Posted in Radio on December 10th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Last episode was looking ahead to 2022. The one before that was looking back at 2020. That really just leaves 2021, huh? Well, here we are.
This I think is the third year I’ve done a ‘Some of the Best of the Year’ spacial on Gimme Metal, and at least the second year it’s been a two-parter. What can I say? I like a lot of music. And I think if you take the time to check out any of this stuff on the playlist, whether that’s by actually listening to the show (I hope) or just glancing through the playlist (I hope less), you might like it too.
This is only half, yes, but it’s still two hours of some of the best heavy stuff that came out this year. Should be plenty for one sitting, and the next episode — already turned in because of the impending holiday — should round this one out nicely. More to come. Then a whole new year.
Thanks for listening if you do.
The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.
Full playlist:
The Obelisk Show – 12.10.21
Green Lung
Leaders of the Blind
Black Harvest
Monolord
I’ll Be Damned
Your Time to Shine
Greenleaf
Bury Me My Son
Echoes From a Mass
VT
Heavy Temple
The Maiden
Lupi Amoris
Maha Sohona
Leaves
Endless Searcher
Domkraft
Into Orbit
Seeds
Spelljammer
Among the Holy
Abyssal Trip
Samsara Blues Experiment
Massive Passive
End of Forever
IAH
Arce
Omines
Genghis Tron
Alone in the Heart of the Light
Dream Weapon
Spidergawd
Black Moon Rising
VI: At Rainbows End
Thunderchief
King of the Pleistocene
Synanthrope
Spaceslug
Follow This Land
Memorial
King Buffalo
Acheron
Acheron
Weedpecker
Fire Far Away
IV: The Stream of Forgotten Thoughts
VT
Temple Fang
Let it Go/When We Pray
Fang Temple
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Dec. 24 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 19th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Polish heavy psychedelic rockers Spaceslug have set Dec. 10 as the release date for their new album, Memorial. The Wroclaw three-piece announced in June that they had completed work on the offering, following the release of the single “The Event Horizon” (review here) as a means of recouping (at least some of the) financial losses incurred by a flood of their rehearsal room. Their 2020 Leftovers EP (review here) and 2019’s Reign of the Orion (review here) both worked to significantly expand their sound, and while one expects Memorial to do likewise, how that might be realized isn’t yet known. The first single isn’t released until next week.
The announcement, however, marks another significant stamp being put on 2021 in the final month of 2021, as Spaceslug join the likes of Elder/Kadavar, King Buffalo and countrymen outfit Weedpecker in issuing anticipated full-lengths during what’s traditionally been a slowdown at the end of a given year. If you’d asked me, I would’ve guessed January or February for this one. I’m happy to have it sooner, though. That’ll be just fine.
If you missed it, Spaceslug‘s Jan Rutka and Kamil Ziółkowski recently collaborated with Argentina’s IAH on the latter’s new album, Omines (review here). Well worth a listen while awaiting more new music to come.
From social media:
SPACESLUG – MEMORIAL
-NEW ALBUM ANNOUNCEMENT-
We want to present you our next musical conclusion, gathered from deep well of our souls. This journey will take you through the tragedy of time with heavy grooves and shimmering soundscapes.
Hereby the next longplay called „Memorial” will be released 10.12.2021.
First single will land upon thee next week. Be prepared.
Details:
Spaceslug „Memorial” LP Tracklist: Into The Soil Follow This Land Spring Of The Abyss In The Hiatus Fall Memorial Lost Undone Of Trees And Fire At The Edge Of Melting Point
Recorded: 19-23.05.2021 at Perlazza Studio Mix/Master: Przemysław Wejmann/Perlazza Studio Cover artwork: Maciej Kamuda Art
Share it with your friends and have a nice weekend.
If you’re paying attention at all — and fair enough if you’re not — you had to see this one coming, right? No way I wasn’t going to follow up that massive Quarterly Review with a playlist for The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal. Had to happen. Honestly, I covered enough stuff in that 110-record span that I might do two shows out of it. Have to see what I can pull together for next time.
To answer your next imginary question, yes, it is somewhat bittersweet after two all-Neurosis episodes to be playing anything else. It was bound to happen eventually, some return to normalcy. Such as it is. Fortunately the selections here are killer if I do say so myself, and if you think it’s a coincidence that I reviewed so many albums and this playlist is starting with a cut from the Maha Sohona record, I promise you it is not. That one might’ve been my pick of the whole thing. Also took the excuse to play the Spaceslug track here again, just because it rules and fits that vibe too.
Thanks for listening and/or reading. I hope you enjoy.
The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com
Full playlist:
The Obelisk Show – 07.23.21
Maha Sohona
Leaves
Endless Searcher
The Crooked Whispers
Hail Darkness
Dead Moon Night
Filthy Hippies
I’m Bugging Out
Departures
Paralyzed
Golden Days
Paralyzed
VT
Alastor
The Killer in My Skull
Onwards and Downwards
Spelljammer
Bellwether
Abyssal Trip
Spaceslug
The Event Horizon
The Event Horizon
Los Disidentes del Sucio Motel
Horizon
Polaris
VT
Hellish Form
Shadows with Teeth
Remains
Vouna
Grey Sky
Atropos
Rose City Band
World is Turning
Earth Trip
Moanhand
The Boomerang of Serpents
Present Serpent
VT
Methadone Skies
Retrofuture Caveman
Retrofuture Caveman
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Aug. 6 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.
Oh my breaking heart as we move into day seven of the Summer 2021 Quarterly Review and I am reminded that the wages of hubris are feeling like a dumbass later. I was loading up my laptop on Saturday — so pleased with how ahead-of-the-game I was able to stay all last week — when the thing decided it was gonna give itself some time off one way or the other.
I dropped it for repair about 20 minutes before the guy I’ve come to trust was closing shop. He said he’d be in touch on Monday. Needless to say, I’m on my backup cheapie Chromebook, reviewing off Bandcamp streams, eagerly awaiting that call which I can only hope has come in by the time this is posted. I’ll keep you in the loop, of course, but putting together the reviews for yesterday? That was not pretty.
I expressly thank The Patient Mrs., through whom all things are possible.
Onward.
Quarterly Review #61-70:
Geezer, Solstice
Geezer‘s ambition could hardly be clearer in their 17-minute “Solstice” jam. It was the Solstice — Winter 2020, to be specific — and the Kingston, New York, trio jammed. Guitarist/vocalist Pat Harrington (who doesn’t sing on the track) added some dreamy synth after the fact, and the affect is all the more hypnotic for it. Harrington, bassist Richie Touseull and drummer Steve Markota are no strangers to exploratory fare, as they showed on 2020’s righteous Groovy (review here), and as a Bandcamp Friday-era stopgap offering, “Solstice” brings a sampling of who they are in the rehearsal space, willing to be heavy, willing to not, ready to go where the music leads them. If Geezer wanted to do a whole full-length like this, I wouldn’t fight them, so you most definitely will not find me arguing against a digital single either. With jams this tasty, you take what you can get.
Issued less as a stopgap, which a digital-only single might normally be, than as a response to the band having lost gear in a practice space flood, the 8:52 single-song outing The Event Horizon was recorded at the same time as Spaceslug‘s late 2020 EP The Leftovers (review here) and in a way acts to bridge the melancholy beyond-genre push of that release with the more weighted, spacious roll that has typified the Polish outfit’s work to-date — their latest full-length was 2019’s Reign of the Orion (review here), and they recently finished a new one. So perhaps “The Event Horizon,” with its hypnotically languid rhythm and concluding drift, is a stopgap after all, but between helping the band recoup their losses and thinking of what might be coming next, it’s an exciting if not-unalloyed listening experience, and the three-piece move deeper into a signature sound even as they continue to bring the definition of what that means to new places.
Creating sometimes-scorching, droning psychedelic soundtracks to all your favorite classic sci-fi films that never existed, Kansas City’s Expo Seventy offer a call to worship for freaks and converted heads on their new album, Evolution. Still headed by guitarist James Wright as on late-2016’s America Here and Now Sessions (review here), the band offer new glories celestial and terrestrial instrumental chemistry throughout the six tracks (seven on the CD) of Evolution, lumbering away on “Echoes of Ether” only after floating in brass-section antigrav conditions on “The Slow Death of Tomorrow.” Can you hang? You’ll know one way or the other as the culminating duo “Second Vision, First Sight” and “First Vision, Second Sight” are done with you, having altered dimensions so thoroughly that the ethereal will either come to feel like home or you will simply have melted. In any case, lash yourself to it. Own that shit.
Peak-era Faith No More reborn in progressive heavy fuzz? What stoner rock might’ve been if it went to college instead of spending all that time hanging around talking about old cars? I don’t know where UK four-piece Boss Keloid ultimately stand on their admirable fifth LP, Family the Smiling Thrush — the follow-up to 2018’s also-well-received Melted on the Inch (review here) — but they most certainly stand on their own. Across seven tracks, the band careen, crash, lumber, rush and ponder — lyrics no less worth a close read than any other component — and from opener/longest track (immediate points) “Orang of Noyn” on, they make it abundantly clear that their style’s unpredictability is an asset, and that just because you might not know where they’re going next doesn’t mean they don’t. Melodic, complex and cerebral, there’s still a human presence here, a sense of a plan unfolding, that makes the album seem all the more masterful.
Though it’s ultimately less electric-kool-aid than endless-churning-abyss-with-psychdelic-saxophone-screaming-up-at-you-like-free-jazz-trapped-in-the-downward-tonal-spiral, Bong-Ra‘s four-tracker Antediluvian is duly experimentalist in being born out of the mind of Jason Köhnen, whose work on this project not only extends more than 20 years, but who has been a part of landmark Dutch outfits like Celestial Season, The Kilmanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble and The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation, among scores of others. The procession on this full-length, originally released in 2018 through Svart Lava, is wild times indeed, but immersive despite feeling at times like a litmus for how much you can take, with Köhnen‘s bass/keys/etc. and Balazs Pandi‘s drums meeting with Colin Webster‘s saxophone and Chloe Herrington‘s bassoon, willfully plodding through long-ish form improv-seeming movements of atmospheric heft creation.
A coherent and forceful debut full-length, Reek of the Parvenu quickly shows the metallic undercurrent from Athens-based four-piece Zebu on opener “The Setting Dust,” and pushes from there in groove metal fashion, taking some impulses from heavy rock but holding largely to a central aggressive stance and tension in the rhythm that is a backdrop even as the later “Nature of Failure” breaks from its chugging shove for a quieter stretch. That is to say, the next punch is always coming, and Zebu‘s blows are effectively delivered — looking at you, “Burden” — though some of the slower, sludgier cuts like “Our Shame” or the doomier finale “The City” bring a welcome atmosphere to go with the coinciding burl. I’m not sure if “People Under the Stairs” wants to kick my ass or crack a beer, but the songwriting is air tight and the thrashy threat only contributes to the immediacy of the release on the whole. They’re not screwing around.
It’s been 11 years since France’s Los Disidentes del Sucio Motel debuted with Soundtrack From the Motion Picture (review here), an engaging, kind of silly play on stoner rock and B-movie tropes. Beneath that, however, it was also a concept album, and the band — who now seem to prefer LDDSM for a moniker — still work from that foundation on their fourth full-length, Polaris. The difference scope and sonic maturity. Rife with vocal harmonies and progressive flourish, the 10-track answer to 2016’s Human Collapse (review here) smoothly shifts between the patient and the urgent, the intimate and the grand — and that’s in the first two minutes of “Blue Giant” alone — finding their way into a proggy post-heavy rock that’s too clearheaded to be psychedelic, but that balances the crunch of “Horizon” with a sense of the otherworldly just the same.
With their fourth long-player, guitarist/vocalist Anthony Gaglia and drummer Brady Maurer of Portland, Oregon’s LáGoon welcome bassist Kenny Combs to the fold and dive as a trio — their first three-piece outing was last year’s Father of Death EP — headfirst into murky riffing and heady heavy rock, made all the more spacious through cavern echo and the garage doom vocals Gaglia brings on the title-track, as well as the synth that surfaces on the subsequent interlude “Buried” and elsewhere throughout. The earlier “Beyond the Trees” is particularly bleak and otherworldly, but I won’t take away from the further-down procession of “Hill Bomb” and “The Slow Down” into “Final Ride,” the last of which closes out with scummer doom that’s familiar but distinct enough to be their own. There are moments on Skullactic Visions where, for as much as they could sound like Electric Wizard given the ingredients, I’m all the gladder they don’t.
Maha Sohona‘s second album comes some seven years after their self-titled debut, but who cares about time when you’ve got your headphones on and you’re surrounded by the richness of tone on offer throughout Endless Searcher‘s five rolling tracks? Heavy and laid back, the trio of guitarist/vocalist Johan Bernhardtson, bassist Thomas Hedlund and drummer David Lundsten finding some kinship with Polish three-piece Spaceslug in their post-Sungrazer blend of weight and flow, a jam like “Luftslot” nodding and conjuring depth even as it soars. Can’t argue with the quicker push of “A Black Star” or the purposefully straightforward “Scavengers” (where the title-line is delivered) but some of the mellow moments in opener “Leaves” and especially the building instrumental finisher “Orbit X” are even more satisfying for how effectively they move you place to place almost without your realizing it. I’ve got nothing for you if you can’t dig this vibe.
Keen observers will recognize The Bad Sugar Rush vocalist René Hofmann from his work with Wight, but the work here alongside guitarist Josko Joke-Tovic, bassist Minyeong Fischer and drummer Peter Zettl is distinct from that other unit here, even as the Humble Pie-esque “Push Me” and semi-sleeze “Liar” both have some shade of funk to their procession. Both cuts circa four minutes makes for a suitable debut 7″ with respected purveyor H42 Records doing the honors, and the results are an encouragingly catchy display of what a first full-length might accomplish when and however such a thing emerges. There’s classic heavy rock as the foundation, but more than outright ’70s worship — though some of that too — it’s the organic feel of the songs that leaves an impression on the listener, though the background singers on “Push Me” don’t hurt in that regard, certainly. An auspicious and intriguind first showing.
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 14th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Decidedly better news this time around from Polish heavy psychedelic rockers Spaceslug, who have now finished work on their next full-length to be released presumably sometime before the end of the year. The band were last heard from early in May, having suffered the misfortune of a flooded practice space and, as a result, posted the single “The Event Horizon” which was recorded in 2020. One imagines some level of catharsis following that in simply moving forward with new ideas and sounds, let alone compiling an entire long-player.
Spaceslug‘s last album was 2019’s Reign of the Orion (review here), which was followed by 2020’s Leftovers EP (review here), exploring different sounds and textures of keys and melody and so on. The age-old question is how or if that excursion will play into the trio’s established, tonally-rich methodology, but until the record arrives the best one can do is speculation one way or the other. For what it’s worth, Spaceslug have worked at a prolific clip since their 2016 debut, Lemanis (review here), and in addition to being well received in aesthetic and craft, they’ve never yet failed to push themselves creatively. Whether their fifth album draws from Leftovers or not, it is fair to expect at this point that they will continue to progress as they have up to now. At least, nothing I’ve heard from them to-date has made me think they won’t.
More to come, of course. Their announcement was brief:
Our new longplay is fully finished and ready to roll. Recorded, mixed and mastered by one and only Mr. Perla from Perlazza Studio.
Over 46 minutes of nostalgia, heavy riffs and beauty of the dark void.
We will let you know as soon as schedule of release will be done.
Don’t tell anyone — or better yet, do! — but this show turned out pretty solid. I kind of put it together following a couple whims, things I’ve wanted to put in my own head, plus some of the recent Bandcamp Friday stuff — hello Spaceslug and Geezer — and things I’ve covered here recently in Tuna de Tierra and Worshipper and Carlton Melton, etc. Then I just wanted to hear the Shogun and LáGoon tracks for myself, and I’ve been meaning to cover that White Powder record more for weeks, and then I started thinking about songs that have “mountain” in the title and decided to do a whole block of those just for the hell of it, so that’s where we wound up. Mountain climbing.
But in addition to starting off with the maddeningly catchy “It’s Already Written” by Tau and the Drones of Praise — whose Roadburn Redux stream was posted here first thing this week — this one makes a few cool turns and flows and kind of breaks up nicely from one thing to the next, even as “Mountain” gets into “Mountain” into “Longing to Be the Mountain” and “Holy Mountain” and “I’m the Mountain.” This is the sort of thing I think is fun. That’s me. That’s who I am.
Anyway, thanks for listening and/or reading. As always, I hope you enjoy.
The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at http://gimmemetal.com
Full playlist:
The Obelisk Show – 05.14.21
Tau and the Drones of Praise
It’s Already Written
Tau and the Drones of Praise
Carlton Melton
Waylay
Where This Leads
Spaceslug
The Event Horizon
The Event Horizon
VT
Worshipper
Pictures of Home
VA – Bow to Your Masters Vol. 2: Deep Purple
LáGoon
Hill Bomb
Skullactic Visions
White Powder
Rula Jabreal
Blue Dream
Shogun
Delta
Tetra
VT
Tuna de Tierra
Mountain
Tuna de Tierra
Colour Haze
Mountain
Colour Haze
King Buffalo
Longing to Be the Mountain
Longing to Be the Mountain
Sleep
Holy Mountain
Sleep’s Holy Mountain
Stoned Jesus
I’m the Mountain
Seven Thunders Roar
VT
Geezer
Solstice
Solstice
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is May 28 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 7th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Polish heavy psych rockers Spaceslug recorded their new single last year in May, which is also when they did what became late-2020’s The Leftovers EP (review here). I’m not sure if it was part of the same process — “The Event Horizon” is more in line with their traditional weighted fuzz and the EP was something of a departure — but it’s concurrent anyhow, and as the nearly-nine-minute piece is being unveiled today, it comes with a classic dose of good and bad news.
Bad news first. Always. Their practice space flooded. As of this post, they don’t even know how much they’ve lost, but clearly that’s not the kind of thing anyone wants to deal with. Fucking bummer.
Good news. They put up “The Event Horizon” as a single release that will help them get funds to replace whatever it is that’s too damaged to salvage. Also good news? The song rules.
Also good news? They’re still pushing ahead with the recording of their next long-player, which one assumes will see release later this year. So if you look at it the right way, the good outweighs the bad, and all the more if you’ve got three dollars to toss the band’s way and help them out in a tough time. Even if it’s a morale boost, support matters.
The following is culled from a couple days of social media posts and the Bandcamp info. Song stream is at the bottom of the post:
Spaceslug – The Event Horizon
Today should be the day of a good news. We wanted to announce works of our new LP and the studio recording time that is scheduled at the end of May.
But the universe and reality kicked us hard this time and bring flood to our practice space last weekend. Yes, we are devastated as you can see in the pictures. We can’t estimate the losses yet as much of our equipment is still drying and needs to be checked. Two percussion sets, a guitar amplifier, two cabinets for guitar and bass + some smaller things were flooded. We are crushed by the loss but still we are marching forward to finish and record our new album with all energy we have.
“THE EVENT HORIZON” was not scheduled for any kind of release in this period but this is our way to send gratitude for all you did yesterday. We recorded this particular song last year to release it some day in some special occasion. Ironic but this is the best time for it we think. Tomorrow we will put this special single on our bandcamp. Song is as long, heavy and melancholic as you can expect from us. You should be pleased. You can have fun with it and listen as much as you want but also you can support us and own it eternally in digital.
Recorded by Piotr Grzegorowski at Jupiter Ranch Studio (May 2020). Mixed & Mastered by Haldor Grunberg (Satanic Audio) Music & Lyrics by Spaceslug
Hey, look who’s got 50 episodes of his silly little show? Crazy, right? I’ll be honest, I was genuinely surprised when it lasted five. I expected and still kind of expect to get an email or a phone call from Program Director Brian Turner (also of WFMU fame; remind me to tell you sometime how badly I continue to dream of DJing on that station) or CEO Tyler Lenane saying, “Yeah, sorry but this just isn’t working for us.” I wouldn’t even be able to blame them. I play some pretty weird, not-at-all-metal shit for a station that nowadays calls itself Gimme Metal instead of Gimme Radio.
It goes without saying but I’ll say it anyway how deeply I appreciate Gimme giving me the outlet that the show has become. Heartfelt thanks to Lenane and Turner and to the regular crew of listeners who check in via the Gimme chat during the show. I know not everybody’s into everything that gets played (I mean, except me, ha) but the openness and willingness to try new things is humbling.
This stuff was all culled from the recent Quarterly Review. As I explain in the lone voice break, doing the show is enough celebration for me, so that’s how I wanted to mark 50 episodes.
Thanks for listening and/or reading. New art (still) coming soon.
The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at http://gimmemetal.com
Full playlist:
The Obelisk Show – 01.08.20
Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou
Killing Floor
May Our Chambers Be Full
Spaceslug
From Behind the Glass
Leftovers
Crippled Black Phoenix
House of Fools
Ellengaest
Malsten
Compunction
The Haunting of Silvåkra Mill
VT
Domo
Dolmen
Domonautas Vol. 2
Howling Giant
Masamune
Masamune/Muramasa (Split)
Mountain Tamer
Warlock
Psychosis Ritual
Temple of the Fuzz Witch
The Others
Red Tide
Sumokem
Parak-Dar
Prajnaparadha
Völur
Reverend Queen
Death Cult
16
Sadlands
Dream Squasher
Khan
Monsoons
Monsoons
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Jan. 22 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.
