Stoner HiVe: maart 2018

dinsdag 20 maart 2018

An Evening With Knives – Serrated

Lighttown Fidelity / Argonauta

Rock, Stoner, Doom, Post

Rated: *****

It’s been out now. For more than a month. The debut full-sized album Serrated by An Evening With Knives. We’ve seen them live and heard the new songs in full force. Both on stage and on record. And now, as we’ve let all of them sink in and heard all the subtleties, we appreciate them even more. Their very own style of highly atmospheric almost emotional metal rubs up against post metal and grabs some fine parts from sludge and doom and is a very deep and highly intense ride. Slow dragging riffs and beautiful melodies trade places with thundering rumbles and murky tones. Just as much as the howls from vocalist Marco Gelissen battle with different layers of heaviness. It is highly admirable how these tracks all seem to exhume some sort of existential pain, angst, anger or fear while still retaining some small glimmer of hope and light. The way they translate it all into massive riffs that repeat and then repurpose into intimate and emotive is simply brilliant. Serrated is here and its cuts deep into your soul…

(Written by JK)

maandag 19 maart 2018

Stoner HiVe’s Top 5 artists listened to last week…

Stoner HiVe’s

Top 5 artists listened to last week…

It’s evening already over here. But we still wanted to quickly put up the Top 5 Most Listened to albums of the past week. Two are still there, so let’s name them first! Most of our time still went out to Dandy Brown and his majestic new album Scattered Days. Out soon on Taxi Driver Records the maestro we know from Hermano and the awesome Orquesta Del Desierto, (the last, of which Dos was remastered and re-released last year via Spin On Black), gives us nine tracks that meander through many heavy scenes and all have a marvelous lingering aftertaste. It will put you in a righteous mood! As we already stated last week, we love The Good Hand… And perhaps a bit too much! Their super deluxe limited diehard fan release of their earlier album Atman via Minstrel Music is majestic and definitely one of my favorite vinyl treasures. And we can’t wait to get our hands on the new ‘blue velvet’ edition vinyl coming our way! The new record is called Blissful Yearning, once again impressive and bordering on perfection. The new Desert Storm album Sentinels, out on APF Records, is one hell of a sludge and stoner metal homerun. And will not only ring on through the heavy underground, every metal fan will dig it! What a ride! As is Spellbound, the new album by Drive By Wire. On a completely different playing field the bluesy, psychedelic and sunny sound of Spellbound, out on Argonauta Records, brings forth all the goodness one needs from everything stonerrock with a dusty feel. Put on Spellbound and winter will definitely run away! And finally, Blackwater Holylight, the all-female outfit, releases their first effort through Riding Easy Records. A wild, heavy, fuzzy, psychedelic record that will make you dream of witches and will make your dreams bewitched. Impressive debut for sure! So… You should check it out! Check’m all out!

donderdag 15 maart 2018

Motsus – OuMuaMua

Polderrecords – 2018

Rock, Stoner, Metal, Sludge, Instrumental

Rated: ****

Instrumental stoner sludge straight out of the bleak and swampy fields of Oudenburg, Belgium. There, near the seaside town of Oostende, the three brethren called Motsus have crafted a masterpiece called OuMuaMua. Heavy on every front, the riffs take center stage and drag you along before you can lock in with the rest of the rhythms. It’s that ‘anti’ thing that the Melvins are known for; suck you in first, freak you out second and then level the playing field by turning into something massive. It’s big, bad and bold. Just listen to Exploder (Part I) for instance. The way they rumble on and pound away is simply majestic. You will be treated to bloody dirges and stomping, dragging rhythms that are bursting with fantastic breaks and changes over which the bass chops away angrily. Riffs that dizzy like air-wielding motorchains and rousing guitar-lines that drag you along towards the abyss. Their brutish, boorish, bison atmospheres become instantly legendary and it is all there… On OuMuaMua… Motsus! A wild monster that will stomp on the terra and most people will fear it. And rightly so. For when the beast lurches in your direction, it is already much too late to start running…

(Written by JK)

Polderrecords

Black Moth – Anatomical Venus

Candlelight – 2018

Rock, Stoner, Doom, Metal

Rated: *****

We noticed, which turned into a moment of utter despair and sadness, that we never actually mentioned the British band Black Moth before. And that is simply unforgivable since we were smitten with The Killing Jar and absolutely loved Condemned To Hope. Groovy stoner with twist of hardrock, metal, doom and fragments of punk. The seventies were alive and well and furthermore they must surely share our love for NWOBHW. The female throat of Harriet Hyde is powerful and tough; with the exact right color for the tracks they produced. On the new record Anatomical Venus they welcome new blood in the form of guitarplayer Federica Gialanze and with it they merge an extra hardrock dimension to their atavistic stoner sound. But it still features the same amount of energy and wild guitars. It turs a bit more swampy and sludgy here and there and then also meanders into something retro and catchy as well. But above all, the voice and the riffs mesmerize and enchant. Anatomical Venus is simply irresistible and accurately sexy!

(Written by JK)

woensdag 14 maart 2018

River Cult – Halcyon Days

Nasoni Records – 2018

Heavy Psych, Classic Rock, Stoner

Rated: *****

Why does a power trio sound so god-damn good? From personal experience, with a good rhythm section pushing behind you and no second guitarist whining about “what about my bits?”, the guitar player is free to lock into the drums and bass and just see where they end up. In this case, River Cult have ended up with a monstrously heavy sounding album called Halcyon Days that starts off in the deserts and then blasts off into outer space. Sounding like free-flowing jams but with the precision of a well drilled unit, these guys are ….. doing so many reviews, I sometimes have to despair when finding a new way of describing the music contained within the grooves, so howzabout….. fucking awesome. There, sums things up nicely. The fat, massive tones – the way the songs shift from drifting to crushing, the killer fuzz sound, the riffs born in space that end up crashing in the desert, the sheer feeling of losing yourself in the music. This is something special. For me, with nine months left of the year still to weigh upon my shoulders, this is one of my albums of the year. Or to repeat those two words …… fucking awesome.

(Written by Tony Maim)

Bardo Pond – Volume 8

Konkurrent / Fire

Rock, Psych, Stoner

Rated: ***

We love ourselves some Bardo Pond. We have been loving Bardo Pond for over a quarter of a century. Which is how long they've been around. And a fat lie, cause we unfortunately discovered them almost twenty years ago. Do we love every release to the same extent? Unfortunately, no. But then again there have been so many. They can’t be all homeruns, can they? To be honest, we love their regular studio albums a lot. Almost all of them. And from the Volume releases we can say we love most of them. Volume 8 is definitely, one of the better ones. A damn fine trip and an excellent adventure if ever there was one. We are treated to five journeys that take the listener deep inside themselves or into another world. Psychedelic by default and psychonautic by nature. “A euphoric transcendental journey to a mountain top nirvana, a psychedelic tapestry that slowly unwinds as they travel onwards into the inner mind.” Shit, we could not have said it any better than Bardo Pond explained themselves. Nirvana, here we come!

(Written by JK)

dinsdag 13 maart 2018

Tokan – Teil Einer Vulnerablen Gruppe

Echotunes – 2018

Rock, Stoner, Alternative, Post

Rated: ****

This Austrian trio features cats that have been playing together for a while now. Under different monikers perhaps like Trillian or Captain Knife before adopting the name Tokan. I guess they found what they were after; something earthy, focused and aggressive. Tokan. It definitely has a ring to it. And so does their debut effort Teil Einer Vulberablen Gruppe. Earthy, focused and aggressive. While it also has an emotional side, the seven tracks on this first release excel in walking a tight rope between heavy, wild and extravagant on one side and minimalistic, subdued and moderate on the other end. And that is how this entire record seems to be pieced together, two completely different animals encapsulated by two devious bookends. And while that might feel like the music becomes confined, it is in fact liberating. There is freedom in restraint, there is freedom in experimenting between the lines and Tokan makes that completely obvious, perfectly clear and absolutely wonderful!

(Written by JK)

The Three of Tuesday

The Three of Tuesday

Yes. I know. We depicted a tree for this Three of Tuesday post. But Stoner HiVe likes to rustle the feathers and mix things up. And for the Three of Tuesday posts we shall occasionally do, we will try something different, whenever the occasion arises. The releases featured here, for instance, with a small amounts of words, will have something in common. Whatever that may be. For this first edition of the Three of Tuesday, we post three releases that are PR’d by Domino Media Agency. They have a knack for finding alternative releases with a high pop sensible or catchy aspect to them. And then there are those few they promote that have none of that and will only be loved by the crazies, the addicts and the absolute music fiends. You decide to which of those groups the three featured below belong… So here they are… The first… Three of Tuesday…

Black Strike – Black Strike

Born on the ashes from different bands, Black Strike reunites five musicians with common influences. After multiple experiences on stage together or apart, these five buddies found their own musical touch and are now playing a powerful and tough mix between alternative-rock, stoner/grunge and nu-metal. Don't be afraid. Give their 2015 EP a whirl. O' and in 2017, the band got back in studio to record a new EP which will see the light somewhere in spring 2018. And the first single and video Tiger is out now… Check it out!

Youtube

heklAa – 1491

About three years after Pieces Of You (2015), heklAa, the piano-driven solo project run by French musician/composer Sébastien Touranton, just officially released a new and self-produced full-length effort called 1491. This new album - its eigth recording since the inception of the project in 2010, launched by its mastermind after an unforgettable trip to breathtaking Iceland – whirls around and between nu-classical, post-rock like GY!BE, Sigur Ros or Do Make Say Think, jazz and movies-music (and composers as Danny Elfman or Howard Shore). Highly atmospheric!

Lumberjacks – Alone?

Lumberjacks started in December 2013 around Lolo (Bass), Hos (Drums) and Ben (Guitars). A few weeks later, the project had a voice with the arrival of ArNo (Vocals). The lumberjacks cabin was full! Less than a year later, the EP with seven tracks “A moment to Balance” saw the light. On January 2015, after dozen of shows, Ben left the band for personal reasons. The group quickly found a successor with Rémi before to hit the road again to play some gigs with bands such as Bukowski…Their sound definitely anchored in the heavy 70’s Black Sabbath style, Stoner Rock and other modern streams, Lumberjacks played with Electric Mary and around the year 2016 began the work on its first full length album. And on their bandcamp site we can listen to This Tiny Engine and Mystery Light. Two tracks of the upcoming album Alone? Hardrock. Metal. With seventies and stoner touches. Check it out!

maandag 12 maart 2018

Stoner HiVe’s Top 5 artists listened to last week…

Stoner HiVe’s

Top 5 artists listened to last week…

Swamped with work and appointments. So, here’s me trying to do a very vast and quick update on what we listened to last week. Which will surely get out of hand again, as all of the five records are amazing! Most of our time went out to Dandy Brown and his majestic new album Scattered Days. Out soon on Taxi Driver Records the maestro we know from Hermano and the awesome Orquesta Del Desierto, (the last, of which Dos was remastered and re-released last year via Spin On Black), gives us nine tracks that meander through many heavy scenes and all have a marvelous lingering aftertaste. It will put you in a righteous mood! Birth Of Joy, our Dutch psychedelic pride, give us Hyper Focus; a fast paced psychedelic rock album that is more, errr, focused than the albums that came before. Out on Glitterhouse the album moves definitely into a classic direction with some jazzy moments, stoner outbursts and even a little punk. Yes, all new Birth of Joy with Hyper Focus on the sixties and seventies era! Hawkdope, Stellar Prophecy and all that came before; incredible records by Italian psychedelic fuzz crazies Black Rainbows. The new album Pandaemonium, out on Heavy Psych Sounds, will rank among the best of them! What a ride once again! Out in a week or two it will surely rank high among all the HiVe freaks! We still spin Atman from The Good Hand regularly and their band shirt is one of the most worn black band shirts in my possession. Their superdeluxe limited diehard fan release via Minstrel Music is majestic and definitely one of my favorite vinyl treasures. Let’s hope they do something similar with the new record Blissful Yearning. Cause the album is once again impressive and bordering on perfection. A pure ballistically delivered record which immediately feels like a true blow against the empire, a hammer of the gods, that will live on in rock, forever. Yes. We know. We love The Good Hand… And perhaps a bit too much. And how about that Till Marijannah album by Marijannah? Their four-track debut is whirling around the world, entering the Doom Charts on Number 21 and enchanting listeners everywhere. The vinyl is out on Pink Tank Records and gives us incredibly tasty and fuzzy heavy psychedelic rock and stoner. Going into metal territories here and there and always, yes always, captivating you with musical vistas wild and wonderful! And on Outlaws of The Sun you can read more about it, go check it out. And check out those amazing albums! All of ‘em! (See... That got out of hand pretty quickly...)

zaterdag 10 maart 2018

BlackLab – Under A Strawberry Moon

Self released – 2018

Rock, Doom, Core

Rated: *****

This female duo from Osaka, Japan give us distorted guitars that riff with the weight of unpromised misery, which slowly ooze out of the speakers giving the songs a suffocating feel that rolls over the senses. There is a feel of rock’n’roll straining to break free and the odd lurch into Hardcore spices things up. Vocals are reverbed and buried deep in the mix with claustrophobic results. For me, doom has always meant more than recycled Sabbath riffs or lyrics about burning witches. Hell, I love to listen to that all day long but I also want concrete heavy guitars, slow hypnotic grooves, an atmosphere of uneasy feelings, a soundtrack that can match the tedium and hopelessness that I sometimes find myself in. BlackLab deliver all that and more - original riffs, great song compositions and the finishing touch that gets my full vote of approval – a raw production which perfectly suits the music and makes me want to weep tears of joy as I break things with a lump of wood with nails in the end.

(Written by Tony Maim)

Bancamp

vrijdag 9 maart 2018

Hooka Hey - Herlock

Hooka Hey - Herlock

If the new single Herlock by Hooka Hey is anything to go by, we will be in for a wild summer once their new album War Cry is released in May... We love it just as much as we loved their Little Things EP, Untamed EP or that luscious Hush Me track... Check it out!