Posted in Whathaveyou on August 24th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
My favorite part of the poster for Truckfighters Fuzz Festival — to be held in Stockholm, Sweden, on Nov. 10-11 at the tail end of the Fall fest season in Europe — is the disclaimer where it says, “Warning: There will be progressive and psychedelic fuzz!” Take precautions, rockers! Love that.
Also pretty into the fact that not only have Lowrider been added as headliners here with Black Rainbows listed directly below them on the bill — that’s badass, yes — but check out Peder Bergstrand of Lowrider‘s other band, I Are Droid, joining the lineup. By the time this fest happens, I Are Droid‘s most recent album, The Winter Ward (review here), will be a decade old, and I’ll tell you something personal in letting you know I still have it on my phone. And sometimes I even put it on. Makes me feel feelings in the way that only quality pop music can.
Although I went to this fest last year, I don’t really have a path to get back for 2023, but I do very much dig the way the lineup has come together, with Valley of the Sun, Skraeckoedlan, Kaiser and Australia’s Khan, Tidal Wave, Dark Ocean Circle and Stonewall Noise Orchestra, among others, doing the thing. When you’re there, the place is packed — both Debaser Strand and Bar Brooklyn, which are right next to each other, sharing a building — but it’s still possible to both see the show and enjoy yourself while you do, and it’s imagining that that’s got me stoked on this final lineup.
Truckfighters themselves sent word in their Fuzzorama Records newsletter:
LINE UP COMPELTE FOR TRUCKFIGHTERS’ FUZZ FESTIVAL!
The festival takes place on Nov 10 + 11 in Stockholm, Sweden at Debaser + Bar Brooklyn.
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 2nd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Following up on a first announcement that brought confirmations for Valley of the Sun, Khan making the trip from Australia, Kaiser, Dark Ocean Circle and Tidal Wave, Sweden’s Truckfighters have added three more bands to the bill for this Fall’s Truckfighters Fuzz Festival #4, to be held Nov. 10 and 11 at Debaser Strand and Bar Brooklyn — they’re part of the same building; it’s a cool setup — in Stockholm.
First among the newcomers is Skraeckoedlan, who this past weekend announced their new single “The Vermillion Sky” would be released on Aug. 17 as the first glimpse of their fourth record to be issued sometime presumably on the earlier end of 2024. The band’s last full-length was 2019’s Eorþe (review here), and they’ve begun to drop hints about concepts and storylines flowing through and between the records, so yes, I’m very much looking forward to hearing it. Sometimes waiting is hard.
Saint Karloff, the Norwegian doom rockers who issued their Paleolithic War Crimes (review here) sophomore long-player in June through Majestic Mountain, will also play, and Sweden-based heavy rockers Hästspark, who are new to me, round out the announcement. Hästspark re-released their 2020 debut, Jötunn, last year with their new drummer.
I put that record down at the bottom of the post for you to check out if you haven’t — I know you’re cooler than I am, but nobody can hear everything — and will of course keep an eye for more word from the fest as we get closer. Another announcement, maybe two, and they should be set, and November will be here before you know it.
From the PR wire:
NEW BANDS ANNOUNED FOR TRUCKFIGHTERS’ FUZZ FESTIVAL!
The festival takes place on Nov 10 + 11 in Stockholm, Sweden at Debaser + Bar Brooklyn.
Tickets from TICKSTER or FUZZORAMASTORE
Once again we welcome our favorite ‘mostly singing in Swedish’ band SKRAECKOEDLAN. New music will be out on your streaming platform for the first time in four years. They will be hot, cool and very much alive!
We welcome the grooviest band of Norway SAINT KARLOFF who will show us how Norwegians do it!
We welcome HÄSTSPARK from Sweden who are young, heavy and also very groovy. Don’t miss!
Posted in Questionnaire on May 23rd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Love Forsberg, Zubaida Solid and Sam Riffer of Siena Root
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
Love Forsberg – We make root rock music. Siena Root is a dynamic root rock experience.
Zubaida Solid – I’ve been with band since 2018 and my role has expanded since joining. For me Siena Root is a band that puts great emphasis on great live shows, high quality analog recordings with roots and inspiration from different genres, from blues, dragged, Indian ragas, classic rock, psychedelic influences. All this melt in to a honey pot that has something to offer everyone.
Sam Riffer – It’s the sum of our influences, personalities and creativity in a blender haha.
Describe your first musical memory.
LF – I think this was a ’70s production that my dad played, an album called “Kåldolmar och kalsipper”, by a swedish group Nationalteatern. It was an album somewhat produced for kids, but I still enjoy it today.
ZS – My first contact with music comes from my dad, listening to old Bollywood music from ’70s on cassette tape in the car. Listening and singing along while on road trips with my family, has special place in my heart.
SR – I was 7 years old and an older kid in school played a a cassette with Kiss’ Heaven’s on Fire really loud! I was stunned :) To this day I remember that kick drum beat and the shouts, somehow it came across as something dangerous… yet appealing.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
SR – When I saw Page & Plant, 1995 in Colorado, I was 18 years old and had recently discovered Led Zep. You could easily say I was on a Stairway to… It was a magical night with lots of hippies, friends and all the rest :)
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
LF – Last year when my pacifism was set under pressure by a war in Europe that I thought was unpredicted.
ZS – I learned whilst being sick in covid how fragile life is. It was quite a jarring experience.
SR – Definitely the war here in Europe, so many things I believed in went out the window. I had always thought that the so called threat from the east was exaggerated here in Sweden. That said, I never believed that our generation would walk through life with only peace around us, yet it was something I wished for of course. Still a chock when war approaches for real and we’ve taken peace for granted somehow.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
ZS – That’s hard to answer but I always feel that different experiences and trails in life propels me forward musically.
SR – I guess it’s rather individual, for some people it can lead to less desirable things I think but to me it’s about learning, growing and moving forward but also about spiritual calmness and maturity.
How do you define success?
LF – Success is when you are understood by others.
ZS – Success for me is a combination of things. Having music out that you can stand for and be enjoyed by others and of course is substantial enough to make an impression and last.
SR – It’s not about commercial success to me it’s only about creative and musical fulfilment or whatever you live to achieve, doesn’t have to be music of course.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
SR – Tough one, I have seen things that makes me sad and/or angry and of course lots of things I wish never happened or didn’t exist like violence, oppression and poverty but I shouldn’t say I wish I hadn’t seen it as much as I wish those terrible things didn’t happen or exist. If it’s part of reality I am somehow obliged to face it rather than to close my eyes.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
ZS – A big dream of mine is writing a musical. If we could ever write something like works of Webber/Rice through a “Siena Root-lens” that would be super cool.
SR – I really would like to time-travel but I guess I won’t be able to create such a machine…
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
ZS – I think we’ve seen different examples though out history as to why art Is so important. I think that arts biggest importance lies in the emotional outlet people need, not only for the creator but the viewer/listener as well. Seeing and hearing yourself being represented or recognising something within one self.
SR – Perspectives and interpretation, it’s all in the eyes and ears of the beholder and that’s the beauty of it, in most arts there is no correct answer or prevailing conclusion.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
SR – Besides our dream of lasting world peace I really look forward to summertime.
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 16th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
The first bands for Truckfighters Fuzz Festival #4 have been announced, and in addition to the Swedish fuzzlords themselves — whose self-description below is hilarious in a “you know who we are, it’s our festival, damnit, do we really need to tell you about ourselves?” kind of way — they’re bringing in Khan from Australia, Kaiser from Finland, Valley of the Sun from the US Midwest, and Swedish natives Dark Ocean Circle and Tidal Wave. Set for this November, the two-day event will take place at Debaser and the adjacent Bar Brooklyn in Stockholm, right down the block from the fancy Italian restaurant and down the hill from the angry hot dog guy, to whom I hope they give tickets this year in order to cheer him up. Poor dude was feeling it when I was there this past December. Hard.
They’ll add more bands between now and the Nov. 10 kickoff (that’s my sister’s birthday), but the reach is already notable, even if Khan were going to be on the road in Europe anyhow. Valley of the Sun are overseas now from their Ohio home-base, and knowing they’ll return in the Fall, perhaps hitting Fuzz Festival #4 on the tail end of their own continental run, is good news for them and for anyone who gets to see them, as they are among the finer fuzzrock ambassadors the States currently has to offer. They’re not, but they most certainly should be funded by the federal government to serve in that capacity.
More to come, and I said as much on social media, but having gone once, I’d return to Truckfighters Fuzz Festival in a heartbeat. It was a blast for more than just the two-day deluge of distortion and riffs.
Check it:
Finally! The Fuzzfestival is back! What a festival we will have this year (as always)! Just grab the early bird ticket NOW for the suberp price of 666SEK
Well, we play fuzzy, progressive, hardrock… Just see it and embrace it. May the fuzz be with you!
VALLEY OF THE SUN (USA)
For the last decade,Valley of the Sun have lit up stagesacross Europe and North America, dropped three albums of high-octane rock ’n roll and won over thousands of loyal fanatics along the way. Now, they have their sights set on world domination with their most stunning album to date,The Chariot, coming summer 2022 on Ripple Music and Fuzzorama Records. A dynamic flurry of top-volumeriffage, soaring melodies and furious rhythms served up Cincinnati-style with a cold beer on the side. Check out the record today and get on board, and you’ll see why everything’s more dazzling in the Valley of the Sun.
KHAN (AUSTRALIA)
“Khan meld hazy psychedelia and heavy stoner riffs with a penchant for progressive rhythms and almost dirge-like, industrial-scale crescendos. The songs are lyrically evocative, exuding a sense of despondency and melancholy. Vocally, their songs waver from ethereal falsetto and hypnotic crooning to impassioned wailing punctuated by occasional guttural screams. The Australian trio released their third album ‘Creatures’ in February 2023 through Full Contact Safari Records and are returning for their second tour of Europe to promote the new album.”
KAISER (FI)
Kaiser is a northern desert storm, the master of doomy dunes and hi-octaned with fuzzy tunes. This three headed snake gave birth to their debut ’1st Sound’ in 2018. After that they’ve spread the fuzz across the ocean and beyond European highways. Now finally, it’s time for Sweden to get fuzzed. Prepare yourselves…
DARK OCEAN CIRCLE
Dark Ocean Circle is a four-piece band from Stockholm, Sweden. We play music in the heavier genres such as stoner, doom, heavyrock and psychedelic rock. We like to float a bit between genres and not get stuck in just one. We just released our debut album and it moves from punky stoner to doom and 70´s hardrock to heavy rock.
TIDAL WAVE
They released their debutalbum ”Blueberry Muffin” early in December 2019. It got recognised both by fans and blogs all over the world really fast. Tidal wave from Sundsvall in Sweden creates music that according to one of the biggest musimagazines ”Swedenrock magazine” is stonercoloured hardrock with a touch of all that where Seatlle grunge in the 90’s. With the new record “The Lord Knows” out early 2023 they are ready to spread their music even more.
Posted in Reviews on April 11th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
If you missed yesterday, be advised, it’s not too late. If you miss today, be advised as well that tomorrow’s not too late. One of the things I enjoy most about the Quarterly Review is that it puts the lie to the idea that everything on the internet has to be so fucking immediate. Like if you didn’t hear some release two days before it actually came out, somehow a week, a month, a year later, you’ve irreparably missed it.
That isn’t true in the slightest, and if you want proof, I’m behind on shit ALL. THE. TIME. and nine times out of 10, it just doesn’t matter. I’ll grant that plenty of music is urgent and being in that moment when something really cool is released can be super-exciting — not taking away from that — but hell’s bells, you can sit for the rest of your life and still find cool shit you’ve never heard that was released half a century ago, let alone in January. My advice is calm down and enjoy the tunes; and yes, I’m absolutely speaking to myself as much as to you.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
Siena Root, Revelation
What might be their eighth LP, depending on what counts as what, Revelation is the second from Siena Root to feature vocalist/organist Zubaida Solid up front alongside seemingly-now-lone guitarist Johan Borgström (also vocals) and the consistent foundation provided by the rhythm section of bassist Sam Riffer (also some vocals) and drummer Love “Billy” Forsberg. Speaking a bit to their own history, the long-running Swedish classic heavy rockers inject a bit of sitar (by Stian Grimstad) and hand-percussion into “Leaving the City,” but the 11-song/46-minute offering is defined in no small part by a bluesy feel, and Solid‘s vocal performance brings that aspect to “Leaving the City” as well, even if the sonic focus for Siena Root is more about classic prog and blues rock of hooky inclusions like the organ-and-guitar grooving opener “Coincidence and Fate” and the gently funky “Fighting Gravity,” or even the touch of folkish jazz in “Winter Solstice,” though the sitar does return on side B’s “Madukhauns” ahead of the organ/vocal showcase closer “Keeper of the Flame,” which calls back to the earlier “Dalecarlia Stroll” with a melancholy Deep Purple could never quite master and a swinging payoff that serves as just one final way in which Siena Root once more demonstrate they are pure class in terms of execution.
The latest and (again) maybe-eighth full-length to arrive within the last 10 years from Monterrey, Mexico’s Los Mundos, Eco del Universo is an immersive dreamboat of mellow psychedelia, with just enough rock to not be pure drift on a song like “Hanna,” but still an element of shoegaze to bring the cool kids on board. Effects gracefully channel-swap alongside languid vocals (in Spanish, duh) with a melodicism that feels casual but is not unconsidered either in that song or the later “Rocas,” which meets Western-tinged fuzz with a combination of voices from bassist/keyboardist Luis Ángel Martínez, guitarist/synthesist/sitarist Alejandro Elizondo and/or drummer Ricardo Antúnez as the band is completed by guitarist/keyboardist/sitarist Raúl González. Yes, they have two sitarists; they need both, as well as all the keyboards, and the modular synth, and the rest of it. All of it. Because no matter what arrangement elements are put to use in the material, the songs on Eco del Universo just seem to absorb it all into one fluid approach, and if by the time the hum-drone and maybe-gong in the first minute of opener “Las Venas del Cielo” unfolds into the gently moody and gorgeous ’60s-psych pop that follows you don’t agree, go back and try again. Space temples, music engines in the quirky pop bounce of “Gente del Espacio,” the shape of air defined amid semi-krautrock experimentalism in “La Forma del Aire”; esta es la música para los lugares más allá. Vamos todos.
Well, you see, sometimes there’s a global pandemic and even the most thoroughly-banded of artists starts thinking about a solo record. Not to make light of either the plague or the decision or the result experience from “Minnesota” Pete Campbell (drummer of Pentagram, Place of Skulls, In~Graved, Vulgarri, Gygax, Sixty Watt Shaman for a hot minute, guitarist of The Mighty Nimbus, etc.), but he kind of left himself open to it with putting “Lockdown Blues” and the generally personal nature of the songs on, Me, Myself and I, his first solo album in a career of more than two decades. The nine-song/46-minute riffy splurge is filled with love songs seemingly directed at family in pieces like “Lightbringer,” “You’re My Angel,” the eight-minute “Swimming in Layla’s Hair,” the two-minute “Uryah vs. Elmo,” so humanity and humility are part of the general vibe along with the semi-Southern grooves, easy-rolling heavy blues swing, acoustic/electric blend in the four-minute purposeful sans-singing meander of “Midnight Dreamin’,” and so on. Five of the nine inclusions feature Campbell on vocals, and are mixed for atmosphere in such a way as to make me believe he doesn’t think much of himself as a singer — there’s some yarl, but he’s better than he gives himself credit for on both the more uptempo and brash “Starlight” and the mellow-Dimebag-style “Whispers of Autumn,” which closes — but there’s a feeling-it-out sensibility to the tracks that only makes the gratitude being expressed (either lyrically or not) come through as more sincere. Heck man, do another.
Based in the Netherlands, North Sea Noise Collective — sometimes also written as Northsea Noise Collective — includes vocals for the first time amid the experimental ambient drones of the four pieces on the self-released Roudons, which are reinterpretations of Frisian rockers Reboelje, weirdo-everythingist Arnold de Boer and doom legends Saint Vitus. The latter, a take on the signature piece “Born Too Late” re-titled “Dit Doarp” (‘this village’ in English), is loosely recognizable in its progression, but North Sea Noise Collective deep-dives into the elasticity of music, stretching limits of where a song begins and ends conceptually. Modular synth hums, ebbs and flows throughout “Wat moatte wy dwaan as wy gjin jild hawwe,” which follows opener “Skepper fan de skepper” and immerses further in open spaces crafted through minimalist sonic architecture, the vocals chanting like paeans to the songs themselves. It should probably go without saying that Roudons isn’t going to resonate with all listeners in the same way, but universal accessibility is pretty clearly low on the album’s priority list, and for as dug-in as Roudons is, that’s right where it should be.
Philly merchants Sins of Magnus offer their fourth album in the 12 songs/48 minutes of Secrets of the Cosmos, and while said secrets may or may not actually be included in the record’s not-insignificant span, I’ll say that I’ve yet to find the level of volume that’s too loud for the record to take. And maybe that’s the big secret after all. In any case, the three-piece of bassist/vocalist Eric Early, guitarist/vocalist Rich Sutcliffe and drummer Sean Young tap classic heavy rock vibes and aim them on a straight-line road to riffy push. There’s room for some atmosphere and guest vocal spots on the punkier closing pair “Mother Knows Best” and “Is Anybody There?” but the grooves up front are more laid back and chunkier-style, where “Not as Advertised,” “Workhorse,” “Let’s Play a Game” and “No Sanctuary” likewise get punkier, contrasting that metal stretch in “Stoking the Flames” earlier on In any case, they’re more unpretentious than they are anything else, and that suits just fine since there’s more than enough ‘changing it up’ happening around the core heavy riffs and mean-muggin’ vibes. It’s not the most elaborate production ever put to tape, but the punker back half of the record is more effective for that, and they get their point across anyhow.
Steeped in the arcane traditions of classic doom metal, Nine Altars emerge from the UK with their three-song/33-minute debut full-length, The Eternal Penance, leading with the title-track’s 13-minute metal-of-eld rollout as drummer/vocalist Kat Gillham (also Thronehammer, Lucifer’s Chalice, Enshroudment, etc.), guitarists Charlie Wesley (also also Enshroudment, Lucifer’s Chalice) and Nicolete Burbach and bassist Jamie Thomas roll with distinction into “The Fragility of Existence” (11:58), which starts reasonably slow and then makes that seem fast by comparison before picking up the pace again in the final third ahead of the more trad-NWOBHM idolatry of “Salvation Lost” (8:27). Any way they go, they’re speaking to metal born no later than 1984, and somehow for a band on their first record with two songs north of 11 minutes, they don’t come across as overly indulgent, instead borrowing what elements they want from what came before them and applying them to their longform works with fluidity of purpose and confident melodicism, Gillham‘s vocal command vital to the execution despite largely following the guitar, which of course is also straight out of the classic metal playbook. Horns, fists, whatever. Raise ’em high in the name of howling all-doom.
Fuzzblasting their way out of Salem, Massachusetts, with an initial public offering of six cuts that one might legitimately call “high octane” and not feel like a complete tool, The Freqs are a relatively new presence in the Boston/adjacent heavy underground, but they keep kicking ass like this and someone’s gonna notice. Hell, I’m sure someone has. They’re in and out in 27 minutes, so Poachers is an EP, but if it was a debut album, it’d be one of the best I’ve heard in this busy first half of 2023. Fine. So it goes on a different list. The get-off-your-ass-and-move effect of “Powetrippin'” remains the same, and even in the quiet outset of the subsequent “Asphalt Rivers,” it’s plain the breakout is coming, which, satisfyingly, it does. “Sludge Rats” decelerates some, certainly compared to opener “Poacher Gets the Tusk,” but is proportionately huge-sounding in making that tradeoff, especially near the end, and “Chase Fire, Caught Smoke” rips itself open ahead of the more aggressive punches thrown in the finale “Witch,” all swagger and impact and frenetic energy as it is. Fucking a. They end noisy and crowd-chanting, leaving one wanting both a first-LP and to see this band live, which as far as debut EPs go is most likely mission accomplished. It’s a burner. Don’t skip out on it because they didn’t name the band something more generic-stoner.
Doomer nod, proto-metallic duggery and post-NWOBHM flourish come together with heavy rock tonality and groove throughout Lord Mountain‘s bullshit-free recorded-in-2020/2021 debut album, issued through King Volume as the follow-up to a likewise-righteous-but-there-was-less-of-it 2016 self-titled EP (review here) and other odds and ends. Like a West Coast Magic Circle, they’ve got their pagan altars built and their generals out witchfinding, but the production is bright in Pat Moore‘s snare cutting through the guitars of Jesse Swanson (also vocals and primary songwriting) and Sean Serrano, and Andy Chism‘s bass, working against trad-metal cliché, is very much in the mix figuratively, literally, and thankfully. The chugs and winding of “The Last Crossing” flow smoothly into the mourning solo in the song’s second half, and the doom they proffer in “Serpent Temple” and the ultra-Dio Sabbath concluding title-track just might make you a believer if you weren’t one. It’s a record you probably didn’t know you were waiting for, and all the more so when you realize “The Oath” is “Four Horsemen”/”Mechanix” played slower. Awesome.
Opener “The Air at Night Smells Different” digs into HEX-era Earth‘s melancholic Americana instrumentalism and threat-underscored grayscale, but “Fog Works,” which follows, turns that around as guitarist Florian Karg moves to keys and dares to add both progressivism and melody to coincide with that existential downtrodding. Fellow guitarist Philipp Seiler, standup-bassist Stephan Leeb and drummer Marian Waibl complete the four-piece, and Impending Bloom is their first long-player as Black Air. They ultimately keep that post-Earth spirit in the seven-minute title-track, but sneak in a more active stretch after four minutes in, not so much paying off a build — that’s still to come in “A New-Found Calm” — = as reminding there’s life in the wide spaces being conjured. The penultimate “The Language of Rocks and Roots” emphasizes soul in the guitar’s swelling and receding volume, while closer “Array of Lights,” even in its heaviest part, seems to rest more comfortably on its bassline. In establishing a style, the Vienna-based outfit come through as familiar at least on a superficial listen, but there’s budding individuality in these songs, and so their debut might just be a herald of blossoming to come.
Oh yeah, you over it? You tired of the bongslaught of six or seven dozen megasludge bands out there with ‘bong’ in their name trying to outdo each other in cannabinoid content on Bandcamp every week? Fine. I don’t care. You go be too cool. I’ll pop on “Ganjalf” and follow the smoke to oh wait what was I saying again? Fuck it. With some Dune worked in for good measure, Adelaide, Australia’s Bong Coffin build a sludge for the blacklands on “Worthy of Mordor” and shy away not a bit from the more caustic end their genre to slash through their largesse of riff like the raw blade of an uruk-hai shredding some unsuspecting villager who doesn’t even realize the evil overtaking the land. They move a bit on “Messiah” and “Shaitan” and threaten a similar shove in “Nightmare,” but it’s the gonna-read-Lovecraft-when-done-with-Tolkien screams and crow-call rasp of “Träskkungen” that gets the prize on Bong Coffin‘s debut for me, so radly wretched and sunless as it is. Extreme stoner? Caustic sludge? The doom of mellows harshed? You call it whatever fucking genre you want — or better, don’t, with your too-cool ass — and I’ll march to the obsidian temple (that riff is about my pace these days) to break my skull open and bleed out the remnants of my brain on that ancient stone.
Posted in Reviews on January 23rd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Katatonia‘s debut, Dance of December Souls, and as the Swedish melancholic masters shift from Peaceville Records — a home since 1999’s Tonight’s Decision, their fourth full-length — to Napalm Records, they offer a collection that emphasizes the journey their sound has undertaken across those three decades. Sky Void of Stars is their 12th album, and its 10-song/45-minute run follows 2020’s City Burials (review here) in its maturity of voice, its awareness of who and what Katatonia are as a band, and how after all this time, they’re going to keep both themselves and their audience engaged. Katatonia‘s music has never been party rock. Rooted in death-doom, guitarist Anders Nyström and vocalist Jonas Renkse — both founding members — have more than a few genuine slogs under their belt.
But as their contemporaries in bands like My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost have in recent years shifted back toward darker and heavier, more extreme and aggressive sounds, Katatonia remain more fiercely committed to melody, to creating an aural sphere that is as lush as it is grim, so that even a song like “Author,” with its harder twist in the chorus, or the album’s prog-metal six-minute finale “No Beacon to Illuminate Our Fall” — one of just two songs on the album with a title longer than a single word; the other is the political lyric “Colossal Shade” — can coexist fluidly with Katatonia‘s core tonality, vocal and production styles as a backdrop. From the dive-right-in intensity of opener “Austerity” to the push in the hook of “Birds” and the memorably wistful penultimate cut “Atrium,” which might be a defining moment for the album as a whole, Katatonia are themselves — Renkse and Nyström are joined in the band by bassist Niklas Sandin, guitarist Roger Öjersson and drummer Daniel Moilanen — even as they continue to evolve the scope of what that means.
To some extent, having such a well crafted sonic persona means that an established audience will both to a certain extent know what’s coming from a new release and have expectations in that regard. Maybe that’s unavoidable for an act like Katatonia, who are both long-tenured and have had a marked influence on death-doom, goth rock and depressive heavy music more generally along their way — they are a known quantity. Sky Void of Stars, when you zoom out on it, is not a radical change to the format of Katatonia. It’s easy to imagine some of these songs worked alongside the requisite older cuts into setlists for festivals and tours (the cycle has been underway since last Fall), while others are kind of left behind over time — if a later piece like “Sclera” is one of the latter, it would be a shame; its choral melody is quintessential Katatonia; you could use it as a primer to introduce people to the band — and some hit harder than others.
It’s a dynamic collection, professional in its level of production and sound, and part of the band’s core stylistically is a fluidity that comes not the least from Renkse‘s vocals, so yes, it flows from front to back with a kind of grace rare in or out of metal. They know what they’re doing even as they lean to one side or another between the more aggressive instrumental stretches — that opening shove into “Austerity” would be one, the culmination of “Author,” that chug in “Colossal Shade” peppered with other ambient layers as it is, and certainly they save the heaviest for last in “No Beacon to Illuminate Our Fall” guitar-wise — and the dancier pieces like “Opaline,” a brooding post-metal exploration in “Impermanence,” with SOEN‘s Joel Ekelöf on guest vocals and the more gently-delivered verse of “Sclera,” which tells a story lyrically that comes across as personal while somewhat opaque. They are, as noted in the first sentence above, masters.
At the same time, they bring as sure a hand to “No Beacon to Illuminate Our Fall,” which hits as hard in guitar as keyboard, has jazzier prog metal flourish and ends in a drift rather than a huge blowout. “Author” is death metal with clean singing over it. Even “Birds,” which is emotionally urgent in its beginning and answers that with a satisfying shove in its second half, finds Katatonia steady in their stance, feet on the ground structurally, while speaking to different sides of their approach. Perhaps it’s just that after three decades, that root definition of who Katatonia are as a band and what they can do while still sounding like themselves has become so encompassing that “Impermanence,” “Sclera,” “Atrium” and “No Beacon to Illuminate Our Fall” can coexist smoothly after songs like “Opaline” and “Drab Moon” have already marked out so much ground being covered.
Lyrics are another tie bringing the songs together. There are a few specific references; the year 1988 is namedropped in “Austerity,” and Renkse mentions being 46 in “Opaline,” while the bridge of “Atrium” takes place in the Marriott presumably at 7th and 46th in Manhattan — the rest of that song would seem to be in a divorce lawyer’s office — but these are part of skillful, thoughtful storytelling that’s enhanced by the emotive presence and delivery of the vocals, and true to form in meeting listener expectations there as well.
Maybe the ultimate story of Sky Void of Stars — the title-line delivered in “Author” — is one of Katatonia playing to their strengths. Outside perhaps the finisher, the album doesn’t feel like it’s actively pushing back on the band’s identity or trying to take what’s so immediately recognizable about their work (at least to the converted) and throwing it out the window of that Marriott suite. But in the case of Katatonia, this particular band, the idea of “playing to strengths” covers a significant range; there are many strengths toward which to play. Sky Void of Stars will keep them on the road — the 12th chapter in an ongoing narrative of their evolution — will please their listener base while giving reason to proselytize, and has enough details in its sound and overarching breadth to dive into for the band and audience alike over a longer term than week-of-release or current-tour-cycle. You wouldn’t necessarily call it groundbreaking, but it does carve its own space in their discography, serving as a reminder of how much Katatonia have accomplished as they push ever and reliably forward.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on December 16th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
This past week, I traveled to Sweden for the first and hopefully not the last time, and accordingly, I put forth the question in the Obelisk Facebook group wondering what were people’s picks for the best Swedish heavy rock album ever. Siena Root‘s 2004 debut, A New Day Dawning, was floated among many, many others, and as it had been a while, it seemed like a prime opportunity for a revisit.
Issued through Rage of Achilles and Nasoni Records, the 13-track/68-minute A New Day Dawning followed about half a decade’s worth of demos and EPs, and very much benefits from the time the four-piece at that point put into building their sound. It is not a minor undertaking now — and somehow putting out a debut 2LP in 2004, well before the resurgence of vinyl as the predominant format for heavy rock, seems especially bold — but it is resoundingly cohesive across its span, and each of its four sides presents something of a different look from Siena Root stylistically. At the time, the band was comprised of vocalist/organist Oskar Lundström, guitarist/vocalist KG West, and the rhythm section of bassist/vocalist Sam Riffer and drummer/vocalist Love H. Forsberg, the latter two of whom remain the founding principals of the group today.
Like much of what was happening in Sweden at the time, Siena Root were informed by the classic heavy rock of the 1970s, and A New Day Dawning bears that out at various points, whether it’s the Mk. II Deep Purple-style groove-hump of “What Can I Do” or the flute-laced jam so gracefully emphasizing the pastoral and telling of future arrangement adventures to come in closer “Into the Woods.” The beginning of Sweden’s retro movement is commonly credited to the band Norrsken, whose members went on to form bands like Witchcraft — who also debuted in 2004 — and Graveyard, but Siena Root were concurrent at least to the wave that took hold and continues to flourish as its own vintage-minded niche. To Siena Root‘s credit, however, A New Day Dawning does not sacrifice audio fidelity for aesthetic. The production on these songs is organic, to be sure, and I don’t know whether it was done live, to tape, etc., or any of those other things that dogwhistle a retro mindset — Per Ängkvist engineered, Christofer Stannow mastered — but the tones they conjure are full as well as warm, and from the fade-in of opener “Coming Home” onward, they make it clear to the listener that it’s okay to trust where the band are leading. You’re in good hands from the outset, and for the duration.
“Coming Home” is an energetic, classic-vibing and subtly complex roller with boogie intentions and a bluesy spirit that comes to be what Siena Root most lean toward on side A. Followed by the hooky shuffle “Just Another Day,” the quick-but-funky “Shine” and the all-in blues rocker “Fever,” it’s a fluid and welcoming start to the record, immediately dynamic, immediately engaging on a level of songwriting and performance. Their sound would grow more expansive with this lineup in time — and as noted, A New Day Dawning provides hints of that later on — but the leadoff stretch is all about bringing the audience in, and as side B launches with “Above the Trees” and the aforementioned, organ-emphasized “What Can I Do,” the record cleverly shifts from the blues to a more definitively ’70s-inspired take, with the catchy start-stops of “Little Man” and the mostly mellow “Roots” underlining the point. To this day, Siena Root call themselves ‘roots rock.’ Listening again to the actual roots of the band, it’s hard to argue.
As A New Day Dawning works toward side D’s more extended closing duo — “Rasayana” (9:06) and “Into the Woods” (8:19) — the loosely proggy jammer “Trippin'” and the suitably molten follow-up “Until Time Leaves Us Again,” with its drum solo and all, begin that process of expansion. The organ in the latter makes it a highlight if the guitar already didn’t, and as they transition into the shorter, touch-ground-early-then-take-off “Words,” the depth of consideration on the part of the band in structuring the record becomes clearer. Each side has not only its own personality, but its own progression as well, and after casting more ethereal vibes in “Trippin'” and “Until Time Leaves Us Again,” “Words” gives an on-stage-circa-1974 culmination to that linear voyage, allowing “Rasayana” and “Into the Woods” to flourish almost as an entity unto themselves.
The former, “Rasayana,” finds West beginning what would become a lifetime’s exploration of South Asian classical music on veena and Greek tzouras, while Riffer adds percussion to his double-bass and sintir. They resolve ultimately in a combination of rock and folk styles, trading back and forth and bringing the ideas together throughout before ending with a quick da-dum that almost has one’s ears hearing “War Pigs” hi-hat in the fadeout. “Into the Woods,” with the already-noted flute, a guest appearance by Anna Sandström, as well as hurdy-gurdy credited to Tängman starts at a slower nod and works into a vital shuffle by its halfway point, but mellows out again for a grand and abidingly natural-sounding finish. It’s not overdone, it’s not underdone, and its sweep at the end — in hindsight — feels like it’s carrying you into what was then the band’s own bright future.
Just yesterday, I posted news of the Feb. 24 release date of Siena Root‘s upcoming eighth album, Revelation (info here), through Atomic Fire Records. The lineup is different, as noted, with Forsberg and Riffer now joined by vocalist/keyboardist Zubaida Solid and guitarist Johan Borgström as veterans of the scene they helped to create, but much of the soul that one finds so resonant in A New Day Dawning — never mind the boogie — remains in the band to this day. From this first (2)LP, they went on to offer a stretch of classics in their own right in 2006’s Kaleidoscope (discussed here), 2008’s Far From the Sun and 2009’s Different Realities (discussed here), and their sound has continued to grow despite personnel shifts and a generation’s worth of acts digging into retroism as a stylistic movement. One only looks forward to what’s to come, and looking back across this initial offering, it’s been a hell of a day up to now.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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Got back on Monday from the aforementioned Sweden trip, have been sick since Tuesday. Wednesday I had a follow-up with my neurologist to discuss what I’ve come to playfully call my abby-normal brain, and she put me on Adderall in addition to Wellbutrin and told me to take a small fortune’s worth of vitamins and go swimming if I want to, well, get old, I guess. Fair enough. Gonna wait for the snot to stop leaking out of my face before I hit the pool. Might be a few more days.
Tough week with/for the kid, who’s ready in his bones for the holiday break. I can’t even argue.
I’m going to see Sunn O))) on Saturday in Brooklyn with a friend I haven’t seen in a long time. Should be interesting, and I managed to get a photo pass, so will review as well. Beyond that, next week is clear to give me time to work in the Best of 2022 post, which I hope to have done either Wednesday or Thursday. To give you some hint of where I’m at with it, my list isn’t actually done yet. So let’s say probably Thursday it’ll go up.
Also need to do a Gimme Metal playlist for next Friday, so that’s where I’m headed for the rest of today, then grocery shopping and hopefully a bit of fuckoff time, which I could very much use after a busy few weeks. I tend to catch my breath when I can. That’s of course harder to do when you can’t breathe through your nose, but one endeavors just the same.
I hope you have a great and safe weekend. I have a follow-up with my orthopedic surgeon about my knee this morning, but I don’t expect much exciting to come out of it. I’m still healing, still sore at the end of the day from various bendings and so on, but I think I’m getting to where I need to be. It might just hurt now. Like, until I eventually get my knees replaced — which I fully expect I’ll have to do at some point; my mother is headed that way now — and then probably for the rest of my life after that. Which I hear won’t be that long if I don’t get like $200 worth of vitamins in my body stat. Life is strange and mostly stupid. Periodically glorious.
Which I suppose is what makes the rest worth it.
Agaun, great and safe weekend. Stay warm and hydrated, and I’ll have that year-end stuff up as soon as possible, to be followed in short order by a Quarterly Review with 100 more records covered. So there.
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 15th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
A solid release date for the new Siena Root album, Revelation, is good news, as it will be fascinating to hear what the long-running Swedish outfit have conjured to coincide with the classic vibes of the single “Coincidence and Fate” below. My guess? More classic vibes. My hope, anyhow. This will be their second record with Zubaida Solid on lead vocals, and she brings a marked charisma to the lead track from the album, which feels like a long time coming despite the fact that the band’s prior LP, The Secret of Our Time, was released in 2020.
If you can keep a secret, I’ve already decided to close out this week with the first Siena Root record, 2004’s A New Day Dawning, so this won’t be the last you hear of them before Friday afternoon, but I wanted to get this posted anyhow because (1:) I’m already late on it and (2:) this band has seen two entire bands’ worth of personnel come and go over the course of their time and still managed to be pretty consistent as regards awesome. Can’t help but admire such a thing.
From the PR wire:
SIENA ROOT Presents Video For New Digital Single, “Coincidence & Fate;” Revelation Album Details Unveiled + Preorders Available
Sweden’s root rock figureheads SIENA ROOT will release their eighth studio album on February 24th via their new label home, Atomic Fire Records!
Fittingly titled Revelation, the recording serves as the group’s most versatile offering of their long-spanning career, guiding listeners through a true journey rather than simply stringing together song after song. The eleven-track offering was recorded analogously at Silence Studio in Koppom, Sweden and Root Rock Studios in Stockholm, Sweden where it was also mixed. Mastering was handled at Stockholm’s Cutting Room.
In advance of the record’s release, today SIENA ROOT unveils their video for “Coincidence & Fate.”
The band comments, “This is the trailer for our movie, Wheels Of Revelation, as well as the first track of the album Revelation and tells a story of fear one experiences when coming close to death and realizing the fickleness of life. Musically, ‘Coincidence & Fate’ is an all-analogue recording featuring dirty organ riffs and fat drums. That’s where heavy rock tunes with female front vocals — seemingly inspired by classic acts such as Uriah Heep and Jethro Tull — meet SIENA ROOT’s remarkable root rock sound. Enjoy!”
Preorder Revelation on CD, LP, pre-save it on your favorite DSP or preorder it digitally to receive “Coincidence & Fate” immediately at THIS LOCATION:https://sienaroot.afr.link/RevelationPR
Revelation Track Listing: 1. Coincidence & Fate 2. Professional Procrastinator 3. No Peace 4. Fighting Gravity 5. Dusty Roads 6. Winter Solstice 7. Dalecarlia Stroll 8. Leaving The City 9. Little Burden 10. Madukhauns 11. Keeper Of The Flame
SIENA ROOT have announced a show to celebrate Revelation on release day at Pipeline in Sundsvall, Sweden with support coming from Drivet.
SIENA ROOT Live: 2/24/2023 Pipeline – Sundsvall, SE
SIENA ROOT: Zubaida Solid – vocals, keys Johan Borgström – guitars Sam Riffer – bass Love Forsberg – drums
