This October, Berlin progressive heavy rockers Samavayo will head out on tour with Dutch noisemakers-and-sometimes-jammers The Machine, doing a 10-show run that includes stops at Up in Smoke, Keep it Low and the Setalight Festival. Hey, it’s a busy season. There are other shows besides, of course, and as Samavayo continue to support last year’s Vatan (review here), they’ve also announced a reissue for the prior outing, 2016’s Dakota (review here), which had also been re-pressed in 2017. As that record was their first as a three-piece, the revisit seems fair enough, and to mark the occasion, the band have a new video for “Intergalactic Hunt” that, well… well… well, it’s just great.
It’s got the band wearing foil hats and using drum hardware like laser guns. There’s a threat of a freak gasoline fight breaking out, and then they do battle with all manner of trashcans, from little R2-D2-looking ones to big ol’ dumpsters in the climax. I won’t spoil the ending, but yeah. It’s all pretty awesome.
You’ll find it at the bottom of the post. Enjoy:
“Dakota” was the first album SAMAVAYO released as a trio. Oriental influences became more and more apparent on this one and for the first time the whole album was recorded all live in analog recording technique – which meant a more organic sound and far more labor involved. With this record the band made a huge step leading to up to the follow up “Vatan” (2018 / Noisolution) that made the band rise from their status as scene-veteran to a true scene highlight.
“Dakota” is and has been sought after now more than ever – which has inevitably led to it being sold out by now. Fear not though: We’ve decided to make this gem available again for you and all fellow fans – and also just in time before the band is back on the road with STONED JESUS and later this year with THE MACHINE.
The special thing about Dakota is the mix of 70s and 90s rock sound that combines progressive instrumental parts and heavy mosh parts with oriental elements and unusual rhythms. The best example is the song „Arezooye Bahar“, which is SAMAVAYO´s 2nd song in Persian language. The Iranian singer, Behrang Alavi, sings about freedom. He himself was a political refugee and experienced bomb attacks at a very young age.
As a former applicant for asylum Behrang reacts to a current European topic that effects him deeply because of his own experiences. To celebrate the second release of “Dakota” there is also a new video to an “old” track: The instrumental “Intergalactic Hunt”. A video resembling a true little Sci-Fi-Crime film well worth seeing while featuring a soundtrack so brute and intergalactically heavy it’s gonna blow your mind right up into space!
Also: The title “Dakota“ stands for the North American native tribe of the same name and translates to „friend, ally“. SAMAVAYO have been playing together for more than a decade which has also made them grow together to musical allies. They are friends who have been creating a musical unity over the years. And to come full circle, that is the translation of SAMAVAYO: „Unity“
Tour dates: Sat, JUL 20 – TBC, Germany Sun, JUL 21 – Welcome To The Village Festival – Leeuwarden, Netherlands Antilles Fri, JUL 26 – Sommerschein Festival – Hofheim Am Taunus, Germany Sat, JUL 27 – Rock im Wald – Mosbach In Baden, Germany Fri, AUG 16 – Voice Of Art Festival – Hohenstein-ernstthal, Germany Thu, OCT 3 – The Machine & Samavayo – Tilburg, Netherlands Fri, OCT 4 – Samavayo @ Up In Smoke Festival – Pratteln, Switzerland Sat, OCT 5 – The Machine & Samavayo – Vortex, Siegen, Germany Sun, OCT 6 – The Machine & Samavayo – Deventer, Netherlands Mon, OCT 7 – The Machine & Samavayo – Hamburg, Germany Tue, OCT 8 – The Machine & Samavayo – Kobenhavn, Denmark Wed, OCT 9 – The Machine & Samavayo – Dortmund, Germany Thu, OCT 10 – The Machine & Samavayo – Chemnitz, Germany Fri, OCT 11 – Keep It Low Festival – Munich, Germany Sat, OCT 12 – Setalight Festival 2019 – Berlin, Germany
Germany-based heavy rockers Samavayo are getting ready to move forward from their 2016 album, Dakota (review here). That record, their fifth overall, has served as a high-water mark for the Berlin trio as they’ve continued to refine their approach within driving riffage and Middle Eastern-inflected stylistic flourish. They have a handful of dates left for this year and then they’ll settle in and begin the writing process anew. At the risk of giving you my actual opinion on the matter, I think Samavayo are underrated as songwriters and so the idea of another record and another step forward from them is exciting. They’ve only grown more progressive over time.
Before they get down to the nitty-gritty of constructing new material — which they’ll do with an eye toward a Fall 2018 release according to guitarist/vocalist Behrang Alavi, who’s joined in the band by bassist/vocalist/Moog-ist Andreas Voland and drummer/percussionist/vocalist Stephan Voland — Samavayo will oversee a second pressing of Dakota, and it’s to mark this occasion today that you’ll find the premiere of the previously-unreleased cut “Justify” below. Recorded at Big Snuff Studio by Richard Behrens, its central riff a little bit speaks to the upbeat shove one finds from the likes of Red Fang, but even to this Samavayo can’t help but lend their own personality.
Full in tone and righteous in hook, “Justify” is one more example of the edge Samavayo bring to classic-style structures and the kind of rhythmic drive that will hopefully find its way into their new stuff as well. Alavi offered some background on the song which you can read under the track itself below, followed of course by the tour dates.
Please enjoy:
Behrang Alavi on “Justify”:
“Justify” was recorded in the same 11-day session as Dakota at Richard Behrens’ studio in Feb. 2016. We didn’t put the song on the album like our previously-released “To The Ground” because we wanted to have that as a clear, homogeneous heavy psych stoner album. We planned to release them later, but by then we didn’t have a plan how. Now we release the track with the second edition (500 pieces) of the Dakota CD after the first edition has sold out (only few few copies left).
As we did with the second edition of our first album death.march.melodies, we again changed a detail on the second edition to make it something special. In the case of d.m.m., we changed the artwork of the CD print. On Dakota, the artwork is unchanged but we added a bonus track at the end of the CD.
This month we also started writing songs for the next album planned for autumn 2018. We have a few shows left this year in Germany and Switzerland. If progress remains positive, we will record the album in spring 2018 while we play few shows. Next year we will be playing festivals where we are going to put some of the new songs into set list and then have the main tour with the new album in autumn. We are considering looking for a new label after many years releasing on our “home”-label, Setalight.
Samavayo live: Oct 03 Forum, Bielefeld, Germany supporting Brant Bjork Oct 12 Hirscheneck Basel, Switzerland Oct 13 Böröm Pöm Pöm Oberentfelden, Switzerland Oct 14 Jazzkeller Hofheim Am Taunus, Germany Nov 18 Lindenpark Potsdam, Germany Dec 01 Finsterwalde, Germany
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 23rd, 2017 by JJ Koczan
French style-blender heavy rockers Dot Legacy have a considerable string of dates lined up as they continue to support their 2016 sophomore full-length, To the Others (review here). Over the course of the next two months, they’ll play throughout not only their native France, but Germany, Switzerland, Romania, Denmark and Belgium as well, making a stop on Oct. 20 in Berlin for the Setalight Festival, which is hosted by their label, Setalight Records.
That’s a bill they’ll share with Mars Red Sky, Mother’s Cake, Stoner Train, The Legendary Flower Punk, Lucifer in the Sky with Diamonds, Cosmic Fall and others, and it should make for a highlight of the tour as a whole, which rounds out just two nights later. It was put together by Total Volume Booking, and you’ll find the poster and dates below:
Dot Legacy – European Tour
Pick any of your favourite musical genre and put it in front of Rock, Dot Legacy will make it happen.
These four young French rockers make you dance with a solid fuzzed-out & rock base. Since 2014 they have fought to find a unique mark and sound. After four European and one Brazil tour, they have developed a crazy stage act of fury energy. Dot Legacy released their first album on Setalight Records (Germany) in June 2014 and has just released their second album TO THE OTHERS November 2016, with Setalight.
EUROPE HERE WE GO! 25/08 : FR, Nantes / La Scène Michelet 02/09 : SW, Luzern / Treibhaus Luzern Festival 03/09 : FR, Reims / LE Dropkick BAR 15/09 : DE, Dresden / Chemiefabrik Dresden (Chemo) 16/09 : DE, Wurzburg / Immerhin Würzburg 20/09 : FR, Strasbourg / L’elastic Bar 21/09 : SW, Zurich / Ebrietas 22/09 : FR, Lyon / Bar des Capucins 23/09 : FR, Fumel / Pavillon Fumel 28/09 : DE, Mannheim / Kurzbar 29/09 : DE, Ulm / Hexenhaus Ulm 30/09 : DE, Munich / TBC 04/10 : RO, Cluj-Napoca / The Shelter 05/10 : RO, Bucharest / Quantic 06/10 : RO, Timisoara / DAOS club 07/10 : TBC 12/10 : TBC 13/10 : DE, Hannover / SubKultur – Hannover 14/10 : DK, Copenhagen / Spillestedet Stengade 18/10 : DE, Kiel / Die Pumpe 19/10 : DE, Ilmenau / Baracke 5 e.V. 20/10 : DE, Berlin / Setalight Festival 2017 in Berlin 21/10 : DE, Halle (Saale) / Rockpool eV 22/10 : BE, Ghent / Muziekcentrum Kinky Star
Dot Legacy is: Damien Quintard – Lead Vocal, Bass Arnaud Merckling – Guitar, Keyboard, Back Vocals John Defontaine – Guitar, Back Vocals Arthur Menard – Drums, Back Vocals
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 17th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
In my experience, there’s always something to dig about it when Saint Petersburg progressive heavy rockers The Grand Astoria get an idea in their heads. That usually leads to projects like that time they put out one copy of a 9CD box set or that time they did a record of tracks influenced by classical music. You never really know where they’re headed. This time? They’re headed for fuzz. The Fuzz of Destiny, as it happens.
That’s the title of the Russian outfit’s latest EP, and it features eight tracks using eight different distortion pedals, basking in the glories of fuzz and the different sides of a sonic personality that said effect can bring forth, from the harsher bite of “Sunflower Queen” to the warmer depths of “Glass Walls.” But what makes the project even cooler and even more The Grand Astoria‘s own is the fact that they list the different pedals used to achieve these sounds, basically letting the listener play along at home as they make their way through the short release.
Feel free to do that by streaming the release at the bottom of this post, if you’re so inclined. All the release info follows as hoisted from their Bandcamp page:
First ever tribute to the distortion box!
8 years of The Grand Astoria / 8 songs / 8 different fuzz pedals
Personnel: Kamille Sharapodinov – vocals, guitars, concept, music and lyrics Danila Danilov – vocals, bass, keyboards, flute, percussion, recording Nikolay Kunavin – drums Ksenia Shamarina – vocals (4) Alexander Karelin – mixing and mastering Sophia Miroedova – artwork
Recorded by Danila Danilov at Red Wave Studio during December 2016 – February 2017
Tracklisting: 1. Sunflower Queen 02:53 2. Extra Lap 01:15 3. Tour Diary 04:30 4. Pocket Guru 05:40 5. Glass Walls 02:37 6. The Sleeper Awakes 04:51 7. The Fuzz of Destiny 04:50 8. Eight Years Anniversary Riff 02:32
Pedals used: 1 – Dr. No Octofuzz (with octave off) 2 – Dr. No Power Driver/Booster + Old Octave 3 – Guyatone TZ2 4 – Black Arts Toneworks Pharaoh 5 – Dunlop Jimi Hendrix System Classic Fuzz 6 – ZVex Wooly Mammoth 7 – Dr. No Kafuzz 8 – MXR Blue Box
CD (4 panel digipack) is available via thegrandastoria@gmail.com
Last spring, Berlin-based heavy rock three-piece Samavayo reinforced their willingness to cross genre lines with their fifth album, Dakota (review here). With a strong sense of drive behind their crunching tones, they brought together elements of noise rock, heavy riffing and flourish of Middle Eastern progressions that only further distinguished their material. Recorded by Richard Behrens (Heat, formerly Samsara Blues Experiment) and released through Setalight Records, it was angular in its purpose — that is, prone to sharp edges on a sonic level — but flowed smoothly throughout and brought the band to a place that emphasized the consideration put into their songwriting without coming across as navelgazing in its sound.
It rocked, in other words. I guess I’m trying to say it rocked.
The trio of guitarist/vocalist Behrang Alavi, bassist/vocalist Andreas Voland (also Moog) and drummer/percussionist/vocalist Stephan Voland haven’t been shy about getting out to support Dakota, and next month, they’ll hit the road on a tour through Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria and the Czech Republic ahead of showing up in the UK for a slot at Desertfest London 2017. Good gig to get, but it’s hardly their last. Summer festival season awaits in Europe, and July will find Samavayo back in action at the long-running Stoned from the Underground as well, and it seems likely more are to follow (also more precede, hello Hell over Esslingen).
At the same time, and perhaps to herald their departure, Samavayo have put together an artfully shot new video for the track “Cross the Line” from Dakota that is premiering today. You get to see the band playing as silhouettes and you get to see people with boxes on their heads — are they robots? — and other such fun whatnots, but of course the star is the song itself, which shows off where Samavayo are sound-wise and the penchant for working under a variety of influences that stands them out so much from their peers.
Please find it below, followed by their tour dates, and enjoy:
Samavayo, “Cross the Line” official video
Cross The Line is the first official video of the latest album Dakota from the German stoner rock band Samavayo. The song is currently also the first of their live set. “The audience gets carried away by that song and its sound right at the beginning of our shows,” says singer and guitarist Behrang Alavi. “The song also has a message: We can’t cross the red line of humanity and decency, because there won’t be a way back from it. We need to find empathy and get rid of ruthlessness and greed.”
In cameraman and director Johannes Plank Samavayo found the perfect fit to visualize that message. He mobilized the antagonists of his upcoming movie “Eva Ost.” The “TV-Men,” whose heads are actual TVs, illustrate a society poisoned by consumption and ownership. In the video the tv screens show some cuttings that can be understood as political statements and therefore build up a new meta level. The message is: “Nobody can run from this change. Our brains are already poisoned.”
Credits: Director / Camera / Editor / Production | Johannes Plank Assistant Director | Florence Freitag Gaffer | Yannick Spiess Production Design | Mihan Torabi Camera Assistant | Ranav Adhikari Set Runner | Siddarth Thapa Catering | Anne Berger Drivers | Andreas Voland, Christian Schmalfuss Musicians | Behrang Alavi, Stephan Voland, Andreas Voland TV-Men (Berlin) | André Schröder, Ricardo Ziege, Richard Volkmer, Simon Höhne, Mustafa Bozbalak TV-Men (Plauen) | Christian Dressel, Stephan Stumpf, Alexander Enskat, Rico Gemeinhardt
Samavayo “Cross the Line” tour: Mar 16 Zentralcafé Nuremberg, GER * Mar 17 Immerhin Wurzburg, GER * Mar 18 Dirty+Dancing Osnabrück, GER * Mar 24 Zukunft am Ostkreuz, Berlin, GER ** Mar 25 Spring Rocks! 2017, Wolfenbüttel, GER Apr 03 AKK Karlsruhe, GER *** Apr 04 L’Elastic Bar, Strasbourg, FR Apr 05 Dr. Feelgood, Paris, FR **** Apr 06 Café Faust, Stuttgart, GER **** Apr 07 Gaswerk, Winterthur, CH **** Apr 08 The Bruch Brothers, Luzern, CH **** Apr 12 Alte Mälzerei, Regensburg, GER Apr 14 Kramladen, Vienna, A *** Apr 15 Kain Prague, CZ *** Apr 16 Bajkazyl, Brno, CZ *** Apr 28 Little Devil, Tilburg, NL Apr 29 Desertfest 2017 London, UK Apr 30 Hopla, Cologne, GER May 11 Sabotage Dresden, GER May 12 Hell over Esslingen, Esslingen Am Neckar, GER Jul 13 Stoned from the Underground, Erfurt, GER Jul 14 Steinbruchfestival 2017, Mühlheim, GER * with Operators ** with Mother Engine *** with Shotgun Valium **** with Hellroom Projectors
Posted in Bootleg Theater on February 13th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
“Horizon” is the opening track from Dot Legacy‘s late-2016 second album, To the Others (review here), and it finds the Parisian heavy fuzz enthusiasts embarking on the first of several risks they’ll take across the record’s genre-hopping course. No way around it, there’s a bit of rapping going on here.
Now, as somebody who lived through the ’90s, that’s what we call a big red flag. Hard not to have post-trauma flashbacks of Limp Bizkit covering George Michael in a protest-too-much display of knuckle-dragging tough-guy heteronormativity, but on any level you want to approach it, that’s not what’s happening here, and certainly in the context of To the Others, it’s not where Dot Legacy‘s intentions lie on the Setalight Records release. “Horizon” sets the tone of energy to which the rest of the album soon responds in deeply varied forms, and if anything the rapping in the opener is an immediate communication to listeners that there’s nothing off the table in terms of where they might go.
That’s very much how the record plays out in its wake, and while I’m willing to admit it’s kind of scary to imagine that rap-rocking impulses might one day rear their heads again, I genuinely think we’re safe. It’s gonna be okay.
Dot Legacy — the four-piece of vocalist/bassist Damien Quintard, guitarist/keyboardist/backing vocalist Arnaud Merckling, guitarist/backing vocalist John Defontaine and drummer/backing vocalist Arthur Menard — worked with WIPS (Web Interactive Promotion Site) to put together an interactive video for “Horizon.” If you go to the special site they’ve set up, you can see a version of the clip in which arrows pop up that let you basically choose your own adventure and create the narrative of the video itself.
It’s timed, so you have to pay attention as you make your way through, but it’s actually a pretty cool idea and it’s something special from the band, who’ve already put out clips for “Pioneer” (posted here), “Story of Fame” (posted here) and “211” (posted here) to represent the various sides of To the Others. Something special for a song that has a few surprises of its own up its sleeve.
You can see the regular version of the video premiering below, followed by more info about the interactive project, which also includes a bunch of behind-the-scenes bonus footage and other goodies.
Experience DOT LEGACY’s highly acclaimed single “HORIZON” like never before. On this website you will be constantly creating your own version of the video clip, each time changing the story line, and launching you deeper into the musical space Dot Legacy created for you.
The website also contains amazing access to Bonus material!
– LIVE 360° video of Dot Legacy’s show in Brussels, along with Multi Cam footage – Two fun and crazy interviews of the Band including on 360° candy eating frenzy madness! – An interactive map to follow with personal videos of Dot Legacy in all the cites they played in on their tour with TRUCKFIGTHERS (rated PG 18) – A mixing console to do your OWN MIX of HORIZON! Discover all the seperated track that made this song possible and fuzzy as hell! – The Making of: go behind the curtain and discover how the video clip was shot. Meet the talented team of WIPS!
Posted in Bootleg Theater on February 1st, 2017 by JJ Koczan
Parisian four-piece Dot Legacy issued their second full-length, To the Others (review here), last fall on Setalight Records, and with it, set themselves on a bold course of genre defiance/melding. Each track seemed to offer a different persona, tied together through energy of performance and a core underlying purpose in execution — Dot Legacy were putting on a show; it was theatrical from start to finish. As they took to the road supporting Truckfighters around the album’s release, they seemed intent on bringing that show to life.
The band themselves related each cut on To the Others to explosions as part of a rocket launch, and fair enough for the force of their delivery on songs like “211” and the penultimate “Story of Fame.” “Story of Fame” is duly relevant here, since Dot Legacy‘s new video, for closer “Pioneer,” follows one for that track (posted here) and seems to be intended as a sequel of sorts for it. Fair enough since one song follows the other on the record, but like the music itself, the two clips wind up working on different themes despite making use of distinctly cool-toned colors — greens and blues, etc. These aren’t the only videos Dot Legacy have done for To the Others — in October, they also had one for “211” (posted here) — but the notion of “Pioneer” being intended to sit directly alongside “Story of Fame” adds intrigue and an avenue for listener/viewer interpretation, and that’s never a bad thing.
Because, as noted, the record is so varied, I’ve included the full Bandcamp stream at the bottom of this post. Not something I usually do for video posts, but I think it’s justified in this case, especially since a lot of the impact of “Pioneer” comes in context of To the Others as a whole, the song’s initial brooding reminding of something Nine Inch Nails might’ve brought to The Fragile before it takes on a still-wistful push in the guitar, further distinguished through a dramatic vocal arrangement, as well as guitar and piano interplay. As a wrap for the here-then-there-then-over-here To the Others it’s all the more resonant, but even approached on its own, as a single, three-plus-minute work, it tends to stay with you after it’s finished. Take a look and a listen and see if you don’t agree.
And please, enjoy:
Dot Legacy, “Pioneer” official video
From the new album “To The Others”, Setalight Records – November 2016 Pioneer is the 2nd Part of a Duo-logy with the song “Story Of Fame.”
Directed by MARTY % Starring Quentin Lasbazeilles D.O.P. Alexandre Thimonier
Posted in Reviews on December 28th, 2016 by JJ Koczan
Today is the day the Quarterly Review passes the halfway point. This will be 21-30 of the total 60 for the six days, so there’s still a ways to go — you might say 50 percent — but it’s a milestone nonetheless. Once again it’s another roundup of cool stuff, kind of all over the place a little more than the last two days were, but as we go further along with these things, it’s good to mix it up after a while. There’s only so many times you can throw the word “lysergic” around and talk about jamming. That said, you’re getting some of that today as well from Portugal, so when it pops up, don’t be surprised. Much to do, so no need to delay.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
Bus, The Unknown Secretary
Athenian double-guitar four-piece Bus execute a stylistically cohesive, crisp debut with The Unknown Secretary (on Twin Earth Records), presenting classic heavy rock elements without going full-retro in their sound itself and marking songs like “Masteroid” as immediately distinct through the harmonized vocals of guitarist Bill City, joined in the band by guitarist Johnnie Chez, bassist Chob D’oh and drummer Aris. Together they run through a clean two sides that play back and forth between proto-metallic and doom shading – “Don’t Fear Your Demon” touches on slower Pentagram – while sounding perhaps most comfortable in rockers like “Withered Thorn” or the earlier stomper “New Black Volume,” which puts its two guitars to excellent use ahead of and between unabashedly poppy (not sure a full Ghost comparison is warranted) verse, and craft a highlight in the 7:38 arena-ready thrust of “Rockerbus” prior to the surprisingly nodding finale of “Jimi.” A strikingly efficient and clear-headed first full-length that would seem to hold much promise of things to come from yet another player in Greece’s emergent heavy scene.
With the start-stop riff of opener “As Fangs in Stone,” a mastering job by Mathias Schneeberger and the breadth of pop melodicism in cuts that one, the swinging “Made of Ghosts,” and the more percussive “Through the Sun,” Italian four-piece Them Bulls make a pretty strong beeline for early-Queens of the Stone Age-style heavy desert rock. Their self-titled Small Stone debut isn’t without individualized flourish, but the 10-track/41-minute offering makes it clear from the start what its intentions are and then sets about living up to them, whether on the careening Songs for the Deaf-ery of “Pot Gun” or the penultimate “We Must Live Up” itself. Vocal interplay from guitarists Daniele Pollio and Franscesco Pasi – joined by the rhythm section of bassist Paolo Baldini and drummer Giampaolo Farnedi – provides an opportunity for future growth, but it’s worth noting that for a band to take on such a specific stylization, their songwriting needs to be in check, and Them Bulls’ is.
What seems to be Stinkeye’s debut recording, Llantera Demos, arrives as a free download of four tracks and 16 minutes rife with thickened boogie and dense mecha-stoner fuzz, reminding of Dead Meadow immediately in the echoing vocals and rhythmic bounce of “Orange Man” but moving into some shuffle on the subsequent “Fink Ployd” and “Llantera,” the latter a well-earned showcase of bass tone. While out on the coast, ‘70s vibes reign supreme, the Phoenix, Arizona, trio are on a different tip, looser in their swing and apparently more prone to drift. For what it’s worth, they call it “hash rock,” and fair enough as “Pink Clam,” which closes Llantera Demos, rides more of a grunge-laden nod to an immersive but still relatively quick five-minute finish, building after three minutes in to a satisfying final instrumental push. Loaded with potential in tone, execution, vibe and dynamic between the three-piece, Llantera Demos immediately marks Stinkeye out as a band to watch and is just begging for the right person to come along and press it to tape.
Want to grab attention with your debut long-player? Calling a song “Louder than God” might be a good way to go. That track, at seven minutes, is the longest on Connecticut five-piece Buzzard Canyon’s Hellfire and Whiskey (on Salt of the Earth), and following a quiet initial stretch, it launches into Down-style Southern chug, the dual vocals of Amber Leigh and guitarist Aaron Lewis (the latter also of When the Deadbolt Breaks) veering into and out of more metallic impulses to build on the initial momentum established on the earlier “Highway Run” and “SomaBitch.” The two-minute “For the End” basks in some nightmarish vision of rockabilly, while “Red Beards Massacre” and “Wyoming” dig into more straightforward stylistic patterning, but if Buzzard Canyon want to get a little weird either here or going forward, that’s clearly not about to hurt them. Closer “Not My Cross” hints at some darker visions to come in how it moves into and out of a droning interlude, adding yet more intrigue to their deceptively multifaceted foundation.
Though “Atomic Rodeo” dips into some Queens of the Stone Age-style groove, Motherbrain’s third album, Voodoo Nasty (on Setalight Records), comes across as more defined by its nasty than its voodoo as the Berlin four-piece demonstrate a penchant for incorporating harsher sludge tendencies, especially in vocal shouts peppered in amid the otherwise not-unfriendly proceedings. That gives the nine-song/48-minute offering a meaner edge but does little ultimately to take away from the groove on offer in the opening title-track or “Ghoul of Kolkata,” and though it retains its raw spirit, Voodoo Nasty digs into some more complex fare later in longer cuts like “Baptism of Fire” and “Half Past Human,” having found a place in centerpiece “Dismantling God” where blown-out noise aggression and semi-psychedelic swirl can coexist, if not peacefully then at least for a while until Motherbrain decide it’s time to give Kyuss-style desert rock another kick in its ass, as on “Sons of Kong,” which, yes, does proclaim a lineage.
Sludge-rolling five-piece Elder Druid riff forth with their debut studio offering, the five-song/33-minute Magicka EP, which one might be tempted to tag as a demo were it not for a few prior live-tracked short releases that appear to have served that purpose, the latest of which, The Attic Sessions (discussed here), came out in Jan. 2016. The experience of putting that together as well as their prior singles clearly benefited the Northern Irish outfit on Magicka, and while they retain a shouty spirit on opener “Rogue Mystic,” middle cut “The Warlock” offers nod that reminds of The Kings of Frog Island’s “Welcome to the Void,” and that’s about all I ever need. Ever. Served up with bloated tones and geared toward establishing a blend of gruff vocals and consuming fuzz, Elder Druid’s first studio recording has a solid footing in what it wants to accomplish sound-wise and plainly showcases that, and while they have some growing to do and patience to learn in their songcraft, nothing I hear on Magicka argues against their getting there in time.
The Crazy Left Experience, Bill’s 108th Space Odyssey
The Crazy Left Experience – the moniker seeming to refer to the side of the brain at work in their processes – present Bill’s 108th Space Odyssey almost as an album within an album. The framework from the at-least-party-improvised Portuguese cosmic jammers on the seven-track/56-minute outing centers around William Millarc, who in 1955 was documented while taking part in LSD experiments. Samples of Millarc are peppered into opener “Subject Bill,” the later “Funky Meteor Drop” and the closing duo “Bill Sided Flashback” and “God of the Outer Rings,” but between the opener and the latter trio of cuts comes “Unarius,” a three-part excursion listed as “Part V” through “Part VII” that presumably is the representation of when our friend Bill has left his body behind. So be it. One can hardly call that departure incongruous either sonically or in terms of The Crazy Left Experience’s chosen theme – though there are some unrelated samples spliced into “Unarius – Part VII (Space Brothers)” that are somewhat jarring – and the entire flow of the record is so hypnotic that the band can basically go wherever they want, which of course they do.
Were it not for the context of knowing that vocalist Tim Narducci and bassist Cornbread hail from SpiralArms and White Witch Canyon, drummer Carter Kennedy from Orchid and guitarist Jeremy Von Eppic from Black Gates, the Sabbath Highway debut EP (on Ripple Music) from California’s The Watchers would be almost impossibly coherent for a first outing. Classic in form but modern in its presentation, the five-tracker – four plus the church-organ interlude “Requiem” between the opening title-cut (video here) and “Call the Priest” – makes the most of Narducci’s ‘70s-style vocal push, reminding of one-time Ripple troupe Stone Axe in his oldschool feel, but as “Today” (premiered here) makes plain, The Watchers are much more focused on learning from the past than repeating it. The straightforward songwriting and all-we’re-here-to-do-is-kick-ass sentiment behind Sabbath Highway might well prove formative compared to what The Watchers do next – presumably that’s a full-length, but one never knows; they sound ready to get down to business – but it makes its ambitions plain in its hooks and swiftly delivers on its promises.
I can’t speak to the present status of California’s Of the Horizon, since last I heard bassist Kayt Vigil was in Italy working with Sonic Wolves, but their self-titled five-track debut full-length arrives via Kozmik Artifactz no less switched on for the half-decade that has passed since it was recorded. Guitarist Mike Hanne howls out throaty incantations to suit the post-Sleep riffing of opener “3 Feet” and drummer Shig pushes the roll of “Caravan” forward into its final crashing slowdown effectively as Vigil ensures the subsequent centerpiece “Unknown” is duly thick beneath its spacious, jammy strum. The two longest slabs hit at the end in “Gladhander” (8:55) and the righteously lumbering “Hall of the Drunken King” (10:31) and feel somewhat like an album unto themselves, but when/if Of the Horizon make a return, they’ve established a working modus on this first full-length that should well satisfy the nod-converted and that demonstrates the timelessness of well-executed tonal onslaught.
Though it’s fair enough in terms of runtime, it almost seems like Milano sludge-rollers Raj (also written stylized in all-caps: RAJ) do the six tracks of their 20-minute self-titled debut EP a disservice by cramming them onto a single LP side. Not that one gets lost or the band fails to make an impression – far from it – but just that sounds so geared toward largesse and spaciousness beg for more room to flesh out. That, perhaps, is the interesting duality in Raj’s Raj, since even the massive plod of closer “Iron Matrix” lumbers through its course in a relatively short 4:45, never mind the speedier “Magic Wand” (2:47) or drone interlude “Black Mumbai” (1:51) – gone in a flash. The release moves through these, the earlier “Omegagame” and “Eurasia” and the penultimate “Kaluza” with marked fluidity and efficiency, giving Raj a mini-album feel, and with the atmosphere in “Black Mumbai” and in the surrounding material, their rumble sets up a dynamic that seems primed for further exploration.
