Stoner HiVe

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Idlewar – Impulse

PHD – 2016

Rock, Hard, Stoner, Metal, Blues

Rated: ****

One of the finest albums I heard this year and it keeps getting better every time I listen. O’ and it makes me think of Led Zeppelin, but don’t ask me why.

(Written by C)

donderdag 6 oktober 2016

Narcosatanicos – Body Cults

Bad Afro Records – 2016

Rock, Noise, Punk, Psych, Jazz, Acid

Rated: ***

The second full-sized album Body Cults by Danish freak out six-piece Narcosatanicos is one hell of a trip! A bad trip! And that’s what it is truly aimed at, to stimulate or emulate the waves of paranoia and mind warbling that comes with the bad trip. Sure, the album is drowned in fuzz and guitar noise. But it is the Saxophone that takes center stage here. Inducing without any trouble immeasurable levels of anxiety and nervousness. It screams and screeches and claws at your brain with its sharp nails. It is an intense ride and one filled with small bits of exuberance and euphoria, those momentary flashes of brilliant light at the end of the tunnel. But for the most part it is a penetrating punky experience full of difficult corners of angst you need to navigate and crazed hallucinations you seem to have to suffer through. But we gladly do it, cause we all deserve a legendary freak out from time to time!

(Written by JK)

Bad Afro

Stone Animals – Stone Animals

Self released – 2016

Rock, Doom, Psych, Stoner, Metal

Rated: ****

Stone Animals is a power trio from the outskirts of San Antonio. And on their debut self-titled five track they bring forth that unholy mixture of doom, psych and stoner. All doused in heavy rock and drowned in fuzz. It is the contrast between the lo-fi almost occult sounds and the testosterone and power in the riffs that is extremely tasty. And that in combination with a beast of a drummer and damn fine vocals make this Stone Animals debut something to really dig into. Doing that will have you discovering so much groove hidden in these five tracks that is becomes impossible not to sway or to fall head over feet with Stone Animals. This is heavy in every sense of the word and the word has always been around. So you can count on the Stone Animals to sound ancient, primordial and agelessly magnificent!

(Written by JK)

Airbourne – Breakin’ Outta Hell

Spinefarm – 2016

Rock, Hard, Pub,

Rated: ****

Had the pleasure of interviewing the Airbourne brothers a couple of years back. Around the No Guts, No Glory records. To the annoyance of the record company Joel and Ryan wanted to travel south with me because Rhino Bucket was playing my home town that night. They like their no bullshit music. They like their Aussie pub rock. To listen to and to play. And the Airbourne boys really do it with gusto and grit. Some people tend to dismiss them as AC/DC clones. Well, they’re wrong. They just pay homage to their heroes and the Aussie pub rock that started with Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs, Rose Tattoo, Buffalo, The Angels and The Dingoes. And on the new records Breakin’ Outta Hell they do this once again and to an awesome degree that every no-nonsense hardrock fiend must love like crazy. Iron strong riffs, easy choruses to belt along with and lyrics about drinking, Lemmy and women to enjoy. There is absolutely nothing wrong and absolutely everything right about Airbourne’s new records Breakin’ Outta Hell!

(Written by JK)

woensdag 5 oktober 2016

Domadora – The Violent Mystical Sukuma

Deadpig/Domino Media Agency – 2016

Rock, Psych, Stoner, Jam

Rated: ****

They’ve toured with great bands such as Yawning Man, Earthless, Baroness and Pentagram. And we must definitely conclude that the band was and is a perfect fit for those first two bands. Yes, the French three-piece Domadora, deliver those free form stoned out jams that we all cherish. And on their new release The Violent Mystical Sukuma they bring all of that hypnotic psychedelic goodness once again. It is a righteous continuation of the sound they delivered on the first release Tibetan Monk back in 2013. Perhaps a bit more structured than that release the new album still is more something one needs to experience and go through than something you can admire for its composition. There is an art in bringing free rock as jammy as this without relying on the easy fall back rhythms here or there. And Domadora never seem to want to make the easy choice. Still relying massively on an underlying current of impressive drums and almost sleepy bass work, the focus without a doubt goes out to the amazing guitar. The colorings, the structures and the stringy noise. Beautiful and monstrously good!

(Written by JK)

Giraffe Tongue Orchestra – Broken Lines

Party Smasher Inc/V2 – 2016

Rock, Hard, Prog

Rated: ****

When I first learned about this project it still featured or was rumored to feature Juliette Lewis on vocals. It would have truly made this supergroup something to look forward to. When she dropped out my lust for the Giraffe Tongue Orchestra weakened. But luckily, the beast still wandered into my path. For come on, you cannot pass over on a band featuring guitarist Brent Hinds (Mastodon), vocalist William DuVall (Alice In Chains), guitarist Benjamin Weinman (Dillinger Escape Plan), drummer Thomas Prigden (Mars Volta) and Pete Griffin (Dethklok, Zappa Plays Zappa). O’ and Jon Theodore (Queens Of The Stone Age, Mars Volta) also guests on two tracks. The honor roll sounds like a veritable playground of intricate compositions and a whirlwind tornado of riffs, notes and tones. But this time around these fiends who love to freak out with their respective bands have kept the extremes to a minimum. They’ve actually managed to pour their challenging technic displays into something easier to digest and mixed with much simpler straight to the core rock songs. Or even almost danceable grooves with songs like Blood Moon and Everyone Gets Everything They Really Want. But we must conceded that Duvall sounds excellent on almost every track and even seems to push his boundaries. Not to mention the ace duo vocals of him and Hinds on No-one Is Innocent. Does all of this make us forget that the Broken Lines album might have been completely different with Miss Lewis on vocals? Perhaps not, because we still get a tiny taste when she does background for the Back To The Light song. And perhaps so, cause with ten highly different tracks and atmospheres we can safely say there is enough for everyone and a lot for a lot of us. Hell, Giraffe Tongue Orchestra might just win all of us over…

(Written by JK)

dinsdag 4 oktober 2016

Buried Souls – The Crossing

Self-released/Deadbeat Media – 2016

Metal, Sludge, Core, Death

Rated: ***

The album was released digitally on the tail end of 2015 but saw a physical distribution somewhat later. We are referring to the debut full-sized effort The Crossing by Buried Souls from the Swiss town of Lausanne. A four-piece metal outfit with definite feelers out for sludge, hardcore, death and tiny hooks in doom. And with just those genres mentioned we don’t do them justice. Nope, no justice at all. Cause they also have a penchant for grind, crust and thrash. It is a massive sound, an avalanche of noise, growling, screaming and with a fistful of power. And just listen to that grade A drum work or amazing axe slaying guitarist. Double u, o, double u! There is absolutely no holding back and almost no release on the throttle. Fast paced and filthy! Not for the weak or feeble mind, this takes gusto and grit! And we have it both! So clench up, get to The Crossing and scream along!

(Written by JK)

Temnee - Dialectics

Self released – 2016

Rock, Instrumental, Space, Psych, Metal

Rated: ****

Back in 2015 we mentioned their Astrodiving EP from 2014 and the unsure state of the Russian outfit Temnee. Well, we still aren’t sure now. Have they turned into a four-piece? Or they using session drummers? Or are they a trio? We can be sure though that their craft has continued and that they just released a full-sized instrumental spacerock extravaganza named Dialectics. Heavy psychedelics prevail and with guitar colors that have this metallic shine to them it’s different from more space oriented album we are usually presented with. It’s darker and ominous in a way that isn’t easily explainable. Lush and opulent melodies crush over each other and the underlying bass work sounds massive and smoldering. Perhaps it should be pushed a bit more to the forefront with the next release. And the drums, easy going, laidback and groovy where needed, but just as furious and wild during the moments when necessary. And then there’s also that worldly inspired fifth track Steps To Infinity with a different drummer and darbuka instrumentation. Definitely a completely different feel than the rest of the album. But it works and sounds like an impressive and heavy intermission from the rest! Dialectics, a definite fine ride!

(Written by JK)

The Wytches – All Your Happy Life

PIAS – 2016

Rock, Garage, Psych, Lo-fi

Rated: ****

It has been a thing now for quite some time. Deliberately misspelling your band name. Either substituting a letter for a number, forgetting a vowel or two or just plain and simply using the wrong one. Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. It might be highly personal; but I can dig the misspelling of Wytches. Not so much that it gives The Wytches a head start, but it definitely does not do them any wrong. And we can say the same for the way these three (now four) young British cats starts off on their second album All Your Happy Life. It’s a twenty-four second intro, but it sets the mood righteously and that color is transported into a manic key tune during the first real track. And every time the trio (quartet) kicks up the speed, it turns into this lo-fi garage craziness we definitely love. Raw, psychedelic and frenzied. Perhaps you might feel that in those moments where they slow down a bit they might not be performing on their best strengths, but it does turn those songs that follow into the wild, feverish and sweaty rockers we long for!

(Written by JK)

Soundcloud

maandag 3 oktober 2016

Space Invaders – Ayakashi

Nasoni Records – 2016

Rock, Space, Psych, Jam

Rated: ****

It’s feels like some weird poetic justice to start off with the other band of Paul Pott, since his Robb & Pott release was the last we could do something with before we unfortunately had to leave all of you for a while. We are ofcourse referring to Space Invaders and their new album Ayakashi. On this fifth album they once again hold our beloved spacerock in high regard. Featuring Mike Hafliger (Spacenote), Dirk Jan Muller (Electric Orange), Baal Brain (Knall) and Dennis Gockel (Weltraum) all of the four tracks deliver that lift off and exploration we all long for in our spacerock. Recorded live at the World-Music-Festival in Loshausen in 2015, and on a radio concert for the Underground-Äxpärten in their studio in Soest the album never falters and just keeps you drifting and whirling through space. Highly jammy and intensely dreamy this is not an album you can casually listen to. No, this demands your attention, it demands you headphones and headspace and commands you to journey through all those other worlds for over fifty minutes. Ayakashi is one hell of a trip!

(Written by JK)

Big Jesus – Oneiric

Mascot – 2016

Rock

Rated: ***

To be honest, I had to look up what Oneiric meant. It rang a bell. But I couldn’t concentrate. And we have Big Jesus to thank for that. An amazing amount of shattering almost pneumatic riffs are delivered through nine concise tracks. Yes, we are not referring to the closing tenth song Heaviest Heart just yet. We focus first on their combination of metal, shoegaze, rock and early psychedelic thin almost dreamlike wavy vocals. Aah, that’s what the album title Oneiric was referring to. It’s good. It works. But even if you truly dig the recipe they use, you cannot escape the inevitable conclusion that they keep using that same recipe over and over. You can fall in love with any number of elements of these tracks. But in the end the songs become a bit too much one tasty cookie in a jar of stale ones. But then there’s closer Heaviest Heart, with seven and a half minutes, it moves away from the road they paved so pneumatically during the first nine songs and let the heaviness drive off while the dreams grow bigger. Definitely weighty and grand. I wonder though, how the delicate sighs of vocalist Spencer Ussery work live?

(Written by JK)