FAITH IN JANE ~ COUNTRYSIDE .... review

With six incredibly good releases already behind them it is surprising that Maryland's Faith In Jane are not as big internationally as say Clutch or Monster Magnet. Maybe its because the band regularly dip their toes into such fields as reggae and funk that they have not quite made that step up into the upper echelon's of the underground scene, Desert Psychlist doesn't know, but this is a band that deserves wider recognition. The band have just released their seventh album "Countryside" so maybe, just maybe, this is the one that introduces them to a wider audience.

A deep bass heavy groove rolls out the welcome mat on opening track "All Is All" and from there on in its hold on to your hats time as Faith In Jane take the listener on a thrumming rollercoaster ride of stonerized hard rock tinted with elements of proto-metal bluster and funky bluesy swagger. There are times on "Countryside" where the listener is transported back to a time when bands like Grand Funk Railroad and Sir Lord Baltimore were taking their first fledgling flights away from the comfort of the blues into heavier territories but also times that leave you thinking only a band of today could pull of this level of crunching yet soulful heaviness. That soulful element of Faith In Jane's groove is delivered in the shape of guitarist/vocalist Dan Mize's throaty ,clean and grittily powerful voice, his vocal tones sitting somewhere between a bear like roar and a smoky bellow. When Mize is not waxing lyrical he is chopping out crunching powerchords and tearing the air asunder with scorching solo's ably supported throughout by Brendan Winston's growling bass and Alex Llewellyn's solid, tight percussion, the three musicians combining to bring a high level of musical prowess to each and every one of  "Countryside's" eight songs.

From first track "All Is All" to closer "Dream Dealer" "Countryside" is a full on, in your face assault on the senses with only the psych drenched "Blues For Owsley" allowing for any respite, and even then only in its initial stages. Soulful, rocking and loud "Countryside" is an excellent album from an excellent band who deserve, not only on the evidence of this release but also their past endeavours, to be massive!
Check 'em out ….

© 2018 Frazer Jones

CENTER OF THE EARTH ~ TOLKION ....... review

Here, in Desert Psychlist's UK home, Denmark is mostly known for three things Vikings, bacon and beer and not so much for its underground rock scene but that all could change with the emergence of Tikøb based quartet Center of the Earth. Center of the Earth were formed in 2013 and deal in monolithic riffage and tumultuous rhythms overlayed with huge roaring vocals, all of which can be heard gracing their debut album "Tolkion". So let's grab a beer and a bacon sandwich and see what these Vikings have in store for us.

Thunderous is an oft overused word in music reviews but you would be hard pushed to come up with an alternative for the huge walls of noise Center of the Earth assail their listeners ears with. Crushing is another word that gets rolled out a little too often but again it is a word hard to avoid when describing the sonic impact of "Tolkion". Imagine if you can an amalgamation of Sweden's Vokonis and Poland's Dopelord and you might just come close to getting a handle on what Center of the Earth are sonically all about, we are talking riffs so thick you could walk on them, rhythms that could topple tall buildings and vocals that rumble like an Harley-Davidson engine with its baffles removed. Sampled narrative introduces first track "Black Blood of the Earth" then suddenly the song explodes into a low, slow and devastatingly heavy sludge/stoner doom groove decorated with swirling phase drenched guitar solos that set the stage for big grizzled, bear-like bellows to tell their tale of "a land of dead and salted soil". Around the midway mark the songs mood changes and the listener is treated to a strangely hypnotic sparseness with jazzy percussion and grumbling bass the platform around which bluesy guitar colouring is gently weaved before the hammer goes down again and we are hurled back into the songs initial sludgy low and slow groove. After the onslaught of the first track it would be difficult to imagine that Center of the Earth could get any slower. lower or heavier but with "Sons of Gaia" they manage just that, the songs groove akin to the sound of an avalanche of boulders rolling down a mountainside. Title track "Tolkion" follows, a sprawling instrumental that begins with Hawkwindesque spacial effects then morphs into a strangely funky heavy psych workout that then goes off on a myriad of differing tangents. "Doomlords" slowburns into life on booming bass, minimal percussion a low pitched guitar, the song gradually getting heavier and louder as its groove progresses that then, without warning, bursts into a chugging Sabbathesque stoner groove, albeit with totally un-Iommi like guitar solos's. Now for some bands that would be enough and a pretty good way to sign off on a song but Center of the Earth are not just "some band" and instead take the song off into a sludge heavy dirge with reverberating chords, droning bass and pulverising percussion laying the bedrock for a powerfully strong vocal calling for the "lords of doom" to "arise", the band once again slowly ramping up the dynamics before bailing out in a deliciously noisy, almost thrash like, crescendo. Center of the Earth wrap things up with "Cryodome" a doom laden opus brimming over with atmosphere and menace with vocals telling of wizards and devils over a backdrop of dank, dark and surprisingly up-tempo sludgy doomic attack, the band only dropping back into lower, slower territory for its heavy, grinding finale.

So how can we finish this review without resorting to those two words mentioned at the start of this piece? The answer is we don't, Center of the Earth's "Tolkion" is both thundersous AND crushing and the very reasons why you should...
Check it out …..

© 2018 Frazer Jones

ALUNAH ~ AMBER & GOLD .... review

When Alunah vocalist/guitarist Sophie Day announced she was quitting the band she had helped found and fronted for four albums to say it came as a bit of a shock would be an understatement. For a while fans wondered if it could be all over for the UK doom band but thankfully the remaining members, David Day (guitar), Daniel Burchmore (bass) and Jake Mason (drums), vowed to carry on and recruited into their ranks the visually striking and powerfully voiced Siân Greenaway to fill the hole left by Day. The band soon began writing new material to compliment the new dynamic Greenaway's arrival brought to the table the results of which can be heard on the bands latest release "Amber & Gold"

The transition undergone by Alunah in shifting from one vocalist to another seems, from the outside,  an almost seamless one, previous vocalist Day and new singer Greenaway both come from the ethereal school of doomic vocalising and both have a crystal clear clarity to their voices bu where Day had a slightly lighter, folkier tone Greenaway's is darker, stronger and wider in range. Musically Alunah are more or less the same animal with David Day crunching out massive reverberating doomic riffs over Daniel Burchmore's booming bass lines and Jake Mason's huge solid percussion, however the addition of a new singer seems to have brought out a new sense of purpose within the band, they sound fresher, bigger and heavier. First track "Mångata" teases the listener by relegating newbie Greenaway to a more supporting role the singer wailing mournfully over an atmospheric backdrop of low.slow and heavily psychedelic doomic groove decorated with an equally mournful guitar solo. Title track "Amber & Gold" follows and for the first time we get the full force of Greenaway's vocal chops her smooth dark tones swooping and soaring over the songs throbbing dark refrains and thunderous rhythms, her voice pitched deep and dark on the verses, powerful and melodic on the chorus'. "Awn" sees the band tinting their heavy doomic attack with subtle bluesy colourings and little twists of Celtic flavouring with Greenaway telling of souls being crushed and bones being broken, her sultry tones making even mutilation sound beautiful and something to look forward to. The band throw the listener a curveball to finish proceedings in the shape of a cover, Chris Issaks "Wicked Game" a great song in its own right, is taken by Alunah to a whole new different level and sees the band giving the song a doomic makeover its familiar melody given a glossy coating of moody edginess and doomy elegance.

"Amber & Gold" heralds a new chapter in Alunah's ongoing story and fans will be pleased to hear it is a chapter not too radically different from previous chapters, just a little darker and a little more intense, reason enough to...
Check it out ….

© 2018 Frazer Jones

LORD VAPOUR ~ SEMUTA ....... review

Those hairy beardos, Lord Vapour, from the Island of Guernsey in the UK's Channel Isles blew many of us away with their debut "Mill Street Blues" in 2016, this year they return to once again bring mayhem to our ear canals with their latest bluesy, hard rocking offering "Semuta",

Big riffs, big vocals and big rhythms are the order of the day throughout "Semuta", a huge sounding tsunami of raucous groove that comes at you hard and fast and takes no quarter. The fact that three men, Christian Mariess (drums), Henry Fears (guitar) and Joe Le Long (bass & vocals), create a noise akin to a jumbo jet revving up in a cavern is not only astonishing its is also outright mind-blowing but Lord Vapour are not just a huge noise and few choice riffs, buried beneath all the beef and muscle you will find actual songs. From the swirling alternative swampy blues of first track "Burning Planet", with it's wah drenched guitar, bludgeoning bass lines, thundering percussion and strong clean, yet gritty, vocals through to the heavy psych grooves of instrumental closer "Nasubi" "Semuta" is an album that resonates with melody, musicality and swing and ensures that this is an album you, the listener, will be coming back to again and again.

Lord Vapour's "Semuta" is a raucous fuzz drenched romp brimming over with powerful rhythms and crunching riffage that is bound to please those already familiar with their grooves but also win over those coming to the band anew.
Check it out …..

© 2018 Frazer Jones

HOREHOUND ~ HOLOCENE ..... review

Doom comes in many flavours these days from the gothic tinted traditional/epic through stonerized  and occult all the way to the extreme and blackened but there are not many bands that touch base with all them...until now.
Pennsylvannia's Horehound are that rare animal, a band who can comfortably flitter in and out of  doom's sub-genres and niches without losing sense of their own groove and sound, a band who understand doom and all its essences and who are unafraid to explore them all. Not convinced this is possible, well give their latest release "Holocene"(Doom Stew Records) a spin and find out for yourselves.

The big doom build up we alluded to in this reviews intro is slightly negated by the gentle acoustic guitar picking that introduces first track "The Kind" but it is not long before the gentle plucking of nylon strings, jazzy percussive chops and organic sounding bass lines are replaced by a wall of crunching chords, growling bottom end and thunderous drumming. Huge sounding and with a groove deeper than an ocean trench "The Kind" is further enhanced by the strong and distinctive tones of vocalist Shy Kennedy her voice, especially in the songs chorus with its call and response vocal hook, the glistening cherry sitting atop a dark dank soufflé of doomic delight. "Dier's Delight" follows and finds the band blending their heavy doomic attack with alt-rock/grunge asthetics and post-rock colourings while "L'appel du Vide" toys with aspects of occult rock and winds them, courtesy of Brendan Parrish's excellent guitar work, around eastern motifs before suddenly taking off into blackened territory with Kennedy swapping her ethereal voicings for a more guttural, demonic tones. JD Dauer's powerful slow and deliberate percussion combines perfectly with Nick Kopco's thrumming, grizzled bass to lay the foundations for nest track "The Sloth" a song that finds Kennedy pitching her vocals a little lower and darker and in doing so ramps up the songs epic/traditional doom feel. "Anastatica" stays within the epic/traditional territory of the previous track but has a slightly deeper emotive feel, something reflected in what feels like a deeply personal  lyric. "Highball" closes out "Holocene" in a sublime sea of atmospheric stoner doom with Kennedy reverting back to ethereal to give her best vocal performance of the album.

Desert Psychlist could go on for ever on why you should check out "Holocene" and its amalgam of doomic delights but instead we will steal this little snippet from Horehound's Facebook bio  … Fans have described Horehound as, “fucking heavy, doomy, catchy, and downright amazing.”... says it all really.
Check 'em out ….


© 2018 Frazer Jones

HYPERMORTAL ~ THE MOTIVE POWER OF FIRE ..... review

As Desert Psychlist has stated in the past one of the best things about this whole reviewing lark is when something suddenly comes out of the ether, seemingly from nowhere, and blows you right out of your socks. This is how it felt today when, while perusing the latest releases on Bandcamp's "Heavy Psych" pages, Desert Psychlist came across an interesting piece of artwork and decided to delve a little deeper, what we discovered was a little gem of swirling heavy psych from a band called Hypermortal.
Hypermortal, Travis Baker (drums and percussion), Daniel Glascock (bass, vocals, sitar, synthesizers) and Samuel Piper (guitar), hail from Lawrence, Kansas and have just released one of the most interesting and exhilarating "psych" releases of this rapidly dwindling year with "The Motive Power of Fire"

"The Motive Power of Fire" begins in mystic eastern style with "Lapis Lazuli" a sprawling ten minute opus full of  swooping, swishing synthesesiser that swirls dervish-like around an insistant vocal mantra, the band taking off on a hundred and one different tangents, incorporating as they do so a heady mix of gentle tinkling percussion and dissonant guitar colouring. "Entropy" follows, a song with a strong Spirit vibe that would of had the late Randy California grinning like a loon in admiration. "Microchip" is up next its stuttering bass heavy groove is complimented by smooth slightly echoed vocals and an array of superbly executed guitar solo's. "Gulf of Pestilance" ramps up the bands psych quotient with an instrumental that although tethered by Baker and Glascock's solid underlying bass and drum groove really reaches for the stars in the guitar department with Piper.at times sounding like he's discovered a whole new music scale. The band change tac a little for next track "Space and Time", initially diving into a bluesy psych groove decorated with an ultra cool vocal melody then closing out with a spacey psych jam. "The Void" rounds up "The Motive Power of Fire" and finds the band hitting into a gritty, jerky and addictive spluttering groove that at only two minutes thirty five seconds finishes far too soon.

Hypermortal's "The Motive Power of Fire" takes the 60's psychedelic experimentations of bands like the The Byrds, Spirit and Quicksilver Messenger Service and blend them with the gritty, heavier dynamics of more modern psych bands like Seven That Spells and Druid, creating a sound and groove that is both lysergic and fluid yet at the same time solid and heavy.
Check it out …..

© 2018 Frazer Jones

CAPTAIN CARAVAN ~ SHUN THE SUN .... review

Usually, when reviewing a band hailing from Norway, Desert Psychlist starts off with a little verbal riffing about how underground rock music from that country has a quirky, off centre dynamic. This time around we can't really use that tried and tested intro as the band in question, Captain Caravan, are a straight down the line stoner/classic/hard rock combo with more bite than a Grey Wolf, something you can check out for yourselves by spinning their debut album "Shun The Sun" (Vinyl release via Cursed Tongue Records, due 2019, digital formats available now via Bandcamp, Spotify and all the usual digital outlets)

"Old school" is a term we all use from time to time to describe music that has it's roots in the past and there is no denying that the grooves executed by Captain Caravan on "Shun The Sun"  have a very distinctive 70's vibe, however that is not something to be ashamed of within the stoner/hard rock fraternity, in fact given that the whole stoner rock scene and its many offshoots has been founded on what has gone before means being called "old school" could now very well be considered a badge of honour. Captain Caravan, Geir Solli (bass), Johnny Olsen (vocal), Morten Skogen (drums) and BK Sæstad (guitar). make no bones about the influences that have formed their sound and nor, as listeners, should we. especially as the sound these guys make together is some of the finest heavy "classic" orientated rock that has come out of Norway in a long time.. Another feather in the bands cap is managing to get studio maestro and Wo Fat guitarist/vocalist Kent Stump to put the finishing touches to "Shun The Sun", his renowned mixing skills giving songs like "Illusion of Meaning", "Zombie Machine" and "Book of Oblivion" not only a huge bombastic feel but also a clarity often not associated with albums released under the underground rock banner. Musicianship throughout "Shun The Sun" is of the highest calibre with sterling performances from all involved,  Sæstad's guitar when not tearing out searing solo's splutters and crunches with raucous chordal colouring while Solli's booming growling bass,combines with Skogen's punchy, powerful percussion to form a backdrop of solid. tight rhythm many bands would give their right arms for. Over this groovalicious foundation of swaggering heavy rock Olsen contributes gritty strong and powerful vocals, telling the bands stories with unbridled passion in tones dripping with gravitas.

Captain Caravan's "Shun The Sun" may be considered "old school" heavy rock and it may have its roots set in a era long past but honestly there are moments here when Captain Caravan's "old school" out shines some of those "old school" bands back when they were the "new school" if that makes any sense!

Check it out …. 

© 2018 Frazer Jones