SWAMP THIEF ~ I ...... review

Wales does not get the credit it deserves in musical terms, when someone mentions Wales in a musical context probably the first things people think of are Tom Jones and Welsh Male Voice Choirs but Wales has given us some absolutely killer rock music over the the years, psychedelic jamsters Man, proto-metallers Budgie, dub/reggae metalists Skindred, agit-rockers Manic Street Preachers and that is without mentioning current weed warriors Dope Smoker. The latest band hoping to cement their place in the annals of Welsh rock history go by the name Swamp Thief, a duo consisting of Simon Bevan (vocals/guitar/bass) and Marc Lockwood (drums), who's debut EP "I" is an enthralling blend of swampy sludge, raucous stoner rock and grizzly heavy blues.

For just two people Swamp Thief create a hell of a lot of noise, in fact.at times during "I", it is damn hard not to be fooled into thinking that you are listening to a quartet or a quintet, such is the force of sound that Swamp Thief create with just the minimum of instrumentation. First track "Mary" exemplifies this perfectly it comes out of the traps with every drum beat sounding like an explosion and guitar tones dialed to gnarly the duo hitting a groove that will tick every stoners boxes and then some they won't even know exist. The band don't opt for easy options either, it would be so simple for them decorate tunes like "Whip Hand", Maelstrom Queen" and "Tides" with harsh, gutteral vocals to match the intensity and sheer volume of their grooves but when you have a guitarist/bassist who can not only riff and solo like a man possessed but also possesses a voice strong, powerful and edged with a southern rock type grittiness ..well you got to use that voice. For all their volume, crunch and sludginess Swamp Thief also have songs, the duo may swamp those songs in lashings of thick distortion and fuzz, they may drive those songs with percussion so powerful that it could probably register on the Richter scale but they DO have those songs and for all their bluster and bombast those songs, to use an old jazz term, swing!

Don't, when approaching Swamp Thief's "I", expect to hear a stoner/sludge version of The White Stripes or The Black Keys because even those two well respected duo's, would be hard pushed to match the sheer ferocity and gnarliness that these Welsh wizards bring to the table. To say this EP kicks ass would be an understatement, "I" doesn't just kick ass it beats the crap out of ass and then drops a stack of amplifiers on it!

© 2020 Frazer Jones

EARTHCASTER ~ SAMHAIN WHEEL OF THE YEAR VOLUME 1 ...... review

Bluesy stoner/hard rock is not something new in fact a high percentage of what is released within the underground rock scene these days has its roots set , one way or another, in the blues. What is maybe not so much new but is kind of unique is a band who blend those fuzz drenched bluesy grooves with music of a more indie nature as is the case with Scotland's Earthcaster. Earthcaster are a four piece band whose sonic attack, which they have dubbed "Druidic Rock", possess more than a touch of  psychedelic jangle, a sound that informed much of the post-punk grooves that were coming out of Liverpool, UK in the late 70's, a sound that Earthcaster has rejigged, re-imagined and spiced up with some stonerized fuzz for todays audiences and released under the cryptically titled banner of "Samhain Wheel of the Year Vol.1"

That comparison to Liverpool's indie psych scene of the late 70's, made in the intro to this review, is never more evident than on this EP's first track "Samhain" it's reverberating fractured guitar motifs and slightly echoed vocal tones are reminiscent of those once employed by the likes of The Teardrop Explodes, The Mighty WAH  and Echo and the Bunnymen, however the advent of a scorching blues tinted guitar solo shifts the songs whole dynamic and we find ourselves being carried to the fade on wave of tasteful bluesy hard rock. "Blood Red Sky" follows and boasts a riff that could easily be mistaken for something Bedford folk/psych rockers Wolf People might have attempted on their debut album but also carries a little proto metal bluster in its musical canon. For third track "Burn" the band mix up their indie/psych leanings with Burundi style drumming and early U2 (ish) guitar texturing to create a groove that compels you to get off your arse and just dance! For the EP's final track the band go full circle with "Samhain (Reprise)" the band eschewing the indie/psych textures and subtleties that they employed in the songs previous form and just going no holds barred, hell for leather for the finishing line.

Unique if not entirely original Earthcaster's "Samhain Wheel of the Year Vol.1" is a superb EP from a band whose blend of styles takes the best bits from a cross-section of British musical styles and molds them into something that is fresh and of the moment.

Check it out ..... 

© 2020 Frazer Jones

THE PLAGUE PHYSICIANS ~ IN ARKHAM'S SHADOW .... review

 

It has always seemed to Desert Psychlist that an element of doom permeated much of Seattle grungsters Alice in Chains heavier tunes, as it did aspects of guitarist Jerry Cantrell's solo work, the bands low slung slurred riffs backed by thunderous percussion and deep growling bass could be argued were doomic in all but name. Cleveland, Ohio quintet The Plague Physicians, Dr. Pink (drums, cajon, udu); Dr. Blue (bass, backing vocals); Dr. White (rhythm/lead guitars, backing vocals); Dr. Blonde (lead/rhythm guitars, backing vocals) and Dr. Orange (lead vocals, cowbell, rhythm and acoustic guitars), have sort of tapped into that grungy doominess of AIC but have upped the doomic/occult quotient so that instead of it being, like with AIC, an element of their sound it is instead more a main component, as their latest release "In Arkham's Shadow" will testify to.

What sounds like heavy rain and thunder introduces opening instrumental "Arkham" and is followed by a deeply echoed spaced out guitar motif that then sees the rest of the band come in on what could only be described as laid back heavy blues groove. "Carcosa (Cassida's Song)" follows and finds the the band hitting a grungy stoner/hard rock groove with the two guitarists trading off riffs ,arpeggios and solos around a clean, strong vocal that tells of "twin suns","strange moons" and the "lost Carcosa". "Prove The Devil" is up next and here the band hit a groove that chugs and gallops along at a mid-paced tempo but is fractured with clever little descents into lysergic territory, it also boasts a great vocal melody that stays with you long after the song finishes. Up until now our doomy AIC comparison has not really held water but with "Difference In The Dose" that all changes and we get mellow Staley/Cantrell type vocal harmonies twinned with crunching low slung refrains and slurred guitar motifs pushed by solid tight drumming and boneshaking bass that would have AIC's Sean Kinney and Mike Starr applauding. "Dagon" takes things down a notch or two and finds Dr. Orange eulogizing about graven idols and leviathan brides over gently strummed acoustic guitar while overhead a majestic guitar solo soars and swoops. The calmness of the previous track leaks into the opening bars of next track "Madness at Sea" but then suddenly explodes like a bomb into a proto-doomic free for all before just as suddenly dropping back into its initial groove to take it to the close. The Plague Physicians go into full doomic grunge mode for the excellent "Crawling Chaos", its clever little recurring hooks and catches pulling you deeper and deeper into its warm embrace but then it suddenly shows its true nature by, at the three quarter mark, morphing into a lumbering proto-doomic monster in psychedelic armor. "Seed of Destruction" finds the band throwing off all vestiges of grunge and fully donning the black garb of doom with crunching power chords, swirling solos, strong vocals, pounding percussion and growling bass lines all present and correct. It's back to a spot of AIC worship for "Rats In The Walls", a mouthwatering slice of delicious grunginess with a groove to die for. The good doctors sign off with "I Am Providence" a romping balls out instrumental with each member going full out and giving 100% .# For those of you who go for a Bandcamp purchase you get a bonus track (we won't disclose it here) which we think should come as a pleasant surprise for those with a penchant for 80's British Ska

If you are of the same thinking as Desert Psychlist in that you believe part of Alice In Chains enduring appeal was the bands underlying doominess then The Plague Physicians "In Arkham's Shadow" should be your next port of call, it is an album that embraces all those dark grungy elements of Seattle's finest and then doomerizes them even further. 

Check it out .... 

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© 2020 Frazer Jones

SUN OF GREY ~ OUTERWORLD ..... review

 "Dystopian doom of the highest order" is how Desert Psychlist described Colorado's trio Sun of Grey's self-titled debut EP "Sun of Grey" and considering that it only contained two songs that is some praise indeed. Now you might think after garnering, not only plaudits from Desert Psychlist but also many of those who's opinions really matter in this scene, a full album would follow in due course. Unfortunately that was not the case and it has been a full three years since "Sun of Grey" surfaced to melt our faces and shudder our spinal cords with its brace of doomic delights. Well today we are stoked to announce that the long awaited release of something new from Sun of Grey is over, so please take your seats and buckle yourselves in as we will soon be departing for "Outerworld".

"Dark Souls" opens Sun of Grey's new opus and although not the heaviest of the tracks "Outerworld" has to offer it is nonetheless pretty weighty, its slow juddering groove pushed by booming bass and pummeling percussion is fractured with swirling guitar motifs and is taken to another level by a mixture of monotonic chants and bellowed growls. "Jar of Leeches" follows with bassist/vocalist Freddy Allen and guitarist Ian Hopkins combining on a low, slow doomic intro decorated with clever percussive touches courtesy of Jim Merz that then segues into a fist pumping anthem built around another juddering groove with Allen telling us in bear like tones to "be careful what you crave for". "Lucifer Smiled" is up next and employs all sorts of clever tricks and effects to fill out its lumbering gait and add a lysergic aspect to its sonic impact. Title track "Outerworld" takes the lysergic elements of the previous track and expands on them by adding spoken narrative, clean hazy vocal melodies, droning feedback and lashings of swirling spaced out guitar while at the same time still managing to remain thunderous and heavy while following track, "Silent Screams", ups both the ante and the tempo and finds the band jamming a chugging Sabbathesque groove around an old school verse/chorus/verse dynamic. Sun of Grey bring proceedings to a fitting end with "Disease", an epic sounding opus that is sedately paced but hugely powerful, its low, slow rhythmic dynamic coupled with its hazy monastic vocal melodies and eastern tinted guitar textures ramp up the songs intensity and impact tenfold and in doing so closes out what is a hugely impressive album on massive high.

We were served just a taste of what Sun of Grey could deliver with their debut EP, a sort of starter for the main course, with "Outerworld" the band dish up that main course with all the trimmings, and here we are not talking nouveau cuisine but something a whole lot meatier, heartier and wholly more satisfying! 

Check it out ...

© 2020 Frazer jones

MONJE ~ DRUGA DIMENZIJA .... review

Argentinian four piece Monje are a heavy doom band, in fact they are VERY heavy doom band, you could even go as far as saying they are a VERY heavy doom band with a blackened metal edge. Ok we are getting a little silly now but we are sure you are coming to the understanding that what you are about to hear, via the grooves of the bands second album "Druga Dimenzija", is not going to be some heady cosmic tiptoe through the tulips but more like a brutal forced march through poison ivy!

The swollen sound of a church organ heralds in first track "Escape" and is then joined by spoken narrative telling a tale of one unfortunate souls hopes and intentions of escaping from a dimension renowned for its torture, misery and bloodshed. Eerie and with a strong gothic feel it sounds like very much like something that might serve as the preface to an Edgar Allen Poe short story. Monje follow this cinematic opener with "O.I.D." a song that sees the whole band coming together on a groove that is driven by some truly impressive drumming and growling bass work from Daniel Iranzo and Guido Soldini that is then decorated, by vocalist James Wright, in a mixture of gutteral growls and clean Gregorian-like chants, guitarist Diego Petullo putting the finishing touches to the songs doomic groove with crunching low slung refrains and swirling dank dark solos. "Lágrimas de sangre" looms over the horizon next and finds Wright liturgizing in monastic tones (sang in Spanish) over a  doomic refrain fractured by sudden eruptions into a more blackened metal dynamic with Wright following suite, on these occasions, with an equally blackened vocal. Up next is "Kneel Before Her", a song that showcases everything good about Monje, the band mixing and blending different metallic styles together like a painter might mix colours on his palette, elements of stoner, sludge, doom and black metal merging together around a strong constantly shifting vocal underscored by some seriously powerful percussion. The church organ makes its return for instrumental "Dimenzija" then its back to the doom with "La vita é inferno" a supercharged doomic tour-de-force that sees guitarist Petullo wrestling the spotlight away from Wright's array of vocal stylings with the sheer dark crunchiness of his chord progressions and the quality of his brief but effective solos. The band finish with "La huerta de Lucifer" a powerful final salvo of brutal doom that brings together everything that has gone before on this album and then takes it to a whole new level of hugeness.  

There were moments when listening to Monje's "Druga Dimenzija" that Desert Psychlist was reminded of Sweden's Ordos, that same feeling of listening to a a band that have one foot dangling in the murky pool of extreme metal and the other dipped into more traditional waters, a band that could easily fall either way but are happy to stay precariously balanced between the two.

Check 'em out ....  

© 2020 Frazer Jones

OCCULT HAND ORDER ~ THE CHAINED THE BURNED THE WOUNDED .... review

Last year (2019) an EP appeared on Desert Psychlist's radar and although it didn't quite blow us away it did certainly peak our interest, that EP came from a trio hailing from Lyon, France who went by the name Occult Hand Order. The bands EP contained four songs that blended elements of stonerized doom with post-rock and heavy psych while also nodding its head towards aspects of raucous desert rock. Although "Occult Hand Order" was a very impressive collection of well performed and arranged tunes it did lack that little undefinable something that would've made it a great release. A year has gone by since "Occult Hand Order" was released and in that time the band seem to have discovered that little something missing from their debut and have applied it to their latest release "The Chained The Burned The Wounded", and man it has made a world of difference"

The three skinless bodies looming over a desert landscape, seemingly pointing at an illuminati styled all seeing eye, that adorns the cover artwork of "The Chained The Burned The Wounded" is not wholly indicative of the grooves lying therein but it does give the potential listener an idea that those grooves inside are likely to be a little less on the raunchy, four to the floor side and may lean towards a more cerebral dynamic. That potential listener would be right on the money for Occult Hand Order's new release is not an album you would expect to hear blasting out at a party, this is an album you will want to retreat into a darkened room with, an album to listen to while drinking something a little stronger than tea and maybe smoking something more exotic than a Marlboro. Intelligent stonerized doom are the words that keep spinning around in Desert Psychlist's head as we listen to first track "Azazel", it's slow deliberate guitar refrains, pushed hard by deep thrumming bass and ponderous but thundering percussion, are further enhanced by ringing arpeggios, fractured chord progressions and a vocal that is just a semi-tone above monastic. Next track "What Comes After Us" begins its journey more or less where "Azazel" left off but then suddenly changes direction and takes off on a chugging, almost proto-doom groove only then to, seconds afterwards, shift into something that could be described as heavy psychedelic post-rock, the vocalist telling us that "Pain is what we desire" in tones serious and mournful. "Wound" follows and boasts a superbly pitched vocal floating over echo laden guitar tones and militaristic drumming before taking off into a heavy doomic groove around which dissonant guitar solo's screech and squall. "Edwin The Wise" begins life with quiet intensity, clean clear monastic toned vocals floating over a throbbing post-rock flavoured backdrop, but then suddenly shifts into a stuttering stoner doomic groove around which screaming guitar solo's swoop and soar only just tethered to the ground by some absolutely thunderous percussion. Instead of going out with a bang Occult Hand Order decide to go out in a blaze of bliss with "Shore" a song that sees acoustic guitars strumming gentle chords beneath a beautifully delivered vocal that tells, in mellow considered tones, an emotive and reflective tale of a life full undelivered promise.

"The Chained The Burned The Wounded" is an expansive and intelligent release full of surprising little twists and turns that you don't see coming until they are suddenly swirling all around you. It is an album full of intensity and heaviness yet balanced out with moments of serenity and beauty and it is this seamless blending of opposing dynamics that makes Occult Hand Order's debut full length album such  an essential and rewarding listening experience.

Check it out .... 

© 2020 Frazer jones

INSTANT BONER ~ HIGH PLACE PHENOMENON .... review

Desert Psychlist held back a little from reviewing Instant Boner's latest album, "High Place Phenomenon", owing to the fact that having covered so many albums and EP's released by Greek bands lately we didn't want you to start to think that we were being overly biased in favour of one country. So since a decent period of time has passed since our last review of  a Greece  based band and having lived with this eclectic gem for a while now (its been on almost constant rotation at Stonerking Towers), we thought it was now the right time to put a few words down to explain its appeal.

Having decided it was time to review Instant Boner's new album we are now faced with the problem of putting into words why this is such a superb release, this is something that is not going to be easy as "High Place Phenomenon" does not fall into any easily recognizable categories or pigeonholes. Jazzy, bluesy, lysergic, heavy, ambient and even funky are terms that all could be applied to the songs that populate this remarkable album and some of those elements can even turn up together in just one song! There have been a few major upheavals in the bands line up since their last album "Outburst" the most notable being the replacement of original vocalist Kostas with that of present vocalist Marianthi, a move that has seen the band shifting slightly away from the rockier aspects of their previous work and embracing a more eclectic approach that suits their new singers more broader vocal range. Fans of Orestis's contributions to Instant Boner's sound will also rejoice to hear that on "High Place Phenomenon" the saxophinist takes a much more prominent role, no longer just bolstering the rhythm section with his blowing but also flying free with the guitarists as a soloist in his own right. As for songs this is a band with tunes to spare, tunes like "Big Bang", crunching riffs and punchy rhythms offset by a lilting jazz-fusion flavoured mid-section, " Desert Hills", a funky hard rocker that goes off on unexpected tangents into blues territory and "Mid Air" an achingly beautiful torch song totally taken to another level by Marianthi's emotive and heart felt vocal.. For the albums finale Instant Boner revive one of their best cuts from their first album, ("Perfect Sunday"), appropriately entitled "Perfect Sunday Revisited", this was a huge and impressive song with Kostas at the helm but with Marianthi taking on the vocals the dynamic is completely altered, where before the song leant towards trippy and lysergic this time around it turns into shape shifting behemoth that erupts, quells and erupts again. This version finds Marianthi channeling a little Beth Gibbons (Portishead) like vocal huskiness in some sections while in others she wails wordlessly like an ethereal banshee over grooves that are constantly changing tact, one minute languid and loose the next complex and intense. At just over twenty one minutes long you might be fooled into thinking that the band might be overplaying their hand and maybe this song could have been compressed into a shorter duration but such is the quality of its individual performances and the songs constantly shifting dynamics and hypnotic nature you will hardly notice any time has passed at all.

"High Place Phenomenon" is not stoner or hard rock, it is not prog, its not post-rock, heavy psych or metal yet at the same time it is all those things and so much more, in fact "phenomenon" is the perfect word for this truly astonishing album! 

Check it out ....

© 2020 Frazer Jones