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Quarterly Review: Siena Root, Los Mundos, Minnesota Pete Campbell, North Sea Noise Collective, Sins of Magnus, Nine Altars, The Freqs, Lord Mountain, Black Air, Bong Coffin

Posted in Reviews on April 11th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

the-obelisk-qr-summer-2020

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

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.

Siena Root on Facebook

Atomic Fire Records website

 

Los Mundos, Eco del Universo

los mundos eco del universo

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.

Los Mundos on Facebook

The Acid Test Recordings store

 

Minnesota Pete Campbell, Me, Myself & I

Minnesota Pete Campbell Me Myself and I

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, VulgarriGygax, 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.

Minnesota Pete Campbell on Facebook

Kozmik Artifactz website

 

North Sea Noise Collective, Roudons

North Sea Noise Collective Roudons

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.

North Sea Noise Collective on Facebook

North Sea Noise Collective on Bandcamp

 

Sins of Magnus, Secrets of the Cosmos

Sins of Magnus Secrets of the Cosmos

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.

Sins of Magnus on Instagram

Sins of Magnus on Bandcamp

 

Nine Altars, The Eternal Penance

Nine Altars The Eternal Penance

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.

Nine Altars on Facebook

Good Mourning Records website

Journey’s End Records website

 

The Freqs, Poachers

The Freqs Poachers

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.

The Freqs on Facebook

The Freqs on Bandcamp

 

Lord Mountain, The Oath

Lord Mountain The Oath

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.

Lord Mountain on Facebook

King Volume Records store

Kozmik Artifactz store

 

Black Air, Impending Bloom

Black Air Impending Bloom

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.

Black Air on Instagram

Black Air on Bandcamp

 

Bong Coffin, The End Beyond Doubt

Bong Coffin The End Beyond Doubt

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.

Bong Coffin on Facebook

Bong Coffin on Bandcamp

 

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Lord Mountain Releasing The Oath in January

Posted in Whathaveyou on November 2nd, 2022 by JJ Koczan

lord mountain

Oh hi, Lord Mountain. It’s been six years since the Santa Rosa, California, four-piece wrought their impressive self-titled debut EP (review here), and that feels like plenty. In accordance with local statutes and the dictates of commonly-agreed morality, the classic-tinged outfit will offer their first full-length album, The Oath (don’t break it!), on Jan. 20.

The advent of the new release — hard to think of a first record as a comeback, but it has been a while — comes with two streaming songs in album opener “Well of Fates” and the prior-issued single “The Last Crossing.” The latter was released as a standalone in — wait for it — summer 2020 — so as you may have suspected, The Oath has been in the works for some time. Listening to “Well of Fates,” I’m reminded of bands like Hour of 13 who meld classic heavy rock and doomed traditionalism to a new style of cultish, dark metal. I’m not sure Lord Mountain will be so severe ultimately across the board, but for a first listen, the sharper corners on their riffs are duly compelling.

I’ll hope to have more to come on this one either before or sometime in January, but for now, here’s the basic info hoisted from Bandcamp:

lord mountain the oath

LORD MOUNTAIN – The Oath

Lord Mountain’s full length debut THE OATH is set for a January 20th, 2023 release date by King Volume Records and Kozmik Artifactz. The album is eight tracks of top notch heavy metal and doom. Synthesizing traditional metal and fantasy influences from the 70’s and 80’s, Lord Mountain brings a vintage style and perspective to the modern era. With nods to Pagan Altar, Pentagram, and Sabbath, Lord Mountain carries the flame of classic heavy metal forward. Filled with perilous adventure and somber laments, The Oath is a quest-like experience more than collection of songs. Jesse Swanson, the lead singer and songwriter, casts hallucinations of soaring towers and bottomless chasms, all for us to explore with sword in hand.

A professional tattoo artist by trade, Swanson has a comprehensive aesthetic mission for the band. He created original oil paintings and drawings for the album art. Lord Mountain represents the intersection of all his interests and abilities into one artistic vision.

“The Oath is one of the most fully realized pieces of art we have ever put out. Jesse has a vision that transcends his medium. The songs, his voice, his album art, all conspire to take you away on a dark journey of loss and discovery.” – Todd White, Owner of King Volume.

Pre-orders for the full length album will begin in November. With the full length on the horizon, the band is releasing exclusive singles to support the release of THE OATH.

RECEIVE TWO TRACKS NOW

Track Listing
The Last Crossing
Well of Fates
Pressing Information
1. Well of Fates
2. The Gaint
3. Beyond the Frozen Sea
4. The Last Crossing
5. Chasm of Time
6. The Sacrifice
7. Serpent Temple
8. The Oath

36 minutes of rocking old school doom!

Limited to 200 copies worldwide.

Lord Mountain:
Jesse Swanson – guitars and vocals
Sean Serrano – guitars
Andy Chism – bass
Pat Moore – drums

https://www.instagram.com/lordmountainband/
https://www.facebook.com/lordmountaindoom/
https://lordmountain1.bandcamp.com/

http://www.facebook.com/kingvolumerecords
http://www.kingvolumerecords.bandcamp.com
http://www.kingvolumerecords.limitedrun.com

http://kozmik-artifactz.com/
https://www.facebook.com/kozmikartifactz

Lord Mountain, “The Last Crossing”

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Roadburn 2014: Samothrace, Procession, Age of Taurus and The Oath Join Lineup

Posted in Whathaveyou on November 12th, 2013 by JJ Koczan

Even as I was getting ready yesterday to post an extended nerd-out praising the Roadburn 2014 lineup, that lineup was continuing to expand. Four more acts have joined the bill, from (at least) four different countries and with four different sounds. Yeah, that’s just kind of how it goes.

Samothrace, Procession, Age of Taurus and The Oath are the latest to be added, and you can see more about them courtesy of the Roadburn website below:

Samothrace To Deliver Massive Sludgy Heaviness at Roadburn Festival 2014; Performing Reverence To Stone In Its Entirety!

Slaloming between valleys of loping lethargy, rocky mountain peaks of noise and feedback and canyon sized, melodic riffs, Samothrace‘s crushing heaviness is suffused with psychedelic radiation, delivering the perfect bludgeoning atmospherics for spaced out headbanging.

Amidst Samothrace‘s massive, slo-mo sludgy grooves the band molds a captivating thing of beauty from anguish, ugliness and misery. Add to that some glorious, almost classic rock driven guitar soloing, and you’ll find sustaining strength and comfort in despair.

“We are very excited to be a part of Roadburn 2014 in our second trip to European soil”, says Joe Axler, “We feel privelaged to be able to share the stage with so many old friends and not only be able to play at such an amazing festival but also to see so many of our favorite bands and to be introduced to new ones as well. For Roadburn 2014, Samothrace we will be performing Reverence to Stone in its entirety. We are looking forward to bringing our form of Heavy to this event!!”

We can not wait for Seattle’s Samothrace to bring their psychedelic remorse to Roadburn Festival 2014 by performing Reverence To Stone in its entirety on Thursday, April 10th at Het Patronaat in Tilburg, The Netherlands.

Epic Doom Metal Overlords Procession To Reap Heavens Apart at Roadburn Festival 2014

Possessed of such a strong sorrowful and moving air, part Chilean, part Swedish doom metal titans Procession are easily one today’s truest torchbearers of classic epic doom, carrying on the tradition of Candlemass and Solitude Aeturnus.

The band’s latest album, the utterly compelling To Reap Heavens Apart, ranks among the very best Roadburn-related albums of 2013, and we’re thrilled to announce that Procession will bring their gorgeous, massively heavy riffs and majestically morose vocals to Roadburn Festival 2014 on Friday, April 11th at Het Patronaat in Tilburg, The Netherlands.

Living up to the high expectations set by the release of The Cult of Disease EP and Destroyers of the Faith full-length, To Reap Heavens Apart carries the weight of the world to an emotionally effecting extreme and puts the band at the very top of their game – taking every haunting passage at a funereal pace, trudging through eternal darkness and utter hopelessness, Procession extinguish our very soul with their glorious despair.

Heavy Metal Warriors Age of Taurus To Conquer Roadburn Festival 2014

Firmly rooted in both doom and epic heavy metal, UK’s Age of Taurus majestically voyage down the road also travelled by the likes of Manilla Road and Brocas Helm in their prime.

Like their forebearers, Age of Taurus – led by Toby Wright (guitar / vocals) and flanked by Alastair Riddell (Guitar), Richard Bruce (Bass) and Darius Claydon (Drums) – supply twin-guitar-driven mountain shaking gargantuan stompers packed with soaring leads, bulldozer bass and huge drum fills, all delivered with heart-stoppingly, ‘EAVY METAL aplomb. Add to that Wright‘s exceptional songwriting (ranging from NWOBHM to classic doom to seventies hard rock), and fist-in-the-air choruses and you have everything for relentless headbanging – no excuse!

Every self-respecting metal-fan should own a copy of the band’s brilliant debut full-length Desperate Souls of Tortured Times (written during the band’s transition from one-man-project to fully-fledged band over the past three years, and released on Rise Above Records), as it’s THE BEST no-nonsense, genuine Heavy Metal album of 2013!

We at Roadburn HQ will definitely raise our fist and scream along with Age of Taurus on Saturday, April 12th at the 013 venue in Tilburg, The Netherlands, as the band bring back our much beloved memories of why we started to listen to metal in the first place, and why it’s still unashamedly the most exciting thing in our lives!

The Oath Will Bring The Children Of The Night To Roadburn Festival 2014

Hailing from Berlin, Germany, The Oath is one of the most talked about bands in the underground right now, and for good reason: their mind-blowing debut 7?, Night Child / Black Rainbow, puts The Oath at the forefront of the current crop of 70s inspired hard rock bands and earned them the highly-coveted title of ‘Band of the Week’ by none other than Darkthrone‘s don of metal Fenriz.

We at Roadburn HQ are captivated by guitarist Linnea Olsson (Sweden) and German singer Johanna Sadonis‘ perfect mix of 1970?s heavy rock and 1980?s New Wave of British Heavy Metal and felt the irresistible urge to invite The Oath to the 2014 Roadburn Festival solely based up on those two stunning tracks – we simply had no choice as the band is that good! Citing Danzig, Black Sabbath and The Runaways as some of their main influences, their lyrics, centered around death and the beyond, are just as raw and direct as their dark, dirty, exciting, but catchy take on soul stripping hard rock.

Olsson and Sadonis, completed by bassist Simon Bouteloup (Kadavar, ex-Aqua Nebula Oscillator) and British drummer Andrew Prestidge (Angel Witch, Winters), recently recorded their debut album, which will be released via Rise Above Records in March 2014, swiftly followed by The Oath‘s much anticipated Roadburn performance on Thursday, April 10th at the 013 venue in Tilburg, The Netherlands.

Roadburn Festival 2014 will run for four days from Thursday, April 10th to Sunday, April 13th 2014 at the 013 venue in Tilburg, The Netherlands.

Roadburn Festival 2014 ticket pre-sales are in full swing! GET IN ON THE ACTION HERE!

Samothrace, Reverence to Stone (2012)

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