Posted in Whathaveyou on October 4th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Put together by bassist Kip Page of Formula 400, Mezzoa guitarist/vocalist Ignacio “Nacho” Maldonado, and Desert Suns singer Jason Busiek, the SoCal Heavy Jam is a new festival intended — as you can glean for yourself by looking at either the banner above or the poster below (one likes to cover horizontal and vertical, when possible) — to be an annual event.
Motorbäbe, who, yes, play Motörhead tunes, will headline, and Void Vator and -(16)- (whose new record I’m still anticipating eagerly) are up near the top of the bill as well. All three of the founders’ bands will play, and presumably that won’t be the case every year — they might alternate, for example, or all take 2023 off — but in addition to being well within their rights, having booked the thing, they’re good bands. With Lords of Dust, Awakeners and Into the Fuzz rounding out, the all-day-and-plenty-of-the-nighter will take place Oct. 22 at Full Circle Saloon in Santee, California, which makes it easy-peasy for those in the San Diego area.
The lineup was announced a while ago and has been bandied hither and yon since, but I suck at keeping up and kind of figured nobody would argue if I posted it now, which is far enough out for you to make travel plans to San Diego/adjacent if you’re up for it and still close enough to that it won’t be forgotten by the time it actually happens. That’s my thinking, anyhow.
Putting together one festival, let alone one with an intention to do it every year, is not a minor undertaking. I wish Page, Maldonado and Busiek the best this first time through and will look forward to what comes next for SoCal Heavy Jam as well.
Info, a Spotify playlist of the bands, and social links follow:
SoCal Heavy Jam at Full Circle Saloon – Saturday, October 22
1st Annual SoCal Heavy Jam at Full Circle Saloon featuring – Motorbäbe, Void Vator, -16-, Mezzoa, Formula 400, Desert Suns, Lords of Dust, AWAKENERS and Into the Fuzz!
Free Food – 3pm – 5pm Drink Specials
$15 cover Portion of the proceeds go to NSEFU – Wild Life Conservation. Founder – Coe Lewis
Posted in Reviews on September 27th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Here we go again as we get closer to 100 records covered in this expanded Fall 2022 Quarterly Review. It’s been a pretty interesting ride so far, and as I’ve dug in I know for sure I’ve added a few names (and titles) to my year-end lists for albums, debuts, and so on. Today keeps the thread going with a good spread of styles and some very, very heavy stuff. If you haven’t found anything in the bunch yet — first I’d tell you to go back and check again, because, really? nothing in 60 records? — but after that, hey, maybe today’s your day.
Here’s hoping.
Quarterly Review #61-70:
Spirit Adrift, 20 Centuries Gone
The second short release in two years from trad metal forerunners Spirit Adrift, 20 Centuries Gone pairs two new originals in “Sorcerer’s Fate” and “Mass Formation Psychosis” — songs for our times written as fantasy narrative — with six covers, of Type O Negative‘s “Everything Dies,” Pantera‘s “Hollow,” Metallica‘s “Escape,” Thin Lizzy‘s “Waiting for an Alibi,” ZZ Top‘s “Nasty Dogs and Funky Kings” and Lynyrd Skynyrd‘s “Poison Whiskey.” The covers find them demonstrating a bit of malleability — founding guitarist/vocalist does well with Phil Lynott‘s and Peter Steele‘s inflections while still sounding like himself — and it’s always a novelty to hear a band purposefully showcase their influences like this, but “Sorcerer’s Fate” and “Mass Formation Psychosis” are the real draw. The former nods atop a Candlemassian chug and sweeping chorus before spending much of its second half instrumental, and “Mass Formation Psychosis” resolves in burly riffing, but only after a poised rollout of classic doom, slower, sleeker in its groove, with acoustic strum layered in amid the distortion and keyboard. Two quick reaffirmations of the band’s metallic flourishing and, indeed, a greater movement happening partially in their wake. And then the covers, which are admirably more than filler in terms of arrangement. Something of a holdover, maybe, but by no means lacking substance.
Just because it’s so bludgeoning doesn’t necessarily mean that’s all it is. The melodic stretch of “Forbidden World of Light” and delve into progressive black metal after the nakedly Crowbarian sludge of “A Path Beyond Grief,” the clean vocal-topped atmospheric heft of “What Must Be Done” and the choral feel of centerpiece “Carried,” even the way “Of Shadow and Sanguine” seems to purposefully thrash (also some more black metal there) amid its bouts of deathcore and sludge lumbering — all of these come together to make Northless‘ fourth long-player, A Path Beyond Grief, an experience that’s still perhaps defined by its intensity and concrete tonality, its aggression, but that is not necessarily beholden to those. Even the quiet intro “Nihil Sanctum Vitae” — a seeming complement to the nine-minute bring-it-all-together closer “Nothing That Lives Will Last” — seems intended to tell the listener there’s more happening here than it might at first seem. As someone who still misses Swarm of the Lotus, some of the culmination in that finale is enough to move the blood in my wretched body, but while born in part of hardcore, Northless are deep into their own style throughout these seven songs, and the resultant smashy smashy is able to adjust its own elemental balance while remaining ferociously executed. Except, you know, when it’s not. Because it’s not just one thing.
Comprised of five songs running a tidy 20 minutes, each brought together through ambience as well as the fact that their titles are all three letters long — “Aer,” “Hyd,” “Orb,” “Wiz,” “Rue” — AER is the debut EP from German instrumentalists Lightrain, who would seek entry into the contemplative and evocative sphere of acts like Toundra or We Lost the Sea as they offer headed-out post-rock float and heavy psychedelic vibe. “Hyd” is a focal point, both for its eight-minute runtime (nothing else is half that long) and the general spaciousness, plus a bit of riffy shove in the middle, with which it fills that, but the ultra-mellow “Aer” and drumless wash of “Wiz” feed into an overarching flow that speaks to greater intentions on the part of the band vis a vis a first album. “Rue” is progressive without being overthought, and “Orb” feels born of a jam without necessarily being that jam, finding sure footing on ground that for many would be uncertain. If this is the beginning point of a longer-term evolution on the part of the band, so much the better, but even taken as a standalone, without consideration for the potential of what it might lead to, the LP-style fluidity that takes hold across AER puts the lie to its 20 minutes being somehow minor.
Cleanly produced and leaning toward sleaze at times in a way that feels purposefully drawn from ’80s glam metal, the second offering from Poland’s 1965 — they might as well have called themselves 1542 for as much as they have to do sound-wise with what was going on that year — is the 12-song/52-minute Panther, which wants your nuclear love on “Nuclear Love,” wants to rock on “Let’s Rock,” and would be more than happy to do whatever it wants on “Anything We Want.” Okay, so maybe guitarist, vocalist and principal songwriter Michał Rogalski isn’t going to take home gold at the Subtlety Olympics, but the Warsaw-based outfit — him plus Marco Caponi on bass/backing vocals and Tomasz Rudnicki on drums/backing vocals, as well as an array of lead guitarists guesting — know the rock they want to make, and they make it. Songs are tight and well performed, heavy enough in tone to have a presence but fleet-footed in their turns from verse to chorus and the many trad-metal-derived leads. Given the lyrics of the title-track, I’m not sure positioning oneself as an actual predatory creature as a metaphor for seduction has been fully thought through, but you don’t see me out here writing lyrics in Polish either, so take it with that grain of salt if you feel the need or it helps. For my money I’ll take the still-over-the-top “So Many Times” and the sharp start-stops of “All My Heroes Are Dead,” but there’s certainly no lack of others to choose from.
Blacklab — also stylized BlackLab — are the Osaka, Japan-based duo of guitarist/vocalist Yuko Morino and drummer Chia Shiraishi, but if you’d enter into their second full-length, In a Bizarre Dream, expecting some rawness or lacking heft on account of their sans-bass configuration, you’re more likely to be bowled over by the sludgy tonality on display. “Cold Rain” — opener and longest track (immediate points) at 6:13 — and “Abyss Woods” are largely screamers, righteously harsh with riffs no less biting, and “Dark Clouds” does the job in half the time with a punkier onslaught leading to “Evil 1,” but “Evil 2” mellows out a bit, adjusts the balance toward clean singing and brooding in a way that the oh-hi-there guest vocal contribution from Laetitia Sadier of Stereolab (after whom Blacklab are partially named) on “Crows, Sparrows and Cats” shifts into a grungier modus. “Lost” and “In a Bizarre Dream,” the latter more of an interlude, keep the momentum going on the rock side, but somehow you just know they’re going to turn it around again, and they absolutely do, easing their way in with the largesse of “Monochrome Rainbow” before “Collapse” caps with a full-on onslaught that brings into full emphasis how much reach they have as a two-piece and just how successfully they make it all heavy.
I guess the only problem that might arise from recording your first two-songer with Steve Albini is that you’ve set an awfully high standard for, well, every subsequent offering your band ever makes in terms of production. There are traces of Karma to Burn-style chug on “Ectotherm,” the A-side accompanied by “Writhing Mass” on the two-songer that shares the same name, but Chicago imstrumental trio Sun King Ba are digging into more progressively-minded, less-stripped-down fare on both of these initial tracks. Still, impact and the vitality of the end result are loosely reminiscent, but the life on that guitar, bass and drums speaks volumes, and not just in favor of the recording itself. “Writhing Mass” crashes into tempo changes and resolves itself in being both big and loud, and the space in the cymbals alone as it comes to its noisy finish hints at future incursions to be made. Lest we forget that Chicago birthed Pelican and Bongripper, among others, for the benefit of instrumental heavy worldwide. Sun King Ba have a ways to go before they’re added to that list, but there is intention being signaled here for those with ears to hear it.
Despite the somewhat grim imagery on the cover art for Kenodromia‘s self-titled debut EP — a three-cut outing that marks a return to the band of vocalist Hilde Chruicshank after some stretch of absence during which they were known as Hideout — the Oslo, Norway, four-piece play heavy rock through and through on “Slandered,” “Corrupted” and “Bound,” with the bluesy fuzzer riffs and subtle psych flourishes of Eigil Nicolaisen‘s guitar backing Chruicshank‘s lyrics as bassist Michael Sindhu and drummer Trond Buvik underscore the “break free” moment in “Corrupted,” which feels well within its rights in terms of sociopolitical commentary ahead of the airier start of “Bound” after the relatively straightforward beginning that was “Slandered.” With the songs arranged shortest to longest, “Bound” is also the darkest in terms of atmosphere and features a more open verse, but the nod that defines the second half is huge, welcome and consuming even as it veers into a swaggering kind of guitar solo before coming back to finish. These players have been together one way or another for over 10 years, and knowing that, Kenodromia‘s overarching cohesion makes sense. Hopefully it’s not long before they turn attentions toward a first LP. They’re clearly ready.
Mezzoa are the San Diego three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Ignacio “El Falcone” Maldonado, bassist Q “Dust Devil” Pena (who according to their bio was created in the ‘Cholo Goth Universe,’ so yes, charm is a factor), and drummer Roy “Bam Bam” Belarmino, and the 13-track/45-minute Dunes of Mars is their second album behind 2017’s Astral Travel. They sound like a band who’ve been around for a bit, and indeed they have, playing in other bands and so on, but they’ve got their approach on lockdown and I don’t mean for the plague. The material here, whether it’s the Helmet-plus-melody riffing of “Tattoos and Halos” or the more languid roll of the seven-minute “Dunes of Mars” earlier on, is crisp and mature without sounding flat or staid creatively, and though they’re likened most to desert rock and one can hear that in the penultimate “Seized Up” a bit, there’s more density in the guitar and bass, and the immediacy of “Hyde” speaks of more urgent influences at work. That said, the nodding chill-and-chug of “Moya” is heavy whatever landscape you want to say birthed it, and with the movement into and out of psychedelic vibes, the land is something you’re just as likely to leave behind anyway. Hit me as a surprise. Don’t be shocked if you end up going back to check out the first record after.
Released through emergent Texas-based imprint Gravitoyd Heavy Music, Stone Nomads‘ Fields of Doom comprises six songs, five originals, and is accordingly somewhere between a debut full-length and an EP at half an hour long. The cover is a take on Saint Vitus‘ “Dragon Time,” and it rests well here as the closer behind the prior-released single “Soul Stealer,” as bassist Jude Sisk and guitarist Jon Cosky trade lead vocal duties while Dwayne Crosby furthers the underlying metallic impression on drums, pushing some double-kick gallop under the solo of “Fiery Sabbath” early on after the leadoff title-track lumbers and chugs and bell-tolls to its ending, heavy enough for heavy heads, aggro enough to suit your sneer, with maybe a bit of Type O Negative influence in the vocal. Huffing oldschool gasoline, Fields of Doom might prove too burled-out for some listeners, but the interlude “Winds of Barren Lands” and the vocal swaps mean that you’re never quite sure where they’re going to hit you next, even if you know the hit is coming, and even as “Soul Stealer” goes grandiose before giving way to the already-noted Vitus cover. And if you’re wondering, they nail the noise of the solo in that song, leaving no doubt that they know what they’re doing, with their own material or otherwise.
Drawing from various corners of punk, noise rock and heavy rock’s accessibility, Munich trio Blind Mess offer their third full-length in After the Storm, which is aptly-enough titled, considering. “Fight Fire with Fire” isn’t a cover, but the closing “What’s the Matter Man?” is, of Rollins Band, no less, and they arrive there after careening though a swath of tunes like “Twilight Zone,” “At the Gates” and “Save a Bullet,” which are as likely to be hardcore-born shove or desert-riffed melody, and in the last of those listed there, a little bit of both. To make matters more complicated, “Killing My Idols” leans into classic metal in its underlying riff as the vocals bark and its swing is heavy ’70s through and through. This aesthetic amalgam holds together in the toughguy march of “Sirens” as much as the garage-QOTSA rush of “Left to Do” and the dares-to-thrash finish of “Fight Fire with Fire” since the songs themselves are well composed and at 38 minutes they’re in no danger of overstaying their welcome. And when they get there, “What’s the Matter Man?” makes a friendly-ish-but-still-confrontational complemement to “Left to Do” back at the outset, as though to remind us that wherever they’ve gone over the course of the album between, it’s all been about rock and roll the whole time. So be it.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on September 15th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
It’s a wonder the members of Nebula Drag have anywhere left to stand with so many amps and cabinets around. At very least, I hope their video for the new single “Crosses” was filmed in their rehearsal space, since one hates to think of them having to actually relocate that much gear just to film a clip for one sub-five-minute song. Though perhaps that’s why they say it’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll. Certainly anyone who’s ever lugged an Ampeg 8×10 up a flight of stairs — or down, to a basement show — is familiar with that interpretation of the idiom.
“Crosses” is the first Nebula Drag track since 2019’s Blud (review here), and though one usually reserves headphone recommendations for spaced-out psych and drone noise, etc., it’s worth plugging your buds in to get a full handle on Garrett Gallagher‘s bass and the vibrant shove of hey-man-cool-shirt guitarist/vocalist Corey Quintana‘s riff here, not to mention the quick-gotta-hit-this-because-I’m-already-on-my-way-elsewhere drumming of Stephen Varns, who also made the video below. Sounds like a band locked in more than locked down, which is a big enough difference, and as a lead up to the release of the next Nebula Drag album in the great impossible future that is 2023, I’ll save you a lot of trouble and say it bodes well.
Hey rock and rollers. You like rock and roll? Here’s some rock and roll:
Nebula Drag, “Crosses” official video
Shot & edited by Stephen Varns
Nebula Drag returns with new music after 3 years. ‘Crosses’ is an absolute monster of a track. A follow up to their 2019 full-length ‘BLUD’, the band’s new single shows the San Diego trio in top form.
New album to be released via Desert Records in 2023. Stay tuned!
Vocalist and guitarist Corey Quintana comments on the song in his own abstract way, ‘They’ve got nines upside down burned into their spines’.
Band Members: Corey Quintana – Guitar / Vocals Garrett Gallagher – Bass Stephen Varns – Drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 13th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Fresh off a festival-inclusive European run to support their 2022 debut album, Hair Of… (review here), El Perro will set out in two days’ time on a tour through frontman Parker Griggs‘ old stomping ground in the Midwest. Shows begin Wednesday in Davenport, Iowa, and end in Burlington, Iowa, and seem to be centered around the occasion of the five-piece making a stop in New Mexico — not really the Midwest, but the band don’t seem to mind traveling — for the Monolith on the Mesa fest, where they play alongside The Obsessed, Stöner, Mars Red Sky and more acts I won’t list because it pisses me off I won’t be there to see it. Info on that is here: https://monolithonthemesa.com/
You might note a couple lineup changes in the El Perro camp. I guess when you run headfirst into putting out a record, touring it as soon as and as much as possible, and keep going with that work ethic, you’re going to burn through some people. And Griggs‘ former (?) outfit Radio Moscow had its share of personnel changeover too. So be it. I look forward to their next album, hearing what they’ve learned from all this time on the road and how that manifests in their second batch of material. Probably a bit to go before they get there. Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to see them beforehand.
Dates on the poster, announcement/info after:
Well Europe that was QUITE DELIGHT. What an amazing month and so nice having the dog mark its territory over there. Huge thanks to all involved and to all the great folks we met. Now we are back in the USA. TOUR STARTS NEXT WEEK!!!
Huge shout to our buddy @andyclarridge for another killer tour poster ❤️(#129304#)(#127998#)❤️(#129304#)(#127998#)
See ya soon America!
EL PERRO is a brand new band led by guitarist/vocalist/songwriter/producer Parker Griggs of RADIO MOSCOW. The sound contains elements that fans of Radio Moscow will recognize, but this is rock music with a new, fresh spin and feel. The band’s debut album, “Hair Of El Perro”, takes heavy psychedelic rock as a starting point but jams into more syncopated territory, spicing its sound with Latin rhythms and hints of Funkadelic-style grooves. You could say that EL PERRO plays psychedelic funk rock, and you wouldn’t be wrong.
El Perro is: Parker Griggs – Guitar/vocals Jaron Yancey – Guitar Shawn Davis – Bass Lonnie Blanton – Drums Tawny Harrington – Percussion
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 17th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
I’m not sure who the masked figure playing bass above with San Diego’s Mezzoa is, so you’ll pardon me if I just go ahead and credit it as being none other than California governor and guy-who-goes-to-restaurants-when-he-shouldn’t Gavin Newsom. Didn’t know dude could handle the low end? Me neither, but we live in a universe of infinite possibilities at every moment, so yeah, I’m just gonna say that’s him. Obviously he doesn’t want the fascist opposition to know he can groove so mightily or I guess it would be a scandal or some shit, though honestly Mezzoa‘s new single — the title-track of their upcoming second album Dunes of Mars, out Sept. 2 — is laid back and mellow enough that I have a hard time imagining it wouldn’t win votes. But I have a hard time imagining all sorts of shit, so don’t go by me. Stunted, most days, at my best.
Still, song’s cool and I’ve been seeing Mezzoa‘s name around the old internet social media hype machine, so why not add to the fray, especially since I dig it. You might too. Probably will, if you’re still reading.
From the PR wire:
MEZZOA RELEASES NEW SINGLE ‘DUNES OF MARS’ AND ANNOUNCES NEW ALBUM
AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER/ADD/SAVE NOW OUT SEPTEMBER 2
‘Dunes of Mars’ is the second single and title track lifted from San Diego stoner rock act Mezzoa’s forthcoming new album and is now available on all digital platforms via Iron Head Records.
‘Dunes of Mars’ follows a couple on a journey through time and space. ‘Dunes of Mars’ features a haunting melody and a brooding psychedelic mood that meanders through a trippy soundscape.
Mezzoa’s new album Dunes of Mars will be released digitally on September 2nd and is available for pre-order/pre-save now! Dunes of Mars brings it on home with mostly true stories laid over kick ass musical compositions. This heavy, yet melodic So Cal trio bring the stoney vibes. Best to sing at the top of your lungs as you speed down the highway.
ABOUT MEZZOA
Born in San Diego, this hard rockin power trio consists of former members of Magdalene, Super Sonic Dragon Wagon, Gunfighter and G13. Signed to El Falcone Records 2017, they released their first album titled Astral Travel. Now signed to Iron Head Records, subsidy of the Golden Robot Global Entertainment Group, Mezzoa is more than ready for what comes next.
These homies brewed up a nasty concoction of heavy blues, stoner thunder and straight up, good old hard rock n roll. Crooner style vox, with hooky melodies and harmonies with lyrics you can relate to and understand.
Mezzoa mix 70’s style songwriting, with the chunky grunge style guitars of the 90’s.
I don’t even know how much oh-my-stars-style hyperbole has been foisted upon San Diego’s Birth for their debut album, Born (review here), which was released last month, but I’m fairly sure the point has gotten across. Melodies and mellotrons, mellow vibes and melancholia, the four-piece of vocalist/keyboardist Conor Riley, guitarist/keyboardist Brian Ellis, bassist Trevor Mast and drummer Paul Marrone — since replaced by Thomas Dibenedetto — make a home for themselves on the dusty fairgrounds of classic progadelia, too thoughtful to be lost in the cosmos but far too ready to fly to be held to ground.
So be it. A first album is always a convenient starting point, unless it sucks — not applicable here — but the context behind Born goes well beyond a nine-month gestation. Riley and Ellis previously worked together in Astra, whose two albums pioneered a lush progressive style that would inform what the San Diego heavy underground became in its well-populated 2010s boom, and Mast and Marrone are a dream team of rhythmic fluidity — the same could be said with Dibenedetto‘s name switched in; his work in Sacri Monti, Joy, Ellis/Munk Ensemble, etc. has never had any trouble keeping up with even the most winding of motions — and whether or not it becomes such, Birth‘s first full-length feels like the beginning of a longer collaboration between these players. Maybe that’s “me want more”-style wishful thinking, but listening to “For Yesterday” right now as I write this sentence and knowing from talking to Riley that it was the last song put together for the album makes me remarkably excited both for what this band is doing and what they might continue to do, probably in a few years, on their next offering.
My schedule is a mess these days, so before you jump into the video, please understand that this wasn’t necessarily easy to make happen, but I very much appreciate Riley‘s patience in coordinating with my pain in the ass self and my odd hours, especially as he’s on the West Coast and I very much am not. If you haven’t heard the record yet, it’s streaming in full below the interview, and yes, by all means, dig in and muck around in the world they create for a while. I sincerely doubt you’ll regret doing so.
Please enjoy:
Birth, Video Interview with Conor Riley
Birth’s Born is out now on Bad Omen Records. More info and updates at the links below.
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 4th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Cali-based dirt boogie rockers El Perro have been out and about since even before the arrival of their 2022 debut album, Hair Of… (review here), and they’re set to take the show abroad for the first time starting next week, hitting SonicBlast in Portugal to begin a stretch of European tour dates that will carry them through the rest of August and into September as they support the record, win friends, influence people, and all that other self-actualized heavy rock and roll whatnot.
The inevitable sentence this post must contain is about Parker Griggs coming out of Radio Moscow — El Perro drummer Lonnie Blanton also played in that band for a time — but El Perro feels like more than just a step aside from a dude’s main project, and Hair Of… is a rocker’s rocker, so while I’ve seen Griggs play guitar on any number of occasions, I’d still be glad to show up given the opportunity, and if you’re somewhere they’re going to be, whether it’s SonicBlast, Down the Hill in Belgium or any of these other fests, or if you want to be a hero and book one of the open dates (someone call ElbSludge for a Dresden gig!), I’m gonna go out on a limb and say it’s worth your time to be there.
I’ve said my piece. Here’s the tour dates pulled from social media:
EL PERRO – Summer European Tour
AUGUST 2022 EUROPE SUMMER TOUR DATES!!! See ya across thee pond VERY soon!
Aug 10 Ancora, PT @ Sonic Blast (pre-party) Aug 12 Ancora, PT @ Sonic Blast Fest Aug 16 Coana, ES @ The Enjoy House Aug 20 Hugelshofen, CH @ Rock The Frog Fest Aug 21 Bodenmais, DE @ Rote Res Aug 22 OPEN SLOT Aug 23 Nijmegen, NL @ Onderbroek Aug 24 OPEN SLOT Aug 25 Paris, FR @ L’International Aug 26 Auvergne, FR @ Volcano Sessions Fest Aug 27 Aarschot, BE @ Down The Hill Fest Aug 28 Bree, BE @ Ragnarock Aug 29 OPEN SLOT Aug 30 Bilina, CZ @ Kafac Aug 31 Cologne, DE @ Sonic Ballroom Sep 1 OPEN SLOT Sep 2 OPEN SLOT Sep 3 Bad Sulza, DE @ Saalepartie Fest
Thanks to our buddy Andy Clarridge for the tour poster!
Whoever sent the text, or — if they were feeling old-fashioned as they might’ve been in the spirit of the classic prog sought in the music, placed the land-line call from a bright orange rotary phone made of BPA-loaded plastic — to actually start the band, the members of Birth are not strangers to each other. The San Diego four-piece’s debut album, Born, follows after a well-received 2017 three-songer picked up for issue through Bad Omen Records in 2021 titled simply, Demo (review here) — should be noted that it sounded better than many acts’ albums — and the connections between the players involved go back more than a decade to the evolution of Astra from keyboardist/vocalist Conor Riley‘s Silver Sunshine, as he and Brian Ellis (also of Brian Ellis Group, Ellis/Munk Ensemble, Psicomagia and any number of other jazz-informed fusioneers), renew a collaboration put to rest in 2013/2014 following two albums, 2009’s The Weirding (review here; discussed here) and 2012’s The Black Chord (review here), both of which are landmarks for San Diego’s particular vision of prog rock as informed by heavy psychedelia.
Riley (who also contributes acoustic guitar to Birth) and Ellis (guitar, percussion, more keys) are joined on Born by bassist Trevor Mast, who featured on Joy‘s first LP and was in Psicomagia with Ellis, and drummer Paul Marrone, who also played in Psicomagia and has a pedigree that includes Radio Moscow, Joy (second album), Brian Ellis Group, Cosmic Wheels, and so on. Marrone has left the band since Born was recorded, replaced by Thomas Dibenedetto, also of Ellis/Munk Ensemble, Joy (third album), Sacri Monti, Monarch, and so on — one does not worry about their being left in capable hands — deepening the connections even further on the extended family tree that is the deeply creative San Diego scene, mature now compared to a decade ago and a constantly changing sphere of bands, different players collaborating, solo-projects, etc. If Birth was born, the place where it happened is likewise relevant to the output on the album itself as the players’ familiarity with each other is to the music.
Even putting aside Birth‘s aesthetic, which finds them jamming through the instrumental, titular opener “Born,” offering headphone-ready depth of sound en route to direct-feeling references for Deep Purple‘s “Child in Time” in “Descending Us” and King Crimson‘s “Epitaph” in the subsequent “For Yesterday,” they in no way sound like a new band. They didn’t on the demo either, where “Descending Us” also appeared, and the chemistry throughout Born benefits from the obvious familiarity of the players with each other — something that one would expect to continue as Dibenedetto takes the reins on drums from Marrone, who of course shines here despite not being in the band anymore — and in that way it’s almost unfair to think of Born as a debut.
This is a new project, sure, but drawing on a backlog of experience such that, as side A pushes toward the standout hook spread across the nine minutes of “For Yesterday,” careening, twisting, masterful, but with just a bit of harder edge in “Born” and “Descending Us” to coincide with all that melodic wash from the keys, guitar and vocals, the solo-laced grandeur of the latter particularly sets up the dramatic feel of “For Yesterday.” Getting there is no less important than being there, but “For Yesterday” feels very much like a landing point for the first three songs and the album as a whole, conjuring an atmosphere of quiet contemplation despite not coming close to being minimalist with organ and various other vintage-sounding keyboards — maybe some Mellotron sounds; there certainly seems to be some of that going on in the title-track, though you’ll pardon my limited background in analog synth instrumentation — coinciding with the guitar, bass, drums, languid pace and fluid ending via one last chorus, letting side B pick up essentially by starting all over again.
It does, but Birth aren’t the kind of outfit to repeat themselves however much they might develop and explore themes in their work. The structure of side B’s three songs in some ways mirrors side A. The opener, “Cosmic Tears,” is instrumental, as was “Born,” but it’s longer, funkier in the bassline from Mast, and works into some deceptively complex chugging in its midsection that unfolds like jazz improv and may or may not be precisely that before turning quiet again, going to ground before its final, surge and eventual organ-and-drum bounce into a stretch of silence before “Another Time” takes hold as the shortest vocalized inclusion, still finding plenty of room in its five and a half minutes for melo-prog splendour, an especially dreamy break seeming to follow a similar pattern as “Cosmic Tears” but capping with its crescendo rather than allowing the full comedown.
That difference allows the energy as well as the trance to hold over into album-closer “Long Way Down,” with its ride-cymbal-and-noodling verse and chorus swells, a shove that again feels parented by the earliest days of King Crimson et al, and a shift into thrilling lead work from various keys and Ellis‘ gonna-just-hang-here-and-shred-for-a-bit-like-it’s-no-big-deal guitar, the 4:17 mark finding vocals and that guitar coming together as a point of apex leading into a brief instrumental chase in what sounds like multiple dimensions before a last linear verse and guitar solo cap, not quite unceremoniously but well aware that the point has already been made and too classy to want to blow it out as an overstatement.
Perhaps the highest compliment one might pay Birth‘s Born is that it adds to the respective legacies of the players involved — Riley, Ellis, Mast, Marrone — but it also begins to stake out a new path of exploration for them together (Marrone aside) and an avenue through which they already are and can continue to develop their songwriting as a unit and bask in the multi-tiered dynamic of their material, which only seems to have more room for whatever they want to put to it. Born sounds recent but has an older soul, and like any new arrival leads one to wonder what future explorations might produce, but in an unpredictable future and concerning a band whose members have no shortage of other projects going, it might be best to appreciate the work they’re doing here rather than lose oneself to daydreams of glories to come. There’s plenty of fodder for that, sure, but to engage Birth on a conscious level is to understand that much more the artistry, skill and scope of its songs.
