Posted in Whathaveyou on July 26th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Massive Hassle‘s 2023 debut, Number One (review here), wasn’t short on charm offered through the harmonies and classic-style rock, blues, soul and shuffle from brothers Bill Fisher and Marty Fisher, and as Unreal Damage opens up for my first listen with “Crap is Your Life,” I see not much has changed in that regard over the mere months since the first record. So much the better for the mellow rockers, both also of Church of the Cosmic Skull and Dystopian Future Movies, both formerly of Mammothwing, etc., and so much the better for anyone who’d seek vibe without pretense or sacrifice of songcraft and performance. Plus fuzz, which also helps.
The first single from the eight-track outing is called “Walk of Shame” and you can hear its bluesy guitar line and sleek melody advising you to “take it slowly” for yourself at the bottom of this post (at least I hope so, if the timing on the post works). It’s a fitting introduction into things to come, and the notice to get ready for it is welcome since Unreal Damage is out in just a couple weeks. Aug. 16 is the release date, if you missed it in the headline. And if you did, that’s okay too.
Info follows as per the PR wire:
Massive Hassle announce the release of their second album ‘Unreal Damage’ out on Friday 16th August via Septaphonic Records.
Massive Hassle is a two-piece rock band from Nottingham England, featuring brothers Bill & Marty Fisher (Mammothwing, Church of the Cosmic Skull, Dystopian Future Movies and many more), combining fuzz-rock, soul, doom-metal, jazz, blues, country, and more with meticulous two-part vocal harmony.
‘If Otis Redding and Tony Iommi made a 70s rock record with meticulous two-part vocal harmony, while deep in the throes of a dangerously expansive mental health crisis. The second album from the brothers Fisher sees them quest hither and yon into the depths of sweet soul music and heavy fuzz indulgences, apropos achieving surround sound. Discarding all previously proclaimed credos, the freedom of the studio environment elevates these eight brand new and select recordings to vertigo-inducing heights of sound and colour. Get peace, stay sound’ – Mike Failing
Hailing from Nottingham England, Brothers Bill Fisher and Marty Fisher (Mammothwing, Church of the Cosmic Skull, Dystopian Future Movies) launched this new project in 2023 with the celebrated debut ‘Number One’, recorded and filmed entirely in live takes, with videos for every song.
Continuing their experiment with vocal-harmony-laden fuzz-rock / soul / doom-metal / jazz / blues / country, the second release sees the brothers take a wider, tighter, studio-orientated approach, while maintaining the authentic minimalism of the two-piece format.
It is an age of plenty as regards the underground. Between bands being able to form with members on different continents, to being able to record basically anything anywhere anywhen, the barriers have never been lower. I heard an all-AI stoner rock record the other day. It wasn’t great, but did it need to be?
The point is there’s gotta be a reason so many people are doing the thing, and a reason it happens just about everywhere, more than just working/middle class disaffection and/or dadstalgia. There’s a lot of documentary research about bands, but so far I don’t think anyone’s done a study, book, bio-doc, whatever about the proliferation of heavy sounds across geographies and cultures. No, that won’t be me. “Face made for radio,” as the fellow once said, and little time to write a book. But perhaps some riff-loving anthropologist will get there one day — get everywhere, that is — and explore it with artists and fans. Maybe that’s you.
Happy Thursday.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
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Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, Nell’ Ora Blu
My favorite part of the press release for Uncle Acid‘s Nell’ Ora Blu was when founding guitarist/vocalist and apparent-auteur Kevin Starrs said, “I know something like this might have limited appeal, but who cares?” Though it was initially billed as an instrumental record and in fact features Starrs‘ trademark creeper vocal melodies in a few of its 19 tracks, the early “Giustizia di Strada/Lavora Fino Alla Morte” and pretty-Uncle–Acidic-feeling “La Vipera,” and the later march of the seven-minute “Pomeriggio di Novembre Nel Parco – Occhi Che Osservano,” catchy and still obscure enough in its psychedelia to fit, and “Solo la Morte Ti Ammanetta,” though most of the words throughout are spoken — genre cinephiles will recognize the names Edwige French and Franco Nero; there’s a lot of talking on the phone, all in Italian — as Starrs pays homage to giallo stylization in soundtracking an imaginary film. It’s true to an extent about the limited appeal, but this isn’t the first time Uncle Acid have chosen against expanding their commercial reach either, and while I imagine the effect is somewhat different if you speak Italian, Starrs‘ songwriting has never been so open or multifaceted in mood. Nell’ Ora Blu isn’t the studio follow-up to 2018’s Wasteland (review here) one might have expected, but it takes some of those aspects and builds a whole world out of them. They should tour it and do a live soundtrack, but then I guess someone would also have to make the movie.
If “fuck you” were a band, it might be Dopethrone. With six new tracks spread across a sample-laced (pretty sure Joe Don Baker is in there somewhere; maybe “Truckstop Warlock?”) and mostly-crushing-of-spirit-and-tone 39 minutes, the crusty Montreal trio of guitarist/vocalist Vince, bassist Vyk and drummer Shawn pound at the door of your wellness with their scum-sludge extremity, living up to their reputation in gnash and nastiness for the duration. The penultimate “Uniworse” brings in Weedeater‘s “Dixie” Dave Collins for a guest spot, but by the time they get there, the three-piece have already bludgeoned your bones with album-centerpiece “Shlaghammer” and loosed the grueling breadth of “Rock Slock,” so really, Collins is the gravy on the pill-based bottom-hitting binge. From opening single “Life Kills You” through the final punishing moments of “Sultans of Sins” — presumably a side B mirror in terms of heft to “Slaghammer” — and the choice Billy Madison sample that follows, Dopethrone offer a singular unkindness of purpose. I feel like I need a shower.
Where even the melancholy progression of “Song of Greed” is marked by the gorgeousness of its dual-vocal melody and flowing arrangement of strings, guitar, and strings, Eura is the second full-length and Sulatron Records label-debut for Parisian psych-folkies Anandammide. At the core of the diverse arrangements is songwriter Michele Moschini (vocals, synth, organ, guitar, drums), who brings purposefully Canterburyian pastoralia together with prog rock tendencies on “Phantom Limb” and the title-track while maintaining the light-touch gentility of the start of “Carmilla,” the later flow between “Lullaby No. 2” and “Dream No. 1,” or the gracefully undrummed “I Am a Flower,” with synth and strings side-by-side. Though somewhat mournful in its subject matter, Eura is filled with life and longing, and the way the lyrics of “Phantom Limb” feel out of place in the world suits the aural anachronism and the escapist drive that seems to manifest in “The Orange Flood.” Patient, immersive, and lovely, it sees ruin and would give solace.
An awaited first full-length from Portland, Oregon’s Tigers on Opium, the 10-song/44-minute Psychodrama builds on the semi-sleazed accomplishments of the four-piece’s prior EPs while presenting a refreshingly varied sound. The album begins as “Ride or Die” unfolds with Juan Carlos Caceres‘ vocals echoing in layers over quiet guitar — more of an intro, it is reprised to deliver the title line as a post-finale epilogue — and directly dives into garage-doom strut with “Black Mass” before a Styx reference worked into “Diabolique” makes for an immediate, plus-charm highlight. The parade doesn’t stop there. The Nirvana-ish beginning of “Retrovertigo” soft-boogies and drifts into Jerry Cantrell-style melody backed by handclaps, while Thin Lizzy leads show up in “Sky Below My Feet” and the more desert rocking “Paradise Lost” ahead of the farther-back, open swing and push of “Radioactive” giving over to “Wall of Silence”‘s ’70s singer-songwriterism, communing with the “Ride or Die” bookend but expanded in its arrangement; capper-caper “Separation of the Mind” paying it all off like Queens of the Stone Age finding the Big Riff and making it dance, too. On vocals, guitar and keys, Caceres is a big presence in the persona, but don’t let that undercut the contributions of guitarist Jeanot Lewis-Rolland, bassist Charles Hodge or drummer Nate Wright, all of whom also sing. As complex in intent as Psychodrama is, its underlying cohesion requires everybody to be on board, and as they are, the resulting songs supersede expectation and comprise one of 2024’s best debut albums.
Self-identifying as “yacht doom,” How to Think Like a Billionaire is the third solo full-length from Church of the Cosmic Skull‘s Bill Fisher, and while “Consume the Heart” and “Yell of the Ringman” tinge toward darkness and, in the case of the latter, a pointedly doomly plog, what the “yacht” translates to is a swath of ’80s-pop keyboard sounds and piano rock accompanying Fisher‘s guitar, vocals, bass and drums, a song like “Xanadu” sending up tech-culture hubris after “Ride On, Unicorn” has given a faux-encouraging push in its chorus, rhyming “Ride on, unicorn” with “In the valley of Silicon.” Elsewhere, “Overview Effect” brings the cover to life in imagining the apocalypse from the comfort of a private spaceship, while “Lead Us Into Fire” idolizes a lack of accountability in self-harmonizing layers with the thud that complements “Intranaut” deeper in the mix and the sense that, if you were a big enough asshole and on enough cocaine, it might just be possible Fisher means it when he sings in praise of capitalist hyperexploitation. A satire much needed and a perspective to be valued, if likely not by venture capital.
While one could liken the echo-born space that coincides with the gallop of opening cut “Greenland” to any number of other outfits, and the concluding title-track branches out both in terms of tempo and melodic reach, Ascia‘s debut long-player, The Wandering Warrior follows on from the project’s demoes in counting earliest High on Fire as a defining influence. Fair enough, since the aforementioned two are both the most recent included here and the only songs not culled from the three prior demos issued by Fabrizio Monni (also Black Capricorn) under the Ascia name. With the languid fluidity and impact of “Mother of the Wendol” and the outright thrust of “Blood Bridge Battle,” “Ruins of War” and “Dhul Qarnayn” set next to the bombastic crash ‘n’ riff of “Serpent of Fire,” Monni has no trouble harnessing a flow from the repurposed, remastered material, and picking and choosing from among three shorter releases lets him portray Ascia‘s range in a new light. That may not be able to happen in the same way next time around (or it could), but for those who did or didn’t catch the demos, The Wandering Warrior summarizes well the band’s progression to this point and gives hope for more to come.
Indianapolis-based solo-project Cloud of Souls — aka Chris Latta (ex-Spirit Division, Lavaborne, etc.) — diverges from the progressive metallurgy of 2023’s A Fate Decided (review here) in favor of a more generally subdued, contemplative presentation. Beginning with its title-track, the five-song/36-minute outing marks out the spaces it will occupy and seems to dwell there as the individual cuts play out, whether that’s “A Constant State of Flux” holding to its piano-and-voice, the melancholic procession of the nine-minute “Better Than I Was,” or the sax that accompanies the downerism of the penultimate “Love to Forgive Wish to Forget.” Each song brings something different either in instrumentation or vibe — “Homewrecker Blues” harmonizes en route to a momentary tempo pickup laced with organ, closer “Break Down the Door” offers hope in its later guitar and crash, etc. — but it can be a fine line when conveying monotony or low-key depressivism, and there are times where A Constant State of Flux feels stuck in its own verses, despite Latta‘s strength of craft and the band’s exploratory nature.
Not Today, Satan, in either its 52-minute runtime or in the range of its songcraft around a central influence from Queens of the Stone Age circa 2002-2005, is not a minor undertaking. The ambitious debut full-length from Berlin trio Deaf Wolf — guitarist/vocalist Christian Rottstock (also theremin on “Silence is Golden”), bassist/vocalist Hagen Walther and Alexander Dümont on drums and other percussion — adds periodic lead-vocal tradeoffs between Rottstock and Walther to further broaden the scope of the material, with (I believe) the latter handling the declarations of “Survivor” and the gurgle-voice on “S.M.T.P.” and “Beast in Me,” which arrive in succession before “The End” closes with emphasis on self-awareness. The earlier “Sulphur” becomes a standout for its locked-in groove, fuzz tones and balanced mix, while “See You in Hell” finds its own direction and potential in strut and fullness of sound. There’s room to refine some of what’s being attempted, but Not Today, Satan sets Deaf Wolf off to an encouraging start.
Five years on from their also-newly-reissued 2019 debut, We Are Just Floating in Space, French instrumentalist heavy space rock two-piece Alber Jupiter — bassist Nicolas Terroitin, drummer Jonathan Sonney, and both of them on what would seem to be all the synth until Steven Michel guests in that regard on “Captain Captain” and the title-track — make a cosmic return with Puis Vient la Nuit, the bulk of which is unfurled through four cuts between seven and 10 minutes long after a droning buildup in “Intro.” If you’re waiting for the Slift comparison somewhat inevitable these days anywhere near the words “French” and “space,” keep waiting. There’s some shuffle in the groove of “Daddy’s Spaceship” and “Captain Captain” before it departs for a final minute-plus of residual cosmic background, sure, but the gradual way “Pas de Bol Pour Peter” hits its midpoint apex and the wash brought to fruition in “Daddy’s Spaceship” and “Puis Vient la Nuit” itself is digging in on a different kind of vibe, almost cinematic in its vocal-less drama, broad in dynamic and encompassing on headphones as it gracefully sweeps into the farther reaches of far out, slow in escape velocity but with depth in three dimensions. It is a journey not to be missed.
There’s something of a narrative happening in at least most of the 10 tracks of Cleen‘s impressive debut album, Excursion, as the character speaking in the lyrics drifts through space and eventually meets a perhaps gruesome end, but by the time they’re closing with “A Means to an End” (get it?), the Flint, Michigan, trio of guitarist/vocalist Patrick, bassist Cooley and drummer Jordan are content to leave it at, “I just wanna worship satan and go the fuck to sleep.” Not arguing. Their sound boasts an oozing cosmic ethereality that might remind a given listener of Rezn here and there, but in the post-grunge-meets-post-punk-oh-and-there’s-a-scream movement of “No One Remembers but You,” the punkier shove in the first half of “Year of the Reaper,” the dirt-fuzz jangle of “Aroya” and the sheer heft of “Menticidal Betrayal,” “Sultane of Sand” and “Fatal Blow,” Cleen blend elements in a manner that’s modern but well on its way to being their own in addition to being a nodding clarion for the converted.
On the record, the melancholic build of “Critical Mass” follows guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Caroline Cawley‘s short story recitation “She From Up the Drombán Hill,” and with a switch from third to first-person point of view, “Critical Mass” takes on the voice of its central character, a young woman — a “…comfortable learned woman, a competent speller” — who gets pregnant out of wedlock in very-Catholic Ireland and is sent away to a common shame and death not actually of her own making, though naturally the blame would’ve been hers. Cawley, responsible for the craft at root in Dystopian Future Movies and the emotive performance that drives the band’s 2022 album, War of the Ether (review here), explores this theme with sadness, an unflinching eye, due judgment and depth of perspective. Like the title-track and others surrounding, “Critical Mass” is heavy well before it actually gets loud.
What allows for that is atmosphere, of course. As might be hinted by an album that builds up its introduction around nine minutes of spoken storytelling, words are important on War of the Ether, and that holds for “Critical Mass” as well, but Dystopian Future Movies set that narrative to a sound that has grown capable across now-three-LPs to encompass aspects of downer heavy indie and goth-ish melodic pull — if you can take Crippled Black Phoenix‘s oppressive-sky modus, the mood here resonates similarly — as well as noise rock, atmospheric sludge metal and in the later reaches of “No Matter,” a flourish of guitar float that is more clear-eyed than heavygaze but brings some ethereal sense to War of the Ether just the same. As noted when it was being released, Cawley took inspiration from the scandal surrounding Tuam Mother and Baby Home in Ireland, where nearly 800 dead bodies were discovered of the pregnant women who went and the children they birthed there. Perhaps with this frame it’s inevitable War of the Ether would hit hard, but again, its impact is in more than just its volatile pieces.
Dystopian Future Movies — in which Cawley is joined by Bill Fisher, Marty Fisher and Rafe Dunn — played this past weekend at Masters of the Riff III in Hackney, performing alongside Elephant Tree, The Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell, and scores of others. Two more UK fests are locked in for this Spring in Leeds and Bradford, about which you can see more in the info that follows the clip below. One last note to mention that the lyrics to “Critical Mass” also appear under the video player. I don’t always post lyrics with whatever might be streaming on a given day, but I think the relevance in this instance makes it appropriate. If it throws you off visually or whatever, I apologize. I assure you it made sense to me at the time, which is right now, as it happens.
Please enjoy:
Dystopian Future Movies, “Critical Mass” official video
From the album ‘War of the Ether’ out on Septaphonic Records
Sign up to hear new releases before anyone else with our members only album pre-listens. Get first dibs on tickets to live shows and new merchandise before general release. Membership is free, unsubscribe at any time 🖤 https://dystopianfuturemovies.com/sign-up
Video by Zorad Music by Dystopian Future Movies Recorded by Bill Fisher at XII Chambers Nottingham England Produced by Dystopian Future Movies Mastered by Lira Wish at Film-Maker Studios ‘War of the Ether’ Art & Design by Rafe & Zorad
Dystopian Future Movies live: StrangeForms Festival – Brudenell, Leeds 6th – 7th April Ruination Festival 2024 – Underground, Bradford 11th May
“Critical Mass” lyrics: Looking back it’s clear to know I should have lied So ashamed to admit that now, I didn’t even try In a land that is so drenched in weeping, I know that I’m alone When a hand that should heal is tormented to steal and corrupting your mind
Where is love, where is love and I should go Where is love, where is love and I could go
Only in retrospect can we blame the time And that seems but a weakened stance when it mars entire lives When we wait on unforthcoming promises from a state content with lies When we wait for the order of things to change, while we die
Where is love, where is love and I should go Where is love, where is love and I could go
Your dissent Your descent, I know Your dissent Your descent, I know I’ll await for you
And you hide behind robes And you hide behind robes Despite how we strove Despite how we fought
Where is love, where is love and I should go Where is love, where is love and I could go
Where is love, where is love and I should go Where is love, where is love and I could go
Your dissent Your descent, I know Your dissent Your descent, I know I…
Dystopian Future Movies are: Caroline Cawley – Guitar & Vocals Bill Fisher – Drums Rafe Dunn – Guitar Marty Fisher: Bass Guitar
Posted in Reviews on November 29th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Day three of the Quarterly Review is always a good time. Passing the halfway point for the week isn’t nothing, and I take comfort in knowing there’s another 25 to come after the first 25 are down. Sometimes it’s the little things.
But let’s not waste the few moments we have. I hope you find something you dig.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
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Melody Fields, 1901
Though it starts out firmly entrenched in ’60s psychedelia in “Going Back,” Melody Fields‘ 1901 is less genre-adherent and/or retroist than one might expect. “Jesus” borrows from ’70s soul, but is languid in its rollout with horn-esque sounds for a Morricone-ish vibe, while “Rave On” makes a hook of its folkish and noodly bridge. Keyboards bring a krautrock spirit to “Mellanväsen,” which is fair as “Transatlantic” blisses out ’90s electro-rock, and “Home at Last” prog-shuffles in its own swirl — a masterclass in whatever kind of psych you want to call it — as “Indian MC” has an acoustic strum that reminds of some of Lamp of the Universe‘s recent urgings, and “Void” offers 53 seconds of drone before the stomp of the catchy “In Love” and the keyboard-dreamy “Mayday” ends side B with a departure to match “Transatlantic” capping side A. Unexpectedly, 1901, which is the Swedish outfit’s second LP behind their 2018 self-titled debut (review here), is one of two albums they have for Fall 2023, with 1991 a seeming companion piece. Here’s looking forward.
La Chinga don’t have time for bullshit. They’re going right to the source. Black Sabbath. Motörhead. Enough Judas Priest in “Electric Eliminator” for the whole class and a riffy swagger, loosely Southern in “Stars Fall From the Sky,” and elsewhere, that reminds of Dixie Witch or Halfway to Gone, and that aughts era of heavy generally. “Backs to the Wall” careens with such a love of ’80s metal it reminds of Bible of the Devil — while cuts like “Bolt of Lightning,” “Rings of Power” and smash-then-run opener “Light it Up” immediately positions the trio between ’70s heavy rock and the more aggressive fare it helped produce. Throughout, La Chinga are poised but not so much so as to take away from the energy of their songs, which are impeccably written, varied in energy, and drawn together through the vitality of their delivery. Here’s a kickass rock band, kicking ass. It might be a little too over-the-top for some listeners, but over-the-top is a target unto itself. La Chinga hit it like oldschool masters.
Best known for their work together in Mammothwing and now also both members of Church of the Cosmic Skull as well, brothers Bill Fisher and Marty Fisher make a point of stripping back as much as possible with Massive Hassle, scaling down the complex arrangements of what’s now their main outfit but leaving room for harmonies, on-sleeve Thin Lizzy love and massive fuzz in cuts like “Lane,” “Drifter,” the speedier penultimate “Drink” and the slow-nod payoff of “Fibber,” which closes. That attitude — which one might see developing in response to years spend plugging away in a group with seven people and everyone wears matching suits — assures a song like “Kneel” fits, with its restless twists feeling born organically out of teenage frustrations, but many of Number One‘s strongest moments are in its quieter, bluesy explorations. The guitar holds a note, just long enough that it feels like it might miss the beat on the turnaround, then there’s the snare. With soul in the vocals to spare and a tension you go for every time, if Massive Hassle keep this up they’re going to have to be a real band, and ugh, what a pain in the ass that is.
One of the best albums of 2023, and not near the bottom of the list. Italy’s Sherpa demonstrated their adventurous side with 2018’s Tigris & Euphrates (review here), but the six-song/39-minute Land of Corals is in a class of its own as regards their work. Breaking down genre barriers between industrial/dance, psychedelia, doom, and prog, Sherpa keep a special level of tonal heft in reserve that’s revealed near the end of opener “Silt” and is worthy — yes I mean this — of countrymen Ufomammut in its cosmic impact. “High Walls” is more of a techno throb with a languid melodic vocal, but the two-part, eight-minute “Priest of Corals” begins a thread of Ulverian atmospherics that continues not so much in the second half of the song itself, which brings back the heavy from “Silt” and rolls back and forth over the skull, but in the subsequent “Arousal,” which has an experimental edge in its later reaches and backs its beat with a resonant sprawl of drone. This is so much setup for the apex in “Coward/Pilgrimage to the Sun,” which is the kind of wash that will make you wonder if we’re all just chemicals, and closer “Path/Mud/Barn,” which feels well within its rights to take its central piano line for a walk. I haven’t seen a ton of hype for it, which tracks, but this feels like a record that’s getting to know you while you’re getting to know it.
A sludge metal of marked ferocity and brand-name largesse, Acid Throne‘s debut album, Kingdom’s Death sets out with destructive and atmospheric purpose alike, and while it’s vocals are largely grunts in “River (Bare My Bones)” and the straight-up deathly “Hallowed Ground,” if there’s primitivism at work in the 43-minute six-songer, it’s neither in the character of their tones or what they’re playing. Like a rockslide in a cavern, “Death is Not the End” is the beginning, with melodic flourish in the lead guitar as it passes the halfway point and enough crush generally to force your blood through your pores. It moves slower than “River (Bare My Bones),” but the Norwich, UK, trio are dug in regardless of tempo, with “King Slayer” unfolding like Entombed before revealing itself as more in line with a doomed take on Nile or Morbid Angel. Both it and “War Torn” grow huge by their finish, and the same is true of “Hallowed Ground,” though if you go from after the intro it also started out that way, and the 11-minute closer “Last Will & Testament” is engrossing enough that its last drones give seamlessly over to falling rain almost before you know it. There are days like this. Believe it.
The Holy Nothing, Vol. 1: A Profound and Nameless Fear
With an intensity thrust forth from decades of Midwestern post-hardcore disaffection, Indiana trio The Holy Nothing make their presence felt with Vol. 1: A Profound and Nameless Fear, a five-song/17-minute EP that’s weighted and barking in its onslaught and pivots almost frenetically from part to part, but that nonetheless has an overarching groove that’s pure Sabbath boogie in centerpiece “Unending Death,” and opener “Bathe Me” sets the pummeling course with noise rock and nu metal chicanery, while “Bliss Trench” raw-throats its punkish first half en route to a slowdown that knows it’s hot shit. Bass leads the way into “Mondegreen,” with a threatening chug and post-hardcore boogie, just an edge of grunge to its later hook to go with the last screams, and feedback as it inevitably would, leads the way into “Doom Church,” with a more melodic and spacious echoing vocal and a riff that seems to kind of eat the rest of the song surrounding. I’ll be curious how the quirk extrapolates over a full-length’s runtime, but they sound like they’re ready to get weird and they’re from Fort Wayne, which is where Charlton Heston was from in Planet of the Apes, and I’m sorry, but that’s just too on-the-nose to be a coincidence.
Runway may be making their self-titled debut with this eight-song/31-minute blowout LP delivered through Cardinal Fuzz, Echodelick and We, Here & Now as a triumvirate of lysergic righteousness, but the band is made up of five former members of Saskatoon instrumentalists Shooting Guns so it’s not exactly their first time at the dance of wavy lines and chambered echo that make even the two-minute “No Witnesses” feel broad, and the crunch-fuzz of “Attempted Mordor,” the double-time hi-hat on “Franchy Cordero” that vibes with all the casual saunter of Endless Boogie but in a shorter package as the song’s only four minutes long. “Banderas” follows a chugging tack and doesn’t seem to release its tension even in the payoff, but “Crosshairs” is all freedom-rock, baby, with a riff like they put the good version of America in can, and the seven-minute capper “Mailman” reminds that our destination was the cosmos all along. Jam on, you glorious Canadian freaks. By this moniker or any other, your repetitive excavations are always welcome on these shores.
Spanish heavy rockers Wet Cactus look to position themselves at the forefront of a regional blossoming with their third album, the 12-track Magma Tres. Issued through Electric Valley Records, the 45-minute long-player follows 2018’s Dust, Hunger and Gloom (review here) and sees the band tying together straightforward, desert-style heavy rock with a bit of grunge sway in “Profound Dream” before it twists around to heavy-footed QOTSA start-stops ahead of the fuzzy trash-boogie of “Mirage” and the duly headspinning guitar work of “My Gaze is Fixed Ahead.” The second half of the LP has interludes between sets of two tracks — the album begins with “I. The Long Escape…” as the first of them — but the careening “Self Bitten Snake” and the tense toms under the psych guitar before that big last hook in “Solar Prominence” want nothing for immediacy, and even “IV. …Of His Musical Ashes!,” which closes, becomes a charge with the band’s collective force behind it. There’s more to what they do than people know, but you could easily say the same thing about the entire Iberian Peninsula’s heavy underground.
All-caps Icelandic troupe MC MYASNOI telegraph their experimentalism early in the drone of “Liquid Lung [Nucomp]” and let some of the noise around the electronic nod in “Antenula [OEBT]” grow caustic in the first half before first bliss then horror build around a progression of drums, ending with sax and feedback and noise and where were the lines between them anyway. The delve into the unknown threads more feedback through “Slug Paradox,” which has a vocal line somewhere not terribly far off from shoegaze, but is itself nothing so pedestrian, while “Kuroki” sounds like it could’ve been recorded at rehearsal, possibly on the other side of the wall. The go-wherever-you-end-up penchant holds in “Bleach in Eye,” and when “Xcomputer must dieX” clicks on, it brings about the rumble MC MYASNOI seem to have been threatening all along without giving up the abidingly oddball stance, what with the keyboard and sax and noise, noise, noise, plus whispers at the end. I’m sure that in the vast multiverse there’s a plenet that’s ready for the kind of off-kilter-everythingism wrought by MC MYASNOI, but you can bet your ass this ain’t it. And if you’re too weird for earth, you’re alright by me.
The 2020 album from transient folk singer-songwriter Cinder Well, No Summer (review here), landed with palpable empathy in a troubled July, and Cadence has a similar minimalist place to dwell in “Overgrown” or finale “I Will Close in the Moonlight,” but by and large the arrangements are more lush throughout the nine songs of the latest work. Naturally, Amelia Baker‘s voice remains a focal point for the material, but organ, viola and fiddle, drums and bass, etc., bring variety to the gentle delivery of “Gone the Holding,” the later reaches of “Crow” and allow for the build of elements in “A Scorched Lament” that make that song’s swaying crescendo such a high point. And having high points is somewhat striking, in context, but Cinder Well‘s range as shown throughout Cadence is beholden to no single emotional or even stylistic expression. If you’d read this and gripe that the record isn’t heavy — shit. Listen again.
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 1st, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Comprised of brothers Bill Fisher and Marty Fisher — who played together in Mammothwing and now collaborate in Church of the Cosmic Skull and apparently Dystopian Future Movies as well — the two-piece Massive Hassle was named in honor of the thing they wanted to avoid. Fair. Church of the Cosmic Skull requires no little amount of commitment to aesthetic, and an outlet for songs not in their bright-harmonized cultish theme makes sense. They’re brothers. In a band together. They’ve been playing since probably they were younger than they are in the picture that adorns the cover of Number One, their debut LP out Oct. 27. Familial relation makes for vibrant dynamic, and sure enough that’s the case here too.
The resulting album is purposefully raw in form, performed and recorded live, and Massive Hassle have been posting videos for the tracks — well made performance clips; I’m pretty sure they just taped themselves making the record, which would be convenient in a way that, once it was done, would be less of a hassle than doing videos after — and the latest of them is “Knife,” which you can see and hear below, multisensory being that you are. Please do enjoy.
Info and the always crucial preorder link, courtesy of the PR wire:
MASSIVE HASSLE – Number One – Oct. 27
Great news to all lovers of real music – large numbers of people still get it.
An experiment has been conducted: via the new two-piece project, MASSIVE HASSLE, brothers Bill and Marty Fisher (Mammothwing, Church of the Cosmic Skull, Dystopian Future Movies) have been releasing all of their new garage-rock / jazz-blues / punk / country / doom-metal inspired hit songs on video, recorded and filmed live in single studio takes, you know, like the Whistle Test.
The results have been most triumphant – in the first two months, our new favourite harmony-singing bearded brethren have surpassed 50,000 youtube views, 50,000 spotify streams, pissed off a ton of internet users with their logo and genre claims, and are on the verge of selling out of the first edition vinyl on preorder – all with 3 more songs yet to be released for your listening pleasure.
Today they announce the release date of the much-anticipated debut album ‘Number One’ – out Fri 27th Oct 2023 on Septaphonic Records.
No longer must music be over-produced, sample-replaced, multi-tracked to high heaven and generally lacking in good vibrations – MASSIVE HASSLE are here to take you into a new epoch where music is played with instruments and songs are sung into microphones for real.
Check out the videos and preorder the new album ‘Number One’ on vinyl, CD and digital here:massivehassle.tv
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 19th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Massive Hassle, you say? Well that’s family, innit? I like the subtle humor there, and I like the semi-alliterative way the name of the project rolls out of the mouth, curling the lip under for the hard ‘v’ and spreading wide to account for the double ‘s’ in ‘hassle,’ and more important, I like the song. The first track from the brothers-only-allowed Massive Hassle — whose fraternal components, guitarist/vocalist Marty Fisher and drummer/vocalist Bill Fisher, used to play together in Mammothwing and currently both feature in Church of the Cosmic Skull, which the latter founded — flows like mellow psych blues early and gets a heavier stretch going later but is still way-soulful in vibe and works as fluidly as one might expect from two dudes who actually grew up together.
“Lane” is available to check out in a live video below, and apparently that’s going to be the Massive Hassle method throughout, releasing each song from the album to lead up to the album’s actual release. Preorders are coming in about 10 days — I accidentally spent my Obelisk merch Paypal credit on a seat upgrade for my flight home from Freak Valley, gotta sell some more shirts; $25 for a jewel case CD is jarring until you get to the part where it says free shipping — and I wonder if creating and taking on another band has become or will become a pain in the ass, or if the Fishers can avoid that particular trap. If so, they should remember to write a book about that and share the secret with the universe.
I don’t see an exact release date for Massive Hassle‘s debut full-length, Number One, on the preorder page, but it says it’ll ship in Nov.-Dec., so the two-piece have plenty of time to do more video reveals and trickle out information about the band and album, and that’s frankly a lot more fun. Here’s looking forward.
Second single drops this Friday at 7PM BST. The following came down the PR wire:
‘Brothers Bill Fisher and Marty Fisher (Mammothwing, Church of the Cosmic Skull, Dystopian Future Movies) announce new duo project MASSIVE HASSLE, with their debut album ‘Number One’ coming later this year on Septaphonic Records, and the first of many video singles premiering this Friday.
– With Bill on drums, Marty on guitar, both singing, the project started at the end of 2022 in Nottingham, England, with a number of directives in mind:
– Everything is to be recorded live and filmed in singular takes
– All songs and lyrics are written collaboratively in the studio
– Both brothers will sing in harmony or unison throughout
– Every track will be released as a live video building up to the album launch
– Don’t let it become a Massive Hassle
To date, the results of this experiment are a number of astoundingly smooth, thick, wide and deeply moving tracks which straddle a variety of influences including garage-rock, jazz, blues, punk, country, doom-metal, and no other two-piece bands that have come before…’
The countdown to preorders for vinyl, CD and merch has begun – check out the teaser video and subscribe here:MASSIVEHASSLE.TV
Posted in Questionnaire on March 1st, 2023 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Caroline Cawley of Dystopian Future Movies & Church of the Cosmic Skull
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
Musician: After decades as an avid music obsessive, and stints DJing and as a concert promoter in my native Ireland in my 20s – It took me til the age of 31 to truly begin to write music. I was a bit lost, working in a bar, disillusioned with the education system in my newly adopted country (UK) when, after writing a few songs I was vaguely proud of, I met Bill. He was playing in a blues band with his brother Marty and, as a massive Jellyfish fan – early ’90s San Fran beat-combo led by singing drummer Andy Sturmer – Bill’s combined singing and drumming skills caught my eye.
I’m looking for a drummer to jam with, I said, passing him his free bottle of beer after their set. We exchanged details. It was a few months later, after bumping into him again outside a favoured late night establishment that we’d more often stand outside than within, that I noted his Taint T-shirt and how his beard was so long that it looked like part of the design. We began to jam a few weeks later and those early songs ended up on our first DFM self-titled EP. COTCS came a few years later and we’ve been a couple for almost ten years.
My day job is as a Primary School Music Specialist teaching 5 to 11 year olds. I’ve always wanted to be a teacher since I taught my little brother and a row of teddy bears in the front room at the age of 5. After almost 20 years as a regular class teacher, I recently began retraining as a music specialist. I’m now a year and a half in and beginning to see some positive changes. Namely marginalised kids who struggle with school writing Bessie Smith inspired 12 bar blues songs about their own lives. Incredibly rewarding stuff.
Describe your first musical memory.
My Dad is arguably more of a music anorak than myself and we had a constant and varied soundtrack growing up. My parents have told stories of me sleeping between two speakers as an infant, Led Zeppelin blaring, or dancing around the kitchen to Nik Kershaw classic ‘Wouldn’t It Be Good’ circa ‘84. But I guess one of my first musical memories is at the age of 5 or 6 listening to my then favourite album, Heart’s self-titled 1985 offering in the car parked outside our childminder’s house and wondering what ‘if looks could kill’ meant.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Writing songs and beginning to record them with Bill in the early days of DFM was a revelation. Something that seemed so outside of the realms of possibility was within reach and almost a bit bizarre – hearing your own ideas played back to you. But our first gig was something else entirely. We booked it in a nearby city – almost everyone I knew was a seasoned musician in a great band so it was entirely too intimidating to think I could perform in front of any of them. This was the first time I would attempt to lead a performance in front of anyone since a frozen brain malfunction meant a humiliated walk off stage at a piano competition 20 years earlier.
Performing those songs and managing a pedal board in front of a very kind and accommodating crowd of 15 in Sheffield enabled my first experience of that ball of emotion rising in the chest, a release like no other as it rose and rose and tumbled out over those 4 or 5 songs. I burst into tears in the kebab shop afterwards. It was adrenalin, of course, but it was also something more. Some chemical composition changed within me and that was that. I’m a pretty heart-on-sleeve sort of person but there was an honesty and laid-bare quality to performance that I hadn’t expected.
The first airing of ‘She From Up The Drombán Hill’ – the spoken word track from our latest album ‘War of the Ether’ on a Leeds stage recently threw me right back to that feeling.
Telling that story in a crowded, silent room – an exposure like no other – voicing a story lived and endured by so many over decades back in Ireland. Those chorus breaks, those wide screen stabs have never sounded so enormous or so visceral. It’s a dream to be part of something like that.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
Dystopian Future Movies’ third album ‘War of the Ether’ is written about one recently uncovered instance of large scale abuse in Ireland centred around the Mother and Baby Homes – where pregnant, unwed women and teens were deposited by family or local clergy to hide what was deemed sinful. Growing up in a Catholic country, where church and state were firmly intertwined it was only later as abuses made the national press – abuses of power, child-sex abuse, cover ups – that what was often hiding in plain sight, behind a thin vale, was foisted into the public domain. And many simply did not want to believe it.
I’m not sure I ever had a firmly held religious belief, perhaps as a child where a romantised idea of unconditional love, forgiveness and the church as safe space permeated our classrooms and religion books in the form of bible stories. But when the idea of priest as counsellor, as listener, as pillar of community broke down, Catholic Ireland never recovered and is ironically a more accepting place now than it arguably ever was before with the recent passing of progressive legislation around abortion and same sex marriage.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Progression is an interesting one. In education we are constantly being asked if our curricula or teaching approach can demonstrate progression of knowledge and skills across a child’s time at school. So we make sure that our kids are embedding and deepening their knowledge and understanding of concepts over time – so that some aspects become second nature to reduce cognitive load. Like playing guitar for example, if you are spending all of your time considering the fretting of a chord, it will take over all of your cognitive space leaving little for creativity. So, get better at the little things so you then have more head space for innovation.
Where does it lead? Well progressing within a band with a group of collaborators can only lead to more of those magic moments – the beauty of a super tight performance, moving like a ballet troupe between sections seamlessly. Anticipating or feeling changes in a jam, innately knowing or feeling what needs to happen next during the construction of a piece of music. To my mind, there’s nothing like the joy of a group of musicians inhabiting a piece of music.
How do you define success?
Humans are never content and always striving, as a general rule. So what accounts for success, even personally, seems to be always shifting. That can be good – being ambitious for yourself etc. But real success, I’ve come to learn more recently, is in the enjoyment of each step of the way. No matter what we achieve, we’ll be looking to the next thing, and that can be exhausting and mean that you aren’t really that focussed or present for what’s happening right now. It’s hard to enjoy or recognise the stressful parts of the journey but they are just as valid and necessary to an extent.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
That’s a really difficult one – I actually can’t think of anything. I guess even very difficult things go on to teach us something or change us for the better in the end.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I’d like to complete a collection of short stories. Making a short film and or working on a soundtrack/ audio accompaniment would be a really interesting project. In many ways, DFM feels like it would lead there some day.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
To evoke emotion and thus bring humanity closer through shared experience with a greater understanding of our similarities and differences.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Having some sort of non-band related holiday with Bill at some point. They are few and far between!
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 1st, 2023 by JJ Koczan
UK harmony-laced seven-piece Church of the Cosmic Skull will follow their Spring US headlining stretch (dates here) with a corresponding trip to the other side of the planet for an Australian tour n August that will take them from Brisbane to Wo Fest in Melbourne. They go in support of last year’s oh-so-gorgeous and no less sinister There is No Time (review here), which continued and furthered their thread of ace songwriting, hooky melodies, lush progressivism and dug-in cultish themes.
Fun fact: every time I walk into the gym I belong to in order to go swimming, see all The people on the treadmills, lifting weights and so on, I can’t help but hear “One More Step” from that album, which so succinctly encapsulates that hamster-wheel effect that keeps us all from realizing ourselves on whatever level you want to pick; existential, spiritual, financial, whatever. The villain of the song is the cult itself, but if you wanted to substitute capitalism there, it works just as well. And by no means is that me high-and-mightying myself. I’m right there too. As with so many terrible aspects of human history, we’re all complicit. To wit, I’m writing on my phone. No escape.
I got sidetracked there, but the point here is if you’re in Oz, go see Church of the Cosmic Skull, and if you’re in New Zealand, convince the band to go there too, because really, if you’re gonna make the trip, isn’t it worth hitting both?
Dates follow as per the PR wire:
Church of the Cosmic Skull announce Australia tourdates in August 2023
Fresh from a headline tour of the USA and the release of their critically acclaimed fourth album ‘There Is No Time’, the UK rock group and spiritual organisation are set to spread the light of the Cosmic Rainbow across Australia.
‘Putting the Abba in Sabbath’ since 2016, the groups joyous blend of prog-psych-pop-rock with dark occult undercurrents has ignited hysteria and frenzy across the globe.
Dates – 2023 Friday 18/8 The Brightside, Brisbane Saturday 19/8 The Lansdowne, Sydney Sunday 20/8 La La Las, Wollongong Wednesday 23/8 Baroque Room, Katoomba Thursday 24/8 The Basement, Canberra Saturday 26/8 Wo Fest, The Evelyn, Melbourne
