Greek sludge rockers Last Rizla release their new album, Noise Without Decay, on May 12 through Venerate Industries. And, well, I’ve heard it, and there’s lots of noise and not much decay, at least in terms of force-of-delivery, as the four-piece of G., C., K. and S. — it’s okay dudes, my name is initials too — craft the follow-up to their 2018 EP Mount Machine (review here), their sound is cast like a cruel shadow over the 40 minutes and nine cuts. Depending on what and when you count, Noise Without Decay is the band’s first long-player since 2009’s self-titled debut, but for a band who’ve shown such a penchant for doling out short offerings and splits, etc., over the intervening 14-plus years, they in no way seem uncomfortable in the form. You’d think they wouldn’t be used to it or something, but no.
The actual level of punishment meted out in a given song might vary, but Last Rizla are almost uniformly aggressive. Even the later “Mushy Peas,” which starts out at a sort of bopping-along-casual groove, shifts into more pointed, angular starts and stops and is topped by the blown-out shouts that populate each piece and give the entirety of Noise Without Decay such a post-hardcore vibe. But true to Freek Greek heavy, the story isn’t so simple as band-plays-style, and even truer to the Hellenic underground, Last Rizla know which rules they want to follow and which they want to break. Bookending opener “B52” and closer “B53” fuse punkish bite with tonal heft, and especially in the instrumental finale, they seem to be going for some nod to the ‘bomb-tone’ ethic of Floor, but even there, they keep a rock production, and the rounded edges of their tone and the methodical execution of “Bloody, Hairy” speak to a root in doom/sludge, no matter the actual tempo at which a song is delivered, be it the rager “No Way Out” answering the near-immediate burst of “B52” or the strident “Hades,” which is the longest track at 6:24 and reminds in its howling guitar offsetting dense tonal chug of Swarm of the Lotus, albeit not as harshly produced.
Which is what I’m trying to get at here. Even as compared to Mount Machine — and granted that was five years ago at this point, or four if you want to go by the fact that these songs were recorded nearly a year ago — the recording here by Iraklis Vlachakisallows for some breadth and the creation of an atmosphere of more than aggression or bludgeoning. As consistent as the shouting, hard-riffing and nodding grooves are throughout, Last Rizla circa this maybe-second full-length aren’t just one thing, even when they’re trying to convince you otherwise, and the movement behind their sludge is palpable. They make it rock, sprint, or stand up and bring itself down directly on the listener’s head with little thought to mercy or the manner in which that kind of violence tends to ripple. While even the title speaks to a kind of urgency, the material offers that and grit alike, mining individualism from the swaying build-up of centerpiece “The Debt” ahead of the more sprawling “Hades” and the caustic noise rocker “Classic Marathon,” which is duly stripped-down feeling at 3:47 and answers the earlier insistence of “Rebound” in its midtempo post-’90s nastiness.
Still, for as much as Last Rizla gnash and rip and tear and claw throughout the nine-song stretch, there’s depth to the proceedings — “Bloody, Hairy” drops a lyrical reference to misfortune, reminding that Last Rizla once upon a 2011 were involved in the Miss Fortune was a Henhouse Manager (review here) comp of then-up-and-coming Greek acts like 1000mods, Sadhus, the Smoking Community, Bad Trip, Yassa and others — and as their scene comes to maturity within some of those other groups and without, Last Rizla provide a balance (a mix by Kowloon Walled City‘s Scott Evans doesn’t hurt there either) between bombast and purpose, and the places they go throughout Noise Without Decay are engaging almost in spite of themselves. If you can hang with pissed off sludge rock, that’s still very much at the foundation, but they show that such designations can be as much a beginning as an end all through the record, and while “B53” ends in done-blown-up noise — think Neurosis consumed by the distortion at the end of “Stones From the Sky”; you can hear it in the video below — even in that last moment, there’s no letup, no decay, no flinching from the purpose they’ve established as their own. The word for that kind of thing is “righteous,” and so they are.
Life is full of surprises and if you had ‘Last Rizla roaring back with a more mature and still-plenty-brash second full-length’ on your 2023 Heavy Underground Bingo card, I salute you, but either way, the pit they dig out in this new batch of songs isn’t to be underestimated, and one might find that the more one listens to Noise Without Decay, the more likely skin is to crawl. Don’t worry though, that’s the whole idea. It’s supposed to make that happen. So let it.
The clip below is the premiere of “Rebound,” and should give you some idea of what the band are going for in terms of general construction/destruction throughout. By all means, please dig in and enjoy:
Last Rizla, “Rebound” video premiere
We recorded Noise Without Decay during May and June 2022 in our studio, Créme Chalet, in Kallithea, Athens, Greece.
This city is ruthless, constant and grey. The weather was and has been swinging between dark and stormy but at times sunny and mostly warm.
Noise Without Decay was recorded by Iraklis Vlachakis, mixed by Scott Evans (Antisleep Audio – also guitarist for Kowloon Walled City) and mastered by Saff Mastering.
Like good sauerkraut, it’s now fermenting and will be released by Venerate Industries this May.
Last Rizla, Noise Without Decay behind-the-scenes video
Posted in Reviews on April 13th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Oh hi, I’m pretending I didn’t see you there. Today the Spring 2023 Quarterly Review hits and — if Apollo is willing — passes the halfway point en route to 70 total records to be covered by the end of next Tuesday. Then there’s another 50 at least to come next month, so I don’t know what ‘quarter’ that’s gonna be but I don’t really have another name for this kind of roundup just sitting in my back pocket, so if we have to fudge one or expand Spring in such a way, I sincerely doubt anyone but me actually cares that it’s a little weird this time through. And I’m not even sure I care, to be honest. Surely “notice” would be a better word.
Either way, thanks for reading. Hope you’ve found something cool thus far and hope you find more today. Let’s roll.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
Rotor, Sieben
Seven full-lengths and a quarter-century later, it’s nigh on impossible to argue with Berlin instrumentalists Rotor. Sieben — or simply 7, depending on where you look — is their latest offering, and in addition to embracing heavy psychedelia with enough tonal warmth on “Aller Tage Abend” to remind that they’re contemporaries to Colour Haze, the seven-song/38-minute LP has room for the jazzy classic prog flashes of “Mäander” later on and the more straight-ahead fuzzy crunch of “Reibach,” which opens, and the contrast offered by the acoustic guitar and friendly roll that emerges on the closing title-track. Dug into the groove and Euro-size XXL (that’s XL to Americans) riffing of “Kahlschlag,” there’s never a doubt that it’s Rotor you’re hearing, and the same is true of “Aller Tage Abend,” the easy-nodding second half and desert-style chop of “Schabracke,” and everything else; the simple fact is that Rotor these 25 years on can be and in fact are all of these things and more besides while also being a band who have absolutely nothing to prove. Sieben celebrates their progression, the riffs at their roots, the old and new in their makeup and the mastery with which they’ve made the notion of ‘instrumental heavy rock’ so much their own. It’s a lesson gladly learned again, and 2023 is a better year with Sieben in it.
Athens-based sludge-and-then-some rockers Seer of the Void follow their successful 2020 debut, Revenant, with the more expansive Mantra Monolith, enacting growth on multiple levels, be it the production and general largesse of their sound, the songs becoming a bit longer (on average) or the ability to shift tempos smoothly between “Electric Father” and “Death is My Name” without giving up either momentum or the attitude as emphasized in the gritty vocals of bassist Greg “Maddog” Konstantaras. Side B’s “Demon’s Hand” offers a standout moment of greater intensity, but Seer of the Void are hardly staid elsewhere, whether it’s the swinging verse of “Hex” that emerges from the massive intro, or the punkish vibe underscoring the nonetheless-metal head-down chug in the eponymous “Seer of the Void.” They cap with a clearheaded fuzzy solo in “Necromancer,” seeming to answer the earlier “Seventh Son,” and thereby highlight the diversity manifest from their evolution in progress, but if one enjoyed the rougher shoves of Revenant (or didn’t; prior experience isn’t a barrier to entry), there remains plenty of that kind of tonal and rhythmic physicality in Mantra Monolith.
Organic roots doom from the trio Moodoom — guitarist/vocalist Cristian Marchesi, bassist/vocalist Jonathan Callejas and drummer Javier Cervetti — captured en vivo in the band’s native Buenos Aires, Desde el Bosque is the trio’s second LP and is comprised of five gorgeous tracks of Sabbath-worshiping heavy blues boogie, marked by standout performances from Marchesi and Callejas often together on vocals, and the sleek Iommic riffing that accounts as well for the solos layered across channels in the penultimate “Nadie Bajará,” which is just three minutes long but speaks volumes on what the band are all about, which is keep-it-casual mellow-mover heavy, the six-minute titular opening/longest track (immediate points) swaggering to its own swing as meted out by Cervetti with a proto-doomly slowdown right in the middle before the lightly-funked solo comes in, and the finale “Las Maravillas de Estar Loco” (‘the wonders of being crazy,’ in English) rides the line between heavy rock and doom with no less grace, introducing a line of organ or maybe guitar effects along with the flawless groove proffered by Callejas and Cervetti. It’s only 23 minutes long, but definitely an album, and exactly the way a classic-style power trio is supposed to work. Gorgeously done, and near-infinite in its listenability.
The second release and debut full-length from New Jersey-based trio Altered States runs seven tracks and 34 minutes and finds individualism in running a thread through influences from doom and heavy rock, elder hardcore and metal, resulting in the synth-laced stylistic intangibility of “A Murder of Crows” on side A and the smoothly-delivered proportion of riff in the eponymous “Altered States” later on, bassist Zack Kurland (Green Dragon, ex-Sweet Diesel, etc.) taking over lead vocals in the verse to let guitarist/synthesist Ryan Lipynsky (Unearthly Trance, Serpentine Path, The Howling Wind, etc.) take the chorus, while drummer Chris Daly (Texas is the Reason, Resurrection, 108, etc.) punctuates the urgency in opener “The Crossing” and reinforces the nod of “Cerberus.” There’s an exploration of dynamic underway on multiple levels throughout, whether it’s the guitar and keys each feeling out their space in the mix, or the guitar and bass, vocal arrangements, and so on, but with the atmospheric centerpiece “Hurt” — plus that fuzz right around the 2:30 mark before the build around the album’s title line — just two songs past the Motörheaded “Mycelium,” it’s clear that however in-development their sound may be, Altered States already want for nothing as regards reaching out from their doom rocking center, which is that much richer with multiple songwriters behind it.
Opener and longest track (immediate points) “Queen of Wands” is so hypnotic you almost don’t expect its seven minutes to end, but of course they do, and Italian strange-psych whatevernauts Giöbia proceed from there to float guitar over and vocals over the crunched-down “The Sweetest Nightmare” before the breadth of “Consciousness Equals Energy” and “Screaming Souls” melds outer-rim-of-the-galaxy space prog with persistently-tripped Europsych lushness, heavy in its underpinnings but largely unrestrained by gravity or concerns for genre. Acid Disorder is the maybe-fifth long-player from the Italian cosmic rocking aural outsiders, and their willingness to dive into the unknown is writ large through the synth and organ layers and prominent strum of “Blood is Gone,” the mix itself becoming no less an instrument in the band’s collective hand than the guitar, bass, drums, vocals, etc. Ultra-fluid throughout (duh), the eight-songer tops out around 44 minutes and is an adventure for the duration, the drift of side B’s instrumental “Circo Galattico” reveling in experimentalism over a somehow-solidified rhythm while “In Line” complements in answer to “The Sweetest Nightmare” picking up from “Queen of Wands” at the outset, leaving the closing title-track on its own, which seems to fit its synth-and-sitar-laced serenity just fine. Band sounds like everything and nobody but themselves, reliably.
Like everything, Milwaukee heavy psychedelia purveyors Astral Hand were born out of destruction. In this case, it’s the four-piece’s former outfit Calliope that went nova, resulting in the recycling of cosmic gasses and gravitational ignition wrought in the debut album Lords of Data‘s eight songs, the re-ish-born new band benefitting from the experience of the old as evidenced by the patient unfolding of side A capper “Psychedelicide,” the defining hook in “Universe Machine” and the shove-then-drone-then-shove in “End of Man” and the immersive heft in opener “Not Alone” that brings the listener deep into the nod from the very start of the first organ notes so that by the time they’ve gone as far out as the open spaces of “Navigator” and the concluding “God Emperor,” their emergent command of the ethereal is unquestionable. They work a little shuffle into that finale, which is an engaging touch, but Lords of Data — a thoroughly modern idea — isn’t limited to that any more than it is the atmospheric grandiosity and lumber of “Crystal Gate” that launches side B. One way or the other, these dudes have been at it for more than a decade going back to the start of Calliope, but Astral Hand is a stirring refresh of purpose on their part and one hopes their lordship continues to flourish. I don’t know that they’re interested in such terrestrial concerns, but they’d be a great pickup for some discerning label.
Slow-churning intensity is the order of the day on Scatter Yr Darkness, the eight-song sophomore LP from now-Italy-based solo-outfit Golden Bats, aka Geordie Stafford, who sure enough sprinkles death, rot and no shortage of darkness across the album’s 41-minute span, telling tales through metaphor in poetic lyrics of pandemic-era miseries; civic unrest and disaffection running like a needle through split skin to join the various pieces together. Echoing shouts give emphasis to the rawness of the sludge in “Holographic Stench” and “Erbgrind,” but in that eight-minute cut there’s a drop to cinematic, not-actually-minimalist-but-low-volume string sounds, and “Breathe Misery” begins with Mellotron-ish melancholy that hints toward the synth at the culmination of “A Savage Dod” and in the middle of “Malingering,” so nothing is actually so simple as the caustic surface makes it appear. Drums are programmed and the organ in “Bravo Sinkhole” and other keys may be as well, I don’t know, but as Stafford digs into Golden Bats sonically and conceptually — be it the bareknuckle “Riding in the Captain’s Skull” at the start or the raw-throated vocal echo spread over “The Gold Standard of Suffering,” which closes — the harshness of expression goes beyond the aural. It’s been a difficult few years, admittedly.
Straightforward in a way that feels oldschool in speaking to turn-of-the-century era heavy rock influences — big Karma to Burn vibe in the riffs of “Hollow,” and not by any means only there — the debut album Mammals from Danish trio Zeup benefits from decades of history in metal and rock on the part of drummer Morten Barth (ex-Wasted) and bassist/producer Morten Rold (ex-Beyond Serenity), and with non-Morten guitarist Jakob Bach Kristensen (also production) sharing vocals with Rold, they bring a down-to-business sensibility to their eight component tracks that can’t be faked. That’s consistent with 2020’s Blind EP (review here) and a fitting demonstration for any who’d take it on that sometimes you don’t need anything more than the basic guitar, bass, drums, vocals when the songs are there. Sure, they take some time to explore in the seven-minute instrumental “Escape” before hitting ground again in the aptly-titled slow post-hardcore-informed closer “In Real Life,” but even that is executed with clear intention and purpose beyond jamming. I’ll go with “Rising” as a highlight, but it’s a pick-your-poison kind of record, and there’s an awful lot that’s going to sound needlessly complicated in comparison.
Grounded to the Sky is the third LP from Germany’s Giant Sleep, and with it the band hones a deceptively complex scope drawn together in part by vocalist Thomas Rosenmerkel, who earns the showcase position with rousing blues-informed performances on the otherwise Tool-ish prog metal title-track and the later-Soundgardening leadoff before it, “Silent Field.” On CD and digital, the record sprawls across nearly an hour, but the vinyl edition is somewhat tighter, leaving off “Shadow Walker” and “The Elixir” in favor of a 43-minute run that puts the 4:43 rocker “Sour Milk” in the closer position, not insubstantially changing the personality of the record. Founded by guitarist Patrick Hagmann, with Rosenmerkel in the lineup as well as guitarist/backing vocalist Tobias Glanzmann (presumably that’ll be him in the under-layer of “Siren Song”), bassist Radek Stecki and drummer Manuel Spänhauer, they sound full as a five-piece and are crisp in their production and delivery even in the atmospherically minded “Davos,” which dares some float and drift along with a political commentary and feels like it’s taking no fewer chances in doing so, and generally come across as knowing who they are as a band and what they want to do with their sound, then doing it. In fact, they sound so sure, I’m not even certain why they sent the record out for review. They very obviously know they nailed what they were going for, and yes, they did.
It’s telling that even the CD version of Green Yeti‘s Necropolitan breaks its seven tracks down across two sides. The Athens trio of guitarist/vocalist Michael Andresakis, bassist Dani Avramidis and drummer Giannis Koutroumpis touch on psychedelic groove in the album-intro “Syracuse” before turning over to the pure post-Kyuss rocker “Witch Dive,” which Andresakis doing an admirable John Garcia in the process, before the instrumental “Jupiter 362” builds tension for five minutes without ever exploding, instead giving out to the quiet start of side A’s finish in “Golgotha,” which likewise builds but turns to harsher sludge rock topped by shouts and screams in the midsection en route to an outright cacophonous second half. That unexpected turn — really, the series of them — makes it such that as the bass-swinging “Dirty Lung” starts its rollout on side B, you don’t know what’s coming. The answer is half-Sleepy ultra-burl, but still. “Kerosene” stretches out the desert vibe somewhat, but holds a nasty edge to it, and the nine-minute “One More Bite,” which closes the record, has a central nod but feels at any moment like it might swap it for further assault. Does it? It’s worth listening to the record front to back to find out. Hail Greek heavy, and Green Yeti‘s willingness to pluck from microgenre at will is a good reason why.
Posted in Questionnaire on June 3rd, 2021 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: Takis Chaloulakos of ADAM
—
How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I make gloomy rock music. I write songs about the human psyche, the occult, toxic relationships and whatever random Wikipedia article I come across. I guess I started doing that because I had to find a way to express myself.
Describe your first musical memory.
My father playing records by the Doors and Elvis Presley for me when I was two years old or something. I guess this must be when I really fell in love with music.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
August 21, 2012. Genesis. The jam session that started it all. I hadn’t seen the guys in a while, so we got together for a couple of beers at the Dungeon (aka our practice space / hang out spot). One thing led to another and we ended up jamming for two hours straight. Might sound corny but this thing was transcendental. After it was over, we sat down and looked at each other and said that we should start a band. That’s how ADAM was born. That particular jam ended up as track #1 on SUN.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
I guess it was more of a slow process. Growing up and realizing that the world around you is far more weirder and darker than you thought it really was.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
You can lead it wherever you feel like or just lay back on the passenger seat and let it grab the wheel. You can discover more about you or art in general, perhaps find interesting stuff you’d never known you had in you. All you need is honesty and an open mind.
How do you define success?
For me, success is going to bed every night, being happy knowing the fact that you get to do what you love, just the way you want it. Fame, money and recognition are major bonus factors but not as important as knowing that your art moved and helped others.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
I watched a guy dive from the third floor and crash headfirst into the pavement about five feet away from me when I was 16 years old. I’d still take that over the Star Wars sequels, easy.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I’d like to experiment more, use weirder noises and song structures. I’d love to go heavier, maybe tune down even lower. And I’d really love to make a movie soundtrack. Or multiple soundtracks.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Art is your friend in the darkness. It’s there to animate the most important moments in your life. Art is meant to touch you, guide you, make you a better person. Art helps you get in touch with your true self and the deepest parts of your psyche. It helps you get to know and understand the world around you.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Looking forward to gyms finally opening up around here. Getting to lift again after almost seven months of all around debauchery.
allows for some breadth and the creation of an atmosphere of more than aggression or bludgeoning. As consistent as the shouting, hard-riffing and nodding grooves are throughout, Last Rizla circa this maybe-second full-length aren’t just one thing, even when they’re trying to convince you otherwise, and the movement behind their sludge is palpable. They make it rock, sprint, or stand up and bring itself down directly on the listener’s head with little thought to mercy or the manner in which that kind of violence tends to ripple. While even the title speaks to a kind of urgency, the material offers that and grit alike, mining individualism from the swaying build-up of centerpiece “The Debt” ahead of the more sprawling “Hades” and the caustic noise rocker “Classic Marathon,” which is duly stripped-down feeling at 3:47 and answers the earlier insistence of “Rebound” in its midtempo post-’90s nastiness.
