Posted in Whathaveyou on July 16th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Interesting that the first track streaming from Orkestr‘s debut album, I, should be “We’ll Start Anew,” which is an idea that to my mind leans into some of the science-fiction elements noted in the PR wire info for the record below. In all likelihood “Time at the Speed of Light” would qualify in theme as well, but there’s an optimism in the idea of starting over, a hopefulness, that my Star Trek-loving self can very much appreciate even as I sit stupefied and watch the real world burn around me. Escapism? Maybe. Or maybe retrofuturist yacht prog-psych is the wave of things to come. I won’t profess to know.
The e’er-reliable Sound Effect Records has this one slated for Sept. 6, which is like forever from now and also something like a month and a half. If that’s when the better-future is coming, I’ll do my best to be ready, but that’s a lot to ask of a band’s first LP, so perhaps it’s better to just vibe on the three and a half minutes presently on offer and worry about the rest when the time comes, which surely it will, burning world or not.
Here’s the cover and that info I mentioned:
Sound Effect presents: ORKESTR – “I” – OUT Sep-6th 2024
ORKESTR is a space rock band from Horst aan de Maas, The Netherlands, that combines textured synths, melodic bass guitar and laid-back drums to create timeless soundscapes for your sci-fi dreams.
ORKESTR was formed in late 2019 by four seasoned musicians who earned their stripes in the local scene with bands such as No Man’s Valley and The Mothmen. The COVID-19 pandemic presented an unexpected challenge, forcing them to pivot and focus on their studio craft. This unscheduled detour ultimately led to the creation of their debut album.
After years of hard work, second-guessing, and lessons learned, ORKESTR is proud to announce the release of their self-titled debut, distributed by Sound Effect Records. The album will be accompanied by an animated film by the artist Jenzen. The future looks bright for ORKESTR – or should we say, the retrofuture?
“Orkestr” is due out September 6, 2024, on limited private-press vinyl and digisleeve CD, on Sound Effect Records. Now available for pre-order.
Tracklisting: 1. Kovcheg XIV 2. We’ll Start Anew 3. The Checklist 4. Time at the Speed of Light 5. Engines Humming 6. Touching from a Distance 7. Daytime 8. Dark Between the Stars 9. A Shadow 10. Daytime (Reprise) 11. Arrival 12. Promises 13. Alien Wilderness
Somewhere between blissprog, ethereal folk melodicism and cult-adjacent mystique, Magick Brother & Mystic Sister offer the first of a two-installment cycle of releases in the form of Tarot Pt. 1 (review here). Issued through Sound Effect Records, the subtly ambitious and sprawling 11-song outing follows the Barcelona group’s 2020 self-titled debut (discussed here) and leads off with the welcoming spirit of its longest track (immediate points) in “The Fool.” And while the opener doesn’t necessarily account for everything that happens arrangement-wise as the album unfolds, whether it’s the lush vocals of “The High Priestess,” the sitar drone flourish at the start of “The Empress,” the cinematic mellotron-and-maybe-xylophone drama of “The Lover,” or the flute-inclusive jazzy swing behind the later “The Justice,” it is a gateway through which one passes en route to that righteous succession.
Patient from its initial fade-in onward, “The Fool” is perhaps intended as a whole-record intro, or just wound up fitting as one when it was finished, I don’t know, but it works in that spot regardless. The first minute, before the drums arrive, builds up around a soft keyboard line, and it’s not so long before the gentle vocals begin the first verse, but by the time they do, offset by washes of synth and effects-guitar contemplations, clarity through strikes of keyboard/piano, the feeling is both traditionalist and futuristic, hopeful with an edge of melancholy. I know precious little about the tarot, but the cosmic-feeling vibe of lyrics like “I have no land/I have a star” is well accounted for in the surrounding krautrock-and-classic-prog instrumental movement, leaning into the psychedelic with some backwards looping and mostly-mindful drift before easing through the last bits of soloing and final drone. On the album — which you can stream below — “The Magician” tops that wind with an urgency of chimes soon answered by lead electric guitar, but maybe that’s something best left for you to discover on your own.
I don’t have a release date for Tarot Pt. 2, but even in telling only half the sonic story they ultimately will, Magick Brother & Mystic Sister fully embrace their audience and harness a sense of world-creation without subsuming craft to exploration or to theme. That is to say, they’re far out like way far out, but solid enough in the structuring of the material that there’s more on offer than far-outness, and while the songs are tied together in being named for cards in the tarot deck, the resulting front-to-back impression of Tarot Pt. 1 is such that they are distinguished in their individual scopes while enriching the whole work. And for a record like this — or for half of one, as it were — that’s more or less the ideal.
Enjoy “The Fool” below, with the aforementioned album stream near the links at the bottom of this post. Before I turn to you over to it, a note of appreciation to Magick Brother & Mystic Sister and Sound Effect Records for being flexible on scheduling this premiere around my traveling schedule. It is appreciated.
Speaking of travels, happy trails:
Magick Brother & Mystic Sister, “The Fool” video premiere
Zero the hero. The adventurer walks aimlessly near the cosmic void The Fool was one of the first compositions we did for Tarot. The idea arose from a hypnotic rhythmic base with galactic guitars and synths to convey the feeling born from the stars.
The Fool
I look for a time I have no land I have a star
under the sun I lay beside blades of grass
In the cold land I walk alone in circles
out of time I have no land I have a star
Magic Brother & Mystic Sister are: Xavi Sandoval: bass and guitars Eva Muntada: piano, synthesizers, organ & vocals Alejandro Carmona: drums Carlos G de Marcos: lyrics
Magick Brother & Mystic Sister, Tarot Pt. 1 (2024)
This is it. This one’s for all the marbles. Well, actually there are no marbles involved, but if you remember way back like two weeks ago when this started out, I told you the tale of a hubristic 40-something dickweed blogger who thought he could review 100 albums in 10 days, and assuming I make it through the below without having an aneurysm — because, hey, you never know — today I get to live that particular fairy tale.
Lamp of the Universe Meets Dr. Space, Enters Your Somas
Who’s ready to get blasted out the airlock? New Zealand solo-outfit Lamp of the Universe, aka multi-instrumentalist Craig Williamson (also Dead Shrine, ex-Datura, etc.), and Portugal-residing synth master Dr. Space, aka Scott Heller of Øresund Space Collective, Black Moon Circle, and so on, come together to remind us all we’re nothing more than semi-sentient cosmic dust. Enters Your Somas is comprised of two extended pieces, “Enters Your Somas” (18:39) and “Infiltrates Your Mind” (19:07), and both resonate space/soul frequencies while each finds its own path. The title-track is more languid on average, where “Infiltrates Your Mind” reroutes auxiliary power to the percussive thrusters in its first half before drifting into drone communion and hearing a voice — vague, but definitely human speech — before surging back to its course via Williamson‘s drums, which play a large role in giving the material its shape. But with synthy sweeps from Heller, Mellotron and guitar coming and going, and a steady groove across both inclusions, Lamp of the Universe Meets Dr. Space offer galactic adventure limited only by where your imagination puts you while you listen.
Richmond, Virginia’s Inter Arma had no small task before them in following 2019’s Sulphur English (review here), but from the tech-death boops and bops and twists of New Heaven‘s leadoff title-track through the gothic textures of “Gardens in the Dark,” self-aware without satire, slow-flowing and dramatic, this fifth full-length finds them continuing to expand their creative reach, and at this point, whatever genre you might want to cast them in, they stand out. To wit, the blackdeath onslaught of “Violet Seizures” that’s also space rock, backed in that by the subsequent “Desolation’s Harp” with its classically grandiose solo, or the post-doom lumber of “Concrete Cliffs” that calls out its expanse after the seven-minute drum-playthrough-fodder extremity of “The Children the Bombs Overlooked,” or the mournful march of “Endless Grey” and the acoustic-led Nick Cavey epilogue “Forest Service Road Blues.” Few bands embrace a full spectrum of metallic sounds without coming across as either disjointed or like they’re just mashing styles together for the hell of it. Inter Arma bleed purpose in every turn, and as they inch closer to their 20th year as a band, they are masters unto themselves of this form they’ve created.
The opening “Chimera” puts Chasing Shadows quickly into a ritualized mindset, all the more as Warsaw meditative doomers Sunnata lace it and a decent portion of their 11-track/62-minute fifth album with an arrangement of vocals from guitarists Szymon Ewertowski and Adrian Gadomski and bassist/synthesist Michal Dobrzanski as drummer/percussionist Robert Ruszczyk punctuates on snare as they head toward a culmination. Individual pieces have their own purposes, whether it’s the momentary float of “Torn” or the post-Alice in Chains harmonies offset by Twin Peaks-y creep in “Saviours Raft,” or the way “Hunger” gradually moves from light to dark with rolling immersion, or the dancier feel with which “Like Cogs in a Wheel” gives an instrumental finish. It’s not a minor undertaking and it’s not meant to be one, but mood and atmosphere do a lot of work in uniting the songs, and the low-in-the-mouth vocal melodies become a part of that as the record unfolds. Their range has never felt broader, but there’s a plot being followed as well, an idea behind each turn in “Wishbone” and the sprawl is justified by the dug-in worldmaking taking place across the whole-LP progression, darkly psychedelic and engrossing as it is.
Among the most vital classic elements of The Sonic Dawn‘s style is their ability to take spacious ideas and encapsulate them with a pop efficiency that doesn’t feel dumbed down. That is to say, they’re not capitulating to fickle attention spans with short songs so much as they’re able to get in, say what they want to say with a given track, and get out. Phantom is their fifth album, and while the title may allude to a certain ghostliness coinciding with the melancholy vibe overarching through the bulk of its component material, the Copenhagen-based trio are mature enough at this stage to know what they’re about. And while Phantom has its urgent stretches in the early going of “Iron Bird” or the rousing “Think it Over,” the handclap-laced “Pan AM,” and the solo-topped apex of “Micro Cosmos in a Drop,” most of what they’re about here harnesses a mellower atmosphere. It doesn’t need to hurry, baby. Isn’t there enough rush in life with all these “21st Century Blues?” With no lack of movement throughout, some of The Sonic Dawn‘s finest stretches here are in low-key interpretations of funk (“Dreams of Change,” “Think it Over,” “Transatlantique,” etc.) or prog-boogie (“Scorpio,” “Nothing Can Live Here” before the noisier crescendo) drawn together by organ, subdued, thoughtful vocal melodies and craft to suit the organic production. This isn’t the first The Sonic Dawn LP to benefit from the band knowing who they are as a group, but golly it sure is stronger for that.
It’s not until the hook of second cut “Ohm Ripper” hits that Rifflord let go of the tension built up through the opening semi-title-track “Serpent Power,” which in its thickened thrashy charge feels like a specific callout to High on Fire but as I understand it is just about doing hard drugs. Fair enough. The South Dakota-based five-piece of bassist/vocalist Wyatt Bronc Bartlett, guitarists Samuel Hayes and Dustin Vano, keyboardist Tory Jean Stoddard and drummer Douglas Jennings Barrett will echo that intensity later in “Church Keys” and “Tumbleweed,” but that’s still only one place the 38-minute eight-track LP goes, and whether it’s the vocals calling out through the largesse and breadth of “Blessed Life” or the ensuing crush that follows in “LM308,” the addled Alice in Chains swagger in the lumber of “Grim Creeper” or the righteously catchy bombast of “Hoof,” they reach further than they ever have in terms of sound and remain coherent despite the inherently chaotic nature of their purported theme, the sheer heft of the tonality wielded and the fact that 39 Serpent Power has apparently been waiting some number of years to see release. Worth the wait? Shit, I’m surprised the album didn’t put itself out, it sounds so ready to go.
At the core of Mothman and the Thunderbirds is multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Alex Parkinson, and on the band’s second album, Portal Hopper, he’s not completely on his own — Egor Lappo programmed the drums, mixed, and plays a guitar solo on “Fractals,” Joe Sobieski guests on vocals for a couple tracks, Sam Parkinson donates a pair of solos to the cause — but it’s still very much his telling of the charmingly meandering sci-fi/fantasy plot taking place across the 12 included progressive metal mini-epics, which he presents with an energy and clarity of purpose that for sure graduated from Devin Townsend‘s school of making a song with 40 layers sound immediate but pulls as well from psychedelia and pop-punk vocals for an all the more emphatic scope. This backdrop lets “Fractals” get funky or “Escape From Flatwoods” hold its metallic chicanery with its soaring melody while “Squonk Kingdom” is duly over-the-top in its second-half chase soon enough fleshed out by “So Long (Portal Hopper)” ahead of the lightly-plucked finale “Attic.” The specificity of influence throughout Portal Hopper can be striking as clean/harsh vocals blend, etc., but given the narrative and the relative brevity of the songs complementing the whims explored within them, there’s no lack of character in the album’s oft-careening 38-minute course.
Given its pro-shop nature in production and performance, the ability of The Lunar Effect to grasp a heavy blues sound as part of what they do while avoiding either the trap of hyper-dudely navelgazing or cultural appropriation — no minor feat — and the fluidity of one piece into the next across the 40-minute LP’s two sides, I’m a little surprised not to have been sick of the band’s second album, Sounds of Green and Blue before I put it on. Maybe since it’s on Svart everyone just assumed it’s Finnish experimentalist drone? Maybe everybody’s burnt out on a seemingly endless stream of bands from London’s underground? I don’t know, but by the time The Lunar Effect make their way to the piano-laden centerpiece “Middle of the End” — expanding on the unhurried mood of “In Grey,” preceding the heavy blues return of “Pulling Daisies” at the start of side B that mirrors album opener “Ocean Queen” and explodes into a roll that feels like it was made to be the best thing you play at your DJ night — that confusion is a defining aspect of the listening experience. “Fear Before the Fall” picks on Beethoven, for crying out loud. High class and low groove. Believe me, I know there’s a lot of good stuff out already in 2024, but what the hell more could you want? Where is everybody?
Even if I were generally inclined to do so — read: I’m not — it would be hard to begrudge Portland heavy rock institution Danava wanting to do a live record after their 2023’s Nothing But Nothing (review here) found them in such raucous form. But the aptly-titled Live is more than just a post-studio-LP check-in to remind you they kick ass on stage, as side A’s space, classic, boogie, heavy rocking “Introduction/Spinning Temple” and “Maudie Shook” were recorded in 2008, while the four cuts on side B — “Shoot Straight with a Crooked Gun,” “Nothing but Nothing,” “Longdance,” “Let the Good Times Kill” and “Last Goodbye” — came from the European tour undertaken in Fall 2023 to support Nothing But Nothing. Is the underlying message that Danava are still rad 15 years later? Maybe. That certainly comes through by the time the solo in “Shoot Straight with a Crooked Gun” hits, but that also feels like reading too much into it. Maybe it’s just about representing different sides of who Danava are, and if so, fine. Then or now, psych or proto-thrashing, they lay waste.
A free three-songer from Varese, Italy’s Moonlit, Be Not Afraid welcomes the listener to “Death to the World” with (presumably sampled) chanting before unfurling a loose, somewhat morose-feeling nighttime-desert psych sway before “Fort Rachiffe” howls tonally across its own four minutes in more heavy post-rock style, still languid in tempo but encompassing in its wash and the amp-hum-and-percussion blend on the shorter “Le Conseguenze Della Libertà” (1:57) gives yet another look, albeit briefly. In about 11 minutes, Moonlit — whose last studio offering was 2021’s So Bless Us Now (review here) — never quite occupy the same space twice, and despite the compact presentation, the range from mid-period-QOTSA-gone-shoegaze (plus chanting! don’t forget the chanting!) to the hypnotic Isis-doing-space-push that follows with the closer as a but-wait-there’s-more/not-just-an-afterthought epilogue is palpable. I don’t know when or how Be Not Afraid was recorded, whether it’s portentous of anything other than itself or what, but there’s a lot happening under its surface, and while you can’t beat the price, don’t be surprised if you end up throwing a couple bucks Moonlit‘s way anyhow.
Much of Northern Lights is instrumental, but whether or not Leo Scheben is barking out the endtimes storyline of “Darkhammer” — stylized all-caps in the tracklisting — or “Night Terrors,” or just digging into a 24-second progression of lo-fi riffing of “Paranoid Isolation” and the Casio-type beats that back his guitar there and across the project’s 16-track latest offering, the reminder Doom Lab give is that the need to create takes many forms. From the winding scales of “Locrian’s Run” to “Twisted Logic” with its plotted solo lines, pieces are often just that — pieces of what might otherwise be a fleshed-out song — and Doom Lab‘s experimentalism feels paramount in terms of aural priorities. Impulse in excelsis. It might be for the best that the back-to-back pair “Nice ‘n’ Curvy” and “Let ’em Bounce” are both instrumental, but as madcap as Scheben is, he’s able to bring Northern Lights to a close with resonant homage in its title-track, and cuts like “Too Much Sauce on New Year’s Eve” and “Dark Matter” are emblematic of his open-minded approach overall, working in different styles sometimes united most by their rawness and uncompromising persona. This is number 100 of 100 records covered in this Quarterly Review, and nothing included up to now sounds like Doom Lab. A total win for radical individualism.
Alright, back at it. Putting together yesterday over the weekend was more scattershot than I’d prefer, but one might say the same of parenting in general, so I’ll leave it at that. Still, as happens with Quarterly Reviews, we got there. That my wife gave me an extra 40 minutes to bang out the Wizzerd video premiere was appreciated. As always, she makes everything possible.
Compared to some QRs, there are a few ‘bigger’ releases here. You’ll note High on Fire leading off today. That trend will continue over this and next week with the likes of Pallbearer, Uncle Acid, Bongripper, Harvestman (Steve Von Till, ex-Neurosis), Inter Arma, Saturnalia Temple spread throughout. The Pelican two-songer and My Dying Bride back to back a week from today. That’ll be a fun one. As always, it’s about the time crunch for me for what goes in the Quarterly Review. Things I want to cover before it’s too late that I can fit here. Ain’t nobody holding their breath for my opinion on any of it, or on anything generally for that matter, but I’m not trying to slight well known bands by stuffing them into what when it started over a decade ago I thought would be a catchall for demos and EPs. Sometimes I like the challenge of a shorter word count, too.
And I remind myself here again nobody really cares. Fine, let’s go.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
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High on Fire, Cometh the Storm
What seems at first to be business as usual for High on Fire‘s fourth album produced by Kurt Ballou, fifth for MNRK Heavy (formerly E1), and ninth overall, gradually reveals itself to be the band’s tonally heaviest work in at least the last 15 years. What’s actually new is drummer Coady Willis (Big Business, Melvins) making his first studio appearance alongside founding guitarist/vocalist Matt Pike (Sleep, Pike vs. the Automaton) and long-tenured bassist/backing vocalist Jeff Matz (also saz on the instrumental interlude-plus “Karanlik Yol”), and for sure Willis‘ thud in “Trismegistus,” galloping intensity in the thrashy and angular “The Beating” and declarative stomp beneath the big slowdown of 10-minute closer “Darker Fleece” is part of it, but from the way Pike and Matz bring “Cometh the Storm’ and “Sol’s Golden Curse” in the record’s middle to such cacophonous ends, the three-and-a-half-minute face-kick that is “Lightning Beard” and the suckerpunch that starts off with “Lambsbread,” to how even the more vocally melodic “Hunting Shadows” is carried on a wave of filthy, hard-landing distortion, their ferocity is reaffirmed in thicker grooves and unmitigated pummel. While in some ways this is what one would expect, it’s also everything for which one might hope from High on Fire a quarter-century on from their first demo. Triumph.
A release concurrent to a remastered edition of their 2016 debut, Lemanis (review here), only puts into emphasis how much Spaceslug have come into their own over eight productive years. Recorded by drummer/vocalist Kamil Ziółkowski (also Mountain of Misery), with guitarist/vocalist Bartosz Janik and bassist/vocalist Jan Rutka dug into familiar tonal textures throughout five tracks and a quick but inevitably full-length-flowing 32 minutes, Out of Water is both otherworldly and emotionally evocative in the rollout of “Arise the Sun” following the intertwined shouts of opener “Tears of Antimatter,” and in keeping with their progression, they nudge toward metallic aggression as a way to solidify their heavy psychedelic aspects. “Out of Water” is duly mournful to encapsulate such a tragic notion, and the nod of “Delusions” only grows more forcefully applied after the return from that song’s atmospheric break, and while they depart with “In Serenity” to what feels like the escapism of sunnier riffing, even that becomes more urgent toward the album’s finish. The reason it works is they’re bending genre to their songs, not the other way around, and as Spaceslug mature as a group, they’ve become one of Poland’s most essential heavy acts.
First issued on CD through JM Records in 2023, Lie Heavy‘s debut album, Burn to the Moon, sees broader release through Heavy Psych Sounds with revamped art to complement the Raleigh, North Carolina, four-piece’s tonal heft and classic reach in pieces like “In the Shadow” and “The Long March,” respectively. The band is fronted by Karl Agell (vocalist for C.O.C.‘s 1991 Blind album and now also in The Skull-offshoot Legions of Doom), and across the 12-song/51-minute run, and whether it’s the crunch of the ripper “When the Universe Cries” or the Clutch-style heavy funk of “Chunkadelic” pushing further from the start-stops of “In the Shadow” or the layered crescendo of “Unbeliever” a short time later, he and bassist/vocalist TR Gwynne, guitarist/vocalist Graham Fry and drummer/vocalist Jeff “JD” Dennis deliver sans-pretense riff-led fare. They’re not trying to fix what wasn’t broken in the ’90s, to be sure, but you can’t really call it a retread either as they swing through “Drag the World” and its capstone counterpart “End the World”; it all goes back to Black Sabbath anyway. The converted will get it no problem.
Dublin, Ireland, trio Burning Realm mark their first release with the four-song Face the Fire EP, taking the cosmic-tinged restlessness of Wild Rocket and setting it alongside more grounded riffing, hinting at thrash in the ping ride on “From Beyond” but careening in the modern mode either way. Lead cut “Homosapien” gives Hawkwindian vibes early — the trap, which is sounding like Slift, is largely avoided, though King Gizzard may still be relevant as an influence — but smoothly gives over to acoustics and vocal drone once its urgency has bene vaporized, and spacious as the vocal echo is, “Face the Fire” is classic stoner roll even into its speedier ending, the momentum of which is continued in closer “Warped One (Arise),” which is more charged on the whole in a way that feels linear and intended in relation to what’s put before it. A 16-minute self-released introduction to who Burning Realm are now, it holds promise for how they might develop stylistically and grow in terms of range. Whatever comes or doesn’t, it’s easy enough to dig as it is. If you were at a show and someone handed you the tape, you’d be stoked once you put it on in the car. Also it’s like 1995 in that scenario, apparently.
Offered through an international consortium of record labels that includes Crême Brûlée Records in the band’s native France, Echodelick in the US, Clostridium in Germany and Weird Beard in the UK, French heavy psych thrusters Kalac‘s inaugural full-length, Odyssée — also stylized all-caps — doesn’t leave much to wonder why so many imprints might want some for the distro. With a focus on rhythmic movement in the we-gotta-get-to-space-like-five-minutes-ago modus of current-day heavy neo-space-rock, the mostly instrumental procession hypnotizes even as it peppers its expanses with verses here or there. That might be most effectively wrought in the payoff noiseblaster wash of “II,” which I’m just going to assume opens side B, but the boogie quotient is strong from “Arguenon” to “Beautiful Night,” and while might ring familiar to others operating in the aesthetic galaxial quadrant, the energy of Kalac‘s delivery and the not-haphazard-but-not-always-in-the-same-spot-either placement of the vocals are enough to distinguish them and make the six-tracker as exciting to hear as it sounds like it probably was to record.
The live-tracked fourth outing from Helsinki psych improvisationalists Alkuräjähdys, the lowercase-stylized ehdot. blends mechanical and electronic sounds with more organic psychedelic jamming, the synth and bassier punchthrough in the midsection of opening piece “.matriisi” indeed evocative of the dot-matrix printer to which its title is in reference, while “központ,” which follows, meanders into a broader swath of guitar-based noise atop a languidly graceful roll of drums. That let’s-try-it-slower ideology is manifest in the first half of the duly two-sided “a-b” as well, as the 12-minute finale begins by lurching through the denser distortion of a central riff en route to a skronk-jazz transition to a tighter midtempo groove that I’ll compare to Endless Boogie and very much intend that as a compliment. I don’t think they’re out to change the world so much as get in a room, hit it and see where the whole thing ends up, but those are noble creative aims in concept and practice, and between the two guitars, effects, synth and whathaveyou, there’s plenty of weird to go around.
Already a significant undertaking as a 95-minute 2LP running 11 tracks themed — as the title(s) would hint — around tarot cards, the mostly serene sprawl of Magick Brother & Mystic Sister‘s Tarot Pt. 1 is still just the first of two companion albums to be issued as the follow-up to the Barcelona outfit’s 2020 self-titled debut (discussed here). Offered through respected Greek purveyor Sound Effect Records, Tarot Pt. 1 gives breadth beyond just the runtime in the sitar-laced psych-funk of “The Hierophant” (swap sitar for organ, synth and flute on “The Chariot”) and the classic-prog pastoralia of closer “The Wheel of Fortune,” and as with the plague-era debut, at the heart of the material is a soothing acid folk, and while the keys in the first half of “The Emperor” grow insistent and there’s some foreboding in the early Mellotron and key lines of “The Lovers,” Tarot Pt. 1 resonates comfort and care in its arrangements as well as ambition in its scope. Maybe another hour and a half on the way? Sign me up.
The eight-year distance from their 2016 debut long-player, Little Cliffs, seems to have smoothed out some (not all, which isn’t a complaint) of the rough edges in Amigo‘s sound, as the seemingly reinvigorated San Diego four-piece of lead guitarist/vocalist Jeff Podeszwik (King Chiefs), guitarist Anthony Mattos, bassist Sufi Karalen and drummer Anthony Alley offer five song across an accessible, straightforward 17 minutes united beneath the fair-enough title of Good Time Island. Without losing the weight of their tones, a Weezery pop sensibility comes through in “Dope Den” while “Frog Face” is even more specifically indebted to The Cars. Neither “Telescope Boy” nor “Banana Phone” lacks punch, but Amigo hold some in reserve for “Me and Soof,” which rounds out the proceedings, and they put it to solid use for an approach that’s ’90s-informed without that necessarily meaning stoner, grunge or alt, and envision a commercially relevant, songwriting-based heavy rock and roll for an alternate universe that, by all accounts here, sounds like a decent place to be.
Culminating in the Sabbathian shuffle of “Eye for an Eye,” Wild Fever is the hook-drenched third full-length from Montreal fuzzbringers The Hazytones, and while they’ve still got the ‘tones’ part down pat, it’s easy to argue the eight included tracks are the least ‘hazy’ they’ve been to-date. Following on from the direction of 2018’s II: Monarchs of Oblivion (review here), the Esben Willems-mixed/Kent Stump-mastered 40-minute long-player isn’t shy about leaning into the grittier side of what they do as the opening title-track rolls out a chorus that reminds of C.O.C. circa In the Arms of God while retaining some of the melody between the vocals of Mick Martel (also guitar and keys) and Gabriel Prieur (also drums and bass), and with the correspondingly thick bass of Caleb Sanders for accompaniment and lead guitarist John Choffel‘s solo rising out of the murk on “Disease,” honing in on the brashness suits them well. Not where one might have expected them to end up six years later, but no less enjoyable for that, either.
God damn that’s harsh. Mostly anonymous industrialists — you get F and N for names and that’s it — All Are to Return are all the more punishing in the horrific recesses and engulfing blasts of static that populate III than they were in 2022’s II (review here), and the fact that the eight-songer is only 32 minutes long is about as close as they come to any concept of mercy for the psyche of their audience. Beyond that, “Moratorium,” “Colony Collapse,” the eats-you-dead “Archive of the Sky” and even the droning “Legacy” cast a willfully wretched extremity, and what might be a humanizing presence of vocals elsewhere is screams channeled through so much distortion as to be barely recognizable as coming from a human throat here. If the question being posed is, “how much can you take?,” the answer for most of those brave enough to even give III a shot will be, “markedly less than this.” A cry from the depths realizing a brutal vision.
Athens classic-heavy purveyors Bus — aka Bus The Unknown Secretary — move deeper into the metallic with their third full-length, We Are the Night. Set to release June 21 as their first offering through Sound Effect Records and the follow-up to 2019’s Never Decide (review here), the tight-knit 33-minute eight-songer LP manifests influences that have been at work in their sound since their 2016 debut, The Unknown Secretary (review here), but it is as refined in its focus as it is brazen in the proto-thrash shove of “Amass Empathy” or the Judas Priest-style careening chug of “Somebody Spits on You,” so perhaps it’s fair to say they’re leaning into the harder, rawer, and less boogie-prone side of their collective persona.
They do so with immediacy resultant in part from a generally stripped-down feel in the material. It’s not all as outwardly speedy as the opening title-track (video premiering below) and initial single and album-closer “Under My Skin” — to wit, the penultimate “Rise of the Fallen” pulls back on the throttle to give its lead guitar all the more space to establish a sinister atmosphere leading into the finale, with organ melody adding some light to its own crescendo — but the forward charge is nonetheless definitive, and bolstered by the divergence into garage-doom lumbering of “Rumours” and the returning production work of John Vulgaris keyed for warmth as well as clarity enough to let the changes shine through.
But it also helps that Bus aren’t trying to hide where they’re coming from or play coy in stylistic terms. Whether it’s “I’ll Be Dead for You” with a riff so ’80s that even Mötley Crüe’s AI would be impressed, or the way “Nevermind/Realise” complements its twisting guitar leads with a cyclical rhythm on drums and extra punch in the bass, the four-piece hold fast to the classic-metal foundations driving them. They don’t dwell too long in any single movement, but each piece adds something to the overarching flow and contextual dynamic, as when “Rumours” redirects the momentum after the speedier “Somebody Spits on You” or “Amass Empathy” kicks off side B with such pointed intensity. We Are the Night isn’t as broad in its reach as some of what Bus have done in the past, but in trade, its specific focus becomes a strength that makes it hit that much harder.
With “Rumours” and the chunkier riffing of “Rise of the Fallen” offsetting the sheer thrust that surrounds and “Under My Skin” capping with not-the-record’s-first nod to the NWOBHM in the guitar and a bookend to the title-cut, We Are the Night isn’t hyper-simplified or just a half-hour-plus of Bus doing the same thing eight times over. Instead, they bring pretense-free homage to the metal of eld and present songs varied in character but united in purpose, efficient in craft and rife with aesthetic intent. That’s not the most “get those horns up!” sentence I’ve ever written, for sure, but amid all the brash riffing and hairpin turns they pull off, they’re making a declaration of who they are and what they want to do at this stage in their tenure.
Will it be the same going forward? Hell if I know. But if you’ve followed Bus at all to this point or if they’re completely new to you, the vitality with which they execute We Are the Night invites you to be in the moment with it, and maybe let later worry about later later. Garage metal? Freedom metal? Trad metal? Call it whatever you want, it’s no less exciting to take on front to back.
Enjoy the video for “We Are the Night” below, followed by more from the PR wire:
Bus, “We Are the Night” video premiere
Doomed by the cruelty of the new world, we’re once again ready to smash the bridge of the imperial vision, right here – right now! A truly independent and irreverent album has landed! “WE ARE THE NIGHT” came to seal the extraordinary music attitude of the extreme classic rock quartet from Athens. Through the difficulties of the recent years BUS got more motivated and the result is a true solid rock/metal album. Compact! Powerful! All killer, no filler! Just bangers such as the self-titled song “We Are the Night”, “Somebody Spits on You”, ‘I’ll be Dead for You” and “Under My Skin”.
The album was recorded live in three days at Electric Highway Studios in Athens, engineered once again by John Vulgaris. It’s the second time the band trusts John Vulgaris for his creativity and input in the creative process, like singing and playing various instruments. So, let’s find the reason for tonight and bang our heads with heavy metal, sex and rock n roll.
“We Are the Night” is due out on June 21st on vinyl and CD! Pre-sale shall be announced soon.
Tracklisting: 1. We Are the Night (5:14) 2. Somebody Spits on You (2:36) 3. Rumours (4:46) 4. I’ll Be Dead for You (3:53) 5. Amass Empathy (3:14) 6. Nevermind/Realise (3:02) 7. Rise of the Fallen (5:39) 8. Under My Skin (5:03)
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 29th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Greek traditionalist heavy outfit Bus — aka Bus the Unknown Secretary — have signed to Sound Effect Records for the June 21 release of their third full-length, We Are the Night. It’s the band’s first LP since 2019’s Never Decide (review here), which came out through RidingEasy, and while it keeps the semi-retro spirit that the band have proffered since their 2016 Twin Earth debut, The Unknown Secretary (review here), lead single “Under My Skin” pulls back on the boogie and garage aspect of that in favor of a rawer, more Motörheaded charge.
If you found yourself swept up in the fist-in-the-air NWOBHM-gone-raw force of Danava‘s Nothing but Nothing in 2023, “Under My Skin” should have little trouble getting where the title says it’s headed. With punches of bass behind its proto-thrash solo, a hooky chorus and infectious physical shove, it accounts for some of the darker mood Bus presented on their 2022 EP, Black Magic Bus, and couples that with an urgency that speaks to its having been recorded live in the studio.
As to whether or not “Under My Skin” represents everything Bus are doing on We Are the Night, I’d suspect not based on their past work, but frankly, the lead single already indicates a clear pivot from that foundation, so the door is open wide enough that it’s not worth speculating. It is worth looking forward to finding out, though, so I’m rolling with that.
Sound Effect sent the following down the PR wire:
BUS – “We Are the Night”
Bus the Unknown Secretary, collectively known as BUS, sign with Sound Effect Records and announce third album “We Are the Night”! Recorded live in the studio in just 3 days, “We Are the Night” is a solid rock/metal album, an “all killer, no filler” proposition and a must for all metal devotees across the globe. “We Are the Night” is due out on June 21st on vinyl and CD! Pre-sale shall be announced soon.
Athens-based five-piece Under the Sun are set to issue their debut LP, The Bell of Doom, on April 5 through the e’er-reliable Sound Effect Records. And man, some albums just manage to sound loud no matter at what volume you’re actually playing them. Starting with a hearty “Oh yeah!” and diving almost immediately into a celebration of riff and drive with “Smoking Angels,” the shove is inviting through the slowdown and into the dual guitars assuring no dip in the heavy as they shred the solo into the fade. The initial impression is a party and they back that for sure in the burly swagger of “Cry Out,” the more rolling “One Reason” and side B’s pairing of “The Shot” (video premiering below) and “Pony Ride,” with classic-style hooks and careening riffs offered with no pretense in their impulse toward audience engagement. Sounds like a good time? Hell yes it does.
But if you’re looking at the cover art with its graveyard and kraken-church, red sky and vertigo-style swirl, dark hues and creeper logo treatments wondering if I’ve posted the wrong image or some such based on the above description, there’s another side to Under the Sun that manifests throughout the eight-song/38-minute LP. In the video for “The Shot,” they’re getting ready for the show, getting to the show, playing the show, and that focus on on-stage energy is an obvious priority. If they showed up at your front door and started rocking out (after knocking politely, of course), they could hardly make it easier to get on board with the groove. What’s not accounted for in that are cuts like the title-track, which trades “Oh yeah!” for a tolling bell ahead of its crashes and redirects the momentum built across “Smoking Angels” and “Cry Out” toward a post-Cathedral lurch that even when they seem to break out of their own trance later on with a last-minute tempo kick, continues to define “The Bell of Doom” as a marked turn from whence they set forth minutes earlier.
Side B leadoff “Going Down” subs in Sabbathian swing for its own second-half pickup, and they find some middle ground in brash closer “My Name” — which is the longest inclusion at 6:34 but departs to a residual drone around the 4:45 mark — but in that finale the vibe likewise feels grimmer. The vocals are throatier, and the on-beat forwardness that brought the double-time hi-hat, strutting riff and Southern-style soloing of “Pony Ride” has shifted its urgency to act as a setup for the quick drop to bass that precedes a markedly sludged-out nod, which serves as their mostly-instrumental outro before the aforementioned drone takes hold, pausing again to get even slower before it’s through and thereby hammering its teardown all the more into your brain. This dual-faceted ethic isn’t always so stark in presentation, which “One Reason” also demonstrates in sticking to its bigger-feeling lumber, and one has to acknowledge that the lines being drawn are between microniches under the umbrella of ‘heavy.’
It’s the sense of purpose with which Under the Sun toll their bell — aesthetically and literally speaking — when they do that is striking, ultimately, and it may be that as they press forward from The Bell of Doom, they’ll draw the various sides of their persona closer together and end up somewhere in the middle. The opposite feels no less likely; that the lines between their rocker and doomer sides will become more prevalent. As their first record, The Bell of Doom sets out on a path that’s unknowable as yet — though it’s almost always fun to guess, even when I say it isn’t — but what allows it to do so is a strength of performance and songwriting that communes with genre and audience even as the band begin to search for their place, their sound. Or maybe I should take a cue from “The Shot” below, let tomorrow worry about tomorrow, and bask in the revelry of the moment captured and offered, whatever form it might take.
Yeah, let’s roll with it.
Enjoy the video. PR wire info and links of course follow after:
Under the Sun, “The Shot” video premiere
Under the Sun, one of Athens, Greece’s best-kept secrets, announce their debut album “The Bell of Doom”, due out on vinyl and CD on April 5, 2024 on Sound Effect Records. A thunderous stoner-sludge album shaking the foundations of all-things-heavy with its combination of amp-splitting power and red-eyed psychedelics.
Under The Sun is a sludgerotic stoner band that emerged from the depths of heavy riffing and jamming, back in 2015. Inspired by historic ’70s bands like Black Sabbath and embracing the sound of newer bands, like Orange Goblin, Kyuss, and C.O.C., Under the Sun forge their own sound that appeals to both fans of 70s heavy rock and stoner / doom music lovers.
Passionate about creating music driven by fuzz-drenched guitars and groovy bass lines, Under the Sun operate on the event horizon between heavy-doom and sunbaked stoner-rock. Armed with tough riffing, powerful vocals and traveling drums, Under the Sun merge a punk-attitude (the album was recorded live and required a maximum of two takes for each song) with the “sweet surrender” of their more laid-back, psych-blues escapism, resulting in a classic r’n’r record!
From the pure r’n’r of “Smoking Angels” to the seemingly-occult aura of “The Bell of Doom” (in essence an allegorical song about the distortion of human relationships), Under the Sun revisit their childhood dreams (“Shot”), or embark on some… psychedelic ones (“Pony Ride”), pay tribute to choices turned sour and wrong paths (“One Reason”, “Going Down”), though, after all, they do not forget to praise Friday night in the city (“Looking for some dirt, 20 euros in my pocket, welcome to my world”, from “Know My Name”), or make a tender gesture to all those who have a hard time and need to take life in their own hands (“Cry Out”)…cause, as the band insists on, we are all equal under the sun.
Video credits: Artist: Under The Sun Song Title: The Shot Album: The Bell Of Doom Label: Sound Effect Records (www.soundeffect-records.gr) Director: Spyros Kourkoulas
Tracklisting: 1. Smoking Angels 2. Cry Out 3. The Bell of Doom 4. One Reason 5. Going Down 6. The Shot 7. Pony Ride 8. My Name
Album credits: Recorded at Unreal Studios Engineered by Nick Dimitrakakos Mixed and mastered by Alex Ketenjian Artwork by CLLK
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 23rd, 2024 by JJ Koczan
The occasion bringing together Copper Feast Records in the UK and Sound Effect Records in Greece to collaborate for the first time is the April 5 release of Iron Blanket‘s debut full-length, Astral Wanderer. And fair enough for the charged heavy psychedelia thus far on display in the album’s three streaming tracks, the opening duo “Evil Mind” and “Mystic Goddess” portraying a style of grounded riffing that kicks-in-the-ass some of Uncle Acid‘s garage groove while vocalist Johann Ingemar reimagines Sabbath-era Ozzy reach through a delivery that you could just as easily say comes from folk as prog and which is likened in the release info to Mars Volta. So yes, vibrato.
A later but still side A cut, “Kookaburra Nightmare” is more relaxed in tempo and broader in its soundscaping, taking some of the dreamy impulses hinted at in “Evil Mind” and “Mystic Goddess” and shifting the balance between elements in the crafting. Much of the info below came from Copper Feast‘s Bandcamp, but some I took from the social media announcement as well and kind of repositioned it to make sense all as one thing. The bottom line remains the same: something new for you to dig if you can dig it, and here’s hoping.
Preorders start Feb. 23, which is apparently today because it’s no longer July 2005 for some silly reason.
Info:
Iron Blanket – Astral Wanderer – Sound Effect & Copper Feast Records
Blending 70’s inspired psychedelic grooviness with unmistakable driving stoner rock riffs and Mars Volta-esque vocals, Sydney’s Iron Blanket are a band like no other right now.
Their much heralded live show that has drawn them new fans at every venue they’ve played down under is now translated to their debut LP, Astral Wanderer.
Released through UK-based Copper Feast Records and legendary Athens’ label Sound Effect Records, Astral Wanderer is slated for full release on 5th April.
Says Copper Feast: “Please join me in welcoming one of Sydney’s worst kept secrets Iron Blanket to Copper Feast Records! We’ve got the pleasure to be co-releasing this unmissable slab of wax alongside legendary Athens-based label Sound Effect Records. We’ll be dropping presales this Friday, February 23rd, for the two limited edition variants.”
The inaugural co-release between these much loved labels will also bring two limited edition vinyl editions, one on classic black and the other on blood red vinyl. Numbers as follows:
Classic Black – 250 worldwide Blood Red – 150 worldwide
Tracklisting: 1. Evil Mind 2. Mystic Goddess 3. Witch’s Kiss 4. Kookaburra Nightmare 5. Astral Wanderer 6. Iron Blanket 7. Visions of the End 8. Tongue of Time
releases April 5, 2024
All songs written and performed by Iron Blanket Recorded and mixed by Phan Sharif at Parliament Studios Mastered by Darren Ziesing
Iron Blanket is: Mark Lonsdale – Guitar Nick Matthews – Drums Tom Withford – Guitar Charles Eggleston – Bass Johann Ingemar – Vocals
