REALM ~ RED CLAY DEAD RIVER.... review

"Beer battered and deep fried" is a description probably more associated with the UK's, fast food of choice, fish and chips than that of a bands sonic attack but that is how Knoxville trio Realm describe the gritty riffs and incessant rhythms they bring to the table with their latest offering "Red Clay Dead River". The three Tennesseans, Jake Lonas (guitar/vox) Kurt Bell (bass/keys) and Nick Leichtweis (drums) also go on to cite their southern heritage and a love of sci-fi as major influences in shaping their sound, well let's see...

The glorious cacophony of fuzz drenched guitar, heavily distorted bass and pummelling percussion that greets the ears as first track "Infernal Machine" rears its head tells you in just a few seconds what to expect from the rest of the album. Realm deal in doom tinted grooves of sludgy stoner rock that remove the word "slow" from the usual low.slow and heavy approach, that seems to be the norm these days, and replace it with the word "pacey", retaining those low and heavy dynamics but adding to them a little mid to up tempo southern swagger. Add into this equation the inclusion of strong clean(ish) gritty vocals and you arrive at a sound that will appeal to both doomers and stoners alike as well as all those roaming the hinterlands between. Realm also add a glorious raw element to their grooves with songs like "Leh Hesh" and "Smoke and Stone" so drenched in distortion and fogged in fuzz they are almost in danger of breaking up into white noise, even on the relatively sedate and utterly superb "Gypsy Trail" the band cannot but help themselves from trowling on a thick layer of grainy fuzz only easing off the pedals when the song shifts into a campfire sing-a-long in it's final stages.

Raw and uncompromising, in both its musical execution and its production, "Red Clay Dead River" is a joy to listen to for anyone with even a passing interest in no holds barred gritty underground rock and is an album that should be played very loud and very often.
Check it out .....


© 2018 Frazer Jones

ELECTRIC HULDRA ~ ROADBURNER .... review

Michigan's Electric Huldra describe what they do as simply rock'n'roll and although the Ann Arbor trio of Bobby Marks (guitar/vox), Troy Hufford (guitar/vox) and Dominic Elder (drums) cite among their influences such stonerized doom luminaries as Sleep and Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats it is at the more raucous end of the stoner/desert/ hard rock spectrum that Electric Huldra's sound resides, as can be witnessed on the band's debut release "Roadburner"

First track "Stand Here" nails Electric Huldra's rawk'n'roll credentials to the mast with what we would describe here, in Desert Psychlist's UK home, as "a little belter". If the songs raucous swathes of grainy riffage, underpinned by a tsunami of crashing percussion, fragmented with deliciously addictive guitar motifs is not enough to get the juices flowing then when the strong clean and distinctive vocal melodies kick in they soon will be. Some of you eagle eyed readers out there may have noticed that there has been no mention of a bass player as of yet and you would be right and the reason is there isn't one! Hufford and Marks, through a combination of tunings and dynamics, handle the bottom end between them and unless you were born with a perfect ear you would hardly notice.
"Never Forgave", a song with a heavy doomic feel, gets around being bass-less by underpinning its groove with a low thrumming, heavily reverberated guitar refrain enhanced upon and embellished with the other guitarists slightly less abrasive, but just as effective, tone and by the sheer force of Elder's heavy pounding drums and the songs superbly executed swinging vocal melody. "Doubt In Me" and "You Own Me" both find Electric Huldra roadtripping through more desert flavoured climates, the former infectious and gritty, the latter throbbing and a little bluesy. Final track "Roadburner" sees the band adding a touch of dankness and darkness into their sound, a low circular refrain the foundation around which elements of lysergic colourings and textures are applied, the guitarists injecting touches of eastern flavouring into a groove that builds layer by glorious layer and is coated in strong powerful vocals.

Two six stringers, one drummer and no bassist might have you thinking these guys might come across a little light on "oomph" but you'd be wrong "Roadburner" is an album overflowing with "oomph" and one you should definitely check out ....


© 2018 Frazer Jones

MERLIN ~ THE WIZARD ... review

If you are of a certain age you may remember those days, before the internet, when waiting for an album from a band/artist you admired could be almost agonising, news reports would be minimal and you just had to wait until a press announcement in the weekly music papers alerted you to a new release. Things have changed a lot since then with every little detail of a band/artists activity both outside and inside the studio being reported on social media sites but that anticipation of hearing new sounds from your favourites never goes away. That anticipation nearly reached fever pitch when a while back Jordan Knorr vocalist with Kansas City groovsters Merlin got in touch with Desert Psychlist to ask our opinion on snippets of tracks his band were working on for their forthcoming album, these snippets showed a band remaining true to their core sound yet experimenting with new instrumentation and a wider field of exciting and dynamic textures and colouring. Our appetites were whetted and after a long and agonising wait we can now finally announce the release of Merlin's new opus "The Wizard"(The Company)

"The Wizard" is a concept album but don't let that scare you as each and every track works both thematically and individually, having said that for full listening enjoyment and to fully embrace the conceptual flow of the album it is best listened to as a whole and in recorded order. Merlin are a band that confuse and delight in equal measure but are also a band capable of moments of spine chilling brilliance and there are many of those moments to be found among the seven songs that make up  "The Wizard" . The bands line up has gone through a few changes since the bands  previous album "Electric Children" with Chase Thayer replacing Joey Hamm on bass and Stu Kersting joining on saxophone and guitar, the two new recruits combining with original members Knorr (vocals/omnichord)), Carter Lewis (guitar/synth) and Caleb Wyels (drums) to create a fuller more expansive sound. The introduction of Kersting and specifically his sax contributions is a game changer and brings a whole new perspective to Merlin's overall sound , not as you might expect in a jazz orientated context but in a more groove orientated way as on opener "Abyss" where the sax combines with Lewis' guitar to both carry and accentuate the songs main refrain and on "Sage's Crystal Staff" where he brings an extra level of lysergic texturing to the proceedings. Vocalist Knorr is on fine form throughout mixing up his vocals between strong clean melodies and sneered half sang, half spoken narrative, telling his stories of sorcery and dark dealings like some crazed shaman at a tribal gathering, his stories superbly backed up  by Thayer and Wyels, the bassist and drummer effortlessly shifting between grooves to accommodate every little nuance of each songs dynamic. The album finishes its diverse and lysergic journey with "The Wizard Suite" an epic tome spanning eleven plus minutes that sees Lewis and Kersting trading off ambient guitar licks and arpeggios over a backdrop of tinkling percussion and liquid bass that slowly grows in intensity until erupting into a fuzz drenched stoner-ish groove with Lewis laying down crunching chords supported by Kersting's sax around which Knorr chants mantra-ish vocals. The song slowly builds in tempo with Lewis' guitar and Kersting's sax going head to head  over Thayer and Wyels insistent ever increasing rhythmic grooves before then coming to an abrupt and quite unexpected full stop.

Some things are worth waiting for and although Desert Psychlist was privy to snatches of "The Wizard" before its release those snatches in no way prepared us for the full picture that Merlin have unveiled to us now with this the finished article. Brilliantly written and arranged with a sound and groove unlike anything they have done before Merlin's "The Wizard" is a genuine mini-masterpiece.
Check it out .....


© 2018 Frazer Jones

DIRTY PAGANS ~ VOLUME 1 ... review

Musical tags can often be misleading especially when browsing the pages of sites such as Bandcamp, Spotify,and  Deezer . You can spend ages looking for something in a certain genre only to find a band, tagged as being in that genre, are something completely different to what they are tagged as. However this is not the case with Australian groovsters Dirty Pagans new album "Volume1". The legend tucked beneath the new albums page tags the band as occult. doom metal, hard rock, heavy metal, psych and stoner rock... and they are all of them!!

"Volume 1" begins with the sound of a stylus being laid on to vinyl and that brief crackling noise we all remember hearing before our favourite tunes erupted from our speakers, and like those favourite tunes of yesteryear first song "Armour of Satan" does indeed erupt, blowing out your eardrums with gnarled proto-doom riffage that begins with a brief nod to Sabbath's "War Pigs" then moves into its own grizzled stoner doom groove before easing off the accelerator and getting down, low and slow when the vocals finally make an appearance. Here is where we come to what sets Dirty Pagans apart from others ploughing similar musical furrows, Dirty Pagans don't take the road trodden by many of their contemporaries by just coating their grooves in gritty, half growled, half roared vocal dynamics, though they do utilise this style (among many others), they also go to the other extreme with rock god like vocal pyrotechnics soaring over swathes of  crunching riffage and constantly shifting pulverising rhythms, in other words old school metal vocals applied to new school grooves. Each  of the five songs on "Volume 1", "Armour of Satan","The Man Who Killed The Gods", "Visions","Down Below" and "Love In Your Eyes", feels like a mini rock opera with the band seamlessly criss-crossing across a variety of metal genres and sub-genres, cleverly blending elements of late 70's early 80's heavy metal thunder with a myriad of modern metal and hard rock styles to create an album that in Desert Psychlist's humble opinion is utterly mindblowing.
Check it out ...


© 2018 Frazer Jones

CRYPT TRIP ~ ROOTSTOCK ...review

From the very first note of Texas trio Crypt Trip's self titled debut album "Crypt Trip" it was fairly obvious that this was a band to be reckoned with, a band with something to say, a blues based band who were going to take this weary and tired genre by the scruff of the neck and drag it into new and exciting directions yet at the same time stay true to its roots. Then along came "Mabon Songs" a three song EP that saw the band step backwards in time eschewing the stonerized and psychedelic elements of their debut for a more organic blues rock sound that had an almost dated proto-ish feel. Clearly this was a band who were going to follow their own agenda's and not be shackled by others expectations. Two years after the release of "Mabon Songs" Crypt Trip, Ryan Lee (guitar/vocals/electric piano), Cameron Martin (vocals/drums) and Sam Bryant (bass), return with their latest full album "Rootstock" let's see where they intend taking us this time.

"Heartslave" opens"Rootstock" kicking things into gear with a funky wah drenched little number coated in clean melodic vocal tones that over the course of its 5:19 length more or less covers every beat, groove and dynamic ever explored within the fields of bluesy hard rock yet managing to do this without ever sounding anything other than original  The band follow this little beauty up with "Boogie No.6" and again we find the band shape shifting their sound to accommodate another smorgasbord of various bluesy dynamics that also include those of a more psychedelic hue. Next up is "Aquarena Daydream" and those lysergic hues briefly visited earlier come in to their own in a song that boasts dreamy, far away vocal melodies, Allman-esque guitar tones and a swathe of atmospheric keyboard flourishes before finishing on a pacey blues groove that includes all those hallmarks and elements we have come to expect from blues music born in the Lone Star State. "Rio Vista" finds Crypt Trip hitting the proto/retro trail with a scintillating blues workout, underpinned by Martin and Bryant's furious bass and drum work, again swathed in swirling organ ( courtesy of guest musician Brittany Garza) over which Lee delivers a stunning array of pedal effected fretwork. The next three tracks "Natural Child", "Tears of Gaia" and "Mabon Song" all first appeared on the bands EP "Mabon Songs" and lose none of their impact nestled here among Crypt Trip's newer songs, in fact they benefit from their new surroundings, the songs slightly re-worked/re-tweaked arrangements giving them a fresher more immediate feel that fits in perfectly with dynamics found in the bands newer material. "Rootstock" finishes its impressive journey with "Soul Games" a song that boasts an absolutely phenomenal performance from Martin , the drummer driving the songs lysergic groove with an unbelievable array of tribalistic beats and shimmering percussion that are superbly backed up by Bryant's mix of growling and liquid bass lines. Over and around this whirlwind of Santana-esque flavoured acid groove and hazy vocal melodies Lee delivers scorching guitar textures, tasteful soaring solo's, funky effect soaked chords and glistening arpeggios, the guitarist filling every available space with swathe upon swathe of  exquisite blues drenched guitar colouring. The song comes to a close with Garza returning to speak heavily phased narrative over a backdrop of shimmering percussion, liquid loose bass and heavily effected guitar colouring before fading out in to silence.

The blues is at the root of all of the rock music we listen to today be it crushing black metal, classic rock, heavily fuzzed stoner or swirling psych. If you take the time to look hard enough you will find it, sometimes glaringly obvious, sometimes hidden under a tsunami of heavy riffage. but its always there. Some bands celebrate their bluesy influences others prefer to deny them and some bands like Crypt Trip take them and use them as a launchpad into newer waters, twisting the blues around and around like an old flannel wringing out their essence to add to a melting pot full of other essences to create something new and exciting that although rooted to the past is not defined by it. "Rootstock" is an album born from that melting pot.
Check it out .....


© 2018 Frazer Jones

DRYAD ~ REHEARSAL TAPE .... review

A rehearsal is a time when a bands members generally get together to hone their skills for an upcoming tour or to thrash out new ideas and work those ideas in to fully fledged songs. Bands occasionally tape these rehearsals to listen to later or ,in the case of more established bands, release them as bonus cuts to re-mastered albums and box sets but in most cases these rehearsal tapes rarely ever see the light of day, buried away somewhere and forgotten about. It's quite unusual that a band should release a recording of one such rehearsal for public consumption but that is exactly what Dryad have done with their debut EP, a four song tsunami of grizzled groove descriptively entitled "Rehearsal Tape".

Dryad, Sebastian (drums),Michael (bass/vocals) and Bjorn (guitar),  a trio from Wurzburg, Germany with a love of Kyuss, Mastodon, Black Sabbath and the MC5, are not pretending to be anything other than what they are and what they are is a damn good heavy rock band. If Desert Psychlist wanted to be a little more genre specific we could probably say that Dryad's sonic attack leans more towards the more proto metal end of the spectrum but that would then be dismissing the elements of modern heavy metal, stonerized doom and bluesy hard rock that also go a long way to colour their raucous and highly addictive sound. These elements, combined with the band's adept skill at mixing monolithic heavy riffage with strong throaty vocal melodies elevates Dryad's music from out of the realms of the ordinary into the realms of the extraordinary. The four songs that make up "Rehearsal Tape",The Advent Of Dawn", "Overload", "Gaia" and "Meghalaya", cover an array of morose and thought provoking lyrical imagery so one would expect the grooves surrounding those lyrics to reflect that imagery yet this is not the case, there is an oddly uplifting feel to the music Dryad envelope their lyrics with, where you might expect drudgery there is drive, where you thought you would find depression there is a joyousness, it's a feeling the band sum up perfectly in the lyrics of "Meghalaya.", "Life's a ride, there's sometimes fog, at times light".

"Rehearsal Tape" is just that , a rehearsal tape, yet it comes across better than some bands fully formed albums. Imagine what Dryad can do if unleashed in a proper state of the art studio!
Check 'em out ....


© 2018 Frazer Jones

GRAJO ~ SLOWGOD II ...review

Cordoba, Spain is a place with a history of both Roman and Islamic occupation, something that can still be found influencing its architecture to this day. Cordoba is also the home of Grajo a four piece band whose diverse array of western doomic grooves mixed with elements of eastern promise reflect  the two opposing cultures that have helped shape their cities past and present. This blend of styles is something that you can hear for yourselves on the bands latest outing "Slowgod ll" (Underground Legends Records for CD/ DHU Records for Vinyl and Spinda Records for Limited Edition Cassette)

First track "Alteres" lurches out of the speakers like a B movie monster, slow deliberate and menacing, a wave of grinding riffage and pummelling percussion heralding its approach, just has the creature makes its grab for his intended victim she turns opens her mouth and the gloom and darkness are suddenly pierced by the light of sweet honeyed and ethereal vocal tones, tones that placate his bloodlust and bewitch him with their beauty . Ok that's romanticising things a little too much but if your new to Grajo's mix of thunder and sunshine and your reading this before listening then that imagery might just be the  deal breaker for you to go check them out. If and when you do make that move you might also find that the above description is not so far from the truth as you first thought.
Grajo deliver grooves that are dark, low, slow and heavy but they counterbalance those dank, dusky, refrains and thunderous rhythms with husky sweet but powerful clean vocals, vocals that are in stark contradiction to the grooves they are surrounded by yet somehow are enhanced and complimented by them. Album highlights are many on "Slowgod II" but special mentions should go out to the sprawling eastern tinted "Malmuerta", with its Moorish guitar motifs and superb vocal performance, and to the instrumental "Malestrom" with its prog-ish textures and washes of psychedelic/post-rock colouring, in actuality there is not a poor track to be found on the album and you the listener will no doubt find your own favourites.

Grajo have been slowly chipping away at that glass ceiling looming over them for a few years now, trying to reach a wider audience and break their music onto a more international market, "Slowgod II" just might be the album to do that..
Check it out ....


© 2018 Frazer Jones