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: Stefano Fiorelli of Warcoe

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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

I am finally doing what I want, musically speaking. That is blending all my music influences and what I like into guitar and vocals and writing my own songs. Now I’ll tell you how I got here. I started playing the guitar as a kid, as most of us do, jumping from a band to another doing many different styles of metal, exploring other instruments as the drums or bass but always singing in the band I was in.

Some years ago I decided that it was time for me to have a defined musical identity, to fulfill all the needs I have I terms of writing music, and this is Warcoe. We started as a trio, now we are four. Mind that I am not a dictator, one that wants to decide everything, I listen to my mates when they are willing to participate in the process of composition but I want to take the responsibility if something goes wrong, so we decided that I have to have the last word.

This is very satisfying, but I think this is transitory, it is my identity now.

Plus I have a black metal side-project, so I must have multiple ones.

Describe your first musical memory.

The very first ones are Japanese cartoons soundtracks, but speaking of more mature stages of my life the first LP I bought was No Rest for the Wicked of Ozzy. But before that there were tapes lent to me by my young uncle and that was Black Sabbath’s Black Sabbath. I have the intro of that song carved in my ears, that brought to me so many emotions when I was a kid. I have so many places connected to that track in my memory, that were probably the places where I was when I listened to it from a Walkman.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

I have seen Black Sabbath (without Bill Ward) in 2014 and that was emotional. But it’s very hard to answer to this question, there are many black metal bands that I really enjoyed seeing live in many different venues, from very small ones to very big. I have enjoyed a lot Megadeth and Pantera back when they were the real deal. You might not expect this but I have seen Blur one time in the ’90s and I think that they are amazing musicians, I loved that gig.

Anyway I have musical memories not necessarily bonded to live shows, there are moments, fragments of my life that I can relate to a certain track from a certain band, or longer periods that can be linked to an album, music is so much part of me.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

Luckily I can say this does not happen often, at least in the sphere of my existence. I am quite open-minded and flexible in terms of beliefs so when I am involved in something that I have to accept I make an effort and go on. I learnt by experience to avoid putting myself in situation where my belief are tested so hard.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

First of all it’s not so taken for granted that one has an artistic progression. For me art is like an explosion, it just happens and then it ends leaving destruction behind, and you have to build something with the remains. In the best scenario there is a progression, when the artist evolves as human being and takes the art behind him, but I think in this case you are not simply an artist but a great one, when art actually is your life, or your life is actually art.

How do you define success?

Success is like immortality, leaving something behind, like a footprint. And a small thing is enough, it’s not necessary to write a masterpiece, but if your record will be remembered after you, that’s enough success for me.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

Oh a lot of things, but everything I have seen it’s part of this world and there is good in this world, but you have to take the bad part as well to be able to appreciate the good. There are many things that I don’t like but they somehow need to exist to create the other part, you have to have the night to be able to live the day. And you learn from the bad things that you do, that’s so important.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

I would like to create a classic as Carcass’ Heartwork, a perfect album. The one that everyone knows and play over and over again, the one that sets the standards. But I know that’s hard and require a lot of work, and the talent! And I have a very instinctive music writing, I don’t think I have the attention for the details that is required.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

That’s a very nice question, on my opinion art defines the time in which its made. Art is so important for the human being, because it tells, it reveals the intimate spirit of the man. Art is the photography of its time, and very often it’s ahead of its time. The function it has is to make life better, I really think art makes life better, that’s why is necessary. Music, photography, architecture, painting, they all are food for the soul, and not only make life itself better, but make you a better person.

“Il bello” as we call it in Italian, that may be translated in “the good looking” is what helps you to see the world with a different eye. I love when someone thinks that something that I think it’s ugly is nice, because I am able to see it with different eyes and I love when I can see the good where instead I don’t see it. Or the musical where I don’t hear it.

Avant-garde art is so important because it looks into the future in a way that even science cannot. Thus its often misunderstood.

Say something positive about yourself.

I tend to forgive. I am not the one that holds the grudge. For me everyday is a new day, a new start where things can change. That’s something that I can’t control, It’s just the way I am.
And I see a lot of people that spend hours saying bad things about other people, judging, criticizing, thinking to be better than the rest of the world, that’s something I don’t do, I don’t talk about people that are not present and if I do, I only say nice things.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

I would like to be a better dad, not because I think I am not, but because you can always try harder. When you are a parent you never know if you are doing the right thing, even if everyone thinks you are, you’ll know later. It will always be like this for all your kids’ life and you can’t stop trying to be better. As Socrates said, “I know that I don’t know.” That’s exactly what being a dad is.

You put yourself aside, change your priorities but only in the end you’ll know what you did good and what you did not.

Thank you for these questions, they made me consider about existence and what music means to me and how much it’s part of my life, and where instead it’s not.

https://warcoe.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/warcoeband/
https://www.facebook.com/warcoeband

http://www.ripple-music.com/
https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/ripplemusic/
https://www.facebook.com/theripplemusic/

https://morbidandmiserable.com/
https://morbidandmiserable.storenvy.com/
https://morbidandmiserable.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/morbidandmiserable
https://www.facebook.com/morbidandmiserable

Warcoe, Upon Tall Thrones (2025)

Sept. 26 marks the release date for Upon Tall Thrones, the third full-length from Italian dark-arts conjurors Warcoe, who align for the first time with Ripple Music with tapes through Morbid and Miserable. And like their work to this point, the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Stefano Fiorelli, bassist Carlo and drummer Francesco dig wholeheartedly into a nuanced but still Sabbathian heavy. A doom that rocks that isn’t typical doom rock, and a doom that, using tangential Electric Wizardry as a bridge, is able to veer into more stonerly fuzz worship — see “The Wanderer” early and parts throughout the back half of the record — without losing its heft or cultish weirdness.

At nine songs/37 minutes, Upon Tall Thrones trades out the epic closer of 2023’s A Place for Demons (review here) for the more-compact-but-still-plenty-grand finale “Dark Into Light” — also the longest inclusion at 5:42, and an adventure besides — and while that’s in line with their debut, 2022’s The Giant’s Dream (review here), it nonetheless represents the general tightening of songcraft across the board. Whether it’s a darker piece like “I’ve Sat Upon Tall Thrones (But I’ll Never Learn)” (video premiering below, I hope) with a grunge twist in its chorus and a sense of the sinister that borders on aggressive without ever tipping over into caricature. At the album’s outset, “Octagon” establishes a patient roll and then almost immediately contrasts it with gallop. The effect this has on loosening expectations shouldn’t be understated when it comes to taking it on front-to-back.

Warcoe make that endeavor easy and fascinating. There is depth to what they do. There are elements in their sound and atmosphere one could trace to the likes of Judas Priest, Celtic Frost, Pagan Altar, and there are times where they come across in a way that wouldn’t have been out of place among the keepers of traditional doom on Hellhound Records in the 1990s. At the same time, there is an intricacy to their approach — it’s not all as straightforward as it sounds, here or on either of their other two records — and to their style that makes them difficult to place and lets them play around with the boundaries of genre as they will. The two-minute acoustic piece “Gather in the Woods” is paired with the keyboard-infused doom-chug march of the centerpiece, “Flame in Your Hand,” and because that fulcrum track happens also to be instrumental, Upon Tall Thrones finds a way to hypnotize despite the relatively straight-ahead crux of the material.

The setup works, and “Spheres” slaps back to something resembling reality, but the plot has shifted. Watery, almost Monolordian, vocals echo over riffs alternately boogieing, despondent or slacker-shoving, and hints of a more psychedelic lean are dropped. “Deepest Grave” accounts for this as well, but with more of the previously-noted, comparatively light Electric Wizard influence in its roll, and the penultimate “Brown Witch” is a poised heavy rocker that draws together the heft and the space thus far wrought in the songs. Digging deeper into the groove for the chorus, they’re careening by the end of the track, with Fiorelli‘s voice in layers carrying the melody, which feels transgressive of doom’s darkness but is heavy just the same. The title I’ll assume refers to “Brown” in the sense of Radagast the Brown from Lord of the Rings, referring to nature and dealing with the organic world, rather than someone’s skin color. I don’t have a lyric sheet, so that’s a choice I’ve made.

And in some days, “Dark Into Light” is the story of the record itself, ending as it does with metallic poise, weighted tones, a darker ambience at the outset and clear ambitions beyond as it progresses. It’s not a summary in terms of sound or tone necessarily, but it adds to the pastiche of the whole effort and is a signal of intentions toward continued growth on the part of Warcoe, whose identity is more vividly their own in this material than it’s ever been. The development that’s led them to this point has seen them become weirder and farther reaching in their songs. Upon Tall Thrones is declarative in the sense of encompassing and showcasing that identity, but the dark progressivism underlying these tracks does not feel like the sort to let its restlessness go now either.

That is to say, the sense across Upon Tall Thrones isn’t that Warcoe aren’t pushing themselves to try new things in their songs or explore different ideas — it’s pretty clear they are — but that where sometimes that process ebbs and a band settles into a sometimes-limiting self-conception of ‘their sound,’ Warcoe up to now have taken lessons from each outing and used them to move forward. A third full-length is a landmark in the life of most bands, and it may be for Warcoe as well, but it’s also part of a larger story the band are telling of their ongoing evolution.

Below you’ll find the video premiere for “I’ve Sat Upon Tall Thrones (But I’ll Never Learn),” followed by more info from the PR wire.

Please enjoy:

Warcoe, “I’ve Sat Upon Tall Thrones (But I’ll Never Learn)” video premiere

Hailing from Pesaro, Italy, Warcoe drags classic doom into the abyss and back with Sabbathian weight, Saint Vitus’ raw gloom, and the swagger of Trouble’s golden-era riffage. Since 2021, the trio has carved a niche in the underground with a sound that’s both a homage to the old gods and a fresh hell of its own: slow-burning, groove-heavy, and laced with stoner metal venom.

Their 2021 debut, “The Giant’s Dream”, emerged like a monolith from the depths, earning praise within the scene before Regain Records unleashed it on vinyl and CD — a fitting resurrection for an album steeped in doom’s primordial essence. The 2023 follow-up, “A Place for Demons”, proved Warcoe wasn’t just a relic revival act but a true force to be reckoned with. Landing at #2 on Doom Charts’ Best of December and #37 for the entire year, the album masterfully fused Trouble’s anthemic might with the creeping dread of Pentagram, all while swinging like Saxon in a candlelit crypt.

Now, with their third album and Ripple Music debut “Upon Tall Thrones”, Warcoe ascends — darker, heavier, and more hypnotic — as they spin tales of arcane fantasy and mortal frailty into riffs that crush and melodies that linger like a curse.

WARCOE “Upon Tall Thrones”
Out September 26th on Ripple Music (LP/CD/digital)
Preorder: https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/album/upon-tall-thrones

Tracklisting:
1. Octagon
2. The Wanderer
3. I’ve Sat Upon Tall Thrones (But I’ll Never Learn)
4. Gather in the Woods
5. Flame in Your Hand
6. Spheres
7. Deepest Grave
8. Brown Witch
9. Dark Into Light

Warcoe:
Stefano Fiorelli – guitars and vocals
Carlo – bass
Francesco – drums

Warcoe on Bandcamp

Warcoe on Instagram

Warcoe on Facebook

Ripple Music website

Ripple Music on Bandcamp

Ripple Music on Instagram

Ripple Music on Facebook

Morbid and Miserable Records website

Morbid and Miserable Records store

Morbid and Miserable Records on Bandcamp

Morbid and Miserable Records on Instagram

Morbid and Miserable Records on Facebook

Italian doom-diggers Warcoe are set to release their third album, Upon Tall Thrones, through Ripple Music and Morbid and Miserable Records on Sept. 26. The band are streaming the opening track “Octagon” from the album now, and lead-in vibe is resonant as the tonal density, dark atmosphere and willful groove all ignite staples of Warcoe‘s to-date sound. Last heard from with 2023’s A Place for Demons (review here), the Pesaro three-piece have continued to push themselves deeper into the void’s inner recesses. Whatever “Octagon” heralds for Upon Tall Thrones, the safer bet is it’ll be heavy.

I haven’t seen an actual press release for this one yet, but when/if I do, I’ll likely replace the blue text below with that, for max-informativeness. Just a heads up if you come back here at some point and it looks different. While I have you, thanks for reading.

The PR wire made it official this morning:

Italian doom bringers WARCOE debut first single off upcoming new album “Upon Tall Thrones”, out September 26th on Ripple Music!

Italy-based classic doom trio WARCOE have signed to Ripple Music for the release of their third full-length, “Upon Tall Thrones” this September 26th, and unleash its debut single “Octagon” on all streaming platforms!

💀 Let Warcoe drag you into the abyss with new single Octagon 💀

Hailing from Pesaro, Italy, Warcoe drags classic doom into the abyss and back with Sabbathian weight, Saint Vitus’ raw gloom, and the swagger of Trouble’s golden-era riffage. Since 2021, the trio has carved a niche in the underground with a sound that’s both a homage to the old gods and a fresh hell of its own: slow-burning, groove-heavy, and laced with stoner metal venom.

Their 2021 debut, “The Giant’s Dream”, emerged like a monolith from the depths, earning praise within the scene before Regain Records unleashed it on vinyl and CD — a fitting resurrection for an album steeped in doom’s primordial essence. The 2023 follow-up, “A Place for Demons”, proved Warcoe wasn’t just a relic revival act but a true force to be reckoned with. Landing at #2 on Doom Charts’ Best of December and #37 for the entire year, the album masterfully fused Trouble’s anthemic might with the creeping dread of Pentagram, all while swinging like Saxon in a candlelit crypt.

Now, with their third album and Ripple Music debut “Upon Tall Thrones”, Warcoe ascends — darker, heavier, and more hypnotic — as they spin tales of arcane fantasy and mortal frailty into riffs that crush and melodies that linger like a curse.

WARCOE “Upon Tall Thrones”
Out September 26th on Ripple Music (LP/CD/digital)
Preorder: https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/album/upon-tall-thrones

Tracklisting:
1. Octagon
2. The Wanderer
3. I’ve Sat Upon Tall Thrones (But I’ll Never Learn)
4. Gather in the Woods
5. Flame in Your Hand
6. Spheres
7. Deepest Grave
8. Brown Witch
9. Dark Into Light

Warcoe:
Stefano Fiorelli – guitars and vocals
Carlo – bass
Francesco – drums

https://warcoe.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/warcoeband/
https://www.facebook.com/warcoeband

http://www.ripple-music.com/
https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/ripplemusic/
https://www.facebook.com/theripplemusic/

https://morbidandmiserable.com/
https://morbidandmiserable.storenvy.com/
https://morbidandmiserable.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/morbidandmiserable
https://www.facebook.com/morbidandmiserable

Warcoe, Upon Tall Thrones (2025)

This Friday, Dec. 15, Italian trio Warcoe will release their second full-length, A Place for Demons, through Regain Records imprint Helter Skelter Productions, with tapes on Morbid and Miserable Records. As with their likewise willfully barebones 2022 debut, The Giant’s Dream (review here), the new eight-songer brings a grim and metallic spirit, but it’s more metal-of-eld than anything modern, and they grow more doomed as they progress through the album’s second half, but there’s punk, classic heavy rock, and even some more extreme elements at play, though admittedly that’s mostly in the atmosphere.

But even a hooky post-grunge rocker like “Ishkur,” which opens side B, the heft of their tonality comes through, as well as the space for lead guitar near the halfway point there, and a production that’s clear but not clean across the span bolsters the underground feel. Obscurity becomes a character in the material.

The album opens with its tone-setting title-track, a clarion of guitar going out soon joined by drums, then bass as Warcoe rise toward the snare snap into the first verse. Vocalist Stefano Fiorelli makes his presence felt in double-tracked layers with instrumental stomp to complement, and they shift into and through a nodding change before a quick guitar lead signals the return to the verse.

As with many of the lyrics on A Place for Demons, the title-track tells a story, and by the time its four minutes are done, Warcoe have pushed the thickened procession to a point of genuine momentum, and feedback leads into the Sabbath galloper “Pyramid of Despair” (premiered here), which follows and unfolds quicker into its riff-fueled counterpoint, Fiorelli, bassist Carlo and drummer Francesco seeming to enjoy the bounce as they course through the second chorus around the three-minute mark ahead of a raucous finish and a stretch of silence before the start of “Rune Dweller.”

At just over three minutes long, the acoustic guitar instrumental piece “Rune Dweller” is more than an interlude while still departed from the band’s ‘regular’ methodology as demonstrated across the first two tracks, but its finger-plucked movement is easy to follow and rhythmically, it holds onto the tension the band amassed through “A Place for Demons” and “Pyramid of Despair.” One is reminded of something that might’ve been found on one of earlier Metallica‘s outings, pulling back from the pummel — or in this case, the riffery — to give listeners a breather and demonstrate a more classical influence.

When side A closer “Leaves” crashes in directly after, it seems to hit that much harder, but nestles into a verse made anxious by the tremolo lead guitar running alongside the central swing, which holds for the duration and is a rocker’s rocker, where side B’s first impression is doomier with “Ishkur,” which takes a darker tonal turn while staying comfortably uptempo. But the march has begun and the trajectory is set. If you believe in fatalism, then we’re all doomed.

Shades of Saint Vitus show up in “Boys Become Kings” but more at the outset of the penultimate “Wounds Too Deep to Heal,” and while each is thicker than it is slow — call it “doom rock” while emphasizing both words — the mood dims in “Ishkur” and “Boys Become Kings” as the trio set up the second half of A Place for Demons as a movement growing more and more doomed with each plod. “Wounds Too Deep to Heal” is so deep into the Vitus aspect that it’s punk rock — that’s fandom — and it also boasts perhaps the hookiest impression of the record with Fiorelli‘s delivery of the title lyric in the chorus. But at 3:44, “Wounds Too Deep to Heal” is the shortest song on A Place for Demons–, and it leaves a spot for the only natural place it could go to end and keep its acceleration into doom: Black Sabbath.

It’s not a cover, but it doesn’t feel out of line to cite Black Sabbath‘s “Black Sabbath” as a primary influence on Warcoe‘s “Buio,” which brings the slowdown that seems to have been held in reserve all along as the band has played back and forth in pacing. It doesn’t drop out in the verse, and if you’re waiting for an Ozzy-ish “What is this…,” well, I have no doubt that Fiorelli would nail it, but the nine-minute closer is instrumental, so really, they’re plunging to the heart of the thing in the riff itself. Considering the ethic they’ve proffered throughout of sticking to their roots, “Buio” makes an organic landing spot for A Place for Demons, and says a lot about who Warcoe are and where they’re coming from in a way that another cut — even one with vocals — might not have been able to do.

There is something intangible about this band. I can’t quite put my finger on it, and I like that. I don’t know if it’s a dirtied-up NWOBHM influence, or black metal, or crust punk, but they’ve got this blend of styles that is its own cohesive thing — see “doom rock,” above — but that is malleable in speed and its mix, and able to shift moods fluidly. I feel a strong compulsion to repeat the word “obscure” that I’m not going to ignore. Maybe they play “obscure doom rock.” And on the off chance someone in the band likes Emperor, I’ll add “exclusively” to that.

But, although when taken as a whole, A Place for Demons isn’t overly aggressive, it sounds like it thinks of itself as metal, and maybe that’s the difference. Whatever tag you might apply — I’ve been through a few — they have become more themselves in this material, and that only makes Warcoe a stronger band, now and moving forward.

You’ll find A Place for Demons streaming in its entirety on the player below, followed by more info from the PR wire.

Listen actively, and please enjoy:

HELTER SKELTER PRODUCTIONS (distributed & marketed by REGAIN RECORDS) is proud to present WARCOE’s highly anticipated second album, A Place for Demons, on CD and vinyl LP formats.

WARCO are a power-trio hailing from Italy, that land rich in doomed materials. Naturally, WARCOE honor their national identity with a ’70s-entrenched vision of pure DOOM METAL as first laid out by Ozzy-era Black Sabbath. In fact, in vocalist/guitarist Stefano Fiorelli, you will not find a more uncanny Ozzy doppelganger.

WARCOE began their journey in 2021, first with a couple digital singles and then an EP, all of which coalesced into their debut album, The Giant’s Dream. Likewise released digitally, The Giant’s Dream was also self-released on CDR and tape in true DIY fashion. So smitten with these authentically vintage vibes, HELTER SKELTER released The Giant’s Dream on CD and vinyl right before the summer, with hopes of spreading the WARCOE name far and wide.

Wasting no time – and, indeed, sure to spread that name further and wider – WARCOE return with their second full-length, A Place for Demons. Aptly titled, A Place for Demons is prime olde-world DOOM, steeped in Sabbathian tones and proto-metal vibes. Much like they did on its full-length predecessor, the power-trio manage to massage new sensations from that eternal archetype whilst staying reverent; if anything, there’s a pronounced swagger to A Place for Demons that suggests star-power in the making.

So, take WARCOE’s hand and enter A Place for Demons: your “new” old-doom trip continues here!

Music and lyrics by Stefano
Warcoe logo by Federico Pazzi Andreoli
Cover art by Shane Horror
Recorded at Avangarage Recording Studio in 2023
Mastered by Craig Thomas (Preyer, UK)

Lineup:
Stefano Fiorelli – guitars and vocals
Carlo – bass
Francesco – drums

Warcoe on Facebook

Warcoe on Instagram

Warcoe on Bandcamp

Helter Skelter Productions on Facebook

Helter Skelter Productions on Instagram

Helter Skelter Productions website

Regain Records on Bandcamp

Morbid and Miserable Records on Facebook

Morbid and Miserable Records on Instagram

Morbid and Miserable Records on Bandcamp

See you back here Monday, huh? Yeah. If onslaughts of new music are your thing and you’ve been following along throughout this week — first, thank you — and second, we’ll pick up after the weekend with another 50 albums in this double-wide Fall 2022 Quarterly Review. This was a good week though. Yesterday had some genuine killers, and I’ve added a few to my best-of lists for the end-of-year stuff to come. There’ll be another Quarterly Review then too. Never any trouble filling slots with new releases. I’ve already started, in fact.

Madness. Didn’t I say something yesterday about one thing at a time? Ha.

Quarterly Review #41-50:

Crippled Black Phoenix, Banefyre

There are times where I wonder if Crippled Black Phoenix aren’t just making fun of other bands, their audience, themselves, and everything, and then there are times when I’m pretty sure they are. To wit, their latest outing for Season of Mist, Banefyre, is nearly an hour into its 90-plus-minute runtime before they offer up the 10-minute “Down the Rabbit Hole,” and, well, if we’re not down it by then, where the hell are we? See also “Wyches and Basterdz” near the outset. Whatever else they may be, the long-running, dynamic, progressive, dark heavy rock troupe surrounding founding songwriter and guitarist Justin Greaves are like nothing else. They offer shades of influences, discernable elements from this or that style, this or that band — “The Reckoning” has a bit of The Cure, “Blackout77” filters that through Katatonia, etc. — but are never working to be anyone but themselves. Accordingly, the thoroughly British depressive triumphs throughout Banefyre — looking at you, “I’m OK, Just Not Alright” — are part of an ongoing narrative of creative development that will hit its 20th year in 2024 and has offered listeners an arc of emotive and stylistic depth that, in whatever genre you want to try to confine it, is only ever going to escape. The only real tragedy of Banefyre is that they’ll probably have another record out before this one can be properly digested. That’ll take a few years at least.

Crippled Black Phoenix on Facebook

Season of Mist website

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Chat Pile, God’s Country

An Oklahoma hardcore-born circus of sludge-toned tragedies personal, cultural and socioeconomic played out across nine songs/42 minutes held together at times seemingly most of all by their disenchantment, Chat Pile‘s debut album, God’s Country is arthouse angularity, raw aggression and omnidirectional intensity. As the UK’s post-industrial waste once birth’d Godflesh, so now come vocalist Raygun Busch, guitarist Luther Manhole, bassist Stin and electronic-drummer Cap’n Ron with brilliantly constructed tales of drugs, murder, suicide, loss, violence, misery, and general wretchedness of spirit, presented instrumentally with quick turns that draw from hardcore as noted, but also death metal, sludge, industrial doom, and so on. The lyrics are masterful drug poetry and delivered as such, semi-spoken, shouted, some singing, some acting out, such that you never know from what direction the next punch is coming. “Why” tackles homelessness, “Pamela” demonstrates the impossibility of coping with loss, “Slaughterhouse” is what it says, and closer “Grimace_Smoking_Weed.jpeg” resolves its nine minutes in long-held feedback and crashes as Busch frantically screams with decreasing intelligibility until it’s even words anymore. A perfect finish to a stunning, terrifying, moving first album. Don’t go into it expecting listenability. Even as “I Don’t Care if I Burn” offers some respite, it does so while describing a murder fantasy. It’s not the only one.

Chat Pile on Instagram

The Flenser store

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Early Moods, Early Moods

Fuck yes Gen-Z doom. Yes. Yes. Yes. Show the old men how it’s done. Please. Not a gray hair in the bunch, or a bullshit riff, or a lazy groove. Early Moods got their influences in line with their 2020 debut EP, Spellbound (review here), and you can still hear some Candlemass in “Broken,” but their self-titled debut LP stamps its foot to mark their arrival as something new and a fresh take on classic ideas. Vocalist Alberto Alcaraz is a distinct presence atop the hard-distorted guitars of Eddie Andrade and Oscar Hernandez, while Elix Feliciano‘s bass fuzz-rumbles through the interlude “Memento Mori” and Chris Flores‘ big-room-ready kick counts in the Trouble‘d early highlight “Live to Suffer.” Later on, “Curse of the Light” leans into the metal end of classic doom metal ahead of the chugging roll of “Damnation” and the finisher “Funeral Macabre,” but Early Moods have already put these things in play by then, as demonstrated with the eponymous title-track. Songs are tight, crisply produced, and executed to style with a promise of more growth to come. It’s an easy record to get excited about, and one of 2022’s best albums. I might just buy the tape and the CD.

Early Moods on Facebook

RidingEasy Records store

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Larman Clamor, With a Deadly Hiss

Less than a year after a return born of celebrating the project’s 10th anniversary with the Ink fo’ Blood (review here) full-length, prolific visual artist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and singer Alexander von Wieding returns with Larman Clamor‘s latest, With a Deadly Hiss. As ever, formalities are dispensed with in favor of deceptively intricate arrangements of slide acoustic and electric guitar, whatever’s-around-style percussion and von Wieding‘s telltale throaty vocals, which on “Swamp Jive” and even a bit of the six-minute finale “Eleventh Spell to Cast” draw back the throaty grit in favor of a more melodic, somewhat less performative delivery that suits the material well. Songs are mostly short — there are 11 of them and the aforementioned closer is the longest by about three minutes — but each is a blinking glimpse into the humid, climbing-vine world of von Wieding‘s creation, and in instrumentals like the manic percussion of “Monkey and the Trash Goblins” and the distortion-backed algae-delica of “Iguana at the Fountain,” the brashness of “Tortuga” and the playful falsetto of the leadoff title-track are expanded in such a way as to hint of future paths to be explored. One way or the other, Larman Clamor remains an entity unto itself in concept, craft and delivery, and if With a Deadly Hiss is just another forward step en route to the next stop on down the road, even better.

Larman Clamor on Facebook

Larman Clamor on Bandcamp

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The Necromancers, When the Void Rose

Recorded in 2021, The Necromancers‘ third album would seem to have a mind toward picking up where the Poitiers, France-based four-piece left off pre-pandemic with 2018’s Of Blood and Wine (review here). Can hardly blame them, frankly. Now self-releasing (their first two albums were on Ripple), the semi-cult heavy rockers bring an air of classic metal to the proceedings but are remarkably cohesive in their craft, with guitarist/vocalist Basile Chevalier-Coudrain fronting the band even in the studio as demonstrated on the ’80s metal roller “The Needle,” which follows the eight-minute doom-adjacent unfolding of “Crimson Hour” — and that “adjacent” is a compliment, by the way; The Necromancers are less concerned with playing to genre than with it — wherein guitarist Robin Genais adds a short but classy solo to underscore the willful grandiosity. Bassist Simon Evariste and drummer Benjamin Rousseau underscore the grooves, prominent in the verse of the title-track, and while it’s guitars up front in traditionalist fashion, the truth is all four players are critical here, and it’s the overarching affect of the whole that makes When the Void Rose such an engaging listen, rather than the individual parts. That is to say, listen front to back for best results.

The Necromancers on Facebook

The Necromancers on Bandcamp

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Les Lekin, Limbus

Though instrumental across its vast stretches, Les Lekin‘s Limbus — their first full-length since 2017’s Died with Fear, also on Tonzonen, and third overall — begins with a verbal message of hope, lyrics in German, in the beginning intro “Licht.” That gives a specifically covid-era context to the proceedings, but as the subsequent three massive sans-vocal pieces “Ascent” (14:14), “Unknown” (8:18) and closer “Return” (22:00), unfold, they do so with a decidedly otherworldly, deeply-weighted psychedelic verve. The narrative writes itself in the titles, so I’ll spare you the pretense of insight (on my part there), but note that if it was escapism through music being sought on the part of the meditative Salzburg three-piece, the richness of what’s on offer throughout Limbus is generous enough to share that experience with the audience as well. “Ascent” swells and builds as it moves duly upward, and in “Unknown,” the trio explores post-metallic atmospherics in a crunching midsection without ever losing sight of the ambience so central to what they’re doing, while it would be hard for “Return” not to be the highlight, drums and initial bass rumble giving way to a huge sounding, engrossing procession of atmospheric density. Les Lekin have been a critical favorite for a while now, and it’s easy to hear why, but their work here holds far more than academic appeal or to-genre conformity. They embody the release they would seem to have sought and still carry an exploratory spirit despite the clearly charted course of their songs.

Les Lekin on Facebook

Tonzonen Records store

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Highbay, LightShower

LightShower is the fourth session from Hungarian jammers Highbay to see release in the last year-plus, and it arrives with the immediately noteworthy backing of Psychedelic Source Records. In the vein of many of that collective’s offerings, it is live recorded, probably improvised, and wholly instrumental, the trio vibing their way into a groove early on “Walking on Bubbles” and holding gently to that locked-in, entranced feel across the following five jams. The shimmering guitar tone, particuly as “Miracle Under Water” moves into the more extended “Spaceship” and the pleasantly funky “FunKing Dragons Above Fissure Mountains,” is a highlight, but the intention here is a full set, and I won’t take away from the fuzzier, riffier emergence later on in “FunKing Dragons” either, or, for that matter, the ready-to-wander post-rock float of closer “3D(ays) Trippin’.” It’s a big universe, and Highbay have their work cut out for them if they want to feel their way through all of it, but “Spaceship” mellows its way off into a greater beyond, and even “Hungover Sadness (’90s Romance)” manages to not be a drag as filtered through the trio’s chemistry. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t be the last time Highbay are heard from this year, but they’re yet another name to add to the list of Psychedelic Source-associated acts whose jammy sensibilities are helping manifest a new generation of Eastern European lysergic rock and roll.

Psychedelic Source Records on Facebook

Psychedelic Source Records on Bandcamp

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Sound Animal, Yes, Yes, You

Think of this as less of a review and more of a general reminder to throw a follow in the direction of Berkeley, California’s dug-in-as-hell Sound Animal, or at very least let your ears pay a visit every now and again to soak up some of the weirdo drone, dance, psych electronics and whatever else might be had on any given afternoon from the prolific solo-project. “Yes, Yes, You” is the latest single, but likely not for long, and it plays out across 3:33 of keyboardian ambience and recitations of the titular reassurance that would be soul-pop were they not so definitively experimental and part of such an ongoing creative splurge. Tucked away in a corner of the Bandcamp dimension, Sound Animal comes across as an outlet for ideas as much as sonics, and with the persistent thud of a beat beneath, one, two, three, four, the melodic serenity of the wash feels like direct conversation, with the listener, the self, or, more likely, both. It is beautiful and brief, as I’m told life also is, and it may just be the thing that came after one thing and before the next, but if you stop for a minute or three and let it sink in, you just might find a more substantial place to reside. Not gonna be for everyone, but the fact that “Yes, Yes, You” is so vague and yet so clearly encouraging rather than accusatory speaks to the artistic purpose writ large throughout Sound Animal‘s e’er expanding catalog. Wouldn’t be surprised or sad to find a subsequent single going somewhere else entirely, but again, just a reminder that it’s worth finding that out.

Sound Animal on Facebook

Sound Animal website

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Warcoe, The Giant’s Dream

Somewhere between classic metal and doom, heavy rock’s riff-led impulses and cultish atmospheres there resides the Pesaro, Italy, trio Warcoe and their debut album, The Giant’s Dream. Led by guitarist/vocalist Stefano — who also plays bass on some of the later tracks — with bassist Carlo and drummer Francesco proffering thickened roll and punctuating rhythm all the while save for the early acoustic interlude “Omega Sunrise,” the band nestle smoothly into a modern-via-not-at-all-modern sphere, yet neither are they retro or aping ’70s methodologies. Maybe that moment has passed and it’s the ascent of the ’80s metal and doom we’re seeing here — or maybe I just slated Warcoe and Early Moods the same day and both bands dig Trouble and Death Row/Pentagram, I won’t pretend to know — but the bass in “Fire and Snow” is more of a presence than bass was pretty much ever 40 years ago, so to call The Giant’s Dream anything but ‘now’ is inaccurate. They lean into rock on “Thieves, Heretics and Whores” and manifest grim but stately lurch before the fade of the penultimate “Scars Will Remain,” but wherever each piece might end up, the impression is abidingly dark and offers a reminder that Italy’s history of cult doom goes farther back than most. Paul Chain, Steve Sylvester, your legacy is in good hands.

Warcoe on Facebook

Forbidden Place Records on Bandcamp

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DONE, Aged and Untreated

Hard to find info on the Boston or Boston-adjacent extreme-metal-inflected, sludge-toned dark hardcore outfit DONE — and that may just as well be anti-social-media mystique creation as the fact that their name is ungooglable — but the tape slays. Aged and Untreated hammers 15 scathing tracks into its 28 minutes, and dies on a hill of wintry black metal and barking hardcore mostly but not completely summarized in the turns of “Soulsplitter.” The fun part is when they bounce back and forth, throw in some grind on “To Curt on Waverly,” scratch your eyes out with “Dance for Them” — the second cut behind says-it-all-in-a-minute opener “Nah” — and willfully crash into a wall on the comparatively sprawling 2:35 “I Fucking Hate Thinking About You.” Haven’t seen a lyric sheet and probably won’t if my success rate in tracking down relevant factoids is anything to go by, but shit, I lived on the South Shore for seven years, including the record-breaking winter of 2014, and it sure felt a lot like this. Maybe they’re from Arizona, and if they are, I’m sure some hack would say the same thing, but hell’s bells Aged and Untreated is an intense listen, and its wreck-your-shit violence is meted out such that even the slightly-slower punch in the first half of “Hope Trickle” makes the song feel sarcastic. I wouldn’t put it on every day, but yeah. Righteously pissed.

Tor Johnson Records on Bandcamp

Tor Johnson Records store

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This week, Italian heavy rockers Warcoe release their new single ‘Pyramid of Despair’ ahead of their second full-length, to be issued next year. In March, the Pesaro-based three-piece issued their debut album, The Giant’s Dream, and “Pyramid of Despair” also serves as a quick follow-up to that, building on the tonal grit and loosely cultish melodymaking fostered there, their fuzz light in the high end, the first-name-only three-piece of guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Stefano (also bass on some tracks), bassist Carlo and drummer Francesco finding a space where proto-heavy meets doom but the two aren’t necessarily the same. The single builds on this methodology and demonstrates ready growth in its four-and-a-half-minute push, a Sabbathian central riff brought to a charge like The Sword with an edge of Uncle Acid‘s recording technique and penchant for layering. From a completely different angle, if you told me Green Lung were an influence here, I’d believe it.

What does that mean? It means Warcoe are deceptively multifaceted. Stefano takes an impressive solo late, but even before that, “Pyramid of Despair” digs itself into a niche that opens itself to audience interpretation. It’s not about dogwhistling influences, like, ‘hey man we like Sleep too pretty rad huh?,’ so much as pulling pieces from different sides and mixing them together like taking purple and green and orange and whatever other colors the fuzzy stuff on weed comes in, melting it altogether using technology I won’t pretend to understand, and turning it an ultra-potent brown. I guess maybe they make hash rock? Whatever you want to call it, that stylistic specificity — their thing being their own thing — is set against a straightforward structure of verses and choruses, such that “Pyramid of Despair,” like “Cats Will Follow” or “Thieves, Heretics & Whores” and “Scars Will Remain” from The Giant’s Dream, is catchy while both familiar and not.

The difference, in part, between what Warcoe recorded this year (the single) and last year (the album), is one of confidence. Francesco‘s leads are plenty swaggering throughout The Giant’s Dream, but the vocals on “Pyramid of Despair” feel more confident in their willingness to not directly follow the pattern of the riff during verses, allowing both melody and rhythm to breathe more and giving the sheer heft of “Pyramid of Despair” — something else that would seem to have been upgraded since the record, at least for this song if not whatever else might follow — an appropriate amount of room to make its impact. Which, I’m glad to say, it does. In other words, they’re showing quickly that lessons have been learned coming off their first full-length, and as they head into a sophomore LP sometime in 2023, the portents for that are only encouraging if this is where they’re headed.

Maybe you heard the album, maybe you didn’t. Either way, “Pyramid of Despair” is 4:31 out of your busy day and I don’t think you’ll regret checking it out or I wouldn’t be hosting it. As always, I hope you dig.

Enjoy:

Warcoe, “Pyramid of Despair” track premiere

Warcoe release a new single “Pyramid of Despair” on September 15th. A new album will follow in spring 2023.

Warcoe has released a Ep with Evil noise recordings and a full length “The Giant’s Dream” on Cd with Forbidden Place Records and on tape with Morbid and Miserable Records, and it will be released in Japan on October 19th by Unforgiven Blood Records.

The golden pyramid is standing still
The banished land has a violent past
I’ve travelled so far across the land
I’ve travelled so far across the land

“Pyramid of Despair” was recorded in May 2022 at Avangarage recording studio (Italy) and mastered by sir Craig Thomas (from Preyer, Uk)

Warcoe is:
Stefano: guitars, vocals and songwriting
Carlo: bass
Francesco: drums

Warcoe, The Giant’s Dream (2022)

Warcoe on Bandcamp

Warcoe on Instagram

Warcoe on Facebook

Morbid and Miserable Records on Bandcamp

Forbidden Place Records on Bandcamp

Unforgiven Blood Records on Instagram