The collaboration between Berlin’s Boys Noize — DJ/producer Alexander Ridha — and Nine Inch Nails, which in its most essential form is Trent Reznor and longtime creative partner Atticus Ross, began earlier this decade with a remix, and that’s suitable enough. Nine Inch Nails did the soundtrack for Tron: Ares in 2025 and Boys Noize had some contribution to the remix album born therefrom. Over the course of 2025-2026, the two parties worked together onstage for Nine Inch Nails‘ ‘Peel it Back’ tour, which was partially focused on NIN‘s legacy material; even the name of the tour is a reference to 1995’s The Downward Spiral (discussed here).

I saw them on that run earlier this year in my beloved Garden State, surprised at the creativity that the collaboration, which was worked into the middle of the show on a separate stage, apart from the rest of the physical band Nine Inch Nails, which included Ross, Josh Freese, who’s one of the best drummers of his generation, and so on. The joint record, uniting Nine Inch Nails and Boys Noize as the separate entity Nine Inch Noize, with the album self-titled on Reznor‘s Null Corporation imprint of Interscope, did not arrive out of thin air.

It’s a niche piece, and probably a fan-piece in the long run, but while it’s hardly Reznor‘s first collab or remix outing, neither is it just that, and changing the name of the band clues you as the listener into the depth of the reworking the assembled 11 songs (plus an intro) have over the course of the 46 minutes. There are gestures toward their work on stage — audience response swells and recedes at parts, but it’s clearly spliced in; awkwardly so as it cuts off at the start of “She’s Gone Away” or at the start of “The Warning” later on; it becomes part of the atmosphere, something also manipulated — but Nine Inch Noize isn’t a live album necessarily, and it isn’t just a studio release either.

Rather, it occupies a place between, and that mirrors its scope as well, taking the industrial metal Reznor helped pioneer in the 1990s and giving songs like “Heresy” and “Closer” a reboot and refresh, with fuller sounds, dancier provocations and ultimately, a catharsis that urges movement as dance music should while fleshing out the pop catchiness of later pieces like post-intro opener “Vessel,” “Me, I’m Not” and “The Warning” from 2007’s Year Zero as well as “Copy of A” and “Came Back Haunted” from 2013’s Hesitation Marks, and odds and ends like the take on Soft Cell‘s “Memorabilia,” which Nine Inch Nails first covered as a B-side to “Closer,” “Parasite” from the side-project How to Destroy Angels, which becomes a kind of darkrave, and the finale “As Alive as You Need Me to Be” from the aforementioned Tron: Ares soundtrack.

Going into the show and coming into the release, I had little context for some of the material — I’ve heard Year Zero but wouldn’t say I know it even as well as I do Hesitation Marks — but the malleability of good pop is not a new concept, and the aesthetic leap isn’t that far in the end from the Nine Inch Nails originals to the Nine Inch Noize reinterpretations. “Me, I’m Not” is brooding in its original form as well; the difference is on Nine Inch Noize that leads to throbbing pulsations of bass and glitchy sounds correspondent to the shifts between verses and chorus, then it just lets go into a dancier stretch at the end for its payoff. “She’s Gone Away” from 2016’s Not the Actual Events EP (the newest song here apart from the Tron track; notably a decade old) functions similarly and also ends up a highlight for the shift from its steady bleep-bloop bounce to the quick build and takeoff in its last minute.

Some of those structural changes serve the songs. “Copy of A” was already a maddening hook, but it is less staid and more energetic here despite still leaving a lot of space open, and it would be heresy (get it?) to say that Nine Inch Noize‘s “Closer” is better than the original, but what was already a peak dance beat 30-plus years ago benefits from this creative and generational refresh, with some emotional depth added to the bridge before they ride out the finish much as the original did — knowing enough not to fix what wasn’t broken is a strength across the span.

Is it good dance music? I’m certain I don’t have the context genre-wise to appreciate the nuance of beat brought to “Heresy” or other inclusions here, but whether it’s a reworked original element or a sound Boys Noize are bringing to the table as new, the sense of collaboration is never far from the forefront of the listening experience. I don’t think Nine Inch Nails could or would have come up with these songs as they are without Ridha, and so even as someone who doesn’t rave and is approaching from a place of limited experience apart from having seen it live, that’s a thing to appreciate that speaks to the level at which this joint effort took place.

Further, there’s nothing in Nine Inch Noize‘s Nine Inch Noize that says the project couldn’t go further, and one wonders if the Reznor/Ross/Ridha collaboration couldn’t be a way to reengage with 1999’s The Fragile (discussed here), which Reznor has all but sworn off performing live (only “The Frail” featured in the Feb. live show, and that was as a setup for the slamming-in of “Reptile,” which followed directly) despite being some of the band’s most emotionally resonant material. Whether that happens or doesn’t, the accomplishments in bridging EDM and industrial sounds of this record stand as an installment in a long series thereof from Reznor and the latest in an ongoing chain of collabs for Ridha, and both seem to have benefitted from engaging with these songs in these ways and building something (at least partially) new from them. It’s cool to hear Nine Inch Nails sound like the future again.

As always, I hope you enjoy.

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I know that’s kind of an out-there way to cap a week on a stoner blog, and I know that today is a landmark release day with new records from All Them Witches, Elder and Monolord. I reshared the Elder review that went up earlier this week, posted that interview with Esben Willems, and hope Monday to review the ATW provided I can listen to it this weekend while we’re in Connecticut with my wife’s family. We’re picking The Pecan up early from school and heading out, in the vain hope of beating traffic north. That’s about two hours from now.

Next week, I have premieres set for King Gorm (been a minute; they’re not back, it’s a lost track), Autere (deep atmospheres) and Steak (always killer, never more than now), and I leave on Wednesday to get to Freak Valley Festival in Germany for the start on Thursday. It’ll be madness, but good to get back to Netphen and see friends and good bands and good bands who are friends and such and so on. Sunnata play first, so that’s my target.

I don’t have it in me to talk horrors, but they’re there in this country in rapid decline if not outright collapse. I feel for the Millennials, who will deal with whatever the immediate fallout of these days is, as well as for my daughter’s generation, who by the time they’re my age will never have known a better world than the one they’ll live in or what it feels like to live in a country that believes its best days are ahead of it and lives for the promise of that future. I find myself feeling oddly conservative for believing in things like a woman’s right to choose what happens to her body, the right of personal autonomy, to say nothing of privacy, or that immigration makes a nation stronger rather than weaker. I hate this age and the men who birthed it.

So I guess I had it in me a little. No Zelda update this week. As long as you’re not a fascist, I wish you a great and safe weekend, whatever you’re up to. It’s getting hot out there, so don’t forget to hydrate, and I’ll be back on Monday with more of this kind of whathaveyou.

FRM.

The Obelisk Collective on Facebook

The Obelisk Radio

The Obelisk merch

 

The return of Faerie Ring will take place this August, with their third album, self-titled, being released through King Volume Records. I couldn’t find any audio from it yet, but at the risk of a spoiler I’ll tell you the 37-minute 10-tracker is more spacious than anything the Evansville, Indiana, outfit have done to this point, and that their tonal heft meets that with a sense of glee that doesn’t take away from the basic impact. Even in the stoner-janga-janga swing of ‘Draggin’,” and the outright roll of “Howling at the Misty Moon,” there’s breadth to be found. Sounds biiig, in other words.

Take my word for the time being that this is good news and I’ll hope to have more to come on it before we get there. The PR wire had the following to say on the subject, which turned out to be quite a bit:

INDIANA STONER ROCKERS FAERIE RING DELIVER SONIC REBIRTH THROUGH KING VOLUME RECORDS IN SELF-TITLED ALBUM MASTERED BY TORCHE’S JONATHAN NUÑEZ, OUT AUGUST 21, 2026

“Faerie Ring” Unlocks New Emotional Depth With Tighter Songwriting Inspired By Personal & Global Conflict And Powered By Revised Band Lineup

Faerie Ring, the hard-rocking, retro-tinged stoner rock band out of Evansville, IN, has announced their third album: a self-titled effort through King Volume Records that marks the band’s sonic rebirth—one that emphasizes tighter songwriting, blistering hooks, and a new emotional depth that was assisted through the mastering process by Torche guitarist Jonathan Nuñez.

“Our last album, Weary Traveler, was happy-go-lucky,” says band guitarist, vocalist, and primary songwriter James Wallwork. “But so much has happened since that came out in 2023, both in our personal lives and in the rest of the world. Songs like “Lost Boy” reflect the furious, “I don’t even care” attitude I felt after my divorce, while “Gargoyle” is a doomed-out perspective of realizing you’ll grow old alone. “No Surrender,” meanwhile, was inspired by the latest Israel-Palestine conflict, and it’s written from the perspective of someone living in Gaza during the war. Ultimately, Faerie Ring is a cathartic album that acknowledges that death is real, but so is love. This is an album about love and triumph in a time of existential dread.”

One of the biggest influences behind the band’s revitalized sound was the addition of multi-instrumentalist songwriter and new Faerie Ring drummer Matt McGuyer. “With Matt on drums, it’s almost like a completely new band,” says guitarist Kyle Hulgus. “Matt cracked our sound wide open. He’s such a talented musician. He’s a guitarist, he’s a vocalist, and, obviously, he’s an incredible drummer. His input was so valuable, and he helped us spread our wings.”

Once again, the band returned to Postal Recording in Indianapolis to record and engineer their third album in full analog. As essential as owners Alex Kercheval and Tyler Watkins were to capturing the band’s evolving sound, they were also critical to shaping it. “Alex played an underlying synth on many of the songs to help beef up the tracks,” says Wallwork, “but he also cooked up the sounds on ‘Fattest Witch.’”

Adding Torche guitarist Jonathan Nuñez to the mastering process proved equally impactful. “I’ve been a lifelong fan of Torche,” says Wallwork, “so having him involved is insane to me. He drastically changed this record. It’s much more akin to how we present ourselves live.” Huglus agrees: “Listening to his mastering was like hearing the album for the first time. We loved the original version of the record, but he completely changed it for the better.”

Like much of Faerie Ring’s work, their self-titled album is difficult to pigeonhole, with equal influences from stoner rock, doom, punk, blues, and other genres. “We didn’t want to limit ourselves to a single sound,” Hulgus says. “We let go of all creative limitations for this one, and this new record is a sound only Faerie Ring can create. You’ll hear influences from bands like Boris, The Scorpions, Torche, Thin Lizzy, and Crowbar, but this is a Faerie Ring album at the end of the day.”

That renewed creative freedom is reflected in the tongue-in-cheek album artwork by Ricardo Diseño, an artist hand-picked by Hulgus. “Yes,” Wallwork says, “it looks like a classic underground metal album cover at first glance, with themes of sex and drug use, but it’s a metaphor for the toxic love in our lives. The guy in the picture loves being boiled alive, but once his head goes under the water, that’s it.” Hulgus adds: “We’re all the guy in the cauldron. We torture ourselves all week at our blue-collar jobs so we can play music. This self-titled album is another labor of love.”

Mastering:
Jonathan Nuñez

Recording:
Alex Kercheval
Tyler Watkins

Engineering:
Morgan Satterfield

Guests:
Alex Kercheval – Keyboards, Synth
Vincent Yetsko – Harmonica

Faerie Ring:
James Wallwork – Guitars, Vocals
Kyle Hulgus – Guitars
Alex Wallwork – Bass, Vocals
Matt McGuyer – Drums

http://www.faeriering.bandcamp.com
http://www.instagram.com/faerie_ring
http://www.facebook.com/FaerieRingBand

https://kingvolume.8merch.us/
http://www.kingvolumerecords.bandcamp.com
https://www.instagram.com/kingvolumerecords
http://www.facebook.com/kingvolumerecords

Faerie Ring, Weary Traveler (2023)

Well, this was a markedly joyous Quarterly Review. I know it’s been a good year already for music and there’s more coming, but it’s always something of a relief when I get to Wednesday or Thursday of one of these things and don’t want to bash my head into a wall until I lose consciousness. The horrors persist but so do the riffs. I am fortunate for that.

If we’re being honest, I do these for myself. I do it as a way to keep up with things that are coming out or are already out (sometimes for a while; I think there were two 2025 outings in here this week), but it’s also a different kind of challenge to get through so much, and I enjoy that probably more than I generally say. This week I added a bunch of stuff to my best-of-2026 lists, and that includes today as well.

But while it may be me being self-serving in terms of musical exposure, I always hope you’ve been able to find something in this mix that you hadn’t heard before that speaks to you. Or maybe you agree with something I said, or disagree, or whatever. Maybe some piece of cover art made you feel something. Maybe your day got a little better just for that. Whatever it is. Please know that if you’re taking part in this at all, on any level, it’s appreciated.

Back in Sept., maybe? I’ll see if I can make it through the summer. Depends in part on how much comes in, which is almost always a flood these days. Not mad about that, by the way.

Alright, here we go. Thanks again for reading.

Quarterly Review #41-50:

Restless Spirit, Restless Spirit

Fullness of push, vitality in delivery, a distinctive take on craft drawing from a range of intangible influences — if Restless Spirit‘s self-titled fourth album is the band declaring themselves, then they picked the right record to share their name. The Long Island-based Magnetic Eye Records trio have fostered a next-generational take on riff metal able to sound massive and to move, not necessarily drawing from Sleep, but rather tipping that foundational balance more toward metal’s traditionalism. But they’re not an overly aggressive band, and even in the faster stretches of “Desire Lines” or the subsequent galloper “Desolation’s Wake,” or the penultimate “Time and Distance” with its more angular groove, they avoid a dudely trap into which many others have fallen. Ultimately, that balance is the place where Restless Spirit dwell in terms of sound, and it’s become more their own over time. This album would seem to be not only them acknowledging that, but embracing it and owning it outright. It’s a strong statement for any band to make at any point in their career, and the material here makes it feel all the more earned.

Restless Spirit on Bandcamp

Magnetic Eye Records store

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Ryan Güt, The Shastafarian

If you saw Brant Bjork in any incarnation between 2015-2024, whether it was solo, with Stöner, the beginnings of Brant Bjork Trio or with Mario Lalli and the Rubber Snake Charmers, chances are it was Ryan Güt holding down the crucial groove on drums. His first solo album, The Shastafarian, finds him stepping forward as a multi-instrumentalist and producer, and across 37 minutes from the Funkadelic-style talk-over-it startoff in “Beggars and Choosers” to the Blue Öyster Cult cover “Veterans of the Psychic Wars” that closes, Güt offers a spread of classic influence manifest in individualized songs. “Basically Dead (This Town)” feels like Thin Lizzy revelry, “Song for G” keeps its singer-songwritery acoustic foundation despite a full arrangement, and the self-jam in “On the Up and Up” digs in with surprising aplomb for only being one person. There’s a synthier wash in “Sand to Snow,” and that’s telling for a more experimental second half with the dirty fuzz of “Crig Lord Archduke Earl of Montague (The Monkey)” and the dub instrumental “DHS (12th St. Remixes)” entrances ahead of the grounded finish with the already-noted cover. It will be a tragedy if Güt and Zack Oakley (ex-Joy, etc.) never work together, as they seem to share so much in basic intent and both are fully capable of building an album solo, but on his own Güt sets up a broad progression here and one hopes the exploration continues.

Ryan Güt website

Ryan Güt on Bandcamp

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Bismut, Matsutake

As opening cut “Alienation” drifts into its second half, the drums just barely holding onto ground to hint at the swing-around that’s coming, Dutch trio Bismut reaffirm their progressive purposes. Since their inception, the Nijmegen instrumentalist trio have been more about flow than structure, and Matsutake as their fourth full-length, continues the journey. Each piece has its own intention, be it the headspinning “Assemblage” or the tense-until-it-blows-out “Neugier” just before, or the two-and-a-half-minute kissoff “Salvage,” but no question they hit an apex of heft in the pairing of “Contamination” and “(Potentially) Immortal,” which are the two longest and most dug-in tracks, Bismut carrying a spirit of urgency as much as aftermath, with the latter hinting at techno before hitting into a payoff righteous enough to count for the whole record’s procession. The vibe is restless, which is to say Bismut aren’t sitting still, aren’t resting too long in a single part, but it’s the fluidity born out of their sheer chemistry that makes it all work.

Bismut website

Tonzonen website

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Crippled Black Phoenix, Sceaduhelm

Sceaduhelm might be the outright heaviest I’ve heard Crippled Black Phoenix sound in their 20-plus years — at least in parts; they’re never quite only doing one thing at a time — but that’s still only half the story when it comes to the atmosphere and the palpably gothy mood spread across the 66-minute 2LP. I know, it’s another brilliant CBP album? Ho-hum, business as usual. Maybe it’s true that the band will be more appreciated 40 years on than they are now, but as samples draw together the various sections/sides, vocalists swap out between “No Epitaph – The Precipice” and “Hollows End,” etc., the band remain unthethered to genre and unto themselves in the world they create. “Vampire Grave” is so ’90s goth kitsch you can smell its clove cigarettes, but neither “Colder and Colder” nor “Under the Eye,” which follow, want for resonance, and the penultimate “Tired to the Bone” provides a gorgeous comedown before they cap with the yes-it-was-all-real-you-weren’t-dreaming “Beautiful Destroyer,” rolling with marked largesse into a suitably beautiful finish. I guess it’s hard for a band who don’t tour super-often or hock records on social media like mini-infomercials to get hype in this age of horrors, but damn. Even if you’ve never heard Crippled Black Phoenix before — maybe especially? — Sceaduhelm is a clarion to be heeded.

Crippled Black Phoenix website

Season of Mist website

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Some Pills for Ayala, Incarnate

It’s been a productive half-decade for Néstor Ayala Cortés, whose solo-project Some Pills for Ayala began following the dissolution of his prior outfit, At Devil Dirt. Handling multiple instruments and samples, vocals and production, Some Pills for Ayala have been consistent in regards to exploring various facets of rolling heavy tonality, and the fuzz runs unsurprisingly strong in Incarnate as well, though the rawness of noise amid the stonerly swing of “I Can’t Lie” and the upped level of crush in “Until You Die” demonstrate some of the nuance Cortés has grown into as the band has moved forward. Grunge and aughts-era heavy melodymaking are still part of it, but Incarnate is a product of nothing so much as the artist who made it, and listening brings to light just how much Some Pills for Ayala stands willfully apart from the microgenred norm.

Some Pills for Ayala on Bandcamp

Some Pills for Ayala on Instagram

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Gnod, Chronicles of Gnowt Vol. 1

Admirably adventurous and consistently antifascist UK psychedelic rockers Gnod begin a stated trilogy with Chronicles of Gnowt Vol. 1, and obviously I haven’t heard the other two parts yet, but this six-track/42-minute outing taken on its own could hardly be said to feel incomplete. Side A is bookended by “Three Trees (Part 1)” and “Three Trees (Part 2),” comprised of drifting acoustics manipulated in the second installment by effects, and between them, “Shadow Mirror” heavy-ambles through a lysergic slog and “Neptune” indeed offers planetary distance in its far off rumble. That turns out to be prescient as “All Tunnel No Light” (9:56) and “Ekstasis” (10:32) comprise the entirety of side B, the former growing into a massive, slow lurch and the latter less structured-feeling in its makeup despite the drums holding on to the central groove as it makes its way toward the relatively quick comedown with residual effects churning thereafter. This entire triptych might just be a blip in the larger breadth of Gnod‘s catalog, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t significant either there or in the larger scope of heavy psych rock.

Gnod on Bandcamp

Rocket Recordings website

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Fuzzing Nation, Mothertruck

Mothertruck is the conceptualist debut album from Athenian trio Fuzzing Nation, who rally listeners to their tale with heaped-on hairy riffery and a fervent heavy rock execution. They’re not over-the-top fast, or making-a-point-of-it slow, but they find and inhabit a comfortable range in the middle, and in the dancey “The Elder’s Code” and the Kyussian shover “The Core Machine,” they present themselves as kin to desert-heavy, but have an underlying core of trad/classic metal, which can be heard in “Turn the Key” more than careening opener “Burning Roads,” which is a rocker through and through. Maybe it’s a fine line Fuzzing Nation gleefully tread. Fine. The narrative — pretty sure it involves a big truck; just a guess — settles into its own aftermath with “I Don’t Care at All,” capping with a last push a record that never compromises in its love of heavy rock and roll or the band’s narrative vision conveyed through it. I don’t know if they’ll keep telling the story, that happens sometimes, but if you can call your record Mothertruck and actually pull it off, you’re already on your way.

Fuzzing Nation website

Argonauta Records store

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Ak’Chamel, Spiritually Unemployed

Once upon a time there was a band way out west with the unfortunate moniker Master Musicians of Bukkake. Ak’Chamel, an apparent duo, costumed and anonymous, maybe/maybe not from Austin, Texas, feel similarly fascinated with transgressing the barriers between folk musics and psychedelic arrangements, such that Spiritually Unemployed, their second album, is as intimate as it is expansive. It speaks to places that probably don’t exist — at least not in the way they’re offered as realities in the songs — and keeps a thread of irreverence in songs like “The Cosmic Vulva vs. The Post-Enlightened Tongue” and the closing “My Little Pony Apocalypse Diorama Playset.” You’ll be hard pressed to find a collection of weirder sounds, and for sure experimentation is part of the point, but Spiritually Unemployed doesn’t come across as haphazard or disconnected so much as drawn together over its 10 relatively brief inclusions and soundtracky in ethereal occasionally ways. Get weirder. No, weirder than that. Keep going. You’re almost there…

Ak’Chamel on Bandcamp

Akuphone Records website

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Sonic Secrets, Diversions Vol. 1

To be honest, I kind of think Sonic Secrets, as the name for the instrumental solo-project of North Carolina’s Kevin Clark (ex-Black Skies), is emblematic of the intention for the music. Diversions Vol. 1, a 10-song/20-minute offering one might otherwise consider a debut album, doesn’t come across like it was made for press, or a response, or something like that. Starting with drum parts and building around them, Clark over the course of three days went from zero to has-a-record, and listening through, the sense I get is that the process was as much the reason behind it as the need for a creative splurge. Only “The Descent,” with Western-sprawl guitar over an keyboard beat, tops four minutes long, and it and everything that surrounds portrays itself as both proof-of-concept — i.e. demonstrating that Clark can function as a band on his own, which yes, it would seem so — and the result of a craft that’s insular despite drawing from an array of stylistic influences. And it does a little bit come across like something just made to be itself, a sonic secret. One wonders how long Clark will be able to keep it that way.

Sonic Secrets on Bandcamp

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Big Scenic Nowhere, Rehearsal 11.19.21

The key word is “rehearsal” with Rehearsal 11.19.21, limited to 100 LP copies and released independently by West Coast supergroup Big Scenic Nowhere. Offered as two full sides, the vinyl captures the band — Tony Reed (Mos Generator, etc.) on vocals/keys/bass, guitarists Gary Arce (Yawning Man, etc.) and Bob Balch (Fu Manchu, etc.) and drummer Bill Stinson (Yawning Man) — preparing for their first-ever live show. The difference is they’re playing songs they’d already written — “LeDu,” “Lavender Blues,” “Towards the Sun,” and so on — rather than jamming out the bones of what would become their next record. They still haven’t played live a ton, so hearing this material, with chatter among the members and a casual dipping into and out of the songs, brings a new dimension to their studio work up to this point, and presents listeners with another side than even a regular live album could provide. Maybe most of all, it argues in favor of them doing more with the band. Nobody involved is short on other things happening musically, but Big Scenic Nowhere‘s proggy desert heavy found a trajectory all its own. A platter such as this in raw celebration of that is most certainly welcome.

Big Scenic Nowhere on Instagram

HeavyHead Store

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Well, we made it to the final day of the Spring 2026 Quarterly Review, and as ever, I hope somewhere in the mass of 70 releases written up that you were able to find something you hadn’t heard before that spoke to you. If not, first, are you okay? I mean, if you’ve been through all now-70 offerings discussed over the last week-plus and found absolutely nothing, that seems pretty bleak. Granted that’s the state of the world, but I know that when things seem at their lowest, it’s music and art that gives me any hope for humanity whatsoever. If I didn’t have it, I’d be in trouble. Anyway, hope there was something cool for you, and as always, thanks for reading.

Let’s wrap this up. Back maybe mid-June with the next QR.

Quarterly Review #61-70:

Black Lung, Forever Beyond

Bringing together ethereal sounds and feet-on-the-ground, real-world themes can be tough. Are Baltimorean heavy psych-blues veterans Black Lung providing escape or confronting the times we live in head-on? A bit of both on the seven-song/35-minute Forever Beyond, which brings melodic textural flourish to “Savior” as the lyrics remain unconvinced. The later “Border Horder” and closer “Scum” say it more clearly, and that’s an asset in the album’s favor, not that one would call the progressive and expansive, Mellotron-and-cello-laced centerpiece “Follow” subtle, exactly. I can’t tell if I’m just hearing an acoustic layer in the second half of “Forever Beyond Me” or if it’s really there, but I like that about it, and it’s worth noting that along with the pointed direction Forever Beyond takes — which is to be commended in a heavy rock underground where far too many have buried their heads — the band continue to refine their songwriting. I do wish the ending of “Border Hoarder” went on for another three minutes riding that riff, but maybe live.

Black Lung on Bandcamp

Magnetic Eye Records store

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Die Spitz, Something to Consume

Pardon me for playing catchup to Austin fury-punk heavy shovers Die Spitz, whose Third Man-delivered debut LP, Something to Consume, was released in Sept. 2025. The 11-song grunge-informed album is a ripper, giving a much-needed generational refresh to punkish heavy noise, like Chat Pile but not for podcast bros. The heft of “Sound to No One” reveals a depth of mix that despondent/sludgy-but-moving opener “Pop Punk Anthem (Sorry for the Delay)” hinted toward in its later solo, and cuts like “Red40” and “Riding With My Girls” gallop with a fresh-feeling glee, while the lumber of “Punishers,” the big-riff slam of “Throw Yourself to the Sword” and the almost unfortunately catchy “American Porn” seethe with intensity aggressive purpose. The recording sounds close enough to live to convey the genuine energy of the execution, and the blend of immediacy and atmospherics speaks to a nascent creative growth to take shape in the years to come. One of last year’s best debuts, easily. The kids are pissed off, and rightly and righteously so.

Die Spitz website

Third Man Records website

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Borracho, Eternos

Borracho‘s cover of Spirit Caravan‘s “Fang” might be the heaviest thing the Washington D.C. trio have ever done. It’s one of five cover songs on Eternos, a sweet-but-somewhat-bittersweet homage to lost friends from among the heavy underground. “Fang” pays homage to Dave Sherman (also Earthride), who always said “Fang” was special to him because he wrote it. Foghound‘s “Keep on Shoveling” follows, for Rev. Jim Forrester, with Karma to Burn‘s “Twenty-Nine” after for Will Mecum, The Hidden Hand‘s “Damyata” for Bruce Falkinburg and “A Heart Without a Home,” by The Hellacopters, for Robert “Strings” Dahlqvist. Can’t argue with the concept, the choices of songs or the resulting EP. I swear to you I almost didn’t review it because all there is to say is, “well yeah, it’s kind of sad, but duh it rules anyway.” But they do really dig in while handling the material with care, and you can feel the intent of the release accordingly.

Borracho website

Borracho on Bandcamp

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Avon, Black on Sunshine

If you’re new to them, the key to understanding Avon is knowing that guitarist/vocalist James Childs — joined in the band by bassist June Kato and drummer Alfredo Hernández (Across the River, Yawning Man, Kyuss, etc.) — has his roots in the history of English rock and roll, so while tonally Avon draw a lot from desert-heavy, they’re also pulling from decades of UK rock, from garage rock to early progressive blues rock to early punk to artsy ’90s whathaveyou, and those influences come out in their material as well. Songs are short and the benefit of this stylistic blend is that it’s the songwriting that draws the album together, as well as the band-in-a-room sensibility of the recording, however it was actually made. “Bandits” and “Nineteen Bruises” make a particularly effective back and forth before the piano/stomp of “Super Furry Antidotes,” and the hook of the leadoff title-track assures you never forget which record you’re hearing, not that you would.

Avon website

Go Down Records website

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Sons of Gulliver, Tetrahedric Hellscape Cannon

A brash and gritty sound permeates the geometric charm of Tetrahedric Hellscape Cannon, and even with bassist Justin Potter‘s rough vocal delivery, the verse of the title-track reveals earlier Clutch as a source of some of the patterning, which the penultimate “Ohio” affirms. Potter and drummer Dolphin Riot comprise the entirety of Dallas’ Sons of Gulliver, and nobody who’s heard “Vagabonds” or the ’90s-bouncing “Headcleaner” is going to say they’re lacking anything as regards heft for not having guitar. But for being a duo, the songs have variety baked into their purpose, as the acoustic/hand-percussion centerpiece “Earthbound” — think instrumental “Planet Caravan” — demonstrates, if not the shift from the punk/metal of “Death or Distortion” and the strutting, self-aware desert riffery of “Dunes,” and at nine-songs/31-minutes, Tetrahedric Hellscape Cannon can count efficiency among its strengths. It’s definitely a first record, but there’s character here.

Sons of Gulliver website

Sons of Gulliver on Instagram

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Gozd, Trees Are Silent

Instrumentalist save for side B’s “Rusalka,” wherein Paulinia Przychodzień-Witek Damroca adds voice and lyrics to their post-metallic push, Trees Are Silent finds Wrocław’s Gozd mindful of the atmosphere being created by each of the album’s eight inclusions, and yes, trees are a theme for some of it. The keys and lead guitar of “Birch” place them somewhere in the Russian Circles/Pelican school, but whether it’s the trumpet in the quiet moments and subsequent payoff of “Linden” or the outright gorgeousness and serenity on offer in “Axis Mundi,” or the crush wrought in “Om,” they bring an individual edge to their creative pursuit, the post-rock drifter finale “Ekoton” as fitting a conclusion as one could find to a release of intentional sprawl. The going isn’t quite meditative, but they obviously set these songs up for a whole album fluidity, and in that they are successful.

Gozd on Bandcamp

Gozd on Instagram

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From Yuggoth, And Ever Since My Paths Were Crooked and Forsaken

Somewhere between stoner metal riff idolatry, post-metallic shout-into-the-void atmospherics, and Conan-esque tonal wallbuilding, Dresden’s From Yuggoth loose the expanses of their four-song second EP, And Ever Since My Paths Were Crooked and Forsaken, staving off hypercerebrality on “A Crimson Dawn” with an emotive crescendo marked by vast lead guitar and ace basslines. This blend of the raw and progressive one might trace to Neurosis (especially this week), but there’s pure doom in the band’s veins as well, as the semi-title-track shows in its early lumbering. You should note that “My Paths Were Crooked and Forsaken” gets very, very heavy™, but neither are From Yuggoth entirely reliant on tone to make their impact, as the snare-led slog of “Thy Serpent Eyes” makes plain, despite the assault, crush and burn of “Deathlike Living (We Are Alpha),” which closes. There’s enough Electric Wizard in the structure of the riffs to keep the songs doomed, and that serves them well and makes From Yuggoth‘s approach more their own. And, again, the bass.

From Yuggoth on Bandcamp

From Yuggoth on Instagram

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Desert Colossus, Apparatus

Netherlands four-piece Desert Colossus present their fourth album in the nine-song/46-minute Apparatus, rife with moody melody and riffed with its whole heart. Desert rock at its foundation, their sound is able to expand around that to various degrees when called to do so, as in the closer “Come Forth” with its Middle Eastern guitar inflection and ensuing multi-stage nod. Largesse is a tool at their disposal — hello “Vanity” — but they know a classic push and swing too, diving in with a hungry Sabbathism on “Sweet Cherries Hang Low” and opener “Hermit,” and while “Prixie House on the Wax” and the partially-acoustic “Black Out” are more complex, they still groove. It all comes together in “Three Eyed Fox,” which makes that a highlight, but it’s not alone as Desert Colossus find new paths through familiar ground, distinctive in melody and consistent though dynamic changes in tempo, volume and purpose. This was my first exposure to them, and no regrets in starting from Apparatus whatsoever.

Desert Colossus on Bandcamp

Desert Colossus on Instagram

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Axe Dragger, Axe Dragger

It’s heavy metal or no metal at all on Axe Dragger‘s Ripple-released self-titled debut full-length. The multinational project brings together guitarist Bob Balch (Fu Manchu, Big Scenic Nowhere, Slower, etc.), drummer “Minnesota Pete” Campbell (ex-Pentagram, The Mighty Nimbus, etc.), vocalist Terry Glaze (ex-Pantera) and bassist Fredrik Isaksson (Dark Funeral, ex-Grave), and together they run through 10 songs of mostly-classic-styled metal, with some thrash and groove elements finding balance in songs like “Fight Another Day,” “Death is Calling My Name,” and “Fire in the Madhouse,” while all-out rippers like “Axe Dragger,” “Give You Rope’ and “El Toro” revel in speedy twists and shove. Their apparent aim is to be the kind of metal band you’d draw the logo of on your math notebook instead of doing your homework, and as aspirations go, I can think of few so admirable. Everybody here is definitely an adult, but it’s fun pretend.

Axe Dragger on Instagram

Ripple Music store

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Den Der Hale, Larking About

Consuming waves of drone intertwine, change and move around a dynamic mix to create the sense of dread and, sometimes, oppression in Den Der Hale‘s Larking About, as the Swedish troupe bring heavy ambience to fruition across four tracks and 42 minutes of swelling, ethereal tones, sporadic vocals for a likewise sporadic human presence, and a level of worldbuilding that veers into the cinematic as regards evocation. The piano lines in “Where My Flesh Cannot Be Torn” and distinguishable vocal lines make it more grounded perhaps than “Silphium” just before it, which somehow ends up in black metal in its second half though don’t ask me how they got there, and each post-everything unfurling adds another aspect to the entirety, right through to “Under Jord” fostering a single swell of drone and letting it hold sway for most of its 11 minutes, building on the foundation laid out in the opening title-track. As an album it is vivid and affecting, and though it’s something of a shift in direction for Den Der Hale, perhaps it’s more of an extrapolation from their past work, taking the weight conjured through past outings and finding this amorphous, occasionally terrifying thing in it. You won’t hear something else like it today.

Den Der Hale on Instagram

Sound Effect Records website

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Hope you had a banner weekend. Last week was pretty slammed. As ever, I’m like three days’ worth of news behind, and this is still just the penultimate day of the Spring 2026 Quarterly Review, so there may yet be more creative ways for me to find to shoot myself in the ass and make myself feel overwhelmed because… well anyway, stick around, folks!

In all seriousness, considering The Patient Mrs. was away last week — who schedules these things? — and my daughter spent two and a half of five possible days at school, I came through it pretty well. I’m just tired and I missed my wife while she was gone. Ain’t no sunshine, and so on.

We wrap up tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

Quarterly Review #51-60:

Godzilla Was Too Drunk to Destroy Tokyo, Sideral Voivod

Fuzz rockers Godzilla Was Too Drunk to Destroy Tokyo — or Godzilla WTDTDT, if you want to go by how they abbreviate their Instagram — give automatic impressions of quirk, and their most realized work to-date, their second full-length, Sideral Voivod, thankfully has more going for it than the in-genre radness of the band’s moniker. Based on the coast of Northern Italy, the trio of bassist/vocalist Sara de Luca, guitarist Alessandro “Camu” Camurati and drummer Nicola Viola find a place between art-punk and weighted fuzz, each piece contained in itself and its intention, but feeding into a tense flow with periodic blowouts like “Telekinetic Thunder Yeti” or “Space Leech,” somewhere between Black Flag and Black Sabbath, while “Worship the Middle” makes the latter allegiance plainer. It might sound like it’s coming at you flailing, but the really dangerous thing is I think Godzilla Was Too Drunk to Destroy Tokyo might know what they’re doing. Imagine that.

Godzilla Was Too Drunk to Destroy Tokyo on Bandcamp

Argonauta Records store

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Ritual Arcana, Ritual Arcana

Ritual Arcana‘s Heavy Psych Sounds-issued debut offers cultish bikerisms and doomed roll, never quite veering into caricature as classic-styled modern cult-heavy does, but kept aligned to a central tonal weight as heard in the atmospheric “Berkana” or in the nodding “Occluded.” The band is comprised of SharLee LuckyFree on bass/vocals, Scott “Wino” Weinrich (The Obsessed, et al) on guitar, and Oakley Munson (The Black Lips) on drums, and some of the roll throughout is recognizably Weinrich‘s style, but in a song like the declarative “Free Like a Pirate” or “Road Burnt,” there are elements that speak to the songwriting collaboration taking shape in their darkly-presented but still accessible style, and with that in mind, those finding their way to Ritual Arcana through their guitarist’s sundry projects will find Ritual Arcana harnessing something distinct from all of them. I’ll be curious to hear how the balance between push and dwell Ritual Arcana lay out here comes to fruition over the longer term, and by that I mean it’s an exploration worth following.

Ritual Arcana website

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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Brass Hearse, Salem Rain

New Brass Hearse? Well hello. The Boston-based outfit fronted and I think steered by the classic-psych-meets-weirdo-doom-melancholia whims of frontman Ron Rochondo present their first single in six years with the four-minute “Salem Rain,” which sets its drunken-singalong of a hook “Let’s go to Salem in the rain” at the foundation of its intent. Musically, the song is wistful in the guitar and starts as backing ambience as the lyrics immediately begin a conversation leading to the suggestion in the chorus — at one point there’s even mention of the Willows, wihch is a park in town — which is forward in the mix and presented in layers as an escape from monotony. In the final minute, they depart the verse/chorus format and over complementary guitar, finish out with a Beach Boys-y vocal arrangement, toying with that notion of sentimental sounds but coming across as sincere in the delivery. As in maybe the song really does want to get out of here for a while and go hang out in the park and smoke cigarettes and whatnot. Fair.

Brass Hearse on Bandcamp

Playing Records on Bandcamp

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Dr. Paradiso Meets Dr. Space, Liquid Planetscapes

If you might read ‘three songs/79 minutes’ and that’s a lot, well, the three songs are actually part of the same overarching movement — it’s all one song — so yes, the good doctors Paradiso and Space (also Øresund Space Collective) aren’t kidding when they allude to operating at a planetary scale. “Swampworld” is the name of all three tracks (broken down as Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), and the longform drone marked by croaking sounds and vague mists of synthesizer indeed evokes things alien, humid and teeming with unseen animal life. Surely the power of suggestion plays a role there, but I don’t think that’s invalidating. If you looked at a museum painting of a swamp world and it was called ‘Swampworld’ and it brought to mind a swampy kind of world, would you say it was using the power of suggestion? That’s art. Liquid Planetscapes‘ immersion requires a willing participant, but if you’re able to get yourself in a state of mind open to its happening-on-a-different-scale-of-time procession, the sense of journey is duly otherworldly, and warm besides.

Dr. Space on Bandcamp

Space Rock Productions website

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Mollusk, Cursebreaker

Boston despondent sludge metallers Mollusk made their debut a decade ago with Children of the Chron (review here), and they’ve reportedly had Cursebreaker in the works since not long after, but if the seven songs (six and a demo) have been seasoned for the years between, don’t worry, you’d never know it from the sheer pummel they elicit. “Trapped in a Cave” opens with telltale density and plod, and though the subsequent “Azathoth” and “Two Things” might up the tempo or delve into willful repetition, the downer cast remains right into and through “Human Suffering” and the closing linear build of “Apostle,” which is immediately backed by its own demo, which is even rawer and dirtier feeling than the proper album track just before. However long it’s been in the making, rest assured it sounds like they just dug it up. Fresh, in that way.

Mollusk on Bandcamp

Mollusk on Instagram

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Zahn, Purpur

Maybe the proggiest thing about Berlin instrumental three-piece Zahn is the sense of adventure they bring to their songcraft, the feeling of intention behind what they do, even when it’s an idea that probably came about spontaneously. Their heavy, electronics-infused sound is always textured and atmospheric, and Purpur‘s eight songs fit that mold more than they fit any other, as Felix Gebhard, Chris Breuer and Nic Stockmann range through the futurism of “Diaabend,” or go big-riff in the later build-into-crush of “Katamaran” or “Atoll,” start dancey and post-punk with “Stroboskop” or finish hypnotic with a build around the central strum of “Butter.” If there’s middle-ground to be had, it might be in “Alhambra,” but middle-ground isn’t necessarily what I’m looking for when they’ve got the rad electro-density mashup of “Gensher” instead. Zahn don’t always want to be very, very heavy, but they keep their ability to get there in use as one of the many tools of their craft.

Zahn on Bandcamp

Crazysane Records website

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Prophets of Thwaites, Vulnerant Omnes Ultima Necat

Preceded only by demos and rehearsal recordings, Vulnerant Omnes Ultima Necat is the first EP from the Netherlands’ Prophets of Thwaites — comprised of guitarist/vocalist Esma Larabi, bassist Ferry Vermeeren and drummer Nico Beemster — who with it offer two dug-in slabs of atmospheric doom/post-metal in “Deadlock” (7:32) and “Vulnerant Omnes Ultima Necat” (6:38); probably too long to press to a 7″, and well enough to give an impression of the spaciousness of their sound, whether that’s in the vocals and corresponding plod of the former or the squibbly solo as the title-cut works into its final minute. The vocals come through too clearly to really feel shoegazey in my mind (like, I would expect more effects on Larabi‘s voice in a ‘gazier context), but I don’t think that hurts them so much as it sets the band up for a more individualized exploration as they continue to grow. They make it easy to look forward to where they might be headed.

Prophets of Thwaites on Bandcamp

Prophets of Thwaites on Instagram

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Shizumunamari, Nagasugita Genjitsu

Tokyo bass-and-drum duo Shizumunamari offer the two-song Nov. 2025 sophomore full-length Nagasugita Genjitsu as a herald of what the band calls the ‘New Wave of Japanese Doom Metal’ (sadly not called the ‘New Wave of Japanese Weirdo Doom’), and shit, here’s hoping. With Namari Toyama on vocals, bass and keys and Ebianime on drums, “Nagayama” (14:34) celebrates raw tones and drawling vocals, reminding of some of Queen Elephantine‘s open-air Cisnerosism, but less directly meditative in style and sneaking in a dub break later on before they bring back the nod to close and let “Nagai Kyoku” (22:17) begin its longform procession with a grungier intro and a persistent roll punctuated with crash cymbal and building on the original vocal reachout. They use minimalism more in “Nagai Kyoku,” and the late-arriving organ sounds don’t detract from that, but “Nagai Kyoku” sounds like it could easily kepe going when it ends. Shizumunamari took six years before following up their first record. Hopefully their third comes on a shorter turnaround and we can really get this ‘wave’ going. I’m ready for it.

Shizumunamari on Bandcamp

Shit Eye Cassettes on Instagram

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Desert Collider, Generation Ship: Endless Drift Through Infinity

Generation Ship: Endless Drift Through Infinity is the ambitious, sci-fi-conceptual (at least semi-conceptual) debut full-length from Italian desert-style heavy rockers Desert Collider, delivered through Small Stone and Kozmik Artifactz. I don’t know if they’re setting up a continuity, if all their releases forever will be telling metaphorical tales under the banner of ‘Generation Ship,’ or when the thematic emerged from the material. But it rocks. For a highlight, one might suggest either “Sonic Carver,” where they hit hard and space out in the back half, or the 13-minute “Far Centaurus: Drifting without Guidance through Interstellar Space,” which takes stoner ambience and uses it as the basis for a dynamic, melodic and Mellotron-inclusive build. They’re able to play back and forth between immediacy and atmospherics (though “Nomads of the Red Sun” starts and stays acoustic), and while they’re on familiar ground stylistically, the push for an individual point of view is there, musically as well as in the presentation. Guess we’ll see where their journeys take them.

Desert Collider’s Linktr.ee

Small Stone Records website

Kozmik Artifactz website

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Üga Büga, Valley of the Wolf

Get up. Such is the clear message of Üga Büga at the outset of Valley of the World as the Virginian trio of Calloway Jones (guitar, keys, vocals), Niko Cvetanovich (bass, backing vocals, more keys), and Jimmy Czywczynski (drums, backing vocals, consonants) approach sludge from a distinctively metallic place. Double-kick drumming, sharp-cornered structures, and vocals that veer before declarative melody and screams all feed into an overarching sense of aggression, even if the grooves themselves aren’t bludgeoning. Is it party metal? I wouldn’t tell you no, but don’t take that as “it’s stupid,” because the complexity even in the breakdown of “Nail That Binds” speaks to the consideration given to these parts and songs. That said, “The Sand Witch” (the sandwich?) thumps in a way that feels like it wants you to clap along at the show, and the chug and lurch of “Earthsuckers” early on stays on the beat, so put that with the thrashing in “Divination” and the big rolling finish in eight-minute closer “Revolting Power” and you get some picture of where they’re at on the idea of your good time.

Üga Büga on Bandcamp

Üga Büga on Instagram

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Feeling dug in, which I take as a good sign. There’s been a decent portion of this QR that’s catching up from last Fall onward, and I would’ve liked to cover some of that sooner, but honestly I struggled to find a week-plus to do this and lost an additional month by the time I did. So if you’re like ‘duh this is old’ to some of it — there are also releases that aren’t out yet — I apologize. In 10 years it won’t matter that whatever it was came out last October.

On that happy note, back to it.

Quarterly Review #31-40:

Witchcraft, A Sinner’s Child

Sweden’s Witchcraft follow their 2025 full-length, Idag (review here), with the five-song EP A Sinner’s Child, which runs a similar, if condensed, gamut, from founding frontman Magnus Pelander‘s solo acoustic folk to lumbering, heavy doom and points between. Pelander plays all the instruments on rolling opener “Drömmen Om Död Och Förruttnelse,” the minimal guy-and-guitar “Even Darker Days,” and the morosely weighted “Själen Reser Sig,” while the full-band title-track “A Sinner’s Child” and its closing alternate-lyrics companion-piece “Sinner’s Clear Confusion” are defined as much by the emotive blues of the vocals as by the wistfully strummed electric guitar that accompanies. “A Sinner’s Child” is between the two sides of “Själen Reser Sig” and “Even Darker Days,” sound-wise (it’s before them in the tracklisting) and underscores that it’s not just the extremes that Pelander/Witchcraft inhabit, but the intricate places between as well. I don’t know if it’s leftovers from the record or filler or what, and I don’t care. Just happy it exists and the band are making music, thanks.

Witchcraft website

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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Perfect Buzz, Happy Trails

Well, Portland and post-punk, so yes, Dead Moon are a factor, but PDX trio Perfect Buzz keep the songwriting tight and headed in their own, vividly rocking direction. The punk roots come out in “Here Come the Cowgirls,” with a shimmer in the guitar that’s unexpected, particularly after “You’re Wrong” was so sure of itself pounding its titular chorus into your head, but the heavier opener “Mess Around” sets a heavy-alternative expectation, and even the proto-grunge riffing of “Gonna Make U Sweat” is drawn under that umbrella. If you see them compared to Mudhoney, that’s probably why. But “Gonna Make U Sweat” is also the longest song at 3:28, and nothing else tops three minutes, so it’s not like Happy Trails is wasting anyone’s time. Instead, Perfect Buzz‘s debut EP showcases varied intent brought together by sharp, clearly-nobody’s-first-time-at-the-dance craft. Each of the four tracks sets out to do, and does, something different, while adding depth to the persona of the band, still being shaped but already a good time.

Perfect Buzz on Bandcamp

Perfect Buzz on Instagram

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Smoke Rites, Eager Eyes of Talion

Raw sludge metallers Smoke Rites offer visceral and disaffected doom on their second full-length, Eager Eyes of Talion, marked by the forward-in-the-mix gritty vocals of Tomasz Mielnik, whose harsh-throated shouts, growls and divergences into clearer singing top the weighted, rolling processions of guitarist Łukasz Borawski, bassist Adam Ziółkowski and drummer Michał Kamiński, resulting in a suitably filthy sound. It’s dark-themes-for-dark-times in “Golden Road,” the title-track and the chugging “Nothing Never,” and certainly “Death is a Five Letter Word” and “Wind of Most Cruel Kind” aren’t offering much in terms of comfort. Even the interlude “Charas Drift” is brought to a harsh place, but Eager Eyes of Talion stays grounded in the muddy shove of “10ft. Dread” and the comparative loll of “Devil’s Advocate,” and doesn’t feel like it’s hading out any more punishment than is due. In a mad world, madness feels reasonable. Here we are.

Smoke Rites on Bandcamp

Smoke Rites on Instagram

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Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean, Let Us Not Speak of Them But Look and Pass On

Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean uphold a long Massachusetts legacy of extreme sludge, and the four-song EP, Let Us Not Speak of Them But Look and Pass On, is duly facepeeling. Obviously “An Abundance of Mercy,” the nine-minute opener, is ironically titled. Mercy doesn’t really apply in the post-deity gnashing void the band portray, abrasive and churning. The lead cut is a slower assault where “Upheaval” is faster and more outwardly violent. “An Adornment of Light” might take home the prize for the lyric “I can show you/Just how broken/A wing can be,” if not for its seven-minute succession of massive lumber and throatripping screams or the ping ride in the last minute, like it’s marking the steps to where you jump in the volcano. Speaking of, “Execution” closes with a summary made more volatile for smashing elements together, but across the board, it’s a litmus test for how much noise you can take, which, since you’re alive today, is obviously more than any people at any other time in history could, so yes, have at it.

Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean on Bandcamp

Redscroll Records website

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Slow Draw, Is it Death Metal or Sadness

This might be genius. Hurst, Texas, solo experimentalist Mark Kitchens (also Stone Machine Electric) offers 11 sub-minute-long — the longest track is Hugging Curbs at 41 seconds — snippets, song ideas, root melodies, and tossoffs on Is it Death Metal or Sadness. Most are voice-based, but like opener “Big Dipper Little Dipper,” “Lynda and Her Celery,” “Almonds and Pistachios” and “Steven Lee Hall Junior” and “In the Pharmacy,” most have some synth or percussive accompaniment, and for most the lyrics are basically the titles. Maybe the most telling of all, centerpiece “Banana Time” — the lyric, “It’s banana time in the kitchen” — sounds like it was probably thought up while Kitchens was getting a banana. Five-second closer “Season My Eggs” — “I forgot to season my eggs, yeah-heah,” in a rocker voice — is likewise true to life. The reason this might be genius is because it reflects the ways music interacts with your daily life. Maybe you do sing a little song while you’re getting a banana, or get a hook in your head like the multi-layered “3 and 7” out of nowhere. It’s the sense of spontaneity captured. It turns out neither to be death metal nor sadness, and that could hardly be more fitting for the project.

Slow Draw website

Slow Draw on Bandcamp

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Capacopter, Capacopter

Once they start rolling out that fuzz, there’s little stopping (and why would you?) German heavy rockers Capacopter who, working under influence from early Queens of the Stone Age via modern forerunners Slomosa, present their self-titled first LP with all due electricity and grooving intent. Hooks abound as in opener “600 Years” and the desert-airy “Caravan,” and they keep structures pretty straightforward for the eight-song duration — has Noisolution heard this? — but there’s some branching out in “Half’n Inch” at the start of side B, and “JP’s Horse” and closer “Wandering Stones” take time for atmospherics as well, while “Kings and Crowds” and “Temple Son” are, on balance, more direct, though songwriting is a factor front-to-back. The album ends up being a mix, and there are highlight stretches in the quieter moments as well, but as a statement of intent, Capacopter posits them as rockers, and fair enough. An encouraging and promising debut album. There’s growing into themselves to do, but there’s also time to do it.

Capacopter website

Capacopter on Bandcamp

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Monovoth, To Live in the Breath of Worship

Dense to a point of opaqueness at its heaviest, but able as well to shift into and through ambient passages, Monovoth‘s To Live in the Breath of Worship feels emotive without words and finds the despondent post-metallic Buenos Aires solo-project exploring tense and grimly progressive reaches. The third LP in five years from multi-instrumentalist Lucas Wyssbrod, it doesn’t shy from extremity in “Crimson Red Wound” or the blastbeaten-until-it-drones-in-apology 16-minute closer “To Drown in the Tears of God” (there is a human voice there), but is no more defined by that than the subdued bleakness of its stillest moments, nor is it overly predictable in the movements between those two sides, or unipolar in how it executes one or the other. This variability, flexibility, allows “Cosmically Orphaned” and earlier opener “From a Dying Star” to tell a similar story in different ways, and makes the album as a whole a more complete, immersive experience. It’s also noisy as hell, and that helps too.

Monovoth website

Monovoth on Bandcamp

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Pimeyden Harha, Aika

Opening cut “Kronologia” (8:32) is the shortest of the three inclusions on Pimeyden Harha‘s severe-cast, wholly-doomed full-length debut, Aika, by about half. The subsequent “Rauha” (16:01) and “Entisöijä” (19:27) render the opener as lead-single fare, but rest assured, the solo outfit has plenty of doom to go around, whether it’s longform or, you know, sorta-longform. Lyrics, and somehow also the instruments, are in Finnish, and most of what keeps Aika from being death-doom is the melodic chant of sole-denizen/multi-instrumentalist J. LaCoin‘s vocals. Tempos are mostly a crawl, but “Rauha” lets you know up front it’s going to thrash out at the finish, and yes, it does, and there’s a bit of pickup in the later reaches of “Entisöijä” as well, but the bulk of the record is willed as a morose plod, and the atmosphere is accordingly grey. To its credit, however, Aika holds firm to its intent and doesn’t veer from its path as the songs play out; the most divergence happens in “Koronologia,” and it’s brief. That’s not to say Pimeyden Harha comes across as unipolar, just that it’s a sound crafted with a goal in mind. As a debut, one might call it foreboding.

Pimeyden Harha on Bandcamp

Pimeyden Harha at Mikseri

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Wild Fuzz Trip, Fuzz Transmissions

The only real question going into this debut album by Spain’s Wild Fuzz Trip is whether or not the five tracks on Fuzz Transmissions live up to the billing. Are they, in fact, a wild fuzz trip? Well, yes. Whether you’re dug into the mellow midsection of “Big Grey” or the more uptempo boogie into meatier riffing that happens over the course of centerpiece “Galactican Twilight,” the double-guitar troupe — here guitarists Miguel A. Marañón and Diego López (also keys), bassist Andy Shardlow (Josiah) and drummer Suso Valcárcel and Martin Ludl on the sax in closer “Nebula Groove” — are right there with you, and though they’ve been a band for eight years and this is apparently their first LP, the surety of their going speaks to the slew of EPs and single releases leading up to it. They neither wasted their time nor waste yours as the listener, bringing their ambition to life in an expansive sound one hopes will continue to flesh out.

Wild Fuzz Trip on Bandcamp

Wild Fuzz Trip on Instagram

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Gavran, The One Who Propels

Breadth and crush, expressive human intimacy and instrumental expanse, post-metallic chiaroscuro, etc., however you want to frame Gavran‘s The One Who Propels, the Rotterdam four-piece find their niche in style with a sound that basks in its multifaceted nature across five longer-form cuts, each of which plays out with a balance between two-plus sides, melodically sung here and abrasively screamed there, conveying emotion in the lulls of “Brod” as much as the next-level-obliteration that kicks in for (about) the final minute of “Okreni.” “Zora” and “Pogon” both start very, very heavy, but even there, a change in the vocals provides distinction amid tonal consistency, and Gavran are served across the 59-minute span by their attention to detail in terms of arrangement as well as the depth of mix which sometimes they seem to occupy to a point of spilling out, only to recede again and let the next melodic contemplation hold sway. The resulting entirety is viciously affirming as it leads to 16-minute capper “Plutaju,” which methodically encapsulates the course of the album while continuing to carve its own place.

Gavran on Bandcamp

Dunk!Records website

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Feel like we’re really getting into it now, and that’s a good thing. I’m not saying I was shaking off rust for the first two days, but I look at the spread of styles across the names above and ‘it’s gonna be a good day’ pops inexorably into my head. I like that feeling, which I guess is how we get here in the first place.

It’s Wednesday of this seven-day QR, so we’re not quite halfway through yet. If you’ve been keeping up, thank you. If not, it’s okay. You’re still welcome to peruse the below and hopefully find something that speaks to you.

Quarterly Review #21-30:

Clayton Burgess, If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home by Now

Self-recorded and just as raw as the day is long, the first solo album from Clayton Burgess (Satan’s Satyrs founder, also ex-Electric Wizard), If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home by Now, is so classic in its substance it can’t help be modern. And I’m not talking about the pop garage indie of the 2000s, like it sounds cheap but also everybody has perfect hair. Songs like “Kerosene” and the Mellotron-laced “Meadowlands” are more in the Rise Above Records mindset of retroism, which is to say doing the thing for real and letting the genres sort themselves out later. Thus the proto-punk of “Little Bat Dreams” and the strut of “Scenic Byway” coexist with the jazzy “Faustine,” and so on. “Signal Fire” and the closer “Golden Age of Volcanism” are a bit darker, maybe a little closer to Burgess‘ work with Satan’s Satyrs, while “Greasy Bangs” lives up to its name for all of its 90 seconds, a heavy garage instrumental of the ’60s tradition. What’s amazing about it is the whole style is based around familiarity and yet the indentity built up throughout is so individual. I haven’t seen a lot of hype about it, but here’s hoping Burgess continues this pursuit.

Clayton Burgess on Bandcamp

Satan’s Satyrs on Bandcamp

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New Mexican Doom Cult, Ziggurat

There have been some personnel shifts in Swedish stoner-doomnodders New Mexican Doom Cult, and their second full-length, Ziggurat, operates mostly in the same volume-worshipping vein of riffing as 2023’s Necropolis (review here), but with a deeper perspective in “Metatron” and the pointedly doomed “Return to Babylon,” among others. The band now is Nils Ahnland on guitar and vocals (also bass), drummer Jonathan Ekvall and Jonas Strömberg on keys/production, and though they’ve given up some tonal impact as a result of dropping to a single guitar (layering notwithstanding; looking at you, “Criosphinx”), the tradeoff is they’re more flexible in sound while remaining plenty heavy from “The Church of Starry Wisdom” onward. Sabbathian roll is a specialty of the house, but the satisfaction when “Sungod” finally kicks in at full volume speaks to a different kind of mastery before the doom-hook in “I Stand Alone” rounds out. Curious where they’ll go from here.

New Mexican Doom Cult on Bandcamp

New Mexican Doom Cult on Instagram

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Lammping/Drew Smith/Marker Starling, Risky

Following on from 2025’s Never Never (review here), Toronto mellow-hangs specialists Lammping continue their four-album cycle of collaborations with this second one, bringing them together with Drew Smith (The Bicycles) and Chris Cummings (Marker Starling), as core Lammping duo Mikhail Galkin (vocals, production, guitar, etc.) and Jay Anderson (drums) slide so smoothly into and out of dub instrumentals and low-key heavy vibes, always fluid, here hinting toward jazz, there shimmering into the techno experiment “Prelude to Never” ahead of the finale “Never Done,” which closes like psychedelic singer-songwriter fare from some lost decade that was never actually real. I guess the update is Lammping remain on their on wavelength of sound and on their own echelon of cool. Spending some time there with them could only be to your greater benefit. Two more LPs coming.

Lammping on Bandcamp

We Are Busy Bodies on Bandcamp

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Mos Eisley Spaceport, Live on Crow Hill

Most of the material on Mos Eisley Spaceport‘s apparently-self-released live album, Live on Crow Hill, comes from their 2023 debut, Further, but with newer two songs at the end in the 12-minute “Interstellar Mantis” and “In Your Mind,” the jam-based classic heavy blues boogie rockers give a glimpse at where they’re headed just the same. And that’s not to take away from “Space Shift” — which starts with the Star Wars sample from whence their moniker hails — or the scope in “Ashes to Ashes” made organic by the fluidity of the band’s performance, I’m just noting the progression underway in their sound. Whether brand new or not, they deliver, and the fact that they’ve added organ to the arrangements in the time since the record came out means these interpretations stand on their own regardless. Most of all, the set is a blast and sounds like they’re having as much fun playing as I am listening, which is plenty. It would feel silly to ask more of it than that, whatever it might portend for them moving forward.

Mos Eisley Spaceport on Bandcamp

Mos Eisley Spaceport on Instagram

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Dome Runner, World Panopticon

How lucky you are that after 40-plus years of industrial sounds depicting dystopian apocalyptic scenarios you finally get to live in one. Dome Runner are the machine punishment humanity deserves in an era where a tech CEO can casually say something about flying drones into people’s heads to kill them and/or licensing common knowledge on a subscription model and not be immediately imprisoned or extrajudicially hanged to the benefit of all. World Panopticon is suitably brutal across a 76-minute span, the Tampere, Finland, troupe keeping one foot in ’90s industrial metal as they did on their 2021 debut, Conflict State Design (review here), but filtering this through modern tonality and horrors. There are breaks, quiet parts in longer songs, interludes, etc., but I don’t know that I’d call any of it a real letup in the looming sense of oppression, and well, get used to that, because the boot on your neck that they’re portraying isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Welcome to the age of it-gets-worse-and-nobody-stops-it. At least you still have the music, for now.

Dome Runner on Bandcamp

Svart Records website

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Basaltic Plateau, Dead Dinosaurs Echoes

While clearly written as individual pieces, the six songs comprising the 36-minute run of Italian heavy psych instrumentalists Basaltic Plateau‘s late-’25 debut LP, Dead Dinosaurs Echoes flow exceedingly well into each other, extrapolating the ebbs and flows within a given track into how it interacts with those around it. In this way, the three-piece build a landscape of sound — some kind of sound… scape! — across the span, warm-toned and so easy enough to liken to a desert rock influence, but heavier in its payoff stretches and up for trippier weirdness in “Summer Dream” and the more technical severity of the closing title-cut, also the longest at nearly nine minutes, and less predictable in its entirety than one might expect going in. As a debut, their self-awareness bodes well, and the psych of “Cuttlefish Galaxy” and progressivism of “Sleep Paralysis” might be careening toward each other like the Milky Way and Andromeda, but if there’s to be a conflict between the two, it’s a ways off. In the meantime, their creative reach serves them in immersing the listener.

Basaltic Plateau on Bandcamp

Electric Valley Records website

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Gjenferd, Black Smoke Rising

Should you find yourself needing a reason to feel hopeful about the future of heavy rock, that Gjenferd might be part of it should more than suffice. The Bergen, Norway, four-piece of guitarist/vocalist Vegard Bachmann Strand, bassist Samuel Robson Gardner, keyboardist/vocalist Jakob Særvoll and drummer/vocalist Sivert Kleiven Larsen present their second album in Black Smoke Rising, and draw a thread back through decades of heavy rock stylization to conjure a sound that is their own and welcoming, unpretentious and progressive in kind. Whether it’s the shuffle of “Bound to Fall” and the hook of “Ride On” or the moodier nod of “Calling Your Name” and the mellow-till-it-ain’t “The Silence,” the band are dynamic, thoughtful in their craft and vital very much in the ‘alive’ sense of the word across the 10 inclusions, further distinguishing themselves among the emergent next generation of heavy rock and rollers. The listenability here can’t and shouldn’t be discounted, which is to say, don’t be surprised when you come back for another round with it.

Gjenferd’s Linktr.ee

Apollon Records website

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Codex Serafini, Mother, Give Your Children Sanity

I feel like it may forever be my fate to feel like I’m trying to catch up to Codex Serafini. Yes, temporally — their second LP, Mother, Give Your Children Sanity, came out last November — but also stylistically, and in this I feel a oneness with the universe, for which the UK outfit are an intentionally odd fit. Spacerocking in their own dimensional phase, the band follow 2023’s The Imprecation of Anima (review here) with a status-quo threatening cohesion that lands heavy with Wayne Adams‘ production but is more about the plunge into the farther far-out, sax and skronk and ritualistic melodies and madness. The title-track brings healing, but not like you’re thinking, whatever you’re thinking, and the subsequent blowout in capper “Marching Like a Toad” (before the drone finish) could hardly be better earned. Bands rarely sound so willing to follow where their whims take them, and the quirk in Mother, Give Your Children Sanity is more appreciable for that.

Codex Serafini on Bandcamp

Riot Season Records website

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Sunbreather, Sunbreather

Airy grunge pervades the self-titled 2025 full-length debut from UK trio Sunbreather, resulting in a tonal richness one can hear in the eponymous “Sunbreather” or the prior “Apricity” as the record gets going, creating a kind of terrestrial psychedelia that vocal effects and an upped fuzz quotient in all-caps centerpiece/side B leadoff “WINE” seems to revel in pushing to one side or another. I like this album a lot; the way it feels like it’s establishing one aspect of the band’s sound or another and then moves on to the next idea without losing itself in indulgence. The organic flow. The closing pair of “Sleep” and “Aubade” emphasize this, with a fuller lumber in “Sleep” that opens atmospherically in “Aubade” while staying dreamy in tempo at least for most of its time. I say all the time that the challenge for UK bands is distinguishing themselves from the constant glut of their home country’s underground. That might be true here as well, on its face, but in actually hearing the songs, Sunbreather come out ahead in terms of identity. I’m pretty sure this was self-released, but I can’t imagine they wouldn’t be able to find a label if they wanted to for it.

Sunbreather’s Linktr.ee

Sunbreather on Instagram

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Konung, Dope Druid

True, the Moscovian plodders don’t have ‘bong’ or ‘weed,’ etc., in their name, but they’re pretty close to bong metal regardless on this initial three-songer, Dope Druid, lumbering through dank megasludge on the opening title-track before rolling noisier into “Wolf Shepherd” and chug-and-feedbacking to a point of near-abrasion (of the willful sort, mind you) on “Tsar of Blood,” making for a solid 19 minutes of damage to eardrums and braincells alike. So much the better a tone on which to break onesself. Imagine drowning in bong water. They aren’t shooting for anything overly complicated, but there is sort of a scope to the onslaught, and the rawness overarching becomes a benefit to the impact of the material — its heft is engrossing and the way the harshness comes through the recording lends aggression to the groove — but I’m not sure that’s aspiration so much as fortunate circumstance. It’s moot, ultimately, because any way you go, Konung have come to crush you into flattened little bits, and the best advice I can give is go with it and deal with the cleanup after.

Konung on Bandcamp

Konung on Instagram

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Day one down, time for day two of this Spring 2026 Quarterly Review. If you missed me saying so yesterday, this QR will run 70 releases total, so it finishes a week from today. If you didn’t find anything you got down with yesterday, I hope today’s your day. If not, maybe tomorrow. That’s kind of how this works.

You should note that some of this is 2025 releases. I’ll try to note that in the reviews when I can, but today leads off with Spidergawd’s latest and that’s six months old at this point. The older I get, the less of a shit I give for release dates. That’s a somewhat aspirational statement, I admit. I’ve always sucked at keeping up.

Quarterly Review #11-20:

Spidergawd, From Eight to Infinity

Reconfirming their place among top tier songwriters in heavy rock, Norway’s Spidergawd offer their eighth album with Thin Lizzy and Judas Priest and way more energy behind the delivery than ‘eighth album’ could ever hope to imply. From Eight to Eternity indeed is an eighth album running eight tracks (40 minutes; that’s eight times five, anyhow), and while charge is part of what they do, they’ve always been able to hone a sense of dynamic across a record and the latest is no different. As the world outside crumbles, Spidergawd offer escape to a better place and unshakable solidity of approach. Even the extra-vehemence of chug in “Confirmation” and the proto-thrashy twists in “200 Miles High” are brought into the fold rather than left to hang as anomalous, and there’s a gallop in “The Hunter” that’s pure NWOBHM, but Spidergawd remain a rock band even when they’re playing metal, which “The Ghost of Eirik Raude” says better than I could, and in “The Grand Slam,” the grander outreach of “Winter Song” and the shove of “One in a Million” they once more underscore how special the thing they do is. Do you understand what a gift Spidergawd are to heavy rock and roll? You might if you listen.

Spidergawd website

Crispin Glover Records website

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Aunt Cynthia’s Cabin, Misty Woman

Originally issued through Nasoni Records in 2020, Aunt Cynthia’s Cabin‘s Misty Woman arrives via a Dec. 2025 Black Throne Productions reissue, and reasonably so. In the parlance of our times, it’s a vibe. The title-track is spacious and ’60s psych, with choice vocals and easy swing, and by then they’ve already been through the volatility of the jam in “Which One is the Jellyfish” and the plus-sized roll in “Kennel and the Dog,” so they’re well underway, with rawness and atmosphere both as part of their crux. That doesn’t abate in the two-part “Rider in the Desert Sun” or the hypnotic diversion “In the Valley,” willfully repetitive across its five minutes ahead of the longest track “There’s No Saving Cass,” which uses the negative space of the mix for a live feel before hitting into a classic-style fadeout into the interlude “Grains of Sand.” The closer “Black and Blue” is fuller in sound, but still echoing out, and the bonus track “Magic Touch” brings extra brightness to the crash and a satisfying swell of rawer distortion to its finish. Sleeper, maybe, because it’s already six years old, but with scope, and well earns the second look.

Aunt Cynthia’s Cabin on Bandcamp

Black Throne Productions website

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Hawk vs. Dove, The Weight of All Matters

The Dallas outfit have said that “The Weight of All Matters” is a herald of their third record, but as it’s been more than 10 years since the band released their second album, 2015’s Divided States (review here), it seemed reasonable to approach the six-minute newcomer as a standalone, at least for the time being. The new song is perhaps more patient for the years between — though I wouldn’t presume to imply that to an entire album; they’ve always been able to change it up amid various 1990s influences, here grunge, there noise, filtered through their own tonal heft and melodic sensibility, the latter of which is a crucial factor in “The Weight of All Matters” as well, lending a progressive feel to the chorus and the brash swell in the second half. More likely than not, the single doesn’t speak for the entirety of the full-length to come, but it’s good to hear from Hawk vs. Dove again at all. They make it easy to look forward to more.

Hawk vs. Dove on Bandcamp

Hawk vs. Dove on Instagram

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Silver Orbs, Silver Orbs

There are six dudes in Brisbane fuzz-psych rockers Silver Orbs and four of them sing, so yes, part of the impression the band’s late-’25 three-songer self-titled debut EP makes is in the vocals, particularly in opener “Manganangas,” but “Gannets” brings a more serene start with intertwining keyboard and guitar, though the rumble of bass and steady kick drum herald the volume kick that arrives soon enough, and “Gannets” is instrumental, so clearly sending a message that they’re not one-sided in their approach. “Kanto Katso” affirms this with a strikingly heavy intro of crashes and guitar attack, but its verses are more like psychedelic chants and the drums shift to the toms there, so they’re having fun making it weird, and that’s as it should be. I don’t know if “Kanto Katso” doesn’t return to that same directness of impact from its start or if one just acclimates to it, but a band setting such a vivid context for their own sound across the first three songs they’ve ever released isn’t something that happens every day, and Silver Orbs come across as ready to continue exploring. A thing to hope for.

Silver Orbs on Bandcamp

Silver Orbs on Instagram

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Xain, Xaraba

Azerbaijani duo Xain unfurl a bit over six minutes of heavy post-grind extremity on Xaraba, the three included tracks pummeling one after another in succession, with perhaps the most brutal crush of all coming in centerpiece “Günahkar” where the overarching rush groove opens to a breakdown start-stop nod that speaks to their noted The Dilligner Escape Plan influence, but the shove and the context are all their own. I’m not sure if it’s live drums or not, as vocalist Toghrul Manafov and guitarist Elkhan Alshin (both founding members of death metallers Fatal Nation), but the toy piano offset in “Çürüyən ruhun ət qəfəsi” speaks to outside-genre impulses that can only continue to serve them well as they do here, and as unforgiving and unbridled as they are, the catharsis comes through strongly despite the language barrier. They should probably get a government grant to make more of this.

Xain on Bandcamp

Xain on Instagram

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Iron Void & Orodruin, Altar of Worship

The ‘altar’ in question for Altar of Worship is Pagan Altar, and two of doom metal’s most doomed — Wakefield, UK’s Iron Void and NY’s Orodruin — give due homage to Terry Jones (R.I.P. 2015) and the classic sound he had a hand in developing as part of the band (who are still going, mind you). Each band offers one studio-tracked original — Iron Void lead off side A with “The Tolling Bell” (also the longest track; immediate points) and Orodruin answer back with “In This Place” at the start of side B — as well as a Pagan Altar cover and two live songs. Orodruin‘s take on “In the Wake of Armadeus” is a highlight, but so is Iron Void‘s “Highway Cavalier,” and it quickly becomes fortunate that the two bands aren’t so much in competition with each other — lest you had to pick one over the other — as they are working together remotely toward a common goal in celebrating one of doom’s many underheralded legends. It’s a tribute that wears its (dark, grim, sorrowful) heart on its sleeve.

Iron Void on Bandcamp

Orodruin on Bandcamp

Nameless Grave Records website

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Epimetheus, Perseus 9

Lead cut “Earthbound” gets pretty chunky toward its finish, but as Epimetheus roll on to pursue Conan-esque levels of heavy in “Coalesce” and bring “Drift Beyond” to a rumblenoise apex that the likes of Cities of Mars or Domkraft might proffer, the UK-based outfit know there’s more than one way to crush a skull. They are atmospheric without overproduction, and’90s rooted without sounding like either grunge, stoner rock, doom and meditative psychedelia directly while having aspects of all of them, and are dug into their own processes enough that the promo for the seven-song/48-minute Perseus 9 came with a document detailing the building and modding of their instruments, pedals and recording apparatus. If you think I’m complaining about that, you’re wrong. The care they put into crafting their sound can be heard in the centerpiece “Held No More,” which effectively summarizes the scope across nearly 10 minutes before the eight-minute title-track follows up with more cosmic chug and nod. “Calling” is duly feedback-coated for the shouts that complement its riff, and they close with the uptempo “Terraform” presumably so they can begin to repair the damage they caused all along their way. Perseus 9 is their debut, and there are things to be sorted in terms of their approach, but the potential here is no less broad than their creative reach. Heads up, this one’s a journey.

Epimetheus on Bandcamp

Epimetheus on Instagram

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Wolftooth, Wizard’s Light

A well established penchant for the epic serves Indiana capital-‘h’ Heavy metal rockers Wolftooth on their fourth album and first for Ripple Music, Wizard’s Light, as they bring a strident NWOBHM feel to “Darkened Path,” “Sands of Redemption,” “Armor of Steel,” “Bloodline” and others throughout the 45-minute 10-track collection, but as sweeping and grand as even a rocker like “Wizard’s Light” ends up being, Wolftooth are never actually overblown. The longest inclusion here is the penultimate “Bloodline,” and it’s a ripper very much on-brand for the record and the band making it, but it’s also only five and a half minutes long. So while Wolftooth come on in grand fashion with the intro “Hymn of Belgarath” carrying into the hard snare and galloping chug of “Sightless Archer,” they never rest in one place long enough to lose the urgency of what they’re doing in sacrifice either to precision or class, though they offer no shortage of either of those. It’s not my thing, necessarily, but I’m just one person and the appeal here might as well be scored into the side of a mountain.

Wolftooth on Bandcamp

Ripple Music website

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Babona, Az Átkozott

Translated as ‘the cursed’ from the original Hungarian, Babona‘s Az Átkozott is the short third full-length from the Miskolc-based solo-project of multi-instrumentalist Tamás Rózsa, and the prolific craftsman adds percussive nuance to “Soha” and goes out to the car in “Mahnurk,” seeming to tell a story complete with giggles and a big inhalation before “Csapágy” kicks in with a mellower intro ahead of the record’s most active pummel. From opener “Álomra hajtom a fejemet” onward, the mood is prevailingly dark, and the cawing crows of “ÍmeaT átka” (a second interlude) only reinforce the feeling. Still, even the start-stop ’90s crunch riffing of “Visszatérés” and the back and forth mellow/shove trades in “A szigetmonostori búcsú” harness a feeling of movement, and at maybe 25 minutes, Az Átkozott is a long way from the danger of overstaying its welcome. This is an exploration worth following if you’re not yet.

Babona on Bandcamp

Babona on Facebook

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Motsus, Atlas

Belgian instrumentalists Motsus lean into riffy post-metal in a way that’s invariably going to lead to Pelican or Russian Circles comparisons on Atlas, but the push in “Driver,” which hits subsequent to “Intro (El Toro de Fuego)” at the album’s outset, isn’t shy about its underlying stonerism, and both “Duna” and “Exploder Pt. II” back this idea with plotted longform processions, the former rising from its Middle Eastern-style intro into a massive lumber while the latter climbs the cliff just to jump off and enjoy the downward tumble. They thrash for a bit in the two-minute “Short Notice,” but it’s in closer “Turboslak” that they pull all the sides together and find their very-loud-no-matter-what-volume-you’re-listening-at niche in the sphere, setting a low barrier to entry for the genre converted without playing so much to style as to lose sight of the ideals they’re chasing as they execute for such marked weight.

Motsus on Instagram

Polderrecords on Bandcamp

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