“I have a soft spot for young bands releasing records under their own steam. With the amount of time I’ve spent pooling money for too little studio time and going through sketchy post-production just to have a stack of records I end up giving away to friends and family, I feel a masochistic duty to tackle self-releases when the promo sump presents them. Today’s lucky candidates are the French quintet Uncomfortable Knowledge, with their second full-length Lifeline.” The burden of knowledge.
Baroness
Stuck in the Filter – October’s Angry Misses
The October Filter Report is here and we have some interesting things to break down for you. Get stuck!
Howling Giant – Glass Future Review
“Last we met Howling Giant they were dueling with Somerset’s Sergeant Thunderhoof in groovy stoner split Turned to Stone Chapter 2: Masamune & Muramasa, which deserved a word, not a numerical score, to describe its quality. Howling Giant strung together a fun-loving single track with multiple movements, their meat-and-potatoes approach slightly outdueling da Hoof’s bombastic and flashy performance.” Howling at stones.
Catafalque – Dybbuk Review
“Good drone swallows you. Drone is not meant to invoke movement or adrenaline, but to evoke a mood or place. It sweeps away like the tides, not with rhythmic intensity but with mammoth weight, and dwells with you. A dybbuk is a Jewish mythological creature that sits on your chest while you sleep, and at its best this album attaches to you like a parasite. Wailing and gnashing of teeth echo across the fray, visceral and ritualistic, and as haunting as it is devastating. The place Catafalque takes you to is not the foot of great mountains or grey cityscapes, but a shadowy place that is as possessed as it is otherworldly.” Honing the droning.
Servers – The Vertical Plane Review
“It’s been quite a while since I last reviewed anyone hailing from even close to my neck of the woods but, this week, I present for your perusal Servers. Hailing from Barnsley in South Yorkshire, UK, the band—the label blurb tells me they’re a quintet and then proceeds to name only three members—return with their fourth album, the follow-up to 2019’s Ad Nauseam. Servers take the title of The Vertical Plane from a book of the same name about the (apparently) infamous Dodleston mysteries in 1985.” To serve mankind prog.
Psychonaut – Violate Consensus Reality [Things You Might Have Missed 2022]
“Mixing slow-build dynamics, psychedelic excursions and cathartic crescendos with sudden explosions of fury, Psychonaut draws inspiration from the likes of The Ocean and Baroness (in that bygone era when Baroness wrote compelling music and didn’t crush their albums into unlistenable garbage at the production stage). Complex, sprawling, dense, and yet accessible, Violate Consensus Reality swirls around the listener.” Psychodrama.
Moths – Space Force Review
“Moths seemingly come out of nowhere. Often left unchecked, they move from chewing a couple holes in that one jacket you forgot about (and probably doesn’t fit you anymore anyway) to causing major issues with carpets, rugs, and insulation. These Moths are different, though. Hailing from Puerto Rico, Moths flutter about with vibe-heavy jazz doom hoping to infest oscillating melodies into your highest consciousness.” Bug hugs.
Heiress – Distant Fires Review
“”Heiress, wonder where they came up with that name,” snickered a member of staff called … um … Pronos, as I alerted all the writers who care Cherd to incoming melodic sludge. Now look, I get what Pronos was getting at but there was a time when Baroness were not a meme nor a byword for some of the worst production in metal alt rock. When split A Grey Sigh in a Flower Husk dropped in 2007, followed later the same year by Red Album, Baroness were offering something genuinely different and interesting, and there is a reason they have come to be such A Big Deal. Of course, they have now become a parody of themselves but that doesn’t mean other, less well-known acts need go down the same path.” Let them eat sludge.
Somnuri – Nefarious Wave Review
“In 2017, NYC sludge band Somnuri released their eponymous debut to relatively little fanfare. No one around these parts seemed to catch it, but thanks to a personal connection to the band, I did. Somnuri was a solid mix of early Mastodon progressive sludge with Yob-ish doom tendencies. It was better than a self released debut has any right to be, with songs like “Kaizen,” “Inhabitant” and “Through the Dead” landing on several of my personal playlists. With the band on my radar, I’ve been hoping to see a follow up surface in our promo pit for some time. Lo and behold, Nefarious Wave comes to us courtesy of their new label Blues Funeral four long years after their debut. With such a gap between records, one would hope for, if not expect, a fair amount of evolution and refinement.” NYC tides bring strange gifts.
Los Disidentes Del Sucio Motel – Polaris Review
“Oddball French heavy rock outfit Los Disidentes Del Sucio Motel (LDDSM) is difficult to assign to a specific genre or style. Over their career they’ve been described as stoner, psychedelic and prog rock, and none of that is completely wrong. Nor does it give you the full story. Now they’re back after 4 years in limbo with fourth album Polaris, and they’re every bit as tough to pigeonhole as always. If I were to make a Hail Mary effort to describe their style, it would be alt-rock mixed with prog, post-rock, and post-metal, with grunge/stoner/desert elements lurking at the edges.” A multiverse of influences.