Holy crap, this record’s not out yet? Serves me right for reviewing it in February. Look, sometimes you get excited about a thing, and The Machine‘s Wave Cannon is legitimately an exciting offering from the Netherlands-based trio, captured in the midst of a lineup transition while reaffirming their foundation in heavy psychedelic rock after years of tipping the balance into noisier fare. The three-piece now comprised of founding guitarist/vocalist David Eering, bassist Chris Both and drummer Klaas Dijkstra have a new video up for the title-track of Wave Cannon, and with the better part of a month to go before the record’s out, if you want an example of what it’s all about, “Wave Cannon” delivers without question.
The clip itself is also a fitting representation, sort of low-key tongue-in-cheek in sending up performance videos of bands in their rehearsal space surrounded by massive amps by not having any, putting a bit of silly dancing in there after three-someodd minutes (and again a couple minutes after that), a thoroughly Dutch dry humor complemented by the black and white presentation as faces are seen mostly in silhouette and the band finish — how else? — with their arms folded in what for heavy rock and roll is somehow a sign of approval. Right on.
Lightly delving into the absurd is nothing new for The Machine, even if it’s new personnel doing so, and whether you’ve followed the band or not, it’s worth keeping in mind that they’re speaking to themselves in terms of influence more than any other act, which isn’t something a band can do without a certain amount of maturity, let alone the actual years and releases behind them. The languid groove, resonant vocal melody, interplay of bass and guitar on “Wave Cannon” all come together to demonstrate strengths that the band has always had in ways that seem as much about their appreciating them as the listener’s, and in that way, the entire album is something of a celebration on both sides. At very least, the video is very likely eight of the best minutes you’ll spend today.
It’s been up since last week, so I’m not claiming timeliness — does my being late with this balance with being so early on the album review? does anyone else ever think of this shit besides me? — but the video follows here and you’ll find the preorder link for Wave Cannon beneath that. It’s out May 14 on Majestic Mountain Records.
Enjoy:
The Machine, “Wave Cannon” official video
“Wave Cannon” by The Machine from their album Wave Cannon (Release date: May 12, 2023)
VIDEO CREDITS Shot, directed & edited by David Eering Featuring Chris Both, Klaas Dijkstra and David Eering
MUSIC CREDITS Produced, mixed & engineered by David Eering Digital & vinyl mastering by Pieter Kloos Written & performed by David Eering, Chris Both and Davy Boogaard
The Machine on ‘Wave Cannon’: David Eering – guitar/vocals Chris Both – bass Davy Boogaard – drums
The Machine: David Eering – guitar/vocals Chris Both – bass Klaas Dijkstra – drums
Posted in Reviews on April 11th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
If you missed yesterday, be advised, it’s not too late. If you miss today, be advised as well that tomorrow’s not too late. One of the things I enjoy most about the Quarterly Review is that it puts the lie to the idea that everything on the internet has to be so fucking immediate. Like if you didn’t hear some release two days before it actually came out, somehow a week, a month, a year later, you’ve irreparably missed it.
That isn’t true in the slightest, and if you want proof, I’m behind on shit ALL. THE. TIME. and nine times out of 10, it just doesn’t matter. I’ll grant that plenty of music is urgent and being in that moment when something really cool is released can be super-exciting — not taking away from that — but hell’s bells, you can sit for the rest of your life and still find cool shit you’ve never heard that was released half a century ago, let alone in January. My advice is calm down and enjoy the tunes; and yes, I’m absolutely speaking to myself as much as to you.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
Siena Root, Revelation
What might be their eighth LP, depending on what counts as what, Revelation is the second from Siena Root to feature vocalist/organist Zubaida Solid up front alongside seemingly-now-lone guitarist Johan Borgström (also vocals) and the consistent foundation provided by the rhythm section of bassist Sam Riffer (also some vocals) and drummer Love “Billy” Forsberg. Speaking a bit to their own history, the long-running Swedish classic heavy rockers inject a bit of sitar (by Stian Grimstad) and hand-percussion into “Leaving the City,” but the 11-song/46-minute offering is defined in no small part by a bluesy feel, and Solid‘s vocal performance brings that aspect to “Leaving the City” as well, even if the sonic focus for Siena Root is more about classic prog and blues rock of hooky inclusions like the organ-and-guitar grooving opener “Coincidence and Fate” and the gently funky “Fighting Gravity,” or even the touch of folkish jazz in “Winter Solstice,” though the sitar does return on side B’s “Madukhauns” ahead of the organ/vocal showcase closer “Keeper of the Flame,” which calls back to the earlier “Dalecarlia Stroll” with a melancholy Deep Purple could never quite master and a swinging payoff that serves as just one final way in which Siena Root once more demonstrate they are pure class in terms of execution.
The latest and (again) maybe-eighth full-length to arrive within the last 10 years from Monterrey, Mexico’s Los Mundos, Eco del Universo is an immersive dreamboat of mellow psychedelia, with just enough rock to not be pure drift on a song like “Hanna,” but still an element of shoegaze to bring the cool kids on board. Effects gracefully channel-swap alongside languid vocals (in Spanish, duh) with a melodicism that feels casual but is not unconsidered either in that song or the later “Rocas,” which meets Western-tinged fuzz with a combination of voices from bassist/keyboardist Luis Ángel Martínez, guitarist/synthesist/sitarist Alejandro Elizondo and/or drummer Ricardo Antúnez as the band is completed by guitarist/keyboardist/sitarist Raúl González. Yes, they have two sitarists; they need both, as well as all the keyboards, and the modular synth, and the rest of it. All of it. Because no matter what arrangement elements are put to use in the material, the songs on Eco del Universo just seem to absorb it all into one fluid approach, and if by the time the hum-drone and maybe-gong in the first minute of opener “Las Venas del Cielo” unfolds into the gently moody and gorgeous ’60s-psych pop that follows you don’t agree, go back and try again. Space temples, music engines in the quirky pop bounce of “Gente del Espacio,” the shape of air defined amid semi-krautrock experimentalism in “La Forma del Aire”; esta es la música para los lugares más allá. Vamos todos.
Well, you see, sometimes there’s a global pandemic and even the most thoroughly-banded of artists starts thinking about a solo record. Not to make light of either the plague or the decision or the result experience from “Minnesota” Pete Campbell (drummer of Pentagram, Place of Skulls, In~Graved, Vulgarri, Gygax, Sixty Watt Shaman for a hot minute, guitarist of The Mighty Nimbus, etc.), but he kind of left himself open to it with putting “Lockdown Blues” and the generally personal nature of the songs on, Me, Myself and I, his first solo album in a career of more than two decades. The nine-song/46-minute riffy splurge is filled with love songs seemingly directed at family in pieces like “Lightbringer,” “You’re My Angel,” the eight-minute “Swimming in Layla’s Hair,” the two-minute “Uryah vs. Elmo,” so humanity and humility are part of the general vibe along with the semi-Southern grooves, easy-rolling heavy blues swing, acoustic/electric blend in the four-minute purposeful sans-singing meander of “Midnight Dreamin’,” and so on. Five of the nine inclusions feature Campbell on vocals, and are mixed for atmosphere in such a way as to make me believe he doesn’t think much of himself as a singer — there’s some yarl, but he’s better than he gives himself credit for on both the more uptempo and brash “Starlight” and the mellow-Dimebag-style “Whispers of Autumn,” which closes — but there’s a feeling-it-out sensibility to the tracks that only makes the gratitude being expressed (either lyrically or not) come through as more sincere. Heck man, do another.
Based in the Netherlands, North Sea Noise Collective — sometimes also written as Northsea Noise Collective — includes vocals for the first time amid the experimental ambient drones of the four pieces on the self-released Roudons, which are reinterpretations of Frisian rockers Reboelje, weirdo-everythingist Arnold de Boer and doom legends Saint Vitus. The latter, a take on the signature piece “Born Too Late” re-titled “Dit Doarp” (‘this village’ in English), is loosely recognizable in its progression, but North Sea Noise Collective deep-dives into the elasticity of music, stretching limits of where a song begins and ends conceptually. Modular synth hums, ebbs and flows throughout “Wat moatte wy dwaan as wy gjin jild hawwe,” which follows opener “Skepper fan de skepper” and immerses further in open spaces crafted through minimalist sonic architecture, the vocals chanting like paeans to the songs themselves. It should probably go without saying that Roudons isn’t going to resonate with all listeners in the same way, but universal accessibility is pretty clearly low on the album’s priority list, and for as dug-in as Roudons is, that’s right where it should be.
Philly merchants Sins of Magnus offer their fourth album in the 12 songs/48 minutes of Secrets of the Cosmos, and while said secrets may or may not actually be included in the record’s not-insignificant span, I’ll say that I’ve yet to find the level of volume that’s too loud for the record to take. And maybe that’s the big secret after all. In any case, the three-piece of bassist/vocalist Eric Early, guitarist/vocalist Rich Sutcliffe and drummer Sean Young tap classic heavy rock vibes and aim them on a straight-line road to riffy push. There’s room for some atmosphere and guest vocal spots on the punkier closing pair “Mother Knows Best” and “Is Anybody There?” but the grooves up front are more laid back and chunkier-style, where “Not as Advertised,” “Workhorse,” “Let’s Play a Game” and “No Sanctuary” likewise get punkier, contrasting that metal stretch in “Stoking the Flames” earlier on In any case, they’re more unpretentious than they are anything else, and that suits just fine since there’s more than enough ‘changing it up’ happening around the core heavy riffs and mean-muggin’ vibes. It’s not the most elaborate production ever put to tape, but the punker back half of the record is more effective for that, and they get their point across anyhow.
Steeped in the arcane traditions of classic doom metal, Nine Altars emerge from the UK with their three-song/33-minute debut full-length, The Eternal Penance, leading with the title-track’s 13-minute metal-of-eld rollout as drummer/vocalist Kat Gillham (also Thronehammer, Lucifer’s Chalice, Enshroudment, etc.), guitarists Charlie Wesley (also also Enshroudment, Lucifer’s Chalice) and Nicolete Burbach and bassist Jamie Thomas roll with distinction into “The Fragility of Existence” (11:58), which starts reasonably slow and then makes that seem fast by comparison before picking up the pace again in the final third ahead of the more trad-NWOBHM idolatry of “Salvation Lost” (8:27). Any way they go, they’re speaking to metal born no later than 1984, and somehow for a band on their first record with two songs north of 11 minutes, they don’t come across as overly indulgent, instead borrowing what elements they want from what came before them and applying them to their longform works with fluidity of purpose and confident melodicism, Gillham‘s vocal command vital to the execution despite largely following the guitar, which of course is also straight out of the classic metal playbook. Horns, fists, whatever. Raise ’em high in the name of howling all-doom.
Fuzzblasting their way out of Salem, Massachusetts, with an initial public offering of six cuts that one might legitimately call “high octane” and not feel like a complete tool, The Freqs are a relatively new presence in the Boston/adjacent heavy underground, but they keep kicking ass like this and someone’s gonna notice. Hell, I’m sure someone has. They’re in and out in 27 minutes, so Poachers is an EP, but if it was a debut album, it’d be one of the best I’ve heard in this busy first half of 2023. Fine. So it goes on a different list. The get-off-your-ass-and-move effect of “Powetrippin'” remains the same, and even in the quiet outset of the subsequent “Asphalt Rivers,” it’s plain the breakout is coming, which, satisfyingly, it does. “Sludge Rats” decelerates some, certainly compared to opener “Poacher Gets the Tusk,” but is proportionately huge-sounding in making that tradeoff, especially near the end, and “Chase Fire, Caught Smoke” rips itself open ahead of the more aggressive punches thrown in the finale “Witch,” all swagger and impact and frenetic energy as it is. Fucking a. They end noisy and crowd-chanting, leaving one wanting both a first-LP and to see this band live, which as far as debut EPs go is most likely mission accomplished. It’s a burner. Don’t skip out on it because they didn’t name the band something more generic-stoner.
Doomer nod, proto-metallic duggery and post-NWOBHM flourish come together with heavy rock tonality and groove throughout Lord Mountain‘s bullshit-free recorded-in-2020/2021 debut album, issued through King Volume as the follow-up to a likewise-righteous-but-there-was-less-of-it 2016 self-titled EP (review here) and other odds and ends. Like a West Coast Magic Circle, they’ve got their pagan altars built and their generals out witchfinding, but the production is bright in Pat Moore‘s snare cutting through the guitars of Jesse Swanson (also vocals and primary songwriting) and Sean Serrano, and Andy Chism‘s bass, working against trad-metal cliché, is very much in the mix figuratively, literally, and thankfully. The chugs and winding of “The Last Crossing” flow smoothly into the mourning solo in the song’s second half, and the doom they proffer in “Serpent Temple” and the ultra-Dio Sabbath concluding title-track just might make you a believer if you weren’t one. It’s a record you probably didn’t know you were waiting for, and all the more so when you realize “The Oath” is “Four Horsemen”/”Mechanix” played slower. Awesome.
Opener “The Air at Night Smells Different” digs into HEX-era Earth‘s melancholic Americana instrumentalism and threat-underscored grayscale, but “Fog Works,” which follows, turns that around as guitarist Florian Karg moves to keys and dares to add both progressivism and melody to coincide with that existential downtrodding. Fellow guitarist Philipp Seiler, standup-bassist Stephan Leeb and drummer Marian Waibl complete the four-piece, and Impending Bloom is their first long-player as Black Air. They ultimately keep that post-Earth spirit in the seven-minute title-track, but sneak in a more active stretch after four minutes in, not so much paying off a build — that’s still to come in “A New-Found Calm” — = as reminding there’s life in the wide spaces being conjured. The penultimate “The Language of Rocks and Roots” emphasizes soul in the guitar’s swelling and receding volume, while closer “Array of Lights,” even in its heaviest part, seems to rest more comfortably on its bassline. In establishing a style, the Vienna-based outfit come through as familiar at least on a superficial listen, but there’s budding individuality in these songs, and so their debut might just be a herald of blossoming to come.
Oh yeah, you over it? You tired of the bongslaught of six or seven dozen megasludge bands out there with ‘bong’ in their name trying to outdo each other in cannabinoid content on Bandcamp every week? Fine. I don’t care. You go be too cool. I’ll pop on “Ganjalf” and follow the smoke to oh wait what was I saying again? Fuck it. With some Dune worked in for good measure, Adelaide, Australia’s Bong Coffin build a sludge for the blacklands on “Worthy of Mordor” and shy away not a bit from the more caustic end their genre to slash through their largesse of riff like the raw blade of an uruk-hai shredding some unsuspecting villager who doesn’t even realize the evil overtaking the land. They move a bit on “Messiah” and “Shaitan” and threaten a similar shove in “Nightmare,” but it’s the gonna-read-Lovecraft-when-done-with-Tolkien screams and crow-call rasp of “Träskkungen” that gets the prize on Bong Coffin‘s debut for me, so radly wretched and sunless as it is. Extreme stoner? Caustic sludge? The doom of mellows harshed? You call it whatever fucking genre you want — or better, don’t, with your too-cool ass — and I’ll march to the obsidian temple (that riff is about my pace these days) to break my skull open and bleed out the remnants of my brain on that ancient stone.
[Click play above to stream Temple Fang’s Live at Freak Valley in its entirety. Album is out on CD April 21 through Stickman Records with preorders available here and through Electric Spark/Right on Mountain on LP with preorders available here.]
Temple Fang were smack in the middle of the fourth and final day of 2022’s Freak Valley Festival, Saturday, June 18. Their set (review here) was the centerpiece of the lineup, and by the time they went on, the assembled masses had long since been sun-baked and ear-blasted in a celebration of heavy vibe unto itself. The narrative — blessings and peace upon it — goes that just before being introduced by Volker Fröhmer, whose robust “liebe freunden” greets bands and fans alike in announcing each act to hit the stage and is a part of the ritual itself and features on many of the Live at Freak Valley-type releases but is absent here, the Amsterdam four-piece scrapped the setlist they were going to play.
Maybe it was material from their 2021 studio debut, Fang Temple (review here), or the then-unreleased Jerusalem/The Bridge EP (review here) that came out at the end of last year, but either way, they put it aside in favor of “Grace,” a yet-unrecorded single piece that would comprise the entirety of their set. Recorded by Niek Manders, the Stickman-backed Live at Freak Valley presents “Grace” in in full breadth, feeling likewise bold and searching in its approach as its circa-45-minute run holds sway in a series of builds and crashes, meditative and consuming in a way that live music, especially outside on a sunny day, can’t always be. By no means alone in this regard for that long weekend, it was nonetheless a beautiful, affirming moment to be alive.
Comprised of guitarist/vocalist Jevin de Groot, bassist/vocalist Dennis Duijnhouwer, guitarist/keyboardist Ivy van der Veer (who also sings a little here) and drummer Egon Loosveldt, Temple Fang have — including Live at Freak Valley — now issued four live albums in the last three years, starting with 2020’s Live at Merleyn (review here) that was their first release. Put in a ratio to studio recordings, that’s four-to-one, at least as regards LPs; though I’ll gladly argue that Jerusalem/The Bridge wanted nothing for substance, so if it’s four-to-two, fine. Still, let that math — which gets even murkier when one considers the live-recorded basic tracks of Fang Temple — stand as testament to their ethic as a group and, amid the other narrative surrounding Live at Freak Valley, serve as a demonstration of their priorities.
At least thus far into their tenure and as much as has been possible over the last few years, they’re a live band. That they’d even be comfortable enough to step out on a stage and play a 45-minute-long song to a crowd that’s never heard it before supports the argument, let alone that they would consider releasing it afterward or that “Grace” unfolds in such a patient manner, fluidly shifting in volume and dynamic before its sweeping final movement, a multi-tiered apex with a subtly doomed riff at its foundation that turns to space rock and airy comedown lead work before another soloing tonal-wash crescendo. I don’t know if it was the first time Temple Fang had broken out “Grace” at a show, but standing in front of the stage and watching it happen at Freak Valley, it certainly felt like a landmark for them, which this release seals it as being.
Would it be too on-the-nose to call “Grace” graceful? Probably. But while the nature of from-stage recordings is such that the sundry little bumps and flubs along the way that go almost universally unnoticed by the crowd (and can define an evening for the band in question, whoever it might be) become part of the finished product, and that’s invariably the case here as well, the slow rise of effects noise and cymbals that begins it and shifts within two minutes to anticipatory howls of guitar set as fitting a scene as one could hope for what follows, in range as well as methodical delivery. Loosveldt‘s drums enter after the third minute with Duijnhouwer‘s bass, one guitar softly noodling, the other holding to undulating swells of manipulated feedback as they immerse the audience in the song-in-progress seemingly before it’s even started.
The first verse is Duijnhouwer‘s, and like the rest of “Grace,” it is rolled out gently, complemented by dual-channel echoing guitar solos from one lyrical stanza to the next, de Groot joining on vocals to deliver what no one knew then was the title of the song in a next-stage kind of arrival that more fully reveals the build that’s been taking place all the while beneath the entrancing sounds on the surface, consciousness buried but by no means absent from the proceedings, just sort of placed to the side in favor of the invitation to the crowd to get lost early and stay that way for the duration. Bass and drums hold steady as the guitar drops the scorch to allow the next verse to begin. Nine minutes have passed, whatever time used to mean, and they get back to what’s now revealed itself as the chorus, and at 10:30, a vocal culmination is met by a heavy surge, winding soloing from de Groot underscoring that first build’s payoff stretch.
It is, as noted, not the last. A jazzy flow distinguishes the next movement of “Grace,” making a Pink Floyd comparison feel both lazy and necessary as it re-coalesces and moves into more angular guitar on either side of the 18-minute mark, and though they hit into some improv-sounding urgency about five-to-six minutes later, they emerge unscathed from the freakout — Loosveldt at the foundation, as ever — as they pass 26 minutes into the track, and from there set up the massive ending noted above, fully hypnotic in going to ground and engrossing in the construction from there, the sense of destination apparent even as the journey there continues as from about 30 minutes on, Temple Fang are fully dug into this procession to be realized from there out, the weight of the lumber a few minutes later nod-rolling until more active guitar kicks in for the outward launch and carries through the (spoiler alert) false peak before they actually get to the top of that (right on) mountain, ending with a brief bit of serenity as they look out from it and see how far they’ve come before a noisy finish reinforces the point.
In releasing “Grace” on Live at Freak Valley, Temple Fang give the moment its due ceremony. The video of the set (filmed by Rockpalast) has been available for some time, but the capture of the song pressed on plastic feels especially crucial in light of the scope of the piece itself, and for those who were there, should be considered nothing less than essential. No brainer. Likewise, if you’ve followed Temple Fang to this juncture, “Grace” comes through as a significant forward step in a hopefully continuing progression of chemistry and craft, and while the single-song-album may be an endgame for many longform acts — one recalls de Groot and Duijnhouwer‘s decade-ago cosmic doom project Mühr offering the 47-minute one-tracker LP, Messiah (discussed here; review here), as their final outing in 2013; this isn’t that in sound or purpose, but it’s a relevant example given the personnel — Temple Fang seem to have found a place from which they can keep exploring, regardless of how long whatever they do next might end up being or not.
So maybe it wasn’t the set they had planned on playing, but Temple Fang‘s will to follow their instinct and bring “Grace” to life in front of the Freak Valley crowd more than earns this preservation. It was one in a weekend of righteous performances, but something special that comes through on Live at Freak Valley as shared between artists, art, and audience that now can stand even longer.
Based in The Netherlands, Iron Jinn release their self-titled debut album April 21 through Stickman Records, celebrating with a release show at Roadburn Festival on April 22. The venerable Tilburg fest is a fitting showcase for the band, who’ll present their nine-song/60-minute 2LP cycle after having made their live debut at Roadburn 2018 (review here), working then under the moniker Iron Chin and entrancing a packed 013 Green Room with material it had never heard before. With the collaboration between guitarist/vocalists Wout Kemkens (Shaking Godspeed) and Oeds Beydals (Death Alley, Gewapend Beton, Molassess, The Devil’s Blood) at its foundation and the lineup solidified with Birth of Joy‘s Bob Hogenelst on drums and Gerben Bielderman (Pronk, Pauw, Helm Op, Figgie, etc.) on bass, the album sprinkles moments of clarity amid headed-way-down plunges into atmospheric ethereality, seeking to and succeeding in immersing listeners in a sprawl of dark and progressive heavy rock with the stated goal of evoking the feel of dreams.
It is ostensibly psychedelic, but an is-it-real psychedelia of the unconscious more than an effects wash, and in moments like the winding build to the crescendo of “Blood Moon Horizon” tucked away before closer “Cage Rage” with its extended drone finish or the dual-vocal melody of “Ego Loka” rounding out the three-song leadoff salvo with particularly Swansy vibes after “Winding World” first sounds the alarm at the very beginning of the record — howling lead guitar with frenetic strums behind; Beydals and Kemkens announcing the band’s arrival — before the string sounds swap channels, the effigies are burnt and the mellowing resolution feels like a gift after and before “Soft Healers” plunges once again into foreboding creep groove, jazzy intensity and a feel like being transported to someplace else as (I think?) the keys emulate horns to set up a stretch of electronic low-end beneath the meditative doom drums and second cynical verse — “break through the fourth wall and ‘burn the green room” feels like it’s dropping references — lead to a wobbly weirdo guitar solo emblematic of the manner in which Iron Jinn as a whole is too cohesive to be experimental at least in the we-tried-a-thing-and-recorded-it sense, but remains deep in its exploratory sensibility, notably in the guitars and synth, which makes it fortunate that Bielderman and Hogenelst are there to provide a grounding presence.
I haven’t seen a tracklisting for the 2LP version, and perhaps unsurprisingly for something with so much flux and fluidity, there are multiple ways it can be parsed, whether it’s the first three songs on side A or just the pairing of the seven-minutes-each “Winding World” and “Soft Healers,” which on their own do a lot of the necessary scene-setting for what follows, even as “Ego Loka” offers reinforcement of their vaporous motives. Stylistically, Iron Jinn is much the same, and whether one wants to approach it as a work of dark prog, heavy psychedelia edging on the stratospheric, a new branch on the cultish family tree of The Devil’s Blood or the something-else that it ultimately is, what you put into listening is what you’re going to get out. “Truth is Your Dagger” picks up to establish new momentum coming out of “Ego Loka,” unfurling its somehow-drifting angularity on either side of a midsection break held together by Hogenelst that leads into a surge topped by a triumphant delivery of the title-line by Kemkens and Beydals in unison; the encouragement to break out of one’s own conceptions that the concluding lyric “stab your truth” seems to be — and fair enough — the ethic seems to be conveyed by the example of the music itself as much as the words. Whatever else Iron Jinn might be at this point and however one might want to categorize this initial offering, it is markedly individual.
That is to say, if you want to sit with it and parse out where centerpiece “Lick It or Kick It” — lyric video premiering below; the single’s been out for a week or so — comes by its grim ambience, vague threat and theatricality (also glockenspiel, maybe), controlled bombast and abiding tension that seems unreleased even through the fuzzed payoff it gets, amplifier hum carrying into the willful play on Devin Townsend doing ’60s psych that “Relic” posits itself as being, you can do that. I won’t say you’re wrong, and the rewards of closer listening throughout Iron Jinn‘s Iron Jinn are abundant, from the arrangements of synth to the manner in which the guitars work off each other from the outset on, to the subtle energetic push of the vocals coming together and the tent of Weird under which the entire cosmic circus is held, to the chiming notes in “Bread and Games” that seems to push as far into amorphousness as they’ll go until the aforementioned drone epilogue of “Cage Rage” still to come, viewing the world around them with due terror and refusing to capitulate to the demands of genre. But whether you’re with them or not, Iron Jinn are going to that place right where the brain meets the stem, the moment right before you’re actually asleep when you have that last conscious thought, whatever it might be. They’ll take you if you’re willing to go, and I’d bet that if you asked, they already know not everyone is going to be willing.
As “Bread and Games” gives over not-quite-patiently to the here-we-go spacey intro of “Blood Moon Horizon,” and the eventual breakout that everything seems to have been moving toward that’s still preface to the linear build across the first six-plus minutes of “Cage Rage” — a fitting title to encapsulate the jaw-clenching tension throughout — the real accomplishment of Iron Jinn becomes somewhat clearer. The reason it works is because none of the four-piece are playing against each other. Beydals and Kemkens, Hogenelst and Bielderman, drawn together by the smoothness in the production sound by Sebastiaan van Bijlevelt — let alone the scope of the mix — are united in their purpose. Even when Hogenelst sits out “Ego Loka” and “Bread and Games,” and even in the comings and goings around that long final contemplation, the impression is that Iron Jinn are trying this thing and following where it has led them. You wouldn’t be wrong to say it’s a record born out of and for strange times, but the ambition here is even broader than the hour-long stretch of the 2LP. They sound like a band frustrated with conceptions of style driving themselves to create something new, like a sculptor whose medium just happens to be fog, or the first chapter of a book the plot of which is only starting to reveal itself.
Maybe that’s the case, and if so, I won’t predict where Iron Jinn are headed in terms of sound, or why, or how long it might take them to get there, if ‘there’ is even an endgame and the goal is not the going in the first place. What I’ll say instead is that I hope they keep moving. In following Beydals‘ work over the last decade, as a player and songwriter he seems to have been a reluctant focal point, searching for an outlet wherein his expressive intent can flourish, untethered. And it could well be that Iron Jinn, that the creative partnership with Kemkens is the vehicle through which that will happen, but it will be years more before we know, and in a universe of infinite possibility the band could break up before the record’s even out and an asteroid could smash into the ocean and set all the oxygen in Earth’s air on fire, so no, no speculation. But there’s potential and promise at this point, and Iron Jinn builds on past successes — by no means just for Beydals — while carving out their own path, not with arrogance, but with artistic certainty and an awareness of and (if understated) excitement for what they might yet achieve.
In addition to the Roadburn release show, Iron Jinn have slots lined up at Desertfest London, Sonic Whip, Bridge Festival and Void Fest, as well as club dates and gigs supporting and performing with the venerable Alain Johannes in September. You’ll find those dates, the preorder link, and more info under the premiere of the “Lick It or Kick It” lyric video below, courtesy of the PR wire.
Iron Jinn are Oeds Beydals (The Devils Blood/Molassess/Death Alley), Wout Kemkens (Shaking Godspeed/De Niemanders), Bob Hogenelst (Birth of Joy/Molassess) and Gerben Bielderman (Pauw).
‘Iron Jinn’ tracklisting 1. Winding World 2. Soft Healers 3. Ego Loka 4. Truth Is Your Dagger 5. Lick It Or Kick it 6. Relic 7. Bread And Games 8. Blood Moon Horizon 9. Cage Rage
Credits Written by Iron Jinn Recorded and mixed at Galloway Studio by Sebastiaan van Bijlevelt Mastered by Pieter Kloos Video concept and styling Louise Te Poele Camera, animation and editing Daan van der Pluijm Handwriting by William van Giessen Released by Stickman Records
The release party takes place at Roadburn Festival Saturday April 22nd. Other shows we can announce at this point are:
14.04.2023 – Live At The Farm, Varsseveld Gelders Goed 05.05.2023 – London (UK), Desertfest London 06.05.2023 – Nijmegen (NL), Sonic Whip 12.05.2023 – Eindhoven (NL), Bridge Festival Eindhoven 27.05.2023 – Den Haag (NL), Sniester 12.08.2023 – Void Fest, Waldmünchen (DE) 08.09.2023 – Zwolle – Hedon Zwolle w/ Alain Johannes 09.09.2023 – Leiden – Gebr de Nobel w/ Alain Johannes 10.09.2023 10.09.2023 – Heerlen – @de nieuwe nor w/ Alain Johannes
Iron Jinn are: Oeds Beydals Gerben Bielderman Bob Holgenelst Wout Kemkens
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 9th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Spinda Records made three signing announcements today. That’s not a minor day in the life of a record label. In addition to picking up Loma Baja in conjunction with Lay Bare, Echodelick and Clostridium, the Spanish imprint sent word individually of having picked up Germany’s Kombynat Robotron and the Netherlands’ DUNDDW — both specialists in exploratory and improvisational psych, the latter a newer act — who’ll release a split LP through Spinda and Sunhair Music.
I could go on about Spinda‘s expanding reach, the flexibility that collaboration provides on all levels, and how that and the vitality in the respective approaches of Kombynat Robotron of DUNDDW are metaphors for each other — oh what we can accomplish when we open our minds, etc. — but you know all that and the bottom line is the same as ever in that it’s more cool tunes incoming. I’ll note as well that there was a press quote in the info below, from me, but I edited it out. If you’re reading this sentence right now you’ve already seen enough of my blabbing for one day.
Again, this was too separate announcements that I’ve mashed together since they’re sharing the release, but here it is off the PR wire:
SPINDA RECORDS – NEW BAND ANNOUNCEMENTS – DUNDDW & KOMBYNAT ROBOTRON
We’re so happy to share with y’all some exciting news: German psych-kraut-rockers Kombynat Robotron are joining our roster to put out their new album at some point before the Summer. So far we only can tell you that this album will be shared with another band that we’ll be announcing a bit later today; and it will be released through Spinda Records (Spain) and Sunhair Music (Germany).
Currently formed by Jannes (guitars, synths, vocals), Claas (bass) and Tommy (drums, percussion), the band started jamming in 2018 and since then they stuck to it as their way of creating music, so it feels as unique as their live shows. The robotronic music is based on repetitive patterns, but featuring a wide range of influences, such as krautrock, space rock and psychedelia.
Our catalogue reference SDR18101 had to be some special and therefore we embraced this project with two completely different ways of understanding improvised psychedelia. We hope you enjoy it!
—
Today’s a non-stop when it comes to announcements… If a bit less than one hour ago we told you about one of the two bands sharing our catalogue reference SDR10101, here’s the second one: DUNDDW, from The Netherlands.
Featuring Peter Dragt and Huibert der Weduwen from Bismut on drum and bass and Gerben Elburg from MT Echo on guitars, this power trio is a 100% improvising and instrumental band moving somewhere in between space rock and kraut-rock.
Remember that this split album will be out at some point before the Summer through a collaboration (another one) between Sunhair Music (Germany) and Spinda Records (Spain).
Please join us welcoming DUNDDW to the Spinda Records family.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 22nd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Don’t mind me, just over here daydreaming about this one. Yeah, maybe I’ll always be something of a sucker for The Netherlands in Springtime, but even taking that into account, the lineup for Sonic Whip 2023 in Nijmegen speaks for itself top to bottom in terms of the bill. There’s a couple bands I don’t know — including The Psychotic Monks, who were just added, and Shaman Elephant, who were the other band that took part in Enslaved‘s big-band collab — but for familiar names and faces and acts I’ve never seen like Stoned Jesus, Causa Sui, Somali Yacht Club, Samavayo, Vinnum Sabbathi, Slift, and so on, I feel like this is two days I very much wouldn’t mind living through.
I feel that way about a lot of European fests these days, and maybe that in itself is worth examining — if perhaps we’re in something of a golden age (a loaded phrase for the Dutch) of smaller-scale festivals across the continent. I see nothing but arguments in favor of that proposition here, and post-covid, the explosion of events both new and returning is only welcome as far as I’m concerned. I haven’t been invited, won’t get over for it, but it’s a good one, and if you’re headed out to it, I tip my hat in your general direction. Or at least I will next time I have a hat on.
Final announcement follows. Tickets are on sale:
LINE-UP SONIC WHIP 2023 COMPLETE
5 & 6 MAY Doornroosje, Nijmegen, Netherlands
Sonic Whip, the multi-headed rock monster that combines ripping guitars with steaming bass lines, pounding drums and other sonic, psychedelic excesses. The 2023 edition will happen on May 5 & 6 in Doornroosje, Nijmegen.
With the addition of The Psychotic Monks (fra), Samavayo (ger), Shaman Elephant (no) and Vinnum Sabbathi (mex) the line-up for Sonic Whip is complete! We’re looking forward to welcome all these fantastic artists and are convinced this is going to be a rad psychedelic sonic party. We hope you will join us on 5 & 6 May in Doornroosje.
FULL LINEUP: King Buffalo, SLIFT, Stoned Jesus, Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, Causa Sui, Lowrider, Somali Yacht Club, Les Big Byrd, GNOD, The Psychotic Monks, Radar Men From The Moon, Samavayo, Ecstatic Vision, Iron Jinn, USA Nails, The Gluts, Deathchant, Dommengang, Shaman Elephant, Psychlona, Vinnum Sabbathi and Madmess.
It’s a tale of endings, new beginnings and fascinating returns as Rotterdam, the Netherlands-based trio The Machine offer Wave Cannon on May 12 as their first release through Majestic Mountain Records. The band’s seventh album overall, the six-song/41-minute outing follows nearly five years behind 2018’s Faceshift (review here) on their own Awe Records imprint and is the journeyman outfit’s first full-length not to feature the original trio, as bassist Chris Both steps into the low end role in place of original bassist Hans Van Heemst, who left after the last record. Further to the lineup, Wave Cannon is also the last studio recording with the band for drummer Davy Boogaard, who has since left and been replaced by Klaas Dijkstra (also of BUG, Sunday Kids and others). So that’s the beginning and end, and as the trio move into what they jokingly refer to as their ‘mark iv’ incarnation with guitarist/vocalist David Eering as the remaining founding member, it’s also impossible to listen to Wave Cannon in the context of the band’s past work and not think of it as a return to form for them in terms of their re-adopting heavy psychedelia as their principal operating platform.
This appears to be something the band themselves acknowledge, leading off as they do with “Reversion” (video premiering below) and featuring “Return to Sphere (Kneiter II)” on side B in apparent answer to the jammy “Sphere (…Or Kneiter)” from 2012’s Calmer Than You Are (review here), their fourth LP and second for Elektrohasch after 2011’s Drie (review here). Those records, which followed 2009’s Solar Corona (review here) and their 2007 debut, Shadow of the Machine, formed a narrative of progression in jam-based heavy psychedelic rock such that in 2013 when The Machine offered their split with fellow Dutch upstarts Sungrazer (review here), the most palpable takeaway was the signal that a new generation was ascending in the style. 2015’s duly exclamatory Offblast! (review here) pushed deeper into the noise rock/early grunge that first seemed to make its presence felt circa 2012 and that would become more primary in the balance of their songwriting on Faceshift, complicating that narrative while making it no less true — there in fact was a new generation coming up — and Wave Cannon is in essence a realignment of their priorities, sonically speaking, embracing some of the atmospheres and methods of their earlier work.
But of course, you can’t go back in time and The Machine have been around long enough at this point that they know better than to try. And just for a disclaimer, there are no absolutes in discussion here. The urgency of push in Faceshift is not completely absent from Wave Cannon just as their previously-more-prevalent lysergic warmth wasn’t completely absent from Faceshift. But the dreamy drift of Eering‘s vocals on “Reversion” and the steady, thickened but welcoming roll that backs them, punchy bass and steadily plodding drums smoothly transitioning to the spacious and subtly tense drone-topped break in the song’s second half, is a turn. And it’s telling that once “Reversion” departs its verse/chorus progression, it doesn’t come back, fading gradually instead to silence ahead of the captured sound either of water running on some kind of chime or I’m not sure what that starts “Genau or Never,” second in the three-song salvo of six-minute tracks on side A. With the lightly spaced groove and ambient guitar of the intro, one can’t help but be reminded of a more insistent take on Colour Haze‘s She Said — not a compliment I hand out lightly, if ever — though the wash that “Genau or Never” enacts is its own no matter how the snare cuts through its instrumental course.
Near the halfway point, “Genau or Never” unveils its lead melody line in the guitar, and that takes the place of vocals with a feel that’s improvised or at least born out of improvisation, doling out a goodly portion of mounting feedback as it becomes more and more of a wash. The Machine turn to hit-hit-hit-hit as the build comes to a head, and then crash with more than a minute still to go in the track, Eering‘s guitar plucking residual notes in as the feedback sirens over the comedown, not quite harsh enough to bite, but not entirely friendly either; an edge that suits it, giving over directly to “Glider” which might be named for the fuzzy line of lead guitar that winds through the verse. Vocals are mellow and still effects-laced, but more up front than in “Reversion” and the layering in the chorus underscores just how much The Machine are themselves here without necessarily repeating their past or forgetting where they’ve been in terms of sound. “Glider” has a build of its own, the drums growing more intense post-midpoint before a stop brings back the chorus, bringing a sense of structure to “Glider” that “Reversion” began Wave Cannon by actively skirting. The song comes apart like it’s almost sad to go, and that brings “Ride on Crash Kick,” the shortest track at 3:35, and an energetic burst that ends side A.
In what’s clearly an intentional contrast, “Ride on Crash Kick” surges forward in a way more characteristic of Offblast! or some of Faceshift‘s shove-prone fare, but is less raw-grunge on the whole — it is fuller, richer in the guitar and bass tones — and the vocals are still underwater in terms of effects, but they’re through at a sprint and end with feedback as if to pushback against the expectation that they should be all one thing or the other; a defiance of genre that’s become a part of who The Machine are and maybe executed with a bit of good humor as well, or at least a sense of fun. Side B finds “Return to Sphere (Kneiter II)” beginning softly. The longest cut at 12:38, it’s in no rush at first, but kicks in after about a minute and is in a swirling verse highlighted by a terrestrial, forward rhythm that holds it together as the guitar spaces out and the vocals find their way into a layered hook. The bass is a standout, and the sharper edges of the solo circa four and a half minutes in are well placed.
Over the next couple minutes, they move toward a crashout and by the time they’re past 7:30, the residual noise is on the fade and “Return to Sphere (Kneiter II)” devolves into choppy waveform undulations, ethereal and shimmering but still tense in rhythm, and the grace with which they bring it back to its rocking finish — shades of Elder in the noodly guitar atop the swinging drums — is not to be ignored as another sign of their whole-band maturity. It’s not a song they could’ve written when they wrote “Sphere (…Or Kneiter),” but on Wave Cannon, “Return to Sphere (Kneiter II)” is a triumph of The Machine laying claim to the totality of their aesthetic, new, old and thinking forward.
The closing title-track, at 7:11, is the only other piece on side B, and its brash intro seems to signal elbows to be thrown as it barrels through, but the verse is more patient than it at first might come across, and the chorus builds on the standout that was “Glider” as a precursor to the jam to come. More even than the consuming depth of noise that they shift into as “Wave Cannon” reaches its apex — a progression begun with the turn of drums at three minutes in that carries the song and album to their pulsating-feedback end — it’s the manner in which “Wave Cannon” ties together the various aspects of The Machine‘s work, so as to give a sense of completion to Wave Cannon; the band coming full circle without necessarily winding up where they started.
Ultimately, that is Wave Cannon‘s greatest accomplishment — that is refreshing in its take even as it speaks to where The Machine came from. As bandleader — a role he’ll have to play all the more as the only founder left — Eering puts clear attention into composition, but Wave Cannon is in no way overly restrained, and when it does let loose, as on “Reversion,” it is organic in its movement toward noise, far-out trance-induction, and so on. The Machine were kids when they started out. They’re not kids anymore, and that they’re able to harness the learning they’ve done across their years and albums up to this point and to channel it all into one collective, self-aware cannon boom is only one more example of how special a band they’ve made themselves during their time. Whatever their future brings in terms of the balance in their sound, Wave Cannon states clearly they’re able to do whatever they want and make it their own. An absolute victory for a group whose presence in Europe’s heavy underground has never felt more essential.
The video for “Reversion” premieres below, followed by a few words from Eering and more about the album.
Please enjoy:
The Machine, “Reversion” video premiere
David Eering on “Reversion”:
We’re glad to be able to share the first song from Wave Cannon. Also the first track on the album, “Reversion” sets the tone for the other songs. It has a more old-school-Machine mellow vibe, but better and with more attention to melody. Like with the other five tracks, “Reversion” just might have something to offer to both a new audience and fans of the band’s heavy psych side of earlier years. In a way, we reconnected with our spaced out past while still sustaining an evolution of the band’s sound.
I recorded a visual interpretation of the music, which (without giving away too much) focuses on the important things in life. But backwards. And backwards in reverse. I suppose you just have to watch it.
Majestic Mountain Records are pleased to announce the signing of The Machine.
A band we’ve long been fans of and are exceedingly proud to present to you at this point in their incredibly prolific career, ‘Wave Cannon,’ their 7th full length album is coming to you this May with the full Majestic treatment.
Today we’re psyched to bring you the worldwide premiere of the first single ‘Reversion’..
David (vox/guitar) tells us: “We’re happy to announce that we signed with MMR for the release of our 7th album “Wave Cannon”. It’s great to be able to work with a label that is open-minded, stands for high quality releases and supports our quirky DIY ethic. Hey ho let’s go!”
MMR is thrilled to welcome The Machine to the roster, and we’re positively stoked to get this spectacular album into your ears. Coming your way are two gorgeous colour variations in addition to an old school, solid black “audiophile” edition.
(There will also be a retail exclusive edition.)
The first single ‘Reversion,’ a captivating track built around beautifully melodic hooks and is a gritty, slightly grungy expansively spaced-out jaunt into an otherworldly realm of shimmering, sonic dream states, yet firmly anchored in the now with a fresh and powerful energy.
The Machine harness a deeply psychedelic flow of perpetual finesse, yet somehow retain captivating power while dulcetly drifting on a more grunge-gaze plain, laced through heavy, melodic harmonics and exceptionally cohesive composition.
With a new, renewed purpose and inspiration to further explore the core fabric of The Machine’s trademark heavy grooves, the band is pushing the envelope of texturally atmospheric fuzz and big riffs with a refreshed rhythm section comprised of new members Chris Both (bass) and drummer Klaas Dijkstra alongside the magnetic guitar and vocal presence of founding member David Eering.
The band bring us seven astonishingly fresh and electrifying tracks of The Machine redefined, without losing their original, heavy essence. With entrancing songcraft at its genesis, ‘Wave Cannon’ shows us THE MACHINE as we have never heard them before yet indulges our love for their original, heavy psychedelic nature.
VINYL PRE-ORDER FOR ‘WAVE CANNON’ OPENS February 17th at 19:00 CET/1pm EDT/10am PDT/6pm BST.
Official release May 12th.
—
“Reversion” by The Machine from their album Wave Cannon (Release date: May 05, 2023) Album pre-order will start on Feb 17 at 19:00 CET.
[PLAY LOUD]
VIDEO CREDITS Filmed & edited by David Eering Produced by The Machine Featuring Chris Both, David Eering and Klaas Dijkstra
MUSIC CREDITS Produced, mixed & engineered by David Eering Digital & vinyl mastering by Pieter Kloos Written & performed by David Eering, Chris Both and Davy Boogaard
The Machine on ‘Wave Cannon’: David Eering – guitar/vocals Chris Both – bass Davy Boogaard – drums
The Machine: David Eering – guitar/vocals Chris Both – bass Klaas Dijkstra – drums
Eindhoven-based dark heavy experimentalist outfit Soothsayer Orchestra release their new album, The Last Black Flower, this Saturday, Feb. 4, through Lay Bare Recordings. At the behest of multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Pieter Hendriks, the album pulls together a sometimes-lush, sometimes-minimal, broadly-scoped approach to songwriting and arrangement, reminiscent on album opener “Celestial Virtues” of goth rock but by no means limited to that as it flirts with elements of dudely-swinging blues und drang on “The Bonediggers Blues” — one doesn’t know if the band or Lay Bare have considered alternate revenue streams, but there has to be a tv show Western or video game they could license it to — all foreboding in its later electric guitar ringouts. Neither of the first two cuts its really a tell for what’s to come, but the opener is also the longest of the 11 inclusions (immediate points) across the 41-minute release, which follow’s the band’s 2021 self-titled debut, and the Mark Lanegan-style vocal style Hendriks uses there suits the attention to detail that creates both the wash at the end of that track and the build that takes place across the next.
From there, Hendriks guides the listener skillfully through the meat of the record. “Galaxy Gazing for Supernovas” is ambient and seems to have fading sirens in the background that put one in mind of covid ambulances going by in a tense late Spring three years ago as the piano at the forefront and lyrics look outward with poetic and a purposeful sense of being half a song — it’s the shortest cut at 2:46; more than an interlude, but a definite pull away from the first two tracks — with a windy transition to “Kissed a Tyrant,” which brings an Ableton-style industrial march to a particularly Ulverian vocal melody, recalling that band’s “Shadows of the Sun” as it leaves space open in a mix that sounds like it was duly fretted-over only to fill it with layers of guitar and synth, ending up in a post-doom anti-genre moodiness that should appeal to fans of Crippled Black Phoenix but in reality is no more actually that than it is Ulver. The songs function deceptively quick thanks to an efficiency in creating an atmosphere, each one having a crux and persona of its own as it adds to the whole. Acoustic guitar at the outset of “The Gleaming of Beryl” contrasts against the beats of “Kissed a Tyrant,” and echo-stretch vocals atop Hendriks‘ (and someone else’s) gritty voice reminds of Steve Von Till‘s more recent solo work, but is on its own path, with strings and a closing sense of drift that carries into a soft breath of drone before fading to silence.
That puts “Black Dust” as the centerpiece of The Last Black Flower, building on the electronic vibe of “Kissed a Tyrant” with buried-under-rubble beats behind Hendriks‘ voice and various other ambient sounds surrounding in a not-empty-but-guitarless stretch that shifts into slow industrial doom, a few admirably sludgy screams arriving near the end not so much as a payoff as what you’ve found in this specific horror mine. Is that as far in as the record goes? Not a chance. “Everlasting Wings” brings back the acoustic guitar and a kind of muttered spoken word before the old-soul, rough-throat croon, piano and twanging rhythm mirrors the feel of “The Bonediggers Blues” back on side A while holding to an organic version of the march of “Black Dust” prior.
The work of artist Alexander Von Wieding in the swampy Larman Clamor comes to mind, but Soothsayer Orchestra is by and large slower, more willfully patient and atmospheric, starting from a different foundation in what used to be called neofolk but has morphed with time into ‘folk noir,’ and fair enough; can’t be ‘neo’ forever. In any case, to the credit of “Everlasting Wings,” it folds in some bassy wub-wubs for a suitably dystopian-future wreckage of an ending, and the bright electric guitar strum that starts the sub-three-minute “Destroy Humanity” is a pointed contradiction, snapping the listener back from the hypnosis that Hendriks (and company?) has cast, with an easy swing and horn-ish sounds like Peter Gabriel gone grim and later twists as the track melts and a giant bee seems to buzz it closed. Anybody remember pollinators? Those were the days.
“The Shadow,” which follows, is the first song over four minutes since “Kissed a Tyrant” at least a handful of lives ago, and brings arrangements of lush electric guitar, a meditative rhythm and layers of vocals arranged almost geometrically before breaking to sitar in its second half — something the groove prefaced earlier — and making its way into a plotted psychedelic flow around the chorus as the vocals return and give over to electronic noise before a more singer-songwriter spirit takes hold in “Black Tar and Silver,” not at all minimalist in reality, but subtle, with echoing lines of keys, backing vocals at its peak and guitar in there somewhere, but seemingly able to drop it all and rely just on the vocals and guitar at its core.
Structurally, it’s a song Hendriks could do anything with, and as the penultimate piece before the five-minute finale “November Moon,” with its memorable repetitions of the title and resumption of some of the march of prior cuts, its contemplative feel is well placed. The acoustic guitar holds over to the closer, and stays at the song’s foundation even as the vocals move into whispers and a bluesy line of electric guitar emerges, soon enough to howl at the moon in the song’s title, a more resolved crash of drums alongside in what’s clearly the big finish for The Last Black Flower as a whole, but stays somewhat understated in keeping with the spirit of the collection it wraps. Both of the last two songs represent the most recently recorded Soothsayer Orchestra material, exclusive to the digital edition of the record.
Throughout this second offering from Soothsayer Orchestra, the most prominent abiding element, apart perhaps from Hendriks‘ vocals, which provide an appreciated human aspect, is the obvious care that’s been put into crafting and arranging this material no matter how an individual song manifests it. As an auteur, Hendriks (also a former drummer of the more metalcore-minded Born From Pain) is able to create a sense of scope and rough-edged grace, creating momentum from one song to the next like an underwater current by which the individual immersed doesn’t even realize they’re being moved. That image, being drawn away from shore, is perhaps antithetical to some of the bleak plains-sprawl throughout — grey-sky overhead, vast and mostly barren sepia-toned lands below, a place where people used to be before nature took the land back; grass grown over the road — but maybe that’s what happens when an album creates an entire world instead of part of one. So much the better.
The Last Black Flower is streaming in its entirety below, followed by more info on the album from the PR wire.
Please enjoy:
Soothsayer Orchestra, The Last Black Flower album premiere
Pieter Hendricks on The Last Black Flower:
This album is musically a journey with heavy industrial fueled riffing and electronic vibes flowing into small fragile songs and darkblues rocking roadtrip horizon gazers. It is truelly a trip through the brain, as if reading a diary written by a person digging through the deepest vaults of their soul losing himself but also rediscovering themselves and griefing the loss of love and scared of losing control. A moodswing that paints the times we are living in perfectly. A very deep and personal record that people can relate to and find a piece of themselves in, hope and destruction mix with love and death. This is a record that had to be made to stay sane and build a bridge crawling out of darkness longing for light.
The Last Black Flower the new album from Soothsayer Orchestra, the one-man project of Dutch experimentalist Pieter Hendriks, out today via Lay Bare Recordings.
Pieter is a musical solitudinarian who has enough gumption to leave the commonplace behind and only take with him what can enrich his music and performance. There is a certain weight of tragedy in his music. Pieters gravelly voice possesses an uneasy moodiness that reflects doom and despair, which immerses you in the dark side of life. Then, amidst this darkness Hendriks shifts his compositions to newfound hope, warm and flowing, creating a longing, yet bold mood.
In his brand-new studio, fittingly named The Dungeon, Hendriks crawled back into writing mode for new album The Last Black Flower and explored new territory, always looking for new influences. Elements of electronic industrial music and psychedelic vintage rock blend with the dark bluesy foundation on which Soothsayer Orchestra is firmly built. Lyrically and conceptually this album can be seen as a documentation of self-reflection that Hendriks went through during the often hopeless and haunting years of the pandemic. What came out of this is a beautiful and very honest album that lays bare one’s soul and takes the listener on a musically dynamic journey through Hendriks his mind.
