Posted in Questionnaire on April 1st, 2024 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: Joey Toscano of Iota
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
In order of priority, I live a life and then I write songs about it. Art comes out of living, so I don’t put music above everything else, or try to live by some fixed identity like, “I’m a musician”. I observe my own living and mindstream within this absurd world — experiencing the suffering and the joy just like everyone else — doing my best to fully experience, equally, the mundane and the extraordinary, though I don’t claim to be exceptionally good at that part. And then out of that, at the very bottom of the funnel, there just happens to be a preference for communicating and sharing it via music/sound. It’s all play and pretend.
I’ve come to it in different ways between 10yo, 20yo, and so on. Very recently, I’ve come to do what I’m doing now because a friend asked me to play the leads on a record he wrote. I wasn’t very active at that point, but found motivation in wanting to help a friend realize his musical vision. That in turn lead me to being inspired to finish an album that’d been sitting on the shelf for a few years. Then that lead to inspiration for writing another album. Interconnectivity and an infinite web of new starting
points.
Describe your first musical memory.
Probably about 5 years old, I’d pretend our vacuum cleaner was a microphone—singing along to mom’s Journey and Michael Jackson records. I’d also spend hours just flipping through the records, soaking in the cover art. Lots of CCR, Beatles, Elton John, Neil Young. That’s what I remember being in her collection.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
I’ll go with the first record I ever connected with on a level that had me obsessed with listening to it all day, every day. That moment when you’re a kid and you get your first Walkman. Just completely absorbed in the music and your own emotional world. Pissing off your parents because you can’t hear anything they’re saying. That seems to be where everything has sprung from.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
Great question. I’d say it’s usually when I put my head on the pillow at night. Not every night, but that’s the typical scenario. It’s when the realization hits hardest that something I was clinging to or arguing about so intensely doesn’t really matter at all. All the plans I was making, all the mundane things I thought I wanted to align myself with. All of it just vapor. I used to firmly believe that life is just a straight line, but over the last 10 years or so, I’ve experienced some things that have shaken that belief and I realize now that it’s something much different than that. I have faith that most of our beliefs are bullshit.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Well, if done with the right intention, I think perhaps enlightenment? Or at least towards a clearer, more positive understanding of one’s perceived self and their place in the world. An understanding of how your chosen craft can be of benefit to others is critical. I like that Japanese term, Shokunin. Such a great concept for artist progression. Whether you’re a mechanic, electrician, chef, writer, accountant or musician. You have a responsibility to master your craft. And in turn, you benefit someone else with that mastery. I could be misinterpreting it, but that’s how I understand it. If you put the mastery of your craft into that perspective, then the ego will eventually dissipate.
How do you define success?
A relative state of being where one has stabilized in genuine peace of mind and happiness, regardless of their situation.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
Seeing my dog get run over.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I fantasize about doing movie soundtracks, though everyone I know who’s done it tells me it’s usually an excruciating process.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Essential function is to teach us about ourselves. That doesn’t make the artist the teacher, though. How we perceive art says more about us than it does the creator. If something disgusts us, we should ask ourselves why. Same goes for when something elates us. This is why the same piece of art can have so many different meanings.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
It will sound really boring but I look forward to doing absolutely nothing and being completely content about it
[Click play above to stream Iota’s Pentasomnia in full. It’s out this Friday, March 22, through Small Stone Records.]
Behold the album of five sleeps. Positioning themselves at the junction between the conscious and unconscious feels fair enough for Salt Lake City trio Iota, whose five-track Pentasomnia LP marks a return from the ether some 16 years after their debut, Tales (discussed here, also here, and I wrote the bio for the reissue), appeared via Small Stone Records and heralded a new generation’s take on what turn-of-the-century heavy rock had accomplished, blowing it out with purposefully epic jamming and putting cosmic-minded heavy, blues and intense desert thrust together to create something immediately of its own from it. I could go on about it — which is obvious if you click those links — but the bottom line is Iota tapped into something special and the 32-minute Pentasomnia is arrives not as the follow-up Tales never got, but as a new realization of self formed from the same components.
Founded in 2002 by guitarist/vocalist Joey Toscano (also synth), who would put out two albums with the more pointedly bluesy Dwellers in 2012’s Good Morning Harakiri (review here) and 2014’s Pagan Fruit (discussed here, review here), Iota solidified as the trio of Toscano, bassist Oz Yosri (who’d later join Xur and Bird Eater) and drummer/engineer Andy Patterson, who had already joined SubRosa by the time Tales was released, would play with that band for the rest of their time and is now in The Otolith and sundry other projects in addition to helming recordings at his studio, Boar’s Nest. That’s where Pentasomnia was assembled and recorded, at least partly live, between late 2018 and early 2019, to be mixed at some point in the last half-decade by Eric Hoegemeyer, mastered by Chris Goosman and issued now through Small Stone.
Those who caught onto Iota and made the jump to Dwellers will recognize elements of his approach in Pentasomnia, particularly in the vocals. Where much of Tales was topped by a reverb-laced Pepper Keenan-esque shout, Pentasomnia brings a more patient take, melodic layers weaving into and out of harmony on closer “The Great Dissolver,” which loses none of its guitar’s shimmering resonance for being just three and a half minutes long and which, like much of what precedes it from the immediately-into-the-verse-maybe-because-it’s-been-long-enough smokey blues of leadoff “The Intruder” onward, feels suited to the dream-state being conveyed. “The Intruder” soon enough fills the space in the mix left open in that verse with rolling distortion and a solo overhead, building through the chorus, exhales and inhales again during the bridge (instrumentally speaking) and shifts into a cascading gallop before the riff and vocals come back ahead of the final comedown. Toscano‘s delivery complements both languid sway and Pentasomnia‘s most active moments, lending character and emotional depth to the songs as a defining feature.
One of the two longer inclusions at 8:14 — the other is centerpiece “The Returner” at 9:15 — “The Intruder” is perhaps named for that willful post-midpoint flow disruption, but the work that the opener does in aligning the listener to where Iota are circa 2024 (or were circa 2019, as it were) is pivotal. It tells you in clear terms that at no point on Pentasomnia are Iota trying to dream it’s 2008, but back then you could hear them pushing themselves creatively and you can hear it now too.
Amid the Soundgardeny thrust of “The Timekeeper,” the vocal reach at the end preserves the moment where breath gives out, and the way the three of them dig into the angular-but-fluid rhythm of “The Witness,” meeting a riff that wouldn’t be out of place in progressive metal with an organic nod and distinctly grunge-tinged vocal harmonies, likewise comes across as a manifestation of personal growth. If you are or think you are the same person now you were 16 years ago, well, you might want to have a hard look at that. By not aping what they did on the debut, by not trying to rebottle that particular lightning, Iota allow themselves to emphasize the sonic adventurousness was so much a part of the band’s appeal in the first place. Pentasomnia doesn’t take you to the same places as Tales, and it’s not supposed to. This is a new journey.
I suppose all of this is in some way an attempt to prepare those who got on board with Tales for the differences in aesthetic and intensity wrought through Pentasomnia, but honestly, I’m not sure it’s that big a deal. It’s the same players, even if Yosri is credited as Oz Inglorious, and the new collection is unquestionably a richer listening experience that accounts for Iota as its own entity in its creative drive, atmosphere and groove — Yosri‘s basswork being the very opposite of his nom de plume — while sharing its predecessor’s lack of pretense and bent toward individual expression in an updated way. I was a big fan of Tales. Hell, I had it on yesterday ahead of writing this review. It holds up. Pentasomnia says and does more than Iota could have during their first run, codifying elements of their style that they never had the chance to reaffirm as their own in Toscano‘s sleek riffs and transcendental soloing and Patterson‘s stately flow on drums — both the motor behind “The Witness” and the sunny hilltop on which the pastoralia early in “The Returner” takes place — and a range in songcraft that makes them all the more identifiably themselves.
The inevitable next question is to what, if anything, it will lead. A threat of live shows has been issued, but would Iota come back after 16 years, put out an album and do ‘select appearances’ in the manner of, say, Lowrider? I don’t know. Further, if these songs started coming together in 2018 and are landing now, what does that mean for their future? Could they not already have another LP ready to go when they need it, and is it any more or less likely that Pentasomnia will land, hit hard with those it’s going to hit hard with, and the band will re-recede in the face of other priorities in music and life, possibly either for good or some other extended period of time? I don’t know that either. And like the shifts in sound, those kinds of considerations become secondary to the actual listening experience. Part of what allowed Iota‘s music to endure over the course of their long absence was the cohesion they found bringing disparate ideas together. Pentasomnia feels a little more like a fourth LP than a second in how it’s grown, but if you’d hold that against it, you’re making the choice to miss out.
I find that, as regards bottom lines, I’m just really glad Pentasomnia exists. Again, I’m a fan. It’s personal for me, and I’m not going to try to speak to anyone else’s experience. I’d heard rumblings of Iota activity circa the end of the 2010s, but can’t say I ever realistically expected anything else from them, and even if I had, I likely wouldn’t have imagined the kind of progression they have on offer. Whatever is to come or isn’t, the dreams they’re having are real and vivid. This is worth appreciating now before we all wake up and everything disappears.
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 30th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
If you were hanging around these parts earlier this month, you already knew Iota would return this year with their first album since 2008’s epic-and-I-don’t-always-call-things-epic debut, Tales (discussed here and here). That’s news to me, I don’t know about you. Good news. If you dug what guitarist Joey Toscano brought to the two Dwellers full-lengths on Small Stone in terms of melody and emotion, that melds gorgeously on Pentasomnia with a style of bluesy desertism that even Tales, broad as it was, only half defined.
Yeah, I’ve heard the record. The bio I wrote for it, which is what’s linked above, also came in with the PR wire confirmation of the March 22 release for Pentasomnia and the track stream for “The Returner.” Which you should hear. Here, let me stop talking so you can get on that.
Go go go listen listen listen and then probably preorder or something:
IOTA: Salt Lake City Cult Psychedelic Rock Trio To Release Pentasomnia Full-Length March 22nd On Small Stone Recordings; New Track Streaming + Preorders Available
Cult psychedelic heavy rock trio IOTA will release their long-awaited Pentasomnia full-length on March 22nd via Small Stone Recordings!
It’s been nearly sixteen years since Salt Lake City’s IOTA carved a place for themselves in the heavy underground with their debut album, Tales. Released by Small Stone Recordings, it was recorded by drummer Andy Patterson (The Otolith, ex-SubRosa), with founding guitarist/vocalist Joey Toscano (who’d form Dwellers later), and bassist Oz Inglorious (ex-Bird Eater, Suffocater) and drew heavy rock impulses across space in a way that was innovative and engrossing. Marked by the twenty-minute “Dimensional Orbiter” that was the first song the band ever wrote, it showed huge potential for IOTA, who moved onto other outfits while the cult of those in the know steadily grew.
Pentasomnia, an album of five dreams, marks a return for a project begun by Toscano circa 2001, a band that has been intermittently lived with, shelved, pushed, pulled, stretched, and twisted, but whose sound shimmers with atmosphere and the resonant, bluesy emotionalism of Toscano’s vocals. Rather than some slapdash decade-and-a-half-later follow-up to a record on its way to being a niche-classic, Pentasomnia is cohesive, and as much an unexpected step forward as an unexpected return. IOTA — Toscano, Inglorious, and Patterson — revel in the groove and sway of these five songs, from the boozy head-hang of opener “The Intruder” into the ambient push of “The Returner,” which feels like a manifestation of the meld between cosmic and desert rock that was so much the heart of the band during their first run; the very essence of what they do, given new life and perspective.
“Pentasomnia is an amalgamation,” says Toscano, “roughly translating to ‘five dreams.’ Each song is told from the perspective of a different mental state. Challenging the ideas of traditional norms about identity and our place within the world; questioning the very idea of a self. A cathartic acknowledgement of our infinitesimally small place in a vast musical landscape. Live shows will unveil the album’s essence, offering glimpses into our musical journey’s dark comedy and complexity. Enjoy these songs as snapshots of a fever dream.”
IOTA’s sophomore full-length was written and recorded live over a series of sessions between 2018 and 2019 and completed in the tumultuous years after with family health emergencies, other projects and recordings, the pandemic, work, and all the stuff of life happening all at once. And yet somehow, in and perhaps from all of that, the three-piece have managed to come back together, find each other and renew their sound, and to let the intervening time underscore how crucial their collaboration genuinely is. There are going to be a lot of heavy rock records released in 2024. You sleep on IOTA at your own risk.
In advance of the release, today the band debuts first single, “The Returner.” Toscano further notes, “Pentasomnia, is centered around dreams. With each song narrating a first-person account of an acute mind state, ‘The Returner’ — the album’s third track — attempts to describe the character’s experience of waking from the dream of life, encountering their now unrestrained hallucinations in the in-between, and then returning to yet another dream. Interpretation, divine.”
Boston progressive melodic heavy rockers Sundrifter go big on their third full-length, An Earlier Time, set for release Feb. 16 on Small Stone Records. From the triumphal chugs and declarative rhythm of opener “Limitless” (premiering below), the album will make you believe music and just about anything else you want can fly, the band’s songs honing character through atmospheric riffing, and the theatrical, unafraid-to-reach vocals of Craig Peura.
The follow-up to 2018’s Visitations (review here) shares its predecessor’s penchant for minimalism in its closer, as An Earlier Time departs the willful grandiosities of “Limitless” or “Prehistoric Liftoff” — one is reminded of Torche‘s “Tarpit Carnivore” — or the escape-velocity charge of “Space Exploration,” the “Way out here is where I belong” lyrical perspective of which is consistent with the breaking-out of “Not Coming Back” from their 2016 debut of the same name or “I Want to Leave” from Visitations, for the relatively subdued open space of “Last Transmission” at the finish. But to get there, Peura, bassist Paul Gaughran and drummer Patrick Queenan careen and lumber through material that takes the tonal largesse of bong metal and puts it to an emotive purpose all the more affirming for the heft behind it.
Sundrifter‘s sound has blossomed, which is not to say Big Bang’ed. But ‘big’ should be an operative word here if its place in the first sentence wasn’t enough of a clue, and as heavy as Peura‘s guitar and Gaughran‘s bass might be, the distance perceived between them and the echoing of Queenan‘s drums is essential in crafting the open feel that makes “Limitless” such a powerful preface to what follows on An Earlier Time, whether it’s the reverb-cavern roll of “Nuclear Sacrifice” or the emotional charge given to side B across “Begin Again,” “Want You Home” and the penultimate “Final Chance,” the latter of which ends with drawn-out crashes to give a smoother transition to “Last Transmission.” Informed in part by the sweeping pop of Muse, and more spread out in sound than Forming the Void but with a modern-prog-heavy patience to their execution, Sundrifter manifest style in service to songwriting, and their material carries vitality in performance as well as its effects-born sprawl.
What’s perhaps most admirable about Sundrifter circa An Earlier Time, aka now, is that as much as “Limitless” or “Final Chance” or “Want You Home” seem to reach out, the band are never out of control. To be sure, Peura is a soulful vocalist and part of that is the push of his delivery, but the band never leaves their comfort zone without making sure their audience is along for the ride, and the six years since their last album has obviously given them time to focus on their craft. Not overthought, these songs find a hard balance between their emotive crux and expansive sound, and Sundrifter come through as vibrant, sincere and uplifting without the saccharine toxicity of 2020s internet platitudes; all heart (plus songwriting, plus aesthetic, etc.) at a moment where that could hardly be more necessary.
Sundrifter, “Limitless” video premiere
Craig Peura on “Limitless”:
‘Limitless’ is about knowing in your heart where you belong and not being afraid to jump from the highest point to find it.
Paul Gaughran on “Limitless”:
I recall this tune being the first to gain serious form during the writing for “An Earlier Time”. The style and feel of the initial riff that Craig presented us was a combination of all my favorite aspects of the previous record, but from an instrumental perspective also gave more room to work with and be creative within. The song starts from a very grounded, almost tribal sounding straight-forward arrangement and by the end is so densely orchestrated and spacial. It closes sounding elevated, even heavenly. Sort of an attempt to convey an earth-to-sky experience I suppose. I think it sets the tone for the record well.
Patrick Queenan on “Limitless”:
“Returning to Futura Studios to track drums with our engineer Dan is always a no brainer. The former masonic temple converted recording studio provides not only the best expansive space to track epic sounding drums in but on a metaphysical level provides a certain energy or vibe to the recording process. Drums being the first tracks to be recorded followed by a global shut down in 2020 this video along with the record “An Earlier Time” serve as a real time capsule. Over the past four years a lot has changed for us individually and as a group but now here in 2024 we are feeling quite LIMITLESS.”
An Earlier Time Track Listing: 1. Limitless 2. Space Exploration 3. Nuclear Sacrifice 4. Prehistoric Liftoff 5. Begin Again 6. Want You Home 7. Final Chance 8. Last Transmission
SUNDRIFTER Live: 2/01/2023 Widowmaker Brewery – Braintree, MA w/ Swamphead, Bone Church, Earthlore</span
Sundrifter are: Craig Peura – vocals, guitar Paul Gaughran – bass Patrick Queenan – drums
In March, Iota will release their second album. If that doesn’t ring like an event to you, take about an hour of your life, go back and listen to their 2008 debut, Tales (discussed here and here). It’s at the bottom of this post. You don’t have to go far.
The three-piece of founding guitarist/vocalist Joey Toscano, who’d go on to found Dwellers after Iota and put out two records on Small Stone with that project, bassist Oz Yasri (who joined Bird Eater after) and drummer/producer Andy Patterson (SubRosa, The Otolith, Insect Ark for a minute there, tons of others) will officially announce the release of their sophomore full-length, Pentasomnia, next week. It’ll be the full usual deal — artwork, track premiere, album details, a bio I wrote and all that. I don’t think I’m doing the premiere, but it’ll be somewhere on the internet and for sure I’ll post about it too. Next week.
But I was asked to do the bio for the record, and since I dig this band a lot, still dig Tales and its newcomer counterpart, I asked if I could take the bio I wrote — that’s below — and use it as kind of a soft-launch announcement for the record to come. So yes, look for all that other stuff next week. But now you already know that’s coming, and way to be ahead of the game.
Here’s that bio, with more to follow next week with the official announcement:
It’s been nearly 16 years since Salt Lake City’s Iota carved a place for themselves in the heavy underground with their debut album, Tales. Released by Small Stone Records, recorded by drummer Andy Patterson (The Otolith, ex-SubRosa, etc.), with founding guitarist/vocalist Joey Toscano (who’d form Dwellers after) and bassist Oz Yasri (later of Bird Eater) drawing heavy rock impulses across space in a way that was innovative and engrossing. Marked by the 20-minute “Dimensional Orbiter” that was the first song the band ever wrote, it showed huge potential for Iota, who moved onto other outfits while the cult of those in the know steadily grew.
Pentasomnia, an album of five dreams, marks a return for a project begun by Toscano circa 2001, a band that has been intermittently lived with, shelved, pushed, pulled, stretched and twisted, but whose sound shimmers with atmosphere and the resonant, bluesy emotionalism of Toscano’s vocals. Rather than some slapdash decade-and-a-half-later follow-up to a record on its way to being a niche-classic, Pentasomnia is cohesive, and as much an unexpected step forward as an unexpected return. Iota — Toscano, Yasri, Patterson — revel in the groove and sway of these five songs, from the boozy head-hang of opener “The Intruder” into the ambient push of “The Returner,” which feels like a manifestation of the meld between cosmic and desert rocks that was so much the heart of the band during their first run; the very essence of what they do, given new life and perspective.
“Pentasomnia is an amalgamation,” says Toscano, “roughly translating to ‘five dreams’. Each song is told from the perspective of a different mental state. Challenging the ideas of traditional norms about identity and our place within the world; questioning the very idea of a self. A cathartic acknowledgement of our infinitesimally small place in a vast musical landscape. Live shows will unveil the album’s essence, offering glimpses into our musical journey’s dark comedy and complexity. Enjoy these songs as snapshots of a fever dream.”
Iota’s awaited sophomore full-length was written and recorded live over a series of sessions between 2018 and 2019 and completed in the tumultuous years after, family health emergencies, other projects and recordings, the odd pandemic, work, all the stuff of life happening all at once as ever. And somehow, in and perhaps from all of that, the three-piece have managed to come back together, find each other and renew their sound, and to let the intervening time underscore how crucial their collaboration genuinely is. There are going to be a lot of heavy rock records released in 2024. You sleep on Iota at your own risk.
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 10th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Big sound here from Sundrifter, whose An Earlier Time is deceptively forward-thinking considering the nostalgic evocations of the title. The Boston trio, who you”ll recall were sharing drummer Patrick Queenan with Gozu for a bit there, will issue An Earlier Time through Small Stone Records on Feb. 16, which feels like it’s coming up quick at this point but that’s life in January. It was the band’s 2018 outing, Visitations (review here), that caught the ears of the long-running Detroit imprint, leading to a months-after-the-DIY-release reissue — I seem to recall something similar happened with Lo-Pan in the long, long ago; it’s not unheard of — and An Earlier Time broadens the sound of that record exponentially, harnessing grander spaces, dynamic changes and an abidingly cosmic feel to even its most driving moments, and yes, I’m looking right at you, “Space Exploration.”
That song is one of eight on the record, and like many of them, it could’ve been the lead single just as easily as “Begin Again,” but the initial push, roll and soul there can’t be denied. Available to stream on the player at the bottom of the post, An Earlier Time‘s first public snippet is telling in the overarching largesse that unites the material across the record, but has an impact in its middle stretch that is its own, fleshed out by Craig Puera‘s melodic vocals holding out notes into an echoing expanse.
I firmly believe it’s not a thing you’ll regret hearing. So, by all means, go for it:
SUNDRIFTER: Boston-Based Desert Rock Trio To Release An Earlier Time Full-Length February 16th Via Small Stone Recordings; New Track Streaming + Preorders Available
Boston-based desert rock trio SUNDRIFTER will release their long-awaited new full-length, An Earlier Time, on February 16th via Small Stone Recordings, today unveiling the album’s cover art, track listing, and first single.
SUNDRIFTER’s sound is bigger and broader on An Earlier Time. From the appropriate beginning of “Limitless” onward, the New England three-piece answers the potential of their 2019 sophomore album, Visitations, and their 2016 debut, Not Coming Back, with a collection that is likewise huge and intimate, bringing together expansive atmospheres a la Hum’s heavy post-rock vision with Soundgarden’s unmitigated heavy revelry and melodic command and the contemplative expressivism of Radiohead. The offering features eight songs, each one of them a world to get lost in.
With the returning trio of guitarist/vocalist Craig Peura, bassist Paul Gaughran, and drummer Patrick Queenan, SUNDRIFTER calls to mind the expansive atmospheric heavy rock of outfits like Forming The Void or Small Stone veterans Abrahma, but Peura’s vocals cull influence from ’90s alt rock in a way that emphasizes the individual now more than ever. The band’s third album realizations come complemented by the return of producer/mixer Dan Schwartz, mastering by Chris Goosman, and cover art by Branca Studio, furthering the “complete package” sensibility fostered in no small part by the weighted complexity and breadth of the tracks themselves. It’s not so much heavy rock as is, but as it could be.
In advance of the official release of An Earlier Time, today the band reveals the record’s first single, “Begin Again.” With Peura elaborating, “‘Begin Again’ is a constant battle to overcome negative self-talk and the pain that it can bring telling you of your failures, and the excitement that comes when you decide to acknowledge them and begin again.”
“I’d say the name says everything,” Gaughran continues. “It’s a statement of intention from the band. It’s taken far longer than we’d have liked to make this record, but time has its upsides. I’d like to think we’ve used it to hone in on a sound that better reflects our collective influences as a band, both musical and non-musical. ‘Begin Again’ tonally evokes all those influences, whether it be space and the desert or any of the spiritual concepts expressed lyrically, all while retaining the signature characteristics of our brand of heavy psychedelic rock.”
Queenan adds, “As the ancients had to rebuild humanity and societies after cataclysmic events so are we emerging from the ash and beginning yet again.”
An Earlier Time Track Listing: 1. Limitless 2. Space Exploration 3. Nuclear Sacrifice 4. Prehistoric Liftoff 5. Begin Again 6. Want You Home 7. Final Chance 8. Last Transmission
SUNDRIFTER Live: 2/01/2023 Widowmaker Brewery – Braintree, MA w/ Swamphead, Bone Church, Earthlore
SUNDRIFTER: Craig Peura – vocals, guitar Paul Gaughran – bass Patrick Queenan – drums
Posted in Reviews on November 28th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Day two and no looking back. Yesterday was Monday and it was pretty tripped out. There’s some psych stuff here too, but we start out by digging deep into metal-rooted doom and it doesn’t get any less dudely through the first three records, let’s put it that way. But there’s more here than one style, microgengre, or gender expression can contain, and I invite you as you make your way through to approach not from a place of redundant chestbeating, but of celebrating a moment captured. In the cases of some of these releases, it’s a pretty special moment we’re talking about.
Places to go, things to hear. We march.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
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Primordial, How it Ends
Excuse me, ma’am. Do you have 66 minutes to talk about the end of the world? No? Nobody does? Well that’s kind of sad.
At 28 years’ remove from their first record, 1995’s Imrama, and now on their 10th full-length, Dublin’s Primordial are duly mournful across the 10 songs of How it Ends, which boasts the staring-at-a-bloodied-hillside-full-of-bodies after-battle mourning and oppression-defying lyricism and a style rooted in black metal and grown beyond it informed by Irish folk progressions but open enough to make a highlight of the build in “Death Holy Death” here. A more aggressive lean shows itself in “All Against All” just prior while “Pilgrimage to the World’s End” is brought to a wash of an apex with a high reach from vocalist Alan “A.A. Nemtheanga” Averill, who should be counted among metal’s all-time frontmen, ahead of the tension chugging in the beginning of “Nothing New Under the Sun.” And you know, for the most part, there isn’t. Most of what Primordial do on How it Ends, they’ve done before, and their central innovation in bridging extreme metal with folk traditionalism, is long behind them. How it Ends seems to dwell in some parts and be roiling in its immediacy elsewhere, and its grandiosities inherently will put some off just as they will bring some on, but Primordial continue to find clever ways to develop around their core approach, and How it Ends — if it is the end or it isn’t, for them or the world — harnesses that while also serving as a reminder of how much they own their sound.
With a partner in drummer Johnny Kelly (Type O Negative, Danzig, etc.), guitarist/songwriter Dan Lorenzo (Hades, Vessel of Light, Cassius King, etc.) has found an outlet open to various ideas within the sphere of doom metal/rock in Patriarchs in Black, whose second LP, My Veneration, brings a cohort of guests on vocals and bass alongside the band’s core duo. Some, like Karl Agell (C.O.C. Blind) and bassist Dave Neabore (Dog Eat Dog), are returning parties from the project’s 2022 debut, Reach for the Scars, while Unida vocalist Mark Sunshine makes a highlight of “Show Them Your Power” early on. Sunshine appears on “Veneration” as well alongside DMC from Run DMC, which, if you’re going to do a rap-rock crossover, it probably makes sense to get a guy who was there the first time it happened. Elsewhere, “Non Defectum” toys with layering with Kelly Abe of Sicks Deep adding screams, and Paul Stanley impersonator Bob Jensen steps in for the KISS cover “I Stole Your Love” and the originals “Dead and Gone” and “Hallowed Be Her Name” so indeed, no shortage of variety. Tying it together? The riffs, of course. Lorenzo has shown an as-yet inexhaustible supply thereof. Here, they seem to power multiple bands all on one album.
Just because it wasn’t a surprise doesn’t mean it’s not one of the best debut albums of 2023. Bringing together known parties from Boston’s heavy underground Jim Healey (We’re All Gonna Die, etc.), Doug Sherman (Gozu), Bob Maloney (Worshipper) and J.R. Roach (Sam Black Church), Blood Lightning want nothing for pedigree, and their Ripple-issued self-titled debut meets high expectations with vigor and thrash-born purpose. Sherman‘s style of riffing and Healey‘s soulful, belted-out vocals are both identifiable factors in cuts like “The Dying Starts” and the charging “Face Eater,” which works to find a bridge between heavy rock and classic, soaring metal. Their cover of Black Sabbath‘s “Disturbing the Priest,” included here as the last of the six songs on the 27-minute album, I seem to recall being at least part of the impetus for the band, but frankly, however they got there, I’m glad the project has been preserved. I don’t know if they will or won’t do anything else, but there’s potential in their metal/rock blend, which positions itself as oldschool but is more forward thinking than either genre can be on its own.
Based in Oakland and making their debut with the significant endorsement of Small Stone Records and Kozmik Artifactz behind them, atmospheric post-heavy rock five-piece Haurun tap into ethereal ambience and weighted fuzz in such a way as to raise memories of the time Black Math Horseman got picked up by Tee Pee. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. With notions of Acid King in the nodding, undulating riffs of “Abyss” and the later reaches of “Lost and Found,” but two guitars are a distinguishing factor, and Haurun come across as primarily concerned with mood, although the post-grunge ’90s alt hooks of “Flying Low” and “Lunar” ahead of 11-minute closer “Soil,” which uses its longform breadth to cast as vivid a soundscape as possible. Fast, slow, minimalist or at a full wash of noise, Haurun‘s Wilting Within has its foundation in heavy rock groove and riffy repetition, but does something with that that goes beyond microniche confines. Very much looking forward to more from this band.
Its point of view long established by the time they get around to the filthy lurch of “Hesher” — track three of seven — Cabin Fever is the first full-length from cultish doomers Wicked Trip. The Tennessee outfit revel in Electric Wizard-style fuckall on “Cabin Fever” after the warning in the spoken “Intro,” and the 11-minute sample-topped “Night of Pan” is a psych-doom jam that’s hypnotic right unto its keyboard-drone finish giving over to the sampled smooth sounds of the ’70s at the start of “Black Valentine,” which feels all the more dirt-coated when it actually kicks in, though “Evils of the Night” is no less threatening of purpose in its garage-doom swing, crash-out and cacophonous payoff, and I’m pretty sure if you played “No Longer Human” at double the speed, well, it might be human again. All of these grim, bleak, scorching, nodding, gnashing pieces come together to craft Cabin Fever as one consuming, lo-fi entirety, raw both because the recording sounds harsh and because the band itself eschew any frills not in service to their disillusioned atmosphere.
There’s an awful lot of sex going on in Splinter‘s Role Models, as the Amsterdam glam-minded heavy rockers follow their 2021 debut, Filthy Pleasures (review here), with cuts like “Soviet Schoolgirl,” “Bottom,” “Opposite Sex” and the poppy post-punk “Velvet Scam” early on. It’s not all sleaze — though even “The Carpet Makes Me Sad” is trying to get you in bed — and the piano and boozy harmonies of “Computer Screen” are a fun departure ahead of the also-acoustic finish in closer “It Should Have Been Over,” while “Every Circus Needs a Clown” feels hell-bent on remaking Queen‘s “Stone Cold Crazy” and “Medicine Man” and “Forbidden Kicks” find a place where garage rock meets heavier riffing, while “Children” gets its complaints registered efficiently in just over two boogie-push minutes. A touch of Sabbath here, some Queens of the Stone Age chic disco there, and Splinter are happy to find a place for themselves adjacent to both without aping either. One would not accuse them of subtlety as regards theme, but there’s something to be said for saying what you want up front.
Beginning with its longest component track (immediate points) in “Asteroid,” Terra Black‘s All Descend is a downward-directed slab of doomed nod, so doubled-down on its own slog that “Black Flames of Funeral Fire” doesn’t even start its first verse until the song is more than half over. Languid tempos play up the largesse of “Ashes and Dust,” and “Divinest Sin” borders on Eurometal, but if you need to know what’s in Terra Black‘s heart, look no further than the guitar, bass, drum and vocal lumber — all-lumber — of “Spawn of Lyssa” and find that it’s doom pumping blood around the band’s collective body. While avoiding sounding like Electric Wizard, the Gothenburg, Sweden, unit crawl through that penultimate duet track with all ready despondency, and resolve “Slumber Grove” with agonized final lub-dub heartbeats of kick drum and guitar drawl after a vivid and especially doomed wash drops out to vocals before rearing back and plodding forward once more, doomed, gorgeous, immersive, and so, so heavy. They’re not finished growing yet — nor should they be on this first album — but they’re on the path.
Sometimes the name of a thing can tell you about the thing. So enters Musing, a contemplative solo outfit from Devin “Darty” Purdy, also known for his work in Calgary-based bands Gone Cosmic and Chron Goblin, with the eight-song/42-minute Somewhen and a flowing instrumental narrative that borders on heavy post-rock and psychedelia, but is clearheaded ultimately in its course and not slapdash enough to be purely experimental. That is, though intended to be instrumental works outside the norm of his songcraft, tracks like “Flight to Forever” and the delightfully bassy “Frontal Robotomy” are songs, have been carved out of inspired and improvised parts to be what they are. “Hurry Wait” revamps post-metal standalone guitar to be the basis of a fuzzy exploration, while “Reality Merchants” hones a sense of space that will be welcome in ears that embrace the likes of Yawning Sons or Big Scenic Nowhere. Somewhen has a story behind it — there’s narrative; blessings and peace upon it — but the actual music is open enough to translate to any number of personal interpretations. A ‘see where it takes you’ attitude is called for, then. Maybe on Purdy‘s part as well.
A heavy and Sabbathian rock forms the underlying foundation of Spiral Shades‘ sound, and the returning two-piece of vocalist Khushal R. Bhadra and guitarist/bassist/drummer Filip Petersen have obviously spent the nine years since 2014’s debut, Hypnosis Sessions (review here), enrolled in post-doctoral Iommic studies. Revival, after so long, is not unwelcome in the least. Doom happens in its own time, and with seven songs and 38 minutes of new material, plus bonus tracks, they make up for lost time with classic groove and tone loyal to the blueprint once put forth while reserving a place for itself in itself. That is, there’s more to Spiral Shades and to Revival than Sabbath worship, even if that’s a lot of the point. I won’t take away from the metal-leaning chug of “Witchy Eyes” near the end of the album, but “Foggy Mist” reminds of The Obsessed‘s particular crunch and “Chapter Zero” rolls like Spirit Caravan, find a foothold between rock and doom, and it turns out riffs are welcome on both sides.
The closing “Sex on a Grave” reminds of the slurring bluesy lasciviousness of Nick Cave‘s Grinderman, and that should in part be taken as a compliment to the setup through “Black Cat” — which toys with 12-bar structure and is somewhere between urbane cool and cabaret nerdery — and the centerpiece “Bad Day,” which follows a classic downer chord progression through its apex with the rawness of Backwoods Payback at their most emotive and a greater melodic reach only after swaying through its willful bummer of an intro. Last-minute psych flourish in the guitar threatens to make “Bad Day” a party, but the Louisville outfit find their way around to their own kind of fun, which since the release is only three songs long just happens to be “Sex on a Grave.” Fair enough. Rife with attitude and an emergent dynamic that’s complementary to the persona of the vocals rather than trying to keep up with them, the counterintuitively-titled second short release (yes, I know the cover is a Zeppelin reference; settle down) from Bandshee lays out an individual approach to heavy songwriting and a swing that goes back further in time than most.
Portland heavy rockers Robots of the Ancient World will release their second album for Small Stone Records, 3737, on Nov. 17. The five-piece issued their first record for the label, Mystic Goddess (review here), in 2021, and have gone from tracking with Jack Endino to producing themselves with Billy Anderson as an engineer, so pretty clearly they’re not looking to waste time in the recording process. Their actual-debut was 2019’s Cosmic Riders, and especially considering the years between, they’ve managed productivity where others have stagnated or disappeared altogether, which is something to be commended.
As one would hope, one of the aspects carried over from Mystic Goddess to the newer six-tracker is a lack of pretense. Dudes aren’t trying to be anything other than the fuzz-toned weirdos they are, and with the returning lineup of vocalist Caleb Weidenbach, guitarists Nico Schmutz and Justin Laubscher, bassist Trevor Berecek and drummer Harry Silvers (now also in Hippie Death Cult), that particular brand of quirk is all the more identifiable as the band swings, sways and swaggers toward and through the organ-laced culmination of 10-minute apex finale “Silver Cloud,” which ends the procession with all due ceremony without losing sight of the fact that even in those last moments, they’re headed somewhere.
Lest you doubt their stonerly bona fides, “Hindu Kush” leads off with a rising buzz of amp noise that becomes the riff — feedback still there until the crash-in — and proceeds to unveil the roll. Mellow, not hitting too hard and certainly not quiet, the two guitars, bass and drums leave room for Weidenbach‘s vocals, though honestly he sounds like he wouldn’t necessarily have trouble cutting through anyhow. Circa-’75 Ozzy and first-two-LPs Danzig might be touchstones there, but one way or the other, Weidenbach is the source of a lot of the attitude of 3737, and with “Hindu Kush,” the record gets a classic-feeling (those backing vocals in the chorus) fuzz rocker that leans into doom and psych in the spirit of the modern underground.
Opening catchy was clearly a priority between “Hindu Kush,” which is the shortest of the non-interludes at 4:45, and “Creature,” which follows, and after its own quiet guitar intro sweeps into full-brunt tonality chugs into its verse with subtle pace and genuinely seems to shove its chorus forward through the speakers. They throw some jabs in the bridge in the second half, and rally around that one more time after the last hook, and then they’re quickly onto the “Children of the Grave”-esque start of “Holy Ghost.” Feels like fair enough use of that chug. I’m pretty sure everyone on the planet who didn’t wishes they wrote that song.
“Holy Ghost” takes off with due thrust and a sharper edge to its riff. The guitars split in the verse, one channel chugging, the other strumming, but they align in the chorus to emphasize the message being sent about songwriting — namely that Robots of the Ancient World are on it — and find their way back with renewed vigor, Silvers in back pushing the entire thing forward. While maybe not as outwardly catchy as “Hindu Kush” or “Creature,” “Holy Ghost” pulls the listener deeper into 3737 and maintains the standard of craft, the mix of influences at work showing metallic flashes in the solo, some maybe-organ in there maybe-prefacing the closer, scorch and toms building to a head, pushing, pushing, finally crashing. Side A over.
The personality shifts somewhat as they move into “Moustache” — a love song? for a moustache? I haven’t seen lyrics, so I’m going with ‘yes’ with lines like “I miss you so bad,” and so on — and top the seven-minute mark for the first time, some of that additional minute-ish as compared to “Creature” or “Holy Ghost” no doubt due to the trippy outro that bookends with the subdued beginning. The methodology would seem to be ‘hypnotize, punch, hypnotize again’ for “Moustache,” but it’s also got a hook as the guitars wait then don’t to solo, and when it shifts back to the intro part to finish, they just kind of drop everything, which one can appreciate. “Screw it, we’re doing this now.” Right on.
Turn up the volume near the end and you can hear a TV in the penultimate acoustic interlude “Apollo,” which for sure gives a recorded-at-home vibe, whether or not it was. But while the 2:26 purposeful-meander is intended to lead into the direct-to-riff start of “Silver Cloud,” which is a crescendo even before the already-noted big finish. What might be an extra, semi-backward cymbal is worked into the mix after about two minutes in, both adding psychedelic flair and grounding the march for a few measures as a precursor to the classic-style dual soloing that Robots of the Ancient World have been apparently holding in reserve.
That looseness of swing is a misdirect — “Silver Cloud” would come apart were it not so sharply performed — but the 10:49 cut begins its build by going to ground at around four minutes in. Some Doors-y ranting in a sparsely-guitared midsection jam — somewhat ironically it’s the bass that holds it together — carries them through the next stage, and then it’s all-in, all-go, where’s-the-tambourine-oh-good-I-think-it’s-in-there-somewhere until the last strains of keys fade out. In 37 minutes, 3737 has come farther than it might at-first seem, and the level of control and balance in Robots of the Ancient World‘s approach makes difficult moments in songcraft sound easy.
Being their third album overall, one expects a certain level of realization to take place. It’s reasonable to think that nearly five years after their first record, the band collectively has an idea of their sound and what they want their songs to do. If that’s not the case, and the actual-math of 3737 is these dudes rolled out of bed and these jams just magically happened, well, I’m glad someone got it on a hard drive because that’s a pretty special moment right there. But more likely is this material has been worked on and thought through, and in that, the organic nature of its presentation is doubly striking.
“Holy Ghost” premieres on the player below, and more info follows from the PR wire.
Please enjoy:
Portland psychedelic stoner doom outfit ROBOTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD will release their 3737 full-length via Small Stone Recordings on November 17th.
ROBOTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD released their Mystic Goddess full-length in 2021. The high-octane recording offered up a hallucinatory sound excursion through a wide range of styles that kept listeners engaged while never losing focus or sacrificing flow.
Two years later, the band is back and more potent than ever. With the assistance of renowned engineer, Billy Anderson, ROBOTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD delivers a relentless rock ‘n’ roll album spanning thirty-seven minutes and thirty-seven seconds. But the title is more than just the duration of the recording, and the band took notice of the number’s significance. There exists a theory in numerology that guardian angels attempt to communicate through divine numbers – specifically the repetition in numbers, and this one specifically is to remind us that, “magic and manifestation are knocking at your door,” and that, “you are about to attract your inner most desires.” Emerging from the pandemic and coping with the loss of loved ones, heartache, and mental anguish, the band decided to harness this energy and pour it into 3737.
As a result, we are left with an album rich with addictively heavy riffing complemented by pummeling drums, groovy bass lines, and Caleb Weidenbach’s raw and commanding vocals. ROBOTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD intended to deliver something meaningful, not only to the band but to the world. 3737 is the answer.
3737 was written and recorded by the band, mastered by Justin Weis, and comes wrapped in the cover art of Zaiusart.
The record will be released on CD and digital formats via Small Stone Recordings and on limited edition vinyl by Kozmik Artifactz. For preorders, visit THIS LOCATION: https://smallstone.bandcamp.com/album/3737
3737 Track Listing: 1. Hindu Kush 2. Creature 3. Holy Ghost 4. Moustache 5. Apollo 6. Silver Cloud
ROBOTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD: Caleb Weidenbach – vocals Nico Schmutz – guitar Justin Laubscher – guitar Trevor Berecek – bass Harry Silvers – drums
