Set to release Jan. 31, Into the Emerald is the second full-length from Cádiz, Spain, heavy progressive rockers Surya. The 44-minute seven-songer creates a feeling of sprawl over its runtime, arranged as it is across two vinyl sides, each one working shortest to longest. That puts the album intro “Evergreen River” (1:28) and side A capper/tracklist-centerpiece “Beyond Eyes of Gold” (8:56) not so much in opposition, but makes the latter’s shimmer, warmth of tone, and fluid modern-heavy-prog realizations, the layered vocals of guitarist Antonio Hierro and drummer Carlos Camisón, feel like the destination through which “A Blazing Crusade” (3:43) and “Through the Stone” (4:14) traveled.
And as the band lead the listener across the first of the two included mini-journeys on Into the Emerald — which is the follow-up to 2019’s Overthrown (review here), released by a consortium headed by Spinda Records — headed toward the more densely riffed instrumental payoff of “Beyond Eyes of Gold,” which crescendos thick and then adds breadth in strum and solo, Hierro, Camisón, bassist Jose Mª Zapata and guitarist Jose Moares correspondingly bring a new sense of discovery to side B, beginning with “Arrows” (3:41, premiering below), which puts Camisón in the lead vocal role apparently for the first time.
He soars in a way that makes me think it won’t be the last instance in which the tradeoff is made, and even while “Arrows” doesn’t necessarily represent the entirety of Into the Emerald, it’s consistent in tone and purpose and is a look at what they’ll potentially be exploring over their next however-many records. “The Clashing” (6:20), with a guitar progression that feels specificallyElderian, refines a heavy rock thrust in its verse with twisting lead flourish, and has room in its second half for a subdued divergence before aligning on the chugging, rolling groove and the crash with which it resolves ahead of “Shields at the Dawn Forest” (15:49), which unfolds with a grace toward which both sides of the record up to that point are revealed as building.
Guest organ from Koe Casas peppers the finale, thereby letting the four-piece commune all the more with progressive heavy rock and its contemporary affinity for classic elements. Riffing out heavy psych-style in the spirit of Samsara Blues Experiment, and as they have been all along, Surya are song-first, exploration-first, and though its unfolding is patient, “Shields at Dawn Forest” never loses its direction or becomes anything other than the culmination it was clearly intended to be, and the band earn bonus points for weirding out a bit with dual vocals and some nascent quirk before they take off with the speedier procession in the piece’s back third, an electric solo section giving over to more serene acoustic pluck and strum to close. This is a tie-in vibe-wise with “Evergreen River,” and leads one to wonder if the organic sound isn’t mirrored thematically in a lyrical narrative further portraying some kind of struggle.
That’s info I don’t have, but while Into the Emerald catches Surya at a seemingly transitional moment — lest we forget that change is the order of the universe for all of us — it stands on its own as well and converses fluidly with the greater European underground in a way that reminds a bit of Maragda‘s 2024 outing, Tyrants, while staying a little rawer in energy and grounded on the structural balance. Spain having long been relegated to second-class citizenship in said sphere, Surya present themselves as ambassadors in showcasing some of the regional stylistic aspects while embarking on a sound that draws influence from multiple sources and crafts it into something of their own. They’re growing, and one hopes they’ll continue to grow with the kind of adventurousness on offer in Into the Emerald.
“Arrows” streams on the player below, and the band were kind enough to offer some comment on the song thereafter.
Please enjoy:
Surya on Into the Emerald:
We are exploring new sounds, trying to get heavier and more complex with these new songs. Also, we found out that Carlos, our drummer, sings really well, and “Arrows” is the first time ever that he does lead vocals for a song, and we hope the first of many. We are not forgetting where we come from, but we just wanted to make the music we would like to hear.
‘Into the Emerald’ tracklisting: 1. Evergreen River 2. A Blazing Crusade 3. Through the Stone 4. Beyond Eyes of Gold 5. Arrows 6. The Clashing 7. Shields at the Dawn Forest
Recorded at Metropol Studios and Estudio 79 by Rafa Camisón Mixing – Rafa Camisón (Estudio 79) Mastering – Víctor García (Ultramarinos Mastering) Artwork and logo – Nacho Fernández-Trujillo
Surya are: Antonio Hierro – Electric guitar and vocals Carlos Camisón – Drums and vocals Jose Mª Zapata – Bass Jose Moares – Electric guitar and acoustic guitar *Koe Casas – Organ and electric piano (on Shields at the Dawn Forest)
Posted in Reviews on January 13th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Satiricus Doomicus Americus. Released this past Friday, it is timely enough that it felt in the spirit of the thing to review it the next day, and it serves as something a sidestep, or a holdover, or a gap-bridger between Christopher Thomas Elliott‘s first album under the moniker Buzzard, which was the well-received, less-than-a-year-old Doom Folk (review here), and an impending second full-length, Mean Bone, previously announced as due in 2025. At least as of now, Satiricus Doomicus Americus is listed as a separate project — there are times where it feels like it’s the second Buzzard record we’re getting before the second Buzzard record, and that’s not a complaint — and its songs are distinguished by their outward heft. But, if it is a separate project, it remains adjacent to Buzzard in style and comes across as building off that record’s floor of — wait for it — traditionalist folk influenced by doom metal, tipping if not outright reversing the balance between the two.
Comprised of nine songs, some which reportedly date back to 2009 but are fresh in construction and recording, Satiricus Doomicus Americus lays out its purpose firmly and decisively in the leadoff title-track. The line, “I’m not a cynic I’m a realist,” is defining. There and across much of what follows, Elliott positions himself as a doom troubadour, a post-apocalyptic dustbowl plugged-in Woody Guthrie, skewering fascists and fools with poetry in straightforward language in songs like “Wrong Neighborhood” and “Too Many Humans,” distortion at the ready but never a crutch to be leaned upon. Satiricus Doomicus Americus, in another marked departure from its Buzzardly beginnings, presents a conversationalist aspect with a liberal use of sampling. Not just as random bits of noise or speech thrown here and there, but sounds being purposely applied for rhythm and theme. Part of what a given song — in fact all of them — is expressing.
So although it’s fair to say Satiricus Doomicus Americus is complementary to Buzzard‘s to-date lone LP and likely the one to come it is not shy in its divergences. More on it below, but the closing duo of revamped Buzzard songs that close out, “Death Metal in America (Meat Market Version),” which gets a winning extra verse I won’t spoil and “Cockroaches and Weed (Kills Them Dead Version),” which puts old commercial taglines to good use, are a ready analogy for how Satiricus Doomicus Americus and Elliott‘s ‘main band’ (?) are intertwined. As the name of the project, title and eponymous opening track reaffirm, social critique is also a big part of what’s on display.
The sneer of “Nice Little Annihilation Song” is well suited to the frenetic acoustic strum and banjo arrangement as Elliott and his litany of old clips conjure endtimes preach, departing the stomp of the opener for a dark Americana shuffle — as opposed to the “Shuffle of the Dead,” which comes later — before the fuzz returns in “Wrong Neighborhood.” A ballad in terms of the lyrical storytelling, it cleverly takes the trope of a racist dogwhistle and turns it on its head to point out the hypocrisy beneath, and has one of the album’s best hooks besides and an arrangement that’s atmospheric and heavy with a garage-doom strut.
Satiricus Doomicus Americus is louder, generally, than circa-’24 Buzzard, but the manner in which it varies in mood and what’s happening in the details of each song is consistent. “Grass is Greener” stays mellow with foreboding plucked notes and the standout line, “A leaf will curl and die to catch the rain,” starting with a sample about man’s dominance over nature and mesmerizing with subdued vibe before old horns spliced in from the public domain blast to snap you back to reality for “Automobile,” which brings the drums back to the mix with a splash of cymbals to meet the low fuzz in the bass before the first verse, thoughtful in its rhyme scheme and lumbering in its chug as the hook asks who’s gonna kill the automobile. And indeed, who?
This kind of direct sociopolitical comment, unrepentantly relevant, was part of what made Doom Folk such an immediate standout, and Elliott is in his element across Satiricus Doomicus Americus, counting on his audience to get the Candlemass nod and understand that beneath all the trades between acoustics and electrics, electrics and acoustics, acoustic electrics and electric acoustics, banjo, bass, probably-programmed drums, the foundations of songs like “Too Many Humans” is as much slow metallic crawl as it is gothified pastoralia or protest folk.
That Elliott can dwell in either space, as that same song readily proves en route to the Night of the Living Dead sample that makes itself a hook in the subsequent “Shuffle of the Dead,” is revealed as a strength here that Doom Folk only hinted toward, and for what it’s worth, neither the doom nor the folk are skimped. If you caught Buzzard‘s single “Crushing Burden of Despair” (posted here) back in October, the full-tone, full-band-style swing that was being explored is part of Satiricus Doomicus Americus as well, at least intermittently, and the statement is plain that Elliott refuses to be limited to one modus or another in terms of sound or statement.
Again, “Death Metal in America (Meat Market Version)” and “Cockroaches and Weed (Kills Them Dead Version)” say it even plainer. Both are thickened up versions of cuts from Doom Folk, as noted, and before you start to wonder if that counts as a cover when somebody reworks a song across two at least nominally different solo-projects and surely cause your head to explode, what matters more is the willingness to let those songs be malleable. To let them live. My understanding is these are earlier versions or at least rooted in earlier versions than what showed up on Doom Folk, but the point stands. Just because one version of a thing is recorded, that doesn’t mean it has to be static, only that, forever. That very same creative openness, Elliott letting himself just mess with it, is likewise responsible for the varied arrangements throughout and Satiricus Doomicus Americus‘ capacity to boil down complex ideas into accessible sound.
You can pinpoint this or that nuance in terms of influence, either from doom, metal, folk, or, with the samples, hip-hop and pop, but I can only think of one other outfit with a style like Satiricus Doomicus Americus, and that’s Buzzard. This record will resonate more with some than others — it hit a nerve with me, clearly — but it shares Buzzard‘s listenability as it expands on the purpose and scope of the craft. It makes me more excited to hear where Elliott might take Buzzard over the course of Mean Bone while likewise making it harder to predict just what that will actually sound like. Given the results here, Elliott obviously thrives in open possibility.
Whatever else is to follow, as my homeland makes ready to reembrace the politics of hateful and destructive absurdity with demonstrably little to no preparation to get what it asked for, the moment feels right for Satiricus Doomicus Americus. Sometimes you get just what you need.
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 10th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
What we have here is a pretty clear case of “oops now you’re a band.” Let’s say you get three or four players together in a jam spot. Everybody’s got their own stuff going on besides — in the case of heavy psychedelic instrumentalist newcomers Kova, it’s reportedly members of Strider, Destroy Earth, Humbaba, Baba Sad, Godbud and Mens Rea, based in Ankara and Istanbul, Turkey — and nobody’s really thinking of adding to that. But then the jam starts, and one hour somehow magically becomes four hours, and at the end of it, it turns out they found something in each other, in the room, in the ether, and/or in the part of the brain where influences are stored and sonic conversation happens. All of a sudden someone starts talking about doing a show. Oops, now you’re a band.
There are various musical entities called Kova in Berlin, South Africa and Brazil, perhaps among others, but the Turkish Kova present their first single in the form of “Firça.” Carved from the initial get together, it’s raw in sound, but not so much as to be unreachable, and it follows an improvisatory course without either losing track of where it wants to go or just repeating the same parts for its entire 10-minute stretch.
So yes, it’s a 10-minute debut single. The appeal there — toward immersion — probably doesn’t need to be pointed out, but there it is anyway. The grit in the two guitars is a presence here, and I’m curious how Kova will proceed in unveiling their work from here, whether “Firça” — also stylized all-caps — is part of an album they will make after editing down more of the session from which this piece comes, or if the first single will standalone as the band look ahead toward booking their next jam.
Did you catch “band” in that sentence? They sure sound like one, anyhow.
From the PR wire:
In April 2024, four friends from Istanbul and Ankara — musicians from various stoner doom and heavy psych bands — came together and recorded a 4-hour, fully improvised session. We loved the results so much that we decided to release the music in parts throughout 2025 and occasionally reunite for live performances.
We’re excited to share our first single, FIRÇA, which will be released on January 10th.
Tomorrow, Jan. 3, is the release date of the second Pontiac EP, Night Tripper and a UFO. If it’s not already marked on your calendar, it’s cool, I know everybody gets busy around the holidays, etc., but if you caught wind of the duo’s debut release, Hard Knox (review here), back in early 2024 and had your interest piqued, the four-songer follow-up digs deeper into the nuance of influence and into the songs themselves for a more expanded but cohesive feel. At the center of the project is guitarist/vocalist/bassist Dave Cotton, also known for his work in the likewise intricate progressive metal outfit Seven Nines and Tens, and with these songs, he and drummer Drew Christie explore ground around psychedelic indie, post-hardcore, shifting with heavy fluidity through parts and melodies pulling from different sides, veering into and out of wash and shimmer, the crash and ringout vibrant before the title line is delivered, again, to round out “Night Tripper and the UFO.” The abiding vibe is weird, the music a 17-minute (and some of that is silence after the title-track in my version) call to the open-minded and aurally curious: come hear something you might not’ve heard before.
That call remains the same, mind you, even for those who took on Hard Knox from out of the glut of the digital ether. Pontiac‘s initial public offering traded on its ability to pivot, to bounce between one idea and the next, and to make it flow except where the interruption was the point. Night Tripper and a UFO operates similarly, and sometimes it’s still Cotton‘s voice wrangling disparate ideas into a single song, but “Death Valley” unfurls with layered harmony, hints a record scratch in its ’90s-strut midsection if doesn’t actually have one, and works to and through a bright-toned and still angular nod to cap with the line “No better time than the nighttime” amid a fading rollout into the more garage “Night Tripper and a UFO,” taking the emo at root in Cotton‘s vocal style and giving it a pastoral chorus backdrop early before adding backing vocals by Sara Wazani. A penchant for throwing open doors, aurally, shows itself in both “Death Valley” and “Night Tripper and a UFO” as it moves in its second half back to the hook to close, the standout line somehow Beatlesian, “Headmistress will perform/Night tripper and a UFO,” in the tradition of Mr. Kite’s Benefit happening in a world the listener can’t and doesn’t need to fully see to appreciate.
“Bible of the Roaring Twenties” calls back to some of the oldie-born realizations of the first EP, which I’m pretty sure I called an album last year — it doesn’t matter, it’s all made up and I’m willing to argue my point — but takes on a twang in its electric guitar before shifting into pastoral, gentle-snare surf shuffle shove. If the first two of its three minutes seem brazen in their straightforwardness, just before three minutes in, organ arrives to hold your hand as you leap off the cliff into the ending procession of decades, and the capper “Cut the Competition to Shreds” follows with mid-’60s shine resonating from its guitar. The narrative, loaded with place-names, including prisons, speaks to the Americana life-on-road ideal — you can read below of Cotton‘s inspiration from Kerouac — presented in snippets complemented by jangly alt rock guitar and music that feels built around the words but that serves its own purposes as well. “Cut the Competition to Shreds,” which in its title highlights a kind of capitalistic cruelty and the violence of exploitation so often framed as part of the natural order, is a fitting ending for Night Tripper and a UFO, for its ensuing quirk, sure, but also for the outward-looking perspective of the song itself.
Like the rest of the short release that surrounds, it confirms the experimentalist crux underlying Pontiac‘s craft and the individual poise of Cotton‘s songwriting in collaboration with Christie. I don’t know that Pontiac are or aren’t working their way toward a full-length — aren’t we all, on some level? — but Night Tripper and a UFO asserts/affirms a progression underway in the craft, and a distinct creative voice coming into focus. Not everyone who hears it will be able to get on board, but Pontiac is likely to land in craterous fashion with the right kind of oddball ears. Take a breath before you dive in.
For further background, Cotton was kind enough to present a track-by-track look at where the material is coming from, going into detail on some of the meld of influence and such. There’s a lot more substance to what’s going on here than the 17 minutes really hints. I encourage you in a spirit of friendship to dig in.
And please, enjoy:
Night Tripper and a UFO Track-by-Track with Dave Cotton
My drummer Drew and I had a really enjoyable time making the first Pontiac release “Hard Knox” in 2023 at Little Red Sound in New Westminster with Felix Fung. When we recorded the first tune “Ether” for the session, Felix asked us to come into the control room and listen to the take. He pointed to the screen with the soundwave of our performance and said “you guys could have recorded this to tape.” What he was referring to was the old recording technique of recording to two inch tape, where the performance had to be flawless. Personally, I was excited to hear that. Especially coming from Felix who is as savvy a musician as anyone you will meet.
The new record Night Tripper and UFO was less easy to record. I wrote the songs in half the time and we weren’t as well rehearsed. We finished the session feeling humbled which was the polar opposite of the Hard Knox sessions. Despite this it was still enjoyable and I think the sounds we got the 2nd time are seemingly higher quality.
As well this was my first time working with Noah Mintz at the Lacquer Channel based in Toronto. Noah is a bit of a Canadian musician legend. It’s pretty exciting as a songwriter to finally work with him and as a result I feel like I have a batch of some of my best tunes in this release.
“Death Valley”
I really wanted to write a song that sounded like the band Cactus and their cover of Bukka White’s blues classic “Parchman Farm Blues.” For those having heard the Cactus version, it’s very busy complex drumming, with really busy guitar playing over top. Cactus were being championed as “The American Led Zeppelin” during that era. I think they only put out two records, maybe three, before they split, but if you listen to the performance on their tune, it’s pretty incredible. Aside from that I was also trying to capture the spirit of 70s hard rock like Montrose, Budgie, Bloodrock, Groundhogs, Blue Cheer, and Bubble Puppy.
Death Valley’s working title was “Hobby Farm.” In writing it, it was a literal riff farm of ideas. When I edited them altogether finally, it was tricky to keep the busy spirit of the arrangement but also make it sort of linear in a traditional song context.
“Night Tripper and a UFO”
This tune’s working title for a long time was “Shake Dope” as I was trying to write a song like “Shake the Dope Out” by Warlocks from LA. Sara Wazani of Vancouver group “The Brahmankind” stopped by the studio the day we tracked vocals. She contributed some amazing singing to the track.
“Bible of the Roaring Twenties”
Part of my intention with Pontiac is to create a sort of subversive take on late 80s and early 90s Canadian Content groups like The Northern Pikes, Skydiggers, Glass Tiger, Frozen Ghost, and The Pursuit of Happiness. I can hear me going for that on this track. My love of John Squire from the Stone Roses is on full display as well with the guitar phrases, especially the pull off lead lines.
This song also sounds like the Eagles on acid to my ears. I was definitely influenced by the group the Four Freshmen with all the vocal harmonies. This song started out as me trying to write something “surfy” like Link Wray. Funny how songs rarely sound like the original intention.
“Cut the Competition to Shreds”
I read “On the Road Again” by Jack Kerouc this year. The book’s themes of manic wanderlust, and road trip adventures were an influence on the lyrics for this tune. I started out trying to write something like Atlanta band Deerhunter but as usual, it ends up sounding completely different than intended.
Recorded at Little Red Sound Engineered and mixed by Felix Fung Mastered by Noah Mintz at Lacquer Channel Additional vocals on title track Sara Wazani
Pontiac: Guitars, bass, vocals David Cotton Drums Drew Christie
Posted in Reviews on December 23rd, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Because it is on balance so abidingly, outwardly mellow, and because it opens with the seven-and-a-half-minute “Now That I Lost Your Attention,” a light-boogie jam that seems to acknowledge its own hypnotic aspects in its title, it’s easy to miss the innovative aspects of Frydom as you make your way through its eight songs and 40 minutes. But Sander Haagmans, who at the time of this recording was the sole denizen of the band — meaning that the mellotron, drums, guitar and bass on that entrancing and self-aware opener/longest track (immediate points) aren’t coming from an actual group of players; it’s all him; a solo-jam, recorded DIY (Arthur von Berg mastered) and self-released — makes the atmosphere part of the message on his third The Whims of the Great Magnet full-length.
And by smoothing out some of the noisier edges of the recording as compares to 2019’s Good Vibes and High Tides, Haagmans is able to refine the sense of craft that brings about the mood the album, which is content if not as showy as “serene” might imply, casual and lightly stoned in the strum of “Sunstroke Serenade,” but optimistic in spirit. Frydom is dynamic and isn’t trying to do the same thing for each of its pieces — which already is something that a lot of solo-type works can’t say (not that they all want to have a full-band sound) — and it is drawn together fluidly between the hooks of “Same New,” “Baby Blue (Hit Song),” which follow the opener in succession, and the penultimate “Reborn,” or the languid improv in the guitar that makes “Only Jams in Major” and “It’s a Good Day to Shower in the Nude” feel so off-the-cuff. But while Haagmans is casting it as a full-band sound and has since put together a stage-ready incarnation of The Whims of the Great Magnet, the material is united by a sense of intimacy in the recording. Bedroom heavy.
In the instrumental passages, Haagmans remains a strong presence, and a soft, melodic vocal delivery, particularly in the straightforward redirect of “Same New” and “Baby Blue (Hit Song)” after “Now That I Lost Your Attention” starts with such fervently far out intentions, helps reground the flow that becomes so crucial to Frydom as a whole work. The trades between structured verses and choruses and broader jamming — or in the case of the two-minute “It’s a Good Day to Shower in the Nude,” an effective bit of minimalist noodling and some field-recorded street noise, — create a feeling of movement, but it’s not too much, and it’s not uncomfortable, and it’s not trying to push. Frydom doesn’t want for quirk at any point, from the howling drawl of the guitar solo in “Only Jams in Major” like Yawning Hendrix to the hook “Kill your brain/Free your soul/Get reborn/Go insane and let the ax swing the right way” in “Reborn,” which greets its post-Nirvana-feeling quiet insistence with brainwash melody, and this gets further emphasized in the sound-collage “Bonustrack” that closes out. Run through with an organ-laced drone, it comes across like some kind of ritualistic cleansing for your noncorporeal self, ending with a dry “oi!” to snap you back to the real world before you run the car into that tree.
Or something like that. Because while Frydom is able to put the listener where it wants them at any given time, it never sounds lofty in its ambition to do so in a way that would undercut the impression Haagmans is trying to make. That is, if “Baby Blue (Hit Song)” went about its business not with the easygoing, sun-coated fuzz and Beatlesian lead guitar that make it very much the fuzz-indie joy to behold it was recorded in order to become, the mood — the v-i-b-e vibe — being conveyed in the songs would fall flat. Further, while one hesitates to bring notions of authenticity to any discussion, ever, barring perhaps one about myths people chase to their own detriment, it’s worth nothing that the sincerity and the heart that come through in these tracks, regardless of an individual piece’s modus, is a great strength. Haagmans sounds sincere in wanting you to chill out. So maybe think about doing that, hmm? He made a record that should help out a lot if you give it the time. Its easy to be taken in by the unassuming nature of its presentation, and that’s very clearly part of the point.
The innovation comes into play in a way that feels very much rooted in Haagmans‘ composition, and maybe that’s inevitable since he wrote the songs, but “Same New” and “Sunstroke Serenade,” et al, aren’t haphazard in their unfolding, and as much as Haagmans got his start in the jam-based heavy psychedelia of the early ’10s, there’s growth audible even from where The Whims of the Great Magnet were on their last studio album, as well as heralds of the changing dynamic to come in earlier 2024’s Live at Bankastudios, Maastricht, 22-12-2023 (review here) and Gronsveld Jams ’23, both of which capture the full lineup of the band, one on stage, the other in the rehearsal room.
Obviously next on that we’re-a-band to-do list would be a full-length album made as a group. I don’t know how the songwriting will change from Frydom forward as guitarist/vocalist/synthesist Arthur von Berg (who mastered here and has worked on other Whims recordings), bassist/vocalist David Eering (also founding guitarist/vocalist of The Machine) and drummer Jonathan Frederix (Heisa, The Shovels) join Haagmans in the creative process. Even if Haagmans retains a central role there, the very nature of having multiple players changes how a piece might sound, and the direct, unpretentious, calm persona that resonates across Frydom will be a tricky thing to preserve balanced against what’s sure to be an invigorated approach.
It’s not without risk (what is?), but neither is this collection in how it boldly finds its purpose and expressive voice in bringing forward with clarity the posi-psych and mellow-jam mindset that has been in development all along for The Whims of the Great Magnet. And it works out just fine here, so the future is more exciting than harrowing for the band, and with the good-times vision Haagmans rolls out across Frydom, it sounds like things are gonna be just fine. The joy in these songs is not there by mistake. That in itself feels like a brazen statement of who The Whims of the Great Magnet are.
Posted in Reviews on December 10th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Day two. I mean, it’s work in the sense of it takes effort to put together these posts and structure thoughts into hopefully somewhat coherent sentences, etc., but at this point the Quarterly Review is a pretty important tool for me to hear records that, generally once I hear them, I feel like I want to be covering. Sometimes the intensity of that feeling varies; there are things that don’t “fit” with the stoner-and-doom adjacent foundations of what this site does, but the format allows for that flexibility as well, and I credit the QR for helping broaden the perspective of the site as a whole and making me push my own boundaries.
Admittedly, the trade for covering so much — 50 records in five days is a lot, if it needs to be said — is that I can’t always get as deep as I otherwise might, but as I’ve said before, the fact is that I’m one person, and if writing about a lot of this stuff didn’t happen in this way, it probably wouldn’t happen at all. It’s still never going to be everything I want to cover, but doing it this was is often more suited to the subject at hand than a longform writeup would be, it gives me a chance to explore, it’s a consistently challenging undertaking on multiple levels, and it’s satisfying like little else around here when you’re on the other end of one and immediately start building the next.
I’m not entirely sure why I felt the need right there to justify the existence of the entire Quarterly Review thing as a part of this site. If you care, thanks. If not, I can only call that understandable. Thanks for seeing this sentence and whatever you came here for anyway.
We march on, into day two.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
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Fuzz Sagrado, Cold Remains
As Christian Peters has gradually embraced his inner rocker over the last couple years with Fuzz Sagrado, rediscovering the sacredness of tone, if you will, and using an expanded palette of synth and keyboards to build on the project’s beginnings while tying it together with his prior outfit, the heavy psych rockers Samsara Blues Experiment, it’s fascinating how much the respective personalities of the two acts still shine through. On Cold Remains, along with the new song “Snowchild” that leads off, Peters showcases three until-now lost pieces that have their origins in his former band but were never released: “Cold Remains,” a grim-lyric title-track given due heft of low end, the short “Morphine Prayer,” which intertwines acoustic strum and electric leads and drops the drums for an even more open feel, and “Neurotic Nirvana,” which clues you into the grunge of its central riff in the title but stretches outward from there across six minutes with particular bliss in the solo for a hopeful second half. It sounds like reconciliation, and in that, it fits well with the ongoing growth of Peters‘ Brazilian period.
From the punkish opening shove of “Rat Race” and “Manic Street Ballet,” 24/7 Diva Heaven‘s second full-length for Noisolution, Gift, unfolds a style that’s both raw and dense enough to carry a heavy groove, straightforward but nuanced in craft and threaded through with attitude born out of ’90s-era riot grrrl noise rock, but able to temper that somewhat with a mellower, more melodic rocker like “Crown of Creation” — some influence from The Donnas, maybe? — before the sharp-edged intensity of “Face Down” and the thrust of “These Days” precede the centerpiece title-track’s quiet-grunge trading off with careening, hard-hitting punk rock in a way that works. No worries, as “L.O.V.E. Forever” and the Godsleep-esque aggro-rocker “Suck it Up” follow at what might be the start of side B, with a highlight bassy groove in the QOTSA-meets-Nirvana catchy “Born to Get Bored,” staying in a heavy rock modus but nonetheless faster and kind of threatening to throw a punch in “Flawless Fool,” the piano-led “Nothing Lasts” capping with duly wistful minimalism. Killer. It’s 11 tracks in 32 minutes, wastes zero of its own or your time, and has something to say both in sound and its lyrics. This band should be on all the festivals.
Holy smokes that’s a vibe. Even at its most active — which would be “Grey Smoke,” if you want specifics — the heavygaze-adjacent psych blues rock of Germany’s Mount Hush holds an encompassing sense of atmosphere, and while cuts like “All I See” or the smokey “Blues for the Dead” can trace some of what they do to the likes of All Them Witches, Queens of the Stone Age, Colour Haze, and so on, the material is inventive, unrushed and explores outward from a solid foundation of craft, leaning perhaps deepest into psych on “Celestial Eyes,” featuring a classy bit of flute in the penultimate “54” and going big in melody and tone for the finishing move in “Blood Red Sky,” working in Eastern scales for a meditative feel while staying loyal to its own distortion and post-Uncle Acid swing; one more part of the not-slapdash pastiche Mount Hush build as they take a marked breadth of influence, melt it down and shape something of their own from it. Gorgeously. Flowing with grace at no expense to the impact, II is a striking and forward looking point of arrival waiting to be caught up to. This is a band I’m glad to have heard, even before you get to the RPG.
Wherever you’re headed, Luna Sol are ready to meet you there. David Angstrom — also of Hermano — leads the bluesy heavy rockers with a slew of choice, family-style cuts. Granted, with 15 tracks and more than 50 minutes of material, there’s room to move around a bit, but whether it’s the Leaf Hound cover “Freelance Fiend” or Mountain‘s “Never in My Life” or the delay-laced verses of not-a-cover “Surrounded by Thieves” later on, Vita Mors offers both scope and craft around the heavy blues framework. That can get a little meaner tonally in “Watch Our Skeletons Die” or fuzzily back a bouncing groove on “I’ll Be Your One,” and the songs will remain united through Angstrom‘s vocals and the trust the band as a whole earn through the strength of their songwriting. It’s not a minor undertaking in an age of short attention spans, but given their time, Vita Mors‘ songs can very easily start to live with you.
Taut in their two-guitar drive and going big on hooks and harmonies alike, Ian Blurton’s Future Now‘s second album, Crimes of the City, is a heart-on-sleeve heavy rocker brimming with life, purpose in its construction, and a sense of celebrating the riffs and metals of old. With Blurton himself on guitar/vocals, guitarist Aaron Goldstein, bassist Anna Ruddick and drummer Glenn Milchem — Gregory MacDonald is also listed as ‘The Goose’ in the credits — the four-piece don’t touch the four-minute mark once in Crimes of the City‘s succession of 10 bangers, despite coming close in “Cast Away the Stones,” and as one could only expect, the songs are air tight in structure and delivery. And just when it seems to run the risk of being too perfect, Blurton drops the layers for the verse of “Nocturnal Transmissions” or exudes sheer delight in the ’80s metal of “Seventh Sin of Devotion,” or the whole band rides a groove like “School’s In,” and it’s all so open, welcoming and vibrant that it can’t help but be human in the end. Killer at any volume, but more don’t hurt.
Prone to a psych-garage freakout, willfully jagged on the swaying “Two Birds,” indie drifting to the Riff-Filled Land™ and the neighboring Epicsolosburg on “Ten Lies” and righteously horny/not creepy on “Woman,” Mirage is the first full-length from South Africa’s Moskitos, and while it has some element of sneer as a facet inherited from in-genre influences, “Ryder” still feels sincere as it departs what Moe called a “carhole” one time in favor of a more open landscape. There’s intricacy in the rhythm of “Believer” if you want it, and the set-up-for-contrast relative patience of opener “Umbra,” which, yeah, still twists the cosmos a bit by the time it’s done, is a highlight as well, and “Trigger” shifts between quiet parts and putting a shuffle beneath its melodic ending, but some of the most effective moments here are more about the soul behind it all. The feel is loose, but they’re not without a plan, and while there’s no shortage of haze between here and there, it will be interesting to hear how Moskitos build on ideas like the expansive-but-not-unpoppy-till-the-payoff “Ten Lies” and what new ground they find as they move forward.
This Halloween-issued sequel to Deer Lord‘s early-2023 EP, Dark Matter (review here) unfolds across six tracks broken into two sides of three each. Each begins with its longest track (immediate points), and uses the spaciousness cast in “Dark Matter” (8:11) and “Intelligent Life” (7:24), respectively, to bolster the atmosphere of the rockers that follow, “Faster” and “Dogma” on side A, the swinging cosmic blowout “Blade” and closer “Pay” on side B. If that makes it sound somewhat orderly, this symmetry is contrasted by the loosen-your-head psychedelic drive of “Dogma” or “Faster” sounding like Clutch as beamed from Voyager 1 hitting a gravity wave on the way. The now-trio of guitarist/vocalist Sheafer McOmber, drummer Ryan Alderman and bassist Jared Marill hit on a sonic niche of earthy fuzz meeting with spaced plasmatic volatility. It’s big and it moves! It would be more of a surprise if they weren’t signed by somebody or other by the time they get around to their debut full-length.
Following up on their 2023 self-titled-if-you-go-by-apparent-pronunciation LP, Tiefenrausch, Book of Circles sees instrumentalist three-piece TFNRSH make a striking entry into the admittedly crowded German and greater European sans-vocal heavy psychedelic underground. Standing out through a proggy use of synth, the second album offers “Zorn” in the place the first put “Slift,” and while it’s true the band remain not without influence from the modern European heavy psychedelic ouevre — some of the twists in “Zemestån” feel Elderian, as an example — they’re distinguished not only by how heavy “Zorn” eventually gets or “WRZL” is at its outset, or by Julius Watzl‘s stellar hold-it-together drumming amid the currents of synth being run by both guitarist Sasan Bahreini and bassist Stefan Wettengl there, but also by the float and patience of “Ammoglÿd” — imagine a mid-period Anathema intro but it unfolds as the whole song and it works — which only underscores the progressive mindset underlying all of this material. The kind of record that won’t hit with everybody but will hit with some very, very hard.
While based largely in doom, Altareth‘s Passage: The Welfare Sessions absolutely soars in the solo of its centerpiece track “Singapore,” picking up from a mellower kind of lumbering brood and answering the lift of its middle with a push to the finish. Passage: The Welfare Sessions may be worth the asking price for that alone, but that hardly means that’s all the Gothenburg five-piece have on offer, when there’s acoustic to layer into the subsequent “Pilgrim” or the blend of murk and impact in the rolling leadoff “Passage,” the way “The Stars” holds to its crawling tempo but offers a sense of payoff anyhow, or the psychedelia that runs alongside the march of “Recluse,” which rounds out the reportedly live-recorded proceedings with emotive melancholy and a final stretch of quiet, sample-topped guitar. Produced by Kalle Lilja and Per Stålberg at Welfare Sounds, hence the title, Passage: The Welfare Sessions speaks even more boldly to the band’s potential than their 2021 debut, Blood (review here). Don’t be fooled by smooth transitions and a subtlety of scope. Altareth are onto something.
If you find yourself wanting to applaud in the couple seconds of silence between “Bat Trip” and the pointedly doomjazzy “Piosenka o przemijaniu,” at least know that you’re not alone. Antropocen is the debut full-length from Kraków, Poland’s Jarzma, and with it, the band invent a style of playing that is immediately their own, basing their arrangements around nyckelharpha and imaginative percussion and drumming either folkish or not, voices coming and going through songs that don’t just sound the way they do as a novelty, but break their own rules from the very outset in the poppish dance hook of opener “Big Heat.” It’s brazen, it’s masterful in terms of performance, and it’s made from a place of wanting to add to the scope of the genre that birthed it (doom/heavy) and represent something about its place to those outside. I guess you could call it experimental in terms of sound, but that’s not to say there’s anything haphazard about it. Given the range of what they’re doing — the band is comprised of Piotr Aleksander Nowak on the aforementioned nyckelharpa and drummer/vocalist Katarzyna Bobik, and there are guests throughout — it’s kind of astonishing for how clearly the plan comes across, actually. When you want something in heavy music you’ve never heard before, Jarzmo will be waiting.
Posted in Reviews on December 9th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Welcome to the Quarterly Review. Oh, you were here last time? Me too. All door prizes will be mailed to winning parties upon completion of, uh, everything, I guess?
Anywhazzle, the good news is this week is gonna have 50 releases covered between now — the 10 below — and the final batch of 10 this Friday. I’m trying to sneak in a bunch of stuff ahead of year-end coverage, yes, but let the urgency of my doing so stand as testament to the quality of the music contained in this particular Quarterly Review. If I didn’t feel strongly about it, surely I’d find some other way to spend my time.
That said, let’s not waste time. You know the drill, I know the drill. Just don’t be surprised when some of the stuff you see here, today, tomorrow, and throughout the week, ends up in the Best of 2024 when the time comes. I have no idea what just yet, but for sure some of it.
We go.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
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Gnome, Vestiges of Verumex Visidrome
Some bands write songs for emotional catharsis. Some do it to make a political statement. Gnome‘s songs feel specifically — and expertly — crafted to engage an audience, and their third full-length, Vestiges of Verumex Visidrome, underscores the point. Hooks like “Old Soul” and “Duke of Disgrace” offer a self-effacing charm, where elsewhere the Antwerp trio burn through hot-shit riffing and impact-minded slam metal with a quirk that, if you’ve caught wind of the likes of Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol or Howling Giant in recent years, should fit nicely among them while finding its own sonic niche in being able to, say, throw a long sax solo on second cut “The Ogre” or veer into death growls for the title line of “Rotten Tongue” and others. They make ‘party riff metal’ sound much easier to manifest than it probably is, and the reason their reputation precedes them at this point goes right back to the songwriting. They hit hard, they get in, get out, it’s efficient when it wants to be but can still throw a curve with the stop and pivot in “Rotten Tongue,” running a line between punk and stoner, rock and metal, your face and the floor. It might actually be too enjoyable for some, but the funk they bring here is infectious. They make the riffs dance, and everything goes from there.
The lone studio track “Breathe” serves as the reasoning behind Hermano‘s first new release since 2007’s …Into the Exam Room (discussed here), and actually predates that still-latest long-player by some years. Does it matter? Yeah, sort of. As regards John Garcia‘s post-Kyuss career, Hermano both got fleshed out more than most (thinking bands like Unida and Slo Burn, even Vista Chino, that didn’t get to release three full-lengths in their time), and still seemed to fade out when there was so much potential ahead of them. If “Breathe” doesn’t argue in favor of this band giving it the proverbial “one more go,” perhaps the live version of “Brother Bjork” (maybe the same one featured on 2005’s Live at W2?) and a trio of cuts captured at Hellfest in 2016 should do the trick nicely. They’re on fire through “Senor Moreno’s Plan,” “Love” and “Manager’s Special,” with Garcia, Dandy Brown, David Angstrom, Chris Leathers and Mike Callahan treating Clisson to a reminder of why they’re the kind of band who might get to build an entire EP around a leftover studio track — because that studio track, and the band more broadly, righteously kick their own kind of ass. What would a new album be like?
Almost on a per-song basis, Stahv — the mostly-solo brainchild of multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Solomon Arye Rosenschein, here collaborating on production with John Getze of Ako-Lite Records — skewers and melds genres to create something new from their gooey remnants. On the opening title-track, maybe that’s a post-industrial Phil Collins set to dreamtime keyboard and backed by fuzzy drone. On “Lunar Haze,” it’s all goth ’80s keyboard handclaps until the chorus melody shines through the fog machine like The Beatles circa ’64. Yeah that’s right. And on “Bossa Supernova,” you bet your ass it’s bossa nova. “The Calling” reveals a rocker’s soul, where “Plainview” earlier on has a swing that might draw from The Birthday Party at its root (it also might not) but has its own sleek vibe just the same with a far-back, lo-fi buzz that somehow makes the melody sound better. “Aaskew” (sic) takes a hard-funkier stance musically but its outsider perspective in the lyrics is similar. The 1960s come back around in the later for “Circuit Crash” — it would have to be a song about the future — and “Leaving Light” seems to make fun of/celebrate (it can be both) that moment in the ’80s when everything became tropical. There’s worlds here waiting for ears adventurous enough to hear them.
I mean, look. The central question you really have to ask yourself is how mellow do you want to get? Do you think you can handle 12 minutes of “Transmigration?” Do you think you can be present in yourself through that cool-as-fuck, ultra-smooth psychedelic twist Space Shepherds pull off, barely three minutes into the the beginning of this seven-track, 71-minute pacifier to quiet the bad voices in your (definitely not my) brain. What’s up with that keyboard shuffle in “Celestial Rose” later on? I don’t know, but it rules. And when they blow it out in “Got Caught Dreaming?” Yeah, hell yeah, wake up! “Free Return” is a 15-minute drifter jam that gets funky in the back half (a phrase I’d like on a shirt) and you don’t wanna miss it! At the risk of spoiling it, I’ll tell you that the title-track, which closes, is absolutely the payoff it’s all asking for. If you’ve got the time to sit with it, and you can just sort of go where it’s going, Cycler is a trip begging to be taken.
It is all very big. All very grand, sweeping and poised musically, very modern and progressive and such — and immediately it has something if that’s what you’re looking for, which is super-doper, thanks — but if you dig into King Botfly‘s vocals, there’s a vulnerability there as well that adds an intimacy to all that sweep and plunges down the depths of the spacious mix’s low end. And I’m not knocking that part of it either. The Portsmouth, UK-based three-piece of guitarist/vocalist George Bell, bassist Luke Andrew and drummer Darren Draper, take on a monumental task in terms of largesse, and they hit hard when they want to, but there’s dynamic in it too, and both has an edge and doesn’t seem to go anywhere it does without a reason, which is a hard balance to strike. They sound like a band who will and maybe already have learned from this and will use that knowledge to move forward in an ongoing creative pursuit. So yes, progressive. Also tectonically heavy. And with heart. I think you got it. They’ll be at Desertfest London next May, and they sound ready for it.
Are Last Band a band? They sure sound like one. Founded by guitarists Pat Paul and Matt LeGrow (the latter also of Admiral Browning) upwards of 15 years ago, when they were less of an actual band, the Maryland-based outfit offer 13 songs of heavy alternative rock on The Sacrament in Accidents, with some classic metal roots shining through amid the harmonies of “Saffire Alice” and a denser thrust in “Season of Outrage,” a rush in the penultimate “Forty-Four to the Floor,” and so on, where the title-track is more of an open sway and “Lidocaine” is duly placid, and while the production is by no means expansive, the band convey their songs with intent. Most cuts are in the three-to-four-minute range, but “Blown Out” dips into psychedelic-gaze wash as the longest at 5:32 offset by comparatively grounded, far-off Queens of the Stone Age-style vocalizing in the last minute, which is an effective culmination. The material has range and feels worked on, and while The Sacrament in Accidents sounds raw, it hones a reach that feels true to a songwriting methodology evolved over time.
Debuting earlier this decade as a solo-project of Andrew Cox, Seattle’s Dream Circuit have built out to a four-piece for with Pennies for Your Life, which throughout its six-track/36-minute run sets a contemplative emotionalist landscape. Now completed by Anthony Timm, Cody Albers and Ian Etheridge, the band are able to move from atmospheric stretches of classically-inspired-but-modern-sounding verses into heavier tonality on a song like “Rosy” with fluidity that seems to save its sweep for when it counts. The title-track dares some shouts, giving some hint of a metallic underpinning, but that still rests well in context next to the sitar sounds of “Let Go,” which opens at 4:10 into its own organ-laced crush, emotionally satisfying. Imagine a post-heavy rock that’s still pretty heavy, and a dynamic that stretches across microgenres, and maybe that will give some starting idea. The last two tracks argue for efficiency in craft, but wherever Dream Circuit go on this sophomore release, they take their own route to get there.
“All is Light” is the first single from New Paltz bliss-drone meditationalist solo outfit Okkoto since 2022’s stellar and affirming Climb the Antlers and Reach the Stars (review here), and its seven minutes carry a similar scope to what one found on that album. To be clear, that’s a compliment. Interwoven threads of synth over methodical timekeeping drum sounds, wisps of airy guitar drawn together with other lead lines, keys or strings, create a flowing world around the vocals added by Michael Lutomski, also (formerly?) of heavy psych rockers It’s Not Night: It’s Space, the sole proprietor of the expanse. A lot of a given listener’s experience of Okkoto experience will depend on their own headspace, but if you have the time and attention — seven-plus minutes of active-but-not-too-active hearing recommended — but “All is Light” showcases the rare restorative aspects of Okkoto in a way that, if you can get to it, can make you believe, or at least escape for a little while.
Trappist Afterland, Evergreen: Walk to Paradise Garden
Underscored with a earth-rooted folkish fragility in the voice of Adam Geoffrey Cole (also guitar, cittern, tanpura, oud, synth, xylophone and something called a ‘dulcitar’), Melbourne’s Trappist Afterland are comfortably adventurous on this 10th full-length, Evergreen: Walk to Paradise Garden, which digs deeper into psych-drone on longest track “Cruciform/The Reincarnation of Kelly-Anne (Parts 1-3)” (7:55) while elsewhere digs into fare more Eastern-influenced-Western-traditional, largely based around guitar composition. With an assortment of collaborators coming and going, even this is enough for Cole and his seemingly itinerant company to create a sense of variety — the violin in centerpiece “Barefoot in Thistles” does a lot of work in that regard; ditto the squeezebox of opener “The Squall” — and while the arrangements don’t lack for flourish, the human expression is paramount, and the nine songs are serene unto the group vocal that caps in “You Are Evergreen,” which would seem to be placed to highlight its resonance, and reasonably so. As it’s Trappist Afterland‘s 10th album by their own count, it’s hardly a surprise they know what they’re about, but they do anyway.
For a band who went so far as to name themselves after a fuzz pedal, Spain’s Big Muff Brigade have more in common with traditional desert rock than the kind of tonal worship one might expect them to deliver. That landscape doesn’t account for their naming a song “Terre Haute,” seemingly after the town in Indiana — I’ve been there; not a desert — but fair enough for the shove of that track, which on Pi arrives just ahead of closer “Seasonal Affective Disorder,” which builds to a nonetheless-mellow payoff before its fadeout. Elsewhere, the seven-minute “Pierced by the Spear” drops Sleepy (and thus Sabbathian) references in the guitar ahead of creating a duly stonerly lumber before they even unfurl the first verse — a little more in keeping with the kind of riff celebration one might expect going in — but even there, the band maintain a thread of purposeful songcraft that can only continue to serve them as they move past this Argonauta-delivered debut and continued to grow. There is a notable sense of outreach here, though, and in writing to genre, Big Muff Brigade show both their love of what they do and a will to connect with likeminded audiences.
Posted in Questionnaire on November 26th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Hellfire 76
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
We do a fuzzed out type of Southern Stoner Metal. Simply came about from the ashes of another band. I was sitting on a bunch of riffs and wanted to do something heavy and stripped down. I reached out to Mike whom I’ve known for a minute. Seeing we like the same stuff and he got the direction right away. We started writing what has become HELLFIRE 76.
Describe your first musical memory.
Oddly enough, my older sister had a record by Cliff Richards. It had a song on it called “Devil Woman”. I used to play that song over and over. I guess it gave me a lasting impression.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Seeing Siouxsie and the Banshees when I was a kid. I knew at that moment I would be a musician.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
Hmmmm….seems my beliefs are constantly being tested!
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
To an output of creative greatness. As we keep creating, we keep progressing!
How do you define success?
Doing what we want. As far as band/ music, etc., every show we play where people came out – Success! Every time we sell an album or merch – Success! Great press – Success! Being relevant and continue to inspire others – Success!
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
Jail……
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
A concept album… but just might one day.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
To challenge opinion, make one think differently.
Say something positive about yourself.
I keep my word!
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
I help with a dog/ cat fostering network. Getting as many dogs/ cats into new homes. ADOPT-Don’t buy!!!
Elderian, refines a heavy rock thrust in its verse with twisting lead flourish, and has room in its second half for a subdued divergence before aligning on the chugging, rolling groove and the crash with which it resolves ahead of “Shields at the Dawn Forest” (15:49), which unfolds with a grace toward which both sides of the record up to that point are revealed as building.
