Last day. I guess we made it. There was never any doubt it would happen, but I wouldn’t call this the smoothest Quarterly Review ever by any stretch. Weather, canceled school, missed bus, The Patient Mrs. about to start a new semester at work, plus that day that had three noise rock records right in a row — who slots these things? (me) — it hasn’t all been easy. But, if you’ve ever read the QR you might know I’ve developed a tendency to load a bunch of killer stuff into the last day to kind of give myself a break, and here we are. No regrets.

Thanks for reading this week (and any other week if you’ve ever been on this site before). Here’s how we finish.

Quarterly Review #41-50:

Dream Unending, Tide Turns Eternal

Beautiful and sad, this first collaboration between drummer/vocalist Justin DeTore (Solemn Lament, ex-Magic Circle, many more) and guitarist/bassist Derrick Vella (Tomb Mold, Outer Heaven) under the moniker of Dream Unending harnesses a classic early ’90s death-doom melancholy, but it’s not as raw as the image of My Dying Bride circa ’92 that might bring to mind. If you want to do mashups, think Novembers Doom meets Alternative 4-era Anathema. Tide Turns Eternal brings together seven songs in 46 minutes and is memorable in stretches like the guitar progression of “In Cipher I Weep” and the crushing chug of the title-track as the Massachusetts/Toronto duo harness the a true sense of classic death metal just ahead of the two-minute weepy guitar interlude “Forgotten Farewell” and the 10-minute closing title-track. Perhaps there’s some inspiration from Bell Witch in the making, but Dream Unending‘s atmosphere and patience are their own.

Dream Unending on Instagram

20 Buck Spin website

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Mud Spencer, Fuzz Soup

The title don’t lie. French expat Sergio Garcia, living in Indonesia, concocts 11 instrumental tracks of fuzzy flood, and if he wants to call that soup, then yeah, that’s as good as anything I’ve got. “Razana” opens with two minutes of garage-style strut, while “Back to Origin” crunches and “Fuzz Soup” feels a bit more of a psych freakout with its lead guitar and drums that remind of Witch, all performed by Garcia, who adds organ to boot. “Quest for Fire” is probably more in homage to the movie than band, which is a little sad, but the song brings in some minor scales and droning atmospherics, and “Ride the Mammoth” pushes more straightforward into the languid wah whatnottery of “Argapura” at the presumed start of side B, which feels rawer in “The Shelter” and more chaotic in the buzz of “Surfin’ the Dune” before “The Cheating Mole” turns to nighttime darkjazz, “Tumulous” turns its acoustic start into a hairy march punctuated and grounded by the pop of snare, and closer “Narcolepsy” finishes with a duly zombified, organ-laced take on tape-trader doom. These experiments work well together throughout Fuzz Soup, united by weird and unpredictable as they are.

Mud Spencer on Facebook

Argonauta Records website

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Farfisa, Gänger

Gänger is third in a purported series of four EPs by Manchester, UK, four-piece Farfisa, and its four songs solidify some of the more let-go aspects of 2020’s Bravado, taking the folkish shine of a cut like “My Oh My” and turning it into the dug-in garage prog rock of “Honey Badger” and riffing out dirty and fuzzed on “River Rash.” Frankly, I don’t know why, having once conjured tones like those of the penultimate “Clinton” here, which sound like something that would make Ty Segall start a new band, one would ever not do that again, but I won’t claim to know what the fourth EP in the series might bring. One can only hope that, when the series is wrapped, they compile it into some sort of offering — a double-tape or some such — and release the whole thing together. As it stands though, Gänger is my first exposure to the band, and they smash through “Limitator” with due prejudice. I can think of five record labels off the top of my head who’d be lucky to have these guys, but nobody asks me these things.

Farfisa on Facebook

Farfisa on Bandcamp

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Volcanova, Cosmic Bullshit

Fucking a, rock and roll. Reykjavik’s Volcanova aren’t through “Salem,” the lead cut from their righteously titled Cosmic Bullshit EP, before they’ve cadenced Uncle Acid in the verse and broken out the cowbell, so yes, it’s that kind of party. That cowbell comes back almost immediately for “Gold Coast,” which tramps out big riffs like Def Leppard used to make, and “Desolation” brings the bass forward effectively in its hook, the band having already built fervent momentum that will carry through the rest of the 26-minute mini-album. Not to pick favorites, but “End of Time” feels purposefully placed near the middle, and “No Wheels” — yup, more cowbell — splits that and closer “Lost Spot” well, giving a grounded stretch of pure shove before the finale hard-boogies and big-drifts its way to a surprising wash of an ending, organ included. You don’t call your release Cosmic Bullshit if you’re not looking to get attention, and Volcanova certainly earn that with these tracks.

Volcanova on Facebook

The Sign Records website

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Aiwass & Astral Contruct, Solis in Stellis

The premier collaboration between Arizona’s Aiwass and Colorado’s Astral Construct — the latter also stylized as ASTRAL COnstruct — is a seven-minute single called “Solis in Stellis” that bridges terrestrial and ethereal heavy psychedelias. At a bit under eight minutes, its melodic flourish and weighted underpinning of low end, drifting guitar and fluid rhythmic progression sound like nothing so much as the beginning of an album that should be made if it’s not currently in the works between Drew Patricks (Astral Construct) and Blake Carrera (Aiwass), who both function as solo artists in their respective projects but come together here to show the complementary potential of each for the other. Lush in atmosphere, patient in its delivery and spacious without being overwrought, “Solis in Stellis” is hopefully the beginning of more to come from these two, who might just end up having to call themselves the Aiwass Construct if they keep going the way they are.

Aiwass on Facebook

Astral Construct on Instagram

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Doctor Smoke, Dreamers and the Dead

Seven years after 2014’s The Witching Hour, Ohio’s Doctor Smoke return with Dreamers and the Dead, a solid 10-song/42-minute run that makes up for lost time by reimagining ’90s-era Megadeth sneer as dark and catchy heavy rock and roll. The four-piece led by founding guitarist/vocalist Matt Tluchowski may have let a few years get by them — that’ll happen — but if the intervening time was spent hammering out these songs, the effort shows itself in the efficiency with which each cut makes its point and gets out, a song like “These Horrid Things” casting its mood in the verses before opening to the chorus, winding fretwork building tension into and subsequently through the solo. This is a revamp of the idea of a classic metal influence, the first instance of a generational shift I can think of that’s bringing this particular vibe to a heavy rock context — the pounding and sprinting of the title-track might’ve been thrash in the ’80s, but a decade later it was thicker and so it is here as well — and Doctor Smoke make it theirs, no question. One wonders what the next seven years will bring.

Doctor Smoke on Facebook

Ripple Music website

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Willowater, Loyal

Rebranded from their moniker of Sierra, Ontario progressive heavy rockers Willowater bring the four-track/14-minute EP as a quick hello to listeners new and old. Guitarist/vocalist Jason Taylor and bassist/drummer/vocalist Robbie Carvalho (also synth) chug out in early-Tool fashion on the opener “Ultimatum,” and the subsequent title-track answers back in kind with shared vocals and a bit of twisting, pulled squeals of guitar, and so on, while “Fly High” calls to mind Dio-style riffing with a bassline to bolster the classic metal vibe, and “Winter Now” builds a tension in its keyboard-laced 3:26 that, somewhat maddeningly, never pays itself off. Perhaps the message there is of more to come. Hope so, anyhow. Sierra were a quality band, and undervalued. Willowater seem to be taking another shot at catching as many ears as possible. A fresh start. Not so crazy different from what they were doing before, but sometimes a name can make all the difference.

Willowater on Facebook

Willowater on Bandcamp

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All Are to Return, II

This second EP from the anonymous Dutch outfit All Are to Return reignites the brutality of their 2020 self-titled debut short release (review here), while expanding the stylistic reach. Opener “Carceri” tips into industrial black metal before resolving itself in harsh screams and drones, while “Surveiller et Punir” feels even more experimental/art rock with tortured screams far back under noisy guitar. “Classified” is shorter and more beat-oriented, but the distorted wash of “Postscript on the Societies of Control” (bit of positive thinking there, almost in spite of itself) is abrasive as fuck, such that the quiet, minimal synth that starts “De Profundis” accompanied by more obscured screams seems almost like a relief before it builds to its own post-Godflesh industrialized crush. They finish atmospheric on “Desiring Machines,” blowing out conceptions of extreme music in about the time it takes for you to put on your shoes and jacket so you can go out, wander into the wilderness, and never be heard from again.

All Are to Return on Bandcamp

Tartarus Records website

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Mountain Sides, Mountain Sides

Members of Mirror Queen, the just-signed-to-Tee–Pee-proper Limousine Beach (really, I haven’t even had the chance to post the news yet), Zombi, Ruby the Hatchet and Osees coming together for three Mountain covers. Mountain Sides do “You Better Believe It,” “Dreams of Milk and Honey” and “Travelin’ in the Dark,” and they knock it out of the park accordingly. I don’t know that this would ever get to become a real band between the commitments of Morgan McDaniel, David Wheeler and Steve Moore, let alone Owen Stewart (Ruby the Hatchet‘s drummer) or Paul Quattrone from Osees and a geographic spread between New York, Philly, Pittsburgh and Los Angeles, but as a quick outing to test the waters, these three songs want nothing for vibe. Of course, being Mountain songs helps, but it almost inevitably would. Still, I’d take a record of tunes they wrote themselves, even if it doesn’t happen for another decade because everyone’s busy.

Mountain Sides on Bandcamp

Tee Pee Records Digital Annex

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Duncan Park, Invoking the Flood

Serenity in experimentalist drone and psychedelia, marked by the interplay of organic folk and otherworldly elements of fluid aural adventures. The backward, swelling repetitions of “The Alluring Pool” answer the watery worldmaking of leadoff “Rivers are a Place of Power,” the backing chimes reminding of water moving the air, the acoustic guitar on centerpiece “Riverbank” furthering the theme in sweetly plucked notes while Duncan Park (who also collaborates with Seven Rivers of Fire) picks up the journey again on “The Winding Stream” with a current of melody playing beneath the main acoustic lines of the song, instrumental in its entirety. Invoking the Flood, apart perhaps from some warning that might be read into the opener, grows more peaceful as it goes, though Park‘s inclusion of vocals on closer “Over the River” speaks perhaps of other tributaries waiting to be explored. Still, it is a sweet and encompassing, if short, trip downstream with Park here, and if the flood comes, at least we had a good time.

Duncan Park on Facebook

Ramble Records on Bandcamp

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Welcome to Day Four of the Jan. 2022 Quarterly Review. Or maybe it’s the other half of the Dec. 2021 Quarterly Review. Or maybe I overthink these things. The latter feels most likely. Inanycase, welcome. If you’ve been keeping up with the records as they’ve been coming in 10-per-day batches over the course of this week, thanks. If not, well, if you’re interested, it’s not like the posts disappeared. Just keep scrolling, then I think click through. One of these days I’ll get an infinite scroll plug-in. Those are for the cool kids.

Also, ‘Infinite Scroll’ is, as of right now, the name of my ’90s-style pixel-art role playing game. Ask me about the plot when these reviews are done.

For now…

Quarterly Review #31-40:

SOM, The Shape of Everything

Working from a foundation in heavy post-rock, Connecticut’s SOM soar and float like so many shoreline seagulls over the Long Island Sound on the eight-song/34-minute The Shape of Everything, which would call to mind the melancholy of Katatoniia were its sadness not even more shimmering. Early pieces “Moment” and “Animals” build a depth of modern progressive metal riffing beneath only the airiest of guitar leads, a wash of distortion meeting a wash of melody, and with guitarist/vocalist/producer Will Benoit helming, his voice rings through clear in melody and still somewhat ethereal, calling to mind a more organically-constructed Jesu in poppier as well as some heavier stretches. The penultimate “Heart Attack” tips into heavier fare with a steady bassline and bursts of crunching guitar, and the finale “Son of Winter” answers back with a (snow)blinding spaciousness and an entrancing last buildup. There’s enough room here to really get lost, and SOM are too mindful of their craft to let it happen.

SOM website

Pelagic Records webstore

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Dr. Space, Muzik 2 Loze Yr Mynd Inn

Alright, I admit it. I went to “Icy Flatulence” first. Even before “Cyborgian Burger Hut” or “Euphoric Nostril.” Scott Heller, otherwise known as Dr. Space of Øresund Space Collective and any number of other outfits on a given day, is as-ever exploring on Muzik 2 Loze Yr Mynd Inn, and the results are hypnotic enough that they might leave you using the kind of spelling on the album’s title, but even in the relatively serene “Garden of Rainbow Unicorns” there’s a forward keyline — and actually, in that song, an undercurrent of horror soundtracking that makes me think the unicorn is about to eat me; could happen — and the extended pair of “T-E-T” and “Ribbons in Time” are marked by ’80s sci-fi beeps and boops and a kind of electronic shuffle, respectively, though the latter is probably as close as the 54-minute six-songer comes to soundscaping. Which is like landscaping only, in this case, happening in another galaxy somewhere. And there they call it jazz as they should and all is well. In all seriousness, I keep a running list in my brain of bands who should ask Dr. Space to guest on their records. Your band is probably on it. It’s pretty much everybody.

Dr. Space on Bandcamp

Space Rock Productions website

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Beastwars, Cold Wind / When I’m King

Here’s some context you probably don’t need: “Cold Wind” and “When I’m King” were written around the time of Wellington, New Zealand’s Beastwars‘ 2011 self-titled debut (review here). They may even have been recorded — I could’ve sworn “When I’m King” popped up somewhere at some point — but they’ve now been redone from the ground up and they’re pressed to a limited 7″ as part of the 10th anniversary celebration that also saw the self-titled get a new vinyl issue. Now, is it helpful knowing that? Yeah, sure. If I came at you instead and said, “Hey, new Beastwars!” though, it’d probably be more of a draw, and whatever gets Beastwars in as many ears as possible is what should invariably be done. “When I’m King” is a banger (bonus points for gang shouts), “Cold Wind” a little more seething, but both tracks harness that peculiarly sludged tonality that the band has owned for more than a decade now, and the guttural delivery of Matthew Hyde is only more resonant for the years between the writing and the execution of these songs. That execution is beheading by riffs, by the way.

Beastwars on Facebook

Beastwars on Bandcamp

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Deathbell, A Nocturnal Crossing

A Nocturnal Crossing, the second album from Toulouse, France’s Deathbell and their first for Svart Records, can come at you from any number of angles seemingly at any point. Which thread are you following? Is it the soaring, classic-feeling occult rock melodies of Lauren Gaynor, or her organ work that, at the same time, adds gothic drama to so much of the material on the six-songer? Is it the lumbering groove of “Shifting Sands” and the doomed fuzz of “Devoured on the Peak” earlier, speaking to entirely different traditions? Or maybe the atmosphere in “Silent She Comes,” which is almost post-metallic in its shining lead guitar? Or perhaps, and hopefully I think, it’s all of these things as skillfully woven together as they are in these tracks. Opener “The Stronghold and the Archer” and the closing title-track mirror each other in their underlying metallic influence, but that too becomes one more texture at Deathbell‘s disposal, brought forward in such a way as to emphasize the unity of the whole work as much as the individual progressions.

Deathbell on Facebook

Svart Records website

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Malady, Ainavihantaa

After debuting on Svart with 2018’s Toinen Toista (review here), sax-laced Helskini classic prog pastoralists Malady offer Ainavihantaa (‘all the time’) across a lush and welcoming six tracks and 37 minutes. The flow is immediate and paramount on opener “Alava Vaara” and through the flute/sax tradeoff in “Vapaa Ja Autio,” which follows, and though it’s heady fare, somehow the “Foxy-Lady”-if-King–Crimson-wrote-it strut-into-meander of “Sisävesien Rannat” skirts a line of indulgence without fully toppling over. Side B is jazzy and winding across “Dyadi” and “Haavan Väri” ahead of the title-track, but the human presence of vocals, even in a language I don’t speak, does wonders in keeping the proceedings grounded, right up to the Beatlesian finish of “Ainavihantaa” itself. This was on a lot of best-of-2021 lists and it’s not a challenge to see why.

Malady on Facebook

Svart Records website

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Wormsand, Shapeless Mass

The Earth, ecologically devastated by industrialization and the wastefulness of humans — capitalism, in other words — becomes a wasteland. A few billionaires, who’ve been playing around with laughably-phallic rockets anyway, decide they’re going to escape out into space and leave the rest of the species, which they’ve destroyed, to suffer. It would be — and used to be — the stuff of decent science fiction were it not basically what homo sapiens are living through right now. A mass extinction owing to climate change the roots of which are in anthropocene action and inaction alike. French outfit Wormsand tell this utterly-plausible story in cascading doom riffs that reminds at once of Pallbearer and Forming the Void, keeping an edge of modern heavy prog to their plodding and accompanying with clean vocals and some more gutty shouts. As one might expect, things get pretty grim by the time they’re down to “Carrions,” “Collapsing” and “Shapeless Mass” near the album’s end, but the trio get big, big points for not trying to offer some placating “you can avoid this future” message of hope at the end, instead highlighting the final message, “The oracles warned us long ago/That a huge mass would swallow us all.” Ambitious in narrative concept, expertly conveyed.

Wormsand on Facebook

Stellar Frequencies on Bandcamp

Saka Čost on Bandcamp

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Thunderchief, Synanthrope

I hate to call out a falsehood, but Virginia duo Thunderchief‘s claim that, “No fucks were used, or given, on this recording,” just isn’t the case. I’m sorry. You don’t rip the fuck out of your throat like Rik Surly does on “Aiboh/Phobia” without a clear intent. That intent might be — and would seem to be — fuckall, but fuckall’s way different from ‘no fucks.’ If they didn’t give a fuck, Synanthrope could hardly come across as furious as it does in these seven tracks, totaling a consuming, gruff, sludged 39 minutes, marked out by centerpiece “King of the Pleistocene” fucking with your conception of desert rock, the second part of “Aiboh/Phobia” — the part named after a grind band, oddly enough — and “Toss Me a Crumb” fucking around with some grind, and closer “Paw” trodding out its feedback-laden course with Erik Larson‘s drums marching in crash with Surly‘s riffs. Hell, you got Mike Dean to record the thing. That’s giving a fuck all by itself. This kind of heavy and righteous, purposeful aural cruelty doesn’t happen by mistake. It’s too good to be fuckless. Sorry.

Thunderchief on Facebook

Thunderchief on Bandcamp

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Turkey Vulture, Twist the Knife

No lyric sheet necessary to get that the longest song on Turkey Vulture‘s Twist the Knife EP, the three-minute “Livestock on Our Way to Slaughter,” is based lyrically on the ever-relevant film They Live. The married Connecticut duo of guitarist/bassist/vocalist Jessie May and drummer Jim Clegg (also in charge of visuals), find thrashy release on the four-song release, which totals about eight minutes and in opener “Fiji,” “Where the Truth Dwells,” as well as “Livestock on Our Way to Slaughter,” they rip with surprising metallic thrust. The closing “She’s Married (But Not to Me)” is something of a further shift, and had me searching for an original version out there somewhere thinking it was a cover either of Buddy Holly or some wistful punk band, but no, seems to be an original. So be it. Clearly, at this point, May and Clegg are finding new modes of sonic catharsis that even a couple years ago they likely wouldn’t have dared. They’re a stronger band for their readiness to follow such whims.

Turkey Vulture on Facebook

Turkey Vultre on Bandcamp

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Stargo, Dammbruch

In Stargo‘s Dammbruch, I hear a signal back to European heavy rock’s prior instrumentalist generation, the Dortmunder three-piece not completely divorced from the riffy progressions that drove the warmth creating heavy psychedelia in the first place, even as the four-part, 14-minute title-track of the EP shifts between those impulses and more progressive, weighted, extreme or airy movements before its eerily peaceful conclusion. “Copter,” which could be titled after its wub-wub-wub effect early and the guitar chug that takes hold of it, and the closer “Bathysphere,” with its outward reach of guitar telegraphed in the first half but still resonant at the end, bring likeminded breadth in shorter bursts, but the abiding story of the EP is what the band — who made their full-length debut with 2020’s Parasight — might continue to offer as their style continues to develop. 35007, My Sleeping Karma, The Ocean, Pelican and Russian Circles — Stargo‘s sound is a melting pot of ideas. They only need to keep exploring.

Stargo on Facebook

Stargo on Bandcamp

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Ascia, Volume II

Fabrizio Monni, also of Black Capricorn, issues a second EP from the solo-project Ascia following up on Sept. 2021’s Volume I (review here) with the marauding lumber of Dec. 2021’s Volume II, bringing his axe down across five tracks in a sub-20-minute run that’s been compiled onto a limited CD with the first release. Makes sense. The two outings share an affinity for the running megafuzz of earliest High on Fire and showcase the emerging personality of the new outfit in the melodies of “The Will of Gods” and the untempered doom of the later slowdown in “Thousands of Ghosts.” The instrumental “A Night with Shahrazad” closes, and feels a bit like a piece of a song — it crashes out just when you think the vocals might kick in — but if Monni‘s leaving his audience wanting more, well, he also seems quick enough to provide. “Eternal Glory” and “Ruins of War” will remind you what you liked about the first EP, and the rest will remind you why you’re looking forward to the next one. Mark it a win.

Ascia on Bandcamp

Black Capricorn on Facebook

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Getting to the halfway point of a Quarterly Review is always something special. I’m not trying to say it’s a hardship reviewing 50 records in a week — if anything it’s a relief, despite the strain it seems to put on my interpersonal relationships; The Patient Mrs. hates it and I can’t really fault her for that since it does consume a fair amount of my brain while it’s ongoing — but some days it comes down to ‘do I shower or do I write’ and usually writing wins out. I’ll shower later. Probably. Hopefully.

But today we pass halfway through and there’s a lot of killer still to come, so plenty to look forward to either way. The day starts with an old favorite I’ve included here basically as a favor to myself. Let’s go.

Quarterly Review #21-30:

Sergio Ch., La Danza de los Tóxicos

Comparatively speaking, La Danza de los Tóxicos is a pretty straightforward solo offering from Soldati/Ararat/ex-Los Natas frontman Sergio Chotsourian, whose ealrier-2021 full-length, Koi (review here), featured both of his children, one rapping and one joining him on vocals for a Nine Inch Nails cover. Perhaps it’s in reaction to that record that this one feels more traditionalist, with Chotsourian (aka Sergio Ch.) still finding 11 minutes to drone out instrumentalist style on closer “Thor Hammer” and to sample Scarface at the start of “Late Train,” but in his guy-and-guitar ethic, a lot of this material sounds like the roots of things to come — Chotsourian has shared songs between projects for years — while keeping a balance between exploratory vibe and traditional structures on pieces like “Skinny Ass,” “La Esquina” and “88.”

Sergio Ch. on Facebook

South American Sludge Records on Bandcamp

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Titanosaur, Absence of Universe

Coated in burl and aggressive presentation as well as the occasional metaphors about stellar phenomena and hints/flourish of Latin rhythm and percussion, Titanosaur‘s fourth long-player, Absence of Universe, sees multi-instrumentalist, producer and vocalist Geoff Saavedra engaging with aggressive tonality and riff construction as well as the various instabilities of the moment in which the album was put together. “Conspiracy” feels somewhat self-explanatory from a lyrical standpoint, and both opener “The Echo Chamber” and “Shut Off the Voices” feel born of the era in their theme, while “So Happy” seems like a more personal perspective on mental health. Whatever a given song’s subject throughout the nine-track/42-minute offering, Saavedra delivers with a heavy rock born out of ’90s metal such that the breakdown in “So Happy” feels natural when it hits, and the rush of finale “Needed Order” seems like an earned expulsion of the tension so much of the record prior has been building, incluing the chugging force of “I Will Live Forever” immediately prior.

Titanosaur on Facebook

The Swamp Records on Bandcamp

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Insect Ark, Future Fossils

Future Fossils would seem to take its name from the idea of bringing these tracks together in some effort toward conservation, to keep them from getting lost to time or obscurity amid the various other works and incarnations of Insect Ark. The first three songs are synth-only solo pieces by Dana Schechter, recorded in 2018, and the final piece, “Gravitrons,” is a 23-minute live improvisation by Schechter and then-drummer Ashley Spungin recorded in New York in 2016. The sense that these things might someday be “discovered” as one might unearth a fossil is fair enough — the minimalism of “Gypsum Blade” has space enough to hold whatever evocations one might place on it, and while “Anopsian Volta” feels grounded with a line of piano, opener “Oral Thrush” seems more decidedly cinematic. All this of course is grist for the mill of “Gravitrons,’ which is consuming unto itself in its ambience and rife with experimentalist purpose. Going in order to have gone. As ethics go, that one feels particularly worth preserving.

Insect Ark on Facebook

Consouling Sounds website

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Never Kenezzard, The Long and Grinding Road

Sludge and grind come together on Denver trio Never Kenezzard‘s The Long and Grinding Road, and through what seems to be some modern metallurgical miracle, the album sounds neither like Carcass‘ Swansong nor Dopethrone. After the pummeling beginning of “Gravity” and “Genie,” the interlude “Praer” and the subequent channel-panning-screamer “Ra” expand an anti-genre take as bent on individuality of sound as they apparently are on clever wordplay. “Demon Wheel” has a genuine heavy rock thrust, and “Slowburn” and the looped clock noise of “11:59:59” provide buffers between the extended cuts “Seven Statues” (11:31) and “The Long and Grinding Road” (14:55) itself, which closes, but by then the three-piece have established a will and a way to go wherever they want and you can follow if you’re up for it. So are you? Probably. There’s some underlying current of Faith No More-style fuckery in the sound, something playful about the way Never Kenezzard push themselves into abrasion. You can tell they’re having fun, and that affects the listening experience throughout the purposefully unmanageable 57 minutes of the album.

Never Kenezzard on Facebook

Never Kenezzard on Bandcamp

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The Kupa Pities, Godlike Supervision

There’s a thread of noise rock that runs throughout Godlike Supervision, the debut full-length from Munich-based four-piece The Kupa Pities, and it brings grit to both the early-Clutch riffing of lead cut “Anthology” and the later, fuzz-overdose “Queen Machine.” It’s not just about aggression, though there’s some of that, but of the band putting their own spin on the established tenets of Kyuss-style desert and Fu Manchu-style heavy rocks. “Black Hole” digs into the punkish roots of the former, while the starts-and-stops of “Dance Baby Dance” and the sheer push of the title-track hint toward the latter, even if they’re a little sharper around the edges than the penultimate “Surfing,” which feels like it was titled after what the band do with their own groove — they seem to ride it in expert fashion. So be it. “Black Hole” works in a bit of atmosphere and “Burning Man” caps with a fair-enough blowout at the finish, ending the album on a note not unfamiliar but indicative of the twists The Kupa Pities are working to bring to their influences.

The Kupa Pities on Facebook

The Kupa Pities on Bandcamp

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Warpstormer, 1

A newcomer trio, London’s Warpstormer brings together guitarist Scott Black (Green Lung), drummer Matthew Folley and bassist/vocalist Richard J. Morgan (ex-Oak), and their aptly-titled first EP, 1, presents four bangers of unrepentantly brash heavy rock and roll, channeling perhaps some of earlier Orange Goblin‘s boozy-wrecking-crew vibes, but on “Ride the Bomb” digging into post-hardcore and metal as well, the abidingly aggro sense undercut by a quiet stretch holding its tension in the drums as well as the drunken quiet start of “Devourer,” which gets plenty bruising by its finish but is slower in procession certainly than were “Here Comes Hell” and “Storm Caller” at the outset. They’re in and out and done in 19 minutes, but as what otherwise might be a demo, 1 gives a look at where Warpstormer are coming from and would seem to herald future incursions to come. I’ll take it. The songs come across as feeling out where the band wants to be in terms of sound, but where they’re headed, they’re headed with due charge.

Warpstormer on Facebook

Warpstormer on Bandcamp

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Ricardo Jiménez y Antonio Ramírez, Génesis Negro

Génesis Negro perhaps loses something in the audio-only experience. To wit, while Ricardo Jiménez Gómez is responsible for all the music on the album, it’s the illustrations of Antonio Ramírez Collado, bringing together in Blake-esque style mysticism, anatomy, and ideas born of research into early Christian gnostics, that serve as the root from which that music is sprung. Instrumental in its entirety and including a reprint of the article that ties the visuals and audio together and was apparently the inspiration for exploring the subject to start with, its 43-minute run can obviously offer the listener a deeper dive than just the average collection of verse/chorus songs, and no doubt that’s the intention. Some pieces are minimal enough to barely be there at all, enough to emphasize every strum of a string, and others offer a distorted tonal weight that seems ready to interpret any number of psychedelic spiritual chaos processes. If you want to get weird, Ricardo Jiménez y Antonio Ramírez are way ahead of you. They might also be ahead of themselves, honestly, despite whatever temporal paradox that implies.

Sentencia Records on Facebook

Sentencia Records on Bandcamp

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Children of the Sün, Roots

Tracks like “Leaves,” “Blood Boils Hot,” and “Thunder” still rock out a pretty heavy classic blues rock vibe, but Swedish outfit Children of the Sün — as the title Roots would imply in following-up their 2019 debut, Flowers (review here) — seem to dig deeper into atmospheric expression, emotive melodies and patience of craft in the 13-track/44-minute offering. From the the mellow noodling of “Reflection” at the start, a piano-led foreshadow for “Eden” later on, to the acoustic-till-it-ain’t “Man in the Moon” later on, the spirit of Roots feels somewhere between days gone by and days to come and therefore must be the present, strutting accordingly on “The Soul” and making a pure vocal showcase for Josefina Berglund Ekholm, on which she shines as one has come to expect. There are moments where the vocals feel disconnected from the instrumental portions of the songs, but where they go, they go organically.

Children of the Sün on Facebook

The Sign Records on Facebook

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Desert Clouds, Planexit

Is that flute on “Planexit,” the opener and longest track (immediate points), on Planexit, the latest outing from London-based grunge-informed heavy rockers Desert Clouds? It could well be, and after the somewhat bleaker progression of the riffs prior, that escape into melody comes across as well-placed. The band are likewise unafraid to pull off atmospheric Nick Cave-style storytelling in “Wheelchair” and more broodingly progressive fare in “Deceivers,” leaving the relatively brief “Revolutionary Lies” to rest somewhere between Southern heavy, early ’90s melodicism and a modern production. Throughout the 45-minute LP, the band swap out various structural ideologies, and while I can’t help be immersed in the groove and bassline of “Deceivers,” the linear build and receding of the penultimate “Pearl Marmalade” feels no less essential to the impact of the record overall. Behold a band who have found their niche and set themselves to the task of refining its parameters. As ever, it works because songwriting and performance are both right on.

Desert Clouds on Facebook

Mandrone Records website

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Gondhawa, Käampâla

Comprised of Clement Pineau (drums, kamele n’goni, vocals, percussion), Idriss Besselievre (vocals, guitar, sanxian), Paul Adamczuk (bass/guitar, keyboard) and Margot GuilbertGondhawa bring forth a heavy psychedelic cultural sphere throughout the still-digestible six tracks and 37 minutes of Käampâla, with the French trio’s penchant for including instrumentation from Africa or Asia alongside the more traditional guitar, bass, drums, keys and vocals resulting in a lush but natural feeling psychedelia that seems to be all the more open for their readiness to jam outside whatever box expectation might put them in. The title-track feels like Mideastern prog, while the subsequent “Assid Bubu” shreds out an echoing lead over a slow-roller of a stoner-jam nod. Their willingness to dance is a strength, ultimately, and their inclusion of these arrangement elements, including percussion, comes across as more than dabbling in world music. They’re not the first to look beyond their effects pedals in manifesting psych rock, but there’s not a lot out there that sounds like this.

Gondhawa on Facebook

Stolen Body Records website

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If you, like me, drink coffee, then I hope that you, like me, have it ready to go. We enter day two of the Jan. 2022 Quarterly Review today in a continued effort to at least not start the year at an immediate deficit when it comes to keeping up with stuff. Will it work? I don’t know, to be honest. It seems like I could do one of these for a week every month and that might be enough? Probably not, honestly. The relative democratization of media and method has its ups and downs — social media is a cesspool, privacy is a relic of an erased age, and don’t get me started on self-as-brand fiefdoms (including my own) that permeate the digital sphere in sad, cloying cries for validation — but I’m sure glad recording equipment is cheap and easier to use than it once was. Creativity abounds. Which is good.

Lots to do today and it’s early so I might even have time to get some of it done before my morning goes completely off the rails. Only one way to find out, hmm?

Quarterly Review #11-20:

Emma Ruth Rundle, Engine of Hell

It’s not inconceivable that Emma Ruth Rundle captured a few new ears via her previous LP and EP collaborations with New Orleans art-sludgers Thou, and she answers the tonal wash of those offerings with bedroom folk, can-hear-fingers-moving-on-strings intimacy, some subtle layering of vocals and post-grunge hard-strumming of acoustic guitar, but ultimately a minimal-feeling procession through Engine of Hell, an eight-track collection that, at times, feels like it’s barely there, and in other stretches seems overwhelming in its emotional heft. Rundle‘s songwriting is a long-since-proven commodity among her fans, and the piano-led “In My Afterlife” closes out the record as if to obliterate any lingering doubt of her sincerity. Actually, Engine of Hell makes its challenge in the opposite: it comes across as so genuine that listening to it, the listener almost feels like they’re ogling Rundle‘s trauma, and whatever it’s-sad-so-it-must-be-meaningful cynicism one might want to saddle on Engine of Hell is quickly enough dispatched. Rundle was rude to me once at Roadburn, so screw her, but I won’t take away from the accomplishment here. Not everybody’s brave enough to make a record like this.

Emma Ruth Rundle website

Sargent House website

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T.G. Olson, Lost Horse Returns of its Own Accord

Released in November, Lost Horse Returns of its Own Accord isn’t even the latest full-length anymore from the creative ecosystem that is T.G. Olson, but it’s noteworthy just the same for its clarity of songwriting — “Like You Never Left” makes an early standout for its purposeful-feeling hook and the repeated verse of “Flowers of the End in Bloom” does likewise — and a breadth of production that captures the happening-now sense of trad-twang-folk performance one has come to expect and leaves room for layered in harmonica or backing vocals where they might apply. A completely solo endeavor, the 10-track outing finds the Across Tundras founder taking a relatively straightforward approach as opposed to some of his more experimentalist offerings, which makes touches like the layering in closer “Same Ol’ Blue” and the mourning of the redwoods in the prior “The Way it Used to Be” feel all the more vital to the proceedings. More contemplative than rambling, the way “Li’l Sandy” sets the record in motion is laden with melancholy and nostalgia, but somehow unforgiving of self as well, recognizing the rose tint through which one might see the past, unafraid to call it out. If you’ve never heard a T.G. Olson record before, this would be a good place to start.

Electric Relics Records on Bandcamp

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Haast, Made of Light

Formerly known as Haast’s Eagled, Welsh four-piece Haast make a strikingly progressive turn with Made of Light, what’s ostensibly a kind of second debut. And while they’ve carried over the chemistry and some of the tonal weight of their work under the prior moniker, the mission across the seven-track offering is more than divergent enough to justify that new beginning. Cuts like “A Myth to End All Myths” and the from-the-bottom-up-building “The Agulhas Current” might remind some of Forming the Void‘s take on prog-heavy or heavy-prog, but Haast willfully change up their songwriting and the execution of the album, bringing in vocalist Leanne Brookes on the title-track and Jams Thomas on nine-minute closer “Diweddglo,” which crushes as much as it soars. The central question that Made of Light needs to answer is whether Haast are better off having made the change. Hearing them rework the verse melody of Alice in Chains‘ “We Die Young” on “Psychophant,” the answer is yes. They’ve allowed themselves more reach and room to grow and gained far more than whatever they’ve lost.

Haast on Facebook

Haast on Bandcamp

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Dark Ocean Circle, Bottom of the Ocean

Have riffs, will groove. So it goes with the debut EP from Stockholm-based unit Dark Ocean Circle, who present four formative but cohesive tracks on Bottom of the Ocean, following the guitar in more of a Sabbathian tradition then one might expect from the current stoner-is-as-stoner-does hesher scene. To wit, the title-track’s starts-stops, bluesy soloing and percussive edge tap a distinctly ’70s vibe, if somewhat updated in the still-raw production value after the straight-ahead fuzz of “Battlesnake” hints toward lumber to come in its thickened tone. “Setting Sun” feels more spacious by the time it’s done, but makes solid use of the just over three minutes to get to that point — a short, but satisfying journey — and the closing “Oceans of Blood” speaks to a NWOBHM influence while pairing that with the underlying boogie-blues that seemed to surface in “Bottom of the Ocean” as well. A pandemic-born project, their sound is nascent here but for sure aware of its inspirations and what it wants to take from them. Sans nonsense heavy rock and roll is of perennial welcome.

Dark Ocean Circle on Facebook

Dark Ocean Circle on Bandcamp

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El Castillo, Derecho

Floridian three-piece El Castillo self-tag as “surf Western,” and yeah, that’s about right. Instrumental in its 19-minute entirety, Derecho is the first EP from the trio of guitarist Ben McLeod (also All Them Witches, Westing), bassist Jon Ward and drummer Michael Monahan, and with the participation of McLeod as a draw, the feeling of two sounds united by singularity of tone is palpable. Morricone-meets-slow-motion-Dick–Dale perhaps, though that doesn’t quite account for the subtle current of reggae in “Diddle Datil” or the somehow-fiesta-ready “Summer in Bavaria,” though “Double Tap” is just about ready for you to hang 10, even if closer “Hang 5” keeps to half that, likely in honor of its languid pace, which turns surf into psych as easily as “Wolf Moon” turns it toward the Spaghetti West. An unpretentious exploration, and more intricate than it lets on with “El Norte” bringing various sides together fluidly at the outset and the rest unfolding with similarly apparent ease.

El Castillo on Facebook

El Castillo on Bandcamp

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Tekarra, Kicking Horse

Listening to “Hunted,” the 22:53 leadoff from Tekarra‘s two-song long-player, Kicking Horse, it’s hard not to feel nostalgic for standing in a small room with speaker cabinets stacked to the ceiling and having your bones vibrate from the level of volume assaulting you. I’ve never seen the Edmonton, Alberta, three-piece live, but their rumble and the tension in their pacing is so. fucking. doomed. You just want to throw your head back and shout. Not even words, just primal noises, since that seems to be what’s coming through on their end, so laced with feedback as it is. Coupled with the likewise grueling “Crusade / Kicking Horse” (23:11), there’s some guttural vocals, some samples, but the overarching intention is so clearly in the tune-low-play-slow ethic that that’s what comes across most of all, regardless of what else is happening. I’d be tempted to call it misanthropic if it didn’t have me so much pining for the live experience, and whatever you want to call it there’s no way these dudes give a crap anyway. They’re on another wavelength entirely, sounding dropped out of life and encrusted with cruelty. Fuck you and fuck yes.

Tekarra on Facebook

LSDR Records on Bandcamp

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1782, From the Graveyard

It’s been the better part of a year since 1782 released From the Graveyard, and I could detail for you the mundane reason I didn’t review it before now, but there’s only so much room and I’d rather talk about the bass tone on “Bloodline” and the grimly fuzzed lumber of “Priestess of Death.” An uptick in production value from their 2019 self-titled debut (review here), the 43-minute/eight-song LP nonetheless maintains enough rawness to still be in the post-Electric Wizard vein of cultistry, but its blowout distortion is all the more satisfying for the fullness with which it’s presented. “Seven Priests” sounds like Cathedral played at half-speed (not a complaint) and with its stretch of church organ picking up after a drop to nothing but barely-there low end, “Black Void” lives up to its name while feeling experimental in structure. Familiar in scope, for sure, but a filthy and dark delight just the same. Give me the slow nod of “Inferno” anytime. Even months after the fact its righteousness holds true.

1782 on Facebook

Heavy Psych Sounds website

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Fever Dog, Alpha Waves

Alpha Waves is a sonic twist a few years in the making, as Fever Dog transcend the expectation of their prior classic desert boogie in favor of a glam-informed 10-track double-LP, impeccably arranged and unrepentantly pop-minded. A cut like the title-track or “Star Power” is still unafraid to veer into psychedelics, as Danny Graham and Joshua Adams, but the opener “Freewheelin'” and “Solid Ground” and the later “The Demon” are glam-shuffle ragers, high energy, thoughtfully executed, and clear in their purpose, with “King of the Street” tapping vibes from ELO and Bowie ahead of the shimmering funk-informed jam that is “Mystics of Zanadu” before it fades into a full-on synthesizer deep-dive. Does it come back? You know what, I’m not gonna tell you. Maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t. Definitely you should find out for yourself. Sharp in its craft and wholly realized, Alpha Waves is brought to bear with an individualized vision, and the payoff is right there in its blend of poise and push.

Fever Dog on Facebook

Fever Dog on Bandcamp

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Black Holes are Cannibals, Surfacer

Led by Chris Jude Watson, the dronadelic outfit Black Holes are Cannibals may just be one person, it may be 20, but it doesn’t matter when you’re dealing with a sense of space being manipulated and torn apart molecule by molecule, atom by atom. So it goes throughout the 19-minute “Surfacer,” the 19:07 title-track of the two-songer LP accompanied by “No Title” (20:01). At about eight minutes in, Watson‘s everything-is-throat-singing approach seems to find the event horizon and twists into an elongated freakout with swirls of echoing tones, what seem to be screams, crashing cymbals and a resonant chaotic feel taking hold and then building down instead of up, seeming to disappear into the comparatively minimal beginning of “No Title,” which holds its own payoff back for a broader but more linear progression, ending up in the same with-different-marketing-this-would-be-black-metal aural morass, willfully thrown into the chasm it has made. You ever have an out of body experience? Watson has. Even managed to get it on tape.

Black Holes are Cannibals on Facebook

Cardinal Fuzz store

Little Cloud Records store

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Sonic Wolves, It’s All a Game to Me

What is one supposed to say to paying tribute to Lemmy Kilmister and Cliff Burton? Careers have been made on far less original fare than the two homage tracks that comprise Sonic Wolves‘ It’s All a Game to Me EP, with “CCKL” setting the tempo for a Motörheaded sprint and “Thee Ace of Spades” digging into early-Metallica bombast in its first couple minutes, drifting out for a while after the halfway point, then thrashing its way back to the end. Obviously it’s not the same kind of stuff they were doing with their 2018 self-titled (review here), but neither is it worlds apart. The basic fact of the matter is bands pay tribute to Motörhead and Metallica, to Lemmy and Cliff Burton, all the time. They just don’t tell you they’re doing it. In that way, It’s All a Game to Me almost feels courteous as it elbows you in the gut.

Sonic Wolves on Facebook

Argonauta Records website

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Somehow it feels longer than it’s actually been. Yeah, a year’s changed over, but it’s really only been about a month since the last Quarterly Review installment, which I said at the time was only half of the full proceedings. I’ve started the count over at 1-50, but in my head, this is really a continuation of that five-day stretch more than something separate. It’s been booked out I think since before the last round of 50 was done, if that tells you anything. Should tell you 2021 was a busy year and 2022 looks like it’ll be more of the same in that regard. Also a few other regards, but let’s keep it optimistic, hmm?

We start today fresh with a wide swath of stuff for digging and, well, I hope you dig it. Let’s go.

Quarterly Review #1-10:

Zack Oakley, Badlands

Apparently I’ve been spelling Zack Oakley‘s name wrong for the better part of a decade. Zack with a ‘k’ instead of an ‘h’ at the end. I feel like a jerk. By any spelling, dude both shreds and can write a song. Known for his work in Joy, Pharlee, Volcano, etc., he brings vibrant classic heavy to the fore on his solo debut, Badlands, sounding like a one-man San Diego scene on “I’m the One” only after declaring his own genre in opener “Freedom Rock.” “Mexico” vibes on harmonica-laced heavy blues and the acoustic-led “Looking High Searching Low” follows suit with slide, but there’s tinge of psych on the catchy “Desert Shack,” and “Fever” stomps out in pure Hendrix style without sounding ridiculous, which is not an achievement to be understated. Closing duo “Acid Rain” and “Badlands” meet at the place where the ’60s ended and the ’70s started, swaggering through time with more hooks and a sound that might be garage if your garage had a really nice studio in it. I’ll take more of this anytime Mr. Oakley wants to belt it out.

Zack Oakley website

Kommune Records on Bandcamp

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Vøuhl, Vøuhl

Issued by Shawn Pelata — also known as Pælãtä Shåvvn, with an apparent thing for accent marks — the self-titled debut from Vøuhl mixes industrial-style experimentalism, dark ambience and a strong cinematic current across a still-relatively-unassuming five-songs and 23 minutes, hitting a resonant minimalism at the ending of “Evvûl” while building to a fuller-sounding progression on the subsequent “Välle.” Drones, echoing, looped beats and thoughtfully executed synth let Pelata construct each atmosphere as an individual piece, but with the attention obviously paid to the presentation of the whole, there’s nothing that keeps one piece from tying into the next either, so whether one approaches Vøuhl‘s Vøuhl as an EP or a short album, the impression of a deep-running soundscape is made one way or the other. What seems to be speech samples in “Aurô” and noise-laced closer “ßlasste” — thoroughly manipulated — may hint at things to come, but I hope not entirely at the expense of the percussive urgency of opener “Dùste” here.

Vøuhl on Facebook

Stone Groove Records website

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White Manna, First Welcome

At first you’re all like, “yeah this is right on I can handle it” and then all of a sudden White Manna are about four minutes into the freakery of “Light Cones” opening up their latest opus First Welcome and you’re starting to panic because you took too much and you’re couchlocked. The heretofore undervalued Calipsych weirdos are out-out-out on their new eight-songer, done in an LP-ready 39 minutes but drippy droppy through an interdimensional swap-meet of renegade noises and melted-down aesthetics. Maybe you heard 2020’s ARC (review here) and thereby got on board, or maybe you don’t know them at all. Doesn’t matter. The thing is they’re already in your brain and by the time you’re done with the triumph-boogie of “Lions of Fire” you realize you’re one with the vibrating universe and only then are you ready to meet the “Monogamous Cassanova” in krautrock purgatory before the swirling “Milk Symposium” spreads itself out like a blanket over the sun. Too trippy for everything, and so just. fucking. right. If you can hang with this, I wanna be friends.

White Manna on Facebook

Cardinal Fuzz webstore

Centripetal Force Records website

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Daily Thompson, God of Spinoza

In 2022, German heavy rockers Daily Thompson mark a decade since their founding. God of Spinoza is their fifth full-length, and in songs like “Cantaloupe Melon,” “Golden Desert Child,” and “Muaratic Acid,” the reliability one has come to expect from them is only reinforced. Their sound hinges on psychedelia, but complements that with an abiding sense of grunge and a patience in songwriting. They’ve done heavy blues and straight-up rock in the past, so neither is out of the trio’s wheelhouse — the penultimate “Midnight Soldier” is a breakout here — but the title-track’s drawn-out “yeah”s and slacker-nod rhythm seem to draw more directly from the Alice in Chains school of making material sound slow without actually having it crawl or sacrifice accessibility. I’d give them points regardless for calling a song “I Saw Jesus in a Taco Bell,” but the closer is a genuine highlight on God of Spinoza turning a long stretch of disaffection to immersive fuzz with a deftness befitting a band on their fifth record who know precisely who they are. Like I said, reliable.

Daily Thompson on Facebook

Noisolution website

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Headless Monarch, Titan Slug

Founded by guitarist/bassist Collin Green, Headless Monarch released their first demo in 2013 and their most recent EP, Nothing on the Horizon, in 2016. Five years later, Green and drummer Brandon Zackey offer the late-2021 debut full-length, Titan Slug, working in collaboration for the first time with vocalist and producer Otu Suurmunne of Moonic Productions — who mostly goes by Otu — across a richly executed collection of six tracks, three new, three from prior outings. Not sure if Otu is a hired gun as a singer working alongside the other two, but there’s little arguing with the results they glean as a trio across a song like “Fever Dream” or “Sleeper Now Rise,” the latter taken from Headless Monarch‘s 2015 two-songer and positioned in a more aggressive stance overall. The newer songs come across as more fleshed out, but even “Eight Minutes of Light” from the first demo has atmospheric reach to go with its clarity of focus and noteworthy heft. One only hopes the collaboration continues and inspires further work along these lines.

Headless Monarch on Instagram

Headless Monarch on Bandcamp

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Some Pills for Ayala, Space Octopus

Technically speaking, you had me at Space Octopus. After releasing a self-titled EP under the somewhat-troubling moniker (one hopes it’s not too many) Some Pills for Ayala, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and producer Néstor Ayala Cortés of At Devil Dirt returns with this two-songer, comprised of its 11-minute title-cut and the shorter “It’s Been a Long Trip.” The lead track is duly dream-drifty in its procession, a subtle build underway across its span but pushing more for hypnosis than impact and getting there to be sure, even as the second half grows thicker in tone. At 3:48, “It’s Been a Long Trip” comes across more as an experiment in technique captured and used as the foundation for Cortés‘ soft, wide echoing vocals. Lysergic and adventurous in kind, the 15-minute EP is nonetheless serene in its presence and soothing overall. Could be that Cortés might push deeper into folk as he goes forward, but the acidy foundation he’s working from will only add to that.

Some Pills for Ayala on Instagram

Some Pills for Ayala on Bandcamp

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Il Mostro, Occult Practices

It’s a quick in-out from Boston heavy punkers Il Mostro on the Occult Practices EP. Four songs, the last of which is a cover of T.S.O.L.‘s “Black Magic,” nothing over three minutes long, all fits neatly on a 7″. For what they’re doing, that makes sense, taking the high-velocity ethic of Motörhead or Peter Pan Speedrock (if you need a second plays-fast-punk-derived-and-rocks band) and delivering with an appropriately straightforward thrust. Opener “Firewitch” ends with giggling, and that’s fair enough to convey the overarching lack of pretense throughout, but they do well with the cover and have a righteous balance between control and chaos in the relatively-mid-paced “Trial” and the sprinter “Faith in Ghosts,” which follows. Is cult punk a thing? I guess you could ask the Misfits that question, but Il Mostro mostly avoid sounding like that Jersey band, and it’s easy enough to imagine them bashing walls at any number of Beantown havens or bathed under the telltale red lights of O’Brien’s as they tear into a set. So be it, punkers.

Il Mostro on Facebook

Il Mostro on Bandcamp

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Carmen Sea, Hiss

Should it come as a surprise that an EP of violin-laced/led instrumentalist progressive post-rock, willfully working against genre convention in order to cross between metal, rock and more atmospheric fare includes an element of self-indulgence? Nope. How could it be otherwise? The five-track Hiss from Parisian four-piece Carmen Sea is a heady outing indeed, but at just 29 minutes, the band doesn’t actually lose themselves in what they’re doing, and the surprises they offer along the way like the electronic turns in “Black Echoes” or the quiet drone stretch in the first half of 11-minute closer “Glow in Space” — which gets plenty tense soon enough — provide welcome defiance of expectation. That is to say, whatever else they are, Carmen Sea are not predictable, and that serves them well here and will continue to. “Frames” begins jarring and strutting, but finds its strength in its more floating movement, though the later bridge of classical and weighted musics feels like the realization that might’ve led to creating the band in the first place. There’s potential in toying with that balance.

Carmen Sea on Facebook

Carmen Sea Distrokid

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Trip Hill, Ain’t Trip Ceremony

Florence’s Fabrizio Cecchi has vibe to spare with his solo-project Trip Hill, and Denmark’s Bad Afro Records has stepped forward to issue the 2020 offering, Ain’t Trip Ceremony, toward broader consciousness. The eight-song/39-minute long-player is duly dug-in, and its psychedelic reach comes with a humility of craft that makes the songs likewise peaceful and exploratory and entrancing. Repetition is key for the latter, but Cecchi also manages to keep things moving across the album, with a fuzzy cut like “Spam Mind” seeming to build on top of loops and shifting into a not-overblown space rock, hardly mellow, but more acknowledging the vastness of the cosmos than one might expect. The more densely-fuzzed “Ralph’s Heart Attack” leads into the guitar-focused “Pan” ahead of the finale “What Happened to Will,” but that’s after “Tame Ùkhan” has gone a-wandering and decided to stay that way and the seven-minute “Trái tim Thán Yêu” has singlehandedly justified the vinyl release in its blend of percussive urgency and psychedelic shimmer. Go in with an open mind and you won’t go wrong.

Trip Hill on Facebook

Bad Afro Records on Bandcamp

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Yanomamo & Slomatics, Split 7″

Yanomamo begin their Iommium Records two-song split 7″ with Slomatics by harshly delivering a deceptively positive message: “If you’re going to seek revenge/Might as well dig two graves/He who holds resentment is already digging his own.” Fair enough. The Sydney, Australia, and Belfast, Northern Ireland, outfits offer about 10 and a half minutes of material between them, but complement each other well, with the thickness of the latter building off the raw presentation of the former, Yanomamo‘s guttural portrayal of bitterness offered in scream-topped sludge crash on “Dig Two Graves” that builds in momentum toward the end while Slomatics‘ “Griefhound” offers the futurist tonal density and expanse of vocal echo typifying their latter-day work and turns a quiet, chugging bridge into a consciousness-slamming payoff. Neither act is really out of their comfort zone, but established listeners will revel in the chance to hear them alongside each other, and if you hear complaints about either of these cuts, they won’t be from me.

Yanomamo on Facebook

Slomatics on Facebook

Iommium Records on Bandcamp

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