Review & Track Premiere: Duskwood, The Last Voyage

Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on March 27th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

Duskwood

UK-based desert-style heavy rockers Duskwood are releasing their new album, The Last Voyage, on May 12 as their first outing through Ripple Music. Billed as their second full-length, it follows the 2016’s Desert Queen and the 2019/2020 EPs The Long Dark and The Lost Tales, so is well on-theme in its ‘The L-word Something’ construction, and indeed pushes further to conclude a lyrical narrative set up across those short offerings. A traditional label-debut, then, and fair enough for the vitality the Somerset four-piece of guitarist Greg Watts, bassist Aaron Tinsley, drummer Hugh Landon and can-sing vocalist Liam Tinsley bring to the eight songs and 45 minutes that comprise it, shifting from the initial misdirect of synth at the outset of opener “Vagrant” into a wall-o’-fuzz presentation distinguished in no small part by the fullness of its rear-back-and-put-some-shoulder-into-it shove and poised, melodic communion with its forebears.

From then on, it’s just about all ‘go’ on The Last Voyage, though “Gammon Lord” hints at atmospheric ranging in a break in its second half building to its final surge, and the later “Skyriders” peppers dual-channel noodly lead notes into its stomp-drum verses, reminding a bit of latter day Truckfighters for the effort, and certainly there’s room in the nine-minute finale “Legacy” for breadth and Duskwood take suitable advantage of it, while also reaffirming their penchant for crescendo that’s been on display all the while.

But if one is considering first impressions in The Last Voyage as a release that will find the band new to many listeners (myself included), then Duskwood leave little question that they are a rock band, and yes, that’s a compliment. Atop the tumbling nod and coursing density of “She Calls” and the sleek groove of side B kickoff “Iliad,” they remind not only that the heart of heavy is in the low end, but speak to the growth of a desert rock beyond the desert that’s taken shape over the last quarter-century or more, whether that’s realized in contemporary outfits across England’s ultra-packed heavy underground — Psychlona come to mind as an especially desert-hued example, earlier Steak, among others — or bands like the aforementioned Truckfighters in Sweden, Valley of the Sun from the US Midwest, Deadly Vipers in France, and so on.

That is to say, first person who goes “duh but they’re not from the desert” gets punched in the arm. Geography isn’t the point; riffs are. And with Liam marking himself as a frontman in the John Garcia circa Hermano style as regards approach — crooning in the build-up of the later highlight “Deathproof” en route to conjuring the storm that ensues at 1:06, soon enough later layering Duskwood The Last Voyagegutted-out melodies like very much with the confidence of someone who’s been doing so for the last decade at minimum, thoughtfully layered and not anymore overblown than is warranted by the surrounding largesse — the band as a whole feels aware of who they are aesthetically and, in the volume trades of “Blackhand,” like they’re working as a solidified unit toward realizing their identity in the material.

They’re not all the way there yet, or at least they’re not as far as they’ll go, but the way in which they foster immediacy in “She Calls” while giving up none of the impact of “Gammon Lord” or “Vagrant” before it represents their craft well and offers hints toward what might be after they put this particular narrative thread behind them and inevitably move forward from The Last Voyage. And by the way, potential being what it is, if they never do anything else, they still made a kickass heavy rock record, which is a thing to be appreciated.

Pro-shop in sound — Neil Kennedy and Kurt Fagan recorded at The Ranch Production House in Southampton — and no less engaging in its songwriting than in the performances captured, The Last Voyage finds its place amid the conventions of genre with exceptional skill and grace, and Duskwood remain surefooted where others might stumble, whether that’s Watts‘ shreddy solo in “Skyriders” or the consuming roll at the apex of “Legacy” before they bring it down to a quiet finish of looped amp noise, maybe-bookending synth, and vocal let-go. One way or the other, they sound like a band who want to be heard, whether that’s hooking a crowd at a show or capturing fickle attentions through whatever streaming service algorithm it might be, and The Last Voyage accordingly delivers a stretch of songs worth hearing. Without pretense but not at all without flourish, Duskwood thrive.

So, if you want to dwell for a bit, there’s space in The Last Voyage to do so, and if you’re looking for a frontal blast of fuzz, you can hear “She Calls” from the album on the player below, followed by more info courtesy of the PR wire.

Go ahead, you’ve earned it:

Duskwood is a heavy rock band hailing from Somerset, England. Having formed in 2016, and already released a pair of well-loved EPs, Duskwood have now signed to respected heavy rock label Ripple Music for the release of their sophomore album. Entitled “The Last Voyage”, it will pose as the final piece in the epic saga of a time-traveling space cowboy the band started telling on their debut. Duskwood is a potent English heavy rock force, get ready for their hard riffing magic to take you away!

About “The Last Voyage”: “We wanted to create something that would immerse you. Writing songs about our small-town lives, or the next new trend just doesn’t interest us anymore. Hopefully what we’ve created will allow you to kick back with a glass of liquor, close your eyes and get swept away to another dimension!”

“The Last Voyage” was recorded at The Ranch Production House in Southampton, UK by Neil Kennedy & Kurt Fagan. It will be issued in various vinyl editions, CD digipack and digital on May 12th, with preorder available now from Ripple Music.

TRACKLIST:
1. Vagrant
2. Gammon Lord
3. She Calls
4. Blackhand
5. Iliad
6. Skyriders
7. Deathproof
8. Legacy

DUSKWOOD is:
Liam Tinsley – Vocals
Greg Watts – Guitar
Aaron Tinsley – Bass
Hugh Landon – Drums

Duskwood, The Last Voyage (2023)

Duskwood on Facebook

Duskwood on Instagram

Duskwood on Bandcamp

Duskwood on Spotify

Duskwood website

Ripple Music on Facebook

Ripple Music on Instagram

Ripple Music on Bandcamp

Ripple Music website

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Sail Release New EP Live at TAD Studios

Posted in Whathaveyou on December 4th, 2020 by JJ Koczan

If you’re reading these words — and hey, if you are, thanks — then you probably don’t need me to tell you that today is Bandcamp Friday, the one day a month that the online portal has set aside to waive the fees it collects from artists. Good day to buy music, in other words, if you like directly supporting those who make said music. There are of course a ton of releases as a result, but while you’re spending the day, well, spending, I’d only encourage you to give a glance over at what UK heavy proggers Sail have on offer in the new EP, Live at TAD Studios, which, if you dug their 2020 studio album, Mannequin (review here), should make a welcome follow-up.

Four songs, two previously unreleased, and included is the Mannequin title-track, which you’ll also find the video below, put together as it was by fan-filmed footage, which is nice because, you know, virtual togetherness and all that. Also it’s catchy. That doesn’t hurt either, ever.

You should note that TAD Studios is not the same as Witch Ape Studio, which is run by Tad Doyle. Ain’t nobody traveling to record in the States right now. Bad enough living here.

Okay, here you go:

sail live at tad studios

Sail – Live at TAD Stuios

The four tracks were recorded at TAD Studios as part of a live session, and feature our latest single Mannequin, two tracks from Slumbersong (Shimmer & Old Tom) and Bookends, which has never been released. We wanted to celebrate these tracks in a different environment and add a positive note to the end of a difficult year; our fans have stuck by us and we want to reward them for their loyalty.

Tracklist:
1) Mannequin (Live at TAD Studios)
2) Bookends (Live at TAD Studios)
3) Shimmer (Live at TAD Studios)
4) Old Tom (Live at TAD Studios)

Art credit: Tim Kazer
Mixing and mastering: Umair Chaudhry
Additional audio editing: Kynan Scott

Sail are a melodic sludge/ stoner metal band from Somerset, UK. Forming in 2016, they released their debut record Slumbersong on Hibernacula Records in 2017 and Starve in 2019. They have toured with Cybernetic Witch Cult, Morag Tong, Morass of Molasses, Kylver, and have toured Ireland with Everest Queen and Zhora.

Sail are:
Charlie Dowzell: guitars, vocals
Tim Kazer: guitars, vocals
Kynan Scott: bass, synths
Tom Coles: drums

https://www.facebook.com/thebandsail/
http://instagram.com/thebandsail
https://thebandsail.bandcamp.com/

Sail, Live at TAD Studios (2020)

Sail, “Mannequin” official video

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Quarterly Review: Tia Carrera, Inter Arma, Volcano, Wet Cactus, Duskwood, Lykantropi, Kavod, Onioroshi, Et Mors, Skånska Mord

Posted in Reviews on July 4th, 2019 by JJ Koczan

quarterly-review

Day four. I should’ve known we’d hit a snag at some point in the week, but it happened yesterday afternoon when Windows decided I desperately needed some update or other and then crapped the bed in the middle of said update. I wound up taking my laptop to a repair guy down the road in the afternoon, who said the hard drive needed to be wiped and have a full reinstall. Pretty brutal. He was going to back up what was there and get on it, said I could pick it up today. We’ll see how that goes, I guess. Also, happy Fourth, if America’s your thing. Let’s dive in.

Quarterly Review #31-40:

Tia Carrera, Visitors / Early Purple

tia carrera visitors early purple

They had a single out between (review here), but the two-song LP Visitors / Early Purple is Tia Carrera‘s first album since 2011’s Cosmic Priestess (review here). The Austin, Texas, three-piece — which now includes bassist Curt Christianson of Dixie Witch alongside guitarist Jason Morales and drummer Erik Conn — haven’t missed a beat in terms of creating heavy psychedelic sprawl, and as the side-consuming “Visitors” (18:32) and “Early Purple” (16:28) play out, it’s with a true jammed sensibility; that feeling that sooner or later the wheels are going to come off. They don’t, at least not really, but the danger always makes it more exciting, and Morales‘ tone has been much missed. In the intervening years, the social media generation has come up to revere Earthless for doing much of what Tia Carrera do, but there’s always room for more jams as far as I’m concerned, and it’s refreshing to have Tia Carrera back to let people know what they’ve been missing. Here’s hoping it’s not another eight years.

Tia Carrera on Facebook

Small Stone Records on Bandcamp

 

Inter Arma, Sulphur English

inter arma sulphur english

I can’t help but think Inter Arma‘s Sulphur English is the album Morbid Angel should have made after Covenant. And yes, that applies to the harmonies and organ of “Stillness” as well. The fourth full-length (third for Relapse) from the Richmond, Virginia, outfit is a beastly, severe and soulful 66-minute stretch of consuming, beyond-genre extremity. It punishes with purpose and scope, and its sense of brutality comes accompanied by a willful construction of atmosphere. Longer pieces like “The Atavist’s Meridian” and the closing title-track lend a feeling of drama, but at no point does Sulphur English feel like a put-on, and as Inter Arma continue their push beyond the even-then-inventive sludge of their beginnings, they’ve become something truly groundbreaking in metal, doing work that can only be called essential to push forward into new ground and seeming to swallow the universe whole in the meantime. It’s the kind of record that one can only hope becomes influential, both in its purpose toward individualism and its sheer physical impact.

Inter Arma on Facebook

Relapse Records website

 

Volcano, The Island

volcano the island

So you’ve got Harsh Toke‘s Gabe Messer on keys and vocals and JOY guitarist/Pharlee drummer Zack Oakley on guitar, and bassist Billy Ellsworth (also of Loom) and Matt Oakley on drums, plus it seems whoever else happened to be around the studio that day — and in San Diego, that could be any number of players — making up Volcano, whose debut, The Island (on Tee Pee) melds Afrobeat funk-rock with the band’s hometown penchant for boogie. The songs are catchy — “10,000 Screamin’ Souls,” “Naked Prey,” “Skewered,” “No Evil, Know Demon”; hooks abound — but there’s a feeling of kind of an unthinking portrayal of “the islander” as a savage that I can’t quite get past. There’s inherently an element of cultural appropriation to rock and roll anyway, but even more here, it seems. They make it a party, to be sure, but there’s a political side to what Afrobeat was originally about that goes unacknowledged here. They might get there, they might not. They’ve got the groove down on their first record, and that’s not nothing.

Volcano on Instagram

Tee Pee Records website

 

Wet Cactus, Dust, Hunger and Gloom

wet cactus dust hunger and gloom

Sometimes you just miss one, and I’ll admit that Wet CactusDust, Hunger and Gloom got by me. It likely would’ve been in the Quarterly Review a year ago had I not been robbed last Spring, but either way, the Spanish outfit’s second long-player is a fuzz rocker’s delight, a welcoming and raucous vibe persisting through “Full Moon Over My Head,” which is the second cut of the total five and the only one of the bunch under seven minutes long. They bring desert-jammy vibes to the songs surrounding, setting an open tone with “So Long” at the outset that the centerpiece “Aquelarre” fleshes out even further instrumentally ahead of the penultimate title-track’s classic build and payoff and the earth-toned nine-minute finale “Sleepy Trip,” which is nothing if not self-aware in its title as it moves toward the driving crescendo of the record. All throughout, the mood is as warm as the distortion, and Wet Cactus do right by staying true to the roots of desert rock. It’s not every record I’d want to review a year after the fact; think of it that way.

Wet Cactus on Facebook

Wet Cactus on Bandcamp

 

Duskwood, The Long Dark

duskwood the long dark

A follow-up EP to Duskwood‘s 2016 debut long-player, Desert Queen, the four-track The Long Dark is a solid showcase of their progression as songwriters and in the capital-‘d’ Desertscene style that has come to epitomize much of the UK heavy rock underground, taking loyalism to the likes of Kyuss and topping it off with the energy of modern London-based practitioners Steak. The four-piece roll out a right-on fuzzy groove in “Mars Rover” after opening with “Space Craft” and show more of a melodic penchant in “Crook and Flail” before tying it all together with “Nomad” at the finish. They warn on their Bandcamp page this is ‘Part 1,’ so it may not be all that long before they resurface. Fair enough as they’ve clearly found their footing in terms of style and songwriting here, and at that point the best thing to do is keep growing. As it stands, The Long Dark probably isn’t going to kick off any stylistic revolution, but there’s something to be said for the band’s ability to execute their material in conversation with what else is out there at the moment.

Duskwood on Facebook

Duskwood on Bandcamp

 

Lykantropi, Spirituosa

Lykantropi-Spirituosa

Sweet tones and harmonies and a classic, sun-coated progressivism persist on Lykantropi‘s second album, Spirituosa (on Lightning Records), basking in melodic flow across nine songs and 43 minutes that begin with the rockers “Wild Flowers” and “Vestigia” and soon move into the well-paired “Darkness” and “Sunrise” as the richer character of the LP unfolds. “Songbird” makes itself a highlight with its more laid back take, and the title-track follows with enough swing to fill whatever quota you’ve got, while “Queen of Night” goes full ’70s boogie and “Seven Blue” imagines Tull and Fleetwood Mac vibes — Flutewood Mac! — and closer and longest track “Sällsamma Natt” underscores the efficiency of songwriting that’s been at play all the while amidst all that immersive gorgeousness and lush melodicism. They include a bit of push in the capper, and well they should, but go out with a swagger that playfully counteracts the folkish humility of the proceedings. Will fly under many radars. Shouldn’t.

Lykantropi on Facebook

Lightning Records website

 

Kavod, Wheel of Time

kavod wheel of time

As Italian trio Kavod shift from opener “Samsara” into “Absolution” on their debut EP, Wheel of Time, the vocals become a kind of chant for the verse that would seem to speak to the meditative intention of the release on the whole. They will again on the more patient closer “Mahatma” too, and fair enough as the band seem to be trying to find a place for themselves in the post-Om or Zaum sphere of spiritual exploration through volume, blending that aesthetic with a more straight-ahead songwriting methodology as manifest in “Samsara” particularly. They have the tones right on as they begin this inward and outward journey, and it will be interesting to hear in subsequent work if they grow to work in longer, possibly-slower forms or push their mantras forward at the rate they do here, but as it stands, they take a reverent, astral viewpoint with their sound and feel dug in on that plane of existence. It suits them.

Kavod on Facebook

Kavod on Bandcamp

 

Onioroshi, Beyond These Mountains

onioroshi beyond these mountains

Onioroshi flow smoothly from atmospheric post-sludge to more thrusting heavy rock and they take their time doing it, too. With their debut album, Beyond These Mountains, the Italian heavy proggers present four tracks the shortest of which, “Locusta,” runs 10:54. Bookending are “Devilgrater” (14:17) and “Eternal Snake (Mantra)” (20:30) and the penultimate “Socrate” checks in at 12:29, so yes, the trio have plenty of chances to flesh out their ideas as and explore as they will. Their style leans toward post-rock by the end of “Devilgrater,” but never quite loses its sense of impact amid the ambience, and it’s not until “Socrate” that they go full-on drone, setting a cinematic feel that acts as a lead-in for the initial build of the closer which leads to an apex wash and a more patient finish than one might expect given the trip to get there. Beyond These Mountains is particularly enticing because it’s outwardly familiar but nuanced enough to still strike an individual note. It’s easy to picture Onioroshi winding up on Argonauta or some other suitably adventurous imprint.

Onioroshi on Facebook

Onioroshi on Bandcamp

 

Et Mors, Lux in Morte

et mors lux in morte

Whoever in Maryland/D.C. then-four-piece Et Mors decided to record their Lux in Morte EP in their practice space had the right idea. The morose death-doom three-songer takes cues from USBM in the haunting rawness of “Incendium Ater,” and even though the 19-minute “House of Nexus” comes through somewhat clearer — it was recorded to tape at Shenandoah University — it remains infected by the filth and grit of the opener. Actually, “infected” might be the word all around here, as the mold-sludge of closer “Acid Bender” creeps along at an exposed-flesh, feedback-drenched lurch, scathing as much in intent as execution, playing like a death metal record at half-speed and that much harsher because they so clearly know what they’re doing. If you think it matters that they mixed stuff from two different sessions, you’re way off base on the sound overall here. It’s patch-worthy decay metal, through and through. Concerns of audio fidelity need not apply.

Et Mors on Facebook

Et Mors on Bandcamp

 

Skånska Mord, Blues from the Tombs

skanska mord blues from the tombs

When Sweden’s Skånska Mord are singing about the deep freeze in album opener “Snow” on the Transubstans-released Blues from the Tombs, I believe it. It’s been seven years since Small Stone issued their Paths to Charon LP (review here), and the new record finds them more fully dug into a classic rocker’s take on hard-blues, rolling with Iommic riffs and a mature take on what earliest Spiritual Beggars were able to capture in terms of a modern-retro sound. “Snow” and “Simon Says” set an expectation for hooks that the more meandering “Edge of Doom” pulls away from, while “The Never Ending Greed” brings out the blues harp over an abbreviated two minutes and leads into a more expansive side B with “Blinded by the Light” giving way to the wah-bassed “Sun,” the barroom blueser “Death Valley Blues” and the returning nod of closer “The Coming of the Second Wave,” stood out by its interwoven layers of soloing and hypnosis before its final cut. It’s been a while, but they’ve still got it.

Skånska Mord on Facebook

Transubstans Records website

 

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