Don’t tell anyone — or better yet, do! — but this show turned out pretty solid. I kind of put it together following a couple whims, things I’ve wanted to put in my own head, plus some of the recent Bandcamp Friday stuff — hello Spaceslug and Geezer — and things I’ve covered here recently in Tuna de Tierra and Worshipper and Carlton Melton, etc. Then I just wanted to hear the Shogun and LáGoon tracks for myself, and I’ve been meaning to cover that White Powder record more for weeks, and then I started thinking about songs that have “mountain” in the title and decided to do a whole block of those just for the hell of it, so that’s where we wound up. Mountain climbing.
But in addition to starting off with the maddeningly catchy “It’s Already Written” by Tau and the Drones of Praise — whose Roadburn Redux stream was posted here first thing this week — this one makes a few cool turns and flows and kind of breaks up nicely from one thing to the next, even as “Mountain” gets into “Mountain” into “Longing to Be the Mountain” and “Holy Mountain” and “I’m the Mountain.” This is the sort of thing I think is fun. That’s me. That’s who I am.
Anyway, thanks for listening and/or reading. As always, I hope you enjoy.
The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at http://gimmemetal.com
Full playlist:
The Obelisk Show – 05.14.21
Tau and the Drones of Praise
It’s Already Written
Tau and the Drones of Praise
Carlton Melton
Waylay
Where This Leads
Spaceslug
The Event Horizon
The Event Horizon
VT
Worshipper
Pictures of Home
VA – Bow to Your Masters Vol. 2: Deep Purple
LáGoon
Hill Bomb
Skullactic Visions
White Powder
Rula Jabreal
Blue Dream
Shogun
Delta
Tetra
VT
Tuna de Tierra
Mountain
Tuna de Tierra
Colour Haze
Mountain
Colour Haze
King Buffalo
Longing to Be the Mountain
Longing to Be the Mountain
Sleep
Holy Mountain
Sleep’s Holy Mountain
Stoned Jesus
I’m the Mountain
Seven Thunders Roar
VT
Geezer
Solstice
Solstice
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is May 28 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.
Put headphones on and you can hear the waves. It’s been a while since Tuna de Tierra were last heard from — they made their self-titled debut (review here) on Argonauta in 2017 — but their return could hardly be more fitting or more welcome than to find guitarist/vocalist Alessio De Cicco on a Sardinian hillside strumming away on an unplugged version of “El Paso de la Tortuga.” The track originally comes from the trio’s 2015 debut EPisode 1: Pilot (review here) desert-style three-songer — the same material was also issued as a split with California’s The Bad Light in 2018 — and if you’re gonna find something to complain about in watching the clip of De Cicco playing the song, shove it. This video’s three minutes long, the song’s melody is sweet, and the scenery is about as pure as grey-day escapism gets. If you can’t hang with that, it’s your loss.
The minimalist approach — dude and guitar — reminds of the quieter moments of Nirvana‘s Unplugged in New York, minus the tragic historical context. It’s a mystery at this point whether Tuna de Tierra have anything new in the works. From what I can tell via cursory social media scrollthrough, their last show was in Feb. 2020, which sounds about right, and this video was recorded last summer, so its loneliness is only appropriate. They’re due a follow-up for the self-titled, certainly, and the potential of that record and warmth of it remain resonant these four years after the fact. Hopefully they’ll offer up somewhere down the line, but again, in the meantime, this is three minutes you won’t regret spending.
DeCicco tells the story himself under the player below, and the song’s lyrics (which apparently have never been published before) and video credits follow.
Please enjoy:
Tuna de Tierra, “El Paso de la Tortuga” acoustic video premiere
Alessio De Cicco on “El Paso de la Tortuga”:
July 2020, a random sunrise on Asinara, an island off Sardinia’s north-west shores.
A light breeze comes from the sea, and not that long after it will leave the leading role of the day to the blazing sun.
Time is still, moments are stretched.
And yet on this almost unspoiled island, on which we were more or less 15 guests staying that night, until a few years ago stood a penal colony.
Someone has seen his time being taken away in a paradise on earth which could eventually turn into a nightmare for his own mind. That time will never be returned to anyone, just like the one we choose to lose.
The moment was perfect to take my old Silvertone and play the song that was inspired just from the time I was losing when I wrote that and the loneliness that quite always goes with it.
It was the 2015 when our first EP and first record ever came out, and we could never imagine where we would have been some years after, but right now everyone had his chance to better understand how precious our time is.
We as a band cannot wait to be back together and start playing again and develop the ideas we had during this year, go back in the studio and finally go on a stage to share them with you all!”
EL PASO DE LA TORTUGA lyrics: Layin’ on your lost time Believing your thoughts do not lead your life Holding you there Crossing your brain So on and on And on and on You wish you never lose control Leaving you being on your own
Tuna de Tierra is: Alessio De Cicco: guitar, vocals Luciano Mirra: bass guitar Mattia Santangelo: drums
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 26th, 2019 by JJ Koczan
Extra credit for Tube Cult Fest 2019 not making a single joke about this being the edition that ‘goes to 11.’ Way to play it with class. The Italian festival headed by Davide Straccione of Skeptic Events is indeed in its 11th incarnation this April, with Zaum, Coltsblood, Wayfarer and Entropia serving in headliner roles and killer Italy natives like Oreyeon, Sherpa and Tuna de Tierra, among others, obviously, rounding out the bill. I’m generally a fan of writing/daydreaming about fests in far-off (to me) places, but I feel compelled to add there are a few bands here I don’t know, and given the quality of the names that are more familiar, posting the full lineup here is as much a note to myself about homework to do as it is anything else. Like a to-do list. “Don’t forget to check out The Marigold,” and so on. I have little doubt I’ll be glad I did.
The full announcement from the festival follows here, courtesy of the PR wire:
Tube Cult Fest is a true celebration of the Underground, an amp-worshipping ritual based in the coastal city of Pescara in the heart of Italy, delving deep into the realm of Heavy Psychedelia since its inception in 2008. The festival has seen a consistent growth throughout the years incorporating Stoner Rock, Doom, Sludge, Drone, Psych Rock, Post Metal as well as some of the most experimental and atmospheric forms of Extreme Metal, while keeping the same original spirit unchanged. In the previous 10 editions this little city on the Adriatic Sea has been touched by the likes of Weedeater, Ufomammut, Samsara Blues Experiment, Monkey3, 1000mods, Belzebong, Karma To Burn, Los Natas and many more. Chapter 11 will be once again split in the two tiny venues Scumm and MamiWata, hosting 14 bands in 2 days:
Friday 19 April WAYFARER (USA) ENTROPIA (PL) IMPURE WILHELMINA (CH) THE MARIGOLD (IT) OREYEON (IT) THE BLACK CANVAS (IT) DRESDEN WOLVES (MEX)
Saturday 20 April ZAUM (CAN) COLTSBLOOD (UK) SHERPA (IT) GORILLA PULP (IT) S A R R A M (IT) TUNA DE TIERRA (IT) KATASTAH (IT)
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 1st, 2018 by JJ Koczan
There are few things I love more unabashedly, unashamedly and unironically in the realm of music than a cleverly named split release. Really. I’m not being sarcastic or trying to make a joke. You got two bands sharing a release and you’ve come up with a wordplay name for it? Chances are I’m at very least going to be on board on a linguistic level. What makes The Bad Tuna — the new and cleverly-titled Phonosphera Records split from Santa Cruz, California’s The Bad Light and Naples, Italy’s Tuna de Tierra — even better in my book is the groove quotient. Between the rolling blues fuzz of the former and the desert-worshiping vibes of the latter, that quotient is mighty indeed, and perhaps best summed up by The Bad Light themselves with the name of their second track. Appropriate nomenclature all the way around.
I’ll admit this is my first exposure to The Bad Light, who apparently have a new full-length — their second — currently in the works, but if the Tuna de Tierra cuts seem familiar, they were previously issued as 2015’s self-released EPisode I: Pilot (review here) debut EP. Time has not dulled their luster.
Release info and audio follows. Even if all you do is stream the thing, it’s well worth your time to do so:
THE BAD LIGHT / TUNA DE TIERRA – THE BAD TUNA
This is the first edition of the SPLIT SERIES by Phonosphera Records, soon more to come!
Boiled down to the basic ingredients of drums, guitar and vocals The Bad Light plays their own brand of blues driven stoner sludge, the songs feel equally at home played through a resonator guitar as they do through a thick wall of fuzz.
Sounds from the desert, wide landscape full of sand at the sunset, intolerable warm atmospheres, lysergic imagination nurturing air. The Tuna de Tierra leaves for a trip with neither destination nor end, but just the purpose to move endlessly.
Tracklisting: 1. The Bad Light – Palo Santo 01:21 2. The Bad Light – Goodshit 04:49 3. The Bad Light – The Feels 05:11 4. The Bad Light – Love Letter 05:31 5. Tuna de Tierra – Red Sun 08:28 6. Tuna de Tierra – Ash 07:24 7. Tuna de Tierra – El Paso de la Tortuga 04:07
The Bad Light is: Dana Shepard-Drums Celeste Deruisa-Vocals Edu Cerro-Guitar/Vocals
Recorded at The Compound in Felton CA, November 2017 Engineer-Joe Clement
Tuna de Tierra is: Alessio De Cicco: guitar, vocals Luciano Mirra: bass guitar Jonathan Maurano: drums
Produced by Tuna de Tierra Recorded and mixed at Trail Music Lab, Napoli (by Fabrizio Piccolo) Vinyl master by Roy Bortoluzzi at xxx Studio (Rome, IT)
Posted in Podcasts on December 26th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
So this is something I’ve never done before. I’m not exactly what you’d call an early adopter when it comes to new technology, but this weekend I finally signed up for Spotify and decided to give a shot at putting together a year-end playlist through that rather than doing the standard podcast. Aside from a kind of ongoing latent concern about essentially giving away downloads of music that doesn’t belong to me via the old mp3 files — no one’s ever said anything and I always figured it was okay since songs were bundled together as one file — this just seemed more useful in allowing people to explore different artists, albums, etc. If you disagree, I’m sorry.
I can’t say I won’t ever go back to the other way, or that I’ll actively enjoy having a Spotify account enough to keep it, and so on, but it’s something new to try, so I’m giving it a shot. The playlist turned out to be nine hours and 12 minutes long, and once I got going, I couldn’t really resist making it 65 tracks, what with it being the 64th podcast and all. One to grow on.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for listening:
Track details:
• Artist, Track, Album, Runtime
• Elder, Sanctuary, Reflections of a Floating World, 00:11:13
• All Them Witches, Am I Going Up?, Sleeping Through the War, 00:05:33
• Lo-Pan, Pathfinder, In Tensions, 00:06:22
• MOON RATS, Heroic Dose, Highway Lord, 00:04:27
• Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree, Medicine, Medicine, 00:06:38
• Mindkult, Lucifer’s Dream, Lucifer’s Dream, 00:09:06
• Brume, Reckon, Rooster, 00:09:12
• Riff Fist, King Tide, King Tide, 00:11:20
• Monolord, Dear Lucifer, Rust, 00:08:41
• Hymn, Serpent, Perish, 00:07:32
• Vinnum Sabbathi, Gravity Waves, Gravity Works, 00:08:26
• Electric Wizard, Wicked Caresses, Wizard Bloody Wizard, 00:06:43
• Ruby the Hatchet, Symphony of the Night, Planetary Space Child, 00:07:08
• Telekinetic Yeti, Colossus, Abominable, 00:08:56
• Bong Wish, My Luv, Bong Wish, 00:02:31
• Radio Moscow, New Skin, New Beginnings, 00:03:02
• Cloud Catcher, Celestial Empress, Trails of Kozmic Dust, 00:05:41
• The Atomic Bitchwax, Humble Brag, Force Field, 00:02:52
• Sasquatch, Just Couldn’t Stand the Weather, Maneuvers, 00:06:27
• Kadavar, Die Baby Die, Rough Times, 00:04:18
• Cities of Mars, Children of the Red Sea, Temporal Rifts, 00:08:27
• Argus, You Are the Curse, From Fields of Fire, 00:06:23
• Comacozer, Hylonomus, Kalos Eidos Skopeo, 00:13:43
• Samsara Blues Experiment, One with the Universe, One with the Universe, 00:15:02
• Orango, Heirs, The Mules of Nana, 00:04:46
• Siena Root, Tales of Independence, A Dream of Lasting Peace, 00:03:39
• Demon Head, Older Now, Thunder on the Fields, 00:04:17
• Sun Blood Stories, Great Destroyer, It Runs Around the Room with Us, 00:06:11
• Spaceslug, Time Travel Dilemma, Time Travel Dilemma, 00:10:07
• Arc of Ascent, Hexagram, Realms of the Metaphysical, 00:07:34
• Causa Sui, Seven Hills, Vibraciones Doradas, 00:07:24
• Alunah, Fire of Thornborough Henge, Solennial, 00:05:32
• Vokonis, Calling From The Core, The Sunken Djinn, 00:06:03
• Enslaved, Sacred Horse, E, 00:08:12
• Dvne, Edenfall, Asheran, 00:07:04
• The Midnight Ghost Train, Break My Love, Cypress Ave., 00:03:33
• The Obsessed, It’s Only Money, Sacred, 00:02:35
• Mothership, Crown of Lies, High Strangeness, 00:05:41
• Geezer, Red Hook, Psychoriffadelia, 00:06:02
• Uffe Lorenzen, Flippertøs, Galmandsværk, 00:02:46
• Youngblood Supercult, Master of None, The Great American Death Rattle, 00:04:01
• Beastmaker, Nature of the Damned, Inside the Skull, 00:03:26
• Pallbearer, I Saw the End, Heartless, 00:06:21
• Paradise Lost, Blood and Chaos, Medusa, 00:03:51
• Rozamov, Wind Scorpion, This Mortal Road, 00:08:49
• Eternal Black, Sea of Graves, Bleed the Days, 00:06:33
• Demon Eye, Politic Divine, Prophecies and Lies, 00:03:40
• Snowy Dunes, Ritual of Voices, Atlantis, 00:07:17
• The Devil and the Almighty Blues, Low, II, 00:08:49
• Abronia, Glass Butte Retribution, Obsidian Visions / Shadowed Lands, 00:06:09
• John Garcia, Kylie, The Coyote Who Spoke in Tongues, 00:04:58
• Tuna de Tierra, Raise of the Lights, Tuna de Tierra, 00:07:09
• Colour Haze, Lotus, In Her Garden, 00:07:05
• IAH, Stolas, IAH, 00:08:39
• Fungus Hill, Are You Dead, Creatures, 00:08:54
• Atavismo, El Sueño, Inerte, 00:11:18
• Tuber, Noman, Out of the Blue, 00:08:14
• Spidergawd, What You Have Become, Spidergawd IV, 00:03:44
• Puta Volcano, Bird, Harmony of Spheres, 00:05:07
• Ufomammut, Core, 8, 00:05:15
• Kings Destroy, None More, None More, 00:14:03
• PH, Looking Back at Mr. Peter Hayden, Eternal Hayden, 00:16:44
• Mt. Mountain, Dust, Dust, 00:17:15
• Electric Moon, Live Forever Now (You Will), Stardust Rituals, 00:22:41
• Bell Witch, Mirror Reaper, Mirror Reaper, 01:23:15
Posted in Features on December 18th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
Please note: This post is not culled in any way from the Year-End Poll, which is ongoing. If you haven’t yet contributed your favorites of 2017 to that, please do.
—
Every successive year brings an absolute inundation of underground productivity. Every year, someone new is inspired to pick up a guitar, bass, drums, mic, keyboard, theremin, cello — whatever it might be — and set themselves to the task of manifesting the sounds they hear in their head.
This is unspeakably beautiful in my mind, and as we’ve done in years past, it seems only fair to celebrate the special moment of realization that comes with a band’s first album. The debut full-length. Sometimes it’s a tossed-off thing, constructed from prior EPs or thrown together haphazardly from demo tracks, and sometimes it’s a meticulously picked-over expression of aesthetic — a band coming out of the gate brimming with purpose and desperate to communicate it, whatever it might actually happen to be.
We are deeply fortunate to live in an age (for now) of somewhat democratized access to information. That is, if you want to hear a thing — or if someone wants you to hear a thing — it’s as simple as sharing and/or clicking a link. The strong word of mouth via ubiquitous social media, intuitive recording software, and an ever-burgeoning swath of indie labels and other promotional vehicles means bands can engage an audience immediately if they’re willing to do so, and where once the music industry’s power resided in the hands of a few major record companies, the divide between “listener” and “active participant” has never been more blurred.
Therefore, it is a good — if crowded — time for an act to be making their debut, even if it’s something that happens basically every day, and all the more worth celebrating the accomplishments of these first-albums both on their current merits and on the potential they may represent going forward. Some percent of a best-debuts list is always speculation. That’s part of what makes it so much fun.
As always, I invite you to let me know your favorite picks in the comments (please keep it civil). Here are mine:
The Obelisk Presents: The Top 20 Debut Albums of 2017
1. Telekinetic Yeti, Abominable
2. Rozamov, This Mortal Road
3. Mindkult, Lucifer’s Dream
4. Dool, Here Now There Then
5. Eternal Black, Bleed the Days
6. Arduini/Balich, Dawn of Ages
7. Vinnum Sabbathi, Gravity Works
8. Tuna de Tierra, Tuna de Tierra
9. Brume, Rooster
10. Moon Rats, Highway Lord
11. Thera Roya, Stone and Skin
12. OutsideInside, Sniff a Hot Rock
13. Hymn, Perish
14. Riff Fist, King Tide
15. Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree, Medicine
16. Abronia, Obsidian Visions/Shadowed Lands
17. Book of Wyrms, Sci-Fi Fantasy
18. Firebreather, Firebreather
19. REZN, Let it Burn
20. Ealdor Bealu, Dark Water at the Foot of the Mountain
Honorable Mention
Alastor, Black Magic
Devil’s Witches, Velvet Magic
Elbrus, Elbrus
Green Meteor, Consumed by a Dying Sun
Grigax, Life Eater
High Plains, Cinderland
Kingnomad, Mapping the Inner Void
Lord Loud, Passé Paranoia
Masterhand, Mind Drifter
The Necromancers, Servants of the Salem Girl
Owlcrusher, Owlcrusher
Petyr, Petyr
The Raynbow, The Cosmic Adventure
Savanah, The Healer
War Cloud, War Cloud
WhiteNails, First Trip
I could keep going with honorable mentions, and no doubt will add a few as people remind me of other things on which I brainfarted or whathaveyou, preferably without calling me an idiot, though I recognize that sometimes that’s a lot to ask. Either way, the point remains that the heavy underground remains flush with fresh infusions of creativity and that as another generation comes to maturity, still another is behind it, pushing boundaries forward or looking back and reinventing what came before them.
Notes
Will try and likely fail to keep this brief, but the thing I find most striking about this list is the variety of it. That was not at all something I planned, but even if you just look at the top five, you’ve got Telekinetic Yeti at the forefront. Abominable is something of a speculative pick on my part for the potential it shows on the part of the Midwestern duo in their songcraft and tonality, but then you follow them with four other wildly different groups in Rozamov, Mindkult, Dool and Eternal Black. There you’ve got extreme sludge from Boston, a Virginian one-man cult garage project, Netherlands-based dark heavy rock with neo-goth flourishes, and crunching traditionalist doom from New York in the vein of The Obsessed.
What I’m trying to say here is that it’s not just about one thing, one scene, one sound, or one idea. It’s a spectrum, and at least from where I sit, the quality of work being done across that spectrum is undeniable. Think of the prog-doom majesty Arduini/Balich brought to their collaborative debut, or the long-awaited groove rollout from Vinnum Sabbathi, or how Italy’s Tuna de Tierra snuck out what I thought was the year’s best desert rock debut seemingly under everybody’s radar. Stylistically and geographically these bands come from different places, and as with Brume and Moon Rats, even when a base of influence is similar, the interpretation thereof can vary widely and often does.
That Moon Rats album wasn’t covered nearly enough. I’m going to put it in the Quarterly Review coming up just to give another look at the songwriting on display, which was maddening in its catchiness. Maddening in its cacophony of noise was Stone and Skin from Brooklyn’s Thera Roya, which found itself right on the cusp of the top 10 with backing from the ’70s heavy rock vibes of the post-Carousel Pittsburgh outfit OutsideInside. Norway’s Hymn thrilled with their bleak atmospheres, while Australia’s Riff Fist showed off a scope they’d barely hinted at previously, and Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree offered surprises of their own in their warm heavy psych tonality and mostly-instrumental immersion. That record caught me almost completely off-guard. I was not at all prepared to dig it as much as I did.
Thrills continue to abound and resound as the Young Hunter-related outfit Abronia made their first offering of progressive, Americana-infused naturalist heavy, while Book of Wyrms dug themselves into an oozing riffy largesse on the other side of the country and Sweden’s Firebreather emerged from the defunct Galvano to gallop forth and claim victory a la early High on Fire. REZN’s Let it Burn got extra points in my book for the unabashed stonerism of it, while it was the ambience of Ealdor Bealu’s Dark Water at the Foot of the Mountain that kept me going back to it. An album that was genuinely able to project a sense of mood without being theatrical about it was all the more impressive for it being their first. But that’s how it goes, especially on this list.
—
There you have it. Those are my picks. I recognize I’m only one person and a decent portion of my year was taken up by personal matters — having, losing a job; pregnancy, childbirth and parenting, etc. — but I did my best to hear as much music as I could in 2017 and I did my best to make as much of it as new as I could.
Still, if there’s something egregious I left out or just an album you’d like to champion, hell yes, count me in. What were some of your favorites? Comments are right down there. Let’s get a discussion going and maybe we can all find even more music to dig into.
Thanks for reading and here’s to 2018 to come and the constant renewal of inspiration and the creative spirit.
[Click play above to stream ‘Morning Demon’ from Tuna de Tierra’s self-titled album, out Sept. 22 on Argonauta Records and available now to preorder.]
A booming Italian heavy rock underground marks yet another win in the self-titled debut from Napoli rockers Tuna de Tierra. Signed to Argonauta Records following a formative but engaging first short offering in 2015’s self-released EPisode I: Pilot (review here), the heavy psych-infused trio of guitarist/vocalist Alessio de Cicco, bassist Luciano Mirra and Marco Mancaniello (who came aboard in place of Jonathan Maurano warm their skin in sun-baked desert influences across the offering’s seven-track/47-minute run, finding a natural-sounding position between jamming and structuring and shifting fluidly between one or the other. Songs like “Morning Demon” seem to speak directly to the heavy rock tonal traditionalism born in the wake of Sweden’s Lowrider, but the later drift of “Raise of the Lights” brings to mind a dreamier take on the psych-blues proffered by All Them Witches, particularly with Mirra‘s bouncing bassline and the handclap-laden semi-interlude “Long Sabbath’s Day” preceding.
Broken into two sides with an intro for each, Tuna de Tierra‘s Tuna de Tierra gracefully builds on what the EP accomplished in setting forth on an aesthetic path, but perhaps most satisfies in the level of growth and expansion throughout its tracks. That is, they sound like a band who really learned from the experience of making their first release and set about writing an even richer and more complex set of songs from which to craft a full-length album. The progression doesn’t sound forced, either, and through extended jams like the jangly 10-minute “Out of Time” and nine-minute “Laguna” — which close side A and B, respectively — Tuna de Tierra immerse the listener in a pretense-free depth of vibe that continues to expand as the album plays out.
That linear flow — and I use “linear” pretty loosely for something that seems to delight so much in the occasional bit of jazzy, post-Causa Sui meandering — is the key element of Tuna de Tierra‘s presentation. Effective dips and swells of volume, particularly when they kick into fuller fuzz, as in the Kyuss-referential burst at the beginning of the second half of “Laguna” or the slower-grunge march that emerges in “Raise of the Lights” or even in the manner in which “Morning Demon” seems to cast out its sunrise — or perhaps welcome its demon — circa the 3:30 mark, give the listener a sense of dynamic and of the chemistry taking shape within their sound, and the drums do well to hold together these free-flowing changes, allowing exploratory moments their breadth but keeping the listener grounded in the experience even by something so simple as a tap on the ping ride amid a running bassline and airy guitar after that thrust in “Morning Demon.”
An undertone of progressive sensibility is foreshadowed in the 2:46 intro “Slow Burn,” but subtly, and the primary, first impression the long-player makes is in the guitar fuzz and the ease with which Tuna de Tierra seem to unfurl their first rollout and lead directly into the rest of what follows. Nonetheless, that progressive flourish is essential and comes through again and again in the low end and in some of de Cicco‘s more post-rocking stretches of guitar, or vocally in the penultimate “Mountain,” which finds him matching notes with the noodling bassline over tense tom work, speaking on some level perhaps to Lateralus-era Tool. Of critical importance is the way in which Tuna de Tierra meld these aspects together so that, while “Long Sabbath’s Day” marks a turning point in its position as the centerpiece track leading to the bluesier, proggier, jammier second half of the record, it’s not like it’s coming out of nowhere in doing so. There’s no interruption to the overarching smoothness occurring song-to-song.
And if there were, frankly, the album would fall flat in its mission. That it doesn’t signals an underlying consciousness on the part of the band, and one can’t help but wonder how Tuna de Tierra was composed, as a concept/thematic record or simply as a collection of songs that happened to fit together in this way, but in any case, as the “Long Sabbath’s Day” sets up the bluesy liquefaction of “Raise of the Lights,” the hardest turn Tuna de Tierra will make is pulled off with seeming ease. And once they’re there, de Cicco, Mirra and Mancaniello likewise have no apparent trouble in establishing themselves within the patient and spacious context that defines side B. Vocals don’t delay in arriving in “Raise of the Lights,” which owes some of its beginning tone to “Out of Time” before it — less directly fuzzed until the swaggering lead hits, but still laid back to the extreme — but the mood is casual all the same thanks to the light swing of the rhythm. Once again, a thrust of more driving riffery hits in the midsection, but though its arrival is willfully sudden, the transition back out to the track’s more serene ending portion, while nothing more then a clicking-off of a pedal, benefits from the hypnosis cast prior.
Same could be said as “Mountain” picks up from the solo-topped march-out in that final section, and though its atmosphere is slightly more brooding, the build that seems to be underway after the first minute actually restrains itself and Tuna de Tierra successfully avoid redundancy, instead allowing for a more organic exploration of the meditative feel “Mountain” elicits. One might be tempted to call it minimal, especially as the guitar gently fades to bring in the soundscaping launch of “Laguna,” but there’s actually a good deal of movement taking place. All the better, since “Laguna” follows suit, finding itself working in three stages as it gradually heads toward the payoff for the full-length as a whole. Following an initial uptick in pace and volume after 4:20 in that leads to a righteously winding solo and some particularly fuzzed bass, a stop just before the six-minute mark and a quick roll from the toms announces the push that will cap Tuna de Tierra, already noted for its Kyuss-ism.
As with the rest of its surroundings however, it’s worth emphasizing about that last segment that Tuna de Tierra do remarkably well in recontextualizing their influences, making the style their own, and that as they may be playing off the past, they’re doing so in the direction of their own future. Like the EP before it, this self-titled demonstrates marked potential in setting the band apart from the increasingly crowded sphere of the Italian underground, but more importantly, it does this by virtue of the organic presentation of the band itself, rather than some hey-look-at-us attention grab playing toward a flawed notion of uniqueness. In further casting Tuna de Tierra‘s stylistic vision and giving hints at where their ongoing development might take them, Tuna de Tierra proves to be one of 2017’s strongest debut full-lengths, and its effectiveness as such only seems to grow on repeat listens.
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 15th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
I’m interested to hear what Naples-based trio Tuna de Tierra have in store with their full-length debut. The Italian heavy psych rockers piqued intrigue with their first short outing, EPisode I: Pilot (review here), in 2015. It was a three-songer, and they had some room to grow into their approach, but they offset the initial desert-hued meanderings of “Red Sun” with more propulsive riffing, and thereby set themselves up for a well-balanced sound over the longer-term.
Well, a first album is a crucial step toward getting to that longer term, and Tuna de Tierra‘s will be out via Argonauta Records this Spring, as the label announced. Particularly if you’re invested in the narrative of an underground heavy boom throughout Italy, they might be one to keep an eye on, fitting that bill as they do.
No title or audio yet from the new release, but the label’s announcement follows:
Argonauta Records New signing: TUNA DE TIERRA
We’re proud to announce we’ve inked a deal with Italian Desert Rockers TUNA DE TIERRA.
TUNA DE TIERRA was born in Napoli (Italy) in the first months of 2013 from the long-standing union between Alessio De Cicco (guitar and vocals)and Luciano Mirra (bass guitar), then joined by Jonathan Maurano (actually replaced by Marco Mancaniello) on drums.
Already authors of the acclaimed self produced ep “EPisode I: Pilot” (2015) and available below, TUNA DE TIERRA are giving now final touches to their anticipated new album, to be released in Spring 2017 by Argonauta Records.
You can expect psychedelic sounds from the desert, wide landscape full of sand at the sunset, intolerable warm atmospheres, lysergic imagination nurturing air. Tuna de Tierra leaves for a trip with neither destination nor end, but just the purpose to move endlessly.
Tuna de Tierra is: Alessio De Cicco: guitar, vocals Luciano Mirra: bass guitar Jonathan Maurano: drums
