Posted in Whathaveyou on August 28th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Italian psych boundarypushers Giöbia will begin their next round of European touring on Sept. 5 at the Obelisk-co-presented Jam in the Psych Castle in Pusztazámor, Hungary, where they’ll perform along the likes of Yuri Gagarin and Magyarország’s own Psychedelic Source Records collective, among slews of others. More info on that is here. Sadly, I won’t be there, but I’m stoked for it regardless. Giöbia are out in support of their 2025 album, X-ÆON (review here), which came out in continued collaboration with Heavy Psych Sounds, and which found them blending old and new impulses in space and cosmic rock, honing an identity of their own drawing from decades of influence. A better record and a better band than I’ve seen them get credit for being. So it goes.
The dates came down the PR wire:
We are stoked to announce that our Italian space rock wizards GIÖBIA will tour Europe in September 2026.
The mystical day 60s rock met neopsychedelic rock mixing up to the point of losing consciousness of their own essence, that’s when Giöbia’s acid psychedelic rock was born, in an overwhelming and incessant soundtrack with an unmistakable Italian taste. In a vortex that leaves no way out, the unique melodies of this quartet take the listener into a world where the boundaries of reality are no longer defined and anything can ever happen.
After their debut in 2009 with ‘Hard Stories’, Giöbia firmly established themselves in 2013 with ‘Introducing Night Sounds’, which suddenly brought them to the most important stages of Europe, until in 2016 the milestone ‘The Magnifier’ assigned them a place among the most influential bands of the scene. Giöbia went on astonishing their audience by forging ‘Plasmatic Idol’, which saw the light in 2020 via Heavy Psych Sounds and reconfirmed them as the forefathers of a genre that fascinates and amazes anyone who dare to leave themselves behind without fear of never returning. In 2021 Giöbia released their split album with The Cosmic Dead “The Intergalactic Connection – Exploring The Sideral Remote Hyperspace”, a must-have for every space traveler.
Unable to stop in front of any challenge, the quartet released ‘Acid Disorder’ in 2023 on Heavy Psych Sounds, which expertly refines the band’s psychedelic rock attitude alongside a wide spectrum of intriguing sounds and textures.
Their latest album X-ÆON was released in October 2025 via Heavy Psych Sounds !!
!! DON’T MISS THEM !!
*** GIÖBIA – Euro Tour 2026 *** 05.09.26 HU Pusztazámor, Budapest – Jam In The Psych Castle 06.09.26 CZ Prague – Cross Club 07.09.26 DE Berlin – B.L.O. Kantine 08.09.26 DK Copenhagen – Lygsten Kro 09.09.26 DE Halle – Hühnermanhattan 10.09.26 DE Kronach – Tiger Lounge 11.09.26 DE Chemnitz – AJZ Talschock 12.09.26 DE Bremen – ZfK Bunker 13.09.26 DE Tubingen – Lu15 19.09.26 IT Bozen – Platza Open 21.11.26 IT Lonate Ceppino (VI) – Black Inside
GIÖBIA is: Stefano ‘Bazu’ Basurto – guitar, vocals Paolo ‘Detrji’ Basurto – bass Melissa Crema – organs, synthesizers Pietro D’Ambrosio – drums
Posted in Reviews on November 20th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
It’s all over now, I’ve got momentum on my side. This is day four of the Quarterly Review. The first three days have been nothing but a pleasure on my end, putting them together, and with just today and tomorrow left, I’m feeling pretty good about the entire endeavor. I’m not sure yet if this will be the end of the year as regards QRs, but if it is, it’s a good one to go out on.
And basically to make that determination, I need to look at next month’s schedule and see what’s coming when, when I’ll do things like the year-end poll and my own big end-of-year post. No idea on any of that yet, but I’ll get there. Getting this done in relatively smooth fashion is a help. Thanks for reading and I hope it’s been a good one for you as well.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
Psychedelic Source Records, The Initiation Outlaws
Set to release through Echodelick in the US and Weird Beard Records in the UK, in addition to Psychedelic Source Records‘ own distribution, The Initiation Outlaws brings eight pieces and a full 98-minute double-LP’s worth of cosmic improvised jamming, with a cast of regulars from the Hungarian collective — Bence Ambrus, Máté Varga, Róbert Kránitz, Krisztina Benus, Gergely Szabó — taking part in collaborative exploration with Go Kurosawa of Kikagaku Moyo, who goes from drums to bass to guitar as the release progresses, sliding right into the amorphous methodology of Psychedelic Source Records while distinguishing the heavier push in “Three Golds Reward II” or the snare work on “The King of Magic Colts and Wands I” earlier. Trance-inducing as ever, these captured moments are gorgeously fluid and immersive, active enough in parts like “The King of Magic Colts and Wands II” to defy mellowpsych-improv expectation, but abiding just the same. If you’re not there yet, it’s time to start thinking of Psychedelic Source among Europe’s finest purveyors of heavy psychedelia.
The forlorn folkishness in the midsection of “Waves Become the Sky” bring to mind an extrapolation of emotive doom from the likes of Warning, but that’s understandable with Aerial Ruin and Bell Witch renewing their collaboration for Stygian Bough Vol. II, following on from a first volume (review here) in 2020. The album takes place over four extended tracks from the rolling density of the aforementioned opener through the minimalist-till-it-isn’t “King of the Wood” and the longform folk-death-doom of “From Dominion Let Them Bleed” and the melancholy triumph of heft wrought in 19-minute finale “The Told and the Leadened,” which dwells in spaces empty and full and remains conscious enough to end with tense noise and drumming. This is artistry on its own wavelength, working in its own time, and patient to a point of extremity. But they do it to offer comfort, make no mistake. There’s consolation in these songs, in addition to all the mourning.
Unrepentantly cosmic Italian outfit Giöbia are like a fresh coat of antimatter for space rock. The four-piece obviously hunkered down in their secret lab after 2023’s Acid Disorder (review here) and worked hard to refine their chemical compositions, such that “Voodoo Experience” nods grounded even as its synth and guitars surge beyond the thermosphere. The results show everywhere throughout X-ÆON in their outsider cohesion of classic and neo-space rocks, heavy psychedelia and oddball synthscaping, whether you’re doing the sensory thing with the dream-jam “1976” or embroiled in the four-part side B concept piece, “La Mort de la Terre,” which draws a cinematic curtain for life as we know it in “Dans la Nuit Éternelle,” a wordless epilogue that feels half a world removed from the stomp-and-verse of “The Death of the Crows,” but of course, that’s the whole idea.
The included acoustic guitar, organ and FM-radio classic rock vibes in the eight-and-a-half-minute closing title-track aren’t a coincidence. They’re part of a stated intention the band had in taking on more of a traditional sound, coming down from some of the harder-hitting doom of 2020’s Acid Communion and working in more of a ’70s-inspired style. That manifests to varying degrees throughout, as leadoff “Electric Execution” feels like it’s working in the vein of “Neon Knights” or “Turn Up the Night” in Dio Sabbathian raucousness (I know that was 1980-81, don’t @ me), and while “Lucifer Rising” has a weighted march, it’s more Scorpions than Sleep, and “Goin’ to Texas” brings in the organ to emphasize the Southern geography of the album’s centerpiece. It’s a striking turn but they pull it off for sure. “Muchachos Muchachin'” has mid-’70s charm to spare, and “Bone Boys Ride Out” seems to bridge the more modern attack of Bone Church-prior with who they are today. Not every progression plays out like you think it will, and if this is the band Bone Church have wanted to be all along, they sound accordingly right to have made the redirect.
The ‘soft scream’ vocals give Js Donny‘s Death Folk an immediate sense of extremity, but it’s a quiet extremity. The French solo artist — who also plays bass in adventurous Marseilles sludgers Donna Candy — released an EP with a full lineup in 2023, but this six-song/33-minute offering is more intimate. Js Donny dwells in the quiet, creepy spaces the songs create, the vocal gurgle giving shades of otherworldliness and malevolence alike. It’s called Death Folk, but especially with the electrified/distorted wash that takes hold in “Not Like That” and again at the outset of closer “Black Heart” — a biting tone, like harsher blackgaze — I can’t help but wonder if Js Donny isn’t working in a kind of post-death-metallic framing. There are no drums, which is a fair trade for what’s gained in grim ambience, but even without, the album is clear in manifesting both sides of its title, and while Js Donny isn’t the only one laying claim to death-folk as a style, how it happens here sure feels like an act of genre creation.
In some distant future, when the history is written of our idiotic, persistently awful time, no one will ever say, “and the right-thinking people of the day had no choice but to seek refuge in avant garde cybergrind,” and that’s why history is bullshit. Skeletal Blasphemy is the third album from Nuclear Dudes and second of 2025 behind September’s Truth Paste (review here) — keep ’em coming — and is the solo-project’s most vicious and realized offering to-date. Spearhead Jon Weisnewski (Sandrider, ex-Akimbo) brings powerviolent catharsis on “Victory Pants,” the title-track and assorted others, working in collaboration with guest drummer Coady Willis (High on Fire, Big Business, Melvins), and whether it’s the punker push in “Bad Body” or the slow, undulations of the closing “The Octopus” and the burgeoning thread of progressive melody throughout these songs, it’s exactly the sort of self-bludgeoning that being alive right now requires. Album of the year? Fuck you, fuck the year, and fuck capitalism.
With an instrumentalist foot in progressive, horn-inclusive jazz, heavy psychedelic fluidity and a resonant warmth of tone alongside a will to meander, Kronstad 23 feel tailor-made for El Paraiso Records, run by members of Denmark’s Causa Sui. Sommermørket is the Norwegian outfit’s debut album and without sounding consumed by its own ambition to do so, it organically nestles the band in a stylistic niche that allows for the explorations in “Caesar” and “Astralreiser,” the latter of which will seem barely there in its early going at low volumes, to exist along the daring-toward-dancey opener “Dølgsmål” and building a kind of dreamy tension between the guitar and drums on “Trosten,” with none of it feeling out of place. They’ll invariably get comparisons to Kanaan, but the foundation is different and the delivery gentler, with “Helgen” finding its way on drum rolls and key/guitar drift into a classic-prog horn section in a payoff that’s somewhat understated until you look back across the five and a half minutes and see how far you’ve come. I can’t wait to hear how they grow.
“Love of Driving” is the debut single from newcomer New Jersey-based krautrock-minded two-piece Rolls the River. The band brings together Dan Kirwan of Pyre Fyre on bass, guitar and vocals, and Victor Marinelli on guitar, synth, drums and vocals for a sub-five-minute cosmic reachout, obviously schooled in where it’s coming from — that is to say, one doesn’t krautrock by accident; it is a form to adopt and refine — but still feeling like an initial exploration of both style and composition. Fading in on an initial keyboardy drone, the guitar and drums come in together and the neospace shuffle is mellow as layers are added, guitar, keys, but the sense of movement brought to “Love of Driving” is enough to explain the title, whatever you might think of the Garden State’s highway system. Rather than get caught up in jughandles, though, Rolls the River harness tonal presence and linear development and still find room to include voice as part of the atmosphere. Formative, and an encouraging start.
Belgium’s Psychonaut may yet teach progressive metal a lesson or two. The post-metal three-piece reach what sure feels in “Endless Currents” like a new level of expression and craft, and while at 11 songs and 60 minutes, World Maker isn’t a minor undertaking — one could easily argue making a world takes time — the utter consumption achieved in “All in Time,” which I won’t spoil any further, the blissful wash of “…Everything Else is Just the Weather” are not to be missed, and worth whatever minor investment of attention span might be required. Exciting as the intermittent metallic surges are, “Endless Erosion” caps in a quiet place, and the atmospherics across the first two and a half minutes of “Origins,” just as one example, help to bring a feeling of place (of ‘world’) to the procession. It is a vivid place Psychonaut have made, and there are listeners for whom the melodies of World Maker will be transcendental.
Following an apparent 2024 EP called Anachronist that is below because this debut album isn’t streaming yet that I can find, The Sea Between Stars — a suitably romantic framing of what you might otherwise call ‘the void’ — brings a progressive take to classic-style doom rock. The Oregonian five-piece roll out a genuine feeling of dynamic across the album’s 10 tracks, from the proto-metal shove of “Knightrider” at the outset to the later rush and wail of “Sky Sized Heart,” to the doom-epic ballad reach of “Bridge of Irreconcilable Sorrow” to the acoustic turn in the last movement of “The Words We Don’t Speak” and variable but unifyingly soulful vocal arrangements throughout, up to the minimal voice-and-piano closer “Ghost Notes” or the duet in the crescendo of “Still Breathing.” Ambition set in balance with organic production and songwriting. I don’t know when The Sea Between Stars is coming out, if it’s now-ish, early 2026 or what, but if you want to take this as an early heads up, do.
One looks forward to the arrival of a new album from Italy’s Giöbia — also stylized all-caps: GIÖBIA — the way one looks forward to an adventure into the unknown. There’s some trepidation, of course, because the risk is inherent, but that anxiety is part of the general molecular excitement. From X-ÆON, which I believe is their sixth album (?), the Milano-based oddballs unfurl “Fractal Haze” as a lead single, and it’s premiering-below six-plus minutes of post-cosmic exploration, shimmering like new science in a paper magazine reflecting light from a drop ceiling in 1975, delightfully headspinning while also familiar in its intent to plunge.
Giöbia‘s most recent LP was 2023’s Acid Disorder (review here), and from the progressive trail of their discography to-date, one might infer that “Fractal Haze” likely isn’t a representation of all the sounds on X-ÆON — the biggest expectation I have for the record is they’ll pursue their own ends, if you’re curious — but it has the decided advantage of being rad as hell, and if you’re picking a first single to go with the launch of preorders for your new album, that’s certainly not the kind of thing you want to keep a secret.
The song and PR wire background follow. Please enjoy:
GIÖBIA, “Fractal Haze” track premiere
FRACTAL HAZE is GIÖBIA brand new single, taken from the upcoming new album X-ÆON.
The release will see the light on October 17th via Heavy Psych Sounds.
With X-ÆON, Giöbia push their signature blend of mesmerizing neo-psychedelia and space rock into uncharted territory. Echoes of the ’70s meet a bold, forward-looking vision, shaping an album that feels timeless. Each track offers a glimpse into a parallel reality, a plunge into a new era brimming with tension and mystery.
As the band puts it: “This album is everything we’ve lived and learned, captured in the moment we’re in now.”
All songs written, arranged and performed by Giöbia Recorded at Elfo Studio in Piacenza between March and December 2024 Engineered and mixed by Dan1ele Mandelli, final mixing and mastering by Andrea Tripodi at Studio 7, London, UK Cover artwork by Jo Riou Layout by Francesca Papi In loving memory of Paola Di Francesco
1. Voodoo Experience 2. Fractal Haze 3. The Death of The Crows 4. 1976 5. Vers les Terres-Rouges (La Mort de la Terre) 6. Les Ferromagnétaux (La Mort de la Terre) 7. L’Eau Fugitive (La Mort de la Terre) 8. Dans la Nuit Éternelle (La Mort de la Terre)
The mystical day 60s rock met neopsychedelic rock mixing up to the point of losing consciousness of their own essence, that’s when Giöbia’s acid psychedelic rock was born, in an overwhelming and incessant soundtrack with an unmistakable Italian taste. In a vortex that leaves no way out, the unique melodies of this quartet take the listener into a world where the boundaries of reality are no longer defined and anything can ever happen.
After their debut in 2009 with ‘Hard Stories’, Giöbia firmly established themselves in 2013 with ‘Introducing Night Sounds’, which suddenly brought them to the most important stages of Europe, until in 2016 the milestone ‘The Magnifier’ assigned them a place among the most influential bands of the scene.
Giöbia went on astonishing their audience by forging ‘Plasmatic Idol’, which saw the light in 2020 via Heavy Psych Sounds and reconfirmed them as the forefathers of a genre that fascinates and amazes anyone who dare to leave themselves behind without fear of never returning. In 2021 Giöbia released their split album with The Cosmic Dead “The Intergalactic Connection – Exploring The Sideral Remote Hyperspace”, a must-have for every space traveler.
Unable to stop in front of any challenge, the quartet released ‘Acid Disorder’ in 2023 on Heavy Psych Sounds, which expertly refines the band’s psychedelic rock attitude alongside a wide spectrum of intriguing sounds and textures. Now after two years it’s time for another brand new album – the release will see the light in October via Heavy Psych Sounds. Stay tuned!
GIÖBIA is: Stefano ‘Bazu’ Basurto – guitar, vocals Paolo ‘Detrji’ Basurto – bass Melissa Crema – organs, synthesizers Pietro D’Ambrosio – drums
