Iron Blanket to Release Astral Wanderer April 5 on Sound Effect & Copper Feast Records

Posted in Whathaveyou on February 23rd, 2024 by JJ Koczan

iron blanket

The occasion bringing together Copper Feast Records in the UK and Sound Effect Records in Greece to collaborate for the first time is the April 5 release of Iron Blanket‘s debut full-length, Astral Wanderer. And fair enough for the charged heavy psychedelia thus far on display in the album’s three streaming tracks, the opening duo “Evil Mind” and “Mystic Goddess” portraying a style of grounded riffing that kicks-in-the-ass some of Uncle Acid‘s garage groove while vocalist Johann Ingemar reimagines Sabbath-era Ozzy reach through a delivery that you could just as easily say comes from folk as prog and which is likened in the release info to Mars Volta. So yes, vibrato.

A later but still side A cut, “Kookaburra Nightmare” is more relaxed in tempo and broader in its soundscaping, taking some of the dreamy impulses hinted at in “Evil Mind” and “Mystic Goddess” and shifting the balance between elements in the crafting. Much of the info below came from Copper Feast‘s Bandcamp, but some I took from the social media announcement as well and kind of repositioned it to make sense all as one thing. The bottom line remains the same: something new for you to dig if you can dig it, and here’s hoping.

Preorders start Feb. 23, which is apparently today because it’s no longer July 2005 for some silly reason.

Info:

iron blanket astral wanderer

Iron Blanket – Astral Wanderer – Sound Effect & Copper Feast Records

Blending 70’s inspired psychedelic grooviness with unmistakable driving stoner rock riffs and Mars Volta-esque vocals, Sydney’s Iron Blanket are a band like no other right now.

Their much heralded live show that has drawn them new fans at every venue they’ve played down under is now translated to their debut LP, Astral Wanderer.

Released through UK-based Copper Feast Records and legendary Athens’ label Sound Effect Records, Astral Wanderer is slated for full release on 5th April.

Says Copper Feast: “Please join me in welcoming one of Sydney’s worst kept secrets Iron Blanket to Copper Feast Records! We’ve got the pleasure to be co-releasing this unmissable slab of wax alongside legendary Athens-based label Sound Effect Records. We’ll be dropping presales this Friday, February 23rd, for the two limited edition variants.”

The inaugural co-release between these much loved labels will also bring two limited edition vinyl editions, one on classic black and the other on blood red vinyl. Numbers as follows:

Classic Black – 250 worldwide
Blood Red – 150 worldwide

Tracklisting:
1. Evil Mind
2. Mystic Goddess
3. Witch’s Kiss
4. Kookaburra Nightmare
5. Astral Wanderer
6. Iron Blanket
7. Visions of the End
8. Tongue of Time

releases April 5, 2024

All songs written and performed by Iron Blanket
Recorded and mixed by Phan Sharif at Parliament Studios
Mastered by Darren Ziesing

Iron Blanket is:
Mark Lonsdale – Guitar
Nick Matthews – Drums
Tom Withford – Guitar
Charles Eggleston – Bass
Johann Ingemar – Vocals

https://www.facebook.com/Ironblanket
https://www.instagram.com/iron_blanket/
https://ironblanket.bandcamp.com/

http://www.facebook.com/SoundEffectRecords
https://soundeffectrecords.bandcamp.com
https://www.soundeffect-records.gr/

http://facebook.com/copperfeastrecords
http://instagram.com/copperfeastrecords
https://copperfeastrecords.bandcamp.com/
http://www.copperfeastrecords.com/

Iron Blanket, Astral Wanderer (2024)

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Quarterly Review: Samsara Blues Experiment, Restless Spirit, Stepmother, Pilot Voyager, Northern Liberties, Nyxora, Old Goat Smoke, Van Groover, Hotel Lucifer, Megalith Levitation

Posted in Reviews on October 3rd, 2023 by JJ Koczan

the obelisk winter quarterly review

I broke my wife’s phone yesterday. What a mess. I was cleaning the counter or doing some shit and our spare butter dish — as opposed to the regular one, which was already out — was sitting near the edge of the top of the microwave, from where I bumped it so that the ceramic corner apparently went right through the screen hard enough that in addition to shattering it there’s a big black spot and yes a new phone has been ordered. In the meantime, she can’t type the letter ‘e’ and, well, I have to hand it to Le Creuset on the sturdy construction of their butter dishes. Technology succumbing to the brute force of a harder blunt object and gravity.

Certainly do wish that hadn’t happened. What does it have to do with riffs, or music at all, or really anything? Who cares. I’m about to review 10 records today. I can talk about whatever the hell I want.

Quarterly Review #11-20:

Samsara Blues Experiment, Rock Hard in Concert

samsara blues experiment rock hard in concert

10 years after releasing 2013’s Live at Rockpalast (review here), and nearly three after they put out their 2021 swansong studio LP, End of Forever (review here), German heavy psych rockers Samsara Blues Experiment offer the 80-minute live 2LP Rock Hard in Concert, and while it’s not their first live album, it gives a broader overview of the band from front to (apparent) back during their time together, as songs opening salvo of “Center of the Sun,” “Singata Mystic Queen” and “For the Lost Souls” from 2010’s debut, Long-Distance Trip (review here), melds in the set with “One With the Universe” and “Vipassana” from 2017’s One With the Universe (review here), End of Forever‘s own title-track and “Massive Passive,” and “Hangin’ on a Wire” from 2013’s Waiting for the Flood (review here) to become a fan-piece that nonetheless engages in sound and presentation. If you were there, it’s likely must-own. For the rest of us, who maybe did or didn’t see the band during their time — glad to say I did — it’s a reminder of how immersive they could be, especially in longer-form material, and how much influence they had on the last decade-plus of jam-based heavy psych in Europe. Recorded in 2018 at a special gig for Germany’s Rock Hard magazine, Rock Hard in Concert follows behind 2022’s Demos & Rarities (review here) in the band’s posthumous catalog, and it may or may not be Samsara Blues Experiment‘s final non-reissue release. Whether it is or not, it summarizes their run gorgeously and puts a light on the chemistry of the trio that led them through so many winding aural paths.

Samsara Blues Experiment on Facebook

World in Sound Records website

Restless Spirit, Afterimage

Restless Spirit Afterimage

Sounding modern and full and in opening cut “Marrow” almost like the fuzz is about to swallow the rest of the song, Restless Spirit step forward with their third long-player, Afterimage, and establish a new level of craft for themselves. In 2021, the Long Island heavy/doom rock trio offered Blood of the Old Gods (review here), and their guitar-led energetic surges continue here in Afterimage riffers like the chug-nod “Shadow Command” and “Of Spirit and Form,” which seems to account for the underlying metallic edge of the band’s execution with its sharper turns. Their first album for Magnetic Eye Records, its eight tracks fit smoothly into the label’s roster, which at its baseline might be said to foster modern heavy styles with a particular ear for songwriting and melody, and Restless Spirit dig into “All Furies” like High on Fire galloping into a wall of Slayer records, only to follow with the 1:45 instrumental reset “Brutalized,” which is somehow weightier. They touch on the ethereal with the guitar in “The Fatalist,” but the vocals are more post-hardcore and have a grounding effect, and after starting with outright crush, “Hell’s Grasp” offers respite in progressive flourish and midtempo meandering before resuming the double-plus-huge roll and pointed riff and noodly offsets, the huge hook coming back in a way that makes me miss doing a radio show. “Hell’s Grasp” is the longest piece on the collection at 6:25, but “From the Dust Returned” closes, mindful of the atmospherics that have been at work all along and no less huge, but clearly saving a last push for, well, last. I’ll be interested in how it holds up over the long term, but Magnetic Eye has become one of the US’ most essential labels in heavy music and releases like this are exactly why.

Restless Spirit on Facebook

Magnetic Eye Records store

Stepmother, Planet Brutalicon

stepmother planet brutalicon

When did Graham Clise from Witch Lecherous Gaze, etc. — dude used to be in Uphill Battle; I remember that band — move to Australia? Doesn’t matter. It happened and Stepmother is the raw, garage-ish fuzz rock outfit the now-Melbourne-residing Clise has established, with Rob Muinos on bass and vocals and Sam Rains on drums. With Clise on guitar/vocals peppering hard-strummed riffs with bouts of shred and various dirtier coatings, the 12-tracker goes north of four minutes one time for “Do You Believe,” already by then having found its proto-Misfits bent in the catchy “Scream for Death.” But whether they’re buzz-overdosing “Waiting for the Axe” or digging into the comedown in “Signed DC” ahead of the surf-informed rager of a finale “Gusano,” Planet Brutalicon is a debut that presents fresh ideas taking on known stylistic elements. And it’s not a showcase for Clise‘s instrumental prowess on a technical level or anything — he’s not trying to put on a clinic — but from the sound of his guitar to the noises he gets from it in “The Game” (that middle part, ultra-fuzz) and at the end of “Stalingrad,” it is very much a guitar-centered offering. No complaints there whatsoever.

Stepmother on Instagram

Tee Pee Records website

Pilot Voyager, The Structure is Still Under Construction

Pilot Voyager The Structure is Still Under Construction

WARNING: Users who take even a small dose of Pilot Voyager‘s The Structure is Still Under Construction may find themselves experiencing euphoria, or adrift, as though on some serene ocean under the warm green sky of impossibly refracted light. The ethereal drones and melodic textures of the 46-minute single-song LP may cause side effects like: momentary flashes of inner peace, the quieting of your brain that you’ve been seeking your whole life without knowing it, calm. Also nausea, but that’s probably just something you ate. Talk to your doctor about whether this extended work from the Hungarian collective Psychedelic Source Records (szia!) is right for you, and if it is, make sure to consume responsibly. Headphones required (not included or covered by insurance). Do not be afraid as “The Structure is Still Under Construction” leaves the water behind to float upward in its midsection, finally resolving in intertwining drones, vague sampled speech echoing far off somewhere — ugh, the real world — and birdsong someplace in the mix. Go with it. This is why you got the prescription in the first place. Decades of aural research and artistic movement and progression have led you and the Budapesti outfit to this moment. Do not operate heavy machinery. Ever. In fact, find an empty field, take off your pants and run around for a while until you get out of breath. Then drink cool water and giggle. This could be you. Your life.

Pilot Voyager on Facebook

Psychedelic Source Records on Bandcamp

Northern Liberties, Self-Dissolving Abandoned Universe

northern liberties Self-Dissolving Abandoned Universe

Philadelphia has become the East Coast US’ hotbed for heavy psychedelia, which must be interesting for Northern Liberties, who started out more than two decades ago. The trio’s self-released, 10-song/41-minute Self-Dissolving Abandoned Universe — maybe their eighth album, if my count is right — with venerated producer Steve Albini, so one might count ‘instant-Gen-X-cred’ and ‘recognizably-muddy-toms’ among their goals. I wasn’t completely sold on the offering until “Infusorian Hymnal” started to dig a little further into the genuinely weird after opener “The Plot Thickens” and the subsequent “Drowned Out” laid forth the crunch of the tones and gave hints of the structures beneath the noise. “Crucible” follows up the raw shove of “Star Spangled Corpse” by expanding the palette toward space rock and an unhinged psych-noise shove that the somehow-still-Hawkwindian volatility of “The Awaited” moves away from while the finale “Song of the Sole Survivor” calls back to the folkish vocal melody in “Ghosts of Ghosts,” if in echoing and particularly addled fashion. Momentum serves the three-piece well throughout, though they seem to have no trouble interrupting themselves (can relate), and turning to follow a disparate impulse. Distractable heavy? Yeah, except bands like that usually don’t last two decades. Let’s say maybe their own kind of oddball, semi-spaced band who aren’t afraid to screw around in the studio, find what they like, and keep it. And whatever else you want to say about Albini-tracked drums, “Hold on to the Darkness” has a heavier tone to its snare than most guitars do to whole LPs. Whatever works, and it does.

Northern Liberties website

Northern Liberties on Bandcamp

Nyxora, “Good Night, Ophelia”

Nyxora Good Night Ophelia

“Good Night, Ophelia” is the first single from the forthcoming debut full-length from semi-goth Portland, Oregon, heavy rock four-piece Nyxora. There are worse opening shots to fire than a Hamlet reference, I suppose, and if one regards Ophelia’s character as an innocent driven to suicide by gender-based oppression, then her lack of agency is nothing if not continually relevant. Nonetheless, for NyxoraVox on, well, vox, guitarist E.Wrath, bassist Luke and drummer Weatherman — she pairs with dark-boogie riff recorded for edge with Witch Mountain‘s Rob Wrong at his Wrong Way Studio. There are some similarities between Nyxora and Wrong‘s own outfit — I double-checked it wasn’t Uta Plotkin singing some of the higher-reaching lines of “Good Night, Ophelia,” which is a definite compliment — but I get the sense that fuller atmosphere of Nyxora‘s first LP isn’t necessarily encapsulated in this one three-and-a-half-minute song. That is, I’m thinking at some point on the album, Nyxora will get more morose than they are here. Or maybe not. Either way, “Good Night, Ophelia” is an enticing teaser from a group who seem ready to dig their niche when the album is released, I’ll assume in 2024 though one never knows.

Nyxora on Facebook

Nyxora on Bandcamp

Old Goat Smoke, Demo

Old Goat Smoke Demo

I hate to do it, but I’m calling bullshit right now on Sydney, Australia’s Old Goat Smoke. Sorry gents. To be sure, your Bongzilla-crusty, ultra-stoned, Church of Misery-esque-in-its-madcap-vocal-wails, goat weed metal is only a pleasure to behold. But that’s the problem. How’re you gonna write a song called “Old Goat Smoke” and not post the lyrics? I shudder to think of the weed puns I’m missing. Fortunately, it’s not too late for the newcomer band to correct the mistake before the entire project is derailed. In that eponymous one of three total tracks included, Old Goat Smoke cast themselves in the mold of the despondent and disaffected. “Return to Dirt” shifts fluidly in and out of screams and harsher fare while radioactive-dirt tonality infects the guitar and bass that have already challenged the drums to cut through their morass. So that there’s no risk of the point not being made, they cap this initial public offering with “The Great Hate,” and eight-and-a-half-minute treatise on feedback and raw scathe that’s likewise a show of future nastiness to manifest. Quit your job, do all the drugs you can find, engage the permanent fuck-off. Old Goat Smoke may not have ‘bong’ in their moniker, but that’s about all they’re missing. And those lyrics, I guess, though by the time the 20 minutes of Demo have expired, they’ve made their caustic point regardless.

Old Goat Smoke on Facebook

Old Goat Smoke on Bandcamp

Van Groover, Back From the Shop

Van Groover Back From the Shop

German transport-themed heavy rock and rollers Van Groover — as in, one who grooves in or with vans — made a charming debut with 2021’s Honk if Parts Fall Off (review here), and the follow-up five-song EP, Back From the Shop, makes no attempt to fix what isn’t broken. That would seem to put it at odds with the mechanic speaking in the intro “Hill Willy’s Chop Shop,” who runs through a litany of issues fixed, goes on long enough to hypnotize and then swaps in body parts and so on. From there, the motor works, and Van Groover hit the gas through 21 minutes of smells-like-octane riffing and storytelling. In “A-38″ — the reference being to the size of a sheet of paper in Europe; equivalent but not the same as the US’ 8.5″ x 11” — they either get arrested, which would seem to be the ending of “The Bandit” just before,” or are at the DMV, I can’t quite tell, but it doesn’t matter one you meet “The Grizz.” The closer has an urgency to its push that doesn’t quite sound like I’d imagine being torn apart by a bear to feel, but the Lebowski-paraphrased penultimate line, “Some days you get eaten by the bear, some days the bear eats you,” underscores Van Groover‘s for-the-converted approach, speaking to the subculture from within. Possibly while driving. Does look like a nice van, though. The kind you might write a song or two about.

Van Groover on Facebook

Van Groover on Bandcamp

Hotel Lucifer, Hotel Lucifer

Hotel Lucifer Hotel Lucifer

Facts-wise, there’s not much more I can tell you about Hotel Lucifer than you might glean from looking at the New York four-piece’s Bandcamp page. Their self-released and self-titled debut runs 43 minutes and eight tracks, and its somewhat bleak, not-obligated-to-heavy-tonalism course takes several violent thematic turns, including (I think.) in opener “Room 222,” where Katie‘s vocals seem to talk about raping god. This, “Murderer,” “Torquemada,” “The Ultimate Price,” “Picking Your Eyes Out” and 12-minute horror noisefest closer “Beheaded” — only the classic metaller “Training the Beast” and the three-minute acoustic-backed psychedelic voice showcase “Echidna” seem to restrain the brutaller impulses, and I’m not sure about that either. With Jimmy on guitar, Muriel playing bass and Ed on drums, Hotel Lucifer are defined in no small part by the whispers, rasps and croons that mark their verses and choruses, but that becomes an effective means to convey character and mood along with the instrumental ambience behind, and so Hotel Lucifer find this strange, almost willfully off-putting cultish individualism, and it’s not hooks keeping your attention so much as the desire to figure it out, to learn more about just what the hell is going on on this record. I’ll wish you good luck with that as I continue my efforts along similar lines.

Hotel Lucifer on Bandcamp

Megalith Levitation, Obscure Fire

Megalith Levitation Obscure Fire

Its five songs broken into two sections along lines of “Obscure Fire” pairing with “Of Silence” and “Descending” leading to “Into the Depths” with “Of Eternal Doom” answering the question that didn’t even really need to be asked about which depths the Russian stoner sludge rollers were talking about. The Sleep-worshiping three-piece of guitarist/vocalist SAA, bassist KKV and drummer PAN — whose credits are worth reading in the band’s own words — lumber with purpose as they make that final statement, each side of Obscure Fire working shortest to longest beginning with the howling guitar and drum thud of the title-track at nine minutes as opposed to the 10 of “Of Silence.” At two minutes, “Descending” is barely more than feedback and tortured gurgles, so yes, very much a fit with the concrete-toned plod of the subsequent “Into the Depths” as the band skirt the line between ultra-stoner metal and cavernous atmospheric sludge without necessarily committing to one or the other. That position favors them, but after a certain point of being bludgeoned with huge riffs and slow-nodding, deeply-weighted churn, your skull is going to be goo either way. The route Megalith Levitation take to get you there is where the weed is, aurally speaking.

Megalith Levitation on Facebook

Addicted Label on Bandcamp

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Astrodeath to Release Vol. II May 12

Posted in Whathaveyou on February 16th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

Post-hardcore in its urgency, doomed in its slower stretch, full in tone in a way that works against expectationsfor a two-piece, metallic in its pointed aggression and with just an edge of Living Colour in its melody, the new single from Astrodeath emerges from its six minutes having brought together divergent styles with a fluidity and attitude that are undeniable. Set to issue on May 12 through Tuff Cuff Records in the duo’s native Australia and on the ubiquitous Heavy Psych Sounds in Europe, the band’s aptly-titled second album, Vol. II, is preceded by their 2019 self-titled debut and in addition to “Ceremonial Blood,” which you can hear below, a couple other album cuts have been previously posted as singles.

That tells me the release has been in the works for some time, as will happen these days. The below info comes from Bandcamp, and I post it with the full anticipation that a proper press release will be along about three minutes after I finish writing, so I might update what appears below (or I might’ve already, if you’re seeing this later; so it goes in linear time), but the track hit my inbox in a Bandcamp update from HPS, so I’m going with what I know. Simple creature, and all that.

Info follows:

Astrodeath Vol ii

Astrodeath – Vol. II

ALBUM PRESALE: https://www.heavypsychsounds.com/shop.htm#HPS264

USA PRESALE: https://www.heavypsychsounds.com/shop-usa.htm

ASTRODEATH are pleased to announce their brand-new album VOL. 2 is looming and will be available through Tuff Cuff Records in Australia and Heavy Psych Sounds Records in Europe.

Astrodeath will tour nationally in support of the release, leaving no stone unturned on their quest to bring sonic mayhem to audiences all over Australia.

VOL. 2 continues a mountainous sound borne of madness and revelation, ASTRODEATH report back from the precipice, bringing us haunting visions of a blind and indifferent universe and the hideous, mindless creations that lie in wait, insatiable in their desire to dominate and devour. Hailing from Cadigal Land in the Eora Nation (otherwise known as Sydney), singer/guitarist Tim Lancken and drummer Yoshi Hausler weave an otherworldly musical alchemy that belies their earthly origins and underpins the ritualistic hypnosis of Astrodeath’s furious and intimidating sound, a titanic reverberation that far exceeds the sum of its twin parts.

SAYS THE BAND:

“Ceremonial blood is a sacrificial offering of RIFF to our reptilian overlords, Cut from our sophomore LP Vol.2 and released worldwide through Heavy Psych Sounds and Tuff Cuff records in Australia. It is potentially our heaviest slab, Written as a soundtrack to our second Comic book (Illustrated by Glenno Smith), Ceremonial Blood will flow deep for fans of Sci-fi, Horror and Head banging. In the accompanying music video (Produced by John Flaws) I butcher my neighbour with a samurai sword in Yoshi’s bathtub and eat his leg….you’ll just have to watch it.. We are both HEAVILY PSYCHED to be sending Ceremonial blood out worldwide! Horns Up!”

1. Permafrost
2. Leviathan Rising
3. Red Weed
4. Ceremonial Blood
5. Neo Nephilim
6. Golden Death Machine
7. Invasion
8. The End

Releases May 12, 2023.

ASTRODEATH is:
Tim Lancken – guitar/vocals
Yoshi Hausler – drums

http://www.facebook.com/astrodeathband
https://instagram.com/astrodeathband
https://astrodeath.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/tuffcuffrecords/
https://www.instagram.com/tuffcuffrecords/
https://www.tuffcuffrecords.com/

heavypsychsoundsrecords.bandcamp.com
www.heavypsychsounds.com
https://www.facebook.com/HEAVYPSYCHSOUNDS/

Astrodeath, “Ceremonial Blood” official video

Astrodeath, Vol. II (2023)

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Quarterly Review: White Hills, Dystopian Future Movies, Basalt Shrine, Psychonaut, Robot God, Aawks, Smokes of Krakatau, Carrier Wave, Stash, Lightsucker

Posted in Reviews on January 4th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

quarterly-review-winter 2023

In many ways, this is my favorite kind of Quarterly Review day. I always place things more or less as I get them, and let the days fill up randomly, but there are different types that come out of that. Some are heavier on riffs, some (looking at you, Monday) are more about atmosphere, and some are all over the place. That’s this. There’s no getting in a word rut — “what’s another way to say ‘loud and fuzzy?'” — when the releases in question don’t sound like each other.

As we move past the halfway point of the first week of this double-wide Quarterly Review, 100 total acts/offerings to be covered, that kind of thing is much appreciated on my end. Keeps the mind limber, as it were. Let’s roll.

Winter 2023 Quarterly Review #21-30:

White Hills, The Revenge of Heads on Fire

white hills the revenge of heads on fire

The narrative — blessings and peace upon it — goes that White Hills stumbled on an old hard drive with 2007’s Heads on Fire‘s recording files on it, recovered them, and decided it was time to flesh out the original album some 15 years after the fact, releasing The Revenge of Heads on Fire through their own Heads on Fire Records imprint in fashion truer to the record’s original concept. Who would argue? Long-established freaks as they are, can’t White Hills basically do whatever the hell they want and it’ll be at the very least interesting? Sure enough, the 11-song starburster they’ve summoned out of the ether of memory is lysergic and druggy and sprawling through Dave W. and Ego Sensation‘s particular corner of heavy psychedelia and space rocks, “Visions of the Past, Present and Future” sounding no less vital for the passing of years as they’re still on a high temporal shift, riding a cosmic ribbon that puts “Speed Toilet” where “Revenge of Speed Toilet” once was in reverse sequeling and is satisfyingly head-spinning whether or not you ever heard the original. That is to say, context is nifty, but having your brain melted is better, and White Hills might screw around an awful lot, but they’re definitely not screwing around. You heard me.

White Hills on Facebook

White Hills on Bandcamp

 

Dystopian Future Movies, War of the Ether

dystopian future movies war of the ether

Weaving into and out of spoken word storytelling and lumbering riffy largesse, nine-minute opener and longest track (immediate points) “She Up From the Drombán Hill” has a richly atmospheric impact on what follows throughout Dystopian Future Movies‘ self-issued third album, War of the Ether, the residual feedback cutting to silence ahead of a soft beginning for “Critical Mass” as guitarist/vocalist Caroline Cawley pairs foreboding ambience with noise rocking payoffs, joined by her Church of the Cosmic Skull bandmate Bill Fisher on bass/drums and Rafe Dunn on guitar for eight songs that owe some of their root to ’90s-era alt heavy but have grown into something of their own, as demonstrated in the willfully overwhelming apex of “The Walls of Filth and Toil” or the dare-a-hook ending of the probably-about-social-media “The Veneer” just prior. The LP runs deeper as it unfurls, each song setting forth on its own quiet start save for the more direct “License of Their Lies” and offering grim but thoughtful craft for a vision of dark heavy rock true both to the band’s mission and the album’s troubled spirit. Closer “A Decent Class of Girl” rolls through volume swells in what feels like a complement to “She Up From the Drombán Hill,” but its bookending wash only highlights the distance the audience has traveled alongside Cawley and company. Engrossing.

Dystopian Future Movies on Facebook

Dystopian Future Movies store

 

Basalt Shrine, From Fiery Tongues

Basalt Shrine From Fiery Tongues

Though in part defined by the tectonic megasludge of “In the Dirt’s Embrace,” Filipino four-piece Basalt Shrine are no more beholden to that on From Fiery Tongues than they are the prior opening drone “Thawed Slag Blood,” the post-metallic soundscaping of the title-track, the open-spaced minimalism of closer “The Barren Aftermath” or the angular chug at the finish of centerpiece “Adorned for Loathing Pigs.” Through these five songs, the Manila-based outfit plunge into the darker, denser and more extreme regions of sludgy stylizations, and as they’ve apparently drawn the notice of US-based Electric Talon Records and sundry Euro imprints, safe to say the secret is out. Fair enough. The band guide “From Fiery Tongues,” song and album, with an entrancing churn that is as much about expression as impact, and the care they take in doing so — even at their heaviest and nastiest — isn’t to be understated, and especially as their debut, their ambition manifests itself in varied ways nearly all of which bode well for coming together as the crux of an innovative style. Not predicting anything, but while From Fiery Tongues doesn’t necessarily ring out with a hopeful viewpoint for the world at large, one can only listen to it and be optimistic about the prospects for the band themselves.

Basalt Shrine on Facebook

Electric Talon Records store

 

Psychonaut, Violate Consensus Reality

Psychonaut Violate Consensus Reality

Post-metallic in its atmosphere, there’s no discounting the intensity Belgium trio Psychonaut radiate on their second album, Violate Consensus Reality (on Pelagic). The prog-metal noodling of “All Your Gods Have Gone” and the singing-turns-to-screaming methodology on the prior opener “A Storm Approaching” begin the 52-minute eight-tracker with a fervency that affects everything that comes after, and as “Age of Separation” builds into its full push ahead of the title-track, which holds tension in its first half and shows why in its second, a halfway-there culmination before the ambient and melodic “Hope” turns momentarily from some of the harsher insistence before it, a summary/epilogue for the first platter of the 2LP release. The subsequent “Interbeing” is black metal reimagined as modern prog — flashes of Enslaved or Amorphis more than The Ocean or Mastodon, and no complaints — and the procession from “Hope” through “Interbeing” means that the onslaught of “A Pacifist’s Guide to Violence,” all slam and controlled plunder, is an apex of its own before the more sprawling, 12-minute capper “Towards the Edge,” which brings guest appearances from BrutusStefanie Mannaerts and the most esteemed frontman in European post-metal, Colin H. van Eeckhout of Amenra, whose band Psychonaut admirably avoid sounding just like. That’s not often the case these days.

Psychonaut on Facebook

Pelagic Records on Bandcamp

 

Robot God, Worlds Collide

robot god worlds collide

If you’re making your way through this post, skimming for something that looks interesting, don’t discount Sydney, Australia’s Robot God on account of their kinda-generic moniker. After solidifying — moltenifying? — their approach to longform-fuzz on their 2020 debut, Silver Buddha Dreaming, the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Raff Iacurto, bassist/vocalist Matt Allen and drummer Tim Pritchard offer the four tracks of their sophomore LP, Worlds Collide, through Kozmik Artifactz in an apparent spirit of resonance, drawing familiar aspects of desert-style heavy rock out over songs that feel exploratory even as they’re born of recognizable elements. “Sleepwalking” (11:25) sets a broad landscape and the melody over the chugger riff in the second half of “Ready to Launch” (the shortest inclusion at 7:03) floats above it smoothly, while “Boogie Man” (11:24) pushes over the edge of the world and proceeds to (purposefully) tumble loosely downward in tempo from there, and the closing title-track (11:00) departs from its early verses along a jammier course, still plotted, but clearly open to the odd bit of happy-accidentalism. It’s a niche that seems difficult to occupy, and a difficult balance to strike between hooking the listener with a riff and spacing out, but Robot God mostly avoid the one-or-the-other trap and create something of their own from both sides; reminiscent of… wait for it… worlds colliding. Don’t skip it.

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Kozmik Artifactz store

 

AAWKS, Heavy on the Cosmic

AAWKS Heavy on the Cosmic

Released in June 2022 and given a late-in-the-year vinyl issue seemingly on the strength of popular demand alone, AAWKS‘ debut full-length, Heavy on the Cosmic sets itself forth with the immersive, densely-fuzzed nodder riff and stoned vocal of longest track (immediate points) “Beyond the Sun,” which finds start-with-longest-song complement on side B’s “Electric Traveller” (rare double points). Indeed there’s plenty to dig about the eight-song outing, from the boogie in “Sunshine Apparitions,” the abiding vibe of languid grunge and effects-laced chicanery that pervade the crashouts of “The Woods” to the memorable, slow hook-craft of “All is Fine.” Over on side B, the momentum early in “Electric Traveller” rams headfirst into its own slowdown, while “Space City” reinforces the no-joke tonality and Elephant Tree-style heavy/melodic blend before the penultimate mostly-instrumental “Star Collider” resolves itself like Floor at half-speed and closer “Peeling Away” lives up to its title with a departure of psychedelic soloing and final off-we-go loops. The word-of-mouth hype around AAWKS was and is significant, and the Ontario-based four-piece tender three-dimensional sound to justify it, the record too brief at 39 minutes to actually let the listener get lost while providing multiple opportunities for headphone escapism. A significant first LP.

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Smokes of Krakatau, Smokes of Krakatau

Smokes of Krakatau Smokes of Krakatau

The core methodology of Polish trio Smokes of Krakatau across their self-titled debut seems to be to entrance their audience and then blindside them with a riffy punch upside the head. Can’t argue if it works, which it does, right from the gradual unfurling of 10-minute instrumental opener “Absence of Light” before the chunky-style riff of “GrassHopper” lumbers into the album’s first vocals, delivered with a burl that reminds of earlier Clutch. There are two more extended tracks tucked away at the end — “Septic” (10:07) and “Kombajn Bizon” (11:37) — but before they get there, “GrassHopper” begins a movement across four songs that brings the band to arguably their most straightforward piece of all, the four-minute “Carousel,” as though the ambient side of their persona was being drained out only to return amid the monolithic lumber that pays off the build in “Septic.” It’s a fascinating whole-album progression, but it works and it flows right unto the bluesy reach of “Kombajn Bizon,” which coalesces around a duly massive lurch in its last minutes. It’s a simplification to call them ‘stoner doom,’ but that’s what they are nonetheless, though the manner in which they present their material is as distinguishing a factor as that material itself in the listening experience. The band are not done growing, but if you let their songs carry you, you won’t regret going where they lead.

Smokes of Krakatau on Facebook

Smokes of Krakatau on Bandcamp

 

Carrier Wave, Carrier Wave

Carrier Wave self-titled

Is it the riff-filled land that awaits, or the outer arms of the galaxy itself? Maybe a bit of both on Bellingham, Washington-based trio Carrier Wave‘s four-song self-titled debut, which operates with a reverence for the heft of its own making that reminds of early YOB without trying to ape either Mike Scheidt‘s vocal or riffing style. That works greatly to the benefit of three-piece — guitarist/vocalist James Myers, bassist/vocalist Taber Wilmot, drummer Joe Rude — who allow some raucousness to transfuse in “Skyhammer” (shortest song at 6:53) while surrounding that still-consuming breadth with opener “Cosmic Man” (14:01), “Monolithic Memories” (11:19) and the subsequent finale “Evening Star” (10:38), a quiet guitar start to the lead-and-longest track (immediate points) barely hinting at the deep tonal dive about to take place. Tempo? Mostly slow. Space? Mostly dark and vast. Ritual? Vital, loud and awaiting your attendance. There’s crush and presence and open space, surges, ebbs, flows and ties between earth and ether that not every band can or would be willing to make, and much to Carrier Wave‘s credit, at 42 minutes, they engage a kind of worldmaking through sound that’s psychedelic even as it builds solid walls of repetitive riffing. Not nasty. Welcoming, and welcome in itself accordingly.

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Carrier Wave on Bandcamp

 

Stash, Through Rose Coloured Glasses

Stash Through Rose Coloured Glasses

With mixing/mastering by Chris Fielding (Conan, etc.), the self-released first full-length from Tel Aviv’s Stash wants nothing for a hard-landing thud of a sound across its nine songs/45 minutes. Through Rose Coloured Glasses has a kind of inherent cynicism about it, thanks to the title and corresponding David Paul Seymour cover art, and its burl — which goes over the top in centerpiece “No Real” — is palpable to a defining degree. There’s a sense of what might’ve happened if C.O.C. had come from metal instead of punk rock, but one way or the other, Stash‘s grooves remain mostly throttled save for the early going of the penultimate “Rebirth.” The shove is marked and physical, and the tonal purpose isn’t so much to engulf the listener with weight as to act as the force pushing through from one song to the next, each one — “Suits and Ties,” “Lie” and certainly the opener “Invite the Devil for a Drink” — inciting a sense of movement, speaking to American Southern heavy without becoming entirely adherent to it, finding its own expression through roiling, chugging brashness. But there’s little happenstance in it — another byproduct of a metallic foundation — and Stash stay almost wholly clearheaded while they crash through your wall and proceed to break all the shit in your house, sonically speaking.

Stash on Facebook

Stash on Bandcamp

 

Lightsucker, Stonemoon

Lightsucker Stonemoon

Though it opens serene enough with birdsong and acoustic guitar on “Intro(vert,” the bulk of Lightsucker‘s second LP, Stonemoon is more given to a tumult of heavy motion, drawing together elements of atmospheric sludge and doom with shifts between heavy rock groove and harder-landing heft. And in “Pick Your God,” a little bit of death metal. An amalgam, then. So be it. The current that unites the Finnish four-piece’s material across Stonemoon is unhinged sludge rock that, in “Lie,” “Land of the Dead” and the swinging “Mob Psychosis” reminds of some of Church of Misery‘s shotgun-blues chaos, but as the careening “Guayota” and the deceptively steady push of “Justify” behind the madman vocals demonstrate, Lightsucker‘s ambitions aren’t so simply encapsulated. So much the better for the listening experience of the 35-minute/eight-song entirety, as from “Intro(vert)” through the suitably pointy snare hits of instrumental closer “Stalagmites,” Lightsucker remain notably unpredictable as they throw elbows and wreak havoc from one song to the next, the ruined debris of genre strewn about behind as if to leave a trail for you to follow after, which, if you can actually keep up with their changes, you might just do.

Lightsucker on Facebook

Lightsucker on Bandcamp

 

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The Obelisk Questionnaire: Jason Higson of Yanomamo

Posted in Questionnaire on August 2nd, 2022 by JJ Koczan

Jason-Higson-of-Yanomamo

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: Jason Higson of Yanomamo

How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

We call what we do in Yanomamo as SLUDGERIDDENDOOM … we’ve been doing it for 11 years now, based in Sydney Australia. We started the band to play dynamic, super-heavy, riff-based music.

Prior to this, I was playing guitar in a band called Lomera but was keen to do something heavier and more in my own style. I spoke with a few people who were in other bands at the time and we got together and jammed and we’ve been going ever since.

Describe your first musical memory.

Listening to my father’s copy of Thin Lizzy’s Johnny the Fox album in around 1977 whilst marveling over the incredible album cover. My father had a great record collection that included Thin Lizzy, KISS, Sabbath, Zeppelin, etc., and that greatly influenced me.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

So many to choose from, but my favorite would be touring Australia with Conan in 2014. We did something like nine shows in 12 days and it was just an incredible experience, playing sold out shows every night through two full guitar stacks!

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

When we parted ways with our original singer in 2016. I have always believed strongly in equality and I cannot and will not accept divisive, toxic and hateful views. Some things are bigger and way more important than music and this was a time where I had to take a stand, which I did.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

I believe artistic progression leads to better thought-out ideas and ultimately greater artistic output. I always set goals for the band … some are very personal to me and some relate to the band as a whole. I couldn’t imagine this band functioning with constantly setting goals to help drive us forward.

We are a very different band to when we first started and we are all infinitely better at our instruments than when we started too, and that includes songwriting with. That comes with the experience of playing shows and continually writing new material. After 11 years, I think we have a defined sound and style that makes us recognisable as a band, although we don’t allow that to restrict us when it comes to new material.

How do you define success?

Success for us is seeing people go crazy at our shows, people telling us they loved our set, people buying our music and merch from all over the world … it’s the little things like that for me. We don’t do this for any kind of mainstream success or recognition… after 11 years, we are still trying to make the heaviest, most brutal music possible.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

These eyes have seen so many things I wish they hadn’t and I couldn’t possibly narrow it down to one thing.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

We’ve often talked of doing a music video but are yet to do it. We’ll probably revisit this idea when we record new songs later this year.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

To challenge people, to expand their minds, to influence the way people perceive things. I love to be challenged by art, particularly music.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

The legalisation of marijuana in Australia.

https://www.facebook.com/yanomamoband/
https://yanomamo.bandcamp.com/

Yanomamo & Slomatics, Split (2021)

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Mountain Wizard Death Cult Post “Initiation” Video; Debut LP Later This Year

Posted in Whathaveyou on April 25th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

Dig the slow-motion mathy part at the end of Mountain Wizard Death Cult‘s new single, if you’re feeling daring. The Sydney-based atmosludgers pair impulses from Neurosis and Carcass on “Initiation,” and I’ll be honest, I was already nodding by the time I saw the first band member doing so in the video. And that happens before the 20-second mark is hit, and 10 of those seconds are decided to a bite of caustic feedback. So yeah, pretty much immediately. Not at all shy about being harsh are the four-piece, who’ll issue their debut album sometime before the end of the year through Blighttown Records. I don’t know yet what that record is called — the title of the single would of course be appropriate — but this is heavy, and churning, and mean, and I’m way down with that.

“Initiation” is a somewhat less maniacal and more ambient (there’s a quiet stretch in the middle) than 2021’s “Wretch” (discussed here), but in either case, they’re going for gut-punch-toward-punctured-lung. The only question is how fast they get there.

Crunch, crunch, crush:

mountain wizard death cult

Mountain Wizard Death Cult – Sludgy Doom-Metal Merchants Reveal Music Video For New Track “Initiation”

Sydney-based sludgy doom-metal merchants Mountain Wizard Death Cult have recently dropped a music video for a brand new song to be included in their yet-untitled debut album coming later this year via Blighttown Records.

The band comments: “Initiation” feels like a culmination of the journey we’ve been through together as a band… channeling our frustrations, influences and aggression to bring the listener into our World. The record is going to be one hell of a journey and this track is a great example of what’s to come.”

First appearing in early 2019, MWDC quickly built a reputation as one of the most encapsulating and devastating acts in the Sydney metal scene. Their moody anguished debut single ‘Eye Of The Sun’ set the tone, follow up EP ‘ Thrones of Putrid Light’ saw them explore their doomier progressive tendencies whilst 2021’s single ‘Wretch’ revealed MWDC at their most intense and visceral, which appeared on their first split vinyl with Astrodeath entitled ‘The Wretched Invasion’ and received airplay on Triple J’s The Racket.

2022 sees them signing to Blighttown Records for the release of their debut full length, off the back of standout performances at the inaugural Aftermath festival, as well as sold-out double headline hometown shows in Sydney and main support slots for heavyweights such as King Parrot, Potion, Flaming Wrekage & Fangz in 2021, Mountain Wizard Death Cult will deliver a sonically crushing experience like none other and are a band to watch in the years ahead.

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Mountain Wizard Death Cult, “Initiation” official video

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Album Review: Frozen Planet….1969, Not From 1969

Posted in Reviews on February 8th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

Frozen Planet 1969 Not From 1969

Frozen Planet….1969 are now, and they want you to know it. The Sydney/Canberra-based three-piece journey forward through their particular realm of the creative ethersphere with three new tracks, cohesive after nearly a decade since their first, self-titled release in the unit of Paul (guitar) and Frank Attard (drums, production) — both formerly of Mother Mars — and bassist Lachlan Paine (Looking Glass), capturing a live sound and improvised-feeling procession across the 45-minute run of Not From 1969. A follow-up to 2020’s Hydroculture, the latest full-length from the richly exploratory trio works in a similar-feeling structure, with one shorter piece, one longer, and one much longer, though in comparison to its predecessor, the order has shifted on Not From 1969 and the total runtime is a smidgeon shorter. Given the improv-sounding nature of their work, the reaches they mine and on and on, one suspects that’s a result of what came out of their instruments that particular day at Frank Attard‘s own Frank St. Studio, and on any other afternoon, “Diamond Dust” (10:45), “Strangelands” (7:07) and “Dissolver” (27:09) might have taken a different form.

It’s an inherent strength of the style of heavy psychedelic jamming that it didn’t, but worth mentioning for sure that as Paine and the Attards present these captured moments, mixed and mastered (the latter by Philip Dust), topped off with righteously stylized cover art (photos by Matthew Slager, design by John Debobo-Cullen), the moments are all the more worth appreciating for the fact that they’ve been captured, perhaps mined out of longer jams, or, as in the case of “Strangelands,” willing to break in the middle of its funky , prog-jazz-ish build in order to pursue a different route altogether. There, as in “Diamond Dust” prior and the massive-even-when-put-to-scale “Dissolver” afterward, Frozen Planet….1969‘s work is deceptively intricate. One can feel them grasping as “Strangelands” falls apart, learning the progression of guitar on “Diamond Dust” as it happens, and answering the beginning fluidity of “Dissolver” with a bouncing bassline and steadily rolling drums. In this way, the band make their transformative motion to the present moment in which they reside. They create the thing as they live in it.

Of course, Frozen Planet….1969 are far from the only act out there with this methodology. Improv heavy psych is a microgenre — that is, there aren’t a ton of people on the planet doing it in earnest, let alone doing it this well — but it’s not unheard of or unfamiliar at least on paper. Where the Aussie unit continue to most shine, however, is in their chemistry and in the unpretentious manner in which they present the results of their experimentation. Take a look at Not From 1969. There’s no claim being laid to unnamed planets, or mountains or giant monsters or cartoon boobs or anything like that. It’s an old radio and eight-track player, and they tell you right on there what they want you to know — that they’re not actually from the year 1969. Especially for something of its ilk, the record is resolute in its straightforwardness, and that applies as much to the music as anything.

Frozen Planet 1969

Even as they undertake the initial journey of “Diamond Dust” with Paul‘s guitar pushing through standalone Middle Eastern-toned scales building to a wash before the drums and bass join in, they are neither void of effects nor reliant upon them to make their impression. “Diamond Dust” holds to a flowing motion that, yes, has plenty of reverb and echoing notes, but to listen to the bass underlying the guitar — I’ll officially classify Paine‘s tone as “gotta-hear” throughout — and the interplay between that and the drums, the highlight isn’t necessarily that the song creates this ambience so much as it is the conversation that allows that creation to take place. It’s about these three players, not at all strangers by now, celebrating this thing they are when they are together. You can call that reading too much into it if you want, but at its most freaked out, “Diamond Dust” still feels like three artists in a room reveling in the experiential moment. It’s not 1969. It’s not 1996. It’s this very second.

I won’t take anything away from the long-form immersion that’s set forth in “Dissolver,” but “Strangelands” might be an even better example of the communication between players, from its early boogie to the aforementioned break about four minutes in and the funk-via-jazz that takes over later. Obviously I don’t know the circumstances of how much Not From 1969 has been edited, but that moment of transition feels as organic as it possibly could, and even that such a thing is believable at all on a record is a triumph on the part of the band. They continue into “Dissolver” also playing through multiple stages of the longer jam, coming to a head early and then receding atop the easy-rolling drums and bass, funky again before going minimal-noodly in the guitar, eventually emerging in low-end fuzz and a galloping freakout, distortion coming and going, finally seeming to come apart at the finish as all jams inevitably must.

There too Frozen Planet….1969 highlight the human aspect of what they do. There is a stretch to their sound, to be sure. The album is broad in sound and there’s a definite depth to Frank Attard‘s mix — more than enough to get lost in if that’s your aim — but maybe the unspoken command in Not From 1969 can be for the listener to also not be in their own 1969, lost in some flimsy idolization of the past. Maybe this is the band’s message to join them in the present moment, to be mindful and aware of your place in the place that isn’t a place, and to breathe and feel that breath fill and empty from your lungs. There’s plenty to be said for letting the mind wonder while engaging with psychedelic fare — especially instrumental as this is — but approaching “Diamond Dust,” “Strangelands” and “Dissolver” in a conscious state and moving with the album as its follows its various paths is all the more satisfying with Frozen Planet….1969 in a way that isn’t always the case for bands of their ilk. All the more reason to celebrate the moment. Rejoice in the lightning as well as the bottle.

Frozen Planet….1969, Not From 1969 (2022)

Frozen Planet….1969 on Facebook

Pepper Shaker Records on Facebook

Pepper Shaker Records on Bandcamp

HeadSpin Records website

HeadSpin Records on Facebook

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Quarterly Review: Zack Oakley, Vøuhl, White Manna, Daily Thompson, Headless Monarch, Some Pills for Ayala, Il Mostro, Carmen Sea, Trip Hill, Yanomamo & Slomatics

Posted in Reviews on January 17th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

THE-OBELISK-FALL-2020-QUARTERLY-REVIEW

Somehow it feels longer than it’s actually been. Yeah, a year’s changed over, but it’s really only been about a month since the last Quarterly Review installment, which I said at the time was only half of the full proceedings. I’ve started the count over at 1-50, but in my head, this is really a continuation of that five-day stretch more than something separate. It’s been booked out I think since before the last round of 50 was done, if that tells you anything. Should tell you 2021 was a busy year and 2022 looks like it’ll be more of the same in that regard. Also a few other regards, but let’s keep it optimistic, hmm?

We start today fresh with a wide swath of stuff for digging and, well, I hope you dig it. Let’s go.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

Zack Oakley, Badlands

Zack Oakley Badlands

Apparently I’ve been spelling Zack Oakley‘s name wrong for the better part of a decade. Zack with a ‘k’ instead of an ‘h’ at the end. I feel like a jerk. By any spelling, dude both shreds and can write a song. Known for his work in Joy, Pharlee, Volcano, etc., he brings vibrant classic heavy to the fore on his solo debut, Badlands, sounding like a one-man San Diego scene on “I’m the One” only after declaring his own genre in opener “Freedom Rock.” “Mexico” vibes on harmonica-laced heavy blues and the acoustic-led “Looking High Searching Low” follows suit with slide, but there’s tinge of psych on the catchy “Desert Shack,” and “Fever” stomps out in pure Hendrix style without sounding ridiculous, which is not an achievement to be understated. Closing duo “Acid Rain” and “Badlands” meet at the place where the ’60s ended and the ’70s started, swaggering through time with more hooks and a sound that might be garage if your garage had a really nice studio in it. I’ll take more of this anytime Mr. Oakley wants to belt it out.

Zack Oakley website

Kommune Records on Bandcamp

 

Vøuhl, Vøuhl

Vøuhl Vøuhl

Issued by Shawn Pelata — also known as Pælãtä Shåvvn, with an apparent thing for accent marks — the self-titled debut from Vøuhl mixes industrial-style experimentalism, dark ambience and a strong cinematic current across a still-relatively-unassuming five-songs and 23 minutes, hitting a resonant minimalism at the ending of “Evvûl” while building to a fuller-sounding progression on the subsequent “Välle.” Drones, echoing, looped beats and thoughtfully executed synth let Pelata construct each atmosphere as an individual piece, but with the attention obviously paid to the presentation of the whole, there’s nothing that keeps one piece from tying into the next either, so whether one approaches Vøuhl‘s Vøuhl as an EP or a short album, the impression of a deep-running soundscape is made one way or the other. What seems to be speech samples in “Aurô” and noise-laced closer “ßlasste” — thoroughly manipulated — may hint at things to come, but I hope not entirely at the expense of the percussive urgency of opener “Dùste” here.

Vøuhl on Facebook

Stone Groove Records website

 

White Manna, First Welcome

White Manna First Welcome

At first you’re all like, “yeah this is right on I can handle it” and then all of a sudden White Manna are about four minutes into the freakery of “Light Cones” opening up their latest opus First Welcome and you’re starting to panic because you took too much and you’re couchlocked. The heretofore undervalued Calipsych weirdos are out-out-out on their new eight-songer, done in an LP-ready 39 minutes but drippy droppy through an interdimensional swap-meet of renegade noises and melted-down aesthetics. Maybe you heard 2020’s ARC (review here) and thereby got on board, or maybe you don’t know them at all. Doesn’t matter. The thing is they’re already in your brain and by the time you’re done with the triumph-boogie of “Lions of Fire” you realize you’re one with the vibrating universe and only then are you ready to meet the “Monogamous Cassanova” in krautrock purgatory before the swirling “Milk Symposium” spreads itself out like a blanket over the sun. Too trippy for everything, and so just. fucking. right. If you can hang with this, I wanna be friends.

White Manna on Facebook

Cardinal Fuzz webstore

Centripetal Force Records website

 

Daily Thompson, God of Spinoza

God Of Spinoza by Daily Thompson

In 2022, German heavy rockers Daily Thompson mark a decade since their founding. God of Spinoza is their fifth full-length, and in songs like “Cantaloupe Melon,” “Golden Desert Child,” and “Muaratic Acid,” the reliability one has come to expect from them is only reinforced. Their sound hinges on psychedelia, but complements that with an abiding sense of grunge and a patience in songwriting. They’ve done heavy blues and straight-up rock in the past, so neither is out of the trio’s wheelhouse — the penultimate “Midnight Soldier” is a breakout here — but the title-track’s drawn-out “yeah”s and slacker-nod rhythm seem to draw more directly from the Alice in Chains school of making material sound slow without actually having it crawl or sacrifice accessibility. I’d give them points regardless for calling a song “I Saw Jesus in a Taco Bell,” but the closer is a genuine highlight on God of Spinoza turning a long stretch of disaffection to immersive fuzz with a deftness befitting a band on their fifth record who know precisely who they are. Like I said, reliable.

Daily Thompson on Facebook

Noisolution website

 

Headless Monarch, Titan Slug

Headless Monarch Titan Slug

Founded by guitarist/bassist Collin Green, Headless Monarch released their first demo in 2013 and their most recent EP, Nothing on the Horizon, in 2016. Five years later, Green and drummer Brandon Zackey offer the late-2021 debut full-length, Titan Slug, working in collaboration for the first time with vocalist and producer Otu Suurmunne of Moonic Productions — who mostly goes by Otu — across a richly executed collection of six tracks, three new, three from prior outings. Not sure if Otu is a hired gun as a singer working alongside the other two, but there’s little arguing with the results they glean as a trio across a song like “Fever Dream” or “Sleeper Now Rise,” the latter taken from Headless Monarch‘s 2015 two-songer and positioned in a more aggressive stance overall. The newer songs come across as more fleshed out, but even “Eight Minutes of Light” from the first demo has atmospheric reach to go with its clarity of focus and noteworthy heft. One only hopes the collaboration continues and inspires further work along these lines.

Headless Monarch on Instagram

Headless Monarch on Bandcamp

 

Some Pills for Ayala, Space Octopus

Some Pills for Ayala Space Octopus

Technically speaking, you had me at Space Octopus. After releasing a self-titled EP under the somewhat-troubling moniker (one hopes it’s not too many) Some Pills for Ayala, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and producer Néstor Ayala Cortés of At Devil Dirt returns with this two-songer, comprised of its 11-minute title-cut and the shorter “It’s Been a Long Trip.” The lead track is duly dream-drifty in its procession, a subtle build underway across its span but pushing more for hypnosis than impact and getting there to be sure, even as the second half grows thicker in tone. At 3:48, “It’s Been a Long Trip” comes across more as an experiment in technique captured and used as the foundation for Cortés‘ soft, wide echoing vocals. Lysergic and adventurous in kind, the 15-minute EP is nonetheless serene in its presence and soothing overall. Could be that Cortés might push deeper into folk as he goes forward, but the acidy foundation he’s working from will only add to that.

Some Pills for Ayala on Instagram

Some Pills for Ayala on Bandcamp

 

Il Mostro, Occult Practices

Il Mostro Occult Practices

It’s a quick in-out from Boston heavy punkers Il Mostro on the Occult Practices EP. Four songs, the last of which is a cover of T.S.O.L.‘s “Black Magic,” nothing over three minutes long, all fits neatly on a 7″. For what they’re doing, that makes sense, taking the high-velocity ethic of Motörhead or Peter Pan Speedrock (if you need a second plays-fast-punk-derived-and-rocks band) and delivering with an appropriately straightforward thrust. Opener “Firewitch” ends with giggling, and that’s fair enough to convey the overarching lack of pretense throughout, but they do well with the cover and have a righteous balance between control and chaos in the relatively-mid-paced “Trial” and the sprinter “Faith in Ghosts,” which follows. Is cult punk a thing? I guess you could ask the Misfits that question, but Il Mostro mostly avoid sounding like that Jersey band, and it’s easy enough to imagine them bashing walls at any number of Beantown havens or bathed under the telltale red lights of O’Brien’s as they tear into a set. So be it, punkers.

Il Mostro on Facebook

Il Mostro on Bandcamp

 

Carmen Sea, Hiss

Carmen Sea Hiss

Should it come as a surprise that an EP of violin-laced/led instrumentalist progressive post-rock, willfully working against genre convention in order to cross between metal, rock and more atmospheric fare includes an element of self-indulgence? Nope. How could it be otherwise? The five-track Hiss from Parisian four-piece Carmen Sea is a heady outing indeed, but at just 29 minutes, the band doesn’t actually lose themselves in what they’re doing, and the surprises they offer along the way like the electronic turns in “Black Echoes” or the quiet drone stretch in the first half of 11-minute closer “Glow in Space” — which gets plenty tense soon enough — provide welcome defiance of expectation. That is to say, whatever else they are, Carmen Sea are not predictable, and that serves them well here and will continue to. “Frames” begins jarring and strutting, but finds its strength in its more floating movement, though the later bridge of classical and weighted musics feels like the realization that might’ve led to creating the band in the first place. There’s potential in toying with that balance.

Carmen Sea on Facebook

Carmen Sea Distrokid

 

Trip Hill, Ain’t Trip Ceremony

Trip Hill Aint Trip Ceremony

Florence’s Fabrizio Cecchi has vibe to spare with his solo-project Trip Hill, and Denmark’s Bad Afro Records has stepped forward to issue the 2020 offering, Ain’t Trip Ceremony, toward broader consciousness. The eight-song/39-minute long-player is duly dug-in, and its psychedelic reach comes with a humility of craft that makes the songs likewise peaceful and exploratory and entrancing. Repetition is key for the latter, but Cecchi also manages to keep things moving across the album, with a fuzzy cut like “Spam Mind” seeming to build on top of loops and shifting into a not-overblown space rock, hardly mellow, but more acknowledging the vastness of the cosmos than one might expect. The more densely-fuzzed “Ralph’s Heart Attack” leads into the guitar-focused “Pan” ahead of the finale “What Happened to Will,” but that’s after “Tame Ùkhan” has gone a-wandering and decided to stay that way and the seven-minute “Trái tim Thán Yêu” has singlehandedly justified the vinyl release in its blend of percussive urgency and psychedelic shimmer. Go in with an open mind and you won’t go wrong.

Trip Hill on Facebook

Bad Afro Records on Bandcamp

 

Yanomamo & Slomatics, Split 7″

Yanomamo & Slomatics Split

Yanomamo begin their Iommium Records two-song split 7″ with Slomatics by harshly delivering a deceptively positive message: “If you’re going to seek revenge/Might as well dig two graves/He who holds resentment is already digging his own.” Fair enough. The Sydney, Australia, and Belfast, Northern Ireland, outfits offer about 10 and a half minutes of material between them, but complement each other well, with the thickness of the latter building off the raw presentation of the former, Yanomamo‘s guttural portrayal of bitterness offered in scream-topped sludge crash on “Dig Two Graves” that builds in momentum toward the end while Slomatics‘ “Griefhound” offers the futurist tonal density and expanse of vocal echo typifying their latter-day work and turns a quiet, chugging bridge into a consciousness-slamming payoff. Neither act is really out of their comfort zone, but established listeners will revel in the chance to hear them alongside each other, and if you hear complaints about either of these cuts, they won’t be from me.

Yanomamo on Facebook

Slomatics on Facebook

Iommium Records on Bandcamp

 

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