Heyo, just a word here as Roadburn does that Roadburn pre-holiday thing and announces a butt-ton of acts for next year’s festival before things get (outwardly) quieter for the next month or so. I know the narrative as regards the festival is that they’ve expanded from their beginnings, let go of the stoner rock stuff and all this, and to a certain point, that’s probably true. But among these almost-30 bands and artists, check out just how much heavy, psych, space and generally-out-there shit there is. Like, a ton.

Gnod & White Hills — who just announced a new collaborative album today — and Messa (I haven’t seen that album announcement but assume it’s coming unless I just missed it; it’s apparently called The Spin) playing full LPs, Coilguns, Smote, Thou, Zombie Zombie, Pothamus who I recently got put onto — some of it is spaced out and some of it is trippy, but if you’re looking for tonal presence, I don’t think it’s going to be in short supply.

That they also happen to be open-minded around this, such that Dødheimsgard and Chat Pile can exist on the same bill with Cinder Well, Faetooth and a Kylesa reunion, I don’t think is a weakness. At least it doesn’t seem to be looking at the new poster art, which I’ll just say flat out I prefer to 2024’s. I got to attend Roadburn earlier this year for the first time in five years, and it was magic and emotional both. I don’t know that I’ll be invited back for 2025 — because, really, why would I? — but this announcement does nothing at all to uncross my superstitious fingers.

The PR wire brought the latest:

Roadburn adds 29 new names to the 2025 lineup including envy, Oranssi Pazuzu, Thou, Gilla Band, Midwife, Steve Von Till and more

Roadburn has announced a further 29 names for the 2025 edition of the festival. Among the artists confirmed are several who will return to Roadburn – such as Thou, Messa, and Oranssi Pazuzu – and many who will be making their Roadburn debut – such as Envy, Tristwych y Fenywod, and Curses. Steve Von Till and Midwife have also been announced as artists in residence, both performing multiple times over the course of the festival. Roadburn 2025 will take place in Tilburg, The Netherlands between April 17-20.

Roadburn’s artistic director Walter Hoeijmakers comments:

“This announcement shows the broad scope of heaviness at Roadburn 2025. There are artistic, musical and emotional boundaries being pushed, and we are hosting up-and-coming acts making their festival debuts alongside longstanding luminaries. We are looking to the future, to our roots, and in all directions in the present to find those defying the perceived limits of genre in the underground. We know there are no limits.”

The new names added to Roadburn 2025 are as follows:

Bambara: brooding post-punk from New York

Big Brave performing their latest, critically acclaimed album A Chaos of Flowers

Blind Girls will make the trek from Australia to bring their frenetic screamo to Roadburn

Buñuel’s off-kilter noise rock will be presided over by enigmatic frontman Eugene S. Robinson

CHVE is the intense and intimate outlet for the solo work of Amenra’s Colin H. van Eeckhout

Coilguns will perform their new album Odd Love in its entirety.

Curses (Live) are set to deliver their neon-lit post-punk/electro hybrid

Dødheimsgard will bring their iconic combination of progressive black metal and avant-garde industrial as they perform their latest album, Black Medium Current

envy will make their long awaited Roadburn debut, performing A Dead Sinking Story in full as well as a modern era/Eunoia set

Gilla Band will revisit the Early Years with a noise-rock set that throws back to their roots

Gillian Carter hail from Orlando, Florida and will bring their distinctive brand of screamo to Tilburg in April.

Glassing head to Europe for just the second time to showcase their post-everything sound and bristling live energy.

Gnod & White Hills unite to perform their legendary Gnod Drop Out With White Hills II album

Great Falls fuse noise rock and hardcore in a discordant, emotion driven sonic purge

Messa return to Roadburn to play their upcoming new album, The Spin, in full.

Michael Gira and Kristof Hahn (SWANS) will present an intimate set of new and rarely heard compositions.

Midwife (Artist In Residence) – Madeline Johnston AKA Midwife will return to Roadburn – this time as an artist in residence – where she will perform three times, including a set with Vyva Melinkolya and a commissioned performance of her new album, No Depression In Heaven

Oranssi Pazuzu return to the festival with a very special performance of their latest release, Muuntautuja

Pothamus have just announced a brand new album, Abur, which they will perform in full at Roadburn 2025.

Pygmy Lush will play their first show in Europe at Roadburn, bringing their dark Americana to Roadburn.

Smote will expand to an eight-piece ensemble to perform their latest album, A Grand Stream

Steve Von Till (Artist In Residence) – we have invited Steve to be an artist in residence to honour his incredible musical legacy and shine a light on his future creative endeavours; he will perform two full sets and unite with artist Thomas Hooper for a collaborative audio-visual exhibition.

Thou will perform their latest album, Umbilical, in full on the main stage.

Tristwch Y Fenywod bring their folky Welsh-language incantations to Tilburg.

Violent Magic Orchestra blend black metal and electronics to dizzying effect

Vuur & Zijde feature members of Laster, Silver Knife, Terzij de Horde and more – and will make their live debut performing their album, Boezem

Vyva Melinkolya will play her first show in Europe, bringing her emotionally heavy dreamgaze to Roadburn.

Witch Club Satan rip up the rule book of black metal, embracing the feminine and the theatrical along the way.

Zombie Zombie combine groovy electronics and trippy motorik rhythms in their psychedelic sound

More information on these artists can be found HERE: https://roadburn.com/line-up/

They will join a slew of previously announced artists including Chat Pile, ØXN, Sumac, Altin Gun, and Kylesa.

All ticket and accommodation options for Roadburn are now on sale. For all information including tickets, please visit www.roadburn.com

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Thou, Umbilical (2024)

Second week of the Fall 2024 Quarterly Review begins now. You stoked? Nah, probably not, but at least at the end of this week there will be another 50 records for you to check out, added to the 50 from last week to make 100 total releases covered. So, I mean, it’s not nothing. But I understand if it isn’t the make-or-break of your afternoon.

Last week was killer, and today gets us off to another good start. Crazy, it’s almost like I’m enjoying this. Who the hell ever heard of such a thing?

Quarterly Review #51-60:

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White Hills, Beyond This Fiction

New York’s own psychedelic heads on fire White Hills return with Beyond This Fiction, a collection of sounds so otherworldly and lysergic they can’t help but be real. Seven tracks range from the fluid “Throw it Up in the Air” to the bassy experimental new wave of “Clear as Day,” veering into gentle noise rock as it does before “Killing Crimson” issues its own marching orders, coming across like if you beamed Fu Manchu through the accretion disk of a black hole and the audio experienced gravitational lensing. “Fiend” brings the two sides together and dares to get a little dreamy while doing it, the interlude “Closer” is a wash of drone, and “The Awakening” is a good deal of drone itself, but topped with spoken word, and the closing title-track takes place light-years from here in a kind of time humans haven’t yet learned to measure. It’s okay. White Hills records will still be around decades from now, when humans finally catch up to them. I’m not holding my breath, though.

White Hills on Facebook

White Hills on Bandcamp

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Demon Head, Through Holes Shine the Stars

Five records deep into a tenure now more than a decade long, I feel like Demon Head are a band that are the answer to a lot of questions being asked. Oh, where’s the classic-style band doing something new? Who’s a band who can sound like The Cure playing black metal and be neither of those things? Where’s a band doing forward-thinking proto-doom, not at all hindered by the apparent temporal impossibility of looking ahead and back at the same time? Here they are. They’re called Demon Head. Their fifth album is called Through holes Shine the Stars, and its it’s-night-time-and-so-we-chug-different sax-afflicted ride in “Draw Down the Stars” is consuming as the band take the ’70s doomery of their beginnings to genuinely new and progressive places. The depth of vocal layering throughout — “The Chalice,” the atmo-doom sprawl of “Every Flatworm,” the rousing, swinging hook and ensuing gallop of “Frost,” and so on — adds drama and persona to the songs, and the songs aren’t wanting otherwise, with a dug-in intricacy of construction and malleable underlying groove. Seriously. Maybe Demon Head are the band you’re looking for.

Demon Head on Facebook

Svart Records website

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Earth Ship, Soar

You can call Earth Ship sludge metal, and you’re not really wrong, but you’re not the most right either. The Berlin-based trio founded by guitarist/vocalist Jan Oberg and bassist Sabine Oberg, plus André Klein on drums, offer enough crush to hit that mark for sure, but the tight, almost Ministry-esque vocals on the title-track, the way “Radiant” dips subtly toward psychedelia as a side-A-capping preface to the languid clean-sung nod of “Daze and Delights,” giving symmetry to what can feel chaotic as “Ethereal Limbo” builds into its crescendo, fuzzed but threatening aggression soon to manifest in “Acrid Haze,” give even the nastiest moments throughout a sense of creative reach. That is to say, Soar — which Jan Oberg also recorded, mixed and mastered at Hidden Planet Studio and which sees release through the band’s The Lasting Dose Records — resides in more than one style, with opener “Shallow” dropping some hints of what’s to come and a special lumber seeming to be dedicated to the penultimate “Bereft,” which proves to be a peak in its own right. The Obergs seem to split their time these days between Earth Ship and the somewhat more ferocious Grin. In neither outfit do they misspend it.

Earth Ship on Facebook

The Lasting Dose Records on Bandcamp

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Tommy Stewart’s Dyerwulf, Fyrewulf One

Bassist/vocalist Tommy Stewart (ex-Hallows Eve, owner of Black Doomba Records) once more sits in the driver’s seat of the project that shares his name, and with four new tracks Tommy Stewart’s Dyerwulf on Fyrewulf One — which I swear sounds like the name of a military helicopter or somesuch — offer what will reportedly be half of their third long-player with an intention toward delivering Fyrewulf Two next year. Fair enough. “Kept Pain Busy” is the longest and grooviest fare on offer, bolstered by the quirk of shorter opener “Me ‘n’ My Meds” and the somewhat more madcap “Zoomagazoo,” which touches on heavy rockabilly in its swing, with a duly feedback-inclusive cover of Bloodrock‘s “Melvin Laid an Egg” for good measure. The feeling of saunter is palpable there for the organ, but prevalent throughout the original songs as well, as Stewart and drummer Dennis Reid (Patrick Salerno guests on the cover) know what they’re about, whether it’s garage-punk-psych trip of “Me ‘n’ My Meds” the swing that ensues.

Tommy Stewart’s Dyerwulf on Facebook

Black Doomba Records store

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Smote, A Grand Stream

The narrative — blessings and peace upon it — presents A Grand Stream as the result of Smote guitarist Daniel Foggin and drummer Rob Law absconding to a cabin in the woods by a stream to write and record. There’s certainly escapism in it, and one might argue Smote‘s folk-tinged drone and atmospheric heavy meditations have always had an aspect of leaving the ol’ consciousness at the flung-open doors of perception, etc., but the 10-minute undulating-but-mostly-stationary noise in “Chantry” is still a lot to take. That it follows the 16-miinute “Coming Out of a Hedge Backwards,” laced with sitar and synth and other backing currents filling out the ambience, should be indicative of the sprawl of the over-70-minute LP to begin with. Smote aren’t strangers at this point to the expanse or to longform expression, but there still seems to be a sense of plunging into the unknown throughout A Grand Stream as they make their way deeper into the 18-minute “The Opinion of the Lamb Pt. 2,” and the rolling realization of “Sitting Stone Pt. 1” at the beginning resounds over all of it.

Smote on Instagram

Rocket Recordings website

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Mammoth Caravan, Frostbitten Galaxy

Hard to argue with Mammoth Caravan‘s bruising metallism, not the least because by the time you’d open your mouth to do so the Little Rock, Arkansas, trio have already run you under their aural steamroller and you’re too flat to get the words out. The six-song/36-minute Frostbitten Galaxy is the second record from the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Robert Warner, bassist/vocalist Brandon Ringo and drummer Khetner Howton, and in the willful meander of “Cosmic Clairvoyance,” in many of their intros, in the tradeoffs of the penultimate “Prehistoric Spacefarer” and in the clean-sung finale “Sky Burial,” they not only back the outright crush of “Tusks of Orion” and “Siege in the Stars,” as well as opener/longest track (immediate points) “Absolute Zero,” with atmospheric intention, but with a bit of dared melody that feels like a foretell of things to come from the band. On Frostbitten Galaxy and its correspondingly chilly 2023 predecessor Ice Cold Oblivion (review here), Mammoth Caravan have proven they can pummel. Here they begin the process of expanding their sound around that.

Mammoth Caravan on Facebook

Blade Setter Records store

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Harvestman, Triptych Part Two

If you caught Harvestman‘s psychedelic dub and guitar experimentalism on Triptych Part One (review here) earlier this year, perhaps it won’t come as a shock to find former Neurosis guitarist/vocalist Steve Von Till, aka Harvestman, working in a similar vein on Triptych Part Two. There’s more to it than just heady chill, but to be sure that’s part of what’s on offer too in the immersive drone of “The Falconer” or the 10-minute “The Hag of Beara vs. the Poet (Forest Dub),” which reinterprets and plays with the makeup of opener “The Hag of Beara vs. the Poet.” “Damascus” has a more outward-facing take and active percussive base, while “Vapour Phase” answers “The Falconer” with some later foreboding synthesis — closer “The Unjust Incarceration” adds guitar that I’ve been saying for years sounds like bagpipes and still does to this mix — while the penultimate “Galvanized and Torn Open,” despite the visceral title, brings smoother textures and a steady, calm rhythm. The story’s not finished yet, but Von Till has already covered a significant swath of ground.

Steve Von Till website

Neurot Recordings store

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Kurokuma, Of Amber and Sand

Following up on 2022’s successful debut full-length, Born of Obsidian, the 11-song/37-minute Of Amber and Sand highlights the UK outfit’s flexibility of approach as regards metal, sludge, post-heavy impulses, intricate arrangements and fullness of sound as conveyed through the production. So yes, it’s quite a thing. They quietly and perhaps wisely moved on from the bit of amateur anthropology that defined the MesoAmerican thematic of the first record, and as Of Amber and Sand complements the thrown elbows in the midsection of “Death No More” and the proggy rhythmmaking of “Fenjaan” with shorter interludes of various stripes, eventually and satisfyingly getting to a point in “Bell Tower,” “Neheh” and “Timekeeper” where the ambience and the heft become one thing for a few minutes — and that’s kind of a separate journey from the rest of the record, which turns back to its purposes with “Crux Ansata,” but it works — but the surrounding interludes give each song a chance to make its own impact, and Kurokuma take advantage every time.

Kurokuma on Facebook

Kurokuma on Bandcamp

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SlugWeed, The Mind’s Ability to Think Abstract Thoughts

Do you think a band called SlugWeed would be heavy and slow? If so, you’d be right. Would it help if I told you the last single was called “Bongcloud?” The instrumental New England solo-project — which, like anything else these days, might be AI — has an ecosystem’s worth of releases up on Bandcamp dating back to an apparent birth as a pandemic project with the long-player The Power of the Leaf, and the 11-minute single “The Mind’s Ability to Think Abstract Thoughts” follows the pattern in holding to the central ethic of lumbering instrumental riffage, all dank and probably knowing about trichomes and such. The song itself is a massive chug-and-groover, and gradually opens to a more atmospheric texture as it goes, but the central idea is in the going itself, which is slow, plodding, and returns from its drift around a fervent chug that reminds of a (slower) take on some of what Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol had on offer earlier in the year. It probably won’t be long before SlugWeed return with anther single or EP, so “The Mind’s Ability to Think Abstract Thoughts” may just be a step on the way. Fine for the size of the footprint in question.

SlugWeed on Instagram

SlugWeed on Bandcamp

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Man and Robot Society, Asteroid Lost

Dug-in solo krautistry from Tempe, Arizona’s Jeff Hopp, Man and Robot Society‘s Asteroid Lost comes steeped in science-fiction lore and mellow space-prog vibes. It’s immersive, and not a story without struggle or conflict as represented in the music — which is instrumental and doesn’t really want, need or have a ton of room for vocals, though there are spots where shoehorning could be done if Hopp was desperate — but if you take the trip just as it is, either put your own story to it or just go with the music, the music is enough to go on itself, and there’s more than one applicable thread of plot to be woven in “Nomads of the Sand” or the later “Man of Chrome,” which resonates a classic feel in the guitar ahead of the more vibrant space funk of “The Nekropol,” which stages a righteous keyboard takeover as it comes out of its midsection and into the theremin-sounding second half. You never quite know what’s coming next, but since it all flows as a single work, that becomes part of the experience Man and Robot Society offer, and is a strength as the closing title-track loses the asteroid but finds a bit of fuzzy twist to finish.

Man and Robot Society on Facebook

Sound Effect Records website

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A tribute to Roadburn Festival is about as close as I can come to an absolute no-brainer. My life is a Roadburn tribute. Nonetheless, to look directly at the 2022 lineup and consider everything the Netherlands-based festival has been through over the last three years — everything everyone has been through — it seemed like the least I could do. I’ve been to every Roadburn since 2009. This will be the first I miss in all that stretch.

In 2021 when they did the virtual Roadburn Redux, I didn’t watch most of it. It was cool, I saw the whole setup they had with the virtual meeting room and I watched some of the streams, but yeah, I just kind of felt sad about the whole thing. And I saw the writing on the wall this year with the daily festival ‘zine I’ve been editing for the last seven or however many years even before I was told it wasn’t happening. Roadburn never needed me, but knowing that it’s happening next week and not being able to be there is sad. This isn’t really a consolation prize so much as a short love letter to the fest and best wishes to anyone who finds themselves in that space. I will miss it.

Thanks if you listen, thanks if you’re reading. Thanks in general.

The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.

Full playlist:

The Obelisk Show – 04.15.22

Year of No Light	Interdit aux Vivants, aux Morts et aux Chiens	Consolamentum
Sum of R	Lust	Lahbryce
Alcest	Spiritual Instinct	Spiritual Instinct
VT1
Sólstafir	Ljós Í Stormi	Svartir Sandar
Lingua Ignota	Katie Cruel	Katie Cruel (single)
Mizmor	Wit’s End	Wit’s End
Cloud Rat	Mouse Trap	Cloud Rat
Warhorse	Black Acid Prophecy	As Heaven Turns to Ash
Emma Ruth Rundle	Blooms of Oblivion	Engine of Hell
Årabrot	Feel it On	Norwegian Gothic
VT2
Kanaan	Return to the Tundrasphere	Earthbound
Smote	Moninna	Bodkin
40 Watt Sun	Until	Perfect Light
Messa	Pilgrim	Close

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is April 29 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.

Gimme Metal website

The Obelisk on Facebook

A lot to dig into here, and I suppose that’s not really a surprise when it comes to Roadburn announcements. Likewise, not a shock to see Emma Ruth Rundle and Lingua Ignota here, as both are album-of-the-year candidates among the underground critical literati and Rundle was supposed to curate 2020’s fest. Cool to see Messa make a return as well, and that new Mizmor is sitting on my desktop waiting to be dug into. The new 40 Watt Sun will make some resonant listening live, as it does on record, and I’m curious to dig into Hangman’s Chair, as my impression of them is they sound like Type O Negative but from Paris, which I guess is nothing to complain about. Jammers Kungens Män will be a joy for all who behold them, and Kanaan‘s heavy turn on their new album will bring Roadburn back to its stoner rock roots — if indeed that’s what they play — in a way that no one yet on the bill will do.

Oh, and Smote. If you haven’t checked out Drommon (review here), do that.

Like I said, a lot to dig into. That’s not even all of it, so don’t let me keep you:

New additions to Roadburn 2022

The second group of artists to be added to the Roadburn 2022 line up has today been announced.

Artistic director, Walter Hoeijmakers, comments:

“Roadburn 2022 will be a festival of hope; a celebration of underground music by Roadburn alumni and young and upcoming bands alike. It feels so great to offer them a platform and it’s equally great to offer our community their much missed home away from home. Despite the difficult circumstances with live music we remain optimistic and move forward with caution. It’s not easy but we’re really hopeful to be able to welcome you to Roadburn 2022. The idea of celebrating together makes everything worthwhile.”

Lingua Ignota will return to Roadburn in 2022, following two explosive performances at the 2019 edition of the festival. Having released SINNER GET READY earlier this year to widespread critical acclaim, the return to Roadburn is well timed to showcase her new material.

Emma Ruth Rundle will take to the main stage to present her groundbreaking new album, Engine of Hell. Due to be our curator in 2020, we’re delighted to welcome Emma back to Roadburn and to have her step into an even bigger spotlight this time around.

Following on from the recent announcement of a new album, Perfect Light, 40 Watt Sun will also perform on the main stage in April. Mizmor will return to perform Cairn in full, as was originally intended as part of Rundle’s curated event, which due to the pandemic didn’t come to fruition.

After performing alongside Dylan Carlson and as part of Zonal in previous years, The Bug will return – this time with MCs Flowdan and Logan to accompany him. Milena Eva & Thomas Sciarone’s curated event gains a new name: Sordide will be performing their most recent album Les idées blanches in full.

A rejuvenated Sum Of R will perform their upcoming new album, Lahbryce, in full on the main stage. Messa’s recently announced album, Close, will be performed, as will A Loner – the new album from Hangman’s Chair.

Cloud Rat will perform two sets, including a special Do Not Let Me Off The Cliff electronic-based performance. Uniform will perform their album Shame in full. HEALTH, Kælan Mikla and KANGA will provide some end-of-the-world dance party vibes. Meanwhile, Smote will perform their new album, Drommon in full.

Also announced is Fågelle, Kanaan, Kollaps, Kungens Män, Pinkish Black, and Wyatt E.

These names join previously announced artists including Ulver, Sólstafir, Alcest, Backxwash, Russian Circles, artist in residence – Full of Hell and many others. Roadburn Festival will take place between April 21-24 in Tilburg, The Netherlands.

Tickets for Roadburn 2022 are on sale now. Friday and Saturday day tickets are sold out. Thursday and Sunday day tickets, 3-day and 4-day tickets remain in limited numbers. Tickets and accommodation options are available to view via ticketmaster.nl.

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http://www.roadburn.com

Smote, Drommon (2021)

Hangman’s Chair, “Loner” official video

Hope you had a good weekend. Hope your bank account survived Bandcamp Friday. I gotta admit, I hit it a little hard, made four $10-plus purchases. A certain rainforest-named mega-corporate everything-distro site has me out of the habit of thinking of paying for shipping, but that comes back to bite you. And if there’s a tape or a CD and the download costs $7 and the tape costs $10 and comes with the download too, what would you have me do? Throw another five or six bucks in there for shipping and that adds up. Still, for a good cause, which is of course supporting bands nd labels who make and promote killer stuff. I don’t mind that.

We’ve arrived at the next to last day of the Fall 2021 Quarterly Review. It’s a cool one, I hope you’ll agree. If not, maybe tomorrow.

Quarterly Review #51-60:

Hour of 13, Black Magick Rites

The history of Hour of 13, 14 years on from their self-titled debut (discussed here) is complex and full of comings and goings. With Black Magick Rites — which was posted for a day in Nov. 2020 and then removed from the public sphere until this Shadow Kingdom release — founding multi-instrumentalist Chad Davis takes over vocal duties as well, charting the way forward for the band as a complete solo-project with seven songs and 43 minutes of lower-fi classic-style doom that bears in its title track some semblance of garage mentality but avoids most of the modern trappings such a designation implies. Satan features heavily, as one would expect. “House of Death” leans on its chorus hard, but opener “His Majesty of the Wood” and the eight-minute “Within the Pentagram,” as well as the payoff of closer “The Mystical Hall of Dreams” seem to show where the long-tumultuous outfit could be headed melodically and in grimly grandiose style if Davis — also of The Crooked Whispers, The Sabbathian, countless others in a variety of styles — wills it. Here’s hoping.

Hour of 13 on Bandcamp

Shadow Kingdom Records website

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Skepticism, Companion

Graceful death. 30 years later, one might expect no less from Finnish funeral doom progenitors than that, and it’s exactly what they bring to the six-song/48-minute Companion. “Calla” sets the tempo for what follows at a dirge march with keyboard adding melodies to the procession as “The Intertwined” continues the slow roll, with drums and piano taking over in the midsection before the full brunt is borne again. “The March of the Four” follows with church organ running alongside the drawn-out guitar movement, each hit of the kick drum somehow forlorn beneath the overlaid growls. At least superficially, this is the Skepticism one imagines: slow, mournful, beauty-in-darkness, making dirty sounds but emerging without a stain on their formalwear. Closer “The Swan and the Raven” is a triumph in this, a revelry-that-isn’t, and “Passage” and even gives the tempo a relative kick, but that and the consuming drama of “The Inevitable” feel within the band’s aesthetic wheelhouse. Or their mortuary, anyhow. Honestly, they know what they’re doing, they’ve done it for a long time, and they don’t release records that often, so there’s an element of novelty just to the fact that the album exists, but if you put on Companion and listen to it, they also sound like they’re taking an entire genre to school. A genre they helped define, no less.

Skepticism on Facebook

Svart Records website

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Count Raven, The Sixth Storm

Long-running Swedish doom traditionalists Count Raven are in immediate conversation with their own classic era with the album title The Sixth Storm serving as a reference to their 1990 debut, Storm Warning. Indeed, it is their sixth full-length, and it makes up for the decade-plus it’s been since they were last heard from with a 73-minute, all-in nine-track assemblage of oldschool Sabbathian doom metal, tinged with classic heavy rock and a broader vision that picks up where 2009’s Mammons War left off in epics like “The Nephilims” and “Oden,” the latter the album’s apex ahead of the Ozzy-ish piano/keyboard ballad “Goodbye” following on from the earlier “Heaven’s Door.” Some contemplation of mortality perhaps from founding guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Dan “Fodde” Fondelius to go with the more socially themed “The Giver and the Taker,” “Baltic Storm,” opener “Blood Pope” or even “Oden,” which bases itself around Christianity’s destruction of pagan culture. Fair enough. Classic doom spearheaded by a guy who’s been at it for more than three decades. No revolution in style, but if you’d begrudge Count Raven their first album in 12 years, why?

Count Raven on Facebook

I Hate Records website

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Owl Cave, Broken Speech

Something for everyone in Owl Cave‘s Broken Speech, at least so long as your vision of “everyone” just includes fans of various extreme metallic styles. The Parisian one-man outfit’s debut release arrives as a single 43-minute track, led off by the sample “your silence speaks volumes.” What unfolds from there is a linear progression of movements through which S. — the lone party responsible for the guitar, bass, drum programming and other sampling, as there are obscure bits that might be manipulated voices and so on — weaves progressive black metal, doom, industrial churn, noise rock and other genre elements together with a willful sense of experimentalism and uniting heft. Some stretches are abrasive, some are nearly empty, some guitar-led, some more percussive, but even at its most raging, “Broken Speech” holds to its overarching atmosphere, grim as it is, and that allows it to ponder with scorn and melancholy alike before finishing out with a cacophony of blasts and wash leading to a last residual drone.

Owl Cave on Facebook

Time Tombs Production webstore

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Zeup, Blind

Sharply executed, uptempo heavy/desert-style rock in the Californian tradition as filtered through a European legacy of bands that spans no less an amount of time, Zeup‘s second EP, Blind, is an in-and-out kind of affair. Four songs, 17 minutes. They’re not looking to take up too much of your day. But the energy they bring to that time, whether it’s the swinging bassline in “Belief” or the initial jolt of “Illusions,” the rolling catchiness of “Who You Are” or the closing title-track’s more Sabbath-spirited stomp, is organic, full, and sincere. In terms of style, the Copenhagen three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Jakob Bach, bassist/backing vocalist Morten Rold and drummer Morten Barth aren’t trying to get away with convincing anybody they invented heavy rock and roll, but the stamp they put on their own songs is welcome right up to the capper solo on “Blind” itself. Familiar, but crisp and refreshing like cold beer on a hot day, if that’s your thing.

Zeup website

Zeup on Bandcamp

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Dark Bird, Out of Line

A drift calls you forward as Dark Bird‘s fourth album (amid many short releases and experimentalist whathaveyous), Out of Line, begins with “And it All Ends Well” and its title-track, the Toronto-based Roan Bateman pushing outward melodically before adding more fuzz to the shroom-folk of “Stranger,” an underlying sense of march telling of the made-in-dark-times spirit that so much of the record seems to actively work against. “Down With Love” is a dream given shimmer in its strum and no less ethereal when the maybe-programmed drums start, and “Undone” is the bummed-out-with-self ’90s-lysergic harmony that you never heard at the time but should have. So it goes en route to the buzzing finale “This is It,” with “Minefied” echoing “Out of Line” with a vibe like Masters of Reality at their most ethereal, “With You” making a late highlight of its underlying organ drone and the vocals that top it in the second half, and “The Ghost” somehow turning Western blues despite, no, not at all doing that thing. 43 minutes of a world I’d rather live in.

Dark Bird on Facebook

NoiseAgonyMayhem website

Cardinal Fuzz webstore

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Hope Hole, Death Can Change

I’m not saying they don’t still have growing to do or work ahead of them in carving out their own approach from the elements their self-released debut album, Death Can Change, puts to work across its nine songs, but I am definitely saying that the Toledo, Ohio, duo of M.A. Snyder and Mike Mullholand, who’ve dubbed their project Hope Hole, are starting out in an admirable place. Throughout a vinyl-ready 37 minutes that makes a centerpiece of the roughed up The Cure cover “Kyoto Song,” the two-piece bridge sludged nod, classic heavy rock, progressive doom ambience, stonerly awareness — see “Cisneros’ Lament” — and a healthy dose of organ to result in a genre-blender sound that both chases individuality and manifests it in rudimentary form, perhaps arriving at some more melodic cohesion in the of-its-era closer “Burning Lungs” after rougher-edged processions, but even there not necessarily accounting for the full scope of the rest of the songs enough to be a full summary. The songs are there, though, and as Hope Hole continue to chase these demons, that will be the foundation of their progress.

Hope Hole on Facebook

Hope Hole on Bandcamp

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Smote, Drommon

Newcastle, UK, weirdo solo-outfit Smote released the two-part Drommon concurrent to March 2021’s Bodkin (review here), with tapes sold out from Base Materialism, and Rocket Recordings now steps in for a vinyl issue with two additional tracks splitting up the two-part title-cut, each piece of which runs just on either side of 16 minutes long. Drones and acid folk instrumentation, acoustics, sitars, electrified swirl — all of these come together in purposeful passion to create the textures of “Dommon (Part 1)” and “Drommon (Part 2),” and though it feels more directed with the complementary “Hauberk” and “Poleyn” included, the album’s experimental heart is well intact. Smote will make a stage debut next month, apparently as a four-piece around founder Daniel Foggin, so how that might play into the future of Smote as a full band in the studio remains to be seen. Drommon serves as argument heavily in favor of finding out.

Smote on Instagram

Rocket Recordings on Bandcamp

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Gristmill, Heavy Everything

East Coast dudes playing West Coast noise, it may well be that Gristmill deserve points right off the bat on their debut long-player, Heavy Everything, both for the title and for avoiding the trap of sounding like Unsane that defines so, so, so much of Atlantic Seaboard noise rock. They’re too aggro in their delivery to be straight-up doom, but the slower crawl of guitar in “Remains Nameless” and “Glass Door” adds depth to the pounding delivered by the initial salvo of “Mitch,” “Mute” and “Irony,” but the punch of the bass throughout is unmistakable, and though I can’t help be reminded in listening about that time Seattle’s Akimbo went and wrote a record based in my beloved Garden State, the drawn-out roll of “Stone Rodeo” and final nod-into-chug in “Loon” show readiness to encompass something beyond the raw scathe in their work. Yeah, if they wanted to put out like six or seven albums that sound just like this over the next 15 or so years, I’d probably be on board for that for the meanness and more of this debut.

Gristmill on Instagram

Gristmill on Bandcamp

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Ivory Primarch, As All Life Burns

This is a satisfying meat grinder in which to plunge one’s face for about an hour. A Buschemi-chipper. A powdering-of-bone that begins with the lurching of longest track (immediate points) “The Masque” — beginning with an acid-test sample, no less — and moving through “Gleancrawler” and the faster-for-a-while-but-still-probably-slower-than-you’re-thinking title-track, having just consumed half an hour of your life and a little of your soul. Hyperbole? Of course. But these are extreme sounds and extreme times, so fuck it. Melbourne duo Ivory Primarch, throughout As All Life Burns, demonstrate precious little regard for whatever standard of decency one might apply, and the deathly, fetid “Keeper of Secrets” and the keyboard-laced “Aetherbeast” — seeming to answer back to the opener — are self-aware enough to be willful in that, not to mention the fact that they top off with the noise-drone of “Aftermath,” as if to survey the devastation they just wrought, mangled and duly bludgeoned. Nothing sounds cruel enough? Try this.

Ivory Primarch on Facebook

Cursed Monk Records on Bandcamp

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Third day, and you know what that means. Today we hit and pass the halfway mark of this Quarterly Review. I won’t say it hasn’t been work, but it seems like every time I do one of these lately I continue to be astounded by how much easier writing about good stuff makes it. I must’ve done a real clunker like two years ago or something. Can’t think of one, but wow, it’s way more fun when the tunes are killer.

To that end we start with Dopelord today, haha. Have fun digging through if you do.

Quarterly Review #21-30:

Dopelord, Reality Dagger

They put it in a 12″, and that’s cool, but in addition to the fact that it’s about 22 minutes long, something about Reality Dagger, the latest EP from Poland’s Dopelord, strikes me as being really 10″ worthy. I know 10″ is the bastard son of vinyl pressings — doesn’t fit with your LPs and doesn’t fit with your 7″s. They’re a nuisance. Do they get their own shelf? Mixed in throughout? Well, however you organize them, I think a limited 10″ of Reality Dagger would be perfect, because from the melodies strewn throughout “Dark Coils” and the wildly catchy “Your Blood” — maybe the most complex vocal arrangement I’ve yet heard from the band — to the ultra-sludge interplay with screams on the 10-minute closing title-track, it sounds to me like standing out from the crowd is exactly what Dopelord want to do. They want to be that band that doesn’t fit your preconceptions of stoner-doom, or sludge, or modern heavy largesse in the post-Monolord vein. Why not match that admirable drive in format? Oh hell, you know what? I’ll just by the CD and have done with it. One of the best EPs I’ve heard this year.

Dopelord on Facebook

Dopelord on Bandcamp

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Scorched Oak, Withering Earth

Don’t be surprised when you see Kozmik Artifactz, Nasoni Records, or some other respected probably-European purveyor of heavy coming through with an announcement they’ve picked up Scorched Oak. The Dortmund, Germany, trio seem to have taken the last few years to figure out where they were headed — they pared down from a five-piece, for example — and their rolling tides of fuzz on late-2020’s debut LP Withering Earth bears the fruit of those efforts. Aesthetically and structurally sound, it’s able to touch on heavy blues, metal and drifting psychedelia all within the span of a seven-minute track like “Swamp,” and in its five-songs running shortest to longest, it effectively draws the listener deeper into the world the band are creating through dual vocals, patient craft and spacious production. If I was a label, I’d sign them for the bass tone on 14-minute closer “Desert” alone, never mind any of the other natural phenomena they portray throughout the record, which is perhaps grim in theme but nonetheless brimming with potential. Some cool riffs on this dying planet.

Scorched Oak on Facebook

Scorched Oak on Bandcamp

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Kings of the Fucking Sea, In Concert

A scorching set culled from two nights of performances in their native Nashville, what’s essentially serving as Kings of the Fucking Sea‘s debut long-player, In Concert, is a paean to raw psychedelic power trio worship. High order ripper groove pervades “Witch Mountain” and the wasn’t-yet-named “Hiding No More” — which was introduced tentatively as “Death Dealer,” which the following track is actually titled. Disorienting? Shit yeah it is. And shove all the poignancy of making a live album in Feb. 2020 ahead of the pandemic blah blah. That’s not what’s happening here. This is all about blow-the-door-so-we-can-escape psychedelic pull and thrust. One gets the sense that Kings of the Fucking Sea are more in control than they let on, but they play it fast and loose and slow and loose throughout In Concert and by the time the mellower jam in “I Walk Alone” opens up to the garage-style wash of crash cymbal ahead of closer “The Nile Song,” the swirling fuckall that ensues is rampant with noise-coated fire. A show that might make you look up from your phone. So cool it might be jazz. I gotta think about it.

Kings of the Fucking Sea on Facebook

Agitated Records on Bandcamp

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Mantarraya, Mantarraya

They bill themselves as ‘Mantarraya – power trío,’ and guitarist/vocalist Herman Robles Montero, drummer/maybe-harmonica-ist Kelvin Sifuentes Pérez and bassist/vocalist Enzo Silva Agurto certainly live up to that standard on their late-2020 self-titled debut full-length. The vibe is classic heavy ’70s through and through, and the Peruvian three-piece roll and boogie through the 11 assembled tracks with fervent bluesy swing on “En el Fondo” and no shortage of shuffle throughout the nine-minute “120 Años (Color),” which comes paired with the trippier “Almendrados” in what seems like a purposeful nod to the more out-there among the out there, bringing things back around to finish swinging and bouncing on the eponymous closer. I’ll take the classic boogie as it comes, and Mantarraya do it well, basking in a natural but not too purposefully so sense of underproduction while getting their point across in encouraging-first-record fashion. At over an hour long, it’s too much for a single LP, but plenty of time for them to get their bearings as they begin their creative journey.

Mantarraya on Facebook

Mantarraya on Bandcamp

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Häxmästaren, Sol i Exil

At the risk of repeating myself, someone’s gonna sign Häxmästaren. You can just tell. The Swedish five-piece’s second album, Sol i Exil (“sun in exile,” in English), is a mélange of heavy rock and classic doom influences, blurring the lines between microgenres en route to an individual approach that’s still accessible enough in a riffer like “Millennium Phenomenon” or “Dödskult Ritual” to be immediately familiar and telegraph to the converted where the band are coming from. Vocalist Niklas Ekwall — any relation to Magnus from The Quill? — mixes in some screams and growls to his melodic style, further broadening the palette and adding an edge of extremity to “Children of the Mountain,” while “Growing Horns” and the capper title-track vibe out with with a more classic feel, whatever gutturalisms happen along the way, the latter feeling like a bonus for being in Swedish. In the ever-fertile creative ground that is Gothenburg, it should be no surprise to find a band like this flourishing, but fortunately Sol i Exil doesn’t have to be a surprise to kick ass.

Häxmästaren on Facebook

Häxmästaren on Bandcamp

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Shiva the Destructor, Find the Others

Launching with the nine-minute instrumental “Benares” is a telling way for Kyiv’s Shiva the Destructor to begin their debut LP, since it immediately sets listener immersion as their priority. The five-track/44-minute album isn’t short on it, either, and with the band’s progressive, meditative psychedelic style, each song unfolds in its own way and in its own time, drawn together through warmth of tone and periods of heft and spaciousness on “Hydronaut” and a bit of playful bounce on “Summer of Love” (someone in this band likes reggae) and a Middle Eastern turn on “Ishtar” before “Nirvana Beach” seems to use the lyrics to describe what’s happening in the music itself before cutting off suddenly at the end. Vocals stand alone or in harmony and the double-guitar four-piece bask in a sunshine-coated sound that’s inviting and hypnotic in kind, offering turns enough to keep their audience following along and undulations that are duly a clarion to the ‘others’ referenced in the title. It’s like a call to prayer for weirdo psych heads. I’ll take that and hope for more to come.

Shiva the Destructor on Facebook

Robustfellow Productions on Bandcamp

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Amammoth, The Fire Above

The first and only lyric in “Heal” — the opening track of Sydney, Australia, trio Amammoth‘s debut album, The Fire Above — is the word “marijuana.” It doesn’t get any less stoned from there. Riffs come in massive waves, and even as “The Sun” digs into a bit of sludge, the largesse and crash remains thoroughly weedian, with the lumbering “Shadows” closing out the first half of the LP with particularly Sleep-y nod. Rawer shouted vocals also recall earlier Sleep, but something in Amammoth‘s sound hints toward a more metallic background than just pure Sabbath worship, and “Rise” brings that forward even as it pushes into slow-wah psychedelics, letting “Blade Runner” mirror “The Sun” in its sludgy push before closer “Walk Towards What Blinds You (Blood Bong)” introduces some backing vocals that fit surprisingly well even they kind of feel like a goof on the part of the band. Amammoth, as a word, would seem to be something not-mammoth. In sound, Amammoth are the opposite.

Amammoth on Facebook

Electric Valley Records website

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Nineteen Thirteen, MCMXIII

With emotional stakes sufficiently high throughout, MCMXIII is urgent enough to be post-hardcore, but there’s an underpinning of progressive heavy rock even in the mellower stretch of the eight-minute “Dogfight” that complements the noisier and more angular aspects on display elsewhere. Opener “Post Blue Collar Blues” sets the plotline for the newcomer Dayton, Ohio, four-piece, with thoughtful lyrics and a cerebral-but-not-dead-of-spirit instrumental style made full and spacious through the production. Melodies flesh out in “Cripple John” and “Old Face on the Wall,” brooding and surging in children-of-the-’90s fashion, but I hear a bit of Wovenhand in that finale as well — though maybe the one doesn’t exclude the other — so clearly Nineteen Thirteen are just beginning this obviously-passion-fueled exploration of sound aesthetic with these songs, but the debut EP they comprise cuts a wide swath with marked confidence and deceptive memorability. A new turn on Rust Belt heavy.

Nineteen Thirteen on Facebook

Nineteen Thirteen on Bandcamp

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Ikitan, Twenty-Twenty

Hey, you process trauma from living through the last year your way and Genova, Italy’s Ikitan will process it theirs. In their case, that means the writing, recording and self-release of their 20-minute single-song EP, Twenty-Twenty, a sprawling work of instrumentalist heavy post-rock rife with spacious, airy lead guitar and a solid rhythmic foundation. Movements occur in waves and layers, but there is a definite thread being woven throughout the outing from one part to the next, held together alternately by the bass or drums or even guitar, though it’s the latter that seems to be leading those changes as well. The shifts are fluid in any case, and Ikitan grow Twenty-Twenty‘s lone, titular piece to a satisfyingly heft as they move through, harnessing atmosphere as well as weight even before they lower volume for stretches in the second half. There’s a quick surge at the end, but “Twenty-Twenty” is more about journey than destination, and Ikitan make the voyage enticing.

Ikitan on Facebook

Ikitan on Bandcamp

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Smote, Bodkin

Loops, far-out spaces and a generally experimentalist feel ooze outward like Icelandic lava from Bodkin, the five-song debut LP from UK-based solo-outfit Smote. The gentleman behind the flow is Newcastle upon Tyne’s Daniel Foggin, and this is one of three releases he has out so far in 2021, along with a prior drone collaboration tape with Forest Mourning and a subsequent EP made of two tracks at around 15 minutes each. Clearly a project that can be done indoors during pandemic lockdown, Smote‘s material is wide-ranging just the same, bringing Eastern multi-instrumentalism and traditionalist UK psych together on “Fohrt” and “Moninna,” which would border on folk but for all that buzz in the background. The 11-minute “Motte” is a highlight of acid ritualizing, but the droning title-track that rounds out makes each crash count all the more for the spaces that separate them. I dig this a lot, between you and me. I get vibes like Lamp of the Universe here in terms of sonic ambition and resultant presence. That’s not a comparison I make lightly, and this is a project I will be following.

Smote on Bandcamp

Weird Beard Records store

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