progressive / post metal

black metal / doom

electronic / coldwave

heavy metal versions of eighties hits

progressive / psychedelic rock

noise rock / industrial

noise rock / sludge

stoner rock / psychedelic rock

death metal

alternative rock

alternative rock / dream pop

indie rock / alternative

death metal

death metal

death metal / black metal

ambient

alternative rock / grunge / stoner rock

heavy metal

facebook

doom / drone / black metal

post rock / progressive rock

stoner rock

Released on September 1st, Slow Wander is the most recent album by Norwegian stoner rock group Red Mountains, from Trondheim. Forty seven and a half minutes long, the record has nine tracks: Home, Rat King, Oak, Endless Ocean, Stone, Fog, Cellar Door, Acid Wedding and Returning. A very lucid and preeminent album, with beautiful and poetic harmonies – somewhat reminiscent of seventies psychedelic rock – Slow Wander is an interesting work, that brilliantly, but at the same time easily, achieves a glorious level of artistry, that qualifies the record to be categorized as an ardently promising feature. 

With brilliantly arranged and solidly composed guitar lines that inadvertently pulsates throughout the vivacious synergy of an everlasting life the splendid symbiosis of an intensified atomic thought that happily pullulates over the harmonious wings of a lonely salutary completeness the general capacities of its own expansive atmosphere, the impressive beauty and the elevating, but somehow mordacious, and paradoxically overwhelming, serenity of Red Mountains’ music is thoroughly moving. The third track – simply titled Oak – is certainly my favorite song from the album: an almost rhapsodic serenade filled by the gracious melancholy of an eternal afternoon, that reenergizes the solstice of the soul, over the melodic grace of a solitary sound.  

A very good album, Slow Wander is a great artistic achievement. Not the typical stoner record, captivating and sensible melodies play a major role in Red Mountains’ music. Reflexive, philosophic and poetic overtones are quite definitive to their style, predominant throughout the whole album, being a major feature of theirs. With an incredibly abundant group of sonorous values, that can be strangely as versatile as homogeneous, the overall nucleus of Red Mountains’ music can be described as relaxing, as well as fascinating. In what concerns mainly technical dispositions, they are exceedingly perfect as well.       

A very good work, undoubtedly, I sincerely saw neither flaws nor deficiencies in Slow Wander. A terrific album, nevertheless, it is distinctly more authorial, profound and genuine than what we usually see in the genre nowadays. Certainly, it has everything to please all enthusiasts of a more poetic, melodic, progressive and experimental trend of stoner rock.    


 
Wagner

stoner rock / sludge

Magnetic Fields of Radiant Light is the latest release from American stoner rock group Mammoth Salmon, from Portland, Oregon. Thirty nine minutes long, the album has five tracks: Apotheosis, Mortals, Maelstrom of Discontent, Black Moon Ritual and the title track, Magnetic Fields of Radiant Light. An interesting album, despite a fine range of qualities, the work basically revolves throughout the traditional traits of the genre: a gratifyingly intense lower pace, profound rhythmic dissonances, sometimes dense, corrosive harmonies, and mortifyingly wild guitar lines, that easily erects fortifying walls of sound around its perpetually static musical devices, ready to acidly dispose traces of good behavior without any fear.  

With a profound psychedelic vibe, Magnetic Fields of Radiant Light is an interesting album. Despite the fact that the band closely follows all traditional aspects of the genre, there is an intriguing amount of genuine audacity subtlety inserted into the harmonies, that rapidly deviates from the common ground predictability inherent to this type of music. Nevertheless, the record would be solely – and more exclusively, I think – appreciated by veteran enthusiasts of the genre, since it will certainly sound astoundingly monotonous to an uninitiated audience.

The technical aspects are obviously marvelous. The guitar lines exhibits a tenure of hazardous strength and consistency that brilliantly shapes their melodies and the vigorous expansion of their dilated harmonies. Although the songs in some passages sounds excessively uniform at times, this is a quality inherent to the genre, that explores the inextricably quiet, patient and pragmatic dissonances of slow intonations, while retracting and dispersing at the same time a voluble and convertibly flexible sonorous ordeal, throughout a sordid configuration of vastly irregular universes, made of graceful impositions of imponderability.    

While I haven’t found Magnetic Fields of Radiant Light to be a masterpiece, there is no doubt the record is a remarkable representative of the genre. Despite the lack of authenticity, it’s impossible not to recognize that they really understood what stoner rock is all about, and amazingly replicate this feeling throughout their music!  


Wagner

stoner rock / sludge

Moon of the Wolf is the debut album of an eponymous American sludge/ stoner rock group, whose style denotes a distinctively progressive musical experimentalism, hailing from Salem, Oregon. Almost thirty eight minutes long, the album has seven tracks: Blue Eyes, Stretch, With Prowess, Fear the Fire, Huntsman, Capture and Realize. With a more radical approach, and a very singular style, Moon of the Wolf – the band as well as the album –, shows an intense and serious musical work, highlighted in the dilapidation of a singular comprehension of stoner rock, exceedingly different from contemporary bands, although without any distance or estrangement from the usual characteristics applied to the genre.    

With some influences clearly derived of hard rock, punk rock, as well as a little bit of hardcore, Moon of the Wolf has a very distinct, perfunctory and amazing style, that goes direct to the point. With a sensational sonorous alignment that shows exactly what they are, and what they came for, Moon of the Wolf brings on the epicenter of its dense and categorical musical proposal a more brute form of artistry, shaped by formidable sonorous arrangements, that rescues in the axis of its amazingly dilapidated rhythmical tonalities the purity of the old traditional rock’n’roll, combined, infused and perfectly amalgamated with a fresh contemporary understanding of its most hard, but whimsical, bastard musical correlations.

Although the record is distant from being considered a masterpiece, it has a plenty of rejuvenating and original qualities. Impossible not to like or to be immediately captivated by it, Moon of the Wolf is saturated by the most pervasively dense and infuriating aspects of aggressive rock’n’roll, although its melancholic, pragmatic and depressed side is severely highlighted at the peripheral quest of its musical tangential zones.            

If Moon of the Wolf can’t be considered a remarkable album, at least it is a gratifying, exceptional and vigorous musical experience. It is certainly worthwhile of each and every minute of its genuine, graceful and audacious musicality. Enthusiasts of a more experimental and original heavier noise rock will instantly feel delighted by this superb work.     


Wagner

When I started these Brieviews series over a year ago, the initial idea is to empty my inbox by writing shorter reviews for EP's, reissues, singles and a few full length albums. Back then, I was talking about 900 unread emails. That amount has tripled since then and we're already at part 25. That's a lot of short reviews if you ask me. Anyway, here are some more Brieviews for your reading and listening enjoyment. 

dark ambient

heavy metal

black metal / thrash metal

post rock

drone / dark ambient

bandcamp

stoner rock / hard rock

gothic metal / symphonic metal

black metal

Larval Productions

post punk / gothic rock

grindcore

Serge

psychedelic / stoner rock

Más Alto que el Sol is a formidable and incredibly sensational album by Uruguayan stoner rock group Color Horror. Thirty nine minutes long, the album has nine tracks: Better Run, Burning Trees, Little Secret, No Vamos a ir, Ningún Lugar, Más Alto que el Sol, Fire & Bones, You got some nerves and Luces Negras. While maintaining the conventional sonorous dynamic of the genre, Color Horror has a more volatile and idyllic style, that concentrates in the synergy of its proverbial nature a delusive and electric propensity towards a very original and creative ordeal, that hallucinates its sonorous demand over an ambivalent and intricate reality, condensed in the prism of southern rock, but permanently juxtaposed under the realms of a profoundly psychedelic vibe. The final result couldn’t have been more brilliant: a true stoner rock sound, easily reinvigorated over the astuteness of a formidable audacity that ably reconciles the traditional aspects of the genre with original ones. 

With songs shorter than usual for the genre, Más Alto que el Sol is probably the greatest and mostly fundamental musical attestation of creativity ever testified in the genre. Although the first two tracks – namely, Better Run and Burning Trees – probably condenses better the essence and the descriptive qualities of Color Horror’s music, the entire album is the literal consecration of a profound innovation brilliantly inserted into the genre without deforming it. On the contrary, it widely accepts and expands its sonorous possibilities into an ever increasing gradual pyramid of elevated rapture.

Singing in English as well as their native Spanish, Color Horror demonstrates the genuine impulses that drives their music all the way through, throughout the album. A marvelous state of the art work, a true and vehemently whimsical masterpiece, Más Alto que el Sol deserves all compliments for its sensational, genuine and unparalleled  level of originality. With a strength that easily modifies the music to insert the listener into a whole new level of wonderful perceptions, this record is destined to become a huge reference in the genre, for the underground scene.

With a great and sensational energy that respects, but at the same time formidably aggregates a whole new set of qualities into the genre, Color Horror shows on this great album Más Alto que el Sol why they deserve to have a long and fruitful career: because they’ve created an entirely new genre from an existing one. And what a marvelous work this album has revealed itself to be!  


Wagner

grunge / alternative / stoner rock

A marvelous record, Or Die is an album released on July 30 by wonderful stoner/ post grunge band Highfly from Warsaw, Poland. With six tracks – On the Disappearance of the Dwemer, Ab Urbe Posnani, Spooky Guy from the FBI, T. Bone Rocket, Swear to God and The Ballad of Larry Flynt – Or Die is a great album, with amazing guitar riffs and astounding melodies. On this album, we have the spirit of stoner, deeply inserted in a more relaxed, but exceedingly stunning – and sometimes reflexively poetic – post grunge atmosphere, a remarkable sonorous experience that will enchant your soul, your body, your sensorial perceptions, in a highly ascendant journey of proverbial intensity, that will revolve endlessly around your whole comprehension of the genre. 

With an amazing and intelligent unconventional approach, Or Die is a groundbreaking experience on wild rock. Labeling themselves as “surf metal”, the irreverent spirit of the band, a little reminiscent of bands like Faith no More, is brightly fused with a post grunge appeal that remembers Tantric in its “glorious” days (if they really had something that we could call this way), as well as Soundgarden and Pearl Jam (but these two just a little). Influences apart, Highfly has its own style: a surprising sound that conquers the listener instantly, and reveals a deeply infused touch of savagery, with a melodic perspective that stands over the perceptive sensibility of a cosmic emotional infinity, guarded by a restless soul lost in an immensity of touching serenity, encircled by a marvelous sonorous chaos of sincere comprehension.  

A very intriguing album, Highfly has what it takes to be considered a great experiment on their genres of choice. A rebellious, categorical and very sophisticated group with qualities of their own, Or Die gets close of being considered a masterpiece. Bringing with them all the formidable traditional qualities inherent to the genre, but working them over their own organic sonorous anatomy, there is a touch of exceedingly sensational originality into them that immediately captivates the listener. And other than that, the music is simply beautiful. 

A marvelous album that you should listen very attentively, Or Die is a giant record, fulfilled with wonderful music from the beginning to the very end. A deeply aggrandizing authorial work, filled with a genuine and authentic creativity, Highfly deserves the best praise for this incredible record. With killing tunes and powerful melodies, this is a highly fantastic album, that will generate a tremendous commotion on its audience.   


Wagner      

black metal

krautrock / post punk

hard rock / grunge

dark ambient

classical

grindcore

stoner rock / psychedelic rock

drone / ambient

thrash metal

doom metal

black metal / folk metal

post rock / ambient

electronic / downtempo / psychill

electronic / downtempo / dub

Mindspring Music

grindcore

drone / black metal

doom / avant garde

stoner / psychedelic

A band name that instantly reminds me of the founding bassist of Black Sabbath. An album title that beautifully combines the words "psychedelic" and "riff'. Seventies inspired font and artwork. All those elements combined somehow tell me that we're not dealing with an electronic dance music album. It also tells me that people who are into psychedelic space rock can just pick up this album and assume it's a good one. In fact, with this one, it's so obvious that I don't really have to listen to the music to know who to recommend this album to. But, just to make sure, I'm going to do that anyway. I mean, you never know with these American bands...

The album begins with 'Hair Of The Dog' which immediately confirms my premonition. This opener is a straightforward stoner rock song with some minor psychedelic influences. It fits the artwork perfectly, and so do the rough, grinding vocals. 'Stressknots' takes on a fuzzed out blues sounds, definitely throwing this band into the Desert/Roadburn/Fuzzfest scenes. This stuff is hot, it just my living room a lot hotter than it already is. Even typing this review makes me sweat like a pig. Hurray.

Anyway. It's not all stoner and fuzz and groove. There are some long psychedelic and cosmic jams to be found here too. The title track is the first one and it comes in perfect space rock tradition. It drives on an immersive bass line and freely jamming guitars. Obviously, this adds a lot of variation to the whole thing. In all honesty, I think this lingering beauty is my absolute favorites on this album. I wouldn't even be upset if Geezer's next album contains only this kind of stuff. I'd glorify them even more.

Or how about 'Red Hook', a minimal psychedelic ballad that in some bizarre way reminds be of R.E.M.'s 'Drive', played by Johnny Cash in the middle of a remote desert. Is that a compliment? I don't know. Maybe the heat is getting to me. The album closes with the massively groovy vintage hard rock song 'Dirty Penny', which also contains an awesome elongated jam session. Oh well. you'll guessed it by now. This is an excellent piece of modern day psych rock, one that you don't want to ignore if you're into this stuff.


​Serge

hard rock / stoner rock / grunge

Tunes From The Void is an album by hard rock/grunge German group Grained, released on June 2. Forty three minutes and twenty five seconds long, the record has nine tracks: Gasoline, 35°28'N 138°39'E, Floods, Circus, Shadow Of The Sun, Deadlock, Closure, Interlord and L.O.R.D. A very interesting and rejuvenating album, with a sensible anatomy, designed over fluctuating rhythms increasing in an ever expansive and sophisticated sonorous dynamics, Tunes From The Void departs from a somewhat amazingly fresh, free-flowing, intense and delicate combination of hard rock and grunge, with a contemporary flavor that ads to their music a flexible perception of higher artistry, that easily matches a modern mosaic of graceful melodies with the more hazardous hardline of an explosive, but simple, convergence of savage freedom.

With engraving melodies, beautifully adorned and astoundingly elaborated, at the same time – being exceptionally radio-friendly –, the group has great possibilities of achieving a wider audience through airplay (if radios in their home country give them this chance), since Grained is certainly one of the best hard rock bands to come recently from Germany, in particular, and to appear on the global underground scene, on a wider scale. With a very original sound that doesn’t renounce nor try to renegade its roots, Tunes From The Void, track after track, reveals itself to be a captivating and lancinating piece of awesome and incredible originality. With filthy, abrasive, aggressive and thoroughly genuine guitar lines, Grained remembers a little the best bands of the genre, being a lot more superior than mainstream groups like Seether and Creed. 

Sincerely, I only have the best to say about this album. Track after track, you get surprised, with explosive melodies, beautiful and even poetic harmonies – driven by softly inspirational and deeply reflexive emotional intonations of serene imponderability –, as well as an everlasting feeling that comes from a universe where the music is perpetually seen as a detachment from our own soul. Summarizing, I have to say that, besides surprising, Tunes From The Void has it all: hostile and delusional guitars, pungent and perfectly aligned vocals, sensational and profound melodies, sidelined by a formidable eschatology of disturbed furious sincerity and disgrace, and amazingly graceful horizons of rhythmic dissonances dancing over gray oceans of joyful rapture. Really, there is no other album like this one. A masterpiece that has soul and intensity, in each and every note of its perfectly envisioned music.         

Well, what more can I say about Tunes From The Void, besides the fact that this an almost perfect album, an amazingly vibrant masterpiece, a colossal and astoundingly balanced mixture of hard rock and grunge, elaborated with the authentic gracefulness of creative values, like you have never heard before in your life? Well, that I’m dying to hear it again, of course!        
       

Wagner