Saturna Announce January West Coast US Tour Dates

Posted in Whathaveyou on November 28th, 2025 by JJ Koczan

Obviously the below comes from social media, and I’m willing to bet that if you live in one of the towns clearly spelled out on the list of tour dates and are thinking of going, you probably can put together which venue between familiar spaces like Yucca Tap Room and The Lost Well will be occupied on which night by Saturna, who are coming over from Spain to play Planet Desert Rock Weekend at the end of January.

I said the other day in posting a West Coat tour happening around that fest that it wouldn’t be the last one, and here we are. Given the quotient of import acts, I sincerely doubt this would be the end of it either. My feelings on the subject have all the complexity of ‘the more the merrier.’ Really, given the quotient of import acts on the Planet Desert Rock Weekend VI lineup, it makes the most sense for these bands coming over to even do a more-minor-than-this stretch of touring, let alone the two weeks Saturna will do in the company of Phantom Hound. I know a guy in Joshua Tree if you need a driver.

But the more bands are out, the more shows there are, the more chances there are for people to go, have a life-changing experience and continue to evolve art through their own expression. If the occasion isn’t there for the tour, that has no chance of happening, and the sum-total of creativity in the world diminishes ever so slightly. We need more, not less, obviously.

I’m planning to hit Planet Desert Rock Weekend again in 2026, so will look forward to seeing Saturna for the first time there.

Here’s where they’ll be otherwise while they’re in the country:

Saturna tour

Phantom Hound & SATURNA – 🔥2026 TOUR ANNOUNCEMENT🔥

2026 Tour Dates

• 1/17/26 – Oceanside, Ca @pourhouseoceanside
• 1/18/26 – Pheonix, Az @yuccataproom
• 1/19/26 – Sierra Vista, Az @pcslounge.sierravista
• 1/21/26 – San Angelo, Tx @thepennytaphouse
• 1/22/26 – San Antonio, Tx @fausttavernsa
• 1/23/26 – Austin, Tx @thelostwell
• 1/24/26 – Houston, Tx @1810ojeman
• 1/25/26 – Arlington, Tx @divisonbrewing
• 1/27/26 – Yuma, Az @Themaverickbar
• 1/28/26 – Palmdale, Ca @transplantsbrewing
• 1/29/26 – Las Vegas, Nv @theusualplacelv
* 1/30/26 – Temecula, Ca @Thecovbarandgrill
* 1/31/26 – Oakland, Ca @elismilehighclub
*without Saturna*

Artwork by @soaresartwork
@gloryordeathrecords
@void.sdw

SATURNA is:
Rod Tirado – Bass
James Vieco – Vocals, guitars
Alexandre Sánchez – Guitars, backing vocals
Enric Verdaguer – Drums

https://saturna777.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/saturnaband/
https://www.facebook.com/Saturna777/

Saturna, The Reset (2023)

Tags: , , , , , ,

Quarterly Review: Beastwars, Lacertilia, Dune Aurora, Khayrava, River Cult, Beast Eagle, The Munsens, Rattlesnake Venom Trip, Pesta, Atom Lux

Posted in Reviews on November 17th, 2025 by JJ Koczan

the obelisk quarterly review

Happy Monday, and welcome to the Quarterly Review. Or welcome back, anyhow. I said last month that I might try to sneak another one of these weeks in before the end of November, and I’m honestly not prepared to say this’ll be it for the year. There’s a lot out there to keep up with, and this is the most efficient means I have for ‘keeping up,’ as best as I can do that anyhow. I don’t know, man. I’m just trying to get through the day.

This QR is 50 releases — I was slating them right up to yesterday, so some of it’s pretty fresh — and will go from today through Friday. It will be most, if not all, of what is posted this week. I hope you find something you enjoy. Let’s go.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

Beastwars, The Ship // The Sea

beastwars the ship the sea

At nearly 15 years’ remove from their self-titled debut (review here), New Zealand’s Beastwars have been through ringers in life and music alike, but their sound on their sixth full-length, they’ve never sounded quite so refined. Understand, it’s Beastwars, so I still mean immersive and crushing riff-heavy rock, which the band have honed to a point of bordering on noise rock in pieces like “The Storm” or the later “You Know They’re Burning the Land.” “Rust” and “The Howling” maintain a sense of the epic with Matt Hyde‘s shouts alternately into and out from the abyss, but the band have grown in the six years since their last album of originals, 2019’s IV (review here), and for the blowout in “The Devil” and the weight of chug in “Guardian of Fire,” their impact feels all the more craterous for it.

Beastwars store

Beastwars on Bandcamp

Lacertilia, Transcend

lacertilia transcend

I won’t take away from the shorter bangers here, whether it’s the wah-on immediacy of “Listen Close” or “Weird Scenes” with its stick-click immediacy, but each half(-ish) of Lacertilia‘s third LP (first for Majestic Mountain), Transcend, ends with a more extended cut, with “Nothing Sacred” (10:34) and “The Sun is the Key” (7:13) rounding out their respective sides, and the band are right to take the time when they take it. Of course, it’s symptomatic of the broader variety brought to the Cardiff five-piece’s craft, and they make Transcend a showcase of their reach, be it into acoustic strum and emergent bluesier scorch on “Over and Out,” the twisting lead guitar progressivism of “Deviate From the Plan,” which meets the grandeur halfway, or the percussion-laced instrumentalist build of the semi-title-track “Transcending.” They end up offering something different with each of the 10 songs, and balance raucousness and expressive purpose as they go in malleable and distinctive style.

Lacertilia on Bandcamp

Majestic Mountain Records store

Dune Aurora, Ice Age Desert

Dune Aurora Ice Age Desert

With their debut album, Turin three-piece Dune Aurora draw together disparate ideas from across the modern riffy pastiche such that garage-style sway and more traditonalist stoner chug combine with at-times-ethereal melody, desert push, psychedelia and, in the case of “Trapdoor,” a poppier take entirely. There’s cohesion in the songwriting to match the aesthetic ambition, though, and Dune Aurora don’t come off as haphazard so much as multifaceted. The reworked prior single “Fire” demonstrates a fuzzy drive waiting in the wings as part of their approach, but the nod in “Burning Waters” is more dug in, and “Sunless Queen” reveals a patience underlying their builds that might come out more on subsequent outings, but the shove of “Crocodile” and that Nirvana riff in “Dune Chameleon” are vital to Ice Age Desert too, and it’s still just a sampling of the elements Dune Aurora use to ensnare the listener. As much as they have going on, that they don’t come across as confused seems to give them all the more potential.

Dune Aurora on Bandcamp

Argonauta Records website

Khayrava, Ghost Pain

Khayrava Ghost Pain

Ghost Pain is the debut two-songer from Almeria, Spain, post-metallic four-piece Khayrava, who present “Red Hot Sun” (7:04) and “Ghost Pain” (10:32) with a marked sense of texture as part of their intention. Both tracks crush, but both also offer a moment of departure from that, and the latter plays off the impact of the former with a keyboardier air and its later divergence into floating melody and crash before, just past the eight-minute mark, they torch the whole thing with a worthy and minutes-long crescendo. “Red Hot Sun” is huge, but its midsection gives over to a break of Tool-y groove met with heavy post-rock flourish from the guitar. That also, of course, comes back around to the pummel, but it’s in the getting there that Khayrava begin to reveal the character of the band, and with the depth of mix they bring to Ghost Pain and the clear intent toward nuance of style, I’ll be on the lookout for where they go from here.

Khayrava on Bandcamp

Khayrava on Instagram

River Cult, High Anxiety

River Cult High Anxiety

“Who invented 9-5,” River Cult ask on “Fast Crash.” “They should be shot dead,” is the answer the lyrics give. Fair. The third long-player from the heretofore undervalued New York-based disgruntled fuzzbringers manages to make a mental health crisis swing like desert rock on “Smoke Break,” the sixth of the seven inclusions on the 38-minute offering, seeming to answer the crash-in, warm tone and lyrical fuckall of the opening title-track in the process. They’re not wrong, and if you’re gonna say the world sucks, at least “Feels Good to Scream” has a density of distortion to hold up to the message, vocals biting through like early-metal’s cultist inheritor, cavernous and obscure ahead of centerpiece “Mind the Teeth” start-stop chugging as the lore of ‘The Wolf’ is cast. The trio of guitarist/vocalist Sean Forlenza, bassist Anthony Mendolia and drummer Eli Pizzuto (ex-Naam) find a niche for themselves in downtrodden fuzz, ending with “New Song,” which even having been tracked at Brooklyn’s Studio G sounds fresh off the stage.

River Cult on Bandcamp

River Cult on Instagram

Beast Eagle, Sorceress

Beast Eagle Sorceress

In the soaring vocals of Kate Prokop and the riffs behind them chugging away at the verses of “The Dead Follow” and the moodier surge into the layered hook of “Witch Hunt,” Omaha, Nebraska’s Beast Eagle answer their 2024 self-titled debut EP with five more songs of metal-rooted heavy groove, clear and fluid in “Sharp Tongue” but not without aggression underlying. The bass in “The Dead Follow” is mixed the way I feel bass should always be — forward — and that gives even the mellower stretch as they move into the ending a different sense of presence than it might otherwise have, but in the galloping verse and sprawling chorus of “The Demonstration” and the rush of “Send Me Down,” the latter of which, admittedly, is more of a rocker, speaking to a burgeoning dynamic in their sound, they retain a feeling of charge, and that defines Sorceress‘ 19-minute run as much as the taut chug in “Sharp Tongue.”

Beast Eagle on Bandcamp

Beast Eagle on Instagram

The Munsens, Degradation in the Hyperreal

The Munsens Degradation in the Hyperreal

Having relocated from Denver to Asbury Park, New Jersey, The Munsens are no less vicious or crushing on their second album, Degradation in the Hyperreal. “Eternal Grasp” starts the procession as much death metal as it is sludge, which is an ethic that “Supreme Death” will bring to gorgeously extreme fruition a short time later, while pieces like the melancholic, minimalist instrumental “Vesper” and the blistering megasludger “Sacred Ivory” and the outro “I Avow” offset the onslaught of “The Knife,” “Scaling Ceausescu’s Balcony” and the lumber-into-double-kick of “Drauga,” vocals offering precious little comfort for the downward journey of the record’s 46 minutes. That “The Knife” finishes, specifically, ahead of “I Avow,” stands as testament to just how far The Munsens have pushed into extremity over the course of their decade-plus, but they are not entirely unforgiving either, despite having grown only more gnashing over the course of their decade-plus tenure.

The Munsens on Bandcamp

The Munsens on Instagram

Rattlesnake Venom Trip, Eclipse the Sun

rattlesnake venom trip eclipse the sun

They’re not thrash, but thrash is part of what Dayton, Ohio’s Rattlesnake Venom Trip get up to on their new four-song EP, Eclipse the Sun, with a sharp edge to the riffing on lead cut “Hollowed Eyes” that tells the tale. The second half of that track subsides some in terms of forward thrust, setting up the still-chugging-but-slower “Ablaze Set I,” with a more resonant hook, and “Brushstrokes/Eclipse the Sun,” which in its first half is as far as Rattlesnake Venom Trip go in divergence from the burl and push, but in its second answers for the metal and the nod both that it seems to have inherited from the opener. Punchy bass’ed reinforcement takes place over the five minutes of “Cold Winds Blow,” and the four-piece maintain a clear-eyed sense of identity through whatever turns the material makes, somewhere between heavy rock, Southern metal, thrash and stoner idolatry. You could sit and parse it, but the band make it pretty easy to trust where they’re headed as they go.

Rattlesnake Venom Trip website

Rattlesnake Venom Trip on Bandcamp

Pesta, The Craft of Pain

Pesta The Craft of Pain

For their third long-player, The Craft of Pain (on Glory or Death), Brazil’s Pesta offer a take on doom born of traditional metal. They’re not aggro, or outwardly depressive, but “Masters of the Craft of Pain” and the swinging “Marked by Hate” find a route from Sabbath and the NWOBHM to doom just the same. A guest appearance from Scott “Wino” Weinrich (The Obsessed, etc.) on vocals for “Mirror Maze” is a departure, but not so radical as to be out of place, especially backed by the depth of groove in the subsequent rocker “In the Drive’s End.” On side B, the pair of “The Inquisitor Pt. I” and the initially-acoustic-based “The Inquisitor Pt. II” provide a more theatrical reach, but the acoustic-and-key-strings “Canto XXI” brings in Rodrigo Garcia (Diffuse Reality) for another curve before “Shadows of a Desire” returns to ground to finish out not so far from where “Marked by Hate” left off. At no point do Pesta feel like they’ve diverged from where they want to be.

Pesta on Bandcamp

Glory or Death Records website

Atom Lux, Voidgaze Dopamine Salad

atom lux voidgaze dopamine salad

The lyrics posted with the cumbersomely-titled “J.I.B.B.E.R.I.S.H. (John Inflates Balloons Because Every Remote Island Starts Hallucinating)” are wrong, and the level of psychedelic tricksterism and playfulness across Atom Lux‘s debut, Voidgaze Dopamine Salad is such that I’m not sure if that’s on purpose or not. Rest assured, different references to “I Am the Walrus” are being made. The self-recording solo-project of Roman multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Lucio Filizola is a garden of weirdo delights, with the keyboardy bounce of “Death by Small Talk” giving away none of the subversively easy garage swing of “Spaghettification Apocalypse” and “Stoned Monkey Heritage” bashing away like it’s an alternate-reality 1964, which by the way I’m no longer convinced it isn’t. It’s from gleeful oddities like “Dance Plague Delirium” that progressive rock first emerged in the comedown era. The same trajectory may or may not be in store for Atom Lux long term, but right now any kind of ‘comedown’ still feels a good ways off.

Atom Lux on Bandcamp

Atom Lux on Instagram

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tabernas Desert Rock Fest 2025: Full Lineup Announced

Posted in Whathaveyou on May 5th, 2025 by JJ Koczan

Here’s a daydream for you. Hop on a plane and land somewhere in Spain that’s (quite literally, as I understand it) out of a Sergio Leone film to see three full days of international quality heavy from Mondo Generator and Unida and Nightstalker on down to Xispa and the Wild Pigs. I’m assuming the six tickets that were left when Tabernas Desert Rock Fest 2025 posted its full lineup the other day are long gone by now, or if not, congratulations if you’re one of the last six. I’ve talked to people who’ve been to this one and it looks amazing. Think of an experiential festival, kind of like Duna Jam or Bear Stone, but in an old-style Western setting.

And not to harp on it, but the lineup is really solid. I’m less familiar with Convoy or Scrotem or Baläte near the bottom of the poster, though at least the latter have played before, but with the likes of High Desert Queen, Kal-El, Rotor, Temple Fang, Godsleep, Ritual King and Tankzilla, it’s a cross-generational assemblage limited to 300 tickets and what seems to be an intimate setting that, at very least, is going to look incredible when you share the photos of everyone ripping it up. This is one I’ve been keeping up with for the last few years, and I think it’s easy to see why when you check the bill.

Again, I’m assuming those six tickets are gone, but you never know until you reach out at the email below:

So now here it is, our official confirmed LINE-UP for 2025 edition, with still one surprise ;-) = ENJOY!

WE ONLY HAVE 6 TICKETS LEFT, GET YOURS NOW BY MAIL:

tabernasdesertrockfest@t-online.de

Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/fort-bravo/tabernas-desert-rock-fest-2025/1077631823361309/

NICK OLIVERI’s Mondo Generator (USA):
Unida (USA)
Nightstalker (GR)
Kal-El (NOR)
Rotor (DE)
Godsleep (GR)
Ritual King (UK)
High Desert Queen (USA)
Temple Fang (NL)
TankZilla (NL)
Psychogarden (DE)
Convoy (DE)
Baläte (ESP)
Scrotem (DE)
XISPA & THE WILD PIGS (ESP)

https://www.instagram.com/tabernasdesertrockfest/
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100057087564915

Unida, live in Gothenburg, Sweden, Sept. 19, 2024

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Quarterly Review: Megaritual, Red Eye, Temple of the Fuzz Witch & Seum, Uncle Woe, Negative Reaction, Fomies, The Long Wait, Babona, Sutras, Sleeping in Samsara

Posted in Reviews on April 14th, 2025 by JJ Koczan

quarterly-review-winter 2023

Welcome back to the Quarterly Review. Just because it’s a new week, I’ll say again the idea here is to review 10 releases — albums, EPs, the odd single if I feel like there’s enough to say about it — per day across some span of days. In this case, the Quarterly Review goes to 70. Across Monday to Friday last week, 50 new, older and upcoming offerings were written up and today and tomorrow it’s time to wrap it up. I fly out to Roadburn on Wednesday.

Accordingly, you’ll pardon if I spare the “how was your weekend?”-type filler and jump right in instead. Let’s. Go.

Quarterly Review #51-60:

Megaritual, Recursion

megaritual recursion

Last heard from in 2017, exploratory Australian psychedelic solo outfit Megaritual — most often styled all-lowercase: megaritual — returns with the aptly-titled Recursion, as multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and producer Dale Paul Walker taps expansive kosmiche progressivisim across nine songs and 42 minutes. If you told me these tracks, which feel streamlined compared to the longer-form work Walker was doing circa 2017, had been coming together since that time, the depth of the arrangements and the way each cut comes across as its own microcosm within the greater whole bears that out, be it the winding wisps of “Tres Son Multitud” or the swaying echoey bliss of later highlight “The Jantar Mantar.” I don’t know if that’s the case or it isn’t, but the color in this music alone makes it one of the best records I’ve heard in 2025, and I can’t get away from thinking some of the melody and progressive aspects comes from metal like Opeth, so yeah. Basically, it’s all over the place and wonderful. Thanks for reading.

Megaritual on Bandcamp

Echodelick Records website

Psychedelic Salad ReRED EYE IIIcords store

Red Eye, III

RED EYE III

Slab-heavy riffage from Andalusian three-piece Red Eye‘s III spreads itself across a densely-weighted but not monolithic — or at least not un-dynamic or unipolar — eight songs, as a switch between shouted and more melodic vocals early on between the Ufomammut-esque “Sagittarius A*” (named for the black hole at the Milky Way’s center; it follows the subdued intro “Ad Infinitum”) and the subsequent, doomier in a Pallbearer kind of way “See Yourself” gives listeners an almost-immediate sense of variety around the wall-o’-tone lumbering fuzz that unites those two and so much else throughout as guitarist/vocalist Antonio Campos del Pino, bassist/synthesist Antonio PĂ©rez Muriel and drummer/synthesist/vocalist Pablo Terol Rosado veer between more and less aggressive takes. “No Morning After” renews the bash, “Beyond” makes it a party, “Stardust” uses that momentum to push the tempo faster and “Nebula” makes it swing into the Great Far Out before “The Nine Billion Names of God” builds to a flattening crescendo. Intricate in terms of style and crushingly heavy. Easy win.

Red Eye’s Linktr.ee

Discos Macarras Records website

Temple of the Fuzz Witch & Seum, Conjuring

Temple of the Fuzz Witch Seum Conjuring

Even by the respective standards of the bands involved — and considering the output of Detroit grit-doomers Temple of the Fuzz Witch and Montreal sans-guitar scathemakers Seum to this point, it’s a significant standard — Conjuring is some nasty, nasty shit. Presented through Black Throne Productions with manic hand-drawn cover art that reminds of Midwestern pillsludge circa 2008, the 27-minute split outing brings three songs from each outfit, and maybe it’s the complementary way Seum‘s low-end picks up from the grueling, chugging, and finally rolling fare Temple of the Fuzz Witch provide, but both acts come through as resoundingly, willfully, righteously bleak. You know how at the dentist they let you pick your flavor of toothpaste? This is like that except surprise you just had all your teeth pulled. It only took half-an-hour, but now you need to figure out what to do with your dazed, gummy self. Good luck.


Seum on Bandcamp

Temple of the Fuzz Witch on Bandcamp

Black Throne Productions website

Uncle Woe, Folded in Smoke, Soaked and Bound

Uncle Woe Folded in Smoke Soaked and Bound

Uncle Woe offer two eight-minutes-each tracks on the new EP, Folded in Smoke, Soaked and Bound, as project founder/spearhead Rain Fice (in Canada) and collaborator Marc Whitworth (in Australia) bring atmosphere and grace to underlying plod. It’s something of a surprise when “One is Obliged” relatively-speaking solidifies at about five minutes in around vocal soar, which is an effective, emotional moment in a song that seems to be mourning even as it grows broader moving toward the finish. “Of Symptoms and Waves” impresses vocally as well, deep in the mix as the vocals are, but feels more about the darker prog metal-type stretch that unfolds from about the halfway point on. But what’s important to note is these plays on genre are filtered through Uncle Woe‘s own aesthetic vision, and so this short outing becomes both lush and raw for the obvious attention to its sonic details and the overarching melancholy that belongs so much to the band. A well-appreciated check-in.

Uncle Woe on Bandcamp

Uncle Woe’s Linktr.ee

Negative Reaction, Salvaged From the Kuiper Belt

Negative Reaction Salvaged From the Kuiper Belt

I would not attempt to nor belittle the band’s accomplishments by trying to summarize 35 years of Negative Reaction in this space, but as the West-Virginia-by-way-of-Long-Island unit led by its inimitable principal/guitarist/vocalist Ken-E Bones mark this significant occasion, the collection Salvaged From the Kuiper Belt provides 16 decades-spanning tracks covering sundry eras of the band. I haven’t seen a liner, so I don’t even know the number of players involved here, but Bones has been through several incarnations of Negative Reaction at this point, so when “NOD” steamrollers and later pieces like “Mercy Killing” and the four-second highlight “Stick o’ Gum” are more barebones in their punksludge, it makes sense in context. Punk, psych, sludge, raw vocals — these have always been key ingredients to Negative Reaction‘s often-harsh take, and it’s a blend that’s let them endure beyond trend, reason, or human kindness. Congrats to Bones, whom I consider a friend of long-standing, and many more.

Negative Reaction on Bandcamp

Negative Reaction on Facebook

Fomies, Liminality

FOMIES Liminality

Given how many different looks Fomies present on Liminality, and how movement-based so much of it is between the uptempo proto-punk, krauty shuffle and general sense of push — not out of line with the psych of the modern age, but too weird not to be its own spin — it feels like mellower opener “The Onion Man” is its own thing at the front of the album; a mellower lead-in to put the listener in a more preferred mindset (on the band’s part) to enjoy what follows. This is artfully done, as is the aforementioned “what follows,” as the band thoughtfully boogie through the three-part “Colossus,” find a moment for frenetic fuzz via Gary Numan in “Neon Gloom,” make even the two-and-a-half-minute “Happiness Relay” a show of chemistry, finish in a like-minded tonal fullness with “Upheaval,” and engage with decades of motorik worship without losing themselves more than they want to in the going. At 51 minutes, Liminality is somewhat heady, but that’s inherent to the style as well, and the band’s penchant for adventure comes through smoothly alongside all that super-dug-in vibing.

Fomies on Bandcamp

Taxi Gauche Records website

The Long Wait, The Long Wait

The Long Wait The Long Wait

Classic Boston DGAF heavy riff rock, and if you hear a good dose of hardcore in amid the swing and shove, The Long Wait‘s self-titled debut comes by it honestly. The five-piece of vocalist Glen Dudley (Wrecking Crew), guitarist Darryl Shepard (Kind, Milligram, Slapshot, etc.) and Steven Risteen (Slapshot), bassist Jaime Sciarappa (SSD, Slapshot) and drummer Mark McKay (Slapshot) plunder through nine cuts. Certainly elbows are out, but considering where they’re coming from, it’s not an overly aggressive sound. Hardcore dudes have been veering into heavier riffing Ă  la “Uncharted Greed” or “FWM” for the last 35 years, so The Long Wait feels well in line with a tradition that some of these guys helped set in the first place as it revisits songs from 2023’s demo and expands outward from there, searching for and beginning to find its own interpretation of what “bullshit-free” means in terms of the band’s craft.

The Long Wait on Bandcamp

The Long Wait’s Facebook group

Babona, Az Utolsó Választás Kora

Babona Az utolsó választás kora

Since 2020, Miskolc, Hungary-based solo-band Babona have released three EPs, a couple singles and now two full-lengths, with Az UtolsĂł Választás Kora (‘the age of the last choice’) as the second album from multi-instrumentalist and producer Tamás RĂłzsa. Those with an appreciation for the particular kind of crunch Eastern Europe brings to heavy rock will find the eight-tracker a delight in the start-stops of “2/3” and the vocals-are-sampled-crying-and-laughing “A Rendszer Rothadása,” which digs into its central riff with suitable verve. The later “KormányalakĂ­tás” hints at psych — something RĂłzsa has fostered going back to 2020 with Ottlakán, from whom Babona seems to have sprung — and the album isn’t without humor as a crowing rooster snaps the listener out of that song’s trance in the transition to the ambient post-rocker “FrakciĂł,” but when it’s time to get to business, RĂłzsa caps with “Pártatlan” as a grim, sludgy lumber that holds its foreboding mood even into its own comedown. That’s not the first time Az UtolsĂł Választás Kora proves deceptively immersive.

Babona on Bandcamp

Babona on Facebook

Sutras, The Crisis of Existence

Sutras The Crisis of Existence

Sit tight, because it’s about to get pretty genre-nerdy. Sutras, the Washington D.C.-based two-piece of Tristan Welch (vocals/guitar) and Frederick Ashworth (drums/bass) play music that is psychedelic and heavy, but with a strong foundation specifically in post-hardcore. Their term for it is ‘Dharma punk,’ which is enough to make me wonder if there’s a krishna-core root here, but either way, The Crisis of Existence feels both emotive and ethereal as the duo bring together airy guitar and rhythmic urgency, raw, sometimes gang-shouted vocals, and arrangements that feel fluid whether it’s the rushing post-punk (yeah, I know: so much ‘post-‘; I told you to sit tight) of “Racing Sundown” or the denser push of “Bloom Watch” or the swing brought to that march in “Working Class Devotion.” They cap the 19-minute EP with posi-vibes in “Being Nobody, Going Nowhere,” which provides one last chance for their head-scratching-on-paper sound to absolutely, totally work, as it does. The real triumph here, fists in the air and all that, is that it sounds organic.

Sutras on Bandcamp

Sutras on Instagram

Sleeping in Samsara, Sleeping in Samsara

Sleeping in Samsara Sleeping in Samsara

The story of Sleeping in Samsara‘s self-titled two-songer as per Christian Peters (formerly Samsara Blues Experiment, currently Fuzz Sagrado, etc.) is that in 2023, My Sleeping Karma drummer Steffen Weigand reached out with an interest in collaborating as part of a solo-project Weigand was developing. Weigand passed away in June 2023, and “Twilight Again” and “Downtime,” with underlying basic tracks from Weigand in drums, keys/synth, and rhythm guitar, and Peters adding lead guitar, vocals, bass in the latter, the songs are unsurprising in their cohesion only when one considers the fluidity wrought by both parties in their respective outfits, and though the loss of Weigand of course lends a bittersweet cast, that this material has seen the light of day at all feels like a tribute to his life and cretive drive.

Fuzz Sagrado website

Electric Magic Records on Bandcamp

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Quarterly Review: Godzillionaire, Time Rift, Heavy Trip, Slung, Greengoat, Author & Punisher, Children of the SĂĽn, Pothamus, Gentle Beast, Acid Magus

Posted in Reviews on April 9th, 2025 by JJ Koczan

quarterly-review-winter 2023

Day three. Yesterday had its challenges as regards timing, but ultimately I wound up where I wanted to be, which is finished with the writing. Fingers crossed I’m so lucky today. Last time around I hit into a groove pretty early and the days kind of flew, so I’m due a Quarterly Review where it’s a little more pulling teeth to make sentences happen. I’m doing my best either way. That’s it. That’s the update. Let’s go Wednesday.

Quarterly Review #21-30:

Godzillionaire, Diminishing Returns

Godzillionaire Diminishing Returns

Tell you what. Instead of pretending I knew Godzillionaire at all before this record came along or that I had any prior familiarity with frontman Mark Hennessy‘s ’90s-era outfit Paw — unlike everything else I’ve seen written about the band — I’ll admit to going into Diminishing Returns relatively blind. And somehow it’s still nostalgic? With its heart on its sleeve and one foot in we’re-all-definitely-over-all-that-shit-from-our-20s-by-now-right-guys poetic moodiness, the Lawrence, Kansas, four-piece veer between the atmospherics of “Spin Up Spin Down” and more grounded grooves like that of “Boogie Johnson” or “3rd Street Shuffle.” “Unsustainable” dares post-rock textures and an electronic beat, “Astrogarden” has a chug imported from 1994 and the seven-minutes-each capstone pair “Common Board, Magic Nail,” which does a bit of living in its own head, and “Shadow of a Mountain,” which has a build but isn’t a blowout, reward patient listens. I guess if you were there in the ’90s, it’s god-tier heavy underground hype. From where I sit, it’s pretty solid anyhow.

Godzillionaire website

Ripple Music website

Time Rift, In Flight

Time Rift In Flight

In Flight is the second full-length from Portland, Oregon’s Time Rift, and it brings the revamped trio lineup of vocalist Domino Monet, founding guitarist Justin Kaye and drummer Terrica Catwood to a place between classic heavy rock and classic metal, colliding ’70s groove and declarative ’80s NWOBHM riffing — advance single “The Hunter” strikes with a particularly Mob Rulesian tone, but it’s relatable to a swath of non-sucky metal of the age — such that “Follow Tomorrow” finds a niche that sounds familiar in its obscurity. They’re not ultimately rewriting any playbooks stylistically, but the balance of the production highlights the organic foundation without coming across like a put-on, and the performances thrive in that. Sometimes you want some rock and roll. Time Rift brought plenty for everyone.

Time Rift on Bandcamp

Dying Victims Productions website

Heavy Trip, Liquid Planet

Heavy Trip Liquid Planet

Canadian instrumentalist trio Heavy Trip released their sophomore LP, Liquid Planet, in Nov. 2024, following on from 2020’s Burning World-issued self-titled debut (review here). A 13-minute title-track serves as opener and longest inclusion (immediate points), setting a high standrad for scorch that the pulls and shred of “Silversun,” the rush and roll of “Astrononaut” (sic) and capper “Mudd Red Moon” with its maybe-just-wah-all-the-time push and noisy comedown ending, righteously answer. It’s easy enough on its face to cite Earthless as an influence — instrumental band with ace guitarist throwing down a gauntlet for 40 minutes; they’re also touring Europe together — but Heavy Trip follow a trajectory of their own within the four songs and are less likely to dwell in a part, as the movement within “Astrononaut” shows plainly. I won’t be surprised when their next one comes with label backing.

Heavy Trip website

Heavy Trip on Bandcamp

Slung, In Ways

slung in ways

An impressive debut from UK four-piece Slung, whose provenance I don’t know but who sound like they’ve been at it for a while and have come into their first album, In Ways, with clarity of what they want in terms of sound and songwriting. “Laughter” opens raucous, and “Class A Cherry” follows with a sleeker slower roll, while “Come Apart” pushes even further into loud/quiet trades for a soaring chorus and “Collider” pays off its early low-end tension with a melodic hook that feels so much bigger than what one might find in a three-minute song. It goes like that: one cut after another, for 11 songs and 37 minutes, with Slung skillfully guiding the listener from the front of the record to the back. The going can be intense, like “Matador” or the crashing “Thinking About It,” more contemplative like “Limassol” and “Heavy Duty,” and there’s even room for a title-track interlude before the somewhat melancholic “Nothing Left” and “Falling Down” close, though that might only be because Slung use their time so well.

Slung website

Slung on Bandcamp

Greengoat, Aloft

Greengoat Aloft

Madrid-based progressive heavy rockers Greengoat return on a quick turnaround from 2024’s A.I. (review here) to Aloft, which over 33 minutes plays through seven songs each of which has been given a proper name: the album intro is “Zohar,” it moves into the grey-toned tension of “Betty,” “Jim” is moody, “Barney” takes it for a walk, and so on. The big-riffed centerpiece “Travis” is a highlight slog, and “Ariel,” which follows, is thoughtful in its melody and deceptively nuanced in the underlying rhythm. That’s kind of how Greengoat do. They’ve taken their influences — and in the case of closer “Charles,” that includes black metal — and internalized them toward their own methodologies, and as such, Aloft feels all the more individually constructed. Hail Iberia as Western Europe’s most undervalued heavy hotspot.

Greengoat website

Argonauta Records website

Author & Punisher, Body Dome Light

author and punisher body dome light

If it seems a little on the nose for Author & Punisher, modern industrial music’s most doom-tinged purveyor, to cover Godflesh, who helped set the style in motion in the first place, yeah, it definitely is. That accounts for the reverence with which Tristan Shone treats the track that originally appeared on 1994’s Selfless LP, and maybe is part of why the song’s apparently been sitting for 11 years since it was recorded in 2014. Accordingly, if some of the sounds remind of 2015’s Melk en Honig (discussed here), the era might account for that. In Shone‘s interpretation, though, the defeated vocal of Justin K. Broadrick becomes a more aggressive rasp and the guitar is transposed to synth. One advantage to living in the age of content-creation is stuff like this gets released at all, let alone posted so you can stream or download as you will. Get it now so when it shows up on the off-album-tracks compilation later you can roll your eyes and be extra cool.

Author & Punisher website

Relapse Records website

Children of the SĂĽn, Leaving Ground, Greet the End

Children of the SĂĽn - Leaving Ground, Greet the End

It’s gotta be a trap, right? The third full-length from Arvika, Sweden, heavy-hippie folk-informed psychedelic rockers Children of the SĂĽn can’t really be this sweet, right? The soaring “Lilium?” The mellow, lap-steel-included motion in “Come With Us?” The fact that they stonerfy “Whole Lotta Love?” Yeah, no way. I know how this goes. You show up and the band are like, “Hey everything’s cool, check out this better universe we just made” and then the next thing you know the floor drops out and you’re doing manual labor on some Swedish farm to align yourself with some purported oneness. I hear you, “Starlighter.” You’re gorgeous and one of many vivid temptations on Leaving Ground, Greet the End, but you’ll not take my soul on your outbound journey through the melodic cosmos. I’m just gonna stay here and be miserable and there’s nothing you or that shiver-down-the-spine backing vocal in “Lovely Eyes” can do about it. So there.

Children of the SĂĽn on Instagram

Children of the SĂĽn on Bandcamp

Pothamus, Abur

pothamus abur

While the core math at work in Pothamus‘ craft in terms of bringing together crushing, claustrophobic tonality, aggressive purposes and expansive atmospherics isn’t necessarily new for a post-metallic playbook, but the melodies that the Belgian trio keep in their pocket for an occasion like “De-Varium” or the drone-folk “Ykavus” before they find another layer of breadth in the 15-minute closing title-track are no less engrossing across the subdued stretches within the six songs of Abur than the band are consuming at their heaviest, and the percussion in the early build of the finale says it better than I could, calling back to the ritualism of opener “Zhikarta” and the way it seems to unfold another layer of payoff with each measure as it crosses the halfway point, only to end up squeezing itself through a tiny tube of low end and finding freedom on the other side in a flood of drone, the entire album playing out its 46 minutes not like parts of a single song, but vivid in the intention of creating a wholeness that is very much manifest in its catharsis.

Pothamus on Bandcamp

Pelagic Records website

Gentle Beast, Vampire Witch Reptilian Super Soldier (…From Outer Space)

gentle beast vampire witch reptilian super soldier from outer space

Gentle Beast are making stoner rock for stoner rockers, if the cumbersome title Vampire Witch Reptilian Super Soldier (…From Outer Space) of the Swiss five-piece’s sophomore LP didn’t already let you know, and from the desert-careening of “Planet Drifter” through the Om-style meditation of “Riding Waves of Karma” (bonus points for digeridoo) ahead of the janga-janga verse and killer chorus of “Revenge of the Buffalo,” they’re not shy about highlighting the point. There’s a spoken part in the early going of “Voodoo Hoodoo Space Machine” that seems to be setting up a narrative, and the organ-laced ending of “Witch of the Mountain” certainly could be seen as a chapter of that unfolding story, but I can’t help but feel like I’m thinking too hard. Go with the riffs, because for sure the riffs are going. Gentle Beast hit pretty hard, counter to the name, and that gives Vampire Witch etc. etc. an outwardly aggressive face, but nobody’s actually getting punched here, they’re just loud having a good time. You can too.

Gentle Beast website

Sixteentimes Music website

Acid Magus, Scatterling Empire

Acid Magus Scatterling Empire

Metal and psychedelia rarely interact with such fluidity, but South Africa’s Acid Magus have found a sweet spot where they can lead a record off with a seven-minute onslaught like “War” and still prog out four minutes later on “Incantations” just because both sound so much in their wheelhouse. In addition, the fullness of their tones and modern production style, the way post-hardcore underlines both the nod later in “Wytch” and the shoving apex of “Emperor” is a unifying factor, while the bright-guitar interludes “Ascendancy” and “Absolution” broaden the palette further and contrast the darker exploration of “Citadel” and the finale “Haven,” which provides a fittingly huge and ceremonious culmination to Scatterling Empire‘s sense of space. It’s almost too perfect in terms of the mix and the balance of the arrangements, but when it hits into a more aggressive moment, they sound organic in holding it together. Acid Magus have actively worked to develop their approach. It’s hard to see the quality of these songs as anything other than reward for that effort.

Acid Magus on Bandcamp

Mongrel Records website

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Quarterly Review: Kal-El, Bronco, Ocultum, Fidel A Go Go, Tumble, Putan Club, IAH, Gin Lady, Adrift, Black Sadhu

Posted in Reviews on April 8th, 2025 by JJ Koczan

quarterly-review-winter 2023

Good first day yesterday. Good second day today. I’ve been doing Quarterly Reviews for over a decade now, and I’ve kind of learned over time the kind of thing I should be writing about. It might be a record that has a ton of hype or one that has none, and it might be any number of styles — I also like to sneak some stuff in here that doesn’t ‘fit’ once in a while — but in my mind the standard is, “is this something I’ll want to have heard and/or written about later?”

For all the terrors of our age, the glut of good music coming out means there’s more than ever I want to write about, and in a weird way, I look forward to Quarterly Reviews as a way for me to dig in and get caught up a bit. I’ve already been blindsided this QR and it’s the second day. I call that a win.

Quarterly Review #11-20:

Kal-El, Astral Voyager Vol. 1

kal-el astral voyager vol. 1

There are few acts the world over who so succintly summarize so much of the appeal of modern heavy rock. Norway’s Kal-El offer big riffs, big hooks, big melodies, songwriting, and still manage heavy-mellow vibes thanks to an ongoing cosmic thematic that brings desert rock methods to more ethereal places. Is “Cloud Walker” the best song they’ve yet written? It’s on the list for sure, but don’t discount nine-minute opener/longest track (immediate points) “Astral Voyager” or the hey-that’s-a-Star-Trek-reference “Dilithium” with its dug-in low-distortion verses and the Captain‘s vocal outreach. All along, it’s never quite felt like Kal-El were reshaping heavy, but as time passes and they unveil Astral Voyager Vol. 1 with immediate promise of a follow-up, it’s curious how much Kal-El and notions of ‘peak genre’ align. Those of you who proselytize for riffs: even before you get to riding that groove in “Cosmic Sailor,” Kal-El are primed for ambassadorship.

Kal-El website

Majestic Mountain Records store

Blues Funeral Recordings website

Bronco, Bronco

Bronco Bronco

North Carolinian sludgethrowers Bronco take their name from their bassist/vocalist, who also goes by Bronco, and who in the 2010s cut a tone-worshiping generational swath through the Southern wing of the style as a member of Toke, proffering heavy riffs, harsh-throat vocals, and a disaffection that can only be called classic. With eight songs rolling out over 45 minutes, Bronco‘s Bronco picks up the thread where Toke left off with pieces like “Ride Eternal,” which crawls, or the declarative riffing of “Legion” (eerie guest vocals included amid all the pummel), or the closer “TONS,” which I’m going to assume isn’t titled after the Italian sludge-band, though if those guys wanted to put out a song called “Bronco” on their next record, they’d be well within their rights. A remarkably cohesive debut for something that’s so loudly telling you to fuck yourself. These guys’ll be opening for High on Fire in no time.

Bronco on Bandcamp

Magnetic Eye Records store

Ocultum, Buena Muerte

Ocultum Buena Muerte

Although one wouldn’t listen to Santiago, Chile’s Ocultum and be likely to have “refined” top the list of impressions given by the raw, rot-coated sludge of their third album and Heavy Psych Sounds debut, Buena Muerte, the grim-leaning atmosphere, charge later in the title-track, cultish presentation and the atmosphere emergent both from guitar-wail and yelling interlude “Fortunato’s Fortune” and from the material that surrounds, whether that’s the title-track or the just-under-12-minute “Last Weed on Earth.” The record finds the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Sebastián Bruna, bassist Pablo Cataldo and drummer Ricardo Robles dug in, stoned and malevolent. They’re not as over-the-top as many in cult rock, but one does get a sense of ceremony from “Last Weed on Earth” and subsequent capper “Emki’s Return” — the latter galloping in its first half and willfully devolved from there into avant noise — even if that’s more about the making of the songs than the performance of genre tropes.

Ocultum on Bandcamp

Heavy Psych Sounds website

Fidel A Go Go, Diss Engaged

fidel a go go diss engaged

The grunge crunch of “Running With Secrets” and the Cantrell-y acoustics of “Push” are barely the beginning of the story as regards Fidel A Go Go‘s meld of sounds, which ranges from the willfully desert rocking “Sandstorm” to the proggy “Lil Shit,” the transposed blues of “Rainy Days” and the penultimate “Psychedelicexistentialcrisisalidocious,” which is serene in its melody and troubling in the words, as one would hope, and while the moniker and the punny album title speak to shenanigans, the Brisbane four-piece offer a point of view both instrumentally and lyrically that is engaging and draws together the stylistic range. There’s little doubt left to whom “A Stench of Musk” and “Barely an Adversary” are about, but even that’s not the extent of the perspective resonant in these 11 songs. There’s enough fuzz here for desert heads, but Fidel A Go Go are broader in attitude and craft, and Diss Engaged makes a point of its artistic freedom.

Fidel A Go Go website

Fidel A Go Go on Bandcamp

Tumble, Lost in Light

tumble lost in light

Like their 2023 debut EP, Lady Cadaver, Tumble‘s second short offering, Lost in Light sees the trio of guitarist/vocalist Liam Deak, bassist Tarun Dawar and drummer Will Adams working with producer/engineer Ian Blurton (Ian Blurton’s Future Now, etc.) to hone and sharpen a classic, proto-metallic sound without seeing a dip in recording quality. As such, the five songs/20 minutes of Lost in Light are duly brash — looking at you, “Dead by Rumour” and the Radio Moscow-esque “The Less I Know” — but crisp in tone and execution. The mid-tempo “Sullen Slaves” picks up in its solo section later for a bit of boogie, and the slightly-slower metallic lurch of “Laid by Fear” sets up a contrast with the swinging closer “Wings of Gold” that makes the ending of the EP an absolute strut. They aren’t even asking a half-hour of your time, and the rewards are more than commensurate for getting down. They continue to be one to watch as they position themselves for a full-length debut in the next couple years.

Tumble’s Linktr.ee

Stickman Records website

Echodelick Records on Bandcamp

Putan Club, Filles d’Octobre

Putan Club Filles d'Octobre

Normally I might consider it a hindrance to have no clue what’s going on, but if you’ve never before encountered Italy/France semi-industrial duo Putan Club you might just find yourself in better position going into Filles d’Octobre as the avant garde radfem troupe unfurl a live set recorded at Portugal’s Amplifest, presumably in 2022. But if you don’t know it’s a live record, what’s coming musically, or that Filles d’Octobre is derived from their 2017 debut album, Filles de Mai, there’s a decent change your contextless self will be scrathing your head in wonder of just what’s going on with the bouncy lurch and maybe xylophone of “Filippino,” and that seems to suit Putan Club just fine. If you have to break something to remake it, Putan Club are set to the task of manifesting a rock and roll that is dangerous, new, unrepentantly socially critical, and ready to dance when you are. That they meet these significant ambitions head on shouldn’t be discounted. Not for everybody, but definitely for everybody who thinks they’ve heard it all.

Putan Club website

Toten Schwan Records on Bandcamp

IAH, En Vivo en Cabezas de Tormenta

IAH En Vivo en Cabezas de Tormenta

The first live offering from Argentinian prog-heavy instrumentalists IAH follows behind the band’s most expansive studio LP to-date, 2023’s V (review here), and brings into emphasis the group’s dynamic. It’s not just about being able to make a part sound floaty or to make the part next to it crush, but the character of a piece like the 24-minute “Noboj pri Uaset” (which might be new) is as much about the journey undertaken in their builds and the smoothness of the shifts between parts. They dip back to their earlier going for “Sheut” at the start of the set and “Ourboros” and “Eclipsum” the latter of which closes, and the bass in “Sentado en el Borde de una Pregunta” is worth the price of admission alone, never mind as a complement to the extended progression of “Noboj pri Uaset,” which is something of the buried lede here. So be it. On stage or on record, IAH offer immersion unto themselves. A little more tonal edge as a result of the live recording doesn’t hurt that one bit.

IAH website

IAH on Bandcamp

Gin Lady, Before the Dawn of Time

gin lady before the dawn of time

Before the Dawn of Time is upwards of the seventh full-length from Swedish vintage-style heavy rockers Gin Lady, and in addition to seeing them make the jump from Kozmik Artifactz to Ripple Music, the sans-pretense 11-songer invents its own moment. It’s like the comedown era (from 1968-1974, roughly) happened, but happened differently. It’s another path to a heavy rock future. There’s ’70s vibes in “Tingens Sanna Natur” a-plenty, and if it’s boogie or push or hooky melodic wash you want, “Mulberry Bend” has you covered for that and then some, never mind the down-home strum of “Bliss on the Line” or the pastoral contemplation of “The Long Now,” as Gin Lady put a classy stamp of their own on classic aural ideologies, as what are no doubt hyperspecific keyboards make the production smooth and let “Ways to Cross the Sky” commune with Morricone while capper “You’re a Big Star” drops a melody that can really only be called “arena ready.” As it stands, it’ll probably go over killer at festivals across Europe.

Gin Lady on Bandcamp

Ripple Music website

Adrift, Dry Soil

adrift dry soil

Duly apocalyptic for being the band’s first full-length release since 2019, Adrift‘s fourth album, Dry Soil, elicits an overarching doom that makes its tonal claustrophobia all the more affecting. The long-running Madrid outfit offer six songs that veer between the contemplative and the caustic as throatrippers worthy of Enslaved add an element of the extreme to the post-metallic intensity of “Edge” and “Restart” in the record’s middle. There are heavy rock underpinnings — that is, somebody here still likes Sabbath — but Adrift are well at home in all the bludgeonry, and “Bonfire” finishes by tying black metal, sludge, noise and darkly thrashing metal together with a suitably severe ambience. Are they torching it at the end? Kind of, but just replace “it” with “everything” and you’ll have a better idea perhaps of where they’re coming from on the whole. But for regionalist discrimination, Adrift would’ve conquered Europe a long time ago.

Adrift on Facebook

Adrift on Bandcamp

Black Sadhu, Ashes of Aether

black sadhu ashes of aether

Berlin trio Black Sadhu — guitarist/vocalist Max Lowry (also synth, effects), bassist Alex Glimm and drummer Martin Cederlund — employ atmosphere to a point of cinematics on their second full-length, Ashes of Aether, following up the post-doom wash of 2021 standalone single “Mindless Masses” with plays back and forth between full-heft nod and take-a-breather meanderings. This cuts momentum less than one might think as the keyboard and drone and sample of “Tumors of Light” lend experimentalist verve to “Descent,” the next of the nine-track outing’s more-complete-song songs, as the latter unfolds with a shine on the crash that continues to cut through the surrounding rumble as the procession unfurls. Patience, then. So long as you know the payoff is coming — and it is; looking at you, “Electric Death” — and don’t mind being stretched and contorted on a molecular level between here and there, you should be good to go.

Black Sadhu on Bandcamp

Black Sadhu on Instagram

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Elven Premiere Debut LP Solstice in Full; Out Thursday

Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on April 1st, 2025 by JJ Koczan

THE ELVEN Solstice

The Elven will release their debut album, Solstice, this week through Spinda Records, Clostridium Records and Echodelick Records. If that seems like a mighty consortium for a newcomer outfit, it’s worth noting that the band is comprised of members of Spain’s Saturna — bassist Rod Tirado and guitarist/vocalist James Vieco — collaborating with Earthless guitarist Isaiah Mitchell. With the lineup completed by keyboardist Tabatha Puig and drummer Javi GĂłmez, the full band came together as a pandemic-era divergence on the part of Tirado and Vieco, and while I don’t know the timing on at what point in the last five years it was actually put to tape — which really only matters if you’re curious how long it took the songs to come together and how long they’ve been sitting on the release, which I am — the sound of the band speaks to a timeless encapsulation of classic and heavy rock. Suddenly three labels to cover different geographic regions doesn’t seem like too much.

Opener “Shine” begins with a stretch of standalone guitar and vocals, offering immediately organic tonality and a recognizably strong, ’70s-style vocal from Vieco that will continue to mesh well with the proceedings throughout. There are flashes of proggier effects, synthy flashes from Puig‘s keys and leans into psychedelia amid the low-end warmth of the underlying riffing, varying in fuzz and tone and of course every now and then taking off on an ace solo or two — unavoidable given personnel and not a thing about which to complain — but what’s most striking about it is the cohesiveness of character. “Shine” resolves in a purposeful, soulful chorus and lets the listener loose on the rest of the album with high expectations that the strum and circa-’68 bottom-of-mouth-style verse and subsequent classy scorch of “Far Beyond” begins to meet.

Whatever the original impetus might’ve been — one assumes plague restlessness — behind the formation of The Elven, the band remain striking in their blend of influences from a span of decades, letting “Closer to Freedom” follow “Far Beyond” as a slower, drumless melodic divergence before the shuffle renews in “New Pair of Wings,” which answers the textural elements of hte songs preceding with a purposefully light, airy pastoralia of tone. Even the solo sounds nostalgic, and it’s supposed to, so that’s a win. Further to the purposeful nature of the entire affair, Solistice‘s eight tracks/34 minutes play out in a back and forth of longer and shorter songs, the longest of which is side B opener “Stand Right Next to Me” at 6:20.

The Elven.

There’s a sax, or what sounds like one, in “Stand Right Next to Me,” and that adds to the fullness of the jam that follows the earlier verse, which sets the vocals deeper in the mix for a broader sound. The band are well comfortable in the swing and the finish is classic enough that it sounds like they’re ending the intro to a late-night talk show, by which I of course mean they’re both pro-shop and on-fire, and the realignment toward the shorter and more straight-ahead “Out the Door” does nothing to lessen that impression. Somewhat crunchier in tone — nothing here comes close to aggression; for context, there’s still room for a honky-tonk sound from the keys — it recalls early ’70s blues-boogie without aping either structure or production, conveying a clarity of sound as well as an aesthetic of humility despite the arrangement outreach. The abiding lack of pretense and/or extraneous bullshit serves them well throughout.

The last longer-shorter pairing is “Wherever I Go,” duly rambling and Joe Cocker-esque in its throaty melody and sway, and the 2:23 “All of a Sudden,” which is a quieter outro based around the guitar with flourish of keys to complement. A subdued ending to a record that’s never quite let it all loose but that instead has skillfully and gracefully carried the listener from one end to the other, still remaining balanced between intention and execution, by which I mean nothing is overwritten or overplayed for what they’re trying to do. Again, pro-shop. Those who come into Solstice with the context in mind of who these players are and their prior work will probably get their hopes up going into it, but regardless of where you think the music might go because you know Saturna or Earthless, part of what The Elven accomplish on this first album is to create a vibrant persona of the band’s own.

The album is out April 3, which is Thursday,  and can be ordered now. You’ll find it in full on the player below, followed by more info from the PR wire. I didn’t mention it in the review proper, but credit to Jondix for the badass art.

Enjoy the stream:

‘Solstice’ will be available on April 3, 2025, and will be released exclusively in digital format and on vinyl; in a limited edition of 300 copies in marbled yellow, which can already be pre-ordered at spindarecords.com.

What began at the end of 2020 as an irrational need to compose music by Rod Tirado and James Vieco from Saturna soon took on a different identity when they brought in their friends Isaiah Mitchell (Earthless) on lead guitar, Tabatha Puig on keyboards, and Javi GĂłmez on drums. In just one month, they wrote the 8 songs that make up this debut album, titled ‘Solstice’, which they recorded with all the freshness and spontaneity of the moment at the Analog Drive-in Studios, alongside Christian A. Korn at the controls and Dani Pernas as co-producer. Pernas would later handle the mixing before passing the project on to Estanis Elorza for mastering.

For the graphic design, they once again enlisted an illustration by Jondix (Tool, Black Sabbath, High on Fire, Electric Wizard) and the design by JalĂłn de Aquiles for a vinyl edition that will be released by Spinda Records (ES), in a new collaboration with Clostridium Records (DE) and Echodelick Records (US), who previously worked together on the debut album by Loma Baja.

Solstice
1. Shine
2. Far beyond
3. Closer to freedom
4. New pair of wings
5. Stand right next to me
6. Out the door
7. Wherever I go
8. All of a sudden

THE ELVEN is:
Rod Tirado: bass
James Vieco: guitars, vocals
Isaiah Mitchell: guitars
Tabatha Puig: keys
Javi GĂłmez: drums

The Elven, “Shine” official video

Saturna on Facebook

Saturna on Instagram

Saturna on YouTube

Saturna on Bandcamp

Spinda Records on Facebook

Spinda Records on Instagram

Spinda Records on Bandcamp

Spinda Records website

Clostridium Records on Facebook

Clostridium Records on Instagram

Clostridium Records website

Echodelick Records on Facebook

Echodelick Records on Instagram

Echodelick Records on Bandcamp

Echodelick Records website

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

We Are Impala Premiere “Contra la Tirania del Domèstic”; Les EfĂ­meres Out Feb. 14

Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on January 20th, 2025 by JJ Koczan

We Are Impala 2025

Set to release on Valentine’s Day — and who says chunky-style instrumentalist heavy progressive psychedelic rock isn’t for lovers? — Les EfĂ­meres is the third album from Barcelona cosmic twisters We Are Impala. The Jetglow Recordings outing runs a stately 48 minutes and takes the time it wants to take to say what it wants to say, offering variety and adventure, whimsy and wistfulness, hard crunch and pastoralia along the sometimes-angular-but-well-guided trajectory. It is something of a rollercoaster, but like a rollercoaster, the truth of the thing is the solidity of the tracks on which it’s running — ideally, and in this case.

And as “La Dansa de les EfĂ­meres: Part 1” shows, it doesn’t always have to be one or the other, as the guitars of Xevi Strings and Albert MartĂ­nez-LĂłpez weave through a kind of busy serenity,we are impala les efimeres airy in the outreach of echo and weighted in the impact of Jon Ander Soto Corral‘s drumming and the low midsection fuzz of Mauro Pinto Risco‘s bass. If it were easy to pin down, it wouldn’t have the fluidity it does, but in an age where space metal and boogie shuffle don’t have to be mutually exclusive, they aren’t. “Contra la Tirania del Domèstic” (video premiering below) pulls together Earthless-style vitality and a drift that feels more of the Pelican/Russian Circles school and is informed by some regional influence, while the preceding 10-minute wailer “Cim i Tomba” comes on swinging and big in tone, a kind of urgent lurch setting the backdrop for a wah barrage. Yeah and that’s like in 40 seconds, so it’s quite the journey to be undertaken when you really go along with it.

That said, the central question with Les EfĂ­meres doesn’t seem to me to be about how far out the band can go and still be able to keep a song together — “Cim i Tomba” has more sprawl in the ensuing 10 minutes than some careers can claim — but how far is the listener willing to go to meet them. This is where the quieter stretches like “El Vol” at the introduction or “A Flor d’Aigua” before “La Dansa de les EfĂ­meres: Part 2” jams melancholy on the way to opening up a maw of fuzz that’s surely large enough swallow the album in its entirety but nonetheless and that maybe it does since the brief outro “El Dol” drops to minimal, almost new-agey drone, rising to a volume that’s still pretty low compared to, say, the shimmer, jangle and thrust of “La Sala dels Miralls” earlier on, but that is enough to give a sense of dynamic just the same, and it’s telling that even at We Are Impala‘s stillest, they retain some feeling of restlessness.

But restless doesn’t always mean chaotic. We Are Impala have enough control over what they show here to convey intention — that is, the songs don’t sound haphazard or lazy or unconsidered; the album was recorded live but it doesn’t feel made up on the spot in its we are impala tiraniaentirety — but they’re not without their sense of challenge and they’re not dumbing down their exploration to capitulate to some imaginary-in-the-first-place notion of accessibility. Rather, the complexity of Les EfĂ­meres‘ course front-to-back is one of the aspects most encouraging in terms of repeat listens as well — they’re not the first or by any means alone in the sphere of modern heavy prog-psych to deliver more to the active rather than casual listener — and though one might still come out the other end of the LP with questions like, “is that keyboard or guitar under the lead line late in ‘Contra la Tirania del Domèstic’ and what does it say about me that I’m asking?,” it is a healthy and refreshing plunge to take, cerebral but not at the expense of the passion that made them start playing in the first place. And tonally alive.

Album credits and more info follow beneath the embed below, courtesy of the PR wire, as well as live dates hoisted from socials.

Please enjoy:

We Are Impala, “Contra la Tirania del Domèstic” track premiere

Barcelona’s four piece We Are Impala are a whirlwind of fierce improvisers and odd-time signature players who love to explore new sonic structures. The ensemble blends the uncompromising heaviness of noise making with a distinctly savoir-faire rooted upon the Mediterranean way of living

Now with a freshly renewed formation and heading all the efforts into their third full-length assault Les EfĂ­meres, a fractal dialogue between abrasive guitar outbursts and endless grooves within an ecstatic pace. This will be their third and most ambitious full-length up to date, running across 50 minutes long divided into 8 tracks.

The songs were boldly captured live and mixed by reputed catalan engineer Santi Garcia at Ultramarinos Costa Brava Studios, in the vibrant seaside town of Sant Feliu de GuĂ­xols. Victor Garcia did an impeccable work mastering the album at Ultramarinos Mastering Barcelona and preserving all the natural chemistry, efficacy and dynamics of the original sessions.

The record will be released on all streaming platforms on 14th February 2025.

Limited 2xLP and CD releases through Jetglow Recordings.

Here’s the complete tracklist:

1. El Vol
2. Cim i Tomba
3. Contra la Tirania del Domèstic
4. La Sala dels Miralls
5. La Dansa de les EfĂ­meres: Part I
6. A Flor d’Aigua
7. La Dansa de les EfĂ­meres: Part II
8. El Dol

All songs written and performed by We Are Impala
Recorded live and mixed by Santi Garcia at Ultramarinos Costa Brava
Mastered by Victor Garcia at Ultramarinos Mastering Barcelona
Photography by Albert-MartĂ­nez-LĂłpez
Artwork by We Are Impala

WE ARE IMPALA – LES EFĂŤMERES 2025
📍21.02. Madrid + Alber Jupiter | @elperroclubmad
📍22.02. Castelló + Alber Jupiter | @becausepopnroll
📍14.03. Barcelona + TBC | @salavol
📍29.03. Canet de Mar + TBC | Jardí de Villaflora

We Are Impala is:
Xevi Strings: Electric guitar
Jon Ander Soto Corral: Drums and percussions
Mauro Pinto Risco: Electric bass
Albert MartĂ­nez-LĂłpez: Electric guitar

We Are Impala on Facebook

We Are Impala on Instagram

We Are Impala on Bandcamp

Jetglow Recordings on Facebook

Jetglow Recordings on Instagram

Jetglow Recordings website

Tags: , , , ,