Day three. Yesterday had its challenges as regards timing, but ultimately I wound up where I wanted to be, which is finished with the writing. Fingers crossed I’m so lucky today. Last time around I hit into a groove pretty early and the days kind of flew, so I’m due a Quarterly Review where it’s a little more pulling teeth to make sentences happen. I’m doing my best either way. That’s it. That’s the update. Let’s go Wednesday.

Quarterly Review #21-30:

Godzillionaire, Diminishing Returns

Tell you what. Instead of pretending I knew Godzillionaire at all before this record came along or that I had any prior familiarity with frontman Mark Hennessy‘s ’90s-era outfit Paw — unlike everything else I’ve seen written about the band — I’ll admit to going into Diminishing Returns relatively blind. And somehow it’s still nostalgic? With its heart on its sleeve and one foot in we’re-all-definitely-over-all-that-shit-from-our-20s-by-now-right-guys poetic moodiness, the Lawrence, Kansas, four-piece veer between the atmospherics of “Spin Up Spin Down” and more grounded grooves like that of “Boogie Johnson” or “3rd Street Shuffle.” “Unsustainable” dares post-rock textures and an electronic beat, “Astrogarden” has a chug imported from 1994 and the seven-minutes-each capstone pair “Common Board, Magic Nail,” which does a bit of living in its own head, and “Shadow of a Mountain,” which has a build but isn’t a blowout, reward patient listens. I guess if you were there in the ’90s, it’s god-tier heavy underground hype. From where I sit, it’s pretty solid anyhow.

Godzillionaire website

Ripple Music website

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Time Rift, In Flight

In Flight is the second full-length from Portland, Oregon’s Time Rift, and it brings the revamped trio lineup of vocalist Domino Monet, founding guitarist Justin Kaye and drummer Terrica Catwood to a place between classic heavy rock and classic metal, colliding ’70s groove and declarative ’80s NWOBHM riffing — advance single “The Hunter” strikes with a particularly Mob Rulesian tone, but it’s relatable to a swath of non-sucky metal of the age — such that “Follow Tomorrow” finds a niche that sounds familiar in its obscurity. They’re not ultimately rewriting any playbooks stylistically, but the balance of the production highlights the organic foundation without coming across like a put-on, and the performances thrive in that. Sometimes you want some rock and roll. Time Rift brought plenty for everyone.

Time Rift on Bandcamp

Dying Victims Productions website

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Heavy Trip, Liquid Planet

Canadian instrumentalist trio Heavy Trip released their sophomore LP, Liquid Planet, in Nov. 2024, following on from 2020’s Burning World-issued self-titled debut (review here). A 13-minute title-track serves as opener and longest inclusion (immediate points), setting a high standrad for scorch that the pulls and shred of “Silversun,” the rush and roll of “Astrononaut” (sic) and capper “Mudd Red Moon” with its maybe-just-wah-all-the-time push and noisy comedown ending, righteously answer. It’s easy enough on its face to cite Earthless as an influence — instrumental band with ace guitarist throwing down a gauntlet for 40 minutes; they’re also touring Europe together — but Heavy Trip follow a trajectory of their own within the four songs and are less likely to dwell in a part, as the movement within “Astrononaut” shows plainly. I won’t be surprised when their next one comes with label backing.

Heavy Trip website

Heavy Trip on Bandcamp

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Slung, In Ways

An impressive debut from UK four-piece Slung, whose provenance I don’t know but who sound like they’ve been at it for a while and have come into their first album, In Ways, with clarity of what they want in terms of sound and songwriting. “Laughter” opens raucous, and “Class A Cherry” follows with a sleeker slower roll, while “Come Apart” pushes even further into loud/quiet trades for a soaring chorus and “Collider” pays off its early low-end tension with a melodic hook that feels so much bigger than what one might find in a three-minute song. It goes like that: one cut after another, for 11 songs and 37 minutes, with Slung skillfully guiding the listener from the front of the record to the back. The going can be intense, like “Matador” or the crashing “Thinking About It,” more contemplative like “Limassol” and “Heavy Duty,” and there’s even room for a title-track interlude before the somewhat melancholic “Nothing Left” and “Falling Down” close, though that might only be because Slung use their time so well.

Slung website

Slung on Bandcamp

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Greengoat, Aloft

Madrid-based progressive heavy rockers Greengoat return on a quick turnaround from 2024’s A.I. (review here) to Aloft, which over 33 minutes plays through seven songs each of which has been given a proper name: the album intro is “Zohar,” it moves into the grey-toned tension of “Betty,” “Jim” is moody, “Barney” takes it for a walk, and so on. The big-riffed centerpiece “Travis” is a highlight slog, and “Ariel,” which follows, is thoughtful in its melody and deceptively nuanced in the underlying rhythm. That’s kind of how Greengoat do. They’ve taken their influences — and in the case of closer “Charles,” that includes black metal — and internalized them toward their own methodologies, and as such, Aloft feels all the more individually constructed. Hail Iberia as Western Europe’s most undervalued heavy hotspot.

Greengoat website

Argonauta Records website

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Author & Punisher, Body Dome Light

If it seems a little on the nose for Author & Punisher, modern industrial music’s most doom-tinged purveyor, to cover Godflesh, who helped set the style in motion in the first place, yeah, it definitely is. That accounts for the reverence with which Tristan Shone treats the track that originally appeared on 1994’s Selfless LP, and maybe is part of why the song’s apparently been sitting for 11 years since it was recorded in 2014. Accordingly, if some of the sounds remind of 2015’s Melk en Honig (discussed here), the era might account for that. In Shone‘s interpretation, though, the defeated vocal of Justin K. Broadrick becomes a more aggressive rasp and the guitar is transposed to synth. One advantage to living in the age of content-creation is stuff like this gets released at all, let alone posted so you can stream or download as you will. Get it now so when it shows up on the off-album-tracks compilation later you can roll your eyes and be extra cool.

Author & Punisher website

Relapse Records website

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Children of the Sün, Leaving Ground, Greet the End

It’s gotta be a trap, right? The third full-length from Arvika, Sweden, heavy-hippie folk-informed psychedelic rockers Children of the Sün can’t really be this sweet, right? The soaring “Lilium?” The mellow, lap-steel-included motion in “Come With Us?” The fact that they stonerfy “Whole Lotta Love?” Yeah, no way. I know how this goes. You show up and the band are like, “Hey everything’s cool, check out this better universe we just made” and then the next thing you know the floor drops out and you’re doing manual labor on some Swedish farm to align yourself with some purported oneness. I hear you, “Starlighter.” You’re gorgeous and one of many vivid temptations on Leaving Ground, Greet the End, but you’ll not take my soul on your outbound journey through the melodic cosmos. I’m just gonna stay here and be miserable and there’s nothing you or that shiver-down-the-spine backing vocal in “Lovely Eyes” can do about it. So there.

Children of the Sün on Instagram

Children of the Sün on Bandcamp

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Pothamus, Abur

While the core math at work in Pothamus‘ craft in terms of bringing together crushing, claustrophobic tonality, aggressive purposes and expansive atmospherics isn’t necessarily new for a post-metallic playbook, but the melodies that the Belgian trio keep in their pocket for an occasion like “De-Varium” or the drone-folk “Ykavus” before they find another layer of breadth in the 15-minute closing title-track are no less engrossing across the subdued stretches within the six songs of Abur than the band are consuming at their heaviest, and the percussion in the early build of the finale says it better than I could, calling back to the ritualism of opener “Zhikarta” and the way it seems to unfold another layer of payoff with each measure as it crosses the halfway point, only to end up squeezing itself through a tiny tube of low end and finding freedom on the other side in a flood of drone, the entire album playing out its 46 minutes not like parts of a single song, but vivid in the intention of creating a wholeness that is very much manifest in its catharsis.

Pothamus on Bandcamp

Pelagic Records website

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Gentle Beast, Vampire Witch Reptilian Super Soldier (…From Outer Space)

Gentle Beast are making stoner rock for stoner rockers, if the cumbersome title Vampire Witch Reptilian Super Soldier (…From Outer Space) of the Swiss five-piece’s sophomore LP didn’t already let you know, and from the desert-careening of “Planet Drifter” through the Om-style meditation of “Riding Waves of Karma” (bonus points for digeridoo) ahead of the janga-janga verse and killer chorus of “Revenge of the Buffalo,” they’re not shy about highlighting the point. There’s a spoken part in the early going of “Voodoo Hoodoo Space Machine” that seems to be setting up a narrative, and the organ-laced ending of “Witch of the Mountain” certainly could be seen as a chapter of that unfolding story, but I can’t help but feel like I’m thinking too hard. Go with the riffs, because for sure the riffs are going. Gentle Beast hit pretty hard, counter to the name, and that gives Vampire Witch etc. etc. an outwardly aggressive face, but nobody’s actually getting punched here, they’re just loud having a good time. You can too.

Gentle Beast website

Sixteentimes Music website

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Acid Magus, Scatterling Empire

Metal and psychedelia rarely interact with such fluidity, but South Africa’s Acid Magus have found a sweet spot where they can lead a record off with a seven-minute onslaught like “War” and still prog out four minutes later on “Incantations” just because both sound so much in their wheelhouse. In addition, the fullness of their tones and modern production style, the way post-hardcore underlines both the nod later in “Wytch” and the shoving apex of “Emperor” is a unifying factor, while the bright-guitar interludes “Ascendancy” and “Absolution” broaden the palette further and contrast the darker exploration of “Citadel” and the finale “Haven,” which provides a fittingly huge and ceremonious culmination to Scatterling Empire‘s sense of space. It’s almost too perfect in terms of the mix and the balance of the arrangements, but when it hits into a more aggressive moment, they sound organic in holding it together. Acid Magus have actively worked to develop their approach. It’s hard to see the quality of these songs as anything other than reward for that effort.

Acid Magus on Bandcamp

Mongrel Records website

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If I told you it was a varied bunch of stuff added to the server today, would you believe me? Seems I say the same thing every time I do one of these posts, but it applies each time, anyhow. This is the second round of adds of 2015, which means I’m two-for-two on weeks for the year. I doubt very much I’ll be able to keep that pace until we get to 2016 — which sounds like a distant and horrifying future in which cars fly and people work diligently to cure Martians of chicken pox — but it’s good for now. I’m trying to keep more of a handle on reviews than I did last year, and things like this help.

Though it’s only been a week and files haven’t had too much time to pile up — again, that’s the whole idea — there are still 11 records new to the playlist as of this afternoon, so please feel free to hit up the Updates and Playlist Page and check out the full batch for yourself. And with that link plugged, let’s get to it.

The Obelisk Radio adds for Jan. 16, 2015:

Black Pussy, Magic Mustache

After an interim split with Biblical Proof of UFOs that boasted the 20-minute jam “Galaxies,” Portland, Oregon’s Black Pussy return with their second full-length, Magic Mustache, which takes the hazy heavy psych of 2012’s On Blonde and gives it focus around natural tones, brazen hooks and diligently fuzzed variety, tripping out with synth and guitar effects on cuts like “Protopipe” and the brief-but-nod-worthy “Farrah Fawcett” while going full-on Queens of the Stone Age bounce on lead-single “For the Sake of Argument,” motorik space-rock on “Happy” and upping the lysergic swirl on the seven-minute closing title-track. It’s a quality record from a band with a rich sound, engaging songwriting and a well-honed psychedelia, a molten flow on “Lion’s Breath” and “On Top of the World” and others, and while every time I listen to it I can’t help but be bummed out by their moniker — which, despite being Black Pussy is so white and so male in its appropriation; no less so now than when The Rolling Stones picked it as the original title of “Brown Sugar” — I won’t discount the vibe that’s melted all over this material. Still, the distraction takes away from an otherwise righteous listening experience, and at least in my view, hurts a killer band. I wonder if it’s worth it. Black Pussy on Thee Facebooks, on Bandcamp.

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Time Rift, Demo 2015

But for the portraiture of the cover art, one might be tempted to call Demo 2015 a humble beginning for Portland trio Time Rift, whose launch represents a restart for vocalist/bassist Levi Campbell, guitarist Justin Kaye, and drummer Matt Amott, a three-piece formerly operating under the moniker Doomsower. To their credit, Time Rift is a better name, but more than just a switch, Demo 2015 presents them as an entirely new band, more rock-based, rawer in a ’70s-style presentation and less outwardly doomed. Even the seven-minute “The Cimmerian,” which dives headfirst into pre-NWOBHM early metal idolatry (and, yes, gets fairly doomed), keeps a melodic focus, and if there was a need to redirect their approach, at least Time Rift was able to do so while building on the chemistry already developing between them. The short, swing-heavy “Dusty Shelf” and layered vocal chorus of “Demon Hex” and proto-catchiness of “Starcrossed” legitimately sound like Campbell, Kaye and Amott have gone back to the start, and the exploration they’re embarking on seems like one well worth pursuing. One hopes they’re in a place sound-wise where they want to be, because it suits them. Time Rift on Thee Facebooks, on Bandcamp.

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The Dust Bowl, Sangre Grande

Spanish heavy rockers The Dust Bowl released their second album, Sangre Grande, late last year and with it, they revel in grunge and desert rock atmospherics. Produced and mixed by guitarist César Royo (also organ, percussion, harmonica, etc.), it’s a vigilantly straightforward offering, delving into pop showmanship on “Bad Feeling,” but otherwise nestling cleanly into the post-QOTSA milieu of crunchy tones, strong hooks and melodic vocals. “Flow down this River” might be its most “the ’90s” moment, but there’s some stiff competition in that regard, while the quietly pulsing “Aqua de 1000 Cactus” brings to mind Kyuss‘ “Space Cadet” before the title-track finishes out in more raucous instrumental fashion. Touches of acoustic guitar, percussion, djembe, organ, backing vocals, and so on give their arrangements more depth than they might otherwise have, but at their core, The Dust Bowl — Royo, vocalist José Ángel Navarro, bassist Alejandro “Vilo” Viloria and drummer Manuel Navarro — are well rooted in the tenets of their genre, and they bring forth an able execution thereof. The Dust Bowl on Thee Facebooks, on Bandcamp.

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The Sorrows, Gonna Find a Cave

Some lines it’s hard to make sound cool, but I firmly believe that if The Sorrows can sell, “Wanna be your ever-lovin’ caveman,” they can do just about anything. The reactivated UK group had a couple of singles out in the ’60s, but the three-song Gonna Find a Cave 7″ is brand new, though you’d hardly know it from the sound of the ultra-catchy title-track, or “Don’t Do That” and “Doin’ Alright Tonight,” which follow. The last of them has some touches of what could be an acknowledgement that the ’70s or anything thereafter happened and is so immediately familiar that it has me wondering if it’s a cover and I just can’t place it (any help in that regard is appreciated), but otherwise vocalist Don Fardon and company revel in pure 1965, pre-psychedelic pop rock, right at that moment after the British Invasion but before all the freakout that came next. It’s a place just about nobody these days dares inhabit, and the fact that they were there the first time around only makes Gonna Find a Cave more of a curio. Rise Above Records has unearthed some fascinating releases with roots in this era (see also their Rog & Pip compendium, issued last year), and The Sorrows bring it to life with unquestionable realism on these tracks. The Sorrows at Rise Above Records, Rise Above on Soundcloud.

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Einstein-Rosen, Le Pont Noir

Acoustic intro “Prologue” sets a brooding tone for Le Pont Noir, the debut full-length from Quebecois prog metal instrumental outfit Einstein-Rosen, a solo-project from Louis-Alexandre Jacques, who doubles as guitarist in stoner metallers Grand Morne. Jacques plays all the instruments on Le Pont Noir, which is all the more impressive when he gets down to the shifting tempos and blastbeats in “Vénérable Vestige,” but the entirety of the album proves more dynamic than one might think for being executed by just one player, breaking into two sides as “Isthme” leads the way into the solo-topped “Neptune” at the start of the second half, the alternating thrash and plod of “Vortex” giving over to cinematic ambience as the nine-minute “Brume Quantique” closes out. Shred-prone stretches like those of “Ruinam” and “Vortex” tell the story of Jacques‘ underlying metal influence, but he seems no more likely to be kept to one single style as to one single band, and Einstein-Rosen‘s first outing only heralds development of an even broader reach. Einstein-Rosen on Bandcamp, Grand Morne on Thee Facebooks.

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There you have it. Don’t forget that to see what’s been played today and what else got added, you can always check out The Obelisk Radio Playlist and Updates Page. It wants to be your friend.

Thanks for reading and listening.