Italian progressive atmospheric rock unit Oslo Tapes will release their new album, Staring at the Sun Before Goin’ Blind, on Dec. 1. The record — which is the fourth since the mostly-solo-project of vocalist, multi-instrumentalist Marco Campitelli (who also handled some of the recording here) released its self-titled debut a decade ago — is being issued through a consortium of labels that includes Echodelick Records, Sound Effect Records and Grazil Records, covering North America, Europe and Australia, respectively.
The distributary triumvirate step in for Pelagic Records, which issued Oslo Tapes‘ ØR (review here) in mid-2021. Staring at the Sun Before Goin’ Blind — the title perhaps conveying some measure of pastoralism by knocking the ‘g’ off “going” — is comprised of eight tracks, like its predecessor, and sees Campitelli working in collaboration with producer Amaury Cambuzat, who also mixed, mastered and contributed to the writing and presumably arrangements of the material, which carries subtle currents of pop in its digestible blend of styles from prog and post-heavy rock in drifty opener “Gravity” and the later “Middle Ground,” which swells to a wash that would feel like a culmination were it not for the seven-minute closing title-track two songs later, to the Godflesh-‘n’-chill of side A’s “Ethereal Song,” the turn-of-the-century Reznorian drum and bass perfect-druggery of “Reject Yr Regret” or the periodic dance parties that seem to break out, in either of those two or elsewhere.
It’s a complex listen, provided you want it to be. For those who might dig into details, there’s full-dimensionality to what Campitelli and Amaury have brought here, unto the use of traditional verse and chorus structures to give that overarching complexity a still-accessible bent. But from the very first windchimes in “Gravity,” there’s intricacy corresponding to the abiding mood that gives the entire album its context.
And while one raises an eyebrow at the notion of congratulating a band that’s mostly one person on their record being cohesive — it better be; there’s no one else around to screw it up — and through the beat intensity of “Middle Ground” or the lower chug of maybe-keyboard under the higher frequency melodies of the suitably flowing penultimate cut “Somnambulist’s Daydream” or the actual-dream tonality of “Like a Metamorphosis” that led off side B, Oslo Tapes‘ sense of purpose never wanes. And for being so clearly exploratory in nature, Staring at the Sun Before Goin’ Blind never loses either its fluidity or the solid ground on which it’s offered. The work of someone who knows the sound they want and seems to be in steady pursuit of new ideas and aspects to bring to it.
Shades of New Wave, dance, classic krautrock, psych, prog — a list that could go on depending on the listener — and yet there’s little to disconnect Staring at the Sun Before Goin’ Blind from the central experience of its melody or the thoughtfulness of its composition and arrangements. In addition to some hard-lugging of wood and a solid argument for why you should try not to get tangled in your socks when hanging out the laundry (you’ll see it, don’t worry), the video’s meditative nature is fitting with the song’s likewise patient but not staid movement. I don’t know if I’d call it peaceful, exactly, but neither is it throwing elements at your ears just to see what sticks. Everything has a place.
Please enjoy:
Oslo Tapes, “Deja Neu” video premiere
Marco Campitelli on “Deja Neu”:
“Deja Neu” a track that falls between cinematic and ritual music, built upon ethno-kraut motifs embedded in hypnotic rhythmic figures, in a crescendo of psychedelic ornaments and intensity.
You can imagine to catch the sound between the mitte-europe and the oriental tunes….
On Friday, December 1st, Oslo Tapes returns with the highly anticipated fourth album, ‘Staring at the Sun Before Goin’ Blind’ marking another step in Marco Campitelli’s personal initiatory journey through the realms of post/art/kraut/noise and introspection. The album will be released on vinyl by Echodelick Records (USA) and Sound Effect Records (Greece), while Grazil Records (Austria) will oversee the CD, cassette, and digital versions.
‘Staring at the Sun Before Goin’ Blind’ is the follow-up to the successful third album, ‘ØR’, released in 2021 by the prestigious Pelagic Records, and it is imbued with emotional radiations that fuel disorientation and restlessness. Voices in contrast with metronomic rhythmic patterns, geometries distorted by fluid basslines, and melodic synths that compensate for the voids left by liquid and acidic guitars all contribute to creating a distinctly personal auditory mirage.
The album is produced by Amaury Cambuzat, a historic member of faUSt, and Ulan Bator, who co-authored the songs and arrangements with Campitelli. Using an unspecified number of magnetic tapes and analog machines, he forged the album’s sound through his thirty-year experience in the kraut/avant/rock domain.
Oslo Tapes says: ‹‹ ‘Staring at the Sun Before Goin’ Blind’ is hypothetically a brief period traversed in eight tracks, from the ethereal opening of ‘Gravity’ to the hypnotic ‘Ethereal Song’, the avant-syncretism of ‘Deja Neu’, and the psychedelic and modern deep house vibes of ‘Reject Yr Regret’. It follows the harmonic framework of ‘Like a Metamorphosis’ in a fusion of psychedelic jazz, the post-minimalist fuzz-kraut of ‘Middle Ground’, the distorted and celestial ‘Somnambulist’s Daydream’, and the tribal-kaleidoscopic title track finale. ››
Recommended for fans of God Is An Astronaut, Neu!, Can, Porno For Pyros, Nine Inch Nails, and Angel Of Light. While the Oslo Tapes capsule is in orbit, on board are Mauro Spada on bass and Davide Di Virgilio on drums, Stefano Micolucci on bass and upright bass, Federico Sergente on percussion, Nicola Amici, also known as Kaouenn, on guitars, synths, and percussion. There are also exceptional guests such as Berlin’s Sicker Man from Trialogos on cello and Dahm Majuri Cipolla, the Japanese post-rock band MONO drummer. After being part of the same label as Marco Campitelli, they cultivated a collaboration driven by their shared passion for kraut rock.
TRACKLIST A1.Gravity A2.Ethereal Song A3.Deja Neu A4. Reject yr Regret B1.Like a Metamorphosis B2.Middle Ground B3.Somnambulist’s Daydream B4.Staring at the Sun Before Goin’ Blind
CREDITS Produced, mixed & mastered by Amaury Cambuzat Recorded by Marco Campitelli (Marigold’s Flower Studio) & Amaury Cambuzat (Let Go Ego Sound Studio) Written by Marco Campitelli & Amaury Cambuzat Played by Oslo Tapes PhotosSilvia Verna ArtworkDruckwelle Design
Posted in Whathaveyou on October 10th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
For however long I’ve run this site (and I know how long, I just don’t feel like talking about it), a consistent thread has been nerdery for the work of Craig Williamson, also known as the psych-mantra-folk solo-outfit Lamp of the Universe. The first post about the band on this site was in May 2009, and I’d already been a geek for that stuff for years at that point. Based in New Zealand, Williamson has stayed active all the while, putting out more than a handful of Lamp of the Universe records, as well as doing three albums with the trio Arc of Ascent — a more heavy rock-based outfit; Williamson began Lamp of the Universe following the demise of Datura, in which he played. Earlier this year, he branched back into rock territory with the new solo band Dead Shrine.
And this whole time, I’ve gone on and on about how righteous all this stuff is, how affecting and engrossing the psychedelia of Lamp of the Universe is, the creative range that takes Williamson through inner and outer universes, blah blah blah blah blah. Years of this.
So you know what happened? I saw Kaleidoscope Mind — the new album from Lamp of the Universe out Nov. 10 — was coming in the Sound Effect Records newsletter, and next thing I know I’m stopping myself from writing Williamson an email being like “OMG ANOTHER RECORD CAN I HEAR IT????” A few days later, he reached out, and I got to feel a little less embarrassed for myself.
But yeah, I’ve heard this one, and as I invariably would, I think it’s brilliant. He’s trying some new stuff, working in some funk and sexy grooves. Also sounds like he bought some new mics for his studio, and it’s pretty clear in listening that particular attention has been given to the vocals, which I don’t know if that’s true or not but it sure is what it sounds like. And the drums are killer as well. So basically, here I am, nerding out again to a Lamp of the Universe record, and I guess I don’t give a shit if I look like a goon because now I’ve told you this entire story. Is it a little embarrassing at this point? Yes. Is that going to stop me from reviewing the album? Come on.
Here’s news. A single will be premiering this week. Not here, but you’ll be able to see it on the embed below. Something to enjoy on the 12th:
Lamp of the Universe – Kaleidoscope Mind
Release date : 10th November 2023
Sound Effect Records presents the new album from New Zealand’s Psychedelic artist, Lamp of the Universe.
Multi-instrumentalist and Psych guru Craig Williamson returns with an album of classic Lamp of Universe tunes. Full of artifacts from the original era, including Mellotron, fuzz guitar, Sitar, swirling effects and trippy vocal harmonies, this album touches the Psychedelic Psoul.
7 new songs re-calling times of yester-year, and also the unlimited expanses of the future. Take a dive into the Kaleidoscope Mind.
Athens-based heavy trio Bastard Sword release their debut album, I, through Sound Effect Records on March 3. The record follows only a five-song demo that includes three tracks recorded at their very first live performance together on Dec. 23, 2022 (there are also two rehearsal-room songs), so they are very much a new band, formed earlier last year at the whim of guitarist/vocalist/synthesist Achilles Charmpilas, who also engineered the recording and is known for his work in 2 by Bukowski, playing bass in Sun and the Wolf, the theatrical Dirty Granny Tales, and so on.
In classic I’m-a-producer-and-songwriter-and-I-have-demos-let’s-make-a-band-and-album fashion, the narrative has it that Charmpilas put Bastard Sword together with bassist Odysseas Tziritas and drummer/backing vocalist Akis Kapranos, who in addition to having been in Septicflesh and other more viscerally metal outfits is a film critic (he also apparently wrote for Metal Hammer, which is a nice line on the CV to be sure), and they began to put the record together from the songs he wrote, not playing live until that show that at least part of was recorded for the demo. Bastard Sword I, or just I if you’d like to keep it casual — I like to pretend every record named I is done so in homage to Goatsnake; care to join me? — comprises nine tracks and runs a humidly fuzzed 44 minutes, frontloaded with languid psychedelic doom and given in its later reaches to airier instrumentalist passages.
You can see the story below as told by the band, and that’s great — blessings and peace upon the narrative, as always; I include these things because it’s important to know what people are saying about their own work and how they’re saying it, both for now and posterity — but one of the key aspects of I is that its songs started out as instrumentals. Vocals aren’t an afterthought by any means, which is proved quickly by the if-Conan-wrote-“Black-Sabbath” vibe in aptly-titled opener “Il Gigante,” but knowing that helps one understand the construction of the album and its blend of increasing-tempo doom chicanery across “Il Gigante,” its six-minute leadoff salvo companion “Hierophant,” the increasingly rocking “Witching Brethren” and the brash shove of “Santeria de Sangre” on side A, as well as the interaction between a song like “Ghost in the Beehive” (premiering in the lyric video below), which takes the noddy progression of C.O.C.‘s “Albatross” and sets it to its own, well-established-by-then penchant for rolling, and the subsequent atmospheric drifter “Anthropocene,” which rises mostly but not completely instrumental with some duly Mediterranean scale work in its second half to be consuming and urgent while still slow in its march, and the spacious interlude “The Orbital Mechanist” that follows. Figuratively and literally in the case of the vinyl, I is a record with two sides.
Nothing wrong with that, and on a debut, it’s that much more encouraging that a band is looking to explore a range of ideas with Charmpilas‘ at root. The album is best summarized perhaps in its last two tracks, the fuzz-grooving penultimate cut “Tenbones,” which is a vocal highlight and finds Bastard Sword with a sound ready to stand alongside the likes of modern melodic heavybringers like Elephant Tree, and the keyboard-inclusive instrumental finisher “Tooth Rattler,” which takes the terrestrial vibe of “Tenbones” and launches it into the air, not quite leaving Earth’s atmosphere but still way up where the oxygen is light.
More even than “The Orbital Mechanist,” the closer is cinematic, and speaks maybe to some underlying ambition on the part of Charmpilas to manifest broader evocations moving forward, it also functions to create a kind of multi-avenued persona to Bastard Sword in the present, so that what starts out like it’s going to be a fairly predictable if well-executed stoner doom record in tone and spirit becomes something richer and more consuming. After the four songs on side A build to the outright blaster-Kyuss metalpunk shove of “Santeria de Sangre” — which might take its name from its solo in addition to its ritualistic lyrics — and Bastard Sword reaffirm their place in reverb-drenched cosmic lurch in “Ghost in the Beehive,” the transition into “Anthropocene” is stark but pulled off in a well-it’s-done-so-that’s-that unpretentious manner, even as it exponentially increases the scope of the entire LP, never mind the prospects for future growth on the part of the band.
And the safe bet is that whatever Bastard Sword do next — dare I predict: II? — it will be at least somewhat different since, you know, they’re a band now. Even if Charmpilas continues to write the material alone — and mind you I have no idea whether or not he will — his frame of mind will be changed since he knows both that he’s making a record to follow-up this one and even if only subconsciously considering the other players involved and what they’ll bring to it. This is to say, building an album over the course of months alone may have given Charmpilas the freedom to explore reaches he might not have had he set out with the strict intention to reside solely in a genre pocket of heavy, heady doom, but it’s inevitable that what comes after will be informed by these songs, even if that happens as a purposeful contrast. One doesn’t necessarily believe in authenticity as an ideal — you might as well chase gods — but the organic nature of I is crucial to how it unfolds, since it seems most like the placement of the material toward its various ends, be it the tempo-build of side A or side B’s ambient branchout after “Ghost in the Beehive” with “Tenbones” as a swinging, weighted, grounded counterpoint in conversation with “Witching Brethren” earlier, came after the fact of the songs themselves.
So there’s consciousness in how I is presented, but the songs were there first. And whether it’s “Tenbones” with its line of organ rolling alongside the riff or the way “Tooth Rattler” incorporates fuzz into its soundscaping, or the chugga-chug of in the verses of “Witching Brethren,” the darker cultish atmosphere that’s ultimately something of a misdirect for the audience in “Il Gigante,” or the extended solo that takes over “Hierophant” and doesn’t look back, there are any number of inclusions here that could be a model for Bastard Sword to work from. You could base a whole band’s sound on “Santeria de Sangre,” or “Ghost in the Beehive,” or even “The Orbital Mechanist” if you worked hard enough at it. That Bastard Sword don’t, at least not yet, gives I a formative but encouraging spirit. Wherever they might end up, they’re off to an auspicious, deceptively immersive start.
You’ll find “Ghost in the Beehive” on the player below, followed by the video credits and the aforementioned narrative, slightly edited for length — which given the thought-dump above feels like the pot calling the kettle black, but so it goes — as well as the preorder links, credits, etc. If it wasn’t made clear above, “Ghost in the Beehive” doesn’t encapsulate everything on offer throughout the album, but it does kick a good deal of ass, so it’s a representative sample just the same.
Please enjoy:
Bastard Sword, “Ghost in the Beehive” video premiere
This video contains footage shot by Isidora Charmpila and Dimitris MacFeegle. They both bought expensive cameras and did their best to shoot great vids, only for us to waltz in and saturate the shit out of them – just like we do with our guitars. Our thoughts are with them, but we regret nothing.
This video additionally includes footage from “The Visitor” (1979) and “The Devils” (1971), two films that you really need to watch if you haven’t already. It goes without saying that we do not own the rights to any of that, so, remember all you humans and algorithms happily munching on this video: Snitches Get Stitches.
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At the start of 2022, a band was quietly born in a basement opposite the church of the Sacred Belt in Kypseli, Athens, Greece.
Achilles Charmpilas had just come out of two years stuck in the aforementioned basement, not doing gigs. The plan was to play and compose some new and adventurous music, learn new musical tricks and generally take the dry spell as an opportunity to reset, and get better at stuff he had been meaning to try out.
Well, at least in theory. What actually happened was that he simply reverted to his teen self, growing up in northern Greece in the 90s, vibing out on Sabbath, Motorhead, Hawkwind, Kyuss, Cathedral, Earth and Sleep.
In a few months, a torrent of music poured out of his fingers, travelled through a ridiculous array of distortion and fuzz pedals (a collection he has been building up since his time as a music instrument repair guy and touring bass player in Berlin), into an Orange and a Laney amp, out of a speaker, etcetera etcetera. You get the point. Before long, almost without realising, there it was. More than an album’s worth of material. Just hanging out on a hard drive. Waiting.
But, what to do with it? Achilles decided that a first step would be to get some outside perspective. In the end of the day, this might simply be a midlife crisis in the making, right? I mean, who needs another derivative doomy band in 2022? Come on dude, get over yourself.
Achilles sent a demo to Yiannis from Sound Effect Records, with whom he had previously collaborated in 2 by bukowski’s last release to date, Her Kind Fight Everything. A few sweat soaked days later (waiting for a big review is the worst), Yiannis reached out. He dug it. What a relief. There were insightful and welcome notes and comments, but one stood out: “there are too many instrumental doomy bands out there, why don’t you try some vocals?” Achilles’ personal projects have been mostly instrumental for over 20 years. Singing? What fresh hell is this?
Enter Akis Kapranos, a fellow veteran musician, film and single-malt scotch buff. He had previously played with important bands of the original Black Metal scene, like Septic Flesh and Thou Art Lord. An offer was accepted between drinks, and that, as they say, was that. Last piece of the puzzle was the bass. Bass is important, Bastard Sword would need an outstanding player. Well, as it so happens, Achilles had been producing music with an Athens scene wunderkind named Odysseas Tziritas. Odysseas inexplicably took the bait and the three met in a derelict but historic rehearsal space in Exarchia and jammed out for a few magical hours.
It worked. It really worked. A couple of months later, the newly fangled psychedelic doom power trio played their first show to an amazing audience in a kick ass punk bar called Bad Tooth. That was it, there was proof. The band works. Let’s get out there and make some noise.
Although the band members have hundreds of shows under their collective belt, as of this writing they have only done one live recording and one show together. Next stop: Side Effects Festival @ Gagarin.
The upcoming album Bastard Sword I was recorded in a tiny basement over the period of 10 months. The initial demos with all instruments recorded by Achilles were used as the basis. Akis and Odysseas joined just in time to contribute to it, making the album finally sound like a real album.
Tracklist 1. Il Gigante (06:01) 2. Hierophant (06:14) 3. Witching Brethren (04:58) 4. Santeria de Sangre (04:12) 5. Ghost in the Beehive (05:47) 6. Anthropocene (06:32) 7. The Orbital Mechanist (01:51) 8. Tenbones (03:44) 9. Tooth Rattler (04:55)
Recorded, Mixed and Produced by Achilles Charmpilas @ Sacred Belt Studios Cover art by Valbona Canaku Photography by Isidora Charmpila Mastered by Kostas Ekelon
Posted in Reviews on January 2nd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Here we are. Welcome to 2023 and to both the first Quarterly Review of this year and the kind of unofficial closeout of 2022. These probably won’t be the last writeups for releases from the year just finished — if past is prologue, I’ll remain months if not years behind in some cases; you do what you can — but from here on out it’s more about this year than last in the general balance of what’s covered. That’s the hope, anyway. Talk to me in April to see how it’s going.
I won’t delay further except to remind that we’ll do 10 reviews per day between now and next Friday for a total of 100 covered, and to say thanks if you keep up with it at all. I hope you find something that resonates with you, otherwise there’s not much point in the endeavor at all. So here we go.
Winter 2023 Quarterly Review #1-10:
Buddha Sentenza, High Tech Low Life
With a foundation in instrumental meditative heavy psychedelia, Heidelberg, Germany’s Buddha Sentenza push outward along a number of different paths across their third album, High Tech Low Life, as in the second of five cuts, “Anabranch,” which builds on the mood-setting linear build and faster payoff of opener “Oars” and adds both acoustic guitar, metal-impact kick drum and thrash-born (but definitely still not entirely thrash) riffing, and later, heavier post-rock nod in the vein of Russian Circles, but topped with willfully grandiose keyboard. Kitchensinkenalia, then! “Ricochet” ups the light to a blinding degree by the time it’s two and a half minutes in, then punks up the bass before ending up in a chill sample-topped stretch of noodle-prog, “Afterglow” answers that with careening space metal, likewise progressive comedown, keyboard shred, some organ and hand-percussion behind Eastern-inflected guitar, and a satisfyingly sweeping apex, and 12-minute finale “Shapeshifters” starts with a classic drum-fueled buildup, takes a victory lap in heavy prog shove, spends a few minutes in dynamic volume trades, gets funky behind a another shreddy solo, peaks, sprints, crashes, and lumbers confidently to its finish, as if to underscore the point that whatever Buddha Sentenza want to make happen, they’re going to. So be it. High Tech Low Life may be their first record since Semaphora (review here) some seven years ago, but it feels no less masterful for the time between.
Captured raw in self-produced fashion, the Sept. 2022 debut album from Magma Haze sees the four-piece embark on an atmospheric and bluesy take on heavy rock, weaving through grunge and loosely-psychedelic flourish as they begin to shape what will become the textures of their sound across six songs and 42 minutes that are patiently offered but still carry a newer band’s sense of urgency. Beginning with “Will the Wise,” the Bologna, Italy, outfit remind somewhat of Salt Lake City’s Dwellers with the vocals of Alessandro D’Arcangeli in throaty post-earlier-Alice in Chains style, but as they move through “Stonering” and the looser-swinging, drenched-in-wah “Chroma,” their blend becomes more apparent, the ‘stoner’ influence showing up in the general languidity of vibe that persists regardless of a given track’s tempo. To wit, “Volcanic Hill” with its bass-led sway at the start, or the wah behind the resultant shove, building up and breaking down again only to end on the run in a fadeout. The penultimate “Circles” grows more spacious in its back half with what might be organ but I’m pretty sure is still guitar behind purposefully drawn-out vocals, and closer “Moon” grows more distorted and encouragingly fuzzed in its midsection en route to a wisely understated payoff and resonant end. There’s potential here.
Instrumental in its entirety and offered with a companion visual component on Blu-ray with different cover art, The Kybalion is the ambitious, 40-minute single-song debut long-player from Richmond, Virginia’s Future Projektor. With guitarist/vocalist Adam Kravitz and drummer Kevin White — both formerly of sludgesters Gritter; White is also ex-Throttlerod — and Sean Plunkett on bass, the band present an impressive breadth of scope and a sense of cared-for craft throughout their immersive course, and with guitar and sometimes keys from Kravitz leading the way as one movement flows into the next, the procession feels not only smooth, but genuinely progressive in its reach. It’s not that they’re putting on a showcase for technique, but the sense of “The Kybalion” as built up around its stated expressive themes — have fun going down a Wikipedia hole reading about hermeticism — is palpable and the piece grows more daring the deeper it goes, touching on cinematic around 27 minutes in but still keeping a percussive basis for when the heavier roll kicks in a short time later. Culminating in low distortion that shifts into keyboard revelation, The Kybalion is an adventure open to any number of narrative interpretations even beyond the band’s own, and that only makes it a more effective listen.
Berlin duo Grin — one of the several incarnations of DIY-prone power couple Jan (drums, guitar, vocals, production) and Sabine Oberg (bass) alongside EarthShip and Slowshine — grow ever more spacious and melodic on Oct. 2022’s Phantom Knocks, their third full-length released on their own imprint, The Lasting Dose Records. Comprised of eight songs running a tight and composed but purposefully ambient 33 minutes with Sabine‘s bass at the core of airy progressions like that of “Shiver” or the rolling, harsh-vocalized, puts-the-sludge-in-post-sludge “Apex,” Phantom Knocks follows the path laid out on 2019’s Translucent Blades (review here) and blends in more extreme ideas on “Aporia” and the airy pre-finisher “Servants,” but is neither beholden to its float nor its crush; both are tools used in service to the moment’s expression. Because of that, Grin move fluidly through the entirety of Phantom Knocks, intermittently growing monstrous to fill the spaces they’ve created, but mindful as well of keeping those spaces intact. Inarguably the work of a band with a firm sense of its own identity, it nonetheless seems to reach out and pull the listener into its depths.
Though clearly part of Teverts‘ focus on The Lifeblood is toward atmosphere and giving its audience a sense of mood that is maintained throughout its six tracks, a vigorousness reminiscent of later Dozer offsets the post-rocking elements from the Benevento, Italy, three-piece. They are not the first to bring together earthy bass with exploratory guitar overtop and a solid drum underpinning, but after the deceptively raucous one-two of the leadoff title-track and “Draining My Skin,” the more patient unfurling of instrumental side A finale “Under Antares Light” — which boasts a chugging march in its midsection and later reaches that is especially righteous — clues that the full-fuzz stoner rock starting side B with the desert-swinging-into-the-massive-slowdown “UVB-76” is only part of the appeal rather than the sum of it. “Road to Awareness” portrays a metallic current (post-metal, maybe?) in its shouty post-intro vocals and general largesse, but wraps with an engaging and relatively spontaneous-sounding lead before “Comin’ Home” answers back to “The Lifeblood” and that slowdown in “UVB-76” in summarizing the stage-style energy and the vast soundscape it has inhabited all the while. They end catchy, but the final crescendo is instrumental, a big end of the show complete with cymbal wash and drawn solo notes. Bravo.
An engrossing amalgam of lurching extreme doom and blackened metal, the second long-player, Ex Est, by Tilburg, Netherlands’ Ggu:ll is likewise bludgeoning, cruel and grim in its catharsis. The agonies on display seem to come to a sort of wailing head in “Stuip” later on, but that’s well after the ultra-depressive course has been set by “Falter” and “Enkel Achterland.” In terms of style, “Hoisting Ruined Sails” moves through slow death and post-sludge, but the tonal onslaught is only part of the weight on offer, and indeed, Ggu:ll bring dark grey and strobe-afflicted fog to the forward, downward march of “Falter” and the especially raw centerpiece “Samt-al-ras,” setting up a contrast with the speedier guitar in the beginning minutes of closer “Voertuig der Verlorenen” that feels intentional even as the latter decays into churning, harsh noise. There’s a spiritual aspect of the work, but the shadow that’s cast in Ex Est defines it, and the four-piece bring precious little hope amid the swirling and destructive antilife. Because this is so clearly their mission, Ex Est is a triumph almost in spite of itself, but it’s a triumph just the same, even at its moments of most vigorous, slow, skin-peeling crawl.
Fulanno & The Crooked Whispers, Last Call From Hell
While one wouldn’t necessarily call it balanced in runtime with Argentina’s Fulanno offering about 19 minutes of material with Los Angeles’ The Crooked Whispers answering with about 11, their Last Call From Hell split nonetheless presents a two-track sampler of both groups’ cultish doom wares. Fulanno lumber through “Erotic Pleasures in the Catacombs” and “The Cycle of Death” with dark-toned Sabbath-worship-plus-horror-obsession-stoned-fuckall, riding central riffs into a seemingly violent but nodding oblivion, while The Crooked Whispers plod sharply in the scream-topped six minutes of “Bloody Revenge,” giving a tempo kick later on, and follow a steadier dirge pace with “Dig Your Own Grave” while veering into a cleaner, nasal vocal style from Anthony Gaglia (also of LáGoon). Uniting the two bands disparate in geography and general intent is the dug-in vibe that draws out over both, their readiness to celebrate a death-stench vision of riff-led doom that, while, again, differently interpreted by each, sticks in the nose just the same. Nothing else smells like death. You know it immediately, and it’s all over Last Call From Hell.
Not all is as it seems as Mister Earthbound‘s debut album, Shadow Work, gets underway with the hooky “Not to Know” and a riff that reminds of nothing so much as Valley of the Sun, but the key there is in the swing, since that’s what will carry over from the lead track to the remaining six on the 36-minute LP, which turns quickly on the mellow guitar strum of “So Many Ways” to an approach that feels directly drawn from Hisingen Blues-era Graveyard. The wistful bursts of “Coffin Callin'” and the later garage-doomed “Wicked John” follow suit in mood, while “Hot Foot Powder” is more party than pout once it gets going, and the penultimate “Weighed” has more burl to its vocal drawl and an edge of Southern rock to its pre-payoff verses, while the subsequent closer “No Telling” feels like a take on Chris Goss fronting Queens of the Stone Age for “Mosquito Song” on Songs for the Deaf, and yes, that is a compliment. The jury may be out on Mister Earthbound‘s ultimate aesthetic — that is, where they’re headed, they might not be yet — but Shadow Work has songwriting enough at its root that I wouldn’t mind if that jury doesn’t come back. Time will tell, but “multifaceted” is a good place to start when you’ve got your ducks in a row behind you as Mister Earthbound seem to here.
Surely retro sword-bearing theatrics are part of the appeal when it comes to Brooklyn’s potential-rife, signed-in-three-two-one-go doom rockers Castle Rat‘s live presentation, but as they make their studio debut with the four-and-a-half-minute single “Feed the Dream,” that’s not necessarily going to come across to all who take the track on. Fortunately for the band, then, the song is no less thought out. A mid-paced groove that puts the guitar out before the ensuing march and makes way purposefully for the vocals of Riley “The Rat Queen” Pinkerton — who also plays rhythm guitar, while Henry “The Count” Black plays lead, Ronnie “The Plague Doctor” Lanzilotta is on bass and Joshua “The Druid” Strmic drums — to arrive with due presence. With a capital-‘h’ Heavy groove underlying, they bask in classic metal vibes and display a rare willingness to pretend the ’90s never happened. This is to their credit. The sundry boroughs of New York City have had bands playing dress-up with various levels of goofball sex, violence and excess since before the days of Twisted Sister — to be fair, this is glam via anti-glam — but the point with Castle Rat isn’t so much that the idea is new but the interpretation of it is. On the level of the song itself, “Feed the Dream” sounds like a candle being lit. Get your fire emojis ready, if that’s still a thing.
Immediate impact. Mountains‘ Tides End is the London trio’s second long-player behind 2017’s Dust in the Glare (discussed here), and though overall it makes a point of its range, the first impression in opener “Moonchild” is that the band are already on their way and it’s on the listener to keep up. Life and death pervade “Moonchild” and the more intense “Lepa Radić,” which follows, but it’s hard to listen to those two at the beginning, the breakout in “Birds on a Wire,” the heavy roll of “Hiraeth” and the rumble at the core of “Pilgrim” without waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Mountains to more completely unveil their metallic side. It’s there in the guitar solos, the drums, even as “Pilgrim” reminds of somewhat of Green Lung in its clarity of vision, but to their credit, the trio get through “Empire” and “Under the Eaves” and most of “Tides End” itself before the chug swallows them — and the album, it seems — whole. A curious blend of styles, wholly modern, Tides End feels more aggressive in its purposes than did the debut, but that doesn’t at all hurt it as the band journey to that massive finish.
Posted in Reviews on December 29th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
This is not a new album, but it is a new release. Based in Hamilton, New Zealand, the solo-project Lamp of the Universe debuted in the long-ago memory fog of 2001, issuing The Cosmic Union (discussed here) through Cranium Records. The lone figure behind the outing, who has kept the project to himself ever since, was and remains Craig Williamson, who at the time was only two years out from the breakup of his prior band, the more directly riff-rocking and still-prime-for-reissue Datura, and though he might not have guessed it at the time, The Cosmic Union would become the starting point for one of the most engaging progressions in psychedelic music of any stripe.
Through the years since, that’s been true be it the Eastern-informed acid folk represented in this first offering or subsequent adventures in tantric drone, krautrock-style synth and keyboard work, or even more band-style heavy psych rock, all taking place under the umbrella of Lamp of the Universe and the auteurship of Williamson. Also reissued in 2011 through Williamson‘s Astral Projection imprint and through Krauted Mind in 2018, The Cosmic Union finds a ‘definitive’ vinyl incarnation through Greece’s Sound Effect Records, and I won’t even pretend to pretend I’m not happy to have the excuse for a revisit.
From the first strums of acoustic guitar and sitar on “Born in the Rays of the Third Eye” across the vast distance to the tabla-percussed pre-Om meditative sprawl folk of “Tantra Asana” and the subsequent chime-peppered stretch of sitar, chimes, and keyboard-string sounds that cap the record, The Cosmic Union has a patience and a presence unto itself. In its full eight-song/53-minute run — the digital version also includes the bonus track “By the Grace of Love,” not on the vinyl — it does not feel like a minor undertaking, because it isn’t. This was the CD era, and Williamson‘s experimentalist crux in the lysergic, vaguely-Britfolk “Give Yourself to Love,” here the closer of side B on the first LP, and the relative minimalism in the echoing, purposefully-left-open spaces of “Her Cosmic Light” require a conscious engagement.
While it’s never overbearing even in its lushest arrangements, the trade for that is that following Williamson along the album’s complex, universally molten and slowly shifting course can be a challenge for short attention spans. Different listeners will have different experiences; duh. In mine, The Cosmic Union is singular in its beauty and effect on the listener. I’ve chased down records upon records, styles upon styles trying to get some semblance of what comes together so fluidly and naturally in these songs — even some albums recommended by Williamson himself — and I’ve never found one that delivers its vibe with such grace. It is an album that, when heard properly, slows time.
“Born in the Rays of the Third Eye” and “Lotus of a Thousand Petals” brought together and isolated, just the two of them, on side A feels like a landmark, even 21 years after the fact. Those two songs, in almost unassuming fashion, would become touchstones for Lamp of the Universe, and as Williamson moved forward quickly with 2002’s Echo in Light, 2005’s single-song-broken-into-parts long-player, Heru (discussed here), and 2006’s assemblage of mostly longform pieces From the Mystical Rays of Astrological Light, they would remain definitive — there’s that word again — in terms of serving as a primer for the heart of Lamp of the Universe‘s aesthetic project.
Hearing them coupled with side B’s “In the Mystic Light” with its scorching solo work, hand-drumming and one-man jam, and the aforementioned keys-forward twist of “Give Yourself to Love” only emphasizes the point, as well as the breadth that was in Lamp of the Universe from its very beginnings. I’ve tended in recent years to think of Williamson as growing more inclusive of synth and keys with time, and maybe that’s true in terms of adjusting a balance from one element to the next in his composing methods or arrangements, but so much of what Lamp of the Universe has become in the years since is laid out here, or at very least hinted toward, even the bluesy lead rollout and on-a-kit-toms and snare of “Freedom in Your Mind” are prescient, let alone the flowing organ and tambourine that are added later, to fold together on side C with “Her Cosmic Light,” about half as long at 4:12, but resonant just the same in its melodic seeking.
There is not one among the eight songs on The Cosmic Union that doesn’t include the word “love” somewhere in its lyrics. And that’s what the album is. Just as side A sets the foundation for the rest of what unfolds (here and beyond), maybe the strumming circa-1965 George Harrison singer-songwriterism of “What Love Can Bring” and the pushed-farther-out moment when sitar and keys align after the 3:30 mark in “Tantra Asana” on side D are a foundation of their own, if one built in ether. They are united, certainly, as all the material on The Cosmic Union is, by Williamson‘s voice, by their light-touch, inclusive but never overwrought arrangements — that’s a high compliment for an album that has this much sitar and flute and keys, etc. — and by the feeling of love that pervades as the central thematic. As the cover more than hints, The Cosmic Union has a very terrestrial, sometimes downright dirty if you’re lucky, interpretation, but it’s the sharing and proliferation of love that comes through most of all, and if this edition of the album is definitive, it is that love that defines it.
Williamson‘s early-2022 offering, The Akashic Field (review here) — maybe his 13th under the Lamp of the Universe banner — provided hints of what’s to come in 2023 as he moves forward with the heavier as-yet-still-solo band Dead Shrine, whose debut album is impending, but even it was in conversation in some ways with The Cosmic Union, in songs like “Minds of Love” or “Mystic Circle.” This shouldn’t surprise, necessarily, anyone who has charted Williamson‘s progression lo these last two decades, but it does emphasize just how expansive, how inclusive and how crucial The Cosmic Union is. I’ve said before and I’ll say here that on a personal level, this is a record I love. Hearing it again in this new form — new to me, anyhow, since I didn’t have it on vinyl before — it is all the more special for the conversation the material has with itself as well as the surrounding spectra. If you seek healing, this is music that heals.
Lotus Emperor release their awaited second album, Syneidesis on Nov. 25 through Sound Effect Records. The Athens-based four-piece made their self-titled debut in 2015, and they return now with vast distances measured across 47 minutes of dug in, hypnotic and meditative heavy psychedelia. The bulk of the offering takes place in three extended songs complemented by two shorter stretches that, to scale, could be called interludes, but nonetheless flesh out the atmosphere that is so much a focus throughout the entire proceedings. On the most basic level, it is a marked shift in songcraft from the first LP, which had more songs (14), ran 69 minutes, and touched the 10-minute mark only once.
As to what’s behind that shift, I couldn’t say — hey, a lot of things have changed in the last seven years — but it lends Syneidesis a thematic thread that pushes farther and farther out through its title-track with an epilogue in the three-minute closer “Synteleia” (they translate it as “continuity,” which I like; when I looked it was the somewhat less romantic “the end”; go figure). “Anemos” indeed is windblown throughout its coming together across its early minutes, and Lotus Emperor work with enticing quickness to establish key elements in their patience in how the song unfolds, their use of minimalism in the guitar to make each note seem to count double, their ambience, melody, and ability to fluidly transition into a harder-hitting rhythm as they move through the second minute before solidifying (relatively) at about 3:13 into the total 11:48 around a riff that presents itself like what might happen if Queens of the Stone Age‘s “I Think I Lost My Headache” fell into a black hole.
The groove they lock in at that moment is a telltale galactic rollout that serves as a beginning point for the whole record, opening up to a clear verse delivered by vocalist Konstantina Latzaki over cymbal washes and an eventual resurgence of a slower version of the central nod. By the song’s halfway point, Latzaki, guitarist Stasinos Papastathopoulos, bassist/synthesist Panos Dimopoulos and drummer Nikos Antzoulatos have worked their way into to the march that will define the song, but there’s still more spacing out to do in the back end, with guitar and bass underscoring a section of open, vocal-topped atmospherics that’s duly otherworldly and entrancing. The riff comes back, and Papasthathopoulos‘ guitar seems to rise in the mix to a dominant, triumphalist position.
Since the album was recorded live, between 2020 and 2021 at Room 59 by Haris Pitsinis — who also adds effects to “#59” and “Synteleia,” while drummer Greg from The Last Rizla joins in on the title-track and Nikos Antzoulatos adds backing vocals to “Petra” — it is that much easier to imagine it being relatively close to the stage experience of seeing the band live, and in that context, “Anemos” moving into the more actively riffy “Petra” makes even more sense. The nod of the opener is expanded on and the vocals echo out with held notes for the last lines of measures before dropping to whispers over bass punches just past the midpoint, but it’s a short break and the roll resumes, with synthesizer swirl added as a thanks-for-hanging-out-feeling bonus element. The ending of the song, which begins at about 8:47 into the 13-minutes-flat track, is righteous in its added push, the guitar leading the way through a noisy surge before breaking down to ambience and exploring that quiet space for a while until “#59” takes over with its own eerie psychedelic vibe, horror organ and willfully meandering guitar.
Fair to call it an interlude, but it’s not insubstantial even among the longer pieces surrounding. It serves to guide the listener through the middle of the tracklisting and bridge “Petra” and “Syneidesis” in a way that allows for a breath between them while staying consistent in terms of mood, which is paramount. Dimopoulos‘ bass work early adds progressive flair to “Syneidesis” as that title-track begins to unfurl, and the emergence of the march is gradual but palpable. An atmospheric vocal highlight, with Latzaki moving between croons and whispers in creepy but not necessarily witchy fashion, the platform is ready for the declarations that top the get-loud apex beginning at 7:51, soon enough swallowed by the dual-layered guitar solo.
They’ll recede and build back up before they’re done, and over a swirling riff with just an edge of Mediterranean folk influence, “Syneidesis” ends suddenly and cold in the way of, well, death. Dimopoulos shows some influence from John Carpenter in the synth-led finale, some vague samples and VHS-cinema swirl for the end credits of the long-player, with a sense perhaps of that being an aspect of their sound that will be utilized more in releases to come. That is to say, there’s room for more if they want to go that route over the longer term, but for a band who just took seven years to follow-up their debut — for whatever reason; again, I don’t know the circumstances behind the delay and I’m not about to guess — I’m not remotely comfortable trying to predict where the “next record” might go, whenever it should arrive.
Perhaps, then, the message should be to appreciate what’s happening in the moment. Those who caught onto the first record seven years ago — that’s not me; I suck at life — will no doubt rejoice at the something-of-a-comeback Syneidesis represents, but if they’re new to you as well here, the cohesiveness with which they undertake what’s actually a pretty stark change in approach remains striking. Syneidesis is an album that builds a world and a story of the self in the universe, a cosmic identity forged in a reach of unfathomable scope. Elements of what they do will be familiar, nestled as they are somewhere between psychedelic exploration, space-doom and atmospheric post-heavy, but the affective experience of Lotus Emperor is no less individual than what you bring to hearing it. So probably the thing to do, then, is hear it.
You can get a sample of the title-track in the video below for an edit of the song. I hope you enjoy:
Lotus Emperor, “Syneidesis” official video
Lotus Emperor on Syneidesis:
We open our sails for a second time! With aid from “Anemos” (Wind,) Lotus Emperor’s vessel travels again through the mysteries of life, using our sounds as a medium to carve the “Petra” (Stone) and, through our “#59” wormhole accelerator, shape the new collective “Syneidesis” (Consciousness) in order to get things done from the beginning to the “Synteleia” (The End).
7 years after their self-titled debut, and a minor classic among the international heavy-psych scene, Lotus Emperor are back with “Syneidesis”, their second and debut for Sound Effect Records! Led by Constantina Latzaki’s voice, Lotus Emperor have broaden their horizons, moving on to a mystical journey, an atmospheric mixture of fuzzed-out doom, shoegaze and post-punk, all part of a deeply ritualistic psychedelic concept! On “Syneidesis” Lotus Emperor go cinematic and turn the “difficult” sophomore album to their most compelling work so far.
Released on limited black and neon violet vinyl and CD, on November 25th 2022.
Posted in Reviews on September 22nd, 2022 by JJ Koczan
On occasion, throughout the last eight years or so that I’ve been doing this kind of Quarterly Review roundup thing, I’ve been asked how I do it. The answer is appallingly straightforward. I do it one record at a time, listening to as much music as possible and writing as much as I can. If you were curious, there you go.
If, more likely, you weren’t curious, now you know anyway. Shall we?
Quarterly Review #31-40:
Russian Circles, Gnosis
You wanna know how big a deal Russian Circles are? I didn’t even get a promo of this record. Granted, I’m nobody, but still. So anyway, here I am like a fucking sucker, about to tell you Gnosis is the heaviest and most intense thing Russian Circles — with whose catalog I’m just going to assume you’re familiar because they’re that big a deal and you’re pretty hip; bet you got a download to review, or at least an early stream — have ever done and it means literally nothing. Just makes me feel stupid and lame. I really want to like this album. That chug in “Conduit?” Fuck yeah. That wash in “Betrayal?” Even that little minimalist stretch of “Ó Braonáin.” The way “Tupilak” rumbles to life at the outset. That’s my shit right there. Chug chug crush crush, pretty part. So anyway, instead of sweating it forever, I’ll probably shut Gnosis off when I’m done here and never listen to it again. Thanks. Who gives a shit? Exactly. Means nothing to anyone. Tell me why I do this? Why even give it the space? Because they’re that big a deal and I’m the nerdy fat kid forever. Total fucking stooge. Fuck it and fuck you too.
Are not all gods mere substitutes for the power of human voices united in song? And why not tonight for finding the grace within us? As Brother Bill, Sister Caroline and their all-colours Septaphonic congregation of siblings tell us, we’re only one step away. I know you’ve been dragged down, wrung out, you’ve seen the valleys and hills, but now’s the time. Church of the Cosmic Skull come forward again with the message of galactic inner peace and confronting the unreality of reality through choral harmonies and progressive heavy rock and roll, and even the Cosmic Mother herself must give ear. Come, let us bask in the light of pure illumination and revolutionary suicide. Let us find what we lost somewhere. All gods die, but you and I can live forever and spread ourselves across the universe like so much dust from the Big Bang. We’ll feel the texture of the paper. We’ll be part of the team. Oh, fellow goers into the great Far Out, there’s reverence being sung from the hills with such spirit behind it. Can you hear? Will you? There’s nothing to fear here, nothing sinister. Nothing to be lost except that which has held you back all along. Let it all move, and go. Open your eyes to feel all seven rays, and stand peeled like an onion, naked, before the truth being told. Do this. Today.
Saarbrücken duo Pretty Lightning follow 2020’s stellar Jangle Bowls (review here) with a collection of 14 instrumental passages that, for all their willful meandering, never find themselves lost. Heady, Dead Meadowy vibes persist on ramblers like “Sediment Swing” and “Splinter Bowl,” but through spacious drone and the set-the-mood-for-whatever “Glide Gently (Into the Chasm),” which is both opener and the longest track (immediate points) at just over five minutes, the clear focus is on ambience. I wouldn’t be the first to liken some of Dust Moves to Morricone, and sure, “Powdermill” has some of that Dollars-style reverb and “The Secret is Locked Inside” lays out a subtle nighttime threat in its rattlesnake shaker, but these ideas are bent and shaped to Pretty Lightning‘s overarching purpose, and even with 14 songs, the fact that the album only runs 43 minutes should tell you that even as they seem to head right into the great unknown wilderness of intent, they never dwell in any single position for too long, and are in no danger of overstaying their welcome. Extra kudos for the weirdness of “Crystal Waltz” tucked right into the middle of the album next to “The Slow Grinder.” Sometimes experiments work.
Combining burly modern heavy riffage, progressive flourish and a liberal dose of chicanery, Montana’s Wizzerd end up in the realm of Howling Giant and a more structurally-straightforward Elder without sounding directly like either of them. Their Fuzzorama Records label debut, the quizzically punctuated Space‽: Issue No. 001 echoes its title’s obvious nods to comic book culture with a rush of energy in songs like “Super Nova” and “Attack of the Gargantuan Moon Spiders,” the swinging “Don’t Zorp ‘n’ Warp” space-progging out in its second half as though to emphasize the sheer delight on the part of the band doing something unexpected. So much the better if they’re having fun too. The back half of the outing after the duly careening “Space Chase” is blocked off by the noisy “Transmission” and the bleep-bloop “End Transmission” — which, if we’re being honest is a little long at just under five minutes — but finds the band establishing a firm presence of purpose in “Doom Machine Smoke Break” and the building “Diosa del Sol” ahead of the record’s true finishing moment, “Final Departure Part 1: The Intergalactic Keep of the Illustrious Cosmic Woman,” which is both an adventure in outer space and a melodic highlight. This one’s a party and you’re invited.
Desert 9 is one of several projects founded by synthesist Peter Bell through a collective/studio called Mutaform in the Brindisi region of Southern Italy (heel of the boot), and the seven-song/63-minute Explora II follows quickly behind June’s Explora I and works on a similar theme of songs named for different deserts around the world, be it “Dasht-e Margo,” “Mojave,” “Gobi” or “Arctic.” What unfolds in these pieces is mostly long-ish-form instrumental krautrock and psychedelic exploration — “Arctic” is an exception at a somewhat ironically scorching three and a half minutes; opener “Namib” is shorter, and jazzier, as well — likewise immersive and far-outbound, with Bell‘s own synth accompanied on its journeys by guitar, bass and drums, the former two with effects to spare. I won’t take away from the sunburn of “Sonoran” at the finish, but the clazzic-cool swing of “Chihuahuan” is a welcome respite from some of the more thrust-minded fare, at least until the next solo starts and eats the second half of the release. The mix is raw, but I think that’s part of the idea here, and however much of Explora II was improvised and/or recorded live, it sounds like the four-piece just rolled up, hit record and went for it. Not revolutionary in aesthetic terms, but inarguable in vitality.
Originally pressed to tape in 2019 through Fuzz Ink and brought to vinyl through Sound Effect Records, Greek sludgers Gagulta begin their self-titled debut with an evocation of the Old Ones before unfurling the 13-minute assault of “Dead Fiend/Devil’s Lettuce,” the second part of which is even slower than the first. Nods and screams, screams and nods, riffs and kicks and scratches. “Late Beer Cult” is no less brash or disaffected, the Galatsi-based trio of ‘vokillist’ Johny Oldboy, baritone bassist Xen and drummer Jason — no need for last names; we’re all friends here — likewise scathing and covered in crust. Side B wraps with the 10-minute eponymous “Gagulta” — circle pit into slowdown into even noisier fuckall — but not before “Long Live the Undead” has dirty-steamrolled through its four minutes and the penultimate “War” blasts off from its snare count-in on a punk-roots-revealing surge that plays back and forth with tortured, scream-topped slow-riff madness. I don’t know if the Old Ones would be pleased, but if at any point you see a Gagulta backpatch out in the wild, that person isn’t fucking around and neither is this band. Two years after its first release, it remains monstrous.
Some 20 years removed from their debut album, Accidentally Making Enemies, and 13 past their most recent, 2009’s Eye Tree Pi (review here), London’s Obiat return at the behest of guitarist/keyboardist Raf Reutt and drummer Neil Dawson with the duly massive Indian Ocean, an eight-song collection spanning an hour’s listening time that brings together metallic chug and heavy post-rock atmospherics, largesse of tone and melody central to the proceedings from opener “Ulysses” onward. Like its long-ago predecessor, Alex Nervo‘s bass (he also adds keys and guitar) is a major presence, and in addition to vocalist Sean Cooper, who shines emotively and in the force of his delivery throughout, there are an assortment of guests on “Eyes and Soul,” “Nothing Above,” “Sea Burial” and subdued closer “Lightness of Existence,” adding horns, vocals, flute, and so on to the wash of volume from the guitar, bass, drums, keys, and though parts were recorded in Wales, England, Australia, Sweden, Norway and Hungary, Indian Ocean is a cohesive, consuming totality of a record that does justice to the long wait for its arrival while also earning as much volume as you can give it through its immersive atmospherics and sheer aural heft that leads to the ambient finish. It is not a minor undertaking, but it walks the line between metal and post-metal and has a current of heavy rock beneath it in a way that is very much Obiat‘s, and if they’re really back to being a band again — that is, if it’s not another 13 years before their next record — watch out.
Vienna five-piece Maunra enter the fray of the harsher side of post-metal with Monarch, their self-released-for-now debut full-length. With throaty growling vocals at the forefront atop subtly nuanced double-guitars and bouts of all-out chugga-breakdown riffing like that in “Wuthering Seas,” they’re managing to dare to bring a bit of life and energy to the generally hyper-cerebral style, and that rule-breaking continues to suit them in the careening “Embers” and the lumbering stomp-mosh of the title-track such that even when the penultimate “Lightbreather” shifts into its whispery/wispy midsection — toms still thudding behind — there’s never any doubt of their bringing the shove back around. I haven’t seen a lyric sheet, so can’t say definitively whether or not opener “Between the Realms” is autobiographical in terms of the band describing their own aesthetic, but their blend of progressivism and raw impact is striking in that song and onward, and it’s interesting to hear an early ’00s metal influence creep into the interplay of lead and rhythm guitar on that opener and elsewhere. At seven tracks/41 minutes, Monarch proffers tonal weight and rhythmic force, hints toward more melodic development to come, and underscores its focus on movement by capping with the especially rousing “Windborne.” Reportedly the album was five years in the making. Time not wasted.
Still mostly instrumental, formerly just-Ohio-based progressive heavy rockers Brujas del Sol answer the steps they took in a vocalized direction on 2019’s II (review here) with the voice-as-part-of-the-atmosphere verses of “To Die on Planet Earth” and “Myrrors” on their third album, Deculter, but more importantly to the actual listening experience of the record is the fact that they’ve never sounded quite this heavy. Sure, guitarist Adrian Zambrano (also vocals) and bassist Derrick White still provide plenty of synth to fill out those instrumentalist spaces and up the general proggitude, and that’s a signal sent clearly with the outset “Intro,” but Joshua Oswald (drums/vocals) pounds his snare as “To Live and Die on Planet Earth” moves toward its midsection, and the aggression wrought there is answered in both the guitar and bass tones as 12-minute finishing move “Arcadia” stretches into its crescendo, more about impact than the rush of “Divided Divinity” earlier on, rawer emotionally than the keyboardier reaches of “Lenticular,” but no less thoughtful in its construction. Each piece (even that intro) has an identity of its own, and each one makes Deculter a stronger offering.
A definite 2LP at nine songs and 68 minutes, Sergeant Thunderhoof‘s fifth full-length, This Sceptred Veil, is indeed two albums’ worth of album, and the songs bear that out in their complexity and sense of purpose as well. Not to harp, but even the concluding two-parter “Avon/Avalon” is a lot to take in after what’s come before it, but what Bath, UK, troupe vary their songwriting and bring a genuine sense of presence to the material that even goes beyond the soaring vocals to the depth of the mix more generally. There’s heavy rock grit to “Devil’s Daughter” (lil eyeroll there) and progressive reach to the subsequent “Foreigner,” a lushness to “King Beyond the Gates” and twisting riffs that should earn pleased nods from anyone who’s been swept up in Green Lung‘s hooky pageantry, and opener “You’ve Stolen the Words” sets an expectation for atmosphere and a standard for directness of craft — as well as stellar production — that This Sceptred Veil seems only too happy to meet. A given listener’s reaction to the ’80s metal goofery of “Show Don’t Tell” will depend on said listener’s general tolerance for fun, but don’t let me spoil that for them or you. Yeah, it’s a substantial undertaking. Five records in, Sergeant Thunderhoof knew that when they made it, and if you’ve got the time, they’ve got the tunes. Album rocks front to back.
Posted in Reviews on September 21st, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Day three, passing the quarter mark of the Quarterly Review, halfway through the week. This is usually the point where my brain locks itself into this mode and I find that even in any other posts where I’m doing actual writing I need to think about I default to this kind of trying-to-encapsulate-a-thing-in-not-a-million-words mindset, for better or worse. Usually a bit of both, I guess. Today’s also all over the place, so if you’re feeling brave, today’s the day to really dig in. As always, I hope you enjoy. If not, more coming tomorrow. And the day after. And then again on Monday. And so on.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
Nadja, Labyrinthine
The second full-length of 2022 from the now-Berlin-based experimental two-piece Nadja — as ever, Leah Buckareff and Aidan Baker — is a four-song collaborative work on which each piece features a different vocalist. In guesting roles are Alan Dubin, formerly of Khantate/currently of Gnaw, Esben and the Witch‘s Rachel Davies, Lane Shi Otayonii of Elizabeth Colour Wheel and Full of Hell‘s Dylan Walker. Given these players and their respective pedigrees, it should not be hard to guess that Labyrinthine begins and ends ferocious, but Nadja by no means reserve the harshness of noise solely for the dudely contingent. The 17-minute “Blurred,” with Otayonii crooning overtop, unfurls a consuming wash of noise that, true, eventually fades toward a more definitive droner of a riff, but sure enough returns as a crescendo later on. Dubin is unmistakable on the opening title-track, and while Davies‘ “Rue” runs only 12 minutes and is the most conventionally listenable of the inclusions on the whole, even its ending section is a voluminous blowout of abrasive speaker destruction. Hey, you get what you get. As for Nadja, they should get one of those genius grants I keep hearing so much about.
El Paraiso Records alert! London Odense Ensemble features Jonas Munk (guitar, production), Jakob Skøtt (drums, art) and Martin Rude (sometimes bass) of Danish psych masters Causa Sui — they’re the Odense part — and London-based saxophonist/flutist Tamar Osborn and keyboardist/synthesist Al MacSween, and if they ever do a follow-up to Jaiyede Sessions Vol. 1, humanity will have to mark itself lucky, because the psych-jazz explorations here are something truly special. On side A they present the two-part “Jaiyede Suite” with lush krautrock rising to the level of improv-sounding astro-freakout before the ambient-but-still-active “Sojourner” swells and recedes gracefully, and side B brings the 15-minute “Enter Momentum,” which is as locked in as the title might lead one to believe and then some and twice as free, guitar and sax conversing fluidly throughout the second half, and the concluding “Celestial Navigation,” opening like a sunrise and unfolding with a playful balance of sax and guitar and synth over the drums, the players trusting each other to ultimately hold it all together as of course they do. Not for everybody, but peaceful even in its most active moments, Jaiyede Sessions Vol. 1 is yet another instrumental triumph for the El Paraiso camp. Thankfully, they haven’t gotten bored of them yet.
True, most of these songs have been around for a few years. All eight of the tracks on Omen Stones‘ 33-minute self-titled full-length save for “Skin” featured on the band’s 2019 untitled outing (an incomplete version of which was reviewed here in 2018), but they’re freshly recorded, and the message of Omen Stones being intended as a debut album comes through clearly in the production and the presentation of the material generally, and from ragers like “Fertile Blight” and the aforementioned “Skin,” which is particularly High on Fire-esque, to the brash distorted punk (until it isn’t) of “Fresh Hell” and the culminating nod and melody dare of “Black Cloud,” the key is movement. The three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Tommy Hamilton (Druglord), bassist Ed Fierro (Tel) and drummer Erik Larson (Avail, Alabama Thunderpussy, etc. ad infinitum) are somewhere between riff-based rock and metal, but carry more than an edge of sludge-nasty in their tones and Hamilton‘s sometimes sneering vocals such that Omen Stones ends up like the hardest-hitting, stoner-metal-informed grunge record that ever got lost from 1994. Then you get into “Secrete,” and have to throw the word ‘Southern’ into the mix because of that guitar lick, and, well, maybe it’s better to put stylistic designations to the side for the time being. A ripper with pedigree is a ripper nonetheless.
Proggy, synth-driven instrumentalist space rock is the core of what Italy’s Jalayan bring forward on the 45-minute Floating Islands, with guitar periodically veering into metallic-style riffing but ultimately pushed down in the mix to let the keyboard work of band founder Alessio Malatesta (who also recorded) breathe as it does. That balance is malleable throughout, as the band shows early between “Tilmun” and “Nemesis,” and if you’re still on board the ship by the time you get to the outer reaches of “Stars Stair” — still side A, mind you — then the second full-length from the Lesmo outfit will continue to offer thrills as “Fire of Lanka” twists and runs ambience and intensity side by side and “Colliding Orbits” dabbles in space-jazz with New Age’d keyboards, answering some of what featured earlier on “Edination.” The penultimate “Narayanastra” has a steadier rock beat behind it and so feels more straightforward, but don’t be fooled, and at just under seven minutes, “Shem Temple” closes the proceedings with a clear underscoring the dug-in prog vibe, similar spacey meeting with keys-as-sitar in the intro as the band finds a middle ground between spirit and space. There are worlds being made here, as Malatesta leads the band through these composed, considered-feeling pieces united by an overarching cosmic impulse.
Following 12 years on the heels and hells of 2010’s Dusk (review here), San Antonio, Texas, doomers Las Cruces return with the classic-style doom metal of Cosmic Tears, and if you think a hour-long album is unmanageable in the day and age of 35-minute-range vinyl attention spans, you’re right, but that’s not the vibe Las Cruces are playing to, and it’s been over a decade, so calm down. Founding guitarist George Trevino marks the final recorded performance of drummer Paul DeLeon, who passed away last year, and welcomes vocalist Jason Kane to the fold with a showcase worthy of comparison to Tony Martin on songs like “Stay” and the lumbering “Holy Hell,” with Mando Tovar‘s guitar and Jimmy Bell‘s bass resulting in riffs that much thicker. Peer to acts like Penance and others working in the post-Hellhound Records sphere, Las Cruces are more grounded than Candlemass but reach similar heights on “Relentless” and “Egyptian Winter,” with classic metal as the thread that runs throughout the whole offering. A welcome return.
Kind of a sneaky album. Like, shh, don’t tell anybody. As I understand it, the bulk of The Freeks‘ nine-tracker Miles of Blues is collected odds and ends — the first four songs reportedly going to be used for a split at some point — and the two-minute riff-and-synth funk-jam “Maybe It’s Time” bears that out in feeling somewhat like half a song, but with the barroom-brawler-gone-to-space “Jaqueline,” the willfully kosmiche “Wag the Fuzz,” which does what “Maybe It’s Time” does, but feels more complete in it, and the 11-minute interstellar grandiosity of “Star Stream,” the 41-minute release sure sounds like a full-length to me. Ruben Romano (formerly Nebula and Fu Manchu) and Ed Mundell (ex-Monster Magnet) are headlining names, but at this point The Freeks have established a particular brand of bluesy desert psych weirdness, and that’s all over “Real Gone” — which, yes, goes — and the rougher garage push of “Played for Keeps,” which should offer thrills to anyone who got down with Josiah‘s latest. Self-released, pressed to CD, probably not a ton made, Miles of Blues is there waiting for you now so that you don’t regret missing it later. So don’t miss it, whether it’s an album or not.
South Africa-based self-recording folk guitarist Duncan Park answers his earlier-2022 release, Invoking the Flood (review here), with the four pieces of In the Floodplain of Dreams, bringing together textures of experimentalist guitar with a foundation of hillside acoustic on opener and longest track (immediate points) “In the Mountains of Sour Grass,” calling to mind some of Six Organs of Admittance‘s exploratory layering, while “Howling at the Moon” boasts more discernable vocals (thankfully not howls) and “Ballad for the Soft Green Moss” highlights the self-awareness of the evocations throughout — it is green, organic, understated, flowing — and the closing title-track reminisces about that time Alice in Chains put out “Don’t Follow” and runs a current of drone behind its central guitar figure to effectively flesh out the this-world-as-otherworld vibe, devolving into (first) shred and (then) noise as the titular dream seems to give way to a harsher reality. So be it. Honestly, if Park wants to go ahead and put out a collection like this every six months or so into perpetuity, that’d be just fine. The vocals here are a natural development from the prior release, and an element that one hopes continue to manifest on the next one.
Crushing and atmospheric in kind, Poland’s MuN released Presomnia through Piranha Music in 2020 as their third full-length. I’m not entirely sure why it’s here, but it’s in my notes and the album’s heavy like Eastern European sadness, so screw it. Comprised of seven songs running 43 minutes, it centers around that place between waking and sleep, where all the fun lucid dreaming happens and you can fly and screw and do whatever else you want in your own brain, all expressed through post-metallic lumber and volume trades, shifting and building in tension as it goes, vocals trading between cleaner sung stretches and gut-punch growls. The layered guitar solo on “Arthur” sounds straight out of the Tool playbook, but near everything else around is otherwise directed and decidedly more pummeling. At least when it wants to be. Not a complaint, either way. The heft of chug in “Deceit” is of a rare caliber, and the culmination in the 13-minute “Decree” seems to use every bit of space the record has made prior in order to flesh out its melancholic, contemplative course. Much to their credit, after destroying in the midsection of that extended piece, MuN make you think they’re bringing it back around again at the end, and then don’t. Because up yours for expecting things. Still the “Stones From the Sky” riff as they come out of that midsection, though. Guess you could do that two years ago.
I’ve never had the fortune of seeing long-running Dallas trio Elliott’s Keep live, but if ever I did and if at least one of the members of the band — bassist/vocalist Kenneth Greene, guitarist Jonathan Bates, drummer Joel Bates — wasn’t wearing a studded armband, I think I might be a little disappointed. They know their metal and they play their metal, exclusively. Comprised of seven songs, Vulnerant Omnes is purposefully dark, able to shift smoothly between doom and straight-up classic heavy metal, and continuing a number of ongoing themes for the band: it’s produced by J.T. Longoria, titled in Latin (true now of all five of their LPs), and made in homage to Glenn Riley Elliott, who passed away in 2004 but features here on the closer “White Wolf,” a cover of the members’ former outfit, Marauder, that thrashes righteously before dooming out as though they knew someday they’d need it to tie together an entire album for a future band. Elsewhere, “Laughter of the Gods” and the Candlemassian “Every Hour” bleed their doom like they’ve cut their hand to swear an oath of fealty, and the pre-closer two-parter “Omnis Pretium (Fortress I)” and “Et Sanguinum (Fortress II)” speaks to an age when heavy metal was for fantasy-obsessed miscreants and perceived devil worshipers. May we all live long enough to see that particular sun rise again. Until then, an eternal “fucking a” to Elliott’s Keep.
Sometime between their 2017 debut, Jungla (review here), and the all-fire-even-the-slow-parts boogie and comprises the eight-song/35-minute follow-up Ambos Mundos, Barcelona trio Cachemira parted ways with bassist Pol Ventura and brought in Claudia González Díaz of The Mothercrow to handle low end and lead vocals alongside guitarist/now-backing vocalist Gaston Lainé (Brain Pyramid) and drummer Alejandro Carmona Blanco (Prisma Circus), reaffirming the band’s status as a legit powerhouse while also being something of a reinvention. Joined by guest organist Camille Goellaen on a bunch of the songs and others on guitar, Spanish guitar and congas, Ambos Mundos scorches softshoe and ’70s vibes with a modern confidence and thickness of tone that put to use amid the melodies of “Dirty Roads” are sweeping and pulse-raising all at once. The name of the record translates to ‘both worlds,’ and the closing title-track indeed brings together heavy fuzz shuffle and handclap-laced Spanish folk (and guitar) that is like pulling back the curtain on what’s been making you dance this whole time. It soars and spins heads until everybody falls down dizzy. If they were faking, it’d fall flat. It doesn’t. At all. More please.
still-accessible bent. But from the very first windchimes in “Gravity,” there’s intricacy corresponding to the abiding mood that gives the entire album its context.
