Posted in Whathaveyou on March 25th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
With Slomosa‘s global takeover of the heavy rock underground well underway, there’s probably nobody better to have sitting at the top of the poster for the inaugural edition of the Tundra and Lightning Festival, set for this Oct. 3-4 in the band’s hometown of Bergen, Norway. They’re hardly alone, as the lineup revealed today shows they’ll be joined by Orange Goblin for what will be their last Norwegian show as they wrap their 30-year career arc, as well as The Good the Bad and the Zugly, Spidergawd, Audrey Horne, Thulsa Doom (oldschool, good pick), and a slew of upstarts further down the bill.
It’s a first-year, feel-it-out kind of two-dayer, but they’ve got the aesthetic and concept on lock, as well as the lineup, and for something that’s just months away from happening for the first time, that’s not nothing. With Begen as an epicenter for a rising generation of heavy rockers throughout Norway and Scandinavia more broadly, and festivals happening everywhere all the time throughout Europe, in Fall or otherwise, this just makes a lot of sense to me. Will be cool to see how it builds over the next few years as well.
Bergen Live and USF Verftet are joining forces to present a brand new rock festival in Bergen on the first weekend of October 2025. Tundra and Lightning is the festival that Bergen needs. The festival will make full use of the entire USF venue and will grow each year in line with the development of the USF Cultural Quarter.
Lineup: ⚡Slomosa ⚡The Good The Bad And The Zugly ⚡Orange Goblin (UK) ⚡ Audrey Horne ⚡ Thulsa Doom ⚡ Spidergawd ⚡ Heavy Lungs (UK) ⚡ Phantom Fire ⚡ Sklitakling ⚡ Last Hounds (UK) ⚡ The Clumps ⚡ Morax ⚡ Hästspark (SE) ⚡ Of All Things
Posted in Reviews on November 30th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Generally I think of Thursday as the penultimate day of a given Quarterly Review. This one I was thinking of adding more days to get more stuff in ahead of year-end coverage coming up in December. I don’t know what that would do to my weekend — actually, yes I do — but sometimes it’s worth it. I’m yet undecided. Will let you know tomorrow, or perhaps not. Dork of mystery, I am.
Today is PACKED with cool sounds. If you haven’t found something yet that’s really hit you, it might be your day.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
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Tortuga, Iterations
From traditionalist proto-doom and keyboard-inflected prog to psychedelic jamming and the Mountain-style start-stop riff on “Lilith,” Poznań, Poland’s Tortuga follow 2020’s Deities (discussed here) with seven tracks and 45 minutes that come across as simple and barebones in the distortion of the guitar and the light reverb on the vocals, but the doom rock doesn’t carry from “Lilith” into “Laspes,” which has more of a ’60s psych crux, a mellow but not unjoyful meander in its first half turning to a massive lumber in the second, all the more elephantine with a solo overtop. They continue throughout to cross the lines between niches — “Quaus” has some dungeon growls, “Epitaph” slogs emotive like Pallbearer, etc. — and offer finely detailed performances in a sound malleable to suit the purposes of their songs. Polish heavy doesn’t screw around. Well, at least not any more than it wants to. Tortuga‘s creative reach becomes part of the character of the album.
I’m sorry, I gotta ask: What’s the point of anything when Spidergawd can put out a record like VII and it’s business as usual? Like, the world doesn’t stop for a collective “holy shit” moment. Even in the heavy underground, never mind general population. These are the kinds of songs that could save lives if properly employed to do so, and for the Norwegian outfit, it’s just what they do. The careening hooks of “Sands of Time” and “The Tower” at the start, the melodies across the span. The energy. I guess this is dad rock? Shit man, I’m a dad. I’m not this cool. Spidergawd have seven records out and I feel like Metallica should’ve been opening for them at stadiums this past summer, but they remain criminally underrated and perhaps use that as flexibility around their pop-heavy foundation to explore new ideas. The last three songs on VII — “Afterburner,” “Your Heritage” and “…And Nothing But the Truth” — are among the strongest and broadest Spidergawd have ever done, and “Dinosaur” and the classic-metal ripper “Bored to Death” give them due preface. One of the best active heavy rock bands, living up to and surpassing their own high standards.
Rumbling low end and spacious guitar, slow flowing drums and contemplative vocals, and some charred sludge for good measure, mark out the procession of “At First Light” on Morag Tong‘s third album and first for Majestic Mountain Records, the four-song Grieve. Moving from that initial encapsulation through the raw-throat sludge thud of most of “Passages,” they crash out and give over to quiet guitar at about four minutes in and set up the transition to the low-end groove-cool of “A Stem’s Embrace,” a sleepy fluidity hitting its full voluminous crux after three minutes in, crushing from there en route to its noisy finish at just over nine minutes long. That would be the epic finisher of most records, but Morag Tong‘s grievances extend to the 20-minute “No Sun, No Moon,” which at 20 minutes is a full-length’s progression on its own. At very least the entirety of side B, but more than the actual runtime is the theoretical amount of space covered as the four-piece shift from ambient drone through huge plod and resolve the skyless closer with a crushing delve into post-sludge atmospherics. That’s as fitting an end as one could ask for an offering that so brazenly refuses to follow impulses other than its own.
The nine-song Wahn Und Sinn carries the distinction of being the first full-length from German singer-songwriter Conny Ochs — also known for his work in Ananda Mida and his collaboration with Wino — to be sung in his own language. As a non-German speaker, I won’t pretend that doesn’t change the listening experience, but that’s the idea. Words and melodies in different languages take on corresponding differences in character, and so in addition to appreciating the strings, pianos, acoustic and electric guitars, and, in the case of “Welle,” a bit of static noise in a relatively brief electronic soundscape, hearing Ochs‘ delivery no less emotive for switching languages on the cinematic “Grimassen,” or the lounge drama of “Ding” earlier on, it’s a new side from a veteran figure whose “experimentalism” — and no, I’m not talking about singing in your own language as experimental, I’m talking about Trialogos there — is backburnered in favor of more traditional, still rampantly melancholy pop arrangements. It sounds like someone who’s decided they can do whatever the hell they feel like their songs should making that a reality. Only an asshole would hold not speaking the language against that.
I’m going to write this review as though I’m speaking directly to Ritual King because, well, I am. Hey guys. Congrats on the record. I can hear a ton going on with it. Some of Elder‘s bright atmospherics and rhythmic twists, some more familiar stoner riffage repurposed to suit a song like “Worlds Divide” after “Flow State” calls Truckfighters to mind, the songs progressive and melodic. The way you keep that nod in reserve for “Landmass?” That’s what I’m talking about. Here’s some advice you didn’t ask for: Keep going. I’m sure you have big plans for next year, and that’s great, and one thing leads to the next. You’re gonna have people for the next however long telling you what you need to do. Do what feels right to you, and keep in mind the decisions that led you to where you are, because you’re right there, headed to the heart of this thing you’re discovering. Two records deep there’s still a lot of potential in your sound, but I think you know a track like “Tethered” is a victory on its own, and that as big as “The Infinite Mirror” gets at the end, the real chance it takes is in the earlier vocal melody. You’re a better band than people know. Just keep going. Thanks.
Inhabiting the sort of alternately engulfing and minimal spaces generally occupied by the likes of Bell Witch, New Jersey’s Oldest Sea make their full-length debut with A Birdsong, A Ghost and realize a bleakness of mood that is affecting even in its tempo, seeming to slow the world around it to its own crawl. The duo of Samantha Marandola and Andrew Marandola, who brought forth their Strange and Eternal EP (review here) in 2022, find emotive resonance in a death-doom build through the later reaches of “Untracing,” but the subsequent three-minute-piece-for-chorus-and-distorted-drone “Astronomical Twilight” and the similarly barely-there-until-it-very-much-is closer “Metamorphose” mark out either end of the extremes while “The Machines That Made Us Old” echoes Godflesh in its later riffing as Samantha‘s voice works through screams en route to a daringly hopeful drone. Volatile but controlled, it is a debut of note for its patience and vulnerability as well as its deep-impact crash and consuming tone.
Each track on Dim Electrics‘ self-titled five-songer LP becomes a place to rest for a while. No individual piece is lacking activity, but each cut has room for the listener to get inside and either follow the interweaving aural patterns or zone out as they will. Founded by Mahk Rumbae, the Vienna-based project is meditative in the sense of basking in repetition, but flashes like the organ in the middle of “Saint” or the shimmy that takes hold in 18-minute closer “Dream Reaction” assure it doesn’t reside in one place for too much actual realtime, of which it’s easy to lose track when so much krautgazey flow is at hand. Beginning with ambience, “Ways of Seeing” leads the listener deeper into the aural chasm it seems to have opened, and the swirling echoes around take on a life of their own in the ecosystem of some vision of space rock that’s also happening under the ground — past and future merging as in the mellotron techno of “Memory Cage” — which any fool can tell you is where the good mushrooms grow. Dug-in, immersive, engaging if you let it be; Dim Electrics feels somewhat insular in its mind-expansion, but there’s plenty to go around if you can put yourself in the direction it’s headed.
A newcomer project from Kamil Ziółkowski, also known for his contributions as part of Polish heavy forerunners Spaceslug, the tone-forward approach of Mountain of Misery might be said to be informed by Ziółkowski‘s other project in opener “Not Away” or the penultimate “Climb by the Sundown,” with their languid vocals and slow-rolling tsunami fuzz in the spirit of heavy psych purveyors Colour Haze and even more to the point Sungrazer, but the howling guitar in the crescendo of closer “The Misery” and the all-out assault of “Hang So Low” distinguish the band all around. “The Rain is My Love” sways in the album’s middle, but it’s in “Circle in Roundness” that the 36-minute LP has its most subdued stretch, letting the spaces filled with fuzz elsewhere remain open as the verse builds atop the for-now-drumless expanse. Whatever familiar aspects persist, Mountain of Misery is its own band, and In Roundness is the exciting beginning of a new creative evolution.
The featured new single, “The Figure,” finds Barrie, Ontario’s Aawks somewhere between Canadian tonal lords Sons of Otis and the dense heavy psych riffing and melodic vocals of an act like Snail, and if you think I’m about to complain about that, you’ve very clearly never been to this site before. So hi, and welcome. The four-song Luna EP is Aawks‘ second short release of 2023 behind a split with Aiwass (review here), and the trio take on Flock of Seagulls and Pink Floyd for covers of the new wave radio hit “I Ran” and the psychedelic ur-classic “Julia Dream” before a live track, “All is Fine,” rounds out. As someone who’s never seen the band live, the additional crunch falls organic, and brings into relief the diversity Aawks show in and between these four songs, each of which inhabits a place in the emerging whole of the band’s persona. I don’t know if we’ll get there, but sign me up for the Canadian heavy revolution if this is the form it’s going to take.
The collaborative oeuvre of UK doomsperimental guitarist Mike Vest (Bong, Blown Out, Ozo, 11Paranoias, etc.) grows richer as he joins forces with Finnish trio Nolla to produce Kaliyuga Express‘ Warriors & Masters, which results in three tracks across two sides of far-out cosmic fuzz, shades of classic kraut and space rocks are wrought with jammy intention; the goal seeming to be the going more than the being gone as Vest and company burn through “Nightmare Dimensions” and the shoegazing “Behind the Veil” — the presence of vocals throughout is a distinguishing feature — hums in high and low frequencies in a repetitive inhale of stellar gases on side A while the 18:58 side B showdown “Endless Black Space” misdirects with a minute of cosmic background noise before unfurling itself across an exoplanet’s vision of cool and returning, wait for it, back to the drone from whence it came. Did you know stars are recycled all the time? Did you know that if you drop acid and peel your face off there’s another face underneath? Your third eye is googly. You can hear voices in the drones. Let me know what they tell you.
Posted in Whathaveyou on October 24th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Lots of Thin Lizzy, two Rush records, classic rock, heavy rock, grunge, Judas Priest, Aerosmith, big rock sounds like Boston, Dire Straits. More Thin Lizzy. Bruce Springsteen. Mob Rules. At the beginning of the video for “Sands of Time,” some of the members of Spidergawd are asked for the recipe that makes a record labeled ‘testpress’ that is presumably a copy of the band’s forthcoming album, VII, which is up for preorder now and out Nov. 10 on Crispin Glover Records and Stickman Records. It’s not an easy formula, but she ends up with a stack of records and there’s a twist ending that I won’t spoil for you.
I’m late on the news of the release and the video — it’s been a rough couple weeks; I do my best — but preorders I think are a recent advent, and that was what came through in the Stickman Records newsletter, which I know I’ve recommended before that you sign up because that label’s roster is absolutely vibrant and always has something cool going (Elder, King Buffalo, Temple Fang, Iron Jinn, Slomosa, Weedpecker, new offshoots like Weite or Full Earth, etc.) either in collaboration with anther label, as is the case here, or on their own. So yeah, here I am repeating myself: they don’t spam and it’s useful info. Plus, at least compared to my ass, you’d be ahead of the game. Some of this came from that, some came from Spidergawd‘s socials, and the video credits come from the video. All about sourcing lately, I guess.
Info, links, video — oh, and because it’s Spidergawd, there’s an entire slew of tour dates as well — follow here:
Spidergawd – VII On presale now – out November 10
Spidergawd have revealed their new full length coinciding with the band’s 10th anniversary. What’s changed over the years? As the band puts it themselves, “they have found THE recipe for what Spidergawd is all about.”
VII is an album full of tracks which are catchier, and indeed to a degree poppier, than ever before. Yet this element is matched by a significantly more “real” approach in production, which the band describes as “muddier, messier and bigger: everything that takes the listener closer to what’s going down on stage in a live Spidergawd performance.”
VII is available as a deluxe package including colored vinyl, a CD, a one-sided 7″ with etching and poster! We have two different color variants available.
(#128293#)Do check out our whole release tour & tickets here: linktr.ee/spidergawd
Tracklisting: 1. Sands Of Time 2. The Tower 3. Dinosaur 4. Bored To Death 5. Your Heritage 6. Afterburner 7. Anchor Song 8. …And Nothing But The Truth
Music video by Finn Walther Film Camera: Bjørn Ante Crispin Glover Record Shop Behind the counter: Ida Vie & Torgeir Lund Bulgarian Knutsen: Øystein Dolmen Little girl: Elina Music by Spidergawd (Spidergawd VII Album release 10.november 2023 – Crispin Glover Records / Stickman Records)
Here we are in the Spring 2022 Quarterly Review. I have to hope and believe you know what this means by now. It’s been like eight years. To reiterate, 10 reviews a day for this week. I’ve also added next Monday to the mix because there’s just so, so, so much out there right now, so this Quarterly Review will total 60 albums covered. It could easily be more. And more. And more. You get the point.
So while we’re on the edge of this particular volcano, looking down into the molten center of the Quarterly Review itself, I’ll say thanks for reading if you do at any point, and I hope you find something to make doing so worth the effort.
Here we go.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
Spidergawd, VI
Like clockwork, Spidergawd released V (review here), in 2019, and amid the chaos of 2020, they announced they’d have a new record out in 2021 — already the longest pause between LPs of their career — for which they’d be touring. The Norwegian outfit — who aren’t so much saviors of rock as a reminder of why it doesn’t need saving in the first place — at last offer the nine songs and 41 minute straight-ahead drive of VI with their usual aplomb, energizing a classic heavy rock sound and reveling in the glorious hooks of “Prototype Design” and “Running Man” at the outset, throwing shoulders with the sheer swag of “Black Moon Rising,” and keeping the rush going all the way until “Morning Star” hints toward some of their prior psych-prog impulses. They’ve stripped those back here, and on the strength of their songwriting and the shining lights that seem to accompany their performance even on a studio recording, they remain incomparable in working to the high standard of their own setting.
The first Eight Bells full-length for Prophecy Productions, Legacy of Ruin comes six years after their second LP, Landless (review here), and finds founding guitarist/vocalist Melynda Marie Jackson, bassist/guitarist/vocalist Matt Solis, drummer Brian Burke, a host of guests and producer Billy Anderson complicating perceptions of Pacific Northwestern US black metal. Across the six songs and in extended cuts like “The Well” and closer “Premonition,” Eight Bells remind of their readiness to put melodies where others fear tread, and to execute individualized cross-genre breadth that even in the shorter “Torpid Dreamer” remains extreme, whatever else one might call it in terms of style. “The Crone” and other moments remind of Enslaved, but seem to be writing a folklore all their own in that.
Swiss four-piece Blue Rumble bring organically-produced, not-quite-vintage-but-retro-informed heavy psych blues boogie on their self-titled debut full-length, impressing with the sharp edges around which the grooves curve, the channel-spanning, shred-ready solo of the guitars, and the organ that add so much to where vocals might otherwise be. The five-minute stretch alone of second cut “Cosmopolitan Landscape,” which follows the garage urgency of opener “God Knows I Shoulda Been Gone,” runs from a mellow-blues exploration into a psych hypnosis and at last into a classic-prog freakout before, miraculously, returning, and that is by no means the total scope of the album, whether it’s the winding progressions in “Cup o’ Rosie (Just Another Groovy Thing),” the laid back midsection of “Sunset Fire Opal” or the hey-is-that-flute on the shorter pastoral interlude “Linda,” as if naming the song before that “Think for Yourself” wasn’t enough of a Beatles invocation. The strut continues unabated in “The Snake” and the grittier “Hangman,” and closer “Occhio e Croce” (‘eye and cross,” in Italian) shimmers with Mellotron fluidity atop its central build, leaving the raw vitality of the drums to lead into a big rock finish well earned. Heads up, heavy rock and rollers. This is hot shit.
It’s palindrome time on Mainz, Germany’s The Mountain King‘s WolloW. Once the solo-project of guitarist/vocalist/programmer Eric McQueen, the experimentalist band here includes guitarist Frank Grimbarth and guest bassist Jack Cradock — you can really hear that bass on “II In Grium Imus Noctem Aram et Consumimur Igni” (hope you practiced your conjugations) and through five songs, they cross genres from the atmospheric heavygaze-meets-Warning of “I Bongnob” through the blackened crunch of the above-noted second cut to a gloriously dreamy and still morose title-track, and the driving expanse of “V DNA Sand.” Then they do it backwards, as “V DNA Sand” seems to flip halfway through. But they’re also doing it backwards at the same time as forward, so as The Mountain King work back toward album finale “bongnoB I,” what was reversed and what wasn’t has switched and the listener isn’t really sure what’s up or down, where they are or why. This, of course, is exactly the point. Take that, form and structure! Open your mind and let doom in!
Berlin trio Sheev prove adept at skirting the line of outright aggression, and in fact crossing it, while maintaining control over their direction and execution. Mind Conductor is their debut album, and it works well to send signals of its complexity, samples and obscure sounds on “The Workshop” giving over the riffs of immediate impact on “Well Whined.” The channel-spanning guitar pulls on “Saltshifter,” the harmonies in the midsection of “All I Can,” the going-for-it-Danny–Carey-style drums on the penultimate “Baby Huey” (and bonus points for that reference) — all of these and so much more in the nine-song/53-minute span come together fluidly to create a portrait of the band’s depth of approach and the obvious consideration they put into what they do. Closer “Snakegosh” may offer assurance they don’t take themselves too seriously, but even that song’s initial rolling progression can’t help but wind its way through later angularities. It will be interesting to hear the direction they ultimately take over the course of multiple albums, but don’t let that draw focus from what they accomplish on this first one.
Dudes got riffs. From Medford, Oregon, Elk Witch draw more from the sphere of modern heavy rockers like earlier The Sword or Freedom Hawk than the uptempo post-Red Fang party jams for which much of the Pacific Northwest is known, but the groove is a good time just the same. The six tracks of Beyond the Mountain are born out of the trio’s 2021 debut EP — wait for it — The Mountain, but the four songs shared between the two offerings have been re-recorded here, repositioned and sandwiched between opener “Cape Foulweather” and closer “The Plight of Valus,” so the reworking feels consistent from front to back. And anyway, it’s only been a year, so ease up. Some light burl throughout, but the vocals on “Coyote and the Wind’s Daughters” remind me of Chritus in Goatess, so there’s some outright doom at work too, though “Greybeard Arsenal” might take the prize for its shimmering back-half slowdown either way, and “The Plight of Valus” starts out with a seeming wink at Kyuss‘ “El Rodeo,” so nothing is quite so simply traced. Raw, but they’ll continue to figure out where they’re headed, and the converted will nod knowingly. For what it’s worth, I dig it.
If “evocative” is what New Hampshire post-metallic mostly-instrumentalists KYOTY were going for with their third full-length, could they possibly have picked something better to call it than Isolation? It’d be a challenge. And with opener “Quarantine,” songs like “Ventilate,” “Languish,” “Faith,” and “Rift,” “Respite” and closer “A Fog, A Future Like a Place Imagined,” the richly progressive unit working as the two-piece of Nick Filth and Nathaniel Parker Raymond weave poetic aural tapestries crushing and spacious in kind with the existential dread and vague flashes of hope in pandemic reality of the 2020s thus far. Still, they work in impressionist fashion, so that the rumbling crackle of “Onus” and the near-industrial slog of “Respite” represent place and idea while also standing apart as a not-quite-objective observer, the lighter float of the guitar in “Faith” becoming a wash before its resonant drone draws it to a close. At 70 minutes, there’s a lot to say for a band who doesn’t have lyrics, but spoken lines further the sense of verse, and remind of the humanity behind the programming of “Holter” or the especially pummeling “Rift.” An album deep enough you could listen to it for years and hear something new.
Andalusian storytellers Red Eye make it plain from the outset that their ambitions are significant, and the seven songs of their third full-length play out those ambitions across ultra-flowing shifts between serenity and heft, working as more than just volume trades and bringing an atmospheric sprawl that is intended to convey time as well as place. In 46 minutes, they do for doom and various other microgenres — post-metal, some more extreme moments in “Beorg” and the morse-code-inclusive closer “Æsce” — what earlier Opeth did for death metal, adding shifts into unbridled folk melody and sometimes minimalist reach. Clearly meant to be taken in its entirety, The Cycle functions beautifully across its stretch, and the four-piece of guitarist/vocalist Antonio Campos (also lyrics), guitarist/vocalist Pablo Terol, bassist Antonio Muriel and drummer Ángel Arcas, bear weight of tone and history in kind, self-aware that the chants in “Tempel” brim with purpose, but expressive in the before and after such that they wherever they will and make it a joy to follow.
Originally recorded to come out in 2013, what would’ve been/is the Stoned Horses‘ self-titled debut full-length runs 12 tracks and swaps methodologies between instrumentalism and more verse/chorus-minded sludge rock. Riffs lead, in either case, and there’s a sense of worship that goes beyond Black Sabbath as the later “Scorpions Vitus” handily confirms. The semi-eponymous “A Stoned Horse” is memorable for its readiness to shout the hook at you repeatedly, and lest a band called Stoned Horses ever be accused of taking themselves too seriously, “My Horse is Faster Than Your Bike” is a sub-two-minute riffer that recalls late-’90s/early-’00s stoner rock fuckery, before everyone started getting progressive. Not short on charm, there’s plenty of substance behind it in “Le Calumet” like a northern Alabama Thunderpussy or the last cut, “The Legend of the Blue Pig,” which dares a bit more metal. Not groundbreaking, not trying to be, it’s a celebration of the tropes of genre given its own personality. I have nothing more to ask of it except what happened that it sat for nearly a decade without being released.
Antwerpen’s Gnome make it a hell of a lot of fun to trace their path across King, their second full-length, bringing in The Vintage Caravan‘s Óskar Logi early for “Your Empire” and finding a line between energetic, on-the-beat delivery and outright aggression, letting “Ambrosius” set the tone for what follows as they careen though cuts like the instrumental “Antibeast,” the swinging and catchy “Wencelas” and the crunching “Bulls of Bravik.” How do they do it? With the magic of shenanigans! As King (which “Wencelas” was) plays out, the suitably hatted trio get up to high grade nonsense on “Kraken Wanker” before “Stinth Thy Clep” and the 11-minute we-can-do-whatever-we-want-so-let’s-do-that-yes closer “Platypus Platoon” buries its later march amid a stream of ideas that, frankly, kind of sounds like it could just keep going. They are adventurous throughout the eight songs and 42 minutes, but have a solid foundation nonetheless of tone and consciousness, which are what save King from being a mess. It’s a hard balance to strike that they make sound easy.
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 11th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Not the first round of tour dates for 2022 I’ve seen rescheduled, but I’m pretty sure it is the first batch that have been pushed back all the way 2023, which is both a distant dystopian future and somehow less than a year away, though the tour dates will be about a year delayed.
You don’t need me to tell you this, but that sucks. Let’s take a minute now to consider that the very first tours to have been canceled or postponed due to covid-19 were, in fact, announced in late 2019 to take place in Spring 2020. That means that by the time Spidergawd maybe go on this tour supporting their now-new album, VI, it will have been going on three years since the first cancelations/postponements of gigs and approaching four since the first ones to be called off were announced.
That is fucking brutal.
I like this band. They don’t get enough love in the States, in part I think because they’ve never been here, but they’ve got six records to their name now and a few other odds and ends — no live album, which is kind of surprising — and they consistently deliver. I’ll review that new album one of these days, but the gist of it is this is a better band than most people know.
Here are the new dates:
This is announced with a very heavy heart, but we are forced to postpone the european tour yet again to 2023.
Tickets are still valid. Here the new updated show dates:
28.02.2023 DE Hamburg Knust 01.03.2023 DE Rostock Mau Club 02.03.2023 NL Groningen Vera 03.03.2023 NL Utrecht De Helling (>new venue) 04.03.2023 DE Essen Turock 05.03.2023 DE Köln Gebäude 9 06.03.2023 DE Wiesbaden Schlachthof 08.03.2023 FR Paris Backstage 10.03.2023 ES Bilbao Stage Live 11.03.2023 ES Madrid Sala Caracol 12.03.2023 ES Barcelona Sala Bóveda 14.03.2023 FR Lyon Rock’n Eat 15.03.2023 CH Winterthur Gaswerk 16.03.2023 DE Stuttgart Im Wizemann (>new venue) 17.03.2023 DE Nürnberg Hirsch 18.03.2023 DE München Backstage 19.03.2023 AT Vienna Szene 21.03.2023 DE Leipzig Naumanns 22.03.2023 DE Berlin Frannz Club 23.03.2023 DE Kiel Pumpe 24.03.2023 DK Kolding Godset 25.03.2023 DK Copenhagen Stengade
Posted in Radio on December 24th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Some extenuating circumstances here leading to a repeat posting of this playlist. What does that mean? Fair question!
This show was originally supposed to air on Dec. 10, but there were some last-minute technical difficulties — the nature of which I don’t even know, so it’s not like I’m keeping secrets — and it didn’t happen. Hey, I’ve done (apparently) 74 episodes of this show and that’s never happened before, so I consider that a pretty impressive run.
And obviously the world has continued along its chaotic, dizzying spin, so no real harm done. In the voice breaks here I talk about the next episode being on Xmas Eve and this being part one of two before the end of the year — which obviously won’t happen — but to be honest with you, I’ll be fucking astounded if anyone even notices, let alone calls it out. It is what it is. I’m lucky Gimme lets my weird, often-doesn’t-play-metal ass do a show at all.
So hey, thanks for listening if you do. And Happy Xmas if that’s your thing.
The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.
Full playlist:
The Obelisk Show – 12.24.21
Green Lung
Leaders of the Blind
Black Harvest
Monolord
I’ll Be Damned
Your Time to Shine
Greenleaf
Bury Me My Son
Echoes From a Mass
VT
Heavy Temple
The Maiden
Lupi Amoris
Maha Sohona
Leaves
Endless Searcher
Domkraft
Into Orbit
Seeds
Spelljammer
Among the Holy
Abyssal Trip
Samsara Blues Experiment
Massive Passive
End of Forever
IAH
Arce
Omines
Genghis Tron
Alone in the Heart of the Light
Dream Weapon
Spidergawd
Black Moon Rising
VI: At Rainbows End
Thunderchief
King of the Pleistocene
Synanthrope
Spaceslug
Follow This Land
Memorial
King Buffalo
Acheron
Acheron
Weedpecker
Fire Far Away
IV: The Stream of Forgotten Thoughts
VT
Temple Fang
Let it Go/When We Pray
Fang Temple
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Dec. 24 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.
Posted in Radio on December 10th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Last episode was looking ahead to 2022. The one before that was looking back at 2020. That really just leaves 2021, huh? Well, here we are.
This I think is the third year I’ve done a ‘Some of the Best of the Year’ spacial on Gimme Metal, and at least the second year it’s been a two-parter. What can I say? I like a lot of music. And I think if you take the time to check out any of this stuff on the playlist, whether that’s by actually listening to the show (I hope) or just glancing through the playlist (I hope less), you might like it too.
This is only half, yes, but it’s still two hours of some of the best heavy stuff that came out this year. Should be plenty for one sitting, and the next episode — already turned in because of the impending holiday — should round this one out nicely. More to come. Then a whole new year.
Thanks for listening if you do.
The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.
Full playlist:
The Obelisk Show – 12.10.21
Green Lung
Leaders of the Blind
Black Harvest
Monolord
I’ll Be Damned
Your Time to Shine
Greenleaf
Bury Me My Son
Echoes From a Mass
VT
Heavy Temple
The Maiden
Lupi Amoris
Maha Sohona
Leaves
Endless Searcher
Domkraft
Into Orbit
Seeds
Spelljammer
Among the Holy
Abyssal Trip
Samsara Blues Experiment
Massive Passive
End of Forever
IAH
Arce
Omines
Genghis Tron
Alone in the Heart of the Light
Dream Weapon
Spidergawd
Black Moon Rising
VI: At Rainbows End
Thunderchief
King of the Pleistocene
Synanthrope
Spaceslug
Follow This Land
Memorial
King Buffalo
Acheron
Acheron
Weedpecker
Fire Far Away
IV: The Stream of Forgotten Thoughts
VT
Temple Fang
Let it Go/When We Pray
Fang Temple
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Dec. 24 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 1st, 2020 by JJ Koczan
Stoked on the idea of Spidergawd hitting the road? Yeah, well you probably should be, whether you live in the path of their newly-announced March 2021 European touring or not, because it means that there’s going to be a new Spidergawd album to coincide with said tour. Yes, friends of a heavy-rocking persuasion, I speak of Spidergawd VI, begat by 2019’s Spidergawd V (review here), which was begat by 2017’s Spidergawd IV (review here), which was begat by 2016’s Spidergawd III (review here), which was begat by 2015’s Spidergawd II (review here), which, indeed, was begat by Spidergawd (review here) in 2014.
No concrete release date yet for the VIth installment in Spidergawd‘s ongoing series of kick-you-in-the-ass-and-ask-nothing-in-return albums, but one assumes the issuance will spring forth at the behest of Crispin Glover Records and Stickman Records, much as has been the case in the past. As the Norwegian troupe have continued to amass a discography of high-grade/high-class outings, their progressive bent and forays into psychedelia have not gone unnoticed, and whether or not VI works forward the thread of either, the safest bet you can possibly make as regards anything Spidergawd is that it’s going to be awesome.
To wit, the band’s re-recorded 2019 version of “Sanctuary” from the second album. It’s awesome. That’s how they do.
When and if I hear more about the album, I’ll let you know. Hopefully it’s sooner than later, but you know how 2020 plans have gone.
Dates:
SPIDERGAWD – March 2021
HELLO FUTURE!
We are happy to announce the european tour for Spidergawd VI!
Hope to see all of you in march 2021!
03.03. Knust Hamburg 04.03. Vera Groningen 05.03. Essen turock – disco, live-club and lounge 06.03. Cologne, Gebäude 9 07.03. Nijmegen, Doornroosje 09.03. Schlachthof Wiesbaden 10.03. The Backstage Paris 11.03. Stuttgart, Universum 12.03. Winterthur, Gaswerk 13.03. Nuremburg, Der Hirsch 14.03. Backstage München 16.03. ((szene)) Wien 18.03. NAUMANNs Leipzig 19.03. Berlin, Frannz Club 20.03. Copenhagen, Spillestedet Stengade
