Posted in Whathaveyou on September 3rd, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Damn. Uncle Acid, Conan and Earth Tongue on the same bill. That’s incredible. A long time ago, I once posited Uncle Acid and Conan as two representations of what the future of English heavy might hold, the former representing an aesthetic and more atmospheric, raw take and the latter sheer onslaught, which of course is an aesthetic in itself. I didn’t explain it well, and nobody got what I was going for, but it made sense to me at the time and having seen how their careers have panned out, I still think the two bands are emblematic of the breadth of the UK heavy underground, in addition to being generational forerunner exports from it. Uncle Acid will go on this tour in support of their out-in-like-two-weeks new album Shapes of Midnight, while Conan started recording their next album in June, so there’s the potential this could be a release tour for them.
And just because they’re not UK-rooted — they’re from New Zealand, but currently located in Berlin, I think — doesn’t mean you shouldn’t show up early for Earth Tongue, who will make a rousing preface for Uncle Acid‘s cultish vibes with their own standout songcraft. The duo released Dungeon Vision (review here) earlier this year and have spent much of 2026 heralding it to audiences, including throughout North America. Good to see they’ll be out in the New Year as well.
Note that Uncle Acid‘s November UK tour is included below as well. Seemed only fair, lest anybody think they’re only doing the one London date to support the album. No doubt more to come as well.
From social media:
We’re pleased to announce our return to Europe (and London!) in 2027. We’ll be joined by Conan and Earth Tongue. See you there!
Tickets on artist pre sale WEDNESDAY and general sale FRIDAY. Seeuncleacidband.com
FEBRUARY SAT 13 NETHERLANDS TILBURG 013 🇳🇱 MON 15 GERMANY COLOGNE KANTINE 🇩🇪 TUE 16 GERMANY HAMBURG MARKTHALLE🇩🇪 THU 18 SWEDEN GOTHENBURG PUSTERVIK🇸🇪 FRI 19 NORWAY OSLO ROCKEFELLER 🇳🇴 SAT 20 SWEDEN STOCKHOLM FÅLLAN 🇸🇪 MON 22 FINLAND HELSINKI ÄÄNIWALLI 🇫🇮 WED 24 DENMARK COPENHAGEN AMAGER BIO 🇩🇰 THU 25 GERMANY BERLIN FESTZAAL KREUTZBERG 🇩🇪 FRI 26 AUSTRIA VIENNA FLEX 🇦🇹 SAT 27 GERMANY MUNICH TECHNIKUM 🇩🇪
MARCH MON 01 SWITZERLAND ZÜRICH PLAZA 🇨🇭 TUE 02 ITALY MILAN MAGAZZINI GENERALI 🇮🇹 WED 03 FRANCE LYON LE TRANSBORDEUR 🇫🇷 FRI 05 FRANCE PARIS LA MACHINE DU MOULIN ROUGE 🇫🇷 SAT 06 ENGLAND LONDON SHEPHERD’S BUSH EMPIRE 🏴
2026 UK DATES: 11/19 — Wolverhampton, UK — KK’s Steel Mill 11/20 — Manchester, UK — New Century Hall 11/21 — Glasgow, UK — The Garage 11/22 — Leeds, UK — Brudenell 11/24 — Bristol, UK — Trinity 11/25 — Southampton, UK — Engine Rooms 11/27 — Brighton, UK — Concorde 2 11/28 — Norwich, UK — Waterfront 11/29 — Nottingham, UK — Rescue Rooms
UNCLE ACID AND THE DEADBEATS ARE: Kevin Starrs — Vocals/Lead Guitar George Hudson — Rhythm Guitar/Vocals Jus Smith — Bass Jon Rice —Drums Rachel Burnett — Keys/Vocals
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 19th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Heralding last Fall’s full-length, Mother, Give Your Children Sanity (review here), UK weirdopsych troupe Codex Serafini are set to embark on a round of mainland Euro tour dates starting Sept. 2 in Hamburg. They’ll mostly be in Germany and France, which is often how it goes, but are also set to make forays into Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia and the Czech Republic, and so are covering a good amount of ground in a two-week stretch. You’ll note a couple days off between Berlin and Barberaz, France. I wouldn’t be surprised if, in addition to the drive, there’s something up the band’s collective robe-sleeve for that time. I guess we’ll see.
The PR wire offered the following:
Codex Serafini are proud to announce a European tour to promote their second album Mother, Give Your Children Sanity; released physically via Riot Season Records and Echodelic Records November 2025. This release finds them blending the future psych rock of Boris, Goat, and King Gizzard with the avant-garde, art rock of The Mars Volta and Ex Eye to create something more focused and forward thinking than anything they have produced before. The album was recorded and produced by Wayne Adams (Big Lad/Petbrick) at Bear Bites Horse Studio (Green Lung/Petbrick/JAAW).
“This album grew from our shared, deep connection we have to one another and reflects both the power of nature and the struggles we all experience as human beings on this planet. We are grateful to have made it with people we love and respect, and we’re excited to finally share it with everyone out there.” – Codex Serafini
CODEX SERAFINI – Europe September 2026: 2nd Hamburg, Germany @ Hafenklang 3rd Berlin, Germany @ Neue Zukunft 7th Barberaz, France @ Le Brin de Zinc 8th Luzern, Switzerland @ Gewerbehalle 9th Bologna, Italy @ freakout club 10th Ilirska Bistrica, Slovenia @ MKNŽ 11th Prague, Czech Republic @ klubFAMU 12th Leipzig, Germany @ Kulturlounge 13th Hanover, Germany @ nordstadtbraut 14th Bochum, Germany @ BASTION 15th Paris, France @ Le Klub 16th Rouen, France @ le 3 pieces
Posted in Reviews on August 12th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Today is the traditional passing-the-midpoint of the Quarterly Review — hump day, if you need it on humping terms — and indeed, this 50-release QR keeps with that tradition. It’s been almost absurdly easy so far to get through, as the best of them are, and not one day — including this one — has passed without me adding at least two releases from each batch of 10 to my notes for year-end list time. That’s a pretty impressive rate, even for an old softy like me, but the bottom line always is that I hope you find something you enjoy even as I do the same. I think maybe I needed this kind of dig-in more than I realized when I started slating what I was going to be writing about. I guess that happens sometimes.
Let’s keep the thing going.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
Warning, Rituals of Shame
Some 20 years after releasing their landmark second album, Watching From a Distance, Patrick Walker-led emotive doom metal pioneers Warning return with a potentially landmark third, Rituals of Shame. The band’s first outing in that long — though Walker has divided his time with 40 Watt Sun and issued solo material as well — is no less grueling of tempo or willfully emotionally laborious for that, and Walker‘s voice remains singularly wrenching such that the 12-minute opening title-track (also the longest; immediate points) feels like it’s pulling you down into the melancholic world that the rest of the 45-minute LP goes on to make, from the plodding “Stations” to, well, the also-plodding “Teacher,” never veering from its purpose or lifting the tonal or melodically-depressive weight once applied. Rituals of Shame is an odd fit for being tagged as ‘brutal,’ but it is its own kind of extremity-of-form nonetheless, and a challenge that sets its terms early and (quietly) dares you to follow the path its songs lay out.
Cambodia-via-UK outfit Mike Bee & The Acid Fuzz Trio follows the psychedelic leaning adventures of its namesake songwriter/guitarist/vocalist Mike Bee (also Last Bee on Earth, Deep Sky Revival, etc.) across White Noise Sound from the blinding garage tone-bite of its leadoff title-cut through mellowstoner and dub of “Goodbye Mary Jane” and “Beyond the Wheel,” riffing bluesier on “Hey Bong!” and getting fuzzy and Bowie-gone-desert-contemplative in “Johnny The Living Star” to set up the fierce groove of “Rise Like a Phoenix” at the end, the seven-song/26-minute album — it’s short, but feels like an LP more than an EP, so I’m making the call myself — has hooks a-plenty and gets playful on “Lion, Sword and Sun” without sounding like a ’60s put-on or something like that, each inclusion establishing its own atmosphere while adding to the admittedly understated breadth of the whole. It’s a weird one, to be sure, but for those who can make their way to its wavelength, the songs will stick to whatever membranes you got.
Teké Collective would seem to be one of several projects under the operating umbrella of Milan, Italy, producer Marino-Angelo Scordilis, and on the new single “Remember and Hope” (7:18), the Collective features no fewer than seven other contributors, including True Canyon‘s spoken word in the second half and a variety of synth and percussion. It is exploratory but aware of the influences from which it draws, and winds up as a kind of world-prog rock. There are psychedelic aspects but it’s too clearheaded to be lysergic, and with all the tight funk in the first half of the song, reminds a bit of earlier P-Funk‘s ability to go anywhere it wants, though the stylistic context here is different. Texture in the two guitars and synth take hold early, but it’s the bass that carries it through the midsection into the slowdown, and the story — a narrative about the power of memory to overcome oppression — is fluidly told with a sense of joy rather than mourning something lost, even though it is that too. There’s a lot packed into one seven-minute single, but it works.
This record came out almost a year ago, so what am I doing reviewing it now? Well, here’s a friendly reminder that music doesn’t have an expiration date, and that I’m only one person and I’m a human being, some stuff is gonna slip by. But with Carson bringing enough hooks and fuzz for the whole class, it seemed like engaging with the eight songs of their confident, strident third full-length, When Gods Know Why, was its own excuse for doing, so there you go. Following 2022’s The Willful Pursuit of Ignorance (review here) with memorable burners like “Engine Down” and the melody-forward grungier twist of “Snow White,” the careening desert rocker “Marion Morrison,” the post-Truckfighters shove of “Drip,” and so on, the Lucerne, Switzerland, three-piece are a reminder of the moving power of heavy rock and roll, and I mean that both physically and in the energetic atmosphere wrought throughout the album all the way up to the blowout at the end of “Only for the Scorned.” Increasingly, they’re a name you can trust. Sorry to have missed this last September. Not sorry to be caught up now.
Polling social media to effect a vox populi, Massachusetts doom folker Buzzard asks the query of our times — “what the fuck?” — over and over again in “Hillbilly Fuckery,” presented in the original and extra-crispy extended versions on this three-songer two-songer, joined with the narrative “Appalachian Blood Bourbon” as the heavy fuzz flows with Christopher Elliott in call and response verses carrying the energy of the song prior (and after), more than filler as complements go, but shorter and somewhat overtaken by all the voices surrounding. The banjo — a regular feature in Buzzard‘s work as the project has taken shape over the last couple years — carries the rhythm along with slide guitar and lumbering, weighted tone, and “Appalachian Blood Bourbon” pairs well for that, its lyrics calling out Hungarian vampires moving to Kentucky and founding an LLC. Buzzard has already announced a Fall LP release, Hush Now, and this as well as other recent singles will feature as CD bonus tracks, which is reasonable considering how much obviously went into their making, answering as well as asking that central question.
Beginning with the 10-minute atmospheric doom clarion “Crimson Skies,” The Unfolding at the End of Light is the debut album from Peruvian four-piece Illwind, which features current and former members of Reino Ermitaño, Arcada, Argul and Death Invoker, and it arrives with a sense of self accordant to the storied pedigree of its component players. Heavy as buildings and modernly grim of mood, the six-song/47-minute paean finds a balance with (relatively) uptempo fare like the shorter, daring-toward-swing “Portal” before digging back in for “God of Sleep” — note the dreamy part in the second half — and 13-minute finale “Lucifer’s Mule,” which shifts from its acoustic guitar/sample intro to a lumbering procession that’s as spacious as it is consuming. But the inclusion of a bonus cover of The Stooges ultra-classic “Now I Wanna Be Your Dog” — inarguably one of the greatest riffs of all riffy time — bringing it into their established-by-then stylistic context, blowing it out, and capping with an assault of feedback and noise. Lifesblood, this is.
Forgive me speaking personally for a bit, but there are some records that I just feel lucky to have heard. I don’t think you get to be a blogger for 17-plus years without making some seriously questionable life decisions, but I feel validated in the slacker-stoner/domestic-boheme lifepath I’ve apparently chosen hearing II from Chicago terracosmos explorers Spiral Galaxy, whose bridge between effects drone and organic elements reminds of pocket highlights like Montibus Communitas while singing praise to nature with otherworldly sounds. Wholly immersive, welcoming and warm, even with the building thud of “Wir Fur Sea,” II comes across as ceremonial for more than just the rampant flute, and unflinching in the beauty it captures, with “Future Fauna” taking place across its own bed of psych drone and the brief conclusion “Umbra” as a goodbye that feels all too soon. I missed this band’s 2020 debut. Clearly I need to go back and rectify that, but first I’ll just go ahead and put II on my list of this year’s best albums, with the acknowledgement that any kind of temporal placement is selling short its reaches.
If you’ve ever wondered what Gurt‘s pummeling party sludge might sound like adopting grooves from Powerman 5000 and collaborating with a rapper — and if you have, kudos on your hyperspecific curiosity — the three-and-a-half-minute “No Limit” on the London outfit’s three-song Survival of the Shittest has your answer. The purposeful-in-their-yuck troupe have been at this at least 15 years now and they know with what they’re fucking. EP opener “Live Nation, Dead Scene” (2:49) feels rooted in extreme metal but still finishes with a massive, rolling riff, and the centerpiece title-track — you know they’re English because “shit” is a relative noun, as in “a bit shit”; in US English that’s “Shittiest,” which is clearer but doesn’t sound as fun — takes the violence-of-impact up another notch ahead of the playful-if-you-know-they’re-goofballs nu-metal delve. Gurt don’t owe anyone anything at this point musically — no doubt they’re racked with actual-debt like everyone else — but they’re pretty obviously still having fun crushing and gnashing as they are. Does that make them survivors? Are they the shittest? I don’t know, but they go upside your head hard enough to make you forget to ask.
As to what’s stopping Four — the first release in a decade from UK five-piece Crumbling Ghost — from being neofolk, the answer I think is mostly down to the lack of pretense and the heavier tones surrounding the rootsy vocal melodies. The seven-track offering finds itself embracing shades, hues, spirits, whatever-you-want-to-call-them from post-heavy and the ambience is crucial as “Bows of London” and “Bill Norrie” set the 36-minute LP forth, the latter bringing in the max-heft end of their dynamic range that the later “The Unquiet Grave” will use as a whole-album crescendo, but while “Wassail” is noisier and “Lovely Joan” is like a medieval heavy strut, the key is in their ability to change their approach from one piece to the next without letting go of the folkish vocals overarching. Thus they can get as heavy as they want — and do — and “Last of All Sleep” doesn’t have to feel discordant in its move from acoustics to a grunge wash and “Valtz Efter Tor Lohne” resonates as cohesive even as an instrumental. I don’t know their history or where they’ve been for 10 years, but the combination of atmospheric heavy and folk they harness here is markedly their own.
Danceable and violent in kind, Los Angeles industrial metal trio Purest Form present the six-song/15-minute Resistance EP ahead of appearing at Chicago’s Cold Waves Festival next month. “Beyond Terror” hints in its “Reptile”-y procession toward some underlying Nine Inch Nails influence, but there’s some aspect of retroism about the band’s aggressive take, vocalist Story providing the bite corresponding to the chug of “Animal” and the otherwise drum’n’bass-ish shove of “Bass Resistance” a short time later. This ’90s-informed take finds its ultimate fruition in the concluding cover of The Prodigy‘s “Breathe,” which from what I read is a staple of live sets. Fair enough, but its in the frenetic charge of “Move” that Purest Form demonstrate more what they’re bringing of themselves to push beyond their influences, and as brash as their sound is, one hopes that continues to evolve as they move forward. Intensity and immediacy are assets working in their favor, though, here and on their past EPs.
Posted in Reviews on August 11th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
I don’t know how many Quarterly Reviews I’ve done at this point, but aside making my wife avoid me for a week, they’re always their own, probably-doesn’t-make-sense-to-anyone-else kind of fun, and it’s an engagement with music that I don’t get in any other way, even doing this site. Some of it feels like the old days in print, with the pile of CDs on my desk waiting to be reviewed for that week’s column, maybe 100 words per (I try to keep it to 150-200 here), with half the challenge going from one thing to the next and not repeating myself. But I don’t really expect anyone to get that. It’s work, but I enjoy it.
Yesterday was killer like Phyllis Diller. If nothing hit you, I hope today’s more your speed. If not, check back tomorrow. I’ll still be here, doing the thing.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
Edena Gardens, Quintessence
The fifth album from the instrumentalist amalgam of Causa Sui and Papir, Edena Gardens‘ Quintessence not only references the ordinal relevance but embodies the title’s implication of getting to the very root purpose of the project. Spread across four sides of a 2LP, the 80-minute six-songer is the band’s most open and rawest-feeling outing to-date, and for a project that was ‘supposed’ to produce a trilogy and then everybody goes home, they continue to bring a sense of vibrancy and exploration to their jams. The difference is that here, the songs are longer, there’s less editing involved, and the production, while clear enough to convey the spirit of what they’re doing, feels pointedly straightforward in doing so. And from the willfully, surprisingly Sabbathian “Nigredo” onward, the titles give hints toward their evocations of ground and color, be it “Earth Blemish” or the 22-minute finale “The Vermillion Quintessence.” Maybe not the best place to start with the band, but on the other hand, maybe it absolutely is.
“You Already Know” is the fourth studio single from New Zealand four-piece Stone Clones, founded in 2021 by the brotherly pair of guitarists Seager and Calum Ray, the former of whom also serves as lead vocalist in harmony with bassist Juan Los B while Dylan Byrne holds the alt-rock-informed-desert push through the chorus toward the particularly post-Homme solo that follows. The lyrics are something of an assessment of modernity and the “you” in question becomes a stand-in for the greed that exploits and ruins the polis of our day. The song runs 6:20 and captures a mood without giving entirely over to it even in that final verse where some of the purported Radiohead influence comes out, and as they continue to grow and work toward a somewhat inevitable debut album, the place they’re making for themselves between styles will continue to hone its own identity through the songcraft they demonstrate here, making heavy sounds and ideas feel light and able to sway the balance in whatever direction they want.
Comprised of just the two songs “Lever” (7:49) and “Capra” (5:42), this second EP offering from psychedelic depthmakers Os Solair doesn’t shy away from heft just because it’s also creating a sense of space or wash of effects. “Lever” grows more fervent as it goes and “Capra” picks up where it left off, but the Darmstadt, Germany, four-piece are mindful of dynamic and melodicism as well, and apparently recording live in their rehearsal space with vocal overdubs after, they come across as atmospheric and bit noisy but not really chaotic in the sense of not knowing where they’re headed. That is to say there’s a plan at work on Lever/Capra, and that can be heard as the latter cut moves into its more subdued, psych-adventuring midsection, tense enough in the drums to convey the explosion that’s coming but nonetheless a turn from the lower-end weight of the song’s beginning. Molten in its use of effects on guitar and vocals, it’s almost subversively grounded in the rhythm section, but the two sides work together with a fluidity that’s where the band’s real potential lies. I will look forward to what they do next.
The Nothing is the first solo album from former Midnight Whiskey Massacre guitarist Darren Ironside, and perhaps unsurprisingly the guitar leads the way for most of the nine-song offering. Based in the UK, Ironside blends throaty vocals that at times cross over to the metallic over a succession of riffs informed by doom rock, thrash, classic heavy, etc., over what I’m fairly sure are programmed drum progression, and though the mix is raw and pushes the vocals forward, songs like “To the Gallows” carry across a sense of brooding as the shred pervades, complementing the lyrical disaffection of “Forgotten Dream” — a familiar Charlie Chaplin sample there as well — and, on the other side of the noisy interlude “Nebula Rising,” “Overwatch and Control.” The bottom line is Ironside, who also self-produced, is figuring out where he wants his songs to go — or where they want to go, if you’d rather personify — and beginning to shape his own sound separate from his prior outfit and has something to say about the world around him. It’s raw and will come off abrasive at first to the unacclimated, but there’s groove to be had.
The ad astra per aspera narrative of New York’s Sun Voyager continues with their latest standalone single, “Coming Down,” which arrives scorching as if they knew the summer would be too damn hot and required something duly humid to coincide. No surprise though it’s a burner, and in the ascendance of guitarist Christian “Shaman Smoke” Lopez as a lead vocalist joined by bassist Stefan Mersch — the band is completed by drummer Kyle Beach, reliable and not to be discounted in holding their songs together — here manifests a sense of breakout that is wrought in the reptitions of the title line, sneering with attitude and righteously cosmic. It’s been nearly four years since Lopez joined Sun Voyager after they lost their prior guitarist/vocalist, and the time the band spent woodshedding and nailing down their chemistry is audible on “Coming Down” as well as the prior serve-notice single “Running Hot” (premiered here). I don’t know what it’s leading toward beyond probably an LP sooner or later, but Sun Voyager sound increasingly ready for whatever’s coming. East Coast psych gnarl. Get it.
Cultish and telegraphing their Iommi worship in their presentation — they’re certainly not hiding it in the music either — Athenian trio Oath reportedly recorded their first full-length Unteach live, and while I don’t know how that accounts for the doubled solos, with one foot in the Hammer Horror of “Alucarda ’77,” and the other in the pastoral “Orchid”ness of “Through the Evergreen Fields,” the band carve a place for themselves in “My Second Life” with a sound that’s as much proto-doom as it is punk as it is metal, and the place it winds up is crushingly heavy in “Soviet Invasion” and the penultimate “Dies Capri” and still plenty heavy but more playful in “Fur, Claws and Leather,” taking influence maybe from earliest Electric Wizard, is satisfyingly individual. That is to say, while you can pinpoint the roots of where they’re coming from, the actual material of the album, raw as it is, is not at all without stylistic nuance. They let the slower tempos manifest foreboding rather than occult theatrics, and that suits the buzz-tone riffs as well. It’s a weird one, but full of purpose in that, and so appreciable.
Somewhere in the gray ether that exists between post- and black metals, Greek unit Automaton harness a grim spaciousness as their Sound Effect Records-delivered third album Labyrinth, retelling the titular mythology in impressionist lyrics throughout as the six-song/46-minute sprawl varies from ripping to crushing and back again. “Ariadne” and the prior “Minotaur” hone a thickened viciousness, while the 12-minute “Black Sails” is a more ambient delve, building in its second half to a march ahead of the cavernous interlude “Your Bull Nature Clouds Your Human Self” — perhaps a thesis for the record — before the blastbeats resume in closer “Battle in the Labyrinth.” The story is allegorical (duh) and the telling is relevant in theme as well as aesthetic, but the gnash stands on its own as well in its fury and satisfies in terms of the plot as well as in execution. Much to its credit, even as it follows a linear narrative, at no point does Labyrinth feel like it’s subsumed songwriting to that, and each piece fleshes out with a patience correspondant to mastery.
Ultimately, it’s the poise here that makes Witch Ripper‘s third album so lethal, and if you’ve seen the band likened to Mastodon somewhere along the way, the Matt Bayles production probably has something to do with that, but the Seattle progressive riff metallers conjure their own feeling of space across the seven included songs. I’ve said on multiple occasions that part of what’s kept me from being a fan of this band is the kind of unthinking misogynist implication of their moniker, but there’s no denying either the growth they’ve undertake between albums or the sense of accomplishment overarching Through the Hourglass as a manifestation of their approach that they’ve been working toward all the while. Alternating between shorter and longer songs highlights the structural variety on display, and the shifts between clean-sung and harsher vocal styles gives purpose and drama to the procession from one piece to the next, with closer “The Spiral Eye” seeming to take cues from the likes of Blood Incantation in its leads while providing due culmination to the encompassing entirety prior. They’ve always meant business and they still do.
Self-releasing UK apparent-newcomers Hostile Tides offer their first EP in the five-song/17-minute Dead Man Talking, taking a double-guitar approach to heavy instrumentalism that’s pretty clearly in the process of shaking out where they’re headed in terms of style but that just the same conveys their setting forth on that progression. Chunky-style riffing in the centerpiece “Adrift” feels like it’s got some ’90s crunch, but it’s kind of hard to tell if that’s the rougher edges of the recording showing through an initial outing or something purposeful on the part of the band, or both, considering the way the song turns to a dreamier midsection with the bass holding to ground while the guitars branch out into atmospherics. Tonally more Karma to Burn than Russian Circles, they make the divergences a strength and a distinguishing factor, and the five-minute capper (the EP works shortest to longest) “Peaks” hints toward a burgeoning patience of craft. They could go just about anywhere from here.
Johnny Tirade and The Circle of Futures Past, What is at the Beginning of Eternity, the End of Time, the Beginning of Every End, and the End of Every Place
When Dublin’s Johnny Tirade and The Circle of Futures Past labels themselves as “stoner industrial-tinged,” I think they’re talking about the Ministry-esque push of opener “Hey Man” and the overarching tonal crunch (maybe also the drum machine) more than the acoustic guitar in near-17-minute centerpiece “Memory Hole” (also sax) and the concluding “Improv,” but one way or the other, that self-applied tag hardly encapsulates the weirdo gamut of the band’s cumbersomely-named 31-minute debut album, What is at the Beginning of Eternity, the End of Time, the Beginning of Every End, and the End of Every Place. But it’s part of it. There’s an earnest experimentalism at play in the songs as each of the five tracks wants to and does head to its own destination, but the more you hear “Lizard Johnny” or the samples and spoken verses of “American Dream” (prececed by “Fuck the…” in the chorus; fair enough), the more they make their own kind of linear sense, and as a showcase for what the band/project might become, the plunge undertaken in these tracks is an encouragingly odd fit for any number of square-hole genres in which one might try to shove them.
Posted in Reviews on August 10th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Hi and welcome to the Summer 2026 Quarterly Review. Every day this week I’ll be posting a round of 10 reviews to total 50 by Friday, rounding up recent releases, stuff I’ve missed, etc. There are a few things in the mix that aren’t out yet that I’m going to sneak in (shh…), but it’s entirely possible I’ll be doing this again next month or in October, so, you know, sit tight. My hope is that you find something to hear you haven’t heard before, or at very least have your opinions validated on whatever it might be.
Without further ado, we roll.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
Goddess, Ritual of the Cloven Hoof
Based in Sweden and signed to Majestic Mountain Records, Goddess are an offshoot of 2010s-era doomers Goatess and feature guitarist/vocalist Karl-Martin Buhre and drummer Kenta Karlbom from that band alongside guitarist Anders Martinsgård (Black Solstice) and bassist John Jansson in the revamped, renamed four-piece on their six-track/37-minute doom-chugging debut album, Ritual of the Cloven Hoof. Sort-of-debut album? I don’t know how you want to classify it, but either way the point is doom, and Goddess inherit a penchant for massive riffs and forlorn spaces as songs like “To Be King” and the eight-and-a-half-minute “Born Again Heathen” begin to define a character that is their own within the genre, the latter leaning a bit into doomedelic jamming ahead of the closer “Devil’s Reef,” which returns to ground in reliable fashion with deceptive vitality in its push. It’s no coincidence they sound like they know what they’re doing, because they do, but their Ritual is also the beginning of a new exploration, and holds all the more potential for that.
A new Irata album isn’t something that happens all the time, and fair enough. Some bands need to live before they write songs about it, and that’s not sarcasm or criticism for how much heart the North Carolinian trio put into their music. Human, while only their fourth LP since 2007, comes seven years after 2019’s Tower (review here) and starts out duly moody to suit the times in “Altar” and the bassy “Confessions,” but the swaying highlight “Seeds” finds a way to inject more energy into the delivery without sacrificing atmosphere, and though they hit into speedier fare in “Mirrors” or the penultimate “Goodside,” they do so while maintaining a patient progressivism, which leads to the masterful unfolding of capper “Daystar” across two linear builds, the latter of which ends the Human on a fading rumble. While maintaining a current of raw expression, Irata are able to conjure expanses in their sound. A J. Robbins mix doesn’t hurt in that effort, but it wouldn’t work if the songs didn’t run as deep as they do.
Oh hell yes. Indonesian stoner doomers Gutward bring about a lumber that’s a sure reminder of what dragged me onto this wretched lifepath to start with. Huge, immersive grooves, airy but discernible vocals — that actually have something to say about the world around them; bonus — and a sense of space and outreach that is at once free and encompassing. I is their first release following the 2024 single “Mauna Vedanā,” and its five-track/35-minute course is less about innovation than celebration, reveling in the largesse of march at the end of “What’s With the Rush?” or the addled vastness in “Mass Delusion” and hopefully-foretelling-of-things-to-come melodic showcase “Rot Alone” ahead of 12-minute capper “The Messages,” which is heavy enough for whatever you need flattened but holds firm to its tempo gruel and the melody established by the song prior. My only problem with the record is I can’t figure out which label I want them to sign to most, but either way, I is easily among the best debut albums I’ve heard this year. I look forward to hearing where they go from here.
A six-years-later follow-up for the potential wrought in their 2020 self-titled debut (review here), Smokemaster‘s In the Temple is in coversation with the breadth of modern psychedelia and the friendly melodies of ’60s pop-psych alike, and the Cologne outfit manage to make even a mover like “Do it Again” feel like a quiet, intimate moment, while pieces like the title-track and “Electromagnetic” feel less concerned with heft than float, and “Down in the Salt Mines” hones a wash that turns the extended solo in its back half to an utter triumph brought to heel in favor of a quiet last verse. Acoustic guitar, organ, effects, breathy vocals, clever layering — all of these elements serve the needs of the songs, and the songs have more range for them, but the underlying structures are a strength as the harmonies in “Citrus Leaves” demonstrate before they bring the album to an effectively stirring resolution. It’s the kind of record that might make your day better.
At the core of Bantoriak is Izio Orsini from Rancho Bizzarro, who in 2015 debuted the project with Weedoism (review here) and all its attendant weirdness. Vol. II follows suit 11 years later — what is time? — but finds Orsini working with a range of guests, from Sergio Chotsourian (ex-Los Natas, etc.) on the lumbering post-intro plunge “Blu Bus,” to members of Vesta, Supernaughty and Zen Circus, resulting in a could-go-anywhere vision of meditative heavy psychedelia. There’s throat singing on “La Muerte del Sitar,” while “Ritualism” finds the sitar very much alive and droning, “Kairot” lets the guitar scorch a bit, and “Liquid Brain” feels like a lost jam from The Heads. The last four minutes are dedicated to the ethereal noise of “Karpura,” with the later reaches lost to distant shouts and a consuming sound that might be running water. A lesson in how to be in-genre and still totally on your own wavelength.
While I don’t envy any band the task of distinguishing themselves in London’s underground scene, which is arguably the most packed-with-riffs of anywhere the world over and has been at this point for some time, the manner in which Troy the Band meet the challenge head on with their second album (Des), following on from 2024’s debut, Cataclysm (review here), with a collection that finds the trio of guitarist Sean Burn, bassist Sean Durbin and drummer Jack Revans answering the departure of vocalist Craig Newman by including a breadth of guest appearances. The penultimate “Adoration of Ill Luck” features Ana-Maria Terr Bordei, whom they’ve since welcomed as their new permanent singer, and her command over the massive groove there honed is enough reason why, but only one among a slew of highlights that include the immediately preceding “Memory Glowing,” with Peter Holland (Elephant Tree, etc.) and Kay Elizabeth (Black Orchids), and the screaming volatility of “Nothing” or “Choke.” There’s a lot happening in any individual cut, but the root instrumentals tie it all together and make (Des) an engrossing journey of a listen.
I know the focus on the new Burning Sister two-songer, Plunge b/w Fadeout (Live), is supposed to be the A-side, the new studio track and the ‘gaze vibes therefrom, the steady roll brought to bear for just under six minutes, hypnotic and full in its unrolling, hinting toward psych but staying true to the band’s stated intention of being ‘Mile High Downer Rock,’ bassist/vocalist Steve Miller and drummer Alison Salutz exploring and finding a plane between atmosphere and impact, but don’t sleep on the B-side either. This live interpretation of “Fadeout,” which opened the band’s 2023 Get Your Head Right EP (review here) when they were a trio but here becomes a showcase of fuzz density, nod and ’90s druggery. I suppose there’s no wrong answer between the two cuts, but “Fadeout (Live)” makes an easy comparison point for the Denver two-piece’s continuing excursion into the outer bounds of heavy weirdness, and even better, I suspect that’s why it’s included in the first place. For more, see their 2025 LP Ghosts (review here), and yeah, I really mean that you should.
Focus is an aptly-titled six-years-later return and fifth album overall from Memphis heavy rockers The Heavy Eyes. Issued through Magnetic Eye and Kozmik Artifactz — the latter of long association — the 11-song collection swings and reaches out and puts its focus on the songs themselves, which are taut, well composed, and able to make a four-minute slab like “It’s All Simone” feel like an epic reach even as it takes its place in the overarching flow of the material. That might be experience or maturity coming through — they hit 15 years since their debut in 2026 — but with shades of All Them Witches in the vocals, a gleeful tonal swamp in “Corporal Upham” ahead of the fuzz-bluesy “That Cold Goliath (Might Return),” and hooks to spare throughout, The Heavy Eyes remind that so much of the appeal in the first place was their ability to cohesively take on a range of elements and fuse them into a single stylistic statement. The self-awareness with which Focus would seem to have been made hinders this not in the slightest. Heads up, rockers.
Atmospheric heavy psychedelia presented across five duly broad tracks comprises this impressive debut full-length from Vienna-based trio For Eons, and Collide both has intricacy in the now and speaks promises of things to come in its sprawling sound, patient in centerpiece “Depths of Time,” excitingly prog-fuzzed in opener “Old Friend,” and righteous in the payoff of the eight-and-half-minute “Echoes of the Past,” the vocal melody in the latter putting the band in league with the likes of The Machine or the still-missed Sungrazer while the clearheaded tones in the start-stops of “Million Voices” and the will to drift in closer “From the Jungles to the Cities” (which has its own start-stops toward the finish) harness a sense of progressivism without feeling overly indulgent so much as engaging the listener on more than one level. The title speaks of smashing things together, and maybe that’s how the band experiences their music, I don’t know, but from the listener’s standpoint their songs are more fluid than they might at first seem.
Classic Swedish hard/heavy rock from the second Rödtjut full-length, Framtiden var bättre förr, with a songwriting that pushes toward the proto-metallic in “Rödögd blåtira” (and elsewhere) but balances that out with, say, the flute in “Vår tid” or the organ-inclusive mellowprog fluidity of eight-minute instrumental closer “Efter stormen.” It’s in Swedish, obviously, and I’m ignorant of the language, but the chug of “VMA” transcends gerunds, and as they demonstrate with the leadoff title-track, a hook is a hook regardless of what the syllables actually mean. The lead guitar in “En plats som vi inte förstår” has a bit of fuzzy stank on it, but by and large the intention is toward straight-up hard rock of the later-’70s variety, though somebody in this band likes Judas Priest, and that’s reasonable. This is my first exposure to Rödtjut, who have apparently been through some lineup changes since their debut in 2023, but the straightforward approach suits them and the songs hit a stylistic sweetspot, so you won’t hear me complain.
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 7th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Two singles have been posted thus far from Steak‘s impending self-titled LP, out Oct. 9 through Stickman Records and Ripple Music. The London five-piece released “Cometh” first alongside a video and then “Luxury Junk” premiered here to celebrate their June tour supporting All Them Witches. Both songs speak to an expanded mindset in terms of their sound and the stylistic growth they’ve undertaken since their start. I’ve got a few records I’m really looking forward to in the next couple months, and what’s apparently their ‘Black Album’ going by the newly revealed cover art blended into the background below is high on the list.
I’ve already done a track premiere, but I’m hoping to have a review up of this one before it’s out, so heads up on that I guess. You’ll just have to check back every day for more.
From the PR wire:
STEAK to release new self-titled album on Ripple Music and Stickman Records this October 9th; new singles available now!
UK progressive stoner rock spearhead STEAK have announced the release of their fourth studio full-length “Steak” this October 9th, in collaboration with Ripple Music (North America) and Stickman Records (Europe & UK). Stream the first two singles “Cometh” and “Luxury Junk” now!
London-based heavy rock heroes STEAK have recently released their new single Luxury Junk, the latest track from their forthcoming self-titled studio album, due this fall through Ripple Music (North America) and Stickman Records (Europe/UK).
Following the badass, comic-inspired first single Cometh (designed by Schoph and animated by director Samuel Smith), “Luxury Junk” offers another glimpse into the band’s next chapter, expanding on STEAK’s unmistakable blend of crushing riffs, desert rock grooves and immersive sonic weight. Equal parts hypnotic and hard-hitting, the track explores themes of escapism, excess and emotional detachment, wrapped in a hazy atmosphere that balances raw heaviness with an almost otherworldly sense of longing.
One track after another, the UK quintet continues to showcase the depth and diversity of their upcoming album, further building anticipation for what promises to be one of the band’s most ambitious and powerful releases to date.
New album “Steak” Out October 9th on Ripple Music (North America) and Stickman Records (Europe/UK) – Preorder coming soon
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 4th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
“Open Sea” was recorded by Chris Fielding (ex-Conan, etc.) at Foel Studios at the same time Jessica Ball‘s post-MWWB solo-project set its debut album, Dark Light to tape — or, you know, to hard drive — but didn’t make the cut. Sometimes a thing needs to cook. The track would seem to have been the beneficiary of the time since that album came out in 2024, as Ball went back and reworked the vocals and now the song is public ahead of a London show this coming weekend at Camden’s famed Black Heart.
Those who followed Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard/MWWB on their journey will recognize the heft in “Open Sea,” and the focus on melody corresponding to that. According to the press release below, Ball is in-progress on a sophomore full-length for the project and rediscovering some of the joy in making a riff sound heavy on a planetary level. This is only good news, and with EYE‘s penchant for texture, it seems like there is plenty of room for prevailing philosophies to align.
If you didn’t hear the first EYE record, “Open Sea” — just six minutes long — feels like a good way to get introduced:
EYE, the band formed by Jessica Ball (Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard) return with a reworked heavy-psych bliss-out of a unreleased track and taster of new things to come from the Welsh heavy dark-wavers who gave us “Dark Light’, an acclaimed debut album in 2024 on New Heavy Sounds (Cwfen, Shooting Daggers, Death Pill).
An ethereal dark-folk intro of clean finger-picking and Carpenter synth lulls us into a sense of false calm before Ball unleashes one of her most crushing MWWB-esque fuzz riffs. By revisiting the track Ball has now delivered one of her most memorable melodies with a huge chorus recalling Mammoth Weed in full flow – Blackwater Holylight, Faetooth eat-your-heart-out.
A stand-alone track for the time being but Jessica explains where things are going…
“The release of ‘Open Sea’ was quite unexpected in a way! We had initially recorded it in Foel Studios with the intention of it being on our first album ‘Dark Light’. For whatever reason, it didn’t make it on the album. It’s a song I had written a very long time ago, and it’s funny how you can favour your new material over the old stuff. I also wasn’t keen on the vocal melody anymore.
Well we recently came across it again, and I decided to have a go at some new vocals with fresh ears as enough time had passed. I liked what I did, so we sent it to Chris Fielding to work his magic… What came back was a fierce track that we absolutely loved. So I’m glad it is seeing the light of day.
Since the release of Dark Light, we’ve been playing a few select shows and working on our live sound a lot more. I’ve also been writing and working towards our second album. This single (Open Sea) has inspired me to make next album a lot heavier, and bring back the riffs!”
EYE are also set to support label mates Crumbling Ghost, who launch their album with a show at London’s Black Heart on 7th August.
Post-heavy two-piece Coma Rossi release their new single, “Like Lovers,” tomorrow, July 31. The song makes short work of arbitrary genre distinctions — you’ll notice “post-heavy” in the prior sentence is vague as crap — and while for sure in the realm of ‘gaze in terms of how it brings a wash of tone together with a more densely weighted rhythmic presence, if it had screamy vocals instead of the mellow, breathy melodic ones it does, I’d probably be out here calling it progressive black metal. Sometimes these things are easy. Sometimes they’re like trying to throw darts and the board runs out of the way.
Regardless of the tag one might want to apply, it is a consuming sound, and Coma Rossi — the duo of founding guitarist/bassist/vocalist Gaurav Govilkar and drummer Ada Galen — would seem to know it. The video by Eeli Helin (Lähdön Aika, Fawn Limbs, and so on) takes it outside for a walk in the woods to water, and that feeling of being surrounded by something heavier than air is resonant. Coma Rossi‘s 2024 album, Void, was more aggressive in tracks like “Burning” and “This Red Sky,” but “Like Lovers” neither lacks energy nor feels staid in terms of its forward push. But there’s a sense of dwelling in the song, of taking a place in the expanse of sound it lays out, and invariably, that feels like refinement.
As to whether it is, there’s missing context. For example, I don’t know whether “Like Lovers” is a standalone/one-off or the herald of the direction of a third full-length, and if more is coming, what the overarching intention for such a thing might be in terms of sound. What I’ve got is a six-minute video/single that’s as much light as it is dark and that offers the listener a chance to feel transported someplace other than where they were. It’s a lush concoction, and you can read below the lyrics and some of the thematic backdrop the band are working from, courtesy of the PR wire. Whatever comes or doesn’t from here, “Like Lovers” stands well on its own not the least for how much it’s in its own place sonically.
Like always, I hope you enjoy:
Coma Rossi, “Like Lovers” video premiere
The New Single ‘Like Lovers’ (Releasing on July 31, 2026)
Like Lovers explores the blurred lines between memory & intimacy, told from the perspective of someone whose obsession has consumed them. Driving on a lost highway, time seems to escape reality and their vision blurs into snippets from a distant memory of a heinous act performed in a state doused with confusion. The lyrics feel abstract, while the music carries much of the emotional weight driven by quiet, clean but gritty vocals lying under a heavy atmosphere built by distorted guitars and explosive drums.
Lyrics:
Flickering lights, distant sight Time swallowed in a white night
She breathes the grey that smothers This moment, that sleeps on a stone
A rant like, like lovers Etched in your mind Its raining here, erase the borders Smudge the lipstick, crush the bone
She breathes the grey that smothers This moment, that sleeps on a stone
Where have you been, Where must you be Divert your way, walk into being
Credits Gaurav Govilkar guitars, bass, vocals / Ada Galen drums Music and lyrics written by Gaurav Govilkar Video/artwork by Eeli Helin Mixed and mastered by Andreas Rosczyk (Goblin Sound Studio, Köln)
