There hasn’t been a peep so far as I’ve heard from Kyiv’s Ethereal Riffian since the band led by guitarist/vocalist Val Hornev called it a day following the Fall 2019 release of their relatively-stripped-down Legends (review here) album, and but for the circumstance behind “Eternal Home,” I have to wonder if there would be in the first place. The Ukrainian meditative heavy specialists’ return comes on the heels of the war-destruction of a band associate’s home (and pets) — the brother of their sound engineer — and the two-minute instrumental clip of the first new Ethereal Riffian track in half a decade coincides with a fundraising effort on the part of Robustfellow Productions to give money to those affected by the bombing that took place on July 8.

Because, hey, by the way, this war is still happening too. Content in the first place to engage in a proxy-war gambling with other countries’ lives (big change), nobody in my home country seems to want to talk about it anymore — Democrats are fearful of being portrayed as warmongers, Republicans are christofascists poised to pull apart the country’s admittedly imperfect system in favor of pro-Russian demagoguery — and I’m not saying Israel/Palestine doesn’t also deserve attention, but nothing here has been solved and won’t be so long as the violence continues. Which it seems like it will until I guess Vladimir Putin has a new Soviet Union cast in whatever image of one he has in his mind. It will be a relief when the floods come.

Two minutes of peace in all this and the dissolution of civil liberties too is welcome. I don’t know what if anything it will lead to from Ethereal Riffian, but the video is gorgeous and the song is serene, and in 2024 you take what you can fucking get for reminders that there’s more to this world than horror and the potential for more horror.

To wit:

Ethereal Riffian Drops New Mesmerizing Music Video in July 2024

Mystic rock band from Kyiv, Ethereal Riffian, which seemed to be on hold since November 2019, drops a new mesmerizing music video called “Eternal Home”. The band worked on this meditative composition as a two-piece.

On July 8, a russian terrorist state bombed one of the largest children’s hospitals in Europe. The same day one part of the residential building in Kyiv was destroyed completely by one of their missiles. Brother of our sound engineer lived in this building with his family. Luckily, none of the family members was at home, but this inhumane atrocity took the lives of their cat and dog, and also their home.

All funds gathered from this campaign will go to help our sound engineer’s brother’s family and their neighbors,” comments Val Kornev. “In a world disrupted by wars, keeping the light kindled is crucial. This music video intends to give a small island of peace to people wherever they are and whatever their life conditions are at the moment.”

Robustfellow Prods. joins the charity initiative and prepares massive BUNDLE with rare Ethereal Riffian releases. Also, all July sales will go to support the neighborhood that suffered from the bombing.

Purchase something digital or physical at Robust Shop, every eurocent is important: https://robustfellow.bandcamp.com/merch

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Ethereal Riffian, “Eternal Home” official video

As Stoned Jesus move forward with a new lineup and head toward their 15th anniversary tour of Europe this Fall, the Ukrainian heavy rock forerunners will this August revisit 2012’s Seven Thunders Roar (review here) and 2015’s The Harvest (review here), reissuing the two albums through Season of Mist, which also put out their 2023 long-player, Father Light (review here). That record, in being both post-plague and arriving in the context of Russia’s ongoing attempt to eat Ukraine with murder, was almost defiantly rocking, but encompassed a lot in terms of sound that Seven Thunders Roar and The Harvest put forth, nodding to the… uh… nod… of the former and the willfully progressive spirit that kept the latter from being more than a retread of riffy glories. Three extra minutes of “I’m the Mountain?” I think I’m not the only one who’s ready to sign up for such a thing.

Kind of kills me I’ve still never seen this band. With the trio revamped around founding guitarist/vocalist Igor Sydorenko, that would be interesting to catch playing new songs or old. My understanding is — which is to say, don’t quote me on this — they’ve dropped the intention to follow Father Light with the hopefully-they’ll-put-it-out-someday Mother Dark, instead focusing on touring and presumably a fresh start for a next record whenever they get there.

The PR wire brings news of the reissues:

STONED JESUS Re-Issue Two Classic Albums in Seven Thunders Roar and The Harvest

Strap in, magnificent souls, because we’re diving deep into the kaleidoscopic universe of STONED JESUS, trailblazers of the European psychedelic progressive rock scene. The ever-ambitious trio is re-issuing their groundbreaking albums, the monolithic Seven Thunders Roar (2012) and the revolutionary The Harvest (2015).

Forged in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2009 by singer-songwriter Igor Sydorenko, Stoned Jesus began as an audacious experiment. United by a shared passion for the almighty riff, seismic grooves, and boundless creativity, the band bulldozed their way through the barriers of the genre, crafting a legacy that has since become the stuff of modern mythology.

“After years of waiting we’re finally reissuing two of our most-beloved albums, the heavy prog stalwart The Harvest and the already-legendary psychedelic classic Seven Thunders Roar!” Sydorenko states. “It’s funny now to think how surprised people were hearing The Harvest for the first time – a lot of them possibly expected Seven Thunders Part Two, but as a songwriter I’d never been into repeating myself. And with Seven Thunders, what else could I say about this overlooked-then-and-praised-now record, its importance and influence for the genre?

“This was our first release with our then-manager, Vlad Lyashenko, the man who helped to shape the Ukrainian rock and metal underground into the force it is today. Both reissues are dedicated to his memory, since he passed away last year – hauntingly, on the very same day we’d released our fifth album, Father Light. So please enjoy both The Harvest and Seven Thunders Roar with extended bonus tracks and have one for the guy to whom we owe our career”

Season of Mist is reissuing Seven Thunders Roar and The Harvest on August 16, 2024.

Pre-order: https://redirect.season-of-mist.com/StonedJesusReissues

Available Formats

Seven Thunders Roar
Digital Download
CD Digipack
2X12″ Vinyl Gatefold (Black)
2X12″ Vinyl Gatefold (Gold with Black Splatter)

Tracklist
1. Bright Like The Morning (7:47)
2. Electric Mistress (9:21)
3. Indian (5:00)
4. I’m The Mountain (13:01)
5. Stormy Monday (8:43)
6. Bright Like The Morning (Extended) (8:43)
7. Stormy Monday (Extended) (9:32)
8. I’m The Mountain (Extended) (16:02)
Total runtime: 1:18:09

The Harvest
Digital Download
CD Digipack
12″ Vinyl Gatefold (Black)
12″ Vinyl Gatefold (Red with Black Splatter)

Tracklist
1. Here Come The Robots (3:18)
2. Wound (3:14)
3. Rituals Of The Sun (7:01)
4. YFS (5:10)
5. Silkworm Confessions (9:07)
6. Black Church (14:45)
Total runtime: 42:37

STONED JESUS will be heading out celebrating their 15 year anniversary across mainland Europe. Expect a setlist full of Seven Thunders Roar and The Harvest classics, along with tracks from their latest album, Father Light.

Tagging alongside them will be San Francisco’s Mondo Drag, Polish doom-giants Dopelord as well as label mates The Abbey on 21 European dates.

STONED JESUS XV ANNIVERSARY TOUR:
10 October: Berlin, DE @ Frannz Club
11 October: Copenhagen, DK @ Lille Vega
12 October: Hamburg, DE @ Headcrash
13 October: Haarlem, NL @ Patronaat
14 October: Arnhem, NL @ Willemeen
16 October: Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club
17 October: Bristol, UK @ Fleece
18 October: London, UK @ Garage
19 October: Cologne, DE @ Club Volta
20 October: Antwerpen, BE @ Desertfest Belgium
22 October: Munich, DE @ Feierwerk
23 October: Milano, IT @ Legend
24 October: Bologna, IT @ Freakout
25 October: Aarau, CH @ Kiff
26 October: Schweinfurt, DE @ Stattbahnhof
27 October: Innsbruck, DE @ PMK
29 October: Brno, CZ @ Kabinet Muz
30 October: Warsaw, PL @ Hydrozagadka
31 October: Krakow, PL @ Kwadrat
1 November: Poznan, PL @ Klub 2progi
2 November: Leipzig, DE @ Werk 2

Line-up:
Igor Sydorenko – Lead-Vocals & Guitar
Andrew Rodin – Bass & Backing Vocals
Yurii Ciel – Drums & Percussion

https://www.facebook.com/stonedjesusband
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Stoned Jesus, Father Light (2023)

One vividly recalls how it went when Stoned Jesus were set to celebrate the 10th anniversary of their landmark second LP, Seven Thunders Roar (review here), in March 2022. Emerging from a global pandemic didn’t get any easier for the Kyiv-based band fronted by guitarist/vocalist Igor Sydorenko as Russia went into active-war mode in invading their home country of Ukraine now over two years ago, but in early 2023, Stoned Jesus offered the engrossing Father Light (review here) as their first LP through Season of Mist, and they’ve continued to move forward with tours to support it, including heading out this very month with Mars Red Sky as they begin to mark 15 years of the band.

Their accompanying Fall 15th anniversary European run will see them touring with the rotating cast of prog-classicists Mondo Drag, blasphemous riff rollers Dopelord and progressive doom melancholymakers The Abbey for most of October (including a few dates early in the month in Bulgaria and Greece that have moved from this Spring; see below for more info), with a stop at Desertfest Belgium 2024 nestled between club shows throughout Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Poland, and so on. And if you look at the three openers who’ll swap out for each other during the tour, it’s indicative of how broad Stoned Jesus‘s sound has become that they all absolutely fit as complement.

The below comes from social media as posted by Sydorenko. It’s unclear as yet what the ‘big changes’ are that he’s referencing, but whatever the upheaval, nothing’s slowed Stoned Jesus down yet.

Doomstar Bookings is behind the tour:

STONED JESUS – XVth Anniversary Tour

Here it is – the final leg of our XVth Anniversary Tour for this year! So many places to play (familiar and new), so many bands to share the stage with (again, familiar and new) and so many people to share our music with – see you all there. This one will be really, really good! Love, StJ #StJxv

tickets: https://linktr.ee/stonedjesusband

Doomstar Bookings presents: Stoned Jesus XV Anniversary Tour, with special guests: Mondo Drag (10/10 – 26/10) / Dopelord (29/10 – 02/11) / The Abbey (10/10 – 02/11)! Check out the dates below!

3.10 – Sofia (BG) – Mixtape 5
4.10 – Thessaloniki (GR) – Mylos Club
5.10 – Patra (GR) – Frida Live Stage
6.10 – Athens (GR) – Kyttaro Live
10/10 – Berlin (DE) – Frannz Club # *
11/10 – Copenhagen (DK) – Lille Vega # *
12/10 – Hamburg (DE) – Headcrash # *
13/10 – Haarlem (NL) – Patronaat # *
15/10 – Arnhem (NL) – Willemeen # *
16/10 – Leeds (UK) – Brudenell Social Club # *
17/10 – Bristol (UK) – Fleece # *
18/10 – London (UK) – Garage # *
19/10 – Cologne (DE) – Club Volta # *
20/10 – Antwerpen (BE) – Desertfest Belgium # *
22/10 – Munich (DE) – Feierwerk # *
23/10 – Milano (IT) – Legend # *
24/10 – Bologna (IT) – Freakout # *
25/10 – Aarau (CH) – KIFF # *
26/10 – Schweinfurt (DE) – Stattbahnhof # *
27/10 – Innsbruck (AT) – PMK *
29/10 – Brno (CZ) – Kabinet Muz x *
30/10 – Warsaw (PL) – Hydrozagadka x *
31/10 – Krakow (PL) – Kwadrat x *
01/11 – Poznan (PL) – 2Progi x *
02/11 – Leipzig (DE) – Werk 2 x *
# w/ Mondo Drag
x w/ Dopelord
* w/ The Abbey

Dear fans in Bulgaria and Greece!

Some big changes are happening in the Stoned Jesus camp that we can’t wait to tell you about later – but for now this means we have no other option but to move the first four dates of our XVth Anniversary Tour from early April to early October (please note the new dates).

3.10 – Sofia (BG) – Mixtape 5
4.10 – Thessaloniki (GR) – Mylos Club
5.10 – Patra (GR) – Frida Live Stage
6.10 – Athens (GR) – Kyttaro Live

While we kindly ask everyone to respect our privacy while we’re dealing with these unforeseen challenges, we need to assure you that these are not the issues that made us cancel all our touring plans back in 2023.

Thanks a million for your patience, understanding and support! See you a bit later this year, StJ

ps: to everyone who’s expecting to see us in France, Spain, Germany and Portugal this April – no worries, the rest of the dates stay intact

#StJxv

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http://www.season-of-mist.com/

Stoned Jesus, Father Light (2023)

Who wants to fly my grumpy, middle-aged ass to Paris in April to catch a show? No one? Maybe Bordeaux? Porto? Lisbon? Madrid? Barcelona? I’ll go pretty much anywhere that has an airport for this one. Stoned Jesus have had a particularly fucked couple of years, as their home in Kyiv, Ukraine, has been subject to invasion from neighboring Russia and the ensuing proxy war between Ukrainian forces with NATO backing and the monolith that is Russian imperialism. I’ve been saying for the last two years I don’t know how that war’s gonna end, and could go on and on about it, but it’s war. It would be a welcome change if humans stopped slaughtering each other, and at no point in the history of the species from voles hiding in the ground when the asteroid offed the dinosaurs to right this fucking moment has that not been true.

That’s not to make light of modern warfare’s particular horrors or the struggle undertaken by Ukrainians on behalf of their home/the Western liberal democratic ideology, mind you. Stoned Jesus in early 2023 nonetheless issued one of the year’s best albums in their Season of Mist debut, Father Light (review here), and were set to tour Europe this past Spring when Ukraine imposed travel restrictions, undercutting the band’s ability to promote their work as intended. I guess that’s ended or some special dispensation has been made — White Ward also seem to be getting out, so it seems less likely to be wishful booking — because in April 2024, Stoned Jesus are set to head west to France, Germany, Portugal and Spain.

They’ll be keeping company with Bordeaux’s Mars Red Sky — speaking of 2023’s best albums, they had one too — and I don’t know anything about anything about the paperwork involved, but for the sake of all involved, including the heads who’ll actually get to see these shows unlike my daydream-jetsetter self, I hope they happen.

From the PR wire:

Stoned Jesus are celebrating 15 years of doomy, heavy-hitting progressive rock this April with fellow stoners Mars Red Sky.

Get tickets for their European tour: https://www.season-of-mist.com/news/stoned-jesus-2023-12-22/

Order their new album ‘Father Light’: https://redirect.season-of-mist.com/STJ-FL

16 April: Strasbourg FR @ La Laiterie
17 April: Karlsruhe DE @ Alte Hackerei
18 April: Paris FR @ Le Trabendo
19 April: Bordeaux FR @ Le Royal
20 April: Hondarribia ES @ Psylocibenea*
21 April: Porto PT @ Hard Club*
22 April: Lisbon PT @ Lisboa ao Vivo*
23 April: Madrid ES @ Nazca*
24 April: Barcelona ES @ Razzmatazz 3*
25 April: Touluse FR @ Le Rex*
26 April: Toulon FR @ Omega Live*
27 April: Lyon FR @ Le Transbordeur
*w/ Mars Red Sky

Stoned Jesus are:
Igor Sydorenko – guitar, lead vocals
Dmytro Zinchenko – drums and percussion, backing vocals
Sergii Sliusar – bass, backing vocals

https://www.facebook.com/stonedjesusband
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http://stonedjesus.bandcamp.com/
https://stonedjesus.bigcartel.com/

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http://www.season-of-mist.com/

Stoned Jesus, “Thoughts and Prayers” official video

Stoned Jesus, “CON” official video

Stoned Jesus, “Porcelain” official video

Ukrainian heavy rockers Risin Sabotage swung through Odessa earlier this year on tour and recorded the below video as part of what’s called ‘Carpet Sessions’ for reasons that will become apparent enough in the area ruggery of the clip when you see it. Included in the video that the trio was kind enough to let me premiere below are two songs from their 2023 Interstellar Smoke Records album, Macabre (discussed here), first is “Macabre” itself, followed by “Silence Queen,” which the band — guitarist/vocalist Vitya Panchishko, bassist Valerii Skorzhenko and drummer/vocalist Igor Nedyuzhiy — performed in tight quarters as captured by someone known to me only as sAn, who offered some comment on the process below.

All told, the clip is eight minutes long and it’s a ride that’s easy to take from the first hard guitar strum forward. In “Macabre,” Nedyuzhiy and Panchishko trade vocals during the verses as the camera twists and turns around them and Skorzhenko, the former in a kind of semi-spoken but clean delivery, the guitarist a bit grittier, in the vein of Mastodon‘s Brent Hinds. The pair took over lead vocals after Risin Sabotage parted ways with frontman Kirill Chepilko, who appeared on 2017’s Nasoni Records-issued Planet Dies LP (discussed here) and it’s encouraging to see them working purposefully to make the vocal arrangement, the patterning, etc., a big part of the song as presented here. No doubt whatever they do next to follow Macabre will take progressive steps forward in that regard.

But the point here isn’t progression, it’s a band in a box rocking out a couple tunes live being taped by a friend who apparently has it in for Skorzhenko‘s work on bass. Fair enough. The break between the two songs is short and right around four and a half minutes into the video, and some of their punker undertones come across in “Silence Queen” as transmuted onto heavier boogie, but you should know going into this that it’s the band in the raw and that’s the intention behind it. It’s not a fancy studio thing, or some multi-camera shoot. Dudes in a room, hitting it. It’s about as organic as you could possibly ask it to be and still be powered by electricity.

Of course, the war in Ukraine drags on. For over 650 days as my country waffles on support because we’re only set to spend 880-something billion dollars on the military next year and apparently we need all of it. I don’t have anything positive to say about it. It’s a fucking tragedy and humans don’t deserve to live on a planet so beautiful, but at least there’s rock and roll, and at least as their home is battered in ways from which it will take generations to recover, these guys can still get out and play shows domestically and do something like this, which looks like it was a great time. You find your solace where and when you can.

Please enjoy:

Risin Sabotage, Carpet Sessions premiere

sAn on Risin Sabotage, ‘Carpet Sessions:

I’ve known the Risin Sabotage crew for a long time, but I really got to know the guys in the winter of 22-23, and during their summer visit to Odessa we recorded a large-scale live on the picturesque expanses of the Kuyalnitsky estuary. You can easily find it on our channel. So the next stage of rapprochement was the mixing of this live, during which I was penetrated by every song of their new album, listening to it again and again, time after time. Now, God forbid I hear their song – then I go and hum it for a few days, and at their concerts I’m blown to pieces and yell in my voice some kind of their lyrics, some gibberish, but on time and in the notes. What does it matter, because nobody can hear me (but they can see me, and let them!).

Our friendship grows stronger with each visit, in direct proportion to my desire to steal their bassist Valera. Because I fell in love with his playing style and the whole range of grimaces during his playing. Valera, sooner or later I will steal you!

Let’s move on. Before their last visit by invitation to a special concert on the occasion of Generic Doom Band Name’s return in a new line-up, it was suggested to shoot a special acoustic live, but gods decided differently and having arranged all the equipment beautifully in my small but homey and cozy studio we recorded four songs. Please rate two of them in this video! Enjoy!

Finishing 2023 with a tour in Ukraine, after a gig in Odessa we made a live video for sAn live channel. We play some tracks from or new album Macabre during this Carpet Session. If you like it don’t forget to like and comment this vid.

A little bit about the channel: sAn live prod is a production studio, they make live videos for UA underground scene bands such as GDBN, White Ward, Heavenphetamine

So check them videos:

https://youtube.com/@sanliveproduction

https://www.instagram.com/san_live_prod

Listen to Macabre here: https://songwhip.com/risinsabotage/macabre2023

interstellar smoke records: https://interstellarsmokerecords.bigcartel.com/

Don’t forget to support Ukraine and spread the word about russian aggression on our country.

Risin Sabotage:
Igor Nedyuzhiy – drums/vocals
Vitya Panchishko – guitar/vocals
Valerii Skorzhenko – bass

Risin Sabotage, Macabre (2023)

Risin Sabotage on Facebook

Risin Sabotage on Instagram

Risin Sabotage on Bandcamp

Risin Sabotage Linktr.ee

Interstellar Smoke Records on Bandcamp

Interstellar Smoke Records webstore

Interstellar Smoke Records on Facebook

Interstellar Smoke Records on Instagram

As to why only 42 tapes? Well aside from the fact that it’s the answer to life, the universe, and everything, I don’t really know. But at least it’s that.

Today, Ukrainian sludgethrowers The Device release their new three-songer, titled EAST in all-caps as though to emphasize the other-ness of Eastern Europe from the perspective of the western portion of the continent, on limited cassette through Galactic SmokeHouse, which honors the outing’s live recorded, harsh, dense-toned chaos with handmade art, poems, and exclusive tracks on the B-side that aren’t available in the DL version.

Proceedings from the release — also streaming in full as of today — go to benefit the war effort in Ukraine, which now has the rest of Europe and beyond fortifying itself for who the hell knows what will happen in the next couple years as it drags on, the Ukrainian people running point in a proxy war between my home country of the US and Russia which reaffirms that America learned nothing from wasting 20 years and I don’t even know how many lives in Afghanistan and Iraq — that’s before you get to the money — and reminds once again that humans, primarily, don’t deserve a planet this beautiful. Nonetheless, we’re here and we’re wrecking up the place.

How does this war end? And when? I don’t know. Think Russia won’t just throw hundreds of thousands of its ‘soldiers’ under the treads of US and European tanks? Think America is going to bankrupt itself again without sending ground troops in? And when NATO goes to war with Russia, and that’s basically WWIII, what does China have to say about it? I think about these things, and then my head starts to hurt when I think it could be my kid’s generation fighting this war in another 10-plus years, and having seen my own generation pulled apart by needless conflict in a war of aggression — that the US started, I’ll note — to watch the cycle start up all over, with nuclear threat looming, is all the more disheartening. So yeah.

I’m not saying it’s not worth supporting Ukraine. I’m saying it’s not worth betting on humanity.

And on that happy note, I’ll turn you over to the PR wire info for The Device‘s EAST — which was recorded in 2021 when all Eastern Europe had to worry about was a fucking plague like everyone else at the time — and the war-themed video that accompanies the 13-minute “Front” from it. Alongside “Work” (10:24) and the interlude “Crawl” (2:44), “Front” is duly raw and biting, and if you actually make it through watching the clip and feel nothing, just a heads up, you might be a sociopath.

Here you go:

The Device – EAST

Available to buy here: https://thedevice.bandcamp.com/album/east

The Device rises again. From the ashes of the ruined buildings. From the tears of the forsaken ones. From the blood of the dead.

‘Front’ is a single promoting the new album of the ancient brotherhood. ‘EAST’ is to be released on a DIY TAPE the 31st of March, 2023. By buying this album, you are helping in the fight for freedom of Ukraine and its people. Money from this tape is being sent to those who need it in the UA. Right now we are raising money for a thermal viewfinder for our friend Ivan, fighting in Donbas.

Fundraiser:
https://send.monobank.ua/jar/P4iKAquJg

This album is dedicated to all Easterners in Europe.

Stay strong, brothers and sister. We will see better times. The power of change is within us.

Eastern Europe. War. Regime. Propaganda. Gov-Party police. Inhumane working conditions in modern day slavery – minimum wage jobs. This is an album touching on all of those topics so vivid in everyday life of the Easterners today. With this music, we are fighting against all of those as much as we can. To help our Ukrainian brothers and sisters win the most important of all fights, the fight for freedom of the whole East against the muscovite invasion, we are sending all the profits from this record to the Ukrainian army.

East is an album that is a pure expression of anger, anguish and grief of living in Eastern Europe. Raw, disgusting sounds full of saturation and distortion. Sludge in the most real form. DIY live recorded on one day in a basement in Poland during summer 2021.

Credits:
Recording / Mix / Master – Cebula
Video: Maciej Niemczyk

Tracklisting:
1. Work
2. Crawl
3. Front

Side A recorded live in one day, in a basement somewhere in the heart of Poland, in much calmer and safer times, during the summer 2021.

Recording Side A – Cebula
Mix – Cebula (except B1,3)
Cover art and B1 mix – Wiktor Kozak
Video: Maciej Niemczyk

Contains TAPE ONLY B SIDES:

1. Unsleeping – Unsleeping
2. Aргос – BCD
3. RAQAL – the beauty of the bad trip

Tape mastered, hand numbered, hand copied and crafted by Cebula. MC tape in a handmade cardboard box. Hand numbered, limited to 42 copies. Made from 100% recycled materials. Additionally, there is an insert with tracklist and two poems. One in Ukrainian, one in Polish. Both full of darkness and sorrow. Just like the music.

https://thedevice.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/GalacticSmokeHouse
https://www.instagram.com/galacticsmokehouse/
https://linktr.ee/GalacticSmokeHouse

The Device, EAST (2023)

The Device, “Front” official video

Stoned Jesus, Father Light album premiere

[Click play above to stream Father Light by Stoned Jesus in its entirety. Album is out tomorrow, March 3, through Season of Mist.]

Igor Sydorenko on Father Light:

“Written in 2019, recorded in 2021, released in 2023 — behold Father Light! Serving as the first half of our ambitious five-years-in-the-making song cycle project, Father Light is heavy, intense and progressive — while its sister album, Mother Dark, is expected to be more laid-back, hypnotic and introverted. You know how every artist ever says their new work is their best? Well, we actually believe this to be true with this one!”

In March 2020, Ukrainian heavy rock forerunners Stoned Jesus were forced to call off what would’ve been the tour to mark their first decade as a band owing to the onset of the covid-19 pandemic. Then signed to Napalm, they had released Pilgrims (review here) in 2018 as their fourth full-length and most progressive statement up to that point. In April 2022, they were slated for a long European run celebrating the 10th anniversary of 2012’s Seven Thunders Roar (review here), which has in the years since its release become a genuine landmark for Ukrainian and greater Euro heavy rock thanks in no small part to the continued viral success of its epic track “I’m the Mountain” on streaming services — slow burner, but a burner — but Russia’s invasion of their home country caused that to be canceled as well.

The Kyiv trio’s fifth full-length, Father Light, arrives as their first outing through Season of Mist, and though as guitarist/vocalist Igor Sydorenko says above it was written before the pandemic and recorded before the invasion — a topic about which Sydorenko has been vocal in a series of social media videos he calls ‘#ukrsplaining’ — both are bound have an effect on how the songs are going to be interpreted, whether that’s the added context to “Thoughts and Prayers” describing the desensitized responses to violence and tragedy around the world, or the way one might read lyrics in 11-minute second cut “Season of the Witch” like, “The stakes are high so light the torch/And throw it at your neighbor’s porch,” and “Nobody cares who’s right who’s wrong/The hunting season’s always on.”

And even the climate change thematic of nine-minute closer “Get What You Deserve” feels perhaps more relevant as we see the breaking apart of the Thwaites ice shelf in Antarctica happening in real-time. From any angle of approach, be it the skepticism in the point of view of “CON,” or the commentary on fame amid the lumber of  side B leadoff “Porcelain,” or even the feeling of pleading in the acoustic album-opening title-track “Father Light” — the three minutes of which seem to set up the larger procession between this album and a forthcoming companion-piece, Mother Dark — the 43 minutes of Father Light are prone as much to emotional weight as they are to aural heft the tones of Sydorenko and bassist/backing vocalist Sergii Sliusar or the crash and plod in Dmytro Zinchenko‘s drums where applicable.

But heavy in theme though it is, Father Light is on solid footing structurally, its six tracks alternating between shorter cuts like “Father Light,” the willfully Graveyardian boogie of “Thoughts and Prayers” and the progressive garage punk (yup) of “CON,” the all-words-that-start-with-“con” phrasing in the verses of which also offers some intangible reminder of Rubber Soul, or the purposeful riffy contrast in the largesse of the rolling “Season of the Witch,” the creeper builds and crescendos of “Porcelain” — the subtle vocal layering in the chorus a highlight — amid a lurch that recalls early Tool, or the way in which the open-feeling tonality of “Get What You Deserve” closes in like rising ocean levels as the post-midsection march becomes a noisy solo-topped plod worthy of Electric Wizard while managing to not actually sound like them. Yet, in the totality of scope and even in the admirably stubborn refusal to capitulate to being just one thing sonically, Stoned Jesus are as much in conversation with themselves as with anyone else, and maybe more so as one considers the sustained roar of the words “down below” near the finish of “Porcelain,” reminiscent of landmark declarations past.

Their ability to pivot from one style to the next and to tie their songs together through performance, be it the angular jangle and bursts of “CON” in its verses or the brooding pre-crash blues guitar solo that ends the first half of “Get What You Deserve,” is a defining feature of both this record and their work more generally across all (now) five of their albums. But there’s no question they’re speaking to their own oeuvre on “Season of the Witch,” which bookends with an intentionally slogging nod, the most outright heavy of the record’s heaviest movements, while turning suddenly at 4:23 to a proggy chase that’s an energized departure from the encircling density, some deceptively-free-flowing strumming and vocals over the build of bass and drums leading the way back, layer by layer, to the return of the verse at nine minutes in, Sydorenko almost audibly winking at the audience as he intones, “So here we are once again.”

And he’s right, they’ve been there before, whether it was earlier in the song, in the righteous grandiosity of “I’m the Mountain” or the oh-fine-here’s-your-heavy-riff of “Rituals of the Sun” from 2015’s creative breakout The Harvest (review here), but the difference between “Season of the Witch” or “Get What You Deserve” and prior Stoned Jesus heavy deep-dives is that as a band, they feel reconciled to this part of their persona. In true veteran fashion, they know what they’re doing every step of the way. And as much as they might range outward from it, in the shuffling catchiness of “Thoughts and Prayers” — no less a defining moment for Father Light than anything on either side of it — or the quirky bounce that straightens into a forward run in the peak of “CON,” or even in the patience of the tempo in the perpetually-ab0ut-to-burst “Porcelain,” an unabashed heaviness continues to suit Stoned Jesus and is a crucial facet of their work. Across this album more than anything they’ve put out in the last decade — and Pilgrims had some basher stretches as well — Stoned Jesus openly embrace that part of who they are.

Given the surrounding context, and the fact that the story being told isn’t finished with the complementary Mother Dark still to follow, it isn’t proper to think of Father Light just a celebration of that heaviness. On the most basic level, there’s more going on than just that. However, the key shift in perspective within these tracks seems to be in not fighting against those big riffs when they’re called for, but acknowledging them as a foundation, bringing them into the broader sphere of expression throughout, and creating a new stylistic totality for what Stoned Jesus do. They are ambassadors of heavy rock — a band who bring new listeners into the genre — and they know it and are aware of the responsibility inherent in that. Father Light is a mature, crafted and thoughtful collection that, as it remains organic in production value, welcomes heads new and old and offers immersion while asking little in return. It accounts for the narrative of how Stoned Jesus became the band they are, and in that retelling, inevtiably changes and evolves that same definition.

Stoned Jesus, “Get What You Deserve” lyric video

Stoned Jesus, “Thoughts and Prayers” official video

Stoned Jesus, “CON” official video

Stoned Jesus, “Porcelain” official video

Stoned Jesus on Facebook

Stoned Jesus on Instagram

Stoned Jesus on Bandcamp

Stoned Jesus store

Season of Mist website

Season of Mist on Facebook

Season of Mist on Instagram

Veterans of Nasoni Records and Robustfellow Productions and now signed to Interstellar Smoke Records, the Kyiv-based heavy rock/psych trio Risin Sabotage announce the release of their new album, Macabre. Set to arrive on June 2, the album emerges as the band’s first following 2017’s prescient Planet Dies (discussed here) and features material dating back at least to 2018, when the included-on-the-record “Serpent” was issued as a standalone single. Fair enough.

Macabre, as a title, is a decent way to describe how it’s felt to — while at a far off geographic remove — watch for the last year as Russia has scaled up its invasion of Ukraine into an actual war rather than the casually cruel annexation of territory it had been since circa 2014. The album remains colorful in its psychedelic purpose, and fascinates with a blend of garage rock, shimmering, floating leads over solidified grooves, and a density of tone that underpins a song like “Mentor” or the payoff of the spacious “Hum” with resonance that adds depth to the mix and results in a fascinating, engrossing blend across the 40 minutes of the album as a whole.

In addition to war returning to Europe and the global pandemic that I’ll go out on a limb and assume you heard something about, the years since their last offering have seen Risin Sabotage part ways with singer Kirill Chepilko, with guitarist Vitya Panchishko and drummer Igor Nedyuzhiy taking over vocal duties and the band pressing on as a trio. Doesn’t seem to have slowed them down any, if the single “Silence Queen” — premiering at the bottom of this post — is anything to go by. The meld of lysergic breadth and rhythmic force is deceptively immersive, and though none of the tracks are especially lengthy, there’s still a sense of world-creation to coincide with the raw push of their more intense moments.

They talk about it as nine songs below and the version I got has 10, but there’s plenty of time between now and June to sort these things out. Initial info follows, from the PR wire:

RISIN SABOTAGE – Macabre – Interstellar Smoke Records

Says the band: “The album was written during the time of the global pandemic and mastered during the currently ongoing war in our country, Ukraine. These events have definitely affected the sound and, as a result, the title of this album. The release features nine songs that tell nine stories. Some of them put you in the atmosphere of today’s horrors, and others help you escape them.”

About “Silence Queen”: “It’s broken, it’s not alive, it fades away, but it’s beautiful, unique, and it drags you in.”

Kyiv based Risin Sabotage slams with heavy psych and desert rock since 2015. In the quest for a new sound the music is giving the best of desert rock, heavy psych, stoner and doom. Risin Sabotage’s fuzzy riffs and grooves inspired by the sounds of 70’s astound with the incredible energetic performance.

Tracklisting:
01. Abundance
02. Serpent
03. Silence Queen
04. Circus
05. Mentor
06. Loom (Forswear Intro)
07. Forswear
08. Hum
09. Macabre
10. Thawing

Risin Sabotage:
Igor Nedyuzhiy – drums/vocals
Vitya Panchishko – guitar/vocals
Valerii Skorzhenko – bass

https://www.facebook.com/risin.sabotage/
https://www.instagram.com/risin_sabotage/
https://risinsabotage.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Interstellar-Smoke-Records-101687381255396/
https://www.instagram.com/interstellar.smoke.label/
https://interstellarsmokerecords.bigcartel.com/

Risin Sabotage, “Silence Queen” track premiere