Posted in Whathaveyou on November 11th, 2016 by JJ Koczan
Lest a day should go by without a reminder of how frickin’ awesome Europe’s heavy underground is, Napalm Records sends word of an early 2017 co-headlining tour from Swedish acts Year of the Goat and The Order of Israfel to be supported by Oslo’s Tombstones. The run kicks off late in January and will go into the middle of the next month, and will be preceded by a new Year of the Goat single out Dec. 9, as The Order of Israfel continue to support their 2016 sophomore outing, Red Robes (review here), that found them refining their take on classic doom.
Particularly stoked for Tombstones opening this stint, as it seems like a prime opportunity for them to turn some heads with their brash, deeply-weighted groove, which should rest well alongside The Order of Israfel‘s traditionalism and the cultistry of Year of the Goat. Good mix all around, if you happen to be in that part of the world.
From the PR wire:
YEAR OF THE GOAT & THE ORDER OF ISRAFEL Co-Headlining Tour in 2017!
Now this is how a new year should start!
Two fantastic bands from the Napalm Records roster – THE ORDER OF ISRAFEL & YEAR OF THE GOAT – have teamed up with Tombstones as support to hit the road all across Germany, Netherlands, the UK, Italy, Austria and Switzerland!
THE ORDER OF ISRAFEL are already extremely looking forward to this tour:
“We are extremely happy to announce our next tour that will take place in January-February 2017. It is a Co-headlining tour with our friends and label mates Year Of The Goat! Support on this tour will be Tombstones!”
The band’s first steps might have been heavily influenced by genre icons such as Cathedral, Pentagram and Witchcraft, but the four piece has firmly established its very own brand of slow-motion magnificence in 2016 with their latest masterpiece Red Robes.
YEAR OF THE GOAT deliver finest and darkest occult doom rock! This is captivating, unique and majestic! Their latest effort The Unspeakable was released in 2015, so it’s time to hit the road again! By the way, the band will release a 7″ single “Song Of Winter” on December 9th.
YEAR OF THE GOAT states: “We are truly looking forward to be out on the European road again, this time with a package that we’re sure will provide many magical moments. Besides returning to countries and cities we love, we get to visit a few countries and places for the first time as well. We will put together a show of our favourite songs from our current catalogue and bring the uplifting gospel of Lucifer as well as a Lovecraftian gloom. Welcome to the sermon!”
The result of both bands together is a wondrous, mystical piece of art featuring unforgettable vocals and ten-ton riffing that will haunt you for aeons and especially on their upcoming co-headlining tour!
Find all dates listed below & don’t miss this power package including co-headlining THE ORDER OF ISRAFEL and YEAR OF THE GOAT with support of Tombstones live on tour!
28.01.17 DE – Berlin / Badehaus 29.01.17 DE – Osnabrück / Bastard Club 30.01.17 DE – Hamburg / Hafenklang 31.01.17 DE – Wiesbaden / Schlachthof 01.02.17 NL – Arnhem / Willemeen 02.02.17 UK – London / Underworld 04.02.17 TBA 06.02.17 CH – Olten / Coq D’Or 07.02.17 IT – Milano / Lo Fi 08.02.17 DE – Munich / Backstage 09.02.17 AT – Vienna / Viper Room 10.02.17 DE – Leipzig / UT Connewitz 11.02.17 DE – Siegen / Vortex
We continue today to make our way through The Obelisk’s Summer 2016 Quarterly Review. Yesterday we passed the halfway point, always pivotal, and today brings another batch of 10 albums from the realms of doom, heavy rock, heavy psych, boogie rock, and beyond that I’m looking forward to digging into. I’ve been waking up early mornings all week to put these together — in bed circa 10PM, out of bed at 6AM — but it’s been worth it to see the response the posts have gotten so far and, I’ll say it once again, I hope you’ve found something you dig in what’s already out there, or if not, that by the time we wrap tomorrow something piques your interest. Let’s do it.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
The Order of Israfel, Red Robes
Swedish double-guitar four-piece The Order of Israfel make their second offering in Red Robes. Issued, like its 2014 predecessor, Wisdom, by Napalm Records, the new collection tops out at 59 minute/eight tracks of classically rolling doom. Guitarist/vocalist Tom Sutton (also Horisont, ex-Church of Misery) leads the charge for the Gothenburg-based unit, and along with guitarist Staffan Björck, bassist Patrik Andersson Winberg and drummer Hans Lilja, he brings to light a trad doom not so far removed in some of its impulses from some others throughout Northern Europe in the post-Reverend Bizarre sphere, but showing a personality of its own in the layered vocals of “Von Sturmer” and the acoustic “Fallen Children,” which follows, the choral arrangement in the earlier “The Red Robes” and the speedier “A Shadow in the Hills,” which precedes the crawling 16-minute closer “The Thirst,” its slow-nodding finish underscoring what The Order of Israfel bring of themselves to the classic form in songwriting and overall cohesion of purpose.
It’s a little bit of everything. Landskap’s aptly-titled third album, III, brings out ‘70s vibe with the organ and underlying shuffle of opener “Wayfarer’s Sacrifice,” but offers a doomier feel in the vocals and guitar, and the band go on to execute Doors-gone-prog moodiness on centerpiece “The Trick to Letting Go” and more psychedelic fuzz on the subsequent “The Hand that Takes Away.” So yeah, the London five-piece of vocalist Jake Harding, guitarist George Pan, bassist Christopher West (ex-Trippy Wicked, Groan), drummer Paul Westwood and keyboardist Kostas Panagiotou cover a good bit if ground in just five tracks, tying it all together via Harding’s vocals and a comfortable pace across the board, even on the more insistent “Awakening the Divide,” though that consistency gets toyed with some as nine-minute closer “Mask of Apathy” moves from its dreamy, spacious initial stretch into more uptempo push as payoff for the album as a whole. All the better to have Landskap shift their own methods as fluidly as they meld different styles across III’s engaging span.
If I have a speed at this point, Pooty Owldom is pretty much it. The Virginia-based duo of Matt “Big Jim” Shively and Walter Barry – also two-thirds of the trio Olson/Shively/Barry, which released their debut, Teirra del Fuego Blues (review here), in 2014 – cross the lines between psychedelia, krautrock, folk, weirdo prog and funk with the carefree fluidity of pre-jam-band Ween on their self-titled first outing under their new moniker, and hopefully it’s not the last one, because whether it’s the soap-opera daydream keys of “The Owlet” or any number of the other owl-themed cuts here – “Fuzzy Pellet” is a personal favorite, but who could argue with the bassline/piano tap of “Owls with Big Donuts?” – there’s a considerable creative breadth at work in kind with what sounds like a really good time in progress. Not one for everybody, but for me, I’d love to hear Shively and Barry flesh these ideas out further over longer pieces – “Torus Landing” goes furthest here at 4:53 – and bring the jazzy rhythmic sunbathing of “Target: Mouse” to even greater experimental realization. However it comes, more please.
A guitar/drum duo based in Cherkasy, Ukraine, Celophys issued their third album, Ammonite, last year through Robust Fellow Records. The CD arrives as yet another example of the Ukraine’s burgeoning heavy scene, along with Kiev acts like Stoned Jesus, Bomg, Soom, Mozergush, Ethereal Riffian and others, and brings a noteworthy sense of lumbering across its mostly-extended seven tracks, beginning with 12-minute opener and longest cut (immediate points) “Baron,” which melds slow-grind sludge riffing with deathly growls and rasp, which the charmingly-named “Spaceburger” and the later drumless drone-feast “Caveman Ritual” continue to build out in atmosphere and snail’s-pace intensity. Feedback, massive tonality, plodding groove – these are hardly unfamiliar elements, but drummer/vocalist Alexander Beregovoy and guitarist Miroslav Kopeyka bring about a fervent bludgeoning across Ammonite that should have even the jaded among those who approach it nodding approval. Also noteworthy is the limited-to-53 “Nautilus Pack” which comes in a hand-carved, custom-designed oversized wood case with special graffiti art, a sticker and a pin, as well as the digipak version of the album.
Dunbarrow’s self-titled debut hits at a curious moment. They might be a few years ahead of their time in returning to the roots of vintage-style heavy rock, but in so doing, they basically take up the mantle that groups like Witchcraft, Graveyard, Kadavar and Blues Pills have left behind in favor of more modern production styles. Specifically, the Norwegian four-piece, who had a handful of shorter digital releases out before, come across in direct conversation with the self-titled Witchcraft debut from 2004. Strange to think that a record with an aesthetic so bent on looking backward could actually be forward-thinking — portrait of what goes around, coming around — but Dunbarrow offer persuasive argument in favor of retro orthodoxy in the swaying “You Knew I was a Snake” and the subdued brooding of “Guillotine.” Whether their bet pays off will be something to find out over the next couple years and as their sound continues to develop, but for their first full-length, they show clever songcraft, a clear idea of what they want to do, and the potential to move that forward in intriguing ways.
I’ll rarely hone in on one instrument throughout an album, but the bass tone on Brutus’ third LP, Wandering Blind (on Svart), has to be heard to be believed. With a goodtime take on ‘70s shuffle, there’s plenty of room for the low end to wind its way around the guitar, and it does. Of course, that’s not all the Swedish/Norwegian five-piece have going for them in these nine live-sounding tracks, as shown in the swaying solo section of “Whirwind of Madness” or the stomp of “Blind Village.” They’re not through the opening title-track before multiple Sabbath references are dropped in the lyrics, and indeed they’re a touchstone, but the more upbeat feel of “The Killer” and the back and forth of closer “Living in a Daze” play to deeper influences from classic heavy rock and its modern incarnations, culminating in a multi-layer guitar solo backed by tambourine, bass, and drums that really seems to sum up the friendly and unpretentious vibe Brutus elicit.
Finnish trio Vallihauta make their self-titled debut on Future Lunch with eight raw tracks that span between the hardcore punk/death ‘n’ roll of “Puoliverinen” and the doomed churn in the early going of “Reviiri.” One can basically tell looking at the runtimes of the cuts where Vallihauta are headed with each song, and they adjust their songwriting capably to coincide with the given tempo shifts, resulting in a back and forth as playful as it is aggressive in its sound and harsh low-end buzz, but to their credit, they bring the two approaches together effectively on closer “Ote,” shifting from the record’s most gurgling rumble and tortured plod to increasingly intense punkishness that hits headfirst into a final slowdown to end the album. A multi-faceted approach is rarely something to complain about, and it certainly isn’t here, but the challenge going forward for Vallihauta will be to build on that bridging of gaps in “Ote” without losing either the ferocity of their faster material or the weight of the slower.
The third Pater Nembrot album, Nusun (on Go Down Records), follows five years behind 2011’s Sequoia Seeds (review here), and for Italian heavy rock, it’s been a hell of a half-decade. Now recognized as one of the strongest scenes in Europe, Italy has become a hotbed and Pater Nembrot’s return couldn’t be better timed. The nine-track outing brings some genuinely expansive moments, as with the 10-minute “Architeuthis” for which Christian Peters (Samsara Blues Experiment) guests on synth, or the wah-soaked second half of “The Rich Kids of Teheran,” but even shorter pieces like “Young Rite” effectively bring together grunge and heavy psych influences. The piano-laced opener “Lostman” and acoustic-strummed closer “Dead Polygon” seem to be speaking right to each other and are somewhat at remove with the rest of the record, perhaps the minute-long bass interlude “Uknap” aside (perhaps not), but the four-piece know their game by this point and just when a song like “Overwhelmed” seems like it’s going to lose its course, they bring it around to Nusun’s most satisfying instrumental build.
Almost immediately upon the band starting “Device,” the sense of ambition in Floodlore’s debut album, When it was Written, is palpable. A psych-infused trio from Northern Virginia, they range freely between the classic-minded “Justice” and fuzzy push of “Bars” before heading back to jammier fare for “Release,” which calls to mind All Them Witches for its meandering blues, and into harder-edged winding riffs for “Evening.” Both “Peace” and “Glow” continue to flesh out one side or the other, but an obvious focal point is the three-part/28-minute closer “Sun/When the Floodlore was Written/In Praise of Alan Watts,” which starts out nodding at surf rock before space-progging out for about 20 minutes, working into an out of extended solos and culminating in swirl and thrust that lives up to the band’s clear will for exploration. Some smoothing out to do in terms of balancing the mix (vocals came through high, though I’ll allow that could be my speakers), but When it was Written impresses in concept and execution and as Floodlore’s first full-length, it’s remarkably encouraging.
When it starts to feel like maybe you’ve got a given track figured out, that seems to be the moment when Eugene, Oregon, five-piece Red Cloud turn something around on their full-length debut, Ursa Minor, and though their foundation is still very much in heavy rock, they build on that shifting into and out of desert stylizations and psychedelic swirl. The band – here guitarist/vocalist/bassist Aaron Williams, guitarist Dennis Medina, drummer/engineer Lauren Roberts and bassist/guitarist Sean Loos, though Loos seems to have left the band and bassist Mike Nemeth and keyboardist Garrett Davis come aboard – keep the material consistent by going back to that heavy rock foundation and through a clear focus on songwriting. Even in the somewhat lumbering starts and stops of “Smoke Screen,” these tracks feel worked on and carefully arranged, and though they go different places – “Ghost Dance” with its manic shuffle, closer “Sick Eagle” with its Songs for the Deaf-style drive – they universally take an efficient route to get there.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 29th, 2016 by JJ Koczan
I’m going to assume that the listed May 27 release date for The Order of Israfel‘s second album, Red Robes, through Napalm Records is the release date for Europe. Napalm usually staggers releases by region, but not by much, so if you’re in the US or elsewhere and it’s not May 27, it’ll likely be somewhere around there. Whenever it shows, it will be the follow-up to the band’s 2014 debut, Wisdom, which found the Gothenburg-based outfit firmly entrenched in classic doom and metal while beginning to stake out their own territory in that space. If you don’t already have enough records to look forward to — and I humbly submit that you don’t — here’s another one for you.
No audio has yet been made public, but the art is pretty sweet, and in all its formats, the album will come with a bonus DVD of the band’s set at Sweden Rock last year, so if you dug the first record, you’ll still new versions of some of those tracks as well. Info follows, as seen on the social medias:
Ladies and Gentlemen of The Order!
We are very happy to announce that our second album, ‘Red Robes’, will be released via Napalm Records on May 27th. Check out the artwork below, again done by our brilliant friend Henrik Jacobson. It will be available as a double LP and digipack CD. Both versions will include a bonus live DVD of our performance at Sweden Rock 2015.
The track listing reads as follows:
1. Staff In The Sand 2. The Red Robes 3. In Thrall To The Sorceress 4. Swords To The Sky 5. Von Sturmer 6. Fallen Children 7. A Shadow In The Hills 8. The Thirst
Bonus DVD: Live At Sweden Rock Festival 2015
1. The Noctuus 2. The Earth Will Deliver What Heaven Desires 3. On Black Wings, A Demon 4. Promises Made To The Earth 5. Wisdom/Morning Sun (Satanas)
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 9th, 2015 by JJ Koczan
We’re getting to the point now where, after a couple months of one-at-a-time lineup adds, the April festivals have really taken their shape and we can step back and take a look at what each has to offer. In the case of Desertfest London, this is both a year of branching out stylistically — Angel Witch, SSS, Satanic Dystopia and Cancer in the lineup isn’t a small turn from the “desert” part of the festival’s name — and looking geographically inward, bringing in UK acts like Sweet Billy Pilgrim, Amplifier, Sex Swing, Amulet, Sly and the Family Drone and others to reaffirm their commitment to English heavy amid a still-international lineup, to which Sweden’s The Order of Israfel and New Orleans’ Mike IX Williams — who’s also headlining with Eyehategod — have just been added.
Updates from the Desertfest website:
BOW IN THE PRESENCE OF THE ORDER OF ISRAFEL AT DESERTFEST 2015!
COMBINING DOOM, HARD ROCK AND FOLK, THE ORDER OF ISRAFEL MAY BE A RELATIVELY NEW NAME IN THE DOOM SCENE…
…but with an acclaimed debut album under their belts, a hectic touring schedule and plenty of pedigree in their ranks, we’re delighted to welcome them to bring the noise at DesertFest 2015!
The brainchild of Tom Sutton (ex-Church of Misery, Horisont), the songs that would make up The Order of Israfel’s debut album ‘Wisdom’ were written over the course of a decade, but the band only came together when Sutton made the move to Gothenburg in 2012 where he was joined by former members of the appropriately named DoomDogs. Uniting in a shared love of all things Sabbath, the band quickly gelled and recorded their debut for Napalm Records.
But don’t just expect all-out Sabbath grooves from these guys because The Order of Israfel bring plenty of soul and a technical edge to their unique brand of doom.
Kind Words: Tom McKibbin
MIKE IX WILLIAMS SPEAKS OUT AT DESERTFEST 2015!
AS A BONUS TREAT FOR YOU ALL, DESERTFEST HAVE COOKED UP SOMETHING A LITTLE OUT OF THE ORDINARY; MIKE IX WILLIAMS OF EYEHATEGOD FAME WILL BE PRESENTING HIS SPOKEN WORD SET.
Williams is someone who has had an interesting life to say the least; with the ups of fronting Eyehategod come the downs of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, so it is no surprise that he can craft deep, dark prose. Backed on record by the ambient tones of Ryan McKern, the pure darkness of mere words can even sometimes feel heavier than the most crushing doom.
Definitely one of the more unique spectacles at this years DesertFest, Williams’ words could be the most brutal thing you hear all weekend.
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 3rd, 2014 by JJ Koczan
No word on an album title yet for the debut from Swedish outfit The Order of Israfel, but the four-piece have signed a deal to release what will be their debut on Napalm Records this fall. The Order of Israfel came together last year in Gothenburg after former Church of Misery guitarist Tom Sutton moved to the country for reasons that, well, really need no explaining. Seriously, if presented with an opportunity, why wouldn’t you move to Sweden? Particularly for someone whose riffy softshoe is so dead on, it’s the only logical choice.
Given his and the rest of the band’s pedigree, it makes sense they’d get picked up by Napalm/Spinning Goblin, and though audio is pretty sparse as yet, a few live clips herald the doom to come.
The PR wire says dig it:
THE ORDER OF ISRAFEL SIGNS WITH SPINNING GOBLIN / NAPALM RECORDS!
When Tom Sutton left the doom band Church of Misery, it was to make his long-established grand vision of an epic doom band come true. To accomplish this, he moved to Sweden and hooked his strings together with Patrik Andersson Winberg (ex Doomdogs ), Hans Lilja as Lotus (which for a period had Brian Robertson, ex Thin Lizzy as guitarist) and Staffan Bjorck from the band Wildebeest. Together with his and the band’s Doom and Heavy Metal influences, folk music, twinguitars and feel of old horror movies to create dark divine music, they became THE ORDER OF ISRAFEL. The band has now signed a record deal with Spinning Goblin / Napalm Records, and commented the signing as follows:
“THE ORDER OF ISRAFEL are thrilled to announce that we have signed to Napalm Records, and will be releasing our first album, ‘Wisdom’, in the Autumn, 2014. We’re extremely proud of the record, and know that Napalm will be the perfect home for it. We are also very excited to be sharing a label with the extremely legendary Candlemass, who have been one of the biggest influences on the sound of the band from the beginning. Cheers!”
