DIUNA ~ PILA DO POMINKÓW PRZYRODY ...... review

 

Let's begin this review with a mild but justified rant.... French may be the language of love but it is English that is generally regarded as the go-to language of music, well it is for non English speaking artists who want to reach out to a wider demographic than just those that speak their native lingo. So with this in mind why should we as fans bother to investigate bands and artists who buck that trend and perform their songs in their native tongue, the answer to that is if you don't you are in danger of missing out on a whole world of grooviness that you might of otherwise never heard. OK you might not be able to appreciate the depth and lyrical intricacies of songs written in a language not of your own but let's be honest here there are many English speaking bands, releasing albums in this thing we call the "rock underground", that are almost impossible to understand without the benefit of a lyric sheet and we still love them, yet strangely we still baulk at any album released in another language other than our own. "Vibe" is the secret to listening to vocals sang in another tongue, in cases where you are faced with an album/EP or song with the lyrics sang in a language foreign to yours then just forget the words and instead buy into the melody, the feel and the tone of those vocals and you might just find you have opened up a whole new world to your ears.

Poland's Diuna's new release "Pila do pominkòw pryzyrody" has a vocal "vibe" that sits on the ears comfortably, the bands lyrics maybe written in Polish but thanks to them being delivered in tones that are powerful and full of emotional gravitas there is no real need for non Polish speaking listeners to understand their content, of course if you do speak and understand Polish that is undoubtedly a bonus, but if you don't then just enjoy the "vibe", especially as that "vibe" comes wrapped in grooves that'll blow your mind to smithereens.

"Pila do pominkòw pryzyrody" is made up of four songs, each song has its own merits and highlights and each song boasts a variety of shifts in dynamic, both vocally and musically. Nothing is a given in a Diuna's world, a song that may start heavy and doomic can in the blink of an eye move into musical territory far removed from its point of origin, heaviness can make way for lightness of touch, loud can become quiet and traditionalism can step aside for experimentation. These transitions in dynamic, tempo and time are also mirrored in the bands vocals with gruff growled roars and impassioned howls constantly exchanging places with clear clean croons and low baritone preambles. The beauty of this album is that you can never point a finger at any one track and ascribe it a genre classification as there are elements of prog, psych, doom and even touches of the blues to be found nestling amongst each and every one of the songs that make up this enthralling collection and it is credit to the band that they do this without ever sounding like they are trying to force all their eggs into one basket.

If you are little wary of approaching albums with non-English lyrical content but nevertheless want to widen your musical horizons then "Pila do pominkòw pryzyrody" is a great place to start your journey, just remember it's not always about the words, sometimes it's the "vibe". 

Check it out ..... 

© 2021 Frazer Jones

MONSTERS OF THE ORDINARY ~ EDELSCHROTT ... review

 

There seems a strange gulf between rock/metal's mainstream and its underground equivalent, a void where very few bands exist. On one side of the gulf there are bands like Alter Bridge and Halestorm on the other side there are your Sasquatch's, Howling Giants and Green Druid's with hardly any bands filling the space in-between. Austrian/American collective Monsters of the Ordinary may just be the band to fill that void with their latest EP "Edelschrott"

"Edelschrott" is an EP with everything you would expect to hear from a mainstream rock release, it has hooks, melodies, strong clean vocals and a crisp clean production but there is crunchier, fuzzier  more angular side to what Monsters of the Ordinary bring to the table that also places their sound in the territories of the underground. The perfect example of this melding of dynamics comes courtesy of the EP's second track "Headroom" where the band hit into a juddering strident groove decorated with fractured guitar chords and brief but effective angular solos underscored by a tight and wholly adaptable rhythm section.  Monsters of the Ordinary present us here with a groove that certainly sits within the parameters of what is constituted as "underground", however vocally the song leans towards a more mainstream metal dynamic, its easy to singalong to verses utilize a clever ear-catching trick of repeating every last word of each line, and are combined with a chorus that lingers in the mind long after the last note fades into silence. This coming together of underground grittiness and mainstream polish is repeated throughout the four tracks that make up "Edelschrott" and showcase a band who would not sound out of place either being played on corporate rock radio or on some obscure underground rock podcast.

In the short blub that accompanying the bands Bandcamp page the band describe their sound as "unpolished, straight forward and unapologetic". Desert Psychlist has to disagree with at least one part of that statement, unapologetic we will give them but there is plenty of polish to be found on "Edelschrott"  it is just that its tarnished with pleasing coating of grit.

Check it out .....

© 2021 Frazer Jones

PARALYZED ~ PARALYZED ..... review

Cream, Yardbirds/Led Zeppelin and Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac all made their names by taking the blues, which was a musical art form that at that time was largely being ignored in its country of origin, and amplifying it to ear-shattering levels. These British bands then proceeded to sell this new heavier version of the blues back to its homeland and in doing so spearheaded what some started to call the "second British invasion of America". The heavy blues grooves these bands employed eventually morphed into what became heavy metal, and all the sub-genres that have branched off from heavy metal, but for a short while in musical history the blues was king. Those heavy blues have not quite disappeared, most of today's bands will at sometime in their careers have dabbled with a few blues flecked torch songs, but it is getting increasingly rare for a band to release an album totally drenched in the stuff. Cue Paralyzed a band, hailing from Bamberg Germany who may incorporate elements of doom and stoner rock into their sound but are, at their heart, old school heavy bluesers, something their first full length self-titled debut "Paralyzed" will more than attest to.

Those of us of a certain age who grew up listening to the rock music of the late sixties and early to mid 70's will always approach new music with one ear attuned to the past, we just can't help but make comparisons to the big hitters of that era simply because that music has almost become ingrained in our DNA. If you see yourself mirrored in that last statement then Paralyzed's self-titled debut is going to be like manna from heaven for not only you but also those that absorbed those 60's/70's grooves from their older siblings, or in some cases their parents. Paralyzed, Michael Binder (guitar and vocals), Caterina Böhner (guitar), Philipp Engelbrecht (bass) and Florian Thiele (drums), truly understand what made the music of the seventies tick and totally get the part the blues played in that sound, the band have with "Paralyzed" captured the essence of a bygone age but at the same time they have also not ignored the progressions that rock music has undertaken since. The songs that populate "Paralyzed" are big, ballsy, soulful and drenched in oodles of vintage fuzz and distortion then decorated in vocal tones that fall somewhere between those of Glenn Danzig and Jim Morrison, tones that have a lived in smoky weariness that are the perfect fit for the crunchy, soulful blues rock they are surrounded with. From opening instrumental "Paralyzed" through the Doors-like "Prophets", the eyebrow raising and totally un-PC "This Woman" to the wonderfully schizophrenic closer "Parallel" this is an album that is all killer and no filler!

Forget those Led Zeppelin wannabees Greta Van Fleet, and any of those other pale imitations that have routinely popped up over the years because Paralyzed are the real deal, an authentic sounding heavy blues outfit with genuine belief in what they do.

Check 'em out ..... 

© 2021 Frazer Jones

INDUS VALLEY KINGS ~ INDUS VALLEY KINGS ...... review

 

Long Island trio Indus Valley Kings, Billy Fridrich (guitar/vocals); Jonathan Lesley Habers (bass/backing vocals) and Dan Lofaro (drums), were formed in New York in 2018 by Fridich and Lofaro, the two seasoned musicians who had been involved with a number of bands and projects around their native Long Island base and wanted to do something together. A year later the band recruited bassist Habers to the cause and so Indus Valley Kings were good to go and if you are good to go where better to go than a studio, the results of which can be heard on the bands self-titled debut "Indus Valley Kings"

"Angels" opens Indus Valley King's debut opus and the song is a good indicator to the diversity of IVK's musical approach, the song has an initial groove and vibe that owes a huge debt to the desert rock of Palm Desert groovesters Kyuss but then, as things progress, we find band slowing things down and taking the song into a more doomic direction, albeit spliced with a little post-rock flavoured grunginess and bluesy swagger, Fridrich telling us in tones clear, clean and strong of  a "descent into darkness" and having "divinity erased". Following song "Cactus People" is a shapeshifting groove monster that is part desert rock, part proto-doom and part bluesy torch song all in the space of four minutes twelve seconds and all in that order while "The Method" draws from the same genre pool but mixes those genres up with a little more subtlety. "Remains of Yesterday" is up next, an emotive southern tinted tome that gives Fridrich the perfect excuse to let his inner guitar hero run free, his solos soaring and screaming over a backdrop of thick booming bass and solid industrious percussion. A more doomic dynamic is what you might expect from a song entitled "Devil" and IVK do not disappoint on that score, the song begins with Habers  plucking deep resonating notes from his bass accompanied by sparse percussion from Lofaro before Fridrich joins in and the band erupt into a low slung proto flavoured groove with the vocalist telling us that we "can't escape the soultaker", of course true to form it is not long before the band change course and the song explodes into a bluesy hard rock groove with Fridrich's guitar once again soaring off into the stratosphere. And so it goes on, through "Phoenix", "Scapegoat", "Rest In Waste" until finally coming to "1000 Wicked Souls", the band constantly shifting through gears, dynamics and signatures bringing to bear an intriguing  mixture of muscle and melody that along the way takes in aspects of doom, grunge, desert rock and the blues, often in the same song.

 Aficionados of 70's hard rock and heavy blues, devotees of doom and suckers for a bit of stoner/desert grooviness will all find something to sate their appetites on IVK's self-titled debut, the album is a jamboree bag of musical delights that never stops giving.

Check it out .....

© 2021 Frazer Jones

KABBALAH ~ THE OMEN ..... review

Carmen Espejo (drums/vocals, Marga Malaria (bass/vocals) and Alba DDU (guitar/vocals) are Kabbalah a three piece combo from Pamplona, Spain with a penchant for haunting melodies and hazy fuzz drenched psychedelic guitar refrains. The band have been compared to USA's late 60's/early 70's occult rock pioneers Coven, and there are places where the two bands respective sounds do crossover, but it is also not hard to detect traces, in Kabbalah's sonic attack, of some of the more current occult flavoured doomsters like Blood Ceremony, The Devil's Blood, Purson and Jex Thoth, albeit with a little more haziness around the edges. After a series of well received EP's and an equally well received debut album, "Spectral Ascent", the band return this year with a new album, "The Omen" (Ripple Music).

Someone once asked Desert Psychlist to explain the difference between "doom" and that which is described as "occult rock", we struggled with this question as both tend to explore similar lyrical themes and dark scenarios , so after mulling the question over the best we could come up with, besides saying doom is usually substantially heavier, is that doom is often more about portraying the macabre aspects of the dark arts whereas occult rock leans more towards the spiritual side, hence its more folk-like passages and ethereal aspects. If our take on the doom/occult question does hold water then Kabbalah very much fall into the occult equation with their sound utilizing ethereal harmonies, delivered in nursery rhyme(ish) meters over grooves drenched in warm vintage fuzz, with the lyrical content of their songs leaning more towards paganism than those tales of out and out horror traditionally associated with doom. Kabbalah's songs are about magic and evil but the magic they speak of is not of the Harry Potter variety but the magic of nature and creation, the evil they warn us of is not some horned apparition with designs on our souls but mankind as a species doing its level best to destroy that magic, something they make no bones about on the excellent "Ceibas" its lyrics telling us that the "human race is the disease". Even when Kabbalah do dip their toes into more macabre waters, as they do on "Labyrinth" with its mention of funeral pyres and "a black silhouette" who "dances on the fire", you get the feeling they are telling us the story from the perspective of someone looking on with sadness rather than wicked relish.

Those out there for whom doom means dank, dark riffs, growled or gothic vocals and Lovecraftian/Poe type lyrical imagery will probably find Kabbalah's "The Omen" a little too fey and wispy for their tastes, however those that understand the importance of bands like Coven and Black Widow on the doom we listen to today will revel in its authentic sounding late 60's grooves and it's pagan imagery.

Check it out ..... 

© 2021 Frazer Jones

MAW ~ MAW ...... review

Not too long ago a video was posted on a Facebook page that Desert Psychlist is involved with featuring an instrumental piece called "Citizens of Dunes" by a Polish quintet going by the name of MAW, the song had a Colour Haze/ Sungrazer feel that immediately struck a chord with us so a few comments were made beneath the post expressing our approval. These comments were responded to by Martyna Hebda, one of the bands two guitarists, who then went on to inform us that the band were working on an album, in answer we suggested that the band should consider Bandcamp as an option for its release and  Martyna said the band would look into it, they did and here it is ...... 

What that Facebook video did not tell us was that not only could the band lay down some hot instrumental jams (incidentally "Citizens of Dunes" does not appear on the album)  but they could also write a good lyric and that they also had a pretty decent vocalist in Piotr Stachowiak (he didn't appear in the video) who could do those lyrics justice. Stachowiakis' vocals are served up clean, smooth and clear and when combined with his slight accented delivery they give the songs on "MAW" a distinctive and unique dynamic, as good as Stachowiakis' vocals are it is the interplay of Hebda and her fellow six-stringer Kuba Stępień that is MAW's real selling point. Hebda and Stępień weave a special kind of  magic over songs like "Dissolve", "Awake" and the epic "Call", their two distinctly different tones compliment each other perfectly whether they are trading off licks, jamming on a riff or simply negotiating their own spaces within the groove. Of course without a good rhythm section to back them up vocals and just guitars can tend to be a little like having your meat without your potatoes, the meat is tasty but you need the carbs to add both bulk and contrast. Those carbs are supplied by Piotr Stępień (bass) and Michał Gawroński (drums), the pair providing the perfect platform for Hebda and K.Stępień to launch their dual guitar attacks from and for Stachowiakis to hang his vocals on, Gawroński's drumming tight solid and industrious, P.Stępień's bass fluid and flexible, the five musicians coming together to create a dish that is both filling and full of flavour.

If your a fan of the type of psychedelic tinted stoner/desert rock that gave us the likes of Yawning Man, My Brother The Wind, Naxatras and Sungrazer and you like those grooves with a similar low key vocal dynamic to that of Colour Haze then you cannot fail to enjoy what MAW bring to the table with their self titled debut "MAW"

Check 'em out .....

© 2021 Frazer Jones

AROUND THE FIRE ~ CELESTIAL KEEPERS ...... review

There seems to be an interesting trend lately, among bands hailing from countries outside of the North American continent and Western Europe, for many of those bands to tap into the their own countries/continents heritages and histories and blend into their more westernized raucous rock grooves and psychedelic meanderings a little of their own traditional sounds and instrumentation. Bands like Cyprus' Arcadian Child, Chile's Puente Diablo, Brazil's Pathos and Puerto Rico's Iglesia Atomica have all to some extent had some level of success/recognition from mining the music's of their own homelands. Greece's Around the Fire are one band you could add to that list, the Thessaloniki combo wowed Desert Psychlist with their excellent 2019 debut "Advent of the Firewalkers", an enthralling blend of western crunch and growl blended with traditional Mediterranean motifs and instrumentation, and are now back to do the same with their second release "Celestial Keepers"

Things start off in a very traditional style with first track "Kau Ano Meha" its very exotic flavoured intro is brought to us courtesy of a traditional Eastern Mediterranean three stringed instrument known as a kemenje, the track then takes a 360 degree turn and explodes into a crunching heavy stoner groove with guitars dialed to eleven and drums set to thundering, this crescendo only halting to allow the vocalist to tell us in tones low, throaty and grizzled that we "will never see the light". the songs eastern feel still making its presence felt throughout thanks not only to its instrumentation but also the wordless vocalizations that weave around and between the songs verses. Following song "Astral Edifier" which sees the kemenje given a freer more lead like role, has a more spiritual feel than its predecessor its mix of hazy lead vocals and Gregorian like choral mantra's combined with its heavy, almost Indian raga like groove also sees the song moving into (but not quite) stoner doomic territory. "Awakening" is up next and is for Desert Psychlist the highlight of the album, it is a track that sets the bar almost impossibly high for other bands, wishing to blend traditional musics with rock, to follow. Here the band cast their net far and wide capturing not only the traditional sounds of their homeland but also essences of musics from all over the world, shoehorning those essences into six minutes fifteen seconds of stunning and unbelievably powerful music. "Ubdi" folows and comes across like Swedish doomsters Ordos jamming with Cypriot psychonauts Arcadian Child in a Moroccan tea house while "Light In The Sky" throws a Hawkwind shaped curveball into the mix with its tale of "unexpected visitors from outer space" who "bring a message from the edge of time" Proceedings are brought to a close with "Echoes of Oblivion" a spiritualistic hazy psych drenched tome that reminded Desert Psychlist of Black Sabbath's "Planet Caravan" in places but with a slightly more authentic eastern feel.

This stunning collection of songs carries all the usual tags and genre descriptions you would expect to find associated with the bands/albums reviewed on Desert Psychlist but in reality none of those tags or descriptions fit what Around the Fire bring to us with "Celestial Keepers" this is an album not of stoner, doom, sludge or psych music, this is WORLD MUSIC!

Check it out .... 

© 2021 Frazer Jones