Posted in Whathaveyou on May 18th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
I don’t feel the need to even really say anything here. The lineup speaks for itself. And those who go to this year’s RippleFest Texas will also speak of it, for years, probably in a similar way people now talk about having been at this or that Emissions From the Monolith when that was going on in Ohio. The stuff of legend, in other words. Yeah, you can put on a fest and try to make it cool and fun, or you can do something like this and make it the highlight of everybody who attends’ year.
Kudos to Lick of My Spoon Productions and Ripple Music on a job well done. This will be something special. Bands have been leaked out one at a time at intermittent daily intervals, but the final lineup is out as of today, and it’s stunning. A blend of generations, a reach from on end of the country to the other, and a swath of the heavy underground all rallied in one place for a few days, pre- and after-parties included. Fucking a. If you’re attending, count yourself lucky.
As seen on socials:
Here it is! The full lineup for RippleFest Texas #3! This will be one for the ages with a stacked lineup and lots of special treats in between. Get your tickets now!
Amazing art by @1horsetown
* playing the Pre-Party + playing the Afterparty
King Buffalo, Acid King, Brant Bjork Trio, Sasquatch, Wo-Fat, Fatso Jetson, Mondo Generator, Unida, The Well+, The Atomic Bitchwax, Telekinetic Yeti*, Duel, Forming the Void, Hippie Death Cult, High Desert Queen*, Avon, War Cloud, Rubber Snake Charmers, Spirit Mother+, Kind, Nick Oliveri, Thunder Horse, Royal Sons+, Restless Spirit*, (Big) Pig, Fostermother, Dead Feathers+, Rainbows Are Free, Warlung*, Sun Voyager, Red Mesa, Dunes, Tia Carrera+, Mr. Plow, The Heroine*, Michael Rudolph Cummings, The Absurd+, GoodEye*, Red Beard Wall, God Damn Good Time Band+
Plus a “Legends of the Desert and Friends” jam session to close out Saturday night!
And as always, the visuals by The Mad Alchemist Liquid Light Show
All-Access passes are SOLD OUT! All we have left are 2 Day Passes and Pre/Afterparty tickets available. Many more bands to be announced! Get your tickets now before the full lineup is revealed and the ticket price goes up!
Never been here before, but it’s a spot on the circuit so certainly The Ottobar is a familiar name. I expect that by the time the sun goes down later it’ll be a good deal warmer in here, and fair enough.
My first time in the space, my first time at Grim Reefer Fest. A little anxious as will happen. I ran into Mersch from Sun Voyager on my way in, did dad talk, which is probably what I’m good for these days. The first-face familiarity was a welcome reminder I’m here to enjoy myself. It was to some degree perilous leaving the house, and my car slipped on a wet Rt. 202 in the Flemington Circle and nearly ran into the driver’s side of a Toyota SUV — far be it from me to impugn the handling or traction of the Chevy Malibu, a car that’s as comfortable as a couch and gets the same gas milage, but you know — but beyond that, pretty smooth getting here for the three and a half hours of road time. I was in this town a week ago, if not the room.
But the fest is soon to start, and I worked really hard not to get here at like 10AM or otherwise stupid early, such is always an impulse to b fight. Hard to argue with 10 bands, though looking at that schedule above, I’m willing to bet that by the time Bongzilla go on, I’ll be rethinking various life choices, but screw it, it’s been a while since I got out and I need a day of having riff-forward audio dropped on my head. Desperately. These things remind us who were are, and, if we’re lucky, why. Ate half a gummy. Might disappear into a hole of myself for a while later, I don’t know. We’ll see what the afternoon brings.
So let’s see:
Blightbeast
Their first show, and they were likely the most aggressive band of the day, if not the heaviest, whatever that means at this point. They went to it hard, some bass trouble at the start, and tore the early crowd the proverbial new one. Solos were shredded, riffs were bludgeoned, screams were screamed, and a merry air of shenanigans pervaded, even with (because of?) the chicken bone necklace and bulletbelt on vocalist Phil Doccolo, who doubles as part of the team behind Grimoire Records. Blightbeast also share personnel with Haze Mage (playing later; it’s their party as I understand it) and Random Battles, among others. Everybody seemed to know them, but they were a heavy metal meatgrinder sound-wise, blackthrashing here and slinging sludge periodically throughout. I’m not sure they’d be my thing on record, but I don’t regret seeing their first show in the slightest, and if the record follows suit from the set, I retract my earlier supposition.
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Holy Fingers
Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, and from maybe as far afield as across town, Holy Fingers heavy folk-psyched their way into my heart. My admittedly limited experience of their studio work in this incarnation, 2018’s Holy Fingers II (discussed here), was irrelevant to the liquid progressions coming from the stage. With a guitar on either side, bassist/vocalist Tracey Buchanan held down both the brooding low rhythm of “Hunted” and from about there on, everything else today is gravy. That’s a band that needs to do a record. Like, today. Release that set. Anything, just take my fucking money. I don’t generally think of a band’s music itself as inspiring, but Holy Fingers made me want to write. In a field. On another planet. Three-sun day. Space birdsong and shit. Their setlist, which yes, I got, had six songs. I don’t know if they played all six but I lost time in there somewhere maybe. Mesmerized. Hell’s bells.
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Faith in Jane
A resounding argument in favor of live music are Faith in Jane. Band is hot shit. So what, you say? They were hot shit seven years ago, you say? That’s true, and they’ve grown into themselves a little bit since then — they had a single out in March, if you’re up for studio documentation — but they’re still young and they’re more confident on stage. Guitarist/vocalist Dan Mize, bassist Brendan Winston and drummer Alex Llewellyn — I can’t help but feel like if it was 1991 or maybe even 1971 would’ve been scooped up by some major label by now and turned into household names. True, they would not be the first heavy band from Maryland to miss out on the commercial potential of another era, but Faith in Jane are on their way to being on-stage masters — again, a road they’ve been walking for a while now — and they’ve got like 15 records or some such and none of them suck. They picked up on the pastoralia and guitar nuance of Holy Fingers and found the only grunge-blues bar in existence to present them in. And I know Mize is a beast, he is, a genuine talent and a pleasure to watch play since he still puts his soul in it when he’s good enough to probably get away with not, but Winston and Llewellyn too, each one of them locked into being part of the trio. Classic.
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Sun Voyager
Looked up and didn’t recognize Sun Voyager until I looked stage right and saw bassist Stefan Mersch. They’re using a drummer who played or plays in fellow King Pizza Records denizens The Daddies, filling in for Kyle Beach, who had a good excuse. Between that and still-new-to-me guitarist/vocalist Christian Lopez, they were two-thirds a new lineup since I last saw them, which is also since they released their self-titled LP (review here) on Ripple Music. Fill-in drummer and new-ish guitar player, plus the change in dynamic bringing Mersch to a more prominent role vocally, while Lopez’s voice is blown out through effects, it feels almost unfair to point out how much fun the set was since the band’s got so much flux going on and who knows what it’ll be next time. What’s going to happen with Sun Voyager? Forefront of a generation of East Coast heavy psych? Inheritors to Naam? Barely-upstate curio? I feel like it may take the next five years to find out. In the meantime, they’re doing the work, doing everything they need to be doing, including not forcing it, putting out killer records and burning even more barns on stages of rooms like The Ottobar moments ago, and no, I’m not going to fix that metaphor because fuck it biker space rock. Early headliners for me.
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False Gods
They were a big change in vibe coming off Sun Voyager, Faith in Jane, Holy Fingers, but False Gods claimed the stage for their own and smashed it accordingly. The New York outfit are hardcore-rooted, sludge-adjacent, and aggressive enough in presentation to give Blightbeast a challenge in that regard. They bring the styles together though, so it’s not just a hardcore part then a doom riff then the big mosh break, but something of the band’s own made from those parts and impulses. They seemed happy to be here, and their 2022 album, Neurotopia, was no less dense. There are a few different presences within the four-piece, but that came together around some pretty mammoth groove and by the time they were done, they had well established dominance over the room, and by extension, the greater Chesapeake region. Vocalist fell to his knees — which, first of all, man, I don’t know which side of 40 you’re in but having had surgery in November and still wearing a brace here, take it easy on those knees — twice, which was a bold move but earned by the subsequent screams. That shit can make you lightheaded and I’m not even being a smartass. Safety first.
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Wizard Rifle
Well, Nanotear has been right all along about Wizard Rifle. I had the feeling. The rest of us, you, me, we’ve been missing out. Or maybe not you since you’re cooler than I am. Me. I’ve been missing out. Fortunate, then, that the duo are on tour with Bongzilla, who are fellow clients of Nanotear Booking, the aforementioned agency who’ve been so thoroughly correct. Wizard Rifle, whose press shots I know better than their songs, took West Coast quirk riffing to its logical prog extension, and it was impressive energetically as much as technically. I wouldn’t say they laid waste, since they’re not really that kind of band, but in terms of style they’re firecracker heavy rock, bursts and booms set up in contrast to skyward sprints, but they’re dug in too and surprisingly immersive as they seem also to be testing each other and themselves onstage and with the material. I guess it’s time to go back and get with the records — there’s merch upstairs but I don’t want to leave my spot up front — because having seen that in-person, I’m interested to learn how it translates. Nothing says, “this was a very cool and fun rock and roll show” like assigning yourself homework.
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Haze Mage
Well that was a win. Haze Mage didn’t take it easy on themselves, picking their own slot after Wizard Rifle, but they have a deceptive amount going on for a band who are also such a party. They’re metal one minute, weed-worship the next, classic doom, bit of char on the tremolo — it was a blast. Songs brought in some slide guitar, some tambourine, all in the name of differentiating the songs, and they had only the second standalone frontman of the day, and perhaps Matthew Casella was more subdued than he might’ve otherwise been owing to whatever apparatus that was on his leg — I’m telling you, you gotta watch out — it looked significant, but he still delivered in terms of performance, as all five of them did in their own way, guitarists Nick Jewett and Kevin Considine kind of on Planet Guitar together on stage left while bassist Scott Brenner took advantage of the extra space to boogie on his own side, John De Campos behind on drums, occasionally adding vocals. They were a trip, to be sure, and while I dug their March 2020 (oof) split with Tombtoker (review here), the really good news is most of what they played was new, so they should hopefully have some kind of release or another in the works soon.
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Borracho
Could not possibly tell you the last time I saw Borracho, and I tried looking back. It’s been a while since I’ve or another doom fest but definitely it was before the pandemic, so I’ll say it’s been at least half a decade. Long enough, to be sure. The D.C. trio — guitarist/vocalist Steve Fisher, bassist/vocalist Tim Martin, drummer Mario Trubiano, as they’ve been since they first pared down from a four-piece to a trio like 11 years ago now. They posted two new tracks yesterday in kind of a space rocking feel, but they’ve got a new record coming out to follow-up 2021’s Pound of Flesh (review here), and it’s a Borracho record which means it’s the kind of heavy you can rely on. One consequence of my not watching them in however many years, I haven’t gotten to appreciate Fisher’s guitar face. He’s got the best one. It’s as though he’s telling the crowd, “oh gee, these riffs are really heavy I don’t know if I can roll ’em this time,” but then of course he does, with help from Martin and Trubiano. However long it had been, it had been too long. I’ll have more on their new record as we get there — at least I hope; would be some shit if I stopped covering the band after 12 years or some shit — but this was a blast as a herald for that.
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Ilsa
Rumor had it Ilsa were quite, quite loud. Can confirm. Three guitars playing through full stacks, then bass, then shouts and screams, and drums back there giving the marching orders. I don’t know if Ilsa are the most aggressive band of the day or not — they’re more sad and pissed off at themselves about it, it would seem — but they’re both loudest and nastiest thus far, and their crust beneath their dark hardcore sludge metal will be a fitting transition to Bongzilla. They had the first mosh I’ve seen all day, though I’ll grant I haven’t turned around an awful lot to see either way. They were devastatingly heavy, in any case, and that’s clearly what they were going for. I’ve sort of casually followed their trajectory in the way one gets Relapse press releases, but can’t recall ever seeing them live before. And having seen them now, safe to say that’s something I would remember. Now homework? Could be, but that kind of volume push is hard to capture on a full-length and frankly, I’m tired as crap after standing in the same spot for the last eight hours and I finished my water bottle and can’t leave the front because I’ll lose my spot and so there you go. Ilsa punished that, I guess. Reasonable, somehow, and brutal in kind.
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Bongzilla
I remember very clearly the last time I saw Bongzilla. Slushy April day in 2016 (review here), and they were on a bill with Kings Destroy, Black Cobra and Lo-Pan, presented by this very site. Good fun. So it’s been a while. In the interim, the Wisconsin band — who, yes, will absolutely trade merch for THC in any number of incarnations, many of while Muleboy listed from the stage — “anybody else do a dab today? you’re freebasing marijuana.” — have released one album in 2021’s Weedsconsin (review here), and their new one, Dab City, is due June 2. It sounds like fucking Bongzilla. And on stage? They sounded like fucking Bongzilla. Dirt-coated, weed-worshipping, slow, heavy nod. They are largely above reproach in concept or execution; were it not for the fact that they helped create stoner sludge, they might be out of the critical sphere entirely. It doesn’t matter. The day came down to the core message — get high, be loud — and certainly I’m not about to fight them on it. Bongzilla are statesmen of this. Ambassadors from planet Delta 9. Even if I had a complaint about seeing them again as they get ready to release a new album — and mind you, I don’t — no way in hell would I say so. Bongzilla need to make one of those bumper stickers in the ‘Virginia is for lovers’ design except it says ‘Bongzilla are for stoners.’ Yes, I just thought of that right now. Goodnight everybody!
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Thanks to Scott Brenner and whoever was playing Genghis Tron and then Ween’s “Baby Bitch” between the bands. Thanks to the Holy Fingers crew for saying hi. Thanks to Chris and Lew for the crash spot. Thanks to The Patient Mrs., through whom all things are possible.
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 10th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Good one, Grim Reefer Fest. The 2023 edition of the Baltimorean all-dayer is the biggest lineup yet, showing some geographic reach in bringing Bongzilla and Wizard Rifle to proceedings — the former being in Wisconsin and the latter Oregon; one suspects they’ll be announcing a tour together any minute now, and if they do, they make a complementary pair — and rounding out with a sonically diverse cast of locals and regional acts, from natives Haze Mage and Holy Fingers to Borracho and Ilsa from D.C., Sun Voyager heading down from New York, and so on.
I’m gonna go ahead and put this one in my calendar. Seems like a pretty cool way to spend a Saturday. Drive down in the morning, see the show, find a spot to crash, leave Sunday AM after coffee and be home in time for lunch? That’s doable, right? I’ll talk to The Patient Mrs. before I start bugging the fest about it, but yeah, this looks like a good time and I’ve wanted to get down to one of these for a couple years now. In a universe of infinite possibilities, maybe 2023 is my year.
From the PR wire:
Grim Reefer Fest returns to the Legendary Ottobar on Saturday April 29th with our biggest and best lineup to date! Join us for the annual celebration of the high holidays, good vibes, and all your favorite variations of heavy music!
Bongzilla Ilsa Borracho Haze Mage Wizard Rifle False Gods Sun Voyager Faith in Jane Holy Fingers Blightbeast
And as always we will have a food truck parked right outside the venue throughout the duration of the event to take care of all of your munchie needs!
Tickets are $35 in adv and $50 at the door.
Tickets can be purchased here starting 1/13/23 at 10am https://www.etix.com/ticket/p/6831820 Doors at 2pm – Music starts at 3pm and runs all day and night
Poster by GhostBat.
We will not be live streaming this time around but we do hope to have all of the sets recorded and eventually uploaded to our YouTube Channel (where you can currently see all of our GRF 2022 performers).
Posted in Radio on December 23rd, 2022 by JJ Koczan
I wish I could say I planned it out ahead of time that the 100th episode of The Obelisk Show would coincide with both the final one of 2022 and the third of the three roundups of some of the year’s best in heavy, but I’m nowhere near that coordinated. Fortunate happenstance, then, and a killer show either way.
You might note the minor departure from the general format I use in that this one doesn’t end with an extended track. Fact is there was just more I wanted to include than there was room for, so I opted to pack in three or four shorter songs where there might otherwise be one. Nothing here tops 10 minutes long — CB3 is just over eight and that’s the longest — and I can’t remember the last time that happened.
Before I turn you over to the playlist itself, I’d like to extend my sincere thanks to Gimme Metal for allowing me to continue to do this show. Seems obvious to say, considering, you know, this site in general, but sharing music I dig is among my favorite things to do, and I value the opportunity to engage with Gimme’s audience as a part of that. Thank you to Tyler, Brian, Dean and the entire crew for having me and making this thing happen.
Thanks for listening if you do, thanks for reading if you are.
The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.
Full playlist:
The Obelisk Show – 12.23.22 (VT = voice track)
Church of the Cosmic Skull
Now’s the Time
There is No Time
All Souls
I Dream
Ghosts Among Us
Sasquatch
Live Snakes
Fever Fantasy
Sky Pig
Larva
It Thrives in Darkness
VT
Abronia
Night Hoarders
Map of Dawn
Ealdor Bealu
Way of the Sudden Storm
Psychic Forms
Valley of the Sun
Images
The Chariot
Nebula
Highwired
Transmission From Mothership Earth
Supersonic Blues
They See Me Comin’
It’s Heavy
Les Nadie
Del Pombero
Destierro y Siembra
Sun Voyager
Rip the Sky
Sun Voyager
Besvärjelsen
House of the Burning Light
Atlas
VT
Dreadnought
Midnight Moon
The Endless
Author & Punisher
Misery
Krüller
Messa
Dark Horse
Close
Somali Yacht Club
Silver
The Space
Lamp of the Universe
Emerald Sands
The Akashic Field
Toad Venom
Swirling Hands
EAT!
CB3
To Space and Away
Exploration
VT
Ecstatic Vision
The Kenzo Shake
Elusive Mojo
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Jan. 6 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.
Posted in Features on December 21st, 2022 by JJ Koczan
[PLEASE NOTE: These are not the results of the year-end poll, which is ongoing. If you haven’t contributed your picks yet, please do so here.]
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I believe we are in the midst of a generational turnover among artists and bands. Some have reshuffled as a result of either the pandemic or a basic desire to explore new creative reaches, and some are just plain younger, finding their way into a heavy underground that now has the fanbase ecosystem to support their work. The last couple years have not been easy for anyone, but this wouldn’t be the first instance of hard times making for good art.
The music that will define this decade is being made now. Fresh perspectives and new ideas have broadened the definitions of what makes a sound heavy, and while the change can feel and has felt excruciatingly slow, rock and roll has grown more diverse, much to its benefit. The boundaries between microgenres have become ever more porous, resulting in a vibrant shifting of styles and breadth that, even when playing directly to familiar ideals, is evolution at work. As/if you make your way through the lists below, consider the veteran acts and newcomers, young and old, how many debuts and sophomore albums and how many bands on their fifth, sixth, seventh, etc. Not that there’s nothing between, but the divide feels stark.
As war returned to Eastern Europe and the American political system teetered worryingly toward collapse, music was both respite and reportage, escape, therapy and critique marked by a blanket expressive urgency, no matter which side of which argument one was on. The ‘return’ of touring and live shows was a boon for escapists and celebrants, and one found new appreciation for the simple act of gathering. Some of the most beautiful moments I’ve ever seen on a stage happened in 2022.
In this spirit, I ask as I do every year to please, if you comment on this post in either agreement or disagreement, please, please keep it civil. For both my own sensitivities — yes, I take it personally — and those of anyone else reading. I thank you for reading, and if you feel compelled to respond, thank you for that too. I’m a human being. You’re a human being. Let’s just be nice. That’s all.
Okay. Deep breath in… and plunge:
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The Top 60 Albums of 2022
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Maybe you think a Top 60 is ridiculous. Fair. Too much? Okay. Anything else? No? Then let’s roll.
Precedent for this was set last year, and I found the trouble this time was not only sorting it by number — once you pass a certain point it’s more about including the names than the actual ordering, I’ll admit — but actually keeping it to 60. Believe it or not, these are packed in, and there were more than a handful of others I was heartbroken to have to leave out of the numbered list.
Here goes:
31. Ecstatic Vision, Elusive Mojo
32. Josiah, We Lay on Cold Stone
33. C.Ross, Skull Creator
34. Samavayo, Pāyān
35. Abronia, Map of Dawn
36. CB3, Exploration
37. Brant Bjork, Bougainvillea Suite
38. Valley of the Sun, The Chariot
39. Mos Generator, Time//Wounds
40. Edena Gardens, Edena Gardens
41. Cities of Mars, Cities of Mars
42. Dreadnought, The Endless
43. Clutch, Sunrise on Slaughter Beach
44. Tau and the Drones of Praise, Misneach
45. Nebula, Transmission From Mothership Earth
46. Birth, Born
47. Ufomammut, Fenice
48. Supersonic Blues, It’s Heavy
49. Naxatras, IV
50. Come to Grief, When the World Dies
51. Toad Venom, EAT!
52. Earthless, Night Parade of 100 Demons
53. Hazemaze, Blinded by the Wicked
54. Experiencia Tibetana, Vol. II
55. Les Nadie, Destierro y Siembra
56. MWWB, The Harvest
57. Obiat, Indian Ocean
58. Messa, Close
59. JIRM, The Tunnel, the Well, Holy Bedlam
60. Somali Yacht Club, The Space
Notes:
Some killer records. And not just things to be appreciated critically, either, but stuff I actually listened to a fair bit. Cities of Mars, Obiat, Tau and the Drones of Praise, Brant Bjork’s always a go-to. Seeing Ecstatic Vision and Josiah next to each other makes me want to book a UK tour for them together. And then you get into the gleeful acid fuckall of Nebula, Naxatras’ full-on-prog-rock pivot, Clutch being Clutch, Supersonic Blues’ right on debut — finally! — and Obiat’s first record in 13 years. Dreadnought and Edena Gardens and JIRM and CB3, Abronia. There isn’t a clunker in the bunch.
Don’t ignore this list, please, and please don’t think that because something’s not in the top 30 with the cover art right there I don’t think you should check it out. If that was the case, I’d cap the list at 30. There’s genuine treasure here to be found, and it’s my sincere hope you’ll take the time to find it.
My only hope is it wasn’t a one-off that Jason Haberman (Yeahsun), Ian Blurton (Ian Blurton’s Future Now, etc.), and Jay Anderson (Lammping) came together to form this classic psychedelic soul project. With guest vocalists, the six songs on this self-titled debut ranged from flowing extended jams to tight acid disco pop, as memorable as they were righteous. Sleeper hit.
By no means the only cause to rejoice to emerge over the last few years from Hungary’s Psychedelic Source Records collective, River Flows Reverse‘s second offering brings a crafted focus on organic, natural-world psychedelia that results in an affecting beauty and warmth all its own. It is the acid folk of another world; varied in instrumentation, exploratory, welcoming and wonderfully serene.
Long-since proven as songwriters, Virginia Beach’s Freedom Hawk one-upped themselves again with their sixth album. It was an effective summary of what has made the band so crucial and so largely undervalued during their time, bringing together elements from classic metal, classic heavy rock, desert riffing, and even some flourish of psychedelia in a DIY recording that told us we all need rock and roll and went on to demonstrate why.
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27. Lamp of the Universe, The Akashic Field
Released through Headspin Records & Astral Projection. Reviewed Jan. 10.
I’ll gladly cop to being a sucker for the long-running lysergic solo-project of Hamilton, New Zealand’s Craig Williamson (ex-Arc of Ascent, ex-Datura), and as he makes ready to unveil the more riff-heavy, still-solo band incarnation Dead Shrine in 2023 (info here), this offering from Lamp of the Universe pushed through a transitional spirit as though he was passing a torch… to himself. More than 20 years on, this project still evolves, can still surprise.
A beautiful bludgeoning. Metallic in its aggression, hardcore in its soul and sludged to its monstrously-proportioned gills, the latest from Los Angeles’ 16 felt tighter in its songwriting and meaner even than 2020’s Dream Squasher (review here), but maybe that’s the difference between being punched in the stomach and the solar plexus. This was the one that took the air right out of your lungs, and did so with purpose beyond the simple violence of the act.
Recorded (with Billy Anderson) during the general awfulness of 2020, this awaited third long-player from the Portland, Oregon, outfit led by former SubArachnoid Space guitarist/vocalist Melynda Marie Jackson harvested a vision of progressive black metal likewise expansive and dug into the dirt of its making. It was not easy listening by any stretch, but to undertake the challenge it issued listeners was to engage with a churning cosmic extremity that only emphasized the limits and folly of genre.
The follow-up from guitarist/vocalist Brant Bjork, bassist/vocalist Nick Oliveri and drummer Ryan Güt to 2021’s Stoners Rule (review here) had its challenge in continuing to speak to the rawest-form desert punk of the project’s debut while nonetheless growing the sound and moving forward. Stöner did this by making it a (pizza) party, with cuts like “A Million Beers,” “Driving Miss Lazy” and “Strawberry Creek (Dirty Feet)” bringing further vocal integration from Bjork and Oliveri as they blanketly refused to not have a good time. Easy record to dig, and it was dug.
One hates to use a cliché like “now more than ever,” but the return of UK lumberchuckers Conan was especially well-timed, and Evidence of Immortality spoke to the overwhelming strangeness of our times with clever metaphor while maintaining the trio’s punishing heft and extreme noise-doom onslaught. By now, their tonality is rightly the stuff of legend, and they know it and they play into it with particularly rampaging glee, but the six-track outing also showed how central atmosphere has become to their pummel, as heard on the 14-minute instrumental closer “Grief Sequence,” a somehow fitting complement to the all-in plod of leadoff “A Cleaved Head No Longer Plots.”
It is remarkable how distinctive My Sleeping Karma have become over time. Their ever-instrumental approach is progressive and reliably able to broaden beyond its root arrangements of guitar, bass, drums and synth, but at the same time, their meditative psychedelia is only ever their own. This was their first studio album in seven years, and while its component material played out with an overarching melancholy that seemed to look inward as much as at the state of the world at large, the four-piece likewise presented an answer in the catharsis of their expression. An essential reminder of the healing art can provide, Atma‘s resonance was an immersive comfort in its own right Like a weighted blanket, and accordingly warm.
New York’s Sun Voyager provided their own best descriptor of how their second full-length and first for Ripple functions in the song title “Rip the Sky.” The trio/sometimes-four-piece took cosmic bikerisms and classic punk/grunge shove, superheated them like they were about to fuse atoms, and accordingly scorched their way through a sans-nonsense-yet-full-of-nonsense 32 minutes and seven songs that, while varied enough in tempo, remained defined by their urgency. Last month, bassist/backing vocalist/keyboardist Stefan Mersch and drummer Kyle Beach announced Christian Lopez stepping in on guitar in place of Carlos Francisco, and whatever the future holds, they’re that much stronger for this wind pushing them forward.
This band is three-for-three in my mind, and as their third full-length, Psychic Forms fostered the most realized vision of their take on progressive heavy rock to-date while feeling not at all like a culmination. In its range and atmospheric focus, it built on what came before, but in pushing as far as it did, it seemed to open as many doors as it went through. Does that make any sense? Did I mix metaphors enough? Point is, the Boise, Idaho-based four-piece seem to develop new ideas and incorporate new influences every time out, and while their material becomes more complex as a result of that, they have yet to put those adventurous impulses to any use that does not best serve the song in question. Psychic Formsis what I wish the word ‘Americana’ actually meant.
On some level/levels, Mythosphere could be seen as a continuation of Beelzefuzz, the former outfit of guitarist/vocalist Dana Ortt and drummer Darin McCloskey (both also of Pale Divine). That simplistic view, however, doesn’t account for the shift in dynamic of bringing in Victor Arduini (ex-Fates Warning, Entierro, Arduini/Balich) on lead guitar or Ron “Fezz” McGinnis (Pale Divine, Admiral Browning, etc.) on bass. The latter two play a massive role in building on the foundation of Ortt‘s recognizable style, and as they unfurled Pathological, the sense was that they were stronger for the members’ familiarity with each other even as they undertook developing this new dynamic. One of the strongest and most progressive debut albums Maryland doom has ever produced in my view.
As the year went on, the sophomore long-player from Oregon’s Charley No Face just wouldn’t let go. Songs like “Mosaic Sky,” “Big Sleep,” “Satan’s Hand” — they just kept calling me back to hear them again. Languid fuzz, dual-vocals both delivered in dreamy breaths, the odd bit of cultish tendencies, all of it feeding into tracks catchy, heavy and miraculously unpretentious; Eleven Thousand Volts wasn’t necessarily reinventing a genre aesthetic or anything so grandiose, but its tracks were impeccably well done and seemed built for repeat listens, from the mellow-heavy strut of opener “Eyes” through the sweeping culmination of “Death Mask” at the end. Charley No Face nailed it. 2020’s The Green Man (discussed here) set the course, but in bringing in keyboardist/vocalist Carina Hartley alongside guitarist/vocalist Nick Wulfrost, bassist Brad Larson and drummer Tim Abel, they leaped beyond even the most unreasonable of expectations.
The combination in Atlas of breadth, spaciousness of sound, of rhythmic crunch, and of melody, put it in a stylistic category of its own. The Swedish fivesome whose moniker well-earned its own pronunciation guide have managed to grow and change each time out, but between the confident and soulful delivery of Lea Amling Alazam, the wide-spread tones of guitarists Andreas Baier and Staffan Stensland Vinrot, and the inherited-from-Dozer rhythm section of bassist Johan Rockner and drummer Erik Bäckwall, this felt like the moment where the band became themselves and seemed to realize the intentions they’d laid out at their beginning. Not bad for a self-produced second record, and not to be lost in the narrative of their ongoing maturation is the fact that for all their expanse, the songs seemed to get correspondingly tighter and more efficient structurally, which made them all the more engaging.
While the Dubuque, Iowa, duo remained somewhat defined by the split of their initial lineup that left guitarist/vocalist Alex Baumann — joined now by drummer Rockwel Heim — as the lone remaining founder, Telekinetic Yeti pressed ahead with self-aware riff-led stoner metal that demonstrated a special kind of revelry for the form even as Primordial left its own elephantine footprint thereupon. Unrepentant in their crushing fuzz, the band tapped into the lizard-brain-thrill of celebrating aural heft, but did so without neglecting songcraft, taking melodic cues from Floor and others while sounding fresh even as they seemed so utterly covered in dense, caked-on mud. As they move forward, they’re another act from an up-and-coming generation of players whose potential at this point seems only beginning to manifest, and while Primordial hardly put one in mind for evolution thematically, Telekinetic Yeti remain one of tomorrow’s brightest hopes for riffslinging.
Just about a year ago, I was lucky enough to be invited to the studio (features here and here) with Kingston, New York, trio Geezer while they put down the basic tracks for what would become Stoned Blues Machine. Even at that early point in the record’s making, it was apparent that they’d outdone even what was their definitive statement in 2020’s Groovy (review here). In terms of songwriting, the performances captured from guitarist/vocalist Pat Harrington, bassist Richie Touseull and drummer Steve Markota, and the scope of the record, Geezer took the lessons of their best album yet and made a new best album yet. Rife with hooks in “Atomic Moronic,” the title-track, “A Cold Black Heart,” etc., they dug into songs like “Eleven” and “Saviours” with an honest and sincere music-as-escape mindset and honored their jammier side with the tripped out “The Diamond Rain of Saturn.” I’m a fan of these guys, and Stoned Blues Machine was more than I’d have asked for, even holding them to the high standard I do.
Yeah, I said as much in the album review, and maybe-not-surprisingly my opinion hasn’t changed in the last two weeks, but if Sky Pig represent the future of sludge metal, that’s cool by me. The Sacramento outfit’s debut full-length takes the urgent crush of 2020’s Hell is Inside You EP and presents its maddening charge with offsetting, sometimes disturbing drone complement, sometimes resolving in steamroller-over-your-brain riffs and sometimes refusing to resolve at all. No matter how many times I put on the record, it’s a challenge. It’s not an easy listen, and where in many cases it wouldn’t be worth the effort, meeting Sky Pig on their level is thrilling and refreshing, which is so weird to think of about an album that so expertly seems to harness an atmosphere of decay. I won’t predict what the years to come will bring, or where Sky Pig will go from It Thrives in Darkness in terms of craft, but their first LP is both a significant accomplishment in individualizing stylistic impulses and overflowing with potential. A beast that hypnotizes, strikes, and hypnotizes again, purely because it can.
Listening to it, it seems somewhat cruel on the part of Los Angeles trio Sasquatch that, after being mastered in March 2020, Fever Fantasy sat in the proverbial can for more than two years before seeing release this June. Fortunately for all who’d take it on — only to be overwhelmed and consumed by the unruly dense fuzz of guitarist/vocalist Keith Gibbs and bassist Jason “Cas” Casanova en route to being punched upside your fool head by Craig Riggs‘ snare — the nine-song outing lost none of its edge for that time, and songs like “Lilac,” “Voyager” (dig that organ) and “Save the Day, Ruin the Night” hold firm to their on-the-beat intensity, a flawless uptempo heavy rock execution broadened by the flowing roll of the eight-minute “Ivy” and the full-bore-volume finish in “Cyclops” (dig that organ too). They’ve been on a streak for, I don’t know, the better part of two decades, and if the shove of “It Lies Beyond the Bay” doesn’t get you, then maybe the fact that in all their time they’ve never sounded this brazenly heavy will. Wouldn’t’ve minded it sooner, but it was certainly welcome this year. Inimitable energy in Sasquatch.
What do you say to a seven-track/75-minute Wo Fat album except maybe “yes please?” Could be the now-veteran Dallas-based three-piece — guitarist/vocalist Kent Stump, bassist Zack Busby, drummer Michael Walter — were making up for lost time, having not had a studio album since 2016’s Midnight Cometh (review here) when they’d previously been on an every-two-years pattern like relative clockwork, but whatever it was, The Singularity was an album by which to be engulfed. The riffs, of course, the riffs, but consider that quick break of bright noodling in 13-minute opener “Orphans of the Singe,” or the delve into next-level heaviness that followed in “The Snows of Banquo IV.” While keeping to their core approach in jazz-informed, jam-prone-but-still-hooky bluesy fuzz rock, Wo Fat seemed to purposefully screw with their own formula, giving “The Unraveling” a tense chug and finding new realms of vastness in 16-minute closer “The Oracle.” Maybe it’ll be two years for their next one, maybe six, maybe never, but Wo Fat answered the call in 2022 as only they could, and one could only be grateful for their return.
It’s my nature to dig a lot of bands. I’m left in awe by far fewer. The second album from Forlesen, recorded mostly remotely as at least some portion of the band is now based in Oregon, Black Terrain was stunning enough that I couldn’t bring myself to even review it until about two months after it was already out. Beautifully arranged and set to purposes that were at times genuinely terrifying, this four-song answer to 2020’s debut, Hierophant Violent (review here), felt more patient even as it drew thicker lines between its movements and seemed to begin a process of melding styles through which one can only hope Forlesen‘s style will continue to develop. Sad and aggressive, wholly immersive and still challenging to the listener, Black Terrain was just as likely to tear open the cosmic fabric in “Harrowed Earth” as to drone itself into oblivion on its title-track, but it was the enthralling nature of the album as a single work — never mind that triumphant final solo in “Saturnine” — that was the real accomplishment. Most of all, Forlesen stood on their own, as themselves, and set their own path forward into the actually-unknown, with all the gorgeousness and horror that might imply.
The way “Pleading to the Cosmic Mother” seemed to actually plead, and the swap in perspective for “Last Words of a Dying God.” The sinister underpinning in the lyrical promises of “One More Step.” The devotional sensibility and swirl of “Seven Rays of Colour” at the outset and the corresponding regret of “We Lost it Somewhere” at the end. That hook in “Now’s the Time.” The complement across sides in “Valleys and Hills Pt. 1 – Peel Away the Layers” and “Valleys and Hills Pt. 2 – Pure Illumination.” Church of the Cosmic Skull‘s fourth album not only brought founding guitarist/vocalist Bill Fisher‘s whole-album compositional sensibility to new heights, but was truly classic in feel and the ways in which the songs spoke to each other, worked off each other, melodically, rhythmically and in theme. Gorgeously harmonized as ever, the cult-minded UK seven-piece gave up nothing of craft in service to their audio/visual aesthetic, and even just on the level of a-thing-to-put-on, the utter listenability and welcome that There is No Time offered was no less resonant than the calls to sing along to any number of the choruses. There is no one else out there like them, no other band among the hundreds covered here who can do what they do, and yes, I mean that. They are special, transcendent.
Granted, as regards narrative, the story of All Souls‘ third album behind 2020’s Songs for the End of the World (review here) and 2018’s self-titled debut (review here) was always going to be that the Los Angeles-based then-trio of guitarist/vocalist Antonio Aguilar, bassist/vocalist Meg Castellanos (both ex-Totimoshi) and drummer Tony Tornay (also Fatso Jetson) recorded with producer Alain Johannes (Eleven, Queens of the Stone Age, etc.). And the songs bore his mark for sure, in backing vocals and lead guitar, complementing and fleshing out the root heavy punk rock-isms of the band, who, well, were down a guitarist anyhow and had room for such contributions. I don’t know what the impetus was behind the collaboration, but even just in the performances captured from the trio, the songs felt like the best versions of themselves, and went beyond third-record realizations in terms of stepping forward from where All Souls were two years ago. They remain woefully undervalued in my mind, and I have the feeling that might be the case even if they were millionaires, but the spirit in Ghosts Among Us, that intangible atmosphere and sonic persona that emerged was both intimate and sprawling, deeply singular and heartfelt while bringing the listener along for the journey across its still-humble 39 minutes. Records like this don’t happen every year. You should hear it.
Formerly (?) the drummer of New Paltz, New York, psych purveyors It’s Not Night: It’s Space, self-recording multi-instrumentalist Michael Lutomski is the lone figure behind Okkoto, and Climb the Antlers and Reach the Stars was his second full-length under the banner after 2019’s Fear the Veil Not the Void. Across five individualized but flowing pieces, Lutomski harnessed a meditative ambience that pushed into homemade intimacy and aural distance in kind, the songs serene as they evocatively conjured a three-dimensional world of length, width, depth. With just a couple guest appearances adding to his own performances, Lutomski found balance in exploration, and the resonance of “Wind at the Gated Grove,” the birdsong in “First Drops in the Cup of Dawn” and the ethereal presence in the soft, rolling nod of finale “Where the Meadows Dream Beside the Sea” all fed into an impression that one might call “striking” were it not so gently, carefully handled. Climb the Antlers and Reach the Stars felt like an offering in the truest sense of the word, and brought soulful purpose to its experimentalism, giving comfort to the listener in its willful contradiction of anxiety; not so much ‘for our times’ as beyond time. It established Lutomski as a noteworthy auteur and creator, and engaged with the organic on every level in a way unforced, loving and hypnotic. Everything was exactly as it needed to be.
There was so much happening at times throughout the 40 minutes of Axexan, Espreitan that it could be hard to keep up with, but in fusing together heavy psych and classic, progressive heavy rock with their native Galician folk influences, Moura found a sound unlike anything else I heard this year. It was such a palpable sense of sharing; an expression of the internalized value of culture. Even as “Romance de Andrés d’Orois” seemed at its outset to float in the antigravity space created by the prior intro “Alborada do alén,” it did so with humanity and made itself memorable in its arrangement and across-language-barrier total-dialogue, conversing with itself, history, the future and the listener. It could be traditionally heavy, as in the scorcher guitar work in the second half of “Pelerinaxes” or the closing stretch of “Lúa vermella,” but showed in songs like “Encontro cunha moura fiadeira en Dormeá” that Axexan, Espreitan was about more than where a given linear build was going, but about the sights and meetings along the way. On just their second full-length, Moura displayed a rare mastery of their approach and made each piece feel like a celebration of something beyond themselves and their songwriting, whether that was the relatively minimal “Cantar do liño” or the kosmiche thrust of “Baile do dentón.” Could be head-spinning, could be tranquil, but whatever else it was at any given time, it was wonderfully complete and engrossing.
ColourHaze are not only one of the most pivotal and influential European bands of their generation — heavy psychedelic rock would not exist as it does without them, period — but even more importantly, they’re a group who have refused stagnation outright. Sacred was the Munich-based four-piece’s 14th album, and it presented a shift in the dynamic in marking the studio introduction of bassist Mario Oberpucher — taking on the role held for more than two decades by Philip Rasthofer in the rhythm section alongside drummer Manfred Merwald — and found Stefan Koglek‘s guitar playing off Jan Faszbender‘s keys and synth in ever more engaging ways. It wasn’t just about stepping back and giving space to one instrument or the other anymore, but about how they can converse together and bolster the songs, push each other as players and bring the best out of each other to the ultimate strengthening of the record itself. Like so much of what Colour Haze do, this is organic; a natural process happening over time, and to be sure, their next album will likewise be an outgrowth of what they accomplished in Sacred, their songs so undeniably their own even as they explore new reaches and ideas. A bit of lyrical cynicism in “Avatar,” “See the Fools” and the defiant stance of “Goldmine” spoke to the moment of their creation, but Sacred provided its own best argument for love over hate, and perhaps the highest compliment that can be paid is that it’s a record worthy of the band that made it.
This was my album of the year for most of the year, and there’s a big part of me that continues to think of it on those terms. The eighth full-length from San Diego solo industrialist Tristan Shone — who brought Ecstatic Vision‘s Doug Sabolick on tour as guitarist — branched out melodically from 2018’s Beastland (discussed here), which was his first for Relapse, which could be heard likewise in his own not-just-harsh vocals and in the use of melodic programmed synth as well on a song like “Maiden Star.” At the same time, an uptick in production value gave cinematic presence to the storytelling of “Drone Mounting Dread,” “Centurion” and the concluding title-track (among others), and a corresponding increase in engagement with non-synth instrumentation — needing a guitarist was not a coincidence — brought weighted bass to “Centurion” and live drums to “Misery,” further broadening the scope of what was an examination of pandemic-era life in America, the dystopian nature of the US circa 2021 presented as the backdrop upon which the songs took place; see “Incinerator,” the electronic-noise overload of “Blacksmith” and even the masculine voice through which the Portishead cover “Glorybox” was manifest. Shone reaffirmed his place miles ahead of almost the entire sphere of industrial metal, and gave the everything-is-whole-planet-death-and-it’s-our-fault moment the cruel sense of tragedy it deserved, mourning chaos even as it acknowledged a place for love within it.
In the name of all that is good and right in the universe, have you heard this album? With it, Caustic Casanova — bassist/vocalist Francis Beringer (who wrote the best lyrics I read all year, hands down), drummer/vocalist Stefanie Zænker, and guitarists Andrew Yonki and Jake Kimberley — outdid themselves, the pandemic and the legacy of Theodore Roosevelt in five songs and 45 minutes of unflinchingly perfect quirk. Are they punk, noise, prog, stoner rock, post-hardcore or sludge? Yes. Also no. Also a little bit, maybe? I’ve been through Glass Enclosed Nerve Center — the band’s fifth album and first written as a four-piece — a bother-my-family-with-it amount of times, and I’m still up in the air on where it rests categorically, and perhaps that’s in part because the one thing it did not do was rest. Even in the multiple stages of 22-minute finale “Bull Moose Against the Sky,” which I promise you is the only reason I’m even doing a Song of the Year part of this post below, their moves were considered and unpredictable in kind, and whether it was the weight of “Lodestar,” the sunrise at the outset of “Anubis Rex,” the yes-it’s-been-like-that mania of “A Bailar Con Cuarentena” or the hypnotic-plus-dizzying then massive “Shrouded Coconut” on side A, Caustic Casanova were able to pivot from one part the next while making hooks out of single measures and crafting an outing that went beyond even the sundry weirdo triumphs they’ve had to this point in their tenure. A special record on every level one might want to consider, and quintessentially the band’s own.
When Salt Lake City, Utah’s SubRosa ended after releasing the best album of 2016 in For This We Fought the Battle of Ages (review here), the heart ached for the expressive artistry and distinct style that was snuffed out when it seemed the band still had so much more to say. The emergence of The Otolith, with former SubRosa members Sarah Pendleton and Kim Cordray (violin and vocals, both), Levi Hanna (now guitar/vocals) and Andy Patterson (drums, percussion, production, mixing, mastering) — four-fifths of the band that was — and their presentation of the debut album Folium Limina, has been the flower growing on top of that grave. Together with bassist/vocalist Matt Brotherton, the atmospheric, almost-gothic-but-too-in-the-real-world, gracefully flowing post-metallic five-piece didn’t so much pick up where the last band left off as use that ending to mark a new beginning of their own exploration. Increased use of sampling (at least one big one in the penultimate “Bone Dust”), keyboard/synth, and deeper arrangements of harsh/clean vocals on songs like “Ekpyrotic” and the finale “Dispirit” diverged in intent and the full album maintained a mournful, critical, intelligent-but-emotive poetic voice that carried across the entirety of its consuming 63 minutes. This made Folium Limina of a kind with its high desert/mountainous, surrounded-by-dangerous-fanatics-and-duly-frightened-and-defiant predecessor, but even better, it declared The Otolith as ready to step out of that significant shadow and flourish as something new.
The third of three was perhaps a definitive statement of who King Buffalo are as a group. The Rochester, New York, trio of guitarist/vocalist/synthesist Sean McVay, bassist/synthesist Dan Reynolds and drummer Scott Donaldson released two albums in 2021 in The Burden of Restlessness (review here), which was my pick for last year’s album of the year, and the also-in-the-top-five, cave-recorded Acheron (review here), the seven-song Regenerator, as their fifth full-length overall, faced the biggest challenge of any of their studio work to-date in completing their unofficial pandemic-era trilogy of LPs written during covid-19 lockdown in 2020. Regenerator not only rose to the occasion, but deftly served as keystone for the series in tying together the progressive psychedelia of The Burden of Restlessness with the exploratory, speaking-to-the-natural-world communion of Acheron. Whether it was the opener/longest track (immediate points) “Regenerator” itself, the tight push of tension in “Mercury” or the later melodic fleshing out of “Mammoth” and “Avalon,” or the all-embracing conclusion in “Firmament,” Regenerator tied together the two albums before and stepped forward as something new, finding an ideal balance for the band’s increasingly multifaceted approach without sacrificing songcraft in its individual pieces. These last two years have seen King Buffalo ascend among the foremost purveyors of heavy psychedelia, and the genre is stronger for the efforts they’ve made to reshape it in their image. The truly horrifying part is I’m convinced their best work is still ahead of them. Amid trauma and cynicism, King Buffalo made it okay to feel optimistic.
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2022 Album of the Year
1. Elder, Innate Passage
Released by Stickman Records & Armageddon Shop. Reviewed Nov. 17.
Sometimes the obvious answer is the answer. In the last decade, the first-Massachusetts-then-mostly-Berlin, first-trio-then-four-piece Elder became a defining presence in progressive heavy psychedelic rock, with 2011’s Dead Roots Stirring (review here), 2012’s Spires Burn/Release EP (review here), 2015’s landmark among landmarksLore (review here), and 2017’s Reflections of a Floating World (review here) each taking forward steps to create a sound influential even as it seemed to be constantly coming to fruition. This is their best album, no, this is their best album. In this decade, they stand astride their aesthetic as masters. As the follow-up to 2020’s moment-of-transition Omens (review here), the five-track Innate Passage is an arrival; a vision of Elder as mature and still evolving, veterans ahead of their time while most of their generation are upstarts, and on a wavelength of their own despite the increasing pervasiveness of their predominance. The flexibility of their songwriting, and the ability of founding guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Nick DiSalvo — joined by founding bassist Jack Donovan, guitarist/keyboardist Mike Risberg and drummer Georg Edert — to marry parts together that would in other hands be too disparate to connect have never been so resonant, and in cuts like “Endless Return,” “Catastasis,” and the 14-minute two-parter “Merged in Dreams/Ne Plus Ultra,” Elder harvested their most accomplished melodicism to-date (guest vocal harmonies from Samavayo‘s Behrang Alavi and the production of Linda Dag at Clouds Hill Studio were both notable contributions to this aspect of the work), while simultaneously keeping mindful of the dynamic potential of the songs to be tonally and rhythmically heavy, as in “Coalescence” the otherworldly finisher “The Purpose” and indeed, impact-minded stretches in “Catastasis” and “Merged in Dreams/Ne Plus Ultra.” This emphasis felt daring from a band who had purposefully moved away from lumbering-style riffing a decade earlier, and the seamlessness with which Elder integrated these ideas into their proggy aural macrocosm helped make Innate Passage a standout even in their unflinchingly forward-moving discography, even as the title itself reminded that this too is likely only another step along their path. Off they go again, ascendant.
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The Top 60 Albums of 2022: Honorable Mention
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Strap yourselves in, kids. We’re not done yet.
The year wouldn’t have been as sonically stellar as it was without:
40 Watt Sun, 10,000 Years, Aawks, Abrams, Alunah, Ararat, Artifacts & Uranium, Basalt Shrine, Behold! The Monolith, Black Capricorn, Black Lung, Black Space Riders, Blue Heron, Boris, Brujas del Sol, Burning Sister, Cachemira, Candlemass, Carcaño, Carson, Cave In, Chat Pile, Church of the Sea, Circle of Sighs, Come to Grief, Crippled Black Phoenix, Crowbar, Michael Rudolph Cummings, Deathwhite, Deer Creek, Desert Wave, Deville, Dirty Streets, DRÖÖG, DUNDDW, Dune Sea, Dystopian Future Movies, Early Moods, Electric Mountain, El Perro, E-L-R, End Boss, Evert Snyman & The Aviary, Firebreather, Foot, Fostermother, Freebase Hyperspace, FutureProjektor, Fuzz Sagrado, Garden of Worm, Gaupa, Gnome, Goatriders, Greenbeard, Half Gramme of Soma, Horehound, Humanotone, Ian Blurton’s Future Now, James Romig/Mike Scheidt, Jawless, Kadavermarch, Kaleidobolt, Kanaan, Kandodo4, Kryptograf, LáGoon, Erik Larson, Les Lekin, Lydsyn, Madness, Mammoth Volume, Melt Motif, Mezzoa, MIGHT, Mirror Queen, Mother of Graves, Motorpsycho, Mount Desert, Mount Saturn, My Diligence, Mythic Sunship, Nadja, Ode and Elegy, Oktas, Olson Van Cleef and Williams, Ol’ Time Moonshine, Onségen Ensemble, Orango, Øresund Space Collective, Papir, Paralyzed, People of the Black Circle, Pia Isa, Pike vs. the Automaton, Psychlona, Red Eye, Reverend Mother, Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol, Rocky Mtn Roller, Ruby the Hatchet, Russian Circles, Seremonia, Sergeant Thunderhoof, Sergio Ch., Seven Nines and Tens, Sleepwulf, Slowenya, Soldat Hans, Somnus Throne, Sonja, Sons of Arrakis, Steak, Știu Nu Știu, Sula Bassana, Sum of R, Supplemental Pills, Swamp Lantern, The Swell Fellas, Tekarra, T.G. Olson, Trace Amount, Uncle Woe, Vitskär Süden, Voivod, Eric Wagner, Weddings, Wild Rocket, and Yatra.
Notes:
Some of these, in comparison to the year-end poll, are more popular picks than others. As always, part of what I base my list on is my own listening habits, so if my list is different than yours, well, I’m a different person. Mystery solved.
That said, I acknowledge that especially at post-time, this is preliminary and I am — at times overwhelmingly — fallible. While I keep a running list all year of standout records, based on my preferences as well as what I perceive as critical value separate from them within a given subset of styles, and despite the fact that I’ve gone back through the more than 300 releases that have been reviewed (so far) in 2022 to make this list, it’s possible and indeed likely I’ve forgotten somebody, left someone out who deserves to be here.
If that’s the case — and based on just about every other year I’ve done this, it very likely is — I ask again that you please be kind in pointing out whatever that may be and whyever you believe it should be where it isn’t. Maybe your pick for the best release of 2022 isn’t here at all. Instead of calling me a dipshit and an idiot, let’s try to celebrate the fact that in a single heavy underground, there can be such a diverse range of opinions and different artists and styles to appreciate, and how fortunate we are to be alive at a time when so much incredible art is available at the click of a make-believe button. Also indoor plumbing and penicillin, but that’s a different conversation entirely and best left to another day.
Last year, I limited honorable mentions to 60 to correspond with the numbered list. I’ve got over 115 bands listed above, and if in combination with the top 60 itself you find that to be an insurmountable swath of releases, good. That’s the point. We are surrounded by beauty every day. It can be difficult to keep this in mind, but there is little that’s more important than knowing that. I thank you for your attention and hope, as ever, that you find something in all of this that speaks to you.
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Debut Album of the Year 2022
The Otolith, Folium Limina
Other notable debuts (somewhat alphabetically):
AAWKS, Heavy on the Cosmic
Arð, Take Up My Bones
Basalt Shrine, From Fiery Tongues
Burning Sister, Mile High Downer Rock
Burn the Sun, Le Roi Soleil
Chat Pile, God’s Country
Church of the Sea, Odalisque
Come to Grief, When the World Dies
DRÖÖG, DRÖÖG
Early Moods, Early Moods
Edena Gardens, Edena Gardens
El Perro, Hair Of…
Elk Witch, Beyond the Mountain
End Boss, They Seek My Head
Faetooth, Remnants of the Vessel
Freebase Hyperspace, Planet High
The Gray Goo, 1943
High Noon Kahuna, Killing Spree
Jawless, Warrizer
Kadavermarch, Into Oblivion
Kamru, Kosmic Attunement to the Malevolent Rites of the Universe
Les Nadie, Destierro y Siembra
Limousine Beach, Limousine Beach
London Odense Ensemble, Jaiyede Sessions Vol. 1
Lydsyn, Lydsyn
Magnatar, Crushed
Maunra, Monarch
Mother Bear, Zamonian Occultism
Mount Desert, Fear the Heart
Mount Saturn, O Great Moon
Mythosphere, Pathological
Ode and Elegy, Ode and Elegy
Oktas, The Finite and the Infinite
People of the Black Circle, People of the Black Circle
Pia Isa, Distorted Chants
Reverend Mother, Damned Blessing
Rocky Mtn Roller, Haywire
Room 101, Sightless
SAPNA, SAPNA
Sky Pig, It Thrives in Darkness
Sonja, Loud Arriver
Sons of Arrakis, Volume 1
Supersonic Blues, It’s Heavy
Supplemental Pills, Volume 1
Swamp Lantern, The Lord is With Us
UWUW, UWUW
Venus Principle, Stand in Your Light
VoidOath, Ascension Beyond Kokytus
Voidward, Voidward
Yawn, Materialism
Notes:
I struggled this year with what counted as a debut album. As noted above, four-fifths of The Otolith were in a previous band together. Is this a first record or a continuing collaboration? What about Mythosphere, born out of Beelzefuzz? Come to Grief? Edena Gardens? Lydsyn? Ultimately I decided to err on the side of inclusion, as you can see, and count it all. I will not apologize for that.
The Otolith’s Folium Limina stood alone as the year’s best debut, but other personal favorites here were Sky Pig, Mythosphere, Early Moods (who are among the brightest hopes for traditional doom in my mind), Supersonic Blues, Mount Saturn, End Boss, Les Nadie and UWUW, and Edena Gardens — if you’re looking for recommendations of places to start before diving into the weedian mischief of The Gray Goo. Some of these got more hype than others, and there’s a fairly broad range of styles represented, but even as grim as the material on this list gets, these acts and artists are united by the potential they represent for pushing heavy music forward, covering new ground and exploring new ideas as only fresh perspectives can.
At the beginning, I asked you to note how many second LPs were included in the overall list, and it did feel like a lot to me. With the quality in this list as well, I would not expect that to change in the next few years to come, as generational turnover and post-covid reshuffling continue to shake out.
Short Release of the Year 2022
Domkraft & Slomatics, Ascend/Descend Split LP
Other notable EPs, Splits, Demos, etc.:
Ascia, III
Black Math Horseman, Black Math Horseman
Blasting Rod, Mirror Moon Ascending
Bloodshot Buffalo, Light EP
Captain Caravan & Kaiser, Turned to Stone Ch. 6
The Cimmerian, Thrice Majestic
Elephant Tree, Track by Track
Fatso Jetson & All Souls, Live From Total Annihilation
The Freeks, Miles of Blues
Lammping, Stars We Lost
Lightrain, AER
Naxatras, Live in Athens
Pyre Fyre, Rinky Dink City/Slow Cookin’
Red Mesa, Forest Cathedral
Ruby the Hatchet, Live at Earthquaker
Sâver & Frøkedal, Split
Saturna & Electric Monolith, Turned to Stone Ch. 4: Higher Selves
Slugg, Yonder
Temple Fang, Jerusalem/The Bridge
Torpedo Torpedo, The Kuiper Belt Mantras
Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships, Consensus Trance
Warpstormer, Here Comes Hell
Notes:
First I’ll say that of all the lists in this super-listy post, this is the least complete. I don’t know if I just sucked at keeping track of EPs this year, but if you’ve got more you’d like to add to the above, I’m all ears.
Slomatics and Domkraft took the top spot early. Yes, I did the liner notes for that release, but between Majestic Mountain’s presentation of the vinyl, the bands covering each other and their own original work, it was too substantial to not be considered as it is. Temple Fang were a late contender, and I’ll note the work of Torpedo Torpedo and Lightrain, who are newer acts of marked potential as well. I look forward to debut albums from both of them, if not in 2023 then hopefully 2024.
Some live stuff from Elephant Tree, Naxatras, Ruby the Hatchet and Fatso Jetson/All Souls. The always-welcome Lammping. Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships continuing their intriguing progression, Slugg with a single-track statement, Ascia marching forth, Red Mesa branching out — there’s a lot here to dig, even if it’s not everything. Note two of Ripple’s ongoing Turned to Stone split series being included, and the Sâver and Frøkedal split, which was among the year’s boldest outings while still relatively brief. That in itself is a thing to be honored.
Song of the Year 2022
Caustic Casanova, “Bull Moose Against the Sky”
Tracks from Conan, UWUW, Chat Pile, Temple Fang, CB3, The Otolith, Elder, King Buffalo, Ruby the Hatchet, Melt Motif, Forlesen, My Sleeping Karma, Author & Punisher, Church of the Cosmic Skull, -(16)-, River Flows Reverse, Telekinetic Yeti, Wo Fat, on and on and on, were also considered.
But they were considered after the fact of Caustic Casanova’s “Bull Moose Against the Sky.”
The 22-minute side-B-devouring epic tale — multiple speakers and Greek chorus included — spanned progressive Americana, heavy rock and roll, punk, black metal blastbeats, disco keyboards, and historical narrative with nigh-on-impossible fluidity, mining cohesion from confusion in a singular achievement and at a level of execution that most bands simply never touch. Though its purposes were different, I rate “Bull Moose Against the Sky” of a quality that stands alongside the likes of grand declarations like Ancestors’ “First Light” and YOB’s “Marrow” as the kind of song that happens only a couple times in a decade. As I said above, it is the reason I’m including a song-of-the-year section in this post at all. If you have not heard it, I tell you with all sincerity that you’re missing something special.
Looking Ahead to 2023
With the eternal caveat that release plans change and that production delays in vinyl and label release schedules are fluid, malleable things, here are some of the artists I’m watching for in the New Year to come, presented in some semblance of alphabetically:
Ahab, Ahrbeka, Aktopasa, The Awesome Machine, Azken Auzi, Benthic Realm, Big Scenic Nowhere, Bismut, Black Rainbows, Blackwülf, Carlton Melton, Cavern Deep, Child, Church of Misery, Clouds Taste Satanic, Dead Shrine, Dirge, Dozer, Draken, Endtime & Cosmic Reaper, Enslaved, Ethyl Ether, Fatso Jetson & Dali’s Llama, Fever Ray, Fuzz Sagrado, The Golden Grass, Gozu, Graveyard, Greenleaf, Green Lung, Gypsy Chief Goliath & End of Age, Hail the Void, High Leaf, High Priestess, Hippie Death Cult, Iron Void, Isaak, Jack Harlon and the Dead Crows, Katatonia, Kind, Kollapse, KVLL, Lord Mountain, Love Gang, The Machine, Mansion, Mars Red Sky, Mathew’s Hidden Museum, Merlock, Monarch, The Necromancers, Negative Reaction, No Man’s Valley, Obelyskkh, The Obsessed, Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, Polymoon, Raum Kingdom, REZN, Ridge, Rotor, Ruff Majik, Sacri Monti, Saint Karloff, Seum, Shadow Witch, Siena Root, Solemn Lament, Stinking Lizaveta, Stöner, Super Pink Moon, Tidal Wave, Tranquonauts, Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships, Westing, Witch, Witch Ripper, Witchthroat Serpent, Yawning Balch, Yawning Man, Zeup
Thank you
A bit about what’s gone into making this post: In the ‘Notes’ doc by which I organize the bulk of the part of my life that deals with music, I have sections devoted to the various best-of categories you see above. These are always in progress. I began to keep track of 2022 releases in 2021, just as I’ve begun already to consider what’s in store for 2023 (and beyond). It does not stop.
Because of this, I cannot give you an accurate count of the hours involved in this project, but as it always seems to be, it is the biggest post I’ve written this year — over 8,000 words as of this paragraph, the most time-consuming, and second in importance in my mind only to the results of the year-end poll still to come. On this actual writing, I’ve spent the last week involved in prep work, from early mornings that start at four on my laptop and end when my son (now five) wakes up and immediately demands to watch Sesame Street, to frantically swiping words into my phone in between the sundry tasks of my ensuing day.
I’m not telling you this to brag — in fact I don’t think it’s anything to brag about — but to make the point that without your support, none of this would be worth my time. Year in and year out, I thank you for reading, and the longer I run this site, the more continually astounded I am that anybody beyond myself gives a crap about what goes on here. From the bottom of my heart to the farthest reaches of Hawkwindian space, I am grateful, humbled, and appreciative to my core. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And thanks to my wife, The Patient Mrs., through whose support and love all things are possible.
I’m gonna try my damnedest to take tomorrow off, but rest assured, there’s more to come. Here’s to the next round, and thanks again for reading.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 8th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
If you’ve been paying attention to Sun Voyager‘s steady flux of social media whatnot around the recent release of their self-titled album (review here) through Ripple Music, you’ve probably seen them mention in passing that they’ve been working with “local shredder” Christian Lopez (seen below at their Halloween gig) for shows over the last couple months. Savvy as they are, it seems likely this was intended to focus the conversation not on what is actually a pretty significant shift in their lineup, replacing now-former frontman Carlos Francisco, with someone who hasn’t, you know, been in the band for the past decade with bassist/sometimes-vocalist Stefan Mersch and drummer Kyle Beach, but on the release of their finest work to-date, even if the personnel shift means it’s also the end of an era for them and whatever they do next will invariably be affected by the change.
It should be noted that’s not necessarily a bad thing, and given their work up to this point in the studio and on stage, I have no trouble trusting Sun Voyager on picking a new guitarist and singer. They’re not a band who does things haphazardly — see also: their waiting to get distance from the album release before making this change official — and if the end result here is they can do more shows, explore different approaches and styles and ultimately come out of it a stronger group, well, that’s the whole idea, I guess.
I’m not going to take away from what the band accomplished with Francisco at all, and neither should anyone else. I don’t know the full situation here, but sometimes these things happen and all you can do is wish everyone the best going forward. Sun Voyager might want to film a live video or something like that in the next month or so, just to let their audience have some idea of where they’re at as a unit when it comes to live performances (at least I know I’m curious), but there’s time for these things yet.
For now, here’s them marking the occasion:
Sun Voyager welcomes bona fide shredlord Christian Lopez into its ranks. He’s been ripping with us for a couple months, nailing the sound, and has our infinite gratitude for embarking on this voyage. He does great work with guitars as @calivibescustom too. Help us give him a warm welcome.
[Click play above to stream Sun Voyager’s Sun Voyager in its entirety. Album is out tomorrow, Oct. 7, on Ripple Music.]
A decade after they started writing songs for their first demo, New York State cosmic grunge rockers Sun Voyager offer their self-titled second album as their first outing through Ripple Music. Momentum is the key. Where their 2018 full-length debut, Seismic Vibes (review here), launched at a medium pace before hitting the space-rock sprint of “Open Road” and “Caves of Steel,” Sun Voyager both picks up where that album left off, starting with a jam on Seismic Vibes finale “God is Dead” which, as “God is Dead II,” introduces new melodic complexity to the immediately far-outbound progression of swirling guitars and, crucially, rhythmic thrust.
The returning-perhaps-for-the-last-time trio of guitarist/vocalist Carlos Francisco — his role has of late been filled by Christian Lopez, and indications are that will continue, though the situation seems fluid and no grand announcements have been made — bassist/keyboardist/backing vocalist Stefan Mersch, and drummer Kyle Beach offer radical thrust throughout the new seven-song/32-minute, basic-tracks-recorded-live blazer, giving Philly’s Ecstatic Vision a run for their alien currency in terms of building and maintaining a throughline of motion in and between their pieces, while still allowing each enough breadth to make an individual impression. That is, “Run for Your Life,” which follows “God is Dead II,” is fast, but that doesn’t mean it’s immediately forgettable, and the same holds true for the effects-soaked “Some Strange,” which is one of just two cuts to pass the five-minute mark; the other is the jammy slowdown moment “Feeling Alright” on side B.
It’s not that Sun Voyager — I’m having a hard time not calling the album Sunny V, so I hope you’ll please bear with me if one slips through — isn’t dynamic or doesn’t let you breathe. Both “Some Strange” and “Feeling Alright” have comedown parts, the former in the bass-led groove that builds off the final chorus and rides out the last minute and a half or so, and the latter in a midsection build where Beach‘s drums hold the tension in such a way as to reassure that the Nebula-style wah blastoff will return before the finish, which, like atomic clockwork, it does.
But the prevailing vibe throughout is that Sunny V — whoops — is a ripper, and having “Rip the Sky” as a centerpiece feeds into that in a manner that feels like a purposeful turn from some of the mellower psychedelia Sun Voyager have offered in the past, either on the first album or 2015’s Lazy Daze EP (review here), splits with Greasy Hearts (discussed here) and The Mad Doctors (review here) in 2014 and 2016, respectively, and the 2013 demo Mecca (review here) that helped establish their penchant for v-i-b-e vibes and lysergic push alike.
Could be the times, could just be this batch of tunes, or it could be the band sat down and had a formal-dress meeting and were like, “we’re gonna play faster songs now and it’s gonna have more keys and be more freaked out and blah blah blah time to make new t-shirts,” I don’t know, and I suppose it doesn’t really matter, but it’s true nonetheless. And, as they handled some of the recording themselves amid the process of building their own studio — basic tracks were done live with Paul Ritchie at New Future in Belmar, NJ, with vocals, guitar overdubs, keys, etc., added at their place after; crucially, the band mixed themselves, and that’s not a negative — Sun Voyager sizzles with intent whether a given part of a given song is fast or slow, but at no point sounds overwrought, whether it’s the all-go sunshine guitar and organ heavy psych in the back half of “Rip the Sky” or the more low-end-minded, dripping-wet boogie of “To Hell We Ride,” the bikers-in-space spirit and it’s-about-freedom-baby guitar solo of which feel definitive.
That they’re moving toward self-recording is interesting in terms of speculating what they might do on an eventual third LP — not to mention the (potentially permanent) lineup change — but their doing so is already playing a significant role here. Whether it’s “Feeling Alright” reaching the top of Olympus Mons with its melodic apex in the second half or closer “The Vision” building off the earlier shoves in “Run for You” and “Some Strange” to set up a broader nod in its still-a-wash finish for the album, the chief accomplishment of Sun Voyager circa Sun Voyager is to be uptempo without sounding like they’re in a rush. The way “The Vision” seems to ooze and bounce reminds a bit of Slift and the radiated punk of Misfits‘ “Hybrid Moments” in its turning declension, but that goes back to the idea of momentum and the physicality of the music. Consider even the titles — “Run for You,” “Rip the Sky,” “To Hell We Ride” — that put the verbs right out there. Action words for action psych.
Like the rest of everybody’s everything, there’s no real telling what the future might hold for Sun Voyager, but if their self-titled demonstrates anything at all it’s that the band is capable of maintaining control of what they’re doing even when working at maximum flux. The synthy/maybe-theremin twists in “Some Strange” and the organ-born realization of “Feeling Alright” are by no means the only examples of the trio/sometimes-four-piece — Seth Applebaum of Ghost Funk Orchestra has sat in live on multiple occasions and contributes photography here, so is involved — using the cohesive underpinning of that live-tracked guitar, bass and drums as a springboard into more expansive fare, and the fact that they’re able to hit that balance in a way that sounds so natural whether a given part is fast or slow(er), raucous or subdued, is an analog for their larger creative growth. They may be holding onto the steering apparatus of a flying saucer careening through an ion storm, but they’re holding on. That feels an awful lot like burgeoning maturity.
Suits them, if these songs are anything to go by. They don’t stick around here long enough to really test attention spans, but neither is Sunny V — there I go again — a flash and gone. Rather, even after “The Vision” has landed like a NASA satellite crashing into an asteroid, the resonance of the guitar, vocal echo and even the overarching forward urgency remains. This is a credit to craft as well as performance, and will only continue to serve Sun Voyager well after this release as they step out once more into the grand unknown. In the meantime, they are a boon to East Coast US psychedelic heavy both for the rawness of their aural amplitude and the expanses they use that to foster, and this is their finest work to-date.
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 1st, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Congratulations to Sun Voyager, who are about to release one of 2022’s best records in the form of their self-titled label debut for Ripple Music. The awaited follow-up to 2018’s Seismic Vibes (review here) will be out on Oct. 7 and while I don’t see a preorder link yet, I’ll tell you flat out that I’ve gotten to know this record pretty well and if you’ve got a bell, it’s about to be rung. The track “Some Strange” — about drugs — is the first streaming audio to come from the LP and it arrives with the announcement of the Ripple signing and the album info and release date.
I’m gonna go ahead and put in my request to stream the entire thing — how’s Oct. 5 work for you? — and I’ll hopefully have more about it before then too, but it’s some of the best heavy psych I’ve heard on the Eastern Seaboard in a while. Like, maybe in the four years since their last one. So keep an eye out.
Fresh off the PR wire this morning:
New-York psych rockers SUN VOYAGER to issue new album this fall on Ripple Music ; stream first track “Some Strange” now!
New-York garage psych trio SUN VOYAGER announce the release of their self-titled sophomore album this October 7th on Ripple Music. Listen to the first single “Some Strange” now!
Ripple Music is proud to be working with New York-based heavy psych rockers SUN VOYAGER on releasing the follow-up to their revered 2018 debut ‘Seismic Vibes’. Fusing early metal influences from the comedown era with kraut jam-inspired stoner rock freakouts, you can expect plenty of groove and loads of fuzz. For fans of Kyuss desert grooves, expansive garage psych à la King Gizzard and Oh Sees, and Earthless wah-driven explorations.
About their new self-titled album, SUN VOYAGER says: “This album was one truly written as a band. We spent two years pretty much just getting together, seeing what would happen, and most of the music is pulled from wild 15-minute long voice memo jams where the three of us found the pocket and you should have been there. The lyrical themes range from impending doom to kicking ass to falling in love.” About the new single, they add: “Some Strange was the first song we wrote for the album. Proving the theory that all ya need is one big riff. This song takes you into the unrelenting chaos of the witching hour. Experiences one only encounters wandering the streets throughout the night in search of the next thrill. There’s always a new high to catch right around the corner, come on, let’s ride.”
SUN VOYAGER – New album “Sun Voyager” Out October 7th on Ripple Music
TRACKLIST: 1. God Is Dead 2. Run For You 3. Some Strange 4. Rip The Sky 5. To Hell We Ride 6. Feeling Alright 7. The Vision
