MOON COVEN ~ MOON COVEN .... review

Well we all knew it would not be long before the pages of Desert Psychlist was once again featuring a band from the land of Vikings, saunas and fuzz drenched guitars, quality Swedish "underground" rock just seems to be one of life's constants.
Moon Coven are a five piece band with  a penchant for down tuned heavy riffage who hail from Malmo and Stocholm,Sweden and are a band untypical of the usual blues based Swedish stoner groups that seem to appear every other week, in that they come at the genre from a more doom/heavy metal angle, as can be witnessed on the bands full length, self-tiled debut "Moon Coven".

"Storm", the albums first track, begins with drones, tinkling bells and reverb soaked arpeggios before bursting, like an alien from John Hurt's chest, into a titanic stonerized doom refrain coated in Gregorian-like vocals supported by thunderous drumming and titanic spine crumbling bass, all combining to create a sound that is as atmospheric as it is heavy and thereby setting the tone for the rest of the album."Old Ground" rears its gnarly head next and wastes no time in getting down and dirty by exploding straight off of the starting blocks into a monumental mid tempo. head noddingly addictive groove replete with scorching solo's and superbly haunting vocals."Conspiracy" and "New Season" see the vocals shift from the monk-like chanting's of the previous tracks to a slightly more "shoegaze" delivery with a more melodic meter albeit still wrapped around those Sleep/Spelljammer-like grooves the band have made their home, and with the former containing a two guitar trade off that is just sublime. "Haramukh High" sees Moon Coven return to the vocal deliveries of the first two tracks but this time around a slower more doom orientated groove.while "Winter" has the band almost, but not quite, moving into  more occult rock territory. "The Third Eye" comes as quite a surprise after all that has gone before it's softer, laid back groove enhanced by mellow vocals and chiming guitars is probably the nearest Moon Coven will ever get to a ballad. "The Ice Temple"is an atmospheric noise piece that is so short (one minute forty seconds) it hardly seems to register before we are into the doomy depths of closer "White Sun", a blazing return to heavy-assed riffage, pounding percussion and ethereal vocals that concludes on a wave of droning sustain.
Heavy, dripping with atmosphere and boasting an excellent and quite unique vocal approach Moon Coven are a band you should most definitely check out .....

BORRACHO ~ ATACAMA ...... review

In 2011, Washington DC stonernauts Borracho released their debut album "Splitting Sky" a kick-ass album packed solid with fuzzy stoner rock grooves laced with scorching guitar solos, massive bass lines, gnarly vocals and thunderous percussion. The underground rock music scene, almost as one, immediately fell under the bands spell with journalists, bloggers and podcasters eager to heap praise upon their t-shirt clad shoulders. The band followed this up with "Oculus"(2013) and once again the undergrounds movers and shakers were all over it with one reviewer calling it "essential" and another "super addictive". Now three years later and after a couple of moderately well received split EP's,with Eggnog and Cortez and three songs on Ripple Music's "The Second Coming of Heavy: Chapter One"  the band are on the cusp of releasing their third full length album "Atacama"(2nd December 2016).

Any thoughts Borracho may be going through the notorious "difficult third album" syndrome are quickly dispelled when the blues tinted, fuzz drenched grooves of first track "Gold From Sand" come roaring like a steam train out of the speakers. Gritty whiskey soaked vocals roared over hard edged riffage supported by thunderous drumming, pummel the listener with the sheer ferocity of their deliverance. "Overload" follows, at over ten minutes it's the longest track on the album , and sees the band injecting into their gnarly mix of bluesy hard rock and dusty desert grooves, brief snatches of lysergic colouring, "Lost In Time" struts its stuff with a southern stoner swagger and ends in a wash of  feedback and noise that segues immediately into "Descent" an atmospheric doom laden instrumental replete with howling guitar solos, thundering bass, big, big drums and tolling bell. "Drifted Away From The Sun" begin with an array of effects backed by sympathetic percussion and is then joined by a liquid loose bass line and echo laden guitar arpeggios. This laid back and loose groove sits beneath the songs low mellow sung verses, moving to a harder stoner refrain in the songs catchy chorus with the vocal following suite, a refrain that is reprised for the songs final quarter and takes things to the close on a wave of gritty stoner groove. "Flower" is next up and sees Borracho showing glimpses of  their softer side with clean toned arpeggios and strings trading off with big fuzzed out riffage in a charming but slightly schizophrenic instrumental. Things return to normal with "Shot Down, Banged Up, Fade Away" an absolute belter of a track laced with gnarly heavily fuzzed guitar and bass riffage underpinned by massive pounding drums and coated in distinctive throaty vocals with a groove so grin inducing it should be on prescription. Borracho bring proceedings to a close with a delightful acoustic based "farewell/end times" song dominated by big sentimental and melancholic vocals conveniently titled "Last Song".

Have Borracho managed to avoid the curse of the "difficult third album"?...You betch'a "Atacama" is their best yet!
Check it out ...

MEGATHERIUM ~ SUPERBEAST .... review

Massive seems such a small word when faced with the overpowering strength and might of down tuned and heavy riffage, Italian doomeisters, Megatherium unleash on their new opus, monolithic might be a better word but "mono" conjures up images of something one dimensional and being on an even level with no light or shade and that is something you would be hard pushed to accuse "Superbeast" of.

"Prayer to The Ox" a short piece with an almost orchestral strings effect, opens proceedings then fades to silence before all hell breaks loose and second track "Refuse to Shine" rips through the air, a huge wall of  bass heavy distorted groove hitting the listener like a sledgehammer pulverising the senses. In the middle of this arena of riffage and rhythm vocalist Manuele "Manu" stands bellowing the songs lyrics, his voice a mix of full on sludge roar and clean, melodic stoner wail.
This deliciously dark blend of sludge. doom and heavy stoner rock crammed full of powerful vocals, scorching guitar solos and riffs, bone crushing bass and tumultuous drumming flows like a river throughout the eleven tracks that make up "Superbeast" with highlights being the excellent " Fly High" with its catchy string bending motif superbly executed by Davide "Borto", the epic "Twiceman" with it's clever use of effects, atmospherics and vocal stylings and " Slow Down" with it's chugging Sabbath-esque riff coated in grunge/alt-like vocals.In truth there is not a track on the album that does not deserve attention, each and every one has something within it to drool and slaver over.

Megatherium are Manuele "Manu"(vocals and FX), Davide "Borto" (guitar), Fabio‘Zekimmortal’(bass, vocals) and Stefano ‘Torre’(drums). remember their names because Desert Psychlist  predicts you will be hearing a hell of a lot more about these guys in the future.
Check 'em out.....

STONED LIZARD ~ A REPTILES RISING (Demo 2016) ...review

Demo recordings were, back in the day, a means by which a band could get their music out to the big record companies and influential radio stations, hoping that what they had put down on tape would maybe get them noticed and procure them a record deal, the demo was something that would very rarely land in those grubby hands of the general public. These days, with the big record companies not being the power they once were, bands have had to find other ways to get their grooves "out there" and so the humble demo is more and more finding itself  given away at gigs or being posted on sites like Bandcamp and Reverbnation giving us all the chance to hear them.

"A Reptiles Rising" is a three track demo from a German four piece hailing from Tostedt comprising of Anni (vocals), Oelki (drums), Mischa (bass) and Christian (guitar), a band collectively going by the name Stoned Lizard.

So what do Stoned Lizard bring to the table with "A Reptile Rising (Demo 2016)" that might have you drooling in anticipation for a full release?
Title track "A Reptile Rising" starts off all moody and eastern before erupting into a down tuned, bass heavy and doom laden riff accompanied by simple but effective percussion. The song goes through a number of subtle time changes interspersed with "Moorish" guitar motifs that act like musical grappling hooks pulling you further into the songs massive and addictive groove. An instrumental is an odd choice for a vocally led group to open their account with but one that gives a good indication of the levels of instrumental skill and musical ability the band have in their locker..
"Running Slow" begins with jazzy cymbal work and a walking bass line that is then joined by a heavy distorted guitar riff increasing both the volume and the atmosphere. Things settle back into a jazzy doom groove when the vocals come in and what a treat for the ears those vocals are. Front woman Anni's vocals are clean, strong and distinctive, her smokey  slightly cracked tones not dissimilar to UK trip-hoppers Portishead's Beth Gibbon, albeit with a darker, doomier edge, she not so much soars over the heavy stoner doom backdrops beneath her as hovers menacingly above them.
"Illuminated" closes the demo, a moody piece built around recurring eastern guitar motifs and ringing arpeggios underpinned by intricate percussion and  huge rumbling bass, the perfect vehicle for the dark velvet vocal tones poured over them by the lead singer.

This is a demo so it's very likely that the songs showcased on "A Reptile Rising (Demo 2016)" will undergo some levels of re-imagining and re-arrangement before the band settle on definitive versions but even so there is no denying the quality oozing out of these initial recordings. Stoned Lizard are a band who, if all things align and there's any justice in this world, are one that's going to have a bright and promising future,
Check 'em out.....

INDIGHOST ~ HIEROPHANT .... review

Soul, is not something one usually associates with the underground rock scene so it is refreshing to come across a band who not only can lay down a gnarly barrage of riffage but can lift your spirit too.

Indighost, Dan Fehr (guitar), Cody Gilmer (guitar), Randi Denton (vocals), Quentin Garrett (bass) and Taylor Cogdill (drums) are from Johnson City, Tennessee and are quintet with soul in abundance. The band released their debut EP "Treeline" in 2015 and have just recently followed this up with the release of their first full length album "Hierophant" (2016).

Hierophant is an eclectic mix of stoner fuzz, heady psych and soulful hard rock all crammed into eleven tracks of totally essential and diverse music. From the soulful country blues of "Black Mountain" through the off-kilter desert grooves of "Hexensohn" and "Sleepwalker", the jazzy indie rock of "Mystery Is The Best Kind Of Magic" to the stonerized Appalachian grunge of "Rainkid", every song has something within it to relish and adore. Denton's vocals dominate proceedings, soaring above the excellent warm fuzzy backdrops the rest of the band provide with soulful abandon, her tones powerful and assured with just a hint of bluesy holler. Fehr, as well as providing a vocal foil to Denton, does a wonderful job on laying down the fuzz with fellow guitarist Gilmer, the pair combining to deliver swathes of scintillating guitar colouring over and around Codgill and Garrett's solid and impressive drum and bass work.
Heirophant is a little different from the usual heavy riffed, doom laden,70's hard rock inspired fare found among the pages of Desert Psychlist but that is no reason to skip over it and move on to something else, this is an album full of strong songs ,well written and superbly performed and one that deserves to be heard!
Check it out .......

THOUGHT EATER/IRON JAWED GURU (split) ~ VORTEX 6 .... review

Split albums can be awkward affairs especially if the artists concerned are musically poles apart, Desert Psychlist has witnessed splits where trippy psych has been paired with brutal death metal and while this is all well and good for getting the artists music "out there" it is not necessarily so good for the buyer/listener who may not want his/her lysergic journeys paired with raucous riffage or vice-versa. Luckily Grimoire Records release "Vortex 6" does not suffer from this problem coming as it does from two bands, more or less, reading from the same page.

Thought Eater take up place of residence on the first half of "Vortex 6", the combined force of Douglas Griffith (guitar), Darin Tambascio (12 string bass, 12 string guitar on "Gift of Death") and Bobby Murray (drums) creating grooves of down tuned instrumental heaviness as if born to it. The trio inject into their grooves elements of metallic prog-like imtensity and structure but rein back from the overindulgences that ,can sometimes mar that particular genre by keeping things short and to the point, only once going over the four and a half minute mark with the excellent played, and named, "Crushing Metaphysical Crisis". The band also show they have more than one gear with the beautiful "Gift Of Death" a gentle walk through the clouds performed on acoustic guitars.

Iron Jawed Guru, Mike Lorenzen (guitar, octave pedal), Roy Douglas Brewer (drums) attack their instrumental grooves from a slightly different angle from Thought Eater, coming in from a far more stoner, but no less complex, direction. The lack of a bass player does not seem to effect the levels of intensity and depth these two musicians conjure up between them, filling songs like "Emerald Seer" and "Widow of the Web" with startlingly angular arrangements that sees Lorenzen shredding his guitar like a madman over Brewer's incredibly complex percussive patterns.

Heavy, intense and breathtaking, "Vortex 6" goes a long way to showing that instrumental rock music does not have to be overlong jams that can go on forever it can also be short, sharp, exciting.. and in your face.
Check it out....

ROAST ~ ROAST ...review

It's always good to hear from old friends especially when those old friends are armed with exciting new music for you to hear. Tsweat Tyler Dingvall, vocalist with, San Diego riffmeisters, The Great Electric Quest recently got in touch with Desert Psychlist and was literally salivating over a new band he was planning to sign to the bands new label Glory Or Death Records, a quartet. going by the name of Roast.
Roast, originally from New Jersey and now working out of Los Angeles, are Connor Barrett (bass), Bill O'Niell (drums), Jon Bolino ( guitar/vocals), and Nico Magalhaes (guitar), four guys whose influences run the gamut of rock history from Hendrix to Motorhead and beyond, influences that colour but do not dictate the four tracks of the bands soon to be released debut EP "Roast"( Glory Or Death Records recorded and mixed by James Page at Emerald Age Studio)

First track "Leave Me Free" opens with a deliciously liquid smooth bass intro from Connor Barrett with the rest of the band laying down a jazzy fusion groove beneath him before the hammer goes down and the whole band segue into a crunchy hard rock groove bathed in warmly fuzzed guitar riffage and underpinned with hard driving rhythm.Bolino, swaps riffs and solo's with the excellent Magalhaes and also delivers vocals that are clean, powerful and perfectly matched to the retro grooves and rhythms Barrett and O'Neill lay beneath them.  The first thing that hits you is the authentic early 70's groove the band achieve, a groove that recalls the days when bands like Sir Lord Baltimore, Truth and Janey and Australia's Buffalo were making that transition from heavy psychedelic blues based hard rock to the harder, heavier metal of the 80's, a sound that some now call proto-metal.
Next up is "Serpent" a song that sits somewhere between the heavy blues of Led Zeppelin and the early doom of Birmingham's Black Sabbath, a place Welsh hard rockers Budgie used to call home.
O'Niell and Barrett combine to lay down a massive rhythmic platform for the two guitarists to launch their riffs and solo's from, the pair mixing it up between seering blues licks and dirty Iommi-like powerchords over which Bolino delivers a mix of Ozzy/Burke Shelley -like vocal tones.
"Gypsy Trip" takes the long route and sees the band jamming a twelve minutes plus mix of heavy psych and stoner/hard rock sprinkled with moments of early prog-like complexity and experimental psychedelic structuring. Magalhaes and Bolino channel the spirits of lesser known guitar duo's through their harmonic interplay bringing to Desert Psychlist's mind the fretboard trade offs of the late Micky Jones and Deke Leonard (Man) and Wishbone Ash's Andy Powell and Ted Turner. Special mention should go here to the drum chops of Bill O'Neill, the man swaps between heavy pounding bluster and gentle shimmering intricacy with incredible ease and skill, never missing a beat.
"Heavy Toll" brings things to a close, the songs initial dual guitar refrain comes on like The Allman Brothers on amphetamines before shifting down a gear into a fuzz drenched stoner groove. Heavy, in the old sense of the word, and with a great vocal and a wickedly addictive groove it closes the album the way it started with a BANG!

Roast create hazy hard rock grooves infused with elements of early 70's prog complexity and late 60's psychedelic colouring and stonerize it for an 00's audience
Check 'em out ....


"Roast" releases 1st December 2016 on Glory or Death Records