Review & Full EP Premiere: Silverships, Kingdom of Decay

Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on November 21st, 2024 by JJ Koczan

silverships kingdom of decay

Hamburg-based heavy rockers Silverships issue their debut EP, the four-songer Kingdom of Decay, tomorrow through Tonzonen. At 19 minutes total, it is preceded only by a 2023 demo that had two tracks, and single releases for “Kingdom of Decay” and “Nevermore,” which are included here, to promote this release, so if you’re reading and thinking to yourself, “hey I’ve never heard of this band,” by no means are you late to the party. Ever; but particularly not in this case. Comprised of bassist Jan Gehrmann, guitarist/vocalist Nils Kock and drummer Tim Schröter, the band dig wholeheartedly into a turn-of-the-century desert rock sound as their foundation, giving a strong impression derived from Queens of the Stone Age throughout, but working around that root with persona and expressive character.

The group’s beginnings seem to be something of a winding tale, going back about a decade to Nils Kock leading an outfit called — of course — Kock’s MotelKock’s Motel put out an EP in 2016 and other demos and such along the way, and evolved into Silverships in ’22/’23. Somewhere in there Kock also took part in Crimson Coyote circa 2020, but Silverships is a refreshed lineup and renewed intention, and Kingdom of Decay, from the outset of its title-track, benefits from the new-band energy of the contained performances. And this might be splitting hairs, but while Josh Homme is an acknowledged defining influence in the material, I actually hear more Chris Goss and Masters of Reality in the opener. Kock‘s voice has that kind of croon made to ride a swinging groove, and as he names himself “a hopeless clown” in the verse, the likeness is there and in the arrangement flourishes throughout, even if the production sound puts their fuzz squarely in the realm of Lullabies to Paralyze.

That’s not a complaint, mind you. As the airy lead line starts “Kingdom of Decay” Silvershipswith an echoing memory of Kyuss‘ “Rodeo,” the stage is set, and KockGehrmann and Schröter work from there to bring their interpretations to more familiar genre elements. They know how to write a song, and specifically how to end one, as both the lead/title-cut and “Beast” follows suit, with insistent fuzz and a brash, edgy snare sound behind the verse as it builds toward its thicker-toned chorus takeoff ahead of a vital last push that feels like it’s about to go off the rails when they end it. The second single, “Nevermore” shifts intention tonally and spaces its vocals out to accompany a thicker, lower buzz. Fair enough to change it up if they were going to, but they’re not far from the desert in the melody, and they do get around to another big finish, but the form has changed. This is more open, patient, and fluid. A roll rather than a charge. If you don’t think that makes a difference, I’m glad to argue the ‘pro’ side of hearing nascent dynamic in a new band’s early output.

And “War is Over” continues the shakeup of what “Kingdom of Decay” and “Beast,” and even “Nevermore” got up to. At 6:17, it’s the longest of the four on the EP, and it begins mellow and drifty, letting the atmosphere that shone through the more straightforward songs prior find fruition in the closer. In the instrumental and vocal arrangements, it’s Beatles, but again via Chris Goss, and as the pop-emotive layering of the vocals works well, spindly lead lines in the hook build off the verse’s thoughtful melody. The guitar spends most of its time soloing either gently or not, but it comes to the fore after the halfway point and smoothly changes from its casual strum to proggier, almost keyboardy sounds (if it’s keys, fine; I just didn’t see a credit), finishing somewhat grander but consistent in pace and a moment that feels ‘earned’ by the time they get there as a herald of things to come.

I know everybody’s busy, and the greater likelihood is you haven’t heard Silverships before since this is their first outing (I know you have, since you’re cool like that, but other people are lame like me), but it’s 19 minutes of your time and you might find something you dig. Low risk, high potential reward, and all you have to do is click play on the player below to hear it. PR wire info follows after. Easy-frickin’-peasy.

As always, I hope you enjoy:

Heavy groove driven Stoner/ Desert Rock Trio Silverships will release their debut Kingdom Of Decay on November 22, 2024 via Tonzonen Records/ Cargo.

The four songs of Silverships’ debut EP Kingdom Of Decay encompass all musical styles from which the band draws their inspiration. The desert rock of the 90s and 2000s forms the foundation of the trio. Many traces of Queens Of The Stone Age can be found in the songs. The heavy passages also conjure up associations to Kyuss. Soundscapes from 70s Pink Floyd also appear again and again. Light psych-pop moments of early Tame Impala are followed by dense and dark atmosphere capturing the vibe of The Doors – and would also work well as the soundtrack for a movie yet to be made.

Recorded at Studio Altona by Hauke Albrecht
Mastered by Plätlin Mastering
Video by Jonas Albrecht

In addition to opulent arrangements and varied songwriting, what characterizes the band is their love of B parts, always ending their songs on an exclamation point. Hauke Albrecht is the man behind the powerful production. With Mountain Witch, he produced the last bigger stoner export from Hamburg. The band was able to get BEWITCHED Graphics’ Benjamin Nickel for the artwork, whose psychedelic works have also been featured by the Reeperbahn Festival, for example.

The opener Kingdom Of Decay starts off softly. Bassist Jan Gehrmann’s hypnotic bassline floats over drummer Tim Schröter’s fluffy groove carpet, then Nils Kock’s hooky lead guitar joins in. His velvety singing tells a story of transitoriness. “And I never ever ever, never ever ever saw her again”, goes the chorus. Boy meets girl? A one unique rush experience? After the second chorus, the song’s heaviness increases: Huge fuzz guitars pick up the bassline and encourage subtle headbanging. After the lead fanfares and the bluesy solo have faded away, a mellotron lights up the song and the base riff returns, revolving, accelerating, taking off. The hook from the intro glides through the room one last time before a stoner rock bulldozer rips through the outro.

Overall, Silverships’ Kingdom Of Decay is a surprisingly fleshed out debut record. No wheels are reinvented, but many different influences and references are interweaved into a very harmonious and surprising combination. The result is a varied, yet homogeneous debut EP that leaves the listener curious about what’s to come next.

The Silverships vinyl of Kingdom Of Decay is available for pre-order here: https://www.tonzonen.de/shop/p/silverships-presale-061024-

Tracklist
1. Kingdom Of Decay
2. Beast
3. Nevermore
4. War Is Over

Silverships, “Kingdom of Decay” official video

Silverships’ Linktr.ee

Silverships on Bandcamp

Silverships on Instagram

Silverships on Facebook

Tonzonen Records website

Tonzonen Records on Facebook

Tonzonen Records on Instagram

Tonzonen Records on Bandcamp

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Astral Kompakt Premiere “Batavische Träne II” Video; Goldader Out Nov. 22

Posted in Bootleg Theater on November 8th, 2024 by JJ Koczan

astral kompakt goldader

German heavy instrumentalists Astral Kompakt will release their full-length debut, Goldader, on Nov. 22 through Tonzonen Records. And from opener “Pirsch” onward, the record is plenty heavy — the lead cut, first of seven total on a 40-minute front-to-back, kicks in from its quiet intro at right around 1:40 — and that’s all well and good, but Goldader is working toward more than just that standard. There are flourishes, pieces of pieces, that seem to come from more progressive fare, even prog-metal in “Batavische Träne I,” where the prior “Welwitschie” offers fluid rumination early and builds in stages, unveiling a plus-sized roll en route to a stop in its final minute from which a Truckfighters-y fuzz-run takes off to end.

The title-track is the longest inclusion at 7:42, and comes off “Pirsch” with a more expansive, psychedelic vibe, but there’s purpose behind everything Astral Kompakt do. These aren’t jams. It’s not unstructured. There’s a plot to each of these tracks — even the wailing feedback and fuzzy comedown leads of the penultimate “Ruin” brim with intent — and while the band make a point of their complexity and are clearly ambitious in terms of challenging themselves as players and writers, that doesn’t come at the cost of the material’s raw impact.

Of course, a production and mix from Jan Oberg at Berlin’s Hidden Planet (see also current releases from Daevar, CaffeineOberg‘s own Grin, etc.) isn’t going to hurt the prospect of aural largesse, and Goldader, whether it’s the midsection of the title-track, the immersion of “Pirsch” or the way “Batavische Träne II” (video premiering below) seems to do honor to Karma to Burn‘s central ethic of here’s-the-riff-now-eat-it when it came to groovemaking, but tone and tempo variation assures that not every song has the same goals or winds up in the same place. It is not a collection of linear builds, though “Batavische Träne II” has a doozy after its rocking opening section gives way to a quieter middle before its held-in-pocket nod is laid bare, soon to be topped with a duly airy solo.

But “Ruin” shifts theastral kompakt structure away from that build and works around its core progression with a rocker’s intention and Conan-style tonality underpinning a markedly doomed — and by that I mean grunge — riff. “Ruin” stones out, throws a little wah on the bass even, later on, but ends crushing, and drops to a silence, which the barely-there-at-first ambient opening of “Levitas” gets moving before a cymbal wash marks the arrival point of bloodrush punctuated lumber that ultimately opens to a transposed desert rock riff — (only) in my head, vague echoes of being told I don’t seem to understand the dee-yal — rolled out in a way that’s straightforward enough but doesn’t let go of the mood of its mellower launch.

And do they bring back the crashes and the slammy-slammy and the heavy-heavy whatnot? Well of course they do; rest easy. Shifting from roll to nod and stomp between, Astral Kompakt are once again following a plot, but what distinguishes “Levitas” from “Ruin” before it or even Goldader‘s title-cut, which is the only piece here over seven minutes long, is the clever way the parts are charted and interact with each other. You think one change is coming, another comes, and this is a strength. It’s not that Astral Kompakt are pulling cheeky switcheroos, but instead that the material is interesting enough and executed well enough to stand up to defying the expectations of genre.

In this way, Goldader seems very much to have accomplished what Astral Kompakt set out for it to do, building something that is progressive in construction, rich in atmosphere/mood, diverse in sound and a push in playing if not raw technique for its own sake. There are reaches here, and as sparse as some moments are, the band wield density with cleverness and skill as one of the tools used, and when they hit into a payoff like that of “Pirsch” after spending a minute or so in a welcoming La-La Land of dreamy ’90s-alt lead guitar, they make it physically affecting.

It might take a couple listens to let Goldader sink in completely, and I can’t help you there — it’s not out yet and this is a video not an album premiere; I didn’t even see another single streaming — but the album’s out in two weeks, and I believe strongly in your ability to keep these things in mind. Until it’s out, keep in mind “Batavische Träne II” is riffier on average than some of what Astral Kompakt do in other tracks, but represents well the heavier side without giving up mood.

PR wire info follows the video on the player below. As always, I hope you enjoy:

Astral Kompakt, “Batavische Träne II” video premiere

A video by Astral Kompakt and Solid Waste

Astral Kompakt carefully dissect the psych metal blueprint laid out by Sleep and Electric Wizard, slowing it down, spacing it out and abstracting its essence. Creating a new conversation in which heaviness is not a goal but a means to an end, Goldader, out November 22 via Tonzonen Records, perfects the art of making complexity comprehensible and sonic violence sophisticated.

Stoner rock leans heavily on its psychedelic imagery and lyrics for its allure, leaving a small number of artists capable of writing captivating instrumental music that still fits the bill. Where other acts turn to humorous tropes or excessive layers of fuzz, Germany-based instrumental outfit Astral Kompakt resort to reducing things to a minimum, keeping a tight formation as a trio. With their debut album Goldader they have perfected the art of making complexity comprehensible and sonic violence sophisticated.

Across its 40-minute long runtime Goldader reveals itself as a lexicon of anything prog and stoner, touching upon and playing with stylistic devices that also characterise the metal genre as a whole. From from the jagged start-stop riffing of Pirsch through the subtle polyrhythms of Welwitschie to the repeating motifs of Batavische Träne II, Astral Kompakt prove they understand the elements of the genre and know how to use them in refreshing ways.

The inconspicuous way in which they open the album in 10/8 but make it seem like the most normal stoner riff ever, attests to the ability of Astral Kompakt to make music that is both fun and engaging. The title track innovatively juxtaposes the summer vibes of indie rock with exuberant blast beats, while album closer Levitas skilfully anatomizes the art of melting face, creating an experience in which the real heaviness is found in the space between the distorted chords.

With Goldader Astral Kompakt have indeed struck gold, creating a record you can spend endless moments with, digging around and unearthing all its intricacies. The songwriting is serious but also has a sense of humour, the riffs are both brain-heavy and face-melting, while the album sounds phenomenal thanks to Jan Oberg at who recorded, produced and mixed the album at his Hidden Planet Studio in Berlin.

Astral Kompakt Goldader is out November 22, 2024 on Tonzonen Records. It can be pre-ordered on limited edition vinyl here: https://www.tonzonen.de/shop/p/astral-kompakt-presale-061024-

Tracklist
1. Pirsch
2. Goldader
3. Welwitschie
4. Batavische Träne I
5. Batavische Träne II
6. Ruin
7. Levitas

Astral Kompakt’s Linktr.ee

Astral Kompakt on Bandcamp

Astral Kompakt on Instagram

Astral Kompakt on Facebook

Tonzonen Records website

Tonzonen Records on Facebook

Tonzonen Records on Instagram

Tonzonen Records on Bandcamp

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Friday Full-Length: Speck, Unkraut

Posted in Bootleg Theater on November 1st, 2024 by JJ Koczan

Embroiled in an outbound interstellar thrust from pretty much the not-literally-said word ‘go’ on “Palim Palim,” Speck‘s debut album, Unkraut, takes a linear trajectory as it reels unbounded through the universe, undulating and careening as it goes. It’s not all raucous come-with-us antigrav thrust from the Vienna, Austria, three-piece, who released Unkraut on their own in 2021 and followed up with an issue through Tonzonen in 2022, but Patrick Säuerl‘s drums enact a vitality on “Palim Palim,” not quite the neo-space metal of Slift or King Gizzard or whichever big modern psych act you want to name, and more rooted in the European heavy underground of the last 20-plus years, with bassist Lisa Winkelmüller doing fretruns around the intermittent solo divergences of guitarist Marcel Cultrera — aware of and willing to be adjacent to heavy psychedelia as a genre — but as they hit the brakes going into the brief comedown “II” after “Palim Palim,” a grand mellowing that picks up in tempo around the guitar in jammy style before the halfway point and builds up from there to a noisy crescendo and is brought down again, the movement is no less fluid.

Ebbs and flows should be nothing new to those with any familiarity to instrumental heavy music, but as they seem to be making efforts to distinguish their approach from the history and methods of krautrock — at least that’s what I get from Unkraut as a title; if that interpretation is off, I’d love to be gently informed in a comment — what’s letting them do that most of all is the showcase of raw chemistry in the sound of the 37-minute outing’s five component tracks. It’s a difficult niche to pin down, as the likes of HawkwindColour HazeEarthless or Sula Bassana (with whom Cultrera now collaborates in Minerall) could be cited as influences depending on a given moment, whether it’s the space rock call to prayer in the strum of the centerpiece title-track or the subsequent “Firmament,” which is no less expansive in reach but is much quieter as it goes about its exploratory business. That pair, “Unkraut” and “Firmament,” echo the dynamic between “Palim Palim” and “II,” in being a more active piece followed by something comparatively less of a push, but as “Unkraut” caps its blowout finish — an apex for the album that closer “Megachonk ∞” answers by riding a full-go groove for most of its eight minutes — and “Firmament” sets itself to answering back, the line they draw from one side to the other of their sound is longer and the music accordingly broader in scope.

To wit, where “II” is the shortest inclusion at 4:50 and tied to a build structure despite being executed organically enough thatspeck unkraut if you told me it was an unplotted jam and the band had no idea where they were headed when they picked up their instruments and hit record, it would be believable. I don’t know that that is or isn’t the case, but the way “Firmament” — which like the rest of the songs is just a little over eight minutes long — delves deeper into subdued, meditative psychedelics, it doesn’t have that payoff. After “Unkraut,” “Firmament” subtly hypnotizes almost before the listener understands what has happened; its quiet outset emerges smoothly from the comedown of the title-track and reroutes from the expected path of another ‘heavier’ stretch by simply doing something else. Crazy, right? I know, but it works all the more because it puts “Megachonk ∞,” which even seems to have a little bit of vocals snuck into its procession, where that payoff might otherwise be. To (hopefully) make it clear: “Firmament” ends up complementing the song after it as much as the song before it precisely because it doesn’t lose the plot. If one thinks of “Palim Palim” and “II” as a kind of encapsulated demonstration for the movement across “Unkraut,” “Firmament” and “Megachonk ∞,” it’s kind of like that in listening, but that doesn’t account for “Unkraut” being on side A of the vinyl edition.

Neither does it invalidate the impression, especially for those taking Unkraut on digitally, say, via the stream above. This hill-before-a-mountain character suits the fluidity of Speck‘s material overall, and the nuance they bring to it in the rhythmic warmth and the sense of purpose that emerges from the changes and how they’re made give the album an individual persona within a well-established style. By the time they’re two or three minutes into “Megachonk ∞,” they’ve made their intention pretty clear in carrying forward a shove to the finish. There’s a momentary break for some far-off echoing semi-spoken vocals, almost egging the instruments on, or maybe the listener, some grunts in there, but the instrumental kickback is quick to arrive and sweeps to the wammy-inclusive screaming peak of “”Megachonk ∞” that gives over when it’s good and ready to the residual noise that provides a satisfying wash at the end. The sense that the band could just keep going is palpable, but that they don’t, that they keep it relatively brief and in prime LP length, demonstrates a control and restraint on their sound that only further speaks to the purposefulness behind what Unkraut does.

Did it reinvent krautrock? I wouldn’t be the one to ask, but it is decidedly other from it while touching on its methods and modus. But the relatively straightforward arrangements — there are plenty of effects throughout but so far as I know Speck don’t delve into the world of keyboards let alone vintage-worship or anything like that — keep a human cure in these songs, and that grounds them as well, as much as they’re grounded at all. Speck have continued to progress along these lines over the last couple years, in their 2023 split with Interkosmos (review here), second full-length, Eine Gute Reise, and participation in earlier-2024’s International Space Station Vol. 2 (review here) four-way split at the behest of Worst Bassist Records, and nothing they’ve done to this point has shown any signs of their growth slowing. Amid a generational turnover in the heavy underground, Speck‘s Unkraut presents a fresh perspective and, crucially, an immersive plunge for the listener to take. To close, I’ll note that I didn’t fully appreciate how much Speck had to offer until I saw them live at this past summer’s Freak Valley Festival (review here), of which their set was an absolute highlight. A band to catch if you can make it happen.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

Hey, it’s the first Friday Full-Length in, what, four weeks? Turns out I still do this. I had to wonder for a minute if I’d ever get it back on track. Last Friday was my daughter’s birthday, as I noted last weekend, and the two Fridays prior were in an ongoing Quarterly Review, so yeah, I guess this would’ve been four weeks without one if I let it slip. Rest assured this brought about an existential crisis. Who even am I if I don’t spend my Friday morning clacking away on the laptop keyboard about some record I probably should’ve written up years ago? Fortunately that’s not a question I’ll need to answer this week.

Last night was Halloween. Holy smokes. First we had the Halloween parade at The Pecan’s school. For that one, she wore the black hole costume her grandmother made — black shirt and pants, with a hula hoop covered in fiery-looking fabric she could wear around her for an accretion disk — and of course that won the prize for the best costume in her grade. The Patient Mrs. and I ended up being dragged into a video the principal of the school made — it’ll come in an email, if I can link it here I will; no doubt it will be hilarious — before the parade actually even happened. Then all the classes came out and did the parade around the blacktop behind the school while the corresponding adults made fools of ourselves gaggling at the children. So it goes. The good news is it was 80 degrees and sunny. The bad news is that means the world is ending.

Then we got home. Costume change from black hole to Link from Breath of the Wild — blue tunic — for The Pecan. She saw a kid last weekend at the neighborhood Halloween parade — parents have invented ways to use a costume more than once in the time since I was a kid; it is strange and I’m pretty sure my daughter’s generation will decide it’s not worth it — dressed as Link with a Master Sword and shield and just about lost her mind. Couldn’t take her eyes off it. We ended up driving last Saturday afternoon to Edgewater, NJ, like 50 minutes, to a Party City to buy the sword and shield, and The Patient Mrs. was able to secure a costume, plus acceptable boots, from the internet in time for the day itself.

The plan was to go with a group of her friends from Girl Scouts who live in the neighborhood — there are like six or seven of them — and we’d end up doing that, but a friend of The Patient Mrs.’ was coming along for the hell of it and when she got to the house, the dog got out. So here I go sprinting down the road — thankfully not out to 202, which is like 100 feet the other way and as a four-lane road would be certain death for the dog — calling “Tilly come!” at the top of my panicked lungs. Again. Electric fences cost thousands of dollars, I’m sorry. A neighbor came out of her house. The dog had stopped her own sprint at the edge of this woman’s property and Tilly loves people so much that all the lady had to do was say, “Hello puppy!” and Tilly ran over to meet her. Tilly had seemed like she had enough at that point — it’s just not letting her get out of sight and get lost in the interim; also not letting her get runover — anyway and took the bellyrubs while waiting for me to hobble over and get her. I was glad I did. We do our best not to keep the door open, but the dog is wiggly and dumb and surprisingly fast for being a mix of two lap breeds; shih-tzu and bichon friese. She’s 16 months old now.

Then we had to go trick-or-treating, meeting up with the Girl Scout group up the hill. The roads were busier with cars than one might’ve expected, but it was ultimately fine. Some of the parents brought shots and whatever in their water bottles, The Patient Mrs. had a couple drinks in hers; I ate a gummy before we went out and was well stoned by the time it got dark. The Pecan got tired around 7:30 and was flailing in the road as cars passed by — you should’ve seen the moms diving after her; noble in their intentions, but the more you drag The Pecan one way, the more she’ll push back into the middle of the street; keep a respectful distance and offer verbal reminders if you want to exert even limited control the situation, which you probably don’t actually need to do because even out-of-control-tired Pecan knows where she belongs and will get there, whatever heart attacks she provides along the way; “I got it,” I said as I followed her on a jaunt further down the road ahead of the group near the end of the night, and sure enough, I had it; check the perimeter and direction of momentum in any situation — so we turned around and headed back to the car with her fine selection of candy in the traditional Halloween bucket that holds fidgets the rest of the year. She came home, had a Tootsie Roll or two and was ready for a slice of pizza and bed. She kept the costume on while she watched Zelda fan theories on YouTube, and nobody was up late. It was a lot going with the group, but I’m glad the kid has friends — she’s definitely the weird one, and I expect she’ll continue to be — and she got to spend time with them doing fun, not-school-related stuff.

We had our parent-teacher conference this week, for which I was pointedly not stoned. She’s killing it in first grade, her teacher loves her, and she’s a joy to have in class. Considering where we were a year ago at this time, I feel justified in the tears of joy I shed. She’s an amazing kid — right now she’s got the Master Sword and is dancing from couch to couch; I was a blacksmith and tempered the sword; neither The Patient Mrs. nor I are particularly thrilled about introducing weapons-play to the house — and beginning to see the world around her in ways that she previously couldn’t. I have no idea what the next year will bring and wouldn’t embarrass myself by trying to predict. My experience of parenting has been a rollercoaster with the lowest lows and some of the highest highs I’ve ever had. I expect we’ll keep busy, one way or the other.

I could go on here, but this post is long enough, and if you’re still reading, thanks. Kid’s got off from school today for the Hindu holiday Diwali — the town we live in is a big South Asian enclave; it is a strength of the community and the food is amazing — and she had half-days most of this week for conferences, so I expect Monday will be something of a harsh return to reality, but we’ve got the weekend first and that’ll be plenty. Whatever you’re up to, I hope you have a great time and stay safe. Thanks again for reading, don’t forget to hydrate, and I’ll see you back on Monday for more.

FRM.

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Quarterly Review: Chat Pile, Neon Nightmare, Astrometer, Acid Rooster, Giants Dwarfs and Black Holes, Oryx, Sunface, Fórn, Gravity Well, Methadone Skies

Posted in Reviews on October 21st, 2024 by JJ Koczan

THE-OBELISK-FALL-2020-QUARTERLY-REVIEW

This is the last day of the Fall 2024 Quarterly Review. Day 11 of 10, as it were. Bonus-extra, as we say at home. 10 more releases of various kinds to underscore the point of the infinite creative sphere. Before we dive in, I want to make a note about the header above. It’s the same one I used a couple times during the pandemic, with the four horseman of the apocalypse riding, and I put it in place of the AI art I’d been using because that seems to be a trigger for so many people.

In my head, I did that to avoid the conversation, to avoid dealing with someone who might be like, “Ugh, AI art” and then a conversation that deteriorates in the way of people talking at each other on the internet. This saves me the trouble. I’ll note the irony that swiping an old etching out of the public domain and slapping an Obelisk logo on it is arguably less creative than feeding a prompt into a generative whathaveyou, but at least this way I don’t have to hear the underground’s moral panic that AI is coming for stoner rock.

Quarterly Review #101-110:

Chat Pile, Cool World

chat pile cool world

Chat Pile are two-for-two on living up to the hype in my mind as Cool World follows the band’s 2022 debut, God’s Country (review here), with a darker, more metal take on that record’s trauma-poetic and nihilistic noise rock. Some of the bassy jabs in songs like “Camcorder” and “Frownland” remind of Korn circa their self-titled, but I’m not sure Chat Pile were born when that record came out, and that harder, fuller-sounding impact comes in a context with “Tape” following “Camcorder” in bringing together Meshuggah and post-punk, so take it as you will. Based in Oklahoma City, Chat Pile are officially A Big Deal With Dudes™, but in a style that’s not exactly known for reinvention — i.e. noise rock — they are legitimately a breath of air that would be ‘fresh’ if it weren’t so desolate and remains innovative regardless. There’s gonna be a lot of mediocre riffs and shitty poetry written in an attempt to capture a fraction of what this record does.

Chat Pile on Facebook

The Flenser website

Neon Nightmare, Faded Dream

Neon Nightmare Faded Dream

I guess the anonymous project Neon Nightamre — who sound and aesthetic-wise are straight-up October Rust-and-later Type O Negative; the reason the album caught my eye was the framing of the letters around the corners — have gotten some harsh response to their debut, Faded Dream. Critic-type dudes pearl-clutching a band’s open unoriginality. Because to be sure, beyond dedicating the album to Peter Steele — and maybe they did, I haven’t seen the full artwork — Neon Nightmare could hardly do more in naked homage to the semi-goth Brooklyn legends and their distinctive Beatles/Sabbath worship. But I mean, that’s the point. It’s not like this band is saying they’re the first ones doing any of this, and in a world where AI could scrape every Type O record and pump out some half-assed interpretation in five minutes, isn’t something that attempts to demonstrate actual human love for the source material as it builds on it worth at least acknowledging as creative? I like Type O Negative a lot. The existence of Neon Nightmare doesn’t lessen that at all, and there are individual flashes of style in “Lost Silver” — the keyboard line feels like an easter egg from “Anesthesia”; I wondered if the title was in honor of Josh Silver — and the guitar work of “She’s Drowning” that make me even more curious to see where this goes.

Neon Nightmare on Facebook

20 Buck Spin website

Astrometer, Outermost

astrometer outermost

Brooklyn-based instrumentalist five-piece Astrometer present their full-length debut after releasing their first demo, Incubation (review here), in 2022. The double-guitar pairing of Carmine Laietta V and Drew Mack and the drumming of Jeff Stieber at times will put you in mind of their collective past playing together in Hull, but the keys of Jon Ehlers (Bangladeafy) and the basswork of Sam Brodsky (Meek is Murder) assure that the newer collective have a persona and direction of their own, so that while the soaring solo in “Power Vulture” or the crashes of “Blood Wedding” might ring familiar, the context has shifted, so that those crashes come accompanied by sax and there’s room for a song like “Conglobulations” with its quirk, rush and crunching bounce to feel cosmic with the keyboard, and that blend of crush and reach extends into the march of closer “Do I Know How to Party…” which feels like a preface for things to come in its progressive punch.

Astrometer on Facebook

Astrometer on Bandcamp

Acid Rooster, Hall of Mirrors

acid rooster hall of mirrors

An annual check-in from universe-and-chill molten and mellow heavy psych explorers Acid Rooster. It’s only been a year since the band unfurled Flowers and Dead Souls, but Hall of Mirrors offers another chance to be hypnotized by the band’s consuming fluidity, the 39-minute four-songer coming across as focused on listener immersion in no small part as a result of Acid Rooster‘s own. That is, it’s not like you’re swimming around the bassline and residual synth and guitar effects noise in the middle of the 14-minute “Chandelier Arp” and the band are standing calm and dry back on the beach. No way. They’re right in it. I don’t know if they were closed-eyes entranced while the recording was taking place, but if you want a definition of ‘dug in,’ Hall of Mirrors has four, and Acid Rooster‘s capacity for conveying purpose as they plunge into a jam-born piece like “Confidence of Ignorance” sets them apart from much of Europe’s psychedelic underground in establishing a meditative atmosphere. They are unafraid of the serene, and not boring. This is an achievement.

Acid Rooster on Facebook

Cardinal Fuzz webstore

Little Cloud Records website

Tonzonen website

Giants Dawrfs and Black Holes, Echo on Death of Narcissus

Giants Dwarfs And Black Holes Echo on Death of Narcissus

Five years on from their start, Germany’s Giants Dwarfs and Black Holes present Echo on Death of Narcissus as their third full-length and the follow-up to 2023’s In a Sandbox Full of Suns (review here) as the four-piece bring in new guitarist Caio Puttini Chaves alongside vocalist Christiane Thomaßen, guitarist Tomasz Riedel (also bass and keys) and drummer Carsten Freckmann for a five-track collection that has another album’s worth of knows-what-it’s-about behind it. Opener “Again,” long enough at eight minutes to be a bookend with the finale “Take Me Down” (13:23) but not so long as to undercut that expanse, leads into three competent showings of classic progressive/psychedelic rock, casual in the flow between “Soul Trip” and the foreboding strums of centerpiece “Flowers of Evil” ahead of the also-languid “December Bloom.” And when they get there, “Take Me Down” has a jammy breadth all its own that shimmers in the back half soloing, which kind of devolves at the end, but resounds all the more as organic for that.

Giants Dwarfs and Black Holes on Facebook

Sireena Records website

Oryx, Primordial Sky

Oryx primordial Sky

Oryx‘s Primordial Sky threads a stylistic needle across its four songs. Delivered through Translation Loss, the 41-minute follow-up to the Denver trio’s 2021 offering, Lamenting a Dead World (discussed here), is no less extreme than one would expect, but to listen to 13-minute opener/longest track (immediate points), 13-minute capper “Look Upon the Earth,” or either of the seven-minute cuts between, it’s plain to both hear and see that there’s more to Oryx atmospherically than onslaught, however low guitarist Thomas Davis (also synth) pushes his growls amid the lurching grooves of bassist Joshua Kauffman and drummer Abigail Davis. This is something that five records and more than a decade on from their start their listeners know well, but as they refine their processes, even the outright sharp-toothed consumption of “Ephemeral” has some element of outreach.

Oryx on Facebook

Translation Loss Records store

Sunface, Cloud Castles

Sunface Cloud Castles

Heads up on this record for those who dig the mellower end of heavy psych, plus intricacy of arrangement, which is a number in which I very much count myself. By that I mean don’t be surprised when Sunface‘s Cloud Castles shows up on my year-end list. It’s less outwardly traditionalist than some of the heavy rock coming out of Norway at this point in history, but showcasing a richer underground only makes Cloud Castles more vital in my mind, and as even a shorter song like “Thunder Era” includes an open-enough sensibility to let a shoegazier sway enter the proceedings in “Violet Ponds” without seeming incongruous for the post-All Them Witches bluesy sway that underlies it. Innovative for the percussion in “Tall Trees” alone, Sunface are weighted in tone but able to move in a way that feels like their own, and to convey that movement without upsetting the full-album flow across the 10 songs and 44 minutes with radical changes in meter, while at the same time not dwelling too long in any single stretch or atmosphere.

Sunface on Facebook

Apollon Records website

Fórn, Repercussions of the Self

forn repercussions of the self

While consistent with their two prior LPs in the general modus of unmitigated aural heft and oppressive, extreme sludge, Fórn declare themselves on broader aesthetic ground in incorporating electronic elements courtesy of guitarist Joey Gonzalez and Andrew Nault, as well as newcomer synthesist Lane Shi Otayonii, whose clean vocals also provide a sense of space to 11-minute post-intro plunge “Soul Shadow.” If it’s the difference between all-crush and mostly-crush, that’s not nothing, and “Anamnesis” can be that much noisier for the band’s exploring a more encompassing sound. Live drums are handled in a guest capacity by Ilsa‘s Josh Brettell, and that band’s Orion Peter also sits in alongside Fórn‘s Chris Pinto and Otayonii, and with Danny Boyd on guitar and Brian Barbaruolo on bass, the sound is duly massive, tectonic and three-dimensional; the work of a band following a linear progression toward new ideas and balancing that against the devastation laid forth in their songs. Repercussions of the Self does not want for challenge directed toward the listener, but the crux is catharsis more than navelgazing, and the intensity here is no less crucial to Fórn‘s post-metallic scene-setting than it has been to this point in their tenure. Good band actively making themselves better.

Fórn on Facebook

Persistent Vision Records website

Gravity Well, Negative Space

Gravity Well Negative Space

Big-riffed heavy fuzz rock from Northern Ireland as the Belfast-based self-releasing-for-now four-piece of vocalist/synthesist Fionnuala McGlinchy, guitarist Tom Finney, bassist Michael McFarlane and drummer Ciaran O’Kane touch on vibes reminiscent of some of Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard‘s synth-fused sci-fi doom roil while keeping the material more earthbound in terms of tone and structure, so that the seven-minute “The Abstract” isn’t quite all-in on living up to the title, plenty liquefied, but still aware of itself and where it’s going. This mitigated terrestrialism — think Middle of Nowhere-era Acid King — is the source of a balance to which Negative Space, the band’s second album, is able to reshape as required by a given song — “Burning Gaze” has its far-out elements, they’re there for a reason — and thereby portray a range of moods rather than dwelling in the same emotional or atmospheric space for the duration. Bookending intro “As Above” and the closer “So Below” further the impression of the album as a single work/journey to undertake, and indeed that seems to be how the character of “The Forest,” “Delirium” and the rest of the material flourishes.

Gravity Well on Facebook

Gravity Well on Bandcamp

Methadone Skies, Spectres at Dawn

methadone skies spectres at dawn

Romanian instrumentalist heavy psych purveyors Methadone Skies sent word of the follow-up to 2021’s Retrofuture Caveman (review here) last month and said that the six-songer Spectres at Dawn was the heaviest work they’d done in their now-six-album tenure. Well they’re right. Taking cues from Russian Circles and various others in the post-heavy sphere, guitarists Alexandru Wehry and Casian Stanciu, bassist Mihai Guta and drummer Flavius Retea (also keyboards, of increasing prominence in the sound), are still able to dive into a passage and carry across a feeling of openness and expanse, but on “Mano Cornetto” here that becomes just part of a surprisingly stately rush of space metal, and 10-minute closer “Use the Excessive Force” seems to be laying out its intention right there in the title. Whether the ensuing blastbeats are, in fact, excessive, will be up to the individual listener, but either way, Methadone Skies have done their diligence in letting listeners know where they’re headed, and Spectres at Dawn embodies that forwardness of ethic on multiple levels.

Methadone Skies on Facebook

Methadone Skies on Bandcamp

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Quarterly Review: Vibravoid, Horseburner, Sons of Arrakis, Crypt Sermon, Eyes of the Oak, Mast Year, Wizard Tattoo, Üga Büga, The Moon is Flat, Mountain Caller

Posted in Reviews on October 9th, 2024 by JJ Koczan

THE-OBELISK-FALL-2020-QUARTERLY-REVIEW

I have to stop and think about what day it is, so we must be at least ankle-deep in the Quarterly Review. After a couple days, it all starts to bleed together. Wednesday and Thursday just become Tenrecordsperday and every day is Tenrecordsperday. I got to relax for about an hour yesterday though, and that doesn’t always happen during a Quarterly Review week. I barely knew where to put myself. I took a shower, which was the right call.

As to whether I’ll have capacity for basic grooming and/or other food/water-type needs-meeting while busting out these reviews, it’s time to find out.

Quarterly Review #21-30:

Vibravoid, We Cannot Awake

Vibravoid We Cannot Awake

Of course, the 20-minute title-track head rock epic “We Cannot Awake” is going to be a focal point, but even as it veers into the far-out reaches of candy-colored space rock, Vibravoid‘s extended B-side still doesn’t encompass everything offered by the album that shares its name. Early cuts “Get to You” and “On Empty Streets” and “The End of the Game” seem to regard the world with cynicism that’s well enough earned on the world’s part, but if Vibravoid are a band out of time and should’ve been going in the 1960s, they’ve made a pretty decent run of it despite their somewhat anachronistic existence. “We Cannot Awake” is for sure an epic, and the five shorter tracks on side A are a reminder of the distinguished songwriting of Vibravoid more than 30 years on from their start, and as it’s a little less explicitly garage-rooted than their turn-of-the-century work, it further demonstrates just how much the band have brought to the form over time, with ‘form’ being relative there for a style that’s so molten. Some day this band will get their due. They were there ahead of the stoners, the vintage rockers, the neopsych freaks, and they’ll probably still be there after, acid-coating dystopia as, oh wait, they already are.

Vibravoid on Facebook

Tonzonen website

Horseburner, Voice of Storms

horseburner voice of storms

Taking influence from the earlier-Mastodon style of twist-and-gallop riffing, adding in vocal harmonies and their own progressive twists, West Virginia’s Horseburner declare themselves with their third album, Voice of Storms, establishing a sound based on immediacy and impact alike, but that gives the listener respite in the series of interludes begun by the building intro “Summer’s Bride” — there’s also the initially-acoustic-based “The Fawn,” which delivers the album’s title-line before basking in Alice in Chains-circa Jar of Flies vibes, and the dream-into-crunch of the penultimate “Silver Arrow,” which is how you kill Ganon — that have the effect of spacing out some of the more dizzying fare like “Hidden Bridges” and “Heaven’s Eye” or letting “Diana” and closer “Widow” each have some breathing room to as to not overwhelm the audience in the record’s later plunge. Because once they get going, as “The Gift” picks up from “Summer’s Bride” and sets them at speed, the trio dare you to keep pace if you can.

Horseburner on Facebook

Blues Funeral Recordings website

Sons of Arrakis, Volume II

Sons of Arrakis Volume II

Some pressure on Dune-themed Montreal heavy rockers Sons of Arrakis as they follow-up their well-received 20222 debut, Volume I (review here) with the 10-track/33-minute Volume II. The metal-rooted riff rockers have tightened the songwriting and expanded the progressive reach and variety of the material, a song like “High Handed Enemy” drawing from an Elder-style shimmer and setting it to a pop-minded structure. Smooth in production and rife with melody, Volume II isn’t without its edge as shown early on by “Beyond the Screen of Illusion,” and after the thoughtful melodicism of “Metamorphosis,” the burst of energy in “Blood for Blood” prefaces the blowout in “Burn Into Blaze” before the outro “Caladan” closes on an atmospheric note. No want of dynamic or purpose whatsoever. I’ve seen less hype on the interwebs about Volume II than I did its predecessor, and that’s just one of the very many things to enjoy about it.

Sons of Arrakis on Facebook

Black Throne Productions website

Crypt Sermon, The Stygian Rose

crypt sermon the stygian rose

Classic heavy metal is fortunate to have the likes of Crypt Sermon flying its flag. The Philadelphia-based outfit continue on The Stygian Rose to stake their claim somewhere between NWOBHM and doom in terms of style — there are parts of the album that feel specifically Hellhound Records, the likes of “Down in the Hollow” is more modern, at least in its ending — but five years on from their second LP, 2019’s The Ruins of Fading Light (review here), the band come across with all the more of a grasp of their sound, so that when “Heavy is the Crown of Bone” lays out its riff, everybody knows what they’re going for is Candlemass circa ’86, but that becomes the basis from which they build out, and from thrash to ’80s-style keyboard dramaturge in “Scrying Orb” ahead of the sweeping 11-minute closing title-track, which is so endearingly full-on in its later roll that it’s hard to keep from headbanging as I type. Alas.

Crypt Sermon on Facebook

Dark Descent Records website

Eyes of the Oak, Neolithic Flint Dagger

The kind of undulating riffy largesse Eyes of the Oak proffer on their second full-length, Neolithic Flint Dagger, puts them in line with Swedish countrymen like Domkraft and Cities of Mars, but the former are more noise rock and the latter aren’t a band anymore, so actually it’s a pretty decent niche to be in. The Sörmland four-piece use the room in their mix to veer between more straight-ahead vocal command and layered chants like those in the nine-minute “Offering to the Gods,” the chorus of which is quietly reprised in the 35-second closing title-track. Not to be understated is the work the immediate chug of “Cold Alchemy” and the marching nodder “Way Home” do in setting the tone for a nuanced sound, so that the pockets of sound that will come to be filled by another layer of vocals, or a guitar lead, or an effect or whatever it is are laid out and then the band proceeds to dance around that central point and find more and more room for flourish as they go. Bonus points for the soul in “The Burning of Rome,” but they honestly don’t need bonus points.

Eyes of the Oak on Facebook

Eyes of the Oak on Bandcamp

Mast Year, Point of View

Mast Year Point of View

A kind of artful post-hardcore that’s outright combustible in “Concrete,” Mast Year‘s sound still has room to grow as they offer their first long-player in the 25-minute Point of View on respected Marylander imprint Grimoire Records, but part of that impression comes from how open the songs feel generally. That’s not to say the nine-minute “Figure of Speech” doesn’t have its crushing side to account for or that “Teignmouth Electron” before it isn’t gnashing in its later moments, but it’s the band’s willingness to go where the material is leading that seems to get them to places like the foreboding drone of “Love Note” and deconstructing intensity of “Erocide,” just as they’re able to lean between math metal and sludge, which is like the opposite of math, Mast Year cover a lot of ground in their extremes. The minor in creeper noisemaking — “Love Note,” closer “Timelessness” — shouldn’t be neglected for adding to the mood. Mast Year have plenty of ways to pummel, though, and an apparent interest in pushing their own limits.

Mast Year on Facebook

Grimoire Records website

Wizard Tattoo, Living Just for Dying

Wizard Tattoo Living Just for Dying

In the span of about 20 minutes, Wizard Tattoo‘s Living Just for Dying EP, which finds project-founder Bram the Bard once again working mostly solo, save for guest vocals by Djinnifer on “The Wizard Who Loved Me” and Fausto Aurelias, who complements the extreme metal surge and charred-rock verse of “Tomorrow Dies” with a suitably guttural take; think Satyricon more than Mayhem, maybe some Darkthrone. Considering the four-tracker opens with the acoustic “Living Just for Dying” and caps with similar balladeering in “Sanity’s Eclipse,” the EP pretty efficiently conveys Wizard Tattoo‘s go-anywhereism and genre-line transgression at least in terms of the ethic of playing to different sounds and seeing how they rest alongside each other. To that end, detailed transitions between “The Wizard Who Loved Me” and “Tomorrow Dies,” between “Tomorrow Dies” and “Sanity’s Ecilpse,” etc., make for a carefully guided listening process, which feels short and complete and like a form that suits Bram the Bard well.

Wizard Tattoo on Instagram

Wizard Tattoo on Bandcamp

Üga Büga, Year of the Hog

Üga Büga year of the hog

Virginian trio Üga Büga — guitarist/vocalist Calloway Jones, bassist/backing vocalist Niko Cvetanovich and drummer/backing vocalist Jimmy Czywczynski — don’t have to go far to find despondent sludgy grooves, but they range nonetheless as their debut full-length, Year of the Hog unfolds, “Skingrafter” marrying a crooning vocal in contrast to some of the surrounding rasp and burl to a build of crunching heavy riff. The album is bombastic as a defining feature — songs like “Change My Name” and “Rape of the Poor” come to mind — but there’s a perspective being cast in the material as well, a point of view to the lyrics, that comes through as clearly as the thrashy plunder of “Supreme Truth” later on, and I’m not sure what’s being said, but I am pretty sure “Mockingbird” knows it’s doing Phantom of the Opera, and that’s not nothing. They round out Year of the Hog with its eight-minute title-track, and finish with a duly metallic push, leaning into the aggressive aspects that have been malleably balanced all along.

Üga Büga on Facebook

Üga Büga on Bandcamp

The Moon is Flat, A Distant Point of Light

The Moon is Flat A Distant Point of Light

Ultimately, The Moon is Flat‘s methodology on their third album, A Distant Point of Light, isn’t so radically different from how their second LP, All the Pretty Colors, worked in 2021, with longer-form jamming interspliced with structured craft, songs that may or may not open up to broader reaches, but that are definitively songs rather than open-ended or whittled-down jams (nothing against that approach either, mind you). The difference between the two is that A Distant Point of Light‘s six tracks and 52 minutes feel like they’ve learned much from the prior outing, so “Sound the Alarm” starts off bringing the two sides together before “Awestruck” departs into dream-QOTSA and progadelic vibery, and “I Saw Something” and its five-minute counterpart, closer “Where All Ends Meet” sandwich the 11-minutes each “Meanwhile” and “A Distant Point of Light,” The Moon is Flat digging in dynamically through mostly languid tempos and fluid, progressive builds of volume. But when they go, they go. Watch out for that title-track.

The Moon is Flat on Facebook

The Moon is Flat on Bandcamp

Mountain Caller, Chronicle II: Hypergenesis

mountain caller Chronicle II: Hypergenesis

Chronicle II: Hypergenesis continues the thread that London instrumentalists began with their debut 2020’s Chronicle I: The Truthseseker and continued on the prequel EP, 2021’s Chronicle: Prologue, exploring heavy progressive conceptualism in evocative post-heavy pieces like opener “Daybreak,” which resolves in a riotous breakdown, or “The Archivist,” which is more angular when it wants to be but feels like a next-generation’s celebration of riffy chicanery in a way that I can only think of as encouraging for how seriously it seems not to take itself. The post-rocking side of what they do is well reinforced throughout — so is the crush — whether it’s “Dead Language” or “Into the Hazel Woods,” but there’s nothing on Chronicle II: Hypergenesis more consuming than the crescendo of the closing “Hypergenesis,” and the band very clearly know it; it’s a part so good even the band with no singer has to put some voice to it. That last groove is defining, but much of Chronicle II: Hypergenesis actively works against that sort of genre rigidity, and much to the album’s greater benefit.

Mountain Caller on Facebook

Mountain Caller on Bandcamp

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Acid Rooster Announce New Album Hall of Mirrors Out Oct. 25

Posted in Whathaveyou on August 27th, 2024 by JJ Koczan

acid rooster hall of mirrors

New Acid Rooster coming up. The Leipzig, Germany, psych rockers released their Flowers and Dead Souls LP, and I whiffed on reviewing that, but I’m hoping that Hall of Mirrors will be my chance to really engage with their work, because while I did manage to dig into their 2022 LP, Ad Astra (review here), my big takeaway therefrom was “hey this is pretty good I’d like to hear more if it.” Sometimes life happens and you don’t hear every record, or even every cool record. That’s why I do year-end polls — so I can spend the next half-decade trying to catch up with whatever I missed in a given year. Acid Rooster featured on a number of lists from last year’s poll, so they fit the bill nicely there.

This is the part where I tell you there’s no audio from Hall of Mirrors posted yet, and while that’s true at least so far as I can find, my suggestion is you check again around the time preorders start — that’s Sept. 15 ahead of an Oct. 25 release — and whether you’re in the applied region of one or the other labels behind the album or purchasing from the band itself, the odds should be better. In the meantime, in case you’re like me, the 2023 album streams in full at the bottom of this post. And I know I don’t need to say that, that you can find it, but I remember a time before all music was immediately accessible all the time once it was released, and that’s a novelty that may never actually fade for me.

So, enjoy. Album announce and live dates follow from social media:

acid rooster hall of mirors lp back

We are thrilled to announce our new studio album „Hall of Mirrors“ !!

It was recorded on two off days during our UK-tour in 2022 at Dystopia Glasgow and mixed at Fuzzface Studio by Jason Shaw. Mastered by Joe Carra at Crystal Mastering. Artwork by Marco Heinzmann aka Super Quiet.

Presale starts on september 15th via Tonzonen, Cardinal Fuzz, Little Cloud Records and our bandcamp page.

Official release is on october 25th!

Acid Rooster live:
14.09. Berlin, Future Fest
01.10. Weimar, C.Keller
03.10. Leipzig, Ilses Erika + Datashock
04.10. Nürnberg, heizhaus + Datashock
05.10. Würzburg, Immerhin + Datashock

Tickets: http://www.elborrachobookings.com/artist/acid-rooster/

https://www.facebook.com/acidrooster/
https://www.instagram.com/acidrooster_band/
https://acidrooster.bandcamp.com/
https://linktr.ee/acidrooster

https://www.facebook.com/CardinalFuzz/
cardinalfuzz.bigcartel.com/

https://www.instagram.com/littlecloudrecords/
https://www.facebook.com/littlecloudrecords/
http://littlecloudrec.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Tonzonen/
https://www.instagram.com/tonzonenrecords/
https://www.tonzonen.de

Acid Rooster, Flowers and Dead Souls (2023)

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Vibravoid to Release We Cannot Awake Aug. 23

Posted in Whathaveyou on July 1st, 2024 by JJ Koczan

VIBRAVOID

German psychedelic/garage rockers Vibravoid mark their 35th anniversary as they invariably would: with a new album. We Cannot Awake will be released on Aug. 23 through Tonzonen, and it’s the latest in a flurry-rush of 2020s outings from the Düsseldorf trio, whose 2023 full-length, Edge of Tomorrow, can be streamed at the bottom of this post. There’s no audio from the new one yet, but preorders are up now and if you think they’re about to radically depart from the lysergic vehemence they’ve proffered for the last three and a half decades, cosmic and steeped in late-’60s traditionalism, well, I haven’t heard it yet, but that doesn’t strike me as particularly likely.

The band, via the PR wire, offer some perspective on their 35 years below, and you’ll find the release announcement for We Cannot Awake, including the e’er crucial preorder link, thereafter. Turn on, dig in:

Vibravoid We Cannot Awake

Neo-Kraut/ Psychedelic Rock Outfit VIBRAVOID Announces New Album We Cannot Awake.

35 YEARS OF MAXIMUM VOID VIBRATION – About 35 years of Vibravoid.

“We were incredibly lucky that we were able to do all this as teenagers. It was this “teen anti-attitude” that no longer exists today. Kraut rock, fuzz effects, light shows, ’67 psychedelic rock and therefore real hippie culture were completely out or dead – so we thought it was “cool”. Here in Düsseldorf, kraut rock and psychedelic records, including record players, were lying around in the bulky waste, nobody wanted them anymore. That was underground. Even vinyl records were only really “cool” when nobody wanted them anymore – today it’s lame mainstream.”

Those were all unique moments back then and we were somehow always in tune with the times and were able to help shape them. Back then, we wanted to be pioneers of a new “beat and psychedelic movement”, just as a naive teenager would imagine. We really lived it all, for us there was no world after 1970… I really didn’t think it would be such a crazy trip back then. It’s all really crazy!”

– Dr. Koch, Vibravoid

Vibravoid – We Cannot Awake

+++ RELEASE DATE | 23.08.24 +++

Preorder: https://www.tonzonen.de/shop/p/vibravoid-coming-soon-

New album We Cannot Awake is the perfect soundtrack for THC legalization and Vibravoid is the essence of Düsseldorf genetics. They create musical fever dreamscapes that are stronger than LSD. We Cannot Awake is the In A Gadda Da Vida of Generation X. Vibravoid haven’t released a real longtrack for several records, but now the band is making up for this and adding a few more hits.

With Get To You, Vibravoid deliver the psychedelic earworm for every large-space disco. Grooving pop music with hymnic hooks meets the effects wall of the 1960s. The ideal music for any highway.

The band’s love of The Byrds is obvious from tracks like Nothing Is Wrong or A Comment On The Current Times – but the combination with Düsseldorf’s “Motorik Sound” is a completely new level on which psychedelic music can work. The End Of The Game still shows Vibravoid as the German masters of the fuzz effect. Ultra psychedelic guitar sounds and echo effects create a maelstrom that pulls the listener into the spell of the complex rhythm. Vibravoid are not stingy with creative ideas, but still shake themselves out of their sleeves after 35!

Side A closes with On Empty Streets and paints a dystopian picture, yet Vibravoid manage to crank up the pop factor so high that the riffs almost burn themselves into your consciousness… expanding it. All the sound effects are perfectly embedded, you hardly notice that this is actually highly experimental music in the sense of the Düsseldorf school.

We Cannot Awake completely fills side B with over 20 minutes. Musically, the listener is in for a very special experience. Vibravoid fuse their Düsseldorf sound with the year 2024 at the highest level. We Cannot Awake is a journey into the abysses of human existence and other depths of the outer cosmos. Driving beats and interstellar frequencies channel the primal fear of the unknown, because this music is dangerous. Sonic carpets of strychnine and psylocibin. Magical mushrooms. Time is running out. We cannot awaken!

Pre-save the album right here: https://bfan.link/we-cannot-awake

Tracklist
1. Get To You
2. Nothing Is Wrong
3. The End Of The Game
4. A Comment Of The Current Times
5. On Empty Streets
6. We Cannot Awake

https://facebook.com/vibravoidofficial
https://vibravoidofficial.bandcamp.com/
https://youtube.com/@VibravoidOfficial
https://open.spotify.com/artist/5qXFseejEDd3JvZqap38os?si=p80o7SP4ReKjHnvYIl9YPw

https://www.facebook.com/Tonzonen/
https://www.instagram.com/tonzonenrecords/
https://www.tonzonen.de

Vibravoid, Edge of Tomorrow (2023)

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Schubmodul Premiere “Ascension” From New Album Lost in Kelp Forest

Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on February 13th, 2024 by JJ Koczan

schubmodul lost in kelp forest

German heavy instrumentalists Schubmodul are set to issue their sophomore LP, Lost in Kelp Forest, on Feb. 23 through Tonzonen Records. As the title alluding to submerged plantlife hints, the album follows a submerged conceptual narrative such that the sun-reflecting lead guitar in “Emerald Maze” around six minutes into the total 9:57 genuinely seems to discover something as it shifts from its exploratory outset into a more linear pattern ahead of a thicker riff’s return. Samples bolster the affair and fill in some of the places vocals might otherwise have gone — according to the PR wire below King Gizzard did that at one point?; fair enough — as across the six-song/42-minute rolling horizon, the three-piece of Christoph Kellner, Fabian Franke and Nils Stecker bring purpose to a weighted and progressive-leaning, clear-headed psychedelia. This could easily have been an LP of jams that afterward the band decided was about the ocean. That’s not what’s happening here.

Schubmodul‘s material is composed and brings a sense of intention even to the nodder chug in “Silent Echoes” that feels like it could be anything. It’s not that you feel like you’re underwater or that, thankfully, the music itself sounds like it, but the power of suggestion, the commonality of the metaphor within the genre, and your own willingness to go should be enough to get you there. The trio open with “Voyage” and offer the first of the six individualized progressions within the songs, each carving out its own space of the entirety both in terms of story — I’m just cut and pasting the credits so I don’t spell anyone’s name wrong: the spoken narrations are France’s Alma Chomel and Shane Wilson in the US — and the alignment around and movement through structured parts. A band with a marker-board in the rehearsal space? They might be. Somebody, somewhere along the line, has arranged the parts of Lost in Kelp Forest, if not as a cinematic experience, then certainly with a mind toward evoking an emotive or associative response in the listener. As the swinging ‘verse’ of the penultimate “Ascension” (visualizer premiering below), with its proggy bass punches and strutting groove emerges from the spaces cast in the largesse of “Silent Echoes” just before, Schubmodul offer dynamic of intention as well as volume, reaching into varying niches of microgenre while thoughtfully distinguishing their songs in conceptual approach and the finer details of their layering.

An example of that lies in the acoustic beginning of “Renegade One,” the five-minute finale of side A. They open into a groove bordering on huge, as one will, and are both methodical in terms of pace and mindful of when the changes should be. A switch to lead guitar here, some flourish on drums to mark the transition. A stop before you jump in again. Complemented by a captured tonality that is sharper at its corners than one might at first expect, Schubmodul can gear a given part or track toward impact or atmosphere seemingly as they choose,Schubmodul and more often than not on Lost in Kelp Forest, they choose both. The record is stronger for it while still remaining cognizant enough of their basic underlying riffage to be likened to later Karma to Burn, though certainly Schubmodul have layered an entire aesthetic atop that most straight-ahead of instrumental structural foundations. “Ascension” ends sharp and gives over to the Wilson voiceover, naming a deep sea wreck of a ship named Renegade One and revealing the mission to harvest kelp forests that, well, don’t let me spoil it. Ambient guitar behind, the heart of the story ends in closer “Revelations” with an urging to “protect our planet and all living things” before its meditative roll takes hold in earnest. And of course they build around the finale as they’ve been building all along to their various purposes either in storytelling or kicking ass more generally.

It’s not quite a blowout, but it’s the end credits as the pace picks up in the second half of “Revelations” and the band push into the last fadeout. I’m not quite ready to call Schubmodul heavy prog, though there’s some distillation of an Elder influence audible in the shimmering of the guitar and some of the sway in their larger grooves. I can’t get away from feeling like someone in the band — be it SteckerKellner or Franke — has some noisier background, but across Lost in Kelp Forest, everything the band put into the record is funneled into the central purpose of the narrative and the songs themselves, and the story being told is that much clearer and expressive for that. Giant kelp can grow up to 250 feet tall, two feet per day if it’s the right kind. An underwater forest is an entire ecosystem, with predators and prey, eggs laid behind leaves and fish living off the plants that are their entire world. Humans I think mostly use it as a place to keep discarded plastic wrap.

But our pitiful species’ disregard for the (actual) treasures that surround us nothing new, and if part of Schubmodul‘s intent is to remind of that or at least pull the thought out of the listener’s brain, then they have succeeded in affecting the mood and mindset of their audience — I was thinking about genocide, now I’m thinking about climate crisis; welcome to the 2020s! everyone’s sad and everything is why — and that’s not an accomplishment to discount. Their debut, 2022’s Modul I, functioned similarly in terms of impact and atmosphere, but what’s found in terms of method and purpose throughout Lost in Kelp Forest is a marked forward step that comes with a greater breadth of production to match that of its basic sound. I don’t know that their next effort — the e’er crucial ‘third record’ — will tell the same kind of tale or not, but I would expect the refinement of approach that Schubmodul have undertaken in the last couple years to continue, and that means that’s an album I’ll want to hear.

Please enjoy the visualizer for “Ascension” premiering below, followed by more from the PR wire:

Schubmodul, “Ascension” visualizer premiere

Lost In Kelp Forest is a concept album that doesn’t take place in the vastness of space like its predecessor, but rather in an underwater world. The six mainly instrumental pieces are accompanied by narrator voices, which reveal a coherent fictional story on a dense atmospheric carpet of sound. The voices were professionally recorded by Alma Chomel from France and Shane Wilson from the USA.

As a foundation, the triumvirate, formed by a classic line-up of guitar, bass and drums, thunders a mix of space, stoner and progressive rock onto the stage, which is occasionally supplemented by synthesizers, sound and voice samples. Dreamy, atmospheric passages combined with colossal riffs will often lead to an epic melodic zenith of voluminous, warm sounds, over which gentle to fast guitar solos are released.

The compositions use a large modal palette and versatile harmonies that are intended to continually surprise the listener and at the same time follow a driving, natural and catchy rhythm. Lost In Kelp Forest has a very high level of attention to detail and should remain exciting even after repeated listening.

The band’s inspiration for this album was genre-typical greats like Elder, King Buffalo, more progressive bands like Dream Theater and elements from Hans Zimmer’s film music. The idea using a spoken word on top of the music was inspired by the albums Eyes Like The Sky and Murderer Of The Universe by King Gizzard & Lizard Wizard. Lost In Kelp Forest was recorded in August 2023 in the legendary Tonmeisterei in Oldenburg, Germany. The entire album was recorded in just six long days. The band was housed in the studio for the entire recording process, which created a unique atmosphere. The first tracks (Emerald Maze and Silent Echoes) were written shortly after the release of the first album in spring 2022 and set the basic mood of the album. The remaining pieces were completed by summer 2023.

Tracklist
1. Voyage
2. Emerald Maze
3. Renegade One
4. Silent Echoes
5. Ascension
6. Revelations

Schubmodul are Christoph Kellner, Fabian Franke and Nils Stecker.

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