Not to get too mathy or anything — stay with me, folks — but today is the day the Winter 2023 Quarterly Review passes the three-quarter mark on its way to 80 of the total 100 releases to be covered. And some of those are full-lengths, some are EPs, some are new, one yesterday was almost a year old. That happens. The idea here, one way or the other, is personal discovery. I hope you’ve found something thus far worth digging into, something that really hits you. And if not, you’ve still got 30 releases — 10 each today, tomorrow, Friday — to come, so don’t give up yet. We proceed…

Winter 2023 Quarterly Review #71-80:

Black Math Horseman, Black Math Horseman

Though long foretold by the prophets of such things, the return of Black Math Horseman with 2022’s self-titled, live-recorded-in-2019 EP some 13 years after their 2009 debut full-length, Wyllt (discussed here, interview here), helped set heavy post-rock in motion, is still a surprise. The tension in the guitars of Ian Barry (who also handled recording/mixing) and Bryan Tulao in the eponymous opener is maddening, a tumult topped by the vocals of Sera Timms (who here shares bass duties with Rex Elle), and given thunder by drummer Sasha Popovic, and as part of a salvo of three cuts all seven minutes or longer, it marks the beginning of a more intense extraction of the atmospheric approach to heavy songcraft that made their past work such a landmark, with the crashes of “Cypher” and the strummy sway of “The Bough” following ahead of shorter, even-driftier closer “Cypber.” There’s a big part of me that wishes Black Math Horseman was a full-length, but an even bigger part is happy to take what it can get and hope it’s not another decade-plus before they follow it with something more. Not to be greedy, but in 2009 this band had a lot more to say and all this time later that still feels like the case and their sound still feels like it’s reaching into the unknown.

Black Math Horseman on Facebook

Profound Lore Records store

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Baker Ja Lehtisalo, Crocodile Tears

The names here should be enough. It’s Aidan Baker from heavy drone experimentalist institution Nadja ja (‘and’ in Finnish) Jussi Lehtisalo from prog-of-all masters Circle, collaborating and sharing guitar, bass, vocal and drum programming duties — Lehtisalo would seem also to add the keyboards that give the the titular neon to centerpiece “Neon Splashing (From Your Eyes)” — on a 53-minute song cycle, running a broad spectrum between open-space post-industrial drone and more traditional smoky, melancholic, heady pop. Closer “Racing After Midnight” blends darker whispers with dreamy keyboard lines before moving into avant techno, not quite in answer to “I Wanna Be Your Bête Noire” earlier, but not quite not, and inevitably the 14-minute opener and longest track (immediate points) “(And I Want Your Perfect) Crocodile Tears” is a defining stretch in terms of ambience and setting the contextual backdrop for what follows, its howling guitar layered with drum machine churn in a way that’s analogous to Jesu in style but not form, the wash that emerges in the synth and guitar there seeming likewise to be the suddenly-there alt-reality New Wave destination of the more languid meander of “Face/Off.” The amalgam of beauty and crush is enough to make one hope this isn’t Baker and Lehtisalo‘s last get together, but if it is, they made something worth preserving. By which I mean to say you might want to pick up the CD.

Jussi Lehtisalo on Bandcamp

Aidan Baker website

Ektro Records website

Broken Spine Productions on Bandcamp

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Chrome Ghost, House of Falling Ash

While their crux is no less in the dreamy, sometimes minimalist, melodic parts and ambient stretches of their longer-form songs and the interludes “In the Tall Grass” and “Bloom (Reprise),” the outright crush of Sacramento’s Chrome Ghost on their third record, House of Falling Ash (on Seeing Red), is not to be understated, whether that’s the lumber-chug of 14-minute opener “Rose in Bloom” or the bookending 13-minute closing title-track’s cacophonous wash, through which the trio remain coherent enough to roll out clean as they give the record its growl-topped sludge metal finish. Continuing the band’s clearly-ain’t-broke collaboration with producer Pat Hills, the six-song/50-minute offering boasts guest appearances from him on guitar, as well as vocals from Eva Rose (ex-CHRCH) on “Furnace,” likewise consuming loud or quiet, punishing or spacious, Oakland-based ambient guitarist Yseulde in the lengthy, minimalist midsection of “Where Black Dogs Dream,” setting up the weighted and melodic finish there, with Brume‘s Susie McMullin joining on vocals to add to the breadth. There’s a lot happening throughout, loud/quiet trades, experimental flourish, some pedal steel from Hills, but guitarist/vocalist Jake Kilgore (also keys), bassist Joe Cooper and drummer Jacob Hurst give House of Falling Ash a solid underpinning of atmospheric sludge and post-metal, and the work is all the more expressive and (intermittently) gorgeous for it.

Chrome Ghost on Facebook

Seeing Red Records store

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Wölfhead, Blood Full Moon

Straight-ahead, metal-informed, organ-inclusive classic heavy rock is the order of the day on Wölfhead‘s second album, Blood Full Moon, which is the Barclona-based four-piece’s first offering since their 2011 self-titled debut and is released through Discos Macarras, Música Hibrida and Iron Matron Records. An abiding impression of the 11-song offering comes as the band — who filled out their well-pedigreed core lineup of vocalist Ivan Arrieta, guitarists Josue Olmo and Javi Félez, and drummer Pep Carabante with session players David Saavedra (bass) and Albert Recolons (keys) — present rippers like the Motörhead (no real surprise, considering) via Orange Goblin rocker “Funeral Hearse” as the tail end of a raucous opening salvo, or the later “Mother of the Clan,” but from there the proceedings get more complex, with the classic doom roll of “Rame Tep” or the Jerry Cantrell-esque moody twang of “Everlasting Outlaw,” while “Eternal Stone Mountain” blends keyboard grandiosity and midtempo hookmaking in a way that should bring knowing nods from Green Lung fans, while “The Munsters” is, yes, a take on the theme from the tv show, and closer “El Llop a Dins” takes an airier, sans-drums and more open feel, highlighting melody rather than an overblown finish that, had they gone that route, would have been well earned.

Wölfhead on Facebook

Discos Macarras website

Música Hibrida website

Iron Matron Records store

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Godzilla in the Kitchen, Exodus

Issued through Argonauta Records, Exodus‘ seven inclusions are situated so that their titles read as a sentence: “Is,” “The Future of Mankind,” “Forced By,” “The King of Monsters,” “Because,” “Everything That Has Been Given,” “Will Be Taken Away.” Thus Leipzig, Germany, instrumentalists Godzilla in the Kitchen‘s second album is immediately evocative, even before “Is” actually introduces the rest of what follows across three minutes of progressively minded heavy rock — parts calling to mind Pelican duking it out with Karma to Burn — that give way to the longest cut and an obvious focal point, “The Future of Mankind,” which reimagines the bass punch from Rage Against the Machine‘s “Killing in the Name Of” as fodder for an odd-timed expanse of Tool-ish progressive heavy, semi-psych lead work coming and going around more direct riffing. The dynamic finds sprawl in “Because” and highlights desert-style underpinnings in the fading lead lines of “Everything That Has Been Given” before the warmer contemplation of “Will Be Taken” caps with due substance. Their use of Godzilla — not named in the songs, but in the band’s moniker, and usually considered the “king of monsters” — as a metaphor for climate change is inventive, but even that feels secondary to the instrumental exploration itself here. They may be mourning for what’s been lost, but they do so with a vigor that, almost inadvertently, can’t help but feel hopeful.

Godzilla in the Kitchen on Facebook

Argonauta Records website

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Onhou, Monument

Megalurching post-sludgers Onhou leave a crater with the four-song Monument, released by Lay Bare Recordings and Tartarus Records and comprising four songs and a 41-minute run that’s crushing in atmosphere as much as the raw tonal heft or the bellowing vocals that offset the even harsher screams. Leadoff “When on High” (8:19) is the shortest cut and lumbers toward a viciously noisy payoff and last stretch of even-slower chug and layered extreme screams/shouts, while “Null” (10:39) is unremittingly dark, less about loud/quiet tradeoffs though there still are some, but with depths enough to bury that line of organ and seeming to reference Neurosis‘ “Reach,” and “Below” (11:55) sandwiches an ambient beginning and standalone keyboard finish around post-metallic crunch and not so much a mournfulness as the lizard-brain feeling of loss prior to mourning; that naked sense of something not there that should be, mood-wise. Sure enough, “Ruins” (11:03) continues this bleak revelry, rising to a nod in its first couple minutes, breaking, returning in nastier fashion and rolling through a crescendo finish that makes the subsequent residual feedback feel like a mercy which, to be sure, it is not. If you think you’re up to it, you might be, or you might find yourself consumed. One way or the other, Onhou plod forward with little regard for the devastation surrounding. As it should be.

Onhou on Facebook

Lay Bare Recordings website

Tartarus Records on Bandcamp

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Fuzzerati, Zwo

Less meditative than some of Germany’s instrumental heavy psych set, Bremen’s Fuzzerati explore drifting heavy psychedelic soundscapes on their 47-minute second album, Zwo, further distinguishing themselves in longform pieces like “Claus to Hedge” (13:01) and closer “Lago” (13:34) with hints of floaty post-rock without ever actually becoming so not-there as to be shoegazing. “Lago” and “Claus to Hedge” also have harder-hitting moments of more twisting, pushing fuzz — the bass in the second half of “Claus to Hedge” is a highlight — where even at its loudest, the seven-minute “Transmission” is more about dream than reality, with a long ambient finish that gives way to the similarly-minded ethereal launch of “Spacewalk,” which soon enough turns to somewhat ironically terrestrial riffing and is the most active inclusion on the record. For that, and more generally for the fluidity of the album as a whole, Fuzzerati‘s sophomore outing feels dug in and complete, bordering on the jazziness of someone like Causa Sui, but ultimately no more of their ilk than of My Sleeping Karma‘s or Colour Haze‘s, and I find that without a ready-made box to put them in — much as “instrumental heavy psych” isn’t a box — it’s a more satisfying experience to just go where the three-piece lead, to explore as they do, breathe with the material. Yeah, that’ll do nicely, thanks.

Fuzzerati on Facebook

Fuzzerati on Bandcamp

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Afghan Haze, Hallucinations of a Heretic

At least seemingly in part a lyrical narrative about a demon killing an infant Jesus and then going to hell to rip the wings off angels and so on — it’s fun to play pretend — Afghan Haze‘s Hallucinations of a Heretic feels born of the same extreme-metal-plus-heavy-rock impulse that once produced Entombed‘s To Ride Shoot Straight and Speak the Truth, and yeah, that’s a compliment. The bashing of skulls starts with “Satan Ripper” after the Church of Misery-style serial murderer intro “Pushing up Daisies,” and though “Hellijuana” has more of a stomp than a shove, the dudely-violence is right there all the same. “Occupants (Of the Underworld)” adds speed to the proceedings for an effect like High on Fire born out of death metal instead of thrash, and though the following closer “Gin Whore” (another serial killer there) seems to depart from the story being told, its sludge is plenty consistent with the aural assault being meted out by the Connecticut four-piece, omnidirectional in its disdain and ready at a measure’s notice to throw kicks and punches at whosoever should stand in its way, as heard in that burner part of “Gin Whore” and the all-bludgeon culmination of “Occupants (Of the Underworld).” This shit does not want to be your friend.

Afghan Haze on Facebook

Afghan Haze on Bandcamp

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Massirraytorr, Twincussion

My only wish here is that I could get a lyric sheet for the Britpsych-style banger that is “Costco Get Fucked.” Otherwise, I’m fully on board with Canadian trio Massirraytorr‘s debut LP, Twincussion — which, like the band’s name, is also styled all-caps, and reasonably so since the music does seem to be shouting, regardless of volume or what the vocals are actually up to in that deep-running-but-somehow-punk lysergic swamp of a mix. “Porno Clown” is garage raw. Nah, rawer. And “Bong 4” struts like if krautrock had learned about fuckall, the layer of effects biting on purpose ahead of the next rhythmic push. In these, as well as leadoff “Calvin in the Woods” and the penultimate noisefest “Fear Garden,” Massirraytorr feel duly experimentalist, but perhaps without the pretension that designation might imply. That is to say, fucking around is how they’re finding out how the songs go. That gives shades of punk like the earliest, earliest, earliest Monster Magnet, or The Heads, or Chrome, or, or, or, I don’t know fuck you. It’s wild times out here in your brain, where even the gravity slingshot of “The Juice” feels like a relatively straightforward moment to use as a landmark before the next outward acceleration. Good luck with it, kids. Remember to trail a string so you can find your way back.

Massirraytorr on Bandcamp

NoiseAgonyMayhem website

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Tona, Tona

Serbian five-piece Tona make their self-titled second LP with a 10-song collection that’s less a hodgepodge and more a melting pot of different styles coming together to serve the needs of a given song. “Sharks” is a rock tempo with a thrash riff. “Napoleon Complex Dog” is blues via hardcore punk. Opener “Skate Zen” takes a riff that sounds like White Zombie and sets it against skate rock and Megadeth at the same time. The seven-minute “Flashing Lights” turns progadelic ahead of the dual-guitar strut showoff “Shooter” and the willful contrast of the slogging, boozy closer “Just a Sip of It.” But as all-over-the-place as Tona‘s Tona is, it’s to the credit of their songwriting that they’re able to hold it together and emerge with a cohesive style from these elements, some of which are counterintuitively combined. They make it work, in other words, and even the Serbian-language “Atreid” gets its point across (all the more upon translation) with its careening, tonally weighted punk. Chock full of attitude, riffs, and unexpected turns, Tona‘s second long-player and first since 2008 gives them any number of directions in which to flourish as they move forward, and shows an energy that feels born from and for the stage.

Tona on Facebook

Tona on Bandcamp

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Welcome to the second week of the Quarterly Review. Last week there were 50 records covered between Monday and Friday, and barring disaster, the same thing will happen this week too. I wish I could say I was caught up after this, but yeah, no. As always, I’m hearing stuff right and left that I wish I’d had the chance to dig into sooner, but as the platitude says, you can only be in so many places at one time. I’m doing my best. If you’ve already heard all this stuff, sorry. Maybe if you keep reading you’ll find a mistake to correct. I’m sure there’s one in there somewhere.

Winter 2023 Quarterly Review #51-60:

Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol, Doom Wop

Powered by eight-string-guitar and bass chug, Austin heavy party rockers Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol offer markedly heavy, Steve Brooks-style weight on “Doom Wop,” the title-track of their second album, and prove themselves catchy through a swath of hooks, be it opener “Heel,” “Chew” or “I’m the Fucking Man,” which, if the finale “Jesus Was an Alien” — perhaps the best, also the only, ‘Jesus doing stuff’ song I’ve heard since Ministry‘s “Jesus Built My Hotrod”; extra kudos to the band for making it about screwing — didn’t let you know the band didn’t take themselves too seriously, and their moniker didn’t even before you hit play, then there you go. Comprised of guitarist Leo Lydon, bassist Aaron Metzdorf and drummer Sean St. Germain, they’re able to tap into that extra-dense tone at will, but their songs build momentum and keep it, not really even being slowed by their own massive feel, as heard on “Chew” or “The Bog” once it kicks in, and the vocals remind a bit of South Africa’s Ruff Majik without quite going that far over the top; I’d also believe it’s pop-punk influence. Since making their debut in 2020 with Burger Babes… From Outer Space!, they’ve stripped down their songwriting approach somewhat, and that tightness works well in emphasizing the ’90s alt rock vibe of “The Room” or the chug-fuzzer “Fly Super Glide.” They had a good amount of hype leading up to the Sept. 2022 release. I’m not without questions, but I can’t argue on the level of craft or the energy of their delivery.

Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol on Facebook

Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol on Bandcamp

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DoctoR DooM, A Shadow Called Danger

French heavy rock traditionalists DoctoR DooM return following a seven-year drought with A Shadow Called Danger, their late 2022/early 2023 follow-up to 2015’s debut, This Seed We Have Sown (review here). After unveiling the single “What They Are Trying to Sell” (premiered here) as proof-of-life in 2021, the three-piece ’70s-swing their way through eight tracks and 45 minutes of vintage-mindset stylizations, touching on moody Graveyardian blues in “Ride On” and the more uptempo rocker “The Rich and the Poor” while going more directly proto-metallic on galloping opener “Come Back to Yourself and the later “Connected by the Worst.” Organ enhances the sway of the penultimate “In This Town” as part of a side B expansion that starts with tense rhythmic underlayer before the stride of “Hollow” and, because obviously, an epilogue take on Händel‘s “Sarabande” that closes. That’ll happen? In any case, DoctoR DooM — guitarist/vocalist Jean-Laurent Pasquet, guitarist Bertrand Legrand, bassist Sébastien Boutin Blomfield and drummer Michel Marcq — don’t stray too far from their central purpose, even there, and their ability to guide the listener through winding progressions is bolstered by the warmth of their tones and Pasquet‘s sometimes gruff but still melodic vocals, allowing some of the longer tracks like “Come Back to Yourself,” “Hollow” and “In This Town” to explore that entirely imaginary border where ’70s-style heavy rock and classic metal meet and intertwine.

DoctoR DooM on Facebook

Ripple Music website

Black Farm Records store

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Stones of Babylon, Ishtar Gate

Clearly when you start out with a direct invocation of epic tales like “Gilgamesh (…and Enkidu’s Demise),” you’re going big. Portugal’s Stones of Babylon answer 2019’s Hanging Gardens (review here) with Ishtar Gate, still staying in Babylon as “Annunaki,” “Pazuzu,” the title-track, “The Fall of Ur,” and “Tigris and Euphrates” roll out instrumental embodiment of these historical places, ideas, and myths. There is some Middle Eastern flourish in quieter stretches of guitar in “Anunnaki,” “Pazuzu,” “The Fall of Ur,” etc., but it’s the general largesse of tone, the big riffs that the trio of guitarist Alexandre Mendes, bassist João Medeiros and drummer Pedro Branco foster and roll out one after the other, that give the sense of scale coinciding with their apparent themes. And loud or quiet, big and rolling or softer and more winding, they touch on some of My Sleeping Karma‘s meditative aspects without giving up a harder-hitting edge, so that when Ur falls, the ground seems to be given a due shake, and “Tigris and Euphrates,” as one of the cradles of civilization, caps the record with a fervency that seems reserved specifically for that crescendo. A few samples, including one at the very end, add to the atmosphere, but the band’s heart is in the heavy and that comes through regardless of a given moment’s volume.

Stones of Babylon on Facebook

Raging Planet website

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Alconaut, Slugs

Released on Halloween 2022, Alconaut‘s “Slugs” is a six-minute roller single following-up their 2019 debut album, Sand Turns to Tide, and it finds the Corsican trio fuzz-grooving their way through a moderate tempo, easy-to-dig procession that’s not nearly as slime-trail-leaving as its title implies. A stretch building up the start-stop central riff has a subtle edge of funk, but then the pedal clicks on and a fuller tone is revealed, drums still holding the same snare punctuation behind. They ride that stretch out for a reasonably unreasonable amount of measures before shifting toward the verse shortly before two minutes in — classic stoner rock — backing the first vocals with either organ or guitar effects that sound like one (nobody is credited for keys; accept the mystery) and a quick flash of angularity between lines of the chorus are likewise bolstered. They make their way back through the verse and then shift into tense chugging that’s more straight-ahead push than swinging, but still friendly in terms of pace, and after five minutes in, they stop, the guitar pans channels in re-establishing the riff, and they finish it big before just a flash of feedback cuts to silence. Way more rock and way less sludge than either their moniker or the song’s title implies, their style nonetheless hints toward emergent dynamic in its tonal changes even as the guitar sets forth its own hooks.

Alconaut on Facebook

Alconaut on Bandcamp

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Maybe Human, Ape Law

Instrumental save for the liberally distributed samples from Planet of the Apes, including Charlton Heston’s naming of Nova in “Nova” presented as a kind of semi-organic alt-techno with winding psychedelic guitar over a programmed beat, Maybe Human‘s Ape Law is the second long-player from the Los Angeles-based probably-solo outfit, and it arrives as part of a glut of releases — singles, EPs, one prior album — issued over the last two years or so. The 47-minute 10-songer makes its point in the opening title-track, and uses dialogue from the Apes franchise — nothing from the reboots, and fair enough — to fill out pieces that vary in their overarching impression from the heavy prog of “Bright Eyes” and the closing “The Killer Ape Theory” to the experimentalist psych of “Heresy.” If you’re looking to be damned to hell by the aforementioned Heston, check out “The Forbidden Zone,” but Ape Law seems to be on its most solid footing — not always where it wants to be, mind you — in a more metal-leaning guitar-led stretch like that in the second half of “Infinite Regression” where the guitar solo takes the forward role over a bed that seems to have been made just for it. The intent here is more to explore and the sound is rawer than Maybe Human‘s self-applied post-rock or pop tags might necessarily imply, but the deeper you go there more there is to hear. Unless you hate those movies, in which case you might want to try something else.

Maybe Human on Facebook

Maybe Human on Bandcamp

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Heron, Empires of Ash

Beginning with its longest track (immediate points) in the nine-minute “Rust and Rot,” the third full-length from Vancouver’s Heron, Empires of Ash, offers significant abrasive sludge heft from its lurching outset, and continues to sound slow even in the comparatively furious “Hungry Ghosts,” vocalist/noisemaker Jamie having a rasp to his screams that calls to mind Yatra over the dense-if-spacious riffing of Ross and Scott and Bina‘s fluid drumming. Ambient sections and buildups like that in centerpiece “Hauntology” allow some measure of respite from all the gnashing elsewhere, assuring there’s more to the four-piece than apparently-sans-bass-but-still-plenty-heavy caustic sludge metal, but in their nastiest moments they readily veer into territory commonly considered extreme, and the pairing of screams and backing growls over the brooding but mellower progression on closer “With Dead Eyes” is almost post-hardcore in its melding aggression with atmosphere. Still, it is inevitably the bite that defines it, and Heron‘s collective teeth are razor-sharp whether put to speedier or more methodical use, and the contrast in their sound, the either/or nature, is blurred somewhat by their willingness to do more than slaughter. This being their third album and my first exposure to them, I’m late to the party, but fine. Empires of Ash is perfectly willing to brutalize newcomers too, and the only barrier to entry is your own threshold for pain.

Heron links

Heron on Bandcamp

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My Octopus Mind, Faulty at Source (Bonus Edition)

A reissue of their 2020 second LP, My Octopus Mind‘s Faulty at Source (Bonus Edition) adds two tracks — “Here My Rawr,” also released as a single, and “No Way Outta Here Alive” — for a CD release. Whichever edition one chooses to take on, the range of the Bristol-based psych trio of guitarist/vocalist/pianist Liam O’Connell, bassist Isaac Ellis and drummer Oliver Cocup (the latter two also credited with “rawrs,” which one assumes means backing vocals) is presented with all due absurdity but a strongly progressive presence, so that while “The Greatest Escape” works in its violin and viola guest appearances from Rebecca Shelley and Rowan Elliot as one of several tracks to do the same, the feeling isn’t superfluous where it otherwise might be. Traditional notions of aural heft come and go — the riffier and delightfully bass-fuzzed “No Way Outta Here Alive” has plenty — while “Buy My Book” and the later “Hindenburg” envision psychedelic noise rock and “Wandering Eye” (with Shelley on duet vocals as well) adds mathy quirk to the proceedings, making them that march harder to classify, that much more on-point as regards the apparent mission of the band, and that much more satisfying a listen. If you’re willing to get weird, My Octopus Mind are already there. For at least over two years now, it would seem.

My Octopus Mind on Facebook

My Octopus Mind on Bandcamp

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Et Mors, Lifeless Grey

Having become a duo since their debut, 2019’s Lux in Morte (review here), was released, Et Mors are no less dirgey or misery-laden across Lifeless Grey for halving their lineup. Wretched, sometimes melodic and almost universally deathly doom gruels out across the three extended originals following the shorter intro “Drastic Side Effects” — that’s the near-goth plod of “The Coffin of Regrets” (9:45), “Tritsch” (16:13), which surprises by growing into an atmosludge take on The Doors at their most minimalist and spacious before its own consumption resumes, and “Old Wizard of Odd” (10:29), which revels in extremity before its noisy finish and is the ‘heaviest’ inclusion for that — and a concluding cover of Bonnie “Prince” Billy‘s “I See a Darkness,” the title embodied in the open space within the sound of the song itself while showcasing a soulful clean vocal style that feels like an emerging distinguishing factor in the band’s sound. That is, a point of growth that will continue to grow and make them a stronger, more diverse band as it already does in their material here. I’d be interested to hear guitarist/vocalist Zakir Suleri and drummer/vocalist Albert Alisaug with an expansive production able to lean more into the emotive aspects of their songwriting, but as it is on Lifeless Grey, their sound is contrastingly vital despite the mostly crawling tempos and the unifying rawness of the aural setting in which these songs take place.

Et Mors on Facebook

Et Mors on Bandcamp

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The Atomic Bomb Audition, Future Mirror

Future Mirror is The Atomic Bomb Audition‘s first release since 2014 and their first studio album since 2011’s Roots into the See (review here), the returning Oakland-based four-piece of guitarist/vocalist Alee Karin, bassist/vocalist Jason Hoopes, drummer Brian Gleeson and synthesist/engineer The Norman Conquest reigniting their take on pop-informed heavy, sometimes leaning toward post-rock float, sometimes offering a driving hook like in “Night Vision,” sometimes alternating between spacious and crushing as on “Haunted Houses,” which is as much Type O Negative and Katatonia darkness as the opener “Render” was blinding with its sweet falsetto melodies and crashing grandeur. Two interludes, “WNGTIROTSCHDB” and “…Spells” surround “Golden States, Pt. 1” — note there is no second part here — a brief-at-three-minutes-but-multi-movement instrumental, and the linear effect in hearing the album as whole is to create an ambient space between the three earlier shorter tracks and the two longer ones at the finish, and where “Dream Flood” might otherwise be a bridge between the two, the listening experience is only enhanced for the flourish. Future Mirror won’t be for everybody, as its nuance makes it harder to categorize and they wouldn’t be the first to suffer perils of the ‘band in-between,’ but by the time they get the payoff of closer “More Light,” tying the heft and melody together, The Atomic Bomb Audition have provided enough context to make their own kind of sense. Thus, a win.

The Atomic Bomb Audition on Facebook

The Atomic Bomb Audition on Bandcamp

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Maharaja, Aviarium

Maharaja‘s new EP, Aviarium (on Seeing Red), might be post-metal if one were to distill that microgenre away from its ultra-cerebral self-indulgence and keep only the parts of it most crushing. The downer perspective of the Ohio trio — guitarist Angus Burkhart, bassist Eric Bluebaum, drummer Zack Mangold, all of whom add vocals, as demonstrated in the shouty-then-noisy-then-both second track — is confirmed in the use of the suffix ‘-less’ in each of the four songs on the 24-minute outing, from opener “Hopeless” through “Soulless,” into the shorter, faster and more percussively intense “Lifeless” and at last arriving in the open with the engrossing roll of 10-minute finisher “Ballad of the Flightless Bird,” which makes a home for itself in more stoner-metal riffing and cleaner vocals but maintains the poise of execution that even the many and righteous drum fills of “Hopeless” couldn’t shake loose. It is not an easy or a smooth listen, but neither is it meant to be, and the ambience that comes out of the raw weight of Maharaja‘s tones as well as their subtle variation in style should be enough to bring on board those who’d dare take it on in the first place. Can be mean, but isn’t universally one thing or the other, and as a sampler of Maharaja‘s work it’s got me wanting to dig back to their 2017 Kali Yuga and find out what I missed.

Maharaja on Facebook

Seeing Red Records store

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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: Gregory March of False Gods

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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

I play guitar and write songs for False Gods. I don’t really know how it happened, to be honest. Myself and Mike, our singer, were in another band called “skeletondealer” but I was playing drums at that time still. That band dissolved and there was a guitar still at our old rehearsal space so I wrote some songs and the rest, as they say, is history.

Describe your first musical memory.

I honestly don’t know. There was always music in the house when I was a kid. My mother would do local theater while we were growing up so it’s probably something related to that. Having her learning songs for whatever show she was involved in.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

My best musical memory was writing and recording our last record entitled “Neurotopia” which should drop this summer on Seeing Red Records. I’m very proud of this one. We upped the ante on this record, bigly.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

During the lockdown.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

To the poorhouse.

How do you define success?

Having the freedom to do as you please, whenever.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

The Sisters of Mercy in NYC about 10-15 years ago, although I still love them dearly.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

A living.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

Communication of ideas and feelings. Connecting with an audience.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

A nap.

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False Gods, Neurotopia (2022)

Welcome back to the Fall 2022 Quarterly Review. It’s not quite the same as the Mountain of Madness, but there are definitely days where it feels like they’re pretty closely related. Just the same, we, you and I, persist through like digging a tunnel sans dynamite, and I hope you had a great and safe weekend (also sans dynamite) and that you find something in this batch of releases that you truly enjoy. Not really much point to the thing otherwise, I guess, though it does tend to clear some folders off the desktop. Like, 100 of them in this case. That in itself isn’t nothing.

Time’s a wastin’. Let’s roll.

Quarterly Review #51-60:

Boris, Heavy Rocks

One can’t help but wonder if Boris aren’t making some kind of comment on the franchise-ification of what sometimes feels like every damn thing by releasing a third Heavy Rocks album, as though perhaps it’s become their brand label for this particular kind of raucousness, much as their logo in capital letters or lowercase used to let you know what kind of noise you were getting. Either way, in 10 tracks and 41 minutes that mostly leave scorch marks when they’re done — they space out a bit on “Question 1” but elsewhere in the song pull from black metal and layer in lead guitar triumph — and along the way give plenty more thick toned, sometimes-sax-inclusive on-brand chicanery to dive into. “She is Burning,” “Cramper” and “My Name is Blank” are rippers before the willfully noisy relative slowdown “Blah Blah Blah,” and Japanese heavy institution are at their most Melvinsian with the experiment “Nosferatou,” ahead of the party metal “Ruins” and semi-industrial blowout “Ghostly Imagination,” the would-be-airy-were-it-not-crushing “Chained” and the concluding “(Not) Last Song,” which feeds the central query above in asking if there’s another sequel coming, piano, feedback, and finally, vocals ending what’s been colloquially dubbed Heavy Rocks (2022) with an end-credits scene like something truly Marvelized. Could be worse if that’s the way it’s going. People tend to treat each Boris album as a landmark. I’m not sure this one is, but sometimes that’s part of what happens with sequels too.

Boris on Facebook

Relapse Records store

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Mother Bear, Zamonian Occultism

Along with the depth of tone and general breadth of the mix, one of the aspects most enjoyable about Mother Bear‘s debut album, Zamonian Occultism, is how it seems to refuse to commit to one side or the other. They call themselves doom and maybe they are in movements here like the title-track, but the mostly-instrumental six-track/41-minute long-player — which opens and closes with lyrics and has “Sultan Abu” in the middle for a kind of human-voice trailmarker along the way — draws more from heavy psychedelia and languid groove on “Anagrom Ataf,” and if “Blue Bears and Silver Spliffs” isn’t stoner riffed, nothing ever has been. At the same time, the penultimate title-track slows way down, pulls the curtains closed, and offers a more massive nod, and the 10-minute closer “The Wizaaard” (just when you thought there were no more ways to spell it) answers that sense of foreboding in its own declining groove and echo-laced verses, but puts the fuzz at the forefront of the mix, letting the listener decide ultimately where they’re at. Tell you where I am at least: On board. Guitarist/vocalist Jonas Wenz, bassist Kevin Krenczer and drummer Florian Grass lock in hypnotic groove early and use it to tie together almost everything they do here, and while they’re obviously schooled in the styles they’re touching on, they present with an individual intent and leave room to grow. Will look forward to more.

Mother Bear on Facebook

Mother Bear on Bandcamp

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Sonja, Loud Arriver

After being kicked out of black metallers Absu for coming out as trans, Melissa Moore founded Sonja in Philadelphia with Grzesiek Czapla on drums and Ben Brand on bass, digging into a ‘true metal’ aesthetic with ferocity enough that Loud Arriver is probably the best thing they could’ve called their first record. Issued through Cruz Del Sur — so you know their ’80s-ism is class — the 37-minute eight-tracker vibes nighttime and draws on Moore‘s experience thematically, or so the narrative has it (I haven’t seen a lyric sheet), with energetic shove in “Nylon Nights” and “Daughter of the Morning Star,” growing duly melancholy in “Wanting Me Dead” before finding its victorious moment in the closing title-track. Cuts like “Pink Fog,” “Fuck, Then Die” and opener “When the Candle Burns Low…” feel specifically born of a blend of 1979-ish NWOBHM, but there’s a current of rock and roll here as well in the penultimate “Moans From the Chapel,” a sub-three-minute shove that’s classic in theme as much as riff and the most concise but by no means the only epic here. Hard not to read in catharsis on the part of Moore given how the band reportedly came about, but Loud Arriver serves notice one way or the other of a significant presence in the underground’s new heavy metal surge. Sonja have no time to waste. There are asses to kick.

Sonja on Facebook

Cruz Del Sur Music store

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Reverend Mother, Damned Blessing

Seven-minute opener ends in a War of the Worlds-style radio announcement of an alien invasion underway after the initial fuzzed rollout of the song fades, and between that and the subsequent interlude “Funeral March,” Reverend Mother‘s intent on Damned Blessing seems to be to throw off expectation. The Brooklynite outfit led by guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Jackie Green (also violin) find even footing on rockers like “Locomotive” or the driving-until-it-hits-that-slowdown-wall-and-hey-cool-layering “Reverend Mother,” and the strings on the instrumental “L.V.B.,” which boasts a cello guest spot by High Priestess Nighthawk of Heavy Temple, who also returns on the closing Britney Spears cover “Toxic,” a riffed-up bent that demonstrates once again the universal applicability of pop as Reverend Mother tuck it away after the eight-minute “The Masochist Tie,” a sneering roll and chugger that finds the trio of Green, bassist Matt Cincotta and drummer Gabe Katz wholly dug into heavy rock tropes while nonetheless sounding refreshing in their craft. That song and “Shame” before it encapsulate the veer-into-doom-ness of Reverend Mother‘s hard-deliver’d fuzz, but Damned Blessing comes across like the beginning of a new exploration of style as only a next-generation-up take can and heralds change to come. I would not expect their second record to sound the same, but it will be one to watch for. So is this.

Reverend Mother on Instagram

Seeing Red Records store

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Umbilicus, Path of 1000 Suns

The pedigree here is notable as Umbilicus features founding Cannibal Corpse drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz and guitarist/engineer Taylor Nordberg (also visuals), who’s played with Deicide, The Absence and a host of others, but with the soar-prone vocals of Brian Stephenson out front and the warm tonality of bassist Vernon Blake, Umbilicus‘ 10-song/45-minute first full-length, Path of 1000 Suns is a willful deep-dive into modernly-produced-and-presented ’70s-style heavy rock. Largely straightforward in structure, there’s room for proto-metallurgy on “Gates of Neptune” after the swinging “Umbilicus,” and the later melodic highlight “My Own Tide” throws a pure stoner riff into its second half, while the concluding “Gathering at the Kuiper Belt” hints at more progressive underpinnings, it still struts and the swing there is no less defining than in the solo section of “Stump Sponge” back on side A. Hooks abound, and I suppose in some of the drum fills, if you know what you’re listening for, you can hear shades of more extreme aural ideologies, but the prevailing spirit is born of an obvious love of classic heavy rock and roll, and Umbilicus play it with due heart and swagger. Not revolutionary, and actively not trying to be, but definitely the good time it promises.

Umbilicus on Facebook

Listenable Insanity Records on Facebook

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After Nations, The Endless Mountain

Not as frenetic as some out there of a similar technically-proficient ilk, Lawrence, Kansas, double-guitar instrumental four-piece After Nations feel as much jazz on “Féin” or “Cae” as they do progressive metal, djent, experimental, or any other tag with which one might want to saddle the resoundingly complex Buddhism-based concept album, The Endless Mountain — the Bandcamp page for which features something of a recommended reading list as well as background on the themes reportedly being explored in the material — which is fluid in composition and finds each of its seven more substantial inclusions accompanied by a transitional interlude that might be a drone, near-silence, a foreboding line of keys, whathaveyou. The later “Širdis” — penultimate to the suitably enlightened “Jūra,” if one doesn’t count the interlude between (not saying you shouldn’t) — is more of a direct linear build, but the 40-minute entirety of The Endless Mountain feels like a steep cerebral climb. Not everyone is going to be up for making it, frankly, but in “}}}” and its punctuationally-named companions there’s some respite from the head-spinning turns that surround, and that furthers both the dynamic at play overall and the accessibility of the songs. Whatever else it might be, it’s immaculately produced and every single second, from “Mons” and “Aon” to “))” and “(),” feels purposeful.

After Nations on Facebook

After Nations on Bandcamp

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Holy Dragon, Mordjylland

With the over-the-top Danzig-ian vocals coming through high in the mix, the drums sounding intentionally blown out and the fuzz of bass and guitar arriving in tidal riffs, Denmark’s Holy Dragon for sure seem to be shooting for memorability on their second album, Mordjylland. “Hell and Gold” pulls back somewhat from the in-your-face immediacy of opener “Bong” — and yet it’s faster; go figure — and the especially brash “War” is likewise timely and dug in. Centerpiece “Nightwatch” feels especially yarling with its more open riff and far-back echoing drums — those drums are heavy in tone in a way most are not, and it is appreciated — and gives over to the Judas Priestly riff of “Dunder,” which sounds like it’s being swallowed by the bass even as the concluding solo slices through. They cap with “Egypt” in classic-metal, minor-key-sounds-Middle-Eastern fashion, but they’re never far from the burly heft with which they started, and even the mellower finish of “Travel to Kill” feels drawn from it. The album’s title is a play on ‘Nordjylland’ — the region of Denmark where they’re from — and if they’re saying it’s dead, then their efforts to shake it back to life are palpable in these seven songs, even if the end front-to-back result of the album is going to be hit or miss with most listeners. Still, they are markedly individual, and the fact that you could pick them out of the crowd of Europe’s e’er-packed heavy underground is admirable in itself.

Holy Dragon on Instagram

Holy Dragon on Bandcamp

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Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships, Consensus Trance

Lincoln, Nebraska, trio Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships are right there. Right on the edge. You can hear it in the way “Beg Your Pardon” unfolds its lumbering tonality, riff-riding vocals and fervency of groove at the outset of their second album, Consensus Trance. They’re figuring it out. And they’re working quickly. Their first record, 2021’s TTBS, and the subsequent Rosalee EP (review here) were strong signals of intention on the part of guitarist/vocalist Jeremy Warner, bassist Karlin Warner and drummer Justin Kamal, and there is realization to be had throughout Consensus Trance in the noisy lead of “Mystical Consumer,” the quiet instrumental “Distalgia for Infinity” and the mostly-huge-chugged 11-minute highlight “Weeping Beast” to which it leads. But they’re also still developing their craft, as opener “Beg Your Pardon” demonstrates amid one of the record’s most vibrant hooks, and exploring spaciousness like that in the back half of the penultimate “Silo,” and the sense that emerges from that kind of reach and the YOB-ish ending of capper “I.H.” is that there’s more story to be told as to what Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships have to offer in style and substance. So much the better since Consensus Trance has such superlative heft at its foundation.

Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships on Facebook

Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships on Bandcamp

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Deer Creek, Menticide

Kind of funny to think of Menticide as a debut LP from Deer Creek, who’ve been around for 20 years — one fondly recalls their mid-aughts splits with Church of Misery and Raw Radar War — but one might consider that emblematic of the punk underpinning the sludgy heavy roll of “(It Had Neither Fins Nor Wings) Nor Did it Writhe,” along with the attitude of fuckall that joins hands with resoundingly dense tonality to create the atmosphere of the five originals and the cover medley closer “The Working Man is a Dead Pig,” which draws on Rush, Bauhaus and Black Sabbath classics as a sort of partially explanatory appendix to the tracks preceding. Of those, the impression left is duly craterous, and Deer Creek, with Paul Vismara‘s mostly-clean vocals riding a succession of his own monolithic riffs, a bit of march thrown into “The Utter Absence of Hope” amid the breath of tone from his and Conan Hultgren‘s guitars and Stephanie Hopper‘s bass atop the drumming of Marc Brooks. One is somewhat curious as to what drives a band after two full-length-less decades to make a definitive first album — at least beyond “hey a lot of things have changed in the last couple years” anyhow — but the results here are inarguable in their weight and the spaces they create and fill, with disaffection and onward and outward-looking angst as much as volume. That is to say, as much as Menticide nods, it’s more unsettling the more attention you actually pay to what’s going on. But if you wanted to space out instead, I doubt they’d hold it any more against you than was going to happen anyway. Band who owes nothing to anyone overdelivers. There.

Deer Creek on Facebook

Deer Creek on Bandcamp

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Riffcoven, Never Sleep at Night

Following the mid-’90s C.O.C. tone and semi-Electric Wizard shouts of “Black Lotus Trance,” “Detroit Demons” calls out Stooges references while burl-riffing around Pantera‘s “I’m Broken,” and “Loose” manifests sleaze to coincide with the exploitation of the Never Sleep at Night EP’s cover art. All of this results in zero-doubt assurance that the Brazilian trio have their bona fides in place when it comes to dudely riffs and an at least partially metal approach; stylistically-speaking, it’s like metal dudes got too drunk to remember what they were angry at and decided to have a party instead. I don’t have much encouraging to say at this juncture about the use of vintage porn as a likely cheap cover option, but no one seems to give a shit about moving past that kind of misogyny, and I guess as regards gender-based discrimination and playing to the male gaze and so on, it’s small stakes. I bet they get signed off the EP anyway, so what’s the point? The point I guess is that the broad universe of those who’d build altars to riffs, Riffcoven are at very least up front with what they’re about and who their target audience is.

Riffcoven on Facebook

Riffcoven on Bandcamp

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[Click play above to stream Ian Blurton’s Future Now’s Second Skin in full. Album is out Friday, July 15, on Seeing Red Records and Pajama Party.]

Ian Blurton on Second Skin:

While not a concept album per se, it does have reoccurring musical and lyrical ideas. Lyrically it’s mostly about moving forward from things you don’t want to live with, hence the theme of rebirth, the idea of rejecting what you don’t believe in and also saving things worth saving from destruction and the idea of progress. Cover artist Jeremy Bruneel has taken a number of these lyrical themes and painted them into the cover so they are represented visually as well.

Once we had been accepted as Artist in Residence at The NMC in Calgary we knew that we would have a proper Mellotron at our disposal so I began writing with that in mind. That brought forward the idea of making a more proggy record than the last and having three or four longer songs.

One of the themes of the record is community and that became real-life when we put out a call for amps as we were recording in Calgary/flying there. Local Calgary bands and musicians (Woodhawk, Ramblin’ Ambassadors, etc) offered up gear and we are forever indebted to their kindness. This same sense of community also made us realize that this record wouldn’t have happened the same way without the contributions of the artists, musicians, engineers, mixers, etc each who believed in it and added their own touches until the project became a whole.

In a world and a time of antiheroes, Ian Blurton is a hero. Where so much of the art that surrounds us on a day-to-day, be it commercial creative work on television, movies, videogames, music videos, and so on, or the literature and fine arts we as humans engage with, authenticity is regularly judged by the darkness of a work, the ‘grittiness’ factor that makes things that are difficult, challenging or traumatizing feel truer to life than those that aren’t. I’m not saying this is right or wrong, and I’m not calling for a change or a reversion back to some false ideal of a time when it was different. No. All I’m saying is that Ian Blurton, based in Toronto and on the cusp of releasing the second album with Ian Blurton’s Future Now, is a hero.

This is because, where so many others are not, Blurton is willing to take the risk of creating something fresh that diverts from the expectations of its own era. Something that is neither fluff to be tossed off when done, nor saccharine in its sweeter aspects, nor void of substance or message because it isn’t violent or dark or depressing. Second Skin is the sophomore long-player from this incarnation of Blurton‘s long-established persona behind 2019’s Signals Through the Flames (review here), a sweaty-summer-sun collection of nine songs playing out across 44 minutes of brazen heavy rock informed by classic metal riffs — Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, ’80s-style dual-guitar grandiosity between Blurton (also vocals, keys, production) and Aaron Goldstein — and an abiding classic groove channeled through bassist/vocalist Anna Ruddick (City and Colour) and drummer/vocalist Glenn Milchem (also Blue Rodeo).

Blurton‘s storied history as an artist and producer — working in bands like Public Animal, Cowboy Junkies, and so on, as well as being who in Toronto you want to record your heavy rock album, as demonstrated through records by Electric Magma, Cursed, Blood Ceremony and many, many others — is on display in the songwriting and performance here. But the truth is that even if you have no idea who he is or what he’s done in his career going back nearly four decades, the barriers to entry on Second Skin are nil. It could not be easier to get on board.

Like the best of pop, Second Skin is able to turn a three-minute song into an epic and make a seven-minute track feel like a breeze. It does this immediately upon pressing play, with the careening “Like a Ghost” (3:13) and the subsequent, damn-near-power-metal-except-it-isn’t title-track (7:12) establishing quickly the spaces in which Blurton, Goldstein, Ruddick and Milchem will work. Urgent in their delivery but unhurried either in tempo or in their movement between verses, choruses and showcasing depth even unto Milchem‘s ride cymbal taps after the two-minute mark in “Like a Ghost” or perfectly timed snare nod amid the starts and stops of the later “Beyond Beholds the Moon.” “Second Skin” rolls out with leads over central riffs, and its shove isn’t to be understated, building metallic momentum with heavy rock fuzz and an according breadth of melody as it arrives at the title line, finally, that release. Keyboard sets up the movement into the second half of the track, and the balance in mix, the resurgent rhythm, and the intensity that ensues en route to the next chorus is nothing short of masterful. There’s a reason that in Toronto, so I’m told, he’s referred to as “Sir” Ian Blurton.

Second Skin is universally crafted at this grade. No letup. “The Power of No” (3:51) chugs and swings with graceful ease, rooted in rock traditionalism in their side A momentum build, and as the the stomping “When the Storm Comes Home” (3:12) hands out its Scorpions-via-grunge-jangle progression, the effect is a guitar highlight standing apart from a slew of compatriots, as well as a shift into “Orchestrated Illusions” (4:51). rightly placed as the centerpiece for its nestled-in groove, expansive melodicism and memorable, likewise open chorus. At the presumed end of the side A and peppered with gorgeously toned solos in its second half, “Orchestrated Illusions” feels very much like the arrival that the the first five songs of Second Skin have been pushing toward, and its long fade and resonant acoustic guitar/keyboard ending is wholly earned.

So too is the quick reset as side B’s “Denim on Denim” (3:57). “It’s like heaven on heaven,” according to the lyrics, and kind of like “Looks That Kill” in its midsection riff, and fair enough. Another righteous hook, another metal-turned-into-rock movement, and another strong showcase of craft, pulls the listener back to ground after the hypnotic finish “Orchestrated Illusions” and before the closing trilogy of “Beyond Beholds the Moon” (6:30), “Too High the Sky” (5:03) and “Trails to the Gate/Second Skin Reprise” (6:36) round out the offering by pushing farther outward from the foundation “Denim on Denim” provides — a Mellotron early in “Beyond Beholds the Moon” is a sign of the shift into the album’s next stage, but it’s by no means the first keys, as noted. Growing burly by its finish — the aforementioned snare groove included — there’s no dip in the quality of craft.

Rather, set up earlier by “Second Skin,” “Beyond Beholds the Moon,” the harmonized unfolding of the proggy and fluid but still in motion “Too High the Sky” (with guest Sean Beresford on guitar) and the ’70s-futurist-meets-slow-Slayer finish of “Trails to the Gate/Second Skin” (with Robin Hatch on piano in its latter reaches) are in clear conversation with what preceded them on the record as well as off, and the final lyric, “It’s just a second skin,” resounds with no less vitality than the opening line of “Like a Ghost,” which was, “Do you want to believe?” If you ever did, there are no shortage of reasons to in these songs. Because that’s what heroes do. They make you believe.

The narrative of Second Skin (blessings and peace upon it) tells that Ian Blurton’s Future Now made the album on the Rolling Stones Mobile studio — used not only by Rolling Stones to create Exile on Main Street and Sticky Fingers, but also ultra-classics from Mk. II Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and others — as well as a slew of accordingly pedigreed vintage gear at Canada’s National Music Center in Calgary, Alberta. Whether it was bringing energy from their live shows to this setting or Blurton‘s own vision as producer, Second Skin indeed communes with these spirits while boasting a level of class that is simply its own. Rock and roll is lucky to have it.

Ian Blurton’s Future Now, “Like a Ghost” official video

Ian Blurton’s Future Now on Facebook

Ian Blurton’s Future Now on Twitter

Ian Blurton’s Future Now on Instagram

Seeing Red Records website

Seeing Red Records on Bandamp

Seeing Red Records on Instagram

Seeing Red Records on Facebook

I don’t know what day it is. The holiday here in the States has me all screwed up. I know it’s not the weekend anymore because I’m posting today, but really, if this is for Tuesday or Wednesday, I’m kind of at a loss. What I do know is that it’s 10 more records, and some quick math at the “71-80” below — which, yes, I put there ahead of time when I set up the back end of these posts so hopefully I don’t screw it up; it’s a whole fucking process; never ask me about it unless you want to be so bored at by the telling that your eyeballs explode — tells me today Wednesday, so I guess I figured it out. Hoo-ray.

Three quarters of the way through, which feels reasonably fancy. And today’s a good one, too. I hope as always that you find something you dig. Now that I know what day it is, I’m ready to start.

Quarterly Review #71-80:

MWWB, The Harvest

It’s difficult to separate MWWB‘s The Harvest from the fact that it might be the Welsh act’s final release, as frontwoman Jessica Ball explained here. Their synth-laced cosmic doom certainly deserves to keep going if it can, but on the chance not, The Harvest suitably reaps the fruit of the progression the band began to undertake with 2015’s Nachthexen (review here), their songs spacious despite the weight of their tones and atmospheric even at their most dense. Proggy instrumental explorations like “Let’s Send These Bastards Whence They Came” and “Interstellar Wrecking” and the semi-industrial, vocals-also-part-of-the-ambience “Betrayal” surround the largesse of the title-track, “Logic Bomb,” the especially lumbering “Strontium,” and so on, and “Moon Rise” caps with four and a half minutes of voice-over-guitar-and-keys atmospherics, managing to be heavy even without any of the usual trappings thereof. If this is it, what a run they had, both when they were Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard and with this as their potential swansong.

MWWB on Facebook

New Heavy Sounds website

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Righteous Fool, Righteous Fool

Look. Maybe it’s a fan-piece, but screw it, I’m a fan. And as someone who liked the second run of Corrosion of Conformity‘s Animosity-era lineup, this previously-unreleased LP from the three-piece that included C.O.C. bassist/vocalist Mike Dean and drummer/vocalist Reed Mullin (R.I.P.), as well as guitarist/vocalist Jason Browning, is only welcome. I remember when they put out the single on Southern Lord in 2010, you couldn’t really get a sense of what the band was about, but there’s so much groove in these songs — I’m looking right at you, “Hard Time Killing Floor” — that it’s that much more of a bummer the three-piece didn’t do anything else. Of course, Mullin rejoining Dean in C.O.C. wasn’t a hardship either, but especially in the aftermath of his death last year, it’s bittersweet to hear his performances on these songs and a collection of tracks that have lost none of their edge for the decade-plus they’ve sat on a shelf or hard drive somewhere. Call it a footnote if you want, but the songs stand on their own merits, and if you’re going to tell me you’ve never wanted to hear Dean sing “The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Pronged Crown),” then I think you and I are just done speaking for right now.

Righteous Fool on Facebook

Ripple Music website

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Seven Nines and Tens, Over Opiated in a Forest of Whispering Speakers

I agree, it’s a very long album title. And the band name is kind of opaque in a kind of opaque way. Double-O-paque. And the art by Ahmed Emad Eldin (Pink Floyd, etc.) is weird. All of this is true. But I’m going to step outside the usual review language here, and instead of talking about how Vancouver post-noise rock trio Seven Nines and Tens explore new melodic and atmospheric reaches while still crushing your rib cage on their first record for the e’er tastemaking Willowtip label, I’m just going to tell you listen. Really. That’s it. If you consider yourself someone with an open mind for music that is progressive in its artistic substance without conforming necessarily to genre, or if you’re somebody who feels like heavy music is tired and can’t connect to the figurative soul, just press play on the Bandcamp embed and see where you end up on the other side of Over Opiated in a Forest of Whispering Speakers‘ 37 minutes. Even if it doesn’t change your life, shaking you to your very core and giving you a new appreciation for what can be done on a level of craft in music that’s still somehow extreme, just let it run and then take a breath afterward, maybe get a drink of water, and take a minute to process. I wrote some more about the album here if you want the flowery whathaveyou, but really, don’t bother clicking that link. Just listen to the music. That’s all you need.

Seven Nines & Tens on Facebook

Willowtip Records website

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T.G. Olson, II

In March 2021, T.G. Olson, best known as the founding guitarist/vocalist for Across Tundras, released a self-titled solo album (review here). He’s had a slew of offerings out since — as he will; Olson is impossible to keep up with but one does one’s best — but II would seem to be a direct follow-up to that full-length’s declarative purpose, continuing and refining the sometimes-experimentalist, sometimes purposefully traditional folk songwriting and self-recording exploration Olson began (publicly, at least) a decade ago. Several of II‘s cuts feature contributions from Caleb R.K. Williams, but Olson‘s ability to build a depth of mix — consider the far-back harmonica in “Twice Gone” and any number of other flourishes throughout — is there regardless, and his voice is as definitively human as ever, wrought with a spirit of Americana and a wistfulness for a West that was wild not for its guns but the buffalo herds you could see from space and an emotionalism that makes the lyrics of “Saddled” seem all the more personal, whether or not they are, or the lines in “Enough Rope” that go, “Always been a bit of a misanthrope/Never had a healthy way to cope,” and don’t seem to realize that the song itself is the coping.

Electric Relics Records on Bandcamp

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Freebase Hyperspace, Planet High

Issued on limited blue vinyl through StoneFly Records, Freebase Hyperspace‘s first full-length, Planet High, is much more clearheaded in its delivery than the band would seem to want you to think. Sure, it’s got its cosmic echo in the guitar and the vocals and so on, but beneath that are solidified grooves shuffling, boogieing and underscoring even the solo-fueled jam-outs on “Golden Path” and “Introversion” with a thick, don’t-worry-we-got-this vibe. The band is comprised of vocalist Ayrian Quick, guitarist Justin Acevedo, bassist Stephen Moore and drummer Peter Hurd, and they answer 2018’s Activation Immediate not quite immediately but with fervent hooks and a resonant sense of motion. It’s from Portland, and it’s a party, but Planet High upends expectation in its bluesy vocals, in its moments of drift and in the fact that “Cat Dabs” — whatever that means, I don’t even want to look it up — is an actual song rather than a mess of cult stoner idolatries, emphasizing the niche being explored. And just because it bears mentioning, heavy rock is really, really white. More BIPOC and diversity across the board only makes the genre richer. But even those more general concerns aside, this one’s a stomper.

Freebase Hyperspace on Facebook

StoneFly Records store

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Melt Motif, A White Horse Will Take You Home

Not calling out other reviews (they exist; I haven’t read any), but any writeup about Melt Motif‘s debut album, A White Horse Will Take You Home, that doesn’t include the word “sultry” is missing something. Deeply moody on “Sleep” and the experimental-sounding “Black Hole” and occasionally delving into that highly-processed ’90s guitar sound that’s still got people working off inspiration from Nine Inch Nails‘ The Downward Spiral even if they don’t know it — see the chugs of “Mine” and “Andalusian Dog” for clear examples — the nine-track/37-minute LP nonetheless oozes sex across its span, such that even the sci-fi finale “Random Access Memory” holds to the theme. The band span’s from São Paulo, Brazil, to Bergen, Norway, and is driven by Rakel‘s vocals, Kenneth Rasmus Greve‘s guitar, synth and programming, and Joe Irente‘s bass, guitar, more synth and more programming. Together, they are modern industrial/electrionica in scope, the record almost goth in its theatrical pruning, and there’s some of the focus on tonal heft that one finds in others of the trio’s ilk, but Melt Motif use slower pacing and harder impacts as just more toys to be played with, and thus the album is deeply, repeatedly listenable, the clever pop structures and the clarity of the production working as the bed on which the entirety lays in waiting repose for those who’d take it on.

Melt Motif on Facebook

Apollon Records on Bandcamp

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Tenebra, Moongazer

Moongazer is the second full-length from Bologna, Italy-based heavy psychedelic blues rockers Tenebra, and a strong current of vintage heavy rock runs through it that’s met head-on by the fullness of the production, by which I mean that “Cracked Path” both reminds of Rainbow — yeah that’s right — and doesn’t sound like it’s pretending it’s 1973. Or 1993, for that matter. Brash and raucous on its face, the nine-song outing proves schooled in both current and classic heavy, and though “Winds of Change” isn’t a Scorpions cover, its quieter take still offers a chance for the band to showcase the voice of Silvia, whose throaty, push-it-out delivery becomes a central focus of the songs, be it the Iommic roll of “Black Lace” or the shuffling closer “Moon Maiden,” which boasts a guest appearance from Screaming Trees‘ Gary Lee Conner, or the prior “Dark and Distant Sky,” which indeed brings the dark up front and the distance in its second, more psych-leaning second half. All of this rounds out to a sound more geared toward groove than innovation, but which satisfies in that regard from the opening guitar figure of “Heavy Crusher” onward, a quick nod to desert rock there en route to broader landscapes.

Tenebra on Facebook

New Heavy Sounds website

Seeing Red Records website

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Doom Lab, IV: Ever Think You’re Smart​.​.​. And Then Find Out That You Aren’t?

With a drum machine backing, Doom Lab strums out riffs over the 16 mostly instrumental tracks of the project’s fourth demo since February of this year, Doom Lab IV: Ever Think You’re Smart​.​.​. And Then Find Out That You Aren’t?, a raw, sometimes-overmodulated crunch of tone lending a garage vibe to the entire procession. On some planet this might be punk rock, and maybe tucked away up in Anchorage, Alaska, it’s not surprising that Doom Lab would have a strange edge to their craft. Which they definitely do. “Clockwork Home II (Double-Thick Big Bottom End Dub)” layers in bass beneath a droning guitar, and “Diabolical Strike (w/ False Start)” is a bonus track (with vocals) that’s got the line, “You’ll think that everything is cool but then I’ll crush your motherfucking soul,” so, you know, it’s like that. Some pieces are more developed than others, as “Deity Skin II” has some nuanced layering of instrumentation, but in the harsh high end of “Spiral Strum to Heaven II” and the mostly-soloing “Infernal Intellect II,” Doom Lab pair weirdo-individualism with an obvious creative will. Approach with caution, because some of Doom Lab‘s work is really strange, but that’s clearly the intention from the start.

Doom Lab on Bandcamp

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White Fuzzy Bloodbath, Medicine

What you see is what you get in the sometimes manic, sometimes blissed-out, sometimes punk, sometimes fluid, always rocking Medicine by White Fuzzy Bloodbath, which hearkens to a day when the universe wasn’t defined by internet-ready subgenre designations and a band like this San Jose three-piece had a chance to be signed to Atlantic, tour the universe, and eventually influence other outcasts in their wake. Alas, props to White Fuzzy Bloodbath‘s Elise Tarens — joined in the band by Alex Bruno and Jeff Hurley — for the “Interlude” shout, “We’re White Fuzzy Bloodbath and the world has no fucking idea!” before the band launch into the duly raw “Chaos Creator.” Songs like “Monster,” “Beep-Bop Lives” and “Still” play fast and loose with deceptively technical angular heavy rock, and even the eight-minute title-track that rounds out before the cover of Beastie Boys‘ “Sabotage” refuses to give in and be just one thing. And about that cover? Well, not every experiment is going to lead to gold, but it’s representative on the whole of the band’s bravery to take on an iconic track like that and make their own. Not nearly everybody would be so bold.

White Fuzzy Bloodbath on Facebook

White Fuzzy Bloodbath on Bandcamp

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Secret Iris, What Are You Waiting For

With the vocal melody in its resonant hook, the lead guitar line that runs alongside and the thickened verse progression that complements, Secret Iris almost touch on Euro-style melancholic doom with the title-track of their debut 7″, What Are You Waiting For, but the Phoenix, Arizona, three-piece are up to different shenanigans entirely on the subsequent “Extrasensory Rejection (Winter Sanctuary),” which is faster, more punk, and decisively places them in a sphere of heavy grunge. Both guitarist Jeffrey Owens (ex-Goya) and bassist Tanner Grace (Sorxe) contribute vocals, while drummer Matt Arrebollo (Gatecreeper) is additionally credited with “counseling,” and the nine-minutes of the mini-platter first digitally issued in 2021 beef up a hodgepodge of ’90s and ’00s rock and punk, from Nirvana grunge to Foo Fighters accessibility, Bad Religion‘s punk and rock and a slowdown march after the break in the midsection that, if these guys were from the Northeast, I’d shout as a Life of Agony influence. Either way, it moves, it’s heavy, it’s catchy, and just the same, it manages not to make a caricature of its downer lyrics. The word I’m looking for is “intriguing,” and the potential for further intrigue is high.

Secret Iris on Facebook

Crisis Tree Records store

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Here begins day two of 10. I don’t know at what point it occurred to me to load up the Quarterly Review with killer stuff to make it, you know, more pleasant than having it only be records I feel like I should be writing about, but I’m intensely glad I did.

Seems like a no brainer, right? But the internet is dumb, and it’s so easy to get caught up in what you see on social media, who’s hyping what, and the whole thing is driven by this sad, cloying FOMO that I despise even as I participate. If you’re ever in a situation to let go of something so toxic, even just a little bit and even just in your own head — which is where it all exists anyhow — do it. And if you take nothing else from this 100-album Quarterly Review besides that advice, it won’t be a loss.

Quarterly Review #11-20:

Magnatar, Crushed

Can’t say they don’t deliver. The eight-song/38-minute Crushed is the debut long-player from Manchester, New Hampshire’s Magnatar, and it plays to the more directly aggressive side of post-metallic riffing. There are telltale quiet stretches, to be sure, but the extremity of shouts and screams in opener “Dead Swan” and in the second half of “Crown of Thorns” — the way that intensity becomes part of the build of the song as a whole — is well beyond the usual throaty fare. There’s atmosphere to balance, but even the 1:26 “Old” bends into harsh static, and the subsequent “Personal Contamination Through Mutual Unconsciousness” bounces djent and post-hardcore impulses off each other before ending up in a mega-doom slog, the lyric “Eat shit and die” a particular standout. So it goes into “Dragged Across the Surface of the Sun,” which is more even, but on the side of being pissed off, and “Loving You Was Killing Me” with its vastly more open spaces, clean vocals and stretch of near-silence before a more intense solo-topped finish. That leaves “Crushed” and “Event Horizon” to round out, and the latter is so heavy it’s barely music and that’s obviously the idea.

Magnatar on Facebook

Seeing Red Records on Bandcamp

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Wild Rocket, Formless Abyss

Three longform cosmic rock excursions comprise Wild Rocket‘s Formless Abyss — “Formless Abyss” (10:40), “Interplanetary Vibrations” (11:36) and “Future Echoes” (19:41) — so lock in your harness and be ready for when the g-forces hit. If the Dubliners have tarried in following-up 2017’s Disassociation Mechanics (review here), one can only cite the temporal screwing around taking place in “Interplanetary Vibrations” as a cause — it would be easy to lose a year or two in its depths — never mind “Future Echoes,” which meets the background-radiation drone of the two inclusions prior with a ritualized heft and slow-unfurling wash of distortion that is like a clarion to Sagan-headed weirdos. A dark-matter nebula. You think you’re freaked out now? Wild Rocket speak their own language of sound, in their own time, and Formless Abyss — while not entirely without structure — has breadth enough to make even the sunshine a distant memory.

Wild Rocket on Facebook

Riot Season Records website

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Trace Amount, Anti Body Language

An awaited debut full-length from Brooklyn multimedia artist/producer Brandon Gallagher, Trace Amount‘s Anti Body Language sees release through Greg Puciato‘s Federal Prisoner imprint and collects a solid 35 minutes of noise-laced harsh industrial worldbreaking. Decay anthems. A methodical assault begins with “Anxious Awakenings” and moving through “Anti Body Language” and “Eventually it Will Kill Us All,” the feeling of Gallagher acknowledging the era in which the record arrives is palpable, but more palpable are the weighted beats, the guttural shouts and layers of disaffected moans. “Digitized Exile” plays out like the ugliest outtake from Pretty Hate Machine — a compliment — and after the suitably tense “No Reality,” the six-minute “Tone and Tenor” — with a guest appearance from Kanga — offers a fuller take on drone and industrial metal, filling some of the spaces purposefully left open elsewhere. That leaves the penultimate “Pixelated Premonitions” as the ultimate blowout and “Suspect” (with a guest spot from Statiqbloom; a longtime fixture of NY industrialism) to noise-wash it all away, like city acid rain melting the pavement. New York always smells like piss in summer.

Trace Amount on Instagram

Federal Prisoner store

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Lammping, Desert on the Keel

This band just keeps getting better, and yes, I mean that. Toronto’s Lammping begin an informal, casual-style series of singles with “Desert on the Keel,” the sub-four-minutes of which are dedicated to a surprisingly peaceful kind of heavy psychedelia. Multiple songwriters at work? Yes. Rhythm guitarist Matt Aldred comes to the fore here with vocals mellow to suit the languid style of the guitar, which with Jay Anderson‘s drums still giving a push beneath reminds of Quest for Fire‘s more active moments, but would still fit alongside the tidy hooks with which Lammping populate their records. Mikhail Galkin, principal songwriter for the band, donates a delightfully gonna-make-some-noise-here organ solo in the post-midsection jam before “Desert on the Keel” turns righteously back to the verse, Colm Hinds‘ bass McCartneying the bop for good measure, and in a package so welcome it can only be called a gift, Lammping demonstrate multiple new avenues of growth for their craft and project. I told you. They keep getting better. For more, dig into 2022’s Stars We Lost EP (review here). You won’t regret it.

Lammping on Instagram

Lammping on Bandcamp

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Limousine Beach, Limousine Beach

Immediate three-part harmonies in the chorus of opener “Stealin’ Wine” set the tone for Limousine Beach‘s self-titled debut, as the new band fronted by guitarist/vocalist David Wheeler (OutsideInside, Carousel) and bringing together a five-piece with members of Fist Fight in the Parking Lot, Cruces and others melds ’70s-derived sounds with a modern production sheen, so that the Thin Lizzy-style twin leads of “Airboat” hit with suitable brightness and the arena-ready vibe in “Willodene” sets up the proto-metal of “Black Market Buss Pass” and the should-be-a-single-if-it-wasn’t “Hear You Calling.” Swagger is a staple of Wheeler‘s work, and though the longest song on Limousine Beach is still under four minutes, there’s plenty of room in tracks like “What if I’m Lying,” the AC/DC-esque “Evan Got a Job” and the sprint “Movin’ On” (premiered here) for such things, and the self-awareness in “We’re All Gonna Get Signed” adds to the charm. Closing out the 13 songs and 31 minutes, “Night is Falling” is dizzying, and leads to “Doo Doo,” the tight-twisting “Tiny Hunter” and the feedback and quick finish of “Outro,” which is nonetheless longer than the song before it. Go figure. Go rock. One of 2022’s best debut albums. Good luck keeping up.

Limousine Beach on Facebook

Tee Pee Records website

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40 Watt Sun, Perfect Light

Perfect Light is the closest Patrick Walker (also Warning) has yet come to a solo album with 40 Watt Sun, and any way one approaches it, is a marked departure from 2016’s Wider Than the Sky (review here, sharing a continued penchant for extended tracks but transposing the emotional weight that typifies Walker‘s songwriting and vocals onto pieces led by acoustic guitar and piano. Emma Ruth Rundle sits in on opener “Reveal,” which is one of the few drumless inclusions on the 67-minute outing, but primarily the record is a showcase for Walker‘s voice and fluid, ultra-subdued and mostly-unplugged guitar notes, which float across “Behind My Eyes” and the dare-some-distortion “Raise Me Up” later on, shades of the doom that was residing in the resolution that is, the latter unflinching in its longing purpose. Not a minor undertaking either on paper or in the listening experience, it is the boldest declaration of intent and progression in Walker’s storied career to-date, leaving heavy genre tropes behind in favor of something that seems even more individual.

40 Watt Sun on Facebook

Cappio Records website

Svart Records website

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Decasia, An Endless Feast for Hyenas

Snagged by Heavy Psych Sounds in the early going of 2022, French rockers Decasia debut on the label with An Endless Feast for Hyenas, a 10-track follow-up to 2017’s The Lord is Gone EP (review here), making the most of the occasion of their first full-length to portray inventive vocal arrangements coinciding with classic-sounding fuzz in “Hrosshvelli’s Ode” and the spacier “Cloud Sultan” — think vocalized Earthless — the easy-rolling viber “Skeleton Void” and “Laniakea Falls.” “Ilion” holds up some scorch at the beginning, “Hyenas at the Gates” goes ambient at the end, and interludes “Altostratus” and “Soft Was the Night” assure a moment to breathe without loss of momentum, holding up proof of a thoughtful construction even as Decasia demonstrate a growth underway and a sonic persona long in development that holds no shortage of potential for continued progress. By no means is An Endless Feast for Hyenas the highest-profile release from this label this year, but think of it as an investment in things to come as well as delivery for right now.

Decasia on Facebook

Heavy Psych Sounds on Bandcamp

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Giant Mammoth, Holy Sounds

The abiding shove of “Circle” and the more swinging “Abracadabra” begin Giant Mammoth‘s second full-length, Holy Sounds, with a style that wonders what if Lowrider and Valley of the Sun got together in a spirit of mutual celebration and densely-packed fuzz. Longer pieces “The Colour is Blue” and “Burning Man” and the lightly-proggier finale “Teisko” space out more, and the two-minute “Dust” is abidingly mellow, but wherever the Tampere, Finland, three-piece go, they remain in part defined by the heft of “Abracadabra” and the opener before it, with “Unholy” serving as an anchor for side A after “Burning Man” and “Wasteland” bringing a careening return to earth between “The Colour is Blue” and the close-out in “Teisko.” Like the prior-noted influences, Giant Mammoth are a stronger act for the dynamics of their material and the manner in which the songs interact with each other as the eight-track/38-minute LP plays out across its two sides, the second able to be more expansive for the groundwork laid in the first. They’re young-ish and they sound it (that’s not a slag), and the transition from duo to three-piece made between their first record and this one suits them and bodes well in its fuller tonality.

Giant Mammoth on Facebook

Giant Mammoth on Bandcamp

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Pyre Fyre, Rinky Dink City / Slow Cookin’

New Jersey trio Pyre Fyre may or may not be paying homage to their hometown of Bayonne with “Rinky Dink City,” but their punk-born fuzzy sludge rock reminds of none so much as New Orleans’ Suplecs circa 2000’s Wrestlin’ With My Ladyfriend, both the title-tracks dug into raw lower- and high-end buzztone shenanigans, big on groove and completely void of pretense. Able to have fun and still offer some substance behind the chicanery. I don’t know if you’d call it party rock — does anyone party on the East Coast or are we too sad because the weather sucks? probably, I’m just not invited — but if you were having a hangout and Pyre Fyre showed up with “Slow Cookin’,” for sure you’d let them have the two and a half minutes it takes them (less actually) to get their point across. In terms of style and songwriting, production and performance, this is a band that ask next to nothing of the listener in terms of investment are able to effect a mood in the positive without being either cloyingly poppish or leaving a saccharine aftertaste. I guess this is how the Garden State gets high. Fucking a.

Pyre Fyre on Instagram

Pyre Fyre on Bandcamp

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Kamru, Kosmic Attunement to the Malevolent Rites of the Universe

Issued on April 20, the cumbersomely-titled Kosmic Attunement to the Malevolent Rites of the Universe is the debut outing from Denver-based two-piece Kamru, comprised of Jason Kleim and Ashwin Prasad. With six songs each hovering on either side of seven minutes long, the duo tap into a classic stoner-doom feel, and one could point to this or that riff and say The Sword or liken their tone worship and makeup to Telekinetic Yeti, but that’s missing the point. The point is in the atmosphere that is conjured by “Penumbral Litany” and the familiar proto-metallurgy of the subsequent “Hexxer,” prominent vocals echoing with a sense of command rare for a first offering of any kind, let alone a full-length. In the more willfully grueling “Cenotaph” there’s doomly reach, and as “Winter Rites” marches the album to its inevitable end — one imagines blood splattered on a fresh Rocky Mountain snowfall — the band’s take on established parameters of aesthetic sounds like it’s trying to do precisely what it wants. I’m saying watch out for it to get picked up for a vinyl release by some label or other if that hasn’t happened yet.

Kamru on Facebook

Kamru on Bandcamp

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Frickin’ Ian Blurton gets it. That’s not news if you’re from Toronto, I guess, but hot damn, that is a song. I don’t mean that that it’s just catchy or whatever — it is, but that’s beside the point — but if you listen to “Like a Ghost,” which is the opening track from Ian Blurton‘s Future Now‘s upcoming second album, Second Skin, you can hear the mapped out structure, see the parts on the board as the song came together, or at least how it was arranged in the finished product, as Blurton and company remind that just because something is heavy doesn’t mean it can’t sound clean. If dude wants to be heavy rock’s own Ric Ocasek songwriter, he’s on his way.

So anyway, I dig the track, I guess.

There’s a fair amount of info below but I’m including all of it here because I’m pretty sure I’m gonna want it later. In any case, from the PR wire:

IAN BLURTON’S FUTURE NOW To Release Second Skin Full-Length Via Seeing Red Records July 15th

Second Skin will be released digitally and on black vinyl via BLURTON’s own Pajama Party label in Canada HERE: https://ianblurtonsfuturenow.bandcamp.com/

And on Aside/Bside (Color Merge) and Color-in-Color Splatter vinyl via Seeing Red Records HERE: http://www.seeingredrecords.com

Legendary Canadian artist/producer IAN BLURTON and his FUTURE NOW project will release latest studio album, Second Skin, via Seeing Red Records on July 15th, today unveiling the record’s artwork, track listing, and first single!

If you’re a fan of any kind of ’70s heavy rock – Southern boogie, NWOBHM, MC5/Stooges Detroit punk, Junk Shop glam, or straight-up classic rock – we are willing to bet IAN BLURTON’S FUTURE NOW has something for you. If you’re the kind of person who might geek out on the vintage gear used to record that music, we’ll double down on that wager.

A mainstay in the Canadian scene since the 1980s, IAN BLURTON may have come along after hard rock’s heyday, but he has parlayed his love of the era’s musical sensibilities into a career as both a musician (Change Of Heart, C’mon, Public Animal) and a producer (Cursed, Tricky Woo, Weakerthans, Cauldron). For the follow-up to his acclaimed solo debut, 2019’s Signals Through The Flames, he is pulling out all the stops, sourcing the best of the best for all elements. Formed to tour in support of Signals… FUTURE NOW features some of the top talents heard on that record: drummer Glenn Milchem (Blue Rodeo) and bassist Anna Ruddick (City And Colour). To complement the powerhouse rhythm section and recreate live the Wishbone Ash/Judas Priest–inspired harmonies that define the album, Aaron Goldstein was been recruited for second guitar.

In tandem with the Signals Through The Flames tour, BLURTON was accepted as an artist in residence at Studio Bell, home of the National Music Centre, in Calgary. The residency presented an opportunity to pack up the band – hot from a string of live shows – and head west to track a follow up album with the country’s most enviable collection of musical equipment.

Second Skin was recorded using the famed Rolling Stones Mobile (the studio The Rolling Stones used to record Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main Street, Led Zeppelin’s III and IV, and Deep Purple’s Machine Head) as well as the aforementioned National Music Centre. With the institution’s selection of rare guitars formerly owned by Randy Bachman, amps from Neil Young, and an array of vintage gear borrowed from Calgary friends, FUTURE NOW had the ingredients for a dream session. Throw in an early ‘80s Mellotron, and the band had all it needed to cook up a crushing collection of sludgy riff-driven rockers and prog epics, all with clean vocals, thunderous bass/double-kick, and the kind of guitar solos you wish you could play. Second Skin was mixed by Daryl Smith at Chemical West, mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege, and features artwork by Jeremy Bruneel. The record will undoubtedly make for a fine Summer soundtrack.

In advance of the release of Second Skin, today IAN BLURTON’S FUTURE NOW unveils a video for first single and album opener, “Like A Ghost.”

Comments BLURTON, “In ‘Like A Ghost,’ poet Baudelaire and god Poseidon inhabit a world in need of shelter from the past attempting to take over their future. It is about being present in a world that doesn’t want us to be. As the first track on Second Skin, it sets up the theme of the record that sometimes it’s best and ok to leave bad ideas behind.”

Second Skin Track Listing:
1. Like A Ghost
2. Second Skin
3. The Power Of No
4. When The Storm Comes Home
5. Orchestrated Illusions
6. Denim On Denim
7. Beyond Beholds The Moon
8. Too High The Sky
9. Trails To The Gate/Second Skin Reprise

IAN BLURTON’S FUTURE NOW:
Ian Blurton – vocals/guitar/keyboards
Glenn Milchem – drums/vocals
Anna Ruddick – bass/vocals
Aaron Goldstein – guitar
Guests:
Sean Beresford – guitar on “Too High The Sky”
Robin Hatch – piano “Trails To The Gate”

http://www.facebook.com/ianblurton.futurenow/
http://twitter.com/ianblurton
http://www.instagram.com/ianblurton

http://www.seeingredrecords.com
http://www.seeingredrecords.bandcamp.com
http://www.instagram.com/seeing_red_records
http://www.facebook.com/seeingredrecords

Ian Blurton’s Future Now, “Like a Ghost” official video