Posted in Whathaveyou on November 22nd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Retrovisor is the fifth full-length from Chilean four-piece Adelaida, and in a surprising twist on the norm for a release announcement, it’s already out. That’s right. Not a single. Not two or three. The full record. You can stream it now and the vinyl will be out in February through Spinda Records, which announced it picked up the band at the end of last week. The band’s sound is varied in texture — room for The Cure and Nirvana in there, among others — but deeply informed by alt and psych rock, and has a kind of low-key progressive range that, to be honest I’m not even sure why I’m going on about it since you can just friggin’ listen to the thing. It exists.
Been trying to get this posted for days, obviously, but it’s something worth checking out if you have time. ‘South American heavy’ is often thought of as a monolith that it absolutely isn’t — as though an entire continent has one thing to say or one way to say it — and Adelaida remind of this with their melodic flourish and atmospheric push, songwriting and ambience.
Dig:
Chile-based band Adelaida released their fifth studio album ‘Retrovisor’ yesterday, announcing a surprise signing with Spinda Records. The album will be coming out on vinyl and CD in February 2024. For fans of 90s spectrum, grunge, indie rock and shoegaze.
Chile’s music scene lights up once again with the vibrant energy of Adelaida, indie band currently formed by Anke Steinhöfel, Jurel Sónico, Joaquín Roa and Tomás Pérez. In 2021 they won Premios Escuchar to best rock album with ‘Animita’ and best rock artist. And now, they’re presenting their fifth studio album, ‘Retrovisor’.
This highly anticipated full-length, available since yesterday in all majors streaming platforms via Disco Intrépido, promises to immerse the listener in a unique experience that will find its definite place in the hearts of their existing fans and in the of the new listeners approaching the band’s sound for the first time from this side of the pond. In ‘Retrovisor’ Adelaida takes a step forward, blending the evocative 90’s sounds of grunge, indie-rock and shoegaze with poetic and introspecive lyrics. However, for those looking to enjoy it in physical format, they’ll have to wait until February 2024 when its respective vinyl and compact disc editions will arrive -preorder here- through Spinda Records. In a surprising announcement just a couple of days ago, the label revealed the signing of the band from Santiago de Chile.
Advanced single “Desdén”, “Girasoles” and “Caída libre” already hinted that ‘Retrovisor’ was a true sonic odyssey that transports the listener through time, capturing the raw and emotive essence of the 90s while infusing a contemporary touch. In doing so, Adelaida align themselves with the new wave of alternatie rock from the Americas alongside bands like Fin del Mundo, El Shirota, Las Ligas Menores, Margaritas Podridas or La Ciencia Simple. The fact that they enlisted the talents of Pablo Giadach and Federico Zeppelin in the recording; Daniel Velásquez and Jurel Sónico in the mixing; and none other than Jack Endino in the mastering likely played a significant role – yes, the same Endino who worked with bands like Mudhoney, Nirvana, Tad, Melvins, Soundgarden, Screaming Trees or Mark Lanegan.
‘Retrovisor’ consists of 9 new songs and 4 tracks from ‘Monolito’, their iconic debut album that now celebrates a decade and which the band has revisited, giving a second life to some tracks that now sound more similar to their live performances. The digital edition includes a surprise titled “Brilla”, in which Adelaida takes on a contemporary classic by Chile band Suárez.
RETROVISOR CVR 1 1 RETROVISOR 1. Retrovisor 2. Océano mundial 3. La montaña 4. Caída libre 5. Espirales 6. Resplandor 7. Mi ventana 8. Girasoles 9. 12 días 10. Frutos de otoño 11. Solo por hoy 12. Pólvora 13. Brilla 14. Desdén
‘Retrovisor’, whose digital edition is now available, will be released on February 16, 2024, on compact disc and on a limited-edition-vinyl (350 copies in red, and 150 copies in black), which will be part of the ‘Noisy Series’ by Spinda Records. Physical formats can be pre-ordered on the website as well on as on the Bandcamp of the Andalusian label.
[Click play above to stream the title-track of Some Pills for Ayala’s Sleep Walkers. Album is out July 7 available to preorder on Bandcamp.]
Sleepwalking has long been a ready-to-use analogue for conformity, and while there may be that aspect to the lyrics of Some Pills for Ayala‘s second full-length, Sleep Walkers, given the title, the astronaut and weed on the cover and the ultra-fuzzed largesse that ensues on album opener “A Flower in My Left Eye” and much of what follows, one wonders if the Chile-based outfit isn’t also nodding at the band Sleep as well. Certainly that leadoff could be said to be taking Sleep for a walk in its steady roll of stonerized buzz, and the later title-track accompanies its meditative bassline with a Cisernos-style monotone-ish vocal — also organ or maybe Mellotron — so there may be some in-genre communion happening across the nine-song/45-minute long-player from the Santiago-based solo-project of Néstor Ayala Cortés.
It follows behind 2022’s The Crows That Sing and two 2021 EPs, Space Octopus EP (review here) and a self-titled, and finds Cortés once again handling all instruments himself and helming the recording process at his Camino la Luna home studio. If that sounds somewhat insular as making a record by yourself at home might be, Sleep Walkers counteracts that both in being mixed by David Veliz at Planetario Fuzz Recs in Horcón and through its general expansiveness of sound. In its arrangements, it is a full-band style collection, as all Some Pills for Ayala‘s output has been to-date, give-or-take; drums, bass, guitar, keys, vocals, and so on. Cortés even manages an effective psych-tinged self-jam in the solo section of closer “The Way I See the Sound” before the repetitions of the synesthetic lyric “I hear color and see sound” and, after a break of silence, jams again as a kind of epilogue/secret reprise.
“A Flower in My Left Eye” opens heavy, and that’s ground that Some Pills for Ayala touches again on “Let Me Free,” punctuated by sharp, maybe-programmed snare sounds and underscored in its multi-layer-vocal verse by dense rumble of low end, as well as side B’s “Smile and Lie” and the penultimate “Sore.” What these songs have in common aside from their methodology is that they’re shorter than the five cuts that surround them; “A Flower in My Left Eye” is 4:07, none of the other of Sleep Walkers‘ heaviest tracks tops four minutes, and they move accordingly in terms of tempo.
To contrast, more psychedelic-leaning songs like “Into Oblivion” or the bassy centerpiece “Reflections,” or even the strutting second track “Blood or Love” — previously issued as a standalone single under the title “No More Love… No More Blood?” — with its right-on swing and ride cymbal foreshadow of “Sleep Walkers” to come, early Om meeting with Uncle Acid a bit in its instrumental/vocal blend between the verse and chorus, come through with a focus more on expanse than impact, and in the mellow fluidity of “Into Oblivion,” Cortés is patient and considered in crafting an immersive space for the listener.
His style of melody will be familiar to those who’ve heard At Devil Dirt, and some of the weightier punch throughout Sleep Walkers could be called a carry-over as well, but the branching-out in terms of sound is palpable, and if heavy is the stem of one of the pot leaves on the cover, than the multiple points surrounding might be different facets of it that are brought together on the album. That “The Way I See the World” ends the record and is also the longest track at 8:54 doesn’t feel like a coincidence, but the songs are also arranged alphabetically — as becomes apparent when one looks at side B with “Sleep Walkers,” “Smile and Lie” and “Sore” in succession — so it may well be. Aural kismet? Stranger things have definitely happened.
Through these various shifts and twists in style, Sleep Walkers is able to pivot smoothly in no small part owing to Cortés‘ strength as a songwriter. Again, that won’t be a revelation for those who followed from At Devil Dirt or who took on The Crows That Sing last year, but for being genuinely ‘solo’ in the writing, performance and recording, is distinctly full-band in its presentation to the degree that, if a lineup (or a laptop) were assembled, the songs could be played live. Whether there’s any interest on the part of Cortés in doing so, I don’t know, but it exists as a possibility, and on a record with such depth of mix, where one might not immediately characterize it as the work of one person alone, the spirit in the material is less insular than the phrase “solo-project” implies.
This is mirrored as well in the delivery of the material. “Reflections” as the centerpiece is representative in its sprawl and hypnotic repetitions across its first 90 seconds before it turns to fully-realized twists of fuzz and layers of vocal melody and effects. It is big, grand in an organic manner, and actively working to engage its audience. “Smile and Lie” and “Sore,” the pair of shorter, harder-hitting cuts before the finale, are no less emblematic of Some Pills for Ayala‘s quality of craft. They are neither haphazard nor lazy, they swing with vital fervency and in the case of the latter especially, speak to a living history of South American heavy rock and roll of which At Devil Dirt and Cortés‘ efforts here are part.
In “The Way I See the World,” Sleep Walkers encounters its greatest expanse and highlights the creativity at root beneath its construction. Languid, melodious guitar stretches out atop likewise flowing groove, bass and drums working to complement the exploration happening above in the mix as the vocals lend presence before the instrumental takeoff of the second half, from which — counter to accusations one might level against a solo-project as self-indulgent — the vocals return in the above-noted lyrical repetition before the song departs, somewhat suddenly, to silence, then noise, before picking up and light-chugging its way out to residual feedback and noise that end just before the nine-minute mark.
Given the breadth and seemingly willful changes in stylistic lean from one song to the next that happen throughout Sleep Walkers, I’m less inclined to guess what might be on a subsequent release from Some Pills for Ayala than I am to suggest simply that Cortéswill keep it going. It’s a universe of infinite possibility, of course, but given the heart and obvious passion for the work that’s been put into this material, I would expect continued growth along the varied course charted here. So much the better as Sleep Walkers follows The Crows That Sing and looks further outward. That, too, may well continue. At present though, accessibility is an asset, not a detriment, to this second album, and multiple avenues of potential progression are laid out among those already realized.
Today’s Friday, and in most but a decreasing number of circumstances, that means a Quarterly Review is over. Not this one. Remember, doublewide means it goes to 100 albums. The really crazy part? It could go longer. I could add another day. It could go to 11! Have I done that before?
Probably. That Spinal Tap reference is too obvious for me to have never made it. In any case, I’ve got something booked for Monday after next already, so I won’t be adding another day, but I could just on the releases that came in over the last couple days. Onto the list for next time. Late September/early October, I think.
If you’re hurting for Quarterly Review in the meantime? Yeah, stick around. There’s a whole other week coming up. That’s what I’ve been saying. Have a great weekend and we’ll pick back up on Monday with another 10 records.
Quarterly Review #41-50:
The John Denver Airport Conspiracy, Something’s Gotta Give
Hail Toronto psych. The John Denver Airport Conspiracy released Something’s Gotta Give as a 16-tracker name-your-price Bandcamp download nearly a year ago, and vinyl delays give squares like yours truly who missed it at the time another opportunity to get on board. The 14-song LP edition runs 42 minutes, and it’s time well spent in being out of its own time, a pedal steel Americana-fying the ’60s drift of “Comin’ Through” while “Jeff Bezos Actually Works for Me” pairs garage strum-and-strut with a cavernous echo for an effect like shoegaze that looked up. “2000 November” and closer “The Lab” dares proto-punk shimmy and “Green Chair” has that B3 organ sound and lazy jangle that one can’t help but associate with 1967, “Ya, I Wonder” perhaps a few years before that, but “The Big Greaser” works in less directly temporal spaces, and the whole album is united by an overarching mellow spirit, not totally in a fog because actually the structures on some of these songs are pretty tight — as they were in the 1960s — but they’ve definitely and purposefully kept a few screws loose. Their sound may solidify over time and it may not, but as a debut album, Something’s Gotta Give is deceptively rich in its purpose and engaging in its craft and style alike. I wish I’d heard it earlier, I’m glad to have heard it now.
Clara Engel‘s experimentalist folk songwriting moves into and across and over and through various traditions and methods, but their voice is as resonant, human and unifying as ever, and that’s true from “O Human Child” through the softly echoing guitar pieces “Golden Egg” and “High Alien Priest,” the more ethereal “Glass Mountain,” and so on, while excursions like “I Drink the Rain,” “Cryptid Bop” and “Dead Tree March” earlier add not only instrumental flourish but an avant garde sensibility consistent with Engel‘s past work, even if as songs they remain resoundingly cohesive. That is to say, while founded on experimentalist principles, they are built into songs rather than presented in their rawest form. The inclusion of organ in finale “The Devils are Snoring” is striking and complements the minimalist vocals and backing drone, but by then Engel has long established their ability to put the listener where they wants, with the image of “Rowing Home Through a Sea of Golden Leaves” duly poetic to suit the music as demonstration. Gorgeous, impassioned, hurt but striving and ever moving forward creatively. Engel‘s work remains a treasure for those with ears to hear it. “I Drink the Rain” is an album unto itself.
Though the initial push of doomer riffing and melodic vocals in the post-intro title-track “Weird Tales” reminds a bit of Apostle of Solitude, the hooky brand of heavy wrought by Chilean three-piece Cormano — vocalist/guitarist Aaron Saavedra, bassist/backing vocalist Claudio Bobadilla, drummer/backing vocalist Rodrigo Jiménez — on their debut full-length is more about rock than such morose proceedings, and in fact it’s the prior intro “La Marcha del Desierto” that makes that plain. They’ll delve into psychedelic airiness in “El Caleuche” — the bassline underneath a highlight on its own — and if you read “Bury Me With My Money” as a capitalist critique, it’s almost fun instead of tragic, but their swing in “Urknall” and the roll of “Rise From Your Grave” (second Altered Beast reference of this Quarterly Review; pure coincidence) act as precursor to the thickened unfurling of “Futuere” and “A Boy and His Dog,” a closing pair that reinforce Cormano‘s ultimate direction as anything but settled, the latter featuring a pointedly heavy crash before a surprisingly gentle finish. Will be curious to see where their impulses lead them, but Weird Tales is that much stronger for the variety currently in their influences.
Like the rest of reality, Baltimorean heavy psychedelic blues rockers Black Lung have undergone a few significant changes in the last three years. Guitarist/vocalist Dave Cavalier (also Mellotron) and drummer/synthesist Elias Schutzman (also Revvnant, ex-The Flying Eyes) bid farewell to fellow founding member Adam Bufano (guitar, also ex-The Flying Eyes) and brought in Dave Fullerton to fill the role, while also, for the first time, adding a bassist in Charles Braese. Thus, their first record for Heavy Psych Sounds, the J. Robbins-produced/Kurt Ballou-mixed Dark Waves is a notable departure in form from 2019’s Ancients (review here), even if the band’s core methodology and aesthetic are the same. The sound is fuller, richer, and more able to hold the various Mellotrons and other flourishes, as well as the cello in “Hollow Dreams” and guest vocals on “Death Grip” and guest keys on “The Cog” and “The Path.” Taking inspiration from modern global uncertainties sociopolitical, medical and otherwise, the band put you in a mind of living through the current moment, thankfully without inducing the level of anxiety that seems to define it. Small favors amid big riffs. With shades of All Them Witches and further psychedelic exploring transposed onto their already-a-given level of songwriting, Black Lung sound like they’re making a second debut.
Make a big space and fill it with righteousness. Finland’s Slowenya are born out of an experimentalist hotbed in Turku, and the three-piece do justice to an expectation of far-out tendencies across the nonetheless-concise 31 minutes and six songs of Meadow, their second long-player in as many years. There’s an undercurrent of metal as “Synchronized” holds forth with a resilient, earthy chug, but the melodicism that typifies the vocals running alongside is lighter, born of a proggy mindset and able to keep any overarching aggression in check. With synths, samples, and ambient sounds filling out the mix — not that the massive tonality of the guitar and bass itself doesn’t do the job — a breadth is cast from “Intro” onward through “Nákàn” and the gone-full-YOB swell of “Irrevocable,” which is yet another of the tracks on Meadow one might hear and expect to be 20 minutes long and instead is under seven. The penultimate “Transients” pushes deeper into drone, and “Resonate and Relate” (7:53) caps Slowenya‘s impressive second LP with a due blend of melodic wash and lurching rhythmic physicality, the screams into a sudden stop effectively carrying the threat of more to come. You want to hear this.
As their growing fanbase immediately set about waiting for their third full-length after 2021’s Electric Temple, Norwegian heavy-broodgaze trio Superlynx issued at the very end of the year the Solstice EP, combining covers from Saint Vitus, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Nat King Cole (because obviously he’d be third on that list) and Nirvana with two originals in “Reorbit” and “Cosmic Wave.” As bassist/vocalist Pia Isaksen has already put out a solo release in 2022, drummer Ole Teigen has a blues band on the side among other projects, and one assumes guitarist Daniel Bakken is up to something else as well, Solstice serves as a welcome holdover of momentum after the album. It’s worth the price of admission (eight Euro) for the take on Nirvana‘s “Something in the Way” alone, but the so-slow-it-sounds-like-it’s-about-to-fall-apart “Reorbit” and the leadoff adaptation of “Born Too Late” enforces that song’s message with a modernized and made-even-more slogging sense of defeat. Maybe we were all born too late. Maybe that’s humanity’s fucking problem. Anyway, after you get this, get Isaksen‘s solo record as Pia Isa. You won’t regret that either, especially with the subdued vibe in some of the material on this one.
The always-hit-record ethic of multinational conglomerate jammers Øresund Space Collective pays dividends once again as Oily Echoes of the Soul emerges publicly — it was previously released in a different form to Bandcamp subscribers — as carved from a session all the way back in 2010. At the time I’m pretty certain all members of the band actually lived in Denmark, but sitarist K.G. Westman, who appeared here while still a member of Siena Root, is from Sweden, so whatever. Ultimately the affair is less about where they’re from than where you’re going while hearing it, which is off to a laid-back, anything goes psychedelic improvisation, beginning with the funky and suitably explorational, half-hour-long opener “Bump and Grind ØSC Style” before moving into the sitar-led “Peace of Mynd” (13:27) and the 24-minute title-track’s organic surges and recessions of volume; proggy, ’70s, and unforced as they are. Before twang-happy and much shorter closer “Shit Kickin'” (4:10), the 15-minute “Deep Breath for the EARTH” offers affirmation of the project’s reliably expansive sound. I’ve made no secret that I listen to this band in no small part for the emotionally and/or existentially soothing facets of their sound. Those are on ready display here, and I’ll be returning to this 12-year-old session accordingly.
Recorded in Dec. 1997 at Zone Six‘s practice space, the two-song Beautiful EP portrays a much different band than Zone Six ultimately became, with Australian-born vocalist Jodi Barry and then-Liquid Visions members Dave “Sula Bassana” Schmidt (bass, effects), Hans-Peter Ringholz (guitar, noise) and drummer/recording specialist Claus Bühler as well as keyboardist/etc.-ist Rusty and bringing two longform, molten works of pioneering-at-the-time heavy psychedelia. I mean, we’re talking 20 years ahead of their time, at least, here. It’s still forward-thinking. The guitars and breathy vocals in “Something’s Missing” are a joy and “Beautiful” plays off drone-style atmospherics with intermittently jazzy verses and a more active rhythm, winding guitar and pervasively spaced mindbending. Imagining what could’ve been if this record had been finished, one could repaint the scope of 2010s-era European heavy psychedelia as a whole, but on their own, the two extended inclusions on the 23-minute EP are a gorgeous glimpse at this fleeting moment in time. It is what it says it is.
LINK
TO THE PAST
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The Cimmerian, Thrice Majestic
Thrice Majestic and four-times barbarous comes this debut EP release from Los Angeles’ The Cimmerian, a new trio featuring Massachusetts expat David Gein (ex-bass, The Scimitar, etc.) on guitar, and the brand of heavy that ensues readily crosses the line between metal and doom, as the galloping “Emerald Scripture” reinforces directly after the eight-minute highlight and longest groover “Silver and Gold.” Drummer David Morales isn’t shy with the double-kick and neither should he be, and bassist/vocalist Nicolas Rocha has a bark that reminds of Entombed‘s L.G. Petrov, and that is not a compliment I’m ever going to hand out lightly. Lead cut “Howls of Lust and Fury” promises High on Fire-ist thrash in its opening, but The Cimmerian‘s form of pummel goes beyond any single point of inspiration, even on this presumably formative suckerpunch of an EP, which balances intensity and nod in the finishing move “Neck Breaker,” a last growl perhaps the most brutal of all. Fucking a. More of this.
You could probably sit and parse out where Ultracombo are coming from — geographically, it’s Vincenza, Italy — in terms of sound on the sequentially titled follow-up to 2019’s Season I (review here), but to do so denies the double-guitar five-piece credit for the obvious efforts they’ve put into making this material their own. Those efforts pay off in the listening experience of the five-tracker, which runs 25 minutes and so offers plenty enough to make an impression. Witness the slowdown in centerpiece “Umanotest” or the keyboard-or-keyboard-esque lead in the back half of the prior “Follia,” the added jammy feel in “Specchio,” the this-is-the-difference-the-right-drummer-makes “12345” or the return of the synth and an added bit of playfulness before the big ending in — what else? — “La Fine.” That this EP manages to careen and pull such hairpin turns of rhythm is a triumph unto itself. That it manages to do so without sounding like Queens of the Stone Age feels like a fucking miracle. “Dear Ultracombo, Hope you’re well. Time to make an album. Put in an interlude or two depending on space. Sincerely, some dude on the internet.”
Posted in Reviews on January 17th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Somehow it feels longer than it’s actually been. Yeah, a year’s changed over, but it’s really only been about a month since the last Quarterly Review installment, which I said at the time was only half of the full proceedings. I’ve started the count over at 1-50, but in my head, this is really a continuation of that five-day stretch more than something separate. It’s been booked out I think since before the last round of 50 was done, if that tells you anything. Should tell you 2021 was a busy year and 2022 looks like it’ll be more of the same in that regard. Also a few other regards, but let’s keep it optimistic, hmm?
We start today fresh with a wide swath of stuff for digging and, well, I hope you dig it. Let’s go.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
Zack Oakley, Badlands
Apparently I’ve been spelling Zack Oakley‘s name wrong for the better part of a decade. Zack with a ‘k’ instead of an ‘h’ at the end. I feel like a jerk. By any spelling, dude both shreds and can write a song. Known for his work in Joy, Pharlee, Volcano, etc., he brings vibrant classic heavy to the fore on his solo debut, Badlands, sounding like a one-man San Diego scene on “I’m the One” only after declaring his own genre in opener “Freedom Rock.” “Mexico” vibes on harmonica-laced heavy blues and the acoustic-led “Looking High Searching Low” follows suit with slide, but there’s tinge of psych on the catchy “Desert Shack,” and “Fever” stomps out in pure Hendrix style without sounding ridiculous, which is not an achievement to be understated. Closing duo “Acid Rain” and “Badlands” meet at the place where the ’60s ended and the ’70s started, swaggering through time with more hooks and a sound that might be garage if your garage had a really nice studio in it. I’ll take more of this anytime Mr. Oakley wants to belt it out.
Issued by Shawn Pelata — also known as Pælãtä Shåvvn, with an apparent thing for accent marks — the self-titled debut from Vøuhl mixes industrial-style experimentalism, dark ambience and a strong cinematic current across a still-relatively-unassuming five-songs and 23 minutes, hitting a resonant minimalism at the ending of “Evvûl” while building to a fuller-sounding progression on the subsequent “Välle.” Drones, echoing, looped beats and thoughtfully executed synth let Pelata construct each atmosphere as an individual piece, but with the attention obviously paid to the presentation of the whole, there’s nothing that keeps one piece from tying into the next either, so whether one approaches Vøuhl‘s Vøuhl as an EP or a short album, the impression of a deep-running soundscape is made one way or the other. What seems to be speech samples in “Aurô” and noise-laced closer “ßlasste” — thoroughly manipulated — may hint at things to come, but I hope not entirely at the expense of the percussive urgency of opener “Dùste” here.
At first you’re all like, “yeah this is right on I can handle it” and then all of a sudden White Manna are about four minutes into the freakery of “Light Cones” opening up their latest opus First Welcome and you’re starting to panic because you took too much and you’re couchlocked. The heretofore undervalued Calipsych weirdos are out-out-out on their new eight-songer, done in an LP-ready 39 minutes but drippy droppy through an interdimensional swap-meet of renegade noises and melted-down aesthetics. Maybe you heard 2020’s ARC (review here) and thereby got on board, or maybe you don’t know them at all. Doesn’t matter. The thing is they’re already in your brain and by the time you’re done with the triumph-boogie of “Lions of Fire” you realize you’re one with the vibrating universe and only then are you ready to meet the “Monogamous Cassanova” in krautrock purgatory before the swirling “Milk Symposium” spreads itself out like a blanket over the sun. Too trippy for everything, and so just. fucking. right. If you can hang with this, I wanna be friends.
In 2022, German heavy rockers Daily Thompson mark a decade since their founding. God of Spinoza is their fifth full-length, and in songs like “Cantaloupe Melon,” “Golden Desert Child,” and “Muaratic Acid,” the reliability one has come to expect from them is only reinforced. Their sound hinges on psychedelia, but complements that with an abiding sense of grunge and a patience in songwriting. They’ve done heavy blues and straight-up rock in the past, so neither is out of the trio’s wheelhouse — the penultimate “Midnight Soldier” is a breakout here — but the title-track’s drawn-out “yeah”s and slacker-nod rhythm seem to draw more directly from the Alice in Chains school of making material sound slow without actually having it crawl or sacrifice accessibility. I’d give them points regardless for calling a song “I Saw Jesus in a Taco Bell,” but the closer is a genuine highlight on God of Spinoza turning a long stretch of disaffection to immersive fuzz with a deftness befitting a band on their fifth record who know precisely who they are. Like I said, reliable.
Founded by guitarist/bassist Collin Green, Headless Monarch released their first demo in 2013 and their most recent EP, Nothing on the Horizon, in 2016. Five years later, Green and drummer Brandon Zackey offer the late-2021 debut full-length, Titan Slug, working in collaboration for the first time with vocalist and producer Otu Suurmunne of Moonic Productions — who mostly goes by Otu — across a richly executed collection of six tracks, three new, three from prior outings. Not sure if Otu is a hired gun as a singer working alongside the other two, but there’s little arguing with the results they glean as a trio across a song like “Fever Dream” or “Sleeper Now Rise,” the latter taken from Headless Monarch‘s 2015 two-songer and positioned in a more aggressive stance overall. The newer songs come across as more fleshed out, but even “Eight Minutes of Light” from the first demo has atmospheric reach to go with its clarity of focus and noteworthy heft. One only hopes the collaboration continues and inspires further work along these lines.
Technically speaking, you had me at Space Octopus. After releasing a self-titled EP under the somewhat-troubling moniker (one hopes it’s not too many) Some Pills for Ayala, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and producer Néstor Ayala Cortés of At Devil Dirt returns with this two-songer, comprised of its 11-minute title-cut and the shorter “It’s Been a Long Trip.” The lead track is duly dream-drifty in its procession, a subtle build underway across its span but pushing more for hypnosis than impact and getting there to be sure, even as the second half grows thicker in tone. At 3:48, “It’s Been a Long Trip” comes across more as an experiment in technique captured and used as the foundation for Cortés‘ soft, wide echoing vocals. Lysergic and adventurous in kind, the 15-minute EP is nonetheless serene in its presence and soothing overall. Could be that Cortés might push deeper into folk as he goes forward, but the acidy foundation he’s working from will only add to that.
It’s a quick in-out from Boston heavy punkers Il Mostro on the Occult Practices EP. Four songs, the last of which is a cover of T.S.O.L.‘s “Black Magic,” nothing over three minutes long, all fits neatly on a 7″. For what they’re doing, that makes sense, taking the high-velocity ethic of Motörhead or Peter Pan Speedrock (if you need a second plays-fast-punk-derived-and-rocks band) and delivering with an appropriately straightforward thrust. Opener “Firewitch” ends with giggling, and that’s fair enough to convey the overarching lack of pretense throughout, but they do well with the cover and have a righteous balance between control and chaos in the relatively-mid-paced “Trial” and the sprinter “Faith in Ghosts,” which follows. Is cult punk a thing? I guess you could ask the Misfits that question, but Il Mostro mostly avoid sounding like that Jersey band, and it’s easy enough to imagine them bashing walls at any number of Beantown havens or bathed under the telltale red lights of O’Brien’s as they tear into a set. So be it, punkers.
Should it come as a surprise that an EP of violin-laced/led instrumentalist progressive post-rock, willfully working against genre convention in order to cross between metal, rock and more atmospheric fare includes an element of self-indulgence? Nope. How could it be otherwise? The five-track Hiss from Parisian four-piece Carmen Sea is a heady outing indeed, but at just 29 minutes, the band doesn’t actually lose themselves in what they’re doing, and the surprises they offer along the way like the electronic turns in “Black Echoes” or the quiet drone stretch in the first half of 11-minute closer “Glow in Space” — which gets plenty tense soon enough — provide welcome defiance of expectation. That is to say, whatever else they are, Carmen Sea are not predictable, and that serves them well here and will continue to. “Frames” begins jarring and strutting, but finds its strength in its more floating movement, though the later bridge of classical and weighted musics feels like the realization that might’ve led to creating the band in the first place. There’s potential in toying with that balance.
Florence’s Fabrizio Cecchi has vibe to spare with his solo-project Trip Hill, and Denmark’s Bad Afro Records has stepped forward to issue the 2020 offering, Ain’t Trip Ceremony, toward broader consciousness. The eight-song/39-minute long-player is duly dug-in, and its psychedelic reach comes with a humility of craft that makes the songs likewise peaceful and exploratory and entrancing. Repetition is key for the latter, but Cecchi also manages to keep things moving across the album, with a fuzzy cut like “Spam Mind” seeming to build on top of loops and shifting into a not-overblown space rock, hardly mellow, but more acknowledging the vastness of the cosmos than one might expect. The more densely-fuzzed “Ralph’s Heart Attack” leads into the guitar-focused “Pan” ahead of the finale “What Happened to Will,” but that’s after “Tame Ùkhan” has gone a-wandering and decided to stay that way and the seven-minute “Trái tim Thán Yêu” has singlehandedly justified the vinyl release in its blend of percussive urgency and psychedelic shimmer. Go in with an open mind and you won’t go wrong.
Yanomamo begin their Iommium Records two-song split 7″ with Slomatics by harshly delivering a deceptively positive message: “If you’re going to seek revenge/Might as well dig two graves/He who holds resentment is already digging his own.” Fair enough. The Sydney, Australia, and Belfast, Northern Ireland, outfits offer about 10 and a half minutes of material between them, but complement each other well, with the thickness of the latter building off the raw presentation of the former, Yanomamo‘s guttural portrayal of bitterness offered in scream-topped sludge crash on “Dig Two Graves” that builds in momentum toward the end while Slomatics‘ “Griefhound” offers the futurist tonal density and expanse of vocal echo typifying their latter-day work and turns a quiet, chugging bridge into a consciousness-slamming payoff. Neither act is really out of their comfort zone, but established listeners will revel in the chance to hear them alongside each other, and if you hear complaints about either of these cuts, they won’t be from me.
Posted in Reviews on December 13th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Doing things a little differently this time. Yes, it’s still 10 records per day for a total of 50 between today and Friday, but with the utter glut — glutter! — of releases coming out and recently released, I’m doubling up on the Winter Quarterly Review and will be putting together another week of 50 records for January, after the holidays and all the year-end hullabaloo. So it’s 50 now and 50 later. I’ve never done it that way before, and I reserve the right to completely change my mind after this week, but as of right this second, that’s where I’m at. Talk to me again on Friday.
I guess we’d better get started, either way.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
Enslaved, Caravans to the Outer Worlds
With a relatively brief 18-minute excursion that pushes yet-deeper into their particular brand of progressive extreme metal, Norway’s Enslaved continue to walk the increasingly melodic and decreasingly genre-dependent path in following-up 2020’s Utgard (review here). Their affinity for krautrock experimentalism is well established but has never been so forwardly presented as on “Intermezzo I – Lönnlig. Gudlig.,” and the thrust of the opening title-track sets Caravan to the Outer Worlds off with a due sense of motion later complemented by the keyboard-heavy “Ruun II – The Epitaph,” an apparent 15-years-later sequel to the title-cut from 2006’s Ruun (discussed here). Rounding out with “Intermezzo II – The Navigator,” with its almost-motorik space-but-still-somehow-Norwegian-space rock vibe, Enslaved‘s short offering for 2021 demonstrates plainly that they can be whatever and do whatever the hell they want. 30 years from their beginning, they keep growing. Such bands are likewise rare and precious.
It’s not quite what-you-see-is-what-you-get, but the Discos Macarras split Mallorca Stoner Vol. 1 that brings together two tracks each from Spanish outfits Bisonte — also written Bis·nte — and Milana certainly lays out its mission in representing the Mediterranean island’s heavy underground, and Bisonte aren’t through the nine-minute doomer “Unbalanced” before I’m curious just how many volumes the label might be able to put together from Mallorcan acts. Nonetheless, Bisonte‘s wizardly march on “Involuntary Act” flows organically around its downtrodden vibe, and in the more psychedelic “White Buffalo” and burl-lumbering “Forest Tale,” Milana work even quicker to acquit themselves well with an underlying current of noise. However much of a scene there may or may not be in Mallorca, Mallorca Stoner Vol. 1 is a welcome means through which to begin exploring both these acts more and others with whom they might share local stages. One will await Vol. 2 with interest.
New York’s Leeds Point seem on a doomed course with their Mother of Eternity EP on the opener “High Strangeness,” but they shake it up late with some cowbell boogie, and “The Summoning” further deepens the plot with layered in acoustics and a more lush melody as the trio builds out from their basic guitar-bass-drums configuration. Likewise, the shorter “Long Way Down” is a more straight-ahead ’70s rocker, and the closing title-track meets its initial prog rock melody first with driving riffs and later with more angularity and harsher barking vocals… before bringing it all back around at the end. With Eternal Black out of commission, NYC needs someone to champion traditional doom, but that’s not who these Long Islanders are. Their sound — set forth on their debut full-length some seven years ago; their most recent prior outing was 2019’s Equinox Blues (review here) — is more purposefully diverse. If they’re championing anything here, it’s their individuality. And that suits them.
The second full-length from Santiago, Chile’s Ocultum, Residue, was first issued by the band independently in 2019. Picked up for a vinyl release through Interstellar Smoke Records, the four-song/49-minute long-player (bong)rips into filthy-fuzz doom and scabbed-over sludge, the lumbering coming in one longform nod after another in “The Acid Road” and “Residue” itself — which might be the most densely-toned inclusion of the bunch, but it hardly matters when the 16-minute “Ascending With the Fumes of the Dead” and the 12-minute “Reflections on Repulsiveness” and you’re either on board with Ocultum‘s periodically-deathly-always-fucked style by then or you’ve probably been so grossed out that you’ve gone and gotten yourself a job, decided you were never really so misanthropic to start with, and that what you thought was the inner scum of your existential makeup was just you needing to have lunch or take a shower or some shit. Meanwhile, Ocultum are over here shrooming up and worshiping decay. Different league entirely. Even the quietest moments of Residue are heavy. There’s just no escape from it.
Cruel Curses, Fables, Folklore & Other Assorted Fever Dreams
If Tampa, Florida, heavy progressive rockers Cruel Curses decided to approach their third full-length, Fables, Folklore & Other Assorted Fever Dreams, with the goal of writing the entire album as a single-song, well, they did that. Though cumbersome in its title, “Fables, Folklore & Other Assorted Fever Dreams” is 36 minutes of linear-charted fare, twisting through parts both hard-hitting and airy, acoustic and electric and probably what could’ve been different songs if otherwise broken up in some places. Does it really matter? Nah. The finished piece, which is a departure from the four-piece and an impressive achievement in itself, makes its point with prog’s affection for funk propelling as many of its parts as metal’s more aggressive shred. Yet, Fables, Folklore & Other Assorted Fever Dreams does not merely trade between quiet and loud parts so much as fluidly bring the listener along its ebbs and flows, and though not without its element of self-indulgence, the album earns its swagger.
Give me the raw swing, echoing gurgles and unabashed fuzz of Green Hog‘s “Luck of the Devil” any day of the week. The Brooklynite trio released their Dogs From Hell full-length last year and follow it with the also-sung-entirely-in-Russian sophomore outing, not without its sense of ambience in “Dark Territory” and “Desert King,” the biker-in-space instrumental capper “Ric Moto,” but perhaps even more about the impact of its crashes than the spaces being created. Whatever definition of the word you might want to apply, Devil’s Luck is fucking heavy. And grim, to boot. Still, one could only call “Long Smoke” some kind of stoner rock, even if it is an especially crusty take thereupon, and the novelty of gurgled-out vocals sung in another language, complemented by samples in classic sludgy fashion, isn’t to be understated. If my man’s voice can hold out for a whole set, these guys must put on a killer show.
There are a few different plot threads one might follow along as Vobrazy weaves through its six component tracks, but the debut full-length from Belarusian five-piece bring their varied fare together around a central idea of progressive, metallic doom. Sometimes that manifests as a post-metallic chug as one hears in “Apošni raz,” which leads off, or it can be the growls and black-metal-squibblies-gone-airy of the early going in “Žyvy.” Such shifting arrangements in vocals (in Belarusian) between guitarist Uladzimir Burylau and singer Kate Sidelova add to the unpredictable nature of the band, but there’s no question that melody wins the day, and given how Vobrazy plays out across its 41 minutes, one gets the feeling that the extremity of “Naščadkam” and the more-patient-before-they-hit-the-payoff closer “Bol na sercy” do not coexist by happenstance. The band — completed by guitarist Ignat Pomazkov, bassist Roman Petrashkevich and drummer Artem Voronko — are not light on ambition, aesthetically-speaking, but I like the fact that I have zero guess what their next record will sound like.
While not barebones by any means, with solos aplenty and variety in their tempos readily established between the first two cuts “Slow Wisdom Coming” and “Hot Girl Summer,” there’s still something about Buffalo Tombs‘ aptly-titled second long-player, Two, that comes across as wholly unpretentious, not trying to overstate its own argument or draw the audience away from the riffs and grooves central to its purpose. Wholesome, if not always humble. The six-songer is done in under half an hour, so if you wanted to call it an EP, you could, but even as Eric Stuart brings in a bit of synth for “Dream Breather” and “The Beheading of John the Baptist” in its later percussion-meet-drift-out finish, the Denver instrumentalists maintain a straightforward underpinning, with Stuart‘s guitar/keys/bass met with Joshua Lafferty‘s basslines and Patrick Haga‘s drumming in easily-digested-but-not-earth-shattering fashion, the low end hitting a particular note of righteousness in rolling out “Al Khidr” without being too showy in doing so. I’d be interested to hear them explore their psychedelic side further, but there’s plenty of vibe here in the meantime.
Though understated in the fullness of its production, BroodMother‘s The Third Eye EP leaves little doubt as to where the Worcester, UK, five-piece are coming from after having issued their first album, Sin, Myth, Power, in 2019. Jay Clark, who produced that outing, drums on and mixed this one, and its four songs readily serve as a sampler for an audience to be introduced to the band’s take on heavy rock and roll. “Spiritual Shakedown” and “Killing for Company” are midtempo riffers, with the latter touching slightly on Acrimony-style hookmaking and chug, while “(The Ballad of) Anti-Matter Man” gets trippy in its intro and shuffles into an apex in its second half before finishing mellow, and closer “The Trick of the Journey” hints toward ’90s crunch but marries it to a bluesier stretch of lead solo guitar. Still, it’s rock and roll, however you want to cut it — straight-up but not lifeless — and BroodMother proudly carry its banner.
From the almost-if-not-entirely-instrumental unfolding of “From Hell to Horizon” and “Kelper-452B” to the black metal vocals on “Psychosis (In a Vacuum),” the harsh sax of “Black Hole Viscera” and the drone-laden 10-minute finisher “Succumb to the Void,” the debut full-length from Stony Brook, New York’s King Bastard, It Came From the Void, seems wilfully bent toward disorienting those who’d dare to take it on. The breadth and spaciousness of its “From Hell to Horizon” isn’t to be understated — neither the percussion chill in its midsection — but the weight that corresponds there and in “Kelper-452B” and through “Bury the Survivors/Ashes to Ashes,” with its Aliens samples and dug-in-its-own-head proggy chaos is no less a factor in making the album as striking a first impression as it is. Jammy, heavy psych, black metal, doom, sludge — you could call King Bastard any of these and not be wrong, but it’s in how fluidly they unite them that their potential shines through.
Posted in Questionnaire on October 26th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Sebastián Bruna of Ocultum
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
What we do is the sound of the edification of a crumble… we play a hard mix between sludge, doom and stoner, resulting in a very own way to play this music. We’re Ocultum, you wouldn’t find something like this easily out there.
Describe your first musical memory.
My father’s vinyls: Pink Floyd, Chicago, ELP, etc.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
There’s more than one: to know that Residue (our last album) will be released on vinyl, have been play live with Belzebong and see Black Sabbath live twice.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
I think that everyday is a test to what we thought, the world is very fucked up and changing every day, fortunately I don’t have a lot of beliefs, so I don’t have a lot to lose.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
I think time can mold what we do and find the very soul of our music. Just time and perseverance can sculpt this into his flawless form (or de-form).
How do you define success?
Nothing that have to do with money or people. Just being you as thou wilt, and achieve some heaviness that no one can deny.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
All I have seen has its own meaning and it have forged a sick mentality and understanding. We are all sick. We have to see more. Puke and then drink again, the trip never ends.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I’m creating an horror tale album that will be released some day… is very sick and creepy, have a hallucinating atmosphere and dismal passages. Is in process of creation.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
To keep you sane into insanity, to endure life inside an asshole society and to help to turn off your brain.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Yeah, I‘ll like to kill the president of Chile, plant a tree and write a book.
Posted in Reviews on September 29th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
According to my notes, today is Day Three of the Fall 2021 Quarterly Review. Are you impressed to have made it this far? I kind of am, but, you know, I would be. I hope you’ve managed to find something you dig over the course of the first 20 records, and if not, why not? I’ve certainly added to a few year-end lists between debut albums, regular-old albums and short releases. Today’s no different. Without giving away any secrets ahead of time, this is a pretty wacky stylistic spread from the start and that’s how I like it. Maybe by next Tuesday it’ll all make a kind of sense, and maybe it won’t. In any case, this is apparently my idea of fun, so let’s have fun.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
Thief, The 16 Deaths of My Master
Someone used the phrase “techno for metalheads” in an email to me the other day (about something else) and I can’t get it out of my head concerning Thief‘s The 16 Deaths of My Master. From the swelling distortion of opener “Underking” to the odd bit of harpsicord that shows up in “Scorpion Mother” to the bassy rumble underscoring “Fire in the Land of Endless Rain,” the post-everything “Lover Boy,” droning “Life Clipper,” lazyman’s hip-hop on “Gorelord” and “Crestfaller” and Beck-on-acid finale in “Seance for Eight Oscillators,” there’s certainly plenty of variety to go around, but in the dance-dream “Apple Eaters” and goth-with-’90s-beatmaking “Bootleg Blood” and pretend-your-car-ride-is-a-movie-soundtrack “Wing Clipper,” the metallic underpinning of Dylan Neal (also Botanist) is still there, and the lyrical highlight “Teenage Satanist” rings true. Still, songs like the consuming washer “Night Spikes and subsequent drum’n’bass-vibing “Victim Exit Stage Left” are inventive, fascinating, short and almost poppy in themselves but part of a 16-track entirety that is head-spinning. If that’s techno for metalheads, so be it. Horns up for dat bass.
The album’s title is kind of another interpretation of the band’s name, the idea behind the Latin phrase Per Aspera Ad Astra being moving through challenges to the stars and the Santiago, Chile, one-man death-doom outfit being Rise to the Sky. Multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Sergio González Catalán reportedly wrote and arranged the title-track in the days following his father’s funeral, and the grand, flowing string sounds and engrossing heft that ensues feel genuinely mournful, capping with a progression of solo piano before “End My Night” seems to pick up where “The Loss of Hope” left off. The lyrics to closer “Only Our Past Remains” derive from a poem by Catalán‘s father, and the sense of tribute is palpable across the album’s 46 minutes. I’m not sure how the Russian folk melody bonus instrumental “Horse” might tie in, but neither is it out of place among “Deep Lament” and “Bleeding Heart,” the latter of which dares some clean vocals alongside the gutturalism, and in context, the rest of the album seems to answer with loss what opener “Life in Suspense” is waiting for.
Those familiar with Brian Ellis and Conor Riley‘s work in Astra should not be surprised to find them exploring ’70s-style progressive rock in Birth, and anybody who heard Psicomagia already knows that bassist Trevor Mast and drummer Paul Marrone (also Radio Moscow) are a rhythm section well up to whatever task you might want to set before them. Thus Birth‘s Demo arrives some four years after its recording, with “Descending Us” (posted here) leading off in dramatic Deep Purple-y fashion backed by the jammier but gloriously mellotroned and Rhodes’ed “Cosmic Wind” and “Long Way Down,” which digs itself into a righteous King Crimson payoff with due class even as it revels in its rough edges. Marrone‘s since left the band and whoever replaces him has big shoes to fill, but god damn, just put out a record already, would you?
Wielding mighty tonality and meeting Monolordian lurch with an aural space wide enough to contain it, Old Horn Tooth follow their 2019 debut LP, From the Ghost Grey Depths, with the single-song EP True Death, proffering a largesse rarely heard even from London’s ultra-populated heavy underground and working their way into, out of, back into, out of and through a nod that the converted among riff-heads likely find irresistible and hypnotic in kind. To say the trio of guitarist/vocalist Chris, bassist/keyboardist Ollie and drummer Mark ride out the groove is perhaps underselling it, but as my first exposure to the band, I’m only sorry to have missed out on both the orange tapes and the limited flash drives they were selling. So it goes. Slow riffs, fast sales. I’ll catch them next time and drown my sorrows in the interim in this immersive, probably-gonna-get-picked-up-by-some-label-for-a-vinyl-release offering. And hey, maybe if you and I both email them, they’ll press a few more cassettes.
Pro-shop-level doom from an initial public offering by Solemn Lament, bringing together the significant likes of vocalist Phil Swanson (ex-Hour of 13, Vestal Claret, countless others), drummer Justin DeTore (Magic Circle and more recently Dream Unending) as well as Blind Dead‘s Drew Wardlaw on bass and Adam Jacino on lead guitar, and Eric Wenstrom on rhythm guitar. These personages cross coastlines to three tracks and intro of grand and immersive doom metal, willfully diving into the Peaceville-three legacy on “Stricken” to find the beauty in darkness after the lumber and chug of the nine-minute “Celeste” resolves with patient grace and “Old Crow” furthers the Paradise Lost spirit in its central riff. Geography is an obvious challenge, but if Solemn Lament can build on the potential they show in this debut EP, they could be onto something really special.
A stunning third full-length from Fayetteville, Arkansas, trio Terminus, The Silent Bell Toll bridges doomed heft and roll, progressive melodicism and thoughtful heavy rock construction into a potent combination of hooks and sheer impact. It’s worth noting that the 10-minute closer of the nine-song/40-minute outing, “Oh Madrigal,” soars vocally, but hell, so does the 3:18 “Black Swan” earlier. Guitarist Sebastian Thomas (also cover art) and bassist Julian Thomas share vocal duties gorgeously throughout while drummer Scott Wood rolls songs like “The Lion’s Den” and “The Silent Bell Toll” — that nod under the solo; goodness gracious — in such a way as to highlight the epic feel even as the structure beneath is reinforced. With three instrumentals peppered throughout to break up the chapters as intro, centerpiece and penultimate, there’s all the more evidence that Terminus are considered in their approach and that the level of realization across The Silent Bell Toll is not happenstance.
Clearly named in honor of its defining intent, Recurring Nightmare is the three-song/48-minute debut full-length from Boston-based charred sludge outfit, who take the noisy heft of ultra-disaffected purveyors like Indian or Primitive Man and push it into a blackened metallic sphere further distinguished by harshly ambient drones. One can dig Neurosis-style riffing out of the 19:30 closer “Guillotine” or opener “Torch and Spear,” but the question is how much one’s hand is going to be sliced open in that process. And the answer is plenty. Their tones don’t so much rumble as crumble, vocals are willfully indecipherable throat-clenching screams, and the drums duly glacial. There is little kindness to be had in 16:43 centerpiece “Freedom Fever Dream” — originally broken into two parts as a demo in 2019 — which resolves itself lyrically in mourning a lost ideal over a dense lurch that’s met with still-atmospheric churning. Their established goal, if that’s what it is, has been met with all appropriate viciousness and extremity.
An ethic toward straight-ahead riff rock is writ large throughout Taxi Caveman‘s self-titled debut full-length, the Warsaw trio offering a face-first dive into fuzz of varying sizes and shaping their material around the sleek groove of “Prisoner” or the more aggressively bent vinyl-side-launchers “Building With Fire” and “Asteroid.” There’s a highlight hook in “I, the Witch” and the instrumental “426” leads into the Dozer-esque initial verse of 10-minute closer “Empire of the Sun,” but the three-piece find their own way through ultimately, loosening some of the verse/chorus reins in order to affect more of a jammed feel. It’s a departure from the crunch of “Asteroid” or “Prisoner” and the big, big, big sound that starts “Building With Fire,” but I’m certainly not about to hold some nascent sonic diversity against them. They’re playing to genre across these 33 minutes, but they do so without pretense and with a mind toward kicking as much ass as possible. Not changing the world, but it’s not trying to and it’s fun enough in listening that it doesn’t need to.
“Negative Libra” runs 36:36 and is the lone track on the album that bears its name from Las Vegas-based solo-project Droneroom. The flowing work of Blake Conley develops in slow, meditative form and gradually introduces lap steel to shimmer along with its post-landscape etherealities, evocative of cinema as they are without exactly playing to one or the other film-genre tropes. That is to say, Conley isn’t strictly horror soundtracking or Western soundtracking, and so on. Perhaps in part because of that, “Negative Libra” is allowed to discover its path and flourish as it goes — I’m not sure as to the layering process of making it vis-à-vis what was tracked live and put on top after — but the sense of exploration-of-moment that comes through is palpable and serene even as the guitar comes forward just before hitting the 27-minute mark to begin the transition into the song’s noisier payoff and final, concluding hum.
Blown-out vocals add an otherworldly tinge to Arizona-based one-man-band Aiwass‘ debut full-length, Wayward Gods, giving the already gargantuan tones a sense of space to match. Opener “Titan” and closer “Mythos” seem to push even further in this regard than, say, the centerpiece “Man as God” — the last track feeling particularly Monolordly in its lumbering — but by the time “Titan” and the subsequent, 10-minute inclusion “From Chains,” which ends cold with a guest solo by Vinny Tauber of Ohio’s Taubnernaut and shifts into the cawing blackbird at the outset of “Man as God” with a purposefully jarring intent. Despite the cringe-ready cartoon-boobs cover art, the newcomer project finds a heavy niche that subverts expectation as much as it meets it and sets broad ground to explore on future outings. As an idea, “gonna start a heavy, huge-sounding band during the pandemic,” is pretty straightforward. What results from that in Aiwass runs deeper.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 11th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
So let’s assume that when Dixie Goat are thinking of the deep South, they mean South America. Based in Santiago, Chile, the doom rocking trio released their debut album, the burly eight-tracker There’s No Light Without Darkness, in Nov. 2020, drawing inspiration of course from Sabbath as well as the likes of Acid Bath — looking at you, “Two Faces” — and a slew of others in their suitably performative doomly rites. The band has been picked up by Electric Valley Records, the label announced, though I’m not sure whether that means There’s No Light Without Darkness will get a physical pressing or if the label will just put out whatever the three-piece do next. For what it’s worth, I think these grooves earn a platter.
If you haven’t yet — and I know you have, because you’re way cooler than I am, but bear with me anyway — you can stream Dixie Goat‘s full-length at the bottom of the post here.
Dig:
Dixie Goat – Electric Valley Records
Electric Valley Records is proud to announce the signing of the Stoner/Doom band… Dixie Goat
DIXIE GOAT was born in Santiago, Chile in 2012, founded by guitarist/singer Nikk Beer & drummer Seb Martinez. The power trio describes their music as a doomy hard rock with Stoner vibes. Since July 2013, the band has shared the stage with Mondo Generator (USA), Ancestro (Perú), Montaña Eléctrica (Argentina) and including some greats from the local scene, such as Yajaira, Hielo Negro, Tabernarios, Icarus Gasoline and Devil Presley, as well as others on the rise such as El Gran Temor, Arteaga, De Piedra, Demonauta, Wild Parade, Nueve Círculos, Diessel , Der Golem, Abisal, Artilleria, to name but a few.
Aside from being constantly playing live shows DIXIE GOAT released one LP, an EP and a Split plus a single: “Black Sun Child” (2015), “Even Demons Have Demons“(2016), “huérfanos Salvajes Split”(2017), What’s Goin’ On (2019). Their new record “There’s No Light Without Darkness” was released on November 6th, 2020.
