Messa – The Spin Metal Blade Records – 2025 Metal, Doom, Postpunk, Psych Rated: *****
Italian fourpiece Messa has been making the yearly Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown with both their Feast For Water record from 2018 (Number 13) and their 2022 Close album (Number 5). And maybe Belfry from 2016 should have been on there as well. Well, I think we can safely say that their new record The Spin has a great chance of making it too. Imploring some more postpunk oriented movement and weaving their haunting atmospherics in almost drone like tapestries, the new seven track, 42 minute long album displays as much of the artistry of Messa as it does of their ability to cross genres. Spinning yarns of classic metal riffs through eighties touched songs like Fire On The Roof or letting vocalist Sara Bianchin haunt and chill during the At Races song, while always giving her the room to go into whatever territory she wants to go. Captivate, enchant or wrap you around her fingers with her almost jazzy stylistics whenever the music quiets down and waits for the overture to commence, as it does during that beautiful Immolation song. Or The Dress, which will quiet your soul as you listen enthralled with all that goes on. Grandiose in gestures and offering up an entire night sky filled with shooting stars, The Spin is the velvet blanket keeping you warm. Scarlet in color and doom to the touch…
Good morning! Hope you all had a great week and may you all have a lovely new one. Remember, there is always good and great music to find refuge in, to provide aid and succor. And we are here, the embracing family of the heavy underground. Had a great chat with Dawn and Dandy Brown last night about Lorquin’s Admiral, an interview that will be online on Stoner HiVe soon. And managed to provide some new posts last week. We jotted down a few words on the new Minerall album, the new Duskhead EP, amazing new The Elven record and Technicolor Blood’s new release. A video for Döusk and Temple Fang and talked at length about how great that new Grey Czar album Euarthropodia. Which we were honored to do a FULL ALBUM PREMIERE for a few days later. No live music for me this weekend unfortunately, but I hope loads managed to see Acid Mammoth do their one-off, extra-long, amazing set at De Tanker in Amsterdamn yesterday. Let us know if you did and how good it was?! Here’s hoping we can do some stuff for the HiVe this week as well! Enjoy and check out the list of amazing albums we listened to last week. Either by visiting their bandcamp sites or clicking on that Spotify link below. Keep rockin everyone!
Minerall – Strömung Sulatron Records – 2025 Rock, Kraut, Space, Psych, Jam Rated: ****
Minerall is improvised rock… Since 2023. They released their first two track adventure called Bügeln in 2024 and is now back with another wild instrumental space, psych and kraut rock exploration of ebb and flow, of surging energy and of psychedelic wanderlust. Minerall is a project of Marcel Cultrera (Guitar, Speck), Tommy Handschick (Drums, Kombynat Robotron, Earthbong) and Dave Schmidt aka Sula Bassana (Bass, Synth, Zone Six, Interkosmos, and many more). The new voyage is called Strömung and is comprised out of two tracks, both around twenty minutes of length. Minerall is good, great even and Strömung is stunning and I had it high on my Doom Charts list for March. And our good Doktor420 had it as his Number 1 spot. It unfortunately ended up on Number 49. Minerall manages to bring out the best of the members involved and combines that best into a spirited ride through the cosmos. Recorded at the same time as Bügeln, when the three met for a birthday party jam in Yannick Aderb's studio Buffbergen, this release seems to come at the perfect time for all you heavy heads that need a calming, some comfort and balm for the mind. And knowing this was recorded together with Bügeln, well, there might be even more great releases in the future. The ease and flow of the three, and how they drift along the current and bounce of each other is stunning. Strömung does not offer up any resistance, it’s freeing and as you let your mind wander, you will feel the caress, its ripples salve you heart and soul…
Duskhead – The Messenger Self-released – 2025 Rock, Hard, Stoner, Southern Rated: ***
The fabled Roadburn Festival is just around the corner. And so is the Roadburn Offroad part of the festival, held at different venues, nooks and crannies of lovely Tilburg. One of those spots is Little Devil, which will welcome the travelers as of Tuesday. But the live music will start on Thursday, April 17th with Mantra Machine and Duskhead. For Duskhead it will be a special night, cause its their first gig in a long time and the presentation of their new four track EP, The Messenger. And we are here to tell you that it’s a night you should not miss and an EP worth every second of your attention. It’s the follow-up to their Thousand Eyes EP from 2014. That’s right, eleven years ago! But of course, the members rock(ed) out in other bands and those bands took precedence. Back then. It might also have caused two of them to depart Duskhead and guitarist Elmer Meijers from The Grand Astoria to join the ranks. The two Tank86 crazies are still there and since that band has gone on an indefinite hiatus, they can now concentrate on Duskhead as a trio. Four songs that move and sway through the stoner rocking landscape, implore a southern touch and a lot of spirit. Bluesy and catchy, for the most part their hardrock has a minor punk influence here and there but always marries a sharp edge with melodicism and powerful with dynamics. And that gives you fifteen minutes of damn exciting, good ol’ rock ‘n roll!
The Elven – Solstice Spinda Records / Clostridium Records / Echodelick Records – 2025 Rock, Hardrock, Classic, Psych, Roots, Seventies Rated: *****
Radiating warmth and blissful harmony, the brand new outfit The Elven have released the perfect spring and summer time album with Solstice. Heralding the coming of a new season, a new sound, steeped in love, freedom and the music of yesteryear. With grace and poise they dip their toes in as much of the classic stuff as they can handle, never shying away from using seventies, roots, blues and psych to touch up their hardrock. Ever since the first single Shine was released The Elven has been on heavy rotation over here. And whenever the sun blessed me with its rays, The Elven would be spun first, as we gazed skywards and thanked the energy bestowed upon me. And if you haven’t yet gotten acquainted with this new project through the first single Shine or their second single Closer To Freedom, let us jot down once more who The Elven are. Born during those weird pandemic times, the project is comprised out of bassist Rod Tirado and guitarist/vocalist James Vieco of Saturna fame. Who managed to rope in their friend Isaiah Mitchell from Earthless to lay down his guitar prowess. And with added keyboardist Tabatha Puig from The Capaces and drummer Javi Gómez from Patente De Corso, they managed to get together and write for one whole month. The result of which are the eight songs on the Solstice album...
Which starts out with that brilliant Shine track. Not just a single, but a prayer and so soulful, that it will immediately warm every fiber of your being. And those vocals, James Vieco sounds completely in synch with this track, the composition and its meaning, delivering it so pure, honest and with touch of gruff that runs straight from his heart to yours. Far Beyond is that classic seventies stroll, that riverside walk that stops at the pier and has you gaze off into the distance, determined to beat on, boats against the current. Followed by Closer To Freedom, slowing you even more down, to a stop, to an inhale that will fill you with nothing but energy as you let go of all those desperate thoughts, the memories of those ten thousands mistakes, and embrace forgiveness. Translated so beautiful by the vocals and the guitar lines that brush ever so lovely beneath the voice. With New Pair Of Wings, we come to the most current, even pop sensible, track of the album. Light as a feather, its meandering build will surely lift you up and send you off as high as you can possibly be, the flight punctuated by a lovely guitar solo, which stops as the track gets a minutely wilder sequence, until break down. Stand Right Next To Me, with a jazzy touch, courtesy of a saxophone brought to you by Juan Lichter and a guitar that riffs off the sax and the percussion that keeps this comfortable and confident bop and swing going. The longest track on the album, sits so snugly in the middle of the album, it will make you long to dance tightly together with all those stranger you might meet at a roof top party somewhere on a warm and sweltering night. Out The Door, with lovely key work, gives of most of the Black Crowes boogie and the Southern touch they usually bring to the table. But this table is set for you to dance upon, arms constantly in the air and shuffling those like crazy. Slower, gruff crooner, Wherever I Go follows, is that soulful early seventies rock once again, although the guitar tone of the solo also has a bit of middle nineties, but as the keys meander throughout the composition, and the guitar shambles across, the overall atmosphere is that of vintage love once again. Final track All Of A Sudden feels like that peaceful glade in the middle of the forest, filled with flowers and a sun that will always break through the clouds at the perfect moment. It is the instrumental outro, which lets both guitar and piano become that sunray once again, filling you with warmth and understanding. Preparing you for a new time, a new season and a chance to do whatever you need to do. Like a first day of spring can do…
Technicolor Blood – Evolution Now LeBackstore Records – 2025 Rock, Kraut, Space, Stoner, Psych, Garage Rated: ****
I think we already mentioned that April 25th will be a massive and glorious day for music lovers! And another album that will drop on that wonderful day is the new Evolution Now by Montreal, Canada rockers Technicolor Blood. Two singles of that album have already been whirling around in your head ever since they were released in December 2024. But there are seven more wonderful garage rocking, kraut toking, space trucking beauties on Evolution Now. Crash Programs opens the ball, with an eastern touch, slowly bubbling before it turns into a scuzzy rocker. And as soon as second track King hits you, you realize the good ol’ boys know that the groove is in the heart. And that groovy flutter will never leave the sound on Evolution Now, even if Planet Square rocks more, Collapse City thunders more and feels like a roving entity opening the horizon to all possibilities. Year Of The Snake, filled with space garage, giving off that acid rock pattern and Mischief of Rats marries all that came before with a bouncy rock vibe at first, akin to what Psychlona are masters off, and then breaks it with a refrain that offers a more alternative British rock touch. Anaadi builds up the anticipation slowly, giving you outbursts drenched in euphoria before coming to tumbling down close. The Watcher was the other single and then comes closing track Suffocating Greed. Which indeed opens oppressive and leaden before slowly opening up and letting the guitar soar away. What a wonderful follow-up to that 2021 Self-Titled album. Technicolor Blood is back and ready to point you all towards the good groove and a great time…
The live album will come out on Riff Dealers somewhere around May, and judging from this first track called 5, it is something wild, wonderful and to behold in wondrous anticipation! Doūsk is an instrumental duo that turns their stoner and doom into a sludge toned, kraut rocking, groove riddled, highly atmospheric and trance inducing entity. One that will make you feel like a whirling dervish dancing through a wormhole in space and time. This is brilliant!
Euarthropodia is that most wondrous of albums. One of those that has the ability to make your imagination run rampant and whisk you away to another world. The Austrian four named Grey Czar have outdone themselves and Euarthropodia will surely strike a chord in every progressive rock enthusiast’s heart. We jotted down many words on what this album has made us see and feel, which you can read HERE, but perhaps you should not take our word for it. Perhaps you should just press play. Right now!
Cause we are honored to present to you the FULL ALBUM PREMIERE for Euarthropodia by Grey Czar. Out on Argonauta Records and Octopus Rising this is an album filled with fragile butterfly riffs and robust bee like solo’s, industrious organ trooping it out for every HiVe creature, turning the album into a testament to the beauty and despair of evolution…
We love Temple Fang and have probably said so many times. Journalism is never objective and music journalism even less so. And when it comes in the form or a blog that professes its love for so many albums so many times, you know it will always be that: the celebration of everything good and true in the heavy underground. In the eye of its beholder, your writer of service. But since there is no such thing as objectivity in writing, we usually just come out with it immediately. State the obvious and take it from there. We love Temple Fang! And we love the new album The River, longform free rock in its most purest form. Featured to day, the second single The Radiant. The most accessible, easiest to grasp, (read: shortest) track on the album. I loved that they came out swinging with the almost twenty minutes long The River single. And I guess it felt like a righteous poetic bookend to follow it up with the shortest track on the album. Which drops on April 25th through Stickman Records and will surely cause a psychedelic free rock tsunami of love…
TEMPLE FANG premiere "The Radiant" video single from upcoming studio album "Lifted From The Wind"
Due out on April 25th via Stickman Records!
"There’s an engaging hook delivered in harmonized layers, and with “The Radiant,” Temple Fang position themselves among Europe’s finer prog-psych." JJ Koczan (The Obelisk) about Temple Fang's new single "The Radiant"
April 25, 2025 will see Amsterdam prog-psych spearheads Temple Fang release their much-awaited, new album, entitled "Lifted from the Wind", via Stickman Records. Coming on CD, Vinyl and in Digital formats, the pre-sale is available at this location!
Following a previously-released first single - the epic 18minutes album opening track "The River" - today, the heavy psychedelia rock collective has shared a music video for their latest single "The Radiant".
Forming in 2018, Temple Fang really started hitting their stride in 2019 with, amongst many others, two highly acclaimed Roadburn shows and appearances at many festivals and clubs across Europe. Having no release out yet and thus creating much anticipation to what their recorded output would end up like. With alternating lead vocalists, two wildly harmonizing guitarists, a powerhouse of a rhythm-section, and armed with truly psychedelic compositions fueled by their exposure to South American plant-medicine, the band took the heavy-psych underground by storm and seemed to be gearing up to bottle this magick and commit it to their studio debut. And then 2020 happened.
During the pandemic the band stayed as active as possible, appearing on whatever live-streams they could, resulting in well received appearances on Eurosonic and National Dutch Television, creating even more buzz. A string of seated shows followed, whatever it took to keep playing.
Losing their original drummer, the band continued on with a replacement post-covid, putting out a half live/half studio album (Fang Temple 2021), an EP (Jerusalem/The Bridge 2022), multiple live albums (Live at Merleyn 2020, Live at Freak Valley 2023, Live at Krach am Bach 2024), and playing a seemingly endless string of shows from Oslo to Milan, hitting many festivals in between. Roadburn, Desertfest Berlin, Sonic Blast (twice), Palp and countless others were exposed to the magick of this true free rock n’ roll phenomenon, leaving audiences stunned and clamouring for more.
Fast forward to 2025 as Temple Fang is ready to release "Lifted from the Wind" on Stickman Records. A record they themselves consider to be their true debut studio album. On this sprawling double record, released on the only label they would give up their independence for, Temple Fang appears, for the first time in their existence, fully formed.
Fierce and strong, hard rocking yet elegant, with 20min+ psych freakouts and prog ballads side-by-side, Temple Fang truly delivers on the promise they’ve always held, to really stretch the possibilities of what it means to be a rock band in 2025. With spectacular wild-man Daan Wopereis as a full member on the drums, Temple Fang now can deliver on their commitment to really rock, to blow your mind AND tear your heart out. Rock n’ Roll as a means to attaining spiritual freedom. Mind-bending riffs, triple vocal harmonies, dubbed out bass and groovy yet hard hitting drums, ecstatically rocking and truly psychedelic, Temple Fang delivers it all with LOVE. Longform rock for fans of Motorpsycho, The Grateful Dead, Hawkwind and Hendrix!
In support of "Lifted from the Wind", Temple Fang have been confirmed to return to Roadburn, to play this year’s Spark on Wednesday, 16 April, and will embark on an extensive European tour this Spring. Find all upcoming live dates listed below!
"Lifted from the Wind" Tracklist:
1. The River 2. Once 3. Harvest Angel 4. The Radiant 5. Josephine
Love For Loud is Els Bruinewoud
and she manages to create a lovely space over in Amsterdamn for
heaviness to flourish. A labor of Love, and a labor for Loud it
definitely is! There are more great dates already set throughout the
year, the awesome Vinnum Sabbathi for instance will be playing August 12th together with Witchrot!
But below is the list of cool bands stopping over in April! And that will be something spectacular! This weekend, April 13th, the one and only Acid Mammoth will be doing a one off special night, a special night filled with an incredibly long set. A once in a lifetime experience! It will be gigantic! Gargantuan! Mammoth! Acid Mammoth!
And if you are travelling to Amsterdamn for that wild night, maybe better make a weekend out of it. Cause the evening before there is a stunning bill of An Evening With Knives and Resurrect Tomorrow tearing up the place! Not to be missed either...
Grey Czar – Euarthropodia Argonauta Records / Octopus Rising – 2025 Rock, Metal, Prog, Stoner Rated: *****
Shimmering memories of bronze lamps in alcoves, burning sesame oils, sending up coils of smoke and flickering shadows across palace walls that are meant to last for eternity. But every civilization is forever in decline and even though the spirit rebels against it and moves to build ever larger structures to repel the coming of the end, this decline is inevitable and crucial. Cause it will also mean rebirth. Decline and rebirth is the concept around which the brand new album Euarthropodia by Austrian quartet Grey Czar has been built. The imagery they evoke will be entirely up to the listener, but lost civilizations, ancient lore, majestic many legged beasts, winged creatures and giant insects will surely be a part of them. The compositions are purposeful and pristine, ensuring all prog rock and prog metal enthusiasts will feel a flutter in their hearts, as riffs stand firm or stomp ever forward, ready to trample whatever opposition they come across. Which is what Grey Czar seems to have been growing towards, ever since that first self-titled release from 2012. Still the four same comrades, trooping it out for their destiny. Euarthropodia is full of copper air and breathes antique love. Whether you hear it in that extra punctuated organ push of Insects Took Over or the way the vocals wash over the compositions, minorly touched by a second or third set of voices. And as the story continues throughout the album, you can feel decades glide by, as some tracks lean more towards sixties production or seventies rock, classic metal and towards the end even more eighties toned. It’s a wonderful extra touch that makes it even easy for the listener to get lost inside the world of Euarthropodia.
Opening with Eschaton, a short build that quickly enfolds its grand plan towards a sharp and salty push, with something akin to audio illusion, for there seems to be so much more breathing room between the different instruments and notes, it’s almost impossible to still sound so forceful and determined. Strained vocals give that extra air of classic prog rock and when the track has seamlessly transitioned into the second track Withered World, the main vocals get a bigger podium before Grey Czar thunders on. Thunder that becomes grainy and thick, even grittier than in that opening track. Insects Took Over follows with a minor jazz touch, this thick veiny bass, lovely key work opening the ball and that organ than pushing the track ever forwards. And by then you start to hear that minor touch of Ian Astbury color in the main vocalist’s voice. Another smooth transition already leads you to center piece Trooping For Euarthropodia, lead by a forceful wind, determined to drench the listener in all its prog rock glory. And where you can feel the propelling energy of Trooping For Euarthropodia deliver that rotational noise, the next track is actually called Ballad Of Propellerheads and gives more of a glide and layered descent, almost like a mercurial cascade down a river canyon. Which transitions with propeller sounds into Queens Of The New World, grand overture opening, pulling away the curtain, while the memories of all that was lost may not have been washed away, yet the sounds of a new day have arrived. Even more spring time sounds open following Nutritional Protocol, which soon turns a darker corner. Steadily building towards a passionate ending, not explosive, but heartfelt and gripping. Arthrobotic Liberty, explodes out of the gate, is touched by another retro organ push and a rising and falling sensation that almost feels like an arcane ritual. Feelings of chronic remorse riddled throughout the track and so classic in all its elements. Final track Aeon has that most eighties of effects, key work and production, almost Victorian in its execution, profoundly impressing and absorbing as it moves through its different scenes.
In all Euarthropodia feels like a dazzling feat of storytelling, using tried and true prog rock, metal and even minor stoner rock methods in such a way that everything feels brand new and vibrant. Even those vintage touches from the different eras, turning it all ageless and reverberating across space and time. Grey Czar manages to evoke atmospheres, images and emotions with seemingly carefree melodic gestures and riff hungry rhythms. There is no shortage of push or pull and the overall unfiltered texture turns the Euarthropodia into something coarse and grained. And it is this story, this one lost musical poem about decline and rebirth that got stuck in the shell and through all the lost civilizations, all the eras gone, slowly turned into a pearl…
And you can hear that pearl in all its glory on Stoner HiVe this upcoming Wednesday! That’s right, tune in, this Wednesday, the 9th of April for the FULL ALBUM PREMIERE of Grey Czar’s Euarthropodia !!
