Posted in Features on December 18th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
Searching for Dissertation Procurement? You have found the webs leading service of quality and inexpensive essay writing. Get professional essay writing Please note: This post is not culled in any way from the Year-End Poll, which is ongoing. If you havenât yet contributed your favorites of 2017 to that, please do.
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Every successive year brings an absolute inundation of underground productivity. Every year, someone new is inspired to pick up a guitar, bass, drums, mic, keyboard, theremin, cello — whatever it might be — and set themselves to the task of manifesting the sounds they hear in their head.
This is unspeakably beautiful in my mind, and as we’ve done in years past, it seems only fair to celebrate the special moment of realization that comes with a band’s first album. The debut full-length. Sometimes it’s a tossed-off thing, constructed from prior EPs or thrown together haphazardly from demo tracks, and sometimes it’s a meticulously picked-over expression of aesthetic — a band coming out of the gate brimming with purpose and desperate to communicate it, whatever it might actually happen to be.
We are deeply fortunate to live in an age (for now) of somewhat democratized access to information. That is, if you want to hear a thing — or if someone wants you to hear a thing — it’s as simple as sharing and/or clicking a link. The strong word of mouth via ubiquitous social media, intuitive recording software, and an ever-burgeoning swath of indie labels and other promotional vehicles means bands can engage an audience immediately if they’re willing to do so, and where once the music industry’s power resided in the hands of a few major record companies, the divide between “listener” and “active participant” has never been more blurred.
Therefore, it is a good — if crowded — time for an act to be making their debut, even if it’s something that happens basically every day, and all the more worth celebrating the accomplishments of these first-albums both on their current merits and on the potential they may represent going forward. Some percent of a best-debuts list is always speculation. That’s part of what makes it so much fun.
As always, I invite you to let me know your favorite picks in the comments (please keep it civil). Here are mine:
The Obelisk Presents: The Top 20 Debut Albums of 2017
1. Telekinetic Yeti, Abominable
2. Rozamov, This Mortal Road
3. Mindkult, Lucifer’s Dream
4. Dool, Here Now There Then
5. Eternal Black, Bleed the Days
6. Arduini/Balich, Dawn of Ages
7. Vinnum Sabbathi, Gravity Works
8. Tuna de Tierra, Tuna de Tierra
9. Brume, Rooster
10. Moon Rats, Highway Lord
11. Thera Roya, Stone and Skin
12. OutsideInside, Sniff a Hot Rock
13. Hymn, Perish
14. Riff Fist, King Tide
15. Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree, Medicine
16. Abronia, Obsidian Visions/Shadowed Lands
17. Book of Wyrms, Sci-Fi Fantasy
18. Firebreather, Firebreather
19. REZN, Let it Burn
20. Ealdor Bealu, Dark Water at the Foot of the Mountain
I could keep going with honorable mentions, and no doubt will add a few as people remind me of other things on which I brainfarted or whathaveyou, preferably without calling me an idiot, though I recognize that sometimes that’s a lot to ask. Either way, the point remains that the heavy underground remains flush with fresh infusions of creativity and that as another generation comes to maturity, still another is behind it, pushing boundaries forward or looking back and reinventing what came before them.
Notes
Will try and likely fail to keep this brief, but the thing I find most striking about this list is the variety of it. That was not at all something I planned, but even if you just look at the top five, you’ve got Telekinetic Yeti at the forefront. Abominable is something of a speculative pick on my part for the potential it shows on the part of the Midwestern duo in their songcraft and tonality, but then you follow them with four other wildly different groups in Rozamov, Mindkult, Dool and Eternal Black. There you’ve got extreme sludge from Boston, a Virginian one-man cult garage project, Netherlands-based dark heavy rock with neo-goth flourishes, and crunching traditionalist doom from New York in the vein of The Obsessed.
What I’m trying to say here is that it’s not just about one thing, one scene, one sound, or one idea. It’s a spectrum, and at least from where I sit, the quality of work being done across that spectrum is undeniable. Think of the prog-doom majesty Arduini/Balich brought to their collaborative debut, or the long-awaited groove rollout from Vinnum Sabbathi, or how Italy’s Tuna de Tierra snuck out what I thought was the year’s best desert rock debut seemingly under everybody’s radar. Stylistically and geographically these bands come from different places, and as with Brume and Moon Rats, even when a base of influence is similar, the interpretation thereof can vary widely and often does.
That Moon Rats album wasn’t covered nearly enough. I’m going to put it in the Quarterly Review coming up just to give another look at the songwriting on display, which was maddening in its catchiness. Maddening in its cacophony of noise was Stone and Skin from Brooklyn’s Thera Roya, which found itself right on the cusp of the top 10 with backing from the ’70s heavy rock vibes of the post-Carousel Pittsburgh outfit OutsideInside. Norway’s Hymn thrilled with their bleak atmospheres, while Australia’s Riff Fist showed off a scope they’d barely hinted at previously, and Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree offered surprises of their own in their warm heavy psych tonality and mostly-instrumental immersion. That record caught me almost completely off-guard. I was not at all prepared to dig it as much as I did.
Thrills continue to abound and resound as the Young Hunter-related outfit Abronia made their first offering of progressive, Americana-infused naturalist heavy, while Book of Wyrms dug themselves into an oozing riffy largesse on the other side of the country and Sweden’s Firebreather emerged from the defunct Galvano to gallop forth and claim victory a la early High on Fire. REZN’s Let it Burn got extra points in my book for the unabashed stonerism of it, while it was the ambience of Ealdor Bealu’s Dark Water at the Foot of the Mountain that kept me going back to it. An album that was genuinely able to project a sense of mood without being theatrical about it was all the more impressive for it being their first. But that’s how it goes, especially on this list.
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There you have it. Those are my picks. I recognize I’m only one person and a decent portion of my year was taken up by personal matters — having, losing a job; pregnancy, childbirth and parenting, etc. — but I did my best to hear as much music as I could in 2017 and I did my best to make as much of it as new as I could.
Still, if there’s something egregious I left out or just an album you’d like to champion, hell yes, count me in. What were some of your favorites? Comments are right down there. Let’s get a discussion going and maybe we can all find even more music to dig into.
Thanks for reading and here’s to 2018 to come and the constant renewal of inspiration and the creative spirit.
I don’t know about you, but I could do this all day. Listening to records, writing reviews, getting things done that I’ve been trying to get done in some cases for actual months of my life — suffice it to say I’m way into this process. Wednesday is always a special day for the Quarterly Review because we pass the halfway point, and as much as I wish this edition went to 60 or even 70 releases, because rest assured even with 50 total there’s way more I could be covering if I had space/time, the good news is there’s still much more awesomeness to come. Today gets into some different vibes once again, so let’s get started.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
Enslaved, Roadburn Live
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Hour of 13, Salt the Dead: The Rare and Unreleased
An overdue compilation from a band making an overdue return, Hour of 13âs Salt the Earth: The Rare and Unreleased reunites the doomers led by multi-instrumentalist Chad Davis with Shadow Kingdom Records and brings together early demos from 2007 â on which the collaboration between Davis and vocalist Phil Swanson was arguably at its most vibrant as they headed into their self-titled debut full-length later that year â with other previously unissued cuts like three songs with Davis on vocals including the Jason McCash tribute piece âUpon Black Wings We Dieâ (premiered here) and the original rehearsal demos that introduced Beaten Back to Pure singer Ben Hogg as Swansonâs replacement in the band in 2011 (premiered here). If you want a direct feel for the breadth of the band, look no further than the three versions of âCall to Satanâ that appear on Salt the Earth. Widely varied between them in sound and overall feel, they underscore the tumult that has existed since the outset at the core of Hour of 13 even as they provide hope that the band previously laid to rest can revitalize enough to put out a fourth studio offering.
Blues Pills. There. I said it. Now that the blues-rocking elephant in the room has been acknowledged, perhaps we can get on with Swedish four-piece MaidaValeâs debut full-length, Tales of the Wicked West (on The Sign Records). Yes, the FĂ„rösund-based band owe a bit of their soulfulness to the aforementioned, but the nine-track/44-minute long-player thrives most of all as Linn Johannesson, Sofia Ström, Matilda Roth and Johanna Hansson purposefully meander into psychedelic flashes, as in opener â(If You Want the Smoke) Be the Fire,â the midsection of âThe Greatest Story Ever Told,â the penultimate Zep-vibing/Bukowski-referencing âFind What You Love and Let it Kill Youâ and the 11-minute post-âMaggot Brainâ closer âHeaven and Earth.â Itâs in these moments and the manner in which they blend with the driving rock of âDirty War,â the bluesy swagger of âRestless Wandererâ and the deft turns of âColour Blindâ early on that MaidaValeâs individualism is beginning to take shape, and if thatâs the story that Tales of the Wicked West is telling, then itâs one well worth following through subsequent chapters.
Audionâs debut, La Historia de Abraham, is immediately noteworthy in no small part because it brings the rhythm section of Los Natas back together for the first time since that bandâs breakup following 2009âs excellent Nuevo Orden de la Libertad (review here). Drummer Walter Broide and bassist Gonzalo Villagra join forces in the new outfit with guitarist Dizzy Espeche, and all three contribute vocals throughout at least in backup capacity, adding variety to go with the instrumental breadth that runs from the serene end of âLlegaron Sordosâ right into the rush of âLa Maquina del Tiempoâ and well beyond later as the interlude âPara Rositaâ introduces an earthy acoustidelic feel and âEl Caranchoâ explores â70s anthemic rock before the fuzz- and horn-laden finisher âQueruzalemâ closes out with a surprising progressive wash. Cuts like opener âClarence,â the title-track and âColmillo Blancoâ can call to mind Villagra and Broideâs previous work, but Audion make a fresh impression on La Historia de Abraham in the variety throughout, and as they make their way through âLesbotransâ and âDiablo vs. Diosâ and into the second half of the album, it becomes increasingly clear how distinct this first offering actually is.
To go along with the propulsive rhythm of âFalse Ambitionâ and the wash in the payoff of the earlier âThese Days are Gone,â thereâs a sense of gothic drama to vocalist Marianâs delivery that adds further atmosphere to Bone Manâs III (on Pink Tank Records), and in kind with the cohesive foundation of Arneâs bass, Ătziâs drumming and his own scorch-prone guitar, that gives cuts like âCold Echoâ and the alternately brooding and explosive centerpiece â layered acoustic and electric guitar filling out the sound further â even more stylistic depth. That moodiness comes perhaps most into focus on the more subdued âIncognito,â but itâs there from the boogie-laced opener âPollyannaâ onward, and in the jagged push of âYears of Sorrowâ and the more spacious finale âAmnesiaâ (still a tightly structured four minutes in length), it lends III a persona stretching beyond what one might think of as the standard genre fare and gives the Kiel, Germany, outfit a presence decidedly their own. It’s their third record, so maybe that’s not a surprise for a band who made their first offering eight years ago, but it serves as a major source of resonance in the material nonetheless.
Going back to 2013, Melbourne, Australia, trio Riff Fist have basically summed up their approach in the eight letters of their name: a tight-knit approach to guitar-led heavy rock, as straightforward as a fist in your face. King Tide is their debut album after three EPs named for the Clint Eastwood Dollars trilogy of westerns â 2015âs The Good, the Loud and the Riff, 2014âs For a Few Riffs More and 2013âs Fistful of Riffs (review here) â and it significantly expands their breadth. Opening with its longest track (immediate points) in the 11-minute title cut (video premiered here), King Tide covers new, more patient and encompassing ground from bassist/vocalist Cozza, guitarist Casey and drummer Joel than anything theyâve touched on before, and while the subsequent âD.T.U.B.,â fuzz-laden âFist Bier (Noch Eins)â and even the first half of eight-minute centerpiece âChuggâ bring that all-ahead sensibility back into focus, King Tide remains effectively and engagingly informed by its leadoff impression through its total 33-minute run, which is rounded out as âBeer and a Cigaretteâ melds the more spacious and atmospheric take with a still-swinging post-Clutch groove. Thereâs more work to do in tying the various sides together, but King Tide is a rousing introduction to the process through which the band can make that happen.
I wonât take away from a wah-drenched rocker like âThe Healer,â which still jams out plenty before digging into doomier lumbering, but where Austrian trio Savanahâs Stone Free Records debut album, The Healer, really gets its point across is in the fluidity of its longer-form material, whether thatâs post-âIntroâ opener âMind,â the ebbing and flowing heavy psych instrumental âPillars of Creationâ or the over-10-minutes-apiece closing pair of the doom rocking âBlack Widowâ and âPanoramic View of Stormy Weather,â which effectively draws together the multiple aesthetic faces the three-piece demonstrate throughout the record preceding, culling rock, psych and doom into a single riff-driven entity and, most importantly, making it theirs. Guitar leads the way with big, natural fuzz, but the rhythm section is crucial here, and as Benny, Felix and Jakob follow-up their 2015 EP, Deep Shades, they seem to establish a path along which they can flourish and hopefully continue to capture the listenerâs attention as they do here.
The kind of release where by the end of the first song you want to own everything the band has ever put out. Donât let Athensâ Puta Volcano get lost in the wash of bands coming out of Greece these days, because there are many, but if you miss out on the blend of desert-style tones and graceful melodies of âBird,â itâs to your general detriment. Iâm serious. In craft and performance, Puta Volcanoâs third album, Harmony of Spheres, takes on unpretentious progressivism in songwriting and blends it with a post-Slo Burn/Hermano sense of freedom from genre. Witness the funky âZeroth Lawâ or the later, more subtle post-grunge linearity of âMoebius,â the odd chanting repetitions in closer âInfinityâ or the nigh-on-maddening hook of âJovian Winds.â Really, do it. With the lineup of vocalist Luna Stoner, guitarist Alex Pi, bassist Bookies and drummer Steven Stefanidis, Puta Volcano are onto something special in aesthetic and delivery, and if Harmony of Spheres might be your first experience with the band as itâs mine, itâs one that will no doubt warrant multiple revisits. Consider it sleeper fodder for your year-end list â I know I will.
Yes! A new podcast! Are you stoked? I’m stoked. If you’re not, you will be when you look at the list of bands included. In any case, let’s be stoked together, because rock and roll, and heavy psych and good music and, well, yeah. That’s pretty much stuff to be stoked about. It’s been absurdly long since the last time we did one of these. Too long. I don’t really have an excuse other than… gainful employment? Don’t worry, though. That’ll be over soon enough. Then it’ll be podcasts out the ass.
There’s some killer goods here though. Yeah, I decided to do a “Yeti” double-shot with Green Yeti into Telekinetic Yeti. That’s my version of me being clever. But both bands are righteous, and if you haven’t heard the Savanah record, or that new Tia Carrera jam, or the Cachemira or Big Kizz or Yagow or Vokonis or the Elder — oh hell, frickin’ all of it — it’s worth your time. That Emil Amos track just premiered the other day and I think will surprise a lot of people, and I liked the way it paired with the dark neofolk of Hermitess. And of course we get trippy in the second hour, as is the custom around here. But first a moment of prog clarity from the aforementioned Elder. That’s a good time as well.
As always, I hope you enjoy.
Track details follow:
First Hour:
0:00:00 Vokonis, âThe Sunken Djinnâ from The Sunken Djinn
0:06:47 Tia Carrera, âLaid Back (Frontside Rock ânâ Roll)â from Laid Back (Frontside Rock ânâ Roll)
0:16:33 Supersonic Blues, âSupersonic Blues Themeâ from Supersonic Blues Theme / Curses on My Soul
0:19:28 Emil Amos, âElements Cyclingâ from Filmmusik
0:22:28 Hermitess, âBlood Moonâ from Hermitess
0:26:24 Savanah, âMindâ from The Healer
0:34:22 Yagow, âNon-Contractualâ from Yagow
0:42:35 Big Kizz, âEye on Youâ from Eye on You
0:45:53 Cachemira, âJunglaâ from Jungla
0:52:05 Green Yeti, âBlack Planets (Part 2)â from Desert Show
0:58:02 Telekinetic Yeti, âStoned and Featheredâ from Abominable
Second Hour:
1:02:10 Elder, âThe Falling Veilâ from Reflections of a Floating World
1:13:20 Riff Fist, âKing Tideâ from King Tide
1:24:15 Cavra, âMontañaâ from Cavra
1:39:18 Causa Sui, âA Love Supremeâ from Live in Copenhagen