Set to release Jan. 31, Into the Emerald is the second full-length from Cádiz, Spain, heavy progressive rockers Surya. The 44-minute seven-songer creates a feeling of sprawl over its runtime, arranged as it is across two vinyl sides, each one working shortest to longest. That puts the album intro “Evergreen River” (1:28) and side A capper/tracklist-centerpiece “Beyond Eyes of Gold” (8:56) not so much in opposition, but makes the latter’s shimmer, warmth of tone, and fluid modern-heavy-prog realizations, the layered vocals of guitarist Antonio Hierro and drummer Carlos Camisón, feel like the destination through which “A Blazing Crusade” (3:43) and “Through the Stone” (4:14) traveled.
And as the band lead the listener across the first of the two included mini-journeys on Into the Emerald — which is the follow-up to 2019’s Overthrown (review here), released by a consortium headed by Spinda Records — headed toward the more densely riffed instrumental payoff of “Beyond Eyes of Gold,” which crescendos thick and then adds breadth in strum and solo, Hierro, Camisón, bassist Jose Mª Zapata and guitarist Jose Moares correspondingly bring a new sense of discovery to side B, beginning with “Arrows” (3:41, premiering below), which puts Camisón in the lead vocal role apparently for the first time.
He soars in a way that makes me think it won’t be the last instance in which the tradeoff is made, and even while “Arrows” doesn’t necessarily represent the entirety of Into the Emerald, it’s consistent in tone and purpose and is a look at what they’ll potentially be exploring over their next however-many records. “The Clashing” (6:20), with a guitar progression that feels specificallyElderian, refines a heavy rock thrust in its verse with twisting lead flourish, and has room in its second half for a subdued divergence before aligning on the chugging, rolling groove and the crash with which it resolves ahead of “Shields at the Dawn Forest” (15:49), which unfolds with a grace toward which both sides of the record up to that point are revealed as building.
Guest organ from Koe Casas peppers the finale, thereby letting the four-piece commune all the more with progressive heavy rock and its contemporary affinity for classic elements. Riffing out heavy psych-style in the spirit of Samsara Blues Experiment, and as they have been all along, Surya are song-first, exploration-first, and though its unfolding is patient, “Shields at Dawn Forest” never loses its direction or becomes anything other than the culmination it was clearly intended to be, and the band earn bonus points for weirding out a bit with dual vocals and some nascent quirk before they take off with the speedier procession in the piece’s back third, an electric solo section giving over to more serene acoustic pluck and strum to close. This is a tie-in vibe-wise with “Evergreen River,” and leads one to wonder if the organic sound isn’t mirrored thematically in a lyrical narrative further portraying some kind of struggle.
That’s info I don’t have, but while Into the Emerald catches Surya at a seemingly transitional moment — lest we forget that change is the order of the universe for all of us — it stands on its own as well and converses fluidly with the greater European underground in a way that reminds a bit of Maragda‘s 2024 outing, Tyrants, while staying a little rawer in energy and grounded on the structural balance. Spain having long been relegated to second-class citizenship in said sphere, Surya present themselves as ambassadors in showcasing some of the regional stylistic aspects while embarking on a sound that draws influence from multiple sources and crafts it into something of their own. They’re growing, and one hopes they’ll continue to grow with the kind of adventurousness on offer in Into the Emerald.
“Arrows” streams on the player below, and the band were kind enough to offer some comment on the song thereafter.
Please enjoy:
Surya on Into the Emerald:
We are exploring new sounds, trying to get heavier and more complex with these new songs. Also, we found out that Carlos, our drummer, sings really well, and “Arrows” is the first time ever that he does lead vocals for a song, and we hope the first of many. We are not forgetting where we come from, but we just wanted to make the music we would like to hear.
‘Into the Emerald’ tracklisting: 1. Evergreen River 2. A Blazing Crusade 3. Through the Stone 4. Beyond Eyes of Gold 5. Arrows 6. The Clashing 7. Shields at the Dawn Forest
Recorded at Metropol Studios and Estudio 79 by Rafa Camisón Mixing – Rafa Camisón (Estudio 79) Mastering – Víctor García (Ultramarinos Mastering) Artwork and logo – Nacho Fernández-Trujillo
Surya are: Antonio Hierro – Electric guitar and vocals Carlos Camisón – Drums and vocals Jose Mª Zapata – Bass Jose Moares – Electric guitar and acoustic guitar *Koe Casas – Organ and electric piano (on Shields at the Dawn Forest)
Posted in Reviews on December 9th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Welcome to the Quarterly Review. Oh, you were here last time? Me too. All door prizes will be mailed to winning parties upon completion of, uh, everything, I guess?
Anywhazzle, the good news is this week is gonna have 50 releases covered between now — the 10 below — and the final batch of 10 this Friday. I’m trying to sneak in a bunch of stuff ahead of year-end coverage, yes, but let the urgency of my doing so stand as testament to the quality of the music contained in this particular Quarterly Review. If I didn’t feel strongly about it, surely I’d find some other way to spend my time.
That said, let’s not waste time. You know the drill, I know the drill. Just don’t be surprised when some of the stuff you see here, today, tomorrow, and throughout the week, ends up in the Best of 2024 when the time comes. I have no idea what just yet, but for sure some of it.
We go.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
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Gnome, Vestiges of Verumex Visidrome
Some bands write songs for emotional catharsis. Some do it to make a political statement. Gnome‘s songs feel specifically — and expertly — crafted to engage an audience, and their third full-length, Vestiges of Verumex Visidrome, underscores the point. Hooks like “Old Soul” and “Duke of Disgrace” offer a self-effacing charm, where elsewhere the Antwerp trio burn through hot-shit riffing and impact-minded slam metal with a quirk that, if you’ve caught wind of the likes of Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol or Howling Giant in recent years, should fit nicely among them while finding its own sonic niche in being able to, say, throw a long sax solo on second cut “The Ogre” or veer into death growls for the title line of “Rotten Tongue” and others. They make ‘party riff metal’ sound much easier to manifest than it probably is, and the reason their reputation precedes them at this point goes right back to the songwriting. They hit hard, they get in, get out, it’s efficient when it wants to be but can still throw a curve with the stop and pivot in “Rotten Tongue,” running a line between punk and stoner, rock and metal, your face and the floor. It might actually be too enjoyable for some, but the funk they bring here is infectious. They make the riffs dance, and everything goes from there.
The lone studio track “Breathe” serves as the reasoning behind Hermano‘s first new release since 2007’s …Into the Exam Room (discussed here), and actually predates that still-latest long-player by some years. Does it matter? Yeah, sort of. As regards John Garcia‘s post-Kyuss career, Hermano both got fleshed out more than most (thinking bands like Unida and Slo Burn, even Vista Chino, that didn’t get to release three full-lengths in their time), and still seemed to fade out when there was so much potential ahead of them. If “Breathe” doesn’t argue in favor of this band giving it the proverbial “one more go,” perhaps the live version of “Brother Bjork” (maybe the same one featured on 2005’s Live at W2?) and a trio of cuts captured at Hellfest in 2016 should do the trick nicely. They’re on fire through “Senor Moreno’s Plan,” “Love” and “Manager’s Special,” with Garcia, Dandy Brown, David Angstrom, Chris Leathers and Mike Callahan treating Clisson to a reminder of why they’re the kind of band who might get to build an entire EP around a leftover studio track — because that studio track, and the band more broadly, righteously kick their own kind of ass. What would a new album be like?
Almost on a per-song basis, Stahv — the mostly-solo brainchild of multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Solomon Arye Rosenschein, here collaborating on production with John Getze of Ako-Lite Records — skewers and melds genres to create something new from their gooey remnants. On the opening title-track, maybe that’s a post-industrial Phil Collins set to dreamtime keyboard and backed by fuzzy drone. On “Lunar Haze,” it’s all goth ’80s keyboard handclaps until the chorus melody shines through the fog machine like The Beatles circa ’64. Yeah that’s right. And on “Bossa Supernova,” you bet your ass it’s bossa nova. “The Calling” reveals a rocker’s soul, where “Plainview” earlier on has a swing that might draw from The Birthday Party at its root (it also might not) but has its own sleek vibe just the same with a far-back, lo-fi buzz that somehow makes the melody sound better. “Aaskew” (sic) takes a hard-funkier stance musically but its outsider perspective in the lyrics is similar. The 1960s come back around in the later for “Circuit Crash” — it would have to be a song about the future — and “Leaving Light” seems to make fun of/celebrate (it can be both) that moment in the ’80s when everything became tropical. There’s worlds here waiting for ears adventurous enough to hear them.
I mean, look. The central question you really have to ask yourself is how mellow do you want to get? Do you think you can handle 12 minutes of “Transmigration?” Do you think you can be present in yourself through that cool-as-fuck, ultra-smooth psychedelic twist Space Shepherds pull off, barely three minutes into the the beginning of this seven-track, 71-minute pacifier to quiet the bad voices in your (definitely not my) brain. What’s up with that keyboard shuffle in “Celestial Rose” later on? I don’t know, but it rules. And when they blow it out in “Got Caught Dreaming?” Yeah, hell yeah, wake up! “Free Return” is a 15-minute drifter jam that gets funky in the back half (a phrase I’d like on a shirt) and you don’t wanna miss it! At the risk of spoiling it, I’ll tell you that the title-track, which closes, is absolutely the payoff it’s all asking for. If you’ve got the time to sit with it, and you can just sort of go where it’s going, Cycler is a trip begging to be taken.
It is all very big. All very grand, sweeping and poised musically, very modern and progressive and such — and immediately it has something if that’s what you’re looking for, which is super-doper, thanks — but if you dig into King Botfly‘s vocals, there’s a vulnerability there as well that adds an intimacy to all that sweep and plunges down the depths of the spacious mix’s low end. And I’m not knocking that part of it either. The Portsmouth, UK-based three-piece of guitarist/vocalist George Bell, bassist Luke Andrew and drummer Darren Draper, take on a monumental task in terms of largesse, and they hit hard when they want to, but there’s dynamic in it too, and both has an edge and doesn’t seem to go anywhere it does without a reason, which is a hard balance to strike. They sound like a band who will and maybe already have learned from this and will use that knowledge to move forward in an ongoing creative pursuit. So yes, progressive. Also tectonically heavy. And with heart. I think you got it. They’ll be at Desertfest London next May, and they sound ready for it.
Are Last Band a band? They sure sound like one. Founded by guitarists Pat Paul and Matt LeGrow (the latter also of Admiral Browning) upwards of 15 years ago, when they were less of an actual band, the Maryland-based outfit offer 13 songs of heavy alternative rock on The Sacrament in Accidents, with some classic metal roots shining through amid the harmonies of “Saffire Alice” and a denser thrust in “Season of Outrage,” a rush in the penultimate “Forty-Four to the Floor,” and so on, where the title-track is more of an open sway and “Lidocaine” is duly placid, and while the production is by no means expansive, the band convey their songs with intent. Most cuts are in the three-to-four-minute range, but “Blown Out” dips into psychedelic-gaze wash as the longest at 5:32 offset by comparatively grounded, far-off Queens of the Stone Age-style vocalizing in the last minute, which is an effective culmination. The material has range and feels worked on, and while The Sacrament in Accidents sounds raw, it hones a reach that feels true to a songwriting methodology evolved over time.
Debuting earlier this decade as a solo-project of Andrew Cox, Seattle’s Dream Circuit have built out to a four-piece for with Pennies for Your Life, which throughout its six-track/36-minute run sets a contemplative emotionalist landscape. Now completed by Anthony Timm, Cody Albers and Ian Etheridge, the band are able to move from atmospheric stretches of classically-inspired-but-modern-sounding verses into heavier tonality on a song like “Rosy” with fluidity that seems to save its sweep for when it counts. The title-track dares some shouts, giving some hint of a metallic underpinning, but that still rests well in context next to the sitar sounds of “Let Go,” which opens at 4:10 into its own organ-laced crush, emotionally satisfying. Imagine a post-heavy rock that’s still pretty heavy, and a dynamic that stretches across microgenres, and maybe that will give some starting idea. The last two tracks argue for efficiency in craft, but wherever Dream Circuit go on this sophomore release, they take their own route to get there.
“All is Light” is the first single from New Paltz bliss-drone meditationalist solo outfit Okkoto since 2022’s stellar and affirming Climb the Antlers and Reach the Stars (review here), and its seven minutes carry a similar scope to what one found on that album. To be clear, that’s a compliment. Interwoven threads of synth over methodical timekeeping drum sounds, wisps of airy guitar drawn together with other lead lines, keys or strings, create a flowing world around the vocals added by Michael Lutomski, also (formerly?) of heavy psych rockers It’s Not Night: It’s Space, the sole proprietor of the expanse. A lot of a given listener’s experience of Okkoto experience will depend on their own headspace, but if you have the time and attention — seven-plus minutes of active-but-not-too-active hearing recommended — but “All is Light” showcases the rare restorative aspects of Okkoto in a way that, if you can get to it, can make you believe, or at least escape for a little while.
Trappist Afterland, Evergreen: Walk to Paradise Garden
Underscored with a earth-rooted folkish fragility in the voice of Adam Geoffrey Cole (also guitar, cittern, tanpura, oud, synth, xylophone and something called a ‘dulcitar’), Melbourne’s Trappist Afterland are comfortably adventurous on this 10th full-length, Evergreen: Walk to Paradise Garden, which digs deeper into psych-drone on longest track “Cruciform/The Reincarnation of Kelly-Anne (Parts 1-3)” (7:55) while elsewhere digs into fare more Eastern-influenced-Western-traditional, largely based around guitar composition. With an assortment of collaborators coming and going, even this is enough for Cole and his seemingly itinerant company to create a sense of variety — the violin in centerpiece “Barefoot in Thistles” does a lot of work in that regard; ditto the squeezebox of opener “The Squall” — and while the arrangements don’t lack for flourish, the human expression is paramount, and the nine songs are serene unto the group vocal that caps in “You Are Evergreen,” which would seem to be placed to highlight its resonance, and reasonably so. As it’s Trappist Afterland‘s 10th album by their own count, it’s hardly a surprise they know what they’re about, but they do anyway.
For a band who went so far as to name themselves after a fuzz pedal, Spain’s Big Muff Brigade have more in common with traditional desert rock than the kind of tonal worship one might expect them to deliver. That landscape doesn’t account for their naming a song “Terre Haute,” seemingly after the town in Indiana — I’ve been there; not a desert — but fair enough for the shove of that track, which on Pi arrives just ahead of closer “Seasonal Affective Disorder,” which builds to a nonetheless-mellow payoff before its fadeout. Elsewhere, the seven-minute “Pierced by the Spear” drops Sleepy (and thus Sabbathian) references in the guitar ahead of creating a duly stonerly lumber before they even unfurl the first verse — a little more in keeping with the kind of riff celebration one might expect going in — but even there, the band maintain a thread of purposeful songcraft that can only continue to serve them as they move past this Argonauta-delivered debut and continued to grow. There is a notable sense of outreach here, though, and in writing to genre, Big Muff Brigade show both their love of what they do and a will to connect with likeminded audiences.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 1st, 2024 by JJ Koczan
I mean, obviously when you call your band something like Big Muff Brigade, you’re speaking to a niche audience. As odd as it might seem to those in the heavy underground, I’m fairly certain that more than 99 percent of the world’s general population have never heard of the Big Muff pedal (let alone its various iterations), and that kind of puts Big Muff Brigade in a position of having to explain themselves forever, doesn’t it?
Unless at some point the band decide they don’t give a shit if anyone who happens to encounter their moniker thinks they have giant pubes — which, sure enough, is notion from which the pedal got its name — every time out, as they do below, they’ll need to namedrop Electro-Harmonix all the way through. Maybe a sponsorship deal could happen? I don’t know how much promo the Big Muff needs.
The Basque-based outfit’s debut, Pi — properly written with the Greek letter π, but this site’s infrastructure always fudges special characters, so I do my best — will be released late in November on Argonauta Records, and lead single “Dead Inside” backs up the muffy talk with tonal density. Tracklisting and album info came down the PR wire, and “Dead Inside” is down at the bottom if you want to dig in to what Big Muff Brigade have going on:
Spain’s Stoner Rockers Big Muff Brigade Unveil Full Album Details for ‘π’; New Single Out Now
Spain’s rising stoner rock band, Big Muff Brigade, recently announced their signing with Argonauta Records. Today, the band unveils the full album details for π and releases a brand-new single, with the album set to drop on November 29th!
Album tracklisting and cover art are as follows: 01. Get Them Wrong 02. Lost In A Canyon 03. Pierced By The Spear 04. Dead Inside 05. Let It Go 06. Terre Haute 07. Seasonal Affective Disorder
The new single, ‘Dead Inside,’ is out now!
The stoner-rock band from Basque Country (Spain) Big Muff Brigade, formed in 2023, composed their first full-length album “π” with the objective of reuniting the highest number of sub-styles within stoner- rock to offer an album with different colors. Whether doom, metal, blues or the most rock and punk variants of stoner-rock are in this album.
The message of the album brings a pessimistic vision of today’s society in which attention time doesn’t exceed the 30 seconds of an Instagram reel and traditional values such as friendship, loyalty or desire for knowledge have been lost.
“π”, the name of the album, comes in allusion to that catalog of different colors that the band has tried to reunite in it. “π” is a figure with infinite numbers, just like the different sub-styles within stoner-rock. It also carries a tribute to the legendary Electro-Harmonix Big Muff PI fuzz-pedal, which the band has special admiration for and which gives the band its name.
The album (which took just three months to compose thanks to such a high level of complicity between the five members of the band) was produced by its guitar-player Mikel Becerra before entering the studio with the band’s own means to later be recorded, mixed and mastered at the Koba studios (Bilbao, Spain) by the producer Xanpe between the months of August and November of the 2023.
Madrid-based fuzzbenders Free Ride released their sophomore LP, Acido y Puto, on Aug. 9 through Small Stone Records. Led by the guitar work and songcraft of Borja Fresno Benítez — also vocals, percussion, production and the sitar near the start of the record in the mellow opening jam of “Space Nomad” — with Victor Bedmar on bass and Carlos Bedmar on drums, the trio offer Nebula-style heavy psychedelic rock on a per-slab basis, swaying into more tonal warmth around a desert-style foundation and, for the first half of the tracklisting, trading between longer and shorter songs.
“Outsider,” with a video premiering below that, yes, makes Alf a metaphor for feeling ‘other’ in life — perhaps this was true of the tv show as well; pardon me if I don’t do a rewatch — is more straight ahead and veers into a gruffer and more aggressive section of riffing and harder vocals, but that volatility becomes part of the appeal of the album as a whole, along with the variety that emerges between the psychedelic and the stoner rocking, “Kosmic Swell” picking up from the end of “Outsider” for three minutes of watery guitar jamming before the riff kicks in, riding that down a scorching desert highway to resolve in solo-on-solo layering and tumult before its own crashout brings the next song, next change.
Maybe it’s not that radical, but it is rad, and it heats up as it goes. I don’t know if tripping and fucking are themes in the lyrics as the title presents them, but fair enough. The way it works is each of the nine tracks — whether it’s the back and forth that culminates in centerpiece “Nazaré,” which follows the dreamy-start-into-fuzzy-roll pattern of “Space Nomad” and “Kosmic Swell” and is particularly smooth in the realization of that, or the crunch and wah in “Steamroller” and the succession that song starts. Running 53 minutes in linear formats — that’s your downloads and compact discs (the format of the future if the future is 1986, which it is) — the vinyl tumbles the tracklisting some, putting “Kosmic Swell” at the end of side A with “Nazaré” opening side B, which makes sense since “Space Nomad” still opens.
In either case, the flow is consistent and largely uninterrupted; you wouldn’t call Acido y Puto less hypnotic for putting the two longer songs next to each other. Sacrificed for time are “Joy” and “Living for Today” — am I crazy or is there a meta-statement being made there? — and those are worth hearing for the burner desert swagger of the former and the ease with which Benítez intertwines riffs and leads and the turn to acoustic-electric blend in “Living for Today,” underscoring the post-Eddie Glass vibe that pervades to various degrees throughout. Not that “Blackout” — the shortest song at 3:42 — doesn’t work as a closer in its catchy “fucked to the bone” pining for Sin City chorus and Echoplex-noise swirl before it ultimately blacks out, but it is a change in character that plays into the overall mood of the record, one to the other.
However you might hear it — the stream’s at the bottom of this post, down near the links, if you’re still reading — it’s to Free Ride‘s credit that the character is there at all to be changed. Whether one chooses to dwell in the quiet intro stretches of “Space Nomad,” “Kosmic Swell” and “Nazaré” or be duly bowled by the Fu Manchuey riffing of “Steamroller” and the initially-languid-later-guttural swagger of “Outsider,” Acido y Puto undersells its diversity of intention but encapsulates a cohesive interprettion of psych-leaning heavy rock and roll. It’s not without atmosphere or scope, but as each component song finds its own space within that, the front-to-back listening experience is bolstered by what in a less-envisioned setting might just feel incongruous. Outwardly, they’re keeping it simple — “What’s it about?” you might ask, and the name of the record would be the answer — but the way they build around a groove is endearing as much as familiar-in-part, and immersive in its unfolding regardless of format. Open your heart and let riffs in.
The aforementioned video for “Outsider” premieres below and is a good time. As always, I hope you enjoy:
Free Ride, “Outsider” video premiere
Born from the smoky depths of underground jam sessions in generator parties, Free Ride emerged from the haze with a thunderous blend of stoner rock, psychedelic grooves, and cosmic vibes. Formed in Madrid (Spain) by childhood friends Borja Fresno (vocals/guitar), Victor Bedmar (bass) and Carlos Bedmar (drums), the band came together in 2016 with a shared passion for heavy riffs and mind-expanding melodies.
For their second album, ‘Acido y puto’, the band sought to capture the raw energy that flourished within the confines of their humble rehearsal room. Armed with nothing but their instruments, a few microphones, and an insatiable desire to create, they set out to capture the essence of their sound in its purest form. Produced by Borja himself and mixed and mastered by Matt Dougherty in Chicago, IL, the band’s DIY ethos permeates every aspect of the recording process, from engineering their own sessions to experimenting with different mic placements and recording techniques.
‘Acido y Puto’ it’s a sonic exploration of the human psyche and the depths of the unknown. This album delves into the mysterious and often unsettling aspects of existence, inviting listeners to confront their fears and embrace the darkness within. Musically, is a sonic journey that defies categorization, blending elements of psychedelia, punk-rock or even surf-rock into a fascinating soundscape. The result is an album that shimmers with crude intensity and cosmic energy, where each track is a testament to the band’s unyielding dedication to their craft.
Tracklisting: 1. Space Nomad 8:34 2. Outsider 4:23 3. Kosmic Swell 9:34 4. Vice 3:50 5. Nazaré 9:30 6. Steamroller 4:32 7. Joy 4:31 8. Blackout 3:42 9. Living for Today 4:24
Vinyl Tracklisting: Side A: Space Nomad: 8:34 Outsider: 4:23 Kosmik swell: 9:34
Side B: Nazaré: 9:30 Vice: 3:50 Steamroller: 4:32 Blackout: 3:42
All songs written by Borja Fresno Benítez. Recorded in Madrid, Spain by Borja Fresno Benítez. Produced by Borja Fresno Benítez. Mixed and mastered by Matt Dougherty, Chicago, IL. Vinyl mastering by Chris Goosman at Baseline Audio Labs, Ann Arbor, MI. Artwork by Borja Fresno Benítez and Carlos Bedmar.
Video credits: Written & directed by Free Ride Actors in costume – Álvaro Valadés and Sara Hernández Cameras & Gaffer – Carlos Paris and Mariana Aznar Edit – Carlos Bedmar
Free Ride is: Borja Fresno Benítez: vocals, guitars, synthesizer, percussion, sitar Víctor Bedmar Lam: bass Carlos Bedmar Lam: drums
Barcelona-based classic heavy rockers The Mothercrow will release their second album, Foráneo, in Sept. 17 through Discos Macarras and LaRubia Producciones. I won’t pretend to have a full grasp on the lineup changes and shifts in methodology that have taken place within the band since their debut, Magara, came out in 2019 — vocalist Karen Asensio and guitarist/backing vocalist Max Eriksson have at least traded out rhythm sections since then; Jaume Darder is on drums and Daniel Ribeiro handles bass this time around — but it’s all apparently been in the works for a while, as lead-single “Howling” began to come together at the dawn of the decade and the video for it premiering below was filmed a little over year ago, in the deserty-looking Monegros region, westward inland from Spain’s east coast.
The setting makes sense, and desert-plus-riffs shouldn’t be a giant mental leap to make for denizens of the heavy rock underground, but if they’d filmed “Howling” in a dimly lit blues bar, I don’t think you’d be able to say they were wrong. Of course, that ’70s-born swagger does just fine baking in a hot sun, and kudos to The Mothercrow for even lugging speaker cabinets all the way out there to perform in front of rock formations casting long afternoon shadows, but the point is there’s more going on with the track than the desert visual holds, striking as it is. The swinging groove and sultry melody come across like a combination born for trouble, and one suspects that’s the impression they’re looking to make. I haven’t heard the rest of Foráneo, so can’t speak to how “Howling” fits on the record as a whole, but certainly Magara had intertwining moments of greater and lesser charge, and I’d expect no less dynamic to show itself on the follow-up, despite personnel swapping in and out of the lineup.
A release show for Foráneo is set for Sept. 27 at El Sótano in Madrid with The White Coven, so if you’re looking for something beyong the exact issue date, that’ll probably work. As for preorders and all the rest, keep an eye out as they’re surely coming soon, and in the meantime, maybe it’s cool to just dig into the clip below and let tomorrow worry about tomorrow, as no doubt it would anyway.
Please, enjoy:
The Mothercrow, “Howling” video premiere
The Mothercrow on “Howling”:
The essence of Howling came about as an attempt to write a song with a propulsive groove that drives steadily forward, like an old steam train. Going Down by Freddie King is perhaps the most obvious influence, but unlike it, it’s far away from the standard blues progression.
The song was one of the first to be completed, and we even recorded a demo of it back in 2020, using a professional recording studio. Unfortunately it never saw the light of day, since we were far from happy with the result. We did however learn our lesson and could identify exactly what we needed to improve for the next time we went into the studio.
Everyone felt that there was a sexual swagger about the beat that needed further exploring, so we decided to write a fitting lyric. Forbidden attraction became the overall topic, with some sexual innuendos more subtle than others. We tried to have fun with it and make something playful that would do the song justice. It’s also our first song that relies heavily on shouted backing vocals, perhaps another reference to the blues.
During the recording session, percussion instruments were added to propel the beat further, and even a stand up piano was added as a final touch to the end. Howling always felt like a single to us, so it was an obvious choice when we were going to record our first music video for this album. We went four hours by car out in the desert of Monegros, to find the perfect location.
VIDEO CREDITS Directed and Edited by: Ismael Conejero Direction of Photography: Cultural Dogs Colour graded by Víctor Gómez Produced by: Muricec Films & The Mothercrow
Released by Discos Marcarras Records & LaRubiaProducciones
The Mothercrow: Karen Asensio – vocals Max Eriksson – guitar Jaume Darder – drums Daniel Ribeiro – bass
Somewhere between blissprog, ethereal folk melodicism and cult-adjacent mystique, Magick Brother & Mystic Sister offer the first of a two-installment cycle of releases in the form of Tarot Pt. 1 (review here). Issued through Sound Effect Records, the subtly ambitious and sprawling 11-song outing follows the Barcelona group’s 2020 self-titled debut (discussed here) and leads off with the welcoming spirit of its longest track (immediate points) in “The Fool.” And while the opener doesn’t necessarily account for everything that happens arrangement-wise as the album unfolds, whether it’s the lush vocals of “The High Priestess,” the sitar drone flourish at the start of “The Empress,” the cinematic mellotron-and-maybe-xylophone drama of “The Lover,” or the flute-inclusive jazzy swing behind the later “The Justice,” it is a gateway through which one passes en route to that righteous succession.
Patient from its initial fade-in onward, “The Fool” is perhaps intended as a whole-record intro, or just wound up fitting as one when it was finished, I don’t know, but it works in that spot regardless. The first minute, before the drums arrive, builds up around a soft keyboard line, and it’s not so long before the gentle vocals begin the first verse, but by the time they do, offset by washes of synth and effects-guitar contemplations, clarity through strikes of keyboard/piano, the feeling is both traditionalist and futuristic, hopeful with an edge of melancholy. I know precious little about the tarot, but the cosmic-feeling vibe of lyrics like “I have no land/I have a star” is well accounted for in the surrounding krautrock-and-classic-prog instrumental movement, leaning into the psychedelic with some backwards looping and mostly-mindful drift before easing through the last bits of soloing and final drone. On the album — which you can stream below — “The Magician” tops that wind with an urgency of chimes soon answered by lead electric guitar, but maybe that’s something best left for you to discover on your own.
I don’t have a release date for Tarot Pt. 2, but even in telling only half the sonic story they ultimately will, Magick Brother & Mystic Sister fully embrace their audience and harness a sense of world-creation without subsuming craft to exploration or to theme. That is to say, they’re far out like way far out, but solid enough in the structuring of the material that there’s more on offer than far-outness, and while the songs are tied together in being named for cards in the tarot deck, the resulting front-to-back impression of Tarot Pt. 1 is such that they are distinguished in their individual scopes while enriching the whole work. And for a record like this — or for half of one, as it were — that’s more or less the ideal.
Enjoy “The Fool” below, with the aforementioned album stream near the links at the bottom of this post. Before I turn to you over to it, a note of appreciation to Magick Brother & Mystic Sister and Sound Effect Records for being flexible on scheduling this premiere around my traveling schedule. It is appreciated.
Speaking of travels, happy trails:
Magick Brother & Mystic Sister, “The Fool” video premiere
Zero the hero. The adventurer walks aimlessly near the cosmic void The Fool was one of the first compositions we did for Tarot. The idea arose from a hypnotic rhythmic base with galactic guitars and synths to convey the feeling born from the stars.
The Fool
I look for a time I have no land I have a star
under the sun I lay beside blades of grass
In the cold land I walk alone in circles
out of time I have no land I have a star
Magic Brother & Mystic Sister are: Xavi Sandoval: bass and guitars Eva Muntada: piano, synthesizers, organ & vocals Alejandro Carmona: drums Carlos G de Marcos: lyrics
Magick Brother & Mystic Sister, Tarot Pt. 1 (2024)
This week, Galician heavy psychedelic ambassadors Moura release their new EP, Fume Santo de Loureiro, through Spinda Records. Pointedly straightforward in its cover art, it is the folk-informed A Coruña-based troupe’s first offering since their stellar second full-length, Axexan, Espreitan (review here), which came out in 2022, and its 18 minutes double as the soundtrack to a short film called Nai, which is also set in the band’s hometown.
In the lush, organ-infused melodies of “Agoiro / Pranto” before it moves to claps and other hand percussion and a building harmonized chant until it does a slow-to-fast to finish on a tom drum and maybe tambourine, and in the eight-minute “Contra Os Males de Aireada,” which swirls in lazily but bursts to life almost immediately thereafter on a molten course of Mellotron, soft guitar twists and intertwining vocals, Fume Santo de Loureiro offers engrossing, progressively textured psychedelia and impeccably mixed arrangements. The EP’s intro is presumably sounds taken from the film, and closer “Canto de Berce” brings a folkish duet accompanied by guitar and drums before it opens just before it enters the last of its three minutes to choral keyboard that gives a Morricone-esque impression until dropping out to let standalone vocals end, but anywhere they go and however they get there, Moura keep a firm grip on atmosphere and the sense of the music telling a story even apart from the traditions being engaged throughout.
If you heard either Axexan, Espreitan or Moura‘s 2020 self-titled debut (review here), the richness of what they offer in Fume Santo de Loureiro will be familiar in its distinction. I’d specifically like to address anyone who didn’t hear either of those releases, though. If that’s you, and maybe this is the first time you’re hearing the band, give it a go front to back. It’s under 20 minutes, so it’s not like they’re eating your whole afternoon, and the expanses they harness in sound are so much broader than the time it takes to listen. Not that it’s any kind of challenge to get through either of their to-date two LPs, but even if you don’t go chase down and watch Nai (I haven’t seen it either) and even if you don’t speak the language (I don’t either), the songs make it okay. They could hardly make it easier for you to dig in and get a sense of what they’re about in terms of style, and I firmly believe that once you do, you won’t regret it.
As bottom lines go, that’s the one for this. Whether you have prior familiarity or you don’t, Moura are worth your time. The band’s take on psychedelia and what they bring to it in terms of representing Galician culture and musical traditions aren’t the kind of thing that could ever really be influential outside their regional sphere — that is, if a band from Sweden came out trying to sound like them, the results would probably be ridiculous — but their individuality is all the more a strength as they move forward, whether it’s the emergence of the duet vocals, the finer detailing of keys and synth, the grace of rhythm that unites the material, or the futurism that seems to come from all the elements put together, even as so much of it honors real or imagined pasts.
I won’t delay further. Moura‘s Fume Santo de Loureiro streams in full below, and you can either hit their Bandcamp or follow the review links (yeah right) to hear more of their work. I encourage you to do that, whatever the route you take.
Please enjoy:
After their self-titled debut, the stand-alone single “Muiñeira da Maruxaina” (included as part of compilation boxset Grados. Minutos. Segundos.), and their second studio album ‘Axexan, espreitan’, the band Moura, renowned for their commitment to exploring and preserving Galician tradition, is pleased to announce their upcoming studio EP titled ‘Fume santo de loureiro’, set to be released on May 31 with Spinda Records. This new conceptual EP has been conceived as the original soundtrack for the short film ‘Nai’, directed by filmmaker Tito Refoxo, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Brais do Rei, the band’s current drummer.
The title of this new multidisciplinary project involving members of Moura originates from exorcising and healing expression used in various Galician rituals, which aligns perfectly with the storyline of ‘Nai’. In the short film, a family from the village of Rois (A Coruña, Spain) becomes entangled in a dark tragedy with the disappearance of the little one of the house. Shocked and desperate for answers, the family members are compelled to come together in an attempt to unravel the mystery that has cast shadows over their lives.
For this project, the band moved to Hertzcontrol Studios in Seixas (Portugal), with the collaboration of producer and engineer Marco Lima. The mastering was handled by Álvaro Gallego, who has been involved in all of Moura’s studio albums to date.
MOURA Fume santo de loureiro
TRACK-LIST: 1. Intro 2. Agoiro / Pranto 3. Contra os males de aireada 4. Canto de Berce
RELEASE: May 31, 2024
MOURA live: June 22 – A Coruña (Spain) August 31 – Vigo @ The Wild Festival
Moura: Belém Tajes: vocals, percussion Diego Veiga: vocals, electric guitar, percussion Fernando Vilaboy: hammond, mellotron, synths, percussion, vocals Hugo Santeiro: electric guitar, acoustic guitar, percussion, vocals Brais do Rei: drums, percussion Pedro Alberte Aguado: bass
Alright, back at it. Putting together yesterday over the weekend was more scattershot than I’d prefer, but one might say the same of parenting in general, so I’ll leave it at that. Still, as happens with Quarterly Reviews, we got there. That my wife gave me an extra 40 minutes to bang out the Wizzerd video premiere was appreciated. As always, she makes everything possible.
Compared to some QRs, there are a few ‘bigger’ releases here. You’ll note High on Fire leading off today. That trend will continue over this and next week with the likes of Pallbearer, Uncle Acid, Bongripper, Harvestman (Steve Von Till, ex-Neurosis), Inter Arma, Saturnalia Temple spread throughout. The Pelican two-songer and My Dying Bride back to back a week from today. That’ll be a fun one. As always, it’s about the time crunch for me for what goes in the Quarterly Review. Things I want to cover before it’s too late that I can fit here. Ain’t nobody holding their breath for my opinion on any of it, or on anything generally for that matter, but I’m not trying to slight well known bands by stuffing them into what when it started over a decade ago I thought would be a catchall for demos and EPs. Sometimes I like the challenge of a shorter word count, too.
And I remind myself here again nobody really cares. Fine, let’s go.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
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High on Fire, Cometh the Storm
What seems at first to be business as usual for High on Fire‘s fourth album produced by Kurt Ballou, fifth for MNRK Heavy (formerly E1), and ninth overall, gradually reveals itself to be the band’s tonally heaviest work in at least the last 15 years. What’s actually new is drummer Coady Willis (Big Business, Melvins) making his first studio appearance alongside founding guitarist/vocalist Matt Pike (Sleep, Pike vs. the Automaton) and long-tenured bassist/backing vocalist Jeff Matz (also saz on the instrumental interlude-plus “Karanlik Yol”), and for sure Willis‘ thud in “Trismegistus,” galloping intensity in the thrashy and angular “The Beating” and declarative stomp beneath the big slowdown of 10-minute closer “Darker Fleece” is part of it, but from the way Pike and Matz bring “Cometh the Storm’ and “Sol’s Golden Curse” in the record’s middle to such cacophonous ends, the three-and-a-half-minute face-kick that is “Lightning Beard” and the suckerpunch that starts off with “Lambsbread,” to how even the more vocally melodic “Hunting Shadows” is carried on a wave of filthy, hard-landing distortion, their ferocity is reaffirmed in thicker grooves and unmitigated pummel. While in some ways this is what one would expect, it’s also everything for which one might hope from High on Fire a quarter-century on from their first demo. Triumph.
A release concurrent to a remastered edition of their 2016 debut, Lemanis (review here), only puts into emphasis how much Spaceslug have come into their own over eight productive years. Recorded by drummer/vocalist Kamil Ziółkowski (also Mountain of Misery), with guitarist/vocalist Bartosz Janik and bassist/vocalist Jan Rutka dug into familiar tonal textures throughout five tracks and a quick but inevitably full-length-flowing 32 minutes, Out of Water is both otherworldly and emotionally evocative in the rollout of “Arise the Sun” following the intertwined shouts of opener “Tears of Antimatter,” and in keeping with their progression, they nudge toward metallic aggression as a way to solidify their heavy psychedelic aspects. “Out of Water” is duly mournful to encapsulate such a tragic notion, and the nod of “Delusions” only grows more forcefully applied after the return from that song’s atmospheric break, and while they depart with “In Serenity” to what feels like the escapism of sunnier riffing, even that becomes more urgent toward the album’s finish. The reason it works is they’re bending genre to their songs, not the other way around, and as Spaceslug mature as a group, they’ve become one of Poland’s most essential heavy acts.
First issued on CD through JM Records in 2023, Lie Heavy‘s debut album, Burn to the Moon, sees broader release through Heavy Psych Sounds with revamped art to complement the Raleigh, North Carolina, four-piece’s tonal heft and classic reach in pieces like “In the Shadow” and “The Long March,” respectively. The band is fronted by Karl Agell (vocalist for C.O.C.‘s 1991 Blind album and now also in The Skull-offshoot Legions of Doom), and across the 12-song/51-minute run, and whether it’s the crunch of the ripper “When the Universe Cries” or the Clutch-style heavy funk of “Chunkadelic” pushing further from the start-stops of “In the Shadow” or the layered crescendo of “Unbeliever” a short time later, he and bassist/vocalist TR Gwynne, guitarist/vocalist Graham Fry and drummer/vocalist Jeff “JD” Dennis deliver sans-pretense riff-led fare. They’re not trying to fix what wasn’t broken in the ’90s, to be sure, but you can’t really call it a retread either as they swing through “Drag the World” and its capstone counterpart “End the World”; it all goes back to Black Sabbath anyway. The converted will get it no problem.
Dublin, Ireland, trio Burning Realm mark their first release with the four-song Face the Fire EP, taking the cosmic-tinged restlessness of Wild Rocket and setting it alongside more grounded riffing, hinting at thrash in the ping ride on “From Beyond” but careening in the modern mode either way. Lead cut “Homosapien” gives Hawkwindian vibes early — the trap, which is sounding like Slift, is largely avoided, though King Gizzard may still be relevant as an influence — but smoothly gives over to acoustics and vocal drone once its urgency has bene vaporized, and spacious as the vocal echo is, “Face the Fire” is classic stoner roll even into its speedier ending, the momentum of which is continued in closer “Warped One (Arise),” which is more charged on the whole in a way that feels linear and intended in relation to what’s put before it. A 16-minute self-released introduction to who Burning Realm are now, it holds promise for how they might develop stylistically and grow in terms of range. Whatever comes or doesn’t, it’s easy enough to dig as it is. If you were at a show and someone handed you the tape, you’d be stoked once you put it on in the car. Also it’s like 1995 in that scenario, apparently.
Offered through an international consortium of record labels that includes Crême Brûlée Records in the band’s native France, Echodelick in the US, Clostridium in Germany and Weird Beard in the UK, French heavy psych thrusters Kalac‘s inaugural full-length, Odyssée — also stylized all-caps — doesn’t leave much to wonder why so many imprints might want some for the distro. With a focus on rhythmic movement in the we-gotta-get-to-space-like-five-minutes-ago modus of current-day heavy neo-space-rock, the mostly instrumental procession hypnotizes even as it peppers its expanses with verses here or there. That might be most effectively wrought in the payoff noiseblaster wash of “II,” which I’m just going to assume opens side B, but the boogie quotient is strong from “Arguenon” to “Beautiful Night,” and while might ring familiar to others operating in the aesthetic galaxial quadrant, the energy of Kalac‘s delivery and the not-haphazard-but-not-always-in-the-same-spot-either placement of the vocals are enough to distinguish them and make the six-tracker as exciting to hear as it sounds like it probably was to record.
The live-tracked fourth outing from Helsinki psych improvisationalists Alkuräjähdys, the lowercase-stylized ehdot. blends mechanical and electronic sounds with more organic psychedelic jamming, the synth and bassier punchthrough in the midsection of opening piece “.matriisi” indeed evocative of the dot-matrix printer to which its title is in reference, while “központ,” which follows, meanders into a broader swath of guitar-based noise atop a languidly graceful roll of drums. That let’s-try-it-slower ideology is manifest in the first half of the duly two-sided “a-b” as well, as the 12-minute finale begins by lurching through the denser distortion of a central riff en route to a skronk-jazz transition to a tighter midtempo groove that I’ll compare to Endless Boogie and very much intend that as a compliment. I don’t think they’re out to change the world so much as get in a room, hit it and see where the whole thing ends up, but those are noble creative aims in concept and practice, and between the two guitars, effects, synth and whathaveyou, there’s plenty of weird to go around.
Already a significant undertaking as a 95-minute 2LP running 11 tracks themed — as the title(s) would hint — around tarot cards, the mostly serene sprawl of Magick Brother & Mystic Sister‘s Tarot Pt. 1 is still just the first of two companion albums to be issued as the follow-up to the Barcelona outfit’s 2020 self-titled debut (discussed here). Offered through respected Greek purveyor Sound Effect Records, Tarot Pt. 1 gives breadth beyond just the runtime in the sitar-laced psych-funk of “The Hierophant” (swap sitar for organ, synth and flute on “The Chariot”) and the classic-prog pastoralia of closer “The Wheel of Fortune,” and as with the plague-era debut, at the heart of the material is a soothing acid folk, and while the keys in the first half of “The Emperor” grow insistent and there’s some foreboding in the early Mellotron and key lines of “The Lovers,” Tarot Pt. 1 resonates comfort and care in its arrangements as well as ambition in its scope. Maybe another hour and a half on the way? Sign me up.
The eight-year distance from their 2016 debut long-player, Little Cliffs, seems to have smoothed out some (not all, which isn’t a complaint) of the rough edges in Amigo‘s sound, as the seemingly reinvigorated San Diego four-piece of lead guitarist/vocalist Jeff Podeszwik (King Chiefs), guitarist Anthony Mattos, bassist Sufi Karalen and drummer Anthony Alley offer five song across an accessible, straightforward 17 minutes united beneath the fair-enough title of Good Time Island. Without losing the weight of their tones, a Weezery pop sensibility comes through in “Dope Den” while “Frog Face” is even more specifically indebted to The Cars. Neither “Telescope Boy” nor “Banana Phone” lacks punch, but Amigo hold some in reserve for “Me and Soof,” which rounds out the proceedings, and they put it to solid use for an approach that’s ’90s-informed without that necessarily meaning stoner, grunge or alt, and envision a commercially relevant, songwriting-based heavy rock and roll for an alternate universe that, by all accounts here, sounds like a decent place to be.
Culminating in the Sabbathian shuffle of “Eye for an Eye,” Wild Fever is the hook-drenched third full-length from Montreal fuzzbringers The Hazytones, and while they’ve still got the ‘tones’ part down pat, it’s easy to argue the eight included tracks are the least ‘hazy’ they’ve been to-date. Following on from the direction of 2018’s II: Monarchs of Oblivion (review here), the Esben Willems-mixed/Kent Stump-mastered 40-minute long-player isn’t shy about leaning into the grittier side of what they do as the opening title-track rolls out a chorus that reminds of C.O.C. circa In the Arms of God while retaining some of the melody between the vocals of Mick Martel (also guitar and keys) and Gabriel Prieur (also drums and bass), and with the correspondingly thick bass of Caleb Sanders for accompaniment and lead guitarist John Choffel‘s solo rising out of the murk on “Disease,” honing in on the brashness suits them well. Not where one might have expected them to end up six years later, but no less enjoyable for that, either.
God damn that’s harsh. Mostly anonymous industrialists — you get F and N for names and that’s it — All Are to Return are all the more punishing in the horrific recesses and engulfing blasts of static that populate III than they were in 2022’s II (review here), and the fact that the eight-songer is only 32 minutes long is about as close as they come to any concept of mercy for the psyche of their audience. Beyond that, “Moratorium,” “Colony Collapse,” the eats-you-dead “Archive of the Sky” and even the droning “Legacy” cast a willfully wretched extremity, and what might be a humanizing presence of vocals elsewhere is screams channeled through so much distortion as to be barely recognizable as coming from a human throat here. If the question being posed is, “how much can you take?,” the answer for most of those brave enough to even give III a shot will be, “markedly less than this.” A cry from the depths realizing a brutal vision.
Elderian, refines a heavy rock thrust in its verse with twisting lead flourish, and has room in its second half for a subdued divergence before aligning on the chugging, rolling groove and the crash with which it resolves ahead of “Shields at the Dawn Forest” (15:49), which unfolds with a grace toward which both sides of the record up to that point are revealed as building.
