PRIMA MATERIA ~ STONE BY STONE .... review

 

Stephany Varga (bass/vocals); Matt Silver (drums) and Esther Ann Gove (guitar/vocals) are the thirds that make up the whole of a trio calling themselves Prima Materia, a band from Oakland, California who boast a sound they describe as "esoteric doom".  Now "esoteric" often refers to something limited to the knowledge of a small group of people, so in this case we hope Prima Materia's music does not stay "esoteric" for too long, but "esoteric" can also mean "of special interest" and if, like Desert Psychlist,  you often find yourself captivated by doom that is a little left of the norm then the bands debut release "Stone By Stone" will be of extra special interest. 

"Stone By Stone" opens its account with "Blame" a song that comes at you in pulses of throbbing doom riffage and rolling drum patterns routinely interrupted by staccato type vocal bursts and including a passage of liquid like ambience at its centre, the songs final moments coming in a whirlwind of  searing lead guitar work before things are brought to a close with a gradually decreasing wave of droning effects and white noise. Next up is "Silence" a song where we find Prima Materia initially dipping their toes into more tranquil ethereal waters with folk-like vocal harmonies floating majestically over lilting bass motifs, shimmering percussion and gently swept arpeggios. These guys are no trippy dippy psychonauts however and its not long before those arpeggios are traded in for crunching power chords , those drums become a thunderous barrage and those bass motifs start to find their inner growl, the band only returning to the ethereality of the songs opening bars once they've blown your speakers to smithereens. The albums midway position is marked with the appropriately named "Interlude" an atmospheric if rather brief instrumental, its moody demeanour the perfect preparation for the towering majesty Prima Materia unleash upon us with the darkly beautiful title track "Stone By Stone". Part an aching lament and part a doomic riff fest "Stone By Stone" draws it listeners in with dark maudlin vocal melodies delivered over backdrops of languid doom and prog before then deciding to blow minds and socks off with a tsunami of thrumming heaviness decorated in vocal tones that at this juncture are not so much harsh as forceful. The forcefulness of tone gracing the closing stages of the previous song is resurrected again for next song "Ruinbound" but only in the songs chorus, which is otherwise bookended by lilting and fey crooning, however the forcefulness of the music here is unrelenting, a throbbing dank dark  onslaught of doomic gnarliness that for Desert Psychlist puts this tune up there as a contender for one of the albums finest moments. Lastly we come to "Lie", vocals here are a mix of lead voice and shared harmonies but its the music here that is the main focus, Prima Materia blending brutality with texture, colour and complexity to create a heavy but slightly off-kilter feel, the band using the brutal part of that equation to bring not only this song to a satisfying conclusion but also the album. 

  A lot of thought has gone into the musical structures and arrangements on "Stone By Stone", these are not just songs put together around a riff, there are elements of light and shade aplenty to be found here as well as a desire to take chances and experiment. This is Prima Materia's debut release so of course there are places where they do not quite pull off what they are were aiming for but for every one wayward arrow on "Stone By Stone" there are ten hitting their targets, and hitting them true.

Check 'em out .....       

© 2025 Frazer Jones

SEEKER ~ SEEKER ... review

Seeker are a three piece heavy rock/doom/space/ stoner psych outfit from Gainesville, Florida but other than that there is not a lot else Desert Psychlist can tell you about them, the bands social media presence is sparse to say the least and, at the time of writing this review, is limited to a live reel and a couple of photos (one of a poster promoting a gig the band did with fellow Gainesville residents Orbiter). This minimal information does however confirm that these guys are a bona-fide band and not one of those AI generated projects that are becoming the bane of sites like this striving to promote real music made by real flesh and bone musicians. Any lingering doubts that Seeker are not a living breathing entity can also be dispelled with one spin of the trios self-titled debut "Seeker", music this good and with this level of depth and warmth just does not come from throwing a few ideas and suggestions at a program and publishing the results as your own..... well not yet anyway.

Dark reverberating riffage and swirling guitar textures underscored with thunderous rhythms are what Seeker bring to the table with their self-titled debut and although that is not an unusual combination to be found within this scene we call "the underground" there is nonetheless something a little bit special about the way Seeker put that combination together here. Opening number "Searching" begins, like so many doomic tomes have done before it, with thick dank guitar and bass refrains supported by slow ponderous percussion but then, just when you've prepared yourself mentally for a long period of sage head nodding, the hammer goes down and the band hurtle headlong into an up-tempo Sabbathian flavoured proto metal groove enhanced by ear catching guitar motifs under which low booming bass and thunderous busy drumming hold sway. If that is not enough to blow your socks off into another dimension then the decoration of that resulting groove with swirling lead work and powerful clean vocals will be. Next song, "The Rite", begins life fairly low key and spacious with low grizzled bass lines and tight and steady drumming supporting dark circular feeling guitar textures around which a slightly wearied and yearning vocal is pitched, the tones of which posses an air of melancholy. As the song progresses so does its tempo and intensity, the songs atmospherics and dynamics ramping up to what promises to be a noisy crescendo only for the band to then revert back to their initial low key approach to take things to the close. Third song, "Corrupted Priest" is a proto-doomic behemoth packed to the gills with everything we fans of the genre love and cherish, strong slightly mournful vocals, recurring riffage, Iommic lead work and a bass and drum groove that pulsates and throbs with the regularity of a dying human heart, the songs repeated "i'll take it all" lyric, delivered again with yearning intent, echoing in the mind long after the songs last note has faded away.  Next we get "Finality" a song where we find Seeker initially dipping their feet into low'n'slow stoner doom waters, with sluggish dank refrains and pummelling percussion supporting wearied vocals telling of "ritual" and "sacrifice", before taking things to the close on an almost stoner tinted heavy metal groove. Seeker describe themselves as a band who write "heavy music about space" but up until now musically the onus has been mainly on the "heavy" part of that statement however last track "Awakening" finds the band bringing some of that "space" to the fore by adding elements of Hawkwind-esque swirliness to the mix and combining it with off in the distance melodic vocals and passages of spoken word, still keeping things damn heavy but at the same time a little cosmic too.

For there very first release Seeker have taken some Hawkwind like space-rock textures, blended them with elements of Sabbathian proto-doom and drenched the resulting mix in early Elder like atmospheric intensity while all the time making sure that their space themed lyrical content sits nicely in that perfect and always effective middle of the mix pocket. Quite why Seeker are not more pro-active on social media is somewhat of a mystery, you would think having made an album this damn good they would want to be shouting it to the world! 

Check 'em out .... 

© 2025 Frazer Jones

10 SLIP ~ TENSE LIP .... review

 

Introspective, thought provoking lyrics are all well and good, especially when set against musical backdrops that reflect the seriousness of those lyrics, but there are also times when all you want to hear is some chunky power chords and funky rhythms framing lyrics that look at the world not so much from under a microscope but more from the bottom of a beer glass. Enter 10 Slip a Canadian power trio from Sydney, Nova Scotia with their new release "Tense Lip". an album that in the bands words is "best enjoyed after 4-5 cold drinks" and "with a 6th in hand".

"Tense Lip" opens with "Dead Ain't Gonna Cry" and like most of the songs gracing this album this is a song rooted heavily in the blues, albeit a heavily fuzzed distorted take on that genre. As you might expect after reading the words fuzzed and distorted the refrains here are delivered thick loud and chunky, which is something sorely needed when your drummer is hitting his skins and cymbals with the force of an industrial piledriver. Vocals on this song tell of "breaking down on the old highway" with "only help coming from a copperhead snake" and are delivered in clean slightly drawled lead tones in the verses but utilize shared harmonies in the songs earworm of a chorus, there is also some pretty snazzy lead guitar work to admire here also. "Cult" follows next " the songs bluesy desert rock groove supporting a deliciously addictive seesawing vocal melody that contains what might be Desert Psychlist's favourite lyric of the whole album, "grass ain't greener from across the divide, not if perspective is reflective on the other side", who says these guys don't do deep and meaningful? The band dial things down for the song "10 Slip" but only initially, the song soon moving from a languid and hazy blues, boasting an equally languid and hazy vocal, into something akin to a stoner punk romp in its latter half, the song only reverting back to its hazy blues roots in its dying moments. There is an off-kilter and quirky feel to next number "The Wall", its jagged shifts in time, dynamics and tempo are almost prog-like in places while "Shallow Waters" mirrors the proggish feel of its predecessor but on its path to it final note also visits territories that carry signposts like doomic, alternative and grungy at their borders, it also ramps up the vocal dynamics, mixing low key crooning with pulpit sermonizing and occasional folk-like harmonising to give the proceedings an almost religious feel. "Mirrors" is next and here we find 10 Slip adding to their sound touches of hardcore furiosity and sludge like ferality it is followed by "Hallowed Ground" an intriguing mix of psych tinted doominosity and stonerized bluesiness that includes, among its many delights, surf-like guitar textures played over a delicious solid and tight drum and bass groove. Final number, "Spore", begins with a manic drum solo that is then joined by the rest of the band in a groove tighter than a hug from an anaconda, this is a song with crowd pleaser written large all over it, furious rhythms, eastern tinted guitar motifs low grizzled bass lines all topped off with a strongly executed swaying vocal, you can imagine this being played at the end of a live set and just blowing the roof off the venue.

 

"Tense Lip" is an incredible album, an album that is direct and in your face in places, angular and quirky in others, every track is an adventure with every guitar note, bass line and drum beat having the potential to lead you down a new and unexpected musical path. 10 Slip might paint themselves as bar room philosophers who like to have a few beers and play rock'n'roll but "Tense Lip" proves just how much more than that they really are..

Check 'em out ....    

  

© 2025 Frazer Jones

EARTHWORKS ~ EARTHWORKS .... review

Guitar and bass tones drenched in enough distortion and fuzz to drown a small village driven by sedate yet unbelievably busy drumming is what is on offer today and the band doing the offering go by the name Earthworks. Earthworks, Mercedes Macomber (vocals); Reilly Tennesen (guitar/sitar): David Bell (bass) and Garrison Kadau (drums, percussion), first came onto Desert Psychlist's radar via their Bandcamp released demo "Volume 1", and what caught our attention on that demo was the contrast between Macomber's clean clear vocal tones and the absolute onslaught of distorted heaviness Tennesen, Bell and Kadau laid down beneath those tones. Demo's are notoriously underproduced affairs so its nice to see that three of those songs reappear primped and polished, though still retaining their essential rawness, on this their self-titled debut sitting beside three new songs that really show another side of this bands sound.

Opening track "Bongwitch" starts with sampled narration followed by some "Sweet Leaf" like coughing then launches into a mid-tempo groove soaked in delicious dank distortion and fuzz. The songs overall vibe is unashamedly proto-doomic and is given wings by Macomber's delightfully clean and smooth vocal, her voice, pitched somewhere between soaring and ethereal, adding just the right levels of gravitas to the songs mystical lyrical content. The superbly titled "Commence The Riff" follows and finds Macomber lifting her vocal into a higher register to tell us a "weedian" flavoured tale of  "ritual orgies and incantations" backed by an achingly sedate bass and guitar refrain pushed by industrious thundering drumming, the highlight here though has to be Tennesen's wah pedal fuelled guitar solo which is far more feel based than it is technical. "Hillbilly Witchcraft" is up next, the song kicks off with Tennesen knocking out a lone and bluesy guitar motif that then briefly morphs into a heavy blues tinted doom groove when Ball's low and gnarly bass and Kadau's rock steady drums join the party. Macomber delivers over this groove a superb vocal melody, roughing up her tones with elements of grittiness and growl, if you thought the version of this song gracing their demo was something special, well this version will blow your mind! The first of the bands  new material arrives in the shape of "Cosmic Spiral", here we find Earthworks dipping their toes into more lysergic waters with Macomber's heavily filtered vocal melody framed by passages of grizzled low slow heaviness and lapses into atmospheric haziness offset with a myriad of differing textures and colours from Tennesen's guitar. A Bell bass motif introduces "Sharptooth" which is then joined by Tennesen on sitar and Kadau on hand percussion over which Macomber delivers a soaring eastern flavoured vocal. The song then shifts up a gear with Tennesen reverting back to his guitar and Kadau moving over to his full kit to deliver a groove that although doomic retains its middle-eastern feel, well that is until the songs final third when the hammer goes down and the musicians launch into something very close to being a heavy psych/rock freakout, the songs final moments marked by Tennesen once again picking up his sitar to take things to the close. Finally we arrive at "The Woodsman", its opening salvo of thrumming noise slowly evolving into a bona-fide riff backed by sparse but effective drumming before momentarily slowing down again to allow Macomber space to deliver an uncharacteristically low key and slightly deadpan vocal that tells a tale of a man at one with nature over a backdrop of proto-metallic doom awash with distortion and fuzz. At around the halfway mark the band take a detour from all the bluster and heaviness and shift into a hazy cosmic passage taken to an altogether other level by liquid like lead work and fusion like rhythmic patterns, the band gradually moving back towards the heaviness of the opening half of the song but cleverly managing to restrain themselves from going too far in that direction.  

Earthworks debut "Earthworks" is not something you could readily describe as an occult rock album but nor could it be said that it is an album that sits strictly in the doom canon.. If anything Earthworks music exists in a place somewhere between the two, not quite as ethereal as one and not as visceral as the other, a place where they can be free to be whatever they want to be at any given time and make the music they want to make without the weight of a label or tag dragging them down. 

Check 'em out .... 

 

© 2025 Frazer Jones

CENTER OF THE EARTH ~ AS ABOVE, SO BELOW ...review

There are a lot of things you can do in twenty minutes, some of them legal, some of them illegal, some of them pleasurable, some of them not so much, today we are bringing you something that sits very much in the legal and pleasurable range and one you need only to use your ears for. The twenty minutes we invite you to indulge yourself in today comes in the form of two humongous tracks of weighty groove brought to you by a Danish combo going by the name Center of the Earth, Aksel Brammer (drums); Frederik Holm (guitar/vocals); Jesper Laugmann (guitar/vocals) and Sebastian Wilsleff (bass). Now some of you may remember Desert Psychlist waxing lyrical on the merits of the both the bands "Tolkion" album and its follow up "Mars" on these pages and we are going to be no less complimentary when discussing the two tracks that make up the bands latest release "As Above, So Below".

First of the two epic sized tracks is "Slope Dealer", it begins with a sedate slightly off-kilter guitar and bass combination then, when the drums join in, morphs into the sort of "out there in the cosmos" jam that many bands might have chosen to finish a song rather than place near the start of one. As the piercing guitar solos,  growling bass motifs and hell for leather drumming subside the song then settles into a low, slow and extremely weighty stoner doom groove decorated in drawn out and grizzled vocal tones that tell "weedian" flavoured tales of "giants and witches on melting ridges" before musically returning to the soaring psychedelic jamming that was part of the songs origins, it's spectacular stuff! Track two, "Black Knight Sattelite"  is no less impressive either musically, vocally or lyrically, although Desert Psychlist does need to admit to having to google the meanings of the words "aeonic" and "enochian", and that we are still a little unclear as to what an "Antarctic command conduit" is or actually does. Musically this is a song with it roots buried deep in stoner-doom soil, a lurching lumbering beast of a tome built on thick dank reverberating guitar and bass refrains supported by some of the slowest yet busiest drumming you are likely to find in this genre ever. Vocals here are a mixture of grizzled lead and dual harmonies but to call them harmonies is probably pushing things too far as the sound those voices make together is more akin to two bears roaring for dominance over a carcass than anything approaching melodic, but that's ok because they are the perfect fit for lumbering gait of the dark and dank grooves surrounding them. Despite the songs lurching nature there are moments of relief to be found here one of which occurs when all the bluster falls away and the band lurch into a doomic blues groove, but its only a brief moment and overall this is doom at its most insidious and menacing, which is just the way most of us in this scene like our doom to be. 

Center of the Earth's previous release, "Mars", saw the band  dipping their toes into more lysergic waters and experimenting with elements and textures of post-metal and space however for this release they have returned to their heavy roots, those textures and elements still in place but this time a little less obvious. Whether the band will ever return to the more experimental approach they toyed with on "Mars" only time will tell but until then lets just enjoy the crushing. lumbering heaviness that the two tracks that make up "As Above, So Below" so expertly deliver. 

Check it out ....      

© 2025 Frazer Jones

HEXJAKT ~ HEXJAKT ...... review

Desert Psychlist has for a long time had an unhealthy obsession with Sweden's sludge/doom behemoths Ordos, so much so that not a week seems to go by without the bands self-titled debut, their mind-blowing follow up "House of the Dead" or their excellent third album "The End" are not heard blaring out through the halls of Stonerking Towers. The trouble with this obsession is that Ordos are not the most prolific of bands, they've been promising new material for what seems like an age, and there are not that many bands out there whose blend of atmospheric doom and sludge hits our sweet spot in quite the same way, well that was until today when we pushed play on a self-titled album from another Swedish outfit going by the name of Hexjakt. The band, Hampus Henningsson (guitar/vocals); Toni Åkerman (bass/vocals) and Dan Nordin (drums), jam grooves that possesses many of those same qualities that first drew our ear to the mighty Ordos, big riffs and rhythms aligned with slightly theatrical and manic vocals, but where Ordos threw away most their Sabbathian influences to embrace a more "blackened" sound Hexjakt's are there for all to hear, along with a few nods to High On Fire, Sleep and Egypt.

Things kick off with "Rites of Fire" its opening salvo of droning dissonant guitar noise slowly shapes itself into thick toned dank riffage that is driven by solid thunderous drumming, vocals here are delivered dually by both Henningsson and Åkerman  and possess an almost vaudevillian quality, so much so that you could almost imagine this being played out on stage by actors in Victorian clothing twirling long thin moustaches. Musically on point throughout and also including a brief but intriguing off -kilter middle section, this is a great way to open a debut. "Thunderous Skies" follows its proto-doomic refrains, dialled down to waltz time, are as thunderous as the skies it mentions in its title while its vocals border on depraved, yelled with a passionate anger for the most part only briefly dropping down from that dynamic to deliver malevolent narration in the songs sinister middle section breakdown. Next up is "Valley of the Dead" and here we find Hexjakt smashing together elements of Egypt's "Valley of the Kings" with aspects of Ordos' "House of the Dead" and coming up with something just as iconic and mind-mincing, super cool storytelling lyrics, full on grizzled lead vocals, inharmonious harmonies and guitar solos that send shivers down the spine, the only criticism that could possibly be thrown this songs way is that at 4:49 it is too damn short. Finally we arrive at "The Flood" its slowed down Sabbathian groove, enhanced by swirling guitar motifs, is deliciously dark and dank and serves as the perfect platform for the gnarled and grizzled vocal tones that decorate it, the song closes its account with an atmospheric and hazy passage of languid psych that leaves you in no doubt that there is a lot more to this band than just riffs, rhythms, and growls.

Sweden's reputation for cranking out top notch underground rock bands is something we in this scene are all well aware of but Hexjakt are not a great band because they are Swedish they are a great band because they have great arrangements, have an understanding of what makes a song work and can play the shit out of their instruments all of which will become abundantly clear when giving their self-titled debut a spin.

© 2025 Frazer Jones

BLACK SADHU ~ ASHES OF AETHER ..... review

Those of us of a certain age will remember those days when space rock pioneers Hawkwind would bookcase their jamming on a chord musical endeavours with passages of prose and poetry, something that would prove especially effective on albums like "Warriors On The Edge Of Time" and the iconic live album "Space Ritual". Now you may be asking why Desert Psychlist are opening a review, analysing the merits of a present day album, with mention of the UK's mighty Hawkwind, well the reason is that said album utilizes many of those same spoken word/music/spoken word properties that were Hawkwind's forte. The album we are talking about here is German outfit Black Sadhu's latest release "Ashes Of Aether" a stunningly dark conceptual opus that forewarns of a world brought to its knees by advancements in technology.

The brief but wholly effective opening piece "Roots of Steel" sets the mood for the rest of the album with interwoven droning effects framing spoken narration that tells of a world where "the sky bends in electric arcs" and "only static speaks in our heads", a brief but nonetheless haunting tome. "Phobus" follows, this a song with a more "traditional" doomic dynamic, thick grainy guitar refrains supported by low gravelled bass and solid thunderous and powerful percussion, however traditional does not equate to generic and with its mix of  wearied clean and harsh vocals, its whirling spaciousness and its soaring guitar textures there is not a lot you could call generic about this song. "Tumors of Light" is another poetry piece, this one differing from the opening track courtesy of  its backdrop of space-like whoops and whistles and constant crackling effects. Next up is "Descent" a song that begins life quite stoner(ish) and up beat but then plummets into a low, slow and heavy stoner-doom groove over which barely audible harsh and gruff vocals are delivered, the songs final section using that stoner-doomic groove as a platform for some impressive interwoven guitar pyrotechnics. It is back to the prose and drones for the tranquil "Silicone Bones" but that tranquillity is soon shattered with the arrival of "Dias Irae", an amalgamation of doom, space rock and heavy psych that blusters and swaggers just as much as it swoops and soars, the true epitome of the term "psychedelic doom", it also boasts a great vocal. "Hearts turned cold" is another poetic piece, its line "our souls entangled in data streams" indicative of where our obsession with technology will/may eventually lead us. "Electric Death" begins with a whispered prayer followed by a few bars of atmospheric ambience but then in comes a throbbing yet crunchy guitar riff accompanied by a clean but gritty vocal melody, then just when you think you are about to ride this groove to the songs conclusion back comes the prayer and ambience only to then be supplanted by a phase drenched sludge refrain over which a nursery rhyme type melody holds sway, think its all over ..well not yet it isn't as there is still a manic blackened metal finale to deal with. Final track "In the ruins of the Divine" uses rolling synthesized effects as the backdrop for prose detailing humanities demise "a flood will come, not of water but light, a blinding wave of our own design", prophetic stuff!

Many of us following Black Sadhu's progress over the years have always suspected that this was a band moving towards doing something epic and special with their music but even with that knowledge none of us could have predicted the levels of magnitude they have brought to the table with "Ashes of Aether", this is other level! 

Check it out .... 

© 2025 Frazer Jones