All of the music included in today’s episode of The Obelisk Show is new unless otherwise noted. There was some fresh-out stuff I knew I wanted to put in — REZN, Black Helium, Child, Edena Gardens, Santo Rostro, etc. — and then I kind of started digging back a little, and with the space of a year between went back to dig a few tracks out of 2021, the Thermic Boogie song from 2020, and so on, all with the semi-conscious aim of exploring the idea of what it means when one thinks of a band being ‘dug in.’

In the voice tracks, clever soul that I am, I call it “digging in to being dug in.” It’s not a special episode, really — apart from the odd deep-dive or memorial, getting to play new music someone might not’ve heard on a platform like Gimme Metal is pretty special already, as far as I’m concerned — but kind of an underlying semi-theme. At very least, something that was in my head when I put the playlist together.

So with the back and forth of new and old(er) material and longer songs generally, it’s a different episode for sure than the last one, but I wanted to see how this went and how it felt really picking tracks that unfold in their own way, letting them do that. I don’t know if it’ll work or not — if the chat is dead and nobody’s listening, I’ll have my answer — but it’s a little bit of an experiment on my end and I’m grateful for the opportunity to conduct it.

Thanks if you listen. Thanks for reading. Thanks in general. Your support is appreciated. I’m a real human being and it means something to me, genuinely.

The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.

Full playlist:

The Obelisk Show – 03.17.23 (VT = voice track)

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is March 31 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.

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Over a year ago, Barcelona two-piece Thermic Boogie posted the above text image saying simply that the band was ‘over.’ Well, sometimes over means ‘done’ and sometimes over means ‘we’re still putting out one more record.’ The latter is the case for Albert Martínez-López and Baptiste Gautier-Lorenzo, and the title of their third and final studio outing — following 2019’s Fracture EP (review here) and the 2016 debut LP Vastness and Matter (review here) — is Sheer Madness. As sendoffs go, the very least one can say about the seven-song/62-minute offering is that it’s comprehensive, the duo bringing a vibrant noise-metal cacophony that reminds here and there of Mastodon‘s early pummel but works in flourish of psychedelia (“Song to the Mineral”), as well as massive swaths of feedback and drone (KT88_6550″). With only the 5:59 “Phobosophy” under eight minutes long and the 10-minute “The Drum Horse” leading off, an angular onslaught takes hold at a deceptively lurching pace — huge, it is — but ultimately Thermic Boogie are more manic than one tempo or modus operandi can contain.

And golly, that’s a lot of feedback.

The noise, of course, only adds to the sense of Sheer Madness living up to its name. The band use it as a means of transition from one song to another, and it only makes the winding progressions that ensue feel more unhinged. There are moments of stretch-out of where the intensity is pulled back somewhat, earlier in “Crystal Clear” or the more subdued “Song to the Mineral,” but the crux of Sheer Madness finds Thermic Boogie at the most surging they’ve ever been (or ever were, as the case might be) and with the elephantine plod they evoke alongside their rushing tempos, the intricacy with which they execute the material and the fluidity they bring in moving from one part to the next, the only thing one can really say about the listening experience across Sheer Madness is it’s too bad they’re not a band anymore. This isn’t a half-assed we-had-leftover-material-so-here-it-is record. They sound like a band with more to say.

To wit, the various assaults in “A Herdhead” and “Sheer Madness” itself, as well as, say, everywhere. With ace performances from Gautier-Lorenzo and Martínez-López and unpredictable turns abounding from part to part as the tracks play out, Sheer Madness manifests the shift in sound Thermic Boogie made with Fracture, and they cap with what’s unquestionably their most aggressive statement, making seem entirely possible a scenario in which even with just the two of them the sound became too volatile to hold together. That’s not really how things work, of course, but even as “Song to the Mineral” strums its way through toward its melodic wash finish, there’s a sense that the rug might get pulled out from under the whole thing at any minute and the rained-down destruction will begin anew.

Which it does, but only because you hit play on the album again to continue to try to get your head around it.

With a farewell at least for now to Thermic Boogie and this closing chapter, I’m happy to host “A Herdhead” for your premiere-streaming pleasure below, followed by some explanatory words from the band.

Please enjoy:

Thermic Boogie on Sheer Madness:

Sheer Madness is the fruit of an idea, as we wanted to create a whole album, with soul, and messages. We both stated that the present times looked like a complete mess, and talked a lot about the random bullshit that happened around us. It was around 2019, and after all the financial and personal efforts that we had to provide, that we finally succeeded to gather obscure riffs, attempting to reproduce the shapes and feelings of the kind of black cloud in which we had the impression to be. We also had in mind that the band had to come to its end, and it carried us to give a strong last shot.

The fierce impression that this album may give at first, is the result of our vicissitudes and concerns. We wanted the tracklist to be harsh and torturous to crush our thoughts and act as a painkiller. The recording took place in the studio we were renting. The sound is like our perspective about music: it is straight, as close as possible from the reality, and without any loop or extra bass. We so invite you to play it LOUD! We’d like to thank all our friends from Barcelona who helped us to play the gigs we had the chance to play, and those in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Germany who helped us on tour. But also, our parents, record label mates, our families, and every person which is reading this article and giving life to Thermic Boogie. Cheers from Albert and Baptiste

Tracklisting:
1. The Drum Horse
2. Phobosophy
3. A Herdhead
4. Crystal Clear
5. KT88_6550
6. Sheer Madness
7. Song to the Mineral
Thermic Boogie was:
Albert Martinez-Lopez – Kramer guitars and throats
Baptiste Gautier-Lorenzo – Ludwig drums and throats

Thermic Boogie on Thee Facebooks

Thermic Boogie on Bandcamp

Barcelona-based progressive noisemakers Thermic Boogie will release their new EP, Fracture, on Feb. 6. That’s a digital arrival date, and one can’t help but wonder if part of the reason they’re putting the songs out first into the interweb-ether is because the 12″ vinyl edition is being done in partnership with no fewer than six independent record labels. Six! That’s a conglomerate! It’s hard enough to coordinate one band and one label, let alone one band and five. But hey, that’s part of the adventure, and Fracture — so titled no doubt to convey its intentions toward audience expectation — is nothing if not an adventure. Comprised of three tracks — “Coup de Grâce,” “Grey Gardens” and “Ocean” — the EP runs a blunt 18 minutes that largely takes the noise rock elements that factored into the band’s early 2016 debut album, Vastness and Matter (review here), and ups the aggression level while adding vocals to their once-instrumental arsenal.

That’s a significant change both on paper and in the reality of listening to what guitarist Albert Martínez-López and drummer Baptiste Gautier-Lorenzo bring to the material in terms of character. Handled by Gautier-Lorenzo, the vocals are shouts and occasionally harsher takes that add to the aggressive feel of the songs, and while Martínez-López still puts a bit of space in his solo late into the opener, the focus has notably shifted to a crush ‘n’ crunch mentality driven forward with marked precision. Again, this side was there when Thermic Boogie did the album, but as the sharp-edged riffing of “Grey Gardens” takes hold, the two-piece sound like Akimbo or other acolytes of US West Coast noise rock, a biting wah worked into the thrust alongside dips into extremity and ferocious percussiveness and chug. “Ocean” follows the pattern laid out by the first two, but with more sway in the rhythm and nuance to Martínez-López‘s winding guitar, calling to mind earliest Mastodon with a punker mindset, the line between metal and rock and noise and punk blurring until it disappears or, to give another image, bring stomped into oblivion.

All the while — vocals. I won’t pretend to know what’s behind the shift in approach or whether Thermic Boogie are testing the waters for future exploration along the same lines or just trying something for a one-off release, but what they’re doing here works, and especially as the longer two tracks at 7:19 and 6:53, respectively, “Coup de Grâce” and “Ocean” demonstrate that plainly. While “Grey Gardens,” which is just over four minutes, is more intense, and that is a purpose unto itself, “Ocean” in particular shows a noteworthy move into noise as more than just an assault of volume, melody creeping into the guitar in a way that holds promise moving forward. And if Fracture does anything, it’s that. Again, it’s under 20 minutes long — shorter, indeed, than was the track “Quadratonic Magnitude” from the LP — but even more than its brevity, it’s the turn of approach that makes its run more of a sprint than a slog.

Maybe Thermic Boogie will move forward directly from here, or maybe they’ll do something completely different again the next time out. Maybe their next release will be space rock. Who knows? The important thing is Martínez-López and Gautier-Lorenzo have put themselves in a position to be more pointed in their delivery while leaving their audience guessing as to what they might do next. That’s a damn good place to be for a band, and if you’ve got any brains left unmelted after the slamming crash of “Coup de Grâce,” there’s a good chance they’ll be telling you to look forward to finding out where Thermic Boogie end up.

If nothing else, it’s easy to see why they’d want to get the release out as soon as possible. Look for the vinyl on Big Ground Records, Aloud Music, Solo Bongs Records, Woooaaaaargh, The Brave Records and Violence in the Veins, and the digital release at the start of next month. In the meantime, I’m happy to host the premiere of “Ocean” on the player below, followed by more info about the EP.

Please enjoy:

The EP is going to be out soon on 12″ vinyl disc. There are 6 different labels cooperating for this edition:
– Big Ground Records (SP)
– Aloud Music (SP)
– Solo Bongs Records (SP)
– Woooaaaaargh (DE)
– The Brave Records (SP)
– Violence in the veins (SP)

# VINYL #
BGLP001, ALOUD027LP, SLBNGS420, WRG191, TBR30/04-18, VIO28

# CD #
BGCD004

Recorded in December 2017 in Sabadell (Barcelona)
Sound takes and mixes by Baptiste Gautier-Lorenzo
Master audio by Victor Garcia (Ultramarinos)
Photography by Domingo Escidero
Graphic designs by Albert Martinez-Lopez

Thermic Boogie is:
Albert Martinez-Lopez – Kramer guitars and throats
Baptiste Gautier-Lorenzo – Ludwig drums and throats

Thermic Boogie on Thee Facebooks

Thermic Boogie on Bandcamp

Big Ground Records webstore

Aloud Music webstore

Solo Bongs Records on Bandcamp

Wooaaargh webstore

The Brave Records webstore

Violence in the Veins on Bandcamp

Thermic Boogie will release their debut album, Vastness and Matter, through HeadSpin Records on Sept. 15. The Barcelona-based two-piece introduced the record with a review/track premiere here back in the early hours of 2016, and signed with HeadSpin for the CD/LP physical pressings thereafter. A few months’ manufacturing time later, here we are again, streaming the record in full. Nice to give these things some symmetry sometimes.

However, as I’ve already reviewed the four/five-track work — it started out as four, but the latter part of “No Pienses en Volver” has been broken off into a separate, untitled closer for the real-world editions — it hardly seems useful to rehash my own meager insights about the instrumental work of guitarist Albert Martínez-López and drummer Baptiste Gautier-Lorenzo (also of Brain Pyramid), so I thought I’d go to the band itself to get some background. What started as a track-by-track kind of became a general overview about how Thermic Boogie came about and how the record came together following the writing for its longest piece, the 21-minute “Quadratonic Magnitude.”

That that track would be the foundation for Thermic Boogie as a whole makes sense once you hear it. Gautier-Lorenzo and Martínez-López have immediate chemistry together as players, and it comes across there in a way that serves the shorter cuts around it, whether that’s opener “A Black Powdery” or the following “Space Void of Matter.” “Quadratonic Magnitude,” as the centerpiece of the tracklist, embodies Thermic Boogie‘s ethic, and the exploration it sets out upon continues in the subsequent “No Pienses en Volver” and the percussive experimenting of the already-noted unnamed finale.

Gautier-Lorenzo was kind enough to go into detail on Vastness and Matter from start to finish, concept to execution, so I won’t delay any further. Dig into the stream of the full album using the Soundcloud player below, then find his comments after, and please, enjoy:

Baptiste Gautier-Lorenzo on Vastness and Matter:

Thermic Boogie was born in 2015, after the meeting of me and Albert, who is my step-brother. He already had two beautiful amplifiers and I was looking for a heavy rock project. We directly made a lot of jam sessions, which we recorded on my little cassette 4-track recorder.

Then, we made a surgical work to grab and mix all the heaviest and groovy things we had on the recordings. First came the longest song on the debut album: it’s called “Quadratonic Magnitude.” It actually last 21 minutes or something around. This is the song on which we spent a pretty big lot of time… We wanted to create an intense and dynamic piece, to stick to the dimension-related album. I think it give a good idea of the monolithic way of playing we are aiming to reach.

After this, we crafted the following song, which is the outro of the album. It consists in a sweet and deep part; followed by a percussion part. We really loved the idea of a huge finish, to bring even more density to the disc. It is also a way to show another side of heaviness. This acid-drum part is the only part that has been recorded with the 4-track recorder!

The other songs were quicker to compose. They have more common shape, and straightness. And it’s hard to say if we were “inspired” by a certain band or song to compose them. It think it just popped out of us, without thinking. I like to do spontaneous things, and these songs were almost created instantaneously. Albert brought a lot of ideas and freshness in the way of playing these songs.

The recording took place in a wood factory, in an industrial zone, near Barcelona. It was just a weekend, as we recorded all the playbacks “live”. We just made some overdubs after it, and we were done. It was a real isolation from the noise and agitation of city. We both love to be on the outsides and to have a relief from the stressed environment where we’re living. It think this is the main influence for the whole songs and also for the design and the way of building the album.

It was also very important for us to make that album sound natural and as close as possible of the reality. The mixing and master were made to respect the dynamics and textures of the versatile sound of the guitar, despite of the awful mics and recording gear we used, heheheh.

We made everything by ourselves from the beginning, without help from any third part person! So the people will taste an entire and “monolithic” part of the band
and we would also say a huge thank to our friends and family, to Clio and Headspin/Clear Spot Records.

We’re really excited to see how the people will react to it, as every beginning project. We hope this will like to all the heavy diggers, and night trippers. May the real heavy rock live on!

Thermic Boogie on Thee Facebooks

Thermic Boogie on Bandcamp

Thermic Boogie at HeadSpin Records

HeadSpin Records on Thee Facebooks

Barcelona duo Thermic Boogie are hoping to release their debut album, Vastness and Matter, this Spring. The instrumental two-piece of guitarist Albert Martínez-López and drummer Baptiste Gautier-Lorenzo offer up a four-track, 50-minute long-player with their debut release in a style they refer to as “double-toasted” heavy rock. Whatever that might mean, their sound draws a line across two shorter cuts and two subsequent longer ones between semi-technical riffing and rhythmic turns and all-out crunching tonality. It’s heavy, it can move quick to a dizzying degree, and it retains a sense of spaciousness in its tone and crash no matter where Martínez-López and Gautier-Lorenzo (the latter also of Brain Pyramid and Fange) take it.

In short, Vastness and Matter offers up what its title promises — space and earthly crush. The dynamic that Martínez-López and Gautier-Lorenzo foster even from the feedback-soaked beginning of opener “A Black Powdery” belies the notion of this being their first outing, the guitar digging deep into low-end to fill out the room in the channel a bass might otherwise occupy as the drums offer immediate electrified propulsion. Still, “A Black Powdery” might as well be an introduction next to what follows as “Space Void of Matter” picks up with a vehement push of thickened boogie, Thermic Boogie winding through The Atomic Bitchwax-style runs and still showing up on the doorstep of the four-part “Quadratonic Magnatude” without a scratch on them.

Perhaps it’s inevitable because of the runtimes involved, but “Quadratonic Magnatude” and the closing “No Pienses en Volver” both top 21 minutes and comprise the core of Vastness and Matter‘s barrage of high-impact riffs and en-route-to-tripped-out sonics. Working in four individual movements, “Quadratonic Magnatude” courses through uptempo heavy rock twists and wall-of-noise crashing before settling at last into a slowdown groove and big finish worthy of what came before it, and as it carries the rest of the album out, “No Pienses en Volver” is a record unto itself, with jazzy bursts, a massive stretch drum tension and a stretch of silence prior to a classic riffy shuffle takes hold, either as a secret track or a second part of “No Pienses en Volver” that remains unnamed. At heart in everything Thermic Boogie do on their first outing is the chemistry between Martínez-López and Gautier-Lorenzo, who give an impressive showing while also setting up various avenues for potential future growth.

They’re reportedly looking for a label now to get behind the release of Vastness and Matter, and I don’t anticipate finding one will be much trouble. “Space Void of Matter” gives an excellent sampling of what they have going throughout the album (while not necessarily giving it all away), and you can check it out on the player below.

Please enjoy:

Thermic Boogie is a heavy rock band formed in Barcelona on summer of 2015. It is the initiative of Albert Martinez Lopez and Baptiste Gautier Lorenzo (Brain Pyramid/Fange). The aim is to provide a loud and powerful groove through firing and corrosive songs. Great volumes, intense sound, high energy, and hard playing. The influences are all 90s and some actual sludge bands, but also rock and roll in his different forms, and of course, every funky groovy, and world music. They will release their first LP called Vastness and Matter in beginnings of 2016. The band is now searching for many gigs to offer the best of what they can blast.

Thermic Boogie / VASTNESS AND MATTER
01 A Black Powdery
02 Space void of matter
03 Quadratonic Magnitude
–03.1 Amplitude
–03.2 Distance
–03.3 Lux Vacuum
–03.4 Ascension
04 No pienses en volver

Thermic Boogie on Thee Facebooks

Thermic Boogie on Bandcamp