Posted in Whathaveyou on August 18th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Doom legends Candlemass — announced just the other day as headliners for Desertfest Belgium 2022 in Ghent on Oct. 30 — will release a new full-length on Nov. 18 through Napalm Records. What do we know about it? Well, it’s got Leif Edling and Johan Längquist, so already that’s more than enough for me, but considering the Swedish outfit’s 2019 offering, The Door to Doom (review here), was nominated for a Grammy — it’s mentioned twice below; see if you can find it! — for the Tony Iommi-included “Astorolus: The Great Octopus,” the pressure is on Candlemass in a way it hasn’t been in a long time if it ever was before. Where does a band like this — who’ve gone everywhere, done everything, know their sound backwards and forwards, have decades-since worked to define epic doom and are driven by one of the best riff writers of all time in Edling — go after that? I guess we’ll find out.
Today, the band are streaming the new video “Scandinavian Gods” — because, what? they were going to have a song with that title and not use it as a lead single? — and it’s the first new music from Candlemass since 2020’s The Pendulum EP (discussed here), which was more a victory lap after the last album’s success than anything else. Still, the turnaround on Sweet Evil Sun speaks perhaps to Candlemass feeling creatively energized following the success of The Door to Doom, and I don’t care how dark the music ultimately is, if Candlemass are feeling good, that’s good news.
The PR wire has this:
US Grammy-nominated epic doom legends CANDLEMASS return to their roots with the supreme Sweet Evil Sun!
Clocking in almost four decades, it’s no stretch to say that Grammy-nominated Swedish epic doom legends CANDLEMASS are still one of the heaviest metal bands on earth. As the godfathers of epic doom metal, the band defined the genre with releases such as Epicus Doomicus Metallicus (1986) and Nightfall (1987). Through their evil riffs, crushing rhythmic attack and dramatic vocals, they changed the landscape of metal worldwide. Reunited with outstanding original vocalist Johan Langquist, the band around founding member Leif Edling finds its way back to its roots and finally delivers the long awaited, earth-shaking new full-length album, Sweet Evil Sun, out November 18, 2022 via Napalm Records.
After working on this massive piece of art for 18 months in total, with Sweet Evil Sun, CANDLEMASS brings back all the grandness of their early years, exploring themes of ambition and strife, hope and failure. Opening track “Wizard Of The Vortex” instantly casts a spell with a riff so powerful, the listener is immediately ensnared. Title track “Sweet Evil Sun” kicks in with warning guitar feedback before sludging a heavy-as-hell riff as Johan Langquist deftly warbles through melancholic, beckoning passages and a hooky chorus. His imposing vocals fit each riff and tone perfectly, emerging as an instrument in itself. The dark, classic rock-tinged Nordic metal anthem “Scandinavian Gods” reveals a perfect musical interaction between slow and heavy drums, droning guitars and majestic vocals as they convey mysterious tales of Scandinavian mythology to the next generation of doom lovers.
Jennie-Ann Smith (Avatarium) lends her beautiful voice to the theatrical, grim “When Death Sighs”, creating a shimmering, intermingled chorus duet eventually backed by rising organs and a marching rhythm. The haunting atmosphere is highlighted by an amazing guitar solo that reads like a story as it bends and descends, marking the sign of death on the listener’s door. It comes as no surprise that, alongside the band, renowned producer Marcus Jidell captured the band’s massive, smoky guitar tones, powerful drums and larger-than-life vocals, offering a truly unique, high quality sonic experience. The artwork for Sweet Evil Sun was illustrated with the skilled hand of Erik Rovanperä, the architect behind CANDLEMASS’ visual style since Psalms for the Dead (2012).
Leif Edling on the new album: “Sweet Evil Sun is about hope, striving, adoration and failure. It’s about all the personal battles that you have, but also the never-ending decay of humanity.
The record took over a year to make and there’s not a bad track on it! We had a fantastic time recording it and are really looking forward to the release. It’s Doom, It’s Metal! It is the essence of CANDLEMASS put into one album!”
Recorded at NOX studio in Stockholm, Sweden, Sweet Evil Sun impressively showcases that, after almost 40 years in the game, the creativity of these Swedish doom masters sees no bounds. Through the power of wall-shaking riffs, incredible vocal performances and the blood and spirit of classic heavy metal, Sweet Evil Sun shines as a masterpiece of impending legend that truly honors the epic doom metal cult of CANDLEMASS.
Sweet Evil Sun Tracklist: 1. Wizard Of The Vortex 2. Sweet Evil Sun 3. Angel Battle 4. Black Butterfly 5. When Death Sighs 6. Scandinavian Gods 7. Devil Voodoo 8. Crucified 9. Goddess 10. A Cup Of Coffin (Outro)
Sweet Evil Sun will be available in the following formats: Ltd. Die Hard Vinyl Box (Napalm Shop only) 2LP Gatefold Sun Yellow (Napalm Shop only) 2LP Gatefold Black 2LP Gatefold Purple 1CD 6pp Digisleeve CD Digisleeve + Shirt Bundle Digital Album
Experience CANDLEMASS live in 2022: 19.08.22 DK – Næstved / Næstved Metalfest 20.08.22 NL – Eindhoven / Ijssportcentrum 22.10.22 SE – Sundsvall / Nordfest 30.10.22 BE – Gent / Desertfest Ghent 19.11.22 DE – Würzburg, Hammer of Doom
Candlemass are: Leif Edling – Bass Mats “Mappe” Björkman – Guitars (rhythm) Jan Lindh – Drums Lars Johansson – Guitars (lead) Johan Längquist – Vocals
Somewhat unbelievably, we’ve reached the penultimate day of the Summer 2022 Quarterly Review. I believe it because every time I blink my eyes, I can feel my body trying to fall asleep. Doesn’t matter. There’s rock and roll to be had — 10 records’ worth — so I’mma get on it. If you haven’t found anything yet that speaks to you this QR — first of all, really??? — maybe today will be the day. If you’re feeling any of it, I’d love to know in the comments. Otherwise, off into the ether it goes.
In any case, thanks for reading.
Quarterly Review #81-90:
Hemlock Branch, Hemlock Branch
[Note: art above (photo by Nikita Gross) is not final. Album is out in September. Give it time.] Those familiar with Ohio sludge metallers Beneath Oblivion might recognize Scotty T. Simpson (here also guitar, lap-steel and vocals) or keyboardist/synthesist Keith Messerle from that band, but Hemlock Branch‘s project is decisively different on their self-titled debut, however slow a song like “The Introvert” might be. With the echo-laden vocals of Amy Jo Combs floating and soaring above likewise big-sky riffs, the far-back crash of drummer David Howell (White Walls) and the it’s-in-there-somewhere bass of Derda Karakaya, atmosphere takes a central focus throughout the 10 tracks and 22 minutes of the release. Hints of black metal, post-metal, doom, heavy psychedelia, and noise-wash dirgemaking experimentalism pervade in minute-long cuts like “Incompatible,” the sample-topped “Temporal Vultures” and “Küfür,” which gives over to the closing duo “Lifelong Struggle” and “High Crimes & Misdemeanors.” As even the longest track, “Persona Non Grata,” runs just 4:24, the songs feel geared for modern attention spans and depart from commonplace structures in favor of their own ambient linearity. Not going to be for everyone, but Hemlock Branch‘s first offering shows an immediate drive toward individualism and is genuinely unpredictable, both of which already pay dividends.
In “Siren” and at the grand, swelling progression of “Zero Trust,” one is drawn back to The Devil’s Blood‘s off-kilter psychedelic occultism by Swedish five-piece Știu Nu Știu — also stylized all-caps: ŞTIU NU ŞTIU — and their fourth album, New Sun, but if there’s any such direct Luciferianism in the sprawling eight-song/47-minute long-player, I’ve yet to find it. Instead, the band’s first outing through respected purveyors Heavy Psych Sounds takes the stylistic trappings of psychedelic post-punk and what’s typically tagged as some kind of ‘gaze or other and toss them directly into the heart of the recently born star named in the title, their sound subtle in rhythmic push but lush, lush, lush in instrumental and vocal melody. “New Sun” itself is the longest piece at 8:17 and it closes side A, but the expanses crafted are hardly more tamed on side B’s “Nyx” or the get-your-goth-dance-shoes-on “Zero Trust,” which follows. Opening with the jangly “Styx” and capping with the also-relatively-extended “Dragon’s Lair” (7:57) — a noisy final solo takes them out — Știu Nu Știu bask in the vague and feel entirely at home in the aural mists they so readily conjure.
The title of Veljet‘s debut LP, Emerger de la mentira llamada dios, translates from Spanish as, ‘Emerge from the lie called god.’ So yes, the point gets across. And Veljet hint toward metallism and an overarching darkness of purpose in “Estar vivo es nada,” “La construcción de los sentimientos negativos,” and the buzzing, bounce-bass-until-it-falls-apart “Arder al crecer,” despite being instrumental for the album’s half-hour duration save perhaps for some crowd noise filling out the acoustic “Mentir con tristeza” at the finish, people talking over acoustic guitar notes, as they almost invariably, infuriatingly will. That three-minute piece rounds out and is in form a far cry from the push of “Inundata” or the buzz-tone-click-into-airiness “Lucifer luz del mundo,” but there’s room for all of these things in what feels like Satanic escapism more than any occult trappings — that is to say, while it’s pretty safe to say Veljet aren’t religious types, I don’t think they’re rolling around holding devil-worship masses either — and the album as a whole is drawn together by this immersive, mood-altering slog, a sense of the day’s weight conveyed effectively in that of the guitars, bass and drums, making the acoustic finish, and the human shittiness of speaking over it, all the more of a poignant conclusion. If god’s a lie, people aren’t much better.
Longform avant metal that draws on atmospheres from Pacific Northwestern blackened tropes without bowing completely to them or any other wholly rigid style, doom or otherwise. Some of the vocals in the more open moments of “Still Life” bring to mind Ealdor Bealu‘s latest in their declarative purpose, but Swamp Lantern‘s The Lord is With Us takes its own presumably-left-hand path toward aural identity, finding a sound in the process that is both ambient and obscure but still capable of deep heft when it’s called for — see “Still Life” again. That song is one of two to cross the 10-minute mark, along with closer “The Halo of Eternal Night,” though wholly immersive opener “Blood Oath (on Pebble Beach)” and “Graven Tide” aren’t far off, the latter nestling into a combination of groove-riding guitar and flourish lead notes intertwining on their way toward and through a well charred second half of the song, the way eventually given to the exploratory title-track, shorter but working off a similarly building structure. They cap vampiric with “The Halo of Eternal Night,” perhaps nodding subtly back to “Blood Oath (On Pebble Beach)” — at least the blood part — while likewise bookending with a guest vocal from Aimee Wright, who also contributed to the opener. Complex, beautiful and punishing, sometimes all at once, The Lord is With Us is a debut of immediate note and range. Who knows what it may herald, but definitely something.
The hellscape in the Jason Barnett cover art for Mexico City duo Terror Cósmico‘s fourth full-length, Miasma, is a fair update for Hieronymus Bosch, and it’s way more Hell than The Garden of Earthly Delights, as suits the anxiety of the years since the band’s last album, 2018’s III (review here). The eight instrumental selections from guitarist Javier Alejandre and drummer Nicolás Detta is accordingly tense and brooding, with “En un Lugar Frio y Desolado” surging to life in weighted push after seeming to pick at its fingernails with nervousness. A decade on from their first EP, Terror Cósmico sound fiercer than they ever have on “Tonalpohualli” and the opener “Necromorfo” sets the album in motion with an intensity that reminds both of latter day High on Fire and the still-missed US sans-vocal duo Beast in the Field. That last is not a comparison I’ll make lightly, and it’s not that Miasma lacks atmosphere, just that the atmospherics in question are downtrodden, hard-hitting and frustrated. So yes, perfectly suited to the right-now in which they arrive.
Somewhere between aggressive post-metal, post-hardcore, sludge and ambient heavy rock, Stockholm’s Urna find a niche for themselves thoroughly Swedish enough to make me wonder why their self-titled debut LP isn’t out through Suicide Records. In any case, they lead with “You Hide Behind,” a resonant sense of anger in the accusation that is held to somewhat even as clean vocals are introduced later in the track and pushed further on the subsequent “Shine,” guitarist Axel Ehrencrona (also synth) handling those duties while bassist William Riever (also also synth) and also-in-Ocean–Chief drummer Björn Andersson (somebody get him some synth!) offer a roll that feels no less noise-derived than Cities of Mars‘ latest and is no more noise rock than it either. “Revelations” fucking crushes, period. Song is almost seven minutes. If it was 20, that’d be fine. Centerpiece indeed. “Werewolf Tantrum” follows as the longest piece at 8:06, and is perhaps more ambitious in structure, but that force is still there, and though “Sleep Forever” (plenty of synth) has a different vibe, it comes across as something of a portrayed aftermath for the bludgeoning that just took place. They sound like they’re just getting started on a longer progression, but the teeth gnashing throughout pulls back to the very birthing of post-metal, and from there Urna can go just about wherever they want.
Finnish songwriter, synthesist, vocalist, guitarist, bassist, etc. Santtu Laakso started Astral Magic as a solo-project, and he’s already got a follow-up out to Magical Kingdom called Alien Visitations that’s almost if not entirely synth-based and mostly instrumental, so he’s clearly not at all afraid to explore different vibes. On Magical Kingdom, he somewhat magically transports the listener back to a time when prog was for nerds. The leadoff title-track is filled with fantasy genre elements amid an instrumental spirit somewhere between Magma and Hawkwind, and it’s only the first of the eight explorations on the 42-minute offering. Keyboards are a strong presence throughout, whether a given song is vocalized or not, and as different international guest guitarists come and go, arrangements in “Dimension Link” and “Rainbow Butterfly” are further fleshed out with psychedelic sax. Side B opener “Lost Innocense” (sic) is a weirdo highlight among weirdo highlights, and after the spacious grandiosity of “The Hidden City” and the sitar-drone-reminiscent backing waveforms on “The Pale-Skinned Man,” closer “Seven Planes” finds resolution in classic krautrock shenanigans. If you’re the right kind of geek, this one’s gonna hit you hard.
The story of Turn to Stone seems to take place in opener “The Man, the Devil and the Grey Giant” in which a man sells his soul to the devil and is cursed and turned into a mountain for his apparent comeuppance. For a setting to that tale, Santander, Spain’s Grey Giant present a decidedly oldschool take on heavy rock, reminiscent there of European trailblazers like Lowrider and Dozer, but creeping on chunkier riffing in “Unwritten Letter,” which follows, bassist/vocalist Mario “Pitu” Hospital raw of throat but not by any means amelodic over the riffs of Ravi and Hugo Echeverria and the drums of Pablo Salmón and ready to meet the speedier turn when it comes. An EP running four songs and 26 minutes, Turn to StoneSabbath start-stops in “Reverb Signals in Key F,” but brings about some of the thickest roll as well as a particularly righteous solo from one if not both of the Echeverrias and the Kyussy riff of closer “Last Bullet” is filled out with a grim outlook of Europe’s future in warfare; obviously not the most uplifting of endings, but the trippier instrumental build in the song’s final movement seems to hold onto some hope or at very least wishful thinking.
Symmetrically placed for vinyl listening, “The Return” and “Golden Skies” open sides A and B of Great Rift‘s second long-player, Utopia, with steady grooves, passionate vocals and a blend between psychedelic range and earthier tonal textures. I feel crazy even saying it since I doubt it’s what he’s going for, but Thomas Gulyas reminds a bit in his delivery of Messiah Marcolin (once of Candlemass) and his voice is strong enough to carry that across. He, fellow guitarist Andreas Lechner, bassist Peter Leitner and drummer Klaus Gulyas explore further reaches in subsequent cuts like “Space” and the soaringly out-there “Voyagers” as each half of the LP works shortest-to-longest so that the arrival of the warm heavy psych fuzz of “Beteigeuze” and minor-key otherworldly build-up of the closing title-track both feel plenty earned, and demonstrate plainly that Great Rift know the style they’re playing toward and what they’re doing with the personal spin they’re bringing to it. Four years after their debut, Vesta, Utopia presents its idealistic vision in what might just be a story about fleeing the Earth. Not gonna say I don’t get that.
Most prevalent complaint in my mind with Torpedo Torpedo‘s The Kuiper Belt Mantras is it’s an EP and not a full-length album, and thus has to go on the Best Short Releases of 2022 list instead of the Best Debut LPs list. One way or the other, the four-song first-outing from the Vienna psychedelonauts is patient and jammy, sounding open, lush and bright while retaining a heaviness that is neither directly shoegaze-based nor aping those who came before. The trio affect spacious vibes in the winding threads of lead guitar and half-hints at All Them Witches in “Cycling Lines,” and cast themselves in a nod for “Verge” at least until they pass that titular mark at around five and a half minutes in and pick up the pace. With “Black Horizon” the groove is stonerized, righteous and familiar, but the cosmic and heavy psych spirit brought forth has a nascent sense of character that the fuller fuzz in “Caspian Dust” answers without making its largesse the entire point of the song. Loaded with potential, dead-on right now, they make themselves the proverbial ‘band to watch’ in performance, underlying craft, production value and atmosphere. Takes off when it takes off, is languid without lulling you to sleep, and manages to bring in a hook just when it needs one. I don’t think it’s a listen you’ll regret, whatever list I end up putting it on.
This is the part where I’m supposed to tell you I’m quaking in my flip-flops about doing 100 reviews in the span of two weeks, how worried I am I’ll run out of ways to say something is weird, or psychedelic, or heavy, or whatever. You know what? This time, even with a doublewide Quarterly Review — which means 100 records between now and next Friday — I feel like we got this. It’ll get done. And if it doesn’t? I’ll take an extra day. Who even pretends to give a crap?
I think that’s probably the right idea, so let’s get this show on the road, as my dear wife is fond of saying.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
Alunah, Strange Machine
Following on from 2019’s Violet Hour (review here), Birmingham’s Alunah offer the nine songs and 42 minutes of Strange Machine on Heavy Psych Sounds. It’s a wonder to think this is the band who a decade ago released White Hoarhound (review here), but of course it’s mostly not. Alunah circa 2022 bring a powerhouse take on classic heavy rock and roll, with Siân Greenaway‘s voice layered out across proto-metallic riffs and occasional nods such as “Fade Into Fantasy” or “Psychedelic Expressway” pulling away from the more straight-ahead punch. One can’t help but be reminded of Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio — a different, more progressive and expansive take on the same style they started with — which I guess would make Strange Machine their Mob Rules. They may or may not be the band you expected, but they’re quite a band if you’re willing to give the songs a chance.
Skipping neither the death nor the doom ends of death-doom, Los Angeles-based QAALM make a gruesome and melancholic debut with Resilience & Despair, with a vicious, barking growl up front that reminds of none so much as George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher, but that’s met intermittently with airy stretches of emotionally weighted float led by its two guitars. Across the four-song/69-minute outing, no song is shorter than opener “Reflections Doubt” (14:40), and while that song, “Existence Asunder” (19:35), “Cosmic Descent” (18:23) and “Lurking Death” (17:16) have their more intense moments, the balance of miseries defines the record by its spaciousness and the weight of the chug that offsets. The cello in “Lurking Death” adds fullness to create a Katatonia-style backdrop, but QAALM are altogether more extreme, and whatever lessons they’ve learned from the masters of the form, they’re being put to excruciating use. And the band knows it. Go four minutes into any one of these songs and tell me they’re not having a great time. I dare you.
The Traveler is Sterling DeWeese‘s second solo full-length under the banner of Ambassador Hazy behind 2020’s Glacial Erratics (review here) and it invariably brings a more cohesive vision of the bedroom-psychedelic experimentalist songcraft that defined its predecessor. “All We Wanted,” for example, is song enough that it could work in any number of genre contexts, and where “Take the Sour With the Sweet” is unabashed in its alt-universe garage rock ambitions, it remains righteously weird enough to be DeWeese‘s own. Fuller band arrangements on pieces like that or the later “Don’t Smash it to Pieces” reinforce the notion of a solidifying approach, but “Simple Thing” nonetheless manages to come across like Dead Meadow borrowed a drum machine from Godflesh circa 1987. There’s sweetness underlying “Afterglow,” however, and “Percolator,” which may or may not actually have one sampled, is way, way out there, and in no small way The Traveler is about that mix of humanity and creative reaching.
Strange things afoot in Stockholm. Blending classic doom and heavy rock with a clean, clear production, shades of early heavy metal and the odd bit of ’70s folk in the verse of “While the Devil is Asleep,” the five-piece Spiral Skies follow 2018’s Blues for a Dying Planet with Death is But a Door, a collection that swings and grooves and is epic and intimate across its nine songs/43 minutes, a cut like “Somewhere in the Dark” seeming to grow bigger as it moves toward its finish. Five of the nine inclusions make some reference to sleep or the night or darkness — including “Nattmaran” — but one can hardly begrudge Spiral Skies working on a theme when this is the level of the work they’re doing. “The Endless Sea” begins the process of excavating the band’s stylistic niche, and by “Time” and “Mirage” it’s long since uncovered, and the band’s demonstration of nuance, melody and songwriting finds its resolution on closer “Mirror of Illusion,” which touches on psychedelia as if to forewarn the listener of more to come. Familiar, but not quite like anything else.
Almost tragically atmospheric given the moods involved, Wyoming-based industrial metallurgists Lament Cityscape commence the machine-doom of A Darker Discharge following a trilogy of 2020 EPs compiled last year onto CD as Pneumatic Wet. That release was an hour long, this one is 24 minutes, which adds to the intensity somehow of the expression at the behest of David Small (Glacial Tomb, ex-Mountaineer, etc.) and Mike McClatchey (also ex-Mountaineer), the ambience of six-minute centerpiece “Innocence of Shared Experiences” making its way into a willfully grandiose wash after “All These Wires” and “Another Arc” traded off in caustic ’90s-style punishment. “The Under Dark” is a cacophony early and still intense after the fog clears, and it, “Where the Walls Used to Be” and the coursing-till-it-slows-down, gonna-get-noisy “Part of the Mother” form a trilogy of sorts for side B, each feeding into the overarching impression of emotional untetheredness that underscores all that fury.
You got friends? Me neither. But if we did, and we told them about the wholesome exploratory jams of Belfast trio Electric Octopus, I bet their hypothetical minds would be blown. St. Patrick’s Cough is the latest studio collection from the instrumentalist improv-specialists, and it comes and goes through glimpses of various jams in progress, piecing together across 13 songs and 73 minutes — that’s short for Electric Octopus — that find the chemistry vital as they seamlessly bring together psychedelia, funk, heavy rock, minimalist drone on “Restaurant Banking” and blown-out steel-drum-style island vibes on “A2enmod.” There’s enough ground covered throughout for a good bit of frolicking — and if you’ve never frolicked through an Electric Octopus release, here’s a good place to start — but in smaller experiments like the acoustic slog “You Have to Be Stupid to See That” or the rumbling “Universal Knife” or the shimmering-fuzz-is-this-tuning-up “Town,” it’s only encouraging to see the band continue to try new ideas and push themselves even farther out than they were. For an act who already dwells in the ‘way gone,’ it says something that they’re refusing to rest on their freaked-out laurels.
Behold, the sludge of death. Maybe it’s not fair to call When the World Dies one of 2022’s best debut albums since Come to Grief is intended as a continuation by guitarist/backing vocalist Terry Savastano (also WarHorse) and drummer Chuck Conlon of the devastation once wrought by Grief, but as they unleash the chestripping “Life’s Curse” and the slow-grind filthy onslaught of “Scum Like You,” who gives a shit? When the World Dies, produced of course by Converge‘s Kurt Ballou at GodCity, spreads aural violence across its 37 minutes with a particular glee, resting only for a breath before meting out the next lurching beating. Jonathan Hébert‘s vocal cords deserve a medal for the brutality they suffer in his screams in the four-minute title-track alone, never mind the grime-encrusted pummel of closer “Death Can’t Come Fast Enough.” Will to abrasion. Will to disturb. Heavy in spirit but so raw in its force that if you even manage to make it that deep you’ve probably already drowned. A biblical-style gnashing of teeth. Fucking madness.
In the works one way or the other since 2020, the sophomore full-length from Pittsburgh heavy rockers ZOM brings straight-ahead classicism with a modernized production vibe, some influence derived from the earlier days of Clutch or The Sword and of course Black Sabbath — looking at you, “Running Man” — but there’s a clarity of purpose behind the material that is ZOM‘s own. They are playing rock for rockers, and are geared more toward revelry than conversion, but there’s no arguing with the solidity of their craft and the meeting of their ambitions. Their last record took them to Iceland, and this one has led them to the UK. Don’t be surprised when ZOM announce an Australian tour one of these days, just because they can, but wherever they go, know what they have the songs on their side to get them there. In terms of style, there’s very little revolutionary about Fear and Failure, but ZOM aren’t trying to revamp what you know of as heavy rock and roll so much as looking to mark their place within it. Listening to the burly chug of “Another Day to Run,” and the conversation the band seems to be having with the more semi-metal moments of Shadow Witch and others, their efforts sound not at all misspent.
Making their debut through Black Doomba Records, Columbia, South Carolina’s MNRVA recorded the eight-song Hollow in Spring 2019, and one assumes that the three-year delay in releasing is owed at least in to aligning with the label, plus pandemic, plus life happens, and so on. In any case, from “Not the One” onward, their fuzz-coated doom rock reminds of a grittier take on Cathedral, with guitarist Byron Hawk and bassist Kevin Jennings sharing vocal duties effectively while Gina Ercolini drives the march behind them. There’s some shifting in tempo between “Hollow” and a more brash piece like “With Fire” or the somehow-even-noisier-seeming penultimate cut “No Solution,” but the grit there is a feature throughout the album just the same. Their 2019 EP, Black Sky (review here), set them up for this, but only really in hindsight, and one wonders what they may have been up to in the time since putting this collection to tape if this is where they were three years ago. Some of this is straight-up half-speed noise rock riffing and that’s just fine.
The third full-length, Accelerationist, from Easthampton, Massachusetts’ Problem With Dragons is odd and nuanced enough by the time they get to the vocal effects on “Have Mercy, Show Mercy” — unless that’s a tracheostomy thing; robot voice; that’s not the first instance of it — to earn being called progressive, and though their foundation is in more straightforward heavy rock impulses, sludge and fuzz, they’ve been at it for 15 years and have well developed their own approach. Thus “Live by the Sword” opens to set up lumbering pieces like “Astro Magnum” and the finale title-track while “In the Name of His Shadow” tips more toward metal and the seven-minute “Don’t Fail Me” meets its early burl (gets the wurlm?) with airier soloing later on, maximizing the space in the album’s longest track. “A Demon Possessed” and “Dark Times (for Dark Times)” border on doom, but in being part of Problem With Dragons‘ overall pastiche, and in the band’s almost Cynic-al style of melodic singing, they are united with the rest of what surrounds. Some bands, you can just tell when individualism is part of their mission.
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 31st, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Certainly Astroqueen playing one of their select few announced reunion shows is an event worth a nod, but amid the would-be-significant-even-if-it-was-just-Truckfighters-and-Greenleaf bill of the Truckfighters Fuzz Festival #3, it’s even more noteworthy.
There’s allegedly a non-zero chance I might travel to Stockholm for the two-day dig in the lovely company of Kings Destroy, who were slated to play this past year and did not owing to the complications of international travel, and gosh that would be just wonderful, but one way or the other, it’s cool to see the likes of High Desert Queen traveling abroad for what will be the second time in 2022. They’re currently on a UK tour and have summer plans besides. Band with a mission hitting it. So it goes.
Tickets are on sale now and I’m pretty sure the link is below here somewhere. Take a look:
TRUCKFIGHTERS FUZZ FESTIVAL #3 Stockholm
NEW BAND ANNOUNCEMENTS!!!
ASTROQUEEN
Their first live show in 15+ years!
Astroqueen was a stoner metal band from Stenungsund, Sweden. Active between 1998 and 2005 in their main run the band composed a thick, heavy stoner sound in a similar vein to Fu Manchu and Nebula though the band draws from other bands such as Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Kyuss and Soundgarden. The group would sign to Pavement Music in December 1999 but it wouldn’t be until 2001 that the band release their only studio album Into Submission in 2001, produced by King Diamond guitarist Andy Larocque. Some recording sessions from 2003 and a split with Buffalo would come over the next few years.
KAL-EL
Kal-El is a Tony Iommi approved Norwegian stoner rock band. These heavy rockers have released three full lengths alongside a pair of EP’s and toured both Europe and the States since their formation in 2012. The band is a product of diverse influences, and though they draw from the classics like Black Sabbath, Sleep and Motorpsycho, if one listens closely they can hear hints of thrash metal and Skandirock fleshing out the sound. It makes for a unique group who are determined to head out and take on the world.
HIGH DESERT QUEEN (US)
After releasing their debut album “Secrets of the Black Moon” on Ripple Music in October of 2021, High Desert Queen has been doing more than turning heads, they are making them move. Their album finished in many top 10 lists for album of the year while receiving rave reviews.
DEATH RAY BOOT
With 10 years in existence, Death Ray Boot is keeping their own pace. Even though gigs have been few and far apart they have gained a trusting fan base. Their music exits somewhere between stoner and punk, right in the middle of The Stooges and Masters Of Reality. Or just something entirely different. Find out for yourself.
There is 19 early bird tickets (ONLY 595Sek) left from THIS LINK (https://www.tickster.com/sv/events/uffebpy3xrygp5r/2022-12-09/9-10-12-2022-fuzzfest-3-early-bird-debaser), when they are gone the regular price is the deal.
Hail the kingsmen, as the many triumphant journeys of Swedish heavy psychedelic explorers Kungens Män have led them to the cosmos itself. Kungens Ljud och Bild is both the name of the record and the name of the band’s imprint handling the European side of the release — the US is out through Centripetal Force — and it translates to ‘The King’s Sound and Vision.’ Immediately, the mostly-instrumental but for some rather urgent spoken word in Swedish on “I Hjalles kök” (“In Hjalle’s Kitchen”) long-player sets its synesthetic standard. And the five-song/55-minute offering from the Stockholm six-piece only meets it along the way, melding improv-rooted jamming with mellow space and krautrock, resulting in the multi-tiered hypnosis of a song like the also-appropriately-named, 15-minute “Stora rummet” (“Large Room”), which follows opener “När piskan viner” (“When the Whip Wines”) and layers drifty bounces of synth or guitar or whatever it is behind a sunshiny guitar figure like they’re the string section the band was able to get cheap because they’re from an alternate dimension.
Yes, that’s a compliment. Here’s another: a band of this style — any of them — will fall entirely flat without chemistry. I don’t care how talented the guitarist or the bassist or the keyboardist or the drummer or whoever is. If it doesn’t gel, the band will suck, then die. Kungens Män launch “När piskan viner” like it’s a rocket to Charon with stops on the way for gas, and the space-bound motion of that song — shorter at just 7:44 than everything save the closer “Stora rummet (Edit),” at 5:58 — establishes outright that wherever they’re going on the songs that follow, the listener can be well assured they’ll reach their destination. Comprised of guitarists Hans Hjelm, Gustav Nygren and Mikael Tuominen (the latter also vocals, bass), bassist Magnus Öhrn, synthesist Peter Erikson and drummer Mattias Indy Pettersson, Kungens Män are able to conjure both the haze and the clearest path through it. Maybe that’s the sound and vision. It would make a fitting kind of sense, since on Kungens Ljud & Bild, often it’s both at once.
As straightforward a signal the opening riff of “När piskan viner” is — it’s time to go! — the prevailing vibe throughout Kungens Ljud & Bild is more serene than pushy. That’s not to say that the vinyl-concluding/digitally-penultimate “Vaska lyckokaka” (“Scrap a Fortune Cookie”) doesn’t find its way into a gorgeous outbound progression across its 11-minute span. On the contrary. In what sounds like a piece carved out of a longer exploration as it fades in at the start, what’s captured in the early moments of that song is crucial to understanding how Kungens Män manifest the chemistry noted above. The drums come in locked into a swinging groove over some fuzzier low end and an accompanying casual guitar strum that soon finds a complementary shape. Keys are there, a cleaner guitar tone arrives. Sounds like everybody’s aboard by about 1:10, and they’re underway with an odd note here for good measure, but soon that clean tone is topping the backing swirl with a somehow-dreamy progression that lasts until after three minutes in as a fuzzier guitar arrives to complement, growing more manic for a few seconds, trading off getting back in line, and so on.
You don’t necessarily realize it yet, but Kungens Män are talking here, and the transition is already under way. There’s a brighter guitar tone in the mix as of 4:59, and that begins to shift the rhythm between the other two strains and over the next minute it pushes the lead clean tone to space out, which it has done by the time they’re at 6:30, though the motion is so smooth it’s hard to pinpoint any more exact time when it happens (they say 5:43, but I’m not sure). And from then on, they’re free to introduce wavelengths of distortion, to let the keyboard go wandering, and to gradually bring the procession to a natural conclusion with a final, somewhat understated, cymbal crash. This isn’t just the kind of thing that not everybody can do. It’s an unspoken communication of creativity between six individuals, and even among heavy psychedelic acts — hell, even among mostly-instrumental, jam-minded heavy psychedelic acts with a penchant for warm tones and classic grooves — that makes Kungens Män stand out.
The prior “I Hjalles kök” works similarly in fading up from what was probably a jam that gradually took this shape, and I don’t know whether Tuominen‘s spoken vocals over it — drawing from a notebook of nonsense songtitles according to the band, arranged and delivered like poetry — happened at the time or were layered in later, but it feels perhaps like a response on the band’s part to the inevitable question of why they don’t have a singer, which in their case is even more ridiculous because the core of their project is so outside the realm of verses and choruses they’d be a completely different band if they did.
But the mad David Byrne-esque Swedish poetics does the job well enough, and emphasizes Kungens Män‘s willingness to experiment as regards the central tenets of their approach, the detail and complexity of the instrumental progression beneath his voice supporting but not at all staid with an uptempo drum progression and tense low-frequency fuzz. Above all of this, uniting the two sides of the album with their varied takes and even including the edit of “Stora rummet” on the end of the DL, Kungens Ljud & Bild is rife with purpose. Those familiar with the band will find it a more active release on average than 2020’s Trappmusik (review here), but will already know as well that these things are not all one or the other.
Consider though that among the sundry live and studio offerings Kungens Män have made over their 10 years together, this is the closest they’ve ever come to releasing a self-titled album. If one extrapolates from that a kind of representation of the band’s part of who they believe they are, then this material feels all the more definitive. More likely, however — and a negative perhaps for clean narrative but certainly a positive for the actual listening experience — this particular world is one more stop along Kungens Män‘s progressive journey, and there will be more to find as they continue forward.
Posted in Questionnaire on April 13th, 2022 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: Frida Eurenius of Spiral Skies
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
We play on other planets kinda rock and we write music together, all the five of us. Our intention is not to sound like any special genre – we just write and play what we like. That sometimes that is the hardest thing, to get five people to like the same stuff. But after the two albums and one EP I guess we manage it, and I would say our love for 70s hard rock and psychedelic music unites us all.
Describe your first musical memory.
Probably when I was around four, singing in a local radio station. We were interviewed about something and I took my chance to get my 15 minutes of fame, asking if I could sing a bit. And I could. A children’s song about a rabbit. Very Jefferson Airplane when I think about it…
Describe your best musical memory to date.
I have a lot of them but probably when we played the Sweden Rock Festival and got thousands of people singing along to “Labyrinth of the Mind.” But I must also admit that I loved being in the studio with Emil (our producer). He was really encouraging and we had so much fun.
How do you define success?
When it comes to Spiral Skies — for me it is if things are developing in the right way for us. More gigs, more opportunities, more listeners. The chance to do what we do but a bit more, how to say, comfortable. However, Success can also be that we still like to hang with each other after seven years, and that we all still think this is fun. But I must say I put a lot of hard work in Spiral Skies, so of course success is both wanted and necessarily for me — to be able to keep the fire up in the long run. It takes so much time and energy to really work with the band, and to create good stuff except for just writing music.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
Some nasty videos containing death and violence against animals that I saw as a youngster. Not good.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
My garden, haha. A wonderful Labyrinth in the garden where I can wander around and float into other atmospheres. Except for that, I want to release my own songs. One day, one day… any day now.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Art is fundamental and it takes us somewhere else. Beyond what we see and experience in the “real world”. Art gives us a wonderful opportunity to explore what is not presented as fact to us.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
To spend the first spring in our new bought house. To plant trees, and vegetables in my green house. Hang around in the garden with my cat and a glass of Cava. And not be at work.
Posted in Questionnaire on March 9th, 2022 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: Anders Martinsgård of Black Solstice
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
Well, in this context I play guitar. I’m one of the guitarists and perhaps the main riff maker in Black Solstice and I also play lead guitar in Cobra Cult, which is perhaps a different matter. I started out learning playing the guitar rather late. It was just something that felt interesting to do when I was in my teens.
I didn’t do sports, I was thinking too much, reading to much, was too shy, but playing guitar got me another way to express myself. I didn’t realize that back then, but that got clearer later on in life. I’m more of a songwriter then a technical guitarist so I kind of talk through the riffs instead of my verbal voice. Nowadays after having releasing records in various band for the last 12 years, this is more of a musical environment where I want to maintain.
Describe your first musical memory.
A bit hard to say. I remember my mom playing Finnish tango records when I was a young kid. I remember when we bought our new LP player and my sister bought Simon and Garfunkel’s Live in Central Park. I guess I was around eight then. And Gullan Bornemark of course. And Pippi!
Describe your best musical memory to date.
There has been a quite few of them over the years. Some extraordinary shows, record deals, great reviews, surprisingly good riffs, etc. But I do remember an occasion at a party in high school when people realized that I could play guitar. And way better then most of them. That was a bit groundbreaking. And I do remember the first time I wrote something on the guitar that I knew that I liked. It was an astounding feeling and I always look for that feeling in my playing.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
In these times? I’m not an anti-vaxxer, that’s for sure!
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Hmm, I think it always leads you away from where you’re standing right now. I can’t write the same riffs or songs as I could 10-15 years ago. But at the same time the latest Black Solstice tracks where unthinkable earlier. Look at your favorite bands, none of those except for perhaps AC/DC and similar hasn’t evolved musically and artistically. I always used hate when my favorite bands changed their style or direction after a few records. But who wants to do the same thing over and over?
How do you define success?
Reaching break-even? It must be that. The moment when I actually don’t end up losing money. I’m not there yet and probably never will be. But that’s ok! On a personal level I guess it is a sign of some success to have to go to the post office to send a record to Australia!
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
I’m turning 50 in a couple of years, so I have of course been through both rain and sunshine. And during some periods it’s has been raining a lot. That’s for sure. What an adult answer.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
Be a part of the perfect recording session? I still have plans and goals. I would want to be in a surf band or a blues band at some point. I would like to record an instrumental album. I want to release a split 7″! How hard can it be?!
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Making people think. And make them reach out to their own feelings. And I do think that people in general should be more open and subject themselves to different kinds of art forms. It’s not bad art just because you don’t understand it. There’s usually always an interesting idea of momentum behind that can be acknowledged if you just take your time. But always remember that good art takes time.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Ah, the Christmas session is coming. I fucking love Christmas!
Swedish progressive heavy rockers JIRM release their fifth album, The Tunnel, the Well, Holy Bedlam, tomorrow, March 4. It is the Stockholm four-piece’s first offering to be made through Ripple Music and the second since they announced in early 2018 that they were shortening their name from Jeremy Irons and the Ratgang Malibus, the cumbersome weight of which they’d carried since their founding in 2004 by guitarists Karl Apelmo (also vocals) and Micke Backendal — bassist Viktor Källgren and drummer Henke Perrson joined a few years later and the lineup has been consistent ever since, making their debut with Elefanta in 2009.
Their fourth full-length, Surge Ex Monumentis (review here), came out in 2018 on Small Stone and was enough of a remarkable shift in sound from 2014’s Spirit Knife (review here) and 2011’s recently-reissued Bloom to justify the name change if the convenience factor alone wasn’t enough. The band’s sound had clearly matured, taking on a somewhat darker aspect but resonating with proggy flourish in a way their prior material only hinted at amid its classic-heavy thrust. With The Tunnel, the Well, Holy Bedlam, JIRM continue the forward journey into the uncharted reaches of their own sound.
Across an immersive and sometimes ponderous 52 minutes and six songs, The Tunnel, the Well, Holy Bedlam carves an exploratory place within JIRM‘s canon. Opener “Liquid Covenant” unfolds with a quick-established wash of tone in guitar, bass, keys and drums, and though they’re a little later arriving (still before the two-minute mark), Apelmo‘s vocals become one of the central expressive elements throughout. As much room and reach as his and Backendal‘s guitars have in these pieces, the melodies carried by the vocals are an essential factor, even in the massive, 12-minute, sax-psych-and-space-doom second track “Deeper Dwell.”
Apelmo becomes the human presence — though I won’t take away from Persson‘s grounding snare either — speaking to the audience from these cosmic depths, slow moving and laced with noise as they are. Even in “You Fly,” which takes a more atmospheric approach to balancing the mix, that remains the case, with echoes ringing out over the swirl that, by the midsection, has moved toward epic in a way that even Surge Ex Monumentis couldn’t quite touch, moving into quiet, acoustic-and-key breadth at the end of the record’s first half.
Whether or not the band was deliberate in their intention to throw off the listener’s expectation, I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem unfeasible given their years together and that The Tunnel, the Well, Holy Bedlam is their fifth LP. Given the stated fact that they recorded across five studios during the pandemic, however, perhaps it makes sense that the songs here feel built up, constructed from a central base and working outward. That’s true certainly of “You Fly,” and “Repent in Blood” opens the second half of the tracklisting with a similar vibe, classically progressive but modern in impact and production, airy enough to float but rhythmically solid and rolling in a nod that remains even after the drums seem to drop out (and return) later on.
“Repent in Blood,” “Carried Away” and closer “Pestilence” all top eight minutes long, and with the sax solo in “Carried Away,” the vocal soul throughout, and the payoff distorted shove in the early stretches of the finale as well as the subsequent build into the crescendo, JIRM show themselves to be not only a mature band, but one still moving to new places in terms of style, defining their personality through their songs and performance in a way that is still of-genre in a sense but beholden to no influence so much as its own. That is to say, while one can pick out varying sides of their material and trace it to a root, what’s grown therefrom is JIRM‘s alone.
Under this moniker or the one prior, they have never sounded so rich or accomplished as they do on The Tunnel, the Well, Holy Bedlam. And if you find yourself feeling submerged or like you have a kind of aurally-induced vertigo at any point in listening, just understand that it’s all going to make JIRM‘s own kind of sense by the time they’re finished. Go along, then, for the ride.
Enjoy:
JIRM on The Tunnel, the Well, Holy Bedlam:
The making of this album has been long and weird to say the least. It has been a journey colored by streams of galactic beams and all that magic and stuff and has shaped this creation into a somewhat new organism. The songs have met our maker and turned back with new predictions of what lies ahead and we are ready to draw swords on the battlefield of sound. ‘The Tunnel The Well Holy Bedlam’ has more or less erupted from the same abyss of darkness as the last record. When making records in the weird way like that of this band, nothing ever turns up like we predicted, and it has evolved into some weird process that we more or less have surrendered ourselves to. So if you like or dislike any of this, we literally can’t be blamed. And the cause being we totally lost control the minute we made our first contact with the making of sound. From that point forward we still hope it remains interesting and keeps blowing our minds.
New album ‘The Tunnel, The Well, Holy Bedlam’ out March 4th on Ripple Music: https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/
Stockholm-based heavy rock stalwarts JIRM (formerly Jeremy Irons & the Ratgang Malibus), whose blend of psychedelic heaviness has been gushingly referred to as, “a blissful mixture of Soundgarden at their grooviest and Pink Floyd,” return with their latest album, “The Tunnel, The Well, Holy Bedlam.” The album was assembled in a true reflection of the world as altered by the pandemic, its tracks recorded one by one in five different studios across Sweden. The end result, though, is a massive liftoff from reality that’s sure to appeal to fans of everything from REZN to YOB to Elephant Tree to Cities of Mars. Prepare for an astral-traveling, riff-fueled trip into the cosmos!
JIRM is Karl Apelmo — vocals, guitar Micke Backendal — guitar Viktor Källgren — bass Henke Persson — drums
