Posted in Whathaveyou on October 9th, 2019 by JJ Koczan
If you’re the kind of person who likes a key-takeaway from a news story, here’s one: The Otolith exist. The reason that’s news is because the new outfit features ex-members of SubRosa, who decided to break my heart back in May and call it quits after releasing in 2016 one of the best albums of the decade in their now-swansong opus, For This We Fought the Battle of Ages (review here). If I’m honest, I’m not over the loss yet, but if the advent of the new outfit with Kim Cordray, Levi Hanna, Andy Patterson and Sarah Pendleton demonstrates anything, it’s that I’m not necessarily alone in that.
So, The Otolith exist. They’ll play Monolith on the Mesa next year, release an Alice in Chains cover — “Would?,” but still — on Magnetic Eye‘s homage to Dirt, and they’re working toward the eventuality of a debut full-length, which is already on my eagerly-anticipated list.
There’s no social media presence I can find as yet, but here’s the announcement of their arrival and a clip of SubRosa in Brooklyn from 2017 just for the hell of it:
Atmospheric avant-garde doom outfit THE OTOLITH rises from the ashes of SUBROSA
Salt Lake City four-piece announce formation and plans for new music
Earlier this year, forward-looking doom juggernaut SubRosa announced its dissolution after a 13-year run, a surprise to many in light of the band’s acclaimed albums and high-profile tours and festival appearances. Few specifics were given as to the reasons for bringing SubRosa to a close, leaving fans to wonder what might follow.
That question is now being answered, as four-fifths of SubRosa – Kim Cordray, Levi Hanna, Andy Patterson and Sarah Pendleton – announce their re-constitution as The Otolith, a new four-piece they say is, “heavier than a truckload of lead bricks.”
With a name derived from crystalline inner ear structures involved in sensing gravity, direction and acceleration, the members discuss their decision to move forward:
“The end of SubRosa was extremely devastating for all of us. Through the grieving process, we realized the only way we were going to heal was to continue playing music together. After about a year, we started getting together regularly to jam, and beautiful things started to happen. Kim suggested the name, and the more we learned about its meaning, the more we loved it. We became The Otolith.”
Moving with speed and enthusiasm, the band has already signed on to two unique projects coming in early 2020.
First, they’ll contribute an original song to WOMEN OF DOOM, a collaborative album of exclusive songs highlighting and supporting female-driven artists from throughout the doom metal underground, also set to include tracks from Frayle, Besvarjelsen, and Mlny from Royal Thunder, among others.
The Otolith have also recorded a version of the Alice in Chains classic “Would?” for inclusion on the Dirt [Redux] release from Magnetic Eye Records, replacing Bell Witch after the latter dropped off the project.
Cordray, Hanna, Patterson and Pendleton will spend the winter writing The Otolith’s debut album, with plans to tour upon its release, including a confirmed slot at the second Monolith on the Mesa festival in Taos, New Mexico in May 2020.
As to the sound and musical direction fans of the members’ past work can expect, the band says:
“Some of the songs are vocally-driven, others are musically-driven with sparse vocals. Each of us will be manning the instruments we’re known to play, but we’ll all have surprise sidecars as well. This band is an anamorph that is busy growing its second row of teeth. It’s gonna be pissed. There will be swirling ambience and the heaviest of riffs. We are pouring our hearts into this.”
More news and updates will follow as the band pushes ahead and solidifies its 2020 plans.
SubRosa, Live at Saint Vitus Bar, Brooklyn, NY, 2017
Posted in audiObelisk on August 15th, 2019 by JJ Koczan
Thrice-guitarred Salt Lake City riff metal five-piece Pinewalker will issue their debut full-length, Migration, on Sept. 6. It is an album that makes its mission plain from the moment opener “Sentinel” reworks the signature riff of Sleep‘s “Dragonaut” and later taps into Goatsnake during its apex, and the brazen manner in which it goes about bringing together metallic aggression with stoner and doom influences — even a bit of post-metal ambience at the start of sprawling nine-minute album centerpiece “Maelstrom” — only underlines that as their ultimate stylistic aim. Formed in 2014 under the moniker Yeti and with a 2016 EP, Wasteland, to their credit under that name, Pinewalker burl their way through seven tracks and 43 minutes on Migration, alternating between a song like “Bone Collector,” which draws a line between extreme metal thrust — something “Burning Earth” soon brings even more forward — and Sabbathian shuffle in a kind of Entombed-via-Rocky-Mountains revamp, and longer form pieces like “Maelstrom,” the subsequent instrumental roller “Space Witch” and closer “The Thaw,” the latter two of which top eight minutes as the record moves through its second half.
The purposeful-seeming impression there is that the further you go, the more there is to find. Pinewalker — guitarist/vocalists Tarran Mead, Jason Kennington and Sam Roe, bassist Ethan Jentzch and drummer Nate Perkins — insert “Self vs. Self” between the last two longer cuts as the penultimate track to return to some of the more grounded metal fare of “Bone Collector,” finding room for some Maiden-style guitar histrionics along the way, but the prevailing spirit of Migration is in the overarching blend that unites the broader and more directly-punishing material. Melody is engaged most of all in “The Thaw,” the central riff of which seems to reinvent Neurosis‘ “Given to the Rising” before offsetting it with post-rocking airiness in the verse, but the death-doom stomp that emerges, soaring leads that take hold, and willfully over-the-top crescendo that follow are hardly the work of a band simply looking to ape their influences. Rather, the relief that “The Thaw” seems to find in relation to the rest of the record is all the more palpable for the individualized stamp they put on it.
And that that is the final impression Migration gives — aided in no small part by the production of Andy Patterson (SubRosa, DØNE, many more) — speaks to the successful realization of the aesthetic meld that’s at the core of the record. They play heavy, they play metal, and sure enough, it works. And whether they’re bludgeoning their way through “Burning Earth” or hinting at a more progressive future in the tense buildup in the early going of “Maelstrom,” the simple fact that they’re able to execute their ideas with such clearheaded certainty is emblematic of the achievement they’re making as they emerge from their mountainous bailiwick. They run the risk over the longer term of falling into a place between — too aggro for the rockers, but more rock than the headbangers can fully embrace — but they have several advantages on their side in things like the potential their songwriting shows here and their relative youth, and as positioned as they seem to be for future growth, Pinewalker leave one with a resounding sense of hope for what might come as well as a black eye from what has already manifested in these tracks. Go on tour, gentlemen. Go on tour and don’t look back.
They’ll play the release show for Migration on Sept. 13 at Urban Lounge in Salt Lake City, and I’m happy today to host the track premiere of “Sentinel” below for your streaming pleasure. Album preorders are up on Bandcamp.
Please enjoy:
Pinewalker on “Sentinel”:
Sentinel was a tricky beast for us at first. We had a lot of ideas that we wanted to play around with and it took a lot of our attention during the writing process, but we are super happy with how it turned out. Thematically, this is the starting point of the record. This is where we are introduced to the character that we follow through the rest of the music. To us, the song tries to capture the fear of the unknown with a power that emanates anger. We like old monster movies a lot, and thought about their cinematography and design while coming up with this song as kind of our main theme for our monster.
Salt Lake City, Utah-based quintet PINEWALKER is preparing to release their sprawling debut album, Migration. Completed for release in early September, the album boasts a cathartic concept, an homage to loved ones lost to cancer, delivered through a crushing display of thundering, groove-heavy doom/sludge metal.
The five members of PINEWALKER all met and began playing together in high school and have grown tighter as a group ever since. Now in their fifth year since inception, the band has solidified and honed their own approach to performing the music they love.
With forty-four minutes of music spanning seven expansive tracks, Migration was recorded, mixed and mastered by Andy Patterson at his The Boars Nest in Salt Lake City (Subrosa, Gaza, Theories), and completed with artwork by Charles Bogus and design by Ashley Fairbourne.
PINEWALKER will self-release Migration on digital formats on September 6th with a CD version to follow.
PINEWALKER Live: 9/13/2019 Urban Lounge – Salt Lake City, UT *Migration release show
PINEWALKER: Nate Perkins – drums Tarran Mead – guitar/vocals Jason Kennington – guitar/vocals Sam Roe – lead guitar/vocals Ethan Jentzsch – bass
Even with the many ongoing projects featuring the members as detailed below, SubRosa will be missed. The band announced their breakup with the expected level of honesty, going so far as to include a parenthetical “for now,” leaving open the possibility of doing something again in the future. They go out having released the best album of 2017 in For this We Fought the Battle of Ages(review here), which serves as their final studio outing, and the 2018 live album, SubDued: Live at Roadburn 2017 (review here), which I have absolutely zero hesitation in dubbing one of the most powerful live performances I’ve ever witnessed. About 20 minutes ago, putting my son to bed, I sang him “The Mirror,” as I do every day.
That bit of personal affinity aside, SubRosa were legitimately a band pushing post-metal to places it hadn’t been, representative of a varied, passion-driven creative force that set a standard few could match. If this is it and they never do anything else, it’s a genuine loss. And if they come back at some point — any point, really, whenever — they’ll be welcome. For now, I’ll put on the last record and be glad to have seen the band when I did.
Here’s their announcement, as just posted on the social medias:
To all of our beautiful, supportive fans and friends,
After a magical 13-year run, SubRosa is calling it quits (for now). Rebecca decided she wanted to focus on her solo project, The Keening, and Kim, Sarah, Levi and Andy have all been able to focus their creative energies on other musical ventures. We would never have experienced our dreams as reality without you, and we cannot thank you enough. Rather than despairing over what is lost, we want to continue this journey with you. We are all on fire right now writing new music:
• Kim and her partner are soon releasing their noise/doom/electro-magma love child into the world as Teleprom.
• Sarah and Zachary Livingston from Minsk are releasing the first Asphodel Wine album “Slowdance Macabre” – a dynamic sonic narrative of love, passion, fire and the perils of consciousness – early next year, and are already writing their second album.
• And last but not least, Andy, Kim, Levi, and Sarah are writing an album that is heavier than a truckload of lead bricks. Our band is unnamed as of this announcement, but we will keep you posted on that.
If you ever came to a SubRosa show, listened to a song, gave us a place to crash, booked a show, promoted our music, or worked with us in any way, you were part of our dream. In particular, we’d like to thank our label owners and booking agents: Chris Bruni, Nathan Carson, Nanouk de Meijere and Ola Blomkvist, for supporting us continually through the years.
We love you.
SubRosa, For This We Fought the Battle of Ages (2016)
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 18th, 2019 by JJ Koczan
It was just a couple months ago that I was last heaping retrospective praise on Iota‘s Tales full-length, which was originally released by Small Stone Records in 2008. Needless to say, then, that when the label came around and asked if I had anything to say about a vinyl reissue in the works, I mashed my forehead into my keyboard until a bunch of nonsensical fanboyism could be deciphered by a trained team of baboons, syllable by syllable. Something like that. It may have been orangutans.
The important factor, more even than the fact that this is a “Thing I Wrote” post, which are always a little jolt to my fragile-manchild ego, is that said LP edition of Tales will be out on March 15. In my head, this will play out to massive fanfare and the discovery of a kickass band with untold potential being discovered by a new generation of fans, leading to a reunion, a vital new album and a tour on — why not? — a comfortable bus, maybe shared with Monster Magnet or someone like that. Sounds good? Sounds good to me.
Maybe that’s how it goes. Maybe if you tell two friends and they tell two friends and they tell two friends we’ll all invent the internet. I don’t know. But it’s been 11 years and Tales is still due more acknowledgement than it’s gotten.
Here’s the bio I wrote as circled back through the PR wire with the release info:
IOTA: Small Stone Recordings To Release Tales Full-Length From Cult Stoner Metal Collective On Limited-Edition Vinyl This March; Preorders Available
When IOTA’s Tales was first released more than a decade ago, it immediately heralded a change in the scope of heavy rock ‘n’ roll. From the hard punch of its opening duo “New Mantis” and “We Are The Yithians,” it departed into three extended cuts that drew together already-classic elements of weighted riffs with a doors-thrown-open sense of space and jammed into scorched-solo psychedelic oblivion. With Joey Toscano, who’d go on to form Dwellers, on guitar and vocals, the suitably wizardly Oz on bass, and recording engineer Andy Patterson, who soon enough would join SubRosa, IOTA raised a monolith of singular intent and showed throughout Tales a potential that was entirely their own.
The Salt Lake City trio had been around for over five years by then, having formed in 2002 and released two demos before the album as they earned local praise and found themselves supporting the likes of Brant Bjork, High On Fire, Black Cobra, Eternal Elysium, The Sword, and others. And that’s all well and good, but it would be Tales that defined them, whether it was “The Sleeping Heathen” started off at a sprint on its ten-minute run, “Opiate Blues” sure enough finding room for some harp alongside its dirt-covered riffs and foresight-laden heavy blues pulsations, or the massive sprawl of the twenty-two-minute “Dimensional Orbiter” that dream-jammed its way toward the outer reaches of cosmic sensation. Tantric, broad, and a gorgeous showcase of a dynamic ready to storm the earth, it helped earn Iota a cult following that persists over ten years later.
And along with anyone else who might be fortunate to stumble upon it, that cult, quite frankly, deserves to have Tales on vinyl. This is the first official LP release of the album, so call it a reissue or don’t. It doesn’t matter. Music this good exists out of time, and whether IOTA’s Tales is new to a listener or a well-kept secret regarded as a classic unto itself, it still sounds as far-reaching as it did when the band unfurled it the first time around. It wasn’t to be missed then. It’s not to be missed now [words by JJ Koczan].
Small Stone Recordings will release IOTA’s Tales full-length on vinyl for the first time ever on March 15th. Limited to 500 units in a clear with black swirl color combination, Tales was remastered for vinyl by Chris Goosman at Baseline Audio in Ann Arbor, Michican with the original running order of the album slightly altered to fit on the LP format.
What a record. I’ve mentioned Iota here and there over the years, mostly when talking about other bands, but it’s now been 10 years since the Salt Lake City-based trio released their debut and apparent swansong, Tales, on Small Stone, and it seems high time the album got a revisit. In hindsight, it was a collection ahead of the curve in its blend of straightforward heavy rock riffing and more open-feeling jams, and even when it came out, it was clear the band were onto something special. I was still working print mags at the time and I remember calling it “like Kyuss in space,” and I stand by that to some degree. Under the mountain-filled skies of Utah, Iota harnessed a style that was as comfortable in the high-rolling lead guitar strut deep into the seventh minute of “The Sleeping Heathen”‘s total 10 as it was tearing through the opening duo of “New Mantis” and “We are the Yithians,” neither of which was half as long. Those two tracks, however brief, were utterly crucial to the overall impression made by guitarist/vocalist Joey Toscano, bassist Oz Yosri and drummer/engineer Andy Patterson in what followed.
To wit, with “New Mantis” (4:40) and “We are the Yithians” (3:37) at the outset, Tales subsequently launched into three cuts that would comprise roughly 84 percent of its runtime. “The Sleeping Heathen” (10:42), the sprawling “Dimensional Orbiter” (22:56) and closer “Opiate Blues” (8:14) shot outward from where Tales began, but the context of the two opening tracks gave a straightforward edge to even the most dug-in jams of “Dimensional Orbiter,” which as it hit the five-minute mark, pivoted from its hook and the gritty vocal delivery of Toscano into a consuming instrumental rush that continued until after 19 minutes in, when a slowdown brought the vocals back atop masterful crashing and more wah-drenched lead work. “Dimensional Orbiter” was and remains a gorgeous demonstration of the potential in Iota‘s sound, but the basic elements from which it was crafted are right there in “New Mantis” and “We are the Yithians.” From the furious chug and snare punishment that started the former to the tension of its verses and the takeoff into a solo before the first half was done, to the hook that emerged through the barrage of high-desert tonality and ethereal who-the-hell-knows-what-they’re-talking-about lyrics, and into the semi-metallized slower-thrash riffing of “We are the Yithians,” catchy, quick, efficient as it was, the sense of Iota careening from one movement to the next was palpable even before “The Sleeping Heathen” took hold.
And once it did, it was the beginning point of an entirely different stage of the album. I’d call it a transition point, but it really wasn’t. While “The Sleeping Heathen” picked up at a sprint from “We are the Yithians” and would turn fluidly into “Dimensional Orbiter” on the other end, its place on the record was hardly just about making the shift from one side of the band’s personality to the other. That’s part of what made Tales so special. There was of course a flow between — and plenty within — its tracks, but a huge part of the reason it all worked so well was simply that Toscano, Yosri and Patterson had the confidence to pull it off. Toscano was a grounding presence as a frontman, and the importance of his leading the band through the return to structure in the final minutes of “Dimensional Orbiter” isn’t to be understated for the work it did in establishing Iota‘s songwriting as central. Yeah, they jammed way, way, way out, but they didn’t let the track end without bringing it back either. That was the job of “Opiate Blues,” with its harmonica-laced wash of fuzz and all-gone-not-coming-back vibe. But all the more, then, what “Dimensional Orbiter” did was to show that Iota were conscious of what they were doing in the material. It might sound like they were getting lost in the vastness of their own making, and maybe they were for a while, but they weren’t about to actually stay lost. I’ll happily maintain that Iota‘s Tales was one of 2008’s most exciting albums, and if it showed up now, a decade later, I’d still be dying to hear what the band did next.
A lot’s changed in 10 years, of course, but you take my meaning. Consider the vinyl revival. Tales, as the runtimes and track placements were on the original disc, wouldn’t work on vinyl. You’d probably have to drop off “Opiate Blues” and lose that harmonica-jam finish to close with “Dimensional Orbiter” as a standalone cut on side B. Side A would work with “New Mantis,” “We are the Yithians” and “The Sleeping Heathen” as they are, but the linear aspect of the record would be gone and it would be a marked change in the overall affect. Maybe it would be cool, but I’m not sure sacrificing the closer to fit on a 12″ would be a fair enough trade. But 2008 was a different time. It was a moment of transition in the social media landscape, but even more than that, consider that Texas’ Wo Fat, who’d made their debut in 2006 with The Gathering Dark, would release Psychedelonaut the next year and embark on a similar course of blending straightforward rock with jammier fare. Their take was bluesier, and they certainly went on to do it more than once, but it stands as another example of how new the idea was at that point. Iota were right on the cusp of that movement waiting to happen.
Then nothing happened. They played SXSW a couple times and would talk about new material for a while, but by the second half of 2009, Toscano was beginning to establish his new outfit, Dwellers, and they’d go on to release two records also through Small Stone to-date, while Patterson would take hold of the drums in SubRosa and continue to build his reputation as a producer. Careers took different paths, and gradually Iota became a footnote and a case of what-coulda-been-style potential unrealized. I heard as recently as last year they had some new jams, but nothing has come to the surface as yet, and in the meantime, everyone seems plenty busy otherwise. SubRosa‘s For This We Fought the Battle of Ages (review here) was the best album of 2016, and Dwellers, whose 2014 outing, Pagan Fruit (review here), continues to get periodic revisits, have reportedly started hammering out material for a third LP, to which one looks forward. Yosri was playing with Bird Eater alongside members of the crushing Gaza, but they broke up in 2014. Iota had early demos with different personnel in the rhythm section, but Tales stands alone as the document of what they accomplished during their time. And 10 years after the fact, it still kicks unreasonable amounts of ass.
As always, I hope you enjoy.
—
We were getting ready to leave Connecticut the other day — prepping for the by-now-so-familiar-The-Pecan-doesn’t-even-really-mind-it-anymore trip south to New Jersey for a final week here before the semester starts and we have to go back to Massachusetts to hunker down for the winter ahead. I was packing the car. I had a laundry basket full of clean clothes coming south, and the baby didn’t want to be put down. He’s got three teeth, working on numbers four and five already, and has been hair-trigger pretty much daily for the last three weeks running. Brutal. I said, “You wanna go for a ride in the laundry basket?” and he gave me a look like, “The fuck kinda question is that chief OF COURSE I wanna go for a ride in the laundry basket,” so I loaded him in, he held onto the sides and I marched out to put the basket in the car. Fine.
I think it must have been when I pulled the basket up onto the back bumper so I could open the hatch on The Patient Mrs.’ car that my back went out. Brutally out. This was Wednesday early on and it’s Friday morning as I write this and I’m still considerably uncomfortable. I’ve spent the last two days with heating pads and ibuprofen and I’m better than I was by Wednesday evening when we got here and I couldn’t really move, but very clearly something was pulled. Something necessary for basic functions. It has sucked, and it continues to suck. Yesterday I could pick the baby up, but couldn’t really hold him long. Just to kind of put him from one place to the other. No way to live.
My father always had chronic back pain. My sister as well, for years. Real genetic lottery winner, this one.
So that’s kind of peppered my last couple days, and by “peppered” I mean “been excruciating and frustrating.” But so it goes. In addition, I’ve been up in the middle of the night doing Obelisk stuff so that I can be available during the day to watch the baby so The Patient Mrs. can work. Working the overnights. “Four-shift crew rotation, Riker. Get it done.” I don’t actually mind that. I can relax and not be as rushed to get things done, but it does pretty much necessitate a nap later on. And every now and then I cry a bit.
–Wow. So I just went fucking apeshit and typed out a whole miserable screed about depression and pills and being a wreck. I deleted it, it’s gone, but it was there. It sucks that I’m not really comfortable enough to post that kind of thing here anymore. I used to feel like I could say anything at any time. Now, it’s setting myself up for bullshit.
Bummer.
Let’s do the notes instead. That’ll be productive. Did you listen to that Moab track today? That record smokes, so I hope so. Here’s what’s up for next week as of now:
Mon.: Clutch review; The White Swan track premiere.
Tue.: Fvzz Popvli track premiere/review; news catchup.
Wed.: Constant Lovers track premiere.
Thu.: Juicer track premiere.
Fri.: Ramprasad EP full stream.
Busy busy, as ever. Probably Monday we’ll head back north to Connecticut and then follow-up with a return to Massachusetts thereafter. The Patient Mrs. has to go be brilliant as she will at a conference in Boston next weekend, so I’m on baby duty for the duration there, which is fine. I should be able to move by then.
Which reminds me: ibuprofen.
I’m gonna finish downing this coffee, fire off an email or two and go back to bed hopefully for 90 minutes or so until The Pecan wakes up. If you need me this weekend, I’m on the social medias and checking in as much as I can getting ready for next week. That Clutch review is going to be a fun one to put together.
Alright. Great and safe weekend, please. And please too, forum and radio:
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 16th, 2018 by JJ Koczan
Utah duo Eagle Twin have been sneakily added to a few European festivals over the last couple months, including Oslo’s Høstsabbat and the Belgian edition of Desertfest, so yeah, a string of tour dates wasn’t necessarily unexpected. It’s an 11-show run — no nights off — with stops in the Netherlands, Norway, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Italy, France and Belgium, so they’re covering a good amount of ground as they support their earlier-2018 offering, The Thundering Heard (Songs of Hoof and Horn) (review here). Efficiency and such. Also tone. Tone like crazy.
You probably know all about the latter when it comes to Eagle Twin, but in case not, or if you’d like a little reaffirmation, I can only urge you to check out the stream of the album in its entirety below. It’ll make your day better.
Dates and PR wire whatnot:
EAGLE TWIN Announces European Tour Dates In Support Of The Thundering Heard
Salt Lake City-based duo EAGLE TWIN has announced a European tour this Autumn in support of their third album, The Thundering Heard (Songs Of Hoof And Horn), out now via Southern Lord. The tour begins in Utrecht, Netherlands October 4th and runs through October 14th, ending at Antwerp Desert Fest in Antwerp, Belgium.
EAGLE TWIN’s commanding sound delivers like a tectonic force, where doom and blues collide. Gentry Densley’s dominating low-end vocal tone is like an instrument in itself, rumbling alongside towering riffs, and Tyler Smith’s powerful rhythmic propulsion. It is a compelling combination, particularly when you add melodious bluesy romp to the equation. Equally prevailing are the stories that shape EAGLE TWIN’s musical output, drawing upon folklore, and strongly informed by recent happenings in the world. Observing our relationship to nature, and the band’s own surroundings in the dead salt seas of Utah are themes that feature frequently across their musical canon. The Thundering Heard continues where the previous album, The Feather Tipped The Serpent’s Scale ended.
The Thundering Heard is available on LP, CD, and digital formats through Southern Lord; find physical order options HERE and digital at Bandcamp HERE.
EAGLE TWIN European Tour Dates: 10/04/2018 dB’s – Utrecht, NL 10/05/2018 Høstsabbat Festival – Oslo, NO 10/06/2018 Hot Alte Bude – Madgeburg, DE 10/07/2018 Hühnermanhattan – Halle, DE 10/08/2018 Klub 007 Strahov – Prague, CZ 10/09/2018 Channel Zero – Lubjiana, SI 10/10/2018 Circolo Kroen – Verona, IT 10/11/2018 Kraken – Milano, IT 10/12/2018 Le Bal Doom Doom 3 – Lyon, FR 10/13/2018 Olympic Cafè – Paris, FR 10/14/2018 Antwerp Desert Fest – Antwerp, BE
EAGLE TWIN: Gentry Densley – guitar/vocals Tyler Smith – drums
I’m pretty sure this Quarterly Review — life eater that it is — is going to wind up being six days long. That means next Monday look for sixth installment, another batch of 10 records, which were not hard to come by among everything that’s come in lately for review. I do my best to keep up, often to little avail — some random act’s Bandcamp page starts trending and all of a sudden they’re the best band ever, which hey, they’re probably not and that’s okay too. Anyhowzer, I’m trying is the point. Hopefully another 10 records added into this Quarterly Review underscores that notion.
More coffee. More albums. Let’s rock.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
Eagle Twin, The Thundering Heard (Songs of Hoof and Horn)
Consuming tones, throat-sung blues, a wash of lumbering doom – yes, it’s quite a first three minutes on Eagle Twin’s The Thundering Heard (Songs of Hoof and Horn). Released by Southern Lord, it’s the Salt Lake City duo’s first outing since 2012’s The Feather Tipped the Serpent’s Scale (discussed here), which arrived three years after their 2009 debut, The Unkindness of Crows (review here). Once again, the four-song outing finds guitarist/vocalist Gentry Densley and drummer Tyler Smith exploring the natural order and the natural world the 11-minute “Quanah un Rama” and the 14-minute “Antlers of Lightning” bookend “Elk Wolfv Hymn” (8:22) and album highlight “Heavy Hood” (7:21), creating an ever-more immersive and grit-laden flow across the album’s span. It’s hard to know if Densley and Smith are the hunters or the hunted here, but the tones are massive enough to make YOB blush, the rhythms are hypnotic and the use they’re both put to is still unlike anything else out there, ending after the chaos and assault of low end on “Antlers of Lightning” with a moment of contemplative guitar lead, as if to remind us of our solitary place in imagining ourselves at the top of the food chain.
One wonders what it might’ve been like to see Wight on the 2015 tour on which the Bilocation Records-issued vinyl-only Fusion Rock Invasion: Live Over Europe was captured. Still a year out from releasing their third album, Love is Not Only What You Know (review here), the former trio had already become a four-piece with guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist René Hofmann, bassist Peter-Philipp Schierhorn and drummer Thomas Kurek bringing in percussionist Steffen Kirchpfening and already undertaken the funkier aesthetic turn that LP would represent coming off of 2012’s Through the Woods into Deep Water (review here). At least I’d think it would be something of a surprise as the band hit into “Helicopter Mama” and “The Muse & the Mule” and “Kelele,” which comprise side A of Fusion Rock Invasion, but by all appearances listening to the crowd response between songs, they seem into it. Who could argue? Wight’s groove in those songs as well as the older “Master of Nuggets” and Love is Not Only What You Know finale “The Love for Life Leads to Reincarnation” on side B, are infectious in their grooves and the soul put into them is genuine and unmistakable. One more reason I wouldn’t have minded being there, I suppose.
Name your bet someone picks up Sundrifter’s Visitations for a proper release. The Boston three-piece of vocalist/guitarist Craig Peura, bassist Paul Gaughran and drummer Patrick Queenan impress in performance, aesthetic and craft across the nine songs and 48 minute of their for-now-self-released debut long-player, and whether it’s Queenan dipping into blastbeats on “Targeted” or Gaughran’s rumble on the Soundgarden-gone-doom “Fire in the Sky” or the fuzz that leads the charge on the Queens of the Stone Age-style “Hammerburn,” Peura doing a decent Josh Homme along the way, each member proves to add something to a whole greater than the sum of its parts and that is able to take familiar elements and use them to hone an individualized atmosphere. In the wake of melodically engaged Boston acts like Gozu, Sundrifter would seem to be a focused newcomer with a solidified mindset of who they are as a group. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised either if they kept growing their sound. Something about the psychedelic distance in “Fire in the Sky” and “I Want to Leave,” says there’s forward movement yet to be had.
Serenity and presence. There’s no shortage of either on the second Holy Mushroom full-length, Moon. Incorporating the prior-issued digital single “Éufrates,” the five-track/43-minute excursion is rife with natural-toned psychedelic resonance, marked out by organ/piano working alongside the guitar (see “Birdwax Blues”), as well as guest contributions of double bass and saxophone, and other sundry moments of depth-creating flourish. Their trance-effect is palpable, and Moon is an easy album to get lost in, especially as the Spanish three-piece make their way through 12:35 centerpiece “The Preacher,” moving from a dreamy opening line of guitar into funk-laden heft that only pushes forward with Hendrixian abandon through a massive jam before rounding out sweetly with vocals over background organ and sweetly-strummed guitar. “Éufrates” would seem to start the same way, but varies the structure in more of a back and forth format before closer “Grand Finale in the Blind Desert” brings both Holy Mushroom’s most patient execution and their most vibrant jam (sax included), essentially building from the one into the other to end the album in energetic fashion. To say it works for them would be underselling it.
A debut long-player of no-pretense, no-nonsense sludge-infused doom, Petrichor (on Backbite Records) shows German five-piece Iron and Stone as ready to follow where the riff will lead them. The late 2017 album is a solidly-delivered 10 tracks and 43 minutes that strikes mostly in monochrome intent, save perhaps for the acoustic “Interlude” near the midpoint. Their 2015 EP, Old Man’s Doom (review here), was similarly upfront in its purposes, but carrying across a full-length – especially a debut – is a different beast from a shorter outing. Their heavier push on “Monolith” is welcome and the break-then-chug of “Deserts” does plenty to satisfy, but Petrichor might require a couple concerted listens to really sink in on its audience, though as I’ve said time and again, if you can’t handle repetition, you can’t handle doom. Iron and Stone effectively balance traditional doom and rawer sludge groove, playing fluidly to whichever suits their purposes at a given moment.
Sardinian doom cult Black Capricorn push well beyond the limits of the manageable with their 95-minute fourth album, Omega (released Nov. 2017 on Stone Stallion Rex), and that’s clearly the idea. The three-piece of bassist Virginia, drummer Rakela and guitarist/vocalist Kjxu offer grim ambience and tempos that sound slow regardless of their actual speed. That said, the 17-minute “Antartide” is an accomplishment as regards crawl. After a sweetly melancholic opening of guitar, it lurches and lumbers out its miserable heft until a return to that intro bookends. Even shorter tracks like “Flower of Revelation” or “Stars of Orion” hold firm to the tenet of plod, and though the results are obviously a lot to take in, the idea that it should be a slog seems all the more appropriate to Black Capricorn’s style. The band, which hits the decade mark in 2018, churn out one last bit of wretchedness in the nine-minute closing title-track before giving way to an acoustic finish, as if to remind that Omega’s sorrows are conveyed as much through atmosphere as actual sonic heft.
Guitarist/vocalist Simon Tuozzoli, also of malevolent doomers Vestal Claret, leads the new trio Owl Maker, and in the company of bassist Jessie May and drummer Chris Anderson, he embarks on a heavy rock push of six tracks with the debut EP, Paths of the Slain, still holding to some elements of metal, whether it’s the double-kick in opener “Ride with Aileen” or the backing vocals and guitar solo of the subsequent “99.” Songwriting is clearheaded across the EP’s 23 minutes, and in terms of first impressions, “Mashiara” shows a focus on melody that retains a metallic poise without losing its riff-driven edge. The balance shifts throughout “Freya’s Chariot” and the all-go “Witches,” the latter of which touches on black metal in its first half before turning on a dime to mid-paced heavy rock, and closer “Lady Stoneheart” nods in its back end to NWOBHM gallop, as Owl Maker seem to tip their audience to the fact that they’re just getting started on their exploration of the many interpretations of heavy.
When one considers the multiple connotations of the word, Portland’s Troll are definitely going more for “lives under a bridge” than “meddling in elections” when it comes to their sound. Their self-titled debut EP, issued in 2017 before being picked up by respected purveyor Shadow Kingdom Records for a 2018 CD/tape release, is a highlight offering of classic-style doom worthy of Orodruin and Pilgrim comparisons and headlined by the vocal performance of John, who carries songs like opener “The Summoning” and the later, more swinging “Infinite Death” in a manner impressive in both frontman presence and melodic range. His work is only bolstered by the riffs of guitarist Lou and the consistent groove held together by bassist Wayne and drummer Ryan, whose drive in centerpiece “An Eternal Haunting” is neither overdone nor incongruous with the wall its tempo hits, and who meld shuffle and plod on closer “Savage Thunder” with naturalist ease. Potential abounds, and they reportedly already have new material in the works, so all the better.
Some bands, you just have to accept the fact that they’re on a different wavelength and that’s all there is to it. Magma. Master Musicians of Bukkake. Circle. Enter Oakland, California’s Malditos, whose sophomore outing, II: La Réve, arrives via Svart Records. From bizarre psychedelic chants to ritualized repetitions that seems to be daring you to play them backwards on your turntable, the spiritual freakout to songs like “Azadeh” and the penultimate “Momen” is palpable. Reach out and touch it and it will ripple like water in front of you. A sense of space is filled with elements alternatingly horrifying and engrossing, and after they make their way through “Le Passage” and centerpiece “Disparu” and wind up in the title-track to close out, the journey to the final wash of noise gives the distinct impression that for neither the listener nor the band is there any coming back. High order head trippery. Will simply be too much for some, will gloriously expand the minds of others.
The Freak Folk of Mangrovia, Sonic Meditations: Live @ Palach
I don’t know how much improvisation is a factor in the sound of The Freak Folk of Mangrovia, but the Croation collective bring an ultra-organic presence to their perhaps-debut release, Sonic Meditations: Live @ Palach. The group, which seems also to have gone under the names Marko Mushan & the Mangrovian Orchestra and The Free Folk of Mangrovia, was opening for Acid Mothers Temple that night, and Sonic Meditations mostly breaks down into parts – “Sonic Meditation I,” “II,” “III” and “IV” – before the band closes out with “’Mangrovian Summer,” all the while with The Freak Folk of Mangrovia making their way through progressive dreamscapes, dripping with effects and spacious enough to house an entire Mangrovian village, however big that might be. It is otherworldly and jazzy and moves with such fluidity that the entire “Sonic Meditation” becomes one overarching piece, complemented by the closing “Mangrovian Summer,” which ebbs and flows through louder, more active jamming before capping in a wash of noise.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 2nd, 2018 by JJ Koczan
It says something about Utah two-piece Eagle Twin that even more than half a decade after the release of their last full-length, The Feather Tipped the Serpent’s Scale (discussed here), which came out in 2012, they require next to no introduction. The Salt Lake City duo, who debuted in 2009 with The Unkindness of Crows (review here) will issue their third long-player, The Thundering Heard (Songs of Hoof and Horn), on March 30 via Southern Lord. No audio as yet — there are only four tracks on the thing, so I suspect it’ll be a teaser before a quarter of the album suddenly shows up somewhere, but if you needed another reason to look forward to the coming of Spring, this should do nicely anyhow.
The PR wire brings tales of man’s interaction with the natural world
EAGLE TWIN: Utah Duo Prepares To Issue The Thundering Heard (Songs Of Hoof And Horn) Via Southern Lord In March; Artwork And Track Listing Released
Salt Lake City-based duo EAGLE TWIN will release their long-awaited third LP, The Thundering Heard (Songs Of Hoof And Horn), on March 30th via Southern Lord.
EAGLE TWIN’s commanding sound delivers like a tectonic force, where doom and blues collide. Gentry Densley’s dominating low-end vocal tone is like an instrument in itself, rumbling alongside towering riffs, and Tyler Smith’s powerful rhythmic propulsion. It is a compelling combination, particularly when you add melodious bluesy romp to the equation.
Equally prevailing are the stories that shape EAGLE TWIN’s musical output, drawing upon folklore, and also strongly informed by recent happenings in the world. Observing our relationship to nature, and the band’s own surroundings in the dead salt seas of Utah are themes that feature frequently across their musical canon. The Thundering Heard continues where the previous album The Feather Tipped The Serpent’s Scale ended.
In the band’s own words, “As the great snake grew giant fractal antlers of snakes and turned in upon itself creating a new world, the mountains rise, and the antlers stab through like trees across the landscape. The record begins with the hoofed and horned animals of our world running from mountains and forests on fire. Eerily harkening to the recent events in California and the massive devastation by fire across the land.”
Southern Lord will release The Thundering Heard on LP, CD, and digital formats on March 30th. Audio previews, preorder info, tour dates, and more on the album to follow in the weeks ahead.
The Thundering Heard (Songs Of Hoof And Horn) Track Listing: 1. Quanah Un Rama 2. Elk Wolfv Hymn 3. Heavy Hoof 4. Antlers Of Lightning
EAGLE TWIN: Gentry Densley – guitar/vocals Tyler Smith – drums
