to tell you how much it means to me sitting here in front of my laptop to have that support and encouragement, day in and year out. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart and with ever fiber of my wretched being. Thank you.
Posted in Radio on December 10th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Last episode was looking ahead to 2022. The one before that was looking back at 2020. That really just leaves 2021, huh? Well, here we are.
This I think is the third year I’ve done a ‘Some of the Best of the Year’ spacial on Gimme Metal, and at least the second year it’s been a two-parter. What can I say? I like a lot of music. And I think if you take the time to check out any of this stuff on the playlist, whether that’s by actually listening to the show (I hope) or just glancing through the playlist (I hope less), you might like it too.
This is only half, yes, but it’s still two hours of some of the best heavy stuff that came out this year. Should be plenty for one sitting, and the next episode — already turned in because of the impending holiday — should round this one out nicely. More to come. Then a whole new year.
Thanks for listening if you do.
The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.
Full playlist:
The Obelisk Show – 12.10.21
Green Lung
Leaders of the Blind
Black Harvest
Monolord
I’ll Be Damned
Your Time to Shine
Greenleaf
Bury Me My Son
Echoes From a Mass
VT
Heavy Temple
The Maiden
Lupi Amoris
Maha Sohona
Leaves
Endless Searcher
Domkraft
Into Orbit
Seeds
Spelljammer
Among the Holy
Abyssal Trip
Samsara Blues Experiment
Massive Passive
End of Forever
IAH
Arce
Omines
Genghis Tron
Alone in the Heart of the Light
Dream Weapon
Spidergawd
Black Moon Rising
VI: At Rainbows End
Thunderchief
King of the Pleistocene
Synanthrope
Spaceslug
Follow This Land
Memorial
King Buffalo
Acheron
Acheron
Weedpecker
Fire Far Away
IV: The Stream of Forgotten Thoughts
VT
Temple Fang
Let it Go/When We Pray
Fang Temple
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Dec. 24 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.
