Posted in Whathaveyou on December 11th, 2018 by JJ Koczan
How many clever-as-hell reviewers do you think are going to talk about how forest folkers Hexvessel are getting ‘back to their roots’ (nudge nudge) on their new album? All of them? All of them twice? If it’s anything less than an 80 percent number, I’ll be disappointed in the modern press.
Hexvessel‘s nonetheless brilliant 2016 outing, When We are Death (review here), was indeed a departure for the band into go-anywhere-do-anything-even-pop songcraft that showcased a host of influences, some less derived from the natural world than others. They still danced like mad pagans, though, and it seems that All Tree will bring back some of the nature worship of the collective’s earlier work. Preorders are up for the album now for those in Europe, and they’ve posted a video for “Old Tree” that you can see at the bottom of this post. It’s serene and sad and gorgeous, and if you’d expect less, you have some homework to do.
From the social medias:
The first single and video “Old Tree” from our new album is out now!
From the ghostly notes of the dead tree branch, played with a violin bow by Antti Haapapuro, to Andrew McIvor’s haunting guitars, violin by Daniel Pioro and found forest sounds, our new song “Old Tree” sings of personal loss with a pagan heartbeat.
Mat McNerney says: “I wrote this song at a time of what should have been deep sadness, but as a way of finding solace in nature. We tend to think of life from such a short term perspective. Nature takes millions of years to develop some of the intricate life support systems we depend on to survive. I found my answers in the trees and what they tell me. As Hesse said, when we listen to trees, we learn the ‘ancient law of life’. This song ‘Old Tree’ is very much like the first song I ever wrote as HEXVESSEL and goes to the core of what our music is about. To quote Lord Byron, ‘I love not Man the less, but Nature more’.”
With visuals beautifully captured in the old growth rainforests of Vancouver Island by British Columbian filmmaker Mark Wyatt, our video is a reverential paean to the intrinsic and eternal divinity of nature.
“We are happy to announce that our fourth album “All Tree” will be released on CD, LP and digitally on February 15th, 2019 worldwide. The album will be made available via our own label Secret Trees, in exclusive partnership with Century Media Records.
“All Tree is not just about going back to the heart of Hexvessel, with a slight return to our forest folk roots, it’s about drawing fresh inspiration from my own heritage too. The English pastoral folk influences are infused with Celtic mythology from my Anglo-Irish blood, with Finnish nature as our backdrop.
“From the Canterbury folk scene and early prog bands that soundtracked my youth in England, to the ghost stories I was told as a child on my uncles farm in Ireland, this album is a spiritual journey where the old myths are doorways to enlightenment. The dawn light across boggy fields, the wind blowing through the keyhole, the branches dragging their breath inwards as the seasons ignite a magic sense of mystery about the wilderness. That’s what we tried to bring out into the songs on this album. By bowing old dead tree branches with violin bows, by summoning the sounds of the fire and the birds in the field outside, we gave the music a life which, like the liminal spirits of Samhain drifts in and out of this world. That’s what folk means. It’s the countryside singing out from within me. It’s their story we sing. And no matter where I go or where I end up staying, it’s that folk countryside which is the seed from which I sprang. All Tree.” – Mat McNerney
Cover art photography by Bastian Kalous (who created the cover for No Holier Temple).
You’ll see Turku, Finland’s Mansion referred to as ‘cult rock’ a lot. It’s kind of true the way abbreviations stand in for words. The truth of what Mansion do and have done since their 2014 premiere EP, We Shall Live EP (review here), and its soon-after follow-up, Uncreation (review here), is much more complex. Their awaited debut album, First Death of the Lutheran, is out this week on I Hate Records, and it pushes to new ground in both the conceptual framework and actual songwriting approach on the part of the band. As 12-minute summary/closer “First Death” starts out with psychedelic flourish and effects en route to a sax-inclusive tumult of experimentalist noise, it is as affecting in atmosphere as in impact, and though I’ll have a review of the album in the coming weeks, I was given the opportunity to ask the band some questions, and it wasn’t one I was going to pass up.
For those who didn’t hear Uncreation, 2015’s Altar Sermon (review here), or any of the other short releases they’ve had out along the way, Mansion follow a theme not just of vague, generalized occult thematics, but actually take on Kartanoism as their working foundation. The doomsday-obsessed post-WWI breakaway Protestant group followed leader Alma Kartano and her strict interpretations of the Bible and rules for everyday life. That kind of severity shows up in every whip-crack of the snare drum on opener “Wretched Hope” (premiered here) and in the grueling forward march and unremitting low-light claustrophobia of “Lutheran” and “The Eternal,” which follow. With mysterious “1933” ahead of the finale, First Death of the Lutheran is an appropriate endgame for the style of cult heavy as a whole, but at the same time, it works against genre convention in its sound and the overarching harshness of its production. Not raw — it’s clear-sounding — but sharp.
I’ll have a proper review of the album up in the coming weeks, but on the occasion of the release, I’m flat-out honored to host the premiere of its entirety below. It’s one I’ve been waiting a while for, and its reach only exceeds what I imagined they’d come up with for it.
Please enjoy the stream and the following Six Dumb Questions:
Six Dumb Questions with Mansion
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It’s been five years since We Shall Live was released and First Death of the Lutheran is the band’s debut album. How do you see Mansion as having grown in that time? Were there specific goals you wanted to accomplish with the LP?
Our musical expression has progressed from a traditional retro approach to a more experimental direction. With time the congregation has grown both spiritually and in number. The album was released as a reminder for the sorrowless that the endgame has begun. For the most of them salvation is out of reach.
Tell me about writing First Death of the Lutheran. Over how long a period were the songs put together? Was it a different frame of mind writing for an album instead of an EP or a single? Beyond their theme, how do the songs fit together for the band? How much of the song placement and the progression of the record was mapped out before you went into the studio?
The first song on the album, “Wretched Hope,” was written right after We Shall Live EP was released, while the last song, First Death was written during the recordings of the debut album. The songs on the album might span over several years but it doesn’t mean that those were the only ones we have written so far. We have songs ready or half-ready for at least three albums. The songs you hear on First Death of the Lutheran are picked from our vault based on how they fit together. We recorded seven songs but decided to cut two as they didn’t fit in with the others.
The Uncreation EP was supposed to be our debut album. Due to some technical issues we had to cut two tracks off the album. Those were re-recorded later and released as the Altar Sermon EP.
The whole album seems to lead to “First Death.” Did you know in writing that song that it would be the finale? What is happening there to summarize the album?
As soon as the song was starting to find its form we knew that it would be the finale. In ”First Death” we simply state that there is a difference between us and you. We will be saved and you will burn in the everlasting fires of hell while we bathe in glory in the Kingdom of Heaven by His side. Pretty much what we want to say with the whole album.
What were the circumstances of the recording? There’s so much a blend of harsh noise and melody throughout, and it seems real attention was paid to the details of tone and effects. How long were you in the studio?
We recorded most of the album at our secret cottage in Huittinen. That only took a week. The mixing, though, was a different story. We had to change the mixing engineer after the first version of the album was done. There were too many details that got buried in the mix and so we had to start all over again to get it right.
How would you explain the central philosophy of Kartanoism? What’s the significance specifically of the year 1933?
We believe that most of the sorrowless wretches roaming the earth haven’t got a clue how mighty God is and how powerful his wrath is. Judgement Day will be a merciless slaughter of man and only the chosen few will be saved for eternal agony in the afterlife. We believe sex is a mortal sin and that there should not be an organisation between man and God.
Blasphemous churches will fall, mark our words. We in Finland are surrounded by Lutherans, whose way of life is hypocritical and untrue. They have lost their connection to the Lord Almighty tempted by greed and their vain egos. They will be surprised when their days are done. 1933 is the year when these losers released a sacrilegious translation of the Holy Bible.
Will Mansion tour in 2019 to support the release? Any other plans or closing words you want to mention?
We have live sermons and festivals booked for 2019. Book us. Today!
Posted in Reviews on December 4th, 2018 by JJ Koczan
Day Two of the Quarterly-Review-Mega-Super-Ultra-Year-End-Wrap-Up-Spectacular-Gnarly-Edition — name in progress — begins now. First day? Smooth. Wrote it over the weekend to get a jump on the week, cruised through a morning and into baby-naps, finished with time left over to still go and read the Star Trek novel I’m currently making my way through. Easy. Also peasy.
Today? Well, apparently I turned off my alarm in my sleep because I rolled over 40 minutes later and certainly didn’t remember it going off. Whoops. Not a great start, but there is a lot of cool stuff in this batch, so we’ll get through it, even if it’s awfully early in the week to be sleeping in. Ha.
Have a great day everybody. Here are 10 more records for the QRMSUYEWUSGE. Rolls right off the tongue.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
A Storm of Light, Anthroscene
“America the sick and crumbling/Liberty she’s weeping/The tired and poor are huddled and dying/As the wretched ones are touched aside.” The lines, from A Storm of Light‘s “Blackout” — the second cut from their fifth LP, Anthroscene (on Translation Loss) — lead to the inevitable question: “What the fuck is wrong with us?,” and thereby summarize the central sociopolitical framework of the record. A dystopian thematic suits the band’s aesthetic, and there’s certainly no shortage of material to work from between current events and future outlook. Guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist/graphic artist Josh Graham, bassist Domenic Seita and guitarist/keyboardist Dan Hawkins are five years removed from the band’s last outing, however, so their post-apocalyptic post-metal is welcome either way, and Anthroscene taps a Killing Joke influence and turns it to its dark and churning purposes over the course of its eight tracks/51 minutes, delving into harsh shouts on “Short Term Feedback” and capping with the resistance-filled “Rosebud,” which surges forth from ambience like the anti-facist/anti-capitalist critique that it is, ending with the lyric, “When you die, we will spit on your grave,” which could hardly be more appropriate.
Massachusetts’ Z28 — also stylized as Z/28 and Z-28; I don’t think they care so long as you get the point they’re named after the Camaro — make their full-length debut with Nobody Rides for Free on Fuzzdoom Records, and with the occasional bit of organ on songs like “Touch of Evil” and “Angst III (I Don’t Want to Die),” they nonetheless give a raw take on heavy rock laced with that particularly Northeastern aggression. Guitarist Jeff Hayward (also organ), bassist/acoustic guitarist/engineer Jason Negro and drummer Breaux Silcio all contribute vocals to the outing, and yet the minute-long instrumental intro tells much of the story of what it’s about in terms of the chemistry between them. Impressive guitar solos are rampant throughout, and the rhythm section carries over a weighted groove through cuts like “Wandering” that’s fluid in tempo but still able to create an overarching flow between the tracks. I’ll give bonus points for the Black Sabbath nods in the multi-layered lead work toward the end of “Spirit Elk (Lord of the Hunt)” as well as the title “Keep on Rockin’ (In the Invisible World),” and Z28 have something to build on here in terms of songwriting and that chemistry. It’s raw-sounding, but that doesn’t necessarily hurt it.
Granted, Forrest telegraph some measure of quirk by naming their debut EP Kickball with Russians, but the four-piece from Lexington, Kentucky, still seem to be rolling along in a straightforward-enough manner on six-minute instrumental opener and longest track (immediate points) “(I Dream of) Kickball with Russians,” until the keyboards start in. That turn gives their EP an edge of the unexpected that continues to inform “DAN,” “Deew” and the closing “My Son Looks Just Like Me,” and “DAN” continues the thread with gang shouts popping up over its chugging progression and receding again after about two words to let the track get quiet and build back up. And is that a velociraptor at the start of “Deew?” Either way, that song’s Mr. Bungle-style angularity, a return of the keys and intermittent heavy nod work to underscore the willful weirdness that’s very much at play in the four-piece’s work, and the closer adds Ween-style effects work into the mix while still keeping a heavy presence in tone and lumber. They’ll get weirder with time, but this is a good start toward that goal.
Coastal melancholy and a pervasive sense of atmosphere seem to unite the varied tracks on 1476‘s 2017 Prophecy release, Our Season Draws Near, which otherwise draw across their span from goth rock, punk, doom and extreme metal, able to blur the line especially between punk and black metal on songs like “Ettins” while acoustics pervade “Solitude (Exterior)” en route to the Anathema-gone-char rasps of “Solitude (Interior)” a short time later. I know I’m late to the party on the Salem, MA, duo, and likewise late on this record, but from opener “Our Silver Age” to closer “Our Ice Age” to the “Solitude” pairing to “Winter of Winds” — finally: David Bowie fronts Joy Division — and “Winter of Wolves,” there’s so much of Our Season Draws Near that has a bigger-picture thought process behind its construction that its impact is multi-tiered. And it’s not just that they pit genres against each other in their sound, it’s that their sound brings them together toward something new and malleable to the purposes of their songwriting. Not to be missed, so this is me, not missing it. Even though I kind of missed it.
Joined on Nights in Distortion by bassist René Marquis as well as longtime drummer Patrick Schroeder, guitarist/vocalist/synthesist Christian Kolf (also Valborg) greatly expands his former solo-ish-project Owl with their second release of 2018 behind March’s Orion Fenix EP (review here), bringing together elements of post-metal churn with deeply atmospheric sensibilities, cuts like “Transparent Moment” churning as much as they are surprising with their underlying melody. A Type O Negative influence continues to be worked into their sometimes grueling context, but it’s hard to listen to the keyboard-laced “Inanna in Isolation” and hear Owl being anything other than who they’ve become, and their third album is the most distinct statement of that yet, airy lead guitars floating over a still-fervent, industrial-style chug amid vocals veering from barking shouts to quiet, low-register semi-spoken fare and cleaner singing. Nights in Distortion is the evolving work of a mastermind, captured in progress.
Synth-laden heavy horror garage dance rock could probably use a more succinct genre name, but while those in charge of such things sit and scratch their butts, Boston’s Brass Hearse carve out a niche unto themselves with their second EP, Hollow on the Surface. The five-track offering is in and out in 14 minutes but wants nothing for either a show of craft or arrangement, tapping into psych-folk in the strummy interlude “Dwellers in the Static Valley” after the hook-led “Death by Candlelight” and before the John Carpenter-style pulsations that underscore “The Thing from Another World.” Opener “Fading” is the only song to top four minutes and has a distinctly progressive take, but while it and the organ-ic closer “Headaches & Heartbreaks” has a theatricality to it, Brass Hearse are too cohesive to charge with being weird for weirdness’ sake, and their experimentation is presented in complete, engaging songs, rather than self-indulgent collections of parts mashed together. Would love to hear what they do over the course of a full-length.
Different missions from Finland’s Craneium and Switzerland’s Black Willows on their BloodRock Records split. Craneium nod through “Your Law” and mark their second inclusion, “Try, Fail, Repeat,” with a Sabbathian swing that only kicks up in tempo as it moves through its five minutes. Black Willows, on the other hand, present a single track in the 19-minute, noise-soaked post-everything “Bliss,” which trades back and forth between minimalism and crushing riffs en route to a consuming wash and long, long, long fadeout. Released in March, the outing showcases both bands well, but one is left wondering where the connection is between the two of them that they’d come together for a joint vinyl release. Either way, I won’t detract from what they do individually, whether it’s the catchiness of “Your Law” and the jam in its second half or “Bliss” with its frost-covered expanse of tonality, it’s just a marked leap from side A to side B. Maybe that was the idea all along, and if that’s the case, then one can only say they succeeded.
Following a 2015 self-titled debut EP, Oslo trio Magmakammer align with Kozmik Artifactz for their first long-player, Mindtripper, and so effect a garage doom sound that’s quickly relatable to Uncle Acid on songs like “Fat Saturn” and the chug-shuffling “Along the Crooked Roads.” Where they distinguish themselves from this core influence, though, is in the density of their tones, as opener “Druggernaut” and the rolling “Acid Times” prove thicker in their charge. Still, there’s no mistaking that swing and the blown-out sound of the vocals. Closer “Cosmic Dancers,” which is one of two tracks over seven minutes long, shows more dynamic in its loud/quiet tradeoffs, and resolves itself in a righteous nodder of a riff. It’s essentially in the same vein, but still displaying some emerging personality of Magmakammer‘s own that one hopes they continue to develop. And in the meantime, the foundation of craft and stylistic awareness they hone is still welcome, familiar or not.
Mystique isn’t easy to come by in this Age of Access, but the anonymous London-dwelling duo Falun Gong have succeeded in piquing interest with their two-to-date singles, “Figure 1” (review here), and the eight-minute “Figure 2,” which like its predecessor is raw in the recording, sounds like it was performed live, and follows a trance-inducing course of riffing. The central groove is a slow march that makes its way through obscure voices delivered in buried fashion — the whole thing may or may not be mastered; somehow I’m thinking not, but I’ve been wrong before — through a self-aware drift that rounds out following a soulful culmination fitting the song’s lyrical theme, which would seem to be tied to the cover art about baptism in a river’s waters. There’s just something off-kilter about Falun Gong to this point, and while it’s still early going for them, they bring an eerie persona to their work that feels less performative than it so often does.
Though he’s had a slew of live outings out with the Max Tovstyi Blues Band and the Max Tovstyi Blues Association, Mesmerize (LP on Nasoni) is the Ukrainian heavy blues rocker’s first solo studio outing since 2014. He’s credited with all the instruments on the 10- or 12-track offering save for a couple arrangement-flourish guest appearances, and he pulls in a classic spirit and full-band sound without any trouble on a moody piece like “World of Sin” or the bonus track “Show Me the Way,” which isn’t a Peter Frampton cover so far as I can tell but still has plenty of guitar scorch to go around. “From the Blues to the Funk” jams its way along its stated trajectory, and “Feel Like Dying Now” brings together organ and keys in a fashion far less dramatized than one might initially think. With a clean production, Tovstyi — also known for his work in The Heavy Crawls, Lucifer Rising, and others — carries through his sentimentality for blues rock’s past and finds himself well at home leading the pack of guest vocalists on “Make Up Your Mind,” which closes the album proper with a semi-country twang and sweet melody.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 23rd, 2018 by JJ Koczan
This digital release for Craneium‘s second long-player, The Narrow Line (review here), will be followed in a couple weeks by the physical version of the album. The band premiered the rocker “I’m Your Demon” here and tap into more stretched-out vibes on other songs, but the occasion is worth making either way, and so here we are. They talk a little bit about the recording process — six months in the making — and the work that went into getting the songs ready through preproduction and so on, and I think the finished product is pretty emblematic of the effort that went into building it from the ground up.
That finished product, by the way, is streaming at the bottom of this post.
Happy release date to Craneium, and enjoy:
Craneium – The Narrow Line
We are really happy to finally share our second album “The Narrow Line” with all of you. It has been a long time coming since our first one in 2015. We found ourselves without a bass player two times since then, so finding a band member, rehearsing, getting to know each other, write new material and move on to the stage when we finally had everything in place and ready to hit REC took a while. But we’re back and we’re stoked about the new album, and we’re really hoping you all will dig it too!
We recorded it with the same guy who worked with us on the last record, and we did it here in our hometown of Turku. Took about 6 months from start to finish. This time we put more effort into the pre-production and tested ideas. The main different being that we’ve learnt how to do things better and how to do things right. Recording it was a blast and many ideas came about in the studio, like the intro solo on “I’m Your Demon”. For this record we had it mastered at Studio Underjord in Sweden and we think the overall sound is so much better this time with more low-end and punch in the songs. The artwork was done by the Talented Dominic Sohor from Bolton, UK.
The album consists of 7 tracks exploring various styles within the genre of fuzzy-rock. From fuzz rock, stoner and desert influences via doom, space, psychedelia and heavy music in general. We’d like to think this is the sound of the band, not really able to stick it in one category, but instead a mishmash of everything we like which in turn makes us into the band we are. Metal Temple put it quite well in their review: What CRANEIUM present here is not so much an album but an adventure, escapism for the listener, there is enough talent and invention throughout the recording to keep you hooked, however, their greatest achievement is in how they seemed to throw off the shackles of staying within the perimeter of conventional stoner, desert rock and still appeal to that genre.
We don’t like to be conventional, we like being Craneium!
Craneium is: Andreas Kaján – Vocals & Guitars Martin Ahlö – Vocals & Guitars Joel Kronqvist – Drums Jonas Ridberg – Bass
Posted in audiObelisk on October 30th, 2018 by JJ Koczan
Finland’s Craneium will release their second album, The Narrow Line, Dec. 7 via Ripple Music. The Turku four-piece were picked up by the label in 2016 ahead of the release of their debut, Explore the Void, and with the seven tracks of their sophomore outing, they bring together psychedelic adventurousness with clarity of songwriting and a healthy dose of fuzz. Their songs work to find a niche in heavy rock that’s neither overly weighted so as to lose sight of its focus on melody nor so tripped out that the existence of any kind of focus at all is a contradiction. While seemingly based on jams, songs like “The Goat” and “The Soothsayer” have been carved into structured pieces, and with the rolling fuzz of opener “Manifest” as a forward first impression, the dual vocals of guitarists Andreas Kaján and Martin Ahlö complement as an immediate distinguishing factor that the subsequent, heavier chorus of “I’m Your Demon” only reaffirms. With Jonas Ridberg on bass and Joel Kronqvist on drums, “I’m Your Demon” is able to evoke boogie rock without losing itself into retroist cliche, and as with so much of the album surrounding, a pace is maintained that keeps the feel laid back when it wants to be but still able to push ahead when it wants to.
You can listen to the premiere of “I’m Your Demon” on the player below, and while it’s the shortest song on The Narrow Line at four and a half minutes, it nonetheless stands as an example of Craneium working in the space they’re making their own throughout the album, culling influence from desert rock and heavy psych, doom and a full swath of other whatnots in order to strike the balance between wall-o’-fuzz and the solo that cuts through in the second half. Dig that mix. Then the vocal harmonies return. There’s some underlying grunge thrown into the stylistic palette as well — it’s the brown you’ll hear in the guitar tone — but Craneium emerge clean from “I’m Your Demon” and continue to build momentum in “Beyond the Pale” while bringing to bear a more patient delivery as led by the guitars, moving into a dynamic interplay between lead guitar and Ridberg‘s bass in the second half that only feeds into the electric surge happening as they make ready to close out side A with the aforementioned “The Soothsayer,” the groove no less paramount there than it has been all along.
I’ll admit I keep wanting closer “Man’s Ruin” to be about the defunct record label headed by Frank Kozik that did so much to break ground for heavy rock in the late ’90s, but I don’t think it is. I think it’s about space and hubris, which is fair enough. The finale reinforces the fuzz of earlier cuts “Manifest” and “I’m Your Demon” while answering a bit of the funk that shows itself early in “The Soothsayer” and following Side B slabs “Redemption” — the longest inclusion at 6:44 and a highlight of Kronqvist‘s drumming in meter, cymbal splash and tom work — and “The Goat,” which is as languid as Craneium get, with a dreamy meandering at about four minutes in that offsets the more weighted shove that accompanies. “Man’s Ruin,” as it should, brings the various sides together in a last display of all of it as the band’s own pastiche and the expanding ground on which they’re continuing to work to coalesce their approach — so much as they want it to coalesce; some aspects here are definitely intended to remain liquefied — and to refine the balance of structure and space in their craft. They strike that balance well throughout The Narrow Line — one doubts they titled the album thinking of the thin borders between heavy subgenres, but it applies nonetheless — and emerge from the other end of “Man’s Ruin” having not at all succumbed to tragedy as a result of their ambitions.
“I’m Your Demon” is on the player below, and Kajántook some time to talk about The Narrow Line and the song itself, so you can read what he had to say beneath that. The album is out Dec. 7 on Ripple.
Enjoy:
Andreas Kaján on “I’m Your Demon”:
Our second album has been a long time coming. After releasing “Explore The Void” back in 2015 digitally we got signed by Ripple Music and the physical album was out in 2016. Since then we’ve had some bass players come and go which have made it difficult to move forward and write new material. We finally found a guy and got around to writing new material and by summer of 2017 we had 8 new tracks. We recorded the album during the spring of 2018 and it will be released by Ripple Music December 7th this year. This time around I think we learned a little something from recording our first album and applied that while recording “The Narrow Line”. I think we have listened to the critics and tried to put more time and effort into the production this time. Lets hope you think so too!
The new songs highlight the Craneium sound like the last album, but we’d like to think it has evolved since and that we have refined it. A lot of clean and mellow parts rounded off with heavy grooves and hooks.
A few words about this second single release: “I’m Your Demon” was actually the last song that we wrote for the new album. Most of the other songs we had been working on a couple of months before this one came along. It’s a bit of an oddball for us since it’s the first song that isn’t in a 4/4 time signature, so we’re calling it our prog-song — justified, right? The guitar solo in the beginning of the song came about in the studio while recording it. We decided to play the clean part a little longer before the vocals come in, so we went ahead and threw a solo in there. Really fun to play with a cool breakdown part that culminates in a guitar solo and then on to a modulation of the last chorus. If it weren’t for all the fuzz we might even make the European Song Contest!
The album is called “The Narrow Line” and will be out on Ripple Music worldwide December 7th 2018.
Craneium is: Andreas Kaján – Vocals & Guitars Martin Ahlö – Vocals & Guitars Joel Kronqvist – Drums Jonas Ridberg – Bass
Posted in Bootleg Theater on October 17th, 2018 by JJ Koczan
Like the dogmatic end-time apocalypse from whence it takes its central theme, Mansion‘s first long-player has seen many delays. It’s been half a decade since their We Shall Live EP (review here) established the Finnish outfit as high-grade practitioners of cultistry and darkly atmospheric heavy rock, lurching at a creep or seething with righteous fury at a moment’s notice amid memorable songcraft given presence through the lurking melodies of vocalist Alma; her stage moniker taken from cult leader Alma Kartano around whose congregation the band is based. They’ve had other offerings along the way, whether it’s 2014’s Uncreation EP (review here) or 2015’s Altar Sermon (review here), or their split last year with Cardinal Wyrm, but are well due a full-length, and Nov. 16 (vinyl later), I Hate Records will issue First Death of the Lutheran, their awaited debut album.
I haven’t heard the record yet, but for those of us who are unworthy — which is everyone — Mansion are giving an enticing first taste with a new video for opening track “Wretched Hope.” It has the band’s signature all over it in terms of ambience, the progressive complexity of its arrangement and its grounded hook: “Hear my warning/The Lord is calling/Do you see the signs/It’s the end of times.” This arrives amid vocals shared between Alma and fellow-singer Osmo, a plodding rhythm and a vivid conveyance of the ceremony at hand. Like the best of Mansion‘s work to-date, it surpasses in concept and realization those who watch horror movies and call it cult rock to instead don a prophecy-minded belief system that comes through the song at hand. It’s theatrical, as they have been all along, but there’s no denying the effectiveness of the display. Indeed, it is an execution ready for worship.
Those sensitive to flashing lights will find harsh penance in the clip itself, but as you listen, take special note of the interweaving layers of guitar, the organ that fills out the melody and adds to the song-as-mass feel of the track itself, the buzzsaw-tone solo in the second half and the arrangement of vocals in call and response and in the chaos that ends. I won’t claim to know how the rest of First Death of the Lutheran plays out subsequent to “Wretched Hope,” but there is a feeling of mood being set throughout “Wretched Hope,” and these are dark times indeed. You can repent if you want. Won’t do you any good.
First Death of the Lutheran is out Nov. 16. I’ll hope to have more to come on it before then. In the meantime, video and comment follow.
Enjoy:
Mansion, “Wretched Hope” official video premiere
OUR FAITHFUL CONGREGATION,
”First Death of the Lutheran” represents the end of the insidious sinners’ earthly serpentine path as their life ends and they pass on to face the Final Judgement of the Lord Almighty. No doubt in our minds that they will end up horrified by their fate.
The Lutheran hypocrites have wasted their lives following their deceitful priests, blinded by their drivel. And these perverted wretches of the cloth have diluted the Word to serve their own greedy and lustful needs. May these priests be impaled by the claws of their true master, the accuser, Satan. And may the Lutheran churches fall in the name of the Lord Almighty, for they do not honour Him, but organised human evil. For His is the Glory now and eternally.
”You think you are on your way to heaven as the reverend promised you. Sheep to the slaughter in the name of satan.” – Alma Kartano
Mikael (lyricist) on First Death of the Lutheran:
I Hate Records is trying to reconcile in the eyes of the Lord Almighty after releasing despicable titles, which promote devil worship and sinful ways of life, by publishing the debut full lenght First Death of the Lutheran by the righteous Finnish musical talent Mansion. Good luck to them for He may not be that forgiving.
Video directed and edited by Tommi Hoffrén. On set director and camera by Anssi Ikonen.
Tracklisting: 1. WRETCHED HOPE 2. LUTHERAN 3. THE ETERNAL 4. 1933 5. FIRST DEATH
Lineup: ALMA – VOCALS OSMO – VOCALS ATAMI – DRUMS VEIKKO-TAPIO – GUITAR JAAKOB – GUITAR IMMANUEL – BASS MATTI-JUHANI – ORGAN MIKAEL – LYRICS
[Click play above to stream Sammal’s Suuliekki in full. Album is out now on Svart Records.]
If you’re looking for something to tie together the nine different pieces that make up Sammal‘s Suuliekki, you might find the answer somewhere in the guitar tone, or in the vocals, or in the overarching krautrock-reborn sensibility of the Turku, Finland, five-piece’s third full-length. But on the other hand, if you’re looking for something to tie Suuliekki together, you’re kind of doing it wrong. That’s not to say the album, which is released by the venerable tastes of Svart Records, is incoherent. It’s just intended to come at you from different sides.
The classic-style boogie of “Pinnalle Kaltevalle” and “Vitutuksen Valtameri,” is supposed to sound odd leading into the folk-tinged-but-still-handclap-and-synth-laden prog of “Maailman Surullisiin Suomalainen,” and from the moment the “Intro” eases the way into the theatrical title-track — with jabbing piano notes and an eventual turn to a verse and a chorus that reminds of lounge-pop before a danceable section of definitively Suomi progressive rock takes hold akin to something one might expect from Death Hawks or the bizarro elephant in the room when it comes to all things masterful and strange in Finnish undergroundism: Circle — Sammal make clear their intentions toward variety and a full-album flow that relies not on the songs all sounding the same, but on the listener engaging with an open mind in order to fully appreciate what’s happening across the heady but manageable 43-minute span.
It’s not always easy to follow — I suspect my own ignorance of the beautiful Finnish language is in no small measure to blame for that — but that would only seem to add to the complexity underscoring Suuliekkias a whole. It’s not supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to be a conversation between creator and listener, subject and object.
Organ, keyboards and other synthly goings on make songs like “Ylistys ja Kumarrus” that much richer, as the lineup of Jura, Juhani, Janu, Tuomas and Lasse fleetly bounce their way from one path to another throughout the nine tracks, finding a foothold in a given part and sticking to it only long enough to use it to brace the jump to the next one — centerpiece “Pinnalle Kaltevalle” does this particularly well, and if you can’t get behind that intertwining of organ and guitar in the second half, you should probably just give up and go about the rest of your day. Percussive groove, inventive rhythms and melodies, and a strong sense of striving toward individualism are all welcome aspects of Suuliekki early on.
The title-cut and the subsequent “Lukitut Päivät, Kiitävät Yöt” have a drama behind them, the former in its chorus and the latter in its linear forward build of tempo from subdued brooder to layered howls of lead guitar (of course it ends quiet post-crescendo), and the aforementioned “Ylistys ja Kumarrus,” which at 3:24 is the shortest inclusion here apart from the “Intro” at the outset, seems to amass significant forward momentum even as it dances around an instrumental hook which, as noted, is driven by the keys as much as the guitar. That in itself is a tie to rock classicism — think Deep Purple‘s weirdo Finnish cousins, if for no other reason than it’s a fun image — but while Sammal put that spirit to work even more across the outing’s second half, I wouldn’t necessarily tag them as being loyalists to anything other than their own individual songwriting impulses, which very much sound like the fruit of a multiple-parties-involved craft process. Not that one person couldn’t come up with the many twists and turns of the seven-minute “Maailman Surullisin Suomalainen,” just that sonic personalities for entire groups are rarely so varied with a single creative force at their root. Suuliekki is dense enough as a listening experience front to back to justify the impression of coming from multiple minds.
That’s not, however, to say it’s completely inaccessible. It’s not. Even “Suuliekki” has a chorus and a rhythmic drive, and when Sammal get through the bass-and-percussion/key-and-guitar/is-that-a-saxophone? vibe of “Pinnalle Kaltevalle,” the subsequent “Vitutuksen Valtameri” signals more straightforward intentions in its fuzzy guitar tone and relative calm compared to much of what’s come before it. Of course, it picks up as it moves through the chorus, but the spirit of the piece is more latter-day Siena Root than Brainticket, and Sammal make the other no less their own than the one, continuing into the stretch of “Maailman Surullisin Suomalainen” to affect vast creative sensibility and to bring the willing parties of their audience with them on this complicated but deeply satisfying journey.
One might consider the midsection of “Maailman Surullisin Suomalainen” an apex for the album as a whole, but with “Herran Pelko” and “Samettimetsä” still to go there’s plenty of ground still to cover and far more than should be thought of simply as an epilogue or an afterthought. The opening keyboards and crashes of “Herran Pelko” do give it a kind of things-are-wrapping-up feel, but while the vocals arrive late in the mostly-instrumental victory lap, the actual closer, “Samettimetsä,” operates in a more meditative mood. A jazz-fusion shuffle emerges near the halfway mark as the verse starts, but the vibe is cool with a kind of late ’70s smoothness of tone and presentation that somehow is just as appropriate as anything else could be to close out the record.
I guess that’s the upside of making a long-player where you go anywhere and everywhere you want: by the time you get to the finish, you’ve already established a wide enough breadth to allow for just about anything. So it is with Suuliekki, which succeeds not just because it’s willfully odd in its affect or because it offers this or that progressive nuance, but also because it does these things while serving not a display of technical prowess, but instead, the songwriting. Wherever Sammal go throughout this third offering, they never seem to lose sight of the fact that they’re creating songs and not just putting parts together like a science experiment to see what happens. That crucial difference further allows Suuliekki to make the many leaps it does, because no matter where they’re headed, the listener can trust they’re being guided by capable hands.
[Click play above to check out the premiere of Mangoo’s official video for ‘Relief.’ Their third album, The Heat, is out Dec. 8 on Small Stone Records.]
Heat is a catalyst. When you heat something up, its molecules move faster, become more active. Aside from frogs in slow-boiling pots of water, when someone touches something hot, they’re going to react, and one can’t help but wonder if that’s not what Turku, Finland-based heavy rockers Mangoo had in mind for their third album, The Heat. Something that would provoke a response. Something to get the blood moving. A reason for heads to bang and asses to shake. It would be hard to argue they didn’t get there on The Heat, which comprises a nearly-unmanageable 11 tracks/53 minutes of pro-shop song construction, crisply recorded and sharply delivered, heavy rock and roll.
Following two years after a split with UK space-metallers Enos (review here) and half a decade after their Small Stone debut, 2012’s Neverland (review here), the long-player marks the returning lineup of vocalist/guitarist Richard “Pickles” Dahllund, guitarist/backing vocalist Mathias “Mattarn” Åkerlund, bassist/backing vocalist Igor del Toro, drummer/backing vocalist Teemu Pulkkinen and keyboardist/backing vocalist/noisemaker/engineer Niklas Björklund as veterans of the form early, fleshing out melodic arrangements with a fullness of keys and fuzz tone that’s nether overbaked nor underweight. Pickles holds command as a frontman for almost the entire duration, relinquishing forward position only on the Spanish-language “Tiembla” to del Toro, who takes on lead vocals, and behind him, the band conjures grooving largesse on the title-track, resonant, Euro-radio-worthy hooks on cuts like opener “Relief” and the subsequent “Get Away,” and a fervent charge on “Deification” that offsets the semi-twang of “Beyond the Sky” and the psychedelic garage jangle of “Monolith.”
If that sounds a little broad as regards the general spectrum, it is, and that stylistic restlessness is a theme Mangoo — whose moniker seems truly unfortunate until one learns to pronounce it properly as “man-go” — continue from Neverland. Five years later, however, they are more mature as a group and as people, and whether it’s the rolling bassline that underscores the patient, harmony-topped fluidity in the second half of “Beyond the Sky” or the later solo in the angular boogie of “Stumbling Man,” which straightens out to a particularly satisfying hook near its finish, the vibe here is cohesive front to back and Mangoo never seem to leave an element out of its proper place.
One might debate whether in the vinyl-minded late-’10s, The Heat really needs to be 2LP length, or at very least to border thereupon, but with such a chunk of time between their last offering (which also was not short) and this one, a glut of material makes some sense in context, and ultimately it does not hold Mangoo back from effectively stating their point. As to what that might be, one should look again at the subtle diversity of craft on display throughout the tracks. The production by Björklund — on which everyone else receives a co-credit — is a unifying factor to such a degree that on a superficial level, The Heat might seem to take a singular approach, but the truth is Mangoo adopt a range of approaches across these cuts, from the spacious and progressive heft of “One Day,” on which the guitars drift wide during the open verses only to resolidify around a massive and dramatic chorus, to the tense chugging, percussive nuance and slightly-jammed feel that hits in the penultimate “Grey Belly,” building to an apex that, even as it follows what would’ve seemed to be the culmination of the album in its titular cut, justifies its presence.
Feeling a bit more like an indulgence is the actual closer, which is a take on Eddie Murphy‘s 1985 single “Party all the Time,” which, while yes, it has a hook that borders on so catchy it’s infuriating, doesn’t necessarily fit with the rest of The Heat‘s modus, despite the ’80s-esque airbrushed look of the Alexander von Wieding cover art. The sense one gets is that it’s Mangoo signaling their audience that they don’t take themselves too seriously, that they’re having a good time, or that maybe they’re prone as most groups are to the occasional inside joke, but after 10 solid original pieces of Dozer-worthy songwriting and borderline flawless studio execution from the metallic vibe of “Tiembla” to the theatrical spread conjured in “The Heat” itself, to turn that all on its head right as they cross the finish line almost takes away from the impact of the original pieces preceding.
That said, Mangoo are certainly entitled to enjoy themselves in the recording/studio process, and while “Party all the Time” might’ve been better left as an off-LP single or something like that, even more than 30 years on from its first release, it remains a furiously dug-in earworm and Mangoo do well to make it their own in terms of overall sound. Of course, the definition of “their own” has never sounded quite so fluid for the five-piece as it does here either, since they careen with such apparent ease between one side of their increasingly complex sonic persona and the next. Maybe in that spirit, there’s room for just about everything in the triumphant spacet-time reaches born of “Beyond the Sky” or “One Day,” including that last bit of partying. Fair enough. You win this round, Mangoo.
