stoner rock / psychedelic / blues

Well, this dreary day can use a dose of searing hot desert blues. The fuzz-scene is still going strong, so there is plenty of groovy music to choose from. Today, i picked this album by Swiss trio Mystic Sons from the pile of albums to be reviewed. Not without hesitation by the way.

Psychedelic stoner fuzz blues rock is awesome but vocals can quite often destroy everything. That was my main concern when opener 'Intro' first pierced my eardrums. The intro is a neat piece of instrumental stoner rock, Karma To Burn, Monkey 3 and Colour Haze, that kind of stuff. All good and well, but what about the songs with vocals?

Luckily for these guys, that seems to perfectly find here. First appearing in the heavy and intense 'Mephistopheles', Bochat's vocals perfectly fit the warm and jammy nature of the music. Still, the massively groovy 'Californian Desert' and closer 'Black Ritual', which are mostly instrumental, are my absolute favorite here. I simply love these lengthy psychedelic passages. There is also a small element of grunge rock in here, which is quite nice. On the other hand, the sluggish blues track Leather Apron is a pretty creepy tune, perfectly suited for your upcoming Halloween party.

If I have top compare Mystic Sons to other bands, I'll probably throw in some well known acts like the aforementioned Karma To Burn but also Kyuss, Black Sabbath, Sleep, Uncle Acid and Truckfighters. Their music is nothing new but it is executed perfectly and it comes with exactly the right dose of variation and every single anthem is well written. Plus, there are these sweet-ass guitar solos I'm sure every stoner/psychedelic rocker will appreciate. So don't hesitate, download or buy this album, roll yourself a fat one and play this thing loud. You'll love it.


​Serge

psychedelic / electronic / chill-out / downtempo / psytrance

With its deep space virtuous cosmogonies and a voluptuous synchronic ambient layer of masterful sonorous engineering, that works at the skylight precious visibility of its fabulous technical mordacity, Ataraxia, with all of its ten formidable and exponentially delusional tracks – Ataraxia, Psylent Coral, Shamanism Eyesight, Trust The Wait, Starseed, Cosmic Hologram, Badass Wolf, She is a Nurse, Psycho Delicate and Meraki – proves to be a dense, eruptive and monumental album, with a sound condensed at the imponderable vicinities of its own universal axis of arduous tenacity. In a belligerent zone of furious beauty and serene complacency, the harmonious sonorous fragrance of Ahanjack displays the elemental and versatile capabilities of all of its marvelous and intricate levels of artistry.  

Departing from conventional, but surreptitiously deep melodic alignments that break the spiral axis of the conspicuous effigies of sound that drives the linear pulse of the beatings, the album consistently displays a dynamic creative fever that definitely understands the bizarre complexity of its own vivacious concept, and effectively plays by the rules; beautiful harmonies dance in the colorful horizon of a day that never fades away, as red twilights shine bright at the tender displacement of ascendant harmonies, that rise from the dreams of its own imperative intonations. 

As the album evolves, the harmonies become more and more fluid, lucid and organic, though the flexible design of its anatomy exhibits a creatively expressive composure that is the groundwork of the artist’s style. Nevertheless, the psychedelic galaxy that vividly revolves around the charming and elegant harmonies creates surreal cadences of everlasting clouds that filtrates the impulsive beatings of the rhythm, although the general layout of the sound is left untouched, and obeys a coherent melodic elasticity that rarely moves outside its peripheral zone of sensibility.

Ataraxia is definitely a formidable album of psychedelic chill. With disruptive harmonies and a sentimental musical layer that promotes a delightful collision between effective melodies and surreal intonations, the record is definitely a sensational musical achievement. Despite the fact that the artist is somewhat relapse in terms of audacity, the consistency and the inebriant agility abundant in the music showcases a genuine charisma that overflows the ordinary elements of its inherent creative abilities, exposing a dimension of hidden splendor, which is something that the audience can experience with a high degree of satisfaction. 


Wagner 

krautrock / psychedelic rock

In the category "albums to look forward to", this new Hypnodrone Ensemble full-length reached the very top. I have been a fan of this Aidan Baker/Eric Quach project since their first effort 'The Shape Of Space' so when 'Plays Orchestral Favorites' came in, I immediately monopolized the Merchants Of Air inbox. 

The album contains five tracks, with 'Orbital Pertubation' being my personal favorite. This massively immersive track is a thirteen minutes lasting trip through soul, time and space, pretty much the best piece of music ever produced by this nine-piece band.

But let's go over the personnel first because there are some massively interesting names here. Obviously, there are Aidan Baker (Nadja, Caudal) and Eric Quach (Thisquietarmy). Then there are the drummers: David Dunnett, Jérémie Mortier (Alice in the Cities, Nearest Gas Station) and Felipe Salazar (Caudal). They seem perfectly aligned with one another and with the two frontmen, so to speak. Finally there are the  the contributions of Simon Goff (Molecular, Bee And Flower) on violin, Duchamp on baritone guitar, Felix-Florian Tödtloff (ex-Sun Worship) on bass, and Diego Ferri (Alice In The Cities) on synths. 

Although split up in five tracks, the album can easily be enjoyed as a continuous whole. Opener 'Serial Staging' repeats the previous sound of Hynodrone Ensemble, which mostly resembles krautrock. After a while it gently makes place for the amazing 'Orbital Pertubation', a track which brings even Godspeed! You Black Emperor to mind. The violin plays a strong role in that reference, something I can easily appreciate. 'Restabilization' then seems to grab back to the old fashion sounds,driving on a groovy bassline and calmly lingering on.

'Monotransitive' feels heavier than the other tracks. It's not mixed in with the previous track, as most of the album is but it opens part two in a strong and somewhat impending manner. Here,the whole band seems to have borrowed elements from Aidan's Nadja project but also from Dirk Serries' FearFallsBurning. This is perhaps the least easy-digestible track on the album but a seasoned drone/ambient/kraut/psych fan will definitely embrace this dramatic tune. In the end, 'Pulsations in the Hypnosphere' finished the album in style, with some good old fashioned krautrock.

The verdict? I can't think of anything to criticize this album with. It's simply the next incarnation of a cooperative band, further exploring their sound and possibilities.  Perhaps I can say it's too short or that the album title is a bit weird but that won't harm my opinion in any way. 'Plays Orchestral Favorites' is an energetic and immersive masterpiece, if I may use that word. So all I can say is; pre-order the hell out of it before they're all sold out and join me in hoping for a tour soon. This I have to see live...


​Serge

jam rock / psychedelic rock  

Jams Of Inner Perception is an album released on August 12, by German instrumental psychedelic rock group Circle Of The Sun. Forty minutes long, the record has six tracks: Buffalo, Acid Dream, Liquid Sand, Jamming In Paradise, Moongroove and Desert Sun. Despite the generic songs’ titles, the record has a tremendous amount of virtues and qualities, and is completely filled with abrasive, flexible and intelligent archetypes of spontaneous jams and grooves, so beautifully entangled, that you instantly become captivated by this insanely proverbial, vivacious and volatile record, whose soul is distilled in a marvelous palace of liquid flames, standardized by a glorious galaxy of peculiarly aggrandized sonorous rapture. Definitely, there is such an abundant degree of intuitive sensibility on this record, that you rapidly feel yourself encircled by a transcendental crest of serenity, that revolves around itself in an infinite cloud of vehemently sagacious and levitating melodies.  

The sound of Jams Of Inner Perception is quite remarkable. The beauty of its musical philosophy comes out of its profound cosmogony of colorful harmonies naturally, and the placid, but lucid creativity of its concentrated synergy extrapolates the inner vivacity of its horizontal harmonies in a perfectly passionate, but methodical sonorous expansion. While its musical barriers are restrained to a certain degree – and this is easy to attest – the meticulous greatness of its style is simply beyond impressive, plausible or perfunctorily audacious.  

 Although the record is somewhat concise, its musical greatness is markedly engraved on the walls of its omniscient sonorous narrative. Its stylish revenue is – to a certain degree – very simple; therefore, easy to assimilate and to appreciate. But it is also necessary to emphasize the colossal degree of creativity present in the work, that is assembled in a very modest and effusive manner, inserted in such a graciously harmonious outlook, that its lucid veracity contributes to enlarge its formidable degree of artistry.   

This is also one of the first works that I’ve heard where the bass guitar is worked in a very diligent, interesting and relevant fashion. Undoubtedly, this album – made almost entirely of jams and acid jags – is an exhilaratingly unique work of art. Although I cannot rate this album as perfect nor excellent, certainly gets very close to it. Jams Of Inner Perception is definitely a fantastic, singular and refined work, whose gracefully perennial level of originality is absolutely beyond a formal definition.  


Wagner

psychedelic rock / acid rock  

Get In The Van is an album released on August 21, by American psychedelic/ acid rock band Grass. Forty minutes and fifteen seconds long, the record has ten tracks: Lay It On Me Brotha', Shaggy Dog, Get In The Van, Right On, Leadfoot, Where Are You Sam?, Day To Day, Grasstronaut, Big Bad Sam and Back From Space. With cool, fast and direct acid rock harmonies, and somewhat diligent, very elegant grooves, Get In The Van is an unmistakably sensitive and clean record, despite its straightforward simplicity, which comes in all honesty as part of its charm. With eloquent, laudatory, crispy and colorful guitar lines, framed by surreptitiously vivacious melodies, the vocals – that most of the time resembles more of a spoken word work than actually singing – are clean and sober, despite being sporadic, and definitely appear to be gracefully engraved by a sensational conjuncture of qualities, that has on its extraordinary psychedelic appeal a coherent set of merits, upon which a delusional level of originality certainly emerges as the first. 

To a certain degree, you definitely feel yourself to be in a sixties acid party. The general layout of the harmonies is simple, but whimsically delineated, and the creative mordacity of the music is a very torrential aspect of the work. The melodies do change constantly, but the group maintains a solid and cohesive style, that definitely highlight them as an exponentially genuine and groundbreaking exemplar of the genre. Although they can be described as a very simplistic band – at least, in technical measurements –, Grass compensates their lack of structural virtuosity with a voracious, audacious, humorous, amazingly fun and superbly authentic level of creativity, that knows no boundaries, which is definitely a more relevant element. 

 A little reminiscent of Dead Kennedys – not so much on the musical layer, but in the anatomy of its intrinsic artistic attitude – Grass certainly is a modern exemplar of a long lost line of bands, whose irreverent and sardonic levels of gracious exhilaration leaves them at the gates of an inherited youth insurrection movement, that captures their soul with a notorious flavor of The Stooges and The Strokes, which is also preeminent in the group. Definitely, they can’t deny their musical origins, although I must emphasize the fact that they present an abundant degree of originality on this work, that captivates the audience with their signature qualities amazingly highlighting them as a pretty charming, vibrant, irreplaceable and unique band. 

Even if you are not a big fan of acid rock, you will definitely love Get In The Van. This album is thoroughly captivating, from the beginning until the very end. The group has a consistent and solid musicality, that embraces not only the true spirit of the genre, but vehemently justifies the quintessential verve of its very existence. Undoubtedly, this is a fundamental record, that amplifies on the axis of its greatly monumental possibilities the true potential for the development of the genre, in the future.   


Wagner

psychedelic / electronic / downtempo / chillout

Divine Architecture is the second album released by Hungarian electronic music producer David Vigh, under the alias of Takkra. With eleven marvelously crafted songs – Equillibrium, Merging Matter with Spirit, Armistice, Galactic Shaman, Chasing Dragons, Celestial Mechanics, The Healer (Changa Song), Sound Is God, Scienta Sacra, The Dervish and Towards the Within – the sound of the artist is a profoundly philosophic, sensorial and serene dive into the quintessential soul of the universe. In a dimensional atmosphere of perfectly devised harmonies, where gravity has no opportunity to write the downfall of its own expansive cosmogonies, but to work for them to stay on a permanent inviolable ascendancy, everything on this transcendental work is felt with the pungent plausibility of sincere and elemental human sensibilities. As the beautiful and majestically colorful sound softly penetrates into your mind, you definitely feel your soul evaporating, and becoming one with the universe, in a galactic empire of gracious intimacy, that knows no boundaries underneath its infinite horizon of everlasting redemption.

The overall sound of the album is captivating, and the style of the artist is simply marvelously impeccable, with no negative elements to point it out. Just close your eyes and enjoy the journey. Everything else is superficial. While your soul drifts away from the monumental collisions of its own sentimental atmosphere, graceful harmonies draw in the epicenter of your conscience a peripheral wall of discreet, but pervasively pungent melodies, that easily inscribes into the plural densities of your perceptions the tangentially impalpable transience of an inherently existential grandiosity, that obliterates its own overshadowed horizon of events. With a formidably expansive musicality, that comprehends and encircles on the flexible anatomy of its poetic filter the vastness of its own proverbial intensity, Divine Architecture can be described as a wonderful, monumental album, that definitely establishes a superior standard for the genre, on creative and technical matters.  

One of those albums that definitely works as a major therapy session, Divine Architecture is a gracefully cohesive state of the art work. Thoroughly energizing, sincere, and expanding its horizontal wave of harmonic gracefulness from the axis of a lucid atmosphere that understands profoundly the sensitivities of its solid anatomy, this album is a pleasant surprise from the beginning until the end, and a landmark celebration for enthusiasts of the genre.  

Definitely, the technical precision and the natural sensibility of the artist are responsible for this over-the-top, fabulous record, whose sensationally fantastic degree of artistry is just exceptionally wonderful, and establishes new boundaries and parameters for electronic music in general. Despite appearing to be simple on the surface, Divine Architecture is a majorly dense and complex album, that dissipates with its creative labor all the general commonalities found within the genre, without depriving nor distorting its fundamental characteristics. You just have to listen to this monumental work of art. You will be definitely thrilled with the aggrandizing nature of its original dispositions.   


Wagner

stoner rock / psychedelic rock / hard rock

Rift is an album released on August 17, by American stoner rock group Forming the Void. Forty-four minutes long, the record has seven tracks: Extinction Event, On We Sail, Arcane Mystic, Transient, Arrival, Ark Debris and Shrine. Rift – analyzed on a purely technical basis –, is a decent and competent work, without a doubt, but the style of the group unfortunately departs from a more common ground musical axis, whose elements doesn’t differ them too much from other bands of the genre. They certainly know how to accommodate and incorporate different components into their music, although they definitely fall almost entirely on a stoner rock ground. Their rhythms and melodies can be easily assimilated, and are definitely interesting. But, unfortunately, this album, on an overall evaluation, doesn’t manage to impress at all. 

Don’t get me wrong: Rift is a good album, and certainly has potential to please enthusiasts of the genre. The guitar lines are slow and dense, and displays quite a gracious and discreet aggressiveness, with walls of sound that cohesively builds around its own calm highlight an atmosphere of tense, but lucid expansion. On the other hand, their music is so saturated with generic elements that you never feel too thrilled while listening to it. Certainly, the album can be appreciated with modesty – without any expectations –, but you also wish after some time for the end to come as soon as possible.

Forming the Void is a band that has potential, but they certainly have to be more audacious, and leave their comfort zone. They do what they do with amazingly competent technical skills, but they lack a more effervescent degree of passion and enthusiasm. A little monotony – or too much calmness, if you prefer – is inherent to this genre of music, but you have to push up the boundaries, at least to a certain level, to avoid being just another generic act. 

If you want to listen to Rift, you can definitely do it, without any fear. This is a decent album. But like I wrote some lines above, there’s nothing extraordinary about this work. They follow their genre of choice with a certain amount of competence; but, in the end, Rift is just an ordinary stoner rock album, that ends up being too similar to many other albums of the genre.  



Wagner

dark ambient

bandcamp

A fifteen minutes EP with four tracks, Dark Hymns lives to the glory of its simple, but energetic and suggestive title. With a very dark, subtle and obscure sound, the sensitive premises of the style are afflictive to the fullest – despite being paradoxically peaceful and serene –, and seems to anticipate the imminence of a profoundly terrible doom. While the work presents to the audience a very simple and surreal sound, its nuances are dense, and the excellence of its atmosphere dissipates a graceful and somber fear over the boundaries of the melodies. There is nothing too exceptional or extraordinary about this work, but for dark ambient genre enthusiasts, the vivid, morbid intensity displayed by the artist behind the project is certainly vast, very meaningful, and spiritually consistent. 

electronic / darksynth / dark electro / synthwave

Crossing Lights is an album released on June 22, by German electronica/ synthwave act Collapse Project. A wonderfully splendid album, with eleven tracks – Where everything began, Crossing Lights, Arise from the darkness, M.e.n.s.c.h., Pursuit,
Bloody Dancefloor, Cemetery Walk, Starfighter, Nightshift, Test Drive and Rewind – this marvelous and majestic state of the art work has colorful harmonies, a vibrant, lucid and energetic pace, an intense and cohesive style and a superb sense of rhythmic rapture. With softly pungent, dense and dynamic mordacious melodies that engraves its formidable intrinsic strength at the voracious pace of the music, the album is fulfilled with a tremendously aggrandizing and creative originality, displaying a talent that has everything to stand out as uniquely authentic in the contemporary underground scene. Showcasing a sensational musical grandeur whose artistry is effectively sidelined with the most vivid and hallucinating melodies, the genuine musical abilities of Collapse Project is a gigantic cosmic evolutionary step in what concerns the general development of the genre. With some of the most beautiful songs that I’ve ever heard, Crossing Lights is an unprecedented milestone in the history of electronica. Certainly, deserves not only to be fully appreciated, but highly highlighted as one of the most beautiful, sensational and singular albums ever conceived. 

death metal 

Coffin Birth is an album released on July 20, by Californian death metal group Extremity. With eight songs – Coffin Birth / A Million Witches, Where Evil Dwells, Grave Mistake, Umbilicus, For Want Of A Nail, Occision, Like Father Like Son and Misbegotten / Coffin Death – the record is a satisfactory, lucid and efficient, but hallucinatory and hazardous death metal album, that works decently the most traditional elements of the genre. With heavy, fast rhythms that exposes the voracity of their style, Extremity showcases a peculiar, brutal, direct style, atrocious to the core of its corrosive nature. Despite the fact that the album at some rare passages becomes a little predictable and monotonous, this does not affect the general layout of the sound, nor does any damage to the competent and precise style of the band. Their aggressive strength is somewhat inherent to the most brutal and extreme ramification of the genre, and the name of the band certainly stands for it. While you can’t expect too much of innovative features on this record, Coffin Birth displays a decent amount of virtuosity, talent and definition, and certainly honors the genre with a virulent and passionate degree of astounding sonorous hostility, that will entertain avidly the most dedicated enthusiasts of extreme death metal.    

grunge / stoner rock/ power metal / black metal / alternative rock

Released on June 22, Desolation is an album by alternative post grunge/ power metal rock group Khemmis. With six tracks – Bloodletting, Isolation, Flesh To Nothing, The Seer, Maw Of Time and From Ruin – this gracefully peculiar, audacious and cohesive record showcases the splendid abilities of a band that does an amazingly superb and exceedingly sophisticated work in their amalgamation of several different genres and styles of music. With a power metal core heavily infused by a post grunge alternative rock density, the music of Khemmis has its own singular and energetic creative groundwork, fuelled by an outstandingly voracious and rude nitroglycerine spontaneous synergy, that explodes directly in the brain of the listener. A little reminiscent of more classic and mainstream acts like Manowar, Creed and Blind Guardian – although exposing a formidable degree of uniqueness – the band does a surprisingly splendorous and excellent work on Desolation, that reveals itself as a marvelous, profoundly genuine and sensational album, all the way through. Undoubtedly, Desolation deserves to be classified as one of the greatest masterpieces of the year.  

electronic

A beautiful, outstanding, lancinating and colorful EP, Gated Soul has four tracks: Blues For Jekyll, Last Raver, Hocus Pocus and To The Woods. With beautiful melodies, and very sensible, delightfully plausible harmonies, there is a genius spontaneity coming out from these songs that actually make you feel quite enthusiastic about it. With an exceedingly serene, but at the same time ostensibly sensational and mandatory vibe, the artist reveals a subtle, but formidable sense of originality on the framework of the sound that is the embodiment of this work. From within, the melodies gradually expand from a synergy that relocates the rhythm directly to the point of its graciously moving syncope. Exposing lucidity and showcasing an extraordinary degree of creativity, this electronic music artist from Great Britain has no fear in demonstrating his superb, masterful and singular talent, that easily reinvigorates in a more sophisticated sonorous artistry the greatest elements of electronica. Here you have four amazingly wonderful songs, that you will be pleased to hear over and over again. 

black metal / death metal

A very impressive, hostile and energetic album – although widely using exceedingly crude and conventional elements by some standards – Krwawy Sztorm, by Polish extreme metal group Moloch Letalis, is an aggressive, furious and bloodthirsty album. Only thirty minutes long, the record has nine tracks: Wielka Egzekucja, Sztorm, Krwawa Ziemia, Zatańczysz Ze Mną Kurwa W Piekle ?, Przysięga, Zdychaj Psie, Palownik, Gotowy Na Piekło and Żar. With ostensive and abrupt rhythmic grievances, the style of the group is simple and direct, a little reminiscent of punk rock, given the atrocious voracity, objectivity and rudeness of its style. With a solid fidelity to the most brutal aspects of the genre, the work is amazingly competent and full of acid rage. Although there is nothing too aggrandizing nor original about the work, certainly this album is a pearl for avid enthusiasts of the genre, since Moloch Letalis literally practices closely the most ardent, extreme, raw and violent aspects of death and black metal, executing a refined breed of these marvelous genres. If you like astoundingly heavy material, Krwawy Sztorm is something you would like to hear. 

electronic / techno / industrial 

With six tracks – Entrance of Gargoyles, Dance or Die, The Order, Mechanical Vampire, The Cavern of Noise and Theunderdogme 2018hardrem1x – The Cavern of Noise, by techno industrial French artist McClane is a formidable, very intuitive and lancinating work. With abrasive and disruptive rhythms, increasingly grotesque and infuriating harmonies, cohesive dilapidation of sound and very unpredictable, dense musical compasses, The Cavern of Noise is an interesting work of art, astoundingly engraved at forefront of the best tradition of techno music. With elements that plays on the fundamental axis of the noise and industrial genres, the artist evokes at the colorful blast of the music an atmospheric vitality that rejuvenates the harmonies and the anatomy of the music. With a lucid, compulsory and graceful creativity that is exponential to the ardent mordacity of the melodies, on this album, you certainly get the best the genre will ever offer you. The title track – The Cavern of Noise – is absolutely the best, and will leave you with the dense exposition of what electro techno music should really sound like. 

black metal

Mysteries of Earth, released by British black metal group Blutvial on July 5th, is a formidable, lucid and splendorous album. Fully energized, mortally intense and with sordidly aggressive, rapturous and impulsive, but lugubrious and poetic guitar lines, Mysteries of Earth is better described as a marvelous state of the art work. With ten amazingly placid and cohesive tracks – beneath the moon, black silence, existential rite, vault of unrest, carving nihil, midwinter's halls, urnacht, doomed to eternal night, in praise of noctula and where graves spring open – this fantastic work, besides its subtle originality, extraordinary grandiosity and proverbial musical audacity, consolidates firmly and brings about intrinsically the best qualities of the genre: hostile mordacity, somber harmonies, an aggressive stylish impetus, creative melodies, a rapid pace and an exceedingly volatile density. With the organic virtue of a profoundly vital and conscious musical dynamic, you can certainly highlight this record as one of the best black metal pieces released this year. Mysteries of Earth is a punctuating device and a majestic work of art in the history of the genre.     

black metal

Cosmic Autumn is the debut album of an eponymous black metal project from Germany. Released on July 13, the record has five tracks: The Last Deception, Event Horizon, Indistinct Visions, Realms Of Eternal Light and Solitude (Instrumental). With a beautiful and very original musical layer, very sober and proficient, the sound is definitely strong, sensitive, dynamic and fundamentally cohesive. Although the record retains the fury typical of the genre, Cosmic Autumn is also a lesson on sincere and poetic artistry, as the music revolves itself around a shroud of mortifying serenity, like a twilight that dies in the agony of an everlasting moment of unspeakable affliction. Since the music translates into sound these imponderable passages of pervasive anger, the overall loyalty of the project’s style to the genre is emphasized, but without compromising the ability of the artist in showcasing his own peculiarities. A very good work, that certainly exposes the mordacious talent of an exponentially promising black metal artist, Cosmic Autumn is the opening gate for a musician that has everything to aggregate into the genre a whole new conjuncture of possibilities, with his audacious and ostensibly brilliant creativity. 

stoner rock/ psychedelic rock 

bandcamp

Earthborn is an album released by Greek stoner rock group Stone Age Mammoth. Forty minutes long, the record has seven tracks: Fearless, The Dark, Whispers, The Mysterious Life Of Mr Krips, The Secret, Earthborn and My Darkest Hour. An exceedingly calm, methodic and meticulous, but exceedingly vigorous and lucid album, undoubtedly, Earthborn is a fantastic state of the art work, that dissects, reverberates, comprehends and exposes the best aspects the genre has to offer. With singular, serene and soft guitar lines, a configuration of sonorous walls that grows from the sincere stylish leniency of the group and a marvelous sense of timing that knows from instinct what has to be done, Stone Age Mammoth has a formidable artistic security and a powerful domain over the genre, that comes out naturally. Revealing itself as a graceful masterpiece as the album evolves and revolves around its own atmosphere of calmness, omniscience and existential perception, the glorious creativity of the group certainly highlights them among other bands of the genre. With a singular conjuncture of sonorous qualities, Earthborn deserves to be greatly regarded, widely appreciated and publicized as the wonderful and fantastic work of art that truly is.

black metal

Nostalgia is an EP released on July 23 by German black metal artist ColdWorld. With five tracks – Cosmos Devourer, Demon Speed, The Dark Ages, Let The Devil In and Silva Nigra – the EP, almost twenty six minutes long, is concise. Exceedingly beautiful, with the typical elegance that is an engraved milestone of the artist, the proverbial guitar lines and the poetic harmonies anticipates the general conflagration of its overall majestic serenity, deeply fulgurated with the sensible character of its everlasting, elegant and somber  horizon of artistry. With rapid passages that are profoundly surrounded by graciously atmospheric interludes, the music on Nostalgia is overloaded with the imperial fragrances of its own rudimentary darkness, that is sustained by a lucid and dense, but marvelously whimsical ferocious resentment, whose vitality extrapolates the shadows of its own arrogant beauty. With everlasting precipices of color surrounding the rhythmic fortunes of the songs, I must confess that I wasn’t particularly overwhelmed by this work. Nevertheless, Nostalgia has all the elements that are characteristic of a ColdWorld work, and, to a certain extent, has enough qualities to be deemed valuable for its sincere and splendid level of singularity.    

post rock / experimental

Return is a three tracks EP released on July 25, by a musician from India, who works under the nom de plume of Phet. With three marvelous songs – Return, Distance and Liberation – Phet works very distinctively the interior perception of the harmonies, to articulate an ascendant, protuberant and expansive, but at the same time discreet, lucid and introspective degree of sonorous exhilaration. With a pungent, incisive axis of conscious melodic devices, correctly assimilated by the lenient, but purposeful stability of its glorious symbiosis of organic dissonances, that seems lethargic at first, the intrinsic nature of the rhythmic serenity that grows within this musical horizon slowly works towards the digressive elements of the harmonies, revolving around a certain complexity that obliterates the cosmic volatility of its formidably eloquent style. With a futurist, colorful, modernist musical approach that made the external shape of the songs, indeed, to sound in an exceedingly beautiful and elegant fashion, Return can be positively described as a very gracious, audacious and original work of art. The last track, Liberation, I would certainly highlight as my favorite. If you want to listen to something very surprising, astute and genuine, I definitely recommend this marvelous and surreal EP. 

Wagner

psychedelic rock / stoner rock

Earlier today I once again got involved into a useless discussion about which era produced the best music. Quite often, those discussions are caused by a poll. The choices usually are 60's, 70's, 80's, and 90's, nothing earlier, nothing later. In this age of mass produced heavy bassline music, people tend to forget that there are still massively talented people out there, creating absolute magic. People are still crawling into rehearsal rooms and coming out with breathtaking music, showcasing the chemistry which has been going on in there. This fascinating behaviour by musicians far and wide is what keeps the musical underground going strong.

Californian desert rockers Yawning Man certainly belong in that category. Since 1986 these guys have been jamming on stages all over the world. In that time they recorded six album, with 'The Revolt Against Tired Noises' being the latest. Mostly instrumental, this album is a superb statement of the band's know-how. Besides, with the song 'Catamaran', the band has re-recorded an old classic of theirs, made famous by Kyuss when they covered it on 'The Circus Leaves Town'. Now this song finally sees a release by the band who actually wrote it, which I think is a damn good thing.

But first things first as the record opens with 'The Black Kite', a soothing and immersive tune that freely floats between psychedelic rock and post rock. Some artists in the stoner and psychedelic scenes don't like to read the term "post-rock" but if your music would fit perfectly well on a festival like Dunk!, that tag is not an insult, on the very contrary. That would place Yawning Man in the same streets as bands like Monkey3, My Sleeping Karma, Colour Haze and so on. The same goes for the title track and for 'Skyline Pressure'.

'Grant's Heart' is the first track with vocals. It's also one of the fastest tunes, a mid tempo song in the middle of slow but groovy rock tunes. 'Violent Lights' takes the listener back to the path of the previously mentioned tracks, again balancing on that edge between post and psychedelic. With every song I'm becoming more and more convinced of the powerful live experience that Yawning Man will probably be. I never had the chance to see them live but I think that will change very soon as this album will be supported by a massive tour.

The ever expanding musical universe of Yawning Man is stunning. Firmly rooted in the era where bands like Pink FLoyd and Hawkwind carefully crafted a new genre, these Americans are not afraid to look forward. 'Misfortune Cookies' is one of my favorites, a jam (which is a bit too short for me) that brings back memories of 3rd Ear Experience gigs. As I said earlier, I can't wait to experience these tracks live. The album will undoubtedly appear quite often in my day-to-day playlist and if you're a psychedelic stoner post rock fan, I recommend you do the same.


Serge

psychedelic rock

It's strange to experience memories from festivals I have never been to. Especially with the recent psychedelic rock revival I often picture myself at an event like Woodstock or Jazz Bilzen, enjoying the wild guitar solos and immersive bass lines of the bands on stage.

On one hand it's unfortunate that those days are over. Festivals no longer have that "free" feeling. On the big ones, there are more security people and police than people on stage. The sound is rarely at a satisfactory level and the whole thing has to close at eleven in order to avoid complaints from neighbours.

Then again, when the right music makes a solid return, so does the outrageous festival experience. Smaller ones are popping up like mushrooms, pleasing crowds with surprisingly vintage sounding bands. The hippies will dance again, the doomers will smile and the psychedelic rockers will once again float beyond the clouds. That is basically the feeling I have when I listen to this new album by French psych-rockers Domadora.

'Lacuna' is their third album after 'Tibetan Monk' (2013) and 'The Violent Mystical Sukuma' (2016). The album contains four tracks, each one lifting the jam-capacities to new and unheard levels. 'Lacuna Jam' opens the whole thing, immediately delivering the goods. With heavy guitars, almost tangible bass lines and energetic drums, Domadora quickly gets the audience on their feet and shaking their behinds.

Basically, the album is one long jam session. It seems like the bass guitar delivers a firm foundation on which the rest of the band can freely improvise. That results in some wicked psychedelic passages but also in soothing post rock and groovy stoner doom. The massive 'Genghis Khan' is a perfect example of that. This tune is certainly capable of entertaining large groups of traditional psychedelic rock fans.

There a plenty of big names to compare this music to, from krautrockers like Can or Amon Düul II over the psychedelic music of Pink Floyd to the groovy rock of Hawkwind and Led Zeppelin, it's all here. Closer 'Tierra Last Homage' comes up with some neat vintage Black Sabbath riffage too, only adding more level of high quality rock 'n roll to the whole thing. So yeah, this is a brilliant piece of psychedelic jam rock, recommended for everyone at those hot summer festivals.


​Serge