Posted in Whathaveyou on March 25th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
This news came out last week but I was neck-deep in Quarterly Review stuff and didn’t get have time for living let alone other posts, so yeah, I’m playing catchup. What else is new? Well, the bunch of bands added to the returning Emissions From the Monolith are new, for example. A few of these put out some of last year’s best records. Looking at Howling Giant and Rwake, specifically in that regard, but also Winds of Neptune and Horseburner and High Desert Queen still have strong ’24 outings they’re heralding, so yes, very much a case of ‘sick bill gets sicker.’ I don’t know why I still write straightforward headlines when I could be proffering insights like this.
The cross-generational blend for Emissions From the Monolith 10, present in the first announcement — you had Telekinetic Yeti and Generation of Vipers alongside bands who played Emissions during its first incarnation — is exaggerated with this new one. Even having Shun where in years past Throttlerod might’ve been speaks to that. There are apparently more bands to add to the four-day fest, set for Oct. 8-11 in Youngstown, Ohio, and I’ll be curious to see where the balance shakes out.
For now, here’s the latest confirmations as seen on the ol’ social media that barely existed last time Emissions happened:
EMISSIONS FROM THE MONOLITH 10 – TRANSMISSION 2
A second wave of artists has joined Emissions from the Monolith 10.
Cavity Edhochuli Great Falls High Desert Queen Horseburner Howling Giant Kowloon Walled City Lake Lake Rwake Shun Thunderchief Today Is The Day Winds of Neptune
These bands join the previously announced:
Deadbird Disengage Generation of Vipers Rebreather Solace Stinking Lizaveta Sunrot Telekinetic Yeti The Brought Low Weedeater
October 8–11, 2026 Westside Bowl — Youngstown, Ohio
One stage. No overlaps. The original heavy underground gathering
Posted in Reviews on March 16th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Day 1 of the Spring 2026 Quarterly Review starts now. I know you’ve had it on your calendar just like I’ve had it on mine, and I’ll just say that if you’re new to the process or don’t know what this thing is all about, that’s cool too. A Quarterly Review, or QR if I’m feeling saucy, is a review roundup I do every few months for however long, always with 10 releases covered per day. The bare minimum for a QR is 50, and sometimes that actually happens. More often these days, it’s more than a five-day run, and that’s true this time as well.
This Quarterly Review will go seven days and cover a total of 70 works from bands and artists all over the world. It’s always a little nervewracking to start one of these, but it’s a special kind of deluge of music for me and I’ve been looking forward to it. Accordingly, it’s time to get this show on the road, as my dear wife might say.
Quarterly Review #1-10:
The Cosmic Dead, Beyond the Beyond
Four one-word titles on what I read somewhere is The Cosmic Dead‘s 10th album since 2010? That’s not even ridiculous. In any case, Beyond the Beyond strikes as advertised — the Glasgow-based heavy cosmic rockers are indeed far, far out. The 16-minute longest-track “Further” opens (immediate points), and even though the last song is called “Aether” (it bookends at 12 minutes), they’re pretty ethereal across the board as Luigi Pasquini‘s synth and Calum Calderwood‘s effects-laden fiddle lead the way into an obscure, semi-Eastern-scaled modern psychedelic krautrock, Omar Aborida‘s guitar (he also plays bass, mixed, and did the cover art) running deep in wah in shorter second cut “Stronger” as Tommy Duffin‘s drums both ground the procession and help push — wait for it — further. The immersion factor is high, and when “Aurora” gives over to “Aether,” there is a sense of having now arrived at the place you’ve been going all along, the long drone intro seeing a jangly movement rise up and recede again before it’s done, righteously imperfect and expanded of mind. If you could do this kind of thing all the time maybe you’d have 10 albums too.
If you might hear opening cut “Pagan Woman” and think The Cult, SÖNUS drive the point home by covering “Phoenix” penultimate to the closing title-track of Planes of Torment, so yes. Elsewhere on the David Wachsman-led heavy rock/classic metal trio’s third LP, “Heart of Stone” touches on Danzig and the flute-inclusive “Scorpio” touches on Middle Eastern-influenced progressivism and “Sisyphus Stomp” enacts a bluesier course. The seven-song release is tied together by Wachsman‘s vocals and the apparently-at-least-mostly-live-recorded energy of the performances around them, and though the prevailing atmosphere even in the classic rocking “Saturation Driver” is moody, by the time they come around to the grandiosity of “Planes of Torment”‘s 10-minute sequence, the stage has been duly set for such a dramatic finish. They are no strangers to the perils of living between styles, but the songwriting remains firm and SÖNUS are sure in their purposes across Planes of Torment, which pushes them forward in sound and construction and continues to refine the persona, craft and intent behind the project.
A hard-hitting Dec. 2025 self-released and self-titled full-length debut from this Richmond, Virginia, trio, Uzio‘s Uzio hits with force from the outset as they open up the groove in “And When it Doesn’t Break Your Fall” before giving burlier ’90s vibes in “Lantern Fly” — somewhere between C.O.C. and Ugly-era Life of Agony (see also “Wandering Eye”), with Chris Sundstrom‘s guitar and vocals leading the way with Ed Fierro on bass and Erik Larson (Thunderchief, ATP, Avail, etc.) drumming. They find a noteworthy fervency of chug in “Katabasis” and loose a “Hole in the Sky” of swing in “No One Sacred” before “Leeches” thrashes out and “Dissolve” throws big-riff elbows and “Dark Empath” caps with a more metallic crux, distant from the punk of “Familiars” earlier but subtly so with a continuity of structure throughout. One to watch if you feel like getting roughed up, as everybody does from time to time.
There is a strong meditative current built up around the apparent root jams of Finland’s Mount Palatine. The Helsinki outfit’s six-song/53-minute debut on Argonauta imprint Octopus Rising, Wormholy World is rife with texture and expanse as 10-minute opener “The Sands” casts a vast landscape of intertwining guitar lines and a slow march through the desert hinted at by its title. “Whispers of the Holy Land” grows more aggressive in its midsection, preceding a solidification of groove in the back end of the song that’s both satisfying and consistent in ambience with the opener. That crunch proves essential to “The Dreaming” and “Panther Eyes” as well, and the balance and blend of urgency and warmth keeps Wormholy World united but not staid in approach as their pilgrimage takes them through the outreach of lead guitar in “Ethereal” and into “Newborn Sun,” which closes out as less an arrival than a next departure point. So one hopes, anyhow. They’re not the first to work in this style, but there’s burgeoning perspective to be found here.
Smooth boogie alert as Perth, Australia’s Death of Manfish — who accrue weirdo points before you even get to the shufflefunk of “Sync” just based on the name — unfurl the five-track/16-minute Desert Cuttlefish with “Brunt,” a rollout that would make Brant Bjork smile and a hint of intent at things to come. “Sync” makes a rousing centerpiece to the short instrumental outing, which is furthers its outsiderism with “Manfish Folk 4” and “Manfish Folk 2,” the first of which is wistful with accordion sounds and the latter of which has acoustic guitar at its core but is more urbane, preceding the space-jammier finish in “Fritz.” So what you get is five instrumentalist pieces, each kind of operating in a different style, drawn together by rhythmic fluidity but more celebrating their differences than trying to convince you it’s all part of the same thing, which it is anyhow. Good fun, purposefully and effectively oddball, and backed up by chops and groove to spare. There’s more going on here than the 16 minutes imply, but the brevity of the format suits the showcase aspect of Death of Manfish‘s sound.
Ralph Penegun ask and waste precious little time answering the operative question on their apparent debut, Who the Fuck is Ralph Penegun?, released in early January. The answer is they’re a band, not a person, and with the record, they offer a driving and aggressive heavy-hardcore punk sound. “Choose Your Poison” feels positively expansive at 3:54, and that’s as close as the Turin, Italy, unit come to expanse, as most of the album is given to the shove of cuts like “Epitaph” or “Working Class Idiot,” the latter of which follows the title-track intro and feels complemented by the head-down, fist-throwing “New Level Slave,” which closes, though those are hardly the only two on a sociopolitical bent. The earlier “Sickness” brings up tonal largesse and pays off its push with a nodder of a groove, and “Caught in a Trap” ends with a sample of Elvis Presley‘s “Suspicious Minds,” so there’s some deviation from the genre norm happening, but know that if you’re going to take it on, you should be ready to keep up. That’s who Ralph Penegun are.
Longtime stoner rockers will recall Winds of Neptune bassist/vocalist Ross Westerbur from 500 Ft. of Pipe. He, guitarist Kevin Roberts (The Meatmen) and drummer Mike Alonso (Flogging Molly) foster an expansive take on classic heavy rock with Winds of Neptune‘s Small Stone-issued self-titled debut, bringing what began as a pandemic project to a place of embodying post-grunge heavy rock with an even deeper classic sense of reach. There’s some psychedelia to be had in the first half of “The Fitz,” where “Temporal Mutant” is more boogie, and the eight-song/hour-long album welcomes listners with a bright sensibility on “The Faun’s Rhyme,” but make no mistake, once they dig in, they stay dug. “La Cacciata” shimmies like Scorpions while “U.S.L.” gives breadth to grounded roll, but the real deal is the closing trilogy of “So Sayeth the Mouth of the Void” (9:09) “The Fitz” (9:02) and “Queen of Sumatra” (10:21), which are basically a record unto themselves. Bluesier Roadsaw-style heavy with just an edge of spaceblast? Ready for it.
Let’s pretend you were raised to believe in god. Doesn’t matter which one or denomination; any world-creating, all-powerful/wise/comforting/afterlife-bringing deity will do. Nero Kane‘s third (maybe fourth?) album, For the Love, the Death and the Poetry, hits like the moment you realized that god you were brought up to trust and put faith in isn’t real, and that out there in the void, there is neither guiding hand nor salvation. That is to say, it might make you feel empty and crushed, but it has the unmistakable ring of truth about it. The Italian songwriter makes use of empty space in the mix and darker neofolk mystique, working with producer Matt Bordin and collaborator Samantha Stella to craft a sound that is organic, mostly sad, indebted to Americana without being Americana, and encompassing in mood. The organ drones of “Land of Noting” are full and the strum and intertwining voices of “The World Heedless of Our Pain” feed into the melancholic ambience, and the closer “Until the Light of Heaven Comes” has the smack of ritual as it closes. That light is never coming.
Can’t help but feel like Augsburg, Germany’s Giant Lungs are selling themselves short by calling their debut full-length Praise the Laze, particularly since there’s very little lazy about it in either craft or presentation. Taking influence from the likes of Lowrider, Truckfighters, and the shoegazier end of modern heavy melodymaking, in neither tempo nor tone are they lax, and, what, you’re gonna tell me that “Crab Riders” doesn’t move? The artwork is somewhat severe for the sound, which is fuzzier in its riffing than one might be led to believe and marked by the breathy vocal delivery, but the vibe is right on, and as they make their way toward the big-rolling 11-minute capper “Tourists,” they hone a depth and appeal that the finale effectively and purposefully encapsulates. I’m trying to figure out where “laze” comes in, unless they all quit their dayjobs to hang out and follow fuzzriffs, in which case, double kudos.
A creative and cohesive follow-up to the Tübingen-based five-piece’s debut, Sleaze, the 10-song/34-minute Bad Milk never stays in one place too long, but finds its path in thickened desert-style heavy songwriting, a strong current of Queens of the Stone Age present in the style of riffing early, though again, Yeast Machine find distinction in tone, as well as in their vocals. The acoustic-led (at least most of it) “Dust on the Radio” precedes the atmospheric heft of “Feeding Poison to the Spiders Was Never Really My Thing,” and the emotive wisp in the penultimate “Wobbly Wizard” puts me in mind of forgotten Eurodesert rockers Elvis Deluxe, and that’s a comparison I very much intend as a compliment to the song. They finish with largesse in “The Golden Cage,” but there too are mindful of the mood they’re fostering as they go. Bad Milk is my introduction to the band, and it is an intriguing one.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 13th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
The Patient Mrs. looked over at me the other day and was like, “Kind of a hard comedown from Vegas this year, huh?” And she was right, it has been. My second voyage to Planet Desert Rock Weekend (review here) was a really, really good time, and I guess a couple days away from the overarching weight of reality circa early ’26 was something I couldn’t see I needed as much as I did. I had been hoping to come home and hit the ball rolling on writing and feel like my head was back in it. That wasn’t really how it’s worked out.
Fortunately for me, Planet Desert Rock Weekend‘s founder and curator John Gist is already rolling out names for 2027’s PDRW VII, and it’s a get-your-ass-here assemblage with Greenleaf headlining the first announcement, Shun following up on Throttlerod‘s appearance this year and being part of a strong initial showing from Small Stone Records alongside Winds of Neptune (I still need to review that one; a Quarterly Review is coming later this month I hope) and Sundrifter, while Sergeant Thunderhoof return and Brimstone Coven make a first appearance, Humulus travel from Italy (that’s going to be a good one) and recent Ripple Music signees Florist round out.
As has been the case for the last few years, the sense of curation bleeds through the names being dropped, and if we assume the bands announced today are a little more than a quarter of the full lineup — that’s going by a max of six bands on a night this year, making this announcement more than one night’s total worth of bands, not that they’re all necessarily playing the same night, etc. — then I’m eager to see how the rest shakes out over the next weeks and, presumably, months before next January gets here. And I’m glad to have it to look forward to, frankly.
The PR wire has it like this:
Planet Desert Rock Weekend VII – 2027 Presale & Lineup Announcement
Planet Desert Rock Weekend is proud to announce its volume 7 for 2027! The dates are January 28- 31, 2027 and will take place again at The Usual Place!
We have 8 bands including 3 international to divulge and some new new ticket options. The 2026 version was our biggest one since the inception of Planet Desert Rock back in 2018. The feedback has been amazing and now the pressure is on to curate a lineup that will be held to the standards we have created. We hope you join us for this new sonic adventure in rock music.
PDRW will now have a VIP ticket option that will allow early entry to be behind the scene and see soundcheck as well as get your wristband for the evening that will permit you to be able to re-enter quickly and avoid the line. In addition we have a poster included with the VIP package. We offer 3 and 4 night choices. We will only being selling 400 total as we are not going to compromise the atmosphere and comfortable environment as well sell too many to have to move to a larger venue. So it’s 1st come 1st serve and we will see in the future if nightly tickets are an option!
The lineup:
Greenleaf/ Sweden
We have tried for a number of years to get this amazing band over and we are overjoyed to have one of the top heavy rock bands from around the world joining us for an exclusive west coast event. Meaning just Vegas… no California, Arizona, Washington, Oregon etc…. Flying in just for us! We are honored to have them!
Sergeant Thunderhoof / England (U.K.)
Returning after an amazing set at PDRW V, we are fired up to have this spectacular British band back and they will be playing a regular set and exclusively Muramasa from their split on Ripple Music they did with Howling Giant. This should be a very unique set to witness and rock to!
Humulus/ Italy
Long time heavy psych rockers Humulus makes their USA debut to continue to tradition of Italian bands playing PDRW. The band has been in the scene since 2012 and their recent 2023 release “Flowers of Death” with new vocalist Thomas Greenwood was a killer release ushering in an evolved sound.
Brimstone Coven/ West Virginia
Veteran retro hard rocking band Brimstone Coven has been steadily dropped cool albums since the early 2010s including a fantastic 2025 release “The Light Not Shines for Thee”. Key highlights including smooth harmony vocals and an homage to rock music of years past.
Sundrifter/ Boston
Returning to PDRW out of Boston all 3 of their releases have been phenomenal. The band’s sound has a near futuristic sound at times that touches upon other worlds in the galaxies and vocals that belong near the top of the heavy underground.
Shun/ North Carolina-South Carolina
Real excited to have Shun join the party in 2027 with their heavy atmospheric post rock sound that harkens to a more 90s vibe. Features fromtman Matt Whitehead from Throttlerod. This will be their west coast debut!
Florist/ Tampa
Heavy psych rockers Florist might be one of hotter bands in the scene right now on the heels of their 2025 release. They have played multiple east coast fests and we are excited to have them head west for PDRW with their theremin and other instruments. This is gonna be spacy stoney cool!
Winds of Neptune/ Detroit
Debut album in late 2025 on Small Stone Records created a lot of cosmic waves so much so they landed #1 for the November Doom Charts. Their retro 70s rocking vibe with massive riffs fits right in with PDRW. Oh and the drummer from Flogging Molly is in the band! COOL!
