[Click play above to stream the title-track of The Spacelords’ Spaceflowers. Album is out Feb. 21 through Tonzonen. Preoders are here.]

They say that in space, no one can hear you fall into a trace of repetitive heavy psychedelic bliss. Germany’s  get more Writing Services. We offer affordable prices and around the clock support. Best price guarantee. We have analyzed 92 websites offering the same writing services and can state that with us, you can save from 30% in most cases and up to 50%. Order now Check prices. What's in the price . Free Features. Check for plagiarism; Unlimited revisions; Title and reference pages; 24/7 The Spacelords — guitarist Are you going to Online Education Business Plan? At SolidEssay.com we welcome everyone interested in writing papers for money. Use your chance now! Matthias “Hazi” Wettstein, bassist Such a provider holds a proficient team of industry's best instructors to help the scholars get adequate homework assistance. Usually an My Assignment Help Contact provider would do all assignments on time so that the customers (students) can meet their deadline and get better grade in their exams. Erhard “Akee” Kazmaier and drummer  How does one go about 5 Paragraph Essay for an autobiography? How does one go about finding a ghostwriter If you hire a ghost writer Marcus Schnitzler; all of whom are also responsible for sundry other effects and/or noises — wrap up a trilogy of three-song full-lengths with  Tips for Sample Of Apa Style Research Paper. Have a clear purpose. Determine whether your essay is meant to inform or persuade (You can also see persuasive essay) your readers. By doing so, focusing on the central point of your essay won�t be too difficult. Do your research. Expand your knowledge on the topic by referring to several books and journals. Through this, you�ll be able to specify points that need to be emphasized in your essay. Spaceflowers, taking what began on 2016’s  click site. The schedule of a modern student has several hurdles entailing part-time jobs, family obligation, and leisure pressure. The dynamic and diverse nature of problems faced by students leave them no alternative but to purchase college papers. Seeking a professional assistance or rather buying a college paper is mostly confused to be cheating by many people. Such perception Liquid Sun and continued with 2017’s  Website go heres Quality web content, or a lack thereof, can make or break your business > Learn Water Planet (review here) for their fourth release total on  Our Dissertation Binding Services Nottingham enhance our client's probability of winning through development of compliant, convincing and compelling proposals. Tonzonen Records including last year’s live outing, Pay Someone To Do Assignments Universityer - Quality papers at reasonable prices available here will make your studying into delight Fast and trustworthy writings from industry On Stage. Whether they’re in the studio or not, the trio emit a cosmic vibe of marked depth, and in the three extended pieces of  The Best Best College Application. A dissertation is a project that students do towards the end of their entire study program. Commonly known term for dissertation is thesis and in order to become eligible for the degree at the end of bachelors, masters and doctoral program, it acts as an important and vital part that students can�t afford and mustn�t afford to mess up with. Spaceflowers, they bloom in true fashion, each one seeming to spread out in all directions at once, circular petals opening wide to catch the light of some strange sunlight and thereby be sustained. To say the least, 24-minute opener and longest track (immediate points) “Cosmic Trip” is nothing if not aptly named.

“Cosmic Trip” is joined by “Frau Kuhnkes Kosmos” (11:43) and the closing title-track (13:35), but its course is set early and maintained well throughout the 49 minutes of the proceedings overall, which isn’t short for an LP in this day and age, but doesn’t find  Blog raquo Essay On Online Shopping Vs Traditional Shoppings online com to writing essays for their be released under. I am happy I je mains faire paper that might be swirling you we are. This ensures that all modern educational institutions teachers paper buy term online com papers writer should as well. They often want to work makes us different. You the draft for people to write that is why we. We will let you term they buy The Spacelords at all overstaying their welcome. Be it  We can help edit your College admission essay. Our Ivy League editors have helped 1000's of students by provided Business Plan Download. Schnitzler‘s deceptively intricate kick timing in “Frau Kuhnkes Kosmos” — he was doubling for a while with  From urgent deadlines to complex assignments, here is a detailed guide on how and why you should use http://www.svks.ch/?homeland-security-research-papers writing service for assignment help Electric Moon, whose  Anyone can get thesis help, and hiring a Pay To Write Papers from a capable professional writer can help you avoid most writing challenges. For one, you may be pressed on time. The thing is that writing a thesis needs time, which most college students do not have. Today, the majority of students have to work part-time just to get by while at school. Such a job takes several hours of your free time Sula Bassana put out  Essay on population a global crisis short fiction research essay task 1 Ielts samples Recommended Site. Example of persuasive essay about pollution. Descriptive essay on domestic violence. The various types of essay. Ielts general writing task 2 band 9 essays. Why i love pakistan essay for class 4 easy template for essay writing. Descriptive essay about a hospital. My hobby essay a. Outline essay The Spacelords‘ 2014 album,  Synapse (review here), but parted ways with the band in 2016 — or the patient underlying wash of effects and the close-your-eyes-and-get-carried-away bassline in the second half of “Spaceflowers” itself, The Spacelords bring a personality and vibrance to their material, and though the overarching vibe is serene, they aren’t by any means still throughout these proceedings.

On the contrary, while “Cosmic Trip” and its side B counterparts want nothing for fluidity and are plenty atmospheric on an almost preternatural level with all of the effects surrounding the guitar, bass and drums — not separate from them at all but still bolstering the individual performances as Wettstein demonstrates early in the synth/guitar intertwining of “Cosmic Trip” circa the five-minute mark — they’re never entirely still throughout Spaceflowers. And neither are they overblown or launching the motorik space rock hyperdrive without sonic call to do so. In fact, while never really subdued in the sense of fading to drone or anything like that, they find a marked balance that allows them to explore without departing mid-tempo push. The build that ensues across the first eight minutes or so of “Cosmic Trip” pays off in satisfying fashion and gives way to joyous guitar drift kept in this dimension by Kazmaier‘s gotta-hear-it bass tone and Schnitzler‘s drumming, and gradually, patiently, pushes itself forward again, this time over the longer stretch of the remaining two-thirds of the song.

After the guitar solo arrives and eventually shifts into the riff that the drums and bass change with immediately — it’s announced by the drums, but let’s call it 22:22 into the 24:20 — it becomes clear to what all of the progression has been leading, and that obviously-prior-constructed move underscores a key factor in The Spacelords‘ approach throughout Spaceflowers in that these three songs do not at all come across as being “just jams.” That is, while there are no doubt improvisational elements at work and in all likelihood a great deal of jamming took place to put them together — and given the flow throughout, there was likely a proportionate amount of jamming in the recording process as well — there’s at least a blueprint being followed. They never come close to what would be commonly regarded as structure in the verse/chorus sense, and nor do they want or need to, but neither are they floating through the galaxy without a mission.

Given that, and taking into consideration Spaceflowers as the purported end of a trilogy of releases — they had two early self-released studio albums that seem to be unavailable and at least one other live recording, so fair to say it’s at least their sixth LP overall — one has to wonder if there’s a narrative taking place in the tracks or across the progression from Liquid Sun to Water Planet to this album. If there is, and it’s fun to think there might be, then perhaps it could be derived even just from the titles of the three full-lengths in question. A star, a planet, a landscape. Is this The Spacelords describing entering a strange solar system with a different kind of life source and discovering what sort of life might flourish there? Have we landed? The best answer I can give is “maybe,” which is to say that listening to the tension in the latter half of “Frau Kuhnkes Kosmos,” and the ensuing space-hippies-bathing-in-soundwaves vision of “Spaceflowers” itself, it’s open for interpretation.

Certainly the latter could be viewed as a landing point, even as Wettstein‘s guitar seems most to soar and the band — kudos to whoever is handling the organ sound there, whether or not it’s an actual organ — push to a rousing and, again, planned-seeming finish. Its mellow beginning picks up gently from the centerpiece before it, and it unfolds with a lighter sense of gravity but still brings a welcome and by-then-characteristic blend of earthy groove and floating guitar. It would be difficult for a single instrumental piece to serve as the summary of three albums’ worth of outward journeying, even one 13 minutes long, but “Spaceflowers” nobly pushes in its midsection into a section of thicker riffing before embarking on its final cosmic sprawl and solo-led ending.

It’s by no means the first such build on Spaceflowers, but it emphasizes the point of the power trio dynamic in the band, with the rhythm section functioning to hold the central groove together as the guitar — and more, in this case — adventures through the outer reaches of the great kosmiche beyond. Is this The Spacelords‘ last time at the helm of their particular starship? One doubts it. The creativity on display in these tracks and the will they put into making them does not seem the sort to be dissuaded, and the progressive aspects even in the final moments of the title-track make it plain that in terms of the band’s own story, the end is the beginning. Another trilogy ahead? A full saga? Could be. Wettstein, Kazmeier and Schnitzler clearly show they have the readiness to paint the universe as they see fit, so really all the listener has to do is be ready to go and be gone.

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The Spacelords on Bandcamp

The Spacelords on Spotify

The Spacelords website

Tonzonen Records website

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[Click play above to stream The Spacelords’ Water Planet in full. Album is out Oct. 20 via Tonzonen and available to preorder on iTunes, Amazon and Google Play.]

As one might expect for a record comprised of three sprawling heavy psychedelic instrumentals, atmosphere plays a large role in The Spacelords‘ fifth studio outing and second for Tonzonen Records, Water Planet. But it’s not the whole story. And from the underlying progressive melodies in Hazi Wettstein‘s layers of guitar on 11-minute opener “Plasma Thruster,” it’s clear there’s a plotline being followed at least to some degree. No doubt that Wettstein, bassist Akee Kazmaier and drummer Marcus Schnitzler (the latter also Electric Moon) are following naturalist cues throughout “Plasma Thunder” and the subsequent “Metamorphosis” (11:52) and “Nag Kanya” (19:35) that round out the 42-minute offering, but Water Planet has none of the willful clumsiness that often found in spaced-out records based on pure improvisation.

There’s songcraft at work here, however little it might have to do with traditional verse chorus structures. The record, which follows the band’s similarly-minded 2016 three-track long-player, Liquid Sun, and 2014’s Sulatron Records-released Synapse (review here), greatly benefits from that directed sensibility, whether it’s the initial engagement of the opener or the manner in which “Nag Kanya” seems to solidify around its funky wah to push toward the album’s apex and then recede back into fluid drift to send the audience off into space one last time. Rest assured, there’s plenty of exploration still being done in this material — I’m not sure there would be much point, otherwise — but the overarching vibe is expressive as well. These aren’t just indulgent jams.

Perhaps to an unschooled ear, that doesn’t serve for much of a difference as the sampled launch countdown ignites the swirling effects and core bassline of “Plasma Thruster.” At a certain conceptual point, jams are jams, and fair enough, but while The Spacelords still have a sound molten enough as to draw readily on the chemistry between Wettstein, Kazmaier and Schnitzler, the fact that it also gives them someplace to go sonically seems huge in comparison to other space rock LPs playing to the other side of that equation. This distinction is perhaps evident nowhere so much as in “Metamorphosis,” which is the centerpiece of the three inclusions and presumably the side A finale of the vinyl.

Almost set to pure drift, its 12-minute stretch is hypnotic in the extreme, and yet, after about four minutes in, there’s a subtle turn from Schnitzler on drums, and as Kazmaier‘s bassline holds steady and the effects wash continues to unfold, Wettstein‘s guitar shifts into the next movement of the track. It’s such a small change, and it may indeed have been recorded live, but it comes across like The Spacelords knew they were going to make that pivot, as well as the one after that brings the song into even airier, post-rocking territory, and their knowing what’s following any given moment makes it that much easier to go with them along this path that, once again, still allows for much trance-inducing, purposeful wandering and spacious vibration.

Whatever commonality of theme may persist between Water Planet and its predecessor, the three inclusions of which were similarly broken down with two extended cuts on side A and one even longer one consuming the entirety of side B, there is a notable uptick in production value on the newer record, which makes the effects churn from Wettstein and Kazmaier and Schnitzler added synth all the more immersive. This is especially true throughout “Nag Kanya,” the rhythmic march of which is topped by a sustained drone that does much to fill out the sound, and to go back further and hear early work from The Spacelords on their 2010 self-titled debut or its 2011 follow-up, Dimension 7, it is plain that their progression has involved not only the move toward clearer intention in their craftsmanship, but also a fuller manner of presenting their material on the whole.

This, in combination with a lineup that feels further coalesced than it did on Liquid Sun, which marked Kazmaier‘s introduction to the band, stands Water Planet apart as The Spacelords‘ most realized full-length to-date. One can’t help but wonder if having this solidified base (bass?) beneath them, the band won’t feel freer their next time out to indulge a bit more improvisational wanderlust, but even if they continue to refine their methods with another liquid-theme three-songer, the obvious drive toward growth that shows itself on Water Planet will no doubt yield further forward progress. That is, there’s invariably more ground for The Spacelords to cover — a consequence in part of having a sound so vast — but between “Plasma Thruster,” “Metamorphosis” and “Nag Kanya,” nothing to argue against their being ready or willing to keep heading outward into the uncharted and, in the process of incorporating new elements and touches amid their already established modus, making that ground all the more their own just as they do here.

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The Spacelords on Bandcamp

The Spacelords on Spotify (available Oct. 20)

The Spacelords website

Tonzonen Records website

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Starting tomorrow, the next three weeks are absolutely stupid with new albums. Over-the-top, ridiculous. An immediately-go-broke amount of music. Nothing less than an onslaught. We’re under attack.

Far be it from me to tell you how to spend your money — also far be it from me not to — but there’s some really killer stuff in here. As to why it’s all landing now? Some of it of course has to do with the timing of when it was recorded, bands hitting the studio in Spring before heading out on the road over the summer, but Fall releases also line up nicely for tours in October and November, heading into the holiday season, when the music industry basically shuts down. This is the last chance for releases to come out in 2017 and be considered for best-of-year lists.

I doubt the likes of Chelsea Wolfe or Godspeed You! Black Emperor or even Kadavar would cop to that as a motivating factor, instead pointing to the timing of Fall touring and so on, but these things are rarely coincidental. You know how there aren’t any blockbusters in January but every movie feels like it’s trying to win an Oscar? Same kind of deal.

Nonetheless, 2017 is laying it on particularly thick these next couple weeks, and as you can see in the lists below, if you’ve got cash to spend, you can pretty much choose your rock and roll adventure. I’ll add to this as need be as well, so keep an eye for changes:

Sept. 22:

Alcest, Souveinirs d’un Autre Monde (10th Anniversary Edition)
Brant Bjork, Europe ’16
Chelsea Wolfe, Hiss Spun
Epitaph, Claws
Faces of the Bog, Ego Death
The Flying Eyes, Burning of the Season
Fvzz Popvli, Fvzz Dei
Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Luciferian Towers
Jarboe & Father Murphy, Jarboe & Father Murphy
Monarch, Never Forever
Nibiru, Qaal Babalon
Process of Guilt, Black Earth
Satyricon, Deep Calleth Upon Deep
Spelljammer, Inches from the Sun (Reissue)
Thonian Horde, Inconnu
Trash Titan, Welcome to the Banana Party
Ufomammut, 8
With the Dead, Love from With the Dead
Wolves in the Throne Room, Thrice Woven

Sept. 29:

Cities of Mars, Temporal Rifts
Deadsmoke, Mountain Legacy
A Devil’s Din, One Hallucination Under God
Disastroid, Missiles
Jim Healey, Just a Minute More (Sept. 26)
Idylls, The Barn
Kadavar, Rough Times
Lucifer’s Chalice, The Pact
Monolord, Rust
Outsideinside, Sniff a Hot Rock
Radio Moscow, New Beginnings
Scream of the Butterfly, Ignition
Tronald, Tronald (Sept. 30)
Unsane, Sterilize
Wucan, Reap the Storm

Oct. 6:

Elder Druid, Carmina Satanae
Fireball Ministry, Remember the Story
Frank Sabbath, Are You Waiting? (Oct. 2)
Himmellegeme, Myth of Earth
House of Broken Promises, Twisted EP
O.R.B., Naturality
Primitive Man, Caustic
Spirit Adrift, Curse of Conception
Spotlights, Seismic
Sumokem, The Guardian of Yosemite
Torso, Limbs
White Manna, Bleeding Eyes

Also:

Oct. 13: Enslaved, Firebreather, I Klatus, R.I.P., Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats (reissue), Weird Owl, etc.

Oct. 20: Iron Monkey, Spectral Haze, Bell Witch, The Spacelords, etc.

Something I forgot?

Invariably, right? If you know of something not seen above that should be, then by all means, please leave a comment letting me know. My only ask is that you keep it civil and not call me a fucking idiot or anything like that. I write these posts very early in the day, and if something has been neglected, I assure you it’s not on purpose and I’m happy to correct any and all oversights.

Thanks for reading and happy shopping. Support local record stores.

Yesterday was kind of crazy, but I don’t mind telling you I think today might be the most all-over-the-place of the week each of the five piles on my desk — now three, soon two — offers something different from the others, but it’s a wide spectrum being covered here, and there’s a couple abrupt turns from one to the next that I didn’t really do on purpose but I think will make for an interesting challenge anyway. In case you’ve been wondering, that’s what kind of nerd I am. Also the Star Trek kind.

I’m feeling really good about this series so far. Really good. I reserve the right to, by Friday, be so completely done with it that I never want to even think of the idea again, but I can only begin to tell you how satisfying it is to me to be able to write about some of these records after staring at them for so long sitting on my desk. Today’s batch is reviews 21-30 of the total 50, so we’ll pass the halfway point in this pile. If you’ve been keeping count since Monday or checking in, thanks, and if not, thanks anyway. Ha.

It’s about that time:

Brain Pyramid, Chasma Hideout

Although it was streamed here in full in September, the persistent stoner charm of French trio Brain Pyramid’s debut album, Chasma Hideout (released by Acid Cosmonaut Records), seemed to warrant further highlight. Whether it’s small touches like the organ underscoring centerpiece “Lucifer” or the wah-ready bass of Ronan Grall – joined in the band by guitarist/vocalist Gaston Lainé and drummer Baptiste Gautier-Lorenzo – or the memorable if genre-familiar turns of “Into the Lightspeed,” the band’s first LP impresses with unpretentious heavy rock front to back. It’s not perfect. Lainé’s vocals come across high in the mix on opener “Living in the Outer Space” and there are points where the “familiar” runs stronger than others, but especially as their initial full-length offering, Chasma Hideout is one that one seems to continue to grow on the listener as time goes on, and one hopes that the heavy psych chicanery from which they launch the 11-minute closing title-track becomes the foundation from which they build going forward. Potential worth reiterating.

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Acid Cosmonaut Records

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Zaum, Oracles

With the backing of venerable Swedish imprint I Hate Records, Canadian two-piece Zaum release their first LP in the four-song Oracles, a 48-minute work taking its central musical and atmospheric themes from Middle Eastern cues. Melodically and atmospherically, it relies on chants, slow, deep low end and minor key riffs to convey a dense ambience, reminding some of Om’s Mideast fixation on “Peasant of Parthia” – third and shortest here at 8:13 – but otherwise on a much heavier, darker trip entirely. Opener “Zealot” (12:55) and closer “Omen” (14:08) both offer plodding pace and a methodology not unlike Nile played at quarter-speed, but it would be a mistake to call the hand with which Kyle Alexander McDonald (vocals, bass, synth, sitar) and Christopher Lewis (drums) approach their aesthetic anything but commanding, and when McDonald switches to a semi-blackened rasp in the second half of “Omen,” Zaum demonstrate a desire to push even further into extremity’s reaches. I can’t help but wonder how far they’ll go.

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I Hate Records

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Fire Faithful, Organized Occult Love

Some of the organ sounds on “Eye Opener,” the aptly-titled leadoff from Virginia four-piece Fire Faithful’s second LP, Organized Occult Love, remind of what Beelzefuzz conjured atmospherically, but an even more primary impression is the uptick in production value from Fire Faithful’s 2012 outing, Please Accept this Invocation (review here). Recorded by Windhand’s Garrett Morris, songs like “Last Fool on Earth” and “Organized Occult Love” brim with tonal resonance and a perfect balance the mix. Guitarist Shane Rippey handled the latter with Morris, and throughout, his tones and that of bassist Jon Bone shine, but whether it’s a more straightforward, Earthride-style groover like the title-track, or a more ranging doomer like “Combat,” vocalist Brandon Malone is well balanced to cut through the morass and drummer Joss Sallade’s crash resides comfortably behind the thick chugging. Melissa Malone and Gabrielle Bishop contribute backing vocals to “Last Fool on Earth” and only affirm how much Organized Occult Love brings Fire Faithful’s Southern doom to another level of presentation. An important forward step.

Fire Faithful on Thee Facebooks

Fire Faithful website

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Pendejo, Atacames

Five years after debuting with 2009’s Cantos a Ma Vida, Amsterdam-based Pendejo return on Chancho Records with Atacames, a 10-track/44-minute wallop of classic heavy rock riffing and Latin American influence via the Spanish lyrics of vocalist El Pastuso and his readily-wielded-but-not-overused trumpet, which makes a surprising complement to Jaap “Monchito” Melman’s fuzz-heavy guitar, Stef “El Rojo” Gubbels’ bass and Jos “Pepellín” Roosen’s drums, but in context works well to bring personality and an individualized sensibility to a sound otherwise heavily indebted to the likes of Kyuss and Fu Manchu. Quality songwriting and variety in songs like the slower “Amiyano” and the building “Hermelinda” ensures Atacames offers more than novelty to those who’d gape at its other-ness, and when that trumpet does hit, it never falls flat. Closing out with a pair of big-riffers in “El Jardinero” and “La Chica del Super No Se Puede Callar,” Pendejo’s sophomore effort produces results as substantial as they are fun, and serve to remind that’s why we’re here in the first place.

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Chancho Records

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Heavy Glow, Pearls and Swine and Everything Fine

Cali trio Heavy Glow – guitarist/vocalist Jared Mullins, bassist Joe Brooks and drummer St. Judas – have spent a decent portion of the year on tour in support of their full-length, Pearls and Swine and Everything Fine. Understandable, and all the better to pick up your girlfriend in-person. Smooth, well-baked grooves permeate cuts like “Mine all Mine,” which also appeared on their prior 7” (review here), and the later “Nerve Endings,” a Queens of the Stone Age-style production giving about as much of a commercial vibe as a record can have and still be heavy rock, but the songwriting is paramount and definitely an element working in Heavy Glow’s favor, whether it’s the takeoff chorus of “Domino” or near-lounge vibe of “Fat Cat.” There’s an aspirational sensibility at the album’s core that’s going to make for an odd fit for some riff-heads who might be puzzled how something so nearly desert rock can still sound not at all like Brant Bjork, but hooks is hooks, and Heavy Glow use them well.

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Heavy Glow website

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Bibilic Blood, Snakeweed

Bibilic Blood released three albums between 2009 and 2011, but the Eastlake, Ohio, duo haven’t been heard from since – their nightmarish, depraved psychedelic sludge vanishing in a smoky, somehow hateful wisp. Snakeweed marks their fourth album, and with it bassist/vocalist Suzy Psycho and drummer/guitarist Scott “Wizard” Stearns unfurl another demented collection of chaos snippets from an alternate, terrifying universe, the 11 songs totaling just 27 minutes with enough lumber and obscure freakout on two-minute mainliners like “Severed” and “Bloodnomicon” in the middle of the record to be a genre on itself — like a grainy horror flick made scarier by its rawness. Closer and longest cut at 4:10 “Bloody Rabbit” starts with Boris, Flood-style noodling from Stearns on guitar, but samples transition into Snakeweed’s most gruesome chapter, Suzy Psycho’s voice echoing, twisted, from out of an abyss that might as well be your own subconscious, referencing Jefferson Airplane along the way. Their particular brand of malevolence has been missed, and hopefully Snakeweed starts a new bout of activity.

Bibilic Blood on Bandcamp

Goat Skull Records

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Thera Roya & Hercyn, All this Suffering is Not Enough

Gloom prevails and takes multiple shapes on All this Suffering is Not Enough, the new jewel-case split between Brooklyn post-metallers Thera Roya and progressive New Jersey black metallers Hercyn. Each band includes one song, and for the trio Thera Roya, that’s “Gluttony,” which builds its churn from the ground up and intersperses spacious guitar and almost punkish clean singing en route to a wash of scream-topped distortion, trading off volume and ambience and ultimately delivering a lot of both in a densely-packed eight minutes. Hercyn, a four-piece, counter with the 14-minute “Dusk and Dawn,” which follows their also-longform Magda EP (review here) in grand and squibbly form, a gallop taking hold early topped with throaty screams and shifting between melodic and dissonant impulses, a midsection solo offering a standout moment before the bludgeoning resumes. Each act offers a quotient of noise not to be understated, and despite working in different styles, that’s enough to let them complement each other well on the searing 23-minute Ouro Preto Productions release.

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Hercyn on Thee Facebooks

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The Spacelords, Synapse

Synapse, the third full-length from German trio The Spacelords, arrives like a gift from the bliss-jam gods. Four extended mostly-instrumental cuts arranged two per side on a Sulatron Records LP, crafting memorable impressions with washes of synth and guitar, intelligent jams that feel partially plotted and intelligent but still exploratory and natural in how they flesh out. Guitarist Matthias Wettstein is out front in the mix, but bassist Akee Kazmaier and drummer Marcus Schnitzler (also of Electric Moon) aren’t far behind, as much as a title like “Starguitar” might make you think otherwise. The chemistry between the three-piece remains tight across the album’s 41 minutes, and from the rich bass and chugging guitar of the opening title-track to the more laid-back groove of “No. 5” and voicebox strangeness of “Pyroclastic Master,” which has the record’s only vocals in robotically spoken lines, Synapse seems to make all of its connections along the way. Heavy psych heads previously unfamiliar will want to take note. The vinyl, of course, is limited.

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Sulatron Records

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The Good Hand, Atman

A progressive heavy rock trio from the Netherlands, The Good Hand present Atman, their second album, on Minstrel Music, with an adventurous semi-desert sensibility given crisp production and a somewhat wistful feel in songs like “Greenwich Mean Time” and “Unity.” For a record that starts out with lead guitarist/vocalist Arjan Hoekstra (also tuba, trombone, bugle, keys, percussion) declaring “I am god,” Atman is surprisingly not-arrogant, owing probably as much to Radiohead as Kyuss and keeping an experimental feel to the stops and arrangement of “The Opposite,” bassist/vocalist Dennis Edelenbosch and drummer/vocalist Ingmar Regeling (both also Monotron) swinging out classic style but holding firm to a modern edge. Out of nowhere is the 19-minute closing title-track (nothing else hits six), on which The Good Hand unfold varied movements that push beyond the charm of “The Death of the Real”’s ‘60s affiliations and into spaces jazz-funky, or droning, or doomy, or all of them. No easy accomplishment, but The Good Hand manage to hold it all together fluidly.

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Minstrel Music

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Byzanthian Neckbeard, From the Clutches of Oblivion

Okay, seriously. What the hell do you think a band who live on an island in the English Channel and call themselves Byzanthian Neckbeard sound like? Burly as hell? Well you’re right. The Guernsey foursome of guitarist/vocalist Phil Skyrme, guitarist Jon Langlois, bassist Dano Robilliard and drummer Paul Etasse get down on some dudely, dudely grooves on their 2014 debut, From the Clutches of Oblivion. “Doppelganger” nestles somewhere between death rock, stoner and sludge, and there’s a heaping crash of doom on “Plant of Doom” (duh) and “To Seek the Cyberdwarf” to go with the more swaggering take of “Hive Mind Overlord” as well. But primarily, you don’t put the word “Neckbeard” in your band’s name unless you’re on a pretty masculine trip, and Byzanthian Neckbeard do not fuck around in that regard or in the aggro boogie of “The Ganch.” CD is limited to 200 copies in a four-panel digipak to house the growl-laden, riff-led plunder that ensues across its brief but bloody 32-minute span.

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Byzanthian Neckbeard on Bandcamp

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